THIRD SECTION.

HISTORY OF THE GRÆCO-BYZANTINE CHURCH

IN THE 8TH-15TH CENTURIES

(A.D. 692-1453).

I. Developments of the Greek Church in Combination

with the Western.

§ 66. ICONOCLASM OF THE BYZANTINE CHURCH (A.D. 726-842).[190]

The worship of images (§ 57, 4) had reached its climax in the East

in the beginning of the 8th century. Even the most zealous defenders

of images had to admit that there had been exaggerations and abuses.

Some, _e.g._, had taken images as their godfathers, scraped paint off

them to mix in the communion wine, laid the consecrated bread first

on the images so as to receive the body of the Lord from their hands,

etc. A powerful Byzantine ruler, who was opposed to image worship from

personal dislike as well as on political grounds, applied the whole

strength of his energetic will to the uprooting of this superstition.

Thus arose a struggle that lasted more than a hundred years between

the enemies of images (εἰκονοκλάσται) and the friends of images

(εἰκονολάτραι), in which there stood, on the one side, the emperor

and the army, on the other, the monks and the people. Twice it seemed

as if image worship had been completely and for ever stamped out;

but on both occasions a royal lady secured its restoration. In practice

indeed the Roman church remained behind the Greek, but in theory

they were agreed, and in the struggle it gave the whole weight of

its authority to the friends of images. On the part taken by the

Frankish church, see § 92, 1.

§ 66.1. =Leo III., the Isaurian, A.D. 717-741.=--Leo, who was

one of the most powerful of the Byzantine emperors, after the

attack of the Saracens on Constantinople, in A.D. 718, had

been successfully repelled, felt himself obliged to take other

measures against the aggressions of Islam. In the worship of

images abhorred by Jews and Moslems he perceived the greatest

obstacle to their conversion, and, being personally averse to

image worship, he issued an edict, in A.D. 726, which first

ordered the images to be placed higher in the churches that

it might be impossible for the people to kiss them. But the

peaceable overcoming of this deeply rooted form of devotion

was frustrated by the unconquerable firmness of the ninety-year

old patriarch Germanus in Constantinople, as well as by the

opposition of the people and the monks. The greatest dogmatist

of this age, Joh. Damascenus, who was secured from the rage

of the emperor in Palestine under Saracen rule, issued three

spirited tracts in defence of the images. A certain Cosmas

took advantage of a popular rising in the Cyclades, had himself

proclaimed emperor and went with a fleet against Constantinople.

But Leo conquered and had him executed, and now in a second edict

of A.D. 730 ordered all images to be removed from the churches.

Now began a war against images by military force, which went

to great excess in fanatical violence. Repeated popular tumults

were quelled in blood. Only in Rome and North Italy did the

powerful arm of the emperor make no impression. Pope Gregory II.,

A.D. 715-731, treated him in his letters like a stupid,

ill-mannered school-boy. In proportion as the bitterness

against the emperor increased enthusiasm for the pope increased,

and gave expression to itself in the most vehement revolts

against the imperial Council. A great part of the exarchate

(§ 46, 9) surrendered voluntarily to the Longobards and so

much of it in the north as remained with the emperor proved

more obedient to the pope than to the sovereign. Gregory III.,

A.D. 731-741, at a Synod in Rome in A.D. 731 excommunicated

all enemies of images. The emperor fitted out a powerful fleet

to chastise him, but a storm broke it up. He now deprived the

pope of all his revenues from Southern Italy, severed Illyria

(§ 46, 5) in A.D. 732 from the papal chair and gave it to the

patriarch of Constantinople, but in doing so he cut the last

cord that bound the Roman chair to the interests of the Byzantine

Court (§ 82, 1).

§ 66.2. =Constantine V. A.D. 741-775.=--To the son and successor

of Leo the monks gave the unsavoury names of Copronymus and

Caballinus in token of their hatred, the latter on account

of his love of horses, the former because it was said that

at his baptism he had defiled the water. He was like his father

a powerful ruler and soldier, and in the battle against images

yet more reckless and determined. He conquered his brother-in-law

who had rebelled with the aid of the friends of the images, and

caused him to be cruelly treated and blinded. As popular tumults

still continued, he thought to get ecclesiastical sanction

for his principles from an œcumenical Council. About 350 bishops

assembled in Constantinople, A.D. 754. But, as the chair of

Constantinople had just become vacant, while Rome, which had

excommunicated the enemies of images, refused to answer the

summons, and Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem were under Saracen

rule, there was not a single patriarch present at the Synod.

The Council excommunicated all who made images of Christ, for

it declared that the Supper was the only true image of Christ,

and condemned every kind of veneration of images. These decrees

were now relentlessly carried out with savage violence. Thousands

of monks were scourged, imprisoned, banished, chased through

the circus with nuns in their arms for the sport of the people,

or forced into marriage, many had their eyes gouged out, or had

their nose or ears cut off, and the monasteries were turned into

barracks or stables. Even in private houses no image of a saint

was any longer to be seen. From Rome Stephen II. protested

against the decisions of the Council, and Stephen III. from

a Lateran Synod of A.D. 769 thundered a fearful anathema against

the enemies of images. But in the Byzantine empire monkery and

image worship were well nigh extinguished.

§ 66.3. =Leo IV., Chazarus, A.D. 775-780.=--The son of

Constantine was of the same mind with his father, but wanted

his energy. His wife =Irene= was an eager friend of the images.

When the emperor discovered this, he began to take active

measures, but his suspiciously sudden death put a stop to

operations. Irene now used the freedom which the minority

of her son Constantine VI. afforded her for the introduction

of image worship. She called a new Council at Constantinople

in A.D. 786, which also Hadrian I. of Rome attended, while the

other patriarchs, being under Saracen rule, took no part in it.

But the imperial guard attacked the place where they were sitting,

and broke up the Council. Irene now arranged for the =Seventh

Œcumenical Council at Nicæa, A.D. 787=. The eighth and last

session was held in the imperial palace at Constantinople, after

the guards had been withdrawn from the city and disarmed. The

Council annulled the decisions of A.D. 754, and sanctioned image

worship for it allowed the bowing and prostration before the

images (τιμητικὴ προσκύνησις) as a token of the reverence

which was due to the original, and declared that this in no

way interfered with that worship (λατρεία) which was due to

God alone.[191]

§ 66.4. The next emperors were friendly to image worship, but

the victory had departed from their standards. Then the army,

which had always been hostile to images, proclaimed =Leo V.,

the Armenian, A.D. 813-820=, emperor, an avowed opponent of

images. He proceeded very cautiously, but the soldiers set aside

his prudence and launched out into violent raids against images.

At the head of the patrons of images was Theodorus Studita, abbot

of the monastery of Studion (§ 44, 2), a man of unfeigned piety

and unfaltering decision of character, the most acute apologist

of image worship, who had even in exile been eagerly promoting

the interests of his party. He died in A.D. 826. Leo lost his

life at the hand of conspirators. His successor, =Michael II.,

Balbus, A.D. 820-829=, allowed at least that images should be

reverenced in private. His son =Theophilus, A.D. 829-842=, on

the other hand, made it the business of his life to root out

entirely every trace of image worship. But his wife =Theodora=,

who after his death conducted the government as regent, had it

formally reintroduced by a Synod at Constantinople in A.D. 842.

Since then all opposition to it has ceased in the Greek church,

and the day of the Synodal decision, 19th February, was appointed

a standing festival of orthodoxy.

§ 67. DIVISION BETWEEN GREEK AND ROMAN CHURCHES AND

ATTEMPTS AT UNION, A.D. 857-1453.[192]

The second Trullan Council in A.D. 692 had given the first occasion

to the great schism which rent the Christian world into two halves

(§ 63, 2); Photius gave it a doctrinal basis in A.D. 867; and Michael

Cærularius in A.D. 1053 completed its development. The increasing

need of the Byzantine government drove it to make repeated attempts

at reconciliation, but these either were never concluded or the union,

if at all completed, proved a mere paper union. The Sisyphus labour of

union efforts ended only with the overthrow of the Byzantine empire in

A.D. 1453. The three stages referred to--the early misunderstandings,

the avowed doctrinal divergence, and the final decisive separation--as

well as the persistent rejection of attempts at reunion, were not

wholly owing to the importance of ceremonial differences. After as

well as before there had been free church communion between them.

It was not owing to the importance of the almost solitary point of

doctrinal difference between them, in reference to the _filioque_

(§ 50, 7), where if there had been good will a common understanding

might easily have been won. It was really the papal claims to the

primacy to which the Greeks absolutely refused to submit.

§ 67.1. =Foundation of the Schism, A.D. 867.=--During the

minority of the emperor Michael III., son of Theodora (§ 66, 4),

surnamed the Drunkard, his uncle Bardas, Theodora’s brother,

directed the government. Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople

at that time, himself descended from the imperial family, lashed

severely the godless, vicious life of the court, and in A.D. 857

kept back from the communion the all-powerful Bardas, who lived

in incestuous intercourse with his own daughter-in-law. He was

then deposed and banished. =Photius=, the most learned man of his

age, previously commander of the imperial bodyguard, was raised

to the vacant chair, and inherited the hatred of all the friends

of Ignatius. He made proposals of agreement which were proudly

and scornfully rejected. He then held a Synod in A.D. 859, which

confirmed the deposition of Ignatius and excommunicated him. But

nothing in the world could make his party abandon his claims. Now

Photius wished to be able to lay in the scales the Roman bishop’s

approval of his questionable proceedings. He therefore laid

an account of matters highly favourable to himself before Pope

=Nicholas I.=, and sought his brotherly love and intercessions.

The pope answered that he must first examine the whole affair.

