CHRISTIANITY. 



219 



alum , and Supernaturalism. ) This principle appears, 

 by its effect upon the numerous nations, differing 

 so greatly in intellectual character and cultivation, 

 which received Christianity at first, to have been a 

 universal truth, adapted to the whole human race, 

 and of a divine, all-uniting power. The Jews be- 

 lieved in a living God, the Creator of all things, 

 and, so far, had just views of the source of religion. 

 The Greeks, besides developing the principle or the 

 beautiful in their works of art, had laid the found- 

 ations of valuable sciences applicable to the busi- 

 ness of life. The Romans had established the prin- 

 ciples of law and political administration, and prov- 

 ed their value by experience. These scattered ele- 

 ments of moral and intellectual cultivation, insuf- 

 ficient, in their disunited state, to bring about the 

 true happiness and moral perfection of man in his 

 social and individual capacity, were refined, perfect- 

 ed and combined by Christianity, through the law of 

 a pure benevolence, the highest aim of which is that 

 of rendering men good and happy, like God, and 

 which finds, in the idea of a kingdom of heaven upon 

 earth, announced and realized by Christ, all the means 

 of executing its design. His religion supplied what 

 was wanting to these nations a religious character to 

 the science of Greece, moral elevation to the legisla- 

 tive spirit of Rome, liberty and light to the devotion 

 of the Jews and, by inculcating the precept of uni- 

 versal love of mankind, raised the narrow spirit of 

 patriotism to the extended feeling of general philan- 

 thropy. Thus the endeavours of ancient times after 

 moral perfection were directed and concentrated by 

 Christianity, which supplied, at the same time, a mo- 

 tive for diffusing more widely that light and those ad- 

 vantages which mystery and the spirit of castes had 

 formerly withheld from the multitude. It conveyed 

 the highest ideas, the most important truths and prin- 

 ciples, the purest laws of moral life, to all ranks ; it 

 proved the possibility of perfect virtue, through the 

 example of its Founder ; it laid the foundation for 

 the peace of the world, through the doctrine of the 

 reconciliation of men with God and with each other ; 

 and, directing their minds and hearts towards Jesus, 

 the Author and Finisher of their faith, the crucified, 

 arisen, and glorified Mediator between heaven and 

 earth, it taught them to discern the benevolent con- 

 nexion of the future life with the present. The his- 

 tory of Jesus, and the preparations of God for his mis- 

 sion, afforded the materials from which Christians 

 formed their conceptions of the character and ten- 

 dency of their religion. 



The first community of the followers of Jesus was 

 formed at Jerusalem, soon after the death of their 

 Master. Another, at Antioch, in Syria, first assumed 

 (about 65) the name of Christians, which had origin- 

 ally been given to them by their adversaries, as a 

 term of reproach ; and the travels of the apostles 

 spread Christianity through the provinces of the Ro- 

 man empire. Palestine, Syria, Natolia, Greece, the 

 islands of the Mediterranean, Italy, and the northern 

 coast of Africa, as early as the first century, contained 

 societies of Christians. Their ecclesiastical discipline 

 was simple, and conformable to their humble condi- 

 tion, and they continued to acquire strength amidst 

 all kinds of oppression. (See Persecutions.) At the 

 ,end of the second century, Christians were to be found 

 in all the provinces, and, at the end of the third cen- 

 tury, almost one half of the inhabitants of the Roman 

 empire, and of several neighbouring countries, pro- 

 fessed this belief. The endeavour to preserve a unity 

 of faith (see Orthodoxy) and of church discipline, 

 caused numberless disputes among those of different 

 opinions (see Heretics and Sects), and led to the esta- 

 blishment of an ecclesiastical tyranny, notwithstand- 

 ing the oppressions which the first Christians had ex- 



perienced from a similar institution the Jewish 

 priesthood. At the beginning of the fourth century, 

 when the Christians obtained toleration by means of 

 Constantino the Great, and, soon after, the superior- 

 ity in the Roman empire, the bishops exercised the 

 power of arbiters of faith, in the first general council 

 [see Nice), 325, by instituting a creed binding on all 

 Christians. Upon this foundation, the later councils 

 [q. v.), assisted by those writers who are honoured by 

 the church as its fathers and teachers (see Fathers oj 

 the Church, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, &c.), erect- 

 ed the edifice of the orthodox system ; while the su- 

 perior portion of the ecclesiastics, who were n ow 

 transformed into priests, and elevated above the laity 

 as a privileged, sacred order (see Clergy and Priests), 

 were enabled, partly by their increasing authority 

 in matters of church discipline, partly by the belief, 

 which they had encouraged, that certain traditions 

 from the apostles were inherited by them only (see 

 Traditions), to preserve the prerogatives at first grant- 

 ed them out of love and gratitude, but afterwards much 

 extended by themselves, and to make themselves gra- 

 dually masters ef the church. (See Bishops, Patri- 

 archs, Popes, Hierarchy.) Their views were promoted 

 by the favour of the emperors (see Theodosius the Great) 

 (with slight interruptions in the reign of Julian and 

 some of his successors), by the increased splendour and 

 various ceremonials of divine worship (see Mass, 

 Saints, Relics, Iconoclasts), by the decline of clas- 

 sical learning, the increasing superstition resulting 

 from this increase of ignorance, and by the establish- 

 ment of convents and monks. (See Convents.) In 

 this form, appealing to the senses more than to the 

 understanding, Christianity, which had been intro- 

 duced among the Goths in the fourth century, was 

 spread among the other Teutonic nations in the west 

 and north of Europe, and subjected to its power, dur. 

 ing the seventh and eighth centuries, the rude war- 

 riors who founded new kingdoms on the ruins of the 

 Western Empire, while it was losing ground, in Asia 

 and Africa, before the encroachments of the Saracens, 

 by whose rigorous measures hundreds of thousands 

 of Christians were converted to Moliammedanism, 

 the heretical sects which had been disowned by the 

 orthodox church (see Jacobites, Copts, Armenians, 

 Maronites, Nestorians) being almost the only Chris- 

 tians who maintained themselves hi the East. 



During this progress of Mohammedanism, which, 

 in Europe, extended only to Spain and Sicily, the Ro- 

 man Popes (see Popes and Gregory VII.), who were 

 advancing systematically to ecclesiastical superiority 

 hi the west of Europe, gained more in the north, and, 

 soon after, in the east of this quarter of the world, by 

 the conversion of the Sclavonic and Scandinavian 

 nations (from the tenth to the twelfth century), than 

 they had lost in other regions. For the Moham- 

 medans had chiefly overrun the territory of the east- 

 ern church (see Greek Church), which had been, since 

 the fifth century, no longer one with the Western 

 (Latin) church, and had, by degrees, become entirely 

 separate from it. In the tenth century, it received 

 some new adherents, by the conversion of the Rus- 

 sians, who are now its most powerful support. But 

 the crusaders, who were led, partly by religious en- 

 thusiasm, partly by the desire of conquest and ad- 

 ventures (10961 150), to attempt the recovery of 

 the holy sepulchre, gained the new kingdom of Jeru- 

 salem, not for the Greek emperor, but for themselves 

 and the papal hierarchy. (See Crusades.) The 

 confusion which this finally unsuccessful undertaking 

 introduced into the civil and domestic affairs of 

 the western nations, gave the church a favourable 

 opportunity of increasing its possessions, and assert- 

 ing its pretensions to universal monarchy. But con- 

 trary to the wishes and expectations of the rulers of 



