Pre-Reformation Church History II:
Lecture Notes
Spring 1960
IBRI Syllabi #24
Allan A. MacRae
President & Professor
Faith Theological Seminary
© 2014 John P. MacRae
Abstract
This is the second semester of a two-semester course in Pre-Reformation Church History. These lectures were transcribed from a sound-recording and only lightly edited, so they still have much of a spoken flavor. The first semester material is found in IBRI Syllabi #23. This second semester begins in the latter part of the fourth century AD with the rise of monasticism, and it goes on to discuss the careers of Jerome and Augustine. Then the fifth century is sketched, along with the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The thousand-year period from then to the Reformation is first given in overview, and later discussed in more detail. Each century (or two-century period) includes a sketch of the secular or political situation, the various doctrinal controversies, monastic movements, the papacy, and principal writers and leaders. The rise of Islam and the Crusades are sketched, along with various movements leading toward the Reformation.
Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute
Contents and Course Outline
This outline includes the first semester. The second semester outline begins here. The text of the lectures begins here.
I. Introductory.
A. The Method of the Course
B. The Value of Studying Church History
1. It can be a source of great encouragement to us
2. The purpose of studying Church History Negatively
a. Not to learn what is true in theology
b. not to learn how God desires us to worship Him
c. Is not to learn God's plan for our lives
3. The purpose of studying Church History Positively
a. To see how God has worked in the past
b. To see how Satan has worked in the past
c. To see how much of our social and religious culture is historical rather than logical or Biblical in origin
d. To become acquainted with great men of the past and to see the points of strength and weakness
e. To get illustrations for Divine truths
C. Divisions of Church History
1. History is a continuum -- breaks are not usually complete at any one point
2. Centuries are convenient means of general division
3. Church history is usually divided into three major sections
a. Ancient church history - After Apostolic Age
b. Medieval church history - After the fall of Rome
c. Modern church history - After the Reformation
D. Remarks about Dates
E. What is History?
F. What is the Church
G. What is Church History?
II. The World into which Christianity Came
A. The Roman Empire
1. Its Importance (in Church History)
2. How It Came into Being
a. It was a Gradual Growth
b. In Rome there had developed a constitutional system with a large measure of individual liberty
c. A gradual extension of the rights of Roman citizenship to conquered peoples
d. There was a concentration of power in experienced hands
e. The Tensions which were largely the result of extremely rapid conquest, eventually resulted in concentration of ultimate power in one head
3. The nature of the Roman Empire
a. Strong Central Power
b. A Great Tradition of Law and of Personal Liberty
4. A rapid survey of the history of the Roman Empire
a. The Julian Line (30BC-68AD)
(1) Augustus (30BC-14AD)
(2) Tiberius (14-47AD)
(3) Caligula (37-41AD)
(4) Claudius (41-54AD)
(5) Nero (54-68AD)
b. The Flavian line (69-96)
(1) Vespasian (69-79)
(2) Titus (79-81)
(3) Domitian (81-96)
c. The Nerva-Antonines (90-193)
(1) Nerva (96-98)
(2) Trajan (98-117)
(3) Hadrian (117-138)
(4) Antoninus Pius (138-161)
(5) Marcus Aurelius (161-180)
(6) Commodus (180-192)
5. Advantages to Christianity of the Existence of the Roman Empire
(1) Comparative Peace and Safety
(2) Lack of Borders
(3) Roads
6. Disadvantages to Christianity of the Existence of the Roman Empire.
a. The Great Importance of the Personality of the Emperor
b. The Development of Official Opposition
B. Hellenism
1. The Achievements of Greece
a. Culture, Science, Art, Literature, etc
b. Failure in Government
2. The Spread of Greek Civilization and Language. The Hellenistic Age
3. Advantages to Christianity
a. The Existence of a Common Language widely understood
b. This Language was Uniquely Fitted for the Expression of Complex and Sublime Ideas
c. Partly as a Result of Greek Philosophy, There was a Widespread Attitude of Skepticism Regarding Paganism and of Longing for Something Better
4. Disadvantages to Christianity
a. Many, particularly of the Lower Classes, were greatly attached to the Greek gods
b. The Widespread Skepticism of Everything Supernatural Among a Small but Influential Class
C. Judaism
1. Judaism was represented in all parts of the Empire
2. Factions among the Jews
a. The Sadducees
b. The Pharisees
c. The Essenes
3. High Spots in the History of Judaism During the First Two Centuries
a. The Destruction of Jerusalem 70 AD
b. Simon Bar Kokhba, 132 AD
III. The Church in the First Century
A. The Beginning of the Church
1. Evidence in Acts and the Epistles
2. The Importance of the Resurrection
B. The Period of Little Evidence
1. How does there come to be so little evidence?
a. The Type of Writing Material
b. The lack of Stimulus to Write History
c. The Expectation of the Soon-return of Christ
2. Why had God allowed such a gap in our knowledge?
3. Traditions about the Apostles
4. I Clement
5. Information from Non-Christian Sources
a. Josephus
b. Suetonius on Claudius
c. Tacitus and Suetonius on Nero
6. Information on Domitian's Persecution
C. The Concluding Summary
IV. The Church in the Second Century
A. The Roman Empire
1. Nerva (96-98)
2. Trajan (98-117)
3. Hadrian (117-138)
4. Antoninus Pius (138-161)
5. Marcus Aurelius (161-180)
6. Commodus (180-192)
7. Septimius Severus (193-211)
B. Pliny's Correspondence with Trajan
1. Evidence of the spread of Christianity
2. Evidence of the Official Roman Attitude toward Christianity
C. Ignatius
1. His letters
2. His idea of martyrdom
3. His idea of the place of a Bishop
4. His Idea of the Catholic Church
D. The Apostolic Fathers
1. General Remarks
2. Early Christian Literature
a. Clement
b. Ignatius
c. Barnabas
d. Hermas
e. Epistle of Diognetus
f. Aside on the N.T. Apocrypha
3. Papias
4. Polycarp
E. The Apologists
1. First Apologists
(to Hadrian, all lost)
a. Quadratus
b. Aristides
c. Aristo
2. Justin Martyr (ca.100-ca.166)
3. Tatian of Assyria
4. Melito of Sardis
F. Gnosticism
1. The Meaning of the word Gnosis
a. Previous de-Mythologizing of Pagan Religions
b. The Claim to Superior Knowledge
c. Apocryphal Books
2. The Roots of Gnosticism in the First Century
a. New Testament Evidence
b. Simon Magus
c. Cerinthus
3. Points Common to Most Gnostic Groups
a. The Claim to Possession of Higher Knowledge
b. Belief that Matter is Essentially Evil.
c. Belief in Angelic Intermediaries and in opposition between the good God and the creator of this world
d. Denial of the Incarnation
e. Their Attitude toward the body
4. The Great Variety of Gnostic Groups
5. Gnostic Leader--Marcion
a. His life
b. His relation to Polycarp
c. Marcion's Attitude toward the Scriptures
6. The great spread and ultimate decline of Gnosticism
7. Some Effects of Gnosticism on the Church
a. Determine exactly the True Books
b. Enlarge the Idea of a Catholic Church
G. Persecution by Marcus Aurelius
1. The Character of the Emperor
2. The Persecution Particularly in Gaul
3. The Cessation of Persecution under Commodus
H. Irenaeus
1. His Life
2. His Opposition to Gnosticism
3. A Source of Knowledge of Church History
4. His Attitude Toward Other Christian Groups
J. Tertullian
1. The First Latin Theological Writer
2. His Life
3. His Writings
4. Tertullian's Influence
K. Montanism
L. the Papacy in the Second Century
l. The word Pope
2. The insignificance of most of the Roman bishops in the 2nd century
3. Anicetus (155-166)
4. Eleutherius (177-190)
5. Victor (190-202)
M. Conclusion of our discussion about this century
1. The Growth During This Century
2. Principal Centers of Christianity
a. Asia Minor
b. Antioch
c. Jerusalem
d. Alexandria
e. North Africa (Carthage)
f. Gaul
V. The Third Century
A. The Roman Empire
1. Septimius Severus (193-211)
2. Caracalla (211-217)
3. Elagabalus (218-222)
4. Alexander Severus (222-235)
5. Maximinus (235-238)
6. Phillip the Arabian (244-249)
B. Monarchianism
l. Dynamic Monarchianism
2. Patrapassianism
3. Sabellianism or Modalism
4. Beryllus of Bostra
C. Hippolytus
D. Clement and Origen
1. Clement of Alexandria
a. The Catechetical School
b. His writings
c. The Allegorical Method
d. Clement's reference to the Didache
2. Origin
3. Origen's Writings
4. Origen's Views
E. Roman Emperors from 249 to 300
1. Decius (249-251)
2. Valerian (253-260)
3. Gallienus (260-268)
4. Aurelian (270-275)
5. Beginning of Diocletian's Reign (284-305)
F. Cyprian
1. His life in general
2. Cyprian's Idea of the Church
3. The Controversy over his Flight
4. The Problem of the Lapsed
5. The Novatian Schism
6. The Problem of Heretical Baptism
7. Cyprian's Relation to Rome
8. Cyprian's Martyrdom
G. Mythraism and Manichaeanism
1. Mythraism
2. Manichaeanism
H. Neo-Platonism
1. Its Background
2. Ammoniacus Saccas
3. Plotinus
4. Porphyry
J. Forty Years of Freedom from Persecution
1. Growth of the Church
2. Worldliness
3. Paul of Samosata
4. Lucian
K. The Church of Rome in the 3rd Century
VI. The Church the Fourth Century
A. The Persecution of Diocletian
1. The Situation at 303
2. The Outbreak of Persecution
3. The Attitude of Constantius Chlorus
4. Persecution in the East
5. The Greatest Persecution in the History of the Christian Church
6. Persecution in Italy and North Africa
7. The Death of Galerius
B. Constantine the Great
1. The Rise of Constantine
2. Constantine's Victory
3. Edict of Toleration, 313 AD
4. The Advance in Christian Scholarship under Constantine
a. Eusebius' Church History
b. Copies of the Bible
c. Study of Palestine
(1). Increased interest in Palestine
(2). Constantine's Mother
(3). Eusebius' Onomasticon
5. The Donatist Schism
6. Constantine's Social Legislation
7. The Council of Nicea
8. The Founding of Constantinople
9. The Alleged Donation of Constantine
10. Constantine's character and Achievements
a. His Character
b. His Effect on the Christian Church
c. His Baptism
d. His Place in Secular History and in Church History
C. The Rise of Arianism and the Council of Nicea
1. The Rise of Arianism
a. Its Leader
b. Its Background
c. Its Views. The views of Arianism
d. Its Dissemination
e. The Opposition to Arianism
f. Constantine's Attitude
2. The Council of Nicea
a. The Calling of the Council
b. The Deliberations
c. The Homoousian Creed
d. Other Acts of the Council
(1). The Melitian Schism
(2). The Matter of Easter
(3). Centers of Church Leadership
3. The Arian Controversy to the Death of Constantine
a. The Work of Athanasius
b. The Political Maneuvers of the Arians
c. The Exile of Athanasius
d. the Return and Death of Arius
D. The Reign of Constantius
1. The Sons of Constantine
2. The Progress of Arianism
E. The reign of Julian (361-363)
1. Julian's Background
2. Julian's Religion
3. Julian's Attitude to Christianity
F. The Downfall of Arianism (363-381)
1. The Attitude of Valens (364-377)
a. The Reign of Jovian
b. The Accession of Valens
c. The Efforts of Valens to carry out the policies of Constantius
d. The Death of Valens
2. The Last Years of Athanasius
3. Hillary of Poitiers
4. The Cappadocian Fathers
a. Basil the Great
b. Gregory of Nazianzus
c. Gregory of Nyssa
5. The Elevation of Ambrose in Milan
6. The Accession of Theodosius
G. The First Council of Constantinople
l. The Calling of the Council
2. The End of Arianism
3. Macedonianism
4. Apollinarianism
5.
Gregory and Nectarius
H. The Beginning of Monasticism
1. Causes of this Development
a. The Example of Paul.
b. The desire to escape the worldliness of the Roman Empire
c. The Condition of the Egyptian and Syrian Deserts
2. Paul of Thebes and St. Anthony
a. Paul of Thebes
b. St. Anthony
3. The Influence of Athanasius
4. Basil the Great
5. Pachomius
J. The Church at Rome during the Fourth Century
1. Sylvester I (314-335)
2. Julius I (337-352)
3. Liberius (352-366)
4. Damasus I (366-384)
K. The Roman Empire in the Last Third of the Fourth Century
1. Valens (364-378)
2. Gratian (375-383) (West)
3. Theodosius I (378-395) (East)
L. St. Jerome
1. His birth and early life
2. Jerome's life in the Syrian Desert
3. Jerome at Rome
4. Jerome at Bethlehem
5 The Vulgate
6. Jerome's Commentaries
7. Jerome's Other Works.
8. The Origenistic Controversy
9. The Monastic Controversies
a. Jovinian
b. Helvidius
10. Jerome vs. Augustine: Views of Inspiration
[See VII-H. Augustine's Relations with Jerome]
11. Jerome c. Augustine: The Pelagian Controversy
[See VII-J. The Pelagian Controversy]
12. Conclusion regarding Jerome
M. The Downfall of Paganism
N. St. John Chrysostom
A. Augustine's Early Life.
B. Augustine's Conversion.
C. Augustine as Bishop
D. Augustine's Confessions
E. The Manichean Controversy
F. The Donatists
G. The City of God
1. The Political Situation
a. The Barbarian Invasion
b. The Sack of Rome
2. The Pagan Reaction
3. Augustine's Answer
4. Effect of the Book
H. Augustine's Relations with Jerome
J. The Pelagian Controversy (411-431)
1. The Outbreak of the Controversy
a. Pelagius' Background.
b. Pelagius' Views
c. Coelestius
d. Pelagius and Coelestius visit Africa
e. Augustine's First Treatises Against Pelagius
2. Pelagius in Palestine
a. The Spread of Pelagianism
b. The Attitude of Jerome
c. The Synod at Jerusalem in 415
d. The Synod of Lydda
e. The Attack on Jerome's Monastery
3. The Controversy in the West
a. The North African Synod of 416
b. The Letter of Bishop Innocent
c. Augustine's Famous Sermon
d. The Action of Bishop Zosimus
e. The African Council of 418
f. The Edict from Honorius
g. Zosimus' Changed Attitude
4. Julian of Eclanum
5. Augustine's Doctrine of Predestination
6. The Council of Ephesus
7. Later History of the Controversy: Semi-Pelagianism
8. Semi-Augustianism
K. Augustine and the Church of Rome
1. The Immediate Effect of Augustine's Work on the Development of the Roman System
a. The Donatist Controversy
b. The City of God
2. The Ultimate Effect of Augustine's Work in this Regard
3. Augustine's Personal Relation
a. The Famous Sermon
b. Reaction to Zosimus' Attitude
c. Other
Matters
L. Other Writings of St. Augustine
M. The Last Days of Augustine
1. The Political Developments
a. The Vandal Entrance into Spain
b. The Western Empire
c. Count Boniface
2. Augustine's Death
A. The Political Developments
1. The Sack of Rome
2. The Vandals
3. The Huns
4. The End of the Western Roman Empire
5. Events in Britain
6. The Franks
B. The Church of Rome in the Fifth Century
1. Factors Contributing to its Importance
a. The Importance of the City
b. No Other City could compete for Leadership in the West
c. It was founded by Apostles
d. Removal of the Emperor from Rome left the Bishop as its most powerful citizen
e. Other Western Churches naturally looked to the Church of Rome for advice and for help
2. The Relation of the Roman Bishops to the Church of North Africa
3. The Comparative Insignificance of most of the Roman Bishops up to 440 AD
4. The Mission to Ireland, and the Work of St. Patrick.
5. Leo the Great (440-461)
a. His Character
b. His Activities for the Roman People
c. His Theological Leadership
d. His Papal Claims
6. Gelasius (492-496)
C. The Christological Controversy
1. General Remarks, Nature and Importance
2. Background of Trinitarian Controversy
3. The First Step, Apollinarianism
4. The Nestorian Council
a. Nestorius
b. His Views
c. The Opposition to Nestorianism
d. The Council of Ephesus
e. The Later Nestorians
5. Eutychianism or Monophysitism
a. Outbreak of the Controversy
b. The So-Called "Council of Robbers"
c. The 4th Ecumenical Council
d. Monophysite Schisms
e. Later
Monophysite Controversies
D. Some Other Aspects of Church History in the Fifth Century
1. Monasticism
a. A Special Development of Monasticism
2. The 28th Canon of the Council of Chalcedon
IX. The Thousand-Year Interval
A. General Remarks as to its Relation to Church History
B. The General Political and Cultural Development.
1. The Cultural decline produced by the Migration
2. Lack of a Strong Center to Produce Peace and Order
3. The Dark Ages
4. Development of the Feudal System
5. The Theoretical Continuance of the Idea of the Roman Empire
6. The Ultimate Rise of Nationalism
7. The Preservation of Culture in the Monasteries
8. The Renaissance
9. Conditions in the Eastern Empire during this Period
C. A General Sketch of Movements in Church History during This Period
1. Monasticism
a. Formation of Orders
b. Celibacy
c. New Types of Monks
d. The Increase in Wealth of the Orders
e. Good and Bad Features of Monasticism
2. The Increase of Superstition
a. Mariolatry
b. The worship of the saints
c. Transubstantiation
d. Purgatory
3. Spiritual Movements
4. Scholasticism
5. The Growth of the Papacy
a. The Growth of the Local Ecclesiastical Power
b.
The Bishop of Rome
A. Survey of Secular History
B. The Foundation of the Benedictine Order
C. The Fifth Ecumenical Council
D. Pope Gregory the Great (590-604 AD)
1. The Mission to England
2. Relations with the Bishop of Constantinople
3. Purgatory
4. Gregory's Writings
A. Survey of Secular History
1. Italy
2. France
3. Great Britain
a. Ireland
b. England
4. The Eastern Empire
B. Monothelism and the 6th Ecumenical council
1. The Nature of the Controversy
2. The Force of the Controversy
3. The 6th Ecumenical Council (680 AD)
4. The Question of the Orthodoxy of Honorius
C. The Rise of Mohammedanism
1. Its Teachings
2. The Early Life of Mohammed
3. The Hegira (622 AD)
4. Mohammed at Medina
5. The Conquest of Arabia
6. The Wider Extension of Islam
D. The Irish and English Missions in the 7th and 8th
Centuries
E. The Growth of the Empire of the Franks
1. Charles Martel
2. Pepin the Short
a. In 752 he took the title of king
b. Pepin Defeats the Lombards (754)
c. Pepin's Donation
3. Charles the Great, Charlemagne (716-814)
a. His Greatness
b. His Interest in Education
c. His Conquest of the Saxons
d. His Relations With the Bishop of Rome
e. The Establishment of the Holy Roman Empire (800)
f.
The Character of Charlemagne
F. The Iconoclastic Controversy
1. The Origin of the Controversy
2. The Constantinople Council of 754
3. The 7th Ecumenical Council of 787
4. The Caroline Books
G. The Adoptianist Controversy
XII. The 9th and 10th Centuries
A. Political Developments
B. The Iconoclastic Controversy
C. Photius
D. The Papacy
1. Nicholas I (858-867)
2. Formosus (891-6)
E. Agobardus and Claudius
F. Radbertus and Ratramnus
G. The Papacy in the 10th Century
H. The Cluny Reform and St Dunstan
A. Political Events
1. England
2. The Western Empire
3. The Eastern Empire.
B. The Papacy in the 11th century
1. Benedict IX
2. Renewed German Intervention
3. Hildebrand -- Gregory VII (1073-1085)
4. Sylvester II (999-1003).
C. Separation from the Eastern Church 1054
D. Berengar
A. The Papacy
B. St Bernard of Clairvaux
C. The Crusades
D. Henry II of England
1. The Conquest of Ireland
2. Thomas à Becket (1118-1170)
E. Scholasticism
1. Anselm (1032-1109)
2. Abelard (1079-1142)
3. Peter Lombard (c.1096-1164)
A. Innocent III (1198-1216)
B. The Mendicant Orders
1. St Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)
2. St Dominic (1170-1221)
C. Divergent Groups
1. Waldensians
2. The Albigenses or Cathari
D. The Inquisition
E. Scholars of the 13th Century
1. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225?-1274)
2. Roger Bacon (1225-1294)
3. Bonaventure (1221-1274).
4. Duns Scotus (c.1266-1308)
5. Raymond Lull (1232-1315)
F. The Papacy
1. Pietro da Morrone, Celestine V. (1294)
2. Boniface VIII (1294-1303)
A. The Babylonian Captivity of the Church
1. John XXII
B. Marsilius of Padua (1275-1342) and William of Ockham
(1287-1347)
C. Urban VI (1378-1389)
D. John Wyclif (1320-1384)
A. The Great Schism
B. John Huss (1369-1415)
C. The Council of Constance
1. Its Objectives
a. End the Schism
b. Reform the Church
c. The Hussite Movement
2. Its Beginning
3. Huss and Jerome of Prague
4. John XXIII (1410-1415)
5. Efforts at Reform
6. The New Pope Martin V
D. The Popes of the 15th Century
E. Europe on the Eve of the Reformation
VI. The Fourth Century (continued)
This is the first time for about a month that we have met together for Church History. We are just to start our second semester of the course, and our second semester is a unit by itself. A person can start Church History right now. By the way, we will get out a revised seating next Monday. There will very little revision, most of you will sit just where you are, but for any who are entering this semester, we'll give you definite seats at that time.
This is a unit by itself—this semester. Anyone can start here. Some people don't like to do it that way. They figure Church History should run right straight through, and each semester should be taken in the proper order. They say, "For each semester you have to know what precedes." Well, it's true for a full understanding of each you have to know what precedes, but that applies to the first equally. Wherever you start, you have what precedes and what follows. You can take a course better if you know what precedes. At the same time you can take it better if you know what follows. Because in it are found the germs and the beginnings of the things that develop later; and if you know what came afterwards you see more clearly the importance of what follows, of what you're taking.
So,
my personal opinion is: it doesn't particularly matter what order you take the
semester in. Nevertheless, from a viewpoint of convenience, I treat the first
and second semesters as one unit in giving it. Most of you take it in that
order. I go right straight through in my enumeration. Anyone who's starting
this semester, don't worry about the fact if you don't have the first semester
yet. But for your enumeration, you will start the course—not with Roman Numeral
I, but which Roman Numeral are we on, it's VI isn't it?—under VI; the last
capital letter we had was G, The First Council of Constantinople. So this will
start with Roman Numeral VI, and under that it will be
H. The Beginning
of Monasticism.
Now this is a rather good place to start the semester, although every time I've
given it before we've been further along than we are this time. But it's a
rather good point at which to start the semester; because we're not jumping
right into the middle of things, but we are taking a movement and looking back
to the very beginning of that movement; the beginning of monasticism. We may
have said a very little about monasticism during the first semester. We have
mentioned it occasionally, but we have said very little about it.
Anyone
taking a course in Church History in a Roman Catholic institution—I'm
sure—would have said far more about monasticism up to this point than we have.
I remember when I was 11 years old, my family spent a winter in Rome, Italy.
Before that I had been in a very predominantly Protestant area in northern
Michigan. And one of the things that impressed me in Rome that winter—which I
had never noticed before—was to see large groups of men with long gowns on,
some of them black, some of them brown, and sometimes other colors, often with
a rope tied around the waist; small groups, maybe 15 or 16 of them walking two
abreast down a street. And large groups of women, similarly often dressed in
black, with very great amounts of clothing on them; and often with a white
thing around their heads.
And
I'd never seen these before—at least to notice them—but there were these great
numbers of them. They were very common. And in the Roman Catholic Church today
there is no feature of life that is more conspicuous than the part that monks
and nuns play; they are a very large part of the clergy—not all of the
clergy—but the overwhelming majority of the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church
are monks or nuns. They wear a special garb; they live a special kind of life; they
are very marked and different in many ways from other people. Well, as I say,
if such a course as this one is given in Roman Catholic institutions, I'm sure
there would have been much said about monasticism in discussing Church History
up before this time.
Now
we do not have the institution in Protestantism; and it would be possible to
give a course of Church History from a Protestant viewpoint, and say very
little about it. But it would not give us any true picture—a whole picture of
the history of the church—because when you come to the beginning of the
Reformation, you find that the Reformation sprang out of the monastery; the
early Reformers, many of them, had been monks. Martin Luther had been a monk;
he had been a very active monk; a very successful monk. He had been—for a
number of years—acting head of the whole order of monks to which he belonged in
Germany. And he was greatly influenced in his development by his background in
monasticism; and then when Protestantism got under way, one of the great forces
against it, to hold it back, came from monasticism.
So
in any study of the Reformation we need to know much about monasticism. And in
any understanding of the Roman Catholic Church today you need to know much
about monasticism. And in any study of the history of the Christian Church,
between maybe 350 or 400, and the time of the Reformation, you're just
constantly dealing with the subject of monasticism.
Now
it would seem strange then to a Roman Catholic, who didn't know anything about
Church History, to see a history of the Christian Church starting in and
spending a whole semester and hardly mentioning monasticism; but that is a fact
with which we should be familiar: that this which is so prominent a feature of
the Roman Catholic Church, and was so prominent a feature of the whole
Christian Church, during a thousand years of history, more than half of the
time from Christ to now, a period between 400 AD and 1500 AD. This feature was
practically unknown before 300 AD. That it did not reach any great development
until nearly 400 AD; and that one of the most important features of modern
Roman Catholicism, the grouping of the monks in specific orders, with specific
rules for the orders, and leadership, and organization, for each order, is a
feature which did not begin until after 500 AD.
Now
you might say, "What's four or five hundred years out of two thousand
years of history?" Very little; it runs way back. Automobiles were hardly
in existence before 1900; there are 1960 years since the birth of Christ and
we've had automobiles only about 60 of them. So out of 1960 since the birth of
Christ, monasticism has been a great factor. Yes, from one viewpoint it's been
a great factor for most of the history of Christianity. But from another
viewpoint, everybody who holds that Christianity is the church that followed
Christ, and Christ is the head of the church—which is certainly theoretically
at least the doctrine of the Roman Catholics. Anybody who holds that must feel
that the first few centuries are of tremendous importance. And therefore, of
course, 300 years can go by with scarcely a trace of monasticism. Nearly 400
years can go by before it was a strong and important feature. Over 500 years
can go by before one of its most outstanding features today—the development of
monastic orders—came into existence, is a factor of tremendous importance.
And there are hundreds of facts we look at in the course of our Church History, and you will forget many of them before the examination; and of those you remember for the examination you will forget at least half or two-thirds within the next five years; but I do hope that none of you will forget this one. Because I believe that it is one of tremendous importance. It is—well the general fact to which it relates—one of overwhelming importance: that the peculiar features of the Roman Catholic Church; the distinctive features of it, those features which distinguish it from Protestantism; most of such developed some centuries after the time of Christ.
We
have noticed that the idea that the Bishop of Rome is head of the whole church
is an idea which we found very little trace of overtly in these first
centuries. Occasionally, a Bishop of Rome has tried to assert such an attitude,
but rarely during this period. But never has the early church recognized any
such thing as true, during this period at the beginning. So that most of the
distinctive features of the Roman Catholic Church developed centuries after the
time of Christ. This is a vital factor. And specifically I'm very anxious for
you to have in mind that that is true of monasticism, which is certainly one of
the two or three or four most distinctive features of the Roman Catholic
Church.
1. Causes of
this Development.
And under Causes
a. The Example
of Paul.
Now the example of the apostle Paul is not certainly a full example for
monasticism, because most of the features of monasticism were not in Paul; but
there is this about Paul, that he lived a celibate life during the time of his
Christian activities. He went about from place to place; he did it somewhat
more easily because he had no family to take with him. He tried to put all of
that energy—which in the ordinary person goes into the relation to a family—he
tried to put into relation to the church. He said that we don't have many
fathers. I have been your father in the faith. He thought of Timothy as his son
in the faith. He tried to consider his life as entirely devoted to Christ, with
no ordinary family ties.
Now
to some extent, this set the example of a life which will break with ordinary
family ties. You cannot find such an example taught in the Word at all, because
Paul said, "Have we not a right to lead about a wife as Peter does?"
Strange thing; the Roman Catholic Church looks at Peter as its head, as its
founder, but according to what Paul said, Peter took a wife about with him as
he carried on his ministry. He was not nearly like an example for monasticism
as Paul was.
But
the example of Paul and many others would suggest a very natural thought: that
if one is to be devoted to Christ, he should be entirely devoted to him and he
should break with all earthly ties. Well, anybody who thinks such a thing does
well to read the statement that our Lord made, "Some are born eunuchs and
some are made eunuchs, and some become eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's
sake." Remember that the Lord made it definite, that there are some who
are blessed in giving up a large part of ordinary earthly ties, and activities,
in order that their life may accomplish more for Christ; but that this is not
the normal situation for the Christian or the Christian worker. There's nothing
in the N.T. to suggest that a Christian leader should be quite divorced from
ordinary human relations; there's nothing to suggest such a thing; and besides
there is much to suggest that the one who is able most effectively to show
forth the love of Christ, and to make it real in people's lives, is one who
himself is experiencing the normal human activities of life; and who is
speaking from personal experience in his sympathies with other people in those
phases of life. But the example of Paul, to a small extent, would be a cause of
the development of monasticism; certainly it would be in point of time, the
very earliest step in it. But
b. The desire to
escape the worldliness of the Roman Empire. Christianity came into a world
in which there was widespread injustice, wickedness, and immorality. It was a
world with a remarkably high degree of police protection and of human
individual liberty—remarkably high—seldom in the history of the world had so
high a degree as this been attained. But everywhere you went, there were
religions that had lust and debauchery as part of the carrying on of their
religion; and the standard of individual morality was very low; and there was
much to make a person to feel, "Oh, if I could just altogether escape from
this wicked world." Now that, of course, helped some in the spread of
Christianity. It did not have so much the grey to face as the black; and it
makes it easier against that which is clearly bad, to stand out for what is
good; than it does for that which is deceptive, looking good but very bad
underneath.
But
there were many who thought more of their own individual escape from the
wickedness and worldliness on earth, than they thought of getting out to serve
the Lord by helping others and winning others away from it. And so naturally
people—thinking first of their own style of living the Christian life—some of
them thought, "If I could just get out of the world altogether, if I just
didn't have to live with people who are enticing me to wickedness all the time.
If I didn't have to walk along a street and see these lurid pictures and have
these people trying to arouse in my mind images and ideas that are wicked and
contrary to the teaching of Christ, how much easier it would be to live the
Christian life."
Now
this sort of idea doubtless occurs to people; and it has in all ages, in all
times. But probably it never would have led to anything if it were not for
c. The Condition
of the Egyptian and Syrian Deserts. A person here in Philadelphia might
feel in the summertime, "Oh, if I could just get away from all this
wickedness around! If I didn't have to live in a city that has all the
wickedness that I find here." And he could go back here into the hills
somewhere; he could take a little cave in the side of one of the hills; he
could go out and hunt berries and things to eat and live; he could get along to
some extent through the summer. But when winter began to come, it began to get
pretty cold, and all of the leaves dropped from the trees, and there were no
berries to be found anywhere; and assuming that he was not particularly trained
in hunting, he didn't know how to find squirrels and animals to any great
extent, he would find it pretty difficult and probably would straggle back into
civilization, and give up the new life.
But
in the Egyptian and Syrian deserts there was a mild climate; it might be chilly
in winter. I spent a few days a few weeks ago in the desert in southern
California. There during the day just a thin shirt was all you needed to be in
comfort. When night came, it would get down near freezing. It was cold at night
but the days were warm, and you could find some kind of shelter; and in the
Egyptian desert it would be warmer probably than that; it would be much farther
south. And from time immemorial there had been people in Syria, and more
particularly in Egypt, who had found themselves dissatisfied with life; they
found themselves perhaps disgruntled with the world, discouraged, as a result
of some personal catastrophe they had suffered or something; they had just left
everybody and gone out into the desert, and found they were able to get along.
So
hermits didn't begin with Christianity by any means; there were hermits out
there in the desert in some places—many places in the Egyptian desert, and some
places in the Syrian desert—there had been hermits from time immemorial. And as
the wickedness of the Roman world impressed people with Christian aspirations;
and then as the persecutions came, and many people fled from the persecutions;
out in the deserts there were little springs in various places; and it wasn't
particularly difficult to find a place where it would take a large group of
soldiers to search a person out and find him, fleeing from the persecution,
fleeing from the worldliness of the Roman world. There soon came to be
Christian hermits.
But
this did not take place during the first century AD. We have absolutely no
evidence of any such thing prior to 100 AD. I don't believe there's any
evidence prior to 200 AD. Certainly there was some in the period between 200
and 300 AD. And of course during that period, as you know, the persecutions, though
they were by no means constant, were much more intense than they were during
the previous century. And during this century from 200 to 300 AD, there were
some hermits who went into the desert and who there established themselves
alone; and they claimed to spend their time developing their spiritual life,
many of them doubtless doing it—some of them probably reading the scripture and
studying it—many of them, however, being illiterate, and having only such
scripture as they might have in their minds. There were individuals between 200
and 300. We will mention one of the first of these, one of the earliest of the
hermits according to legend, or history of the saints:
2. Paul of
Thebes and St. Anthony. Now this Paul of Thebes has been doubted; his early
existence has been doubted by many. We have no absolute proof that he lived;
but if he lived, he was very important in the history of monasticism. Well, I
think I'll say Paul of Thebes and St. Anthony. I'll put the two together
because St. Anthony, also, some people think was imaginary. But St. Anthony
succeeded Paul of Thebes—came after him—and we know much more about him, if he
existed. Personally, I think he probably did exist; but there are those who
question them altogether. Now then Paul of Thebes and St. Anthony are number 2,
and under that we'll make
a. Paul of
Thebes.
According to the tradition, Paul of Thebes—when he was 22 years of age, in AD
250—went to a distant cave in southern Egypt; and he lived there 60 years, in a
grotto near a spring and a pond, till his death in 304. According to the
tradition, in later years a raven brought him half a loaf every day, as the
raven ministered to Elijah. But St. Anthony—whom we will speak of next—came to
the same area; St. Anthony is the only man from whom we learn anything about
Paul. So if Anthony didn't exist, probably Paul didn't either. But
Anthony—according to the story—came and visited him; and he knocked at the door
of the cave for more than an hour, and no answer. Finally Paul came and
admitted Anthony; he greeted him with a holy kiss, Paul had enough curiosity
left to ask whether there were any idolaters left in the world. And by whom the
world was now governed? According to tradition, he had had no conversation with
anybody for many, many years. Anthony says that during this conversation, a
large raven came gently flying and deposited a whole loaf of bread. And Paul
says, "The Lord is kind and merciful in sending us this. It is now 60
years that I've daily received half a loaf; but since you've come, Christ has
doubled the supply for his servants."
So with nothing to do, they sat down by the fountain; but now the question was, who should break the bread? And Paul said, "You're the guest; you break the bread," and Anthony said, "You're older; you are the one who should have the honor," and so they spent the whole day trying to decide this important matter. And as it got near the end of the day, and I guess they both probably got a little more hungry, they finally decided to compromise; each took one end of the loaf and pulled; and then they kept what remained in their hands; and so they ate the bread and had a drink from the fountain, giving thanks to God; and this closed the day.
But
Anthony had two disciples by this time; he said to them, "Woe to me a
sinner, who falsely pretended to be a monk. I've seen Elijah and John in the
desert; I've met St. Paul." But soon afterwards he made a visit to Paul,
and he found him dead in his cave, with head in hands lifted up to heaven. So
he buried him; sang songs and hymns over the grave; and he took this as the
first Christian hermit, Paul of Thebes.
Well,
now we don't know anything about Paul except what Anthony said; and just about
all he says I've told you.
b. St. Anthony. St. Anthony
seems to have been born in 251, that is, about a year after Paul became a monk.
He was born in a Christian family, people of some means; he never knew Greek
though; he knew Coptic, the language of ancient Egypt as it had developed to
this time. He so carefully listened to the scriptures as a boy, and retained
them in memory; and he seems to have had very large portions of the Holy
Scriptures in memory.
When
he was 18—at the death of his parents—it was put into his hands the care of a
younger sister and a considerable estate. Six months later as he was in church,
he was meditating on the apostles, and on the words of Jesus to the rich young
ruler, "If thou wouldst be perfect, go and sell that which thou hast and
give to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." He determined to
follow this, so he took the 300 acres of fertile land that he owned, and
divided it among the inhabitants of the village; he sold his personal property
for the benefit of the poor, except only a moderate amount reserved for the
support of his sister; but then he went to church and heard the scripture read,
"Take no thought for the morrow," so he gave away the part for his
sister too.
And
of course this is something that is all too apt to be typical of
monasticism—thinking only of one's own soul's good, rather than of the welfare
of others. Now I don't say it is always typical by any means; but there is a
danger in it, in separating oneself from the world, with the thought only of
contemplation and prayer, that one may be thinking only of one's own soul's
salvation—of his own soul's good—and may adopt a selfish attitude toward
others.
Jesus
wants us to develop our own souls—our own spiritual life—but he wants us to do
it in such a way that we will be a help to others in the world; and periods of
withdrawal in relation to others may build us up spiritually; and equip us to
serve the Lord more faithfully; and to have a greater influence on others; but
they should always be directed toward that end. Well, Anthony went out into the
desert then; he found a place where he could live, he says—or at least it is
the story of his early life which says—that he devoted himself; he visited many
other ascetics who were already to be found in the desert. He was not the first
by any means; whether Paul was the first we don't know; but Anthony said that
he learned humbly and thankfully the virtues of these other ascetics; from one,
earnestness in prayer; from another watching and fasting; from another
meekness; but from all, he said, love to Christ and to fellowman.
But
after about the year 285, he felt that he could reach a higher level of ascetic
holiness; so he retreated further and further into the desert; and he got way
back, where there would be berries enough and water to live on, and enough of
food to sustain life; and he would have very little contact with other people.
So eventually he was way back in the solitude; and there, according to the
story of his life, he had great spiritual struggles. He ate hardly
anything—bread and salt, sometimes dates—ate only once a day, generally before
sunset; often he would fast from two to five days; and he had a life of rare
abstemiousness; but he had visions and dreams of terrible temptation; and he
had felt that he had struggles with worldliness; he thought of his early life;
he thought of the comfortable existence he had enjoyed; he longed for more
comfort, and felt that this was the temptation of Satan; and so he decided to
get as far away from everything of that kind as possible.
In
later years he never washed his feet, and he tried to get as far away from the
pleasant memories of his early life as he could, feeling that by giving these
up he was honoring God. He claimed to have many visions of the Devil, trying to
lead him astray; and bringing unchaste thoughts into his mind; and exciting him
to carnality in different ways; that he had these great struggles, which he
described to St. Athanasius who visited him. Athanasius wrote these in a book
and, as I mentioned, some of the English scholars of church history insist St.
Anthony never existed; but I believe that most feel that he did. If he didn't,
there was certainly somebody very much like him, because there were these
ascetics in the desert by this time; and there must have been some of them who
were outstanding among them, and who would arouse the interest of the
occasional visitor from the city.
In
311, they say that he appeared in Alexandria during the persecution, with the
hope of himself gaining a martyr's crown. He went to the confessors; it was
during Diocletian's persecution; he went to the confessors in the mines and the
prisons, and he heard them in the tribunals; he accompanied them to the
scaffold, but no one laid hands on this saint of the wilderness. And in 351,
when a hundred years old, he showed himself for the second and last time in the
metropolis of Egypt to bear witness for the orthodox faith of his friend
Athanasius against Arianism; and they said that in a few days he converted more
heathen and heretics than had otherwise been gained in a whole year.
He
declared the Arian denial of the deity of Christ worse than the venom of the
serpent. And they tried to persuade him to stay longer, but he said, as a fish
out of water, so he out of his solitude would die. Well now this is a brief
summary of the tradition about this Anthony. But the thing that makes St.
Anthony important is the fact that Athanasius wrote it. So we call
3. The Influence
of Athanasius.
Now those of you who were in this class last semester—and that of course is
most of you—realize that Athanasius was probably the greatest man of the first
three-fourths of the fourth century. And Athanasius claims to have been helped
by St. Anthony. We know this, that Athanasius on two or three occasions when he
was driven by the persecution of the Arians, driven away from Alexandria; he
went into the desert and was hid by the monks, so that the officers of the
government were unable to find him. And he lived with one monk for years. And
Athanasius felt that this one hermit was outstanding, and he wrote a biography
on him, told the things I have given to you, and a good many more.
And
Athanasius took the testimony of Anthony for the orthodox faith, because
Anthony, a simple hermit in the wilderness, had all these visions and dreams
and hallucinations of temptations and that; but when it came to theology, he
simply took the literal words of scripture which he remembered; and those
literal words would simply point to Jesus as God; Jesus was fully man, Jesus
was fully God. And that simple Christian found that clearly taught; and it is
the one who tries to explain it away who gets into Arianism or other deluded
views.
Scripture
clearly teaches the two facts that we can't understand together; but they're
facts that do go together; that Jesus is God; he is God just as much as the
Father; and there's only one God. And He is man, just as much as we are, yet
without sin. And so Athanasius wrote a life of St. Anthony; and this Life of St. Anthony by Athanasius
probably was the greatest single influence for the increase of monasticism in
these first four centuries. All who stood for the orthodox faith had tremendous
regard for Athanasius. And Athanasius spoke very highly of this; you can see
how very far it was from Athanasius' own type of life. Athanasius was certainly
as self-sacrificing as anyone in Christian history. He was constantly in his
activities going back and forth to Egypt, dealing with people for their souls
and presenting the truth of Christ to them.
He
was an indefatigable worker. Five times he was driven into exile for his
opposition to Arianism. He suffered all sorts of privations in his exiles, but
he kept his eye clearly on the great fundamental truth of the deity of
Christ—his full deity—and our only chance of salvation through the atonement of
Christ. He was a man who in the truest sense was utterly self-sacrificing,
utterly devoted to the cause of Christ; but in his constant activity, his
constant dealing with hundreds of people, he must have looked rather longingly
to be able just to devote himself to contemplate the things of Christ, and to
give up all of the bustling activity of life; and also along with it, the
luxuries, most of which Athanasius never had time to think of, if he did have a
certain amount of them.
But he must have looked rather longingly at this, and he idealized St. Anthony. And of course I suppose that in idealizing St. Anthony, that to some extent he was advancing the cause for which he stood, by giving St. Anthony's testimony to the belief in the full deity of Christ. But the result of Athanasius' book went far beyond this. It led people all over the Empire who believed in the orthodox view, as St. Athanasius did, to feel, "Well now there's a real Christian man, who gives up everything for Christ; sells everything he has and gives it to the poor; and just spends his life contemplating Christ, thinking of Him; developing his spiritual life; giving up all the pleasures of eating and drinking and of decent clothes, and decent cleanliness and all the other things that seem so normal and natural, living in a city; he just goes out and gives it all up for Christ." So Athanasius, the influence of his book, was a tremendous factor in advancing this, which was a natural reaction against the worldliness all around; against the wickedness all around; against the many activities that make it hard to find the time to just contemplate and meditate on the things of God. And Athanasius' book added to these natural feelings, greatly increased the number of these hermits in the Egyptian desert, and the Syrian.
In
other parts of the world it was pretty difficult to have hermits, because they
couldn't get along—too cold—and they couldn't exist very easily that way; but
here the climate was ideally suited. Then
4. Basil the
Great.
Now we've already noticed that Basil the Great was a great administrator. We
have a monastery—I believe it is—a couple of miles from here, called the
Monastery of Basil the Great. It is Greek Orthodox. The Eastern Church
venerated Basil far more than the Western Church because he was in the Eastern
Church.
Basil
was a great man; he was a great administrator; a great advancer of the Nicene
Creed against Arianism; he is a man who deserves great credit for the advance
of the cause of Christ. But Basil, in his busy activity, found himself
tremendously attracted by the monastic idea; and so Basil tried, in the midst
of the activity, to live the ascetic life; to cut down his eating and drinking
as far as he could, and still have strength enough to carry on his work. He had
a part of his house into which he would retire; a very simple arrangement, a
very simple life; and he got a few friends to come and live in it with him.
Here
was almost the beginning of an order—except that he didn't establish one—there
was nothing continuous; there was simply the existence together of a few men
holding to this desire: to imagine they were out in the wilderness, living a
hermit life, devoting themselves to Christ. How much time Basil had for it,
it's hard to say, because Basil was very, very active, and very busy; while the
others that he supported there, were giving their whole time to it. There were
others like Basil after this time.
But
a far greater influence was St. Jerome, who comes very soon.
We
were speaking of H, Monasticism, and under that what number we were on Basil
the Great. I spoke about Basil the Great and his influence on Monasticism.
5. Pachomius. Jerome—of whom we will speak later—is a man of tremendous importance for himself for many different reasons; we will have a great deal to say about him. Pachomius is not so much a man of importance himself, as being the first one who comes conspicuously before us in connection with a new development: from having hermits, into the situation of having groups of monks.
Pachomius
is the earliest to be particularly connected with an organization of monks
together. You remember that Anthony fairly early in his career had some
disciples who were with him for a time. But this was a matter of their being
with him a brief time, and then they would go off by themselves. He didn't want
them with him; he was glad to have them temporarily. But Pachomius—a
contemporary of Anthony, also an Egyptian—was a man who went out into the
wilderness in order to live a life of contemplation and of prayer; he developed
this new idea of groups of monks.
In
313, when Pachomius was about 21 years of age, he visited an aged hermit and
asked him to teach him the way to perfection. And this hermit said to him,
"Many have come hither who have been disgusted with the world and had no
perseverance." He said, "Remember, my son, my food consists only of
bread and salt; I drink no wine, take no oils, and spend half the night awake
singing songs and meditating on the Scriptures; and sometimes I pass the whole
night without sleep." Pachomius was astounded, but not discouraged; and he
spent several years with this man as a pupil. Then in 325 he established in
upper Egypt—that is, quite far south in Egypt—on an island in the Nile, a society
of monks, which in time grew so strong that even before his death it had 8 or 9
cloisters in different areas, and 3000 or more men in it.
It was not like later orders of the Roman Catholic Church; it was not a fixed order, with definite vows or anything of the kind; but it was men coming together to live the hermit or monastic life under a general director. And he gave them work to do—building boats and making baskets—ways thus of earning their living and also helping the poor and sick; he divided them into groups, three in a cell; they ate in common, in strict silence with their face covered; they made known their wants by signs; they had communion every Saturday and Sunday; and then Pachomius established a cloister of women for his sister to be the head. He never admitted her to his presence when she wanted to visit him. He sent her word to let her know he was alive; but he established an arrangement whereby she would have a group of women similar to his. He said that after his conversion, he never once ate a full meal, and for 15 years always slept, sitting, on the floor. There were all sorts of stories about him, which doubtless became exaggerated in subsequent years; but he doubtless had a tremendous influence, and led many others to imitate him in leaving the worldliness, the luxury and injustice of the Roman world; going out in the wilderness to give themselves to piety, to contemplation, and to development of their spiritual life.
So
you have the beginning of groups of monks this way under Pachomius, The
establishment of actual orders, where they take vows, and have a direction such
as you have in the modern Roman Catholic Church, did not come for another few
centuries after this; and this is already, as you know, three centuries after
the time of Christ.
Now
from this, I want to go on to a subject which for those who were with us last
semester would not need to take but very little time. But it is a subject
following on the discussion which we had last semester; it may be unfamiliar to
any who are starting Church History this semester. So for them I may put in a
few words of explanation that would not otherwise be necessary; but if it's not
enough for you, don't worry about it, because the material is so important that
most of its basic essentials will be repeated, as we touch on similar subjects
in days to come.
J. The Church at
Rome during the Fourth Century. Now for any who were not with us last
semester we want to make clear that the Roman Catholic Church and its
organization, such as we have today, is nothing that was found in the ancient
church, in the ancient world. We do not use the term in that sense then. At
that time there were groups of Christians gathered throughout the Roman world;
and they had—each group usually had—a bishop over the town. There'd be a little
town of 300 people and it had a bishop; if it was a big city of 100,000, it had
a Bishop.
And
the Bishop of Rome—the largest city in the empire, the famous early capital of
the empire—naturally was in a very strategic and important position. But we
have no evidence that at this time other churches admitted any authority of the
Bishop of Rome over them, any more than they would of any other man who was in
a position of such importance; that is, in other important cities, with many
others working with them. Naturally they would look to him for advice and
direction, but that he actually had authority, we have no evidence. It is
interesting, though, that in the 3 centuries prior to this, there was no man of
outstanding importance in Church History who occupied the position of Bishop of
Rome. The nearest to it was Clement, in the first century, at the time of his
writing the first epistle of Clement. We know practically nothing about him
except that he wrote this one work; and it is strange indeed—really is
strange—that when you come to the 4th century, from 300 to 400, and you have
many important great leaders in the church in different sections during this
century, but no Bishop of Rome ranks as one of the most important men in the Christian
church as far as influencing the future history of the church is concerned.
Now
this would be quite obvious to you if you were to read the section in Farrow's
book, The Pageant of the Popes, which
I mentioned to you. I see many of you have it in the pocket book edition, put
out by one of the Roman Catholic orders; it is paper-backed, quite reasonable,
and I think it's unabridged. Then the cloth-covered edition, published by the
Roman Catholic press in N. Y.; and it has gone through several editions; it has
the imprimatur of the Bishop of Los Angeles, a Roman Catholic. Well you do not
find anti-Catholic propaganda in a book like that. He tries to give the facts
as they are; that's his purpose. But his ultimate purpose, of course, is to
show that the Roman Catholic Church is the true church. You will find at the
beginning and the end, he insists very strenuously upon it; and he does not
give all the facts; there are certain important facts he omits; but of course
that's true of any book. A man has to make a selection. Some facts that are
important from our viewpoint he omits; but there are many facts which we would
consider important—which we would think a Roman Catholic writer might be
anxious to forget about—which he gives.
And
so I think it is very fine to get material on a subject like that from those
who are prejudiced in the opposite direction to us, and see just how much there
is to bear out our views regarding it. Now I have another book here which I
mentioned to you last semester; it is by a monk named Joseph McSorley of the
Paulist Fathers. He was formerly Professor of Dogmatic Theology in the College
of St. Aquinas, Catholic University of America. And his book, An Outline History of the Church by
Centuries, by a Roman Catholic. The Paulist Fathers is the order which is
dedicated to missionary work among Protestants. This book also has the
imprimatur of the Bishop. It is interesting to see the presentation which he
gives. We have noticed that in some of the earlier centuries, the bishops of Rome
are little known. In the first century they're practically not known at all;
the second is almost as bad. In this fourth century they are fairly well known.
McSorley says 11 popes occupied the chair of St. Peter in the 4th Century. They
call them all saints; in recent days they call very few of the popes saints.
The best known are St. Sylvester, Liberius, Damasus, and Julius. How well known
are any of them? They are the best known of the Roman Bishops. But if you name
the 15 most important Christian characters in the century, none of those
bishops of Rome will appear among the 15.
1. Sylvester I
(314-335). Now
of these, it is worth noticing Sylvester first, who was bishop from 314 to 335.
It is important to be familiar with him for certain reasons. First, because he
was the Bishop of Rome at the time of the great Council of Nicea. What did he
do? He sent two presbyters there to represent him. His influence on the council
was negligible. Now, McSorley says, "Legend, linking the pope with
Constantine, added many imaginary episodes to this simple history; and a
(spurious) ninth-century document recorded the emperor's 'donation' to
Sylvester of 'the city of Rome, and all the provinces, places, and cities of
Italy and the western lands.'" [ibid.,
p75].
Well,
now, you notice McSorley says this is a spurious 9th century document. In other
words, he admits what is admitted by all—that the so-called Donation of Constantine is a forgery of
centuries later. That being the case, it does not indicate any great importance
of Sylvester, but it does mean that his name had great importance during the
Middle Ages. All through the Middle Ages it was believed that Constantine the
Great, when he moved to Constantinople, had given Italy to the Popes to control
and rule; and that is the basis of the Pope's claim of temporal power.
Just
before the Reformation, this was proven to be a forgery. Conclusively proven,
and that is admitted to this time. Now Sylvester is also important because
there were many laws considered tremendously important in the Middle Ages which
were called the Decretals of Sylvester; and it was alleged that Sylvester had
laid down these important laws for the church as a whole. We now know they were
written in Spain sometime after this time; he probably had nothing to do with
it. But you see how his name became a symbol—the name of the Bishop of Rome at
the time of the Emperor Constantine—became a symbol for the power of the Roman
Church. And so the name of Sylvester I, who was bishop of Rome 314-335, is a
name of great importance in the history of the papacy. But the man himself, so
far as we know, was of little importance; just that he happened to be there at
that time.
2. Julius I
(337-352). Then
there is another name with which we should be familiar, Julius I. He is not of
great importance, but it is worth noting that when St. Athanasius fled—or was
exiled—he came to Rome; and Julius saw that Athanasius was right in his views
about Christ, and he stood with him. That was a service to render to the true
Christian party. Julius rendered that service. Now, McSorley says that Julius
restored Athanasius to his see of Alexandria. That of course was nonsense. He
had no power in the world to restore him to his power in Alexandria. As a
matter of fact, at that time, everybody called Athanasius Pope—the Pope in
Alexandria—and as far as I know, called nobody called Julius that. Athanasius
was called Pope; Julius gave his influence and his word in favor of Athanasius
being restored to his power in Alexandria; but it was the emperor who did it.
Julius had nothing to do with it.
3. Liberius
(352-366). Liberius
was a man of some importance in the history of the papacy, because a grave
question was raised about his orthodoxy. Now if you find any church—in the
course of 700 years—having one man who was suspected of unorthodox views,
that's no tremendous criticism of that church. Churches are made up of human
beings; if the church comes back and is not led into heresy by the view of its
leader; it would be a strange church indeed, that did not have that come up in
the course of a few centuries.
The
only reason this is of importance is the Roman Catholic claim that each of the
Popes are infallible; the Bishop of Rome is infallible. If they're infallible, certainly
no one of them could fall into heresy. And so Liberius becomes a man of real
importance—not on account of himself or anything intrinsically important—but
because of that claim that the Roman Catholic Church makes, that their popes
are infallible. Well, if they're infallible, would one of them sign a heretical
document?
Well,
here's what McSorley says about Liberius: "Of Liberius we know little more
than the two facts that he was exiled by the Emperor Constantius for his
refusal to condemn St. Athanasius, and that after his death, his orthodoxy was
the subject of long and fierce dispute." And then he has a footnote
"The controversy was occasioned by the statement of certain writers,
including St. Jerome, who affirmed that the pope was allowed to return from
exile only after he had signed an Arian formula."
Jerome
claims, other ancient writers claim, that Liberius, when the emperor sent him
into exile, was allowed to return only on the condition that he sign a
statement that he did not believe in the full deity of Christ. Would a man who
was the infallible spokesman for God sign a statement which denied the whole
deity of Christ? Well, of course, McSorley explains it all away. He says,
"Such an act under compulsion would not, of course, involve papal
infallibility—a circumstance overlooked by many who have attached undue
importance to the controversy." It is his duty of course to maintain papal
infallibility, which has been the view of the Roman Catholic church for nearly
a hundred years now—not before that—that the popes have always been infallible.
But how can you maintain this when you find one of them signing a statement,
which statement the whole church since would declare a heretical statement?
Well, McSorley said it was under compulsion. Well, would a man who is true
servant of God—a divinely ordained head of the church—sign it, even under
compulsion? We of course, believe that all the church is made of human beings.
It's not a great criticism to the Roman Church if one of their bishops did sign
such a statement. But it is a great criticism of their claim to papal
infallibility.
Now
it's interesting what McSorley says about his return. He says during his exile
Constantius placed the Roman Archdeacon Felix on the papal throne; and when
Liberius returned from exile, after his rumored repudiation of Athanasius—I
don't think Constantius would have been satisfied with a rumored
repudiation—but he says, after his rumored repudiation of Athanasius, the
emperor proposed that Felix should cooperate with Liberius in the government of
the church. But the Romans shouting, "One God, one Christ, one
bishop!" drove Felix from the city, and the Senate condemned him to
perpetual banishment.
Now
the fact that at this time in Rome there was practically a riot insisting on
only having one bishop shows something of the degeneration of the church, of
the spiritual life of the church, that they would have a riot like that. Now we
have such a degeneration in all churches; again it's not an attack on this
particular church, but it is on its claim to be the divinely established head
of the Christian church.
Now
there is one other bishop of whom we should know something
4. Damasus I
(366-384).
And about him McSorley has considerable to say. Damasus I.
And
here we note an interesting thing about the Roman Church. One reason for the
continuance of the Roman Church as an effective organization through the
ages—not enough to account for the continuance by itself—but one which has had
an important effect, has been the method of election of the Roman bishops.
The
Roman system of election of the bishops is such that no Roman bishop is able to
determine who his successor is going to be. There is always the possibility
that with the best of plans, these plans may go astray. And so there has often
been in the Roman church what some speak of as an alternation. That is to say,
after a bishop is Pope of Rome, who has a certain view and a certain attitude,
it is rather common for the Cardinals to be rather tired of this and elect somebody
just as different from him as they could find. So we have Liberius who was
bishop of Rome, who came back to Rome, and Felix the Archdeacon had been bishop
in his absence, and they drove Felix from the city. But when Liberius died, it
was one of Felix's men who was elected to succeed him; it was a supporter of
Felix. And then the party of Liberius' supporters, who had had a candidate to
be bishop, organized a riot and set up their leader as Pope. So the Roman
church called Felix an anti-Pope; that is, you see Liberius is in there—he is
Saint Liberius, he's the Pope—while Felix, they don't call him saint; he's
Felix II, anti-Pope, because they don't recognize him as Pope. Now the
successor to Liberius is Damasus, whom they call Saint Damasus I; but they
mention Orsinus, anti-Pope, and Orsinus is a man who stood with the previous
Pope, and Damasus was the one who that was against him.
Now
that alternation—it's not that these particular individuals are so
important—but the alternation is one which occurs over and over in the history
of the Roman church; and it has meant that it's difficult for any one Pope to
make his influence important after his death. It's a very interesting
phenomenon, but in this case, Damasus who succeeded him was Pope for 18 years,
and he was a vigorous man. Orsinus organized a riot against him; and then
Orsinus carried on a propaganda campaign against him for many years; but he was
very vigorous and very effective; and during these 18 years he did much to
advance the standing of the church, and of course the standing of the Roman
church; and he was often asked for advice by people from different areas. And
whenever they do that, McSorley points to it as evidence that people recognized
the authority of the Bishop of Rome. Actually there is no proof of it at that
time, but it makes a precedent for the claim which was later maintained.
Well,
I won't mention the other bishops of Rome at this time. There were bishops in
dozens of cities, some of them great spiritual leaders, some of them men of
minor importance; but in view of the future history of Rome and of Damasus with
Jerome, we mention these particular men.
K. The Roman
Empire in the Last Third of the Fourth Century. We have paid
more attention to the Roman Empire in this century than in any previous
century, because the Roman Emperors have been more closely connected with the
developments in the Christian church now than ever before. We will pay less
attention to the Roman Empire in every succeeding century than we did in this particular
one. But in this particular one the Roman Empire had a tremendous effect on the
church; it was very important, up to the last third of the century. Now in the
last third of the century it is not nearly as important, so I will speak rather
briefly about it now. I will remind you, those who were here last semester, of
Jovian. Jovian was emperor only from 363 to 364—a very brief rule—immediately
after Julian the Apostate. And then after Jovian, we mentioned his successor
Valentinian I; and we noticed that Valentinian I, who reigned from 364 to his
death in 375, was a very effective and successful Roman Emperor, but he didn't
have a great importance as far as church history is concerned.
From
our viewpoint he is not of particular importance. But his brother, the
co-emperor
1. Valens
(364-378),
whom he put in to rule the eastern half of the empire, and who reigned from
364-378 is a man of very particular importance to the Christian church. Those
of you who were here last semester should be very familiar with him. Any who
are just starting now, I wouldn't worry too much about Valens, because we spoke
a fair amount about him last semester and we won't repeat it now. He tried to
do for Arianism what Constantius did, but was unable to succeed in it; and he
died in 378 in the Battle of Adrianople, when the Goths flooded into the
Empire, as we noticed.
Now
the son of Valentinian I,
2. Gratian
(375-383) (West), reigned
in the West. And Gratian continued the policies of his father; he's not of tremendous
importance to us, though he was quite a successful emperor. But Gratian
introduced as his co-emperor,
3. Theodosius I
(378-395) (East),
and he is a man of very great importance. Theodosius I became Emperor in the
East in 378, because Gratian selected him. And Theodosius reigned until his
death which was in 395. Theodosius was a Spaniard, hot-blooded, very easy to
anger, but also on the whole a kindly, extremely able soldier, very energetic,
a devoted Christian; and it was he who called the Council of Constantinople
which established the Nicene Creed as the established religion of the Empire.
Theodosius
did not merely give Christianity the freedom from persecution as Constantine
did; he gave it active support in every way. He was very busy—holding back the
Barbarians, stopping the incursion of the Goths, and dealing with the various
problems that came up—but he took an active interest in the church. After the
Council of Constantinople, when Arianism was declared to be contrary to the law
of the Empire, the catholic churches—that is the churches which were united
together throughout the Empire—had fellowship with one another, not around the
relationship to the Bishop of Rome particularly, but united together as
churches which recognized one another as holding the Nicene Creed and holding
the orthodox creed. They were the only churches which were supposed to be
allowed to hold services in Constantinople, but one group was made an
exception.
You
remember our hearing of the schism that took place in Rome—with the Novatians,
about 250—over the question of the election of a bishop. The Novatian churches,
who said Novatian was the right bishop, had separated from the rest. We don't
know much about the history of the Novatians, but here 140 years later, we find
that the Emperor, who in his decree that only the catholic churches could be
permitted in Constantinople, made an exception for the Novatian church; because
the Novatian churches, during the period when Arianism was in complete control
in Constantinople, had held aloft the banner of the full deity of Christ; and
so they were made an exception and allowed to continue their churches in
Constantinople.
It
would be interesting to know more about the history of the Novatian church.
Just how large was it? Here is Constantinople, a thousand miles from Rome. And
here they have a number of churches; evidently they had considerable importance
in many parts of the Empire; they seemed to have continued for centuries. We
don't know much about them, but here is a separate church from the main church,
holding orthodox views and having an effective ministry until in the Middle
Ages it disappeared completely while the catholic church of course continued.
So
Theodosius gave this right to the Novatians. He was active in bringing about
the Council of Constantinople; at which, as we've noted, the Bishop of Rome was
not even represented. It is interesting that at one time, there was a situation
in Antioch, in which the people, aroused to hatred of the Emperor Theodosius for
something he had done that had displeased them; the mob seized the possessions
of the Emperor and his family, tortured them and dragged them through the
street; and Theodosius just gave way to terrible anger, and he had 7,000
citizens killed, in reprisal for the uprising against his control and against
the honor of his family in this second greatest city of the Empire in Antioch.
Well,
it's the sort of thing that most rulers in history have occasionally given way
to. If a man does it much, we regard him as a tyrant, a bloody tyrant. In the
case of Theodosius, he did so many good things, he was on the whole such a good
ruler, that we consider it as an exceptional case where he gave way to his
anger, and used his power in a very bad way. But the interesting thing about
this is, that after he did this and word of it went through the Empire, he came
to Milan in northern Italy. We've already seen the history of how St. Ambrose
became Bishop of Milan. Ambrose was having the communion service, and the
people would come up to the front to partake of the communion; they had a
procession of people, lining up to come and take communion; and Ambrose noticed
that in the back of the group, the Emperor had joined himself to the group and
was coming to take communion in the church.
And
when Ambrose noticed that, he turned to one of his assistants and told him to
continue with the service; I guess he had one to take different parts anyway;
he left and went around and came to the Emperor and said to him, "Your
hands are bloody with the men whom you have massacred—individuals whom you have
not proven were personally implicated in the unfortunate insult to you and your
power which occurred in Antioch." He said, "No man who has a sin like
that on his conscience can partake of communion in this church, without first
showing full remorse and true penitence for it."
And
you can imagine what an ordinary ruler would do if any man would come to him
that way. And here was the ruler who had just shown his anger by the execution
of 7,000 people like this a short time before. There aren't many ministers who
would dare do this; and there aren't many who would get away with it if he did.
But it speaks well for Theodosius' character—and also for Ambrose's influence
and his recognition of his responsibility—even like David when Nathan said,
"Thou art the man." Theodosius admitted his error, left the line-up
of communicants; he came to see Ambrose the next day; talked the matter over
with him; recognized his sin, and made a full confession of it; he promised to
try to keep from all such actions in the future; and he was then restored to
fellowship in the church at Milan. It's a very interesting incident in the
history of the early days of the church, and of the Roman Empire. It's not so
very early, though, when you think that it was AD 390 when it happened. It's
over 300 years after the time of Christ; and yet within 300 years, for
Christianity to get such a hold in the empire, that the very emperor himself
would submit in this way; not to a man who is recognized as head of the church,
but to Ambrose, the bishop of the city. A very interesting incident, and
honoring to Ambrose, it shows the character of Theodosius, who is one of the
great figures among the Roman Emperors, and who well deserves the title of
Theodosius the Great.
Theodosius
is the last man to rule for any length of time over the whole Roman Empire.
Before then, the Empire had often been divided between two men, but they had
recognized each other as associate rulers. It was too large for one man to
administer. Theodosius on his death left the Empire to his two sons, one of
whom took the eastern half and one of whom took the western half; but from now
on, the two parts—while theoretically one empire—the two parts come to be really
separate from each other, the Eastern Roman Empire and the Western Roman
Empire. I've just mentioned that he divided it between his two sons; they're
not particularly important, his two sons, but we will see one or two things
about them later. But now we will note some of the great figures in the Ancient
Church. But the man named Jerome, is worthy of more than a subhead so
L. St. Jerome. According to
any representation, Jerome must be recognized as one of the great figures in
the ancient church. Schaff in his Church
History usually handles the man as an important figure, where he takes up
the different writers and puts them together as a group of men, giving each one
separate section. But to Jerome he gives two sections in different parts of his
book, because Jerome was a man of such wide influence and such varied ability.
Jerome was not a man whom I would consider one of the great spiritual leaders of the church. He had many facets to his character. This section in Schaff is entitled "Jerome as a Monk," the section which deals with his early life. And one feature of Jerome's life which has tremendous importance was his interest in the monastic life, his emphasis upon it, and the part he played in its development. But that is only one feature; and from the viewpoint of a Protestant, it is far from being the most important feature.
Jerome
was probably the greatest scholar of the ancient Christian world. He was a far
greater scholar than any Christian writer we have mentioned up to this time. As
a thinker, as an influence in Christian history, St. Augustine, who comes just
after him—in fact the two overlap—is a greater figure, but Jerome is the
greater scholar of the two. Jerome was a very great scholar and a very
influential writer; and to this day, the translation of the Bible which Jerome
made from the original Hebrew and from the original Greek, is accepted as the
inspired Bible—or the authoritative Bible—by the Roman Catholic Church. So you
see what an importance the man has, when it is his translation which today is
the authority rather than the original upon which it is based, in the eyes of
the Roman Church. That is of tremendous interest. And as you go up to St.
Peter's church in Rome at any time, you can see there beautiful mosaics which
are modeled after great paintings. Some of the paintings are in the Vatican
gallery; some of them are in other places. The mosaics keep their color a
little better than the paintings. They're of course copied from the paintings,
and I think they're almost more impressive than the paintings.
But
one picture which you will see in the mosaics in this church is called St.
Jerome receiving his last communion; and it shows him as an old man hardly able
to move, receiving his last communion. He had a long life and had a very, very
active life, he was a man tremendously interested in scholarship and a man
greatly devoted to Christianity. We've noticed Origen of course before; he was
next to Jerome as a scholar.
1. His birth and
early life. Well
now; Jerome as a young man came from Dalmatia. Dalmatia, as you know, is now in
Yugoslavia or Albania; it's the region east of Italy; and he was born there
somewhere around 350 AD. He came from wealthy Christian parents, and he was
educated in Rome, under the leading teachers in Rome. He studied very
extensively and used to visit the subterranean graves of the martyrs in Rome
when he was a student, which he said made an indelible impression upon him. He
fell, to some extent, into the temptations of the great corrupt city as a young
student; and he repeatedly acknowledged it with great pain, the extent to which
he had fallen into sin there. He certainly never was a man who gave way to a
life of sensuality or anything of the kind; his interest was constantly mental,
but he did fall among evil companions for a time, and he regretted it all the
rest of his life. He joined the church at Rome; and he declared that he was
going to devote himself henceforth, in rigid abstinence, to the service of the
Lord. And in the first zeal of his conversion, he renounced his love for the
classics, and declared he was going to devote himself henceforth to the study
of the Bible, which previously he had not paid much attention to, though his
parents were devoted Christians.
He
had a dream later on, in which he said he was summoned before the judgment of
Christ, and told that he wasn't a Christian; he was a heathen Ciceronian; and
he used to speak very strongly against the pagan literature; he said,
"What have light and darkness, Christ and Belial, the Psalms and Horace,
the Apostles and Virgil, the Apostles and Cicero to do with one another? We
cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons at the same time."
And yet, though he speaks this way about classical learning—and certainly it is
true of any kind of worldly learning for its own sake—yet in Jerome's writings
we find him constantly making use of these classical writings as instruments
for the advance of the Christian teaching; and we find great benefit which we
have secured from his literary claims in them. So I think as Christians we
should not reject the classics, but rather guard against making them an end in
themselves, giving them a place more than they deserve.
But
we notice the language he used. He used rather extreme language in regard to
whatever he was standing for. Well, after his conversion, he divided his life
between the east and the west. First he went to the east; he went to Antioch;
he studied there; then he spent some time as an ascetic in the Syrian desert;
and there he said that—out in the desert, eating very little—he said, his fancy
tormented him with wine, Roman banquets, and dances; and helpless he cast
himself at the feet of Jesus, wet them with tears of repentance; and he subdued
the resisting flesh by a week of fasting and the dry study of Hebrew grammar.
2. Jerome's life
in the Syrian Desert. But he had a great interest, a great devotion to the
monastic life; though in him it was combined with constant study, constant
effort to advance Christianity, by writing, by studying, disseminating ideas;
it was by no means simply a retreat from the world; and he himself spent a
great part of his life in the big city in activity, and not just literary
activity either. He had a tremendous influence on other people; and this seems
to have led a great many other people into giving up worldly activities, and
devoting themselves to what they considered to be the service of Christ. He
thought monastic seclusion—even against the will of parents—was the right thing.
He wrote to a friend, saying, "Though thy mother with brown hair and rent
garments should show thee the breasts which have nourished thee; though thy
father should lie upon the threshold; yet depart thee, treading over thy
father, and fly with dry eyes to the standard of the cross. This is the only
religion. It is kind, in this matter, to be cruel. The love of God and the fear
of hell easily rend the bonds of the household asunder. The Holy Scripture
indeed enjoins obedience to parents; but he who loves them more than Christ,
loses his soul. Oh desert, where the boughs of Christ are blooming; Oh
solitude, where the souls for the New Jerusalem are prepared; Oh that which
rejoice in the friendship of God. What doest thou in the world, my brother,
with thy soul wretched in the world? How long wilt thou remain in the shadow of
roofs, and the smoky dungeon of cities? Believe me, I seek here more of
light." [See
Edward L. Cutts, Saint Jerome, p40-42, Letter
to Heliodorus]
3. Jerome at
Rome. Well,
he stayed in the east for a time; he was ordained a presbyter in Antioch, but
he never took charge of a congregation. He went about studying, writing,
visiting. In Constantinople, he heard the anti-Arian sermons of Gregory
Nazianzus whom he had looked after frequently; and in 382 he returned to Rome.
Here he came in contact with the Roman Bishop Damasus; and Damasus took him as
his theological adviser and ecclesiastical secretary. Damasus saw in Jerome a
man who could render a real service by correcting the incorrect elements in the
Old Latin translation of the Bible; and he encouraged him to begin a revision
of the Latin version of the Bible in order to get nearer to the truth. So we
owe Damasus thanks for his part in stimulating Jerome to give his great scholarly
gift to this needed service. Though, of course, the credit that goes to Damasus
is far less than the credit to go to Jerome for the fact that he accomplished
the task.
And
he did make a translation of the Old and New Testaments. He first made a revision
of the Latin O.T. on the basis of the Septuagint Greek. Then he made a whole
new translation from the original Hebrew. He studied with the rabbis, some of
whom had to come to him by night for fear of getting others displeased with
them for passing this knowledge on to a Christian; but he studied with various
rabbis, and we learn much about the state of Hebrew knowledge at that time by
what we get from Jerome.
He
learned Hebrew very thoroughly. He, of course, was a very careful student of
Greek. He made a complete new translation of the N.T. In the Latin Vulgate you
have a translation of the O.T., and a translation of the N.T., with the
exception of the Psalms. The people were so accustomed to the Latin
Psalms—which were not translated from the Hebrew but from the Septuagint, from
the Greek translation—that they would not accept a true translation from the
Hebrew; and so the Vulgate contains not the translation that Jerome made from
the Hebrew, but a new translation which he made from the Greek; and if you want
his translation from the Hebrew you have to get it in a separate volume. The
Vulgate of the Psalms is from the Greek. But of the rest of the O.T. it is from
the original Hebrew.
Jerome's
translation was not accepted, because Damasus died before he'd made great
progress, and his successors were not particularly interested. But Jerome was
started in the work and he pushed ahead with it. And the acceptance of Jerome's
version was due to the excellence of the work, not to any authority that put it
upon the church. It was an excellent piece of work; it has its faults as any
translation is bound to have; but it was a good piece of work, sincerely made,
by a man who was seeking to find the meaning of the original and put it into
good Latin expression; a man who was a good scholar and well prepared for the
task. So he rendered a tremendous service to the church in this translation,
which has had great influence ever since.
Of course, the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church to take Jerome's translation as the final authority is wrong and too bad. And to that extent, we are against it, because it is the Greek and Hebrew that is God's word, not a translation. We of course hold that the Roman Vulgate has been a very valuable thing in the history of the church; and it is still of real value for us to study and see how he wrote it and how he understood the different phrases of it. Well, we'll have to look further into the Roman church next Monday.
Last
time we were speaking about Jerome. St. Jerome is one of the figures in ancient
church history that is very important in any discussion of the history of the
Christian church; or in any discussion of the way it has developed through the
ages; and in any discussion in matters of the study of the Biblical text. Because
in all 3 of these areas, he exerted a tremendous importance. Last time we began
our discussion of him, and we looked at His birth and early life; and we
noticed that his birth was in Dalmatia, the son of well-to-do Christian
parents.
There
is a dispute whether he was born in 331 or 342. If he was born in 331 he was 91
years old when he died; if in 342, he would be about 82 and it's pretty hard to
tell. There is a disagreement on that. As you know, they did not number years
then the way we do, so that anything like that has to be figured back now. You
ask Jerome when he was born and he would say, "Well back in the reign of
the emperor Constantine," or he'd say, "Well I'm not sure whether
Constantine was still emperor or whether that was after he had died and his son
had taken over." They did not number of years the way we do; people didn't
know the exact year of their birth the way we do. And he did not stay in
Dalmatia where he was brought up; he was in other parts of the empire all
through his life. We do not have access to family records, which would have the
precise year of the emperor in which he was born, so we're not sure when he was
born, when his birth was only one of thousands and thousands of people. His
death was one which would not be forgotten, because he was a very famous man at
the time of his death, one of the most famous men in the Roman world.
Last
time, also I went on to tell something of his education; how he was a brilliant
young scholar, studied in Rome and in other cities; he amassed a very
considerable library; while at Rome he fell into sin. Now for a man of his
type, the sort of sin that he is most apt to be attracted by is the sin of
intellectual pride, of arrogance, that sort of thing; and these are sins that
we do not find evidence that Jerome overcame any time in his life, because we
have evidences of them in him toward the very end of his life—evidences of his
being sometimes extremely disagreeable to deal with when he felt he was right
and other people were wrong.
He
had a tremendous knowledge and was very conscious of the fact. But he also
was—during most of his life—a very sincere Christian. But before the time that
he considered to be his conversion, he fell into gross physical sin—probably
for a very brief time—but it was something which he was always regretting all
his life; and always looking back to and wishing he might have avoided; and
always referring to the fact that it was only through the mercies of the Lord
that he was forgiven for his sin. They say the evidence is that it probably was
very slight—in time—and probably rather intense for a brief period, but not
comparable to that of the average pagan of the day by any means.
But
he with his Christian upbringing felt very bad about having fallen into this; and
it may have colored his attitude for the rest of his life—in the extremely
ascetic attitude which he took and which he stressed—and which had a great
influence on the development of the peculiar features of the Romanist church
through the Middle Ages.
We
also mentioned Jerome's life in the Syrian Desert. We noticed how he was very
much attracted by a complete asceticism, a turning away from all physical
pleasure of any sort; and he spent about five years in the Syrian Desert as a
monk, as a fairly young man. But during these years he was busy studying; and
for arresting himself from the temptations of the flesh, he said he found
relief in the dry study of Hebrew. But he was very busy studying there; but one
night he had that dream we mentioned, where the Lord seemed to call him before
the judgment seat of Christ and told him, "You're not a Christian, you're
a Ciceronian," because of his great love of the classical writing. And for
a number of years he turned away from his great love for the great classics;
but toward the end of his life he was again teaching them; and all his life in
what wrote he was constantly referring to them, drawing figures and allusions
to them. But what he wrote about this dream had also an influence on the
development of monasticism, because ignorant people could quote what he said,
"What have light and darkness, Christ and Belial, the Psalms and Grace,
the apostles and Virgil, the apostles and Cicero to do with one another? Ye
cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons at the same time."
This is entirely true, if one puts non-Christian writings in the place of
these. But certainly the finest of writing in the ancient world was done by
these men he named; and Jerome himself learned much from them, which he used for
the advancement of the study of the Bible. So from his example we could learn
to take the best in every field of study and use it for the work of God. But
from these words in his describing this dream—which probably was a very proper
rebuke to him for putting these things first—from the expression of the dream,
some people took the attitude of, "Well, forget all learning, everything
except what is definitely Christian," and of course that is harmful to the
Christian church when that attitude is taken.
We
also mentioned last time how Jerome left the desert and went to Constantinople
and heard there those famous sermons on the Trinity by Gregory Nazianzus; how
at Antioch he was ordained as a presbyter, although he seems never to have
acted in that capacity; it seems to have been rather against his will that he
was thus ordained; but that he then came on to Rome; and there at Rome in 382,
he found there Damasus as Bishop of Rome. And Damasus was a man of culture and
of learning and was attracted by the young ascetic scholar, and made him his
personal secretary. And Jerome was secretary to Damasus, and was very highly
thought of in Rome at first; and there were even those who thought that he
might be the right man to be Bishop of Rome to succeed Damasus. Well that's the
way they talked when he first got there; when he left Rome they weren't talking
that way about him, and he wasn't talking that way about them. Because when he
left Rome in 385, he said that he left on account of the bad qualities of the
Roman clergy, with whom he was unable to have any satisfactory cooperation at
all. He was very, very critical of them; they were very, very critical of him.
It was shortly after the death of Pope Damasus when he left. The new bishop was not interested in learning particularly; and Jerome was greatly disliked in Rome by others; but not because of his learning. Eventually he came to be greatly admired in Rome, as you know; I mentioned the great picture of him in St. Peter's church today; and how I believe his body was taken to Rome after his death; he is considered one of the great saints of the Roman church, one of the four great leaders of the early church, from their viewpoint.
The
reason he was disliked in Rome was because of his very strong emphasis on the
ascetic life. Now this emphasis of his came naturally in Rome to the fore
because of the sharp antithesis between it and the luxury of the wealthy
families of Rome. These wealthy families, which went back to the early days of
Roman greatness, many of which had been very prominent in the days of the Roman
Republic, 400 years before; these families in the course of the extension of
the Roman Empire had famous men in them, and they had amassed very great
wealth. They were very wealthy; they were living in great luxury; and many of
the clergy were carried away with the luxurious habits of these Roman families.
And Jerome was introduced by a friend from Antioch, a bishop who came with him,
to a widow, a young widow named Paula; and this young widow became tremendously
interested in the teachings of Jerome, and in his emphasis in turning away from
luxury, from worldly pleasure of every sort.
And
through Paula, he met the Patricians of Rome; he met the people of the most
outstanding families there, particularly women in these various groups; and he
soon came to have a tremendous influence upon them. He explained Biblical
questions to them; he read the Scriptures with them, he incited them to turn
away from luxury and from worldliness of every sort; and in his writings to
them, and his other things that he published, he told, in the very strongest
language, what he thought of the luxury of many Roman Christians and of the
attitude of some of the clergy.
Here
is a quotation from one of his writings at this time: He says:
"His silken garments breathe of perfume waters, his hair is curled by the barber with the highest skill, and with jeweled fingers foppishly raising his dress, he skips into the palace, his dainty feet clad by the skill of the shoemaker in shoes of the softest and glossiest morocco leather. Anyone seeing this man would take him for a bridegroom rather than a clergyman. He is known through the whole town under the nickname of 'town coachman.' He is everywhere and nowhere to be met with, nothing happens that he's not the first to know, and there's no gossip of the town which he has not discovered nor magnified. His career is in short this: he has become a priest in order to have freer access to beautiful women. His way of life is briefly as follows: he rises early and having a visit this day, sets forth on it at once. Where he finds anything beautiful in a house, either a picture or a fine cloth or any kind of furniture, he persistently admires it until it is presented to him, for the sharp tongue of the 'town coachman' is feared by all women."
Now
when Jerome began speaking this way about the developing luxury of the clergy
in Rome, it naturally made him very unpopular with them; and on the other hand,
it reacted on him in making him go further and further into the ascetic life;
and perhaps partly as a result of his experience in early youth when he had
fallen into the sins of the flesh, he took a very strong attitude against
marriage; he felt that the great sign of real devotion to God was to declare
that one should only be married to the Lord and have no physical tie-up with
any human being, such as marriage.
He
got many Roman widows to follow, to become very fond of his teachings, and to
try to follow his advice in these regards; and there were large numbers of
young, unmarried Roman women who also took vows that they would never marry,
and that they would devote their lives to the study of the Bible and to doing
good deeds and advancing Christianity. When a daughter of Paula carried his
advice on ascetic living to such a point of fasting and of ignoring the normal
needs of the body that she died, at the funeral there was a riot and people
began to cry out, 'Throw the monk into the Tigris!" And Jerome wrote very
sarcastically and very strongly against the people who were taking this
attitude; and you can see after three years in Rome, he was very unpopular
there.
But during his time in Rome, though he spent a great deal of time in this activity and had a tremendous influence with these Christian women there, he was very busy with his studies; and when Damasus urged him to undertake the improvement of the translation of the Bible into Latin, he set to work on it thankfully; and he worked very steadily on it there in Rome, and for that also he was criticized.
People
who were already against him were glad to find something else to criticize him
for. They were accustomed to the words of the Latin translation of the New
Testament; and as he revised it and made it more accurate, they criticized him
for that; and then Damasus asked him to go into the translation of the Psalms.
The Psalms were translated from the Greek translation, from the Septuagint, not
from the Hebrew, as they were used in the Church. And he attempted to improve
the translation; so he made a new translation of the Psalms from the
Septuagint. And these translations were bitterly criticized; there was
tremendous opposition to them.
Damasus died before he could have given any official papal sanction to them. His successor wasn't interested in that sort of thing. But his translations, by their excellence, by their greater fidelity to the original, by their excellent style, they eventually won their way, until his translations came to be the standard translation to use and all earlier translations disappeared from use altogether.
In
1547, at the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church declared that the
Vulgate is the official Bible; it is the last word—that was their claim. Of
course, Jerome was the translator of it, but the text had become very corrupt
during the centuries since he made it. In the early days no great effort was
made; it was just a translation, no official translation; and all sorts of
errors had come in through the copying of his translation. One pope set to work
to provide a better text; he got a group of scholars together about 1550; they
studied all the available manuscripts; they made a new edition; the pope had it
printed with a statement: this is the official Vulgate; and then, just before
it was distributed the pope died; his successor had all the copies called in,
and said it wasn't any good. And so there is no official text today of the
Vulgate; but even making allowances for errors of copying, it is a very
excellent translation, and a very fine help in Biblical study.
[Student:
Was Jerome considered to succeed Damasus?] They talked about Jerome becoming
bishop when he first came to Rome. But my guess is that by the time that
Damasus died, the general run of the clergy disliked him sufficiently—and he
knew it—that he realized that he had no chance of ever being elected. At this
point, we are in a time when Christianity was the official religion of the
Roman Empire; we have many letters from Jerome on all kinds of subjects; and we
have quite a bit of material from others too; so for almost any question like
this, it would be possible to find the data, to get precise answers and fairly
precise proof; but for a great many questions of that type, I have not
personally gone into. But I don't believe in that particular case that electing
him Bishop of Rome would've been much of a factor then, because I think he
would have known well before that time, what the Roman clergy thought of him.
Jerome
was so friendly with this Paula that they began to circulate rumors about him
and her, trying to raise scandal about them. She was a widow of age 36, the
mother of 5 children when she came under the influence of Jerome; he was maybe
ten years older. She renounced all the wealth and honors of the world and devoted
herself to the most rigorous ascetic life; and of course one thing was the
baths, the bathing in milk and all that sort of thing, and the extremes the
patrician people went to. Well, Jerome fumed against all that sort of thing so
much that naturally they tended to go to the other extreme; so then people
talked this way and tried to raise scandal about Jerome and Paula.
Jerome
wrote a letter, which he had circulated, in which he dealt with this matter. He
said, "Was there no other matron in Rome who could have conquered my
heart, but that one, who was always mourning and fasting, who abounded in good,
who had become almost wan with weeping, who spent whole nights in prayer, whose
song is the Psalms, whose conversation was the gospel, whose joy was abstemiousness,
and life was fasting? Could no other have pleased me but that one, whom I had
never seen eat? Nay, verily, as I began to revere her as her chastity deserved,
should all virtue have at once forsaken me?" In other words he tried to
show how ridiculous it was to raise scandal about him and her, because if he
was interested in that sort of thing, there were widow women elsewhere.
But
he said that, but she, of course, was probably a very attractive and very
charming woman, and very luxurious before she came under his influence. But she
devoted the rest of her life to the ascetic life as he advised. He boasted of
her that she knew the Scriptures almost entirely by memory, and that she
learned the Hebrew so that she could sing the Psalms of it in the original. She
was constantly asking exegetical questions; and he said she went into it so
thoroughly that often she asked questions that he just could not answer at all.
She
went with him to Bethlehem, and she lived there the rest of her life; so that
he started the thing in three years; but these praises of her were probably
given in connection with his eulogies after her death. After her death in 404,
he opened his eulogy with the words, "If all the members of my body were
turned to tongues to utter human voices, I should be unable to say anything
worthy of the holy and venerable Paula." Well,
4. Jerome at
Bethlehem.
In 385-386, Jerome left Rome, and Paula also did, and one of her daughters. A few
others went with them and they journeyed to the East; and there in the East,
they visited different places in Palestine. Jerome took Eusebius' study, which
we mentioned before, of places in Palestine, with the attempt to tell where the
different Biblical events occurred. He made quite a study, quite a trip through
that way, and he decided to settle in Bethlehem; so he came to Bethlehem, and
there he established a monastery in Bethlehem, of which he was the head; and
others came with him to join in the ascetic life there with him; while Paula
built a building not far away, where women came to lead the ascetic life under
her direction. And there in Bethlehem he stayed from 385 till his death in 419
or 420. So 385-420, for 35 years he lived there.
He
stayed there during these years, and devoted himself to literary study; he
wrote commentaries and controversial articles on all sorts of matters; and he
undertook the new Latin translation of the O.T. directly from the Hebrew. So
while there—he had already studied Hebrew, a very considerable amount—he found
a very learned rabbi, who came to him at night for fear that the other Jews
would disapprove of his helping this Christian making the translation; but he
came to him at night, and with him he studied Hebrew further; got a further
understanding of it; and his translation into the Latin of the O.T. is a
tremendous help in O.T. study. It shows us the state of the Hebrew text at that
time; the state of Hebrew knowledge; it gives us what the people thought a Hebrew
word meant at that time. It is a very valuable proof in O.T. study. People
criticized it, attacked it, and he answered very strongly to people's attacks;
but he continued very laboriously and carefully with his work; and the
translation won its way by its excellence, till after a time it displaced all
earlier translations into Latin. Well, we'll speak a word about that under a
separate head.
5. The Vulgate. It's interesting that Jerome's translation is called the Vulgate—that is, the translation into the common language. It is the Bible, which is Greek or Hebrew, put into the language of the common people. Now in these days, our word "vulgar" has come today to mean something that is uncouth. But originally "vulgar" simply means ordinary, everyday; anybody in Rome, then.
If
Jerome wrote something elaborate, he might try to imitate the old Latin, as
used 400 years before, like some people today might write a prayer and try to
imitate English the way it was spoken 400 years ago. Many people today use old
English pronouns, as if there was something more reverent in using the language
of 400 years ago. And in those days, there was a high style of language, trying
to imitate the old times. But the Vulgar Latin is Latin as the ordinary person
spoke it; as everybody spoke it, except when they were trying to give some
great oration or something like that; and so the Vulgate means the Bible in the
language of the common people.
And it is a strange thing, that the Bible in the language of the common people—so that those who couldn't read Greek or Hebrew could get it in their own language and understand it—should have become the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church, which has tried all over the world to make people, instead of reading the Bible in their own language, read it in the translation that Jerome made, which was called the Vulgate. It really is a rather queer development. But history is full of queer developments like that.
But
this translation—which he made so that the ordinary person could read the Bible
in his own language, and understand what it meant, if he didn't know any
Greek—this translation of the Vulgate included—he had done the N.T. and he had
made a new translation of the Psalms from the Greek—now he proceeded to make
the translation of the O.T. from the Hebrew; and he started with the books of
Kings; they were the first that he issued.
As
he translated a book, he issued it; and he wrote a little introduction to each
book. And so in the introduction to Kings—the first that he published—he stated
what the books of the Bible are. He stated how many there were; he discussed it
a little, and that discussion leaves no room whatever for the books which we
call Apocrypha, which the Roman Catholics consider today to be part of the O.T.
The Roman Catholics use the word apocrypha
for any Christian ancient religious books which are not part of the Bible. We
reserve the word apocrypha for those
books that the Roman Catholics say are part of the Bible, but which we say are
not. These 7 books (and additions to two others in the O.T.) we call the O.T.
Apocrypha.
Now
we sometimes speak of the N.T. Apocrypha, which are an entirely different type
of book. They are not books which anybody has ever held to be inspired books;
but they are books which were imaginary, adding details to the life of Christ,
or the travels of the apostles, written long after their time and entirely
undependable. The O.T. Apocrypha are entirely different from that; they are
good Jewish books of devotion or of history or of some other phase of good
religious literature; and to the early Christians they were like Pilgrim's Progress to us—a fine, helpful
book, but with errors, as any human book will be; they were not inspired, they
were not part of the Bible.
Well,
Jerome sharply distinguished between other books and the books which are part
of the Bible; and he was determined to translate only the books of the Bible;
so he declared what these books are, in his issue of Kings; he limited it
strictly to the books of the O.T. which the Hebrews have; and of course these
so-called apocryphal books, we don't have in Hebrew; we have them only in
Greek. For one of them, some parts in the original Hebrew have been found more
recently, but through the ages the Hebrew originals were lost; some of them may
have been originally written in Hebrew; some may have been originally written
in Greek.
Some
of Jerome's friends liked his translation very much; many of his enemies
detested it. But some of his friends liked it, but they said, "We wish you
would translate Tobit and Judith and these other books, because they are good
devotional books; some people think they are inspired, though most don't, but
they're helpful books and we wish you would make a good translation of them
into Latin."
Well,
Jerome was interested in what the real Bible was, so for a time he refused.
Finally, he was urged by so many, that he made a translation of just two books,
Judith and Tobit. The other five apocryphal books he never translated. But
Judith and Tobit he translated; now the book of Tobit is book of maybe 20
chapters—fairly long chapters—and he translated it in one day. So you see he
didn't take any pains with it as he did with his translation of what he
considered as part of the Bible. He translated Tobit and Judith later on. Other
people made translations of the rest of the books; and in the Latin Vulgate
today, they are included, but they are not Jerome's translation. What I've
always understood is that some of his friends urged him. Now one of those who
urged might have been the Bishop of Rome of the day. Some Roman Catholics today
might say the Pope ordered it, but I don't believe you can find any proof that
at that time a man living in Bethlehem would think of the Bishop of Rome as
having any authority over him. Damasus would have had authority over him,
because he was Damasus' personal secretary, and in that employment relationship
he could give him orders. And he might have thought that the Bishop of Rome
would have a right to give orders for Rome, but that he could give orders for a
man in Bethlehem, very few people in those days would thought that; I doubt if
many of the Bishops of Rome thought that, though some of them might.
There
are seven separate books which belong to the Apocrypha, which are in the Latin
Bible but are not in ours—7 books. Now there are also two other books which the
Roman Catholic Church accepts—Daniel, and Esther—which we also accept. But the
Roman Catholic Church has a number of additions to Daniel and Esther; some of
these additions appear in Bibles that have the Apocrypha in them—under separate
titles—so you might get three or four titles out of different parts of Daniel
or Esther. One addition to Daniel is called "Bel and the Dragon"; one
is "The Story of Suzanna"; and one is "The Story of
Obadiah," how Obadiah was carried across the desert. The so-called 3rd
Ezra, though found in the Vulgate, is not considered by the Roman Ctho1ic
Church as inspired. So it's in sort of a middle group; whether we call it
Apocrypha or not might be questioned, because it's a valuable book; but 3rd and
4th Ezra are not accepted as inspired by anyone. They are included in present
editions of the Vulgate but not translated by Jerome.
The
important thing about the Vulgate, of course, is not whether it contained the
Apocrypha or not, it is that it is a very valuable, excellent translation into
the Latin which gave the whole western world during the Middle Ages a
first-class translation of the Bible into Latin. A subsidiary fact about it, of
real interest to us Protestants, is Jerome's attitude toward the Apocrypha.
That is very interesting to us; and it is interesting that as late as just
about the time when Martin Luther was preparing to publish his theses, the head
of the church of Spain, called Cardinal Ximenes, head of the church at Spain,
issued a copy of the Bible in several languages which he dedicated to the pope;
and the pope accepted the dedication with thanks; and in the dedication
Cardinal Ximenes said the whole church is indebted to St. Jerome for
distinguishing between the true books of the O.T. and the other books which are
not inspired.
It
was only after the Council of Trent in 1547, that the official position was
taken that these books are part of the Bible, and that anyone who does not accept
them all with all their heart, let him be anathema. That position was taken in
1547 at the Council of Trent; and it is required of all Roman Catholic teachers
since that time; but before that time, even the leaders differed as to whether
these were or not, and many of them felt they were not.
Well,
so much then for the great service that Jerome rendered the church in his
translation of the Vulgate. We must mention
6. Jerome's
Commentaries.
He wrote commentaries on quite a number of the books of the Bible, and these
commentaries contain much that is very valuable. He had the greatest learning
of any Christian of the day—perhaps of any Christian of the ancient world.
There's only one who could possibly dispute that with him; and that would be
Origen, who lived over a hundred years earlier. Jerome had tremendously wide
knowledge; he had studied everything he thought might be related to the Bible;
he was interested in anything that might throw light upon it. He says in the
Preface of his Commentary of Isaiah: "He who does not know the Scriptures
does not know the power and wisdom of God. Ignorance of the Bible is ignorance
of Christ." And his Commentaries contained much that was valuable. He was
particularly interested in seeing exactly what the words meant. It was careful
explanation, careful investigation, and a defense against the attacks of the
pagans upon the dependability and the truth of the Book with which he dealt. So
as a commentator he also rendered a real service to the Christian world ever since.
Then,
7. Jerome's
Other Works.
His other writings include a translation of Eusebius' Onomasticon, his study of names and of places in Palestine; and
that is a great help to us in our study of Palestine, in trying to determine
where the different events in Biblical history occurred. He also made a free
Latin translation of Eusebius' Church
History, bringing it up to date. He wrote biographies of celebrated saints,
Concerning Illustrious Men.
He
wrote against those who questioned the importance of the celibate or the
ascetic life. He wrote very, very strongly on these subjects. The only value he
could see in marriage was in order to bring into the world people who could
take vows of celibacy. But I think these features of his life can be understood
in the situation, his type of personality and his revulsion against his
disagreeable experiences as a young man. They did contribute to the development
of the ascetic ideals of the Roman Catholic Church, and I think that was
harmful. But I think his contributions to Christianity were very great, and we
are much indebted. He thought there was a much higher life: the single life;
the life devoted to God was a much higher attitude of loyalty to the Lord; and
that's the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church today. At this time, we find
the development of the idea of the celibacy of the clergy, until in the Roman
Catholic Church it became established that the members of the clergy were not
to marry. But it was not that way in Rome in the early years. It gradually
developed, and Jerome by his attitude contributed toward that development.
Jerome
is like all other men who ever lived; there are good features and bad features,
because all men sin, all have their weaknesses and their failures; and I tried
to give you a rounded picture this morning. In his case it's important, because
he did so much that was helpful to the church, and yet he pushed forward
tendencies which, you might say, were in contrast to the dissipation he
describes and that sort of thing; but the truth would have been in between; and
he is just excessive by pushing against this evil, pushing to the opposite
extreme; something that has brought much that is harmful into the church.
So
much for a brief discussion of his other works. Now,
8. The
Origenistic Controversy. Now if we were to try to study the full detail of
the thought life of the ancient church, we would need to spend a week or two on
the Origenistic Controversy. But with the two years of Church History that we
have, we have to pick what is most important; so I'm not giving them a main
head at all, merely discussing them this way under Jerome; but it is good for
you to know something about them.
I
wrote some articles for the Sunday School
Times a couple of years ago, and they were anxious to get a set of the Anti-Nicene Fathers in their library—you
know the complete set published by Eerdmans; and to get this complete set they
didn't want to have to pay for it. So they wrote me to ask me if I'd be willing
to write a review of it. And then they wrote the publisher, and asked if they
would give them a set if I would write a review which they would publish with
front-page notice. I wrote three reviews in fact—the set was about 15 volumes;
they paid me of course for writing the review; ordinarily they give you the
book. But they paid me for writing this review; they have the set in their
library. I figured the review would be most useful—for something like that,
especially with a front-page editorial, three of them the way they publish
it—to take some people from it and tell a little about them, men of whom the
Christian world should be interested, of whom they should know.
And
among them I discussed Origen; and I described some of his excellencies, which
we looked at last semester; and I said some words about his speculative errors
also. But someone wrote a letter to them, very critical. I suppose they were
really critical of my criticism of the RSV, an article like that, but they
wrote the letter and said, "How could somebody praise Origen when he held
all these wrong views, and named some of his views, praise Origen, and then
criticize something like the RSV?"
Well,
the fact of the matter is of course that the emphasis is the important thing.
If the RSV had just as many mistakes as it has, and no more, and those mistakes
were on minor matters, I would be much less critical than I am. But it has—on
just about every Messianic prophecy of the O.T.—a translation in such a way as
to get rid of the Messianic prophecy, and it does that often in cases where
there's not the slightest evidence for any other translation; they've often
thrown aside the text. There is an animus there against the predictions of
Christ—against the claims of the N.T. that the O.T. predicted Christ and that
Christ is the one spoken of.
Now
when you come to Origen, you find that he made mistakes as all human beings do,
and that he made some rather serious mistakes; but you find that the central
emotional attitude of Origen's life was a desire to honor the Lord; a desire to
advance true Christianity; a desire to be loyal to the scriptures. And
consequently Origen is a man who, for his attitude, his real love of the Lord,
deserves great credit. And Origen, in his commentaries, and in his discussion,
takes the matters that are clearly taught in the Scriptures and he stands upon
them; he advances them; he does everything he can to defend them against
attack. But Origen, as you know, was a man of such tremendously fluid mind;
such a constant covering such wide areas of thought; and such a speculative
turn of mind; that in the matters on things which are not clearly taught in
Scripture, he let his imagination run; and he tried to decide what was probably
the case in matters that aren't taught in the Scripture; and often these
conclusions differ from what we conclude, after carefully studying the
Scripture on these points, what we think is really the Scriptural teaching on
this.
Now
a man like Jerome would take Origen, and he would find a tremendous value in
the thinking and the writing of that great Christian man; and he would derive
from it a great deal that was beneficial, but at the same time discarding or
laying aside the point at which Origen let his speculations run beyond what the
Scripture said; and sometimes beyond what we feel is the import of Scripture
even though not absolutely explicitly stated. A man like Jerome would find
tremendous value in Origen; and such men as Athanasius, Basil the Great,
Gregory Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa—these great men—also thought very highly of
Origen, but distinguished between his speculative ideas and the solid service
he gave to Scriptural teaching.
But
unfortunately, the unthinking person, if asked, will do one of two things: he
will take a great man like Origen, and either consider that everything he wrote
must be true, and follow him in his speculations; or else he will turn his
attention to those speculative errors, and say the man is a wicked man, and
everything he said is harmful. So as the years went by, you got people of these
two types: those who strongly followed Origen, and those who bitterly opposed
him.
There
is a good Christian Seminary, whose president a few years ago was a man whose
teaching was on the whole very excellent; but on certain comparatively minor
points he was extremely dogmatic; and in some of those things, I think he was
wrong; and his students were graduating thinking that everything he said was
just the last word—every little thing about the Bible—what this seminary
president said, that was the last word.
Well,
I've met a few who, after graduating thinking he was the last word on
everything, found that he was in error on one or two minor points; and then
they took the opposite extreme, and decided that he was wrong on everything;
and were bitterly opposed to him. And between the two attitudes, I like the
first much better than the second, because he was a godly man, and a fine
Christian leader, but in error on some points as everybody is; but I've known
people who bitterly hated him and everything he taught, simply because they
found that he was in error in his viewpoint on certain points; and it's a
natural human tendency which I think we should oppose.
I
think we should try to find what is right in a man, not take everything he has
to say, and that way you can find great benefit from Origen and from Jerome,
but you will find them both wrong in some matters. Well, we have to stop for
today, see you tomorrow morning...
Now we were speaking yesterday about Jerome; and we had come to 8, the Origenistic Controversy, and these controversies were about whether Origen was a safe leader or not; and of course it is a fact that no human being is an altogether safe leader; we all make mistakes; there is one to follow and that is Christ, and his Word. The Bible is the only thing to follow; there is no one yet—no human being—who did not misinterpret the Bible in places; but from human leaders and human interpreters we get great help.
When
we take any human interpreter as the last word—everything he says is right—we
are apt to get into danger; because if he's a very fine teacher and a very
loyal man to the Lord, his errors may be minor; but we may take a minor error
he has made, and we may double it and it may become a major error. We should
check everything by the Word of God.
Well
men like St. Jerome, Athanasius, Basil the Great—many others like that—found
tremendous benefit from the great loyalty to Christ of Origen; the great desire
of Origen to find exactly what the Bible means; his great defense of the Bible
against the attack of the pagans; his years of effort, of studying the text in
various manuscripts to see exactly what it was. Origen was a great Christian
leader and teacher. Men of real caliber like these, found tremendous benefit
from his writings.
But
unfortunately most men are not of this caliber. Take a man like Origen, and use
him wisely, because either Origen is wonderful—"Look what he said here,
isn't this marvelous!" Well, he said many marvelous things. Then they go
on and they quote other things—and Origen wrote thousands of words. He was
dictating all the time. He had a tremendously fertile mind, with speculation on
every subject under the sun, and when he had definite Biblical teaching he
followed it; but where he didn't, he used his imagination; he used his
guessing, and often his guesses were unwarranted, or even went contrary to what
other people giving very careful thought to the particular point involved, reached
as a conclusion.
And
the result is that the people who would say, "Origen said it therefore it
is true," got into some pretty bad errors—some pretty wild ideas—through
taking his speculative points and carrying them on to conclusions. And then
naturally from that you have the reaction of the others, "Isn't this
terrible? Origin said all men are going to be saved eventually—even the devil
is going to be saved eventually. Isn't this awful? Isn't this awful, what
Origen said about this point, that point, the other point. Origen is a wicked
man; nobody should ever use Origen's work."
And
so you got at this time—toward the end of the 4th century—you got many people
highly excited on these two views of Origen. Among his greatest opponents were
a large group of Egyptian monks with Pachomius—whom we've already discussed
under monasticism—with Pachomius at their head, who were strongly opposing
anything Origen said as wrong, as wicked; we must be against everything he
said.
I
mentioned yesterday a man widely known during these last few years, who is now
no longer living; but a man who wrote extensively, and who had many students
who thought he was very wonderful; and his teachings are, in the main, true to
the Word of God; he was very loyal to the Scripture; but there were certain
points, too, where he allowed speculating, theorizing, to carry him into things
that are not clearly taught in the Scripture; and in some places these
contradict what seems to others to be clearly taught in Scriptures. And I've
known many students who thought that anything he said was absolutely the last
word; but I've met at least seven or eight bright, keen fellows, who after
taking that attitude had now swung to the opposite extreme; and anything he
ever said is wrong; they're dead against him.
And
of the two errors, I think the second is much worse than the first; because he
was a man who said very little that was really harmful. Most of what he said
was good. But it just shows the evil of taking any human being as an infallible
guide; we get our leadership from the Scriptures; we have men as helps, not as
something to depend upon, to trust. And so in this case we got this terribly
excited discussion about Origen; and when you got it, it is to be regretted
that Jerome, at this point, showed I think one of the most unfortunate errors
of his career. I don't think it was an error which greatly injured the church,
because I think the movement was so strong that he couldn't have affected it
much one way or the other.
But
Jerome, after having originally been very fond of Origen, and getting
tremendous value from his life—though using him critically and not being
affected by the unfortunate speculation at certain points; Jerome now, being
accused of being an Origenist, came out strongly against Origen, and attacked
Origen very, very severely; he denounced his statements in such a way as to
give the impression that he denounced everything that he had taught.
The
Bishop of Rome condemned Origen, and within the next succeeding years various council
condemned his teachings very strongly. In modern times people have seen, not
only that Origen's teachings themselves are not as bad as the councils made
out, but in addition that the great Christian leaders during the 150 years
after Origen thought highly of him. It was only 150 years after his time that
this picking up of these particular speculative errors, and concentrating
attention upon them, led to this complete repudiation of Origen by the church.
Origen—and most of these other men in these early days—they called saints. But
they don't call Origen saint. Yet if it comes to what would make up a true
saint, Origen would probably come a lot nearer than most of those they call
saint. He made certain speculative errors that were harmful if followed specifically;
but in his life, he was devoted to the Lord; he was one who stressed salvation
by faith; he owed everything in his life to Christ; and he was ready to die for
the sake of Christ—and in fact, did die of the tortures that were inflicted on
him by persecution. He was one who worked night and day, absolutely
unsparingly, in order to spread the word of Christ and to train men to serve
effectively. He was one who spent years of work in studying the text of the
Bible in order to get it as accurate as possible; his life—from the viewpoint
of saintliness, in the sense of good moral qualities, certainly in general
morality most of these men were quite removed from the worldly sins—but in the
sense of kindliness, generosity, helpfulness and that sort of thing, he was way
ahead of a man like Jerome; and so it is very unfortunate that they are called
saints and he is not. Actually, we are all saints if we believe in Christ; and
the Lord knows who is and who isn't, and I don't think any human being really does.
So much then, for the Origenistic Controversies.
9. The Monastic
Controversies.
The Monastic Controversies we have mentioned slightly before. At this point I
just will bring out the fact that the Word-searching writers, at this time,
took a strong stand against the developing monasticism. They—I don't know
whether I'll even trouble you with their names—because of the fact that they
lost out on their emphasis at this time. I think, though, you can at least
write them down.
a. Jovinian. He is the most
important of the anti-monastic writers at this time. In Rome about 390, he
wrote a work attacking monasticism. But he was a monk and remained so to his
death. But he attacked the idea of thinking of it as a higher life than others.
He abstained from marriage, he said, because of the feeling that he could give
particular service to the Lord by devoting himself entirely unhampered by
family responsibilities; but he felt that that was an individual thing where he
was able to render particular service. He did not feel that it should be held
up as the ideal for the Christian, nor that a Christian—simply by abstaining
from marriage and cutting his eating way down—that that, per se, made him saintly, as monasticism tends to hold.
And
Jerome attacked him very strongly. Jerome said, "If he's sincere in his
writing, why doesn't he get married, and prove that he can be just as saintly
while married as in his present celibate state? Or else why doesn't he give up
his opposition to the position we hold?" Of course Jerome, on this point,
was much less intelligent in his statements than he is in the greater part of
his discussions. This was one of the points on which he was highly prejudiced,
very emotional; and you will find, the most intelligent people, when they get
on matters that they're highly emotional about, often become quite unscholarly
and unintellectual. He was not opposing an individual in this, but opposing the
general trend.
Jovinian's
book is lost but we have this address preserved, with a number of others, which
attack him and criticize him. And, he said, for instance, that Christ attended
the marriage feast at Cana as a guest, sat at Zacchaeus' table with publicans
and sinners, was called by the Pharisees a glutton and a winebibber. He said
that the apostle said, to the pure, all things are pure, and everything is to
be received with thanksgiving.
He
pushed what we try to think is the real Christian ideal, with making your life
count for Christ in the world in which God has put you—rather than trying to get
off in the desert somewhere where you won't be contaminated by the wickedness
of others—but you will be able to help the others. We feel that he had nearer
the true Christian ideal than monasticism. But the way some people have
compared it to Luther is quite extreme because actually his influence was just
a tiny part of what Luther's was. We know him principally because of the strong
attacks against him.
b. Helvidius. Then there was
man named Helvidius—also at Rome—and Vigilantius. And the man Vigilantius
originally came from Gaul, which we now call France. And he had been a
presbyter in Spain, Barcelona. He wrote against the ascetic spirit of the age
and the superstition connected with it. He wrote in stronger language than
Jovinian did. He used more heated expressions and Jerome reacted very strongly
against it, and Jerome sat down one night in Bethlehem, and just poured out his
feelings about Vigilantius, and you see what Jerome could do when he got really
stirred up.
[Jerome,
Against Vigilantius (406).