His two legates, Rhodoald of Porto and Zacharias of Anagni, were

bribed and at a Council at Constantinople in A.D. 861 gave their

consent to the deposition of Ignatius. Nicholas, however, had

other reporters. He excommunicated his own legates and pronounced

Ignatius the lawful patriarch. Bitterness of feeling reached its

height in Constantinople, when soon thereafter the Bulgarians

broke their connection with the Byzantine mother church and

submitted to the pope (§ 73, 3). Photius now by an Encyclica

of A.D. 866 called the patriarchs of the East to a Council

at Constantinople, and charged the Roman church with the most

extreme heresies; that it enjoined fasting on Saturday (§ 56, 1),

allowed milk, butter and cheese to be eaten during the first

week of the Quadragesima (§ 56, 7), did not acknowledge married

priests (§ 45, 2), did not prohibit the clergy from shaving the

beard (§ 45, 1), pronounced anointing by a presbyter invalid

(§ 35, 4), but above all, that by the addition of the _filioque_

(§ 50, 7) it had falsified the creed, recognising thus two

principles and so falling back into dualism. With such heresies

too the pope had now infected the Bulgarians. The meeting of the

Council took place in A.D. 867. Three monks, tutored by Photius,

represented the patriarchs under Saracen rule. Excommunication

and deposition were hurled against the pope, and this sentence

was communicated to the Western churches. The pope was evidently

alarmed. He justified himself before the Frankish clergy and

insisted that they should answer the charges of the Greeks

in a scholarly reply. This was done by several, most ably by

Ratramnus, monk at Corbie. But during that year, A.D. 867, the

emperor Michael was murdered. His murderer and successor Basil

the Macedonian undertook the patronage of the party of Ignatius,

and asked of Pope Hadrian II. a new investigation and decision.

A =Synod at Constantinople, A.D. 869=, counted by the Latins

the 8th œcumenical, condemned Photius and restored Ignatius.

The deciding about the Bulgarians, however, was not committed

to the Council but to the reputed representatives of the Saracen

patriarchs as impartial umpires. They naturally decided in favour

of the Byzantine patriarch. In vain the legates remonstrated.

Photius in other respects under misfortune displays a character

worthy of our esteem. For several years he languished without

company, without books, under the strictest monastic rules.

Yet he reconciled himself to Ignatius. Basil entrusted him with

the education of his children, and on the death of Ignatius in

A.D. 878, restored him to the patriarchate. But still the ban of

an œcumenical Council lay upon him. Only a new œcumenical Council

could vindicate him. John VIII. agreed to this against the

remonstrances of the Bulgarians. But at the ninth =Council

at Constantinople, A.D. 879=, the eighth according to the Greeks,

the papal legates were completely duped. There was no mention of

the Bulgarians, the Council of A.D. 869 was repudiated, and every

one excommunicated who dared add anything to the creed. The pope

afterwards indeed launched an anathema against the patriarch,

his Council, and his followers. The succeeding emperor, Leo the

Philosopher, A.D. 886-911, again deposed Photius in A.D. 886, but

only that he might put an imperial prince in his place. Photius

died in monastic exile in A.D. 891.

§ 67.2. =Leo VI., the Philosopher, A.D. 886-911.=--This emperor

was three times married without having any children. He married

the fourth only when he had assured himself that she would not

be barren. The patriarch Nicolaus [Nicolas] Mysticus refused

(§ 61, 2) to celebrate the marriage and was deposed. A Synod

at Constantinople in A.D. 906, attended by the legates of Pope

Sergius III., approved the marriage and the deposition. But

on his deathbed Leo repented of his violence. His brother and

successor Alexander restored the patriarch Nicolas, and Pope

John X. attended a Synod at Constantinople in A.D. 920, which

condemned the Council of A.D. 906, and pronounced a fourth

marriage absolutely unallowable, but showed no inclination to

make any concessions to the pope. New negociations were begun

by the emperor =Basil II.= In consideration of a large sum of

money the venal pope John XIX. was willing to acknowledge the

Byzantines as œcumenical patriarchs of the East, and to resign

all claims of the chair of Peter upon the Eastern church. But the

affair became known before it was concluded. The removal of the

new Judas was loudly demanded throughout the West, and the pope

was compelled to break off his negociations.

§ 67.3. =Completion of the Schism, A.D. 1054.=-Though so many

anathemas had been flung at Rome by Byzantium and at Byzantium

by Rome, they had hitherto been directed only against the persons

and their followers, not against the respective churches as

such. This defect was now to be supplied. The emperor Constantine

Monómachus sought the papal friendship which he thought necessary

to the success of his warlike undertakings. But the patriarch

=Michael Cærularius= frustrated his efforts. In company with the

Metropolitan of the Bulgarians, Leo of Achrida, he addressed in

A.D. 1053 an epistle to bishop John of Trani in Apulia, in which

he charged the Latins with the worst heresies, and adjured the

Western bishops to separate from them. To the heresies already

enumerated by Photius, he added certain others; the use of blood

and things strangled, the withdrawal of the Hallelujah during

the fast season, and above all the use of unleavened bread in

the Supper (§ 58, 4), on account of which he invented for the

heretics the name of Azymites. This letter fell into the hands

of Cardinal =Humbert=, who translated it and laid it before pope

Leo IX. A violent correspondence followed. The emperor offered

to do anything to restore peace. At his request the pope sent

three legates to Constantinople, among them the occasion of the

strife, Humbert (§ 101, 2), and Cardinal Frederick of Lothringen,

afterwards pope Stephen IX. (§ 96, 6). These fanned the flame,

instead of quenching it. Imperial pressure indeed brought the

abbot of Studion, Nicetas Pectoratus to burn his controversial

treatise before the legates, but no threat nor violence could

move to submission the patriarchs, on whose side were the people

and the clergy. The legates finally laid a formal decree of

excommunication on the altar of the church of Sophia, which

Michael together with the other Eastern patriarchs solemnly

returned, A.D. 1054.

§ 67.4. =Attempts at Reunion.=--The crusades increased the breach

instead of healing it. Many negociations were begun but none of

them came to much. At a Synod at Bari in Naples, in A.D. 1098,

Anselm of Canterbury (§ 101, 1), who then lived as a fugitive

in Italy, proved to the Greeks there present the correctness

of the Latin doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit.

In A.D. 1113, Petrus [Peter] Chrysologus, Archbishop of Milan,

vindicated it in a complete discourse before the emperor at

Constantinople. And in A.D. 1135, Anselm of Havelberg, who

went to Constantinople as ambassador for Lothair II., disputed

with the Archbishop Nicetas of Nicomedia, and afterwards at the

command of the pope wrote down the disputation with creditable

faithfulness. The hatred and abhorrence of the Greeks reached

its climax on the erection of the Latin empire at Constantinople,

A.D. 1204-1261 (comp. § 94, 4). Nevertheless =Michael Palæologus,

A.D. 1260-1282=, who brought this dynasty to an end, strove

on political grounds in every way possible to overcome this

ecclesiastical schism. The patriarch Joseph of Constantinople

and his librarian, the celebrated =Joannes Beccus=, stubbornly

withstood him. The latter indeed in imprisonment became convinced

that the differences were unessential and that a union was

possible. This change of mind secured for him the patriarch’s

chair. Meanwhile the negotiations of the emperor with the pope,

Gregory X., in which he acknowledged the Roman chair to be the

highest court of appeal in doctrinal controversies, were brought

to a point in the œcumenical =Council at Lyons, A.D. 1274=,

reckoned by the Latins the fourteenth. The imperial legates here

acknowledged the primacy of the pope and subscribed a Roman creed,

while to them was granted liberty to use their creed without the

addition and to practise their peculiar ecclesiastical customs.

Beccus vindicated this union in several treatises. But a change

of dynasty overthrew him in A.D. 1283. Joseph was restored and

the union of Lyons was broken up leaving no trace behind.

§ 67.5. The advance of the Turks made it absolutely necessary

for the East Roman emperors to secure the support of the West

by reconciling and uniting themselves with the papacy. But the

powerful party of the monks, supported by popular prejudice

against the proposal, thwarted the imperial wishes on all sides.

The patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem too were

zealous opponents, not only animated by the old bitterness toward

their more prosperous rivals on the chair of Peter, but also

influenced against the views of the emperor by the policy of

their Saracen rulers. The emperor =Andronicus III. Palæologus=

won to his side the abbot =Barlaam= of Constantinople, hitherto,

though born in Calabria and there educated in the Roman Catholic

faith, a zealous opponent of the Western doctrine. Barlaam went

at the head of an imperial embassy to Avignon where the pope

at that time, Benedict XIII., resided, A.D. 1339. Negotiations,

however, broke down through the obstinacy of the pope, who

demanded of the Greeks above all unconditional submission in

doctrine and constitution, and also showed not once any wish

for renewing the conference.--On Barlaam, comp. § 69, 2.--The

political difficulties of the emperor, however, continually

increased, and so =Joannes V. Palæologus= took further steps.

He himself in A.D. 1369 in Rome passed over to the Latin church,

but neither did he get his people to follow him, nor did pope

Urban V. get the Western princes to give help against the Turks.

§ 67.6. The union attempts of =Joannes VII. Palæologus= had more

appearance of success. The emperor had won over the patriarch

Joseph of Constantinople, as well as the clever and highly

cultured archbishop =Bessarion= of Nicæa, and went personally

in company with the latter and many bishops, in A.D. 1438,

to the papal Council at =Ferrara= (§ 110, 8), where the pope,

Eugenius IV., fearing lest the Greeks might join the reformatory

Council at Basel, showed himself very gracious. The Council,

nominally on account of the outbreak of a plague at Ferrara

was transferred to =Florence=, and here the union was actually

consummated in A.D. 1439. The primacy of the pope was acknowledged,

though not altogether without dubiety of expression, the ritual

differences as well as the priestly marriages of the Greeks

tolerated, the doctrinal difference reduced to a misunderstanding

and the orthodoxy of both churches maintained. In the Latin text

of the decree referred to the pope was acknowledged as “Successor

of Peter, the chief of the Apostles, and the vicar of Christ,”

as “head of the whole Church, and father and teacher of all

Christians, to whom plenary power was given by our Lord Jesus

Christ to feed, rule, and govern the universal Church”--yet

with the significant addition “in such a way as it is set forth

in the œcumenical Councils and in the sacred Canons,” by which

certainly the Greeks thought only of the Canons of Nicæa and

Chalcedon referred to in § 46, 1, but the Latins mainly of the

Pseudo-Decretals of § 87, 2; and thus it happens that in most

of the Greek texts the propositions that define the universal

primacy of the pope are either wanting, or essentially modified.

