The Divine Commission A Sketch Of Church History

125907

THE DIVINE COMMISSION

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Painting by Rubens. Plate from Bureau of University Travel.

ST. AMBROSE AND THE EMPEROR THEODOSIUS

See page J8

THE DIVINE COMMISSION

A SKETCH OF CHURCH, HISTORY

By the Right Reverend

FRANK E. WILSON, D.D., S.T.D.

Bishop of Eau Claire

MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING CO.

NEW YORK -:- MILWAUKEE

1935

COPYRIGHT, 1927, 1935

BY

THE NATIONAL COUNCIL
PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH

in the United States of America

First Edition August, 1927

Second Edition February, 1928

Third Edition August, 1935

CONTENTS

PAGE

FRONTISPIECE Facing iii

PREFACE vii

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION ix

L APOSTOLIC BEGINNINGS 1

II. DAYS OF PERSECUTION 15

III. THE BROKEN EMPIRE 34

IV. THE PAPACY 55

V. THE DARK AGES 75

VI. THE EASTERN CHURCH 96

VII. THE CRUSADES 118

VIII. THE GREAT SCHISM^ 141

IX. THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION . . . .165

X. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 190

XL THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 211

XII. THE COLONIAL CHURCH 243

XIII. THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 262

BIBLIOGRAPHY 284

INDEX 289

PREFACE

EITHER Christ laid the corner-stone of a Church or He
didn't. If He did, then that Church is important
far more important than any voluntary associations of Chris-
tians built to the ideas of other people, however good such
ideas may be. This book hopes to relay to its readers some
of the relevant facts touching the adventurous experiences of
corporate Christianity.

The easiest solution to the question of Church polity
would be the ability to prove that Our Lord foresaw all
possible eventualities and provided for them by erecting an
organization complete in every detail. History, however,
withholds its approval from any such solution.

Scarcely less simple would be the ability to show that
Our Lord made no specific provisions of any kind, merely
bequeathing His teaching to future ages to be promulgated
by them in any way they might see fit. But here, also,
history declines to shed its benediction.

Easy solutions are always dubious. One is not surprised,
therefore, to discover that the facts in Church History call
for examination and discrimination. Jesus Christ did not
build an organization, but He did plant the seed of an
organism. He did not leave the future to the vagaries of
human judgment ; neither did He cripple its normal develop-
ment with an ecclesiastical strait- jacket. He did stamp a
certain character upon His Gospel; placed it in the hands
of a group of chosen men trained, authorized, and com-
missioned by Himself to administer its principles; and then
left it to grow to its natural fruitage.

To identify such a Church with its beginnings is to
restrict its progress ; to sever it from its origin is to disconnect
it from its source of spiritual power. Life means growth,
and the Church, being the Body of Christ, must have some-

[vii]

viii THE DIVINE COMMISSION

thing definite to grow from and yet must have freedom to
develop. The history of the Church seems to show just that.
Being planted among erring humans, its growth has not been
steady, direct, or irreproachable; being rooted in Christ, it
will not be denied its final destiny.

The following chapters spring from a series of six Lenten
lectures, delivered in Christ Church Parish, Eau Claire,
Wisconsin, in 1924. The following year they were ex-
panded into ten lectures for the Racine Summer Conference.
Dr. William C. Sturgis, then in charge of the educational
work of the Department of Missions of the National Council,
heard some of the lectures and asked me to write them up
for publication. It was not an easy thing to do. From
September to May a parish priest has rather more on his
hands in the average year than he can conveniently accom-
plish, without attempting to write books into the bargain.
Two summers were therefore dedicated to the work. My
secretary, Mrs. W. J. Lenfestey, contributed long hours of
invaluable assistance in preparing the manuscript. And
my long-suffering congregation patiently submitted while
their rector disappeared for long months into the shadows of
previous centuries.

I make no claims for myself as an expert in Church His-
tory. I am merely a busy parish priest who is interested in
the subject and who clings to a preference for teaching his
people rather than exhorting or scolding them. I have gone
into consultation with sound authorities, both living and
dead, and believe the facts collected in this volume to be
reliable. They are purposely presented in a style which may
be a bit distasteful to the scholar but which, I trust, may be
more palatable to the average reader. No doubt the point
of view will seem obviously Anglican, yet I have tried to be
fair and to write an honest story, rather than to produce
a polemic.

FRANK E. WILSON.

Eastertide, 1927.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

IT IS A satisfaction to know that this book now requires
a third edition, the second being completely exhausted
some months ago. At the request of the publisher, I have
gone over the pages and made a number of minor correc-
tions, also adding a little in the last chapter to bring the
story down to date.

Only two changes of any particular importance have been
made. In the chapter on the Eastern Church, I have added
a paragraph on the Uniats. This should have been in the
earlier editions for the sake of completeness but, in view of
recent developments in the United States, it seems really nec-
essary to insert at least a brief reference now. The second
change is in the treatment of the Ecumenical Councils, in
the third chapter. In the original writing I confined myself to
the first Six Councils in the list of those which are of undis-
puted ecumenical authority, leaving the Seventh as an open
question because of the limited representation of its per-
sonnel. Further study has led me to the conclusion that it
ought to be added to the list. For its decisions really did reflect
the mind of the undivided Church, though the representative
character of its membership is still a matter of debate among
historians.

I am very grateful for the friendly reception which has
been accorded to the Divine Commission. If it can help some
people to a better understanding of the Church and thereby
to a stronger loyalty to our Blessed Lord, it will have accom-
plished the purpose for which it was written.

St. James* Day, 1935. F. E. W.

C3

CHAPTER I
APOSTOLIC BEGINNINGS

AS BEGINNINGS GO, it was not a very imposing be-
ginning. It occurred in a house in Jerusalem (perhaps the
home of John Mark) , where the local band of Christians, only
one-hundred and twenty in number, were assembled for
prayer. The faithful women were there, and a mixed group
of disciples; but, even at that early stage, the unique posi-
tion of the Apostles was clearly recognized. They were not
only outstanding personages in the ranks of the disciples, but
they were the ones who were understood to know best the
mind of Christ. They had been His confidants and trusted
advance-agents rpupils in His private school of intensive
training. That their prominence was no mere coincidence,
is shown by an earlier meeting, held in the same place, where
the unanimous desire prevailed to fill the apostolic vacancy
caused by the defection and death of Judas Iscariot. It was
necessary that another should "be ordained to be a witness,"
with the Eleven, of Christ's resurrection. So Matthias was
chosen, and "he was numbered with the eleven apostles"
(Acts 1:26). If the apostolic office were not something
distinct from the common variety of discipleship, -why should
the Christian congregation have been so keen to choose a
successor to the disappointing Judas? Moreover, St* Luke
states the total number of those present at the time, but
specifies the Apostles separately and by name (Acts 1 : 13) .

With the apostolic complement thus filled, the same group
was now assembled on the Feast of Pentecost. In all likeli-
hood, they had been to the Temple for the customary cere-
monies earlier in the day, returning to their rendezvous for
additional Christian worship. Suddenly a noise ran through

[1]

2 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

the house like the sound of a violent wind, and something
like a tongue of fire touched the head of each one. Quick'
excitement prevailed. Something unusual had happened, and
they clamored at one another with strange expressions en-
deavoring to give vent to their tumultuous emotions. Natu-
rally, the excited shouting of a hundred and twenty persons
echoed out into the street, and a curious crowd collected.
The Apostles took the lead, with St. Peter as their spokesman.
He briefly stated the cause of the commotion. Deeply im-
pressed, his listeners asked what was to be done about it.
"Repent and be baptized," replied St. Peter and the first
converts were added to the Christian Church.

Because of this incident, Pentecost, or Whitsunday, is
commonly called the birthday of the Church. In a sense it
was. It was the day when the Church was launched upon
its active career. But, as Rackham points out, it might better
be called the day of the second birth or Baptism of the
Church. For the real beginning of the Christian Church
is 1 to be found in the setting apart of the Apostles by direct
choice of Our Lord. For some time, He had been gathering
disciples, scrutinizing them carefully for signs of the qualities
of leadership required in His work. Then one evening, after
having preached to a large gathering on the shore of Galilee,
He made His selection and "ordained twelve, that they should
be with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach"
(St. Mark 3: 14).

Sacred art has pictured the Apostles as venerable, bearded
patriarchs. But at the time they were set apart, there is
every reason to believe they were sturdy, vigorous, young
men. St. Peter, whose age was probably above the average
of the Twelve, lived for more than thirty years after that
eventful day and died still in the vigor of manhood. St.
James and St. John were bubbling over with the enthusiasm
of youth, and the latter pursued his ministry for some sixty
or seventy years after thatJiotable day of Pentecost* Our
Lord had to train these men, and He could not have done

APOSTOLIC BEGINNINGS 3

it to very good purpose if they had been a dozen elderly
gentlemen with fixed habits and settled convictions. They
went out on experimental preaching tours, reporting back
to their Leader. They made such blunders as might have
been expected from youthful neophytes, and were gently but
firmly corrected. Out of the twelve, eleven of them made
good a very respectable proportion as Christian leaders go.
Having proved their worth, they were finally honored with
a direct commission "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you
alway, even unto the end of the world" (St. Matthew
28:20).

Our Lord did not write a Book; neither did He erect
an organization. The one thing He did was to issue a Divine
Commission to certain selected -persons which Commission
they were to perpetuate. Apostolic Succession, therefore, is
not a mere convenient policy; it is the express gift of Christ,
placed in trust with His immediate followers.

Four characteristic marks of the primitive Christian com-
munity are set down by the apostolic historian (Acts 2: 42),
namely :

1. The Apostles' doctrine.

2. The Apostles' fellowship.

3. The Breaking of Bread.

4. The Prayers.

These may be said to represent the four-fold standard of
Christian life in the Pentecostal Church. And there is nothing
in the subsequent New Testament record to indicate that
they were ever revised.

1. The Apostles' Doctrine embodies the teaching of the
Church. It was not a set of instructions born of the apostolic
mind, but a simple recital of the facts in the life and ministry
of Our Lord. Always, Je$us Christ was the source and
centre of the Christian religion. It was not a religion of a

4 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Book or of a Dogma, but of a Person. The Apostles
had no mission to promulgate their own ideas, but only to
bear witness to Christ. They, of course, were the ones
best qualified to do this for they had been with Him as His
chosen companions, viewing His life at close range, and
receiving His personal instructions. They might not be able
to reason it out for the new disciples, but they could tell
what they had "seen and heard." Later theology was to
undertake the difficult task of fitting the facts together in
logical sequence. Theology, therefore, was destined to be
a growing science of the knowledge of God, never presuming
to be exhaustive in view of the limitations of the human
intellect. But the facts were the sum-total of the Christian
inheritance, and when the Church came to formulate its
"Apostles* Creed," it simply grouped the facts to which the
Apostles had borne witness. If Christianity were to retain its
distinctive character, it was plainly necessary that this creed
should remain constant, while theology revolved around it
expanding or contracting according to the power of insight
generated in the human mind. Much of modern intellectual
distress over the horrid thing called "dogma" would be
enormously relieved, if that one point of distinction could be
kept clear.

During the first few years of Christian activity, this was
all that was necessary. When questions arose (and they did
arise) the Apostles were there to bear their witness and so
settle disputed matters. But as time went on, the number
of the Twelve was reduced by death and persecution. Also,
the spread of the Christian community became so extensive
that it was humanly impossible for the Apostles to cover the
ground. Circumstances demanded a permanent record, and
so the New Testament began to be written. But it should
never be forgotten that the Church was at work and that
converts were being made and baptized for nearly twenty
years before the first book of the New Testament was put
into writing in about the year 50. That first book (probably

APOSTOLIC BEGINNINGS 5

St. Paul's First Epistle to the Thessalonians) was written
to reenforce the apostolic teaching in the absence of the
teachers. More writings followed and were passed from one
Christian group to another. There were many others besides
those which we now have in the New Testament. No one ever
sat down to write a Christian Bible. It grew by a selective
process out of Christian experience. Those writings which bore
the imprint of apostolic authority received Christian recogni-
tion. For instance, the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John
spoke for those two Apostles ; those of St. Mark and St. Luke
were accepted because the former was understood to have
been derived from St. Peter and the latter from St. Paul.
The authors never had any idea that they were writing a
Christian Bible. The needs of the Church called for it, and
the canon of Holy Scripture (that is, an authoritative selec-
tion of such writings) was gradually assembled by common
consent. It was not until the Third Council of Carthage,
in 397 A. D., that the canon was fixed. For nearly four-
hundred years, the Church had its sacred writings; but no
fixed Bible as we know it today.

Meantime, the Old Testament scriptures were in uni-
versal use as the record of events leading up to the Christian
dispensation. In the time of Our Lord, there was still much
difference of opinion among the rabbinical schools as to which
books should be included in the Hebrew Bible. They were
agreed as to the first five books of the Law of Moses, but
they were far from agreement on such books as Esther, and
the Song of Songs. It was not until sixty years after the
Resurrection in 90 A. D. that the Jewish Council of
Jamnia determined the canon of the Old Testament. The
whole question was much complicated by a Greek translation
of the Hebrew writings which was known as the Septuagint.
An old story says that Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt
in the third century before Christ, sent to the High Priest
Eleazar, in Jerusalem, for Hebrew scholars to translate the
Hebrew Law into Greek. Seventy-two elders were sent

6 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

who made the translation in seventy-two days. The name
"Septuagint" was given to the book from the Greek word
for seventy. As a legend, it is interesting; but, in all prob-
ability, the translation was really made for the religious
benefit of the numerous colony of Jews living in Alexandria
whose common language was Greek. At any rate, the
Septuagint played a very important part in the religious life
of the Mediterranean world for hundreds of years, and was
the Bible most commonly in use during the ministry of Our
Lord.

Special interest attaches to the Septuagint because it con-
tained, not only the thirty-nine books found in the modern
English Old Testament, but fourteen additional books not
found in the Hebrew canon and frequently referred to as
The Apocrypha. During the first three centuries of Chris-
tian history, the Church Fathers almost invariably used the
Septuagint, and quoted from all fifty-three books indiscrim-
inately. The question of the authority of the apocryphal
books was not seriously raised until about the year 400,
when St. Jerome made his Latin translation of both Testa-
ments. He proposed that the Apocrypha should be included
in the Christian Bible, but not on the same footing as the
books of the Hebrew canon. His advice, however, was not
followed. Because his translation was in the common or
vulgar tongue of the Roman world it became known as the
"Vulgate," and in it there was no distinction made between
the apocryphal books and the others. For more than a
thousand years, the Vulgate was the Bible of western
Christendom.

When, at the time of the Reformation, every country
was preparing translations in its own language, the old ques-
tion was revived about the fourteen books of the Apocrypha.
In Germany and in England, the same policy was followed.
It seemed like taking unwarranted liberties with the Scrip-
tures to throw out books which had been in general Christian
use for hundreds of years. They were, therefore, included

APOSTOLIC BEGINNINGS 7

in both German and English Bibles in the form of an
appendix to the Old Testament, which the Church was to
read "for example of life and instruction of manners; but
yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine." About
a century ago, modern Protestantism calmly cut them out of
its Bible. It seems strange, to say the least, that that branch
of Christianity which depends most upon Scriptural authority
should deal with its Bible in such cavalier fashion. And to
make this reduced Bible the touchstone of Christian ortho-
doxy, is to excommunicate all the Christians of the -first half
of the first century when the New Testament was not in
existence, as well as to cast doubtful imputations against all
Christians for fifteen-hundred years when the Bible stood
in a form materially different from that of the modern
Protestant version.

Christ is not important because the Bible says so. It is
quite the other way around. The Bible is important because
it tells of Christ. And Christ is known to us today because
of the apostolic witness, which would have been just as true
if it had never gone into print. The life of the Church and
the Scriptural record bear parallel testimony to the Christian
revelation. The only reasonable way to interpret the Bible
is in the light of Christian practice as expressed in the habits
of the Church. To "search the Scriptures" independently,
as a cold record of divine instruction, is like analyzing the
Constitution of the United States without any regard to
American history. It was the Church that made the Bible
and the Church was there first.

2. The Apostles' Fellowship. As indicated above, the
unique position of the Apostles was not a matter of debate
among the first Christians. Not only were they honored
because of their friendship with our Saviour, but they were
looked to for guidance as the accredited directors of Chris-
tian policy. When Saul of Tarsus came to Jerusalem as a
convert, he naturally reported to them. In his character of
an Apostle, St. Paul exercised real authority over all the

8 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

congregations which he had brought into the fold. The fac-
tious Corinthians brought their troubles to him for adjudica-
tion. It was as no mere counsellor that he wrote to them "If
I come again, I will not spare." When St. Philip had bap-
tized certain Samaritans, he waited for the Apostles to come
down and finish his work by the laying on of hands. "When
Barnabas consecrated his possessions to Christ, he did so by
laying them at the feet of the Apostles.

So the Apostles were general overseers of all Christian
work. For the guidance of local congregations they ordained
elders (Acts 14:23) or, according to the Greek form, pres-
byters, a term which was later contracted into "priests/ '
When the demands were too heavy for the Apostles to dis-
charge, they chose assistants who were known as "deacons"
(Acts 6: 1-6), and who were ordained to the particular func-
tion of ministering to the poor. So a three-fold ministry
appears in the apostolic Church itself. There were, to be
sure, other officers performing their several duties, such as
evangelists, teachers, prophets, etc., but they do not appear
to have been specifically set apart for their offices, and their
distinctive functions lapsed as the Church gradually settled
into its stride.

In the course of time, by reason of the thinning of the
apostolic ranks, it was necessary that some provision should
be made for the administration of the Church, since the dimin-
ishing number of the Apostles could not properly attend to it.
So it came about that certain elders were selected to act as
supervisors after the manner of Apostles. They came to be
known as bishops, the significant title of "Apostle" being
reserved as a mark of peculiar honor for the original Twelve.
Thus St. Paul appointed Timothy to act in this capacity in
Ephesus, and Titus in Crete. They were to set the Church
afrairs in order, and ordain elders (I Timothy 5:22 and
Titus 1:5). When a question of larger moment arose, one
of principle rather than of administration, it was settled by

APOSTOLIC BEGINNINGS 9

the joint action of the Apostles and elders sitting together
in council (Acts 15).

To put it in modern terminology, we would say that the
deacons assisted the bishops and the parish clergy, while the
priests ministered to local congregations under the direction
of their bishops. And when a question of general policy was
to be considered, it was brought before a Church Council in
which bishops and priests acted as representatives of the
Church.

It is true that terms and titles in the New Testament are
not always as definite as they are in the Church today. This
would be expected at a time when the whole Church organiza-
tion was still in a formative state. But it is also true that
the letters of St. Ignatius, written within ten or fifteen years
after the death of the last of the Apostles, leaves no uncer-
tainty that this was the recognized form of Church polity
in his day. St. Ignatius grew up under apostolic guidance.
Tradition designated him as the child whom Our Lord took
in His arms. And there is no suggestion from any other
source that such conditions as he describes were an innova-
tion, or were in any way unacceptable to the whole body of
Christians.

Sometimes it has been contended that the plan of episcopal
administration was only an after-thought, entirely lacking the
sanction of Our Lord. Certainly Christ did not lay down
a rigid scheme of organization for His Church to follow.
But just as certainly, He could not be expected to have left
it all to chance. The record shows that He issued a Divine
Commission to the Apostles who were unanimous in perpetu-
ating it through the apostolic ministry. As to whether their
action was consonant with the mind of Christ, this is well
answered by Dr. Little: "If, at the battle of Waterloo,
Wellington had been known to summon twelve generals to
headquarters to receive instructions from him ; and forthwith
the twelve generals, in all parts of the battlefield, had begun
and carried out a definite plan of concerted action, who would

10 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

doubt that that was what the great leader had commanded ?"*

To preserve the "fellowship of the Apostles" was to
follow the Christian way, under the apostolic leadership of
those who were commissioned by Our Lord for that particular
purpose.

3. Breaking of Bread. Taken by itself, this phrase
might mean any one of a score of things. Taken in con-
nection with the known habits of the primitive Church, it
can mean nothing other than the Sacrament of the Holy
Communion. St. Paul magnified its Christian importance
in his severe arraignment of the Corinthians for treating it
sacrilegiously (I Corinthians 11). It was the principal act
of Christian worship from the very earliest times.

The sacramental idea is inherent in the very structure of
the Christian religion. Jesus Christ Himself is the supreme
Sacrament, being the life of God expressed in human terms.
There can be nothing incongruous, therefore, in His selec-
tion of Baptism (spiritual birth expressed through an out-
ward rite) as the normal mode of entrance into His Kingdom,
or of Holy Communion (spiritual food under the forms of
bread and wine) as a special means of soul-nourishment.
Both of these were accepted without question in the practice
of the apostolic Church. It was not enough to profess con-
version ; one must also be baptized. It was not enough to
adopt the precepts of Christ; one must also partake of His
vitalizing presence. Neither was it merely a matter of
spiritual acquiescence. These were definite things to be done,
commanded by Our Lord and defined by apostolic injunction.

Another rite of sacramental character was also admin-
istered by the Apostles, though without any recorded mandate
from Christ that it was a part of their duties. Three times
in the New Testament, reference is made to Confirmation
or the "laying on of hands," and the implication is that it
was a normal element in the life of the Christian community.

* A. W. Little, Reasons for "Being a Churchman, p. 25. Morehouse
Publishing Co., New York.

APOSTOLIC BEGINNINGS 11

The purpose for which the Apostles came to Philip from
Jerusalem was the laying on of hands. He had converted
and baptized the Samaritans, but Confirmation was next in
order, and he, as a deacon, does not seem to have been com-
petent to administer it (Acts 8). Again, when St. Paul first
visited Ephesus, he found some people partially instructed
in the Christian faith. He taught them further, baptized
them, and then, in his capacity as an Apostle, laid his hands
on them (Acts 19). That this was more than a casual cere-
mony, is shown in the Epistle to the Hebrews where the
writer proposes to pass over the generally recognized prin-
ciples of Christian procedure, and pass on to other matters.
Among these six accepted principles are "the doctrine of
baptisms, and the laying on of hands" (Hebrews 6:2). Con-
firmation was, therefore, an apostolic ordinance administered
by the Apostles and standing second only to the two great
Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Communion which were
given with the clear order of Christ for their use.

4. The Prayers. In line with the prevailing order of
the day, this would naturally refer to some formal kind of
worship, similar in character to that to which the Jewish
Christians had been accustomed in their synagogues.

At first, practically all of the Christians were of Jewish
extraction, accustomed to observe the seventh day of the week
as the Sabbath. For an unknown length of time, this custom
was continued. But the great day above all others, for
Christian people, was the Resurrection Day which was the
first day of the week. On the Sabbath, they worshipped in
the synagogues ; and on the first day, they met for the express
purpose of Christian worship (St. John 20: 19, 26; Acts
20:7).

Two factors ultimately contributed to the gradual
amalgamation of the double observance. In the first place,
the growing antagonism of the Jews made it increasingly
uncomfortable for the Christians to share in the services
of the synagogue. In the second place, the question arose

12 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

very early as to whether Gentile converts who came into the
Church for the sake of Christ, should be obliged to assume
the obligations of the Jewish Law also. This was the question
which necessitated the calling of the first Apostolic Coun-
cil. At that Council, it was decreed that the detailed regu-
lations of the Jewish Law were not binding on the Christian
community, inasmuch as Christ was greater than the Law.
Four things only were enjoined upon Christian people, and
Sabbath observance was not in the number (Acts 15:29).
Christian sentiment was satisfied that it was preserving the
spirit of the Mosaic ordinance when it set apart one day
in seven as the Lord's Day. But, for them, the Resurrec-
tion Day was vastly more significant than any other day
could ever be. So the first day of the week became the
Christian's Lord's Day. When Constantine, nearly three
centuries later, gave official recognition to Sunday as the
Christian day of rest and worship, he was only putting the
power of his Christian Empire back of an apostolic Christian
custom which had already commended itself to eight or nine
successive generations of Christian people.

Classical paganism in the apostolic age had degenerated
to a weird fiction. Primitive Roman religion was a phase
of animism, a rather vague recognition of sundry spirits back
of certain activities. Roman gods were functional deities
there was a god of infancy, a god of childhood, a god of
youth, a god of manhood. For any given enterprise, a specific
deity had to be addressed. If one made a mistake by appealing
to the wrong one, the whole force of the supplication was
nullified. Special forms were provided for approach to the
several gods who, it was thought, were obliged to grant the
petitions of the suppliants if the thing demanded were within
their proper sphere and if the ritual were correctly performed.
In case of doubt, several gods were called upon, each accord-
ing to the form prescribed for him. If the most trifling mis-
take were made by the worshipper, he must begin all over
again and get it right. "There is no great religion in which

APOSTOLIC BEGINNINGS 13

>ritual is so much, doctrine and enthusiasm so little." This
might eventually have developed into a consciousness of one
great spiritual reality back of all things, if it had not been
corrupted by the introduction of Greek mythology. The
result was, that Rome preserved its traditional rites, but
directed them to imported gods to whom they did not really
apply. Unreality became the outstanding characteristic of
1 paganism. Popular confidence in the system was quite dissi-
, pated. Intelligent people practiced the rites and despised
what they did. It is easy to see why Christianity, packed
'with its spiritual assurance, was able to scuttle Roman
^paganism in a few short generations. Augustus Caesar antici-
pated the peril and attempted to forestall it by a resort to
^so-called "Emperor worship." The Emperor was the apo-
theosis ef the State. He tried to transfer imperial authority
to the gods by becoming a god himself. Instead of the
divine right of kings, it was the imperial right of the gods.
^But the personal character of the emperors was scarcely con-
ducive to public reverence, especially when they were thrown
into contrast with the crystal purity of Jesus Christ. Never-
theless, it put the Christians in a difficult position. Emperor
^worship was as much an abomination to them as the worship
of the pagan deities, and their refusal to have any part in it
>-was easily construed by their enemies as an evidence o
unpatriotic conduct. To a people who shrugged a flippant
shoulder at any religion, their constancy seemed nothing more
than sheer obstinacy. The average Roman was ready to
'worship any god, at any time, with an equal absence of
^intention. But the Christians were adamant. They flatly
(declined to worship any but the "one true God, and Jesus
Christ whom thou hast sent."

To sum it all up the apostolic Church was constructed
around the Divine Commission given by Our Lord to the
Apostles. Acting under the instructions of their Master, the
Apostles spread the Gospel and planted the Church tnrough

14 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

the agency of a three-fold ministry, the outlines of which
were not rigidly cast but, nevertheless, clearly indicated. In its
original simple structure, the Church was always conscious
of its dependence upon apostolic guidance; and, in the
course of time, this guidance was taken over by the bishops
as recipients of apostolic authority. The record of it all was
written down for the preservation of apostolic teaching, which
record was finally concentrated in the Christian Bible. The
particular function of the Church was to bear witness to the
Risen Christ. Those who received their witness were first
baptized, then confirmed, and so were admitted into the com-
munion of Christ's sacramental life. The complicated re-
quirements of the Jewish Law were abrogated in favor of
the spiritual freedom of the Christian faith. By force of
circumstances, the Christians were compelled to flock by
themselves in order to escape the contaminating atmosphere
of prevalent polytheism. For this they suffered. In private
homes, they met on the first day of each week for Christian
worship; while, at other times, they pursued their ordinary
vocations. Though but a small band at the beginning, they
steadily increased both in numbers and influence. Through
them and their successors, a world groping in the gloom of
spiritual twilight was about to be suffused with the glory
of God as revealed in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ
Our Lord.

CHAPTER II
DAYS OF PERSECUTION

IN THE YEAR 107 A. D. a venerable bishop was on his
way from Antioch to Rome. It was not a pleasure trip ; he
was under guard, and death awaited him at the end of his
journey. He had been found guilty of being a Christian.
On the way, he wrote letters to his Christian friends and
blessed God that he was privileged to bear a lasting witness
to his faith. Before they cast him to the wild beasts to
provide a new thrill for the jaded Roman public, he re-
marked: "I am the corn of God, and am ground by the
teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread." So
the name Ignatius, saint and martyr, was added to the list
of those who feared nothing in this world but the loss of
Christ.

The catalogue of these early Christian saints is mostly
written in lines of indelible red. It was neither safe nor
comfortable to be a Christian in those days. They had no
sympathetic atmosphere to surround them, no traditions to
support them, no precedents to guide them. All they had
was a personal loyalty to their Master, and upon that, as a
foundation, the great Church was reared. They did not
know what a mighty thing they were doing, but we know
today that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the
Church."

For nearly three centuries, Christianity was in a state of
suppression. It was not one persistent nightmare of persecu-
tion ; but it was a case of fluctuating unpopularity, often
boiling over into physical violence. The persecutions them-
selves were, for the most part, local and spasmodic like that
which brought St. Ignatius to his death. In between these

16 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

outbursts there were periods of quiet, sometimes running as
long as half a century, when the Christians were left to
pursue the even tenor of their religious way. At such times
they spread their Gospel with little interference, made large
numbers of converts, wrote a copious literature, established
local congregations, and organized dioceses. In some places
in the Empire, whole generations of Christians were per-
mitted to live and die without once arousing the enmity of
the Roman authorities. In other places, like Rome and
Carthage, short and sharp attacks were much more frequent.
Trajan and Valerian hurled their bolts against the Chris-
tians, but they were effective only in isolated spots, most of
the Empire being unaffected. Under Valerian's orders, St.
Lawrence was roasted to death on a gridiron in Rome, while
he calmly directed his executioners, saying, "Turn me, I am
done on this side." All told, there were only three general
persecutions in the first three centuries of the Christian era
those of Marcus Aurelius, Decius, and Diocletian,

Christians were persecuted because they were Christians
but not because of their religion. As a matter of fact, the
Romans were exceedingly tolerant of religious peculiarities.
As long as people did not disturb the social and political life
of the Empire, they were permitted to exercise their religious
proclivities in any way they might choose. There were no
convictions in paganism. Whatever vitality it may previously
have possessed had sunk to such a low ebb that it was in-
capable of facing a religious issue. The Romans erected a
fine building in their capital as a symbol of their earnest
belief that one religion was just as good as another. This
building was called the Pantheon a temple for "all the
gods." Rome went on the theory that, as mistress of the
world, she must play the hostess to all the world's religions,
For polytheism set no limit to the number of the gods or to
their kind. The thing about the Christians which the
Romans could not understand was their idea of exclusive
devotion to the One Christ. They were willing to worship

DAYS OF PERSECUTION 17

any Christ or a dozen of him. It was religious toleration,
reduced to the point of religious extinction; and, upon occa-
sion, it could become the most wickedly intolerant thing the
mind of man could devise.

The Christians were under suspicion for two main rea-
sons one political and the other social. Politically speaking,
the Church was regarded as an imperium in imperio, a sepa-
rate group within the body politic. Christians refrained from
participating in public affairs because tHese affairs always
involved the performance of various pagan rites. Therefore,
they were looked upon as peculiar and suspicious characters.
The Emperors were always in fear of revolutionary move-
ments, and kept a watchful eye on possible disturbers of the
peace. From their own religious point of view, they could
not comprehend people whose religious scruples forbade them
to share in the public spectacles and patriotic demonstrations.
So it came about that all kinds of sinister motives were easily
ascribed to the Christians. They were suspected of sedition,
and found it hard to defend themselves. When someone
had to be blamed for anything, they were naturally the scape-
goats. Innocence always has a difficult time of it in the face
of circumstantial evidence.

Socially, the Christians were necessarily exclusive. They
shunned society in order to avoid giving countenance to
pagan customs. Matters which might seem trivial to the
twentieth century were positively vital in those days when
one struggled daily to keep one's faith .pure and uncon-
taminated. Today one may sit down to a meal with modern
pagans and leave the table with a clear conscience. But
it was quite otherwise when the food which was served
had been formally offered in sacrifice to sundry gods and
dedicated on the altars of polytheism. For example, it was
a common occurrence in Egypt for dinner parties to be given
in a pagan temple with religious honors paid to the god
Serapis. Dr. Flinders Petrie has unearthed a large bundle
of papyri at Oxyrhyncus containing samples of various

18 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

communications sent by social secretaries of the first century.
A typical invitation to a banquet would read somewhat as
follows : "Apollonius requests you to dine at the table of the
Lord Serapis on the occasion of the approaching coming of age
of his brother at the temple of Theoris."

No wonder St. Paul felt impelled to warn the Corinthian
Christians against partaking of meats "offered in sacrifice
unto idols" (I Cor. 8). And it was no greater wonder that
their pagan neighbors should have considered the Christians
queer and unsociable. Gossip played freely with their eccen-
tricities. Highly exaggerated tales found a ready hearing,
were elaborately embroidered in circulation, and cast no
small discredit upon the followers of Christ. How could
society successfully maintain itself when it was infested with
a growing number of religious fanatics who steadfastly re-
fused even the common hospitality of their friends? If
disasters befell a community, who could be responsible but
these Christians who deliberately violated all the safety
regulations of pagan reverence? Someone must be held
accountable if a river flooded the countryside, or if a terrible
conflagration laid a village in ruins, or if the invincible
Roman legions met unexpected defeat at the hands of frontier
barbarians. And the Christians were handy objects of sus-
picion. It was whispered that they were guilty of grossly
immoral practices ; they were charged with cannibalism ; they
were even denounced as atheists because they had no visible
idols to worship. Fortuitous circumstances found public sen-
timent already inflamed against them, and unsympathetic
rulers were only too glad to seize upon an easy outlet for
public indignation.

Doubtless this was the unscrupulous alibi back of the
cruel persecution under Nero in 65 A. D. the first trial of
affliction which the Christian community was obliged to
undergo. Nero was the last of the family of Caesars who
had ruled the Roman empire for nearly a hundred years.
He was dissolute, crafty, totally devoid of conscience, and

DAYS OF PERSECUTION 19

obsessed with an inordinate conceit. In his crazy egotism he
had caused a large section of Rome to be burned in order to
provide a theatrical setting for his musical efforts. But the
people -were not properly appreciative. They preferred their
homes to the royal fiddle, and Nero had a resentful populace
on his hands loudly demanding retribution. Obviously, to
his way of thinking, it would be more comfortable to kill
Christians than to lose his own crown. Their only defense
was their integrity, but that was a useless commodity in the
reign of Nero. So he added to his crime of burning the city
the further crime of burning the Christians. They were
smeared with pitch and used as torches to light the imperial
gardens, while Nero paraded as a charioteer; others were
crucified; still others were sewn up in the skins of wild
animals and worried to death by savage dogs. Tradition says
that St. Paul was beheaded on the outskirts of the city where
the magnificent Church of St. Paul Without the Walls
now stands. Another tradition says that St. Peter fled for
his life and met the Saviour Himself on the Appian Way
coming into the city. Peter asked Him, "Lord, whither
goest Thou?" (Quo vadis?) And the Lord sadly replied,
"I go to Rome to be crucified again." Whereupon, Peter,
overcome with remorse, hurried back to the persecutors and
was crucified head downward as a sign of his extreme peni-
tence. They will still show you the marks, in the pavement,
of the feet of Christ as He gently rebuked the frightened
Apostle. But Nero's persecution was chiefly local to Rome.
The rest of the Christian world was only indirectly disturbed
by his guilty ferocity.

Nero died with no regrets on the part of his subjects.
Three emperors of the Flavian line succeeded him, one of
whom was Titus, who, in the year 70, laid a terrible sie.ge
against Jerusalem, spoiled the city, crucified the inhabitants
until there was no more wood for crosses and no more room
to plant them, and erected his triumphal arch in Rome
through which no Jew down to the present day would

20 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

condescend to pass. Then followed the four Antonines, all
strong men and able administrators. Hadrian, second of
the Antonines, did a great kindness to the Christians by
issuing the rescript which bears his name. Up to his time,
it had been customary to arrest them on vague and anonymous
accusations, subjecting them to punishment by virtue of
popular disfavor. The rescript changed all that. It directed
that charges must be properly made before an accredited
tribunal, and be reasonably substantiated before penalties
could be inflicted.

One of the strange anomalies of history comes with
Marcus Aurelius. He was the fourth of the Antonines and
died in 180 A. D. He is justly admired for the fine phil-
osophic spirit of his writings; indeed, there has grown up
something of a modern Aurelian cult designed to popularize
the high principles of his Stoic teaching. Yet it was he who
ordered the first general persecution of the Christians. There
is an unaccountable incongruity between his lofty ideals and
the relentless vindictiveness with which he attacked the
Church. "While thou livest, while it is in thy power,'* he
wrote, "be good." Then he repealed the edicts which had
somewhat protected the Christians, offered rewards for in-
formation against them and, for the first time, authorized
the use of torture. St. Justin Martyr, after writing a price-
less defense of his faith, was one of those sacrified to the
imperial piety. So also was St. Polycarp. When Polycarp
was called upon to blaspheme Christ, he replied: "Eighty
and six years have I served Christ, and He has never done
me wrong; how can I now blaspheme my King and my
Saviour?" All over the Empire the Aurelian persecution
raged, making many martyrs and burning their convictions
all the more deeply into the hearts of those who survived.

The next century must be scanned hurriedly, for it is
necessary to catch a bird's-eye view of the course of events
if one is to understand the more important developments
which followed. It was a period of quick change and wide-

DAYS OF PERSECUTION 21

spread confusion. From day to day, no one could tell whether
yesterday's emperor might be alive and in power, or mur-
dered and reviled. It became unsafe to be loyal to anyone.
Political side-stepping grew into an art, and governmental
policies assumed the character of a rubber band. The times
were not stormy they were gusty. The winds of change
blew from every direction.

Commodus marks the beginning of it. He was some-
thing of a clown, in a tragic way, and was totally incom-
petent as an emperor. He planned to assassinate his wife,
but she did it to him first through the officers of his own
household. Thereafter the imperial throne was tossed about
as a plaything in the hands of military adventurers. For
more than a century, most of the emperors were murdered
and replaced by ambitious soldiers or their creatures. The
Senate elected, but the military selected. When word reached
the armies on the frontier that the latest emperor had been
butchered, they would choose one of their leaders and send
him to Rome to be seated by the Senate upon the empty
throne. It would have been very unhealthy for the senators
to refuse. Some of these military leaders were good soldiers
but hopeless executives ; some might have been good emperors
under more favorable conditions ; some had nothing whatever
to commend them except a brutal popularity. Septimius
Severus reigned for eighteen years, while others were mur-
dered within a few months. Maximin never even set foot
in Italy during his reign, but played at being emperor from
his army camp. In the eight years of Gallienus, no less than
nineteen aspirants for the throne appeared in the field, who
had to be disposed of by the reigning emperor. The stability
of the Empire was shattered. Fidelity to its institutions
and allegiance to its rulers were dissipated by the succession
of revolutionary uncertainties. Subject peoples grew restless,
and there was no dependable authority to cope with them.
In the midst of the confusion, Decius (249 A. D.) ordered
the second general persecution of the Christians, belching

22 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

with particular fury against the Church in North Africa.
Fortunately Decius was killed in battle after two years on
the throne; and, for nearly half a century, the Christians
were, generally speaking, unmolested. Public attention was
chiefly occupied in watching the political kaleidoscope.

Such was the state of affairs when, in 284 A. D., Dio-
cletian took hold. For twenty-one years he guided the des-
tinies of the world on lines of his own creation. Diocletian
was a genius. Few men could have inaugurated the govern-
mental system which he devised, or could have kept it in hand
over a period of many years as he did. He divided his
Empire into two portions, removed his own capital to Nico-
media in the East, and appointed another "Augustus" to the
jurisdiction of the West. When this worked out to his
satisfaction, he subdivided the two halves of the Empire into
quarters, appointing two subordinate emperors with the title
of "Caesar." So there were two Augusti and two Caesars,
each with his own sphere of administration, but the last three
being responsible to Diocletian himself as Augustus-in-chief.
All this was quite foreign, of course, to the republican tradi-
tions which were supposed to prevail. But Diocletian was
untroubled by any qualms of conscience on the question of
constitutional government. He ruled as an oriental despot,
adorning his court with all the luxurious appurtenances of
the East, and exacting submission to his will as a thoroughly
absolute monarch would do.

During most of Diocletian's reign, he paid little atten-
tion to the Church, one way or the other. His energies were
chiefly directed toward readjusting the disjointed condition
of his Empire. Consequently, the Christians had ample
opportunity to extend their work unhampered by official
hostility, and they did it zealously and ceaselessly. The
number of converts increased daily. Many fine church build-
ings were erected, and Christian influence was fast becoming
a factor to be reckoned with. The Roman army proved to
be a fertile field for their evangelizing efforts. Garrison life

DAYS OF PERSECUTION 23

brought the soldiers in close contact with one another, and
military channels offered an excellent means for the dissemina-
tion of Christian ideas. St. Sebastian was a soldier of this
period; so was also St. George. Indeed the Gospel had
made considerable headway in the army at a much earlier
date than this. St. Paul had not failed to preach Christ
consistently during the years of his Roman captivity while
he was chained to shifting details of Roman guards. Ter-
tullian, the son of a centurion, toward the end of the second
century, bears witness to the presence of Christians in the
military forces of his day. "Marcus Aurelius also," writes
Tertullian, "in his expedition to Germany, by the prayers
his Christian soldiers offered to God, got rain in that well-
known thirst. 5 '

The pagan priests began to be alarmed at the growing
strength of the new religion. When their divinations through
the pagan oracles brought unsatisfactory answers from the
gods, they appealed to the emperor's superstitions by blam-
ing the Christians for the failure. Galerius, Diocletian's
assistant Emperor in the East, already had strong prejudices
against them, for unknown reasons ; and the priests, through
him, were able effectually to poison the emperor's mind also.
The first pressure was brought to bear upon the army. In
all probability there is some historical background for the
famous story of the Theban Legion which had been called
from the East for service in Gaul. The Legion is said to
have been entirely composed of Christians, including their
commander, St. Maurice. Near Agaunum, in the Alps, they
were all ordered to make sacrifice to the pagan gods, and
they all refused. Every tenth man was executed for dis-
obedience, and the order renewed. Again they refused, and
' again the Legion was decimated. Maurice explained that his
men would obey any order consistent with their duty to
God, but that this one thing they could not do. Other
troops were sent for to enforce the order, and the whole

24 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Legion laid down their arms, cheerfully suffering martyrdom
for the Christ whom they refused to desert.

Several local attacks on the Church followed, and then
came the imperial edict proscribing Christianity throughout
the Empire. The first copy of the edict to be displayed was
torn down by a Christian, sometimes identified as St. George.
He was seized and roasted to death in a slow fire. So the
gruesome carnival was on the third and the last general
persecution, aimed not only to kill Christians but to smother
the Divine Commission. The Emperor went about it sys-
tematically, as he did everything else. Churches all over the
Empire were reduced to ruins ; property was confiscated ; new
methods of torture were specially invented to drive people
to recantation. St. Vincent, in Spain, was subjected to furious
torments which, however, drew from him only the smiling
comment: "You see, the tortured is stronger than the tor-
turer/' The list of martyrs is long, including such notable
names as St. Agnes, St. Faith, St. Lucy, besides those already
mentioned. As a new feature in persecutions, the copies of
Christian writings were ordered to be confiscated and
burned a sweeping effort to exterminate the Church and
obliterate all traces of Christianity. But Diocletian failed
as all his predecessors had failed. In the year 305, he abdi-
cated his throne in disgust, and from that time he goes finally
out of the picture. The persecution lasted on for several
years, but gradually waned as the public became sickened
with the hideous cruelty and slaughter. Only in Britain
was the policy of terrorism mitigated, where Constantius
was the "Caesar" and openly favorable to the Christian reli-
gion. It is true that the British St. Alban was done to his
death at that time, but Constantius frankly gave to the
Christians the benefit of a doubt whenever it was possible.

Under the hand of Diocletian, the way seemed to be
opening for the redemption of the Empire from the disrupting
effects of recurring civil war; but as soon as his master-
hand was withdrawn, the complicated system of government

DAYS OF PERSECUTION 25

quickly broke down and the war clouds again descended.
Constantius died, and his soldiers thrust his son, Constantine,
into his office. Sundry other gentlemen claiming imperial
honors turned up in various quarters, and presently there were
six full-fledged contestants in the field. It was the open
season for political aspirants. Each leader collected his own
army, and prepared to advance his own interests by force of
arms. The Empire was once more distracted, leaving the
situation almost worse than it had been in the days before
Diocletian. Battles followed, with wavering success. Con-
stantine proved to be the most powerful of the rival claim-
ants, winning his warlike way until only one adversary, the
dissolute Maxentius, stood between himself and complete
mastery of the West. It was a crucial moment when he
moved his army down into Italy against the army of Max-
entius ; in fact, the whole future of Christendom hung on the
outcome of that struggle.

Constantine was not unmindful of the critical nature of
his position, and felt deeply the need of some aid other than
human. He had no confidence in the gods of paganism; and,
as he turned the matter over in his mind, his thoughts went
back to his father's interest in the Christians. Thereupon
he determined to address his devotions to the Christian God.
So the old story tells how he encountered, in broad daylight,
his famous vision of a luminous cross in the sky accompanied
by the motto "In this, conquer." He immediately had new
standards made for his soldiers, consisting of the cross sur-
mounted by the first two letters of the Saviour's name in
Greek characters (XP) ; and, under the cross, he won the
Important battle of the Milvian Bridge, near Rome (312 '
A. D.).

The following year, Constantine issued the Edict of
Milan, providing for complete religious toleration for the
Christians. The edict ordered their property to be restored
to them, and granted to the Church the right to hold and
receive more property by bequest. This appears to be the

26 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

slim historical basis for the spurious "Donation of Constan-
tine" which played such an important part in the strengthen-
ing of the medieval papacy four or five hundred years after.

Meanwhile, Licinius had the better of it with his
opponents in the East, and entered into an engagement with
Constantine, dividing the Empire between them. The engage-
ment was mutually respected for the next ten years, during
which time Constantine placed himself definitely on the side
of the Christians, making large gifts to the Church and build-
ing many noble Christian edifices. He suppressed the prac-
tice of pagan rites, revoked legislation which discriminated
against the Christians, and issued an order for the general
observance of Sunday. He did not, however, have every-
thing his own way. His patronage of the Christians did
not sit well with Licinius ; and this, coupled with other points
of rivalry, led Licinius to revive the persecuting policy of
Diocletian. At length Constantine resorted to arms, and vic-
tory again crowned his standards, making him sole ruler of
the Empire until his death in 337 A. D.

Constantine was neither saint nor devil, though in the
popular mind he has been abused in both ways. His friends
have exaggerated his Christian virtues and his detractors
have maligned him as an opportunist who found in Chris-
tianity a handy instrument for his political ambitions.
Neither one is a true representation. It is doubtless a fact
that he never really grasped the essence of the Christian
Gospel (not unlike many a modern Christian) ; his personal
life was not above reproach ; he was baptized only on his
death-bed. On the other hand, it is also a fact that he had
been brought up with a strong bias in favor of the Christian
idea. His mother, St. Helena (probably converted by her
son), proved to be an exceptionally devout disciple. He was
profoundly interested in the progress of the Church, and
certainly believed Christianity to be a vast improvement over
the decadent paganism which was sapping the spiritual life
of his people. But his own adherence to the nw religion

DAYS OF PERSECUTION 27

created a difficult situation for the Church to face. Every-
body now wanted to be a Christian. Since the Emperor had
done it, it was the thing to do, and the Church was em-
barrassed by its own success. There was an in-rush of con-
verts, poorly instructed in the Faith, and bringing with them
a large body of incompatible customs. A real danger pre-
sented itself that Christianity might become badly paganized.
Therefore, it devolved upon the leaders of the Church to be
scrupulously exact in the statements of faith which they
approved if they were to save Christianity from becoming
one of many ingredients in a vague religious omelette. The
initial test was not long in appearing.

If one had surveyed the world of the early fourth century
to discover the place where religious subtleties would most
easily breed contention, one would most likely have selected
Alexandria, in Egypt, as the most probable spot. In Our
Lord's day it had been the city of Philo and his liberal school
of Jews, and now for a long time it had been the philosophical
centre of the Empire. A famous Christian catechetical school
was located there, which had been graced with such illustrious
teachers as Pantaenus, Clement, and Origen, the last-named
being the most finished scholar of his age. Moreover, the
city was surrounded with an aura of religious tradition
peculiar to the Egyptian people. In the days of its glory,
Egypt was divided into some forty "nomes" or provinces,
each having a group of its own gods. With the changing
dynasties, the seat of government shifted from one province
to another, the gods of the ascendant province being imposed
upon all the rest. The people continued to worship their local
gods, but chief respect had to be paid to those of the tem-
porarily superior province. So Egypt bowed in all directions.
It might well be said that there was no Egyptian religion.
It vras a potpourri of many religions with a weird habit of
amalgamating deities and subdividing them according to con-
venience. Egypt never organized its religions ; it had no great
religious leaders; it produced no body of sacred literature.

28 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

(The "Book of the Dead" was merely a set of by-laws
for guidance in entering the future life.) The whole thing
was formless and slippery. A few gods more or less were
always a trivial matter. So the spiritual atmosphere of
Alexandria was, by right of inheritance, highly conducive to
religious vagaries.

Now Arius was an Alexandrian, a priest of the Church,
and a popular preacher. His character seems to have been
a precarious combination of earnest personal life, popularity
among his friends, and extreme pugnacity toward all who
thought in any way otherwise than he did. His previous
history had been somewhat stormy, but nothing in comparison
with the tempest he now proceeded to brew. It is impossible
to say whether the loose religious traditions of Egypt affected
his thinking, or whether he was influenced by the semi-pagan
followers who trailed Constantine into the Church. Cer-
tainly, both of these conditions added fuel to the theolbgical
fire which he kindled. The doctrine which bore his name
centered about the person of Christ. In spite of sophistries of
interpretation, it boiled itself down to a virtual denial of the
deity of Our Lord. To Arius, He was the greatest of all
created beings; but He was, nevertheless, created like all
the rest of us. The germ of the idea came probably from
Lucian, a teacher of Antioch, under whom Arius had stud-
ied; but Arius expanded it, expounded it, and exploited it.
The public gave him an interested hearing because his
theory seemed eminently practical, and dissolved much of
the mystery attaching to the orthodox teaching of the
Gospel. It was the familiar case of hard logic driving
out spirituality. Still, there might have been no serious
consequences if Arius' quarrelsome disposition had not
brought him into sharp conflict with Alexander, his bishop.
He opened the breach himself by charging the Bishop with
heresy. The Bishop remonstrated with him, but to no avail.
Then people began to take sides in the controversy, and it
was plain that something had to be done. A Synod was

DAYS OF PERSECUTION 29

called which condemned the new doctrine, and excommuni-
cated Arius; but far from ending the trouble, this decision
only accelerated it. Arius fled to Palestine, and maintained
a heated correspondence with Alexandria. His friends rallied
to him, and made life miserable for the Bishop. The con-
flict raged on until the pagans made it a subject of coarse
jokes in the public theatres. It spread to other places, and
the whole of eastern Christendom became violently agitated.
Arius developed a happy faculty of popularizing his doctrine
by writing it up in the form of catchy poetry. His verses
were sung as an accompaniment of meals a kind of cabaret
religion. Imagine a modern Rotary Club pealing forth happy
melodies about the consubstantiality of the three Persons of
the Blessed Trinity! Boatmen on the Nile chanted Arian
doctrine to popular tunes of the day. Imagine modern steve-
dors humming their sentiments to a rag-time rhythm about
the pre-existence of the Divine AVord and His earthly mani-
festation ! Everybody's feelings became embittered, and harsh
epithets were hurled by both parties until the noise of the
disturbance reached the ears of the Emperor.

Constantine decided that such a quarrel was a good thing
to stop. Apparently he did not take it very seriously at the
outset, thinking a little friendly arbitration would resolve
the difficulty. So he sent the aged Hosius, Bishop of Cordova,
as his personal representative, to bring the opposing factions
together, Hosius called them into conference, and did his
best; but his efforts were a total loss. His report to the
Emperor revealed a real issue, and Constantine was obliged
to seek out other methods of reconciliation. In a moment
of inspiration, he determined to call a General Council of
the Church, thus throwing upon the bishops the responsi-
bility of arriving at a settlement. Constantine was in a
perplexing predicament. For a dozen years he had ex-
pended his best energies to live down the destructive fac-
tionalism which had all but split the Empire asunder for
a century before his time, and now he could not tolerate the

30 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

ruin of his life-work by contending theological parties. Polit-
ical strife had been sufficiently disastrous. Religious strife
would be scarcely less so. The plain duty of the Emperor
was to keep the internal peace at all reasonable costs.

So a new epoch in the life of the Church was born at
Nicaea when, in the year 325, more than three hundred
bishops, together with a large number of the lower clergy,
met in general council. Arius was there to defend his posi-
tion. Alexander was also present. And, most important of all,
a youthful priest of Alexandria, named Athanasius, accom-
panied his bishop in the capacity of chaplain. Comparatively
unknown at the time, Athanasius proved to be the invincible
defender of the orthodox Faith. From his childhood, he had
shown unusual religious leanings. Once, as the Bishop looked
out of his window, he had seen a group of boys at play on
the seashore, and discovered, to his amazement, that they
were reverently performing the rite of Christian Baptism,
with Athanasius acting in the role of bishop. Alexander
called the boys in and determined to take them all under
his wing in training for the priesthood. Little did he know
that the time was to come when Athanasius would really be
a bishop. Still less did he know that the time would also
come when other observers, not so friendly as himself, would
chase Athanasius with sticks and stones and battle-axes for
daring to perform his episcopal functions.
# When the Council convened, Hosius was made its pre-
siding officer, while Constantine lent his occasional presence
in the interests of parliamentary restraint. No doubt the
influence of the Emperor pressed steadily upon the delibera-
tions of the Council; but it is scarcely probable that his
presence had much to do with the Council's final action.
Constantine was a politician, not a theologian; he insisted
upon a decision, but it was up to the bishops as to what
the decision should be. So they debated and debated. Arius
poured forth his fiery eloquence and Athanasius flared back,
with many others contributing their sparks of learning to

DAYS OF PERSECUTION 31

throw a little light upon the question. Gradually the dispute
resolved itself around a discussion of two Greek words. The
Orthodox kept reiterating that Christ was of "one substance
with the Father*' (homoousion), while the Arians were just
as insistent that He was of "like substance with the Father"
(homoiousion). It was a difference of the one Greek letter
"iota," but it involved the heart of the Christian Faith.
That's where we get our modern expression that there is not
"an iota of diiference" between two similar things.

Previous to this there had been no authorized creedal
statement of Christian doctrine. There had, of course, been
creeds of some sort from the earliest times, but nothing which
represented the unanimous conviction of the Church. Our
Lord's injunction to baptize all nations, "teaching them to
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" was,
in itself, an invitation to formulate His doctrine, and at first
some simple statement of faith was an accompaniment of the
Sacrament of Baptism. "I believe," said the Ethiopian
eunuch to St. Philip, "that Jesus Christ is the Son of God"
(Acts 8:37).

Somewhere about 100 A. D., the old Roman creed had
come into existence, containing the substance of what we
now call the Apostles' Creed; and this was used almost
exclusively in the West. There were also various other local
creeds probably used for baptismal purposes. But the Council
of Nicaea went further, recognizing the necessity of putting
forth some authorized statement which would officially speak
the mind of the Church, and prevent misapprehension on
such a question as Arianism. In doing this, the bishops were
determined to insert a phrase which the Arians could not
accept. They, therefore, adopted one of these local creeds,
which had been in use in Caesarea, as the basis of their final
decision, adding the "homoousion" phrase in distinct repudia-
tion of Arianism. The Council formally condemned Arius
and approved the action of the earlier Synod in excommuni-
cating him. In this way, the Church deliberately went on

32 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

record as to its position regarding the person of Our Lord.
Fifty-seven years later, at the first Council of Constantinople,
the original Nicene document was slightly amended in order
to clarify certain other points. The so-called "Nicene Creed"
as we have it today is, therefore, strictly speaking, the Nicaeo-
Constantinopolitan Creed. As adopted at Nicaea, it reads
as follows:

"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty,
Maker of all things, visible and invisible. And in
one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Begotten
of the Father, His only Begotten, that is, of the
substance of the Father; God of God, Light of
Light, Very God of Very God; Begotten, not
made, being of one substance with the Father, by
Whom all things were made, both the things in
heaven and the things on earth; Wlio for the sake
of us men, and for our salvation, came down
from heaven, and was incarnate, and made man:
Who suffered, and rose again the third day, and
ascended into the heavens, and is to come again
to judge the quick and the dead. And in the
Holy Ghost."

To the twentieth century, the Nicene dispute may seem
impossibly subtle. It would be a difficult matter to arouse
much popular interest now in the theological technicalities
which so violently disturbed the Christian world of the
fourth century. But it must be remembered that the Church
was then fighting for its life and for the integrity of its
Faith. Had it been willing to compromise on an ambiguous
platform, through the mutilation of its Divine Commission,
Christ would soon have been numbered among the multitude
of pagan gods the greatest of them all, perhaps, but scarcely
different in character. The outcome would have been a sub-
limated polytheism which could never have withstood the
trials of succeeding generations. In that case, Christians

DAYS OF PERSECUTION 33

today would probably be worshipping a semi-christianized
Jupiter, and offering half-ripe sacrifices to thinly-veneered
Druid deities. The fruit of the Gospel would have been
a worm-eaten product, and Christian civilization would have
appeared as a crazy-quilt of pagan patches surrounded by a
vague border of Christian sentiment. With all their con-
tentiousness, the Nicene Fathers are deserving of the pro-
found gratitude of modern Christendom. They were loyal
to their Lord when it was not easy to be loyal.

And now the black centuries of persecution are ended;
the Church enters upon a new phase of its life, and the door
is at least unbolted for the future evangelization of the world.

CHAPTER III
THE BROKEN EMPIRE

AND NOW," said the clergyman to the newly married
couple, "you are at the end of your troubles."

"Yes," muttered the cynical wedding guest, "but which
end?"

It was so with the question of Arianism. The Council
of Nicaea was called to settle the matter, but it continued
to worry the Church for the next sixty years. The doctrine
itself was diluted into semi-Arianism assuming the character
of a political movement. Disgruntled members of the Coun-
cil went home to brood over their reverses and to lay their
plans for snatching practical victory out of theological defeat.
Arius attempted to wriggle his way into the confidence of
the Emperor by drawing up a creed of his own, capable of
a harmless interpretation. He was dangerously near to
carrying his point when, one day, he fell dead in the streets
of Alexandria. His enemies said it was the judgment of
God, while his friends declared he had been poisoned. Prob-
ably he just died.

After the example of their leader, councils were called
by the Arians where still other creeds were drafted, but they
all carefully avoided the critical word "homoousion" and
were properly denounced by the orthodox. They succeeded
in drawing the sister of Constantine to their side and, through
her, they were able to wield considerable influence. One of
these councils made a long list of charges against Athanasius
and demanded that he should appear to answer them. The
most serious charge was that he had killed a certain bishop,
had cut off his hand, and was using it for magical purposes.
With melodramatic effectiveness the friends of Athanasius

[3*]

THE BROKEN EMPIRE 35

replied by producing the disputed bishop in full possession
of his life and all of his hands and no doubt the frustrated
Arians ground their teeth in rage like the wretched villains
that they were.

When the aged Alexander died, Athanasius was made
bishop in his place, which added nothing to the peace of mind
of his enemies. They pursued him remorselessly with every
means in their power. The city of Alexandria was the scene
of street brawls and much bloodshed as the Arian party
sought vengeance against the intrepid leader of the orthodox
Christians. Four times Athanasius was exiled, and four
times he returned to do battle for the Faith. The last time
they drove him out, he escaped under cover of darkness in
a boat up the Nile. His persecutors followed, but Athanasius
ordered the rowers to turn about and double back on their
tracks. When the two boats met, the pursuers called across
the gloomy waters "Have you seen Athanasius?" "Yes,"
replied the Bishop, "he is not far away."

All this was going on during the reign of Constantius.
When his father, Constantine, had died (337 A. D.), an
abortive conspiracy had broken forth in Constantinople aim-
ing to bring in a revolution by the assassination of the whole
royal family. The three sons of Constantine and a few
more distant relatives escaped the murderers, whereupon the
sons divided the Empire among themselves. Sixteen years
of wrangling and intermittent warfare ensued, until Con-
stantius alone survived and became sole ruler. In playing
the political game, he affiliated himself with the Arian party
in the Church and gave them all the support of his royal
position. They expelled the orthodox bishops, seized their
churches, and ferreted out their adherents. The venerable
Hosius was forced, under torture, to sign an Arian state-
ment. Liber ius, Bishop of Rome, was exiled for his refusal
to sign a similar statement; but he presently weakened,
eventually purchasing his freedom with his signature. The
situation became positively deplorable. Constantinople was

36 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

in the hands of the Arians, Rome had capitulated, Antioch
was occupied, and Alexandria was leaderless against the
terrorism. "The whole world groaned," St. Jerome says,
"and was astonished to find itself Arian." Only Athanasius
stood fast for the Divine Commission with unwavering con-
stancy, and won for himself the thorny honor of a page in
history inscribed "Athanasius against the world."

Possibly this violent controversy had something to do with
the reactionary effort of Julian, cousin of Constantius, who
succeeded him as emperor in the year 361. He is known as
"the Apostate," for he represents a curious throw-back to the
paganism which, for many years, had been dying a lingering
death. Temperamentally restless and inquisitive, he culti-
vated the few remaining pagan philosophers of his day; and
they, in their turn, flattered him with every attention as the
possible saviour of their hopeless cause.