"In Isaiah we read of centaurs and sirens, screech-owls and pelicans. Job,
in mystic language, describes Leviathan and Behemoth; ... Gaul alone has had no
monsters, but has ever been rich in men of courage and great eloquence. All at
once Vigilantius," (The word means wide-awake, vigilant, you know)
"or, more correctly, Dormitantius" (that means dead asleep),
"has arisen, animated by an unclean spirit, to fight against the Spirit of
Christ, and to deny that religious reverence is to be paid to the tombs of the
martyrs. Vigils, he says, are to be condemned; Alleluia must never be sung
except at Easter; continence is a heresy; chastity a hot-bed of lust. ... And
now this tavern-keeper ... is mixing water with the wine. ... he assails
virginity and hates chastity; he revels with worldlings and declaims against
the fasts of the saints; he plays the philosopher over his cups, and soothes
himself with the sweet strains of psalmody. ... This I have poured forth with
more grief than amusement. ... Shameful to relate, there are bishops who are
said to be associated with him in his wickedness."]
Thus
Jerome goes on through this sort of discussion which he occasionally dealt
with, though as a rule he was quite intellectual and scholarly in his
discussion on matters he didn't grow so heated on. But this sort of argument of
Jerome I don't think would've carried much weight alone, but unfortunately
there were others also engaging in it, and this was like a feeble cry of
resistance against a great tendency that was sweeping over towards the
introduction of monasticism. But as you notice, it is three hundred, four
hundred years after Christ before this great sweeping over it of monasticism,
which is still the strong emphasis for Jerome's church. In fact, in the Roman
church today, a priest—a parish priest—is not considered nearly as saintly and
spiritual as a monk. Of course, some monks act as parish priests, but the monk,
who has taken the vows of extreme abstemiousness and so on, even if he lives
alone in the desert, is pretty much the ideal of sanctity.
We
believe in separation from the evil of the world, but not in separation from
the world. We believe in being in the world—to help the world—we spend our time
and efforts bringing the truth to people, going to them and winning them,
reaching them, there's nothing particularly honoring to the Lord in being out
of contact with them.
God
did not take us to heaven, assuming we were perfect, but left us here in order
that we may serve him effectively. [student: What about Paul's years in the
desert?] We have no evidence of the way Paul lived in those days. But I would
say that Paul's three years in Arabia, after his conversion, were like a
college student who was converted to the Lord and decides to spend 3 years in a
seminary studying the Word, instead of going directly into active service for
God. That is, we don't know a great deal about it, but we have strong reason to
think that Paul spent his time there studying the O.T., learning more and more
about just how Christ was predicted in the O.T. and what it meant to serve
Christ.
Of
course, all we know is he went to Arabia, and there is very little more said;
and it would seem that was his time of study and preparation for his work. But
that he didn't go there permanently, it was a temporary period of training, and
of course the monastic ideal—in the sense of drawing off, away from all worldly
things that would attract you to worldly life, for the sake of studying, the
development of your spiritual life for a time, then to come back into the world
to help—it is something which we would all think well of.
And
certainly the one who just gives himself over to the pleasures of this world,
and puts them first and then tries to serve the Lord a little in his spare
time; and the man who thinks he serves the Lord, by getting off in the desert
somewhere and spending all his time singing songs and reading scripture, and
trying to develop his spiritual life; the latter is far superior to the former,
as between those two extremes. But the Lord doesn't want us to take either of
the extremes. The Lord wants a combination. He wants us to have our time for
meditation, for prayer, for solitude; even taking days and weeks and maybe
years at it; but wants us to do it not simply to grow spiritually, but to serve
Him effectively. If our life does not result in effective service, He would
have taken us to Himself immediately. He wants us to serve Him here in the
work.
Now
most historians hold that this development of monasticism actually was a
wonderful thing in its effectiveness. Because within the next century after
this, the Barbarian hordes flooded over Europe and for some centuries Europe
was divided up into little tiny sections, constantly fighting with one another,
and there was all sorts of confusion and turmoil; and the historians say that
civilization would have entirely disappeared if it were not for monasteries,
where people were alone, copying books, and studying the Scripture and having
services, and having little influence on life outside the monasteries, but
preserving civilization in the monasteries.
So
most historians hold that the development of monasticism was a wonderful thing
for the preservation of civilization. Now that is the way it has worked out; we
are far better off than if there had not been monasticism. But personally I
feel that we would've been still better off if these thousands of people who
got out into the desert somewhere—completely apart from human life, having
little influence, except once in a while when great hordes would come in to
make a protest on some particular point—that if many of these people had been
in the world, actively presenting and promulgating Christianity, might they not
have brought in the modern period of civilization that much quicker?
After
all, these Barbarians who came in and turned Europe into a state of desolation,
there was nothing wrong with them personally; it was simply that there were too
many of them to be assimilated. They were—this Germanic strain which they
were—had been coming into Europe, the Roman Empire, for the previous four
hundred years; and many leaders in the Roman Empire had been of Germanic
background; but they'd been coming in a few at a time, becoming soldiers in the
army of the emperor; and then gradually getting from that into private life;
getting the education and being regular members of the Roman Empire. The
trouble was not that they came, but that so many came at once that they just
took everything over; and if with the larger number coming, there had been a
greater number of real active Christians, dealing with these people, it might
have prevented the Dark Ages altogether.
Of
course, we can't say what might have happened. We see what did happen; and it's
far better than if there'd been no Christians there at all. Far better; but if
there'd been more active Christians there, it seems to me that it might have
made up for the great good the monasteries did do through the Middle Ages. But
that is getting a little bit ahead of ourselves.
We
were discussing here 9, the monastic controversy. Now I had listed here ten
items, but I'm going to change that to 12 items. And I'm going to simply
mention to you that there are two more matters. I have indicated in my notes
here, "Mention two other matters to be given later." I think it will
be good to give numbers for them. 10 and 11 are two items about Jerome which
are of great interest to us. They are of great interest to us, but they are
matters which relate closely to other things we have not yet introduced; and
that's why I don't want to bring them here. As you know the method I use for
this course is pretty much chronological; we're thinking of them as they come
pretty much. And yet we can't be strictly chronological. The average history
will take something, and they will trace it through three centuries; and then
they will take something else, and I think that way you lose the feeling of
relation.
Well,
I'm trying to go just about a half century at a time, and doing this part of
the history. But even so, it's better to take Jerome's life together as I'm
doing, rather than to look at 5 years of this and all the other things at the
same time. So that there are two developments that are of great importance,
we're going to look at later—in relation to which Jerome had a minor
relationship—but yet one on account of which, because of his great importance, becomes
of some importance; and I don't want to anticipate by giving these other two
things now.
So
there are two other matters about Jerome. If I should ask you at the end of the
year to tell everything you can about Jerome, if I should by any chance give
that as an exam question, and you fail to include these two other matters, I
would be greatly disappointed. But I don't want to mention them now; I will
mention them under the other heads to which they're related, rather than under
Jerome. So
12. Conclusion
regarding Jerome.
Jerome is one of the great figures of the ancient church. He's the greatest
scholar in the ancient church. He's not the greatest thinker of the ancient
church. Origen was a greater thinker than Jerome; but Origen didn't stay quite as
close to Scripture as Jerome did. On the main points of Scripture, Origen was
thoroughly sound; but he let his imagination run away from him a lot further
than Jerome ever did.
Jerome's
scholarship made a tremendous contribution to the development of Christianity;
but along with it, his great interest in Monasticism made a tremendous
contribution to the development of those particular qualities which today are
characteristic of the Roman Catholic Church. Most of the points distinctive of
the Roman Catholic Church today, Jerome would not have stood with. He did not
believe that Jesus built His church on Peter. He said that the Rock on which he
built his church was Christ. It was Christ and Peter's confession about Christ.
And yet many others thought in his day it was Peter and the expression could be
taken that way; but Jerome does speak in clear language that it is Christ who
is the foundation of the church, not Peter. And he did not believe in the
immaculate conception of the virgin Mary; I doubt if hardly anybody had ever
thought of the immaculate conception, they certainly didn't believe in Mary's
being taken to heaven without death, or of her body's being taken after death.
Jerome did not believe in a great many of the superstitious ideas of the Roman Church today. But there is much that has developed in the Roman Church, of which the germs are found in some of the other things he wrote, particularly in his great stress on monastic life. And then his excessive disagreements—I've read you one or two quotations from his assailing of others who disagreed with him—which show his rather overbearing and sneering attitude toward those who differ with him on church points; this is certainly unfortunate in a Christian leader. He is a man whose influence was tremendous; a man with whom we should be thoroughly familiar; but he's not—simply as a Christian—not one of the great Christians of the early church. We look at a far greater man rather soon.
Jerome
is usually pictured with a lion beside him—with a lion and a skull. In almost
any large museum you go into, you see a picture of Jerome in his cell in
Bethlehem, with a lion—there's always a lion sitting near him—and there's
usually a skull which he had to remind himself of the shortness of human life,
of its weakness, of the necessity of thinking of eternal things; and there are
some legends about a lion having followed him around and stayed with him; and
it is pictured there with him in these pictures of Jerome, of which there are a
great many. The Roman Church through the Middle Ages venerated him about as
much as any man of the early church. Well, we go on to
M. The Downfall
of Paganism.
This century—the 4th century—began with paganism seemingly supreme. Diocletian
had the great persecution; Christianity was supposed to be utterly destroyed;
the pagan temples seemed to be strong and powerful all over the Roman Empire.
Christianity stood the persecution—that was merely a fact of coming through it;
then Constantine gave it power, and in fact gave them his favor; but still
there were certainly not over a fourth of the people in the Roman Empire that
were professing Christians at the end of the Diocletian persecution.
By
the end of this century, the popular thing is to be Christian rather than to be
Pagan; and it is rather unpopular to go to the temples at all. Many of the
temples have been destroyed by that time, and the emperors by this time,
instead of giving tolerance to Christianity, are facing the question whether
they shall tolerate Heathenism, or not. During this whole century that change
is taking place, and in the last few years of the century, we find the great
movements of monks—and you might say Christian mobs—who are convinced that the
heathen gods are demons, and the temples are places where demons are
worshipped; and therefore these temples ought to be eradicated; and there were
hundreds of great strong temples which were torn down and wrecked, often by
mobs, during the last few years of this century and the beginning years of the
next century.
Doubtless
many great heathen temples—most of them—were destroyed by the end of the next
century after this. In Syria, hundreds were destroyed in this period. There was
a tremendous wrecking of temples, tearing them to pieces; and the Roman Senate,
during the last 40 years of the century, sent to the Emperor, asking that they
be permitted to still have the sacrifice at the altar of victory which normally
started sessions of the Roman Senate; and these last few emperors rigidly
refused. Theodosius even completely forbade them.
Theodosius
enacted very restrictive laws against heathen practices altogether, against
heathen temples. And yet when Theodosius died, the Roman Senate carried through
its customary act of voting to enroll him among the gods; so his name was
enrolled among heathen gods, though he was an ardent Christian and one who had
even forbidden heathen worship. And of course a strange development took place
the other way: the head of the heathen system had always been known in Rome as
the Pontifex Maximus, the chief bridge-builder.
In
early days in Rome, building bridges across the Tiber was a very important
thing; and it was a difficult thing, because occasionally the river would flood
and tear down the bridges; and so they had religious ceremonies in connection
with it; and they gave the head of the heathen religion in Rome the title of
"Chief Bridge Builder," Pontifex
Maximus; and then the Roman Emperor stood over the Tiber and called himself
Pontifex Maximus; but when the Emperor moved to Constantinople, and was no
longer near the Tiber, eventually the Bishop of Rome took over the title; so
that to this day, for the name of a pope, you will see after his name—nearly
always—the letters P.M. which means Pontifex Maximus, Chief Bridge Builder,
which was the title taken by the old heads of the heathen religion for many
centuries; now it is taken by the Pope regularly.
Well,
during this century, we have discussed at great length, the Arian
controversies, in which the emperors had favored Arianism for a time; and it
seemed destined to be absolutely supreme in the Roman Empire. Our interest has
centered on that largely, but along with it was going the constant retreat of
heathenism; the very word heathenism—like the word paganism—the two words mean
exactly the same thing; pagus means a
little country village; and heathenism, from heath; a heath in Germany is a little place way out in the country
where few people live. And the words paganism and heathenism, as words, mean
the backward superstition that is held by a few people way out in the country;
that's what they mean, so it's rather anachronistic to speak of the great pagan
processions of Rome and the worship of Jupiter and these other great gods as
paganism; because the very word didn't come into existence until their religion
was dying; and it was given to it as a religion which was still clung to
tenaciously by a few people way off in the backwoods. That's what paganism
means, and heathenism means exactly the same, only one is a German word and one
is the Latin word used in the Roman Empire.
So
the downfall of paganism or heathenism; that's still more anachronistic,
because it didn't come till later on; the German word, it comes during this
century and no individual emperor had more to do with it than Theodosius the
Great; and I just want to remind you again of this point about the greatness of
Theodosius.
By
the way, we have noticed that Diocletian divided the Empire in four parts; but Diocletian
when he divided it, he had two emperors [Augustuses], himself and another
emperor, and then there were two Caesars, who helped the emperors. These
emperors were supposed to stand equal to each other, though one was operating
in the West and one in the East. Well, we had Theodosius made the emperor in
the East after the death of Valens; Gratian called Theodosius to be emperor of
the East. Gratian was Emperor of the West. The two were equal.
Actually Theodosius was much the greater because he was by far the greater man; but theoretically their powers were equal, both were emperors. And then after Gratian's death, Valentinian II continued to reign for some years in the West; but Theodosius had to come to the West several times with his armies to rescue Valentinian from predicaments into which he got. He was not a very able man; eventually he was killed by usurpers, and then Theodosius destroyed the usurper and he ruled the whole empire for three years,
Theodosius
I was one of the great effective characters in the rule of the Roman Empire.
Valens had been destroyed by the Goths as they were breaking into the Empire in
378. Theodosius stopped the invasion; put an end to their breaking in for the
time; held back the Barbarian hordes for at least 20 years longer than would
have been the case if he had not been there; and allowed many of them who had
already come in to settle in the Empire; and he established them and took many
of them into his armies. Theodosius was the one, as you know, who called the Council
of Constantinople which put an end to Arianism.
We
noticed how Theodosius, in Thessalonica, was aroused about this terrible
uprising of the mob there, and as a result put 7,000 people to death. He was a
man of hot-blooded Spaniard roots who could become very angry, and give way to
very harsh measures; but ordinarily he was a very kindly man. It was he who St.
Ambrose in Milan refused to partake of the Lord's Supper, until he had publicly
confessed his crime in killing all these 7,000 people in Thessalonica; and it's
to Ambrose's honor that he made that stand, and that he was able to do it in a
way that could carry it through. It was to Theodosius' honor that he saw his
error, and admitted and confessed it.
Then
after that Theodosius had a situation where in Antioch, the people had become
stirred against him, and had taken his statue and the statue of his family, and
had dragged them in the mud and broken them up in their rising feeling against
the emperor; and then knowing what had happened in Thessalonica, the people
were in terrible fear in Antioch of what might be done to the city; but in the
end the city was spared, though the ringleaders were taken and investigated and
punished for it.
Theodosius
had the whole empire in his hand the last three years of his reign, but
actually he was the dominant force of it all through his reign. At his death in
395, his two sons became emperors, one of the West and one of the East. And
this is the final division of the Roman Empire; there never again was one man
who united all into one empire. Theodosius had no part in making the final
division now; but he did put one son in the East and one in the West, and
unfortunately neither of them was a man of Theodosius' ability. It would lave
been far better to pick out somebody else, like Gratian had picked him.
But
Theodosius is the outstanding figure in the downfall of heathenism. His sons
carried on what he'd been doing; there was still much to be done, but it was
his attitude, his strength of character, and his condition, which had much to
do with its results.
Now
we go to a man named John; but he's usually called by a title which was given
him, the title is Chrysostom. So he's generally referred to as
N. St. John
Chrysostom.
Now those of you who know Greek, of course, immediately recognize that
Chrysostom is from chrysos, gold, and
stoma, mouth; and you know that when
you say St. John Chrysostom, you are saying "St. John of the golden
mouth," and he is probably one of the greatest preachers, one of the most
effective speakers, that the Christian church has ever seen. As an influence,
he's not to be compared with Jerome or with Origen; he was not a great writer
like they; not a great scholar like they; and he was not the influence he might
have been, because of the opposition that he ran into; but as a speaker, as a
preacher, as an orator, as a man who doubtless had tremendous influence on the
great multitudes who heard him, there probably have not been more than a dozen
in the whole history of the Christian church, if that many. He had rare gifts
in this direction, and with these rare gifts he combined a wonderful Christian
character.
He
was born about 347, son of a general. His father died when he was still a child,
and his mother refused all offers of marriage that she might educate her son
and administer his property. He was brought up, then, very carefully by his
mother, with a first-class education; and he studied under a celebrated
rhetorician in Greece, a man named Lebanius, who had students come to him from
all over the Roman world; the emperor Julian had studied under him, and Basil
the Great. But on his deathbed when asked who should be his successor, this
great pagan rhetorician declared that of all his disciples, John, the man he
called Chrysostom was most worthy to succeed him if the Christians had not
taken him away from him. That's what he said. He recognized the ability of
John, and John learned a great deal from him of matters of speaking.
He
began as a lawyer, but then decided to withdraw from worldly pursuits; he
wanted to go off into the desert and live as a monk; but his mother entreated
him not to leave her, and so he stayed at home; but he practiced with asperity
to live the strictly ascetic life in his own house. And in 374 he found himself
so worn with his extreme asceticism, a great amount of fasting, that his health
was permanently injured to some extent.
There
was something that happened in 374 which greatly endangered his life; he and a friend
were walking along the shores of the river, near Antioch. At this time the
emperor (Valens) had very strict laws against magic and magical books; it was
punishable by death if you possessed a book of magic; and he and a friend were
walking along the river and they saw a book floating; and he said, "I
wonder what it is." And he reached out and picked it up and started to
look into it; and he saw it was a book of magic; and then just then he glanced
up and saw a soldier walking his direction; and if this soldier grabbed him and
said, "What's this you're reading?" and found it was a magical book
which was forbidden under pain of death, and John said, "Oh, I picked it
out of the river," nobody would believe him. And he said he threw it away
in the river; and if the soldier saw him throw it away that would make it worse
yet. So he felt he was in an absolutely terrible predicament. Fortunately, the
soldier didn't notice it, and he threw the book back into the river, but he
felt that he had been just on the edge of death in the experience. And for the
next six years he was under the shadow of this—spending time in devotion and
meditation—and then he went to Antioch and he was ordained a deacon and a
presbyter; and from 381 to 397 he was a great preacher in the church of his
native city.
During
these 16 years there in his native city, after he'd been preaching there for
six years, this incident of the statue occurred which I mentioned in Antioch.
It was the second greatest city in the empire; and a mob had grabbed the
statues of the emperor and his family, dragged them in the dirt and broken them
up. Very few emperors in the world's history could stand for a thing like that
to be done without very severe reprisals; and when the people as a whole
realized what had happened, they felt that the city would suffer for it; they
didn't know whether they would all be killed; the people were in tremendous
fear and agitation. In messages in 387, he pointed out that the terrible thing
they feared might come to them was nothing compared with that which would come
to those who continued in sin and died outside of Christ. And on the other
hand, how they need not fear because Jesus was ready to forgive; he died for
their sins on the cross; and if they had eternal happiness and peace with him,
that it was a temporary matter whether they lived or died; it was far less
important; and how they could bravely take whatever might come, if their eyes
were on Christ; and they say there was never a sermon preached under more
dramatic circumstances and with more effect than these 21 discourses of his on
the statues. The whole city was moved by it; a tremendous number of
conversions; great glory for the Lord; and then on Easter Day, he gave the last
of his series, telling of the aged bishop of Antioch who'd just returned from
an interview with the emperor; and the emperor had agreed not to destroy the
city; forgave the city as a whole for this, though the city was naturally to
have some punishment for it; the baths and theaters in the city were to be
closed; public distribution of funds was to cease; the city was to be no longer
the capital of the East, but to be a suburb of a neighboring town, Laodicea;
and the individuals who were responsible for it were sought out and punished,
but the city as a whole did not suffer for it.
But
these sermons of Chrysostom at this time made a tremendous impression upon the
city; and it was ten years after this when he was called to come to
Constantinople, to be bishop of Constantinople, the most prominent place in the
Roman world; and there he had very sad experiences which we'll look at tomorrow
morning.
We
have to finish up with John Chrysostom, and John Chrysostom is not one of the
greatest figures in the ancient church but certainly is one of the noblest
figures. He is as fine a character as almost any man in Christian history. I
know of no real flaw in his character which can be pointed out, unless it might
be perhaps a little bit of over-sureness of his position on moral issues. But
his position on the moral issues is generally quite right, and so the flaw
there—if there is a flaw—would be less than most people have. Now he was a
human being, and he must have had his flaws; and he's not one of the greatest
figures, so we don't go extensively into the details of his life. He must have
had his flaws, but we don't come across them much in what we usually read about
Church History. The ordinary flaws that you find—the sins of the flesh, the
hypocrisy that you find in many people—you don't find much in the great leaders
of Church History, though you find them in many of the subordinate characters;
no evidence of anything of that sort in him. The grasping for money, seeking
for personal honor, which you find in many Christian leaders today—and also in
ancient times—there's no evidence of anything whatever; and the attitude that
Jerome often showed of irritation and insistence on his own view on things, you
don't have evidence of that here.
And
of course John Chrysostom was a tragic figure; and that tends to make us think
of his difficulty and of his good points rather than to look for any flaws in
him. But Chrysostom, as we mentioned, was as great an orator as the Christian
Church has ever seen. And it is marvelous to find this ability as an orator
combined with the wonderful character which he had. Personally I'm a little
afraid of orators; I've found that so very frequently, when you get a man who
can just move multitudes, he's carried away by his own oratory and moves
himself beyond what he really thinks. Or he can be influenced by others.
The
greatest popular speakers, as a rule, shift themselves. They can move
multitudes; and they themselves can move. Not all, by any means, but most are
that way. But Chrysostom kept his eyes right on the Scripture, and particularly
on the great teachings of what Christ has done for us—the peace which we have
in Him, the blessings that He can be to our hearts, and the need of our
standing completely by Him, and turning away from everything contrary to His
will. At Antioch, as we noticed, his comforting and the courage that he brought
to the people in those terrible days was truly a tremendous thing; something
that was remembered by the church for centuries after, as one of the great
outpourings of divine blessing; that he was there to give the people exactly
the comfort and courage that they needed and to use it to draw them to the
Lord, and to win them to Him.
But
now I just barely mentioned at the end of the hour the move that was made
first, when Chrysostom was moved from Antioch to New Rome, that is,
Constantinople. That came about through the determination of a eunuch in the
government in Constantinople. We mentioned that, when Theodosius died in 395,
his two sons took over. They are minor characters: Honorius in the Western
Empire, Arcadius in the Eastern Empire, but put together they didn't have half
the ability of their father.
But
they ruled with great splendor, and they felt very proud of their power; and
yet they were not very diligent in determining how to use it wisely; and so
Arcadius in the Eastern Empire was ruled by a series of—well, something like
Henry VIII of England. He would have a favorite who would rule, and then he'd
get tired of him and kill him or get rid of him; and there'd be another one.
Well, there was a eunuch who had been the leader of his household, who became
actually the force in the Empire. And he was a good man, a man of real desire
for good things; and he coveted Chrysostom's great preaching for
Constantinople, so he sent and asked Chrysostom to come to Constantinople.
Chrysostom had always lived in Antioch, and loved Antioch; he loved the people
of Antioch. He saw the great needs of Antioch, he wanted to stay there. And he
said, "No, I'd rather stay in Antioch."
But
this eunuch was used to governing an Empire, and he would not take no for an
answer; and when Chrysostom still said no, he sent somebody to lure him out of
the city of Antioch on a pretense; and they got him outside the walls—out into
the open country—and then they seized ahold of him and put him in a carriage,
and the horses drove off rapidly; and they carried him all the way from Antioch
to Constantinople. As soon as he got there, the crowds were there to welcome
him with great cheers as their new Bishop of Constantinople. And Chrysostom,
under the circumstances, accepted what had happened; he was installed as the
Bishop of Constantinople; and the previous Archbishop of Alexandria, he had
come to install Chrysostom; he was against having him, but he bowed to imperial
authority; and he installed him, and then spent the next few years scheming to
get rid of him.
And
so Chrysostom was installed with great pomp and glory as Bishop of
Constantinople. And immediately he began preaching in the great cathedral
there; throngs came to hear him; the empress was always present, was very
devoted to his messages. But very soon, though, the emperor got tired of the
eunuch. His reason had nothing to do with Chrysostom at all; but the eunuch was
out, and a new man was put in power, who had no interest in Chrysostom. So that
was a tragic thing in Chrysostom's life; that a change was made, and then the
man who made it had no power to be with him anymore.
But
for some time after he came there, everybody seemed to favor him; and of course
his sermons were wonderful, but Chrysostom never had any interest in preaching
great orations that thrilled people's ears. He was a great orator and a
wonderful preacher, and he gave tremendous emotional sermons that stirred
people's hearts and gripped them; but he was interested in constantly
presenting the demands of the Scripture on people's consciences and the
opportunity of true faith in Christ. And he was appalled at the tremendous
luxury at the court of Arcadius. Everything was in gold; the most expensive
things; hundreds of people coming and opening the way when the emperor appeared
in church; and all this tremendous pomp and splendor and more; worse than that,
the women with their faces all painted up; and all of the signs of a luxurious and
voluptuous life in the court; he simply was appalled at it; and he began to
preach against people putting their interest in worldly things; and against
women painting their faces like Jezebels, as he said; and against immorality of
life of every sort, and worldliness of every sort.
And
soon some began to turn against him; and especially the empress Eudoxia, the
wife of the emperor who seemed to be so drawn to him when he came; she was
proud of having the greatest preacher in the world as their court preacher, but
she did not like the way he criticized her and her people. There's no evidence
he named her by name; but one time at a service, when she was not there,
somebody came and asked him to be a little easier on the subject. And they said
that in his next sermon, John said, "Herodias dances; Herodias sings;
Herodias asks the head of John the Baptist." There's no proof that he said
this; his enemies may have pretended he did; but she took it as a personal
attack on her.
And
this, combined with the jealousy of the Archbishop of Alexandria, resulted in
two forces coming against him; the emperor wasn't particularly interested one
way or the other, but he was moved by his wife's insistence; finally 5,000
soldiers seized Chrysostom and carried him away—the populace was
enthusiastically with him—but he was carried away and taken into exile, accused
of having criticized the emperor and his family; he was taken into exile, and
there they would have him in primitive circumstances, living somewhere; and
then they would move him in the dead of night. A man would come and get him up
and move him to another town; and he'd have to go out and ride horseback for 30
miles, get off at another place where they put him and stay there a while. And
they made it very disagreeable for him, and before long he died in exile.
So
Chrysostom's life ended in this tragedy; he died at the age of 60 in exile, in
407 AD, praising God for everything, even for his unmerited persecution. So the
people venerated him as a saint; it did not contribute at all to the popularity
of the emperor, what had been done. But the emperor in the East here was so
thoroughly established, that he didn't bother particularly about it; but 30
years after Chrysostom's death, the son of the emperor, Theodosius II, in 438,
gave orders; his bones were brought back to Constantinople and deposited in the
imperial tomb. The emperor himself, the son of Arcadius and Eudoxia, fell down
before the coffin; and in the name of his guilty parents, Arcadius and Eudoxia,
implored the forgiveness of the holy man.
So
he was buried with great pomp in the imperial tomb in Constantinople; and he is
revered by the Eastern Church ever since as a saint, as indeed he was. He was a
saint, as we are all saints, who believe in Christ and are saved through Him
and justified through Him. But in addition, he was one of the saintly men of
the Christian church; his tragic end shows the danger that was coming in with
the imperial favor to Christianity, which could be a tremendous help in the
spread of Christianity, but which could—at the whim of an emperor or an
emperor's wife—end in disaster for one of the finest Christian men in all our
history. Not one of the great—he was a great man—but there are others who
certainly were greater in character and abilities, in accomplishments, though
he was definitely in the top ranks, but he was a good man, a man who was
devoted to what he thought to be right.
Well,
then, we go on. We have finished all but one matter that we want to discuss in
the 4th century. And this one matter begins in the middle of the 4th century,
but runs over for 30 years into the 5th century; it's a unit and I don't like
to divide it. And in addition to that, it is an outstanding subject in ancient
church history. So I am going to do what I had not originally thought I would
do at all; I'm going to give you a Roman numeral heading that is not a century.
The
man whom I'm going to discuss is one whom most people—most students of church
history—regard as the greatest man in the ancient church. Certainly no
man—aside from the apostles—has had a greater effect upon the church since his
day; no man of the ancient church, than the man of whom we are now going to
speak. Many of you are familiar with [Alexander] Souter through his edition of the
New Testament in Greek. Souter made this statement about the man: "Whether
he was the greatest Latin writer who ever lived might be argued, but there is
no question that he is the greatest man who ever wrote Latin." Well, now
that's a tremendous thing to say, when we think of the great leaders of ancient
Rome who wrote Latin; and I don't think we have to necessarily say through his
writing, but it shows the tremendous things that are said about this man.
Martin Luther and John Calvin both thought that he was the greatest man of the
ancient church, and both of them declared that much of what they taught and
held was simply taken over directly from his teaching. And he lived in North
Africa.
It's
very interesting that Italy, the center of imperial authority, produced some
men of considerable ability, but none of the greatest leaders up to 450 AD.
None of the greatest leaders came from Italy, actually, though many went there;
and that three of the greatest should have come from this rather remote area of
North Africa; and especially that the very greatest of all, according to most
judgments, should have come from there.
In
English-speaking countries it is usual to call him St. Augustine; but a professor in Princeton Seminary, 30 years ago,
used to say, if he heard any students saying St. Augustine, he'd say St. Augustine
is in Florida; St. Augustine is in
heaven. Now, certainly St. Augustine
in Florida was named after St. Augustine, so that actually they should be the
same. But it is customary in England, to call him St. Augustine. Of course, in Latin, his name was Augustínus Aureliánus. And the emphasis, it would seem to
me, St. Augustine is nearer to the
emphasis of the Latin than St. Augustine.
But that is the definite English pronunciation, and I believe most American
theologians follow the English preference in the matter. The English sometimes
contract it, particularly for the other St. Augustine who was later in
England—they contract it to St. Austin—which of course you couldn't do for
Augustine.
But
St Augustine is not an organizer, in the sense of St. Cyprian, and he is not a
scholar, in the sense of St. Jerome. He was a large reader and a good student,
but he did not have the extensive scholarly knowledge that Jerome had; yet most
authorities would say that in just about every other regard, he was superior to
Jerome. Now not all would say that; there are those, particularly in the Roman
Church, who might even put Jerome higher than Augustine. Certainly Jerome was
one of the great figures, one of the great writers, one of the great influences
in the ancient church. But Augustine was much more of an original thinker than
Jerome; he had a wider interest than Jerome; he had a greater hold on the great
doctrines—the great central doctrines of sin and salvation—than Jerome had; and
he wrote very, very extensively; in fact, almost everywhere he went, he took
two stenographers with him; so that if he had a discussion with anybody, and
they might get on an interesting subject, these men were there to take down
everything he said in shorthand, in case he could use it to write an article or
a book.
Constantly
writing—and that's one reason for his great influence, that he was constantly
writing—he wrote tremendous amounts, and most of what he wrote was good. One
man wrote him a letter: "I picked up a piece of paper off the street, and
I find a strange new sort of heresy in it. Here's what it says, some queer kind
of a new thing; I don't know whether this is the start of a new sect or new
religion or what it is; what do you think about it?" Augustine wrote him
150 pages in answer, going into full detail, into the views in them. He was a
man, you see, of boundless energy, and his interest was in spreading what he
considered to be true.
Now
the attitude of most writers—Romanist or Protestant—is to make Augustine a
saint, who is just about perfect in everything that he did. Personally I do not
share that attitude toward him; I consider him a very great man, a very great
influence, a very good man; but I consider that he did certain things which I
think we would have been much better off if he hadn't done. And, as a matter of
fact, it's a strange thing, that if you take the Protestant viewpoint of
theology that is characteristic of the Reformation—characteristic of Protestant
churches—it points back to Augustine; and he is the greatest writer among these
found in the ancient world. And Calvin and Luther were both tremendously fond
of Augustine, got tremendous value from his writings.
But
also, if you penetrate developments in the Roman Catholic Church—some of the
developments there that we think are wrong—they also will point back to
Augustine, as one who gave tremendous impetus to them. They venerate him as one
who had tremendous influence on the development of certain of their particular
emphases and ideas—certainly the main ones—although on certain other of the
main ones, where they claim him as a leader, they misinterpret his words. We'll
look into those later. But Augustine is a figure with whom every Christian
should be familiar; and he is one whose influence we feel in all sorts of ways
that we don't realize at all, because his thought crept into the thinking of
the church as a whole; his very words, his phrases, even as Tertullian's did,
though to a greater extent. So we'll call
A. Augustine's
Early Life.
I rather dislike starting—but we have to—with Augustine's early life; because,
after all we've said about him that is so good, we find a great deal that is
not so praiseworthy at all in his early life. Well, one reason for that of
course is that he did not become a Christian until he was 33; and naturally
there was much in his life before that that he would not feel happy about; but
in addition to that, most that we know about Augustine's life comes from his Confessions. And his Confessions were written in his great
remorse and sorrow for the sins and errors of his early life, from which Christ
had redeemed him; and his Confessions
are written in a tone of thankfulness to God for what God has done, and
regretting and expressing all that did that was wrong; and so he takes
everything that he can think of that was bad in his early life, and he presents
it in the worst light he can, in the Confessions;
and some of the things—it's strange—some of the things that he thinks were
perfectly terrible, look pretty minor to us; like when he was a boy, he stole a
couple of pears off a tree once, and ate them; and I guess every boy has done
something like that at some time in his life; but the way he feels so bad about
that, and feels it is so wonderful that Christ has taken it upon Him, seems
rather exaggerated to us; and there are some things he does that with. While
there are other things, that don't seem to bother him at all, that to us are
much worse than the things that he feels so badly about.
Well,
that's possible because ideas change from generation to generation. And what
seems bad to one may not seem so bad to another. Whether they are improvements
or not, I don't know; I hope they are improvements. But Augustine's early life
was in North Africa, of which we have a very poor map up there on the board.
But North Africa, as we mentioned last year, is the part of Africa that is
extremely north. If we said northern Africa, it would include eastern. But
North Africa has come to be a specific technical term for that section of
Africa which is northwest; but not so much west either; it is the eastern part
of the western half of the northern section of Africa. It reaches quite a bit
north of the Egyptian area, and between it and Egypt there is a very great
desert area which is extremely difficult to travel through. Most travel between
places in North Africa is by boat, so that it is actually thought of as an entirely
different region to the Romans. You'd go by boat to North Africa or to Egypt,
or you'd go by boat from one of them to the other; rarely indeed would anybody
ever try to go overland from North Africa to Egypt.
Well,
North Africa today is—east to west—Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco. Now in ancient
times in Tunis, there was a great city called Carthage, which was founded by
colonists from ancient Tyre, which is just north of Palestine. According to
tradition, Carthage was already there after the Trojan War, a thousand years
BC. It came to be a very great city; Carthage was a great city when Rome was
just a small insignificant place. And then when Rome became a great city, the
two of them struggled for a period of many decades as to which one would be
supreme; and eventually, after Carthage had almost destroyed Rome—that is, it
didn't get clear to Rome, but their armies came clear up to Europe, over the
Alps, down into Italy and ravaged for many years—eventually the Romans won the
complete victory in a series of wars; and in the last of these wars, it carried
the war to Africa, and they took the city of Carthage and utterly destroyed it.
Carthage
burned for 17 days. One of the greatest cities of the ancient world absolutely
destroyed, utterly wrecked; all the people driven from it in 146 BC. A hundred
years later the Romans sent a group of colonists over to rebuild Carthage; and
the Romans built a city in Carthage there which became again one of the
greatest cities—the third greatest city in the Empire—the greatest was Rome;
the next was Antioch; the third was Carthage. It was a very great city, but it
was strictly a Roman city, entirely under the domination of Rome. Latin was the
language of Carthage, and all the important towns in North Africa; but in the villages
they spoke Punic, a dialect of the ancient Phoenicians, Canaanites.
Well,
in that region, Tertullian lived about 200 AD; Cyprian lived there about 250
AD; and now in 354 Augustine was born there in a little town which would now be
in Algeria. That is, it is across the border, just a short distance across the
border of the present Tunis. In a little town there, of well-to-do parents,
supposed to be of Roman background, Augustine was born. His mother was a
Christian. How earnest she was when he was a young boy, we don't know. There
are those who think she was not particularly fervent then. She doesn't seem to
have had a great influence on him as a boy. But by the time that he was in his
twenties, she was a very earnest Christian; and from when he was 20 until he
was 33, she was constantly praying for him; very active in her interests and in
her prayer for him, and he was constantly rejecting her testimony.
Her
name is one which is known to everyone who has ever been in California, and to
most who have heard much of California; because one of the towns in California
is named after her. Her name was Monica, and she is revered in the Roman
Catholic Church as a saint. She was a humble woman, not particularly educated
as far as we know. During the years from when he was 20 to his 30s, she was a
perfect model of a mother, constantly in prayer and constantly concerned for
the conversion of her son; and she lived to see it, but she died shortly after
his conversion. So Santa Monica is the town named after her. His father seems
to have been a pagan; but toward the end of his life accepted Christianity, but
died when Augustine was 18 years of age.
Augustine
was a boy who was always interested in study. Of course, in his Confessions he confesses that when he
was five and six and seven, he was very, very lazy and didn't study his lessons
as he should, and so on; but he does admit that by the time he got to be nine,
he was always tremendously interested in his lessons, and really worked at
them. He was a boy of intellectual promise. But he was in a region which—some
writers say North Africa was the cesspool of the Empire, and Carthage was the
cesspool of North Africa—but whether that is exaggerated it's hard to say; but
certainly the pagan life was extremely immoral and extremely low in many ways,
with the great gladiatorial combats, in which people were killed just for the
amusement of others; and the worship was of the old Phoenician gods who now
took Roman names; but they were still much the same, accompanied with all sorts
of immoral activities in connection with them, which were very debasing.
One thing the Romans had done away with—in old Carthage—the great statue of Molech that had an opening below with a tremendous furnace there; and people would sacrifice babies to Molech. We read in the O.T. of passing their children through the fire, which is a sacrifice of babies to Molech, the god of the Phoenicians. But the Romans did away with this and did not permit it.
But
the Roman worship was low enough, and Augustine seems never to have been
attracted by the pagan worship at all; but he was a catechumen—that is—he was
one who attended the church services as a boy; but he never claimed to be a
Christian until he was 33. Now Augustine was sent away as a young boy—to study
for a couple of years—to Carthage; and he was sent to another town for a while;
his parents were very interested in his getting a good education; and when he
was in Carthage, when he was 18, he fell into immorality which he regrets very
bitterly in his Confessions; but it
seems to be an immorality of a very different type from that of Jerome. Jerome
fell into immorality as a student in Rome; it would seem that only on two or
three occasions at most; and he was terribly revolted by it, and it contributed
to his extreme attitude against all marriage in his later years.
Augustine
arranged what we today would call a common-law marriage when he was 18. He
considered the woman a concubine; but he took a woman of whom he tells us
practically nothing, except that for 14 years he lived with her. She came when
he was 18, for 14 years he lived with her; as far as our evidence goes he was
true to her during that time and she was true to him; she bore him a son, to
whom he gave the name Adeodatus, which means the gift of God. And to this son,
Augustine was very devoted; but he always felt that, according to Christian
standards, he was living in sin. And he bitterly regrets this in his Confessions. This woman then lived with
him from 18 on; he studied to be a professor of rhetoric, and rhetoric was most
highly honored in the Roman world. As a professor of rhetoric he would have a
very good salary, and very high standing. Well, I see I'll have to quit there
for today; this is Wednesday. If any of you have questions which you'd like to
see me about, please save them till tomorrow, because I have to move along.
Now
we were looking at VII, St. Augustine. Since he's such a tremendously important
figure, probably the most important figure in the ancient church, after the apostles,
I decided to give him a separate Roman numeral to himself. Roman Numeral VII,
was St. Augustine. Under that A, was Augustine's early life.
We
noticed how he was born in 354 in a little town in what is today Algeria; it
was then called Numidia. And we noticed something of his upbringing; his mother
was a Christian; his father was a pagan until toward the end of his life; he
became a Christian shortly before his death when Augustine was 18. We noticed
that Augustine was a naturally studious type; he was devoted to his studies; he
had very brilliant mind; and it looked as if he would have a very great career
as a teacher of rhetoric, which was one of the great careers available in that
day. Nobody today can think what it means to be a teacher of rhetoric in the
4th century AD. But at that time—in the sort of democracy which they had
throughout the Roman Empire, without any radio, or TV or moving pictures or
anything of that kind such as we have today—people were tremendously interested
in speech arts; and a gifted orator could command a crowd any time, no matter
what he talked about. And a teacher of rhetoric had a salary about double the
salary of a teacher of anything else; and all the cities had official publicly
paid teachers of rhetoric; it was very remunerating, and one with great honor,
for which Augustine was preparing himself.
We
noticed a little bit about his early life in North Africa there; his
experiences in Carthage, and eventually his going to Rome; and we mentioned the
fact that his moral life was very different from Jerome's; Jerome as a young
man was with evil companions who led him into vice which he found tremendously
detestable and unattractive; and all his life he was opposing any sort of
physical relations between men and women, and yet at the same time was loving
women's comfort; he had a great number of women who took vows of chastity and
studied the Scriptures and studied Hebrew and other subjects under his
direction; they devoted themselves to the spreading of the ideas which Jerome
had, the great bulk of which were good Scriptural ideas.
But
St. Augustine's situation was entirely different from that. As a young man, he
took a woman as his mistress, and for 14 years he seems to have lived with her,
with absolute fidelity on both sides, as far as we know. There's no suggestion
anywhere of anything different from this. She was what today we call a
common-law wife; but they called her a concubine in those days; and that
doubtless meant that she came from a different social level altogether than
he—probably a woman of no education—probably no real companionship in any way
except a physical way. We don't know; he says very little about it; but he
regards it as one of the great sins of his youth, his living with this woman
for 14 years. And wherever he went to live, he took her with him, during that
length of time. Well, then,
B. Augustine's
Conversion.
And Augustine went through various phases in his thinking; but when he was
about 20 years of age, he became attached to a sect, known as the Manicheans.
We have already studied about the Manicheans last semester. For any of you who
were not here last semester, we will just very briefly say that the Manicheans
were a sect of people, the followers of a man named Mani, who had lived in
Persia a hundred years before this time, a hundred to 150 years before.
Manichaeism is a remarkable carrying forward of the view of the gnostic sects,
which were very prominent in the Roman Empire in the 2nd century; that is, this
man Mani was doubtless familiar with the teaching of the Gnostics; he was
familiar with Persian religion; he was familiar with Christianity, to some
extent; and the religion which he inaugurated was a very strong group of people
which, although generally condemned by the governments of the lands into which
it came, spread through a very substantial part of the world.
In
Persia Mani himself was condemned by the emperor; he was flayed alive, killed
with great torture by the Persian emperor. In the Roman Empire there was great
condemnation of various kinds of the beliefs of the Manicheans. During the
Middle Ages there were even crusades against the Manicheans; but the Manichean
belief continued for over a thousand years, and there were many people who
followed them. The Manicheans had congregations in different parts of North
Africa, and they had a church organization quite similar to that of the
Catholic Church.
Catholic
Church, as I explained last semester, is the term which was used at that time;
it has nothing to do with Roman Catholic Church of today; it's a different
meaning. The Roman Catholic Church has taken the term today; but what the term
meant then, was those churches which held to what they mutually considered to
be orthodox teaching, and consequently they worked in communion with one
another, throughout the Roman Empire. They called themselves Catholics; the
word means all-embracing. It is people who, without laying stress on the minor
points of doctrine, on the great doctrines of the Christian faith stand
sufficiently together that they regard one another as true Christians—not as
heretics—and they stand in a mutual relationship, a fellowship; they called
themselves the catholic church. There was no head to the catholic church; every
town had its bishop who was the head of it there; and these bishops were
supposed to form something of a unit together; and they worked together for the
spread of the Christian faith.
We've
noticed there were two or three Christian groups which were not in the catholic
church, but which were recognized as orthodox, though not in fellowship with
the other churches; they were separate groups; but the great bulk of Christians
were in the catholic church, Then there were certain heretical groups; and
these Manicheans—it's hard to tell sometimes whether to consider them as a
group of heretical Christians or as another religion altogether. They had
similarities to Christianity—they spoke highly of Christ, highly of Biblical
characters—but their origin was Persian, and their teaching was dualistic. They
believed in matter as being essentially evil. And what we want to do is get rid
of matter; to get ourselves away from everything to do with matter; and
consequently they held a very ascetic ideal; but they believed in the principle
of good and the principle of evil. Some them even said a man has two souls—a
good soul and an evil soul—which were disputing against one another.
Augustine
attended the meetings of the Manicheans. From the time he was about 20, he
frequently attended these meetings; he considered himself a Manichean, though
he never took the step of being enrolled as one of the inner circle of true
members; he was simply an attendant. The inner circle was given special
understanding and things. They were the real members. He never went that far.
But the time came when Augustine began to raise questions, and people said,
"Wait till Faustus comes; he is a great learned man; he's going to come
and visit one of these days; he will have the answer to all your
questions." And when Faustus came, Augustine looked forward with great
anticipation to finding all his questions answered; but when Faustus came, he
found that Faustus was a clever teacher; a fine representative; a man of very
attractive ways; but underneath it all, he was just repeating what he heard,
not a clear thinker at all; and not having any answer to most of the questions
that Augustine presented. And this was a great disillusionment to Augustine
with the Manicheans.
Augustine
seems to never have been attracted by the pagan worship. It was all around him,
but it was accompanied with all sorts of very wicked sensuous excesses which
repelled Augustine from it. He paid comparatively little attention to it in his
early days; it just was a great outside wicked force that he was not much
interested in, both in North Africa and in Rome. That seems to have been his
attitude toward the pagan religion in those days.
But
Manicheism did not have the answer for his problems. So he began to look elsewhere;
and when he was in Rome, he learned about the Neo-Platonists; and he began to
look into their teaching, which pleased him much more than the teachings of the
Manicheans. Neo-Platonism might be said to be the opposite extreme of
Manicheism. The Manicheans, with their emphasis on matter and evil, and the
desire to get away from it, are somewhat similar to Buddhism. But Neo-Platonism
believed in great spiritual principles. The principles were all that mattered;
matter hardly existed to their minds. And he got some of the principles of
Neo-Platonism which impressed him much better. And he moved to quite an extent
in their direction.
After
he spent a time at Rome, and nothing satisfactory opened up in Rome, he had an
offer to go to Milan, in northern Italy. Milan is one of the three or four
greatest cities in Italy today. It then was at some periods the place where the
emperor lived, and so it was a place of real importance in the Roman Empire;
and he was offered a place as a teacher of rhetoric in Milan, paid by the city
of Milan. It was a very attractive offer. He went up there, and a number of
friends who had been following him around went up there with him—friends from
North Africa—who were greatly attached to him. He was a natural leader; and
these friends went with him, and his mother came shortly afterward; she came up
and visited him in Milan.
She
heard Ambrose speak, listened to his sermons and was much impressed. Augustine
went to try to talk with him, but found him very busy; and it was difficult to
get much opportunity for discussion with Ambrose. Those were very difficult
days for Ambrose, with many difficult problems with which he was grappling in
the administration. So Augustine was influenced by Ambrose's sermons, but
probably not much by any personal contact. The circumstances rendered it
impossible for Ambrose to spend much time with him. However, his mother talked
to him; and he decided that he would give up his relationship with this woman.
She had born him a son, whom he had given the name "gift of God." And
his mother thought it would be better if he were married, and she found a nice
wife for him. He was then 30; she found a girl of ten who came of good family
background, and would make him a fine wife; but unfortunately she was too young
to marry; they would have to wait two years till she was old enough to marry.
And
Augustine sent away his concubine; he returned to Africa, and was going to wait
two years for his wife, but he found he couldn't wait and he took another wife;
so he had this second woman living with him now. But he was going through his
spiritual struggles and feeling more and more that his whole life had been
wrong, and that in Christ would be found the answer to all his problems, as he
tells us in his Confessions; he tells
about the thoughts he went through and of the influences, and so on, and
finally he decided that if he would but belong to Christ, he must belong
entirely to Christ; that he must make no concessions to worldliness, or to the
attractions of the world, or to that which it seemed he just could not break
with. And it seemed to him that to live without a woman—for instance—was
absolutely impossible; and therefore he felt that this was one of the things
that if he would give everything over to Christ, he must give up altogether. He
found the thought of a life as a teacher of rhetoric, with a good income;
married life with a nice wife and a nice home and good friends; he found that
very attractive to him, and there was nothing wicked in that; but it was not a
putting of Christ completely first and giving everything up for Christ.
He felt that if he became a Christian, he must go the whole way, and give up everything except the advancement of the work of Christ. So he was between. He felt he could not become a partial Christian, he must be absolutely one, given over completely; or he just felt he couldn't become one at all; and he was in this state of mind for some weeks and months. And then one day, a friend in the administration of the government was visiting, and he saw a book lying on the table, turned upside down; he picked it up and looked at it and saw that it was a copy of the gospels; and he was quite surprised to see Augustine interested in that, and told him that he himself was a Christian. And then he proceeded to tell him how people he'd known had been greatly impressed by the story of St. Anthony; and people who had given up everything earthly and taken the vow of complete asceticism, followed the example of St. Anthony; and when he left, Augustine said to his friend there, "Here there are these ignorant unlettered people, this man tells me, who were able to follow in everything, give up everything for Christ; how is it that we cannot do it?" And he felt greatly rebuked by it.
There
were various steps like this in his life, but he just felt that he just could
not make the step. Until one time he became very much agitated; he went out
into the garden, and he said that just then he heard a voice, he thought it was
some child near; but he didn't know what game a child could be playing where
they would say these words. He thought he heard a child's voice saying,
"Take, read, take, read." He afterward puzzled what game would a
child be playing that he would say these particular words. Anyway, he picked up
the Bible and opened it up; and immediately he read the words of St. Paul, to
"put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to
fulfill the lusts thereof." And when he read those words, he said it was
as if a divine voice had spoken to him. He said, "I'm just going to step
out and take the Lord Jesus Christ as my whole complete sufficiency in life,
and not look for anything to make it palatable for me to continue; I'm just
going to put him first, and nothing else in the way."
So
he counted his conversion from that point. Now he describes this very, very
vividly in his Confessions. But that
was the turning point in his spiritual experience. In Latin, "take, read,
take read." Just those two words. Now, it's probable that some child yelled
something like that at a distance, and it sounded like that. We don't know
anything about it; all we know is that it sounded to him like what he thought
he heard; and he did of course the thing that one should do: look to the
Scripture for that answer to his problems—not take a divine voice from heaven,
or an accidental voice of a child in a game—to lead us to look to the Scripture
for the answer to our problems. But it often does. We get wandering off to look
in all sorts of places for our answers to the problems in life, when God has
put them all in the Scripture; and in this particular case, the Lord in some
way providentially worked to lead him to the place where we must find all of
the answers, in the Word of God.
So
that Augustine counted this the moment of his conversion; but immediately then,
as soon as he conveniently could, he resigned his position and went to a place
in the country and took his friends there with him; and his mother, who was
rejoicing in this, his mother went out there and took care of the provisions of
the household, handling the meals; and he had two or three pupils with him
there whom he taught in the morning; and then in the afternoons, they all
engaged in discussions. And after about a month of this, Augustine felt that the
discussions were worth keeping; so he hired a shorthand writer. They called
them notaries in those days; but they were very common in the Roman
Empire—these shorthand writers who would take down anything quickly in
shorthand.
So
Augustine got this shorthand writer to come there; and they stayed another
three or four months; and during that time, he and his friends would discuss
all sorts of questions; and the shorthand writer was there taking everything
down that was said. They'd spend some of their time in the garden, some in the
house; there was a Roman bath right next to their place; they'd go in there,
and you know the Roman baths are great luxurious places—where there'd be the
hot room, where there'd be the cooler place, then there were gaming rooms, and
so on—so they could easily find a place by themselves; so they would go in and
have their Roman baths, somewhat similar to Turkish baths of today; they would
have their Roman baths, and then they would retire into the next room
together—he and his friends—and the shorthand writer would be there to take
down everything they said; even on the way home, he took the words down as they
walked home. And then he would write these down in longhand; and Augustine went
over them, and revised them, and prepared them for eventually sending to
friends.
They
say he wrote over a thousand books from now on. Now this—over a
thousand—includes big books, some of which would take five days almost
continually to read; and others of them are small works that you can read in,
say, half an hour. But when you think of over a thousand, of course, it is a
tremendous number. He never could have done it without a shorthand writer. But
the rest of his life he always had a notary, they called them, right ready to
take anything down that occurred to him at any time, or that he said to most
anybody. And he was—I quoted you what Souter said—that he was doubtless the
greatest man who ever wrote Latin; whether that's an extreme judgment of not,
certainly I believe that all people, regardless of their viewpoint, simply as
an objective judgment, would certainly say that he is among the dozen greatest
people in the ancient world. I don't think anybody would try to question that.
He was a great thinker and a man who made a tremendous influence on the world,
whether one feels—like some of his admirers did—that everything he did was just
about perfect, or whether one feels like some of his detractors do—that just
about everything he did was bad—why they all admit that he was tremendously
influential and tremendously effective. He was a very active and powerful man,
and most critics consider him as a very good man, a man who accomplished a
tremendous deal of good. The Reformed movement and Calvin looked to
Augustine—next to the Bible—as their great source of understanding of the
Gospel.
After
these five or six months, they went to Milan. He and some of his friends were
publicly received by Ambrose. Augustine had never been baptized, so he was
publicly baptized there; and according to the tradition that has grown up, he
and Ambrose together sang the Judean Praise to God, which became one of the
great hymns of the church of the Middle Ages. Now most writers think that is a
later tradition that developed. They say actually—to Ambrose—he was just one of
a group that was coming forward at that time, and probably Ambrose had no
inkling of his later greatness, and the idea that they composed a hymn to
Christ there together is probably a later story.
But
at least he then was publicly recognized as having become a Christian by
Ambrose. He makes no reference to his second concubine in his Confessions; we can assume that when he
became a Christian, he simply sent her away. His son, though, was with him in
all these discussions; and he was very much attached to his son, Adeodatus,
gift of God. And he decided to return to Africa; so he and some of his friends
and his mother started to Africa. They got to Rome and went to the port of
Rome; and while they were there at the port of Rome waiting to take a boat to
Africa, his mother was taken with a fever, and she died of the fever there; and
Santa Monica—as the Spanish call her—St. Monica, his mother, he speaks of in
his Confessions as a woman of very
great piety, of very great love for the Lord; and he felt that she had great
discernment and understanding; but she died rejoicing that her son had become a
catholic Christian, and she saw the result of what she had prayed for years.
Now,
one writer I read—as I mentioned—suggested that St. Monica became a really
active Christian only, say, after Augustine was about 20, because in his
confession we don't find much reference to her as having any great influence
over him in his younger years; and it may be that she had a great spiritual
experience at about that time, we don't know. But from when he was 20 on, she
was very active with her prayers and with her efforts for his conversion; and
now, he was determined to put Christ first in everything, and devote his life
entirely to Christ.
So
he went to Africa; and there at his own home in Thagaste, he sold his property
inherited from his father; he kept one building, and lived there with his
friends—with these men—they received no woman in the place; no woman was allowed
to even enter the place, not even a sister of one of them; but these men lived
there in this place, and there they discussed the relation of Christianity to
all sorts of problems, and continued writing.
Augustine
wrote a long treatise on music; and he wrote on various fields of thought. But
most of what he wrote was on different problems, and some of the best writing
in his life seems to have been done there. They had a period there of several
months of quiet study, and working together, and in writing things; some of
these were distributed and were used in the Christian world. But this presented
a danger for him. He knew how Ambrose had been made Bishop of Milan.
Ambrose
was the Roman Governor, and he was there in Milan keeping order when they were
having an election for a bishop; and they couldn't agree on anybody and a child
yelled out, "Let Ambrose be Bishop." And the people had taken it up,
and Ambrose had done everything he could to get away from them; but they
insisted and so he was made bishop. Well, Augustine didn't want anything like
that, so he was anxious not to go anywhere where he would be in danger of
anything like that happening to him. But he was constantly writing to people
who were considering devoting their lives to giving up worldly pursuits,
separating from anything of the kind, and devoting their lives entirely to
Christian contemplation. And he was writing to people constantly urging them to
do this sort of thing.
And
he got a letter from a man in the town of Hippo, which was one of the smaller
towns in North Africa—nothing like Carthage in size or importance—but there
wasn't much that was comparable to Carthage. Next to Carthage—much below
Carthage—it would be one, perhaps the next most important town, maybe there'd
be one or two comparable to it, but that at the very most. Well, this man was
in Hippo, and the man wrote to him and said, "I'd like to discuss these
matters further; could you make a trip to Hippo?" And Augustine felt that
he could not pass up the opportunity to show this man how he could make his
life devoted entirely to Christ; and if he could get him to give up all worldly
pursuits, it would be a real service to the Lord and worth the trip to Hippo.
So he went; and at Hippo they had a bishop anyway, so it wasn't a place where a
vacant church might call on him to be bishop, so he felt safe in going there.
So
he went to Hippo, and saw the man, and afterward he went to church. It was a
catholic church in the town which perhaps had 300 or 400 members—a town of about
40,000 people—and an old Greek bishop who talked Latin with a hideous accent;
but he was a very pious man and well-loved by the people. His name was
Valerius; and Augustine came there, and he went to the church; and one time
when he was in the church, Valerius preached a sermon, in the course of which
he told the people how he was getting old, and the labor of the work was very
heavy for him, and would they all pray that the Lord would send him an able man
to be his presbyter. He had no presbyter; he had a couple of deacons, but no
presbyter.
Some
books will say presbyter; some will say priest; the same word in the Greek,
whichever way you want to translate it. But would they pray for a presbyter or priest?
He would like someone to help him in the work. It would really be like an
assistant pastor. And he talked about this, and in those days the people were
very demonstrative in the church service. They would clap if there was
something very well done in the sermon, great clapping. And if there was
something they didn't like they'd yell out, "Look at the clock, it's about
time you were through." And there was a great deal of informality in the
church. And when Valerius talked this way, the people began to yell, "Why
don't you get Augustine? Get Augustine for presbyter, Augustine for
presbyter."
And
there he was in the church; and he tried to persuade them that it should not
be; but they said, "Here's the work; you're needed; it's the call of God;
you must take it." And Augustine didn't want to do this, but there was
nothing he could do, the people were demanding it, so he said to Valerius,
"Valerius, I really need to know a lot more about the Scriptures before I
can take on a responsibility like this." He said, "Let me go for four
months and just study the Scripture, and I'll promise to come back and be your
presbyter." So four months later Augustine was back; so that will give us
the next head.
C. Augustine as
Bishop.
Augustine was only presbyter at first, but he wasn't presbyter very long. He
was ordained presbyter, but Valerius proceeded to do very irregular things. In
the Western Church it was understood that all preaching was done by bishops;
the bishop did all the preaching, and the bishop did all the instructing of new
Christians; the Presbyter was sort of a handyman around the place. But Valerius
wanted a real assistant; and he put Augustine to preaching almost immediately.
And when people objected, Valerius said, "That's the way they do in the East."
Valerius
is very unimportant in the history of Augustine. He is the man whom Augustine
assisted for about two years. Really it was his own importance that brought
Augustine into the position. Valerius gave Augustine all sorts of important
things to do. Now one thing Augustine did when he came, he said, "Can I
put up a place here like I have in Thagaste, where I can live apart from
distractions of the world when I'm not actually involved in service?"
So
on the church grounds he put up a building, in which Augustine lived and others
lived with him; and in this building, they devoted themselves to study and to
prayer and contemplation; but then Augustine was helping the bishop in the work
that the bishop had to do. And he hadn't been there more than a year or two
before the Bishop said, "You should be made Bishop along with me."
Coadjutant bishops, as some would call it. That is, assistant bishop, or
associate bishop.
Now
there was a law at the time forbidding this, but Augustine didn't know about the
law. Probably the main reason that the bishop thought Augustine should be made
associate bishop with him was that otherwise, if Augustine went for a visit to
some other church when that church was vacant, they would call him to be bishop
there. And he wanted to keep him for Hippo. Any rate, they made him coadjutant
bishop. He persuaded the bishop of Carthage to come and agree to it; and they
got the bishop of another place near to come; and ordained Augustine bishop;
and then less than a year later, the other man died. So Augustine was made
bishop of Hippo. It's only a very brief period of transition.
But
Augustine is now bishop of Hippo in North Africa. And there as bishop of Hippo
he had a varied course of work to do; when we think of the work a bishop had to
do in those days, we wonder how he could do any writing at all. When we think
of the thousands of works he wrote, we wonder how he could do any work of a
bishop; but he certainly did, because we have a tremendous amount of evidence
of the work he did as bishop. For one thing, as bishop there, the bishop now
had the right in the empire to try cases. Somebody read from Corinthians,
"Why do you go to law before unbelievers, aren't there people among you
capable of trying the case? Why don't you settle it among yourselves rather
than go before unbelievers?" And so sometime before this, they had secured
the right from the emperors that, if the people in a case want to submit it to
the bishop, they could do so; and his decision was binding. So the result was
that often a large part of every morning went to solving cases; and many
people, thinking that the courts were subject to bribery and fraud and so on,
would come; even if they were pagans, they might come to the bishop and ask him
to settle the case.
So
he had a great many cases to handle this way; and that gave him, of course, a
lot of work; it took a good bit of his time. Then of course there were people
asking for counsel on all sorts of matters; and Augustine was always open to
that; he was ready to deal with almost anything people would bring, and that
took a tremendous lot of time.
Then
he had this building on the property there; he wanted to have open for anyone
who wanted to live the contemplative life, and he made no restrictions on
anybody coming in. Anybody could come that wanted to. The only thing was, he
had to give up all his property and have everything in common; and to abstain
from worldly practices. Well, he didn't try to enforce these things; he simply
laid them down as rules; and after some time, one of the men who was living
with them there, they found he had quite a bit of property which he left in a
will. And that made Augustine feel very much upset that his rules had not been
followed; they were supposed to divest themselves of all property, coming into
it.
So
he was too easy going in letting people come in there. Slaves would come and
ask to join them; and then he would try to get them freed by their master, who
wanted to give themselves to this sort of life. And many—some very earnest
people, but some very lazy people—simply found an excuse there. He said later,
"I've never known better people in the world than are to be found in
monasteries, nor worse ones." He had both types in his own monastery. He
was very trusting, and he made many mistakes; but yet from out of it came ten
men who became leading bishops in Africa; so it became a training school of
great value, not only intellectually, but also spiritually. And of course that
would take a fair amount of his time.
Oh,
his son, by the way, died just before he became bishop. Augustine mourned very
much, because the young man then showed rare promise; he was very spiritual and
also of much intellectual ability. But Augustine then was much concerned with
the various things in the lives of the people.
It
was the custom in North Africa that every year on the memorial of any saint,
the people would have a big memorial; and at this memorial, they'd come to the
church and bring great amounts of food and wine; they would partake of them,
and often they'd get drunk on them; and they'd have all kinds of celebration
and yelling and dancing and cheering and what-not; and Augustine felt that was
very unworthy of the churches and he set to work to put a stop to it.
And before he'd been there very long, he began a series of sermons against this sort of observance of the saints; they were having them all through the empire at the time; and he began a series of sermons and then when the morning came, and the people gathered for the service, he began preaching. In Milan Ambrose had strictly forbidden, completely forbidden this; he had a job doing it but it was easier up there than down here in Africa, where they were much more widespread, and the people gave way to their feelings.
Augustine
preached against it, and the people came; and he was persuading them it was
wrong; he spent the whole day preaching to them, trying to deal with spiritual
things; and then they began to hear the yelling from a block down the street,
where the Donatist Church was, where they were having a celebration of the
martyrs' death, and drinking a lot of wine, and so on; and Augustine told them,
"See how much more spiritual it is to observe it this way, with singing
songs, praying, studying the Scriptures." What the Donatists were doing,
his own people would have done the same way the year before. He managed to get
the thing pretty well cut down in North Africa, but it took a certain amount of
effort through many years to do it.
[student: Was it a church or a pagan celebration?] It was definitely in connection with the church. The way Augustine explained it to others, he said, "In the early days here, with the introduction of Christianity," he said, "in order to make it easier for the common people to make the transition from paganism to Christianity, the old festivals were, some of them, just taken over and saints' names given to them." And he said, "That may have been excusable in the early days. But we've had enough Christian teaching by this time to know that that should not be in the church." And whether that is the true explanation of it, or whether it is something the people had fallen into, after having been earnest Christians originally, and then as time went on, fallen into this, we don't have evidence. But that was the explanation Augustine gave; and upon the basis of that, he urged them to do away with it, and they did do away with it.
And
in different parts of North Africa, they used to have great faction fights, in
which two groups would have a big battle over some very minor matter. And it
used to get to throwing stones and hitting each other with clubs, and often
there would be fatalities; and Augustine began to preach against these, and he
had a very considerable influence in cutting these down. He took an interest in
all these matters of morals needing reform. His people sometimes criticized him
very strongly; they said, "He doesn't spend enough time calling on the
rich, and getting legacies for the church, and getting big gifts for the
church." They said he doesn't devote enough time. Well, he did devote some
time to it, but he felt other matters were more important, and he was
criticized rather strongly. We know from his defending himself in some of his
sermons; because we have many of his sermons which were taken down in
shorthand; and some were revised by him in later years, others simply copied as
they were.
It
would seem that a good bit of the support came from people of some standing
making substantial gifts to the church. [student: Were the churches
prosperous?] I suppose that varied. But of course Augustine lived very
abstemiously; he did not, like Jerome, carry it to the point of physical
torture to himself and that sort of thing, carrying abstemiousness to the point
of getting along on practically nothing, and so on; but he ate very plain food;
and in his group that lived with him, they were restricted, I believe, to one
glass of wine a meal. And in order to try to stop the African habit of
swearing, anyone who swore would lose his glass of wine for that particular
meal. But the expenses were quite small, and there evidently were quite a few
gifts given to them. Augustine himself had been a man of some means, but he
gave away most of it when he was ordained.
Augustine
as Bishop, here; I've been trying to show something of the active career he
had, the work in the church and the interest in other churches. He would get
letters from people all over asking questions, and he would answer them and he
corresponded with them.
When
he stopped this feasting there, he heard how in Carthage, at the feast of St.
Cyprian—the remembrance of Cyprian's death, 150 years before—people had
caroused all night; they were drinking much alcohol, and eating tremendous
amounts of food, and dancing and yelling, and all this; and he wrote the Bishop
of Carthage, and told him how he had stopped it at his place, and asked him if
he couldn't take vigorous steps to try to stop that sort of thing in Carthage
also. He was taking an interest in all the churches; but the thing that
Augustine is mostly remembered for is the few particular issues which occupied
him over long periods of years. And these I'm going to take up under certain
heads. First I'm going to mention what is not the first of these, but perhaps
well mentioned here.
D. Augustine's Confessions. These were written about the year 400. He wrote this book which is called Augustine's Confessions. And it is a book which is the best known today of Augustine's works; it has been reprinted in many, many editions, translated probably into all languages, most of them. It is a book in which Augustine, writing 13 years after his conversion, addresses God.
It
starts in with a direct address to God; it is written as if Augustine is
talking to God. And he talks to the Lord, confesses his sins to the Lord, the
sins of the early days. Well, the only thing that he confesses in his early
days that people today would think of as much of a sin—that is the general mass
of people of course—is this matter of his irregular wife for these 14 years.
The other things he mentions are mostly what people today would think of as
comparatively trivial errors. He mentions his being lazy when he was in school
until he got to the age of 10 or 12 when he got interested in intellectual
things. He mentions his stealing some pears off a tree when he was a little
boy. And he mentions different things like this—things which of course fall
short of the standard God has for us—but he certainly lived a life in most
regards far superior to that of the average young person.
But
looking at it in the light of one who felt that everything he did and thought
should be entirely devoted to the Lord, and the Lord should be first in
everything, he felt that these were matters which revealed his natural human
heart, as one which was far from the things of God; and therefore he should
confess to God; and should thank the Lord for having led him out of these; and
bringing him to an understanding of his absolute lost condition apart from
Christ; and of the fact that it is only the grace of God that could him save
him.
So
his confessions burned with feeling and emotion; and he pours out his heart to
God, thanking God for having delivered him from the errors and weaknesses and
sins of a human being who does not love God; and bringing him by His marvelous
grace into the knowledge of the Lord. And Augustine was so convinced of the
marvelous way the Lord had acted in causing things to come into his life; and
bringing things to his attention; and leading him to the knowledge of the Lord;
that he felt there was absolutely nothing in him in which to go on, but it was
all in the Lord's goodness to him, in working things out in such a way as to
bring him into a knowledge of Himself.
That sentence he has in his Confessions, which has been so often quoted since: "Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find themselves in Thee." It is, you might say, the motto of his, that all through this he was dissatisfied; he did not have what was vital; until the Lord by His marvelous grace, turned him from the kingdom of Satan to the Kingdom of God. And so that is the central theme of his confessions; but they are written in a very interesting style which makes comparatively simple things interesting and vivid, in the fine way in which he presents them. It's well worth anybody's reading, The Confessions of St. Augustine.
The name is not particularly well chosen for today. I've seen books, Great Confessions. They'll have confessions of Rousseau; the confessions of Augustine; and so on—different people—books published in order to arouse those who want to read something that's all colored; if you call it confessions, it will be that way. Well, maybe Rousseau is, and some of the others, but I'm sure those who buy for that purpose find themselves very disappointed in the confessions of Augustine. It certainly is not colored in that way.
But
his Confessions is one of his
best-known works, and one which has exerted a great influence on the world ever
since his time. But after this, I want to go on to
E. The Manichean
Controversy.
Augustine was in the small church in Hippo as pastor; that is, he was assistant
to the bishop for a time, then bishop himself. Bishop simply meant pastor,
actually, in those days. There were 600 bishops in Africa at this time. Many of
them might have 30 or 40 people in their congregation. Of course in Carthage
you'd have hundreds, perhaps thousands; but each town had one bishop, if there
was any Christian group there at all.
But
Augustine found that in the town there was quite an active Manichean church;
and his preaching soon became known, and he was writing against the
Manicheans—and he made references to them—and so the people of his church and
the Donatist church, which was larger, came to him—there may even have been two
or three Donatist churches in town; we don't know for sure, but we know there
was one important one just a block from his. They all came to him and said,
"Augustine, won't you do something about this Manichaeism?" And he
challenged these bishops of the Manichean church to a debate, and they put it
off as long as they could. They knew Augustine's ability as a debater. But this
is one of the great activities in which he spent a great deal of effort—the
refuting of Manichaeism—and he did it very effectively.
It
was one of several such endeavors, which are the things which have made
Augustine famous and caused him to be such a great influence through the ages.
Well, we'll have to look at that tomorrow morning.
(questions) We have a couple of interesting questions here which did not come in today but recently. Here's one: "Considering that one of the causes of the development of monasticism was the desire to escape the worldliness and persecution of the Roman Empire, can we say that the catacombs of Rome were perhaps the beginnings of monasticism?" That is a very thoughtful question. And one which I think it's good to say a word about, and particularly because you ought to know something about the catacombs, and it has not fit in with any of our important questions of church history, so I don't know if I've said anything about it.
The
catacombs are not really connected with any of the vital movements in church
history. They have not really entered into the development and progress of it,
and therefore they have not fit in, in any of our points in the outline. But it
is good to know something about them; they are very interesting from several
viewpoints.
They
were lost during the Middle Ages. It was completely forgotten there ever had
been catacombs in Rome. And then it was just about the time of the Reformation
that they were rediscovered. And when they discovered these catacombs and began
to tell about them, the Protestants—many of them—thought that it was just a
put-up job as an argument for Roman Catholicism against Protestantism; and of
course the fact was that it was only Roman Catholic scholars who had any access
to them; and out of the tremendous amount of material there, they naturally
noticed that which seemed to fit in with the claims of the Roman Catholic
church and they talked about that part.
And the Protestant scholars naturally felt it was just entirely a mistake; and there have been many fakes in scholarship in archeology and in history. There have been many fakes. But the catacombs are not a fake, and they have been opened up so that scholars of all views have examined them; and they are very interesting. There are over 500 miles of catacombs. Now that's a tremendous thing when you think of it. There are maybe 10 or 12 places in Rome where you can go down into the ground into a catacomb. And then when you get down there, you begin to go along through long passages going one direction and another and there are over 500 miles of these passages. It's tremendous. It's just hard to believe, hard to realize, what a tremendous amount of them there are.
And
naturally, it's a theory we have heard from somebody that they were either
connected with the beginning of monasticism, that they were people trying to
get away from the world; or that they were made for meeting places; or that
they were made for escape from persecution. It is not known if any of these
three has anything to do with the origin of the catacombs. They may have been
used to a slight extent for some of them. In time of persecution, people would
look for any place to hide perhaps. Catacombs would make an excellent place,
with all those long tunnels and twists and turns; naturally it would be very
difficult to catch a person if he got a head-start in them. Although it would
be quite simple to wait at the door till he starved and had to come out. So
that it wouldn't give him a very permanent safety, down there. There's no
source there of food; I question whether there would be many places in them
where there would be any source of water. But they were not built to escape
persecution.
Now
the theory has been advanced that the early Christians used them for meeting
places; but the fact is that they are mostly long fairly narrow tunnels with
little ditches on the side and little shelves here and there and where you find
a little square place that opens up it's usually big enough for about ten
people. There are hardly any places in them that would be big enough for a
decent-sized meeting. So that it is not felt that they were built at all for
meeting places.
We
do know that some of the Jews dug burial places underground before the
Christians; and the idea seems to have come from them. The Romans mostly
cremated. But the Christians and the Jews buried their dead, and followed the
Palestinian custom of burying. We think today of burying, of taking a person
and putting them down in the earth, but nobody ever buried anybody that way in
ancient times. In ancient times they lifted them up and put them on a shelf;
and that's the way with hundreds of tombs in Palestine, where you go in a
little room, and then you have this shelf, you lift the body up and put it up
there on the shelf, and you leave it there upon that shelf; and it's wound up
in grave clothes of course; and they have various perfumes and things put there
with it; but then you come in again with another, so you have a whole family
buried in them. They did not cover them over with dirt as we do today. And in
the catacombs in Rome there, cemeteries were not available; the Romans didn't
bury much, they burned the bodies; and the Christians and the Jews would just
have a little space to dig down a ways and then they would dig out in these
tunnels to make room in these places for burial, following the Palestinian
custom. And there must have been, in the course of 3 or 4 centuries, a great
many buried there; when you think of the 500 miles or more of catacombs down
there. But it is quite well agreed they were just for burial. There's no
evidence of any thought of monasticism having anything to do with the
catacombs.
Monasticism
began in the East—began in Egypt, in Syria, and that area. It came from there
to the West; and by that time, the catacombs were becoming abandoned; because once
the Christians were free from persecution, and were favored by the emperor, it
was quite easy to establish their own burial places and they did away with the
catacombs. When Jerome was studying in Rome, he mentions that they'd go to them
as a sightseeing place; the Christians would go down to the catacombs, and
there they would see on the wall pictures and the symbols of early Christian
worship; and they found it very devotional, very inspiring to go down there
then; but as time went on, they were completely forgotten; and for a thousand
years people forgot they had even existed, till they were rediscovered at about
the time of the Reformation. So much for that question.
Then, I have a question here, "What were some of the commentaries that Jerome wrote? When you discussed that in class I didn't understand what you said." Well, Jerome wrote a great number of commentaries. He commented on most of Paul's epistles, and on other portions of the N.T. and O.T. He was a careful scholar, who studied various evidences of the precise meaning of the Hebrew and the Greek; and he also was interested in what others had said about the subject. He had his own very definite views on everything, and was a very careful linguistic scholar; and his commentaries do not try always to take the different points and fit them together into a theological system. He was not at all philosophically minded, as Augustine was. But he was a careful, methodical investigator; and then, once he determined something was right, he might become very incensed with anybody who didn't recognize his great knowledge and authority on the point; and there are points at which the Roman Catholics can draw very definite support from the conclusions he drew; but there are still more—as to their chief ones—at which he differs from the interpretation they give.
Neither
Jerome nor Augustine said that the rock on which the church was built was
Peter. Neither of them said that. Jerome explicitly says in his commentaries
that presbyter and bishop, in the early church, were the same office. He
explicitly says that in his commentaries. But at any point at which he felt
that the general view of the catholic church—by which of course we don't mean
the Roman Catholic church, we mean the church of his day—held a specific view,
he would not oppose it. He was very careful to keep within the area of what he
considered catholic orthodoxy. But on what he considered minor points then—many
of which today would be considered major points—he wrote just whatever he
thought he found in the text; and his commentaries have been of very great
value. They're not so much value to us today, because so many other
commentaries have dug out most of the good insights that are in them, and
compared them with other things, and so his major insights have been passed on
to other commentaries.
And
here is an interesting question: "Did all the Christian writers after
Tertullian write in Latin?" How many would say they did? Would you raise
your hand? How many would say they didn't? Why not? A lot of them didn't know
Latin, of course. But the Christian writers in the West, after Tertullian,
largely wrote in Latin; that is true. Before Tertullian's time, most of the
Christian writers in the West wrote Greek. And in the East, about half of them
wrote Greek, or maybe a third; and the rest Syriac. Syriac, a dialect of
Aramaic, was the language of the early church in the East, and our earliest
books are largely in that language. But then as time went on, the Greek language
supplanted the Syriac and Aramaic in the East.
In the West, the church in Rome was a church largely of foreigners from the East; and so Greek was the language of that church for the first two and a half centuries, at least, maybe three; even though it was in a community where Latin was the primary language.
Tertullian was not in Italy but in North Africa; and down there the leaders all spoke Latin, the people in the villages spoke Punic. But the leaders and most of the town people spoke Latin, and Tertullian is the first great theological writer in Latin, in his writing. Since him, others followed suit, Cyprian wrote in Latin, of course, entirely; and writers in Rome began to write in Latin, and the Western writers after his time practically all wrote Latin; but in the East they naturally continued to write Greek; they didn't even know Latin.
A
man like Jerome, of course, knew both; but he wrote mostly in Latin, though he
was in the east a good part of the time. So much for these questions, now we
will continue with Augustine.
Augustine
is perhaps a greater influence on the church, through its history, than any
other man of the ancient church. And we began to look at E, the Manichean
Controversy. Augustine, we noticed, had not been in Hippo very long before he
began—or he continued—he'd already been writing against the Manicheans; he
continued to write against them and to speak against them; and then the
Donatist church joined with his church in begging him to get a debate with the
bishop of the Manichean church. The Manicheans had a church organization
paralleling that of the catholic church, even going beyond it, because they had
what they called their twelve apostles who were over the whole church. And of
course the Manichean church knew the twelve apostles were dead, but they had a
living continuation, like the Mormons do, of the apostles at the head, and then
they had their bishops over all their churches, and this very elaborate
organization system.
The Manichean bishop's church was considered pretty much the elite of the town. They were the Christians that really knew things; they were the better trained; the more educated; the sophisticated Christians. These were largely in the Manichean churches. They looked on the Donatists, but still more on the catholics, there as just simply country folk who didn't know much; and their simple Christian teaching they had was good enough for them. The Manicheans, in their own view, had the advanced understanding.
Well
now the catholic church had as its presbyter—or priest if you want to call him,
it's the same word at that time—had a man who was as highly trained as anybody
in the town; who had been teacher of rhetoric in Milan; and the Donatists and
the catholics felt here is a wonderful opportunity to show the error of the
Manichean view. So they called the Manichean bishop to have a debate with
Augustine; and the Manichean bishop tried to put it off, he was a bit afraid of
Augustine's reputation. But he finally agreed to it, they had a debate and
Augustine worsted him at all points.
There
were three reasons for this: First, of course, the truth was with Augustine on
the points under consideration. But second, Augustine had a much greater
knowledge of philosophy and Scripture, and of the points involved, than the
Manichean bishop had. And thirdly, Augustine was a far better debater. He was a
trained rhetorician, an able dialectician, and excellent in his ability to
present things; and compared to his presenting of simple messages to the simple
folks of the church, it doubtless was a real challenge to appear before these
more sophisticated people and to meet this man who claimed to have the advanced
truth on these deeper matters of Christian faith.
And
at the end of the debate, the Manichean bishop said that there were many points
to which he did not have the answer, but the leaders of the Manicheans did; and
he was going off and get the answers. So he left the town, and went off to get
more information, and never came back. And everybody felt that the Manicheans
had been quite conclusively worsted in the discussion by Augustine. It was the
end of Manichaeism as an important force in Hippo.
And
Augustine went on to some extent with his writing against the Manicheans, and
tremendously cut down their influence in North Africa. It continued as
something of a force in the Roman Empire and even in the Middle Ages, by
remnants of the Manicheans. There was a belief in it which had a great appeal
to the natural man in many ways; and it continued till quite late in the Middle
Ages to be a force of some importance. But it was tremendously cut down and
just about done away with as far as North Africa was concerned.
By
the way, this word Africa is a word which originally meant the Northwestern
part of Africa. The Romans had what they called the province of Africa; and
they talked of carrying the war to Africa after the Carthaginians had tried to
destroy Rome and Hannibal's army had been up there in northern Italy for
several years, till the Romans finally defeated it. The Romans, when they spoke
of carrying the war to Africa, they meant right to the headquarters from which
the terrible danger to them had come. Well, after they utterly destroyed
Carthage, they made it a Roman province called Africa.
So
the extension of the name of Africa to the entire continent occurred later; but
it originally just means that part, that is Africa. Egypt is not in Africa,
except when you extend the name to the whole continent; then that would include
everything. But Egypt is much further south than what we call North Africa,
although it's right on the Mediterranean. And Egypt was a highly different
province: highly different background; different kind of people; different
history; entirely separate from what the Romans called the province of Africa.
So much then for E, the Manichean controversy. Now,
F. The
Donatists.
When Augustine came to Hippo, he found several nominally Christian churches in
the town. One of them, of course, was the Manichean church, which some would
say was Christian, others would say it wasn't. There might be dispute whether
it is a Christian sect or whether it is another religion. At least there would
be those who claim it was another Christian sect. Then there was the catholic
church, the one to which he went; it was quite a small church of humble people
with a bishop who was a Greek, and didn't speak Latin very decently. It was a
small church without any great influence in the community. Then there was at
least one large church of the Donatist group, and perhaps two or three. We
don't know for sure. But at least one, a block away from the Catholic Church.
Now
the Donatists, as we noticed, were a group which had started nearly a century
before this time. It was after the great persecution of Diocletian early in the
4th century that the Donatists had separated from the catholics. Now they
wouldn't call themselves Donatists; they claim they are the true Christians;
and the separation came over a number of matters of difference between them.
The principal differences between them were personal. There were individuals
after the persecution who felt a great dislike of certain other individuals,
and if you're going to unravel all the personal matters that entered into the
separation between the Donatists and the catholics, you would need to be there
and talk to all the people and get the evidence. These things were discussed by
many, many writers during the succeeding centuries; and the tales are very hard
to gather, but we have a great deal of material on them. But the principal
charge which was made was that the Donatists claimed that the leaders of the
catholic church were men who had compromised with the persecutors.
Now
of course, it was pretty well established that the man who was bishop of the
church in Carthage, the main church in North Africa, during the Diocletian
persecution, gave up some other books which were not the Scriptures. They said,
"We've come to take the Scriptures; they're to be burned," and he
said, "Here take these," and what they took were some apocryphal
books; they were not the Scriptures at all. And some said that he had a deal
with the officers who came; and of course what they mean by a deal would be
hard to prove. Did he bribe them? Or were they men who didn't like this whole
business of persecution anyway; and they came to him saying, "Here give us
the Scripture, we're going to destroy them." He said, "I can't do
that; those are our sacred books, we couldn't give them up."
Well,
they said, "You'd better be careful. They'll be killing you if you take a
stand like that." Well, he said, "I don't care if they kill me; I
can't give up the sacred books to be burned." Well, they said, "See
here, now; we like you, and we have great respect for you. We don't want to see
you killed this way." But, they said, "We don't have anything to do
with it, but these are the orders we've been given; and we've got to go and
turn some books in; give us some kind of books that we can take them, and this
fellow, this head of the police down there, he won't know the difference, so
we'll give him those." I mean, it may have been that sort of thing; it may
have come from the desire of the police who came not to carry it out. You'll
often find that sort of thing done, in modern times. That's one possibility.
On
the other hand, Mensurius may have bribed these people; and on the other hand
they may have just not known the difference; and he may have passed them off on
them, thinking, "Well they'll see tomorrow they're wrong; they'll come
back and demand the right ones, and by that time I can get them hid in a better
place than they are now."
And
maybe they didn't notice. We just don't know. But at any rate Mensurius here
faced one of the great problems of the Diocletian persecution: What are you
going to do about these sacred books? They hadn't had many previous
persecutions. Decius, in his persecution about 250, tried to destroy the
bishops and the heads of the church, people who were the leaders. That was the
important idea of persecution in his mind, as a way to get rid of the church;
but it was in Diocletian's time that this matter had been introduced to get rid
of the sacred books. And of course it was a very clever idea. Christianity is
based on the Bible; if you can destroy the Bible, you can make great headway in
destroying Christianity.
So
among the Christians at that time, this word traditor had come to be a terrible word; to call a man, "He's
a traditor," that is, he's a man who turned over the sacred books. Well,
now, the proof on a thing like this is very difficult to get to; because in the
days of persecution the people are fleeing; people are hiding; others are being
dragged out and being killed or sent into exile; nobody is there taking down
shorthand notes of exactly what they say and exactly what happened; and many of
the people who are on the scene are killed or tortured or thrown into exile in
distant places, perhaps never to get back, and to prove anything is difficult.
But
after it was over, the attitude of the catholics—those who later came to be
spoken of as the catholics—was this: a man has passed through this terrible
struggle, and he comes out and gives evidence of wishing really to serve the
Lord. If He has made past mistakes, he perhaps should not be put in a position
of importance in the church; but if he has truly brought his mistakes and
weaknesses under the blood of Christ, we should not simply hold it against him
in our Christian fellowship.
Whereas
the attitude of the group that became the Donatists was: if a man has
surrendered the sacred books; has done anything to save his life, which
involved compromising his faith; that is a man whom we must judge very, very
strictly and very severely; and I heard of a church in the orient, recently, which
went through a considerable persecution within the last 20 years; and after it
was all over, there was a group in that church that felt that any church which
had been profaned with idolatry must be burned. And this group went around
trying to burn down the churches that had been profaned by idolatry during the
time of persecution. And it made naturally quite a disagreement, quite a stir,
in that group. In fact, I knew of a missionary—I heard him speak once, seemed
to be a very, very fine missionary when I heard him speak. Later on, I heard
that he had joined that group in that country and broken his relationship with
the Mission Board that had sent him out.
Well,
here they came together to select their new bishop after Mensurius' death at
Carthage; and Mensurius' archdeacon Caecelian was the one that the bulk of the
people seemed to favor, and that the bulk of the leaders of the church in
Carthage seemed to favor; and as Caecelian was one who had been very much
disturbed at the fact that some criminals, arrested for trial, tried to make
out they were arrested for Christian claims; and tried to cover up their crime
with the claim they were martyrs; and others had been giving them veneration as
martyrs when they really had been criminals; and he had been trying to get the
people not to go to the extreme, and practically worship anybody who was in
prison because of the persecution; so they made up stories about how Caecelian,
they said, stood outside the prison walls, with a big whip in his hand; and
when some of the Christians would come with food for the people in prison, he
would take this whip and drive them away; and thus some of the martyrs had
starved in prison, because the other Christians couldn't bring them food
because Caecelian drove them away.
Well, of course, that sounds very unlikely; particularly since he was the archdeacon of the church, it would seem that he would probably have been arrested when they were trying to get all the leaders if he did anything as conspicuous as that. We don't know the facts, but we do know that there was very sharp feeling after the persecution, and the groups separated; they said that Caecelian was ordained as bishop by Felix of Aptunga, and that Felix was a traditor. Well, now you see, they're carrying the point one step further. They're not saying now that if a man's been a traditor, he is forever ruled out from leadership in the church; they're saying if a man is a traditor and he consecrates somebody, that man has not been consecrated; and you see what that introduces into the church.
Suppose
a man has been baptized and then you find the man who has baptized him really
was a hypocrite; does that mean he has not really been baptized at all? Suppose
a man has been ordained a pastor; he's been the pastor of a church for 20
years; and then they find that the man that ordained him was a hypocrite; does
that mean he hasn't been ordained at all? Well, the view of the Christian
Church through the ages has been that if people used Scriptural words in
baptizing or in ordaining people, setting them apart for the Lord's service,
and if the person himself sincerely desires thus to be baptized or to be
ordained, that something about the character of the person who did it, will not
later be a valid reason for upsetting it. But the Donatists were very, very
strict on this point. And they maintained that anybody who has been ordained by
a traditor was not ordained at all.
Then
the Donatists, after they began to establish a separate group, they took the
position that if somebody from the catholic church comes to them, they must be
re-baptized; and so when anybody would leave the catholic church and come to
the Donatists, they would re-baptize them, though doctrinally the two held
exactly the same views; their ceremonies in the church were identical; their
doctrine was identical; there was no difference between them, except on these
points, and on their claims historically about the beginning of the church.
Well,
the Donatists—you remember—appealed to the emperor; they made a personal appeal
to the emperor. They said this man Felix, this traditor, ordained the bishop;
he's not properly ordained, they said; the emperor should step in and give them
the control of the church; they claimed they were the true Christians. Well,
the emperor sent a commission. The emperor said, "Here's the Bishop of
Rome," he said, "and the Italian bishops they've had much experience
in church affairs, let them examine the facts." There's no evidence that
anybody felt that the bishop of Rome had, per
se, the authority, but he was simply a leader of the church in the biggest
city, and the general area; let him make the investigation, with a commission;
so they did. He said, "The Donatists were wrong." The emperor then
sent a commission of investigators over to Africa; they said, "Felix was
not a traditor. The Donatist claim was wrong; that the Donatists should give up
their claim; let these ones who were the bishops, who had been established as
bishops, continue and go along with them."
Well,
the Donatists then said, "What has the church to do with the emperor? What
right has the emperor to dictate to us church affairs?" Which is a very
reasonable position to take, but it seems that this is a rather unreasonable
thing to do after you, yourself, are the ones who've appealed to the emperor!
Well,
of course in these things, we are at this disadvantage: that we have
practically no information that comes to us from the Donatists. We cannot
investigate any of them; we can't visit them; we cannot question; and the books
that have been preserved have been preserved through the catholics, so that we
know that most of these were writing against them. But most writers—regardless
of the viewpoint of the writer—most writers are firmly convinced that in the
point under the discussion, the Donatists were wrong. But, of course, as I say,
our information is very scanty and it mostly comes from their enemies.
By
Augustine's time, the Donatists had grown greatly. There were probably more
Donatists in Africa than there were catholics. And they had churches all over
Africa; some places they had two or three churches to the catholics' one;
probably there were other cities in which the catholics were much stronger. But
in Africa probably the largest church was the Donatist. The two churches
claimed to hold tie same doctrine, carried out the same ceremonies. The only
difference between them was the claim of the Donatists that the catholics were
wicked because they had been ordained by traditors; and the claims of the
catholics that they were the ones who had the relation with other churches
across the sea and that it was schismatic to break from them.
That
was the situation, but the feeling was intense. When Augustine came to Hippo,
he found the poor people in the town there were at a great disadvantage in his
church, because they all had to bake their own bread and cakes. The baker in
Hippo was a Donatist. He would not sell to catholics; he would not allow them
to buy bread or cakes in his store. And so they could not buy bread or cakes;
they had to make their own; and that was not as much a disadvantage then as it
would be today, when most all of such things are bought; but since the great
bulk of people were buying, they felt it a tremendous disadvantage to them.
Some of them weren't particularly good at baking anyway. And there was
persecution; there was feeling like this between the different groups.
Occasionally, they say, the Donatists would catch one of the catholic
presbyters or bishops and beat him up; sometimes they'd squirt lemon juice in
his eyes and he'd be blind for a couple of days.
And
they'd claim, at different periods, that there were Donatist groups, whom they
called the Circumcelliones, who traveled around in groups, and they followed
the Scripture very literally. Jesus said to Peter, "put up thy
sword," so they never used swords; but they carried big clubs, and
sometimes they beat people to death with the big clubs. Now of course that's
the story we hear from the catholic writers, and we have nothing from any other
writers. But it is repeated in all the books on the subject; and evidence would
seem to be pretty strong that there's at least a considerable measure of truth
in it. Of course, the fact is that the Africans are rather hot-blooded people
anyway—the North Africans—and there was a good deal of violence there anyway;
and if you got two religious groups feeling as these two did toward each other,
there were outbreaks of violence every now and then.
Well,
Augustine, very soon after his debate with the Manichean bishop, sent a word
over to the Donatist bishop and said, "I would like to have a debate with
you, about the matters at issue between the Donatists and the Catholics."
And I don't know whether he used the names; maybe he just said between your
church and ours. You know, Donatus was not the founder of the movement; he was
the second bishop but a very able man. Whether they simply used his name for
them, or not, I don't know. Martin Luther would have been horrified at
anybody's using his name for the church, it was simply the Christian church;
but of course after his death they came to use his name. And maybe it was so
with the Donatists, I don't know.
But at any rate, Augustine sent to him and the bishop said, "No, I'm too busy with pastoral work, I have no time for debating people; that just stirs people up unnecessarily." Augustine kept after him, and when he would not debate with him, Augustine wrote a little poem, in doggerel. It took the points at issue between them, starting the first line with a, the next with b, and the next with c, so it would be easy to remember; it went from a up to e, naming all the points of difference, and showing how the Donatists were wrong; and he taught it to all the children in his group, till they could repeat it on all the street corners and everywhere through the town; and thus he spread through the town his attack on their views. He wrote books and articles on it; and for the next 15 years—over 15 years—a substantial part of Augustine's activity was devoted to trying to prove the Donatists were wrong, and that there should not be two Christian churches in North Africa but one.
Every year they had a big synod meeting in Carthage; of course Augustine was
not the leader of the synod; that would be the bishop of Carthage, head of the
church in the main city of North Africa; but Augustine was always present and
very, very active; and he came soon to be concerned about the Donatist
influence there; and he was constantly pushing this matter, that the Donatists
should either be proven right, and we should go over to them; or they should be
proven wrong, and they should come over to us. But he said, "It is a
scandal before the world to have two churches in North Africa, holding the same
doctrine, claiming the same Lord, but having such a relation of hostility, one
toward the other." And so for 15 years Augustine gave a great amount of
effort to this struggle against the Donatists; and under his leading, the synod
made offers to the Donatists; they said, "Unite with us, and in every town
we will recognize your bishop and you will recognize ours and they will be two
bishops working together in the town, in one church." And then they said,
"Whichever one survives, the one who lives longest will be the bishop of
that town until his death, and then whoever is chosen then could succeed
him."
They
made fairly reasonable offers this way too, to unite with them and form one
church. The Donatists refused very strongly to do this, insisted on their
separation from them. Augustine said that they began kidnapping or attacking
various bishops, catholic bishops, beating them up. One of Augustine's good
friends, who was bishop of another town, was pursued by a group of
Circumcelliones; he came into a deserted house and got down in the cellar, they
set fire to the house, and the burning got so bad that he couldn't stand it, he
rushed out of the house and then they grabbed him and beat him up pretty badly.
They
had this sort of violence; and finally Augustine said, "This matter should
be settled peacefully; there should be no force brought." He was always
trying to win people by peaceful arguments. But he said, "The thing has
reached the point where these people are utterly unreasonable, and there's no
sense of having two churches like this. If they're servants of Christ, there
should be one church." And he said, "Instead of discussing it
reasonably they're attacking us and having all these upheavals and riots. There
should be order in the empire, and the government should force them to quit
this sort of thing and to unite together in one church."
And
so the appeal was made to the emperor; and in 411 the emperor had his
representative for the governor of North Africa call a meeting at which the
Donatists and the Catholics were to appear and discuss the points at issue
before him; and he would decide which of them was right. So they met for four
days. At the first meeting the Donatists had 279 bishops present and the
catholics had 260; so when they first came together the Donatists had more; but
then 20 more catholic bishops came, so they had six more than the others; and
there was much discussion over which had the majority. Actually the majority
didn't make any difference in it, because the governor was going to make the decision
in any event.
And
the governor was a close friend of Augustine, so the Donatists weren't at all
sure they would get a fair deal in it anyway. So in 411 they held this great
meeting in Carthage; and at this meeting they argued all the matters, going
back to the beginning of the split between them, and whether this man had been
a traditor or not; all the details of their present attitude; and the offer
that was made to them, "You unite with us, we'll have two bishops in each
place, you're welcome to have cooperating bishops and then whenever one of them
dies, the other continues," and that was the offer made. But the Donatists
said, "No we can't unite with people who were ordained by traditors,"
and the argument went on for several days; and then Martilenus, the Roman
Governor, said he would make his decision the next day; and the next day he
announced his decision that the Donatists were wrong; that they must unite with
the catholics; that if they would give in their agreement, there could be the
cooperating bishops according to the offer given; and if they did not, they
were to give up their churches' they were not to be allowed to have their
property; they were not to be allowed to hold meetings; that the catholic
church was to be the one continued church; and so Martilenus gave his decision.
Many
of the Donatists accepted; many others refused to accept. A very sad story,
about ten years later: how Augustine came to a certain town where he was to
preach in the church—a big church—and as he was going down the street he saw a
former Donatist bishop, who now for nearly ten years had not been bishop
anymore; they'd taken the building away from him; Augustine greeted him in
friendly fashion, asked him to accompany him to the church; they got into the
church there, and then Augustine asked him to stand up and discuss the matter;
he said, "Will you join with us?" the man said, "No, no he
wouldn't." Well, he said, "Let's discuss the points at issue."
The man refused to say anything. He sat there in the church and people said,
some asked this Donatist bishop if he had agreed to come in and join them; and
no, no he hadn't; and they asked him if he would discuss the matter and he
wouldn't say a thing; and he just kept quiet and just stayed there; and he
evidently had just given up and was discouraged in his heart; but he still felt
he was right.
This
was the sad situation of this particular Donatist in that town. But the
Donatist controversy ended after 15 years of effort and struggle on Augustine's
part; he went into all the details of it, at great length; and he wrote
numerous books entering into all the details of the history, from the time at
which there was a difference, and so on; it ended with the complete defeat of
the Donatists in North Africa. So that the catholic church, which had been
maybe a third or a little more of the Christians when Augustine went there, was
now maybe four-fifths; and there were still groups of Donatists who may have
been meeting secretly; there were still groups of them off in the hills,
keeping away from the officers of the law; and a century and a half later,
there was another revival of Donatism for a brief period.
Well,
as you can see, this activity of Augustine had tremendous effect upon the
development of the church. Augustine was always for peaceful discussion;
determine what is right and stand on it; but when the thing got so heated in
the end, Augustine agreed to the calling in of the secular authorities and
using the power of the empire. After that, Augustine was always for being very
mild on these matters; he was against those who were going to use really harsh
measures against the Donatists; but nevertheless what he had done gave an
impetus to the development of the idea of the forceful control of the church of
the Middle Ages.
And
of course Augustine's struggle against having two churches—both Christian
churches, both holding the same views but separate from each other—gave the
stimulus to the idea of one church; and Augustine never—the idea probably never
entered his head that the bishop of Rome was in any sense the head of the
church; but when in the Middle Ages, that idea came to be advanced and
stressed, what Augustine had done toward having one church and its being so
wrong to have a schism like this—having two churches holding the same
views—contributed toward the support of the idea and thus advanced the
development of the Roman Catholic system.
We
were discussing the life of St. Augustine and we dealt with F, The Donatist
Controversy. We noted that in this controversy there was no matter of doctrine
involved; there was very little of church order involved. The only question of
difference, that might be on the edge of a doctrinal matter between the two
groups, was as to the fact that that people who left the catholic church and
went to the Donatist church were re-baptized by the Donatists, which the
catholics considered to be a denial of the value of the original baptism; and
they were very much offended at this matter of re-baptizing these people. But
that was part of the main issue: that here were two churches holding the same
doctrine, presenting the same ideas about Christ. There was no doctrinal
difference on any vital point between them; there was not even a minor point of
doctrine on which they differed; but that there were two groups over all of
North Africa and that these two groups were bitterly opposed to one another.
Now
I feel personally that Augustine was entirely right, that it is a terrible
affront to the honor of Christ that two truly Christian groups should have
bitter hostility toward one another. But I do not think, as he did, that it is
necessary that two groups be organically related; I do not see why two groups
cannot serve the Lord as separate groups; I mean groups which do not have
doctrinal denial of any point of the Scripture; why they cannot be separate in
organization and yet have Christian fellowship with one another and work
together harmoniously to serve the Lord, even though not necessarily being
united in organization.
Now
of course they did not have a tight organization in the church anywhere at that
time; but in these towns, they had the one church, and their understanding was
that there should be one church in a town; one bishop in a town; and that idea
was held throughout the catholic church; and Augustine was in line with that
idea; only he didn't sit back and say, "Isn't it a shame we have such a
division in the African church?" He did something about it, and he devoted
a great part of his time for 15 years to bringing an end to this condition; and
he succeeded this objective; he brought an end to this condition; but there
were a few Donatists, who were secretly continuing, or who were perhaps off in
the hills somewhere; but the mass of the people were attending the same
churches under the same bishops, and many of the former Donatists were
attending the same churches under the same bishops throughout North Africa, by
414 at the latest.
So
his objective in this regard was accomplished. It is an instance of an
individual having an ideal which is tremendously important; working very hard
to accomplish it; and accomplishing what he set out to do. It would be enough
alone, to make a man a figure of great importance in church history, to have
had as much accomplishment as that. There are comparatively few men in church
history who have it, but this is only one phase of the many-sided
accomplishments of St. Augustine. And so we go on to another phase of his
activity which we will call
G. The City of God. Now that may be
thought to be a title like the modern title of a book, which tells you nothing
about what is in it; because the name "The City of God," if a person
knows nothing about it, will not tell you what we're now going to discuss at
all.
But it is a good title to give for this section because it is the name of what many people call Augustine's most famous work. Others might think that it was not his most famous work, but all are agreed that his two most famous writings are his Confessions and The City of God. Out of the thousands of works which he wrote, these are the two which are best known, and which have had the greatest influence on the world; and it's possible that this one had a greater influence than his Confessions; that is hard to say.
The
Confessions have been reprinted more
frequently and translated into more languages; but this has been very widely
translated, very widely read and has had a very great influence through the
history of the Christian church. And so, under G, The City of God, I'm going to
make
1. The Political Situation. Now we have not yet taken up the 5th century and it would seem logical under the 5th century to discuss the political development; but the trouble is, if you discuss all the political developments of this period of very great change, we would spend a month going into it, and we cannot do that; I'm going to have to try to get an idea to you of the main ones, but at the same time doing my best to keep back from mention any of the thousands of very interesting details which will simply arouse all kinds of further questions in your mind, simply for lack of time. It is important that we have the main thrust of the political situation.
Now
as I say, these must naturally come under our next main Roman numeral head,
when we take up the next century. But at this point they are very vital,
because they are important in the background of this particular book of
Augustine; and therefore I think it would be wise to take them up to some
extent at this point, to have you get an idea of the main situation which
produced this tremendously influential work of Augustine. So under the
political situation, I'm going to make
a. The Barbarian
Invasion.
Here I want to add a few important things to what we have already said; but
first I want to be sure that you have a clear idea of what we've already
touched upon several times.
The
Roman Empire did not stand for centuries absolutely Roman in its content—in its
racial and linguistic content—and all of a sudden have a tremendous attack of
outsiders that overwhelmed them. That was not the situation at all. The Roman
Empire was facing the people from outside of it all through its history.
As
early as 390 BC there was a group of Gauls—these were a people speaking a
Celtic tongue—coming from the area that we now call France, who had made their
way across the Alps, down into Italy and had conquered and pillaged the little
town of Rome, killing most of the leaders of Rome in 390 BC. Well of course
that was a time before Rome was very great or very strong. But that left a
great impression on people's minds, because it was the last time such a thing
happened to Rome for 800 years. It was 800 years later before any foreign enemy
managed to enter into Rome; and if you're quick in mathematics you've
immediately said to yourself, "Well, that brings us right into Augustine's
life somewhere."
But
this shows us the power of outsiders—outside the empire—that as early as 390 BC
a group of soldiers would make their way all the way down to Italy, to Rome,
and actually would take the city and plunder it. According to stories they
tell, when the Gauls came in there, into Rome, the Senate, the Roman Senators,
the elderly statesmen who decided the affairs of Rome, sat in great dignity in
the Senate house; all the defenses were destroyed, they sat there in great
dignity and said nothing. And the barbarians came in and were appalled to see
the great dignity of these men sitting there and saying nothing and making no
move; and they almost hesitated about doing anything; and finally when they
began to feel around and wonder if they really were living or not, one of them
stuck the edge of his sword into a man's side, and the man yelled. And when he
did that, they decided they were really living, and then they set on them with
their swords and spears and killed them, and proceeded with their pillage. But
the Senators, unable to defend themselves then, those of them who had died with
great dignity, showed their feeling about the greatness of the continuance of
Rome against something like this barbarian invasion.
Well,
Rome was always expanding after that, and always had outsiders on the frontier.
In the time of Julius Caesar—before the time of Christ—two Germanic tribes, the
Cimbri and the Teutones, made their way down across Europe, across the Alps,
and got to northern Italy; and there these great groups of Germanic people,
trying to conquer Italy were met by the Roman legions and were destroyed. And
it was a great battle there in which they were completely annihilated; but it
was already inside of Italy, which shows the force of these external groups,
which were growing and expanding and pressing on the edge of the Empire.
One
reason why the Roman Empire continued so long was the wisdom of its statesmen,
at a very early time, in treating outside groups not as enemies per se, but as gradually bringing in
forces into the Empire; allowing them to come in; become Romans, eventually
Roman citizens; and giving them Roman privileges within the Empire; and having
them gradually take over the features of Roman civilization. So even by the
time of Christ, a great many of the soldiers in the Roman army may have been
actually German people of Teutonic extraction; with a Germanic background, who
had been brought into the Empire gradually; and one reason the Roman Empire
lasted so long, was that when the Romans conquered areas, they usually extended
Roman citizenship to them over time, so that they became part of their actual
empire; this instead of, as in the case of the British Empire, always treating
them as outsiders and inferiors to themselves; in a way that no matter how much
good the British have done—and they've done a great deal nearly everywhere
they've gone—they left most of the people feeling that the British looked down
on them; and there's been an emotional feeling which has rebounded very often
in a strong reaction against the British, and a complete forgetting of the many
good things the British have done for the people most everywhere they've gone.
Well,
the Romans treated people in such a way that they allowed them to become
Romans; and this process conceivably might have gone on for another thousand
years; but the Roman Empire within itself became weakened by bad economic
measures, and by the whole moral situation; and it got to the point where they
were unable to keep on the slow bringing in, and the groups came in too
rapidly. Then the whole borders were wrecked; and great crowds of unassimilated
outsiders came in, and spread all over the Empire; and the ancient world ended
and the Dark Ages began. Not that there was anything wrong with these people
who came, but that so many came at once to be assimilated.
Well,
this thing which was pressing against them all through their history—you
remember Decius in 250, the great persecutor of the Christian Church then, was
killed in a battle with the Goths—one of the Germanic groups that was forcing
its way into the Empire. He was killed in attacking them, but the Romans held
them back; it was 130 years later, practically, when Valens was killed in a
battle with the Goths, in the battle of Adrianople, 378. Well, these groups
outside were probably pressed on by other groups behind them; stronger and more
ferocious groups, pressing upon them; taking away from them their land, and in
turn pushing them toward the Roman Empire. At any rate, just about 400, right
in that area, the pressure became so great that the Western forces of the Roman
Empire proved unable to resist them. And early in the fifth century, they began
to flood over the Empire. Of the Barbarian groups that came in, the first ones
that came were already nominally Christians.
And
when I say nominally Christian I don't mean that they simply for political reasons
had taken the name of Christians; I don't mean that at all. Doubtless many of
them were sincere and earnest Christians. The first two groups that become
prominent in the barbarian invasion of the Roman Empire are a group named the
Goths and a group named the Vandals, and both of these names, we should
remember.
The
Goths, they are the group that killed Decius in 250 AD. And they are the group
that overcame Valens in 378. But they are a group to which a missionary Ulfilas
had gone, as we mentioned, early in the 4th century. Ulfilas, in the reign of
Constantine, had gone out into the Germanic forest, to the Gothic people, and
had learned their language; he had made an alphabet for the writing of the
Gothic words—invented an alphabet to suit their language—and he translated all
the Bible into their language, except for the books of Kings. He said they were
already so warlike he thought they were better off without the account of the
wars of Kings; so he omitted that, but he translated all the rest of the Bible
into their language. And he converted the nation to Christianity, so that the
Goths considered themselves a Christian nation.
And
there was—as we've already noticed, when we spoke about Ulfilas—there was one unfortunate
thing about him; that was that he was an Arian. Now you know that Arianism
itself, and the leading Arians, were men to whom the primary objective in life
was to prove that Jesus was not eternal, but that he had been created even
though he had then created the world. He had become God, but was not originally
God. He is less than God, according to the Arian view. And the Arian leaders
had as their great purpose in life to convince people of this heretical view.
But
among the Arians, there were people like Ulfilas who took the Arian view and
accepted it and believed it; and when they taught that aspect, that is what
they taught; but whose primary emotional interest was not in the Arian area,
but was in most features in which Arianism and Trinitarian Christianity agree.
Ulfilas was interested in bringing the Bible to these people; he was interested
in leading them to know Christ as Savior. He was interested in showing them how
they could become saved, and how they could become true followers of Christ;
that was his central interest. And it is too bad that he did not have a sound
theological training, in order that he would not have given them erroneous
ideas on these vital theological points; but yet we must say he accomplished a
tremendous lot of good. The history of the world is far different than it would
have been if Ulfilas had not done what he did. He accomplished a tremendous lot
of good, but there were unfortunate by-products of his work which we will look
at later—very unfortunate by-products—which I'm sure poor Ulfilas never
foresaw. So Ulfilas is a great Christian worker, a great Christian missionary;
he deserves great praise.
