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TALKS ON CHURCH HISTORY 



PUBLIC LIBRARY ^ ^ 

hORT WAYNE &. ALLEN CO., IND. 



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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 




TALKS 

ON 

CHURCH HISTORY 



By 

E. W. AVERTLL 



Copyright 
1923 

THE PARISH PRESS 
Fort Wayne, Indiana 



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' CHAPTER I. 

The Apostolic Age 

Sowing the Seed 



"A sower went forth to sow his seed." In this 
picture of a farmer at work, our Lord describes 
the origin of the Church, which is the Kingdom of 
God in the world. It is planting in the hearts of 
men the seed of Truth which, when properly nour- 
ished, has the power to grow, to transform dead 
mineral into living organic life, and to reproduce 
itself a hundredfold. It is the introduction into 
the world of a new kingdom, a new power which 
sha'l redeem men and make them the sons of God 
and hei^s of eternal life. 

In some cases the soil was rocky or full of 
thorns, and here there was no result, but where 
the soil was good, the harvest was swift. 

For many generations the Jews had been look- 
ing forward to the coming of Christ. (The Greek 
word for the Hebrew term "Messiah"). The 
Hebrew prophets had done their best to prepare 
the mind and heart of the people for this greatest 
of all the Prophets, but the Jews did not, as a na- 
tion, receive him. Nevertheless it was among de- 
vout Jews that Christianity had its origin. Pious 



Sowing the Seed 



folk like Joseph and Mary, Zacharias and Elisa- 
beth, Peter and Andrew, James and John, were 
the good soil in which the gospel seed first found 
root. 

Besides the Jews, there were two other great 
nationalities which afforded special opportunity 
for sowing the seed. These were the Greeks and 
the Romans. The Greeks were the older of these 
two ryes. They had impressed their culture and 
language upon the whole of ancient civilization 
They represented the highest development of hu- 
man intellect. They were unsurpassed in the arts 
of sculpture, of architecture, of oratory, of poetr> 
and drama. They laid equal stress on physical 
and mental development and achieved the highest 
perfection in both. Though politically conquered 
by the Romans, they still dominated in every 
school of thought. It was as necessary for an 
educated Roman gentleman to understand Greek 
as it was for an educated Englishman a century 
ago, to understand French. 

The Greeks had lost their faith in the ancient 
gods and in place of the old mythology, turned to 
philosophy, or human wisdom. This was the 
attempt of the human mind by its own processes 
of observation and reason to arrive at all knowl- 
edge, not simply of physical law, but of the higher 
problems of man's nature and destiny and rela- 
tionship. 



The Apostolic Age 



The Eficurean philosophy sought the end of 
man's existence in pleasure. Happiness is the pur- 
pose for which we exist. A man lives most who 
enjoys most, who feels most, who gains the greatest 
amount of pleasure out of life. Omar Khiayyam 
is the popular modern poet of Epicureanism. 

The Stoics on the other hand believed that 
not pleasure but virtue is the end of human ex- 
istence. IVIan is to rise above all selfishness and 
to ignore both pleasure and pain. Both are a part 
of the universal law that governs all human 
destiny, and the man who bravely accepts what 
universal law decrees, indifferent to both pleas- 
ure and pain, is the virtuous and happy man. 

The Platonists taught the still higher doctrine 
of the immortality of the soul, and the duty of 
every man to subjugate his lower nature to the 
higher instincts of reason and conscience; and the 
Aristotleans emphasized the practical doctrine 
that truth and common sense are generally found 
in the middle course between two extremes. No 
modern thinkers have advanced much beyond the 
ancient Greeks. Philosophy represents the height 
to which human intellect can go, but it does not 
go far enough to tell us of our origin, of our 
future, of God and of His relation to us. This is 
a revelation which Jesus Christ brought into the 
world. The Greeks did a great service in furnish- 
ing a suitable language for the inspired scriptures 



Sowing the Seed 



and theological writings of the Church. No 
language like the Greek has so many philosophical 
and religious terms or is so adept for the explan- 
ation of Divine truth. 

II. 

The Romans were the civil rulers of the world. 
Their passion was for organization and law. 
They brought into existence a government which 
ruled all the nations of the ancient world. Caesar 
on his throne dominated from the Atlantic to the 
Caspian; from the frozen shores of the German 
ocean to the sandy deserts of 'Sahara. The law 
of Rome was inexorable but it was impartial and 
just. 

They built great military roads from Rome. 
They were not a maritime people like the Greeks 
and Phoenicians, but preferred to travel over land, 
and so built their roads straight from Rome, over 
mountains and valleys, over rivers and marshes, 
to all the colonies in the empire, which were thus 
united, as by arteries in the human body, with the 
heart of the empire, and felt the bounding pulse 
of its imperial life. The highway was thus made 
ready for the preachers of the Gospel. Roman citi- 
zenship conferred protection in every part of the 
world, and ships and posts were open for the speed- 
ing of the messenger on his way. 



The Apostolic Age 



III. 

The Jews had long since lost their national inde- 
pendence, but not their desire for it. They had 
spread forth from Jerusalem and in every city there 
was a considerable colony of Jews, living separate, 
by themselves. Rome, Alexandria, Ephesus, An- 
tioch, each had its ghetto as London and New York 
today, and among these Jews were some of the 
greatest scholars of their age. They despised alike 
the religion and the philosophy of the heathen, and 
held fast to the clearer revelation of the one true 
God, believing in His holiness and power; that 
they were His favored people, and that the time 
was coming when Israel should put its benevolent 
heel upon the necks of heathen kings and teach 
them the knowledge and fear of the true God. In 
every city there were some cultured and devout 
Gentiles, attracted by the monotheism of Judaism 
who were admitted to the humbler privileges of the 
synagogue and were entitled "proselytes of the 
gate." Among these were the "honorable gentile 
women" so frequently referred to in the book of 
Acts as adherents of the synagogue. 

Thus among the Greeks and Romans and Jews 
the high places were made low, the valleys filled, 
the crooked places were made straight and the 
rough places plane and the way prepared for the 
sowing of the seed of Truth. 



Sowing the Seed 



IV. 

During our Lord's lifetime He spoke much about 
the nature of His Church, in parable and sermon, 
and stated that He would found it upon a rock 
This foundation is the Apostolate and He Himself 
is the Chief Corner-stone. While there were certain 
privileges and prerogatives which attached to the 
first twelve, the ministry as an organic body was to 
continue to the end of the world and preach the 
gospel to all nations. 

All power was given to these Apostles. They 
were entrusted with the keys of the Kingdom of 
Heaven. As the Father sent the Son, so the Son 
sent them forth. The promise was fulfilled and 
within sixty-five years of the death and resurrec- 
tion of Christ the Gospel had been carried to the 
north, south, east and west, and the whole Roman 
empire had heard its glad tidings of great joy. 

There were certain points about this apostolic 
Church in which it differs from our own. It had 
of course, no places of worship, no stately cathe- 
drals, no village churches. Christians met out of 
doors or in private homes. It had no Bible, as we 
mean by the term. The New Testament was not 
written. The Church was fully organized; Christ- 
ians were being baptized, confirmed, receiving 
holy communion, meeting for worship, before a 
line of the New Testament was written. None of 



The Apostolic Age 



the twelve apostles ever saw a New Testament. 
The Church was not founded on the Bible. It was 
founded on Christ and the Apostles, on men. Its 
tradition was oral. 

The Church at Jerusalem was also unique. We 
may compare it to the cotyledons, the first leaves of 
a plant which are different from the rest. It was 
both Jewish and Christian. Its Bishop was James, 
our Lord's brother, and he was revered by Jews and 
Christians alike. The Jerusalem church was strict 
in its adherence to the Mosaic law. Nowhere else 
was this the case. The new life was growing up 
within the husks of the old, but the old forms still 
stood. Another characteristic of the Jerusalem 
church was that its members had all things common. 
There was a sharing of worldly goods unique in 
the annals of Church history, and almost similar 
to the common life of a religious order. Socialists 
maintain that this was the true norm of Christianity. 
It was rather a local condition called forth by the 
necessities of the case, the severe persecution, as now 
in times of public danger or a flood, there is a com- 
mittee of public safety and the goods of each are 
held for the necessities of all. The Church at Jeru- 
salem came to an end in the year 70 A. D. when 
the prophesy of Christ in S. Matthew xxiv was ful- 
filled and the Romans destroyed the city and temple. 
This was the end of the ancient sacrificial religion 



Sowing the Seed 



of the Jews. It is true that the Jews still read the 
ritual of the sacrifice in their synagogues, but the 
sacrifice is not offered. It is as though a man who 
was sick should read his prescription regularly, in- 
stead of taking the medicine. The ancient Jewish 
sacrifices were fulfilled in Christ. The heathen 
sacrifices have also passed away. Henceforth there 
is only one sacrifice in the world, the Christian 
Eucharist, in which, in fulfillment of the prophesy of 
Malachai i, 11, the Church shows the death of her 
Divine Lord until He comes again. 

V. 