As soon as he donned the purple, Julian renounced Chris-
tianity and declared for a revival of paganism. Recent history
taught him clearly the futility of attempting to persecute
Christians out of their faith, but he did subject them to
many indignities, and he was indifferent to some outbursts
of violence on the part of the pagan public. Julian himself
wrote treatises against the Christian religion. He spent
large sums of money restoring deserted pagan temples,
and gave his official sanction to the reestablishment of the
ancient festivals. He encouraged the Jews to rebuild their
temple in Jerusalem, but the effort was a dismal failure.
Christians, he insisted, should be known only as "Galileans."
They were systematically suppressed, but many of their
methods were appropriated to doctor up the colorless stand-
ards of the rejuvenated polytheism. Even Julian realized
that simon-pure paganism was an anachronism no more
capable of resuscitation than the devil-worship of his primitive
ancestors. Therefore, the religion which he advocated was
a mixture of something akin to Mithraism, backed up with
generous portions of classical polytheism, and tinctured with

THE BROKEN EMPIRE 37

many of the practical elements of Christianity. But his best
religious cosmetics could not put a new face on the situa-
tion, and nothing but discouragement greeted him. On one
occasion, he refitted a fine old temple of Daphne, just outside
of Antioch, and proclaimed a great ceremony in her honor
such as had delighted the multitudes in the olden days. But
the magic charm was gone. The Emperor himself came in
regal state, expecting crowds of enthusiastic devotees, only to
be met by a single aged priest with one lonesome goose for
sacrifice which he had provided at his own expense. After
two fruitless years of it, Julian was killed in a skirmish with
the Persians and is said to have murmured on his death-bed :
"Galilean, thou hast conquered."

A few more years of Arian acerbities and then (379
A. D.) a very able soldier named Theodosius ascended the
throne. He had been reared in Spain under orthodox in-
fluences, and was not slow to make his presence felt by the
Arians. At an early date, he came under the powerful sway
of St. Ambrose who was, without doubt, the most command-
ing figure of his generation.

A special word should be said about the brilliant career
of this great bishop. It seems that the important see of
Milan had fallen vacant, and the populace assembled to
choose their new bishop. Episcopal elections in those times
were not characterized by the same gentlemanly procedure
which usually prevails today. Broken heads were more easily
counted than written ballots and were far more convincing.
Ambrose, being a government official, came to church that
day to restrain impetuous voters. The crowd milled around
in restless uncertainty waiting for something to happen, when
suddenly an unknown child cried out in its innocence
"Ambrose, Bishop!" By a strange freak of mob psychology,
the people took up the cry and, in spite of his protestations,
Ambrose suddenly found himself unanimously elected to
episcopal honors. The man had not yet even been baptized,
let alone ordained to any holy office. He went hastily into

38 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

hiding; but they dragged him forth, baptized him, ordained
him, and consecrated him bishop, all within the space of a
week.

Thrust into an office for which he had no preparation,
Ambrose betook himself diligently to the study of theology.
His natural ability was not long in asserting itself. He
proved to be a powerful preacher, a notable administrator,
and the idol of his people. Against Arianism he was a granite
wall for the orthodox. Augustine, the loose-living rhetorician
of North Africa, came to Milan to hear him. He came, he
heard, and he was converted. A doubtful tradition says that
Ambrose composed the Te Deum at the time of Augustine's
baptism. At any rate, succeeding generations can thank
St. Ambrose, under the providence of God, for the mighty
champion of the Faith which St. Augustine turned out to be.

The Ambrosian character is well illustrated by an inci-
dent connected with Theodosius' hasty temper. A riot had
occurred in Thessalonica, involving the death of several im-
perial officers. Other officers clamored loudly for retribu-
tion; so, with the permission of Theodosius, the people of
the city were invited to a great exhibition in the amphi-
theatre. When the grounds were filled, soldiers closed the
gates and slaughtered the spectators for some three hours.
It is estimated that seven thousand were killed. When
Ambrose received word of this atrocity, he expressed his
horrified sentiments without delay, and when the guilty
Theodosius came to worship in his church, the valiant Bishop
barred the door, refusing admission until the Emperor should
give public proof of his penitence. Theodosius went into
seclusion for eight months and, at Christmastide, humbly pre-
sented himself before the Bishop. He entered the church in
deepest humility, prostrated himself before the throngs of
worshippers, and publicly sought forgiveness. It showed the
fearless man Ambrose was. Such a strength of purpose,
coupled with a wholly consecrated life, soon raised him to
the pinnacle of leadership. Ambrose totally eclipsed the

THE BROKEN EMPIRE 39

contemporary bishops of Rome, and lifted the See of Milan to
such a lofty eminence that, for hundreds of years, it rivalled
the prestige of the Roman papacy and, even to this day, retains
certain special privileges.

Under Theodosius, Arianism began to foresee its in-
evitable defeat. Remnants of it were to be found for some
time thereafter, but it had a hard life of it against the im-
perial opposition, and it was never again a dangerous con-
tender for popular favor. That is not to say, however, that
peace reigned in the Church, or that Theodosius had no more
ecclesiastical problems to face. The well-known pendulum
went into reverse action.

The opponents of a mistake sometimes become so violently
antagonistic that they lose their sense of proportion and
commit the same blunder at the other extreme. This seems
to have been the plight of Apollinarius. Arianism had
evacuated the Incarnation by robbing Christ of His divinity;
in the process of reaction, Apollinarianism accomplished much
the same result by denying Christ His humanity. Factional
strife developed over the issue, with the party of Apollinarius
rising to embarrassing prominence in Constantinople. Affairs
reached such a pass that the Emperor felt called upon to
intervene and, after the example of Constantine, he deter-
mined to call a second General Council. This Council, meet-
ing in Constantinople in the year 381, condemned the new
doctrine, reaffirmed the decisions of Nicaea, and added the
last paragraph to the Nicene Creed defining the doctrine of
the Holy Ghost. The Church was gradually consolidating
its position.

As much cannot be said, however, for the Empire itself.
The developments of the next century offer a painful com-
mentary upon the supposed stability of human institutions.
While the Church was establishing its Faith, the imperial
Government was swinging squarely into the headwaters of a
series of rapids rushing mercilessly down into blank disaster.
Four hundred years the Empire had been in the building;

40 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

now it was to plunge into irretrievable ruin within the space
of a single century. The storm itself did not break until
after the death of Theodosius, but the clouds had long been
gathering.

The trouble had begun far off in eastern Asia where
some social eruption pushed the Tartars westward ; and they,
in their turn, thrust the western Goths before them. Some
two-hundred thousand of these so-called Visigoths were
driven down upon the northeastern frontier of the Empire;
whereupon they asked for, and presently obtained, permission
to cross the Danube and settle within the imperial boun-
daries. This had occurred before the time of Theodosius,
who found the Visigoths already occupying Thrace when he
took over the reins of government. But during his own
reign history began to repeat itself as another torrent of
Goths poured over the border, threatening for a time to
engulf everything which stood in their way. After much
difficulty, Theodosius succeeded in checking them, but only
through a duplication of the former hospitable concessions.
The new arrivals, known as Ostrogoths, were granted living
accommodations in Asia Minor, thereby adding another tur-
bulent element to be kept in uneasy restraint under the force-
ful hand of the Emperor. These Goths, in a rough way,
are to be counted as Christians; for, as they advanced,
they were speedily evangelized by Arian missionaries; but
it was many generations before their barbarism showed
much in the way of results from their contacts with
Christianity.

The death of Theodosius in 395 was the signal for a
Gothic uprising. His two sons, Arcadius and Honorius,
ruled the Empire, East and West respectively, with equal
incompetence. In their cases, the usual laws of heredity
seem to have been completely in abeyance. They were piti-
fully pale reflections of a brilliant paternity no match what-
ever for Alaric, the Gothic prince, who led his destructive
hosts through the Balkans and down to the gates of Rome.

THE BROKEN EMPIRE 41

The valiant general, Stilicho, had temporarily halted the
first movement of the Goths into Italy; but the inevitable
intrigue which is sure to saturate the court of a weak ruler
floated him into retirement, and the country was at the mercy
of its invaders. The spineless Honorius deserted his capital
city and fled, terror-stricken, to nurse his cowardice behind
the protecting marshes of Ravenna. It was there that he was
informed of Alaric's depredations in the Eternal City. Dean
Hodges tells how Honorius was something of a chicken-
fancier with a special fondness for a pet hen which he had
honored with the name Rome. When the breathless mes-
sengers came to him in Ravenna crying, "Your Majesty,
Rome has perished!" he replied, "Why, only an hour ago
she was feeding out of my hand I" And he was much relieved
when they told him that it was only the capital of the world
which had been destroyed.

The composition of Roman society in the days of Honorius
was nothing short of an invitation to violence. At the top,
was an aristocracy of landed proprietors dedicated to a life
of idle luxury; while, at the bottom, was a large class of
serfs who were with difficulty held in forcible suppression.
In between was a vacuum. The glory of the Roman legions
had become little more than a memory because there were
no more legionaries to fill the ranks. The army was chiefly
recruited on the border, being composed of a predominating
number of the very barbarians who were pouring across the
frontier. Roman society was living on the valor of its
ancestors, and had not yet learned the folly of trusting con-
quered races to defend their conquerors against their own
flesh and blood. Consequently, Alaric met no effective oppo-
sition and was successful in bringing Rome to submission
(410 A. D.). His superficial veneer of Christianity restrained
him from destroying the Christian churches, but pagan Rome
was thoroughly plundered. Forty-thousand slaves threw off
their shackles and joined themselves to the victorious pil-
lagers, bringing invaluable knowledge of the whereabouts

42 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

of concealed treasure. The defenseless Romans were cruelly
tortured until they produced their gold and jewels, excep-
tion being made only in the case of the sacred possessions
of the Church.

An instance is told of a fierce Goth breaking his way
into the home of an aged Christian virgin and demanding
her secreted treasures. She brought before him vessels of
gold, of great value and beauty. "These," she said, "are the
property of the Apostle St. Peter. Take them if you dare,
and answer for your act to God." When Alaric heard of
it, he ordered the vessels to be safely conducted to the Church
of the Apostle protected by a long procession, while the
people chanted hymns of adoration.

The spoliation of Rome was ruinous enough in itself, bnt
the moral effect upon the world was vastly more so. People
who for centuries had learned to look upon Rome as the
living symbol of invincible power, rubbed their eyes in hor-
rified amazement at the astounding news that the Imperial
City had succumbed to these despised marauders. It was the
beginning of the end ; for now other barbarian hordes Van-
dals, Huns, Lombards swept in, practically unopposed, from
all directions.

The Vandals conquered Spain and crossed into north
Africa. (That portion of southern Spain now called Anda-
lusia is a memorial of the time when it was better known as
Vandalusia.) From Africa they crossed again to Rome by
ship and for fourteen days sacked the city with the unbridled
license of 'Vandalism."

Attila, the "Scourge of God," led his Huns on the same
quest. The Emperor had fled, and the armies of defense
had vanished like a mist. Only one man remained in Rome
to whom the people might look for guidance and possible
protection namely, the Bishop. And, fortunately, Leo I
was a man of character equal to the occasion. In full pon-
tificals, he headed a procession of his clergy to the barbarian

THE BROKEN EMPIRE 43

camp where, by the payment of a huge ransom, he persuaded
Attila to respect the safety of the city.

The Lombards entered northern Italy and, finding the
country much to their liking, decided to settle down and
erect a kingdom of their own destined to play an impor-
tant part in the history of the papacy two-hundred years
later.

With similar neighborliness, the Visigoths established
their kingdom in Spain. They had become Christians through
the back-door of Arianism, and they retained their Arian
connection for several generations of Spanish occupation.
It was not until the Council of Toledo, in 589, that they
merged into the orthodox fold, adopting the Nicene Creed
as the statement of their faith but adding the famous
"Filioque" clause which made the last paragraph begin "I
believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, and Giver of Life,
Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son."

This phrase is one of the mysteries of Christian theology.
No one knows where it originated, but it was the subject of
repeated controversy for centuries after this Council. To th<
present day, the Eastern Orthodox Church considers it an
unwarranted addition to the original Creed. They do not
object to the theology of it, but to the principle of an un-
authorized change in an ecumenical pronouncement. These
easterners wrangled over it for weeks at a time when later
Councils attempted to heal the breach between eastern and
western Christendom by deleting the "Filioque." Indeed
there was strong opposition to the clause for a long time in
the West also. Leo III (795 A. D.) felt so strongly on the
subject that he had the Nicene Creed, in its original form,
engraved on silver plates in Greek and Latin and hung in
St. Peter ? s church as a perpetual witness to the fact that
Rome would have none of such a doctrinal innovation. But
no one knew in those days that the pope was infallible in
matters of doctrine, and the additional clause came gradually
into universal western use. At last, under another pope, the

44 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Fourth Lateran Council (1215 A. D.) declared it to be a
dogma of the Faith.

While the wounded Roman lion was being devoured piece-
meal by barbarian jackals, momentous events were brewing in
Gaul. Of! in one corner of the country arose (482 A. D.)
a Frankish king named Clevis who was destined to become
the founder of the French monarchy. At first he ruled his
own small ancestral kingdom ; but his military prowess could
not long be restrained, and his dominion began to expand.
As with many another man, his wife proved to be the deter-
mining factor in his career and not in his only but in that
of all western Christendom. For Clotilda was a Christian
and, unlike the Arianized tribes of her day, she was of the
orthodox persuasion.

Clovis was not an easy man to convert. He watched
with a critical eye the crumbling fortunes of Rome, counting
them evidences of the inability of a feeble God to provide for
His faithful people. But Clotilda persisted until her ambi-
tious husband finally came around in his own way. He was
engaged in a critical battle with the hostile Alemanni, with
everything going against him. In a fit of rage, he cried that
his own gods had forsaken him and he promised allegiance
to Christ if the tables could somehow be turned. Explain
it as you please, the tables were turned and Clovis was
baptized at Rheims by Remigius, the Bishop. As he ap-
proached to receive the sacramental admission into the King-
dom of God, Remigius solemnly addressed him: "Sicambrian,
gently bow thy neck; worship that which thou hast burnt,
and burn that which thou hast worshipped." And a little
later, when the same bishop was reading him the story
of the crucifixion, Clovis grimly exclaimed "Had I been
there with my Franks, I would have avenged His wrongs."
A crude conversion, perhaps; but, nevertheless, effective
in bringing the Franks into union with Catholic Chris-
tianity. The day was to come when those orthodox Franks
were to be the last bulwark of defense against the all-powerful

THE BROKEN EMPIRE 45

Mohammedan conquerors at a time vitally critical for the
very existence of the Divine Commission.

Meanwhile the Church in the East had troubles of its
own, due chiefly to the speculative character of the eastern
mind which took its delight in constantly thinking up new
heresies regarding which the Church as constantly had to
express her united judgment. During the fourth century,
as we have seen, two General Councils had finally expressed
the Faith in the form of the Nicene Creed as against false
or inadequate ideas regarding the person and nature of Jesus
Christ. During the next century two more such Councils
had to be called in order to meet other similar heresies.
Hooker has summed it up by saying that these four Councils
expound the doctrine of the Incarnation in four words, one
to each Council : namely, that Jesus Christ is God and Man
truly, perfectly, indivisibly, and inconfusedly. Critical issues
revolved around those words. No other Councils ever had
to face questions of such vital moment to the substance of
the Christian Faith. There were two more, both held in
Constantinople, which are to be counted General (or Ecu-
menical ) and a seventh held in Nicaea, though they are of far
less doctrinal significance.

The importance of the General (or Ecumenical) Coun-
cils* lies in their authoritative interpretation of Christian
teaching. The basic sanction of Christianity is to be found in
the experience of Christian people testing out the principles

* The seven ecumenical Councils may be summarized as follows :
Number Date Place Accomplishment

First 325 A. D. Nicaea Condemned Arianism.

Promulgated original Nicene

Second 381 A. D. Constantinople Condemned Apollinarianism.

Issued amended Nicene Creed.

Third 431 A. D. Ephesus Condemned Nestorianism.

Fourth 451 A. D. Ch a Ice don Condemned Monophysitism.

Fifth 553 A. D. Constantinople Condemned the "Three Chap-
ters."

Supported decisions of Chalce-
don.

46 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

of the Gospel. The Councils which represent the whole and
undivided Church are the expression of universal Christian
experience, and can therefore speak with an authority not to
be found in fragmentary or local councils. Those which
were held after the first seven cannot be called ecumenical in
the same sense, because East and West began to draw apart
shortly after the Sixth General Council had gone into history.
Some day, under God, another ecumenical Council may be
convened; but in the present state of divided Christendom
the burden of authority is thrown back upon the original
seven which did represent the universal experience of the
Church when the Divine Commission was the undisputed
possession of all.

Thus eastern Christianity was absorbed with the ques-
tions involved in defining the meaning of its Faith, while
western Christianity was distracted with the havoc wrought
by social and political disruptions. The combination of-
fered an excellent opportunity for the expansion of a
new oriental religious movement popularly known, after
its founder, as Mohammedanism. Properly speaking it should
be called "Islam," and it should not be identified with
the Turks merely because Turkish sovereignty was able
to impose itself upon most of the Moslem world for sev-
eral hundred years. It is not uncommon to hear the vir-
tues of Islam advanced as extenuating arguments in
justification of Turkish misrule. We are often pointed to the
vast improvement brought about by this new religion over
that which went before it; we are reminded of the high

Sixth 680 A. D. Constantinople Condemned Monothelitism.

Reaffirmed decisions of previ-
ous Councils.

Seventh 787 A. D. Nicaea Dealt with the question o

images and ikons. This
Council is reckoned as Ecu-
menical both by the Ortho-
dox and Roman Catholics.
Historians are not agreed as
to its truly representative
character.

THE BROKEN EMPIRE 47

estate of Moorish culture attained under Moslem influence
during the residence of the Moors in Spain; we are told of
the abundant literature produced by the Mohammedans and
of the scientific progress which they achieved in their first
few centuries of phenomenal growth. All of this may be
true; but the credit for it is Arabian, not Turkish. When
the Turks came, they stole the culture, the conquests, the
government, the religion, and finally the caliphate itself.
And a blight has followed these Turkish thefts like an evil
genius. Arabian initiative was crushed by the Turks and has
only recently revived as a result of the World War. The
promising elements of Moslem culture were stultified under
the incubus of Turkish domination, and its harsher features
greatly magnified, to the distress of the world outside and
the spiritual loss of Islam within. More will be said of this
in discussing the Crusades.

Arabia in the sixth century was sparsely populated with
nomadic tribes constantly at war with one another. There
was no such thing as an Arab nation; there was no peace;
there was no cooperation. Clans, bound together by family
ties, circled over the country snarling at one another in
endless tribal feuds. The land itself was a desolate waste,
difficult of access, and wholly undesirable to any ambitious
conquest. The Romans, after one or two tentative efforts,
gave it up as unworthy of their attention.

The religion of the people was chiefly a weird jumble of
nature worship. It is true that a vague conception of some-
thing like a divine principle ran through it all under the
comprehensive name of "Allah," but it found its expression
in the worship of spirits or "jinns" which were supposed to
inhabit natural objects, especially rocks. This was the uncer-
tain origin of the sacred Kaaba stone in Mecca, left by
Mohammed as a concession to popular superstition. As the
tribes moved from place to place, they adopted the religion
of the locality of their temporary residence without altogether
losing contact with their own tribal gods whose places of

48 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

abode were always sacred to them. The result was a tangled
mixture of religious customs, a large circle of holy places,
and numerous tribes forever roaming around the land in an
endless procession of pilgrimages.

The jinn religion had gradually been wearing out and
had degenerated to a crude practice of magic by the time
Mohammed came on the scene. There was a small group of
devout persons known as "Hanyfs" who were troubled by
the religious decay and were quietly in search of some truly
spiritual values. Mohammed was undoubtedly influenced
by them, as he was also by a considerable contact with the
Jews and some slight acquaintance with the Christians. Out
of this emerged his religion which is singularly lacking in
originality. It is practical to the last degree theology has
never troubled the Moslems. In its simplest form it may
all be summed up in a small nutshell: There is one God
Allah ; Mohammed is His prophet ; the duty of the faithful
is submission to Allah as taught by Mohammed. That's all.
"Islam" means Submission, and the "Moslem" is one who
submits.

In time, popular Mohammedanism came to be a far more
complex matter, freely running the gamut of Arabian fancy.
It goes in for a great many semi-spiritual beings called
"Genii," and borrows extensively from various brands of
Orientalism as well as of Judaism and Christianity. Adam,
Noah, Abraham, Moses are all held in high veneration, and
Jesus Himself is counted by Moslems as one in the line of
prophets leading up to Mohammed. All of it centres around
the Koran which is said to be too sacred to be sold for money ;
but, when bound, the covers may be sold carrying the writings
with them.

Certainly it must be said that Mohammedanism was an
enormous advance over the debased polytheism which pre-
ceded it. It served, moreover, to consolidate the warring
tribes of Arabia into the semblance of a nation, and to give
to its adherents a fiery zeal for propaganda and conquest

THE BROKEN EMPIRE 49

which carried them far and wide. Islam was a benefit to
the Arabs, but a very doubtful blessing to the rest of the
world.

The future Prophet was born at Mecca in the year 570,
of the powerful Koreish tribe. It was their special function
to guard the ancient Kaaba stone and the famous temple
which protected it; and later they turned out to be Mo-
hammed's inveterate enemies because of his sharp attacks
upon traditional superstitions. The Prophet was left an
orphan at an early age, and was brought up by poor relatives
in a plain and frugal way. Eventually, he married a wealthy
widow named Khadija, and began to see visions (not that
the two have any necessary connection, but it happened to
be so in his case). Near Mecca was a sacred spot called
Mount Hira where holy men were accustomed to spend one
of the sacred months in meditative seclusion. Mohammed,
being of a devout mind, took to one of these caves, and there
was confronted with the first of his visions. It is interesting
to note that the ghostly visitor was no other than the angel
Gabriel, which suggests the possibility that Mohammed was
doing some serious thinking on the faith of the Jews with
which he had become more or less conversant through his
business trips to Palestine before he married Khadija. The
very stones cried out to him "Prophet of God," and his sleep
on subsequent nights was haunted by angelic whisperings.
He thought he was going crazy and brought his troubles to
his faithful wife. In order to quiet his mind, she proposed
a test. When the mysterious visitor appeared, she clasped
her husband in her arms, having first carefully veiled her
head and face. "Dost thou now see it?" she exclaimed.
Mohammed replied, "I do." Whereupon Khadija threw
aside her veil and repeated her question, "Dost thou now
see it?" And this time Mohammed answered, "I do not."
"Glad tidings to thee, O Mohammed," said Khadija, "it is
not a devil but an angel; for had it been a devil it -would

50 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

not have disappeared and thus have respected my unveiled
face."

At another time Mohammed lay sleeping under his usual
coverings when the angel called to him, "Arise, thou wrapped
up." "Why should I arise?" asked Mohammed. "Arise and
preach," said Gabriel, "cleanse thy garments and flee every
abomination." When he confided this experience to his wife
she knelt with him in prayer, saying, "I will be the first
believer."

It took several years for the Prophet to win his immediate
relatives to his cause ; but when he went outside the family,
his real difficulties began. Other branches of the Koreish
tribe bitterly assailed him. At one time, a price of a hundred
camels and a thousand ounces of silver was placed on his
head and he narrowly escaped assassination. He was insulted,
abused, dragged from the temple by his own turban tied about
his neck. He shifted his sleeping quarters frequently for
fear of murderers. In the midst of it all, Khadija died,
depriving him of his chief source of comfort and encourage-
ment. His handful of followers were persecuted also until
Mohammed, in gloomy resentment, lashed the people with
stinging invective when they gathered for their holy festivals.

Matters were coming to a crisis when an unexpected
invitation came to him from the neighboring city of Medina.
A half-dozen prominent citizens of that city had listened
to the new prophet on one of their pilgrimages to Mecca and
had joined themselves to his company. As the hostility of
the Meccans became acute, these friends in Medina begged
him to leave his native city and come to live with them.
For the better part of a year he hesitated, sending emissaries
to bring him true reports of what he might be getting into.
At last he made up his mind to go. By stealth he escaped
from Mecca, and fled to the more hospitable Medina. This
happened on June 16, 622 A. D., which marks the date
from which all Moslem chronology is now reckoned the
"Hegira" meaning the "Flight" from Mecca.

THE BROKEN EMPIRE 51

In Medina the Prophet set up a theocracy with himself
as the dictator. He developed his doctrine, multiplied his
visions, and organized a powerful army. His earlier visions
had come to him unsought, bringing communications of some
spiritual significance; but as time went on, he seemed capable
of conjuring up visions on demand for relatively trivial
revelations. He violated his own laws by adding numerous
additional wives to his harem, and then produced a vision
to justify it. At one time he had written into the Koran
some fine sentiments of religious toleration "Let there be
no violence in religion"; but a taste of power made a dif-
ference, and a later vision led him to write "Kill the idol-
aters wherever ye shall find them, and take them prisoners,
and besiege them, and lay wait for them in every convenient
place." When he first came to Medina, he made the most
friendly approach to the large colony of Jews residing there.
When they refused his advances, he had new visions and
turned upon them in a terrible fury. After one battle, he
coolly witnessed the cold-blooded massacre of seven hundred
and ninety Jews.

Dean Milman says, "the Koran was a declaration of
war against all mankind." Whatever the Koran may have
had to do with it, there is no question as to the war. It
began in Medina, spreading out in an ever widening circle of
conquest against the surrounding tribes. It was all very
simple the conquered tribesmen were either converted or
killed. The number of such conversions and deaths increased
at an extraordinary rate and Mohammed soon ruled the
neighboring country both as prophet and conqueror. For
eight years many battles and many wives kept his life from
becoming dull. But his great objective was yet to be attained.
His own disdainful city of Mecca was to be brought to heel,
and at last he considered the time to be ripe. As a matter of
fact the city fell into his hands far more easily than he
had expected, but he lived only two years to reap the fruits
of his complete victory. At his death, in the year 632, he

52 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

was preparing plans for carrying his conquests into other
lands; but it had to be left to his successors to confer that
favor upon a dazed, incredulous world.

The success of Moslem expansion constitutes an unpar-
alleled epoch in the history of mankind. Within a single
century, the Mohammedan armies made their way through
Persia to the frontier of sleeping China, and down through
Mesopotamia into Brahman India, carrying everything before
them ; they robbed the Christians of their Holy Land, adding
Jerusalem as the second sacred city of their empire; they
overran Egypt to the discomfiture of the Coptic Church, and
gathered in the Moors of northern Africa as far as the
Straits of Gibraltar; they crossed into Spain, establishing a
regime which was not expelled until the time of Ferdinand
and -Isabella in the year when Columbus discovered the New
World.

The Arab warriors, inured to the hardships of desert
life and fired with a fanatical zeal which assured them of
all the delights of a carnal paradise, were more than a match
for the local opposition of separated races. With eastern
Christendom torn by theological controversies, and western
Christendom cracking under the onslaughts of barbarian in-
vasions, there was nothing to stop them. Gradually the
Christian world awoke to the terrifying prospect of a tri-
umphant Islam imposing its iron will upon three continents
of helpless victims.

In the eighth century, the Moors of Spain considered the
time ripe for the next step in this ambitious programme.
They conceived the dazzling idea of crossing into France and
completing the Mediterranean circle by way of the Balkans,
taking in Italy with its Eternal City as an incidental acquisi-
tion on the side. The initial effort was a brilliant success,
and southern France was added to their growing domain.
Had they continued directly eastward, there might have been
a different outcome to their venture; but northward lay the
city of Tours with its splendid Church of St. Martin filled

THE BROKEN EMPIRE 53

with fabulous riches, and the temptation was too much for
them.

Some three hundred years before this, a youth named
Martin, son of heathen parents but already interested in
Christianity, had been enrolled by his father in the Roman
army. While stationed at a post near Amiens, he rode by
the gate of the city on a bitterly cold winter day. A beggar
sat shivering at the gate, asking alms of those who passed by.
Martin, being without money, whipped off his military cloak,
split it down the middle with his sword and bestowed one
half of it upon the suffering beggar. His companions ridi-
culed him for his foolish generosity; but, that night, he saw
a vision of angels surrounding Our Lord who wore the half
of Martin's cloak which he had given to the beggar. "See,"
said Our Lord, "this is the cloak which Martin, while still
a catechumen, gave Me." His reputation spread far and
wide for the sanctity of his Christian life. Finally, the
bishopric of Tours fell vacant, and the people were deter-
mined to have no other than Martin for their bishop. They
knew he would refuse such an honor because of his deep-
seated humility, so they induced him to come to Tours by
a subterfuge. Once there, he was seized by the people and
carried bodily to the bishops to be consecrated. After Mar-
tin's death, there was erected in his honor at Tours a splendid
basilica which, as time passed, became a notable shrine for
pilgrims from all parts of the country, and was enriched with
a large accumulation of costly treasures. Such was the city
and church which deflected the tide of advancing Moslems
and which the Franks had a mind to defend as they would
have defended nothing else in the world. It was the meet-
ing place of an irresistible greed and an immovable fidelity.

By some sort of providential good fortune, Charles Martel
(Charles, the Hammer) was the military leader of the
Franks in this emergency, and a warrior of no small renown.
His military record had been won on many a valiant battle-
field, and he was probably the only man in western Europe

54 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

capable of even attempting to stem the tide of Moslem
progress. Full of confidence in their leader, the Franks
gathered in battle array for the defense of Tours, St. Mar-
tin's, and the Christian religion in general. It was a notable
day when, on October 11, 732, these armies met in mortal
combat, an even hundred years after the death of Mohammed.
All day long the battle raged, attack and counter-attack,
with no appreciable advantage on either side. When night
fell the Franks slept on their arms, troubled with vague
forebodings of the coming day. But the Moslem leader had
been slain, his forces were disorganized, and morning found
them in precipitate retreat; the menace of Mohammedanism
was definitely curbed. It is true that, in later years, the
descendants of that generation beat on the door of eastern
Europe with many a resounding thump, but the entrance
through the Pyrenees was effectually barred and bolted
against them from the time of the great battle of Tours
onward. Charles Martel was hailed as the preserver of
Christendom, and the European fragments of the Roman
Empire settled down in outward peace to enjoy their differ-
ences among themselves.

CHAPTER IV
THE PAPACY

AND I SAY also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon
this rock I will build my church; and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it." (St. Mat. 16: 18.)

"Jesus saith unto him, c Feed my sheep*. " (St. John
21: 17.)

These two constitute the famous "Pe trine texts." There
are two or three others which are used to support them,
but the scriptural authority for the papacy rests primarily
on these two and particularly on the first.

The theory of the papacy was defined by the Vatican
Council in the year 1870; and, briefly stated, runs something
like this. Christ made St. Peter head of the Church by con-
ferring special powers upon him as shown in the Petrine
texts ; St. Peter was Bishop of Rome ; his successors in office,
by virtue of election to the bishopric of Rome, are recipients
of his special powers, and are in turn divinely-constituted
rulers of the Church and Vicars of Christ on earth; this
unique authority has always been claimed and exercised by
the Bishops of Rome from the beginning, such authority being
essential to the life of the Church.

Volumes have been written on the Petrine texts to prove
or disprove the "Privilege of Peter." It is neither necessary
nor possible for us to review the ground here, and it may
answer our purpose very well to accept . a good Roman
Catholic archbishop as our sufficient authority. When the
Vatican Council prepared to take up the question of Papal
Infallibility, the late Archbishop Kenrick was in attendance
from his see city of St. Lxmis. He had difficulty in expressing
himself adequately in L/atin or Italian before the Council,

[55]

56 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

and determined to put his opinions in print. But for reasons
never explained, he was unable to find a printer in Rome
who was willing to do his work. So he took it to Naples.
In this printed statement he says, among other things, that
it is impossible to establish the Privilege of Peter from the
Scriptures because the Creed of Pope Pius IV (to which
everyone holding an ecclesiastical office must subscribe) ex-
pressly provides that Scripture is to be interpreted only
according to the unanimous consent of the early Fathers of
the Church. Then he proceeds to show that there are five
different patristic interpretations of the first of these texts.
Out of some eighty-five Fathers, only seventeen teach that
St. Peter himself is meant to be "the rock" upon which Christ
was to build His Church, while forty-four Fathers teach that
"the rock" means the faith expressed by St. Peter when he
said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God"
(St. Mat. 16: 16). The Archbishop concludes: "If we are
bound to follow the greater number of Fathers in this matter,
then we must hold for certain that the word petra means,
not Peter professing the Faith, but the faith professed by
Peter." Again, if it be Peter who is referred to as a rock
in the sixteenth verse of this chapter, it is certainly a sad
commentary that almost immediately thereafter he is likened
to Satan (Cf. vs. 23).

As to the second text, it appears substantially in the
same form three times in the closing chapter of St. John's
Gospel. Our Lord reiterates the question to St. Peter
"Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" Three times St.
Peter replies "Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee."
Whereupon Our Lord says to him "Feed my lambs," "Feed
my sheep," "Feed my sheep." The present Roman doctrine
interprets these injunctions as a special commission granted
to the Apostle to exercise supreme rule over the Christian
faithful. But such eminent early Fathers as St. Ambrose,
St. Augustine, and St. Cyril of Alexandria all explain it as
a three-fold restoration to his place in the ranks of the

THE PAPACY 57

Apostles which St. Peter had virtually forfeited by his three-
fold denial of Christ at the time of the crucifixion. Says
St. Cyril, "By this triple confession of blessed Peter, his sin,
consisting of a triple denial, was done away, and by the words
of Our Lord, 'Feed my sheep,' a renewal of the apostleship
already bestowed on him is understood to take place, remov-
ing the shame of his after-fall, and taking from him the
cowardice of human frailty." It would seem, therefore, that
the Petrine texts as a foundation for the papacy lack some-
thing of stability.

That St. Peter -was ever Bishop of Rome is a thesis based
largely on tradition, and it has often been called in question
for that reason. But equally authentic tradition is to the
effect that he was bishop in Antioch first and then in Rome
where he suffered martyrdom in the persecutions under Nero.
It seems reasonable to assume the reliability of such tradi-
tions. But if the Privilege of Peter was really meant to be
passed on to his successors in office, it would seem that Antioch
might have had as good a claim to the papacy as Rome.
The difference is that Rome eventually claimed it, while
Antioch didn't; and there were many contributing circum-
stances which help to account for that difference.

Rome was quite certainly the first Church centre in the
"West, and was the chief point of radiation for Christian mis-
sionary effort throughout central and western Europe. In
the beginning, it stood on the same footing as the three eastern
Patriarchates Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. All
were closely associated with apostolic origins and were
accorded special honors by the Church at large. The breach
between East and West, following the transference of the
imperial capital to Constantinople, left Rome supreme in its
own end of the Empire. The three Eastern Patriarchates
were mutual checks, one upon another, which effectually
prevented any one of them from assuming a position of
exaggerated authority over the rest. At the same time, it is
possible that this mutual offset may have stifled anything like

58 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

concentrated leadership in time of an emergency. However
this may be, a series of calamities descended upon the eastern
Church partly dissensions from within and partly catas-
trophes from without which seriously enfeebled the whole
Church life of the East. Meanwhile Rome had no rival in
the West, and the dissolution of the Empire only brought
the Roman bishopric into stronger relief against a leaderless
background. In the course of time, the eastern Patriarchates
were all but submerged in the flood of Moslem expansion,
while Rome rose to correspondingly greater heights upon the
afflictions of its eastern neighbors.

Nevertheless, there is nothing in the history of the first
eight centuries to indicate that the Church saw, in Rome,
anything but a naturally acquired prominence. Such an idea
as papal supremacy did not exist in the mind of the Church;
and it appears, in a rudimentary form, only as an occasional
flash of personal ambition on the part of certain individual
popes. Indeed the very title "Pope" was reserved for the
Bishop of Rome only from the fifth century; before that
time it was common to all the leading bishops of Christendom.
Instances may be multiplied out of those first few centuries
to show that the Church was entirely innocent of any peculiar
subservience to St. Peter or to his successors in the Roman
chair.

To start at the beginning it is quite true that St. Peter
held a very notable place among the Apostles as the Church
set out upon her active career. The early chapters of the
Acts of the Apostles show him in the foreground of Christian
activity. Accompanied by his wife, he traveled extensively
in advancing the cause of his Master (I Cor. 9:5). But he
.never once, either by word or act, indicated that he con-
sidered himself to be possessed of any superiority over his
fellow-Apostles. No doubt he remembered the time when
St. James and St. John asked Our Lord for special privileges
in His Kingdom and were quickly silenced in no uncertain
manner. Early in the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul steps

THE PAPACY 59

forward into the spotlight ; and, from that time on, he is the
central figure, almost to the exclusion of St. Peter. On one
occasion St. Paul was so little concerned with any unique
authority possessed by St. Peter that he "withstood him to
the face" (Gal. 2:11), and it was St. Peter who knuckled
under. At the apostolic Council in Jerusalem, it was St.
James who presided and promulgated the decisions of the
Council (Acts 15: 19). In one of his epistles (Eph. 4: 11),
St. Paul enumerates various offices in the Church apostles,
evangelists, prophets, teachers, etc. but never suggests such
a thing as a pope. If St. Peter were really meant to be the
Prince of the Apostles, then the New Testament is simply
a case of Hamlet with Hamlet left out.

In the second century, a question arose regarding the
observance of Easter Day. A different method of reckoning
in the East led to the observance of that festival on a fixed
day which might or might not be Sunday. In the West it
came always on a Sunday. The matter had been amicably
discussed at an earlier time, but when Victor I became Bishop
of Rome he presumed to impose his own views on the eastern
Church. There was a quick, back-fire against this unwar-
ranted assumption of authority, to- which Victor replied by
excommunicating the eastern Christians. St. Irenaeus, Bishop
of Lyons, though himself administering a western diocese,
promptly wrote a vigorous protest to Victor; while the
eastern Church went serenely on its accustomed way un-
troubled by the Roman excommunication. The difference
continued for more than a century until the Council of
Nicaea settled it to the satisfaction of all parties concerned.

About the middle of the third century, another dispute
occurred between Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, and Stephen,-
Bishop of Rome. The issue had to do with the re-baptism
of heretics, and many of the Asiatic bishops became involved
in the discussion. In this case, also, Cyprian was a western
bishop, but he was the chief spokesman for those who differed
with Rome. Stephen lost his temper completely, denounced

60 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Cyprian as a "false Christ, false apostle, and deceitful
worker," and proceeded to wield the weapon of excommuni-
cation. Far from accepting such a decision, Cyprian wrote
to him as one equal to another, rebuking him on some points
and resisting him on others. The controversy subsided with
the death of Stephen, while the unyielding Cyprian was
canonized by a later pope.

When the Council of Nicaea was called to order, it was
Hosius, Bishop of Cordova, who acted as presiding officer,
Rome was represented by a couple of legates who held the
same position in the Council as the representatives of any other
Patriarchate. If there were any inherent superiority resident
in the Roman bishopric, it could not have escaped public
recognition at this first General Council of the whole Church.
Quite to the contrary, the Council adopted a canon touch-
ing questions of episcopal jurisdiction, in which Antioch,
Alexandria, and Rome are all accorded the same degree of
authority.

The story of Liberius has already been told (supra p. 43) .
As Bishop of Rome, he had fixed his signature to an Arian
confession of faith which was rank heresy. In spite of his
defection, the Church's Faith was not altered, the orthodox
Christians disregarded him entirely, and Rome itself now
counts Arianism in the number of discredited heresies.

It takes a man of some endurance to deliver Lenten dis-
courses comprising four hours of steady eloquence. St.
Hilary, Bishop of Aries in the fifth century, did this so often
that his enraptured congregation was obliged to forego its
traditional custom of standing through the sermons, and to
revert to a sitting posture. This is mentioned merely to
show the stalwart quality of the man. On a certain occa-
sion he deposed one of his priests named Celedonius. The
latter considered himself ill treated and appealed his case to
Leo I, who was then Bishop of Rome. Leo revoked the
action of Hilary, restored Celedonius, and stripped the stal-
wart Bishop of his ecclesiastical faculties. But Hilary was

THE PAPACY 61

not one to acquiesce in such treatment without good reason.
He promptly repaired to Rome and made good use of his
powers of endurance battling for independence. The out-
come is not quite clear, except that Hilary retained his office
during the remainder of his lifetime, and, like Cyprian, was
canonized by a later bishop.

The Council of Chalcedon (451 A. D.) had under con-
sideration the character of the jurisdiction to be exercised
by the Patriarch of Constantinople. A canon was adopted
stating that special honor should be paid to Constantinople
and to Rome because they were the two capital cities of
the Empire. The Roman legates vigorously protested that
the position of their bishop was more than honorary ; but the
canon stood unchanged, and Rome formally accepted the
decisions of that Council.

Fortunately, the correspondence has been carefully pre-
served which passed between Gregory I, Bishop of Rome,
and "John the Faster," Patriarch of Constantinople (587
A. D.). In some irresponsible moment, John had applied
to himself the title "Universal (or Ecumenical) Bishop/'
Gregory promptly protested by letter, first to John, then to
the Emperor, and then to the other patriarchs. The Patri-
arch of Alexandria replied that he was quite ready to follow
the commands of Gregory, and, in fulsome compliment, trans-
ferred to him the title of "Universal Bishop." But Gregory
wrote a second time, saying, "I beg that you would not speak
of 'commanding* since I know who I am and who you are.
In dignity you are my brother, in character my father. . . .
If you style me 'Universal Pope,' you deny that you are at
all what you own me to be universally. Away with words
which puiff up vanity and wound charity." To John he
wrote : "No one ever yet wished to be called 'Universal.* "
And for the time being that was that.

Then there is the curious case of Pope Vigilius (539
A. D.) who seemed possessed of all the properties of a
weather-vane. He became involved in a controversy circling

62 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

around certain writings called "The Three Chapters." The
Emperor Justinian demanded that the writings should be
condemned, and insisted on the bishops signing such a con-
demnation. Vigilius refused to sign. He was summoned to
Constantinople and kept there as a prisoner for the better part
of seven years. Under pressure, he made an agreement with
the Emperor to change his mind and sign the required edict,
issuing a statement to that effect to the other bishops. North
Africa, in its wrath, poured forth maledictions upon him,
actually excommunicating him in a local synod. Vigilius
then attempted a compromise which only added fuel to the
fire, and he presently withdrew it. Justinian was highly in-
censed at such slippery methods, and bound Vigilius by new
pledges sworn to on the nails of the holy Cross and on the
Gospels. But the Pope still squirmed in a most unsatis-
factory manner, and the Emperor sent a praetor with a guard
to arrest him and bring him to terms. Vigilius sought refuge
in a church where he hid himself under the altar. The
praetor attempted to drag him out by his feet, his hair, and
his beard. Vigilius held on until he pulled the altar to pieces,
and popular indignation drove the praetor away. The situa-
tion was becoming more and more complex. Vigilius con-
cluded that the only solution would be through another
General Council; and, at his request, the Fifth General
Council was called. Then he refused to attend it. Justinian
produced the written evidence of the Pope's agreement to
stand with him. Vigilius was summoned, but declined to
pay any attention to the summons. The Council then con-
demned the writings and laid the Pope under severe measures
of discipline. Things were going so badly for Vigilius that
he decided it was time to change his mind again. He entered
the Council, submitted to all its decisions, prepared a paper
in which he retracted all his previous actions, and declared
that his former vacillation had certainly been inspired by the
devil.

When St. Augustine, with his band of missionaries, landed

THE PAPACY 63

in England in the year 603, he was met by a delegation
from the ancient British Church. He explained that he had
been sent by the Pope for the evangelization of England,
and that, therefore, the British Church must be prepared to
recognize him as its superior authority. The reply of the
Abbott of Bangor-Iscoed has been preserved, and runs as
follows: "Be it known to you, without any ambiguity, that
we all and singly are obedient to the Pope of Rome and to
every true and devout Christian, to love each in his own
order with perfect charity, and to aid each one of them to
become sons of God in word and deed. And I know not of
any other obedience than this due to him whom ye style
Pope, nor that he has a claim and right to be Father of
fathers. And the aforesaid obedience we are ready to yield
at once to him and to every Christian. Further, we are
under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Caerleon-upon-
Usk, who is, under God, appointed to oversee us, and to
make us keep the spiritual path." Evidently any idea
of papal supremacy was quite a novelty to the British
Church.

In the seventh century came the bitter controversy over
Monothelitism. One Sergius was the outstanding champion
of this doctrine, but he was staunchly supported by Pope
Honorius I who actually wrote letters in favor of Sergius
and his teaching. A furor was created which grew steadily
and with increasing intensity. At length the issue became so
acute that the Sixth General Council was called to settle it.
Monothelitism, itself, was roundly condemned ; but that was
not all. Everyone supporting the doctrine was anathematized
as a heretic, with special mention of Honorius by name, of
whom the Council said that "in all things he had followed
the opinions of Sergius and had sanctioned his impious doc-
trines." Rome has formally accepted the decrees of this
Council also. Indeed, for a long time thereafter every pope,
on taking his oath of office, was obliged to pronounce

64 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Honorius I, his own predecessor, to have been a heretic and,
for that reason, to be anathema.

Such instances tell a convincing story as to how the
Church regarded the Bishop of Rome in those first few
centuries. The facts show that the papacy was an achieve-
ment of the Middle Ages a clearly traceable development
for the protection of the Church and the conservation of the
Christian religion. At the close of the Middle Ages, it was
what the diplomats would call a fait accompli something
which was first done and for which reasons were to be found
afterwards. If not exactly natural, it (or something like it)
was in some sense inevitable. One can scarcely think what
would have happened to western Christendom without a
strongly centralized religious authority to offset the social
autocracy of feudalism. It was in the nature of a blessing
though by no means an unmixed one. But, with the passing
of medieval feudalism, it is a live question as to whether
the papacy did not automatically become an anachronism.
It is a very different matter to make claims that the papacy
was essential to the life of the Church from the beginning,
and that its temporary necessity has survived the conditions
which gave it birth.

The Catholic Encyclopedia (vol. XII, p. 262, under the
article "Pope") says that "the permanence of that office is
essential to the very being of the Church." Yet there were
considerable periods of time which elapsed between the elec-
tions of successive popes the interval between Clement IV
and Gregory X being more than three years. The question
is where was the Church during those three years? If the
office is "essential to the very being of the Church," did the
Church cease to be, during those years when its essential ele-
ment was wanting? If, on the other hand, it could survive
three years in the absence of its own essence, why not k a
hundred years or a thousand years or for the rest of the
earth's natural life?

In the same article (pp. 266-267) the Encyclopedia also

THE PAPACY 65

states that the extraordinary powers of the pope are "imme-
diate in character" and not delegated to him by the Church.
They are powers which belong only to the pope. Granting,
then, for the sake of argument, that Christ's words indicate
a supremacy for St. Peter over the other Apostles (which
is contradicted by a large majority of the early Church
Fathers) ; granting that St. Peter was actually Bishop of
Rome (a claim never advanced before the year 170) ; grant-
ing that this supremacy was meant to be transmitted to his
successors in office "( which is merely surmise) ; and granting
that Roman bishops are capable of receiving such inherited
powers (which is a gratuitous assumption) the further ques-
tion arises as to how these strictly personal powers can be
transmitted when a new pope cannot even be elected until
his predecessor in the office is dead? With no one left on
earth in possession of papal powers, who is equipped to trans-
mit them to the newly elected incumbent? Not the Church,
for the Church never had them; not the cardinals, for they
are incapable of receiving them; not the previous Bishop of
Rome, for he is dead. It can only be by a new creative act
of divine grace ; in which case it is not the privilege of Peter
at all, but an entirely new privilege in each succeeding pope.
So the papacy itself vitiates the fundamental principle of
apostolic succession namely, that one can transmit only that
which he himself possesses.

The medieval papacy found its foothold at the junction
point of four converging lines of development, all of which
are woven into a common strand serving, first, as a life-line
to the Church, and eventually as an ecclesiastical fetter.
There were, to be sure, various other contributing influences,
but it was mainly along these four courses political, social,
military, and ecclesiastical that history went tumbling on
its troubled way, finally to discover itself confronted with
this novel institution of its own unconscious creation.
The papacy was not so much manufactured out of the
plots of scheming Churchmen as it was thrust upon the

66 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Church by the multiple force of interlocking circum-
stances.

1. Political. When, in the year 330, Constantine re-
moved the capital of the Empire to Constantinople, Rome
was left to live on its previous reputation. As a seat of
government, it quickly ceased to function. Honorius, who
was the last of the western emperors, fled from Rome on the
approach of the Gothic invaders and lived the remainder of
his wretched life in Ravenna. That flight left Rome with
only memories of political leadership. For the next three
centuries, the Empire was administered from Constantinople,
with nothing more than a representative of the Emperor
stationed at Ravenna, who went by the title of "Exarch."
He had no real authority, and was either ignored or despised
by the forsaken people of Italy. To those people, however,
Rome never ceased to be the object of their affection, and
to Rome they instinctively turned their appealing eyes in
time of imminent danger. But with the removal of the seat
of government, there was only one man left in the Eternal
City possessed of any particular prestige namely, the bishop.
The political vicissitudes of the Empire elevated him into
unavoidable prominence. He must have been a very weak
man indeed who would have failed to capitalize such a ready-
made opportunity. And many of those bishops were exceed-
ingly strong and able men.

2. Social. The pagan aristocracy of Rome died hard.
It persisted down to the time of the Gothic invasion, in spite
of growing Christian opposition, and was composed of many
ne old families who inherited many fine old estates. These
families clung tenaciously to the remnants of paganism as
to the decaying rags of former grandeur; prominent offices
of the pagan regime had come into their exclusive possession,
and in many instances had become hereditary. These aristo-
crats were very proud of the social position which such offices
brought to them, and they cherished their traditions carefully
against the time when pagan culture might be restored once

THE PAPACY 67

again to its own. Popular Rome became more and more
Christian, but social Rome perpetuated its pagan interest
within a gradually narrowing circle until the Goths swarmed
down through the country. As we have already seen, the
Goths were Christians of a sort. Therefore, when they
sacked Rome, they spared the Christian portions of the city
and spent their piratical energies with unabated zeal upon
the exclusive social set. The net result was that pagan
Rome was fairly obliterated, while Christian Rome was left
in full possession of the field. The old aristocracy either
fled to other lands or sullenly submitted to impoverishment
at home. Paganism was done for. The new aristocracy was
to be Christian, setting the social standard for all the neigh-
boring communities. The Church henceforth dominated
society, and the bishop was, of course, the head of the Church.
3. Military* The once invincible Roman legions had
lost their fighting magic by the beginning of the fifth century.
What military spirit was left found ample opportunity to
express itself in the East, and Italy became practically defense-
less. When the barbarians came over the Alps in reiterated
quest of plunder, they met with a resistance which was both
feeble and demoralized. Vainly, provincial Italy looked to
Rome for some revival of military ardor. Such expectations
proved hopeless. Upon this dreary scene comes the fine
spectacle of Pope Leo I leading out his procession of unarmed
clergy into the camp of the Huns where he redeemed the
dismal situation by buying off the invaders with a large sum
of money. A few years later came the Vandals, and once more
Leo stepped into the breach, securing from them a promise
that the city would not be burned or the people tortured.
Naturally, a public twice saved in its extremity was prepared
to pay high honor to this new source of help which could do
for them what a decadent military leadership had entirely
failed to do. The people sought the Pope for the defense of
their lives and property as well as of their souls. Such methods,
however, could not be permanently effective. If the Pope

68 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

were to be really the protector of the city in an age when
warfare was the order of the day, he must have some sort of
military backing. Therefore there had to be papal alliances
with military powers, together with the organization of local
military forces. So Christendom came to witness the strange
anomaly of a Christian bishop recruiting papal armies, actively
participating in military campaigns, and occasionally leading
his own armies in person on the field of battle.

4. Ecclesiastical. Opposition consolidates loyalty. Un-
der any circumstances the office of Bishop of Rome would
have been immensely important from an ecclesiastical point
of view. An attack upon the religious privileges of the
Italian people would naturally force the pope into a posi-
tion of extraordinary leadership ; and such leadership, strongly
exercised, would also naturally fortify his position and greatly
enhance his prestige. This is just what happened when Leo
the Isaurian (nick-named "The Iconoclast") was Emperor
in Constantinople (717 A. D.). For reasons which need
not be discussed at this point, he determined to rid his
Empire of the religious images which had been erected in
profusion in all quarters. Having instituted bitter warfare
against image-worship in the East, he turned his indomitable
energy against similar practices in the West. The exarch
was ordered to destroy all images in the churches of Italy,
and he endeavored to carry out the order. But representa-
tions of Our Lord and of the saints were exceedingly popu-
lar ; the exarch was little more than an object of contempt ;
and the Emperor himself was heartily disliked on all hands
because of his policy on taxation and for his general arrogance.
It was a highly combustible situation, and there is nothing
surprising in the fierce flame of resentment which greeted
the Emperor's demands. Gregory II was pope at the time,
and happened to be a man with a mind of his own. He
flatly refused to comply when the order was transmitted to
him. He headed up the popular feeling in Italy, and returned
wrath for wrath in good measure against the headstrong

THE PAPACY 69

Emperor. Leo wrote abusive letters and Gregory replied in
kind. "We must," said the Pope, "write to you grossly and
rudely, forasmuch as you are illiterate and gross . . . Go into
our elementary schools, and say, 'I am the overthrower arid
persecutor of images' ; and forthwith the children will cast
their tablets at you, and you will be taught by the unwise
that which you refuse to learn from the wise." The people
-were solidly back of the Pope. They drove out the exarch,
and clung all the more earnestly to their images. Leo's
attempt was a total failure in the West, and practically ceased
with his death. The Pope had won his point on an exceed-
ingly popular issue. He had entered the lists in defense of
the religious liberties of Italy against an autocratic ruler who
was none too well loved anyhow. The public realized the
growing need for such a champion, and was ready to pay
him all the honor necessary for the preservation of its religious
prerogatives.

These four courses of events were not all separate and
distinct. They were interwoven and cross-hatched, but they
came to a definite focus toward the beginning of the eighth
century in a critical situation arising in Italy and culminating
in the remarkable career of Charlemagne.

The Lombards were a troublesome people who had
crossed the Alps a century or so before this, and had settled
in northern Italy, in that section now known as Lombardy.
They had erected a kingdom of their own, and had become
permanent inhabitants along the valley of the Po. Like the
Goths, they had adopted an Arian form of Christianity and
were, therefore, both politically and religiously, on unfriendly
terms with the rest of Italy. When the controversy over
images broke out, the Lombard king took advantage of the
distracted state of affairs to advance his own ambitions. He
set forth in conquest of the neighboring territory, pushing
his successes to the very walls of Rome. The bad feeling
engendered by the image controversy made it impossible for
Italy to look to Constantinople for any help against the

70 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Lombards, and the Pope was put to it to find a way out of
the difficulty. Charles Martel, the great Frankish general,
after his victory over the Moslems at Tours, was the military
man of the hour. Moreover, the Franks were orthodox in
their Christianity and, therefore, on the other side of the
ecclesiastical fence from the Lombards. Frantically Pope
Gregory III appealed to Charles in his distress, urging
him by persuasion and gifts to come speedily to the rescue.
Gregory sent the keys of St. Peter's tomb and filings from
St. Peter's chains as special inducements. In all probability,
a favorable response would have been forthcoming; but
Charles died, and Gregory followed him the same year.

Charles' office as Mayor of the Palace was hereditary
just as that of the king; and, upon his death, his two sons,
Pepin and Carloman, succeeded him. Carloman surrendered
his rights and retired to a monastery, leaving Pepin virtual
ruler of the Franks under a ridiculous figure-head of a king.
Pepin was far from being satisfied with the situation. He
disliked the idea of performing all the duties of a ruler while
the honors accrued to the useless survivor of a decadent line
of royalty. Why, he queried, should he not be accorded the
title as well as the responsibilities? Still it was a serious
matter to turn a king out-of-doors, for one could never be
sure just how well pleased his subjects might be at such a
radical change, Pepin sought advice of Zacharias who had
succeeded to the papal chair. Zacharias was still desperately
in need of help against the Lombards, and was not slow
to avail himself of such an opportunity to secure it. So the
puppet king paid the unwilling price, and took his long hair
into a monastery for the remainder of his natural life, while
Pepin was raised aloft on a buckler and proclaimed the new
King of the Franks.

Zacharias did not live to profit by his bargain. Stephen
II, his successor, attempted to postpone the issue by a treaty
with the Lombards, but they promptly violated their obliga-
tions by going on another rampage. This time Stephen did

THE PAPACY 71

not wait for long-distance communications, but set out in
person to lay his troubles before Pepin. He and his clergy,
clothed in sack-cloth and ashes, cast themselves on the ground
before the Prankish ruler, earnestly imploring his assistance.
Pepin received them with all honor, walked by the side of
the Pope holding his horse's rein, and agreed to do all that
was asked of him.

A brief campaign brought the Lombards to terms; but
as soon as Pepin had re-crossed the Alps, they again repudiated
all their promises in a series of renewed depredations.
Followed another appeal from the Pope and another cam-
paign by Pepin. Only, this time, promises were at a dis-
count, and the Franks remained in the field long enough to
recover the conquered territory and present it as a gift to
the Pope. Constantinople protested at this summary dis-
position of a portion of the imperial realm ; but Pepin replied
that he had taken it for St. Peter, and to the Pope it must
go. So the Papal States came into existence, and the Pope,
as a temporal sovereign, appeared as a factor to be reckoned
with by the other sovereigns of Europe.

Thus was the ground prepared for Charlemagne with his
boundless ambitions and his powerful personality. He became
King of the Franks on the death of his father Pepin, and
for nearly half a century (768-814) dominated the better
part of the known world.

The versatility of Charlemagne's interests is positively
amazing. As a warrior, he was without a peer. As a states-
man, he was bold and resourceful. He conceived the tre-
mendous idea of rebuilding a western Empire which might
compare favorably with the Roman Empire of the Caesars.
As a matter of fact, his incessant conquests did bring him
a realm equal in extent to that of the Caesars, and he all but
concluded a marriage uniting his own family with that of
the Empress in Constantinople which would have carried it
still farther. The Greeks coined a proverb in his honor
"Have the Frank for thy friend but not for thy neighbor."

72 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

He handled his unwieldy mass of subject people with a real
genius for administration. On the whole, he was reasonable
with them; but no one was ever in any doubt as to who was
master. He had a deep-seated devotion to the Christian
religion, though it must be said that the expedients he adopted
for converting conquered races would scarcely bear the
scrutiny of a good Christian missionary. His thirty-three
years of war with the Saxons, for instance, brought him
to the determination either to convert or exterminate them.
On one occasion he resorted to the latter method to the
extent of 4,500 executions, and imposed Baptism upon all
survivors. So far as the Church was concerned, he ran it
to suit himself. Papal authority never troubled him, for he
recognized no other authority than his own. Indeed he
assumed the responsibility of personally investigating the
bitter quarrel over Leo III, whose enemies had seized him
in the streets of Rome, beaten him cruelly, and attempted
to cut out his eyes and his tongue. Moreover, Charlemagne
was a patron of learning, in which he set a notable example
for clergy and courtiers. He spoke Latin, as well as his
native tongue, and had a good working knowledge of Greek.
He studied diligently for his own improvement, surrounded
himself with the best scholarship of his day, and encouraged
the pursuit of knowledge with all the pressure of his royal
influence. He was greatly interested in reading and singing,
and, his chronicler adds, "he was very skilful in both,
although he neither read publicly nor sang, except in a low
voice and together with others."

The one persistent blot upon Charlemagne's record is to
be found in the irregularities of his private life. In personal
morals he seemed incorrigible. Soon after he became king,
he approached the Lombard question from the diplomatic
angle of a marriage alliance. To be sure, he already had
a wife; but he proposed to dispose of her and marry the
Lombard princess. The Pope was in a terrible temper, both
from moral and political considerations. He entreated and

THE PAPACY 73

expostulated with Charlemagne, all to no avail. Then he
wrote him a letter, fairly smoking with indignation and
promising all manner of eternal fire if the King persisted
in his wicked designs. To give the greatest possible weight
to the letter, the Pope explained that he had laid it upon
St. Peter's tomb and offered the Eucharistic Sacrifice upon it.
But Charlemagne was unmoved. He carried out his plans
according to schedule, lived with his new wife for about
a year, and then, for reasons unassigned, sent her back to
her father to make room for a third consort for his royal
self. In this respect, Charlemagne was somewhat anticipating
Henry VIII of England ; yet he was never excommunicated
for it, and he has never been accused of "starting a new
Church." But that was before the papacy had really arrived.

Well Charlemagne had not been long on his throne
-when the Lombards again grew restless at the expense of
their neighbors. By this time, the Franks had acquired
something of an appetite for Lombards, and when the Pope
cried out again for rescue, the Franks made their accustomed
response by dispatching another army into Italy. No half-
way measures were to be tolerated any longer. Charlemagne
not only chastised the faithless Lombards, but he abolished
their kingdom, made a monk out of their king, and took
their country under his own control. He went to Rome
where he was received with an exuberance of honor. He
came to St. Peter's, kissed each step as he entered, embraced
the Pope and was welcomed by the clergy with chants of
"Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." The
former gift of Pepin's was ratified, and much additional
territory was granted to the papal domain, all of which was
publicly proclaimed as Charlemagne placed the instrument
of donation on the tomb of the Apostle.