And
it was a wonderful thing for the Roman Empire that the Goths were already
Christians when they came in, a tremendously wonderful thing. Now among the
Goths, there were doubtless many to whom Christianity was just a veneer; there
were cruel people, there were brutal people, there were people with all kinds
of wickedness; but you'll find them in every group and place. But there were
also, among them, many true Christians; no question of it, and we will see
wonderful evidences of it as we go on. So the Goths, then, had already been
Christianized before they came in the Empire.
There's
another group we want to speak of which is called the Vandals. The Vandals were
another Germanic group which came into the Empire and settled in the northern
part of the Empire; they settled in central Romania, or a little bit west of
Romania; and the Vandals—I'm not sure whether they were converted before they
came into the Empire or afterwards—but they, at any rate, were brought to the
same belief that the Goths had, the Arian viewpoint. And the Vandals were
perhaps not as wholly penetrated by the teaching of Christianity as the Goths were;
or it may be that later on in their history, those who gained the supremacy
were less affected by Christianity; which of these is the case would be very
difficult to prove, because we cannot interview the people and ask a lot of
these questions that nobody thought to ask at the time and write down the
answers. But these two groups are extremely important, in the Christian history
of this period.
[student:
Were their own homes also invaded?] I didn't mention why they came down; I
mean, I'm not giving any events before this time, but I mentioned there was
pressure from other groups which was moving these Goths; and that's a good
thing to have in mind. And later we'll speak of these other groups behind them.
It's a good point, and if I hadn't given it, I appreciate your calling it to my
attention. I hope you've all got it now. But the Goths and the Vandals are the
two groups I want you to have in mind now.
Now
the Goths assume an importance not directly to Augustine, but indirectly. About
400, these people began moving into the Empire; they began before 400, but the
movements become intensified. Theodosius had met them, had stopped them. He was
an able general, a powerful leader, and he had stopped them; he held them back,
and then allowed them to come in gradually. If Theodosius had continued—had
lived another 30 years—and if he had been succeeded by people of equal ability,
the barbarian conquest might have been postponed 50 years; but Theodosius, when
he died in 395, was succeeded by the young boy Arcadius who was, if I recall
correctly, about 16 years of age. He became the Emperor of the Eastern Empire,
where the barbarians were not in that area. The Western Empire came into the
hands of his younger brother, Honorius, who was only 8 years old; and what
could a boy of 8 do to hold back the invasion of the Barbarians?
Well,
during the first years of the reign of Honorius, naturally, he was only a
figurehead; and the reins were in the hands of other people. And here's an
interesting thing. There was a man named Stilicho. He's important
politically—not tremendously important religiously—but Stilicho administered
the Western Empire for many years. Honorius was emperor, but Stilicho was a man
who'd been a general in the army and then had become leader of the
administration; and he practically ran everything in the Western Empire for
many years.
And
an interesting thing is, Stilicho came from this Germanic group called Vandals.
Now that is something that I think is interesting, and it is worth knowing for
this reason: the Vandals got a very bad name, later on. And we have a modern
word, "vandal," that is derived from what the Vandal tribe did later;
but the first Vandal that is important in history—that is, of great importance
in history—is this man Stilicho; he was an able administrator, the director
actually of the Western part of the Empire, and probably as fine a man as ever
administered in the Roman Empire. He was a very, very fine man and he came from
the tribe of the Vandals. Some have tried to deny that lately, and say he was a
Goth, but most people will say he was a Vandal.
Well,
this Stilicho, then was administering the Western Empire; and he was holding
back the forces of the Goths and others that were coming in, impinging upon it;
and when he couldn't keep them out of the borders of the Empire, he was at
least keeping them out of Italy; and he was incorporating some of them
gradually into the Empire; and he was doing in general a pretty good piece of
work. But in 408, his enemies succeeded in persuading Honorius that Stilicho
wanted to make himself Emperor. They succeeded in persuading Honorius of that;
and Stilicho was put in prison, charged with treason and then killed. And with
the death of Stilicho, they lost the strong able administrator that had been
protecting Italy. And a group of Goths under a king—whose name in Church
History is somewhat more important than the name of Stilicho—the name was
Alaric, a group of Western Goths under Alaric, came into Italy; there was no
one with the ability of Stilicho to hold them back; they came into Italy while
he was in prison before he was killed; they made their way down to Italy, to
southern Italy, and Alaric was even able to put his brother-in-law in as
nominal ruler in Rome.
And
they say that somebody said to young Honorius—who was now in his early
20's—"Well, it looks as if Rome isn't going to last much longer." And
the story is that Honorius had a pet hen which he called Rome. And he said,
"Oh, is she sick? Is there something wrong with her?" And when he was
told it was the city and not the hen, he felt much better. He, of course, was
not in Rome; he was further north where the capital was a good part of the
time. That story may not be true at all, but at any rate it doubtless truly
reflects the fact that Honorius had no capability for the position of Emperor;
and with the Empire in the hands of a man like that, it meant that the favorite
would rule. It was grand as long as man like Stilicho ruled, but when he got
inferior men in, naturally the Empire was in a bad situation.
b. The Sack of
Rome.
Alaric came down into southern Italy, and he got a brother-in-law put in as
nominal ruler of Rome; and this man reigned in Rome, and he threw out to quite
an extent the authority of Honorius. The time came when Alaric, after Stilicho
was killed, that Alaric decided that he would actually plunder the city of
Rome; and he led his troops into Rome with very little difficulty in coming in.
Of course, that was the weakness of the Roman Empire; that the people of Rome
had largely been fed at state expense; those of real ability would get high
positions; the rank and file, strong able-bodied men, had good support given at
state expense; they had for three centuries, just so they voted right; and they
were able to go and watch the games and so on. Now this wasn't true in many
cities of the Empire, but it happens to have been true in Rome. They had plenty
of Germans and others to fight their wars for them, but the rank and file of
the people were not trained to defend themselves; and now Alaric, when he came
right into Rome, it was the first time in 800 years that Rome had been entered
by a non-Roman army.
[student:
"Did I understand you rightly, that Alaric's brother-in-law ruled in Rome,
and Alaric decided to invade Rome?"] Well, Alaric's brother-in-law was out
of the way now. The people of Rome were not cooperating the way he wanted them
to; so with his army, he simply plundered the city. Maybe he was running out of
money to pay his soldiers properly too; and Rome gave plenty to plunder,
because for 800 years Rome had been the city to which the plunder was brought,
from all the cities of the world that Rome was conquering; and in Rome there
were many wealthy families, which would have millions of dollars' worth of property.
Some of them would have estates in Spain, in France, in Italy, in North Africa.
And there were many, many families of tremendous wealth in Rome; and of course
through the years they'd been building monuments and putting up expensive
homes; they'd been decorating in all sorts of elaborate ways; and the wealth of
the city of Rome was simply almost beyond our imagination.
And
in 408, when the Romans began to fear that actually the city might come to be
plundered they—some of the Romans—began to flee, and a good many of them fled
over to Africa. Well, the thing that shocked the Roman world was that the city
of Rome was actually entered by a barbarian army and plundered; and for three
days Alaric's army plundered the city, taking anything they felt like taking. I
don't know whether it was like Berlin was at the end of the war. People told me
that the Russian soldiers would come in and see the radio over here and say,
"That would be nice in my home in Moscow." They'd tear the thing down
and take it out and put it in a truck; then they would take out the bathroom
fixtures and different things; tear them out, get them out to the truck; maybe
they'd get them, carry them away; the truck would get too full, they'd throw
them out and get themselves some other stuff. And things were just left in a
wreck; but it didn't do much good to the people who took it—many of them; of
course later on, the Russians did their plundering much more scientifically.
But the first plundering was pretty much that way; they left things just in a
wreck, but didn't actually get much for those who plundered.
Well,
Alaric's troops were probably somewhat more intelligent in what they took, but
they did a tremendous lot of damage; and for the people who had never seen a
thing like that in their city, it was a terrible thing. There was a lot of
injury to individuals; the soldiers didn't just intentionally kill people, but
if people got in their way or interfered or tried to save their property, why
they did away with them. So there was a fair amount of loss of life, a lot of
physical injuries, but there was a tremendous lot of plunder of goods.
But
there are certain things about this invasion which have rarely been equaled in
history. One is this; after three days, Alaric said, "The plundering is at
an end; come out," and the soldiers came out. And Rome has been plundered
several times since—including armies that we called Christians—and never has
any commander-in-chief had the power to make his soldiers stop after three
days. They continued at least a couple of weeks. I talked with a man in a
bookstore in 1947 in Berlin. He said a Russian colonel came in here the other
day; he looked around, picked a book on Babylonia, another book on Egyptians.
He said he knew books; you could see he was a highly trained man. But he said,
he just picked these things and walked off with them. And he said we've been
having that for three years now. He said we know we're taken, we're conquered;
we can expect people to plunder; but he said it sort of seems that they ought
to set a date; that they'll do it up to that date and after that life could go
on without being subject to this sort of thing. They came to Berlin in 1945.
But
the thing is that Alaric, after three days, drew his army off and the plundering
stopped. Another thing is that Alaric's soldiers did not injure anybody who
took refuge in a church. The churches of Rome were uninjured; the people who
took refuge in them were safe, themselves and whatever they had carried with
them into the churches. And so you see how the Christianizing of the Goths
resulted in the plundering of Rome at this time being milder than the sacking
of almost any city I know of in history. And yet, when you think of the
tremendous wealth of Rome, and of a gang of soldiers loose for three days to
take anything they want, it was a tremendous thing, and a terrible devastation;
and it affected the whole world to think of Rome, that for 800 years had been
secure, to be ravished in this way.
And
for two or three years afterward, refugees from Rome were arriving in North
Africa; seeking protection, seeking a means of getting along there; and of
course, they were going anywhere they could, but Africa seemed the safest place
because the Mediterranean Sea was between, and none of the barbarians had as
yet penetrated to Africa. So we call
2. The Pagan
Reaction.
Paganism had been dying. Christianity had conquered paganism as far as argument
was concerned. Christianity had conquered paganism as far as moral character
was concerned. Julian had had an opportunity to try to prove paganism was
superior to Christianity, and he had failed. Not merely because he died so
soon, but that it became evident that the Christian character, Christian
leadership, Christian morality, the Christian seriousness of purpose, was far
superior to anything Julian was able to bring forth for paganism. And the
result of this had shown itself in the people more and more quitting going to
the temples; and then Theodosius had made laws against temple worship, and the
Christians had begun to destroy the temples; and in this last decade of the
fourth century, many of these temples had been destroyed; and it looked as if
paganism was about to disappear entirely. However, when the sack of Rome came,
many pagans, who hadn't been saying much, now began to say, "Look what
Christianity has done to the Roman Empire! Here is Rome, that stood for 800
years, and now Christianity has come in, the people have become Christians.
Rome has become weak and flabby, has been conquered by barbarians; the old gods
of Rome that made Rome strong are angry that their people have turned away from
them; they have allowed the barbarians to come in and sack the city. What a
terrible thing it is for our Empire that Christianity was allowed to come into
the Empire!"
And
so you have this reaction now, which is spreading through the empire; and it is
particularly active in North Africa, where the refugees are coming in by the
hundreds, perhaps by the thousands, but actual war has not yet reached North
Africa at all. But it is affecting people's minds and people's attitudes; and
Augustine faced it; and Augustine's answer to it became one of the great forces
of the Middle Ages. So Augustine faces this pagan reaction—this argument—based
upon the political situation; Augustine set out to write an answer. And so
3. Augustine's
Answer.
Well, Augustine, as you know, had not bothered himself a great deal about
paganism. He'd been fighting Manichaeism; he'd been fighting Donatism; he'd
been fighting various heresies; but he'd never been attracted by paganism; he
had occasionally spoken against it, but never taken great part against it; but
now he comes face to face with it as a reviving force; and he thinks of a
rather new way of approach.
And
this approach was to think of two cities. There is the heavenly city, and there
is the earthly city. There is the city of man, and there is the city of God;
and these two cities interact upon one another. Rome might be thought of as
typical of the city of man. Rome had developed due to the virtues—the human
virtues—which the Romans possessed; the early Romans had been thrifty; they had
been industrious; they had been temperate; in general, they had been careful
and shrewd in their planning; they had developed a great and powerful city. The
city of Rome, he said, was not developed because of the power of the Roman gods
developing it; no, he said, that was not it at all; it was the human virtues
which the early leaders had had. And he said the human virtues may be found
anywhere, but they will be greatly intensified under the influence of the
Goths. The Goths, who will not cut them down, but will intensify them.
But
he said it is human virtues which developed the great earthly city. But while
it was a very great earthly city, yet it had its very great weaknesses, and its
very great failures; and one of these was its worship of false gods. And the
moral character, which came from the worship of the false gods. Now he said
this earthly city is an important thing; but its importance is very slight
compared to the importance of the heavenly city. And he said the heavenly city
had the effect of its outreach on earth; it is made up of those who are to
reign with Christ for ever. It is the City of God, the city which represents
the outworking of the divine attributes in the world; it eventually will
replace the good of the human city; it eventually will destroy the evil of the
human city; it eventually will become supreme and triumphant.
And
so that is the concept that Augustine had. And some people said that the
concept that Augustine had was far more important actually than the book that
he wrote. And the concept which he had has had tremendous influence in
Christian history ever since. But it had influence, unfortunately, in various
directions—good directions and bad directions. But his concept became a
tremendous force in human history. Now soon after the sack of Rome, Augustine
sat down and started his idea, began to plan his book; he began to write on it,
and he wrote several—he called them books within it—it was made up of books and
he wrote several of these books. Then he became very busy with administrative
matters, with court matters, with his sermons and dealing with all sorts of
problems in his community, and he didn't make much progress for a while.
Actually
it was not until about 426 that he issued the book; and the last half of it—or
so—was written 14-16 years after the actual sack of Rome. But the book got
started as a result of the sack of Rome. Probably he was studying the idea
through these years, even though he hadn't yet finished the book. The book was
issued then, and it is Augustine's great work against paganism. It is his
philosophy of history. It is his explanation of the course of human events, and
of the part that human events should play in it. And so this book, The City of God, Augustine's answer, is
a book which had tremendous influence on the Christian world, and on the Roman
world, during the next few years, a book which was copied and read through the
Middle Ages.
I
would say that probably in the last 50 years, Augustine's Confessions have been republished at least 20 times, in various
languages, during the last 50 years. Now the
City of God may have 5 or 10, I don't know. It is published much less than
the Confessions; but yet for a book
that old, to be republished and disseminated and studied as much as it is after
that long a time, is a very rare thing indeed. And this book was a tremendous
force; it would be an accomplishment for a man who had done nothing else in his
life than to write this book, The City of
God. There are many whose names are famous, who have written one great
book, like that, had a great influence on world history and done nothing else.
It's one of the many things that Augustine did.
But
the book, unfortunately, did not have nearly as much influence upon the world
for what Augustine said, as for its contents. And so we must mention
4. Effect of the
Book.
Now the effect of the book would be, in the first place, a very good effect in
controverting the pagan apologetics based upon the disasters of the Roman
Empire; that would be a very good effect. It had a good effect in its
opposition to the errors of paganism; but of course that is something that
disappeared in the next century or two, as far as we in the western world are
concerned. And its arguments are based upon—relate a great deal—to Roman
mythology, and so on, and would not have a direct relationship to other types
of anti-Christian religion. But that of course was his first objective; and
that was a good objective which was accomplished.
Now
a second objective which he would accomplish, of course, would be to encourage
Christian people in all times. And to give us a sane attitude toward human
accomplishment, by seeing that human accomplishments go forward for their
virtues—not for their evil—and when anything goes forward to some extent, you
know there is some good in it, or it wouldn't go forward. The evil may be much
greater, but the strength comes from the good; and thus, we see, we distinguish
the good and the evil of human movements. We see what makes these movements
succeed; but we realize that all human movements are temporary, and that it is
only the City of God that is permanent. So here are these two great excellent
results which can be helpful and beneficial to anyone.
But
unfortunately Augustine did not make it crystal clear just what he meant by the
City of God. He does not make it crystal clear in the book. He deals with all
these matters of disagreement with the pagans, and the matter of difficulty of
interpretation of Scripture; he goes into various points and discusses them;
there's a great deal of tremendous value in the book; but he nowhere sits down
and makes absolutely clear what he means exactly by the City of God.
And
so it's quite easy for a person rather superficially examining it to say,
"Well, the city of man is the city of Rome; look how it's developed; look
at it's greatness; look at the result of human virtues that built this great
city; then they failed, and the city is gone. But the City of God is going to
succeed it; there'll be a new one, later than the old Rome; a Rome that is
based upon God rather than upon man. A Rome that is His representative on earth;
a Rome that will rule over human power; and it will, among these human powers,
enforce righteousness and will establish what ought to be upon this earth. Now
that's not what Augustine said, anywhere. It certainly is not what he thought;
but it is an indirect result which the book had, in fostering the idea of a
City of God which would be like the old city; an earthly city, but a City of
God, and which would exercise its power over human minds everywhere; and there
would be thus a Christian Roman power which would establish righteousness upon
the earth.
I'm
sure Augustine never dreamed of such a thing, but that is a side-effect of the
book which in the Middle Ages became more and more popular.
H. Augustine's
Relations with Jerome. This is a very much shorter subject than the one we
just spoke of. G was a very long subject, as most of those about Augustine are.
But H, I think, deserves a special heading even if it is a comparatively brief
topic. You remember St. Jerome was in Rome in 384, the year when St. Augustine
was there; but of course they did not know each other, they were in very
different sorts of work. Augustine was not even a Christian at the time. It was
in 387 that Augustine was converted in Milan, and Jerome already in 385 had
left Rome and had gone to Palestine, and established his monastery there, while
Paula had a convent not far from it.
Now
as Augustine became more and more active in North Africa, and took a part in
all the various discussions of the day, he decided that he would like to establish
friendly relations with Jerome. So in 394 or 395 Augustine wrote a letter to
Jerome, expressing admiration for his work and inviting Jerome's attention to
his own writing. It was a very good, courteous letter from a young man,
comparatively young, at least young in Christian experience. He was actually
ten or twenty years younger in years, than Jerome; but in the course of the
letter, he criticized Jerome's interpretation of Galatians 2:11-14. Remember
that is where Peter says he withstood Paul to the face. Now Jerome was taking
the attitude that Peter was an apostle, Paul was an apostle, the apostles are
God's messengers to us; whatever they say is right, and therefore you can't
have two of them arguing with each other. So where Peter says he withstood Paul
to the face, Jerome said it must be that Peter and Paul decided that this truth
could be better brought home to people if it was dramatized. And therefore they
agreed between themselves that Peter, when these Judaizers came—when these
people from Jerusalem came to visit—Peter would withdraw himself from the
people he'd been eating with before, and go and just eat with them, and make it
look as if he agreed with them; and then Paul would get up and withstand him to
his face; and that way he could drive home to people's minds what the truth
was, on which there never was any difference between Peter and Paul.
Now that's the idea some people have of the apostles. That the apostles knew everything; they understood all truth. Anything they ever said or wrote is the truth. All we have to do is to know anything by an apostle and it's God's Word. When I was in Princeton Seminary a professor said, "If a lost epistle of Paul were to be found, it would be a part of the Bible because it's written by an apostle; and our next edition of the Bible would contain it." Now I don't believe that for a minute. It's not my idea of inspiration at all. I believe that inspiration is God's leading in the writing of the book he wished to have in the Scriptures. I believe that when David wrote the Psalms, God inspired him—kept him free from error—but when he wrote a note to Joab telling him to put Uriah in the forefront of the battle where he would be killed, I don't think he was writing under inspiration of the Holy Spirit at all.
I
don't think that everything an apostle or a prophet wrote was necessarily
inspired. I think inspiration refers to those works that God intended to be
part of the Scriptures; and He selected the individuals whom He wished to have
write these books, and led them to write them. Well, now that of course is not
properly a matter of Church History; that is a matter of Biblical Introduction,
and I'm just giving it here as background to the slight disagreement between
Jerome and Augustine.
Jerome
held the view that Paul and Peter simply put on a performance there, and Peter
pretended to believe what he didn't believe in order to get the point across.
Augustine, I believe, took a more truly Christian idea here of inspiration. The
apostles were men like ourselves. God gave them revelation; they told these
revelations; they presented them in their speaking. As in our speaking, there
were mistakes; but the general import of their speaking was in line with what
God wanted to get across. And we repeat things as we speak so that the mistakes
are more than balanced by the correct statement.
But
when something was written, which wasn't to be listened to once and forgotten,
but which was to be studied through 2000 years of subsequent history, then God
did something he did not ordinarily do. He caused not merely that they would
have correct ideas to present, but that in the presentation of these ideas the
words would be kept free from error so that there was no reasonable inference
that could be drawn from their words that would be a false inference. Now if
that is the fact about the apostles, then is not necessary to resort to this
idea that Jerome resorted to.
Augustine
didn't write the letter for the purpose of criticizing Jerome. He just in the
course of a letter did express his disagreement on this point. But Jerome had
had so many people violently attack him and violently differ with him that he
had become rather sensitive on disagreement and criticism; and Jerome had a
bitter tongue; he was always able to give back triple what anybody gave to him.
So when a young fellow like Augustine—a newcomer to the Christian church—when
Augustine expresses his disagreement, it could easily arouse Jerome's
resentment. But in this case there was an additional unfortunate thing that
happened. They did not have a well-developed postal service in those days. The
state had its own postal service which would carry official messages. But for
individuals, for example, Paul's epistles, had to be carried by special
messenger, somebody who was going anyway. And Augustine gave his letter to a
man who was going to Palestine; but when he got to Italy something happened and
he didn't go to Palestine; and so the letter never reached Jerome.
But
in Italy, he showed a friend the letter he had to Jerome from Augustine; and
Augustine was becoming quite famous, and Jerome already was famous; and the man
was tremendously interested to see what Augustine had written; and he said,
"Let me copy some of that." And next thing you knew, it was being published
and distributed all over Italy what Augustine had said about Jerome being
wrong; and Jerome hadn't even seen it. And in 397, Augustine wrote again to
Jerome; and the man he gave the letter to made a rather long trip before he
finally got to Palestine; and this letter didn't reach Jerome until quite late.
In the meantime, when Augustine got no word from Jerome, he wrote a third
letter; and this letter got to him soon. And this is just a nice letter saying
he'd like to establish friendly relations with him.
And
in 402, he got an answer. And Jerome said "Far be it from me to dare touch
the works of thy holiness. I'm quite content to care for my own writings
without criticizing those of others. For the rest, thy student is well aware
that opinions are free, and it is a childish boastfulness, only befitting you,
to seek renown by attacking illustrious men. Be content therefore to love one
who loves thee, do not thou seek to provoke an old man in the field of critical
study."
[Jerome to Augustine,
Letter 68, 402 AD: "...Far be it from me to presume to attack anything
which your Grace has written. For it is enough for me to prove my own views
without controverting what others hold. But it is well known to one of your
wisdom, that every one is satisfied with his own opinion, and that it is
puerile self-sufficiency to seek, as young men have of old been wont to do, to
gain glory to one's own name by assailing men who have become renowned. ...
Love one who loves you, and do not because you are young challenge a veteran in
the field of Scripture."]
In
other words, don't bother me; I don't think you're worth my notice. And the
next year, Augustine sent another letter to Jerome, a friendly letter; and this
time Jerome capitulated. Jerome replied and decided that he was perhaps hasty
to Augustine; but he said in his letter to Augustine: [Jerome to Augustine,
Letter 404 AD. "... desist from annoying an old man, who seeks retirement
in his monastic cell. If you wish to exercise or display your learning, choose
as your antagonists, young, eloquent, and illustrious men, of whom it is said
that many are found in Rome, who may be neither unable nor afraid to meet you,
and to enter the lists with a bishop in debates concerning the Sacred
Scriptures. As for me, a soldier once, but a retired veteran now, it becomes me
rather to applaud the victories won by you and others, than with my worn-out
body to take part in the conflict...."]
Augustine
refused to become irritated at Jerome's language. He realized Jerome was a real
Christian, a fine student of the Word, a man who had much to offer, and he
wanted his friendship, and so Augustine wrote again and he managed to make
Jerome his friend. And not only did they become good friends, but in subsequent
years, Jerome suffered injury for his loyalty to Augustine.
It's
a most interesting illustration of the difference between opposing the enemies
of God's Word, and taking rebuke from those who are true but who misunderstand,
and taking a friendly attitude toward them and not becoming slighted when they
misunderstand us, but eventually winning their friendship. That is what
Augustine did in this case.
Well, now, a little later, Jerome suffered because of his friendship to Augustine; and that we will not mention right now, because it comes in connection with our next subject, which is the relation between Jerome and Augustine. And I think it is very interesting to note that in this tremendous controversy—what was in some ways the greatest controversy of Augustine's life—Jerome was of tremendous help to him, tremendously important; and Augustine never would have had it if he had not been willing to bear the slights and the misunderstanding on Jerome's part.
This
controversy, from our Protestant view point, is the most important controversy
of Augustine's life. It is the most difficult for us to understand. It is a
very involved one, but it is tremendously important. We will call it
J. The Pelagian
Controversy (411-431). The Pelagian Controversy begins in 411. It does not
end until 431 and actually that's about the time, or a year after the time,
when Augustine died. There is a continuation after that which we'll look at,
but the main part of it ended by that time. Now this Pelagian controversy, we
will note under it
1. The Outbreak
of the Controversy.
And then
a. Pelagius'
background.
We name it the Pelagian controversy, therefore we ought to know something about
Pelagius. Later on, when Jerome wrote about Pelagius, he called him that great
god, that great bloated god from Albion. And Albion, as you know, is another
term that was used for the land that we today call England. Other writers have
referred to him as the British Serpent, and they used the term British in
relation with it. He was probably brought up in what we today call England. It
would be false to say Pelagius was an Englishmen, or was brought up in England.
That would be false because there was no England then. They used to have
statements on automobiles saying, "There will always be an England"
back during the war. Well, there was not one in those days. In those days the
island was called Britain; the people who lived in the southern half of it were
called Britons.
It
had been conquered by the Romans under Julius Caesar before the time of Christ.
It was a part of the Roman Empire, the southern half of the island they called
Britain, that is, the part of the island which we call England. It was fairly
Romanized; Constantine was there at the town of York, when his soldiers
proclaimed him the Roman Emperor; but there were no Englishmen, because it gets
the name of England from the Anglo-Saxon wild barbarians from Germany, who came
over there after this time and conquered the land; and after a century of other
barbarisms, it finally settled down to become rather civilized, and it became
the land of England, named after them.
But
at this time it is Britain, the southern half of Britain, and Pelagius probably
was called Morgan originally; that's not certain, but it is likely that his
name was Morgan. The word Morgan means "born of the sea." And he,
being a student of Greek, thought it was a beautiful thing to have a Greek
name, so he translated it into Greek and took the name "Pelagius"
which means born of the sea. So were not sure his name was Morgan, but it's
most likely. He is always called Pelagius in history. He was a man who was
brought up in Britain, and who came over to Italy; he was very ascetic, they
called him a simple monk.
He
seems to have been sincerely devoted to the desire to improve morals, to get
people away from worldliness, away from external things, away from that that
seems to be ungodly and harmful; and he lived in Rome, which was a center of
vice and wickedness to a very large extent; and he devoted himself there to
trying to bring people away from it. And he was along in years before the
controversy started. But Pelagius, against whose personal character nothing
seems to be said, except for misrepresentation and duplicity to some extent at
a later time. But aside from that, there is no personal criticism of his
character in the writing that we have; but the fact that he was earnestly
working to reform the character of the Roman people; and he was constantly
urging them to exert their manhood; show the good that is in them; step out and
leave this wickedness and vice and turn to do good. As far as the gospel
doctrines and the Scripture in general are concerned, he declared his acceptance
of the whole system of orthodox doctrine; his belief in the full deity of
Christ; he declared his belief in the atonement, the bodily resurrection, and
so on.
But
his stress was upon people exerting their manhood, and turning away from what's
wicked and living a good life; and then he found that people were reading
Augustine's Confessions; and finding
in the Confessions that Augustine
says that no man can turn from wickedness and become good; it is only the grace
of God that can turn man. And Augustine says—it is a prayer, where Augustine
prays to the Lord—he says, "Give the power to do what you command; and
command whatever you will—give it to the Lord."
And
Pelagius found some people, who said, "Well, I can't; they said I'm not
elected to salvation; I can't live a good life. God hasn't given me the grace
to do it. So there's no use in talking to me." And of course this is just
an excuse, when people talk that way, for living the sort of life they feel
like living.
But
Pelagius began to think that these statements of Augustine's were hurting his
attempts to reform people. So he began to criticize; and pretty soon Pelagius
was thus driven into clarifying his thinking a bit on these things; and making
it clear that he felt that there's plenty of good in human nature; all we need
to do is express it; and this idea that man is just lost in sin, and there's
nothing good in him, that's much too extreme for the Pelagians. Human nature is
essentially good. Adam sinned, and many another person had sinned since; but we
don't need to sin, we can do what is good. Now the grace of God can help us, we
can use the grace of God and we should.
Pelagius
was a careful Greek student; he wrote a commentary on St. Paul's epistles,
which he got distributed; and people forgot he'd written it, and it got into
Jerome's writings; so people eventually got to thinking Jerome had written it.
Of course it's now well established that Pelagius was the writer. But he was a
good exegete, a good interpreter; but on this point, his whole stress was on
the value of exerting your manhood, and showing the good in human nature, and
stepping out and turning away from sin. So he came into conflict in Italy with
Augustine's ideas to some extent, though I don't know whether Augustine ever heard
anything about him while he was there.
b. Pelagius'
Views.
As I say, he didn't deny anything that he thought was explicitly stated in the
Scripture; but he wrote a letter to Demetrias, a noble Roman nun, in which he
describes a model virgin and the proof of the excellency of human nature. He
said, "As often as I have to speak concerning moral improvement and the
leading of a holy life, I am accustomed first to set forth the power and
quality of human nature and to show what it can accomplish. For never are we
able to enter upon the path of virtue unless hope, as a companion draws us to
them. For every longing after anything dies within us so soon as we despair of
attaining that thing."
You
see, Augustine said just the opposite. Augustine said we strive and we struggle
and we make the best effort we can to live a good life, and we fail and we fall
because there's nothing in us that can live a life that is satisfying to God.
We must confess ourselves miserable sinners that can do no good and look Christ,
by His wonderful grace to lift us up and to give us a life within us. You see
the sharp contrast between the way that Augustine spoke and the way that
Pelagius spoke. Well, now,
c. Coelestius. And Coelestius
is really the active man in the controversy, though the ideas come from
Pelagius, and it is referred to as the Pelagian Controversy. It is proper for
us to attribute it to Pelagius and call it Pelagianism, but Coelestius is the
man who brought it to the fore.
Coelestius
was a Roman lawyer. And Coelestius was converted to Pelagius' ideas by
Pelagius' effort. He was younger than Pelagius, skilled in argument, ready for
controversy, and he became a very devoted follower of Pelagius.
d. Pelagius and
Coelestius visit Africa. In 411 the two friends left Rome in order to escape
from Alaric, the Gothic king, who you remember had attacked Rome. They left
Rome and went to Africa. And they passed through North Africa, intending to
visit Augustine at Hippo. He was away at Carthage, so Pelagius wrote a very
courteous letter which he left there; and Augustine answered it, and he said in
his letter, "Pray for me that God may really make me that which you
already take me to be." Pelagius praised Augustine's character. How sorry
to have missed becoming acquainted with this great godly man, the model of all
Christians. Augustine writes him, "Pray for me that God may really make me
that which you already take me to be."
Pelagius
went on to Palestine, but Coelestius applied for ordination as a presbyter in
Carthage. And in Carthage, there was a deacon from Milan who was familiar with
the views of Pelagius; he came before the council and declared that they should
not ordain Coelestius as a presbyter because, he said, his writings contained very
serious error. He said that in Coelestius' writings he found the statement that
Adam was created mortal and would have died even if he hadn't sinned. He said
that in his writing it was said that Adam's fall injured himself alone, not the
whole human race; that children come into the world in the same condition in
which Adam was before the fall. He said that Coelestius said that the human
race neither dies as a consequence of Adam's fall, nor rises again in
consequence of Christ's resurrection. He said that Coelestius said the law, as
well as God, preached the kingdom of heaven; and that Coelestius said that even
before Christ there were sinless men.
Well,
Coelestius, at the council, gave evasive answers to these statements. Oh, he
said, "These are just speculative questions; they don't concern the
substance of the faith." He said, "I believe in the deity of Christ.
I believe in verbal inspiration. Why do you make these little
technicalities?" But he refused to say that he didn't hold these views; he
said they weren't vital. And the synod voted to exclude him from ordination,
even from the communion of the church.
[student]
Carthage was the leading city in North Africa. As you know, Hippo is a long
distance west of Carthage. There was a primate of North Africa; there was a
primate of Numidia, further west. Augustine was simply bishop of Hippo, and he
never had a higher position than that, though his influence was tremendous. His
writings were spread all through the African church—that is, North Africa was the
province of Africa. They were read all through there, and to some extent, all
through the rest of Christendom. And his influence there was tremendous; but
there is no evidence he took any part in this synod at which Coelestius was
condemned.
Coelestius
then left there and went to Asia Minor, where he became ordained at Ephesus.
e. Augustine's First Treatises against Pelagius. Hearing of this, Augustine did what he always did when he heard of heresy. He sat down and wrote a book about it, to show why it was wrong. And so Augustine now wrote several small works, on the matter of grace; the matter of spiritual leaven; on the matter of forgiveness of sins; on the matter of human perfection; he wrote these letters attacking the views which were found in Coelestius' writings, and showing that these views were very harmful.
Nevertheless
Pelagius and Coelestius had won many followers in Italy and some in North
Africa.
a. The Spread of
Pelagianism.
There in Palestine, Pelagius and Coelestius began to spread their ideas and
many began to follow them in these ideas.
b. The Attitude
of Jerome.
Jerome was living at Bethlehem. This was just after the time when he had become
an enemy of the teachings of Origen, throwing his lot with those who were
attacking Origen. Formerly he had been an enthusiastic admirer of Origen,
because there was much in him to admire; but there also was that which was
harmful, and in the big controversy against Origen, Jerome threw his lot with
those who were attacking.
Now
he attributed Pelagius' views to the influence of Origen. And Pelagius
criticized some of Jerome's statements; and Jerome wrote a letter in answer to
inquiries sent to him, in which he wrote three books against the Pelagians
toward the end of the year 415. And in these letters Jerome attacks Pelagius
and his views; and he took a very strong stand against him and this rising
movement of Pelagianism.
c. The Synod at
Jerusalem in 415.
In 415, in Jerusalem the bishop John, bishop of Jerusalem, called a synod to
which the bishops came from the whole surrounding area. Jerome, as you know,
was not a bishop. Jerome was simply a presbyter as head of a monastery.
But
at this synod a man from Spain, Orosius—a friend of Augustine, a man who had
studied with Augustine, and Augustine had sent him on there; he studied with
Jerome to perfect his understanding of the Greek text, and to work in exegesis
with Jerome—Orosius came before this synod and brought criticism of Pelagius
and Coelestius, and gave information that the council of Carthage had condemned
Coelestius, and that Augustine had appeared against him.
And
Pelagius said, "What does Augustine matter to me?" and began
disparaging and evading. Orosius said that any man who could thus speak about the
bishop to whom the whole North African church owed their restoration deserved
to be excluded from communion of the holy church. And then John the bishop, who
was a great admirer of the condemned Origen, said to them, when they were
talking about Augustine, he said, "I am against talking about Augustine. I
am Augustine here," meaning Augustine was a big figure in Africa but this
is Jerusalem, I'm the big man here. He said, "I am Augustine here,"
and he began to defend the accused; he permitted Pelagius, though only a monk
and a layman, to take a seat among the presbyters; he found no criticism of his
statements; and after much discussion, which was hampered by the fact that the
bishop spoke only Greek and Orosius spoke only Latin, and the interpreter often
translated inaccurately. After much discussion the synod decided to lay the
matter before the Roman bishop, Innocent. Innocent was the name of the Roman
bishop; and they decided, "Let's lay the matter before him, since both
parties of the controversy belong to the Western Church, and meantime let them
refrain from any attacks on each other."
Well,
that was the decision of the synod; but Jerome, who was not in the synod,
proceeded immediately to write another book, in three sections, against
Pelagius and to try to bring out the harmful nature of this error.
d. The Synod of
Lydda. Then
there was another synod called in December that year. And this was called in
the town of Lydda, down near Joppa. That city was also called Diophilus, In
this town, Lydda (or Diophilus) in December of that year, there was another
meeting held at which two bishops from Gaul, two bishops from France, acting
with Jerome, brought charges against Coelestius and against Pelagius.
And
it was particularly Pelagius whose error was in view; and Pelagius was very
skilful in wriggling out of these charges, declaring very strongly his views;
and he sought the support of Gaul in the discussion; and then, for instance,
when they said, "Well Coelestius was condemned in Carthage for saying that
Adam's fall injured himself alone," Pelagius said, "Well I don't
think that; Adam's fall injured all." But then later on he explained: the
way he injured all was by setting us a bad example. It's very different from
what the church has always held; what Paul taught: that Adam's fall, that we
were in Adam; Adam represented us; that Adam represented the whole human race
and when he fell, we fell with him; that brought original sin upon the entire
human race, by his fall; and as Paul said, as we were in Adam, so we are in
Christ, if we believe in Christ. Adam was the head of the whole race in our
fall; Christ is the head of those who believe on Him and we rise again through
Christ.
Well,
Pelagian says, "I don't believe that, certainly Adam's fall injured all of
us." But what he meant was that it was a bad example. And by evasions like
this, he succeeded in persuading them that there was nothing wrong with him;
and the synod acquitted him of all heresy. Jerome said it was a miserable
synod.
But
Augustine said, "It is not heresy that was there acquitted, but the man
who denied the heresy." Which, of course, was the fact. They would not
stand in favor of Pelagius' views, but Pelagius persuaded them that he did not
hold those views that he actually did hold. Then
e. The Attack on
Jerome's Monastery.
In the beginning of the year 416, within a month or two after the Council at
Lydda, a mob of Pelagianizing monks, ecclesiastics and vagabonds, broke into
Jerome's monastery at Bethlehem; they maltreated the inmates, put the building
on fire, and compelled the ancient scholar to take to flight. And Bishop John,
at Jerusalem, just 5 miles away, left this unpunished. So there Jerome suffered
physical injury; lost a great deal of property; might have lost his life, as a
result of his stand by Augustine in this controversy.
3. The
Controversy in the West.
a. The North African Synod of 416. There were two synods in North Africa in 416 which condemned the Pelagian error; declared their disagreement with the Council in Palestine; pointed out the un-Christian statements of Pelagius and Coelestius; and took the strong position of Augustine about the absolute necessity of the grace of God in anyone who was saved. Grace is not merely a help, it is that without which none of us can be saved. And they sent a statement of this to Innocent, the Bishop of Rome. The Council in Jerusa1em decided to submit the whole thing to Innocent, and the people involved in it were protesting. They wrote to Innocent at Rome, and they told him what they thought about it; they tried to present the matter to him clearly, in order that he might take a correct stand on the matter, and do something to stop the rapid growth of Pelagianism in Italy. So much for the North African Synod.
[student:
"Why didn't they send it to Constantinople or Antioch? Why did they send
it to Rome?"] Well, the matter was first under discussion in Palestine.
Then in Palestine, they said "These folks are westerners." They said,
"We'll refer the matter to Rome because they're westerners," So they
referred the man to the Bishop of Rome, "Let's us send him what we think
about it, so he'll have that in mind."
Constantinople
and Antioch were not particularly involved. As a matter of fact, the Eastern
Church did not become much aroused. It was the Western church mainly. So that
b. The Letter of
Bishop Innocent.
This is one of the most famous letters that any Bishop of Rome ever wrote, as
it happens—for reasons that he perhaps never dreamed of.
But
Innocent, the Bishop of Rome, understood the controversy; and he saw that the
people in Africa were right in it; and he wrote a letter to the Africans, but
he was so pleased that they should address the Bishop of Rome about the matter
that he just couldn't contain himself. And so he wrote them a letter in which
he spent about half of his time telling them what good sense they showed in
referring the matter like this to the Bishop of Rome; and that was really
showing good sense to go to the man who should be properly able to determine
important things like this, to come to me—of course they made lots of courteous
statements in their letter; and he was very grateful that they had so much good
sense; and he said they were absolutely right, that Pelagius and Coelestius
were utterly heretical; they should be condemned; they should not be permitted
in the true Christian Church; he commended the Africans for being so wide-awake,
seeing the error of it; but he didn't say anything about the synod in Lydda; he
carefully refrained from giving any judgment about that.
Yes?
[student: Did Innocent send a letter to Palestine?] I don't know anything about
his answering them at Palestine; I don't know whether anybody does. He may have
written them; he may not. I should think likely he did. But you see we're
primarily interested in Augustine. I mean there were many bishops in Palestine,
in all these countries. If we went into the history of the details of all the
countries, we would take a year on this one period of 30 or 40 years. I'm
trying to pick those events which throw light on the Pelagian Controversy.
Well,
it took a long time to get mail in those days. That was a distance it would
take you a week or two to travel. They sent the request to him; the council
adjourned; he wasn't sending his decision to the councils, but these men;
later, on further consideration, they would look for an answer from the Bishop
of Rome.
Now
there's no evidence of any answer being given in the next six months. Because
six months later, the Council at Lydda simply proceeded on their own to acquit
and to support Pelagius. But then, when the word eventually got to Innocent,
the real pressure came from North Africa; and he answered North Africa in this
way. Then, so much for the letter of Bishop Innocent. Then
c. Augustine's
Famous Sermon.
Now the reason this sermon is famous is because the Roman Catholic Church all
through the last few centuries has rejoiced to quote this sermon of
Augustine's. Augustine saw the tremendous harm of Pelagius' view, and he was
anxious to put an end to their influence. And therefore, when Augustine got
this letter from Innocent, saying how entirely right you are in it, and so on,
he preached a great sermon—he was visiting in Carthage then—and he preached a
great sermon in which he showed the error of Pelagianism; showed how wrong it
was; how people should turn away from it; he said Innocent of Rome agrees with
us; we've gotten a letter from him; and he says he agrees with the decision
that was made by the North African Synod, that this is a harmful thing; these
men should not be in the church; their influence should not be spread; the
cause is finished; he said, "Would that the error would be finished as
quickly as the cause." Now that's what he said. But it became twisted so
that it has been quoted over and over that Augustine said, "Rome has
spoken; the cause is finished." Well, now he did not say that; all sound
historical scholars today agree that he did not say that. He didn't say,
"Rome has spoken, the cause is finished," but he did mention the fact
that the Bishop of Rome had agreed with them; and he felt that all who were
qualified to take a clear understanding on it, took this position; and that
this is the position which all ought to take.
The
Roman Catholic books admit that the statement that is so often quoted.
"Rome has spoken, the cause is finished," was not stated by St.
Augustine.
But
here's a very interesting thing. When Augustine was making this sermon; when he
was giving this important sermon, there in Carthage on the 23 of September,
417; a letter was already on the seas, crossing from Rome to Carthage, to take
the opposite position, when he said it. Augustine did not know it, but Innocent
had died; and a new bishop has been elected, a man named Zosimus, and so we go
on
d. The Action of
Bishop Zosimus.
Now I call him Bishop Zosimus, I do not call him Pope Zosimus. Any Roman Catholic
book would refer to him as Pope Zosimus, and they would not be wrong in so
referring to him, because he was called Pope. But so was Augustine, called Pope
Augustine. John of Jerusalem was called Pope John. Every bishop was called Pope
at that time. It was the regular word used for any bishop at that time. It was
only much later that it became restricted to the Bishop of Rome. I do not use
the word now, because if we use it today, it gives the impression that the idea
of papal supremacy held today was thought of then, of which there is no
evidence. But in actual fact, they did use the title, but they used it for
Augustine and for all the rest of them; any bishop was called pope. But Bishop
Zosimus, who became bishop, was a Greek; and Zosimus found that Coelestius came
to see him, right away, when he was elected bishop.
And
he had a letter from Pelagius—the matter had been referred to Bishop
Innocent—so he saw Pelagius' letter and he saw Coelestius. And Coelestius was
evidently a very skilful talker; and he persuaded Zosimus—he took points on
which he was orthodox and he spoke very, very strongly about his belief in
these—and so Zosimus wrote a letter to the North African bishops, an encyclical
papal letter, in which he censures them for not having investigated the matter
more thoroughly, and having aspired in foolish over-curious controversy, to
know more than the Holy Scripture. He said that Pelagius and Coelestius were
thoroughly orthodox men; and that the two bishops from France who had attacked
them in Palestine were worthless characters, whom he had excommunicated now,
and ordered deposed from these bishoprics. He said men in Rome can hardly
refrain from tears that such fine men as Coelestius and Pelagius should have
been condemned as heretics. And finally he entreated the bishops of the North
African church to submit themselves to the authority of the Roman See. Well,
now if Augustine had said, "Rome has spoken, the cause is finished,"
and then three days later a boat arrived saying the opposite from the Bishop of
Rome, he certainly would've been highly embarrassed. But it is now agreed that
he did not say those words at all. But this letter came from Zosimus and so the
Africans had to do something about it. So we have
e. The African
Council of 418.
They got the bishops together again. They held a new council. And at this
council there were two hundred bishops present. They defined their opposition
to Pelagius. They said, "If Pelagius was right, human nature is naturally
good and only becomes bad when people fall into sin, why what a silly thing
infant baptism would be." They said we baptize infants, showing that these
people have got original sin; and we all need the grace of God for salvation.
Now
they said, "If these were just perfectly innocent children, not yet having
any sin for which they needed redemption, what would be the sense of infant
baptism?" So that was one of the big points that the Africans made; but,
of course they made other points also; they said that anyone who said that Adam
was created mortal and that even without sin would have died of natural
necessity, should not be in the true church. They attacked the various views of
Pelagius; they took a strong position on it; they said that the former bishop
of Rome had seen these things; he had given the decision that Pelagius and
Coelestius should not be recognized as true members of the church, They said,
"We call on the people in the area that are subject to his direction, to
follow the argument of Innocent, and not let themselves be confused by the
attitude that Zosimus is taking now." And they wrote a respectful letter
to Zosimus, asking him to look into the matter further. So much for the African
council of 418.
f. The Edict
from Honorius.
But it seems that Augustine—we don't have full evidence on this now but it
seems most likely that Augustine—had good friends in the court of the Roman
Emperor Honorius in northern Italy. And Augustine had very good friends in the
administration in Carthage; and not only did they write to Zosimus, but they
also wrote to the court of the Emperor at Rome; and while Zosimus was
considering what to do about it, an edict came from the Emperor, saying that
this un-Christian view of Coelestius and Pelagius ought not to be tolerated
within his domain.
g. Zosimus'
Changed Attitude.
And it wasn't very long after, till Zosimus came out in the same direction. So
I was interested to look in the McSorley's History
and see what he had to say about Zosimus. He says when Coelestius and Pelagius
were condemned at Carthage, at 411, they misrepresented things to the Pope so
skillfully that he wrote in their behalf to the African bishops, but later he
condemned Pelagianism. And then in another place here, speaking about
Pelagianism, he says that Zosimus, after considerable hesitation, condemned
Pelagianism.
Well,
Zosimus did go along with the evidence that Augustine and others so clearly
presented, but it's interesting that the sermon that Augustine wrote when
Innocent said he was right, they have made so much of, to show how Augustine
recognized the authority of the Roman Bishop, that the next Bishop took the
wrong position and Augustine recognized no authority in him, but he got the
Emperor to take an action first, and then Zosimus came right in line with the
critics. So this is interesting, not only for the controversy on Pelagianism,
but also for the matter of the development of the Bishop of Rome.
But now he circulated the letter with an anathema upon them; he declared his concurrence with the decision of the Council of Carthage; and whosoever refused to subscribe, he said, is to be deposed, banished from his church, and deprived of his
province, that's what Zosimus said. Well, 18 bishops in Italy refused to subscribe
and were deposed, but several of them afterward recanted; and one of them who had been deposed became the greatest writer for Pelagianism of all. We'll have a word to say about him under our next head.
Pelagianism is a viewpoint which has been in the Christian church, to some extent, right from the beginning; but it became crystallized around the name of Pelagius, because of Augustine's clear
understanding of his error and pointing it out very strongly and very clearly; and the name of Pelagius has been tied
to it ever since.
And it is an attitude which you will find constantly cropping up. I was asked—30 years ago—to speak over the radio, and to give a brief message; but when I got there I found they had another man to speak; and this other man, who was also to speak, was from the YMCA. The fellow who had this radio program had
different people come in. I thought I was to be the only speaker, but I had about a third of the
full time; and this YMCA man had the other third. The YMCA man had a talk quite fully worked out, but the main
feature of it was, some people think human nature is bad. They say that an apple is no good if its core is rotten. That's not true at all. An apple can have lots of good in it, even if the core is rotten.
And he said human nature is not like that, it has its bad spots but it's fundamentally good. What we want to do is to improve it, help to build it up and to get rid of the bad elements in it. That was a clear presentation of Pelagianism. He made no reference in his talk to the grace of God, but I imagine that he would have had no objection to saying he needed the grace of God in doing this. One can stress the grace of God quite a bit and
still be quite Pelagian. If human
nature, as Augustine says, is something which has been affected and contaminated
as a result of the sin of Adam; and of course as a result of the sin, that has been in the
human race through the ages ever since, to the point where we are absolutely
helpless; and our only salvation is the grace of God that can lift us up from our lost estate and can save us.
Or is human nature a wonderful thing which needs only a little
help here and there to improve it? Now of course, human nature, Augustine would
say, is originally a wonderful thing. He would say it is fundamentally and originally
a wonderful thing which God created. God made Adam sinless. Adam was not
mature.
He was
like a child. But he was sinless. He was innocent. He had the possibility of
developing into a perfect being. He had that possibility but he had also the possibility of sinning, and
when he sinned, human nature became corrupt. He lost the image of God. And humanity fell and can be saved
only by a supernatural act on the part of God; He can redeem us from the guilt
of our sin, which we could not possibly do ourselves. But not only that, He can
give us a change so radical and complete and thoroughgoing, that it is even
referred to
as the
"new birth" in the Scriptures, as if we were born all over again. We are said to
become a new creation, to the Lord Jesus Christ. Not to take that which is good and make it better; not to take that which is good which
has been slightly
tarnished,
and to remove the tarnish; but to take that which has fallen and become so
corrupt, that there is absolutely nothing man can do to make it worthwhile in God's
sight, and by a supernatural act of the Holy Spirit to transform us, to translate
us, from the
kingdom of
darkness, into
the kingdom of light, and from following Satan into following Christ.
The doctrine of complete corruption of man does not mean that
man is completely
evil. If
he were he would not last two generations. We would just kill each other off immediately; there would be absolutely nothing
left. We would be like the men from the Mutiny on the Bounty. These men, you know, went to this island, Pitcairn Island, and they landed there; and they had a lot of liquor and they had some weapons; they had a group of native women with them; and they settled there to be away from any difficulty with the British nation against which they
had mutinied; and they settled there, and within the course of a year or two, they had killed one another off, in fighting, in
brawling, in attacking; they had just fallen into absolute utter wickedness; and there wouldn't have been
anything left of them, if it were not that the one man who was left alive after the
rest were gone, happened to be rummaging through an old trunk and came across a Bible and started to read it. And the Lord saved him, and his
life was transformed. And he established an orderly civilized community, which, when this
place was next visited 70 years later—the next time that anybody from the outside visited the place—they found an established settled civilized community, as a result of this one man's
having read the Bible and turned to God. But before that he had been like the others; and in the course of a year and a half, they just completely killed each other off.
And if there was nothing good in man, he would be completely destroyed.
There is the image of God still there; there is goodness even in the worst of
men. Remember this man in Germany who was the head of the great persecutions of
Hitler? He was the leader of Nuremburg prison, one of the most brutal of all
Hitler's men; and when some reporters spoke to him about his being a brute, he
said, "My, no! I'm very, very fond of birds." He said, "I have
them all around my house; I take good care of them." He was very, very
careful with his birds. That lovely streak in him, along with all the other
wickedness, that was there.
And the worst of men have a good streak in them somewhere, which you can appeal to if you can find it. And it's there to be found. And our whole life would just utterly disappear if wickedness alone ruled, if we were completely wicked. But the righteousness of men—compared to the standard God wants—doesn't come more than a foot up from the floor. It's nothing that in God's sight is worth anything; and it would inevitably degenerate into complete destructiveness if it were not for the grace of God that prevents that; and for the influence of those here and there who, as Jesus said, are the salt of the earth, who know the Lord and have been transformed.
So, I think we make a great mistake, if we think that anybody
who is saved we can completely trust; he is entirely good and dependable; while
anybody who is lost is just utterly bad. You'll find some lost people who are a
lot better in human sight than some saved people. And you can't really trust
any of them, because we've all got sin within, except the Lord only.
But the fundamental basic difference between Pelagius and Augustine was that Augustine saw human nature as fundamentally bad, with a corruption which extended to every element of human life; that every area of it was corrupt, not that every detail is corrupt by any means. And that Augustine saw it needed supernatural grace or else it was absolutely impossible to be saved. While Pelagius saw it as very fine to avail ourselves of supernatural grace, but that that the main thing was to have the good that is in us developed.
The Presbyterian Board got out a book for children—for summer
school—I remember. They called it As The
Twig is Bent. And the fundamental idea of it was, that as the thing just
grows, you just want to give a little twist there, a little twist here, a
little development here, to develop this wonderful human nature that we have.
Well, Augustine said, "No, what you need is a change—a transforming—not simply to develop."
Well, we must go on here; and we have been noticing the external details of the controversy; and we
came to
Zosimus' changed
attitude.
And, as McSorley said,
"After some hesitation, Zosimus reaffirmed the edict of Innocent." After enough hesitation to write a strong encyclical letter taking the
opposite position
(!) and
said
what wonderful men Coelestius and Pelagius were; and it was really sad that anybody would criticize such noble Christians as these two. Then, after
the emperor already took the position, Zosimus put himself in line; he issued an edict for the
churches that were in communion with him, that he had relationship with, that Coelestius and Pelagius were to be cut off and all who had followed their view; and that all
the bishops in Italy who followed Pelagius were to be deposed from their bishoprics; and there were 18 of them; so you see what progress
Pelagius had
made in Italy. But of these 18, quite a few later
began to
regret
what they had lost in their salaries and in their positions as bishops and decided that a little bit
of compromise with their views was worthwhile in order to be continued in their positions; and, as you have with almost any great movement for God, people step out to serve the Lord, and then
they begin to look back and remember the loaves and fishes and one by one quite a few of them turn
back; so
out of
the 18 this was, as in any movement; whether it's for God, or anything they think is for principle, it happened in this movement, that a good many of them
stepped back; but Julian of Eclanum was one of these 18.
4. Julian of Eclanum. It's important to have the name of the place. Now why don't we just call him Julian? Why do we call him Julian of Eclanum? Eclanum is a very unimportant place, I'm not even sure exactly where it is, I never heard of anybody going to visit it or taking any particular interest in it, and yet, if you refer to him in an examination and you simply call him Julian and don't call him Julian of Eclanum, I will be very disappointed. Why will that be? What would the reason be? If you refer simply to Julian, I will assume you mean the Emperor Julian. We often call him Julian the Apostate. But he was an emperor who is a very important figure in church history. There have been other Julians too. But he is the Julian that we think of particularly—he was much more important in church history than Julian of Eclanum. Therefore, we reserve the name Julian for him, and we need something to distinguish this man. So Julian of Eclanum; I give him 4, because he rendered a great service to the cause of clear and careful theological thinking.
The service which he rendered was that he presented the Pelagian views and the Pelagian arguments more reasonably, more effectively, more carefully, more clearly, than any other of the writers including Pelagius and Coelestius; and of course in doing so,
he did a great
deal
of harm by
leading
people astray in their understanding; but he did a great deal of good, because Augustine happened to be
living at the time. And you had a man there who was capable of handling the matter—from the
truly Biblical view—very clearly and very excellently; and with Julian having to be answered, it stimulated Augustine
to write works which might be called the foundation of the Protestant Reformation.
Augustine was the one of the ancient fathers who, of all of them, was the one that they followed; they felt they were simply presenting Augustine's views, which had been so largely forgotten and brushed aside during the Middle Ages. Both Luther and Calvin put Augustine right next to the Bible—right next to St. Paul as an expounder of the Christian faith—and that might have been true even if Julian of Eclanum had never lived, because Augustine wrote extensively against Pelagius and Coelestius; but it was more true now, because better arguments more clearly worked out were presented by Julian for the position they had originated. And Augustine answered it very fully, and up till the end of his life he was putting what time he could spare from his other activities; and with most of us, if we had all his other activities we couldn't spare a little, we wouldn't get his other activities done; but he got the other activities done, and also wrote a number of books against Pelagianism; and half of them are against the writings of Julian of Eclanum.
So Julian of Eclanum, in the end, did good for the Christian church by
his clear strong
presentation
of the
heretical
position on this point. We will not go into detail much further on this; that is a matter more for theology, than for church history.
We will now look at
5. Augustine's Doctrine of Predestination. It is clearly taught in the Scripture
that, from before the foundation of the world, God had foreordained the things that are going to happen; and that God is sovereign in the universe; this is clearly taught in the Scripture; but perhaps it had not been emphasized or worked out in detail quite as much by anyone before this time as it was
by Augustine; and it was done by him as a part of his anti-Pelagian discussion; because the question immediately comes up, here are two men; one looks to you to be quite a good man; the other
looks to
you not nearly as good a man as this one; but you say neither one of them has got sufficient goodness to be saved; and you say that neither one of them would ever be saved if it were
not for the grace of God alone.
How then is it that the
grace of
God saves some men and not others?
Well, if it isn't because God sees what goodness there is in them, is it because He sees how much good sense we've got?
Some of us have got sense enough to see how reasonable it is to accept God's offer of salvation, and others haven't. Well, that certainly would be a much worse position to take than the other one. The position
that a
man is
saved
because he's
morally better
than
another is not the Christian position, but it is certainly a much more noble
position than
that a
man is saved
simply because he has a little higher IQ than the other man—simply because he has a little more intelligence, his brain quality is a little bit better and he can see the sense in the offer of salvation.
We are not saved because we are morally better than others; we are not saved because we are intellectually better than others; we are not saved because we have more common
sense than others; we are saved because of the grace of God and that alone.
Well then, what makes the difference? Why does one person who
has all
the opportunities you might ever think of, of the presentation of the gospel, turn his back on it, and go the other way, and another man accept Christ and follow Him? Well, Augustine said the answer to this must be found in the matchless wisdom and goodness
of God. It is the grace of God which has predestined from the foundation of the world those to whom His grace is to be extended. That is the only
answer to the problem which gets away from attributing it to something good in man. And Augustine said there is
nothing good in us, but only the grace of God.
Now that doesn't mean, of course, that it is mere arbitrary, contrary, willful reaching across and grabbing someone, saying this is the one I'm going to save. It doesn't mean that it's just willful, arbitrary thoughtlessness on God's part. The wisdom of God is certainly one of His great characteristics; and we can trust to the wisdom of God. But this wisdom of God is based upon something in God's marvelous holiness, His wonderful goodness, His great plans, not based upon some goodness in us that He sees and desires to reward.
It is not a matter of forcing some goodness in us—nothing of the
kind—but it is a matter
of wisdom;
it is
altogether right and wise, but is based upon God's wisdom and upon His marvelous predestining. Now, of course, that does not mean
at all that God does not use secondary causes; and it does not absolve us, in
the least, from the tremendous responsibility that every human being has to turn from
sin and to turn to God; we are to seek the grace of God, everyone who is saved is to reach every other possible one with the Gospel. But it does explain the fact that, with many, we will do our very utmost and we will get no response
whatever; and with others, in seemingly most unexpected ways, we will get a very wonderful response from them; and the
reason lies in God's marvelous plan, not in the difference in the goodness of the various people.
Well, we cannot take time to look into theological details of this
beyond the main points in this class; but it is very important that you have the main points in mind, and that you see
how the understanding developed in the Christian church. I do not believe it is right to speak of the Christian
church as developing a doctrine, or originating a doctrine. The doctrines are
in the
Scripture;
but the
understanding of the
gospel is developed as people discuss it; and people come to see what is in the
Scripture; and they talk back and forth, and they are stimulated by the presentation of false doctrine in the
church; and by the necessity of combating it; and thus in Christian history
there has developed an understanding of these doctrines; and the putting of them into clear language
that makes it easier for us to get; and for that we of course are grateful; and
to no one are we more grateful than to Augustine in this regard.
6. The Council of
Ephesus. We will not say much about the council of Ephesus here; we will have a good deal to say about it later on. But the council of Ephesus was a council
which met in 431 AD. How many of you know where this council met? Will you raise your hand? 3 or 4 do, yes. I heard a very good guess here on the front row, it met in Ephesus.
That is right. It met in the town of Ephesus, which is in Asia Minor, which I trust you all know.
Now Ephesus in Asia Minor was the place where the third ecumenical council met in 431 AD. This council we discuss later at considerable length, so there's no need of my anticipating now, except to mention that one of the less emphasized acts of the council was to condemn Coelestius. He was condemned by the council, and therefore you will find it stated in all books of theology that the council of Ephesus condemned Pelagianism. The members of the council were concerned about other matters; but it has generally been accepted since that time, that this ecumenical council determined that this is the correct attitude of the Christian church; and all Christian groups, I believe, having accepted the first two ecumenical councils as having made correct decisions on the matters of doctrine with which they dealt. This was one of the matters they did not stress, but nevertheless, they did touch—the condemnation of Coelestius. So we mention that as number 6. And here we should properly stop because we are under the heading of Augustine.
And yet I believe for the sake of logic and understanding, it will be
worthwhile for us to take a brief glance into the subsequent future, so I'm
going to make
7. Later History of
the Controversy: Semi-Pelagianism. Semi-Pelagianism is a movement which came during the subsequent years in the western
church. Now
we are speaking largely, when we speak of Pelagianism, about the western church.
We have some important events in this controversy in the Eastern Church, but the principal movers in these events were largely
westerners. There is a difference between the eastern and the western church. The Eastern Church was tremendously
interested in understanding details about the person of Christ. How can He be both God and man? How can we explain this? That is what the eastern church was
interested in; details of that problem; speculative details that do not greatly
affect our direct lives. That is, they may ultimately, but not immediately. But the ancient western
church tended to take these matters as given in the Scripture, and be satisfied with them. The Bible says Jesus is God; the Bible says Jesus is man. Well He's a man like we are,
and yet
He's fully
God, and yet
he's one person; that's what the Scripture teaches. There was not much agitation in the western church on this point, except when it was brought in from the
Eastern Church.
When Athanasius, in the eastern church, made his great stand for the full deity of Christ, the bishop of Rome stood with him; and most of the western church
stood with him, except when the emperor Constantius forced them under penalty of losing everything, to say they believed in
Arianism; but the minute his force was gone, they swung back to the simple acceptance of the basic Scriptural teaching of
these great theological manuscripts. But in the west, the practical questions
assumed more importance than the theoretical; and the most practical question is the question
of Pelagianism: is human nature inherently sound, or is it inherently corrupt? That is the basic question in the practical
sphere. Not what are the details of the person of Christ, but how can man be
saved?
That is
what was agitating the western church. So in the western world we find this
tremendous discussion over Pelagianism; and in the east they did not pay a great
deal of attention to it on the whole; and in the council of Ephesus, which
though it was only eastern bishops who were present, has been accepted by the whole church
as an ecumenical council. At that time, they just incidentally declared that Coelestius
was worthy of utter condemnation.
But now in the western church, the Pelagian teachings had been
widely distributed; and not only that but they fit in with the natural human
tendencies, which you find in all churches and in all groups. When we get our attention away from the great central doctrine of
salvation, we very easily drop into a Pelagianizing tendency. We want to help
people; we must help people; we find what's good in them; we easily drift into this tendency of saying, "Well, look at all the
good in these people; let's just see if we can't help them to realize their
goodness that is in them."
And you find that most Christian groups pass through this cycle. First there is the great emphasis on the grace of God
and salvation through that alone; then people get to forgetting these great
supernatural doctrines, and putting their emphasis on helping people and a more
humanistic level. And you get to a place where you have the churches change, a place which externally appears much more attractive than when they're
arguing about
doctrine,
and insisting on these precise points of doctrine. But then they do not stay at that point; from
that, they soon move on
to the point where they begin questioning the ethical principles; and questioning the
moral principles; and soon they lose their ethical character, after giving up their theological character.
Well, in the western church there was a strong tendency toward Pelagianism.
Pelagianism was condemned by the council of Ephesus; condemned by the bishop of Rome; thoroughly controverted by
Augustine's
writing.
There developed in France a strong movement which their opponents called Semi-Pelagianism. I don't know if you need to remember that at first they called themselves Basilians; but that would be a name taken from Marseilles, which was their principal center—Marseilles in southern France. There at Marseilles were men who developed the idea that, "Well," they said, "Augustine was right, and divine grace is tremendously important, and man is not morally sound," but they said, "Augustine went too far in thinking man was entirely corrupt and in bondage." They said, "Man is more diseased or crippled rather than completely corrupt." They said, "There is a crippled state, a diseased state, which needs the grace of God," but they said, "Divine grace and human will jointly accomplish the work of conversion and sanctification; and ordinarily man must take the first step." So this semi-Pelagian view, this view which was more or less halfway between Augustine and Pelagius, but a little nearer Pelagius—let us say one-third of the way towards Augustine from Pelagius—which, they called themselves at first, Basilians, but soon came to be called Semi-Pelagians.
This view spread over a large portion of France, and into other parts of the western world; and it continued for quite a time, for several decades; there were two synods in France where it gained a victory, and where Augustine's doctrine of predestination was condemned, but Augustine was not named. One would hardly name Augustine when they were opposing
him, as
his
name had too
great a standing all through the church.
Then, however, a strong movement developed against this Semi-Pelagianism; and in 496 the Bishop of Rome issued a decree in which he declared that the writings of Augustine were among books ecclesiastically
sanctioned, and those of the two main leaders of the French semi-Pelagians were condemned—were forbidden for Christians to read; and there was a synod at Orange in 529, in which the Semi-Pelagian
system was
condemned,
without mention of its leaders. The Bishop of Rome had condemned the leaders, but now this synod of Orange condemned the view, giving 25 chapters of statements in which they declare a view that was much more Augustinian
than the view
of the
Semi-Pelagians. And so this declaration of the synod of Orange in 529 marked the end of
Semi-Pelagianism as a strong force in the church. From that time on, it was not only considered
heretical to support Pelagius but to give views which were as near those of
Pelagius as those held by the so-called Semi-Pelagians.
However, Schaff refers to the Synod of Orange as the victory of Semi-Augustinianism. And it is customary for Protestant writers to refer to the
attitude of the Roman church through the Middle Ages as Semi-Augustinian. They
honor Augustine tremendously, and there's much in his writing to which they give great sanction. But on his great doctrines of sin and grace, they
fall very considerably
short
of going the whole way that Augustine went; and in fact, movements in the Roman Church have been condemned and destroyed which were simply following Augustine's
views.
In the 17th century, there was the Jansenist movement in the Roman Catholic Church, which stressed the writings of Augustine. Pascal, the great scientist and great Christian writer, belonged to this Jansenist movement. It was a very strong movement in France for a time. But the Jesuits attacked the movement; the Pope condemned the movement; the king ordered it destroyed, and the monasteries in France in which the Jansenist leaders had been, were completely taken to pieces and eradicated, and everybody removed from them; and the nuns who held this view were taken and divided up among other convents, scattered among them.
At a cemetery in France, where one of the Jansenist leaders
had been buried, someone said that a great act of healing occurred; and the people
who'd been moved by the much superior movement of the Jansenists, began to gather around the place and look for
miracles; and
the French King gave orders
that no
congregation
of people was to be allowed to come around that cemetery. So some wit put up a sign one
night, and next morning they found it: "By order of the King, God almighty is forbidden to
perform miracles at this place."
But that Jansenist movement, which is very important in the history of France in the 17th century, was simply
a revival of the full Augustinianism within the Roman Catholic Church. Now there were individuals through the
centuries, who followed Augustine very closely, but the mass of the leaders held to the view of Semi-Augustinianism;
and so
we
make that
8. Semi-Augustinianism. Semi-Augustinianism came to be the general view of the western church. It may be one-third of the way from full
Augustinianism to Pelagianism. But all through the centuries there have been individuals, and some of them rather important leaders, who have been followers of the strict
Augustinianism; both Luther and Calvin felt that the main thing they were doing was
bringing the views of Augustine clearly to the front, making them available to the people at
large.
Then we go on to
K. Augustine and the Church of Rome. Under that,
1. The Immediate Effect of Augustine's Work on the
Development of the Roman System. And under that,
a. The Donatist Controversy. We have seen how Augustine, for a period of more than ten years, devoted a great part of his energy to the Donatist controversy. And this Donatist controversy resulted in almost entirely destroying from North Africa a rival system which claimed to hold exactly the same doctrinal views as
the catholic church. This greatly strengthened the idea that the church must be one
church. And
many would go on from that to the natural corollary: and have one head. Augustine never said that, but many would naturally go on.
So the Donatist controversy, and Augustine's writings and his activity in the Donatist
controversy, did much to strengthen the development toward one unified church with a head
who had power and authority to affect all portions of that church. So Augustine, through the Donatist controversy, gave a
great push forward to the development of the Roman Catholic system of
government, even though he did not directly participate in any such system. Then
b. The City of God. And we've already seen the effects of his great work, The City of God, in this regard. He had a great concept—the two cities, the city of man and the city of God—but then he went
ahead and
in his
book he devoted himself
mostly to trying to prove paganism was wrong and Christianity was right; and he
did a great service in doing that; but his great concept, unfortunately, he
did not have
some
spur or stimulus to work out fully, and explain clearly just what he meant. And, we believe that what he actually had in mind was that the
city of
God is the working of God, through
His grace,
to build up
the kingdom of God, the city of the truly redeemed.
Nevertheless, the concept, with old pagan Rome and the city of God—superficially considered—stimulated the development of the new city of Rome, the new supposedly heavenly city which they
organized and controlled, which would be heavenly instead of earthly; and thus stimulated the idea of this analogy of the Roman
Catholic system.
It had a more theoretical connection with it, almost, than the Donatist controversy, which concerned itself simply with Africa and had no relation
actually to the rest of the world. But this is a result which Augustine certainly never intended, and which is not a logical result of his activity in this direction, but was a very natural one. Then
2. The Ultimate
Effect of Augustine's Work in this Regard. The ultimate effect of Augustine's work in this regard would relate to the Pelagian Controversy, in which the stress is not on the
organization, but on the views—on the theology—on the grace of God as absolute necessity, And this phase of Augustine's work had its most direct result in the 16th century, when Luther and Calvin read Augustine; and were stirred with the clear presentation of his great Biblical principles; and stimulated to do the tremendous work
in
connection with the Protestant Reformation. This was a delayed result of Augustine's work: to give tremendous stimulus to the Protestant Reformation; and thus to do much
to tear down the power of the Roman Catholic
hierarchy, which his other two activities had contributed toward building up.
3. Augustine's Personal Relation.
a. The Famous
Sermon. This sermon was quoted through the Middle Ages—over and over. Augustine is one of the two or three greatest of all the ancient church leaders. Augustine
said, "Rome
has spoken, the cause is
finished," therefore what Rome says settles the matter. Now, of course, it is now proven that he didn't say that; and Roman
Catholic writers
admit he
did not say it now; but it was said all through the Middle Ages that he had said it. And while he did not say those specific words, with only a little bit of
misunderstanding, his sermon can be twisted to give that idea; because Augustine was anxious to see the end of this Pelagian
heresy, and he said, "Here the Bishop of Rome had declared his thoroughgoing agreement. Look, we're all
agreed like this; all have studied it, and here's this letter from the Bishop of Rome; he says it's utterly
un-Christian, outside the pale of true Christianity; here's all this agreement, the thing is
finished now; let's get rid of it and go on to serve the Lord."
b. Reaction to Zosimus' Attitude. And one who has an
idea that the Bishop of Rome is head of the church, can find aid and comfort from that sermon, even though the specific
things they
quote are not in it. But of course
in the providence of God, there was, even while he gave that sermon—as we noticed yesterday—there was on the
high seas
a ship
carrying
a
letter from the bishop to the Carthaginian church, telling him they must not condemn Coelestius and
Pelagius because they are wonderful godly men. And so it contradicted everything that Bishop Innocent had said. And when Augustine got that
letter, that proves his attitude toward the bishop of Rome. If Augustine had immediately said, "Oh, I'm so sorry; I was mistaken; I thought the Roman Church condemned
Pelagius, but I see now that it was a misunderstanding; the Roman Bishop said we must not criticize Pelagius; well, he's the head of the church, we'll do what he says."
But that's not what Augustine said at all. When they got this letter from Zosimus, the
African synods, under Augustine's influence—though he was in no sense official
leader, he
was a man
whose personal influence was greater than that of anyone else in the church—under his influence they took a strong stand that Zosimus
was wrong; they declared that they were against Pelagius and Coelestius, and they tried to get the emperor to act directly
contrary to
what
the Bishop of Rome had said. Well, it's pretty hard to get out of that any
submission to a Bishop of Rome. It's pretty hard to get out of that, so that it controverts
the superficial effect of his sermon. So that is important to have in mind.
c. Other Matters. If time permitted, we could take up
three-quarters of an hour, going into details of situations where men who, for moral delinquency, were condemned and deposed by the
church in Africa, appealed to the Bishop of Rome; and the Bishop of Rome ordered they be reinstated; and the African Church
refused to listen to the Bishop of Rome; and even sent him letters telling him that matters like this should be determined by
people on the ground, by people who know the facts; they even passed a ruling that in the church anyone who should appeal to a leader across the sea, was thereby proving himself not a worthy member of the church. Well, now that is going pretty far away from thinking the Pope is the authority, and we
should do
what he said; it's going pretty far in the opposite direction.
And the bishops of Rome were getting—some of them—rather anxious to assert their authority by this time; and for one representative of the bishop of Rome, who came to Carthage and declared his authority in very strong language, the Carthaginian church wrote to the bishop of Rome telling him this man was not desirable to have in their midst, and please take him away; they didn't want to have any more connections with him. So there are a number of these details; but they fit—coming together—they show that Augustine held the view of Cyprian, that the bishop was the leader of the local church,
and all the bishops stood
together, making one unified
catholic church; but that it did not recognize any
official superiority of one bishop over another, and certainly not of one bishop over the rest.
So Augustine's attitude in this regard is something with which we should be familiar.
There is no man who is more venerated in the western church by Protestants than
Augustine, because our great central doctrines of Protestantism trace back to
his teaching. There is no man in
the ancient church who is more
venerated by Roman Catholics than Augustine, because so much of the development
of the hierarchy traces back to influences which he forwarded by certain of his activities. But the claims that he
held the present view of the supremacy of the bishop of Rome over the church is one which is utterly
unfounded; and it's easily disproven by his own writings as they have been passed
down to us within the Roman Catholic Church.
We were talking about K, The Relation
of St. Augustine and the Church of Rome. And we noticed first those matters in which Augustine unintentionally
gave impetus to the movement
which resulted eventually in the development of the theory of a tightly organized church, with the Roman Bishop at its head. We noticed, secondly, those phases of Augustine's activity which in the end resulted in the revolt from that, which were the background of the Reformation for Luther and Calvin. Then third, we noticed the specific relations between Augustine and the Bishop of Rome; and the last of these
that we were looking at just at the end of the hour; we did not go into detail on—but merely mentioned the fact—that when the Bishop of Rome tried to interfere in local affairs in the
church of Africa, the church of Africa—which was very largely under Augustine's influence at the
time—refused
to
accept any
such dictation.
They did it
always
in very polite language; but they insisted that matters in Africa can be
settled by people in Africa; and that no one in Africa should appeal to someone beyond the seas for freeing him from a
discipline which had been made against him by the people in Africa who knew the situation.
Now from that, we will move on to
L. Other Writings
of St. Augustine. We have noticed particularly those writings of St. Augustine which refer to the controversies in which he was engaged. We noticed how many
he was engaged in, and how thoroughly he carried them out. I'm not going to go into detail on these other writings, but I'm trying to call your attention to the
fact that we've already mentioned, that Augustine was the most extensive writer of the
ancient church, except for Origen. Origen, of course, wrote tremendous amounts of
material. But
Augustine
wrote over
a
thousand works; it may even be that he wrote more
than Origen did. And his writing is different from that of Origen in that he
took more care with his work. A great many of Origen's were simply taken down in shorthand from his lectures, and distributed.
Origen took tremendous care with textual criticism; he spent his time for many, many years, carefully studying the text of the O.T.; comparing the different manuscripts;
comparing the Septuagint; he was tremendously interested in textual criticism, and in this he did extremely careful work. This was a field in which Augustine was not
interested.
But Origen let his mind run freely on philosophical matters of
all sorts; when he was dealing with the great doctrines of the faith, he was very loyal to the Word of
God; he intended always to be loyal to the Word of God, but in his lectures with people who almost idolized him, he dealt with just about every speculative matter you could think of that related to the Bible; and where there was no evidence, he let his imagination
run; and if you will take these
as simply guesses, there's no harm in it. But it does mean that a
substantial part of what Origen wrote is not of great value for us, for that reason.
Now Augustine was in a different situation. Augustine was not merely a teacher as Origen was, with people whom you were trying to interest, and trying to get them to work along the line
you
were speaking of; he was a practical worker in the church, constantly dealing directly with problems, and anxious to bring the Word of God to bear on these
problems. Therefore, almost everything he wrote had a relationship to a practical problem in the spiritual life
of his people; in his own spiritual life; or in some movement or some tendency; or some leadership which he felt was harmful and dangerous to the church of his day.
So the result is that there is not a great deal of a speculative nature in Augustine's work. There is some, but
as a rule, in his work—particularly after he became bishop—he is trying to deal with important
situations; and therefore, he is very, very careful in what he says; to have it closely in line with the Scripture; and in line with what he feels will be helpful; and therefore, Augustine's work
had a tremendous influence, not only then, but all through the Middle
Ages, and
even in modern
times.
His Confessions have been translated into many different languages; they have appeared in new editions repeatedly; even within the last 20 years, they have been reprinted two or three times. His City of God has been reprinted many times, and translated into many languages—not nearly as much as the confessions—but yet much more than most works that were written as long ago as that.
But these are not the only works of Augustine which have had great influence. His anti-Pelagian writings have had a tremendous
influence. I think we can safely say there's a strong chance that the ancient church
would have
drifted into
Pelagianism
if it were
not for Augustine's strong fight
against it. As it was, he woke people up to the terrible danger of Pelagianism. As a
result of his efforts, the leaders of the church took a strong stand against Pelagianism; and then when the semi-Pelagianism developed, he began
writing against that; and in the end, that was condemned by most of the church leaders; so that what the church drifted into, we call semi-Augustinianism; while it is not really close to the teachings of the Scripture; and
it contributed to the turning away of the Roman Catholic church in the Middle Ages from the clear truth of the
Scriptures; yet it was nothing like as bad as it would have been if it had gone
all the way into Pelagianism. And there is a strong possibility it would have, if it were not for the great influence of his writing.
And then of course—in addition to that—these writings of Augustine had a tremendous influence in modern times.
Luther and Calvin got their teachings from the Word of God; but it is hard to say how much they were influenced in their understanding, and
how much sooner they may have come to the understanding of many important points, through having Augustine's
writings and Augustine's views, points which they doubtless would have gotten from Scripture
eventually, which might have taken quite a bit more time. It left them that much more
time to be active influences in the church, the fact that they had Augustine's influence upon
them; and this was largely through his anti-Pelagian writings.
His writings against the Donatists, as we noticed, had a very considerable
influence in
the development of the medieval idea of the one church; that you might not break away from
the
true church, but if you hold the true gospel, you should be at one with the true church. That was carried of course to an extent far beyond
what Augustine ever dreamed of, and we feel that that is a tendency which has
wrought much
harm; but
Augustine's influence in it cannot be underrated.
The influence of his book, The City of God, we mentioned, and it was very important in various ways.
Augustine wrote many exegetical works. He wrote a commentary in 12 books, in which he dealt with the first three chapters of Genesis. He wrote other commentaries on the rest of Genesis, but this longest one was on the first three
chapters. He
published
a long series of sermons on the
Psalms; another on the Gospel of John; one on the first epistle of John; an exposition on the Sermon on
the Mount; a harmony of the Gospels; a commentary on the epistle to the Galatians; an
unfinished commentary on the epistle to the Romans. These many commentaries which he issued vary in
quality; some of them he worked over extremely carefully; others he gave as sermons, going straight through the
book.
The same thing is true of Calvin. Calvin's Commentary on the Bible is very uneven; some of his volumes he issued in several editions and worked over very carefully; and others of them are simply a
series of sermons which he gave, just about as he gave them the first time. So some of his
commentaries are tremendously valuable; others, while always abounding in interesting presentation and
clear exposition,
are
not nearly so valuable, because they did not have a fraction of the work that
some did. That is true of Calvin, as it is of Augustine.
Augustine, toward the end of his life, was visited by an Arian bishop;
and this bishop came in
and wanted to talk with
him, to discuss Arianism with Augustine. This was about 15 years before the end of his life. This
man came
in and
wanted to talk to him; and Augustine was glad to talk to him; he said, "Just a minute; I'll call
in the shorthand writers, and they'll take down our discussion." "Oh," this man said, "I wish you wouldn't do that. I'd
feel much freer to talk without having everything written down." So Augustine said, "All right," so they went ahead
and talked without the shorthand writers.
And then the thing happened, that Augustine found several times
happened, when he had a discussion with somebody without any stenographer present to take it down; the man
would go away
and say,
"Oh, I completely defeated Augustine, I silenced him." If they said that, when he had it all taken down, he simply sent out a copy of what was said.
People could see what the truth was, and it's one thing that made him more and
more insistent on doing that. So often he found people would misrepresent the discussions if it hadn't been taken down here. Well, in this case, he talked with the bishop for a good part of an afternoon; they went into matters concerning the Trinity; Augustine felt that they were sort
of
laying foundations, going to go on to other discussions; he let the man talk quite extensively, to get
his view rather fully; he put in a few questions, a few comments, intending to go into it more fully the next day; and next morning he found a note there. The bishop said, "I would like to see you some more, but unfortunately I have to move on, have to be in Carthage in a couple of days." So he had no further discussion
with him. Well, Augustine
thought this was unfortunate, he'd like to have gone more fully into detail on these matters.
Then he got a letter from someone in Carthage; and this Arian bishop had come to Carthage and was holding meetings all over Carthage and telling everybody, "I had a big discussion with Augustine in Hippo, and he could not answer my arguments; he was unable to prove that there was not a time when Christ was not." Well, of course, Augustine hadn't tried particularly to prove it; he'd been getting the man's view and raising a few points here and there incidentally, but expecting to go on the next day or so.
The Arian bishop reported, "He couldn't answer my
arguments; he was absolutely stumped," and he thought that it was helping
greatly in the spread of his ideas in Carthage. So Augustine sat down and wrote a long book on the
Trinity; he called it Fifteen Books on the Trinity. Of course, to them, a book was a division, in those days, of a good many chapters, like a book of the Bible, not like a book in our modern sense.
But it was a very sizeable work. Schaff says of it, "It is the most profound and
discriminating production of the ancient church on the Trinity. In no respect inferior to similar works
of Athanasius
and
the two Gregory's and for centuries final to the matter of the Trinity."
So here is a matter on which Augustine never had any great controversy, which the Council of
Constantinople, before his conversion, had settled as far as the Roman world as a whole was concerned.
It was not a vital issue among the Christians in the Roman Empire, but it was among
the barbarians; and there was an occasional man advancing Arian views; but this incident stirred Augustine to study this
particular matter and deal with it fully; and the work that he wrote had a
profound and tremendous influence on the ancient church, and on through the Middle Ages.
Oh, we should perhaps just mention, that he wrote a lot of
practical and ascetic works. I've already referred to them. Perhaps we should specifically mention them again here.
But there is one very interesting thing that Augustine did, which shows the tremendous
seriousness
of the
man. I know of hardly anybody else who has done quite anything like this. In 427, when he was
73 years
of
age, he followed the proverb: "In the multitude of words, there wants not sin." He remembered that the Lord said that we must give account
for every
idle
word, and
we are commanded to judge ourselves
that we be not judged, and he said, "I should judge myself," and so he wrote a work which he called Retractions. And in this Retractions, he went through everything that he had
written, starting
with
when he was first converted; he went through all his works, and as he went through, he tried to find whatever there might be which he now
thought was wrong; and any point of fact or of judgment, of doctrinal viewpoint, or even an attitude which he felt was deserving of criticism; he wrote it down in
his Retractions. So he went through all his works, taking them in chronological order from the
beginning; writing a statement of any point at which he felt now, that what he had said needed revision, or change, or anything
that
he regretted
that
he had said.
So here is one of the few cases in history where you can know exactly what the man thought at the end of his life. Professor William F. Albright, retired from Johns Hopkins University last year; he has been one of the most productive
scholars in the field of archeology in modern times; and one thing I like about
Professor Albright is: he is not like so many scholars who will want to wait 20 years to write something
that's absolutely the last word on anything. Any new thing that's come up, he has
immediately published his opinion about it; and that's tremendously helpful to the advance of scholarship.
Because immediately you get his insight, his observation of his ideas, and the
other scholars can study it.
But it has its disadvantages, that he immediately publishes his
first ideas on it. A year later he may, in the light of new evidence, think the exact
opposite on a further consideration of it. I remember one time when the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental
Research, of which he was then editor, came out with a heading: "A
Revolution in the Chronology of the Ancient East. New discoveries on the Upper
Euphrates disprove the whole idea of the early chronology, it's three centuries later than we thought." Well, then, everybody jumped on them.
The next issue came out—three months later—"I wish to retract what I said in the last issue. In the light of evidence that has been presented, I see it's been completely wrong. This material is important and interesting but it does not make a revolution."
Then the next one came out, three months after that. He said, "I wish to retract what I said
in the last one; on further investigation I find that this evidence does prove that
there is a revolution in the chronology of the ancient east."
Well, in the course of the next ten years, practically every other scholar came to adopt the view he had presented, but gradually, one by one. But anybody picking up one of these bulletins, they won't know what his opinion is on it unless they've got the latest one.
Back in 1929, he gave me about 40 reprints of articles he had written before that; and he'd say, "Now that one has been completely revised—that one there—I used to cite it, but I don't anymore; this one here has got some good stuff in it, but a lot of it that I think now is wrong." And if you're going to quote anything from him, you have to know when he wrote it. He has been a very productive scholar and very helpful to the advance of scholarship; but it has been his way of saying immediately what he thinks in helping others to react to what he says and make progress. Most scholars are not like that though they are to some extent like that.
I remember one man Fairbairn wrote a book, and then later he
wrote another book which he called Fairbairn against Fairbairn, because he was
now attacking the views that he had given in his previous book.
Well in the case of Augustine, we have his Retractions; and it isn't as much of
a
retraction as it is an examination, a revision; there is nothing really vital that he is taking back;
but on little points where he was thinking differently now, or where he perhaps
erred in some minor matter of fact, he tells us, at the age of 73, what he wished he had
said; what he would say if he were saying it now. It says the Retractions of
Augustine give beautiful evidence of his love of truth, his conscientiousness and his humility. Now,
M. The Last Days of Augustine. And before telling about the specific things about his own personal experience in his last days, I
want to say a few words about the historical developments. Because it is impossible for us to think of him, as he lay on his deathbed,
without being conscious of what was happening then in the political field. So,
1. The Political
Developments. Now the political developments are very interesting at that time. Under
that:
a. The Vandal Entrance into Spain. Now we have noticed that there was a Germanic tribe, called the Vandals. From this tribe came Stilicho, the great general of Honorius—practically
administrator of the Empire—who held the various barbarian tribes at bay as long as he lived; and finally, when he was accused
of treason and killed in prison, the result was the Goths were able to penetrate to Rome, and sack Rome.
I like to think of Stilicho, because it reminds us of the fact that the Vandals were like other groups; they had their good people, they had their bad people; there is no group of people which is good or bad. But a group of people can have good leadership or bad leadership. I mean by a group, a large group—a tremendously large group. It is made up of good people and bad people. Now the Vandals were just like any other of the various groups. They had their good people; they had their bad people among them. The question is: who is in the leadership? And almost any group can become very bad or very good, depending on the leadership.
Well, now, in the case of the Vandals, they penetrated the Roman
Empire; and they made their way down to what is now France, and down into
Spain; and there in Spain they established control, though they constantly were under some attack from
others—like a group of the Goths
who were
there, who
claimed to be a part of the Empire and subject to the emperor, though they were ruling as they felt like, but giving nominal allegiance to the empire.
Well, the
Vandals
established
quite
a sizeable kingdom there in Spain. Now we want to mention
b. The Western
Empire. We have noticed that Honorius, son of Theodosius, was a very
weak ruler; and what happened during his reign depended on who was the prime
minister, and how he managed to handle things. The prime minister was always in danger; somebody might turn Honorius against him, and he'd be put out, and they'd
have a new
one.
But now Honorius dies; a usurper takes over for a brief time; and
then the cousin, who was over the eastern empire, sent an army, destroyed the usurper, and established Honorius' young son as emperor. But he was, if anything, a weaker man than his father had been;
and the government was largely in the hands of his mother, who had really no ability for statecraft at all. She would like this person or
that
person, and let them run it. So the western empire is in a very weak situation. Now
c. Count Boniface. Count Boniface was
a Roman general who was in command of Africa. Previous to that he had been in charge of armies who had driven back large barbarian groups. He was a very
capable general. There was another general who was equally capable; these two had led in the defense
of the
empire; but now the other, Aëtius—I don't want to bother you with his name—he was in Italy; Boniface was in charge in Africa. In 420, Boniface's wife died; Boniface was a very earnest Christian man. He was a good friend of St. Augustine. And when his wife died, he said, "I'm going to leave the Empire, give up administrative positions; I'm going to go out into the
desert, become
a monk
and devote myself to contemplation, study of the Scripture, and contemplation of the
great things of Christianity."
And ordinarily nothing would please Augustine better than for somebody to do a thing like that. But in this case,
Augustine said to Boniface, "Boniface, you've got a key position here in
the Roman Empire; you
are the
bulwark, the
protection of the Empire, and the establishment of sound justice in Africa; I think you ought to spend all the
time you can studying the Scripture in devotion to the Lord; but I think that
in your
particular
case, I say a thing I would say to nobody else: that you would serve the Lord better to continue
in your
position,
and do the good you're doing to the whole civilized world in that way, instead of leaving it and devoting
yourself to contemplative life."
Well, Boniface took Augustine's advice; but two years later he was sent on a mission, representing the emperor, to the court of the Vandals in
Spain; and
there he fell in love with a
young
Vandal maiden,
and married her. And this established a friendly relationship between him and this group of the Vandals. Now, Aëtius, the other great general in
Italy, about
5 years after this, decided
that he would
like
to get rid of Boniface, so he would be the only leader in the empire, next to the emperor. So he succeeded
in persuading the emperor that Boniface was beginning to waver in his allegiance, and
that he ought to call him back in order to interview him and find out for sure if he was. And then he wrote letters to
his good
friend
Boniface, and
he told
him that the emperor had turned against him; and that if he were to come back, the empress would seize him and
put him in prison and kill him. And that had happened to Stilcho a few years before; and Aëtius was able to write Boniface in such a way as to convince him that these things were being done against him, and that Aëtius was his only friend; but at the
same time in Italy he was telling everybody that Boniface was turning; and then when Boniface refused to come back, he said to the emperor,
"See, what I told you, he's giving up his loyalty; he's going to try to become
independent of the empire."
And the result was that the emperor sent a more urgent
letter,
urging
Boniface to come back; and the result was that Boniface declared he would not come; and
they sent a
small army
to bring him back and he repulsed this army; and then, knowing he could not meet the whole force of the empire, he sent to
his friends the Vandals, and he said to them,
"Will you come over to Africa and help me? I am being undermined and would
be killed. If you will come and
help me, I'll give you a reward and you will help me to defend myself against
the empire."
Well,
the king of the Vandals had died; and his half-brother who was a generous sort
of a fellow, but an able fellow, Genseric, he gladly accepted the invitation, from Boniface. He
got ships, and
Boniface provided
ships; and
some say 80
thousand Vandal warriors came to Africa from Spain; Gibbon thinks it was only 50. The Spaniards were glad to get rid of Genseric; and they did everything they could to help him get across the Mediterranean
to Africa.
But meantime, there was another official in the court who said to the queen in Ravenna, in Italy, he said,
"You
know, I
think there's some mistake here." He said, "Will you let me go and try to talk to Boniface before we have an all-out war?" And she said, "All right," so he went under a flag of truce and got to Africa and talked to Boniface, and told him what he had heard; and he said, "Well, Aëtius has been saying the opposite about you, up there, and I can't believe that." And
Boniface got out the letter, and showed him what it said. And this man, whose name was Zerias was able to persuade Boniface that it was all Aëtius'
fault, and
actually the Queen wanted to be friendly with him; and he should be loyal, of course, to the Roman Empire.
And so Boniface declared his loyalty again; and then he went to Western Africa, and met the Vandal group and told them, "I've made friends with the empire again; I won't need your help." Well, they said,
"We've come down to Africa; we were expecting to take North Africa as a reward for helping you. We're certainly not going back now." So all that Boniface could do was to gather an army as quickly as he could, meet the Vandals, and try to stop them; and he failed.
And now the 80,000 Vandal warriors were there, in North Africa; and as they came along, they'd gathered the Moors and the wild tribes who were back in from the Mediterranean; they welcomed them into their army; and they increased their army from these people, who naturally disliked the Roman Empire; and they gathered more and more of them; and they made their way across Africa, and within six months, they'd taken all of North Africa except the three leading cities.
So that when Augustine lay on his deathbed in Hippo, around him you could look out from the walls and see villages burning; you saw marauders rushing here and there, destroying houses, taking people captives, pillaging and robbing; how much of it was the Vandals; how
much of it was the wild North African tribes that gathered with them; how much of it was due to the leadership of Genseric, this
degenerate who had the power of control among them, it was hard to say.
Some say that a good bit of it was due to the fact that they
were Arians, Ulfilas having converted the Goths and the Vandals; and they
looked on the Trinitarians as utterly wrong, and were glad to destroy them any
way they could. How much that might enter into it is hard to say. But the fact
is that North
Africa, the finest of the Roman provinces; the one to which Romans fled for
safety when Rome was sacked; was now ravaged and pillaged by the Vandals to such an extent that the name
Vandal has come to mean simply wrecking without purpose, utter destruction, annihilation, to accomplish
nothing. And vandalism has come to have that meaning; you will find it in the newspaper
occasionally today—vandalism. But that was going on all around outside, while Augustine lay
on his deathbed. So that it must have been a very sad situation to Augustine, who had
spent his life building up the church in North Africa; defending it, solving the various schisms; gathering
the people together into fellowship, one with another; spreading the word of God; to have the whole region desolated, destroyed, and wrecked in this
way; while only the strong walls of Hippo and of two other towns protected the inhabitants of those three
towns from the destruction that the Vandals were carrying on. But Augustine's eyes were on the Lord.
2. Augustine's Death. Augustine's eyes were on the Lord. He did not know whether the end of the world had now come; whether it meant that the whole world was now going to be destroyed and ravished. Actually it was the end of ancient civilization; very soon the dark ages descended
over Europe, which
lasted for centuries; Augustine didn't know, but he did know that the Lord's plan was best; the Lord's purposes were right; and Augustine carried on his work in Hippo
as best he could. He was 76 years of age; and then he weakened into what everybody realized was his last illness; and for 30 days he lay on his bed, and he had the
penitential Psalms written in large letters on the ceiling; and he read over those words, and meditated on them through those 30 days. Meditating
on his life; thinking of the errors and faults he had committed; trusting them to the love of Christ; looking to Christ to fit him for his entrance into the eternal land.
And there peacefully, with his friends around him, he died in Hippo; but his life work, as far as Africa was concerned, was a complete ruin. As far as Christendom was concerned, his writings and his influence have been and are effective even till today.
I interrupted our sequence of centuries to give a whole Roman Numeral to Augustine; and M, the last we spoke of, was the Last Days of Augustine. We spoke, 1, of the Political Developments; and 2, Augustine's Death; and there we noticed something of the last acts that he performed in his final illness; his lying there in the bed with the penitential Psalms on the wall above him; where he constantly went over and over them during his last hours before his death. We noticed the situation, with the Vandals all over North Africa, except these three cities; and all the work that he had built up in his lifetime, as far as external evidence is concerned; seemingly completely disappearing under the Vandal attack. Now, we go on to
That is to say the 400's. We have already discussed some things about the Fifth Century AD.
A. The Political
Developments. And this is a century differing from any that ever occurred before or
since, at least since recorded history has been at all full. It is a century of
great change, a century of the end of the Roman Empire, and of the beginning of the
Middle Ages. We notice how in 378 the Emperor was killed in a battle with the Goths; but
Theodosius stopped their progress, and they settled down; it could have been just an individual occurrence; but it wasn't;
actually, it was the beginning of the big movement of the Germanic tribes into the Empire, which
during this fifth century brought the Roman Empire to an end—at least from the viewpoint of us westerners. That is to say the Roman Empire was originally a western movement; it was in Europe for many centuries before it got into Asia at all; it never extended a long distance into Asia, so that as you think of the Roman Empire as it has been through history, it comes to an end.
But as you think of the Roman Empire as Diocletian divided it into two parts—the eastern and western—the eastern part continued for a thousand years after the western
was ended. So the Roman Empire in that sense did not end until a thousand years later. But the western. part of the Roman Empire—which after all is where it started—it ends during this century.
Our interest is particularly in Europe, because the background of our religious life and of our cultural life goes back to Europe; and in Europe this
century was a century of a complete change from the condition of the three previous centuries: most of southern Europe, the southern
two-thirds of Europe, was people who lived under Roman law, Roman civilization, Roman government; one settled
government controlled it, and it established a very great measure of justice, law and order.
Then you have, in this century, a complete change from that situation, until you get the situation that has prevailed ever since: in which Europe has been divided up
into little groups, little sections, squabbling with one another, as they have
done ever
since that time. And so
it is a time of tremendous upheaval and change as far as
all western civilization is concerned. And that we should be familiar with, about the
fifth century. Now to go into the political history of the fifth century, it would occupy a month or two; but
we will not do that. I want you to have a few of the main elements in mind. So under
that, I will entitle:
1. The Sack of Rome. And we have already discussed this to some extent under Augustine. The city was entered by invaders and plundered. This occurred in 410 AD and it was the first time for over 800 years that foreign invaders had entered the city of Rome. So, it was a great turning point in world history. We noticed the group that did it. I have called them, to you, only the Goths. For the sake of this course, it is not particularly important to notice that there were two main groups of Goths—the eastern and the western—and this is the western, the Visigoths. That is not particularly important from the viewpoint of our particular course. I gave you the name of the king of the Goths, Alaric. It is a fact that he permitted the sack to continue for only three days; he drew his army out at the end of three days and put a stop to the plunder. I've never heard of an army in modern times which has been as well-controlled, as well-handled, as Alaric's army was then. In fact, Jackson, in his history of the Christian Church up to 461 AD, remarks upon it, that when Rome was sacked 1100 years later by an army half of Spaniards and half of Germans, that the plundering lasted far longer and was far more bloody and far more destructive than that of Alaric and the Goths. But he made a tremendous impression on the world, because it was the first time that the mistress of the Empire had been plundered by foreign invaders in 800 years.
So Alaric withdrew his army, and they eventually headed westward; and eventually the western Goths
settled in Spain, where probably most of their descendants have remained to this
day.
2. The Vandals. Here again, we have already spoken of them; we noticed that the Vandals,
like the
Goths,
were Arians. They were nominal Christians; there doubtless were many
real Christians
among them,
many who were openly professing Christians; but there was an attitude
toward Christianity which was far different from what you would expect from heathen. Alaric's army had been very
careful not to injure the churches of Rome; nor anyone who was finding refuge in the Church; and people who took valuable
things into a church, and kept them there, Alaric's army did not interfere with.
The Vandals were Arians, like the Goths had been. They came down through France, across the Rhine, and eventually made their way to Spain; and then we noticed how
they were invited over into Africa; and how they went; and then how Count Boniface, though he had
invited them, told them he didn't need them any more; they could go back;
but they
didn't go back, and they defeated him, and they took all of Africa. The result was that in 430 when Augustine died, the Vandals had all of
Africa in their hands except the three main cities. According to some of the stories that are told about
it,
their treatment
of the people of North Africa was utterly barbaric—indescribable the way they destroyed houses and wrecked that area. Some of the stories may possibly be overdrawn; we don't know, but it certainly was one of the most barbarous destructions in modern history, in any event.
Alaric's men seemed to have felt much in common with the catholic Christians, and so
they spared the churches. The Vandals, rather, felt their difference from them; being Arians, they felt a profound dislike of the catholic Christians—or Trinitarian Christians, we might call them—which
dislike lasted
through
the
next century of Vandal dominion in Africa.
The emperor made a peace treaty with the Vandal king, in which the
agreement was made that the emperor should retain Carthage, but that everything else in Africa
would be in
the
hands of the Vandals. Well, they already had everything else; they held the rest of Africa; they destroyed Hippo; they wrecked things pretty badly. But they settled and made
their homes
there;
and Genseric, their king, set to work to build a free city, which none of these other
barbaric tribes ever did.
Now we noticed—I mentioned to you last time—that the king of the Vandals was a man who was not properly the next in line for the
kingship; he was a man who had been looked down on by the rest of the family;
but had seized the power in Spain, and he was evidently a very brutal rude sort of a
fellow; and he probably put people of his own type into the leadership; and it
is not fair to judge a whole people by the activities which come about under
certain leaders. Every nation has got wicked people among them, and kind-hearted among them. In this
case, the brutal
and ruthless
people
were in control.
Anyway, he made a treaty with the Roman
Emperor—emperor
of the
west—whereby Rome would keep Carthage, and the Vandals would have all the rest
of North Africa. And there was a region which had Roman cities all along the
coast, with finely built buildings, with a fine municipal life, with a high
Roman culture.
It was the granary of Italy; they got a great part of their food from there; it was a very fine
province of the Roman Empire; now it was just utterly wrecked and left waste, and it has
never altogether recovered from that to this day.
But the king and his people were not satisfied with this; and within a few years, in 439, his army suddenly
attacked and took Carthage; and he dated his reign after that from the taking of Carthage,
counting that only then had he really begun to reign. But he took over Carthage, and made it his capital.
And then he organized a fleet and began to sail through the Mediterranean. He said, "I'm going to start out to punish those people with whom God is angry." And the people with whom God is angry seemed to be wherever the wind happened to blow them. They'd land most anywhere, and they'd attack the village and destroy it; and they attacked Rome itself; and for 14 days his men systematically carted off movable property from Rome; they took anything they could lay their hands on, belonging to anybody there.
Although one historian said, "There is no evidence of their having
just ruthlessly wrecked and destroyed for the sake of doing so," they took what they felt had any value and carried it off with them; so
"vandalize" has become a synonym today for utterly meaningless destruction. We speak of vandalism today as somebody just wrecking
something for the sake of wrecking it; whether the Vandals did that when they first came into Africa is hard to say. They seem
not to have done that in Rome, but they did plunder everything they could get
ahold of; and for many decades now, their fleet went sailing around the
Mediterranean, and one never knew when the Vandals would attack and plunder and wreck. Well,
3. The Huns. Now these are a people who came from what is
now Asiatic Russia. They came from that area, perhaps around 300 AD; and there is reason to
think that this people's attack on the Goths may have had much to do with the Goths' attempt to escape
them by coming into the Roman Empire. Many think that this sudden burst of the various
tribes into the Roman Empire was, to some extent, due to the Huns' pushing from
behind. At any rate, this pushing from behind lasted for about a century; and
we find a strong kingdom established, which occupies a very large territory at
the beginning of the fourth century; this occupied a place in northern and
eastern Europe, extending over into Asia; and about
430, the king of the Huns died and was succeeded by the two sons of his
brother; one of these was a man named Attila, a name that is famous in history.
When you read about Attila, the picture you usually get of him is that of a ruthless brigand, who led an army of bandits, who traversed Europe wrecking and plundering. That's the usual picture given of Attila the Hun. In fact you will read that he said that, wherever his force stepped grass never grew again, and such statements as that. This is probably not a true picture of him, though it is doubtless one phase of his character. Because he had a kingdom extending many hundred miles in length, he had other people than Huns who were in his army; these he was able to direct, and they carried on war against neighboring tribes for 20 years before he finally began the big attack that made his name most famous in history. So he probably was a man of considerable organizing ability and considerable leadership. The most that we know about him is, after these 20 years in which he had been conquering other tribes, amalgamating his empire, then he made an attack on the eastern Roman Empire; the eastern emperor bought him off with a large sum of money; and he gave up the territory he conquered; and the walls of Constantinople were strong enough to keep him from taking it.
And then he came west over into France; and the French, the Visigoths, the various Gothic
people there, in alliance with the emperor, organized a large army which met him there,
about 450. They met his force; and after a terrific battle, they had held him back sufficiently that he gave up trying to go any
further in that direction. Then he came back, and came down into Italy. And
there in northern Italy he ravaged and pillaged and destroyed; the result was that some of the people from
northern Italy fled before his army out into the Adriatic; here there were
lagoons and little islands, which would be very hard to get to without good boats; and these people
of the
Roman
Empire—of
that section of northern Italy—fled
over to these islands and established their homes there, where Attila couldn't reach them.
And then they decided they were in a pretty safe place, so they would stay there. And so
they built a city there on these little islands, using the passages between the
islands instead of streets; and that was the origin of one of the most famous
cities in the world—the city of Venice. It was the beginning of the city of Venice, due
to Attila's attack. And these people were able to maintain themselves on these islands and to keep their independence up
until the time
of Napoleon; till that time they were an independent country, the Venetians; they became a great maritime
people with ships that went over most of the then-known world of the Middle Ages, a very important city. Even today, if you visit Venice, you find that most of
its streets are canals, and you can hardly get anywhere except by boats; it's a
reminder of how they fled from Attila over to that area.
It looked to everybody as if Attila would now go down and attack Rome as others had; but the bishop of Rome
made a visit
to Attila—went up to the north, he and some men with him—they visited Attila and they
talked with him; what happened there, we do not know; but the Bishop of Rome at that time was the most able man who had ever yet been Bishop of Rome. He was a skilled politician and an able diplomat, a fine scholar, a very able man. I would say several times as able as
any man who had ever been bishop before that; and we'll speak of him more later.
And Attila turned around and headed back north across the Alps. And
the Bishop of Rome received credit for it—he had persuaded Attila to leave,
that it
was due
to his activity.
Now if you go to Rome today, you can go into the Vatican, what is called the Palazzi Pontifici; and there on the wall you will find a beautiful picture, which I
always love to see, whenever I can get to Rome. This picture shows the Pope—as he was considered—when
Raphael made his picture, 400 years ago; it shows the Pope seated on a horse—benignly seated on his horse, very pious on his horse. There sits the Pope all in
white with his triple crown on his head; behind him are two cardinals all in red; and behind them are
some priests in black; it makes a most peaceful looking procession. They are coming from one side
of the picture. On the other side you see this terrible wild-looking fellow, sitting on a horse; behind him some of his wild
marauders; his horse is drawn up on its hind legs, its feet are pawing the air;
he just
looks utterly terrified. But as you look at the picture, you see he's not just the benign-looking Pope on his horse; above
the Pope in the air, there is St. Paul waving his sword at him; and St. Peter
brandishing his big key; and they are in the air above the Pope; and, according
to the
picture, that's
what frightened Attila, and led him to turn around and leave Italy.
Well, it did much toward the prestige of the Pope—the Bishop of
Rome—that he was able to save Rome from the attacks by Attila the Hun; that would certainly have meant frightful slaughter, and frightful plunder; at least that was the impression everybody had of the Huns. It made such an impression on the people that they paid little attention to
the fact that, only three years later, Vandal marauders from Africa, did enter Rome and took 14
days to plunder the city. That isn't much mentioned in the account. But it is a
historical fact, the empirical fact which probably would have impressed people much more if it were not for the fact that they felt so relieved to be delivered from the threatened attack by Attila;
and of course
the
bishop got the credit for the protection from Attila at this time.
Well, now, Attila went back across the Alps; and within the next year he died. He was marrying maybe his 78th wife—or whatever it was—and they had
a big feast, and during the night he died. He had many children, and his children began to fight as to who
would be his successor. His empire broke up and disappeared from history. Many of the invaders
probably made
their
way back into Russia again. It disappeared from history; during the next six centuries, it was not heard of at all. A great force that developed and then utterly
disappeared. Whether any of the people in it had any relationship to other groups that came in centuries later,
the names
which were
somewhat similar, nobody can prove one way or the other, it's just absolutely unknown.
But it was typical of the disturbances of this century: the
march and countermarch of Attila;
the terror of the people; the amount of plundering that he did; and of course that
tremendous battle in France which drove him back from France; and probably that was the real stop to his great marauding career. Well, at any rate, the Huns were a factor in people's minds during this century, and doubtless a force that seemed to be pushing the Goths and others into the empire; so we should know something about them, then,
4. The End of the Western Roman Empire. Now students of history will all tell you that the western empire
ended at 476 AD. And that is one of the least important
dates in
history. If you've got to give a date, that's as good a one as any. Actually the Roman Empire in the West ended sometime between 400 and 500, but just when nobody can say. Perhaps you might say, technically, 476 is the date when it ended. Its end is a tremendously
important thing; but like so many other tremendously important things, it did not end with one tremendous event
which happened
at a particular
spot,
and that's it. It was over a period of time that the western empire became weakened by the incursions of these barbarian tribes; and we noticed how weak Honorius was at the time when
Alaric came; and Honorius was in the city of Ravenna in northern Italy, and he didn't even realize the importance of what was
happening.
Well, these tribes who took over in Italy, pretty much they
would make a man emperor and then take him away; and finally in 476, after a succession of emperors who only reigned a year or two, one of
these chieftains made his own emperor; he gave him the name Romulus Augustus, taking the name of the founder of Rome and of the first emperor—putting them
together; and then after about a year he decided, "What's
the use of keeping up this folderol any more and controlling the emperor?" So they no longer had
a man whom they called emperor; but the emperors of the previous 30
years or so had really had practically no power.