Let us now examine some of the characteristics of 
the Church in the Apostolic age. a. It had a 
definite doctrine or statement of truth which was 
called "the Gospel." This Gospel assumed the 
truth of the Jewish Scriptures, and taught in addi- 
tion that Jesus was the Christ, that is the promised 
Messiah, that this was proved by His rising from 
the dead, that remission of sins was found in His 
death, and that He was the Son of God and the 
future Judge of the world. The gospel of the 
Apostles was exactly the same gospel which we 
have now, and our Apostles Creed is a very ade- 
quate epitome of it. We can find it all in the 
epistles of St. Paul. In fact so important did this 
Apostle regard the fixed and unchanging character 
of this gospel, -that he writes, "Though an angel 



The Apostolic Age 



from heaven preach any other gospel, let him be 
anathama." At the close' of his life he expresses 
satisfaction at having kept the faith. The faith is 
the gospel or the revelation of divine truth neces- 
sary and sufficient for man's salvation. It is the 
special province of the Church to propagate it, and 
to keep it pure and undefiled. 

b. The Church had a definite priesthood or min- 
istry. This first consisted of the twelve apostles 
who had been personally chosen by Christ. Their 
first act as a corporate body was to fill the place 
made vacant by the defection of Judas with one of 
their own choice. 

We next find them originating two new orders 
of ministry ; viz., assisting ministers or deacons, and 
local pastors or presbyters. (The word priest is 
short for presbyter and means the same thing.) 
They also shared with others their superintending 
office, and so there developed at once a three-fold 
form of ministry. There were assisting ministers, 
local pastors or priests, and superintending and 
governing apostles. The power of ordination was 
in the hands of the Apostles. The assisting min- 
isters were called "deacons", the local pastors were 
called "presbyters" or "bishops." But after the 
end of the first century, the name "apostle" was no 
longer used, and the name of "bishop" was trans- 
ferred to the superintending ministers. 



10 Sowing the Seed 

c. The Church was also sacramental. Great 
stress was laid upon Baptism and Holy Com- 
munion. When St. Peter preached on the day of 
Pentecost and converted three thousand people, he 
baptized them. When he preached to the house- 
hold of Cornelius, the first Gentile convert, he bap- 
tized him and all his family. When Philip preached 
to the people of Samaria, and the Ethiopian eunuch, 
he baptized them. St. Paul preached to the jailer at 
Philippi, and to the household of Stephanus at 
Corinth and baptized them. Baptism was univers- 
ally recognized as the door of entrance into the 
Church of Christ, without it there is no recognized 
discipleship. 

Confirmation followed baptism as a matter of 
course. See Acts VIII and XIX. 

The distinctive act of christian worship was the 
Communion or Eucharist as St. Paul calls it. The 
first designation of the service was "The Breaking 
of Bread" and was the continuous expression of 
fellowship with Christ and with the christian broth- 
erhood. It was observed on every Lord's Day. or 
Sunday, and there are indications even of a daily 
observance of this sacred service. The sacrament 
had a two-fold significance. It was in the first 
place a communion with Christ, a renewal of the 
union between the Master and the disciple which 
imparted divine life and grace. It grasped the 



The Apostolic Age 11 

truth of those striking statements of Christ in St 
John vi. The Church has ever sought to impress 
on the minds of her children the reality of Christ's 
presence, and the renewed life that comes to them 
from communion with Him. It gave point to the 
promise, "Lo, I am with you always." On the 
other hand, this service has always been regarded 
as an act of worship addressed to God. In this 
aspect it is our Eucharist, our sacrifice of praise and" 
thanksgiving. The only thing we have to offer is 
ourselves, and we can only do this in union with 
Christ. It is also the expression of our love for 
the brethren. "By this shall all men know that ye 
are my disciples if ye have love for one another." 
There was a deep brotherly love among the Christ- 
ians in the early days of the Church. "See how 
these Christians love one another," was a comm.on 
saying in the heathen world. In later years alas 
it became an irony and a reproach, but in apostolic 
days it was indeed the proof of true discipleship. 
Let us remember that the words of Christ do not 
pass away. They still stand as the measure of our 
sincerity. If we are an apostolic Church we must 
show apostolic charity. "By this shall all men 
know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one 
for another." 



CHAPTER II. 

The Sub-ApostoHc Age 

The Leaven Hid in the Meal. 

Our Lord tells us that His Church is like a woman 
hiding yeast in three measures of meal and pres- 
ently the whole is leavened. 

It is a picture of the hidden growth of the 
Church during the sub-apostolic period. The at- 
titude of the world was hostile to the Church and 
therefore it shrank as much as possible from the 
observation of men. Its meetings were held in 
secret. Its disciples were known only to one an- 
other. On the surface there was little to indicate its 
presence, but underneath the spirit of life was at 
work. The Kingdom had been hidden in the great 
empire and it worked during the first three 
centuries until the whole was leavened. It has 
been said that at the beginning of the fourth 
century "The whole world awoke and found itself 
Christian." 

I. 

This age of the Christian Church is the most in- 
teresting and important of all epochs. It is the 
formative age, the period in which Christianity 
took the shape it was to keep until the end of time. 



The Subapostolic Period 13 

I'here have been other ages of greater scholarship 
and more brilliant attainments ; ages in which great 
books have been written, great cathedrals built, and 
worldly power exercised by the ministers of the 
Church; but no other age came so near to the mind 
of Christ, none was so possessed with the missionary 
spirit, and none was so pure as when the Church 
passed through the fires of persecution. Chris- 
tianity offered high moral ideals and a tre- 
mendous moral enthusiasm. It taught the pos- 
sibility of salvation from every sin and purity of 
life for every sinner. It taught equality and broth- 
erhood for everyone and admitted all who would 
come into the family of God. In this family there 
was the constant help and guidance of the Divine 
Spirit, there was abiding companionship with 
Christ, there was salvation and eternal life beyond 
the grave. Letters were constantly being sent from 
,one part of the Church to another. Wherever the 
Christian might go he would receive hospitality as 
a brother. The practice of Christian hospitality was 
one of the most beautiful features of the Church at 
this period and gave it a sense of unity and power 
which no persecution could break or destroy. 

During the first century, we may say, Christianity 
was in solution. It remained for the second century 
to precipitate the permanent elements. There was 
much in apostolic days that was transient, that 



14 The Leaven Hid 

passed away; the communism of the Jerusalem 
Church, the love feast, the kiss of peace, the wash- 
ing of the feet, the expectation of the immediate 
return of Christ, and the initiation of an earthly 
Messianic Kingdom. On the other hand the es- 
sential elements now assumed their permanem 
shape. We will mention briefly some of these. 

II. 

a. The Canon of the New Testament now took 
shape. The first century was a literary age. Great 
numbers of writings existed and many epistles were 
written. We have probably only a few of the 
many which had their origin at this time. St. Luke 
tells us in the opening words of his Gospel, that 
many others had written Gospels previous to his, 
and we know that many others were written after- 
ward. There was no New Testament during the 
first century, but many written manuscripts and 
letters were passed about which varied greatly in 
authority and worth. It became the duty of the 
sub-apostolic Church to cull out the books of un- 
doubted inspiration and to separate them from the 
greater mass of uninspired Christian literature, and 
so to form the "canon" or list of inspired books 
which were to be included in the New Testament. 

b. Another element which became fixed for all 
time was the Diocesan Episcopate. We speak of 
our Bishops as the successors of the Apostles, and 



The SuBAPOSTOLic Period 15 

this is true, generally speaking, but in the New 
Testament time there was no minister in the 
Church who corresponded exactly to our Bishops. 
There were three orders of ministers, Deacons, 
Presbyters and Apostles. The Deacons and Pres- 
byters fulfilled the same functions as these clergy 
do now, but the Apostles had universal jurisdiction. 
They went from one place to another, from north 
to south, and from east to west, and everywhere 
exercised the authority of their apostolic office. With 
the death of St. John, the last of the original twelve 
passed away, and from that time on, those who suc- 
ceeded to the apostolic office had a definite sphere 
of jurisdiction within which their authority was 
confined, and beyond whose bounds they could not 
go. We find the beginnings of this localized juris- 
diction in the Apostolate of St. James at Jerusalem, 
of Titus at Crete, and of Timothy at Ephesus. In 
the Book of the Revelation we find St. John address- 
ing the angels or apostles of the seven Churches of 
Asia Minor. With the death of St. John at the end 
of the first century the localized Diocesan Episco- 
pate became the norm of organization throughout 
the whole Church as is evident from the epistles of 
St. Ignatius written in the year 107 A. D. "It is 
not lawful without the Bishop either to baptize or 
to celebrate the Holy Communion, but whatsoever 
he shall approve of, that is also pleasing unto God." 
Smyrnaeans, iii, 5. The theory of some protestants 



16 The Leaven Hid 

that at the death of the apostles, simultaneously 
throughout the world, one presbyter in each city 
arrogated to himself apostolic authority without 
protest of any kind, and so transformed the pure 
presbyterian ministry of apostolic days into an 
arrogant episcopal hierarchy of a dark and super- 
stitious age, is fantastically and absurdly impos- 
sible. It is these same arrogant Bishops to whom 
we must go to establish the authority of the New 
Testament, and who were all gloriously martyred 
for their faith in Christ. We shall presently see 
who some of them were. 

c. The liturgical worship of the Church also had 
its origin at this time. Roughly speaking, the 
Prayer Book is older than the Bible. This does not 
mean our present book of Common Prayer, but the 
early Liturgy which assumed definite structural 
form before the canon of the New Testament was 
fixed. The Liturgy is the Communion Service and 
although differing in details in each locality, never- 
theless presents a striking similarity of structure, 
and even of verbal agreement in all of the ancient 
Churches. 

d. The forms and ceremonies of the Church also 
grew up at this time. The baptism of infants is 
often referred to, the Sign of the Cross, the Vest- 
ments of the clergy and of the singers, the lights on 
the Altar, and other osremonies of the Church's 



The Subapostolic Period 17 

worship go back to the days of persecution and 
were found in the catacomb of Rome. 