The first place after the pope is given to the patriarch of

Constantinople. In regard to the doctrine of the Procession

of the Holy Spirit it was admitted that the Greek formula “_ex

Patre per Filium_” was essentially the same as the Latin “_ex

Patre Filioque_,” and by the definition “_quod Sp. S. ex P. simul

et F. et ex utroque æternaliter tanquam ab uno principio et unica

spiratione procedit_,” the latter was saved from the charge of

dualism. A new difference, however, came to light in reference

to Purgatory (§ 61, 4). The intercessions of the living and the

presenting of masses for the dead were allowed by the Greeks as

helping to secure the forgiveness of their still unatoned for

venial sins, but they decidedly opposed the view that any of the

dead could obtain this by his own temporary endurance of penal

sufferings, and they would not hear of a fire as a means for its

attainment. The Latins also taught that the unbaptized or those

dying in mortal sin immediately pass into eternal condemnation

and the perfectly pious immediately pass into God’s presence;

while the Greeks maintained that this happens only at the last

judgment. After long disputes, the Greeks, urged by their emperor,

at last gave in on both points. Without much difficulty they

accepted the seven sacraments of the Westerns (§ 104, 2). Thus

was the union consummated amid embracings and jubilant shoutings.

But in reality everything remained as of old. A powerful party at

whose head stood archbishop Marcus Eugenicus of Ephesus, who had

been shouted down at Florence, roused the whole East against the

union that had been made on paper. The new patriarch Metrophanes,

whom they repudiated, was ridiculed as Μητροφόνος, and in

A.D. 1443 the rest of the Eastern patriarchs at a Synod at

Jerusalem excommunicated all who maintained the union. When

moreover the hoped for help from the West did not come even

the union party lost their interest in it. Bessarion passed

over to the Roman church, became cardinal and bishop of Tuscoli,

and was as such on two occasions very near being made pope.[193]

§ 67.7. The Byzantine Christian empire went meanwhile rapidly

to decay. On the 29th May, 1453, Constantinople was stormed by

Mohammed II. The last emperor, Constantine XI., fell in a heroic

struggle against tremendous odds. Mohammed conferred upon the

patriarch Gennadius (§ 68, 5) the spiritual primacy and even

temporal supremacy and full jurisdiction over the whole orthodox

inhabitants of the empire, making him, however, answerable for

their conduct. The other two patriarchates of Jerusalem and

Antioch were in religious matters co-ordinate, in political

matters subordinate, to him. For the executing of his spiritual

power he had around him a Synod of twelve archbishops, of whom

four as holders of the four divisions of the patriarchal diocese

resided in Constantinople. The Synod chose the patriarchs and

the Sultan confirmed the elections.--All union negociations were

now at an end, for the Porte could only wish for the continuance

of the schism. The enormous crowds of Greek refugees who sought

protection in foreign lands, especially in Italy, Hungary,

Galicia, Poland, Lithuania, either went directly over to the

Roman Catholic church, or formed churches of their own under

the name of United Greeks, purchasing liberty to observe their

old church constitution and liturgy by accepting the Romish

doctrine and the papal primacy.

II. Developments in the Eastern Church without the

Co-operation of the Western.

§ 68. THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.

The iconoclastic struggle, A.D. 726-842, was to some extent a war

against art and science. At least no period in the history of the Greek

Middle Ages is so poor in these as this. But about the middle of the

9th century Byzantine culture awoke from its deep torpor to a vigour

of which no one would have thought it capable. What is still more

wonderful, for six hundred years it maintained its position without

a break at this elevation and prosecuted literary and scientific

studies with a zeal that seemed to be quickened as its political

condition became more and more desperate. What specially characterized

the scholarly efforts of this time was the revival of classical studies

which from the 6th century had been almost entirely neglected. Now all

at once the decaying Greeks, who were threatened with intellectual as

well as political bankruptcy, began to realize the rich heritage which

their pagan forefathers had bequeathed them. They searched out these

treasures amid the dust of libraries and applied to them a diligence,

an enthusiasm, a pride, which fills us with astonishment. The Hellenic

intellect had, indeed, long lost its genial creative power. The most

ambitious effort of this age did not go beyond explanatory reproduction

and scholarship. Upon theology, however, bound hard and fast in

traditional propositions and Aristotelian formulæ, the revival of

classical studies had relatively little influence, and where it did

break the fetters it only gave entrance to a deluge of heathen Hellenic

views that paganized Christianity.

§ 68.1. The shame caused by the zeal with which the Khalifs

of the Abassidean line at the end of the 8th century applied

themselves to the classical Greek literature seems to have given

the first impulse to the =Revival of Classical Studies=. Behind

this we must suppose there was the influence of the Byzantine

rulers, unless they had lost all trace of national feeling.

Bardas, the guardian and co-regent of Michael III. (§ 67, 1),

if there is nothing else in him worthy of praise, has the credit

of having been the first to lay anew the foundation of classical

studies by establishing schools and paying their teachers. Basil

the Macedonian, although himself no scholar, patronized and

protected the sciences. Photius was the teacher of his children,

and implanted in them a love of study which they transmitted to

their children and children’s children. Leo, the Philosopher, the

son, and Constantine Porphyrogenneta, the grandson, of Basil were

the brilliant scholars in the Macedonian dynasty. Their place was

taken by the line of the Comneni from A.D. 1057, which introduced

a most brilliant period in the history of scientific studies.

The princesses of this house, Eudocia and Anna Comnena, won high

fame as gifted and learned authors. What Photius was for the

age of the Macedonians, Psellus was for the age of the Comneni.

Thessalonica vied with Constantinople as a new Athens in

the brilliancy of its classical culture. The rudeness of

the crusaders threatened during the sixty years’ interregnum

of the Latin dynasty, to undo the work of the Comneni. But

when in A.D. 1261 the Palæologi again obtained possession of

Constantinople, learning rose once more to the front and won

an ever increasing significance. And when the Turks took it in

A.D. 1453 crowds of learned Greeks settled in Italy and spread

their carefully fostered culture all over the West.

§ 68.2. =Aristotle and Plato.=--The revival of classical studies

secured again a preference for Plato, who seemed more classical,

at least more Hellenic, than Aristotle. But the ecclesiastical

imprimatur that had been given to Aristotle, which had been

formally expressed by Joh. Damascenus, formed a barrier against

the overflowing of Platonism into the theological domain. The

church’s distrust of Plato, on the other hand, drove many of

the more enthusiastic friends of classical studies into a sort

of Hellenic paganism. The eagerness of the struggle reached its

height in the 15th century. Gemisthus Pletho moved heaven and

earth to drive the hated usurper Aristotle from the throne of

science. He called for unconditional surrender to the wisdom of

the divine Plato and expressed the confident hope that soon the

time would come when Christianity and Islam would be conquered

and the religion of pure humanity would have universal sway.

Of similar views were his numerous scholars, of whom the most

distinguished was Bessarion (§ 67, 6). But Aristotle also

had talented representatives in George of Trebizond and his

scholars. Numerous representatives of the two schools settled

in Italy and there carried on the conflict with increasing

bitterness.--Continuation § 120, 1.

§ 68.3. =Scholasticism and Mysticism= (μάθησις and

μυσταγωγία).--By the application of the Aristotelian

method which Joh. Philoponus (§ 47, 11) had suggested, and

Joh. Damascenus had carried out, the scientific treatment of

doctrine in the Greek church had taken a form which in many

respects resembles the scholasticism of the Latin Middle Ages,

without being able, however, to reach its wealth, power, subtlety

and depth. But alongside of the dialectic scholastic treatment

of dogma there was found, especially in the quiet life of the

monasteries, diligent fostering of the mysticism based upon

the pseudo-Areopagite (§ 47, 11). Its chief representative

was Nicolas Cabasilas. This mysticism never ran counter to

the worship or doctrine of the church, but rather rendered to

it unconditional acknowledgment, and was specially characterized

by its decided preference for the symbolical, to which it is

careful to attach a thoroughly sacramental significance. No

reason existed for any hostile encounters between dialectic

and mysticism.

§ 68.4. =The Branches of Theological Science.=--About the

beginning of our period Joh. Damascenus collected the results

of previous =Dogmatic= labours in the Greek church by the use

of the dialectic forms of Aristotle into an organic system. His

Ecdosis is the first and last complete dogmatic of the old Greek

church. The manifold intercourse with the Latin church occasioned

by the union efforts was not, however, without influence on

the Greek church. In spite of the keenest opposition on debated

questions, the far more thoroughly developed statement by Latin

scholasticism of doctrines in regard to which both were agreed

communicated itself to the Greek church, so that all unwittingly

it adopted on many points the same bases and tendencies of

belief. =Polemics= were constantly carried on with Nestorians,

Monophysites and Monothelites, and fresh subjects of debate were

found in the iconoclastic disputes, newly emerging dualistic

sects, the Latin schismatics and the defenders of the union. By

the changed circumstances of the time =Apologetics= again came

to the front as a theological necessity. The incessant advance

of Islam and the Jewish polemic, which was now gaining boldness

from the protection of the Saracens, urgently demanded the

work of the Apologist, but the dominant scholastic traditional

theology of the Greeks in its hardness and narrowness was little

fitted to avert the storm of God’s judgment. Finally, too, the

revival of classical studies and the introduction of pagan modes

of thought were followed by a renewal of anti-pagan Apologetics

(Nicolas of Methone). In =Exegesis= there was no independent

original work. Valuable catenas were compiled by Œcumenius,

Theophylact and Euthymius Zigabenus. =Church History= lay

completely fallow. Only Nicephorus Callisti in the 14th century

gave any attention to it (§ 5, 1). Incomparably more important

for the church history of those times are the numerous _Scriptores

hist. Byzantinæ_. As a writer of legends Simeon Metaphrastes in

the 10th century (?) gained a high reputation.

