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February 24 - March 19, 2019
At last, in 379, the Emperor Theodosius gave his full support to the Catholics, and their victory throughout the Empire was complete. Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome, and Saint Augustine, whom we shall consider in the next chapter, lived most of their lives during this period of Catholic triumph. It was succeeded, however, in the West, by another Arian domination, that of the Goths and Vandals, who, between them, conquered most of the Western Empire. Their power lasted for about a century, at the end of which it was destroyed by Justinian, the Lombards, and the Franks, of whom Justinian and the
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CHAPTER III Three Doctors of the Church FOUR men are called the Doctors of the Western Church: Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, and Pope Gregory the Great. Of these the first three were contemporaries, while the fourth belonged to a later date.
Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine all flourished during the brief period between the victory of the Catholic Church in the Roman Empire and the barbarian invasion.
III. THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY Much of the most influential part of Saint Augustine’s theology was concerned in combating the Pelagian heresy. Pelagius was a Welshman, whose real name was Morgan, which means “man of the sea,” as “Pelagius” does in Greek. He was a cultivated and agreeable ecclesiastic, less fanatical than many of his contemporaries. He believed in free will, questioned the doctrine of original sin, and thought that, when men act virtuously, it is by virtue of their own moral effort. If they act rightly, and are orthodox, they go to heaven as a reward of their virtues.
Saint Augustine taught that Adam, before the Fall, had had free will, and could have abstained from sin. But as he and Eve ate the apple, corruption entered into them, and descended to all their posterity, none of whom can, of their own power, abstain from sin.
Damnation proves God’s justice; salvation His mercy. Both equally display His goodness.
These are treated by Augustine as a lawyer treats the law: the interpretation is able, and the texts are made to yield their utmost meaning.
It is strange that the last men of intellectual eminence before the dark ages were concerned, not with saving civilization or expelling the barbarians or reforming the abuses of the administration, but with preaching the merit of virginity and the damnation of unbaptized infants. Seeing that these were the preoccupations that the Church handed on to the converted barbarians, it is no wonder that the succeeding age surpassed almost all other fully historical periods in cruelty and superstition.
It was in this century that the English invaded Britain, causing it to become England; it was also in this century that the Frankish invasion turned Gaul into France, and that the Vandals invaded Spain, giving their name to Andalusia.
Of the Germanic tribes that invaded the Empire in the fifth century, the most important were the Goths. They were pushed westward by the Huns, who attacked them from the East.
Meanwhile the Vandals established themselves in Africa, the Visigoths in the south of France, and the Franks in the north.
On this question the Church was divided: roughly speaking, bishops east of Suez favoured Nestorius, while those west of Suez favoured Saint Cyril.
A council was summoned to meet at Ephesus in 431 to decide the question. The Western bishops arrived first, and proceeded to lock the doors against late-comers and decide in hot haste for Saint Cyril, who presided. “This episcopal tumult, at the distance of thirteen centuries, assumes the venerable aspect of the Third Œcumenical Council.”
The Council of Ephesus had decided that there is only one Person of Christ, but the Council of Chalcedon decided that He exists in two natures, one human and one divine. The influence of the Pope was paramount in securing this decision.
The heresy of Egypt, like the opposite heresy of Syria, facilitated the Arab conquest.
The Gothic conquest of Italy did not put an end to Roman civilization. Under Theodoric, king of Italy and of the Goths, the civil administration of Italy was entirely Roman; Italy enjoyed peace and religious toleration (till near the end); the king was both wise and vigorous. He appointed consuls, preserved Roman law, and kept up the Senate: when in Rome, his first visit was to Senate house.
During the two centuries before his time and the ten centuries after it, I cannot think of any European man of learning so free from superstition and fanaticism.
Three years after this exploit (532), Justinian embarked upon another, more worthy of praise—the building of St. Sophia. I have never seen St. Sophia, but I have seen the beautiful contemporary mosaics at Ravenna, including portraits of Justinian and his empress Theodora.
In 568, three years after Justinian’s death, Italy was invaded by a new and very fierce German tribe, the Lombards.
The Byzantines held gradually less and less of Italy; in the South, they had also to face the Saracens.
But in most parts of Italy the emperors, after the coming of the Lombards, had very little authority or even none at all. It was this period that ruined Italian civilization.
In the period with which we are concerned, three of the activities of the Church call for special notice: first, the monastic movement; second, the influence of the papacy, especially under Gregory the Great; third, the conversion of the heathen barbarians by means of missions.
A few years later—about 315 or 320—another Egyptian, Pachomius, founded the first monastery. Here the monks had a common life, without private property, with communal meals and communal religious observations. It was in this form, rather than in that of Saint Anthony, that monasticism conquered the Christian world.