So just when it really ended it is
hard to say;
but
this century is the time when the Roman Empire ended as a force maintaining law and order; keeping unity; establishing
justice; making traveling and communication possible throughout southern Europe; what the Roman Empire had been for so many centuries. It ends at this time. So 476 is a very easy date for you all to remember; it's not a particularly important date, but the
period is
very important—the end of the Western Roman Empire.
Then, when we go on into the succeeding centuries, we will be beginning a new main division of
history—the Middle Ages. And this we must say, the end of the Roman Empire was the end of the Roman Empire as a fact; there
never again was anything comparable to what the Roman Empire had been. But as so often happens, an idea exerts tremendous influence. And the idea of the Roman Empire, which had been a fact for these centuries, the idea continued through the Middle Ages to be a vital force in people's lives—the idea of the Roman Empire. That is, theoretically, this had been for centuries; theoretically it is what ought to be; a Roman Empire occupying all of Europe with law and order and justice; and
the Emperor at the top, with the authority to maintain it. That remained as a theory—well I guess till about
1830, somewhere
around
there—and it had tremendous influence through the Middle Ages. We look at that,
of course,
as we
go on, but I wanted to just mention it at this point. Then, 4, The End of the Roman Empire.
5. Events in Britain. Now if it were not for the interest
which we—being English-speaking people—naturally have in Britain, we would not during the 5th century mention Britain at all. As far as European history
at this
time
is concerned, Britain was of practically no importance. But from our viewpoint, and seeing what of
tremendous importance later happened there, it is vital that we know a little
about what happened then.
As you know, Britain had been conquered by Julius Caesar, before the time of Christ; it was not fully subdued until about
the middle of the first century. But after that time Britain—that is to say, the area that we today speak of as England—the southern half of the island that we call Britain, that area
was held by the Romans; and Roman law prevailed in it, up until the 5th century. The people
there ceased
to be warlike; they were a wild, uncivilized
group when the Romans came; but they settled down, adopted Roman civilization,
Roman customs; and left law and order to the Roman soldiers to maintain; which they did very well. The Romans built a big wall along the northern end of England in the second century, to keep out the wild Scotchmen in the north, who would invade every now and then; and the Roman soldiers protected the wall—the Roman wall between what is now England and what is now Scotland—and kept the wild Picts
and Scots
out of
the area
which the Romans held;
and it became a civilized area during this century; made part of the Roman Empire. We know that Constantine was declared emperor when he was there in Britain; it was an essential and important part of the Roman
Empire.
Scotland never was part of the Empire; neither was Ireland; they were simply part of the
barbarian lands, outside the Empire. But when the barbarians in the beginning of the 5th century began to come
into the Roman Empire, it took all the strength that the Romans had to protect their own borders against the
barbarians who were attacking. They could not protect Britain. Gradually they had to remove
their soldiers; and the Britons had not the strength to protect themselves. They had been
people conquered by the Romans; people enjoying the law and order that the
Romans gave them; people who were not encouraged to be warlike at all by the Romans. They
were a peaceful settled folk, and now the protection they had was withdrawn.
And so the Roman force being removed, the Picts and the Scots in the
north began to break into the settled area and to pillage there, something they continued
to do up until the last three or four centuries. But as they began breaking in there, and the Britons were unable to hold them back, they sent to the Romans and pled
with them to send soldiers over to protect them; and the Romans had to say there is nothing we can do about it; we need every soldier we've got
here, we
cannot
protect you.
So the result was that somewhere around 410 AD, about the time of the sack of Rome, the last Roman
troops were withdrawn; and the country was left to govern themselves. And the
barbarians to the north, the Picts and the Scots, were pressing heavily upon
the Britons; and for a century and a half we hear nothing more about the British
church. For a century and a half, from about 410 until around 600, we know practically
nothing about conditions in Britain; but this we do know: that a group of men from
north Germany, about 450 AD, began to go across to Britain and to settle there. There is a tradition that the
Britons, unable to protect themselves from the Scots, invited some of these men to come over and help protect them;
doubtless
promising to pay them for it, and expecting them to obey the people who were
paying them; but when these men got over there and found what a good country
they had, and how weak the inhabitants were, word went back to their relatives;
and they began coming too, and more and more of them settled; until there were far more of the new Germanic
people in the land than there were of the old Britons.
And the old Britons were Christian and they kept up their
churches; and they kept up their services and their forms; but they were
oppressed by the Germanic invaders, who belonged to three tribes: the Angles,
the Saxons and the Jutes. We often run them all together under the word
Anglo-Saxon. And these Anglo-Saxons settled in the land; and soon it was
divided up into a hundred little tiny countries fighting against each other;
and eventually some of these conquered others; and then you had seven different
kingdoms, which were to some extent fighting with one another; but the poor
Britons were pretty badly off, with none of them paying much attention to them.
So for a century and a half, we know nothing about the
developments in Britain. When we know anything more about it, the name is changed to England,
after the Angles, one of the tribes, And the strange thing is that we usually
speak of them as the Saxons—rather than the Anglo-Saxons—but the country we
call after the Angles—England, or Angleland—which it never was called before it
was conquered.
Well, this will interest us when we get a little further along
in our history. But at this point I bring it in, because the settlement of the
Anglo-Saxon tribes was one of the great developments of that century, as far as
its effect on us today. Now, so much for events in Britain.
6. The Franks. And the Franks are
very important for a number of reasons. As you look along into the Middle Ages,
and on into modern times, the Franks become of tremendous importance. There is
a large section of Germany which is called Franconia, after the Franks, and
there is a country called France after the Franks. They were a large
tribe of people which had not been reached by Ulfilas. They were not Arians as
the Goths and the Vandals were; they were not Christians at all. And in the end, this gave them a tremendous advantage; a strange thing, how it worked.
But the Franks came into the Empire early in this century.
They came in a wild group of conquering barbarians; they entered the land, and they began to conquer various sections; and then
they began to set up their own kingdoms, areas; and eventually we have a king of the
Franks named Clovis, whose name has become very important in history. Clovis is
the same name which later became Louis, but Clovis was the form it had then.
[student: Were the Franks Arians, too?] No. The Goths were Arians, and the
Vandals were
Arians;
Ulfilas
had gone outside the empire and converted them to Christianity; but he taught them the Arian
views. But he had not reached the Franks.
[student: Was Hitler an Arian?] No, No, No! Arianism is a religious belief. It has nothing to do with Hitler's Aryanism. Thank you for clarifying this; and also, please don't anybody mix it in any way with the Aryans, which is a term relating to India—a term that is sometimes used of all the people that speak the languages that we use, that are interrelated—English, German, French, Spanish, Greek, and Italian; they all are a group which sometimes goes under the name Aryan with a "y", though it really is a name that only applies to a part of India. But this Christian heresy, Arianism, is named after Arius the heretic, with an "i"; and it is because Ulfilas had converted the Goths and the Vandals, but he had converted them to Arian Christianity. I don't think they knew a great deal what the difference was; but this they knew, they were Arians; and they didn't have much use for these Trinitarians, these catholics.
And it worked the other way too; the Trinitarians didn't have much use for them. And this is particularly so in the case of the Vandals, who persecuted the catholics in Africa very
severely; and reportedly, no catholic bishop could be allowed to hold any service in North Africa; and in fact, most of them had to flee the country for their lives. But the Goths did not persecute them the way the Vandals did. The Vandals very bitterly opposed them. Well, it worked both ways. The Romans were the conquered people,
but they
were the
civilized
people;
they were
the
people of culture;
the
people of accomplishment; the barbarians coming in might be the stronger people; they might be the better fighters; but when it came to carrying out any sort of a civilization, they looked to the Roman people that they had conquered for the knowledge of how to do it. If
they wanted to write, for instance, they would get Romans to do their writing
for them. They took over the Roman language because it was a written language; in fact, in many parts
of the area, these people gave up their Germanic languages altogether and adopted the
Roman language; and even where they did not, they were tremendously affected by Roman customs, all through.
Well, the Franks were a great conquering group; they were not Christians at all; they were
through-going barbarians, and when we read some of the descriptions of what
they did, they were thorough-going savages; but Clovis, this king we mentioned,
who ruled from 481 to 511, married a Christian princess. And she was a catholic Christian; she was
not an
Arian.
So when he faced a critical battle, he prayed to his wife's god to aid him; first
he called
on his
own god—he called on Thor and Odin—and his various gods of the Teutonic barbarians for aid; and then he also called on Christ; and then he said that if he were victorious in the battle, he would call on his wife's God after that; he would become a Christian.
So after the battle he called on the Bishop of Rheims to instruct him how to become a Christian. And when the bishop told him about the crucifixion of Christ, he said, "Oh I wish I'd had my valiant tribe there in order to put a stop to that." And in 496, on Christmas Day, 496, he gave his order, and he and 3000 of his warriors were all baptized. So they were all baptized and became Christians, nominally. But the change seems to have had little effect upon them; but it gave the bishops and presbyters a chance to convert them.
But while they respected the freedom of the catholic faith—and
made external profession of it—they violated without scruple all its precepts,
and at the same time the simplest laws of humanity. After having
prostrated themselves before the tomb of some holy martyr or confessor; after
having distinguished themselves by the choice of an irreproachable bishop;
after having listened very respectfully to the voice of a monk; we see them
sometimes break
out in
fury; sometimes in cold-blooded cruelty, give full force to the evil instinct of their savage
nature.
Their incredible perversity was mostly domestic tragedy—the
fratricidal executions and assassinations of which Clovis is the first example—and which marked
the history of his son and grandson with an ineffaceable stain. Polygamy and
perjury mingled in their daily life with a semi-pagan superstition, and so on.
Well, now this shows that this man's conversion here was not
nearly as sincere as the conversion of the Goths, when Ulfilas the missionary
came to present the message to them. But it did result in making their children
available
to
present the Christian message to them. It resulted doubtless in many of the individuals learning about Christ, especially of the younger ones, and becoming real
Christians.
It
meant that they nominally were Christians, the whole nation; but most important
of all, it meant that they were catholic Christians; they were Trinitarian
Christians; and that meant that the great mass of the people—the Roman people in France and elsewhere, who
looked upon the Goths and the Vandals and these others as Arian heretics—looked
upon the Franks as people who held the same religion they did; and it thus meant that it was easier for them to make a friendly
relation with the rank and file of the Roman people than it was for the others.
And it was one of the big forces which resulted in their gaining the supremacy in Europe in succeeding years. So they become a tremendously important force in all subsequent history. But their having become catholic Christians, and the Goths having become Arian Christians—when neither of them probably understood the difference—had a great deal to do with the Goths more or less disappearing into the general mass of the population, and the Franks becoming great conquerors and leaders in Europe all through the Middle Ages; and to some extent, up to the present day. So therefore, it is a historical fact with which we should be familiar.
Well, this comes at the very end of the century, you notice; so I would not give it as yet except that it is good to have an idea of
this political arrangement for the whole century in mind; and we go on during the next five minutes to look a little bit more at the
directly religious aspects of the century. And I'm going to begin with one of the lesser vital aspects, but again one which is very important because
of later developments.
B. The Church of
Rome in the
Fifth Century. Now the Church of Rome, as we know, had always been a very important church. Naturally,
the church
in the leading city of the empire would be important. And then the Church of Rome had a great importance because it was the most important church in the whole western empire.
In the eastern empire, you had the great church at Alexandria; you had the great church at Antioch; and who could say which was more important? And then
Constantinople became the capital of the empire; and you had the great church in Constantinople; and of course the Bishop of Jerusalem often thought that, after all,
Jerusalem was
more important than any
of them. So you had these different centers in a way jockeying for leadership in the
eastern empire.
But in the west, Carthage was an important city; there were several places of fair importance in Gaul, which is now
France. But
there was no place which as a
political center
could claim to be a fifth as
important as
Rome,
in the western
empire.
And Rome claimed that
Peter and Paul had both of them had something to do with the founding of Christianity in the city; that they had been early leaders in the
church at Rome; and no other city in the western empire could make a similar claim. Of course Paul had been at various cities in
Greece, but none of these were particularly central in this particular discussion. In fact, Greece is more eastern empire than western. So
that, in the
western area,
Rome alone can claim an apostolic leadership.
Now at Antioch, Peter was at Antioch for a long time; Paul was at
Antioch; other Apostles were there; John was at Ephesus. Each could claim it had been founded
by great apostles;
many
churches could.
Jerusalem
had all of the apostles; but in the west, only Rome could make a claim like
this. So you have the political importance of Rome; combined with the history of
the establishment of Christianity by some of the leaders of the apostles in that city; and the Church of Rome
had a tremendous importance.
So the Church of Rome in this century begins to assert a leadership in the
west far beyond anything that it had ever claimed before—that is, that it had ever persistently claimed. There were times
when for a brief period, some individual bishop of Rome would make tremendous claims; then he might be succeeded
by a man who never
thought of such a thing. But during this century, there was no longer an emperor at Rome to be the big figure in Rome; the Bishop of Rome was a man of tremendous
importance in the city, and people in other parts of Europe would
naturally come
to him
for advice
when
difficult problems came.
Here's a matter of doctrine that is in question: what is the truth on this? Some people say it's
this, some
it's
that. Well, after all, Rome is where Peter and Paul both worked. Rome is a church that goes back to the very earliest days of
Christianity. Surely if we can get some good information from the leaders of the Church at Rome,
we'll have the right answer to the problem. So the western churches tended to look to the church at Rome for advice on doctrinal matters; and in this century—the
fifth
century—they begin to look to it also for advice on matters of government, matters of
administration, matters of discipline.
So the bishops of Rome begin to get letters from all over the western empire, "What should we do about such-and-such a situation?" And naturally the
bishop not only gave them his best wisdom on the matter, but also began to feel he had an authority, and tell
them now, not merely this is what is right for you to do, but this is what I say should
be done. So some of these bishops began to assert themselves, claiming a
very considerable authority, during this century.
Well, we have already noticed something of their relationship with Augustine;
when Augustine fought against the Pelagians, the Bishop of Rome agreed with
him. He had a great point to use. "Look," he said, "the Bishop
of Rome has looked at this matter, and he says exactly what we say here." But then, when the next
Bishop of Rome said the opposite, Augustine decided the Bishop of Rome wasn't
much of an authority. And if the next bishop hadn't said the opposite, you can imagine how
Augustine's words would have counted for the strengthening of the claims of the bishop of Rome. In fact,
it did, because the second act is rarely mentioned. But probably ten thousand times—through
the Middle Ages—it was proclaimed that Augustine said: "Rome has spoken the cause is finished." And nothing was stated
about the fact that at that very time, Rome was speaking the opposite; and
Augustine didn't feel it was finished, but he went to the emperor of Rome. Well, we continue there
tomorrow.
Now, we were speaking yesterday about the 5th century AD. A was Political Development,
and we noticed what a turning point it is in secular history, in the history of
culture, in the history of civilization. It is the century in which the great
civilization of the Roman Empire—one of the greatest civilizations that the world has ever seen—broke up and
disappeared as a strong force, though its effects naturally remained in every branch of society. But as a great unifying force, it disappeared. And it was replaced by a new source of civilization, so
that the 5th century is a great turning
point in history.
The last point that we mentioned about the 5th century was number 6, The Franks. And last night I was looking into McSorley—this Roman
Catholic history—and I would like to read you just a brief word about Clovis from this Roman Catholic history. He says, "In Gaul
destiny was
embodied in
Clovis. Crude and blood-thirsty barbarian though he was, his conversion to the
Catholic faith won for him a welcome into the political family of Christendom, the right to wear the
consular purple, and the support of the Roman element against rising Goths and Burgundians; and he alone of the German
chieftains
founded an enduring kingdom. He was recognized as the official defender of Christianity in the West; and every inhabitant of his
immense empire
had to
be a Catholic and a
Frank." [McSorley, Op. Cit., p.
105-6] I thought that was worth quoting to you. "Crude and bloodthirsty barbarian though he
was." The Arian Goths had been tremendously affected by their Christianity. Clovis was very literal, according to McSorley. It was a political matter
to him, and it continued to be so to his descendants for at least two centuries.
But among the people, there doubtless were many who became real Christians; at least there was the
opportunity of presenting the message to them. So eventually, gradually, it had an effect on some of the people at least. But in the political history it had tremendous
results, because
the
Goths were
Arians,
and the catholic church
throughout the empire looked upon them with suspicion; and that was returned to some extent. Whereas with Clovis and his people, they felt they were some of them; and they defended one another; and this contributed greatly to the fact that Clovis' descendants became the rulers of Europe.
Well, we began then B, The Church of Rome in the 5th century. And under this head we can touch upon a number of matters which are important to the western half of the empire. There are a number of matters which are
important for
our
general understanding of the situation there. And one or two matters which are difficult to find a place for in the
outline. They're important, but perhaps not worth a main head, but they can be
conveniently touched upon here under this head. So under the Church of Rome in
the 5th century
I
discussed, though I did not enumerate:
1. Factors
Contributing to its Importance. I discussed these; all but one of them I mentioned yesterday; this one I have previously
mentioned.
a. The Importance
of the City. Rome was the great city of the empire. It was the conqueror of all the Roman Empire; it was the capital of the
world for a
long
time, though now no more. The importance of the city was doubtless the main consideration in the importance—I don't mean the importance of the church of Rome as a church, but its importance
in relation
to
others throughout the empire.
b. No Other City
Could Compete for Leadership in the West. But there were
several important centers in the East. This contributed to Rome's influence in
the Church. In the east you had Alexandria, great city, important city,
historic city; not far from it—that is three or four days trip in those
days—was Antioch; but Antioch was smaller than Rome, the second largest city in
the empire.
The
bishop of Alexandria could easily think that he was the most important man in
the eastern half of the church; he might think he was in the whole church, but
he had Antioch just a little ways from him; and the bishop of Antioch usually
thought he was more important than the bishop of Alexandria. And between the
two of them there was a rivalry that had been going on for at least two
centuries before this time.
And then
Constantinople was founded; though it was a new city, an upstart compared to
the other two, it was the capital of the eastern half of the empire; and so the
bishop of Constantinople, who preached to the emperor and to his court,
naturally thought that he was more important than the bishop of either
Alexandria or Antioch.
In the
west there was no city to compete with Rome. There were other cities which had
bishops much more important than the bishops of Rome, but this was on account
of the ability of the particular man; and when he died, the importance ceased.
The bishop of Carthage, Cyprian, was head and shoulders above any contemporary
bishop of Rome in ability and in influence; but when he died there was no
successor of equal ability. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon in Gaul, was certainly
head and shoulders above any bishop of Rome in his time, for ability; but it
was not his position, it was not the city he was in, but his personal ability
which made him so much more important than any other individual; but the city
of Rome was far more important than any city in Gaul, far more important than
Constantinople.
So that
all through the western half of the empire, the Roman church naturally assumed
great importance; while in the east, if there had been one great important city
in the east, there might well have been raised the question of which is more
important, the church of this city or the church of Rome.
But when
you had two or three or four, and it varied—sometimes two, sometimes three,
sometimes four—because the bishop of Jerusalem would say that Jerusalem was
more important than any of them—when you had two or three or four cities of
great importance in the Christian world in the east, a man had enough to do to
maintain his leadership in the east, without worrying so much about whether he
would proclaim it over the west too. He'd be more apt to be hoping the bishop
of Rome would side with him against the others near him.
c. It was founded by Apostles. No other church in the west
could make a similar claim. Now there are many who dispute whether Peter
founded the Church of Rome or not. Some even question whether Peter was ever in
Rome. The fact is, we know very little about those days—except what we have in
the Scripture—but the Scripture definitely teaches us that Paul was in Rome;
that Paul was the great apostle who went to Rome and preached there. And it is
pretty hard to imagine if—since Paul was there, and there's no question about
it—it's pretty hard to imagine how the people a century or a century and a half
later would think that Peter had been the founder of the church, since he had
never been there. That is to say,
they had Paul right at hand, one of the greatest of the apostles, he had been
there, no question of it; so it would seem pretty difficult to doubt that Peter
also was there.
Now as to
whether Peter was actually head of the church, at Rome, that would be pretty
hard to prove; there's no proof one way or the other. But at least Paul was
there and had an important part in the establishment of the church. Most likely
Peter also came. No other church in the west could claim such great leaders in
connection with its founding as this. While in the east, Alexandria claimed St.
Mark. It would be hard to prove whether they were right or not, but at least
that was its claim. There's no question that both Paul and Peter were at
Antioch; there's little question that John was at Ephesus; and all the apostles
had been in Jerusalem. So that Rome had a natural advantage over any other city
in the west.
[student:
Was Greece considered east or west?] Yes, well, now, it's a little hard in
speaking of east and west, to know quite what to do with Greece. But I would
think that probably it would go with the east, because the eastern church was
Greek-speaking; and the west was Latin-speaking; and so probably, even though
geographically you might think it would be with the west, probably it remained
with the east. And then it did remain part of the eastern empire, after the
west collapsed. But it's sort of in-between, a little hard to say. The
Corinthian church was not one of the great tremendous churches like
Antioch—that is—Corinth was an important city of Greece but not a tremendous
city like Antioch was.
In this period, when I speak of the church of Rome, I refer to the situation which doubtless was in existence there; where the great majority, practically all of the Christians in Rome were in groups which met which had presbyters as leaders of the particular churches, and who recognized the bishop of Rome as the head of that church; just as it was in practically every city of the empire. Now there was also the Novatian church, which was a much smaller group, but which had churches all through the empire. We know the Novatian church was an important church, because in 381 the emperor decreed that no church but the catholic church should be allowed to hold services in Constantinople. However, he said the Novatians may continue to hold services, because of the great service they rendered in their stand for the true doctrine of the Trinity, during the days when the catholic was Arian in that area.
So we know there were Novatian churches in Constantinople. Whether there were in Rome we don't know. But we know there were in many parts of the empire, so it would be very likely that there were some people in churches of the Novatian group; but of course the Novatian groups, as far as we know, did not differ in their views at all. They only claimed that Novatian should have been bishop instead of Cornelius. And they would claim their man should have been bishop instead of the man who was bishop of Rome. They were a much smaller group, but as far as we know, a thoroughly orthodox group, and a group holding the same general views.
And then of course, there
may have been a few other small sects which claimed to be real Christians. Some
of them may have been heretical; some of them may have had very little heresy,
very little deviance; some even may have been true Christians. But doubtless
the overwhelming mass of the Christians in Rome were in the one church, which
at that time was called the catholic church, by catholic meaning all-embracing,
embracing all who truly believed in Christ, regardless of minor difficulties.
That's what the word meant then. Today it has come to mean something very
different. But as used then that's what it meant. Well, this was point c, then,
about the apostolic origin of the church, and
d. Removal of the Emperor from Rome left the Bishop as its most
powerful citizen. This did not contribute so much to the
importance of the church at Rome as it did to the bishop of Rome within the church; but incidentally it
naturally made the church more important throughout the empire—that is, the bishop of Rome was so much more
important. The church, for instance, in Constantinople, the emperor was right there. Nobody would look at the bishop when the emperor was around; not only that, but if the emperor didn't like the
bishop, they were pretty apt to get a new bishop. There was constant pressure upon the church in Constantinople. Once Constantine left Rome and made his capital Constantinople, the bishop of Rome was
the most
important
man in the city; and when anybody felt they were unjustly treated, they would go to the bishop and ask for help; and Constantine had made a law all through the empire that the Christians
could have their cases judged by the bishop, if they wanted, instead of by the public court; and even unbelievers, used to come to the bishop,
thinking they'd get a fairer trial.
So the bishop of Rome had tremendous importance, more than any other
individual in the empire, being the most important man in the most important city in the empire. And the capital of the empire was moved; the capital was at Constantinople; and then it was
divided—it was supposed to be one empire still—but it was divided into two parts for better defense. Well, the defense was largely needed against the north,
so as time came when the western emperors made their headquarters in north Italy, where they would be nearer the places they had to defend, instead of in Rome. So while they were sometimes in Rome, it was
comparatively rare. And this greatly increased the importance of the bishop of Rome. Then next is a point I had not mentioned till yesterday, and it's a very important point, not much realized.
e. Other Western Churches naturally looked to the Church of Rome
for advice and for help. In any group whatever, where you
have a group of
Christian churches, when a problem comes up in a local church, people are naturally going to look for help from others
in whom they have confidence. And it is not always going to be that they know the individual. They
know certain areas which are important; they know certain local churches which are
important to their church. They have places or people to whom they feel they can look with confidence;
and so they write and ask them for help, in any special need.
Now in the west, the natural place to look would be Rome. A doctrinal problem comes up; somebody has a new interpretation of something in the N.T. He's all excited about it, "Just look
at
these verses here. See this interpretation here, this is wonderful." Well, other people hear him, and they
become thorough-going enthusiasts. A few people, hearing about it, begin to wonder whether it contradicts other doctrines;
they begin to wonder whether he's really getting off into some heresy; instead of a new understanding,
something that actually is contrary to Christianity. Well, soon you get
discussions about it; and many sincerely do not know, and they want to know the truth. Under the circumstances,
what are they going to do? "Well, there's that church down there in Rome;
we've heard of the Roman church for years. Occasionally we have visitors from the Roman church. That church was founded by Paul, or by Peter
and Paul, if you like. The apostles were there; they've had the teaching, not just from the Bible
as we have it; it was originally given them direct from the apostles. They have a large church; they have
leaders there who devote their lives to studying the Scripture. Let's ask them what they
think about the matter. Let's ask them to help us decide on it." So letters
begin to come
to Rome, what is the answer
to this problem? Soon you get letters from both sides. And that naturally increases the importance of the Church of Rome and makes the
people who answer the letters begin to feel that they have an authority to
give an
answer that other people have got to follow.
When you get a man like Cyprian in Carthage, naturally people will write to him; but Cyprian died, his successor was not particularly outstanding. You have Augustine; he wasn't even an archbishop, he wasn't in an important city like Rome or Carthage, but he was such a tremendously important man that he got inquiries on everything under the sun. But that does not mean that anybody would think that his successor would naturally be of any special importance; and certainly before his time, nobody ever thought of writing to the church of Hippo for help on any question that might come up. But Rome—Irenaeus who was so much more able than any bishop of Rome, Irenaeus, back in the 2nd century, fighting the gnostic heresy, felt one of his big arguments was, "Look at the church of Rome; there's a church founded by the apostles; Peter and Paul were there; they had the truth right from the beginning, all through this century and a half; they don't teach any of these Gnostic heresies; they believe in the Scriptural teaching, just as we do." That was one of his big arguments; and so before this 5th century, the church at Rome was constantly looked to for help in gospel matters.
And it must be said to its credit, that ordinarily—during these centuries, while the church of Rome did not have men of great ability as bishops, it did have men of
good ability as bishops; and it did have men who had a practical desire to advance the church; and who, as far as doctrine was concerned, tended
to look at Scripture, see what it said, and take it without worrying about trying to work out new unusual
interpretations. So in the long doctrinal discussions in the east, you find the church of Rome
usually standing for the great clear statements in the Word of God. That's what we found with Athanasius.
In the Arian controversy, the Church of Rome stood for the Trinity right straight through. There was one bishop of Rome who was forced by the emperor to sign an Arian creed. But as soon as he got home, he repudiated it. The church says he did it under compulsion; the church at Rome took the simple teaching of the Scripture and stood on it through these centuries. And so it was a good safe guide on the great fundamentals of the faith during that time. And that naturally contributed to its importance.
Now we noticed how, early in the century we're looking at now, one of the bishops made a
very, very bad decision regarding Pelagius; but the one who preceded him had made the
correct decision; and as soon as the emperor laid down the law on Pelagianism, Pope Zosimus did fall in line;
he probably was greatly influenced by the fact that the emperor took this stand; but in addition to that
probably he and the people around him realized what the truth was. At least there was a great amount of evidence in favor of
Augustine.
They
did not stick to the false position Pope Zosimus took; and he jumped over to
the other
side and made
a very
strong stand against Pelagianism.
In general, during these centuries, the Church of Rome stood for
the orthodox
teaching,
and that contributed naturally to its importance. But during this fifth century, people began to look to the Church of Rome, more than ever before, for help in
administrative matters. You had a presbyter in Africa who was accused by his people of various things. He was accused of immorality, various sins; his bishop was informed; the bishop removed him
from being presbyter. And the presbyter wrote a letter to the bishop of Rome, and said to the
bishop of Rome, "I've been falsely accused; all this is not true." And the bishop of
Rome wrote a letter to the African church and said, "I've looked into the matter; this man should not be removed; he should be put back in his place as presbyter."
And he would
send representatives
to Africa to insist upon it. Well, the Africans decided they wanted to be friends with the
bishop of
Rome, They
said, "There's some doubt about the matter; we will reinstate the
man." But, they passed an action, "No one in the African church was to appeal to a man overseas in any matter of local administration." It certainly was very far from recognizing the
authority of the bishop of Rome in the matter.
A few years later the same man got into trouble again; and when he did, he was
called on the carpet and confronted with evidence. He then confessed that he
had been guilty in the first place. He made that public admission, and of
course that strengthened the African church in its view not to allow the bishop
of Rome to interfere in its internal affairs. Of course, the church of Africa
was wrecked by the Vandals so it was not a great force very long after that.
But the Roman Catholic writers take the cases where the church
of Africa did what the Bishop of
Rome said, and they give them as evidence that the churches of North Africa
admitted his authority over them; while we have an equal number of cases where
they denied it or strongly opposed it; and those they are apt to mention in
footnotes—or in popular writing to just ignore. But these bishops were consulted
simply for advice on administrative matters constantly; and people who felt
they had been wrongly treated in their local church situation would appeal to
the bishop of Rome. And the bishop of Rome, more and more, came to feel that he
had a right to make authoritative decisions, and to try to insist that these authoritative
decisions be carried through.
2. The Relation of
the Roman Bishops to the Church of North Africa. We've been speaking
of this. We referred just now to the attitude of Bishop Innocent, and Bishop
Zosimus. And you will notice how Innocent strongly affirmed Augustine's
statements about Pelagianism. Zosimus denied them, but then later fell in line
very, very strongly.
And I have mentioned these cases where the Roman bishops tried
to interfere in the church of North Africa; and how the church of North Africa
did not recognize them. But the bishops—some of them—wanted to feel they had
authority; and they sent a man over to North Africa—I mentioned this under
Augustine—they sent a representative over and this representative insisted that Africa should do what he said; he
was the representative of the Pope; and
the Africans sent a letter to the bishop of Rome, saying, "Please call
this man back. We don't like his attitude; we don't recognize the authority he
claims for Rome."
In one case there were three representatives of the bishop of
Rome who went over to Africa; they said the Holy Council of Nicea decided that
the bishop of Rome has jurisdiction in problems in the west, and anyone has a right to appeal to the
Bishop of Rome; and the people in Africa said, "We don't know anything
about a council of Nicea," and the representatives of the bishop said, "Yes, but here it
is." And they read the statement, which they said was in the decision of the Council of Nicea.
Well, the men in Africa said, "We wouldn't go against the council of Nicea for anything." So they said,
"If that is it, we ought to follow," but they said, "We are
still very
skeptical
of it. For the time being, we'll do what you say in this thing, but we will
investigate." So they wrote to the east, where there would be copies of
the decision of the Council of Nicea, and asked for a complete copy; they found that there was no such statement
in it at all; and then it
was found
that,
about 20
years after
the Council of Nicea, a minor council
called by the Arian Emperor had made a decision; among its various acts, there was one which
was the one that they were quoting—perhaps in all sincerity—but nobody recognized this Council of
having any authority over anybody. And the claim that was resting on that was given up. As long as they had the Council of Nicea on it, naturally they had a very strong support; but there was no such support.
There were two or three Roman bishops who entered into a
similar situation; and in Africa, it was not the Bishop of Carthage who claimed to have
authority; he merely presided at the meeting of the council in North Africa. And in the council,
Augustine's influence counted for several times as much as the Bishop of Carthage; so that
actually everybody
thinks
of Augustine as the main person, even though he had no
official authority. As for the Bishop of Carthage, we have no evidence of his claim of
such authority over the whole African church. He did preside at the meeting. The old theory of Cyprian is, all
bishops are equal, and the bishops together form the unity of the church. The bishop of Rome was
asserting himself as having superior authority, but the others did not in
general feel that way. Well, we have then,
3. The Comparative
Insignificance of most of the Roman Bishops up to 440
AD.
Now I hope that phrase is clear: "comparative insignificance." I do not mean to say that there were not some able men; we
readily grant that there were some men of very considerable ability. But if you would list the 40 or 50 greatest men in the Christian church—the 40 or 50 men who had greatest
influence on the development of the Christian church, before 440 AD—it is extremely unlikely that
anybody would name any bishop of Rome as one of the leading 40 or 50 men, as far as their influence and ability is concerned.
Now if you name 200, perhaps 10 or 15 of them would come among the 200; I don't know. But the 50 leading men would certainly not
include any man who was bishop of Rome. It is strange that that is the case. You would think one
or two of them would be among the great leaders in the early church. The one who would come nearest to it, perhaps, would be Clement; but we know nothing about
Clement except
that
he wrote a good letter. Of course the reason it's so important is that we know practically nothing
about that period at
all—that first century—and he did write a very good letter during that period. So someone might name him as among
them; but certainly what he did is nothing compared to what we have evidence of from men like Irenaeus, Tertullian and others in later centuries, when we have much
more evidence
and
material. I'm speaking of the time after the apostles. Whether Peter was Bishop of Rome or not, Peter's
importance depends on Christ's selection of him as being an apostle, not of any relation to the Church of Rome. But after the
apostles, up until 440 AD, there was no bishop of Rome who can rank among the
great leaders of the church. I don't say that they were insignificant; it's comparative. They were not insignificant men; they were, many of them, men of
ability; they were many of them doubtless very earnest Christians, but they were not the great
leaders of the church.
Well, I mentioned this previously; now I mention it again. You notice that I said—up until 440—because when we get
to that point, we will notice something different. But then
4. The Mission to Ireland, and the Work of St. Patrick. Now it is an interesting thing that Schaff, in his church history, has Vol. 3, 311-600; and in this volume he tells us nothing
about St. Patrick. And then Vol. 4, 590-1073; and in this volume, he tells us about St. Patrick. But actually St. Patrick was about 430; so he is nearly 200 years before the start of
Schaff's fourth volume, but it is in the 4th volume that he tells about him. Well, that is logical, but it is not chronological; and in this particular
course, we're going chronologically in general. Consequently, at this point in the chronology is where St.
Patrick came.
I'm going to tell you about St. Patrick. The reason that he is later in Schaff is that the world at large knew nothing about him. Books that were written during this period do not
mention him. It was in fact seven or eight hundred AD before we have anything written—any history—that tells us anything about St. Patrick. And consequently
his effect
on the
Roman world did not begin until that later time. But he had a great effect in Ireland; and his
effect on Ireland was in this early time, around 430, and consequently we mention him at that point.
Now St. Patrick is a man of whom very, very little is known. We have, as I say, no contemporary records; but to me, there is an extremely interesting thing about him, which should be mentioned right at this time. There was a bishop of Rome who was called Celestine I. He is not of great importance in church history, but he did some rather interesting things; and he was the bishop of Rome from 422 to 431. Celestine heard about Ireland—this island beyond Britain, this island of wild savages—never conquered by the British; constantly sending little ships of people to pillage and to thieve and to steal people and make them slaves from the shores of Britain. Incidentally, the Britons probably did the same thing to the Irish, but our records are from the British side—from the Roman side; but from this view, it was a group of marauding savages over there in this island. That was about all, probably, he knew about it.
But, he said, "The gospel should be taken to them." So he took a very fine man named Palladius, and he sent
Palladius over
to
Ireland; he ordained him particularly to be the apostle to the Irish; and he asked him, an experienced man, a leader, a man of fine standing, a
man of whom the Bishop of Rome had great confidence, he asked him to go to
Ireland and to win them to the gospel and bring them into the Christian church. And Palladius, the one who thought he was the
head of the church, specially ordained for the purpose and sent there to
convert the Irish, went to Ireland; he stayed there a year or two, and gave it up; he went back to Britain, and went to the north of Britain to
work among the Picts and the Scots, who were much easier to work with.
Already, quite a few of them had been converted much earlier; even though the
mass of the Picts and the Scots were wild barbarians, there had been an entrance, at least from Britain,
a little ways into Scotland, and there were Christians up there.
But Palladius went up there; he said, "These Irish are just
hopeless." He said, "You just cannot make any advance with them; they're just wild
savages." Well, that was what happened to the mission that the Pope sent. The
interesting thing is that, the very year after Palladius gave it up as a bad job, a young man who some say was a Scotchman, and others think he
was a Briton—we don't know much about him, he came probably from the north of Britain or the
south of Scotland originally—named Patrick. He went over to Ireland, to begin to try to
reach the Irish; and within a few years he had thousands and thousands of converts. And it is one of
the most outstanding instances of the rapid evangelization of a country, and the bringing them to the gospel—this work of St. Patrick
in Ireland.
But it was a work done by an individual who had a message—a vision of a need—and he set out
to try to meet the need. And the Bishop of Rome—with the best wisdom he could use, and the best effort to pick out the
right man
for the
job—his man utterly failed in this job; while the man whom the Lord raised up and gave the vision to
him—and he felt the need and desired to fill it—went out and did one of the greatest mission works
in all history.
Now of course nothing was known about Patrick—outside of Ireland—for two or three centuries; and
then people began to know about Patrick; the Romans, among the stories of the saints, they
took Patrick in as one of their saints; they began to make up wonderful stories
about him; and eventually they decided that actually Patrick had studied under a man from
France who had been sent there by the Bishop of Rome; and actually he was a
representative of the Bishop of Rome who called Patrick to go to Ireland; and so McSorley says in his history here—of St. Celestine I—he
says, "a
devoted
friend of St. Augustine, he prohibited the Semi-Pelagians from attacking the
teaching of that saint. To Ireland he sent St. Palladius, and to Britain St. Germaine, who as
Papal delegate, made St. Patrick bishop of the Irish." [McSorley, ibid., p. 109.]
Well, now that doesn't say much in that brief sentence; but when we know the facts, it sort
of buries it away; and yet doesn't. The Pope sent Palladius to the Irish, as he
says here. Whether he
sent St. Germaine into Britain or not, I don't know whether it can be proven; but if he did, it
certainly cannot be proven that Germaine even knew Patrick, to say nothing of making him bishop of the Irish. But he says
that "as Papal delegate, making St. Patrick bishop of the Irish."
That is highly questionable.
A man dropped in here about two or three years ago; he dropped
into the office, and he wanted us to sell the Encyclopaedia
Britannica. This salesman started telling me what a wonderful encyclopedia
it is.
And
you know, he said, the Encyclopaedia
Britannica—just a little ago it was criticized because its article about
the Jesuits had spoken slightingly; and he said some of the bishops criticized
it for that. And, he said, so the editor sent it to the archbishop, and said, "Well now you write the article on the
Jesuits, and we'll put in what you say." And he said they criticized this article; and he said they have
been corrected
now so
that they approve of it. Well I don't know whether he thought we were a Roman Catholic school when he said
this, or what; but anyway those are the things he said to me.
After he left, I looked up the article about St. Patrick in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and he got about
two pages, with a great deal of detail; and it tells how St. Patrick was a slave
in Ireland—which
was
undoubtedly true—but then it said, "but when he escaped he landed in France and he studied 14 years in France." I
don't think there's the slightest truth to that. And then it goes on to say that after that he
went to Britain and there the representative of the Pope commissioned him to go
to Ireland. And then it says that later on he went to Rome and visited and talked with the
Pope about how to organize the churches in Ireland.
In fact, where he was born, practically all the facts of his
life are very
uncertain.
In this article, the tradition is followed; it is one of the various interpretations; it has this advantage, that it follows the traditional ideas. Now that's a footnote they put in the
article on St. Patrick.
You get an entirely different idea on him if you read the
article in Schaff. He tries to take the facts we have and stick to them. In
this article they try to take the facts we have, too; but they go beyond the
facts in
matters
for which we can find no evidence earlier than five or six centuries, at least, after his death. Schaff just states the facts; and
sticking to them, he points out what also the Encyclopaedia
Britannica says, that we have only two writings from St. Patrick that have been preserved. Now here Schaff gives
us a translation
of one
of these by Patrick; and it is
very interesting in that it constantly speaks of Christ,
"Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the fort [i.e. at home],
Christ in the chariot-seat [travelling by land],
Christ in the poop [travelling by water].
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me."
and so on. And the last stanza says,
"Salvation is of the Lord,
Salvation is of the Lord,
Salvation is of Christ;
May thy salvation, O Lord, be ever with us."
[from Schaff, History of
the Christian Church, Vol. IV, pp 49-50. An Irish Hymn in the Book of
Armagh, "the oldest monument of the Irish Keltic language ... which
Patrick is said to have written when he was about to convert the chief monarch
of the island..." Editorial explanations by Schaff.]
Patrick is constantly stressing Christ, not Mary. The worship of the saints, the exaltation of the Virgin Mary are not to be found in what we have
from St. Patrick.
Another very interesting thing is this: that the Irish church which Patrick founded had a custom as to the
date of Easter; and certain customs about the habits within the church; these
had been opposed by the bishop of Rome as much as two centuries before the time of St. Patrick; and the church of Rome did not use them; and a few centuries later, there was a strong conflict between the
churches of Ireland and the bishop of Rome; and it was with great difficulty that the churches
of Ireland were persuaded to give up these customs and to adopt the Roman customs.
Now if Patrick was sent there by a representative of the Pope, why did he not give
them the Roman customs in the first place? These are very minor matters; they are not matters of importance, but they
simply point in the direction of the position that Schaff takes: that Patrick
was entirely
alone;
that he had no relation to the church of Rome; rather than the idea that some papal legate on the
spot, seeing that the man the Pope sent had failed, appointed a local man and sent him over.
Incidentally, it's a very interesting thing to me, that you go into St. Peter's Church in Rome—that great largest church in Christendom—dedicated to the idea that the Pope is the leader of the Christian
church; he administers; his word is law; he is the monarch for the church; that is the
theory; and you go into that great church of St. Peter's—the largest ecclesiastical building in Christendom—where some of the Popes
are buried; and there around on the walls are great big niches with statues of individuals. And these are the individuals who have contributed most to the upbuilding of the Roman Catholic Church. There are men there like Benedict and St.
Dominic, and Ignatius Loyola the founder of the Jesuit order, St. Francis of Assisi—men who have founded the great orders of the Roman Catholic church—they are the men who have
the great
statues of them in these niches around in St. Peter's church.
When you look into the history of these men, you find that not a single one of them was dedicated by a bishop of Rome for the task of establishing an order and building up this certain order; but that every one of them is a man who himself got an idea of something he'd like to carry through; he set out to carry it through—often met with tremendous
opposition from the hierarchy of the church—but eventually got his work established; and then the church took it under its wing, and used it as an instrument to advance the Roman Catholic church; but you find that to be the case of practically every one. I think I could take every one of these founders of orders, who are most highly
honored in St. Peter's church. Take Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order; he was even called before the
Inquisition and examined to see whether he was not a heretic; they were very
suspicious of him. Because his whole idea was worked out and planned within his mind, with no reference to the hierarchy at all;
and eventually
it became the great support of the hierarchy; but even to this day the
Jesuits do what they think will advance the Roman Catholic church; and if the Pope
doesn't like it, so much the worse for the Pope. They just go ahead. They tell everybody,
"You must
obey the Pope," that is one of their primary points; but by that they mean the Papacy as an institution; and they mean the Pope as doing what the Pope
ought
to do; and the Jesuits decide what he ought to do. And that is an interesting thing about the Roman Catholic church; it's one of
the things that made for its
greatness; while theoretically it holds the theory of absolute monarchy from the top down, yet in actual practice it has
learned by
experience to give individuals opportunities of utilizing the power that
they have; developing the ideas that they have; and then picking out what is effective and advancing it.
It's a
very interesting illustration of that principle here, where the bishop of Rome
picked Palladius and sent him to Ireland to convert the Irish, and he utterly
failed; and the very next year a young unknown man named Patrick went to
Ireland and did the great work to which the Lord called him. Incidentally, it
is interesting to know that Patrick's father was a minister, and his
grandfather. He came from a very godly Christian family. The Roman Catholic
history here says that his father was a deacon, and his grandfather a
presbyter. But according to Roman Catholic law today, deacons and presbyters
are both strictly forbidden ever to marry. But Patrick's father was one, and
his grandfather. Patrick himself heard good Christian teaching as a boy, but it
did not take with him. He—at least so he said—he was 16 or 17 when he was
seized by the marauding Irish and carried off as a prisoner and made a slave;
and he was several years in Ireland as a slave. But while there in Ireland, in
the difficulties of being a slave
there, the Christian teaching he had heard as a child came into his mind; and
he turned to the Lord and became a very ardent Christian; and then according to
tradition, he had a vision from the Lord which told him to try to escape. At any rate he did
it. But after he had escaped, he found himself not thinking
of the mean treatment; he was
not thinking of how cruel these Irish had been, and a desire to
get even with them for it; but thinking of these Irish people and their need of the Lord, and
how he ought to
bring the
gospel to them; and he looked to the Lord to enable
him to do it; he knew the customs of the Irish; he knew their manners; he knew their way of thinking; the Lord
had prepared him for it; and when he went back to Ireland, within a very short time he
had thousands of people who were following the teachings that he gave them; and within a century
after his death, there were groups of
Irish men, groups
of Irish women, living in houses by themselves,
studying the Scripture and trying to advance the work of the Lord in their area; and eventually missionaries from
Ireland went to Scotland and converted the Scots; and then they went from Ireland and Scotland over to the continent; and they built monasteries in France, in the Alps, in northern Italy; it was one of the greatest missionary
works in the history of the world—the work of the Irish—during
those next four or
five centuries, before it was brought under the control of the Bishop of Rome.
We continue there next time.
We were speaking yesterday about 4, the mission to Ireland and the work of St. Patrick. I hate to just include St. Patrick under the heading "The Church of Rome," but the
principal thing I'm showing about it is that he wasn't in connection with the Church of Rome. But actually
we are not saying a great deal about Ireland at this point, because it did not affect the rest of Europe much until 2 or 3 centuries later; but I'm mentioning that its proper chronological place is here; and we do want to
recognize that, though there is little known about St. Patrick, the little we know is all very much to his credit. He seems to have been a very great Christian man; a very able organizer; a
very effective
presenter
of the gospel; and one who knew the Irish customs, the Irish character; and he was able to present it
in such a way as to have a tremendous influence in Ireland.
Later on—as we look at later centuries—we will see something of
the tremendous missionary work—one of the greatest in the world's history—that
went out from Ireland into Europe. In closing this particular section here, we
only call your attention to the fact that there is no evidence of any
communication between the bishop of Rome and the church of Ireland until at least 200 years after the time of
Patrick. There is no evidence of any such relation. Now the Roman Catholic writers will say that Patrick visited Rome; there's actually no evidence of it. They will
say that he was authorized by a bishop appointed by the Pope to go to Ireland; there's
absolutely no evidence. But there is no question that the man whom the Pope did appoint
to go and evangelize
the
Irish gave up the task a year or two before Patrick; the man Palladius picked out for this
purpose failed utterly in the task. And Patrick was not appointed by the Pope for this purpose. There are those
who claim he was designated by the representative of the Pope, but of this
there is absolutely no evidence. And I think it is very important, the fact that a few centuries later there was much disagreement between the Irish
Christians and the Roman Christians, on certain minor points like the date of
Easter and other minor points—which did not affect any real doctrinal
difference or anything like that—but do look very much against there having
been a relationship in the time of St. Patrick; if there was we would expect
these to have been brought in line with the Roman view. Now we go on to
5. Leo the Great
(440-461). Leo I, or Leo the Great—you can designate him either way you want—is one of the two
Popes who are especially designated as the Great. And anyone of any marked ability in 440
becoming Bishop of Rome would be outstanding, because of the inferior ability of
the previous ones, who were mostly mediocre men.
But Leo would be outstanding anywhere. He was a man of marked ability; a man of real leadership; he was undoubtedly a very genuine and earnest Christian. Leo is one of the
great figures
of ancient church history. He is not in the category with Augustine; he is not a great thinker and a great writer like Augustine; but he is a clear thinker, and a clear writer; a man of unusual administrative ability; a man who impressed his age and left a stamp upon the church.
Now the stamp which he left upon the church is in the main good. He was a good man, and an able man, and one to whom we are indebted. Along with this,
there were certain aspects—as there are in most men—in which he was in
error. These relate, not to doctrine in our sense, but to administration; they had an effect through the Middle Ages; have an effect to this day. I doubt if we can
blame him
for
the effects
that
came; he
was simply passing on what he
had understood to be the case in these regards.
a. His Character. So we will note that which we
dislike about him, along with that which we greatly like. First I'm going to mention as a under this, as I said, he seems to have been a real Christian, a real Christian. His sermons are simple
and terse; but they are sermons which are stressing the deity of Christ and his Saviorhood. There
is nothing
in them about the merits of the saints, or of the value of
the relics of the saints; there was no festival in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary observed in Rome until the 7th century. Many of the matters, which
today are considered
distinctive
of the Roman Catholic Church, find
absolutely no reflection in the writings of Leo, or in the attitude of the Roman Church of his day.
But he would seem to be a real Christian, based upon his sermons and also on something we will look at later—his very clear statement about the deity of Christ—which had its influence on all future ages, and on all future churches. And it
has an influence indirectly on all Christian churches today, regardless of their connection. But we'll look at that later; I'm
only mentioning that now under the heading that he was a real Christian. He reigned a long time—I don't think we need a heading for
that—21 years
is
long enough
for a
man to have an influence, to exert a force, to leave an effect upon the world, if he is an able man. Some able men
have only had two or three years in an important position. But he had these 21 years; he was extremely active during them; and he accomplished much for the welfare of the Roman church and the Roman people during that
time.
b. His Activities for the Roman People. Here we find that as the Bishop of Rome, he had a right to hear cases that were brought before him. He was a
well-trained Roman, had a great sense of his authority, and he did much for the
people of Rome. And there were two occasions on which they had special reason to be grateful. One is when Attila,
in 451
or 452
was coming
down
into Italy.
The
story was that
Attila
said that grass never grew again where his forces had trod. The impression people had of him was that of a terrible destroyer; and undoubtedly some of his battles and some of his destruction had
been a most frightful
thing. The people of Rome were utterly terrified; and Pope Leo went to the north to meet Attila, and they had—the little group with him—a
talk with Attila; gave Attila presents; had discussions with him. What the
cause of it was we don't know, but the fact is that Attila turned around and headed back north across the Alps, and he did not come down to Rome. And Leo
naturally was given great credit for this in Rome.
It is doubtful if many people would have been able to succeed in what he did. I described
to you
Raphael's picture yesterday. Of course that is purely imaginary; it was nothing of that sort; but what actually did
happen—certainly his personality and his ability as a diplomat and his knowledge of human nature had
a great deal to do with it—and it further established him in people's minds as a great leader, not only of the church, but a man
who did much for the country and much for the people. And just two or three years later, Genseric
came; and they don't talk so much about Genseric as they do about Leo, but perhaps his service was almost as great; because
when Genseric came—the king of the Vandals—with his troops; and he was carrying out
these pillaging
expeditions all over; and the
Vandals had a terrible reputation, because of the awful destruction they had done in Africa; from which their very name today has come to mean just senseless
destruction—we call it vandalism. When Genseric came, the Pope went and talked with
Genseric; and he was not able to dissuade him from entering Rome at once, but he did get Genseric—at least so it is said—to promise that
they would not indulge in murder or in fire; they would not simply burn buildings down; nor would they kill people; but they
would simply take whatever they wanted.
So in the records of the stories of the plundering of Rome by Genseric, there is no mention
of any
such
senseless burning of buildings or destroying of property to no purpose; and there is no suggestion in them that people were ruthlessly
murdered who
got in
the
way or
irritated the Vandal troops in some way. Now there may have been a few instances
like that; there are usually are in the pillaging of a city; but the Vandals had
such an awful reputation already that it didn't help their reputation any—the fact that they didn't do
it—but at least it is not pressed in the account. For 14 days, however—Alaric
the Goth had only sacked Rome for three days—but for 14 days Genseric's troops went through Rome,
picking up anything they could find that they thought was valuable. They filled their ships with valuable things—all sorts of jewelry
and precious things and anything else that they found—that they felt would be valuable to them, for 14
days.
Of course, thousands of people were impoverished by it, and the city was tremendously injured; but, as far as evidence goes, there was no simply ruthless destruction of that which was of no value to them to carry off across the sea to Africa.
And people felt that Leo—this was not so dramatic as the other
in the case
of
Attila—but felt that Leo had had some influence in causing Genseric simply to plunder and not to ravage, pillage, and destroy and murder. So he was recognized as a man who did for Rome what the emperor was not able to do at this time. Now,
c. His Theological
Leadership. The Western church—as compared with the Eastern church—was practical. The Eastern church tended to be
more theoretical. In the Eastern church, right from the very early times, you'll find much effort to understand little details of theology, and much heated
argument about them. In the Western church, the emphasis was more on the practical aspect of bringing the message of Christianity to the
people and
affecting their
lives by
it;
and the attitude on most of the points of theology was, "Well, let's look at the Bible and see what we see, and that's
it."
So through the centuries, up to this time, we find the Roman church taking the simple clear Biblical teaching, and standing upon it; which meant that in the great controversies that covered the Eastern Empire, the Western church usually was on the side of
simple Biblical interpretation; and the Bishop of Rome would speak out in that direction,
and that usually was where the controversy was ended up. And it gave the Roman church a reputation for orthodoxy, and
for standing for that which was true
in the Word. Now we have a tremendous discussion in the Eastern church—the Christological controversies. We are going to
give them a separate head; they are tremendously important. At this point we are not interested in the
details of the Christological controversies; these divided the Eastern
church
into several sections, which resulted in
two or three very large groups coming out from it; they became extremely large separate
sections of
Christianity,
some of which
still exist to the present day. But this discussion found its climax and
resolution
at the
fourth ecumenical council—the Council of Chalcedon. We'll look at that later under the Christological controversies. Next to the
Council of Nicea, it is the most important council in the history of the Christian church. At this council of Chalcedon, the statement which was adopted was based upon a letter of Leo's which he called a
tome. I don't know why he used that particular
title, but
he said this was his tome which he sent to the East to the bishop of Constantinople; and
this tome was read at the council of Chalcedon, and it was put in, almost word for word, into the decision of the
Council of Chalcedon.
I was at a Centennial meeting of a college quite recently—at a
Christian College—at which the address was given by a noted evangelical minister; and in his address he refers to Chalcedonian Christology. We stand by the
Chalcedonian formula. I do not know whether he knew—he must have known at one time; he was actually one of my students at one time—but I don't know whether he now knew that the Chalcedonian
formula is,
almost
word for word, taken from the tome of Pope Leo. And that shows what we owe, in this regard, to Pope Leo. He was not a deep thinker, not
a subtle thinker, like the rest of the church theologians; but he was a clear thinker; and he took
these various
controversies
and discussions, and he took the principal clear statements of
the Bible, about the
character of Christ, and expressed it in such a way as to show where this view was wrong; and that view was wrong; and this
is the
straight
simple
teaching of the Bible, about the character of Christ.
The Chalcedonian formula has been accepted by all orthodox churches since that time; in the time of the Reformation, the Reformed leaders all declared their
acceptance of the Chalcedonian formula. And it was Pope Leo the Great who worded this formula; so you can see he was a great theological influence; and it would be
strange indeed if, in the greatest city of the Empire, its church did not some time in the first three
centuries have as its head a man of great outstanding ability; and the church was, undoubtedly, a real Christian
church in
those
days. Leo was a real
Christian, and he was a clear thinker on this matter. The formula is a credit to him, and he deserved the title which was given to him of "The
Great," Leo, the Great. But now we come to
d. His Papal Claims. Now you notice I'm using the word Pope here; and it has been sort of a problem with me thus far, what to do about the word "Pope," and the word "catholic," because the word catholic had a certain meaning in ancient times—which is the original meaning of
the word—and
today
that meaning
is hardly recognized. One church today has claimed that title for itself; and others have quite
generally conceded
it to
them, instead of recognizing that historically catholic is just what the Roman church
today is not. Catholic is all-embracing—those who truly are Christians and who enter into communion with one another.
Now the catholic church, so-called, today is actually a Roman catholic church, and I like to use the word Roman with it whenever possible. Or even to use the word
Roman church
rather
than catholic, because they are not catholic in the historic sense of the word. They claim to be, but they are not. They have a claim as to the power of the Roman bishop which
the catholics of
ancient times did not recognize; and they have certain views on various matters which have come up through the Middle Ages, which were not known in ancient churches; and which certainly
were not
made a
central
point in
the ancient church at all, as they are made in the Roman Catholic
church today.
But I have been using the term catholic as it was used in the ancient church. We have to have a word to distinguish that which we mean in the ancient church, and I've used that word. When you're speaking with people who know the word only in the modern sense, you probably had better try to find a different word, so that they will not be confused.
Now the problem has been just about opposite in the case of the word Pope; because the word Pope was used in the ancient church of the bishop of Rome; but I have not used it in the main, up to this
point, for
the bishop of Rome. And the reason is that it was not used in the ancient world in the sense in which it is used today. Today there is one Pope; he is the Bishop of Rome, and he claims to be the head of the whole church
throughout the world. He bases that claim upon the idea that Peter became bishop of Rome; and that Peter had a right to
appoint his successors; and that the power of Peter goes on to the successor in the bishopric of Rome. Well, the word Pope never meant that in ancient times; they said, "Pope Athanasius,"
they regularly called him. The bishop of Alexandria was always
called Pope; and practically any bishop might be addressed as Pope. All it
means is father; the modern Italian word Pope is Papa, exactly the word we
use for any type of father; but of
course in
Italian it
is restricted, like our English word Pope, which means the one—father in their sense, par excellence—the head of the
Roman Catholic system. But in ancient times this word was regularly used. But here now, when I say papal claims, naturally I mean the sort of claims that the Pope may make today.
And here we find that the Roman Bishop had very often felt that he—as head of the Roman church—had the right to speak, and the rest of the world should listen to them. And some of their followers, when Leo's tome was read, said, "Peter has spoken by Leo," and they meant that Peter was expressing himself through succeeding bishops. Well, these claims, which had been passed on, were fully accepted by Leo. Leo considered himself as the Pope in the modern sense of the word. He considered himself as head of the whole church. Well, there were—all through the church—there were people who were very glad to get the help of the Bishop of Rome; to get his advice on various matters; and Leo was anxious to give advice when he could; and it was usually good advice. But there were also those to whom he gave orders; and there are situations in which an order is necessary; a situation in which advice is not enough. But Leo would insist that they must carry out the orders of the Bishop of Rome, that he had a leadership over the whole church.
Now by the time he became Pope, Africa had been completely taken over by the Vandals. And what was left of the catholic church of Africa—which had been with Augustine before
the Vandals came—the great widespread church
with big fine buildings. Recall that when Augustine first came to Hippo, they
had one little
catholic
church with two or three big Donatist churches in the town. They had fine catholic churches in the town at Augustine's death; and there were far more catholic churches all over North Africa. It was the great church of North Africa as a result of Augustine's
efforts. But—and this was a big but—after the Vandals got through they were a small persecuted group; the Vandals were constantly persecuting them, and even at times exiling
their bishops from the country; they were making it very difficult for them; and so very naturally, when Leo wrote to them and declared that he was the head and they should do what he said in everything, they were ready to
do almost anything he would say—so long as it did not contradict Scriptures of course—so long as he gave them help in their sad plight. And so the Bishop of Africa now recognized and
accepted the
claims
that Leo
made, even though 20 years before the
same claims had been strongly repudiated by the bishops of the strong group in North Africa.
In Spain, there was a situation where there was a group called
the Cicilians. Now we're not going to take time to go into the particular heretical views of the
Cicilianists; they were quite generally recognized as a group that was not
in line
with
the main teachings of Christianity; and the attitude of the
local people—of some of them—was to make a sharp line between themselves and the Cicilianists; while others had the feeling that, after all, we have all these
barbarians in the land—these Arians—we should simply overlook the differences with the Cicilianists, even though they are rather vital. And Leo wrote them an authoritative letter that they should
definitely cut off all fellowship with the Cicilianists, because they were outside the pale of true
Christianity. And his order was obeyed by the Spanish church; and it was the right thing to do in the situation. And this
contributed to the authority of the Roman church, and of Leo, throughout the world. Leo declared that any bishop that held Pelagian views should be deposed from his position and exiled from the country. And some men, who had been very active in trying to
promote Pelagian views, even where they already had been deposed from their position of Bishop, were forced to leave
Italy as a result of Leo's action.
In France, however, Leo ran into a difficult snag in this regard. The leading churchman in France at
this time was a man named Hilary. And Hilary did not admit any authority of Leo over France.
And Leo said
"Anyone
who dares to secede from Peter's solid rock may understand that he has no part or lot in the divine mystery." [Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Vol. XII, Letters of Leo the Great,
p.8]. Hilary
had enforced
certain
regulations in France which he felt were vital to the advance of the cause of Christ; and people appealed against him to Leo; Leo decided these people were right and Hilary was wrong; but Hilary refused to admit Leo's authority; and enough of the people in France stood against Hilary in
this, so Hilary came down to Rome to see Leo; he walked down to Rome, across the Alps, to see Leo and to ask Leo to listen to the true facts of the matter, and not to throw his influence in favor of these who Hilary said were wrong; and Leo said that Hilary must first recognize that Leo was the authority; and if he does not recognize that what Leo says will be carried out, he will not listen to him on the rights and wrongs
of it. He
said that the leadership of Gaul should belong to another man whom
he appointed.
And Leo gave orders; refused to listen to Hilary in the case; and ordered Hilary to be guarded so that he couldn't escape from Rome and go back and make trouble in France. But Hilary evaded the diligence of
his jailers; he went back to France. Leo said "He trusted to make good his escape by disgraceful flight," that he "has on more than one
occasion brought upon himself condemnation by his rash and insolent words; he may now be kept by our command, in accordance with the clemency of the Apostolic See, to the
priesthood of his own city alone." [ibid.,
p.11]
Leo got the emperor Innocent to give a decree confirming the papal
sentence against Hilary. However, Hilary was a man of such character, that an
English Episcopal writer says of him, "He was a man of pure and lowly holiness; a zealous evangelist; simple and ascetic in his
life; loving order and discipline, but hating oppression and tyranny and rebuke. Altogether the fifth century does not present a
nobler and more beautiful character."
Hilary was such a fine Christian that, after his death, he was recognized as a saint; and he is revered
in the Roman Catholic Church to this day as a saint, St. Hilary. But he is one who utterly
refused to recognize Leo's authority; and of course, when Leo became so high-handed in these methods, that
was a serious blemish in Leo's character; and it laid a foundation for many similar acts of Popes in later years, men of
far less ability than Leo. It was a bad blemish in the character of a very good man. Every good man has his bad points. But unfortunately a bad blemish in a good man often gives precedence to
a bad man to do the same thing later on.
The Council of Chalcedon—the theological activity of which we look at later on—the Council of Chalcedon in its decision, after it dealt with theological matters, dealt with matters of
order in the
church, and the 28th canon of the Council of Chalcedon declared that the fathers had given the primacy to Rome, because it was the imperial city; and that for that reason the 150 most godly bishops at the 2nd general council, in 381, had given equal honor to New Rome, considering that it was like old Rome, the seat of the empire and the senate, it ought also to magnify its ecclesiastic position and be considered
only second in rank to the elder capital.
Well, this infuriated Leo. Leo declared that the Council of Nicea had said the first place in the empire—it was a primacy of honor not of authority—belonged to the Church of Rome, the second to Antioch and the third to Alexandria. Now, he said, "No subsequent council has a right to put Constantinople up above Alexandria and Antioch." Actually, of course, Constantinople wasn't in existence when the council of Nicea met. But he said they have no right to do that whatever. And he said, to put it next to Rome like this, and to say that about it—put the authority of Rome on a basis of the political importance of the city—and that, he said, has nothing to do with it. It is because here was the bishop of Rome, and the authority comes from Peter. And he said Constantinople can never get an apostolic foundation because the apostles were all dead long before Constantinople was founded. So Leo was very indignant about this action of the Council of Chalcedon. And when the people of the east tried to point out to him, all the Council of Chalcedon did was to reaffirm the acts of the Council of Constantinople—the second ecumenical council—it still did not affect Leo's attitude. And so you have Leo's attitude: the church at Rome is the leading church in the empire; others should all do what its bishop said.
And so you have the attitude of the eastern church, which is: the church of Rome is the leading church in the west; but in the east there are three leading churches: the church of Constantinople, the church of Alexandria, and the church of Antioch; and each of them should exercise a wholesome administrative leadership in the area around them; and they defined the areas, so the people would know in which areas people would appeal to which bishop, in the case of irregularities or of something that needed attention or improvement in their area.
So you have the two attitudes now: the attitude of Leo, which claims a universal domination for the church at Rome; and the attitude of the Eastern Church, which claimed that the church of Rome is the metropolitan church of the western world, but that there are three metropolitans in the eastern area which have an equal authority in their area. And they never came together at any point, and eventually they divided into the Eastern and the Western Churches. Various
matters entered into the division, but
this was the real difference—the claims of the Bishop of Rome.
Well, so much then for Leo's papal claims. He was a man of
tremendous ability, a man of great activity, tremendous energy; his effect upon the world was very, very great; he is one of the great
figures
of the
ancient church; no other bishop of Rome before his time deserves to be even mentioned in the same class with him. He is the only one of the Bishops of Rome up to this time whom the Roman Catholic Church
considers a doctor of the Church. They consider him one of the learned doctors of the
ancient church. And in the realm of theology, he was that indeed; and his contribution to the theological understanding of the ancient
church, through
his
clear statement of the Biblical teaching of the character of Christ, is something for which all Christians since are indebted to him.
6. Gelasius
(492-496). So now we go on to speak briefly of one other Bishop of Rome. This is Gelasius I who ruled from 492 to 496. As you can easily see, the period of his ruling was far
shorter than the period in which Leo ruled. Consequently, he could not accomplish anywhere nearly as much as Leo did, if he had been
a man of equal ability. But, in
addition to that, he was not a man of equal ability. He was just about the same ability as the average Bishop of Rome before and after Leo. But he is of
interest for two reasons. One is that he announced a principle which went even beyond anything that Leo had declared. He declared that the priestly power is above the kingly and the imperial; and that from the decisions of the chair of Peter, there is no appeal. That was his declaration, and it is something which McSorley thinks
important enough
to
mention specifically in his history. Where he mentions the different Popes here, he says, "St. Gelasius I is known to history as the man whose conception of authority dominated Christendom through
the whole
medieval
period; and the early ages show no better evidence of the recognition of papal supremacy than this pope's deeds and writings. Particular significance
attaches to
the
so-called 'Duo sunt,' a passage in his letter to the emperor Anastasius written in the year 494. In this passage Gelasius affirms that Anastasius, as emperor, has the obligation of safeguarding the faith; and that, in the discharge of this duty, he must follow the judgment
of the Holy See—for although the emperor is the secular ruler of the
world, yet
in spiritual matters he must
obey the
Pope. It is hardly too much to say that for more than six hundred years the Duo sunt regulated the relation between church and state." [McSorley, op. cit.,
p. 111]
Now here we have an American Roman Catholic writer praising Gelasius for so
clearly defining
the relation between church and state, saying that the Pope's authority is supreme, even over the emperor of the whole world. Well, McSorley praises that as the correct presentation of the true doctrine. What does that mean about whether there should be a Roman Catholic
President today in the United States? A
man may be a very, very fine man, a thorough-going American, a man who desires to be President for the welfare of all
the people, and not to allow his particular religious views to affect his presidency. But if he is a loyal member of a church; whose church history praises Gelasius I, the infallible Pope, for having declared the true relation of church and state, that in all spiritual matters the decision of the Pope is above that of any earthly group; how can a man with such an attitude which he must have to be a loyal member of the church, be also an impartial and fair president of a country which holds an entirely different view as our country does? It is, I think, a thing that we should have in mind.
McSorley does not say this was an old medieval concept which we don't hold today—nothing of the kind. He can't; because for him, it was the
infallible Pope who said it; and he declares that it regulated the relation between
church and state for the next 600 years; and he clearly enunciated the policy. Well,
if that is
the policy,
it is impossible for a man—a Roman Catholic—to be a secular ruler without recognizing that in anything which
the Pope considers
a
spiritual matter, it is his duty as a true Roman Catholic to do what the Pope
says.
Well, that is one thing that is interesting about Gelasius; but there is another thing that is very interesting about
him, too. And that is that from Pope Gelasius there is a declaration, what he calls "withholding
the cup from the laity in the communion service." And that's very interesting,
that this Pope who made such a wonderful declaration of the supreme authority of the Pope—his supremacy over all emperors, all kings and all
presidents—that he should also have declared that it is a sacrilege to withhold the cup from the laity in the communion; yet there is nothing more characteristic of the Roman Catholic Church today, and through many centuries past, than its
insistence that the laity only take the bread in the communion service; the cup is drunk entirely by the priest; and the priest has to be very careful, because if he gives communion to quite a number of people, and he drinks the wine for every one of them, sometimes he gets drunk; and to get drunk in the church is rather embarrassing; and consequently this is a matter which they have to be very careful about, to
limit the amount
they take
if there are a number to give communion, because it is wine which they use. And
the priests drink all
of it and that is one of the characteristic features of the Roman Catholic Church today; but Pope Gelasius declared that that
is a sacrilege to withhold the cup from the laity.
Well, what will McSorley do about that? Will McSorley forget, say nothing about it? No, McSorley is writing us a history, to prepare people for objections which may be raised; and so
McSorley says, in a footnote here,
"An interesting decree of Gelasius prescribes the reception of Communion
under both forms (Bread and
Wine) in order that secret Manichaeans might be detected through their refusal even to touch the consecrated
Wine." [ibid, p. 111, note 10.]
That is, McSorley gives a reason for giving both the bread and cup to the laity. But whatever,
Gelasius
declares
it is a sacrilege to withhold the cup from the laity, and that is what the whole Roman Catholic Church does today.
C. The
Christological Controversy. This is one of the most
important things that we cover in the whole semester's work. Some people might think it was the most important, except
of course
for
the Nicene controversy. Many a theologian would feel that the Nicene Controversy and the Christological Controversies were the outstanding events in Ancient Church History. Perhaps
they are,
from the viewpoint of the history of doctrine. I believe, though, that we
have covered
many other things that would be of great help and importance in understanding
the work of Christ today, things which are of tremendous importance for our knowledge of Christian work.
But for knowledge of doctrine, and how our understanding of doctrine developed, this is a tremendously
important subject. So under C,
1. General Remarks, Nature and Importance. The nature of these controversies is little known among people
in general; though they're important, I think, among all who know much about Christian history. Their great importance,
of course, is that they resulted in the establishment of that view of the person of Christ which had been accepted—officially at least—by all orthodox
churches since that time. Therefore, you see, they were of tremendous importance. The Reformers built upon this
foundation; they did not attempt in any way to tamper with it. And among our orthodox Christian churches of these past five
centuries, I don't know of any one of them which has officially
attempted in any way to tamper with the results of these controversies.
Now many people have the impression that these controversies resulted in establishing or building up the doctrine. Personally, I don't think it was really that way. I think what they resulted in doing was clearing away various misunderstandings and bringing us back to the simple plain statements of the Scripture. That is, the result of this is nowhere stated in the Bible, but if you simply take the statements as they stand, the result of these controversies is where you'll get to. One man tried to explain it this way, another that way, another this way—they went off on different tangents—and the result of the controversy was to say, "No, this is the wrong tangent; that's the wrong tangent; this is the wrong tangent. The simple statement that is a summary of Scriptural teaching, that is true. We may not understand it, we cannot see its full meaning, but it is what is taught, it is what Christianity is, it is what we should stand upon."
And so to have an understanding of the major details of these
controversies; and the result which was reached, and has stood ever since; is a very
important thing for everyone who is to do any sort of Christian work; to know something about them. And that is the nature and importance, then, of these Christological
controversies.
Now there is a little more about the nature that I must say, though, before we go on to the next head. The nature of these controversies is that the Christian world can be
thought of in two sections—the East and the West. And these controversies are Eastern controversies.
We've already noticed that about the Trinitarian controversy. It was an Eastern controversy. The Pelagian Controversy was a Western
Controversy.
But
the Trinitarian Controversy and the Christological Controversies are Eastern controversies. By that, we mean,
that the West
took
comparatively little part in either of them.
In the Trinitarian Controversy most of the theologians of the West said, "The Bible teaches Jesus is God; but the Bible teaches there is one God; so we have Jesus: He is fully God, but there is just one God." They believed that; that's what they found taught in the Bible; they were not ready to try to explain it in minutia; but they were ready to see that Arianism was quite different from that, and so was wrong. In the Eastern Church, people wanted to understand, "How can this be?" When they tried to get into the details and tried to understand it, you had many of them who thought the Arian approach gave them an understanding of it; and others said it does not. And they argued and had tremendous controversies over it; and in the end, the Trinitarian view—the Athanasian view, the view expressed in the Nicene statement—is the view which in the end was adopted by the whole of the church of the Roman Empire.
And the barbarians took the Arian view but eventually, in a few centuries, they gave it up and adopted the standard view of the church in the Roman Empire. Now in the Christological
Controversies they did the same way.
The Western Church finds in the Bible that Jesus is God, and finds in the Bible that Jesus is man; and they say, "Yes, Jesus is God, Jesus is man. But is Jesus two persons? No, He is one person. He is
one person, but He is fully God, He is fully man." And they accept that; they stand upon it. Tertullian
expressed
it
clearly. They mostly took the words that Tertullian used. He formulated the Latin theological vocabulary, and
they stood upon it. This is what the Bible teaches.
But in the East, people were trying to explain it; how can it be? And they explained it this way; and then someone else said, "No that's wrong," and then they explained it this way. Someone said, "No that's wrong." And in the end, various attempted explanations were cast aside; and the central position was held; in the center, from
which the Western Church never had departed; but it became established as definite teaching of the orthodox Christian church in the Roman Empire, and has been held ever since; so these are Eastern controversies. They are the speculative minds of the Eastern Empire
trying to explain
things;
and in the end seeing how most of the explanations given led off into some heresy, and were definitely wrong. In the end, they adopted the view that the Western Church held all along: that Jesus Christ is God; He is fully God; and Jesus Christ is man; He is just
as much God as God the Father is. In fact,
He is the same
God as
God the Father; there is only one God. And He is just as much man as you or I. That is the view
which the Western Church always held and which the Eastern Church accepted and maintained in the end. So that is the Importance and Nature.
2. Background of Trinitarian Controversy. Now the Trinitarian Controversy we covered last semester. So anybody who is new here this semester, and did not have the first semester of Church History, would not know of it. Anybody who was here last semester, or who was getting credit for the first semester of Church History through taking it anywhere else, will be expected to know about the Trinitarian Controversy. You can't understand the Christological Controversy without it. You will recall that it began in its strong public form when Arius said, "There was a time when Jesus was not. He is the first of all created men." The Bible nowhere says He was ever created. He was from all eternity. He is God. But Arius presented this view, an outgrowth of various attitudes that theologians had held in different places before, but he expressed it in this strong fashion.
The Council of Nicea, in 325, had explicitly stated that Jesus is of the same essence as God the Father. There is one God.
And then we noticed how various Roman Emperors tried to force people to adopt the Arian view; how in the East they made it almost universal. In the
West, the church held to the Athanasian view, except when, under compulsion of the Emperor, for a
brief time
some of them signed Arian
statements.
And in the end, at the Council of Constantinople, the Second Ecumenical Council, the
first Council of Constantinople, in 381—a date which I hope none of you will ever forget, at that Council the Nicene statement was reaffirmed,
the statement of 325—with the addition of a reference, a stronger
reference
to the
deity of the Holy Spirit. We
mentioned Macedonianism
briefly at that time. You don't hear much about Macedonianism. It's a big name to cover the fact that a group denied the deity of the Holy Spirit. But this was never a large movement or a big
controversy. The controversy always was, "Is Jesus wholly God or isn't He?" And most of those who would recognize Jesus as God would recognize the Trinity—that the Holy Spirit is also, and is equally God. But those who tried to hold the deity of Christ and not the deity of the Holy Spirit—the small group who advanced that view—were called
Macedonians, and Macedonianism was denied at the Council of Constantinople.
So at the Council of Constantinople the doctrine of the Trinity as we have it today was declared by this second ecumenical council; it was declared by them, and has been the official doctrine of all orthodox Christian churches, Christian denominations, since that time. There are three persons, but only one God; and God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, three persons but only one God, equal in power and in deity; equal in every way except you might say in precedence of honor; the name of the father first, then the Son, then the Holy Spirit. Well, that is the Trinitarian view then; adopted in 381; not denied by any large group of people—recognized as Christians—since that time; except for the barbarian groups—the Goths and the Vandals—who had been converted by Arian missionaries, and who had continued for some centuries to hold their Arian view; but eventually they were absorbed in the larger church and the Arian views forgotten. In subsequent centuries, occasional individuals have adopted Arian views, but there never has been a denomination of any size recognized as an orthodox Christian denomination, which has been Arian since that time.
Now we move on then, after this background of the Trinitarian controversy, to
3. The first step, Apollinarianism. This goes back to the 4th century. We discussed it then, but it is so vital as background to the rest of the Christological Controversy, that it is worth reminding you of the facts about it. First, that Apollinarius was a
godly man;
a defender of the orthodox view of the Trinity; a friend of
Athanasius; a man who stood for Christianity in the days when the emperor, Julian the Apostate was trying to
revive paganism; and who at that time set to work to try to write
Christian classics to replace the pagan classics, since Julian wouldn't allow the Christians to teach them; this man Apollinarius, whom everybody highly respected as a Christian leader and a defender of the Trinitarian view, a real earnest spiritual man, set to work to solve a problem, and in his attempt to solve the problem fell into a heretical view. And this viewpoint came
to be
named after
him,
Apollinarianism.
Now this view of his was a view which thoroughly maintained the full deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. That was his great interest; that was his great emphasis;
that was the emphasis of the Trinitarians against Arianism. But to hold to this view and to make it easier to understand, he
adopted an explanation which actually denied the completeness of the humanity of Christ; and when Apollinarius proposed this view,
Athanasius immediately saw the heretical and unscriptural nature of this view and wrote against
it.
But Athanasius thought so highly of this godly man—Apollinarius—that he did his best to keep from
speaking personally in a critical way of him. He showed how thoroughly he condemned the view, but in this case he
avoided mentioning
his
name. Athanasius did not do that with men who were opposing the gospel and opposing the orthodox view;
but here was a man who with good intentions had fallen into error and was doing
something that was harmful. Athanasius did not want to hurt the man in any way, but he felt it necessary to warn people against it;
so at
a council
which was called
in
Alexandria in 362—at this council the doctrine of Apollinarius was denied; and
there were subsequent councils of Christian leaders which denied and opposed this
doctrine; until
finally
the Council of
Constantinople included it in its denial.
Now as to just what the doctrine is, we have gone into this
fully before.
I'm
merely summarizing
it
again, to remind you of it. Apollinarius held the view that Jesus Christ had a human body and a human soul, but not a human spirit. His view was that the divine logos took the
place of the
human
spirit in Christ. So Jesus had a human body, a human mind, but no human spirit. He was the logos, the divine spirit taking it over. But, as
people pointed out, this was no incarnation; this is not God-man. This is simply God
taking a
human body and using it. Well, of course, the Arians said that the logos took a human body. He went beyond that, he said a human soul also. Apollinarius quoted the verse, "May your body, soul, and spirit be preserved to the day of Jesus Christ," and he said this proves man is in three parts. Of course, he could have quoted the passage where it says,
"Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind and all thy strength," and made four parts of man, if you were looking for Scriptural evidence. Actually, you cannot divide
man; he's one, he's unified, and these are merely
different ways of looking at it, whether you divide him into two or three or six or ten. You can't really divide him, He is one. But the Arians divided man into two. They said he's a human body and a divine soul. Apollinarius divided him into three, a human
body, a human soul, and a divine spirit.
Actually He is entirely God and entirely man. So they were both entirely wrong.
But the view which Apollinarius found is very important to understand precisely what the view was; we went into it very carefully before, as this is only an introduction to Christological controversy; but it is the important first step in it—the view that Jesus is a human body, a human soul, but the logos takes the place of the divine spirit.
Now Apollinarius had his followers, but not a great many. He
found he
could
beat Arianism
better with this view. He thought that he could show the deity of Christ better, by giving this interpretation of the person of Christ. But it is an interpretation which does not do justice to the teaching of Scripture, which teaches that Jesus is fully man as well as being fully God. So Athanasius directed a council which in 362 condemned this view, without referring to Apollinarius personally. And then there were later councils, small councils of Christians—like in Rome under Damasus there were two of them, 377, 378—which condemned this view; they declared that it was not a
correct view of the character of Christ.
To be a full redeemer Jesus must be fully man, as well as fully God; and the Council of Constantinople
in 381—the first council of Constantinople, the second ecumenical council, as we call it—this council condemned the view of
Apollinarius and declared that it was not a true Christian interpretation of the person of Christ.
Now we go on then
to
4. The Nestorian Council. There are three main steps in the Christological controversies: the first is Apollinarianism;
the second is the Nestorian controversy. The view here has been called Nestorianism. This is not a good name for it; but Nestorius was the leading figure in it, and therefore it is the name that has stuck to it ever since. Whether Nestorius was really a Nestorian in
the theological sense may be questioned. But at least his name has been given to this view. So we will say a little bit about Nestorius.
a. Nestorius. Nestorius was a monk and a presbyter in Antioch; and in 428 he was called to Constantinople. He was an honest man, of
great eloquence and monastic
piety, and he had the spirit of a zealot and of orthodoxy; but he was impetuous, vain, imprudent, and wanting in sound
practical judgment. Nestorius, then, was not a
man to be the leader of a movement; he never intended to be the leader of a movement. But the movement
centered around him. It resulted
from his background and from the attitude which some other people took, and it was tied around his name. In 428, he went to Constantinople, and they expected a second
Chrysostom. In Constantinople,
he was patriarch of Constantinople; and
in his inaugural sermon, he addressed Theodosius II, the emperor, with these words: "Give me, O Emperor, the earth due as my inheritance, and I will give
thee heaven for it. Help
me to fight the heretics and I will help
thee to fight the Persians."
And it is the irony of history. The man who, in becoming archbishop of Constantinople, tried to get the emperor to enact very stringent laws against heretics; and who himself instituted violent measures against all who could be considered heretical; three years later, he was himself cast out as a heretic; and he
spent the rest
of his
life in exile. But Nestorius,
while he took these strong views against Arians, Novatians, Macedonians, and even people who observed Easter on the wrong day, he treated the Pelagians with great sympathy. He received to himself the banished leaders of the Pelagians; interceded for them with the emperor and with the Pope Coelestine; and Coelestius, one of the top leaders of Pelagianism, stayed with him for
quite a while there in Constantinople. Now
Nestorius began to see the emphasis which gathered around the church of Alexandria on the deity of Christ; Nestorius certainly believed in the deity of Christ. But Nestorius felt that their stress on it was
forgetting the humanity of Christ.
The Council of Constantinople had very strictly declared belief in the full humanity of Christ. But when Nestorius found people beginning to refer to Mary as the mother of God, this excited him very much; and he began to give a series of sermons on it. He said, "You ask
whether
Mary can be called mother of
God. Has God
a mother? If so, heathenism
itself is
excusable."
And then Nestorius said Paul is a liar because he said of the deity of Christ, he said "without father, without mother, without descendants." Now that's not what Paul said exactly. He said Jesus was
born in the womb of Mary, was
not himself God, but God assumed him; and on account of him who assumed, he who was assumed is
also called God. Now, you see what Nestorius did. He made the divine nature of God and the human nature of Christ so distinct that it actually
almost became two persons. And did he actually go to the point of considering Christ really as two persons? Some of the true Nestorians certainly did, whether Nestorius himself actually did or not.
And against this, the archbishop of Alexandria, Cyril—who was a very fine theologian—reacted
very,
very strongly;
he began to criticize him very very strongly, and he wrote a letter to the then bishop of Rome, asking him to come out against these
heretical views coming from Constantinople; and the bishop of Rome agreed; and
he wrote
a
letter to him, in which he told him if he did not within ten days recant his
heretical views
and accept the true Roman view, he would be
declared an apostate and deposed from his position as bishop by the authority of the
bishop of Rome. Well, the bishop of Rome might talk that way, but he had no power to carry out anything.
But he stood right in line with the
bishop of Alexandria on this; and some think one reason that he was quite so ready was the fact that Nestorius was very friendly with Coelestius and these other
Pelagian leaders, who had been condemned in Rome. Well, that's reading into his motives; we don't know,
but it may have entered into it. At any rate,
b. His Views. His views I have described; and the danger of them is separation of the two natures until Christ almost
becomes two persons. The substitution of the idea—for the idea of incarnation—the idea of an assumption of human nature, rather of an entire man, into
fellowship with the Logos. You have two persons really, even if you say you don't, if you carry it as far as Nestorius' enemies
said. Now
whether he
really did is hard to say. The controversy was very bitter. But one result of the controversy was to clarify our understanding of the doctrine, and
that was a
real service.
So the view that is called Nestorianism, as you see, is very different from Apollinarianism. In Apollinarius' view, Jesus Christ is one combined God and man, with God actually using a human body for His purpose. In
the Nestorian view you have a full God and a full man. The man can suffer, God can't suffer; God is eternal, man is not eternal. You have two distinct
natures combined—rather loosely—into one person; and it is a view which most of the Christian
world came
rather soon
to see
did
not do full
justice to
the Biblical data; it was a false view, and it came to be condemned throughout the Roman Empire. But
before we notice how it was condemned, we will mention the opposition to
Nestorianism.
c. The Opposition to
Nestorianism. And the opposition to Nestorius cannot be said to be based solely upon his
theological views. It is pretty hard to look at the situation without feeling that there
was a great deal of jealousy between the church of Alexandria, and the church
of Constantinople; that Cyril, the bishop of the church at Alexandria, who was an excellent theologian, was
also, along with it, a rather clever politician. And he seems to have been determined to destroy the
position of Nestorius; and some of the means used do not sound very good as you read about them in
the account of the details.
There was a very heated controversy, not just in the matter of
the doctrine, but on the various points of dispute between the two. Cyril wrote to the emperor; he wrote to the bishop
of Rome; he warned bishops and churches against Nestorius; but the emperor was favorable to
Nestorius for
a
time. But he agreed, in connection with his Western colleagues, to call a universal council. And this universal council was called for 431 at Ephesus. So we call
d. The Council of
Ephesus. This was one of the smallest of the ecumenical councils, and perhaps one of the least effective in many ways, of the ecumenical councils; but it is one in the series, and the results of its activities contributed
toward the establishment of the doctrinal views which the Christian church has held ever since.
And so the Council of Ephesus is one that should be remembered. Its date: 431 AD. The place: Ephesus. The number in the series: the third ecumenical council.
It is
interesting to notice that no bishop of Rome called it; like the first and second, it was called by the emperor. And no bishop of Rome
attended it either, though the bishop of Rome sent three representatives to come and attend the ecumenical council of Ephesus,
the third ecumenical
council.
Now of this third ecumenical council, Schaff says, "In moral character it stands far beneath that of
Nicea, of
the
first council
of
Constantinople." He says that uncharitable, violent, and passionate spirit
ruled the transactions there; and that doctrinally, also, it was mainly only negative—that is to say, the condemnation of Nestorius. But it is one in the series. Now originally, Nestorius had come from Antioch; and at
Antioch were some of the theologians who held the Nestorian view, perhaps going
further than Nestorius. And the
churches of Antioch and Alexandria had existed long before Constantinople was founded; they were
the two largest churches in the East.
Well, now, the view of Nestorius, to some extent, represented the Antiochian group; but the Antiochians were late in getting to the council. The first man to get there was
Nestorius, with 16 bishops and with an armed escort. And the imperial influence was on his side, but great numbers of the people felt that his view
was wrong.
Cyril
next appeared,
with a
numerous
retinue of 50 Egyptian bishops; and the archbishop of Ephesus was with him; and there were quite a few bishops from that area. This is the first
time when the bishop of Rome was represented at a council. He had two bishops and a presbyter who
represented him; they stood with the Alexandrian party but did not mix with the debate. But the patriarch of Antioch, who was a friend of Nestorius, was detained and did not get there until quite late. And Cyril refused to wait and opened the Council.
They summoned Nestorius to come, and he refused to come till all the bishops should get there; his friends weren't there yet. 160 bishops were present on the 22nd of June; the imperial commissioners protested against their meeting till
the rest
got there, but they went ahead. And they condemned Nestorius. They condemned Coelestius and Pelagius. They quoted the many statements from the earlier fathers. And they pronounced a sentence of deposition,
which was
adopted and
subscribed by about 200
bishops, which said "The Lord Jesus Christ, who is blasphemed by him
[Nestorius], determines through this holy council that Nestorius be excluded
from the episcopal office, and from all sacerdotal fellowship." [Schaff, op. cit., Vol. III, p 722]
They informed Nestorius that he was deposed; the people of Ephesus hailed the results, illuminated the city, and accompanied Cyril with torches, and sent him in state to his home. When a few days later, John of Antioch arrived, with 42 bishops agreeing with him,
he found that the people there were pretty strongly in agreement with the bishop of Alexandria; and in the end—though he protested for a time that they should start all over again with their business—they refused to do it; in the end, they made an agreement between them. I guess John recognized in the end that they were in an impossible position in the doctrine which Nestorius had been supporting; and he made an agreement with Cyril, and they all recorded the decision of the council. Nestorius was deposed; a number of bishops agreed on it; the emperor agreed to support it; so he was deposed from his position; he was sent into exile; he continued to live another 20 years in exile, but Nestorius had no further influence or position in the church. And the statement which was adopted by the council, has been held by the Christian church ever since: that the union is a true union of the two natures, without confusion; so there is one Christ, one Lord and one Son; and therefore that it is not improper to speak of the virgin Mary as the mother of God, because God the Logos was made flesh in man; and united with Himself of humanity; even from the conception, He took from the virgin.
So the Council of Ephesus condemned Pelagianism; condemned Coelestius, a friend of Pelagius; but its main action was the condemnation of Nestorius, and of the views which were attributed to him. They say it is hard to say whether Nestorius really held these views; he was evidently something of an orator and got carried away with
himself when he was speaking. That he took a position and perhaps expressed himself a lot more strongly than he really
felt; it's hard to say. But the result of the Council was clarification of
Christian doctrine on this point, and therefore it was a step forward. Now
however, we must speak of
e. The Later Nestorians. And this result, for a time at least, came in a most unexpected way. There were
individuals in the Roman Empire who held the views of Nestorius, particularly around Antioch. While the
leaders of the church of Antioch thought that the views were wrong; gave
them up; fell in line with the others; there were many people who held these views. And the emperor banned Nestorianism
from the empire.
So
these people
had to
give up their views or leave the Roman Empire. And the result was that they
left and went into the Persian Empire.
And there in the Persian Empire—being condemned by the Roman
Empire—the Persian emperors received them with favor, because they thought of them as enemies of the Roman
Empire. So for a time they enjoyed favor in the Persian Empire; and they established churches and schools and their headquarters in the Persian empire. Later on the Persian emperors withdrew
their favor;
then these men were subject to a great deal of persecution. They went through a great deal of suffering; but they seem to have presented the gospel of Christ with sufficient power that they developed quite a large church of earnest Christians, feeling
that they were in disagreement with the orthodox church in the Roman Empire, but yet putting most of their stress on the great fundamentals of the gospel; and this group eventually want from Persia eastward over into India, where they
founded a church that survives today; there were thousands of people in it in China, for example, in the Middle Ages, which was the result of the Nestorian missionary work.
Dr. [Gordon] Holdcroft has made quite a study of this. He gave us a couple of talks a year ago in chapel here on his researches. In the Middle Ages, there were hundreds of thousands of Christians in China, and in the whole
Asiatic area,
who were a result of this
Nestorian missionary work. Then, eventually, they fell under the displeasure of the Mongol dynasty; they were cruelly
persecuted, and toward the end of the 14th century, almost exterminated. They disappeared from China, but some monuments left by them have been found in recent years in the heart of China. And they maintained themselves in
Turkestan, in Armenia, and in some parts of Mesopotamia, and of course as the Thomas Christians in India, up to the present day.
In later centuries, most of these groups fell into degeneracy and became just nominal groups. And the Protestant missionaries in the last century have done a great deal of their missionary work among these groups in those countries; they found these people who were nominally Christian, but who knew very little about Christianity, except that they were persecuted to some extent by the Mongols or the other predominant groups; and they've gone among them, and been received as teachers of Christianity, and they have given them a living understanding of Christianity; and they have cleared away the traditions and the superstitions that had gathered around their beliefs; and so they have made a fertile field—some of them—for Protestant missionary work during the past century.
In Schaff's history, which was written about 80 years ago, he said that at that time, the Thomas Christians in India had about 70,000 people
among them, governed by priests and elders in India. I haven't
followed
their
history since;
I don't know the developments among them since that time. For a time they were in communion
with the Roman Church; but they got influenced by Jesuit missionaries about 1600, and then they returned to their independent position.
The Nestorian missionary work was stimulated as a result of the driving out of
these people from the Roman
Empire. It built a very great and effective missionary work, which had unfortunately all disappeared by about 1300 on. Today there are only fragments
of it here and there. Under pressure of persecution and of economic difficulty, they
have not been
able
to develop well-trained leaders for their groups; and the result is that they have fallen
into superstition and degeneracy, but still calling themselves Christians, and maintaining a certain relationship to the Bible at least. So this is an aside in the story of the Christological controversies, but
a very
interesting one, the account of the later Nestorians.
5. Eutychianism or
Monophysitism. It's often called the Eutychian Controversy; but if you prefer, you may call it Monophysitism.
Now the word Eutychianism—if you have never studied this—means absolutely nothing to you. Because Eutyches is simply a man's
name, like Nestorius. If you don't know anything about the man, the name means nothing to you. But if you have ever studied as much as a week of Greek, Monophysitism should mean a great deal to you. Because that is not the name of a man, but the description of a view. You will all recognize mono, I'm sure; even if you've never had Greek, you know what mono means. And physitism—probably most of you would know, phusis,
which is a nature; and so
monophysitism is the doctrine of one nature
in Christ. It is the opposite of Nestorianism;
and the pendulum easily swings from one extreme to the other. That is history, in just about
any line you want to find. People go
off on one tangent; it's proven wrong, and then they swing to its opposite.
So it was part of the providence of God for the establishing of His church, that the pendulum should swing a little bit this direction in Apollinarianism;
then to the opposite extreme in Nestorianism; and then back to the opposite extreme—far beyond
Apollinarianism—in quite the opposite direction in Eutychianism or Monophysitism. Are Jesus' two natures so distinct that they almost seem to be two persons? No, absolutely wrong.
Well, then, the speculative eastern mind, studying the matter and trying to explain it, to
understand the person of Christ, easily swings to the opposite extreme and says, "No, He's not got two natures; He is one
nature; He is the God-man; He is God and He is man, but He's just one nature; He is the God-man. So you get this extreme, now, of Monophysitism. And we will
want to see something of the controversy and the people engaged in it, and how it came out; though we'll
have to leave that for tomorrow morning.
Eutychianism or Monophysitism, I
mentioned yesterday at the end of the hour, was the exact opposite of Nestorianism.
In the Western church, there was
not any great division over these
Christological controversies. That they did not consider them as matters that disturbed them much. They were interested in the more practical matters; they simply took what the Bible said and did not
try—most of them at least—to explain just how these things could be.
But in the Eastern church people not only tried to explain it, they became tremendously heated over it; and the result was that you have very agitated discussion through the Eastern church over these matters. The Council of Ephesus resulted in the
trial of Nestorius, condemning the views which he was alleged to hold; and which
certainly some others held, whether he did or not; but that after that, the Antiochians stressed the humanity of Christ and the Alexandrians stressed the deity of Christ. Nestorius seemed to be the leader of the
Antiochians; these two groups got together afterward and made a settlement on the basis of Ephesus, which looked as if it might be bring peace in the church. It did for a time, but the people of Alexandria had
been led by Bishop Cyril of Alexandria.
a. Outbreak of the Controversy. The people of Alexandria had been under the leadership of Cyril the archbishop, who was an excellent theologian. And the result of the Council of Ephesus was his making a statement, which was a very
reasonable statement, and which denied the
extreme to which some of Nestorius' people had gone; at the same time it gave a pretty reasonable statement of the true situation on it.
But Cyril died shortly after the council of Ephesus; and he was succeeded by Dioscorus.
Dioscorus had all of Cyril's strong feeling on this matter, as well as his desire to make the leadership of
Alexandria very great and strong throughout the church; but he did not have Cyril's clear theological understanding.
And so Dioscorus took the viewpoint that Cyril had stressed—though Cyril had a balanced view ultimately—and he stressed the extreme on emphasizing the Person of
Christ to the point where the two natures which united in Christ, became united actually
into one
nature.
So you
have what is called
Monophysitism, one nature. It is the same error as Apollinarianism only with different details. Apollinarius made a combination of God and man which was neither God nor man. Monophysitism made a combination
of the two natures into a new nature which was really not a human nature nor a divine nature.
So the Monophysite idea of Christ actually could not be a savior to us; He is not a man like us,
He could not
take
our sins upon Him and represent us. He wasn't really a man, he was a combination; and he could not make an infinite sacrifice because He wasn't God; He was a combination. He was neither fully God nor fully man. There was a fusion of the two natures to make a new sort of a nature, which was different from either one. And the people of
Antioch—the theological leaders of the Antioch group—were very much concerned about this, this
loss of
the humanity of Christ. The deity of Christ, of course,
was also lost in it, but they were stressing the humanity of Christ; the others thought they were stressing the deity
of Christ.
But this Monophysite view really strikes at the foundation of the atonement, and of any true understanding of the character of
Christ. It is a fact clearly taught in the Scripture, that when Jesus was a babe in Bethlehem or in Nazareth, he lay in the cradle and he cried
for his milk; he had pain, had suffering, he had all of the little miseries that children go through; he grew—the book of Luke tells us—he grew in training, he grew physically, he grew in understanding, he grew socially,
he grew in favor with God and
man. He had
a
normal growth as a human being, a normal development of a human nature; but at the same time, along
with this
normal
development of human nature, He was God the second person of the trinity, who was holding the planets in their orbits and
keeping the stars in their place and directing the forces of the universe.
Now we can't understand how this could be, but it is the clear teaching of the Scripture; He was both God and man; He was fully God as
he was fully man. That is the clear teaching of the Scripture
about the Lord Jesus Christ. And this Monophysite combination—which was neither God
nor man but
the combination
of both—may
seem logically to avoid the
difficulty of conceiving how one person could be both entirely human and entirely divine. It may
seem to avoid
the
difficulty, but actually it produces a new one of having a new combination, which never existed anywhere that you've ever heard of, and which
would not carry out the need: which was to
have a
true
man, a
whole
man, a complete man; and at the same time to have one who was
actually God incarnate in human nature. So the Antiochians saw very clearly that, although they had recognized the extreme Nestorianism and had united in its condemnation, yet they saw that this
was another extreme, a very vital extreme; and they began to oppose this extreme rather
strongly.
The movement came to be called Eutychianism; it is too bad that his name should have become so important in
church history, because he was not an important individual, but his name has been given to the view. Now Eutyches was an
old man in Constantinople, who was head of a monastery on the edge of the city, with 300 monks. He was aged and respected; he lived many years in monastic seclusion; he had rarely been seen much outside of the monastery; but he was a respected figure,
and he
became
a
representative of the view. So when Eutyches there in Constantinople, who had joined in the opposition against
Nestorianism, when he declared strongly that after the incarnation you cannot speak of two natures; of course Christ had two natures before the incarnation. But that after the incarnation the—in
principle—human nature was assimilated; and deified, as it were, by the personal Logos, so that his body was by no means the same substance
without it, but a divine body. There
was no longer two natures, according to him, after the incarnation; there is one nature, a combination. And this Eutyches who presented this view right in Constantinople there, became the target of attack; and some
of the bishops in the area of Antioch, of the Antiochian view,
began very strongly to attack Eutyches.
And the matter was presented to the bishop of Rome; and Rome had the greatest man as bishop that it ever had in its history. And Leo the bishop of Rome wrote a letter in 449 to Flavius who was the bishop of Constantinople; and Leo of Rome, in this letter, gave a very excellent statement of the true situation of the person of Christ. In his statement, he gave substantially the view that Cyril had presented
twenty years
before—Cyril of
Alexandria—but he gave it more fully; and he expressed in it the opposition to false interpretations on both sides, thus pointing out the precise Scriptural teaching on the matter; and this letter which he wrote to the Bishop of Constantinople, which they called the tome for some reason or other—it actually wasn't a big book but a small letter, they call it the tome of Leo—and this letter which he wrote to Flavian came to be of considerable importance in the matter.
Flavian had condemned Eutyches, and he had written and asked Leo's opinion on the matter; and Leo wrote and gave a rather full statement and clear analysis. But there was still much agitation in the eastern church; and it was decided to call a general council. So we go on to
b. The So-Called "Council of Robbers". I don't think we need to mention the Latin name for it, as used in the Roman Catholic Church. Originally it was thought it would be called the Second Council of Ephesus, because the Council met at Ephesus. And it was supposed to be
a general council. It met in 449. Actually, it was not a large group; there were only 135 bishops there. The bishop of Rome sent three representatives, to represent him at the general council which was to be held. When they had asked about having a council, he had said, "There is no need of a council; I've expressed the matter clearly; you don't need a council; I've explained the matter." But they said, "We want a council to settle it." So they called a council, and there were only 135 present. The only people from the West were Leo's three representatives.
The council was under the control of Dioscorus of Alexandria; and Flavian of Constantinople and his friends hardly dared open their lips. Dioscorus, protected by a monk and an armed soldier, presided, chopped heads with brutal violence. Eutyches was there and presented himself in person; the council declared the orthodoxy and the
sanctity of
Eutyches; it condemned Diophysitism—you don't need to know that name, because it's not the name of a heresy; but if you know Monophysitism you easily know what Diophysitism is. We call it the orthodox view. But they condemned
Diophysitism—the view that Christ after the incarnation had two natures—as a heresy; they declared that its advocates, including Flavian the Bishop of Constantinople and Leo the Bishop of Rome, were excommunicated and deposed from their position.
The three Roman delegates didn't even dare read the epistle addressed to the council by Leo; they departed secretly in order that they might not be
compelled to sign the statement of agreement with its decision. And Flavian, the
archbishop of Constantinople, was so badly manhandled as he was leaving the meeting that he died of
his wounds a few days later. In his death they appointed a friend and agent of the Patriarch of
Alexandria, to be Patriarch of Constantinople. But this man—strangely—who had stood with
Dioscorus before, soon after he became archbishop of Constantinople, moved over to the other
position; he wrote a number of hymns which are supposed to be very beautiful
Greek hymns; he would seem to have been a man who followed along with Dioscorus,
but who actually was not a very thorough-going follower of his; and when he
was in a position of leadership, thought the thing through, and decided that Dioscorus, the bishop of Alexandria, was
wrong.
So the Roman Church called this "a council of robbers,"
and most historians agree that it was a good title for it. But the attempt was made, of course, to make it be considered as an ecumenical council, the so-called Council of Robbers.
Often they use the Latin for it, which sounds much more dignified, the Latrocinium; but it simply is the Latin word for Council of Robbers, and I simply used
the English. It claimed to be a council. The emperor of the East was Theodosius II, who was a very weak sort of man, a man
who had in general supported orthodoxy and was very favorable to this church, but who was rather weak sort of character; and he went along
with the strong pressure of the Alexandrians through this; and it looked as if the imperial power was behind this council, which deposed Leo
of Rome, and which did depose Flavian; there was nothing he could do about it, he was just out, and which
declared that
Diophysitism was a heresy.
But in the next year Theodosius II died. He died in 450, in consequence of a fall from a horse. He left no male heir. He had an older sister,
Pulcheria; and Pulcheria, a very earnest Christian woman, a little older than Theodosius, one who had been a good influence on him all through his life,
saw the emperor dead. They could not at that time recognize a woman as simply
taking over as empress; and anyway she wouldn't have been able to handle the thing in proper fashion. What was going to happen? Well, Pulcheria looked about, and found a
very able general named Martin, an able general, and a highly respected and able man; and Pulcheria
said, "For the good of the empire I will be willing to marry Martin, and then he can become
emperor." He was 60 years of age, with a reputation of great ability and piety; he was a
widower. She stipulated the condition of the marriage—that she should still be
allowed to keep her vow of perpetual virginity—made as a young woman. So she married Martin and he became the emperor. He was a very able man; and the empire—eastern empire,
theoretically it was all one empire still—was greatly benefitted by having an able man as head, during the few years of
active life
that Martin still had.
And one of the first acts of Martin was to call a new council,
which could
really
settle this thing, and would have more representatives,be a fairer representation of the whole empire,and
should make a proper decision on this whole matter. So Martin called
c. The 4th
Ecumenical Council. Next to the first, this is the most
important of all the ecumenical councils. I think I've mentioned to you that someone in Wilmington sent me a copy—for quite a bit of time— of the religious section
of Our Sunday Visitor, the Roman Catholic weekly paper; it had a general, and a religious section; and I guess some pious people in
Wilmington undertook to mail the religious section every week to all the Protestant parsons in the area, I don't know whether that's the case, or what; but I know I got these
through the mail. And the first one I got, I looked on the front page and it said: "Answers to Questions."
And the first question was, "Why is it the Pope claims such authority when actually the authority in
the early
church was
in the hands of general councils?" And the answer was, "Don't you realize that every general council has been called by the Pope; has
been presided
over by the Pope; and has
received its authority because a Pope has promulgated as his decrees, the decisions that the councils made?"
Well that was the statement in this general Roman Catholic
publication;
but it's very interesting
that if you look at the Catholic Encyclopedia,
or if you look at McSorley, you will find that the first general council was not called by a
Pope, nor was any Pope present. The second was not called by a Pope, nor was any Pope present. Neither
was the third, and neither was the fourth. No Pope called them; no Pope presided over them; no Pope was even present at them. For the first, there was
not
even a representative
of the Pope present,
although I believe McSorley will say that the Bishop of Cordova acted as his representative. The Bishop of Cordova presided at most of the
meetings, but there is no evidence whatever, that in any way he thought of himself as the representative of the Bishop of Rome.
It is clearly established that Leo the Bishop of Rome urged the emperor to call a council in Italy. He wanted a council in Italy; but the emperor refused to do it; he called the council in Asia Minor. So it was called against Leo's wishes, rather than as he called. Not only
did he not call it, it was called against his wishes. And the emperor said,
"Here is a very important matter, almost as important as the matters that were decided
at the holy council of Nicea, 126 years ago." And he said, "We will make the council's importance
clear by
having it meet in the same place that the first council met, at Nicea. So he called them to meet in a council
at Nicea, in the same place that the first council met. It was to appear there on the first of September in 451.
The Bishop of Rome was greatly dissatisfied with the place and time of
the council,
but he
agreed to it; there was nothing else he could do. And he sent three representatives. And these representatives came and exerted a great deal of influence in the council. And the council, which assembled at Nicea, was soon summoned by the emperor to move to Chalcedon. The
emperor had
said that the council was to meet at Nicea and he would do his best to be present.
He said, "If wars do not prevent, I will be there." But then he found that it was pretty difficult to carry on the government, and to be going back and forth to Nicea, which was a little bit away—a couple of days, at most, of travel. But it took time; it was a bother; and he decided that the council would be better if it was under the influence of his presence; and he ordered them to switch from Nicea to Chalcedon which was right across the Bosporus from
Constantinople. You could get there in an hour.
So then he and the Senate could attend in person; and they could help to moderate the feelings of the various parties, and their very heated feelings on the different issues that were involved. So the council was moved on the 8th of October to Chalcedon, and it sat there till the first of November. The number of bishops exceeded all the other councils of the ancient church. There were about 600
bishops present. All of them were from the eastern empire, except two men from Africa and the papal legates. All the rest were from the eastern empire; so the papal legates declared that they represented all of Latin Christendom, and they were given a great deal of sway in the meetings. The imperial commissioners sat in the middle of the church. On their left were the Roman delegates. And then the bishops of the leading cities:
Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria.
They proceeded with their deliberations, and the feeling was
very heated. For instance, when one of the men from Antioch was introduced against the view of
monophysitism, some of the Egyptians cried, "Cast out the enemy of God, the
blasphemer of Christ!" Then the others cried out, "Cast out the murderer Dioscorus. Who is
there that does not know about his crime". And the feeling was very strong; how large a fraction of those attending the
meeting was quite as heated as that would be difficult to say; but a few can make a lot of noise and a lot of excitement, and a
great many will follow along with them.
But as time went on, it became more and more evident that the great mass of the people felt pretty close to the view that Cyril had expressed after the council of Ephesus, which was the view in between the two extremes. And then the Roman Legate read the tome of Leo, which he had
written two years before, to Flavian. He read this to the assembly, and when he read this,
people cried
out, "This is the faith of the fathers. This is the faith
of the apostles. So we all believe. So the orthodox believe. Anathema
to him that believes otherwise. Through Leo, Peter has thus spoken. Even so, did Cyril speak."
Now, you see, you could just take one of their sentences—"Through Leo, Peter has spoken"—and you can say, "Well, Peter is the head of the church; and here we're getting
what Peter says." But actually that's only one sentence taken out of context. They're saying, here's one of the greatest of the apostles who is
supposed to have founded the Church of Rome. Well, the Bishop of Rome gives this marvelous statement; but they go right on to say,
"Even so did Cyril speak," and that is naming a Bishop of Alexandria,
not a Bishop of Rome at
all—a man who
had died less than 20 years before, and who had
been the leader of a party in the previous general council.
But this Cyril, while he stressed one side, stressed it against the extreme of Nestorianism; and he took a view which was pretty near a true central view, but his slant being
to one side, it was easier for his followers to go on to an extreme on that side. And that's one thing I've noticed. I have had many meetings with leaders,
leading theologians, very fine Christian men, who were leading theologians, heads of
schools; and
I have
found this, that here you get three men who differ just a little on certain points, and each of these is the
head of
a school; but
you will find his supporters, the supporter of this one is way over here, the
supporter of that one is there, the supporter of this one is here. And each of them takes
certain aspects and carries them to an extreme; he overlooks the balanced view that the leaders of the school hold. When you put these balanced
views together, they are very close together, and the stress is on the big
central things; they have a certain difference in emphasis, but
naturally—feeling this emphasis is important—they stress it; and then some of their followers
take this emphasis
and carry it to the point
that it becomes extreme, and it denies certain vital things that are contained in the teachings of these others.