§ 68.5. The most distinguished theologian of the 8th century

was =Joannes Damascenus=. He was long in the civil service of

the Saracens, and died about A.D. 760 as monk in the monastery

of Sabas in Jerusalem. His admirers called him _Chrysorrhoas_;

the opponents of image worship who pronounced a thrice repeated

anathema upon him at the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 754,

called him Mansur. His chief work, which ranks in the Greek

church as an epoch-making production, is the Πηγὴ γνώσεως. Its

first part, Κεφάλαια φιλοσοφικά, forms the dialectic, the second

part, Περὶ αἱρέσεων, the historical, introduction to the third or

chief part: Ἔκδοσις ἀκριβὴς τῆς ὀρθοδόξου πίστεως, a systematic

collection of the doctrines of faith according to the Councils,

and the teachings of the ancient Fathers, especially of the three

Cappadocians. His Ἱερὰ παράλληλα contain a collection of _loci

classici_ from patristic writings on dogmatic and moral subjects

arranged in alphabetical order. He wrote besides controversial

tracts against Christological heretics, the Paulicians,

the opponents of image worship, etc., and composed several

hymns for church worship.[194]--Among the numerous writings

of =Photius=, who died in A.D. 891, undoubtedly the most

important is his Bibliotheca, Μυριοβίβλιον. It gives reports

about and extracts from 279 Christian and pagan works, which

have since in great part been lost. In addition to controversial

treatises against the Latins and against the Paulicians,

there are still extant his Ἀμφιλόχια, answers to more than

300 questions laid before him by bishop Amphilochius, and his

Nomo-canon (§ 43, 3) which is still the basis of Greek canon

law, and was, about A.D. 1180, commented on by the deacon of

Constantinople, Theodore Balsamon in his Ἐξήγησις τῶν ἱερῶν καὶ

θείων κανόνων.--The brilliant period of the Comnenian dynasty

was headed by =Michael Psellus=, teacher of philosophy at

Constantinople, a man of wide culture and possessed of an

astonishingly extensive store of information which was evinced

by numerous works on a variety of subjects, so that he was

designated φιλοσόφων ὕπατος. He died in A.D. 1105. Among his

theological writings the most important is Περὶ ἐνεργείας

δαιμόνων (comp. § 71, 3). As this work is of the utmost

importance for the demonology of the Middle Ages, so the

Διδασκαλία παντοδαπή, a compendium of universal science on

the basis of theology, is for the encyclopædic knowledge of that

period. His contemporary =Theophylact=, archbishop of Achrida,

in Bulgaria, left behind him an important commentary in the form

of a catena. Euthymius Zigabenus, monk at Constantinople, in the

beginning of the 12th century, composed, by order of the emperor

Alexius Comnenus, in reply to the heretics, a Πανοπλία δογματικὴ

τῆς ὀρθοδόξου πίστεως ἤτοι ὁπλοθήκη δογμάτων in 24 bks.,

which gained for him great repute in his times. It is a mere

compilation, and only where he combats the sects of his own

age is it of any importance. His exegetical compilations are of

greater value. The most important personality of the 12th century

was =Eustathius=, archbishop of Thessalonica. As commentator on

Homer and Pindar he has been long highly valued by philologists;

but from the publication of his theological _Opuscula_ it appears

that he is worthy of higher fame as a Christian, a theologian, a

church leader and reformer of the debased monasticism of his age

(§ 70, 4). His friend and pupil, =Michael Acominatus= of Chonæ,

archbishop of Athens, treated with equal enthusiasm of the church

and his fatherland, of Christian faith and Greek philosophy, of

patristic and classical literature, and in a beautiful panegyric

raised a becoming memorial to his departed teacher. His younger

brother, =Nicetas Acominatus=, a highly esteemed statesman of

Constantinople, wrote a Θεσαυρὸς ὀρθοδοξίας in 27 bks., which

consists of a justificatory statement of the orthodox doctrine

together with a refutation of heretics, much more independent

and important than the similar work of Euthymius. He died in

A.D. 1206. At the same time flourished the noble bishop =Nicolas

of Methone= in Messenia, whose refutation of the attacks of the

neo-Platonist Proclus, Ἀνάπτυξις τῆς θεολογικῆς στοιχειώσεως

Πρόκλου is one of the most valuable productions of this period.

His doctrine of redemption, which has a striking resemblance

to Anselm of Canterbury’s theory of satisfaction (§ 101, 1), is

worthy of attention. He also contributed several tracts to the

struggle against the Latins. During the times of the Palæologi,

A.D. 1250-1450, the chief subjects of theological authorship

were the vindication and denunciation of the union. =Nicolas

Cabasilas=, archbishop of Thessalonica and successor of Palamas,

deserves special mention. He was like his predecessor the

vindicator of the Hesychasts (§ 69, 2), and was himself one

of the noblest mystics of any age. He died about A.D. 1354.

His chief work is Περὶ τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ ζωῆς. His mysticism is

distinguished by depth and spirituality as well as by reformatory

struggling against a superficial externalism. He also shares the

partiality of Greek mysticism for the liturgy as his _Expositio

Missæ_ shows. From his contemporary =Demetrius Cydonius= we have

an able treatise _De Contemnenda Morte_. Archbishop =Simeon of

Thessalonica= belongs to a somewhat later time, about A.D. 1400,

a thorough expert in classical and patristic literature and a

distinguished church leader. His comprehensive work, _De Fide,

Ritibus et Mysteriis Ecclesiast._ is an important source of

information about the church affairs of the Greek Middle Ages.

=Marcus Eugenicus= of Ephesus, the most capable opponent of the

Florentine union (§ 67, 2), besides controversial tracts, wrote

a treatise Περὶ ἀσθενείας ἀνθρώπου as a philosophico-dogmatic

foundation of the doctrine of eternal punishment at which the

emperor John VII. Palæologus had taken offence as incompatible

with divine justice and human frailty. His disciple Gregorius

[Gregory] Scholarius, known as a monk by the name =Gennadius=,

was the first patriarch of Constantinople after it had been taken

by the Turks. At the Council of Florence he still supported the

union, but was afterwards its most vigorous assailant. In the

controversy of the philosophers he contended against Pletho for

the old-established predominance of Aristotle. At the request of

the Sultan, Mohammed II., he laid before him a _Professio fidei_.

§ 68.6. A religious romance entitled =Barlaam and Josaphat=

whose author is not named, but evidently belonged to the East,

was included, even in the Middle Ages, among the works of

Joh. Damascenus, read by many especially in the West, translated

into Latin and rendered often in metrical form. It describes

the history of the conversion of the Indian prince Josaphat

by the eremite Barlaam with the object of showing the power of

Christianity against the allurements of sin and its superiority

to other religions. An uncritical age accepted the story as

historical, and venerated its two heroes as saints. The Roman

martyrology celebrated the 27th Nov. in their memory. Liebrecht

has discovered that the romance so popular in its days was

but a Christianized form of a legendary history of the life

and conversion of the founder of Buddhism, which existed in

pre-Christian times, and has come down to us under the title

_Lalita ristara Purâna_, often copying its original even in the

minutest details.

§ 69. DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES IN THE 12TH-14TH CENTURIES.

With the mental activity of the Comnenian age there was also

reawakened a love of theological speculation and discussion, and

several doctrinal questions engaged considerable attention. Then there

came a lull in the controversial strife for two hundred years, to be

roused once more by a question of abstruse mysticism.

§ 69.1. =Dogmatic Questions.=--Under the emperor Manuel

Comnenus, A.D. 1143-1180, the question was discussed whether

Christ presented His sacrifice for the sins of the world only to

the Father and the Holy Spirit, or also at the same time to the

Logos, _i.e._ to Himself. A Synod at Constantinople in A.D. 1156

sanctioned the latter notion.--Ten years later a controversy

arose over the question whether the words of Christ: “The Father

is greater than I,” refer to His divine or to His human nature

or to the union of the two natures. The discussion was carried on

by all ranks with a liveliness and passionateness which reminds

one of the similar controversies of the 4th century (§ 50, 2).

The emperor’s opinion that the words applied to the God-man

gained the victory at a Synod at Constantinople in A.D. 1166.

The dissentients were punished with the confiscation of their

goods and banishment.--Manuel excited a third controversy by

objecting to the anathema of “the God of Mohammed” in the formula

of abjuration for converts from Mohammedanism. In vain did the

bishops show the emperor that the God of Mohammed was not the

true God. The formula had to be altered.

§ 69.2. =The Hesychast Controversy, A.D. 1341-1351.=--In the

monasteries of Mount Athos in Thessaly the Areopagite mysticism

had its most zealous promoters. Following the example given three

centuries earlier by Simeon, an abbot of the monastery of Mesnes

in Constantinople, the monks by artificial means put themselves

into a condition that would afford them the ecstatic vision

of God which the Areopagite had extolled as the highest end

of all mystic endeavours. Kneeling in a corner of the solitary

closed cell, the chin pressed firmly on the breast, the eyes set

fixedly on the navel, and the breath held in as long as possible,

they sank at first into melancholy and their eyes became dim.

Continuing longer in this position the depression of spirit which

they at first experienced gave way to an inexpressible rapture,

and at last they found themselves surrounded by a bright halo of

light. They called themselves _Resting Ones_, ἡσυχάζοντες, and

maintained that the brilliancy surrounding them was the uncreated

divine light which shone around Christ on Mount Tabor. Barlaam

(§ 67, 5), just returned from his unfortunate union expedition,

accused the monks and their defender, Gregorius [Gregory] Palamas,

afterwards archbishop of Thessalonica, as Ditheistic heretics,

scornfully styling them _navel-souls_, ὀμφαλόψυχοι. But a Council

at Constantinople, in A.D. 1341, the members of which were

unfavourable to Barlaam because of his union efforts, approved

the doctrine of uncreated divine light which as divine ἐνεργεία

is to be distinguished from the divine οὐσία. Barlaam, in order

to avoid condemnation, recanted, but withdrew soon afterwards

to Italy, where he joined the communion of the Latin church

in A.D. 1348, and died as a bishop in Calabria. A disciple

of Barlaam, Gregorius [Gregory] Acindynos and the historian

Nicephorus Gregoras [Gregory] continued the controversy against

the Hesychasts. Down to A.D. 1351 as many as three Synods had

been held, which all decidedly favoured the monks.