Years afterward, Charlemagne came again to Rome to
settle the question of the right of Leo III to the papal chair.
When that matter was satisfactorily disposed of, Charlemagne
remained over the Christmas season, and on Christmas Day

74 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

of the year 800 he went to worship in St. Peter's. As he
was kneeling before the altar, the Pope stepped forward
without any warning and placed a crown upon his head in
the sight of the astonished congregation and apparently to
the complete surprise of Charlemagne himself. The action
suited the temper of the people exactly, and the great church
rang with shouts of "Long life and victory to Charles,
crowned by God Emperor of Rome." Such were the mixed
beginnings of what came to be known as the Holy Roman
Empire, a powerful factor in the destinies of Europe, either
in fact or in name, for a thousand years to come.

So rose the medieval Empire, and so rose the medieval
papacy. Had Charlemagne been followed by one or two
successors of similar energy, his grandiose vision of reviving
the glories of the Caesars might have become a reality. But
that was not to be. His Empire was fractured in the hands
of his less competent sons, and began to crumble as the
breath left his body. The title "Emperor," inaugurated with
him, continued to carry a weighty prestige for many a cen-
tury, but its real authority was as transitory as his own life.
Meantime, on the ruins of his imperial projects, the papacy
found its foothold. The chair of Peter became the papal
throne, and the pope became The Pope. As the ruler of
the Papal States, he claimed the privileges of temporal
sovereignty, and treated with kings as with temporal equals.
Indeed, the time came when he claimed super-sovereignty
over all earthly rulers, and the battle was on between Church
and State, with the Divine Commission unhappily imperilled
in a No-man's land between. Thanks chiefly to Charlemagne,
the Church thus became inextricably involved in the tangle
of European politics, and the Vatican took its place in the
diplomatic counsels of the nations whether for better or for
worse.

CHAPTER V
THE DARK AGES

" A I A HREE generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves"
A is the proverbial history of most American fortunes.
The Empire of Charlemagne had no greater degree of per-
manence. At his death in 814, the solidarity of his creation
vanished, though it did manage to limp out a crippled exist-
ence for seventy-three years more. He left many sons, some
legitimate and some otherwise, all of whom were ambitious
and none very competent. ^Vith his usual foresight, Charle-
magne had made a personal selection of the one who should
bear the imperial title after him, and had seen to it that his
successor was elevated to this royal distinction before his own
death. Thus Louis became emperor, while his brothers held
subordinate kingdoms. The idea was that there should be
local kings to rule over the different subject peoples, these
kings rendering a certain fealty to the one who was emperor.
The plan was too loose to be effective. It soon developed into
a number of separate kingdoms, with the imperial honor more
theoretical than useful. Plots and conspiracies ran riot among
the sons and grandsons of Charlemagne, with the support of
the popes enlisted now on one side and now on another. The
end came in the reign of one who bore the descriptive name
of Charles the Fat, an amiable but helpless gentleman who
was eventually deposed in 887, and died the following year.
He was the last of the Carolingian line. For the next forty
years there was no emperor at all.

The Papacy and the Western Empire had risen to emi-
nence together. Had they continued in anything like har-
monious cooperation, there might have been a very different
story to tell. But in a society organized under the feudal

[75]

76 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

system there could be room for just one man at the top.
The inevitable conflict between Pope and Emperor was
already on the horizon, and it soon began to materialize.
Papal prestige was growing while Charlemagne's Empire
was disintegrating. Royal jealousies produced great con-
fusion in the secular government ; also kings were not always
as moral as they ought to be. For instance, there was Lothair
who married the daughter of an abbot, and wanted to change
his mind about it the following year. The indignant abbot
threatened war if his daughter were turned out of doors,
so Lothair took her back. But his attention was fastened
upon another lady, and he had recourse to the dastardly
trick of accusing his wife of unspeakable sins. She was
driven to a confession which she later retracted. Lothair
married the other woman, and attempted to bribe the
French bishops into acquiescence. The Pope was obliged
to intervene. Lothair made promises which he never kept
threatened, lied, and flattered to gain his ends. The Queen
became a mental wreck, while the other woman probably
enjoyed it all hugely. Lothair died before the question was
settled, but he had completely ruined himself in the estima-
tion of his own people, while the Pope had won added support
from a public thoroughly disgusted with the duplicity of
their King.

Such conditions lent a powerful impulse to the growing
prestige of the papacy and rightly so. As much cannot be
said, however, for two documents which appeared in a com-
bined form toward the opening of the ninth century. Curious
people of modern times will find an interesting field for
speculation in the fact that two papers of unknown origin
and largely self-contradictory could gain currency with almost
no opposition, and influence the course of world events for
centuries to come. But in an uncritical age, when few people
could read, and scholarship was rare, it was not a surprising
occurrence. We have already referred to the laws of Con-
stantine which returned sequestrated property to the Church,

THE DARK AGES 77

and permitted the Church to receive bequests. This appears
to be the only historical foundation for the notorious "Dona-
tion of Constantine." An old legend told how Constantine
had been stricken with a form of leprosy from which he was
relieved at the hands of Sylvester I, Bishop of Rome. In
gratitude for his miraculous cure, the Emperor was said to
have executed this Donation by which the Pope was given
permanent authority over Rome and "all provinces, places,
and cities of Italy or of the western regions." The ambiguous
expression "western regions" was made to be marvelously
inclusive, covering the whole western hemisphere when
Columbus finally discovered it. This was one of the above-
mentioned documents, produced from nowhere, but soon
accepted everywhere. For five hundred years its authenticity
was unquestioned ; and it was skilfully used to promote the
supremacy of the Roman pontiff whenever a question of his
jurisdiction was raised. It is now acknowledged by every-
body to be altogether spurious a not too clever forgery
thrust upon a credulous public.

The other document is no less curious, and served as a
valuable reenforcement to the first. It seems that, a couple
of hundred years earlier, a monk named Dionysius Exiguus
had compiled a collection of the decisions of the popes on
various questions, which was most useful for purposes of
reference. This was the same Dionysius who prepared our
present system of Christian chronology, dating from what he
reckoned to be the Year One namely, the year of our
Saviour's birth. Thinking, perhaps, that one good turn
deserved another, someone drew up a supplementary collec-
tion of papal decisions supposed to commence early in the
second century. They were called Decretals, and were used
as precedents in later questions of a similar nature not
unlike the decisions of the Supreme Court in modern juris-
prudence. The work was said to have been done by "Isadore
of Seville"; but no one knows who he was, and this name
is probably a pseudonym. The Isadorian Decretals far

78 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

outstripped those of Dionysius in the extending of papal
authority. They indicated that, from the beginning, the
popes had swayed an almost unlimited power; and the in-
ference was that the popes of the ninth century were entirely
within their rights in doing likewise. Once such a document
was accepted, it was impossible to raise much objection to
anything a pope might do. And it was accepted accepted
with scarcely a murmur of doubt, for five centuries. Upon
it, the popes were able to erect an ecclesiastical organization
which was all but invincible. By the time its true character
was exposed, a large part of western Christendom had
acquired an ingrained habit of submission. But nobody now
defends it. The document is commonly known as the Pseudo-
Isadorian, or Forged, Decretals. The thing itself has been
exploded, but the fragments have been carefully inlaid
by controversialists in the modern theory of the papal
monarchy.

Both of these documents arrived at an opportune moment
when, in 858, Nicholas I was elevated to the papal chair.
He proved to be a strong, aggressive man, the first to advance
excessive claims to papal power, and measurably successful
in the exercise of it. He was the pope who battled with
Lothair on the question of the King's personal morals.
Neither was he at all backward about interference with the
less aggravated problems of other sovereigns. He carried on
a bitter controversy with the Eastern Church, and only just
missed the capturing of Bulgaria from missionaries of that
Church. He removed bishops at will, and revoked the actions
of Councils. If objection were raised, he was prepared to
point his opponents to the Donation of Constantine and the
Forged Decretals, declaring that he was only following the
precedents of his forefathers. Hincmar, Archbishop of
Rheims, seems to have been the only man to stand out
against him with anything like determined resistance; and
Hincmar, able man that he was, found episcopal life to be
simply one thing after another.

THE DARK AGES 79

Of course, it is easy to condemn these forgeries out of
hand as examples of inexcusable dishonesty. But there was
doubtless a motive behind them which was not altogether
unworthy. The state of the Church was deplorable. Heroic
measures of some kind were obviously in order. The clergy
and people elected their bishops, but royal hands were accus-
tomed to manipulate such elections with practical impunity.
Bishoprics had acquired enormous wealth in the swift develop-
ment of the country, and the extensive revenues were coveted
with ever-increasing cupidity. The nobility saw to it that
the most lucrative sees were kept securely within their own
family control. They were auctioned to the highest bidder
without regard to the spiritual welfare of the people. It
was not uncommon for mere boys to be made bishops in
order that their relatives might draw down the large incomes
while assistant ecclesiastics performed the required duties.
For instance, the important Bishopric of Rheims fell vacant,
whereupon a French count forced the election of his own
five-year-old son, and coolly walked away with the plunder.
Pope John X confirmed the election. But presently, another
political party gained control, and a rival bishop was elected.
The contending bishops fought it out for thirty years, each
backed by his own group of powerful interests. One had
been acknowledged by one pope, and the other by a succeed-
ing pope. At a Church Council where the matter was under
discussion, both contestants produced letters of confirmation
from a third pope.

As with the bishoprics, so with the monasteries. It
was a far cry from the early Egyptian hermits to the well-
organized monastic life of the Middle Ages. St. Anthony,
in the third century, had lived in the wilderness for twenty
years without laying his eyes on another human being. In
the fourth century, St. Simon Stylites lived for thirty-six
years on the top of a fifty-foot pillar, with no protection
from wind and weather, never even sitting down during the
forty days of the annual Lenten fast. But in the sixth

80 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

century, St. Benedict inaugurated a rule of monastic life
which was adopted throughout all of Europe. The spectacular
excesses of individual hermits were merged into the more
reasonable regime of community life. Monasteries under the
Benedictine rule were established far and wide, and, for
the most part, they were great blessings. The monks tilled
the ground and pursued studious occupations; their monas-
teries offered centres of refuge to those who were in distress.
It is difficult to see what would have happened to the Holy
Scriptures if the monks had not preserved them and made
laborious copies of them as part of their daily routine. The
monasteries were the Universities of the early Middle Ages.
But Charlemagne's genius for organization had laid hold
upon the monks as it had upon the bishops. All manner of
secular duties were demanded of them, which prevented the
proper exercise of their spiritual functions. Then, too, many
of the monasteries had become very wealthy, and were attrac-
tive prizes for the greedy nobility. The monastic rule of
life became so badly neglected that a sweeping reform was
instituted at Cluny, in the tenth century ; and a second reform,
somewhat later, by the Cistercians. But in this period we
are considering, conditions were on the down-grade, with no
one to apply the brakes. Abbots and bishops were in per-
petual conflict, and clever politicians played them off one
against the other.

Some one probably figured it out that the only solution
of these conditions was to concentrate power in the hands
of a supreme head to whom all would have to be responsible.
Discipline could thus be strengthened, and the Church re-
lieved from the secularizing pressure of kings and princes.
So the forgeries of which we have spoken were very likely
perpetrated in the character of pious frauds. But, like so
many other compromises with honesty, however well inten-
tioned, their success proved to be more disastrous than the
condition they were meant to remedy. The fallacy in the
theory lay in the expectation that the recipient of these

THE DARK AGES 81

exaggerated powers would, himself, always be above reproach.
This did not turn out to be the case. Instead, the papacy
was converted into another prize greatly to be desired, and
the abuses which had been prevalent in the lower orders
flowed through the channels of human frailty into an ocean
of corruption which flooded Rome for generations to come.
For a century and a half, the See of Peter was openly on
the market. It was bought and sold, traded and stolen.
Murder, war, adultery, bribery, blackmail, and every other
known vice invaded the papal court and spread their con-
taminating influences like a moral pestilence. Some of the
very worst characters in Rome controlled the papacy, and
placed their own creatures on its throne with impudent dis-
regard of all principles of decency. The period is aptly
called the Dark Ages, and the record of it is not pleasant
reading. An illustration or two will suffice.

When a man is dead, he is generally left to the tender
mercies of his Creator. But it was not so with Pope
Formosus. If anyone prayed over him that ""the souls of
the faithful departed" might rest in peace, it was far too
literally interpreted by those who followed him. Maybe his
soul was allowed to rest in peace, but his body was in for
some strange post-mortem adventures. After being pope from
891 to 896, he died. But during those years, he had acquired
an active group of enemies who were not averse to playing
the part of ghouls. Boniface VI was pope for only fifteen
days. Stephen VI came next, and was one of the inveterate
foes of Formosus. The ghastly proceedings then commenced.
The dead body of Formosus was dragged from its tomb,
clothed in papal robes, seated in the pontifical chair, and
placed on trial. A deacon was made attorney for the defense,
but his efforts were as lifeless as his client. Formosus was
convicted and all his official acts annulled. His dead body
was stripped of its vestments, the three fingers used in
pontifical blessing were struck off, and the corpse thrown
into the Tiber, whence it was rescued by some sympathetic

82 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

monk. Two other popes reigned for a few months each,,
in the following year. Then John IX ascended the throne,
and called for another Synod on Formosus. The conviction
of the first trial -was rescinded, and the body was re-interred
in St. Peter's with full papal honors. Three more short-
term popes lived and died ; after which, Sergius III reopened
the case, and condemned Formosus all over again. By this
last judgment, all the Orders conferred by Formosus were
declared invalid, and his bishops were to be treated as laymen.
But these bishops had, of course, ordained many priests in
the meantime, and the question remained who was what?
Formosus* name stands in the accredited list of popes, but his
body is by this time doubtless reduced to a condition incapable
of further violence.

While Formosus was still in search of permanent burial,
another influence broke upon the city of Rome. This time
it was feminine and the female of the species is more
dangerous than the male. Theodora was her name. She
was a widow cursed with beauty, wealth, and a totally
defunct conscience. She had two daughters, one named
Theodora after her mother, and the other named Marozia.
The daughters also were afflicted with the same triple curse.
One would like to be chivalrous and saying something compli-
mentary about these women, but history cannot be unwritten,
and the record is inexorable. For fifty years, they, their
relatives, their offspring, and their lovers, controlled the
destinies of the papal See through what is commonly known
as the period of the "pornocracy." The highest ecclesiastics
fell into their voluptuous toils. Liutprand, contemporary
Bishop of Cremona, tells the story of the time, and he was
doubtless in a position to know. Pope Sergius III lived
openly with Marozia, and Liutprand says that John XI
was their son. A grandson of Marozia was engineered into
the papacy, and assumed the name of John XII. He was
eighteen years old at the time; and the older he grew, the
worse he became. The Emperor came to conduct a thorough

THE DARK AGES 83

investigation into his character, and hosts of witnesses freely
testified to an interminable list of crimes ; among other things,
he had drunk wine "to the love of the devil." He was finally
killed in the act of adultery. Theodora, the mother, had
been responsible for the elevation of John X to the papal
throne. This handsome young man had come on some
mission to Rome from Ravenna, and had fallen under the
widow's seductive glance. She hastened to add him to the
number of her conquests, had him made Bishop of Bologna,
and then placed him in the Vatican -where he could be nearer
home. All of this made him many enemies. They surprised
the Pope one evening in the castle of St. Angelo, murdered
his brother, Peter, and suffocated the Pope himself. Cardinal
Baronius, writing of this period, refers to the popes as
monstrous men of most vicious life, entirely lost as to morals ;
and then quaintly remarks that the continuance of the papacy
under such conditions must be a token of special divine favor.
It reminds one of the tale of the Jew who visited Rome
about this time and announced, on his return home, that he
had been converted to a belief in the divine character of the
Church. When asked for the cause of his conversion, he
replied that no institution could possibly survive the corrup-
tion of Roman society without some divine intervention back
of it.

Nevertheless, even a dark cloud has some brighter edges,
if not a full-blown silver lining. The murky picture painted
in the last few pages does not tell the whole story of the
Church in the Dark Ages. There was^at least a portion of
the scriptural seven thousand who had not bowed the knee
to the Baal of corruption and licentiousness. During this
very time, monasticism underwent the reform which emanated
from Cluny. Sylvester II was an encouraging contrast to
the general run of popes, though his own virtue fought a
losing battle with the decadence of his age, and one account
says that he was poisoned by a representative member of
Theodora's tribe. Gregory V also relieves the dark back-

84 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

ground with a more cheerful touch of decency. In England,
Alfred the Great and his family set a worthy example of
virtuous living ; and the splendid figure of St. Dunstan, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, showed that the moral power of the
Gospel was not altogether submerged. These represent a
saving remnant which was waiting only for that point of
degradation to be reached where a nauseated Church would
revolt and cleanse itself of its moral filth. But conditions
had to become worse before they could become better. The
Divine Commission had fallen on evil days.

Toward the end of the tenth century there was a curious
cross-current in the Church, indicating that some people
thought more than twice about their sins. The approach
of the year 1000 produced its crop of millennialists who were
convinced that the world was about to come to an end.
All the details of prophecy seemed to be in a process of
undeniable fulfilment, and people checked them up by the
sixth chapter of the Revelation with the "sagacity of terror."
Of pestilences there were many, and some of them came
with devastating virulence. Fresh invasions of the Huns re-
newed the horrors of five hundred years before. Famine
conditions of unusual severity prevailed for years at a time.
Raoul Glaber, who was born about 1000 A. D., has left a
chronicle of the tenth century. His powers of discrimination
were not very keen, but he probably reflects something of
the spirit of the times when he writes: "The rich waxed
thin and pale ; the poor gnawed the roots of trees, and many
were in such extremity as to devour human flesh. The
strong fell upon the weak in the public highways, tore them
to pieces, and roasted them for food. Children were enticed
by an egg or some fruit into by-ways where they were
devoured. This frenzy of hunger was such that the beast
was safer than the man." War and pillage ran riot. In fact,
petty warfare became so common that the bishops decreed
the "Truce of God," which forbade fighting from Wednes-
day to Sunday of each week. If a great storm burst upon the

THE DARK AGES 85

land or an eclipse of the sun or moon occurred, people in
many places sought refuge in churches, or hid themselves
away in dens, fearfully waiting for the dreaded catastrophe
to come. Many gifts were made to the Church in the effort
to dispose of earthly possessions, and it was common to find
the instruments of donation beginning with the significant
phrase "The end of the world drawing near." Historical
records of the period are scanty, probably because chroniclers
thought it useless to continue the story of a world which was
at the point of dissolution. But, somehow, the world decided
not to die. So it was left to future generations to juggle
scriptural numbers into new combinations and assign other
dates for that great event about which Our Lord said it
was none of our business. Still, such earnest hallucinations
do show a strain of Christian conviction, in interesting con-
trast to the worldly indifference of the papal court. The
Church was doubtless preserved by the spiritual sincerity of
unknown Christians; while history inscribes upon its pages,
in lurid tints, the names of those who misrepresented
Christ, and erected in Rome a new Calvary dedicated to
the proposition that high office is no cure for assassinated
morals.

The climax came toward the middle of the next century.
Through the activity of one of the warring factions in Rome,
a boy of ten or twelve years was elected pope and took the
title of Benedict IX. Possibly his friends thought he would
outgrow his childish viciousness, or perhaps they didn't care.
At any rate, he soon began to fulfil the worst predictions
of his enemies. In eleven years he was driven from Rome
twice by a scandalized populace and that's saying a good
deal for a Roman populace of that day. Upon his second
exodus, another pope was elected in his place, Sylvester III.
Benedict was not pleased. He returned in a few months
and expelled his rival. It was not that Benedict wanted
the throne, but he preferred to dispose of it in his own way.
There was a priest, highly reputed for personal holiness, to

86 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

whom he sold the office for hard cash like an old pair of
shoes. The new incumbent was known as Gregory VI. But
Benedict had a great way of changing his mind. He soon
returned to Rome, reasserting his original claim to the papacy.
This meant that the bewildered Church found itself con-
fronted with three popes, each occupying his own corner
of the city and pouring forth his wrath upon the other
two.

A year or two of such distractions made too rich a diet
even for Rome, and an appeal was sent into Germany for
the King, Henry III, to come down and rid the See of Peter
of its surplus occupants. Henry called a Council at Sutri,
allowing Gregory to preside. Benedict promptly retired to
a monastery. Sylvester was deposed from the episcopate and
forced into retirement also. Then the Council turned its
attention to Gregory, its own presiding officer. They inquired
as to the circumstances of his election. With naive sim-
plicity, he frankly acknowledged that he had bought his way
in. He explained that large sums of money had been en-
trusted to him to expend for pious purposes, and that he
had not been able to think of any purpose more pious than
that of rescuing the papacy from the crowd of cutthroats who
controlled it. To his surprise, the Council failed to see
things in just that way. Struggling under this new idea,
Gregory resigned forthwith, and the office was declared by
the Council to be vacant. Unwilling to take a chance on
another election, Henry then picked his own pope, a German
who assumed the title of Clement II. This was in the year
1046,

Clement reigned but a single year when death took him
suddenly away. Henry was then called upon to nominate
a successor; and, after securing advice from many quarters,
he selected another German who became Damasus II.
Within less than a month after his coronation, Damasus also
died. There have been hints of poison in the deaths of these
two popes, but it may be only a reflection of the suspicious

THE DARK AGES 87

state of mind with which the public was inoculated. Once
more Henry took the matter under advisement; and, this
time, chose his own cousin who was then Bishop of Xoul.
He took the title of Leo IX, and was a man of most com-
mendable character. On his way to Rome for his corona-
tion, he was met by the Abbot of Cluny accompanied by an
Italian monk named Hildebrand. It was a most momentous
meeting. Hildebrand had some very solid convictions regard-
ing the need for reform in the whole Church, and laid his
case so powerfully before the new pope that Leo com-
mandeered his services and took him to Rome as his special
adviser.

Hildebrand is one of the great men of history. He was
possessed of an iron will coupled with an abundant store of
political wisdom. His own life was irreproachable, and he
seems to have been free from the personal ambitions which
had all but wrecked the Church on so many occasions before
his time. As a youth, he had been brought up in the Church,
and early in his career had adopted the monastic life. Dis-
gusted with the loose conditions of the Italian monasteries,
he had gone to Cluny where his record was so promising that
the Abbot had quoted Scripture about him, saying "He
shall be great in the sight of the Highest." In the three-
cornered controversy involving Gregory VI, Hildebrand had
characteristically identified himself with the cleanest of the
papal contenders, and had acted as chaplain for Gregory
during his brief pontificate. When Gregory resigned, Hilde-
brand went with him and chafed within his soul over the
indignities which were visited upon the Holy See. But now
he was to have his innings. During the reigns of the next
five popes, he was the power behind the throne. On more
than one occasion he might have secured the honor for him-
self ; but he preferred to designate others for the office while
he played the role of dictator.

Leo IX made a great impression upon the Romans by
appearing before them barefoot and in rough clothing. All

88 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

the luxurious trappings of his predecessors were discarded.
The same austerity of life which he demanded of his clergy
was established as the rule of the Vatican also. The old-
time glamour was gone, but the old-time vices went with it ;
and the Church reaped a handsome profit through the trans-
action, in the coin of moral decency. Leo surrounded himself
with men of high character, notable among them being Peter
Damiani, a fiery monk of violent sanctity. One of the first
duties devolving upon the new pope was to turn financier.
The papal income had been so scandalously squandered that
Leo at one time seriously considered selling the pontifical
vestments in order to raise money. By careful economy, how-
ever, the crisis was tided over, and soon the customary
revenues began to flow in and a financial panic in the Church
was narrowly averted. With bills paid and funds in hand,
Leo was prepared to address himself to the correction of
some of the abuses which oozed out of the cracked fabric
of the Church on every hand. Instigated by Hildebrand,
he adopted a novel procedure. Instead of issuing orders and
despatching legates, he set out on a personal tour of observa-
tion. Here and there he traveled, listening to grievances,
settling disputes, and conducting investigations. His partic-
ular point of attack was "simony," the purchase of ecclesi-
astical preferment. He called Synods and demanded that
bishops should solemnly swear that they had not secured
their offices by bribery. If there were doubt, witnesses were
called and testimony taken. Those who confessed to simony,
or were convicted of it, were promptly deposed. The Church
swelled with indignation or buzzed with approval, as the case
might be. Nothing of the kind had been known before.
It was like the graft investigations in the cities of the United
States at the beginning of the twentieth century. The public
was of one mind that bribery was a corroding sin, but no one
had the slightest idea that it could ever be eradicated. People
accepted it as a necessary evil. Ambitious men who would
condemn it on principle, nevertheless saved up their spare

THE DARK AGES 89

change to buy in at the opportune moment. It was one of
the issues on which Hildebrand was adamant, and Leo spoke
valiantly with his master's voice.

The process went on under succeeding popes. It was
not done without opposition, but it was done; the Church
once more came to know the meaning of self-respect. But
Hildebrand was quick to see that the permanence of such
improvement depended wholly on the character of the man
who sat on the papal throne. As long as he kept the control
of affairs in his own hand, the situation was safe. But some
day he would be gathered to his fathers and what then?
The pope was not (and is not now) elected to be pope. He
is elected to be Bishop of Rome; and, by the theory of suc-
cession from St. Peter, he automatically becomes pope at the
same time. The Bishop of Rome is the pope. As in other
places, so in Rome, the bishop was elected by the clergy and
people of the city. But ever since Henry III had obliterated
three popes at a blow, and had then chosen a fourth to his
own liking, the elections had been pure formalities. Henry
told the people whom to elect and they did as they were told.
Hildebrand foresaw ominous possibilities in such a system.
Like a good banker, he determined to keep the papacy from
being stolen by putting it in a safe place. A Council was
called in Rome by Nicholas II, one of the Hildebrandine
popes, and a new regulation was enacted vesting papal elec-
tions in the College of Cardinals, but according to the
Emperor a certain power of veto. So the present system
was evolved whereby the popes appoint the cardinals and the
cardinals elect the popes. Certainly nothing could be safer.
A two-thirds majority was necessary to any election, but it
was soon found that such agreement was not easily achieved.
Sometimes the cardinals were deadlocked for a year or two.
Therefore another provision was added, to the effect that,
pending a papal election, the cardinals should be housed in
solitary confinement under a system of increasing privations.
It was to be a case of election by starvation.

90 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

In 1073, Alexander II died; and even during the funeral
rites, the people of Rome made vociferous outcry for Hilde-
brand as his successor. This time he was not unwilling to
accept the honor. The cardinals retired and voted the will
of the people. Hildebrand ascended the papal throne and
took the title of Gregory VII.

The five preceding pontificates had prepared the ground
for the larger aims which the new pope brought with him.
Gregory had but a single love, and it was for the Church.
A one-track mind was, at the same time, his strength and his
weakness. He carried out his ideas to their ultimate logical
conclusion. In fact his - system was so logical that it was
brittle. He was, to ecclesiasticism, what John Calvin was to
theology. His theory, in a word, was this: Christ is the
head of Christendom ; the pope in His vicar on earth ; Chris-
tian rulers are responsible to Christ through His vicar ; there-
fore the pope is not only supreme in the Church, but he
also exercises a super-authority over kings and princes.
Gregory was sincere and inflexible. He was undoubtedly
convinced that a spiritual supremacy over the nobility of
Europe would purify politics, promote justice for the com-
mon people, elevate morals, and prevent strife. He con-
ceived it to be his duty to rebuke kings and depose emperors.
All princes were to kiss his feet. He was a supreme court
of appeal, but he himself was above all judgment. From
his point of view, it was all very logical and very necessary ;
the one thing he never seems to have considered was the
inevitable danger of placing unlimited authority in the hands
of one man. A little more elasticity in the mind of Gregory
might have prevented the Protestant Reformation five hun-
dred years later.

All the reforms of the five preceding pontificates were
vigorously maintained by Gregory. One of them he carried
to an extreme which had never been known before namely,
the requirement of celibacy on the part of the clergy. Mar-
riage had heretofore been the prevailing custom among parish

THE DARK AGES ' 91

priests, both in the East and the West. A celibate priesthood
had been encouraged, and occasionally some pressure had been
brought to bear in an effort to make it a reality. Canons had
been promulgated on various occasions forbidding any mar-
riage of the clergy, but they were seldom effective. Popes
Nicholas II and Alexander II had made a few gestures of
enforcement, but the opposition was so violent that little
was accomplished. The efforts of Alexander in Milan had
produced open riots in the city. Beyond the Alps, the
canons regarding celibacy were universally disregarded. In
France, Germany, and England, parish priests as well as
bishops had wives, and made no attempt at concealment.
Adrian II was the son of a bishop and was himself married,
with his wife and daughter living at the time of his election.
But Gregory was not to be stopped. In his estimation,
marriage canons were as binding as any others, and he pro-
ceeded to put teeth in the legislation. Outside of Italy, his
demands were received as unprecedented innovations, and
consternation speedily gave place to active resistance. He
not only insisted that newly-ordained clergy should be bound
to a life of celibacy, but he called upon those who were
already married to put away their wives. In case of refusal,
the people were released from spiritual obedience to such
priests, and were forbidden to receive their ministrations.
The disorders were most disquieting, but Gregory never
deviated from his course, and his persistence eventually won
the battle. There were, to be sure, many subsequent instances
of relaxation on this point of conjugal discipline, sometimes
amounting to open indifference. Thus, Adrian IV, who was
pope seventy-five years after Gregory, is known to have been
the son of an English cleric. Nevertheless, the principle of
a celibate priesthood was successfully established, and has
been the law of the Roman Church from that day to this.
, While laying down the law of the Church in the case
of the clergy, Gregory was not unmindful of the call to
battle from political quarters also. The youthful Henry IV

92 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

had succeeded to the throne of Germany, and his natural
impetuosity soon thrust him into scalding hot "water. He
quarreled right and left with the nobles of his realm until
his unpopularity was the most prominent thing about him.
It was Gregory's chance to come to grips on the troublesome
question of investiture.

Under the feudal system, the citizens of every country
owed allegiance to their respective sovereigns. It was cus-
tomary for those in official positions to swear fealty to their
king upon taking office. Bishops, of course, were the ad-
ministrators of large temporalities involving considerable
revenues. The kings, therefore, exercised their usual prerog-
atives by investing bishops with the insignia of their rank,
and receiving from them the customary homage. But in the
case of bishops, the insignia of their office were ecclesiastical,
consisting of ring and crozier. Gregory protested that it
was an invasion of his spiritual authority for any king to
make such investiture. The kings, on the other hand, claimed
that the clergy were just as much subjects of the crown as
anybody else residing in the kingdom. Obviously, there was
a good deal to be said on both sides. A clash between two
such overlapping spheres of jurisdiction was inevitable. But,
according to Gregory's standards, there could be only one
answer. He was eager for a test case, and circumstances
made Henry a profitable victim.

Trouble between Henry and the Saxons had been appealed
by both sides to the Pope. Henry sent ambassadors to Rome,
and Gregory sent envoys back carrying a letter to the King.
But the Pope's letter was a bit uncertain in its cordiality.
What did he mean by saying "Health and apostolical bene-
diction if , however, he obey the Apostolic See as a Christian
king ought"? Henry expressed his displeasure in no uncer-
tain terms, and the envoys immediately cited him to appear
at a Synod in Rome to show cause why he should not be
excommunicated. Henry was furious. He concocted a series
of charges against the Pope accusing him of bribery and

THE DARK AGES 93

violence, of magic, and of praying to the devil. He addressed
an open letter to the people of Rome calling upon them to
join him against his enemies, "especially the monk Hil de-
brand." When the Synod met, he coolly sent Gregory an
invitation to abdicate his papal throne before it was pulled
out from under him. The Pope replied by pronouncing
excommunication upon the King, and deposing him from the
throne of Germany.

It was a bold stroke, and Henry was soon writhing under
it. Attempts to rally his own people about him failed utterly.
Threats were even circulated of choosing a new king, and
the best compromise Henry could make was a truce of a
single year in which to patch up a peace with the Pope.
For the better part of the year he dallied, in hopes that his
troubles might blow over. But the prevailing winds were
all in the other direction. At the end of the year, Gregory
was on his way to Germany to render final judgment. In
desperation, Henry set out to intercept him. It was in the
dead of winter, and the season was exceptionally severe. The
passage of the Alps was a terrifying feat in itself. The men
of the party crept on their hands and knees over the icy
trails, while the Queen, her child, and a few female at-
tendants, were wrapped in cowhides and dragged over the
dangerous places. The Pope, warned of Henry's coming,
turned aside to a mountain fortress at Canossa, owned by
Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, who was one of Gregory's
wealthiest and staunchest supporters.

At first the Pope refused to receive the suppliant King.
At length, under persuasion, he reluctantly agreed to an
appointment if Henry would surrender his marks of royalty
and appear in the guise of a true penitent. Unattended,
Henry was brought into the courtyard of the castle, barefoot
and dressed in the coarse clothing of a penitent. One day,
two days, three days passed with the King huddled, shivering
and hungry, in the snow and bitter cold. Never was royalty
so ignominiously humbled. On the fourth day it was a cold

94 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

king that was served to his papal holiness. Numb in body
and spirit, Henry submitted abjectly. Gregory celebrated
Mass, summoning the royal penitent to the altar. He recalled
the absurd charges which had been hurled against him,
saying that he might have refuted them with evidence but
he preferred to call God as his witness. "Here," said the
Pope, "is the Lord's Body; may this either clear me from
all suspicion if I am innocent, or, if guilty, may God strike
me with sudden death." Then he partook of the Sacrament,
while the worshippers watched in silent awe. Turning again
to Henry, he challenged him to the same test. Of course
it was scarcely a fair proposal. The charges against Gregory
had been trumped up to fit the occasion, but everybody knew
that Henry had been guilty of some, at least, of the faults
laid at his door. The King resorted to evasion, incriminat-
ing himself so much the more.

Gregory's triumph was complete too complete to be
permanent. Henry went back to his kingdom sore to the
'marrow of his bones. Neither were the German people
pleased to see their king so thoroughly humbled. The
Saxon question was reopened, and Henry's stock began to
rise. Victorious with his army, he invaded Italy in search
of revenge. Rome fell into his hands, and Gregory retired
to Salerno. He was now an old man, and a fatal sickness
came upon him. The fickle Romans turned against him, and
defeat stared him in the face. But to the last, he never
wavered. "I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity/ 1
he murmured from his death-bed, "therefore I die in exile.*'
And so he died, having rescued the Divine Commission from
its unholy traducers.

Gregory had found the papacy corrupted to a point of
hopelessness. In thirty-six years he raised it to a position of
dominating influence. He cleansed the Church of its moral
impurities, and restored its prestige as a spiritual factor second
to no other. He placed in the hands of his successors a
power of unprecedented proportions. Innocent III, alone,

THE DARK AGES 95

excelled him in authority a century later ; but Gregory him-
self had made it possible. One may disagree with all his
premises, but no one can fail to admire him for his dazzling
vision of a super-Empire, and his dauntless courage in pur-
suing it. May his soul rest in peace!

CHAPTER VI
THE EASTERN CHURCH

ST. BASIL lived for only fifty years (329-379 A. D.),
but in his short life he left an impression on the Eastern
Church more permanent, perhaps, than that of any other
single person.

He was born of Christian parents and in his youth
obtained a wide reputation for his learning and his virtuous
habits. When about thirty years of age, he forsook all
worldly preferments and went in for the monastic life. But
instead of losing himself in a solitary cell in the wilderness
after the custom of the Egyptian hermits, he took up the
cenobitic or community idea, and opened a new era in eastern
monasticism.

To the usual religious exercises of the monks, Basil added
many practical duties, so that the country surrounding his
monasteries blossomed like the proverbial rose under the
agricultural efforts of the brothers. In fact, his rule of life
became the basis of the Benedictine rule in the West, which,
for many centuries, was the back-bone of European monas-
ticism. After he became Bishop of Caesarea, he labored in-
cessantly to unite the Orthodox factions, fight off Arianism,
and promote friendly relations with the West. The liturgy
still used in the Eastern Church received its permanent char-
acter from St. Basil, though some portions of it which bear
his name, probably came from a later date. His influence
grew to such proportions that the political Arians determined
to silence him. To their threats, he calmly replied that
confiscation meant nothing to him for he had nothing to
be confiscated; banishment had no terrors for him because
he would be a stranger nowhere in a world which belonged

[96]

THE EASTERN CHURCH 97

to God; and as for his life, he was already so far weakened
physically by his monastic austerities that death would be
rather welcome. Once an officer threatened to tear out his
liver and he replied, "I should be very much obliged if you
would do so, as it gives me a great deal of trouble where
it is."

That Eastern Church which produced St. Basil and
to which he, in turn, devoted his life, is the mother of all
Christendom. All the Apostles labored in its field, and all
but St. Peter and St. Paul died there. It housed the holy
places identified with the ministry of Our Lord. It gave
to the world the New Testament and the bulk of the other
early Christian literature. It fought most of the battles of
the Faith against corroding heresies during the infancy of
the Church, and it offered hospitality to the seven great Ecu-
menical Councils. Such matchless names as Ignatius, Poly-
carp, Irenaeus, Origen, Chrysostom, Athanasius, Cyril, and
many others, belong to its children ; and, during the first few
centuries of the Christian era, it bore the burden and heat
of the day in peerless loyalty to the cause of Christ and the
integrity of the Divine Commission. Throughout the ages,
Christians of all times owe an immeasurable debt of grati-
tude to that most ancient branch of the Christian Church,
without which (humanly speaking) Christianity could
scarcely have survived the troubles o its own beginnings.

The first six centuries represent the productive period of
eastern Christianity. It was the period of Church consolida-
tion. Within that time the Gospel was planted throughout
Palestine and Syria; Egypt was brought within the fold;
Armenia was evangelized the first whole nation ever to
become Christian; Christ was carried into Greece; and the
Eastern missionaries penetrated remote regions toward every
point of the compass as far as the Malabar coast of India,
if ancient traditions are trustworthy. The monastic life was
introduced and passed through its earlier stages of develop-
ment. The Christian Bible was written and defined ; f unda-

98 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

mental doctrines were clarified; permanent lines of Church
policy were laid down; churches were erected in large num-
bers and of imposing magnificence; Constantinople (Byzan-
tium) was created and became the chief centre of Church
activity; precedents were fixed which have been studiously
preserved down to the present day. Then came the Moslems in
the seventh century, and the brakes were set. Eastern Chris-
tianity was thrown on the defensive and, from that day to
this, has been persistently battling for its very existence.

Three great obstacles have impeded the progress of the
Eastern Church from the beginning of the fourth century
doctrinal controversies, political interference, and militant
Mohammedanism. And to this last has now been added the
final horror of blood-red Bolshevism,

The early heresies did, of course, involve the whole
Church in its widest extent. But the issues were most acute
in the East, partly because it was the seat of government and
partly for temperamental reasons. The genius of the West
was for organization, while that of the East was for intel-
lectual definition. Therefore the Eastern Church was the
more sensitive of the two when innovations in doctrine were
introduced upon the scene. A frank facing of these subtle
questions was a necessary measure, and we may be thankful
that they were settled when they were. But they took a
heavy toll of dissension and factionalism, turning the Eastern
Church in upon itself, and thus preventing its normal expan-
sion.

To the three original eastern Patriarchates of Jerusalem,
Antioch, and Alexandria, was added, in the fourth century,
a new one at Constantinople. The imperial prestige of this
great city (for a long time, the real centre of world civiliza-
tion) soon thrust the Patriarch of Constantinople into the
first place among his equals. But the price of ecclesiastical
leadership had to be paid in the coin of political entangle-
ment which, like a disease, infected the whole life of eastern
Christianity. Any idea of the separation of Church and

THE EASTERN CHURCH 99

State was beyond the imagination of the age. The State had
controlled paganism when it was supreme; and when Chris-
tianity came to the front, the State expected to control it
also in the same degree. Incompetent emperors were forever
fingering in the affairs of the Church, far more to its hurt
than to its benefit. And, unfortunately, very few emperors
after Theodosius were either able rulers or successful ex-
amples of Christian living.

Following Theodosius, a century of uninteresting em-
perors led up to the thirty-seven-year reign of Justinian (537
A. D.). A strong and energetic leader, he gained an im-
perishable title to fame by the codification of law, which is
named after him. Notable conquests added to his renown,
and these were supported by powerful fortifications on his
extensive frontiers. Justinian also erected magnificent build-
ings, among them churches to a great number and on a lavish
scale. The exquisite St. Sophia still stands to his credit,
one of the enduring monuments to the architectural skill of
his reign. When the beautiful church was dedicated, he
cried out, "Glory to God who hath thought me worthy to
accomplish so great a work." And then, in a puff of pride,
he boasted, "I have conquered thee, O Solomon!"

Nearly another century, and Heraclius was raised to the
imperial throne through a revolutionary outburst. He quickly
found himself confronted with an invasion of the Avars
on one side and a bitter war with the Persians on the
other. Chosroes II, the powerful Persian ruler, pushed his
advantage relentlessly, conquering Syria, Palestine, and
Egypt; and for ten years he kept Constantinople in a state
of terror with a hostile army quartered just across the straits.
For a time he reigned as the world's greatest monarch.
Jerusalem fell into his hands, resulting in the destruction
of churches, the defilement of the holy places, unrestrained
plunder, and the theft of what was believed to be the true
Cross. When the situation had become absolutely desperate,
Heraclius made a truce with the Avars and boldly invaded

100 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

the heart of Persia in retaliation. The very effrontery of the
undertaking won its success. Persian temples suffered griev-
ously in reprisal for the earlier Christian losses, and the true
Cross was rescued and restored to Jerusalem, in honor of
which event a new festival was inaugurated called the
"Exaltation of the Cross."

Scarcely had the Persians been disposed of, when the
Moslem avalanche broke loose. It thrust the Christians into
heroic battle against hopeless odds, and for the next eight-
hundred years of intermittent warfare the invaders gnawed
away sections of the imperial realm. Palestine was the first
to fall to the Mohammedans, and the holy places thereby
passed under the control of infidel conquerors.

Attacked from without, the Eastern Church was now
deeply bitten by a venomous controversy from within. One
would think that any emperor would have shrunk from
creating even the smallest internal discord in the face of the
rising tide of Mohammedanism. But Leo the Isaurian did
that very thing by his fanatical attack upon images (726
A. D.). In all probability, he scarcely realized the serious-
ness of his own action. Certainly he was very much sur-
prised at the way in which the public bristled up against
him. Yet, far from deterring him, the opposition only
stiffened his determination to assert his authority, and the
war drums were sounded with iconoclasm as the issue. In
the West, as we have seen, it was an abortive attempt;
but, in the East, sixty years and more were squandered
in violent internal quarrels between the emperors and the
public, and all the time the Moslems were peacefully con-
solidating their conquests in a perilous circle around Con-
stantinople.

There is no question that the presence of images and
pictures in Christian churches had been considerably abused.
Originally, no doubt, they had been meant for things of beauty
to stimulate the religious feelings of the people. But grad-
ually they came to be credited with magical properties to such

THE EASTERN CHURCH 101

an extent that supposed miracle-working powers were counted
far more important than artistic excellence. It was cus-
tomary to kiss them, to pray to them, to swear by them,
even to use them for sponsors in Baptism. All kinds of
legends clustered about them, and an exceedingly popular
cult was rounding into full swing. It may be a question as
to whether Leo had enough religious susceptibility to be
troubled over the spiritual perils involved. But he did have
some feeling of discomfort over the scorn of the Moslems,
who rigidly excluded anything approaching images from
their religious practices and sneered at the Christians as
idolators.

Whatever the mixture of motives may have been, Leo
set out to eradicate image-worship, without scruple as to the
methods employed. First, he issued an edict for the removal
of the images, which met with a quick back-fire from an
enraged public. Then he tried to temporize, but was not
very successful. A timely volcanic eruption in the ^Egean
Sea served him as a text on the wrath of God against images,
while his enemies used the same incident as a counter-text
illustrating the wrath of God against Leo for his indecent
disregard of sacred things. Perhaps it was merely a portent
of the social eruption which was soon to make an ^Egean
volcano look like an amateur display. Plots were hatched
to topple the Emperor himself from his throne, and a regular
battle ensued. Infuriated by this evidence of treason, Leo
ordered all images to be destroyed and all pictures painted
on church walls to be washed out. The Patriarch resigned
in protest. Riots occurred, and the rioters were severely
punished. A strange story went the rounds concerning John
Damascene, the noted theologian. A counterfeit letter in-
volved him in a charge of treachery, and his right hand was
cut off. He was said to have presented the severed hand
before one of the obnoxious images, whereupon it was safely
restored to its accustomed place.

Leo's death did not greatly relieve matters, for the next

102 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

emperor carried on the controversy with even more vigor and
cruelty. For several years a rival emperor threatened his
throne, but Constantine successfully held his place. Then
he called another Council to bring order out of chaos (754
A. D.). Images of all descriptions were heartily condemned,
the Holy Eucharist alone being tolerated as an external
symbol of the Saviour. For years thereafter, the cruel and
licentious Constantine sought to enforce the decrees of this
Council. The monks, as a body, faced him with fervid oppo-
sition and he persecuted them viciously, destroying mon-
asteries and perpetrating all manner of indignities upon the
monks themselves. In the reign of the Empress Irene, the
destructive measures were rescinded and the Seventh Ecumen-
ical Council at Nicaea (787 A. D.) modified the regulations
so far as to allow certain reverential devotions to be paid to
the images, such as might be carefully distinguished from the
worship offered to God. But this applied only to flat pic-
tures in the Eastern Church known as "ikons," and a long
time was required to enforce even these reduced prohibitions.

Many differences less formidable than that of the images
had driven a succession of little wedges between the eastern
and western branches of the Church. But the waning sym-
pathy of understanding between them suffered a still more
serious jolt in the ninth century by a double-barreled quarrel
over the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the conversion
of Bulgaria. Neither party appears to much advantage in
the conflict, and Christian history would be much improved
if the whole matter could be buried in oblivion.

The trouble began in the reign of the Emperor Michael
III. The general setting of the picture may be gathered
from the popular title of the Emperor who was known as
Michael the Drunkard. He was a sensuous, obscene, ir-
reverent person who wallowed in every conceivable kind
of debauchery. A dispute led him to depose the Patriarch of
Constantinople and to fill his place with a man named
Photius, a learned scholar far superior to his rather unsavory

THE EASTERN CHURCH 103

surroundings. Ignatius, the deposed Bishop, had a strong fol-
lowing in his support, who did not propose to lie down in si-
lence. Photius appears to have been forced rather unwillingly
into an equivocal position, and he did attempt to secure at least
decent treatment for his rival. But Michael and his dis-
reputable companions took matters in their own hands and
subjected Ignatius to physical abuse, insults, and imprison-
ment, in spite of all that Photius could do. In order to
maintain himself against the rising resentment of the public,
Photius then appealed to the Pope of Rome for his moral sup-
port. But Nicholas I had just been seated in the papal chair and
he was much more disposed to issue orders than offer advice.

Nicholas sent legates to an eastern synod equipped with
a letter containing various papal commands. Michael was
anything but pleased with such a response and treated the
legates in a most discourteous fashion. The synod condemned
Ignatius and fully supported Photius as the lawful patriarch.
Sharp letters passed between all four parties, and the situa-
tion was becoming severely strained when the Bulgarian
incident occurred which served to increase the tension so
much the more.

The Bulgarians had not yet been Christianized and had
been engaged in sporadic hostilities with Constantinople for
some time before this. In the course of border warfare a
sister of the Bulgarian King had been captured and, during
her captivity in Constantinople, had been converted to Chris-
tianity. Through an exchange of prisoners, she was returned
to her home and, after a time, induced her royal brother
to embrace the Christian faith also. It was probably Photius
who baptized him; and, at the King's request, a Christian
monk was sent to redecorate the interior of his palace. The
King wanted his walls adorned with some terrifying pictures
taken from the perils of hunting, but the monk had his own
ideas as to what real terrors ought to be. He depicted a
scene of the Last Judgment and did it with such realistic
details of future punishment that Bulgaria quickly decided

104 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

to dispense with all its remnants of heathenism. Teachers
were wanted to instruct the people in the Christian life, but
the King was a bit hesitant to be under too many obligations
to his powerful neighbor. Therefore he sent to Pope Nicholas
asking counsel as to the conversion of his people. This was
the kind of opportunity that Nicholas thrived on. He not
only gave counsel but full directions, even ordering that the
ancient Bulgarian national standard of the horse's tail should
be replaced by the holy cross. Also he warned the King against
any dealings with the Eastern Church and sent a bishop to
reenforce his instructions.

Photius, of course, was deeply incensed at what he con-
sidered to be an unwarranted invasion of his missionary pre-
serves. He summoned a council, denouncing the Roman
interference with much violent language and spreading
anathemas liberally upon the Pope and all his servants. But
just at this juncture, Michael the Drunkard was assassinated,
and the new Emperor deposed Photius from his office, rein-
stating the pathetic Ignatius. Another council was called,
attended by legates from the Roman See. Photius appeared
with real dignity before this council, but he was nevertheless
condemned and removed from whatever shreds of office he
might still aspire to. The Bulgarian question was sharply
debated, and Ignatius was found to be just as insistent as
his predecessor regarding the rights of the Eastern Church
in that field. In spite of vigorous protestations from the
Roman legates, Bulgaria finally acknowledged the leadership
of Constantinople and the Eastern Orthodox Church became
the established Bulgarian Church from that day to this.
The Pope wrote furious letters about it to everyone con-
cerned, and a bitter clash was averted only by the death of
Ignatius.

The confused cycle of events then turned completely
around once again. Photius was reinstated as Patriarch, and
the Pope sent more legates to another synod with a view to
passing papal judgment on the new proceedings. The legates,

THE EASTERN CHURCH 105

however, received scanty consideration, and Photius remained
firmly in the saddle. The Pope raged and threatened all
kinds of excommunications, but the eastern bishops stood
solid and nothing came of it. Then, as though the situation
were not already sufficiently complex, a new Emperor deposed
Photius once again, but he died before anything more could
be done. The whole thing was a mad scramble of conflict-
ing interests, leaving a bad taste in everybody's mouth, and
the already strained relations between East and West were
left in a state of incipient rupture.

That rupture actually came a century and a half later.
In the interval, the Emperor, for political reasons, had been
attempting to live down the coolness between Rome and
Constantinople which had continued at a very low tempera-
ture after the Photius incident. One proposal was made
that the title "Universal" should be accorded to both the
Pope and the Patriarch, and the Pope was dissuaded from
accepting it only by a strong adverse expression of public
sentiment. Then came a letter from the Patriarch addressed
to the Greek churches in southern Italy, warning them against
the errors of the Roman Church. Pope Leo IX took this as
a direct insult, and dispatched his legates to Constantinople in
search of redress. Criminations and recriminations were
bandied back and forth until the legates, hopeless of accom-
plishing their purpose, solemnly laid a degree of excom-
munication against the Patriarch upon the altar of the
Church of St. Sophia and turned their backs on the Eastern
Church (1054 A. D.). The Patriarch was anathematized
along with all heretics, "Yea, with the devil and his angels,
unless they repent." "Let God look and judge," said the
legates, and the long-preparing breach between East and
West was written on the pages of history. Thus, the Divine
Commission was not broken, but it was divided into two
strands where there should have been one.

About this time the Turks took up the cause of Moham-
medanism and, with vindictive animosity, pursued their

106 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

attacks against the eastern Empire. Things were running from
bad to worse when suddenly (due to circumstances discussed
in the next chapter) Europe broke out with an epidemic of
crusades, and for a moment it looked as though a common
enemy might both redeem the Empire and reunite Christen-
dom. As it turned out, such hopes were reversed to exactly
opposite results.

From the time the first army of crusaders arrived in the
East, mutual jealousies clouded the air. The Greeks were
suspicious, the Latins were arrogant, and neither side was
overly Christian. The climax was reached in that crusade,
sometimes called the Fifth (1201 A. D.), which began nobly
but entirely forsook its true purpose before it was well started
on its way. First of all the Knights of the Cross were
cleverly exploited by Dandolo, the blind Doge of Venice,
who bargained to supply ships for the Holy Land if the
knights would wage a campaign in his behalf against the
Hungarians. But the Holy Land was never destined to
see many of these crusaders. Once diverted, they seemed
unable to get back into their original course. Before ever
they entered Hungary on Dandolo's mission, another appeal
came to them from Constantinople, where the Emperor Isaac
had been treacherously deposed by his brother, blinded, and
thrown into prison. A second compact was engineered
whereby they agreed to re-seat Isaac upon his throne if he,
in his turn, would support them in their contemplated war
against the Moslems.

This crusade thereupon expended its initial energies
against the Christian Hungarians and its subsequent energies
against the equally Christian, even though treacherous,
usurpers of the Byzantine throne. The sequel is not pleasant
reading. Isaac was reinstated only to face a quarrel as to
the extent of his obligations to the crusaders. Street brawls
occurred resulting in a conflagration which, for two days
and nights, burned portions of Constantinople into a mass
of ruins. Open war followed. The Emperor died in the

THE EASTERN CHURCH 107

general distress, and his son was strangled by a hostile
faction in the city. Constantinople was besieged and taken
by the crusaders amid scenes of wicked cruelty. Churches
were stripped of their treasures, and drunken orgies on the
part of these Christian knights desecrated even the beautiful
St. Sophia. When the Pope heard of it, he exclaimed "How
shall the Greek Church return to unity and to respect for
the Bishop of Rome, when they have seen in the Latins only
examples of wickedness and works of darkness, for -which
they might justly loathe them, worse than dogs?"

For the next fifty-seven years (1204-1261) the Empire
of Constantinople became technically a Latin Empire. A
succession of Latin rulers occupied the throne and a succes-
sion of Latin patriarchs dominated the Church, Seemingly
the Church had been re-united by force of arms with the
Pope in supreme control. But in reality, popular sentiment
was seething against the foreign domination of both Church
and State. Without strong support and frequent subsidy
from the West, the Latin Empire could never have lasted
as long as it did. Feeble and discordant from the beginning,
torn with strife between the rival Venetian and Genoese
factions, it was only a question of time before it was due
to return into the hands of the Greeks. Such a return at
last took place (1261 A. D.) under Michael Palaeologus,
who dispossessed the Latins and took over the imperial throne
himself.

It is needless to remark that this half century of ineffec-
tive Latin domination did little to heal the breach between
the two branches of the Church. So far as popular feeling
was concerned, the breach was greatly widened. But this
Michael was prepared to sacrifice his people for political con-
siderations. He realized that he was none too secure in his
newly-won honors, and sough&o fortify himself by a recon-
ciliation with the West. Definite overtures were made to
the Pope, and by forcible methods Michael prevailed on a
delegation of ecclesiastics to carry out his wishes. The Pope

108 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

was just then promoting another crusade, and saw in these
approaches an opportunity to acquire help from the East. So
the second Council of Lyons was called (1274 A. D.), and
the Greek prelates were received with imposing honors.
Under the instructions of Michael, they were prepared to
concede anything that was necessary to effect a reconciliation,
even the long-disputed "filioque clause" in the Nicene Creed.
Soon after their arrival the Pope celebrated Mass ; the Nicene
Creed was sung in Latin ; then it was repeated in Greek and,
as unimpeachable evidence of their good intentions, the Greek
Bishops sang the "filioque clause" three times "with solemnity
and devotion." A general love feast was enjoyed by all.
Ancient points of friction were tossed on the scrap heap,
and a one-sided agreement was forced to unwilling birth.
Then the Eastern dignitaries went home to bring their
Church under papal jurisdiction.

But all the scheming of Michael was unable to make the
Greek Churchmen repudiate twelve centuries of their own
history. They resisted the attempt at union even to the point
of persecution and imprisonment. Michael died with noth-
ing but failure to his account, and his son quickly abolished
the whole business. Churches in which the Latin worship
had been introduced were treated to a solemn purification;
councils were held which deliberately discredited everything
done at Lyons ; and even books written in favor of the pro-
posed union were ordered to be burned. When it was all
over, the last state of separation was worse than the first.

And always the Turks were pressing harder upon Con-
stantinople. During the next century and a half the court
party repeatedly appealed to Europe for assistance, offering
again and again to bargain away the independence of the
Eastern Church for military aid against the Moslems. But
the sentiment throughout the East was so overwhelmingly
opposed to such a compact, that all the efforts ended in
nothing but a little more bad feeling. The Moslem menace,
however, grew more and more grave until the situation

THE EASTERN CHURCH 109

became so very critical that in spite of all public sentiment
to the contrary, still another approach was made to Rome.
The Pope at that time was at loggerheads with the Council
of Basel and welcomed any avenue of escape from his em-
barrassing position. There was much jockeying on both
sides, but the Pope finally sent a fleet of ships to convey
the Eastern ambassadors to Venice. They arrived, more
than five hundred of them, and were received with much
pomp and ceremony (1438 A. D.). A special council was
called at Perrara and all settled down to enjoy a prolonged
controversy.

What followed is a tedious and sorry tale of endless
delays, petty bickerings, broken promises, and literally months
of continuous debate on points of subtle theology. A plague
fell upon the city and the council was removed to Florence.
The removal offered relief from the plague of sickness but
it was powerless to assuage the equally virulent plague of
oratory. Why the whole subject was not talked to death
is beyond the furthest reach of the modern mind. Perhaps
it was, so far as any real settlement was concerned. An
equivocal basis of understanding was finally effected amid
much rejoicing and promiscuous embracing. The Latins
accepted it as a clear-cut victory and, having carried their
point, were disposed to treat their erstwhile guests with con-
temptuous discourtesy. So flagrant was this reversal of
attitude that, before the Greeks were well started on their
homeward journey, misgivings began to assail them. And
when they arrived in Constantinople, their worst forebodings
were realized. A storm of indignation broke out from every
direction. Churches were deserted when any of the delega-
tion appeared. Three different ecclesiastics refused election
to the vacant patriarchate under the terms of union with
Rome. Various prominent Church officials resigned their
offices. The other Patriarchs blazed forth fury and con-
demnation. It was plain that the Eastern Church preferred

110 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

to face the perils of Mohammedan invasion rather than
submit to the domination of the papacy.

The invasion was not long in coming. A dozen years
passed, and the Turks were at the walls of Constantinople.
For forty days the siege continued. The defenses cracked
.and crumbled under the assaults of the newly-introduced
cannon-fire. The Emperor Constantine went to St. Sophia
for his last Sacrament. He rode back to the shivering walls
Asking forgiveness of his subjects for any unintentional wrongs
he might have done them. One by one his companions fell
before the savage Janissaries. When the attack was over and
the city taken, his body was recovered from beneath a heap
of slain, to be identified only by the golden eagles on his shoes.
The Sultan rode his war-horse into the Cathedral of St.
Sophia where the Moslem faith was proclaimed from what
had been a Christian pulpit (1453 A. D.).

So fell the Eastern Empire. Within the next century,
the Balkan States came under Turkish control, and for nearly
three hundred years the Eastern Church clung heroically to
its faith under the ever-threatening cloud of Turkish misrule.
The first rift in that cloud came in the Greek war for
independence (1821 A. D.), followed by similar uprisings
in the other Balkan States. The World War was meant
to end Turkish persecutions of Christian minorities, but the
international jealousies of Europe have left Constantinople
in Turkish hands, and the future of Eastern Christendom
is still symbolized by a question mark.

Though the Council of Florence failed to achieve reunion
between the Eastern Church and that of the West, a small
minority of easterners kept the agitation alive. This opening
was strongly capitalized toward the end of the sixteenth cen-
tury by Jesuit propagandists. The result was a series of
defections on the part of a number of small groups who made
their submission to the papacy on condition that certain special
privileges should be granted to them and their successors in
perpetuity. They were called Uniats those who made union

THE EASTERN CHURCH 111

with Rome. The most important of these were the Rutheni-
ans, living at that time under the rule of Poland. In 1595
several Orthodox bishops met in Brest-Li to vsk, and drew
up a petition which was presented to the king of Poland and
also sent to the Pope. The approach was received in Rome
with great rejoicing and a medal was struck off to commem-
orate the event which, it was hoped, would open the way for
the capture of the whole of Orthodoxy piece-meal. In 1646
a similar move was made in the city of Ungvar. These two
concordats set the standards for all Uniats. They acknowl-
edged the supremacy of the Pope but were allowed to con-
tinue the use of the Ruthenian "rite," including the Mass
in their own language, a married priesthood, popular election
of their own bishops, the Communion in both kinds and the
bulk of Orthodox canon law. With the partition of Poland,
part of the Ruthenians were incorporated into Russia and
part into Hungary. The Uniat movement never developed,
and most of the modern Uniats are now Czechoslovakians,
except for small numbers in Ukrainia, Roumania, and a few
neighboring points and also except for several hundred
thousand who have emigrated to the United States.

A special word needs to be said of the curious history of
Christianity in Russia. For the Russian Church remains the
largest single element in the Eastern Orthodox body.

Christian contacts with Russia had been sporadic and
fragmentary up to the tenth century, though it is quite cer-
tain that Christianity was not unknown in some parts of
the country. The real beginning, however, dates from a visit
of the Princess Olga to Constantinople which resulted in her
conversion and Baptism. Upon her return to her own people,
she endeavored, like a good missionary, to spread the appeal
of the new faith. Her son declined to be interested; but
when her grandson, Vladimir, succeeded his father, he proved
more amenable to religious suggestion. The story goes that
he was approached by the advocates of Judaism, of Islam,
and of Greek and Latin Christianity. The first two he

112 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

quickly disposed of, but he was in a quandary as to a possible
choice between the two branches of the Christian Church.
At length he decided to send ambassadors to Rome and to
Constantinople to bring him reports upon which he might
base his judgment. The report from Rome was not very
satisfactory (it was the period of the Dark Ages in the
West), but the story brought back from Constantinople was
entrancing. "When we stood in the temple" (St. Sophia),
the messengers exclaimed, "we did not know where we were,
for there is nothing else like it on earth ; there in truth God
has His dwelling with men, and we can never forget the
beauty we saw there."