I've had that experience a number of times, that when you get the leaders of a group which is opposing an evil, there is a tendency to go to
the other extreme; and the leader may lean slightly to the other extreme, in his opposition
to something
that is harmful; but the
people following the leader, hearing his great stress and push on this aspect, are apt to
carry it much further than he would ever think of doing; and thus you get an extreme that is definitely wrong. The balanced truth in anything is difficult to
get, and it is very difficult for people who are not thoroughly trained and carefully educated to get it; you want them to be a real force for what is good against what is evil; you have to stress things very strongly in order to develop the strong views among
them; and
when you
do,
they are apt to carry it to extremes. And then, unfortunately, the attitude of the followers sometimes
reacts on the leaders, and it leads them in turn to take positions which they normally would not take.
And so we have Cyril—many of whose followers went to this extreme—who himself took a pretty evenly balanced position, but he did not express the balanced position so fully. His emphasis was in
fighting against the evil of Nestorianism. But then he got the Antiochians—who tended to support the Nestorians—he got them to see that that was an extreme they couldn't go with; and he made the peace within the
church, after the Council of Ephesus, by his balanced position.
Now his followers have gone to an extreme—further in this direction, than the Nestorians had gone in that direction—and Leo, who is outside of the controversy, who is way over there in Rome, where people aren't tremendously concerned one way or the other on this
controversy, they just take what the Bible says and stand upon it. Leo gives the same view, practically, that Cyril gave, but he gives it in more
detail, more extensively, and expresses it in such a way as to make it very clear; and when the people heard it,
immediately they said, "That's what we believe; that's the orthodox faith." So they made up a statement, which they called the Chalcedonian Formula, which was almost in the words—in many
parts—of Leo I.
And in this statement, a very careful balanced statement was made of the view—the
Christian view—about the person of Christ. I'll read you a section of it. You can find it in any
book of creeds, or any book of Church History. Because it is a basic statement which all Christian
churches—all orthodox churches—since that time, have followed. Generally, in the Reformation and
after, it was customary to refer to the council—that whatever the General Council did, we stand by—we are building on the foundation
of the
ancient church. And today I heard a man speaking in a big meeting not long ago, and he said,
"We hold
to the
Chalcedonian
Christology." That was his brief statement. Well, he was discussing
other matters, but this is the way that he referred to this whole view, the Chalcedonian
Christology. It is the view of the orthodox Christian Church, subscribed to since that time.
Well, let me read simply this statement which they adopted:
["We all with one voice teach the confession of one and the
same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in
humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body;
consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same
consubstantial with us as regards his humanity; like us in all respects except
for sin; begotten before the ages from the Father as regards his divinity, and
in the last days the same for us and for our salvation from Mary, the virgin,
God-bearer as regards his humanity; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord,
only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no
change, no division, no separation; at no point was the difference between the
natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures
is preserved and comes together into a single person and a single subsistent
being; he is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same
only-begotten Son, God, Word, Lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets taught
from the beginning about him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ himself instructed
us, and as the creed of the fathers handed it down to us.
source:https://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/incac2.htm]
And that is a translation of the decision which was announced, of the statement on this
matter of the Person of Christ, and all the bishops exclaimed after the reading of the confession, "This is the faith of the
fathers; this is the faith of the apostles. To this we all agree. Thus we all say."
And so
it was
adopted by the council of Chalcedon, and it became the established principle of the orthodox
Christian church
since that time. However, this did not end the matter, as far as
discussion was concerned. It has always impressed me that the statement contains a tremendous lot of flexibility.
Illustrations may show it can be but none of the illustrations are identical. They simply give
something of an analogy,
make it a little easier perhaps to adopt.
Like the story that St. Patrick is told to have done; when he went to Ireland, he believed in one God, but he believed in three persons; and people said, "How on earth can that be? How can the Father be God,
how can
the Son be God, how can
the Holy Spirit be God, and yet you have one God?" He said, "Well, look at the shamrock; it's got three sections to the leaf but there is one leaf. It's three and it's one." "Oh," they said, "we see." Well, of course, actually any analogy does not
prove a thing, but it very often will help the human mind and can be adopted; and all sorts of figures have been given to explain the person of
Christ; these figures perhaps make it a little easier for a person to say, "Yes, I see how you can say that." But they're not exactly like it, because there's nothing else like it in the universe. It is unique. God is unique. There is no other God. It is
unique and you cannot fully understand.
Well, we cannot understand anything. We think we understand something, because we see something else
like it.
If
this is like that, therefore I understand it. Of course, that's the way we think we understand things. Why does this table hold me up, why don't I sink through? Well, actually, if you examine it from a physical viewpoint, you will find that it is 99.9% empty space; the atoms are so far apart from each other; in there is a tremendous amount of space; and a tremendous amount of these in my body; you'd think they'd go right through, but they don't. It holds me up. Why? Nobody knows. Somebody can give it a name; then they think they know.
But we all
know it as a fact of experience. But we see something else that
holds you up, and well this does, and so does that. We don't understand it at all, but we become accustomed
to one thing; we compare another with it. Therefore we think we understand
that, because
they
fit together.
Well, you can't expect the person of God to fit with anything else, because it's different from everything else. And you cannot expect the person of Christ to fit
with anything else, because it's different from everything else. But analogy makes it easy for a person to think they see something
somewhat similar and say, "Oh yes, it isn't so illogical as I thought. I understand." So some people say, "Well, how can these two natures be in one person? It must make it two persons." Well,
that's definitely wrong; the Scripture tells us, and universally teaches Jesus Christ is one
person, clearly. There's no question about
it. So
Nestorianism—whether
Nestorius himself actually held it or not—Nestorianism is wrong. But then others will say, "How can one person have two distinct natures? Why, naturally, he has one nature and
they combined together." Well, the Bible shows that that is clearly wrong. It
is not
a
mixture, it is not a combination. He is fully God, and He is fully man. So what the Council of
Chalcedon did is to take the various attempts to explain it by twisting it into something different than the Bible teaches and to deny them one by one.
He is not partly God and partly man, He is fully God and fully man. And He is not a combination, something that is neither God nor man, He is entirely man; he grew, he developed, he had his human nature, which was such that he had all the experiences of human life, yet without sin. It was like the nature of Adam before he fell; but of course it was assisted by His divine nature, which of course could not sin. It was God Himself. So He is God and He is man. There is only one God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Only one God and only one person Jesus Christ. We can't understand it.
But it is good for us to know precisely what the Scripture teaches upon it; and
therefore to see, when somebody thinks he's got a brand new, wonderful
understanding of it, and he comes up with a statement. And we can say,
"See that is going to lead you on to Nestorianism if you go on in that
direction; this is going to lead you on to Monophysitism; oh, there's a new
expression of Apollinarianism. You just thought it was a brand new wonderful
interpretation." Well, it's just the old Apollinarianism, that people
thought through and saw was not what the Scripture teaches. And it is a help to
us. We get our doctrine, not from church history; we get our doctrine from the
Bible; what does the Bible teach? But it is a help to us to know the various
interpretations that people have given at different times; and to see how these
interpretations have been discussed and argued through, and thought about.
People have seen that they fall short, and they have
been rejected.
We do not reject them because others have in the past. But the
fact that they
have studied it through, and they have come to
this conclusion, gives us a ground for not going in that direction without
a tremendous
lot of
study. We might be right and all of Christendom wrong, but let's go slow about it. Let's examine it very, very, very carefully before we reach
such a conclusion.
There are those people who get the attitude that doctrine is developed by the
church; no man can make a dogma; dogma is developed by the church. I do not think there's any such
teaching in the Scripture. Dogma is what the Scripture teaches. The church, as it studies the Scripture, comes to a clearer understanding; but if it is true, we base it not on what any group of people say, but on what the Scripture itself teaches. But this view many
orthodox Christian people have held: that a dogma is developed by the church; and what the church develops as a dogma we must stand on.
Now we have a perversion of it today—with the modernists and neo-orthodoxy—that doctrine is
developed by the church; that it is a living product of the church; and therefore the church can change it and get away from that which is in the Bible. The church has no authority in doctrine; but the
fact that many able Christian people have thought it was true, and come to a
conclusion; means that we should go pretty slow in thinking that your or my
simple individual intellect is going to prove they're wrong. We might do it,
but we go pretty slow and examine very carefully the wording. The tendency is
to find a truth in the Scripture, and then to twist everything in the Scripture
to fit the truth in point. But the proper way to do it is to get a balanced view
of the whole teaching of the Scripture; and in getting that, we find great help from the work of other Christians
who have studied it before; and when views have been considered by great
numbers of people, and they have investigated and seen their strength and
weakness, and come to a conclusion. That doesn't prove the conclusion is right.
But it gives a basis to go slow against opposing it.
Well, I
say this: you find a truth in the Scripture, that Jesus is God. All right,
that's a clear truth in the Scripture; we're ready to stand on it. Now somebody
comes along and says, "Look here; it says Jesus was tired." He says,
"How could God be tired? God of
course wouldn't be tired. He's just pretending to be tired so as to have an
influence on the people. Actually he wasn't tired." Pretty soon you get
Docetism, the idea that the whole life of Christ was just sort of a pretense,
with God causing a sort of a display here—a body acting as if it's tired,
pretending it's tired—but actually he is not. You have a great truth, that
Jesus is God; but take that truth and try to twist everything to fit this
truth, instead of going to the Scripture to find what the other truths
are—taught in the Scripture—and see how these truths fit together. There are
many truths in Scripture, and we must get them all. But when we just take some
of them, and try to twist others to fit, instead of taking them all and seeing
how they interact, that's where we get into denying a truth, even while holding
another. And that is, I think, the great danger. I think that most of our
erroneous views have started with a stress on truth; but then from that truth,
they have gone on to deny other Scripture truth; instead of examining Scripture
to see what it speaks on those, and then see how these two truths fit together;
instead of saying, "This is true; therefore whatever doesn't seem to my
human mind to fit with this, must be wrong."
That of
course gets to the vital question: What is the authority? The Roman Catholic
Church has an easy answer. The Pope is the infallibly inspired teacher, who has
the authority. Others say, the church, acting through general councils, has the
authority. But our Protestant view is, the Bible is the authority. We may
misunderstand the Bible; we often do. But we should recognize that the Bible
has the great truths of salvation so clearly taught, that a wayfaring man,
though a fool, need not err. And therefore, we should take these great truths;
find them there; express them clearly, and stand upon them. When anybody denies
any one of these clearly taught truths in Scripture, he is definitely off Biblical ground. Then, standing on these great Biblical truths—clearly taught in Scripture—we should go on to examine it for more truth; because the Bible has infinite truth, inexhaustible truth;
it's an infinite book, inexhaustible in the amount of truth it contains; but the human mind is often apt to misinterpret, and apt to jump to conclusions; so we should go on looking further; but as we look, not making lines of harsh division over our ideas on these other points; but instead trying carefully to gather Scriptural evidence, and to present it to others for their consideration;
and being absolutely strict and rigid on the things clearly taught in the Scriptures—so clear that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err—but being tolerant and working together and
trying to find the truth together on the matter; which are not among the clear truths that any intelligent person would have to admit.
Now that is the ideal; it is not an easy ideal to follow. But the Lord could have simply taken us; given us a new birth; and taken us off to heaven; completely sanctified, and that would be the end of it. And instead of doing that, he left us on this earth to struggle our way forward; because he wants us to learn by experience. And one thing he wants us to learn is to go to His Word and dig into it and find the truth for ourselves; and to
learn to
distinguish
between
that which is so clear, that an
honest person
has to admit it is taught in the Scripture; and that which looks to be there, but let's look carefully; and let's consider what other people find; let's examine the evidence.
The unfortunate thing is that, wherever you go, you will find that the
mass of Christian
people
have this attitude:
"Here's a Christian teacher, let's hear what he says, and let's take it as what is the truth on this." Instead of "Let's hear the Scripture, and see
and work it
out."
Consequently, men—good men, with a desire to stand on the truth—find themselves carried away by gregarious
people; they just say, "Oh thank you, thank you, that's wonderful," to anything you give them. And the result is that these men get out of the habit of searching and examining carefully; and they go on to build conclusions from that which is clearly taught, and from other things which aren't
taught, but which seem to them to be inferred from it. People just take it and swallow it and follow blindly and react to certain
individuals.
You will find a tremendous lot of people, who take something; and then there are a lot of little details that are very hazy; and they build a lot of arguments on very, very shaky ground; and then they dogmatically give it, and people build whole great movements on them. And if these great
movements are
putting their
stress
on the
great things of salvation, I'm ready to overlook
their great
stress on minor points and work with them, if they're willing to work with me for the advance of the cause of Christ. But it is unfortunate that someone would draw a line on something that's built on a shaky
interpretation of a Greek word, or on taking two or three verses out of context, and saying, "Oh no, no, you're not sound if you don't have this." Let's take those lesser points and think them through in a friendly Christian fashion; and see not only what is taught but what is stressed; because
what the Lord wants us to stand upon, we are certain He will
make clear and he will stress. But of course He did not give us the Scripture simply to
give us things to stand on. He gave it all to us as food for our souls, and as a book of strengthening and encouraging for us. And we can find in it a great deal to encourage us and to strengthen and to help us; and we pass it on to others, and they find it encourages and strengthens and helps; but when someone
differs on
these points—well, if they miss the blessing, it's too bad—but that's no reason to
make a
sharp line between them, because they're missing the blessing.
That's the way I feel about so many of the great Calvinistic teachings. I think they're a great blessing; I think they're a great encouragement; I think they are a great assurance. I like to extend this assurance, and encouragement, and blessing to others as well as I can; to give them an understanding that God is in control; and God is going to perfect that which He has begun unto the end. But if people miss the blessing, I don't feel that's a reason to draw a sharp line and say, "You're outside the pale." I think it is too bad they're missing a blessing; but let's stand together on the things that make for salvation. And let's stand together on these great things, and present them that the world may be won. And let's stand rigidly and foursquare against those who deny the essential elements, which are clearly taught in the Word of God—so clear that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. And that anybody that explains them away can make anything mean anything.
We were speaking yesterday about the Fourth Ecumenical Council which was c, under 5, Eutychianism. And we noticed that this council was the Council of Chalcedon;
we noticed that the decision made on it was the view of Cyril of Alexandria, but expressed more
fully by
Leo of Rome; Leo was the greatest man
who had
up to this time occupied the position of Bishop
of Rome, and perhaps one of the greatest men who ever in history occupied that position. McSorley says of him he was one of the two Popes who were called the Great. He is generally
referred to
as Leo the Great. Because he was indeed a great
man; he would have been a great man anyway. But he towered head and shoulders above all other bishops of Rome in the first five centuries,
because most
of them were quite mediocre men. But
the decision of the council was not felt to be anything new; it was simply a statement of that which the
Bible teaches, and that which they had all believed; but they felt that certain attempts to explain it had moved away from what is really taught and had introduced ideas that are not
contained in
it at
all.
And so the Fourth Ecumenical Council condemned not only Nestorianism—which had
been condemned by the Third Ecumenical Council—but it also condemned Eutychianism or Monophysitism, whichever
way you wish to call it. It also had 28 canons of church administration; these were adopted by the council and intended to be normative for
the church. However, since they are not a matter of doctrine, but a matter of church organization, and
our heading here is Monophysitism, I am going to say a little bit about these 28 canons under a later head; merely here for completeness under the mention of the council, mention that these
did exist. They were formulated and adopted by the
council, but they occasioned considerable discussion, and so I'm going to mention that under our next main head. So I'm going to make as
d. Monophysite
Schisms. Now the word schism simply means a division, as you know. People will sometimes show their great detestation of something
someone else
has
done, "Oh, that's schism." Actually it seems to me that it's a very poor word to use in that way. Because
schism just means division; and if it is a division over a proper point, it is
a good thing.
The Bible condemns schism; by which it means division of those who really believe the
same—and want to advance the same cause—over unworthy or personal causes; and that of course is
something we
must
all stay away from, and give our loyalty to Christ rather than to any man or any human group. So this word schism, as I am using it here, is not intended to be a word to mark it as
good or bad, simply to mention a fact; that there were Monophysite groups which eventually became
separate bodies from the church as a whole; and some of those groups have
continued to the present day. We noticed that this was true of the Nestorians; that there was quite a group of
Nestorians which went outside the empire and which carried on missionary work all
the way across to China; and which built up a tremendous Christian Church, which once had hundreds of thousands of
members in China and in the countries across Asia, even though the Mongols in the 14th century AD almost
completely destroyed it; all that remains of Nestorianism today is just a few small groups
in the Near East; and there are the Thomas Christians in India, which is a fairly
sizeable group; but otherwise, it is a very small
group.
Now the Monophysites had a history—not identical with that of the Nestorians, but similar—in that there were very sizeable groups, perhaps the majority of the church leaders, that eventually left the larger body; they broke off all relationship with it, on account of their belief that Christ, after His incarnation could not be spoken of as having two natures, but that the two natures were merged into one nature; and so we call them Monophysite; there were groups in Egypt, in Abyssinia, in Armenia, and some in Lebanon, north of Palestine, which broke away over this Monophysite difference. They did not immediately break off; there was much continued discussion of the matter, the details of which you could spend weeks on; but it is not necessary for us to do that, but to know the main facts; that eventually there were very sizeable groups of Monophysites, who were out of communion with the rest of the Christian church in the east or in the west. And these groups continued for a considerable time; but then most of them succumbed to attacks of persecution upon Christian groups; although very small remains of them are still found in certain areas, particularly, the Near East.
But these groups—largely as a result of persecution at the hands
of Mohammedans
and others
through the later Middle Ages—these groups did not have opportunity for education or for much development; they
became largely matters of forms and ceremonies without much real understanding; and a great part
of the Protestant missionary work in those areas has been done among these sects, among these
Nestorians and these Monophysites.
The Monophysites hold the orthodox view on the trinity;
that Jesus Christ is God from all eternity; and they hold that He has a divine nature, being God; and they also
hold the orthodox view, which all orthodox
views hold, that through the virgin Mary, Jesus inherited true human nature.
But they hold that the human nature and the divine nature through the
incarnation, became merged together into one nature, so that He did not have
true divine nature nor true human nature; he was not God, who controlled all
the stars in the universe; He was not man, who was hungry and tired and weak as
a man is; and who grew, as the N.T. says, in knowledge and in strength, and in
social grace; but He was a combination, which would not have the quality of a
human nature or of a divine nature, but the two mingled together.
Now the
Chalcedonian formula declared that the two are not mixed or confused, but
neither are they separated; they are joined together in a person, in Jesus
Christ, the second person of the Trinity—one person but two distinct natures.
Monophysitism says there were two natures which became Jesus Christ; one of
them is the eternal God through the ages; and the other one is the human nature
inherited through Mary; and these two merged into one nature.
Now
someone asked the question just before class about the term "mother of
God"—I wanted to wait till we were through. Now in the strict sense, that
term cannot be applied to Mary, because Jesus Christ as God, the second person
of the Trinity, was existing from all eternity; there never was a time when he
was not; He existed millions of years before Mary came. The human nature of
Christ was inherited through the virgin Mary, and so she is the mother of the
human nature. But Jesus Christ is one person, and that person is God; and Mary
is His mother. So it might be disputed whether it is proper to call her the
mother of God or not. She is the mother of Jesus Christ, a person who is a
divine person; so she is in a sense the mother of God. She is the mother, in
the strictest sense, of the human nature of Christ, which was not divine.
Therefore, in a sense, she is not the mother of God.
Nestorians
endeavored to say that she said she is the mother of Christ, not the mother of
God; and whether Nestorius actually ever meant to so separate the two natures
as to make it practically two persons, would be difficult to prove; but
certainly many of his followers carried it to that point. I'm not even sure you
would say they were necessarily his followers; some of them may be the thinkers
from whom he derived the idea. He was not so much a thinker, as an energetic
creature who—as you remember—declared to the emperor, "You cleanse the
empire of heresy, and I'll give allegiance to you." He was an energetic
ambitious worker in the church, who took over ideas without perhaps thinking
them through; but he became a representative of these ideas and his name was
given to them.
So the
term, "mother of God," as it was used by people in that day—I would
say—was perfectly all right, understanding that it means not the mother of the
divine nature but the mother of the person of Jesus Christ, who was divine. But
the danger of course is the carrying on—as was so clearly pointed out to us
yesterday—carrying on along this line until you have Mary substituted for
Christ, which of course is utterly wrong; wrong, dangerous, and harmful. And we
see what has in fact developed since; and therefore we might have a real fear of that term. In fact, I've
never heard Protestants use the term. But we certainly do not
separate Christ's two persons, certainly do not adopt the view that is called Nestorianism; and it's well to be perfectly aware of the danger so as to carefully avoid that danger.
Now, this was d, Monophysite Schisms—perhaps sects would be a better word than schisms here—let's change it, Monophysite
Sects. By this I mean there were groups which, on account of Monophysitism, broke off but which continued as groups for many centuries; but then I want to make another little heading,
e. Later Monophysite
Controversies. And here I simply want to alert you to the fact that although Nestorianism, after the third ecumenical council, was nevermore a vital factor in the Christian church, Monophysitism did not immediately disappear as a vital factor; that for a long time there were groups who were breaking off on account of
Monophysite views; there were others who were staying in and trying to hold these views; and there were those in the leadership of the church
in the East, who tried to propitiate them; or to conciliate them by adopting new standards which
might please them; and yet not be contrary to Chalcedon.
We
will
glance
at them as we look on further in the history. But we just mention at this point that
about the middle of the next century—the 6th Century—a great attempt was made
to conciliate
the Monophysites, which
involved discussions all over the empire; and which was particularly
embarrassing to the bishops of Rome, in the way it worked out; and then a century after that—in the 7th
century—again there was a discussion on a new basis; and I want to just mention this basis now, we'll glance at it later. But I just want to mention this basis.
This is what was called the Monothelite Controversy. This was an attempt to conciliate the Monophysite element in the
church in
the
east, by saying that, though Jesus Christ has two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, yet he has only one will. Some prefer the term one energy, Monothelite. Any of you who have had any Greek before should immediately recognize that mono-
is one, that thel [thelema] is will, so this is a group
which admits the two natures, but says there is only one will. And of course, it was speedily
pointed out that this makes Him less than a man, if He only had a divine will; or less than God if He only had a human will, which nobody said. Or not fully either one, if He had a will which was a combination of both. So
in the
end it was clearly explained and accepted that He has a full
divine nature, He has a divine will; He has a fully human
nature, He has a human will. But the human will follows the divine will. in its activity.
Now that we'll look into, two centuries from now, but I wanted you to realize that the Monophysite
controversy had these repercussions which continued later. And one of the great
points 90 years ago, when the Roman church decided to adopt as a doctrine the infallibility of
the Pope; one of the great points of argument, was the fact that a Pope in that time—two centuries after this—when presented with
this one will idea by the bishop of Constantinople, wrote back and said, "That's fine; of course, He has two natures, but there is only one will." So he
wrote back to them and said, "That's wonderful." And then the theologians got busy, and looked into the matter, and pointed out that this was entirely wrong; that of course, if Christ
has two complete
natures,
each
nature involves
a will; and so the next Pope officially anathematized his predecessor; he declared that Honorius had done great injury to the church by the
heretical doctrine which he had signed. And McSorley explains it here, that
Honorius is only writing a personal letter; he was not speaking ex cathedra when he made that
statement to the Bishop of Constantinople.
But that was one of his big points of discussion in the Vatican Council in 1870 when they decided to hold the view that the Popes had been infallible through the ages. "How can a pope who affirms a heretical view be infallible?" Well, if he is just writing a personal letter, why of course that makes a difference.
So since
then, the
Popes have been very careful; and only for just about three sentences every 50 years, the Pope says that these are ex cathedra, and that they really come under the
infallible definition. Mr. Miller? [student] You would think so, wouldn't you? Well, at the Vatican Council, two-thirds of them were able to convince themselves that they could explain the problem. A large number left the church in 1870, including
some of
their finest scholars—some of their greatest defenders of the Roman Church before—they said that they could not follow this idea of
the infallibility of the Pope, because it is contrary to Scripture; and
they lost some very fine people at that time. We'll look at that, of course—not two
centuries
from
now—but about next April, about one year from now. This then is the later Monophysite controversy, just glancing forward at that, because we will look at that a little more in detail a little bit later on. And this was under
C, The Christological Controversies. So
D. Some Other
Aspects of Church History in the Fifth Century. Now this is a catch-all. I have two or three unrelated matters I ought to tell you about; and these matters I don't like to give a full main head
to, because the whole Christological Controversy only has one; so for balance I'm just putting them together under D. The first of these is
1. Monasticism. Now we had considerable to say
about Monasticism in the century before, because that's when it really came into
existence. That's when you had a few hermits becoming many hermits, and when they began monastical living
together in large groups, in monasteries. That was in the previous century. In this century, that is established and
is moving forward; but there is no great new innovation in it, until the following century. Then it will have a main head. But here just to mention that it is moving forward, except for one thing: McSorley says in his history here, about monasticism:
"a large percentage of the eastern monks became schismatic and heretic, many of them
joining the Monophysites." He makes that statement about Monasticism in this century. But the very interesting special
development, is
a. A Special Development of Monasticism. This is not
particularly important, but it's quite interesting. There was a special
development of monasticism during this century, which McSorley doesn't tell us about at all under Monasticism; he does make a
brief mention of it in connection with the man who was its most conspicuous figure.
And this was that, in the early part of this century, individuals who were not content with going out and living in a cave in the desert, or living under a tree, way out from anyone, they thought of
something new, a new and quite original path was opened by one very original
man and quite a large number of others who followed. This man's name was Simeon Stylites, his dates
approximately 388-459. McSorley calls him a Syrian monk of vast influence.
He set an example, which many other people followed, but it didn't last beyond that century. So it's just an interesting development.
But Simeon
Stylites
broke a
new
path. He went out into the wilderness some miles east of Antioch, and there he attempted to carry the asceticism to a greater extent than anyone before ever had. First he went several days without eating or drinking; then he accustomed himself to eat only once a week on Sunday. During
Lent, he
would go the
40
days without any food at all. His first attempts brought him close to death; but his constitution
conformed itself;
and
eventually he said he had spent 26 years, had gone all through lent with total abstinence, and thus surpassed Moses, Elias, and even Christ.
The groups of men he'd been living with for a while, they dismissed him and said he was too extreme. He went off into the wilderness then; and there he put up a pillar;
and he
got on
top of the pillar; and after a
few years he
raised
it higher
and
then higher
yet;
and then still higher, until eventually the pillar was over fifty feet high. The top of this pillar was
only about 3 feet across, he couldn't lie down on it or sit but he had a little banister so he could lean against it. And he spent nearly 40 years on top of this pillar. He was exposed there to sun, and rain, and fog and storm, day after
day; and
great crowds came out to see him, and he preached to them; he preached to tremendous crowds. Emperors came to see him,
and he
gave them orders, which they obeyed, as to
changes in
their government.
McSorley says he had a vast influence. He was doubtless a man of tremendous personality; and he attracted great crowds because he had this tremendous
influence. Many other people followed his example; they went out into the desert, put up pillars, lived on top of them; but most of them people didn't pay much attention to, and within a few years the thing died out.
But it was a clear development of Monasticism which came during this century—Simeon Stylites. I don't think McSorley is very proud of him, because here in this big outline history of the church, and under the 400's he discusses Monasticism and hardly mentions him; he doesn't say anything in it about the pillar-sitting; but under the question of saints, he says, "in addition to the saints described in the text,
conspicuous figures in the fifth century were..." and then he names 6 different people and the second of them is "St. Simeon Stylites, a
Syrian monk
of vast influence, lived and taught from a 50-foot high platform."
That's
all he
says
of him,
so he is recognized as a saint, and described as a Syrian monk of vast influence, but I don't think he feels that he greatly commends the church
to American readers. But he does recognize him as
a saint, and mentions him there in that list.
2. The 28th Canon of the Council of Chalcedon. Why give so much importance to the 28th Canon? Well, because of
the way
that it lights up a
development, a tendency of the times.
I did not discuss this under the Council of Chalcedon, because there we were discussing Christology, and the Council of Chalcedon is
tremendously important in Christology, from the viewpoint of all members of the Christian Church.
But that Council not only adopted a statement of doctrine, it also adopted a number of canons laying down regulations for the direction and conduct of the church. And this 28th one aroused a great deal of discussion. The 28th canon read as follows. I'll just read it to you rapidly. You'll get the main point of it I am sure, as I read it.
[CANON XXVIII "Following in all things the decisions of the
holy Fathers, and acknowledging the canon, which has been just read, of the One
Hundred and Fifty Bishops beloved-of-God (who assembled in the imperial city of
Constantinople, which is New Rome, in the time of the Emperor Theodosius of
happy memory), we also do enact and decree the same things concerning the
privileges of the most holy Church of Constantinople, which is New Rome. For the
Fathers rightly granted privileges to the throne of old Rome, because it was
the royal city. And the One Hundred and Fifty most religious Bishops, actuated
by the same consideration, gave equal privileges (isa presbeia) to the most holy throne of New Rome, justly judging
that the city which is honoured with the Sovereignty and the Senate, and enjoys
equal privileges with the old imperial Rome, should in ecclesiastical matters
also be magnified as she is, and rank next after her; so that, in the Pontic, the
Asian, and the Thracian dioceses, the metropolitans only and such bishops also
of the Dioceses aforesaid as are among the barbarians, should be ordained by
the aforesaid most holy throne of the most holy Church of Constantinople; every
metropolitan of the aforesaid dioceses, together with the bishops of his
province, ordaining his own provincial bishops, as has been declared by the
divine canons; but that, as has been above said, the metropolitans of the
aforesaid Dioceses should be ordained by the archbishop of Constantinople,
after the proper elections have been held according to custom and have been
reported to him." Henry R. Percival, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Vol. XIV, (1900), p. 287]
Now you see the point of this canon. A similar canon had been passed 70 years before, at the
second Ecumenical Council. That is to say, when the first council met, the council of
Nicea,
it
took no action regarding any ecclesiastical power in the Bishop of Constantinople. And there was a very good reason for it: there was no city of
Constantinople. So naturally they could not do that. But when the first ecumenical council after the founding of Constantinople met, they then took action to recognize that as the
bishop of Rome was looked to as the leader in the west, the bishop of Constantinople would be the leader in the east. In Nicea they recognized the great leadership of the Church of Rome, the Church of Antioch, and the Church of Alexandria. Now in 381, they recognized Constantinople as also one of the great cities of the
empire. So this was re-affirmed here at Chalcedon, and you had had during this Christological controversy a constant struggle between the church of Antioch and the church of
Alexandria to establish itself as supreme in the East. Well, the council said neither of these two is supreme in the East. The supremacy in the East is in Constantinople; it is the leader. And Alexandria and Antioch are tremendously important, but after all
Constantinople is the imperial city. So the attitudes of the ecumenical councils were—here is Rome, we'll give Rome the first place, it's the great ancient city, the founder of the empire. But
we give Constantinople the place of honor—right next to Rome—because it's New Rome, the place where the emperor now resides.
And we will give it just as much authority in the East as Rome has in the West; except that of course in the East we do have these two other very
important cities, Alexandria and Antioch, while there were no other extremely
important cities in the West to vie with Rome for leadership. But it put
Constantinople superior to Alexandria and to Antioch and right next to Rome in its
standing and its prestige.
Well, it was a very reasonable thing to do, from the viewpoint of the Council, which was that the bishops are equally
important, equally prominent; equally, they stand together in the leadership of the church; but naturally that the leadership among the bishops would be in the bishop of
the greatest city. But Leo objected very strenuously to this 28th canon. Leo, as we have noticed, the bishop of Rome at
this time, was the greatest man to occupy the position of bishop of Rome during the first 500 years of church
history. Not only the greatest man to occupy the position; I think you can safely say he was the only man of first-place importance to be in that position; and
there was no other man of the second level of importance in that position, in
those 500 years. There were many good men in the third class of importance in the church who were bishops of Rome during that time, but Leo towered head and shoulders above the rest. And
Leo, as we've already
noticed about Leo, Leo had a determination to hold that Rome was the supreme power in the whole church. He had a truly un-Biblical idea—as the Pope holds today—Leo had. So Leo, when he heard of this—well, in fact, before he heard of
it—there was strong opposition to it; Leo had 3 representatives at Chalcedon, and these 3
representatives at Chalcedon—on the spot—in the last session of the council made a strong protest against
this. They
said that this is absolutely
wrong;
they
said that this seems to say that Rome's eminence comes because of the great importance of the city; that it has
nothing to do with because Peter founded it. It's not because of its importance, they said, and Constantinople was not founded by any apostles. Therefore, they say
it's
ridiculous, they said, to put Constantinople above Alexandria and Antioch which claim apostolic leadership in their original founding.
So the representatives of the bishop of Rome objected very strenuously to the action; but the bishops then proceeded to unanimously, at the Council of Chalcedon,
adopt the
28th
canon. They adopted it unanimously; they declared that the archbishop of New Rome should enjoy the same precedence of honor as the archbishop of Old Rome. They gave a full emphatic consent, and the proconsul ratified it; and this was confirmed in spite of the representatives of
the bishop of Rome. And then the bishop of Rome, Leo, sent objections to this; after the council met in 481, the next year he sent strong objections. He declared the elevation of the bishop of Constantinople was a work of pride and ambition; an attack on the rights of the other eastern metropolitans; and especially upon the rights of the Roman bishop; and it
was destructive of the peace of the church. It is said that political considerations had nothing to do with the importance of Rome, but solely the fact that Peter was the first bishop. He wrote a very strong protest, but the emperor affirmed the decree of the Council; and it stood in church law, though the bishop of Rome kept constantly objecting to it.
Now it will be interesting to know what McSorley says. McSorley,
in his discussion of this period, tells us, naturally, about the action of the
Council; but he says the Council of Chalcedon was making trouble in another
field by its enactment of 28 canons, the last of which attempted to extend
unduly the rights of the patriarchy of Constantinople. This canon promulgated
that Constantinople in 381 claims for New Rome patriarchal jurisdiction over an
immense territory. More significant
still, it affirms that the supremacy of Old Rome had been based on political
privileges, and that the capital
was entitled to equal privileges—a repudiation of the ancient tradition which
recognized the supremacy of Rome as of divine origin. Well, that's what McSorley
says today; but the evidence is that the Council of Chalcedon, the most
important—at least one of the few most important of all general councils—the
one that declares the doctrinal attitude on the character of Christ, which all
councils of the Christian church have maintained ever since. This Council of
Chalcedon did not recognize any such traditions as these. The supremacy of the
church in Rome was based upon its political position, not that Peter had
founded it.
Well,
McSorley continues, "The Pope refused to endorse canon 28, pointing out
that Constantinople was not an apostolic see, and that it must not encroach
upon the rights of Alexandria or Antioch." Nevertheless, Constantinople
continued to claim superiority, and the sentiment of canon 28 expressed itself
in recurrent breaks with Rome, and finally in the permanent division of 1051.
So today you have the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church, the
two divisions into which the ancient church eventually broke; and McSorley says
the real cause of the division is that the eastern half of the church refused
to recognize Rome as supreme. Now that is quite a recognition to make. Because,
of course, they would bring up other points, other matters, and matters of
discussion entered in; but the fact is, that the claims which the bishop of
Rome gradually came to maintain—and which Leo maintained so very strongly—these
points were never recognized in the whole eastern half of the church; they
never have been recognized, except occasionally during a brief period when a
westerner was in power as emperor; but otherwise they were never recognized in
the eastern half of the church; and as we've noticed, the greater part of the
western church does not recognize them either, at this time.
During
the Dark Ages, theoretically it was one church. But this, the period of the
Dark Ages, was a very difficult period for travel—a period of very great confusion—and the west could
do pretty much what it felt like; and the east could do pretty much
what it felt
like; while nominally
recognized as one church, but during
this period, this
whole time, never except for very brief intervals, did the east ever
acknowledge Rome as being supreme; then only
when a westerner would be in temporary power over the East. Well, this matter of the 28th canon,
you see, is a matter of interest to subsequent church
history, and so I want to bring it in here. But now I want to go
on to another Roman numeral. I'm not going to take time to go into details of the
remaining third of that century.
IX. The Thousand-Year Interval.
A. General Remarks as to its Relation to Church History. I do not know whether anyone else will agree with me in dividing ancient and medieval church history at about 465 AD. But I believe a convincing argument could be made that that is where it ought to be divided. Now there might be many who would put it a hundred or two hundred years later. But wherever you put it, I believe all Protestant scholars of church history would recognize that somewhere between 400 and 700, we make a break between ancient history and medieval history. And then medieval history comes to an end, and modern history begins, somewhere around 1500.
From the viewpoint of church history, we can certainly say that modern history begins at just about 1500. And from the viewpoint of church history, I would say that ancient history certainly ends about 470 rather
than later. That is a matter of detail, which I'll say a few words more about
later on.
But what I wanted to bring out now is that these three
divisions correspond to three distinct situations in the history of Europe,
culturally, politically, and religiously—ancient, medieval, and modern—though they're all right for titles, it doesn't matter what title you call them; the fact
is that they are periods which are very, very different from each other. Now in ancient church history, we have put three-fourths of
the year on 400 years of church history. Now I wish to cover a thousand years of church history
in what
remains of
the year.
In one-half
of a semester to cover a thousand years, when we've spent three fourths of a school-year on
400 years. And I want you to understand why I do it that way.
Ancient church history is of tremendous importance from the viewpoint of any modern church,
be it the Roman
Catholic, be it the Greek Orthodox, be it any branch of the Protestants. Ancient
church history is of tremendous
importance. The decisions of the Council of Chalcedon and the long Christological
controversies that led up to it are of tremendous importance for our understanding of doctrine; and of tremendous importance for
laying the
foundation
of attitudes which are taken by all truly Christian Protestant churches today. It is of tremendous importance; and when you get into really
thorough-going discussions of almost any point of modern church life, you will find people going back to ancient church history and
bringing illustrations, bringing arguments, bringing the views of the early church leaders, and so on, into it. So for
anyone who is to be a leader in the Christian church today, a knowledge of those 400 years of church history
is a matter that should be very vital. And I wish there was some way of guaranteeing that every one of you would remember one-third of all that I've given you in this course during this time. I know that half of you will forget some of the most important things we have covered, but I wish you wouldn't; I wish you would review it and keep it in mind, because
you would find it of tremendous importance.
Now from the viewpoint of Protestantism—for all intents and purposes—the history of the church comes
up to 460 and then jumps
to 1500;
and
what is
in between, from a Protestant
viewpoint, is of comparatively little importance to us. We speak of the Reformation—which is the years from 1500 to 1550, approximately, or maybe up till l570—the
Reformation to the Protestants, is of more importance than anything else that happened since the time of the writing of the N.T.
But the Reformation ties on to ancient church history. Of course, it's based on a return to the Bible. The Reformers go to the Bible and see what it says; they base everything on
the Bible, but they show tremendous interest in ancient churches; and to a very large extent, they combat attitudes,
ideas, traditions, and developments that have occurred during the thousand years between ancient church history and modern church history. So from the viewpoint of Protestantism, ancient church history is of great importance; you could just run over to the 1500's with comparatively little loss, from the viewpoint
of Protestantism. And then in 1500 you get the
movement of the Reformation—which is so important I wish I could spend a whole year on it—on those 50 years. And then you have tremendously
important events
from 1600
to 1700; and then from 1700 to 1950 it is so important, it is so near us that it should be of great
importance; but very few church history courses are able to spend much time on that period, because they can't get over the preceding material in the time they have available.
Well, now, after I say that, someone immediately may say, "Well, then,
why don't we have church history the first three years, instead of two?" And my answer is that the vital thing is not church history, it is exegesis. The vital thing is what
does the Bible say? And in a three-year seminary course we cannot get over that, and have time for three years of church history. Proportionately, in a three-year
course, two years is all that ought to be given to church history. But to take those two years, and to spread it equally
over twenty centuries of church history, would not give us what we need. We want to know the
first 400 years. We want to learn all we can about the last 400 years. And in the thousand years in between—if necessary—we could skip clear over.
Now that's not to say those thousand years are not interesting; they are tremendously interesting; there's nothing I would enjoy more than to spend all my time studying medieval history; it is a fascinating field; but as far as our present church situation is concerned in Protestant churches, it has comparatively little importance.
Now the Roman Catholic situation is entirely different. From the viewpoint of the Roman Catholics the greatest century in history is the 13th century. From their viewpoint, the ideal is the 13th century. In that century, the church was at the highest position in every regard that it has ever been; and everything since that time has been a decline, from their viewpoint. They go back to the 13th century for the ideal; and they're tremendously interested in everything of the 13th century and
anxious to bring it back as far as possible. But the matters which they stress, in the 13th century, are mostly matters which we Protestants oppose. And so it is important for us to know something about it, in order to understand these matters of our relationship
to the Roman Catholic Church.
But it is not important to understand what our real attitude is toward them; because our attitude is based upon the Bible. And next to the Bible, the early four hundred years would be important; and when you get to the 13th century, from the Protestant viewpoint, it has comparatively little weight as far as any importance in our decisions in the church; though if you're going to have a great deal of contact with Roman Catholics, it might be worth your knowing a good bit more about it than would be necessary for other Protestants.
But this period of a thousand years is a period which, with only a three-year seminary course and all the ground we have to cover, it is altogether wise for us to jump over rapidly. In fact, I would almost be tempted to take just a month on it, and then to just start in on the later period, just to have a little time for the 1700's and 1800's next year, instead of having to dash over them in two or three days. I feel that even one of those centuries is more important from the viewpoint of our attitude as Protestants—our understanding of church history—than is this whole thousand-year period
which came in between.
We will spend a couple of months on the thousand years. And I want to give you as clear an idea of it as I can in that length of time. And there will be occasional matters in it which are of great interest to you—though not of such great importance—and there will be some matters of very great importance as far as our attitude toward the Roman Catholic is
concerned; and those I will try to make as clear as I can in the time.
I might just mention this year, that I've already spoken to you at the beginning of the semester about the book by Farrow, The Pageant of the Popes, which book is now available in a paper-bound copy. This book, I would like you at the end of the year to have a pretty good idea of most of what he says about that
thousand-year period. Not all that he says, by any means; for he will be stressing certain aspects of it; but I expect you to do a
fairly considerable
number of assignments in that book, about that
period. Because we do not need—as far as relationship to the papacy is concerned—to go to any strongly
biased, prejudiced, strongly-Protestant-biased book for ammunition. We can take that which
is published in Roman Catholic books; and it gives us abundant evidence for making our decision as to the papacy. And for that reason, even though you will find things presented
differently from a Protestant viewpoint, I think it's very valuable to see what is written by those who take the Roman Catholic viewpoint
about the
certain
matters that
we ought to know about the papacy, during those thousand years.
I'll say just a word about why I make a division about 450 instead of at 600. Schaff's Church History (nearly 10 volumes) has a volume here which is called Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity, AD
311-600. That's volume III. And then volume IV, starts in 590—it just overlaps
ten years back—but Vol. IV goes on; so evidently you could say, according to Schaff, medieval history starts about 600; but
I have
already
discussed with
you St. Patrick who was
about 450; and St. Patrick isn't even mentioned in Schaff's volume here of 300-600. He has a long discussion of him in his next volume, which goes on after 600, because St. Patrick belongs in medieval church history rather than to ancient, though he
comes just at the end of what I call the ancient period.
I've already discussed with you the conversion of Clovis, which took place also during this 5th century; and the conversion
of Clovis isn't even mentioned in Schaff's volume from 300-600; but he is discussed in his volume which starts after 600, because the conversion of Clovis
was laying the foundation for the great medieval
development; and it belongs properly to medieval history rather than in ancient church history. An interesting thing which I did once a few years ago, I took this volume which Schaff calls Church History, AD 311-600, I went through it to see how many pages dealt with events between 300 and 470, how many dealt with events between 470 and 600, nearly half of the period that we
discussed. And I found that less than a tenth of the book, perhaps less than a twentieth,
deals with the last hundred and thirty of these three hundred years; I think this is pretty good evidence that the things that are important in ancient church history took place prior to 470 AD. Now the reason for that is because the medieval period had set in by that time.
You can't draw a line and say ancient church history goes up to this minute; now it stops, and medieval church
history
starts.
Things in life don't go that way. A change between two ages, is a change of conditions; and this change has
to gradually spread and it takes a time; but you have a long period in which circumstances are a certain way, and then you
get a long period in which they are very, very different; and between these is a comparatively brief period in which the change was made.
And the change from the ancient to the
medieval period took place after, almost entirely between 400 and 470 AD; that was the transition period. Now we will go on to
B. The General Political and Cultural Development. That is, during
this thousand-year interval. Now under this, I want to mention 9 different heads; these deal with the thousand years as a whole, and give you an understanding of the many ways in which it is different from what preceded and from what followed.
1. The Cultural
decline produced by the Migration. That is, the
difference between ancient and medieval church history, or ancient and medieval history: the cultural decline produced
by the migration. Now this decline was not
produced because the people that came into the empire were in any way inferior to the people already there. It is not caused by their being the least bit more warlike—certainly not by their being the least bit more
immoral—because from the viewpoint of what we call morality today, the so-called
barbarians were far more moral than the Romans. For their moral life—immorality as far as sex relations are
concerned, as far as family relations are concerned—the Germanic tribes had
a far higher standard in that regard than the Romans ever had, or at least had had since maybe 100 BC, though the
barbarians were much more addicted to drunkenness than the Romans were. But they were not the least bit more immoral than the Romans had been at an earlier period in history.
The difference was, not that these people were in any way inferior to the people already in the Roman Empire, but that they came in too fast. During the previous several
centuries, the Romans had been bringing these people in all the time, but bringing them in little by little. They bring them in;
they'd be mercenary soldiers in the Roman army for a time; or maybe they were captured as slaves and brought in. They were slaves
for a time, and then they were free; they became citizens of the Roman Empire; or if they
were soldiers, maybe their children didn't go into the army, but became
citizens of the empire; and probably at the end of ancient church history, at least half the people of the Roman
Empire
were
Germanic in background, but they were thoroughly Romanized. They were members of the
Roman Empire. But now the defenses of the empire broke down. The control of the army fell apart at
this time; and these growing numbers of people came in too rapidly to be absorbed. And they took over the control, without having the training and the cultural background
to continue it, as the Romans had
been doing
it.
They had a very great respect for Roman culture. They had very great respect
for Roman civilization; but they took over the power; and the Roman Empire broke into pieces; and civilization fell back into what we now call the Dark Ages. They were too busy fighting among themselves; establishing themselves; plundering and so on; to give much time and thought to the continuance of civilization; and so you have a complete change in the general political structure of the ancient world; and you have a tremendous cultural
drop
and decline as a result of the coming of these people; and we have several centuries which we call the Dark Ages; we know
comparatively little about these ages, and during them people were too busy trying to keep alive and
get something to eat, to have time to give much attention to developing civilization
and culture.
2. Lack of a Strong
Center to
Produce Peace and Order. Of course, this is a part of what we'd just been speaking of, but it is
important enough
to
give it a
separate heading. Lack of a
strong center
to produce
peace and order. How did the Roman Empire get started in the first place? You had little centers in Italy—perhaps 50 or 100 little cities—each of which was
fighting with the rest; and eventually Rome conquered all the rest and made them
subject to herself; and then made them citizens, and made one strong area; but it was not Italy, it was Rome; that it to say, it was
the fact that Rome was supreme rather than the people who lived on that same peninsula; and so
it could extend
on as it did.
And you
got gradually—through the Roman Empire—the whole of the then-known world, except for the Persian Empire,
under one control; and though you might have considerable anarchy in Rome for the control of the Roman empire, yet its representatives were maintaining a pretty good
degree of peace and order throughout the Empire. They were making it possible for people to travel back and forth and carry on commerce; and incidentally making
it possible for such a thing as
Christianity to spread through the empire; to get little groups of people started here and there, which eventually would grow into the large church that it was by the time of Constantine. You had a strong center to produce peace and order, but that center disappeared when these different separate barbarian tribes came in.
And at first, they all claimed to be subject to the Roman Emperor; but they paid no attention to him; did what they felt like; and eventually new
tribes like the Franks came in, that ignored the Roman Emperor altogether; and of course, we have the tribes that, in
476, simply did away with the Roman Emperor in the West; but then they claimed still to be subject to the Roman Emperor in the East; although it was only a nominal subjection. He did not have any power to maintain
peace and order.
So a characteristic of the beginning of the Middle Ages is a situation in which you have no center, to which a man like Paul could appeal to Rome; and his case could be taken up there to determine that he was right in his claim that he could go about as a free citizen. You have little groups fighting
against each other to a very large extent; so the lack of a strong center to produce peace and order came about in the beginning of the Middle Ages, and it
has not
even yet
been restored.
Not yet have we gotten back to the situation the Roman Empire was in, of theoretically having peace and order dominant
throughout the civilized world.
3. The Dark Ages. This was the
result of the cultural decline
produced by
the
migration; the difference in the amount of material Schaff has from 300 to 470 and from 470 to 600 is a pretty good example of the fact that the world had become dark; in
this sense
there was far less light; there is far less observation; there
is far less discussion. People are busy trying to keep alive; they are too busy to maintain cultural pursuits as they
did before. And the Dark Ages are a long period, from which we have far less evidence than before.
When the Romans withdrew from Britain, the people of Britain were unable to protect themselves
against the wild Scots of the north; they asked the Romans to leave an army there to protect them, but the Roman Empire was going to pieces, they couldn't do it; the Britons were used to having the
Romans protect them; they had lost their own ability to fight and protect themselves; the only thing they could do was look elsewhere for help, so they sent over to
some tribes in northern Germany to come and help them; and these Anglo-Saxons came in, and they helped
them at first
against
the Scots; but as soon as they drove the Scots back, then they reduced the Britons to slavery; they established themselves supreme
over the land, and for 150 years we know practically nothing of anything that happened in Britain.
Previously we had 400 years of history; then we have a gap of 150 years; we have a period of Dark Ages, because we don't have writings, considerations, studies, or
attempts to carry things out. We have wild tribes which are establishing themselves; fighting against each other; and eventually getting the situation where the country is divided into about seven different sections, each of which is more or
less a
complete
separate unit; and ultimately they became combined into one. But you have your Dark Age period, which varies in length in
different parts of Europe; but it means an interval of darkness between the
Roman Empire and the gradual new development of the later Middle Ages.
4. Development of
the Feudal System. The Feudal System, so-called, goes back to Roman custom.
But these Roman customs are extended far beyond anything they had under the Romans, and they assume a tremendous importance in the
Middle Ages, because of the disintegration of the political system. If a person is going
to keep safe, he must have some way to protect himself; and not everybody can afford to have a group of soldiers to go with him everywhere he goes and keep
him safe;
or to
have them stand
around his field, his yard, his house, and protect him from attack of ruffians who come by; or
from attacks
of an organized group, which is going through the area, who just see
something they'd like and step in and take it.
And so a man has to look for some means of protection. Now today, the way things are developing in Philadelphia the last year or two, we seem to be getting
into that
same situation, from what I read in the papers. Ten years ago I wouldn't have hesitated to walk through any street in Philadelphia at night. Maybe I was no safer then than now, but at least I hadn't heard of the things that are going on now. Now, you just hesitate, when you read of people who are attacked at night; hit with fists, or with lead pipes, and killed; by people they didn't even know, simply because they wanted to get
50 cents out of their pockets.
Well, when a situation like that develops, you have either got to develop a central government that has power to maintain law and order, or else every individual has got to find some way of protecting himself; like the Old West in America,
where everybody carried his gun and protected himself. You've got to have one or the other. Well, in the early Middle Ages you did not have a strong central government to
protect; and so the feudal system developed, which meant that every little man looked to some bigger man to protect him; and so if a man had a field, somebody in the neighborhood might come in; grab the stuff that you had grown with several months of hard work on your field; he'd just come and take it for his own use. Or some stranger, from 2 or 3 hundred miles away, going through the country, might just seize it from him. So the only way to become safe was to get the man nearest that—instead of taking all your stuff—he'll only
take a
part of it, and leave you with the rest in exchange for giving him the right to take a part. And the man near you, to whom you gave that right, he found a bigger man might come and attack him; and he needed protection against him; so instead of taking half of your stuff, it was more to his interest to have you agree to help him defend himself when he was attacked. So you developed a system where all the little men were subject to someone else in the neighborhood; he gave them protection; and in return for that they gave him service. And then he—in order to be safe—would swear loyalty to some larger fellow who would protect him; but when this larger fellow was menaced by another of his own size, he would call on these men here to come and work
with him,
and join his forces.
So you developed a system, in which there was not—like in Rome—everybody owing loyalty to the Roman Empire, but you owed loyalty to the person in your area; theoretically you still did to the Roman Empire, but it had no power. But you would have loyalty to the man over you, and he to the one over him, and he to the one over him; and you would be the lowest instead of at the top, but you would see to it that you were loyal to the man right over you. And he would look to you for help in defending himself.
So this feudal system developed, which lasted quite a number of
centuries; it meant the dividing of Europe up into all sorts of little tiny separate
sections, but united together by all sorts of ties that vary tremendously
from place to place, and from situation to situation. A man might be one of the
big men in one area; and then he would own a small section somewhere else, and for that he would be subject to the man in that area. One might have three or four different positions in the feudal system, owning
land in
different areas. That of course is very important for secular history; for church history just to have an idea of this situation
which existed is all that is required for us. We go on to
5. The Theoretical
Continuance of the Idea of the Roman Empire. This is more important for church history than anything we've mentioned yet. For five centuries the Roman Empire has been the
great power establishing peace and order; and it was not a local
thing. Theoretically, it covered most of the world. So the idea continued as these groups came in, "We're in the Roman Empire, we're part of the Roman Empire. We're subject to the Roman Emperor." And if the emperor was no longer emperor in Italy,
there was an emperor in the East; they were subject to him; but between them and him, there were 12 or 15 steps in the feudal set-up, so actually their relation to him was practically non-existent. But theoretically there was one empire; and a great
part of medieval history is
affected
by this
idea of
the Roman Empire; and it still has its effects today, which are rather
important in
certain
of our
religious
situations today.
The idea that theoretically there is an emperor, who has the power and the responsibility to establish peace and order, and to whom everyone owes fealty; this idea continued up till 1806, as a matter of fact, when Napoleon did away with it. Then this theoretical continuance,
we'll have much to say about this in succeeding weeks, so keep it in mind. We go on to
6. The Ultimate Rise of
Nationalism. Now here we're not speaking about the thousand years but about
the end of it. But in order to have a clear picture of what happened during these thousand years, it is useful to
have a little idea of how this medieval period ended as far as governmental situations are concerned.
And that—the secular viewpoint—is of tremendous importance to us today, because we are still suffering from its effects today.
Theoretically, during the Middle Ages the Roman Empire ruled Britain, France, Germany, Italy—the whole of Europe, theoretically, except for the extreme northern part.
Theoretically, it was part of the Roman Empire. But actually, people were subject to the others in their
neighborhood under the feudal system.
So actually, you have little tiny
districts, which gradually coalesce into larger and larger areas, through which someone was able to make his power
really effective. And the result of this is,
the ideal empire which originally covers all of Europe,
eventually becomes pretty much limited to Germany and Italy; and it remains in Germany and Italy
up until, well
until nearly 1900; it is an important factor in Germany and Italy; theoretically they are part of the Roman Empire. And theoretically the Roman Empire should control all
Europe; but in the other parts of Europe—where the Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages were
practically no more than a name—in the rest of Europe, gradually these little divisions
got bigger and bigger. As soon as two or
three little parts would come together, one man and his friends would get control of it, of larger and larger sections; and over across the channel in Britain, there developed a separate unit of England,
which only gave a very theoretical allegiance to the Roman Empire; it developed into a separate nation. In France, the Count of Paris and his successors gradually got control over a large area, which
they called France; which came to admit no
relationship to the Roman Empire at all. And thus there developed
the modern idea of nations; something that was
practically unknown in the ancient world—the rise
of nationalism.
And then eventually by about 1800, you had an English nation, a French nation, a Spanish nation; but Germany
and Italy were
still
parts of the
empire. And it's only since 1870 that you had an Italian nation and a German
nation.
But now we have this idea of nationalism, which is one of the curses of the modern world. The old idea of empire was
certainly far superior. The idea of the empire was we have the world, whose one leader's duty was to establish law and order. Now you have the silly idea that many sections
of it are nations; and in
these nations, they have a responsibility to maintain law and order, but absolutely no right to say anything about anything that
happens outside their borders. And it's an utterly silly idea, but it is widespread today; and it has been for the last century. This idea
of nationalism developed during the last three or four centuries. And this idea of nationalism and of the sovereign rights—as they call it—of nations, which is purely theoretical, and a much poorer theory than the Roman Empire theory was, is a great and powerful force in our modern world today. And of course, it
affects our church history tremendously in recent times. That we will deal with that more next year of course, I'm just
showing how
the Middle Ages ended
with the
introduction
of this movement. Now we go on next time.
We were speaking about the thousand-year interval, we had A, General Remarks as to its Relation to Church History; B, the general political and cultural
development. I was going to ask you what is meant by the term nationalism. That's what we were discussing at the very end of the hour last time. The ultimate rise of nationalism began only toward the very end of the thousand
year period. It really only came into full force less than 100 years ago, yet today is a very, very strong superstition
in the world today, this matter of
nationalism. It relates to the end of the medieval period, the beginning of the modern, I just wanted to alert you to it here; we will look into it
more next year.
The next is a very important factor running completely through the medieval
period.
7. The Preservation
of Culture in the Monasteries. There have been many times in history when a nation has been completely overrun by people of another race—another language—and whose civilization
has pretty well disappeared. The medieval age is unique, in that there was a special way of retaining the culture, maintaining it
through the time when the new people were gradually becoming settled, and giving up a good bit of their warlike habits; and that was the
institution of monasticism, which was only barely started when the barbarians began to come into the Roman Empire.
Monasticism, as you know, was not suggested in the N.T. It did not exist in the first century AD, or in the second century AD. We have a few hermits—very few—in the 3rd century AD. In
the 4th century, we have hundreds of
people becoming monks; individuals gathering together into groups; and then sometimes having a man as head of the group—the general leader—Abbot as they might call him; but they are rather
informal types of organization, all through the ancient world.
It's only after the medieval period begins that they begin to become tightly organized, as most of them are today. But during the
Middle Ages, when the conquerors had spread out over the land, and were tending to take anything that looked attractive to themselves; it
was very
easy for
a person to displease them and to be killed, without much hesitation; so people found a place of refuge by going into monasteries. The monasteries
were as
a
rule—not
always—but as a rule, safe from attack by the conquerors; the bulk of the conquerors were already Christians, though Arian
Christians;
they looked down on the
catholic Christians, but they did consider them as Christians; and they respected their sacred buildings, and they respected the
monasteries; and the result was that many a person in danger of his life; or many a person, having lost all his property by plunder; many a person, seeing nothing but unrest and misery ahead for him; and the difficulty of making a decent life; would go into a monastery, and be received there as a member of the monastic order; and there his life would be safe; he might not
have much of this world's goods, but what he had was safe. And there, gradually, these people became
organized into groups which performed a certain amount of manual labor; did a certain amount of copying of manuscripts;
they preserved a considerable amount of the literature of the ancient world; and any secular history, I believe, that you read—any I've ever seen—will state that one of the greatest factors in the Middle Ages was the preservation
of culture through the
monasteries.
Of the culture of the Roman Empire, a comparatively small part of it was thus preserved; but still it was, though small in proportion, it was
very great in total amount. Thus, for instance, one of the great forces in the ancient world was
the philosophy of Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher. His books were copied and read all
through the Roman Empire; with the coming of the barbarians they were completely lost. No trace of them remained. A few selections which had been made by Christian writers in discussing them, was all that was available during most of the Middle Ages.
In the early part of the Middle Ages, people had no interest in anything of that sort; but the works of Aristotle were also of course known in the Greek world. They were known in the eastern empire; and from the eastern empire they were
translated into Syriac; and the people in that section of the empire studied them much in the Syriac. Then when the
Mohammedans came, they translated them from Syriac into Arabic; and when the Mohammedans conquered all of North Africa, and then came up into Spain, they brought with them these Arabic translations of the Syriac translations of Aristotle's Greek books of philosophy. And these Arabic books were in use in Spain in
the Middle
Ages,
when they were completely unknown in Europe.
And then the Arabic translations were—some of them—translated into Latin in Spain; and they came up into Europe, and began to be studied very earnestly in the
monasteries; and they became, to a great extent, the foundation of modern Roman Catholic theology. A very great portion of it is built on Aristotle's philosophy. But it is built on Aristotle's
philosophy, as learned in the later Middle Ages from the Latin translation of the Arabic translation of the
Syriac translation of the Greek originals. So you see what a round-about course
it went through; and if it had not been for this roundabout
course such works as Aristotle would have been completely unknown in the Middle Ages.
I only give that now as an illustration of the fact, that the greater part of the culture of the ancient classical
works was completely lost during the Middle Ages, and rediscovered at the time of the Renaissance, at the end of the Middle Ages.
Some of it
was
reclaimed like this. But the knowledge of writing was retained in the monasteries; manuscripts were copied of the Bible, and of various religious
works, and some classical works—not many in the early part, of course—and the monasteries, while they did not preserve a lot—probably three-fourths of the old
culture was
lost and then rediscovered at the end of the Middle Ages—yet a very
substantial portion was preserved through the monasteries.
They made a place of refuge for people from the unrest and turmoil of the
times. They made a center to which—you might say—culture could retreat; and from which, it could emerge
again; they made a place where people—if they were so
inclined—could study the Bible and religious things without having constantly to be in danger of their lives in the turmoil, the general turmoil
of the
period;
or without having to be working 12 or 15 hours a day in order to get a very
meager living
from the
soil,
as probably the bulk of the people had to do. They are a great force in the Middle Ages, from the viewpoint of the preservation of civilization.
The religious aspect of this we look at a little later under a different head. [student] The original Greek manuscripts were mostly kept in the monasteries of the eastern empire. I cannot
say there
were
none; but certainly there were very few—if any—Greek manuscripts in the western monasteries during the Middle Ages. But the Latin translations were copied and recopied
in the
west, Now in the east, the Greek was copied
and recopied. The Latin was kept and
preserved in the monasteries; and we have hundreds of copies
of Latin
volumes
that were made in the monasteries during the Middle Ages.
Now, 8, like 6, is a factor which applies to the very end of the thousand-year period, but to give you just a general perspective of the
thousand-year period, I want to briefly mention this development which came at the very end; that is what we call
8. The Renaissance. Now this term, the
Renaissance, is a French word which translated into English would mean "the rebirth, the new birth,"
but it has no religious connotation. It refers to a new birth of culture; and what is meant by it is the new connecting up with the ancient world; and the stimulus which that produced in the modern world. The medieval world in the
West carried
on
with little contact—some, but comparatively little—with the East, through the greater part of this
thousand-year interval. But toward the end, western interest began to develop in the eastern
world and
in the
ancient world. And so at about 1400, you have a great interest in the ancient Greek writings. Comparatively few of them were known. But people began
to be interested in them; and people in the east found that if they could get a good manuscript of some ancient Greek writing, they could sell it for a sizeable sum; so they began
gradually
to
bring some of them to the West. And wealthy people became proud to have possession of some of the these; and they would hire scholars to study them; and some of the scholars used to travel about, studying in this place and
that; and
gradually there
developed a new interest in the ancient world, between 1400 and 1500; and
this resulted
in a tremendous
interest in
the ancient Greek, and
Greek literature and Greek culture; and in the bringing from the East of many manuscripts
completely unknown during the Middle Ages.
At the same time, there were new developments in the arts and in other phases of culture, so that Europe just blossomed out—especially Southern Europe—particularly Italy. It just blossomed out between 1400 and 1500; to such a great extent, that we call it the Renaissance or the New Birth, the new birth of culture, which came at this time. And one bad thing which
led to
the Renaissance—because
bad things have
sometimes good
sides to them—was the fact that in 1453 Constantinople fell; and the Eastern Empire came to an end. It lasted a thousand years longer than the Western Empire—with
a few brief intermissions. But
then the Turks conquered Constantinople, and they made it a Mohammedan city. When they did so, naturally the people—the great bulk of them, as many as could—fled when they saw the end approaching;
and many of these people carried manuscripts with them; so there was a great
bringing of Greek manuscripts into Western Europe as a result of the fall of Constantinople. The end of the Byzantine culture in the East meant a stimulus to the advance of the ancient
Greek and
Roman culture in the West.
Sometimes people speak as if the Renaissance was largely a result of the fall of Constantinople. That is not the case; the movement was already in full swing before that happened; but that stimulated it and pushed it forward. And this was very important as a background for the Reformation, which we study next year. But it is another illustration of the reason why we consider the thousand-year period as sort of a parenthesis; the modern age passes right on from the ancient world; the Renaissance brings the ancient world again to the West, and makes it possible as a new foundation; and it was actually the connection between; in the 15th century particularly, all educated people spent a great part of their time studying the ancient world; they knew far more about it than anyone does today, except specialists in that field. Every educated person did at that time; and of course a thousand times more than anybody in the Middle Ages had; and so your modern world, in a way, comes right after your ancient world; and your Medieval is an extremely interesting parenthesis that comes in between.
The Renaissance. I wish we had a month or two to talk about the Renaissance. About all we can do is briefly to mention now; and next fall we will briefly mention it again as
background
to the
Reformation, which is so tremendously important for us. Some people think of the Reformation as a
child of the Renaissance; others think of it as that which killed the Renaissance. Actually, the Renaissance contributed greatly to it, but it was certainly not its cause. But the Reformation could not have been as it was, if it were not for the
Renaissance
which preceded it, and which prepared the way for it much like the Roman Empire prepared
the way for Christianity.
The
Roman Empire didn't at all produce Christianity; but Christianity was able to
be spread with the use of the Roman roads; and the widespread use of the Latin
and Greek languages; the general law and order which was established.
Similarly, the general new cultural advance made by the Renaissance made the
means; stimulated the interest of many, who then turned to Luther's writings;
and made possible the distribution of these writings, and the spread of the
Reformation ideas in a way that otherwise could not have happened.
The
Italian Renaissance was pagan, thoroughly pagan. Its interest was
non-religious, largely. The northern Renaissance was more connected up with
Christian development. That we look at next fall.
9. Conditions in the Eastern
Empire during this Period.
The Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire has a very interesting,
involved, complicated history, but one which has little direct effect upon us
in the West here. But eventually, Constantinople was conquered by the Turks in
1453; you see how recent that is—a thousand years after the end of the Western
Empire—and for the last 500 years it has been a Turkish city; they've taken the
name Constantinople and shortened it to Istanbul, which is derived from
Constantinople. And the church of Santa Sofia, which was built about 550—a
great church in honor of the sacred wisdom of God—the church of Santa Sofia,
the greatest church in Constantinople, was for 900 years a Christian church;
and then in 1453, when it was conquered by the Turks, they made it a Mohammedan
Mosque, which it is today. But you can't go into it without immediately feeling
how entirely different its architecture is from that of a Mohammedan Mosque.
It's a Christian church, made over; and all the decoration and everything is
changed.
In
Damascus there was a great Christian church which was taken over by the
Mohammedans far earlier; but this became a Mohammedan Mosque—the great Umayyad
Mosque in Damascus—it has been a Mohammedan Mosque now for a thousand years;
but in this Mosque there was discovered about 70 or 80 years ago, up over one
of the entrances, sort of hidden by the entrance so you didn't see it till you
got a little ways off, some queer marks which meant nothing to the Mosque; but
somebody noticed and wondered what they were; and they got a ladder and climbed
up to them; and they said, "They look sort of like Greek letters."
And they called a scholar who was traveling through; and he looked at them and
he read there over this entrance—one of the entrances of this Mosque—"Thy
Kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endures through
all generations." That had been over one of the doors of the Mohammedan
Mosque for nearly a thousand years.
I climbed up the ladder myself when I was there in 1929, and read the Greek letters as they are. Now if the Turks had discovered them two or three hundred years earlier, I imagine they would have eradicated them; but having discovered them so recently, they keep them for tourists to climb up and look at, and give them a tip for letting them do it. But it still remains on the Mohammedan Mosque. So that Constantinople was for 1100 years a great Christian city; and it has now been for 500 years a Turkish capital.
There is one great force which I merely mention, which is of tremendous importance in relation
to the
history of the Eastern Empire. And that is Islam; its proper name is
Islam. We
call it Mohammedanism.
They don't like that—to call it Mohammedanism—because the religion of Islam,
unlike Christianity, is not a religion which is based upon the person of its founder.
Christianity is the religion of Christ; that
Christ is God; He is the foundation; He is the center of our religion. Mohammedanism
is the religion of Islam which means "submission." It is religion of submission to the will of Allah; and Mohammed is his prophet; he is the one who has brought the
message. Mohammed is the greatest of all
messengers, but simply a messenger. He is not in any sense a god; to them it would
be blasphemy to even think of Mohammed as in any sense a god. He is not a god; his
death had no
redemptive import whatever; nothing that he did was in itself important to
them, except that he brought them the
message. He has the importance for
Mohammedanism that Moses has for Judaism. In other words, he is the messenger. Now the slogan of Mohammedanism is, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is His prophet."
As you see, it
is entirely different
from Christianity, an entirely different
type of religion. We will look at it a little later on, when we come to the time when it began.
But at this point, we're interested in the political development. We're interested to know that when the barbarians overran the Western Empire, the East continued a great and prosperous area, with the emperors occasionally in difficulty on account of wars with the Persians; but in general with a large amount of peace and order; having tremendous wealth; and the emperor having almost autocratic
power—when he chose to wield it—over the Eastern Empire; and after the Western Empire came to an end, nominally he was emperor over the whole empire; so nominally he was emperor of the West also; and occasionally
Western tribes
would give an nominal recognition
to him as the emperor of the Roman
Empire.
But Mohammedanism began shortly after 700; and when Mohammedanism began, it spread
with tremendous rapidity, and it conquered a large portion of the eastern empire. So the Eastern Empire was greatly cut down by the rise of Mohammedanism; and it had constantly to contend with it, it but continued as an important force right up
to 1450.
So the West had its barbarian invasions, which destroyed the Roman Empire; the East had the Mohammedan invasions, which took away large portions of the Roman Empire; and this cut down the power of the emperors at both ends; and eventually there were two different emperors rather than simply one. But the Eastern Empire continued as a real force until 1453.
Now so much for B, the general cultural and political development, of this long thousand-year period. A period that most of you will never know very much about; but I think it is good, since it is
such a
long
period—coming
between events that are so vital to us before and after—for you to remember this much
of the
general statement
of its situation. It will make it much easier for you to understand the modern and the ancient periods;
and if
you ever have time, and simply feel like studying something that is very, very interesting; almost
any famous medieval history is intensely interesting, though comparatively unimportant as far as effect on our modern world is concerned. Then C, will be
C. A General Sketch
of Movements
in Church History during This Period. And of course that is what interests us in this particular course. We are not interested in general history except as it is a necessary background for Church History. But in Church History, there were certain movements in this period which have had great effect on the Modern World, although their effect has mostly been on the Roman Catholic Church. That is a vital force which we have to meet. We cannot work for Christ anywhere in the world, without sooner or later coming into contact with Roman Catholicism. It is today a vital force; we have over here just north of us [in Elkins Park,
PA], we have the Christian Brothers, a large group of earnest consecrated young men who have devoted their lives to teaching and spreading their faith. They are not priests; they do not take vows of priesthood; they do not have the right to perform the sacraments; they are simply teachers. But they take all the vows that monks take, except that they are not ordained as priests. And they take an additional vow: a vow that they will devote their life to teaching without remuneration. They are not supposed to take a salary, but to work in their order; and their order, of course, receives some recompense for their services; and the order provides for their care; and the order is training them to teach mathematics and history and literature and all sorts of subjects; and some of them teach religious subjects, but all of them to make their primary purpose the spreading of the Roman Catholic view and life. That we have to the north of us.
And then just to the south of us, we have the grand old Elkins Estate there; this is today a Dominican Convent; and there have probably been at least 50 times since we came here, that people have asked me, on our grounds, or even in the building, "Where is the Dominican Retreat House?" Because they are constantly having retreats with the people of this
area; in
which they will have them in there; people from the whole Philadelphia area
come there for two or three days; and they try to instill into them the principles of Roman Catholicism. So it is a vital force today not only in this area, but all over America and all over the world.
I believe I read that 264 million dollars worth of churches and schools have been built by Cardinal Spellman in New York City, in the past 20 years since he has been Cardinal. It's perfectly
tremendous, the activity that is being displayed by these people as they are
working for the spread of their religion and of their ideas of life. Now they
are very different from our Protestant religion and very different from our
Protestant ideas. Even though they hold theoretically—at least—to most of them
actually, to the great fundamental historical truths upon which Christianity is
based, they are very different force than Protestantism; but they are a very
vital force, and one which it is good for us to know something about.
The Roman Catholic Church cannot be understood without an
understanding of the Middle Ages; because most that is distinctive of it
developed in the Middle Ages. And so we learn little that relates directly to
Protestantism in our examination of this thousand-year period. But we learn
much that enables us to understand the Roman Catholic thought; and that we
should know, because it is a very vital force, and one with which we will have
much time.
It was interesting to read about Secretary of State [John Foster]
Dulles [d. 1959], who was written up in the papers and magazines as a very
great Christian leader. Actually he was the Trustee of a Seminary; he was in
the Modernist section of Protestantism; he was very prominent in it, and very
prominent in the World Council; many people would think of him as the extreme
opposite of Roman Catholicism. Some of the Modernists call Fundamentalists
"Medievalists," thinking we go back to Medieval times; we don't at
all, we go back to the Bible. But many call us Medievalists; and they think of
us as being much nearer the Roman Catholic Church than they think are the
Modernists. It is interesting that Secretary Dulles' son is a Jesuit Priest,
one of the most Roman Catholic of all Roman Catholics, the Jesuits; the group
was founded after the Reformation began; but the group, which—it is my
belief—that if it were not for the existence of the Jesuits, that the Roman
Catholic church would have disappeared completely as a movement, at least 200
years ago, if it were not for the central leadership which the Jesuits give to
it; and he is a Jesuit—the son of Secretary Dulles.
They
are an active vital force; and it is very important that we be aware of them,
and conscious; able to intelligently understand the points which they have in
common with us and in which sometimes some of their activities are of
tremendous help to us. And the many points, which they have, which are
extremely different from ours; and which, from our viewpoint, can be and are
extremely harmful. So during the thousand year period, we learn little that
directly affects Protestantism, but much that is necessary to understand the
organization that we have in the world today, the Roman Catholic Church. So
1. Monasticism. And Monasticism
is one of the most typical features of Roman Catholicism. If someone—if a
stranger from another planet—were to be brought into this world, and to just
get a very brief quick visit to many Roman Catholic centers; and then a brief
visit to many centers of Protestantism; the thing that would impress him more
than anything else as different between the two, would be the presence of
monasticism among the Roman Catholics. That is one of its most obvious
features; and it is one of its strongest features. I said about the Jesuits, I
do not believe there would be any Roman Catholic Church if it were not for the
Jesuits; they are one of the two or three hundred monastic orders, by far the
strongest. And probably the Jesuits could not have accomplished a fraction of
what they have, if it were not for the other orders which they influence to a
very great extent. Though most of the other orders hate the Jesuits, yet the
Jesuits have tremendous influence over them, and a tremendous control in many
ways.
But
monasticism, we noticed, was something which did not exist during the first two
and a half centuries of Christian history, and hardly at all during the third
century of Christian history; but during the 4th century, with the coming upheaval,
and turmoil and unrest, great numbers of people sought peace and solitude,
going out to the desert; many of them were sincerely interested in studying the
Word and communing with the Lord; others, perhaps, were simply seeking rest and
security from the intrigue and turmoil; some of them reacting strongly against
the great worldliness of the civilization as it then existed. And these
gradually were organized into little temporary groups. But under 1,
monasticism, we mention
a. Formation of
Orders.
This is entirely a development of the Middle Ages. It will be one of the first
things we notice as we begin to look at these centuries one by one; it will be
this new development of the formation of orders. We'll speak in detail about it
when we come to that.
A
friend of mine—a lawyer in Wilmington—who when the Seminary was down there
attended quite a number of classes—took maybe half our courses—coming in his
spare time; taking two or three courses a year; a fine Christian man, told me
that one time he was on the train going between Philadelphia and Wilmington;
and he sat next to a man and got to talking to him; and found that he was a
Franciscan monk. Now in a Roman Catholic country, they would all be in their
particular garbs; but here very often they simply go in clothes, so people
cannot mark them out so distinctly as they do there. But he soon found this man
was a Franciscan monk. And he also found that the man was studying Medieval
history in the university; and this lawyer said to him, "My, it sounds dull;
sounds very dull." The monk said, "Yes it is. Awfully tiresome."
"Well," he said, "what are you studying it for?"
"Oh," he said, "I'm in orders; those are my orders."
And
in the Roman Catholic orders, there is a tremendous discipline over the members
of the monastery. It varies with different orders; but in general, it reaches
its extreme in the Jesuit Order; there the members of the Jesuit Order are
taught; repeatedly told and it is instilled into their minds; "Think of
yourself as a piece of wood, which lies on the ground; and the superior can
pick it up and do whatever he wants to with it; you are to offer no more
resistance to anything that he wants you to do, than would a piece of wood, to
a man who picks it off the ground."
My
wife—when she was a girl in Baltimore—she and her brother used to play with a
family a little down the street; and they knew these children very well; they
were a Roman Catholic family; and later on, she and her brother went to a
Christian school; and the boy from this other family was trained to be a monk;
and he became a Jesuit.
Years
later, visiting his mother, she told them that her son, wherever he is in the
world, he never knows when he goes to sleep at night, whether in the morning
he'll find a note pinned on his pillow, "Go to Afghanistan," or
"Go to Alaska," or somewhere; in other words, the Jesuits pride
themselves on being swift messengers, ready to go anywhere they're told; to do
anything they're commanded to do. Well, that is the extreme; most of the orders
are not like that, but they're in that direction. There is a strong control
from the leaders over men who have nothing of their own; they are sworn to
three vows: to poverty, to chastity, and to obedience. And they are to have
nothing of their own, but to be subject to the order and to do whatever it
tells them to do. Well, the development of groups like that gives a tremendous
force, naturally, to the organization.
But
within the monastic groups, there is a tremendous amount of diversity. They
have not been founded by the papacy saying, "Make an order like
this." People have gotten their own idea and built an order; and then
they've asked the Pope to put his approval on it. And the orders have developed
with tremendous differences between them; people talk often as if Roman
Catholicism was one great unified movement; and the Roman Catholics are very
fond of pointing out the divisions in Protestantism; how many divisions and
differences there are between them. You will find just as many differences and
divisions within the Roman Catholic Church, but tied together by an obedience
to the Pope; by a control which is exerted over a few points to insure
uniformity in those few points; but in other points there is tremendous
variety.
There
are orders in which a man, with a few weeks of training, can be ordained as a
priest; there are orders like the Jesuits in which it takes 15 years of hard
study before one can be ordained, as a priest. The differences in the
requirements for the priesthood are tremendous among the different orders.
There is tremendous variety among them; tremendous hatred of some of them for
others; tremendous jockeying for position; tremendous antagonism; but there is
a super control which binds them together in one central purpose. It is a tremendously
effective organization in certain ways; and very inept in certain other ways.
But we want to have some understanding of them; and this is one of its vital
features, the formation of orders.
We
will look, in the Middle Ages, at the founding of the first of the great Roman
Catholic Orders; a group which is still a vital force today—the order of St.
Benedict—the Benedictines. Many think today those Benedictines are more of a
name for a type of liquor—which the Benedictine Monks used to make—than for an
order; but in any Roman Catholic country, there are many Benedictines; there
were probably three or four times as many of them at one time than there are
today, but they are a vital force today. Now
b. Celibacy. Now celibacy is
something which is characteristic of not merely the Roman Catholic monastic
view, but of Roman Catholic ecclesiastic orders altogether. They are trained
that the one who is in Christian work is married to Christ, and should give no
time or interest in any marriage to any human being. Now that is distinctive
today of the Roman Catholic Church; and it is one of the points against which
Protestantism strongly reacted at the time of the Reformation. It is not
something which began in the Middle Ages, but it was tremendously extended during
the Middle Ages. We have already noted something of its beginnings before that.
Now
of course the Bible clearly states "have we not the right to lead a wife
as Peter does?" and it's pretty hard to take that in any other way, but
that Peter had a wife who traveled with him. Of course the Roman Catholics do
not believe it; they do not interpret it that way. They claim that the apostles
were all celibates—though they may have been married before that, they were all
celibates at the time. But that just is not true. There is abundant evidence
that in the early church, in the first few centuries, great numbers of the
ministers were married men. St. Patrick was the son of a minister, and the
grandson of a minister. The Roman Catholics will say he was the son of a deacon
and grandson of a deacon; but they do not admit that a deacon or a priest has a
right to marry. It is an admission that their view of celibacy was not held by
the church from which St. Patrick came. It was a development which rather
naturally takes place, in view of the widespread licentiousness of the Roman
world.
The
German barbarians, as I mentioned yesterday, had a standard of morality in sex
relations that was far above that of the Roman Empire. They had a holding to
monogamy, and to a loyalty of a man to his one wife, in general. Now of course
there were exceptions; but in general they were very different in this regard
from the Roman world; there, if you have had any part in the civilization, you
could hardly exist without being constantly in contact with that which was
utterly licentious and wicked. And it was very easy for people to think,
"If only they could just get out of the world altogether!" And the
reaction, from an over-emphasis on sex and a freedom from all inhibitions and
all extremes, is to go to the other extreme; it is to say, "Let's get away
from this thing altogether."
And
St. Augustine, after he became a Christian, he would never even speak to his
sister except in the presence of other people. He never would tell her to come
into his house. That is the extent to which this was carried by many people.
This reaction—it's a natural reaction—but of course it's an un-Biblical one,
because the Bible teaches that everything that God has established is good, and
right, to be used rightly.
It
is not the thing that is wrong, but the perversion of it, the use of it under
wrong circumstances, that is wrong. But the reaction was a natural one; and it
began in the ancient world; and toward the end of ancient history, it spread
rather widely; but still it was not by any means an established rule, that a
minister should not be married. Naturally, the monastic life—from the
start—involved a going off, away from everything worldly; and from the start,
the men were hermits alone in the wilderness; eventually they gathered together
into groups; and then eventually there came to be women hermits; and then there
came to be groups of women, following the example of the monks.
Celibacy
began during the ancient world; it was not a part of the original Christianity
at all. It is not taught in the Bible as any sort of a higher life. This
celibacy, during the Middle Ages, became widely extended in the church; it came
to be almost universally accepted as that which was to be expected of one who
was in a monastic order, or in an ecclesiastical position of any sort. We have
a great deal of immorality among the priesthood, and among some of the
monasteries during the Middle Ages; but we have many, of course, who were
absolutely true to their vows; and the theory was that everything of this type
was strictly forbidden to the one who was going to be with the church. Now that
is the theory of the Roman Catholic Church today. I mention this under
monasticism because—although it's not restricted there—it is typical.
c. New Types of
Monks.
One of the interesting developments of the Middle Ages is the new types of
monks. It begins right at the start of the Middle Ages, with the foundation of
the Benedictine Order; and the Benedictine order is the first of the great
orders; but it is like the previous monasteries in that the people remained in
the monastery. And monasticism, for a period of seven or eight hundred years,
was a matter of people joining an order and their being in the monastery; and
in the monastery, they went to their services; they did their work; but they
stayed in the monastery. That is true of the great bulk—well at least half—of
the monks today. They are in the monastery, working, praying, singing, living,
in the monastery, or on the grounds of the monastery.
[Student:
"When you say people, you mean just men going to the monastery, or would
you have some convents too?"] Well, similar organizations for women were
soon established. It was men; but then organizations for women were
established. So that, before long, we had the convents for women as well as
monasteries, or convents, they also called them, for men. But this new
development I'm speaking of, refers only to men.
The
Benedictines were the first among them, but they stayed in the monastery. And
there were other orders founded—quite a number of them. But they were people
coming to the monastery; staying in the monastery; they might go out a little
for certain duties, but as a rule, they were in the monastery; they were tied
to that place; they were working there; mostly they were supposed to be in the
contemplative life, praying there, copying manuscripts there, doing what their
abbot told them to do.
But
then after many centuries, in the latter third of the Middle Ages, we have a
new development which we will look at when the time comes up; we're just giving
you a brief survey now. We have a new development, which was called the friars,
a new type of monk. You see, your first was the established order, as we
mentioned; and the second is the friars. Now the friars are a new type of monk,
which developed many centuries later, in the later Middle Ages. And the friars
differed from the previous monks in this regard: that instead of being
primarily in the monastery, they were to go out into the world, to do service
in the world. Now of course, that is near our Protestant idea; so many of us
think that perhaps if, when the barbarians came in, the Christians had not
largely got together into monasteries and shut themselves off from the world;
that if instead of that, they had tried to go out among the barbarians and to
reach them for Christ and to work with them; that even though many of them
might have been killed off, that in the end, a tremendous change might have
taken place; and the Dark Ages might have even been prevented, instead of
simply keeping culture alive through the monasteries. Now we cannot tell what
would have happened; but it would seem much nearer in line with the true
Christian ideal to many of us than what actually did happen.
But
now we have an ideal somewhat like that on the part of this new order—the order
which they called friars. In these new orders, they joined the order; they took
vows in the order: poverty, chastity and obedience; they had a monastery to
which they might be tied, as they were in the Benedictines and others; but many
of them would be sent out on long trips, in which they would go for weeks or
months. They would take nothing with them; they would beg on their way. They
would not work—they would beg for support—but they would help people; in the
early days they would do all sorts of work and kindness to help people; and at
first, they were greatly beloved as an influence for good; then after a century
or two, there began to be many self-seeking among these friars; and someone
said they'd rather see a thief coming toward them than a begging friar.
That
was not typical of the order, but this corruption came in after a time. At the
start, the order of the friars seems to have been quite a good development. St.
Francis was the founder of the Franciscan order; and they were the first of
these. But almost at the same time, St. Dominic founded his order; and the
Dominicans, to which the Dominican Convent across the street here belongs; the
Dominicans, after their name, they put the two letters, OP, order of preachers;
and they would go about preaching; and as you see, it was a fine idea to go
about preaching and spreading the message; and the Dominicans became a
tremendous force in carrying on that sort of work.
You
see, that's a new development in monasticism, the development of the friars.
Now the third new development is one which only came after the beginning of
modern times. That was the Jesuits. We'll look at them later. They are
different in some ways from the others, though in other ways they are much like
them.
d. The Increase
in Wealth of the Orders. And this I'm only barely going to mention now. The
orders began very poor; just a group of people getting together and trying to
subsist; but people began giving them gifts; and they began begging for gifts;
and the time came when they were extremely wealthy. And that was a factor which
entered into the history of the church in the Middle Ages.
e. Good and Bad
Features of Monasticism. First, as to the good features of monasticism.
Undoubtedly, the monasteries furnished a place to which men who desired to
devote themselves to spiritual and contemplative life could go, and find
protection in the unruliness and wild tumultuous times during the great part of
the thousand-year period that we were looking at. So there were many men, whose
lives would have been spent simply in hard toil to make a living; or perhaps in
being forced into the army of one of the pagan rulers fighting against others;
who instead of that, devoted their lives to spiritual study, to copying
manuscripts, to great periods of prayer, to serious desire to come to really
know the Lord; and doubtless the monasteries did furnish a great help to
individuals in this way.
Then
there were individual leaders during the Middle Ages, with great spiritual
desires, who founded this group, and gathered great numbers of earnest
Christian people together; they founded a monastery in which, for a period of
time, there was very earnest Christian life carried on. When Martin Luther
became an active leader in the Reformation, one of the first things that he did
was to take some of the spiritual writings of Dominican monks from 200 years
earlier and to publish them. One of them he called the German Theology; it was written by a German monk who was an earnest
Christian, who poured out his soul in love for Christ; and Martin Luther found the
book, one that he found very helpful to his own spiritual life, and very useful
to give out to others. So in the monasteries, through the Middle Ages, there
was a possibility of an earnest spiritual life; there was a possibility of a
man developing his spiritual life—his knowledge of the Lord; there was a mutual
stimulus in many monasteries, one upon the other, for Christian fellowship.
One
of the great things monasticism provided was their protection, which they gave
from the outside world. During the early part of the Middle Ages—and even right
to the end of it—there was so much of what we would call gang warfare today; so
much of marauding and pillaging, and individuals with castles who would attack
anybody who came into the area and that sort of thing; this decentralization
into all these little groups, fighting against each other; it would have been
very, very difficult for individuals to have found protection—who wanted to
devote themselves to spiritual development—without the protection which the
monasteries afforded. Now, of course we cannot know historically whether
if—instead of people going into monasteries like that—they had spread
themselves out, trying to spread Christian teaching through the community; and
trying to reach the new incomers for the Lord; and develop in them a real love
of Christ; whether this whole development of the Middle Ages might have been
averted; that we cannot say, though we can think perhaps it could have. But the
thing having happened as it did, the monasteries certainly during that period
rendered a real service to the preservation of the knowledge of the Bible, the
preservation of the knowledge of Christian things.
But
along with this good which the monasteries did—and undoubtedly they did a great
deal of good during the Middle Ages—along with that there was in them, as there
is in every human organization, the potentiality of evil. When you form an
organization with a definite wonderful spiritual purpose, as time goes
on—unless there are new men who have a burning zeal for the carrying on of
those purposes—they tend to become crystallized and mechanized; they become
matters of form, rather than matters of real intense spiritual life; we have to
constantly be receiving new spiritual life from above in our personal contacts
with the Lord; and no sort of an organization or institution will take that
place. An organization can be a tremendous help, but the organization must be a
tool used by Christian people; not something to which Christian people become
subordinate; which in time becomes a director of people who are just doing it
as a matter of form, ceremony, because it's the thing to do; and then
eventually it can get to people who have no interest at all in what the real
basis and purpose of it was.
And
so with most of these orders—in most cases—and in most of the monasteries, and
most of the new movements among them—and there were hundreds of these—it was a
tremendously complicated vital life through this thousand years—monastic life,
many orders, many developments. But through it all, in the case of the most of
them, they started out as good things; with good people having a good purpose,
and in the main accomplishing much good. But in the case of most of them, a
degeneration set in within a century or so—sometimes earlier, sometimes later—a
degeneration set in, and as pious people would give money to the monastery and
it would become wealthy and prosperous, even though the individual monks were
sworn to poverty, they would interpret that to say the individual owned
nothing, but the monastery owned a tremendous amount; and there developed
worldliness; there developed actual wickedness within them; and they became
centers of worldly life, in many cases.
St.
Augustine said that he never had found finer people anywhere than in the
monasteries—or worse ones. And there was the possibility of both developments,
naturally. But there was a tendency—as there is in all human organizations—to
degenerate; and when you have the organization with this fine building and
plenty of endowments, and all that; and then it degenerates, it can become an
influence for evil. Also there was in it the matter of the enforced celibacy;
and very often men and women took the vows of celibacy when they were so young
they didn't know what they were doing; they had no realization of what it
meant; or they were under the shock of disappointment in a love affair; or some
tragedy in the life; they would take the vow, and then after it had worn off,
it would be just a vow binding them, without the reality back of it in their
lives.
Our
Lord Jesus Christ said that some become eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's
sake; and Origin took that literally and emasculated himself. But rarely has it
been taken literally in Christian history; but certainly the truth that Christ
expressed is a reality; that there are individuals who have devoted themselves
to the work of Christ, and have given up the normal pleasures of life
altogether; they have given up the companionship of a family, which is a normal
thing to have, in order that they might devote themselves entirely to doing
things that they would perhaps be hampered in doing with a family.
But
that—as an individual matter for an individual man, to do that for the love of
Christ—is an altogether different thing from getting great numbers of people to
take a vow—and often not realizing what it means—and then in subsequent years
finding themselves, abhorring in their minds and in their emotions, the
unnatural situation in which they are living. And so there is a great deal
today in monasteries—there is a great deal of wickedness and of corruption—a
great deal of which is a natural result of the circumstances, perhaps an
inevitable result of the circumstances. There was an unnaturalness of life
introduced here by this principle, which had been developed during the period
before that time, as we've already noticed; when Luther saw how much evil had
come from it, he set himself strongly against it; and he set to work to advise
his friends who had been monks to marry.
And
then there were nuns who fled from the convents after reading Luther's works;
and they lived in a place where the Duke was a violent enemy of Luther, very
devoted to the church; and if they went to their homes, they would be seized
and be sent back to their convent; so Luther took them in—in the monastery
which he had bought—he had been a monk here; and he saw they were taken care of
there, and then he found husbands for them. And there was one of them—he tried
to get her to marry one of the fine young ministers—she wouldn't do it; he
tried to get her to marry another—she wouldn't. He couldn't get anybody she
would marry, so he married her himself; and they had a very happy life.
But
as far as the evidence seems to go, Luther felt he was setting an example of
the right attitude toward marriage; and it was sort of incidentally that he was
married; and as it worked out, he had one of the happiest married lives and one
of the finest wives in the history of the Christian ministry. But he entered
into it under those circumstances; as an example of the evil that had come
through this development of vows of celibacy; and of having great numbers of
people take this attitude, which he was convinced was not the Lord's will for
them. It may be for individuals, occasionally, that one does a tremendous lot
for the Lord's work, because of being able to give his whole energy to it; but
it is not the norm, and one should not enter into it unless he is certain that
that is the Lord's will.
Well
now, during the Middle Ages then, we have monasticism as almost an essential
element of this attitude toward celibacy, although it was not the cause of
monasticism; and then the whole monasticism had a new development of the friars
later on, which I barely mentioned to you; we'll look at this later; but that,
at its inception, was a new development, of individuals going out into the
world and helping people, but belonging to an order. And it has probably
accomplished far more in the world than the previous sort of monasticism,
because it came to have a great influence and a great effect. And at least the
originators of this would seem to have been very good men, with a definite
desire to do good; and many of their followers were, but there came
degeneration there also, and much evil came along with it. These orders we look
at later—these orders of friars.
Then
of course, eventually there came the new monastic order—the Jesuits—which took
the potentialities of monasticism, for developing a strong force under control
from above, and utilizing it; and they made it a great instrument for the
preservation of the Roman Catholic Church. And I am quite convinced that the
Roman Catholic organization would have died out two or three centuries ago; but
the Jesuit Order is the force which keeps it going; and of course Loyola, in
starting the Jesuits, had among many clever ideas, one very clever idea that
was this: the other orders are all very anxious that their men become bishops
and archbishops and popes—great positions of leadership—their lists report how
many they have in these high positions; but the Jesuits are forbidden to take
high positions unless they get a special permission from the order, which is
rarely given. They stand in the background and criticize the ones that have the
offices. For instance, the Jesuits did not carry out the work of the
Inquisition. They stood in the background and criticized the ones who did.
Although they did fall into tremendous selfishness at one time, and the order
was temporarily abolished, yet they have a way to subordinate their men to the
order more than any other order; their system makes it almost impossible for a
man to advance himself as an individual with honor and accomplishment; it makes
him do everything for the order.
They stand in the back of the church. The last pope—his confessor was a Jesuit, two of the leaders of his cabinet were Jesuits—the head of the Jesuits has his headquarters a few blocks from the Vatican. Thousands of people go to see the pope annually; practically nobody wants to see the General of the Jesuits, just a few blocks away. But actually the Jesuit General has far more power in the church than the pope. The pope hardly dares move without the Jesuits' permission. The order developed into an engine, into an organization, which is splendidly effective. But it was not like that in the Middle Ages. That is a modern development.
Well,
so much now for this general survey of the good and bad features of
monasticism. But now
2. The Increase of Superstition. And that of course is, from our viewpoint, the distinctive feature of church history in the Middle Ages, those features of the Roman Catholic Church for which we find no Biblical background; those features which we are quite convinced are human additions and not found in the Bible at all, they claim are based upon traditions which have been handed down from person to person since the time of the apostles, and of which the pope is the judge. Well as you look at the history of some of these medieval popes, you wonder how they could have been links in a chain of handing on any kind of a good tradition whatever.
But
there's no evidence of such a tradition. There's absolutely none. There's no
evidence that we know anything whatever of what Jesus said, or what the apostles
did or didn't say, except what is in the Bible. This idea of passing on of
tradition is a human invention by the Roman Catholic Church. But the views
which they claim to be based on tradition form a tremendous part of the
activity of the Roman Catholic Church today; these views, to a great extent,
represent superstitious development that occurred during the Middle Ages; and
these developments the Protestants cast off, as they went back to stand on the
Bible and see what was in it. While those who opposed the Protestants,
solidified and crystallized these superstitious developments of the Middle
Ages; and they have carried them even further since that time, in their new
changes, in their attitudes.
a. Mariolatry. But these
developments, though they developed during the Middle Ages—and many of them
started there—did not all start there. There was a beginning—a background to
some of them—even before the onset of the Middle Ages. So in this increase of
superstition, the first thing that naturally occurs to us is Mariolatry, the
worship of Mary. All Christians should venerate Mary as a great and good woman,
who was honored of the Lord as no other woman has ever been honored, by being
selected to be the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ. She was a great and good
woman. And it was proper and right that the early church fathers should think
very, very highly of this very good woman. But to make her in any sense the
equal of Jesus Christ is utterly absurd; there's not the slightest evidence in
the Scripture for it.
The Scripture shows her as a very, very good woman, but not in any sense divine. But the church fathers tended to think more and more highly of her; and there was an argument among the early church fathers, did she ever commit sin? Or was she free from original sin? And some maintained that she had origina1 sin, but she never actually committed sin. There's not a word in the Scriptures for any such view. She was a good woman, but a sinner like the rest of us, saved through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, as we are.
But
especially in connection with the celibate life of the monastery, there was a
longing for something soft and feminine; and of course we find the qualities of
love and kindness and gentleness all in the Lord Jesus Christ. We find that all
that is good in womanhood, as well as all that is good in manhood, we find in
the Lord Jesus Christ; and we find the satisfaction and the desires of our
souls in Him. But there was a tendency in the monastery to take Christ as the
judge; the one who will punish for sin; and of course they recognized it was
through His death, we are saved from sin; but the tendency was to look for a
woman from whom to receive the womanly blessings; and the kindness and the
courtesy that often are associated with women, but it's just as much found in a
real Christian man as in any woman.
This,
then, they tended gradually to look to Mary for; and so there came to be a
veneration for Mary. We had a talk on this in chapel; which I was certainly
happy to have. I was very glad to have this young man speak. It was, I feel, an
example of speaking of Christ. He did not put in little interesting things; he
simply gave facts mostly; but instead of being the most boring talk you ever
heard, he gave it in such a way, that I doubt if anybody's attention wandered
while he was giving it. It was very, very effectively given; but he showed the
development of this superstition of Mariolatry, which in Roman Catholic
countries is constantly in front; it's constantly before you, until you would
think that Mary was God and Jesus was comparatively incidental.
In
this country, it is kept to some extent in the background. It is not nearly as
much stressed in this country as it is in other countries. You listen to Bishop
Sheen preach on the radio, and often you'd almost think he was a godly
preacher. He stresses the great things of the faith: salvation through Christ,
the atonement, and so on; you'd almost think he was a gospel preacher, until you
read in the magazine how when he gives his television program, he has up on the
wall there, where we can't see it but he can, a big statue of the virgin Mary
to whom he looks for help as he begins; and he is constantly praying to her;
and is looking to her to help him as he gives these great television talks,
which have had such tremendous influence in this country. In the center, at the
core of his devotional life, Mariolatry is a very vital factor; and you can't
escape the conclusion that it would be vital in his preaching, if he did not
realize that in America he can have a greater effect by keeping it in the
background for the present; but certainly, if they should get more and more in
control, it would become more and more prominent. I believe it has become far
more prominent in the last 30 years.
But
this Mariolatry—this making of Mary into almost a god—it is part of the very
clever attitude of Satan; when he cannot drive people away from the truth, then
he will try to get them to put some other belief alongside the truth to crowd
the truth into the background; or he will try to get them to take some aspect
of the truth, and stress it to such a point that things get out of focus; and
the emphasis is on something that is not the central matter of the Christian
religion. And so this Mariolatry has developed through the Middle Ages, and is
today a very, very considerable feature of Roman Catholicism. Then
b. The worship
of the saints.
This is part and parcel of the same thing of course; the worship of the saints
is the exaltation of human beings. It is something that came about very
naturally; remember as early as 250 AD, in the time of Cyprian, that Cyprian
felt that people who had denied the Lord in order to escape the persecution
should give very, very complete evidence of their real genuine repentance
before they should be received back into the church, after the persecution was
over. And these people often went to others, who had boldly stood for the Lord,
and had faced the persecution; and through some accident, or through the end of
the persecution, they had escaped death; these were confessors and naturally
people praised them tremendously; and these others went to these confessors and
asked them to intercede for them; and they would come to Cyprian, these
confessors, and say, "We have stood for the Lord; nobody can deny it; we
faced the persecution; we were ready to die for the faith; now we want you to
be easy on this man, who gave in to the weakness of the flesh and denied the
Lord in the face of the danger."
And
it was pretty hard to resist their intercession. And they began going to the
martyrs just before they died and getting a statement from them, "We wish
you would be easy with this man; whatever of merit you think I deserve for
standing for the Lord this way, give part of it to him." Until some of the
martyrs, just before their death, were signing a statement that they wanted
their merit extended to all who, through fear, had denied the Lord. And it's
only a slight step from that, to thinking that the martyr, who was such a fine
Christian, after his death, could in some way help the living. So it was a
gradual development; the thought that you could get help through a
saint—through a great godly person who was dead—but in the general cultural
decline of the Middle Ages it came to be a feature that was very much stressed.
About
5 years ago I bought a Roman Catholic Almanac in one of their bookstores
downtown; and in that book, it had two pages devoted to names of saints to whom
to pray in particular difficulty. It tells what saints to pray to if you're
afraid of shipwreck; what saint to pray to if you're in danger of bankruptcy;
what saint to pray to if you have rheumatism; it gave about a hundred different
difficulties you might have, and who to pray to, if you were involved in this
difficulty. That is within the last few years here in Philadelphia. It has
degenerated to a superstition. There is superstition everywhere; among
untrained Protestants, there is all sorts of superstition; but it is Satan's
clever idea to get this superstition, supported by the church, and give it as
something to keep people away from that which they really need; and to
substitute it for the real love of Christ and for what Christ has done for us;
and so the worship of saints has become a very important feature of the Roman
Catholic church today; and it was almost entirely developed in the Middle Ages,
probably occasionally before the Middle Ages set in.
A
third element which we'll mention—there are many elements of superstition—but a
third element of superstition which we'll mention is
c.
Transubstantiation.
This is very important: transubstantiation. By this word, those of you who know
Latin, immediately recognize, it means a transforming of the substance—transubstantiation—the transforming of
the elements; and this belief gradually developed in the Middle Ages, that the
bread and wine which were taken in the communion service, by virtue of the
blessing of the priest, became transformed in substance into the actual body
and blood of Christ. Transubstantiation.
Now
you think of it—if you're unfamiliar with it, at first it sounds—it simply
sounds like a rather silly superstition and nothing more. But actually, it
becomes the very center of a tremendous development, this belief in
transubstantiation. It is a miracle which is wrought every time that the priest
says the words which change the bread and wine of communion into the body and
blood of Christ. Now of course it doesn't change its appearance, its smell, its
taste. But the substance is changed so that when you eat of it, it is actually
the body and blood of Christ. Well, the results of this actually are
tremendous.
It
means that the death of Christ—instead of being something which occurred once
and is finished, and there is only one atonement—is something which is repeated
every day, by thousands of Christians throughout the world, when they make what
they call the unbloody sacrifice of Christ. And they repeat Calvary according
to their theology; they repeat it; and therefore, if we are saved from our sins
through Calvary, we can be saved from our new sins through the performance of
the Mass—the offer of the unbloody sacrifice by Christ, repeated by the priest.
John
Knox said he thought less harm would be done to Scotland to have it invaded by
tremendous armies of several nations than to have one mass performed in
Scotland. He considered it not simply a superstitious thing, but actually
blasphemous to claim to repeat the sacrifice of Christ; and to claim to have
the body and blood of Christ actually there.
The
Roman Catholics consider the sacrifice, or the offering, to occur when they
raise it up and put it on the altar; they are giving it to God. They are not
going through anything corresponding to the killing of Christ; but they are
making the offering of the blood and the body of Christ. So there are a lot of
minor things that have come from it; such as the belief that this wine is
actually the blood of Christ, so it would be terrible to spill it; and therefore
you don't dare give it to the laity, because they might spill it while they're
taking it; so the priest had to drink all the wine. But then Jesus says,
"If you do not eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no part in
me," so they get around that by saying that the flesh and blood of Christ
are in both—in the wine and in the bread, both of them are both the flesh and
blood—so that the person gets both through partaking of the bread.
But
the partaking even gets into a secondary place of their attention; it is the
holding it up and then putting it on the altar; it is the offer of it to God,
which is the unbloody repetition of Calvary. Now this does away then, with the
original one sacrifice, which Jesus made. It doesn't do away with it, they
believe that without that, nobody can be saved; they believe that in baptism
that is applied to you; but that after that, the sins that you commit have to
be made up for by attendance at the mass.
They
call it mass from the Latin words
"you're dismissed" at the end. At the end of the service they say,
"you're dismissed," the missa,
and from that comes the word mass which is used for the whole thing. It is not
a descriptive term—just a title given—but being present at this, and thus
supposedly participating in sacrifice, brings you the benefit of this
repetition of the death of Christ. Well, now that of course is a blasphemous
thing from our Protestant viewpoint; but I would say that from a Biblical
viewpoint it is a blasphemous thing; it is an utter misinterpretation of
Biblical teaching. There is no foundation for it in the Bible.
But
transubstantiation means that nobody can do it but a priest; and you see what
that means for the development of the organization. The priest is ordained; and
as ordained, he has been given the power to make this marvelous transformation.
He can perform the transubstantiation. He can take the bread and wine and
change it into the body and blood of Christ. Now if you or I take bread and
wine and we present it to God, we're just giving him a little bread and a
little wine, which means nothing. But if a priest changes it into the body and
blood of Christ, and then presents it, it's an unbloody repetition of the
sacrifice of Calvary. So nobody can be saved apart from the mass; and nobody can
perform the mass but a priest; so you see what a tremendous power it puts into
the hands of the organization, in the minds of the people.
When
Martin Luther—who was brought up as a pious Romanist—when he was ordained and
received the power to take bread and wine and transform it into the body and
blood of Christ, he was so overwhelmed with the tremendousness of the thing,
that when he performed his first mass his hands were shaking so he could hardly
hold it; he was so overwhelmed with the feeling of the tremendous
responsibility of actually holding the body and blood of Christ in his hands
and being able to do this. And he came to see that it was un-Biblical; this was
wrong; this was contrary to the foundation of true Christian life; and he
became a great opponent of this view. And that was a most unforgivable act in
the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church—his denial of transubstantiation. Because
it is today the center of Roman Catholic worship; it is that upon which a great
part of the power of the Roman Catholic Church rests.
When
Elizabeth I was Queen of England—was Ruler of England—and there were attempts
made upon her life by Roman Catholics, the government proceeded to make very
oppressive laws against Roman Catholics. And mass was forbidden in England;
they were forbidden to have Roman Catholic services; they had no power to vote.
Some of them were nobility. They were allowed to keep their property. Some of
them had high positions in the army and navy, even some in the government. But
the Roman Catholic religion was strictly forbidden in England; and a Roman
Catholic priest caught in England was subject to imprisonment for life. Well,
under those circumstances, some of the Jesuits came to England in disguise; and
they would go about in disguise, hiding in the homes of these English Roman
Catholics and risking their lives; and there are some very thrilling accounts
of some of them, written, of how they risked their lives in going about from
place to place; and why were they doing it? They were doing it because these
Roman Catholics could not be saved if they did not have the mass; and these
priests had to come and bring it to them; and they risked their lives in order
to bring to them the body and blood of Christ, so that they could be saved. It
was based upon a superstition, but you must admire their loyalty to their
beliefs here, and their readiness to risk their lives for it. But it shows how
the very center of your life ceases to be looking back to the death of Christ;
and what it means to us, and being united by faith with Him; and instead
becomes a confidence in something that a priest is able to perform. And what a
power it gives the hierarchy of the organization over the individuals who
believe. And so this belief in transubstantiation became the very center of the
Roman Catholic Church today; and I must say Mariolatry is a terrible thing and
it is a thing which is very conspicuous; but transubstantiation is a far more
vital thing in the error of the Roman Catholic Church even than Mariolatry.
But
it was not the belief of the church before the onset of the Middle Ages. We do
not find it taught in the belief of the early fathers any such belief as this.
We will occasionally find statements by them like the statements in the gospel—"except
you eat my flesh and drink my blood, ye have no part in me"—statements
like that; and the Roman Catholic scholars say these prove they believed in
transubstantiation; but they do not; they are not the least bit clear in any
statement on transubstantiation; and there are very few of them anyway, even in
that direction. And we find, as late as the 11th century AD, we find it still a
matter of dispute in the church. In the 9th century AD it had not yet become a
point of order; but in the 11th century it becomes such. In the 9th,
you could have people who argued for transubstantiation; people who argued
against it; with equal standing in the church. But in the 11th century, you
have a man who argued that there was nothing to transubstantiation; and he is
brought before the tribunal, and he is charged with it; but he is a close
friend of one of the greatest of the popes; and this pope protects him; and the
result is that for a long time he goes on presenting these views which the
pope, one of the greatest of the popes, evidently thought were not so bad. But
by this time, the superstition had gained enough force, that in the end, in
order to save his life, the man had to deny these beliefs; affirm belief in
transubstantiation; and desist from spreading it; and the pope was able to save
his life.
But that's the development between the 9th century and the 11th century; and when you think of it, the 11th century is 600 years after the beginning of the Middle Ages; so that it is a late superstitious development, which today is central in Roman Catholicism.
[student: "Did the Eastern Church also believe in it?"] I believe that they gradually came to adopt transubstantiation. I'm not so familiar with the details of their theology, but the Eastern Church in the end went pretty much along the same direction. The main difference between them is, they deny the supremacy of the Pope, but eventually they went pretty much in the same direction.