§ 70. CONSTITUTION, WORSHIP AND LIFE.

The Byzantine emperors had been long accustomed to carry out in a

very high-handed manner their own will even in regard to the internal

affairs of the church. The anointing with sacred oil gave them a

sacerdotal character and entitled them to be styled ἅγιος. Most of

the emperors, too, from Leo the Philosopher (§ 68, 1), possessed some

measure of theological culture. The patriarchate, however, if amid so

many arbitrary appointments and removals it fell into the proper hands,

was always a power which even emperors had to respect. What protected

it against all encroachments of the temporal power was the influence

of the monks and through them of the people. In consequence of the

controversies about images, Theodorus Studita (§ 66, 4) founded a

strong party which fought with all energy against every interference

of the State in ecclesiastical matters and against the appointing of

ecclesiastical officers by the temporal power, but only with temporary

success. The monks, who had been threatened by the iconoclastic

Isaurian with utter extermination, at the restoration grew and

prospered more than ever in outward appearance, but gave way more

and more to spiritual corruption and extravagance. The Eastern monks

had not that genial many-sided culture which was needed for the

cultivation of the fields and the minds of the barbarians. They

were deficient in those powers of tempering, renovating and ennobling,

whereby the monks of the West accomplished such wonderful results.

But, nevertheless, if in those debased and degenerate days one looks

for examples of fidelity to convictions, firmness of character,

independence and moral earnestness, he will always find the noblest

in the monasteries.--Public worship had already in the previous period

attained to almost complete development, but theory and practice

received enrichment in various particulars.

§ 70.1. =The Arsenian Schism, A.D. 1262-1312.=--Michael

Palæologus, after the death of the emperor Theodore Lascaris

in A.D. 1259, assumed the guardianship of his six years’ old

son John, had himself crowned joint ruler, and in A.D. 1261 had

the eyes of the young prince put out so as to make him unfit

for governing. The patriarch Arsenius then excommunicated him.

Michael besought absolution, and in order to obtain it submitted

to humiliating penances; but when the patriarch insisted that

he should resign the throne, the emperor deposed and exiled

him, A.D. 1267. The numerous adherents of Arsenius refused to

acknowledge the new patriarch Joseph (§ 67, 4), seceded from the

national church, and when their leader died in exile in A.D. 1273,

their veneration for him expressed itself in burning hatred

of his persecutors. When Joseph died in A.D. 1283, an attempt

was made to decide the controversy by a direct appeal to God’s

judgment. Each of the two parties cast a tract in defence of its

position into the fire, and both were consumed. The Arsenians,

who had expected a miracle, felt themselves for the moment

defeated and expressed a readiness to be reconciled. But on

the third day they recalled their admissions and the schism

continued, until the patriarch Niphon in A.D. 1312 had the bones

of Arsenius laid in the church of Sophia and pronounced a forty

days’ suspension on all the clergy who had taken part against him.

§ 70.2. =Public Worship.=--In the Greek church preaching retained

its early prominence; the homiletical productions, however, are

but of small value. The objection to hymns other than those found

in Scripture was more and more overcome. As in earlier times

(§ 59, 4) Troparies were added to the singing of psalms, so now

the New Testament hymns of praise and doxologies were formed

into a so-called Κανών, _i.e._ a collection of new odes arranged

for the several festivals and saints’ days. The 8th century was

the Augustan age of church song. To this period belonged the

celebrated ἅγιοι μελωδοί, Andrew of Crete, John of Damascus,

Cosmas of Jerusalem, and Theophanes of Nicæa. The singing after

this as well as before was without instrumental accompaniment and

also without harmonic arrangement.--There was a great diversity

of opinion in regard to the idea of the sacraments and their

number. Damascenus speaks only of two: Baptism and the Lord’s

Supper. Theodorus Studita, on the other hand, accepts the

six enumerated by the Pseudo-Areopagite (§ 58). Petrus [Peter]

Mogilas in his Anti-Protestant _Confessio orthodoxa_ of A.D. 1643

(§ 152, 3) is the first confidently to assert that even among

the Latins of the Middle Ages the Sacraments had been regarded

as seven in number. The Greeks differed from the Latins in

maintaining the necessity of immersion in baptism, in connecting

the chrism with the baptism, using leavened bread in the Supper

and giving both elements to all communicants. From the time of

Joh. Damascenus the teachers of the church decidedly subscribed

to the doctrine of Transubstantiation; but in regard to penance

and confession they stoutly maintained (§ 61, 1), that not the

priest but God alone can forgive sins. The _Unctio inferiorum_,

εὐχέλαιον, also made way in the Greek church, applied in the form

of the cross to forehead, breast, hands and feet; yet with this

difference that, expressly repudiating the designation “extreme”

unction, it was given not only in cases of mortal illness, but

also in less serious ailments, and had in view bodily cure as

well as spiritual benefit.--The emperor Leo VI. the Philosopher

made the benediction of the church (§ 61, 2) obligatory for a

legally valid marriage.

§ 70.3. =Monasticism.=--The most celebrated of all the monastic

associations were those of Mount Athos in Thessaly, which was

covered with monasteries and hermit cells, and as “the holy

mount” had become already a hallowed spot and the resort of

pilgrims for all Greek Christendom. The monastery of Studion,

too (§ 44, 3), was held in high repute. There was no want of

ascetic extravagances among the monks. There were numerous

stylites; many also spent their lives on high trees, δενδρίται,

or shut up in cages built on high platforms (κιονῖται), or

in subterranean caverns, etc. Others bound themselves to

perpetual silence. Many again wore constantly a shirt of iron

(σιδηρούμενοι), etc. A rare sort of pious monkish practice made

its appearance in the 12th century among the =Ecetæ=, Ἱκέται.

They were monks who danced and sang hymns with like-minded nuns

in their monasteries after the pattern of Exod. xv. 20, 21.

Although they continued orthodox in their doctrine and were

never charged with any act of immorality, Nicetas Acominatus

proceeded against them as heretics.

§ 70.4. =Endeavours at Reformation.=--In the beginning of

the 12th century a pious monk at Constantinople, Constantinus

Chrysomalus, protested against prevailing hypocrisy and formalism.

A decade later the monk Niphon took a similar stand. Around both

gathered groups of clergy and laymen who, putting themselves

under their pastoral direction and neglecting the outward

forms of the church, applied themselves to the deepening of

the spiritual life. Both brought down on themselves the anathema

of the church. The patriarch Cosmas, who was not convinced that

Niphon was a heretic and so received him into his house and at

his table, was deposed in A.D. 1150. Eustathius, archbishop of

Thessalonica (§ 68, 5), carried on his reformatory efforts quite

within the limits of the dominant institutions of the church,

and so kept himself safe from the machinations of his enemies.

Relentlessly and powerfully he struggled against the corruption

in the Christian life of the people, and especially against

the formalism and hypocrisy, the rudeness and vulgarity, the

spiritual blindness and pride, and the eccentric caricatures of

ascetism that were exhibited by the monks, though he was himself

in heart and soul a monk. Two hundred years later Nicolas

Cabasilas (§ 68, 5) yet more distinctly maintained that a

consistent life was the test and love the root of all virtue.

§ 71. DUALISTIC HERETICS.

Remnants of the Gnostic-Manichæan heresy lingered on into the 7th

century in Armenia and Syria, where the surrounding Parseeism gave them

a hold and support. Constantinus of Mananalis near Samosata gathered

these together about the middle of the 7th century and reformed them

somewhat in the spirit of Marcion (§ 27, 11). The Catholics, sneeringly

called by them Ῥομαῖοι, gave the name of =Paulicians= to them because

they regarded Paul alone as a true apostle. Even before the rise of the

Paulicians, a sect existed in Armenia called =Children of the Sun= who

had mixed up the Zoroastrian worship with Christian elements. They, too,

during the 9th and 10th centuries, by reorganization reached a position

of more importance, and represented, like the Paulicians, a reformatory

opposition to the formal institutions of the Catholic church. A similar

attitude was assumed by the =Euchites= in Thrace during the 11th

century. Like the old Euchites (§ 44, 7), they got their name from

the unceasing prayers which they regarded as the token of highest

perfection. Their dualistic-gnostic system is met with again among

the =Bogomili= in Bulgaria. These were still more decidedly hostile

to the Catholic church, and had adopted the anthropological views

of Saturninus and the Ophites as well as the trinitarian theory

of Sabellius (§ 27, 6, 9; 33, 7). All these sects were accused by

their Catholic opponents with entertaining antinomian doctrines and

practising licentious orgies and unnatural abominations.

§ 71.1. =The Paulicians.=--They called themselves only Χριστιανοί,

but were in the habit of giving to their leaders and churches the

names of Paul’s companions and mission stations. They combined

dualism, demiurgism and docetism with a mysticism that insisted

upon inward piety, demanded a strict but not rigorous asceticism,

forbade fasting and allowed marriage. Their worship was very

simple, their church constitution moulded after the apostolic

pattern, with the rejection of the hierarchy and priesthood. They

were specially averse to the accumulation of ceremonies and the

veneration of images, relics and saints in the Catholic church.

