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GIFT OF
SEELEY W. MUDD
GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER
DR. JOHN R. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD
JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTORI
to the
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
SOUTHERN BRANCH
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below
NOV 1 j
iJJ
TJAN 8 1958
148
£S8$3i Coxe-
Tpr.t-iti i1-.-H of
Christian history
Southern Branch
of the
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INSTITUTES
OF
Christian History
&u Kntrotmctton
TO
HISTORIC READING AND STUDY
By A. CLEVELAND COXE
BISHOP OF WESTERN NEW YORK
I do but prompt the age to quit their clogs. — Milton
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY
1887
85080
Copyright,
By A. Cleveland Coxe,
A.D. 1887.
K,
3 ;
TO
SIBYL AUGUSTA,
Wife of Henry Porter Baldwin,
Sometime Governor of the State of Michigan, and subsequently a
Senator of the United States.
Madam,
It was your happy privilege to associate yourself
with your distinguished husband in the endowment of the
Baldwin Lectures, following the example of illustrious
women in the Mother Church and furnishing an example
which I trust will be imitated by Christian wome?i in
America in time to come. I count it a great honour to have
received the first appointment as Baldwin Lecturer under
,the judicious provisions of the foundation. Sitjfer me to
inscribe these first-fruits of the project to you, as a tribute
to yourself and to my beloved friend, " the Governor" as
his fellow citizens still delight to call him, even now when
he has withdrawn himself from public life.
The far-seeing and gifted prelate who presides over the
diocese of Michigan has ettdeared himself to the Church at
large by the establishment of the Hobart Guild at the
seat of the State University, for the promotio7i of Christian
work in that seat of learning. And greatly is he to be con-
gratulated upon the sympathy and co-operation with which
you and Governor Baldwin have so promptly and so ejfi-
JV DEDICA TION.
ciently sustained his effort. Without lay helpers what can
an Ainerican bishop do? And where innumerable works
for developing and sustaining Christianity in the Republic
ought to be set on foot vigorously and without delay, how
good it is that there are not wanting some to lend the elo-
quence of their practical beneficence to the appeals of their
fatliers in God !
May you and your husband, even in this life, enjoy great
recompense in seeing the rich results which are sure to spring
from your good works. In the better life to come, what
blessed promises of God's Word assure you, through the
Redeemer's merits, of rewards unspeakable and full of
glory /
Let me remain, dear madam,
Your faithful and grateful friend,
LEA COTE,
Rhinebeck-on-Hudson,
September, 1887.
A. CLEVELAND COXE,
Bishop of Western New York.
T
PREFACE.
HE foundation of the " Hobart Guild," and
therewith of the "Baldwin Lectures,"
in the University of Michigan, has directed the
attention of the Church to a new and wise policy
with reference to our State schools and colleges.
The instrument which fully expounds this move-
Xj' ment will be found in another page of this book. 1
We owe these foundations to the enlightened wis-
dom and foresight of the Right Reverend prelate,
M who, with such great advantage to the Church at
jrf large, now presides over the Diocese of Michigan.
But he would hardly forgive me should I neglect
to add, that in the munificence of Governor Bald-
win and his accomplished wife he has found that
sort of encouragement and help without which
the ablest and most zealous bishop is impotent to
effect what his heart and head may prompt him
to propose as due alike to the Republic and to
the Church of Christ.
1 See " Deed of Trust," p. 299.
VI PREFACE.
This book would have been more promptly
issued from the press, had not many important
practical questions demanded prudent delays in a
publication designed to be the first of a series.
Such a series must be uniform in size and appear-
ance; and what should be the form and cost?
The choice of a publisher to whom, probably,
many future volumes must be intrusted in the
progress of the successive annual courses, and
many subordinate considerations, were also to be
decided. It was our deliberate conclusion, that
a judicious medium between cost and cheapness
must be accepted to secure the widest possible
circulation for the series; and we trust the " make-
up " of this book will be regarded as justifying
a conclusion of great practical importance. A
Western University, it was also thought, should
not look eastward for a publishing house, while
the great book business and admirable publish-
ing facilities of Chicago invited us to the great
midland metropolis.
Those who listened to the Lectures last autumn
will find a rearrangement of some of the lectures,
and some transpositions of material. This grows
out of the fact, that, in the arrangement of the
course, the more important matters were grouped,
less logically, with reference to the evenings of the
week most free from other work in the University,
PREFACE. vii
and hence most likely to secure the larger audi-
ences. I have also taken the liberty, even at the
sacrifice of material which seemed on the whole
less important, to enlarge upon some points which
I was forced to slight in oral lecturing. In this
I was partly guided by kind inquiries and sugges-
tions of friends who attended the entire course. I
must be allowed to express my sense of obligation
to the President and Professors of the University,
who afforded me so much encouragement, and by
whose influence, no doubt, I was able to secure,
for so many evenings, one of the largest, and,
including the youth whom I considered so inter-
esting a class in themselves, one of the most intel-
ligent and inspiring auditories, which it was ever
my happiness to address.
A. C. C.
LEA COTE,
Rhinebeck-on-Hudson,
September 10, 1887.
CONTENTS.
10.
1 1.
LECTURE I.
INTRODUCTORY.
PAGE
i. Truth 9
2. Humanity 9
3. History and its Study 10
4. The Use of Lectures 12
5. The Heritage of the Ages 13
6. Christian History 14
7. The Pivot 15
8. Empirical History 16
9. Conventional Ideas 17
An Underestimated Epoch 18
The Ruts of Habit • .19
12. Another Example 21
13. Tokens of a New Era 22
14. A Brilliant Work that just misses a Prize ... 24
15. Scientific History 25
16. The Mother of Theology 25
17. Institutes 26
18. Truth, Old and New 28
19. Catholicity 29
20. A Comparison 3 1
21. Bacon and his Idols ........ 3 1
22. Dates of Anchorage 33
23. The Great Epochs 34
24. A Practical Plan 35
25. The Survey 37
26. A Practical Use of Historic Science 3 8
X CONTENTS.
LECTURE II.
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES.
1. Antioch 40
2. A Contrast 41
3. An Inquiry . 42
4. The Portraiture of Antioch 42
5. The Populace . 45
6. The Jewish Element ....... 47
7. The Church in Antioch 48
8. The Exceptional Apostolate 49
9. Apostolic Institutions ....... 50
10. Apostolic Fathers. — Ignatius . .... 52
11. Justin Martyr 53
12. The Persecutions . 55
13. Polycarp . 55
14. Primitive Schools. — Alexandria 57
15. Many Doctors. — Athanasius 58
16. The Punic School. — Tertullian and Cyprian . . 59
17. Arnobius and Lactantius ....... 61
18. Maxims of Lactantius . 62
19. Harmony of Theologians . 62
20. The Roman Diocese 63
21. Irenaeus, — his Place in the West ..... 64
22. Roman Receptivity 66
23. The Nascent Patriarchate 67
24. Hippolytus 69
25. Caius and Novatian 70
26. The Gallicans 71
27. Chronic Persecutions 71
28. Growth of the Church 73
29. Conversion of the Empire -74
30. Caesars conquered by Martyrs 75
LECTURE III.
THE SYNODICAL PERIOD.
1. The Conversion of Constantine 77
2. Reserve and Moderation 78
CONTENTS. XI
3. The Celibate 78
4. Other Immediate Results ...... 79
5. Disadvantages 82
6. Lasting Results 83
7. Primitive Councils S3
8. A Nursing Father 85
9. The Temporal Bishopric 86
10. A General Council 87
11. Nicaea .88
12. The Opening 89
13. Significant Facts 91
14. Results of the Council 92
15. The Paschal Letters 93
16. The Patriarchates 95
17. The Great Councils 96
18. The Second Council 97
19. The Council of Ephesus 98
20. The Fourth Council 99
21. Chalcedon 100
22. Eutyches 102
23. Leo, Patriarch of Old Rome 102
24. Immutable Catholicity 104
25. Two Supplementary Councils 105
26. Ratifications 106
27. The Final Judgment 107
28. Who are Catholics 108
LECTURE IV.
THE CREATION OF A "WESTERN EMPIRE.
The Breaking up of Old Rome no
in
. 112
113
. 114
115
. 116
116
. 117
119
2. The Goths, Vandals, and Huns
3. Retrospect ....
4. Minor Councils
5. Irene
6. A Counter Council
7. The Rule of Faith .
8. The Maxim of Vincent .
9. The Council of Frankfort
10. Alcuin
Xll
CONTENTS.
n.
12.
*3-
14.
IS-
16.
17-
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23-
24.
25-
26.
27.
28.
29.
3°-
Universities, and their Origin 119
The Caroline Books 121
The Degeneracy of the East 123
Mohammed 124
Successes of Mohammed 125
Isnik and Dan 126
Frankfort once more 127
The Blessed Results 128
Charlemagne 129
Christmas Day, A. D. Soo 130
What it meant 13 1
Widely Different Effects 132
The Holy Roman Empire 133
Insulation of England 134
Distinctions T 35
Formation of the Paparchy 136
Conditions Precedent 138
My Position !39
Nicholas and the Decretals 14°
An Illustration 143
LECTURE V.
THE MIDDLE AGES.
1 . Dark Ages ....
2. Maitland's Elucidation .
3. A Glance at the East
4. The Decretals in Operation .
5. How it looked in English Eyes
6. The Latin Churches
7. Gallicanism ....
8. St. Bernard ....
9. The Patristic Period
10. The Scholastics
n. Relations with Modern Thought
12. The Crusades
13. Barbarism ....
14. Expiry of the Dark Ages
15. The Cinque-Cento
M5
146
146
148
ISI
151
152
154
156
157
153
159
161
162
164
CONTENTS. xiil
1 6. The Medici 166
17. Gothic Architecture 167
18. The New Christian Architecture 169
19. Navigation 170
20. Printing 11
21. Great Movements 172
22.. The Fall of Constantinople 174
23. Light out of Darkness 175
LECTURE VI.
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS.
1. Identity and Continuity 177
2. Origin of the Church in Britain 178
3. Periods ... ....... 179
4. The Primitive Period ....... 179
5. Groans of the Britons . 180
6. Conversion of the English 181
7. The Early English 182
8. Consequences ......... 183
9. Relations to the Apostolic See 183
10. A Discovery 1S4
11. The Other Side of the Case 185
12. A Conference . 186
13. And Another 1S6
14. Iona and its Missions 1S8
15. Counsels of Unity 189
16. The Mission of Theodore 190
17. Perilous Innovations . 191
18. Compromises 192
19. What its First Archbishop had made of the Anglican
Church ......... 193
20. The Venerable Bede 194
21. First English Missions 194
22. The Later Period . 195
23. Alfred, the Head of our Race 196
24. Taking our Bearings 197
25. The Anglo-Norman Period 19S
26. The New Episcopics ab Extra 199
XIV CONTENTS.
27. The Foreign Archbishops 200
28. The Great Lanfranc ........ 201
29. Old Landmarks 201
30. An Anglican Primate 202
31. Cypriote Autonomy 204
32. Anglican Liberties asserted 205
33. The Great Anselm 206
34. Intrusion of Legates 207
35. Where we stand 209
LECTURE VII.
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION.
1. The Transition yet Incomplete 211
2. The Plantagenets . . . . . . . . 212
3. The Submission 214
4. Two Forces 215
5. Three Classes involved . 216
6. Innocent III. . 217
7. The Ebb of the Normans 218
8. Archbishop Langton 219
9. England a Fief of Rome ....... 221
10. Magna Charta ........ 222
11. Henry the Third 222
12. Two Edwards ........ 224
13. The Third Edward 225
14. Spiritual Progress 227
15. Oxford Men 229
16. Greathead 230
17. Wiclif 231
18. The English Language ....... 231
16. The Popes of Avignon ....... 232
20. Wiclif's Antecedents ....... 233
21. The Good Parliament 234
22. The First Citation 235
23. The Second Citation ....... 235
24. Lambeth 236
25. The Friars 237
26. Wiclif's Death and Character 239
CONTENTS. XV
27. An Estimate of Wiclif's Work 241
28. Mistakes 2 4*
29. The Good Things 243
30. A Period of Delays 244
31. Our Great Benefactors 245
32. The Epoch of Wolsey 246
33. Restored Rights 2 4§
34. Who did this ? 249
35. Another Step 2 5*
36. How it looked in France 251
37. The Sequel 2 5 2
38. The Bloody Queen 253
39. The Martyrs 254
LECTURE VIII.
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM.
The Accession of Elizabeth 256
The Marian Schism 256
The Restored Autonomy 258
4. The Articles 259
Their Catholic Core 261
6. The Formation of the Trentine Church .... 261
7. Retrospect 264
8. The Mistake of Gerson 265
School Grudges 267
Pisa 268
Sigismund visits England 269
12. The English Embassy to Constance .... 270
13. Huss as a Reformer 270
14. Constance 2 7 I
15. The Martyrs of Constance 2 7 2
16. The Infamy of Constance 2 73
17. One Vote and the Consequences 274
18. The Council of Basle 2 7S
Two Points set Right 2 76
Political Protestantism 2 7°
Reflections 2 7 8
9-
TO.
II.
19
20
21
22. Recent Reaction
2S1
XVI CONTENTS.
23. The Contrast 282
24. The Fall of the Papal Throne 284
25. Survey of Christendom 285
26. Nicene Constitutions Imperishable 286
27. Practical Unities 288
28. The Parable of Patmos 289
29. Perils of the Republic 291
30. The Constructive Forces of the American Church . . 293
31. An Appeal to Youth 295
32. Conclusion 296
General Note. — Deed of Trust .... 299
Miscellaneous Notes 303
INSTITUTES
CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
LECTURE I.
INTRODUCTORY.
i. TRUTH.
TRUTH, like her divine Author, is despised
and rejected of men. Bleeding between male-
factors, it sheds out of its great heart streams of
mercy for mankind. It often seems wounded be-
yond all hope of resurrection; but, as one has
happily said, " Not always shall Christ hang be-
tween two thieves ; there shall yet be a resurrec-
tion for crucified Truth."
2. HUMANITY.
In a day like ours, when millions whom Chris-
tianity has lifted out of Paganism, and blessed at
least with civilization and mental enlightenment,
recognize no obligations to the source of human
welfare, it is ignoble indeed to belong to a herd
of the ungrateful and unbelieving. Yet, while we
IO INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
come out from among them and separate ourselves
from their corrupt society, let us reflect, as our
Master has taught us, that " they know not what
they do." Let us treat humanity, even in its most
offensive forms of degradation, with veneration
and with tenderness. Christ has bought it with
His blood, and clothed its ulcers with the imperial
purple of His cross. How dear mankind should be
to those who glory in that sign ! In a materialized
generation, let us rebuke with no scornful words,
but by a pure example and by practical love, those
who persecute what we adore, — " shooting out
their arrows, even bitter words." Let us bear our
testimony to the eternal verities which must soon
vindicate themselves. While, all around us, the
people of the epoch live to eat and drink, and,
above all, to be amused, — to trifle and chase but-
terflies, — to quarrel about sordid things and dis-
quiet themselves with low and transient interests of
the earth, — let us live like sons of God and heirs
of immortality. Let us assert the lofty mission of
witnesses for truth ; let us tenderly expostulate
with the multitudes who are rebels to the dictates
of experience, and blind alike to the lessons of
history and the sunlight of revelation.
3. HISTORY AND ITS STUDY.
If history be "philosophy teaching by example,"
who does not see that it is the noblest study to
which we can devote ourselves? It is the study
of humanity, illustrated by innumerable specimens,
and enriched by the lives and teachings of the
INTRO D UC TOR Y. 1 1
masters of human thought in all ages. Let us be-
ware, however, of mistaking for history the fables
which often claim the title. Let us feel the vital
importance of discovering historic truth. Let us
reflect that in every investigation we have been
furnished with a guide to the real and the un-
feigned in the only perfect history, — that of which
it is written, " Thy word is truth." I hesitate not
to say, that, in the search of historic truth, he who
begins not with the inspired narratives has no edu-
cation that prepares him for his task. It is the
blessed prerogative of faith in God to gather from
His word the great secret of history, as something
directed by Providence, always at unity with itself,
proceeding from one Author and tending to one
result. He who stupidly deals with events as if
they were a random product of undirected human
caprices and of men's undisciplined instincts, may
be an annalist, a chronologist, a collector of details,
but he cannot be, in the highest sense, a genuine
historian. The lofty intelligence, akin to military
genius, which marshals, combines, analyzes, and
co-ordinates facts, showing their mutual relations,
and their bearings on human progress and on the
revealed plans of the Most High, is essential to the
philosophic historian. Not less is something of
the same kind essential to the student of history, —
to us, young gentlemen, who are mere recipients,
economizing the lives and labours of the world's
benefactors, in order that we in turn may not be
wholly wanting in our life-work and in our ap-
pointed place among men.
12 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
4. THE USE OF LECTURES.
He who outlines truth in the form of popular
lectures has, indeed, the distasteful prospect of pro-
ducing only momentary impressions. In spite of
this, my effort shall find encouragement in the fact
that I address myself to youth, — to young men
of liberal pursuits and zealous to be directed to
the sources of real knowledge and sound principle.
To the growing mind that thirsts for information
supported by evidence, the lecturer who brings
truths that will bear investigation has a cheering
mission. History gives us many examples of dis-
ciples, fired by earnest teachers, who long outlived
their masters and greatly surpassed them. A word,
an expression, a turn of thought, may quicken in
some young brain impulses which shall give direc-
tion to all the future labours of a noble and suc-
cessful life.
Long after I am dead and forgotten, some of
you may live to say with effect what I can only
enforce with earnest conviction. After the chas-
tisements which a foolish age is bringing upon
itself, you may live to be welcomed by a wiser
generation. You will find your appointed task
at another epoch. In your faces I seem to salute
the twentieth century. As for us who must soon
pass away, Morituri vos salutamus ! The future
belongs to you. Prepare yourselves to be its
masters. But be sure you cannot be such save
as you accept the lessons of human experience
from the venerable past. Under the idea of pro-
gress, our times are chasing a mere will-o'-the-wisp ;
INTRODUCTOR Y. I 3
a light engendered from decay, " that leads to be-
wilder and dazzles to blind." True progress always
takes up the winnowed harvests of the ages, and
scatters the seed of all that must be food for the
ages to come. Instead of having " no past at your
back," the youth of this Republic start with the
manifold treasures of all time, of all arts and sci-
ences, of all that man has done, warned by the
failures and mistakes of old countries and of un-
practical theorists. You are here in America to
build up a nation by the maxims of tried wisdom,
and to establish its institutions upon the rock of
God's word.
5. THE HERITAGE OF THE AGES.
You are heirs of the ages ; and it shall be my
endeavour to make you great collectors of its les-
sons, its morals, its warnings. Under my own ob-
servation, a few shells given to a boy, by a friend
who encouraged him to add to the little stock of
smooth and many-coloured toys, created for the
boy his life employment, made him a naturalist,
and enabled him to amass from all the seas and
oceans of the globe a museum of conchology, and
to classify and expound his treasures as a philoso-
pher. So I have known others to be made bota-
nists, or enthusiasts in geology or chemistry, or
passionate collectors of gems and coins. All such
scientific pursuits are ennobling. Even the "dried
beetle with a pin stuck through him " may be full
of instruction to a careful observer; and under the
microscope what miracles of creative wisdom are
14 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
unfolded to the student of an insect's eye or wing!
But I claim for the student of historic truth a
nobler sphere, and the faculty of bringing together
a sublimer collection for ends unspeakably more
practical and beneficial to the world. You collect
portraits and pictures out of every age and clime,
and furnish the chambers of your imagination with
all that is most beautiful and precious in the results
of human life. The philosopher whose department
is biography and history makes his mind —
" A mansion for all lovely forms,
His memory to be a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies."
The whole world is a mine for his research, and
all times are the fields of his exploration. From
the Pyramids to the Catacombs ; from the ruins of
Egypt or Assyria to the mysterious remains of the
Aztecs ; under the arches and monuments of an-
cient Rome ; amid the more splendid relics of Greek
art and munificent ostentation ; and passing thence
to the wealth of the Rhineland, of the Louvre or
the British Museum, — everywhere among men, he
finds his material, his work, and his elevated enjoy-
ments as well. The master of historic truth is the
master of contemporaneous thought, in proportion
as he instructs his age or contends with it. To
such ennobling pursuits I now invite you.
6. CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
You know the difference between "anatomy"
and " comparative anatomy" in the schools of the
sureeon. The latter is a science which extracts
INTRODUCTOR Y.
15
auxiliary knowledge from the bones and muscles
of brutes, while the anatomist par excellence deals
with the physical frame of man. In calling your
attention to Christian history, I remind you that
the history of Pagans and Barbarians is but com-
parative history, — a useful auxiliary merely. But
the history of Christendom is the history of man
as very man, the image of his Maker. Christian
history is the history of civilization ; Christianity
alone is the civilizer of the human animal. At
best, the race beyond its pale exhibits only here
and there a specimen of true manhood. It is only
as enlightened from the manger of Bethlehem and
the cross of Calvary that the race ceases to be
savage.
Reflect that Christianity is as old as the world.
Among the patriarchs and under Moses it worked
only in element. " Ye are the light of the world,"
said the Master to the Galilean fishermen; and
so it has proved. Not where the Gospel is merely
named, but in proportion as it penetrates the life
of a nation, this is realized. It needs no elaborate
argument. One scorns to argue that sunlight
makes the day. Look at mankind, look at the
nations. The character of the true woman is the
influence that refines, and where is the true woman,
the wife, the mother, the home, apart from Chris-
tianity? In a word, Christianity is civilization.
7- THE PIVOT.
The world's history turns, as on a pivot, upon
the Mount of Olives, and upon the great mission,
1 6 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
" Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel."
The Old Testament shows us how all preceding
history was its prelude, and every succeeding
generation establishes the fundamental truth, that
the people and nation that will not be taught of
Christ must perish. Adequate ideas of the world's
history can be gained, if this be true, by him only
who surveys the world from this standpoint.
8. EMPIRICAL HISTORY.
It is a curious thing in literature, that popular
historians have been to so great an extent inspired
I by an unnatural enthusiasm against the Gospel.
Such a perverted genius as that of Gibbon has
unfortunately controlled the fancies of others, and
our libraries are filled with elaborate distortions
of historic fact, one book begotten of another,
and all conveying the most confused and inade-
quate ideas of the world's progress. What a
splendid opportunity was lost by Gibbon, when
he resolved to leave out from his narrative the
story of the apostles and martyrs, ignoring the
unquestionable base of all he undertook to tell !'
The stubborn facts could not be overlooked ; but,
as far as possible, he gropes on with Paganism
under the Antonines, without reference to realities
which he only reaches in his fifteenth chapter,
and of which he then condescends to take notice
as " a very essential part of the history of the
Roman Empire." Ah, indeed ! Hamlet a very
interesting part of the drama ! The entire chapter
reflects disgrace upon its author, alike by its place
INTRO D UCTOR V. j j
in his ponderous work, and by the spirit with
which he struggles to assign the origin and pro-
gress of the Gospel to every cause but the true
one, — to every auxiliary influence, forgetting those
which are primary and fundamental. It is as
if an historian of the United States of America
should begin with the great exhibition of industries
which took place in Philadelphia at our late Cen-
tennial Celebration of Independence, and then,
after a volume about the activity and enterprise
of the American people, should devote a chapter
to prove that Washington and his contemporaries
deserved a retrospective glance, as having in a
remarkable manner fallen in with times and cir-
cumstances and mingled some wisdom and more
mistake in their influences upon succeeding times
and manners.
9. CONVENTIONAL IDEAS.
A better class of historians, such as Robertson,
and Ranke, and Dean Milman, have been unable
to divest themselves of conventional ideas and
habits in their valuable works. They adhere to
traditional notions and misleading phrases, even
where they demonstrate the fallacy of such forms
of thought and speech. Thus, while they tell us
about the exploded Decretals, and other fables
of the mediaeval period, they still adopt the old
raiment of language which puzzles the student.
They speak of Roman pontificates, as if there had
been such things in the days of Clement or Hip-
polytus, and give us tables of " the Popes " begin-
1 8 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
ning with St. Peter ! In the very same pages they
demonstrate that St. Peter was never at Rome
except to be beheaded, and that it is about as
sensible to call Sylvester a Pope as it would be to
date the Empire from the first consulate, to speak
of the " Emperor Cincinnatus," or to paint him at
his plough in imperial purple.
10. AN UNDERESTIMATED EPOCH.
The transfer of the Roman capital to Byzan-
tium, for example,, is evidence of overwhelming
significance, as to the workings of Christianity be-
fore Constantine, as to the predominance of the
East in its origin and progress for three centu-
ries, and as to the leavening influences in Roman
politics, which, in spite of Diocletian and the per-
secutors before him, had made such an astounding
revolution possible, if not inevitable. Christianity
had made no assault upon the Caesars ; but the
upsetting of their throne upon the seven hills, and
the removal of their capital to the Thracian Bos-
porus, was a mere index of what it had been
doing while it fought with the rabble of Olym-
pus and mocked the shameful superstitions of
mythology. Yet this most consummate of all the
changes and revolutions in history has been well-
nigh overlooked, or only treated as a curious in-
cident. Like the Chinese, who survey the universe
each one from his own habitation as its focus, our
historians have thought and written as Occidentals.
They have not condescended to observe that the
original seat of Christianity was the Orient; that
INTRODUCTORY.
19
its triumph was the triumph of Greek thought
over the less intellectual Latin races; that this
truth was the magnet that drew the Empire east-
ward, that diminished the influence and dignity
of old Rome, and that dictated to it from the
CEcumenical Synods, — all Eastern in geography,
all Greek in language — in their idiomatic expres-
sion of dogma. How comes it, when to state
these admitted facts is to prove the conclusions to
which I point you, — how comes it that all our
popular histories, and most of those which aim
to be scientific, chronicle these truths indeed, and
then go on to ignore them? They treat of Chris-
tianity as if it were generated in Italy, and as if
its first doctors and missionaries had been com-
missioned from the Vatican, in the same pages that
enable us to prove the essentially Grecian origin
and character of the Church.
11. THE RUTS OF HABIT.
The human mind is slow to turn out of the ruts
of habit; it prefers the beaten way, even when it
makes them plod in a thoroughfare imprinted only
by the hoofs of asses. A noteworthy example
presents itself in the condescension of transcendent
genius to the trammels of conventional expression.
Milton flourished more than a century after the
true theory of the universe had been taught by
the presbyter Copernicus; he had himself con-
versed with Galileo, who crowned the system of
Copernicus with the glory of irrefragable demon-
stration. Milton understood the heliocentric struc-
20 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
ture of the solar system, and the rotations of the
earth, diurnal and annual. Now it is most curious,
that, although his great poem would have gained
immensely by adopting this philosophy, and placing
Uriel in a central sun, he yet stuck to the conven-
tional ideas of the poets, and so commensurately
degraded the ground plan of his immortal epic.
The critical student of that scheme may recall
the explorations of Lucifer, as he passed through
Chaos and at last discovered our universe, enclosed
in a spherical shell and pendent from the resplen-
dent gates of Heaven. When he gained the sur-
face of this shell, and looked down upon the stellar
worlds enclosed within, how admirably it would
have suited the poet's purpose to have conducted
him to our solar system, by a discovery of its
real nature, — the glorious sun illuminating the
planets, and our earth, with its little moon, in its
true relations with all the rest. But no : even the
gigantic genius of Milton must fall into the dull
routine of untruthful science, and disfigure his work
with the rubbish of the outworn Ptolemaic theory ;
that incomparable monument of the genius and
plausibility with which mankind can embellish
what is false, and make " the worse appear the
better reason." Take a specimen of the conse-
quences: —
" They pass the planets seven, and pass the fix'd,
And that crystalline sphere whose balance weighs
The trepidation talk'd, and that first moved."
Here is neither rhyme nor reason; but it illus-
trates my point, namely, the disposition even of
noble minds to adopt the idols of the market-
INTROD UCTOR V. 2 I
place, to express themselves in phrases of vulgar
thought, and to sacrifice truth to popular ignorance
for momentary convenience. 1
12. ANOTHER EXAMPLE.
Take a notable example. Canon Hussey in his
valuable work, "The Rise of the Papal Power,"
demonstrates that this enormous system was the
product of multiplied abuses, beginning with harm-
less incidents and accidents, and growing by slow
accretions into the arrogant claims of the Middle
Ages. A schoolboy's snowball becomes an ava-
lanche, in like manner, when it falls from his hand
and rolls down the mountain. It was not the ava-
lanche, however, while it was the plaything. Yet
this learned author confounds his own plan of
tracing the "Rise of the Papal Power," by talking
of the " supremacy " (which was never universally
admitted or enforced even in the Roman com-
munion until our own times) as if it existed from
the fourth century. He confounds it with the
"primacy"; and while he shows that the whole
fabric grew out of a harmless function conferred
only for the West by a provincial council, and
probably by an abuse of that, he yet speaks of
" the supremacy " as if it had been born at this
council, where, as he proves clearly enough, such
a thing was not even conceived. 2 Going back of
this, however, he calls good Sylvester " Pope
Sylvester " ; whereas if he was a Pope in the
Nicene age, there was no "Rise of the Papal
i See Note A. 2 See Note B.
22 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Power." Why do men go on proving by facts
what they seem to refute in words? If a scholar
undertakes to show how and when Bishops of
Rome became " Popes," why does he confound
his pupil by calling them " popes " ages before
a pope was dreamed of? To recur to my illus-
tration : all this misleads and mystifies, as when
the Ptolemaic system is adopted in practice, while
the Copernican verities are theoretically proved.
13. TOKENS OF A NEW ERA.
There are gratifying tokens of an approaching
era of investigation, and of historiography based
on demonstrated truth and fact. Several recent
writers have just fallen short of making themselves
leaders in this coming era of scientific history. In
a mere sentence Milman records a fact, which, had
he seen its importance, would have led him to
construct his history of Latin Christianity on fresh
and original bases. Such work would have im-
mortalized him. I refer to his brief but all impor-
tant statement that the local Roman church was
for three hundred years a mere colony of Greek
Christianity, and that the Church's roots and ma-
trices were wholly Oriental. 1 Dean Stanley en-
larges on this in his " Eastern Church," but just
misses the bearings of his facts. Had he based
his attractive work upon them, it would have risen
to the rank of a grand epoch-maker, a genuine
work of genius. Take, for example, the passage I
will cite, and observe how it revolutionizes con-
1 See Note C.
INTRO D UCTOR Y. 23
ventional ideas of the antiquity of the Paparchy,
or of Rome as the " mother of churches." He
says : —
" The Greek Church reminds us of the time when the
tongue, not of Rome, but of Greece, was the sacred lan-
guage of Christendom. It was a striking remark of the
Emperor Napoleon, that the introduction of Christianity
itself was, in a certain sense, the triumph of Greece over
Rome ; the last and most signal instance of the maxim of
Horace, Grcecia capta ferum victorem cepit. The early
Roman church was but a colony of Greek Christians or
Grecized Jews. The earliest Fathers of the Western
Church wrote in Greek. The early popes were not Ital-
ians, but Greeks. The name of pope is not Latin, but
Greek, the common and now despised name of every
pastor in the Eastern Church. . . . She isthemot/ier, and
Rome the daughter. It is her privilege to claim a direct
continuity of speech with the earliest times ; to boast of
reading the whole code of Scripture, Old as well as New,
in the language in which it was read and spoken by the
Apostles. The humblest peasant who reads his Septua-
gint or Greek Testament in his own mother tongue on
the hills of Bceotia may proudly feel that he has access to
the original oracles of divine truth which pope and car-
dinal reach by a barbarous and imperfect translation ; that
he has a key of knowledge which in the West is only to
be found in the hands of the learned classes." 1
All this is true, but the author fails to see what
it carries with it. E pur si muove, said Galileo ;
but if that was true, the whole system of the uni-
verse was to be reformed, as it existed in the
schools and in the inveterate habits of human
thought. " The East is the mother, and Rome the
1 See Note D.
24 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
daughter," says the Dean ; but if this be true, the
entire structure of scholastic theology, the Papar-
chy, and the Council of Trent, are swept away
with the fallacy that assumes the reverse. Dean
Stanley's work should have proceeded on this fun-
damental fact of history, and his history of the
East should have been illustrated in its true rela-
tions to the original constitutions of Christendom.
14. A BRILLIANT WORK THAT JUST MISSES A
PRIZE.
But the saddest specimen of collapse is the frame-
work of a book which would have revolutionized
Western thought about one of the grandest of his-
torical themes, had it been true to the very facts
which it proceeds to make evident. I refer to
Bryce's " Holy Roman Empire," a most valuable
work, and one which betokens the coming era, but
only as a foggy morning is often the harbinger of
a brilliant day. How could the writer have missed
the opportunity of identifying the rise of the
" Holy Roman Empire " with the formation of the
Paparchy, which never existed till Charlemagne
had created the possibility of a new oecumenical
theory for the Church by creating a new CEcume-
iie, or Imperial basis, for its development. Bryce
fails to economize this truth. It is a pity that so
good a monograph must be written over again.
Its faults are as glaring as its merits are great;
and that is saying much in a single phrase. 1
1 See Note E.
INTRODUCTOR Y.
15. SCIENTIFIC HISTORY.
25
Now the new era of scientific history will be
created just as soon as some able and original
genius shall be raised up to apply, in historiogra-
phy, the principles which our age has inexora-
bly demanded in other scientific work. The law
of such a movement is simply that of sweeping
away demonstrated falsehood and fable, and of
proceeding at every step upon the rock founda-
tion of fact. If the East gave to Christianity its
historic form and shape, its creed and doctrine, its
whole cast and visible outline before the world,
why not proceed accordingly? Yes, why not?
A thousand myths disappear from the Western
mind when once these truths are worked out and
made manifest. No more haggling about the popes
of controvertists. The entire Papal theory per-
ishes as soon as we find where Rome stood at first,
and how absolutely inconsiderable was her place
in the early founding and teaching of churches.
16. THE MOTHER OF THEOLOGY.
He who examines the true history of the ages
before Constantine is forced to find in Alexandria
all with which popes and schoolmen have credited
old Rome. After Antioch, the see of St. Mark was
the nurse, if not the mother, of the churches, and
if not their mistress, yet their schoolmaster. 1 It
formed their mind and speech. Latin Christianity
itself rose out of Alexandria, the head and brain
1 See Note F.
26 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
of original Christendom. It was formed in Africa
and in Carthage, not in Rome. Entire indepen-
dence of Rome was steadily maintained under the
founders of Latin theology, — Tertullian, Minu-
cius Felix, Cyprian, Lactantius, Arnobius, and
Augustine. Rome had no voice, in her own
tongue, till the heretic Novatian first spoke in her
and for her. From Clement to Hippolytus, and
later, her few writers thought in Greek, wrote in
Greek, and submitted their work to the maternal
churches of the East, as filial and loyal sons. To
exhibit these facts is to dismiss the whole system
of the Latin schools, based on unhistoric myths
and fables, all as baseless as the " Donation of
Constantine," and all as recent in their fabrication.
17. INSTITUTES.
In presenting these Institutes, then, to my young
pupils in this University, I undertake to proceed
upon a rigidly scientific plan, of which I have tried
to explain the scientific grounds. I adopt the old
word institutes to signify elementary instructions.
They present, in outline, certain predominant fea-
tures of history, which will guide to just conclu-
sions in the further studies to which they introduce
the learner. And now let me fortify my positions
by citing the language of a man of science, who
speaks for other purposes and with a different in-
tent, upon the very matter which underlies my
plan. He, too, gives token of the new era as at
hand. 1 Could any one have expected from the
1 See Note G.
JNTR OD UC TOR Y.
2 7
apologist of Huxley and Darwin such a tribute to
primitive Christianity as John Fiskc has given us
in the following passages? He says: —
" It is interesting to observe the characteristics of the
idea of God as conceived by the three great Fathers of
the Greek Church, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and
Athanasius. The philosophy of these profound and vigor-
ous thinkers was, in large measure, derived from the
Stoics," etc.
" The views of Clement's disciple, Origen, are much
like those of his master. Athanasius ventured much fur-
ther into the bewildering regions of metaphysics. Yet
in his doctrine of the Trinity ... he proceeded upon
the lines which Clement had marked out."
" It is instructive to note how closely Athanasius ap-
proaches the confines of modern scientific thought, simply
through his fundamental conception of God as the in-
dwelling life of the universe."
Now, without pausing to correct some possible
misconceptions of this great matter, I ask you to
observe the phenomenon of this mind struggling
out of " modern thought " towards what modern
thought has affected to ignore, and finding himself
met where he stands by these ancient Fathers of
Christendom. Two reflections suggest themselves
as pertinent to my subject: (1) It is to primitive
Christianity that modern science must recur to find
its " guide, philosopher, and friend " ; and (2) It
is to the East, and to Alexandria as the fountain-
head, that the inquirer into the origin of Christian
thought and dogma must have recourse.
28 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
18. TRUTH, OLD AND NEW.
Another suggestion, I trust, will arrest the atten-
tion of all who hear me. In guiding your thoughts
towards primitive antiquity, I am preparing you
for a wise and healthful investigation of recent re-
search and discovery in scientific matters. How
often you hear of these old Fathers as mere fos-
sils ; and of the Church of Christ as behind the
age. Listen again to John Fiske, as he works his
way through philosophy to Theism. 1 He says : —
" One has only to adopt the higher Theism of Clement
and Athanasius, and the alleged antagonism between sci-
ence and theology, by which so many hearts have been
saddened, so many minds darkened, vanishes forever."
And now mark what he says of the dawn of
Christianity, in the period illuminated by the Sep-
tuagint, and also what he adds of Ante-Nicene
Christianity in Alexandria: —
"The intellectual atmosphere of Alexandria for two
centuries before and three centuries after the time of
Christ was more modern than anything that followed, down
to the days of Bacon and Descartes. . . . The system of
Christian Theism was the work of some of the loftiest
minds that have ever appeared on the earth."
Staking off these five centuries accordingly,
during which the thought of Christendom was
formed under Clement and his forerunners, reflect
that between the two centuries of preparation for
Christ and the three that ushered in the Great
1 See Note H.
INTRODUCTORY. 29
Council of Nicaea, our ultimate limit, stands the
noble figure of Apollos, — " eloquent and mighty
in the Scriptures," — a monument of the Gospel
in its power to unite the Jew and the Greek, and
not less of the Church, to speak from her ancient
throne to the hearts and minds of thinking men
in our own distracted times.
19. CATHOLICITY.
Here observe a most important point. The
centuries which a disinterested thinker has thus
characterized, without a thought of aiding the
position of the Christian, are precisely those to
which the great Anglican doctors have appealed in
their noble work of restoration. For the Angli-
can reformers were restorers rather; they brought
back the primitive simplicity and the unadulterated
catholicity of Nicaea, — the catholicity which is
covered by its own appeal to " ancient usages,"
and by the formula of the Nicaeno-Constantino-
politan Creed. Of course there can be no other.
For there cannot be two catholic churches nor
two catholic theologies.* But in this country
and in England two antagonist systems claim to
be catholic; which is most harmonious with the
catholicity of Nicaea? If it be true that the first
three centuries were in spirit, not mediczval, but
modem, the answer is apparent. If they corre-
spond with Bacon and Descartes rather than with
Aristotle and the Schoolmen, then the Anglican
reformation is vindicated. The " Syllabus," which
refuses all commerce with modern thought, shows
30 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
itself equally at war with Christian antiquity. The
present venerable pontiff, a scholar and a most
respectable character in all his personal qualities,
has accepted the Syllabus of his unlettered prede-
cessor, which denounces all that freemen hold dear,
while, to give his thinking subjects something
to do, he commands them to study St. Thomas
Aquinas. That is, they must revert to the Middle
Ages for all the thinking they are allowed to exer-
cise. Precisely so. He rules out the masculine
thought of genuine antiquity as modern. He thus
convicts his theology of its mediaeval origin, while
we appeal primarily to the primitive Fathers, —
to Clement of Alexandria, and to Athanasius, not
undervaluing Aquinas so far as he agrees with
antiquity. It is not difficult, then, to decide where
catholicity is to be found, if the apostolic ages and
the primitive Fathers supply the criterion. Ours
is the old religion, because it is identified with the
oldest. We appeal to the Holy Scriptures inter-
preted by the whole undivided Church at Nicaea. 1
Leo XIII. appeals to Aquinas 2 and to the systems
of a divided Christendom, — to the West and to
the twelfth century with those that followed, down
to the Trent Council. And this was a council of
the West only, and of the sixteenth century, com-
posed chiefly of Italians, and engineered by the
Jesuits, who had just been created, and whose
conduct excited the indignant remonstrances of
all the abler theologians there assembled. Which,
then, is the catholic system, — ours or theirs? 3
i A. D. 325. 2 a. D. 1274. 3 See Note I.
INTRODUCTOR Y.
20. A COMPARISON.
31
Note, also, that there can no more be two
catholic churches in Christendom, than there can
be two universal physical systems in the same
universe. But the " Roman Catholic " scheme of
catholicity accepts only the Western churches, and
excludes the more ancient churches of the East,
while ours includes just what the Nicene Creed
includes; that is to say, all the Greek and Latin
churches, and all other churches which preserve
an apostolic episcopate and the Nicene faith.
We recognize the Latin churches as part of the
Catholic Church ; " the Roman Catholic Church is
a fiction, derived from the " Holy Roman Empire,"
which called itself the cccumcne, and hence con-
sidered its established church oecumenical. Ana-
lyze this artificial system and you find it made up
of ancient national churches which are all catholic
in organic form, but orthodox just so far as they
adhere to the primitive theology, and no further.
With all her blemishes and failings, the Anglican
Church is ready to be judged by this rule, and it is
a rule which utterly destroys all claims of catho-
licity for those Latins who adhere to the modern
Council of Trent, and the yet more modern — nay,
the recent — additions of Pius IX., which reduce
their creed to a thing of yesterday. 1
21. BACON AND HIS IDOLS.
How comes it that many gifted men fail to see
when once
1 See Note J.
what is so evident when once set in the light of
32 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
facts and of common sense? I have spoken of
the ruts of habit ; let me refer to Bacon's forcible
postulates concerning " Idols." That great inciter
of all genuine "modern thought" threw down
the idols of the Schoolmen which dominated in
the realms of physical science; but even to our
own times their idols have largely stultified the
domain of theology and corrupted historic truth.
He was himself an illustration of the sway of idols
over the human intellect, for he remained a slave
to the Ptolemaic astronomy, in spite of his emanci-
pation from so much that clouded and fettered
intellect in his times. He calls these idols, images,
or, as we should name them, illusions, " the deepest
fallacies of the human mind ; " and he adds, " They
do not deceive in particulars, as do other fallacies,
which cloud and ensnare the judgment, . . . but
they are imposed upon the understanding (i) by
the general nature of the human race, or (2) by
the particular nature of every several man, or
(3) by words, or communicative nature." To ex-
pose, in some degree, the influence of a corrupt use
of words in producing the confusions of historical
authors and of popular thought is part of my plan.
For the idols of the market-place, which still main-
tain themselves in our day are almost ineradicable
and supremely mischievous. Words as under-
stood in the streets and used by the vulgar, when
adopted by the learned in all their ambiguity, are
instruments for distilling nightshade alike inebriat-
ing and fatal to intelligence. 1
1 See Note K.
INTRODUCTORY.
22. DATES OF ANCHORAGE.
33
Such idols have too long neutralized the pene-
trating and generative sunlight of historic truth,
as icebergs and fogs hinder the advance of spring.
Let me present an outline of the points to be
illustrated in these Lectures, which will be an
effort to confute idols. For I pursue a practical
plan, and am willing to let historic facts speak
for themselves. But to be felt in all their force,
let them be presented with method. What Ruskin 1
has called " dates of anchorage " are essential to
the student of history, who would grasp and retain
great facts and epochs, on which others turn as
upon pivots or hinges. Geography and chronol-
ogy are the eyes of historical science. Skeleton
maps must be hung up before the mental eyesight,
and they must be bordered with cardinal dates of
the world's annals, — the epoch-marking dates, that
is, or those which have created eras in history.
An epoch is a point of time; an era is a period
developed from it, as a line is generated in ge-
ometry. He who seizes these pivots, hinges, or
" dates of anchorage," becomes master of the art.
Minor dates and epochs marshal themselves natu-
rally about these heights of command, which afford
the soldier a masterly survey of fields where he
may meet an enemy. Take, for illustration, some
notable examples.
The most convenient and sharp-cut date in
Christian history is that of Charlemagne's creation
of the Latin Empire ; he was crowned, or virtually
1 See Note L.
3
34 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
crowned himself, on Christmas day, A. D. 800. No-
body can forget such a date as this ; and you ob-
serve that it divides modern history very equally,
if we confine ancient history, as we should, to the
periods before the Light of the World appeared.
And note its commanding character : it marks the
era of Western history, as distinct from that of the
East. It is the index of Latin Christianity left to
itself; severed from its parent stem ; developing
into something alien to catholicity; creating the
Paparchy; involving the Latin churches in func-
tional schism ; defiling them with novelties ; dark-
ening their atmosphere with the mists of fable ;
disfiguring the worship of God with idolatries ;
inventing new theologies, and condemning the
West to centuries of ignorance and superstition,
not inappropriately called the " Dark Ages." Not
that Charlemagne promoted this directly or inten-
tionally. The reverse is eminently true. But his
policy created the Paparchy, which had no exist-
ence before his time, nor while he lived ; and to
the Paparchy, based on the imposture of the De-
cretals, we owe the Dark Ages, which include the
whole period from A. D. 900 to 1400. The Middle
Ages include this period, and stretch from the
eighth century to the sixteenth, from the imperial
crowning of Charlemagne to the birth of Charles-
Quint.
23. THE GREAT EPOCHS.
Observe other " dates of anchorage," in dealing
with Western history, to which we shall be neces-
sarily limited in these Lectures when once we
INTRO D UCTOR Y.
35
touch the era of Charlemagne. After the nativity
of our Divine Lord, the great epoch of Constan-
tine and the Council of Nice (A. I). 325) marks the
close of the martyr ages and the subjection of
the Caesars to the cross. The period which closes
with Charlemagne is that of Catholic unity, under
the Synodical Constitutions. From Charlemagne
to Charles-Quint, we have seven hundred years
of Western schism, the Paparchy and the inferior
epochs of Imperial and Papal strifes, the Crusades
and the Scholastics. From A. D. 1500, the epoch
of Charles the Fifth, we date the increase of learn-
ing, the struggles for popular freedom, the Con-
tinental Reformers, the Anglican Restoration, and
the creation of the " Roman Catholic Church," —
which, as such, is a modern organization, more
recent than Lutheranism itself.
24. A PRACTICAL PLAN.
In establishing this reformed syllabus of histori-
cal science, my scheme is less bold than at first
sight might appear. It pretends to no original dis-
coveries as to matters of fact : every point on which
the scheme depends has been proved, elucidated,
overwhelmingly established, by learned writers, —
as well among those who have retained communion
with Rome, like Erasmus, Bossuet, and the Jansen-
ists, as by the Continental Reformed and the grand
old Caroline theologians of England. My only
innovations are found in accepting the demonstra-
tions of these authorities, and constructing a har-
monious system accordingly, giving facts their
36 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
place, enforcing their value, and calling things by
their right names. For example, the unparalleled
imposture of the Decretals is admitted by Jesuits
and Gallicans ; they are laughed out of court by
the Ultramontanes themselves. 1 Yet these " idols
of the market-place " impose on Protestants gener-
ally. For they go on calling things by the fabulous
terms and phrases which the Decretals created.
They ignore the East and the constitutions of Cath-
olicity, and give to the parvenu system of Trent the
old Nicene title of " the Catholic Church." They
speak of the Roman pontiffs as " successors of
St. Peter"; they dishonour the apostle's memory,
by speaking of the criminal throne of the Vatican
as the " chair of St. Peter " ; they surrender his-
tory to the fabulists, by making the early Bishops
of Rome into a succession of " Popes," created
by Christ himself, and they confound the canoni-
cal "primacy," conferred by the Councils of Nice
and Constantinople, with an usurped "supremacy,"
which, had it existed, would have made the action
of all councils equally superfluous and imperti-
nent. 2 Modern " Protestantism " clings to its
name all the more stoutly because it has ceased
to protest. It believes in God with all its heart,
but, after all, feels very charitably about the Devil.
It glorifies Martin Luther, but cannot but think
he went a little too far when he burnt the Pope's
bull. It adopts Galileo's conviction that the earth
moves, but would not wholly censure the Roman
court for putting him to torture and making him
abjure it as heresy. In short, it always holds with
1 See Note M. 2 See Note N.
INTRODUCTORY. 37
the hare, but prefers to run with the hounds, espe-
cially if it be in a question of politics. It accepts
the Messiah, and feels the force of Ecce homo ! but
its sympathies are always with poor Pilate, except
when even Pilate ceased to be a politician, and said,
" What I have written I have written."
25. THE SURVEY.
On the principles I have thus illustrated, and
exposing the illusions I have mentioned to a
searching comparison with facts, I invite you, then,
to survey with me the outlines of Christian history,
in its majestic sweep through the ages which we
owe to the light of the Gospel. This survey will
prepare you for many departments of study, and
will give you a delight in the ennobling researches
to which it is an introduction. Open your eyes,
young men, and if you would know the world you
have so lately entered, ask how it came to be
what you see it, and then trace its progress up-
ward through the ages before you, till your fa-
miliarity with past times gives you mastery over
your own. The lives of the world's benefactors
will inspire your life career. The fatal mistakes
and failures so sadly marking the pages of biogra-
phy will warn you off from shoals and quicksands
which have proved so fatal to your predecessors.
You will be philosophers from the start ; the ex-
periments of others will make your career a suc-
cess. You will go " from strength to strength,"
and age itself will find you invested with immortal
youth in the prospect of eternity.
a 8
38 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
26. A PRACTICAL USE OF HISTORIC SCIENCE.
When you begin your travels, my beloved young
friends, recall " the dates of anchorage " to which
I have endeavored to introduce you. On the Via
Sacra of old Rome, take your stand beneath the
Arch of Titus: it marks 1 the close of the genera-
tion which crucified the Son of God, and verifies
his prediction of the consequent downfall of Je-
rusalem and the dispersion of the Jews. Turn
then to the stupendous Coliseum, which, reared in
large measure by the captive Jews, was the scene
of the martyrdom of Ignatius, and stands an im-
perishable memorial of the ages of heroic suffering
which saw the Church in conflict with the princes
of this world. Hard by rises the Arch of Constan-
tine, — a memorial of the Nicene age, and of the
triumph of the cross over Paganism. The Column
of Phocas, on the other hand, beyond the Arch of
Titus and under the Capitol, marks the decline
of the Synodical Period, and reminds us of two
clouds, not bigger than a man's hand, that became
visible just at that epoch: one was the cloud of Is-
lam in the East, and the other that of a Papacy in
the West. Cross the Alps and stand beneath the
cathedral domes of Aix-la-Chapelle; under your
feet is the sepulchre of Charlemagne, with whom
the Middle Ages began, and there was crowned
Charles the Fifth, his successor with whom the
Middle Ages expired. Last of all you reach Paris,
and survey that arch of vanity which lifts its ma-
jestic bulk on the crown of the Champs Elysees.
1 A. D. 70.
INTRO D UCTOR Y. 39
It stands for the close of the eighteenth century
and the extinction of " the Holy Roman Empire,"
so called. It marks the end of just one thousand
years between Charlemagne and Napoleon. These
are the landmarks of these Institutes ; they indi-
cate our " dates of anchorage." Blind must he be,
and dull beyond comparison, who sees not in the
precision of these periods, in the characters and
the events that created them, and even in these
monuments which Providence has allowed proud
men to rear, and which Providence only has pre-
served, tokens of an overruling Hand in history,
which the wise and true of heart must recognize
and understand.
LECTURE II.
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES.
I. ANTIOCH.
T
HE disciples were called Christians first at
Antioch, says St. Luke. Justly have the
antecedents of St. Paul been noted as providen-
tially shaping him into the vessel of election for
mankind: not sufficiently have the specialties of
Antioch been regarded as forming that marvel-
lous capital to be the cradle of the infant Church.
Strange indeed that so dissolute a city should
become the source of human regeneration, but
even in this paradox we discover a divine plan.
The good physician attacks disease at its seat, and
pestilence must be stayed at its source. Our Lord
had promised that his disciples should do greater
works than his own ; and surely, when the Church,
in all her virgin glory, rose up in Antioch and
issued from its port bearing the new life to a
world " lying in the Evil One," there was a greater
miracle than when Lazarus obeyed the command
of Jesus, and came forth from his dank grave, a
putrid corpse made whole. Here was a dead man
revived : but from Antioch began the resurrection
of nations that lay festering in moral darkness,
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 41
bound with grave-clothes, smelling to heaven with
corruption, and powerless to help themselves as the
dry bones in Ezekiel's valley of vision. Antioch
itself was the epitome of such a world.
2. A CONTRAST.
The Augustan age had glorified Rome with mar-
bles for its bricks, and with the golden lyres of
poets for its legions of iron, yet left it more de-
based than ever before. Horace had just died,
and Herod was rivalling Augustus in his Roman
extravagance by making the very pavement of
Antioch of solid marble, when the Galilean maiden
sang her Magnificat in obscure and despised Naz-
areth, and gave the first hymn of Redemption to
those who looked for the Messiah. Nazareth and
Antioch ! behold the contrast. But note the
meek virgin in her cot, and all the powers of the
world in their forts and palaces : hear her sweet
song, the first strain of Christian poesy, the germ
of liturgies and prayers for evangelized tribes and
peoples of the earth, and contrast it with the fran-
tic rites of the bacchanal, the sensual orgies, the
licentious dances, and the reeking wickedness of
that city on the Orontes, which was so absolute a
type of all that stretched away from its port to
Greece and Italy, to the barbarians of Germany
and Gaul, and to the ancient seats of our own race
in Jutland and Britain. Truly hath God chosen
" the weak things of the world to confound the
mighty," and, as we shall soon observe, " things
which are despised hath God chosen, yea and
42 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
things wh
that are."
things which are not, to bring to naught things
3. AN INQUIRY.
But why was Antioch rather than Jerusalem
made the capital of the new empire of Messiah?