III. 

The Apostolic Fathers are those individuals 
whose names and writings have come down to us, 
who form the connecting link between the Apostles 
and the historic Church. These men were not re- 
markable for their intellectual ability, but their 
writings are of priceless value because of the posi- 
tion which they occupied. The scriptural qu(^ta- 
tions in their writings show them to have been fa- 
miliar with the books of the New Testament which 
must have been written prior to their own day, and 
therefore we depend upon their writings to establish 
the authenticity of the sacred books. Among these 
men are Clement, Bishop of Rome, mentioned by 
St. Paul, in Phil, iv, 3. Clement wrote two letters 
to the Corinthian Church which were esteemed next 
to the canonical scriptures themselves. 

Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, in 107 A. D., was 
brought before the Emperor Trajan and accused of 
being a Christian. After he had nobly confessed his 
faith in Christ, and refused to renounce his loyalty 
to One who had been his friend for so many years, 
the Emperor gave sentence, "Because Ignatius 
says that he bears the image of the crucified in his 
heart, let him be taken to Rome and thrown to the 
lions." Ignatius wrote seven epistles to the Churches 



18 The Leaven Hid 

in the east, in which great emphasis is laid on the 
episcopal office and the authority of the bishop. We 
quoted from one of these letters above. 

Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna, was a pupil and 
friend of St. John the Apostle. He tells how the 
gospel of St. John was written, and also describes 
the gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark. Papias, 
the Bishop of Hierapolis also quotes from the New 
Testament books. 

There is also the "Shepherd of Hermas," an 
aH'^ory popular among early Christians, and an 
epistle attributed to the Apostle Barnabas which is 
not in the New Testament canon, 

IV. 

The Persecutions. 

During this age the Church endured the bitterest 
persecution for 250 years. From the time of Nero 
in 64 A. D. to the Edict of Milan in 312, no Chris- 
tian was safe at any time. It is true that the perse- 
cutions were more bitter at some times than at oth- 
ers, but the laws of the empire stood against the 
religion of Christ, and at any time any Christian 
might be denounced, set upon and slain by the mul- 
titude, or executed by the public tribunal. The first 
persecution in Rome was by the emperor Nero who 
accused the Christians of burning the city to divert 
public anger from himself. They were covered 



The Subapostolic Period 19 

with pitch and burned in the streets as torches to 
interest and amuse the populace. 

The second persecution under Domitian in the 
year 87 A. D. is referred to in the Apocalypse, 
"These are they which have passed througb>l|p:eat 
tribulation, and have washed their robesaftndonwde 
them white in the blood of the Lamb." > aaalJr.W- 

The third persecution was in the time offflfajfeliy'; 
who ordered the execution of Ignatius. T^flJaA' 
was, however, a just and merciful emperor ^hd 
ordered that Christians should not be persecute 
without a formal trial, or executed without bein^ 
convicted of crime. Of course being a Christian 
was sufficient crime in itself to merit execution. 
Pliny, the younger, governor of Bythinia and Pon- 
tus, wrote a long letter to Trajan describing the 
persecution and the worship of the Christians, which 
called forth the "rescript" of Trajan just referred 
to. In Pliny's letter he says: "They were accus- 
tomed on a certain day to meet before daylight and 
to say in turns a hymn to Christ as to a god, and 
to bind themselves by a sacramentum not to commit 
any wickedness ; but on the contrary to abstain from 
theft, robberies, and adulteries; also not to violate 
their promise or deny a pledge ; after which it was 
their custom to separate and meet again at a pro- 
miscuous harmless meal, from which last practice 
they however desisted after the publication of my 
edict." 



20 The Leaven Hid 

The philosophical Marcus Aurelius was not above 
persecuting- the Christians for what he deemed a 
narrow and degrading superstition. 

In the narrative of the Thundering Legion, of 
the ^rsecutions at Lyons, of Pothinus and Blan- 
di|iWi?4)fethe. Forty Wrestlers of Sebasti, in these and 
^ntte$s other cases, the Christians showed their 
J^iilh'(#i€ss to walk in the path the Master trod, and 
t^^/»ill*(5ricl of the martyrs was the seed of the Church.- 

Heresies 




he first meeting of Christian revelation with 
reek philosophy produced a strange heresy called 
Gnosticism or Science. It assumed that matter is 
essentially evil and spirit only is good. The ma- 
terial world was not created by God but by an evil 
spirit. It was similar in many of its doctrines to 
modern Christian Science which has adopted the 
same name. It had its origin in Asia Minor. St. 
Paul encounters the beginnings of it in Colosse, 
see I Tim. vi, 20. Its endless geneologies and 
worship of angels developed to an absurd length. 
The Church, however, was not contaminated by this 
science, falsely so called. It kept the truth pure and 
undefiled. 

V. 

In no age was the Christian life so high, the 
faith .so pure or the zeal of Christians so great as in 
these first centuries of the Christian Church. 



is 



the \)0\h/r' 

CHAPTER III. ^^'"^^ 

Conversion of the Empire 

"The Birds of the Air come and lodge in its 
branches." 

I'he third chapter of Church History dates from 
the conversion of Constantine in 311 to the fall of 
the Roman empire in 476. It was a period of great 
progress and development and is fittingly repre- 
sented by the parable of the mustard seed. Christ 
compares His Church to a mustard seed, the least of 
all the seeds, which, when planted, is greater than 
all the herbs, becomes in fact a tree with spreading 
branches in which the birds of the air make their 
nests. These birds do not belong to the tree; they 
are quite apart from it, and contribute nothing to 
its life, but nevertheless they are accorded protec- 
tion and help by it. They represent the institu- 
tions of the world; the government, the society, the 
business and the customs of the people. These things 
are outside the Kingdom, but nevertheless they 
are protected and upheld by the Kingdom. The 
Church of God is the bulwark of human govern- 
ment, of business, of family and social life. If we 
destroy religion, the whole fabric of civilization 
falls to pieces. 



Birds of the Air 



The change which came into the empire with the 
conversidii of Constantine was astonishing. There 
are plant^ wMch grow for a hundred years and 
then spring mro bloom in one night. So Christi- 
anity burst into bloom. Whereas it had been every- 
where persecuted and hidden away from the sight 
of men, it now entered upon a period of dazzling 
prosperity. Churches arose everywhere as if by 
magic. The whole world found itself Christian. 

This sudden change was due to the conversion of 
Constantine. The death of Diocletian left the 
Roman woild with four governors, two in the East 
and two in the West. The latter were Maximian 
and Constantine. Maximian stood for the old 
pagan culture. He represented the old aristocratic 
families of Rome which looked with scorn upon the 
new and popular religion. Constantine was the 
champion of Christianity and the line of battle was 
soon in array. The night before the conflict, Con- 
stantine had a dream or vision. He saw a bright 
cross in the sky and under it the words, "In this 
Sign Thou Shalt Conquer." So firmly was he im- 
pressed with the reality and import of this vision 
that he abolished the Roman eagles, which for a 
thousand years had been carried before the victo- 
rious legions, and in their stead placed the labarum, 
the sign of the cross, which was, henceforth, to be 
his standard. The army of Constantine was victo- 



Conversion of the Empire 23 

rious, and with the death of Maximian, the power 
of heathendom collapsed like a punctured balloon. 
Christianity now entered upon a stage of flourish- 
ing progress. Constantine himself was not a whole- 
hearted believer, and in fact was not baptized until 
his death-bed, but nevertheless he lent comfort and 
assistance to the Christians in every way. He could 
see at least that the Christians had a spirit of broth- 
erhood, of unity, and of enthusiasm which bound 
together the most diverse races. There was nothing 
else like it in the world, and if he could align this 
force on his side, it would hold together the em- 
pire. While thus it seemed that Constantine had 
done a great thing for the Church, the Church did 
a far greater thing for Constantine. The birds 
of the air were glad to find shelter beneath the ever 
spreading branches of the Kingdom of Christ. Con- 
stantine built magnificent churches in Jerusalem, 
Tyre, Antioch and Constantinople. In this he. was 
warmly seconded by the efforts of his pious mother, 
Helena, who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and 
is said to have discovered the relics of the true 
Cross. 