They also urged the diligent study of Scripture, rejecting,

however, the Old Testament, and the Jewish-Christian gospels

and epistles of the New Testament. The Catholic polemists

of the 9th century traced their origin and even their name

(=Παυλοϊωάννοι) to a Manichæan family of the fourth century,

a widow Callinice and her two sons Paul and John. None of the

distinctive marks of Manichæism, however, are discoverable

in them, and their founding by Constantine of Mananalis is a

historic fact, as also that he, in A.D. 657, assumed the Pauline

name of Sylvanus. The first church, which he called _Macedonia_,

was founded by him at Cibossa in Armenia. From this point he made

successful missionary journeys in all directions. The emperor

Constantinus Pogonnatus, A.D. 668-685, began a bloody persecution

of the Paulicians. But the martyr enthusiasm of Sylvanus, who

was stoned in A.D. 685, made such an impression upon the imperial

officer Symeon, that he himself joined the sect, was made their

chief under the name of Titus, and on the renewal of persecution

in A.D. 690 joyfully died at the stake. His successor Gegnesius,

who took the name of Timothy, was obliged by Leo the Isaurian to

undergo an examination under the patriarch of Constantinople, had

his orthodoxy attested, and received from the iconoclast emperor

a letter of protection. Soon, however, divisions sprang up within

the sect itself. One of their chiefs Baanes, on account of his

antinomian practices, was nicknamed ὁ ῥυπαρός the smutty. But,

about A.D. 801, Sergius Tychicus, converted in earlier years

by a Paulician woman, who directed him to the Bible, made his

appearance as a reformer and second founder of the sect. He

died in A.D. 835. Leo the Armenian, A.D. 813-820, organized an

expedition for their conversion. The penitents were received back

into the church, the obstinate were executed. A mob of Paulicians

murdered the judges, fled to the Saracen regions of Armenia, and

founded at Argaum, the ancient Colosse, a military colony which

made incessant predatory and retaliating raids upon the Byzantine

provinces. They were most numerous in Asia Minor. The empress

Theodora (§ 66, 4) carried out against them about A.D. 842 a

new and fearfully bloody persecution. Many thousands were put to

death. This too was the fate of an officer of high rank. His son,

Carbeas, also an officer, incited by an ardent desire for revenge,

gathered about 5,000 armed Paulicians around him in A.D. 844,

fled with them to Argaum, and became military chief of the sect.

New crowds of Paulicians streamed daily in, and the Khalifs

assigned to them two other fortified frontier cities. With a

well organized army, thirsting for revenge, Carbeas wasted the

Byzantine provinces far and wide, and repeatedly defeated the

imperial forces. Basil the Macedonian after two campaigns, at

last in A.D. 871, hemmed in the Paulician army in a narrow pass

and annihilated it. Their political power was now broken. The

sect, however, still continued to gather members in Syria and

Asia Minor. In A.D. 970, the emperor John Tzimisces transported

the greater part of them as watchers of the frontier of Thrace,

where Philippopolis became their Zion. They soon had possession

of all Thrace. Alexius Comnenus, A.D. 1081-1118, was the first

earnestly again to attempt their conversion. He himself appeared

at Philippopolis in A.D. 1115, disputed a whole day with their

leaders, promised and threatened, rewarded and punished, but

all his efforts were fruitless. From that time we hear nothing

more of them. Their remnants probably joined the Euchites and

the Bogomili.

§ 71.2. =The Children of the Sun=, or Arevendi were a sect

gathered and organized in the 9th century in Armenia by a

Paulician Sembat in the country town of Thontrace into a separate

community of Thontracians. In A.D. 1002 the metropolitan Jacob

of Harkh gave a Christian tinge to their doctrine, went through

the country preaching repentance and the performances of ritual

observances, and obtained much support from clergy and laity. The

Catholicus of the Armenian church caused him to be branded and

imprisoned. He made his escape, but was afterwards slain by his

opponents.

§ 71.3. =The Euchites=, Messelians [Messalians], Enthusiasts,

attracted the attention of the government in the beginning of

the 11th century as a sect widely spread in Thrace. In common

with the earlier Euchites (§ 44, 7) they had great enthusiasm

in prayer, but they were distinguished from them by their dualism.

Their doctrine of the two sons of God, Satanaël and Christ, shows

a certain relation to the form of Persian dualism, which derives

the two opposing principles, Ormuzd and Ahriman, from one eternal

primary essence, Zeruane Acerene. The germs of this sect may

have come from the transplanting of Paulicians to Thrace by the

emperor Tzimisces. The Byzantine government sent a legate to

Thrace to suppress them. This may have been Michael Psellus

(§ 68, 5) whose Διάλογος περὶ ἐνεργείας δαιμόνων is the only

source of information we have regarding them.

§ 71.4. =The Bogomili=, θεόφιλοι, taught: that Satanaël, the

firstborn son of God, as chief and head over all angels, clothed

with full glory of the Godhead, sat at the right hand of the

Father; but, swelling with pride, he thought to found an empire

independent of his Father and seduced a portion of the angels to

take part with him. Driven with them out of heaven, he determined

after the pattern of the creation of the Father (Gen. i. 1) to

create a new world out of chaos (Gen. ii. 3 ff.). He formed the

first man of earth mixed with water. When he set up the figure,

some of the water ran out of the great toe of the right foot

and spread out over the ground; and after he had breathed his

breath into it, that also escaped owing to the looseness of the

figure by the toe, permeated the soil moistened with the water

and animated it as a serpent. At Satanaël’s earnest entreaty the

heavenly Father took pity on the miserable creature, and gave

it life by breathing into it His own breath. Afterwards with

the Father’s help Eve, too, was created. Satanaël in the form

of the serpent seduced, deceived and lay with Eve in order that

by his seed, Cain and his twin sister Calomina, Adam’s future

descendants, Abel, Seth, etc., might be oppressed and brought

into bondage. Jealous lest the latter should obtain that heavenly

dwelling place from which they had been driven, Satanaël’s angels

seduced their daughters (Gen. vi.). From this union sprang giants

who rebelled against Satanaël, but were destroyed by him in the

flood. Henceforth he reigned unopposed as κοσμοκράτωρ, seduced

the greater part of mankind, and endowed Moses with the power of

working miracles as the instrument of his tyranny. Only a few men

under the oppression of his law attained the end of their being;

the sixteen prophets and those named in Matt. i. and Luke iii.

Finally, in the year 5,500 after the creation of man, the supreme

God moved with pity caused a second son, the Logos, to go forth

from His bosom, who as chief of the good angels is called Michael,

and sent Him to earth for man’s redemption. He entered in an

ethereal body through the right ear into the virgin to be born

of her with the semblance of an earthly body. Mary noticed

nothing of all this. Without knowing how or whence, she found

the child in swaddling clothes before her in the cave. His

death on the cross was naturally in appearance only. After his

resurrection he showed himself to Satanaël in his true form,

bound him with chains, robbed him of his divine power, and

compelled him to abandon his divine designation, by taking the

El from his name, so that he is henceforth called Satan. Then He

returned to the Father, took the seat that formerly was Satanaël’s

at His right hand, and sinks again into the bosom of the Father

out of which He had come. This, however, did not take place

before a new Aëon [Æon], the Holy Spirit, emanated from the

Godhead, and was sent forth as continuator and completer of the

work of redemption. This Spirit, too, after he has finished his

task will sink back again into the Father’s bosom.--Of the Old

Testament the Bogomili acknowledged only the Psalter and the

Prophets; of the New Testament books they valued most the

Gospel of John. Veneration of relics and images, as well as

the sign of the cross they abhorred as demoniacal inventions.

Church buildings were regarded by them as the residences of

demons. Satanaël himself in earlier days resided in the temple

of Jerusalem, later in the church of Sophia at Constantinople.

Water baptism, which was introduced by John the Baptist a

servant of Satanaël, they rejected; but the baptism of Christ is

spiritual baptism (παράκλησις=_Consolamentum_). It was imparted

by laying the Gospel of John on the head of the subject of

baptism, with invocation of the Holy Spirit and chanting the

Lord’s Prayer. They declared the Catholic mass to be a sacrifice

presented to demons; the true eucharist consists in the spiritual

nourishment by the bread of life brought down in Christ from

heaven, to which also the fourth petition in the Lord’s Prayer

refers. They placed great value upon prayer, especially the use

of the Lord’s Prayer. So too they valued fasting. Their ascetism

was strict and required abstinence from marriage and from

the eating of flesh. But prevarication and dissimulation they

regarded as permissible.--The emperor Alexius Comnenus caused

their chief Basil to be brought to Constantinople, under the

delusive pretext of wishing himself to become a proselyte of

the sect, got him to open all his heart, and enticed him under

the semblance of a purely private conference to make reckless

statements, while behind the curtain a judge of heresies was

taking notes. This first act in the drama was followed by a

second. The sentence of death was passed upon all adherents of

Basil who could be laid hold upon. Two great funeral piles were

erected, one of which was furnished with the figure of the cross.

The emperor exhorted them, at least to die as true Christians,

and in token of this to choose the place of death provided with

a cross. Those who did so were pardoned, the rest for the most

part condemned to imprisonment for life. Basil himself, however,

was actually burnt, A.D. 1118. The sect was not by any means thus

rooted out. The Bogomili hid themselves mostly in monasteries,

and Bulgaria long remained the haunt of dualistic heresy, which

spread thence through the Latin church of the West.

§ 72. THE NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CHURCHES OF THE EAST.

The Nestorian and Monophysite churches of the East owed the

protection and goodwill of their Moslem rulers to their hostile

position in regard to the Byzantine national church. Among the Persian

Nestorians as well as among the Syrian and Armenian Monophysites we find

an earnest endeavour after scholarship and great scientific activity.

They were the teachers of the Saracens in the classical, philosophical

and medical sciences, and with no little zeal pursued the study

of Christian theology. The Nestorians also long manifested great

earnestness in missions. Only when the science-loving Khalifs gave

place to Mongolian and Turkish barbarians did those churches lose

their prestige, and that stagnation and torpidity passed over them in

which they still lie. In order to crown the Florentine union attempts

of A.D. 1439 (§ 67, 6), Rome solemnly proclaimed in the immediately

following year the complete union with all the detached churches of

the East. But this was a vain self-delusion or a bit of jugglery. Men

pretending to be deputed by those churches treated about restoration to

the bosom of the church, which was accorded them amid great applause.