[student:
"What then is the role of the actual Crucifixion?"] Well, the
theology is very complicated. Actually, when you get into the theology of it,
original sin—which condemns us all death—original sin is atoned for by the
death of Christ; and baptism can remove that, but baptism does not have to be
performed by a priest. Anybody can perform baptism, according to their belief.
But after one is first saved, if a man sins willfully after he is saved, there
is nothing for him to look forward to but eternal punishment; and he has
already been baptized; he has already had the merits of Christ's blood applied
to him; what more could he have?
Well,
there is the unbloody repetition of the sacrifice. So for sins performed after
baptism, there is the mass by which they can be removed; but even then the
removal is only partial. When a pope dies, thousands of priests all over the
world perform dozens of masses for his soul, in the hope of getting him out of
purgatory into heaven. Well, if it takes all that for a pope, what chance does
the ordinary Roman Catholic have of getting out of purgatory short of millions
of years of suffering? A man can make a trip to Rome; and he can go to four
specified churches; and he can attend a service in each of the four; and he can
do certain other things; and he can get a thousand years taken off of his time
in purgatory; but what the total time is in purgatory nobody knows; so whether
he gets a thousand years off, ten thousand years, or ten million years off,
nobody knows, and nobody claims to have any idea, and so actually it's rather
silly; but yet men go through tremendous effort to get it. And after all, when
you think of a thousand years of terrible suffering in purgatory it's worth
going through a lot to get cleansed from it; but there's nothing in their
theology to tell them how much the total is to be spent in purgatory; or to
give them any hope of getting out; so that it is a very sad sort of a religion.
Even the pope had no guarantee of going to heaven; and I doubt that they would
feel that more than two or three of the popes at most had gone directly to
heaven without having spent some time in purgatory first.
Well,
now, of course transubstantiation is as vital a development of superstition in
the Roman Catholic Church as anything else, there's nothing else quite to be
compared with it in importance. But perhaps more conspicuous is the growth of
belief in
d. Purgatory. And purgatory
is something of which there is no teaching in Scripture. Scripture does not
give us a great deal of detail about the condition of souls after death; and
consequently, we don't know much about it; and it was very easy for people to
reach the idea, that one who had not been purified in this life should then
have some purification after death; and it was very easy for that idea to
develop; and then in time for the idea to develop that there was a special
place where this occurred; and that people are doomed—all of them—to spend time
in this place; and of course, in the end, it gave tremendous power to the
priest, because they alone could cut down the time in purgatory with the
transubstantiation.
But
in the Scripture there is nothing to teach purgatory; there are one or two
statements about cleansing after death, or about suffering death, which may be
interpreted that way; and the book of Maccabees—which we do not hold to be
Scripture, and St. Augustine did not, the early church fathers did not, some
even of the popes did not, but which since the Council of Trent in 1570 is
declared to be part of Scripture—the book of Maccabees is the only place to
which they can point for a Scriptural teaching of purgatory [2 Macc 12:39-45].
And it does not teach purgatory; what it says is that after certain Jews were
killed in battle; and the other people found heathen idols and seals upon them;
they then prayed the Lord, that He would deliver them from the eternal results
of this wickedness of this heathen worship. Well, that is the only basis in
Scripture for the belief in purgatory, and actually that is very different;
there's no statement of a belief in purgatory; it's the belief that their
prayers could do these people some good; and if these people had actually
adopted heathen views, how could it do them any good?
Of
course that is not here; theology is a different field than what we're doing
here; but it's good to have an understanding that purgatory is a rather natural
development; but there is no Biblical foundation for it; and the best that can
be suggested as a Biblical foundation is extremely weak, hardly worth really
putting stress upon.
Well,
there were other superstitions that developed during the Middle Ages; there
were all sorts of superstitions that developed, many of which have been cast
aside subsequently. There were many superstitions that developed in different
places; and then perhaps the church would condemn them; or they would not
spread from there to another section; but there are a surprising number which
have maintained themselves into this modern world. But of course, this is not
something that is unique in the Roman Catholic Church. In any group of people,
superstition is going to develop. It's natural. It is Satan's stunt to turn our
attention away from Christ and on to something else.
A
person could even get the superstition, that if you read a chapter of the Bible
every day that's going to save you. People go through it in mechanical form,
just like the Roman Catholic goes through his beads. Go through reading words
in the Bible; "I'm awfully tired, but I've got to read this chapter."
And read it with no thought of what it means. Well, it is wonderful for us to
read the Bible; and we should read it, and we must read it if our spiritual
life is going to grow; but we're not saved through doing it as an act, reading
the Bible; we're saved through faith—through our relation to Christ. But it is
very, very easy for people to get the feeling that things have got to be done
in a ceremony—a certain way, a certain sort of form, a ceremony—you can't be
saved without this; or you are saved on account of it. All these things can be
a help, but the vital thing is that we have the attitude of faith toward
Christ; because it is only through Him that anybody can be saved or can grow in
their Christian lives.
So
this development of superstition in the Roman Catholic Church is something you
can parallel in every other group that ever has existed. If the group goes on
very long, superstitions develop. People get their attention on forms or
ceremonies, or on minor points, which they make major. It always develops every
place; and we have to watch for it; and we have to root it out; but the thing
that is distinctive today in the Roman Catholic Church, is that these that
developed through hundreds of years have become crystallized; and made a part
of a definite system which is being followed. And that of course is what makes
it such a danger for us today. It is so near to Christianity in so many ways.
It holds to the truth of the Bible; holds to the true concept of the deity of
Christ; holds to the great importance of the sacrifice of Christ upon the
cross; holds to the true doctrine of the Trinity; holds to the historical truth
of the resurrection of our Lord; holds to so much that is so vital; and yet
hides that by pushing it into the background through the superstition that
comes between these truths and their application in saving faith to hearts and
lives. And so it becomes one of Satan's most effective instruments in keeping
people from the gospel.
Yet nothing ever lasts that is entirely bad; if a thing is entirely bad it will just disappear of its own weight. There must be elements of strength or goodness in it to make it last. And in the Roman Catholic system, there is implanted a realization of the reality of eternal things; a realization of the reality of God; and the reality of future punishment; there are certain great fundamental concepts of Christianity, which we believe, but which often don't sink very deep into our consciousness; which are implanted deep within the Roman Catholic system; and these often result in a Roman Catholic, who has had these implanted deep in his system; when he gets the real truth that salvation is through Christ alone; through faith in him alone; and gets a real saving knowledge of Christ; becoming one of the very finest Christians; and there is that which is—when combined with what is really vital—is proved to be of tremendous value.
And
it is just too bad that we don't find the means of impressing more deeply upon
our people the seriousness of some of the great things which the Roman Catholic
does impress, in countries where it is effective.
Now
there are areas where the Roman Catholic Church is just a sort of form; people
know practically nothing about it. I was reading about someone who went into
Lower California, where the Jesuits had labored for decades and then had been
driven out; and a few years afterward, someone went in thee and talked to one
of the Indians; and here were the statues of the saints around; and this is a
very great saint; and this is a very great saint; and this is a very great
saint; what's this one over here? "Oh, that's Christus." "Who's
he?" "Well, he's one of the saints; he's not as great as some of
these others but he is one of the saints." And where the Roman Catholic
Church is absolutely sure of itself, often there is greater tendency to
superstition and greater worldliness on the part of the clergy; and they
neglect to train the people; so it becomes just a name that most of the people
know nothing about.
But
in a country like ours, where they have to fight to maintain themselves, and
consequently they set themselves to indoctrinate the people, about half of the
indoctrination is very good, and very helpful; but it will save no one if it is
not combined with the true understanding of salvation through Christ; and the
other half of the indoctrination of course is superstition.
I
believe at the end of our last meeting we were still on 2, were we not, the
increase of superstition? I hadn't given 3 yet. And I had spoken there about
Mariolatry, worship of saints, and transubstantiation, and purgatory. Yes, I
mentioned about the book of Maccabees, I remember now—thank you—that purgatory
was a belief of which we find nothing anywhere in the Bible.
I
had a young woman ask me Friday night—I found out later that she is being taken
out by a young Roman Catholic fellow, and he is having discussions with her;
she didn't mention that to me—but she said to me, "What do you say when
the question is raised as to whether the Bible should be interpreted by the
officials of the church. You can't interpret the Bible for yourself; you have
to look to them to give you the interpretation." Well, I said,
"there's no such statement in the Bible anywhere that it had to be
interpreted for us by any fixed group of people. Therefore it would certainly
be the attitude of the Bible, if it is the divine Word—if it is our final
authority—that a person should go to it with his own intelligence and see what
is there."
Now
I said, "It would be possible, of course, that others who had more
knowledge could interpret better for us; and therefore we go to others for help
on it; but if there is a group of people that claims to be the infallible
interpreters of it, and we have to take what they say as a correct
interpretation, why nobody could expect that the Lord would be pleased with
simply accepting somebody's word, if this were the case. If they don't find
this clearly stated in the Bible, but this claim is made by some group, it is
the duty of the individual to investigate whether a claim can be substantiated
or not. They certainly are responsible for that. They cannot simply take
somebody's word for it without investigation."
Now,
she asked, "How are we going to investigate?" Well I said, "If
you have a group—like the Roman Catholic hierarchy—which says we are the group
which must interpret, and you have to take what we say, well, their
interpretation must be in line on at least the main points with the general
teaching of the book. They may claim to explain details which you can't figure
out for yourself very well; but you have a right to check on them on whether
they are good interpreters." So, I said, "Let a person who wants to
investigate this matter take something like purgatory—which the hierarchy
constantly talks about, stresses—which is a vital thing in their church. They
claim their church is built on the Bible; it's a vital thing to them. Take the
New Testament, then, and go through it and mark everything you find about
purgatory; and see whether the emphasis given to it as comparable the emphasis
which the hierarchy gives to it. And whether what they teach about it is what
is taught there. That is to say, you take our Supreme Court. I have a Roman
Catholic book called Visualized Church
History, which on one side shows a picture, "Constitution of the
United States," and underneath it says "Supreme Court: the Supreme
Court interprets the Constitution of the United States, and what the Supreme
Court says it means, we accept it." Then they have facing that a picture
of the Bible, the Constitution of the Church; then they show the church hierarchy,
"They interpret the Bible; we must accept what they say."
Well, suppose that the Constitution of the United States says that the President of the United States must be 35 years of age. Now supposing that the Supreme Court says, "When it says 35 it means 50," and then it says "a U.S. Senator must be—is it 30?—and they say, "it means 20," pretty soon we would decide that they were incompetent in interpreting. We would not trust them to interpret.
They,
in interpreting, have no right to set aside either its emphasis or its clear
statement; but on the statements which are not clear, they have a right. For
instance, if it says he must be at least 35 years of age, what does 35 years of
age mean? Does it means he has finished 35 years, does it follow the Japanese
system where a man is, I believe, 1 year old when he is born, and 2 years old,
I think, on the next New Year's, so he is two years old when we call him 1 year
old. These are different systems; an argument might be made to make it the
beginning of the year, instead of the birthday.
It
is reasonable to have a body which investigates and decides on details that are
not clear to the ordinary reader; but the things that are clear, the body must
agree with, or you will immediately decide they are not a responsible body of
interpreters. Well, the matter of purgatory is one which grew up in the Middle
Ages; it had very little foundation before the Middle Ages; but it grew up
until today, it is perhaps almost the most important thing in the life of the
average Roman Catholic. Yet there is no Biblical foundation for it whatever.
Well we go on now to
3. Spiritual
Movements.
We are skipping over the thousand years very rapidly in church history. We must
do so, I believe. We are giving the right proportion to different parts of it,
and out of a two-year course I believe we are right in spending about six weeks
on these thousand years. But I don't want that to give any of you the
impression that there were no spiritual movements during this time, because there
were. The Spirit of God did not leave the world during these thousand years.
People had spiritual longings and aspirations, just as they had before, and
just as they have had since; and it is an interesting study to look into many
of these movements.
What
would be most interesting would be to see the many cases in the Middle Ages
where a man had a great spiritual aspiration or longing, and perhaps he found a
real satisfaction of it; and he passed it on to others; to see how differently
events followed in many instances; like the case of St. Francis, which we'll
look at later—a man with real spiritual aspirations and a real influence for
Christ in his day; he had his work taken over by others after his death—or even
to some extent during his lifetime—and turned into channels utterly different
from what he ever would have dreamed of; and thus there was established a
continuing movement for the hierarchical activities and objectives of the
Romanist church; very different from what had been the desire of the man that
started it.
Then
there are other cases—like the case of Peter of Waldo—whose followers came to
be called Waldensians; he began a movement—probably in its start very similar
to that which St. Francis began—but where Roman organization, instead of taking
it over and transforming it, came into headlong conflict with it; they tried to
destroy it; but the Waldensians continued—and continue to this day—but they
continued through many centuries as a persecuted movement, living in the woods
and in the hills; and they were almost wiped out, but still a number of them
continued; a group of real Christians, but probably not very much instructed
during those years of persecution; but when the Reformation came, they accepted
the Reformation's teachings very avidly, because it was in line with what their
desires had been all the time; but at the start, they may not have been so much
different between the start of their movement and the start of St. Francis's.
And
then there are men like St. Bernard, whom we'll look at later, who was an
ardent Christian, a very intensely spiritual man; he began a great work which
was entirely within the general framework of the medieval church; but he seems
pretty much to have ignored the superstition, and put his emphasis on the main
things; and he was a great spiritual leader all over Europe for a time; but he
left no movement that continued more than two or three centuries, either for
good or for ill. We'll notice a few of these. It is a very interesting study,
but it does not affect modern situations vitally—these spiritual movements of
the Middle Ages. So that at this point in our survey, I merely mention that
there were many spiritual movements which would be worthy of great study as
subjects of interest; but as to their effect on us today, we can draw from
example—from analogy—but not so much direct relations with other units; except
of course St. Bernard's beautiful hymn which we all know; but otherwise it
doesn't affect us today very much, most of these spiritual movements of the
thousand-year period.
I
mentioned already that—in connection with monasticism—that Martin Luther had
printed some of the writings of the monks of Tours 200 years earlier; one of
these he called a German theology,
and published it widely, feeling that the main things of the gospel were
contained in it; and that people would receive great blessing for their
spiritual life from it. There's a book called The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis, that has been widely
used among Protestants; and from which they have received great spiritual
blessing; and this book was written in the Middle Ages.
I
would like to stress the fact that the gospel was never completely forgotten
during the Middle Ages. There was not a situation of ignorance of the gospel—of
no Christianity—and then Martin Luther and John Calvin come and bring in the
gospel. That is not the situation. Luther and Calvin clarified the gospel, made
it much clearer to understand; and as a result of their activity, it is known
much more widely than had ever been the case since the times of early church
history; and as a result of Luther and Calvin's work, the forces of
superstition gathered together against them, and forcibly ruled the gospel out
of the territories which they controlled; so that you have—as a result of the
Reformation—you have a division of Europe into two parts; with the gospel
freely proclaimed in one half and utterly forbidden in the other half. But
during the Middle Ages, you have no such activity against the gospel on the part
of a large church organization as you have after the Reformation. You have,
during the Middle Ages, individuals understanding the basics of the gospel and
leading others to Christ in every period and every century; but they are here
and there, and they are often almost forgotten with the great amount of
superstition round about them. They are little centers here and there
throughout the Christian world; while the Reformation gathered all these, and
put them together here—and the others over there—it made a division rather than
a start of something new.
So
during the Middle Ages, there are many examples of true Christianity and true
understanding of the gospel. But they did not have a direct effect upon us
today; so that it is not necessary in a 3-year course to spend much time on
them; but I want you to be aware of their existence.
[student:
"What about the development of the idol worship; wasn't it in the Middle
Ages? Doesn't it have a reflex at least from the Reformation?"] Yes, the
matter of images and idols, I think, really should perhaps come under the two
heads of Mariolatry and Worship of saints, though perhaps it would go beyond
that. Maybe we should have mentioned it under Superstition as a separate
head—Image Worship. You might just mention it there, though I had thought of it
as coming under those others.
The matter of idols in the Christian Church is a very difficult problem, because the Lord desires us to get value from pictures; there's nothing wrong with using flannelgraph; there's nothing with pictures that will make things vivid to our minds; a vivid manner of getting truth across; but the harm comes when we take these and make them objects of worship themselves; and in any group, there is that danger that can come—to make a thing an object of worship itself—and when it does, we have to do away with it.
Now
during the Middle Ages there were many people who got real blessing from
pictures and statues as we do today; but it is part of a naturally developing
superstition that, in any group the incidental things, vivid things, come to
assume a definite place, and eventually to be worshipped themselves; and this
of course has developed in the Church of Rome to a very great extent; and you
find it especially in certain areas of the world where they are almost
completely by themselves—with very little Protestant opposition—you find it
developed into a fantastic thing; the way that the statues come almost to be
gods. But it is a perversion which can come in any group, and which is part of
the superstition of the age. I think it's good to mention it in connection with
this, thank you for calling attention to it.
Now
I didn't go into them much, we'll touch on many spiritual movements as we go
on.
4.
Scholasticism.
Scholasticism is a word which is a bit hard to define, but it is easy to point
out what is meant by it. By the term scholasticism, we refer to the religious
teachers of the established churches, of the catholic church—as we call it, not
the Roman church—but the catholic church through the Middle Ages. This whole
development of religious teaching through the Middle Ages we call
scholasticism. And it includes many very great Christians, and many very fine
thinkers, and many very able interpreters of the Word of God. But it also
includes—and came more and more to as time went on—men who reached their
conclusions largely through human philosophic thinking rather than from
Biblical source material. And, as scholasticism developed, there came to be a
tendency to think that by this sort of philosophical argument, the answer to
just about any problem could be found. I always say that, in interpreting the
Bible, it is just as important to determine what the Bible doesn't give an answer
to, as it is to find the answers it does give us. We read into the Bible the
answers to things that it doesn't give us the answers to; and it's very
important to know on this matter what the Bible doesn't say.
Well
the scholastics assumed—some of them—that their religion could give the answer
to just about any question; and so the average secular book on the Middle Ages
will make fun of scholasticism, and say that the scholastics were arguing over
how many angels could dance on the point of a needle, and all sorts of
questions like that. Well, there were some of them who did attempt to answer
questions that were either ridiculous, or were beyond the range of any human
knowledge. I don't think it's fair to characterize scholasticism by those
particular extremes. I don't think that's fair at all; but I would say that the
great weakness in scholasticism came from the fact that it lost touch with the
foundation—to quite an extent—with the foundation of Christian knowledge, which
is the Bible. It all claimed to start from the Bible; but as it went on, people
were quoting one another instead of the Bible. And building on one another's
ideas; reaching conclusions from a viewpoint of philosophical human thinking,
instead of seeing what the Bible said. And as time went on, it came into
contrast with the newly developing scientific thinking, which was based upon
experiment and observation; so when your present-day secular books speak of
scholasticism, they are referring largely to the thinking based purely on philosophical
theorizing, instead of on experimentation and scientific investigation of
facts.
Well,
this was an unfortunate thing; that scholastics did not, sooner than they did,
come in contact with careful observation in the material sphere; but much more
important than that was the losing close touch with the Biblical background.
After all, theology is just as scientific, if it's rightly, done as physics or
chemistry. The only difference is that physics and chemistry deal with the
facts of the material world, and theology deals with the facts contained in
God's revelation. Well, when you get adrift from either group of facts, you get
to where you're hanging in the air; and you can reach just about any conclusion
from the viewpoint of human speculation.
So scholasticism, toward the end, got into petty arguments and discussions, which brought disrepute upon the whole thing as scientific thought was coming to the front; but it is not fair to judge all scholasticism by that—not at all. The scholastics are the religious thinkers of the Middle Ages; and in particular the thinkers, who were not the sort of men who sit down to write inspirational books or books of new visions or anything like that; they were the men who were examining the thinking of the previous men and bringing it up to date; the scholastics or the teachers, the scholars of religion in the Middle Ages. It included a great many very able men.
In
the Middle Ages, these scholastics differed from one another very strongly; and
St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the acutest thinkers among them; but there were
others equally acute, who opposed him and whom he opposed. And today the Roman
Catholic Church is centering on Thomas Aquinas. He is almost the foundation of
Roman Catholic theology today; but in the Middle Ages, there were others who
opposed him who were just as fine scholars as he was. But Thomas Aquinas'
material is based upon the thinking of previous men; on his own study of the
Bible; and on the teachings of Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, as Thomas
understood him; all this entered in; and today, Roman Catholic theology all
goes back to Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. For Roman Catholic theology
today, the Middle Ages scholasticism is tremendously important.
But
for our Protestant study, we go back to the Bible and to the leaders in the
ancient world; we go back to ancient church history, not to medieval times. Now
we have been influenced by thinkers like Abelard and Anselm, who have made some
very fine contributions to our understanding of the atonement and of eternity;
these enter into our Protestant understanding. But compared to the mass of
scholastic material, it is a comparatively small amount. So we're not going to
go into much detail on scholasticism this year; not because it is not interesting
or important, but because with only a two-year course there are many other
things much more important for our study. But I want you to have an idea of
what in general we mean by scholasticism. And we'll look at some of the details
as we go on. Now we go on to
5. The Growth of
the Papacy.
Now this is the movement in church history during the Middle Ages which is
perhaps the most conspicuous of all the movements, as far as church history is
concerned. And it is one which affects the modern world as much as any other,
because the papacy is such an important institution today in the general field
of religion. From the viewpoint of the Roman Catholic Church, this is one of
the least important features of medieval church history; but from the viewpoint
of our understanding of the Roman Catholic church, it is one of the most
important.
I
was with a Jesuit in the Vatican; we were going through the archives, and as we
came to some of the pictures, and some of the various things, I'd say, "Oh
that was Pope Paul III that died; and that was Pope John IV, and so on; and I'd
mention something about it. Oh, he says, "I can't keep them apart; I don't
remember their names." He didn't even want to talk about them. Their
theory is that the papacy from the beginning has been the divine order for
control of the church. Well, if that's the case, the ups and downs of
individuals in the course of a thousand years, is of comparatively little
importance. But if you examine history as it is, you find that what there is today
is something which has developed through a series of movements and changes and
forces; and you can see the evidence is clear, just how it happened; and I
believe that we should be aware of its main steps, even if they in general do
try to forget, rather than to stress it.
It's an interesting thing, they're much more interested in scholasticism, and in the evidence for these superstitious developments, than they are in the papacy; because they assume it right from the beginning; and of course, it is not there right from the beginning at all. It is a slow development; and Leo I claimed just about as much as present-day popes do; but there were many after him that didn't. And it's very interesting to see the developments, and the ups and downs of it. The growth of the papacy is something that we should get some knowledge of its main features. As I told you, I would like you to know a great part of what Farrow says about these thousand years; he gives it from a Roman Catholic viewpoint, and naturally it will need interpretation; but the facts which he presents there, we are not taking these facts from any viewpoint prejudiced against the Roman church, but from his own statements. And so I could give you a Protestant account of it; but I think it is more helpful to take it from the Roman Catholic account; but of course he doesn't try to look at the development at all. He simply looks at the men, but it's interesting to see what he can tell in the course of doing it.
Now
under the growth of the papacy I want to give two subjects, because there are
two things that enter into this growth of the papacy.
a. The Growth of
the Local Ecclesiastical Power. The papacy today claims its position as
head of the worldwide church; but the development of the power in the
subordinate divisions is a very important part of that claim.
It
was about ten years ago that three men in Boston had been dropped from
positions as teachers in a Roman Catholic school there; they claimed they were
dropped because of their loyalty to Roman Catholic doctrine; they sent to the
Pope a statement of the situation; and asked the Pope to take their side in the
matter. And they got a lovely letter back from Rome, in which the Pope gave
them his blessing, but holding that the details of the situation would be
decided by the Archbishop of Boston; and the Archbishop of Boston decided that
they should not teach in the school; and when others stood with them and
insisted they were right, he excommunicated them. Though they had the papal
blessing, they were excommunicated by the local man.
The
papacy is not one man ruling everything; it is a man at the head of a hierarchy
which, according to their theory, all the power comes from him to us. Of
course, it developed the other way round; it developed with power growing up in
the local area. And so we are interested in seeing the growth of local
ecclesiastical power during the Middle Ages. There are different sorts of
forces entering into it. One thing that entered into it was that people would
give money to the church; and the church got this money, got this land, and
claimed exemption from taxation on it. They built larger and larger estates,
with more and more power and financial support, and so on, coming through these
local church organizations. It was a natural development, which has occurred in
just about every organization. But it occurred during the Middle Ages.
Another
development in the Middle Ages was that the local governors and kings—rulers of
different sorts—largely from a barbarian background, from the conquering people
which had flooded over the Roman Empire, needed competent help; they needed
people capable of keeping records; people capable of giving them advice on the
viewpoints of history and of law, and so on; and the best place there was to
find such help was in the monastery; or in the local church office; and so more
and more local church officials got tied up with secular situations, where
their help would be needed; they would be taken over for that; and gradually
there got to be a tight combination between the church officials and the
secular government; and the local churches got tied to a great deal of power in
the government.
And as they got a great deal of money from the estates they had; and with that, the law of celibacy; there was not a son for the bishop to turn over his power to; the question was who would succeed him? And the local power, more and more, came to look to the church positions as good ways of taking care of their own children. A king would have his oldest son to succeed him; but what about the second son? Well, make him an archbishop; and so it was a natural way of looking for something to give their children which would mean success in the world. This was a great hindrance to the welfare of the church; and at the same time it contributed to the worldliness of the church; the positions thus becoming plums to be secured, often by men who had no interest in them at all.
One
of the popes in the early 16th century, Leo X, had been made a cardinal when he
was ten years of age. His father was a very important man in Italy; the king
wanted to please him; so he took the little boy and made him a cardinal. He
knew nothing whatever about doing anything for the welfare of the church; but
this sort of thing grew up in the Middle Ages; it contributed to the
worldliness of the church, and its degeneration; but also it contributed to its
influence and power.
b. The Bishop of
Rome.
The growth of the papacy consists of the growth of these powers in the
different areas, until the Catholic
Encyclopedia speaks of the monarchical powers of the bishop. The bishop is
the absolute authority—according to the theory—in his diocese. His power is
monarchical, they said.
When
we were in Wilmington, in my class in OT Introduction, I was in the matter of
the Apocrypha. I dropped in once to a big Roman Catholic Church there, and I
saw the priest, and I told him this. I said, "I have seminary class in OT
Introduction; we're going to take up the matter of the books that the Roman
Catholics say are a part of the Bible, which we say are not. Now, I said,
"If the case for these could be presented by someone who believes in
them—instead of by me, who thinks it is wrong—it would give us a much fairer
idea. Could somebody come in to the class and present it from the Roman
Catholic viewpoint?
The
answer, which he gave me immediately was, no Roman Catholic priest or teacher
would dare do such a thing. He could not unless he had an order from his
bishop. The bishop would have to give his approval, or he absolutely could not
come. So I went to the bishop, and the bishop was very, very friendly, very
pleasant, but he put me off, and off, week after week; and he never sent
anyone. But no one could do such a thing without the bishop's permission and
approval. His power in religious matters is absolute. It is an absolute
monarchy of the bishop, according to the Roman Catholic view. Well, now, the
Bishop of Rome is one of the bishops. If you read in the Catholic Encyclopedia, they will say that for the whole church, the
power is coming from the bishop of Rome; but you read under the theory how did
the bishop of Rome get this power, and you will find that he gets it because of
being Bishop of Rome. The others have authority to decide who is going to be
pope, according to their theory. It is whoever is bishop of Rome that is
automatically head of the entire church, according to their theory. Well, now,
how did this come about? How did this power spread more and more? How does it
come that this institution has reigned through the Middle Ages until today?
There are some very interesting developments in that which I want to bring out
in the course of the semester. For now, I just alert you to it as an important
matter of observation.
We
go on to
And
this we want to rush through hurriedly. We have ten centuries; we have a
thousand years to look at, and that is a long, long time, a thousand years; a
hundred years is a long time. I want you to have a realization of how long it
is as we look at this period. Think of how in a hundred years you have actually
three groups of people who live their adult lives; practically, you have three,
but some overlap. But you have, you can think of your leaders of your city, of
your church, they have just about completely changed; just about three times in
the course of 100 years. So this makes about 30 times, it is a tremendous
length of time.
We
spent a long time on the fourth century, and a fair amount of time on the
fifth; and there were far more Christians in the Middle Ages than there were in
those earlier centuries; and there are all sorts of individuals, and individual
ideas, developments and activities, and I want you to have that concept and to
get these centuries in mind, as distinct units; and that's the reason I'm
taking it up in centuries this way. In a way, you can take one idea and trace
it through; then take another and trace through; and then another; and the next
thing you know, you are thinking of somebody in the 9th century you thought was
in the 6th century, in connection with something that happened in the 12th. So
I want to take it by centuries, but I want you to think of the different kinds
of developments so you can trace them through yourself. Now the 6th century is
one of the least important of the ten centuries. So we're going to glance at it
very quickly. There are really only two things of any great importance to us in
this 6th century.
A. Survey of Secular History. As far as secular history is concerned, what about the Roman Empire? Well, as you know, in 476 a German ruler in Italy did away with the Western Roman Empire. He removed the young boy, Romulus Augustus, whom he had himself put in as emperor. In 476 he removed him from being emperor; and he took the insignia of office, and sent him to the East to Constantinople. This brought the Western Empire theoretically to an end. Well, that's the 5th century. So in the 6th century, we have no one in the West whom we call Roman Emperor. We still have the Roman Emperor in the East. Well, now, in this century then, the Roman Empire continued in the East, claiming to rule all of Europe. There was supposedly then one empire, rather than two parts, East and West. But you can well imagine that the emperor in the East has very little control in the West. He is only a figurehead.
We
want to look at the empire in the East before we are through with this, because
there is one man in it of very great importance particularly. But first let's
start in the extreme West.
What
was happening in Ireland at this time? Well, St. Patrick had been there earlier
in the previous century. By this time you had monasteries all over Ireland, in
many sections, and on many little islands; and in these monasteries they were
studying the Bible; they were training missionaries; they were going over from
there to Scotland; they were spreading the gospel in Scotland; they began going
over on the Continent, into backwoods sections of Europe and presenting the
message there and building monasteries there. So Ireland, though not important
in this period in secular history, was an active place, a center for the spread
of Christianity during this century.
Now
in England: what happened in England during this century? Everything we know
about England during the 6th century, you could write on the back of a two-cent
stamp, and have plenty of room for illustrations. In other words we don't know
anything about what happened in England during this century. We know that
generally, in the previous century, the Germanic tribes came in, supposedly to
help the Britons against the Scots; but they ended up by conquering the Britons
too. So you had a century with no history in England. Gradually the Britons are
conquered; pushed back into the woods; made slaves; disappear from any
strength, or importance, or freedom. The Germanic tribes take over; they can't
read or write, most of them; they are following their old Germanic religions
largely; the Britons are keeping up their Christian knowledge, but they're
being more and more pushed back and are having practically no influence on the
Germanic invasion; so this is a century without history as far as England is
concerned.
Now
we go on to the Continent: what happened in France during this century? Well,
you notice that in the end of the previous century, Clovis, the wild Frankish
chieftain, nominally became a Christian and marched his army through the river
so they were all baptized; and they were all now Christians, of the catholic
group; they were not Arians, like the other Germanic tribes; but he was
succeeded during this century by his children, grandchildren, and great
grandchildren, who constantly are ruthless; constantly fighting; very barbaric;
giving a minimal allegiance to the church; but there is no real history to
speak of—of the church, or of the State—in France during this century.
Then,
going from France you have the Visigoths in Spain—that is the Western Goths—the
Vandals had left Spain; the Goth history is one of turmoil and confusion
largely during this period; but from the end of the century, they give up their
Arian views and become catholic.
You
come over into Italy, and the history is more detailed during this period. At
the end of the 5th century, the East Goths established themselves in Italy. The
West Goths are in Spain now. They are the ones to whom Alaric had come, who had
sacked Rome. The East Goths are in Italy, and the king of the East Goths, at the
end of the 5th century, was a man named Theodoric, very interesting in secular
history, not of any great importance in church history. But King Theodoric of
the East Goths had been brought up as a hostage in Constantinople; he defeated
the Germanic tribe there who had ended the Roman Empire; who claimed to be
subject to the Eastern Emperor, though only nominally. He established himself
as king of Italy; and for about 40 years he reigned and was a very powerful and
capable ruler. He even determined who would be Bishop of Rome, when the people
couldn't decide among themselves; he solved the dispute; determined who was the
rightful bishop; he would seem to have been a very excellent and capable ruler,
Theodoric. He made such a name for himself that during the last war, Hitler
took a common classical scholar, near the beginning of the War, and sent him
down to Italy to study Theodoric's tomb; and this man, whom I saw in 1957 in
Munich, spent most of the war in Italy, measuring Theodoric's tomb, making
pictures of it, studying it, because Hitler thought of him as a great Germanic
ruler who ruled over Italy back in the 5th century AD. The end of Hitler meant
the end of all the publicity for Theodoric. He is of little interest to us now.
After
his death, Theodoric's followers were conquered by the forces from the Eastern
Empire. Justinian, we looked at a little under the Eastern Empire. He sent an
army; re-conquered North Africa; and re-conquered Italy, but he didn't hold it
for many years. It was ruled from the Eastern Empire for a time; and then, when
the Eastern Emperor was no longer able to send armies to hold Italy, another
group of Germanic tribes, whom the people called "Longbeards" because
of the long beards which these men wore; they had a different name for themselves,
but they wore long beards, so this Germanic tribe, the Romans called them
Longebards; and that term became contracted into Lombard; and today in northern
Italy, it is still called Lombardy, after them. But the Lombards, the
Long-bearded fellows, were a German tribe that came into Italy in the latter
part of the 6th century; they probably make up a great part of the blood of
Italy today. The Lombards came in as Arians, but very soon became catholic; but
they established themselves in control in Italy the latter part of this
century.
Now
in the Eastern Empire they had a succession of rulers during this century; they
had not been overrun yet by barbarians, as the west had. And among these rulers
is one who is of great interest to us, a man named Justinian I. Justinian
reigned from 527 to 565, you see, a large part of the century, 40 years.
Justinian
I is very famous in legal history, because he codified the laws of Rome; and
the Justinian code, codifying ten centuries of Roman law, became the authority
on Roman law. Now that's not of great interest to us in church history, but it
showed what an important man he was in secular history. He sent his armies and
reconquered North Africa from the Vandals; and he conquered Italy from the East
Goths; and while he was doing this, and spending so much time to conquer in
Europe, it weakened him in the East; and the Persians took territory away from
him in the East. It was a poorly thought-out plan. Till he was stronger in his
immediate territory, he was foolish to extend himself into Europe.
But
Justinian took great interest in religious affairs. McSorley says he undertook
to dictate in matters of church discipline, thus causing much disorder. That's
the way McSorley summarizes it. Well, what he did in church affairs, we will
briefly look at under later heads. But I just mention his place as a very
powerful and important emperor of the Eastern Empire. Now we go on to one of
the two most important things in this century.
B. The
Foundation of the Benedictine Order. Now from the viewpoint of church
history, this is a very important development. Previous to this, as you know,
we had individual hermits, many of them carrying out different sorts of life
that seemed to them wise; there was great variety in it; some of these hermits
gathered together into monasteries, with particular rules and situations; and
every one of them more or less different; but St. Benedict founded the first of
the orders of monks; and it was of tremendous importance to the Middle Ages; and
it is an extremely important order in the Roman Catholic church today, the
Benedictine order. So this is one of the few most important developments of
this century. It is the first of the great orders of monks. Now Benedict was
born about 480 and he died in 543; he was a Roman, from a fine family; in view
of the general disorderly conditions of the time, he was so impressed with the
general corruption that he attended school till his l5th year, and then he fled
from the corrupt society of his fellow students, at 15; and he spent 3 years in
seclusion in a dark, narrow, inaccessible grotto. There a neighboring monk,
from time to time, let his scanty food down to him by a cord with a little bell
on it, the sound of which announced to him the coming of the local bread.
He
was determined to overcome all of the allurements of the world and of the
flesh; his biographer says that at one time the allurements of voluptuousness
so strongly tempted his imagination, that he was on the point of leaving his
retreat in pursuit of a beautiful woman of previous acquaintance; but something
else occurred; he took off his animal skin clothing and rolled himself naked on
thorns and briars near his cave, till the impure fire of sensual ways was
forever extinguished. After this, he went back into the mountains; and there he
began to establish cloisters, gathering other monks around him; he established
a cloister; established a superior over it; and went on and started another
one; but the persecution from an unworthy priest caused him to leave again and
retire into the wild mountains; and there for a time, he lived absolutely alone
and devoted himself to the hermit life; but then he came back again, and in 529
he founded the cloister of Monte Casino, which became the headquarters of his
order. Everyone who was reading the papers during the war, read about the
destruction by bombs—by allied bombs—of Monte Casino, the famous old cloister,
the foundation of the Benedictine order. It was used by the Germans for a
headquarters for observation up in the mountains; it was a good place for that,
so they bombed it and it was utterly destroyed. I believe it has been rebuilt
since.
But he established a system of organization which has continued to some extent through the present day. And it has much to do with the continuation of monasticism, the establishment of this organized system; it was adapted not just for one cloister, but for a number of them, standing in a relationship one to another; so that if one of them became corrupt, the others could interfere in it and could remedy it; and it thus enabled the groups to last much longer than would otherwise have been the case. Because corruption comes into everything human; here was means of resisting it longer. He established a definite organization, with definite vows for the monks to take; and he was evidently a man with a very great organizing ability, and an understanding of human nature which enabled him to establish a system which proved very effective; and with some modification, of course, through the years, it has extended to this time.
Anyone
joining the order had to take three vows: one, a vow of perpetual adherence to
the monastic order, you couldn't just come in and go out at will; second, a vow
of voluntary poverty and chastity. You would not even own clothes; they
belonged to the order. And third, a vow of obedience, giving absolute obedience
to the Abbot, as the representative of God in Christ. And then he worked out a
schedule for the day. He said that idleness is the mortal enemy of the soul,
the workshop of the devil, Every day, he gave some hours to prayer, singing of
songs, and mediation; two to three hours to religious reading; and six to seven
hours to manual labor, indoors or in the fields. So he worked out a system of
organization, and a system that controlled the use of the time, all through the
day; his followers became known as black friars, because of the black cowl they
wore; but his importance is not merely the founding of the great Benedictine
Order, but the founding of the whole system of having orders of monks, with
monasteries all over the world, inter-related and under the control of a
leader.
The
founding of the Benedictine order is one of the most important events in the
6th century. It is one of the two most important events, in fact. Because it
began something that is characteristic of the Roman Catholic Church today, and
extremely widespread. Then capital
C. The Fifth
Ecumenical Council.
Now there's not much we can say about the 5th Ecumenical Council. The first
four ecumenical councils are tremendously important, as you know. It is very
important to know a good bit about each of them. The so-called 5th ecumenical
council, however, did not add anything to our clear understanding of Christian
doctrine. All that it amounted to was a further detail on those of the 3rd and
4th; and this further detail is actually somewhat questionable as to
its real importance today. It was of very considerable importance in the East
at that time. So I could give you the date of it, 553.
There
were 6 or 8 bishops from Africa; otherwise the 165 members of the council were
all oriental bishops. It dealt with a matter which was of great importance in
the eastern empire at the time, the attempt of the emperor Justinian to
conciliate the Monophysites. This was about 90 years after the council of
Chalcedon; but the Monophysites were a very powerful party still in the East;
some of them were a separate church; some of them still in the church and
trying to hold their membership in it; and Justinian wanted to keep them; so he
tried to propitiate them by taking three of the leaders of the opposing party,
and declaring that their views were wrong and should have been condemned. These
were leaders from the century before. Certain writings of these three men,
Justinian the emperor officially condemned, and he called these the three
chapters; and that name, the Three
Chapters, has become established in church history as a name for the
particular writings that Justinian condemned.
Now
he alleged that these writings were Nestorian writings; and these men of nearly
a century before who were considered to be leaders in the church of Antioch he
considered to be really Nestorian in their view, and he declared his
condemnation of them. Well, as you see, it's not a matter of Christian
doctrine; but it's of merit, whether these men were orthodox or not. There has
been much discussion about that; we could spend a long time going into details
of it, but it's not important for us as church history. It is important that
you know that the controversy was about the Three Chapters.
Those
who did not want to conciliate the Monophysites began defending the Three
Chapters; those who did, began attacking them. Actually, it probably would be a
rather involved question to decide whether these three writers really had gone
beyond the limit of an orthodox interpretation of the Person of Christ in their
writing. And the Council simply affirmed what Justinian had already declared as
Emperor, declared that these Three Chapters were to be condemned. Now, the
importance of the 5th ecumenical council is this. The Council of Constantinople
in 553 is not very great from the viewpoint of the development of doctrine. And
we find leaders in the church, as much as 50 years later, talk about, we stand
by the decisions of the four great ecumenical—in fact, the pope about 600 even
went so far as to say as there are four gospels which give the facts about the
life of Christ, so there are four ecumenical councils which lay down the
doctrines specifically about the person of Christ.
Now
that would sound as if the pope did not consider the 5th ecumenical as a real
council; but I think he did. He just considered the first four as more
important. Because all lists of councils include the 5th in their list of the
ecumenical councils, the general councils of the church. But here I have the Catholic Encyclopedia, the volume which
deals with councils. And the man who wrote this chapter had a tough job; I
don't know anything about him; his name was signed J. Wilhelm; but he had a
tough job, because his job was to present the evidence found in documents of
the Christian church as to ecumenical councils, and what people thought of
ecumenical councils; and at the same time to uphold the Roman Catholic position
which is that the pope is the supreme infallible head of the Christian church.
And since nobody ever thought of such an idea back in the days when these
councils were held, it is pretty hard to reconcile the two.
And
so he does some very nice tightrope walking in his efforts to reconcile the
two. And one subject which he discusses here is the infallibility of general
councils; and he quotes from ancient writers who declare that the councils are
infallible, that what the council says is the infallible word of God must be
accepted. The council is infallible. But then he says papal infallibility and
conciliar infallibility are co-related, but not identical. The council decrees
approved by the pope are infallible by reason of that appellation. The council
is infallible according to him; early Roman leaders said these councils are
infallible. When they officially made a determination of doctrine, that
established it.
But
today the Roman Catholic Church says it is the pope that is infallible; so
today they try to say the reason the council was infallible is because the pope
made it infallible; he puts his authority upon the council. And therefore, in
line with that view, we find the brief statement of each of the councils; historical
sketches of ecumenical councils which he gives; that in this, about the 5th
ecumenical council, he said, "The 5th ecumenical, or 2nd general council
of Constantinople, 553, of 165 bishops under Pope Vigilius and Emperor
Justinian I, condemned the errors of Origen and certain writings." The
Three Chapters give the names of the 3 men; I won't read them, because some of
you would make me spell them for you, and we haven't time; but he names them
here. He says "It first confirmed the first four general councils,
especially that of Chalcedon." That's the historical sketch of it. You
notice that all he says at the beginning, it was under Pope Vigilius and
Emperor Justinian I; so the pope is named first, the emperor second. You would
get the impression from that that the pope called the council, wouldn't you?
And that it is the pope's authority that has established this.
Well,
now when you look at McSorley's history, you find that McSorley says about the
council, on p. 152, "the 2nd council of Justinian of Constantinople, 553,
was the final episode in emperor Justinian's campaign against Nestorianism. But
for 6 or 8 bishops from Africa, the 165 members of the council were all
oriental bishops. Eutichus, patriarch of Constantinople, presided." Did the
pope preside? The Catholic Encyclopedia
said it was held under Vigilius and Justinian I. But McSorley adverts that the
Pope didn't preside at the council, it was the bishop of Constantinople who
did. Eutichius, patriarch of Constantinople, presided. The council confirmed
Justinian's condemnation of the Three Chapters, thus appearing that, like the
Council of Chalcedon, it had defied the Nestorians. Except for the Africans,
none of the western bishops then in Constantinople attended the council. Pope
Vigilius also refused to be present. But he was forced to give the council
recognition before he could get leave to return to Rome. Although for a while
the status of the council was widely questioned, in the course of time it was
finally accepted as ecumenical.
Well,
now the Catholic Encyclopedia says
that genera1 councils are infallible in their statements of doctrine. Then it
goes on to say the way they get to be infallible is because the pope has called
them, the pope has approved them; and it said this council was under pope
Vigilius and Justinian I. But when you get into the facts of the matter, you
find that the pope was right in Constantinople when it occurred, and refused to
attend it; so far from calling it, or leading it, he wouldn't even go to it;
and then the emperor said, "Well then, you can't go back to Rome unless
you approve of it." So in order to get permission to go back to Rome, he
gave his approval. Now he didn't give his approval to anything that was wrong.
It is highly debatable whether Justinian's condemnation of these men was right
or wrong. So far as doctrine is concerned, it certainly was not denying any
previous doctrine by the action of the council. And so Vigilius did not do a
wrong thing in approving the council—unless of course he was convinced it was
wrong—in that case, he did. But he certainly did not feel any great certainty
it was wrong; and he approved it merely to get Justinian to let him go back to
Rome; so to say that the council gets its authority from him is utterly absurd.
It got its authority from the emperor, or from the men who were there, not from
him.
McSorley,
in his book, is very careful to give us the facts, as far as he can, from the
Roman Catholic viewpoint; but yet any important well-known fact he gives, he
may try to explain it away, but he gives it; and we notice here explicitly that
this is the situation. In his discussion of Vigilius, he says,
"Under
imperial pressure, the pope first condemned the Three Chapters; and then, alarmed by the vigorous protests of the
western bishops, withdrew the condemnation. When the emperor decided to summon
the council, Vigilius proposed that it should be held in Italy; and when his
proposal was rejected, he suggested the appointment of a commission made up of
an equal number of delegates from the East and from the West. This suggestion,
too, was ignored, and the emperor, on his own authority, convoked at
Constantinople a council which called itself the Fifth Ecumenical. In its last
session (553) it condemned the Three
Chapters. Having been imprisoned and ill-treated by the Emperor, Vigilius
consented to endorse the condemnation of the Three Chapters. Then, after 8 years of forced residence in
Constantinople, he was allowed to leave for Rome; but he died on the way."
[McSorley, p. 148.]
Well,
this does not speak very favorably of the emperor Justinian I; but it is very,
very far from giving any reason to say that the council could be thought of as
securing authority from Pope Vigilius. I told you about the letter, in
Wilmington, how somebody sent me a copy of the section of Our Sunday Visitor, a Catholic paper. It answered the question,
"What about the authority of the ecumenical councils?" The answer was
"Every ecumenical council was called by a pope. Every one was presided
over by a pope. Every one received its authority because a pope gave his
approval to it." We've noticed 5 Ecumenical councils now, no one of which
was called by a pope; no one of which was presided over by a pope; several of
which were called against the wish of the bishop of Rome; and this one here,
the bishop of Rome was right in Constantinople, and he refused to attend the
meeting.
Now
even if he was forced to give his approval to it, to say that it gets its
authority from him is going pretty far away from the facts. So this is not so
much our Protestant viewpoint in extreme matters; we believe the authority
rests in the Bible, not in the decision of any council or of any man. But
authority resides in the writing of the Word of God. But it is important for us
to be aware of this inconsistency in the Roman Catholic attitude; and
inevitably, inconsistency arises when an institution has grown up through the
years; gradually changed its views, as all human institutions do; but yet
trying to claim that its present views have been its views all the time; that
claim certainly does not hold.
The
fact is that the idea that the Pope's infallibility was never accepted by the
Roman Catholic Church as a whole until 1870. It is a modern idea; but today it
is required for membership in the Roman Catholic Church; but the modern idea
had certainly never occurred to anybody in ancient church history. Many of the
bishops of Rome claimed a great authority, but to be infallible in doctrine
none of them claimed; there was too much contradiction between them for any one
to have thought then that such a thing could be substantiated. Now next is the
second most important event in the 6th century, and for this, I'll just give a
man's name:
D. Pope Gregory
the Great.
We have noticed that up until 550 AD, there was one man of real outstanding
ability who was bishop of Rome; only one, a most remarkable thing. Surely in
the other great cities in the ancient world that had a large Christian church,
they had at least 2 or 3 men of top-ranking ability as their bishops in the
course of 500 years. We had a good many men of fairly great ability; but of a
really outstanding ability, we only had one; he was a man of very great
ability, Pope Leo the Great. He wrote the doctrinal statement which the Council
of Chalcedon accepted, a statement which is important to all Christians in
every century. But he is the only great man among the bishops of Rome up till
after 550 AD.
But
now we have a 2nd great man—not as great a man as Pope Leo the Great—but a man
whom many have preferred to Leo, because they think of him as a better man;
that he was considered as a very good man. Not that Leo is accused of being
bad, but Leo certainly showed an arrogance and a haughtiness in dealing with
other bishops; in asserting his authority over them, which was very repulsive
to some; but Leo was a very able man, and probably on the whole a very good
man; but Gregory was regarded more as a kindly man; a man who was taking
Christian teaching, and presenting his preaching far more than almost any pope
before or after had preached. He was a Benedictine monk; and the first monk to
become pope; and his character was considered as very saintly at the time. And
he was a man not of as great ability as Leo, but of very high ability; and so
this is the second of the really important things of this century. First, the
founding of the Benedictine order; second, Pope Gregory the Great.
Now
he was bishop of Rome from 590 to 604. There are many very interesting things
about Gregory the Great. We will not have time to look at many of them. But
under him I'm going to mention something which began before he became pope, but
was the result of his activity; and it is something of great interest to us,
with our English background. So under Pope Gregory the Great I will mention
1. The Mission
to England.
Gregory was the son of a man who had been the imperial governor of Rome,
representative of the Eastern Empire and governor of the city of Rome; and he
himself for a time was governor of Rome. He was a man of great education, of
very outstanding family, a man with a background somewhat like that of St.
Ambrose. But he had given all of this up, and had gone into a convent as a
Benedictine monk. He was tremendously interested in Christian work in the
Benedictine order; and while he was Abbot of this Benedictine monastery, one
day he saw in the slave market of Rome, three boys that looked different from
any he had ever seen before. Now this was 150 years, nearly, after the pagan
Germanic tribes of northern Germany had attacked Britain; and by this time they
had conquered it. We have no history of England during this period. They were
not literate; they were busy conquering, pillaging, destroying, getting
established; but three boys of these Anglo-Saxons from England were offered for
sale in the slave market in Rome; and the Abbot saw them; and he was impressed
with their fine appearance, fair complexion, sweet faces, and light flaxen
hair; and learning to his grief they were idolaters, he asked the name of their
nation, their country, and their king. They said "They're Angles, the
Anglo-Saxons." They were of the tribe called Angles; so when he heard they
were Angles, he said, "Right, for they have angelic faces and are worthy
to be sons and heirs with angels in heaven." Then he was told they were
from the province Dayra; and in Latin that means "from wrath". So he
said, "Truly they are from wrath; that is, plucked from the wrath of God,
and called to the mercy of Christ." And he asked, "What's the name of
their king?" And they said, "It's Alaric." Oh, he says,
"Alaric; Allelujah, the praise of God the Creator must be sung in those
parts."
So
Gregory went right to the pope and asked him to send missionaries to England,
offering himself for this work. He actually made a start, but the Romans called
him back and wouldn't let him go; and shortly after, they elected him pope.
And
so when he became Bishop of Rome, one of his first great interests was to try
to send Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons; and so in the year 596, after he had
6 years to get established as Bishop of Rome, and to get a good hold on the
whole situation involved, he had time to turn to a project of his own; and this
was to send a Bishop to England. So he took a Benedictine monk named Augustine,
same name as St. Augustine; naturally an entirely different man. The English
often shortened the name to Austin. But this man, Augustine, or Austin, was
sent with 30 monks and a priest, with instructions and letters of
recommendation to the kings of the Franks; several bishops of Gaul; and to go
on from there to England. It so happened that the king of one section of
England had married a Frankish princess. She had come from Paris; she belonged
to a family that was at least nominally Christian; and she had brought a bishop
with her, and had been trying to win her husband to her religion. So this king
went to receive the visitors; and he received them in friendly way; he told
them he could not forsake the religion he had so long held; but they had come
so far to see the people in question, "Go ahead," he said, "the
doors are open."
So
they began; and between Augustine's working on him, and his wife's working on
him, eventually he was converted and baptized; and the missionaries urged him
not to force his people to become Christians. Because Gregory had told
Augustine, "Win them, not by force, but by preaching and by understanding,
not by compulsion." But naturally, the influence of the king was very
great; his favor being with the monks who were there; and soon many had become
Christians; and after Augustine had been there 2 or 3 years, he baptized more
than 10,000 English as Christians. He founded a church at a place called
Canterbury. He founded a church and a monastery there; and there today, there
is a great English Cathedral; and the head of the Anglican Church today is the
Church of Canterbury. The Archbishop of Canterbury is today called the Primate
of all England. And they give a list of the primates of England, which goes
back to Augustine, or Austin; they record him as the first Archbishop of
Canterbury.
So
that in England—the wild tribesmen who for 150 years had been establishing
themselves in England—they became Christians remarkably quickly; it went fast;
it spread through the area; and the influence of the Archbishop of Canterbury
was very great in the land; and they were won to the Church of Rome right from
the start. This is very different from the Irish Christians. It is interesting
how today it is the exact opposite. Today the English church has broken
completely from the church of Rome; but the Irish church, which essentially had
no connection with the Church of Rome; and did one of the greatest missionary
works in the world's history; today it is completely under the thumb of Rome;
and today, among the most ardent missionaries for the church of Rome, and among
their greatest leaders today are a disproportionately large number of them from
Irish background.
Well,
Augustine met with the British ministers. There were many Britons left who were
Christians, though they had had no influence on the Anglo-Saxons as yet. He met
with them, and talked with them. He found they observed Easter on a different
day from the day on which it was observed in Rome. They cut their hair in a different
way if they were monks. They had certain customs that were different. Augustine
very kindly offered to receive them into full fellowship; all they had to do
was to adopt the Roman customs on these matters; and when they refused to do
that, he said he would have no cooperation with them whatever. So the result
was that the Britons gradually either disappeared, especially as the
Anglo-Saxons were more and more victorious in destroying their army,
subjugating them; they either disappeared or gradually, one by one, came over.
But he made no compromise with them on these minor points. But he did establish
England as nominally Christian in a comparatively short time.
So that was the first event in the reign of Pope Gregory the Great, one which would not be of great importance in world history if it were not for the later history of England. And for our connection, using the English language here, it is of special interest to us.
Next
is a very interesting thing about Pope Gregory; and that is that Pope Gregory
felt that the world was just about coming to an end. Conditions were chaotic;
the emperor in Constantinople had very little power; the wild Goths had overrun
Europe; they were pillaging, they were burning, everywhere; this had been going
on for over a hundred years; nobody's life was safe, very much. He was sure
these were the last events at the end of the world. So he does not seem to have
thought of trying to establish a great Roman power such as later popes did,
over a world and an age which was to continue for a long time.
2. Relations
with the Bishop of Constantinople. Gregory did not try to say, "I am
the universal bishop. All the church should be subject to me." But what he
did say was, "The bishop of Constantinople did show a most wicked pride in
calling himself the universal bishop. No bishop should ever take a title like
that." It is my impression that all the popes today call themselves
universal bishop. But this, one of the greatest of the popes, Pope Gregory,
said that no one should call himself a universal bishop; that this title was a
claim that no Christian should ever take; and that the church of Constantinople
was utterly wicked in making such a claim.
He
not only said this once; he wrote letter after letter about it; he wrote to the
emperor in Constantinople, urging him to try to make his bishop stop using such
terminology. He wrote letters to other bishops all over the empire about it. He
considered that the four patriarchs, of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and
Jerusalem, were coordinate leaders of the church under Christ. And he wrote to
them early in his ministry in the bishopric of Rome, announcing he had been
elected, and establishing friendly relationships with them; but very soon he
was greatly offended at the fact that the patriarch of Constantinople was
calling himself the universal bishop. So he wrote to the others and he said to
them—Gregory said, actually, he said—"Peter is the head of the
church." He said, "The see of the prince of apostles has acquired the
principality of authority. It is Peter who is the head. Constantinople has
nothing to do with Peter." But he said, "Peter sent his disciple,
Mark, to Alexandria as evangelist, and he himself was seven years bishop of
Antioch, and then he came and was bishop of Rome." So he said, "These
three are one, as representing Peter." And he said, "By divine
authority, these three bishops are now the head of the church."
[Wherefore,
though there are many apostles, yet with regard to the principality itself, the
See of the Prince of the apostles alone has grown strong in authority, which in
three places is the See of one. For he himself exalted the See in which he
deigned even to rest and end the present life. He himself adorned the See to
which he sent his disciple as evangelist. He himself established the See in
which, though he was to leave it, he sat for seven years. Since then it is the
See of one, and one See, over which by Divine authority three bishops now
preside." Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers, Vol. XII, Epistle XL, p.228.]
And
when he wrote this to the three bishops, the bishop of Alexandria wrote back
and said, "O Universal Pope, I certainly appreciate the way you put me on
a level with you; this is wonderful," and so on. And he wrote back and
said, "Don't call me Universal Pope." He said, "This foul title
of universal pope, which I beg your most sacred holiness not to use about
anybody, is certainly wrong. Nobody should ever be called the universal
pope." But his attitude was trying to show that the bishop of Constantinople
was not the universal pope, the universal bishop. And in so doing, he attacked
in the Constantinople bishop what today is the bishop of Rome's claim. He just
ignored Jerusalem. Jerusalem, of course, was never as important a city
politically as the others; but actually, if you were going to look for a city
to be the head of the church, Jerusalem would have a better claim than any of
them. But he ignored Jerusalem, in his correspondence.
Well,
this isn't mentioned in McSorley but there are many, many letters that he wrote
in this regard, so that it is very clear, the fact of it.
["Your Blessedness has also been careful to declare that you do not now make use of proud titles, which have sprung from a root of vanity, in writing to certain persons, and you address me saying, As you have commanded. This word, command, I beg you to remove from my hearing, since I know who I am, and who you are. For in position you are my brethren, in character my fathers. I did not, then, command, but was desirous of indicating what seemed to be profitable. Yet I do not find that your Blessedness has been willing to remember perfectly this very thing that I brought to your recollection. For I said that neither to me nor to any one else ought you to write anything of the kind; and lo, in the preface of the epistle which you have addressed to myself who forbade it, you have thought fit to make use of a proud appellation, calling me Universal Pope. But I beg your most sweet Holiness to do this no more, since what is given to another beyond what reason demands is subtracted from yourself. For as for me, I do not seek to be prospered by words but by my conduct. Nor do I regard that as an honour whereby I know that my brethren lose their honour. For my honour is the honour of the universal Church: my honour is the solid vigour of my brethren. Then am I truly honoured when the honour due to all and each is not denied them. For if your Holiness calls me Universal Pope, you deny that you are yourself what you call me universally. But far be this from us. Away with words that inflate vanity and wound charity.
And,
indeed, in the synod of Chalcedon and afterwards by subsequent Fathers, your
Holiness knows that this was offered to my predecessors. And yet not one of
them would ever use this title, that, while regarding the honour of all priests
in this world, they might keep their own before Almighty God." Book VIII, Letter 30
To Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria. Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. XII, Epistle XXX, p.241.]
So
his relations with the Bishop of Constantinople: it is a small thing in
political jockeying for position, and we would not pay much attention to it if
it were not for the great claim that the popes make today. It is interesting to
find one of their greatest men speaking this way. Actually, Gregory is very
insistent, in the West particularly, on his own authority, and he is one which
over the Archbishop of Canterbury, he claimed a great deal of authority; but as
far as the East was concerned, he recognized others as on a level with himself.
Well,
so much for his relations with the bishop of Constantinople. One thing I think
we must mention about him, we must say,
3. Purgatory. Gregory is
sometimes thought of as the originator of the doctrine of Purgatory. Whether
this is so or not, I have not investigated his writings to make a judgment for
myself. Schaff says he is chiefly responsible for the doctrine of a purgatorial
fire and masses for the benefit of the souls in purgatory. Whether he is
explicit in this teaching, or whether he says certain things that could give an
emphasis to it, without himself taking having taken the position that the Roman
Church today takes, I don't know. But at least the position was not developed
in detail, as it was developed in the later church. But he—in looking for the
fiery events of the end of the world, and in looking for the purging and
cleansing that Christians need—he may have spoken in a way that could be
interpreted in that way, and gone beyond what he actually thought in relation
to it.
4. Gregory's
Writings.
His longest writing was a commentary on the book of Job, in 35 books. It is a
threefold exposition of the book of Job, according to three types of meaning.
First, its historical meaning; second, its allegorical; and third, its moral.
Now as for the first one, he did the best he could to explain it historically;
but he did not have the scholarship or the material to be what you would call a
historical-grammatical commentator. His third one, the moral sense, is an
edifying homiletical application, and a sort of compend of Christian ethics; it
is very potent in its interest. His second part, the allegorical part, is an
exegetical curiosity. He took the book of Job and made it an allegory for the
second of his three approaches in interpretation. He took the names of persons
and things; the numbers of even the children; and said they were filled with
mystic meaning. Job represents Christ; his wife represents the carnal nature;
his seven sons—since seven is the number of perfection—represent the apostles,
and hence the clergy. His three daughters are the three classes of the faithful
laity, who are the work of the trinity. His friends are the heretics. The 7,000
sheep are the perfect system. The 3,000 camels are the heathen and Samaritans.
The 500 yoke of oxen and 500 she-asses are the heathen because the prophet
Isaiah says, "The ox knows his owner and the ass his master's crib, but
Israel does not know, my people does not consider."
Well,
now this sort of allegorical interpretation, you find rather extreme in this,
and in some writings of Origen; and personally I think it is a good thing to
keep away from; I think it is wise for us to take the Scripture and see exactly
what it says; because that's what matters, and you can't prove anything by any
allegorical interpretation anyway. But I do think that we make a great mistake
if we get the idea that we are to feel very superior if we find them using
allegorical methods of interpretation. It is a very easy thing to fall into,
and there are very few Christians who don't fall into it a little bit at some
time or other. And some very great Christian leaders use it to quite an extent.
And if a person takes clear Christian teaching, clearly taught in the Bible;
and then presents them in a sermon by tying them up to someone's name or to
some events that have nothing to do with them; if he is giving really Christian
teaching, he may be advancing the Word of God and doing a good thing; and I
praise the Lord for that; but I think it is bad, if people take it that this
proves the doctrines; you could just as well prove anything in the world if
you're going to use this allegorical method; and therefore I like to keep away
from it myself. I like to advise people to keep away from it; but when I hear
someone doing it who has a good Christian message, I think the right attitude
to take is to rejoice in the good Christian truth he is teaching, and to
personally avoid any errors of interpretation that he makes, rather than to
feel that it is a reason for any sort of condemnation or criticism that will
cut down his influence in any way.
Well,
we have spent very little time on the whole hundred-year period, but we must go
on quickly to
XI. The 7th and 8th Centuries.
A. Survey of
Secular History.
Now this will be a survey during these two centuries, because these are days in
which there is comparatively little of importance from the viewpoint of any
kind of church history; so we don't need to go into much detail. But to know
the main broad sweep of it is important.
1. Italy. You all know
that previous to 600 AD, the Ostrogoths had been driven from Italy. Justinian
held it for a time, and then the Lombards came. Now during this century, the
Lombards were Arians; but they soon gave it up and became orthodox in their
views of the Trinity. They more and more spread over Italy; and they more and
more settled down and formed an established kingdom, but the Romans never
reconciled themselves to the presence of the Lombards; and particularly the
papacy did not. The Lombard kingdom became stronger and stronger during these
7th and 8th centuries; they were constantly a matter which the Bishop of Rome detested.
And toward the end—during a great part of the second of these two centuries—he
was trying to find some way of getting rid of the Lombard kingdom.
In
the end, he called in the Franks. We've already noticed the Franks, the tribe
which came into France in the fifth century. Under Clovis, they had catholic
Christians right from the time of their conversion. The Bishop of Rome asked
them to come down and deliver him from the Lombards, and they did so; they
destroyed the Lombard kingdom, at the end of the 8th century. We look in some
more detail at that a little later.
The
main problem I want you to have in mind now, of these two centuries, is that
some historians regret this greatly. They think that Italy was becoming a
nation—a Lombard Roman nation—and that the coming in of the Franks from
outside, and destroying it, caused Italy to remain disunited until 1870 AD.
That's a matter for secular history. But just the general sweep is all we're
interested in here. So that leads naturally to
2. France. It will take a
bit longer to tell the main progress of events in France during this time. We
noticed that about 490, Clovis adopted catholic Christianity; he drove his army
into the river, thus baptizing all of them; so these thousands of troops became
nominal members of the catholic church. Clovis was succeeded in the next
century—the 6th century—by his sons and grandsons, and so on, most of whom were
very barbarous; they gave a nominal allegiance to the catholic church, but
considerable respect to its institutions; that is, people were rather safe if
they became monks; safe from interference from molestation so long as they were
in a monastery; and there was a good deal of protection to the officials of the
church.
But
Clovis' descendants got the power more and more into their own hands over this
large Frankish power, which controlled most of what is today France and a fair
section of what is today Germany. As you know, there is a section in Germany
they call Franconia, which takes its name from the Franks just like France
takes its name from the Franks. These kings of the Franks—the descendants of
Clovis—more and more became interested in their own banquets, in all kinds of
carousals and general enjoyment of life, they did not bother with ruling the
nation, and were fortunate in having very able assistants.
One
of Clovis' successors had picked a man and given him an office which he called
Mayor of the Palace. It's a great thing to have a man who will run your
business for you, so that you can enjoy the benefits of it and not have to
worry about the business. That's what the later kings did. The Mayor of the
Palace ran the government very capably; and he was succeeded by his son, who
was also capable and continued to run the kingdom; and the descendant of Clovis,
who was the king, could simply cease governing; he could live in luxury and in
carousing and not worry about the conduct of the country. But when you do
something like that, the result that is very apt to come is that eventually,
the assistant who now runs everything simply takes over; and that's what
eventually happened in France.
The
Mayor of the Palace became king in everything but name. So eventually in the
7th century they took the last of the descendents of Clovis, put them in a
monastery and forgot them; they took the name of king themselves. So you have a
switchover from the descendants of Clovis to another line of kings. The line,
called the Carolinian line, became rulers of the kingdom, and very important
rulers too. We will look a little more at them later on. But this switch which
took place is one which is important in history. It's well worth keeping in
mind.
Now
the 8th century faced a great menace; the Arabs—which we'll look at later, when
we look at Mohammedanism—conquered all of North Africa; and then they began to
come up into France. And had they kept on, all of Europe would have been in the
hands of the Mohammedans; but it was these mayors of the palace of the Frankish
tribes that stopped the oncoming of the Arabs; they held them back so that they
did not get further into Europe than Spain. We'll mention that later. You
notice, the general trend of events in France; during these two centuries, one
of these men of this line, from the mayors of the Palace, became the greatest ruler
perhaps that Europe had seen since Julius Caesar; at least he became a very
powerful man at the end of these two centuries. And we will look at him more in
detail. For now, I just mention this progress of conditions in France during
this time here.
3. Great
Britain.
We will not say much about Great Britain during these two centuries.
Politically, there is very little to record.
a. Ireland. Ireland was an independent nation. It's difficult to know whether to call it a nation; it had no cities and it was all farms; the people were scattered about, and there was no really developed city life anywhere in Ireland; but St. Patrick had founded monastic centers in Ireland; at these, people anxious to devote their lives to religious work would come together; live together; and go out from there to do missionary work among the people round about them. It was different from any monastery in Europe.
These
were the centers of the religious life in Ireland. There were many of these
through the land; and Ireland, during these two centuries, was a great center
of missions; it was perhaps the greatest center of civilization of any center
in Europe at this time; and from this place went out the missionaries who
converted Scotland; and from Ireland and Scotland, they went on to the
continent and built monasteries in France and Switzerland, even in northern
Italy; they went off to Germany, doing missionary work. We will have a separate
heading about the Irish and English missions a little later.
b. England. England was at
this time held by the Anglo-Saxon groups, which had gradually coalesced into
seven different sections of the country, each of which was independent of the
other. But in England there is no central power during most of this time. It
was still these various Anglo-Saxon tribes, gradually being united into one
nation.
4. The Eastern
Empire.
We know a great deal about the history of the Eastern Empire. But westerners
have not, as a rule, paid a good bit of attention to it. We know the names of
all the emperors during this time; many of them were assassinated; many of them
were very cruel men; but all of them claimed control over all of Europe. They
were the heads of the Roman Empire; and they claimed the right, for instance,
to veto the election of a bishop of Rome; they claimed an authority over the
bishop of Rome because he was part of their empire. And they were constantly
having relationships, of one sort of another, with the bishop of Rome. They
claimed authority over all of Europe—all of the old Roman Empire, though
actually having no power except in the East. They faced great difficulties from
the rising Arab tribes.
And
it was around 680 when the Arabs came right to the very walls of Constantinople
in their conquering onrush; but were driven back by the use of a new chemical,
which was called Greek fire; it was thrown out at the invaders, and it made it
very difficult for them to fight; it drove them back from Constantinople.
But the Eastern Empire enters into our church history in certain ways we will look at, during these two centuries.
So
much for this survey of the secular history of the two centuries. Next is a
matter of somewhat more importance, from our viewpoint of church history.
B. Monothelism
and the 6th Ecumenical council. It is sometimes called Monothelitism;
either one is all right. Now this monothelism is a rather important movement at
this time in the doctrinal development—perhaps doctrinal clarification.
1. The Nature of
the Controversy.
Already, at the beginning of this century, a century and a half have passed
since the Council of Chalcedon. But the Monophysites are still very prominent
in the East. You don't find them in the West at all; but in the East they were
very prominent, and in Egypt, Armenia, and Syria, they outnumber the orthodox.
And the emperors—faced with the rise of the Arabs—were anxious to have unity in
their empire; they wanted to reunite the Monophysites with the Orthodox Church
if possible. And so they tried to find a way of getting the two parties
together again—that is, the people who followed the Council of Chalcedon and
the Monophysites.
And
somebody thought of what seemed to him a clever way out of the difficulty. He
suggested this. Christ is indeed one person with two natures, as taught by the
Council of Chalcedon. He is one person with two natures, but He has only one
will. The will, he said, is not a part of the nature, but an attribute of the
person. Therefore, you can say, "Jesus Christ is one person; He has two
natures; He is fully human and fully divine; but there is one divine human
will." Now they thought this will remove the difficulty with the
Monophysites, because they claim that we are making Christ two persons by
admitting two natures that are not fused into one together, not in any way
fused into one; this will solve their difficulty, while at the same time
satisfying to the orthodox formula and satisfying the orthodox.
So
that they said, "Jesus Christ has one will though He has two
natures." So they are Diophysites; they are not Monophysites. But they are
Monothelites; they hold that there is only one will. Well now, this suggestion
was immediately favored by those of Monophysite tendencies, and opposed by
those who were strong against Monophysitism; but the more people looked into
it, the more they saw that the Scriptural teaching is clearly that Jesus Christ
has a human will and a divine will. The will is part of the nature, as Bishop
Agatho, Bishop of Rome, pointed out; he says in Matt.26:39, "not as I will
but as Thou wilt; not my will, but thine be done." It says in John 6:38,
"I am come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of Him that
sent me." Jesus was subject to his parents; he was obedient unto death.
There is the human will; there is also the divine will, very clearly brought
out. Jesus is human, has a human will, and a divine will. His human will
voluntarily follows the divine will; goes along with the divine will; there is
no conflict within Christ. He is one person; he has complete control over his
nature; but there are the two natures: He is fully God and fully man. The
divine will keeps the stars in their orbits, directs the universe and controls
everything; even while as a babe in a manger, the human will is crying out for
someone to give him a little attention, to take care of him.
It
is a mystery; we cannot understand it, but we cannot get away from the mystery
by going away from the clear teachings of Scripture; that He is fully man with
all the attributes of man, including will; and He is fully God. So this is the
nature of the controversy; and if we understand the Eutychian controversy, the
matter of Monophysitism is not apt to give us much difficulty. And it has not
concerned people in the West as a whole. But the people in the East were
inclined to be very interested in metaphysical details, how to explain exactly
these matters of the character of Christ; and there was very heated discussion,
and very heated division over this matter. So that is the nature of the
controversy; as you see, it is not nearly as important for us as the
Monophysite controversy; the Council of Chalcedon we consider as having
established the clear statement on orthodox Christology which all Christian
churches of modern times—at least all Western Christian churches—hold; and all
branches of the orthodox Christian church in the West today hold the
Chalcedonian Christology.
Usually
when there is a departure from that, it goes much further than Monophysitism,
and denies His deity, at least in actuality if not in words.
2. The Force of the Controversy. I'm not going to try to give you anything like all the details, because it was a long extended controversy; there were many good things in it; but it began a little after 620, when the Emperor asked Sergius the patriarch of Constantinople, what they could do to bring together the Monophysites with the orthodox people more; and they agreed on this formula, "One divine human energy." And then Sergius wrote to the Bishop of Rome, Honorius, and asked his advice on the matter.
And
Honorius spoke up, and he said he thought this was an excellent idea. He said,
"Certainly he had one divine-human will." He actually said, "Our
Lord Jesus Christ possessed one will." So Sergius, feeling that Honorius
agreed with him in this, told the emperor he thought it was an excellent idea;
and they issued a statement: we believe in Jesus' two natures but only one
will.
And
then in the East, there were leaders who did not feel that this covered the
matter; they opposed it, and the discussion became heated. Sergius again wrote
to Honorius; and by this time Honorius was a little bit discouraged about it;
and in his second letter he said, "I don't think you want to say that He
has only one energy," but, he said, "You'd better not say that He has
two energies either; these terms are just confusing."
So
the Bishop of Rome started out agreeing; and then he was sort of trying to get
out of discussing the matter; but in the East the discussion continued; and
Honorius died, and his successor bishops of Rome were better theologians than
he was; and they saw that this idea of saying Christ had only one will was
definitely unscriptural and wrong; and they began to write against it. Now we
can't go into the details of these scriptures here; and it's not necessary to,
but there are certain things about it we need to know.
In
the end, after long discussion during these 50 years, finally, the Bishop of
Rome made a very clear statement about it—about the two wills of Christ—and
held a council in Rome, attended by 105 bishops; this declared that the
one-will doctrine was wrong, and that Christ had two wills definitely. This was
done in 649.
Now
if this was today, we can well imagine the Roman Catholic Church saying,
"Here is a council held in Rome under the leadership of the Pope; it made
a declaration, this settles the matter." But we find no such thing in this
point in church history, because at that time nobody ever dreamed of such a
thing. The bishop of Rome held a council, but it was a local council. They made
an excellent statement, but it had no authority for the world in general,
except as a recommendation. However, eventually, in 680, the 6th Ecumenical
Council was held; and at that council, a letter from the bishop of Rome was
read, and it was endorsed by the council. And so a council which was held in
Constantinople in 680 adopts the Diothelite views and declares that this is the
view of the Scriptures.
And
the 6th ecumenical council, doctrinally, has settled that matter for the great
bulk of the orthodox church ever since; though for most of us, the 6th council
is not needed because it is a natural expression of what the 4th council did.
3. The 6th
Ecumenical Council (680). The place of it was Constantinople. The council at
Constantinople, lasting from 680 to 681, had never more than 174 members in
attendance; so as you see, it was not much larger than the one which had been
held in Rome 30 years earlier.
But
it was recognized as an ecumenical council; and the Roman church today accepts
it, as do all the Protestant churches, as the 6th ecumenical council. And this
6th ecumenical council voted to endorse the two-will doctrine almost in the
language of a letter from one of the popes to the emperor, from Pope Agatho.
Now you can easily see that Agatho is a far better theologian than Honorius;
and yet Honorius is far better known than Agatho. But Agatho was a good
theologian; he made a clear statement of opinion; he wrote a letter to the
emperor; the emperor called this council to be an ecumenical council; the
emperor presided in person over it; and in this council, he read this letter
from Agatho. Agatho says that Christ gave Peter authority over the church; and
he said, "I am Peter's successor, and I am telling you the facts about
this." But the council paid no attention to his terms of that sort; but
they liked his theological statements and adopted them. So they adopted this
statement of Agatho, and they condemned Pope Honorius I as a Monothelitic
heretic. But they accepted this statement of Agatho. They forbade anyone hereafter
to teach the doctrine of one will and one energy, under penalty of deposition,
confiscation and excommunication.
Honorius
is a more important character in church history than Agatho, though Agatho is a
far greater theologian than Honorius; and why should that be? According to
present-day Roman Catholic doctrine, all popes are infallible. Well, if all
popes are infallible, it is nothing very striking to us if Agatho was a good
theologian, and gave a correct statement. That's what you would expect of any
pope, and therefore Agatho is not particularly outstanding. From our view
point, he is more outstanding because he is a good theologian, and he wrote a
good statement, and it was helpful to have it; and the council accepted it—not
because Agatho said it—but because it was a true presentation of the Scriptural
view, and it gives extensive evidence from the Bible for this view. And
therefore they accepted it; and therefore we accept it. But Honorius stated the
exact opposite; and therefore if you want to hold any view of papal
infallibility, you've got a tough problem on your hands to know what to do
about Honorius. And so
4. The Question
of the Orthodoxy of Honorius. Now from the viewpoint of the world—as
we would see it—this not a particularly important matter. There were bishops of
Rome like Leo and Agatho, who were excellent theologians; good Bible students;
and gave statements that were tremendously helpful. It would be strange
indeed—if the church in the leading city in the world—did not have some
theologians like that. Now if occasionally, they had men who were very bad in
their theology—men who were confused in their thinking—that is nothing; it is
no very great catastrophe. Every group has its ups and downs. We would not be
particularly concerned about it, were it not for the fact that the Roman church
claims today that the popes have always been infallible; inspired of God as
leaders of Christ's church; and if that is the case, then it is of tremendous
importance if one of them made a heretical statement. Now, did Honorius make
such a statement? Well, I'm not first going to ask the question whether he
actually did. I'm not going to ask the question whether people today think that
he did. I'm going to ask the question, what did people then think that he did?
And
so we notice that the 6th Ecumenical Council—and the Catholic Encyclopedia says—the general councils are infallible; the
encyclopedia makes that statement. They are infallible. Their doctrinal
statements are free from error. They are inspired of the Holy Spirit, according
to the Roman Catholic view. Now this ecumenical council declared a curse upon
Sergius, the bishop of Constantinople who advanced this idea; and upon
Honorius, the pope of Old Rome; who with the help of the old serpent had
scattered deadly error.
And
the Greeks had seen fine Christian men as bishops of Constantinople; and they
had seen heretical men; so they weren't greatly surprised that there would be a
bishop of Rome in error; but they felt that for the sake of truth, people
should be warned against such an error; and therefore they declared that he was
to be condemned as having scattered deadly error. But not only did the council
do that, but succeeding popes did it. A pope a few years later condemned
Honorius in the strongest language as a traitor to the Roman Church; and he
inserted in the confession of faith—which every newly elected pope had to sign
down to the 11th century—he inserted a curse upon Sergius and upon Honorius;
and this was required to be pronounced by every pope; and it was done for the
next three centuries; evidence on that had been forgotten during later
centuries, but was rediscovered in modern times.
So
we have the church condemning him; we have subsequent popes condemning him; and
it is a tough question for anyone who believes in papal infallibility. Now
Farrow passes over this very lightly. Farrow doesn't tell much about the popes
in this period. He simply names a bunch of them. He said the popes here were
not particularly important; he said "To the name of one, the stigma of
heresy is attached; to another the glory of martyrdom. Forty or more years
after the death of Honorius, actually a pious and saintly man, condemnation
came, not for formal heresy, but because as one of his successors, Leo II,
declared, 'He did not extinguish at once the incipient flame of heretical
error, as befitted Apostolic authority, but by his negligence nourished the
same.'" [Farrow, op. cit. p47.]
Now
that's all Farrow says on it. He passes over it very lightly. But McSorley in
his fuller discussion can hardly pass over it quite as lightly or quite as
quickly as that. So we will be interested to see what he says about it. He has
two places where he speaks about it, one under The Papacy, and one where he
discusses the council and the councils. He said, "Honorius I (625-638) is
best known through the anathema pronounced upon him at the Sixth Ecumenical
Council, more than 40 years after his death. The condemnation was occasioned by
a letter of the pope to Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, in which Honorius
seemed to favor a compromise with the Monothelites." [McSorley, op. cit., p.176.]
But
McSorley continues, "The letter was not a doctrinal definition, and did
not involve papal infallibility; but Honorious was apparently negligent of his
official duty; hence the condemnation." [ibid.]
McSorley
has this further discussion of Monothelitism. Here's what he says about it.
"About the year 634, Pope Honorius received a letter from Sergius,
Patriarch of Constantinople, asking whether it was more correct to use the
formula 'one operation' or the formula 'two operations,' when speaking of
Christ's human activity and divine activity. In place of answering the question
of Sergius directly, Honorius replied that it would be better to avoid both
expressions, so as to favor neither the Eutychians nor the Nestorians; and
Honorius added, 'We acknowledge one will of our Lord Jesus Christ.' ... Pope
John IV [6 years later - dcb] stated that 'one will' was an inaccurate
expression; but he added that Honorius had meant to use it in an orthodox
sense." [ibid., p. 187.]
Well,
that seemed pretty specific, didn't it? And he has a footnote, "The
defenders of Honorius argued that the pope meant to deny that our Lord had two
contrary wills; other persons regarded his statement as certainly
heretical."[ibid.]
And
then he says "The condemnation [of the Sixth Ecumenical Council -- dcb]
read as follows: 'We anathematize Honorius who did not attempt to sanctify the
Apostolic Church with the teaching of apostolic tradition, but by profound
treachery, permitted the teaching to be polluted.' The condemnation was
confirmed by Pope Leo II [682-3], who succeeded St. Agatho." [ibid., p. 188.] A footnote adds "It
does not state that Honorius imposed heretical doctrine upon the church in his
official capacity, but that he fostered heresy by his negligence. From this
condemnation by the Council of Constantinople, the conclusion has sometimes been
drawn that Honorius did not possess the infallibility which is claimed for the
pope. But this conclusion is illogical, as Honorius did not issue a solemn
definition of faith for the whole Church; and it is only in such definitions
that papal infallibility is exercised." [ibid.]
Actually,
to hold to infallibility of Honorius is absolutely impossible. As Schaff points
out, Honorius' first letter was decidedly heretical; his second was certainly
not orthodox. And he was recognized as heretical by the council, and by the
succeeding bishops of Rome; and in 1870 when the Vatican Council decided upon
the doctrine of papal infallibility, some of the leading scholars in the Roman
church—who had been extensively defending the Roman church against its
attackers in the last century before the Council of 1870—said it was absolutely
impossible to believe in papal infallibility in view of the heresy of Pope
Honorius. Now he was not a heretic in the sense of a man opposing clear
Scriptural doctrine. He was not that at all. But he did have muddled ideas
about this phase of doctrine; and he expressed them officially, in these
official letters to the patriarch of Constantinople. And there is no reason to
say Honorius was an evil man, or a wicked man, but he certainly was a confused
man; he certainly was in no sense an infallible leader for the Christian
church.
Of
course, the way the doctrine of papal infallibility is now precisely stated,
you might say that it doesn't prove anything any pope says unless he says
"I am now going to make an infallible statement." But that certainly
is not the way it is taught when you consider it; and probably nobody before
1870 ever made a statement with those particular words added to it. It would be
a very theoretical matter if it could only mean when a man says, "I am now
going to give an infallible statement."
The
present popes are very careful about this; the only statement that you can
prove was meant to be infallible in the last 40 years was so carefully worded,
that nobody could be sure what it does mean—the statement of the last pope
about the assumption of Mary. You just can't be sure—he worded it very, very
carefully. But they say that all the popes have been infallible teachers,
infallible in doctrinal teaching.
Well,
if a man writes and says, "On this doctrine on which you've asked
questions, the answer is that there is one will of God," that's pretty
near to an official statement of Christian doctrine. If it isn't, why what's
the use of bothering with doctrine, if it doesn't mean anything? They certainly
do mean something by it. If it means anything, it would include that. It does
not mean that the pope's ideas on every matter in the world is free from error,
of course not. But it would if he is an infallible teacher of doctrine.
They
anathematized him through the subsequent popes. If all popes can speak
infallibly, and Pope Agatho writes a letter and they adopt his terminology, why
then they should also adopt what Honorius said. But if Agatho has excellent
Scriptural evidence and a fine statement, and they take over the words and they
say, "We declare this is the Scriptural truth," and when they go on
and say, "We anathematize Honorius, who by profound treachery, imposed a
heretical view on the church," they certainly are not accepting the idea
of infallib1e leadership of the church, but being thankful for the fact that
you have a good man now.
Well,
so much then for the 6th Ecumenical Council. Then,
C. The Rise of
Mohammedanism.
And this is a matter which you would say does not belong in church history. We
do not discuss the various religions of India here; we don't discuss
Confucianism; we don't discuss Buddhism; we don't discuss other non-Christian
religions; we've not gone into this for paganism. But our interest in this of
course is largely centered on the background of our present churches, which is
the Christian church in Europe through the centuries; and that church was
constantly in contact with Mohammedanism; affected by it to some extent; but
constantly under threat of destruction from it.
And
in addition to that, Mohammedanism claimed to be based upon the very claims
that Judaism and Christianity claimed to be based upon. It accepts in general
the Old and New Testaments; and accepts most of the historical content of the
Old Testament, and a fair amount of that of the New Testament; and therefore it
is definitely related to Christianity—so definitely that in a way it might be
considered a Christian heresy rather than another religion.
Now
it can't be considered that, because it is too far from Christian doctrine; but
it does have such a close relation to so much of the teaching of the Bible,
that it is right that we know something about it. And so we now consider the
rise of Mohammedanism. And before telling you anything about Mohammedanism,
we'll say a bit about
1. Its
Teachings.
Now the teaching of Mohammed—in contrast to the other religions which I have
mentioned—strongly holds to monotheism; and that of course is a very vital
thing. It strongly holds to monotheism. It is, in its teachings, much nearer to
certain basic tenets of Christianity than any other religion outside of
Christianity; it strongly holds to monotheism. And one of the great purposes of
the early Mohammedan movements was to do away with polytheism. They strongly
opposed the worship of many gods; they claimed to believe in one God, and in
the great bulk of the teaching about this God in the Old Testament, and in some
of the teaching in the New Testament. They hold to a succession of prophets sent
by God, each of them greater than the one before; Abraham was one of the
greatest, but he was succeeded by greater men; until you got to Jesus Christ
who was one of the greatest prophets, greater than any who had preceded; but
himself not as great as the next one in the line, Mohammed. And I've even heard
it said, that some Mohammedans believe that Jesus Christ is coming back and
will then be greater than Mohammed because he will be later in the series. But
how widely this may be held, I don't know.
But
they hold to monotheism, to one God; the correct name of the religion is not
Mohammedanism. Christianity is a proper correct name for our religion, because
our religion is the religion which centers around the person of Christ. But
Mohammedanism is not the correct name for that religion, because it does not
center around the person of Mohammed. According to them, Mohammed is simply a
teacher; he is a teacher sent from God, but only a teacher; he is not a divine
being; and his teaching is submission—submission to the will of God. And the
Arabic word for submission is islam;
and so the proper name of Mohammedanism is Islam, the religion of submission to
the one true God. And the proper name of a believer is not a Mohammedan, but a
Muslim; this is similar to Hebrew: it is a participle which means the one who
is submitted to the will of God. We call it Moslem.
Yesterday we began with the rise of Mohammedanism, and under that, its teachings. As I mentioned yesterday the name Mohammedanism is a name which has become established among English-speaking people pretty thoroughly; I don't see any great point in trying to change it. But it certainly is not what the followers of Mohammed himself would like to be used. Their religion is called Islam; it is the religion of submission—submission to the will of God. The place of Mohammed in it is as a teacher. He is not the center of faith, as Christ is in our religion; it is not, like Christianity a religion that gathers around the person of its founder; it is a religion that follows the teaching of its founder; yet the position of the teacher is extremely exalted; and anything that can be traced to Mohammed has a fine importance in it; it is certainly not exaggerating his importance at all, to call the religion Mohammedanism, as we do in English, after its founder, and to refer to its beliefs under this title. Historically, it is pretty hard to see how this religion would ever have come into existence at all, if it were not for the peculiarities—and for the special abilities of this man—Mohammed.
Now
as to its teaching, I mentioned yesterday that at the center of Mohammedanism
lies monotheism. It is gathered around a great belief in one Supreme Being, one
Supreme Being who controls all things. And to read any section from the Koran
can give a Christian a real blessing, because of the great exaltation of the
one God, His holiness, His majesty, His power, His supremacy.
The
religion is a strange combination of that which is extremely good and very,
very admirable, in its great exaltation of monotheism; but it is combined with
much in its practice and in its attitude that is very degrading and harmful. I
believe it is an example of the fact that the very best way of destroying truth
is not to bring complete error against it; but to bring a counterfeit which has
much that is good but combined with it that which is extremely harmful.
Something that is completely bad can never last; it will die of itself almost
immediately. Anything that lasts has something good in it; there is a strength
that comes from something good; but if its good has that which is evil also
carried along with it, then one has to estimate the proportion of good and
evil. In this case, of course, the very most important thing in
Christianity—which is the belief in salvation through Jesus Christ—is left out;
and therefore it is one of the most harmful things that can be imagined; to
give this wonderful teaching about God, and then to leave out from it that
which can make it of any value to us; because it gives us no way to reach this
God or to come into any saving relationship with Him.
It
is a religion which does not—like Roman Catholicism—lay great stress on form
and ceremony. It has a few quite simple forms, but these forms are very loyally
maintained. One of these is prayer; they are to pray so many times a day,
facing toward Mecca. Now as in the case of Roman Catholicism—to a large
extent—this has become a mere form; but certainly not entirely. There are
certainly Muslims to whom prayer is very real thing. But for the great mass of
them, it is a form which must be carried out; and it brings shame to a
Protestant, who is apt to conceal his religious activities; and to have them
hardly noticed, because they are mostly done behind closed doors in private. It
brings a certain shame to be in a train in Egypt; and at the hour of twelve,
the men stand up on their feet and bow towards Mecca; they go through the form,
and nobody feels the least bit ostentatious about it; it is the thing to do,
and everybody does it; and the form of prayer is carried on.
And
from this has developed something you would not originally find in Mohammedan
teaching, having a man call the hour of prayer, so that everyone will know when
it is. And so the typical thing in the: Mohammedan architecture today is the
Minaret—the high tower—in which a man comes and calls out the hour of prayer,
so that people will know when to have this prayer. The creed is a very simple
one, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is His prophet." It is
a very simple creed, and there is no complicated ceremony for entering the
religion. One declares his acceptance of this creed; he declares his acceptance
of it, and his desire to be counted among the faithful; among those who are
submissive to the will of Allah, and faithfully desire to work with the others
who are similarly submissive. So it is a very simple matter to become a
Mohammedan; there is no complicated ritual to go through; there is a very
simple creed to accept; most of its procedures are very simple.
It
has circumcision as the Jews have—with a slightly different form—but
substantially the same. The main thing is prayer, and certain washings, and so
on. I remember a couple of men, when I was in Constantinople; I heard that
these two ungodly fellows from Chicago had taken a cruise; and on this cruise,
the ship stopped in Constantinople; and the people went sightseeing there, and
early one morning they saw one of the Mohammedan Mosques; and there out of the
sun they were chilly in the early morning; they saw the Mohammedan men washing
their feet—though they were cold—in order to have them clean to enter the
Mosque; and these two men from Chicago saw it; and one turned to the other and
said, "My, there must be something to religion after all, if they will do
that for their beliefs."
There
is thus a loyal, fanatic adherence to comparatively simple regulations. The
most difficult regulation in Mohammedanism is the regulation of the Fast of
Ramadan, one month of the year. In this month—the month of Ramadan—no Mohammedan
may take a bite of food or drink a drop of water in the daytime; and that of
course is a very severe test.
I
remember in Jerusalem, seeing the Arabs out working on the road; there they
stood on the road; they were working, and they were struggling along; you could
see they were tired from the fact that already two weeks of the month of
Ramadan had gone by; and on no day in that two weeks had one of them touched a
morsel of food or drunk a drop of water. And it came towards the end of the
day; and the moment came when the day was at an end; and during the month of
Ramadan they shoot off a cannon to tell when that moment is; the cannon went
off and one of them yelled, "Praise the Lord, the day is over." So
the day was over; they could now eat; they fast through the day, and they can
feast through the night. And of course you might say, "That is a rather
silly form, to go through the day, not eating anything or drinking anything;
and simply to make up for it by eating and drinking through the night." But
it reverses your habits; and it means a very long time of activity without even
a drop of water; and it is really much more than any of us can realize to go
through. That feast of Ramadan is the most difficult thing in Mohammedanism to
carry out.
Now
there is one thing in the teaching of Mohammedanism that is not so widely
known, but is very important in its maintenance. We have noticed that it is
extremely easy to become a Mohammedan. All you have to do is to declare that
you accept this creed: that there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his
prophet; and to declare your desire to be one with the brotherhood of those who
are submissive to God. It is very easy to become a Mohammedan. But it is very
difficult to stop being one. Because, according to the definite teaching of the
Mohammedan religion, anyone who apostatizes—gives up his belief in
Mohammedanism—is supposed to be killed. And it is the duty of any other to kill
him.
A
Christian can go about in a Mohammedan country, as a rule, quite safely; rarely
is there any danger; as long as he doesn't do what is forbidden in the
particular country, there is rarely any danger of his being injured in any way.
But let him lead a Mohammedan to the Lord; and let this man become baptized;
then it becomes the duty of every other Moslem to kill him.
I
heard Dr. [Samuel] Zwemer, one of the most effective missionaries to
Mohammedanism within the last century; I heard him tell how there was a
missionary to Egypt who was speaking in a meeting somewhere in a little town in
England; and this man said to the people, "You can't imagine how it is
over in Egypt, facing this situation; that a person dare not, who has been a
Mohammedan, dare not admit that he has become a Christian. You can't realize
what it is. We have people there who have accepted Christ, but they just don't
dare tell anybody, because their lives would be in danger." But he says,
"I'm way over here in England in this little town; there is no harm in my
telling you about Mohammed Anza; and he went ahead and told the story of this
Arab who had come to know the Lord in a real way; he was secretly baptized; and
he said, "I hope that one of these days he will decide to announce
publicly his faith; but at present, he is a real Christian, but he is keeping it
a secret, rather than run the risk of being killed as he would most certainly
be if the people knew what he had done."
And
the second day after that, the man was stabbed at night in the town in Egypt
where he was; and evidently there was someone there in that group, in that
little town in England, who had perhaps come to the meeting purposely in order
to see if any information of this sort would be given. And the result is that
to do missionary work in Mohammedan lands is the very hardest and the most
disappointing sort of missionary activity that there is. In Egypt and in most
Mohammedan countries, the converts are nearly all from old Christian groups;
they have through the ages kept their Christian faith, but which have often
become very corrupted, and have often merely a form; but yet they are
recognized as Christians, not as Moslems. But it is rare indeed in any of these
countries that the Moslem openly declares his Christian faith; and when he
does, he is usually immediately killed; and consequently it is impossible for
him to be a help in winning others. Occasionally in a Mohammedan area, a number
of them may come to a sufficient force where the others do not dare to try to
kill them; and thus you can make an advance, if there is a real substantial
advance made; sometimes a real headway is made in Mohammedan countries, but not
otherwise.
On
the other hand, I remember hearing some stories of a great missionary to China,
about 1900, at the time of the Boxer Rebellion; in China then, there was that
great anti-Christian movement, in which they tried to do away with all foreign
schools in China; and a great many missionaries were killed, and other
Europeans and Americans. And at that time, this man, Dr. Goforth—his wife tells
in his biography—about how they had to flee in China, to try to escape; and how
Dr. Goforth was hit on the head with a sword; this wound on his head,
fortunately, did not hit a vital spot, but he and his wife and children were
fleeing, trying to escape; they went through all kinds of hardships; and they
seemed to be just about at the very end, where there was just about no
possibility of escape; and they came into a town, and the people there
immediately welcomed them. "We believe as you do; we believe in one God;
we do not believe in Confucianism or Buddhism." And they took them in, and
took care of them, and helped them to recover from illness; and to get in
shape; and they helped to smuggle them out of the country, so they got back to
America safely. These were Mohammedans in Western China, of whom there is a
substantial number—though very small compared to the total population. They
felt that the Christians were like themselves—monotheists who believed in the
one God—and they were ready to help them against the persecution.
So
like everything else in the world that lasts, there is both good and bad in
Mohammedanism. But the very great amount of good in it makes it all the more
effective a weapon of Satan, in spreading that which is harmful and that which
is bad. So much then for its teaching.
2. The Early
Life of Mohammed.
As I mentioned yesterday in this course in church history, we do not look at
any extent into non-Christian religions; we say practically nothing about the
religions of the Orient, or the other non-Christian religions, in this course;
but since Mohammedanism had such a great inter-relationship with Christianity
during the Middle Ages, it is necessary that we know a good bit about its rise
and its effects on the history of the Christian church. So we must know
something about the early life of Mohammed.
Now
Mohammed died in 632 AD, and he was then either 63 or 65 years of age. We do
not know just when he was born; and as we mentioned yesterday, this was very natural
with great men. When a man who was going to become a great world figure is
born, nobody shoots off cannon and holds a great celebration that this world
figure has been born; nobody knows which of the thousands of people born every
year is going to be a great world figure. So very often we do not know when a
man was born; often we don't know where he was born; there's a good deal about
his early life that we don't know at all.
In
the case of Mohammed we have preserved a good many facts about his early life,
but there are a great many facts we don't know. We know that his father died
just before he was born. We know that his mother died while he was still very
young. He was brought up as an orphan. And he went with a caravan carrying the
commerce from Arabia, probably through Egypt, up through Syria, in different
directions; we have no evidence that he ever went to the great cities of the
ancient world. In fact, there is a tradition that one time Mohammed came to the
hill overlooking Damascus; and there overlooking Damascus, there in the desert,
looking down, desert all around him, desolate desert, he looked down at that
area where the city of Damascus is, where the rivers Abana and Pharpar are—for
which Naaman yearned in 2 Kings—Abana and Pharpar come together, producing that
oasis there; you have a beautiful greenery and a fine spot where the two
streams come; an oasis amidst the desert; and according to tradition, Mohammed
looked down upon this and said, "It is given to man to have only one Paradise;
I want mine in heaven." So he turned around and went back without ever
entering Damascus.
That
tradition would suggest that he did not have any direct contact as a young man
with the great cities or centers of learning of the ancient world. It is even questioned
whether he ever learned to read or write. There are those among his followers
who maintain that he could not read or write; and there are others who maintain
that he did have knowledge of reading and writing. At any rate, whether he did
or not, he had a very acute mind and an excellent memory. He was brought up in
the city of Mecca in central Arabia; and this was a city which from very early
times had been considered as a sacred city. It was a center of commerce where
the trade routes came together; and here there had been a tradition for a very
long time, that the caravans could stop without danger of being attacked. There
was an area around the town in which it was absolutely forbidden to shed blood
or to attack anyone; war was strictly prohibited within this area. And this
area had become something of a center of pilgrimage for Arabia, with followers
of some of the heathen gods coming to visit the center of Mecca for these
pilgrimages. In Mecca, there was a great building known as the Ka'aba, in which
they had the statues of the various heathen gods; and there is one tradition
that a statue of the Virgin Mary and the child Jesus was included there among
the statues of the Persian gods. ["a shrine containing hundreds of idols
representing Arabian tribal gods and other religious figures." — Wikipedia
on Ka'aba] We don't know whether that is true or not; but we do know that, not
very far from Mecca, in Mohammed's time there were towns in which Christianity
had been widely taught. But it was not the general Christianity of the Roman
Empire. It was the religion of one of the sects, which had separated during the
Christological controversies. And there was a very keen hatred between
different groups of Christians there in Arabia; different groups resulting from
these great Christological controversies which were even then going on at the
time when Mohammed was a young man. He doubtless came in contact with
Christians; and he certainly cane in contact with Jews. And he had a very
considerable knowledge of the Old and New Testaments.
When
Mohammed was a young man of 25, he conducted a caravan for a wealthy widow. And
this wealthy widow, Khadija, was 40 years of age; and Mohammed married her. And
he seems to have been genuinely in love with her. As long as she lived, he was
absolutely faithful to her, so it is plain that we have no reason to doubt the
claim. And constantly in his later life he referred back to Khadija his first
wife as the finest wife he had ever had. In his last years, when he was in his
60's, and he had a young wife who was about 20—who was a very beautiful and
extremely able woman—and she tried to make him say that she was the best wife
he had ever had; he would say, "You are the second-best I ever had, but
Khadija was the best I ever had." So in his early years Mohammed seems to
have been entirely loyal to his wife Khadija; he ceased his caravan journeys;
he became a merchant there in Mecca; and he gained quite a reputation as a man
of considerable classical literature.
But
then Mohammed decided that it was his duty to combat the polytheism of Mecca
and of Arabia. Now it's very hard to know precise facts about these early days
of Mohammed; we know a good many particular events. But there is some reason
for many to think that in his early days, he was entirely sincere; that he
thought that he was one who had been designated by the Lord to bring an end to
the polytheism of Arabia, and to advance a belief in the one God. And he spread
the teaching of this God, whom he would seem to have thought of as the God of
the Old Testament, the God of the Jews. And so he seems to have begun his
preaching to a very small group.
His
first convert was his wife, Khadija. His second was a cousin, Ali; and then
gradually he gathered a group of converts; but for his first three years, when
he hadn't many converts, he had a very small group; and they met very secretly;
and just how it came about that he began public preaching is difficult to say.
Now the article in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica maintains that it was done very quietly
for a long time, and that it was rather incidental—not that it was his definite
plan—that he began public speaking. According to the story that you read in
many earlier books, he began simply preaching publicly; and went for many years
with no converts, and finally began to get them. Islamic students have studied
the matter at length, and those details we don't know much about. But we do
know that there was a long period of proclamation of the monotheistic beliefs,
in which he seems to get very little results.
The
story that I read when I was a boy was that eventually the enemies in Mecca
began opposing him; to attack him, and threaten his life; until he fled from
there and looked for a place of refuge. According to the late Encyclopaedia Britannica, he had
arranged his place of refuge beforehand; they may have good evidence of that.
It would be a very involved matter to get the precise details on it; according
to this present view of Islamic scholars, he had at Mecca had reached some
people from another town called Yathrib. The name of is one which is probably
never used, because the town later came to be called the city of Mohammed, or
simply the city, and that, in Arabic, is the word Medina. But these people from Medina, a few of them, had been
converted to Mohammed's views; and then they invited him to come to Medina, and
to straighten out the feud in the city; and to become the dictator in the city
of Yathrib as they called it then—Medina as they called it later. And scholars
seem to feel that he did have representatives there before he went himself.
These details we're not sure about; but this we know, that in 622 AD, there
came a turning point in his life, when he was shortly over 50; and this is so
important that I'm going to call it
3. The Hegira
(622 AD).
This is an Arabic word which it is necessary for anyone to know who has
anything to do with Mohammedanism, or with Mohammed's life. And 622 AD marks a
turning point and a complete change in Mohammed's life. At this time, in 622,
the plot against his life reached the point where it seemed as if he would soon
be killed by his enemies if he continued. These people in Mecca, many of them
relatives of Mohammed, were receiving considerable profit from the pilgrimage
to the heathen gods whose statues were there in the Ka'aba, and they felt that
his preaching threatened their business. There were various reasons why they
felt that he must be eliminated; and there had been various plots against his
life which had failed, but which had come so near; and the antagonism was
becoming so great that in 622 he fled from Mecca, and the word hegira means "the flight".
So
in 622 he fled from Mecca to Medina. It is a very exciting story, how he
managed to elude his pursuers; how he made it look as if he was sleeping there
in the house; so that when they would attack they would think he was there, and
would wait, watching for him; but he was getting away. But he escaped and got
to Medina; and this is so important in Mohammedanism that all Mohammedan dates
are written, instead of AD, like we do, they write AH, and the date of the
hegira, and then they give the number after 622 AD. So 622 is a good date for
you to remember, because when you see a Mohammedan date then, you can add approximately
600 and can know in general about what period of the Christian era it lies, in
which this particular event occurred.
4. Mohammed at Medina. Mohammed was about 50 years of age when he went to Medina. And it is strange to see how a man could be so different as the Mohammed at Medina compared with the Mohammed, as he seems to have been, in Mecca. In Mecca we see him as a man preaching the most exalted monotheism; a man declaiming against the idolaters and against the polytheism of his day, with few converts; a man gathering very few, but tenaciously continuing in his message in spite of his difficulty; in spite of threats against his life; near escapes and so on. If his life had ended at the time of the Hegira, we might think of him as a very noble character; a man who was certain of what he believed, even though it cost him his life; and even though he gained nothing from it.
But
now was there change in Mohammed's character when he went to Medina; did he
become discouraged and simply decide to use entirely different tactics? to turn
aside from his former great devotion to these ideas? to make them something
that would really advance him in wealth and in comfort and in fame and so on?
Or did he all along have the characteristics which showed themselves in Medina,
and he was building up a foundation for them during these years? It would be
pretty hard to prove. But it is a fact that we find people changing most
remarkably. I think we should be sure to learn that you can't put your trust in
human beings; that only the Lord is worthy of our trust; and human beings
change in most strange ways, and qualities come out in them that we never
dreamed were there.
At
any rate, we have Mohammed living in Medina for ten years, I mentioned to you
that he died in 632; so he was there after the Hegira for ten years; and during
these years he was entirely different sort of character. There he was still
preaching; but he was an organizer; he was a soldier; he was an administrator;
and he showed remarkable tact and wisdom in the way he did things; but it was a
wisdom calculated not to gather people to believe in one God despite what
suffering or persecution might come; but calculated to take a belief and to go
out with it and to force people to come in line with it; and to bring
everything into submission to himself. So Mohammed thought that they should use
force of arms to spread their doctrine.
And as far as Mohammed's own life was concerned, he had been faithful to Khadija while she lived; but now she had died, and he married a young wife who didn't seem altogether satisfied; and he received a revelation that it was all right for a man to have three or four wives. I believe today it is limited to four wives. I remember reading about the Sultan of Arabia about 40 years ago—the man who had conquered most of Arabia and made himself head over it—that, according to the Koran, Mohammed was allowed to have four wives, not more; and so he never had over three, because he wanted to be ready in case he ever saw anybody who appealed to him, to add a fourth; and as soon as he would get a fourth, he would immediately divorce one of the three; so he always kept himself with three wives; I think he left about 60 or 70 sons, but he probably married dozens and dozens of women during his life.
Well,
now this declaration that Mohammed gave made polygamy an established thing in
Mohammedanism; but he found that when he had four wives that he was not
satisfied; and he received a revelation that in the case of the prophets, this
did not apply; this limitation on others did not apply to him. So although
before he was 50 he had only the one wife; after that we have the names of at
least 8 or 10 who were wives of Mohammed during these last 8 or 10 years of his
life. And he had most of his wives at the same time.
Thus
in his general character, there is a different impression than we get from the
preacher of monotheism of his early years.
Mohammed
organized his teachers very cleverly. He planned all sorts of systems of uniting
the people. Medina had been split by various feuds; and he brought an end to
it—to the feuds; he got the people united, and then he made all sorts of
arrangements of brotherhood among them. An person would make an individual his
brother; and it was a relationship closer actually than blood brotherhood; and
he tried to get as many as possible made among his followers, so that it worked
down the family line and welded them into a unit. When he had the town fairly
well organized, he sent out a group of people to waylay one of the Mecca
caravans. They waylaid this caravan; gathered a great amount of booty; and then
they began attacking caravans, and thus gathering funds; other people began
coming to them; and eventually they became strong enough to attack Mecca
itself; and when they did so, the people of Mecca were not particularly trained
for war; Mecca was an area in which war was supposed to be forbidden; these
people very quickly changed their attitude; and instead of taking Mohammed as
one who was destroying their institutions, they rejoiced that a man from their
own country and their own town had become so prominent and so powerful; and so
he was received into Mecca quite easily.
Now
at Medina, he had been having his followers pray toward Jerusalem, and he
claimed to follow the teachings of the Old Testament. The New Testament also he
thought was a revelation from God. Mohammedans believe in the Virgin Birth of
Christ; they believe in the miracles of Christ; they believe that Christ was a
prophet sent from God; but they deny both the crucifixion and the resurrection.
Mohammed said that when Jesus got into a situation where the enemies were so
strong that there was no possibility of his escaping from them, with ordinary
human powers, that God intervened; and that Jesus was snatched away and hidden;
and that someone else put in his place there; made to look like him so that
someone else was crucified instead of Jesus. And then that later on, it was the
actual Jesus who had never died who appeared; and that he did ascend to heaven.
But that the crucifixion and the resurrection never actually occurred.
Thus
he gets rid of the center of Christianity, salvation through the death of
Christ. But keeping the great belief in monotheism; and keeping the belief in
the miracles of Jesus; and His virgin birth; and His being a very great
prophet, next in importance to Mohammed among the long series of prophets.
Mohammed had had his people pray every day, facing toward Jerusalem; but he
found that the Jews were not ready to recognize that Mohammed was the great
leader of their beliefs, though he made certain changes in them. It was the
same as their belief, and they should follow him, join with him. He found the
Jews noted their differences instead of the points in common; and they were
unready to join with him; and this irritated him, and he announced—while he was
still in Medina—that instead of praying toward Jerusalem, they should pray
toward Mecca. So all over the world today, Mohammedans face toward Mecca when they
pray; and Mecca, of course, has no connection with the story of God's
revelation at all in the Old and New Testament.
When
he took Mecca, he did away with all of the statues in the Ka'aba; but there was
a big black stone there which—he said—had come down from heaven. It was
probably a meteor; probably an ancient thing and a very unusual thing; and he
put this in the middle of the Ka'aba as the center of the pilgrimages; and to
this day it is the desire of every Mohammedan in any part of the world, to make
a pilgrimage to Mecca, and to come to the Ka'aba. Any Mohammedan is welcome in
Mecca; but anyone who is not a Mohammedan is today forbidden to go within quite
a distance from Mecca; and if a man is discovered in Mecca who is not a
Mohammedan, he is immediately killed. There have been very few Europeans who
have ever been in Mecca. They have either become Mohammedans and gone there, or
they have gone in disguise. We have very few stories—but very exciting
stories—of men who have penetrated there in disguise, and then told about the
situation in Mecca. It is today the great religious center of Mohammedanism.