II. 
The next step of Constantine was frought with 
great import to the civil and religious history of 
the world. He transferred the seat of the empire 
from Rome, which had been the mistress of the 
world for a thousand years, to Constantinople where 



24 Birds of the Air 

he built a city named in his own honor. In it was 
found no heathen temple. It was a Christian city 
from the beginning, and hundreds of churches were 
reared. Rome was still pagan at heart; the old 
aristocracy, the senate and the populace, looked 
with disdain upon Constantine, as an upstart, and 
he was glad to break away from their traditions. 

The churches were generally built after the 
Roman law court or basilica, and were large and 
imposing structures. There were single or double 
rows of columns on either side of the long hall or 
nave; the chancel was raised by a flight of steps 
and terminated in a semi-circular apse. The altar 
stood in the chord of the apse; the chairs of the 
clergy were placed against the circular wall, that 
of the Bishop being- directly behind the altar, fac- 
ing the people. In this position the Bishop stood in 
celebrating the holy Eucharist. The churches were 
paved with marble and the walls covered with mo- 
saics and paintings. The ancient basilicas of Rome 
are among the most beautiful and impressive in the 
world. Constantine built the church of the Holy 
Apostles in Constantinople, and laid the founda- 
tions of the Church of St. Sophia, or Holy Wisdom, 
which his sons completed, and which still stands, a 
monument to the magnificence of these early days 
of Christianity, though alas, it has been desecrated 
by the Moslem and is today a Turkish mosque. 
God grant that it may be again restored to the 



Conversion of the Empire 25 

worship of Christ to whose honor it was erected in 
the golden age of the Church. 

III. 

V 

We must now describe the organization of the 
Church. It followed that of the Roman empire 
The latter was divided into provinces and dioceses, 
and the Church adopted this same division and ter- 
minology. The diocese was the sphere in which 
the bishop exercised his jurisdiction, and the Prov- 
ince consisted of a group of Dioceses. We see the 
beginnings of this provincial system in Asia Minor, 
where the Seven Churches of Asia are grouped 
under the leadership of Ephesus. Each province in 
the empire was ruled by a Roman Governor in its 
metropolis, and similarly, the Bishop of the metrop- 
olis was the head of the Church in that Province and 
presided at its annual Councils or Synods. Al- 
though there are but three orders in the ministry of 
the Church, and theoretically, one Bishop is as good 
as another, yet practically the Bishops of the larger 
cities have the greater measure of influence, so 
the metropolitan Bishop had more than his humbler 
brothers in the smaller towns. 

Among the Metropolitans, there were certain that 
stood out in still greater rank and were known as 
Patriarchs. They occupied the apostolic sees, or 
Churches which were originally founded by the 
Apostles. St. James, the brother of our Lord, was 



26 Birds of the Air 

the first Bishop of Jerusalem, as we will see by 
reading the Acts of the Apostles; similarly St. 
John ruled the Church of Ephesus where he wrote 
his Gospel, and presided over the Churches of Asia 
Minor. Thus the provincial system had its begin- 
ning in apostolic days, and was now spread over the 
whole world. In addition to the Patriarchates of 
Jerusalem and Ephesus, there were also those of St. 
Mark at Alexandria, of St. Peter at Antioch, and 
of SS. Peter and Paul at Rome. When Constan- 
tinople was built its Bishop was made, by the Coun- 
cil of Nicea, a Patriarch, in honor, next to Rome, 
which had the precedence in dignity, being the im- 
perial city. .While these Patriarchates formed a 
convenient grouping for the practical administra- 
tion of church affairs, they were in no sense of di- 
vine authority. We shall see in our next chapter 
how the western patriarchate capitalized the tradi- 
tions of Imperial Rome and claimed an ecclesiasti- 
cal supremacy over the entire Church. During this 
period of the Church's history the Patriarchs were 
all brothers and shared equally the honor and re- 
sponsibility of ruling the Church. 

IV. 

We mu.st now see how the Church exercised its 
authority. The Church was the body of Chri.st, 
and as such was guided and inspired by His Holy 
Spirit. Nothing could be stronger than this sense 



Conversion of the Empire 27 

of divine spiritual guidance in the Church. When 
the Apostles met together their conclusion was, 
"It seems good to the Holy Ghost and to us." 
Christ had promised to abide with his Church 
always, and that the gates of hell should not pre- 
vail against it; that His Spirit would guide it 
into all truth and bring all things to its remem- 
brance. It was therefore inconceivable that the 
Church as a whole should fall into error. It was 
an infallible and true witness to Christ. This in- 
fallibility did not consist in the power to create 
new truths or doctrines, but rather to be a true 
witness to the faith which was once for all delivered. 
While the Church at times seemed to create new 
doctrines, these were only a clearer definition of 
what was always believed to be the true and ancient 
faith. On the other hand, because the Church is a 
living body and inspired by a living spirit it has 
always been free from a slavish adherence to the 
letter of scripture which has bound in legalistic 
chains some forms of protestantism. The unani- 
mous voice of the Spirit of Christendom speaks in 
the General Council. Five of the great General 
Councils of the Church were held during the period 
we are considering, defining the faith in Christ, 
or as it is called, the doctrine of the Incarnation 
This was brought about by four successive denials 
of this faith within the Church itself. The first 
of these heresies was that of Arius, a priest of 



28 Birds of the Air 

Alexandria, who taught that Christ was not divine, 
but the first of God's creation. He did not deny 
the miracles of Christ, but said that being a Son, 
He must be after the Father in time. Arius was 
controverted by Alexander, the Bishop and Atha- 
nasius, his deacon. The first General Council was 
summoned by Constantine, and met in Nicea, a 
suburb of Constantinople, in the year 325. Here 
Arius was condemned and the Nicene creed was 
put forth, declaring Christ to be of one substance 
with the Father, by whom all things were made. 
Bishop Gore has written a very helpful book on 
the divinity of our Lord entitled "Belief in Christ." 
The tendency of the human mind is to swing 
from one extreme to another like the pendulum 
of a clock. The next heresy was that of Apolo- 
narius, who taught that Christ's human nature was 
simply an appearance. 

"A mortal shape to Him was as the vapour dim 
Which the orient p'anet animates with light." 

This of course contradicted the Gospel, and was 
condemned by the second General Council of Con- 
stantinople in 381. 

Nestorius taught that our Lord had a dual per- 
sonality. This is a common belief today. It as- 
sumes that Christ was a human person, in whom 
the divine Logos or Spirit resided. This heresy 
denies the scripture and was condemned at Ephesus 
in 431 by the third General Council. 



Conversion of the Empire 29 

Eutyches confused the two natures of Christ, 
teaching that the human was lost in the divine as 
a drop of vinegar would be lost in the ocean. This 
would deny to Christ all human sympathy and 
feeling, and was condemned by the fourth General 
Council of Chalcedon which met in 451. The fifth 
and sixth General Councils completed the definition 
of the Incarnation condemning various other here- 
tics, among them Pope Honorius of Rome. As 
fixed by the General Councils the doctrine of the 
Incarnation is that Jesus Christ is truly divine and 
perfectly human, and that the two natures are in- 
separably, yet unconfusedly united in one person. 

V. 

Among the great Churchinen of this period were 
Athanasius, St. Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St. 
Jerome, and St. Augustine. It was as Dr. Spence- 
Jones calls it "The Golden Age of the Church." 



CHAPTER IV 

The Middle Ages 

"While Men Sleft an Enemy Sowed Tares" 

Our Lord foretold that the time would come 
when the enemy would sow tares in the field ; when 
evil men should dominate in the Kingdom of God. 
Hence the dark days in the Church's history. We 
must not suppose that the Church became wholly 
corrupt in spite of wickedness in high places. The 
Dark Ages were really a period of growth and 
development, and from them emerged the civiliza- 
tion and religious freedom of the present era. 

The Dark Ages began with the downfall of the 
Western Empire in 576. For six centuries the 
light haired barbarians of northern Europe had 
been pressing against Rome. The movement be- 
gan a hundred years before Christ. Every school 
boy knows how Caesar describes the first waves of 
this mighty ocean which beat so long upon the 
rock of Roman dominion, and at last swept all 
before it. The Helvetii, the Germans and the Gauls 
were beaten back into submission by the Roman 
legions. For seven hundred years they were held 
at bay. But no power of man can stay the forces 
of nature. The Goths, the Huns, the Vandals and 
Franks at last swept over the ancient empire. 



Dark Ages 31 



Europe was once more in the darkness of barbarism. 
There was but one source of illumination left — the 
Church. When Alaric, the "scourge of God," with 
his barbarian hordes stood at the gates of Rome, 
having spread devastation and waste behind him, 
he was met by Pope Innocent, and, overawed by 
the dignity of the great Bishop, he withdrew with- 
out destroying the city. 

The great work of the Church in Europe had to 
be accomplished afresh. Europe had to be civilized 
and converted anew. But whereas the first churches 
in Europe had been founded by missionaries direct 
from Jerusalem or Antioch or Ephesus, now the 
teachers of the Gospel went out direct from Rome, 
and so in its second conversion the new churches of 
Europe were allied to the great see of western 
Christendom and looked up to its great Bishop as 
their spiritual Father. This added greatly to the 
prestige and influence of the Roman pontiff. 