§ 72.1. =The Persian Nestorians=, or Chaldean Christians

(§ 64, 2), stood in peculiarly friendly relations to the Khalifs,

who, in the Nestorian opposition to Theotokism, worship of saints,

images and relics, and priestly celibacy, saw an approach to a

rational Christianity more in accordance with the Moslem ideal.

The Nestorian seminaries at Edessa, Nisibis, Seleucia, etc., were

in high repute. The rich literature issued by them is, however,

mostly lost, and what of it remains is known only by Asseman’s

[Assemani’s] quotations (_Biblioth. Orientalia_). Among the later

Nestorian authors the best known is Ebed Jesus, Metropolitan

of Nisibis, who died in A.D. 1318. His writings treat of all

subjects in the domain of theology. The missionary zeal of the

Nestorians continued unabated down to the 13th century. Their

chief mission fields were China and India. At the beginning

of the 11th century they converted the prince of the Karaites,

a Tartar tribe to the south of Lake Baikal, who as vassals of

the great Chinese empire had the name Ung-Khan. A large number

of the people followed their prince. The Mongol conqueror

Genghis-Khan married the daughter of the Karaite prince, but

quarrelled with him, drove him from his throne, and took his life,

A.D. 1202.--With the overthrow of the Khalifs by Genghis-Khan

in A.D. 1219, the prosperity of the Nestorian church came to an

end. At first the Nestorians attempted missionary operations not

unsuccessfully among the Mongols. But the savage Tamerlane, the

Scourge of Asia, A.D. 1369-1405, drove them into the inaccessible

mountains and wild ravines of the province of Kurdistan.[195]

§ 72.2. Among the =Monophysite Churches= the most important was

the =Armenian= (§ 64, 3). It boasted, at least temporarily and

partially, of political independence under national rulers. The

Armenian patriarch from the 12th century had his residence in

the monastery of Etshmiadzin at the foot of Ararat. The literary

activity in the translation of classical and patristic writings,

as well as in the production of original works, reached a

particularly high point in the 8th and then again in the 12th

century. To the earlier period belong the patriarch Johannes

Ozniensis and the metropolitan Stephen of Sünik, to the later,

the still more famous name of the patriarch Nerses IV. Clajensis,

whose epic “Jesus the Son” is regarded as the crown of Armenian

poetry, and his nephew, the metropolitan Nerses of Lampron. The

two last named readily aided the efforts for reunion with the

Byzantine church, but owing to the troubles of the time these

came to nothing. The Western endeavours after union which were

actively carried on from the beginning of the 13th century, split

upon the dislike of the Armenian church to the Western ritual,

and found acceptance with only a relatively small fragment of

the people. These _United Armenians_ acknowledged the primacy of

the pope and the catholic system of doctrine, but retained their

own constitution and liturgy.--In =the Jacobite-Syrian Church=

(§ 52, 7), too, theological and classical studies were prosecuted

with great vigour. The most distinguished of its scholars during

our period was George, bishop of the Arabs, who died in A.D. 740.

He translated and annotated the Organon of Aristotle, and wrote

exegetical, dogmatic, historical and chronological works, also

poems on various themes, and a number of epistles important for

the history of culture during these times, in which he answered

questions put to him by his friends and admirers. The brilliant

Gregory Abulfarajus is the last of the distinguished scholars of

the Jacobite-Syrian church. He was the son of a converted Jewish

physician, and hence he is usually called Barhebræus. He was

made bishop of Guba, afterwards Maphrian of Mosul, and died

in A.D. 1286. His noble and truly benevolent disposition, his

extraordinary learning, the rich and attractive productions

of his pen, and his skill as a physician made him universally

revered by Christians, Mohammedans and Jews. Among his writings,

for the most part still in manuscript, the most important

and best known is the _Chronicon Syriacum_.--The Jacobite

church suffered most in =Egypt=. The perfidy of the Copts, who

surrendered the country to the Saracens, was terribly avenged.

From A.D. 1254 the Fatimide Khalifs held them down under the

most severe oppression, and this became yet more severe under

the Mamelukes. The Copts were completely driven out of the

cities, and even in the villages maintained only a miserable

existence. Their church was now in a condition of utter

stagnation. In =Abyssinia= (§ 64, 1) the national rulers

maintained their position, though pressed within narrower

limits from time to time by the Saracens. But here, too, church

life became fossilized. At the head of the church was an Abbuna

consecrated by the Coptic patriarch (§ 64, 1; 165, 3).

§ 72.3. =The Maronites= (§ 52, 8) attached themselves to the

Western church on the appearance of the crusades in A.D. 1182,

renouncing their Monothelite heresy and acknowledging the primacy

of the pope, but retaining their own ritual. In consequence of

the Florentine union measures they renewed their connection in

A.D. 1445, and subsequently adopted also the doctrinal conclusions

of the Council of Trent. Their numbers at the present day amount

to somewhere about 200,000.

§ 72.4. =The Legend of Prester John.=--In A.D. 1144 Bishop Otto

of Freisingen obtained from the bishop of Cabala in Palestine,

whom he met at Viterbo, information about a powerful Christian

empire in Central Asia, and published it in A.D. 1145 in his

widely-read Chronicle. According to this story the king of that

region, a Nestorian Christian, who was named Prester John, had

not long before driven to flight the Mohammedan kings of the

Persians and Medes, and thus delivered from great danger the

crusaders in the Holy Land. He had also wished to go to the

help of the church of Jerusalem, but was prevented by the Tigris

which overflowed its banks. Twenty years later appeared a writing

attributed to Prester John, first referred to by the Chronicler

Alberich. It was addressed to the European princes in a Latin

translation which contained the most fabulous stories, borrowed

from the Alexander legends, about the extent and glory of

his empire and the many wonders in nature, white lions, the

phœnix, giants and pigmies, dog-headed and horned men, fauns,

satyrs, cyclops, etc., which were to be seen in his country; and

notwithstanding all these absurdities it was received as genuine.

The pope, Alexander III., took occasion from its appearance to

send an answer to Prester John by his own physician Philip, of

whose fate nothing more is known. When in A.D. 1219 the first

news reached Palestine of the irrepressible advance of Mongolian

hordes under Genghis Khan, the crusaders felt justified in

assuming that he was the successor of the celebrated Prester John,

and was now to accomplish what his distinguished predecessor

had wished to undertake. But they were soon cruelly undeceived.

The missionaries sent to the Mongols about the middle of

the 13th century (§ 93, 15), reported that the last Prester

John had lost his kingdom and his life in battle with Genghis

Khan. Nevertheless the belief in the continued existence of an

exceedingly glorious and powerful empire ruled by a Christian

priest in further India was not by any means overthrown; but it

was no longer sought in an Asiatic but in an African “India,” and

the Portuguese actually believed that at last the famed Prester

John had been found in the Christian king of Abyssinia, so that

that country was known down to the 17th century as _Regnum presb.

Joannis_.--The Jacobite historian Barhebræus had identified the

first Presbyter-king with the prince of the Mongolian Karaites

converted by the Nestorians. His name Ung-Khan or Owang-Khan

corresponded both to the name Joannes and to the Chaldean

כַּהֲנָא=priest. This notion prevailed until recently the Orientalist

Oppert by careful examination and comparison of all Oriental

and Western reports reached the conclusion (§ 93, 16) that these

legends are to be referred to the kingdom established about

A.D. 1125 by Kur-Khan, prince of the tribe of the Caracitai in

the Mandshuria of to-day. This prince, who was probably himself

a Nestorian Christian, favoured the establishment of Christianity

in his country; but this was utterly destroyed by Genghis Khan so

early as A.D. 1208. The title Prester or Presbyter given to the

prince of this tribe is to be explained perhaps by the statement

of the missionary Ruysbroek that almost all male Nestorians in

Central Asia received priestly consecration.[196]

§ 73. THE SLAVONIC CHURCHES ADHERING TO THE ORTHODOX

GREEK CONFESSION.

Among the crowds of immigrants whom the wanderings of the people had

set in motion, the Germans and the Slavs are those whose future is of

most historic interest. The former went at once in a body over to the

Roman Catholic church, and at first it appeared as if the Slavs were

with similar unanimity to attach themselves to the Byzantine orthodox

church. But only the Slavs of the Eastern countries remained true to

that communion, though they were mostly with it brought under the yoke

of the Turkish power. So was it with the specially promising Bulgarian

church. All the more important was the incomparably more significant

gain which the Greek church made in the conversion of the Russians.

§ 73.1. Soon after Justinian’s time the Slavic hordes began to

overflow the =Greek Provinces=--Macedonia, Thessaly, Hellas and

Peloponnesus. The old Hellenic population was mostly rooted out;

only in well fortified cities, especially coast towns, as well as

on the islands, did the Greek people and the Christian confession

remain undisturbed. The empress Irene made the first successful

attempt to restore Slavic Greece to the allegiance of the empire

and the church, and Basil the Macedonian, A.D. 867-886, completed

the work so thoroughly that at last even the old pagan Mainottes

(§ 42, 4) in the Peloponnesus bent their necks to the double yoke.

Regenerated Hellenism by its higher culture and national, as well

as ecclesiastical, tenacity, completely absorbed by assimilation

the numerically larger Slavic element of the population, and

Mount Athos with its hermits and monasteries (§ 70, 3) became

the Zion of the new church.

§ 73.2. The =Chazari= in the Crimea asked about A.D. 850 for

Christian missionaries from Constantinople. The court sent them

a celebrated monk Constantine, surnamed the Philosopher, better

known under his monkish name of =Cyril=. Born at Thessalonica,

and so probably of Slavic descent, at least acquainted with the

language of the Slavs, he converted in a few years a great part

of the people. In A.D. 1016, however, the kingdom of the Chazari

was destroyed by the Russians.

§ 73.3. =The Bulgarians= in Thrace and Mœsia had obtained a

knowledge of Christianity from Greek prisoners, but its first

sowing was watered with blood. A sister, however, of the Bulgarian

king Bogoris had been baptized when a prisoner in Constantinople.