Among other reasons this will afford an answer :
the Prince of Peace came not to the Jews only.
" In Him shall the Gentiles trust," was the promise
He has so richly fulfilled. Now Antioch was " a
mart of nations " ; it was, in type, Gentilism itself.
Jerusalem could not be made the metropolis of
Catholicity; it was the stronghold of Judaism.
The rod of the new power was to " go forth from
Jerusalem." To have kept it there would have
been to fortify and perpetuate those intense preju-
dices of the Circumcision, which in the case of St.
Paul himself were the most formidable of all ob-
stacles to his work. " New bottles for new wine."
He who had broken down the Jewish wall of sepa-
ration, and made the new temple walls to unite Jew
and Gentile in Himself as the corner-stone, brought
both walls together in Antioch. It was " the fool-
ishness of God, wiser than men," to economize the
moral rubbish of the Seleucid capital, as he took
a hill of refuse from the Jebusites when he created
Zion the stronghold of the typical Church.
4. THE PORTRAITURE OF ANTIOCH.
The unhappy genius of Renan has so ably de-
picted this ancient Paris, borrowing his colours
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 43
from the modern one which inflames his imagina-
tion and has debased his pen, that it would be
folly for me not to adopt the vivid picture with
which he has anticipated the tasks of all who would
hereafter undertake to describe it. I shall there-
fore freely translate his brilliant rhetoric, amplify-
ing or abridging it as may best suit my purpose, but
making it my own by the very injury I must inflict
on such splendid work by my attempt to infuse its
spirit into English words.
According to Renan, 1 the metropolis of the Ori-
ent was a city of more than five hundred thou-
sand souls. Before its recent extension Paris itself
was hardly larger. Its site was one of the most
picturesque of the whole earth, made of the space
between the Orontes and the slopes of Silpius.
Unrivalled were the beauty and the abundance of
its waters. Nature had fortified it as by a master-
piece of military art, surrounded as it was by lofty
rocks, which crowned it with a radiating circlet of
peaks. Thence were afforded surprising perspec-
tives : one beheld within the walls hills not less
than seven hundred feet high, great rocks bristling
with spires, precipices, inaccessible caves, torrents
and cascades rushing into deep ravines, where de-
licious gardens nestled. Here were dense thickets
of myrtles, of flowering box, of laurels and ever-
greens, of which the verdure was most tender, and
rocks embroidered with pinks, hyacinths, and cycla-
mens, which gave their savage summits the effect
of hanging gardens. Such was the Antioch of
Libanius, of Julian, of Chrysostom.
1 See Note O.
44 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Here the imperial legate of Syria kept his court.
The Seleucid kings raised it from nothing, and
like the growth of a single night, to a lofty pitch
of splendour, but the Roman occupation had glori-
fied it even more. The Seleucids had indeed set
the example of decorating cities with theatrical
effect, multiplying baths, basilicas, aqueducts, and
temples. The streets, more symmetrical and regu-
lar than elsewhere, were bordered with colonnades,
and at their intersections adorned with statues.
Antiochus Epiphanes had carried through the city,
stretching three miles from end to end, a superb
Corso, ornamented by columns, in four rows, which
made covered galleries on both sides, with the
broad avenue between. But, besides its huge
constructions of public utility, Antioch was dis-
tinguished above other Syrian cities by its pos-
session of masterpieces of Greek art, — admirable
statues, and delicate specimens of classic taste, of
which at this epoch the refined perfections could
no longer be imitated. Into this region of the
Orontes, the Macedonians, transplanted by Seleu-
cus Nicator from Antigonia, had brought the wor-
ship and the territorial names of their own land,
lasting memorials of their attachment to Paeonia
and Pieria, and to "the fair humanities" adored
at Castaly and in the Vale of Tempe. Thus the
Greek myths gained a new creation and new seats
of worship in Syria. Phoebus and the Muses were
part of the population of the city, — in mute mar-
ble, it is true, but seeming to live and breathe, as in
fact they inspired the surrounding masses of flesh
and blood. As a retreat from the bustling market,
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES
45
Daphne opened to its inhabitants an enchanting
grove where the most charming fictions of the
Greek poets were brought to the minds of the
Orientals. Here the wretched Julian was destined
long afterwards to make a last desperate effort to
heal the death-wound of idolatry. The spot was a
practical plagiarism; counterfeiting a plan of the
nomadic tribes, who originally brought names to
Berecyntia, Ida, and Olympus. Altogether, the
fables of outworn heathenism made up for the
place a religion hardly more serious than the Met-
amorphoses of Ovid. Girdled by the river, Mount
Casius lifted to the skies altars and idols, the graver
relics of indigenous superstition. This spot was
doomed to retain its hold on local enthusiasm when
surrounding idols should give way before the Light,
and to smoke with the last faint whiffs of incense
that symbolized expiring Paganism. In short, the
Syrian frivolity, Babylonian quackery, and all the
impostures of Asia, muddled and confused at this
meeting-point of two worlds, had made of Antioch
a sewer of infamies. It was the metropolis of Lies.
5. THE POPULACE.
The Syrian tongue was yet to be heard among
its aborigines, infesting its faubourgs and forming
the suburban population of a vast vicinity. By a
law of Seleucus, all resident aliens were made citi-
zens, and by intermarriages with Greeks his capi-
tal at the close of three centuries and a half was
the place of all the world in which the human race
seemed most effectually hybridized. The consc-
46 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
quent debasement of minds was frightful. In such
a process, divers races lead downward to a com-
mon estate of moral putrefaction. Hardly do we
find a parallel corruption in the basest of those
Levantine marts, which we see given over to ideas
the most base and selfish, and tied hand and foot by
the intrigues of tyranny. It was an incredible jum-
ble of buffoons and quacks, drolls and tricksters,
wonder-workers, sorcerers, and juggling priests, —
a bazaar of races and ballet-dances, pomps and pro-
cessions, Saturnalian feasts and Bacchanalian orgies,
of luxury and lust unbridled, of fanatical outrages
and superstitions the most pestilent, — in a word, of
all the follies of the Oriental world. Obsequious
to servility and then again basely ungrateful, at
times cowards and then impudently rebellious, the
population was thoroughly a specimen of hordes
enslaved to Csesarism, with no name to preserve or
lose, without family character, without nationality,
without country. Its grand Corso was a circus,
through which flowed all day long the foul tides
of a brute populace, light, volatile, always ready
for an outbreak, sometimes clever enough, how-
ever, to be absorbed by diversions of music, by
harlequins and their farces, by ambiguities, jokes,
and impertinences of every sort. Cicero affects to
credit them with a literary spirit, but it was a
mere literature of spurious rhetoricians. The pub-
lic shows were curious. The entire spectacle was
made palatable to such a crowd by exhibitions of
nudity ; naked girls sharing in all the performances,
with a mere fillet on their shameless foreheads.
St. Chrysostom has denounced their favorite Mai-
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 47
ouma, where troops of prostitutes showed them-
selves swimming in nakedness, with wanton display,
in vast reservoirs filled with crystal waters. It
was an inebriation of debauch, a revcry of Sarda-
napalus, where all manner of indecencies, the worse
for a certain simulation of refinement, were tum-
bled together pell-mell, in voluptuous contempt of
ordinary pretences to propriety. Such was the
Antioch which Juvenal, perhaps justly, accuses as
the source of Roman degeneracy, — of those abom-
inations which he deplores; which St. Paul, on
widely different grounds, bewails, and to which,
with inimitable condensation, he administers his
scathing rebuke. Yes, indeed, says the satirist, 1
" The Syrian Orontes, at last, makes the Tiber the mouth of its
vomit ;
Here comes, with its flutes and its strings, a jargon of tongues
with all evils."
" The valley of the Orontes," says Renan, " open-
ing to the west, gives the neighbouring lake an out-
let to the sea; or, to be more exact, enables the
city to communicate with the vast world beyond,
where the Mediterranean lies embedded, and where,
through all the ages, it has afforded to the sur-
rounding nations a neutral highway, and a bond of
federal unity as well."
6. THE JEWISH ELEMENT.
To approach my subject, and to illustrate the de-
cisive fact which fitted Antioch to become, through
the Mediterranean, the starting-point for Christian
1 See Note P.
48 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
missions, I must strictly translate from Renan, and
borrow his condensed and most suggestive para-
graph about the Jews.
"They were among the most numerous of those colo-
nies which the liberal policy of the Seleucids attracted to
their metropolis. Their immigration started with Seleucus
Nicator's grant of equal privileges with the Greeks. They
had an ethnarch of their own, but not less were their rela-
tions very intimate with their Gentile co-citizens. Here,
as at Alexandria, it is true, these relations were occasion-
ally interrupted by strifes and mutual aggressions ; but, on
the other hand, they afforded a base for proselyting, which
the Jews knew how to make very lively. More and more
was polytheism proving itself unsatisfactory to all reflect-
ing minds, and Greek philosophy in common with Juda-
ism was attractive to those incapable of resting in the
empty pomps of an effete mythology. The number of
Jewish proselytes was considerable. Nicolas, a proselyte
of Antioch, was enrolled among the seven deacons. Here
were the germs of a harvest, which waited only for the
day-beams of grace to blossom and bring forth fruits more
beautiful than mankind had ever seen before." 1
One recognizes here the hand of God in the
mission and work of Alexander: Antioch, with its
Jewish colony and its traffic with the West through
Asia Minor and Greece, as well as Alexandria with
its library and its schools, had been fashioned
beforehand for the Evangelists and Apostles.
7. THE CHURCH IN ANTIOCH.
In the spring of A. D. 43, just ten years after the
Light of the World had been despised and rejected
1 See Note Q.
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 49
of men, all things were ready for a fresh outpour-
ing of the Spirit. Barnabas found Saul at Tarsus,
and brought him from his native shores to this An-
tioch, where the little church was sheltered, in its
obscurity and feebleness, in a poor quarter under
the hill Stavrin, and near a gate which sustains
the Christian tradition by its time-honoured name
of St. Paul's gate. It was " in Singon Street hard
by the Pantheon." Among the believers here,
fulfilling their local mission against such frightful
odds of evil in the very citadel of Satan, imagine
the effect of the appearance of these twins, Bar-
nabas and Saul : the one with those massive and
majestic traits which led the heathen to suppose
him Zeus ; the other with that light and active
motion and electrifying voice which the same
rustic idolaters could only identify with Hermes.
They came to make the lily of gospel purity spring
forth and shed its fragrance over the world out
of a dunghill of pollution.
8. THE EXCEPTIONAL APOSTOLATE.
The exceptional addition to the choir of original
Apostles of these twain, born out of due time, de-
serves a passing note of explanation. St. Paul was
created an Apostle by Christ himself in person ;
Barnabas, by Christ, through his Vicar, the Holy
Ghost. To confer their " Mission " and attest their
apostleship to the churches was yet a logical neces-
sity; but had even this been done by other apos-
tles, they might seem to have been commissioned,
if not " by men," yet at least " through men " ;
4
5<D INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
they would have been, not founders of the Apos-
tolic Succession, but only its earliest recipients.
Certain inspired prophets were therefore, by an
oracle of the Holy Ghost, directed to do for Barna-
bas and Saul what the fiery tongues of Pentecost
had done for Matthias. By an exceptional laying
on of hands they conferred, not the "order" of
apostles, but the " mission " to which their apos-
tolic work was designated. The ordinals of Apos-
tolic Churches have preserved this distinction : first
orders and then jurisdiction are conferred in the
rites of ordination. Barnabas seems to have been
made St. Paul's coadjutor; but the pupil of Gama-
liel was sent out with the world for his field. This
mission of the Spirit was afterwards accepted by
James, Peter, and John, when they " gave to Paul
and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship," x and
recognized the several jurisdictions proper to St.
Peter and to St. Paul : the former restricted in mis-
sion to the Circumcision, while to the latter was
assigned an unbounded mission to the Gentiles.
And it is most instructive to observe how strictly
St. Paul adhered to this " canon," 2 as he calls it, in
all his ministrations.
9. APOSTOLIC INSTITUTIONS.
To the inspired narrative of events at Antioch I
must refer you for further subjects of great inter-
est touching the early institutions and constitu-
tions of Christianity. But it remains to note them
as reflected in this school after the Apostles had
1 Gal. ii. 9. 2 2 Cor. x. 13-16.
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 51
fallen asleep. When the Council of Nice cited
"the ancient customs" as the normal example of
the Catholic Church, Antioch was the great origi-
nal to which their testimony necessarily reverted.
Happily, we possess in our day a wealth of mate-
rial for deciding what this primitive school re-
ceived and taught, such as has never before been
enjoyed for many centuries. The brilliant light
which has been concentrated upon it by the learn-
ing and genius of Lightfoot has closed a long
period of controversies excited by the interests
which all modern schools feel to be at stake when
their tenets and teachings are referred to it as a
test. Its great martyr bishop, Ignatius, had seen
St. John; in all probability had been his disciple.
Under Trajan he was thrown to the lions in the
Flavian Amphitheatre. His Epistles, sifted to the
bran in a prolonged and unparalleled controversy,
are now in our hands in their genuine form, and
furnish us with a mirror of the virgin Church in its
manners, its ordinances, and its doctrines. No-
body is fit to discuss the principles of unity and
catholicity who has not studied the Scriptures in
the reflected light of what Ignatius shows to have
been the ordinances of inspired wisdom. But his
practical maxims are like "the goads and nails"
of Solomon himself. Some of them lose little by
translation, so pungent are they and so senten-
tious. To Polycarp he bequeaths his mantle, like
another Elijah going up in a fiery car and drop-
ping his raiment on Elisha. " The times demand
thee" he says to his successor, " as pilots seek
the haven." Would God we more nearly resem-
52 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
bled Ignatius and his faithful contemporaries,
among whom Polycarp is chief, in their zeal for
truth, their sanctity of life, and their fidelity even
unto death to our Master, Christ; but, so far as
the conformities of the Anglican Church to an
apostolic original are concerned, we may rejoice
indeed that the church of Antioch, as Ignatius
portrays it, is the triumphant vindication of our
Anglican reformers and their work of restoration
in the sixteenth century.
io. APOSTOLIC FATHERS. — IGNATIUS.
Though it is much later that Antioch assumes a
leading place as a school, we associate it with the
lead in Christian literature, as the source of " the
Apostolic Fathers." Of Melito and Clement of
Rome, the earliest of whom we have genuine re-
mains, I shall speak by and by. The venerable
Ignatius, on his way to martyrdom at Rome, and
all the way " fighting with beasts," as he describes
it, with reference to the rude soldiers that guarded
him, wrote letters to the churches, and also to
Polycarp, " angel of the church of Smyrna," his
compeer and coeval in the school of the Apostles,
which are among the choicest treasures of an-
tiquity. To think of such a good thing coming so
early out of Antioch ! In vain may we search all
heathen moralists for the lofty, unselfish philoso-
phy which breathes in every sentiment of Ignatius,
and inspires those inimitable maxims. Here are
specimens, taken chiefly from the single epistle
to Polycarp: I. "Consider the times, but look to
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 53
Him who is above time." 2. " A Christian is not
his own master, but waits upon God." 3. " Slight
not the slaves and the maid-servants." 4. " Find
time to pray without ceasing." 5. "The crown
is immortality." 6. " Stand like a beaten anvil ;
it is the part of a good athlete to be bruised,
and to prevail." x His subsequent suffering in
the Coliseum, under the persecution which dis-
graces the name of Trajan, whetted the appetite
of the Roman populace for Christian blood. It
begot the common outcry of the amphitheatre,
Christianos ad hones ! Under Hadrian and the
Antonines the chronic sacrifices of Christians called
forth a new form of patristic literature known as
the " Apologies," of which the earlier specimens
have perished, but of which we have examples in
the precious writings of Justin Martyr.
11. JUSTIN MARTYR.
He was a native of Samaria, though a Greek
and a philosopher ; but Jacob's well was near his
native town, and he seems to have drawn his in-
spiration as a Christian from the water of life that
has never ceased to flow ever since the weary
Jesus sat by it and discoursed with the woman.
This appears in his " Dialogues with Trypho," a
Jew whom he laboured to convert; but not less
conspicuously in his Apologies, addressed to the
sons of Hadrian. These princes were professed
philosophers, and Justin addressed them as one
who had a right to be heard. He had been a
1 See Note R.
54 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
student of the Athenian schools, and his pure
eclecticism had made him a Platonist. One won-
ders who may have been that unknown saint of
meek and reverend aspect whom he met walking
by the sea-side, and who first taught him the better
philosophy of Him who is the Light of the World.
Unknown as he is, he lives in the illustrious pupil
whom he led to Jesus, and who wore his philoso-
pher's pallium not the less when he became a
disciple of what he had discovered to be the only
philosophy worth professing. In his writings, we
become acquainted with the Christians of the first
post-apostolic age, and blessed be their pure exam-
ple. The philosopher addressed his first Apology
to Antoninus Pius (A. D. 150), whose reputation
is not unstained by the wanton effusion of Chris-
tian blood; 1 his second, to "the good Aurelius,"
as Pope styles him, — brutal stoic though he was,
and author of a general persecution which raged
through the Empire from the Tigris to the Rhone,
desolating the churches, and delivering men, women,
and children to wild beasts, to the sword, and to
the flames, in every imaginable form of cruelty
and torture. Under Aurelius, Justin earned his
noble surname of the Martyr, and soon after him
suffered Melito, Bishop of Sardis, of whose works
a valuable fragment remains. 2
1 See Lightfoot, Apost. Fathers, II., vol. i. p. 440.
2 Lightfoot, Ibid., pp. 445. 44 6 -
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 55
12. THE PERSECUTIONS.
Behold, young men, what the Church means by
" the noble army of martyrs." This was the fourth
persecution, and six more must be ; though in fact
the first three centuries are one protracted period
of war against the followers of the Crucified, which
began with Herod's slaughter of the Innocents, and
stayed not till the Arch of Constantine was set up
to commemorate the first peace. The Apologists
imply the martyrs. Their blood was " the seed of
the Church " ; but
" Their ashes flew
No marble tells us whither ; with their names
No bard embalms and sanctifies his song,
And history, so warm on meaner themes,
Is cold on this."
The fury of their adversaries drove the sufferers
like " conies to the stony rocks," to the deserts, to
the catacombs. They were scorned for burrowing
like the marmot, and were derided as " shunners of
daylight." Light-shunning yet light-shedding ; to
them the ages and the nations that call themselves
enlightened owe all their illumination. They were
the victims of those who made " Philosophy " their
boast.
13. POLYCARP.
The hoary and holy Polycarp suffered under that
paragon of " philosophic " princes, the elder Anto-
nine. 1 He was the disciple of St. John, and was
1 A. D. 155. See Lightfoot's elaborate evidence, and his some-
what successful relief of Hadrian's reputation. Ibid., pp. 440, 492,
and 628-702.
$6 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
probably the Bishop of Smyrna to whom our
Divine Master sends his prophetic promise of the
martyr's crown in the Apocalypse. His pupil,
Irenaeus, tells us how he used to speak of the be-
loved disciple, and of " others who had seen the
Lord."
We must reflect that while St. John survived,
after his return from exile, Ephesus was tempora-
rily the focus of apostolic illumination. If "old
wives' fables" were to be heeded, the obscure Eva-
ristus, Bishop of Rome, was St. John's superior,
and had settled " who should be greatest," as
Christ himself did not, by claiming from St. Peter
a principality over the glorious survivor of Zebe-
dee's children ! Nothing of the kind disgraces the
true history of Evaristus. Down to the first or
second year of the second century the beloved
disciple " tarried," as his Master had said, prolong-
ing the age of the Messiah, and sealing the canon
of the New Testament. Nor while Polycarp sur-
vived, to whom Christ himself had spoken in his
message to the churches, could the apostolic age
be regarded as ended. To him Anicetus deferred,
and rendered homage at Rome. The date of his
martyrdom closes the period which, in strict reck-
oning, is that of the Apostolic Fathers. As a
school, the see of Antioch comes subsequently into
view, and its consummate flower is Chrysostom,
the great primate of Constantinople, the golden-
mouthed John.
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 57
14. PRIMITIVE SCHOOLS. — ALEXANDRIA.
Of the primitive schools the see of Alexandria
was the first, and stands without rival, or even one
that can pretend to be its second. It may owe its
foundation to the catechetical classes of Apollos ; 1
Theophilus may not improbably have received his
first instructions there ; it ceased not to shed over
the Christendom of three centuries the all-animat-
ing inspiration of its theology ; and to it we owe the
master spirit of that great Council of Nicaea, Atha-
nasius, its burning and shining light. Here we
find the genius of Clement, and the untiring toil of
Origen, and the labours of others not unworthy to
be named with them, who for centuries maintained
a divine mastery over Christian thought applied to
the exposition of the Scriptures. We must reflect
that its early relations with Antioch were intimate,
and pupils of Polycarp were probably enrolled in
its schools ; 2 while, not unreasonably, we may ad-
mit that St. Mark was its first bishop, and made it
"the Evangelical See." It framed the primitive
testimony into literature, and gave it symbolic and
liturgic idioms. From voices attuned in her choirs
sounds forth the organ-music of the Great Con-
fession, — that anthem-like roll and swell of the
successive utterances of the Nicene Creed. That
" clothing of wrought gold " which adorns the Bride
of the Lamb was wrought, as in a loom, at the feet
of her Gamaliels. Truly, if " a mother and mis-
tress of churches " ever existed, we must find in
1 My reasons may be seen in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. vi. p. 236.
2 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 166, and vol. viii. p. 796.
58 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Alexandria the only see to which antiquity makes
any such award. When it comes into notice, under
Pantaenus, it is already a Christian university. He
is called " the Sicilian bee," and, lured by the scent
of flowers sweeter than those of Enna, he flew from
its fair fields to the Alexandrian storehouse where
honey was dropping from the comb. Under him
it became a beehive indeed, and, if it be not over-
working the metaphor, it had no drones ; all were
workers and soldiers, among whom Truth was
queen and mother both. Its cells were stored with
scriptural nectar, and its great doctor, Clement, has
immortalized its spirit in the wit by which he spake.
His sayings, to pursue the figure merrily, are speci-
mens alike of sweets and of stings. How uncloying
the flavour of his words about Jesus ! how keen
and pungent his conflict with false philosophy and
untruth ! They writhe and perish like summer
moths, pierced by his winged words and fanned
by their airy impulse into oblivion. 1
15. MANY DOCTORS. — ATHANASIUS.
I have time only to name the bright succession
of doctors who adorned the see of St. Mark, like
those apocalyptic stars which Christ held in his own
right hand. To Pantaenus, and Clement, and the
colossal figure of Origen, succeed Gregory Thau-
maturgus, Heraclas, Dionysius the Great, Julius
Africanus, Anatolius, and Alexander of Cappado-
cia, with whom the sub-apostolic period expired in
the Decian persecution. Theognostus, a pupil of
1 See Note S.
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 59
Origen, and Pierius, who is called " Origen Junior "
by St. Jerome, with Theonas, Philcas, Pamphilus,
Peter the Canonist, and Alexander, the patron of
Athanasius, carry on the brilliant succession. And
these illustrious names, every one, have planetary
lustres revolving about them; while, all together,
they shine as the firmament, till the day dawns
and the sunlight of the Gospel breaks over all the
world. Then appears Athanasius, " clothed with
the sun," — he who afterwards stood "against the
world," — Athanasius, in whose great heart the
Catholic faith found shelter for a moment while
others forsook it and fled, — but only to break
forth, when " the fire kindled and he spake with
his tongue " the " truths that wake to perish never."
Even in our own vain and self-asserting times, it
has been conceded that the treasures of Alexan-
drian Christianity are a forecast of modern thought,
and must still continue to enrich the universe. 1
16. THE PUNIC SCHOOL. — TERTULLIAN AND
CYPRIAN.
Carthage, like a candlestick of many branches,
borrows its lustre from the Alexandrian Pharos.
This appears in Tertullian, who teaches in crabbed
Latin, but with original force and perspicuity, what
he learned in Greek. Here begins " Latin Chris-
tianity" ; here first we find a " Western theology,"
which became anthropology rather, and which
lives on and works yet, and ever will work among
men, in the master spirit of Augustine. To Ter-
1 See Note T.
60 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
tullian, erratic genius as he was, must be attri-
buted this marvellous creation, the illustrious Punic
school. But it took shape under Cyprian, who rec-
ognized his obligations to his masterly predeces-
sor, delighted to pay him honour as the autocrat
of his thought, and rectified his mistakes, throwing
a mantle over his faults. To Cyprian must be
attributed the clearest exposition of the primitive
polity to be found in history. He builds up the
system of Ignatius, as Ignatius reflects it from
the Scriptures. To him we owe the ideal of the
Episcopate, as the primitive Christians had re-
ceived it; and through all his writings breathes
the spirit of St. Peter, imploring the clergy not
to make themselves " lords over God's heritage."
Intrepid in vindicating his order, uncompromising
in maintaining the autonomy of national churches,
this noble confessor and martyr is yet the text-
book of the laity who wish to know their place
and privileges in the Church. I love his free
spirit ; the great synodical features of Catholic pol-
ity of which he is the champion ; the maxims
which he has left to Christendom. He is the
great " Anglican " of antiquity, if I may anachronize
so boldly. To his system, rightly understood, we
of the Anglican communion may boldly refer our
cause, as against Pope and Puritan. I love St.
Cyprian. He finds a modern counterpart in our
own Bishop Bull. Must I merely mention the
noble names that are entwined with his in the
creation of Latin thought? Study for yourselves
the works of Minucius Felix, of Commodian, of
Arnobius and Lactantius.
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT ACES. 6 1
17. ARNOBIUS AND LACTANTIUS.
Nor let any accept the unjust judgment of Cole-
ridge about Arnobius, in whom we have a great lay-
man, like himself, not half as faulty, and quite as
praiseworthy. 1 His scornful rhetoric was privileged
to chase the hosts of heathenism, already con-
quered, and to put them to an ignominious rout.
He mocks them, like another Elijah dealing with
Baalim; he pursues them with the artillery of his
genius, as they flee before him, —
" Chased on their night-steeds by the star of day."
And so we reach Lactantius, — dear Lactantius !
I feel as if I had known him personally. He
emerges, with the persecuted Church, from the
Diocletian persecution, like gold tried in the fire.
In him, we meet the earliest Christian who has
leisure to cultivate his style. He adorns the court
of Constantine ; he wins the title of the Christian
Cicero ; he closes the blessed march of the Ante-
Nicene legions, and his flourish of trumpets is not
of " sounding brass." We hear the silver trumpets
of the angels in his notes of triumph. Less har-
monious than his other writings is his account
of the persecutors and their retributive deaths.
Gibbon, indeed, affects to doubt if it be his ; but
the fascination of those pages is created, not by
their style, but by the downright honest words, in
which they give the testimony of one who seems
to say, —
" All which I saw, and part of which I was."
1 See Note U.
62 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
18. MAXIMS OF LACTANTIUS.
Let me add, young gentlemen, if you would
know why I speak so warmly of Lactantius, two of
his maxims which became dear to me in early
life: would that I might transfer them to you, to
make a better use of them than I have done. I
can only atone for my failure by urging you to
catch from them the inspiration of a future which
you may render tributary to God's glory and to
the good of mankind. " If life is to be desired by
a wise man," says this charming instructor, "truly
for no other reason could I wish to live than to
effect something worthy of a lifetime." Again,
he says : " I shall judge myself to have lived
satisfactorily, and to have fulfilled the duty of
manhood, if only my efforts may liberate some
from error, and direct them into the heavenly
way."
19. HARMONY OF THEOLOGIANS.
And so must end my insufficient testimony to
the school of Carthage, while I point you forward
to its noblest example, in the imperial genius of
Augustine. Vainly have recent writers tried to set
him over against Athanasius, as an antagonist, not
a helper. 1 Brain and heart, heart and brain : do
they conflict, or harmonize, because their functions
are so diverse? In the attempts of the West to
fathom the mystery of the Human, we find the
complement of what the East had done to illus-
trate the Divine. The Alexandrians understood,
1 See Note V.
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. G$
however, that the Infinite was past finding out: the
genius of the great Bishop of Hippo shrank from
no investigation of humanity, felt no similar re-
straints. He paused, indeed, to take breath, and
went no further; but just there the remorseless
genius of Calvin found his task incomplete, and
scrupled not to give it a logical conclusion. It
was a test of strength and courage not inferior to
Samson's ; it was on a larger scale, and involved
even more terrible consequences, than " the wreck
of matter and the crush of worlds." Warned by
this experiment, we may accept Augustine, while
we reject the Epimetheus that ventured further.
To Augustine we owe the true exposition of the
doctrines of grace, though the Church has only
accepted it filtered from the lees. In his immor-
tal works and the immense literature they have
created, Carthage still asserts her moral grandeur,
though bats and owls infest and hoot where Marius
once sat among her ruins.
20. THE ROMAN DIOCESE.
If I have not yet noted among Christian schools
even in the West that see which claims to be " the
mother and mistress of churches," it is only be-
cause the facts compel me to say nothing where
nothing can be said. Her first bishop, St. Clem-
ent, indeed, leads the noble array of the Apostolic
Fathers ; but he writes in Greek, not in Latin, and
is himself a striking witness to the colonial and
dependent character of the church in Rome, of
which I have spoken. In his time, this colony of
64 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Jewish converts, and their faithful Gentile brethren,
had lost nothing of the faith which was said by
St. Paul to be " spoken of throughout the world."
But it was a church of works, not words ; * of noble
suffering, not of study and teaching. Her children,
always exposed to fierce eyes that glared upon
them from the Palatine, lived in daily expectation
of being thrown to the jaws that gaped for them
in the Coliseum. Their circumstances were little
favourable to the cultivation of letters, and even
their bishops, though generally pious men, were
taken from a class greatly inferior to that of their
Eastern brethren. A pleasing picture of the age
of the first Bishop of Rome, who bore the name of
Pius, comes to us in the pages of the " Shepherd "
of Hermas, who was the brother of that prelate.
Little interesting as this allegory is in our day, it
illustrates the simple piety and habits of the prim-
itive Romans, their character as " a Greek colony,"
and their gentle efforts to repel heresy by persua-
sion rather than by anathemas.
21. IRENiEUS, — HIS PLACE IN THE WEST. 2
How it came to pass that such depraved and
ignorant creatures as Zephyrinus and Callistus are
found at an early period in the Roman succession,
is to be accounted for, perhaps, by their personal
history, which suggests that they were ambitious
to fill a place not coveted by better men, because
they meant to betray their brethren and save them-
selves while making gain their godliness.
i See Note W. 2 See Note X.
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 65
Of these I shall soon speak more particularly,
but must now mention the illustrious name of
Irenaeus as the great light of Western Europe, in
whom we find the teaching of Polycarp transferred
from the Orient to Gaul, and thence echoed back
to Rome, to supply her lack of knowledge and of
wisdom. He was, spiritually, the grandson of St.
John, as the disciple of Polycarp, and twice did his
gentle interposition, in the spirit of the beloved
disciple, save Rome from peril of schism and her-
esy. When Eleutherus was patronizing Monta-
nism, and when Victor was violating the sacred
compact which Anicetus had accepted from Poly-
carp, the voice of Irenaeus sounded forth from the
Rhone, and restored truth and peace to the church
upon the Tiber. Pacific, as his name implies, he
was yet, like St. John himself, " a son of thunder"
when he confronted the great army of heretics
who stole the Christian name, in early times, only
to corrupt and trade upon it, after the example of
Simon Magus. When the sun rises upon a pesti-
lent marsh, its very light and warmth breed fogs
and evil exhalations, and it was not possible that
many in a population like that of Antioch, when it
was smitten by the glory of the Gospel, should fail
to borrow its lustre to set off their false philoso-
phies and monstrous superstitions. These they
strove to make at once a snare to the faithful, and
a palatable bait to ungodly men for accepting
themselves instead of Christ as teachers and masters.
Irenaeus, in an elaborate treatise, exposes their ar-
tifices and their base counterfeits of Christian gold ;
and his great work, of which only a small part
5
66 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
comes to us in the original Greek, entitles him to the
honours of a prince among the writers of Western
Europe, where he became the founder, in fact, of
a distinct school, and of those traditions which
long afterwards were stigmatized as " Gallicanism,"
though supported by nearly all the illustrious
names, clerical and lay, of Christian France.
22. ROMAN RECEPTIVITY. 1
And here let me note a memorable passage, in
which he explains the relations of Rome in his
day to other churches of the West. His own his-
tory sufficiently illustrates its meaning, though in
the Latin translation by which we know it there
is a possibility of making it somewhat ambiguous;
and artful commentators have not been wanting
to read into it their own modern views of what it
ought to mean. To keep it free from any colour-
ing of mine, I quote it as rendered by a Roman
Catholic writer of the more liberal class. 2 He
gives it as follows : —
" To this church, on account of more potent principal-
ity, it is necessary that every church (that is, those who
on every side are faithful) resort ; in which church, ever,
by those who are on every side, has been preserved that
tradition which is from the Apostles."
I do not know how words, even in this clumsy
rendering, could more clearly define the receptive
character of Rome, and her dependence upon other
churches for her knowledge of the faith. The
» See Note Y.
2 Waterworth, " Faith of Catholics," vol. ii. p. 3.
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. Gj
apostolic tradition, he says, is preserved in her " by
those who are on every side," resorting to her, as
was necessary, because of her civil pre-eminence
in the Empire. In other words, Rome had no
school or teaching of her own, but, because she
sat at the corners where all roads met, and where
all travellers must come, she gathered from them
the concurrent testimony of all other churches, and
hence was able to reflect the faith everywhere
received. Her " more potent principality " was
defined at Nice and Constantinople, in the Great
Councils, as purely that of the Imperial Capitol ;
not a word in Irenaeus or the language of the canons
suggests any other idea ; yet the passage quoted has
been made ambiguous by assuming that an ecclesi-
astical principality was intended, and by transform-
ing the words " necessary to resort unto " into the
phrase " necessary to agree with." Had this been
his idea, Irenaeus must have gone on to say: " For
there the doctrine of the Apostles Peter and
Paul is preserved by the infallible authority of its
bishop." But he says just the reverse : " There the
tradition of the Apostles is preserved by the con-
tributions of the faithful from other churches, each
bringing to it what he has learned in his particular
church, and so establishing a Catholic consent."
23. THE NASCENT PATRIARCHATE.
It is easy to see how this very position of the
only Apostolic See of the West became instru-
mental in stretching her influence over Western
Europe. Travellers from Gaul and Britain re-
68 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
sorted thither, and there learned in Latin what
Rome had been taught in Greek. The develop-
ment of a Patriarchate, without the name as yet,
was the immediate consequence ; but the Council
of Nice, which first recognized this name for all
the greater sees, recognized the limits of this patri-
archal jurisdiction as quite restricted. 1 Not only-
Gaul, but the territory over which Milan began to
tower with commanding dignity, was far beyond
the limits. It was not a Patriarchate of the West in
any other sense than that it was in the West. And
just how its " suburbicarian" influence operated,
and in turn was often checked and overruled, is
powerfully illustrated in the history of Zephyrinus
and Callistus, two Bishops of Rome contemporary
with Hippolytus whose influence with their dio-
cesan synods not only reduced their judgments
to insignificance, but rescued the Roman Church
at this early date from an ignominious apostasy.
Here, too, we observe the force of the maxims
of Irenseus we have just considered. Hippolytus
was his disciple, and with his fellow suffragans, as
they would now be called, he resisted the hereti-
cal teaching of those patriarchs. Gathering and
bringing into Rome the testimony of the Catholic
churches, East and West, they convicted Zephyri-
nus and Callistus of heresy, and made them retract.
"They confessed their errors for a short period,"
says Hippolytus, " but after a little, they wallow
again in the same mire." 2
1 See Note Z. 2 See Note A'.
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 69
24. HIPPOLYTUS.
When you visit the Vatican, be sure to note the
statue of Hippolytus. 1 It gives us the clearest idea
of the appearance of a primitive bishop. Over the
tunic he wears the pallium ; modest vestments, well
represented by the Anglican rochet and chimere.
He sits in his episcopal chair, in mild majesty, a
noble figure : high forehead and features composed
but resolute ; slightly bearded ; one hand placed
on his heart, while the other hand grasps a book,
the arm crossing his breast to reach it. Thank
God for such testimony as his, brought to light in
our own times, and for the Providence that placed
this statue in the Vatican to remind the degenerate
Church of " Old Rome " of its fallibility even from
the primitive day, and, as it were, to repeat those
warnings of St. Paul: "Be not high-minded, but
fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, take
heed lest He also spare not thee. Behold there-
fore the goodness and severity of God : . . . toward
thee goodness, if thou continue in goodness : otlicr-
wise thou also slialt be cut off." 2 These words
were addressed to the virgin Church of Rome, while
yet her pure " faith was spoken of throughout the
whole world." 3 And by them those marble lips of
Hippolytus, seated in his truly apostolic chair, seem
to repeat the warning, as it were for the last time.
This history, then, shows where Rome stands in
the primitive period, just a hundred years before
the Council of Nicaea. Neither a school nor atcach-
1 See a picture in Bunsen's " Hippolytus," vol. i.
2 Rom. xi. 20-22. 3 Rom. i. 8.
yo INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
ing see, she was still a Greek colony or daugh-
ter church, which had not given a single page to
Latin Christianity, now coming to light in Africa.
Thus we see her saved by the Greek doctor Hip-
polytus from the unfathomable infamy and self-
destruction which must have resulted had her
faithful listened to their own bishops. In Hippoly-
tus, with his co-bishops of the Roman province,
Irenaeus speaks again, and puts a practical com-
ment upon the often distorted words which I have
quoted from that great Father.
25. CAIUS AND NOVATIAN.
Contemporary with Hippolytus was the Roman
presbyter Caius, who also wrote in Greek, and in
whom Hippolytus, no doubt, found an able helper
against the heretic bishops. He has left us a valu-
able testimony as to the books of the New Testa-
ment which were received at Rome in his day,
from which it appears that Rome yet waited upon
the East for the Canon. The Epistle to the
Hebrews she had not as yet accepted, and of
the Apocalypse Caius says, " Some among us will
not have it read in the church." They knew of
no infallibility in Zephyrinus and Callistus to set-
tle this matter, and were still divided about it in
the Roman presbytery. The Eastern patriarchs
were Rome's arbiter. In Caius the Greek succes-
sion of Roman authors comes to its close, and the
Latin series begins (a. d. 280) with Novatian " On
the Trinity." Though an able defender of truth
in this treatise, this author unhappily fell away and
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. fl
became a titular bishop, claiming to be " Bishop of
Rome." This grievously defective claim was de-
nounced by Cyprian, and he closed his melancholy
career with the reputation of schism and heresy to-
gether. Such and so little was the venerable see
of Clement, down to good Sylvester and the first
(Ecumenical Council.
26. THE GALLICANS.
Truly might the Gallican Church, if she were
yet faithful to her history and traditions, assert her
splendid character in the primitive age as the
mother of Catholic orthodoxy in Western Europe.
This is her true position through Irenaeus and his
disciples. Not only does Gaul owe everything to
the illumination of his genius, but through him
the churches of Britain, and so also the Church of
England, derived not a little of that Greek type of
orthodoxy which has always distinguished their his-
tory. Of the development of Gallicanism we shall
learn more by and by. But here we must pause,
with a brief glance at the spread of the Gospel
down to the times of Constantine.
27. CHRONIC PERSECUTIONS.
From the days when St. Stephen fell asleep in
the stony hail-storm, to the days when the rage
of Diocletian had left the Universal Church appar-
ently in desolation and in ruins, the faithful soldiers
of Christ fought their good fight with unflagging
zeal, patience, and intrepidity. Efforts have been
made to minimize the extent of the ten persecu-
J 2 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
tions, — their atrocities, the numbers of those who
perished, and the mystery of the uninterrupted in-
crease of the Church. But the writings of the
Apologists, and those of Tertullian and Cyprian,
with the final testimony of Lactantius, are sufficient
to prove that persecution was the chronic estate of
the primitive Church. It was looked upon as the
normal condition of Christian life. The Church's
children accepted their profession as that of " dy-
ing daily"; they looked for the coming of Christ
as near at hand, but they seem not to have antici-
pated before His appearing any relief from their
lot of " laying down their lives for His sake." The
unaffected language of the Apologists and later
writers is evidence of this : nor is it to be accounted
for, if the persecutions were, at worst, only what
such writers as Gibbon are willing to concede.
Truly, were the Master's words fulfilled, — " Ye
shall be hated of all men for my name's sake."
Yet how gloriously did the martyrs copy the
blessed example of their Master in praying for
their murderers ! At the stake they chanted the
psalms, or lifted up their voices in the Christian
hymns, — in the Gloria in Excelsis at daybreak, or
in their even-song for the sunset, or " the lighting
of the lamps." x In the Coliseum whole families
were thrown to the wild beasts, refusing to save
their lives by throwing a grain of incense on the
brazier that glowed before an idol. Tender women
clasped their husband's necks, entreating them not
to surrender, and little children, clinging to their
fathers' knees, or the white raiment of their mothers,
i See Note B'.
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 7$
cried out, " We shall all sup with Jesus ; let the
lions come on." From the martyrdoms of Antioch
to those of Lyons and Vienne, — from those of Pro-
consular Asia and Northern Africa to those of our
forefathers at St. Alban's, — the blood of the
martyrs became the seed of the Church. But —
" How that red rain did make the harvest grow ! "
28. GROWTH OF THE CHURCH.
They have tried, also, to minimize the blessed
result; but the testimony of our Christian authors
is unequivocal, nor could they have hazarded such
language as they habitually used had their state-
ments been such as their adversaries could deny.
Of this the crowning evidence is the submission of
Constantine. The conversion of the Empire, which
was its immediate consequence, and which Julian
might have very readily suppressed had it rested
on any other than the solid base of a defeated
Paganism, is the pyramid of evidence which none
can overthrow.
It is noteworthy how often, in a great moral rev-
olution, reactionary periods have been allowed to
defeat themselves, and to give the last clinching
blows that confirmed the change with the very
hammer lifted to destroy it. Julian's apostasy
drove the last nail into the coffin of Paganism,
a word which, coming into vogue at this epoch,
proved that Christianity had become predominant
everywhere save among rustics and barbarians
in uncivilized villages (_pagi), even Julian himself
with his adherents treating the old myths as a
creed outworn, and striving to give it a new base of
74 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
poetical and philosophical theory. Note, too, what
the admissions of his apostasy imply. His own
new and theoretical heathenism demonstrates the
extinction of the old idolatries ; the apostate bor-
rows from Alexandria the ideas of Clement and of
Athanasius, who had made learning, and not igno-
rance, the handmaid of religion. From the Church,
too, he catches the ennobling principle that a lofty
moral system must sustain the new augurs and
priests of his reformed mythology; they must
rival the clergy at least in outward respectability.
Note, too, what a tribute he pays to Christianity,
in closing the Christian schools, and trying to
throw education, even in grammar and rhetoric,
into the hands of his philosophers. From first to
last, his effort to supplant the work of Constantine
demonstrates the superior statesmanship of the
latter, whose sagacity discovered that nothing re-
mained of Numa's priestcraft but a hollow shell.
Even if his dying lips are not to be credited with
the words, we may say with truth that his bitter
convictions must have been, as he bit the dust in
death, " O Galilean ! thou hast conquered."
29. CONVERSION OF THE EMPIRE.
Thus this most wonderful revolution of institu-
tions, laws, and manners which the world has ever
seen, was proved to be the outcome of a popular
conviction so general as to furnish it with a firm
support. It had become a necessity. This is the
only logical way of accounting for the conduct of
the soldiery, who hailed the accession of Jovian, and
who restored the cross to their ensigns, never again
THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. J$
to be dishonoured. Look at this dilemma of un-
belief. If the Christians were not numerous, if the
cross had not won its triumph, then all the greater
the miracle. Then Constantine supplanted the
Roman eagles on the Imperial standards while yet
the cross was infamy and all but universally ab-
horred. Who can credit this? But more, on such
a theory, he substituted churches for idol temples,
and removed the capital itself from the immemo-
rial seat of empire to adorn the first Christian city,
none presuming to remonstrate, while Christians
were yet inconsiderable in numbers and in the
influence of their' characters. Is this to be cred-
ited? But be it so! Then is the miracle all the
greater: all the stronger the right hand, all the
more manifest the stretched-out arm of the Cruci-
fied, in giving his churches rest. Have it as you
will : here is the fulfilment of the promises, but
only in part. The ages of persecution have de-
monstrated the fact that the gates of hell cannot
prevail : they have made the heathen feel that the
chariots of salvation cannot be stayed in their ca-
reer of conquest and of universal dominion. Nay,
more, they have made the princes of this world to
feel that " they come to naught."
30. C^SARS CONQUERED BY MARTYRS.
Yes, and still further, they have taught kings and
Caesars that, as Christ can triumph in spite of them,
so too can He reign without them. Come then, ye
Caesars, 1 if ye choose to be wise at last ; now when
this humbling lesson has been forced upon you, so
See Note C.
j6 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
that all mankind must see it, — now you may do
your part, if ye are ready to " kiss the Son." Take
your place as servants, if ye will, and so become
"nursing fathers" to His kingdom; but "know
yourselves to be but men," and ascribe nothing to
yourselves which Christ may permit you to do by
His grace. Abolish the brutal manners of the
heathen; throw down their foetid altars; destroy
their hateful slavery and gladiatorial shows ; re-
form the morals and the times ; give men Christian
wives, and mothers, and families ; give them the day
of the Lord ; make Christian laws to sustain hu-
man rights ; build churches ; restore the Christian
schools ; endow hospitals, enlarge charities, send
forth missions; emblazon the cross on your stand-
ards, set it on your sceptres, your orbs and crowns ;
but know that Christ needs not your patronage,
much less your control. Think of the millions of
martyrs and confessors your cruel edicts have made ;
think of the deserts and the catacombs, the wilds
and caves of the earth, to which you have driven
them ; think of the humble and the poor whom ye
have been impotent to bribe or to terrify; reflect
that, without carnal weapons, these have overcome
your legions. Behold the Caesars vanquished by
old men and women, by youth unarmed, by babes
and virgins : " Not by might, not by power, but by
my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." Own it, and
be sure of the rest. The Nazarene must reign for
ever and ever; the kingdoms of this world are to
be the kingdom of our God and of His Christ.
He has gone forth conquering and to conquer ;
He is " King of kings and Lord of lords."
LECTURE III.
THE SYNODICAL PERIOD.
I. THE CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE.
THE conversion of the Emperor introduced
the Church to new trials and temptations,
and these were, in some respects, more formida-
ble perils than those of the preceding centuries. I
have noted the influence of the persecutions, pro-
tracted through ten generations of believers, in
producing among Christians a habit of thought,
most natural in the circumstances, identifying the
Christian profession with their actual experiences.
To be a Christian was to be persecuted of course.
This was accepted as a fact, and grew into a prin-
ciple. The estate of outward prosperity was ig-
nobly selfish, if not absolutely unlawful, for the
faithful. The glories of martyrdom were naturally
exaggerated ; confessorship assumed the forms of
voluntary exile, of the celibate, of ascetic life in the
desert, in the catacombs, in caves of the earth, and
finally of monasticism. All these varieties of cross-
bearing, honourable and sanctified as they were in
themselves, were yet liable to beget extreme opin-
ions as to their merits, and fanciful views of the
life (as if less godly and consistent) of those who
78 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
served the Lord in the holy estate of matrimony,
reared families, and created the Christian home.
2. RESERVE AND MODERATION.
It is noteworthy that the new state of things
under Constantine was received by the Church
with little exultation. 1 No doubt it was, to Chris-
tians, incredible that it should continue. The Em-
peror was unbaptized ; there was no disposition to
shorten his time as a catechumen ; there was evi-
dent distrust of him, as well might be, considering
the untamed paganism of his manners. He might
at any time relapse ; and then they foresaw a re-
action, and could not be sure of his successors. A
wise and prudent reserve is the temper of the
times almost universally; but, even in accepting it
as a fact that the Empire was to be Christian, the
Church seems to have adapted herself with con-
summate caution to the novelty of the circum-
stances.
3. THE CELIBATE.
There was no haste to marry and to give in
marriage, on the part of those born Christians,
but rather, as there was now no immediate pros-
pect of martyrdom, it became a favourite idea to
prove one's deadness to the world by following St.
Anthony into the sort of life which was subsequently
developed into monasticism. Oriental in its origin,
it afterwards assumed distinct types in the West;
and, pure and useful as it was at first, the institution
1 See Note D'.
THE SYNODIC 'A L PERIOD. 79
rapidly degenerated, and, with many noble excep-
tions, became, in the East and West alike, a mere
anachronism ; unsuited to the real wants of the ages
that followed those of the great Councils. 1 In after
times the urgent necessity of reforms was met by
the creation of new orders, and these, in turn, be-
coming as salt devoid of savour, there arose in the
West the new form of "Friars," aiming to restore
an evangelical poverty and simplicity. But these
again, in their rapid degeneracy and greed of
riches, rendering the system hateful alike to the
powers of Church and State, invited spoliation and
suppression; and conflicting, as they did, with the
divine institution of the Episcopate, from alle-
giance to which they always contrived to release
themselves, they have been everywhere abolished,
or reduced to the shadows of their originally gigan-
tic proportions.
4. OTHER IMMEDIATE RESULTS.
Of other immediate effects of the great revolu-
tion, some were beneficial and some quite the re-
verse. 2 Let me rapidly glance at them in outline.
(t.) The close of three centuries of fiery persecu-
tion was of itself a gain to civilization, and in many
ways promoted the growth of the Church. To
repair the desolations of many generations ; to re-
build the churches destroyed by Diocletian, to
found new ones, and little by little to turn pagan
temples into Christian basilicas, — all this was great
gain. (2.) To enable the cowardly and ignorant
1 See Note E'. - See Note F'.
80 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
masses to hear the gospel, and to embrace it, with
impunity, was yet a greater benefit. (3.) The
blow given at once to idols and their shrines, and
the contempt into which they fell immediately,
was a leap out of the shadow of death into the
dawn of day, an unspeakable blessing to the souls
of men, and not less an emancipation of the human
intellect. (4.) But the reformation of laws, which
in some degree was an instantaneous consequence
of the change, cannot be regarded by any candid
mind without exultation. The edict for observing
the Day of the Lord (a. D. 312) was of itself a res-
toration of one of the primal endowments of man-
kind by the benevolent Father of the race, and the
speedy reform of laws affecting marriage and
divorce concurred with the recognition of Sunday
as a day of rest to endow the converted heathen
with the purified institution of the family, and with
the gift of the Christian home. (5.) Upon these fol-
lowed the erection of Christian society, in marked
contrast with Paganism, by its benevolent provis-
ions for the sick and needy, by its care for the
widow and the orphan, by suppressing open prof-
ligacy and licentiousness, by ameliorating the
public burdens of the poor, by discouragement of
gladiatorial shows, and softening the hardships of
slavery, which it gradually destroyed. (6.) The
laws, moreover, were tempered by mercies un-
known before, in the mitigation of Draconian pen-
alties, and in the protection of the poorer sort, who
were encouraged to appeal against official abuses
and maladministration ; while the germinal princi-
ple of the habeas corpus was also interposed for
THE SYNODIC AL PERIOD. 8 1
the relief of all classes. (7.) If these benefits soft-
ened the manners and elevated the morals of the
masses, It cannot be denied that indirectly they
favoured science and the domestic arts, if not as
yet the fine arts and the cultivation of letters,
which had fallen so low under the brutalized suc-
cessors of the Antonines. (8.) The founding of a
Christian city on the Bosporus, and the transfer of
the capital, were marks of a lofty genius in Con-
stantine, and this effort was not unfavourable to the
development of Christian culture in other respects.
If the movement failed to arrest the decline of
the Roman Empire, as such, it may be doubted
whether anything else contributed in the same de-
gree to its perpetuity under its new forms and con-
ditions. In the East, the direct line of the Caesars
perished not till after the middle of the fifteenth
century ; and in the West, at least the shadow of its
name vanished only with the earlier years of our
own. (9.) But, greatest of all, the immediate re-
sult of the conversion of the Empire was the
development of catholic unity by the gathering
of the Universal Episcopate at Nicaea for synodi-
cal action, and the opening of that great synodical
period which defined the Faith and the Constitu-
tions of Christendom. It laid the groundwork of
all the free Constitutions that have been since de-
veloped; the spirit of the Gospel has been the
seed of growth and progress wherever it has been
disseminated in its purity. (10.) " There was a
time," says Bishop Home, " when a Christian could
travel through the civilized world, with letters from
his bishop, finding in every city a welcome and a
6
82 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
home among his fellow Christians." The stranger,
whose very name was equivalent to that of enemy,
thus became a guest, and humanity received a new
charter from man, in the name of God. Such was
the new bond of society, the " fellowship of na-
tions," the brotherhood of the human family in the
Fatherhood of God.
5. DISADVANTAGES.
Certain temporary disadvantages may indeed be
cited by the pessimist, and worldly philosophers
may dwell on the weakening of the Empire as a
primary and fatal consequence. But, on the other
hand, even this may be doubted ; for the policy of
Diocletian in partitioning the Empire among titu-
lar Caesars had already diminished the grandeur
of the Imperial crown, had divided the strength of
the Empire, and introduced such intestine feuds as
would probably have much sooner dismembered
it and reduced it to fragmentary sovereignties, had
not some elements of new life been infused by the
bold and hazardous experiment. Far more griev-
ous is the unquestionable evil which was so soon
obvious in the court Christianity, in the worldly
religion made fashionable by the revolution. The
Church became political almost inevitably, and
men whose " kingdom was wholly of this world "
began to exercise authority in her sacred name.
" Whence hath it tares? " " The Enemy had done
this," as the Master had predicted ; and the net to
which he had likened His kingdom began to en-
close " a multitude of fishes, both good and bad."
