A Key to the Knowledge of Church History Part 9

[Sidenote: nor revive decaying heathenism,]

Paganism was gradually dying away in the Roman world, notwithstanding all the craft and power of Satan, whilst no number of martyrdoms seemed to check the growth of the Body of Christ. Vain and short-sighted, indeed, was the boast of the Emperor Dioclesian during the last and most bitter of all the persecutions, that he had blotted out the very name of Christian. No sooner had the conversion of Constantine brought rest to the Church, than she rose again from her seeming ruins, ready and able to spread more and more through "the kingdoms of this world,"

that they might "become the kingdoms of Christ."

[Sidenote: and thus helped to prove the Divine origin of the Church.]

We may well believe that no inst.i.tution of human appointment could have stood firm against such terrible and reiterated shocks. Nothing less than a Divine Foundation, and a strength not of this world could have borne the Church through the ages of persecution, not only without loss of all vital principle, but even with actual invigoration and extension of it.

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Section 4. _Effects of Persecution on the Wors.h.i.+p and Discipline of the Church._

The fierce trials of the age of persecution were not without their influence on the inner life of the Church, both as regarded Wors.h.i.+p and Discipline.

The cruel oppressions to which they were constantly liable, drove Christians to conceal their Faith from the eyes of the heathen world whenever such concealment did not involve any denial of their Lord, or any faithless compliance with idolatrous customs. [Sidenote: Seeking martyrdom forbidden.] Indeed, it was a law of the Church that martyrdom was not to be unnecessarily sought after, and the wisdom of this provision was more than once shown by the failure under torture of those who had presumptuously brought upon themselves the sufferings they had not strength to bear, and which did not come to them in the course of G.o.d's Providence.

[Sidenote: Holy Rites and Books kept hidden.]

The strictest secrecy was enjoined upon Christians as to the religious Rites and sacred Books of the Church, and we read of many martyrs who suffered for refusing to satisfy the curiosity of their Pagan judges respecting Christian wors.h.i.+p, or for persisting in withholding from them the Christian writings.

[Sidenote: Church ritual temporarily checked.]

Another natural effect of persecution was to check for a time the development of the ritual of the Church, and to render necessary the use of the simplest and most essential forms even in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. The immense subterranean excavations at Rome, known by the name of the Catacombs, are an abiding {64} proof to us of the straits to which the primitive martyrs and their companions were reduced, when these sand-galleries were at once their Church and their burying-place, and in some instances the scene of their martyrdom also.

[Sidenote: Church discipline very severe]

The discipline of the Church was made extremely strict by the lengthened continuance of severe persecution. In those days when so many gave proof of the strength and reality of their Faith by their persevering endurance of unspeakable agonies, any shrinking back was looked upon as very unworthy cowardice, and as an almost hopeless fall, to be hindered if possible by the merciful severity of the Church as shown in warnings and punishments. Even those who had so far succ.u.mbed to trial as to give up the Sacred Books were called "Traditores," and considered as very criminal; those who had consented to pay Divine honours to the emperors or to the heathen G.o.ds, fell under still more severe censure, whilst such Christians as led sinful and immoral lives were considered most worthy of blame and punishment. Very heavy penances were laid upon all who thus fell away, in proportion to their guilt, before they were again admitted to the Communion of the Church; and in some extreme cases the punishment was life-long, and only allowed to be relaxed when the penitent was actually in danger of death. [Sidenote: for a time.] But this very severe discipline was temporary in its nature, as was the danger to the Church which called it forth, and was somewhat modified by the Letters of Peace which martyrs and confessors were allowed to give to excommunicated persons, authorizing their readmission to Church privileges.

[Sidenote: Church government modified also for a time.]

A temporary modification in the government of the {65} Church was also brought about by these times of suffering. Bishops, under the pressure of persecution, were sometimes forced to leave their flocks, or were first tortured and then banished, and their places had to be filled as far as they could be by the presbyters, with the advice of the distant Bishop; whilst at Rome, in the middle of the third century, there was a year's vacancy in the see after the martyrdom of Fabian, on account of the impossibility of bringing neighbouring Bishops into the midst of a storm which was raging with especial fury against the rulers of the Church.

[1] St. John was a martyr in will, though not in deed, being miraculously preserved from injury in the caldron of boiling oil, into which he was plunged by order of Nero or Domitian.

[2] From Dr. Steere's "Account of the Persecutions of the Early Church under the Roman Emperors."

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CHAPTER VI

The Church under the Roman Empire

A.D. 312-A.D. 680

[Sidenote: Persecution arrested by conversion of Constantine.]

[Sidenote: Outward triumph of the Church.]