After some parley, Vladimir was baptized and took to
wife a Greek princess who was also a Christian. Returning
to Kief!, he ordered the ancient idol to be tied to the tail
of a horse, dragged to the river Dnieper, and there consigned
to a moist oblivion. The next day the whole population
was ordered to the banks of the river and they were baptized
en masse. Christian teachers were imported, churches built,
bishoprics erected, and Cyril's Slavonic version of the Scrip-
tures was made the text-book of religion. It was a whole-
sale act of conversion, superficial in the nature of the case,
but a beginning which gradually penetrated throughout the
rest of the country.

Russia, at that time, suffered under the weakness of
sectionalism. There was no supreme authority, but a number
of princes ruled over their own small portions of the land.
Consequently there was no adequate defense because there
was no united leadership when the Tartars swarmed into the
country from the East (1237 A. D.). They overran every-
thing. It was a cruel conquest, and for more than two
centuries they lorded it over their Russian victims in true
Tartar style. The impress of those two-hundred years has
left a deep mark, both for good and ill, upon the Russia
of today. One of the benefits is to be found in the stabilizing
of their newly-acquired religion. Racial afflictions served to

THE EASTERN CHURCH 113

stimulate religious zeal. It was during this period that
Christianity really took firm root in Russian life. Forbidden
to govern themselves, they turned their energies to spiritual
matters, and expended their patriotism upon their Church.
The result was that loyalty to Church and nation became
indistinguishable virtues. During this period the head-
quarters of the Church were transferred to Moscow, and
that city became an object of reverent respect as the sacred
centre of Russian Christianity.

Ivan the Great (1462 A. D.) finally succeeded in throw-
ing off the Tartar yoke and in consolidating the several
principalities into one national body, at the same time follow-
ing the Church to Moscow as the capital of his united coun-
try. A century later, Ivan the Terrible assumed the title of
Czar, 'and shortly afterwards (1589 A. D.) a patriarchate
was granted to the Russian Church, raising Moscow to a
position of ecclesiastical equality with Jerusalem, Antioch,
Alexandria, and Constantinople.

In the seventeenth century a curious schism broke out in
the Russian Church. An energetic Patriarch set himself to
the task of modifying certain minor customs in order to bring
the Russians into nearer conformity to Greek usage, and to
correct certain errors of the copyists in the Christian writ-
ings. The name of Our Lord, for instance, had been abbre-
viated to "Jsus" by the skipping of a vowel; the Greeks,
except in priestly benediction, crossed themselves with three
fingers instead of two ; and the Russians were asked to follow
the Greeks in singing triple "hallelujahs" in place of the
doubles to which they were accustomed. These were repre-
sentative of the changes desired and they were the most
important ones. But with characteristic love for things as
they are, a large number of Russian Christians flatly refused
to conform. A controversy, totally disproportionate to the
points at issue, separated the objectors into a sect known as
the "Raskolniks." Feeling ran high and violent measures
were adopted to bring the schismatics to reason. "It was

114 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

for these trifles a letter less in a name, a finger more in a
cross, the doubling instead of the trebling of a word that
thousands of people, both men and women, encountered death
on the scaffold or at the stake. It was for these things that
other scores of thousands underwent the horrible tortures of
the knout, the strappado, the rack, or had their bodies muti-
lated, their tongues cut, their hands chopped off." (Stepniak,
The Russian Peasantry, p. 239.) Tartar tactics had left a
sorry heritage behind them.

But the greatest blow to the Russian Church came in the
expansive reign of Peter the Great (1682 A. D.). This
most remarkable man was bent on changing the habits of a
whole nation. He set out to Europeanize Russia. In a
most thorough-going fashion he began with himself by tem-
porarily relinquishing his throne and going under an assumed
name to Holland. There he secured a position in the ship-
yards at Amsterdam, working side by side with other
mechanics and learning all he could from the bottom up.
From Amsterdam he went to England in search of more
knowledge, and after two years of such training returned
to revolutionize his own country. His energy was bound-
less. He founded colleges, schools, and libraries; reorganized
city administrations; gradually changed long-established cus-
toms; and even built, on the marshy shores of the Baltic,
a new capital which he named St. Petersburg after himself.

The Church, of course, could not escape his domineering
will. When the Patriarch died, he forbade the election of a
successor and, for all practical purposes, abolished the patri-
archate. In its place he set up the Holy Governing Synod
composed of the Metropolitans (or Archbishops), several
Bishops, and a Procurator appointed by himself. It simply
meant that the Church henceforth was to be under the thumb
of the all-powerful Czar. For two-hundred years the Church
cherished the recollection of a Patriarch, patiently waiting
the time when he might become a reality and restore the
Church itself to some degree of independence.

THE EASTERN CHURCH 115

During this period of imperial domination, two critical
events occurred of much importance to Russian Christianity.
The first was the greatest instance of highway robbery in
modern history when Russia, Prussia, and Austria deliberately
cut Poland into pieces and helped themselves to the frag-
ments (1772 A. D.). The second was a treaty with Turkey
whereby the Crimea was incorporated into Russian territory
(1783 A. D.)- Both of these acquisitions brought with them
large Jewish populations. The Crimean Jews had been
originally a people of Asiatic stock, closely akin to the Tar-
tars, who had invaded and settled the country adopting the
Jewish religion somewhere on the way. Naturally they were
disliked and unwelcome, and racial animosity played its part
along with religious differences in the Jewish troubles of
Russia.

The addition of this strong Jewish element introduced
by these two conquests created a new situation for Russia
ta face. A solution was sought by setting apart a section
of the country on the eastern frontier to be known as "The
Pale" (1786 A. D.), where the Jews were to be herded and
kept separate from the rest of the people. But such a prob-
lem was not to be so easily solved. Far from being settled,
it remained extremely active. At various times special classes
were permitted to leave the Pale and take up their residence
in other parts of Russia. Then when they became prosperous,
they were considered dangerous. The old racial, as well
as religious, issues stirred the people to "pogroms" for
which the Church received an undeserved measure of blame
inasmuch as it was controlled by an autocratic government
manned with obscurantists, animated by gross selfishness, and
possessed of fanatical prejudices. The only achievement of
the pogroms was to store up a frightful retribution against
that day -when the persecuted Jews should flock to the standard
of militant Bolshevism.

It is significant that when the Russian monarchy was
overthrown (1917), one of the very first acts of the Church

116 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

was to elect a Patriarch and attempt a revival of its ancient
ecclesiastical freedom. But the terrifying cloud of Bolshevism
was already rising, and the Russian Church was entering
upon another Calvary. One autocracy gave place to another.
A small minority stole the revolution, established a system
of so-called communism, and visited the unhappy country
with a reign of extraordinary frightfulness. Religion, to
these new rulers, was so much "opium for the people." They
proceeded to suppress it. No one will ever know how many
Bishops and other clergy were killed in the five years follow-
ing the close of the World War. The Patriarch was im-
prisoned but refused to be intimidated. The churches were
robbed of their treasures, religious education was forbidden,
and a scurrilous campaign of atheism was promoted par-
ticularly among the young.

But the Russian people are inherently religious, and
Christianity had become too deeply ingrained to be uprooted
by a mere turning back of the clock to the days of Nero.
In the larger cities the Church was seriously affected, but
the peasants continued the even tenor of their religious
ways, and the peasants constitute eighty to ninety per cent
of the people. Realizing their failure, the Bolshevists then
attempted to fight fire with fire. They encouraged a schism
within the Church, and gave their backing to a new body
under the name of the Living Church of Russia. At this
writing, the attempt seems to have been a second failure,
but the future is still dark with uncertainty.

So much is necessary regarding the Church in Russia
because of its predominating position in the Holy Orthodox
Catholic Apostolic Eastern Church. Statistics are a bit
vague, but it is probably safe to take the figure of 121,000,000
as representing the entire eastern constituency, of which
Russia contains anywhere from two-thirds to three-fourths.

All told, there are some fifteen branches of the Eastern
Church, operating under the direction of the five Patriarchs
over whom the Patriarch of Constantinople holds the

THE EASTERN CHURCH 117

honorary presidency. It has had a sadly troubled history
and the troubles are by no means at an end. With the
atrocities against the Armenian Christians still fresh in
memory and the equally vicious atrocities against the Chal-
dean Christians still more fresh; suppressed for centuries
under Turkish misrule and wounded by Bolshevist hatred;
impoverished by the aftermath of war ; torn with nationalistic
rivalries; its miseries most unchristianly exploited by other
Christian bodies to their own proselytizing advantage the
Eastern Church faces a prospect in which new trials lurk
in every nook and corner. Only out of the loyalty of their
forefathers to the Divine Commission do they pluck hope
for their own continued fortitude while they listen for the
voices of the saints of an earlier era crying "how long,
O Lord, how long I"

CHAPTER VII
THE CRUSADES

1p\EUS vult! Dens vult!" (God wills it! God wills it!),
-L/ roared the crowd as one man.

"Let these words be your war-cry," said Pope Urban II.
"When you attack the enemy, let the words resound from
every side, 'God wills it.' Rid God's sanctuary of the wicked ;
expel the robbers; bring in the holy souls. Ye are soldiers
of the Cross ; wear, then, on your breasts or on your shoulders,
the blood-red sign of Him who died for the salvation of
your souls."

So the first Crusade was launched, opening a unique
episode in Christian history. For two-hundred years the
Crusades occupied the attention of all Europe, and then they
ceased as suddenly as they had begun. A succession of im-
posing military expeditions went eastward to reclaim the
Holy Land from its Moslem conquerors; and when their
force was spent the whole complexion of Europe had been
changed, while the Holy Land still remained in the hands
of the Moslems.

Nothing like the Crusades has ever occurred before or
since. At one and the same time they represent the best of
medieval chivalry and the worst of human vice. In them
are packed the finest zeal, devotion, and self-sacrifice, all
interlarded with cruelty, teachery, barbarism, and avarice
of the lowest description. When they were finished, the
flower of chivalry was left on fruitless battle-fields, great
estates were impoverished, and the feudal system was broken
beyond all hope of repair. Their one notable achievement
was in getting Europe out of itself. Through the contacts
made with the neglected life of the East, a whole new

CU8]

THE CRUSADES 119

culture was introduced, new habits and a new point of view
by which the way was cleared for a new era in western
civilization.

The Crusades were an enormous boon to the Church.
They offered a convenient outlet for that surplus of energy
which was keeping the papacy in very hot water. In bursts
of enthusiasm or spasms of piety, kings and knights would
take the vows of a crusader, with a more or less definite
intention of going to fight the infidel some time. Such vows
placed them under a certain pledge of obedience to the
Church. Then, when differences arose over some question
of papal policy (and such differences were constantly arising),
the Pope would call upon his more troublesome opponents
to fulfil their holy vows in far-off Palestine. Crusading
they must go or stand before the world as forsworn knights.

But it was no simple matter to organize and equip a mili-
tary expedition and convey it over hundreds of miles of
difficult travel. The nobles were frequently obliged to sell
or mortgage their ancestral estates, and somehow the Church
was generally in the market to buy them up. Hundreds of
thousands of these knights never returned, which meant that
the top layer of European society was well on its way to
extinction when the last of the Crusades was done. The
death of feudalism was the logical consequence. As the power
and wealth of the nobility were thus being dissipated, that
of the Church was increasing in proportionate measure. And
all this happened for the sake of religious sentiment, aggra-
vated by the insolence of the "unspeakable Turk."

We left Mohammedanism checked by Charles Mart el at
the critical battle of Tours (732 A. D.). For the next
two and a half centuries, the relations between Christendom
and Islam were reasonably peaceful and often quite friendly.
Christian pilgrims went every year to offer their devotions
at the Holy Places and, on the whole, received a very sym-
pathetic reception from the Moslem rulers of Palestine. In

120 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

fact, the Moslems seemed to respect the Christians for their
piety, and rather encouraged their coming.

No serious difficulties arose until the advent of the Turks.
Then trouble began ; and, like a poisonous shadow, it has not
failed to accompany the Turks from that day to this. They
first appear about the beginning of the tenth century, deriv-
ing from the same general stock as the Huns and Tartars,
and coming from an uncertain home in central Asia. A small
army of them under the leadership of one, Seljuk, were driven
out of their own country for some sort of crime, and crossed
over into Moslem territory. There they settled and adopted
the religion of Mohammed. After a generation or two, they
instituted a revolution, seized the government, and imposed
their authority upon the adjacent countries in a series of
frightfully brutal conquests. They were known as the Seljuk
Turks.

Some three centuries later, another tribe of similar origin
was also driven out of central Asia by a fierce invasion of
the Mongols. They followed the same road as the Seljuks,
settled in Mohammedan territory, and likewise absorbed the
Mohammedan religion. After a time, a leader named Oth-
man appeared among these second arrivals, from whom they
took the title of Ottoman Turks. The Ottomans made
war on the Seljuks, usurped from them the already pil-
fered government, and carried their foreign conquests still
farther. The result was the erection of the Ottoman Empire.

Greeks were colonized in many places throughout these
subjugated provinces, and they soon found themselves in no
enviable position. Heavy tribute was exacted from them,
and they were made subject to periodic outbursts of persecu-
tion. Every year, they were obliged to supply a levy of
Christian boys to their Turkish conquerors. These boys
were trained up in the faith of Islam, and placed under
rigorous military discipline. They constituted that terrifying
body of soldiers known as the Janissaries who were the
shock troops in critical Turkish battles. Thus the Christian

THE CRUSADES 121

Greeks were not only compelled to pay for the privilege of
living under an oppressive government, but also to supply their
own flesh and blood to strengthen the power of the oppressors.

For several centuries the Turks controlled the political
and military machinery of the Ottoman Empire, while the
religion was headed up in the person of the Caliph who was
always of Arabian lineage. But in the sixteenth century
the sultan forced himself into the caliphate and had every-
thing his own way thereafter. Through the Balkans, he
pushed his attacks against Christian countries, at one time
overrunning the better part of Hungary. His progress was
finally checked at the naval battle of Lepanto, in the year
1571, though it was long before the Mediterranean Sea was
cleared of Mohammedan pirates.

It was the Seljuk Turks who precipitated the Crusades.
As soon as Jerusalem fell into their hands, the former con-
sideration for Christian pilgrims quickly vanished and a reign
of terror took its place. The Christian Patriarch was hauled
through the streets of the city by his long, white hair, and
imprisoned in a dungeon until a large ransom was paid for
his liberation. The Holy Sacrament was deliberately pro-
faned. Pilgrims were stripped, robbed, and beaten on their
way up to the Holy City, and many of them lost their
lives. Seven thousand set out from Germany in one year,
of whom two thousand only returned to tell of their harrow-
ing experiences. Reports of these outrages gradually filtered
back into Europe, and everyone became uneasy. Resentful
suggestions of reprisal began to circulate, augmented by
repeated cries for help from the tottering Eastern Empire.
Only a live spark "was necessary to touch off the wrath of
European chivalry, and that spark was applied by the hand
of Peter the Hermit.

Chivalry was a strong religious movement which came
as a salutary reaction to the decadence of the Dark Ages.
It has been described as "the whole duty of a gentleman."
Religion, Honor, and Courtesy represented its three-fold

122 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

obligation. A complicated system of rules was developed
which were to regulate the conduct of a Christian knight.
Boys began their education in chivalry at the age of seven,
when they were given simple duties to perform in service
to the knights. For the next seven years, they learned read-
ing, writing, music, and the elementary rules of the Order.
At fourteen years of age, they were inducted into the office
of squire in which they served for seven years more. The
squire was attached to a knight as his personal attendant;
he served him at table, tasting his food before him as a safe-
guard against poison ; he cared for the weapons of his knight,
armed him for battle, and fought at his side. When of
suitable age and having acquitted himself satisfactorily in his
humbler position, the squire was in line to be knighted. But
first he had to win his spurs, which meant that he must
perform some personal deed of valor. Before receiving the
coveted honor, he spent a night in vigil, kneeling before the
altar with his sword held upright in his hands and his armor
laid on the altar before him. In the morning, came a formal
religious ceremony when he assumed the vows of Christian
knighthood. He was clothed in his armor by some fair
damsel who was henceforth to be his "lady," and finally was
dubbed Joiight by one whose own knighthood qualified him
to confer the title upon another. Then 'he was launched
upon his career. He had his own squires and retainers. He
had three horses one for traveling, one for a pack horse,
and the third as his battle charger, which was the largest
of the three. When he was preparing for trouble he "mounted
his high horse." Frequently two knights were associated
together as "brothers in arms." They vowed eternal faith
to one another, dressed alike, prayed together, and sup-
ported each other in all contests against all enemies.
Knightly honor was the animating motive of all their
actions. Definite standards of personal integrity were to
be observed, no matter what the cost might be. Certain
things must be done and certain other things could never

THE CRUSADES 123

be done, simply because a knight was a knight. Excuses
were unknown under the sturdy principle of "noblesse
oblige."

Chivalry was ripe for romantic adventure when Peter
the Hermit returned from the Holy Land with highly sea-
soned accounts of Turkish cruelty and sacrilege. Peter was
a zealot all on fire for a righteous cause. The only thing
he required was an opportunity, and this was given him by
Pope Urban II, before whom he pleaded his cause. With
Urban J s consent, he went to the people with the compelling
eloquence of a single-minded purpose. Meantime the Pope
called a Council to be held at Clermont, in France (1095
A. D.). A huge crowd gathered before the Cathedral, agi-
tated with a vague anticipation of impending events. With
a cross raised in his hand, the Pope appeared before them,
caught the fervor of their enthusiasm, and in a ringing
address called them to "remember the vigor of their ancestors
and go forth to conquer or die." "God wills it," came the
response, while Bishops and knights clamored for the red
crosses to wear upon their shoulders. The First Crusade '
was in the air; and, during the months that followed, the
contagion of it ran like wildfire from country to country
and among all classes of people.

Popular feeling, once aroused to a pitch of frenzy, was
not easily controlled. Everyone wanted to be a crusader,
and most of the people were impatient to be about it. The
military leaders who knew something of organized expedi-
tions, proceeded to make careful preparations, but the com-
mon people refused to wait. In the spring of the following
year, some fifteen thousand undisciplined enthusiasts gathered
at Cologne, and set out for Constantinople under Walter
the Penniless. His name was a good forecast of what might
be expected. No advance provision was made to supply the
needs of such a motley party, and when they came into the
desolate regions of Hungary, Walter's primitive system of
guidance proved totally ineffective. An empty stomach is

124 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

habitually careless of property rights, and this crowd ran
true to form by breaking loose and taking what it wanted.
Somehow the recently converted Hungarians were not very
sympathetic to such tactics and offered a firm resistance to
the attempts at friendly robbery. A large contingent of the
pilgrims sought refuge in a church to which a torch was
applied and they died a miserable death. Those who escaped
found hiding in the rough country, and a pitiful fraction
of the original company straggled on to Constantinople to
await the coming of Peter.

It was a much larger band which presently followed
Peter in disorderly array over the same route. Women and
children were among their number, and the hardships of
the journey cost them heavy losses on the way. \Vhen they
came upon the wreckage of the previous expedition, they
were highly incensed at the signs of massacre, and Peter lost
control of them completely. Friction with the Hungarians
flared into open hostility, with the pilgrims at the receiving
end of most of the trouble. It was another demoralized
remnant which finally joined Walter the Penniless in the
East, plainly unfit to cope with the redoubtable Turkish
forces. But the mob spirit was upon them, and their unruly
actions became such a nuisance to the people of Constantinople
that they were glad to speed them on their crusading way.
So they scrambled forward to meet a Turkish army before
the walls of Nicaea. The outcome was tragic. Most of
them were slaughtered, many were carried away captive, and
a handful of fugitives trailed dejectedly back to a doubtful
safety in the city of Constantinople.

There is no need to trace the progress of a third mob,
tinder a German priest named Gotschalk, who innocently
presented themselves before the same enraged Hungarians.
They were called upon to lay down their arms under a
specious promise of safe conduct, and then were mercilessly
massacred. It was a sorry beginning for the attainment of
a lofty purpose.

THE CRUSADES 125

Better things, however, were in the making. While these
disorderly bands were playing havoc with those who should
have been their friends, a group of able knights were laying
their plans for a truly effective expedition. Godfrey of
Bouillon is the outstanding figure in this first concerted effort.
By different routes, five knightly armies laid their courses
eastward. This time, discipline was a reality and Constan-
tinople was reached with no serious mishaps. The figures of
the chroniclers may not be altogether reliable, but it seems
likely that the total force numbered upwards of half a million
men. The Emperor at Constantinople was somewhat dis-
mayed at the sight of such a host camped at his very doorstep,
for one could never be sure just what a large and well-
equipped army might take it in mind to do. Being a crafty
person by nature, he endeavored to secure his own safety
by playing upon the jealousies of the various leaders. Thus
opens the first chapter of that endless intrigue and rivalry
which blackened the record of the whole crusading move-
ment. As time went on, many a promising opportunity was
ruined because of petty bickering between those who were
supposed to be united in a holy cause. Too many Christian
cooks made unsavory broth out of more than one Christian
campaign, while the Turks bided their time to clean the
Christian platter.

Temporarily, these particular knights settled their par-
ticular differences, but without much credit to any one of
them except possibly Godfrey, who appears as the noblest
character of them all. Heavily armed, they marched upon
Nicaea where they wrought a cordial vengeance for the
whitening bones of the foolish mob which had preceded them.
The Turks withdrew, and the way was opened to Antioch.
It -was a cruel march, in the heat of mid-summer, and through
country stripped of all supplies by the retreating Sultan,
Fresh dissensions arose, resulting in the departure of one
army on a mission of its own into the kingdom of Edessa,
which was reduced and brought under Christian control.

126 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

The remainder of the host pressed on to Antioch where they
laid siege to a strong garrison of Turkish defenders. For
three months they camped before the city, and then diminish-
ing supplies, coupled with the terrific heat, began to waste
away their strength. Affairs were running to a crisis when
a bit of treachery on the part of the inhabitants gave occasion
for a successful assault. Shouting their battle cry of "Deus
vult !" the crusaders swarmed over the walls, and amid much
rejoicing Antioch fell into their hands. It was a notable
victory, well calculated to inspire either fear or determina-
tion in the hearts of the Moslems. But, worn down by
privation, the crusaders became momentarily careless. Instead
of preparing themselves for a counter-attack, they settled
down to a well-earned breathing spelL Before they realized
their peril, a huge Mohammedan army surrounded them, and
the besiegers found themselves besieged in a city denuded
of its own resources and not yet re-provisioned. A few days
and their condition was far worse than when they themselves
were in the role of attackers. Disorders occurred and spirits
were at a low ebb when one of those strange incidents
happened which occasionally change the whole course of
destiny.

Peter Barthelemy, a priest and chaplain of Raymond of
Toulouse, announced that he had had a wonderful dream.
In his sleep, St. Andrew had carried him to the Church of
St. Peter where he had been shown a lance-head, the very
one which had pierced the side of Our Lord as He hung
on the Cross. He was solemnly instructed that if this were
carried at the head of the army, nothing but victory could
be their lot. Possibly his despondent companions were ready
to catch at any straw; or, perhaps, in an uncritical age, people
were naturally prepared to stretch their faith to meet the
needs of the hour. At any rate, the dream was accepted
at its face value, and a solemn procession led the way to
St. Peter's where squads of workmen dug feverishly at the
indicated spot. When nothing was forthcoming, Barthelemy

THE CRUSADES 127

himself was lowered into the pit and "at last," writes the
chronicler, "the Lord, moved by such devotion, showed us
the lance." Confidence soared to unbelievable heights as the
excited knights craved only a chance to prove their faith
with their swords. Early the next morning, they sallied
forth in battle splendor, marching in twelve battalions, one
for each of the twelve Apostles, and led by a bishop bearing
aloft the sacred symbol of their victory. By every rule of
warfare the crusaders were walking into certain defeat and
sudden death. But all ordinary rules were suspended in the
face of their invincible faith. With the odds overwhelmingly
against them, they fought as an army possessed, and the
bewildered Turks shrank from the fury of their attack.
WTien the day was done, the weary knights were completely
victorious while the brilliant Moslem army was scattered to
the four points of the compass.

A fantastic sequel followed somewhat later when the
rested crusaders took up their march to the Holy City.
Barthelemy indulged in more visions, and unpleasant com-
ments began to circulate. Rumors of fraud were passed about
which he indignantly denied. But his denials proved ineffec-
tive ; and, as a last resort to silence the gossip, he demanded
the "ordeal by fire" in proof of his integrity. "Make me the
biggest fire you can," he said, "and I will pass through the
midst with the Lord's Lance in my hand. If it be the Lord's
Lance, may I pass through unharmed; if not, may I be
burnt up." So two great fires were kindled, and Barthelemy
passed through the narrow space between. The crowd
watched breathlessly as they saw him emerge apparently
unharmed. In their zeal, his friends seized him, pulling him
hither and thither in search of tangible evidence that his
flesh was unscorched. But it was evident that he was badly
burned, and a few days later he died. His friends said that
the rough treatment following the fire had been too much
for him. His critics declared that the fire had taken his life.
The argument was unsettled, and both sides held to their

128 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

previous opinions. The only certainty was that Antioch was
theirs and Barthelemy was dead.

On they went to Jerusalem. They found it defended by
forty thousand picked troops. The neighboring wells had
been poisoned, and food was scarce. But their spirits were
revived by the sight of the Holy City, and their furious
attack would not be gainsaid. It was a fearful battle with
no quarter asked or given ; but victory fell to the crusaders,
and the object of their aspirations was realized. The Holy
City had been redeemed. The First Crusade had proved a
shining success. The Divine Commission was crowned with
triumph to the sound of martial music.

But that success had to be properly consolidated. There-
fore, the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem was established
for the public good, and Godfrey was chosen to be its first
king. His acceptance of the honor was what might have been
expected. He declined to wear a crown of gold where his
Saviour had worn one of thorns. The only title he would
accept was that of Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. What-
ever the title, it was no easy office. More battles had to be
fought, many strategic positions had yet to be acquired, and
the country had to be organized under a Christian administra-
tion. Godfrey himself was killed in a battle a year after
his elevation, but the kingdom continued to be a success for
the next fifty years.

At the time Jerusalem was taken, there was a society in
the city known as the Knights Hospitaller. They had been
organized for the sole purpose of caring for pilgrims who fell
sick on their visits to the Holy City. Their work was ex-
panded under the new kingdom; and, in the course of time,
they became a powerful factor in all the affairs of the, East.
Recurrent attacks of the Moslems led the Hospitallers to
modify their rule in favor of military activities; and after
the Crusades were ended, they stood as a spear-head of Chris-
tian defense against the extension of Mohammedanism.
Driven out of Palestine after the collapse of the Christian

THE CRUSADES 129

kingdom, they established a strong position on the Island of
Rhodes, retreating at last to the Island of Malta, which they
defended with superlative valor after Europe had practically
forsaken them.

The Teutonic Knights were a similar body dating from
a century later than the Hospitallers and restricted to those
of German birth. They also were originally dedicated to
the care of the sick, but were diverted to military interests.
They figured subsequently in northern Europe in a more
important capacity than they did in Palestine during the
Crusades.

It was the Knights Templar who represented the real
standing army of Palestine. Their humble beginning goes
back to eight knights, led by Hugh des Payens, who, in the
year 1118, banded themselves together for the protection of
pilgrims traveling up to Jerusalem. They were military from
the outset, though living under a modified monastic rule.
The usual vows were assumed of poverty, chastity, and
obedience, together with a military discipline of extreme
rigidity. They were Christian knights always on crusade.
The lure of the Order won its way quickly throughout the
chivalry of Europe. Men of the best blood in all Christian
countries flocked to its standard, eager to pray and to fight
clad in the long white garment adorned with the blood-red
passion cross. Its banner, the beauseant half white and
half black, signifying "fair and favorable to the friends of
Christ; dark and terrible to His enemies" was always to
be found at the most hazardous post in every battle against
the Moslems. At first, the Order was poor to the point of
real poverty; but, as it grew in favor, large gifts were made
to it until it became excessively -wealthy. The strength of
the Order, the independence of its knights, and their frequent
disregard for any other authority than their own, were
eventually responsible for a reaction of popular sentiment
against them. But their downfall was a clear case of public
assassination due to the personal hatred of the King of

130 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

France and with the connivance of the Pope. They were
seized on unfounded charges, tortured, imprisoned, and
burned at the stake. Finally, in 1314, the Order was formally
declared dissolved. Nevertheless, throughout the period of
the Crusades, they were the strongest single continuous
factor in the struggle for the possession of Palestine.

It is scarcely possible to say just how many Crusades
there were. Formal expeditions marched out at various
times, but some of them went in sections with such intervals
between that they might well be counted as separate ven-
tures. And then there were always knights "taking the
cross" in fulfilment of some vow, who would make brief
excursions to strike a blow for the Holy Sepulchre, return-
ing homeward with their mission completed but with little
accomplished. Some kind of fight with the Moslems could
always be had for the asking, and it was all part of the general
crusading movement.

What is generally counted the Second Crusade (1147
A. D.) was chiefly the work of St. Bernard of Clairvaux,
undoubtedly the most influential man of his day. Slackness
of administration in the Palestinian kingdom had given the
Mohammedans an opportunity for renewed activity. No one
paid very much attention to it until the startling news came
that Edessa had fallen. Immediately the air was electric
with the spirit of re-conquest. Bernard threw himself into
a campaign calculated to stir the most somnolent Christian
knight to a new sense of his duty. About the same time,
the King of France had reason to pacify a troublesome con-
science, and decided that the best way to be rid of his sins
was to bury them in the same grave with a large number
of slain Moslems. The Germans also came in and, cheered
with the glowing predictions of Bernard, they set forth to
teach the infidel a wholesome lesson. Unfortunately, the
instruction was all the other way. Quarrels with Con-
stantinople dulled the edge of enthusiasm and provoked a
scandalous bit of treachery which all but annihilated the first

THE CRUSADES 131

contingent. Near Laodicea another disaster befell the united
armies, and an ineffective remnant was all that ever reached
Jerusalem. An abortive attempt to redeem themselves by an
attack on Damascus marked the Second Crusade as a com-
plete failure. St. Bernard was voluble with explanations,
but a severe blow had been struck at his prestige.

Moreover, a new leader came to the front in Islam about
this time, who was destined to inflict fearful damage upon
the Christian cause. Two rival Caliphs had long ruled in
Syria and Egypt respectively, and between the two there was
no love lost. This rivalry had been a serious source of
weakness to the Moslems heretofore, but it was removed
when the notable warrior Saladin made himself master of
both factions. His energy and skill soon began to make
telling inroads on the Kingdom of Jerusalem, culminating
in the capture of the Holy City itself (1187 A. D,)' Chris-
tendom winced under the shock, and mustered its forces for
another heroic effort.

France, England, and Germany united for the Third
Crusade, with Frederick Barbarossa as the outstanding figure
at the beginning. A "Saladm-tax" was instituted to defray
expenses, whereby every man paid a tenth of his income
into the treasury of the crusaders. Frederick was drowned
at an early stage of the expedition, and Richard the Lion-
hearted of England took the centre of a picture immortalized
by Sir Walter Scott in The Talisman. As usual, slumbering
jealousies came to life and withheld success as far as the
retaking of Jerusalem was concerned.* But this Crusade has
given us the romantic story of King Richard embellished,
no doubt, by legend ; yet still the type of what the Christian
knight ought to be. A quaint illustration of the prevalent
spirit is given in the words of the chronicler: "It was the
custom of the army each night, before lying down to rest,
to depute someone to stand in the middle of the camp and
cry out with a loud voice, 'Help! Help! for the Holy
Sepulchre!' The rest of the army took it up and repeated

132 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

the words ; and, stretching their hands to heaven, prayed for
the mercy and assistance of God in the cause. Then the
herald himself repeated in a loud voice : 'Help ! Help ! for
the Holy Sepulchre!' and everyone repeated it after him a
second and a third time. The army appeared to be much
refreshed by crying out in this fashion."

Terrific battles were fought, in which Richard's daunt-
less bravery won him peerless renown. Once, when Saladin
angrily reproached his captains because of a disastrous defeat,
one of them replied in this wise: "Most sacred Sultan,
saving your majesty, this charge is unjust, for we fought
with all our strength and did our best to destroy them.
We met their fiercest attacks, but it was of no avail. They
are armed in impenetrable armor which no weapon can
pierce, so that our blows fell, as it were, upon a rock of
flint. And, further, there is one among their number superior
to any man we have ever seen ; he always charges before the
rest, slaying and destroying our men. He is the first in every
enterprise, and is a most brave and excellent soldier; no one
can resist him or escape out of his hands. They call him
Melech Ric (King Richard). Such a king as he seems
born to command the whole earth ; what, then, could we do
more against so formidable an enemy?"

Richard's men, of course, idolized him. One day, he
went hawking with a small escort and, being fatigued, lay
down to rest. While he was asleep, a much superior com-
pany of the enemy swooped suddenly down upon him, not
knowing who he was. In spite of his valiant defense, he
must soon have been taken if it had not been for one of his
own knights who called out that he himself was Melech Ric.
Dazzled at the prospect of capturing so great a prize, the
Moslems gave all their attention to this knight alone, while
Richard was left to make his way back to his army. The
courtly courtesy which passed between him and Saladin has
been the theme of song and fable. Each recognized a
master in the other. Indeed, Saladin sent his brother on

THE CRUSADES 133

one occasion -with an offer to relinquish the Kingdom of
Jerusalem to Richard on certain conditions. But Richard
was a better warrior than statesman, and the parley fell
through.

The campaign was hopelessly prolonged, adding many a
laurel to Richard's crown but never quite attaining its object.
Meanwhile, his brother John was playing havoc with Eng-
land, and Richard realized that his presence at home was
increasingly necessary. With much reluctance he bade fare-
well to the Holy Land, intending to return and finish his
uncompleted task. But such a man was not without his
enemies. Shipwrecked in the Adriatic, he was imprisoned
in a castle in the Tyrol while his friends sought vainly to
discover his whereabouts. The story goes on to relate how
the faithful Blondel, minstrel to Richard, wandered from
country to country in quest of his master. As he sat resting
beside a certain castle, he sang to himself some of the old
ballads which Richard had loved. His astonished ears heard
the songs coming back from within the walls, telling him
that his search was ended. Back to England went Blondel
with the good news, and soon Richard was released, only
to meet an untimely death on an English battlefield. This
tale, like many others about Richard, may have little basis
in fact ; but, as Lord Charnwood says in another connection,
"It deserves to be regarded as the particular sort of lie that
people tell about that sort of man."

The Crusade which expended itself in founding the Latin
Empire of Constantinople has already been recounted. The
next in order is the pathetic Children's Crusade, one of those
curious extravagances devoid of rhyme or reason which now
and then sweep people irrationally off their feet. Famine
and pestilence had been reaping a gruesome harvest in Pales-
tine when the cry of the miserable sufferers echoed through-
out Christian Europe. The Pope tried to arouse the old
crusading spirit on a new line of mercy, but a lethargy had
fallen upon knightly valor. As if to shame their elders,

134 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

the children in various countries seemed moved with a com-
mon desire to commit an obvious folly. Common sense "would
have checked the movement at its inception, but common
sense was not the virtue of the day. First, they gathered
from Germany some seven thousand children, headed for
Genoa on their way to the Holy Land. The Alps became
strewn with their little frozen bodies, and only a few half-
starved survivors stumbled down into Italy with the pitiful
acknowledgment that they did not know why they had come.
Another band actually embarked from Brindisi and -were
never heard of again. The largest number came from France
seeking ships at Marseilles. A couple of merchants who had
waxed fat on the slave-trade with the Saracens offered to
lend them seven ships. Two of these ships foundered with
all hands, while the rest discharged their unfortunate cargoes
at Moslem ports where the children were cruelly condemned
to a life of servitude. Not one of them ever reached the
Holy JLand, and many a home was left desolate to mourn
a wholly useless sacrifice.

The next Crusade (1219 A. D.) begins with tragedy and
ends with a touch of humor. Originating in that same
Hungary which had proved a stumbling block a century
before, the knights achieved several notable successes which
were all lost, when an inexplicable and unwarranted panic
came upon them. Regaining their composure after a time,
they determined to strike down into Egypt and so enter
Jerusalem by the back door. They sailed up the Nile to
the strong Moslem fortress of Damietta which was con-
sidered all but impregnable. But during the siege, the
Sultan died, and courage oozed out of the defenders.
Rather than run the risk of losing their valuable strong-
hold in Egypt, the Moslems offered to surrender Palestine
if Egypt might be spared. Inasmuch as Palestine was the
real objective, it is a cause for wonder that the opportunity
was not speedily accepted. The strange fact is that it was
refused. The siege was continued and, eventually, Damietta

THE CRUSADES 135

fell to the crusaders 7 arms in empty triumph. They then
pushed on across the desert to Cairo, short of provisions and
stricken with plague. The sluices of the Nile were opened
against them, and their opponents had them in a fatal trap
from which they were only too happy to extricate their
irresponsible lives by returning Darnietta to the Egyptians.
All they carried away was much grief. Through the alchemy
of bad judgment, a golden opportunity had been converted
into the dross of failure.

Meantime Frederick II of Germany was keeping things
at home in something of a turmoil. Being of an impulsive
disposition and at the same time unusually keen in his intel-
lectual processes, he was carrying on a merry quarrel with
the Pope. He had taken the vow of a crusader, and the
Pope was more than eager to shunt him off to the East where
he would be temporarily harmless. But Frederick dallied,
using one excuse after another, until eleven long years had
passed with his vow still unfulfilled. John of Brienne,
through marriage, had secured the nominal title to the throne
of Jerusalem* He appeared in Europe with his beautiful
daughter to make a personal appeal for help. The Pope
urged Frederick to marry the beautiful daughter, thinking
that such an alliance would hasten the long-desired Crusade,
Frederick, to be sure, was not averse to a handsome wife,
and he saw other things on the horizon as well; so he fell
in with the Pope's plans. But as soon as the marriage was
solemnized, he coolly remarked that John had acquired the
royal title through his wife who was now dead, and that
the crown therefore fell to the daughter; but as he, Fred-
erick, was now her husband, the marriage made him King
of Jerusalem and he would take his time about the affairs
of his own kingdom. Two years more of delay, and the
Pope excommunicated him for his recalcitrance. Frederick
was actually preparing for his Crusade at the time, but he
refused to be hurried. When his leisurely plans were com-
plete, he hoisted anchor for the East.

136 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

A Crusade under excommunicate leadership was an un-
heard-of thing, and the Pope ordered him to stay until he
had done penance. But Frederick refused to change his
plans at that late hour. He was off for Palestine, though
his natural intelligence told him that he must not count
too much on his own following. Obviously, in meeting the
Moslems, discretion would be much the better part of valor.
Therefore, instead of throwing himself into romantic hos-
tilities he opened a series of diplomatic conferences with the
Sultan, which were so adroitly handled that a truce of ten
years was effected, to the great advantage of the crusaders.
Joppa, Bethlehem, and Nazareth were given into their hands,
together with the Holy City itself, excepting Mount Moriah
where the Mosque of Omar stood. Frederick proclaimed
his victory with much satisfaction, but no one seemed to agree
with him. The Moslems were very angry with their Sultan
because of his concessions, and the Christians were quite dis-
gusted with Frederick for doing all his fighting with his
tongue. It is quite likely that Frederick himself chuckled
heartily over the situation he had created. Others had sub-
mitted to years of bitter warfare to no purpose whatever,
and had been acclaimed for their noble deeds; while he, in
a few short months and without a drop of anyone's blood
being shed, had accomplished what the others had failed to
do yet he was despised for his very success. The truth
back of it all was that he had violated the code. As a
crusader he was an excellent diplomat.

Frederick's ten years' truce was not observed with much
accuracy by either party concerned. Occasional skirmishes
here and there were like so many irritations to old wounds.
It was in one of these minor engagements that the Templars
lost their Grand Commander; and that, in itself, was suffi-
cient excuse for another expedition from Europe (1235
A. D.). Factionalism "had sprung up among the Moslems,
and the Sultan trod no path of roses in maintaining his
sovereignty. Open hostility between these factions made life

THE CRUSADES 137

intolerable for the whole country, and was doubtless respon-
sible for much of the truce-breaking. Such confusion among
their foes was, of course, an invaluable asset to the crusaders,
It is true, they suffered a defeat in their first battle; but
reinforcements arrived, and the Sultan was so skeptical of
his ability to hold his own, that he quickly sued for peace,
offering the release of all Christian prisoners and the full
surrender of the Holy Land. This time, the crusaders were
eager to realize their hopes ; and, for a moment, the Christian
Kingdom of Jerusalem again became a reality.

Perhaps the good fortune came too easily to be lasting.
With little or no warning, a new catastrophe enveloped
Christian and Moslem alike when a horde of savage Tartars
swept down upon them, carrying fire and sword wherever
they went. Nothing seemed able to check the fury of their
attack. Former hostilities sank from view in the appalling
presence of this common peril, and Christian fought side by
side with Mohammedan in fruitless efforts to stem the tide.
The military Orders were cut to pieces, and Jerusalem fell
a prey to indiscriminate slaughter. A fine story comes from
the Christian defense of Joppa. It seems that a mixed army
of Moslems and Christians had suffered a grievous defeat
at Gaza, in which the Prince of Joppa was captured. Wlien
the Tartars moved on to the latter city, they elevated the
prince on a cross and commanded him, on pain of death, to
order his people to surrender. Instead, he courageously called
out to the defenders on the walls "It is your duty to defend
this Christian city, and mine to die for Christ." The prince
died and the city was taken, but a splendid example of Chris-
tian fortitude was bequeathed to posterity. When the wave
of Tartar destruction subsided, this last Crusade had been
obliterated and Jerusalem reverted to the Moslems once
more.

The last two expeditions to take the cross are associated
with the name of Louis IX of France a saintly character
who typifies the highest idealism of the whole crusading period.

138 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Regal dignity, unimpeachable piety, and personal humility
-were closely interwoven in his life, at a time when no one
of these virtues was particularly abundant. A woman, dis-
appointed in an unworthy appeal made to the King, once
snapped out her opinion that he was not fit for his office.
"You speak truly," Louis replied. "It has pleased God to
make me King; it had been well had He chosen someone
better able to govern this kingdom rightly."

Louis had long cherished a desire to go crusading, but
had been restrained by the pleas of an over-anxious mother.
His mind was finally made up after a serious illness "when
the attendants thought, for a moment, that he had actually
died. The following Christmas, he distributed gifts to his
barons in the form of a new robe for each one. To the sur-
prise of many, they discovered, when they put them on, that
they were all decorated with the cross. So the Crusade -was
manned and set out for Egypt (1248 A. D.) with a view of
renewing the siege of Damietta. The city capitulated with
unexpected celerity; but the old story of thirst, hunger, and
pestilence was repeated, all of which were capitalized in the
strong Mohammedan resistance to farther advance. Disaster
followed upon disaster. Finally, King Louis was captured and
held for ransom, but he preferred to give up Damietta in
exchange for his own release on the ground that it was not
fitting that a King should be auctioned off for gold. Never-
theless the ransom was paid. When the King learned that,
through sharp practice, his captors had been induced to accept
a sum short of that agreed upon, he was very indignant at
such trickery and refused to accept his own liberty until the
full amount had been delivered. After a pilgrimage to
Nazareth, he returned home with a heavy heart to live the
next fifteen years in a simplicity quite incompatible with his
royal position. During those years, affairs in the Holy Land
were going very badly. One Christian stronghold after
another slipped from Christian control until only Acre was
left.

THE CRUSADES 139

All the time, Louis had his heart set on another effort;
and at last, when the Pope issued a call, he and Prince
Edward of England agreed to lead the forlorn hope. Again
Louis set out for Egypt (1267 A. D.) but he was seized
with a fatal illness when his ship touched at Tunis. At his
own request, he was laid on a bed of ashes; and, as his
strength ebbed away, he was heard to whisper, over and over
again, "Jerusalem! Jerusalem!" The last words upon his
lips were indicative of his saintly spirit "I will enter Thy
house, O Lord, I will worship in Thy sanctuary." And his
chronicler adds: "It was at the same hour that the Son of
God died upon the Cross for the world's salvation."

Edward of England attempted to carry on. A few blows
were struck for the Holy Sepulchre, and Edward all but lost
his life at the hands of an assassin. He was obliged to leave
things much as he had found them. It was the last gasp of
an expiring cause. Acre, left to its fate, was soon forced to
surrender (1291 A. D.) and the last Christian foothold in
Palestine became a thing of the past. The Divine Commission
turned to more peaceful pursuits.

The medieval Crusades were ended. The face of Europe
had been revolutionized in the process, but the Holy Land
was safely bulwarked against Christian aggression for the
next six hundred years. This chapter, however, cannot be
closed -without a reference to that "Last Crusade" which had
its own touches of real romance and was not without its own
spirit of modern chivalry.

Up out of the same old Egypt, in the year 1917, the
British army launched its Palestinian campaign as one of the
many movements on the great checker-board of the World
War. The hazards of the desert were met by the famous
"chicken-wire road," over -which heavy military equipment
was safely transported, and by the remarkable pipe-line which
carried the purified water of the Nile, step for step, with
the British advance. It marked the fulfilment of an old
Arab proverb, two centuries old "When the Nile flows

140 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

into Palestine, then shall the prophet from the West drive
. the Turk from Jerusalem."

Samson's city of Gaza, the scene of many a crusader's
battle, was the first to fall into British hands. Hebron,
once David's capital city, soon followed; and the British
soldiers refreshed themselves with water from the ancient
wells of Abraham. Battles were fought in the foot-hills of
the Shephelah where Israelite and Philistine had contested
their respective rights long before Godfrey and Richard the
Laon-hearted carried the Cross over the same ground.
Throughout the campaign, the Bible was the guide-book of
the British forces. In one instance, carefully laid plans for
a modern assault were scrapped in favor of the bolder exploit
of Jonathan at Michmash, and history repeated itself in a
stunning British victory. The Holy City was carefully
pinched out, with no destructive use of gun-fire against the
holy places, and Jerusalem was once more freed from Turkish
sovereignty. More as a Christian pilgrim than as a con-
queror, General Allenby took over the city on December 11,
1917. No flags were flown, no bands played, no drums
sounded, no guns were fired, as this Christian gentleman
quietly entered by the Jaffa Gate, on foot and accompanied
only by a few personal attendants. The follow-up was a
masterpiece of strategy. Completely fooled by camouflage,
the Turks prepared for an attack across the Jordan by way
of Jericho. Meanwhile, the British forces were concentrated
on the seacoast. A sharp attack opened a way into the Turkish
defense, through which the British cavalry rushed across the
hills of Samaria; and there, at the very entrance to Armaged-
don, two whole Turkish armies were overwhelmed. It wrote
"Finis" to the story of the Crusades.

May the Prince of Peace speed His day of good-will,
when the war-like crusades of violence shall give place to
kindlier crusades of Christian service, and the Holy City
shall realize the destiny which its name implies Jerusalem,
"the City of Peace!"

CHAPTER VIII
THE GREAT SCHISM

reign of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216 A. D.)
-i- marks the real zenith of papal power. It "was he who
consolidated the stupendous pretensions of Hildebrand and
made the papal monarchy a thoroughly going concern.

At the time of his election, he was only thirty-seven years
old; but by training and temperament he "was exceptionally
qualified for the problems he had to face. He successfully
revived the waning power of the popes over the Papal States,
and snatched great profit for himself out of the local dissen-
sions of Guelph and Ghibelline factions ; Rome itself became
the back-yard of the Vatican. By a carefully conceived pro-
gramme of gradual legislation, he centralized the control of
ecclesiastical affairs in his own hands much to the enhance-
ment of the papacy and with corresponding curtailment of
the authority of the bishops. No pope, before him or since,
has held the commanding position which his own ability,
plus fortunate circumstances, was able to produce.

The Crusades were still an active force, at great cost to
the nations of Europe and none whatever to Rome where
all the advantages accrued. The great minds of the day
were engaged in the intricacies of scholastic theology which
gave the pope his opportunity to define doctrine as well as
to organize a closely-knit administration. "Transubstantia-
tion" found its place in Catholic dogma during his time,
together with the fixed rule of private confession, and the
administration of the Sacrament in one kind. The Men-
dicant Orders offered new means of spiritual leverage
upon the Common people; and the ground work was laid

142 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

for what, later, attained its obnoxious maturity in the
Inquisition.

There were three great powers in Europe at that time
Germany, France, and England. The young German prince,
presently to be the troublesome Frederick II, was under the
personal guardianship of Pope Innocent during the early
years of his reign, which gave the Pope a firm hand-hold on
the turbulent conditions in that country. The King of
France placed himself at the mercy of the Pope by his own
immoral connections, and Innocent brought him to submis-
sion by laying the whole country under an interdict. "Awful
and wonderful it was to see, in every city, the doors of the
churches locked ; Christians debarred like dogs from entering
them; a cessation of divine offices; no consecration of the
Lord's Body and Blood ; no flocking of the people, as had
been usual, to the high solemnities of the saints; the bodies
of the dead not committed to burial with Christian rites, but
the stench of them infected the air, while the frightful sight
of them struck horror into the minds of the living." Mean-
while, England was under the rule of the despicable King
John, who enjoyed such cordial hatred from his own subjects
that he had scarcely a friend in the world when the papal
tweezers systematically plucked him to the bone.

The old adage, "Be bold, be bold be not too bold!" is
a good epitome of Innocent's policy, and it worked with
beautiful precision. Everywhere his hand was felt, and
nothing went on without his penetrating scrutiny. Of him-
self he said "Not only am I not allowed to contemplate,
but I cannot even get leave to breathe ; I am in such a degree
made over to others that I almost seem to be altogether taken
away from myself." Perhaps that is why he died in his
early fifties. Success is a hard master, and there are heavy
penalties attached to great power.

The influence of Innocent's reign lasted through several
pontificates after him, but changes were in the air and such
changes as were not to be altogether healthy to the exag-

THE GREAT SCHISM 143

gerated proportions of the papal monarchy. The vigorous
intellectual activity inspired by the work of the "schoolmen"
could not long be restrained from overflowing into other
fields than that of theological disputation. Scholasticism itself
was academic in character; but it placed weapons of scholar-
ship at the disposal of the universities, which could cut more
ways than one. The seeds of the Reformation were planted
several hundred years before Martin Luther ever graced the
world with his presence.

To the modern way of thinking, scholasticism may seem
trivial in its finespun subtleties, but it represents a significant
shifting of ground in the whole matter of Church doctrine.
Up to the eleventh century, discussion centered around the
interpretation of earlier authorities, of whom St. Augustine
of Hippo was the chief. The integrity of the doctrine itself,
in the light of a revival of philosophy, was the particular
concern of scholasticism. Berengar of Tours precipitated the
controversy over the Eucharist. Abelard and Anselm opened
up separate avenues of study, drawing scholars into conflicting
camps of opinion. Out of the mists of pre-Christian times,
Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, was haled forth as the
standard of logic and Christian reason. Not only did much
new information become available, but men began to accept
a new discipline of thought. It began to assume some definite
shape in the "Sentences" of Peter Lombard (1150 A. D.)
where, for instance, the fluctuating number of sacraments
was finally reduced to seven. Many lesser lights studied the
Sentences diligently and expended their energies in writing
commentaries upon them. But the two men who towered
head and shoulders above their fellows were Duns Scotus,
the Franciscan (died 1308 A. D.), and St. Thomas Aquinas,
the Dominican (died 1274 A. D.).

Duns Scotus was a marvel of intellectual acumen, unsur-
passed in his penetrating dialectic. St. Thomas Aquinas was
gifted with a remarkable facility in organizing his conclu-
sions, and stands today as the greatest theologian in Christian

144 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

history. It is true that scholasticism ended in feeble quips
of purposeless logomachy, but it did teach men to think. It
prompted a spirit of inquiry which made it possible for
William of Ockham and Marsilius of Padua to broadcast
views which at other times might well have cost them their
lives. They were the forerunners of Wyclif and Huss, who
fired the warning guns of the Reformation itself.

While the schoolmen were straining their minds over
terms and doctrines, another movement was launched among
the common people which proved to be of little less impor-
tance. The Mendicant Orders, at least in their beginnings,
represent one of the finest phases of the Middle Ages. They
were the creation of two men of matchless piety and singular
devotion St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic.

Everyone loves St. Francis (died 1226 A. D.). At a
time when the Church was best known for its insatiable
appetite for power, Francis faced himself about to a life of
utter self-denial. Born into a family of considerable wealth,
he lived the life of a free and easy young blade until, during
a short period of captivity, he found time to think. His
release brought to light a very different Francis. In response
to Our Lord's injunction, "Give to everyone that asketh
thee," he scattered his money; and when it was all gone,
gave away his clothes. He sought out miserable lepers as
a particular object of his affection, and washed their feet
and kissed their sores. Once he sold some of his father's
goods for money to repair a dilapidated church. But his
father's sense of business did not consort well with such
irresponsible generosity. Francis was called to account; and,
in the presence of the Bishop, cheerfully stripped off the
garments with which his father had clothed him, stood forth
in a raw state of nature, and announced himself responsible
to none but his Heavenly Father thereafter. His outraged
parents greeted him with curses whenever they met ; so Francis
provided himself with a casual beggar as a traveling com-
panion whom he called "father," and for every paternal curse

THE GREAT SCHISM 145

the beggar responded with a blessing, making the sign of the
cross. He wore only a single piece of coarse clothing with
a rope around the middle, traveling in his bare feet to tend
the sick and preach a simple gospel of repentance. His plain
goodness drew him disciples. People began to talk about him
and his strange company of friars. After a time the Pope
recognized his work and gave him a commission to preach.
His instructions to his followers were that they were to
welcome contemptuous treatment, to refuse all ecclesiastical
preferment, to reverence the clergy, to live on the plainest
possible fare, and to own no possessions of any kind whatever.
He preached to anyone who would listen, including birds,
worms, and flowers. He used to speak of his body as
"Brother Ass" because of the burdens he gave it to bear.
As his life was flickering out, he is said to have exclaimed,
'Welcome, sister Death."

His Order grew rapidly, but it was not long before it
showed signs of departing from its primitive standards.
^Wealth flowed into it, great monasteries were erected, schools
opened. A generation or two after his death, Francis would
scarcely have recognized his own work. It has been said that
at the time of the Reformation the Franciscans were, perhaps,
the most profoundly corrupted of all the Orders.

Of a very different sort was St. Dominic and the Order
which popularly takes its name from him. He was a Spanish
contemporary of St. Francis, but his family connection is
a bit uncertain. From his youth, he was studious and devout,
gaining an early reputation for both virtues, about which
much legend has accumulated. He is said to have spent
more hours on his knees than in his bed. Every night he
belabored himself with an iron chain, once for his own sins,
once for the sins of the rest of the world, and once for the
sinners in purgatory. In a time of famine, he even sold his
beloved books for the relief of the hungry sufferers.

His life-work grew out of a visit to southern France
where the Albigensian heresy was flourishing in spite of all

146 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

efforts to suppress it. A full-fledged crusade had been pro-
claimed against the Albigenses by Innocent III, which resulted
in several years of open warfare reeking with beastliness
on both sides. In spite of wholesale slaughter and many
stupid atrocities, the heresy continued to spread, largely
through the somewhat unusual stimulus of eloquent preach-
ing. Dominic was appalled by the state of affairs and
decided that the best way to counteract the heresy was to
fight it with its own approved weapons. So he preached,
and his preaching was wonderfully successful. He formed
a Brotherhood dedicated to the training of preachers who
were to refute the arguments of the heretics and instruct
the people in the knowledge of the true Faith. His friars
became known as Dominicans, though the official title of the
Brotherhood was (and still is) simply The Order of
Preachers. The original field of their labors was southern
France; but, in the course of time, their activities extended
wherever heresy raised its head.

At first, Dominic was willing to provide for his work in
the usual way, but the growing popularity of the penniless
Franciscans impressed him with the idea that the best way
to approach the common people was through the door of self-
imposed poverty. So the Dominicans became the second of
the famous Mendicant Orders. To be sure, the poverty did
not last much beyond the time of Dominic; but, for the
moment, it was a salutary experience for the Church to
know that in an age of scheming rapacity, there were th6se
who were willing to sacrifice everything in a spirit of utter
service to their Lord.

In view of the purpose for which they were formed,
it was almost inevitable that the Dominicans should have
been drawn into the Inquisition. There was a time when
the admirers of Dominic were eager to give him the honor
of having originated the Inquisition, but that day has passed.
His present admirers are far more likely to concern them-
selves with proving exactly the opposite. And they are

THE GREAT SCHISM 147

probably right. Dominic dedicated himself to the persuasion
of men's minds not to the torture of their bodies. But the
policy of rigid organization developed under the papal mon-
archy demanded outward conformity rather than inner con-
viction, and the easier way soon gained the ascendancy.

The Inquisition, or Holy Office, dates from the pontificate
of Gregory IX (1231 A. D.). Much earlier than this,
individual bishops had instituted courts of inquiry to bridle
the heretical excesses of groups of people known as the
Cathari. But these strange fanatics multiplied too rapidly
for comfort, and some settled policy of dealing with them
seemed desirable. Nearly half a century before Gregory, a
compact had been effected between L/ucius III and Frederick
Barbarossa, providing that culprits convicted by ecclesiastical
courts might be turned over to the temporal power for punish-
ment. Resting on that agreement, the Inquisition has been
able to say for itself that it was never guilty of shedding any
man's blood. This, of course, is technically true; but it is
also true that the civil authorities who did the blood-letting
were commissioned for it by the ecclesiastical courts, and
were expected by the hierarchy to do it. There was no
doubt in the minds of the judges as to what would happen
when they passed judgment.

Gregory gathered these local tribunals under his own
control and organized them into a wholesale system for the
extirpation of heresy. Inquisitors were appointed by the
pope and were accountable to him. In theory, they were
supposed to work in collaboration with the bishops; but they
had their own staff of assistants and, in practice, gave the
bishops slight consideration.

It is a difficult matter to unravel the story of the Inquisi-
tion. Restraining orders frequently emanated from the- Vat-
ican, but just as frequently the inquisitors got out of all
control; so that many commendable efforts at moderation
appear on paper which are entirely contradicted by the
chroniclers of the actual events. Neither did the same rules

148 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

prevail in every country. The inquisitors were granted wide
latitude of judgment, and the severities authorized in one
place were often greatly reduced elsewhere.

In general, the procedure would run somewhat as follows.
The inquisitors would appear in a certain district and pro-
claim a month's "term of grace." During that month,
everyone was supposed to set himself right with the Church.
At the end of the month, the Inquisition was prepared to
receive charges against recalcitrants. Accused persons were
arrested on secret information. They never saw their accusers,
who might be the worst of characters or even heretics them-
selves. Always the accused was assumed to be guilty on the
strength of the charges preferred. He was allowed no legal
counsel or advisors of any kind. If he denied, he was tor-
tured. Even witnesses might be tortured to get evidence
against a third party. If the accused confessed or was con-
victed, he might be tortured again for information against
other persons. By papal order, torture was to be inflicted
only once on any person. But it was easy to beat such an
order with a little clever manipulation. A charge would be
split up into several charges and the victim tortured once
for each charge. Sometimes a poor tortured wretch would
collapse into unconsciousness, and then the process would be
repeated the following day not as a new torture but merely
as an adjourned session. When Alexander VI complained
of the slow progress made with Savonarola, the inquisitors
replied that he was a tough monk and it was hard to torture
him successfully. In self-defense, the accused often resorted
to devious tricks. The Albigenses, for instance, would name
one of their leaders after the reigning pope and another after
the local bishop ; one of the women would be nick-named the
Virgin Mary, another the Church, another the Eucharist.
Then when they were asked if they were loyal to Pope
So-and-So, they would truthfully answer "Yes." When they
were asked if they loved the Church and were reverent
toward the Eucharist, their curious consciences suffered no

THE GREAT SCHISM 149

spasms of remorse at an affirmative reply. The penalties
varied according to circumstances, running all the way from
confiscation of property, imprisonment, or banishment, to
burning at the stake.

The original field of the Inquisition was in central and
southern France. The Scandinavian countries appear to have
had none of it, and England escaped very lightly. Germany
had a few bad years when a bilious-minded person named
Conrad of Marburg terrorized the country in a fearful cam-
paign of frightfulness. No one, including the bishops, was
safe when he was around. His motto was "Confess and
be burned, or deny and be burned." If the victim was
guilty, he deserved it; if he was innocent, he had the honor
of being a martyr. Conrad was so crude in his violence that
one day he was waylaid and assassinated, to the regret of
nobody. The stench of his memory was so nauseous that
Germany was spared further inquisitorial inroads. For a
short time, the Inquisition was called in to handle an hys-
terical aberration about witches in northern France. Certain
unfortunates were tortured into confessing that they flew to
secret meetings on an anointed stick and participated in
sundry vile practices. Whereupon the inquisitors found
further opportunity to exercise their merciless offices. The
bulk of such work fell into the hands of the Dominicans.
It was not exclusively theirs; but, from the beginning, the
Dominican Order had specialized in heresy, and naturally
fell heir to inquisitorial duties.