But
during these ten years, then, Mohammed at Medina laid the foundation of a
religion which was very different from the simple proclamation of Monotheism
that he gave in Mecca in his early days. He laid the foundation of a system
which felt that it was their duty to force people to accept the teaching, that
there is only one God and Mohammed is His prophet. So before the end of
Mohammed's life, his followers were attacking Arab towns and saying to the
people, "There is one God and Mohammed is His prophet. Will you accept his
teaching? You have your choice between this teaching and the sword." And
if the people said, "No, I will not accept this teaching," they would
kill them; they would be killed unless they would accept the Mohammedan
teaching. However, when he took prisoners who were Jews or Christians, they
already believed in one God; they would not accept the Mohammedan teaching; but
they did have much in common with them, in their belief in this great
foundation teaching of the greatness, the holiness, the majesty of God. So
these people were not killed if they did not accept Mohammedanism, but they
were subjected to very high tribute; so Christian and Jewish communities were
maintained under protection, but were subjected to extremely high taxes; and
they have continued that way under Mohammedan protection all through the
centuries; conditions have varied; sometimes they have been more subject to persecution
than other times; sometimes the tribute was higher; but it never has been
Mohammedan teaching that Christians or Jews should be killed. Well,
5. The Conquest
of Arabia.
In this heading we will deal with the first few years after Mohammed's death.
When Mohammed died, one of his first converts, a man named Abu Bakr, was
recognized as his successor—that is to say, his successor as the head of the
organization, They called him the Caliph; so he we call Abu Bakr the first
Caliph—the first of the successors of Mohammed as leaders of the Islamic
forces. And the forces now have their political capital at Medina, and their
religious capital at Mecca. They proceeded under this caliphate, and that of
his successors, to conquer all of Arabia.
During
this time there was an interest in what Mohammed had said. Now, during his time
in Mecca, some of his friends had taken down his words; and so these had been
written out; and after he went to Medina, his revelations were written out; so
they had these things that were written out, just as somebody took them down;
they were never revised in any way; we don't know how accurately they were
taken down; we don't even know whether they got the whole thing; we don't know
whether they were taken, and they couldn't read their notes, made mistakes in
them. They were all taken in this manner; these leaves were all gathered
together; and they had no idea what order they had been given in, so they
arranged them according to length. Being arranged according to their length—with
the longest one first, and the shortest one last—this resulted in Suras, as they called them, each a
separate section. There is no relationship, necessarily, for instance, between
Suras five and six. Each of them is a separate section; and each of them is
supposed to be a message or a revelation which he gave to his followers at some
time during his life.
Some
people think the Koran to be very tiresome reading. It is not, like many parts
of the Bible, a history that can be read along consecutively, telling of things
in an interesting way. It is the revelation which Mohammed claims to have
received, or the sermons which he gave, and which cover a great variety of
subjects. On the other hand, Dr. Robert Dick Wilson—under whom I studied
Semitic languages many years ago—Dr. Wilson used to say that, for an example of
moving sermons, he felt that some parts of the Koran were absolutely
outstanding. The way that Mohammed would describe the delights of heaven—for
the desert person in the heat of the desert—he describes the coolness and the
pleasant situation; the cool waters of the streams; and everyone attended by
the dozens of these very beautiful girls; they took care of him; did everything
for him that he might desire. All the pleasures and joys of heaven; And then he
says—but for those who do not believe—for them there are the miseries of hell.
Then he goes on to describe the terrible pains of hell; and he passes from one
to the other—very impassioned writing, and very forcible—presented in such a
way as to inflame the emotions and imaginations of his hearers.
The Koran is written, parts of it, in very beautiful Arabic; there's a swing, there's a style to it, which is very moving. And one of the Arab boasts is that it cannot be translated into any other language; that it is only in the Arabic that you get the full force.
[student:
"Do they say the Koran is inspired?"] They consider it as inspired.
It is considered that the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Koran are
inspired, sacred, absolutely dependable. But the difference is that the Old
Testament—according to their belief—was very much corrupted by the Jews, who
made changes in it, according to their own ideas and desires. And the New
Testament has been changed by the Christians; so that you have three
revelations all of which are true; but the Koran is the only one that's
anywhere near its original form; therefore it's the one that's really
dependable, according to their view.
6. The Wider
Extension of Islam.
It must have been a terrifying thing to the people of the 7th century in
Europe, to see the way the Arab tribes that had been for thousands of years in
Arabia—hardly going out of Arabia to any extent—now suddenly pouring out in
great fanatical armies; they rushed over Syria in hardly any time; they
conquered Palestine, took Jerusalem; Omar, one of the early successors of
Mohammed, was the Caliph when they took Jerusalem.
Omar
was a man of the desert—a very simple man of the desert—who retained his
simplicity. He was filled with a fanatical belief in Mohammedanism and in the
necessity of conquest, but he retained his manner of simple life. So—according
the story—as they came across the desert, Omar was on a camel which was led by
a black slave; the slave led the camel Omar sat on; and he saw the slave was
getting pretty tired, and he said "That's too bad; here, you get on the
camel and I'll lead it for a while." So he said, "Every hour we'll
change; you lead it for an hour, and I'll lead it for an hour." So they
went along; and when they got to the gate of Jerusalem—which had surrendered to
Islam—the slave was sitting on the camel, and Omar was leading; and being a man
of great integrity and standing on the arrangement he had made, he walked in
through the gates of Jerusalem, leading the camel; all the people of Jerusalem
bowed to the black slave who was sitting on the camel, and met with the Caliph
who had taken over Jerusalem.
But
this simplicity of life was characteristic of many of the Arabs—early Arab
leaders—a real force in the success of their great outreach of conquest. They
did away with all caste lines of every kind. Anyone who accepted Mohammedanism
was equal. On the other hand, when Omar was caliph and his army conquered
Egypt, they came into Alexandria; and according to the story, the general sent
a message to Omar and said, "In Alexandria here, there is a great library
with thousands of books containing all the wisdom of the ancient Greek world;
what shall we do with it?" And according to the story that was passed on,
Omar said, "Well, if the books agree with the Koran, there's no use of
keeping them; we've got it in the Koran. If they differ with it, they're bad
books and should be destroyed; so you might as well burn them all." So the
building was burned, and our great depository of the wisdom of the ancient
world was completely destroyed.
Now, I don't think we can be sure that story is true; but it's possible that in the fighting, the building was set fire and burned; and that in order to excuse this, this story was made up. At any rate however, this story was told; and we see thus—if the story is true—we see the simplicity of Omar, and his determination to carry through the principles that he believed in without change; but also his ignorance of the value of learning; and his ignorance of anything beyond the simple areas with which he is familiar. Mohammed was of course a man with much wider knowledge—whether he could read and write or not—and wider understanding than Omar.
One
of the earliest caliphs, Ali, got into difficulty with others; Ali claimed that
Mohammed had designated him as his successor. There were three caliphs in
between—who really should not have been caliphs at all. In the end, Ali's two
sons were killed, and there was quite a division in the Arab world—one that has
perpetuated itself to this day. The great mass of Mohammedans are called
Sunnis; they are the ones who accept the first Caliph and the first leader. But
those who believe that Ali should have been the first Caliph, celebrate the day
when his sons were killed as a great festival day. And in Persia most of the
Mohammedans are Shia, the followers of Ali.
When
I was in Berlin studying at one time, I remember eating with two men, one from India
and one from Persia; both were Mohammedans. And one said to the other,
"Are you a Shia or a Sunni?" And the other said, "Oh, let's not
talk about that." And he just tried to put him off; but the first one kept
after him, till finally the other told him; and then it developed that one of
them was a Shia and one of them was a Sunni. After that, they were both much
more cordial to me than toward each other. There was a harsh bitter hatred
among these two students of the Mohammedans.
But
the Mohammedan armies went across North Africa; and they also went northward to
Palestine and Syria and Asia Minor; and they came right to the gates of
Constantinople; and we've noticed how with the use of Greek fire, they were
driven back from the city of Constantinople, and the Eastern Empire was saved.
They went clear across North Africa, took all these territories; and then took
all of Spain and then came up into France. And it was in 732—one hundred years
after the death of Mohammed—that the Frankish ruler—the mayor of the palace,
Charles Martel—met the Mohammedan forces at Tours in southern France; and there
he decisively defeated them and stopped their threat; and people have said the
crescent which went from Asia Minor back and around through the Near East and
across Africa and then up through Spain—the crescent—if it wasn't for that
victory, might have come together and all of Europe might have been won by
Islam.
But
to this day it remains one of the strongest anti-Christian forces; there are a
hundred million Mohammedans in the world today—they are very fanatical in
Africa. I hear there are many sections where a missionary will go into a town;
he can present the gospel; he will receive many converts; but then you come to
the next town; and you find the Mohammedan missionaries are already there ahead
of you; they are active in missionary work in Africa; go into any town there,
and once they're won to Mohammedanism, it is a hundred times harder to win them
to Christianity than if you get there before the Mohammedan forces do.
There
are many who very earnestly believe in it today; it is a vital force in the
world, and has been all the time since Mohammed first gave his message. But it
is a force which—by having much that is wonderfully true in it—denies the
center of the gospel, and is one of the most effective forces against
Christianity. Well, we continue there tomorrow.
Islam,
as we said yesterday, could be in a way considered as a Christian heritage; it
accepts much more of Christian truth than some groups that call themselves
Christian do. It accepts a good deal more. I feel much more in common with a
staunch orthodox Mohammedan than I do with many a modernist. Because, as Dr.
[J. Gresham] Machen said, modernism and Christianity not only are different
religions, but they belong to different groups of religions—altogether
different types of religion. Modernism denies the factual and historical
teachings and bases of Christianity—denies most of them. It is a religion which
could just as well substitute the name of Mohammed or Buddha or Brahma for the
name of Christ—just as well. Because what it teaches has practically nothing to
do with Christ but it is simply a general vague humanitarian belief.
Of
course, neo-orthodoxy is different—and yet not so different as might seem.
Because, although it uses more Christian terminology than old fashioned
modernism does; it actually reinterprets its terminology, so that it does not
mean at all what the Christian church has meant by it through the ages.
The
Roman Catholic Church holds to the great body of factual base of Christianity,
but it misses out at the vital point of our relation to Christ, which is the
subject of the means of salvation. Now, the Roman Catholic Church today has
enough truth in its teaching—in what it reads—what is read in Latin; in its
teaching, and in the Bible which it claims to stand upon, it has enough
teaching that a person can be saved through it; and I have no doubt that many
are. But unfortunately, a great many are kept from the truth by having so much
of the truth given, and then being just stopped from the vital point of the
knowledge of how to receive the benefits of Christ's death—not through some
hocus-pocus that a priest goes through—but from a personal relationship to the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Now
Mohammedanism, in this regard, is like Roman Catholicism—only a good deal more
so. That is to say, it accepts the great body of truth that we do; but it
rejects much more of it than the Roman Catholic Church does. It accepts the
miracles; the virgin birth of Christ; the fact of his greatness; just
everything that the modernists accept about Christ—and a great deal more—the
Mohammedans accept about it, though less than the Roman Catholics. But when it
gets to the central point—His death and his resurrection—this Mohammedanism
completely rejects. And the rejection of this vital central point properly tags
it as a non-Christian religion. It is not Christian because it denies the
center of Christianity; but most modernists deny far more Christian truth than
the Mohammedans do. And Mohammedanism has the great teaching about God, His
righteousness, His justice, His holiness, His great power; it is a tremendous
improvement over the old idolatry, over the heathenism which it displaced; but
it is not an improvement which would lead anyone to salvation, because it has
no statement of the possibility of salvation through Christ; while Roman
Catholicism does have that statement, but explains it away by its false
traditions.
It
is just tragic when you think of the people in the East arguing over precise
details of the person of Christ—arguing over many points of theology on which
we cannot get complete understanding in this life—but it is simply their exact
formula against the other people's particular formula; and arguing this to the
extent that it took up their energy which should have been spent with taking
the great facts of salvation through Christ and making them known.
Just
think, if Mohammed—with his ability and his zeal and his energy—could have been
reached in his early days by a real Christian, reached for Christ, what a
missionary he might have been! What a leader he might have made for the cause
of Christ, instead of one who by his work perhaps has done as much to hold back
the gospel as anything that any one man has ever done in all history. Mohammed
started a movement which took the energy of the Arabs and gathered them
together and turned them in one direction and utilized them in such a way that
it turned a large part of the world upside down.
And
this great section of the Eastern Empire, and a great section of the Western
Empire, came completely under Mohammedan hands; and the region where St.
Augustine had, only 2 ½ centuries before, labored so hard for the unity of the
church; and for the gospel and for the knowledge of the gospel; this region
which, under the Vandals, had many who knew the truth and were spreading it;
were now completely taken over by the Mohammedan teachings; and the Christians
became little groups here and there, subject to very high tribute; and very
small groups in a land which was predominantly Moslem, and which has remained
so until this day. They went clear across Asia to Africa, and clear across
Africa, and up into Spain, and practically the whole of Spain; so that for some
centuries Spain was held by the Moslems; and Spain became a great center of
learning, far surpassing any center in the rest of Europe—at least in Western
Europe—a great center of learning, of culture, of commerce; a fine civilization
in Spain, but an anti-Christian civilization it was, which endured for some
centuries.
We're
all familiar with Ferdinand and Isabella who gave the ships to Columbus with
which he discovered America. Well, that is already 6 or 7 centuries after the
time with which we are dealing. And Ferdinand spent half the energies of his
life in driving the Moslems out of the various portions of Spain. Until that
time, they still were dominant in nearly all of Spain. And they spread to the
rest of Europe; and it was only the warlike power of the Franks that stopped
them; they had already come a sizeable distance into France; and if it were not
for this they might easily have proceeded to take over all of Europe; and in
fact they—in the other direction—within 50 years of the death of Mohammed they
were threatening Constantinople; the great Christian center of Antioch, the 2nd
greatest city of the empire; Damascus, a great Christian center; Jerusalem;
Alexandria, the great center of Athanasius, a great place for the standard of
orthodoxy, which fell under the Moslems; all these places fell under their
complete control; and they have remained under it now for way over a thousand
years. So that it was a tremendous movement which was released by the activity
of Mohammed in the beginning of the 7th century, and has continued as an active
vital force in the world ever since.
During
the next 5 or 6 centuries—as far as civilization was concerned—the Mohammedans
in their centers were way ahead of the Christian centers; they had the center
Cordova in Spain; and Baghdad, in Mesopotamia; and certain other centers in
Egypt, also, were centers of culture, of education; they were studying the
ancient Greek writings; they were studying the ancient civilization; they were
making advances in Science: advances in astronomy, advances in medicine, which
were way ahead of anything in Europe; but within the last 400 years, Europe has
gone way ahead of them; and the Moslem centers have gone back; but in between,
they had a time of tremendous leadership and tremendous accomplishment. And if
all those energies could have been turned into Christian channels—which might
conceivably been done if someone had reached Mohammed as a young man for the
Lord—the whole history of the world would a have been different. He was the sort
of man who might have been used greatly for the Lord's service; but if the
devil gets ahold of him, he is the man who does the most to injure the cause of
Christ.
D. The Irish and
English Missions in the 7th and 8th Centuries. We noticed that
St. Patrick actually—as far as any evidence goes—had no connection with the
Pope of Rome; that the Pope had, back in the 5th century, sent a man to convert
the Irish; and the man gave it up as a bad job after two years of effort. But
that this young Patrick—whether Scotch or English, we don't know—who had been a
captive in Ireland; had been a slave there and had escaped; had a great longing
to win the Irish for Christ; and he went over to Ireland, and began to preach;
and he had phenomenal success. Schaff says there is no more false claim in
history than the attempt of the Roman Catholic church to claim Patrick as a
Roman Catholic missionary.
[dcb:
compare "The Roman tradition that St. Patrick was sent by Pope Caelestine
is too late to have any claim upon our acceptance, and is set aside by the
entire silence of St. Patrick himself in his genuine works. It arose from
confounding Patrick with Palladius. The Roman mission of Palladius failed; the
independent mission of Patrick succeeded... The Christianity of Patrick was
substantially that of Gaul and old Britain, i.e., Catholic, orthodox, monastic,
ascetic, but independent of the Pope, and differing from Rome in the age of
Gregory I in minor matters of polity and ritual." Schaff, Church History IV, p 45, 47.]
Now
of course, we know so little about details of his life, that we cannot say that
it was impossible that the things they say about him are true; that he did know
the pope; had a connection with the pope; and tried to win Ireland for the
Roman church. Comparatively, we cannot say that because we know so little about
him; but we can say that there is no evidence whatever from that time, or for
several centuries later, to uphold these statements. And we can say that, the
little we have left of Patrick's life has absolutely no relationship to any of
the peculiar features of the Roman Catholic Church. There is no mention in it
of any special place of honor to the Virgin Mary; no mention of purgatory; no
mention of masses; no mention of the pope; but it is all a song of praise to
Christ, who has renewed him and who alone is the Lord. Everything we have left
in St. Patrick's life fits exactly with present day Protestant teaching; so of
course, there's a large portion of Protestant teaching today which we have—in
the little we have—of St. Patrick; we have nothing to prove one way or the
other. But historical evidence—while not conclusive—is very, very strong, that
Patrick was in Ireland; he did an independent work, unrelated to the bishop of
Rome.
Now
another thing we can look at, in that direction, is that a few centuries later,
when the missionaries from Ireland and those under the direction of the bishop
of Rome came to meet together, we find that the Irish had different customs in
various things connected with Christian service; nothing large, but enough to
suggest that the beginning had been different; rather than that they had been
related from the time of St. Patrick.
After
the work which Patrick did in Ireland, Ireland became one of the greatest
centers of Christian missions in all history. And during the next four
centuries, the Irish missionaries went over to Scotland; and they established
centers in Scotland, from which they carried the gospel into the homes around
the country.
In
the Roman Catholic History [McSorley] which I have here, the statement is made
that the work of Patrick and of his successors used an entirely different
arrangement than was used in the Roman Catholic centers, as to the carrying on
of the work. That the pope would appoint bishops to the different areas, who
would have charge of the churches in those areas; but that what Patrick did was
to build centers which he called monasteries. And to these centers, people came
who wanted to spend their lives studying the Scripture or advancing the work of
Christ; and then from these centers, they went out into the surrounding area,
preaching, and reaching people with the message; but everything centered in the
monastery. Under the Roman Catholic system, the bishop was in charge of the
area and the monastery was subject to the bishop. It is a comparatively
secondary thing; those who are giving their lives to monastic work, they are
off by themselves—the bishop is over them, and over the work, over the whole
community. But Patrick's work was an entirely different sort of a set-up, which
seemed to him to be particularly well adapted to the work in this predominantly
agricultural area—very few towns of any size there.
Now
the same system was carried on, during the succeeding centuries, by Patrick's successors;
they went to Scotland, and established monasteries on islands on the border of
Scotland—on the edge of Scotland; and from them, they went into the mainland
and through the country there; and Scotland was largely won to Christianity by
these Irish missionaries. And then from Ireland and from Scotland, they went
over into France, into sections which had hardly been penetrated by
missionaries before; then over into Switzerland, into northern Italy, and up
into Germany; and here in Germany they found it very difficult, because they
were now outside the area which had been under the control of the Roman Empire.
The
Irish missions continued during these two centuries as they had before. We will
not name any of their outstanding characters. We have not yet come to the time
where the Roman Catholic Church gained control; it takes it over and changes
the whole situation in Ireland; that comes later.
But
we must mention here—I said Irish and English Missions—we must mention here an
English missionary, whose name is quite outstanding in the history of Christian
work during the 8th century. This man is known as St. Boniface. This was
probably not his original name, but a name which he took in his Christian work;
and he was an Englishman. He did not come from this background of the
independent Irish Missions; as you remember, the Anglo-Saxons had conquered
England, and they had subdued the Britons there—these pagan Anglo-Saxons—they
had received the mission that the bishop of Rome had sent, under Augustine of
Canterbury; and the church had been established in England, in direct
connection with Rome.
The interesting thing is that, about 3 centuries after this time, an English king conquered Ireland with the blessing of the pope, who called upon him to civilize the Irish; and he forced the Irish under the control of the Pope; and then when the Reformation came, the English broke with the Pope and the Irish remained with him; being influenced there, partly, by their dislike for the English.
And
the Irish—who were great missionaries of true Christianity back in the 6th,
7th, 8th, 9th centuries—have during the last three centuries been the most
active workers for the Roman Catholic Church. While the English—who were the
defenders of the pope's policy in these early days—have during the last 3 or 4
centuries been among the best nations in the presentation of a Christianity
based upon the Bible, without the intervention of human tradition between the
Bible and the human soul.
But
Boniface came from the English church; he was one who recognized the bishop of
Rome as the head of the church; he made various visits to Rome. And yet
Boniface was a man who—judging by what remains of his preaching—was not in any
way affected by the superstitions which are so important in the teaching of the
Roman Catholic Church today; and which had at least a beginning at that time in
some of its features. But his emphasis is upon knowing Christ, accepting
Christ, and having faith in Christ.
Boniface
undertook the hardest task of the time: to go outside what had formerly been
part of the Roman Empire—to the wild pagan tribes in the forests of what is
today Holland and what is today Germany—to go into those areas and to reach
these people without any government that was nominally Christian; into an area
in which the governments were anti-Christian—such government as there was; to
go into this area and to win these people to Christ; and Boniface did a task
which surpassed all predecessors as far as the work among these Germans went.
So he is a man whose name we certainly should remember. He was born about 680
and died in 754 or 755.
A
part of his work which met with much difficulty was his attempt to reform the
church in France. There he met with considerable hostility, though he seems to
have had a very considerable influence there. He began his great missionary
career in the neighborhood of the present town of Utrecht in Holland, which was
outside the territory of the Roman Empire, among the people known as the
Frisians; people in Holland today—a large section of Holland—they have a
language slightly different from that of the rest of Holland. But he found it
impossible to make progress there among the Frisians; and after an attempt, he
would note he gave up, for the time being, the effort among the Frisians.
He
went back to England, where he was offered to be made abbot of the continent;
but he said, no, the Lord had called him to this work—to carry the gospel out
where Christ was not named at all. He made a pilgrimage to Rome; and from the
bishop of Rome, he received a general commission to Christianize and Romanize
central Europe. Now he went up into what is today Germany. And there he worked
very actively for many years. One time he came to a place where the people were
worshipping a great oak tree; and under this great oak tree, these people were
having their great services—their worship; and they felt the heathen gods had
their center of power at this great oak tree. And Boniface declared that the
oak tree and the spirit supposed to reign there had no power, but only God had
power; he declared that the oak could not even protect itself; and in the
presence of a great number of the heathen, he took an axe and cut down the
sacred and inviolable oak of the thunder god; and the people of course were
filled with terror, thinking that he was as good as dead; but when nothing
happened at all, their faith in the oak tree and in the spirit of the oak tree
was shattered; and by such acts as this, he risked his life many times; he
succeeded in reaching thousands of people in what is now Germany with the
message of Christ.
Eventually
he was made archbishop over the whole area; he established many people to
direct smaller areas, giving them the title of bishop; he did a tremendous work
there in the area that is today Germany. Then towards the end of his life, he
again thought of the Frisians, where he had begun his missionary work in what
is now Holland. He longed to reach them for Christianity; and so he took about
50 devoted followers; he went up into the region of the Frisians when he was an
old man, over 70 years of age; he went up there and began missionary work; and
had a success for a while, and then the pagans formed a large group; they came
and attacked him and his men; and he met his martyr's death with calmness and
resignation, in 754 or 755. We know it was June 6, but we don't know which year
it is.
He
believed in the supremacy of the bishop of Rome; he certainly did not foresee
the results, but his teaching was thoroughly Christian and very evangelical;
there is no connection between what he did and the superstition which developed
in the Roman church. I was much interested, when I was a student at the
University of Berlin, to go to the city of Fulda where he had established this
great center in Germany. And there in the city of Fulda there is a great
cathedral named after him, the Cathedral of St. Boniface, and a great monastery
there which he is said to have founded. And out in front of the cathedral, in
the public square there, there is a large pedestal on which there is a large
statue, something larger than that actual size, of St. Boniface holding up the
cross in his hands, St. Boniface, the apostle to the Germans.
But
what interested me most was to see what was written on the pedestal, and there
were the words in Latin, and the words were, "The Word of God abides for
ever." When I saw that I couldn't help thinking how, three days before, I
had been in the city of Eisenach, the place where Martin Luther was a young
boy; the place where he had been a prisoner in a castle which still stands
today, up over the town of Eisenach; where he made his great translations of
the Bible, which was the most important work in the establishment of
Protestantism, not only in Germany but throughout the world; and it was
interesting to note on the statue of Martin Luther there in Eisenach in the
public square, on the pedestal, the very same words only this time in German,
"the Word of God stands for ever." Both of them are quoting from I
Peter, who in turn quoted from Isaiah. Thus it seems to me that Boniface was an
apostle in the succession of those who maintained the Word of God—Isaiah,
Peter—and the spread the true message; even though what he left is today in the
hands of those who largely substitute ritual for interest in the Word of God.
When
the Seminary was down in Wilmington, one of our faculty went into a Roman
Catholic bookstore where they sold not only Roman Catholic books, but also
statues and different things for use in religious worship; and he asked for a
copy of the Roman Catholic New Testament; and the clerk hunted all over and
finally found one; and the clerk was much interested in his wanting a
Testament: "You know, that's the first time in two or three years I
remember anybody asking for a New Testament." The Bible is theoretically
the foundation in the Roman Catholic Church; but in practice—as the Jews were
doing in the time of Christ—the Roman Catholic Church has made the Word of God
of none effect. It is the foundation theoretically, but placing over it all
kinds of traditions and superstitions that have grown up through the ages; but
in those early days, many who did not see what it was to become, did give their
lives and their activity to doing a real work for Christ; and I believe that
Boniface belongs to that number. Now,
E. The Growth of
the Empire of the Franks. You might think, in taking this title that we are
leaving church history and going into the field of secular history, in seeing
what happened between the 7th and 8th centuries in this respect. And it is true
that we are now looking at the events in secular history in this heading; but
we are not leaving the field of church history, because the growth of the
empire of the Franks, during these two centuries, was something that had very
great results as far as the Christian church was concerned, and the influences
which have come from it since. So under this, we name particularly those
elements which are of importance as relating to church history.
1. Charles
Martel.
We already mentioned yesterday, in connection with our account of the rise of
Mohammedanism, that it was Charles Martel, the mayor of the palace as he was
called, who in 732 at the battle of Tours in southern France, stopped the
Mohammedan army; it seemed to be on the way to the complete conquest of all of
the ancient world. And so Charles Martel is an important figure in the history
of Christianity. As Gibbon says, were it not for Charles Martel's success in
this battle—and it was a battle that lasted 7 days, and for the first 6 it
looked as if the Moslems were going to win—if it were not, he said, for this,
it might very well be that today instead of churches throughout Europe, there
would be Mohammedan mosques, and of professors in Oxford and Cambridge, instead
of presenting the study of the Bible, there would be professors there
discussing the details of the Koran.
Now,
of course, God might have worked in a different way; but the way he did work
was that the progress of Mohammedanism was stopped by this battle—by Charles
Martel; he was the ruler of France, but as was mentioned, Martel was only the
Mayor of the Palace; the line of descendants of Clovis were the kings; and they
had for generations given themselves up to riotous living and debauchery and
taken no interest in the government at all; this was left in the hands of the
Mayor of the Palace, who passed on their position from one descendant to
another. The mayors of the palace were an able family; and they were increasing
in their ability with experience and activity, while the descendants of Clovis
were becoming more and more degenerate, leaving everything in the hands of the
mayors of the palace; and so
2. Pepin the
Short.
Pepin was the son of Charles Martel; and Pepin knew of his father's great
activities, great success and great influence. The Bishop of Rome had sent
Charles Martel very sad letters, telling about the Lombards in Italy; how they
were getting more and more of Italy under their control; and they were even
interfering in elections of the pope, and making difficulties for the pope; and
he wrote Charles Martel, asking him to do something to help him. But Charles
Martel was busy stopping the Moslems; and he wasn't particularly interested in
going into Italy and getting mixed up in any wars in Italy anyway; and so he
didn't do much about it; and the Roman Catholic histories don't speak very
kindly of Charles Martel. But the growth of the papacy was in a rather crucial
point here; and here we find how the desires of two different forces for
advance can coalesce; and how, by helping each other, they advance certain
historical events which have been important in modern history.
With
the Lombards extending their power in Italy; and with Europe breaking up into
little sections; it is possible—I would say probable—that during the next two
or three centuries, the Bishop of Rome would have sunk in power; to have no
more power than, say, the Bishop of Marseilles. And there would have been no
claim, in subsequent centuries, that he had any supremacy over the church in
the West, were it not for these developments. And so under Pepin the Short,
a. In 752 he
took the title of king. Now for him this was tremendously important. He was
mayor of the palace; he was ruling France, as his predecessors had been; but
did he dare take the title of king? The people were used to revering the
Merovingians, the successors of Clovis as king. What would happen if the mayor
of the palace declared himself to be king? Would the people rise up against
him? Would he be able to carry it through? Would he lose out entirely? He
looked about for some means of making the transition; and he realized that the
bishop of Rome had a reputation in France perhaps greater at this time than in
Italy, as a leader; and that many people felt that anything the bishop of Rome
did would be right. Now Pepin said, "If the bishop of Rome were to say
that I should take the title of king, maybe this would quiet those people who
are apt to make a fuss about the change being made; and that will make it
possible to make the transition, without losing my power and probably my
life."
So he wrote to the bishop of Rome; and the bishop of Rome had in the time of his father been trying to get Charles Martel to come to Italy and help him; so he rejoiced to get a letter from Pepin the mayor of the palace; and he saw the opportunity for two things. One, to increase his own authority in France; if he could be the one who made the new king of France, that would be a further increase in his power in France; but second, in Italy, to get military power to protect him from the increasing power of the Lombards.
And
so he wrote back and said it seemed to him altogether right that the man who
had the power should also have the name. Actually that's the doctrine of might
makes right. It's not much of an advance for bringing Christian principles into
politics; but that is the word which the pope used; it certainly goes pretty
far to make it plain that he had the right to destroy kings and to raise up
kings; but it served Pepin's purpose. Because Pepin had a letter from the
Bishop of Rome, declaring that it would be all right for him to call himself
king; and so he took the last of the descendants of Clovis, shaved his head and
put him into a monastery, where he could not serve as a center for rebellion to
gather around him against Pepin. So Pepin was able to make the transition
easily; and then he proceeded to repay the Bishop of Rome, and so
b. Pepin Defeats
the Lombards (754).
He no sooner took the title of king than he immediately proceeded to repay the
Bishop of Rome for his help; he marched with an army into Italy and defeated
the Lombards. The Lombards retained their power, but their present attempt to
take over all of Italy was checked and stopped for some time by this. Many
historians feel that the intervention of the French to help the popes of Italy
did a tremendous disservice to Italy. Italy did not become a nation until 1870,
when the French troops were withdrawn from Italy in 1870 in order to defend
France against a German attack; then the Italians seized Rome, and Italy was
united as a nation; but it never was a nation before in history until 1870. And
back here in the 8th century, the Lombards were becoming more and
more civilized, more and more peaceful; they were establishing their power over
Italy; and many historians think there would have been an Italian nation a
thousand years earlier, if it were not for this act of the bishop of Rome in
calling in the power of the French to destroy the Lombard attempt to build a
Lombard nation.
As
you know, northern Italy today is called Lombardy; and the Lombards formed the
central group in northern Italy, which is the most fertile and industrial and
active part of Italy today. But the Lombards were defeated by Pepin in 754; and
then Pepin did not feel he had fully paid his debt yet. So small c,
c. Pepin's
Donation.
And Pepin took the territory in Italy which he had conquered from the Lombards
and he gave it to the pope. And this is the beginning of the temporal power of
the papacy. Now in later years, the Roman Catholic historians said that
Constantine—the emperor Constantine, 400 years earlier—had given the pope
temporal control of Italy. And the so-called Donation of Constantine was read
all over Europe during the Middle Ages as a proof that emperor Constantine gave
the pope all of Italy for his own territory to rule as a temporal sovereign.
But just before the Reformation, one of the papal secretaries proved that this
Donation of Constantine was a complete forgery. And this was done before the
Reformation began.
Martin Luther took the document in which it was exposed as a forgery, and he had it reprinted and distributed. But it has been accepted as fact by all authorities; and the Roman Catholic histories today will say that, though there was a tradition that Constantine gave Italy to the pope, actually probably what he gave him was one palace in Rome—the Lateran palace. But the actual temporal power of the pope, which traditionally began with Constantine, actually probably began with Pepin 450 years later, when Pepin gave that part of Italy which he had conquered from the Lombards to the Pope; and the pope now came to be a temporal ruler of Italy.
Today
the pope claims to be the temporal ruler of an area of about a square mile; and
as head of the government of an area this size, there are many who think we
should send an ambassador to him; but his claim in 1870 was that all Italy was
his; and actually in 1870 he did rule over maybe a third of Italy, before the
Italian patriots took it from him. Now we go on to
3. Charles the
Great, Charlemagne (742-814). And here is a man who is perhaps—from
the viewpoint of ability and of military success and of general influence—the
greatest force since Julius Caesar, at this time.
He was a man of tremendous ability; a man who made great changes in Europe; changes which would have been far more influential than they were, except that the Dark Ages were upon Europe; and it soon relapsed into them; so that much of what he did, did not last; but some of the things he did, did last. Charles the Great we call him—as we translate his name into English—but as a rule his name is not translated, but simply the French name for Charles the Great is taken over bodily; and we call him Charlemagne, French for Charles the Great.
He
is the only character in history that I know of whose name is usually changed this
way, to include the word "great" actually in the name; and he was
indeed a tremendous person. From 768 to 814, he reigned over the Franks.
a. His
greatness.
And he was great in the sense in which Julius Caesar was great. He invaded what
is now Germany and conquered a very large section—perhaps two-thirds or more of
present Germany he conquered. In so doing he killed tens of thousands; he was a
ruthless conqueror, but he was a very able military leader, and organizer. He
had no one place where he stayed, but he was constantly on the move; without
telegrams, without telephones, without airplanes, to keep in touch, he was
constantly going about from one place to another; directing the administration;
leading his army; he went to Italy several times; he entered into relations
with the Caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid—the greatest of all, from a secular
viewpoint, of all the Moslem leaders—the hero of the book The Arabian Nights. He entered into relations with the Eastern
Emperor in Byzantium; he was a very able ruler, and yet he had time for
extensive cultural studies.
b. His Interest
in Education.
He gathered the greatest scholars of the day. He brought Alcuin of York from
England to establish an educational system in France; and he was tremendously
interested in education; in letters; and he was much interested in theology.
And he wrote a book against the Roman tendencies toward worship of images. We
don't know how much help he had from others in writing it, but he signed it as
his own; it doubtless represented his ideas—that the tendency which was
developing in the churches toward worshipping of images was wrong.
If
this were a course in the history of education, we would need to take an hour
on Alcuin. In a course of church history, all we dare do is mention him; but we
cannot pass him without at least mentioning him. Charlemagne brought him from
England, and he organized a system for education in France, far surpassing
anything before, or anything that was seen again till within the last two or
three centuries. But we will have to content ourselves with merely mentioning
Alcuin. The great interest which Charlemagne took in these fields is
astonishing in view of his other activities. He was the sort of man that comes
once in hundreds of years; tremendous energy; tremendous ability; very wide
interests. Now
c. His Conquest
of the Saxons.
This is one of the darker phases of his career, but we must mention it. The
Saxons, as you know—the Angles and the Saxons—came to England; but these were a
comparatively small part of the large group of Germans known as the Saxons.
Most of the Saxons remained in Germany; they were pagans; they had never been
in contact with the Roman Empire; they had never been in contact with
Christianity; and Charlemagne, in several campaigns, led his army into their
territory, and he conquered this very large territory of the Saxons. He killed
tens of thousands of people in doing it; but he forced them to submit to his
control, and to become Christians. Now, as you see, of course, that would be no
real Christianizing. All it would amount to would be that he would put their
children where they could be given Christian teaching; but they were forced to
become nominally Christians—hundreds of thousands of Saxons—brought under the
yoke of Charlemagne and of the Pope of Rome. And Schaff feels that it was a
sort of ironic repayment for this that, centuries later, one of those Saxons,
Martin Luther, led the revolt from Rome, which restored the wide preaching of
the gospel to most of Europe.
But
this was something which took a great part of Charlemagne's activity; and it
resulted in the extension of nominal Christianity over a very wide area; and
not only that, but many of the teachers that Charlemagne had sent among his
people founded work with Christians; because among the Saxons in the next few
centuries, we find many men of very fine Christian character; and we find the
development of really Christian movements, to some of which Martin Luther
looked back; and he showed how they fit with his Reformation Movement; and they
were movements related to the Bible and related to true faith in Christ. But
now we go on to
d. His Relations with the Bishop of Rome. We notice how his father Pepin became king with the help of the bishop of Rome, and in turn helped the bishop of Rome; now Charlemagne soon found himself receiving letters, and even visits, from bishops of Rome, who were fleeing from Rome in the face of the great upheavals and disturbances and difficulties they had with the Roman people; and then in addition to that, from difficulties that they had with the Lombards; and so on two or three occasions, Charlemagne crossed the Alps with a large army, and he seized great sections from the Lombards; and he established the pope's power in Italy.
Now
in 800 AD, there came an event which had a tremendous effect on both the
secular and the religious history of Europe, in subsequent years and, to some
extent, up to this very day. This happened when Leo III was pope. He was pope
from 795 to 816. I will read you the first part of the account from McSorley's
Roman Catholic history. He says,
"St.
Leo III (795-816), a Roman, papal treasurer and cardinal priest of the church
of Santa Suzanna, was unanimously elected successor of Adrian I. For motives
unknown, he was disliked by some members of the military aristocracy; and
during a procession through the streets of Rome, he was attacked by an armed
group of conspirators, led by the nephew of the previous pope. Leo was rescued,
after an unsuccessful effort had been made to tear out his eyes and tongue; but
his enemies followed up their attack by accusing him of perjury, adultery, and
other crimes. An assembly presided over by Charlemagne exculpated Leo and
condemned the conspirators to death. At Leo's request, however, the sentence
was commuted to one of banishment." [McSorley, op. cit., p205]. Now comes in a detail right here. Leo escaped from
these people, and he made his way up to France; and he came to Charlemagne and
personally asked for his help. And Charlemagne came with his army into Italy;
and there Charlemagne asked that these charges be investigated; and the pope
declared that no one had a right to accuse a saint, the successor of St. Peter
or to try him; and Charlemagne said, "Well, you give us a strong statement
that you're innocent of these and we'll accept it." So he made a public
statement, naming these crimes and declaring he was innocent of them.
Charlemagne accepted this, and then the pope proceeded to do something for
Charlemagne; and it has been much argued since, whether it was the pope's idea
or Charlemagne's idea; but whosever idea it was, it had a tremendous effect on
all of European history ever since. So we will call
e. The
Establishment of the Holy Roman Empire (800). An Empire was established in 800
and it lasted till 1800—established in 800, ended by Napoleon in 1806. And one
historian has said of the Holy Roman Empire, that it was neither holy nor
Roman, nor an empire; but it was something that had tremendous influence in
that thousand years of history; and it had a great deal to do with the
development of the power of the papacy. The way that McSorley describes it, he
says that on Christmas Day, "While the King was kneeling at his devotions
in St. Peter's, the Pope suddenly placed a gold crown on his head and a purple
cloak across his shoulders. The surprised monarch then heard the wild
acclamation of the people who joined in the thunderous chant of the choir...
Once again there was an Emperor of the West...." [ibid. p. 66]
Others
have later claimed that Charlemagne himself put the crown on his head, with the
pope standing by to approve it. It is pretty hard to prove the precise facts of
it. But at any rate, the thing that was done would be very difficult for
Charlemagne to do entirely on his own initiative.
Theoretically,
the emperor in Constantinople was the emperor of the whole Roman Empire,
including all of Europe; though his power was practically nil in Europe. Now,
Charlemagne declared himself to be the western emperor, and thus to renew the
old Roman Empire in the west. And for the next thousand years, all of central
Europe was constantly under the efforts of emperors to maintain their power
there; while on the fringes, nations developed. And during these next thousand
years, the popes were claiming that they had made the king of the western
empire, because they had crowned Charlemagne; and actually, he hardly would
have dared to make such a change as this without feeling that he could tell
people that the Bishop of Rome had approved it. So it resulted in a confluence
between emperors and popes which lasted for a thousand years. It had very
harmful effects on secular life and religious life of that whole section of
Europe, and theoretically included all of western Europe.
At
our last meeting together, we were discussing the growth of the empire of the
Franks; and under that we spoke of Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, and
Charlemagne. Our dealing with Charlemagne's activities up to this point is not
complete, but we will just give one more head
f. The Character
of Charlemagne.
Just a brief summary here. Charlemagne, as a military leader, is one of the
greatest in the world's history. His conquest of the Saxons; his destruction of
the Lombard empire in Italy; his general control of his empire; is something
that hardly can be duplicated; very, very few conquerors have duplicated it.
And yet that is only a small part of the activities of Charlemagne; there was
also his organization of the empire, which was superb. There was also his
interest in education, which was far beyond that of any other ruler for many
centuries; and if Europe in general had been more advanced than it was, it
might even have got into the modern period. As it is, it is a bright interval
in the midst of the Dark Ages. The schools he established were excellent.
Alcuin, the brilliant English educator whom he brought over to France and
Germany, exerted a tremendous influence; and for a brief time there was a great
step forward in education under Charlemagne; but this all disappeared before a
very long time after. He had a great interest in the Christian church; and he
was not simply a subordinate of the Pope by any means. He took a personal
interest in doctrine; in activities; in church advancement; and though we deplore
his forcible conversion of the Saxons to Christianity; we do find, in his
interest in doctrine and in the general welfare of the church, much good we can
commend. And some of these factors we look at later, under another head.
There
is one aspect of his character which it would not be right to pass over,
without mentioning it as the dark side against all of these fine
characteristics. Now, I don't mean that everything we've had thus far is fine,
because there was his cruelty; his cruelty in the forcible conquest of the
Saxons, in forcing them to become nominal Christians or to be killed; there was
a very great cruelty in him, as in all the Franks at this time. But there is
one more factor of his character that we have at least to mention; and that is
the fact that in his marital relationship he was like an old Roman—or perhaps
like a Mohammedan—more than like the Germanic races from which he came; because
the Germans, when they came into the empire; with all the many ways the Romans
looked down on them as barbarians; yet in this matter of marital faithfulness,
they were way ahead of almost all of the Romans; because the Romans were very
degenerate in this regard; not in the early days of Rome, but in the later days
of the empire; and Charlemagne went even beyond them; he had many wives and
many sons; he was very, very loose in his marital relations; and in this
regard, he was much inferior to most of the other Germanic chiefs and the
Germanic race.
He
entered into relationship with the great Mohammedan emperor, the Caliph, Harun
al Rashid; any of you who ever read The
Arabian Nights know that Harun al Rashid was the great hero of the Arabian
Nights; the Caliph of Baghdad who often went out in disguise; to see what
really was happening among the people of Baghdad. Harun al Rashid was a great
educator; a great leader; a great conqueror; and he and Charlemagne, though
they were thousands of miles apart, entered into friendly correspondence; and
both of these great rulers came at the same time. Now we go on to
F. The
Iconoclastic Controversy. Now this is something that it would be interesting
to spend a week on; and yet, in view of the many important things in Church
History and the short time we have to cover it all, it might be best if we spent
only ten minutes on it. I think actually I'll probably spend about 20; I hope
to keep it within that. It is a big subject, but a subject that for us today is
largely a matter of historical interest.
Now
those of you who know Greek, of course know what iconoclastic means. Icon is an
image or a picture, and an iconoclast would be a destroyer of images; so the
iconoclastic controversy is the controversy over the destruction of images.
1. The Origin of
the Controversy.
Well, shall we say the controversy was due to the rise of Mohammedanism? Or
shall we say that it is due to the rise of abuses and superstitions within the
Eastern Church? The fact is, of course, that both enter to some extent into it;
but as the Mohammedans rapidly rushed from city to city, and from area to area;
conquering and reducing all to subjection to themselves; they pointed to the
Christian churches with their many images and their many pictures; and they
said, "You people have fallen into idolatry; and that is one reason why
Allah is enabling us to conquer you so rapidly, and to conquer so much of your
area." And there were some of the Christians in the east—particularly
among the soldiers—who took this very much to heart; and they saw that there
had been gradually developing during the previous two or three centuries—all
through the Christian world—especially in view of the great influx of
barbarians, who would think it necessary to read with pictures, representations
and simple manner of presentation; that there had come into the church a
tremendous amount of picturization; and that ignorant people tended to consider
these pictures very sacred; and in some cases even to substitute in their
worship for God Himself.
So
particularly among the soldiers and among some of the emperors—some of the best
warlike emperors in defending Constantinople against the Mohammedan
attack—there developed a determination we must clean our own house. It is not
enough to fight to hold back the Mohammedans; we must do away with the abuses
in our church which are the cause of God's giving them the victory.
Now,
I don't think by any means that it was simply the fact that they were
worshipping images that led God to let the Mohammedans have such a great
advantage; I think there were many other faults in the church much worse than
that; but that one had gone rather to an extreme in certain sections; and that
is the one that emperors and these soldiers picked out as an error; and the
cause of their defeat; so there came an emperor who gave the command that all
images must be cut down and taken out of the churches. This was in the 8th
century. He gave the command that they must do away with these images; Now over
the great imperial palace in Constantinople, there was a great picture of
Christ over the door—a tremendous, large, beautiful picture. He commanded that
this be torn down, and simply a cross put up; and when it was done, it so
infuriated the populace that they seized and killed the two servants who were
at work tearing it down; and many of the monks were very devoted to the
picture—fanatically devoted to the picture—and soon you had very harsh feeling,
and very bitter antagonism developing over this question of the destruction of
images.
But
for quite a time, the iconoclastic forces had the upper hand; and they, even
the emperor, sent orders to Rome—to the Bishop of Rome—and the emperor declared
you must cut out all pictures of Christ, of the apostles, of the virgin Mary,
out of the churches completely; these are wrong, they are substituting for the
worship of God, they must be cut out. So that leads us to
2. The
Constantinople Council of 754. In 754 one of the emperors decided to
hold a council in Constantinople, in order to make this a definite and
permanent matter; the doing away with the worship of images. And so this
council, which he called in 754, was intended to be an ecumenical council; but
it was afterward known by east and west as a pseudo-synod of heresy. It was
intended to be the 7th ecumenical council. There were 330 bishops there, which
was more than there were at some of the ecumenical councils; and it lasted for
six months; but the patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria could not
come or send any representatives because they were under Moslem rule; there was
no Bishop of Constantinople at this particular moment when the council was
held; and the pope, the Bishop of Rome, disregarded the summons. So that though
as far as its membership was concerned, it was large, it represented a fairly
small area; this made it easier then, later on, to say this is not an
ecumenical council.
The
council appealed to the 2nd commandment and other scriptural passages
denouncing idolatry; it declared that all religious representation by painting
or sculpture was presumptuous, pagan, and idolatrous. They were to be covered
over with whitewash; there was nothing else but to destroy them, even if
pictures of trees, birds or animals, so there would be nothing that there would
be any danger of anyone's worshipping. Now this was the position of this council,
intended to be an ecumenical council; but it was not widely accepted except by
the emperor. So then we come to
3. The 7th
Ecumenical Council of 787. This was 30 years later. And 30 years later, one of
the emperors of the east had died; and his widow became the regent in the place
of her son, who was a little boy as yet; she was a woman who loved beauty and
pictures; and she set to work to undo these attempts to destroy the images.
The
Pope refused to have anything to do with the 754 council; it was only the
people around Constantinople who were connected with it at all. But in 787 the
empress Irene convened the 7th ecumenical council at Nicea. This is the 2nd
council of Nicea. It is the 7th ecumenical council; it is at the place where
the first and greatest ecumenical council was held.
About
350 bishops attended. You see, it was slightly larger than the previous council
and drew from a wider area. There were two men there who claimed to represent
the bishops under Mohammedan control, though whether they did or not might be
argued. But at least there was someone there who claimed to be; while in the
previous one, there was no representation from Antioch, Alexandria, or
Jerusalem, because all of them were under Mohammedan control. There were two
priests there sent by Pope Adrian I, each of whom bore the name Peter; and
their names were put first in the council. The council met for less than a
month; and it declared that the council of Constantinople 30 years before was
not a true council; not applying to creeds; and solemnly sanctioned a limited
worship of images.
Now
the Constantinople Council of 754 had approved the worship of saints, though it
didn't approve of images; so you see, it was not a Protestant decision at all.
This one declares that a limited worship of images is proper. They told about
the cherubim over the mercy seat, in the Holy of Holies of the Temple;
they—bishop after bishop, even those who had been members of the council of
754—renounced their iconoclastic opinions; they said, "We all have sinned;
we have erred; we beg forgiveness." One of the Roman Catholic aides
suggested they bring an image into the assembly; and they brought one in, and
it was reverently kissed by all. And the decision was made that "We do not
worship images as we worship God; we give adoration to God, and it is wrong to
give adoration to images. We give adoration to God, but we give worship to
images." Well, it's pretty hard for the ordinary person to see much
distinction there; and if he does, to keep it clearly in mind.
But
the views of the council, in the careful way they are expressed, are not so
bad; but in the wording—for almost anyone who is apt to carry them out—it
certainly gave the background for a great deal of the abuse in the present
Greek church and in the present Roman church. Although in the Greek Church they
do not worship statues—they're very strict. It's only flat pictures which they
worship; while in the western church they worship statues as well as flat
pictures.
They
said that adoration is the sort of reverence that can be given only to God;
that this—the reverence that God is entitled to—is something that no man can
receive; and only God can be given that sort of adoration. That image
representing a saint—or even an image representing the Lord as an image—can be
given what they would call worship, which they say is definitely inferior to
adoration. While for the Virgin Mary, they eventually worked up a worship
halfway between the two, so that it was greater than the worship given images,
but less than the adoration you would give Christ. They have a distinct Latin
word for each of these three stages of worship, but the ordinary person knows
nothing of these distinctions.
But
this was accepted by the Roman church at the 7th Ecumenical Council, the 2nd
Council of Nicea, in 787 A. D. Now I want to speak about
4. The Caroline
Books.
This word Caroline is not a woman's name—these were published in 790, just 3
years after the Nicene Council. It is not a man's name either—Caroline—but an
adjective made after the man's name Charles. So these are the books which were
issued by Charlemagne, Charles the Great, ten years before he was made emperor.
And
in these books, which he prepared with the aid of his chaplains and published,
he dissented both from the iconoclastic synod of 754 and from the
anti-iconoclastic synod of 787, but much more from the latter. He definitely
rejects image worship; but he differs from the council of 754 in not holding
that they should be destroyed. He says it is all right to use images and
pictures to present ideas to the mind; but he says that in no sense can they be
worshipped; that to bow and kneel before them; salute them; or kiss them; throw
incense or light candles before them is idolatrous and superstitious; he says
it is far better to search the Scriptures, which know nothing of such
practices. He says the iconoclasts in their honest zeal against idolatry went
too far in rejecting the images altogether. They should use images to adorn the
churches; perpetuate and popularize the memory of persons and events. This is
not necessary, but permissible. But anything of the nature of worship of them,
he says, is definitely wrong and should not be; and these so-called Caroline
books were sent to the pope. And the pope wrote a long letter back, explaining
why the Caroline books are wrong, and why the church is right. So we have a
statement from the pope in opposition to the Caroline books; but we have the
Caroline books written by Charlemagne with the help of Alcuin and other
scholars; and they maintain a position that is very close to the position which
we would adopt today.
There
was a synod at Frankfort under Charlemagne at which Charlemagne presided, which
adopted the view of the Caroline books. I was interested to see what McSorley
had to say about this. Naturally this is too important a matter to pass over
without any reference, and so we find that McSorley has a brief reference to
it, which I'd like to read you.
See,
this council of Frankfort was in 794; that would be 4 years after Charlemagne
issued his Caroline books. McSorley says the Frankish bishops, deceived by an
incorrect Latin translation of the Greek, of the Conciliar Decree, of the 2nd
Council of Nicea, had sanctioned the adoration of images; and at a council,
they concluded that the council of 797 had sanctioned the adoration of
images—the adoration—as a council, they sent a formal refutation of that error
to Constantinople in the Caroline books.
Well,
now, you see how different he is from what Schaff says about it. And Schaff
states, "The spirit and aim of the book is almost Protestant. The chief
thoughts are these: God alone is the object of worship and adoration (colendus et adorandus). Saints are only
to be revered (verierandi). Images
can in no sense be worshipped. To bow or kneel before them; to salute or kiss
them; to strew incense and to light candles before them; is idolatrous and
superstitious. It is far better to search the Scriptures, which know nothing of
such practices. On the other hand, the iconoclasts, in their honest zeal
against idolatry, went too far in rejecting the images altogether. The
legitimate and proper use of images is to adorn the churches and to perpetuate
and popularize the memory of the persons and events which they represent."
[Schaff, op. cit. XIV p.467]
That
is, the Caroline books were seen to be definitely in a position against worship
of images. Now, McSorley says, they misunderstood, and thought the council had
sanctioned adoration of images.
When
you get to this, for us to say, what's the difference between adoration and
worship? Well, I know a girl who would say, "I adore cream puffs."
While others might say, "I worship cream puffs." Now to their idea,
adoration is less than worship; but to the idea, as used by the Roman
Catholics, adoration is superior to worship; adoration is what you give God,
and worship is what you give an image. But it's very hard to define a thing
like that; so I would think the best proof of it would not be in the specific
words in specific quotations; but in the longer statements, like Schaff gave,
when he said the Caroline books said it was wrong to bow down before, kneel
before the image, to kiss it, to burn candles before it, or anything like that.
Now
all those things are done in the Roman Catholic Church today before the image.
You go to the church of St. Peter's in Rome; there's a beautiful statue of St.
Peter, life-size, sitting on a pedestal, one foot sticking out front, which has
a sandal on the foot. And you go in there to St. Peter's church any time—I've
done it at least a dozen times over the last 50 years—you go into that building
and you stand in front of it; and if you pick any time to go, you won't watch
it long before you see somebody come up and kiss the big toe of St. Peter; and
I've seen a man come in, kiss the big toe; his wife will do it, and then about
seven or eight children—one after the other—he permitted them to kiss the big
toe of the statue of St. Peter. And that big toe is worn away just from people
kissing it, until it's only half as big as the little one, because it is just
worn away as a result of the kissing.
Well,
now, you say, that's not adoration that's just worship; but when Charlemagne
says it is wrong to kiss an image, you can see where he stands on that; and in
the Eastern Church today they do not use statues, but they use flat pictures
only; but they worship these flat pictures wholly as much as the western church
does their sacred images—if not more—so that actually today there is no
difference. Now I do not wish to do more at the moment than mention it:
G. The
Adoptianist Controversy. To people in those days it would be very important;
but there are so many much more important things, we barely mention it.
McSorley tells us it is a modified form of Nestorianism. It holds the several
sonships of Christ, one natural, one adopted, thus making the man Christ not
the true son of God; and this adoptianist heresy rose in a part of Spain,
McSorley says, a part of Spain then under control of Islam, where many
Nestorians had taken refuge years before. There were some men supporting it who
were able controversialists; it spread into France, but it was condemned by the
bishop of Rome; condemned by Charlemagne; and by the council of France, the
council of 794, which we mentioned. It did not become a great important
movement, so we won't say much about it. It said that Christ was the Son of
God, as God; but that as man he was merely adopted as son; that Christ in his
human nature was merely adopted, not a real son. People were tremendously
worked up over it; some very able controversialists spent the effort they might
have devoted to better things, in trying to defend and advance this. And others
had to show that it was wrong, because it divided the person of Christ in the
wrong way. They gave the human nature of Christ almost a different person, like
Nestorianism; so they said that Christ, though he was the Son of God from all
eternity—as God—yet as man, he had been adopted. Well, I think it's pretty much
a matter of terminology, but it's good to have our understanding clear; that
Jesus Christ is the 2nd person of the Trinity from all eternity; and that the
divine nature of Christ was united with a human nature; but to be as one
person, you can't understand it.
Well,
that is all the time we dared spend on the 7th & 8th centuries, and so we
must go on to
XII. The 9th and 10th Centuries.
As
background, it is good to glance at political developments so we'll make
A. Political
Developments.
The political developments of this period are not outstanding. In the Eastern
Empire, the empress Irene—who was largely responsible for the 7th ecumenical
council—when her son became old enough that she
feared she'd have to lose the power if he'd take it over; she feared that, and
wanted to keep the power in her own hands; so they say she did everything she
could to get him into evil habits, so people would decide he was incapable of
reigning and she could keep on, And then when that didn't seem to work, she
ordered his eyes plucked out while he was sleeping, thinking that then he
couldn't reign, and she could continue to reign; and it was done with such
brutality that he died from the effects of it. And then the people rose up
against her, and she was driven out from the palace; she was taken away from
being empress, and had to spend the last years of her life working at a spindle
to earn her own living. She had started as a poor girl that way; she went from
rags to riches, and again back to rags. But the history of the eastern empire
is full of incidents of that type. And we cannot take the time to look at the
various rulers of it through the years, but merely to note that during these
two centuries the Eastern Empire continued with its ups and downs; but with
many changes from one family to another—like in this case—and that we will only
note them insofar as they enter into our specific events of church history, and
particularly the church history that affected the west.
As
far as the West is concerned, while the Pope claimed to have in 800
inaugurated—or re-established—the Western Roman Empire, in making a western
emperor in charge, it would be one empire still; but you have two parts like
you used to have, with the eastern and western empire; and Charlemagne is the
western emperor; and this plan which the pope made, Charlemagne considered
quite rightly had been done through force of arms and his friends. And so a few
years later, he simply made his own son emperor to succeed him when he died,
without paying any attention to the pope, without even consulting the pope.
But
his son was a man of inferior ability to Charlemagne. Things began to
disintegrate, and at his death his three sons began to fight; and eventually
they divided the empire into three parts. And so Charlemagne's great empire
divided into three parts; and it was never again re-united for any long period
of time. The name of the empire went more with the further eastern part than
with the west; and none of his lines continued very long; so Charlemagne,
instead of being the founder of a great dynasty, was simply a great, massive
light; it seemed like the beginning of the modern age, and then died out and
disappeared. So, politically, it is good to know about Charlemagne, but there
is not much to know about his successors that is of importance. However, the
theory, that there was a western emperor, was continued in the eastern portion
of Charlemagne's empire. And after a time, when his line had died out, in
Germany a group of troops got together and elected one of their number to be
emperor; and so the theory of empire continued, and it is of great importance
for the next many hundreds of years.
Now
that is a very brief summary of the political development. We'll look at
individuals as they relate to any particular religious events which are working
at this time. These two centuries are among the least important in Christian
history, but there are a few things in it we have to know. By the eastern part
of Charlemagne's empire, I mean Germany. You see, his empire included France.
When he became emperor, it included all of France, and maybe a fifth of
Germany. And he conquered the rest of Germany. At his death, it included all of
that area; his son was nominally over the whole thing for a few years, but a
pretty weak man; and then his three sons divided it, so that one of them took
France, one of them took Germany, and one took the border area between; and it
was in the German section that the theory of empire was continued, with some
mighty good emperors; but they are not tremendously important from our
viewpoint; and they were elected, rather than direct descendants.
Now,
since the iconoclastic controversy continued briefly into the 9th century, we
will just say a word about it as
B. The Iconoclastic
Controversy.
We noticed how in the east, the emperor had been great opponent of images; and
a position against them had been taken; then the Empress Irene took the
opposite position, and the Council of Nicea was held. Now after she was
removed, the new emperors who came in were again iconoclasts; and so there was
an Armenian who was emperor from 813 to 820, who destroyed the picture of
Christ which Irene had restored to its place over the palace door; and in 815,
he assembled a synod which repudiated the decree of the council of 787; and for
a period of time iconoclasm was again in the ascendancy in the east; until
again an emperor died, leaving a wife and regent; and it seemed that the women
loved the images; you have the iconoclastic emperors in the previous century,
and one of them died and left his wife Irene to rule; and she got back the
images; now these emperors did away with images with great hostility, torture;
killed those who favored images, according to McSorley; but one of them died
and left his wife Theodora as regent. McSorley says she ended the persecution;
and in 842 held a synod at Constantinople, which reaffirmed the teaching of the
7th ecumenical council. And on February 19, at a great procession, the images
were brought back into the churches; and this day is still celebrated as the
Feast of Orthodoxy throughout the eastern churches. So this, in 842, was the
end of the iconoclastic controversy. The main thing to remember is that it
continued for a time, but was completely squelched; and the in Eastern Empire,
like the western, the images came into their own; except in the east, they do
not make rounded images, just flat surfaces. But the rounded images, that is,
the statues, are only in the west. Then
C. Photius. Photius is a man who McSorley says is one of the finest scholars of his day. He is of interest to us because of his long and varied career, not only as a scholar but as a church leader; this career brought him into sharp conflict with the claims of the Bishop of Rome. We can't look at his ups and downs; he had a very varied career; the dates for his life were 815 to 897, so you see it pretty well spanned this particular century, the 9th. But during that period, Photius—that is, during the latter part of the period, he was born 815—Photius, when he became patriarch of Constantinople, the Bishop of Rome strongly opposed him; and he opposed the Bishop of Rome; the two churches broke off relations with each other; and there was a period of about 20 years when each of them excommunicated the other; and there was a complete schism, a division between the eastern and western church. There were the four great patriarchs at that time: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. There were patriarchs there; they had a position, not just like an archbishop, but higher. That was the term of Gregory I in Rome; he called himself the pope of Rome. He said that it was wicked to call himself the Supreme Bishop; but then his successors used the term, Supreme Bishop. He said it was utterly wicked.
Well,
in this Photian Schism—as they called it—the eastern and western churches were
completely separated; they have remained separated ever since. But Photius'
importance is not just that he made a division, but that he documented it. He
wrote extensively, pointing out the reasons why he claimed the western church
was wrong; and of course one of them was the claim of the Bishop of Rome to be
head over the whole church, which Photius strongly and vigorously denied. But
that wasn't the only thing on which he criticized them. He took any point of
difference he could find, and wrote it up very strongly; and it made a
foundation for the later division between the churches. One of the great
differences between the eastern and western churches, for instance, is that in
the Nicene Creed the western church has added the words, "and from the
Son"—that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father "and from the
Son." The Western Church has these words; the Eastern Church then says,
"That is a heresy to say that the Spirit proceeds from the Son," as
well as from the Father.
Well,
it's a matter of the internal essence of the Godhead, which you cannot prove
anyway; it seems to me a foolish thing to divide two churches over, but there
was heated discussion. The term was introduced into the western world by the
Western Church into the creed; and Charlemagne opposed its being put in the
creed; he said, "the creed was established; it's not in it; what right
have we to put it in?" yet he said, "what is represented is
true," and as the western church more and more was convinced that it was
true, that Christ proceeded from the Father and from the Son, it eventually
came to be put into the creed, and accepted; and it is in the western creed.
Now
as we see the Nicene Creed we have it in; but the Protestants simply took over
the creed at the Reformation; they did not study this phase of it. Photius
claimed the Western Church is heretical in making this an insert. Even a man
like McSorley here—who is writing from a strong Roman Catholic viewpoint—refers
to Photius as the greatest scholar of his age; and that's a tremendous thing to
say about a man. The accounts of him now regard him much more highly than they
used to do, when the Roman Catholics' abuse of him was the main thing found in
western books in any reference to Photius.
But
he was an important character of this century. Now maybe we might take next
D. The Papacy. The Papacy
during the 9th century is just about as the Papacy was during the previous two
centuries; that is to say, since Pope Gregory the Great—who died in 604—during
the next three centuries there is no really outstanding figure like Leo I and
Gregory I. But through the 9th century they are men mostly of fair ability; one
outstanding man during that century was Pope Nicholas, at the time of Photius.
Good administrators, fairly good characters. They are not outstanding, but
neither are they extremely deficient.
But
toward the end of this century, we have a man who certainly is worth
mentioning:
1. Nicholas I (858-867). He is not as
great as Gregory, but he is a man of considerable ability and was a great
opponent of Photius. So we perhaps ought to mention here, Nicholas I. But then
2. Formosus
(891-6).
And Formosus is a man of considerable interest to us. He would not be, were it
not for the great claims of the Roman church. Formosus would be a man who would
come down as just an ordinary pope, not particularly important, not an
outstanding pope at all; but in view of the claim of Roman church, that the
pope is the representative of Christ in control of the church—this is the
divine leadership which He has established; whatever a pope does is normative
for the whole church; and now in the last hundred years, the claim that they
are infallible in doctrine; it becomes for us of extremely great interest to
note the relations of Formosus to this discussion.
Formosus
did a good many things that his successor didn't like; and his successor used a
unique method of showing what he thought of his predecessor. Formosus was pope
from 891 to 896; his successor was pope for only fifteen days. McSorley says of
his successor, Boniface VI, pope for only 15 days, was perhaps identical with
that Boniface mentioned by a council held in 898 as an unworthy and vicious
character, who had been degraded from the priesthood; but there is some
uncertainty about this identification. So we're not particularly concerned with
Boniface, but with Stephen VI; I'm not giving him a separate number, I'm
including him under Formosus, because it is his relation to Formosus that
interests us.
Stephen
VI was pope from 896 to 897; and one day Stephen VI held a great parley in
Rome. He had a great Roman synod present; and before that synod, he put a man
on trial. And the man he put on trial was Formosus, who had been pope for five
years; and Stephen VI put Formosus on trial. Well, now, how could he do that?
Formosus was dead. Well, he had his body there. And he took the body of
Formosus, and he put the papal robes on it; he put all the vestures, everything
on it, to show his great leadership and position; and then he put him on trial.
And in the trial he faced him and he said, "You, Formosus, were not
content with being bishop of Portus, but also desired to become Bishop of Rome.
It was wicked ambition on your part, to desire to do this; you had no right to
be Bishop of Rome." He said this to the body which he faced, and he gave
his decision that Formosus should be degraded from being pope, that they should
tear off the papal robes from his body, He said all the decrees he had made
were invalid; the people he had appointed to office, had no right to those
offices; the two fingers of the right hand with which he had signed his
decrees, and with which he had blessed the people were ordered to be cut off from
the body; and the corpse was dressed in lay clothing and thrown into the Tiber.
And this is related in all the Roman Catholic books about the papacy; it is
related in Farrow's book.
McSorley here says, "Stephen VI, forced by the emperor Lambert and his mother Agilrude, had the body of Formosus exhumed, dressed in the papal robes" You see on the evidence, he admits it was a pope that did it here at Rome; "and he placed him on trial before the Roman synod for having invalidly occupied the papal throne. All the dead pope's decrees were annulled; all the orders conferred on him were pronounced invalid. At the conclusion of the trial, the vestments were torn from his body, two fingers of the right hand were cut off, and the corpse, dressed in lay clothing, was thrown into the Tiber. Stephen required several clerics who had been ordained by Formosus to resign their office. Shortly afterwards Stephen was strangled." [McSorley, Op. Cit., p. 85. He adds "Secretly a monk, with the assistance of some hired fishermen, rescued the remains and interred them decently in a burial ground."]
Well
now, that is the brief account which McSorley gives about it. He adds that the
next year, the second pope after that, Theodore II, had Formosus re-interred
with full honor in St. Peters. He annulled all the decisions of Stephen; and he
declared the orders conferred by Formosus valid. It is a sordid series of
events in the history of a movement—as can occur in any movement when it falls
into corrupt days—but it's pretty hard to fit it in with the theory that the
papal organization is established of God, and that they are ordained to
represent Christ on earth. The list of the popes whom the Roman Catholics honor
includes both Formosus and Stephen VI, also Boniface in between. They are included
in the honored list; their pictures are put around the church of St. Paul's
outside Rome; they are given in the thousands of books that list the popes, but
the two of them—you have each of them declaring the other's acts entirely
invalid, and false, and without any validity. Well, which was right? One Roman
Catholic book says one was right; one says another was right. McSorley told how
the populace was so indignant at Stephen VI that they seized him and carried
him off and put him in prison, and strangled him there. While another book,
which seems to take the part of Stephen VI, ran down Formosus, but said that
shortly after this Stephen VI died of strangulation; and didn't mention the
mob. We don't know which was right; we are not in a position to say. But to say
that the papacy is an establishment ordained of God, in which everyone in the
line is a divinely-ordained leader, simply goes against the facts of history.
Well, we continue there tomorrow...
We
mentioned Pope Nicholas I. He seems to have been a rather able man, I'd say the
most able man between 600 and 1050, when he was pope. Not as great by any means
as Leo and Gregory; but much greater than anybody else, including Gregory I and
Gregory II. Somebody asked yesterday if I had given St. Nicholas; I guess the
Roman Catholics do call him St. Nicholas, one of the few popes in this period
to whom they give the title saint. All the earliest popes [##1-54, out to 530
AD], every one of them, was called saint, in the Roman Catholic Church; but he
is not the one from whom Santa Claus is derived. Then E is a difficult title,
but I thought I would name it after the two men whom I'm going to speak of
briefly in this century. So, though it was a time of degeneracy, by no means
all were degenerate. Their names are:
E. Agobardus and
Claudius.
Now the first of these, Agobard or Agobardus, was Archbishop of the city of
Lyons in France. He was Archbishop of Lyons, and he was a man who turned
against most of the developing superstitions of the day. He not only followed
the iconoclasts—or rather perhaps the writers of the Caroline books who had
opposed the worship of images—he went to the root of the difficulty, and
opposed the worship of saints. He said this was a cunning device of Satan to
smuggle even idolatry into the church, under the pretense of showing honor to
saints. He quoted Jeremiah 17:5, "Cursed be the man that trusteth in
man." He says, "Since no man is essentially God save Jesus our
Savior, so we, as the Scripture commands, shall bow our knee to his name alone,
lest by giving this honor to another, we may be estranged from God and left to
follow the doctrines and traditions of men, according to the inclinations of
our hearts." [Schaff, IV, p 472] He was honored in Lyons as a saint after
his death, but not throughout the church in general. His works were lost,
though some parts were rediscovered in modern times. [Discovered in 1605 by
Papirius Masson in Lyons -- ibid.] He
did not have any great influence on this period. But he was a man who took a
thoroughly Christian stand on this matter of worshipping the saints; and I
think we owe him the honor of at least mentioning him, even if he did not have
a great influence. He was Archbishop of Lyons, which was a rather high position
in the church.
Then
the other man I mentioned under this head is Claudius. I'm sure you'll have no
difficulty spelling that. He was a native of Spain, who spent 3 years as
chaplain at the court of the son of Charlemagne; and was appointed by him to be
bishop of Turin, which is in northern Italy. He wrote practical commentaries on
nearly all the books of the Bible. They were not very deep commentaries; they
were mostly extracted from the writings of Augustine and other Latin fathers,
but they do show his interest in the Bible itself, rather than in the human
tradition. He found the Italian churches full of pictures and worshippers of
pictures. They told him they didn't mean to worship the images, but to worship
the saints that the pictures represented. He said the heathen, on the same
ground, defend the worship of their idols. They become Christians by merely
changing the name of the idol. He said that image-worship was connected with
the Pelagian tendency, and he presented the Augustinian view of the sovereignty
of divine grace, stressed salvation by grace not by works. We must worship the
Creator, not the creature. He very strongly attacked the rising superstitions.
He said, "We can help one another by our prayers, but there's no use in
praying for those who have died; he said we can't help them once they're dead.
He attacked the superstitious use of the sign of the cross. He said "If we
worship the cross because Christ suffered on it, we might also worship every
virgin because He was born of a virgin; every manger because he was laid in a
manger; every ship because he taught from a ship; yea every ass because He rode
an ass into Jerusalem. We should bear the cross, not adore it." [ibid. p. 473]
He
took the pictures, crosses, and crucifixes out of his church, and he took a
strong stand against these developing superstitions; but he found no sympathy
in the people. While he was not disturbed—he remained Bishop of Turin the rest
of his life—he was censured by one of the popes; he was opposed by a
neighboring abbot. He says himself he became an object of scorn to the people.
His influence was very slight—that is, slight perhaps, is a small word for it.
It probably was not as great as that of Agobardus who was Archbishop; he had a
much smaller area, and in his area he doubtless had a very considerable
influence on godly people, on individuals. But on the community as a whole, his
influence was not great; and on the church outside of his area, his influence
was practically unknown. I mention the two, though, as godly men; men who had a
certain definite influence on the time, showing that the whole world did not go
into this superstition; but at every period, God has His own; often people who
simply in a quiet way served the Lord and made His truth known; in other cases
like these, men who had positions of fair prominence and made a real stand for
the truth. But the dominant influences were against them.
They
are both in the first half of the 9th century, between 800 and 850, both of
them. Formosus was at the end of the century. They are at the beginning. They
are about as much before Formosus as Teddy Roosevelt would be before us, half a
century earlier. Then F is again a name, two names. It is a subject which is of
considerable importance; more from developments from it, that we will see later
on. I'm going to name just two men under it; there are several who might be
named. You will see why I name the two as I go on to speak of them.
F. Radbertus and
Ratramnus.
Now they also are in the first half of the 9th century. Radbertus was an Abbot
of a monastery in France, a Benedictine monastery in France; Corbie is the name
of the monastery. Ratramnus was one of the learned monks in the monastery of
which Radbertus was Abbot. Now Radbertus deserves much more prominence than he
received. The Roman Catholic Church speaks highly of him—when they refer to
him—which isn't often. In the McSorley's history, he speaks of his great
learning and of his great ability, which was much greater. The reason they do
not give him the praise, which from their viewpoint he would seem to be
deserving, is that he is probably the originator—at least as far as any—of the
theory of transubstantiation; this is today—has been for the last 7 centuries—the
most violently defended doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. It is the
doctrine which is at the very heart of its power; because the doctrine of
transubstantiation is the doctrine that the priest is able magically—by saying
certain words—to transform the bread and wine of the communion into the actual
body and blood of Christ. And of course, if this is necessary for salvation—to
get the benefit of the death of Christ—and nobody can do this but a priest, it
has more to do with giving the priest his power than any other doctrine of the
Roman church.
John
Wyclif, in the 14th century, gave up doctrine after doctrine of the
superstitions, and he was not particularly interfered with; but when he began
to assail transubstantiation, then he was condemned as a heretic, assailed, and
his bones burned. That was the point—the definite turning point—of their
attitude toward him. It is as vital a doctrine as anything in the Roman church.
Now, if Radbertus is the first one to write a presentation of this doctrine;
and to maintain it strongly; why then is he not greatly honored in the Roman
Catholic Church? And the answer is quite easy to see. This is between 800 and
855 when he wrote it; and according to the doctrines the Roman church claims,
they hold it is a doctrine which Christ and the apostles held, either in the
writing of the N.T., or in tradition which they claim to have handed down among
them. And they claim that transubstantiation is part of the original teaching;
therefore the man who originated it eight centuries after Christ, naturally,
would not get from them anything like the credit which he would seem to deserve
as a founder of their system. So that Radbertus in Roman Catholic theology is
mentioned as an able expounder of the doctrine, but not as its founder.
Now
he did not originate the doctrine; I would not say that. It was a superstition
which gradually had been developed among the ignorant people, and had come to
be widely believed. But we have no evidence of any man who can lay a claim to
scholarship who in any clear way presented such a view prior to Radbertus. The
Roman Catholics claim that they find the doctrine taught in the early fathers,
but in order to do it they have to take some facts and twist them around, or to
fasten a lot of interpretations onto them. You cannot prove that any of the
fathers ever believed in transubstantiation. And none of them wrote an essay on
it or a special article or anything like that. Nor during the Middle Ages did
anyone write of it. But Radbertus wrote a very clear strong definite statement
of the view which is held today: that though, what they call the bread and wine
remain—that is, that the bread and wine taste, smell, and feel exactly the
same, you can see no difference in their taste or smell or touch—but the claim
is that actually it is no longer bread and wine, it has been transformed into
the actual body and blood of Christ, the very body which he had when he was
here on earth. And so this marvelous transformation has taken place according
to their claim.
And
that is what Radbertus so clearly expressed in his articles; and after he did
that Ratramnus was one of several men who were asked by the emperor—a
descendant of Charlemagne, a man who was interested in scholarship but not a
particularly able emperor, I haven't troubled you with his name—he was asked to
write an answer to this; and so there were two or three men who wrote answers
to it, denying such a thing; and no one of these men was excommunicated or
strongly condemned for what they had done. Two or three centuries later, the
writing of one of them was condemned and put on the Index—and forbidden to be
read—but not at this time; which was a pretty good proof that it was not
considered an established doctrine of the church at that time. If it had been,
you can be sure that two or three men would not have continued to be honored
men in the church, well-spoken of by McSorley in his history, who wrote
strongly denying this view. Radbertus himself gave Scriptural passages, and
quotations from the fathers, which he claimed were evidence; but the greater
part of his evidence was alleged miracles which he said happened in his day;
such as, he said that sometimes, when people doubted, the very body and blood
of Christ would appear on the communion table in place of the bread and wine
which was there; and he said the bread on the altar was often seen in the shape
of a lamb or a little child; and when the priest stretched out his hand to
break the bread, an angel descended from heaven with a knife; slaughtered the
lamb; and let his blood run into the cup. And he has various stories of alleged
miracles at that time. But the emperor asked Ratramnus to write a discussion of
this; and Ratramnus wrote—without mentioning his superior Radbertus, but
referring to the view—and he asked two questions, "Are the bread and wine
called the body and blood of Christ in a sacramental manner, or in the literal
sense?" Secondly, "Is the Eucharistic body identical with the
historical body which died and rose again?" And he denied this identity.
He said they are really the body and blood of Christ, only in a spiritual sense
to the faith of belief. He said that they are visible tokens of the Lord's
death, so that remembering his passion we may be come partakers of its
effectiveness. He made statements which, if any in the Roman church today were
to make, he would immediately be excommunicated. But he is honored as an able
writer of the church in the present-day Roman Catholic histories. The two
points were: first, the question, "Are the consecrated elements called the
body and blood of Christ in a sacramental sense, or in a literal sense?"
And second, "Is the body, of which you partake in communion, identical
with the historical body which died and rose again?" Those are the same
question. He gave them as two questions, and he denied this identity which
Radbertus had strongly averred. He said the souls of believers are merged in
the communion by the Word of God, which dwells in the natural body of Christ.
He said unbelievers cannot receive Christ if they lack the spiritual organ. He
said that the sacrifice of the mass is not an actual though unbloody repetition
of Christ's sacrifice, but a commemorative celebration of it, whereby
Christians are assured of their redemption.
Now there are two or three others—and some of them rather prominent names in this period—who also wrote at this time on this subject against Radbertus And they were not condemned by the church for so doing; I think that is a very important feature of it. When a man like McSorley writes a history, an extensive history, he has to deal with these facts; and consequently, since he cannot say that Ratramnus was a bad man, because he had never been condemned; but is praised in the writings and in the Roman histories since that time, he tried to interpret his writing in such a way that it will not deny the established view of the church.
Here's
what he says about Ratramnus—well, I'll read you what he says about both of
them. He says
"Radbertus,
(786-860) ... was a classical scholar and also the chief theologian of France.
Paschasius sent his best-known work, a treatise on the Body and Blood of our
Lord, to Emperor Charles the Bald in 844, and the objections made to it by two
other Benedictines, Ratramnus of Corbie and Rabanus Maurus, occasioned the
first Eucharistic Controversy." But then he says "Ratramnus (d. c.
868) of Corbie, widely read and a good critic, wrote several controversial
works, one on the Holy Eucharist, against Paschasius Radbertus, another in
defense of the 'Filioque' against Photius, and a third [on another matter] ...
His statement that Christ in the Eucharist is not in every respect the same as
the Christ of the Gospels is said to have paved the way for the later heresy of
Berengarius." [McSorley, ibid.
p. 242]
He
says he paved the way for the later heresy. But the view of Berengarius,
presented later, was really identical with his. Two centuries later, this man
was condemned for holding the view. At that time neither of these was condemned
for holding this view. It is interesting to us to see how, when this view of
transubstantiation first received recognition, it was not yet held to be
something that must be believed. But the argument was very intense; and
strangely, the argument assumed a clear form. Because the big argument came to
center about this: what happened to the bread and wine after you eat it. Is it
washed eventually through the body, in the ordinary means with which we get rid
of material which we have digested, or not? And the transubstantiationists
insisted it was not; it remains in the body to become the foundation of the
resurrection body; the consecrated bread and wine, the body and blood which we
actually eat, remains in the body and is never cast off or excreted. While
those who opposed transubstantiation declared that it is eventually cast off,
just like anything else. And the argument waxed long and furious over this
question of what becomes of it; but incidentally to that, and yet definitely
there, was the more important question, is it actually the body and blood of
Christ? That is the view which today is the essential doctrine of the Roman
church, of the peculiarity of the Roman Catholic Church; but at that time
people could deny it and still remain in good standing in the church. Now we go
on to
G. The Papacy in
the 10th Century.
You see why I separated the 9th the 10th because I wanted to bring in these two
important matters which were in the 9th, rather than to go through the Papacy
and then come back for them. The Papacy in the 10th century comes immediately
after the time of Formosus. Formosus is a short time before the beginning of
the 10th century; and you remember what happened to him, and the bitter
opposition there was between the two parties in Rome before his death; and it
lasted for some time afterwards. The 10th century is called by McSorley the
darkest period. If you look at in some other places, it perhaps does not
deserve that title; but in Rome it certainly does. It is the darkest period.
The strife which had shown itself in the time of Formosus and afterward
continued; and Rome itself fell largely into the hands of some corrupt nobles;
and these nobles—and particularly two women who belonged to one of the noble
families—seem to have controlled the position of Bishop of Rome, so anybody
could do what they felt like; for a mother and two daughters seem to have put
their successive lovers into the position of Bishop of Rome; and it is
interesting to see what is said about this 10th century by Farrow, in his book The Pageant of the Popes. Farrow only
devotes about five pages—five or six pages—to the whole century, the 10th
century; but in the course of those ten pages, he gives a very vivid picture of
the sort of men during that century. I'm going to read you a few words as he
expressed it in this book which, as you know, has the imprimatur of the Bishop
of Los Angeles; it was first printed in 1942; I believe it was printed as late
as 1959—went through many printings—issued by a Roman Catholic publishing house
in New York, and the paper-bound one by a Roman Catholic subsidiary
organization; and many copies of it have been distributed; so, as you can see,
it is recognized by the church; not as an authoritative work in the sense of a
papal declaration—nothing like that—but a book which they evidently consider
quite satisfactory for their people to read, a good popular treatment of the
papacy. And here in the account of the 10th century, he speaks about the house
of Theophilact early in the century—Theophilact is one of the nobles—after it
had appointed two popes in rapid succession who accomplished very little, then
he said,
"That
the papal election and office was completely controlled by the notorious family
was shown by the installation of the next pontiff, John X, who according to
some writers was the paramour of Theodora. Whether this was true or not, he
undoubtedly owed his elevation to her determined support. He was a man who
might well have attracted the unhealthy attentions of such an unscrupulous
female, for he had a will to match her own high spirit, and he was endowed with
a sense of bravado from the time when the sword was the principal instrument of
society had won for him considerable reputation as a warrior." [Farrow, op. cit., p. 89] After him—and after the
death of this Theodora—her daughters Marozia and Theodora the younger, in turn
put up a number of the popes in office, whoever it was that they particularly
wanted to have in that position.
But
eventually, the son of one of these Roman nobles became pope; and Farrow tells
us of him. His name was John, John XII. And Farrow says,
"The
new Pope was only sixteen years of age, but the sole evidence he was to give of
youth was a sturdy capacity for all forms of dissipation and wickedness. A wild
profligacy now became the tempo of the papal court, and sacrilege was the rule.
The fervent prayers and agonized moans of horrified monks were drowned by the
mad noises of obscene orgies, as the duties of the altar were supplanted by the
pleasures of the flesh. A stable was the background for an ordination.
Bishoprics were sold to whoever would purchase them. And the pope was heard to
drink a gay toast to the devil. Not one virtue did the young villain have to
substantiate his priesthood; and neither was he possessed—although he thought
otherwise—of any talents that might have qualified him as a statesman or a
warrior." [Farrow, ibid., p.
93.]
You
can imagine what it would be if a Protestant should speak that way of any pope;
but this is what Farrow says about John XII, of whom McSorley says, "he
was probably the worst man except one, who ever was pope."
Well,
John XII called in the new emperor of Germany named Otto; and Otto, Farrow
says, was so gallant and brave, he marched into Rome—where he was received with
sighs of relief and shouts of gratitude—when John was in danger from attack by
his enemies. And so John, this John, crowned Otto emperor; and the splendid
memories of Charlemagne and Gregory were invoked; the northern prince swore
that he would maintain the integrity of the papal independence, while the
pontiff on his part solemnly vowed on the body of St. Peter that he would have
no further connection with the other claimants for the imperial power. Otto was
left to give battle to these enemies, and while he was besieging one of them,
the pope started in; he sat, with a rare and foolish friendship, he says, the
pope now commenced negotiations with the enemy of the one he had just crowned
emperor.
And
Otto came to Rome and John fled; and then Otto investigated a little further
and found out what a wicked man the pope was; so they called a council and had
at a deliberation—fifty bishops, Germans and Italians—calling upon the pope,
Farrow says, "to come and defend himself against accusations of sacrilege,
simony, perjury, murder, adultery, and incest. To this summons the
irresponsible youth, now safely ensconced in a fortress a few miles from Rome,
replied in an ungrammatical Latin message, 'We hear that you mean to elect a
new Pope. If you do, in the name of Almighty God I excommunicate you, and
forbid you to ordain or say mass.' It was a vexatious question that troubled
the Imperial ecclesiastics, for they had no procedure to try, or authority to
support them.
Unfortunately,
their decision was uncanonical and created fresh complications. They passed a
sentence of deposition against John, and elected the chief secretary of the
Papal States, a layman named Leo, to be his successor. These measures were
greeted with hostility by the majority of the Roman citizens who, suspicious of
German domination and jealous of traditional rights, were of the opinion that
no power on earth could depose a Pope and then place a layman on his throne.
Angry mutterings along the streets swelled into roars of protest and defiance,
as crowds eddied and a rebellion flared. It was suppressed by the irritated
Otto at the cost of considerable bloodshed; but later, when the siege of
Berengar called for his presence and troops, the angry Romans rose again and
this time they were successful. The anti-Pope was driven from the Lateran, and
the disreputable John was welcomed back as a hero. That he had learned no
lesson from his experiences was rapidly manifested by his conduct. With
barbaric cruelty, revenge was wreaked upon those of his antagonists who were
unlucky enough not to have escaped. One prelate had his right arm struck off,
another was publicly scourged, and a third lost his ears and nose. Once again
debauchery stained the Lateran, but only for three months was the pollution to
endure. John XII breathed his last in the month of May 964; and even the
circumstances in the death of this inglorious and despicable man were not free
from a disgraceful shadow, for it was the popular belief that he died at the
hands of a wronged husband." [Farrow, ibid.,
p. 94-5.]
McSorley
says that there was one tradition that he was killed by a wronged husband, but
that another tradition was that an angel killed him; so we can't be sure which
is true in this case. But it's interesting that a book like that, with the
imprimatur of the bishop, circulated by Roman Catholic bookstores and
publishers, would speak that way of one of the popes; and not only of course of
one, but this one was the worst in that century; and a good many others in this
century were almost as bad as he was, although probably not quite. He was just
about as bad as you can imagine a human being to be; but when you think of the
claim made, that such a one is the vicar of Christ, ordained of God to be the
head of the church, it sounds so absurd it's hard to think how anyone could
believe such a doctrine, but John XII's picture is in St. Paul's church,
outside the walls of Rome where all the popes' pictures are around, and his
name is included in every list of the popes.
McSorley
says in the 10th century, not one of them was given the title of saint. And
they certainly did not deserve the title, any of them, during this century.
There was a man in France, named Gerbert; I think he is worth knowing something about. He was a great French scholar; he was an archbishop. For a brief time he was archbishop in France. He was a man very highly thought of; and Gerbert at this time expressed himself very strongly as to what he thought of developments in the papacy. I would like you to know where you can find the statements of Gerbert about the papacy at this time. They are quoted in Schaff's History of the Christian Church, vol.IV, pp 290-92.
Now
this man Gerbert was archbishop of Rheims, and afterward at Ravenna; and at the
end of the century, he was made pope himself. He, as pope, took the name of
Sylvester II. Unfortunately, he did not live very long after he became pope.
But Gerbert, Schaff says, was the Secretary of the Council and the probable
framer of the speech which was actually read by the Bishop of Orleans in
France. And he said,
"Looking at the actual state of the papacy, what do we behold? John [XII.] called Octavian, wallowing in the sty of filthy concupiscence, conspiring against the sovereign whom he had himself recently crowned; then Leo [VIII.] the neophyte, chased from the city by this Octavian; and that monster himself, after the commission of many murders and cruelties, dying by the hand of an assassin. Next we see the deacon, Benedict, freely elected by the Romans, carried away captive into the wilds of Germany by the new Caesar [Otho I.] and his Pope Leo... What would you say of such a one, when you see him sitting upon the throne glittering in purple and gold, Must he not be the 'Anti-Christ, sitting in the temple of God and showing himself as God'? Verily such a one lacketh both wisdom and charity; he standeth in the temple as an image, as an idol, from which as from dead marble you would seek counsel. But the church of God is not subject to a wicked pope; or even absolutely, and on all occasions, to a good one," [Schaff IV, p. 290].
And
so on; there are three pages here in which he speaks very strongly; the only
way a decent person could speak about the claims of a pope in this century;
when they had sunk so low; to be the head of the church. This same Gerbert,
though, was at the very end of the century, elected pope, as we noticed. And I
have no doubt that he did his best to clean up the mess; put things in a better
condition; and probably would have had considerable success if he had lived
longer; but it was the very end of his life; he was pope only a brief time; but
in the course of that, naturally, he made great claims for his own authority,
which to some extent negated the things he said earlier when he saw the
character of the popes who were there.
I
won't go into the details of others of the popes in this century; we have
described the worst ones; we will say, though, that some of them were nearly as
bad; it was quite a succession.
I
mentioned to you, in the beginning of our examination of the Middle Ages, that
the idea of empire continued in the world. Now that idea of empire is
responsible to a great extent for the preservation of the papacy; because we
find Charlemagne wanting to be emperor, and having an authorization from the
pope; and at the same time, the pope having the support of the government; and
we find that continuing. Otto I was king of the Germans; he was ruler of a
section of Germany; he had been elected by the others to be emperor. He wanted
an authority that would buttress his power and influence; and he was holding to
the old theory of the Roman Empire. He wanted to be recognized as the emperor;
and a great help to that was to have the pope hailed, recognized as the head of
the Christians in the empire; giving his support and sanction to the man who
was the secular ruler of it. And so you have the German king, the German
emperor in the course of this next century, interfering in Rome, to get rid of
the unworthy and degraded men who were holding the position of Bishop of Rome.
And to try to elevate the position to something that can take the old
traditions and use them in support of the empire.
I
believe these emperors had—all of them had—a definite selfish motive; many of
them had, in addition, an unselfish motive. The selfish motive would be to
buttress their own power, through the support of a man who was recognized as a
spiritual leader of the empire. The unselfish motive would be to have the quality
of the church in the empire to stay high, in order to raise the whole level of
life of the people and of society in general in the empire. Now some were much
better than others; but many of them had a desire to uphold high standards.
Otto got Gerbert to be the tutor of his son. Eventually the emperors got good
men—that is, men of better character—made pope to improve the situation. And it
is my personal opinion, that in the terrible wickedness and degradation into
which the bishops of Rome fell, the papacy would have just disappeared
completely—become non-existent—if it were not for the intervention of these
Roman emperors—of these Germans who had taken the title of Roman Emperor—and
for their raising very considerably the standard of the men who held the position;
and at the same time buttressing his influence with their own power. At the
same time, there was also another force; while the pope greatly helped the
emperor, and the emperor greatly helped the pope, yet for the next several
centuries they were constantly struggling to see which of the two of them was
supreme; and that meant there were all sorts of struggles between popes and
emperors; but even so each of them actually was a tremendous help to the other.
[student:
"Was the emperor involved in choosing the Popes?"] Well, no,
theoretically. Originally the Christians of Rome elected their bishops; and
that was the situation until, I believe, well into the Middle Ages; then the
election became restricted to the Roman clergy. Today, the Roman clergy includes
5 bishops of suburbs of Rome. There is a metropolitan area there which includes
these 5 bishops and a large number of priests and deacons. And they
theoretically elect the bishop; but these Roman nobles simply told them whom to
elect and they did it; and they were wise to do so if they wanted to live. And
that was the situation then. Later on, of course, when the emperor would come
down to clean up the mess, and say, "Here's my chaplain of high character;
we ought to have him for bishop." And they of course all to his face were
very, very obsequious; they heard what the emperor wanted, and they proceeded
to elect him; but the minute he was gone, they'd think how terrible to have a
German as our bishop; then they might rise against him, and put in another of
their own fellows; and then he'd come back; and then both of them were on the
list of the popes of the Roman Catholic Church.
But
today the theory is that it is the Roman clergy that elects the popes; no group
of bishops has any right to elect a pope. It is the Roman clergy that has the
right to elect the pope. Archbishop Spellman can vote on who the next pope will
be—he did on this one—but he has no vote as archbishop of New York; that gives
him not the slightest bit of voice in who the pope is going to be. The only
reason he has any voice is that he is a cardinal; this means that he is
theoretically a member of the clergy of the city of Rome. And every two years
he goes to Rome; and he holds a mass in a little church off in a corner of Rome
somewhere, of which he is theoretically the local priest; though he never
appears except on these visits. But that is the theory of the election of the
pope. Now
H. The Cluny
Reform and St Dunstan. I'm putting two topics under this same head. The
first, The Cluny Reform is very widely known. The second, St. Dunstan, is less
widely known, but deserving of our attention. Now this 10th century in Rome is
about as low as anything can get, and McSorley calls it "the darkest
period."
But
in France, as you may have guessed; from which I read the quotation of Gerbert;
from the attitude of this French Council toward the papacy at that time; in
France it was quite different. And the reason for that is because a duke in
France, early in this century, formed a new convent. In 910 he formed a
convent; the word convent may be either men or women; this was men—a convent at
Cluny in Burgundy. Now this name of Cluny is worth remembering, because at
Cluny at Burgundy this duke formed a convent, on the basis of the rule of St. Benedict,
to the honor of St. Peter and St. Paul. This abbey became a center of reform;
and in this abbey the worldliness, the wickedness, which had come into
monasteries all over Europe, was not allowed to enter in that century. Their
time and attention was given to the study of the Scripture; to meditation and
prayer; and to the attempt to make the Scriptural teaching known in the area
round about.
And
Cluny soon became so well known, that others wanted to have a place like it;
and the Cluny people said, "All right, we'll make a branch then." So
it was different from the other Benedictine abbeys, all of which were
independent. But Cluny became a center with her convents subject to it. They
followed in general the Benedictine order; they were closely knit together; the
daily life was closely regulated; with very strict rules; and eventually there
were over 2000 different monasteries, all of them subject to Cluny. They grew
up all over France and all over Europe; and the life in these monasteries was
probably on a higher spiritual level than the life in the monasteries at most
any time before or since. It was a tremendous spiritual movement, this movement
of Cluny, a movement which for about 3 or 4 centuries was a tremendously
powerful movement in Europe; and some of its men eventually became popes; but
it was over a century after the start of it before it reached that point.
So
this Cluny reform, this spread of the activity from the Cluny center, was a
great spiritual movement in Europe for about 3 centuries; until finally it fell
into worldliness, and itself came to be simply an ordinary center of
superstition. But it took about 3 centuries before it reached that level.
During that time it was constantly receiving more money, and more people, and
it kept its standards for quite a long time.
Now
I mentioned St. Dunstan. St. Dunstan lived in England, from 925 to 988, and he
was a Reformer there. This was before the Norman Conquest, in the Saxon period
in England; he reformed the church, and he got better class of people into the
positions of importance in the church of England; and eventually he himself
became Archbishop of Canterbury; and Schaff says, the virtual ruler of the
kingdom. He tried to correct the immorality of the priests, which had become
very prominent in the church by this time, and he made sweeping reforms in
England. His influence was not as widespread or as great as that of the Cluny
reform, but it came at the same time and had a very great influence in England.
Yesterday
we ended our time with the discussion of the Cluny reform and of St. Dunstan;
and this St. Dunstan truly was extremely important for England. But the Cluny
reform was important for all Europe. We've not gone much into detail about
this, but it was a tremendously important factor in the history of the Middle
Ages; and it extended for the greater part of another three centuries. Its
emphasis was on the heart of the gospel; and on the teaching of the Scriptures.
During this time in Rome, the papacy was in a state of extreme corruption.
The
German emperor of the west, called himself the Roman emperor, and claimed
jurisdiction over the whole ancient Roman Empire; but actually he was never
able to exert control over more than Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, and he
had a tough job doing that. These German emperors during this century were on
the whole pretty good men; and two or three times, as we've noticed, they came
down to Italy and did away with the wickedness of these popes and put good men
in; but as soon as they would go away, these men might be killed, and the old
vicious situation reestablished. Now we go on to a new century
This
is a century which saw a very great change in the whole situation, particularly
as far as the papacy is concerned. Now to anyone who is interested in English
history, the 11th century is the most important century up to that time. How
many of you would know that extremely important event in English history? The
Norman conquest of England in 1066. For anyone in England, if he was interested
in English history, this is probably the
date in English history. It is a definite turning point. Often great changes
take place more or less gradually; and you say this change took place over a
series of five, ten, fifteen, or a hundred years; and you will set a date when
the leadership changed; but actually the change was in process. But this was a
change which was sudden, and which completely revolutionized the history of
England.
Now
for our purpose in Church History, it is a comparatively incidental thing; but
we want to be aware of it as happening in this period.
A.
Political Events.
In view of our nearness to England, and the fact of our using its language, we
will put
1.
England.
England had during the previous two centuries been the subject of constant
attack from the Danes, and from the Vikings of Scandinavia, who had destroyed
and pillaged a great deal in England.
And
there had been a time at the beginning of this century when a Danish king ruled
over England. But most of these previous four centuries, England had been under
the complete control of the Germanic tribes—the Anglo-Saxons—who had come over
there; and you remember how, about 600, Augustine of Canterbury had established
Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons. By this time [1000] they were a pretty
well settled people; and the influence of civilization had been spread among
them; the monasteries had been a great influence in this spread; there had been
some very fine Christians among them; there had been some schools. Alcuin,
remember, the great educator under Charlemagne, came from England. St.
Boniface, the apostle to the Germans, came from England. England was a pretty
well settled, well-established country for this time, by 1000 AD. But there was
a group of these Norsemen, who had invaded a section of France a couple of
centuries before this; and in that section they had established themselves; and
so this section of France came to be called Normandy, the section of the Norsemen.
The wild northern conquerors had established themselves in this section of
France; and there they had given up their Norse language, and had become French
in their speaking; and they had adopted a great many French customs, but they
had retained their warlike, destructive propensities to quite an extent; and
the people whom they conquered had been affected by them too; so that the
Normans were a wild fighting group, and this part of the Norman group had taken
over the French land.
Now
in the middle of this century, when one of the Saxon kings had reigned for a
longer time than most—a very peaceful king—they called him the Confessor,
because of his great interest in religion, rather than fighting. When he
died—after a long reign which had certainly weakened the military protection of
the people—two men claimed to be his successor, and there was a struggle
between them. And just as a great battle had been finished, in which one of
these two had completely defeated the other—I believe it was two days later—a
force of Normans landed in England to try to claim that their leader was the
one who should be king of England.
Now
whether the Normans could have conquered the Saxons if the Saxons had been
prepared for them is hard to say; they'd have had a difficult job, because the
Saxons united were a strong force; and with the difficulty of landing, if they
were watching for them, it would have been a very difficult thing. But the
disunited Saxons, having just fought a great battle between two halves of the
nation; immediately after that being attacked; it was like the Chinese at the
end of the last war; when the Communists invaded, when they were weaker as the
result of one long war; so that the Norsemen, who were now pretty well French
in their speaking; in their customs; in their culture; these Norsemen, under
Duke William, landed in England; and they met the army that had just conquered
the opposing force; and in the great Battle of Hastings completely defeated
them; and this altered the history of England for the next four or five
centuries—very strongly—because the result of it was that William, taking over
England, took all the leading positions in the government; and took the great
castles and gave them to his supporters; so that for the next two or three
centuries the men who governed England were the Norsemen; these French-speaking
Norsemen; and the common people were the Anglo-Saxon people, Germans; and you
get the two together this way, and there was a constant struggle to some extent
between them, though the Norsemen were so well established that the Saxons
could never do any great harm; but there was a constant irritation; it was at
least four centuries afterward before you could really say there was an English
nation; or maybe four is a little strong—at least two and a half centuries.
Those
of you who have read the story of Ivanhoe are familiar with the general
tensions that existed still many years after the conquest of England. We bear
the results of it in our English language even to this day; because in any
other language that I know of, if you see a chicken running around in the yard
and kill that chicken and put it on the table, well we call it a chicken when
it's running in the yard and we call it a chicken when we put it on the table
to eat; but in modern English, different from almost any other language I know
of, the particular food that the people liked at that time, when the Saxon
servants were taking care of a cow they called it a cow; but when they put it
on the table for the Norman nobles to eat they called it by the French name boeuf, so we call the meat beef instead
of cow; and we do the same way with pig we call it by the French name, pork,
when we're eating it, but by the Saxon name pig when it's in the yard. We do
that with the pigs and cows and sheep and calves; we do it with quite a few
things. So the idea that French is aristocratic, and English (Anglo-Saxon) is
common, preserves to this day a part of the struggle between the conquerors and
the conquered people until finally they were completely amalgamated into one
nation.
Well,
this affects subsequent centuries much more than this one; but we should know
that the 11th century was the time of the great overturning in England. Now we
will not take time to go into the details of the history of the other European
countries except to say a few words about the Empire, so I'll make
2.
The Western Empire. And
the empire, as we've known, consisted theoretically of the whole western
region. Actually though, the west had pretty well broken away from it, as a
result of the partitioning of Charlemagne's empire among his three grandsons;
and Spain, of course, was under the Mohammedans at this time; so actually what
remained of the empire was Germany, and Austria, and Italy; and the feudal
system was pretty strong, so that the power of the emperor was quite nominal;
except where he was with his armies, he was able to exert considerable force.
But
on the whole you have a pretty great series of men as emperors during this
time; and these men are constantly trying to buttress their power; and one way
to do that of course is to be able to say, "Well, the spiritual leader of
the empire has crowned me, and is supporting me," so that they knew it was
to their interest to maintain papal power; and it was their desire to have a
real spiritual power, one that would not be mixing in political wars, but that
would stress their desire to maintain order and civilization throughout the
empire.
So
they were interested in this relationship to the papacy, but they were also
constantly having a struggle to keep the different parts of the empire under
their control; and they were so busy doing this, between Germany and Italy and
the region right between, that there wasn't much else they could give attention
to, as a rule. They're very important—the emperors are—in our Church History at
this time. Now
3.
The Eastern Empire.
The eastern and western empires are very different; the eastern empire
continued at Constantinople, a direct continuation of the old Roman Empire; but
it was a continuation broken by many upheavals; but they were local upheavals,
one line of leaders would be killed; another line would come in; not much real
civil war. But they were constantly being interfered with by the Mohammedan
advances, which gradually took away a large part of their empire, and decreased
it tremendously; and so the eastern empire, which had been fully as great as
the western, at the time of the greatness of the empire, was now actually in
power less than the western empire, because they lost so much territory.
So
much for this very hasty survey of the political events of a very interesting
century; many very interesting things occurred, but we are interested in this
course in its effect in the sphere of Church History, of course. So we will
make
B. The Papacy in the 11th century. And this is in some ways the most dramatic century in the whole history of the papacy. It is a century of change for the papacy. It is a century in which the papacy begins as it was in the 10th century; that is to say, pretty largely the plaything of the Roman nobles; with the Roman nobles fighting over it and using it as the means of help in exterminating their enemies; a center for people who had no interest in religion whatever; it was during the 10th century it reached its lowest point as you know. It was held by the most wicked and unworthy people during the 10th century; that continued into the 11th century; but the century ends with the papacy a very strong international organization, with tremendous influence over all the countries of the western world; and claiming power even over the Eastern Empire; so this is a century of the great change in the papacy. McSorley calls the 10th century the darkest age; the 11th he calls the unifying of Christendom. I don't think that's the proper title for this century, I don't know that Christendom was being unified; but certainly the papal power was extended and increased; and enlarged more in that century than in any other century in history; because it began at its lowest point, and it ended on an upswing which, within another century, reached the highest point it has ever possessed; so it is a century of tremendous change for the papacy.
We
could spend a semester on the papacy during this century, and it would be very
interesting; but the main thing we want in this course is to have an
understanding of the depths of corruption of the papacy at the beginning of the
century; and then to see a few of the main steps in its rise. So we'll call
1.
Benedict IX.
Now I select Benedict IX here as a symbol of a good many of the popes at the
beginning of this century. He was not, by any means, one isolated wicked man
who was the pope. He was more or less typical of the others of this early part of
the century, except that he was worse than any others in this century; and the
question might be debated which was worse, John XII—whom we looked at last
century—or Benedict IX. Farrow says of him, "Various historians have
claimed Benedict's age at his election to have been anywhere from ten to
twenty. Whatever it was does not matter, for he soon proved himself as capable
in crime as any veteran of vice; and to be as lacking in discretion as the most
foolish of adolescents. Together with his brother Gregory who bore the rank of
Prefect, the youthful bandit inflicted on Rome a series of misconducts; until
in angry desperation the citizens allowed themselves to be incited by his
family rivals, the Crescentii, into a revolt which at first seemed successful. Benedict
was driven from Rome, and the opposite party declared a new pope in the person
of Sylvester III, who had been John, Bishop of Sabina. But the Tuscans were
quick to rally, and soon their troops expelled the usurper and restored the
capricious young villain to the Lateran." [Farrow, op. cit. p. 106] The Lateran is a big palace and a church in Rome
today; it was the residence of the pope during most of the centuries of the
Middle Ages. People often speak of it, just as the Vatican today is the residence
of the papacy, that was the Lateran then. Farrow continued, "Their loyalty
was repaid only four months later by the supreme simony of all time—the papal
office was sold! For a large amount of money."
Farrow
called it simony. In any Roman Catholic history, it is simony. How many here
know what simony is? I see there are quite a few who do not, so it will be good
to have just a word on it. It comes from the book of Acts where Simon offered
the apostles money in order that he might be able to give the Holy Ghost to
whoever he felt like. In other words, he was trying to buy a power which
belonged to God's apostles; so the word has come to be used for anyone who
purchases a church position. And you will find, I image, that in Farrow's book
the word "simony" may occur a thousand times; in the case of at least
a third of the popes—at least between the 5th century and the 16th—at least a
third of them he would say they were guilty of simony; and at least another
third, he will say, were accused of simony. It was a very, very prominent
subject to these times—this subject of simony—of purchasing a church position.
So he said that, in the supreme simony of all times, the papal office was sold
for a large amount of money. Continuing, "Benedict resigned and attempted to
convey the apostolic succession to John Gratian, now taking the name of Gregory
VI, Archpriest of the church of St. John at the Latin Gate. Here was a
situation to stun canonists, for there was no law to vitiate such a
transaction." That's a strange statement. If the pope were supposed to be
elected by the people of Rome, or by the clergy, how could a man sell his
position? But he says there was no law prohibiting such a transaction.
"Actually the practical-minded citizens of Rome sighed with relief at the
new accession; for John Gratian, now taking the name of Gregory VI, was a pious
and good man who, along with many others, had been appalled and shocked by the
misdeeds of Benedict. Disdaining such means, so common to the age, as dagger or
poison, he had resorted to gold to remove the criminal presence before further
chaos ensued."
Now
if a Protestant would speak of any pope as a criminal presence, you can imagine
what the Romanists would say. So here is a book that has the imprimatur of the
bishop, written by a Roman Catholic, describing the history of the popes; and
this is the way he speaks of Benedict IX: a criminal presence.
Farrow
continuing, "Once installed he [Gregory VI-dcb] began reform, and to
assist he called from his monastery, a zealous and clever Benedictine, named
Hildebrand." Now this name Hildebrand is the most important name in papal
history during the 11th century; so it would be good for you to note it down.
What we have said about Hildebrand so far is not the most important thing about
him by any means, but the name is worth remembering.
I
read the Encyclopaedia Britannica
article about Hildebrand this morning. The Encyclopaedia
Britannica is probably our most scholarly and quoted encyclopedia. It's a
very important help in any scholarly subject. But when it comes to church
history, you have a peculiar situation; because the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 50 years ago was in the hands of
extreme modernists; somebody said that when the Encyclopaedia Britannica then would write about Buddhism, or
Mohammedanism, or some other non-Christian religion, they would be most
sympathetic in trying to give a picture of what its adherents really believed;
but when they would speak of Christianity, that they would represent it as an
ignorant superstition; they certainly have adopted the full critical view all
through—at least they had then—toward the Bible.
Now there came quite a big swing in the Encyclopaedia Britannica in the last few years. One of their salesman about four years ago was talking to me here in the office; and he mentioned how we would be much better pleased with it than we used to be; he said that the article on the Jesuits had met with severe criticism from the Jesuit order; so they said, "Well you write the article," and so there are many places at which Roman Catholics objected to it, and their objections have been accepted; so which is stronger in it now—the modernist influence or the Roman Catholic influence—I don't know. But at least it is quite different from what it used to be.
Well,
I read the article about Hildebrand this morning; and it said that the story
that he came of a humble background was doubtless a story which was originated
by his enemies, but actually he probably came from a very outstanding family.
Actually, we know nothing of what sort of background he came from; and I don't
know why they would take that as a slur against him; because one of the glories
of the papacy is the fact that many of them have come from very humble
backgrounds. The Roman Church through the Middle Ages preserved quite an
element of democracy in that; a man in the church did not have to have a family
background to rise, though many did rise through their background in fact; but
there were many of the poorer backgrounds who rose to very great leadership in
the milieu of the church.