THE SYNODIC AL PERIOD. S$
6. LASTING RESULTS.
The Church Militant here on earth must feel
the Enemy, and at times his grip is terrible. Yet
who can fail to see that, in these reprisals, he was
revenging, as he could, a tremendous convulsion,
that had rent into fragments the hold he had kept
for ages, like a " strong man armed." It was the
fury of Satan, dispossessed by one destined to
crush his head ; he had been made to feel that
the eleven Galilean fishermen were stronger than
himself, in the might of that One. In spite of all
he did then, and has been doing ever since, as the
war goes on to its glorious conclusion, we must
not fail to recognize the truth, that most substan-
tial gains to the cause of Christ were the fruit of
Constantine's mighty revolution. It greatly con-
tributed to scatter far and wide the seeds of evan-
gelization, of civilization, of human progress ; and
while it threw down the horrible despotism of
heathenism from the throne of the world, it en-
throned in its stead, as a law that cannot be
broken, the love of Christ to the world of men.
Under this law, it gathered people out of all na-
tions into one spiritual kingdom, and substituted
for a universal bondage of despair the catholic
ties of faith, hope, and charity, and of a common
destiny in life beyond the grave.
7. PRIMITIVE COUNCILS.
" He who shall introduce into public affairs the
principles of primitive Christianity will change the
84 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
face of the world." Such was the sagacious apho-
rism of Franklin, recognizing a truth not suffi-
ciently affirmed by Christians: for those principles
did change the face of the world. 1 By departing
from them, Christian nations relapse into the for-
mer barbarism satirized by Juvenal and scourged
by St. Paul. It is only where and so far as those
principles are restored, that man is a man, and the
brotherhood of humanity is maintained. Free gov-
ernments find their original in the combinations of
law and liberty which were first seen in the primi-
tive synods. These were first developed in the
East, like everything else that is Christian. They
found their model and their warrant in the Council
of Jerusalem, when the " apostles, presbyters, and
brethren " came together to deliberate, and in its
results which were published in the name of " the
whole Church." But we find councils naturalized
in Italy in the days of Hippolytus, when the sub-
urbicarian bishops confronted and humbled the
bishop who presided over them, in the free spirit
of their Master's maxim, " All ye are brethren."
But unquestionably the grand expounder of the
primitive synodical system is Cyprian, the martyr
Bishop of Carthage, who would do nothing with-
out the approval of his presbytery, — omni plebe ad-
stante, — the laity also having their place and their
voice. Note also, that while, after Ignatius in the
East, we find no one so strenuously maintaining
the principle of episcopacy as Cyprian, it is not
less true that he is equally energetic in asserting
the rights of priests and deacons, and of the whole
1 See Note G'.
THE SYXODICAL PERIOD. 85
people, — the faithful in Christ, as he loved to call
them. 1 So then, even during the martyr ages, the
synodical features of the Church's polity became
a precedent. Early Christians believed in the pres-
ence of Christ, by His Vicar Spirit, wherever two
or three were gathered in His name. They be-
lieved in His promise concerning the agreement of
the disciples in anything to be prayed for. They
considered the plural form, " Our Father," as em-
bodying the great law of the communion of saints ;
that is, of all Christians in one spiritual family.
Moreover, they understood that " where the Spirit
of the Lord is, there is liberty." It is surprising
how instinctively, when they were no longer a per-
secuted flock, this spirit showed itself in the general
demand for an (Ecumenical Council.
8. A NURSING FATHER.
Here, it is true, a new idea was generated with a
strange unanimity, illustrative, indeed, of the loyal
and dutiful spirit of Christians under the tyranny
of persecutors, but now taking a filial and loving
form toward the Emperor, as " a nursing father " of
the Church. 2 With wonder, and gratitude to God,
they not merely saw in Constantine the fulfilment
of this promise, but they naturally classed him
with those potentates whom God had raised up in
divers ages to serve and to succour His people.
If even Nero was " the minister of God to them
for good," as St. Paul had taught, how much more
was the believing Caesar another Cyrus, to whom
1 See Note H'. 2 See Note V.
86 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
God himself was saying, " Thou art my shep-
herd " ! Hence, the easy transition to a mild and
loyal " Caesarism," perilous indeed beyond all they
could then conceive, and destined to make mis-
chief in after times ; but most conspicuous at this
epoch, making emphatic the entire absence of any
papal ideas or claims, and rebuking, as it were be-
forehand, the arrogance and worldliness with which
pontiffs afterwards struggled, as they do even in
our day, for earthly crowns and for a temporal
supremacy over nations and their rulers.
The sovereign was but a catechumen, but then
Cyrus was uncircumcised. As " God's ordinance,"
they had no doubt he was in God's hand, and called
to " perform all His pleasure." His was the only
voice that could reach to every corner of the
cccnmene, and his the only bounty that could pro-
vide for the cost of an oecumenical synod. No
human being doubting, — no bishop preferring
any claim to be the authority for a call of brother
bishops, — all acquiesced in the natural course of
things, and while a Caesar voiced the wishes of the
whole Church, it was apparently the voice of
Caesar only that was heard. Again was seen that
which was foreshadowed at the nativity : " A de-
cree went forth from Caesar Augustus that all the
world should be enrolled."
9. THE TEMPORAL BISHOPRIC.
So now began that view of the relations between
Church and State which God overruled for so
much good, but which, in its developed form, has
THE SYNODICAL PERIOD. 87
been so very bad for Church and State alike. In
the primitive age the internal affairs of the Church
were not subject to any state interference : the
Church was self-governing. But her external con-
cerns and interests were largely intrusted to Caesar,
who began to be esteemed a sort of " bishop," or
overseer of its temporalities. Hence the common
concession to sovereign princes, in later times, of
the Episcopate ab extra. The Gallicans called their
kings eviques an dehors} The German Emperors
often maintained this position against the pontiffs
with a strong hand ; and the Anglicans restored to
Henry VIII. nothing more nor less than pontiffs
themselves had over and over again recognized
in the Heinrichs and the Othos. It was the un-
doubted position of Alfred and of William the
Norman. We shall have occasion to recur to this
matter when I come to Charlemagne.
10. A GENERAL COUNCIL.
As early as A. D. 313, Constantine convoked a
local council at Rome in the affair of the Dona-
tists ; but it settled nothing, though the Bishop of
Rome presided in it, and an appeal to the Emperor
led him, in the succeeding year, to call together
a more general Council of the West, at Aries, in
Gaul. Bishops from Africa came thither; and
what is more interesting to us, there were present
also, three bishops from Britain, who subscribed
to its decrees, viz. Eborius of York, Rcstitutus of
London, and Adelfius, possibly of Lincoln, though
1 See Note ]'.
88 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
his signature is ambiguous. When, eleven years
afterwards, the great see of Alexandria was shaken
by the innovations in doctrine of the unhappy
Arius, and when it was observed that the time
had come for the regulation of the paschal usages,
which were still diverse in the West from those of
the East, the sublime thought of an (Ecumenical
Synod took shape spontaneously, and the Caesar
called it to assemble at Nica^a, in Bithynia.
ii. NICyEA.
Let us pause for a minute to get some idea of a
spot so sacred in associations. The modern travel-
ler finds it a wretched site of hovels, under the
name Isnik, where, amid majestic relics, are hud-
dled together some thirty Turkish families and
about as many Christians. Great is the desola-
tion, but superb even yet are the ruins of what
was once the opulent and beautiful Nicaea, named
from the wife of Lysimachus at her own sugges-
tion. Antigonus, his predecessor, was its founder,
and he aspired to give it his own name. Its posi-
tion and importance as a centre of commerce, with
roads radiating thence in every direction, made it
a convenient place for those coming to southern
ports, from Antioch and Alexandria, or to those
arriving from the West, and landing at Ephesus or
Smyrna. Its twofold circuit of walls, with lofty
towers and gates sublime, still announces its de-
parted splendours. Lake Ascanius lies near, in
quiet beauty, surrounded by hills and groves, and
thence the land stretches upward to the Bebrycian
THE SYNODICAL rEKIOD. 89
Olympus, whose glistening domes of snow are vis-
ible in the horizon. As an emblem of what was
4one to desecrate the spot in the eighth century
under the infamous Irene, pestilence bred of stag-
nating puddles has succeeded its once delicious
and healthful climate.
Here then came the Christians. Of many
tongues they were, and from many climes. Con-
stantine himself was a native of Britain, born at
York. But all recognized the language of the
New Testament as the catholic language, and the
East as the native seat of the Church. Hosius,
Bishop of Corduba, in Spain, had lately been to
Alexandria, and it is not doubted that the Emperor
was moved to this great measure by him and by
the Alexandrian church. Here, then, " the Holy
Catholic Church" rose up before all the world
in its unity. Decius and Diocletian had made
havoc of the fathers, but " instead of the fathers
were the children." They said, " Here we are."
The gates of hell had not prevailed.
12. THE OPENING.
Then was seen the fruit of that little " handful
of corn " that Christ had left upon Olivet, and the
hills round about Jerusalem, when he went up on
high. How " green it was in all the earth" ! how
truly it " shook like Lebanon " ! The " eleven "
and " the hundred and twenty," — they had become
" the Holy Church throughout all the world," and
now their bishops came to testify that " always,
everywhere, and by all " it had acknowledged " the
90 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Everlasting Son of the Father Everlasting." Over
these Roman roads that stretched from the Capitol,
like the threads of the spider's web, to Gaul and
Britain, to Persia on the east, and by Spain to ports
that opened to Africa, the Emperor had multiplied
vehicles like the wagons which Joseph sent out
of Egypt for his father and his brethren. They
came from all lands where they had published the
Gospel of Peace, many of them men of literary at-
tainments, eloquence, and great piety; others of
them venerable confessors, relics of Diocletian's
cruelty, maimed in their banishment to dark mines,
— branded in the flesh, one deprived of an eye, an-
other " halting on his thigh," another bowed down
with age and infirmities, — " bearing in their bodies
the marks of the Lord Jesus." What a spectacle
for angels and men! Bishops, 318, like the num-
ber of Abraham's household, they enjoyed this as-
sociation with the Father of the Faithful. In divers
preliminary conferences, " like our committees of
the whole," held in a church or oratory with solem-
nities of worship, not only presbyters took part,
but also lay-brethren. The Council itself was
strictly a " house of bishops." Yet Athanasius was
there as a deacon, attending his bishop, Alexander,
who soon after left to this marvellous youth his
great patriarchal see and the defence of the faith.
Hosius was called to the presidency, but was as-
sisted probably by Eusebius. When all were
gathered in a great hall of the palace, the Caesar
appeared in imperial purple and glittering orna-
ments of state, like Saul for his stature, and stately
in his pace. He blushed as he stood face to face
THE SYNODICAL PERIOD.
91
with his fathers in God, passing from the end of
the hall to his throne, while they stood to meet
him in rows on either side. What must have been
their reflections ? What were his ? Surely there was
a shaking among the shades in Hades. If the dead
were stirred up at that moment; if Pilate, if Nero,
if Aurelius, if Decius, if Diocletian, saw their heroic
successor there among Christ's servants, standing
modestly till they begged him to be seated, —
surely they must have anticipated Julian in the
outcry, " O Galilean ! thou hast conquered." For
the moral sublime, I can hardly recall any like
moment in mere human history to be compared
with it ; its impressions upon the imagination and
the thoughtful intellect are beyond comparison
overwhelming and elevating, at once tender and
majestic. Blessed martyrs ! from your repose in
paradise were ye permitted to behold, and to
exclaim, "What hath God wrought?"
13. SIGNIFICANT FACTS.
Here two facts are to be noted. (1.) The holy
Gospels were set on a throne in the old councils 1 as
the symbol of the Holy Ghost. Above the bish-
ops and their presidents — above Caesar — O how
far ! — God's holy word was supreme. The rule
of faith was the word of God. Councils were only
to bear testimony to the universal interpretation
handed down in the churches. (2.) The regimen
and polity of all the churches were the same, —
those of Ignatius and of Cyprian. 2 Not a hint was
1 See Note K'. 2 See Note I/.
92 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
there of any difference ; from the Persian Gulf to
the Ultima Thule of the Northwest, " the ancient
customs " and traditions of Christians in this re-
spect were a unit. Now, if these were a departure
from what apostles had ordained in all the churches,
when and how was the universal innovation es-
tablished? We have the history of conflicts and
schisms, starting from very trifling novelties. How
comes it to pass, if the Episcopate was an after-
thought, an innovation, a usurpation, that no con-
vulsion followed, — no primitive witnesses recorded
their protest? How, since human nature is always
the same, were there none among the presbyters to
maintain their order against a universal invasion?
How is it — when in all the presbyteries of the
universe, respectively, some one man rose up claim-
ing to preside over them by a divine call, and to be
something which they were not — that not a voice
was heard to remonstrate, and to testify that it was
not so in the days of Polycarp, and of the holy
men who had seen the apostles and others who
had seen the Lord?
14. RESULTS OF THE COUNCIL.
The results of the Nicene Council are not left to
the fossilized past; they are universally felt to this
day. Arius, whose heresy it condemned, finally
stickled only for an iota : insert this least of all
letters between two omicrons, and he would sub-
scribe. But on the field of Waterloo the surrender
of a single bar in a farm-yard gate would have
been more fatal to Europe than the betrayal of
THE SYNODICAL PERIOD. 93
Gibraltar. So the compromise of truth by one
jot or tittle added or taken away, would have
proved the triumph of Antichrist. Not the hovioi-
ousion, but the homoousion was the truth of God.
Christ is not of like substance with the Father ; He
is the Father, " of one substance " with Him of
whom he could say, " I and my Father are one " ;
"He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."
Such is and ever was the catholic faith. Further,
the first pages of the Common Prayer, after the
tables of lessons, embody the Easter Canons of
Nicaia; its sublime symbol is recited liturgically
in all the churches ; in the Ordinal is to be found
a strict conformity to its laws for preserving the
succession of apostolic bishops. Its great canon,
recognizing the patriarchates under the law of al-
ready existing usage, but admitting no inequality
among them, except for convenience of order, has
never been repealed. It makes the two capitals,
" Old Rome " and " New Rome," as equals, first
and second on the roll, but simply because they
were the chief seats of empire ; and this great
canon is the law of the Church to this day, and
as such defines those Westerns who refuse to obey
it to be, not catholic, but schismatical.
15. THE PASCHAL LETTERS.
To Alexandria the council assigned a practical
hegemony of the churches. 1 Its bishop was to send
forth annually the computation for Easter, which
was thenceforth to be observed everywhere, by
1 See Note M'.
94 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
the Nicene canon, on the Lord's day after the full
moon following the vernal equinox, and from his
decision there was to be no appeal. Bishops on
the Tiber took their law from the Nile. The Pope
of Alexandria, for so its bishop is called to this day,
exercised no pontifical powers, but only the canon-
ical powers granted by the synod ; yet if there
was any shadow of a " papacy " at this period, it
was not at Rome. Gregory Nazianzen, himself
one of the primates of Christendom as Bishop of
Constantinople, said justly of his brother patriarch,
" The head of the Alexandrian church is the head
of the world." At a later period, Justinian's re-
script also recognizes Constantinople as the head
of all the churches.
The traditional cultivation of astronomical studies
in Egypt was thus invested with fresh interest and
utility. To the Church belongs the glory of giv-
ing to science a revived and vigorous life in this
sublime department. Men of science had kept her
fettered to the Ptolemaic system, their marvellous
invention. For two thousand years they had sworn
by it, against Pythagoras. The Court of Rome
only acted for them when it blindly imprisoned
Galileo. But the Court of Rome is not the Church,
nor has Christianity any responsibility for its fol-
lies. And let us never forget that it was a Christian
presbyter who taught to scientists the true system
of the universe. Copernicus was the forerunner
of Newton, and a herald of the Reformation.
THE SYNODIC A L rERIOD. 95
16. THE PATRIARCHATES.
Before passing to the other Oecumenical Coun-
cils, let us pause a «moment to consider these pa-
triarchal dignities, and what their name imports.
Tertullian tells us of the natural influence exerted
by the great centres upon surrounding churches ;
and, apart from civil centres, he notes the impor-
tance of those churches which had been founded
by the apostles themselves, and which were known
as " Apostolic Sees." In days when books were
few and intelligence was transmitted with difficulty,
the bishops and clergy were constantly forced to
resort to these strongholds of testimony, for the
solution of practical difficulties and for studying the
Holy Scriptures. Those who were near to Corinth
repaired to that city ; and so others went to Ephesus,
Jerusalem, or Csesarea. In the West, Rome, being
the only Apostolic See, had a larger clieutUc. But
for the preservation of order, the consecration of
bishops, the enforcement of canons, and such mat-
ters, the great centres of Antioch, Alexandria, and
Rome had gained, by force of custom and con-
venience, a pre-eminence which the Nicene Coun-
cil now made canonical. The parvenu capital
called New Rome, lifted, ipso facto, as the seat of
empire into equality with Old Rome, was made
superior, in order of mention, to the older sees of
the East. To Old Rome was conceded a primacy
of honour, both as the ancient capital and as an
Apostolic See, which Byzantium was not; but in
other respects the new capital was made its equal,
and owed it no obedience whatever. A vast juris-
96 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
diction was adjudged to Alexandria, and a very re-
stricted one to Rome, because " ancient usages "
were strictly recognized in defining these jurisdic-
tions. The subsequent Councils of Constantino-
ple and Chalccdon still more closely limited the
Roman jurisdiction, and defined it as a canonical
grant, and by no means an apostolical bequest.
All these facts must be borne in mind with refer-
ence to future discussions ; but I need not speak
here of the minor patriarchates, nor of the honor-
ary distinction of Jerusalem as the " mother of all
churches." I have already shown why she was
not invested with any corresponding powers. 1 It
is only necessary to note that Cyprus was pro-
nounced autocepJialous, having no dependency even
upon Antioch, its natural centre ; while, for like
reason, all insular churches were rendered equally
independent of the patriarchs. By this fundamen-
tal law, the Anglican Church reasserted her inde-
pendence, of which she had never been deprived
by any canonical authority. 2
17. THE GREAT COUNCILS.
The Councils truly (Ecumenical, not including
the normal Council of Jerusalem, were six. There
never has been an (Ecumenical Council since the
division of the West from its Eastern mother.
Nor in the nature of things could there be. How
can any council be universal, in which the Orien-
tals are not heard, and with which they have not
consented? But of the six which are truly Cath-
1 Lecture II. § 3. 2 See Note N'.
THE SYNODICAL PERIOD. 97
olic, four are conspicuously the Great Councils;
and these Gregory, Patriarch of Rome, reckoned
next to the Four Gospels. The fifth and sixth,
like the codicils of a will, are the supplement of
the foregoing; unlike codicils, they took noth-
ing away from their originals. They enacted no
canons. Such Councils only confirm and adjust
more specifically and minutely what their originals
established.
18. THE SECOND COUNCIL.
The Second Great Synod was held (A. D. 381)
under Theodosius, to confirm the Nicene faith
and to complete the Great Symbol, bearing testi-
mony against the " Macedonians," who were teach-
ing a new doctrine about the Holy Spirit. The
Nicene Creed, as left by the Council, did not touch
this subject, which we must infer was left to usage
indifferently; the West probably closing the Con-
fession with the language of the Apostles' Creed,
and the East reciting that of the Creed of Jerusa-
lem, so called. The Second Council now adopted
the latter, slightly expounded it, and set it forth as
the unalterable creed of Christendom. So, when
we speak precisely, we call it the Nicaeno-Con-
stantinopolitan Creed ; commonly, to say " the
Nicene Creed" is sufficiently correct. 1
This council forbade all bishops to meddle
with churches beyond their jurisdiction, and it re-
affirmed the Nicene decrees as to Alexandria and
Antioch, and also as to "New Rome." It was
1 See Note O'.
7
98 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
very numerously attended by the bishops of the
East, and was made Oecumenical afterwards by its
universal acceptance in the West. It is noteworthy
that Theodosius, who was now Caesar, had carried
on the work of Constantine so effectually as to
make the Christianity of the Empire a fixed fact.
Paganism was abolished, and temples and basilicas
were turned into churches ; but, like snow-drifts
behind walls and fences, that linger in April, while
the harvests are green in the blade about them,
Paganism had its lurking places. And far down,
till the Goths came, among the rustics of Magna
Grcecia, one might have come upon a group of
pagans, wreathing a goat or a lamb for sacrifice
before some altar of the old idolatry, concealed
by a grove, or hidden amid masses of projecting
rock ; but as for their deities,
'' They lived no longer in the faith of reason,"
and another Julian was impossible.
19. THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS.
In A. D. 431 met the Third Council, at Ephesus.
Theodosius was still Emperor. It settled the
dispute which Nestorius had raised about the two
natures of Him who is " perfect God and perfect
man," and it justified the expression Theotokos as
applicable to the mother of the God-man. This is
not literally rendered " Mother of God," which is
an awkward rendering into English of a word deli-
cately compounded in the Greek. I prefer the
beautiful Latin Deipara, or even the Greek word
reduced to the form Theotoce, the God-bearer. It
THE SYNODIC A L PERIOD. 99
means just what was said by Elizabeth, when she
saluted the Virgin as " the Mother of her Lord."
20. THE FOURTH COUNCIL.
The Fourth Council was that of Chalcedon,
A. D. 451. Marcian was Emperor, and Leo I.
was Bishop of Rome. He wanted to be some-
thing more than the canons had made him. He
honestly felt his want of power. The Western
churches needed his influence and support. Had
he been a "pope," a mere Gallican papacy
would have been a good thing for the moment.
A great man he was, but not a little peevish about
the departing dignity of his see. Naturally he
looked with some surprise upon its upstart rival ;
upon a new Rome where no apostolic foot had
ever been planted ; and naturally enough he began
to boast about St. Peter, and to rest his dignity on
the apostolic antiquity of the genuine Rome, so
cruelly stripped of its ancient headship. Yet he
could not influence the Easterns to look at it just
so. They reverenced the older seat of empire, but
there was a glory in the Christian city which had
supplanted it, and which held its unrivalled site on
the Bosporus as a trophy of the cross. Besides, the
Easterns regarded Antioch, rather than Rome, as the
great Apostolic See, where St. Peter had preached
and ministered, where St. Paul and St. Barnabas
had begun their world-wide mission ; where, while
Rome was yet without a clergy, apostles and mar-
tyrs had been moved by the Holy Ghost, in Pen-
tecostal oracles, to send missionaries to the West.
IOO INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Doubtless Old Rome had its dignities, but if An-
tioch and Alexandria could yield their apostolic
honours to the new Rome, so also must Leo.
Such, as we shall see, was the spirit of this Coun-
cil, which ratified anew what had been done at Ni-
caea and Constantinople, assigning to Old Rome,
in presence of Leo's representatives and in spite of
its distasteful features, the permanent and indelible
character of one among many apostolic sees. In
no respect was it superior to its more ancient sis-
ters, but it merited a primacy of honour, not by
any divine right, but by concession of its sister
churches, because it was the ancient capital. It
was not any more than divers other apostolic cit-
ies associated with St. Peter. It had never been
his see, for his mission was limited to Jewish
Christians, and St. Paul had the earlier claim to
be its founder, with his larger jurisdiction as the
" Apostle of the Gentiles." Such was the thrice
uttered voice of the Catholic Church, in her holy
and CEcumenical Synods. The seal and final rati-
fication were set at Chalcedon.
21. CHALCEDON.
This city was called the " City of the Blind,"
because they who founded it had overlooked the
more eligible site of Byzantium. But if theirs was
the modest ambition to enjoy rather than to traf-
fic, to satisfy taste and not commercial greed, we
must own that they were wise in their genera-
tion. Lying over against Byzantium, like Birken-
head to Liverpool, or Jersey City to New York,
THE SYNODICAL PERIOD. ioi
but on a more lofty site, Chalccdon was pre-emi-
nently a city for those who have eyes. Like Scu-
tari to modern travellers, they who preferred
seeing the " Golden Horn " to being enclosed
within its walls found it the spot where the eye-
sight might best be regaled. Let me quote
Evagrius, who adorns his account of the Fourth
Council by a rhetorical portrait of its advantages ;
and you must let me quote it in full, as evidence
of that delight in landscape which the Gospel has
incidentally done so much to develop, among all
Christian people. The church of St. Euphemia, in
the suburbs, was the appointed place of the coun-
cil, and thus speaks the historian : x —
" Directly opposite is Constantinople, and the charms
of the sacred precinct are heightened by the view of so
great a city. The site of the church is a beautiful spot, of
easy access to those who climb, and so far concealed that
before they are prepared for it they find themselves in
the holy enclosure. Here are three vast fabrics, one open
to the sky, — a spacious court, adorned with colonnades,
that surround it. From this one enters a similar area,
embellished in like manner, but covered by a roof. To
the north of this, and facing the east, is the martyr's sepul-
chre, under a dome surmounting its circular walls and
decorative columns. They who have mounted to this
site survey the level meads beneath them, green with
herbage or undulating harvests, and adorned with trees
in great variety. The range of their view takes in as well
the wooded mountains, towering in cliffs, or swelling up-
lands that approach them. They survey the sea besides ;
here, sheltered from the breezes, the quiet waters with
their dark blue tint softly courting the beach and breaking
1 Eccl. Hist., Book II. cap. 3.
102 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
upon it with gentle crispings ; or there, fiercely swelling
under the winds, and with refluent waves throwing back
the petty scallops and the sea-weed that line the shore.
The place of meeting was this sacred precinct of Eu-
phemia."
22. EUTYCHES.
Former councils had set forth the faith of ages
in the Great Symbol, and had cleared it from the
ambiguous interpretations of Nestorius. It had
now become necessary to protect it from the re-
actionary interpretations of Eutyches, who ac-
knowledged only a single nature in the Incarnate
God, so that he was of a mixed nature, and not
" perfect God and perfect man." A scandalous
assembly, which has always been known as " a
rabble of robbers," 2 had elevated the teaching of
Eutyches into a public scandal ; hence this Fourth
Council had become a necessity.
23. LEO, PATRIARCH OF OLD ROME.
Leo, the Bishop of Rome, had wished it might
be called in Italy, but the traditional East was ad-
hered to, in place and in language. He then tried
to delay the meeting, and with good show of rea-
son, for Attila and his terrible Huns had invaded
Gaul, and was ravaging the fair. seats of the Gal-
lican Church: the Western bishops, obviously,
could not be expected to attend. But Marcian,
"with pious zeal," would not brook delay. Leo
had a just position as against Eutyches, and he
was now made the rather popular and more hon-
1 Latrocinium.
THE SYNODICAL PERIOD. 103
ourable, because Dioscorus of Alexandria had
rashly excommunicated him. Though he did not
appear personally, he sent presbyters to represent
him, as good Sylvester and other predecessors had
done. In the earliest instance, the age and infirm-
ities of the Roman bishop had justified this course ;
that the precedent was followed in order to draw
councils to the West, is a surmise which Leo's con-
duct tends to make highly probable.
Out of sympathy, no doubt, Leo's desire that
he might virtually preside in the Council was com-
plied with. With others, his envoys sat as co-
presidents. It seemed but just, and balanced the
account with Dioscorus, who had excommunicated
him after presiding over the Latrocinium. The
" Fourth (Ecumenical Synod " condemned Eutyches
and closed the grand series of the Four Synods,
which correspond with the Four Gospels. But
we are chiefly to note its spirit in these two par-
ticulars : (1.) By enthroning the Gospels, as at
Ephesus, 1 we find its testimony to the supremacy
of the Scriptures maintained as from the begin-
ning, with unalterable fidelity, in the noon of the
fifth century. (2.) It reiterated, and in spite of
all Leo's efforts, in spite of his genius and his or-
thodoxy, forever fixed the relations of the Roman
see to Catholic Christendom, in unambiguous and
conclusive words, as follows : —
" We, following in all things the decisions of the holy
fathers, and acknowledging the canon of the one hundred
and fifty bishops which has just been read, do also de-
termine and decree the same things, touching the privileges
1 See Note P'.
104 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
of the most sacred city of Constantinople, the New Rome.
For the fathers justly gave the primacy to the elder
Rome, because that was the Imperial city ; and the (150)
bishops, moved with the same purpose gave equal privi-
leges to the most sacred throne of the New Rome : judg-
ing, with reason, that the city which was honoured with
the sovereignty and senate, and which enjoyed equal
privileges with the elder princely Rome, should be also
magnified, like her, in ecclesiastical matters, and be
second after her."
24 IMMUTABLE CATHOLICITY.
Nothing could be more clear. If ever there was
a moment when the Catholic Church was tempted
to create a Papacy, it was this. Great and good
was Leo, though censurable in his ambition ; the
crisis was grave ; the Western churches were threat-
ened with extinction. But no ! The Church knew
nothing about St. Peter's supremacy ; nothing about
any succession even to his primacy. The primacy
was one of honour purely, and granted absolutely
to both cities on civil grounds alone. Leo's envoys
themselves made no claim to any divine primacy,
much less to any supremacy ; they only made a
feeble appeal to the sixth canon of Nicaea, of which
they produced an interpolated copy. This forgery
aimed to neutralize the synodical gift of the pri-
macy to Rome, and made it a recognition of ab-
original institution. A bishop refuted them by
producing the genuine canon, — " Let the ancient
customs prevail," etc. They were silenced with
ignominy. Another affirmed, that when at Rome
he had read the genuine text to Leo himself, and
THE SYNODIC AL PERIOD. 10$
that Leo approved it. He must not be blamed,
therefore, for the act of his envoys. After inquiry
whether the additional canon was unanimous, there
was an outcry, "We all adhere to this decision."
The Roman envoys yet pressed their remon-
strance ; they were answered, " What we have said
has been approved by the whole Council." With
this truly Roman reply, Quod scripsi scripsi, the
Catholic Church was adjudged to have no supreme
bishop, and not even an honorary primacy, except
by a synodical concession yielded on purely civil
considerations. These considerations are now ob-
solete, and hence the primacy itself might be
awarded to Jerusalem or to Antioch, most wisely,
should a restoration of Catholic unity be granted
by the Holy Ghost, before the return of the Son
of God to complete His triumph over the Evil
One and the present evil world.
25. TWO SUPPLEMENTARY COUNCILS.
Our review of the Synodical Period is not com-
pleted until the two supplementary Councils, the
Fifth and Sixth, are at least briefly noted. They
are of a purely interpretative character, expound-
ing and limiting the work of the Third and Fourth
Councils. In the Fifth Council (a. d. 553), under
the Emperor Justinian, the " Monophysite " aggres-
sions of a century received a partial settlement. It
assembled in Constantinople in the month of May,
and, as it confirmed the preceding Councils, it is an
important witness to the universality of their re-
ception, in spite of a hundred years of agitations,
106 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
all hateful in themselves, all working for truth in
the result, and verifying St. Paul's language about
heresies. But it required another Council to throw-
out the bane of " Monothelite " refinements upon
the now inveterate heresy of Eutyches. The Sixth
and last General Council assembled (November 7,
A. D. 680) in the " Trullus," or dome-crowned hall
of the palace, in New Rome. Constantine the
Bearded was Emperor, and presided in person
with dignity. It is gratifying to find that far down
in the seventh century the Easterns still led the
whole Church, and were able to close the period
of CEcumenical Synods with entire fidelity to the
spirit of Nicaea. Their testimony settled the Mes-
sianic controversies forever. Sifted to the bran,
the Scriptures were found to have given no un-
certain sound. The Christ of the Gospels was the
God-man, perfect in his divine nature and perfect
in his human nature ; our " elder brother," and yet
the Father's Consubstantial and Co-eternal Son.
26. RATIFICATIONS.
But, as bearing on subsequent histories, these
auxiliary Councils yield an emphasis to the action
of the entire synodical series, which is invaluable
to the Catholic of our ages, who is called to resist
the heretical system of Trent, and of its flagrant
successor, the late " Council of Sacristans," 1 and
the decrees of Pius IX. Observe that a hundred
years after the ambitious theory of Leo had been
dismissed with ignominy at Chalcedon, Catholicity
1 The late Archbishop of Paris (Darboy) gave it this name.
THE SYNODICAL PERIOD. 10 J
knew nothing of it in doctrine or discipline. Rome
herself had repeatedly ratified and confirmed all
that had been done in spite of her, and now she
was forced to set her seal, with final and conclusive
force, against the Leonine assumptions. At this
date, then, there was no Papacy. But note the
clinching facts which follow.
The Fifth Council was called, not only without
reference to any authority of the Bishop of Rome,
but against his sullen and stubborn remonstrance.
Vigilius, by name, was censured in its acts, and
died soon after in disgrace ; but not before he had
humbly subscribed to its decisions, and ascribed
his own previous opposition to the instigation of
Satan. The unprincipled Pelagius, who had been
his accomplice, and very discreditably became his
successor, also subscribed to the Council, and en-
forced its acceptance ; but he too died soon after,
and has left a name stained with the taint of an un-
lawful intrusion into his office. Both were Bishops
of Rome, but it is evident they were not Popes.
27. THE FINAL JUDGMENT.
And now comes the final judgment of the Catho-
lic Church as to the Bishops of Rome. This Trul-
lan Council, called without any warrant from Old
Rome, and presided over by the Emperor with uni-
versal approbation, closed its work by a memora-
ble act, of which even Bossuet and the Gallicans
have recognized the vast significance. Honorius,
Bishop of Rome, had patronized and defended the
Monothelite heresy, but his successors had tried to
IOS INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
cover up his errors and to make out an apology
for his course. This made matters serious. The
Council had to examine his letters, and their final
decision was, that " in all things Honorius has fol-
lowed the opinions of Sergius, and has sanctioned
his impious (Monothelite) teachings." His letters
were ignominiously burned, his name was subjected
to perpetual anathema, and Leo II., his successor
(a. D. 682), not only ratified this solemn testimony,
but added his own, condemning Honorius because,
instead of " purifying his apostolic see by the
doctrine of apostolic tradition, he had yielded its
purity to defilement by a profane betrayal of the
faith." Over and over again have the Bishops of
Rome ratified this anathema, as required by the
forms of the Liber Diurnus, which every pontiff
was for ages obliged to sign on his election.
There is no escape from the conclusion ; and with
this one fact before us down falls the entire sys-
tem of Trent, and all that has been based upon it
since, more especially in the decrees of the late
Pope addressed to his " Vatican Council." To im-
pute any " supremacy," or " infallibility," to the
Bishops of Rome, is to destroy the whole Catholic
system, and to justify all the heresies and schisms
they have taught, including those which the Church,
in her Great Synods, has so mightily rebuked. 1
28. WHO ARE CATHOLICS.
"When shall we see the Church," said St. Ber-
nard, "as it was in the ancient days?" Should
1 See Note Q'.
THE SYNODICAL PERIOD. 109
Rome herself return to catholic unity, and to un-
feigned love of truth and right, who would grudge
to her the old canonical primacy? Let her Bish-
ops follow St. Peter's example and humility, — who
would deny to them anything that St. Peter him-
self ever received in the way of honour and filial af-
fection? Not I, for one. But so long as the recent
Latrocinium of the Vatican presumes to enforce a
creed which the fathers never knew, and to rend
the Church with new divisions, followed up by
anathemas most impious and profane, " let us hold
fast the profession of our faith without wavering."
We are the Catholics, — we who accept no innova-
tions, — we who cry out with the Nicene fathers,
" Let the ancient customs prevail." The great con-
temporary exponent of the Four Councils is Vincent
of Lerins. His " Commonitory " is the voice of
the fifth century as to the rule of faith, and the echo
of the Synodical Period. It shows that he only is
the Catholic who maintains the truth as professed
from the beginning, " always, everywhere, and by
all." No matter how few in number, if they stand
by antiquity. A hundred and twenty souls once
made up Catholicity. Such was Athanasius when
" all forsook him and fled,"— when he stood against
the world.
LECTURE IV.
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE.
i. THE BREAKING UP OF OLD ROME.
PURPOSELY I have avoided choking my sub-
ject with the intensely interesting, but mys-
tifying, details of the breaking up of the Roman
Empire in the West. Hardly was the Christian
metropolis founded on the Bosporus, when the
Goths and Vandals began to make their terrible
names known to the Empire, and to receive their
momentary repulse from Constantine. The in-
undations of barbarism were stayed till the great
Theodosius had left a divided sway to his sons.
The triumphant siege and pillage of Rome by
Alaric begins a new period of history for the
world. Augustine trembled in Africa before the
downfall of an imperial system long supposed to
be eternal, — the last development of law for man-
kind. He composed his " City of God " to illus-
trate the only durable empire, and to disprove the
outcries of the heathen remnant in the West, that
the contempt of Numa's gods had occasioned the
disasters of the age.
THE CREA TION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. 1 1 1
2. THE GOTHS, VANDALS, AND HUNS.
The Goths were Christians of a sort : they pro-
fessed Arianism, and their conquests were some-
how capable of being harmonized with the Impe-
rial power of New Rome. But had they made
themselves permanent masters of the West, Arian-
ism, which the Council of Nicaea had proved to
be at war with the catholic faith of Scripture,
must have overspread the West. It pleased God
to subject Rome to fresh humiliations under the
savages of Genseric, who also ravaged Northern
Africa and its primitive seats of Latin Christianity.
Then came the onset of Attila, " the Scourge of
God," more general in its sweep of flame than all
that had devoured before. The Goths and Ostro-
goths, however, who enjoyed a temporary occupa-
tion of Italy for two generations, made themselves
a satrapy of the Empire, and after the extinction
of Augustulus somewhat prolonged the Imperial
fiction in the West.
Meantime, God was raising up the Franks.
They became a Christian race under Clovis, in
whose name we recognize that of Louis, familiar-
ized to us by subsequent history. If one con-
siders the changes brought upon Europe by the
invasions of Italy, Gothic and Teutonic, — by the
overflow upon Spain, from all sides, of Goths,
Moors, Franks, and nameless hordes brought with
them and after them, — as also the correspond-
ing movements along the Rhine and through all
Germany and ancient Belgium, — the rise of such
a creature and creator as could mass them and
112 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
give shape to their destinies must be recognized
as proof of a God who rules and overrules the
universe. Referring you to the usual sources of
information upon this meagre outline of the grand
movements of Providence for developing Modern
Europe, we now come to the dread and imposing
career of Charlemagne. It was his to reconstruct
after devastation, to regulate after nomadic chaos,
and to prepare the way for forms of civilization
which are perpetuated even in our own times.
3. RETROSPECT.
Let us return for a moment to the period of the
Councils, and trace the hand of Providence in
putting an effectual close to it by what is called
the Disunion of East and West. Since that " dis-
union " — the mild word for a schism, which sus-
pends fun ctional unity, but does not destroy organic
life and spiritual communion — it is manifest that
no oecumenical or catholic council has been pos-
sible. The Greeks might meet in Eastern synods,
or the West in Occidental ones; but no catholic
action is possible without the free and united con-
sent of Greeks and Latins. The old patriarchates
of the East must be heard in any synod truly
oecumenical; but even they cannot make any
canons or customs for Christendom without the
free acceptance of all the Western churches. The
patriarchate of Rome never was allowed to con-
sent in the name of the entire West, for the Cath-
olic Church restricted its jurisdiction to Lower
Italy and adjacent islands ; if, indeed, the " sub-
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. 113
urbicarian " limits included so great a range as
this.
Bearing this in mind, we must take a retrospect-
ive glance at certain provincial councils, ambitious
of the cecumenical name, in which the Synodical
Period found its limits ; like a majestic river, los-
ing itself at last amid marshes and lagoons, in petty
mouths and friths, which leave undistinguishable
the unity of its current, or the point where the
name of the river belongs to any one division of its
tides.
4. MINOR COUNCILS.
The Fifth and Sixth Councils failed to enact
canons, and hence a council (a. d. 692) which
aimed to supply this defect is called the Quini-
Sext, to indicate its supplementary character, as a
sequel to both. It was held in Constantinople.
The Latins, however, would not accept it. It
displeased Rome, because it maintained the old
canonical equality of New Rome, and also the
rights of the married clergy, which Rome was
trying to suppress in Italy. Early in the next
century, the walls of churches in the East and
West alike had become disfigured by wretched
caricatures of our Lord and of the saints, known as
Icons ; not graven or molten images, but misera-
ble daubs with tinsel decorations ; bits of tinfoil
silvered or gilded, often covering all but the face
and hands of the absurd figures. Against these
objects all the canons of good taste cried out;
but every page of the early fathers which as-
sailed the heathen images not less bore witness
S
I 14 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
that Christianity abhorred such things. It is dis-
graceful to reflect, however, that it was left to a
semi-barbarian Emperor to imitate the zeal of
Epiphanius, who had torn to shreds the first thing
of the kind of which we hear in history. Leo III.,
the Isaurian, issued his edict (a. D. 724) against
them. It caused him endless confusions and dis-
tresses to sustain this policy, till he died, in A. D.
741. The excesses of his zeal, not always accord-
ing to knowledge, had rendered the name of " the
Iconoclasts " not a little odious, when his very
able but unfortunate son and successor, Constan-
tine V., to whom clings the scornful name Copro-
nymus, called a council to settle the matter. It was
attended by more than three hundred Eastern
bishops, who condemned the Icons, with unques-
tionable fidelity to antiquity. This council has no
claim to oecumenical character; but when, not long
afterwards, the Western churches bore precisely
the same testimony in one of the most memorable
of Western councils, we have irrefragable evidence,
putting both together, that such was the unbiassed
testimony of the Catholic Church in the eighth
century, and long after its close.
5. IRENE.
Leo IV., the feeble son of the fifth Constan-
tine, was the " husband of his wife," the Athenian
Irene, who did not wait till he died to " reign in his
stead.'' When he died, under a dose administered
by her, she became regent for her son, and with a
taste for art quite feminine, but hardly Attic, she
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMTIRE.
115
made herself the fanatical patroness of pictures
which Zeuxis would have laughed at. Beautiful,
but infamous, the poisoner of her husband after-
wards slew her son, the boy Emperor, usurping
his throne and making herself the first Empress in
the line of the Caesars. She bewitched the court,
and was able to carry all before her by corrupting
many of the clergy and banishing powerful nobles.
At one time she had a scheme to marry the great
King of the Franks ; but, Bluebeard as he was
with his nine wives, he had tastes and schemes of
his own, and did not care to be poisoned. Her
name means peace, but Alecto and her sister furies
all seemed incarnate in her. This was the Jezebel
whom Adrian, the Roman patriarch, forgetting
the warnings of the Apocalypse, encouraged and
patronized in mingling her cup of fornications.
Thank God, our English Alcuin rebuked her for
presuming to teach in the church, against the in-
spired command of St. Paul. This wicked woman
convened a council at Nicaea (a. d. 787), which ex-
cept in its name has no claim to any association
with the great Nicene Synod. Just as " Romulus-
Augustus " was the name of the poor creature in
whom Old Rome perished ignominiously, so the
council called with solemn irony Deutcro-Niccne
overruled the second commandment and all Chris-
tian antiquity, and established image-worship.
6. A COUNTER COUNCIL.
The Roman patriarch accepted it, and officially
proclaimed its acceptance in the West; but Adrian
Il6 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
had a master beyond the Alps, and the great West
was soon able to speak for itself in a free council.
It was called by Charles, King of the Franks,
and assembled at Frankfort, a. d. 794. It over-
ruled Adrian and his officious pretensions, refuting
Irene's council, — corroborating, in fact, the testi-
mony of the previous council of Constantine the
Fifth. Of all councils not oecumenical, Frankfort
comes nearest to being such ; and it worthily and
nobly brings to a close the period of the synodical
testimony of the whole undivided Church.
7. THE RULE OF FAITH.
What then was the rule of faith recognized and
established by all the CEcumenical Councils? The
answer comes to us, as from that lofty seat on which
the Gospels were enthroned at Ephesus and at
Chalcedon, when Vincent of Lerins replies, " The
Holy Scriptures." But when we come to inter-
pretation, What is the rule? he answers, "What
from the beginning has been received always,
everywhere, and by all."
8. THE MAXIM OF VINCENT.
Such is the great principle established by Tertul-
lian, in his " Prescription against Heretics." But,
as I reminded you, it is convenient to quote it in
the aphorism of Vincent; his test of catholicity
being so terse in statement, so clear in application,
and so conclusive in its force. It comes to us just
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. I I 7
at the epoch that closed the Four Great Councils,
and certifies us as to the whole spirit of their legis-
lation in words that are "nails and goads." Ob-
serve then, (1) negatively, that no one bishop or
see was of any decisive weight in the definition of
doctrine. " No," says Vincent, quoting St. Paul,
" nor an angel from heaven, should he teach any-
thing that was not from the beginning." But
(2) positively, catholic doctrine must be that
which has been " always held " ; (3) and that not
merely in one church, see, or patriarchate, but
" everywhere " ; and (4) not merely everywhere,
by some individual doctor, speaking his private
opinion, or presuming to speak for others, but
"by all," — that is to say, with the Amen of the
whole Church ratifying and confirming the same.
Such was catholicity then, as understood by the
undivided Catholic Church; and with this under-
standing we shall better comprehend the melan-
choly divisions we must soon consider.
9. THE COUNCIL OF FRANKFORT.
Let us dwell a little longer on the Council of
Frankfort. It stands for the old landmark. I
claim for it no secondary place in church his-
tory; it shows a far-reaching proleptical wisdom,
of which God only could have been the author.
Let it be praised for its invaluable testimony to
the faith, as essentially unaltered at its date, and
for its thunders of remonstrance against Irene's
degenerate bishops: "We have no such custom,
neither the churches of God."
Il8 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
It is gratifying to an Anglo-Catholic moreover,
that he may identify in this epoch the first move-
ment of the Church of England towards her present
position in Christendom. Nobly had she earned her
Jicgemony by the exceptional spirit of her history
in this century so degenerate elsewhere. To her
Winfrid, apostle and martyr of Saxony and the
Rhineland, Charles knew that he and his Franks
owed their origin as Christians. The " Low Coun-
tries " also, and their see of Utrecht, so honourably
distinguished even in its decay, were the product
of English missionary zeal and intrepidity. What
Alexandria was at Nicaea, England was at Frank-
fort. What Athanasius was under Constantine,
that our Alcuin was under Charlemagne. The
council was called by this great King of the
Franks, without any idea of waiting for a sum-
mons from Adrian, the Roman bishop. Nor did
Adrian interpose any remonstrance, even when it
overruled him and nullified his obsequious and
heretical consent to Irene's dogma. This all-im-
portant fact proves that the Roman patriarch was
not yet a " pope." Nobody dreamed that he alone
could summon councils; none held that his appro-
bation decided doctrine, or that communion with
him was the test of Catholicity. Charles conducted
himself in this business, from first to last, as the
imperial bishop, — the episcopus ab extra, — doing
what Constantine had done before him. But in
things spiritual Alcuin led the council, under the
Holy Spirit.
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. IIQ
10. ALCUIN.
This great light of the eighth century was born
at York, and nurtured in theology under Egbert,
its learned and pious archbishop. Egbert is the
link between Alcuin and Bede the Venerable, who
seventy years previously had illuminated our Saxon
forefathers with the sunbeams of his godliness and
learning. A darker age was soon to follow ; but
Alcuin now did a work for England and for Chris-
tendom which enabled the immortal Alfred, in the
succeeding century, to repel in some degree, by
his own piety and genius, the ignorance and bar-
barism to which for a time his clergy were about
to succumb. Alcuin had early attracted the admi-
ration of Charles, who, while he yet signed " his
mark " and could not write his name, invited him
to the Frankish court, made him the preceptor of
his household, learned all that he knew of sci-
ence and theology under his mastership, and made
him the conscience-keeper " whom the king de-
lighted to honour." In defeating an attempt to re-
vive Nestorianism he became conspicuously chief
at Frankfort where for the second time he refuted
the heresy of Felix, Bishop of Urgel. It is hardly
to be doubted that Charles summoned the council
at Alcuin's suggestion. And here let us note what
more we owe to this illustrious light and glory of a
degenerate age.
11. UNIVERSITIES, AND THEIR ORIGIN.
He was the parent of universities : he founded a
school of learning in the palace at Aix-la-Chapelle,
120 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
and by his influence similar academies were insti-
tuted in France and Italy. When he modestly re-
tired from the court to Tours in France, he there
established a school in the abbey of St. Martin ;
but he kept up his influence with Charles by a
constant correspondence.
Let me quote one of his letters, 1 which throws a
flood of light upon his work, upon his times, and
upon the state of things among our ancestors in
the England of that day. He says : —
"The employments of your Alcuin in his retirement
are suited to his humble sphere, but they are neither
ignoble nor useless. Here I spend my time in teaching
the noble youths about me the mysteries of grammar, and
inspiring them with a taste for the learning of antiquity.
I explain to them the system and revolutions of the starry
hosts in the heavenly vault, and to others I open the se-
crets of divine wisdom contained in the Holy Scriptures.
I endeavour to suit my instructions to the capacities of my
pupils, hoping to make them ornaments of your court
and of the Church of God. In this work I find great lack
of many things which I enjoyed in my native country ;
particularly of those excellent books which could there
be had under the care and expense of Egbert, my great
master. May it please your Majesty, therefore, to allow
me to send some of my pupils into England to get the
books we want, that so, animated by your own most ar-
dent love of learning, we may transplant the flowers of
Britain into France. Thus their fragrance shall no
longer be confined to York, but may perfume the palaces
of Tours."
And so chiefly to him we owe the subsequent
learning of Europe. He is described as an orator,
1 See Note R'.
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. 121
mathematician, philosopher, and the greatest divine
of his times. Young gentlemen, reflect that here,
in Ann Arbor, where within the memory of living
men stood the wigwams of savages, if you arc able
to pursue all the liberal arts and sciences with the
accumulated advantages of modern attainments, it
is because Alcuin flourished a thousand years ago,
and by his genius, " like a light shining in a dark
place," laid up, as in magazines against years of
famine that were to follow, the harvests which
he gathered like Joseph for the salvation of his
brethren.
12. THE CAROLINE BOOKS.
At Frankfort, then, truth was rescued from its
perils by this same master spirit. Four books,
probably the work of Alcuin, 1 and known as " the
Caroline books," were composed, under the direc-
tion of Charles, to sustain the second canon of
Frankfort, which condemns the Deutero-Nicene
Council and all worship of images. Thus Adrian
himself was taught to obey the ancient constitu-
tions by the unanimous and free testimony of the
Gallican and Anglican bishops. " The Church of
God doth altogether abominate the doctrine that
images ought to be worshipped," says Roger
Hoveden, an old English historian of the twelfth
century; and Matthew of Westminster, in the thir-
teenth, praises Alcuin for writing against the new
heresy, " fortified by the authority of the Holy
Scriptures."
1 See Note S'.
122 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
By all sorts of refinements and hair-splittings
Roman theologians have subsequently defended
Adrian and accepted the Council of Irene, pre-
tending that Alcuin and his contemporaries did
not understand the decrees they so indignantly
rejected, and that they only objected to rendering
divine worship to images. On the contrary, says
a very learned authority, " Nothing can be stronger
than the opposition of the Caroline Books to every
act or appearance of worship as paid to images,
even to bowing the head before them or burn-
ing lights." Alas ! the Western churches, in their
downfall under the Paparchy, have gone far be-
yond the Greeks in this species of corruption. To
this day, the Greeks protest against graven images,
and adhere only to the use of pictures, which they
are learning to excuse as meant for ornament, and
so to be respected and not profaned ; while some
of their theologians merely reject " Iconoclasm,"
or the wanton destruction of pictures, approaching
very nearly to the limit of our own use of stained
glass. For the Greeks there is some excuse : un-
learned and groaning for centuries under the Turk-
ish yoke, they have been little able to study their
own Fathers or the Holy Scriptures. One wonders
that they can be as enlightened and faithful as they
are, compared with the Latins, who have done their
utmost to make them as corrupt as themselves.
But a better day is begun : let us pray for the ven-
erable churches of the East, and repay them, as did
the Roman matron, who bared her chaste bosom to
her aged father in prison, and gave him fresh tides
of life in requital of the life she owed to him.
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EM TIRE. \2X
13. THE DEGENERACY OF THE EAST.
Reflecting on Irene's fatal success, one wonders
how the East could so far have forgotten herself as
to descend in any councils from the high themes
that had once agitated her glorious churches and
the immortal doctors of her schools. Think of
Athanasius, gravely asked to come down from his
eagle-gaze upon the sunlight of God's throne to
disputes about the homage due to counterfeits,
— the portraits of players and prostitutes, often
profanely called the Icons of Christ and his Virgin
Mother ! Nothing can excuse the degeneracy of
which the Pscudo-Niccne Synod is a memorial,
but perhaps we can explain it. I have already
noted that there stands at Rome a landmark, which
even in Lord Byron's day was only —
" A nameless column with a buried base."
Excavations have since unearthed that base, and
disclosed the hateful name which it commemorates.
It is the pillar of Phocas, — a creature with whom
Irene may be properly paired as a twin. Two
names in Christian history more infamous than
these it would be hard to find, till we come to the
century of the earliest Popes. Now that pillar of
Phocas marks the beginning of two calamities un-
equalled in their effects upon all succeeding ages
of the Church. (1.) The first was the appearance,
under the patronage of Phocas, of a Roman bishop
who did not tremble to bring upon himself the
name of " the forerunner of Antichrist," which
his predecessor, Gregory the Great, hardly cold in
his grave, had bequeathed to any one who should
124 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
accept the title of " Universal Bishop." (2.) The
second was the rise of Mohammed, who just then
was forging his Koran. These were possibly the
horrible figures which revealed to St. John in
Patmos the period of decay and corruptions of
Christianity which were coming to pass. 1 He
shuddered to record them, and well may we to read
the fulfilment. If it were not for the Apocalypse,
I should not be able to support my faith that the
Church of God is still His Church ; so long has she
suffered iniquity to rule supreme where once her
apostles and martyrs bore testimony to the Gospel
in its power.
14. MOHAMMED.
Mohammed owed his abhorrence of idolatry to
heretical Christians, who were his first instructors.