The climax was reached in the Spanish Inquisition (1478
A. D.). While the Moors were in control of Spain, many
Jews had settled in the country and had intermarried freely
with both Moors and Christians. In the reign of Ferdinand
and Isabella (circ. 1492 A. D.) the Moors were dispossessed,
and a general clean-up was inaugurated. The confessor of
Queen Isabella persuaded her that a very suitable mode of
thanksgiving would be found in a wholesale persecution of
the Jews.

150 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

For this laudable purpose, Thomas de Torquemada
was appointed as chief inquisitor. He built up a power-
ful organization and showed a marvelous capacity for
unmitigated cruelty. In Seville alone, in forty years, four
thousand were burned as autos-da-fe (acts of faith). The
people of Aragon entered a protest against his unrelenting
violence, but the Pope himself was unable to curb his activi-
ties. Riots and assassination greeted some of his inquisitors,
and Torquemada lived in daily fear for his own life. He
kept a magical horn on his dinner table as a safeguard against
poisoning. His order was to the effect that all Jews must
submit to Baptism or be exiled. Crowds of them were
obliged to dispose of their possessions at enormous loss and
make a hurried escape into neighboring countries, leaving
homes which they and their forefathers had enjoyed for hun-
dreds of years. Neither did the other countries offer them
unanimous hospitality, and a scattering of them drifted over
to the western world forming the nucleus of that splendid
stock of Spanish Jews who proved a strong American asset
at the time of the Revolutionary War.

After the Jews came the Moors in the chronology of the
Inquisition. The fall of Granada (1491 A. D.) removed
the last stronghold of Moorish culture in Spain. At the time,
they were given promises of religious liberty; but Cardinal
Ximines was the gentleman who made easy disposition of
that. It was something of a custom among inquisitors to
consider promises made to those without the fold as of no
binding consequence. Many Moors were bribed into Bap-
tism three thousand of them were Christianized in a single
day by aspersion, which means that they were casually sprayed
into the Kingdom of God. And, to complete the unsavory
business, the old order Baptism or exile was repeated
against the Moors. They hastily fled from conversion, most
of them crossing into North Africa whence they had ori-
ginally come. How much, we might ask, has that to do with
the inveterate hatred of the Riffians for everything Spanish ?

THE GREAT SCHISM 151

"With a short lapse, the Spanish Inquisition as an
organized institution continued down into the nineteenth
century (1834). It effectually quenched the Reformation in
Spain, and stayed the entrance of rationalism at the time of
the French Revolution. It is interesting to note that though
the Spanish Inquisition was dissolved a century ago, the Holy
Office itself is still in existence and is one of the important
adjuncts of the papacy today.

To grow rabid on the subject of the Inquisition is a
popular pastime with a certain kind of well-meaning people.
It is easy to select its worst aspects and make them standard
for the medieval papacy. This, of course, is unfair. Indeed,
the papacy is not to be too severely reproached for having
created the Inquisition in the first place. The real motive
was to guard the Divine Commission against contamination.
There is no reason to think that something similar might not
have occurred if the tables had been reversed. It was simply
a case of medieval mentality, the relics of which are not so
far distant from the twentieth century. Luther's treatment
of the peasants was not much improvement on the Inquisi-
tion. Neither was the incident of Calvin and Servetus.
Puritans notching the ears of Quakers and hanging witches
in Salem is all of the same stripe. Is the world really getting
better and more Christian? The modern apologetic sense of
horror over all these needless cruelties of earlier times is
sufficient answer to the question.

Meanwhile the papacy was smashing to pieces the mag-
nificent structure erected for its own benefit by Hildebrand
and Innocent III. Strangely enough, the later Middle Ages
were made glorious by matchless architectural triumphs while
the life of the Church was steadily crumbling away. The
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries mark the climax of the
Gothic cathedral, and they also mark the period of internal
disintegration which took its rise in the Vatican and poisoned
the Church to its extremities.

For the better part of a century after Innocent III, no

152 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

one occupied the papal chair who left any record worthy of
mention, unless it be Hadrian V (1276) who survived the
dignity of his office little more than a month. He was in
deacon's orders at the time of his election, and was never
even advanced to the priesthood. Yet in that month he
exercised the prerogatives of a pope, even to revoking the
regulations of Gregory X regarding papal elections. Inas-
much as a man becomes pope only as he becomes Bishop of
Rome, and inasmuch as Hadrian did not live long enough
to become Bishop of anything, it is singular that he could
have made legitimate changes touching the election of his
successors.

In 1294, a peculiar situation arose. Celestine V was
elected pope, and in a short six months proved himself a
lovable incompetent. All the privileges of Peter were in-
capable of making an able administrator out of a merely
pious monk. No one realized it more than Celestine himself.
When the suggestion was made to him that he might resign
his office, he was only too happy to accept the release. It
was an open question which has never been satisfactorily
answered, as to whether a pope can ever legally resign. But
Celestine was obdurate, saying: "St. Peter's ship is wrecking,
with me at the helm." A resignation is supposed to be made
to a superior authority; yet, though the cardinals were all
inferior to the Pope, they accepted it and chose Benedetto
Gaetano who took the name Boniface VIII. So the Church
was obliged to exist for a time with two heads, equally
legitimate.

Though an old man, Boniface was alive with energy,
very worldly-wise, and crafty to a degree. Also, he had a
positively limitless conception of papal prerogatives. He
could not be satisfied with a papal monarchy; he wanted an
empire. "I am Caesar ; I am Emperor," he said on one occa-
sion. But in his attempt to outdo Innocent III, Boniface
was reckoning without the facts. Europe had been ripe for
the adventures of Innocent, but the problems of Boniface

THE GREAT SCHISM 153

were of another color. An element among the cardinals still
questioned his right to his throne. Italian partisanship
exhausted much of his strength. France was ruled by Philip
the Fair, who was exceedingly powerful and exceedingly
unscrupulous. England had for its king Edward I, who was
prepared to play second fiddle to nobody. And the universi-
ties had been turning out a crop of legal talent which was
uncomfortably critical of the whole papal system. Against
such an unsympathetic combination, it would have been no
easy matter for an able pope merely to hold his own, let
alone extend his authority. Boniface made the mistake of
overplaying his hand. He did crush the rebellious cardinals;
and, by a bit of knavery, all but ruined the powerful Colonna
family, though the latter was still able to keep things interest-
ing for him in Italy during the balance of his pontificate. For
years, he fought the recognition of Albert of Austria as
Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire; but the combined
antagonism of France and England was too much for him,
and he finally made an ungraceful submission.

In England, Boniface met a stone wall of defiance. He
presumed to impose his authority in a settlement of the diffi-
culties between England and Scotland, but King Edward
checkmated him completely. The English nobles signed a
statement in which they declared that the claim of Boniface
was an unheard-of novelty; and that even if their King
wished to argue it out before the Pope, they would never
consent to it.

Worst of all was France. Boniface was guilty of a serious
blunder early in his reign when he offered to arbitrate as
a private individual in a question between Philip and Edward.
But his decision was issued as a papal bull, and Philip never
forgave him. Other points of friction arose, until Philip
compromised all other quarrels to concentrate against the
papacy* Boniface boldly insisted that his authority was
superior to that of all princes, and garbled the Scriptures in
support of his position. According to Boniface, when the

154 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Apostles said to Our Lord "Behold, here are two swords,"
He did not answer, "It is too much/' but, "It is enough"
which was positive evidence that the Pope was to exercise
both spiritual and temporal sovereignty. He excommunicated
Philip, and actually prepared a bull releasing all French
subjects from their allegiance to their King. But before the
bull could be published, the Pope was violently kidnapped,
and died soon after from the excitement of his strenuous
experience. Philip was implacable even after the Pope's
death, and demanded that the following pope should con-
demn Boniface posthumously as a heretic. And it would
have been done if Philip had not traded off his vengeance
for the destruction of the Knights Templar. The net result
of the efforts of Boniface was the ruin of the medieval papacy.
Philip was triumphant and, more than that, .his people
staunchly supported him in his victory. Having things in
his own hands, he was determined to take no further chances
with papal opposition. One more pope, and Philip was ready
to assert himself.

In the year 1305, he manipulated the election of Clement
V, and made him a handyman for the furtherance of French
policies. The astounded Romans suddenly awoke to the fact
that the Pope had deserted them, not only in spirit, but in
person. For Clement established his headquarters at Avignon
in France, and let Rome look out for itself. During the next
seventy years, the Vatican was empty, while seven popes lived
in a new French palace, surrounded by French influences,
and under the royal thumbs of French monarchs. Roman
Catholic historians call it the period of the Babylonish Cap-
tivity, which is a good scriptural curse taken from the
seventy years of Hebrew exile in the real Babylon. The
papal court at Avignon degenerated to a scandalous condition
of profligacy ; even an occasional high-minded pope was help-
less in its sinister atmosphere. Petrarch says, "Whatever you
have read of the gates of hell will apply to this place." The
Romans denounced it as a typically French product, while

THE GREAT SCHISM 155

the French reviled it as an Italian importation. Once during
this period, when the pope died, some Italian cardinals in
Rome hurried through an election and seated a new pontiff
in his proper place. But, in their own good time, the French
elected another Frenchman and kept the papacy where they
wanted it.

Ceaseless efforts were made to induce the popes to return
to their see city, but they were without avail until 1362
when Urban V, a man of fine character and quite uncon-
taminated by the vices of his own court for he had never
been a cardinal but was abbot of a monastery in Marseilles
determined to make the change. In spite of vehement protest
from his courtiers who loved the accustomed luxuries of
Avignon, Urban carried out his purpose and took his court
to Rome. The city was overwhelmed with joy and received
him with all the ancient honors, but it was not long before
the fickle populace was back at its old game of strife and
factionalism. In three years, saddened by the experience,
Urban reluctantly returned to Avignon just in time to die
where he shouldn't have been.

If any one person deserves the credit for placing popes
permanently in the Vatican again, that credit probably belongs
to St. Catherine of Siena. She was a singular mixture of a
contemplative mystic and a practical politician. Her letters
have become Italian classics of that period. Simple and
uneducated as she was, she played the role of counselor of
popes and adviser of kings. Gregory XI, Urban's successor,
was really a devout man haunted with a secret desire to
restore the papacy to its Roman home, but the French pres-
sure against such a move was almost irresistible until Cath-
erine stepped to the front. She left no stone unturned, and
finally induced Gregory to take the bit in his teeth in spite
of the French cardinals. So the day came when the Pope
abandoned his foreign palace and took up his permanent resi-
dence in the Vatican. It was a clear case of duty accepted,
for Gregory himself was a Frenchman, unable to speak the

156 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Italian language and with every tie of family and personal
interest binding him to France. Moreover, Rome was in a
disjointed state, filled with partisan rivalries, and with its
fine buildings crumbling to steady decay. The change proved
too much for Gregory, and he died at the age of forty-seven
years. But the "Babylonish Captivity" was ended, and Rome
enjoyed her popes once more.

But if the captivity was ended, it was soon to be followed
by a still more critical problem for the Church. The majority
of the cardinals would have preferred to elect another French
pope to succeed Gregory; but when they met In conclave,
a howling mob filled the streets shouting, "We will have a
Roman or at least an Italian." Now a Roman crowd in an
excited state of mind is not something to be taken lightly.
No one knew this better than the cardinals. After con-
siderable backing and filling, they agreed upon a Neapolitan
who took the name of Urban VI. On the face of it, the
choice appeared to be a happy compromise ; but it soon became
evident that the honors of the office had gone to Urban's
head. He showed all the haughty arrogance of a low-born
man invested with power to domineer over his betters. In
his "exuberant unwisdom," he developed the habit of telling
the cardinals to "Shut up !" when their suggestions were not
acceptable. Once he roused a gasp of astonishment by calling
the noble Orsini a fool. After he had openly accused some
of them of bribery, one cardinal replied : "As you are the
Pope, I cannot reply, but if you were still the little Arch-
bishop of Bari I would tell you that you had lied." St. Cath-
erine remonstrated with the Pope, saying, "Mitigate a little,
for the love of Christ, these sudden impulses." For the
cardinals, the situation became unbearable. At length, thir-
teen of them issued a statement full of scalding epithets
directed at their Pope as "antichrist, devil, apostate, tyrant,
deceiver, elected by force, etc." They called upon him to
resign. It is an interesting sequel to the voluntary resigna-
tion of Celestine V* If the cardinals were in a position to

THE GREAT SCHISM 157

accept the resignation of one pope, why were they not in a
position to demand it of another? But Urban was a fighter.
Only one cardinal stood by him, and that one died. Now
it was a battle between the Pope, without any cardinals, on
one side; and the cardinals, without any pope, on the other.
Both sides showed no hesitation about remedying their respec-
tive deficiencies. Urban created twenty-nine new cardinals
at one blow, and the old cardinals elected a new pope,
declaring Urban deposed from his holy office.

It was the beginning of the Great Schism (1378 A. D.)-
For the next forty years rival popes occupied rival thrones
at Rome and Avignon. They sputtered excommunications at
each other and played contrary politics in all the courts of
Europe. The nations were divided in their allegiance. Eng-
land and Germany supported the Roman line, while France
and Spain supported the French, with the smaller nations
divided according to their political connections with the
larger powers. If it had been costly before to maintain one
papal court, it was doubly so now to maintain two. Leading
ecclesiastics were equally divided in their allegiance. Cath-
erine of Siena, for example, remained staunchly Roman, while
Vincent Ferrar was one of the principal advocates for the
French line and both of them have been canonized since.
Eight popes were involved on one side or the other, and no
one yet has ever been able to untangle their contradictory
claims to precedence as guardians of the Divine Commission.

The whole thing was a sickening business. Those who
really had the interests of the Church at heart made untiring
efforts to bring the hostile factions together, but it was one
of those diseases which had to get worse before it could be
cured. When one of the popes died, solemn promises were
exacted from the new candidates that, if elected, they would
participate with the rival pope in a dual resignation, and
so open the way for a general reconciliation. But such
promises were broken as easily as they were made.

Each court had its quota of hangers-on who were far more

158 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

concerned with their own selfish interests than with the wel-
fare of Christendom. As a. game of ecclesiastical maneuvering
it was very diverting, but the expenses were terrific. Every
conceivable scheme was devised for extorting money from one
side or the other. Bishoprics and other preferments were sold
outright to the highest bidders. Then mortgages on future
preferments were sold in advance. Spies were sent about
to keep watch on possible vacancies. If some old prelate fell
dangerously ill, his office made a particularly valuable prize
for the prospective buyer. When such mortgages had been
exploited to the last possible limit, they were sold over again
in the form of preferential claims until no one knew whether
or not his purchase had any value. Then one of the popes
tried to clear away the confusion by promulgating a set
of sales regulations, and found a new source of revenue by
selling exemptions from his own rules. Europe was in a riot
of bewilderment, and the Church was torn with dissension.
At last, heroic measures became absolutely necessary.
Twenty cardinals, gathered from both obediences, met on
their own initiative and determined to call a Council in the
name of the Church to take things in its own hands. They
wrote letters to kings and universities asking their cooperation
and paying their respects to their two spiritual superiors as
"perjurers and liars" together with similar choice epithets.
The Council met at Pisa in 1409, with an imposing number
in attendance both of ecclesiastical and civil representatives.
It was an epoch-making event, for no Council had, for cen-
turies, been called by anyone but the Pope. In this case both
popes were conspicuously absent, Gregory XII for the Roman
line and Benedict XIII for the French. It was not a very
dignified Council, but it was not dealing with a very dignified
situation. Coarse lampoons were circulated and much in-
decent vituperation indulged in. On three successive days,
officers were sent to the doors of the cathedral, publicly
summoning Gregory and Benedict to appear before the Coun-
cil. When no reply was forthcoming, they were both declared

THE GREAT SCHISM 159

contumacious. It took three hours to read the charges which
had been prepared against them. Once more they were sum-
moned and, failing to respond, they were formally deposed.
Then the cardinals went into conclave and elected a new
pope under the title of Alexander V. There were clamorous
demands that the Council should take up the pressing ques-
tion of reform in the Church; but the cardinals evidently
thought they had done enough when they cashiered a couple
of popes, and they referred the other matters to another
Council which the new Pope was to call three years later.

The results of the Council of Pisa were very disappoint-
ing. Neither of the deposed pontiffs was ready to acknowl-
edge its authority, and Alexander was not strong enough
to carry the day. Instead of reducing the number of popes,
Pisa succeeded only in adding another. Now there were
three popes and three colleges of cardinals. As one contem-
porary writer put it in the mouth of the Church "I had
two husbands before; now they have made me three-hus-
banded." It was a choice between divorce and polygamy,
with each husband desirous of preserving the conjugal rela-
tionship for the purpose of ill-treating his wife. Alexander
died before the date for the second Council to be called, and
the Church caught its breath in amazement when it learned
that this third group of cardinals had elected the notorious
Cardinal of Bologna to succeed him as John XXIII. It was
bad enough for them to elect anybody, but it was nothing
short of criminal to intrude a man like John into the picture.
As a young priest, he had been a pirate by trade. As Cardinal
of Bologna, no woman was free from his lascivious ap-
proaches; bribery was his regular habit; and his calculating
cruelty was said actually to have thinned the population of
the city. Yet this was the man who created new cardinals and
excommunicated his two rivals.

It was no wonder that the voice of John Huss found
a ready echo wherever Christians were still trying to be
Christian. He was a Bohemian priest, full of moral courage

160 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

and deeply indoctrinated with the ideas of his English pred-
ecessor, John Wyclif. It was in the piping days of the
Babylonish Captivity that Wyclif had stormed against the
corruption in the Church, mingling his protests with some
interesting theological innovations, and adding certain polit-
ical theories which did his cause no good. Wyclif was al-
lowed to die in good standing in the Church; but, some
years later, his bones and his books were publicly burned.
This posthumous indignity did him little damage, however,
for he had no more use for his bones and the contents of
his books were already safely lodged in the fertile brain of
John Huss. By the time Huss got into action, conditions
in the Church had become steadily worse and he had the
temerity to say so in plain and simple language. He was
forbidden to preach; but he continued, in spite of orders
to the contrary, defending Wyclif and denouncing the shock-
ing morals of his fellow clergy. He was excommunicated,
and some of his friends were murdered ; but his excoriations
continued to heckle Pope John until he became something of
an international problem.

Bound by the action of the Council of Pisa, John at-
tempted to call a Council for Church Reform; but he was
not very enthusiastic on the subject, and judiciously packed
the Council with his own creatures. At one of the conciliar
services, John was just beginning the Hymn, "Come, Holy
Spirit," when an owl flew into the chapel and sat blinking
at him eye to eye. As a dove, the owl was not much of a
success. The cardinals laughed, and the Pope was visibly
embarrassed. Of course this Council accomplished nothing,
and the European monarchs were insistent that something
must be done. Sigismund had recently been crowned Emperor
of the Holy Roman Empire; and, in spite of John's reluc-
tance, he compelled him to call another Council to meet at
Constance, in Switzerland, which could be truly representative
of the Church.

The Council of Constance (1414 A. D.) is really impor-

THE GREAT SCHISM 161

tant. The attendance ran into the thousands, including not
only cardinals, bishops, priests, and doctors of theology, but
also a very large number of nobles and knights from all the
countries of Europe. For the first time in any such inter-
national gathering, they caucused in national groups and
voted on national lines. It marks the real beginning of the
period of nationalism which supplanted the feudal system of
the Middle Ages.

One of the preliminary matters to be considered was the
troublesome question of John Huss. He was persuaded to
come to Constance under the personal safe-conduct of Sigis-
mund, and it is a dark blot upon an otherwise good record
that the Emperor allowed his own guarantee of safety to be
violated. The point was that the teaching of Huss was a
severe arraignment of the whole papal system, and the
cardinals realized that unless it could be definitely repudiated
their own standing in the Council would be in serious danger.
Sigismund did make some motions in defense of Huss, but
he was plainly told that the cardinals would boycott the
Council if they could not have their way with this heretic,
and Sigismund was determined that the Council must be a
success. So Huss paid the penalty at the stake, but his
influence was perpetuated among the persecuted Hussites of
Bohemia whose descendants remained as a sympathetic mi-
nority when the Reformation movement swept down out of
Germany a century later.

The Pope was expecting to manipulate the course of
events by his usual tactics of coercion and bribery. But,
to his chagrin, he soon discovered that popes were a drug
on the market, and the Council intended to handle its own
affairs. One of the opening sermons, preached by a French
cardinal, made him squirm uneasily as he heard it boldly
stated that, while the pope summons Councils, "when once
summoned their power is above the pope." And, further,
that "St. James, when he presided over the First General
Council, did not publish the decrees in the name of Peter,

162 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

but said, 'It seemeth good to the Holy Ghost and to us.' "
Still worse was a paper of unknown authorship which quietly
went the rounds detailing the crimes of John XXIII with
unprintable particularity. And, finally, came the proposition,
backed by all the leading nations, that each of the three popes
should abdicate his throne and leave the field entirely clear
for a fresh start. John wriggled and twisted, but Sigismund
was adamant. Disguised as a groom, John ran away under
cover of darkness, calling upon his cardinals to follow him.
He went from place to place, hoping to throw confusion into
the ranks of his enemies; but they were not to be led astray.
A pronouncement was drawn up and read in public assembly
which contained the following significant declaration : "This
Council, lawfully assembled in the name of the Holy Spirit
and forming a General Council representing the Catholic
Church militant, has its power immediately from Christ ; and
everyone of every rank, even the Pope, is bound to obey it in
matters pertaining to the Faith and the extirpation of the
present schism." John was suspended, and charges were read
against him which were so excessively disgusting that the
Council refused to listen to them. A delegation was sent to
inform him that he had been formally deposed from his office
and to extract a promise that he would never attempt to
secure reinstatement. Of course, the promise was kept because
he had no friends left to support him.

Gregory was next. He was really an estimable old
gentleman, deeply troubled by the disjointed condition of
the Church. He freely offered his resignation; and died,
soon after, with the best conscience of them all.

Benedict XIII was not so easily disposed of. He made a
lot of absurd demands, one of which, however, is rather
interesting. "If," he said, in substance, "you are wiping
this schism out of history by dethroning the three of us, then
you are nullifying all three lines of popes back to the begin-
ing of the schism forty years ago. That, of course, vitiates
all ecclesiastical appointments made by these disqualified

THE GREAT SCHISM 163

popes. Now it happens that I am the only person living
who was appointed cardinal before the schism began. There-
fore I am the only one empowered by canon law to vote for
a new pope. Therefore I will resign if you will allow me
to choose my successor/* Obviously there was much merit
in his contention, but it would have been fatal even to argue
it. Nevertheless, the question still awaits an answer as to
whether every pope since the Council of Constance has not
been an illegal intruder in the Vatican because the College
of Cardinals, as then existing, was not competent to elect
a new pope, and anyone elected by them would have been
equally incompetent to appoint new cardinals.

The obstinate Benedict stuck to his guns, leaving nothing
for the Council to do but to vote him out as they had done
to John. Benedict denied their authority to do any such
thing, and lived out the remaining few years of his life going
through the motions of being a pope, but with no one to pay
him the customary honors.

The question, then, before the Council was whether to
proceed to an election or first to take up the much needed
reforms in the Church. Some said that, with a pope in office,
the reforms could be all the more easily effected ; while others
were frankly fearful that, if such an election took place, the
Council would dissolve with no reform accomplished at all
for already they had been sitting three years. The argu-
ments were endless. Wearied and drenched with oratory,
the reform party at last agreed to an election, and Martin V
was chosen with much rejoicing (1417 A. D.). But, as the
reform party had feared, the Council was presently adjourned
with the promised reforms postponed to a later date.

The Great Schism was ended. For that, everyone was
(and is) thankful to the Council of Constance. But, in view
of later developments, that same Council has a stubborn way
of treading on sensitive toes. As Dr. Locke well points out
in The Great Western Schism, p. 231: "The Council of
Constance declared in explicit terms that it had from Christ

164 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

immediate power over the universal Church, of which it was
the representative; that all were bound to obey it, of what-
ever state and dignity, even if papal, in all matters pertaining
to the faith, the extirpation of the existing schism, or the
reformation of the Church in its head or members. It sum-
moned three popes before it with full conviction that it had
authority to do so. The Council of the Vatican (1870 A. D.)
decreed exactly the reverse. It decreed that the pope had from
Christ immediate power over the universal Church; that all
were bound to obey him, of whatever rite and dignity, collec-
tively as well as individually; that this duty of obedience
extended to all matters of faith, of morals, and of discipline
and government of the Church ; that in all ecclesiastical cases
he is judge, without appeal or the possibility of removal ; that
the definitions of the pope in faith and morals, delivered ex
cathedra, are irreformable, and are invested with the infal-
libility granted by Christ in the said subject-matter to the
Church. Here, then, are two great Roman Councils, both
confirmed by a pope and thus both with the stamp of infalli-
bility, and directly in conflict. Which are men to follow?"

CHAPTER IX
THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION

OT. PETER had no authority over the other apostles and
^-J the legend that he was the first Bishop of Rome rests on
no Scripture authority and has no historical evidence. . . .
The authority of the Roman bishop is necessary to give a
head to the Church and a president to its councils, but he
has no power of coercion beyond what a council bestows.
His primacy springs from convenience and respect.'*

Such words have a distinct flavor of Reformation con-
troversy. As a matter of fact, they were penned two hundred
years before Luther thundered forth his denunciations. This,
together with much more in a similar strain, was written by
Marsilius of Padua and represents a radical change in atti-
tude, of which Rome was all too slow to take cognizance.
Such ideas found definite expression at Pisa and Constance
where the medieval papacy was effectually stripped of its
magnificent pretensions. Had the popes and cardinals read
the signs of the times, and had they been prepared to make
reasonable concessions to the demands of a discontented
Church, there might have been no such thing as a Reforma-
tion to cripple the progress of the Divine Commission. But
they could not or would not see that the world was changing.
In the century following the Council of Constance, a New
World was discovered across the Atlantic; the Moors were
driven out of Spain; Constantinople fell to the Turks; the
feudal system gave way to the growing nationalism of France
and England ; printing was introduced, and a new scholarship
supplanted that of scholasticism in the brilliant humanist
movement. Changes hung like great bubbles in the air, ready

166 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

to burst at the slightest provocation, and the Vatican played
with them like tennis balls.

The Council of Basel (1431 A. D.) attempted to finish
the work left from the prolonged sessions of Constance. It
started upon the assumption that a General Council is the
ranking authority in the Church, to which the pope is obliged
to submit or face trial and deposition ; and the papal legates
were called upon to sign a statement tp that effect in the
name of their master. It was too much for Pope Eugenius IV
who called a rival Council at Ferrara and prepared to wage
war. The upshot of it was that the Church, for a few
yearsj was again humiliated with the spectacle of a pair of
rival popes hurling epithets over the heads of their respective
followers.

In 1447 A. D., Nicholas V tried to regain the diminishing
prestige of his office by making Rome the centre of renais-
sance culture. Beginning with St. Peter's, he projected a
huge building programme. The new scholarship took hold
of him like an obsession. He scoured Europe for manu-
scripts, and attached to his court (the Roman Curia) the
leading intellects of his day. What matter if most of them
were professional atheists ! Anything could be excused for the
sake of literary skill and brilliancy. To turn a clever phrase
was a better accomplishment than to love God. He spent
quantities of money on these literary parasites who had reason
to mourn him grievously when he died. Calixtus III spent
his short three years in abortive efforts toward another crusade
for the re-capture of Constantinople. Pius II continued the
efforts with no better results. Paul II had a troubled time
both with his scholars and his cardinals, finding his one
solace in the jewels which he took to bed with him in order
that he might have something to enjoy when his asthma kept
him awake.

With Sixtus IV (1471 A. D.), the secular papacy got
well into its stride. This pontiff bent most of his energies
to advancing the fortunes of his nephews who recompensed

THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION 167

him with lives of criminal lawlessness involving a series of
reprehensible acts for which their uncle has been made to
bear an undeserved measure of blame. His one lasting
monument is the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican palace. In-
nocent VIII followed him, and proved the accuracy of his
title by living openly with his large family of children. And
then came the Borgias.

Alexander VI (1492 A. D.) was interested in everything
except religion. Everyone knew what he was when he was
elected. In his youth, he had been rebuked by a previous
pope for participating in a party so scandalous that "shame
forbids mention of all that occurred." He came to the
pontificate as the proud father of several illegitimate children,
and never found it necessary to modify his habits. The two
most famous of his children were Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia
whose names are classical for everything that is bad. The
beauty of L/ucrezia was a prize which brought much profit
to her father. The son Cesare was at first made a cardinal,
but was dispensed from his office "for the salvation of his
soul." He was an attractive scoundrel and an able soldier,
with a peculiar claim upon his father's affection. His un-
scrupulous boldness made him the terror of Italy's male
population, and the romantic nemesis of its pleasure-loving
females. He died in a fracas in Spain.

Alexander was a suitable father to such children. Per-
haps it is enough to say of him that he was "the model
prince" who inspired Machiavelli to offer such pungent advice
on practical politics as this: "Pope Alexander VI played,
during his whole life, a game of deception ; and, notwithstand-
ing that his faithless conduct was extremely well known, his
artifices always proved successful. Oaths and protestations
cost him nothing ; never did a prince so often break his word
or pay less regard to his engagements. This was because he
so well understood this chapter in the art of government."

It -was this sort of moral corruption within the Church
which now brought to the fore another reformer closer to

168 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

the centre of things than either WyclifFe or Huss. This
was Girolamo Savonarola, a young Italian destined for the
medical profession, but impelled by what he saw about him
to become a Dominican friar. As such, he appeared in 1482
in Florence, the seat of the powerful Medici family, and
there for more than fifteen years, his character and preach-
ing gave him a position of unique religious and moral leader-
ship. Unfortunately, however, he became entangled with the
political affairs of the city, and at length, in 1498, the long
arm of Alexander reached him, and, excommunication prov-
ing a vain means of checking his reforming zeal, he was
hanged and burned.

Julius II (1503 A. D.) was a warrior-pope. He not
only played military politics but he dressed and acted as a
soldier, being especially proficient in the soldierly profanity
of his day, and sometimes he led his armies in person. At
his death, he left a strong papal kingdom and a well-filled
treasury, the latter being a very welcome inheritance to his
extravagant successor. Leo X (1513 A. D.) was a member
of the famous Medici family of Florence. Soon after his
election, he is credited with the significant remark "Let us
enjoy the papacy, since God has given it to us." His idea
of a good time was to pour out money in a succession of
gorgeous entertainments. The papal palace became a theatre
"where Leo indulged his indolent nature by playing the lavish
host to a throng of artists, poets, and loose-living sycophants.
His papal treasury was soon exhausted, and he was driven to
devious methods of replenishment. His income amounted to
about three-quarters of a million dollars a year; yet he was
always hopelessly in debt. He created new offices in the Curia,
which sold at imposing figures ; he held jubilees which netted
handsome returns, and finally he flooded the market with
Indulgences, selling spiritual forgiveness for hard cash. It
was this last which roused the ire of a conscientious German
monk and the Reformation was on.

Leo took it all very casually, being utterly incapable of

THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION 169

understanding a man to whom religion was a really serious
matter. In their round of glittering carousal, the Pope and
his cardinals quite lost sight of the fact that some of the
common people were still trying to be Christian. They tried
to smother a spark of spiritual resentment under a shower
of rose petals. The roses turned to tinder, and the result
was a conflagration.

The latter part of the fifteenth century marked the cul-
mination of one of the most remarkable periods in the world's
history. New conceptions of social rights and relations had
gradually undermined the foundations of feudalism whether
political or ecclesiastical. Bold sea-faring people from Por-
tugal, Spain, and England, led by their mariner's compass
a new invention had steadily pushed farther the limits of
the known world. New regions were opened for conquest
made easier by the introduction of gunpowder, and from these
regions a fresh flood of gold poured into Europe. Science had
begun to get a foot-hold on the solid ground of accurate
observation, and was profoundly affecting man's conception
of himself and of the universe around him. Above all, the
rise of Humanism the conception of man as a rational
being born with the right to enjoy and use his world
brought with it a passion for the rediscovery and appropria-
tion of the literary and artistic productions of past ages.
Far and wide, search was made for manuscripts, especially
of the Greek classics; and the beauty of their form became
a ready excuse among the cultured for the adoption of the
paganism which they enshrined. Thus came the so-called
Revival of Learning, to be spread abroad through the recent
invention, in Europe, of paper and the art of printing. The
whole period was a time of rebirth, appropriately named
the Renaissance, in contrast with the Dark Ages which
preceded it.

In Italy, the artistic and literary aspects of the Renais-
sance coupled with an extraordinary revival of paganism,
flourished exceedingly; but among the more sober and more

170 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

practical peoples of northern Europe, especially in Germany,
the fruits of the Renaissance were seen in a passion for educa-
tion and a search for reality in religion. During a century-and-
a-half, some seventeen new universities had sprung into
existence in Germany alone. People were growing restless.
Social insurrections were of frequent occurrence, most of
them tinged with a strong spirit of anti-clericalism. Something
like a revival of religion could be seen in the endless pil-
grimages which kept the land a-quiver with swarms of reli-
gious tourists. Mothers sang their children to sleep to the
melody of popular religious hymns ; and instructed the youth
in the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Command-
ments. Certainly an age which could produce Thomas a
Kempis and his "Imitation of Christ," was not bereft of
spiritual sensibilities.

Moreover, the Bible was gaining a wide circulation, not
only in the Latin Vulgate, but in translations into the
vernacular. The idea that Luther opened the Bible to a
Scriptureless world is scarcely borne out by the facts. In
the century preceding his outbreak, there were no less than
fourteen complete versions of the Bible printed in High-
German and three in Low-German, besides numerous editions
of the Psalms and the Gospels.

Finally, the German princes were not satisfied "with the
failures of the Councils to introduce the desired reforms into
the clerical life of the Church. Many of them took matters
into their own hands and laid down local restrictions on
ecclesiastical courts, abolished enforced idleness on innumer-
able holy days, and enacted sundry other regulations of a
similar nature. Lay associations for the promotion of reli-
gious living appeared in various quarters, some like the
"Brotherhood of Eleven Thousand Virgins" being dedicated
especially to prayer. The death of Savonarola roused many
searchings of heart as the news of it spread across the Alps.
In England, John Colet was startling the world of theology
with his new approach to the study of the Scriptures and his

THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION 171

outspoken condemnation of the ruinous evils propagated from
Rome. And the nomadic Erasmus turned his scintillating
intellect to penetrating stabs of scorn against those who were
impoverishing the Christian religion for a perpetual Roman
holiday.*

Such was the mixed atmosphere into which Martin Luther
was born in the year 1483. To quote Lindsay "Humanism
had supplied a superfluity of teachers; the times needed a
prophet. They received one; a man of the people; bone
of their bone and flesh of their flesh."

Luther's father was a miner who attained some promi-
nence in his community, but during Martin's childhood the
family life was often overshadowed by the perils of poverty.
His early education was acquired with difficulty; he was one
of the "poor scholars," often singing on the streets for his
daily bread. He went to the University at Erfurt to study
law, but ended up as a monk in an Augustinian Convent.
Being of an earnest turn of mind, he was greatly exercised
over his spiritual condition. The task of saving his own
soul claimed his best efforts. He studied assiduously, fasted,
scourged himself, and went through the whole routine of
self-discipline, even inventing new austerities when the usual
ones seemed insufficient. The other monks looked upon him
as a model of piety. But the further he went on with it,
the less satisfied he became with himself. His religious prac-
tices only convinced him of his own unworthiness, until the
burden of it became unbearable. Then he took up a study
of the Epistle to the Romans, and a new light dawned upon
his troubled soul. Faith in God meaning a complete
reliance upon the divine mercy relieved his mind of the
tempestuous fears for his own salvation. It was a severe
struggle, the scars of which never left him; but it brought

*A most vivid picture of Erasmus and his times is given by
Charles Reade in his popular novel, Tke Cloister and the Hearth.
The Macmillan Company, New York.

172 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

him peace of mind and confidence for the future. With
several of his brother monks he went to the new University
of Wittenberg to teach. While there, he was sent on a mis-
sion to Rome for some business connected with the Augus-
tinian Order. He eagerly undertook the usual round of
pious acts which pilgrims were accustomed to perform and,
one day, was ascending the Scala Sancta on his knees when
the thought flashed across his mind that "the just shall live
by faith" ; whereupon he got up on his feet and walked down.
The impression he received, on this visit, of the vices and
corruption of the papal court was destined to be fuel to the
flames of rebellion as the years rolled by.

As a lecturer at Wittenberg, he soon made a name for
himself. Slowly his ideas were crystallizing, though he
scarcely realized it himself until a particularly crude cam-
paign for the sale of Indulgences stirred his slumbering
resentment.

The doctrine of Indulgences rested upon the theory of
the "Treasury of Merits." The Church, it was said, is one
body, and the good deeds done by any of its members become
the common property of all ; therefore, sinners may profit by
the good deeds of the saints which are collected in a Treasury
of Merits; the Pope is the custodian of this treasury, and
in him resides the power to allocate its spiritual benefits.
To be sure, the sacrifice of Christ was sufficient to cleanse the
penitent sinner of his guilt and to free him from eternal
punishment, but it did not remove the necessity for temporal
punishment, as a matter of personal expiation, which must
be worked out in purgatory. The righteousness of the saints
constituted an offset to these temporal punishments, which
righteousness the individual sinner might secure from the
Pope through the possession of his Indulgences. The real
idea was that the penitent should do certain prescribed acts
of holiness, himself, as a means of earning the Indulgence,
but it was also permitted to make offerings of money instead.
At that point the evil of the system appeared. With a pagan

THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION 173

pope badly in need of funds, it was only to be expected that
the Treasury of Merits would be made to yield real money.
However contrary the theory may have been, it was neverthe-
less the fact that Indulgences were peddled for cash, and one's
immunity to the consequences of sin was to be reckoned by
one's financial resources. It is easy to see how violently this
would conflict with Luther's own inner experience.

The issue was joined when, in 1517, a Dominican monk
named John Tetzel was sent into Germany to sell Indul-
gence tickets for the replenishment of the papal coffers. His
methods were, to say the least, crude. Luther is authority
for the statement that Tetzel was accustomed to encourage
prospective purchasers of tickets by assuring them that the
moment their money clinked in the bottom o the chest the
souls of their deceased friends made an instant start for
heaven. Luther called the whole proceeding in question by
nailing up his famous Ninety-five Theses. It was simply
an invitation to a debate in the usual academic manner. The
Theses -were not so much a denunciation as a basis for dis-
cussion. Under other circumstances they would have called
forth a scholarly argument far above the heads of the people,
and it is doubtful if Luther had anything more than that in
mind. But the atmosphere just then was highly charged with
popular dissatisfaction, and the people took up the question
with unexpected avidity. Everyone wanted copies of the
Theses, and the presses worked overtime to supply the public
demand, with a corresponding slump in the Indulgence
market. Something had to be done. Luther was ordered
before the Papal Legate and called upon to recant. He
prepared an appeal "from the Pope ill-informed to the Pope
well-informed," and another to a General Council. He
published careful accounts of his interviews, and the people
rallied to him with amazing enthusiasm.

The Elector of Saxony was an influential person, and he
was provoked at the attempt to discipline Luther, consider-
ing it to be an attack on his favorite university over the

174 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

shoulder of the popular professor. So it behooved the Pope
to walk carefully, for political reasons. He therefore sent
a special delegate to Germany, who was himself a German,
to inquire into the situation. This delegate quickly saw that
there was more in it than the presumptuous rebellion of an
obscure monk. He approached Luther with some degree of
sympathy, and prevailed on him to write a conciliatory letter
to the Pope. Had his efforts been supported at Rome, the
whole matter might have quieted down. But Rome did not
know its Germany. A beetling person, named John Eck,
challenged Luther to a public disputation at Leipzig, and
the monk was driven into a corner. Eck may have had the
better of the argument, but Luther's position was now sharply
defined and he had been thrust to the centre of the stage
in spite of himself.

The Pope then resorted to more direct methods by
issuing a Bull in which Luther was forbidden to preach ; he
and his friends were commanded to recant within sixty days ;
otherwise they were to be treated as heretics, and any town
which presumed to offer them shelter would be subject to an
interdict. Luther understood this to mean his excommunica-
tion and, therefore, his automatic release from his monastic
vows. His writings were ordered to be burned. He retaliated
by announcing an opposition bonfire which was largely at-
tended and upon which he solemnly burned a copy of the
papal Bull.

Then politics took hold in the person of Charles V, King
of Spain and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. On
January 22, 1521, he came to hold a Diet at Worms for
the discussion of various internal questions in Germany. But
no other question could be satisfactorily settled until the
Church issue was disposed of, so Luther was summoned to
the Diet. His friends warned him to stay away, but he
sturdily replied that "he would come to Worms if there were
as many devils as tiles on the house roofs to prevent him."
E>r. John Eck was there "Eck of the swelled head," as the

THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION 175

people called him prepared to annihilate his adversary.
Luther appeared before the Emperor, made a plain state-
ment of his case, and finished with the memorable words,
"Here I stand." This was enough, though some reports
state that he added, "I can do naught else. God help me.
Amen!" In any case, compromise was out of the question,
and Luther's friends were harassed with recollections of the
fate of John Huss at the Council of Constance. Asking leave
of nobody, they boldly kidnapped their leader and carried him
away to a place of concealment. Charles signed an imperial
edict placing Luther under a ban, and threatening his sym-
pathizers with extermination. No one was to "offer to
Luther either shelter, food, or drink, or help him in any way
with words or deeds, secretly or openly. On the contrary,
wherever you get possession of him, you shall at once put him
in prison and send him to me, or at any rate, inform me
thereof without any delay."

The evangelical teaching now took hold in earnest.
Teachers, priests, and even bishops proclaimed themselves
for it. The movement was getting into full swing, but its
leader was not there. It was a golden opportunity for the
extremists who soon put in an uproarious appearance. Carl-
stadt lost all sense of proportion and preached all sorts of
revolutionary radicalism. The "Zwickau prophets'* headed
by Munzer began to indulge in visions, while the people of
Wittenberg clamored to upset all the social and religious
traditions of the city. Luther's friend, Melanchthon, was in
despair, and the papal party made great capital out of the
insubordinate fanaticism. In the midst of it, Luther returned
to take the situation in hand. But it was not so easily
handled. His own blunt teaching had carried further than
he knew. The Peasant's War may not have been the direct
result of his agitation, but it easily tied into it, and the coun-
try was in a tumult. Armed bands of peasants went maraud-
ing and, in spite of Luther's protests, destroyed property and
slaughtered those who opposed them. Luther called upon the

176 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

princes to crush the insurrectionists without mercy. "In the
case of an insurgent," he wrote, "every man is both judge and
executioner. Therefore, whoever can, should knock down,
strangle, and stab such, publicly and privately, and think
nothing so venomous, pernicious, and devilish as an insur-
gent. . . . Such wonderful times are these that a prince can
merit heaven better with bloodshed than another with prayer."
His tirade against the peasants is a sorry blot upon his record,
and the whole incident cost him a large part of his more
conservative following. While this was going on, L/uther
enjoyed his honeymoon with an ex-nun.

When the first Diet of Speyer went into session, in 1526,
Charles was waging a successful war against the Pope whom
he finally imprisoned in Rome, turning his soldiers loose upon
the helpless city. Perhaps that is the reason he acquiesced
in the agreement adopted at Speyer by the contending
parties for a rebellious Germany was a good club to hold
over the Vatican. At any rate, the agreement provided that
each State should determine for itself whether the evan-
gelical or Roman faith should prevail in its own territory
until a General Council should pass upon the matters in
dispute. But when the second Diet met in the same place
three years later, the Pope had been brought to terms and
Charles was in a very different frame of mind. The former
agreement was revoked, whereupon the evangelical princes
entered a formal protest against the revocation, thereby earn-
ing the title of "Protestants" a term which has suffered a
considerable evolution since its unpremeditated coinage.

The weakness of the evangelicals, particularly at this
period, was the lack of unity among themselves. Luther was
always suspicious of the movement in Switzerland, led by
Zwingli, because of its open connection with things political,
though it is true that political issues were well interwoven
with the German movement as well. But the Church in
Switzerland had, for many years, been accorded more free-
dom of action than in other countries because the popes were

THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION 177

accustomed to hire Swiss soldiers and it was the part of dis-
cretion to keep that source of supply even-tempered. Also
Zwingli's theology was much more radical than Luther *s. If
it had been merely a cleavage between Germany and Switzer-
land, it would not have been very serious ; but the Swiss spirit
seemed to suit the adjoining districts of south Germany, and
so interfered with a united front in Luther's own country.

In an effort to break down these differences, the Marburg
Colloquy was arranged in 1529, where Luther and Zwingli
faced each other in a series of conferences. Unfortunately
for both of them, the argument became focused upon the
question of the Mass. Zwingli took the position that the
Mass was merely a commemoration of the sacrifice of the
Cross, and that the consecrated elements were merely sym-
bols of the faith which was in the heart of the believer.
Luther, on the other hand, opened the conference by chalking
on the table before him the words of Our Lord, "This is
My Body," saying, "I take these words literally; if anyone
does not, I shall not argue but contradict." After such an
ultimatum, everybody went home with his original convictions
and a poor opinion of everybody else.

Meantime, the Emperor had come to the summit of his
career. Nothing but success had crowned his plans else-
where, and he was determined to bring order out of the
chaos in Germany. Another Diet was called in 1530, to
be held at Augsburg where the Protestants were to make
a formal statement of their case. The statement is known
as the Augsburg Confession. It was phrased largely by
'Melanchthon, and is the critical document of the Reforma-
tion movement. It was adopted by the reforming elements
in other countries as the sufficient expression of their aims
and grievances, and it clearly showed the unavoidable parting
of the ways. The answer of the Diet was a term of grace
until the next year, after which the reforming movement was
to be vigorously suppressed.

But the pendulum now went into reverse swing. The

178 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Schmalkald League was formed by the Protestants, both for
self-protection and for the forwarding of their cause. The
success of Charles in other parts of Europe raised apprehen-
sions in the minds of lukewarm German princes, and one by
one they gravitated toward the banner of Luther. Zwingli
died, and some of the South German leaders patched up a
concord with their northern brethren. Everywhere the evan-
gelical groups gave promise of a real consolidation, and
Charles was casting about for compromises. Then it was
that Luther was guilty of an inexplicable error of judgment,
to say nothing of the moral breach involved. Philip of
Hesse, one of the Protestant princes, was not doing well in
his married life, and was out in search of another wife. It
was not a question of divorce, but of bigamy; and Luther,
together with Bucer and Melanchthon, signed his name to
an approval of such an action. "The existing law of the
land," they said, "has gone back to the original requirement
of God, and the plain duty of this pastorate is to insist on
that original requirement of God, and to denounce bigamy in
every way. Nevertheless, the pastorate in individual cases of
the direst need, and to prevent worse, may sanction bigamy
in a purely exceptional way. Such a bigamous marriage is
a true marriage (the necessity being proved) in the sight of
God and of conscience." Of course, when it became known,
there was a great to-do about it. The Emperor ruled that
the second marriage was no marriage at all. Philip was
angry and the other princes were disgusted, while the Roman
opposition made the most of it to discredit the evangelical
movement. It seriously weakened the Protestant cause and
greatly strengthened the hands of Charles, as he forced the
Pope to call the Council of Trent. And then, a year after
the Council met, Luther died (Feb. 18, 1546).

War followed very shortly. Charles brought in a Spanish
army, and was soon in armed control of most of Germany.
He appointed a committee to draw up the Augsburg Interim
which was an ambiguous document reaffirming medieval sacra-

THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION 179

mentalfsm and attempting to dovetail it into Luther's doctrine
of "justification by faith." This Interim was to be enforced
by Spanish and Italian armies. Whatever the Protestant
princes may have thought of the Interim itself, they were
certainly not disposed to tolerate the presence of foreign troops
within their- dominion. An uprising followed, in which
Charles barely escaped with his life by fleeing the country.
By this time everyone realized that temporizing methods were
hopeless, and that some solution was necessary which might be
really permanent. Another Diet was called to meet at Augs-
burg, while the Protestant princes held a meeting of their
own at Naumburg. There they agreed to stand solidly by
the original Augsburg Confession, and so reported to the
Diet. On that basis, a settlement was reached giving legal
recognition to the Lutheran religion and providing that the
secular ruler in each principality might determine which faith
should be established within his own territory such a choice
to be binding on all his subjects. This, it should be noted,
applied only to Lutheranism not to any other form of
evangelicalism; and when Queen Elizabeth of England was
excommunicated twenty-five years later, it was not for being
a Protestant but for participation in the "impious mysteries
of Calvin," which, as we shall see later, were a million miles
away from her wildest imaginations.

The Religious Peace of Augsburg was a peace in name
rather than in fact. What it really did was to sign the death
warrant for the Holy Roman Empire by its acknowledgment
of the autonomy of individual states. Yet it could hardly
be expected that the Empire would submit gracefully to its
own dismembering, and its dying spasm was a fearful one.

After an interval of -nervous watchfulness, the storm broke
in the terrific upheaval of the Thirty Years War (1618-
1648). All of Europe was involved, with Wallenstein and
Gustavus Adolphus playing the leading roles. It was an
ugly business, leaving central Europe stripped bare ; and ceas-
ing only when mutual exhaustion gave every promise of

180 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

mutual suicide. In that war, Germany lost half of her
population and two-thirds of her wealth, and in Bohemia
the losses were even greater. The Empire eked out a phan-
tom existence for another couple of centuries, inspiring Vol-
taire to say of it that it was neither Holy nor Roman nor
an Empire. Finally, it was snuffed out by Napoleon Bona-
parte. The break in the Church established the principle of
ecclesiastical secession until modern Protestantism, following
out its own logic, has converted the original split into several
hundred sectarian splinters. Thus the Divine Commission
.suffers vicariously for the sins of its erstwhile friends.

Outside of Germany, the Reformation runs through a
varied history in different countries. In Spain and Italy, it
never had a chance by reason of the all-seeing eye of the
Inquisition. England blazed a trail all of its own which con-
stitutes a story by itself. And in the other countries where
the reformed religion gained the ascendency, many local
circumstances varied the programme.

Zwingli led the movement in Switzerland during its
earlier phases. He was a diligent scholar and a brilliant
preacher; strongly imbued with humanist ideas, but never
subjected to the soul-searching experience which moulded the
life of Luther. As in Germany, so in Switzerland, the trouble
began in the first place over a campaign for the sale of
Indulgences. Zwingli openly preached against the system,
but with far different results at Rome from those which
greeted the German protest. Switzerland, as the source of
man-power for the papal armies, was not to be antagonized,
and the proposed sale was called off. But Zwingli, by this
time, was on the warpath. He preached reform with persua-
sive eloquence and much scholarship. His position would
have been intrinsically stronger if he had not given an illus-
tration in his own life of the desperate need of certain
reforms. He took to himself the lady of his choice, and lived
with her without benefit of the marriage rite. To be sure,

THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION 181

it was only what other priests were doing, but it ill-befitted
one who was clamoring for reform to set a personal example
of one of the most flagrant moral evils of his day. But, as
we have indicated, Zwinglfs approach to the Reformation
was intellectual and political rather than moral and spiritual.
Nevertheless, his own city of Zurich fell in with his position
and was soon followed by neighboring cities as well. Though
less violent than in Germany, the struggle was by no means
easy going in Switzerland. There were many public dispu-
tations and some shifting of allegiance. At length, there was
a short period of open warfare in which Zwingli lost his
life ( 1531 ) , and the leadership removed to the city of Geneva.
Notice of a sale of Indulgences had roused the citizens of
that city also. William Farel led the ensuing fight, but he
was presently overshadowed by the advent of a Frenchman
named Jean Cauvin, better known under the Latinized name
of John Calvin.

Born with a passion for dogmatics, Calvin had associated
himself with reforming groups in France until his native land
was too hot for him, when he escaped to Switzerland. There
he published his famous Institutes, following it up by a
copious correspondence with his French sympathizers. For
a time he collaborated with Farel ; but his unbending disposi-
tion got him into disfavor, and he was invited out of Geneva.
He found temporary asylum in Germany, until the distracted
Genevans, sorely in need of strong leadership, urged him to
return. Calvin was long on discipline and held a firm hand
over Geneva, though his theory of Church Government was
more fully exemplified in France and Scotland than it ever
was in Switzerland. Neither can the rigid regulations asso-
ciated with his regime be properly laid altogether at his door.
It had been a recognized custom, of many years standing,
for communities to legislate as to the kind of clothes servants
might wear, the number of guests permitted at wedding
parties, and similar directions regarding food, language, and
amusements. Calvin was simply a little more thorough than

182 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

others in the matter of enforcement. Heresy, too, was an
ofEense against the State, and it was not Calvinistic eccen-
tricity that brought about the burning of Servetus for
heretical teaching, though Calvin cannot escape the obliquy
of having sat as one of the judges in that deplorable case.
Some people thought that they had merely traded a Roman
pope for an evangelical one; but Calvin, nevertheless, made
the Reformation a reality in Switzerland.

In nearby France, the absent Calvin exercised a remark-
able influence from his Swiss citadel. He was in persistent
correspondence with the French reformers, and kept a stream
of trained leaders flowing from Geneva into French terri-
tory. The lid was blown or! when, in 1534, an edition of
placards was posted simultaneously throughout the country
one appearing even on the door of the royal apartment
speaking many bitter things about "the Pope and all his
vermin." The King was furious, and many a reformer went
to the flames in the years that followed. Fourteen were
tortured and burned alive at Meaux for participating in a
reformed version of the Lord's Supper ; in another place four-
thousand Waldenses were treacherously slaughtered. The
Protestants organized; and, in the popular reaction from
over-much bloodshed, they grew in numbers at a disquieting
pace. Some of the nobility joined the evangelical party, and
soon the issues were resolved on political lines. The Prot-
estant Huguenots were led by such able men as the Duke de
Conde and Admiral Coligny, while their inveterate opponents
were gathered around the family of the Guises. There was a
whole series of religious wars with regrettable violence on
both sides and no end of political intrigue. Catherine de
Medici, the queen-mother, dominated her weakling son,
Charles IX, and engineered the fearful Massacre of St.
Bartholomew's Eve (Aug. 23, 1572). No one will ever
know how many were killed in that massacre, but the esti-
mates run all the way from eight thousand to ten times
that number. When the Pope heard of it, he sang a Te Deum

THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION 183

and had a special medal struck off in honor o[ the glad
event.

More wars followed, with the Protestant Henry of
Navarre laying claim to the royal crown. He finally made
good his claim, but he did it by deserting his friends, saying,
"Paris is well worth a Mass." A few years later (1597), the
Edict of Nantes granted a general liberty of conscience, and
the storms died down until Louis XIV decided that he was
under a divine call to rule the world at large. The Edict was
revoked and the Huguenots were pursued. Many of them fled
to England; some to America; many more of them died or
went to the galleys. The remainder hung on, to suffer jointly
with their former opponents during the atheistic aberrations
of the French Revolution. Napoleon, with a grand gesture,
decreed that both forms of religion should stand on a parity,
each enjoying the regulation and support of the State; and
the last development came in the more benign atmosphere
of the twentieth century when, in 1905, the French govern-
ment severed official relations between the State and the
Church in any form, leaving the religious life of the people
to stand on its own feet.

Beyond Germany, Lutheranism, as distinct from Cal-
vinism, gained the day only in the Scandinavian countries,
In all three of these, there was a widespread discontent
because of the joint arrogancy of the Church and the nobility
which kept the common people well ground into the dust.
The agitation in Germany found a fertile field for trans-
plantation under such conditions. But it was all accomplished
very peacefully in Denmark, and that meant also in Norway ;
for both countries were under a common government at that
time. The old ecclesiastical system was politely turned out,
and a new one was installed on Lutheran lines.

In Sweden, the situation was somewhat more acute. The
tax question was exceedingly irritating because two-thirds of
the land was owned by the Church and the balance was
chiefly in the hands of the nobility, both groups being exempt

184 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

from taxation. Sweden had only just broken free from the
Danish king, and was endeavoring to erect its own national
life under Gustavus Vasa. He found it impossible to develop
a national policy with no other resources than those available
from the impoverished peasants. He demanded subsidies
from the Church, which were grudgingly given and only
partially relieved the stringency. Finally, he served notice
on the Diet that all ecclesiastical property which was not
absolutely necessary for the Church's support must be turned
over to the government. This was done, and evangelical
preachers were imported to supply the places of those who
declined to accede. Violent methods were not required ; and,
in the course of the transition, the historic Episcopate was
preserved, as was not the case in Denmark and Norway.
To be sure, there were attempts to restore the old order, and
it was not until Gustavus Adolphus had consolidated the
reformation spirit in Sweden that the country settled down
to a definitely evangelical future.

Very different was the progress of events in the Nether-
lands. It took a bitter struggle of some sixty years, marked
with inhuman atrocities, before that tortured country was
granted any liberty in its spiritual life. Unfortunately, the
movement there was badly complicated by the presence of
an aggressive group of Anabaptists who were fanatically in-
clined. The country was under the direct sovereignty of
Charles V, and what he could not do in Germany he could
do in the Netherlands. Edicts were published ordering all
those who were perverted by this sect to be burned alive;
those who recanted were graciously allowed to perish by the
sword; and the women were "only to be buried alive." As
a matter of fact, the favorite way of disposing of the women
was by drowning, and the burning process for the men was
converted into a toasting to death by a slow fire. In carry-
ing out these orders, it was customary to make little distinc-
tion between Anabaptists and any other kind of evangelicals.

THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION 185

All suffered alike, and the greater the suffering, the stronger
they became.

When Philip II succeeded his father, as King of Spain,
that which had been bad before became infinitely worse.
Spanish troops were imported to enforce the merciless
measures, and they had evidently been well-nurtured in the
mental atmosphere of the Spanish Inquisition. William of
Orange took up the cause of his people a man of fine leader-
ship and unimpeachable character. Riot and bloodshed were
the natural response to torture and persecution. Things went
from bad to worse, and then to the Duke of Alva. This
brutal sadist, sent by Philip to mop up the country, left no
stone of cruelty unturned to accomplish his purpose. People
were condemned in batches. Early one Ash Wednesday
morning, he had fifteen hundred persons dragged out of bed
and ordered to their death. "The gallows, the wheel, stakes,
trees along the highways, were laden with carcasses or limbs
of those who had been hanged, beheaded or roasted."

The rescue came from quite an unexpected quarter. A
hardy and independent element sailed their little ships in and
out of the broken seacoast sailors and fishermen who feared
neither storms nor Spaniards. These were sent against the
Spanish ships upon which Alva depended for reinforcements
and supplies. At first, it was merely a matter of semi-
piratical raids; but, to everyone's amazement, these despised
"Sea-Beggars" completely destroyed an imposing Spanish fleet
which was sent for their extermination.

About the same time, Alva's finances began to run low.
England had her own quarrel with Spain and preyed ener-
getically upon the ships loaded with wealth from the New
World. The combination was too much, and Alva went
home to an ignominious oblivion. Years of fluctuating for-
tune followed before a truce was obtained (1609) which was
later indefinitely extended. And finally, when the country was
split up by the separation of Belgium (1830), the Holland

186 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Dutch emerged as an evangelical people with a reformed
Church constructed on Calvinistic lines.

It was also Calvinism which finally prevailed in Scotland.
The policy of the English Tudors was to break the political
connection between Scotland and France which was a per-
petual menace to the peace of England. Intrigue bubbled
furiously when the infant Mary Stuart (born in 1542) inher-
ited the Scottish throne on the death of her father. In spite
of the best efforts of Henry VIII of England, Mary was
betrothed to the French Dauphin and was sent to Paris for
her education, where she was brought up in the Roman faith.
Meantime, evangelical influences had taken fast hold on the
people of Scotland ; and, when Mary returned as Queen to
her native country, she was faced with the complicated duty
of ruling as a Roman Catholic sovereign over a Protestant
people. With the unmarried Elizabeth now on the throne
of England, Mary had a claim to succession in both coun-
tries, which was strongly capitalized by the disgruntled Eng-
lish Roman Catholics. But Mary seemed born to blunders.
The most beautiful woman of her day, she was much sought
after on the death of her French husband. She married a
worthless cousin named Darnley who, after a time, was assas-
sinated, leaving a cloud of suspicion over Mary. To make
matters worse, she then married another man who had
divorced his own wife, and the popular indignation forced
her to flee to England. There she was involved in plots to
unseat Elizabeth who was driven to execute her for the
safety of the realm.

While all this was going on, John Knox was growing in
public favor. He was a Scottish priest of dour severity, much
interested in the Reformation movement. He was carried
off to France where he suffered the tortures of a galley slave
for a couple of years. Upon his release, he went to Geneva
and sat at the feet of Calvin. Upon returning to Scotland, he
was a thorough-going Calvinist and the implacable enemy of
everything Roman Catholic. He played successful politics

THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION 187

with England where Lord Cecil realized, only too well, the
grave seriousness of the Scottish struggle. Said Cecil: "The
Emperor is aiming at the sovereignty of Europe > which he
cannot obtain without the suppression of the reformed reli-
gion; and, unless he crushes England, he cannot crush the
Reformation." The outcome in nearby Scotland was plainly
critical to the outcome in England, and so to the whole
evangelical cause. An English fleet settled the question of
French interference, and Knox was left free to fight it out
with Mary Stuart. Calvinism won the day, but it still had
more battles to fight with the established Church of Eng-
land before, in 1690, it was left in peaceful possession of the
field.