II. 

While the empire was destroyed in fact, it still 
lived as an ideal in the hearts of men as a great 
spiritual domain, and the Roman Church was the 
natural heir to this valuable heritage. When in 
800 the Pope placed the iron crown on the head 
of Charlemagne, and crowned him Emperor, the 
Holy Roman Empire was born anew as the crea- 
tion of the Roman pontiff. We must now briefly 



32 Tares and Wheat 

consider the circumstances which led to the rise 
of the papacy. 

a. A negative cause was the weakening, and in 
some cases the annihilation, of all the eastern Patri- 
archates by the rise of Mohammedanism, dating 
from 622. Mohammed appealed not simply to the 
reason of men, but supplemented his argument with 
the sword. His movement became a great military 
conquest. It spread through Arabia, Syria, Egypt, 
Africa, Spain, and attacked the very heart of 
Europe. The Moors were driven back into Spain 
by Charles M artel at the battle of Tours, and finally 
the combined armies of Ferdinand and Isabella 
drove them out of Spain, and back into Africa. 
Constantinople itself did not fall until 1435. 
Since then all of the great patriarchal sees of 
the Eastern Church, Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, 
Alexandria and Constantinople have been under 
Moslem domination. Our own day has seen the 
spoliation of the fairest and youngest daughter of 
the Greek Church, the Church of Russia. The final 
separation of the Latin Church from the East in 
1054 left the Patriarch of Rome without an equal, 
and henceforth the papal power grew by leaps and 
bounds, unchecked., 

b. The Temporal Power of the Pope began with 
the gift of the States of the Church by Pepin, the 
father of Charlemagne, in return for which the 
Pope made the latter the head of the Holy Roman 



Dark Ages 33 



Empire. From this time on the Pope extended his 
temporal power not only in Italy, but also claimed 
supremacy over all the monarchs of Europe. We 
must not regard the temporal power of the Pope as a 
thing in itself, but in connection with the civil 
authority exercised by the Church throughout the 
whole west. Not only was the Pope a civil ruler, 
but each Bishop was a Prince of the Church, a 
feudal lord. 

In the Roman Empire the Emperor was supreme, 
and all others were simply citizens with equal 
rights. When the empire fell, the feudal system 
took its place. The barbarians loved freedom, but 
freedom only for the strongest. The hero who was 
strong did as he pleased, and compelled others to 
do as pleased him. Hencg each community had its 
leader whpm the otheijs servied as vassals. These 
chiefs built tljeir castles ip strong and inaccessible 
places. They carried on war with each other and 
were independent rulers. The Bishops of the 
Church were feudal lords, and had their castles, 
their armies and their retainers. The Clergy were 
endowed with much property and had great in- 
fluence in public affairs. This was due to the fact 
that theirs was the only learned profession, and 
included law and medicine as well as affairs of 
state. The barbarians despised learning. It was 
considered effeminate for them to know how to w^te 
th^ own names. They depended UQpn tfee Clergy, 



34 Tares and Wheat 

their spiritual advisors, to do their literary work. 
Hence to the present day, we call any writer a 
clerk, which is only short for clergymen. 

The temporal power of the Pope was the logical 
climax of the temporal power which the Church 
everywhere exercised. We must say that the tem- 
poral power of the Church was generally a blessing 
for the people. The civil rulers and petty lords 
were often cruel and bloodthirsty. They were 
selfish masters, whereas the Church was the only 
power which they respected or feared, and it gener- 
ally took the side of the people against theii 
oppressors. It was therefore to the interest of the 
common people to build up and strengthen the 
spiritual power as their one protection against in- 
justice, and, though the Church itself was a hard 
master, it protected them against the greater ra- 
pacity of their civil rulers. 

c. The ignorance of the times also contributed 
to the development of papal power. Before the 
invention of printing, all books were copied labori- 
ously by hand and many corruptions crept into the 
text, which were difficult to discover. Especially 
was this the case in regard to books of law. They 
were often garbled in the interests of the Clergy 
and Pope. A great body of spurious laws arose 
called the Papal Decretals, supposed to be genuine 
and representing that the temporal and spiritual 
supremacy of the popes went back to the earliest 



Dark Ages 35 



ages. With such precedents as this to appeal to 
no one dared to dispute any claim which the Pope 
might make. He was monarch of all he surveyed, 
both in the temporal and spiritual realms. 

In 1066 the Pope gave England to William of 
Normandy, who invaded the country, and was vic- 
torious at the battle of Hastings. He brought with 
him not only his French retainers and lords, but 
also his French Bishops and England was brought 
much closer to Rome than in the old Saxon days. 
Protests were made from time to time against 
Roman usurpations, but the Church of England 
did not regain her freedom until the time of 
Henry VIII. ^^30637 

Gregory VII came to the papal throne in 1073 
and did much to further the interests of his office. 
He humiliated Emperor Henry IV and made him 
stand three days barefooted in the snow doing 
penance before the papal palace at Canossa before 
he returned to him his kingdom. From now on 
the papal power continued to develop until the time 
of Boniface VIII, who issued the celebrated bull 
Unam Sanctam declaring that Christ had given to 
St. Peter authority over all kingdoms and empires 
in the world and that his successor, the Pope, might 
give them to or take them away from whomsoever 
he chose. 



36 Tares and Wheat 

III. 

This was the climax of papal power. Phillip 
the Fair, of France, drove Boniface from the throne 
and transferred the papacy bag and baggage to 
Avignon in France. Now began what is known 
as the Babylonish Captivity. For seventy years 
the Popes were Frenchmen and puppets of the 
French kings. They lived in great luxury and 
ease, but corruption reigned in the papal court. 
Then the people of Rome rebelled at the absence 
of their Bishop. They accordingly elected a 
Roman Pope, and enthroned him in St. Peters, as 
described in "Rienzi," and now for forty-three 
)^ears there were two heads to the Western Church, 
one at Avignon, and one at Rome, each claiming 
to be the true successor of St. Peter and excom- 
municating his rival. All Europe was divided, 
some nations following one Pope and some the 
other. The climax was reached when in 1409 the 
council of Pisa deposed both Popes and elected 
a third. From now until 1417 there were three 
Popes. The council of Constance deposed two, 
recognized one as valid, and on his death elected 
Martin V, who ended the "Great Schism." These 
scandals in the Church had much to do with pre- 
paring the way for the reformation. 

The Crusades also contributed to the do^vnfall 
of the papacy. Although they missed tJieir in- 



D.ARK Aces 37 



tended purpose of restoring the sacred shrines of 
Christendom to the hands of the faithful, they re- 
established communication between the east and 
the west, and brought back to Europe much of 
Greek culture. The fall of Constantinople hastened 
this movement, resulting in the revival of Greek 
letters known as the Renaissance. In the light of 
the new learning it was evident that the extreme 
papal claims were not grounded on ancient author- 
ity, and were contrary to the spirit and teaching 
of the early Church. 

There were many corruptions and supersti- 
tions in the Church's teaching, the worship of 
the Saints and of the Virgin Mary developed to 
great lengths, and pilgrimages to certain sacred 
shrines were supposed to be of great efficacy. The 
doctrine of purgatory was taught in its most ma- 
terialistic form and much money was spent in say- 
ing prayers and masses for the dead. The Poi^e 
claimed authority not only over the earthly bi.t 
over the heavenly kingdom as well, having powei 
to release the souls of the departed from the fires 
of purgatory. From this a system of dispensations 
and indulgences grew up which became a source 
of traffic and scandal throughout Christendom and 
led directly to the German Reformation. 

On the other hand we must not suppose that 
the Church was wholly corrupt. There have been 
pious and godly men in all ages of the Church, and 



38 Tares and Wheat 

some of the greatest Saints, such as St. Francis, 
lived during this period. The wheat was growing 
in the field as well as the tares. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Reformation 

The Treasure Found 

Our Lord in one of His parables describes the 
Church as a treasure hid in a field, forgotten by 
the owner. A man passing through, discovers it 
by accident, and for joy goes and sells all that 
he has and purchases the field. So it was in the 
days preceding the reformation. The saving truths 
of Christianity were largely lost sight of by the 
Church itself. They were thickly overlaid with 
superstition, worldliness and sin. When the New 
Learning brought to light again the Holy Scrip- 
tures, and the invention of printing enabled them 
to be put into the hands of all men, it was a re- 
discovery of Christianity. Men rejoiced so that 
they sacrificed all that they had in order that they 
might purchase for themselves this great treasure, 
pure and undefiled. 

