Story of Christianity: Volume 1: The Early Church to the Reformation (The Story of Christianity)

by Justo L. González

The sinner can will nothing but sin.

This does not mean, however, that freedom has disappeared. The sinner is still free to choose among various alternatives. But all these are sin, and the one alternative that is not open is to cease sinning.

In Augustine’s words, before the Fall we were free both to sin and not to sin. But between the Fall and redemption the only freedom left to us is freedom to sin. When we are redeemed, the grace of God works in us, leading our will from the miserable state in which it found itself to a new state in which freedom is restored, so that we are now free both to sin a...

The initiative in conversion is not human, but divine. Furthermore, grace is irresistible, and God gives it to those who have been predestined to it.

The controversy lasted several years, and eventually Pelagianism was rejected. It simply did not take into account the terrible hold of sin on human will, nor the corporate nature of sin, which is manifest even in infants before they have opportunity to sin for themselves.

Many contested Augustine’s view that the beginning of faith was in God’s action rather than in a human decision. These opponents of Augustine’s doctrine of predestination have been called, somewhat inexactly, “Semi-Pelagians.”

“Augustinian” while rejecting his views on irresistible grace and predestination.

In the end, only the city of God will remain. Meanwhile, human history is filled with kingdoms and nations, all built on love of self, which are no more than passing expressions of the earthly city.

In the particular case of Rome, God allowed her and her empire to flourish so that they could serve as a means for the spread of the Gospel. But now that this purpose has been fulfilled, God has let Rome follow the destiny of all human kingdoms, which is no more than just punishment for their sins.

Augustine was the last of the great leaders of the Imperial Church in the West. When he died, the Vandals were at the gates of Hippo, announcing a new age. Therefore, Augustine’s work was, in a way, the last glimmer of a dying age.

he thus became one of the great doctors of the Roman Catholic Church. But he was also the favorite theologian of the great Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century. Thus, Augustine, variously interpreted, has become the most influential theologian in the entire Western church, both Protestant and Catholic.

In all these fields, it was the church that provided continuity with the past. She became the guardian of civilization and of order. In many ways, she filled the power vacuum left by the demise of the Empire. Centuries later, when the Empire was resurrected in the West, this was done by action of the church, and it was the pope who crowned the emperor.

Slowly, through the unrecorded witness of thousands of Christians, the invaders accepted the Christian faith, and eventually from their stock came new generations of leaders for the church.

The result was that, by the time of the great invasions, many of the invaders were Christians (although of the Arian persuasion).

Eventually, yielding to the influence of those whom they had conquered, all these Arians would accept the Nicene faith.

It also gave new functions and power to two institutions that had begun to develop earlier: monasticism and the papacy.

In 455, they sacked the city of Rome, and the destruction they wrought was even greater than that of the Goths forty-five years earlier.

Their rule in North Africa was disastrous for the church. They were Arians, and repeated persecutions broke out against both catholics and Donatists. Finally, after almost a century of Vandal rule, the area was conquered by General Belisarius, of the Byzantine Empire. That empire, with its capital in Constantinople, was enjoying a brief renaissance under the leadership of Emperor Justinian, whose dream was to restore the ancient glories of the Empire.

The net result was that, when the area was conquered by the Moslems late in the seventh century, they found Christianity badly divided, and it eventually disappeared.

Only fifteen of their thirty-four kings died of natural causes or in the field of

battle.

They too were Arian, but they did not persecute the orthodox in their territories to the extent th...

Almost two centuries after the conquest, it was clear that the orthodox descendants of the conquered inhabitants were the guardians of ancient culture, and that their participation was necessary in ord...

Visigoth King Recared (586–601) to Nicene orthodoxy, which he solemnly embraced at a great assembly in Toledo, in A.D. 589. After the king, the vast majority of the nobles ...

The outstanding Christian leader of the entire history of the Visigothic kingdom was Isidore of Seville. He was a scholar who sought to preserve...

Yet, it was through the works of scholars such as Isidore that the Middle Ages learned of the glories and the

wisdom of antiquity.