The Nestorian monks, who had rejected the truth
about " the God-bearing Mary," had seen a re-
actionary tendency among the orthodox to pay her
an almost idolatrous homage. Hence their in-
flamed orthodoxy on this point, that " Mary is to
be honoured, not worshipped." When her Icons
began to be multiplied and derided by these, it
was easy to infer that what heretic Nestorians de-
nounced should be patronized by the orthodox;
and when the Saracens began to despoil and over-
throw Christian churches, destroying the Icons in
obedience to Mohammed, it was human nature to
fall into the opposite extreme, and to begin to adore
what heretics and Mohammedans abhorred. Alas
that Mohammed had felt what Christians began to
1 Rev. xvii. 6, 7.
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. 1 25
forget, the unspeakable degradation of humanity
when it permits the mind of man to offer religious
worship, on any pretext, to anything less than
God Almighty ! It seems to have been under a
divine impulse that Islam came forth avenging
the Decalogue, under a mission from the insulted
Lord who makes " the wrath of man to praise
Him."
15. SUCCESSES OF MOHAMMED.
Observe the marvellous sweep of the besom he
wielded among the dim candlesticks of many an
Eastern and Western Sardis or Laodicea. The
year of the Hegira is A. D. 622, and ten years later
the impostor perishes. One year afterwards Jeru-
salem had fallen before the terrible Caliph ; Caesa-
rea and Antioch followed, and all Syria was mas-
tered by Islam. In all history is there a scene more
strikingly dramatic than that which narrates how
the patriarch Sophronius confronted Omar, after
fruitlessly defending the Holy City and being
forced to capitulate. The venerable bishop met
Omar in the gates, the barbarian entering in his
raiment of camel's hide, followed by his locust
hordes. " Truly," said the holy man, " I see the
abomination that maketh desolate, as spoken of
by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy
place." Truly, as never before, " Jerusalem was
now trodden down by the Gentiles." Next, Alex-
andria is taken; her glorious candle is put out;
the Alexandrian library perishes. On goes the
devouring fire. For the present Constantinople is
repeatedly assaulted in vain ; but Northern Africa
126 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
is devoured before it Carthage and Hippo, al-
ready laid waste by Genseric, and all those an-
cient churches, are consumed. In A. D. 710, the
Saracens land at Gibraltar; all Europe is threat-
ened with desolation; Spain is overrun, and in
A. D. 725 the hordes of Islam have penetrated into
France and captured Autun. But here God raises
up Charles Martel, who strikes the Saracens with
a decisive blow at Tours, and finally, laud be to
God ! he drives them out of France. He dies in
A. D. 741, but in the next year his grandson, whom
we call Charlemagne, is born, destined to settle the
Carolingian line of kings in France, and in many
particulars to revolutionize Europe and the world.
It is important to recall all these facts, if we would
comprehend the degradation of the East, the epoch
of the Council of Frankfort, and the blessings we
owe to the Venerable Bede, to Egbert, and to
Alcuin.
16. ISNIK AND DAN.
We see, perhaps, in this review, how it came to
pass that Irene's clergy could yield to her corrup-
tions. It was testifying against Mohammed and
the Nestorians. But go now to miserable Isnik,
that once was Nicaea, and see to what God has
reduced her, just as, of old, he gave his temple to
the flames, and to long years of ruin, under the
Chaldeans. The tribe of Dan has lost its name
in Israel because it introduced the contempt of the
second commandment, and polluted truth with
idols. 1 So Nicaea is blotted out.
1 Compare Gen. xlix. 16, Rev. vii. 8, and Judges xviii. 30.
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. \2J
17. FRANKFORT ONCE MORE.
We may now come back to Frankfort. God is
faithful to His promise : " When the enemy shall
come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall
lift up a standard against him." Surely, if ever
there was a flood of iniquity and desolation, it
was now poured out in fire and fury upon the
churches. Alcuin and Frankfort were the stan-
dard of the Lord against Mohammed and against
Adrian, as well as against Irene. But Frankfort is
not immaculate. It admitted into the Nicene sym-
bol those words, and the Sou, — which, true as they
are, are no part of the creed. Here the Easterns
find, justly, a ground of complaint against us. At
Nicaea, the fathers would not tolerate the introduc-
tion of an iota into their testimony. The Greeks
complain that we owe to this innovation all the
additions to the Creed which have been made
by the Popes. Here is our mistake ; " Ephraim
shall yet say, What have I any more to do with
idols?" till then "let not Ephraim envy Judah,
nor Judah vex Ephraim." But for the rest, in the
spirit of Alcuin, let us adopt the thrilling words
of a modern Anglican, worthy to be named with
Alcuin himself, the holy Bishop Ken. Hear his
faithful testimony in his last will and testament: —
"As for my religion, I die in the Holy Catholic and
Apostolical Faith professed by the whole Church before
the disunion of East and West ; more particularly I die in
the communion of the Church of England, as it stands
distinguished from all Papal and Puritan innovation, and
as it adheres to the doctrine of the cross."
128 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
That is my standpoint, young gentlemen. It en-
ables you to comprehend the entire spirit of these
Lectures.
iS. THE BLESSED RESULTS.
Note then as concerning Frankfort: (i.) It is
an index of " the goodness and severity of God,"
in dealing with a degenerate Christendom. (2.) It
is a token of His fidelity in " reserving to himself"
many millions of men who " had not bowed the
knee to Baal." (3.) It shows us just where the
churches stood on the eve of the great disruption ;
how terribly the Latin churches had been dimin-
ished ; how marvellously the Church of England
had been raised to influence, and was permitted at
this crisis to sow the seeds of her subsequent res-
toration, and to bear a testimony which she was
destined to reclaim as her heritage forever. (4.) At
the same time, it marks a great epoch in the eccle-
siastical history of France ; it proves that as yet
Rome, however exaggerated her pretensions, was
not the seat of a Paparchy ; it renews the spirit of
Irenaeus and Hilary ; it creates what was after-
wards called Gallicanism. (5.) It enables us to
comprehend the more modern Councils of Con-
stance and of Basle, so far as they asserted what
was true to antiquity. (6.) But especially should
we note the hand of God, who thus closed up the
period of CEcumenical Councils just when they
were no longer likely to prove true to their charter
in the Scriptures ; when they had stooped down
from the Gospels and the adorable Trinity to fables
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. 1 29
and to Icons. It was Divine fidelity to the promise
that interposed and saved all subsequent corrup-
tions of truth from any claim to catholic con-
sent. And (7.) I cannot but add that we see the
same hand in giving us of the West something to
confess with shame, when we remonstrate with the
Easterns. " Tu qnoque /" they may reply; "there
is a beam in your own eye."
19. CHARLEMAGNE.
When Charles Martel struck the Saracens, it
was God who stayed the ravages of the enemy,
and for a time said, " Thus far, but no further."
How great he waxed, ruling the Franks under
nominal kings of the long-haired race, — how his
son Pepin the Short deposed them and reigned in
their stead, and how Charles succeeded as king
and founded the Carolingian line, — are not all these
things written in school-books? But look at him
with whose name the epithet "Great" has been
so incorporated that it is all one word. At Aix-
la-Chapelle I have seen a group of peasants sing-
ing their German hymns before daybreak, under
the dome that once covered his remains. They
stepped aside, and I read upon the slab which
had been trodden by their rough shoes, Carolus
Magnus. It was there that his remote successor,
Barbarossa, opening the sepulchre three centuries
after his burial, saw his gigantic skeleton sitting on
a throne, crowned and decked in imperial robes,
his falchion in his grasp, and the Gospels opened
upon his knees. They still show one of the bones
9
130 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
of his terrible arm : our measure called a foot is
said to come from his giant foot, twelve inches
long. Like Constantine, this Titan was one of
those mysterious beings who perform all the Lord's
good pleasure, while only seeking their own. Mar-
vellous is this economizing of man's free will by
the omnipotence of the All-wise and All-good. In
such characters we are pretty sure to find evil and
good mingled in vast proportions. This mysterious
creature, who fascinates and astonishes and over-
awes, is yet, in some aspects, a ferocious barbarian,
a moral monster. 1 Nevertheless, on the whole, he
was a benefactor of the world. He seemed to fore-
cast the destinies of Europe ; he tamed barbarous
tribes; he encouraged learning; he shaped the des-
tinies of mankind for ages after him. As for his
religion, like Jehu, he had a zeal for God, and he
"drave furiously." The Church has felt his influ-
ence, for woe or weal, ever since he lived. It would
be of no use to prejudge him ; as to motives, no
doubt they were mixed. If he was very cruel,
not less so was Theodosius. Like Cyrus, like
Alexander, he was an " arrow of the Lord's deliv-
erance " ; he was the saw and the hammer in the
hand of the Almighty.
20. CHRISTMAS DAY, A.D. 800.
We have seen him helping the saintly Alcuin
to humanize and Christianize the Franks, to tame
the ambitious Adrian, to rebuke Irene and her
degenerate bishops; and now we must follow him
1 See Note T.
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. 131
to another chapter of his amazing history. We
cross the 'Alps; we watch him as he enters Rome;
we seem to see him kneeling before the altar, in
the old basilica of St. Peter, on Christmas day,
A. D. 800. On a sudden, what happens? Leo III.,
the patriarch, the pontiff, the nondescript whom
Pepin had made a temporal satrap by giving his
predecessors the exarchate of Ravenna, — lo ! he
comes forward and places an imperial crown upon
the head of the Frank sovereign, and salutes him
as Emperor. " Long live the Caesar ! " " Long
live Augustus ! " " Long live the Emperor of the
Romans ! " Such were the shouts that rent the
air; such was the stupendous drama of that event-
ful day. O what a contrast with that first Christ-
mas, that brought peace on earth and good will
to men !
21. WHAT IT MEANT.
Well ! what had been done? " He had revived
the Empire of the West," is the common reply.
Nothing of the kind was in his thought. He had
mentally deposed Irene, and succeeded to her
place, remanding the woman to her distaff. He
had hopes of reversing the work of Constantine,
and reducing Constantinople down again to Byzan-
tium. It was no more to be " New Rome," nor
any kind of Rome; Old Rome was restored to
herself, and Charles was the successor of all the
Caesars in their ancient Capitol. Such seems to
have been his vast, far-reaching, and almost su-
perhuman thought. It looks hard to doubt his
132 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
assertion that Leo surprised him. But all appears
preconcerted, and I imagine the " surprise " was as
to Leo's manner, not as to the act. The shouts of
the multitude, echoing through the cathedral, were
no doubt unexpected.
22. WIDELY DIFFERENT EFFECTS.
Recall the fact that Southern Italy was at this
time theoretically under Irene, and Leo III. was
her subject. It was the first instance of the scep-
tre of the Empire passing into the hands of a
woman, and much talk there had been of her own
scheme of marrying the King of the Franks, so
cementing by new bonds the East and West.
Happily, this did not take place, for such state-
craft would doubtless have defeated its purpose
and made everything worse. The coup d'etat by
which this all-powerful Frank wrenched the West
from Irene proved a success then only in part.
It failed in so far as the Caesars of the East were
able to continue the Byzantine line for more than
seven centuries in New Rome. But things were
altogether ripe for a fresh start in the West with
Old Rome for the capital, and, if by a mere fiction
Charles and his successors considered themselves
Caesars of the West, he was in fact the founder of
a new imperial throne, without parallel or paragon.
The act of Leo in giving him his crown, though it
was possibly a mere coup de theatre, of which he
was himself the author, committed the patriarchate
to the new ojcumeue, and Leo became " oecumenical
bishop " in a new sense, because in this new em-
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. 1 33
pire he was sole and single. There was no other
patriarch, no other " Apostolic Sec," for the West-
erns. The Bishop of Rome became at once iden-
tified with the new Caesar. Thenceforth, the twain
were one body and one spirit, though not always
of one mind, but quite the reverse. The " Holy
Roman Empire," as it was called, by virtue of this
religious union, was an ellipse, the one focus being
at Rome and the other at Aachen or at Frankfort.
Thus the Alps were a" wall between rival powers,
each asserting supremacy in the same empire.
The inevitable consequence was the conflict of
the two sceptres, and the history of the Middle
Ages in the West is the history of fierce collisions
between Emperor and Pope; sometimes farcical
poetry, " all see-saw between this and that " ; but
generally one long perpetual tragedy, — a mon-
strous degradation alike of religion and govern-
ment, which trampled humanity under foot, and
made Europe to resound with its groans and
outcries.
23. THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE.
And so the patriarchate of Rome became more
and more a worldly power, and surrounded itself
with a worldly court, and moved on to fulfil its
mysterious destiny. The states of Europe were
virtually provinces of the Empire, and made up
one vast system, under a mixed suzerainty, Im-
perial and Papal, ever swinging backward or for-
ward between the two foci. They maintained a
fruitless struggle for independence one of the
134 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
other, and all for independence of the twin po-
tentates, whose coalition perpetuated their des-
potism. The student of Dante comprehends what
" the Empire " meant in the Middle Ages. For
just one thousand years, apart from England, such
was Europe ; and, as I have said, the Arc dc F Etoile
in Paris stands where it does, a monument of the
recent ignominious fall of this " Holy Roman Em-
pire." Since the defeat of Austria by Napoleon,
nothing remains of it save its elements. The new
Empire of Germany and the Kingdom of Italy are
but expressions of a new order of things; and
though popes and princes may still coquet one
with another to enslave the minds and bodies of
men, the time is past, thank God, when Guelphs
and Ghibellines can compose their strifes with the
certainty by so doing of overawing and beating
down all antagonism. 1
24. INSULATION OF ENGLAND.
" Except England," I said, in a parenthesis, but
emphatically. For England, blessed with insular-
ity, never permitted herself to be absorbed into
this system of the Empire. France too asserted
her rightful independence, and her crown was al-
ways surmounted by an arch, or bow, to signify its
imperial character. But over and over again was
she made to feel her serfdom and feudal subjection.
Not so with the imperial crown of England ; poor
King John might surrender it for the moment, but
it was only to provoke the revolt of an indignant
1 See Note U'.
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. 1 35
people and the thunders of their ability to defend
themselves. They were heard in Magna Charta,
and in the noble watchword of their sons, " Noln-
mus leges Anglic? w/ttari."
25. DISTINCTIONS.
The court papacy of Phocas became a papar-
chy; but, note, there was no such thing as "the
Roman Catholic Church." That is the product of
Luther's revolution, and of Loyola's reactionary
society, which avenged itself on Northern Europe
as Rehoboam did upon the old men who advised
reform in Israel, — turning whips of thongs into
a scourge of scorpions. This is all-important
to be understood : there never was a " Roman
Catholic Church " till it was created by the Coun-
cil of Trent. The Papacy and the Paparchy are
old, but not the modern Church so called. Of
this by and by. What, then, was the condition
of Western Christendom while this " Holy Roman
Empire " was its master under the two powers that
made it? Simply this: the ancient Latin churches
were still national churches, with the old Nicene
traditions underneath them, smothered but not
killed. As the different nations had their own
kings and laws, though the Emperor was suzerain,
so the Gallican Church, the Spanish Church, the
Church of the Milanese, and others, asserted their
old autonomies as well as they could, while they
were all dominated by the successful ambition of
a usurper at Rome. Favoured by her insularity,
her independence of the Empire, and by her old
136 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Cypriote traditions, the Church of England was
slow to succumb to this usurpation, and we shall
learn hereafter how her liberties were subverted
gradually and for a time. But here I may re-
capitulate in conclusion, the steps by which we
have thus far seen the Roman Bishop trans-
formed into something like what is now under-
stood by a Pope.
26. FORMATION OF THE PAPARCHY.
We have seen how faithfully the Great Councils
maintained the doctrine of Christ when He rebuked
the sin of his disciples, inquiring " who should be
greatest." We have seen, also, how peevishly
the Bishops of Rome showed their jealousy of the
" New Rome," how they felt the indignity of being
put on a level with the newest of the great sees,
and how instinctively they began to assert their
apostolic dignity, which so immensely outweighed
all pretensions that Byzantium could set up merely
as the first of Christian cities and the capital of the
regenerated Empire. As generations passed by,
the symptoms of a growing insubordination were
increased. From time to time some bolder spirit
came to the patriarchal throne of Southern Italy.
Measures most daring were resorted to occasion-
ally, and not a few inexcusable ones, for which we
cannot account. 1 Among such, those of Leo the
Great are memorable as grossly inconsistent with
his otherwise dignified character. The Council of
Chalcedon sufficiently exposed and abased the
1 See Note V.
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. 1 37
subterfuges and pretensions of his envoys, and he
himself succumbed ; but in him the earliest Pe-
trine hyperboles became audible, and the spirit
of a nascent Papacy is discerned. We reach the
age of Gregory the Great, however, without any
practical or definite enlargement of such claims,
and providentially we are enabled, by his own ear-
nest and reiterated statements of fact and of doc-
trine, to prove that he himself knew nothing of
what is now meant by a " Pope," even in the low-
est Gallican ideas of such a dignitary. For when
the Bishop of New Rome, — probably with no other
than an assumption of importance based on the ob-
solete imperialism of Old- Rome, called himself the
" CEcumenical," that is, the Imperial Bishop, — we
find Gregory remonstrating, on the grounds that
such an assumption violated the equality of all
bishops, was a profane and impious arrogance, and
as such a " forerunner of Antichrist." Never does
it occur to him to say, " I am the only CEcumeni-
cal Bishop ; I am, by divine right, the superior
of all bishops ; such a claim affronts St. Peter
in me, and the Lord himself, who established a
world-wide sovereignty in that apostle." Not a
word like this, but, on the contrary, he rejects the
very thought as worthy of Lucifer ; he abjures it
for himself and his see. 1 At the beginning of the
seventh century, therefore, there was no Papacy ;
nor was there any foreshadowing of a papal pre-
dominance, unless it were in Constantinople, in the
instance which Gregory stigmatized. Yet, before
he had been two years in his grave, Phocas, one of
1 See Note W.
138 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
the most flagitious wretches that ever reigned, gave
the profane title to Boniface III., A. D. 606. It
was a worldly court title, as we have seen, and the
Church had no responsibility for it whatever. Keep
this in view. It was a court distinction merely,
but the bishop assumed it. So we must assign to
Boniface the disgrace of doing what Gregory had
anathematized, and in him a Papacy began to be
visible.
27. CONDITIONS PRECEDENT.
A " Papacy," but not a Paparchy. It had no
definite character; it invested the pretender with
no real power ; he was still obliged to respect the
councils, and their canons ; he pretended to be
their defender and executive-in-chief. Nor, while
the patriarchs of the East were watching him and
forcing him to obey what councils had decreed,
could he magnify himself in any dangerous degree.
So long as the cecumene included the more cultured
and learned East, it was impossible for the Bishop
of Rome to overshadow the older patriarchates, and
to make himself autocratic. When a new cecumene
had risen, whose master asserted all that Constan-
tine had ever claimed, and who had reversed Con-
stantine's work and policy, Old Rome became,
for the first time, independent of the East. While
Charlemagne lived, it is true, he was his own pon-
tiff in so large a degree that the new conditions did
not permit such advantages to appear in favour
of the one " Apostolic See," which had now be-
come all-important to the whole West. But when
THE CREA TION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. I 39
the founder of " the Holy Roman Empire " came
to his end, even a temporal umpire of the West
was found only at Rome, and as the East was
very soon forgotten, all the spiritual power of its
great patriarchs was absorbed by him. It wanted
only some man of genius, alike ambitious and un-
scrupulous, pushing his way to the throne of Leo
and Gregory, to find all things prepared for an en-
tire revolution in Western Christendom. He had
but to put his foot on the canons, to ignore the
East, and to assert himself the Bishop of Bishops,
to find support in the necessities of the new Em-
pire, in those of subordinate kings, and in those of
the churches now cut off in all practical affairs
from their Eastern brethren. Such a man was
Nicholas (a. D. 858), and he made himself the first
practical Pope.
28. MY POSITION.
The facts I maintain as to the formation of the
Papacy are conceded by recent and by older his-
torians of repute. But they fail to state the irre-
sistible conclusion : there was no " pope," strictly
speaking, before Nicholas. (1.) Leo the Great
was not a pope when he was rebuked and over-
ruled at Chalcedon. (2.) Agatho was not a pope
when the last CEcumenical Council anathematized
Honorius ; when he, like his successors, accepted it.
(3.) Gregory was not a pope when he called the
asserter of an oecumenical bishopric a robber of
the rights of all bishops, and a forerunner of Anti-
christ. (4.) Adrian was not a pope when Charle-
140 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
magne called the Council of Frankfort, overruled
his decisions, and, sustained by the entire West,
convicted him of heresy in accepting a false dogma
from a woman and her pseudo council. (5.) Nor,
to come to the times of him who crowned Charle-
magne, and made a new era for East and West
on that memorable Christmas day, — nor was
Leo III. a pope when he pleaded before Charles
as his subject and his judge ; when he offered him
personal " adoration " ; when he lived and died
his subject, and saw him, without remonstrance,
exercising pontifical powers, compared with which
the Regale, as afterwards understood by Henry
VIII. or Louis XIV., shrinks to insignificance. 1
(6.) Finally, there could be no pope while this
mighty patriarchate was still nominally subject to
the canons, and in full communion with the East,
which knew him only as an equal.
29. NICHOLAS AND THE DECRETALS.
" Since the days of Gregory I. to our time," says
one of his contemporaries, smitten with admiration
for the truly imperial genius of Nicholas, " sat no
high-priest on the throne of St. Peter to be com-
pared to him. He tamed kings and tyrants, and
ruled the world like a sovereign." We have seen
that Gregory, noble and pre-eminent as he was,
was not a " pope " ; and here we have the fact,
dropping from the pen of one who knew all about
intermediate Bishops of Rome, including Hadrian
and Leo, that Nicholas was something which they
1 See Note X'.
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. I41
were not. All writers allow that he left the Roman
see something essentially different from what he
found it. All acknowledge that he effected a revo-
lution in the churches of the West, and carried
his conduct to such a pitch towards the East that
they cried out against him for arrogating to him-
self and his see what was never heard of before.
For the first time the Roman Bishop made him-
self the sine qua non of all thought and action in
Christendom ; the centre and criterion not only
of unity, but of communion with Christ himself.
As such he excommunicated the Easterns; they
returned the compliment, and excommunicated
him. These relations were not absolutely final,
but they were never repaired by any permanent
restorations. There was now a new power in the
Church of Christ. The Easterns never accepted
it for an hour. But it was fastened on West-
ern Christendom, not as a theory, but as a fact.
It was no more a dignity, but a despotism; not
a titular papacy, but the Paparchy. There was
a Pope in the West, and his power was thence-
forth a reality, developing into a supremacy like
God's.
The " Pope " now existed in one who swept
away antiquity, and all councils and canons which
he did not fancy. The instrument by which
this prodigious revolution was effected was "the
forged Decretals." All men now acknowledge
that they are forgeries, but, by whomsoever made,
Nicholas brought them forth, appealed to them
as authentic, and proved by them that all the
Bishops of Rome, from St. Peter down to him,
142 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
had ruled the Church absolutely by their decrees.
The age was unlearned : the Decretals were not
subjected to the tests by which learning even in
its elements might have refuted them. They van-
ished like smoke when the art of printing showed
what they really were.
But all through the Middle Ages they over-
awed the West, kings, bishops, monks, saints and
sinners alike, and this fact is the apology for St.
Bernard and others, who at heart were reformers,
but could not refute such testimony. For they
passed into history as genuine ; they became parts
of the canon law; they practically abrogated
all the oecumenical canons, they created the pseudo
oecumenical canons and the pseudo councils that
enacted them ; they enabled successive pontiffs
to raise their pretensions higher and higher, " de-
ceivers " no doubt, but yet "being deceived";
they made an honest fanatic of Hildebrand, who
never doubted his right to speak for God and
as God, and who in the eleventh century made
the name of " Pope " peculiar to himself, for-
bidding its application to the patriarchs of the
East; and after him they made Innocent III.,
who turned the fanaticism of the Crusades against
Christian men. In a word, they are responsible
for all that has made havoc of the churches, East
and West, and that perpetuates their schisms at
this hour. Every one of these positions rests on
irrefragable evidence; on facts not denied, but,
alas ! not kept before men's minds. 1
1 See Note Y'.
THE CREATION OF A WESTERN EMPIRE. 1 43
30. AN ILLUSTRATION.
And if you ask how it comes that, after such
frauds are once exposed to the scorn of the uni-
verse, the Papacy still survives and even enlarges
its pretensions in our own enlightened day, the
answer is sufficiently plain. Did you ever see
stone-masons turn an arch? They make a frame-
work out of refuse wood, of laths and scantlings,
anything that comes to hand ; a few nails suffice
to hold them together; they set it in place on
abutments well prepared, and then they begin to
work in stone. They soon erect the arch and set
the key-stone and build upon it, — a bridge, or a
castle, or a tower that reaches to heaven. Then
no longer any need of the framework; a beggar
may kick it out and turn it into fuel to boil his
soup; but — the arch remains for ages. So the
Decretals have disappeared, but that arch of pride,
the Papacy, stands the firmer because of all that
has been built upon it. The laws and usages of
Europe, the manners of nations, the superstitions
of the ignorant, the piety of the devout, the
diplomacy of monarchs, the thrones of empires,
and empire itself, all must fall together, if the arch
be suddenly destroyed. And then the arch itself
is old and interesting; it is ivy-clad and green,
with associations of poesy and romance. A thou-
sand motives conspire to make men sustain it; and
stand it will and must, till nations discover that
truth and right are the only supports for what
humanity requires, — for what law and equity and
order must find indispensable. So long as those
144 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
old abutments of imperial despotism and popular
ignorance remain, the old arch will hold. But
thank God, His Providence is contriving reforms,
and providing resources, against changes that must
come. They are working gradually, but surely, to
their glorious result; let us be faithful to duty and
love truth in our generation, and leave the rest to
Him who has promised, and who is Faithful and
True. 1
1 Rev. xix. ir.
LECTURE V.
THE MIDDLE AGES.
i. DARK AGES.
'THHE Middle Ages, as I reminded you, extend
-*- from that memorable Christmas, A. D. 800,
to the year 1500, when Charles-Quint was born.
This period was not all dark, by any means ; but
what we may fairly call the Dark Ages are here in-
cluded, and may justly be considered as extending
from A. D. 900 to A. D. 1400; from the pontificate
of Benedict IV. to that of Benedict XIII., Anti-
pope at Avignon. You observe these convenient
" dates of anchorage," and the economy of using
the names of two Benedicts as terminal figures.
And these names stand for facts that may well
stigmatize the included period as dark. For the
first Benedict marks an epoch when the crime of
Nicholas, with his decretals, was bearing its natural
fruit, and the see of Rome was given over to the
sway of impiety the most frightful, while the other
Benedict denotes the schism consequent upon the
removal of the Popes to Avignon, and all the scan-
dals involved in one series of popes at Rome and
another in France, mutually excommunicating and
anathematizing one another, and, what is worse,
damning the unhappy people who respectively
146 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
adhered to this pope or that, because in their utter
bewilderment and consternation they were unable
to know which of the two rivals was God's vice-
gerent, without communion with whom no flesh
could be saved. During this period, remember, a
large portion of Spain was in the possession of the
Arabs, and science fled to their Universities for a
season. If these ages are not justly denominated
the " Dark Ages," I know not what to call them.
2. MAITLAND'S ELUCIDATION.
We owe to the learned Dr. Maitland a very dis-
criminating work on these ages, which he would
confine to the period between A. D. 800 and A. D.
1200, and which, he shows, were not altogether so
dark as some have allowed themselves to assert. 1
Hence a reaction. Many, disgusted with Robert-
son and Mosheim, rush to the other extreme, and
pronounce those very ages the most commendable
in history. Let us accept Dr. Maitland's just and
discriminating view, and with gratitude to God con-
fess that He has shown His mercy and multiplied
His saints in the darkest periods of human history.
But this fact would not be worth stating unless such
periods have been. A rapid glance at the ages I
have noted may enable you to judge for yourselves
whether or not they were ages of illumination.
3. A GLANCE AT THE EAST.
The predominance of the Institutions of Charle-
magne is the characteristic of the Middle Ages:
1 See Note Z'.
THE MIDDLE AGES. 1 47
the Dark Ages are those in which the Institutions
of Nicholas grew and overgrew the whole state of
society in Western Europe, culminating in evils
intolerable to the Paparchy itself. But, as we
must now pursue our inquiries in the outline of
Western history chiefly, it may be well to glance
for a moment at the corresponding history of the
East.
My plan does not permit me to pursue this al-
most unexplored field, commonly called Byzan-
tine History. It may be dated from A. D. 800,
when the Eastern Caesars lost their hold on the
West, to A. D. 1453, when Constantinople was ex-
tinguished as a Christian capital. " From the
foundation of the New Rome," says a recent
writer, 1 " down to A. D. 1057, the machine of gov-
ernment had worked steadily, with few violent
changes. There had been a general accumulation
of wealth, with security for life and property, un-
der a system of jurisprudence the most complete
ever formulated ; a system copied by the whole of
modern Europe, and indeed by the civilized world.
The same city had developed and formulated the re-
ligion of Christendom. . . . Under the influence of
Orthodox Christianity, Roman law, and the Greek
spirit of individualism, a steady progress had been
made. No other government has ever existed in
Europe which has secured for so long a period the
like advantages to its people." This is historic
truth. Writers who delight to chronicle only the
crimes and disgraces of a period have dwelt so
exclusively on their favourite themes as to leave a
1 See Note A".
148 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
widely different impression upon many intelligent
minds.
This period must be divided as follows : —
1. From Irene to the end of the Basilian dynasty,
A. D. 1057. 2. Then a period of gradual decline, till
Constantinople was taken by the Latins, in A. D.
1203. 3. Then the melancholy period of Turk-
ish advance upon the Eastern Empire, until the
West abandoned it to its fate, in 1453. To this
epoch we shall have occasion to return.
4. THE DECRETALS IN OPERATION.
Just when the Basilian dynasty established itself
in the East, the erection of the Paparchy threw the
Eastern churches out of open communion with
the patriarchate of Rome. In the Orient no harm
followed. The Basilian era was prosperous in pro-
portion as it had nothing to do with the Popes.
But, to confine ourselves now to the Latins, we
must note the significant fact that the triumph of
the Decretals over the ancient Catholic Constitu-
tions was followed by a period of unparalleled in-
famy in the Roman patriarchate and of consequent
corruption wherever its influence was felt. Here
then is a dilemma : either the work of Nicholas was
a genuine and just advance of the see of Rome to
the position which God designed for the develop-
ment of His Church, or it was a wicked apostasy
from apostolic order and organization. If it was
the former, — if Nicholas had placed himself and his
successors where Christ meant that they should
stand, — the most blessed results should follow.
THE MIDDLE AGES. 1 49
But precisely the reverse is the case. The evils that
were immediately bred of the new order of things,
— of the system, that is, which was based on the
forged decretals, — these evils were so enormous
and so lasting, that even the most besotted defend-
ers of Ultramontane Romanism give up all apolo-
gies. 1
Take the epoch of the Dark Ages which I have
denoted. Says an eminent Italian chronicler,
" The throne of humility and chastity (i. e. the
throne of St. Peter) became the object of all ambi-
tion, the recompense of all crimes, the refuge of
all abominations." Even Cardinal Baronius (a. D.
1588) is forced to speak of the tenth century in
such words as these : " The Holy Roman Church
was as foul as could be. Harlots, superlative alike
in profligacy and in power, governed at Rome, ap-
pointed bishops, and intruded their paramours into
the see of St. Peter." To escape the awful conclu-
sions he can only invent a theory, in which De
Maistre has followed him, that the Popes made by
Theodora and Marozia must be discarded from the
catalogue. If so, by parity of argument, thirteen
Popes are to be stricken out of the succession, and
so for sixty years there must have been no one
legitimately in St. Peter's chair — so called. The
period of these two generations Baronius thus
characterizes: "Who can venture to affirm that
persons thus basely intruded by prostitutes were
lawful Roman pontiffs? " He says: "The canons
were buried in oblivion ; . . . the ancient tradi-
tions under the ban ; old customs, sacred rites,
1 See Note B".
150 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
and usages of election, quite abolished. Mad
lust, relying on worldly power, and incited by the
spur of ambition, claimed everything for its own.
Christ was then in a deep sleep in the ship ; . . .
and what seemed worse, there were no disciples to
wake him, . . . for all were snoring. You may
imagine what sort of presbyters and deacons were
chosen as cardinals by these monsters." Let me
mention here, that Roman cardinals were the pro-
duct of this same period when " the ancient tradi-
tions were under the ban," and when "the canons
were buried in oblivion." They are the creatures
of a worldly court, and often are not even nomi-
nally in Holy Orders; yet they pose as " princes,"
and presume to direct the conduct of the most
venerable bishops.
A recent writer, Dr. Littledale, has quoted
Genebrard, Bishop of Aix (A. D. 1597), as most
justly extending this era of infamy much fur-
ther than Baronius does. According to him, it
reached over a hundred and fifty years, during
which, he says, " about fifty Popes . . . have been
apostatical rather than apostolical." If we reckon
one hundred and sixty Popes after Nicholas, then
nearly one third of the whole succession have been
such apostates. By their own reckoning from St.
Peter, nearly one fifth of those who have been the
infallible oracles of the Most High, and communion
with whom is requisite to salvation, are thus painted
and described by writers of the Papal communion.
No one can wonder that the effigy of Pope Joan
sits portress at the gate of this Nicolaitan period. 1
1 See Note C".
THE MIDDLE AGES. I 5 I
Account for the strange history as you will, it be-
tokens the abominations of the period of which
she is a landmark: it coincides with the apocalyp-
tic prophecy, " I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-
coloured beast."
5. HOW IT LOOKED IN ENGLISH EYES.
All this was imported into England, where Dun-
stan, alas ! was introducing many things unknown
to Bede and Alcuin. Even King Edgar, who,
though not a severe moralist, was a saint if com-
pared with the pontiffs of his time, has recorded
his testimony against them. 1 " We see in Rome,"
he says, " only debauchery, licentiousness, and
drunkenness; the houses of priests are the shame-
ful abodes of harlots, and of worse than these. In
the dwelling of the Pope, they gamble by day and
by night. Instead of fastings and prayers, they
give place to bacchanalian songs, lascivious dances,
and the debauchery of Messalina." God knows how
I hate even to name these things afresh ; but when,
in our own times, a pontiff has decreed, and made
it dogma, that Popes like these were all infallible
in setting forth the oracles of Divine truth, I ask,
with sorrow of heart, " Is there not a cause?"
6. THE LATIN CHURCHES.
But amid all these horrors, the Latin churches,
in spite of the despotism that dominated them,
were yet, as such, a portion of the one Holy Cath-
olic Church, and God's Spirit lived in thousands of
1 See Note D".
152 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
saints, who, as best they could, still walked with
God and kept His way. Remember, there was no
" Roman Catholic Church " at this period, substi-
tuting itself for the Church of the Creed and of
the old Councils. Hence, these Latin churches
were Catholic churches, and the Paparchy includ-
ing " the Court of Rome," a mere worldly machine,
was an artificial system, superimposed by the De-
cretals, defiling them as by a leprosy, but not de-
stroying organic life, nor yet healthful functions of
grace, which were fruitful of good works. Let me^
for a moment illustrate this by a reference to
" Gallicanism."
7. GALLICANISM.
As I have hinted, the spirit of Irenaeus ruled at
Frankfort, and manifested itself as the spirit of the
Anglican Church, in Alcuin. The Decretal system
was introduced too soon afterwards, not to awaken
the strong impression that it must be spurious.
Clearly, Frankfort would have been impossible had
Charlemagne known such a code, or had Adrian,
who only ventured to hint at its existence, presumed
to maintain it. To the honour of Hincmar, Arch-
bishop of Rheims, 1 he resisted Nicholas and his
Decretals as soon as they were imposed upon the
bishops of Gaul. His conduct and protestations
perpetuated the influence of Frankfort, and created
the " Gallicanism " which has preserved the sem-
blance of nationality to the Church of France
down to our own times. Under Louis IX. (St.
1 See Note E".
THE MIDDLE AGES. 153
Louis) its essence became formulated and known
as the "Pragmatic Sanction" of A. D. 1268. By
this instrument, St. Louis asserted (1) his own
position as (Eveque au dehors} the temporal head
of the Gallican Church ; (2) defended the rights
of the metropolitans and other bishops; (3) se-
cured the national Church against many pretended
powers and privileges of the Popes ; (4) re-vindi-
cated the canon law and ancient usages as to elec-
tions to bishoprics and the like; (5) reserved the
imperial rights of his crown ; and (6) forbade the
papal emissaries to tax the Gallican Church with-
out its own consent or the royal permission. Such
was elemental " Gallicanism," which, in bolder
forms, was not less the spirit of the Anglican
Church, under the Decretalist usurpation. Ultra-
montane writers recognize the Church of England
as only acting logically under Elizabeth, while the
French Church shrank back from the inexorable
conclusions. 1 So late as 1688 the Gallicans en-
deavoured to save themselves from the inconsist-
encies in which they had become entangled by
submitting to absorption in " the Roman Catholic
Church," created at the Council of Trent on pur-
pose to supersede national churches. Poor Bos-
suet ! terribly did he feel his chains, when he
struggled to save what he could of " Gallican
liberties." Feeble, but most significant and in-
structive to us, was his exclamation, " Let us pre-
serve the massive maxims of our forefathers, — the
precious words of St. Louis, — which the Galli-
can Church has derived from the traditions of
1 See Note F".
154 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
the Church Universal." Poor Bossuet, indeed !
He felt the grip of pontifical imposture when he
thus pleaded for limitations: "The ocean itself
has bounds to its plenitude ; let it overpass them,
it becomes a deluge which would make havoc of
the universe." Again I sigh, Poor Bossuet ! In
vain, having let Trent in, does he try to keep this
deluge out. What would he have said had he
lived, like Dupanloup, to see Pius IX. call him-
self " infallible," and spurn the venerable bishops
of France from the foot of his throne in a nominal
council which reduced them all to " sacristans." x
8. ST. BERNARD.
Marking the futile heroism of Hincmar, let us
come now to the age of St. Bernard. It was the
period of the Crusades, and he, alas ! was carried
away by them. His agency in stimulating the
second Crusade is a blot on his memory. He
could not be wiser than his times ; he lived (a. d.
1090-1153) at a period when the system of the
Decretals had culminated under Gregory VII.
(Hildebrand), but while as yet it had not exhib-
ited all the fury and flame of its arrogance under
Innocent III. 2 Just at the epoch of the first Chris-
tian chiliad, when the impression prevailed that
Christ was about to make his second advent, and
bring the crimes of popes and princes to an end,
stands the noble figure of Gerbert, who strove to
reform, and so strengthened, the Papacy. The
name he assumed, as Sylvester II., goes back to
1 See Note G". 2 A. D. 119S-1216.
THE MIDDLE AGES. 155
the Nicene epoch, and indicates his desire to re-
store the piety of the first Bishop of Rome, who
bore it. Remember, that with all the Latins down
to the epoch of Trent we Anglicans are in full
communion; and just so far as theirs was the
spirit of Vincent, they were witnesses with us
against the iniquity of the Paparchy. Even St.
Bernard was, in spirit, one of us ; he was a re-
former, so far as he knew how to be. It was not his
fault that he imagined the decretals to be genuine
monuments of the primitive ages. If the Pope
favoured a crusade, he inferred "God wills it."
Yet, like Hincmar, he did his best to resist the
evils that were bred of Decretalism. He loved
Eugenius III. as his pupil, yet he remonstrates
with him like a prophet, and denounces the profli-
gacy of his court. " Who will give me, before I
die," he exclaims, " to see the Church as it was in
the ancient days." l He was nurtured in the extrav-
agant Mariolatry of his age, but he shrank from
any increase of it. In his terrible assault upon
innovators who had just begun to talk about " the
immaculate conception " of St. Mary, he shows
where he must have stood in a more enlightened
day. 2 He denounces the nascent fable as an idea
" of which the Church's rite knows nothing, which
right reason sustains not, which primitive tradition
does not favour." He calls it " a novelty rashly
admitted against the religious use of the Church;
born of levity, the sister of superstition, the mother
of temerity, ... the invention of a few inexperi-
enced simpletons." After nearly eight hundred
1 See Note W. 2 See Note I".
156 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
years, we have seen a Roman pontiff making this
fable into a dogma, and its acceptance a condition
of eternal salvation.
9. THE PATRISTIC PERIOD.
But now a most important point, of which St.
Bernard is the index. He is known to Latin theo-
logians as the " last of the Fathers." He deserves
this name, not because a doctor of the twelfth age
can possibly be reckoned a " Father," but because
he closes the long line of Western worthies who
maintained the patristic principle theoretically, and,
as far as their times would permit, practically also.
I should note Alcuin as the last of the Fathers,
for that would be a parallel to the Greek idea:
they make Alcuin's contemporary, John Damas-
cene, the last. Anselm is rather a forerunner of
the Schoolmen. St. Bernard was the last of those
Latin theologians who professed to be guided by
" the Scriptures and ancient authors," — by the rule
of Vincent, in short. "What I have received from
the Church, that in all confidence I hold, and that
I teach ; what is otherwise, I confess, I am very
scrupulous about admitting." He puts his finger
on the very essence of the new theology, of which
Abelard was forerunner, when in memorable words
he accuses him of doing in the domain of Holy
Scripture what men had been taught by dialectics:
thus becoming a " censor of the faith, not a disciple,
— an emendator, not an imitator." We reach the
epoch when, by the introduction of syllogistic ma-
nipulations, truths professed in the Creeds because
THE MIDDLE AGES. I 57
contained in Holy Scripture were made the base of
indefinite exaggerations. The Fathers were hos-
tile to codes of belief; the Nicene creed bears wit-
ness to their tender regard for what is written,
while framing liturgic formulas in childlike re-
sponse to apostles and evangelists. Beyond these
simple formulas they would not presume : they felt
afraid of applying logic to mysterious realities, and
venturing into conclusions which subjected the
mysteries of God to the infirmities of human rea-
son not only, but of human speech as well. Hence
the Council of Constantinople forbade the framing
of any new creed, or the dictation of any other to
converts from heresy or schism. What Bernard
foresaw was a disposition to break through all
this. 1
10. THE SCHOLASTICS.
Not content with " the faith once delivered to
the saints," men were about to erect upon it a
fabric of trestle-work, employing Aristotle's syllo-
gisms to build their tower of Babel and scale the
heavens. Expounders of Scripture and stewards
of the grand deposit of truth were no longer to be
accounted theologians. The new plan was this :
Human wit must exert itself to find a major and a
minor premise in admitted truths. Draw the con-
clusion, and discover a novel truth. Try it again,
and you find another novelty. Make premises of
these, and draw a new inference. You have pro-
gressive theology, and the process can be ex-
tended ad infinitum. Such is Scholasticism.
1 See Note J".
158 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Peter Lombard was Bernard's protegt, but he
seems to have been fascinated by Abelard, whose
pupil he had been. The genius of Augustine
had pointed in this direction, and Anselm had
followed his indications. Abelard himself was
only sparingly acquainted with Aristotle, whose
works were imperfectly known in Europe till the
Saracens, who had obtained them from the Nesto-
rians, handed them back to the Latins, many of
them in very bad retranslations. Lombard became
Archbishop of Paris, and is known as the " Mas-
ter of the Sentences." The " Schoolmen " prop-
erly so called became commentators upon these
Sentences, and, by logical methods, enlarged their
import and their domain. In the middle of the
thirteenth century St. Thomas Aquinas became the
great Scholastic, but before the end of that age
Duns Scotus, the " Subtle Doctor," had founded an
antagonist system ; and now these rival authorities
divided the schools between them. The intermi-
nable disputes of the Thomists and Scotists, Nomi-
nalists and Realists, became embittered beyond all
conception, owing largely to the partisan feelings
of the Dominicans and Franciscans, these rival
orders each following its own doctor, perhaps very
naturally.
11. RELATIONS WITH MODERN THOUGHT.
You will not ask me to go into an elucidation of
these disputes ; and I am very glad of it, because
I confess my inability to appreciate refinements
and distinctions —
THE MIDDLE AGES. 159
"which divide
A hair 'tvvixt south and southwest side,"
and the more I have looked into them the less I feel
that I know about them. Pius IX. has forbidden
men to look into modern discoveries. Men may
think, but not for themselves. Leo XIII., with
solemn irony, professing himself a friend of scien-
tific thought, commends the study of St. Thomas
Aquinas to inquiring minds of the Roman Obe-
dience. He thus accomplishes two important ob-
jects : (1) he shows just where Science ought to
stop, in his judgment; and (2) he reminds his
people that the natural philosophy of Aristotle has
been identified with Trent dogmas, as well as with
its moral and intellectual sequels, the new decrees ;
so that there is an end of all controversy. So far
he permits his schools to go in America, but no
farther. The fact comes in here as a landmark.
12. THE CRUSADES.
And the Crusades, which lie on the highest
table-land of Papal development, between the
epochs of Gregory VIII. and Innocent III., must
be noted here for a like purpose. Like the Scho-
lasticism to which the Crusades lent new arms from
the schools of the Saracens, these are landmarks
not merely, but mighty elements as well, in over-
turning and new-creating, — in evolving out of
chaos a new world of thought and action for hu-
manity. What sublime folly ! what superlative
crime ! what tokens of God's way among nations, —
" From seeminsr evil still educing good" 1
l60 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Here a word about the ennobling theory and the
painful practical history of chivalry. It appears
best in allegory like Spenser's, or in epic song like
Tasso's. Alas ! in history, the Crusaders, whose
lives were vowed to the service of Christian wo-
manhood, the defence of maiden modesty and of
conjugal chastity, gave themselves over to unbri-
dled excesses of debauchery, under banners on
which was portrayed the symbol of the Lamb ;
and the hosts, who knelt on the holy ground and
kissed it when they came in sight of Jerusalem,
made its streets run with blood when they took it
from the Infidels. The moderation of the Pay-
nim when Omar captured it, presents a contrast
which must ever crimson Christian cheeks with
shame. Yet if the age of chivalry is extinct, the
glorious ideas which it degraded must live for-
ever in the new sentiment of Christian nations.
Born of the Gospel, the Gospel is their sure sup-
port ; and woman, if no longer the inspirer of
quixotic lists and tournaments, finds true knight-
hood in the hearts and the homage of the father,
the brother, and the husband, in every Christian
home.
When we come to the convulsions of which
Wiclif and John Huss were the pioneers, we
shall be forced to recognize that nations had been
massed and unified by the Crusades to necessitate
great transformations ; and that the Scholastics
were the intellectual gymnasts, who, better than
they knew, were preparing minds and consciences
for nobler conflicts, and for the emancipation of
Europe from the bondage of theory into the free-
THE MIDDLE AGES. i6l
dom of experimental philosophy. Not less did
the Crusades set men to thinking, enlarge their
knowledge of mankind, awaken just views of the
superior culture of the Greeks, and provide for
the Revival of Learning.
13. BARBARISM.
If it startles us to find the Dark Ages settling
down upon Christian civilization just when it had
begun a glorious career of Truth and Life among
the nations, we shall find our surprise reversed
when we look into the world movements of those
times. It is rather astonishing that Christianity
itself survived. 1 For take any map of Europe
at the close of the fifth century, and what do
we behold? The inundations of barbarism had
deluged the fairest seats of Christendom ; and all
those earliest sources of Latin illumination in
Northern Africa, where Tertullian and Cyprian
and Augustine had glorified their successive ages,
are included in the desolations. Where Carthage
and Hippo had nurtured saints and scholars, we
find the kingdom of the Vandals. From the Pil-
lars of Hercules northward to the Loire stretches
the dominion of the Visigoths. The Salian and
Riparian Franks spread over the North, from Brit-
tany to the sources of the Weser. The Ostrogoths
occupy all Italy, and nearly the whole Eastern
shore of the Adriatic, sweeping round by the
Danube to the Rhineland. To deal with these
rude races, and give them the law of Christ, was a
1 See Note K".
II
1 62 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
work to which the Church addressed herself with
fidelity. But look again at the map of Europe
and the Mediterranean in the age of Charlemagne.
The movements of the barbarians had been like the
waves of the sea. From beyond the Danube the
Lombards had poured into Subalpine Italy, and
Teutonized the fair plains watered by the Po. But
far more terrible is the condition of North Africa
and Spain ; the Mohammedans have taken them
for a prey : nearly all of Spain is the Caliphate of
Cordova. And now the Northmen are pouncing
upon the Franks, penetrating all their harbours
and navigable rivers; under the name of Danes
spreading themselves in England ; and waxing
more and more terrible, till the Litany itself re-
ceives a new suffrage, for Christians in their
churches cried unto heaven, " From Rollo and
the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us."
14. EXPIRY OF THE DARK AGES.
I have not named the Huns and the Magyars
swarming in from the Tartar hives of Asia, but per-
haps I have said enough to remind you what a
field for research is here opened to the student;
and quite enough to explain the intervention of the
" Dark Ages." What a dilution of all good, what
an infusion of all evil, we have here! For a time,
the Arabians, who had stolen Christian learning, 1
became its conservators in their own East, —
" Where science with the good Al-Maimon dwelt," —
and in Spain, where Christians went to them for
1 See Note L".
THE MIDDLE AGES. 163
knowledge. We retain the Arabic numerals, and
most useful they are; and algebra is the most
charming of mathematical processes; but while
the Infidel kept the magazine of science till Chris-
tians once more could bring out its stores, the in-
crease of knowledge among men owed little or
nothing to the schools of Islam. Quickened to
active exertions of mind by the Scholastics, and
enlarged by the Crusades in every faculty that is
nurtured by observation, Christendom awakes at
the close of the fourteenth age " like a giant re-
freshed with wine." Here we greet the Revival of
Learning. Bajazet was now menacing Constanti-
nople, but God checked him, for Tamerlane had
invaded Syria. In Europe the shameless Papal
schism perpetuated the' scandals of the Dark Ages,
but was a help to the great awakening. In Eng-
land the Plantagenets came to an end by the mur-
der of Richard the Second, never to be forgotten
while Shakespeare's genius reduces English history
to incomparable painting in words. The accession
of the House of Lancaster reminds us that the
crusading spirit is not yet extinct, when King
Henry the Fourth is made to say, —
" Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ . . .
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy . . .
To chase these pagans in those holy fields
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed
For our advantage on the bitter cross."
With commendable license, though with apocry-
phal history and a gross anachronism, the incom-
1 64 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
parable poet manages to wind up the play with
a rhythmical flourish, in which the whole spirit of
the preceding centuries is epitomized. The lan-
guage, slightly changed, might well describe St.
Louis, with whom the Crusades in fact expired : —
" Many a time hath banished Norfolk fought
For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,
Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross
Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens ;
And, toiled with works of war, retired himself
To Italy, and there at Venice gave
His body to that pleasant country's earth,
And his pure soul unto his captain Christ,
Under whose colours he had fought so long."
But when the Crusades were turned against
Christians, who were massacred by whole races in
the South of France, under the bloody Innocent
III., it was time to stop. And when Henry dies
in the Jerusalem chamber at Westminster, crusad-
ing is extinct forever, and the new period is well
advanced. I always note the death of Richard
and of Chaucer, in A. D. 1400, as the limit of the
dark period. One century more of the Middle
Ages remains ; it is the thrilling, charming, marvel-
lous Cinque-Cento, the fifteenth century.
15. THE CINQUE-CENTO.
We magnify the Cinque-Cento, and use this term
with reference to the fine arts too exclusively.
I borrow this convenient term for the age that
brought with it the elements of all we now enjoy,
in letters and arts, in civilization, in freedom, in the
THE MIDDLE AGES. \6$
restoration of truth to the nations, and in a genu-
ine Reformation to our English forefathers. In a
rapid review of this century of wonders, I hasten
to a close of this Lecture. 1
At the opening of this age, we find John Huss
confessor to the Queen of Bohemia. Note that ;
and this also : the infamous statute for burning
heretics is enacted in England, under which Sawtrd
perishes as a Wiclifite. Jerome of Prague is study-
ing in Oxford. Tamerlane enters Bagdad and
Damascus, and prepares to invade Asia Minor.
In A. D. 1409 there are not less than three Popes,
cursing and excommunicating one another, and
men in nations for their respective adhesions. In
A. D. 141 2, Huss burns a papal indulgence, and he
and Jerome denounce the traffic in such things.
This was a century before Luther imitated them.
Shortly after, Huss himself is burned at Constance,
and Sigismund earns infamy by betraying him.
The Council of Constance revives the traditions of
Frankfort, and deposes the Pope. It has its glory
and its shame. It burned Jerome of Prague after
Huss, and ordered Wiclif's bones to be cremated
and scattered. This Council closes in A. D. 1418.
We soon reach the romantic episode of Joan of
Arc; the Papal schism is closed by the heroic
action of the Council of Basle, which continues
the traditions of Frankfort, and deposes another
Pope.
And here we may turn to the more gratifying
field of Art and Literature. We have seen that
in England the death of Chaucer marks the limit
1 See Note M".
1 66 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
of a long period of night watches. To him and
to Wiclif, who greeted the day dawn, and reflected
it as from mountain tops, we owe the English lan-
guage and the glorious beginnings of its literature,
in prose and poetry. But on the greater scale of
Continental progress, Dante had already created
the Italian language, and from him and his bril-
liant successors, Petrarch and Boccacio, Chaucer's
genius had caught the spark that soon burst into
flame in his Canterbury Tales. John Gower, his
contemporary, lived a few years in the age we are
reviewing.
16. THE MEDICI.
The illustrious family of the Medici had been
growing up in Florence, in the preceding century,
and now Cosmo enters on his great career; mak-
ing merchandise tributary to letters, founding a
university, and ransacking the East for manuscripts,
which came with spices and taffetas from the Le-
vant in every argosy that enriched his coffers. 1 His
grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, succeeds to
his great power and influence in the Florentine
republic, and largely augments his work, as the
patron of scholars and of artists. Cimabue and
Giotto had created pictorial art in Italy ; but now
the invention of oil colours by the brothers Van
Eyck, at Ghent, proves that the fogs of Flanders
as well as the sunbeams of the South presaged the
wonderful development of painting about to be
realized. This art reached its acme at a bound.