The conversion of the Emperor Constantine to the Faith worked a great change in the condition of the Christian Church. Even so early as the year 312, when the appearance to him of the luminous Cross in the sky was followed by victory over his enemies, Constantine began to issue edicts of toleration in favour of the Christians; and from the time of his sole supremacy, A.D. 324, Christianity and not Paganism became the acknowledged religion of the Roman empire.

Section 1. _The altered Outward Circ.u.mstances of the Church._

[Sidenote: Consequent change in discipline and ritual.]

Such a change in the outward circ.u.mstances of the Church could not but produce a corresponding alteration in its discipline and mode of wors.h.i.+p. The Kingdom of G.o.d on earth became a great power visible to the eyes of men, no longer hid like the leaven, but overshadowing the earth like the mustard-tree; and the power and influence of Imperial Rome were employed {67} in spreading the Faith instead of seeking to exterminate it. Christians were not now forced to shun the notice of their fellow-men; banished Priests and Bishops came back to their flocks; heathen temples were converted into Churches, and new Churches were built with great splendour. The vast resources of Roman wealth and refinement were employed to render the Wors.h.i.+p of Almighty G.o.d costly and magnificent, and the ritual of the Church was probably more fully developed and brought more into harmony with the prophetic vision of St. John than circ.u.mstances had ever before allowed.

[Sidenote: The first Christian city.]

In Constantinople, built by the Emperor Constantine on the ruins of Byzantium, we have the first instance of a city which, from the time of its foundation, was entirely Christian.

[Sidenote: Endowment of the Church.]

The Church was now no longer dependent on the alms of private Christians; the revenues which had formerly been devoted by the state to the maintenance of the heathen temples and their ministers, were transferred to the support of Christian Churches and their Clergy, and to the relief of the poor. Christian schools were also founded and endowed by the emperors; and learning, as well as wealth, was thus brought in contact with the Faith.

[Sidenote: Church honoured by the world.]

Christian Rome soon became a great instrument in G.o.d's hands for extending the influence of the Church even amongst little-known and uncivilized nations; and as persecution ceased to try the earnestness of those who embraced the religion of Christ, and the name of Christian came to be treated with respect instead of with scorn, the Church began to a.s.sume a position somewhat like that which she holds in our own day.

[Sidenote: Discipline relaxed.] The profession of {68} Christianity under these circ.u.mstances was naturally more of a matter of course with many of those who had grown up under its shadow, than when, in earlier times, such a profession was likely to involve loss and suffering, and even death itself, and discipline was gradually and necessarily relaxed from the severity needful in the days of persecution.

Section 2. _Internal Trials of the Church._

[Sidenote: Heresy gathers strength in prosperity,]

The Church being thus firmly settled and delivered from outer enemies, was now to find troubles within. Even from the days of St. John the Divine heresies respecting the Person of our Blessed Lord had been rife; but these open denials of the Divinity of the Great Head of the Church had been successfully opposed without their leaving behind them any very lasting trace. [Sidenote: and is of a more dangerous nature.]

Errors of a more subtle cla.s.s followed, amounting in reality to unbelief in our Saviour's G.o.dhead, but expressing that unbelief by a.s.sailing the teaching of the Church respecting His nature as Very G.o.d or as Very Man.

[Sidenote: Arianism.]

This species of error culminated in the heresy of Arius, who denied that the Second Person of the Holy Trinity was co-equal, co-eternal, and of One Substance with the Father, and whose false teaching was more widely listened to and followed than that of any of his predecessors in misbelief. Arianism, and various forms of error consequent upon it, long afflicted the Church, especially in the East, and the Emperor Constantine himself seems at one time to have had a leaning towards the theories of Arius.

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Section 3. _The General Councils._

[Sidenote: The remedy provided for heresy.]

The full tide of the Arian heresy was, however, not suffered to come upon the Church without a barrier being raised up by G.o.d to stem the torrent. The Emperor Constantine was providentially guided to call together a Council of Bishops from every part of the world, to decide what was and always had been the Faith of the Church respecting the Nature of our Blessed Lord. This is the first instance of what are known by the name of General Councils of the Church. Other councils, called provincial synods, had indeed been frequently held from the earliest times; but they were of a much more limited and partial character, and their decrees were binding only on the province in which they were held, and not on the Church at large.

[Sidenote: Nature of General Councils.]

General Councils were called together by the Christian emperors, and, from the nature of their const.i.tution, were not possible until all or nearly all the Christian world was governed by a ruler professing the Faith of Christ; nor has such a general synod been held since the breaking up of the universal empire of Rome helped to overthrow the external unity of the Church[1]. [Sidenote: Their number.] Four General Councils are officially {70} acknowledged by the Church of England as binding on her members, and to these are commonly added two, held somewhat later at Constantinople.