Another circumstance helped to give the Roman Church a superior position in the West. It was a vigorous missionary church. Rome, the largest and most flourishing Rome a city in the empire and the seat of the imperial "Motherchurch" government, naturally became the center from which Christianity spread over the western provinces. Many of the early Christian communities planted in Spain, Gaul, and Africa owed their start to the missionary zeal of the Roman Church. To Rome, as the great "Mother-church," her daughters in western Europe would turn henceforth with reverence and affection; they would readily acknowledge her leading place among the churches; and they would seek her advice on disputed points of Christian belief or worship. The independence of the Roman Church also furthered its development. The bishop of Rome was the sole patriarch in the West, while in the East there were two, and The Roman later four patriarchs, each exercising authority Church independent in religious matters. Furthermore, the removal of the capital from Rome to Constantinople helped to free the Roman bishop from the close oversight of the imperial government. He was able, henceforth, to promote the interests of the church under his control without much interference on the part of the eastern emperor. orthodox Finally, it must be noted how much the development of the Roman Church was aided by its attitude on disputed questions of belief. While eastern Christendom was torn The Roman by theological controversies, the Church of Rome Church stood firmly by the Nicene Creed. After the Arian, Nestorian, and other heresies were finally condemned, orthodox Christians felt indebted to the Roman Church for its unwavering championship of "the faith once delivered to the saints." They were all the more ready, therefore, to defer to that church in matters of doctrine and to accept without question its spiritual authority. The claim of the Roman bishops to supremacy over the Christian world had a double basis. Certain passages in the 1 See page 236. supremacy New Testament, where St. Peter is represented as the rock on which the Church is built, the pastor of the sheep and lambs of the Lord, and the doorkeeper of the kingdom of The Petrine heaven, appear to indicate that he was regarded by Christ as the chief of the Apostles. Furthermore, a well-established tradition made St. Peter the founder of the Roman Church and its first bishop. It was then argued that he passed to his successors, the popes, all his rights and dignity. As St. Peter was the first among the Apostles, so the popes were to be the first among bishops. Such was the doctrine of the Petrine supremacy, expressed as far back as the second century, strongly asserted by many popes during the Middle Ages, and maintained to-day by the Roman Church. Pontificate of Leo I, 440-461 A.D. 123. Growth of the Papacy Up to the middle of the fifth century about forty-five bishops had occupied St. Peter's chair at Rome. The most eminent of these was Leo the Great. When he became bishop, the Germans were overrunning the western provinces of the empire. The invaders professed the Arian faith, as we have seen, and often persecuted the orthodox Christians among whom they settled. At such a time, when the imperial power was growing weaker, faithful Catholics in the West naturally turned for support to the bishop of Rome. Leo became their champion against the barbarians. Tradition declares that he succeeded in diverting Attila from an attack on Rome, and when the Vandals sacked the city Leo also intervened to prevent its destruction.1 Pontificate of After Leo, no important name occurs in the list of popes until we come to Gregory the Great. Gregory, as the son of a rich and distinguished Roman senator, enjoyed a good education in all the learning of the time. 590-604 A.D. He entered public life and at an early age became prefect of Rome. But now, almost at the outset of his career, Gregory laid aside earthly ambition. He gave up his 1 See pages 248-249. honorable position and spent the fortune, inherited from his father, in the foundation of monasteries and the relief of the poor. He himself became a monk, turned his palace at Rome into a monastery, and almost ruined his health by too great devotion to fasts and midnight vigils. Gregory's conspicuous talents, however, soon called him from retirement and led to his election, as pope. The work of Gregory lay principally in two directions. As a statesman he did much to make the popes virtual sovereigns at Rome and in Italy. At this time the Italian Temporal peninsula, overrun by the Lombards and neglected power of Gregory by the eastern emperor, was in a deplorable condition. The bishop of Rome seemed to be the only man who could protect the people and maintain order. Gregory had very great success in this task. He appointed governors of cities, issued orders to generals, drilled the Romans for military defense, and sent ambassadors to treat with the king of the Lombards. It was largely owing to Gregory's efforts that these barbarians were prevented from conquering central Italy. Gregory was no less eminent as a churchman. His writings and his personal influence greatly furthered the advancement of the Roman Church in the West. We find him Gregory's sternly repressing heresies wherever they arose, spiritual authority aiding the conversion of Arian Visigoths in Spain and Arian Lombards in Italy, and sending out monks as missionaries to distant Britain. He well deserved by these labors the title "Servant of the servants of God," which he assumed, and which the popes after him have retained. The admiration felt for his character and abilities raised him, in later ages, to the rank of a saint. When Gregory the Great closed his remarkable career, the Papacy had reached a commanding place in western Christendom. To their spiritual authority the popes had Position of now begun to add some measure of temporal the Papacy power as rulers at Rome and in Italy. During the eighth century, as we have already learned, the alliance of the popes See pages 305-307. 1 See page 322. 2 Servus servorum Dei. and the Franks helped further to establish the Papacy as an ecclesiastical monarchy, ruling over both the souls and bodies of men. Henceforth it was to go forward from strength to strength. The monastic spirit 124. Monasticism The Papacy during the Middle Ages found its strongest supporters among the monks. By the time of Gregory the Great monasticism 1 was well established in the Christian Church. Its origin must be sought in the need, often felt by spiritually-minded men, of withdrawing from the world from its temptations and its transitory pleasures to a life of solitude, prayer, and religious contemplation. Joined to this feeling has been the conviction that the soul may be purified by subduing the desires and passions of the body. Men, influenced by the monastic spirit, sought a closer approach to God. The monastic spirit in Christianity owed much to the example of its founder, who was himself unmarried, poor, and without a Early Christian monasticism place "where to lay his head." Some of Christ's teachings, taken literally, also helped to exalt the worth of the monastic life. At a very early period there were Christian men and women who abstained from marriage, flesh meat, and the use of wine, and gave themselves up to prayer, religious exercises, and works of charity. This they did in their homes, without abandoning their families and human society. Another monastic movement began about the middle of the third century, when many Christians in Egypt withdrew into the desert to live as hermits. St. Anthony, who The hermits has been called the first Christian hermit, passed twenty years in a deserted fort on the east bank of the Nile. During all this time he never saw a human face. Some of the hermits, believing that pain and suffering had a spiritual value, went to extremes of self-mortification. They dwelt in wells, tombs, and on the summits of pillars, deprived themselves of 1 From a Greek word which means "living alone." necessary food and sleep, wore no clothing, and neglected to bathe or to care for the body in any way. Other hermits, who did not practice such austerities, spent all day or all night in prayer. The examples of these recluses found many imitators in Syria and other eastern lands.1 A life shut off from all contact with one's fellows is difficult and beyond the strength of ordinary men. The mere human need for social intercourse gradually brought the Rule of hermits together, at first in small groups and then St. Basil in larger communities, or monasteries. The next step was to give the scattered monasteries a common organization and government. Those in the East gradually adopted the regulations which St. Basil, a leading churchman of the fourth century, drew up for the guidance of the monks under his direction. St. Basil's Rule, as it is called, has remained to the present time the basis of monasticism in the Greek Church. The monastic system, which early gained an entrance into 1 See Tennyson's poem, St. Simeon Stylites. |