After her liberation, she sought, with the help of the Byzantine

monk =Methodius=, a brother of Cyril, to win her brother to

the Christian faith. A famine came to their aid, and a picture

painted by Methodius, representing the last judgment, made a

deep impression on Bogoris. In A.D. 861 he was baptized and

compelled his subjects to follow his example. But soon thereafter,

Methodius, along with his brother Cyril, was called to labour in

another field, in Moravia (§ 79, 2), and political considerations

led the Bulgarian prince in A.D. 866 to join the Western church.

At his request pope Nicholas I. sent bishops and clergy into

Bulgaria to organize the church there after the Roman model.

Byzantine diplomacy, however, succeeded in winning back the

Bulgarians, and at the œcumenical Council at Constantinople in

A.D. 869, their ambassadors admitted that the Bulgarian church

according to divine and human laws belonged to the diocese of the

Byzantine patriarch (§ 67, 1). Meantime the two Apostles of the

Slavs, Cyril and Methodius, by the invention of a Slavic alphabet

and a Slavic translation of the Bible, laid the foundation of a

Slavic ecclesiastical literature, which was specially fostered

in Bulgaria under the noble-minded prince Symeon, A.D. 888-927.

Basil II., the Slayer of the Bulgarians, conquered Bulgaria in

A.D. 1018. It gained its freedom again, together with Walachia,

in A.D. 1186; but fell a prey to the Tartars in A.D. 1285, and

became a Turkish province in A.D. 1391.

§ 73.4. =The Russian Church.=--Photius speaks in A.D. 866 of the

=Conversion of the Russians= as an accomplished fact. In the days

of the Grand Duke Igor, about A.D. 900, there was a cathedral at

Kiev. Olga, Igor’s widow, made a journey to Constantinople and

was there baptized in A.D. 955 under the name Helena. But her son

Swätoslaw could not be persuaded to follow her example. The aged

princess is said according to the report of German chroniclers

to have at last besought the emperor Otto I. to send German

missionaries, and that in response Adalbert of Treves, afterwards

archbishop of Magdeburg, undertook a missionary tour, from which,

however, he returned without having achieved his purpose, after

his companions had been slain. Olga’s grandson, Vladimir, “Equal

of the Apostles,” was the first to put an end to paganism in

the country. According to a legend adorned with many romantic

episodes he sent ten Boyars in order to see how the different

religions appeared as conducted in their chief seats. They were

peculiarly impressed with the beautiful service in the church of

Sophia. In A.D. 988, in the old Christian commercial town Cherson,

shortly before conquered by him, Vladimir was baptized with the

name Basil, and at the same time he received the hand of the

princess Anna. The idols were now everywhere broken up and burnt;

the image of Perun was dragged through the streets tied to the

tail of a horse, beaten with clubs and thrown into the Dnieper.

The inhabitants of Kiev were soon afterwards ordered to gather

at the Dnieper and be baptized. Vladimir knelt in prayer on the

banks and thanked God on his knees, while the clergy, standing

in the stream, baptized the people. On the further organization

of the Russian church Anna exercised a powerful and salutary

influence. Vladimir died in A.D. 1015. His son Jaroslaw I., the

Justinian of the Russians, attended to the religious needs of his

people by the erection of many churches, monasteries and schools,

improved the worship, enriched the psalmody, awakened a taste for

art and patronized learning. The monastery of Petchersk at Kiev

was the birthplace of Russian literature and a seminary for the

training of the clergy. Here, at the end of the 11th century, the

monk Nestor wrote his annals in the language of the country. The

metropolitan of Kiev was the spiritual head of the whole Russian

church under the suzerainty of the patriarch of Constantinople.

After the great fire of A.D. 1170, which laid the glory of Kiev

in ashes, the residency of the Grand Duke was transferred to

Vladimir. In A.D. 1299 the metropolitan also took up his abode

there, but only for a short time; for in A.D. 1328 the Grand Duke

Ivan Danilowitsch settled at Moscow and the metropolitan went

there along with him. The patriarch of Constantinople on his own

authority consecrated in A.D. 1353 a second Russian metropolitan

for the forsaken Kiev, to whom he assigned the Southern and

Western Russian provinces which since A.D. 1320 had been under

the rule of the pagan Lithuanians. This schism was overcome

in A.D. 1380 on the next occasion of a vacancy in the Moscow

chair by the appointment to Moscow of the Kiev metropolitan. But

the Lithuanian government, which had meanwhile become Catholic

(§ 93, 15), compelled the South Russian bishops in A.D. 1414 to

choose a metropolitan of their own independent of Moscow, who in

A.D. 1594 with his whole diocese at the Synod of Brest (§ 151, 3)

attached himself to Rome. The primate of Moscow continued under

the jurisdiction of Constantinople until, in A.D. 1589, the

patriarch Jeremiah II. (§ 139, 26), on the occasion of his being

personally present at Moscow voluntarily declared the Russian

church independent of him, and himself consecrated Job, the

metropolitan of that time, its first patriarch.[197]

§ 73.5. =Russian Sects.=--About A.D. 1150, the monk Martin, an

Armenian by birth, insisted upon a liturgical reform that seemed

to him most necessary. Among other things he declared that it was

sinful to lead the subject of baptism to the baptismal font from

right to left or from south to north; the direction should be

reversed following the course of the sun. But it seemed to him

most important that a reform should be made in the hitherto

prevalent mode of making the sign of the cross. Instead of

symbolizing, as up to this time had been done, the two natures in

Christ and the three persons in the Trinity by bending the little

finger and the thumb, and making the sign of the cross with other

three, they made this sign with the fore and middle fingers.

For nearly ten years this monk was allowed to disseminate his

errors unchecked, till a Council obliged him to retract. Two

hundred years later a certain Carp Strigolnik at Novgorod in

A.D. 1375 publicly accused the clergy of sinning, because,

in accordance with an old custom, they took fees in assisting

in the consecration of bishops, and demanded of all orthodox

Christians that they should separate from them as unworthy of

their office. But he, along with many of his followers, was

mobbed by the adherents of the opposite party and drowned in

the Volga. More dangerous than all the earlier sectaries was

the so-called Jewish sect at the end of the 15th century,

which sought to reduce orthodox Christianity to a rationalistic

cabbalistic Ebionitism. About A.D. 1470 the Jew Zachariah arrived

at Novgorod. He won two distinguished priests Alexis and Denis to

his views, that Christ was nothing more than an ordinary Jewish

prophet, that the Mosaic law is a divine institution and is of

perpetual obligation. By the advice of the Jew the two priests

continued to profess the greatest zeal for the ceremonial laws

of the Church, and by strict observance of the fasts obtained

a great reputation for piety, but secretly they wrought all the

more successfully for the dissemination of their sect among all

classes of the people. When the czar, Ivan III., in A.D. 1480,

came to Novgorod, they made so favourable an impression on

him that he took them with him to Moscow, where they reaped a

rich harvest for their secret doctrine. They succeeded through

their influence with the czar in placing at the head of the

whole Russian church a zealous proselyte for their sect in the

archimandrite Zosima. Meanwhile at Novgorod iconoclast excesses

were committed by the sectaries, which the archbishop of that

place, Gennadius, set himself to suppress by imposing generally

mild penalties. His successor Joseph Ssanin proceeded much more

energetically. He did not rest till the czar in A.D. 1504 called

a Church Synod at Novgorod which condemned the chiefs of the sect

to be burnt, and their followers to be shut up in monasteries.

Even the metropolitan Zosima as a favourer of the sect was sent

to a monastery; but Alexis managed so cleverly that he retained

his office and dignity to the end of his life. Secret remnants

of this sect, as well as of the two previously referred to,

continued to exist for a long time, even down to the 17th

century, when sectarianism in the Russian Church made again

a new departure (§ 163, 10).

§ 73.6. =Romish Efforts at Union.=--From a very early time Rome

cast a covetous glance at the young Russian church, and she

spared neither delicate hints nor attempts to subdue by force

by the aid of Danes, Swedes, Livonians and at a later time,

the Poles. In order to avert this danger and to obtain from

the West assistance against the oppressive yoke of the Mongols,

A.D. 1234-1480, the Grand Duke Jaroslav [Jaroslaw] II. of

Novgorod was not averse to a union. His son Alexander succeeded

him in A.D. 1247. By a glorious victory over the Swedes in

A.D. 1240, on the Neva, he won for himself the surname Newsky,

and in A.D. 1242 he defeated the Livonians on the ice of Lake

Peipus. Pope Innocent IV. who had already in A.D. 1246 nominated

Arch bishop Albert Suerbeer (§ 93, 12) a legate to Russia with the

power to erect bishoprics there, addressed an earnest exhortation

to the young prince in A.D. 1248 with promises of help against

the Mongols, urging him to go in the footsteps of his father and

to secure his own and his subjects’ salvation by doing what his

father had promised. The Grand Duke referred to the wisest men

of the land and answered the Pope: From Adam to the flood, from

that to the Confusion of languages, etc., down to Constantine and

the seventh œcumenical Council, we know the true history of the

Church, but yours we do not wish to acknowledge. Alexander Newsky

died in A.D. 1263, and has been ever since venerated by his

country as a national hero and by his Church as a national saint.

The prospects of the Roman Curia were more favourable during

the 14th century owing to the Lithuanian and Polish supremacy in

South and West Russia, and by the schism of the Russian Church

into Kiev and Moscow primacies. In those Southern and Western

provinces there was originally less disinclination to Rome than

in Moscow. Still even here we meet during the 15th century in the

metropolitan Isidore, born in Thessalonica, a prelate who made

everything work toward a union with Rome. When the Union Synod

of A.D. 1438 was to meet at Ferrara (§ 67, 6), he represented to

the Grand Duke Vassili that it was his duty to appear there. He

gave a hesitating and unwilling consent. At the Council Isidore

along with Bessarion showed himself a zealous promoter of the

union. He returned in A.D. 1441 as cardinal and papal legate.

But when at the first public service in Moscow he read aloud the

union documents, the Grand Duke had him imprisoned and banished

to a monastery. He escaped from his prison and died in Rome in

A.D. 1643.--Continuation, § 151, 3.