In Western monasticism, the most important name is that of Saint Benedict, the founder of the Benedictine Order. He was born about 480, near Spoleto, of a noble Umbrian family; at the age of twenty, he fled from the luxuries and pleasures of Rome to the solitude of a cave, where he lived for three years. After this period, his life was less solitary, and about the year 520 he founded the famous monastery of Monte Cassino, for which he drew up the “Benedictine rule.”
Organizations have a life of their own, independent of the intentions of their founders. Of this fact, the most striking example is the Catholic Church, which would astonish Jesus, and even Paul. The Benedictine Order is a lesser example. The monks take a vow of poverty, obedience, and chastity.
As to this, Gibbon remarks: “I have somewhere heard or read the frank confession of a Benedictine abbot: ‘My vow of poverty has given me an hundred thousand crowns a year; my vow of obedience has raised me to the rank of a sovereign prince.’ I forget the consequences of his vow of chastity.”
Saint Benedict lived at Monte Cassino from its foundation until his death in 543. The monastery was sacked by the Lombards, shortly before Gregory the Great, himself a Benedictine, became Pope. The monks fled to Rome; but when the fury of the Lombards had abated, they returned to Monte Cassino.
From the dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great, written in 593, we learn much about Saint Benedict. He was “brought up at Rome in the study of humanity. But forasmuch as he saw many by the reason of such learning to fall to dissolute and lewd life, he drew back his foot, which he had as it were now set forth into the world, lest, entering too far in acquaintance therewith, he likewise might have fallen into that dangerous and godless gulf: wherefore, giving over his book, and forsaking his father’s house and wealth, with a resolute mind only to serve God, he sought for some place, where he might
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CHAPTER VII The Papacy in the Dark Ages DURING the four centuries from Gregory the Great to Sylvester II, the papacy underwent astonishing vicissitudes.
English monasteries, particularly those of Yorkshire, were of great importance at this time. Such civilization as had existed in Roman Britain had disappeared, and the new civilization introduced by Christian missionaries centred almost entirely round the Benedictine abbeys, which owed everything directly to Rome.
His two greatest controversies concerned the divorce of Lothar II and the uncanonical deposition of Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople.
Kings were men of headstrong passions, who felt that the indissolubility of marriage was a doctrine for subjects only.
The Church, therefore, was in a very strong position in opposing royal divorces and irregular marriages. In England, it lost this position under Henry VIII, but recovered it under Edward VIII.
The year 1000 may be conveniently taken as marking the end of the lowest depth to which the civilization of Western Europe sank. From this point the upward movement began which continued till 1914.
Our use of the phrase the “Dark Ages” to cover the period from 600 to 1000 marks our undue concentration on Western Europe.
In China, this period includes the time of the Tang dynasty, the greatest age of Chinese poetry, and in many other ways a most remarkable epoch. From India to Spain, the brilliant civilization of Islam flourished. What was lost to Christendom at this time was not lost to civilization, but quite the contrary.
Most of the cultural content of our civilization comes to us from the Eastern Mediterranean, from Greeks and Jews.
As for power: Western Europe was dominant from the Punic Wars to the fall of Rome—say, roughly, during the six centuries from 200 B.C. to A.D. 400. After that time, no State in Western Europe could compare in power with China, Japan, or the Caliphate.
Our superiority since the Renaissance is due partly to science and scientific technique, partly to political institutions slo...
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CHAPTER IX Ecclesiastical Reform in the Eleventh Century
In the eleventh century, the improvement was lasting and many-sided. It began with monastic reform; it then extended to the papacy and Church government; towards the end of the century it produced the first scholastic philosophers.
Architecture, which had been barbaric except where Byzantine influence prevailed, attained sudden sublimity. The level of education rose enormously among the clergy, and considerably in the lay aristocracy.
This motive was to complete the separation between clergy and laity, and, in so doing, to increase the power of the former.
Owing to their miraculous powers, priests could determine whether a man should spend eternity in heaven or in hell. If he died while excommunicate, he went to hell; if he died after priests had performed all the proper ceremonies, he would ultimately go to heaven provided he had duly repented and confessed. Before going to heaven, however, he would have to spend some time—perhaps a very long time—suffering the pains of purgatory. Priests could shorten this time by saying masses for his soul, which they were willing to do for a suitable money payment.
Owing to the benefactions of the pious, the Church had become rich. Many bishops had huge estates, and even parish priests had, as a rule, what for those times was a comfortable living.
Simony, of course, was a sin, but that was not the only objection to it.
Very similar considerations applied to clerical celibacy.
When priests were married, they naturally tried to pass on Church property to their sons. They could do this legally if their sons became priests; therefore one of the first steps of the reform party, when it acquired power, was to forbid the ordination of priests’ sons.IV
There was, from at least the fifth century onwards, an intense admiration for celibacy, and if the clergy were to command the reverence on which their power depended, it was highly advantageous that they should be obviously separated from other men by abstinence from marriage.
The Carthusians, who never ceased to be austere, were founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084.