Circumstances were making for a great change, 
not only in the religious but in the social and 
political world of the day. These changes were 
due to three inventions, a. The discovery of gun- 
powder blew the feudal system to pieces. So long 
as a man could wear a coat of mail, sit upon a 
horse and be immune from the man . with a 



40 The Treasure Found 

pike on the ground, he was a great nobleman; 
but gunpowder enabled the serf to fight better than 
the baron with his horse and coat of mail, and 
the coat of mail and the baron disappeared simul- 
taneously, b. The invention of printing took 
learning out of the hands of the Clergy and put 
it into the hands of everybody. Instead of having 
to go to Church and listen to the Clergy tell what 
the Word of God said, each man could own a copy 
and read for himself, c. The invention of the 
mariner's compass made navigation a science and 
brought about the discovery of a new world. This 
developed maritime and colonial power, England 
soon taking the precedence of Spain and maintain- 
ing her ascendency on the sea to the present day 

The premonition of coming events was felt by 
the Church and abortive efforts were made to re- 
form the Church from within. Councils were 
held at Pisa, Constance, Basle, and Florence, all 
for the purpose of reforming the Church in its 
head and in its members. The Pope, however, as 
the head, wished the reformation to begin with the 
members, and the Bishops wished to begin with the 
head, so nothing was done. 

Erasmus, a great scholar, wrote a Greek gram- 
mar and made the new learning popular through- 
out Europe. He was a careful, calculating man, 
and did not identify himself with the new religion. 
The monks however gave him full credit for his 



The Reformation 41 

share in the reformation, saying "Erasmus laid the 
^gg which Luther hatched." 

The reformation was three-fold. When we speak 
of the reformation we sometimes think of it as a 
solid movement. There were, however, three re- 
formations, each carried on with different prin- 
ciples and arriving at widely differing results, viz.; 
the Reformation in Northern Europe, outside the 
Church; the Reformation in Southern Europe, 
within the Church, and the Reformation of the 
Church of England. Each of these movements 
was quite distinct. 

The first of these reformations began in Ger- 
many. At the beginning of the XVI Century, 
Leo X, the Medician Pope, was building St. Peter's, 
in Rome, the most magnificent Church in the world. 
In order to raise the money for this enterprise he . 
sent Tetzel into Germany to sell indulgences or 
pardons for sins. This aroused the ire of Martin 
Luther, who at once began a campaign denouncing 
the corruptions of the Church. In the words of 
Erasmus, "He hit the Pope on the head and the 
monks in the belly." But Luther's reformation did 
not stop with the corruptions of the Church. By 
his own vehemence and by the force of circum- 
stances he was carried entirely outside the pale of 
the Church, so that instead of reforming the Church 
he founded a new one which has ever since been 
called after him. 



42 The Treasure Found 

The great doctrine which Luther preached was 
Justification by Faith only. During the dark ages 
the Church had been corrupted and the priests, 
like the pharisees of old, had bound heavy burdens 
and laid them upon men's shoulders. In order to 
receive forgiveness of sins, which the Gospel offers 
freely, men must do heavy penances, buy expensive 
indulgences, and go on long pilgrimages. Even 
after death penalties followed them, which could, 
however, be escaped by the payment of large sums 
of money to the priests. The Clergy had the keys 
to the Treasure of Merit accumulated by the Saints, 
and, by the power of the Pope, the Merits of the 
Saints could be transferred to the credit of sin- 
ners, and so they might escape some or even all of 
the pains of purgatory. Religion thus became 
mechanical and a matter of barter. We can under- 
stand then the tremendous popularity of Luther's 
doctrine of justification by faith only. All that 
was necessary to be forgiven and to be saved was 
just to believe. It was not necessary to go on pil- 
grimages, or to buy indulgences, or to do hard 
penances. Only believe. The pains of purgatory 
and the fires of hell cannot touch -you if you have 
faith. In the course of his controversy, Luther 
was drawn into the extreme position that even the 
moral law is unnecessary and that if a man had 
sufficient faith he might break all of the ten com- 
mandments. He encountered the epistle of St. 



The Reformation 43 

James, in the Bible, but declared it a straw-brief 
and of no account. The new doctrine cut the foun- 
dation from under all the other institutions of re- 
ligion. The Church, the priesthood, the sacraments, 
the discipline of the Church all become superfluous. 
Faith only is the one thing needful, and this is 
practically the attitude of modern protestantism 
today. Luther, however, was not entirely consistent, 
and while he gave up the Church and the priest- 
hood, he nevertheless retained the sacraments, the 
altars and many of the old customs of the Church, 
including the doctrine of the Real Presence in the 
Lord's Supper. 

Calvin was far more logical than Luther. While 
Luther strove to keep all that was not contrary to 
the Bible, Calvin would have nothing that was not 
expressly commanded in the Bible, as he inter- 
preted it. The five "points" of Calvinism are Total 
Depravity, Effectual Calling (predestination). 
Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace and Final 
Perseverance. This, too, transfers religion from the 
domain of the external, to the hidden councils of 
God. Man need not worry about faith, for if he 
is predestined to be saved, God will give him 
irresistible grace to believe. The Calvinist has a 
most exalted idea of the Holy Catholic Church, 
but it is not an outward institution; it is an in- 
visible Church whose true members are known only 
to God himself. Each Calvinist of course hopes 



44 The Treasure Found 

that he belongs to that invisible Church, But again, 
priest and sacrament, church and altar are 
entirely superfluous. New religious organizations 
took their rise at this time, and since then there 
have been many ramifications and divisions of 
protestantism; they all rejected the Church, the 
priesthood and the sacraments, and put in place 
of them faith as the only necessary virtue; and 
each man's individual judgment in interpreting 
scripture in place of the authority of the Church. 

II. 

Within the Roman Church a corresponding- 
change now took place called the Counter- Reforma- 
tion. The Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) had been 
founded and began a great work both in Europe 
and in the missionary fields. The Council of Trent 
was summoned and effected a thorough reformation 
so far as the moral corruptions of the Church were 
concerned. The dogmatic positions of the School- 
men were affirmed, and the papal power, without 
the nations of Northern Europe, was more strongly 
entrenched than ever. The Roman Catholic Church 
has gone on in an active, vigorous, religious life, 
and the members which it lost in Northern Europe 
have been more than made up in South America, 
where the Latin-Spanish culture was dominant. It 
is worthy of note that the Roman Church is at its 
best in protestant coimtries. In 1870 the Pope 



The Reformation 45 



lost his temporal power, and was declared infallible 
by the "Vatican Council. 

Ill 

The third reformation movement which was go- 
ing on simultaneously with the two which we have 
above described, and quite distinct from either, was 
the reformation of the Church of England. The 
Church of England goes back to the earliest days 
of Christianity. Three of its Bishops attended the 
Council of Aries in 314. It was at first entirely 
independent of the Roman Church. With the 
coming of St. Augustine, the first Archbishop of 
Canterbury, in 597, the Church of England first 
came into contact with the Roman Church. From 
this time until 1066 the Church of England was in 
friendly communion with Rome, and looked up to 
the great western pontiff as a father in God, bu* 
nevertheless lived quite an independent life. Witl 
the coming of William the Conqueror and his Nor- 
man Bishops, which was simultaneous with the 
rapidly developing claims of the papacy, the Church 
of England was brought into closer contact with 
Rome, which was regarded as the mother aqd the 
mistress of all the national churches. However, 
protests were made from time to time. The Magna 
Charta begins with the words, "The Church of 
England shall be free." Its freedom was not 
achieved, however, for several centuries. When the 



46 The Treasure Found 

new learning came to Europe it found a welcome in 
the English universities. The learned began to 
question the supremacy of the Pope, and the com- 
mon people objected to the enormous proportion 
of the Church's income that was sent to Italy. 
Many of the holders of English bishoprics were 
Italian ecclesiastics who never set foot in England 
and who drained all the revenue of the Church. 
Besides tliis there were many monasteries and con- 
vents in England where monks and nuns lived in 
idleness, who were not under the jurisdiction of the 
English Church. The whole country was then 
waiting for the occasion to abolish the papal 
autocracy, when the opportunity came over the 
question of the annulment of Henry VIII's mar- 
riage with his deceased brother's wife, a marriage 
contrary to the canon law of the Church and the 
civil law of England, as in fact, it is today. A 
dispensation had been obtained from the Pope to 
permit this marriage. Henry's motive in seeking 
annulment was desire for a legal heir to the Eng- 
lish throne, a motive in which the people of Eng- 
land ^generally concurred. The universities of 
England and of France declared that the Pope 
had no authority to dispense with divine law, and 
pronounced the marriage with Catherine, Henry's 
brother's widow, null and void. This brought about 
the expected break with the Pope, but in other 
respects there was little change in the English 



The Reformation 47 

Church during Henry's reign. He dissolved the 
monasteries, distributing their property to his 
favorites. The services were still said in the Latin 
tongue, the Clergy were forbidden to marry, and 
anyone who denied transubstantiation was burnt 
at the stake. Henry did not found a new Church 
in any sense. The creed, the services, the priest- 
hood and the sacraments remained exactly as they 
had always been. Henry and his children were 
more or less wicked and altogether selfish people, 
but they smashed Spain and made England great. 
They were no more wicked than other kings and 
Popes of their day. Roman Catholics who are dis- 
turbed at the shortcomings of Henry VIII and 
Martin Luther should read the article on Pope 
Alexander VI in the Catholic Encyclopedia. 