1 See Note N".
THE MIDDLE AGES. 1 67
Leonardo, Michael Angclo, and Perugino's great
pupil, Raffaclle, all start up in this century, though
they lived also into the next, and they have never
been surpassed. Exploring the treasures of the
Pitti Palace, in Florence, I saw an insignificant bit
of marble, which I recognized at once as a link in
a great history. Michael Angelo, a mere youth,
was carving that head of an old faun, in the Medi-
cean gardens, when Lorenzo observed its merits.
He casually criticised it, " You must not give
an old faun such fair teeth," and he walked on.
Soon, after, however, he encountered the young
man again, and saw that his hint had been taken.
Michael had, with admirable skill, contrived to
give the mouth and teeth an appearance of age,
without disfiguring what was attractive in those
features. This secured Lorenzo as his patron ;
and so grew up that unrivalled master of the three
domains of sculpture, painting, and architecture,
who moreover was no contemptible poet. He
lived to embellishish Florence with his Titanic
statues ; to paint " The Last Judgment " on the
walls of the Sistine Chapel, and to lift the Pan-
theon to the clouds in the dome of St. Peter's.
The Middle Ages expired in glory, if only for this
outburst of the fine arts ; but in the nobler realms
of intellect, of the useful arts, and of faith, it saw
greater things than these.
17. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.
The link between the fine arts and those too
often scorned as merely utilitarian is Architecture.
1 68 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
If we go back to the Middle Ages and trace the
rise and development of the pointed architecture (to
which Wren applied the nickname of " Gothic "),
we cannot but acknowledge that even the Dark
Ages brought some goodly things to light. We
may justly call it the " Christian Architecture,"
and, while admitting its great defects, we must ad-
mire some of its characteristic ideas. Whether
designedly or not, it imitates nature : the forest has
naves, and aisles, and arches, with which its spirit
strikingly coincides. Again, its aspiring vaults
and lofty spires, its clustered columns uplifting its
aerial clere-stories, and its abounding vertical lines,
all spring heavenward, and lift the eye and the
mind, if not the heart, to God. In the decorated
examples at Lincoln we see its perfection ; but even
the "Academic Gothic," as I prefer to call " the per-
pendicular," retains these features, and in its Tudor
debasement we find much that harmonizes with the
faith. How notable, too, its reality! It adorns
what other styles of the art, with awkward make-
shifts, strive to conceal; it turns every prop,
every stay, every beam and joint, into an aug-
mentation of beauty. It does not hide its very
crutches, for such are the flying buttresses which
it so triumphantly elevates into graces ; and down
in its crypts, and where only the eye of the Omnis-
cient penetrates, it covers no deformity; it builds
for the Master-builder above. I fear " the dim
religious light" that so fascinates us is neverthe-
less a striking symbol of the ages in which this
architecture was created.
It is not enlightened art in any practical sense.
735KB MIDDLE AGES. 1 69
Michclct 1 has severely remarked upon its feeble-
ness; it is ever crumbling and needing repairs; it
is clamped and tied together by corroding bands
of iron; it calls in a thousand artifices and ex-
pedients to supply its lack of strength ; its very
buttresses announce the inadequate massiveness
of the walls ; and when, as in the chapter-house,
it erects a central pillar, like the handle of an um-
brella, to uphold a canopy of stone, it proclaims
its inability to erect a vaulted dome that shall
stand by itself.
iS. THE NEW CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE.
This was the humiliating defect exposed by
Brunelleschi when he "broke the egg"; a feat
which has no force as told of Columbus. 2 The
Florentines were ambitious of erecting a cathedral
with an unrivalled dome. The Teutonic archi-
tects came over the Alps to do the work, and pro-
posed to uphold it by the central pillar, which is
but the symbol of decrepitude, the old man bowed
upon his staff. " I would make it stand by itself,"
said Brunelleschi. "But how? " was the inquiry.
" Like that Ggg,'' said he ; and there, indeed, like
an egg-shell, light and perfect in its own fabric, it
stands to this day, and may stand forever. It is
the only perfect dome in Christendom. Michael
Angelo would not consent to imitate it, but con-
fessed his inability to rival it, when he designed the
dome of St. Peter's. The Italians would have no
more of Gothic art. It melts away, south of the
1 See Note O". 2 See Note P".
I/O INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Alps, in the fairy decorations of that Milanese cathe-
dral of snow. The recent facade of Santa Croce at
Florence proves that such art belongs not to the
sunny South; it is feeble beyond expression. But
the works of Brunelleschi and of Bramante and of
Angelo will last, and may supply to practical ages
a more enduring Christian architecture.
19. NAVIGATION.
We may well look on in breathless wonder as
we follow this age of miracles in its fertility of in-
vention, and its arts of progress. Under John I.,
who founds a new line of kings, and under the
patronage of his son Henry, Portugal takes the
lead in maritime adventure. The Azores are dis-
covered in A. D. 1432, and Cape Verde about ten
years later. In 1460, they have discovered the
isles off the coast of Guinea; the next year an ex-
pedition is sent, overland, to India ; in i486, Diaz
reaches the southern extremity of Africa; in 1496,
Vasco de Gama doubles the Cape ; the next year
he arrives at Calcutta ; he founds the Portuguese
empire in India ; the highways of commerce are
revolutionized, and Venice declines.
But, more and better, in 1442 is born, at Genoa,
Christopher Columbus. In 1484, he pleads in
vain with John II. of Portugal to give him the
means of exploring the Atlantic. It is not till
1492 that he sails from Palos, with his wretched
little fleet, for regions unknown; but (October 12)
he sights the first shore of a new world ; he presses
on to Cuba and Hayti, and in 1493 introduces the
THE MIDDLE AGES. 171
savages of Transatlantic regions at the court of
Ferdinand and Ysabcl. After pushing his adven-
tures with continuous success, he is brought to the
same court in chains, as the century comes to an
end. What an end for such an age, and for its
noblest hero !
At this date the discovery of Newfoundland
by the Cabots (a. D. 1498) opens the grand history
of the English race in America. Vespucci robs
Columbus of his just rights, by giving his second-
rate name to the continent. Copernicus, born at
Thorn, in A. D. 1473, was now pursuing his studies
of the universe. Surely the ages of light were
returning —
" To warm the nations with redoubled ray."
20. PRINTING.
The Crusades had introduced the cotton paper
of the Arabs into Europe, and its manufacture
with the stronger fibre of linen was established in
Germany in the preceding age. But now comes
the art of printing, the discovery of which must
be regarded as not half so great a wonder as the
fact that God had held back the mind and hand
of man from the most simple of all conclusions
until now. Every impression of a seal, every foot-
mark in the sand or clay of the soil, every stamp
upon coins, ought to have suggested it, ages be-
forehand. God willed it to wait till now, when the
grandest moral and civil revolutions were needed
to introduce the last ages of the world. Strange
to say, stereotyping came first ; for such were the
172 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
wooden tables of Koster in 1430, though it took
the sluggish wit of mankind nearly four centuries
more to return to the hint. Gutenberg (a. d. 1442)
had taught the utility of moveable types, and
Faust had brought the art to a practical degree of
perfection (a. d. 1450) by an improvement of the
press and the manufacture of printers' ink. In
A. D. 1455, the glory of the art was reached, when
the final sheets of the first printed Bible were
folded and bound at Mentz, by Gutenberg, Faust,
and Schaffer. Caxton, in a chapel of Westmin-
ster Abbey, about ten years later, was working
the first press in England. He died before he
knew that a new world had just been discovered,
where in our day the art in all its beauty and per-
fection is exercised in Chicago and in the great
port of the Pacific, — cities which fifty years ago
were but hamlets, amid the wigwams of savages.
Yet it deserves to be noted that the art reached
wellnigh the acme of its beauty in the age of its
birth, when Aldus (a. d. 1494), set up his press at
Venice, and introduced the delicate Italic letter, —
a refinement upon that of manuscript.
21. GREAT MOVEMENTS.
Now, also, was wood engraving introduced, and
musical notes were cut in type-metal. Watches
were made at Nuremberg and world-maps were sent
forth from the same city. But while these arts of
peace were in progress, the "Wars of the Roses"
were doing a useful work of another sort in Eng-
land, and the expedition of Charles VIII. into
THE MIDDLE AGES. 1 73
Italy, with his invasion of Rome on the last day of
the year 1494, marks a new era in the art of war. 1
His invention of a comparatively light and move-
able artillery, and the improvement of fire-arms for
soldiery, with his passage of the Alps and auda-
cious treatment of the pontiff, were a foreshadow-
ing of the French campaigns in Italy four hundred
years later. Napoleon's " flying artillery " was
but another stage of progress ; the idea of bat-
teries not only possible on the field, but transfer-
able from point to point, belongs to this age of
modern warfare.
But the glory and the shame of the century re-
mains to be told. Providentially the art of print-
ing and all the progress of the age circle round its
noontide ; a crisis which proved a blessing to man-
kind, as it created the revival of learning and in-
sured the reformation of religion, the exposure of
the Decretalist and other Papal frauds, the study
of Holy Scripture in the originals, the abasement
of the Papacy, the advance of freedom and of con-
stitutional law, and the illumination of the world.
Again the Gospel came forth from the East. All
these blessings were wrought out of an evil, in
itself most disgraceful and menacing to Christen-
dom : the fall of Constantinople in A. D. 1453, and
the planting of that cancer in the breast of civil-
ization, the unspeakably abominable Turkey in
Europe.
1 See Note Q".
174 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
22. THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
The Council of Florence, in A. D. 1439, grew
out of the impending horrors which the Greeks
foresaw must soon overwhelm them. For ten
years had they repelled the arms of Bajazet, when
God sent Timour the Tartar to their aid ; but now
the Turks were at their very doors. Scutari was
in the hands of the Ottomans, and, reinforced by
siege-guns with balls of granite, were preparing
for a final assault. Every motive appealed to the
Christian universe for a crusade, which reason and
righteousness would have justified. The cause of
the Greeks was the common cause of Europe and of
humanity; but the Popes saw their opportunity, at
last, and would give no aid to the Easterns save
at the price of their submission. Their delegates
at Florence were starved and menaced into a
patched-up compliance, 1 and the " Uniat " com-
promises were agreed on. But they were received
on their return with a howl of execration, and
the Greeks, true to the ancient Nicene consti-
tutions, once more rejected the Popes. The Turks
might massacre them, but the fraudulent Decretals
should not enslave them. As the consequence, on
the 29th of May, Constantine Palseologus, the last
of the Caesars, perished on the walls of New
Rome, which for more than a thousand years had
been the metropolis of Christendom. Under the
dome of Justinian, in the solemn night before, he
had received the holy sacrament of the altar. That
day the streets ran with blood, and, after the brutal
1 See Note R".
THE MIDDLE AGES. I 75
example of Mohammed II., their chief women
were given over to unmentionable outrage ; twelve
thousand houses and churches were burned ; thou-
sands were put to the sword. Gibbon, with levity,
tells of the horrors to which virgins were deliv-
ered, of sixty thousand sold into slavery, and of
the Hippodrome streaming with blood. He shares
not our sense of shame, when he tells how the
imam ascended the pulpit, and the muezzin cried
from its turrets, " Great is Allah, and Mohammed
is his prophet ! " To the disgrace of our mother
England, this goes on still; and twelve million
Christians writhe under the heels of three million
Turks, because Turkish bonds are held in London.
O Lord, how long? If England will not hear
their cries, then Godspeed to Russia !
23. LIGHT OUT OF DARKNESS.
The Greeks were driven out of their capital, but
they brought learning to Florence and to Rome.
Now were the Greek Scriptures read once more,
and the Fathers began to be printed and studied.
Luther's great gift of the Bible to Germany must
rank as second to the restoration of the Greek Testa-
ment by Erasmus. Aristotle's alloy in Christian the-
ology began to be deprecated, as Plato began to be
loved. The Greeks who had fled to Italy before the
downfall had enabled Nicholas V. to found the Vati-
can Library, and now libraries began to be multi-
plied. It was well ; for, as the century came to its
end, the Papacy had returned to its vomit and to its
wallowing in the mire. The age of Theodosia and
176 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Marozia was revived again under the infamous Bor-
gia (Alexander VI.), and Rome continued to be
the hot-bed of ecclesiastical crime and debauchery,
when a young Augustinian monk came, and saw,
and went away to conquer. Michael Angelo was
painting the Sistine Chapel with a parable which the
Papal Court was too stupid to comprehend. 1 He
wrote Tekel on their walls, and reminded them that
prophets and sibyls alike foretold the Last Judg-
ment. He portrayed its awful menace before
their eyes, and scrupled not to put popes and car-
dinals among the damned. Some whined when
they saw their own portraits in the terrible carica-
ture, but they were too torpid to comprehend the
length and breadth of such a prophecy. A day of
retribution was close at hand. God was arising to
shake terribly the earth.
1 See Note S".
LECTURE VI.
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS.
I. IDENTITY AND CONTINUITY.
LET me now invite you to a survey of the his-
tory of the Anglican Church, its origin, its
subjection to the Paparchy in the Middle Ages, and,
finally, of its restoration in the sixteenth century.
We shall see that from its origin until now it is the
same identical Church, — no more another now
than the man who has been a prodigal, and who has
regained his home and his patrimony, is other than
the embryo that was once in the womb, the babe
that once drew nurture from its mother's breast,
the youth who declined from his parental example
and teachings, and the sufferer who, amid the filth
and the starvation of the swineyard, came to him-
self, and said, " I will arise and go to my father."
The Anglican Church was primitive and pure;
she became enslaved and defiled ; she regained
her liberties, she washed and is clean. But she is
none other to-day, as to individuality and identity,
than she was when Italians were sent to put chains
upon her; when she shook her chains, in defiance,
as she chafed under them ; when she lay down
and slept awhile, baffled and degraded ; or when,
12
178 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
at last, she woke and broke from her fetters, and
began to be herself again ; until now God has
given her to many nations and set her footsteps in
the seas, and enabled us to say, " Her sound is
gone out into all lands, and her words into the
ends of the world." Such is the outline of her
history, which I propose to make clear and read-
ily recognized by the illumination of truths which
have been too little understood.
2. ORIGIN OF THE CHURCH IN BRITAIN.
There are many evidences that the Gospel was
preached in Britain by disciples of St. Paul. Three
names in his latest catalogue of Roman saints 1 may
not have secured your close attention : " Pudens,
Linus, Claudia," — that is, Lin and Gladys. These
twain were Britons, probably, and their names
are thus Latinized, as Saul is also called Paul.
Pudens, who had served in Britain as a soldier,
married this British lady, as we know from Mar-
tial's epigram. Caradoc, whose sister or daugh-
ter she may have been, had doubtless become a
Christian when he moralized on the Coliseum, as
it rose before his eyes, in language which only
Christians understood, and which he borrowed
from common sayings of early Christians. 2 The
return of Caradoc to his distant home, accompa-
nied by Christian missionaries, who were afterwards
the evangelists of Wales, is a theory supported by
striking probabilities, while it accounts, as nothing
else can, for inscriptions and ancient monuments
1 2 Tim. iv. 21. 2 See Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. iii. p. 108.
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 1 79
at Chichester. The names of ancient sees in Wales,
such as St. Asaph's and St. David's, suggest that
Jewish converts of St. Paul were their founders,
and learned antiquarians have detected Welsh
forms of several other saintly names in the Pauline
calendar, among the ancient titles of their villages
and towns. The history of " Lesser Britain," or
Armorica, confirms all this; for the two Britains
were inhabited by the same race. The Greek
Menology retains the old tradition that Aristobulus,
mentioned by St. Paul, was one of the Seventy, and
became a British evangelist.
3. PERIODS.
Three periods should here be primarily noted :
that of (1) the Primitive British Church, that of
(2) the Early English Church, and (3) that of the
Later English Church. The Norman epoch (a. d.
1066) is the turning point in Anglican history in
its relations with Rome. Thereafter, we note three
periods again: that of (1) the Transition to Papal
Subjection, that of (2) the Paparchy Established,
and (3) that of the Restoration. As to the Primi-
tive British, a few additional words must suffice.
4. THE PRIMITIVE PERIOD.
Lucius, one of the British chiefs, is said to have
been the first Christian king; but the legends of
Edessa, 1 if they are to be credited, would deprive
us of this glory. He lived in the time of Aurelius,
1 See Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. viii. p. 647.
l80 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
when, had he been known to the Romans, he could
hardly have escaped the crown of martyrdom. St.
Alban, who suffered in Diocletian's world-wide
massacre, is reputed the first British martyr. In
A. D. 314, before the Nicene era, we noted the
presence of three British bishops at the Council of
Aries, a fact which seems to me to account for
the Easter usages to which the British Church so
tenaciously adhered. These bishops found them
corresponding with their own traditions in the
churches of Pothinus and Irenaeus. But of this
by and by. It is not pleasant to add, as we must,
that Morgan, better known as Pelagius, was also a
Briton. His heresy caused great evils, not only in
the unlearned and isolated church of his birth and
baptism, but ever since among Christians. On
the other hand, as St. Paul has said, 1 " there must
be also heresies among you, that they which are
approved may be made manifest " ; and we owe
to this principle of the divine economy that mas-
terly exposition of the doctrines of grace in which
the faith of primitive Christians is witnessed against
Pelagius by St. Augustine.
5. GROANS OF THE BRITONS.
In A. D. 446, " the groans of the Britons " attest
their inveterate sufferings from barbarous Picts and
Scots ; and in A. D. 449, the arrival of the Saxons
enables us to date the Early English period from
the middle of the fifth century. Invited to come
in and drive out the Picts, our forefathers, the
1 1 Cor. xi. 19.
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. l8l
Angles and Saxons, took their pay by settling in
the delightful lands they had defended. In the
Isle of Wight and the opposite coasts settled the
Jutes. Essex, Wessex, and Sussex tell the story
of the Saxon immigration, and the Angles took the
rest of the eastern coast into custody northward
and far above the Humber. Such are our Anglo-
Saxon forefathers, and I am not very proud of
their conduct But if they proved treacherous
allies of the native Christians, they were pagans,
who knew no better ; and, feeble as were the Chris-
tians, they turned upon them at times and gave
them a terrible threshing. Gildas, their own British
chronicler, reproaches them as believers for not
preaching to the Saxons, whom we may now for
the first time call " the English," the Gospel of
peace and love. The Saxons continued heathen
till converted by the missionaries of Gregory.
6. CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH.
His interest had been excited by the appearance
of fair-haired boys from England in the Roman
slave-market. " If only they were Christians,"
said the holy man, " not Angles, but Angels, they
might be called." When he became bishop, as if
remembering where Pelagius came from, he sent
to convert them Augustine, a namesake of the
great Bishop of Hippo. Now, though Gregory
dealt with his missionaries and their converts in
Britain very much as we deal with ours in China
and Japan, his conduct, even as related by Bede at
a later period, with the disadvantage of his less
1 82 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
primitive conceptions, is altogether in keeping with
Gregory's primitive assertion of his adhesion to
Nicene canons. He was not " the Universal Bishop " ;
he dictated no deference to his see, but advised
Augustine to adopt improvements, if he saw any,
among the churches of Gaul ; and we cannot
doubt that, had he known of their continued ex-
istence, he would have advised a generous and
brotherly course in dealing with the ancient Chris-
tians of the land. These had retreated westward,
and were now hemmed in among the mountains of
Wales, and by the Southern seas in what we know
as Cornwall, perhaps "the Horn of Wales."
7. THE EARLY ENGLISH.
Thus the Early English 1 period opens with the
seventh century, say A. D. 601. Augustine re-
paired to France to be consecrated by the Bishop
of Aries (Virgilius), who was assisted, according to
the Nicene canons, by two other bishops, of whom
the name of one only has come down to us ; that of
./Etherius, Bishop of Lyons. He succeeded from
St. John, through Polycarp, Pothinus, and Irenaeus,
as the thirty-second bishop of that most primitive
and illustrious see. Thus Augustine became the
first Bishop of Canterbury, deriving his apostolic
office from the churches of Ephesus and Smyrna,
both mentioned in the Apocalypse, and saluted by
an epistle from our ascended Lord himself with
exceptional tokens of approbation.
1 Not to be understood of architecture.
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 1 83
8. CONSEQUENCES.
Great gratitude is due to Gregory for his nurs-
ing care and faithfulness in planting the Church of
England; but we must not think it strange that
the relations thus established between England and
the great Apostolic See of the West led to conse-
quences not in themselves happy, nor even canon-
ical. Our own missionary bishops naturally write
to their brethren here for instructions, and the
English missionaries write personally to the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury from the ends of the earth.
It was much more necessary for similar relations to
be kept up, in those days, with the great metrop-
olis of Western Christendom, because books were
few and all sources of information rare. 1 Let us
imagine how the new primate of England would
naturally regard the great patriarch of Rome.
9. RELATIONS TO THE APOSTOLIC SEE.
Not as in any sense " Universal Bishop " ; that
Gregory abhorred. Not as having any powers or
authority superior to his own as a bishop ; that also
Gregory had expressly and vehemently disclaimed. 2
Yet the Church had established certain great pa-
triarchs, among whom Gregory had a primacy of
honour, but no "supremacy" of any kind. Beyond
his own limited patriarchate, he might exert a
watchful care to see that the Nicene and other
oecumenical canons were obeyed ; he could enforce
them, however, only by the action of councils,
1 See Lecture III. § 16, page 95. 2 See Note T".
1 84 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
each subject to its own president, or metropolitan,
and not to him. In a mission created by himself,
he seems to have, naturally, expected a degree of
deference growing out of such circumstances. All
this Augustine would justifiably recognize. We
must not be surprised to find that the great patri-
arch was invested in his eyes with an exceptional
importance, as succeeding to the apostles St. Paul
and St. Peter in the ancient world-centre. All the
patriarchs were called Papa by way of eminence,
and each in his own jurisdiction was " the Papa " ;
just as we call the nearest post-office " the post-
office," or the chief magistrate of our own city
" the Mayor." This by no means implies that
there are no other post-offices or mayors ; and so,
when Augustine speaks of " the Apostolic See,"
he detracts nothing from Antioch or Ephesus ;
and when he speaks of " the Pope," he by no means
implies that the other patriarchs are any less
" popes " than Gregory. Bear in mind that, as I
have shown, what we understand by that term was
not then imagined ; and not till the close of the
eleventh century did even a Roman pontiff presume
to decree that this title should be peculiar to him-
self. For, not bearing all this continually in mind,
the most erroneous impressions are derived from
books that use such expressions unguardedly in
the sense current in the times of their authors, as
now among the vulgar.
io. A DISCOVERY.
When Robinson Crusoe discovered a human
foot-print in the sand, his sensations were serious.
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 1 85
When Augustine first learned that there were
already Christians in Britain does not appear; but
his first impressions of them were doubtless not
very favourable. He learned that they were an un-
lettered race, who still kept Easter by the ancient,
but now uncanonical, uses of Smyrna and Ephesus.
For these had been overruled at Nicaea, by univer-
sal consent. Were the Britons deliberate schis-
matics? He doubtless imagined they were, but
this was a mistake. The Britons had been so long
cut off from commerce with other churches, that
they had never received from Alexandria the
annual computation. Gregory himself did not
know of their existence, and it seems to me prob-
able, as I have said before, that they kept on in
the way received by Irenaeus from Polycarp, and
which Eborius and his companions had learned
from Lyons and Aries to regard as lawful. 1 Espe-
cially would they be likely to adhere to their old
customs, so long as the Patriarch of Alexandria
failed to communicate with them, as the canons
prescribed. This was their misfortune, not their
fault.
11. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CASE.
Augustine would look at it very differently : they
were ignorant barbarians, at best, and it was now
time for them to obey the canons. Besides, though
he had been expressly counselled by Gregory not
to expect every national church to conform to the
Italian usages, he felt sure, no doubt, that they were
the best usages ; just as some of us are quite sure
1 See supra, § 4.
1 86 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
that the Mexican Church and Pere Hyacinthe in
Paris ought to accept every usage and every rubric
of our " incomparable prayer-book." We find
some disposed to withhold aid from the " old Cath-
olics," because they prefer, in many respects, their
national rites to ours. Human nature does not
change.
12. A CONFERENCE.
Augustine obtained a conference with some of
the British bishops, and it was held under a tree
which remained till comparatively recent times, and
was known as " Augustine's oak." What a meet-
ing! What but Christianity could have afforded
any common ground for such a conference ! There
were the aborigines of the soil, and here the robber
Saxons ; there the ancient Church of Caradoc and
Pudens, of Claudia and of St. Paul's own mission-
aries, and here was a new-comer, who called him-
self Bishop of the English, and seemed to them
in league with their old enemies against them. In
answer to prayer, Augustine was thought to have
wrought a miracle, which excited their fraternal
respect; but they answered, with dignity, that
" they could not depart from their ancient customs
without the consent of their own churches."
13. AND ANOTHER.
At a second conference, Augustine's bearing and
conduct were offensive to these very primitive peo-
ple. Yet he proposed no terms of union other than
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 1 87
such as we should approve. They were to adopt,
" not as our custom, but as that of the Universal
Church," certain compliances with the local Ro-
man and Apostolic Church, (1) in the administer-
ing of baptism, and (2) in the keeping of Easter.
Further, (3) they were to act jointly with him in
preaching to the English nation the word of God.
They refused consent, chiefly because of his over-
bearing manner. And here he seems to have
forgotten what was due to himself and them, for
he threatened them with the divine displeasure.
When, some ten years later, King Ethelfrid with a
great army fell upon them and massacred them in
great numbers, the Saxons looked upon this ter-
rible event in one way and the Britons in a very
different one.
An ancient Welsh document relates that the
answer of the British clergy was made on one
occasion in the following words, by Dinoth, an
abbot : —
" The British churches owe the deference of broth-
erly kindness and charity to the Church of God, to the
Roman Papa, and to all Christians. But other obedience
they do not know to be due to him whom you call the
Papa. As for ourselves, we are under the jurisdiction
of the Bishop of Caerleon upon Uske, who, under God,
is our spiritual overseer and guide."
Ethelfrid's vengeance fell upon Chester in the
North, the ancient name of which resembles that
of Caerleon in South Wales. This may have led
some to imagine that the massacre was inspired
by Augustine's threat, of which he probably had
1 88 INSTITUTE'S OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
never heard ; but it shows how intense was the
Saxon prejudice of Bede himself against the Brit-
ons, when this holy man can see nothing in the
event but a just judgment from the Lord. We
must acknowledge with grief, that a like unchari-
table comment might be made upon the failure of
missions and bishoprics which Augustine founded.
There were terrible relapses ; some of the bishops
retired to France ; the old idolatry returned in
divers places. The Anglican Church had shrunk
to the dimensions of the single county of Kent,
when once again it revived, and for a time spread
over the northeastern counties, under good King
Edwin. But again there came a relapse. In
Lincolnshire, where a great work seemed begun,
the churches went to decay, and so continued for
years. It became manifest that Augustine's work
must all be done over again.
14. IONA AND ITS MISSIONS.
But for thirty years (A. D. 633-664) a more
primitive and a more successful work had been
carried on among the Northern English, by Scots
and Picts, the old enemy, now Christianized by the
zeal of Columba and his missions that went forth
from Iona. King Oswald restored the cathedral at
York. Aidan, a saintly bishop, fixed his mission-
ary see at another Iona, Lindisfarne, on the coast
of Northumbria, which was long known as the
Holy Isle. This bishopric was afterwards enlarged,
and settled as the see of Durham. Finan, who
succeeded to Aidan, recovered very much peo-
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 1 89
pie to Christ. A bishop was set over Lichfield,
and another was restored to London. Nobody
can read the beautiful tributes which Bcde pays
to the Northern bishops, with whom he differed
on so many points, without the conviction that
to Iona and to Lindisfarne, and to the meek and
loving spirit of their missionaries, the ultimate
conversion of all England is chiefly due. At one
time only one bishop of the Latin rite was left in
the island. And so it came about that this rite
was observed only in Kent and a small part of the
South, while the converted North adhered to the
Gallican rites, or others of very primitive use,
brought into the Pictish churches from Ireland.
To heal the differences occasioned by such diver-
sity, a synod was summoned (A. D. 664) at Whitby,
in Yorkshire.
15. COUNSELS OF UNITY.
And very interesting and truly Christian in spirit
were the discussions. Bede attributes the Easter
rules of the Northern Britons to the causes I have
already instanced, and excuses their non-conform-
ity in this respect, acknowledging their true faith
and piety in the spirit of their observance of rules
they had received from primitive times. Though
the immediate results were not unanimously
adopted, this synod unified the churches in a good
degree'; and soon after (a. d. 667}, such a desire
for the settlement of affairs was reached that the
Northerns came to an agreement with their Kent-
ish brethren, and elected Wighart Archbishop of
190 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Canterbury, desiring him to go to Rome and re-
ceive consecration there. This measure was very
wisely conceived. The English Church exercised
its own rights of election ; but the failure of Greg-
ory's mission having become a scandal, it was fit-
ting that " the Pope of the city of Rome" as Bede
and Alcuin call him, should be informed of the bet-
ter state of things now existing, — of the growing
unity of the Church in Britain, and of their desire
to be in unity with the Apostolic See. Unhappily,
as we might think, Wighart died at Rome in a
pestilence before he could receive consecration;
and, very pardonably perhaps, Vitalian, the patri-
arch of the city, resolved to find a proper person
to be the English metropolitan, and send him out
as his missionary. This was an unfortunate pre-
cedent, interfering as it did with the elective fran-
chise of the English Church, and tending to impair
its autonomy. But God overruled all for good.
16. THE MISSION OF THEODORE.
He chose Theodore, a native of St. Paul's own
city, Tarsus, and consecrated him Bishop on the
feast of the Annunciation, a. d. 668. It was, per-
haps, a concession to the North British churches
to send them an Eastern bishop, who could best
persuade them to adopt the Nicene rules of Eas-
ter. But, as a restraint upon him, and to keep up
the Latin side of the controversies, Vitalian gave
him a sort of archdeacon in Adrian who accom-
panied him. It was in A. D. 669 that he arrived in
England, to reconstruct and to " set in order the
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 191
things that were wanting." He was cordially ac-
cepted, and became, in fact, the second founder of
the Church of England. No one of his predeces-
sors is to be compared with this truly great and
holy man. Nevertheless, he had marked faults and
infirmities, and was not always considerate in deal-
ing with what, no doubt, he considered as yet a
mere mission among a rude and half-Christianized
people, " wellnigh severed from the whole world."
17. PERILOUS INNOVATIONS.
It has been necessary for me to go thus largely
into the character of the Primitive British and the
Early English Churches, in order to free later ques-
tions from the difficulties with which profound and
unpardonable ignorance has encumbered the mat-
ter. We are now nearly at the end of the seventh
century. The island has been Christianized from
the Apostles' times. Its ultimate conversion and
the Anglican Church, as a unit, result not from
the Latin mission, but from Nicene churches, com-
ing southward in their simplicity and purity from
Iona and Lindisfarne. During this whole period
the churches have enjoyed the insular privileges
secured by the Cypriote canon to all churches so
situated. The coming of Theodore was marked
by one circumstance which shows how jealous
were the native churches of all foreign intrusion.
Augustine and his successors had leaned too much
on Rome as their natural base of supplies, and this
had doubtless increased their difficulties. A thor-
ough and immediate identification of themselves
192 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
with the native Christians would have worked
better. Grace had been given to others to repair
the breach, and to heal the old wounds. But The-
odore's consecration with an implication that he
was to be their " metropolitan," when they had
elected Wighart, and without waiting for their ac-
tion in the choice of another, was an infraction of dis-
cipline ; more especially as the Church of England
had never recognized as yet any metropolitical
power whatever in the see of Canterbury. Wilfrid,
now Bishop of York, had proved this, by going into
France to be consecrated, which would have been
resented by the then Bishop of Canterbury had he
possessed any canonical right to consecrate the
bishops of England. This same Wilfrid had seen
the importance of accepting the Easter usages en-
joined by Nicaea, and had favoured unity with the
Latins of Kent and Surrey ; but in the circumstan-
ces he showed, perhaps, only a proper self-respect
by refusing attendance at Theodore's synods.
18. COMPROMISES.
However, by the humility of St. Chad, who rep-
resented the Northern churches, things were so far
harmonized that he became Bishop of Lichfield,
and Wilfrid was appeased, so that all things were
ready for harmonious action. A synod was called
at Hertford by the authority of the Saxon princes,
where the old canons were examined and local
canons passed. By these Theodore was virtually
accepted as the first Metropolitan of the Church
of England ; according to the canons, that is, and
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 1 93
not by any authority of a foreign bishop. To
show Theodore's own convictions on the subject,
in which the churches and the local princes sus-
tained him, he refused all recognition of Agatho,
Bishop of Rome, when he presumed to interfere in
the matter of a bishop deprived of his see. lie
did much more, and in a more important matter :
for whereas Honorius, Pope of the city of Rome,
fell into the Monothelite heresy, and was subse-
quently condemned as a heretic, 1 Theodore sum-
moned a council (a. d. 680) at Hatfield, just at
the time when the sixth and last general council
was held at Constantinople, for the same pur-
pose, in which this heresy was condemned. This
council of Hatfield marks a great point in the
Anglican history ; for it thoroughly recognized
the Nicene Councils and Constitutions, and all the
councils oecumenical, placing the united Church of
the Britons and Saxons on the unequivocal base of
Holy Scripture and primitive antiquity.
19. WHAT ITS FIRST ARCHBISHOP HAD MADE
OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.
In this happy estate Theodore the Great, as he
may justly be called, left the Church of England,
when (a. d. 690) he rested from his labours. He
was nearly ninety years of age, and had sat in his
see two-and-twenty years. He founded schools,
increased learning, and left scholars who were
masters of the Latin tongue not only, but of the
Greek also, the native tongue of Theodore himself.
1 See Lecture III. § 27, page 107.
13
194 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
To such schools we owe the precious life and
labours of Bede, and of the great Alcuin, of whom
we have heard before. So stood the Church of
our forefathers at the close of the seventh century.
20. THE VENERABLE BEDE.
We enter the new century at the date of Bede's
ordination in the thirtieth year of his age. He
loved the Latin churches and the see of Rome, to
which he felt that the Saxons owed their Christian-
ity, and his fidelity to this sentiment amounted in
him wellnigh to a passion. But it was to the ca-
nonical dignity and character of the Apostolic See
that he was attached. He owed it no subscription.
In the year after his ordination to the presbyterate,
an English council took occasion to declare that
" No decree of English archbishops and bishops
should ever be altered by any decrees of the Apos-
tolic See." This was precisely the position of
Dinoth and the British bishops in their answer
to Augustine. The greatest men of this age, and
those most attached to the Latin rites and usages,
reaffirmed this position two years later at a con-
ference in Yorkshire ; adding a strong defiance of
any foreign power presuming to interfere with
what the synods of the national Church had
decreed.
21. FIRST ENGLISH MISSIONS.
Now went forth Winfrid (or Boniface) on his
great mission to the Franks, and the light of Eng-
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 1 95
land began to illuminate the world. But many
things in England itself began to awaken the anxi-
ety of Bede, who reflects upon them with prudent
reserve, and says, " Time will show." Egbert, the
patron of Alcuin, was now Bishop of York, and
Bede complains to him of the great ignorance of the
peasantry, sending him copies of the Lord's Prayer
and the Creed in the vulgar tongue, which he en-
treats may be used by the clergy in teaching the
people. Here was in rudiments our own Catechism
begun. And, indeed, now were the seeds of a
subsequent restoration planted; for, in reproving
the corruptions of the monasteries and other evils
which afterwards arose, he writes like a reformer.
He was one of the greatest doctors of the age,
and he met his death on Ascension day, May 25,
A. D. 735, with his pen in hand, translating the
Gospel of St. John into English. In the cathe-
dral of Durham you may see his tomb and his
epitaph : —
" Hie jacent in fossa
Bedas Venerabilis ossa."
" Here lie 'neath these stones
Bede the Venerable's bones.
22. THE LATER PERIOD.
Of Alcuin and his transcendent merits you have
been so fully reminded that I add no more about
him. Thus we reach the epoch which closes the
history of the early English period, at the memora-
ble date of Charlemagne, A. D. 800. In that same
year Egbert began his reign. He nominally was
196 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
the first King of England ; but we may practically
reserve that title for Alfred the Great.
Between this date and the Norman invasion,
A. D. 1066, which was the epoch of Hildebrand,
lies the later English period, during which England
itself began to be created, in its constitutions and
laws, by the action of the Church. The bishops
established the State, " as bees make the honey-
comb " ; but the State never established the Church
of England. She was the precedent condition of
the State itself. In the preceding age, Ina, king of
Wessex, speaks of the nascent Parliament as hav-
ing concurred, in its three estates, in enacting the
laws. He enumerates : " My bishops, and all my
eldermen, and the eldest wita?i of my people, with
a great gathering of God's servants." Such was
the " Witenagemot," or assembly of the Wise.
23. ALFRED, THE HEAD OF OUR RACE.
Alfred revised and collected the laws of his pre-
decessors, rejecting, with the advice and consent of
his witan, what he could not approve, but modestly
inserting nothing of his own, because " he could
not foresee what might be good for such as should
come after him." The incursions of the Northmen
kept this great prince busy, all his days, resisting
their ravages. They made a " dark age " for Eng-
land ; but, at all his intervals of respite, he was not
less active in his literary pursuits, promoting learn-
ing, encouraging piety and study among the clergy,
and with his own hands translating Holy Scrip-
tures and good books for his people. He lived
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 1 97
through the ninth century, and expired in the first
year of the tenth. I have quoted a saying of
King Edgar's about this horrible century. 1 In his
reign, Dunstan became Archbishop, and brought in
many Italian monks, by whom the sorest evils were
soon inflicted on the Church. The ascendency of
the Danes and the reign of Canute deserve careful
study; they promoted somewhat, at a dangerous
period, the influence of Rome, where the Paparchy
was now growing to enormous proportions, amid
not less enormous corruptions. Edward the Con-
fessor is revered as a Saxon saint and a true Eng-
lishman ; but Earl Godwin ruled the land, and his
son Harold succeeded. All things had prepared
the way for a new era; and, after a brief reign of
forty weeks, the battle of Hastings gave the realm
to William the Norman.
24. TAKING OUR BEARINGS.
Let us see where the Anglican Church stood
on the eve of its enslavement to an alien aggres-
sion. The idea of a " Papacy" was familiarized;
but it was the indefinite conception of a great
Canonical Patriarchate, in the apostolic city of
Rome, to which filial deference was due. It was a
Papacy, but not a Paparchy. Elsewhere the De-
cretals had done their work more effectually, but
England was Nicene, and not Roman. It was free
in spirit, and, as yet, in form.
Observe that the canon of Holy Scripture, the
Creeds, the Episcopate, were identical with those
1 See Lecture V., page 151.
198 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
we have now. There was no doctrine of Transub-
stantiation ; the communicant received in both
kinds ; there was no forced confessional. The
clergy were mostly married men. The whole
scholastic system of theology was non-existent.
There were gross superstitions, but no false dog-
mas. Avoid reading into these times any ideas
distinctively more modern, and bear always in
mind that the Catholic Church still meant what
it means in the Nicene Constitutions. It took five
centuries more to produce such a monstrous con-
ception as that of " the Roman Catholic Church,"
— a local church that is claiming to be identical
with the whole Church Universal.
25. THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD.
The new period is that of the Anglo-Normans,
but it includes the century of transition, which was
not complete when the Angevine dynasty came in.
We shall only note the great changes it created in
the Anglican Church, and the debasement of its
Nicene position.
It introduced an entirely new class of ideas, for
with French and Italian priests came a Latinizing
process which, by and by, subjected the Anglican
Church to the Roman pontiff; never so, however,
as to rob it of its identity as the Church of Eng-
land, or to absorb it into the Italian, or Ultramon-
tane, system of passive subjection. The terribly
sincere Hildebrand was now carrying the as-
sumptions of the Decretals to their logical con-
sequences, and in him the fraudulent decrees of
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 1 99
Nicholas reached their highest mark. Gregory en-
deavoured to establish a universal Paparchy. This
level of culmination was maintained by the fero-
cious Innocent III. 1 (a. d. 1198), and subsequently
till we reach the fourteenth century under Boni-
face VIII., the last of those despotic pontiffs who
successfully enforced the Decretals. The reaction
was then begun. But it was precisely when the
Hildebrandine epoch was successfully transforming
the Latin churches into a system of ecclesiastical
satrapies, that England was Normanized. Hilde-
brand sanctioned the invasion of William. His
purpose and policy are evident. This remnant of
the Nicene Constitutions must be absorbed. He
who forced Henry, the Emperor, to kneel at his
gate amid the snows of Canossa, and whose new
position was marked by an edict claiming the title
of " Pope " as no longer to be applied to other
patriarchs or bishops, now proposed to subject
England to the Paparchy.
26. THE NEW EPISCOPUS AB EXTRA.
I have not called William " the Conqueror," for
our forefathers were not conquered when Harold
was overcome. It was a duel between two claim-
ants of the English throne, neither of whom had a
well-defined right. But William was the nominee of
Edward the Confessor, and came in as his regular
successor, swearing to maintain the laws and insti-
tutions of the English, which, with all his rude and
cruel ideas, he did in many respects quite effectu-
1 See Note U".
200 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
ally. I do not wholly share the feeling of those
who see in him only the brutal " Bastard" and
despot. Happily, he was bred in the Gallican
school of ecclesiasticism, and had imbibed some
ideas from Charlemagne, as we shall soon see.
What St. Louis did for France in a later age,
William allowed the Church of England to do,
promptly and vigorously, at this crisis. In fact,
when Henry VIII. was called upon by the estates
of his realm to " reassume " the ancient rights and
privileges of his crown, he did little more than re-
vive the laws of the Church and the land, as they
were maintained at this time, even under the pon-
tificate of Hildebrand. This will soon appear from
the facts I shall note.
27. THE FOREIGN ARCHBISHOPS.
During the four Anglo-Norman reigns, there
were five Archbishops of Canterbury. The first
two were Italians ; the other three were French-
men. By education and in habits of life the Italian
primates were, of course, more or less Norman-
ized ; for Lanfranc and Anselm were taken from
the monastery of Bee. To make way for the for-
mer, Stigand, in heart a non-juror, after four years,
was deposed. William would not be crowned by
him, but gave that honour to another. He be-
longed to the Anglo-Saxons, and did not fancy
the invasion ; but he was not, apparently, what an
English primate should have been at such a mo-
ment. It is important, and very creditable to Wil-
liam, to note that, besides Stigand, only two or
three of the Anglo-Saxon bishops were deprived.
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 201
28. THE GREAT LANFRANC.
For Lanfranc I feel a tender and almost affec-
tionate respect. He was a humble-minded, but,
all the more, a great bishop. Born in 1'avia, he
had been nurtured in Ghibelline ideas; he was
therefore, naturally, of Hincmar's school, and ac-
cepted the traditions of Frankfort. The Decretals,
it is true, had now during two centuries been trans-
forming the Latin canons, and he no more doubted
their authority than he did that of the Gospels.
He was a personal friend of Hildebrand, and loved
him. All the more may we wonder that he suc-
cessfully opposed that gigantic creator of pontifi-
cal despotism, and stood in the eleventh century
under William I. just about where, in the sixteenth,
we shall find Archbishop Warham with his con-
vocation under Henry VIII. Let us note some of
the landmarks which Lanfranc would not suffer
even Gregory to remove.
29. OLD LANDMARKS.
Hardly had William seated himself on his throne
when Gregory made his first move of aggression.
W'illiam was in debt to him for encouraging his in-
vasion, and he had invited Gregory to accept his re-
ward. Consequently two Roman cardinals appear
on the scene as Legates, and were bold enough to
introduce an unprecedented assault upon Anglican
liberties, summoning the bishops and clergy to a
council at Winchester. Here Stigand was deposed,
most uncanonically. 1 However, Lanfranc waited
1 Like Sancroft, under William III.
202 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
for no bulls from Gregory, but was duly conse-
crated by eight of his comprovincials, thus per-
petuating the ancient succession. Nor did he wait
for a pall from Rome to assume his authority as a
metropolitan. Note, therefore, that even under
Hildebrand no such formalities were of any ac-
count in England. Palls had been sent since Au-
gustine's time, but with no other apparent motive
than that of patriarchal recognition. But if Wil-
liam had paid off Gregory in a matter which suited
his own convenience, when he wanted to get rid
of Stigand, he was now inclined to show himself
an English king, and to resist further aggression.
The papal legate, Hubert, in the name of the pon-
tiff, demanded two things,— (i) the payment of
Peter-pence, said to be in arrears, and (2) homage,
as from a vassal to his suzerain. William, per-
haps, did not know that Peter-pence, as such, had
not been paid by former kings. Under them the
tribute was paid for the support of their own Eng-
lish college at Rome. Nevertheless, he was will-
ing to settle the cash account without dispute. As
to the homage, he growled out a reply worthy of
the bluff Harry Tudor: "Homage to thee I do
not choose to do ; I never promised it, nor do I
find that it was ever done by my predecessors to
thine."
30. AN ANGLICAN PRIMATE.
Gregory had relied on Lanfranc to support this
claim, and he now reproached his friend, as forget-
ting the feelings he had formerly professed, of
devotion to him and the Roman see. If William
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 203
was an English king, Lanfranc now rose to his
position as an English primate, and replied, " I
am ready to yield to your commands in every-
thing according to the canons." Here was the
noteworthy difference between the Papacy, as in-
terpreted by Gallicans and Anglicans, and that
Paparcliy which Gregory was trying to stretch
over all the churches, but of which England as
yet knew nothing. This latter could not be, even
nominally, reconciled with Nicene canons. Lan-
franc further said, that he had advised William to
do as the Pope desired, adding, however, curtly and
tartly, in the true Anglican spirit: "The reason
why he utterly rejects your proposal he has him-
self made known to your legate orally, and to
yourself by letter." This was not what the tamer
of kings and superiors could put up with from an
Anglican primate. Thank God, he found in Lan-
franc one who would not go to Canossa. It is
most important as a landmark to note the pontifi-
cal assumptions and the Anglican position at this
juncture. Thus then wrote Hildebrand to Lan-
franc: "Take care to make your appearance at
Rome, within four months from this date. . . .
Thus may you make amends for a disobedience we
have so long overlooked. If these apostolic man-
dates are unheeded, . . . know this for certain,
yon shall be severed from the grace of St. Peter,
and utterly stricken by his authority ; ... in other
words, you shall be wholly suspended from your
episcopal office." What happened? Here was
the Paparchy (a. D. 1081), and where was Angli-
canism at that date? Dean Hook tells the whole
204 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
story in a line: "The Archbishop of Canterbury
did not go, and Lanfranc was not suspended."
31. CYPRIOTE AUTONOMY.
In other words, the Church of England was
still a Nicene church, and stood upon the ancient
canons. It was just at this time that the Em-
peror had called a council at Brixen, in the Tyrol,
which, in the spirit of Frankfort, had deposed
Gregory and elected an antipope calling him-
self Clement III. Note, then, another proof that
neither the Church in England, nor its primate,
imagined that communion with the Pope was re-
quisite to Catholic communion; for in this great
matter Lanfranc took no pains to be in com-
munion with Gregory, nor was he even influenced
by Gregory's threat of excommunication " from
the grace of Peter " to seek relief under the rival
pontiff. To foreign inquiries upon the subject he
returned this cool and truly English reply, as if
with the Cypriote canon in his mind : " Our island
has not yet rejected Gregory, but it has not de-
cided upon tendering obedience to Clement: when
both sides have been heard, we shall be better
qualified to come to a resolution in the case." He
speaks with calm indifference, but rather as an
umpire than as a subject. There are abundant
proofs that, even at this date, the Anglican Church
was everywhere recognized as maintaining an ex-
ceptional position, other than that of the Latin
churches connected with " the Holy Roman Em-
pire." Seventeen years later, at the Council of
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 20 5
Bari, A. D. 1098, when Anselm's spare and modest
figure was hidden from Urban II., at a humble
distance from his throne, he cried out, " Anselm,
father and master, where art thou ? " When he
very meekly advanced, the pontiff gave him a priv-
ileged seat, and added, " We include him indeed
in our cecumene, 1 but as the pope of another cecu-
tnene" Whatever meaning he may have attached
to his almost prophetic words, it is evident that
he regarded him as a patriarch, and as somewhat
which others were not. Lanfranc, I suppose,
speaks of " our island " in that very sense : orbis
alter, another cecumene, no part of the Roman
Empire.
32. ANGLICAN LIBERTIES ASSERTED.
Under William and this great primate what were
called Gallican maxims two centuries later were
thus laid down as Anglican liberties: — (1.) The
Carolingian position of the royal supremacy was
maintained ; the king, like Charles and Constan-
tine, was eveqite an dcJwrs, the principle afterwards
restored under Warham, and less practically re-
affirmed under Louis XIV. just six hundred years
from the times we are now considering. Yet fools
and knaves affirm perpetually that this was an in-
vention of Henry VIII. (2.) If two or more popes
were claimants of St. Peter's throne, the right of
choosing his pope was vested in the king. This
defeats all such ideas as were formulated at Trent,
1 " Orbis " seems here to have this significance. See William of
Malmesbury (ed. Migne), p. 1493.
206 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
or decreed by the late pontiff. (3.) When the
true Pope had been thus ascertained, none of his
briefs or bulls were to be published in England
till approved by the king. (4.) No ecclesiastic, if
summoned to Rome, should be permitted to obey
without the king's permission. We have seen by
Lanfranc's conduct that he may have dictated
this safeguard against papal aggression. (5.) The
Church of England, in council under the primate,
might make no canons without the royal consent.
(6.) The Anglican Church in council, with such
consent, might regulate her own officers and pre-
scribe her own liturgy. Under this ancient im-
munity the " Use of Salisbury " was now set forth
as a model, and to this the Church of England re-
verted at the Restoration under Elizabeth. Note
the essential identity of the Church under Wil-
liam I. and under the later Tudors.
33. THE GREAT ANSELM.
Anselm, who succeeded Lanfranc, was more of
an Italian, and, though a great theologian and a
holy man, he was a mischievous primate. Nobody
makes more mischief than a saint at heart, who is
practically wrong-headed. The new king enforced
the Anglican liberties, but the primate compro-
mised them as far as he could, though he had
received his investiture from the sovereign in con-
tempt of the Roman court. Moreover, he had
received his consecration from bishops not then in
communion with the pontiff, whom he at the time,
and the king afterward, called " the true Pope."
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 207
In Anselm this is most noteworthy. When, at a
later date, he compromised himself in concessions
to the pontiff, the bishops and clergy of England,
in the true spirit of A. D. 1530, declared that, rather
than concede the temporal supremacy to the Pope,
they would expel Anselm and " break off all con-
nection with the Roman see." 1 To the Pope him-
self the king wrote a letter, deprecating any as-
sumption on his part " which would drive him to
the extreme measure of renouncing all intercourse
with the see of Rome." It is clear that the Papar-
chy had not quite clutched England into its grip.
For this no thanks to Anselm, who induced William
Rufus to give up more than was due, in the matter
of investiture, though not by any means all that
Rome claimed. Still, when a Roman legate landed
at Dover, to exercise legatine powers over Eng-
land, arousing a universal outcry against such an
unheard of papal aggression, Anselm maintained
the Anglican liberties, and packed the legate off
to Calais in summary disgrace.
34. INTRUSION OF LEGATES.
After the decease of this holy man, whose mis-
takes were honest convictions, derived from his
training and from the times in which he lived, the
see was kept vacant for five years, though admin-
istered by Ralph d'Escures, Bishop of Rochester,
who was then elected to the primacy, after an ex-
traordinary contest, in A. D. 11 14. We are now
1 Anselm (ed. Migne), iv. 4. p. 203. See also Hook's Arch-
bishops of Canterbury, vol. ii. p. 239.
208 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
in the twelfth century, and this action is most sig-
nificant of contempt for the popedom, for which
two claimants, if not three, were struggling. The
Anglican bishops would not have another Anselm ;
the king enabled them to choose one who was re-
solved to maintain the Anglican liberties. Soon
after, he asserted his prerogative, and recognized
Calixtus II., a Frenchman, who proved as treach-
erous to England as any Italian could have been.
Ralph lived to crown the next Norman king, and
William of Corbeuil succeeded to the primacy. A
contemporary says, " Of his merits nothing can be
said, for he had none." The state of Europe was
frightful : Pope and Antipope, between whom all
Europe was under an anathema, were now liter-
ally in arms, and one of them in person was con-
tending as a soldier. Then came a melancholy
concession. The new archbishop permitted him-
self to be appointed the papal legate over England
and Scotland, for he was weak enough not to see
that, while this seemed to place him under no Iega-
tine superior, it was placing the Church of Eng-
land in new relations to the Papacy. He crowned
Stephen, and was soon after succeeded by Theo-
bald, the third Abbot of Bee, who had been called
to the English primacy. This primate also ac-
cepted a legatine position, thus letting into Eng-
land the Paparchy by the thin end of a wedge that
was destined to be driven deeper and deeper by
sledge-hammers. In the next reign we shall see
the consequences. The next legate, as might have
been foreseen, was not the primate.
THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 20Q
35. WHERE WE STAND.
Our period includes the reign of the first Plan-
tagenet, when the Decretalist system became dom-
inant in England under the new code of Gratian.
The reign of Stephen had been inglorious, but he
sustained the principle of his predecessors, when
he refused to permit his bishops to leave the king-
dom on the summons of Eugenius III. to his coun-
cil at Rheims. Theobald disobeyed him, and was
punished ; but, good man though he was, he shows
what peril there is in trusting great and sacred in-
terests to pious imbecility. The Anglo-Norman
dynasty ends in an ignominious surrender of princi-
ples which were soon found to have subjected it to
all the fraudulent impositions of Nicholas. These
were just now framed into the canon law by Gra-
tian, and what were claims before were henceforth
canons, overriding all that Anglicans had known
by that name. The landmarks, however, had been
providentially set up, and the Anglican liberties
were recognized by Pope Paschal himself, when
(a.d. 1 1 18) he complained to the bishops and
clergy of England of their independent spirit in the
following words : " Without advising us, you de-
termine all ecclesiastical affairs within yourselves ;
call councils by your own authority; without our
consent give sees to bishops by translation, and
suffer no appeals to be made to us." Yes, precisely
so, thank God ! And so stood the Anglican Church
in the second half of the twelfth century, and all
this she regained in the sixteenth; which proves
that the Paparchy held its usurped sway over the
u
210 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Church of England only for four hundred years,
more or less, — years in which it was never undis-
puted nor even unambiguously received. Leave
out these four centuries, and we have fourteen of
Nicene freedom, and, in good degree, of Nicene
truth and purity. Which, then, is the church of
our forefathers, and which the old religion?