Through these tumultuous upheavals, the papacy was
thrown on the defensive. Clearly, if it was to survive at all,
it had to give serious attention to the long-delayed house-
cleaning which had been the adjourned business of the Church
ever since the Council of Pisa. Hence the so-called Counter-
Reformation emanating from the Council of Trent (1545).

When Charles V insisted on the calling of the Council, he
had intended to use it as a weapon against the Pope as well
as against the reformers ; but he was quite outwitted by a new
factor known as the Society of Jesus, or, more popularly, as
the Order of Jesuits. A Spanish soldier named Ignatius
Loyola had conceived the idea of a new monastic order built
to a standard of military discipline. The members took the
usual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience ; but added to
them an extra pledge of unswerving loyalty to the Pope.
Supported by two companions, Pedro Faber and Francis
Xavier, he developed his system around the "Spiritual Exer-
cises." It was some years before Ignatius gained formal
recognition at Rome, but it was a happy day for the papacy
when it was given (1540). Here was a band of men, abso-
lutely dedicated to self-obliterating service, and never dis-
mayed even by seemingly insurmountable obstacles. "To
attain the truth in all things," wrote St. Ignatius, "we ought

188 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

always to hold that we believe what seems to us white to be
black, if the hierarchical Church so defines it." The much
criticized juggling of moral responsibilities which character-
ized the later Jesuit casuistry was mostly a subsequent addi-
tion to the original scheme. The time came when the Jesuits
were driven out of many countries and the Order was sup-
pressed by papal authority for the good of the Church. But
all this cannot properly be read back into its beginnings.

The Jesuits saved the papacy when it had its back to the
wall. They dominated the Council of Trent, and were the
chief agents in carrying out its intentions. The Council
ranged over a span of eighteen years, with two periods of sus-
pension. During that time, it accomplished mainly three
things; first, it re-defined Roman Catholic dogma; second,
it instituted many moral reforms in the Church ; and third,
it firmly entrenched the papal monarchy, strongly supported
by a powerfully organized hierarchy. The Counter-Reforma-
tion flowed out of it.

The Congregation of the Index, set up to censor all books
for the faithful, went at its work with a zeal born of a
crisis. Europe was flooded with evangelical literature shout-
ing for suppression and so vigorously did the Index do its
suppressing wherever it was able to operate, that Paolo Sarpi,
an Italian priest, and one of the most brilliant and astute
figures in Europe, called it "the finest secret which has ever
been discovered for applying religion to the purpose of making
men idiots." Spain was at the zenith of her power at that
time, and was staunchly loyal to the Vatican with her influ-
ence, military resources, and enormous wealth. Moreover,
the Inquisition was a going concern. With such weapons to
hand, the Jesuits did an heroic work of salvage. It was
hopeless to look for a return of the good old medieval days,
but the retrogression was checked, some lost ground was
regained, and an opportunity was provided for future rehab-
ilitation.

The more recent Vatican Council (1870) was a logical

THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION 189

sequel to the Council of Trent. In spite of outspoken opposi-
tion, resulting in the withdrawal of some of its best leaders
into the "Old Catholic Church," the Curia carried through,
at that Council, its dogma of Papal Infallibility. It was the
logical conclusion of the Tridentine profession of faith "I
acknowledge the Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church for
the mother and mistress of all churches,* and I promise and
swear true obedience to the Bishop of Rome, successor to
St. Peter, Prince of Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ."
Strangely enough, while that Vatican Council was still in
session, Garibaldi's army of Italian patriots entered Rome to
make it the capital city of a united Italy, and to deprive the
infallible Pope of the last of his temporal possessions, after
which he lived in protest as a voluntary prisoner of the Vatican
until the 1929 Concordat restored a few acres to Vatican
City and gave the papacy a technical political standing among
the nations of the world.

CHAPTER X
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

A1 NIGHT fell on the first Good Friday, the body of Our
Lord was safely laid away in the tomb of St. Joseph
of Arimathea. With twelve companions, Joseph fled from
the scene of the -world's greatest tragedy, carrying with him
the chalice of the first Sacrament, later to be known as the
Holy Grail. The travelers landed on the Island of Avalon
on the west coast of Britain where Joseph planted his staff
"in the ground. The staff took root, blossoming thereafter
not only in the Springtime but also on Christmas Day of
each year as a symbol of our Saviour's birth. A little church
was built nearby (where the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey
now stand) and so Christianity came to Britain.

It is a very old and appealing tradition. There is another
which says St. Paul first preached the Gospel in Britain.
There is still another telling how King Lucius, in the second
century, sent to Eleutherius, Bishop of Rome, asking for
Christian missionaries ; and how they' planted the Church in
the Island. They are all traditions. None of them is history.
Taken together, however, they indicate a very early origin
for the British Church but how early, it is impossible to
say.

We do know that, back in Ephesus, St. John the Evan-
gelist, in the first century, taught the Faith to St. Polycarp
who, in turn, taught it to St. Irenaeus; and that St. Irenaeus
became Bishop of Lyons in France (then known as Gaul).
We know that contact was easy and frequent between Gaul
and Britain; and that four centuries later, some of the cus-
toms preserved by the British Church had more of an eastern
than western flavor. There is a strong indication here that

[190]

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 191

Christianity may have been introduced into Britain some time
during the first t\vo centuries of the Christian era through
eastern connections.

The story of St. Alban's martyrdom dates from the perse-
cution of Diocletian, about 304 A. D. Alban was a pagan
when the persecution began. A Christian priest burst in upon
him one day, fleeing for his life from the persecutors. Out
of the kindness of his heart, Alban gave shelter to the fugitive
and was converted to Christianity by his devout example.
So when the pursuers appeared, Alban arrayed himself in
the priest's clothing, gratefully substituting himself for his
Christian guest. He was condemned to death, and became
the first martyr of the British Church. This is also tradi-
tion, but it points to some sort of virile Christianity in the
British Isles at that period. And only a few years later
(314 A. D.), the actual records show that British bishops
were in attendance at the Council of Aries.

St. Patrick was a product of the British Christianity of
this century. So much legend has gathered about him that
it is difficult to sift out that which is reliable from the mass
of obvious fiction. He was probably born in Scotland, the
son and the grandson of deacons in the Church. While still
a youth, he was carried off by a raiding party to Ireland
where he lived for several years as a slave in Armagh. Upon
his escape he traveled to Gaul and to Italy where he received
Holy Orders, eventually returning again to Ireland to spend
the rest of his life as a missionary bishop among his former
captors. The romantic experiences attributed to him are
legion wizards, snakes, shamrock and what-not. The only
sure thing is that Ireland became Christian under his teach-
ing "a lion in boldness, a serpent in cunning, a dove in
gentleness and meekness, and a laborious servant to the
Creator." When he died, he was "waked" for twelve nights.

During this period, Rome was gradually withdrawing her
outposts of empire, the better to defend herself against the
incursions of the barbarians. Britain lost the protecting

192 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

presence of the Roman soldiery, and, in 449 A. D., became
a prey to the wolfish Angles and Saxons from the nearby
continent. For more than a century these invaders pene-
trated the country with all the accompaniments of heathen
ferocity. Christian Britain retreated into the hills of Wales
where it maintained a precarious existence for another hun-
dred years, while the Saxons dotted the lowlands with their
temples to Woden and Thor. Even so, the Church was not
entirely on the defensive. By way of Ireland, a monastery
was established on the little Island of lona, off the west coast
of Scotland, which proved to be a centre of aggressive mis-
sionary activity. St. Columba was a stalwart missionary
product of lona. An offshoot of similar missionary char-
acter was founded on the east coast in the monastery at
Lindisfarne, made famous as the training school of St. Aidan,
St. Wilfrid, and St. Cuthbert. These two monasteries were
ready to pour forth their missionary zeal from the north
when St. Augustine undertook a like mission in the south
under orders from the Bishop of Rome.

It seems that an Italian monk walked one day through
the slave-market in Rome where some British boys were up
for sale. Their fair hair and pink cheeks struck an exotic con-
trast with the prevailing Italian swarthiness. The monk
asked who they were.

"Men call them Angles," replied the slave-trader.

"They ought to be called 'Angels,' " said the monk.

"They come from a place called Deira* in Northumbria,"
went on the salesman.

"From God's wr"ath we will save that race," was the
monk's pious ejaculation.

"And the name of their king is Aella," the trader con-
cluded.

"Well named," said the monk. "Now his race shall sing
Alleluia to Jesus."

* The Latin words de Ira mean "from wrath."

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 193

Christian tradition never forgot the puns, and the monk
never forgot the Angles.

Presently the monk became Pope Gregory the Great, and
he proceeded to realize his dream. One of his own close
friends named Augustine was chosen for the hazardous task,
and accepted it with many misgivings. In the year 596, he
and his band of companions made their way up through Gaul
and crossed to the Isle of Thanet. Their fears were soon
dispelled because a happy opening had already been prepared
for them. Ethelbert, King of Kent, had married a Prankish
princess named Bertha who was a Christian and who had
secured permission to bring with her a Frankish bishop as
her chaplain. So it was that St. Augustine found Christian
worship being offered in St. Martin's Church, Canterbury.
It is worthy of note that this little stone church is still in
use, and is said to be the oldest church in the world where
Christ has been continuously worshipped. Ethelbert gave the
newcomers permission to preach their Gospel, and it was not
long before he himself was baptized. Soon after this, Augus-
tine was consecrated Bishop of his new field and made his
headquarters at Canterbury where, on the ruins of an ancient
British church which he discovered within the city walls,
he built his own Christ Church, by which name the present
Cathedral of Canterbury is still known.
""""""It was only a question of time before the Roman mission
and the old British Church should meet, each as a bearer of
the Divine Commission. They did so under an oak tree
near Gloucester where a conference was held between St.
Augustine and the British bishops. Augustine called upon
the bishops to recognize his jurisdiction over them, and to
bring some of their peculiar customs into conformity with
those of Rome. Both of these things the British declined
to do; and the breach was not healed until, a generation
later, the Irish and the Roman Missions, one from the north
and the other from the south, met in Northumbria. Paulinus,
one of Augustine's monks, was the first to penetrate the north

194 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

country. He became the confidant and councillor of Edwin,
King of Xorthumbria, who finally agreed to call together
his wise men and let Paulinus talk it out with them. One of
the wise ones told his famous parable of the sparrow:

"The life of man, O King, in comparison with that
unknown life beyond, is like a sparrow's flight through the
hall where ye sit in winter at meat, a goodly fire on the
hearth, but the snowstorm beating without. The sparrow
flies through one door, and for a while is safe in the warmth ;
but then he flies out at another door into the dark winter
from whence he came. So is the life of man for a short
space; but of what he was before, and of what is to follow
after, we have no knowledge. If this doctrine will tell us
aught of that, then let us follow it."

Like St. Paul of old, Paulinus then arose and preached
the Risen Christ. The King was baptized, the pagan temples
wer-e burned, and a Christian church was erected on the very
spot where the magnificent York Minster now stands.

Meantime, the British Church had not been idle. We
have already seen how that ancient Church, driven into the
mountains of W^ales, bore rich fruit for Ireland and Scotland
in the persons of St. Patrick and St. Columba. The great
monasteries of lona and Lindisfarne were thus products of
the British Church, and when, in 635, Edwin's nephew
Oswald became King of Northumbria, it was to lona rather
than to Canterbury that he sent for missionaries of the Faith.
Down from the north came the saintly Aidan, the humble
St. Chad, the high-minded St. Cuthbert, and the turbulent
St. Wilfrid. So out of lona and Lindisfarne in the north
and out of Canterbury in the south came three flames of
Christian zeal hot enough to consume the strongholds of
paganism and kindle a true spark of Christian devotion. In
both quarters the Church was alert and aggressive. What
was now required was a capable statesman to- consolidate
these several efforts and bind them into a united Church for

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 195

the land which was now called England. That statesman
was found in Theodore of Tarsus, an aged priest of eastern
origin who, in 669, came to be Archbishop of Canterbury
at the request of the Kings of Kent and Northumbria.

Theodore was assiduous in his visitations. He straightened
out kinks here and there, corrected where correction was
needed, and developed a masterly plan of organization. His
authority was firm without being obnoxious, and it was not
long before his capacity for leadership was both recognized
and welcomed. After four years, when conditions seemed
ripe, he summoned the bishops to a^svjiod at Hertford where
the old differences were ironed out and a working programme
of diocesan administration was agreed upon. The Church
of England, as distinct from the older British Church, and
as the custodian of the Divine Commission for subsequent
English history, may be said to date from that synod. -

Of course, it was not all clear sailing even for a man
like Theodore. He soon had his troubles, for example, with
Wilfrid, Bishop of the Northumbrians, who made his head-
quarters in York. Part of Theodore's plan was to divide
the cumbersome dioceses into less unwieldy units. Wilfrid
objected violently to any infringement upon his jurisdiction
and, for the first time in English history, appealed his case
to the Pope. It led to a protracted controversy, during which
the Pope ordered Theodore to restore the disputed district to
the rebellious Wilfrid. It is an interesting commentary on
the whole subject of papal authority in England, that Theo-
dore declined to do any such thing. Wilfrid spent some time
in an English prison and the rest of his life in another field.
Theodore established his policy, and left a Church strongly
buttressed against the trials which were soon to test its
strength. During his lifetime, St. Hilda won her place as
the Abbess of Whitby ; and Caedmon, often called the father
of English poetry, composed his historic verses.

The impetus of Theodore's administration is further
shown in the romantic missionary adventures of both St.

196 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Willibrord among the Friesians, and of St. Boniface who
found his martryrdom in the same field.

But, most of all, we owe a debt of gratitude to that
saintly chronicler, the Venerable Bede, whose whole life was
an act of devotion. In his monastery at Jarrow he was once
commenting on the monastic services. "I know," he said,
"that angels are present at the canonical hours and congre-
gations of the brethren. How if they do not find me among
them? Will they not say, 'Where is Bede? Why does he
not come to the devotions of his brethren ?' " Gifted with
a true sense of scholarship, he undertook the task of record-
ing the story of the Church from very early times to his own
day. He "wrote many other things too, but without his his-
tory of the Church those early years would now be a mys-
terious blank to modern historians. At the time of his
death he was engaged in a translation of St. John's Gospel
into English. His strength was ebbing fast when one of
the monks reminded him that only a little remained to be
done.

"Take thy pen and write quickly," said Bede and, rousing
himself, dictated until weakness overcame him.

"There is but one sentence more, dear master," urged
the anxious scribe. With a last effort the sentence was com-
pleted and the scribe announced that it was finished.

"Yes," said Bede, "all is finished now. Glory be to the
Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost" and his
gentle soul passed out in a hymn of praise.

But neither England nor the Church was to be left long
in peace. Up in northern Europe was a fierce heathen race
known as Northmen who, for three centuries, were to keep
their neighbors in a ferment. From time out of mind, Nor-
way had been split up into numerous small kingdoms, each
with its own little princelet. About the beginning of the
ninth century, Harold Fairhair determined to consolidate
these quarrelsome fragments, and succeeded in establishing
his authority over everything within reach. Restive under

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 197

their unaccustomed subjugation, the deposed princelets took
to the seas. About the same time Charlemagne erected a
stout barrier against overland incursions from northern
Europe, thus depriving the successors of the original Huns
and Vandals of their inherited privileges as brigands. They
turned pirates instead. From these two sources, the predatory
sea-rovers began to multiply. Their long, low ships, manned
by the hardiest sailors of the day, spread over the sea like
a plague. They would hide in little creeks called "viks,"
and dart out upon other ships with destructive fury. This
particular trick earned them the nickname of "Vikings.**
They were also called Norsemen or sometimes simply Danes.
Everywhere they plundered, burned, and killed. Churches
and monasteries, being often rich, generally defenseless, and
always Christian, were their special objects of prey. Every
country with a sea-coast suffered from their depredations.
For a long period, they held the Kingdom of Naples, and
were a thorn in the flesh to many a worried pope. The
rivers of France became thoroughfares for their adventurous
enterprises, even up to Paris itself, until they were bought
off by the gift of a large French territory which they settled
under the name of Normandy. And England, exposed to
the sea in every direction, was practically helpless before
them. Wave after wave of Northmen swept in over the
country, apparently irresistible, both as to numbers and
rapacity. It looked as though newly Christianized England
was about to be totally submerged in a flood of virulent
heathenism.

Legend has greatly embellished the virtues of King
Alfred; but it can scarcely be denied that, as a Christian
king, he was an example of righteousness ; and, as an intrepid
soldier, he was a model of excellence. Certainly he rescued
England when it most needed rescuing. For it was Alfred
who stopped the Northmen. By the Peace of Wedmore,
the northern portion of the country was ceded to them,
while he retained the south as a Christian kingdom. The

198 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Northmen settled do\vn in their "Danelagh," and the plun-
dering came to an end.

Kindly and lovable with his own people, Alfred rebuilt
his dominion like a Christian and a statesman. He founded
schools, codified laws, encouraged religion, and promoted
learning by his own indefatigable example. "So long as I
have lived," he said in his old age, "I have striven to live
worthily." Under his sons, England was once more Chris-
tianized and united into one kingdom. Not only that, but
English missionaries went to the homeland of the invaders
and were chiefly instrumental in planting the Gospel among
the Norwegians. It was the French monk Anskar (died
865) who did such heroic work in Denmark and Sweden;
but out of England came Grimkill to Christianize the people
of Norway. At the close of the tenth century, the path was
opened by Olaf Tryggvessen, King of Norway and a Chris-
tian, who had peculiar methods of his own for propagating
the Faith. On one occasion, he assembled eighty heathen
sorcerers for the purpose of conversion. First he tried them
sober, then he tried them drunk. When they persisted in re-
fusing his kindly offices under either condition, he locked them
up and burned both building and sorcerers to the greater
glory of God. His son is known as St. Olaf, and it was he
who imported Bishop Grimkill and other English mission-
aries. The religious issue was settled by them at Dalen
where a test of faith was to be publicly witnessed before a
great image of the Scandinavian god Thor. Grimkill was
there to preach, but St. Olaf conceived a little strategy of
his own. Suddenly pointing to the sun, he drew the atten-
tion of the crowd, while one of his soldiers smote the image
a splintering blow. Out of the shattered pieces scampered
a swarm of loathsome creatures which had grown fat on the
sacrifices offered to the god. The incident must have offered
an excellent text for Grimkill, and Norway soon followed
England into the ranks of the Christian nations. But mat-
ters were far from right in England. The debilitating

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 199

fumes of the Dark Ages swept across from the continent
and did sorry things to the spiritual temper of English
Christianity.

To be sure, one bright spot appears in the vigorous per- *
son of St. Dunstan (died 988)'. For a brief period he cor-
rected abuses and stiffened discipline to the vast improvement
of Church conditions; but his work was largely nullified
by dynastic controversies between the English and the Danes.
Battles were fought, kings were made and unmade. The
Normans were brought into the confusion by efforts to
improve the life of the Church with imported talent. There
came to be a Norman party and an English party, with
feeling growing rapidly bitter between them. William of
Normandy claimed a right to the royal succession because
of a blood relationship to King Edward the Confessor. But
Harold, son of Earl Godwin, was the popular English
choice. It chanced that Harold fell into William's clutches
through a shipwreck on the coast of France; and, under
pressure, he swore to support William's claim to the English
throne. But upon regaining his liberty, Harold promptly
forgot his oath. William lost no time in branding him as a
traitor, and took advantage of a controversy over the arch-
bishopric of Canterbury to throw a cloak of religion over his
cause. Hildebrand (the power behind the papacy, though not
yet pope himself) was already hurling his thunderbolts of
purification from the Vatican, and was only too thankful for
an opportunity to lay his hand of authority upon England
where papal control had never really obtained. That is how
William of Normandy invaded England with his banners
blessed by the Pope. In 1066, at the battle of Hastings, he
won his title of "the Conqueror," and found a reasonably
comfortable seat on the English throne.

The effect of the conquest upon the Church was decidedly
beneficial. Lanfranc, a Norman monk and one of the greatest
scholars and most able administrators of the day, became
Archbishop of Canterbury. Under his wise guidance, the

200 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Church took on a new orientation. Norman bishops were
brought over to fill vacant sees; the disorganization due
to factious quarrels was replaced with a well-knit coordina-
tion; and spirituality, both among clergy and laity, received
powerful stimulation. The Normans were great builders.
They not only reared imposing castles for the protection of
their newly acquired rights, but they also reconstructed
churches and cathedrals which had fallen into considerable
decay. New monasteries were erected, old ones were
strengthened, and endowments were everywhere increased.
Ecclesiastical courts were accorded a new dignity, and the
personal habits of the clergy came under a system of salutary
inspection. At first, of course, there were disgruntled mur-
murings at this imposition of foreign authority; but in a
remarkably short time Englishmen and Normans were
blended in a new common nationality, and the Church of
England became the spiritual home for both.

The relationship established between the Church of Eng-
land and the papacy under William and Lanfranc, has some
interesting aspects. For several centuries, England had looked
to the Pope as the logical spiritual leader of Europe.
Deference was paid to him, money was sent to him, and
his judgments on disputed questions were always received
with respect. To be sure, such judgments were not always
followed (as in the case of Wilfrid), but it was commonly
conceded in a feudal society that the Church could maintain
its spiritual prerogatives only under a recognized central
leadership. On the continent, that leadership had developed
(not without protest) into an ecclesiastical autocracy built
upon the False Decretals and the exigencies of medieval
conditions. But in England, the Church had retained a
large measure of local autonomy. The Primate at Canter-
bury was the governing head of the English Church. He
was elected by his English brethren under royal approval,
and then received his pall as a mark of union with the Roman
See. But the idea that ecclesiastical England -was the servant

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 201

of the Bishop of Rome had never gained British acceptance.
William was not slow to recognize this, in spite of the fact
that papal backing had played an important role in the success
of his predatory ambitions. At the very time when Hilde-
brand (now Gregory VII) was bringing the Emperor to
terms at Canossa on the question of investiture, he raised no
voice against William for doing the same thing in England.
He did attempt to extend himself once, when he demanded
that William as King of England should do homage to him
as Pope, and also should pay up the arrears of "Peter's
pence." To these demands William replied, "One demand
I have allowed, the other I have not allowed. To do hom-
age I refuse, because I never promised to do it, nor do I
ever find that my predecessors have done it. The money
shall be more regularly paid."

William, moreover, laid down a rule that no pope was
to be acknowledged in the Kingdom of England without the
consent of the crown; neither were any papal bulls to be
enforced without the crown's approval. It seems quite clear
that, up to this point, England knew nothing of papal
supremacy as Hildebrand and subsequent popes sought to
impose it upon western Christendom.

The Norman conquest opened the door for new ideas by
bringing England into closer contact with continental in-
terests. These new ideas were to be bones of contention
for the Church during the next five hundred years. It
began with the Conqueror's son, William Rufus, who had no
such sense of responsibility to his people as his father had
known.

According to feudal usage, upon the death of a bishop
the episcopal revenues reverted to the king until a successor
was chosen. One of Rufus' favorite habits was to keep such
bishoprics vacant as long as possible for the benefit of the
royal purse. When Lanfranc died, Canterbury was without
an archbishop for four years, much to the pecuniary advan-
tage of the king. This, of course, was intolerable. And it

202 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

might have lasted longer if Rufus had not fallen grievously
ill and sought to make death-bed amends by thrusting the
office hurriedly upon the unwilling hands of Anselm, Abbot
of Bee. Unfortunately for everybody, Rufus recovered and
flew into a great rage over his own hasty action. "By the
Holy Face of Lucca," he blasphemed, "God shall never have
me good for all the ill that He has brought upon me."
Apparently the "ill" referred to was Anselm who quickly
discovered how unpleasant a bishop's life could be. Rufus
badgered him on every conceivable occasion, finally driving
him into exile for three years. Then Rufus died and, with
the accession of Henry I, Anselm returned. But during his
absence, he had been highly honored at Rome, and he was
now prepared to raise the question of investiture on his own
account. King and Archbishop fought bitterly for a time,
and at last came to a compromise whereby Henry relinquished
his hereditary right to invest bishops with ring and staff
which were the symbols of spiritual authority, but retained
the right to claim an oath of homage to himself as king.

Yet the" battle was by no means over, the next round
being fought between Henry II and Thomas a Becket (died
1170). This Henry found everything demoralized after the
chaotic reign of his predecessor Stephen, and was determined
to set the kingdom in order. He was a forceful man, subject
to occasional bursts of temper, but on the whole a good figure
of a king. His zeal for orderly government was too much
of a personal passion to suit the best interests of the people ;
it might easily have run into a tyranny; but there is much
to be said for him in the particular issues on which he crossed
swords with Becket.

One of the abuses of the day lay in the ecclesiastical
courts in which any cleric had the right to be tried for any
crime, but where punishment consisted only of ecclesiastical
censures. This "benefit of clergy" obtained for all who were
in Holy Orders, and a great number of disreputable rascals
qualified for minor Orders as a means of availing themselves

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 203

of these extraordinary privileges. Henry demanded that the
King's courts should remedy the scandal. Becket, who was
Archbishop of Canterbury, smelt the odor of royal domina-
tion over the Church, and fought back with equal determina-
tion. The King drew up his famous "Constitutions of
Clarendon" which, he said, represented the ancient customs
of the realm, and ordered Becket to accept them. One o-f
them stated that clergy accused of crime should not be pro-
tected by the Church against the King's courts; and another,
that no appeals should be carried to the Pope without the
King's consent. These were the two points on which Becket
raised his chief protest. The controversy raged through
various stages of exile and excommunication, with the nobility
siding with the King, and the common people backing the
Archbishop.

One day, Henry sputtered forth some wild words in a fit
of anger, with the unexpected result that four of his knights
went head-hunting for Becket. Shouting, "Where is the
traitor?" they came upon the Archbishop in his cathedral.
"Here is the Archbishop," Becket answered. "No traitor
but a priest of God." Whereupon the four knights took
off his head. The country was ablaze with indignation.
Henry was wise enough to disclaim all responsibility and,
in proof of it, did public penance before the tomb of his
adversary. Becket was later canonized, and his tomb became
a favorite spot for pilgrimages for hundreds of years there-
after. To the popular mind, he stood out as the valiant de-
fender of the people's liberties against the encroachments of
a royal dictator.

The next round was soon to follow. It was fought
between King John and Stephen Langton, Archbishop of
Canterbury, with others playing contributing parts.- Inno-
cent III was Pope, the most powerful of any who ever oc-
cupied the Vatican, and bursting with eagerness to bring
the Church of England to heel. Philip Augustus was King
of France, with a very persistent grievance against England

204 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

because of English rule over portions of his own country. And,
finally, there was Richard the Lion-hearted, who, as we have
seen, had left his kingdom to the doubtful mercies of his
brother, John, while he went adventuring with other cru-
saders to the Holy Land.

There is not much of evil from which King John can
claim exemption. Treacherous, greedy, and lascivious, he
made himself thoroughly hated even by those who truckled
to him most. He was one of England's very worst kings
from almost any point of view. He had difficulties with
everybody, including the Pope. At length his evil career
approached its climax when, in 1205, a new Archbishop of
Canterbury was to be elected. It seems that a group of
Canterbury monks, probably in distrust of their King, had
secretly elected one of their number to the archbishopric and
hustled him off to Rome for his pall before John knew what
happened. When John heard of it, he demanded another
election, and sent a delegation of monks to explain the whole
matter to Pope Innocent.

From Innocent's point of view, it was an opportunity
built to order. He could have asked for no better means of
exerting his authority than to declare both elections void
and intrude a third candidate of his own choosing. He not
only did this, but he made the delegation of monks go through
with the election at once while he had them in Rome where
he could see that they did it his way. Stephen Langton,
an Englishman, was the man so elected, and he was duly
consecrated for his office by Innocent. This was a violation
of precedent which made John purple with rage. Calling
up his reserves of profanity, he swore "by the teeth of God"
that he would seize all Romans in his kingdom and send them
back to their master blind and mutilated. Innocent replied
by placing England under an interdict. But the lack of
religious ministrations was nothing in John's life and,
besides, the interdict was never very thoroughly enforced.
John treated the clergy as outlaws, abused them, and robbed

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 205

them of their property. The following year he was excom-
municated, but no one had the temerity to publish the papal
bull in England. For two years more he fought back,
making clerical life a horror, and crowding his prisons with
priests. But Innocent was no man to stop something which
he had well begun, and he knew that John's hold upon his
own people was exceedingly tenuous. Finally, he threatened
John with a bull of deposition which would have released
all England from allegiance to the King, and further stated
that he would call upon John's arch-enemy, Philip Augustus,
to make the deposition effective. That meant a French in-
vasion. John continued to struggle for another couple of
years, vainly attempting to rally his feudal nobility to the
defense of himself and his crown. But the limit had been
reached. Persistent treachery on his part had shattered all
loyalty on the part of his people. John found himself hope-
lessly deserted, with Philip marshaling his forces across the
channel. Once a bully is punctured, he collapses very sud-
denly. John collapsed. He not only agreed to receive Lang-
ton as Archbishop of Canterbury, but he resigned the
kingdoms of England and Ireland to the Pope, receiving them
back again as the Pope's feudal vassal. He promised to recall
the clergy whom he had driven out of the country, and to
compensate them for the losses they had incurred through
him. He agreed to submit to the papal judgment all the
debated points leading up to his excommunication, and
pledged England to the payment of annual tribute to the
Vatican. As a matter of fact, he gave away just about
everything except his appetite and his bad habits.

Then the storm broke. John was getting too generous
with things which belonged to other people as well as him-
self. Englishmen in general had a stake both in their king-
dom and in their Church; and, in spite of the claims of
feudal over-lordship, they were not disposed to submit to a
wholesale exploitation without at least being consulted. They
needed only a leader and, strangely enough, they found him

206 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

in the person of the man about whom all the hostilities had
centered namely, their new Archbishop. Langton had no
reason to love John, but he might have been expected to
tune his music to that of the Pope, if it had not happened
that the latter had now accepted the role of John's ardent
supporter. As Innocent looked at it John of evil fame and
disobedient to the Pope was the vilest of vile persons; but
John of the same evil fame and obedient to the Pope was
worthy of all respectful consideration. Langton's states-
manship was of too large a caliber to see things in just that
way. He placed himself at the head of the barons, and
took up the cudgels for some decent degree of freedom for
Church and people. Before a meeting of nobles held in
St. Paul's, London, he produced a charter of liberties granted
by Henry I and confirmed by Henry II, upon which all
present swore to take a firm and united stand. John fumed
and raged; the papal legate threw all his influence against
the Archbishop and the barons ; but they held solidly behind
Langton. Finally, on June 15, 1215, the barons assembled
at Runnymede, near London, and here they brought the King
to terms, forcing his signature to the historic document known
""as Magna Charta or the Great Charter. In the very first
article of this charter, occurs the significant statement that
"the Church of England shall be free, and shall have her
rights entire and her liberties uninjured." It has been con-
tended that this claim to freedom was directed exclusively
against royal encroachments, but the Pope evidently saw
another possible interpretation.

This unexpected development did not suit Pope Innocent
at all. He had no sooner got England nicely in his hand
than he found it squirming out between his fingers. He
promulgated a bull in which he announced the Great Charter
null and void, releasing everyone from its provisions. The
barons who signed it were excommunicated. Langton came
in for a scorching rebuke because of his share in the pro-
ceedings ; and papal excommunication was held over the heads

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 207

of any who should dare oppose the King. The whole matter
was argued before the Pope who upheld John in every dis-
puted point. But England had its back up; the Great
Charter was never withdrawn; copies were sent to every
cathedral with orders to give it public reading twice a year;
and king after king, in the years that followed, was obliged
to subscribe to it.

John, Innocent, and Langton died in due course, but
others saw to it that the issue was kept alive. Indeed, the
next three centuries are one long contest with a succession of
popes on one side endeavoring to capitalize the advantages
acquired when John sold out to Innocent and, on the other
side, the English Church and Parliament throwing up all
manner of obstacles in self-defense. Papal taxes increased
enormously and Italian clergy who never set foot in England
were appointed to English benefices and cheerfully received
the revenues which were sent to them. Grosseteste, Bishop
of Lincoln, and one of the greatest men of his day, estimated
that this system of absent treatment was drawing a total of
cash out of England equal to three times the sum of the
royal income. And Grosseteste was the man who spoke his
mind in plain, uncompromising terms in the presence of the
Pope himself.

Henry III, who succeeded John as king, was petulant,
extravagant, and incompetent. When he fell out with the
barons, he turned to the Pope for support. That largely
accounts for the growth of the intolerable exactions men-
tioned above which bade fair to squeeze England dry. Simon
de Montfort, strongly supported by Bishop Grosseteste, led
a revolt which, after a period of civil warfare, won a
re-confirmation of the Charter liberties.

With Edward I began a series of parliamentary enact-
ments calculated to restrain, still further, these ecclesiastical
abuses. First, came the Statute of Mortmain restricting the
acquisition of property by religious corporations, whereby
such property had, heretofore, been exempt from any possible

208 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

service to the State. Then, the Statute of Provisors was
enacted and reenacted, by which the Pope was forbidden to
make appointments to English benefices, and anyone accepting
such appointment was to be subject to fine and imprisonment.
Finally, a law was passed on increasingly stringent lines, which
made it a crime to bring papal bulls into the country without
the royal consent, and also a crime to appeal a case from the
royal courts to those of Rome. This was known as the
Statute of Praemunire.

That these various laws restricting papal interference in
English affairs were not the result of hasty action but, rather,
of a determined policy, is indicated by the fact that their pas-
sage covered a period of more than a century 1279 to 1393.
It should further be noted that no part of this legislation
was aimed against the spiritual leadership of the Pope. Cer-
tainly since the time of Theodore, the Church of England
had always been ready to recognize a primacy of honor in the
See of Peter. But the medieval papacy was a different
matter. A pope credited with authority to order, direct, or
disrupt as he saw fit, the internal life of their Church and
to interfere as a temporal sovereign with the administrative
policies of their government, drawing out from them exces-
sive revenues, laying down upon them arbitrary rules of
long-distance discipline, placing over them foreign appointees
without regard to their own preferences this was more than
the English had bargained for, and more than they were ready
to accept. Other countries may have submitted more or less
gracefully, but England lived in persistent protest.

That it was more than a game of diplomatic check-mate
is shown by the surprisingly popular response which arose to
the bold utterances of John Wyclif (died 1384). He was
a teacher at Oxford University at the time when Oxford
and Cambridge were developing their collegiate systems, and
students were crowding in from all parts of the land. As
a scholar, Wyclif was intelligent and honest. He wrote
trenchantly for the world of letters, and lectured effectively

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 209

to large classes at the University. If that had been all, his
work might have begun and ended in the academic atmos-
phere of higher learning; but it seems that Wyclif was also
a born fighter and was possessed of extraordinary fluency in
the plainest of plain English. His preaching became very
popular. It was the time of the Great Schism two popes
and two curial bodies sending cross currents of intrigue
through every court in Europe, and both demanding large
funds with which to do it. Wyclif surprised everybody by
discussing it as a Christian rather than as a politician. He
boldly denounced the materialistic clerical mind which con-
cerned itself more with money, power, and preferment than
with the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. This led
him on to an attack on the papal system. The Pope sent word
that he must be silenced; but when Wyclif received the
warning, he remarked that the Eastern Church had managed
without a pope for thirteen centuries and it might be possible
for the Western Church to do the same. He repudiated the
doctrine of transubstantiation, and stressed the need for in-
culcating habits of personal righteousness. The common peo-
ple at that time were not having a pleasant time of it. Living
was hard, and the country was taxed to impoverishment for
unsuccessful wars with France. But the monasteries had
accumulated large riches, and some of the nobility held huge
estates. Wyclif's explosive ideas found ready lodgment in
the minds of the half-starved and discontented peasants.
Watt Tyler brought it to a head in the Peasant's Revolt,
when castles and monasteries went up in flames and many a
life was lost. Wyclif was blamed for it, though he had
nothing to do with the revolt itself. He was brought to
trial, and his teachings were condemned; but he lived out
his life as a parish priest at Lutterworth, devoting himself to
the first translation of the Bible in the popular English
tongue. All of this shows the drift of the time.

Step by step, for three hundred years, England had been
steadily repudiating the submission of John to Innodent III.

210 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

At the opening of the sixteenth century, popular sentiment was
ready to uphold the English end of any national issue in which
the Vatican might become involved. Therefore, when Henry
VIII forced such an issue in the matter of his marriage, the
public supported him just as it had supported the Statutes of
Mortmain, Provisors, and Praemunire. Henry's morals were
not worth fighting about, but the historic independence of
the Church of England was. All of this was caught up in
the maelstrom of the Reformation movement, and extraneous
influences filtered in. But the Reformation in England comes
out of a different background than that of the continental
Reformation. On the continent, it was actually a revolution,
while in England it was more truly a reformation. The
continental reformers overturned the Church in which they
had been brought up; the English reformers were dedicated
to the Divine Commission. They were determined to keep
the Church which had been theirs from the beginning, but
to cut it free from the bonds of subservience with which
John had been led to tie it up to the Vatican. Without
keeping this distinction clear, it is impossible to understand
the English Reformation or the aftermath of controversy
which came in the wake of the Puritans.

CHAPTER XI
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION

"T T WITHOUT being guilty of notable profligacy in com-
W parison with the other monarchs of his time, it is
doubtful if Henry's married life had ever been pure. 7 ' So
speaks the Catholic Encyclopedia regarding Henry VIII of
England. It is well to keep that comparison in mind, in
view of subsequent developments.

Henry stands as a striking example of a young man
faced with brilliant opportunities to do large things well, who
so far fell victim to his own desires that he converted the
means of public service into an instrument of the boldest
tyranny. When, in 1509, he became King of England, he
was handsome, generous, popular. He came naturally by
a certain regal dignity. With a keen intellect and widely
diversified interests, he was no mean scholar for his day.
He was vigorous, energetic, and positive. Moreover, his
religion was very real to him. Certainly things were auspicious
for Henry and for England at the opening of his reign.

It is pathetic to note the changes wrought in his originally
likeable character. Private love affairs, international differ-
ences, disappointed hopes, and all the turbulence of the
Reformation convulsion, brought out the worst in him rather
than the best. His strength of character degenerated into
autocratic wilfulness. His geniality soured and turned to
bitterness. His generous impulses were transmuted into
senseless greed. His religion was resolved into a fanatical
hatred for his ecclesiastical opponents. At the time of his
death, he was a symbol of destruction for the Church of
England. But he had not always been so.

The diplomatic policy of his father, Henry VTI, had

[211]

212 . THE DIVINE COMMISSION

leaned strongly in the direction of Spain. At that time,
Spain was at the zenith of her power and was well worth
cultivating. Therefore a marriage alliance was plainly a
good piece of practical politics for England. Such a marriage
was arranged, with Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII, and
Catherine, the aunt of Charles V of Spain, as the contracting
parties.

But Arthur was in very bad health, and died some four
months after the marriage which, according to Catherine,
had never been anything but nominal. Henry, unwilling to
lose the advantages of such an alliance, then made the pro-
posal that Catherine should be married to his second son
the same who was later to become Henry VIII. The
obstacle in the way of this shifting of affections was a canon-
ical one. The marriage of a man to his sister-in-law was
within the circle of forbidden relationships, only to be made
possible by special dispensation from the Pope. Such dis-
pensation was secured on the grounds that the original mar-
riage had been a marriage only in name, and therefore the
canonical prohibition could not properly apply. So Henry,
at the age of eighteen, married Catherine who was eight
years his senior.

For a matter of ten years the royal couple lived happily
enough together. Seven children were born to them, six
of whom died in infancy. Then Catherine's health began
to waver and Henry diverted his affections toward sundry
ladies of his court. It bothered him to realize that he had
no male heir to succeed him. With a touch of superstitious
fear, he entertained the thought that there might be some-
thing wrong with his marriage when only one of his seven
children survived infancy, and that one, the Princess Mary.
Cordiality toward the royal house of Spain may also have
been somewhat affected by the fact that Henry had been a
candidate for the office of Emperor of the Holy Roman
Empire and had been outvoted in favor of Charles V. And

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 213

then there was Anne Boleyn, with whom Henry had fallen
desperately in love.

The possibility of another marriage was in the air when
negotiations were undertaken for the union of Princess Mary
with one of the sons of the King of France. It was very
disturbing when the French envoy raised an embarrassing
objection, to the effect that the former Pope had exceeded his
authority in granting a dispensation for the marriage of
Henry and Catherine, and that therefore there was some
question concerning the legitimacy of the Princess Mary.
Perhaps the objection was raised for purposes of diplomatic
bargaining, but it offered one more reason for disposing of
Catherine. Cardinal Wolsey took charge of the matter for
Henry. Wolsey was a statesman of no mean ability, an
adept at the game of diplomacy, with strong connections at
Rome, and not without some really patriotic impulses. He
undertook to secure from the Pope a formal statement nullify-
ing Henry's marriage to Catherine on grounds of consan-
guinity, and so leaving Henry free to contract another
marriage for which Wolsey was already laying his own plans.
Commonly the question is referred to as that of "Henry's
divorce." Strictly speaking, there was no divorce about it as
we use the term today. It was a request for annulment
the invalidating of the marriage itself, rather than the
dissolution of it.

At the time the decision was made to carry the matter
to the Pope, there was little reason to think that any par-
ticular difficulty would be met. Marriage annulments con-
stituted one of the chief sources of revenue for the papal
lawyers in Rome, and a decision very similar to that desired
for Henry had been rendered in favor of Louis XII of
France a few years earlier. Before he became king, Louis
had married a French princess, Jeanne of Valois, whose
saintly life has since won her canonization. Physically she
was not strong, but morally she was blameless, in striking

214 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

contrast to the riotous behavior of her brutal husband* As
soon as he ascended the throne, Louis decided to be rid of
her, and made the usual representations to the Pope on
technical grounds. The annulment was granted, and Jeanne
was despatched to a cloister for the remainder of her sorrow-
ful life, while Louis took to himself another spouse. From
a moral point of view, it was a clear case of criminal con-
spiracy. The Catholic Encyclopedia speaks of Ste. Jeanne
as "an unjustly repudiated wife and queen." Naturally, if
such a favor could be granted to Louis, there was no reason
to think that a similar favor, involving no greater injustice,
might not as easily be granted to Henry. And in all likelihood
it would have been, but for the Pope's political involvements.

Catherine was the aunt of Charles V who had no desire
to have her sent back home in disgrace; and Charles was a
power to be reckoned with. He was not only King of Spain
and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, but he was also
ruler of the Netherlands, of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, and
he had fallen heir conjointly with his brother to the hereditary
dominions of Austria. He had huge armies at his command,
and a sea force which was beginning to exploit the unknown
resources of the western hemisphere. To complicate matters
still more, the Pope, Clement VII, had seen fit to adopt a
political policy of his own which was antagonistic to that of
Charles, and the latter was determined to have his way.
Things were going badly for the Pope when Henry made
this request which would have involved a direct insult to
the royal house of Spain. And then, as though even that
were not enough, events so came about that just as an Eng-
lish delegation set off for Rome to argue the case of Henry,
a large Spanish army attacked Rome and seized Clement as
a prisoner of war.

Under the circumstances, it was most inadvisable for
Clement to do anything contrary to the will of Charles.
Also it was most impolitic for him to antagonize such a
powerful sovereign as Henry, particularly at a time when

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 215

the Reformation caldron was at the point of violent explosion
in Germany. The best Clement could do was to postpone
action, and the wisest thing Henry could do was to wait.
He did wait. For seven long years he waited, while Clement
died and was succeeded by Paul III. Meantime, the hand
of Charles never failed to hold threats over the Vatican.
Wolsey was dismissed from the English court for his failure
to obtain a decision, and every measure known to diplomacy
was tried without avail. Neither pope was willing to render
a judgment one way or the other and the seven years
rolled by.

It is not uncommon to hear the whole question neatly
dismissed by the broad statement that Henry was a dissolute
king, fighting an evil battle against the principles of Chris-
tian morality as personified in the two popes who opposed
him. It sounds well, but the facts will scarcely bear it out.
It is quite true that Henry was a dissolute king, but it is also
true that Clement VII was an illegitimate son in the Medici
family, and that Paul III was the father of illegitimate
children (See Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, p. 24 and
Vol. XI, p. 579). Such a combination shouts the query
'where can any moral issue possibly enter in? There was
none. It was a case of politics, pure and simple. The wonder
of it is that Henry, passionate and headstrong as he was, ever
restrained himself for a period of seven years.

Then that occurred which Wolsey had foreseen years
before. Soon after the original appeal went to Rome, he
had written Henry that if the Pope persisted in the course
he was then assuming, the Church, both in England and
in France, might be expected to renounce all obedience to
him. Somewhat later, Wolsey had sent a similar warning
to the Pope himself. Now his prophecy was about to be
realized. Hopeless of getting anywhere on the old lines,
Henry determined to appeal to the patriotic sentiments of
his people. The struggle of the past three hundred years
to correct the duplicity of King John was now to serve as

216 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

a cue to his own actions. He would have the Church of
England discharge its own aifairs as in the olden days,
irrespective of papal decisions. As a definite act of repudia-
tion, he asked the Convocations of the Church to adopt a
formula acknowledging the King to be the "supreme head
of the English Church and clergy." The Bishops objected
that such a statement implied spiritual authority over the
clergy on the part of the King. Henry wrote personal letters
explaining that he had no such intention, but that the title
as proposed indicated their allegiance to the crown in tem-
poral matters and the responsibility of the crown to see that
spiritual authority was discharged in a peaceable and orderly
manner. Even so, the only way in which the clergy would
accept the title at all was with the qualifying phrase, "so far
as the law of Christ will allow." Later, when Henry went
berserk, he made it mean anything he pleased; but the
Church was not a party to the exchange of a Roman for
an English pope, and soon after the death of Henry the
title lapsed.

The following year, Parliament passed an act estopping
the payment of the usual "Annates" to the Pope, and fore-
warning the world at large that if the Pope, in reprisal,
should refuse the customary bulls for the consecration of
English bishops or should lay down an interdict, the sacra-
ments would be administered without cessation and bishops
would be consecrated without papal approval. Thomas
Cranmer worked out a scheme of handling the marriage
annulment without further recourse to the Pope, and was
appointed Archbishop of Canterbury for that purpose. The
question was laid before the Convocations where it was
decided that the marriage -with Catherine had never been
valid in spite of the special dispensation which a former
pope had granted for it. Cranmer then publicly declared the
marriage annulled ; but Henry had forestalled him by marry-
ing Anne Boleyn while final action was still pending. Parlia-
ment added the last touch by passing another act forbidding

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 217

any appeals to Rome. Then, in 1534, after years of com-
promising silence, the Vatican spoke. The Pope confirmed
the validity of the marriage with Catherine, and called upon
Henry to restore her to her former conjugal position. A few
weeks later, both Convocations countered by adopting a reso-
lution in which it was plainly stated that "the Bishop of
Rome hath not, by Scripture, any greater authority in Eng-
land than any other foreign bishop." Paul III thereupon
prepared a bull of excommunication against Henry, but it is
not certain that it was ever promulgated.

Such was England's break with the papacy. To worry
out of these events a conclusion that "Henry VIII started
the Church of England" is a fearful and terrible way to
handle the facts of history. The name "Church of England"
(Ecclesia Angllcana) had been written into Magna Charta
hundreds of years before. The Church of England, as a
fact, had been in existence hundreds of years before that
even if more or less closely associated with the papacy at
different points in its history. Now it simply dropped rela-
tionships with Rome. Its primitive character meaning its
worship, ministry, sacraments, and doctrine was not altered
in any single essential respect. Changes certainly were in
the air, and many of them were gradually adopted ; but
none of such a description as to violate the historic character
and continuity of the Church of England. This was the nub
of the thing in the Church's controversy with the Puritans
who did propose clearly revolutionary alterations and went
out on their own because the Church refused them. As for
Henry VIII, he would have puckered his brows in royal
bewilderment at the thought of anyone starting a new Church
when England already had its own* The Pope was dispensed
with, but the Divine Commission was preserved as a matter
of course.

What follows makes a dismal picture. In all probability,
Henry was a bit apprehensive of a possible reaction following
his high-handed dealing with his family, his many political

218 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

supporters, and the Church. This he meant to prevent by
exercise of the unprecedented power which had come tumbling
into his lap. Having carried his point in his contest with the
Pope, he was absolutely supreme in England. The tradi-
tional check upon royal authority on the part of the nobility
had been reduced to inconsequential proportions by the
terrible losses which the nobility had sustained during the
suicidal Wars of the Roses. Wolsey had been dismissed,
and Parliament was under the King's thumb. The tempta-
tion was too much for Henry. He capitalized it for all it
was worth much to the deterioration of his own character,
greatly to the distress of the common people, and sadly to
the loss of the Church. Henry selected an unscrupulous
rascal named Thomas Cromwell as his handy man, and gave
him practically unlimited authority as long as he produced
results. People were forced to swear away not only their
liberty of action but their freedom of thought. Fisher and
More were executed for harboring opinions contrary to
Henry's latest marriage.

The monasteries were particularly dangerous spots in
Henry's eyes. Monastic Orders were generally chartered
directly by the pope, and were recipients of special papal
privileges. This very fact made them less likely to stand
with the King on a question of papal authority. Also the
monasteries had become exceedingly rich, and had passed the
point of their really valuable service to the Church life of
the country. The elaborately embroidered accounts of vicious
conditions which have been used to justify Henry's war on
the monasteries and convents, can scarcely be substantiated ;
but it is true that disproportionately large holdings of prop-
erty had come into their possession, for which they made
little return to the country at large. The need of a general
overhauling was by no means a new idea. Wolsey, many
years before, had suppressed a long string of them, and
diverted the revenues to more useful purposes. But Henry,
through the merciless offices of Cromwell, not only suppressed

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 219

them, but destroyed them. Their land and possessions he
seized to replenish his own exchequer and to bribe certain
ambitious gentlemen whom he was converting into a new
nobility subject to his own control. Fine old abbeys were left
in ruins, those who dared to make protest were summarily
executed, monks were driven out, works of art were destroyed,
whole libraries went up in flames. "The Pilgrimage of
Grace" was a brief flash of rebellion against the tyranny of
the Crown, but it was quickly smothered without any
achievement to its credit.

Meanwhile, reform of a more reasonable kind had been
inaugurated within the Church itself, sometimes supported
by royal approval and sometimes hindered by royal obstinacy.
The necessity of purging the Church at large of various
doctrinal corruptions and indefensible religious practices had
become clear even in Rome where it found expression at the
Council of Trent. On the continent, the process of purgation
went to the extreme of changes in the character of the
Church itself. In England, the desire was to correct abuses,
and to bring religion closer to the people; but, at the same
time, to preserve the historic integrity of the Church. Already
influences were seeping in from Germany and Switzerland
which would have converted England's break with the papacy
into a whole-hearted alliance with Calvinism.

Henry, who never ceased to be devoted to a purely
medieval theology, treated these evangelical missionaries with
the greatest severity. His Act of the Six Articles provided
the death penalty for any who denied the doctrine of tran-
substantiation, or opposed certain medieval practices. But
he did lend his approval to the preparation and use of the
Great Bible (1539), being an English translation from which
Lessons were to be read in public worship, and which sup-
plied the text for the Psalter when the Book of Common
Prayer was compiled. Coverdale's Bible was also permitted
wide popular circulation, and the King put his own name
back of the Ten Articles of Religion (later expanded to

220 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

forty- two, and finally reduced to thirty-nine) "which were
drawn up by Convocation as a brief summary of reformed
doctrine and practice. The Articles were further explained
by expositions given in the Bishop's Book and, later, in the
King's Book. And, what was perhaps most important of all,
a beginning was made of the revision of the service books,
with a view to relieving public worship of certain recent
accretions, and giving it to the people in their own tongue.
The first step was taken in the publication of the always
popular service of the Litany in English. Henry died in
1547, before the work of the revision was completed, leaving
the First Prayer Book to appear in the reign of Edward,
Henry's son by Jane Seymour.

Edward was but a nine-year-old boy when he inherited
the crown, which meant that the government was conducted
by regents. First it was the Duke of Somerset acting as
Lord Protector, and then it was the Duke of Northumber-
land. Both of them were self-seeking politicians who had
waxed fat as hangers-on during the time of Henry's tyranny.
Now they found themselves flushed with power, and with
the game only partly played out. The plundering of the
Church was still a pleasure to them as well as a profit.
Somerset adopted the theory of a Swiss theologian named
Erastus that the civil government should always maintain
absolute control of the Church. Moreover, it appeared
to him to be good politics that England should be on the
friendliest possible terms with the Protestant reformers of
Germany and Switzerland. For these reasons exponents of
Calvinism were invited into the country and introduced
to prominent positions in the effort to work out a satisfactory
settlement.

vX The First Book of Common Prayer, issued in 1549, and
largely attributable to Cranmer, was scarcely in line with the
theological predilections of these foreigners. In that book,
the services were rendered into English and were very much
simplified, but without the sacrifice of any of their distinctive

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 221

traditional elements. The older service books had become
so complicated that, in order to use them at all, a rule had
been devised, known as the "Pie," by which the proper order
of worship might be picked out of the confusion. The need
for simplification is well indicated by a comment made by
the revisers that the Pie "often made it more difficult to find
out what was to be read than to read it when it was found
out." That first Prayer Book stands as a classic of English
literature, as well as a model for the conduct of public
worship.

But the Prayer Book had scarcely reached the hands of
the people, before the Protestant extremists were agitating for
further revision* Within a year, they were clamoring for
still greater simplifications in the Ordinal, and changes of a
Calvinistic nature in other parts of the book. The result
was the Second Prayer Book (1552) which practically died
a horning. It was never put forth with any Church authority
behind it, and had not yet won its way to general acceptance
when, in the following year, Edward VI died, leaving his
crown by natural right to his sister, Mary Tudor.

Here indeed was a pretty state of affairs. Mary was the
daughter of Catherine the only one of her seven children
who had lived. Naturally, as the question of her own legiti-
macy was involved, her sympathies had been all with her
mother in the disgusting indecencies of Henry's matrimonial
scandals. To be against Henry meant to be for the Pope,
Far more Spanish than English, she could scarcely think of
the Church apart from the Pope. She became Queen at
thirty-seven years of age, with her habits fixed and her
convictions definitely formulated. England was, without
doubt, sick of the selfish scheming of the Council of Regency
under the Dukes of Somerset and Northumberland during
the reign of Edward, but the people were scarcely prepared
for the violent reversal of attitude into which Mary led
them. Bishops like Gardiner and Bonner, who had stood
solidly with Henry in his repudiation of the papacy but who

222 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

had suffered grievously for their refusal to go the lengths
of Calvinism under the Regency, did their best to persuade
Mary to a course which would be English rather than
Spanish. But Mary was tremendously in earnest about her
own religion and, to her great unhappiness, was head over
heels in love with Philip of Spain. Her marriage to Philip
settled the matter. All of the anti-papal legislation was
revoked ; many bishops who declined to conform were ejected
from their sees and imprisoned ; large numbers of the clergy-
were driven overseas where they found refuge in Protestant
Germany and Switzerland, The Pope was invited to pro-
nounce a general absolution over the whole country and to
send a papal legate who came in the person of Cardinal
Pole. The popular opposition to such a reversal of policy
was acute, and Mary considered it necessary to make examples
of some of the refractory leaders in order to impress the
public. Several bishops were made to serve this particular
purpose. Latimer and Ridley were put through a theological
examination at Oxford, which was pronounced unsatisfac-
tory; and both were condemned to be burned at the stake.
As the torch was applied to the faggots, Latimer called out
to his fellow sufferer, "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley,
and play the man ; we shall this day light up such a candle,
by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put
out."

Another example was Archbishop Cranmer. Always a
scholar and with the making of a saint, he had nevertheless
lacked something of the toughness of fiber which a real
leader in his time and place must have had. Dominated by
Henry and over-ruled by the Regency, he seems to have lost
whatever independence of thought he might once have pos-
sessed. Now he was taken in hand by Mary's ecclesiastics
with a view to securing a repudiation of all that he had done.

One can only surmise what representations were made to
him, but he was plainly misled by them. Over-persuaded,
he consented to sign a recantation, only to find himself

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 223

condemned to be burned at the same place where Latimer and
Ridley had expired. When brought to the stake, he was
instructed to read his recantation to the assembled public.
But, to the confusion of his executioners, he offered up an
earnest petition to God asking forgiveness for ever having
signed such a document, and declared that the hand which
had signed contrary to the prompting of his heart should be
the first part of him to be burned. "And as for the Pope,"
he said, "I refuse him as being Christ's enemy and Anti- v
Christ, with all his false doctrine." So when the fire was
kindled, he thrust in his right hand first, holding it steadily
until it was consumed, while he repeated, "This unworthy
right hand."

No one in those days expected or received religious tolera-
tion; and Mary, who was not cruel by nature, earned her
unhappy title of "Bloody Mary" through a morbid capitula-
tion to a failure complex. Her husband was neglecting her
shamelessly. She had no children. An unsuccessful war
with France had lost her Calais which was England's last
toe-hold on the continent. And, in addition to all the rest,
her own health was miserable. She harbored a superstitious
notion that her troubles were a punishment for the unsatis-
factory religious condition of the country, which demanded
more religious persecutions. So she persecuted; but her
nature revolted against the cruelty, and she was more miser-
able than ever. Yet she kept on, slowly ruining her own
life by the destruction of others. Her death, in 1558, marks
a pathetic ending to a career which might have been happy
and perhaps brilliant. The period of active persecution con-
ducted under her orders covered about three years, with some
three hundred persons burned at the stake for their religious
convictions. Compared with what the Huguenots received
in France, or with what Alva gave the people of the Nether-
lands, it was not such a terrible experience after all. But,
somehow, it struck deep into the English mind. Latimer

224 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

was right the "fires of Smithfield" burned a hatred of
papacy into the English people which bore bitter fruit in the
years that followed.

Another daughter of Henry's succeeded to the throne in
the person of Elizabeth. Her mother had been Anne Boleyn,
which, of course, placed her on the opposite side of the fence
from Mary. Elizabeth had inherited from her father much
of the rugged strength of character which had given him such
a powerful hold on his people even in his most autocratic
moments. And Elizabeth had learned to control her impetuous
impulses as Henry had never learned to do. During the reign
of Mary, it would have been extremely unhealthy for her if
she had not.

Elizabeth was confronted with a delicate and dangerous
situation. In view of her parentage, it would have been
suicidal to have adhered to the Pope. Both Spain and
France were papal in their sympathies, and were also hostile
to England on general principles. Internally, England was
at odds with herself. There was one party committed to the
religious policy of Mary; there was another bent on per-
petuating the policy of Henry VIII ; and there was a returning
flood of exiles who had fled the Marian persecutions, but who
now brought back from the continent a vigorous demand for
full-fledged Calvinism together with a presbyterian system
of Church government. That Elizabeth came through such
a maze of conflicting forces successfully is itself a marvelous
tribute to her statesmanship.

Immediately upon her accession, the religious statutes of
Henry were reenacted, except the one designating him as
supreme head of the Church. Such an ambiguous title Eliza-
beth refused to perpetuate in the new Act of Supremacy,
preferring to be acknowledged as "Supreme Governor of all
persons and in all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil."
Regarding the Act of Supremacy, she states her position to
De Feria, representative of Philip II, by saying "I do not

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 225

intend to be called Head of the Church, but I shall not let
my subjects 5 money be carried out of the realm to the Pope
any more."*

The second Prayer Book of Edward VI was revised,
bringing it somewhat closer to the spirit of the first Book,
and was put forth for use supported by an Act of Uniformity
which made its use obligatory throughout the realm. As
might have been expected, the bishops who had accepted
appointment during the reign of Mary, refused to subscribe
to any of the statutes that is, all the bishops except one.
But, of the lower clergy, only two or three hundred declined
out of a total of some nine thousand.

The pressing question for the Church, then, was the
securing of new bishops to carry on the necessary episcopal
administrations. Cardinal Pole, who had also been Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, had died the day after Mary, and
there were ten other vacancies to be filled besides those left
by the bishops who refused the Oath of Supremacy. There
were, however, several bishops who had been deprived of
their dioceses during the reign of Mary, and these were now
restored to active jurisdiction. Four of them were called
upon to unite in consecrating Matthew Parker as the new
Archbishop of Canterbury.

Every conceivable means has been used by controver-
sialists to discredit the validity of Parker's consecration, and
thereby to invalidate all subsequent Holy Orders of the
Church of England. But, historically speaking, it is a water-
tight case. The records of the whole proceeding have been
preserved with exceptional care probably because those
concerned realized its critical importance.

The records show that permission, to elect was issued to
the Cathedral Chapter, that the Chapter elected Parker, that
his election was confirmed, and that It received royal assent.
Four bishops were formally commissioned to unite in the

'* Frederick Chamberlin Sayings of Queen Elizabeth, p. 116.