The legislation regarding Jews was similar. The same council—whose president was Isidore of Seville, the most enlightened man of his time—decreed that Jews should not be forced to convert to Christianity, but that those who had been forcibly converted earlier would not be allowed to return to the faith of their ancestors, for this would be blasphemy.

Finally, under King Roderick (710–711), the Moslems invaded Spain and put an end to Visigothic rule.

By then, however, Christianity had become so rooted in the country, that it became the rallying point in the long struggle to reconquer the peninsula from the Moslem Moors.

On the contrary, they imitated their customs, and soon many Burgundians had accepted the Nicene faith of their catholic subjects.

The Franks (whose country came to be known as “France”) were at first an unruly alliance of independent tribes, until a measure of unity was brought by the Merovingian dynasty named after its founder, Meroveus. Clovis, Meroveus’ grandson and the greatest of the Merovingian line, was married to a Christian Burgundian princess, and on the eve of a battle promised that he would be converted if his wife’s God gave him victory. As a result, on Christmas Day, A.D. 496, he was baptized, along with a number of his nobles. Shortly thereafter, most of the Franks were baptized.

He defeated them at the battle of Tours in 732. By then he was virtual king, but did not claim that title. It was his son, Pepin the Short, who decided that the time had come to rid himself of the useless king Childeric III, known as “the Stupid.” With the consent of Pope

Zacharias,

This was of paramount importance for the later history of Christianity, for Pepin’s son, Charlemagne, would be the greatest ruler of the early Middle Ages, one who sought to reform the church, and who was crowned emperor by the pope.

Throughout this process, the role of the church was often compromised. Under powerful kings such as Clovis, ecclesiastical leaders seemed to be content to support and obey the ruler.

This was understandable, since extensive holdings of land went with the office of bishop, and therefore a...

Ireland had never been part of the Roman Empire, but Christianity had spread to it before the downfall of the Empire.

the spread of Christianity to Ireland is usually attributed to St. Patrick.

but eventually his success was great, and the inhabitants were baptized in droves.

Since Ireland was bypassed by the wave of invasions that swept Europe, her monasteries became one of the main sources from which the territories within the ancient Roman Empire regained much of what had been lost during the invasions.

The Irish then began sending missionaries to other countries, most notably to Scotland.

For reasons that are not altogether clear, there were a number of differences between this Scotch-Irish Christianity and that which had evolved in the former territories of the Roman Empire. Instead of being ruled by bishops, the Scotch-Irish church was under the leadership of the heads of monastic communities. They also differed on the manner in which a number of rites should be performed, and on the date of Easter.

Augustine then became the first archbishop of Canterbury

One by one, the various kingdoms became Christian, and Canterbury became the ecclesiastical capital for all of England.

Since the date for Easter differed, one of them was fasting while the other was feasting. In order to solve the difficulties, a synod was held at Whitby in 663. The Scotch-Irish stood fast on the traditions they said they had received from Columba. The Roman missionaries and their partisans retorted that St. Peter’s tradition was superior to Columba’s, for the Apostle had received the keys to the Kingdom.

Pope John died in prison.

Thus, by the middle of the eighth century, the popes, aware that they could expect little help from Constantinople, began to look to the north for help. Thus developed the alliance between the papacy and the Frankish kingdom that would eventually lead to the crowning of Charlemagne as emperor of the West.

The invaders brought with them two religious challenges that until then could have seemed to be a matter of the past: paganism and Arianism. Eventually, both pagans and Arians were converted to the faith of those whom they had conquered. This was the Nicene faith, also called “orthodox” or “catholic.” In the process of that conversion, and also in the effort to preserve the wisdom of ancient times, two institutions played a central role, and thus were strengthened. These two institutions, to which we now turn, were monasticism and the papacy.

This western monasticism, however, tended to differ from its eastern counterpart on three points. First, western monasticism tended to be more practical. It did not punish the body for the sole purpose of renunciation, but also to train it, as well as the soul, for a mission in the world.