LECTURE VII.
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION.
i. THE TRANSITION YET INCOMPLETE.
OUT of Lake Leman comes the " arrowy-
Rhone," beautiful as light from the clear
blue sky. You may have stood on the little
promontory where the Arve issues forth to meet
it, — a red torrent from the Alps, once the crys-
tal of melted snows but now arrayed like a papal
legate. How the purer river writhes and refuses to
be tainted ! how the red ruffian presses and pushes
it to the wall ! Still the Rhone keeps up the
contest as best he may. For a time he holds his
own, but, alas ! the red wins, and the sapphire dis-
appears. What is visible to the common eye is no
longer the blue Rhone, but only the blood-coloured
Arve. Is the nobler river lost? By no means. It
becomes the Rhone again, and rolls on superbly,
through the broad lands where Irenaeus planted
the Gospel, under the walls of Lyons and Aries,
and so to the sea. Behold a parable, that illus-
trates the Nicene Church in England, in her origi-
nal glory and in her restored identity.
We have not yet reached the point where the
stream runs red, precisely. To drop the figure,
we must give a full century to the mischief done
212 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
by the Norman primate who became a nominal
" legate," and so let in the foreign element. 1 As
yet the struggle is kept up. The Normans are
pushing the English aside, and they give way little
by little. Here comes the first Plantagenet.
2. THE PLANTAGENETS.
But it was still the Normans under another
name. When Henry II. has reigned twelve years,
the Norman century is complete, and so is the
Transition Period. Its landmark is found in the
date of the " Constitutions of Clarendon " ; not
their acceptance in A. D. 1163, but their arrogant
rejection in behalf of the Papacy two years later.
Let us see how things stand, just here.
The moment of Henry's accession is marked by
an event till then without example, and never du-
plicated since. An Englishman is made Pope, —
Nicholas Breakspear his honest Saxon name, but
he is known as Adrian IV. Such an event was
enough to turn the head of every ambitious priest
in England. What might not happen next? The
son of a London merchant, who had mingled his
blood with that of a Saracen wife in the veins of his
boy, proved just the character to be fired by such an
event. The lad was sent to Italy for his education,
where he had for his tutor that Gratian who com-
pounded the Decretals with the Canon Law. This
remarkable youth had become the Primate of all
England when he subscribed the Constitutions;
but in two years he not only recanted, but excom-
1 Supra, page 208.
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTOKA TION. 2 1 3
municated everybody that maintained them. But
England did not recant. The Constitutions were
destined to grow with her growth, and strengthen
with her strength. There was in them a principle
of life; they proved that native liberties died hard,
— nay, were not doomed to die. The Constitutions
were not pillars of the Church, but they were but-
tresses, and shored up her holy walls from outside.
In the conflicts that followed, we cannot wholly
sympathize with either party. Henry had pre-
scribed the Constitutions, because they strength-
ened his powers to control the Church, under col-
our of the old Anglo-Saxon constitutions. Becket
resisted his encroachments on the Anglican lib-
erties ; and so far, so good. But he did so to
transfer us, hand and foot, to the Papacy, which
was now a Paparchy also, wherever the new Canon
Law was received. Such was the crisis, and thus
the Constitutions of Clarendon become a land-
mark of vast significance. Feeble in themselves,
they yet embodied the free principles of Frankfort
and of Alcuin, capable though they were of abuse
under a bad king. Enough, Becket detested them.
With papal approval, he mounted the pulpit on
Whit-Sunday at Vezelay, in France, and with dra-
matic pomp pronounced his anathemas. He read
the Constitutions, and excommunicated the King's
ministry who had framed them. The bells were
rung backward, crosses turned upside down, and
torches extinguished. King Henry was called
upon to repent, or to expect a like anathema upon
his own head.
214 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
3. THE SUBMISSION.
The Hildebrandine policy had triumphed, and
the Anglican Church was under the Paparchy. No
need to follow out the tragedy of the personal con-
flict between prince and primate. Every school-
boy knows how Henry at last compassed the murder
of Becket, and with what heroic fortitude he fell.
Our pictured primers of history made even child-
hood familiar with the penitent Henry, prostrate
at Becket's tomb, and flogged on his bare back
by grinning monks and acolytes. No doubt he
deserved it, and possibly kings were not made any
worse by finding that there was a power on earth
that could "lay their honour in the dust" Hence
the fallacy that enables a certain class of writers to
eulogize the Popes. They miss the point. The
horse, to be revenged on the stag, in ^Esop, was
delighted to call in a man and to submit to the
saddle, while the man punished his enemy. This
done, the horse was greatly obliged to his rider,
and wished him farewell. But no, he was saddled
for life, and stalled besides, a slave to his deliverer.
So, at this period, whoever called in the Pope to
punish a tyrant soon found that he had a rider
on his back whose little finger was heavier than a
prince's loins.
Before this long reign came to a close, one inci-
dent is a token of vitality. The primate Baldwin
was arrogantly overruled by the pontiff, so sudden
was his assumption of power over the metropol-
itan. The good primate took no notice of the
aggression, but legates were sent from Rome with
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 21$
mandates, inhibitions, and excommunications. The
parochial clergy rose to uphold their primate, and
fearlessly proclaimed to their flocks that such a
sentence from foreign parts had no force in Eng-
land. Yet the yoke of the Decretals was upon her.
Not by any action of hers, not by any definition
of pontifical powers or rights, but passively, she
became as the strong ass of Issachar, " couching
down between two burdens," — the burden of the
Norman invaders and the far heavier pack of the
papal usurpation.
4. TWO FORCES.
Henceforth we have two organized forces in
conflict, more or less, without rest, for four cen-
turies. I cannot affect neutrality in such a quarrel.
When, in all the light of what followed, I find the
foreign usurpation uniformly labouring to destroy
the Nicene Constitutions, the ancient liberties of the
Anglican Church, the purity of the Holy Gospels,
and the dearest rights of humanity in the household
and in the state, I take my stand without a doubt
as to the right. These conflicts are my conflicts.
My forefathers fought them out in my behalf. In
the long struggles of the Anglican Church I read the
history of our own Church, and my spiritual and in-
tellectual origin. I am identified with past genera-
tions, and with all who frame their thought. Here
are my own antecedents. If I had lived in those
times, I should have been involved in all the diffi-
culties of my sires. I should have shared their
ignorance, their honest credulity, their enslave-
2 1 6 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
ment to the Decretals, their gross superstitions.
How should I have acted ? Where should I have
been found ? Thanks to God, I lived not then.
5. THREE CLASSES INVOLVED.
Here comes in room for humility, charity, and
large consideration. I see three classes of char-
acters : (1) honest, faithful men, no wiser than
their age, doing their best in the gross darkness,
and feeling after light; (2) men, apparently bad,
and working for worldly ends to make night darker
and bad worse ; and (3) elect spirits, called of God
to be witnesses for Him, according to their ability,
and to work out deliverance for his people. Here,
then, I must "judge righteous judgment," or " judge
nothing before the time." I must hesitate to con-
demn my brother man ; but I must not restrain
my sympathy with all that has contributed to my
precious inheritance of light and freedom, and all
spiritual riches in Christ and His Gospel. I hate
lies; I hate power based upon imposture; I hate
the corrosions and corruptions which divested the
Latin churches of their Nicene character and their
ancient liberties. This is the spirit which inspires
me to speak, and in sympathy with which I ask
you to trace the Anglican Restoration to its sources,
and to follow me thence till it is crowned, by the
marked providence of God, not merely with suc-
cess, but with such developments of strength and
of fruitfulness as have made our restored estate a
blessing to mankind.
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 21 7
6. INNOCENT III.
After the Lion-hearted Richard comes the great
crisis of the West. Lothaire had just mounted the
papal throne as Innocent III. By him what Nich-
olas created and Hildebrand's credulity developed
with logical force into Titanic proportions was
rendered yet more practical, and was augmented
by theological decrees more corrosive than had
yet been imagined. Provincial canons were ele-
vated into dogmas of the faith ; subtleties of Aris-
totle, coloured by Averroes, were made the base
of his new theology. Even Gregory VII. had not
accepted transubstantiation, but now it was to be
identified with worship and enforced as doctrine.
Worse than all as an instrument of papal despot-
ism came the torture of confession, no longer volun-
tary, but bound upon conscience by penalties of
excommunication and the refusal of Christian burial.
The " ear of Dionysius " was appropriated by a
Christian pontiff, and he proclaimed it to be the ear
of Him " to whom all hearts are open, and from
whom no secrets are hid." Kings and queens,
princes and peasants, must obey. Every soul in
Western Christendom was now brought into per-
sonal relations with the power to which the Decre-
tals had led them to believe all power was given.
The keys of life and death, of heaven and hell,
were in his hand ; he could dispense the divine re-
wards and chastisements with arbitrary sovereignty.
Western Europe was thus reduced to one great
parish, in which he alone was rector ; all bishops
and priests were but his curates ; he was universal
2l8 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
bishop and lord paramount over the souls and bod-
ies of men. To fulminate cruel excommunications
and to lay national churches under interdict was
his pastime. He assumed all the responsibility for
devastating whole races when he turned the cru-
sades against Christians, and devoured by fire and
sword the unhappy Vaudois and Albigenscs. 1 Un-
der an imbecile and unprincipled king, England
was now to share in the blessings of such " another
gospel."
7. THE EBB OF THE NORMANS.
But one happy event gave things a better cast
for the future. Normandy fell to the French
kings ; troops of Normans went to look after their
estates and this foreign influence began to wane.
I remember well when Hanover, by the operation
of the Salic law, fell away from the English sover-
eign by the death of William the Fourth. The crown
of Hanover was borne in pomp at his funeral, and
then the wicked Duke of Cumberland carried it
with him to his petty dominion. It was the symbol
of departing Hanoverianism, that nightmare of our
Church. When Charles I. packed off " his Moun-
seers," — the French priests who had tormented his
life by meddling with everything in his house, from
the scullery to his queen's bed-chamber, — he closed
his despatch with the words, " And so the Devil go
with them." I cannot adopt such language in the
imperative mood ; but indicatively, I think much
evil went with the Normans, though, as they left
1 See Note V".
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 2IO,
King John, there was sure to be no particular need
of any other personal attention to mischief-making.
By strong reaction, the Anglican spirit revived ; and
what Shakespeare puts into the mouth of the King
to illustrate his lucid intervals, began to be indeed
the rising spirit of the Church and people. To the
papal legate, he is made to say: —
" Thou canst not, Cardinal, devise a name
So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous
To charge me to an answer, as the Pope.
Tell him this tale ; and from the mouth of England
Add thus much more, — that no Italian priest
Shall tithe or toll in our dominions. . . .
Though you and all the kings of Christendom
Are led so grossly by this meddling priest,
Dreading the curse that money may buy out,
And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust, . . .
Purchase corrupted pardon of a man,
Who in that sale sells pardon from himself,
Yet I alone, alone do me oppose
Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes."
Shakespeare makes no mistake in putting this
ambiguously into the mouth of " England," at the
crisis which, in spite of the Pope and the King to-
gether, gave us the Magna CJiarta.
8. ARCHBISHOP LANGTON.
The best thing Innocent ever did was done by
mistake ; for he made Stephen Langton Arch-
bishop of Canterbury. To do this he set aside all
laws, human and divine, annulling the King's ap-
pointment and the election at Canterbury; so that
this best gift to the Church of England came by one
of his worst acts of iniquity. He had known Lang-
220 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
ton in Paris, where they were youths together, and
hoped his old friend would prove the tool of his
further aggressions. In this, happily, he was mis-
taken. However, for a time the mischief makes
head. John would not accept Langton, and the
whole kingdom wakes up to a sense of its enslave-
ment, when it finds itself subjected to a papal in-
terdict. "As for sermons," says the witty Fuller,
" laziness and ignorance had long before interdicted
them ; but now no prayers, no mass, no singing of
service." Millions of simple souls were thus made
to suffer loss of all the means of grace ; no church
bells rung, church doors were shut: no sacra-
ments could be ministered save in special cases to
the dying ; none could be married ; none could
have Christian burial. Corpses were thrown into
ditches without prayers, nor could Langton's inter-
cession for his people prevail with the pontiff to
have service once a week in parish churches. Even
" the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel," but
here was the sole shepherd of Christ's sheep on
earth far more cruel than they. The King had
offended him : he takes from a whole unoffending
people the means of salvation. For a whole year
this reign of terror went on. The English nation,
panic-stricken, began to feel where they were, and
"from what height fallen." But Innocent had
lately excommunicated the Roman Emperor, and
now he absolved all subjects from allegiance to
King John, excommunicated him by name, and
gave to any invader, with absolution from all his
sins, a license to conquer England and make it a
dependency of some foreign crown. Five years
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 221
such a state of things continued, when the scenes
so wonderfully dramatized by Shakespeare became
history. He had received his crown on the Feast
of the Ascension ; and now a hermit of Yorkshire
broached the terrible prophecy,
". . .in rude harsh-sounding rhymes,
That, ere the next Ascension day at noon,
His highness should deliver up his crown."
9. ENGLAND A FIEF OF ROME.
Anselm had opened the door to the next step,
and Pandulph appears on the scene, — an Italian
legate, as the consequence of an English one. On
Ascension day, King John on his knees resigns
his crown into the hands of the legate, " granting
to God and the Church of Rome, the Apostles
Peter and Paul, and to Pope Innocent III. and his
successors, the whole kingdom of England and
Ireland." For five whole days Innocent was sole
king of England, Pandulph holding the crown for
him. Then, in consideration of immense prom-
ises of tribute, John received it back, to be held
by him, but only as the Pope's vassal. This was
enough. The spirit of the early English revived.
The barons demanded of John a restoration of
Edward the Confessor's laws, and the liberties of
Church and State which he had sworn to observe.
But when he had promised to do better, he refused
of course to keep his promise. This just suited
Innocent, and so the Pope took his vassal under his
protection, and sent another legate, who with bell,
book, and candle excommunicated the nobility
222 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
not only, but the primate himself. He was with
them, and in fact at their head. The interdict had
been removed ; but curses and excommunications
were the blessings which Rome still showered on
the land.
io. MAGNA CHARTA.
It is amid these scenes, and under the worst
of princes and the most cruel of popes, that lib-
erty begins to reappear. Stephen Langton drafts
Magna Charta, and its first sentence reads thus:
" The Church of England shall be free." Mark
that, — " the Church of England," her identity not
forfeited. Her ancient liberties are reaffirmed, and,
with other immortal principles of right, the pri-
mate and the barons, at Runnymede, in sight of
Windsor Castle, force the wretched King to accept
and confirm them. Of course he complies, and of
course he retracts. The Pope sustains his vassal,
and annuls the Great Charter. Just so ; but, all
the more, it lives ; it grows and strengthens ; it
makes terra firma for the English Constitution to
this day ; the eventual rejection of the Paparchy is
involved in it, and we in America, under the com-
mon law and our own constitutions, are the inher-
itors of its blessings.
ii. HENRY THE THIRD.
Henry III. accepted his crown under conditions
made by John, somewhat modified indeed, but
with promise of tribute. But he afterwards con-
firmed Magna Charta, and Stephen Langton made
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 22$
him keep his promise for a time. He tries to
evade his pledges, but over and over again he is
brought to book. He invites a legate into Eng-
land to " reform the Church " ; that is, to make
it more subservient to the pontiffs. Groans and
grumblings are heard, and the legate withdraws.
From this reign we receive that sturdy expression
of attachment to " the common law," as we now
call it, Nolumiis leges Anglicemutari. So spoke our
forefathers to King and Pope alike. Even Henry
remonstrates against papal exactions ; but when
the threats of the pontiff extort eleven thousand
marks from the clergy, his avarice is satisfied for
a season. Langton dies, but the great Bishop
Grossetete survives to perpetuate his spirit. He
exposes the fact, that foreign priests sent into Eng-
lish benefices by the Pope gorge themselves with
church revenues more than three times as great as
those of the Crown.
The Plantagenets produced two or three of the
worst kings that England ever knew; but the
others were all great in their several ways, and
the dynasty, as such, has bequeathed inestimable
blessings to our race. Under the feeble kings,
the people grew strong; the nobler Plantagenets,
for one reason or another, worked with the people
in a long, determined resistance to the Paparchy.
Thus, with momentary intermissions, was kept
alive a continuons assertion of the ancient liberties,
summed up in the first sentence of the charter, —
" Ecclesia Anglic ana libera sit."
224
INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
12. TWO EDWARDS.
In Edward the First we come back to the name
of the Confessor, so dear to Anglo-Saxons, as one
of themselves. And Edward himself, with all his
Angevine faults, reflects in some particulars the
spirit of his people. He is inclined to be more
than half an Englishman. In subduing Wales and
humbling Scotland, he is not merely wielding the
hammer of the despotic aggressor, but is making
England out of Saxons and Britons, welding all
into unity, and, as the remote effect, creating
Great Britain. In his day the Paparchy passes
into the "privy paw" of Boniface VIII., who
" came in like a fox, ruled like a lion, and died
like a dog." His was the memorable bull Unam
Sanctam, which defined as " necessary to salva-
tion that every human soul should be subject
to the Pope of Rome," — of which more by and
by. He was hateful to the French king, whose
creature, Clement V., consigned his memory to
infamy, and strove to abolish his very name. The
Lord took the affair into his own hand, and there-
after the power of the pontiffs began to decline.
Boniface had found Edward too stout for him even
in his pitch of pride. When he claimed Scotland
as his own fief, and ordered Edward to sink his
claims and withdraw his troops, the heroic sover-
eign disdained his pretensions. More than that,
Edward's Statute of Mortmain, limiting the accu-
mulation of property by the " dead-hand" of cor-
porations, was perhaps the first practical retaliatory
blow that the Paparchy felt from England. His
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 225
poor son was sent to Wales to be born, and be-
came the first Prince of Wales by this cunning
stratagem : for Edward had promised the Welsh a
" faultless prince, and a native of their own soil."
See the portraits of father and son in the match-
less " Bard " of the poet Gray, which every student
of English history should learn by heart: —
" Mark the year and mark the night
When Severn shall re-echo with affright
The shrieks of death, through Berkeley's roof that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing king."
Such the end of the second Edward's ignominy.
His reign is marked, however, by the rise of a
brilliant star in the horizon of darkness, for now
was born John Wiclif.
13. THE THIRD EDWARD.
Of the papal usurpation says quaint old Thomas
Fuller, 1 "It went forward until the Statute of Mort-
main. It went backward slowly when the Statute
of Provisors was made under Edward III. ; swiftly
when his Statute of Prczmnnire was made. It fell
down when the Papacy was abolished, in the reign
of Henry VIII." Thus he refers to the times of
the third Edward two of the great moves which
were fatal to the Paparchy. The stout Tudor
could have done nothing without them : so that
the Reformation did not actually begin when he fell
in love with Anne Boleyn. 2
1 Quoting, " Habent imperia suos terminos, hue cum venerint,
sistunt, retrocedunt, ruunt." — Vol. ii. p. 296.
2 See Note W".
IS
226 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Grossetete — but as the Normans have gone
home, we will now talk English, and call him by
his honest Saxon name of Greathead — was a
century before his time when he exposed the enor-
mous abuse of Papal " Provisions." By this arti-
fice, the Pope provided for his favourites, Italians
or Frenchmen, and named them for bishoprics and
the like before they fell vacant. As soon as the in-
cumbent died, in marched the intruder and claimed
the place for its revenues, neglecting souls and
corrupting the clergy by bad example. Great-
head protested, and strove to reassert Anglican
principles of autonomy. He thus maintained the
principle, and what could not be done then was
practicable now. To the blow against Mortmain
came next the staunch Anglo-Saxon thrust at the
foreign usurper, called the " Statute of Provisors."
Three years later came the Praemunire, forbid-
ding appeals to Rome under heavy penalties. In
temporalities, the Reformation was begun already.
From an eminent English jurist 1 I quote as fol-
lows : —
" The nation entertained violent antipathies against the
papal power. The Parliament pretended that the usurpa-
tions of the Pope were the causes of all the plagues, injuries,
famine, and poverty of the realm, were more destructive to
it than all the wars, and were the reason why it contained
not a third of the inhabitants and commodities which
it formerly possessed ; that the taxes levied by him ex-
ceeded five times those which were paid to the King ;
that everything was venal in that sinful city of Rome.
. . . The King was even petitioned by Parliament to
1 Stevens, editor of De Lolme.
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 227
employ no churchman (i. e. no ecclesiastic) in any of-
fice of state, and they threatened to repel by force the
papal authority, which they could not, nor would, any
longer endure."
The clergy had been largely involved in the pa-
pal invasions, and under kings who favoured them
often sided with the pontiffs. So it had been
under the former Edwards. Just now the com-
mons were incensed against the Pope, and the King
courted his favour to balance himself against the
rising spirit of popular independence. We must
note all these things if we would understand how
thoroughly the progress of Reformation in Eng-
land was original with England ; how it began and
was making headway nearly two centuries before
Martin Luther was heard of. In temporals, as I
said, the work was begun already. Now let us
observe its spiritual history.
14. SPIRITUAL PROGRESS.
I have called Alcuin the last of the Fathers,
and Anselm the forerunner of the Schoolmen. I
have traced Scholasticism to Abelard and Arnold
of Brescia, and another side of it to Peter Lombard.
I know too little about him to speak of Erigena,
whom Alfred invited into England so long before
their day; and I am equally unable to express
an opinion of Albertus Magnus, to whom some
assign the chief glory after them. This premised,
I must add, that, for its good and for its evil, Eng-
land must bear the palm and share the blame.
" In England and by Englishmen," says an old
228 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Latin writer, 1 " the scholastic theology had its ori-
gin, made its progress, and reached its zenith."
Alexander Hales (a. d. 1244) writes his "Body of
School Divinity " at the command of Innocent IV.
Aquinas and Bonaventure were his disciples. To
him succeeds the illustrious Roger Bacon, phi-
losopher, naturalist, and divine, whose foresight of
chemistry and other sciences made him a magi-
cian in the eyes of his fellow Franciscans. The
Pope shut him up in prison. John Duns Scotus
comes next: truly an imperial genius, belied by
his name in two ways, for Scotus means an Irish-
man, and Duns means that he was no dunce. He
was born at a place so called, and his great wis-
dom and learning led men to call a fool ironi-
cally a "Duns," — that is to say, a Duns in his
own conceit. The Thomists and the Scotists be-
came two schools after his day. Baconthorpe is
to be noted (a. d. 1346), because he maintained
at Rome, in spite of derision and insult, the great
principle that was long after to reach its practical
application in England, 2 that " the Pope has no
right to give dispensations for marriages unlawful
in Scripture." Here rises up the bold figure of
William Occam, 3 who defended the Emperor
against the Pope, saying, " Protect me with thy
sword, and I will defend thee with my words."
All that was needed by the Crown of England to
protect itself two centuries later, when the Papar-
chy was expelled, is laid down by this great divine.
The armory of the Anglican Restoration was be-
1 Alex. Minutianus. See Fuller, ii. 250.
2 See Note X". 3 A. D. 1327.
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 2 29
coming formidable to Rome already. But, last of
all, let me name the holy Bradwardine, Archbishop
of Canterbury, in whom Alcuin seems to revive,
and Bede the Venerable as well. If Pelagius was
of British origin, now in this great man ample
amends were made by the later Church of Britain ;
for he not only maintained the doctrines of grace
against the Semi-Pelagianism that Rome has more
recently made into dogma, but his life was an
illustration of divine grace from first to last. He
was the mediaeval glory of the Anglican primacy,
and was called the Doctor Profundus, from his
great learning and deep thinking. Chaucer, forty
years later, ranks him with Boethius and with St.
Augustine.
15. OXFORD MEN.
All these were Oxford men, and all of that old
Merton College which every visitor beholds with
reverence as he walks in Christ-Church meadows.
But it is important to note how boldly and freely
they disputed on points which Rome itself had
not yet presumed to crystallize into her enormous
" Code of Belief," the product of her Trent Coun-
cil. Thus Scotus founded the Realist, and Occam
the Nominalist school ; both were Franciscans.
But after the great Dominican, Aquinas, who was
a liberal Realist, we ordinarily find the Domini-
cans of that persuasion. I only note, in passing,
how the position which Alcuin gave to the An-
glican Church was maintained by great Anglicans
even in these ages. Note also how strongly the
influence of English Schoolmen was exerted for a
230 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
better future. Occam seems to have foreseen it;
he says of his works, " By means of our preludes
men of future times, zealous for truth, righteous-
ness, and the common weal, may have their atten-
tion drawn to many truths upon these matters,
which, at the present day, remain hidden from
rulers, councillors, and teachers, to the common
loss."
16. GREATHEAD.
Observe the continuity of spiritual and truly An-
glican life in the Church of England. In such
an age as that of Henry III. and Innocent IV.,
see Greathead contending alike against prince and
pontiff, not as a proud ecclesiastic like Becket, but
as a spiritually-minded lover of souls, and of Christ,
their Saviour. He might even better have been
named Greatheart. Poet, man of letters, intrepid
pastor, and defender of the faith, — conceding a Gal-
lican primacy, but resisting pontifical supremacy,
— he is the very ideal of a Catholic, as far as in
his day it was possible to be. Books were rare ;
learning was fettered ; the canon law was based
on fables which none could confute. But there he
stood, a figure monumental. Bulls from Rome fell
harmless at his feet. The University of Oxford
bore witness concerning him, after he began to
be called St. Robert: " Never for the fear of any
man had he forborne to do any good action which
pertained to his office and duty. If the sword
had been unsheathed against him, he stood pre-
pared to die the death of a martyr." To such a
man, standing up for truth and right while pon-
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 23 I
tiffs were " making havoc of the Church," and
while kings were surrendering England in vassalage
to their remorseless grip, how much we owe under
God. Truly, what the Lord said of old of " Jona-
dab the son of Rechab," he seems to have said for
the Church of England : " She shall not want a
man to stand before me forever."
17. WICLIF.
We come to Wiclif. He was the first mover for
Restoration in England, who, as Occam had proph-
esied, saw something of the length and breadth of
its meaning. To him we owe it, under God, that
the Anglican Church took care of herself, as a con-
tinuous church, in continuous reforms, and made
no sudden break even with Rome. To him, the
Continent owes its " Reformation," so called ; for it
began with his pupils, and was only directed into
the ditch of divisions and of failure by the per-
verted genius of its great but wrangling doctors.
Of this by and by ; but I wish you to observe that
nothing can be more the reverse of truth than to
begin the Reformation with Luther, and to import
it into England, as if England borrowed her work
from his, or modelled it after any man's ideas, or
after any other standard than " Holy Scripture and
ancient authors."
18. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
Now (A. D. 1362) the Norman-French ceases
in the law courts. Two of the greatest men of
genius that England ever knew took up the Eng-
232 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
lish in its elements just here, and made it into lan-
guage. Chaucer created its poetry, and Wiclif its
prose. Well has it been noted that in its very origin
it was devoted to the Restoration, and identified
with its spirit. Chaucer in the court, Wiclif in the
university, and honest Piers Plowman from among
the people, consecrated its earliest syllables to the
revival of the Anglo-Saxon Church ; and when
Wiclif had given to our race the first English
Bible, he had laid the corner-stone of all that has
since given us the lead in Christendom. Blessed
be God for this baptism of the English tongue.
From its beginnings it is wedded to Truth ; and it
remains, of all the languages on earth, the hardest
to yoke with the tug-team of Falsehood, the most
incapable of being forged to falsehood or welded
with a lasting lie.
19. THE POPES OF AVIGNON.
Go back to Boniface VIII. , and his decree that
"it is necessary to every human soul to be in com-
munion with the Bishop of Rome." This discovery
was not made dogmatic by Rome itself till he for-
mulated it, 1 and immediately the bolt fell. God
reduced it to the absurd instantly, by making it
for nearly a century impossible for anybody to
know who or where the Bishop of Rome might be.
He raised up Philip the Fair, king of France, to
force the Popes out of Rome into his kingdom.
Philip burned one of the bulls of Boniface, refused
to recognize him as Pope, and influenced Benedict,
1 A. D. 1294.
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 233
his successor, to reverse many of his decisions. It
is hard, therefore, to see how this can be reconciled
with any belief in the infallibility of either pope.
For nearly seventy years we have rival popes, one
at Rome and another at Avignon, and nobody
knows, to this day, which was the true pope and
which the pretender. The captivity of Avignon
ended in A. D. 1377. But things grew worse again
instantly ; for now intervenes what is called the
" Great Schism " of the Papacy, extending from
Urban VI., A.D. 1378, to Nicholas V., A. D. 1447.
An assortment of popes and antipopes thus di-
vide the allegiance of the Western churches for
one hundred and fifty years well-nigh. When
poor Joan of Arc was asked, as a test of her or-
thodoxy and her inspiration, to say which was
the true pope, " What ! " she answered, " is there
more than one?" The innocent peasant heroine
did not even know her peril. According to Boni-
face and Pius IX., the millions who knew not where
to find the infallible judge of controversies, and
made mistakes in all that period, are inevitably
damned. But what is a "judge of controversies"
worth, when, in a controversy so vital to human
souls, nobody knows where to find him? In view
of this dilemma, John Wiclif made up his mind
that it was not the will of Christ that "every
soul should be in communion with the Bishop
of Rome."
20. WICLIF'S ANTECEDENTS.
Reflect who and what this heroic spirit was.
The successor of the Schoolmen in Merton Col-
234 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
lege, and the glory of the University, he knew all
the scholastics could teach him, and much more
besides. He was a natural philosopher and a can-
onist. Few knew any Greek till the next century,
but he was an expert in the Latin Fathers. In a.d.
1374 he is a doctor of theology, and about fifty
years of age. He had been already honoured in
the University in other ways. It seems probable
he had been a member of Parliament, and sustained
the remonstrances of the barons and others against
the Papacy. As an ardent patriot, he resisted the
papal nuncio in A.D. 1372, when he came to bleed
the land and the Church of England for his master.
In 1374 he is sent on a diplomatic embassy to
Bruges, with Sudbury, Bishop of London, and
with —
" Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster."
Thus VViclif became a personal friend of a prince
of the blood, and found him a useful protector.
21. THE GOOD PARLIAMENT.
In the King's jubilee year (a. D. 1376), met " the
Good Parliament." Just four hundred years later,
Washington founded a nation ; but we may be
sure no such character as Washington could have
sprung up, worthy of Alfred and carrying out his
institutions in a new world, had there not been a
John Wiclif to make the Parliament " Good " by
his genius and by his personal presence. At this
moment he was the pride of his countrymen and
in the zenith of his influence. He soon made ene-
mies, because he undertook the great work for
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 235
which God had raised him up. Less popular he
became, no doubt; but vastly more mighty with
his age, and useful to his country not only, but to
the human race.
22. THE FIRST CITATION.
Wiclif was made rector of Lutterworth by gift
of the King in A. D. 1374. When the Parliament
of A. D. 1377 was opened, we find him summoned
before Courtenay, Bishop of London, at St. Paul's.
Accordingly there he stands, like another prophet,
tall and spare, in a black gown and girded about
his loins. Portraits represent Alcuin in just such
a costume. He wears a full beard, but his fine
forehead and features are enlivened by his clear
and searching eye. He is supposed to have borne
a staff in his hand. The Duke of Lancaster ap-
peared with him, and certain friars who were
bachelors of divinity. He was politely offered a
seat, but the Bishop of London insisted that he
must stand. Old John of Gaunt fired up, and had
so sharp a quarrel with Courtenay that the session
was adjourned before Wiclif had uttered a word.
The Lord stood by him and comforted him, no
doubt; but he could only look on in mute aston-
ishment, equally ashamed of his bishop and of his
fiery protector, who had not done him any good.
23. THE SECOND CITATION.
Wiclif was sustained by his University, when
Sudbury, his old colleague at Bruges, now Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, was called upon by the Pope
236 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
to proceed against him. Bulls came thick and fast
from Gregory XL, complaining that the Anglican
bishops were lukewarm. The Pope complained of
Wiclif and the evils of his teaching, and added:
" So far as we know, not a single effort has been
made to extirpate them. . . . You English prelates,
who ought to be defenders of the faith, have winked
at them." He was equally polite in his complaint
to the University, and he invoked the King to bestir
himself. The Mendicants had drawn up nineteen
propositions from his voluminous writings, which
they made " exceeding sinful," by their way of put-
ting it. Long afterward the Jesuits made out one
hundred and one heretical propositions from the
harmless pages of the pious Jansenists ; and just so
any malignant spirit could extract from Massillon
himself nineteen propositions to prove that he was
the author of the French Revolution. Here let me
say, once for all, that Wiclif was as little responsi-
ble for the Lollards as Massillon 1 is for the Jaco-
bins. Their founder, Peter Lolhard, suffered death
at Cologne two years before Wiclif was born. It
would be nearly as just to attribute the Chartists
of 1848 to the influence of Canon Kingsley.
24. LAMBETH.
The University resisted the bulls, and complained
of their violation of the constitution. When Sud-
bury mildly replied, that he refused to lay violent
hands on their doctor, and merely proposed to in-
stitute an inquiry, they acquiesced, and consented
1 See Note Y".
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 237
to co-operate. The offender, though not as a pris-
oner, was cited before the primate at Lambeth.
He obeyed, and one can see him as he stands in
that venerable chapel, where our first American
bishops knelt to be consecrated four hundred years
later. Well do I know the spot, for I was lodged
within a few feet of it at the last Lambeth confer-
ence, and daily went in and out to worship there.
This solemn history (and oh how much beside!)
often rose before me in the dead of night, as I lay
awake in what is called " the Lollard's Tower."
All London was on his side, and anon the crowd
clamoured about the doors, when, to the unspeak-
able relief of Sudbury, came a rescript from the
Queen Mother, the widow of the idolized Black
Prince, for a stay of proceedings. The primate,
with a gentle admonition advising him not to do
so again, allowed the doctor to go back to Lutter-
worth. He is said to have helped this result by
modifying some of his expressions. This may
have been a mere modifying of what the friars had
charged. If he did more, it only proves what I
have often insisted upon in behalf of the other
party, and what may be urged in behalf of the
good Sudbury himself, and of all earnest writers,
in times of great movements, viz. : They hardly
know where they stand themselves, between prac-
tical duty and theoretical views of truth.
25. THE FRIARS.
When the great endowed orders became grossly
corrupted, the Friars originated, with the good
238 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
purpose of imitating the poverty of Christ and
reviving religion among the people. Great was
the good they seemed to do, when first they came
into England. The Popes, who had no taste for
poverty, or for primitive preaching, became their
enemies, and the pious Bradwardine had to defend
them. He bears his unanswerable testimony to
their zeal and fidelity to the souls of the masses.
The parochial clergy had neglected their duty, and
every Franciscan was a sort of Wesley, doing what
others had failed to do. But this soon passed
away. The friars came into England exempted
from all control of its bishops, and able to defy
the parish priests. The new system of confessions
threw immense gain into their hands. Even great
men were glad to confess to strolling mendicants,
who passed by and could not daily stare them in
the face. Hence the intense hatred between the
friars and the rectors, whose canonical functions
they usurped. In the end, the Popes used the fri-
ars for their own purposes, and the rectors became
more decidedly anti-papal. Chaucer takes their
part you remember. His portrait of the " Par-
doner" is one of the most remarkable word-pic-
tures in all poesy. His hair, yellow and hanging
smooth like " a strike of flax," overspreading his
shoulders ; his voice small as any goat's ; no beard ;
his wallet brim-full of pardons, " from Rome all
hot." He had a bit of Our Lady's veil, and a rag
of the sail of St. Peter's boat, —
" And in a glass he had a pigges bones.
And with these reliques, when that he fand
A poor person dwelling upon land,
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 239
He gat him more money in a day
Than that the parson got in months twaie.
Well could he read a lesson or a story,
But all the best he sang an offertory,
To win silver, as right well he could."
When you visit England, look at the gurgoyles
and crockets on the walls and towers of the old
churches. If it is a parish church, you will see,
perhaps, a friar caricatured in stone as a " wolf in
sheep's clothing " ; if it is an old chapel of the
Minorites, you will find the compliment returned
by a grotesque carving of a rector, with ears of an
ass, pretending to preach, while he can only bray.
26. WICLIF'S DEATH AND CHARACTER.
Wiclif has been charged with beginning his re-
forms by attacking the friars. The reverse is the
case, and we can only account for it because, as
identified with the parochial clergy, or meaning to
be so, he was wise enough not to take up a quarrel
which had become so degraded. Nevertheless, as
time went on, he was forced to expose the Mendi-
cants, and they were his envenomed assailants. A
third time Wiclif was cited before his superiors to
answer for himself, and on this occasion at the
Chapel of the Black Friars, which has been gratu-
itously imagined a special token that his judges
took their part. Again, however, our hero was
preserved from harm ; again he took his staff and
trudged back to Lutterworth, to go on with his
translation of the Scriptures. This great work
appeared in 1382. In 1384, as he was devoutly
worshipping in his parish church, on Innocents'
240 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
day, and just as the consecrated host was ele-
vated, he fell in a paralysis. On the last day of
that year his spirit returned to God who gave it.
Let the great poet, who knew him well, bear his
testimony to so great a benefactor of mankind, in
his inimitable portrait of a good priest, in the days
of Edward III. and Richard, the last Plantagenet.
I must slightly modernize it to make it intelligible.
"A good man was ther of religioun,
And was a poor Parson of a town,
But riche he was of holy thought and werk ;
He also was a learned man, a clerk
That Christ his gospel gladly would he preach ;
His parishens devoutly would he teach.
Benign he was and wondrous diligent,
And in adversity full patient.
He could in little thing have suffisance."
In short, he gave of that little to the poor, he
visited his people through sleet and storm ; in
sickness hasted to the farthest habitation ; early
and late upon his feet, staff in hand, he showed by
his conduct how sheep should live, and it was his
saying, " If gold rust, what will iron do? If the
shepherd be foul, how shall the sheep be clean?"
" A better priest there is none anywhere."
" Thus Christ his lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taught, — and first he followed it himself."
Chaucer knew the man, and draws him to the life ;
but one loves to believe that thus, in the darkest
period of our dear mother Church, there were not
a few good shepherds of the flock of Christ. It is
also a tribute to others of the parochial clergy of
the time.
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 24 1
27. AN ESTIMATE OF WICLIF'S WORK.
In estimating this great doctor's work, let us
first observe what he did not do. He raised no
sect ; he set up no school ; he obeyed his bishop's
citations ; he turned his court influence into no
private source of profit; he lived and died the
faithful parish priest. Nay, he departed not from
the law as it then stood in England, and, while he
denied the corporal presence, — I might say be-
cause he had so modified its significance, — carried
out conformity to the letter of the law in the cere-
mony of uplifting the Eucharistic Body and Blood.
In all this, his testimony to restoration, not recon-
struction, as his principle, is invaluable. He was
no hot-headed iconoclast; he was doing God's
work, as God gave him light, and he waited God's
guidance as to what next. So by slow degrees,
patiently, and as by one who cleanses a golden
vase that has been defiled and bruised and daubed
with vulgar colours, the Anglican Restoration went
on from strength to strength.
28. MISTAKES.
Next, as to his mistakes and errors. I grant he
made many, as who does not? How could it have
been otherwise, emerging from such darkness,
stunned by many voices, confused by the quarrels
and divisions of Schoolmen, without any help such
as our day affords, and in the very nature of his
task forced to review his impressions, revise his
work, and to change, from time to time, his original
16
242 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
conclusions? Let us reflect on the divisions of
theologians at Constance and Basle, and, above all,
at Trent, when books had been already multiplied
by the press. Nay, go back to Augustine himself,
to Jerome, to Tertullian, to Origen. Who shall
cast the first stone? Who is perfect? Was not St.
Peter himself withstood by St. Paul, " because he
was to be blamed"? How could so immensely
voluminous a writer, whose works came forth
during a long life and in a period of transition
of unexampled agitations, — how could he fail to
have written many things which he himself, at the
end of life, could not approve? Two things let us
note: (i) some of his worst mistakes came from
St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and from Aquinas
himself; and (2) among his contemporaries who
was so free as Wiclif from all that runs counter to
the rule of Vincent and the Holy Scriptures? He
no doubt regarded the Episcopate as an eccle-
siastical rather than an apostolic institution. So
taught the Schoolmen, to depress the bishops and
exalt the Popes. Calvin himself learned Presby-
terianism from Aquinas ; for, stern logician that
he was, he inferred that, if bishops were only the
Pope's vicars, and not Christ's, they must go with
the Pope. When he taught that presbyters are
the highest order of divine appointment, that is just
what Rome taught him. Afterwards she made
this into a dogma at the Council of Trent, and in
her Catechism she teaches Presbyterianism at this
day. 1
1 Part. II. cap. vii. qu. 22.
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 243
29. THE GOOD THINGS.
But the great question remains, What is the
positive good which we trace to him? I go back
to the negatives first cited, and claim them all as
an example of moderation, and humility, and
godly patience, which furnish an example to all
reformers, and which convict those of the Conti-
nent, whose course was widely different, of great
responsibilities for the failure that ensued. He
was a man of genius, as really so as Calvin or
Luther; but he raised no sect, he made no
Wiclifites. We owe it largely to him that the An-
glican Church follows no human lawgiver, is tied
to no Schoolman, and has no " Code of Belief." *
Enough that, with long and patient hopes of a
reformed Papacy, he at last was led to the just
conclusions which the Church of England reached
more slowly, as to its unscriptural and uncatholic
character. When to all this, without dwelling on
his share in creating our language, one adds his
thorough awakening of English consciences, and
the stimulus he gave to intellect at such a period,
it is enough to demand our homage. But far
more is his due. His grand work was the trans-
lating of the Bible. Before the art of printing
had multiplied books and made such work easy,
he gave the Scriptures to every English Christian
as his birthright. But hardly second to this was
his resting the work of restoration, not on any
scholastic system, but on the Holy Scriptures.
He stood on the rule of Vincent, in point of fact,
1 See Note Z".
244 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
and he made it, as I shall yet show, the radical
and glorious criterion of the Anglican Restora-
tion, when compared with the Reformation on the
Continent.
30. A PERIOD OF DELAYS.
Behold the wisdom of Providence in arresting
the work just there, till the revival of learning
and the deeper convictions of pious men were bet-
ter prepared for its completion. Now came the
Wars of the Roses, so terrible, but so necessary to
what was for the common weal. Under the house
of Lancaster — usurpers who strove to propitiate
the pontiffs — came the infamous statute for burn-
ing heretics. It was overruled to make the Pa-
parchy more detestable than ever. Then the clash
of arms :
" Long years of havoc urge their destined course,
And through the kindred squadrons mow their way."
Yet these were the years when men had time to
reflect as well as to fight, and to ask what they
were contending for. Dean Hook observes saga-
ciously of Richard III., that " he had not observed
the signs of the times, nor perceived how the spirit
of the age was changed. Christianity even in its
corruption had been silently doing its work. War
was no longer regarded as the only honourable
employment, and the hearts of men were softened."
Womanhood, too, as he observes, was assuming a
new place in society. In short, the Holy Scrip-
tures had begun to be read and loved.
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 245
31. OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS.
According to the ennobling principles I am now
illustrating, we should be just as truly in sympathy
with the Anglican Church of those days as of our
own times. We take our stand, it is true, with the
progressive churchmen of those days, — with their
patient reforms, as well as with their bolder con-
flicts with evil. With Wykeham, that far-seeing
spirit of Edward the Third's day, we may rejoice
to claim kindred. This great architect, as founder
of schools and colleges, was undermining the mon-
asteries, which had become an anachronism. To
him succeed Waynflete and Fox, — the latter in a
notable instance illustrating my point under the
first Tudor. When he thought of founding a mon-
astery one of his brother bishops remonstrated :
" Why build and provide for housing monks, whose
end and fall we may live to see? . . . Provide
for the increase of learning, and for such (men)
as shall do good to the Church and the common-
wealth." Fox became the founder of schools
accordingly, and especially of that college in Ox-
ford which produced the very model of such men
as had been described, the judicious Hooker. Of
this sort were not a few when Erasmus came
to Oxford to study Greek. Let me name with
special reverence Dean Colet, who founded St.
Paul's school in London. Surely, the better day
was already begun. With the reign of Henry VII.
we cannot now concern ourselves ; but in him the
old Britons come again to power. Gray's genius
seizes on their Welsh name, and welcomes the
246 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Tudors as the ancient race coming to their own
again : —
"All hail, ye genuine kings, Britannia's issue, hail ! "
God had indeed a work for them to do, worthy of
Gladys and of Linus ; and whether they willed it
or not, he made them instruments of the greatest
blessings to our race, overruling their very crimes
for the good of his Church and for mankind.
32. THE EPOCH OF WOLSEY.
Where Wiclif left the spiritual work we find the
whole Anglican Church ready to take it up and
complete it in Queen Elizabeth's day. The first
prayer-book of Edward VI. would better attest
where he stood. Not till then was the Church of
England reformed theologically. What happened
under Henry VIII. was merely the reassertion of
those temporal rights and liberties of which Rome
had divested our forefathers. Certain modifica-
tions of existing practices and doctrines were in-
deed attempted, but they amounted to little more
than Rome herself has had to tolerate ever since
the Council of Trent. Henry himself never ceased
to burn those whom Rome accounted heretics.
His laws would have sent to the stake every An-
glican bishop, priest, and deacon who accepts the
Anglican prayer-book. Whatever he was, he was
bred in Rome's school ; his life was fashioned
after that of princes most in her favour; and if he
was not a better man than he should be, which of
the Popes, his contemporaries, set him a better
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 247
example? His character I abhor ; for it reflected
all that Rome had been doing for the corruption of
princes for centuries. All that we have to do with
him is to note that his quarrel with the Pope re-
versed the policy of the kings of England, who,
since the Plantagenets, had favoured the Paparchy.
Not one of them had possessed a strictly legitimate
claim to the crown, and they needed the support
of Rome to prop up their thrones. Now came
one who, whatever his faults, was the most resolute
and courageous prince in Christendom. It is of
no consequence to our case whether he was right
or wrong in his personal quarrel. 1 A conflict arose
which, after years of patient waiting, enabled his
people and the Church in her convocations to call
upon him to " reassume " what the Plantagenets
had so often asserted, what even under " the
Roses " and the first Tudor the Church had not
suffered to be forgotten, and what Henry now en-
forced by an appeal to the actual law in the old
statutes of Provisors and Prcemunire. By these,
the legatine position of Wolsey and others was
shown to have been illegal and void from the be-
ginning ; and, basely as Henry may have treated
the Cardinal, whom he tempted into his false posi-
tion, the crisis had come when the Church had to
speak out or perish. Cruel as were the circum-
stances, her voice came in terrible earnest, — the
old refrain, Nolmmis leges Anglics mutari, — We
will not let our laws be changed.
1 See supra, page 228, and Note X".
248 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
33. RESTORED RIGHTS.
As for Wolsey, how beautifully Shakespeare has
summed up his good and bad, putting it into the
mouth of such a " chronicler as Griffith " ! Let us
hear what a modern Roman Catholic thinks of him.
Mr. Pugin says that he was " a greater instrument
in producing the English schism than the arch-
heretic Cranmer himself. . . . By his vexatious
exercise of his legatine power, he caused the spir-
itual authority of the Roman pontiff to become an
odious and intolerable burden ; by dissolving reli-
gious houses, he paved the way for the destruction
of every great religious establishment." Pugin
might have added, that, by persecuting the mar-
ried clergy, while he himself was raising illegitimate
children, he faithfully represented the contempo-
rary Popes, and so made even Henry look re-
spectable. But let us note what that Bluebeard
really permitted the Church to do. It is often stu-
pidly said that Henry made himself " Head of the
Church," refusing to give that dignity any longer
to the Pope. The facts are, that he did nothing
of the kind. He asserted the old temporal head-
ship which Adrian had recognized in Charlemagne
and the Nicene Fathers in Constantine; nothing
but what Gregory the Great had recognized in the
miserable Phocas; nothing but what the Popes
long afterwards allowed the Gallicans to recognize
in Louis XIV. ; nothing but what, though just
then eclipsed by legatine assumptions, had been
steadily kept up and maintained down to these very
times by the law of the land. Again, this head-
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 2A&
ship, or " supremacy," was never the Pope's, for
his supremacy had never been recognized in any
way, theologically or legally. It was still main-
tained that Christ was the only Supreme Head of
the Church, and nothing but temporalities admit-
ted of any earthly supremacy. Accordingly, the
headship of Henry was limited when the whole
convocation voted as follows {iiemine contradicente) :
" Of the English Church and clergy, we recognize
his Majesty as the singular protector and only
supreme governor, and so far as the law of Christ
permits, even the supreme head." How far was
that? No further than had been conceded to Con-
stantine as episcopus ab extra. The unreformed
Henry and his daughter Mary used this form;
but when we come to Elizabeth and to the theo-
logical restoration, she herself objected to its ambi-
guity. It then received its true interpretation in
the only form that has been lawful for three cen-
turies : the English sovereign is simply styled
" supreme governor over all persons and in all
causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil." And this
was precisely what, during the entire Paparchy, the
English kings had always legally claimed and been
able to defend against Rome by laws of Church
and State.
34. WHO DID THIS?
And here let us recall the fact, that all this
was done by the unreformed Church of England.
Henry was himself as much a Papist as the late
Victor Emmanuel. But he and many divines had
25O INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
fallen back on the old idea of a papal primacy,
under the ancient canons, and were determined to
restrict the Pope to what he had been before the
days of Nicholas. So utterly undefined, indeed,
had the chimera been through all the Middle Ages,
that there was now room for all manner of theories
as to what the Pope should be. They who restored
the King's rights to govern his own kingdom
without foreign meddling differed widely as to the
position to which the Papacy was now replaced ;
but Gardyner and Bonner themselves voted for this
measure. The Paparchy was at an end, but no-
body yet dreamed of detachment from the Papacy.
And all this was done under Archbishop Warham,
who died in full communion with Rome. To quote
a recent writer, himself of that communion : —
" It was done in a solemn convocation, a reverend
array of bishops, abbots, and dignitaries, in orphreyed
copes and jewelled mitres. Every great cathedral, every
diocese, every abbey, was duly represented in that impor-
tant synod. . . . One venerable prelate (Fisher) protests ;
his remonstrance is unsupported by his colleagues, and he
is speedily brought to trial and execution. Ignorantly do
we charge this on the Protestant system, which was not
even broached at this time. His accusers, judges, jury,
his executioner — all Catholics ; the bells are ringing for
mass as he ascends the scaffold."
This is all true. I venerate old Bishop Fisher,
and Sir Thomas More no less. 1 They would have
abhorred the late Vatican Council : they believed
in a theoretical papacy, and they were never
" Roman Catholics."
i See Note A.'".
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 25 I
35. ANOTHER STEP.
The second step, less noted, was a bold stand
made by the convocation, under lead of the
bishops, for limiting the royal power over their
convocations. It ended in compromise, but was a
landmark of what the Church understood as her
inherent rights, and could not surrender volunta-
rily. So far under Warham. The next step, how-
ever, rose to the position of Frankfort and of
Constance as that to which the Papacy was put
back. In A. D. 1534, "the old doctrine was af-
firmed that a general council represented the
Church, and was above the Pope and all bishops,
the Bishop of Rome having had no greater juris-
diction given him by God, in the Holy Scriptures,
within this realm of England, than any other for-
eign bishop." Cranmer was now primate, and
this was progress to full Cypriote independence
and to Nicene ideas of the " ancient customs "
which ought to prevail. Mark also, all this was
done by the Church. No act of Parliament had
touched the matter. The " act of Parliament re-
ligion " was first seen under Pole and Queen Mary.
36. HOW IT LOOKED IN FRANCE.
When it pleased God to summon King Henry
to his own judgment, we must observe how his
case was regarded by others. In France, it must
have been felt that he had simply carried out Gal-
lican principles to an unprecedented extent ; yet
without any scruple, and in contempt of Rome,
252 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
a mass for his pious soul was performed with all
ceremony at Notre Dame, in Paris, by order of
Francis the First. 1 How things stood before the
later sessions of the Council of Trent, in the minds
of men of the time, is evidenced by this striking
fact. It had hardly opened its work of seventeen
years, when Henry died.
37. THE SEQUEL.
In the reign of Edward the Sixth, the theologi-
cal reformation was undertaken, and too hastily
pressed forward. It pleased God to arrest it just
when it might have been imperilled by influences
from the Continent, and blessings came in disguise
to England when the pious and princely youth
passed away. It remained for the short-lived re-
action under Mary to give England once more a
taste of papal usurpation, and the fires of Smith-
field and of Oxford burnt out of the souls of Eng-
lishmen the last traces of any lingering fealty to
the Roman see. Once more a papal legate en-
tered England, and an act of Parliament overruled
the deliberate action of the Church. The legate
was only a deacon, 2 yet he assumed by papal au-
thority to grant absolution, and that not only
from papal censures, but from sins ! Thus, a dea-
con presumed to absolve a whole house of bishops
and their priests ! Queen Mary adopted and used
her father's title of " Head of the Church." In her
reign, nothing seems to have been done canoni-
cally, if we judge by ancient usages; but Pole
1 See Note B'". 2 See Note C".
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 253
became Archbishop of Canterbury by the royal
mandate, which was a confession of her suprem-
acy, and that of her father, too as Catholic and
lawful.