226 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

consecration William Barlow, John Hodgkin, Miles Cover-
dale, and John Scory. The consecration took place in Lambeth
Palace, the morning of December 17, 1559. All the details of
the service are preserved, culminating in the laying on of
hands by all four bishops together, and the repetition in"
unison of the words of consecration. Barlow and Hodgkin
had, themselves, been consecrated according to the Sarum
Rite which was the recognized form of consecration before
the break with the papacy; while Coverdale and Scory had
been consecrated according to the revised Ordinal of 1550.
The whole proceeding has been called in question by an
attack upon the validity of the consecration of Barlow who
presided at the consecration of Parker. It is charged that
there are no records to show that Barlow had ever been
properly consecrated himself. Faulty records were no un-
common occurrence in those days, and it is true that those
of Barlow are lacking. But it is also true that Barlow
discharged the duties of a bishop until the end of his life,
at a time when any irregularity would have been greedily
seized upon by his adversaries, and his Orders were never
questioned until long after his death. Still, even if it were
true that Barlow held no valid Orders, there is no possible
question concerning the other three, and the records specific-
ally state that all four shared fully in the act of consecra-
tion. It was against just such emergencies that a canon
had been adopted as early as the Council of Nicaea, providing
that three bishops should always join in the consecration of
a new bishop. Because of that canon, the transmission of
episcopal Orders through even a single bishop was held to be
valid, but irregular. Therefore, since one properly qualified
bishop would have been sufficient to give Parker a valid
consecration, the attack upon Barlow, even if it could be
proved, has no practical bearing on the matter. Due to the
great care exercised at the time, there was not only one
bishop but three participating (apart from Barlow) in order

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 227

to secure validity and also to preserve canonical regularity.*
In 1560, just after the episcopate had been thus provided
for, Elizabeth received a letter from Pope Pius IV making
friendly overtures for a patching up of the accumulated
differences. The Pope asked only for the recognition of papal
authority in England; and offered, in return, to approve the
Book of Common Prayer, including the Liturgy (the Holy
Communion) and the Ordinal. But Elizabeth had made up
her mind, and when a Tudor mind was made up (even a
feminine one) it was not likely to change. Then years went
by, during which Elizabeth gained a stronger and stronger
hold on her people. Also, during those years, all the people,
including the Roman sympathizers, worshipped and received
the sacraments in the established English churches. Then
another pope, Pius V, received the papal tiara, and soon
decided that any reconciliation with England was hopeless.
A seminary was opened in France, at Douai, for the particular
purpose of training missionaries for the re-conversion of
England to papal obedience; and, in 1570, a bull was pub-
lished pronouncing Elizabeth excommunicate, deposing her
from her throne, releasing all English adherents of the Pope
from their allegiance to her as Queen, and ordering them
to withdraw from English churches.

* The Rt. Rev. John Carroll, first Roman Catholic Bishop in the
United States, was consecrated in London, in 1790, by a single
bishop, the Rt. Rev. Chas. Wamesley who, himself, had also been
consecrated by a single bishop. And, in his turn, Bishop Carroll alone
consecrated the next four succeeding bishops of the Roman Catholic
Church in the United States. Therefore the Roman hierarchy came to
the United States in a valid but uncanonical fashion.

In this connection it is interesting to note that, early in the
seventeenth century, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Spalato,
Marco Antonio de Dominis, conformed to the Church of England
and became Dean of Windsor. His Orders were conveyed to all
eight bishops who survived the Commonwealth and restored epis-
copal administration in England in 1660. Therefore, entirely apart
from the consecration of Archbishop Parker, the English episcopate
is the recipient of the same Italian Orders as the Roman hierarchy
in the United States, and with the same claim to historical validity*

228 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

The stated ground of Elizabeth's excommunication was
heresy; but, by reason of the compromise effected between the
Vatican and the German reformers, it could not be for
Lutheranism. Therefore it had to be for Calvinism, which
makes a curious bit of history when one reflects on the bitter
struggle with Calvinistic Puritanism which Elizabeth was
waging at that very time. Her position is clearly -indicated
by her own statements. Her heresy consisted in refusal to
acknowledge the Pope that, and no more. In a letter to
the Spanish ambassador, De Silva, she said: "Many people
think we are Turks or Moors here, whereas we only differ
from other Catholics in things of small importance."*

But the bull of Pius V was no trifling matter; for he
called upon France and Spain to carry it out, which meant
the invasion of England by French or Spanish troops, or both.
Pius also immediately gave support to the cause of Mary,
Queen of Scots, in her plots to dislodge Elizabeth from the
throne. (See Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XII, p. 130.) It
was bad enough for a large number of English people to be
ordered to withdraw from their Church (which meant, of
course, that the Roman Catholics broke away from the
Church of England, rather than vice versa) , but it was far
more dangerous for the peace of the land to have those
same people ordered into virtual treason. They could scarcely
expect anything but harsh treatment, and they got it. As
long as Mary, Queen of Scots, was alive, she was a constant
rallying point of Roman intrigue. Mary was executed. The
Douai missionaries were proved to have been involved in
political plots against the Crown, and they were scourged
out of the land. Suspects were arrested and fined; some of
them were tortured and put to death. Such severities are
difficult to condone under any circumstances; but, as Eliza-
beth herself said to the French ambassador, "I have never
permitted evil to happen to any Catholic for his faith, but

* Frederick Chamberlin Sayings of Queen Elizabeth, p. 99.

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 229

only if he were plotting against my state."* And later, to
the Spanish ambassador she said: "I have never castigated
Catholics except when they would not acknowledge me as
their queen; in spiritual matters, I believe as they do."**
That such fears "were not groundless was clearly manifested
when Spain did actually undertake to enforce the papal bull
of deposition. The Spanish Armada went crusading on behalf
of the Pope, with England as the object of its hostility. It
may also be that Spain wanted a little revenge for the depre-
dations of the English sea-rovers who -were playing havoc
with much needed shipments of gold from the Spanish Main.
At any rate, the Armada came ; but only to suffer a crushing
defeat, from which Spanish sea-power never recovered. To
Englishmen, it was proof positive of the necessity of Eliza-
beth's policy a policy which seemed to lose none of its
necessity when, in the reign of James I, Guy Fawkes all but
succeeded in his famous "gunpowder plot" to blow up King
and Parliament in one great flare of papal zeal.

These political intrigues from the Roman side greatly
strengthened the hands of those who were pressing Eliza-
beth from the opposite direction. Early in her reign, the
reforming extremists took the name of Puritans. They
were a party within the Church, to most of whom, during
this generation, any such thing as a separation from the
Church was a totally foreign thought. They were not all
of one mind, but broadly speaking, they stood for Calvinistic
doctrine, the abolition of various points of ritual and cere-
mony, and a preference for the presbyterian form of Church
government. Most of them conformed to Church usage but
stood as a party of protest. They objected particularly to
such things as the use of vestments, the wearing of a distinc-
tive clerical dress, kneeling at the reception of the Holy
Communion, the sign of the cross in Baptism, and the use

* Frederick Chamberlin Loc. cit., p. 116.
* * Frederick Chamberlin Loc. cit., p. 123.

230 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

of the ring in the marriage service. Some flatly rebelled on
such matters as these, defying the rubrics of the Prayer Book
and the requirements of the Act of Uniformity. They were
an aggressive nuisance to Elizabeth when she had the more
serious matter of the preservation of her throne to look after.
As the controversy waxed stronger, the Puritans concentrated
their attack against the bishops as representatives of every-
thing they disliked. One of them advanced the thesis at
Cambridge that all prelates had been introduced into the
Church by Satan,

In the year of the Spanish Armada, the "Martin Mar-
prelate" tracts came out, showing a phase of Puritanism
equally bereft of good sense and good manners. The Arch-
bishop was called the " Beelzebub of Canterbury" or the
"Canterbury Caiaphas"; the bishops came in as "incarnate
devils, cozening knaves, and enemies of God"; while the
clergy as a whole were greeted as "dolts, hogs, drunkards,
foxes, dogs, desperate and forlorn atheists." Prayer meetings
were held at centres for the advancement of such savory ideas.
At one time, an ingenious scheme was worked out for the
formation of "classes" throughout the country, which were to
be local governing councils made up of Puritans. The bishops
were to be left in their episcopal offices, but the "classes" were
quietly to pilfer their authority, leaving them only empty
honors to possess.

Let it be repeated that those were not days of religious
toleration. Whatever else Elizabeth may have been, she was
soundly devoted to the historic Church of England, and she
was determined that it should not be upset either by Roman
or Puritan attacks. The Puritans, therefore, were visited
with discipline. For a time, when Romish intrigue was a
critical peril, many leaders of affairs flirted with the idea that
England's only salvation lay in complete acceptance of Puri-
tanism, which would bring political support from continental
Protestantism. But the destruction of the Spanish Armada
lifted the danger, and the scurrility of Puritan lampoons

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 231

alienated the sympathies of unbiased people. Elizabeth's
policy proved successful, though unpleasantly severe. At the
time of her death, Romanism was suppressed and Puritanism
brought under control. Most of the Puritans swallowed
their objections and conformed. A small number known as
"Separatists" emigrated to Holland, to be the nucleus, a
quarter of a century later, of the band of Pilgrims who
crossed in the Mayflower to establish the first settlement in
Massachusetts.

So Puritanism was in abeyance during the latter part of
Elizabeth's reign, but it was not dead. It revived with con-
siderable vigor when James VI of Scotland became James I
of England, For Scotland, by that time, was well under
Calvinist control, and it seemed likely that a Scottish prince
ascending the English throne would be naturally responsive
to the plea of Puritanism* Upon this assumption, a Puritan
petition was presented to James, containing a list of desired
changes ; the rite of Confirmation was to be scrapped, the
sign of the cross in Baptism and the ring in marriage were
to be abolished, and the terms "priest" and "absolution"
were to be lifted out of the Prayer Book.

James did the sensible thing about it. He called a con-
ference of leading Churchmen and leading Puritans to talk
things over and come to some sort of an agreement. In
1604, the conference met at Hampton Court, and almost
immediately the true drift of affairs became apparent. The
items mentioned in the petition were only introductory to the
real demands of the Puritans. They asked for revision of
Church doctrine such as would have buried the Prayer
Book under a landslide of "election/* "reprobation," "inde-
fectibility of grace," and so on. More than that, there
gradually emerged, in the course of the discussions, the basic
purpose of annihilating episcopacy and creating a new form of
Church life on presbyterian lines. But Churchmen had
fought too hard and too long for the historic integrity
of their Church to bargain away the Divine Commission

232 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

like a temporary plank in a political platform ; and the King
stood by them. The request for a new translation of the
Bible \vas granted, and a commission was appointed to do the
work. This resulted in 1611, in the incomparable King
James or Authorized Version which, in spite of its now
somewhat archaic English, still stands as the greatest single
contribution of English-speaking Christianity to the religious
life of the world.

From that time on, the lines were clearly drawn. If
there had been any doubt, before this, regarding the relation-
ship of Puritanism to the Church, it was now completely
dissolved. The question was not one of sufficient latitude
within the Church to permit Puritans and Churchmen to
live together in peace. It was plainly a question of domina-
tion. The Puritans did not want to be merely tolerated;
they wanted to rule. So the controversy continued, with the
advantage leaning more and more toward the Church, due
to the great influence of such notable men as Bilson, Hooker,
and Andrewes.

The last named, Bishop Andrewes, was one of the out-
standing men of his day. A saint and a scholar, he never-
theless mingled in all the glitter of court society, with no
detraction to himself and with much benefit to the courtiers.

Andrewes and another bishop named Neile, were once
pounced upon by James I with the following question :

"My lords, cannot I take my subjects' money when I
want it without all this formality of Parliament ?"

Whereupon Neile, who seems to have been a saccharine-
flavored sycophant, sententiously blustered "God forbid, sir,
but that you should; you are the breath of our nostrils."

"How think you, my lord ?" asked the King of the silent
Andrewes.

"I think, sir," the Bishop gently answered, "that it is law-
ful for you to take my brother Neile's money, for he offers it."

But if Puritanism was slipping on religious grounds, it
soon made great progress politically. In 1625, Charles I

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 233

succeeded to the throne, with large financial problems to
face, and an inbred devotion to the political doctrine of
the Divine Right of Kings. Parliament was always a trial
to him. He conceived his mission in life to be that of a
benevolent autocrat. He did not realize until too late
that the day was past for such ideas in England. In his
private life, he was a model of personal honor and deep piety ;
his devotion to the Church was both intelligent and passion-
ate. He had the highest regard for the churchmanship and
ability of William Laud a man of large executive capacity,
but of a severe and irascible temperament. Laud was in-
tensely loyal to the Church; inveterately opposed to Puri-
tanism; and a rigid disciplinarian, as well with himself as
with those under him. All of this might have resulted merely
in a strong man following his own convictions at the cost
of some popularity, if it had not been that Laud's political
ideas ran closely parallel to those of the king. And Laud
was not a man to keep his opinions under cover.

As Bishop of London, Laud presided over the Puritan
stronghold of England. His rigorous discipline there won
him a host of enemies. \Vhen he was made Archbishop of
Canterbury, his field of discipline was widened, and he
covered it -with amazing efficiency. Even so, an increasing
number of personal enemies might not have been ruinous to
him, if it had not been for the disastrous break in the politi-
cal fortunes of the King. When Charles needed money,
he extracted it through his own methods of taxation, with-
out bothering to consult Parliament. When Parliament
objected, he sent the members home, and ruled without any
Parliament for some eleven years. It was a grand gesture,
but it was bound to be fatal. Trouble with Scotland brought
a Scotch army across the border, and Charles found himself
with no resources to meet them. He was obliged to call
Parliament together again; and, this time, they refused to
be dissolved. The King and the Archbishop were jumbled
up in the parliamentary mind as equally undesirable citizens,

234 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

and both were scheduled for destruction. Such a complicated
situation made it possible for the Puritans, as a political party,
to succeed in doing what they had failed to do as a group
within the Church.

Let it be repeated that in those days religious toleration
was neither understood nor expected. If the Puritans had
been harshly treated before, it was now their turn to be
intolerant, and they were not slow to take advantage of it.
Laud was impeached, thrown into prison for treason, and
later executed without trial. Various Church legislation was
revoked, and the bishops were left with little or no authority.
When some of them protested, they also went to prison. A
committee was turned loose in London to destroy painted
glass and carved wood in the churches because such things
offended Puritan sensibilities. Military assistance was. pur-
chased from the Scots by the acceptance, on the part of Par-
liament, of the Solemn League and Covenant, and a pledge
to remodel the Church on presbyterian lines. The remodel-
ing was placed in the hands of a group of English and Scotch
Puritans known in history as the Westminster Assembly,
who drew up a confession of faith called the "Westminster
Confession," prepared a new service book named the "Direc-
tory," and laid out a presbyterian system of Church govern-
ment. Parliament adopted the system, and bishops were
declared illegal. The Directory was made the only author-
ized service-book, and it became a crime to use the Book of
Common Prayer. Clergy who refused to subscribe to all
this were driven out of their parishes.

Meanwhile, the collision between the King and his Par-
liament had developed into civil war. At first Charles was
successful ; but when the Scotch struck their politico-religious
bargain, the odds went against him. He was captured by
the Scotch, sold to Parliament for forty-thousand pounds,
tried and executed (1649).

In the course of the fighting, a new element had appeared,
in a body of redoubtable troops called "Ironsides" led by

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 235

Oliver Cromwell. These people were Independents, as dis-
tinct from the Puritans that is they were Calvinistic in
faith but chiefly negative in Church polity. By a strange
irony of fortune the Puritan Parliament 'was no sooner nicely
in control than Cromwell and his Independents went into
a second session of civil war to dislodge them. Puritanism
proper was obliged to give way to the Commonwealth, of
which Cromwell was presently made Protector. And now
it was the turn of the Independents to be intolerant. The-
oretically they proposed to stand for liberty of conscience for
everybody except papists, prelatists, and antinomians which
means Roman Catholics, the Church of England, and atheists,
if any.

What happened was that the presbyterian system was set
aside and, as episcopacy had already been shelved, there re-
mained only ecclesiastical anarchy. Cromwell was more con-
cerned with morals than with religion, and his idea of morals
was chiefly a matter of statutory suppression. Laws were
passed against dancing, play-acting, and similar amusements;
and penalties were provided for blasphemy and swearing.
Christmas was especially obnoxious to the Puritan conscience
(probably because of its cheerful associations) and, during the
Commonwealth, Christmas was officially abolished. On the
morning of December 25th heralds would go about the
streets ringing bells and proclaiming "No Christmas! No
Christmas!" Once, in London, a congregation had quietly
assembled for their Christmas Communion when they were
seized by soldiers and carted off to jaiL Even the private
use of the Prayer Book came to be an offense punishable by
imprisonment. The Puritan hostility of many years' accu-
mulation was poured out against the clergy who declined to
fall in with the new regime, to such an extent that many of
them were impoverished and many others very seriously man-
handled. It was a reversal of discipline with a vengeance*

Ten years of such business was as much as the country
cared for. When Cromwell died in 1660, Charles II was

236 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

called to the throne with the greatest of enthusiasm, and the
Restoration was written into English history. The bishops
who had managed to survive the Commonwealth, returned
to their respective sees as of natural right, and the Church
of England proceeded to function again without more ado.

Some changes were obviously necessary in the Prayer
Book as it was restored to use. For instance, there had
never before been any need of a service for the Baptism of
adults; but, during the Commonwealth, many children had
grown up without ever having been baptized, and such a
service was now required. Once again a joint conference
was called by the King, consisting of twelve bishops and
twelve Puritan ministers who, in 1661, met at the Savoy
in another attempt to clear up their points of difference. But
it was the same old story over again. Baxter brought in a
book of his own composition, insisting that it should take
the place of the Prayer Book. If anything, the gulf was
wider than before. The Puritans did not hesitate to say that
they considered it a sin to wear a surplice, to kneel for the
Holy Communion, or to teach baptismal regeneration. When
the same things were called sins by one group and virtues
by the other, there was little chance for any reconciliation.
The conference was a failure, and the bishops went about
their own revision of the Prayer Book, which was author-
ized the following year. In the main, the book was the
same as the earlier one except that the services had been
enriched in many particulars, bringing public worship closer
to the ancient traditions of the Church. As for the Puritans,
they realized that their position was hopeless, and they pres-
ently withdrew into separate non-conformist bodies of their
own.

Evidently, religious toleration was in the air, but it did
not come without some further spasms of intolerance. Re-
ligious insurrection was too closely associated in the popular
mind with political rebellion to give much comfort to any
government in the face of Church separation. So the Five

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 237

Mile Act was passed, requiring all Non-conformist ministers
to pledge themselves against any effort to alter either Church
or government ; in case of refusal, they were liable to arrest
if they came within five miles of any town. The Test Act
required that all officials, whether civil, naval, or military,
should prove their loyalty by receiving the Holy Communion
according to the Liturgy of the Church of England. This
last was, to the modern way of thinking, a scandalous misuse
of the Sacrament; but, for a long time, it was considered
necessary as a safeguard to the kingdom. The time came
when it was a defense of nothing, and a serious peril to the
sincerity of spiritual life. It was a happy day when such
legislation was finally repealed.

Nevertheless, England soon learned that the time had
not yet passed when such fears could be considered entirely
fictitious. The three years' reign of James II (1685-1688)
saw a determined effort to restore England to the papacy.

James had lived largely in France and Spain during the
Commonwealth, and came to the throne an avowed Roman
Catholic. Moreover, he was in close contact with Louis
XIV of France whose Roman Catholic sympathies were
; ' ^nd only to his inordinate political ambitions. James
oox-ty set out to turn England topsy-turvy. Roman Catholic
officers were commissioned in his army, Roman Catholic
judges appointed to the bench, and Roman Catholic teachers
placed in the Universities. The Jesuits and other monastic
Orders were welcomed and provided with hospitality. Con-
trary to the will of Parliament, James proclaimed, purely on
royal authority, that all penal acts against Non-conformists
were rescinded. It was a bid for the support of the latter
against" the Church, its purpose being clearly shown when the
King added an order that all the clergy were to read his
proclamation from their respective pulpits. It was then that
seven bishops, led by Archbishop Bancroft, presented a peti-
tion to the King protesting against his unwarranted assump-
tion of parliamentary power. Scarcely a priest in England

238 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

gave reading to the proclamation. The bishops were com-
mitted to the Tower for daring to question the King, and
were presently brought to trial. Of course they were ac-
quitted, and London celebrated a carnival of joy in their
honor when the news was received. James never recovered
from that blunder, in spite of the unscrupulous support of the
infamous Judge Jeffreys, who, through his "bloody assizes,"
was responsible for more misery, torture, and death than any
judge who ever disgraced an English court. The Revolution
quickly followed. William of Orange landed in England,
while James departed from it in a hurry. In 1688, the crown
went jointly to William and Mary.

The following year, religious toleration may be said to
have made its first step forward in the passage of the Tolera-
tion Act, by which all Protestant Trinitarian Non-conform-
ists were permitted full freedom to worship when and how
they would. Roman Catholics, Unitarians, and Jews were
still "without the law," and the old civil disabilities still pre-
vailed. It was not for another century that these began to
be removed. In 1828 the Test Act was repealed, followed
the next year by the Catholic Emancipation Act; and in 1858
the last disabilities were removed from the shoulders of the
Jews. Since that time, the English-speaking world has be-
come so soundly committed to religious toleration that it is
exceedingly difficult to read back into the history of a few
centuries ago without a feeling of violent indignation toward
one party or the other. Let Puritans, Roman Catholics, or
Churchmen read only their sides of the story, and they are
filled at once with righteous wrath over the ill-treatment
meted out to their forefathers. But the truth is, it was about
an even break. They all suffered ill-treatment and they all
gave it. One needs to be careful how one hurls charges of
bigotry and persecution. Such charges are sure ta become
boomerangs when thrown into history back of the nineteenth
century. Religious toleration had not yet arrived.

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 239

Two other movements need to be mentioned, which
profoundly affected the life of the English Church.

The eighteenth century saw a strange lapse of religious
enthusiasm. It is called the period of Latitudinarianism,
when a spiritual lethargy struck the Church like a disease.
It was the custom of the day to bring everything to the test
of reason. People argued about their religion instead of
living it. They forgot that a religion which can be thoroughly
explained is a religion which is helpless to inspire.

In this cold and cheerless atmosphere, the Spirit of God
moved a group of Oxford men to unite themselves into a
society for the revival of spiritual enthusiasm. The leader
of the group was John Wesley. They were characterized
by their strict churchmanship. The fasts and festivals of
the Church were observed with the greatest particularity;
they made their Communions every week; they studied the
Bible, visited the sick, and preached a straight and simple
Gospel to the hearts of men and women. So strict were they
in following out their method that they were jokingly dubbed
"Methodists." In spite of misunderstanding and ridicule,
their ideas took hold with a spontaneity which showed the
evident need of some such spiritual resuscitation. It devel-
oped into an evangelical movement, with preaching as its
particular angle of approach. As a spiritual exhorter, George
Whitefield, one of Wesley's chief supporters, was little short
of a phenomenon. Wesley himself lived and died as a priest
in the Church of England and, up to the time of his death,
his work was definitely a movement within the life of the
Church. The time came when Wesley's followers broke ofi
into a separate sect, but they left behind them a Church
violently awakened to its spiritual responsibilities. Under
the impulse of the revival, Joseph Raikes originated the mod-
ern Sunday School (1781) ; the Religious Tract Society was
founded (1799) ; and the British and Foreign Bible Society
came into being (1804). It needed only the touch of a cor-
porate consciousness to round out its renovating possibilities.

240 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

In 1833, that touch was added by the Oxford Movement
under the stimulating leadership of Keble, Newman, Pusey
and their fellow Tractarians. Through a notable series of
tracts, through preaching and persistent agitation, they stead-
ily recalled the Church to her ancient sacramental heritage.
They took their stand on the principles of primitive Chris-
tianity, as exemplified by the early Church Fathers and by
the practice of undivided Christendom during the first few
Christian centuries. They, too, were misunderstood and
sharply criticized for their emphasis upon Catholic doctrine
and ceremonial. Their critics failed to catch the distinction
between that which was Catholic and that which was merely
Roman. Nevertheless, they were rapidly winning their way
when Newman published his famous Tract 90, designed to
show that the official teachings of the Church of England
might bear an interpretation in harmony with what was pop-
ularly associated with Rome. This at once made him the
storm centre of recrimination. It was too much for his im-
pressionable nature and, under the stress of controversy, he
allowed himself to be driven into the Church of Rome "where
he was later honored with a cardinal's hat. The movement
was set back by Newman's defection, but not halted ; indeed,
it soon acquired increased momentum, with the net result
that the Church has been greatly strengthened in its self-
respect, and infused with a growing confidence in its mission
for Christ and His Kingdom.

An interesting commentary on all this came toward the
close of the last century. Certain leaders of the French clergy
unofficially supported by a group of English Churchmen, all
animated by a desire for Christian reunion, made an approach
to Pope Leo XIII on the question of Anglican Orders. Up to
that time much popular stuff had been circulated about Henry
VIII starting the Church of England, about the resultant
break in Apostolic Succession, and the consequent loss to the
Church of England of its Catholic character. But the matter
had never been honestly studied out to the point of a papal

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 241

pronouncement. Leo's bull "Apostoiicae Curae," issued in
1896, was written in response to the representations of the
groups referred to, and after Roman Catholic scholars had
probed the historical records. Though condemning Anglican
Orders, it shows quite a different point of view. The bull
tacitly concedes the fact that the line of Apostolic Succession
in the Church of England shows no evidence of a break
during the troubled days of the English Reformation. Henry
VIII is thus let out of the discussion, and the pivotal issue
is found in the revised Ordinal of the Second Prayer Book
as prepared in 1550, three years after the death of Henry.
To quote the Catholic Encyclopedia "The Anglican clergy
are thus the creation of this Ordinal, and, primarily, the
validity of their Orders is dependent on its sufficiency."
Having conceded the historical fact, Leo then argues the
invalidity of the Orders so perpetuated because of insufficiency
of "form" and of "intention" in the service of ordination
itself. The insufficiency of "form" consists in the fact that
the words of episcopal consecration in the Ordinal, "Take
the Holy Ghost," did not specify what Order was being con-
ferred. The insufficiency of "intention" means that the
bishops who made use of the Ordinal did not really believe
in the need of apostolic Orders, and therefore had not the
"intention" of conferring them.

It was not long before the two English Archbishops of
the day published their reply which was little short of
annihilating. In a word, they showed that if the Ordinal
of 1550 proved to be insufficient in "form," then it proved-
too much for the purpose of papal argument, because that
particular "form" had been taken from the Latin Pontifical,
and if it vitiated Anglican ^Orders, it necessarily did the
same for Roman OrdersT

And, fuftKerT^rliey showed that the Roman doctrine of
"intention," as defined by the Council of Trent, states
that a sacrament is validly administered if the adminis-
trator has the "general intention of doing what the Church

242 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

does"; that the preface to the Ordinal in question clearly
says that in the following forms of ordination the Church
of England definitely intends to "continue" the Orders
which "have been in Christ's Church from the Apostles'
time"; and that to infer that the administrators who used
the Ordinal didn't mean what they said, is a pure case
of mind-reading which could invalidate anything that was
ever done anywhere by anybody. Fortunately this bull
is not considered to be of infallible caliber and may some day
be open to revision.

Meantime, the Church of England stands today as a
living branch of the primitive Catholic and Apostolic Church,
just as it was a thousand years ago; having successfully
weathered the perilous storms of Reformation house-cleaning
and in full possession of the original Divine Commission
which it was prepared to pass on to the colonial Church in
what was, later, to be the United States of America.

CHAPTER XII
THE COLONIAL CHURCH

WITH apologies for the personal element it was on
Washington's birthday, 1919, that a regiment of Amer-
ican soldiers from the Italian front was quartered in the city
of Genoa, awaiting ships to carry them home. Of course
it was impossible to pass the birthday of the "Father of their
Country" in the birthplace of its discoverer without some
suitable observance of the coincidence. In the course of
events, a company of the regiment was marched into the
narrow little street where the home of Christopher Colum-
bus still stands. After appropriate ceremonies, it fell to my
lot, as regimental chaplain, to make a speech leaning from
a window of Columbus's bed-room and then invite the
soldiers to come in on a tour of inspection. There was room
for only three or four of them at a time in the tiny second-
story bed-room. One of the group surveyed the bare walls
with casual coolness and then

"Chaplain," asked he, "was this really where Columbus
lived?"

"Yes," I explained, "downstairs was the wool shop of his
father, Domenico Colombo, and right here where you are
standing was where Cristoforo Colombo himself used to
sleep."

"Hm-m," murmured the soldier to his companions, as he
moved toward the door, "no wonder he left home."

Some people -would say that it represents the appreciation
of the average American for the monuments of more or less
ancient history. Certainly Columbus has been having a hard
time of it lately to hold his own as the discoverer of the
American continent. Frequently, fresh indications are turning

[243]

244 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

up to show that adventuresome Norse sailors had touched
on the coast of the western hemisphere several hundred
years before Columbus set out from Spain. Nevertheless,
it is true that Columbus did open the way for that stream
of hardy mariners who dissipated the terrors of trans-
atlantic travel, thus making possible the first settlements
of white men on the shores of what was later to be known as
America.

Columbus, himself, never reached the North American
continent. It was John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto), a Vene-
tian sailing in the service of Henry VII of England, who
added this important step in exploration when, in 1497, he
came to the coast of Labrador. A year or so later, an
uncertain extent of coast-line was traversed by Amerigo
Vespucci from whom the whole country finally took its
general name of "America."

Upon the return of Columbus from his initial voyage,
Ferdinand and Isabella thought it highly desirable to estab-
lish their rights in the newly discovered regions. The Pope
at that time, under the provisions of the since discredited
Donation of Constantine, claimed the authority to dispose of
all unattached lands inhabited by heathen people. By that
authority, the discoveries along the African coast had pre-
viously been secured to Portugal, and the Portuguese now
showed immediate signs of interest in these new lands toward
the West. The question was, therefore, laid before Alex-
ander VI who executed an extraordinary decision by draw-
ing an imaginary line from North to South through the
Atlantic Ocean, designating everything west of the line as a
Spanish preserve and everything east as Portuguese. The
unexpected outcome was that all of South America went
Spanish, with the exception of Brazil which fell to Portugal,
thus accounting for the fact that Portuguese is the tongue
of Brazil today, while Spanish is spoken in the other South
American countries.

The Pope's decision, however, did not prevent French and

THE COLONIAL CHURCH 245

British navigators from exploring the coast and part of the
interior of the northern continent; partly, perhaps, because
it -was a long time before anyone realized that these frag-
mentary discoveries represented one huge land-barrier be-
tween the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans; and also because,
by the time it was known, the Reformation turmoil had
greatly reduced the efficacy of papal pronouncements about
anything.

Jacques Carrier, in 1534, was the first Frenchman to
enter what we now call Canada. The next year, an abortive
attempt was made to establish a French colony there in order
that France might share in some of the enormous gold ship-
ments which the Spaniards were conveying through southern
waters. But the French effort was a failure, leaving nothing
behind it except the name of the St. Lawrence River, so
designated because the voyagers sailed into it on August
10th which was St. Lawrence's Day. For nearly seventy
years, France took no further interest in the project, until
Champlain revived it in a series of expeditions which carried
him far inland. "New France" was the name given to the
country. Jesuit missionaries came with Champlain, initiating
a notable work among the Huron Indians which, at one
time, gave promise of complete success. But Champlain
had made war on the Iroquois who were inveterate enemies
of the Hurons, and the day came when they reaped a terrible
revenge. The Hurons were practically annihilated, and the
Jesuit missionaries suffered a similar fate accompanied by
fearful torture. Other explorers continued to come, notably
Nicolet, Marquette, Joliet, and La Salle. The last was by far
the most fearless and successful of them all. In the face of
the most demoralizing difficulties, he pushed out from
Niagara over the Great Lakes; descended Lake Michigan
to the present site of Chicago; crossed to the Illinois River
and so to the Mississippi, and followed that river to the Gulf
of Mexico. This vast territory La Salle claimed in the name

246 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

of Louis XIV of France, and named it "Louisiana" in honor
of his King.

So, through Spanish missionaries, the Roman Catholic
faith came up from South America into California on the
western coast, and into Florida on the east; while through
French missionaries, it was planted in Canada to the north
and down through the Middle West to the mouth of the
Mississippi River.

Meantime, the English had not been idle. In the reign
of Queen Elizabeth, the growing hostility between England
and Spain offered an excellent excuse for tampering with
Spanish shipping. It was good politics to keep a curb on
Spanish sea-power, and it was good business as well as politics
to encourage misfortunes to the Spanish gold-carriers, par-
ticularly when the gold was being expended in merciless
efforts to stifle the reformed faith in the Netherlands.
There were always bold spirits, eager to sail the Spanish
Main in search of trouble or wealth or both, who undertook
such adventures half in the interest of piracy and half in
the interests of warfare. Sir Francis Drake was perhaps the
most conspicuous of these privateers. On one occasion, he
rounded South America and made his -way up the Pacific
coast. A few miles away from the present site of San Fran-
cisco, he put in at a small bay, afterwards called Drake's
Bay, for a general overhauling of his ship, the Golden Hinde.
The Rev. Francis Fletcher was one of the party, acting in
the double capacity of chaplain and chronicler. He tells of
a service held for the crew, which, so far as is known, was
the first English service held in North America and the
first use of the Prayer Book in the western world. This
was in 1579. A large stone cross now stands in Golden Gate
Park, San Francisco, in commemoration of that auspicious
occasion.

Two attempts were made by Sir Humphrey Gilbert to
establish English colonies in America, both of which proved
fruitless. Sir Humphrey's ship foundered on the return

THE COLONIAL CHURCH 247

journey after the second attempt. "He was last seen sitting
abaft with a book in his hands," and his companions heard
his last cheery message "We are as near to heaven by sea
as by land."

Sir Walter Raleigh came next. He missed success only
by the untimely appearance of the Spanish Armada. In
1585, having received letters patent for a Virginia settle-
ment from Queen Elizabeth, Raleigh dispatched a squadron
of seven vessels under the command of his cousin, Sir Richard
Granville, followed by a second expedition two years later.
A landing was made on Roanoke Island where the colony
was augmented by the birth of Virginia Dare the first
child to be born of English parents in America and probably
the first white child to be baptized in North America. The
Governor of the colony returned to England for reenforce-
ments, but was detained by the coming of the Spanish Armada
which called for all the sea defense England could muster.
By the time relief was available, the original band of col-
onists had completely disappeared, in all probability wiped
out by unfriendly Indians.

Matters rested then for a few years, but the colonizing
spirit would not down. A formal charter was granted by
James I to a group of English promoters who finally
achieved success. In 1607, after four weary months of
travel, they sighted land, and the settlement of Jamestown
became a permanent reality. Provision for public worship
was one of the first concerns of the colonists. A rustic altar
was erected under the trees, and the Holy Communion was
administered at the hands of the Rev. Robert Hunt, chap-
lain of the expedition, according to the rite of the Church of
England. Later, a church building was constructed at
Jamestown. This was subsequently destroyed by fire, but
the ruined tower still stands as a monument to the intrepid
zeal of the first English settlers.

It was a hard life. Privation was common, and dangers
lurked in the neighboring forests on every hand. Special

248 THE DIVINE COMMISSION .

efforts were made to establish friendly relations with the
Indians, both for the protection of the settlement and to pro-
vide an opportunity of introducing Christianity among them.
That these missionary efforts -were not without result is
witnessed in the delightful story of Captain John Smith
and Pocahontas. Smith was the military leader of the colonists,
and frequently went into the woods on foraging expeditions*
On one such trip he was seized by the Indians, brought
before their chief, Powhatan, and condemned to death by
having his brains beaten out. Just in the nick of time, the
chief's daughter, Pocahontas, interrupted the gruesome cere-
mony at the risk of her own life. Smith was spared, Pocahontas
became a Christian, was baptized by the new chaplain of
the colony, the Rev. Alexander Whitaker, and was married
by him to John Rolfe who took her to England as his wife,
where she died. Doubts have been cast on the reliability of
the Smith incident, but the latter part of the story is well
authenticated.

A more concerted plan to evangelize the Indians was
inaugurated when the colony expanded up the James River.
A missionary school was projected and the outlook was ex-
ceedingly promising when, without warning, the Indians
fell on the colonists and all but exterminated the scattered
outposts. Warfare followed, and the evangelizing program
went into a decline.

Women were scarce at Jamestown in the early days,
and it soon became evident that, without family life, the
settlement itself could not long survive. An appeal was
sent back to England; and, in 1620, a boatload of "young
women of good repute" was shipped across the seas to
balance the masculine predominance. It was in this same
year that the first negro slaves were quartered upon the
plantations, which probably accounts for the answer of the
young hopeful in a later generation to the question as to
how and where slavery was introduced into America. "No
women had come over to the early Virginia colony," he is

THE COLONIAL CHURCH 249

said to have written. "The planters wanted wives to help
with the work. In 1620, the London Company sent over
a shipload of girls. The planters gladly married them, and
slavery was introduced into America."

From the outset, the Jamestown colony was a colony of
English Churchmen. The Church of England was the
established Church and naturally reflected, in large measure,
the spirit of the homeland at the time when the Puritan con-
troversy was rather more warm than charitable. The laws
of the settlement were a curious mixture of governmental
regulations, ecclesiastical ordinances, and moral restrictions.
The Assembly of Burgesses was organized in 1618, as the
first experiment in representative government on this western
continent one year before the democratically-minded Pil-
grims came to Plymouth Rock. Under the circumstances,
a suggestion of religious toleration would have been con-
sidered somewhat eccentric, not to say quixotic. Grants of
land were made to the Church, and remuneration was pro-
vided for the clergy by law, each to receive fifteen hundred
pounds of tobacco and sixteen barrels of corn though a
proviso was added that if this amount were not available,
"the minister was to be content with less." Church attend-
ance was compulsory. Blasphemy was made a capital offense,
though there is no record of any such penalty ever having
been exacted. Whipping was prescribed as a suitable pun-
ishment for speaking irreverently to the clergy. The presence
of Puritans was severely discouraged. As a check upon
extravagance, the rate of contributions was assessed accord-
ing to the style of clothing 'worn by both men and women.

The fortunes of the Church fluctuated, in the main,
according to the ups and downs of Church life in England.
During the period of the Commonwealth, the colonial
Church suffered a slump; with the Restoration, it revived;
in the reign of James II, it was agitated with fears of
popish plots; uncjer William and Mary, it breathed more
freely and established a college still known as William and

250 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Mary college; eighteenth-century Latitudinarianfsm induced
a drowsy lethargy in the religious life of the colony; and
the Evangelical Movement stirred it again to renewed
activity. When the Revolutionary War came on, the Church
was heavily handicapped with the stigma of its British
ancestry.

In New England, conditions were vastly different. At
first the Church was strictly taboo, and was obliged to
fight vigorously for any foot-hold at all. If religious intol-
erance made life difficult for the Puritans in Virginia, they
certainly had their innings in New England where they
quite outclassed any other bigotry of their age. It has long
been a current fiction that the Puritans emigrated to the
new world because of their devotion to the cause of religious
freedom. They did nothing of the kind. They sought new
fields for Puritanism, where they might be free to retaliate
for the severities visited upon them in England.

Their inherited slant on Christian friendliness was
sufficiently voiced by Baxter, one of their chief protagonists
in England, when he said: "My judgment I have always
made known ; I abhor unlimited toleration, or any toleration
at all." And this attitude was further substantiated by a
contemporary declaration of eighty-four Non-conformist
ministers, expressed in the following terms : "Toleration ! it is
like putting a sword into the hands of a madman, a cup of
poison into the hands of children ; . . . proclaiming liberty
to wolves to come into Christ's fold to prey upon the lambs ;
a toleration of soul-murder (the greatest of all murder), and
for the establishing whereof damned souls in hell would accuse
men on earth."

It is only fair to draw a certain line of distinction
between the Plymouth Colony of the Pilgrims and the
Massachusetts Bay Colony which was organized by Puri-
tans directly from England a few years later. The former
was made up of Separatists, while the latter was com-
posed of Non-conformists. The Separatists were the more

THE COLONIAL CHURCH 251

gentle of the two in their dealings with those of other forms
of faith. It is true that a priest of the Church of England
was very early banished from the Plymouth Colony because
they wanted none such among them, but the pace of intoler-
ance was immediately accelerated with the formation of the
newer colony. Both groups were Puritan in their origin,
and were eventually merged into a common Congregational
system. The union of Church and State was taken for
granted; only, in this instance, it was the Congregational
Church. Members of that Church alone were privileged
to vote in the town meetings, and everyone was taxed for
its support. The community organization was in the form
of a theocracy, with the Bible not only as the rule of faith
but also as the legal source-book. Civil legislation was
drawn from the Old Testament Jewish law. In Connecti-
cut, the system reached its ultimate refinement in the famous
"Blue Laws" which, in spite of all exaggerations, quite
overshadowed the severity of the Virginia regulations. Roger
Williams had the temerity to express a public opinion to
the effect that religion and politics should be kept sedulously
separate, with the result that he was promptly banished and
fled to Rhode Island where a more generous regime was
inaugurated. Quakers were peculiarly odious to the Puri-
tans, though it ought to be said that the earliest Quakers
were not exactly the same harmless peacelovers as those of
later generations. They were rigorously excluded, fines
being laid against anyone guilty of harboring them. The
discovery of a Quaker meant his banishment, with the loss
of one ear; the presence of a one-eared Quaker brought
a second banishment, without any ears; if he dared to
return a third time, his tongue was bored through with
a hot iron. Many of them were imprisoned; some were
hanged.

In spite of the inhospitable atmosphere, a scattering of
Churchmen found their way into the New England colonies.
Thomas Morton came, and was driven out because he

252 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

used a Prayer Book and was said to be of a "gay humour."
The Rev. William Blaxton, upon his arrival from England,
was called upon to become a member of a Puritan church,
but quaintly replied "I have come from England because
I did not like the Lord Bishops; but I would not join with
you because I would not be under the Lord brethren." The
Rev. Robert Jordan was clapped into prison for baptizing
children and using the marriage service. The Brown brothers
were sent back to England for using the Prayer Book in
their own home. Increase Mather wrote a pamphlet on "The
Unlawfulness of Common Prayer Worship," pronouncing
it a sin of apostasy even to countenance such a thing in his
enlightened age.

The arrogance of the Puritan theocracy brought them
into frequent conflict with the English government, par-
ticularly after the Restoration. In 1684, the charter of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony was withdrawn in favor of a
new charter which gave the Church a right to live in its
Puritan surroundings. In 1689, King's Chapel was built
in Boston; and, some thirty-five years later, Christ Church
was erected, still standing as the oldest place of worship
in that city, and notable in American history as the church
in which the lanterns were hung for a signal to Paul Revere
at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.

In Connecticut, a great impetus was given to the Church
by a notable change of heart on the part of seven Con-
gregational ministers, including the entire faculty of Yale
College. These men were accustomed to meet at the col-
lege for study and discussion. Inevitably, the subject of
the Church occupied a large share of their attention. Their
investigations brought them to the unanimous conclusion
that the Divine Commission was an inherent element in
the proper life of the Church; that the Apostolic Succession
was a fact; and that they were not warranted in pursuing
their ministry without episcopal ordination. This occurred
in 1722, and was a terrific blow to the Puritans. Three of

THE COLONIAL CHURCH 253

these men made the long trip to England where they were
ordained in London by the Bishop of Norwich. One died on
the return voyage, but the others gave the remainder of their
lives to the priesthood of the church.

Of the two survivors so ordained, Samuel Johnson was
the one who really put the Church on its feet in Connecti-
cut. For more than thirty years, he labored indefatigably,
organizing congregations and instructing the people. Four-
teen men, under his influence, crossed to England for similar
ordination. He relinquished his work in New England
reluctantly in order to establish a college under Church
auspices in New York City where Churchmen might have
an opportunity to follow their own conscientious persuasions.
At Yale College, in New Haven, they had scarcely half a
chance; for the students were fined for attending Episcopal
worship unless they were communicants, and then it was
permitted only on "Sacrament Sundays," the deleterious effect
of such exception being counter-balanced by the frequent
recitation of the Westminster Confession of Faith as a part
of the prescribed college course. The new institution was
called King's College, later evolving into the present
Columbia University.

In New Yo*k, the Church met with a happier experi-
ence. The original settlers, in 1623, were Dutch Protestants
who named, the district New Netherland. They purchased
Manhattan Island from the Indians for about twenty-four
dollars worth of beads and ribbons, and there located their
city of New Amsterdam. Differences between England and
the Netherlands resulted, in 1663, in the taking over of
the colony by the Duke of York, and the re-naming of both
city and province under the title of New York. During
the Dutch occupation, there had been no established religion ;
but, for the benefit of the English residents, provision had
been made for Prayer Book worship in the Dutch church
on Sundays after the Reformed service was concluded. This
unusual liberality was not lost after the English came into

254 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

control, for the Assembly soon adopted a charter -which
guaranteed freedom of conscience and religion to everyone
professing faith in God by Jesus Christ.

After a time, the English undertook to form a parish of
their own. By vote of the free-holders, a tentative organ-
ization was effected; and, in 1696, an Independent minister
named William Vesey was called to be the first incumbent.
He went to England for ordination and found, upon his
return, that the formal organization had been completed
and the parish incorporated under the name of Trinity
Church. Vesey's duty was to be "Minister of the city of
New York," an office calculated to provoke consternation
in the twentieth century, but rather more reasonable in the
city of sixteen thousand souls as it existed then. The church
building was not yet complete when Vesey took charge and,
in view of the present financial resources of this notable
parish, it is interesting to see the means used to collect
the modest sum required for that purpose. Subscriptions
were received, no one of which exceeded a high-water mark
of five pounds. Additional gifts were asked for the building
of the steeple. A balance of three hundred pounds, left over
from a fund raised for the redemption of Christian slaves,
was turned into the parish treasury. The Governor granted
to the Churchwardens a commission for all "Weifts, Wrecks,
and Drift Whales." And after these resources were ex-
hausted, four hundred pounds were borrowed. But easier
times came when, in 1705, Queen Anne presented to the
corporation the Queen's Farm, then a piece of comparatively
open country, but now in the heart of the world's greatest
financial centre.

Free from the complications of the Establishment as
they existed in Virginia, and untrammeled by inherited
prejudices such as prevailed in New England, the Church
in New York held, from the beginning, a strong point of
vantage. It grew rapidly both in numbers and influence,
with no serious setbacks, up to the time of the Revolution.

THE COLONIAL CHURCH 255

Then it suffered somewhat from the prevalent anti-British
sentiment, but redeemed itself without great difficulty when
the post-war feeling began to subside.

A special word should be said o the Church in Mary-
land, where a unique origin produced a situation different
from that in any of the other English colonies. Cecilius
Calvert, Lord Baltimore, to whom the charter for this
colony was issued in 1632, was a Roman Catholic desirous
of setting apart a place in the New World where colonists
of his own faith might be unmolested in the practice of their
religion. Though he never visited Maryland himself, his
brother was in charge of the original settlement consisting
of two or three hundred laborers, about twenty gentlemen,
and two Jesuit priests. Worship according to the usage of
the Church of England was permitted from the outset; and
a place was made also for Puritans. Lord Baltimore exacted
an oath from his governors, commencing with the following
magnanimous statement : "I will not by myself or any other,
directly or indirectly, trouble, molest, or discountenance any
person professing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or in respect
of religion." The oath itself was supplemented a few years
later by an Act of Religious Freedom passed by the Assembly
guaranteeing liberty of conscience to all Christian people.
Many eulogies have been pronounced over this action of a
Roman Catholic colony, as the initial step toward religious
toleration in America. Certainly no one wishes to detract
from the obvious merit of such a piece of legislation, but
its significance should not be too greatly exaggerated. If
some assurance of this kind had not been given when the
colony was first chartered by a Churchman like Charles I,
there is small probability that it could have continued to live.
Such a probability would have been still more remote at
the time when the formal act was passed, since it was
in the same year that Cromwell established the Common-
wealth in England. The first absolutely voluntary move

256 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

toward religious freedom might better be credited to Roger
Williams in Rhode Island.

Unfortunately Maryland was not to be permitted to
work out its policy of toleration without hindrance. Puritan
England of the Commonwealth period was not so minded.
Under Cromwell, a change of administration in Maryland
was demanded, by which the duly appointed Governor gave
way to a Council of Six, quite Puritan in sentiment. A
new "Act Concerning Religion" was promulgated, which
offered general protection in the exercise of religion, "pro-
vided such liberty was not extended to popery or prelacy."
It clamped down the lid on Roman Catholics and the Church
of England alike. With the Restoration, under Charles II,
the Act was rescinded, and all might have been well again
if James II had not committed his unhappy blunder of coax-
ing England back into the path of papal sovereignty. The
reaction brought on the English revolution, with Lord Balti-
more in active opposition to the accession of William and
Mary. The old charter was summarily revoked, and Mary-
land passed under the rule of officers appointed by the crown.
It was a complicated business in which none of the conflicting
parties could be altogether absolved of some share of
responsibility.

While the earlier act of toleration was still effective,
the Church of England had entered the field, and a con-
siderable number of Churchmen were to be found in the
colony. They suffered, together with Roman Catholics, under
Commonwealth legislation; but in the reign of William
and Mary things began to come their -way. The theory was
then advanced that safety lay only in the establishment of
the Church of England in Maryland after the neighboring
pattern of Church life in Virginia. The descendants of
Cecilius Calvert had abandoned the Roman Catholic faith,
and the then L/ord Baltimore was not unsympathetic toward
such an innovation. It was rough on the Roman Catholics
and totally unacceptable to the Puritan element, creating a

THE COLONIAL CHURCH 257

state of discord for three-quarters of a century up to the
time of the Revolutionary War. The number of Churchmen
increased; clergy were sent over from England; churches
were erected at many points, and the people were taxed for
the support of them. But Maryland had tasted of religious
freedom and refused to be contented with anything less.
They were troublous years, only to be relieved when the
Constitution of the United States definitely settled it that
Church and State must feed each at its respective crib with
no official support given or received in either direction. The
Divine Commission was no longer to be subsidized; it was
thereafter privileged to make its way on its own historic
merits.

This sketch will also suffice to illustrate the planting
of the Church in the other colonies not specially mentioned,
where conditions were not materially different. The whole
colonial work was, theoretically, under the jurisdiction of
the Bishop of London; but what actual supervision or sys-
tematic support was given, came through that "Venerable
Society" the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel,
better known as the S. P. G.

The friction engendered by the establishment of the
Church in Maryland in the reign of William and Mary
had caused the dispatch of the Rev. Thomas Bray as a special
Commissary to look into the situation and report back
to England. Before embarking, Bray busied himself for
several years collecting libraries for the clergy in the colonies.
In 1699 he organized the Society for the Promotion of
Christian Knowledge, through which he was responsible for
supplying some thirty-nine colonial libraries with more than
a thousand volumes. Upon his return from Maryland, he set
himself industriously to work in behalf of the colonial Church.
The S. P. G., organized in 1701, was the special fruit of
his labors. Undoubtedly the Church in the colonies received
greater benefit from this Society than from all other sources
combined.

258 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

In order to proceed intelligently, the Society first pro-
vided for a general survey of the field, which was conducted
under the zealous direction of the Rev. George Keith,
assisted by the equally zealous John Talbot. Keith had
been brought up as a Presbyterian, but had affiliated with the
Quakers in Pennsylvania among whom he had been an out-
standing preacher. Differences of opinion regarding certain
tenets of the Quakers had led him into a separate movement
which also failed to satisfy him. Eventually, he found his
way into the priesthood of the Church. He and Talbot
traveled the colonies tirelessly, making such representations
to the home office of the Society that it never ceased in its
pressure for the strengthening of the colonial Church. Espe-
cially in those parts where the Church was not known, the
Society was never at rest. It raised large sums of money in
England to be expended overseas, and kept the home Church
flooded with stimulating information about the needs and
opportunities in America. The S. P. G. stands out in bold
missionary contours against the flaccid Latitudinarianism of
eighteenth century England. After forty years of organized
activity, Bishop Seeker was able to say that "near a hun-
dred churches have been built; above ten thousand Bibles
and Prayer Books, and above a hundred thousand other pious
tracts distributed ,* great multitudes, on the whole, of Negroes
and Indians brought over to the Christian faith; many
numerous congregations have been set up which now sup-
port the worship of God at their own expense, where it was.
not known before; and seventy persons are constantly em-
ployed, at the expense of the Society, in the farther service
of the Gospel/' To -which summary it should be added that,
during the next forty years, the Society maintained 310
ordained missionaries, assisted 202 central stations, and ex-
pended nearly a million and a quarter of dollars. One hesi-
tates to contemplate the predicament of the Church if it had
not been for the unfailing assistance of the Venerable Society.

A hundred years later, the General Convention of the

THE COLONIAL CHURCH 259

Episcopal Church, meeting in 1883, spoke no less than the
simple truth in its message of congratulations to the S. P. G.
when it said : "At the close of the first century of our existence
as a national Church, we acknowledge with deep and un-
feigned gratitude that whatever this Church has been in the
past, is now, or will be in the future, is largely due, under
God, to the long-continued nursing care and protection of
the Venerable Society." In the face of all this, it is little
short of amazing that any Churchman can shrink from his
inherited obligation to pass on the Divine Commission through
the missionary agencies of the Church which owes its very
life to a similar agency of the Mother Church two short
centuries back.

One of the particular concerns of the S. P. G. was to
provide bishops for the colonial Church. With the Bishop
of London three thousand miles away, it was clearly im-
possible for any adequate episcopal supervision to be exer-
cised. The clergy were without direction, candidates for
Holy Orders could not be ordained, growing children could
not receive confirmation. One report stated that "not less
than one out of five who have gone home for Holy Orders
from the Northern Colonies have perished in the attempt."
Neither was it for lack of desire that the defect continued
unremedied. At the close of Queen Anne's reign, plans were
actually formulated for consecrating four bishops for the
colonies, but the Queen died and the whole complexion of
things was changed under the Hanoverian Georges. At
another time, Bray was all but successful in securing a
suffragan bishop for Maryland. Requests came in a steady
stream from the Church in the colonies, but they were always
blocked by the violent opposition of other colonial elements.

The Massachusetts House of Representatives wrote to
its London agent saying: "We hope in God such an estab-
lishment (of bishops) may never take place in America;
we desire you would strenuously oppose it." The non-
Episcopal churches of the central colonies formed a union,

260 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

meeting annually, which bitterly condemned the possible
presence of a bishop on the grounds that- "a covetous, tyran-
nical, and domineering prelate, or his chancellor, would
always have it in their power to harass our country, and
make our lives bitter by fines, imprisonments, and lawless
severity." And this statement was made in spite of the fact
that Bishop Butler had already published an explanation
to the effect that, "first, no coercive power over the laity
was desired, but only power to regulate the behaviour of
the clergy who were in Episcopal orders; second, that no
share in the temporal government was desired for bishops;
third, that the maintenance of the bishops was not to be at
the charge of the colonies; fourth, that no bishops were to
be settled where the government was in the hands of dis-
senters, as in New England, but that they should only have
authority to ordain and discipline the clergy of such Church
of England congregations as might be among them, and
to confirm the lay members thereof.'*

The objectors were fighting a straw man. It is true
that, back in England, the Puritans and Roman Catholics
had both languished under religious persecution and civil
disabilities. It is also true that, so far as the Church was
concerned, the bishops were necessarily the responsible officials
who were charged with the duty of enforcing these obnoxious
regulations. Therefore bishops seemed to personify every-
thing undesirable to those who elected the doubtful privileges
of Nonconformity. What they failed to recognize was the
fact that the presence of bishops was not the cause of their
troubles. The true cause lay in the pervasive atmosphere of
religious intolerance which would have been equally irritating
with or without the bishops. This was clearly demonstrated
when the lines were reversed in the time of the Common-
wealth, and bishopless Puritans took their turn at intolerant
treatment of those who thought otherwise. In the more
liberal circumstances of a new country -where freedom of
conscience was slowly but surely winning its way, a few

THE COLONIAL CHURCH 261

bishops would have been powerless to stem the rising tide of
spiritual generosity, even if they had so desired. Certainly
their fears served as shallow ground in which to bury the
Divine Commission. But long accumulated prejudices can
never view a changing situation with reasonable justice.
Not until the old connection with the mother country had
been completely severed could America be made safe for
the episcopate and then, only in the face of bitter criticism.

CHAPTER XIII
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

'TpHE story of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as such,
JL may be draped around five dates 1789, 1811, 1835,
1865, and 1919. Each of these dates marks a distinct turning-
point in the upward march of the Church.

For one who is subject to that commendable impatience
which wants to see things done, it is highly encouraging to
compare the present state of affairs with that of a century
and a half ago, when the baby Church was launched on its
independent Career.

At the close of the Revolutionary War, the colonial
Church was face to face with a critical situation. Its great
hope, in the nature of the case, lay in the development of
that form of corporate life which is inherent in any branch
of historic Christianity. But inter-colonial jealousies were
so intense that, for several years, the secular government itself
was unable to act with any federal authority. The com-
promise attempted under the Articles of Confederation, all
but brought the new-born Republic to a point of anarchy.
The letters of Washington, during this period, are distress-
ingly illuminating. "There are combustibles in every State
which a spark might set fire to. I feel . . . infinitely more
than I can express to you, for the disorders which have
arisen in these States. Good God! Who, besides a Tory,
could have foreseen, or a Briton predicted them. I predict
the worst consequences from a half-starved, limping govern-
ment, always moving upon crutches and tottering at every
step."

This discordant condition was naturally reflected in the
Church. It was obliged to revamp itself after the close of

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 263

the war, with little more than fractional opportunities for
local resuscitation. In New England, it had been unwelcome
from the beginning by reason of Puritan prejudices. In the
central States, it had suffered grievously because New York,
New Jersey, and Pennsylvania had been the chief fields of
military operations. And in the South where it had been
the established Church, its property depended on the enact-
ments of the British government which had now been repudi-
ated, and it was therefore confronted with a condition of
incipient bankruptcy. Moreover, there was an aftermath
of war spirit of which the Church was a special victim. In
spite of the fact that most of the leading patriots were identi-
fied with the colonial Church, it bore the stigma of British
parentage, and was, therefore, an object of suspicion.* And
in addition to these other obstacles, it was still without a
single bishop which, in itself, was a serious draw-back for a
Church built solidly around the historic episcopate.

With a view to meeting this complication of difficulties,
the Rev. William White, rector of Christ Church, Phila-
delphia, published, in 1782, a pamphlet called The Case of
the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered-
At the time the pamphlet was issued, hostilities had ceased ;
but the peace settlement had not yet been effected. Dr.
White's proposals were in the nature of emergency measures
to tide the Church over the period of transition until a
permanent policy could be established. Some of his sug-
gestions were excellent, and found their way into the final
constitution of the Church; but the one which called for

* Two-thirds of the signers of the Declaration of Independence
were Churchmen; two-thirds of the signers of the Constitution
were Churchmen. Washington, Marshall, Jefferson, Hamilton,
Franklin, Madison, Lee, Livingston, "Mad Anthony" Wayne, Robert
Morris all were Churchmen. The signal lanterns for Paul Revere
were hung in Christ Episcopal Church in Boston. The Rev. Thomas
Duch6, a priest of the Church in Philadelphia, was the first clergy-
man to offer prayer in Congress, and the Rev. William White was its
first regular chaplain.

264 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

the most radical departure from Church tradition was, for-
tunately, rendered unnecessary in the light of later events.
Dr. White was apprehensive that many years might elapse
before a bishop could be consecrated for the new field ; and,
during those years, ministrations had to be somehow provided
for congregations which were already short of clergy. There-
fore he proposed to meet the emergency by authorizing, at
least temporarily, the ordination of priests by priests. Whether
Churchmen would have accepted such a presbyterian make-
shift, and what might have been the results if they had, are
matters for academic debate. The fact is that the idea got no
further than the paper upon which it was written. For the
Church in Connecticut was quietly working out the problem
in its own way.

Just before peace was formally proclaimed in March,
1783, the Connecticut clergy held a meeting at the home of
one of their number, where they chose the Rev. Samuel Sea-
bury to be their bishop, with instructions to proceed to Eng-
land for consecration and, in the event of insurmountable
difficulties there, to present his credentials to the non-juring
bishops of Scotland. These last were the successors of those
bishops who, a century before, had refused to swear allegiance
to William III at the time James II was driven from the
English throne. Politically, they were Jacobites; ecclesias-
tically, they existed on sufferance, cut off from the English
Establishment, but with the compensation of freedom from
parliamentary regulations in the perpetuation of their Church
life. It was well that such an alternative was provided.
Upon his arrival in England, Seabury was faced with the
oath of allegiance to the King. It was a stone wall of at
least temporary impenetrability. England had learned the
hard lesson in the time of Queen Elizabeth, that bishops
who were not loyal to the crown might be a menace both
to Church and State. Therefore every bishop, at the time
of his consecration, was required to take an oath of allegiance
to the King.

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 265

A proposition such as that which Seabury presented
was a novelty, and could be approved only by a formal act
of Parliament. But Parliament was not particularly in
love with revolutionary colonies which had just won their
freedom at the cost of many English lives. For more than
a year he waited for something to happen, but the prospect
seemed to be hopeless. So he made his way to the non-juring
bishops of Scotland, from whom, on November 14, 1784, in
the city of Aberdeen, he received his apostolic commission.
He returned to his own country as the first duly consecrated
bishop, of any kind, in the United States.* The Puritan
ministers made fun of him, voicing their scorn by calling
themselves "bishops" also. Whereupon Seabury provided
himself with an episcopal mitre, and even his most scornful
mimics lapsed into uncrowned silence.