When Edward the VI came to the throne, a boy 
of eight years, in 1548, the reformation set in at 
full tide. His counselors were men who had 
profited by the Church's spoliation, and they did 
not wish to see the old order restored. On Whit- 
sunday, 1549, for the first time the services in 
the Churches were said in the English tongue, 
from the First Prayer Book of Edward the Sixth. 
It was conservative and Catholic in tone and did 
not suit the reforming politicians, so two years 
later a second prayer book was issued which was 
decidedly protestant. The influence of the con- 
tinental reformation was beginning to make itself 



48 The Treasure Found 

felt in England, and the Church of England was 
on the verge of losing her Catholic heritage, when 
the boy king came to a premature end in 155"3. 

The English people had not wanted a protestant 
religion, and they hailed the accession of Mary 
with joy. Mary, however, was a bigot. She and 
her mother had been despised and set at naught by 
the reformation and she had a score to settle. She 
burnt at the stake three hundred men and women, 
digging some out of their graves. She burnt the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer, and four 
other bishops and many priests. She married a 
Spaniard, Phillip II. This was England's last ex- 
perience with the papacy and it was enough. When 
Mary died, after five years of unhappy rule, the 
bonfires were lighted and the people rejoiced. 
Elizabeth came to the throne to uphold the freedom 
of England in Church and state. Let us survey 
the position of the Church of England at this time. 
Under Henry the Church repudiated the Pope 
but otherwise remained Catholic and unreformed. 
Under Edward it was reformed and was in danger 
of losing its Catholic character. Under Mary it 
was put back into obedience to the papacy. Which 
direction would it now take ? Elizabeth was a good 
Catholic at heart. During the first months of her 
reign the mass was still said in Latin. Cardinal 
Pole, Mary's Archbishop of Canterbury, died at 
the same time as Mary, and Matthew Parker was 



The Reformation 49 

consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in Lambeth 
Chapel by four Bishops on December 17, 1559. 
The other bishoprics were filled, and less than two 
hundred of the Clergy refused to accept the new 
order. The Second Prayer Book was revised, its 
objectionable protestant features being eliminated, 
and is practically the prayer book which we use 
today. 

The important question which we must now 
answer is, Was the Church of England founded by 
Henry VIII and is it a Catholic or a protestant 
Church? This is one and the same question, for 
all protestant Churches had their origin at the 
reformation period, or some subsequent time. If 
the Church of England existed before the reforma- 
tion, then it is a Catholic Church in the true and 
correct sense of the word. Did Henry VIII found 
a protestant Church in the same way that Martin 
Luther did? Luther formed a new organization, 
with a new ministry, and a new doctrine, a new 
form of worship, and a new faith. Henry VIII 
did not change the ministry, the faith, the sacra- 
ments or the worship of the Church in any respect 
at all. Neither did the Bloody Mary found a new 
Church when she brought England again under 
Roman autocracy. Neither did Elizabeth found a 
new Church when she made it again independent. 
If the universal jurisdiction of the Pope is essential 
to the Church's Catholicity, then of course the 



50 The Treasure Found 

Church of England would be a new Church, but 
the universal jurisdiction of the Pope was never 
recognized in the Eastern Churches, which are un- 
questionably as ancient and Catholic as the Western 
Churches. Therefore the Catholicity of a Church 
is a matter quite apart from the question of the 
Pope's jurisdiction. 

As children of the English Church we should 
feel devoutly thankful that our Heavenly Father 
has preserved it through all the ages of its trial 
and danger, and brought it out at last into ways 
of pleasantness and peace. Let us ever remember 
that we are Catholic in the true sense of the word, 
and that we hold the faith, not of the reforma- 
tion, but the faith that was once for all delivered 
to the Saints, and that the Church of our fathers 
is built upon the foundation of the apostles and 
prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief Cornerstone. 

IV. 

The position of the Church of England was now 
defined so far as its relation to the Pope was con- 
cerned. 

Another question of equal importance is, What 
is the relation of the Church of England to pro- 
testantism ? The continental reformation developed 
upon two lines — the Lutheran, and the Calvinistic. 
The motto of the Lutherans was to keep all the old 
customs that were not forbidden in scripture. That 



The E.EFORMATION 51 

uf the Calvinists was to throw out all customs that 
were not comraanded in scripture. For example, 
the Lutherans continued to keep Christmas Day; 
the Calvinists passed laws against it. 

I'he seat of Calvinism was Geneva, where Calvin 
reigned as a protestant Pope. His doctrine was 
the faith of Holland, of the French Huguenots, 
and of Scotland. When the Bloody Mary came 
to the throne, many English Churchmen fled to 
Geneva, where they were imbued with the stern 
doctrines of Calvin (see page 43). John Knox 
similarly was the protestant Pope of Scotland and 
ruled the Church and state alike with an iron hand. 
When Mary died, the refugees came back to Eng- 
land and created a strong Calvinistic faction in 
the Church. Here then was the situation. The 
Romanists had rejected the Church and were fight- 
ing against it. It was surrounded by firm and 
autocratic protestant groups in Switzerland, Hol- 
land, France and Scotland. John Knox and John 
Calvin believed in the supremacy of the Church 
over the state as much as any Pope. There was 
a powerful group of sympathetic men within the 
Church itself. Their attitude was one of contempt 
for the Church of England as a miserable com- 
promise. They regarded h^r as still clinging to 
the rags of Popery. All that was essentially Catho- 
lic, was repugnant to them. They despised the 
prayer book, the altars, the chanted service, the 



52 The Treasure Found 

surplice, kneeling at communion, the ring in mar- 
riage, the sign of the cross in baptism. All that 
was characteristic of the Church as such, they hated 
and determined to destroy. Most of all they con- 
centrated their attack upon the episcopate, which 
was the living witness of the Church's continuity. 
The Calvinists were Presbyterian in their church 
organization. 

Under Elizabeth the Puritans had little chance 
for growth. She kept them down with a strong 
hand. When she was succeeded by James I, who 
had been brought up a Presbyterian, the Puritans 
thought their inning had come. A conference was 
called between, Churchmen and Puritans, but 
James took the side of the Church of England and 
the Puritans were discomfited. The matchless King 
James version of the Bible was translated at this 
time. It was the greatest English classic. 

When Charles I came to the throne Puritan op- 
position continued to develop. The days of autoc- 
racy were going by both in Church and state. 
Charles set at naught his parliament and tried to 
rule arbitrarily. The Church stood by the king. 
(The Church is generally wrong when it gets into 
politics.) The Puritans stood by the parliament. 
Charles lost his head and the Church went down 
with him. The prayer book was forbidden, the 
Clergy were dispossessed of their parishes, and 
Puritans put into their places. The altars, windows, 



The Reformation 53 

organs, statuary and vestments were destroyed. 
Christmas was made a fast day, May poles were 
cut down, and England found herself a Puritan 
nation. 

There were of the Puritans two sorts. The par- 
liament which opposed Charles was Presbyterian. 
When it abolished the Church it called the West- 
minster Assembly, which produced the Westminster 
Confession, and the Longer and Shorter Cate- 
chisms, which form the creed of the Presbyterian 
Churches in England and America today. But a 
new type of Puritanism was arising, the Inde- 
pendents or Congregationalists, who regarded pres- 
byteriani.sm as a mere imitation of epi.scopacy, and 
the only thorough godly religion was to be found 
with themselves. The leader of this party was 
Oliver Cromwell, who put the fear of God into 
his own soldiers first and then into all England, 
It was not the Long Parliament, the Presbyterian 
Parliament, with which Charles had had his quar- 
rels, that executed the king. They in fact refused 
to do so. It was the Rump Parliament, composed 
of Independents and Cromwell's followers, after 
Colonel Pride had driven out the Presbyterians, 
(Pride's purge) that signed the death warrant. 
Never before in history had a king been legally 
executed by his own people. The English people 
were the first to arrive at the important truth that 



54 The Treasure Found 

the king belongs to the government and not th*" 
government to the king. 

Cromwell was, of course, as much an autocra* 
as Charles, but he made England respected a* 
home and abroad. 

The English people, however, were not Puritan 
at heart. When Cromwell died, Charles the II 
came back as a constitutional monarch, with the 
consent of parliam.ent, and the Church came back 
as a matter of course. The Puritans were irrecon- 
cilable. Many of them emigrated to America, and 
those who remained separated from the Church 
and established the Presbyterian and Congrega- 
tional Churches in England, which are closely allied 
10 the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland and the Dutch 
Reformed Church of Holland 



CHAPTER VI 

The Church in America 

When Columbus discovered America, it was 
quickly taken possession of by men of many na- 
tions and many religions. 

The Spanish and French were foremost in this 
work. In fact, Spain appropriated everything in 
the New World, from Florida to the Straits of 
Magellan. France took the northern part of North 
America from the St. Lawrence, pushing her dis- 
coveries into the interior, including the Great 
Lakes, and the Mississippi Valley, and on to the 
Gulf of Mexico, the territory of Louisiana includ- 
ing originally almost all of the land west of the 
Mississippi. 

To the English was left only the North Atlantic 
coast. It possessed no mines of gold or silver for 
the adventurer, or skins for the trader. Although 
it did not seem so at first, it afterwards turned out 
to be the best part of the New World, or at least 
it became such under the influence of English 
civilization and religion. 