38. THE BLOODY QUEEN.
Poor Mary ! She will ever be remembered as
"the Bloody," yet the blood clings to the skirts of
the legate rather than to hers. To him, and to her
Spaniard husband, the infamous Don Philip, we
must trace the martyrdoms ; they reek of Alva's
spirit, and of Torquemada's. Vain is the attempt
to balance them by Calvin's cruelty to Servetus, —
a holocaust by a kid I 1 Widely different were the
dynastic barbarities of Henry and Elizabeth ; the
sufferers under the Queen were traitors and assassins,
who would have made a St. Bartholomew's massa-
cre in England if they could. Hundreds perished
in Mary's reign for offences technically political ;
but over and above these, hundreds of her victims
were martyrs. We except the saintliest of them
all, that lovely child of seventeen, the charming,
the brilliant Lady Jane. Innocent and holy, she
died for treason, — not hers but her father's. The
martyrs were " five bishops, twenty-one divines,
eight gentlemen, eighty-four skilled artisans, one
hundred husbandmen, and twenty-six women."
Not a Calvinist in the world but blushes when
Servetus is mentioned, not a Puritan but avenges
the Quakers, not an Anglican who does not abhor
the cruelties of Elizabeth; but Rome glories in
the rivers of blood with which she has flooded the
1 See Note D"'.
254 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
nations. She has painted the Paris massacre at
the very doors of her pontiff's private chapel as a
triumph of the Church ; she sung Te Deums and
struck medals for the slaughter of the Huguenots.
Rome never repents.
39. THE MARTYRS.
Thank God, since he willed it so, that the Angli-
can restorers died not in their beds, but, like Poly-
carp, at the stake ! Five bishops sealed their
witness with their blood, and breathed out their
spirits confessing Truth in the flames. To them
we owe, under God, all our blessings of freedom in
the state, not less than in religion. We are free to
breathe, and speak, and write, and cherish our
homes, and worship God amid luxuries of devo-
tion, because they counted not their lives dear to
them. Not without faults and frailties ; they them-
selves had persecuted perhaps ; but in times of
unparalleled trial they came to a triumphant end.
When they advised others to fly for their lives, they
heroically stood by the ship. I should as soon think
of reproaching St. Peter for his fall, as Cranmer for
his momentary fright. How memorable his con-
fession in St. Mary's ! how unflinching the hand he
laid upon the flames in the High Street of Oxford !
There honest Hugh Latimer, with the faithful Rid-
ley, had lighted the candle that shall never cease to
illuminate our race. How gloriously they preached
Christ out of their pulpit of fagots ! Those ser-
mons were eloquent beyond rhetoric: they shall
never cease to thrill the hearts of Christian men,
good and true like them. Nor let poor Hooper be
THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 255
forgotten, — a doubting Didymus in some lesser
things, but a true confessor at the last, and a hero,
confessing Christ in the fire amid his agonizing and
praying flock at Gloucester. Much more may we
praise the intrepid Ferrar at Caermarthen. Wales
had historic claims to this glory, and the Roman-
ized bishop that burned him was the namesake of
Pelagius, her only historic shame. But to Ridley,
so far as man can judge, belongs the more graceful
palm and the more starry crown. To this great
spirit we owe what was best and deepest in the
fruits of Cranmer's learning. He restored the
Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, the doctrine of
Ratramn, and the ancient doctrine of the Anglican
Church, as testified in the Saxon homily of yElfric.
That doctrine is the corner-stone of liturgic sci-
ence, and qualifies all worship. Hence, to this
profound divine and holy martyr I ascribe more
than to any other our incomparable Book of
Common Prayer, the first book of Edward the
Sixth, so called, reproduced in our American Lit-
urgy. Who can estimate its value? It came forth
with the Bishops' Bible, — next to the Bible the
greatest boon to our race. In' these gifts the
Restoration was already complete, in all that was
of its essence. The Marian martyrs sealed it with
their blood. Like a precious coffer of gold, sub-
jected to the furnace to purify the last remnant of
its dross, the Church of Linus and of Gladys, 1 of
Alcuin and of Alfred, came forth from the fiery
heat restored to its virgin beauty, a "vessel of
honour, fit for the Master's use."
1 See Note E'".
LECTURE VIII.
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM.
i. THE ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH.
THE Restoration was complete when Elizabeth
succeeded Mary. Complete, not finished.
Nothing which the Anglican Church has ever re-
garded as essential to her restored condition was
wanting when King Edward died. Her " Articles
of Religion " are not a " Code of Belief," nor have
they ever been made terms of communion to her
children, or when she has offered her maternal
breast to strangers. To us in America she granted
the episcopate and full communion, with no stipu-
lation whatever as to the Articles ; nor did we our-
selves adopt them till the first year of this century.
We were without them for twenty years. I am
not undervaluing them; they require no apology;
they are Catholic doctrine ; but as they are popu-
larly represented they are quite another thing.
2. THE MARIAN SCHISM.
The reign of Mary was, of itself, a very impor-
tant stage in the process of clinching and securing
the work that had been done. The legatine in-
trusion of the deacon, Cardinal Pole, and the un-
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 2 $7
doing by Act of Parliament of what the Church of
England had done in synod, was a schism. God
is wiser than men. To revise results and to secure
them, and once for all to make the heart of Eng-
land ready to ratify the rejection of the Papacy,
no process could have been more effectual than
this experiment of reversal. This reign wrought
the casting out of devils. It was the last assault
of papal usurpation, — the expiring convulsion of
the Paparchy in the Church of our forefathers.
Poor Mary and her kinsman and primate almost
at the same hour gave back to God their kindred
spirits :
" Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.
Close up their eyes and draw the curtain close ;
And let us all to meditation."
Like Cardinal Beaufort, in Shakespeare's inimitable
portrayal, so perished the delusion of the Decre-
tals in England. Her Church stood, once more,
on the old foundations ; her metropolitical throne
rested on its canonical foothold, the Cypriote Con-
stitution, 1 and the "ancient usages" of Nicasa.
Her lawful episcopate survived in full measure;
in England sufficiently, in Ireland more largely.
How marked the providence that left the Primacy
vacant at this solemn moment ! It was wisely
and opportunely filled by the consecration of the
godly and well-learned Matthew Parker.
1 See Lecture III., page 96.
17
258 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
3. THE RESTORED AUTONOMY.
Go back to our own history, after our episcopate
was established, for an illustration of the case as it
stood with the new primate. We had a prayer-
book to revise; a theological framework to ar-
range for the education and guidance of the clergy,
and many minor matters to set in order by pro-
vincial constitutions and canons. None other was
the actual situation in England at this crisis. The
Second Prayer-Book of Edward had hardly been
in use when the Marian schism intervened. Revis-
ion and completion were the first requisites. The
creeds were an all-sufficient theological base, but
they had been so overlaid by scholasticism and by
pontifical decrees, that a reform of the received
system was necessary. In Henry's time, and sub-
sequently, conflicting experiments had been tried,
but they were experiments only. The " Bishops'
Bible " was the one all-important and munificent
bequest of that transitional reign. It is a monu-
ment of the Biblical character imparted to our
reforms by Wiclif himself. The Germans, who
have only lately awakened to their own obliga-
tions to our great Reformer, accuse him truthfully
with not understanding " Justification by Faith " ;
that is, of course, as they understand it. But
what they esteem a defect is indeed his glory.
The Scriptures, with " reason and authority " for
their interpreters, were made by Wiclif the corner
stone of Anglican Restoration. The Reformers
of the Continent risked all on Scholastic subtilties,
beginning with Luther's maxim that " Justifka-
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 259
tion," as he defined it, is " the criterion of a stand-
ing or falling church." The consequences are
significant as they arc immense. A Scriptural
reformation was Catholic Restoration ; the Scho-
lastic reformation could only end in ecclesiastical
suicide, and in the evolution of endless divisions
and conflicting sects.
4. THE ARTICLES.
But, at such a moment, when the Latin churches
were committing themselves more and more inex-
tricably to school doctrines which had been en-
larged and shaped into dogmas and unlimited
refinements upon the Faith, and when the Protes-
tant Reformation was given over to like specula-
tions, as yet indeterminate and embroiling its
leaders one with another, it was impossible that
Scholasticism should not be at work among the
profoundly learned and thoughtful scholars and di-
vines of England. When we look at the case as it
thus stood under Parker, we may wonder, indeed,
at the issue. Revising the draught of Cranmer
and Ridley, and reducing their Articles to thirty-
nine, he gave us, substantially, what we still retain.
What are they? Not a " Code of Belief," in any
sense, though they include the Creed and the defi-
nitions of the CEcumenical Councils. A correc-
tion of school doctrine, by Scripture and antiquity,
is found in twenty-six articles beginning with the
ninth. Viewed apart from these, they amount to
a rejection of Scholasticism as a system, and a strict
limitation of Scholastic teaching to certain theses.
260 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
The age was rife with Scholastic discussions. It
was impossible that Anglican divines should have
no opinions about them. Their public teaching,
however, was hereby restrained in a practical man-
ner, within certain bounds, allowing freedom of
inquiry and of thought, but setting metes and safe-
guards to controversy. In this view, I admire the
Articles. They practically eliminated Scholasti-
cism from the domain, of conscience and made us
free, as Truth only can. After the debates of a
century, in which they furnished an escape valve
for the spirit of disputation, it was left for our
great theologian, Bishop Bull, to secure what
Hooker had promoted, a practical end of contro-
versy. In his " Defence of the Nicene Creed,"
he illustrated our Catholic position so admirably
as to win the homage of Bossuet and the whole
Gallican Episcopate. In his " Harmonia Apos-
tolica," he refuted the Lutheran and Calvinistic
theories, and placed the exposition of our Articles
upon a sure foundation. The famous Seventeenth
Article 1 ignores the crucial point of Calvinism and
Arminianism alike, and leaves the outline of truth
indeterminate as to causation. This enables all
Scriptural minds to accept it. As diversions and
gymnastical exercises, the old discussions will never
wholly die out; they exist in the nature and the
moral faculties of the human mind. But they no
longer ensnare or enslave men's consciences. The
results fully justify the wisdom and purpose of the
Articles ; nor, so long as St. Augustine is remem-
bered and studied, can they ever cease to be useful.
1 See Note F"'.
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 26 1
5. THEIR CATHOLIC CORE.
In the Sixth Article is embodied the great Ni-
cene principle of our Restoration; and in the
Thirty-fourth, to say nothing of others, we have
the pith and marrow of the Vincentian Rule prac-
tically applied. The Sixth I must quote in full.
It is on " The Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures
for Salvation," as follows : —
" Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to
salvation ; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may
be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that
it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be
thought requisite or necessary to salvation."
This golden Article merely imitates the great
Councils, putting the Scriptures on a throne in the
midst of the Church, as the oracle of Christ's infal-
lible Vicar, the Holy Ghost. It was accompanied
by the golden canon which affirms Vincent's rule,
and restricts preachers to the word of God, and
what " the Catholic Fathers and old bishops have
gathered from its teaching."
6. THE FORMATION OF THE TRENTINE CHURCH.
Thus the English Church was restored before
" the Roman Catholic Church " was in existence.
I must thank the French savant, Quinet, 1 for a
suggestive statement of facts which demonstrate
what professed historians have too generally over-
looked. The spirit which Constance and Basle had
striven to eliminate was made at Trent, as he says,
1 See Note G".
262 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
" the very Constitution of the Church." In other
words, Trent created a new Constitution, organiz-
ing what remained of the Latin churches into a
Western spiritual and temporal empire, — a pro-
vincial church claiming to be the whole Church.
Quinet observes, that " the artifice consisted in
making this change without anywhere speaking of
it. . . . From that moment Popedom usurps all
Christendom."
He notes how craftily all the notes of the old
(Ecumenical Councils were got rid of. The East
and the North were almost equally wanting; —
Italian prelates, one hundred and eighty-seven ;
only two German bishops ; Spaniards, thirty-two ;
Frenchmen, twenty-six ; and the voting changed
from churches to individuals, a vote for every
member of the Council personally, so that the
Italian bishops swallowed up all the rest. The
French were so ill-treated that their ambassadors
left the Council. The Spanish bishops were vir-
tually driven out. " Exeant, Let them go," shouted
the Italians. " Laynez, the Jesuit, became the soul
of the Council, and, reaction against the North
prevailing over every other idea, the organiza-
tion of the Church assumed a new form!' In other
words, the modern " Roman Catholic Church" — a
gigantic sect, but a sect only — was thus created.
It emerged from that portentous conventicle of
seventeen years' duration with only a vestige left
of the Latin churches, as such. They had been ab-
sorbed, or rather they were caged in the iron frame-
work of a new and anomalous union. France,
refusing the discipline and accepting only the new
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 263
creed subject to Gallican interpretations, pre-
served the Gallican " name to live," while doomed
to die. And so a new church emerged from the
Trent caldron, (1) with a new Canon of Holy-
Scripture, including the Apocrypha, as equal with
the Prophets ; (2) a new Creed, that of Pius IV. ;
(3) a new " Code of Belief," necessary to sal-
vation, embracing all the interminable defini-
tions of the Trent Council ; (4) a new system of
church polity, in which a presbyterian theory of
the ministry is made dogmatic, 1 and the Episco-
pate is no longer recognized as one of the Holy
Orders; (5) a new main-spring of vitality, wholly
sectarian in its character, namely, the consolida-
tion of the Society of Jesuits with the new Con-
stitution, in such manner as to make their General
its practical lord and master, and the Pope him-
self only the mouthpiece of their decisions and
decrees. From absorption into this sect, and all
the ruin and debasement which have followed in
every nation that has accepted it, the Nicene
Church of England was saved as " a brand plucked
from the burning." Such was " the arrow of the
Lord's deliverance," when Queen Mary died, and
Don Philip went to found the Inquisition and
prosecute his cruelties in Spain and the Low
Countries. These he had designed for England
when by the Divine Providence Parker became
Metropolitan, exclaiming, " Lord, into what times
hast thou brought me?"
1 See Note H'".
264 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
7. RETROSPECT.
Let me now go back to events from which all
this came forth, and see whether Germany and
Northern Europe owe not all their troubles to
half-way measures, and to their blind refusal to
proceed as England did in the line of Restoration.
Let us note how, by refusing to hear the voice of
Wiclif, they incurred the revolutions of Luther and
the despotism of Laynez. Wiclif's light had not
been hidden under a bushel : it began to illuminate
Europe before he died. The Universities of Eu-
rope were a great exchange for the commerce of
learning and of thought. From the Moldau young
scholars came to the Isis ; Oxford and Prague
were in close relations in Wiclif's day, and when
Anne of Luxembourg, " the good Queen Anne,"
arrived in England to marry King Richard, she
was attended by a retinue of learned youth and
accomplished men. These found Wiclif and his
doctrines the talk of the Court, the Church, and
the Universities. The " great Evangelical Doctor "
had just published his Bible, and manuscript copies
were multiplied. It is known that Queen Anne
herself became a Bible reader, and a lover of
Wiclif's name and person. She survived him for
ten years, and on her death her attendants re-
turned to Prague with Wiclif's books, and im-
pressed with his great idea of giving free circula-
tion to the Holy Scriptures. In a. D. 1397 came
back from Oxford that brilliant youth, Jerome of
Prague, a Bohemian knight. He brought with
him books and parchments, copied by his own
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 265
hand from Wiclif's writings. He showed them to
John Huss, destined to be the Wiclif of Bohemia;
but he was no Wiclif then. After reading one of
the proscribed books, he advised Jerome to burn
it, or to toss it into the Moldau ; no doubt a sacri-
fice to the local saint, St. John Nepomucene, whose
bridge spans that river, — the "proud arch" of
Campbell's poetry. But from that moment the
study of the Evangelical Doctor became more
general, and it electified Bohemia. The century
of discovery and invention opened with this move-
ment. Huss was now confessor to King Wenzel's
second wife, Queen Sophia of Bavaria; he was the
most faithful and eloquent of court preachers, and
the rising man.
8. THE MISTAKE OF GERSON.
Happy had it been for Germany and for Bohemia
too had these master spirits been allowed to open
and control the Continental Reformation. It would
then have proceeded, probably, as in England,
upon the lines of Restoration ; for these illustrious
men were Catholics, not sectarians, and to the last
they prompted no subversive measures. I love
them as Anglicans at heart; by which I mean true
Catholics, who would have guided their fellow
Catholics of Europe into the paths of Nicene re-
vival and orthodoxy. But just here things took
a decisive turn in another direction. The justly
celebrated Gerson, Chancellor of the Archdiocese
of Paris, eminent for his learning and his piety,
gained the control of the reforming demands of
266 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Europe. The Popes of Avignon and of the schism
that followed, for one hundred and fifty years, had
kept the churches and the nations in perpetual
broils, demonstrating the folly of pretending that
the Paparchy was a bond of unity. Moreover,
the vices of these popes and antipopcs, with their
licentious courts, had become an abomination that
" smelled to heaven." No words can do justice to
their immoralities, except those of their contem-
poraries, who not only saw them, but shared them.
The groans of the Latin churches were universal;
an outcry for a reformation of the Church " in its
head and its members." Gerson was in no respect
in advance of his age ; he was a Gallican, but a
Scholastic and a fanatical Nominalist ; he was the
honest dupe of the canon law, which means of the
forged Decretals. He accepted, therefore, an ideal
papacy ; not at all the Paparchy as it then existed.
As a Gallican, he fell back upon the principles of
Frankfort, supposing that, if the Popes could be put
back to what Charlemagne found them, all would
be well. His great scheme was to make Councils
supreme ; to empower them to depose a bad Pope
and elect a new one ; and, in general, to recognize
no other supreme authority in Christendom. How
plausible ! Here was the great Nicene doctrine
saddled, and, as it proved, rendered abortive, by
the Decretalist whim that there must be a Pope
of some sort. However, so far and no further
could Gerson and the Gallicans proceed. It was
progress for the Latin churches in general. It
was the old, ill-conceived position of poor, puzzled
Hincmar, and the Anglicans had adopted this
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 26 J
same idea under Anselm and the Normans. Just
here also stood Sir Thomas More and dear old
Bishop Fisher, when the tyrant Plenry took their
heads off for not going further while he was dis-
posed to do so. In other respects Henry and
they stood together; they learned this policy of
Gerson.
9. SCHOOL GRUDGES.
There was another clog of which we cannot now
comprehend the immense significance. Wiclif was
a Realist, and Realism was fashionable with all
who had learned from him. Gerson was a bigoted
Nominalist, and therefore hated the name of Wiclif,
attributing to the Realists all the mischief of his
writings. Puritans and Cavaliers never hated one
another more passionately than did these rival
schools, each inspired by the odium theologicum to
the verge of frenzy against opponents. Gerson's
scheme of reform included, therefore, two antago-
nistic schemes. He drew a line thus : (1.) There
must be no reformation of doctrine, and all re-
proach of " Wiclifism " must be put away by
stringent measures. (2.) This point secured, the
authority of councils must be asserted, and prac-
tically carried out, to any extent found necessary.
Such were the ideas that called the Council of
Pisa (A. D. 1407), designed for a cleansing of the
Augean stables of the Paparchy. There were
now two rival popes, and Europe was a very hell
between them, everywhere embroiled in quarrels
political and religious. Who was Pope and who
268 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
was Antichrist? One nation was tied to a French
pope, another held to his rival. Gregory had
Rome in actual possession, and felt that nine
points of the law were with him. But such were
his oaths and perjuries, his protestations and his
subterfuges, that finally his cardinals, all save
seven, turned upon him and appealed to a General
Council. They professed to fear that he would
assassinate them all. They became Gallicans all
of a sudden, and said, " We appeal from the Pope
to Jesus Christ, of whom he is vicar; from the
Pope to a Council, to which it belongs to judge
the sovereign pontiff; from the present Pope to
a future Pope, authorized to redress what his pre-
decessor has unwarrantably enacted."
10. PISA.
Behold that ancient cathedral hard by the lean-
ing tower in Pisa. There the Council was opened,
with august ceremonial, on the Feast of the An-
nunciation, a. d. 1409. John Gerson was there in
person to press his doctrines with admirable force
and logic. D'Ailly, Archbishop of Cambrai, was,
next to him, the leader; a genius who anticipates
Bossuet in the sobriquet of " the Eagle " of France.
As the result, both popes were deposed, and the
Roman See declared vacant. All their bulls,
anathemas, and excommunications were declared
null and void. They proceeded to an election,
and Philargus of Milan, a good old man, was pro-
claimed Pope, as Alexander V. This was brought
about by the legerdemain of Balthasar Cossa, who
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 269
will soon appear again. Counter councils were
called, of course, in favour of the deposed pretend-
ers ; but the work at Pisa closed here, and the
respectability of the new pontiff stifled for the
moment all clamours for reform. John Huss gave
his hopeful adhesion to Alexander; but one voice
was lifted up for more effectual reforms. The
learned and saintly Clemangis, once rector of the
Sorbonne, was studying the Scriptures in holy
retirement in the vale of Langres. He shared
Wiclif's ideas for more thorough work. "The
Council of Pisa," said he, " has only trifled with
the Church, crying, Peace, peace, when there is no
peace."
11. SIGISMUND VISITS ENGLAND.
At this time Sigismund, the Emperor elect of
Germany, had not been crowned, and his difficul-
ties led him to desire another Council. Chicheley
was Archbishop of Canterbury, and was engaged
in fierce controversies with the Lollards, when the
Emperor arrived in London to persuade England
to unite with France for the carrying out of the
reforms Pisa had failed to effect. Doubtless he
gained very false ideas of Wiclif, at this juncture,
confounding the turbulent Lollards with his dis-
ciples, and hence all the more readily accepting
Gerson's opposition to Wiclif as the only safe
course for crowned heads. He was brother to
the good Queen Anne, and better things might
have been hoped from him had he not been the
Emperor and a sensual voluptuary.
27O INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
12. THE ENGLISH EMBASSY TO CONSTANCE.
Chicheley appointed three bishops to attend
the new Council, summoned to meet at Constance.
Hallam of Salisbury and Bubwith of Bath, with
Mascall of Hereford, made the embassy. Hal-
lam was the leading spirit. The King sent a lay
delegation as co-ambassadors, and a vast and
splendid retinue attended them. The Emperor
received them with special honours, and wore his
English decorations of the Garter when he en-
tered Constance. He had been recently crowned
at Aix-la-Chapelle, over the sepulchre of Charle-
magne. Frankfort was opened again at Con-
stance, as I have said, but only to make itself
a monument of Gerson's folly, in his fond attempt
to reconcile any theoretical Papacy whatever with
Catholic Councils and the old Nicene Constitu-
tions. The Decretals had done their work ; men's
minds had been chained by them for five centuries,
and the " immedicable wound " could only be
remedied by eradication and actual cautery.
13. HUSS AS A REFORMER.
Under the impulse given him by Jerome of
Prague, Huss was already known as a reformer
less fanciful than Gerson, though he by no means
saw the impossibility of retaining the Papacy.
Wise, holy, and inspired by communion with
God in Holy Scripture, he was nevertheless far
in advance of his times, and his reputation as a
" Wiclifite " insured him the deadly hatred of the
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 2j\
Council. When the Archbishop of Prague had
burned Wiclif's books with public ceremony,
Huss rebuked the act, and carried with him the
heart of Bohemia. Though he committed himself
to nothing more than a plea for liberty to read
and examine, he was everywhere stigmatized as
Wiclif's disciple. He even appealed to Rome, —
yes, to that same Balthasar Cossa, now John XXIII.
This was in the matter of an episcopal censure
vented against him when he opposed the book-
burning. This marks where he stood at this time.
So far he was with Gerson. Alas ! why was not
Gerson with him?
14. CONSTANCE.
It is not my purpose to dwell on the history
of this great man. Let us come to the Council.
The infamies of John XXIII. were unutterable;
and this was the pontiff who answered the appeal
of Huss by a bull of excommunication, in a. d.
141 2. It is noteworthy that, in protesting against
it in a most catholic spirit, Huss quoted the well-
known example of Greathead, the saintly Robert
of Lincoln. The Council was opened at last,
and Huss was summoned to be present. The
Emperor gave him a safe-conduct to go and to
return. Jerome kissed him as he left Prague :
" Dear master," said he, " be firm." Already the
wicked Pope had appeared on the scene, his am-
bitious splendours and the unblushing shame of
his conduct and that of his courtiers adding to
the scorn of all decent men. Huss soon found
272 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
himself a prisoner at Constance, where he had
opened his cause with dignity and power. The
Emperor ordered his release, but Sigismund had
not yet arrived in person, and the Pope had. So
the latter kept Huss confined. When Sigis-
mund appeared, the Pope's own case was upper-
most, and Huss was left in prison. Jerome too
had been cited ; he also came and was imprisoned.
It was a foregone conclusion that Wiclif and his
followers must be condemned, to balance what
they meant to do with Pope John. When this
pontiff's character and conduct were under exam-
ination, his crimes proved so frightful, that our
Hallam, Bishop of Salisbury, gave it as his opinion,
that "he ought to be burned at the stake." He
fled from Constance in terror, and the Council
solemnly deposed him on the last day of May,
141 5. The arrogant John became the most ab-
ject of suppliants. In outward appearance, at
least, he accepted his sentence, and ratified it
by his own hand.
15. THE MARTYRS OF CONSTANCE.
When, after an extraordinary revival of the old
scholastic controversies, John Huss found himself
condemned, he stood in the presence of Sigismund,
and looked him steadfastly in the face, as he said,
" I came here on the safe-conduct of the Em-
peror." Sigismund crimsoned to his forehead, and
that blush saved Luther at Worms. Charles-Quint
said, " I should not like to blush like Sigismund."
It is said that Huss and Jerome both prophesied
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 273
a day of other counsels. " You roast a goose
to-day," said Huss, punning on his own name ; " in
a hundred years will come a swan l you cannot
burn." Why dwell on the heroic martyrdoms
of Huss and the brilliant Jerome? Reciting the
creeds and praying to Jesus, these intrepid heroes
bore witness to the Faith, tineas Sylvius, after-
wards Pope, said : " They went to their punish-
ment as to a feast. Not a word escaped them
which betrayed a particle of weakness. In the
midst of the flames, without ceasing, they sang
hymns to their last breath. No philosopher ever
suffered death with such constancy as they en-
dured in the flames." So speaks one who saw
it all and shared it all, — an enemy and a subse-
quent Pope. Who will not say Amen, when I
devoutly look up to God and add, May my soul
be with theirs when we all come to stand before
the only just tribunal, at the last day !
16. THE INFAMY OF CONSTANCE.
The martyrdoms were dramatically carried out,
with refinements of cruelty and torture too horrible
to narrate. Was there ever such work done by
Christians in council assembled under invocation
of the Holy Ghost? To a calm observer, there
were but hair-splitting differences between the
burners and the burnt. Good Lord, forgive them,
for they knew not what they did ! Constance was
smitten with impotency from that hour, and Ger-
son's great learning and virtues perished without
1 Luther's device was a swan.
IS
274 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
any adequate record of success. Ignorantly he
had entailed upon France and Germany the con-
vulsions that for a century, after Luther, made
Europe an Aceldama. Nay, the French Revolu-
tion itself may be traced to the reactionary con-
sequences of Gerson's failure to promote such
a Catholic Restoration as was insured in England
under wiser counsels. Poor John Gerson ! To
his fanatical aversions we owe another disgrace-
ful act, which likened this Council to hyaenas that
prey upon the dead. Wiclif's bones must be dug
up and consumed. On such a dismal errand came
commissioners to quiet Lutterworth, and there
they enacted this mockery. The sacred ashes of
the great confessor were thrown into a little brook
that murmurs under the old walls of his church.
And Fuller quaintly says : " Thus this brook hath
conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn,
Severn into the narrow seas, then into the main
ocean ; and thus the ashes of Wiclif are the em-
blem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all
the world over."
17. ONE VOTE AND THE CONSEQUENCES.
The eloquence of Jerome as he pleaded before
the Council is said to have left Cicero in the shade.
Huss was hardly less eloquent. Both were yet
young men. Huss suffered on his birthday, aged
forty-five ; Jerome was about the same age, and
was a layman. With them passed away the hope
of Catholic reformation for the Latin churches.
One vote cast at Constance by the English Bishop
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 2J$
of Bath elected Martin V. in place of John. That
vote, says Dean Hook, " delayed the cause of re-
form for a century." It did far more. It threw
the inevitable into the hands of another genera-
tion, and of men of another character, who, as
I have shown, were not restorers, but Scholastic
doctors, — giants who built up nothing in place of
what they threw down.
iS. THE COUNCIL OF BASLE.
We must regard the Council of Basle as a mere
continuation of that of Constance, and it was far
more resolute and creditable to its engineers.
Pope Martin was forced to convoke it, 1 and severe
were its reproaches against his duplicity in trying
to postpone. Over and over again had he la-
boured to convene it in Italy, but they defied him,
and insisted on Basle, under Sigismund's protection.
Here was something like Frankfort again. He
did not live to see it opened, and was succeeded
by Eugenius IV. This Pope pronounced the
Council dissolved, but they asserted their superi-
ority as a " General Council," and went on. They
proved too strong for the Pope, and he was forced
to yield and recognize their claims. Gerson was
no longer living to control them, but their history
is that of a final testimony about the Paparchy.
And praiseworthy, so far as they went, were their
tokens of better feeling towards the Hussites, to
whom they restored the communion in both kinds,
reversing what was done at Constance. The chal-
1 December 14, 1431.
276 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
ice thus restored gave the adherents of Huss the
reputable name of Calixtines. This was an entire
overruling of Martin, who had only preached in
the spirit of Innocent III., a crusade of extermina-
tion against the Hussites. But all too late ! There
was no John Huss to guide his friends and to give
this Council a truly primitive character. The book
of life was shut ; the seals were to be broken in
another generation, but only to disclose thunder-
ings and voices. A Titanic avenger was to ride on
the whirlwind, but he was wholly unable to direct
the storm; and they who had burned Huss and
Jerome, and strewn the ashes of Wiclif, were chas-
tised by Luther first, and then given over to the
oligarchy of Laynez the Jesuit. Either extreme
was abhorrent to the doctors of Constance and of
Basle ; but their fatal compromises were the crea-
tors of both alike. Luther's agitations crossed the
Alps, and at one time had begun to work under
the eaves of the Vatican itself; but when this last
menace was disregarded, there was nothing left to
Rome but an absolute surrender to the Society
of Loyola. These ate the oyster and awarded the
shells. They assumed to themselves all the su-
premacy which Basle had claimed for a General
Council, and to the Pope they conceded only the
homage of doing everything in his name.
19. TWO POINTS SET RIGHT.
Perhaps I have sufficiently illustrated my points,
as to the Anglican Restoration and the " Reforma-
tion " of Luther. (1.) The Anglican work begun
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 2JJ
and was wrought from within, — begun under Wic-
lif, who only brought to a focus what had been
continuously maintained by Anglican witnesses,
from the Norman invasion onward, and what was
resumed, and brought to the issue of a restored
autonomy, under Henry, and Edward, his son.
(2.) The German Reformers lighted their candle
from England ; there could have been no Luther
but for Huss and Jerome, the disciples of Wiclif.
How absurd and illogical, therefore, is the conven-
tional instruction of our school histories, and even
of Church historians, who treat of our Anglican
Reformation as if it began with Luther's burning
of the Pope's bull ! They make it an importa-
tion from Germany, if not from the Diet of Spires,
where the Lutherans were called Protestants. Let
those admire a feeble and impotent name of ne-
gation and discord who can possibly do so; but
the reader of Kahnis must exclaim, —
" Can aught exult in its deformity? "
20. POLITICAL PROTESTANTISM.
But let us not fall into vulgar mistakes about
the Protestants. As a political cause, my sym-
pathies are with the Protestant heroes and suffer-
ers. Theologically, I cannot go with them, although
the worst mistakes of Calvin and Luther are venial
as compared with the Council of Trent, its mon-
strous " Code of Belief," and its daring dictation
to Christendom of a new Creed, equalizing the
mere novelties of Pius IV. with the Nicene sym-
bol, making it more practically the Creed, and not
278 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
less essential to salvation. In the conflicts and
wars it generated, my heart is with the lost cause
of the Calixtines and the Huguenots. I had rather
be with the poor " winter-king " of Bohemia, than
with Louis XIV. ravaging the Palatinate, deso-
lating the Rhineland, and revoking the Edict of
Nantes. Yes, and who would not choose death
with Coligny, rather than share with Catherine de
Medicis and the pontiff that awful account with
God for the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day?
To come nearer to our own times, recall the sor-
rows and sufferings of the godly Jansenists, the
nuns of Port Royal dragged out of their graves,
like Wiclif, and their chaste bodies exposed to the
worst indignities, while their very roof was torn
away from the heads of the survivors, their walls
levelled, and their names covered with anathemas.
Gracious Lord ! that a Church should call itself
" Catholic " which was too narrow for a Pascal, an
Arnauld, a Nicole, — nay, too narrow for Bossuet
and the old Gallicans, whose condemnation at the
late Vatican conventicle was as real as that of
Wiclif at Constance, and whose bones would just
as certainly be exhumed and cremated, were it
possible just now to execute such an auto-da-fe in
Republican France.
2i. REFLECTIONS.
Let me pause a moment for a reflection. It
has often struck you, perhaps, as I have had to
recount the history of events that disgrace our
holy religion, to ask, " Where is the religion of
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 2J()
Christ, and what is it doing for the world in times
like these? " This anxious inquiry was anticipated
and answered by the Holy Ghost, when He said,
" Nevertheless the foundation of God standcth sure,
having this seal, — the Lord knowetli them that are
His." In every age, it is evil that forces itself
on the sight; it is the worst of men that make
themselves seen and heard. But always, if there
are such as Judas, there are such as Stephen ; if
there are persecutors, there are heroes ; if there
are murderers, there are martyrs. Meantime,
thousands of humble and holy men and women,
humble-minded peasants and Christian children,
are living the life of faith and love, and dying the
death of saints, unnumbered and unknown. The
great prophet supposed that he alone was left in
Israel, a true worshipper ; but the Lord said there
were seven thousand besides him that had not
" bowed the knee to Baal." Even in the days of
Annas and Caiaphas, there were such priests as
Zacharias and Simeon ; such holy women as Eliza-
beth and Anna; such "Israelites indeed" as Na-
thanael. Let us be sure that in the dark places
of earth, as now, so always, God has had his hid-
den saints, who have not been hid from Him, and
whose faith overcame the world.
Then, as to the vulgar mistakes about Calvin
and Luther. Giants they were indeed in those
days; Scholastics even when they quarrelled with
Scholastics, and their worst errors came from the
Scholastics. Such were Calvin's presbyterianism
and the reactionary ideas of Luther, that made
Solifidianism. Calvin's predestinarianism had a
280 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
similar origin, and his terrible logic about infant
damnation is Scholasticism, which is now hardened
into creed by Rome itself in its Trent theology.
I must own that the spirit of Melanchthon is that
with which I find my own heart entwined, almost
exclusively, when I study the Protestant Reforma-
tion. Erasmus might possibly have renewed the
influence of Huss, and directed the movement on
the Continent, had he been more in earnest, less
fond of his jokes, and less afraid of the stake. He
had not taken his ideas from Wiclif ; he was rather
a pupil of Gerson, and the arrogant dictation of
that " pope in the bosom " which Luther owned he
carried, made Erasmus recoil.
At intervals the influence of this new class of
reformers was felt in our affairs. The floods of
Continental violence rolled like a tidal wave against
the fast-anchored Church and isle of England.
Here and there are holes which it gnawed and
fissures which it opened, but our rock threw back
the broken billow and repelled it as from a for-
tress of adamant. Had the counsels of Gerson
prevailed in England, our fate would have been
involved with the Continental Reformation ; or
else we should have been swallowed up by Trent.
See how the Inquisition and the extinction of
the old Mozarabic spirit of freedom has brought
down what was the greatest of kingdoms, imperial
Spain, to the dust. From all this, the Lord deliv-
ered us. England was not swamped in the Protes-
tant marsh of sect and schism. She escaped
the net of the Jesuits at Trent. She became the
most Catholic Church in Christendom.
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 28 1
22. RECENT REACTION.
Our own time has seen a revolt in England
alike against reason and Holy Scripture and the
Providence of God. Men who owe all that gives
them weight and influence with contemporaries
to their training in the Church of England, and
to the moral nutriment they drew from her ma-
ternal breasts, have ungratefully "lifted up their
heel against her." It is the greatest scandal of
an enlightened age; it is an indictment of human
nature itself in its better estate. In the name of
common sense, what is it they would have, when
they regret the Anglican restoration? Do they
regret the death of Mary, and wish the Spanish
Armada had restored her reign of blood, set up
the Inquisition, and done for England what Alva
did in the Netherlands? Do they grieve in their
hearts for the failure of the last Stuart to restore
the Paparchy? Can they then lament for him
whose treachery insured the ruin of the dynasty,
from which Charles I. prophetically withdrew his
blessing in case it should ever depart from the
teachings of Hooker * and the catholicity of the
Church of England? Again I ask, What would
they have instead of the blessings our race has in-
herited from the Marian martyrs, and which have
made us the envy of the world? Had England
copied Spain, would that have been wisdom?
or France, in her half-reforms? Look at the
Spain of to-day and the France of the last hun-
dred years. Is there more of the Gospel in these
1 See Note Y".
282 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
countries, or in Italy, fast by the Papal throne,
than in England, with all her faults? Oh! it is
in the " States of the Church," I suppose, blotted
out from the map of Europe by an indignant civ-
ilization, that we lost the kingdom of heaven,
when it "came nigh" unto men! Is it such a
Sardis they would make the soul and centre of
English Law and Gospel for all generations? But
enough! "Let them alone," — as Scripture said
of one joined to his idols. Let us go on to secure
to children's children the inestimable blessings
they are too besotted to understand, too ungrateful
to enjoy.
23. THE CONTRAST.
And if we would estimate aright the difference
between a Catholic Restoration and a Protestant
Reformation, let us know them by their fruits.
The difference was radical, at the outset, as I
have shown : Scripture and antiquity inspired the
one and governed it; the other risked all upon
Scholastic theologies. Now, I do not like to speak
unkindly of our Christian brethren in Germany and
Switzerland, and therefore I shall merely refer you
to authorities for light upon the subject. Ranke
will show you how it came to pass that popes re-
gained nearly half of all that they had lost, and
Kahnis, that excellent Lutheran of our own times,
will tell you more than I care to recall of the his-
tory of German Protestantism in its operations upon
mind and heart, and in its destructive work upon
national churches. On the other hand, look at our
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 283
mother Church of England ! " There she stands,"
— poor as the second temple compared with the
first, if we contrast her with the pattern in the
mount, but, in spite of all, "beautiful for situation,"
and fast making herself " the joy of the whole
earth." See what the Lord has done for her, in
these latter days ! Look at her daughter Church
in these States, and at her colonial children. The
Romish missions were vigorously prosecuted, in the
spirit of the Propaganda: look at them! Look at
Mexico, and Hayti, and Brazil ! We find a par-
allel to that which Christ himself rebuked, when he
cried woe to those who " compassed sea and land
to make one proselyte." To England, in another
sense, and for different ends, God has said, " Pos-
sess thou the east and the west." Yes, truly, " her
sound has gone forth into all lands, her words to the
ends of the world." And where does she stand as
related to her fellow Christians, alike Protestants
and Romanized Latins? I appeal to one of her
most persistent adversaries, to the Ultramontanist
De Maistre. After all he can say against her, yet
he allows, " She is most precious" If ever Chris-
tendom is to be reunited, he thinks the movement
must proceed from her. He recognizes her as the
mediatrix who can lay her hands upon both par-
ties ; for, as he says, " with one hand she touches
us (Roman Catholics), and with the other the Prot-
estants." If this be her mission, as De Maistre
supposes, " truly she is most precious." He owns
the truth, at last, which Rome has so perversely
tried for centuries to gainsay. 1
1 See Note }'" ■
284 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
24. THE FALL OF THE PAPAL THRONE.
Even Laynez could not have conceived of the
ultimate results of the mastery he gained for his
Society at the Council of Trent. In that Council
his manipulations subverted the Latin Episcopate,
reducing it to a mere Papal Vicariate : his policy
has since reduced the Papacy itself to a mere mask
for the " black pope," the General of the Jesuits,
the autocrat of the " Roman Catholic " world. The
rod of its nominal despot is really held by him ;
his military forces submit with the " passivity of a
corpse," and obey with the activity of Napoleon's
flying artillery. The pontiff, be it Pius IV. or be
it Pius IX., is merely a voice to send forth the ora-
cles of the Society. But by its fatal blunder, when
it bolstered up the feeble Pio Nono to issue his
late decrees, it committed the Roman system to an
irreparable breach with all antiquity, and the end
is not yet. It dealt a death-blow to Gallicanism,
which can no longer exist in communion with the
Papacy, but its sting was like that of the serpent
which strikes venom into its victim with a fury that
destroys itself.
At that same moment when in his " Synod of
Sacristans," amid darkness that might be felt, amid
thunders and lightnings that made the foundations
shake around him, the pontiff proclaimed himself
Infallible, there went forth a voice, " yea, and that
a mighty voice," which instantly took effect. His
last temporal support perished at Sedan ; and the
temporal royalties of the Papacy perished with it.
The voice said, " Remove the diadem and take off
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 285
the crown ; . . . exalt him that is low, and abase
him that is high." Men fail to see the meaning of
contemporary events, because they read not his-
tory, nor the word of God. But it is a great thing
to be alive when so quietly, and by means appar-
ently so insignificant as the red shirt of Garibaldi,
is wrought a change that Emperors and nations
have struggled for in vain. Since Pepin gave the
Exarchate of Ravenna to the Roman patriarch, in
A. D. 754, the Bishops of Rome have been " princes
of this world." The fall of the " Holy Roman Em-
pire," under Napoleon, carried this logically with
it, but " the mills of God grind slowly." We have
seen a consummation which may be momentarily
defeated by diplomacy, but the thunderbolt has
fallen. For the first time in a thousand years, not
a single power in Europe is identified with the
Papacy. The Syllabus has made it impossible for
kings and peoples to submit to its yoke. The
" Old Catholics " may seem a feeble folk, but the
testimony of Dollinger and his noble allies is as
imperishable as that of Wiclif. You, young gen-
tlemen, may live to see fresh struggles for Ultra-
montane supremacy, but the issue is inevitable.
An epoch of prophecy has been signalized : a new
era begins with hope.
25. SURVEY OF CHRISTENDOM.
The present aspects of Christendom I venture
to suppose are hopeful, and give blessed promise
of reconstruction. The signs of the times point to
the speedy overthrow of Islam in Europe, and the
286 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
Patriarchate of New Rome is rising into importance
with the gradual increase of learning and piety in
Russia. Such a theologian as Bishop Macarius
of Vinnitza assures us that the study of the Greek
Fathers must soon bear fruits of reformation
throughout the ancient churches of the East. A
Russian diplomatist 1 remarked to me not long ago,
that the theologians of St. Petersburg, over whom
Macarius presides, were now the only Russians who
could even appreciate the Anglican doctors ; but,
said he, " we are educating a new class for the
future." He had recently visited England, and he
said, " There is no church equal to the Anglicans
for learning and character ; every parish priest has
scholarship enough for a bishop." But the Russian
Church is not sterile. She has studded Northern
Asia with missions ; they stretch to our own Alaska,
by the Aleutian Isles. I have had Bishop Nestor
of Alaska at my table, as my guest. The Holy
Ghost is moving the hearts of fathers to children,
and of children to their fathers, everywhere where
the Nicene Council and its " ancient usages " are
revered and maintained.
26. NICENE CONSTITUTIONS IMPERISHABLE.
For the Nicene Unity of Christendom is im-
perishable, and God has protected it everywhere
among the nations. By its canon of threefold
concurrence in ordinations, the historic episcopate
is woven into a net-work, instead of drawn out
in a chain where one broken link ruins all. It is
1 Prince Orloff, late Russian Ambassador in Paris, A. D. 1877.
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 287
impossible that the Apostolic Succession should
fail where this law is observed. So the canon of
Holy Scripture and its sacred text have been
maintained and preserved. The Nicene Creed
is thus perpetuated, and the Christian year is
guarded by the Paschal Canons of the Council.
Thus, and by other providential contrivances, it
is a most striking fact, that organic unity has been
maintained even where functional unity is lost.
There is a fundamental Unity, and all men see it,
between Greek and Latin and Anglican Christians,
because the Nicene foundations alike underlie
them all. Even Trent, though it nearly smothered
Nicene vitality beneath accumulated fables, has
left the old bases solid underneath. Hence it is,
that, in spite of new dogmas and of all the Roman
superstitions, many " Roman Catholics " live on
the old bases, while they outwardly conform to
the new. How I have blessed God, that millions
of the peasantry, nominally conformed to Trent,
know very little practically of its heresies. Sim-
ple folk ! They know the Apostles' Creed, and
have read the Nicene, and can sing pious hymns;
so that, like Goethe's Gretchen before her fall, —
yes, and even when they fall, — they love to wor-
ship Christ and to trust in him for salvation. Now,
what is held alike, and from the beginning, by
Greeks and Latins and Anglicans, — that is Catho-
licity, and in that we all consent. The specialties
of each communion are not Catholic, and with
them we are not called to communion by Nicene
law. Woe to those who erect local and pro-
vincial specialties into articles of faith, and cast
288 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
out brethren for not accepting them. We appeal
against Diotrephes to the Common Judge, " but
when they curse, we bless." That Church which
refrains from narrowing the limits of Catholic com-
munion, and includes all who would have been
included at Nicaea, is therefore the most truly
Catholic. Where is it found? Judge ye.
27. PRACTICAL UNITIES.
Our Anglican desire for Unity is no ambitious
longing for " lordship over God's heritage." It is
pure and " unfeigned love of the brethren " for
Christ's sake. Leaving Him to be the only um-
pire and judge, I have enjoyed through a long
life the Unity I have illustrated, in practical
ways, among foreign churches, " no man for-
bidding me." The Catholic spirit renders it
impossible to wear the fetters of a sect. Only
less does it forbid a life virtually sectarian,
which is cooped up in one's local or provincial
church. The whole Church of the Creed is ours
to live in. No pope can hinder us. Often have
I knelt at the altar of St. Peter's in Rome, and
in almost all the great cathedrals of Europe. On
such occasions I have recited the Nicene Creed,
and offered our Anglican prayer " for the good
estate of the Catholic Church." W'hile they have
mumbled their mass in an unknown tongue, I have
prayed God to accept what he found acceptable
in it, and have read in my prayer-book the service
for the day. This I have done in the chapel of
the great St. Bernard, as the sunrise gilded the
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 289
surrounding pinnacles of the Alps; and when
my guide over the mountains knelt at a wayside
shrine, I bowed myself before the Invisible God of
Catholic worship, looking up to the clear blue sky,
and begging the Lord to bless my peasant brother,
— mysterious symbol of millions of simple souls,
who for a thousand years have bowed down to
images, because so willed the Empress Irene.
Surely He who loved the Samaritans loves and
accepts these our brethren, who call upon Him out
of a pure heart, though ignorant and once polluted
perhaps as Rahab, who was "justified" in spite
of her ignorant lie. For " Mercy rejoiceth against
judgment." Among Christians of the Greek rite
I have enjoyed much closer and sweeter com-
munion; have been received into their chancels,
as they have been received into ours, accepting
their brotherly recognitions, and uniting in such
portions of their Liturgy as are truly ancient and
Scriptural. Prematurely, we should not go fur-
ther. The Holy Spirit will accomplish the rest.
Thank God, none of the ancient churches have
lost the Truth. They have added to it ; but the
line is drawn between Truth and modern additions.
In the latter we have no part nor lot ; in all that
is Catholic we are in practical communion with
our brethren the Latins and the Greeks.
28. THE PARABLE OF PATMOS.
This principle of Unity is given us in the vis-
ion of Patmos, — the Master amid the churches.
Observe how corrupt were some of the seven : yet,
19
29O INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN \ HISTORY.
so long as he did not destroy them, but patiently-
awaited their return to first faith and first love and
first works, he walked amid their golden candle-
sticks and held their stars in his right hand. So
He teaches us to be in communion with Sardis
itself, though not with her pollutions. And when
we look at home, well may He ask, How are we
better than others? Is not our American church
a veritable Laodicea? I think it is. Let us " anoint
our eyes with eye-salve," that we may see our-
selves as the Master sees us. We have no occa-
sion to be proud. Many of our fellow Christians
surpass us in good works, and set us an example
that ought to make us ashamed. That is a rebuke
to us, but it does not alter the facts, nor diminish
our privileges. The good Samaritan was a rebuke
to priest and Levite ; but, none the less, the priests
and Levites were God's ordinance and " salvation
was of the Jews." It is our own fault, if in this
dear Church we fail to learn lessons of piety from
all Christians, and to " go and do likewise." But
look every man to his own duty, and despise not
others. Bearing in mind that the great thing is
" love to God and man," give me leave to love
also the precious Church of my fathers, in which,
emancipated from such trammels as sects impose,
I live in all the Christian churches and in all the
Christian ages ; read the Fathers as my fathers ;
keep the Christian feasts, and travel through all
the Christian year, in sweetest sympathy and en-
nobling communion with " the past, the distant,
and the future." No man can rob a Catholic of
this gift of God, this life in the universe, this ex-
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 29 1
pansion of heart and mind and soul to the Catholic
thought of which God is the author. It is high as
heaven, and deep as Hades ; it lifts us to the heav-
enly choir; it unites us with all who " sleep in the
Lord Jesus." Oh how blessed the privilege of
him who can say with the saintly Bishop Ken, " I
live and die in the communion of the Catholic
Church, as it was before the disunion of East and
West, and as it stands distinguished from all Puri-
tan or Papal innovations " !
29. PERILS OF THE REPUBLIC.
Young gentlemen, your attention has been di-
rected to the solvent operation of sect, and to the
corrosive action of the Trent religion, especially as
the virulence of its corruptions has been concen-
trated in the monstrous moral system of Liguori.
In our dear country both these classes of peril
are terribly active, and the worst of the evil is
that practically they work together. Sectarianism
makes fuel for Romanism ; Loyola triumphed in
Germany wherever Luther and Calvin had created
sectarian divisions. 1 To the ignorant and the in-
different Rome makes an appeal which Sectarian-
ism knows not how to meet, and to which it lends
apparent force. " Look," says the Jesuit, " at
these religions of yesterday, all the fragmentary
creations of Protestantism, all wrangling among
themselves, and all united only in a negative
antagonism to Rome, which has no positive char-
acter or base. Here, on the other hand, is that
1 See Note K"'.
292 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
which they agree to vilify and disparage, the old
Mother of all Christians, the Church of Peter, the
one only Church of Scripture and the Creeds."
Our popular journalism proceeds on this theory in
fawning upon Rome for political purposes, and the
popular mind falls into the trap. The trap is con-
structed by Sectarianism itself, which calls Rome
" the Catholic Church," " the old religion," " the
oldest of the churches," and so on, — which repeats
with relish Rome's insults to Anglicans, calls ours
the " Church of Henry VIII., the creature of the
English Parliament," and the feeble offspring of
Luther's great movement in Germany, or whatever
else a Jesuit may dictate against us. Now, in a
republic dependent upon popular intelligence and
national morality, it is impossible that such ele-
ments of mischief should co-operate for the con-
fusion of ideas in religion, without undermining
all that rests upon religion and upon truth. The
rapid decay of American institutions is threatened
from the combined forces of Sectarianism and
Ultramontanism, working together as they have
been working in Germany and France towards a
general downfall into irreligion, unbelief, atheism.
The perils assailing us are such as they who framed
our Constitution never anticipated. The popular
religion, with all its good, is yet a solvent, and op-
erates to destroy. But home-bred evils are aggra-
vated beyond all computation by an ignorant and
vicious and pauperized immigration, which pours
in upon us like a deluge. If these poor waifs and
outcasts of Europe came here as regiments, and
were landed daily with bayonets in their hands,
A CATHOLIC VIE IV OF CHRISTENDOM. 293
we should confront them and repel the invasion.
But they come in stealthily, and we ourselves put
arms in their hands far more terrible as they use
them than would be cold steel or gunpowder.
We give them the ballot ; they hold the balance of
power; and demagogues make them the arbiters
of our destinies. They may soon overthrow our
schools ; they have already thrown out of them
the Holy Bible ; they grasp our taxes, with insatia-
ble rapacity, to endow their own schools, disguised
as protectories and hospitals, or other institutions
of charity. In Protestant Upper Canada they are a
minority; but by the game of demagogues they
have overcome the tax-payers and dictate their
own terms to the government.
30. THE CONSTRUCTIVE FORCES OF THE AMERI-
CAN CHURCH.
Now, I must be permitted to express my con-
victions, resting on no superficial base, that the
Church which is entwined with the entire history
of our race, with the growth of which is bound
up the common law, which reflects the genius of
our literature and embodies the principles out of
which has risen our national Constitution, — that
such a Church has in herself those conservative
elements and constructive forces which are just
what our national fabric requires. In everything
else that is called American, the centrifugal force
predominates : what we need is the balancing
force that generates an orbit, and holds us to the
light and heat of the sun. Macaulay very justly
294 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
reflects upon Jefferson for introducing into our
system an element which gives too much to the
passions of the multitude, unrestrained and unedu-
cated to obey the law. 1 Macaulay ought to know,
for he did all he could to introduce the same ele-
ment into England. But he saw from a distance
what he could not discover at home : he re-
proached our system as spreading all sail and pro-
viding no ballast. We fly before the wind, but we
are wholly unprepared for the gale. Happily, we
have resources. The colossal character of Wash-
ington, the Alfred of the New World, has provided
us with maxims and with examples to which our
youth may be profitably pointed. He gave our
Constitution a religious character when he took
the first oath to support it in the office of Presi-
dent. He reverently bowed down and kissed the
Bible, and then, with all the retinue of Congress
and officials, he went to St. Paul's, and began his
own and the national career in offices of worship
and prayer. Now, if we study this great exam-
ple of the true American, we find in it, whatever
his faults, a certain harmony and proportion of
qualities which are only rarely developed in the
narrowness of sectarian education. A class of
Christian laymen has been generated in the Angli-
can communion, through successive ages, possess-
ing a certain family likeness, which is recognized
in all their varieties of station and manner of life.