Meantime, the Church in Maryland had been getting
under way, due to the strong leadership of the Rev. Dr. "Wil-
liam Smith. While the war was still on, he had called a
meeting of the clergy and laity of that colony, out of which
came a petition addressed to the General Assembly of Mary-
land asking permission for the various parishes to operate on
their own initiative. It was necessary that an ecclesiastical
name of some sort should be appended to the document, and
it was obvious that the title "Church of England" would be
entirely out of order. To meet the situation the "Protestant
Episcopal Church" was agreed upon as a tentative title, indi-
cating its non-Roman character in the prevailing Roman
Catholic atmosphere of Maryland; and, at the same time,
specifying its episcopal character in distinction from the
separated Puritan congregations. At that time, the word
"Protestant" had not yet acquired the sweepingly anti-
Catholic connotation which has been ascribed to it in more
recent years. Doubtless, the last thought in the minds of
the Maryland clergy would have been to cast a shadow of

* The first Roman Catholic Bishop of Maryland was not conse-
crated until 1790.

266 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

doubt on their own historically Catholic position. Such is
the origin of the official title of the Church. When the
Constitution was drawn up a few years later, this title was
already known in law in Maryland, and had no immediate
competitor in the field. It comes less as the sober judgment
of the Church and more as an emergency measure to square
with a local condition in a single State under the strain of
war-time disabilities. At a later Convention in Maryland,
Dr. Smith was elected to be their first bishop, but he was
never consecrated to the office.

Other local meetings were held here and there before the
first General Convention met in Philadelphia, September 27,
1785. Meanwhile, a serious loss had occurred, in the defec-
tion of the Methodists. Up to that time, Methodism had
been merely a movement within the Church of England, and
John Wesley never seems to have had any idea that it ought
to have been anything more than that. But with the break-
ing away of the colonies, AVesley had set apart Dr. Thomas
Coke as "superintendent" for America, with instructions to
confer the same office upon the Rev. Francis Asbury. AVesley
was an old man and ill at the time. It is not altogether
clear just what his intentions were. He did authorize Coke
to ordain elders for the administration of the Sacraments
possibly with an idea similar to that of Dr. White. Cer-
tainly he did not mean to appoint bishops for the erection
of another separated Church. When he learned of subse-
quent developments, he wrote to Asbury expressing his sur-
prise and displeasure: "You are the elder brother of the
American Methodists, as I am, under God, the father of the
whole family. But in one point, my dear brother, I am a
little afraid you and the doctor differ from me. I study to be
little; you study to be great. One instance of this, your
greatness, has given me great concern. How can you, how-
dare you, suffer yourself to be called a bishop? I shudder,
I start, at the very thought. Men may call me a knave
or a fool, ... I am content; but they shall never, by my

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 267

consent, call me bishop. For my sake, for God's sake, for
Christ's sake, put a full end to this. . . . Let Methodists
know their calling better." But it was too late to stop it,
and the Methodist group in the colonial Church went out
to feed in its own sectarian pasture.

This first Convention of 1785 was designedly preliminary;
but it did three important things. It drafted a tentative con-
stitution; it prepared a communication to be sent to the
English bishops ; and it offered a revision of the Prayer Book
as a basis for discussion. Then it adjourned, to meet the
following June. The second Convention (June 20, 1786)
had a reply from the English bishops to consider, in which
exception was taken to some of the changes proposed for the
Prayer Book and to some of the tentative provisions in the
proposed Constitution. Further discussion brought certain
amendments, and the Convention adjourned until the follow-
ing Fall, authorizing the "Proposed Book" for experimental
use in any State which might adopt it. During that summer,
word was received that the English Parliament was prepared
to pass the necessary legislation for the consecration of
American bishops. Three of them were ready for the con-
firmation of their elections at the Fall Convention Dr.
Griffith, for Virginia; Dr. Provoost, for New York; and
Dr. White, for Pennsylvania. The adjourned meeting readily
gave its approval, and the last two were soon on their way
to England. Dr. Griffith was prevented from making the
journey because of the prohibitive cost, and he was never
consecrated. The others received their consecration from the
Archbishop of Canterbury in Lambeth Palace on February
4, 1787, and the American Church was thus equipped to
perpetuate its own episcopate at the hands of three duly
consecrated bishops.

In the same year that the Constitution of the United
States went into effect, on July 28th, the first full-fledged
General Convention met in Philadelphia. Two years pre-
viously, the Federal Constitution had been signed and sub-

268 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

mitted to the States for ratification. No doubt the reason
that the Church's Constitution is such an essentially Amer-
ican document is to be found in the fact that the two instru-
ments were coming to birth at the same time, and most of the
signatories of the Federal Constitution were loyal Church-
men. Seventeen clergymen and sixteen laymen, representing
seven States, comprised the body, with Bishop White presid-
ing over the joint meeting, for as yet there was no separate
House of Bishops. After passing a series of resolutions, the
Convention adjourned until the following September when
the deputies from the New England States met with their
brethren, and the permanent policy went into effect of operat-
ing through two houses the House of Bishops and the House
of Clerical and Lay Deputies. Thereupon, the Constitution
was formally adopted. The "Proposed Book" was side-
tracked, and a new revision of the Prayer Book was worked
out, consisting mainly of the English Book -with a few
changes which were obviously necessary for American use.
The most important difference was in the Communion Office,
due to the representations of Bishop Seabury who was par-
ticularly partial to the form used by the Scottish bishops who
had consecrated him. So the Episcopal Church was definitely
launched on its career as a self-perpetuating, united branch
of the historic Catholic Church, adapted to the new conditions
prevailing in a new country.

Then the struggle for life began. The next twenty-two
years are well termed a "Period of Suspended Animation."
The Church suffered from the reflected querulousness of
secular politics* During the presidencies of Washington,
Adams, and Jefferson, political partisanship was acrid to the
point of personal abuse. Everybody was critical of every-
thing. Moreover, a wave of irreligion was sweeping to its
high tide. Tom Paine was getting a wide reading; and,
however much good he may have done for the Revolutionary
cause, he certainly counter-balanced it with a corruption of
the spiritual life of the public. Popular debates were held

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 269

on such subjects as "whether there was any such thing as a
God*' and "whether Christianity had been beneficial or in-
jurious to mankind." The Church itself was distrusted.
Anti-British feeling had never quite subsided after the Rev-
olutionary War; and, in the early years of the nineteenth
century, it was greatly aggravated by the events leading up
to the War of 1812. The Episcopal Church suffered because
of its British derivation. In some of the southern States,
notably Virginia, the spoliation of the colonial Church had
been carried to shocking extremes. Neither was it merely a
case of misunderstanding. The Church itself showed a dis-
tressing lack of aggressiveness. As Dr. Tiffany puts it, "The
Church's course for a long period was marked with all the
obstinacy of a weak mind and a strong constitution." A
devoted Churchman of such keen perspicacity as Chief Justice
Marshall frankly said that he saw no possible future for it.

But the darkest hours lead into the dawn. The second
great turning-point came in the year 1811, with the consecra-
tion to the episcopate of two outstanding leaders, quickly
followed by two others of no less importance John Henry
Hobart and Alexander V. Griswold (1811) ; Richard Chan-
nmg Moore (1814); and Philander Chase (1819). The
period of "Suspended Animation" gave place to a spirit of
vigorous advancement. The Church was suddenly awakened
to its responsibilities, and discovered that it was an up-and-
coming institution. A leading Presbyterian divine instigated
a controversy with Bishop Hobart; and, when the smoke
had cleared away, he was honest enough to give credit where
it belonged: "Were I compelled," he said, "to intrust the
safety of my country to any one man, that man should be
John Henry Hobart."

There was no limit to Hobart's energy and resourceful-
ness. He was Bishop of New York; he edited the Church-
mans Magazine; started the "Bible and Common Prayer
Book Society" ; and was chiefly instrumental in establishing
the General Theological Seminary. No longer was the

270 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Church on the defensive. Hobart never stopped to make
apologies for anything. He epitomized his own policy when
he exclaimed, "Give me a little zealous imprudence." His
diocese grew under the impulse he put into it. Up into cen-
tral and western New York his unwearying activities carried
him. There he planted the college which still bears his
name ; and there he initiated work among the Oneida Indians,
which followed them when the tribe was removed by the
Government to their Wisconsin Reservation. He ordained
the Rev. Eleazar Williams (thought by many to have been
the lost Dauphin of France), and Williams gave the balance
of his life to. the Oneidas in their new home in the West.
Just before his death, Bishop Hobart's wife remonstrated
with him that he was doing too much. To which he replied,
"How can I do too much for Him who has done everything
forme?"

Griswold was Bishop of the Eastern Diocese which, at
that time, meant nearly all of New England. In spite of
uncertain health, he buckled into his difficult task with abso-
lute faith in his calling. His strong evangelical spirit ran
through his diocese like an infusion of new blood. To hffl
there was no such thing as lost ground. He never gave up
even the most unpromising fields. At the end of his first
episcopal year, he reported twelve hundred confirmations.
At the beginning, he had a score of struggling parishes spotted
about at casual intervals. WTien he died, they had increased
five-fold, his Eastern Diocese had become five self-supporting
dioceses, and four bishops were covering the field which he
had originally undertaken.

Richard Channing Moore was Bishop of Virginia, though
his first parochial charge was in Staten Island -where his
eloquence and his personality won him an enviable position.
One afternoon, he had concluded a service at one of his
stations, but the congregation refused to leave. One of the
worshippers arose and explained "Dr. Moore, the people
are not disposed to go home. Please to give us another

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 271

sermon." He preached to them again, but the hungry Oliver
Twists still clamored for more (Moore). At the end of
the third sermon, he begged them to leave, as a personal
favor, because he was all played out. When he went to Vir-
ginia, it was to be Bishop of a Diocese of Discouragement.
But that word was not in his vocabulary. It is true the
Church in Virginia was not only despoiled but disheartened,
and standards of worship had sadly slipped ; but wherever he
went, a new fire was kindled. His greatest handicap was a
shortage of clergy, for there were only four or five active
priests when he took charge. He opened the Virginia Theo-
logical Seminary, and left nearly a hundred clergy at -work
at the time of his death. The Prayer Book came back into
its own, and personal religion took a fresh hold upon the
hearts of his people.

While this rehabilitation was going on in the more settled
parts of the country, the revival of interest found a corre-
sponding echo out on the frontier. Philander Chase was a
born missionary. He labored first in central New York,
then in New Orleans, then in Connecticut. But the quest
for adventure gave him no rest, and he launched out into
the thinly-populated State of Ohio. There he was elected
bishop, and went to Philadelphia for his consecration. Like
Bishop Moore, he quickly saw the need of a training school
in his own diocese to replenish the ranks of his clergy. Using
a modest legacy to defray the expenses of the trip, he went
to England where, by personal solicitation, he raised a suffi-
cient sum to erect Kenyon College and Bexley Hall. His
methods are illustrated by a song which is still sung at the
college :

"The first of Kenyon' s goodly race
Was that great man, Philander Chase;
He climbed the hill, and said a prayer,
And founded Kenyo-n College there.

"He built the college, built the dam,
He milked the cow, he smoked the ham,
He taught the classes, rang the bell,
And spanked the naughty freshmen well."

272 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

After a time, he resigned his work in Ohio to penetrate
the wilds of Michigan. But his peregrinations were not
yet over. The three parishes in Illinois decided that they
needed a bishop and, in 1835, they called Bishop Chase to
come to them. It was a pioneer task after his own heart.
Another trip to England, another campaign for funds, and
he proceeded to build a college in his new Diocese Jubilee
College, now defunct. Up and down the State he traveled,
wearing down his powerful constitution, but never making a
dent in his prodigious faith. "Jehovah Jireh" (the Lord will
provide) was his motto. Once he wrote a letter to his son
in Chicago explaining his absence from a meeting because
of an attack of pleurisy "but severe blistering and copious
bleeding were the means which God blessed to the preserva-
tion of my life." Through such men as these, the Church
began to make its way. It strengthened its own self-respect
and demanded and secured the respect of the country.

Francis Scott Key, a Churchman, wrote "The Star
Spangled Banner," which became the national anthem. Trin-
ity College was founded at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1823.
Two years prior to that date, the Domestic and Foreign Mis-
sionary Society had been organized; and, in 1835, General
Convention adopted the proposition that the Church itself is a
missionary society, and that every Christian by virtue of his
baptismal vow is a missionary. This principle, whereby the
membership of the Missionary Society consists of all baptized
persons, is a revival of the practice of the early Church, and
is an almost unique feature of the Episcopal Church among
the Churches of Christendom. Thus, instead of allowing the
Church to grow as best it could, Church people were called
to accept a corporate responsibility for its expansion.

The first Missionary Bishop was sent out on the authority
of the whole body and in the person of Jackson Kemper who
was to be Bishop of the Northwest, meaning Indiana and
Missouri specifically, but with a roving commission wherever
he might go. When Kemper reached his field, he found one

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 273

church but no clergy in Missouri, and one clergyman but no
church in Indiana. He finished his life as the first Bishop
of Wisconsin where he was nobly supported by the Rev.
James Lloyd Breck and two companions who, on their
graduation from the General Seminary, had offered them-
selves for work in the "Far West." Breck was a remarkable
man. He and his companions were only in deacon's orders
when they came west, but they tramped two hundred and
forty miles through the woods for their ordination to the
priesthood. Their headquarters developed into Nashotah
House, from which point they pursued their indefatigable
labors in every direction. Presently, Breck moved on to
Minnesota where, in 1857, he founded Seabury Divinity
School (now amalgamated with the Western Seminary in
Chicago), and then out to California, planting the Church
and preaching the Gospel with truly apostolic fervor.

Within the next few years, Bishop Otey went into the
southwest, Bishop Kip to California, Bishop Scott into
Oregon, Bishop Whipple into Minnesota. The expansion
of the Church was nothing short of amazing. Within thirty
years after the Convention of 1835, the number of clergy
and the number of communicants had increased more than
four-fold. The missionary virus was working spiritual
wonders.

In 1845, Texas was annexed to the United States, bring-
ing with it territory now included in half a dozen adjoining
States. Immediately, the Church broke into this new field.
A missionary society was formed in the new parish at San
Antonio to initiate work in the western part of the State,
the first name on the list of life-members of the society being
that of Lieutenant-Colonel Robert E. Lee, of the United
States Army, destined to be the leader of the Confederate
forces a few years later. In Florida, several tentative efforts
finally took root, and the State received a bishop of its own.
Under the leadership of Bishop Talbot, the Church got on
its feet in Colorado and neighboring States. So the work

274 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

went on everywhere. Liberia, China, and Japan received
their missionaries also, while the Church was following the
retreating frontier in our own country. It is impossible to
recount the many instances of heroic devotion which found
no obstacles too great for Christian conquest. When Bishop
Whipple held his first service in Minnesota, there was just
one man in the congregation able to make the Prayer Book
responses, and it turned out that he was not even baptized.
"But," said the Bishop, "you read the service." "I am
afraid," replied the unbaptized lawyer, "that may have been
local pride ; I did not want you to think badly of our town."
Later, that lawyer was ordained and, as the Rev. Solomon
Burleson, drove his famous ponies with the Gospel behind
them over unbelievable areas of Minnesota and Wisconsin,
and gave five sons to the priesthood of the Church. In the
southern States, large congregations of Negroes were shep-
herded under the watchful care of their slave-owning masters
who, for the most part, were far more solicitous for the
welfare of their servants than the anti-slavery propaganda
has ever given them credit for.

In 1850, Berkeley Divinity School was founded at
Middletown, Connecticut. St. Stephen's College (now Bard
College) was born at Annandale, New York, in 1860. In
New York City, the Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg
spread his inexhaustible talents over every phase of Church
life, with greater subsequent results than he could possibly
have foreseen. Then came the Civil War, and progress was
abruptly halted.

Anticipating the dissolution of the Union, the south-
ern dioceses felt constrained to form a separate ecclesias-
tical organization. In October, 1861, a convention was
held at Columbia, South Carolina, with that end in view". It
was proposed that the Church in the South should be known
as the Reformed Catholic Church, but the disposition was
general to maintain as close a contact as possible with the
Church in the North, resulting in the choice of "Protestant

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 275

Episcopal Church in the Confederate States" as the name,
and the adoption of a Constitution practically identical
with the old one. As a matter of fact, throughout the period
of hostilities, a friendly attitude was carefully maintained on
both sides. Bishop Polk, of Louisiana, a graduate of West
Point, served as a general officer in the Confederate army,
but never forsook his old friendship with Bishop Mcllvaine,
of Ohio, who was one of the prominent Union leaders in
the North. Every Sunday morning, they prayed for each
other by name. The Church in the North refused to take it
as a permanent separation only as a temporary interruption
of the old relationship. At the war-time General Convention,
held in New York City in 1862, the roll call included all of
the southern dioceses just as in the pre-war days.

That roll call was a fortunate incident, for it paved the
way for the fourth turning-point in the history of the Church,
when the first General Convention following the declaration
of peace, met in Philadelphia in 1865. It was a critical occa-
sion. In spite of everything, the wounds of war were in-
tensely irritating. Churchmen of the North were not sure
that the southern dioceses desired renewed affiliation, and
southern Churchmen did not know whether they were really
wanted back. A false step at that moment might have meant
an indefinite separation such as befell the Methodists, Bap-
tists, and Presbyterians. Fortunately a better spirit prevailed,
and the corner was safely turned. An invitation was sent
to the southern dioceses, in advance of the Convention, and
some of them responded. At the time of the opening service,
the Bishop of North Carolina was seen approaching the
church, and was cordially asked to join the other bishops in
conducting the service. He begged off, saying he would
prefer to sit in the congregation. But after the service had
begun, several bishops came down from the chancel, and
personally conducted him to the altar where he rightfully
belonged. The roll call in the House of Deputies began
with Alabama in the usual way, with deputations responding

276 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

from Tennessee, North Carolina, and Texas. The ice was
broken, and the unity of the Church was retained.

Progress was promptly resumed. The question of the
supply of clergy for the re-united Church called for an
increase in theological schools. While the war was still on,
the Philadelphia Divinity School had been created (1862),
and two years after the war was over the Episcopal Theo-
logical School was incorporated at Cambridge, Massachusetts
(1867). Eighteen years later, the Western Theological
Seminary was added in Chicago. A Diocesan Training
School, of some sixteen years standing in Central New York,
was, in 1866, expanded into the Delancey Divinity School*
At Sewanee, Tennessee, the University of the South had
just been launched when the war wiped it out of existence;
but scarcely a year after the return of peace, it was re-
established on a permanent basis. Church preparatory schools
were founded, too numerous to mention.

Bishop Hare was sent to Dakota as the first bishop to
specialize in work among the American Indians, and through
his efforts the Church attained a commanding position in that
particular sphere of missionary endeavor. Schools were
erected for the Negroes (including the Bishop Payne Divinity
School for theological students, 1878), which have realized
such a degree of excellence that they have been publicly
commended by the federal authorities.

New missionary work was opened in Haiti, Mexico,
Southern Brazil, and Alaska. Following the Spanish-Ameri-
can War of 1898, bishops were sent to Cuba, Puerto Rico,
and the Philippine Islands. Upon the annexation of Hawaii
in 1898, the Church of England turned over its work to the
Episcopal Church, and the same procedure occurred in
Panama when, in 1914, the Panama Canal was constructed
by the United States Government.

American churches were opened in several European
countries, of which Holy Trinity Church, Paris, now serves
as the pro-cathedral.

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 277

The Church on the western coast undertook to supply
its own clergy through the Divinity School of the Pacific in
California (1893), and the mountain dioceses projected a
similar enterprise in St. John's College at Greeley, Colorado
(1909). A special training school for older candidates for
Holy Orders is the latest in the field, being established at
Monteagle, Tennessee, in 1921.

In 1871, the women of the Church were formally banded
together in the Woman's Auxiliary for general missionary
purposes, out of which has come the triennial United Thank
Offering which reached the magnificent sum of a million
dollars -when presented at the national meeting in Washington
in 1928.

Meantime, the office of Deaconess was revived ; and reli-
gious Orders, guilds, and societies of a dozen different kinds,
for men, women, young people, boys and girls, multiplied
at an astonishing rate.

Problems of administration necessitated the setting off of
new diocesan, units, until from nothing they have grown to
more than four score in one hundred and fifty years.

Beginning in Chicago, cathedral centres were developed
by one diocese after another, reaching their culmination in
the splendid Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New
York and the National Cathedral at Washington, which
suggest a recrudescence of the best of medieval architecture.
Hospitals, Orphanages, Homes for the Aged, sprang up in
abundance, and the steady growth in communicant strength,
together with greatly enlarged offerings, bear their witness
to the solidity of the Church's advance.

Only one serious rift mars the story since the close of the
Civil War. It revolves around the question of churchman-
ship following the inauguration of the Oxford Movement in
England in 1833. Heated discussions on ritual, vestments,
"protestant" and "catholic," with their attendant doctrinal
implications, reached the boiling point with the separation,
in 1873, of a small group who called themselves the Reformed

278 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Episcopal Church. No doubt a little more elasticity on the
part of all concerned especially in the matter of Infant
Baptism which was the original bone of contention would
have prevented the needless split; but fears were in the air
that the fruits of the Reformation were being squandered.
Bishop Cummins, coadjutor Bishop of Kentucky, led the out-
ward movement which has maintained a precarious existence
down to the present day. This comparatively negligible defec-
tion has been the only one which has marred the unity of the
Episcopal Church throughout the course of her history in
the United States; and if "diversities of operations'* within
that Church today receive exaggerated notice, it is also a fact
that she exemplifies, in common with the whole Anglican
communion, and to a remarkable degree, a "unity of the
Spirit" based upon the Book of Common Prayer.

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, the
Church gave to America the greatest preacher of the times.
Phillips Brooks, after a notable rectorate in Philadelphia,
rose to the summit of his homiletical influence at Trinity
Church, Boston. He became an international figure and died
in 1893, all too soon after his elevation to the Episcopate.

Dr. Muhlenberg's efforts toward Christian unity and
greater freedom in public worship were vindicated some time
after his death.

The famous Chicago-Lambeth "Quadrilateral" came out
of a meeting of General Convention held in Chicago in 1886,
and, two years later in England, was approved by the Lam-
beth Conference of the whole Anglican Episcopate. It was
a platform advanced as a proposed basis of Christian reunion
consisting of four items 1, the Holy Scriptures of the Old
and New Testaments, as the standard of faith ; 2, the Apos-
tles' Creed as the Baptismal Symbol, and the Nicene Creed,
as the sufficient statement of the Christian Faith; 3, the two
Sacraments Baptism and the Supper of the Lord minis-
tered with unfailing use of Christ's words of institution, and

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 279

of the elements ordained by Him ; and 4, the Historic Epis-
copate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration
to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God
into the unity of the Church. Twenty-four years later, Gen-
eral Convention, meeting in Cincinnati, appointed a Com-
mission on Faith and Order to invite similar commissions
from other Christian communions to cooperate in preparing
for a World Conference on the many questions involved. The
pendulum of sectarian disintegration was thus thrown into
reverse swing, with a growing desire to realize Our Lord's
Prayer that "they all may be one." And the plea for greater
freedom in Church worship found expression in the revision
of the Book of Common Prayer effected, first, at the Baltimore
Convention of 1892, and again at the Washington Conven-
tion of 1928.

Such rapid growth and such numerous extensions of
interests had, however, caused a certain confusion in the
administration of Church activities. There was a "Commis-
sion" for this and a "Board" for that, created to meet new
demands as they arose, each functioning within itself and
financing itself as best it might. The feeling grew that some
form of central coordination was an imperative necessity, and
this feeling reached a decisive point during the painful years
of the World War. It is interesting to note that the con-
tribution of the Church to the national emergency when the
war broke upon this country, was remarkable in point of
leadership. The four outstanding features of national mobili-
zation were the Army, the Navy, the War Loans, and War-
time Relief as especially exemplified in the American Red
Cross. The head of each one of these divisions turned out
to be no other than a Churchman, and a bishop of the Epis-
copal Church was Chief of Chaplains for the American
Expeditionary Forces during the war.

When the war was over, there was urgent need of a
general pick-up. But the question was -who was to initiate
it? The only body authorized to speak for the Episcopal

280 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Church, as a whole, or to call it into action, was General
Convention which would not meet for another year. Between
General Conventions the Church was plainly headless. A
plan of action was formulated under the name of the "Nation-
Wide Campaign" designed to inform the minds, awaken the
consciences, and open the purses of Episcopalian people; but
it could not be put into effect until General Convention said
so. The best that could be done was an appeal to the Church
by individuals exercising no particular authority. One diocese
after another agreed to cooperate; and, during the Summer
of 1919, a survey was made of the Church at work through-
out the whole field of its activity the first thing of its kind
to be attempted. The information secured was very illumi-
nating. When General Convention met, the machinery was
all set up and waiting the order to go. At the same time
it was decided that the Church should no longer be headless
between General Conventions.

The Convention of 1919, meeting in Detroit, will go
down in history as the fifth great turning-point in the life
of the Episcopal Church. A new permanent central adminis-
tration was erected, into which were incorporated various
activities heretofore only tenuously related. With a few
modifications later on, it was the plan known as "The Pre-
siding Bishop and Council." Prior to 1804, the office of
Presiding Bishop had been subject to election; but, in that
year, the rule was adopted, and had remained in force ever
since, that the bishop senior in point of consecration should
be Presiding Bishop. The Church now decided to return
to the earlier custom, and the House of Bishops, subject to
the approval of the House of Deputies, was instructed to
elect one of its number as Presiding Bishop who would, there-
upon, relinquish his diocesan responsibilities in order to devote
himself to the general administration for a term of six years.
He was to be assisted in his work by a Council consisting (as
later revised) of twenty-eight clerical and lay members, six-
teen to be elected by General Convention, one by each of the

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 281

eight Provinces, and four by the Woman's Auxiliary. The
Council has its own President and functions through two
sections each headed by a Vice-President. The first section
includes four Departments Foreign Missions, Domestic
Missions, Social Service, and Religious Education while the
second section includes three Departments Field, Publicity
and Finance. Each Department submits an annual budget to
be financed by the Council which, in its turn, submits to each
General Convention a program and budget covering the
ensuing three-year period. Upon the basis of this budget an
appeal for funds is made to the Church at large. Thus, year
in and year out, the Church as a whole is always in session
through its Presiding Bishop and Council.

Before making effective the principle of election in place
of seniority in the office of Presiding Bishop, it was felt that
one notable exception should be made. For fifteen years, the
Rt. Rev. Daniel Sylvester Tuttle, Bishop of Missouri, had
held that honorable position. More than fifty years before,
he had been consecrated and sent into the frontier life of
the great Northwest. To reach his field, he had traveled
to the end of the railroad in Nebraska, covering the rest of
the distance in a stage coach through a country terrorized by
hostile Indians. He rode into Denver with a rifle across his
knees for protection. Twenty years of pioneering episcopacy
had chiseled his name into the heart of the Church before
he accepted a call to the more sedate duties of Missouri.
He was the venerable patriarch of the Church, universally
respected for his work, and universally loved for himself.
It was the common wish that he should finish his course in
the most hon6rable office in the Church's gift. Therefore,
it was provided* that the election of a Presiding Bishop should
be postponed until the first meeting of General Convention
after the death of Bishop Tuttle, whenever that might be;
and that, in the meantime, the new administration should
be carried on by one who should be elected to the temporary
office of President of the Council. This office fell to the Rt,

282 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Rev. Thomas F. Gailor, Bishop of Tennessee, who accepted
the heavy responsibility of building a new structure of organi-
zation from the ground up. Bishop Tuttle died in 1923, and
during that triennium, the principle of seniority in the suc-
cession of Presiding Bishop still prevailing, he was succeeded
by Bishop Garrett of Dallas, and then by Bishop Talbot, of
Bethlehem. At the New Orleans meeting of General Con-
vention in 1925, the Rt. Rev. John Gardner Murray, Bishop
of Maryland, was chosen as the first Presiding Bishop and
President of the Council under the provisions of the new
Canons. In the fall of 1929 Bishop Murray died and was
succeeded by the Rt. Rev. Charles Palmerston Anderson,
D.D., bishop of Chicago, who held the office less than three
months when he also died. In the spring of 1930 the Rt. Rev.
James DeWolf Perry, D.D., bishop of Rhode Island, was
chosen by the House of Bishops and was reflected by General
Convention in 1931 for a full six-year period*

A century and a half is not a very long time as history
goes. But the two points seem poles apart when one con-
siders the brief story of the Episcopal Church since colonial
days. Disunited, impoverished, misunderstood at that time
an episcopal Church with no bishop it faced a future dark
with uncertainties. By the grace of God and the indomitable
devotion of sainted leaders, the gloomy picture has been re-
sketched in lines of shining promise.] Even the wise Chief
Justice Marshall has been proved more of a jurist than a
prophet.

j So in Jerusalem the Church began. From Our Lord,
the Apostles received their Divine Commission of leadership.
Within a few generations, that Commission was carried to
Britain and entrusted to the ancient British Church. Later
it was united with a similar Commission coming by way of
Rome, and was preserved in the Church of England. In
colonial times, the Church of England, bearing her inherited
Commission, came to the American colonies. The Episcopal

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 283

Church was its natural offspring a portion of the Anglican
Communion, a branch of the historic Catholic Church of
apostolic origin, bearer of the Divine Commission, an integral
part of that same living Body of which St. Paul said:
"Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it"

BIBLIOGRAPHY

GENERAL

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History of the Christian Church, by James C. Robertson.
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History of the Christian Church, by G. P. Fisher. Charles
Scribner's Sons, New York.

Outline of Christianity, An, 5 volumes. Dodd, Mead & Com-
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Outline of History, The, by H. G. Wells. The Macmillan
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Political and Social History of Modern Europe, A, by Carlton
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Religion Since the Reformation, by Leighton Pullan. Ox-
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Short History of Our Religion, A, by D. C. Somervell. The
Macmillan Company, New York.

Turning Point of General Church History, by Edward
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CHAPTER I. APOSTOLIC BEGINNINGS
Christian Institutions, by A. V. G. Allen. Charles Scribner's

Sons, New York.
Holy Spirit and the Church, The, by Charles Gore. Charles

Scribner's Sons, New York.
Life and Epistles of the Apostle Paul, The, by W. J. Cony-

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CHAPTER II. DAYS OF PERSECUTION

Everyman's Book of Saints, by C. P. S. Clarke. A. R. Mow-
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History of the Church to 325 A. D., by Herbert N. Bate.
Edwin S. Gorham, Inc., New York.

Saints and Heroes to the End of the Middle Ages, by George
Hodges. Henry Holt and Company, Inc., New York.

CHAPTER III. THE BROKEN EMPIRE

Aspects of Islam, by Duncan B. Macdonald. The Macmillan

Company, New York.
Confessions of St. Augustine, The, edited by J. Gibb and

W. Montgomery. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.
History of Latin Christianity, Vol. I, by Henry H. Mflman.

4 volumes. Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., New

York.
History of Religion, by Allan Menzies. Charles Scribner's

Sons, New York.

Story of Islam, The, by T. R. W. Lunt. C. M. S., London.
World's Living Religions, The, by Robert E. Hume. Charles

Scribner's Sons, New York.

CHAPTER IV. THE PAPACY

History of the Papacy, by Mandeil Creighton. Longmans,

Green & Co., New York.
Pope and the Council, The, by Janus. Roberts, Boston.

286 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Reasons for Being a Churchman, by A. W. Little. More-
house Publishing Co., New York.

Raman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility, by Sparrow
Simpson. Morehouse Publishing Co., New York.

Short History of the Papacy, A, by Mary I. M. Bell. Dodd,
Mead & Company, New York.

CHAPTER V. THE DARK AGES

History of Latin Christianity , Vol. II, by Henry H. Mil-
man. 4 volumes. Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.,
New York.

Holy Roman Empire, The, by James Bryce. The Macmillan
Company, New York.

CHAPTER VI. THE EASTERN CHURCH

Eastern Church in the Western World, The, by W. C. Em-

hardt. Morehouse Publishing Co., New York.
Greek and Eastern Churches, The, by Walter F. Adeney.

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.
History of the Christian Church, by G. P. Fisher. Charles

Scribner's Sons, New York.
Outline of the History of the Church, by F. J. Kinsman.

Morehouse Publishing Co., New York.

CHAPTER VII. THE CRUSADES

Crusades, The, by Harold Lamb. Doubleday, Doran &
Company, Inc., New York.

Romance of the Last Crusade, The, by Major Vivian Gil-
bert. D. Appleton-Century Company, New York.

Story of the Crusades, by E. M. Wilmot-Buxton. Thomas Y.
Crowell Company, New York.

CHAPTER VIII. THE GREAT SCHISM

Age of the Great Western Schism, by Clinton Locke.
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

Life of St. Francis of Assist, by Paul Sabatier. Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons, New York.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 287

Outline of Christianity, Vol. II. Dodd, Mead & Company,
New York.

CHAPTER IX. THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION
Continental Reformation, The, by B. J. Kidd. Edwin S.

Gorham, Inc., New York.
History of the Reformation, A, by Thomas M. Lindsay.

2 volumes. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.
Ignatius Loyola, by Henry B. Sedgwick. The Macmillan

Company, New York.

CHAPTER X. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Ecclesia Anglicana, by Arthur C. Jennings. Whittaker, New

York.
Everyman's History of the English Church, by Percy

Dearmer. A. R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd., London.
Introduction to the History of the Church of England, by

Henry O. Wakeman. The Macmillan Company, New

York.
Turning Points of English Church History, by Edward

Lewes Cutts. The Macmillan Company, New York.

CHAPTER XI. THE ENGLISH REFORMATION
Economic Causes of the Reformation in England, by Oscar

Marti. The Macmillan Company, New York.
Every mans History of the English Church, by Percy

Dearmer. A. R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd., London.
Historians and the English Reformation, The, by J. S. Lit-

tell. Morehouse Publishing Co., New York.
Introduction to the History of the Church of England, by

Henry O. Wakeman. The Macmillan Company, New

York.
Sayings of Queen Elizabeth, edited by Frederick Chamber-

lin. Dodd, Mead & Company, New York.
Short History of the Evangelical Movement, A, by G. W. E.

Russel. Morehouse Publishing Co., New York.
Short History of the Oxford Movement, by S. L. Ollard.

A. R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd., London.

288 THE DIVINE COMMISSION

Times and Teachings of John Wesley, The, by A. W. Little.

Morehouse Publishing Co., New York.
Turning Points of English Church History, by Edward

Lewes Cutts. The Macmillan Company, New York.

CHAPTER XII. THE COLONIAL CHURCH
CHAPTER XIII. THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Church for Americans, The, by W. M. Brown. Whittaker,

New York.

Conquest of a Continent, The, by H, L. Burleson. More-
house Publishing Co., New York.
History of the American Episcopal Church, by S. D. Mc-

Connell. Morehouse Publishing Co., New York.
History of the American Episcopal Church, A, by William

W. Manross. Morehouse Publishing Co., New York.
History of the Episcopal Church, by C. C. Tiffany. Charles

Scribner's Sons, New York.
How Our Church Came to Our Country, edited by H. L.

Burleson. Morehouse Publishing Co., New York.
Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks, by A. V. G. Allen.

5 volumes. E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York.
Memoir of Bishop Seabury, by William F. Seabury. Edwin

S. Gorham, Inc., New York.
Our Church, One Through the Ages, by William P. Witsell.

Edwin S. Gorham, Inc., New York.
Outline History of the Episcopal Church, An, by F. E.

Wilson. Morehouse Publishing Co., New York.
Reminiscences of Bishops and Archbishops, by H. C. Potter,

G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.
Three Hundred Years of the Episcopal Church in America,

by George Hodges. George W. Jacobs & Co., Phila-
delphia.

INDEX

Abdard, 143.

Act Concerning Religion, 256; of
Supremacy, 224; of the Six Ar-
ticles, 219; of Uniformity, 225,
230

Adrian II, 91; IV, 91

Alaric, 40, 41, 42

Albert of Austria, 153

Albigensian heresy, 145, 146

Alexander, Bishop, 28, 30, 35; II,
90, 91; V, 159; VI, 148, 167,
168, 244

Alfred the Great, 84, 197, 198

Anabaptists, 184

Anderson, Rt. Rev. C. P., 282

Andrewes, Bishop, 232

Annatfs, 216

Anne, Queen, 254, 259

Anselm, 143, 202

Anskar, 198

Apollinarianism, 39, 45

Apostles, 1, 2, 3-11, 13; Creed, 4,
31; doctrine, 3-7; fellowship, 7-
10

Apostolic beginnings, 1-14; succes-
sion, 3, 240, 252

Arcadius, 40

Arianism, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38. 39,
40, 43, 45, 60, 96

Arms, 28, 29, 30, 34

Armageddon, 140

Asbury, Rev. Francis, 266

Athanasius, 30, 34, 35, 36, 97

Attila, 42

Augsburg Confession, 177, 179 ; In-
terim, 178; Peace of, 179
Avtos-da-f t 150
Avignon, 154, 155, 157

Babylonish Captivity, 154, 156, 160

Bangor-Iscoed, Abbott of, 63

Barbarossa, Frederick, 131-147

Barlow, William, 226

Barthelemy, Peter, 126, 127, 128

Baxter, 236, 250

Becket, Thomas a, 202, 203

Bede, Venerable, 196

Benedict IX, 85, 86; XIII, 158, 162

Benedictine rule, 96

Bcrengar of Tours, 143

Berkeley Divinity School, 274

Bexley Hall, 271

Bible, Apocrypha, 6, 7; Authorized
Version, 232 ; Canon of, 5 ; Chris-
tian's, 7, 9; Coverdale'a, 219;
Great, 219; Hebrew, 5, 6; King
James Version, 232; New Testa-
ment, 4, 5, 9; Old Testament, 5,
6, 7; Vulgate, 6, 170

Bible and Common Prayer Book So-
.ciety, 269

Bishop Payne Divinity School, 276

Bishop's Book, 220

Blaxton, William, 252

Blue Laws, 251

Boleyn, Anne, 213, 216, 224

Bolshevism, 98, 115, 116, 117

Boniface VI, 81; VIII, 152, 153,
154

Bonner, Bishop, 221

Borgias, The, 167

Bray, Rev. Thomas, 257, 259

Breck, Rev. James Lloyd, 273

Britain. See Church of England

British and Foreign Bible Society,
239

British Near East Campaign, 139,
140

Brooks, Rt. Rev. Phillips, 278

Brotherhood of Eleven Thousand Vir-
gins, 170

Burleson, Rev. Solomon, 274

Butler, Bishop, 260

Cabot, John, 244

Caedmon, 195

Calixtus III, 166

Calvert, CeciHus, 255, 256

Calvin, John, 90, 151, 179, 181,182,

186
Calvinism, 186, 187, 219, 220, 222,

224, 228, 229
Canossa, 93, 201
Canterbury, 84, 193, 194, 199, 200,

201, 203, 205, 216, 225, 233, 267
Cardinals, College of, 89, 163
Carloman, 70
Carlstadt, 175

[289]

290

INDEX

Cathari, 147

Catherine, 212, 213, 214, 216, 217,
221

Cartier, Jacques, 245

Catholic Emancipation Act, 238

Cauvin, Jean, 181

Celedonius, case of, 60

Celestine V, 152, 156

Charlemagne, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74,
75, 76, 80, 197

Charles I, 232-234, 255; II, 235;
V, 174-179, 184, 187, 212, 214;
IX, 182; the Fat, 75 ; Mattel, 53,
54, 70, 119

Chase, Rt. Rev. Philander, 269, 271,
272

Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, 278

Christian, doctrine. 31; early life,
18

Christianity, dangers from paganism,
27; extension of, 23; proscribed)
24

Christians, Armenian, 117; Chal-
dean, 117; early, 10, 11; perse-
cutions of, 15-33 ; suspicions con-
cerning, 16, 17

Church, Apostolic, 13 ; attacks on,
24; birthday of, 2; Colonial,
243-261 ; Coptic, 52 ; early or-
ganization, 8, 9; Eastern, 78,
96-117, 209; Greek, 105, 107,
108; in Connecticut, 251, 252,
253, 264, 271; in New York,
253; in North Africa, 22, 62;
in Switzerland, 176; Living, of
Russia, 116; Ministry organized,
8; Old Catholic, 189; politically,
17; primitive characteristics, 3-
14; Reformed Catholic, 274; Re-
formed Episcopal, 277, 278 ;
Roman Catholic, 104, 105; Rus-
sian, 111, 113, 114, 115, 116;
separation from State, 98; so-
cially, 17, 18; suppression of,
15; teaching*, 3-8; under Con-
stantine, 26, 27

Church of England, 62, 63; 190-
210, 216, 217, 225, 228, 229,
230, 235, 237, 238, 239, 240,
241, 242, 247, 249, 250, 255,
256, 260, 265, 266, 276, 277,
282

Clarendon, Constitutions of, 203

Clement II, 86; IV, 64; V, 154;
VII, 214, 215

Clotilda, 44

Clovis, 44

Cluny, Monastic reforms at, 80, 83,

87

Coke, Dr. Thomas, 266
Colet, John, 170
Columbus, Christopher, 52, 77, 243,

244

Commodus, Emperor, 21
Constantine, 12, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30,

35, 66, 76, 77, 102, 110
Constantinople, 35, 45, 57, 61, 62,
66, 68, 69, 71, 98, 99, 102, 103,
104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109,
110, 111, 112, 113, 116, 123,
124, 125, 130, 133, 165, 166
Constantius, 24, 35, 36
Council at Sutri, 86; Ecumenical,
29, 30, 31, 32, 39, 45, 46, 59,
60, 61, 62, 63, 102, 161, 162,
166, 173, 176, 216;

Fourth Lateran, 44; in Jeru-
salem, 59; of Aries, 191; of
Basel, 109, '166; of Car-
thage, 5; of Chalcedon, 45,
61 ; of Clermont, 123 ; of
Constance, 160, 161, 163,
165, 166, 175; of Constan-
tinople, 32, 39, 45; of
Ephesus, 45; of Ferrara,
166 ; of Jamnia, 5 ; of Lyons,
108; of Nicaea, 30, 31, 32,
34, 45, 59, 60, 102, 226;
of Pisa, 158, 159, 160, 187;
of the Vatican, 164; of To-
ledo, 43 ; of Trent, 178, 187,
219, 241

Coverdale, Miles, 219, 226
Cranmer, Thomas, 216, 220, 222
Creed, Apostles*, 4, 31 ; Nicene, 32,
39, 43, 45, 108, 278; of Pius
IV, 56; Roman, 31
Cromwell, Oliver, 235, 255
Cromwell, Thomas, 218
Crusades, 47, 118-140, 141
Cummins, Bishop, 278

Damascene, John, 101

Damasus II, 86

Damiani, Peter, 88

Damietta, 134, 135, 138

Dandolo, 106

Dark Ages, 75-95, 121, 169, 199

Deaconess, Office of, 277

Decius, 16, 21, 22

Decretals, 77; forged, 77, 78, 79;

Isadorian, 77 ; Pscudo-Isadorian,

78
Delancey Divinity School, 276

INDEX

291

Diocletian, 16, 22, 23, 24, 25

Dionysius Exiguus, 77, 78

Directory, The, 234

Divine Commission, 3, 13, 24, 32,
36, 45, 46, 74, 84, 97, 105, 117,
128, 139, 151, 157, 165, 180,
193, 210, 217, 231, 242, 252,
257, 259, 283

Divinity School of the Pacific, 277

Doctrine, Apostles, 3-7; Calvinistic,
229; Christian, 30; Divine right
of Kings, 233; of Papal Infalli-
bility, 43, 55, 189

Domestic and Foreign Missionary
Society, 272. See Episcopal Church

Donation of Constantine, 26, 77, 78,
244

Douai, 227, 228

Drake, Sir Francis, 246

Duns Scotus, 143

Eck, John, 174

Ecumenical Councils, 29, 30, 31, 32,
39, 45, 46, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63,
102, 161, 162, 166, 173, 176,
216

Edessa, 125, 130

Edward the Confessor, 199 ; I, 153,
207; VI, 220, 221, 225; Prince,
139

Edwin, 194

Eleutherius, 190

Elizabeth, 179, 186, 224, 227, 228,
229, 230, 231, 246, 264

England. See Church of England

Ephesus, 8, 190

Episcopal Church, 243-283; col-
leges of, 253, 271, 274; during
the Civil War, 274, 277; episco-
pate established, 267; General
Convention, 1785, 266; 1789,
267; 1883, 259; 1886, 278;
1892, 279; 1919, 280; 1925,
282; 1929, 282; 1931, 282; in
the Confederate States, 275; mis-
sionary work of, 276 ; National Ca-
thedral of, 277; National Council
of, 280, 281 ; Nation Wide Cam-
paign, 280; Prayer Book Re-
vision, 279; Presiding Bishop of,
280, 281, 282; Provinces of,
280; theological seminaries, 269,
271, 273, 274, 276, 277; unifi-
cation of activities, 279; U.T.O.,
277 ; war service of leaders, 279 ;
Woman'* Auxiliary, 277

Episcopal Theological School, 276

Erasmus, 171

Erastus, 220

Ethelbert, 193

Eugenius IV, 166

Evangelical Movement, 250

Faber, Pedro, 187

Fairhair, Harold, 196

Faith and Order, Commission on,

279

Farel, William, 181
Fawkes, Guy, 229
Ferdinand, 52, 149, 244
Filioque, 43

Five Mile Act, 236, 237
Fletcher, Rev. Francis, 246
Formosus, 81, 82
Francis Xavier, 187
Franks, 44, 54, 70, 71, 73
Frederick II, 135, 136, 142

Gailor, Rt. Rev. Thomas F., 281

Galerms, 23

Gallienus, 21

Gardiner, Bishop, 221

Garrett, Rt. Rev. Alexander, 282

General Councils. See Ecumenical

Councils

General Theological Seminary, 269
Ghibelline, 141
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 246
Glaber, Raoul, 84
Glastonbury Abbey, 190
Godfrey of Bouillon, 125, 128, 140
Golden Htnde, 246
Goths, 40, 67, 69
Great Schism, 141, 164, 209
Gregory, I, 61; II, 68; III, 70;

V, 83; VI, 86, 87; VII, 90,

91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 201; IX, 147;

X, 64; XI, 155, 156; XII, 158;

the Great, 193
Griffith, Dr., 267
Grimkill, Bishop, 198
Griswold, Rt. Rev. Alexander V.,

269, 270

Grosseteste, Bishop, 207
Guelph, 141

Gustavus Adolphus, 179, 184
Gustavus Vasa, 184

Hadrian, 20; V, 152
Hanyfs, 48

Hare, Rt. Rev. William H., 276
Harold, 199

292

INDEX

Henry I, 206; II, 202, 203, 206;

III, 86, 87, 89, 207; IV, 91,

92, 93, 94; VII, 211, 244; VIII,

73, 186, 210-222, 224, 240, 241;

of Navarre, 183
HUdebrand, 87, 88, 89, 90, 93,

141, 151, 199, 201
Hobart, Rt. Rev. John H., 269
Hodgkin, John, 226
Holy Governing Synod, 114
Holy Roman Empire, 74, 153, 160,

179, 212, 214

Holy Sepulchre, 130, 131, 132, 139
Holy Spirit, coming of, 1, 2
Honorius, 40, 41; I, 64, 66
Hosius, 29, 30, 35, 60
Huguenots, 182, 182, 223
Hunt, Rev. Robert, 247
Huss, John, 144, 159, 160, 161,

168, 175

Ignatius, 97, 103, 104, 187
Ikons, 102

Index, Congregation of, 188
Indians, 245, 248, 253, 258, 270,

276, 281

Indulgences, 172, 173, 181
Innocent III, 94, 141, 142, 146,

151, 152, 203, 204, 205, 206,

207, 210
Inquisitions, 142, 146, 147, 148,

149-151, 180, 185, 188
Institutes, 181

Invasions of the Avars, 99; bar-
barian, 40, 42 ; Mohammedan,

110

lona, 192, 194
Irenaeus, 97
Isadore of Seville, 77
Islam, 46, 47, 48, 52, 110, 111,

119, 131; See Mohammedans
Ivan the Great, 113; the Terrible,

James I, 229, 231, 232; II, 237,
249, 256, 264

Jamestown, 247, 248, 249

Janissaries, 110, 120

Jeanne of Valois, 213, 214

Jerusalem, 1, 7, 52, 57, 98, 100,
113, 121, 128, 129, 131, 133,
134, 135, 137, 139, 140, 282

Jesuits, 187, 188, 237, 245, 255

JtnnSf. 47

John, King (of England), 133, 142,
203-207, 210, 215; of Bricnne,
135; the Faster, 61; IX, 82

John, King, X, 79, 83; XI, 82;

XII, 82; XXIII, 159, 160, 162,
163

Johnson, Samuel, 253
Jordan, Rev. Robert, 252
Jubilee College, 272
Judaism, 111
Judas Iscariot, 1
Julian, the Apostate, 36, 37
Julius II, 168
Justinian, 62, 99

Keble, John, 240

Keith, Rev. George, 258

Keraper, Rt. Rev. Jackson, 272

Kempis, Thomas a, 170

Kenrick, Archbishop, 55, 56

Kenyon College, 271

Key, Francis Scott, 272

King's Book, 220

Kip, Rt. Rev. William I, 273

Knights of the Cross, 106; Hos-
pitaller, 128, 129; Templar, 129,
136; Teutonic, 129

Knox, John, 186, 187

Koran, 48, 51

Lambeth Conference, 278
Lanfranc, 199, 200, 201
Langton, Stephen, 203, 204, 205,

206, 207
Laodicea, 131

Lateran Council, Fourth, 44
Latimer, 222, 223
Latitudinarianism, 239, 250, 258
Laud, William, 233, 234
Leo I, 42, 60, 67; III, 43, 72, 73;

IX, 87, 88, 89, 105; X, 168;

XIII, 240, 241 ; the Isaurian, 68,
100, 101

Lepanto, Battle of, 121

Liberius, 35, 60

Licinius, 26

Lindisfarne, 192, 194

Liutprand, 82

Lombard, Peter, 143

Lombards, 42, 43,69,70,71,72,73

Lothair, 76, 78

Louis I, 75; IX, 137, 138, 139;

XII, 213, 214; XIV, 183, 246
Loyola, Ignatius, 187
Lucian, 28

Lucius, King, 190; III, 147
Luther, Martin, 143, 151, 165, 170,

171, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177,

178, 180
Lutheranism, 179, 183, 228

INDEX

293

Machiavelli, 167

Magna Charta, 206, 217

Marburg Colloquy, 177

Marcus Aurelius, 16, 20, 23

Mark, John, 1

Marozia, 82

Marprelate Martin, 230

Marsilius of Padua, 144, 165

Martin of Tours, 52, 53 ; V, 163

Mary, Queen of Scots, 228

Mary Stuart, 186

Mary (Tudor), 212, 213, 221-225

Massachusetts Bay Colony, 250, 252

Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve,
182

Mather, Increase, 252

Matthias, 1

Maxentius, 25

Maximin, 21

Mcllvaine, Rt. Rev. Charles P.,
275

Medici family, 168, 182, 215

Melanchthon, 175, 177, 178

Mendicants, 141, 144, 146

Michael III, 102, 103, 104

Milan, Edict of, 25

Milvian Bridge, battle of, 25

Mohammed, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 54,
120

Mohammedanism, 46, 48, 54, 98,
105, 119, 128

Mohammedans, 47, 52, 54, 70, 100,
101, 106, 108, 118, 119, 120,
121, 126, 128-132, 134, 136

Monastic Orders, 218, 237

Monophysitism, 45

Monothclitism, 46, 63

Montfort, Simon de, 207

Moore, Richard Channing, 269, 270,
271

Moors, 47, 52, 150, 165, 228

Morton, Thomas, 251

Muhlenberg, Rev. William Augus-
tus, 274, 278

Munzer, 175

Murray, Rt. Rev. John G., 282

Nantes, Edict of, 183
Napoleon Bonaparte, 180, 183
Nashotah House, 273
Negroes, 258, 274, 276
Neile, Bishop, 232
Nero, 18, 19, 57, 116
Nestorianism, 45
Newman, Cardinal, 240
Nicene Creed, 32, 39, 43, 45, 108,
278

Nicholas I, 78, 103, 104; II, 89,

91; V, 166
Nicolet, 245
Nicomedia, 22
Nonconformists, 237, 250

Old Catholic Church, 189

Orientalism, 56

Origen, 27, 97

Orsini, 156

Oswald, 194

Otey, Rt. Rev. James H., 273

Othman, 120

Oxford Movement, 240, 277

Oxyrhyncus, 17

Paganism, 12, 13, 14, 17, 23, 25,

26, 27, 36, 37

Palaeologus, Michael, 107, 108
Pale, The, 115
Palestine, 49, 52, 97, 99, 100, 106.

118, 119, 123, 128, 129, 130,

133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 139
Pantaenus, 27
Paolo Sarpi, 188
Papacy, 55-74, 83, 141
Parker, Matthew, 225, 226
Paul II, 166; III, 215
Paulinus, 193, 194
Payens, Hugh des, 129
Peasants* Revolt, 209
Pentecost, Feast of, 1, 2
Pepin, 70, 71

Perry, Rt. Rev. James DeWolf, 282
Peter the Great, 114; the Hermit,

121, 123, 124
Petrie, Dr. Flinders, 17
Petrine texts, 55, 57
Philadelphia Divinity School, in, 276
Philip II, 185, 222, 224; Augustus,

203, 205; of Hesse, 178; the

Fair, 153, 154
Photius, 102, 103, 104, 105
Pilgrimage of Grace, The, 219
Pilgrims, 231, 249, 250
Pisa, 165

Pius II, 166; IV, 227; V, 227, 228
Pole, Cardinal, 222, 225
Polk, Rt. Rev. Leonidas, 275
Polytheism, 14, 16, 17
Pope, 75, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108,

109, 244; infallible in doctrine,

43; infallibility, 55, 189
Prayer, Book of Common, American

revision, 267, 268, 278; Baxter's

substitute for, 236; first, 220;

first use in North America, 246

294

INDEX

Prayer, Book of Common, in Minne-
sota, 274; in New England, 252;
in New York, 253 ; Mather on,
252; Papal approval offered, 227;
Psalter in, 219; Puritan attitude,
229, 230; Second, 221, 225, 241;
unity based on, 279; use of, pro-
scribed, 234, 235

Preachers, Order of, 146

Privilege of Peter, 55, 56, 57

Provoost, Dr., 267

Ptolemy Philadelphus, 5

Puritanism, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235

Puritans, 151, 210, 217, 229, 230,
231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236,
238, 249, 250, 251, 252, 255,
256, 260, 263

Pusey, 240

Raikes, Joseph, 239

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 247

Rasfcolniks, 113

Raymond of Toulouse, 126

Reformation, 6, 143, 144, 145, 151,
210, 245, 278; Continental, 165-
189; Counter, 188; English, 211-
242

Reformed Catholic Church, 274

Reformed Episcopal Church, 277,
278

Religion, Act concerning, 256; of
Egypt, 27, 28 ; Ten Articles of,
219

Religious Orders, 277; Cistercians,
80 ; Dominicans, 146, 149 ; Fran-
ciscans, 145

Religious toleration, Act of Free-
dom, 255; for Christians, 25;
Roman, 16, 17

Religious Tract Society, 239

Remigius, Bishop, 44

Renaissance, 169

Restoration, 236, 249, 252, 256

Revival of Learning, 169

Richard the Lion-hearted, 131, 132,
133, 140, 204

Ridley, 222, 223

Riffians, 150

Rolfe, John, 248

Roman Church, 104, 105, 241. See
also Papacy, The

Roman Empire, 54, 71 ; broken, 34-
54 ; conflict in, 24, 25 ; division
of, 22, 26; society in, 41

Rome, 15, 16, 19, 35, 40, 41, 42,
43, 44, 52, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60,
61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68

Rome, 69, 72, 73, 77, 81, 82, 83, 85,
86, 87, 89, 90, 93, 94, 141, 154,
157, 171, 172, 174, 176, 180,
187, 189, 191, 192, 202, 204,
208, 213, 214, 215, 217, 219,
240, 282

Rufus, 201, 202

Runnymede, 206

Russia, Christianity in, 111

Russian Church, 111, 113, 114,
115, 116

St. Agnes, 24

St. Aidan, 192, 194

St. Alban, 24, 191

St. Ambrose, 37, 38, 56

St. Andrew, 126

St. Anthony, 79

St. Augustine, 38, 56, 62, 192,

193 ; of Hippo, 143
St. Basil, 96, 97
St. Benedict, 80

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 130, 131
St. Boniface, 196
St. Catherine of Siena, 155, 156,

157

St. Chad, 194
St. Columba, 192, 194
St. Cuthbert, 192, 194
St. Cyprian, 60, 61
St. Cyril of Alexandria, 56, 57, 97
St. Dominic, 144, 145, 146, 147
St. Dunstan, 84, 199
St. Faith, 24

St. Francis of Assisi, 144
St. George, 23, 24
St. Helena, 26
St. Hilary, 60, 61
St. Hilda, 195
St. Ignatius, 9, 15
St. Irenaeus, 59, 190
St. James, 2
St. Jerome, 6, 36
St. John, 2; Gospel of, 5
St. John's College, 277
St. John the Evangelist, 190
St. Joseph of Arimathea, 190
St. Justin Martyr, 20
St. Lawrence, 16
St. Lucy, 24

St. Luke, 1; Gospel of, 5
St. Mark, Gospel of, 5
St. Martin, 53
St. Matthew, Gospel of, 5
St. Maurice, 23
St. Olaf K 198
St. Patrick, 191, 194

INDEX

295

St. Paul, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 18, 19

St. Peter, 2, 5, 19, 42

St. Petersburg, 114

St. Philip, 8

St. Polycarp, 20, 97, 190

St. Sebastian, 23

St. Simon Stylites, 79

St. Stephen's College, 274

St. Thomas Aquinas, 143

St. Vincent, 24

St. Wilfrid, 192, 194, 195, 200

St. Willibrord, 196

Sabbath, 11, 12

Sacraments, 10, 11, 13

Saladin, 131, 132

Bancroft, Archbishop, 237

Sarum Rite, 226

Savonarola, 148, 168, 170

Scala Sancta, 172

Scary, John, 226

Schmalkald League, 178

Scholasticism, 143

Scott, Bishop, 273

Seabury Divinity School, 273

Seabury, Rt. Rev. Samuel, 264, 265,

268

Seeker, Bishop, 258
Separatists, 231, 250
Septimus Severus, 21
Septuagint, 5, 6
Serapis, 17
Sergms, 63; III, 82
Servetus, 151
Shephelah, 140
Sigismund, 160, 161, 162
Sixtus IV, 166

Smith, Rev. Dr. William, 265, 266
Society for the Propagation of the

Gospel, 257, 258, 259
Solemn League and Covenant, 234
Speyer, Diet of, 176
State, separation of Church and, 98,

99
Statute of Mortmain, 207, 210;

Praemunirc, 208, 210; Provisory,

208, 210
Stephen, Bishop of Rome, 59, 60;

II, 70; VI, 81; King of Eng-
land, 202
Stillcho, 41
Sunday, 11, 12; observance of, 27;

School, 239

Supremacy Act, 224; Oath of, 225
Sylyester I, 77; II, 83; III, 85, 86

Talbot, Rt. Rev. Ethelbert, 273, 282
Talbot, John, 258

Te Deum, 38, 182

Test Act, 237, 238

Tetzel, John, 173

Theban Legion, 23, 24

Theodora, 82, 83

Theodore of Tarsus, 195, 208

Theodosius, 37, 38, 39, 40, 99

Thessalonica, 38

Thirty Years War, 179

Timothy, 8

Titus, 8 ; Emperor, 19

Toleration Act, 238

Torquemada, Thomas de, 149, 150

Tours, 52, 53, 70; Battle of, 54,

119

Tract Ninety, 240
Trajan, 16

Transubstantiation, 141
Treasury of Merits, 172, 173
Tridentine profession of faith, 189
Trinity College, 272
Truce of God, 84
Tryggvessen, Olaf, 198
Turks, 46, 47, 105, 108, 110, 120,

121, 125, 127, 140, 165, 228;

Ottoman, 120; Seljuk, 120, 121
Tuttle, Rt. Rev. Daniel Sylvester,

281
Tyler, Watt, 209

Uniats, 110, 111

United States, Church in, 243-283 ;
Protestant bodies in, 151, 239,
251, 258, 266, 267, 275

University of the South, 276

Urban II, 118, 123; V, 155; VI,
156, 157

Valerian, 16

Vatican Council, 55, 188, 189

Vesey, William, 254

Victor I, 59

Vigilius, 61, 62

Virginia Theological Seminary, 271

Visigoths, 40, 43

Vladimir, 112

Voltaire, 180

Wallenstein, 179
Walter the Penniless, 123, 124
Wars of the Roses, 218
Wedmore, Peace of, 197
Wesley, John, 239, 266
Western Theological Seminary, 276
Westminster Assembly, 234
Westminster Confession of Faith,
234, 253

296

INDEX

Whipple, Rt. Rev. Henry B., 273
White, Rev. William, 263, 264,

267, 268

Whitefield, George, 239
Whitsunday, 2

Whitafcer, Rev. Alexander, 248
William III, 264
William and Mary, 238, 249, 256,

257
William and Mary College, 249,

250
William of Normandy, 199, 200,

201 ; of Ockham, 144 ; of Orange,

185, 238

Williams, Rev. Eleazar, 270
Williams, Roger, 251, 256
Wittenburg University, 172

Wolsey, Cardinal, 213, 215, 218
World War, 47, 110, 116, 139, 279
Worms, Diet of, 174
Worship, Emperor, 13 ; of images.

100-102
Wyclif, John, 144, 160, 168, 208,

209

Ximines, Cardinal, 150

Yale College, 252, 253
York Minster, 194, 195

Zacharias, 70

Zwickau prophets, 175

Zwingli, 176, 177, 178, 180, 181