The French and Spanish were both Roman Catho- 
lic. The English colonies, however, were by no 
means all devoted to the Church of England. The 
Puritans who settled New England were bitterly 



56 Church in America 

hostile to it. They came to this country, not so 
much to find religious liberty, as to found a state 
in which their Puritanism might be dominant. 
Cotton Matther pronounced the doctrine of religious 
toleration the doctrine of devils. They thoroughly 
believed in the union of the Church and state and 
that religion should be enforced by civil penalties, 
and of course, it was to be their kind of religion. 

New York was settled by the Dutch, whose Dutch 
Reformed Churches are still landmarks in New 
York City. 

New Jersey was settled by the Swedes; Mary- 
land by the Roman Catholics, and Pennsylvania 
by the Quakers. 

In fact, it is not until we come to the colony 
of Virginia that we find the Church of England. 
Here it.. was the established Church. The first 
colonists landed at Jamestown in 1607, and on St. 
John Baptist's day, of this year, June 24th, the 
Holy Communion was first celebrated by James 
Hunt, chaplain of the expedition, a sail being 
stretched from tree to tree for protection against 
the weather, and the pulpit made of two spars, 
lashed between trees. A Church was subsequently 
built with brick brought from England, the original 
tower of which is still standing, and the whole 
building has been restored on the original founda- 
tion lines. 



Church in America 57 

People in Virginia were compelled to go to 
church under penalty of paying a pound of tobacco 
in case of absence ; and other similar laws that were 
regarded as necessary for the welfare of the com- 
munity were enacted. 

This period, however, was one of grave religious 
indifference and laxity. In one instance a clergy- 
man preached every Sunday, and went about dur- 
ing the week delivering infidel lectures. In Eng- 
land religion had reached a low ebb. The Church 
was spiritually dormant, if not dead. The non- 
juror, representing the highest and best in the 
traditions of the Church, had been expelled from 
its communion, and the Clergy were Erastian and 
worldly-minded. The sacraments had fallen largely 
into disuse, and the conduct of public worship had 
become slovenly and irreverent. 

At this time a young man was in attendance at 
Oxford who was destined to profoundly influence 
the religious history of England and America. At 
Oxford he organized a society for the observance 
of the rubrics of the prayer book, including the 
fasting communion, the recitation of the daily 
offices, and the observance of the fast days of the 
Church. Because of his strictness in observing 
these rules, he and his companions were called 
Methodists, for the young man was none other 
than John Wesley. He took orders in the Church 
with his brother Charles, and they went to Georgia 



58 Church in America 

with Oglethorpe, when he founded his colony, 
Charles to take charge of a parish there and John 
to convert the Indians. Failing in this, John took 
charge of a Church, where he made himself dis- 
liked because of his strict discipline. Finally he 
capped the climax by excommunicating a young 
lady who had jilted him in an offer of marriage 
The people rose up against him, and John found 
it expedient to return to England. On his way 
there, he fell in with some Moravian missionaries 
who preached to him their doctrine of personal 
religion, and as a result, he experienced a religious 
conversion, which he regarded as a new starting 
point in his Christian life. He at once began to 
preach this doctrine of instantaneous conversion 
with great success. He was warmly seconded in 
his efforts by an English priest, Whitfield, who 
had a wonderful gift of oratary. On one occasion 
Whitfield preached all afternoon, until it was dark, 
but the people would not depart, so he continued 
to preach all night long, after the example of St 
Paul, and dismissed his congregation at daybreak 
This movement started in America, where it 
was known as the "great awakening," Jonathan 
Edwards, a Puritan Divine, giving assistance to it 
It was never Wesley's purpose that the Methodist 
movement should be more than a development in 
the Church of England. The original Wesleyans, 
in England, are still members of the Church, but 



Church in America 59 

the whole movement was too large for John to 
manage. 

His superintendents, whom he sent to America, 
Coke and Asbury, proclaimed themselves Bishops, 
and Methodism was launched as a new sect of 
Christianity. It was most unfortunate that this 
division took place. Had the Church of England 
been able to appreciate Wesley at his real value, 
and had the Methodist movement kept within the 
bounds of the Mother Church, it would have been 
of inestimable value to both. The Church would 
have received a new impetus, which it certainly 
needed, and Methodism would have been saved 
from the extremes to which it has gone, and from 
which it is now receding. The crucial difference 
was, of course, the doctrine of instantaneous con- 
version, upon which Wesley so strongly insisted, 
and which is not the religious experience of every 
individual. John himself lived and died a priest 
of the Church of England, as did his brother 
Charles, who wrote many of our most beautiful 
hymns. 

In the early part of the eighteenth century a 
circumstance occurred which gave great impetus 
to the Church in New England. Dr. Timothy 
Cutler was president- of Yale Collge, the great 
Puritan stronghold. He became engaged in con- 
troversy with a Churchman, and in order to fortify 
himself, began reading the history of the Church 



60 Church in America 

and of the apostolic ministry. His reading had a 
most unexpected result, for instead of fortifying 
his position, he became convinced that the Puritan 
orders were invalid, and that an Episcopal ordina- 
tion was essential for a valid ministry. Accord- 
ingly at the Commencement in 1722, he, together 
with five other members of the faculty, resigned 
their positions, and entered the communion of the 
Church of England. Great was the consternation 
in Connecticut. A day of fasting and of prayer 
was proclaimed to counteract the effects of this 
great apostasy, but apparently without avail. Cut- 
ler and his companions went to England, where 
they were ordained priests of the Church, and 
returning, laid the foundations of the English 
Church so firmly in Connecticut that today one 
in every ten of the population, men, women and 
children, is a member of the Church, the 
highest proportion found in any state of the Union. 

There was still, however, a great prejudice 
against the Church in Massachusetts, and threats 
were freely made that if a Bishop should come to 
that colony, he would be assassinated. 

Here was the real difficulty in the Church's de- 
velopment. No missionary work in the Episcopal 
Church can be successful without the episcopate, 
and during this long period there was nc 3ishop 
in America. Not a confirmation had been adminis- 
tered. For ordination it was necessary that young 



Church in America 61 

men should make an expensive and dangerous jour- 
ney across the ocean to receive Holy Orders. While 
other religious bodies grew apace, the Church was 
sadly handicapped in lacking its chief ministers. 

Then came the Revolutionary War, which 
severed the colonies from the Mother Country. 
Many of the leaders in this war were devoted 
Churchmen, among them Washington, Jefferson. 
Henry, and Franklin. The attitude of the major- 
ity of the people, however, identified the Church 
of England with the tyrannical government, an 
attitude justified in many cases by the opinions of 
the Clergy. Samuel Seabury, a Connecticut priest, 
and a staunch Tory, served as chaplain of one of 
the British regiments until the surrender of York- 
town. At the conclusion of the war, he was chosen 
by the Clergy of Connecticut to go to England 
and receive orders. After waiting in vain for a 
year in England, he turned to Scotland. The 
terms of peace had not yet been m.ade with the 
new nation, and the English Clergy were restrained 
from ordaining a Bishop for the colonies. 

The persecuted Church of Scotland, however, 
was bound by no such rules, and in Aberdeen, in 
1784, Samuel Seabury was ordained the Apostle 
to America. He pledged that the American 
Church .should use the Scottish prayer book instead 
of the English, and for this reason, today, our 
communion service follows the Scottish order in 



62 Church in America 

some important respects. White and Provost were 
shortly afterward ordained in London, by the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, thus supplying the three 
Bishops necessary to continue the Apostolic suc- 
cession in America, and from them our American 
Bishops have derived their orders. 

From now on the Church grew apace, and 
although it is still relatively small in numbers, it 
is growing rapidly, and exercises an influence much 
in excess of its numerical strength. 

The real strength of the Church is in its historical 
position. It stands at the meeting of the ways. 
It is both Catholic and reformed. On the one 
hand, it stands for religious liberty and personal 
religion. This principle alone, however, leads to 
division and religious anarchy. It is Catholic in 
retaining the historical character of Christianity 
and preserving its ancient forms and traditions. 
It has kept all that is sacred and valuable in the 
traditions of the past, and it is in fullest sym- 
pathy with the thought of the present. While it 
does not aim to assimilate other bodies of Chris- 
tians, it does believe that when Christian unity 
is restored, it will be along the lines which the 
Anglican Church rightfully stresses. 

In the meantime, let us be loyal to the Church 
of our Fathers, exhibiting at the same time the 
fullest sympathy for our brother Christians of 
everv name. Protestant Christians are members 



Church in America 63 

of the Church of Jesus Christ by virtue of their 
baptism. The Roman Church is a great sister 
Church, believing all that we do and more. Let 
it be our prayer that the unity of the Church may 
be restored. Division among Christians is the 
great obstacle in the way of the world's conversion. 
Christ prayed that His followers might all be one, 
and pointed to this as the evidence of His divine 
mission. "That they all may be one, I in Thee, 
and they in Me, that the world may know that 
Thou hast sent Me." If we are to convert the 
world, we must restore the broken unity of the 
Church of Christ.