Not to go further back, take the poet Spenser
and Sir Philip Sidney, — take Raleigh, and Sir
Henry Wotton, and Hyde, and Falkland, and John
1 See Note V".
A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. 295
Evelyn, and Izaak Walton, and Boyle, and Addi-
son, and Burke, and Johnson, and Cowper, and
Wilberforce, and others, whose very names are
lessons, — such are the characters we need in
the Republic. Such were our own John Jay, and
many of our most eminent countrymen. It has
been, over and over again, asserted by critics and
orators, that Washington's character was formed
by his mother, by the catechism she taught him,
the books she read to him on the day of the Lord,
and the habits to which she trained him as a
young Christian. It is true in a larger sense that
he owed this to his mother, — to his mother's
mother, the Anglican Church. Well has De Mais-
tre said, " She is most precious," — most precious
to our country, so long as she preserves her salt.
If that should " lose its savour," and cease to
season our social and civil estate, I doubt not we
shall speedily perish.
31. AN APPEAL TO YOUTH.
In such a great and marvellous country, and at
a most trying crisis, you, my dear young friends,
are about to enter upon life. In former lectures I
have invited you to claim for yourselves a noble
mission, and to let God mark out for you a career
of usefulness and of duty. I reminded you, at the
outset, 1 that your mark is to be made upon the
beginnings of another century. The era is out-
growing its teens ; there is solemnity in the very
sound of the Twentieth Century, with which you
1 Lecture I., § 4, page i~.
296 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY.
are to be identified. You have yet a few years to
prepare for it : avoid American hurry, and give
those years to thorough study, that you may enter
upon your maturity and your allotted work with
the thoroughly furnished mind which is the secret
of power and mastery. Beware of shiftless means
and irresolute aims. Beware of the sort of life
epitomized by Dr. Young: —
" At thirty man suspects himself a fool ;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan ;
At fifty chides his infamous delay ;
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve ;
Resolves and re-resolves, then dies the same."
If, in directing your attention at this stage of your
preparation to the ennobling study of history, I
have given you any practical hints for that pursuit,
I am largely rewarded already; but far greater
will be my reward, when, in later days, you know
by experience the value of what I have taught,
and in those days perchance may recall these
evenings of the " Hobart Guild," —
"Remembering me, and these my exhortations."
32. CONCLUSION.
Yours will then be no share in the remorse of
those who, having lived liked fools, come to " die
as the fool dieth." The sickly whine, " Is life
worth living?" will have received its answer in a
life well spent. You will find at least some fruits
of your toils and efforts recognized by your fellow
men as wholesome and refreshing. But, far better,
in your own conscience will be your sweet reward,
A CATHOLIC VIE W OF CHRISTENDOM. 297
in the sense of duty done, and a mission fulfilled
through the grace of God. " Is life worth living?"
No, gentlemen, if by life is meant the torpid exist-
ence of the materialist, or the feverish excitement
which is called life by the voluptuary ; not if life
is but groping in the dark, and refusing to walk in
the light of day; not if it means drifting to and
fro without ballast, without rudder, without chart
and compass, and with no certain haven where
one would be ; not if it be " without God in the
world " and without hope in death. But oh ! what
a gift is life " that answers life's great end " ! that
adds another to the noble army of the faithful, by
whose testimony truth has been maintained, by
whom the blessings of the Gospel have been handed
down to successive generations, by whose inter-
cessions the world itself has been upheld ! The
secret of such a life was found by Saul of Tarsus,
when he uttered his first Christian prayer, " Lord,
what wilt thou have me to do ? " He has left the
greatest mark upon the ages ever imprinted by a
human mind upon humanity, and let us be sure
that, in our humble degree, we shall not fail to find
a similar work, and to fulfil it, if we begin, in the
same spirit of humility and self-devotion, kneeling
before Him who is the Light of the World.
GENERAL NOTE.
To explain the enlightened plan and purpose of the Bishop
of Michigan, in founding the Hobart Guild and the
Baldwin Lectures, it seems proper, in this first volume of
the proposed series, to publish the " Deed of Trust," almost
entire. In each subsequent volume, it is presumed, a much
smaller extract will appear, as is usual in such cases.
" SThts instrument, made and executed between Samuel
Smith Harris, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church
in the Diocese of Michigan, of the city of Detroit, Wayne
County, Michigan, as party of the first part, and Henry P.
Baldwin, Alonzo B. Palmer, Henry A. Hayden, Sidney D.
Miller, and Henry P. Baldwin, 2d, of the State of Michigan,
Trustees under the trust created by this instrument, as parties
of the second part, witnesseth as follows : —
" In the year of Our Lord one thousand eight hundred
and eighty-five, the said party of the first part, moved by the
importance of bringing all practicable Christian influences to
bear upon the great body of students annually assembled at
the University of Michigan, undertook to promote and set
in operation a plan of Christian work at said University,
and collected contributions for that purpose, of which plan
the following outline is here given, that is to say: —
"1. To erect a building or hall near the University, in
which there should be cheerful parlors, a well-equipped
reading-room, and a lecture-room where the lectures herein-
after mentioned might be given ;
" 2. To endow a lectureship similar to the Bampton Lec-
tureship in England, for the establishment and defence of
300 GENERAL NOTE.
Christian truth : the lectures on such foundation to be de-
livered annually at Ann Arbor by a learned clergyman or
other communicant of the Protestant Episcopal Church, to
be chosen as hereinafter provided : such lectures to be not
less than six nor more than eight in number, and to be pub-
lished in book form before the income of the fund shall be
paid to the lecturer ;
" 3. To endow two other lectureships, one on Biblical Lit-
erature and Learning, and the other on Christian Evidences :
the object of such lectureships to be to provide for all the
students who may be willing to avail themselves of them a
complete course of instruction in sacred learning, and in the
philosophy of right thinking and right living, without which
no education can justly be considered complete ;
" 4. To organize a society, to be composed of the students
in all classes and departments of the University who may be
members of or attached to the Protestant Episcopal Church,
of which society the Bishop of the Diocese, the Rector,
Wardens, and Vestrymen of St. Andrew's Parish, and all the
Professors of the University who are communicants of the
Protestant Episcopal Church should be members ex officio,
which society should have the care and management of the
reading-room and lecture-room of the hall, and of all exer-
cises or employments carried on therein, and should moreover
annually elect each of the lecturers herein before mentioned,
upon the nomination of the Bishop of the Diocese.
"In pursuance of the said plan, the said society of students
and others has been duly organized under the name of the
' Hobart Guild of the University of Michigan ' ; the hall
above mentioned has been builded and called Hobart Hall ;
and Mr. Henry P. Baldwin of Detroit, Michigan, and Sibyl
A. Baldwin, his wife, have given to the said party of the first
part the sum of ten thousand dollars for the endowment and
support of the lectureship first hereinbefore mentioned.
" Now therefore, I, the said Samuel Smith Harris, Bishop
as aforesaid, do hereby give, grant, and transfer to the said
Henry P. Baldwin, Alonzo B. Palmer, Henry A. Hayden,
Sidney D. Miller, and Henry P. Baldwin, 2d, Trustees as
aforesaid, the said sum of ten thousand dollars to be invested
DEED OF TRUST.
301
in good and safe interest-bearing securities, the net income
thereof to be paid and applied from time to time as herein-
after provided, the said sum and the income thereof to be
held in trust for the following uses : —
"I. The said fund shall be known as the Endowment
Fund of the Baldwin Lectures.
" 2. There shall be chosen annually by the Hobart Guild
of the University of Michigan, upon the nomination of the
Bishop of Michigan, a learned clergyman or other communi-
cant of the Protestant Episcopal Church, to deliver at Ann
Arbor and under the auspices of the said Hobart Guild, be-
tween the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels and the Feast
of St. Thomas, in each year, not less than six nor more than
eight lectures, for the Establishment and Defence of Christian
Truth ; the said lectures to be published in book form by
Easter of the following year, and to be entitled ' The Bald-
win Lectures' ; and there shall be paid to the said lecturer
the income of the said endowment fund, upon the delivery of
fifty copies of said lectures to the said Trustees or their
successors; the said printed volumes to contain, as an extract
from this instrument, or in condensed form, a statement
of the object and conditions of this trust."
Under this trust the Right Reverend Arthur Cleveland
Coxe, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of Western New York, was
appointed to deliver the Lectures for the year 1886.
Detroit, Advent, 18S6.
NOTES.
Note A, page 21.
Consult Dean Stanley's "Eastern Church " (Lecture III.
p. 113) on the continuous application of the title Papa to
the Bishops of Alexandria, down to our times.
Note B, page 21.
" The Rise of the Papal Power," etc., by Robert Hussey,
B. D. Oxford, 1863. See page 48, on the Sardican Canon,
but compare Littledale's "Plain Reasons," etc., (London,
1879,) pp. 120, 121, where the best and most succinct ac-
count of the matter is comprehended in a few paragraphs.
Philip Smith's " History," etc., is a truly valuable manual,
and, if purged from its ambiguities, would be precisely
what I could refer to as a manual for my readers. But it
falls into the old ruts, gives the " Popes " from St. Peter, and
credits St. Jerome, apparently, with making Peter a pope,
when he only means that Jerome considers him the first
bishop of the See of Rome, which is of itself only a par-
tial truth. Then he says : " This title is used as convenient,
though it was not appropriated to the Bishop of Rome till
about A. D. 500." It was not so appropriated till a century
later: he means that Western writers began to speak of
"the Pope" as we speak of "the post-office," — meaning
the nearest one ; but in the seventh century the West began
to draw away from the East. But why is it "convenient"
to mystify the student, and to upset historic truth, in the
structure of a work meant to give true history ?
304
NOTES.
Note C, page 22.
See Dean Milman's "History of Latin Christianity,"
vol. i. pp. 24-30, where, mixing up some mere fictions with
a great deal of truth, this author lays down facts which
revolutionize the entire scheme and structure of his own
work. Taking this firm ground of fact, which he should
have held impregnable, he comes down from the fortress and
drops into that same " Serbonian bog" which has swallowed
up, not merely armies, but nations, — I mean the fictions of
the Decretals. Of these he speaks, not forcibly, but feebly,
when he comes to Nicholas I. See vol. ii. p. 303. On the
previous page he recognizes the exceptional character of this
pontiff, but fails to note that even the few facts he chronicles
define Nicholas as the first of the " Popes," as that term is
now understood.
Note D, page 23.
See Stanley's "Eastern Church," p. 16, Lecture I. On
the Latin or Roman pretences to Catholicity, see some re-
marks of Coleridge, " Aids to Reflection," Aphorism VIII.
p. 165, ed. London, 1859.
Note E, page 24.
For lack of a firm grip upon the true origin of the Papacy,
and because he fails to note the difference between the
Papacy, as titular, and the Paparchy, as created by the
Decretals under Nicholas and the canonist Gratian, I am
forced, most reluctantly, to qualify my estimate of this
author's valuable work. But it is the best we have on the
subject.
Note F, page 25.
See " Ante-Nicene Fathers," Am. edition, vol. ii. p. 165.
If the history of Alexandria for the first four centuries
could have been turned over to Rome, the Decretals would
not have been needed by her pontiffs. They would have
appeared supreme without them.
Note G, page 26.
See "The Idea of God," etc., pp. 83-109, Boston, 1886.
NOTES. 305
This is a most creditable work, for its author is turning his
face, and not his back, to the sun.
Note H, page 28.
See as above. But note the entire failure of the author
to prove what he assumes, namely, that Augustine is antago-
nistic to Clement and the Greek Fathers ; which is only
true as to single statements, (chiefly in treating of the Mani-
chaean heresy,) and not as to his system of anthropology,
received by the whole Church, in what are called "the doc-
trines of grace." See the above-mentioned work, pp. 94, 95.
Note I, page 30.
The present pontiff gives his subjects leave to think, but
only in the formulas of Aristotle and the deductions of Aqui-
nas. And even Aquinas is overruled in his Scriptural posi-
tions about the Immaculate Conception, etc., by the new
dogmas which Leo XIII. accepts from his feeble predeces-
sor. He has thus lost his great opportunity to qualify them
by such explanations as are resorted to, in his obedience, by
all sensible writers. Without such explanations, the chaos
into which they throw the Papal decrees and the theology of
Trent is simply " confusion worse confounded."
Note J, page 31.
Consult Gladstone's "Vatican Decrees," etc., Dr. Schaff's
edition, New York, 1875. Also, Mr. Gladstone's "Answer to
Replies," etc., New York, Harpers, 1875. Also, " The Vati-
can Council," (containing the speech of Bishop Kenrick, not
spoken, but suppressed and subsequently privately printed
by the author,) New York, American Tract Society, 1875.
Also, "Janus, Pope and Council," pp. 86-96, Rivingtons,
London, 1869.
Note K, page 32.
See Bacon's Works, vol. viii. p. 76 et seq., and vol. ix. pp.
97-102, ed. Boston, 1864. The utterance of any new creed
was dogmatically condemned by the Council of Chalcedon.
It had been denounced by Canon previously. See this ably
demonstrated by Ffoulkes, " Letter to Manning," 1S69.
20
306 NOTES.
Note L, page 33.
See Ruskin's "Bible of Amiens," p. 41, ed. London, 1848.
Note M,page 36.
See " Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. viii. pp. 601-644, Am.
edition. But here I must enlarge, for my argument in these
Lectures turns on the fact that the Decretals, out of a canon-
ical Patriarchate and a merely titular Papacy, created the
Paparchy. Thus abolishing the Catholic Constitutions,
they mark Nicholas I. as the founder of the Papal System,
with the " Holy Roman Empire " as its CEcumene. It is
a Western fiction and a Western schism ; and Nicholas is
clearly the first " Pope " in history, as we now use that term.
I shall cite the Jesuits themselves in proof.
In their Etudes Religieuses (No. 471, p. 392), as quoted in
the original French by Mr. Ffoulkes, in his Letter to Cardinal
Manning, written while he was himself a Roman Catholic,
they make a candid statement which I translate as follows :
" The pseudo-Isidorian reform (that of the false Decretals)
was good assuredly, for it was adopted by St. Nicholas in
A. D. 865, and by the Eighth CEctunenical (Roman, or West-
ern cecumene) Council in A. D. 870. It was confirmed by the
Council of Trent in A. D. 1564, and for nine centuries has
been the Common Law of the Catholic Church " ; — i. e. the
Church which ceased to be Catholic by these very acts.
Here then is the origin of the Paparchy in 865, and the
foundation of the existing " Roman Catholic Church," so
called, when, just seven hundred years after Nicholas, adopt-
ing the new creed of Pius IV. (subsequently formulated) they
made these Decretals the base of another novel organization.
But let us see what the Jesuits say further. Here is their
comment, recognizing the fact that Nicholas revolutionized
the West, and detached it from the Catholic Constitutions.
They say: " But the ancient discipline (of Nicasa and the
great councils) was good also, because for the eight centu-
ries previous — the Church had known no other." Up to
that day, then, even the titular " Popes " of the West had
professed to be subject to the Nicene Constitutions, and to
be bound to enforce and to obey them. These Jesuits add,
NOTES.
307
that " the Christian world has been the dupe of a mistake for
seven hundred years " ; that is, the honest mistake of Gratian
when he forced into the Canon Law what was originally a
"premeditated lie." It took three centuries to turn it from
a Papal imposture into Western Law.
Now, if the Church of England succumbed, functionally
but not organically, to such an imposture for four hundred
years, what is more evident than tne fact that her Restoration
to Catholicity was effected, under Warham, when her Convo-
cation with such unanimity rejected the false Canons and
reverted to the Nicene ?
Note N, page 36.
See Littledale's " Plain Reasons," pp. 178-180. Bear in
mind that primacy is not supremacy.
Note O, page 43.
See Renan, " Les Apotres," etc., Paris, 1883, pp. 216-229,
and " St. Paul," pp. 2, 3, et sea.
Note P, page 47.
See Juvenal, Sat. iii. 62-65, ar, d compare Suetonius, " The
Twelve Caesars," under "Nero."
Note Q, page 48.
Renan, ut supra, "Les Apotres," etc., pp. 224 et sea.
Even Renan confesses here the beautiful fruits of Christian
civilization. Does he understand that the glorified Roman
Law comes out of it ? Elsewhere I have said (see Ante-
Nicene Fathers, vol. vi. p. 4) as follows : —
"Justinian calls Berytus 'the mother and nurse' of the
Civil Law. Now Caius, whose Institutes were discovered in
1820 by the sagacity of Niebuhr, seems to have been a Syrian.
So were Papinian and Ulpian ; and, heathen as they were,
they lived under the illumination reflected from Antioch,
and, not less than the Antonines, they were examples of a
philosophic regeneration which never could have existed
until the Christian era had begun its triumphs. Of this sort
of pagan philosophy Julian became afterwards the grand
embodiment ; and in Julian's grudging confessions of what
308 NOTES.
he had learned from Christianity we have a key to the secret
convictions of others, such as I have named, — characters
in whom, as in Plutarch and in many retrograde unbeliev-
ers of our day, we detect the operation of influences they are
unwilling to acknowledge, — of which, possibly, they are
blindly unconscious themselves. Roman law, I maintain,
therefore, indirectly owes its origin, as it is directly indebted
for its completion in the Pandects, to the new powers and
processes of thought which came from 'the Light of the
World.' It was light from Galilee and Golgotha, answering
Pilate's question in the inward convictions of many a heathen
sage."
Note R, page 53.
See "Ante-Nicene Fathers," Am. edition, vol. i. p. 45.
Compare Lightfoot's " Apostolic Fathers," vol. ii. sect, ii.,
passim.
Note S, page 58.
The moth is the enemy of the bee, and, strange to say, a
very formidable one. On Pantaenus, see " Ante-Nicene
Fathers," vol. ii. p. 165, and vol. viii. p. 776.
Note T, page 59.
See Fiske's "Idea of God," 3d edition, 1886, ut supra ;
and "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. vi. p. 303. I am sorry
that Mr. Fiske speaks (p. 97) of "the mischief wrought
by the Augustinian conception of Deity." It is essentially
that of Athanasius.
Note U, page 61.
See "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. vi. p. 495; and Cole-
ridge's strictures, " Notes on English Divines," vol. i. p. 266,
ed. London, 1853.
Note V, page 62.
Professor Allen of Cambridge seems to have prompted
John Fiske to such ideas, in his " Continuity of Christian
Thought," a " suggestive work," indeed, but terribly involved
as to the Unity of Christian Thought, which is essential to
its " Continuity."
NOTES. 309
Note W, page 64.
I have endeavoured to bring this out clearly, to the great
credit of the Church in Rome at this early period, in several
volumes of the "Ante-Nicene Fathers." See vol. ii. p. 3, and
vol. viii. p. 765. The Catacombs confirm such evidences.
Note X, page 64.
See "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. i. p. 309.
Note Y, page 66.
See "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. ni. p. 4. Also, Stanley,
"Eastern Church," Lect. V., p. 184.
Note Z, page 68.
The suburbicarian district is explained in "Ante-Nicene
Fathers," vol. v. p. 156, and its nature and relations to the
Bishop of Rome are illustrated in the succeeding pages to
page 162. Note also Ibid., pp. 409-420, and p. 557.
Note A', page 68.
See Hippolytus, " Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. iii. p. 3, Am.
ed. For those who have no access to this edition of the
Ante-Nicene Fathers, let me note that the statue of Hip-
polytus was discovered in the progress of excavations at
Rome in 155 1, and was seated in the Vatican just when
the new creed of Pius IV. was promulgated. He was
greatly glorified as a saint, at Rome, till his works were dis-
covered on Mt. Athos, in 1842. In 1851, when their authen-
ticity and genuineness were established, I saw the statue in
the Vatican. But, just then, Providence seems to have
warned Pius IX. not to make a new dogma, as, three hundred
years before, the unearthing of the statue seems to have
warned Pius IV. not to make a new creed. For Hippolytus
proves that Zephyrinus and Callistus, two early Bishops of
Rome, were not only basely immoral, but rank heretics,
whom he and his co-bishops barely saved from delivering
over the See of Rome to heresy at this early date. In
the face of this warning, Pius IX. declared all the Roman
bishops, from the beginning, to have been, like himself,
"Infallible."
3IO NOTES.
Note B', page 72.
See "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. ii. pp. 295-298. The
early martyrs were "multitudes," says Tertullian. Can it
be possible that he would use such language to the magis-
trates, if he knew that such instances were of rare occur-
rence? The disposition of our times to minimize the per-
secutions of our Christian forefathers calls upon us to note
such references, all the more important because occurring
obiter, and mentioned as notorious. Note also the closing
chapter of his Apology, and reference to the outcries of the
populace, in cap. xxxv. See admirable remarks on the
benefits derived by the Church from the sufferings of Chris-
tian martyrs, with direct reference to Tertullian, in Words-
worth, Church History to Council of Nicasa, cap. xxiv. p. 374.
Note C, page 75.
Compare Bossuet on Psalm ii. 10, Et mine reges : " II les
a done appelds non poiiit par neeessite', mais par grace."
Opp., vol. iii. p. 83, ed. Paris, 1845.
Note D', page 78.
See " Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. viii. p. 3, where I note
the absence of exultation on the conversion of the Emperor.
Note E', page 79.
Concerning the celibate, I have elsewhere noted, " Ante-
Nicene Fathers," vol. iv. p. 115, a remarkable admission
from an unexpected quarter, — an admission that the prin-
ciple of a pure asceticism, like that of the early anchorets,
lies deep in our nature, as human. Thus speaks Professor
J. P. Cooke, of Harvard : "// is well to go away at times,
tliat we may see another aspect of human life which still
survives in the East, and to feel that influence which led even
the Christ into the wilderness to prepare for the struggle
with the animal nature of man. We need something of the
experience of the anchorites of Egypt, to impress us with
the great truth that the distinction between the spiritual and
the material remains broad and clear, even if with the scalpel
of our modern philosophy we cannot completely dissect the
NOTES. 311
two ; and this experience will give us courage to cherish our
aspirations, keep bright our hopes, and hold fast our Chris-
tian faith until the consummation comes." See his " Scien-
tific Culture," New York, 18S4. Nevertheless, marriage has
been the rule, and celibacy the exception, in the Church of
Christ.
St. Peter was a married apostle, and the traditions of his
wife, which connect her married life with Rome itself, render
it most surprising that those who claim to be St. Peter's suc-
cessors should denounce the marriage of the clergy. Her
touching story, borrowed from Clement of Alexandria, is re-
lated by Eusebius. " And will they," says Clement, " reject
even the apostles ? Peter and Philip, indeed, had children ;
Philip also gave his daughters in marriage to husbands;
and Paul does not demur, in a certain Epistle, to mention his
own wife, whom, in order to expedite his ministry the better,
he did not take about with him." Of St. Peter and his wife,
Eusebius subjoins, " Such was the marriage of these blessed
ones, and such was their perfect affection."
The Easterns to this day perpetuate the marriage of the
clergy, and enjoin it ; but unmarried men only are chosen
to be bishops. Even Rome relaxes her discipline for the
Uniats, and hundreds of her priesthood, therefore, live in
honourable marriage. Thousands live in secret marriage, but
their wives are dishonoured as " concubines," and unchaste
living is all but universal. It was not till the twelfth century
that the celibate was enforced. In England it was never
successfully imposed ; and, though the " priest's leman "
was not called his wife, to the disgrace of the whole sys-
tem, she was yet honoured (see Chaucer), and often car-
ried herself too proudly. See " Notes and Queries," vol. i.
pp. 147, 14S.
The enormous evils of an enforced celibacy need not here
be remarked upon. The history of " Sacerdotal Celibacy,"
by Henry C. Lea, of Philadelphia, (Boston, Houghton, Mif-
flin, & Co., 2d edition, enlarged, IS84,) is compendious, and
can be readily procured. We must not be wiser than God,
even in our zeal for His service.
312 NOTES.
Note F', page 79.
A paragraph, good so far as it goes, in Stanley's " East-
ern Church," page 230, closes with a most pregnant sen-
tence, thus: "Undoubtedly, if Constantine is to be judged
by the place which he occupies among the benefactors
of mankind, he would rank, not among the secondary char-
acters of history, but among the very first." The same
remark applies to Charlemagne, though less strikingly, all
things considered. Compare Dollinger, " Reunion," etc.,
p. 24, and Stanley, ut supra, p. 249. For the humanity of
the new system, see "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. v. p. 563,
Elucidation xii. From my own remarks in that series, I
cite as follows : —
"Clement was able to remind the heathen, in Nero's time,
that Christ had '■already made the universe an ocean of
blessings.' The moral canons of Christianity reflecting the
Light of the World operated practically. The first Chris-
tian hospital was founded (a.d. 350) by Ephraem Syrus.
His example was followed by St. Basil, who also founded
another for lepers. The founding of hostels as refuges for
travellers was an institution of the Nicene period. ' In the
time of Chrysostom,' says Lecky, not too well disposed
towards the Gospel, ' the church of Antioch supported three
thousand widows and virgins, besides strangers and sick.
Legacies for the poor became common ; and it was not infre-
quent for men and women who desired to live a life of espe-
cial sanctity, and especially for priests who attained the
episcopacy, as a first act, to bestow their properties in
charity. A Christian, it was maintained, should devote at
least one tenth of his profits to the poor. A priest named
Thalasius collected blind beggars in an asylum on the banks
of the Euphrates. A merchant named Apollinus founded on
Mount Nitria a gratuitous dispensary.'
" So Cyprian's canons, in days of persecution, in lieu of
revenge and retaliation, enforce (1) works of mercy ; (2) alms-
deeds ; (3) brotherly love; (4) mutual support; (5) forgive-
ness of injuries; (6) the example of Christ's holy living;
(7) forbearance ; (8) suppression of idle talk ; (9) love of ene-
mies ; (10) abhorrence of usury, (11) of avarice, (12) and of
NOTES. 313
carnal impurity: also, (13) obedience to parents ; (14) paren-
tal love; (15) consideration of servants; (16) respect for
the aged; (17) moderation, even in use of things lawful ;
(18) control of the tongue ; (19) abstinence from detraction;
(20) to visit the sick; (21) care of widows and orphans;
(22) not to flatter; (23) to practise the Golden Rule ; and
{z\) to abstain from bloodshed. In short, we have here the
outgrowth of the Sermon on the Mount, and of St. Paul's
epitome, ' Whatsoever things are true,' " etc.
Note G', page 84.
See " Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. i. p. 52, and vol. v. p. 41 1,
Elucid. iv. Consult Balmes, " Le Protestantisme compare',''
etc.. cap. xiv. p. 171, ed. Paris, 1851. This author, a
Jesuit, takes to the credit of modern Roman Catholics all the
good done to the world by primitive Christians.
Note H', page 85.
See Cyprian, passim, in his Epistles, "Ante-Nicene
Fathers," vol. v., and my Introduction, page 263. Also,
Ep. xi. p. 292.
Note I', page 85.
Stanley is a thorough Erastian, yet we may well consult
his view of the growth of the Imperial influence. See
" Eastern Church," p. 230, and elsewhere.
Note J', page 87.
De Maistre is a fanatical assailant of Gallicanism in all
its phases, but most instructive are his admissions as to
the essential identity of the Regale, as conceded to France
by all the Popes, and denied to England at the Restoration.
Henry VIII. in A. D. 1 551 went no farther than Louis XIV.
in A. D. 16S2 ; that is, the English Convocation was excom-
municated under Henry for what was done with entire una-
nimity by the French bisho-ps under the lead of Bossuet.
See De Maistre, Opp., vol. iv. p. 326, and the entire treatise
" De l'Eglise Gallicane."
314 NOTES.
Note K', page 91.
Stanley, ut supra, Lect. IV. p. 140.
Note U, page 91.
" Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. v. p. 413, Elucid. x., and the
"Treatise on Unity," passim, but specially see Elucidations,
p. 557 et seq. As to ecclesiastical regimen, based on the
co-equality of bishops, and their consent to the priority of
certain brethren for the sake of order and convenience,
note that in the time of Constantine the Eastern and West-
ern Empires were each divided into seven districts, called
dioceses, which comprised about one hundred and eighteen
provinces. Each province contained several cities, with a
district attached to it. The ecclesiastical rulers of the dio-
ceses were called patriarchs, exarchs, or archbishops, of whom
there were fourteen ; the rulers of the provinces were styled
metropolitans, i. e. governors of the firjTpoTTokis or mother
city, and those of each city and its districts were simply
known as bishops. So that the division which we now call
a diocese was in ancient times a union of dioceses, and a
parish was a combination of modern parishes.
Note M', page 93.
See "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. vi. pp. v. and vi., pref-
atory. Also, Stanley, ut supra, Lect. III. p. 113. "The
Bishop of Alexandria," says this author, " was known by a
title which he alone bore in that assembly (Nicasa). He
was the Pope. The ' Pope of Rome ' was a phrase which
had not yet emerged in history, but the ' Pope of Alexan-
dria ' was a well-known dignity." Why then stultify history
by calling the early Bishops of Rome Popes ?
That the theology of the great school of Alexandria had a
character of its own is most apparent ; I should be the last
to deny it. As its succession of teachers was like that of he-
reditary descent in a family, a family likeness is naturally to
be found in the school, from the great Clement to the great
Athanasius. It is a school that hands on the traditions in
which Apollos had been reared ; it not less reflects the Greek
influences always dominant in the capital of the Macedonian
NOTES. 315
hero ; but it is a school in which the Gospel of Christ as the
Light of the World was always made predominant ; and,
while a most liberal view of human knowledge was incul-
cated in it, yet the faith was always exalted as the mother
and mistress of the true gnosis and of all science. The wise
men of this world were summoned with an imperial voice,
from this eldest seat and centre of Christian learning, to cast
their crowns and their treasures at the feet of Jesus. With
a generous patronage Clement conceded all he could to the
philosophy of the Greeks, and yet sublimely rose above it to a
sphere it never discovered, and looked down upon all merely
human intellect and its achievements like Uriel in the sun.
It was the special, though unconscious, mission of this
school to prepare the way, and to shape the thought of
Christendom, for the great epoch of the (nominal) conversion
of the Empire, and for the all-important synodical period,
its logical consequence. It was in this school that the tech-
nical formulas of the Church were naturally wrought out.
The process was like that of the artist who has first to make
his own tools. He does many things, and resorts to many
contrivances, never afterwards necessary when once the
tools are complete, and his laboratory furnished with all he
wants for his work. See " Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. vi.
PP- 2 57, 3°3-
Note N', page 96.
Under the Cypriote privilege, the Church of England
maintained her autonomy till the time of Henry II., and
never lost it, altogether, under the succeeding reigns. After
about four hundred years of usurpation, the Cypriote Canon
took lasting effect again under Henry VIII. By this canon,
the eighth of Ephesus, all insular churches are exempt from
jurisdiction of the Patriarchates. And, apart from this, the
second Canon of Constantinople ordains that "churches
among barbarians must be governed according to the cus-
toms prevalent with their ancestors." This meets the case
of the Church of England even in the days of Theodore of
Tarsus, its second founder. So also Canon XXVIII. of
Chalcedon.
316 NOTES.
Note O', page 97.
The Nicene Creed, so called, ends abruptly, and is closed
by the anathema, its enacting clause, which is therefore not
recited as part thereof. Obviously, however, it was not to
stop here, liturgically, when recited in the public worship of
the Church ; but it was allowed to conclude as we still use
in the Apostles' Creed, or in the Creed of Jerusalem. The
Council of Constantinople added the Jerusalem formula,
slightly varied, and made it the orthodox confession touch-
ing the Holy Ghost, the Church, etc. See Stanley's " East-
ern Church," Lect. II. pp. 71-74 i and the whole subject, in
"Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. vii. p. 524.
Note P', page 103.
See Note K', supra, p. 91. Dean Stanley infers that what
was thus done to honour the Scriptures in later councils
was based on the example of Nicaea. But though this is a
reasonable inference, and among Easterns especially, I do
not find the recorded statement. See Stanley, " Eastern
Church," p. 140, with his references.
Note 0>, page 108.
The Liber Dinrnus obliges every Pope to anathematize
(his predecessor) Honorius as a heretic. See Dollinger,
"Popes of the Middle Ages," p. 229, ed. 1871; "The
Church and the Bishops," by H. St. A. von Liano, Lon-
don, Rivingtons, 1870.
Note R', page 120.
Alcuin, Opp., vol. i. p. 52, Epist. xxxviii., ed. Ratisbon,
1777. This edition omits the " Caroline Books," on advice
from Rome.
Note S', page 121.
Dupin does not decide the question as to the authorship
of the " Caroline Books," but suggests no other name with
equal probabilities in its favour.
Note T', page 130.
Voltaire exults in details of his ferocity, but Bossuet's
NOTES. 317
eulogy is extravagant, and makes him a saint. He was
canonized by the Antipope Paschal II., A. D. 1165.
Note V, page 134.
The Guclphs and Ghibellines were also known as the
Bianchi and Neri. The readers of Dante are familiar with
these names, which represent the Welfen and Waiblingen of
Germany, in Tramontane forms of the South. See a strange
account of them in the work of Aroux, a French Ultra-
montanist, entitled, " Dante, HeVetique, Rdvolutionnaire et
Socialiste," Paris, 1854. The Guelphs were the Pontifical
party, and their antagonists were Imperialists, among whom
Dante is chief.
Note V, page 137.
See Littledale, ut supra, pp. 120 et sea. I refer frequently
to this valuable manual, because it may be had at petty cost
in the form of a tract of the London S. P. C. K. It con-
denses much material and gives useful references. Every
student should possess it, as an index to reading on this
subject.
Note W, page 137.
Many of his expressions may be found in Littledale,
ut supra, pp. 176, 177. Also, S. Gregor. Epist., Lib. V.
Ep. xviii., Paris, 1849.
Note X', page 140.
Thus Charlemagne summoned a council meant to be
oecumenical in effect. He overruled Adrian and humbled
Leo. I am pleased with the terse remarks of Goethe on
this period, in a letter to Zelter (Sept. 8, 1S28): "As soon
as Charles Martel appeared, the chaos which had enveloped
Gaul and the rest of the world disappeared. Happily Pepin
and Charlemagne follow, but then again a long period of
chaos." See " Letters to Zelter," p. 333, ed. Coleridge, Lon-
don, 1887.
Note Y', page 143.
It is all-important to bear in mind the unquestioning sub-
mission of the West to the Canon Law, with which Gratian
3 18 NOTES.
identified these forgeries. They knew no better. Since
their exposure, however, they have been adopted and re-
enacted, and made the framework of the modern " Roman
Catholic Church." This is shown in the letter of Edward
Ffoulkes to Cardinal Manning, heretofore quoted.
Note Z', page 146.
The valuable work of Dr. Maitland was a reprint from the
"British Magazine," edited by the estimable Hugh James
Rose. The third edition appeared in 1S53, and I think
several have appeared since. It gave a great impulse to
the Oxford movement, but was unfortunate in its second-
ary effects, which were reactionary and extravagant.
Note A", page 147.
"The Fall of Constantinople," etc., by Edwin Pears, etc.,
New York, 1886. See page 4. This is a work on the Latin
Conquest ; not the final fall of the Christian metropolis, in
A. D. 1453. On this subject, I cannot forbear to quote the
forcible words of Mr. Ffoulkes in his letter to Cardinal
Manning: " It has often been set to the credit of the Popes,
that they saved Europe from the Turks. History says
that they opened the door by which the Turks came in. It
is certain that the Latins proved the ruin of the Greek
Empire, much more than the Turks. Had the Greek Em-
pire been left to itself, or helped honestly, it would have
barred the Turks from Europe to this day, and preserved all
the civilization, population, and Christianity contained in it
for man." This is not only true, but so very true that by
this fact alone the Paparchy, convicted of a war upon Chris-
tendom in the interest of Mohammedanism, is proved an
Antichrist.
Note B", page 149.
Littledale's chapter on " The Wickedness of the Local
Church of Rome," ut supra, p. 208 et seq., may well be
referred to. And see Ffoulkes's letter to Manning on this
head also.
NOTES. 319
Note C", page 150.
The history of Pope Joan is given with candor in Bishop
Hopkins's " End of Controversy Controverted" (New York,
1854); but see also Dollinger, "Fables respecting the
Popes in the Middle Ages," translated by Plummer, Lon-
don, Rivington, 1 871. In the splendid church on the Su-
perga, near Turin, amid pictures of the pontiffs, I saw that
of Pope Joan, in 185 r. It was pointed out by the custode
with derision. A similar memorial in the cathedral of
Sienna lias been removed. Those anxious to look into this
very curious matter are also referred to the " Esame critico
degli Atti e Documenti relativa alia Favola della Papessa
Giovanna, di A. Bianchi-Giovini," Milan, 1844. It was re-
viewed in the North British Review for February, 1850.
Note D", page 151.
Edgar's speech, as reported, agrees with authentic docu-
ments of the age in all that it includes; but I do not find
it in William of Malmesbury.
Note E", page 152.
Hincmar deserves especial note. See " Church of France,"
by Jervis, London, 1872, vol. i. pp. 32-38; also "Life and
Times of Hincmar," by J. C. Prichard, Oxford, 1849.
Note F", page 153.
De Maistre complains that Louis XIV. established "la
suprematie anglaise dans toute sa perfection." Why then
was France not excommunicated, like England ? This
author devotes to this inquiry a whole chapter of " L'Eglise
Gallicane," p. 341, Paris, 1853.
Note G", page 154.
Bossuet, according to De Maistre, is indeed to be pitied.
See page 334 of that author's " L'Eglise Gallicane," which
impeaches him so severely. This great bishop used to speak
of " the Romans," and thus authorizes us to do the same.
Note H", page 155.
St. Bernard's words are these: " Ouis mihi det ante-
320
NOTES.
quam moriar videre Ecclesiam Dei, sicut in diebus antiquis ;
quando apostoli laxabant retia, non in capturam argenti vel
auri, sed in capturans animarum." Epist. ccxxxviii. torn. i.
p. 499, ed. Paris, 1839.
Note I", page 155.
This golden letter of St. Bernard to the Canons of Lyons
may be found as above, Epist. clxxiv. p. 390. See his
strictures on the Papacy, (De Consideratione, iii. 4,) Ibid.,
p. 1049.
Note J", page 157.
Of Bernard's conflict with Abelard, see Archbishop
Trench's "Mediaeval Church," p. 210, New York, 1878.
Note K", page 161.
Trace the overflow of barbarians upon Western Christen-
dom in any map series like that of Gage, New York, 1869.
See Trench, ut supra, pp. 24, 25, et seq.
Note L", page 162.
Whewell, in his " Inductive Sciences," makes this clear.
See vol. i. pp. 177, 181, ed. New York, 1S58.
Note M", page 165.
The Renaissance is powerfully outlined by Michelet, to
whose work I shall have occasion to refer. See " Histoire
de France au XVI me Steele," Paris, 1855.
Note N", page 166.
See Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo, — a fascinating account of
this great man's hand in the revival of learning,— chap. i.
p. 59, London, Bohn, 1846.
Note O", page 169.
See Michelet, ut supra, p. 83 of his Introduction, on the
lack of scientific building in the pointed architecture.
Note P", page 169.
Michelet, ut supra, p. 84 of Introduction. Hogarth has
fastened this story on Columbus, but see "Notes and
Queries," 1856, p. 72.
NOTES.
321
Note Q", page 173.
Michelet {tit supra, p. 1) has a brilliant picture of Charles
VIII. and his invasion of Italy, a. d. 1494.
Note R", page 174.
Of the Council of Florence, a recent writer, while a mem-
ber of the Papal communion, speaks thus forcibly to Car-
dinal Manning : " Of all Councils that ever were held, I
suppose there never was one in which hypocrisy, duplicity,
and worldly motives played a more conspicuous or dis-
graceful part. How the Council of Basle was outwitted,
and Florence named as the place to which the Greeks
should come ; how the galleys of the Pope outstripped the
galleys of the Council, and bore the Greeks in triumph from
Constantinople to a town in the centre of Italy, where the
Pope was all-powerful ; how they were treated there ; and
why they were subsequently removed to Florence, — would
reveal a series of intrigues of the lowest order, if I had space
to transcribe them ; unfortunately, they were too patent at
every stage of the Council for the real objects of its pro-
moters to admit of the slightest doubt." He adds, justly :
"The Easterns were trampled upon for maintaining their
rights, ejected from their churches, . . . and supplanted by a
rival hierarchy, wherever the Crusaders conquered."
Note S", page 176.
This is brilliantly illustrated by Michelet, treating of Angelo
" comme prophete " (tit supra, pp. 210-22S). On the anni-
versary of the opening of the Sistine chapel, All-Saints' day,
185 1, the work of Michael, before the eyes of such a court,
greatly impressed me, as I saw Pius IX. pontificate.
Note T", page 1S3.
See Note W, supra, p. 317. See also Ep. xix. pp. 744,
749, and Lib. vii. Ep. xiii. p. 891.
Note U", page 199.
Alarmed at the growing fulness of my notes, I have
omitted citations in this Lecture, to which I now refer my
reader in general terms. My notes are designed to hint,
21
322
A T OTES.
to youthful students, the sources of information ordinarily
to be found in college libraries. Consult Soames, " Anglo-
Saxon Church," 4th ed., 1S56 ; Innett, "History of the
English Church," Oxford, 1855. Collier's great History of
the same, in nine volumes, and Bede's works, translated,
may be found even more readily perhaps. Fuller's " Church
History of Britain " is so witty that young students find it
a delightful work to begin with.
Note V", page 218.
This is shown by Michelet in a frightful note to his Intro-
duction (p. cxli.), where he cites his proof that Innocent
accepted with enthusiasm the whole responsibility for the
massacres of the Vaudois, etc.
Note W", page 225.
The divorce of Queen Vashti might almost as well be made
the starting-point for a history of Henry VIII. as that of
Queen Katherine. But, the beaten track is still plodded
over in new books, as well as in journalism.
Note X", pages 228, 247.
There was no "divorce" of Queen Katherine properly
speaking, because there was no marriage. It was a case of
incest, licensed by Pope Julius for money. Yet see how
Guizot falls into the ruts, and flippantly gives his opinion
of the "divorce" against all the contemporary decisions of
Universities, scholars, and divines, in the Papal communion
itself. See his " History of France," vol. iii. p. 143. He
seems to imagine that Henry could have acted arbitrarily in
so great a case, instead of seeing that it was only because
England was ready to break with the Papacy that he was
able to bring it about on such slight provocation. The facts
about the divorce are admirably stated by Bishop Hopkins,
"End of Controversy," etc., vol. i. pp. 23, 40, 197, 215, ed.
New York, 1854.
Note Y", page 236.
Massillon has been accused of sowing the seeds of rev-
olution, but the age no doubt regarded his expressions as
NOTES. 323
mere flourishes. Yet in the " Petit Careme " are apparent
premonitions of the Reign of Terror. He says, for exam-
ple, that God visits upon princes their accumulated sins,
" extinguishes their families, withers at the root the stem
of their posterity, causes their titles and their possessions
to pass into strange hands, renders them striking examples
of the inconstancy of human affairs, and monuments before-
hand of his judgments against hearts ungrateful and unfeeling,
under the fatherly care of His Providence." He tells them
that "they owe their place to the free consent of the peo-
ple," and adds, that, " in a word, as the prime source of their
authority is from us, kings should use it only in our behalf."
Such were the views in which the French Revolution began,
and, however just, they were a species of Lollardism under
Louis XIV.
Note Z", page 243.
Concerning " Codes of Belief," De Maistre has expatiated
eloquently, as follows : " If a people possesses one of these
Codes 0/ Belief, we may be sure of this, that the religion of
such a people is false." This he says because he imagines
the Thirty-nine Articles to be a creed, — a code required of
all men as a condition of salvation. But such is not the
case, and so his maxim harms not us ; but it is fatal to the
creed of his own communion. For the Council of Trent
has set forth the most enormous system of scholastic sub-
tleties ever digested into a Code by the human mind. And
all of this is professed as an article of the Faith in the
Creed of Pius the Fourth, as follows: " I embrace and re-
ceive all and every one of the things which have been
defined and declared in the Holy Council of Trent. This
true Catholic Faith, without which no one can be saved, I
do freely confess and sincerely hold." Here we have a
Code of Belief, indeed, such as De Maistre pronounces
necessarily false. I am forced to adopt this conclusion.
Not the Anglican, but the Romanist, puts a code into his
creed. And think what this code involves, " without which
no one can be saved." Millions who cannot write or read
are forced to receive even its infinitesimal definitions, some
of which not even the wisest men can understand.
324
NOTES.
Note A'", page 250.
This quotation is from Mr. Pugin. My readers may be
glad to know that it is accessible, with much more from the
same source, in an invaluable periodical, sustained so many
years by that noblest layman of the American Church, the
late Hugh Davy Evans, LL. D., of Baltimore. See his
"True Catholic," vol. ix. pp. 212, 265. It was originally
published in London, by Dolman, in 185 1, as an "Earnest
Address, etc., by A. Welby Pugin, Esq."
Note B'", page 252.
Of the mass at Notre Dame, it is enough to say that
Francis understood from his Gallican standpoint what More
and Fisher should have understood as well from ours.
Guizot and other French and German Protestants always,
from theirs, fail to comprehend the case. It is therefore
noteworthy, when I find in the " Revue des Deux Mondes "
so true and clear a statement as the following: " L'Eglise
Anglicane n'a donne au Cesar que cela que lui appartient;
la meme autorite que tenait l'Empereur aux jours de Gregoire
I., le meme, en effet, que l'Eglise Gallicane a si souvent re-
clame pour ses rois des les jours de St. Louis. Avec la revo-
lution de Luther, Sa reformation iia de cotnmun qiCun eclat
contemporain. Le flot du Continent vient battre les rochers
de son isolement, mais sans entrer dans la place ; et dela
naquit le ' Dissent,' qui est le veritable protestanlisme de
l'Angleterre."
Note C", page 252.
It is surprising that such an act, by a person in deacon 's
orders only, has not excited more remark on the gross ideas
about absolution prevailing in the Roman Court. The dea-
con's functions are " non-sacerdotal " ; yet, when put into
the College of Cardinals and made a legate, the bishops
and all orders of a nation kneel before him for sacramental
absolution. The Marian schism exhibits nothing Catholic.
Note D"', page 253.
The impertinence of quoting this shameful act against
Calvin, as if it balanced the sweeping off of nations by
NOTES. 325
Innocent III. and the wholesale blood-shedding of Alva,
ought to be apparent to common sense. Yet, under colour of
the false liberality of our times, how constantly we find jour-
nalists and others remarking that, if Rome persecuted, so
did the Calvinists and others. In a few detestable instances,
such facts, it is true, disgrace the Reformation, and our
Restoration also. But (1) they were exceptional and not
systematic ; (2) they were the lingering results of cruel laws,
which we owe to the pontiffs and to the kings who sustained
their persecutions ; (3) and they have been repented of,
abjured, and abhorred universally. 13 ut the Roman perse-
cutions were as vast as those of the Caliphs ; were accepted
and glorified as triumphs of the Church ; and they have
never been disclaimed, but, on the contrary, are justified to
this day, and the right to renew them is asserted by modern
pontiffs.
Note E'", page 255.
Concerning Linus and Gladys, see " Ante-Nicene Fathers,"
vol. iii. Elucid. ii. p. 108, and the references there : also, viii.
p. 641; and, for a very interesting summary, Lewin's " Life of
St. Paul," vol. ii. pp. 394~397-
Note F"', page 260.
See Faher's masterly treatise on the "Primitive Doctrine
of Election," New York, 1S40. For popular instruction
touching the Scholastics, see " Mediaeval Church History,"
by Archbishop Trench, p. 200; also, for Nominalism and
Realism, pp. 268, 328, ed. New York, 1878.
Note G'", page 261.
In his Third Lecture before students of the College of
France, Ouinet (a friend and colleague of Michelet) treats
of " The Roman Church and the State "; elsewhere of "The
Roman Church and Science," of the same "and Law," etc.
The whole course of Lectures is vigorous and suggestive,
and, coming from a person familiar with French history in
its relations with the Popes, a man of the world and not a
theologian, the work is worth studying just now, when the
conflict with Ultramontanism is beginning in our Republic.
An English translation of the Lectures was published in
326 NOTES.
London in 1845, under the title of " Ultratnontanism, or the
Roman Church and Modern Society" (John Chapman, Pub-
lisher). It is all the more valuable, as showing where things
stood in Europe just before the accession of Pius IX.
Note H'", page 263.
The Schoolmen, writing down the bishops to write up the
Pope, (see Aquinas, Opp., torn. iv. p. 1055 et seq., ed. Migne,
and Peter Lombard, torn. i. p. 394,) seized upon some pas-
sionate expressions of Jerome, which appear to have been
copied by Augustine, and theorized, against all antiquity,
that the Episcopate, though an order in the hierarchy, was
not of itself one of the Holy Orders. The bishop was only a
presbyter acting in a given place as a vicar of the one Uni-
versal Bishop at Rome. Calvin, educated in Scholasticism,
shared this view, and accordingly, in rejecting the Papacy,
he supposed the Episcopate must go with it. Yet he deeply
felt the value of the pritnitive Episcopacy, and professed
himself in favour of it, if only it might be had. See his
Institutes, Opp., vol. viii., ed. Amstelod., 1667, p. 60.
Note I'", page 281.
When King Charles demanded a private interview with
his judges in the Painted Chamber, he said, " The child which
is unborn may repent it," i. e. a refusal of his request and
a hasty judgment. (King Charles's Works, p. 417, London,
1735.) His appeal so touched the court, that, but for the
browbeating of Cromwell, a motion would have been made
to allow what was asked. Think, then, of all that followed
in 1660, in 1688, and down to 171 5 and 1745, in fulfilment of
the prophecy. But let nobody suppose that the disinheriting
of his unworthy son James II. would have been regretted by
the King. He made it a condition of his blessing to his chil-
dren, that they should " perform all duty and obedience to
their Mother, . . . and to obey the Queen in all things, ex-
cept in matter of religion," commanding the Princess Eliza-
beth particularly, in that particular, " upon his blessing, never
to hearken or consent to her, but to continue firm in the
religion she had been instructed and educated in, what dis-
countenance and ruin soever might befall the poor Church
NOTES. 327
under so severe persecution." See Lord Clarendon's " His-
tory of the Rebellion," book x. p. 68, and book xi. p. 230, ed.
Oxford, 1707. He thus withdrew his blessing from his
posterity in case they should lapse ; and his charge to his
son and successor was the same, in his last letter to him
from Newport, November 25, 164S. It was reserved for
James to forfeit this blessing, and to reap the penalty. This
last of the Stuart kings seems to have been a reproduction
of King John.
Note J'", page 283.
" She is most precious ; for, like a chemical medium, she
possesses the power of harmonizing natures otherwise inca-
pable of union. On the one hand, she reaches to the Protes-
tant ; on the other, the Roman Catholic." (See De Maistre,
Opp., vol. i. p. 27.)
In amplifying this thought, I have elsewhere expressed
myself as follows: "Her charity, indeed, is made her re-
proach ; but she follows apostolic example in this, as in
other things. She dictates the creeds, she prescribes a
Scriptural liturgy. This she must preserve, as they have
come down to her as an inheritance from the purest ages of
the Gospel ; but she refuses to make more narrow the old
Catholic way of salvation. She dares to say, and none but
a Catholic Church can say so much, 'Let us, therefore, as
many as be perfect, be thus minded, and if in anything ye
be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you ;
nevertheless, wherein we have already attained, let us walk
by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.' Thank God,
this was the spirit of her Reformation. In a scholastic
age she was reproached by the Calvinists on one side, and
the Romanists on the other, because she utterly refused to
erect a Code of Belief, as they did, or to split metaphysical
hairs and bind humanity, like the giant in the fable, by
Liliputian webs, a bond slave to scholastic subtleties. This
is the sect spirit ; the Catholic spirit has nothing of it."
From a sermon preached in Montreal.
Note K'", page 291.
The work of Ranke gives the melancholy evidence of this.
And the court of Louis XIV., in which atheists were toler-
328 NOTES.
ated, but not the Huguenots, may sufficiently illustrate the
results of such policy in the fate it brought upon Louis XVI.
and his unhappy people.
Note L'",page 294.
A letter of Lord Macaulay's, dated May 23, 1857, addressed
to H. S. Randall, Esq., author of a " Life of Jefferson," was
published in the " Southern Literary Messenger," some
thirty years ago. It is an admirable comment of that vis-
ionary man of genius upon the maxims with which he had
spent his life in trying to induce Englishmen to destroy their
own Constitution, while professing supreme devotion to its
spirit, its marvellous vitality, and its vitalizing power. At
this crisis, both Englishmen and Americans would do well to
recur to that letter for a moral suited to the times.
P. S. — Note on the Temporal Supremacy, page 249.
Dupin affirms that the Eveqiie ate dehors may be called
Head of the Church, in a justifiable sense. Dissert. Histor.,
D. vii. c. iii. §viii. p. 582, ed. Paris, 16S6. Also, that in the
time of Clovis, not the Pope, but the King, was esteemed,
"after God, the head on earth of the Church in his own
realm." See his treatise on the Gallican Liberties, p. 175,
ed. 1609. Noailles ("Ambassades en Angleterre," p. 175,
Leyden, 1763) relates that Queen Mary the Bloody, after
dropping the title " Supreme Head," restwied it six days be-
fore the date of his letter, April 23, 1554. On the other hand,
Queen Elizabeth would not suffer herself to be so styled,
whether "in speech or in writing." See Bishop Jewell, Zu-
rich Letters, First Series, p. 33, Cambridge, 1842.
But now compare with this local and temporal title (which
Henry VIII. and his daughter Mary used, but which has
never been permitted since in England) the title of " Uni-
versal Bishop," which the Roman Bishop has presumed to
wear ever since Gregory I. rejected it, as Antichristian.
What said Gregory about it ? He said, " To consent in that
nefarious phrase is nothing else but to forfeit the Faith."
Epistle xix. p. 744, torn, iii., ed. Paris, 1849.
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