CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



sick, alms-houses for the poor, and nurseries of 

 learning. 



Down to the Reformation, church history is 

 divided between the Western or Roman, and the 

 Eastern or Greek Churches. These churches 

 still include within their pale by far the greater 

 part of Christendom. The five principal strong- 

 holds of Christianity, in primitive times, were 

 Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, 

 and Rome ; and in them resided the five bishops 

 who had the oversight of the Church's affairs. 

 The Church in the imperial capital had, from 

 natural causes, an early importance ; it was the 

 most opulent society, and its first bishops and 

 presbyters were men of the highest character. 

 Hence, though the Church at Antioch had been the 

 mother-church of the Gentiles, and that at Jeru- 

 salem the earliest of all the churches, the Church 

 of Rome claimed and received a certain pre-emi- 

 nence. In the East, Alexandria was next to Rome 

 in influence, but soon had to yield the primacy to 

 Constantinople, which, though the youngest of the 

 patriarchates, yet in 381 ranked second only to 

 Rome. To be second, however, was not enough ; 

 and the fact of the Emperor Constantine having 

 adorned it, and taken up his residence in it, was but 

 one out of many circumstances which led Constan- 

 tinople to claim equality with Rome, and fostered 

 jealousies between the rival sees. The great Arian 

 heresy sprang up in the East, but the famous 

 Nicene Council denounced and punished it ; and 

 from that council the Bishop of Rome was absent 

 through old age. Afterwards, the Arians gained 

 an ascendency in the East, whilst the West con- 

 tinued orthodox, and this led to a suspension 

 of communion between the two churches. The 

 breach widened, and for a century and a half they 

 disputed about the limits of their respective juris- 



dictions, 

 century, 



At length, towards the close of the 5th 



the Lombards, who aspired to extend their 

 sovereignty from Northern to Central and South- 

 ern Italy, recovered by the king of the Franks, 

 and given up by him to the popes themselves 

 (in 756) ; and thus was laid the foundation of the 

 temporal power of the papacy. The ecclesias- 

 tical primacy of the Roman prelates had long 

 been admitted in many quarters far and near, and 

 it was now boldly exalted into universal supre- 

 macy. Nicholas I. (858-867) is regarded as the 

 first Roman pontiff who realised the long-cherished 

 hope of undisputed spiritual pre-eminence and 

 domination in the West. The Greek or Eastern 

 Churches repudiated both the theory and the 

 fact of papal supremacy ; and they continued to 

 do so, and to differ from several dogmas and 

 ceremonies of the Romish Church, even when 

 the encroachments of the Mohammedan faith and 

 arms had curtailed the Greek Empire, and taken 

 possession of all the holy places in the East. 

 Nor did the various crusades from the Western 

 nations, undertaken at a stupendous cost of 

 treasure and blood, to recover the sacred terri- 

 tory, conciliate the Eastern Church. The cap- 

 ture of Constantinople (1453) by the Ottoman 

 Turks, and the departure of the last shadow of 

 Roman majesty in the East for previously every 

 province had been torn 

 Cassar's descendants did 

 bling Church in the East to strike a league with 

 her exalted sister in the West. She has since 

 pursued her own way, held her own tenets 

 which, whilst anti-Roman, are still more anti- 

 Protestant and invariably refused to listen to 

 negotiations for a union with the Church of Rome. 

 When, in 1848, Pio Nono called upon the Greek 

 patriarchs to enter within the see of St Peter, 

 they indignantly declined, and predicted the ' de- 

 struction of popery.' In the West, however, from 



out of the grasp of 

 not induce the trem- 



the Patriarch of Constantinople was the Qth century down to the close of the I5th, 



excommunicated by his Roman brother ; and as 

 the former was supported by his three brethren in 

 the East, the rupture was serious. In the 8th 

 century occurred the filioque dispute about the 

 Holy Spirit's ' procession, and this was followed 

 by the iconoclastic controversy, during which the 

 bishops of Rome not only excommunicated their 

 eastern brethren, but also renounced their allegi- 

 ance to the Emperor of Constantinople. The 

 rupture between the two churches became final in 

 the Qth century, succeeding ages down to the 

 present having only added new elements of alien- 

 ation. The Germanic invasions which broke the 

 imperial power in the West, had greatly increased 

 the authority of the Roman bishops or popes ; 

 and though Southern and Central Italy still pro- 

 fessed subjection to the Greek emperor and to the 

 exarchs who represented him, the ecclesiastics 

 were fast monopolising civil functions and polit- 

 ical influence. On the emperor authorising his 

 exarch to enforce in the West the decree against 

 all images which he had carried out in the East, 

 the Latin people rose up in resistance, and the 

 popes, as their champions, went the length of 

 renouncing all allegiance to the imperial rule. 

 The Italian territories which thus threw off the 

 imperial yoke, were, after having been seized by 



400 



Rome and the pope had been omnipotent ; and 

 from the chair of St Peter radiated to the ends of 

 Christendom a sovereignty vaster, more potent and 

 awful than the old ' mistress of the world ' had 

 ever wielded a sovereignty to which the dogmas, 

 ceremonies, and institutions of the Roman Church 

 were admirably consonant. All our readers are 

 familiar with Martin Luther and the work of 

 reformation which he originated, its bold and 

 rapid spread, and its grand success in the intel- 

 lectual, moral, and spiritual regeneration of 

 Europe, and in the career of material progress on 

 which the nations entered. The Protestant epoch 

 in Germany is fixed in 1521 ; in Switzerland and 

 Geneva, in 1535 ; in Sweden and Denmark, in 

 1566; in England, in 1547; and in Scotland, in 

 1 560. Protestantism took a comparatively slight 

 hold of France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, and 

 Italy ; and in these countries Romanism has an 

 ascendency all but unchallenged. The Church of 

 Rome still includes within its pale one half of 

 Christendom, the other half being divided between 

 the Greek Church and the various denominations 

 of Protestants. One counterbalancing fact lies in 

 the Protestantism of Britain and America not to 

 speak of Germany the two nations that are first 

 in the van of universal progress. 