But this Hildebrand, the encyclopedia said, was born sometime between 1015 and 1020. Actually we really don't know when he was born; we don't know much about his family; but here he is, as Farrow says, a zealous and clever Benedictine. I don't quite like the term "clever" there. I think you could say he was an able and sincere man, who was greatly troubled with the situation, and desired to change it for the better; I think we can definitely say that. But anyway, it was Gregory VI who brought Hildebrand into prominence; and Hildebrand, years later, when he himself became pope, honored Gregory VI by taking Gregory's name so he became Gregory VII; but that is quite a bit ahead in our story. Now Gregory VI, of whom we are speaking, called Hildebrand to help him; and then Farrow says, "To complicate matters further, Benedict whose word was as doubtful as his morals, decided to revoke his resignation."
In
summary, Benedict IX—this young fellow who was as bad as John XII—he was
constantly murdering; and he made a brothel out of the Vatican; the one of whom
Farrow calls, "The criminal presence"; he offered the papacy for
sale; and this John Gratian was evidently a man of high character, a leader in
the clergy in Rome, but a man who inherited considerable wealth; and, as Farrow
says, instead of trying to use a dagger or poison to get rid of this wicked man
in the papacy, he bought the papacy from him; so he paid a tremendous sum of
money to Benedict IX; and handed over the papacy to the man who became Gregory
VI. But then after Gregory VI had been pope for a brief time; and Hildebrand,
his assistant, called on everybody to recognize him as pope; Benedict IX
revoked his resignation; and loftily announced that, of course, his was the
only valid consecration.
2.
Renewed German Intervention. So you had these two men; and before
that the enemies of Benedict IX had appointed another man to be pope, whom they
called Sylvester III. So now they had three popes, each guarded by his soldiers.
As Farrow says, "Thus three Popes, each guarded by his soldiery, held
court in a city whose lawless streets were now not thoroughfares but
skirmishing grounds for ruffians and brigands. It was the year 1045, and once
again history was repeated." You see, the century is nearly half over, and
the corruption of the papacy is at its very lowest ebb. "It was the year
1045 and once again history was repeated, as a German Emperor, now Henry III,
marched south to take command and bring discipline to the Roman scene. With
alacrity Gregory accepted the Emperor's suggestion to convene a synod" to
settle the matter. Gregory VI called the synod; the emperor's armed soldiers
were enforcing order. The other two men were ordered deposed from being
pope—Benedict IX and Sylvester III—that left only Gregory VI; and then the
question came about Gregory VI, did he have any right to be pope? And of
course, everybody knew Gregory VI had become pope by buying the position; and
nobody could claim to be a good and great pope whom, everybody knew, had bought
the position. He was guilty of simony which—though often practiced—was
considered one of the very worst sins. And so history disputed whether the
council deposed Gregory VI on the ground of his simony in purchasing the papacy;
or whether he himself said that he would resign as pope, because of his sin
which made him unworthy to hold the position. It is uncertain which is true,
but at any rate he ceased to be pope. Farrow's statement supports the view of
it, that no one could judge the pope, and therefore it must have been the pope
who judged himself, although they certainly judged Benedict IX, his
predecessor.
But
after the other two had been deposed, Farrow says, "Attention turned to
Gregory, who gracefully admitted his own consecration to have been a 'shameful
and demoniacal heresy', witnessed with signature a decree of its invalidity;
and then, accompanied by his faithful secretary Hildebrand, was taken to
Germany to a state prison. Benedict was now ordered to appear and answer to his
crime. And when he refused to attend, or recognize the authority of the synod,
and retreated to wait and brood behind the impregnable walls of the family
fortress at Tusculum he was, amidst the solemnity of a ceremonial at St.
Peter's, ordered deposed." And so Henry III, seeing the situation of these
Italians, decided to make a journey to Rome and see if he could get a better
type of person; he took a German bishop of high character and made him pope.
But Farrow says, "To the dismay of the jealous Romans who, no matter how
villainous the native-born pontiff might be, could seldom stomach the idea of a
foreigner...." And actually I believe it's three hundred years now that
anyone but an Italian has been pope. Farrow says, "The German bishop, Suidger
of Bamburg, now took possession of the Sacred chair as Clement II. His first
act was to crown his Emperor and Empress; and sullenly the Roman nobles and
their retinues thronged to St. Peter's to listen while northern accents echoed
about the high altar."
And
so, after this, we have a great difficulty in getting a German established as
pope because of the opposition of the Italians to any German pope. And
Hildebrand may have thought of a very clever idea. The Italians became
convinced that they could not resist the power of the Germans. The emperor had
the army, had the strength, and the Italians simply could not resist; and in
addition to that, the people were so disgusted at Benedict's crimes, and the
succession of wicked popes, they were ready for anything; but they just could
not stomach the idea of having the German emperor appoint the pope; and so in
1049—after two popes who only lived a very brief time—in 1049 in Germany the
emperor appointed a bishop as pope, and he took the name of Leo IX; and Hildebrand,
who was up there in Germany, suggested to Leo IX a very clever idea. He was
pope by the appointment of the German emperor, and the people knew that the
German arms were there to force them to accept him as pope; but he put on the
garment of an ordinary pilgrim; he came barefooted and very humbly dressed as a
pilgrim; with Hildebrand with him as one of his companions; and he made the
trip south to Rome as a poor pilgrim anxious to serve the church; and of course
this was Leo IX; and the Romans knew that the force of the German emperor was
back of him; but when he comes as a pilgrim looking to the Romans to elect him
as pope, they proceed to elect him as pope, knowing that if they don't the
German emperor will interfere and destroy whomever they elect; knowing that his
arms are back of him, but yet feeling that as far as the outward appearance is
concerned they have the form of doing the election; and that this man is giving
deference to them in coming as a pilgrim and looking to them; so this was Hildebrand's
suggestion, which everyone recognizes.
He
took as his advisor the monk named Hildebrand, and followed his advice that the
Roman clergy must be unanimous in their approval. So he was supposedly elected
by pope by the Romans though he had already been appointed by the emperor. He
reigned from 1049 to 1054, and he got the papacy established on a basis which
was more solid than it had been for six centuries; and one thing that helped
him get it established on this basis was the fact that Hildebrand was, as
Farrow says, "a clever monk." I would say a very, very keen student;
a very industrious man; devoted to the cause of the church, and desiring the
establishment of a better situation in the church; but also of a spiritual
unity; as the empire was supposed to be one, the church was supposed to be one;
Hildebrand was adviser to Leo and to the next pope after Leo, the next two of
them; and they managed to hold the favor of the emperor, and also to hold the
Roman nobles to get well established; and the terrible corruption of the
previous century and a half is ended; largely through the power of the German
emperors, but also through the wisdom of the monk Hildebrand. Neither of them
alone probably could account for it. The Roman nobles who before this time had
been appointing one of each faction as pope, and just making it a plaything for
their own worldliness and wickedness; he held them at bay and kept them from
doing that any more, for the present. That's what they had been doing for a
century and a half before. The Germans would try to win; and if the emperor
would come down with an army, it was all right while he was there; but once he
went away, the local Roman nobles began to kill the man he made pope; put in
one of their own friends as pope. But now they managed to keep the Romans from
doing that; and without the German emperor, who was happy to come down. The
Germans would leave a garrison there; and they managed to get along without
them; and eventually to get an Italian garrison to replace them. So that the
papacy got established, under all who had been under the influence of the Cluny
people. Remember, Cluny had begun a century and a half before this; and its
influence for improvement in the church had now extended even into Italy; and
was given something of the credit for the improvement in the situation.
There
are many interesting things that happened in the reign of these various popes;
one of them was that it was Alexander II, 1061 to 1073, who supported William
the Conqueror's invasion of England. William did it with the blessing of the
pope, and as a gift of the pope. And England, for many years after that, was
the most loyal to the pope of all his domains; because after all, it had been
she that received him, and given gifts.
3.
Hildebrand -- Gregory VII (1073-1085). Now Hildebrand became pope under the
name of Gregory VII in 1073. I'm not asking you to remember the names of the
three popes immediately preceding him, but merely to know that they were able
men, men of generally good character, but men who were much more under
Hildebrand's influence. Hildebrand himself became pope under the name of
Gregory VII. You might call Gregory almost the founder of the papacy, because
he as Hildebrand advised the others in getting it established; and then as
pope, he declared his power over all the world; and he even succeeded at one
time—which I expected to deal with today and just have time to anticipate. At
one time he excommunicated the emperor; and the emperor had lost most of his
support and had to make a trip as a suppliant, across the Alps; and he came to
the castle in northern Italy where Gregory was, and asked Gregory to forgive
him; and Gregory had the emperor wait outside three days barefoot—outside the
castle, at an altitude of 2000 feet in January where it was cold and
miserable—he had to wait there three days. The pope was, I suppose, making him
do penance for having not obeyed him. And then received him into the castle;
gave him full forgiveness for his sin; and reestablished him. And this was at a
castle called Canossa, and has ever since been typical of the power of the
papacy—to make the emperor wait three days; barefooted, as a suppliant; outside
before he could be forgiven of the pope. Well, we'll look at that next time.
Well,
now we were speaking last time of the 11th century; and we noticed A, political
events; and B, the papacy; and under the papacy we looked at Benedict IX, who
would be a very strong contender for the claim of being the most wicked man
that ever sat on the papal throne. There are one or two others who might
contest that claim with him, but it would be pretty hard to equal him, He was
in fact as wicked a man almost as the world has ever seen, in just about any
line of wickedness you want to mention. But Benedict IX is typical of the popes
of the 10th century and of the first part of the 11th. He was the worst by far;
but many others were also very similar to him; wicked men, men who had no claim
whatever to spiritual leadership of any kind. Then we looked at 2, Renewed
German Intervention. We looked at that last time; I don't know as we gave it a
title, but we looked at the substance of it. We had noticed that in the
previous century, the German emperors had intervened to get rid of the
scoundrels that were popes and put in good men. But as soon as the emperor's
forces were removed, the Roman nobility had gotten rid of the good men that the
German emperors had put in, and the scoundrels had again taken control.
Now
the renewed German intervention succeeded in accomplishing what the ones before
had tried to do: to get the papal power into the hands of a better class of
men. And we noticed how they did it, that it was not due simply to Henry III,
the German Emperor, showing unusual wisdom in how he handled it; but through
the fact that some of the men selected had succeeded in persuading the people
that those put in by the German emperor were Roman bishops not simply German
puppets. And we noticed that one reason why they took this attitude was the
wisdom of a monk who exerted a good deal of influence over quite a series of
popes, a man named Hildebrand.
This
tremendous change in the papacy took place during this 11th century. It is
important that we realize not merely that Hildebrand was the man whose wisdom and
ideals had a good deal to do with it, but to realize the various forces which
entered into it. One of these, of course, was the desire of the emperor to
buttress his own power. He claimed to be the political head of Europe; the pope
was the spiritual head who could give authority to his political rule; and
there was already the widespread theory that the bishop of Rome was spiritual
head of Europe; it was a natura1 thing for the emperor to seize upon this as
something to support his own imperial power. But he could not do that with such
men as were occupying the papal chair; they were men whose character was so
contemptible in every way, that before many decades all of the influence that
attached to the position would have been certainly dissipated; but the fact was
that some of the emperors were crowned by some of these wicked men, and they
claimed that they had been crowned by the bishop of Rome; but the influence
wouldn't have lasted long; they had to get better men into the position; and
naturally they picked Germans, because Germans were the men they knew; and they
knew men in Germany who had proven themselves to be good able administrators;
men of considerable spirituality; and men who were loyal to the emperor. So a
great factor in the change in the papacy was the desire of the German emperor
to raise his throne, and to maintain its influence as a support to their own
power. That was the first part of it.
Then
we must also recognize the influence of the Cluny reform. We noticed in the
previous century, that when papacy was in deepest degradation, there was in
France the great Cluny movement, which was spreading until they had thousands
of monasteries all under one head; and they were maintaining a spiritual
attitude which was, on the whole, quite high. A constant devotion to spiritual
duties, and a turning away from things of the world, produced many very fine
men; and the Cluny movement got into influence here, because some of the men
from the Cluny movement actually became popes; and there was an influence there
to get away from the type of thing that had been going on in Rome, and to get a
better type of man into the chair of the bishop of Rome.
So
the Cluny influence raised a real problem. Then of course in the change, there
is this matter of the men who were put in; if they were just subject to the
emperor, they wouldn't amount to very much. They were men put in by the
emperor, but he wanted them actually to raise the level of the position of
bishop of Rome, so it would be a real spiritual leadership in Europe; but he
wanted it of course to be subordinate to his power as emperor. But the men who
went into it and did a good job, naturally did not consider themselves as
simply puppets of the emperor. They were grateful to the emperor for using his
power to reform and improve the situation in the Roman bishopric; but they felt
that the most important thing was the spiritual rather than the temporal; and
they resented the attempts of the emperor to control the church, and
particularly to control the papacy. So in this improvement in the moral tone of
the papacy, you have this vital factor—Hildebrand—and Hildebrand is thoroughly
convinced that the position of Bishop of Rome should be a spiritual head of the
empire; and that the spiritual head is more important than the political head;
and is in no sense a mere puppet of the emperor. And we find this brought into
very sharp relief when Hildebrand himself becomes pope and takes the name of
Gregory VII; and Henry IV—the young emperor, the son of Henry III, who had made
this an improvement in the church—Henry IV is the heir of a dispute between the
emperor and the churches in Germany.
The
emperors naturally thought to control the church; and the habit had developed
of having the bishops and the leaders of the church be appointed by the
emperor, and receive their insignia of office from the emperor. And Hildebrand
himself and the popes who immediately succeeded Hildebrand insisted, "This
is wrong; the emperor should not appoint men who are spiritual leaders; they
should be independent of the emperor."
The
emperor answered that these great bishops in Germany had tremendous political
power as well as ecclesiastical. They often were in the feudal system, directly
under the emperor, and with large forces under their control; and it was
necessary that the emperor be assured of their loyalty. So there developed a
very sharp conflict over this. And Gregory, when he became pope, very soon said
the emperor, as the imperial power, and the spiritual power, are as the Sun and
the Moon. The political power is like the Moon, it shines a reflection that
comes from the spiritual. And it is thus secondary to the spiritual power. And
he said that it is necessary that the political power take a secondary place to
the spiritual power and be subordinate to it.
He
expressed himself in the strongest language on this point. But whether he would
have succeeded in carrying this out—Hildebrand ordered Henry IV to submit to
the pope, and he refused. Hildebrand issued a declaration that the emperor was
excommunicated, and that all his subjects in the empire were released from any
obligation to obey Henry IV as king; and he sent word of that to Germany; and
the enemies of Henry IV seized upon this, and declared this man is an
excommunicated man; the pope is against him; he has no right to his power in
Germany at all; and his enemies were sufficiently numerous that they succeeded
in persuading enough others to this argument; soon Henry found himself in
absolutely desolate circumstances; with no chance at all of continuing in power
in Germany; and the only thing he could do was to get the pope to remove the
sentence against him.
And
so Henry IV started out, with a small group with him, to see the pope. And the
pope being told of his coming, went north to the northern end of Italy. And
there in northern Italy, at a castle called Canossa, the pope was staying in
this castle, Pope Gregory VII, when he was told that Henry, dressed as a
penitent was walking barefooted; coming south, dressed in sackcloth and ashes;
to appear as a penitent before the pope; and was seeking his forgiveness; he
said, "If he is really sincere in this, let him give evidence of it; let
him stay out there barefooted, outside the palace, for three days, imploring
forgiveness; and imploring entrance, and then we will admit him." I don't
know whether he actually said that or what he said; but anyway, that's what he
did, to make him stay out there for three days; the emperor of the Holy Roman
Empire; the ruler of Germany; and the claimed to be ruler of Italy and the
territory between; stayed outside in the cold; barefooted, at an altitude of
about 2000 feet, which is not like the altitude of the Alps, but is still much
colder than the lower parts of Italy would be; for three days. And then finally
the pope opened the door and admitted him. And he knelt, prostrated himself
before the pope; declared he had sinned; pled for forgiveness, and the pope
raised him up; and after he promised to give up everything the pope asked; he
gave him forgiveness; removed the excommunication; declared that he was again
emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. And during the succeeding few centuries, the
popes were very fond of reminding people of how the emperor, the head of the
Holy Roman Empire, had bowed before the pope; and confessed his absolute
inferiority to the pope; and looked to him for forgiveness in this way. So it
became a great slogan of the power of the popes, and Canossa was something they
were very proud of for succeeding centuries.
Recently,
I think they would rather forget; because when you speak, for instance, of the
possibility of the election of a Roman Catholic president of the United States;
and you recall that the emperor of the Ho1y Roman Empire, when he did what the
pope did not want him to do, was forced to bow down this way; and the pope made
him wait barefooted three days, before he could come in and admit this absolute
inferiority before the pope; this is just a picture of what the Roman Catholic
sovereign is expected to be willing to take as his attitude toward the pope.
And of course you cannot say, "Well that's the popes of the Middle Ages,
but no pope today would do a thing like that." Because the doctrine of the
Roman Catholic church today is that the church has never changed; that all the
popes have been infallible in their leadership of the Christian Church; and
consequently, in line with the teaching which every Roman Catholic is given as
to the position of the pope, it claims that what the pope has claimed in the
past, is still there if they had the power to do it.
Well,
I think that, at least until there had been one or two presidents who in every
action had shown great deference to the idea of separation of church and state,
and put themselves first as being Americans, I think the church would much
rather Canossa would be completely forgotten. They are not thinking of next
year, or of next decade, but thinking of next century and the century after.
And they don't say so much about Canossa today, but for a long time they were
very proud of Canossa. Bismarck, nearly a hundred years ago, when he had
difficulty with the pope, Bismarck the Prime Minister of Germany made the
declaration, "I do not intend to go to Canossa." And by that
statement everybody then knew what he meant; he was not going to bow to the
pope as Henry IV had been obliged to do 800 years earlier.
Today
Canossa is not so well-known; but it is something that every Christian should
be familiar with, the incident that happened there at Canossa. Now the older
histories made much of what happened at Canossa; but they did not say so much
about what happened after Canossa, because after Canossa Henry IV—all the
histories state it but it is not stressed so much as the very dramatic incident
at Canossa—Henry IV went back to Germany; and he had men with him, men sent by
the pope to declare to everyone that "his son"—the emperor whom the
pope called his son—had been absolved from his sin; had been forgiven; had
changed completely his attitude toward the pope; and now was to be
re-established as emperor. And those who had left him on this ground, came back
to him; and he managed to get more and more of Germany favorable to him; he got
rid of all his opposition in Germany.
And
as soon as he had done so, he took back everything he had promised the pope;
and he decreed that he was going to get even with the pope for the way the pope
had treated him; and eventually he came with an army down into Italy; and the
Normans—who we noticed had seized a part of France, had seized Sicily instead
of Italy, sometime before this—the Normans gave the pope protection; so he fled
to them, and while he was under their protection, he died. As he died, he said,
"I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore I die in exile
and abuse." That was the statement of Hildebrand. We may question whether
that was the real reason for his dying as a fugitive and in exile, but I do not
think we can doubt the sincerity of the man. There were men in the previous
century who were using the position of Bishop of Rome in order to give
themselves all the sensual pleasures, and all the money and the power and the
chance to destroy their enemies that they might desire; Hildebrand is not that
sort of a man. Hildebrand is an earnest man, consecrated to an idea. We do not
share his idea, but we see his sincerity in holding to the ideal. He felt that
the spiritual should be superior to the temporal and the political; and we
certainly approve of that portion of his ideal. He felt that the bishop of Rome
should not be the puppet of the emperor. We certainly could see nothing wrong
in that. He felt that the position of the bishop of Rome should be cleansed
from the terrible corruption of the previous century and made a real center of
church leadership.
But
he also felt—sincerely—that the man in this position, by virtue of his
position, was over all crowns, over all potentates; and he should dispose of them
for the glory of God, had he thought wise. I don't think we can question the
sincerity of Hildebrand; I don't think we can question that Hildebrand was a
moral man, and a good man, as the world counts goodness; but he was a man who
had an ideal that we do not think is a Scriptural ideal. And in his activities
and his life, he did a tremendous amount to advance that ideal; and it led to
many things which he probably would not have favored, but which inevitably came
from this idea. He was a force in history with which we should be familiar.
Now,
after Hildebrand, he was succeeded by a pope of the type who had preceded him,
a man of good moral character and convinced of the place that the bishop of
Rome should have in the work. And the last of the popes of this century I'm
going to give attention to—though as an individual he is not attractive or
forceful as Hildebrand—he is
4.
Sylvester II (999-1003). Sylvester II is better known by his common name of
Gerbert. He was pope for a few years at the end of his life; but he had had a
life of earnest desire for improvement of conditions in the world; and Schaff
says that it is his influence that led to the situation which I read to you
last week, in which the men who occupied the papal throne were called anti-Christ,
he that sitteth in the temple of God and acting as if he were God, and calling
on people to worship him.
Now it is possible that Gerbert in his early life really thought that that was what the papacy had become, because of the wickedness of it; but he thought better of it in the latter part of his life; and when he took it over, he did not say anything about the claims of the papacy; but he doubtless figured he would use his power for the advancement of good ideals and moral improvement. I barely mention him; he is of more interest to us because of what he did earlier in his life, than for anything he succeeded in doing as pope.
According
to McSorley, he was a real reformer until the emperor died who was supporting
him. And without the emperor's power supporting him, he saw little hope of
progress; and he simply sat back and did nothing till he died. Now we go on to
C.
Separation from the Eastern Church 1054. Now this is a subject to which a good
bit of time could be devoted; but it is not a subject which affects us greatly;
and therefore it is reasonable for us, in view of the many important things
that we should know something about, to barely glance at it. The result of it
has been, as Schaff says, that no two churches in the world today are so much
alike and yet so averse to each other as the Oriental or Greek, and the
Occidental or Roman. They are very, very similar, and yet they are bitterly
opposed to each other. They are strongly opposed to each other and have been
for many centuries.
The
Greek Church worships saints as the Romans do; but they do not worship statues,
only flat paintings, not round statues. The Roman church worships images
whether they be statues or flat paintings. The Roman Church has repeatedly
prohibited the popular use of the Scriptures; the Greek Church has never made
such a prohibition; and the Russian Church in the middle of the last century
even favored the free circulation of its authorized translation of the Bible in
the Russian language. But the traditions of the Greek Church are much the same
as those of Rome.
Both
worship the Virgin Mary; both believe in ecclesiastical position; most of the
important points at which we differ from the Roman church; we differ from the
Greek Church also. That is, Rome agrees with the Greek Church on most of those
points. They both hold the Nicene Creed as we do; but of course the Western
Church inserts the word filioque, the
procession of the Spirit from the Son as well as from the Father, while the
Greek Church has strongly opposed it.
Personally,
I do not believe that the separation between the two would ever have come over
the question of whether the word filioque
should be in the creed. I personally am convinced that the thing that made the
division was the claim of the Roman Bishop to be supreme. The Greek Church has
made no such claim; they felt that there were different sections of the church;
in each, there was a patriarch who was supreme in that section. They were ready
to recognize the patriarch of Alexandria in his area, the patriarch of Antioch
in his, the patriarch of Constantinople in his—and eventually there came to be
a patriarch in Moscow—and they would be ready also to recognize a patriarch in
Rome, over the Latin churches; but to recognize a Roman patriarch as supreme
over them is something which they constantly resisted; and the pope never was
willing to give it up, so naturally and inevitably a separation had to take
place.
We
noticed in an earlier century, Photius the archbishop of Constantinople
documented so fully the differences with the Roman church—he for a time was
active Patriarch of Constantinople—resulting in a brief period of great
separation between the two. But except for that, they theoretically held
together. up until 1054. Among the differences between them, I would of course
also mention that the Eastern Church permits the lower clergy to be married. In
the Western Church, any member of the clergy is forbidden to be married. That
is one of the differences; and then the Western Church withdraws the cup from
the laity; the Eastern Church permits the giving of the cup in the communion to
the laity. There are minor ceremonies in which they differ; but in the major
factors, the two are so similar that the only real difference between them is
the claim of the pope—the only real primary difference.
Well,
the actual division came in 1054, when the patriarch of Constantinople sent a
letter in which he strongly criticized the western church on certain grounds;
and he invented a new name for them, he called them Azymites. He said they were
guilty of the heresy of using unleavened bread in the communion service. He
called that a heresy and he gave it the name of Azymite, from the Greek word azymos, unleavened. He said the
unleavened bread belonged to the Jewish system. He said in introducing the
communion after the Passover was through, of course Jesus used true nourishing
bread as the sign of a new dispensation of joy and rapture.
So
the archbishop of Constantinople called the Romans Azymites; called Hildebrand
and Leo X, his pope, Azymites, because they used unleavened bread in the
communion service. He called that a heresy. Well, the Scripture does not say. I
once belonged to a small church for a brief time—a small denomination for a
brief time—in which there threatened to be a great controversy over this
matter. Should they use unleavened bread or should they use regular bread in
the communion service? There were those who almost insisted it was a point of
orthodoxy, to use unleavened bread and fermented wine in the communion
service—in that group, for a brief period. But most Protestant churches follow
the practice of the Greek Church; they use the true nourishing bread of the new
dispensation of joy and rapture.
But
the Roman Catholic Church uses the unleavened bread to this day. He criticized
them on these grounds; and then Pope Leo IX sent three delegates to
Constatinople with counter charges. They had very severe counter-charges
against him: that they did not use the Filioque
in the Creed; that they permitted their priests to live in wedlock like the
Nicolaitans; that they differed from the Roman Church; and when the Greek
Church refused to submit to them, on the 15th of July, 1054, they went into the
greatest church in Constantinople, and there they placed on the altar a papal
bull from Rome excommunicating the patriarch, and all those who should not
submit to the Church of Rome; and in referring to this, the archbishop
excommunicated the Roman Catholic Church; and he charged the Church of Rome
with great scandal, that they allowed two brothers to espouse two sisters; that
the bishops wore rings and engaged in warfare; that they did not perform
baptism in the truly Scriptural way—namely immersion three times, for Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit; that they did not properly honor the images and relics of
the saints; and that certain of the Greek leaders were not numbered among the
saints as they said they should be.
So
in 1054 each church excommunicated the other; and they have made various
efforts to bring them together since, but all have foundered on the simple
problem of the pope's claim. So, with the two churches so very much alike, they
have remained to this day separate. Well, that is all we dare take time for
about this separation of the Western Church from the Eastern Church. We go on
to what is to us a more important subject, though not nearly so world-shaking a
subject as this,
D.
Berengar.
Now those of you who are familiar—as every Protestant should be—with the name
of Pascasius Radbertus will immediately be much interested in the name of
Berengar. Berengar, who lived from 1000 to 1088, was a Frenchman. He was
director of a cathedral school in the city of Tours, highly esteemed, and a man
of rare learning and piety; until he started to write on the Eucharist. He was
highly thought of until that time came when he decided that Pascasius
Radbertus' material— put out two centuries before, as you all remember—were
utterly contrary to the Scriptures, unproven, and should be controverted.
Therefore, he wrote in the strongest language against this idea, that the bread
and wine are changed into the actual body and blood of Christ. He decided it
was a multi-superstition, contrary to the Scriptures and to reason.
But
he did not realize that since Pascasius Radbertus wrote two centuries before,
there had been a development and a change in people's attitudes. What was
advanced as a theory by Radbertus, was now accepted as fact by the most of the
Church. Now, of course, the Roman Catholics would not admit it; they hold that
the Roman church has always held this view; but it would be pretty hard to find
any clear teaching of it anywhere prior to Pascasius Radbertus, who taught it
in the plainest language; and Radbertus was strongly controverted by others who
are also today highly regarded by the Roman Church, though not considered as
saints, as they consider him. But two centuries had passed; and when Berengar
began to strongly attack transubstantiation, he immediately came into severe
criticism.
He
came into such severe criticism that he was brought before a synod; he was
condemned without a hearing; he was told that he was absolutely wrong; he must
give up these views, or else have the severest punishment, perhaps even death.
In 1054, Leo IX, the pope who early in that year sent his representative to
Constantinople to excommunicate the Eastern Church, sent as his representative
his close friend Hildebrand to France. And Hildebrand presided as papal
representative at this synod; and there he listened calmly to Berengar's
arguments; and he was satisfied with his admission that the consecrated bread
and wine are, in a spiritual sense, the body and blood of Christ.
So
he felt that, after all, Berengar believed it was the body and blood of Christ,
even though it was a spiritual sense rather than physically; he believed it was
the body and blood of Christ; so Hildebrand said that it was perfectly all
right; and he invited him to accompany him to Rome as a suppliant. They went to
Rome; and in 1059, 113 bishops assembled under pope Nicholas II; and Berengar
appeared before them; and he—writing of it later—said they were wild beasts,
these 113 bishops. They—one of the cardinals—made him sign a formula of
recantation, which said you chewed the very body and blood of Christ, that is
the physical body and blood of Christ; and Berengar, faced with death if he did
not sign this, accepted this confession on his knees and threw his book into
the fire.
He
said later, "Human wickedness extorted from human weakness a different
confession; but a different conviction can be effected only by the agency of
almighty God." That's what he said later. But there, on his knees, he
threw his book in the fire; confessed they were right; but as soon as he got
back to France he began to defend his views more boldly than ever. And he spoke
of Leo IX and Nicholas II in language as severe as Martin Luther did five
centuries later about the pope at his time. He attacked them very strongly for
their holding to this weak superstition; and his friends gradually withdrew
from him; the wrath of his enemies became so great that he was nearly killed in
France. And now his good friend Hildebrand became pope. And he summoned
Berengar to Rome, hoping to give him peace as he had done at Tours; and he made
several attempts to protect him against the fanaticism of his enemies, but they
demanded absolute recantation or death. So he went to Rome; and in 1079, at the
Lateran, a council said he must sign that it is absolutely physically changed;
or they said, he must be killed. And Berengar told them what Pope Gregory had
said to him, in France; but the pope, without risking his own reputation for
orthodoxy, could not support Berengar.
I
don't think that Hildebrand actually held Berengar's views, but Hildebrand
perhaps wasn't so interested in doctrine. He was interested in the power of the
pope and so on; he thought Berengar was a good man, and he saw that he was all
right in his ideas; but when he found all the others so strongly taking this
position, he didn't dare oppose them. So Berengar said later, quoting Schaff,
"'Confounded by the sudden madness of the pope', he says, 'and because God
in punishment for my sins did not give me a steadfast heart, I threw myself on
the ground and confessed with impious voice that I had erred, fearing the pope
would instantly pronounce against me the sentence of excommunication, and that,
as a necessary consequence, the populace would hurry me to the worst of
deaths.'" [Schaff IV, p. 559]
So
he confessed he had been absolutely wrong and asked forgiveness; and Hildebrand
was able to keep them from condemning him; and the pope gave him two good
letters of recommendation, threatening with anathema any who would injure him
in person or call him a heretic.
Berengar
went back to France, and he gave up the hopeless contest; but he wrote a
writing, after he got back, in which he still held the same views. He didn't
publish it for distribution. So, Schaff says, he was a strange conglomeration
of moral courage and physical cowardice. Had he died a martyr, his doctrine
might have gained strength; but by his repeated recantation, he injured his own
cause and promoted the idolatry of transubstantiation. We cannot consider him
as a hero in any sense, a man who so often gave up his views through fear of
death. But it is interesting to see a man who was so highly regarded when he
began the controversy; who was considered such a great leader in the church;
becoming so convinced that it was a papal superstition; and standing strongly
for it whenever he wasn't in danger of physical violence himself for it. But
it's interesting also to see how the temper of the church had changed; and that
which was merely a theory two centuries ago, had now become an accepted view which
it is risking death to oppose. He was very, very brave in his writings; but
faced with death, he fell so much for fear of death. You see why it isn't
Berengar as a man, but it is the situation regarding this doctrine of
transubstantiation, which every Protestant leader ought to know; he ought to
know the names of Pascasius Radbertus and Berengar; and how the thing grew and
how this teaching spread.
I believe I read that the Archbishop of New York—was it 1930 he became bishop there or was it 1940? Anyway, he has spent over 200 million dollars for the building of churches and schools in New York City. Roman Catholicism is an actual movement which is moving forward; and it is, to my mind, tragic that not more is being done of real evangelism among Roman Catholics. It is a fact that the Roman Catholic has driven into his mind as a child the importance of eternal things; the reality of the church; the reality of hell; these are driven into his mind; the foundation is there, which is often much easier to reach for the true Gospel, than the person who is brought up in the indifferentism of Protestantism. It is easier to reach, if you can get through that strong outer barrier of the teaching of implicit faith in the Church; and that the Church alone knows what the truth is in religious matters. And yet that external force is so strong; so much imbedded in them; so contrary to the whole American attitude; the whole modern attitude; that it should be possible; and once you do, you find a foundation of belief in the need of salvation which is often sadly lacking with a Protestant background.
Well,
we must go on to
A.
The Papacy.
The popes in this century are part of a series which starts before Hildebrand;
and it now reaches this position with Gregory and keeps going up, until at the
end of the 12th century you reach the pope who was the most powerful pope in
all history; but he comes just at the end of the century; he really belongs in
the following century; and during that century, we do not have corruption in
the papacy such as we had before the German emperors intervened; but we have
men who are trying to advance the power and the influence of the papacy
throughout the world; but it is just a steady growth, a steady working up
toward the high point that is reached toward the end of the century.
Now
the details of it, their struggles with the emperor; their activities of
various sorts; would be very interesting, but is not necessary for us to
understand. We know how it started with Hildebrand; we'll look at the top, at
Innocent III, under the next century; but we just mention that this is the
course of what happened in the papacy during this century; and we go on to
B.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux. And St. Bernard is deserving of a special head,
because he is probably one of the great heroes of Christian history. St.
Bernard of Clairvaux, a man who, as a young man, was assigned by the monastery
which he had joined, to go and start a new monastery; and he began this new
monastery in the wilds; and he established it and directed it throughout his
life; he never went into ecclesiastical politics; he never became a high
official in the church; but he influenced all of Europe, with his writings;
with his activities; with the nobility of his life.
And
he wrote many hymns, many of which we still sing today: "Jesus, the very
thought of thee, with sweetness fills my breast." Another one:
"Jesus, Thou joy of loving hearts, Thou Fount of life, Thou Light of men;
from the best bliss that earth imparts, we turn unfilled to Thee again."
His life was Christ-centered; his emphasis was upon Jesus, and upon what Jesus did. It was not upon the saints; upon Mary; upon the peculiar features of the superstitions that had developed; it was strictly upon the central teaching of the church. He was a man who exerted a great influence in his life; and that was an influence for good. When we had a Church History course one time, we used to assign the life of Bernard of Clairvaux—a rather long book of his life—to everyone in the class to read. I'm not doing that; but I recommend it to you sometime—that you read the life of Bernard of Clairvaux. He was a very humble, and noble, and real Christian.
We
will not go into details of his life, nor will we go into details of number
C.
The Crusades.
And the Crusades were a movement which started right before the beginning of
the 12th century. The first crusade was in progress when the century began; the
second came a little further along in the century; and the third Crusade is
toward the end of the century; and these were perhaps the most outstanding of
the Crusades, though there were a number of others later.
Now
the Crusades were a great movement in the Middle Ages, a movement which has
left very little effect on modern days; and so, interesting as they are, as a
study they are not particularly important to us. You should know what century
they come; you certainly should know that.
They
were of tremendous importance in the effect on the centuries in which they
occur, and in the next two or three after; but they have little effect on the
church today, on anything in the church today; and so while they are very interesting;
and in the study of secular history they are tremendously important; for our
purposes it is not something on which we'll spend time. The basis of the
Crusades was this: pilgrims who had been traveling into Palestine had earlier
not been interfered with by the Moslems; they had been permitted to go and come
at will; and then the Turks took over in Palestine, and they began to make it
difficult for the pilgrims to get to Jerusalem. Jerusalem had been for four
centuries in the hands of the Moslems, but the pilgrims had been able to go
back and forth at will. Now a monk, a hermit came back and travelled through
Europe, telling everybody how the Moslems were treating people who wanted to go
on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. And it raised a tremendous feeling that Jerusalem
must be won back to Christendom from Mohammedanism. And theoretically the
purpose of all the Crusades was to win back Jerusalem.
At
the end of the hour yesterday, we mentioned C, The Crusades; and the Crusades
were a movement which, in the latter Middle Ages, was very important in
cultural and political history. They continued for nearly 200 years, off and
on. They resulted in making contact between the Near East and Europe, which
went far beyond what could ordinarily be expected; they introduced a great many
Arabic words into all of our western languages; they introduced customs from
the Near East; they brought the western nations together, through their joining
in armies to carry on the Crusades; they introduced certain new monastic orders
in the church—fighting orders of knights; they had a tremendous influence at
the time. But as far as our Church History is concerned we do not need to spend
any time actually on them, because practically no effect remains to this day on
any of our churches. The military orders, which they caused to be established
in the Roman Catholic Church, have all died out before this time.
And
the main objective of the Crusades was not realized. Their objective was to
recapture Palestine; and it was recaptured, but was not held. It was recaptured
on two occasions; on one occasion it was held for nearly a century; but the
Crusades brought into clear relief the disagreement among the people of the
west, among the so-called Christian nations; and it was a result of this confusion
and disturbance among them that their comparatively small military objective
utterly failed. And so in the end, Palestine relapsed into complete Moslem
control, and it remained that way for some centuries. It is a very colorful
history, the history of the Crusades; it has many very interesting facets. For
instance, one German emperor, ordered by the pope to go on a Crusade, refused.
The pope excommunicated him; he then proceeded to go on the Crusade and capture
Jerusalem; but he was still under excommunication, though he had accomplished
the purpose of the Crusades; and the result of this was that, before he could
get straightened out with the pope, Jerusalem had again fallen into the hands
of the Moslems.
One
of the Crusades was known as the Children's Crusade. Someone began preaching
among the children, that the great men were unable to recapture Palestine, but
that the little children would be able to do it; and thousands and thousands of
little children gathered together. Thousands of them marched across Europe; and
they went down to the sea, where the sea captains took them in boats; they told
them they would carry them to Palestine to conquer Palestine; but instead of
that, they carried them off to various Moslem lands where they were sold as slaves.
So it was a very sad story; they lost thousands and thousands of children,
whose zeal, whose Christian zeal, was turned into a wrong direction; instead of
being in the direction of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ and serving Him, it was
turned into this doing a material thing of conquering Palestine; and all these
children simply were sold into slavery.
There
are many aspects of the Crusades; we could spend a year on them, but as far as
our Church History is concerned, their influence is very slight; and so we will
content ourselves practically with barely mentioning them. But we will next
mention
D.
Henry II of England.
When I mention Henry II of England, this is an unfortunate title, because we
are not greatly interested in Henry II of England as far as Church History is
concerned. He was an English king of some importance in English history. For
Church History he, per se, is not of
any great importance; but there are two events, of considerable importance to
us, which are connected with him; and it makes a useful outline matter to
combine them under the head of the name of the king.
1.
The Conquest of Ireland. Now this would not be of great interest to us if it
were not for the great place which Ireland played in true Christian missions
during the previous centuries. From 500 to about 800 or 900, they were the
greatest missionaries in the world. They converted Scotland to Christianity;
and going on from there to the continent, they established monasteries in
different parts of France, Switzerland and Northern Italy, and even making
great efforts to Christianize Germany; and they were the great centers of
learning and of true Christianity for some centuries.
Now
Ireland had sunk back, as a result of the Norse invasion, which brought much
destruction; and as a result of a natural decline in human nature. Any human
movement degenerates in time; but now in the reign of Henry II, about the
Middle of the 12th century, an English king invaded and conquered Ireland; he
reduced Ireland to subjection to England, a position in which it remained until
about 30 years ago; and the Irish have, through these centuries, very cordially
hated the English. And the Reformation, when it gained such tremendous success
in England, resulted in causing the Irish to become bitterly and strongly Roman
Catholic; and a tremendous part of the Roman Catholic missionary work and
administrative work, all over the world in the last two or three centuries, has
been done by Irish Roman Catholics. You will find Irish names among the leaders
of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in most of the world today. And Roman
Catholicism has become a sort of a national anti-English banner for the Irish
nation.
So
it is very interesting for us to realize that Ireland was conquered by England
in 1171, after considerable negotiation between King Henry II and the pope. And
Pope Adrian IV, the only Englishman who ever sat on the papal throne, is
generally considered—no, I shouldn't say generally, the Irish don't consider
him—well, let's say that this pope was generally considered to have, and there
is at least a strong possibility that he did, send a bull to the King of
England. Now the word "bull"—perhaps we haven't mentioned in this
class before—the word bulla is Latin
for a special seal on a papal document; and so an official papal document bears
this seal, and therefore is called a bull. It simply means an official papal
document; but the term bull is used in all history, speaking of papal
documents, authoritative papal documents.
This
bulls states, "There is indeed no doubt but that Ireland and all the
islands on which Christ the Sun of Righteousness has shone; and which have
received the doctrines of the Christian faith; belong to the jurisdiction of
St. Peter and of the holy Roman Church, as your Excellency also acknowledges.
And therefore we are the more solicitous to propagate a faithful plantation
among them, and a seed pleasing to the Lord; as we have the secret conviction
of conscience that a very rigorous account must be rendered of them. You then,
most dear son in Christ, have signified to us your desire to enter into the
island of Ireland; that you may reduce the people to obedience to laws; and
extirpate the nurseries of vice; and that you are willing to pay from each
house a yearly pension of one penny to St. Peter; and that you will preserve
the rights of the churches of this land whole and inviolate. We, therefore,
with that grace and acceptance suited to your pious and laudable design; and
favorably assenting to your petition; hold it good and acceptable that, for
extending the borders of the church; restraining the progress of vice; for the
correction of manners; the planting of virtue; and the increase of the
Christian religion; you enter that island; and execute therein whatever shall
pertain to the honor of God and welfare of the land; and that the people of
that land receive you honorably; and reverence you as their lord, the rights of
their churches still remaining sacred and inviolate; and saving to St. Peter
the annual pension of one penny from every house." [Schaff IV, p. 60]
Well that is this bull of Adrian IV in 1155, encouraging and empowering Henry II to conquer Ireland. In 1171 Henry conquered Ireland, and it remained under English control ever since; and many of the English kings at various times, were very brutal and very arbitrary in the treatment of the Irish; and a great hatred arose on the part of the Irish against the English. But of course in recent years, Irish feeling has been tied up with the difference in religions feeling; and the Irish are, many of them, among the most fanatic Roman Catholics there are; and therefore this bull of Adrian IV has been a difficult thing for Irish Roman Catholic students to accept as genuine; and many of them have spent a great deal of time trying to prove that it is not genuine; to such an extent, that I was looking this morning at the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica which I have in my office; and in that book it refers to this bull which it says is not genuine. Well, whether it is established that this particular bull is genuine or not may be difficult to say.
But
it is interesting to look at McSorley's Church
History, on pages 332-335, where he has a discussion of Ireland during the
12th century. And he tells about the disagreements, the local fights, and civil
wars that were in Ireland, and so on; and then how Henry II attacked it, he
says, the beginning of the woes of Ireland, according to the annals about them,
and he says, the divided Irish offered no effective resistance. But then he has
a footnote in which he says, "Belief in Pope Adrian IV's Donation of
Ireland to the English king, Henry II, is based on two (disputed) documents,
the Metalogicus of John of Salisbury
and Pope Adrian's bull Laudabiliter.
Speaking of Pope Adrian, John of Salisbury asserts: "At my request, he
ceded and bestowed Ireland upon the illustrious king of England, Henry II, to
be possessed by hereditary right, as his letters prove to this day. For all
islands, in virtue of a very ancient law, are considered to belong to the Roman
Church, through a donation of Constantine who founded and endowed this
church." As you know four centuries later, it is proven that this old
donation of Constantine was a forgery. That is recognized by all scholars today,
Roman Catholic as well as Protestant. But at that time, it was held to be a
true document, that Constantine had given Italy and all islands to the Roman
Catholic Church; and that of course included Ireland. Moreover, John of
Sa1isbury says, "Moreover Pope Hadrian sent by me a gold ring, adorned
with a most beautiful emerald, by which investiture with the right of governing
Ireland should be made; and this ring is still preserved by order in the public
treasury."
That's
the end of the quote by John of Salisbury, and McSorley continues, "Some
scholars regard this passage as an interpolation; others defend it." But
also to fake this work of John of Salisbury, it certainly seems extremely
unlikely that anyone in subsequent decades would have both made up the bull and
inserted this in the writings of John of Salisbury—particularly the latter—and
an occurrence like this is perhaps more difficult to think of as having
occurred than the writing of the bull.
Then
he continues, however; McSorley says, "The question of the donation is
discussed at some length in ... the Catholic
Encyclopedia." And then he quotes an author, Mann, "'It is then
quite impossible to doubt that Hadrian made a feudal grant of Ireland to
Henry.' In the Catholic Encyclopedia,
Arthur Ua Clerigh says 'The donation of Adrian was subsequently recognized in
many official writings, and the Pope for more than four centuries claimed the
overlordship of Ireland.'"
Well,
now, all of that is of course in a footnote in McSorley, but it certainly does
not sound like any denial that Pope Adrian gave Ireland to Henry II; and he
encouraged Henry II to go in there and to conquer it in order to extirpate the
nurseries of vice. Ireland was brought under complete control of the Roman
Catholic Church; but it was brought under that control by English arms; and it
is the irony of history that English arms having brought Ireland under complete
control of the Roman Catholic Church, Ireland is today the great defender of
the Roman Catholic Church against English efforts to extend the Protestant
Church. It is certainly one of the ironies of history.
Now,
in connection with Henry II, there is another very interesting incident which
occurred, the details of which would take two or three hours to look at them;
and that would be very interesting, but we will have to just know the main
events. We have much more important things to get to before the end of the
period we must cover this year. But this leaves a name in British history
sufficient that we should be acquainted with British ecclesiastical history.
And so
2.
Thomas à Becket.
Sometimes just called Thomas Becket. Now this man later was called St. Thomas
of Canterbury. Schaff thinks that he was the 3rd most prominent historical
figure in the 12th century. In vol. V of Schaff, you have maybe 30 pages
devoted to the account of Becket; and if you want to read something that is as
interesting as any novel, sometime, simply read the full account. But for our
present purposes, it is not necessary to go into the details, but simply to
know that this man, Thomas à Becket, was an Englishman who became a leading
officer under King Henry II. He was very efficient, very faithful, very expert
in carrying out all the king's wishes. He aided the king in restoration of
order and peace; improved the administration of justice; vigorous and
impartial; preferred the interests of the crown to those of the clergy, yet
without being hostile to the church; gave his high office a prominence and
splendor which it had never had before.
But
the time came when the position of Archbishop of Canterbury was empty; and a
year passed by and no one had been appointed to it that was satisfactory to the
church and satisfactory to the king; and the king thought of a very clever
idea. He would put his closest supporter in as head of the English church; and
then with Thomas à Becket as head of the English church, it would be possible
for the king to tap the church as much as he felt like; to seize particular
things from it that he desired for his wars; and not be interfered with in
various ways that previous archbishops had interfered with him.
And
so he told Becket that he was going to appoint him Archbishop of Canterbury.
One of the bishops remarked sarcastically that the king wrought a miracle in
turning a layman into an archbishop, and a soldier into a saint; because Becket
had been a soldier—very ferocious and cruel in battle—and a very effective
aide; and the king told him, "I'm going to make you archbishop," but
Becket warned the king with a smile that he would lose a servant and a friend,
if he were to do so.
But
the king didn't take his warning seriously; he had him ordained a priest, and
then the next day consecrated as archbishop in Westminster Abbey; and so he received
a dispensation through John of Salisbury, of whom we reported a few minutes
ago; he received a dispensation from the pope to be Archbishop of Canterbury,
head of the English church.
And
the strange thing is, that Becket immediately underwent a radical, almost
sudden transformation. He had been the loyal servant of the king; now he felt
his loyalty was to the church, not to the king. And so he exchanged his showy
court dress for hair cloth infested with vermin; fed on roots and drank water.
He daily washed the feet of 13 dirty beggars; gave them each four pieces of
silver; spent his time in prayer and reading of the Scriptures; and he did his
best to realize the ideal of a medieval bishop. And soon he came into conflict
with the king; because when the king began to increase the taxes, he declared
the taxes were already too heavy, and the king had no right to tax the church
this way; and he came into various struggles with the king; and in some of
these the pope of that time gave the king support rather than the archbishop.
But
the archbishop very strongly resisted Henry; and was just as loyal to the
church, as he conceived it his interest to be, as he had previously been to the
king; until finally, he excommunicated some of the priests, who had not supported
the archbishop as he felt that they should; and the king was talking with them,
and one of them said (quoting Schaff) "'As long as Thomas lives, you will
never be at peace.' Henry broke out into one of his constitutional fits of
passion, and dropped the fatal words: "'A fellow that has eaten my bread
has lifted up his heel against me; a fellow that I loaded with benefits, dares
insult the king; a fellow that came to court on a lame horse, with a cloak for
a saddle, sits without hindrance on the throne itself. By the eyes of God, is
there none of my thankless and cowardly courtiers who will deliver me from the
insults of this low-born and turbulent priest?' With these words he rushed out
of the room. Four war-like knights of high birth and large estate... eagerly
caught at the king's suggestion and resolved to carry it out in the spirit of
passionate loyalty...." [Schaff, V, p. 139-40]. These knights felt that
the king's words were equivalent to a command that they should deliver him from
the archbishop of Canterbury; and so they got together and rushed to
Canterbury, took some soldiers with them; and there they seized the archbishop,
berated him, and murdered him.
And
the fact of the king's servants having murdered the archbishop of Canterbury;
who had been so faithful to the king when he was Chancellor; but now was so
faithful to the interests of the church as he conceived it; who died saying,
"In the name of Christ, for the defense of His Church, I am ready to die,
Lord, receive my spirit." He was killed as he said those words. They
knights said, "Let us go; the traitor is dead, he will rise no more."
And immediately after that, there was considerable disagreement as to what
attitude to take toward it; some monks declared Becket had paid a just penalty
for his obstinacy; others said he wished to be king and more than king; the
Archbishop of York even preached that Becket perished like a Pharaoh in his
pride.
But
very soon, sentiment swung strongly, very strongly, in favor of the Archbishop.
And soon everywhere, King Henry was considered a murderer; and in fact within
two years after his death, the pope solemnly canonized him, declaring him to be
a saint; though this pope, Alexander III, had only given him lukewarm support
previously in his contests with the king. There is hardly another example of
where a man in the Roman Catholic Church had been recognized as a saint so soon
after his death; but public sentiment had anticipated it, and Henry II was
considered as a murderer. He lived secluded for five weeks, exclaiming again
and again, "Alas, that it ever happened!" He swore on the Holy
Gospels he neither commanded nor desired the death of Becket; that it caused
him more grief than the death of his father or mother; and that he was ready to
make full satisfaction.
In
the end, the king made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Becket; dismounted from his
horse as he came in sight of the towers of Canterbury; walked as a penitent
pilgrim in a hair shirt, with bare and bleeding feet; threw himself prostrate
before the tomb and the crypt; and confessed to the bishop with groans and
tears of deep remorse, for the hasty words that led to the murder. The King
placed his head and shoulders on the tomb, and then permitted the bishops to
scourge him, receiving five stripes from each bishop and abbott, and three
stripes from each of the 80 monks. Fully absolved, he spent the whole night on
the bare ground in the crypt; with tears and prayers, imploring the forgiveness
of the canonized saint in heaven, whom he had persecuted on earth.
This
was 1174 when the king did this; 350 years later, when Erasmus visited England,
just before the beginning of the Reformation, he tells in one of his writings
about a visit to the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury; everybody kissed the bones
that were preserved there, the bones of Thomas; he tells of all the things the
people went through, in revering the memorial to a very great saint. And
Canterbury was, from the time of Augustine of Canterbury, the center, the head
of the Church of England and is today.
Any
of you familiar with Chaucer know of his great work, The Canterbury Tales, which is an account of pilgrims on the way to
Canterbury. Up to the Reformation, it was a place of pilgrimage. It is a
strange thing, that England was perhaps the most loyal to the pope of all the
countries of Europe during a large part of the time prior to the Reformation;
and then, of course, it became one of the very leaders of the Protestant
movement of the Reformation.
Well,
so much then for Henry II of Enqland. As you see, our interest is not so much
in Henry II, as in these two things which are connected with Henry II. Now we
must rush as rapidly as possible over another subject, which is much more
important to us; but which you will touch upon more in other subjects, and I
merely want to place it in the position in history to which it belongs.
E.
Scholasticism.
We have mentioned that the activities during the Middle Ages of the monks, in
their studies and their disputations, we call Scholasticism. This is
particularly true of these 12th and 13th centuries; they are the real period of
Scholasticism. But men who gave a good deal of study to the doctrines of the
church, and to the Scripture in relation to these doctrines, did not start with
the Scripture, most of the Scholastics; they didn't say, "Here is the
Bible; what does it teach?" They said, "Here are the doctrines of the
church; what is the proof of them?" And so they went through the Scripture
with a fine-tooth comb for evidence of the doctrines of the church; and those
matters which were not crystallized in the doctrine, they tried to explain
them; and they would take up any question they could think of that was related
to them, and seek to find the answer.
Scholasticism
in present times has fallen into great disrepute. It is customary in modern
books of philosophy and history to ridicule the schoolmen. Now this ridicule of
the schoolmen is deserved by some of them, but certainly it is not wholly
deserved. They included many extremely great men; men of tremendous influence,
great study and great acuteness of intellect. But the error of Scholasticism
was that, in general, it started with dogma instead of starting with Scripture.
And starting with dogma, it proceeded to hunt, in Scripture and in philosophy,
for evidences for the dogma, and for answers to questions relating to dogma.
The
modern approach is, "Here is the world; what is this? What does it mean?
Let's look at facts, examine them." And that is exactly the attitude which
the Christian should take; he should say, "Here is the Bible. It is God's
revelation to us; let us look at it; let us examine it; let us see what it
teaches. Let us find what is there; and be ready to alter any creed we may
have; or any view that any church group takes whatever, if we find that it is
not what is clearly taught in the Word of God."
Thus
the modern attitude in science is—I am convinced—the proper attitude in Bible
study; the attitude that gets at the facts; and the Bible is the source of our
facts. But the medieval attitude—of taking the dogmas which the church has
established—is one which finds an echo in most of our Protestant churches
today. They have a certain view about some particular form and ceremony; a
certain view about some particular doctrine; then they go to the Bible to look
for evidence of it; instead of going to the Bible to say, "Let's see what
it says about it; or does it definitely teach one view concerning it?"
But
now the Schoolmen—while some of them deserve all the ridicule that was put upon
them—some of them deserve very great credit for their remarkable acuteness of
mind; for their careful thought; and for the real advance that some of them
made in theological thinking and understanding. And the first of the great
Schoolmen, is
1.
Anselm.
Anselm of Canterbury came about 50 years before Thomas à Becket; and he was an
Archbishop of Canterbury, as Thomas was. He became prominent during the
previous century, the 11th century; but his life extends over into the 12th
century. Anselm is often called the first of the great schoolmen. Schaff says
of him, he was one of the ablest and purest men of the medieval church. He was
a great thinker; he was a profound philosopher; and he made advances in
theology which are of real interest to all Protestants. He was born in northern
Italy; eventually he was in France, and then he went over to England, where he
became head of the Church of England as archbishop of Canterbury. But his
principal interest for us is his theological work, though his works of devotion
are also very excellent. He had a real love of Christ; a deep devotion to the
Lord; and he is in many ways an example of Christian piety; but his great
interest for us is in his work as a Schoolman; he dealt particularly with two
doctrines: the doctrine of the existence of God, and the doctrine of the
Atonement.
In
connection with the existence of God, he developed the ontological argument.
His argument here has been widely criticized; some feel that it is illogical;
others feel that it makes one of our greatest evidences for the existence of
God. He had an influence in theology and apologetics which is very great. We
cannot go into that in this class, but you should be aware of it. I will say a
little more about his activity in relation to the second, the very important
doctrine of the Atonement.
He
wrote a treatise which he called Cur Deus
Homo, "Why God Became Man". And this treatise on the Atonement
contains ideas that I wish that every Christian were really familiar with.
During the Middle Ages, there had been a great deal of stress laid on the idea
of some of the Fathers that the Atonement was a ransom paid to the Devil; that
man had fallen under the power of the Devil, and Jesus gave His life, thereby
paying a ransom to the Devil and setting us free. Anselm very properly showed
that this is not the Scriptural teaching on the meaning of the Atonement. It is
true that it is through the Atonement of Christ, we can be free from the power
of Satan; that is true; but Satan has no claim over us, or right over us,
except as we have committed ourselves to him. We belong to God; and it is
against God that we have sinned; and it is God who must be propitiated; and
Anselm brought out clearly the Scriptural teaching about the Atonement, that
God might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.
In
other words, Anselm pointed out that man is not able to satisfy God; man has
to, but he cannot. Man has sinned and has deserved eternal death; and there is
nothing man can do which would pay the penalty. Satan was an angelic being,
whom God created; but he fell into sin, and turned against God, prior to the
creation of the world. We don't have detail about that in Scripture, but there
are inferences which seem to make that quite definite. When Adam was in the
garden, Satan appeared there as a spirit opposed to God. Then we have many
references to him in the N.T., as the great enemy of God and the enemy of
souls, whom God is going to bind at the end of this age and to stop his work of
leading people astray. So Satan is a ruling force in the world, but very much
inferior to God. He is far greater than the power of human beings, but much
inferior to God Himself. God could put a stop to his activities if He chose.
That is to say, it is for our good that God permits Satan to continue to act as
the great tempter and the great enemy of mankind. But God's power is greater
than Satan's; and if we look to Him, He can deliver from Satan's toils.
But
the idea that Satan has a right to man, and Jesus had to pay Satan off with a
ransom is something, which Anselm correctly pointed out, is not true; and not
taught in Scripture. But man has to satisfy the judgments of God and cannot do
so. God does not need to satisfy His own justice; but God could do it; God had
the power; He is infinite; but God is not man; and so God becomes man. And
therefore, Jesus Christ, as God, has the power to make an infinite sacrifice.
Jesus Christ, as man, is one of us; and he can properly represent us in making
the sacrifice. And therefore, Anselm brought out the clear meaning of the
Incarnation in relation to the Atonement in this way; and he rendered a great
service to clear theological thinking, in bringing out what is taught
definitely in Scripture; and in bringing it out in a clear logical expression
that is easy for us to understand.
So
in these two regards, Anselm made a great contribution—not merely to the
medieval church but a contribution to us today—in our Christian understanding;
and we feel a real debt to Anselm; and any study of Christian philosophy,
apologetics, or theology cannot overlook Anselm. His articles on these two
subjects are of great importance to us. As I told you, his dates are 1032 to
1109. And from our viewpoint he is as important as any of the Schoolmen that
there are; from the Roman Catholic viewpoint, there is one in the next century
who is much more important. Now,
2.
Abelard (1079-1142).
From our viewpoint of Protestant theology, Abelard's principal interest to us
is that he advanced the theory of the moral influence of the Atonement. In
other words, he said God could have saved man with just a wave of the hand if
He chose, but He sent Jesus to die in order that we would be moved to love Him
by seeing what He did for us, and therefore that we would have our characters
changed because of what He did.
But
Abelard destroyed its value as a real atonement, and he is typical of views
which are held today. It is a view which is a big step toward Modernism
today—the Moral Influence View of the Atonement. If one carries it out
logically, it would soon be full Modernism. The Moral Influence View of the
Atonement: It was a widely held view—actually quite an illogical view—because
if it was not necessary for our salvation that Jesus should suffer for us,
what's the point of it? Why should we love Him for suffering unnecessarily?
There's really no moral influence in the Atonement, unless the Atonement truly
did something. If Jesus underwent this suffering, because we could not be saved
without Him; and He did not deserve to die; He went through this suffering for
our sake; there is a reason for us to love Him; and to fully believe there is a
moral influence in the Atonement. It's a tremendous moral influence in the
Atonement. It's at the very center of our Christian teaching, the moral
influence of the Atonement.
The
influence of the Atonement is non-existent actually, unless there also is a reality
to it in changing things in the universe. If we believe in the substitutionary
view of the Atonement—in the true Atonement of Christ—then there is a moral
influence in it. A so-called Moral Influence Theory is not a theory which has
moral influence when other theories do not; but it is a theory which has only moral influence, and therefore does
not really have moral influence; so
in the end, it denied and destroyed the emphasis of the Atonement.
Now this is not the major thing in Abelard's life, by any means; but this is an element of his activity which had a very considerable influence. Abelard was not like Anselm, a thoroughly reliable teacher; he was several times suspected of heresy; and, in fact, he was ordered by the pope to cease his teaching on one occasion. He was also a man of immoral character; who seduced a very fine woman; but who won her love to him, to such an extent that she was devoted to him all the rest of his life. Some people think that the story of Abelard and Heloise is one of the great love stories in the world; it's pretty hard to see how they could think that; because, while she was a model of one filled with such love for a man that everything in her life centered around him, he showed no similar relationship with her at all. So it is not properly a love story in the best sense of the word. And his relation to her was quite reprehensible actually. That has little relation to the progress of events in Church History; but it so often is referred to in literature that I must mention it.
Now,
Abelard, though, was a very gifted teacher; a great, brilliant lecturer; a wide
reader; and he had tremendous numbers of students that hung on his word. He was
a very able man; his thinking in some directions was in line with Christian
concepts, and in others it wasn't. He did not have the influence on theology at
all that Anselm had.
3.
Peter Lombard (c.1096-1164). Among the great Schoolmen of this
century, Peter Lombard was one who had an influence which continued; he was the
father of Systematic Theology in the Catholic Church. He was bishop of Paris
the last two years before his death. His greatest work was called Four Books of Sentences. This is a
clear, compact presentation of systematic theology; and for a century it became
the standard textbook in Europe of Systematic Theology. It was supplanted in
the next century by the one who is—in the Roman Catholic Church
today—considered the greatest theologian in history; but he did his work,
originally, in commenting on Peter Lombard's Sentences. So you see the importance in theological study of Peter
Lombard. He was the founder of Systematic Theology, in the Catholic Church. He
wrote the great work on systematic theology, which was basic for a long time
until Thomas Aquinas at the end of the next century supplanted it. So much for
Scholasticism. I believe we can go on now to the next century.
We
noticed that McSorley calls the 10th century "The Darkest Period." He
calls the 11th century "The Unifying of Christendom." Now the 13th
century he calls "The Papacy Dominant." And in many a Roman Catholic
book today, you will read that the ideal period in history was the 13th
century. The 13th century is the greatest century in the history of the Roman
Church. It is the century in which the Roman Church attained a supremacy such
as it never had before and has never had since. It is the time of the most
active writing and thinking on the part of their greatest theologians and
philosophers; and books from the 13th century are today still actively studied
in the Roman Church.
Recently
I bought a set of great books published by the Encyclopaedia Britannica
Company; and in this set of 54 books, it is interesting to note that though
they have nothing from Calvin and nothing from Luther, they give two volumes of
it to the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, the great Roman Catholic theologian
of the 13th century. In his own time he had other theologians who strongly
opposed him at many points; but today he is the theologian, par excellence, of the Roman Catholic
Church; and it is almost heretical to oppose just about anything that he
writes, except on a few points where he didn't hold the views that are today
required by the Church; but they are comparatively few, though some of them are
rather important.
But
the 13th century is, from the Roman Catholic viewpoint, the ideal century. And
I would imagine that if this were a class in a Roman Catholic school, we would
have to give at least a couple of months to that century. From our viewpoint,
our great interest is in the Reformation, three centuries later; and we will
have to be content with glancing at some the outstanding features of the 13th
century. But I will give a whole head to the first pope of the century, because
he is the most powerful pope in all history.
A. Innocent III
(1198-1216).
Innocent III represents the apex of the movement that Hildebrand did so much to
get underway. The papacy had been rising till it reached the point of Gregory
VII. It kept on increasing in its power, and increasing in its influence, and
had not lowered any of its claims that did anything in raising it; until in
Innocent III, we find the most powerful pope in all of the history of the
church. He was a man who was devoted to the task; devoted to the power of the
papacy; who felt that Gregory VII had been right in what he said: that the
ecclesiastical power was like the sun, and the political power like the moon;
except that he went even beyond Gregory in his declaration of the superiority
of the ecclesiastical power which can raise up kings and put them down, in
accordance with what he considered these rights. And during his 18 years as
pope, he interfered in the affairs of just about every country in Europe. And
he was successful in just about all cases. He put France under the interdict
because of the divorce of the French king; he forced the French to yield to
him; he put England, under the interdict; and King John of England publicly
bowed before him, and turned over England to him to be subject to the pope; and
subsequent popes in subsequent centuries demanded that the English recognize
them; that the English king only held England as a vassal of the pope. One
thing he failed in; when King John of England signed the Magna Carta—the
foundation of English liberty—when he signed that with the nobles against him,
the pope declared that the document was null and void because it had not been
made to him; and he was now the overlord of England; but the English paid no
attention to that. And any history of England would give the Magna Carta as the
foundation of English liberty.
But
he also had his struggles with the Emperors of Germany; and he usually
succeeded in what he undertook against them. McSorley says: "His field of
activity was world-wide. He arbitrated between the two claimants in a contest
over the Norwegian throne; he intervened in the dispute between the king of
Hungary and his brother; he sent a legate to crown the king of Bulgaria in
1204; he reformed the Church in Poland; he dispatched missionaries to Prussia;
he supported the preaching expeditions of Franciscans, Dominicans and other
religious orders; and, the Albigensian heretics of southern France had murdered
a papal legate in 1208, he called for a crusade against them." [McSorley,
p. 385] That's just a few words from McSorley's long account of the tremendous
influence of Innocent III, at the beginning of this century, in the political
affairs of Europe. He claimed supreme dominance over all political rulers; and
he made his claim good; beyond what any pope before or since had ever succeeded
in doing.
Now,
last time we already started Innocent III in the 13th century. No pope ever
made greater claims of his power over all earthly rulers than Innocent III did;
and no other succeeded in carrying them out as fully as he did. Again, it was
not like the wicked popes of two centuries before. He was not an isolated
instance; he was typical, but he was the most so of any of the time. The popes
immediately before him were able to wield tremendous force over the kings of
Europe; and the popes for most of the rest of the century were able to do
similarly. But no pope in all history has ever forced so many great powerful
rulers of the earth to change their attitudes, and to do things they had not
formerly planned on; because he had removed them from being kings; he made them
submit before they could continue; he had placed their land under an interdict
or, had in some other way, brought tremendous force to bear; and this force was
effective at that time. So Innocent III is worth remembering as the pope who
carried out the ideals of popedom, carried it out to the full. And this century
was the century which most Roman Catholic histories consider as the most
Christian century, the ideal century. Now we go on to
B. The Mendicant
Orders.
This is a subject that I wish we could take a week on; and yet for our
viewpoint, it is not nearly so important as many much smaller details that next
year we will take a week on. This
deals with something that's tremendously important in the Roman Catholic
Church, and that is of interest to us.
The
monks, previous to this time, lived in monasteries. They were there with little
contact with the world; they were either hermits off alone; or they were monks
in communities in monasteries, having their regular work to do; their study;
their copying manuscripts; their physical labor in their fields; their
different activities; and not having a great deal of relation with the world.
Now, nobody specifically set about to change this, but two important
personalities lived in an unusual way; and they established something which
introduced a very different kind of monk at the beginning of the 13th century.
1.
St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226). And many people—many Protestants—honor
St. Francis very highly when they speak of him. Many non-Christians, who are
not Christians at all—make no claim to be Christians—will praise St. Francis
very highly. I'm not sure that we know enough about details of his life to be
able to make comparisons—estimates of his character as compared to others. But
many of the features—most of the features—which seem obnoxious in various
orders in the Roman Catholic Church find no representation in his life. He was
a very unusual sort of personality. He lived right at the beginning of the
century. He was a young man of wealth and family; he had been in the army, and
he had lived a life of the usual pleasures of the wealthy; and then he made a
complete change in his life; he decided to give up his wealth; to give up everything
he had and go about in absolute poverty. He renounced his family; turned away
from his father; renounced all his wealth; declared that he never again would
possess anything; but that he would go about endeavoring to help people. He
tells how he made a pilgrimage to Rome. On the way, his sympathies began to go
out to the poor. He met a leper; shrank back and avoided him at first; but
turning about, he kissed the leper's hand and left him with all the money he
had. When he separated from his father, he said, "Up to this time I have
called Pietro Bernardona father; but now I desire to serve God and to say
nothing else than 'our Father which is in heaven.'" He took a few verses
from the gospel, where Christ sent out his disciples, telling them to take no
coat; nor cloak with them; not to carry a purse; but to preach the kingdom of
heaven is at hand; heal the sick; cleanse the leper; cast out devils; provide
thee neither silver nor gold, nor brass in your purse. So he went about, and
soon he had companions joining him. They would go barefoot; sleep in haylofts;
leper hospitals; wherever they could find lodging. He told them they were to
preach; but more particularly to exemplify the precepts of the gospel in their
lives.
In
1210, he and some of his companions came to Rome, where they were received by
Innocent III. And one chronicler says that this pope, in order to test his
sincerity, said, "Go, brother, go to the pigs, with whom you are more fit
to be compared with than men; and roll with them; and to them preach the rules
you so ably set forth." And Francis obeyed; he and returned and said,
"My lord, I have done it." Then they say the pope gave his blessing
to the brotherhood; he formally sanctioned their rules and told them to go and
preach repentance. They say that Francis used to go and preach to the birds;
and that a great number of birds would come and gather around. Well, he
probably did have a personality that attracted animals; and human beings. He
had a very unusual personality; and he made a tremendous appeal to animals;
whether the birds are true or not, he was a very unusual personality. And he
seemed to have been absolutely sincere in his desire to give up all of the
pleasures of life whatever, except helping other people.
There
was a woman, Claire of Assisi, who in 1215 came into his life; she was 12 years
younger than he was. She heard him preach in the cathedral of Assisi; with his
aid, she escaped from her father's house; and she took the vows of poverty and
chastity he gave to her. He took her to a house of Benedictine nuns; and a
companion order of St. Claire was founded, of women who were devoted to the
rules of Francis.
But
toward the end of Francis' life, he had a very great disappointment. There was
a cardinal who took great interest in him; he helped him, helped the group. But
then, this cardinal got more and more control over them. Francis went to the
East on a pilgrimage; and when he came back, he found that under the cardinal's
influence a new code had been adopted, which kept Francis' rule that no one was
to own anything. But his original rule said that neither should the order own
anything; and so this cardinal got the rule through that though the order
should not own anything, that the pope would hold property for the order which
was refused by the order. As a result, they began to get large houses; places
where they lived; headquarters; and all sorts of things people gave them; they
were used by the order, and actually belonged to it, even though theoretically
they were in the hands of the pope. And he saw the order so changed, that he
took a Doctor of Law—a member of the nobility—and put him at the head of the
society. Francis said, "From henceforth I am dead for you. Here is Brother
Peter you and I will obey." He prostrated himself in front of the man who
superseded him, in obedience and submission.
But
there was a struggle in subsequent years in the order, between those who
entered it, wanting to follow Francis' original idea of absolute poverty, and
those who entered it just as an order, and they would have their convents where
they had everything that people had given to the order; for many pious people
gave great gifts, as time went on, to the order. Now Francis called himself and
his associates, "lesser brothers"; and so, when you see a book
written today, you often see the man's name and after it the letters, F.M. This
F.M. means "friars minor," Latin for lesser brothers. It does not
stand for Franciscan, though it's the same letter. It stands for the lesser brothers,
those who are ready to take a subordinate place, and to devote themselves to
helping people and doing deeds of kindness.
Now,
that was Francis' theory; and doubtless, there have been many in the order who
have very sincerely tried to carry out the theory. But there was nothing
particularly theological about his order; nothing particularly interested in
scholarship or education about its starting. It was simply a group of people
renouncing the world; and devoting themselves to helping others; and having
nothing except what people give them. That was the theory. Today the
Franciscans are widespread over the world. They wear brown gowns with a rope
tied around their waist. Just a very plain robe, to show their degradation,
their spirit, their subordination.
There
have been two or three branches of the order. It split up first into those who
were more definitely following Francis' idea of poverty and those who were less
so. After his death, you had two orders; and then, you had another group they
called the Capuchins. The Capuchins were later, different from the rest in that
they don't shave. They have long beards. The other men do shave. You don't see
them much in this country, but in any Roman Catholic country you see great
numbers of Franciscan monks. Many of them are just like ordinary monks
previously, living in monasteries; but originally they were mendicants; they
had no settled abode; they went about from place to place; spreading their
views and helping people. That was the original theory. And the same time, just
about when Francis started his order of mendicants, there was another man in an
entirely different country; he started a quite different order, and yet it was
similar in this feature, of not centering in the place where they did their
work, but going about from place to place, trying to have their influence
widespread. And he is
2. St. Dominic (1170-1221). Now Francis was Italian; Dominic was a Spaniard. St. Dominic, a Spaniard, had a very different idea than Francis had. He saw the great difference between the monastic self-indulgence of the day and the original idea of the monks; but he also felt that simply closing people off in convents was not having the effect on the world that he felt was needed; what he felt was needed was preaching. It was taking the message and getting it to the people. And consequently Dominic formed an order of men who could go about preaching. After Dominic's death, they claimed that his hands and his feet had the marks in them which had been in the body of Christ from the nails; that he had the mark in his side; which some said was from meditating upon the substance of Christ. It was a mystical life and a life of abnegation, of service; though Dominic's was a life of study and particularly of preaching.
He
was anxious to do something in view of the rise of heresy, which was spreading
through Europe at this time. By heresy, he meant views different from those of
the Catholic Church; and some of these were very un-Christian views; and some
of them were views which were much more Christian than the tenets of the Roman
Church today. But Dominic wanted to do something to face this rising tide; so
he wanted an order of men who would go about, well-informed, well-trained, to
preach. So he soon had a large group of men following his orders; and today,
these are two of the most important orders in the Roman Church, the Franciscans
and the Dominicans.
The
Franciscans put much more emphasis on education now than they did in Francis'
time; but still nothing like the Dominicans. If you go to Palestine, you will
find little shrines here and there with Franciscan monks having charge of them;
and they will tell you all sorts of miraculous stories of what happened at this
one and that. They simply take just about any story they've heard, many of
them, and pass it on. The Dominicans in Palestine are among the best scholars
in Palestine. They have their monasteries in Jerusalem where they study. They
write books that rank among the very best in the study of Palestine.
The Dominican school in Palestine, otherwise known as the French School, is one of the outstanding archeological schools of today. So the Dominicans have been an order known for education; and for one other thing that we'll mention a little later this morning.
The
Franciscans have been noted for their emphasis on poverty and on simple
service; but as time went on, they have taken up schools and activities of that
kind, to some extent; but nothing comparable to the Dominicans. Now each of
these—the Franciscans and the Dominicans—developed a related order of women.
You will find one right across the street here, across Ashbourne Lane. I've had
people often ask me, "Is this the Dominican Retreat House?" The
Elkins Estate, across the street here, was purchased by the Dominican sisters;
they have a convent now, but they're following the Dominican idea. It's not a
place simply where they live, but a place where they try to influence the
world; but these women across here do it—I don't know whether they go out and
call, and so on, I don't know—but I do know that constantly they are having
people coming there, from all over the Philadelphia area, for a weekend; for a
retreat, and the Dominican Retreat House across the street here is probably one
of the influential centers for the spread of Roman Catholicism in the
Philadelphia area; and it is typical of the idea of Dominic.
But
the Dominicans and the Franciscans began going about as individuals; begging
their bread; going from place to place. Soon a couple of other orders
started—much smaller and less important than this; in the whole history of the
Roman Catholic Church, there have been hundreds of different orders, but these
two are certainly among the 7 or 8 most important. But the other orders like
this started; and in the early days, most of the fathers were very sincere
people; and they were welcomed by the people all over Europe; and soon people
were very happy to have them there; and glad to give them lodging and give them
food; and they were a help to the people; and for some decades they were very
much appreciated all over Europe; then as they received more and there more
gifts, and as everything human tends to degenerate; there began to be more and
more self-seeking men in these orders; until a century later people said,
"When I'm out walking or somewhere, I'd rather meet a bandit or a wild
animal than a friar." Now that of course was based, probably, on a few
instances; but their excellent reputation which they had for their first few
decades was greatly altered, say, a hundred years later, in the impression that
people had of them.
But
it was quite an interesting change in the face of Europe; to see in 1150,
monasteries here and there and all over; with people living in monasteries, and
living there and studying there and working there; and having little contact
with the world; and then at the beginning of the 13th century—the start of this
movement—having these mendicant friars walking barefooted all over Europe;
begging their bread and all of them preaching; particularly the Dominicans, but
the Franciscans also preaching. The Dominicans preaching a great deal; and the
Franciscans putting their emphasis on helpfulness and doing what they could to
be kind to people in distress. Now
C. Divergent
Groups.
Now I'm using the word "divergent" here to mean groups which differ
from that which was accepted in the Catholic Church; some were perhaps more
evangelical, but also those who were outside the pale of Christianity. We will
not have time to examine any of these in detail. You see, we have a great deal
of written material from this century, a tremendous amount of information
available.
But this is good to know: that for 500 years before 1100 AD, there was no evidence to speak of, of what you would call heresy in Europe. The reason for that of course is, that the barbarians flooded over the empire; within a few centuries, they gave up their Arianism and became Catholic. They were soldiers; they were plunderers; they were settlers; they were not thinkers or scholars at that time; and the chances are that they knew they were Arians and the others were Catholics, but why or what, most of them knew nothing about.
But
now as the people have become more settled and more established; and the
Catholic control has been dominant all over Europe for many centuries; people
are beginning to think for themselves more; and they are thinking in various
directions; and so in the 12th century, and in the 13th—in the century we are
now speaking of—and in the century following, there began to develop all sorts
of groups holding many different types of views; and Schaff, in his history of
this period, has quite a lengthy account of various groups, with the type of
views that they present. But there are two of these which are most conspicuous;
and the main thing we can do is to mention these two.
1.
Waldensians.
There is no evidence that the Waldensians opposed the church at the start. They
were the followers of a man named Peter Waldo, who lived in southern France. In
1176, Peter Waldo, a rich merchant in southern France, took his wealth and gave
it all away; he organized his followers into a group which lived on charity;
they called themselves "the poor men of Lyons," though others seemed
to call them the Waldenses—after him—and eventually they took that name. They
seem to have been very similar to the followers of St. Francis, but they were a
few years before St. Francis; and they were further away from the center of
things—from Italy—when they began going about preaching. None of them had much
education; they probably had no thought of teaching anything contrary to what
the church was giving; but they came to do that. And in 1179, a council at Rome
ordered them to desist from preaching; but they refused and kept on.
McSorley
says, "Before long the Waldenses were teaching a sort of Puritan
Protestantism, denying the authority of the Church, and holding that every just
man could absolve, consecrate, and preach the Gospel without sacramental
ordination." [McSorley, p. 358.] Early in the century we're looking at
now, two of them came to Rome, and they appeared at a council in Rome conducted
by Pope Innocent III; and they asked permission to preach. And the council
appointed a committee to investigate; and the investigating committee brought
back a report that they should not be permitted to preach. So they were
strictly forbidden to preach; but they went on with their preaching. There was
not a great deal of difference between their lives and their preaching,
probably, from that of St. Francis; but they perhaps put more stress on the
evangelical teaching than he did; and Francis was able to procure the approval
of the church, though finally another took over control of his organization,
and changed it into one which became a great force for them. The Waldensians
were simply excluded; and they spread through a large section of southern
France, and into northern Italy, and into some other countries round about;
they persisted down to the time of Reformation; and at the time of the Reformation,
they felt that Luther was preaching the same thing they believed; they probably
changed a good many of their secondary views, at least, bringing them in line
with his form of teaching; and they persist to this day in Italy as a truly
evangelical group, the Waldensians. They are not especially important in the
history of the 13th century; but this second one is very important in the
history of that century
2.
The Albigenses or Cathari. I believe they would have preferred to be called
the Cathari, because the word cathari
means pure; and the Albigenses claimed to be the really pure line. They claimed
that they had turned away from the wickedness of the world—that they were
standing for absolute purity.
But
these Albigenses are direct descendants of the Manicheans. Their worldview is a
dual one; it is not a Christian view with the sovereign God who permits sin in
the world, and who offers us deliverance from sin; rather, it is a struggle
between the good God and the evil god as with the Manicheans. And material
things are evil; they want to be cleansed from it. Husbands and wives, for
instance, would take a vow that they would have no more matrimonial relations
with each other, because they considered that as wrong; it was worldly and it
was wrong; and they took a standard in matters of conduct which in some ways
was extreme and fanatical; but in other ways it was a great improvement over
the worldly standards that had come into many sections of the Roman church.
They were people who held, on the whole, a good standard of life; they called themselves the pure people, the Cathari; they condemned the church; and soon these people came to be the majority of the people in one area. There were thousands of people in that area, who were holding this Cathari view. And the movement became so great, it was one of the first things that Dominic desired was to meet and convert these people to the true teaching of the Scripture; and he had a fair amount of success in doing so; he was highly educated and skilled in argument. But what he and his few followers could do, compared to the thousands of them was very, very little. And the movement became very great and the church decided that the only thing to do was to completely wipe them out.
So
a Crusade against the Albigenses was declared, and armies attacked southern
France. Of course, McSorley will claim that the Cathari had destroyed churches;
that they had killed representatives of the church; how much truth there is in
this, we don't know; we don't know the details; there probably were individual
cases of this; but at any rate, great armies attacked southern France; and the
pope's legate commanded them, "Kill every one that gets in your way; the
Lord knows His own." The legate said that the divine vengeance raged wonderfully
against some of these large cities. The soldiers spared neither sex nor
condition; the whole city was sacked, and the slaughter was very great. A large
section of southern France, which had been the most prosperous section, was
completely wrecked; the town burned; the people all killed. Thousands of people
were utterly destroyed in this Albigensian Crusade; and the result was that the
movement was cut down to where there were maybe a tenth of them left living;
the other thousands were killed. And then the pope declared that these must be
found; sought out and put an end to; and so the inquisition was introduced. We
will make that a separate head,
D. The
Inquisition.
We will not mention the other smaller groups at this time—other divergent
groups. But there were a number of them; some of them very evangelical; some of
them holding very un-Christian views. People were thinking all over Europe, and
little groups of various types were developing. The largest of them was this
Manichean group in southern France, which was wiped out with such terrific
slaughter in this 13th century.
There were some great slaughters of the Waldensians two or three centuries later; Milton wrote a great poem about the slaughter in his time, four centuries later. I believe that it was definitely recognized that the Waldensians were not nearly as different from the Church as the Albigenses were. Another thing, they were not nearly as large. They were a comparatively small group of poor people, though they spread rather widely; while the Albigenses included most of the people in a tremendous area. They were a very large and prosperous group, which would have made a complete nation eventually, if they hadn't been slaughtered; and so the principal antagonism at this time was against the Albigenses. The Waldensians were forbidden; were attacked to some extent; but there was far less attention paid to them. So, though they we a far smaller group, they survived to the present day, while the Albigenses did not.
You
don't find the Inquisition prior to the 12th century, because there was no
heresy; there was no need for one. Now whether there would have been one or
not, we don't know; but there was no occasion. But to some extent in the 12th
century, but more particularly in the 13th century, the Inquisition was
established; it was established largely under the direct control and
supervision of the Pope. The Pope directed that the Albigenses and the other
heretics should be sought out; should be found who they are; and that they
should be removed from the earth. The statement was made that someone who would
burn or destroy people of this earth certainly should be put an end to; so
someone who will destroy them for eternity is far worse. And therefore, that
they must be sought out.
Now before long, the main control or activity of the Inquisition was put in the hands of the Dominican Order. The Dominicans had not been founded for anything like this; they were founded to preach and to reach people with their arguments and with their message; and there were many of this day who opposed the method of the Inquisition. St. Bernard, for instance, insisted that we should reach people with arguments, and with moral suasion, rather than with any method of force. There were others who agreed. But under this papal authority, the Inquisition was established; and the Dominicans were made chief inquisitors in that section; and so it came about that the word Dominicanite, or Dominican, came to be divided into two parts: Dominie is Latin for "of the Lord" and cani is Latin for "dog" and so the Dominicans came to be called the "hounds of God," the dogs of the Lord who seek out the heretics.
And
the Dominicans, while the Inquisition was by no means entirely in their hands,
they were the leaders in the Inquisition; and they have been through the ages;
so among the Dominicans you have this very fine scholarly group, defending the
Scripture and studying the doctrines; and then you have those who are very
active in ferreting out heresy, and leading in the Inquisition. The Inquisition
was free from all restraint as to its methods; there were no rules for
protecting the innocent; but every effort could be made to prove that one was
heretical; and his family might be tortured; friends might be tortured; and
often people died in the torture.
McSorley
states, "In its work of suppressing heresy, the Papal Inquisition followed
the common procedure of the contemporary courts, accepting anonymous
accusations, employing torture to secure confessions, inflicting cruel punishments
on convicted persons. The aid of legal advisors was refused to the accused,
and—contrary to the usual custom—the testimony of heretical and excommunicated
witnesses was accepted... Men still find it difficult to understand how a
century as Christian as the thirteenth could deal with any human being in a way
so foreign to the spirit of the Gospel. The fact is,... barbarism had not been
wholly expelled from the soul of Europe." [McSorley, p. 413]
The
statement was made that the men of the Inquisition were not secular rulers;
they would torture people to force them to confess; they would put them in
prison for life; but they would not kill them. Then, of course, the sentence of
death was never pronounced by the Inquisition. But what the Inquisition would do
was to turn a person over to the secular arm, as a heretic who refused to
confess; as an unrepentent heretic; and then the secular arm would burn them
for it; and if the secular arm did not burn them; if the judges or leaders in
the civil authority did not; they themselves would probably be treated by the
Inquisition; so that they had to do it; there was no choice on their part; it
was actually the religious court that did it, but theoretically they did not.
They
would even give a statement asking mercy for the people. In Cologne, Germany in
this century at one time, 500 people were burned at the stake as heretics. A
law was introduced in most of the countries of Europe, that heretics should be
burned at the stake. In England, it was not made a law until 1301; but in the
other countries in Europe they were made mostly at this time, 100 years earlier
than England; and it is a very sad picture in the medieval church; it is a
picture of something which was definitely introduced by the Pope; the rules
were made by the Pope. McSorley says of Pope Gregory IX who reigned from 1227
to 1241, in his dealing with heretics Gregory was firm, "As papal Legate
in Lombardy, he had approved the imperial decree condemning heretics to be
burned at the stake; in 1231 he ordered that heretics in Rome should be handed
over to the secular authorities for 'due punishment.' And then he added a
footnote as to what what due punishment means: 'Death by fire for the obstinate
and life imprisonment for the penitent.' And in 1233 he established the Papal
Inquisition in order that heresy might be more effectively repressed."
[McSorley, p 387.] That's what McSorley says about Gregory IX; and in his
accounts of these popes, he showed clearly their support of, direction of, and
assistance to the Inquisition.
Further
on in the chapter, when he discusses the Inquisition, he says that the
Inquisition was typical of the period; that all laws were very strict at that
time; that actually it was the secular rulers who wanted the Inquisition; and
that we should not try to defend the Inquisition. He says that it was utterly
wrong, and should never have been done. That's what he says here in the book;
but in his account of the popes, he made clear that it was the popes who
introduced it and who supported it.
From
our Protestant viewpoint, any group can make a mistake and change; but from the
Roman viewpoint, the pope is the divinely established head of the church to
carry on the will of the Lord in the church; and it's pretty hard for me to see
how one can hold that to be true about the pope, recognize that it was the pope
who carried through the Inquisition, and at the same time say the Inquisition
is wrong. It puts a man like McSorley in a pretty difficult position. I believe
the position of most Roman Catholic leaders is that the Inquisition actually
was right; and that it is what should be. But anything for reading in America,
it is naturally necessary to take a position not too far from American
attitudes; and consequently most books written here will do what McSorley does,
will try to avoid any support of it. He says, for instance, here, "As for
the popes, they were unquestionably active..." Well, he says, "In
opposing the general tendency to judge hastily." Well, maybe some were;
but he tries to excuse them from it, but admits the thing was wrong. He says
that it should not have been done at all; which is pretty hard to fit with the
Roman Catholic view of the popes.
Regarding
the Inquisition, as McSorley points out, it was the pope who instigated it; it
was the pope's officials who carried it out. The attempts are made by many
Roman Catholic writers to absolve the pope from responsibility in it; but it
cannot be done. They had the power to stop it any time they wanted to; they had
the power to moderate it greatly, if they chose. The other attempt which is
made, in most Roman Catholic writings about it, is to claim that it is
something which was in line with the attitude of the times; and it should not
be held against the Roman Church that it entered into it because it was the
attitude of the times.
But
this "attitude of the times" business is something which I am
convinced is mostly nonsense. It rests upon the revolutionary conception that the
world is getting better and better, and whatever was wicked in the past was
simply part of the times. The fact of the matter is that, at any period in
history, you can find good people and bad people; and the times depend not upon
a change in human nature, but upon which group is in control; and when you have
people in control, the general mass of people follow their lead; so when you
have good people in control, the general mass of people, who would easily
resort to cruelty, are held in check. There is never greater cruelty in the
world's history than was shown under Hitler's direction in Germany a few years
ago; or than is now being enacted by the Chinese Communists and by the cruel
rulers of Russia today. There's never anything crueler or more unjust in the
world's history than this.
And
to say that something then was a result of the times, is simply not a fact at
all. The fact is that the pope and the leaders wanted it that way; and that's
what made it that way, at that time. The fact is that today, it would be just
as bad, if it were not for the influence which has been felt throughout our
western world; and it has been felt to some extent in the whole world, as a
result of the study and teaching of the Bible, since the time of the
Reformation. It is the effect of the Bible that has softened people's attitudes
as far as cruelty and repression is concerned, and not simply a change in the
times.
And
if the popes were truly expounders of the Christian religion; if they had any
special reason to be better in this than anyone else; they would have seen then
how utterly contrary to all true Christianity is the method and whole attitude
of the Inquisition. It would not be necessary to wait for the 20th century.
It
is interesting that McSorley quotes, in a footnote at the bottom of page 414,
Father James Brodrick, a member of the Jesuits; he quotes from him, trying to
exonerate the pope from it; then he continues, "Father Brodrick goes on to
state that not only would the Inquisition be out of place in the twentieth
century, but 'it was not a good thing in the fourteenth or sixteenth century
either.... It was a horrible and hateful thing, a grave backsliding, not of the
Church, but of churchmen, which no Catholic ought now to lift a finger to
defend, except from exaggeration or the too obvious efforts of such people as
Lea and Dr. Coulton to turn it to controversial advantage.'" That is, the
too obvious effort of Protestants who use it against the Roman Church; but they
say it is something which should never have occurred then; which would be wrong
at any time; and yet their whole leadership advanced it and utilized it at that
time; and for a long time afterward; until the results of the teaching of the
Bible, from the Reformation, made the climate of the western world such that it
was impossible any longer to carry it on. So much for D, the Inquisition.
E. Scholars of
the 13th Century.
I wish we had time—and yet in a way I don't either—because actually the study
of the scholars is more a matter of apologetics or philosophy or theology than
of Church History. I would take more time than I will take on them, if we had
another month of school; but I think for our purpose, the main thing is to be
familiar with the time when they lived; and a little bit about them; and then
in connection with your other studies, you may learn a great deal more of them.
But the outstanding scholar of the 13th century is the one whom McSorley calls
1.
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225?-1274). And today you will hear of movements in
the Roman Church—and even including some people outside—which will be spoken of
as Thomism, or as neo-Thomism. A man who used to teach here in this seminary
wrote a little book which he called Thomas
and the Bible. When I first saw it, I thought he was talking about the
Thomas to whom Christ said, "Put your hand in my side"; but he was
referring to St. Thomas Aquinas.
He
is so much referred to by his first name nowadays that it would be good for you
to remember. In the series called Great
Books of the Western World, which the Encyclopaedia
Britannica has put out, they have nothing from Calvin and nothing from
Luther, but Aquinas, I believe, is the only individual to whom they give two
volumes. Often they will have three great writers included in one volume, but
they have two large volumes of the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. At that, it
is only a small part of what he wrote, because he wrote very extensively; but
they devoted two large volumes to his writings and include them in great detail
in their index of the essential thoughts of the Western world.
Well,
Thomas Aquinas is, McSorley says, the most eminent scholar of his day, and the
present patron of all Catholic schools. He is today the leading theologian as
far as the Roman Catholic Church is concerned. His work today has a position in
the Roman church that nothing else has. I started to say nothing except the
Bible; but, as a matter of fact, his writings are given more attention than is
given to the Bible. He wrote very extensively, and he has a method of discussion
in which he looks at the pros and the cons, and every this and that and the
other thing; and it is said to be very intriguing—his style—after you get into
it and become accustomed to it. Well, to a person who just dips into one of his
books, it is one of the most boresome books to read you've ever seen, the
manner in which he presents his material; but after you get used to the method,
it probably could be intensely interesting; it has a lot of material together,
and it discusses some of the great central propositions of the Christian faith;
and it looks at them from many different angles; and doubtless it has a great
deal that is of great value.
Aquinas
also did discuss some of the extremely critical points to which some of the
schoolmen gave some of their time. He was certainly a very great scholar; a
very able writer; and one who has a tremendous influence in the world today.
McSorley says some 6000 commentaries on his life have been published—6000
commentaries on the life of St. Thomas Aquinas. He continues, "and he
ranked with Augustine in her permanent influence upon the minds of men."
Aquinas
began his theological writings in writing commentaries on the sentences of
Peter Lombard; but his so-called Summa
supplanted the sentences of Peter Lombard of that day as the leading textbook
in Roman Catholic schools. Well,
2.
Roger Bacon (1225-1294). There were others than Aquinas who were Dominicans
of that day, who wrote, and some of them had great papers; but we will not take
time to look at them in this course; the others whom we are going to mention
will be mostly Franciscans.
Roger
Bacon was a Franciscan who wrote extensively; he had a great influence in his
day, but he is of special interest in the history of science because he was
much interested in experiments; and many think of him as one of the founders of
the modern inductive method of reasoning—the scientific method. He entered into
experiments, and he was also interested in languages; but in 1277 he was
condemned by the University of Paris, McSorley said, after he severely
criticized the Bishop of Paris and others, including the pope. And on account
of this, and because his doctrines contained many innovations, he was condemned
by the Franciscan General and imprisoned in a monastery. He is for Church
History of little importance; but for science he was of considerable
importance, so it's good to mention him at this point.
3.
Bonaventure (1221-1274). He died in the same year as Thomas Aquinas. He was
head of the Franciscan Order. McSorley calls him Founder of the Franciscan
School of Theology. He had much criticism of Thomas' writing. There was
considerable disagreement between them.
4.
Duns Scotus (c.1266-1308). A man who came from England, he taught at Oxford, later
in Paris and Cologne; McSorley says his teaching has not always been thoroughly
understood nor thoroughly interpreted, but in written and profound thought, he
was the equal of any philosopher of his time. He was a great enemy of Aquinas,
and so students call themselves followers of Aquinas or of Scotus; and if of
Aquinas, they call themselves Thomists; if they followed Scotus, they called
themselves Scotans. But some of them called them after his first name, the
Dunsmen, followers of Duns Scotus. And when the Aquinas followers gained the
supremacy; when they wanted to criticize anybody, they would say "Oh he's
just a Dunsman; and from that came our modern word "dunce." When you
say a man is a Dunce, it originally means he is a follower of Duns Scotus, who
McSorley says was one of the greatest thinkers of his day. But he was a writer
who was very involved; and his arguments were often so closely woven that
people differed as to whether it was extremely profound or whether it was
rather nonsensical. An interesting thing, though, is that on most points on
which they differ, Aquinas has won out in the Roman Church and Aquinas was made
a saint; Scotus was not.
On
many points his teaching came to be condemned because it differed from Thomas. McSorley
says he was an especially vigorous critic of St. Thomas; but there was one
point at which Duns Scotus won out. He advanced a theory which was denied in
Aquinas' writing. And that was the theory that the Virgin Mary was not merely
free from sin in her life, but that she had been conceived free from sin. And
Duns Scotus advanced the argument for the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin
Mary—a view which Aquinas denied. Aquinas is very elaborate in his treatment of
Mary's virginity, but denied the idea of her having been free from original
sin. And Duns Scotus on this point won out. There was great opposition between
the Franciscans and the Dominicans over it, but the Franciscans won.
In
1263, the Franciscans founded a celebration of the Immaculate Conception of the
Virgin Mary. This was opposed by the Dominicans; but in 1854, the Pope declared
that it is a dogma of the Church. So on this point Thomas Aquinas is heretical.
He denies the Immaculate Conception of Mary. On this point Duns Scotus won out,
but on most others Aquinas is accepted in the Roman Church. Well, we go on to a
man of very different type from these whom we have just mentioned. One who did
not have much influence on the course of Church History, but one who is typical
of trends which are so interesting and so important that I wish we had time to
look at them at considerable length. His name was
5.
Raymond Lull (1232-1315). Sometimes written Lull, sometimes Lully. I put him
under Schoolmen of the 13th century—I had thought a little of giving him a
separate main head because I am so interested in the changed trend which he
represents. These other men were busy, most of them, fighting hard for the
doctrines which they espoused; trying to overcome within the Christian Church
those who held other viewpoints of these doctrines; or active in carrying on
the Inquisition; and so on, but Raymond Lull had other interests.
His
life began as a Spaniard; and as a young man he was at the court in Spain, a
typical young courtier of the day. And so it is, that one time, when he was
writing some licentious poetry—he was engaged in the immoral type of life of
the courts of the day—and he was thinking of writing these licentious poems,
and so on; and just as he was engaged in something of this sort, there flashed
before his mind a picture of the crucifixion of Christ; and the recollection of
some verses from the Scripture which he had heard read in the church service;
and as he thought of this, the contrast between it and what he was doing was so
great, that he threw himself on his knees and declared that he would devote the
rest of his life to the advancement of the knowledge of Christ; instead of the
things that he had previously been interested in.
Now
there's another difference between Lull and these others. Lull became
interested in the great movement of the Crusades, which was now drawing near to
its close. But he looked at it in a different way than the others. Lull said
these great armies have gone to Palestine time and again to try to rescue Jerusalem
from the Moslems; he says these people have gone and have tried to conquer that
country; they have fought with them; they have killed them; he said,
"Would not the proper way to present Christ be very different from
that?" He said, "Should we not learn to understand these Moslems?
Learn to talk their language so that we can make ourselves clear to them? Learn
to express Christian thoughts in a way to show them that what we believe is
really superior to what they believe? That this is God's proof that we have?
And that they also can have an opportunity to receive Him?"
And
Raymond Lull set to work to study about the Moslems; and he studied Christian
doctrine; he studied the Bible; and he studied the languages of the Orient. He
went about in Europe quite a bit; trying to get the schools to introduce,
trying to get the Bishops to introduce, training for people to go and present
Christianity to the Moslems; and to study the Arabic language and the
Mohammedan teachings and so on; in order to meet them. He was unable to
interest many of the bishops; most of them were quite uninterested in what he
was trying to do; but he did succeed in getting an interest in Oriental
literature in some of the schools; and departments for the study of the Near
East began in certain of the universities as a result of the activity of
Raymond Lull. He spent 9 years studying Arabic; he tried to get a thorough
understanding of the Mohammedan views; he acted as Professor of Arabic and
Philosophy for a time; he composed many controversial treatises; and then felt
that he was so thoroughly aware of this material that he should now be able to
go and reach the Moslems directly; and to present to them the evidences for
Christianity.
He
had been trying to get these bishops interested in training others to do it,
but had not succeeded; so he went alone with a few friends. He went to Tunis,
and there for a year he preached Christianity, publicly in the public square;
presenting the Christian teaching and trying to show its superiority to the Moslem
ideas of God and of sin and of salvation and so on. He was thoroughly aware of
the material he was giving, so that he could not be caught in incorrect
statements; he had the quotations from the Koran; the precise material, he knew
exactly what was said; when the half-trained Moslem leaders would try to argue
with him, he had the answers for them out of their own book.
And
for a year there, he had a very considerable influence; and then he was
imprisoned and expelled from the country. He returned to Europe; he tried to
persuade various popes to establish missionary colleges, but was unable to have
much success with it. He went back to the Moslem land, and there he began
preaching; and he preached until finally he was stoned to death. And he is
perhaps the first of the missionaries to Moslem lands; and he set the method of
Moslem evangelism which was used by most effective Protestant missionaries
today. He laid the foundation of modern missionary work in the Moslem lands.
McSorley says his system of mystic rationalization was popular for a while at
the University in Valencia, but it was condemned by Gregory XI in 1376. He says
Raymond denied the distinction between reason and faith; and undertook to
demonstrate the supernatural mysteries. In other words, he felt that the Bible
is a clear book which we should study and understand and see what it presents;
instead of looking for the mysterious dogmas of the church as our basis.
McSorley
says, "Although Raymond is known as the illuminated doctor, his erroneous
teachings prevented his canonization." One of his books is one of the
richest treasures of Catalonian literature. He was thus condemned, and he had
little influence on his day; but he was a man who had ideals and attitudes
which are in line with what we would feel were the right direction for the
advancement of Christianity. He was not one of the great Schoolmen of this
century; certainly, if you made a list of the six greatest, he probably
wouldn't be on it; if twenty, he certainly would be; and he was one who in his
interest and direction I feel was perhaps as important as any of them. An
extremely interesting character and a very fine Christian—Raymond Lull.
Now
we must return to the papacy again, as we end our discussion of this century,
which the Romans consider as the greatest century in the history of the
Christian Church.
F. The Papacy. We began our
century looking at Innocent III, the pope from 1198 to 1216. I'm not going to
speak in detail about most of the popes of this century. In the history of the
papacy during this period, you should all know how, from the degenerates and
the situation in Rome in the early part of the 11th century, under the efforts
of the German emperor and the influence of Hildebrand, the papacy was put on a
solid foundation, and Hildebrand as Gregory VII made his tremendous claims; and
the papacy kept gaining strength until Innocent III was at the very apex.
From
Innocent III on, through the rest of this century, the papacy is perhaps in a
slow decline. The movement, which starts with Gregory VII, which climaxed at
Innocent III, comes to another great turning point at the end of this century.
This is the century in which the pope had greater power than they ever had
before or since.
It
is necessary to note a little about the procedure in this century whenever a
pope dies. Who will the next pope be? Well, the theory was the clergy of the
city of Rome elects the Bishop; but who were the clergy of Rome? It was the
people who had the title of doing the
work in the church at Rome, not the ones who really did it, who might be and
they might not.
These
cardinals vary in number; sometimes there are 50 or 60 of them; at one time it
got down as low as eight, at the time of the death of a pope. The pope
theoretically had the right to make as many cardinals as he wanted; the present
pope has made three new cardinals, whose names he told nobody, He says these
are secret cardinals. I suppose when he dies, they will have the right to vote
on his successor, but nobody knows who they are. He has appointed others, who
have been publicly installed in their position as cardinals.
When
Nicholas IV died in 1292, there was a period of 2 years during which the
cardinals were meeting in different places and were struggling over the question
of who would be the next pope; and they were unable to reach an agreement among
themselves on the matter. And so after 2 years of argument and inability to
determine who should be the pope, finally one of the cardinals made a
suggestion. He saw that they could never reach an agreement on it; his
suggestion was, "Let's elect an old man who will postpone the decision, so
that time will pass before we have a reach a unity on this matter." So the
suggestion was made that they elect an old man, who was considered as very holy
and very much beloved; and that he would become pope; and then of course, it
would not be many years before they would see which of the different groups is
now in the majority in establishing a new pope.
So
the man they selected was a man named Peter da Morrone, and this man is one of
the two popes in this century who are called saints in the Roman Catholic
calendar, Out of 18 popes in this century there are only two of them to whom
they give the name saint, one of them was this man who became the pope in 1294.
His name was
1.
Pietro da Morrone, Celestine V. (1294). He was born in 1215, so you see he was
quite an old man. At the age of 17 he had become a Benedictine hermit; he had
gone off into the wilderness; he had lived a very, very ascetic life, fasting,
the Catholic Encyclopedia says, every
day except Sunday. Each year he kept four lents, passing three of them on bread
and water; the entire day and a great part of the night, he concentrated on
prayer.
Others
gathered around him. Before his death he had 36 monasteries, numbering 600
monks, who were his followers. This had been approved as a branch of the
Benedictines by Urban IV in 1264. The 12 cardinals at this time—6 Roman, 4
Italian, 2 French—could not agree on a pope; the suggestion was made, when it
just looked absolutely hopeless, that they get this saintly person who was
nearly in his 80's, that they ask him to become the pope. So they came to
Pietro, an old monk living way out in the mountains, in this attitude of great
asceticism and was, according to the Roman Catholic view, a great saint. Pietro
said, "I don't want to be pope; I'm not interested in anything like that;
all I want is a cell where I can pray; where I can do my devotions." He
said, "I'm not interested in that." But they convinced him that it
was the Lord's will; that he must take it; he must leave his first inclination.
He thought of fleeing, but soon there were multitudes—they say as many as
200,000 people—and there were a great many people who were called the
Spirituals; many of whom were Franciscan monks who had been disgusted at the
worldliness and the pomp and pride of the papacy; and who had felt that the
times were terribly degenerate; and that the Lord was going to put an end to
it; and introduce the millennial reign of the saints.
And
when they heard that Celestine had been elected pope, they said, "Now the
reign of the saints is about to come." So these Spirituals walked about;
they said, "The reign of the Holy Spirit ruling through the monks is at
hand." They said, "This is the first really legitimate pope since
Constantine's donation ruined the church, and made the papacy worldly, and
destroyed the whole leadership that it should have in the church."
So
he was brought out of the mountains and declared to be pope; and the king of
Naples, hearing of his election, hastened with his son, who was the king of
Hungary, to present homage to them; but the Catholic
Encyclopedia says, ostensibly to present homage to the new pope, but in
reality to take the simple old man into honorable custody. This is the man whom
the Roman Catholics considered to be the divinely established head of the
church. But the Catholic Encyclopedia
says they came really to take the simple old man into honorable custody. The Catholic Encyclopedia continues
"Had Charles known how to preserve moderation in exploiting his good luck,
this windfall might have brought him incalculable benefits. As it was, he ruled
everything by accepted reasoning.
At
any rate, according to the Catholic
Encyclopedia, and according to the account by Farrow, this King Charles led
Morrone to think that he was a very fine guide to him in the affairs of the
world; and he, as the pope came in, seated on a humble ass with a rope led by
two monarchs, the king was able to lead him to whatever he thought was good.
And pretty soon, the Catholic
Encyclopedia and Farrow both say, pretty soon, he was giving lavish gifts
to everybody who asked for them; giving the same places to three or four rival
suitors; granting favors. They say it's hard to see how one man could make so
many mistakes as this saintly old man made. And he was surrounded by people who
were looking for advantage for themselves to such an extent, that he began to
see how he was being used; and then he retired into a little cell in the papal
palace where he devoted himself to prayer; and there he called out, "Oh,
what can I do, Lord? What can I do in this situation? I just don't understand
it. They're leading me around and making me a fool for all kinds of things I'm
not interested in. What am I going to do?"
Well
now there was a rumor which was widespread at that time, written in various
books shortly afterwards. Whether it's true, we don't know. But according to
this rumor, one of the cardinals, Cardinal Giaconno, when the pope was out of
his cell, bored a hole through the ceiling of the room; and he put a little
tube down through that, so that he wouldn't see it; but the voice could come
into it. And according to this story which was spread all over Europe, when the
pope would say, "Oh, Lord, what shall I do?" Giaconno would say,
"Resign, resign."
The story that Giaconno used trickery this way, to persuade him to resign was so widespread, that all of the Roman Catholic books write to assure that it is not true; that it was purely his own idea; that he should resign. At any rate, he did resign. After less than 9 months as pope, he resigned; and when he resigned, the cardinals quickly met together and elected Cardinal Glaconno as the pope.
Now
the saying that was spread all over Europe about Cardinal Giaconno was, he came
in like a fox, ruled like lion, and died like a dog. That's a story that
everybody said about the next pope. It's very interesting to see how all the
Roman Catholic books recognize St. Celestine V as one of the two saints who
were popes in this century. He is in the list of popes as one of the divinely
selected heads of the Christian church. And yet they all say that it is
positively amazing how many mistakes a man could make in just a few months; and
they speak of him as having made an utter failure of the position; and the next
pope, as soon as he became pope, ordered all acts of his predecessor annulled,
so that everything that Celestine V had done was annulled when Boniface VIII
became pope. But Boniface VIII ordered that Celestine should be kept right
there, because he thought some people might use him to build up a movement
against himself. Celestine escaped; fled into the mountains; and got into a
cave there he was going to carry on his life in earnest.
The
pope sent soldiers to find him; they seized him; they brought him back; and
they put him in the prison there. He said, "All he wanted was a
cell," and that's what he got. They kept him there in the prison for a few
months until he died. Now there were rumors that he was very cruelly treated by
the guards, but there's no proof of that, one way or the other. Of course the
question came up, could a pope resign? There were those who said, if Celestine
V is the divinely appointed head of the church, he can't resign. But the next
pope gave an authoritative infallible decision on it, that it is possible for a
pope to resign. And so the man who is supposed to have put the idea into his
head to resign, gave his official determination that it was possible for a pope
to resign; so he resigned and he was succeeded by
2.
Boniface VIII (1294-1303). Now Boniface VIII was himself over 80 at this time.
Celestine V was pope for only a few months, during the year of 1294. Now Boniface
VIII is the pope who ended the century; and the two best-known popes in this
century are Innocent III who began it, and Boniface VIII who ended it.
Innocent
III was the pope who said that the papacy was supreme over the all the monarchs
of the earth; and he proceeded to make his will law over at least six or seven
different monarchs against their will. Boniface VIII had just as much of an
idea of the power of the pope, and he proceeded to endeavor to carry it out.
But though he failed dismally in his effort, he expressed the idea perhaps as
clearly as anyone ever has expressed the claims of the pope.
He
wrote a bull which goes by the name of Unam
Sanctam. And this bull is one which presents the supremacy of the pope over
all temporal power in its most extreme form. It contains no idea which was not
contained in the writings of previous ecclesiastical writers; in the writings
of St. Thomas Aquinas, and others; and in statements of other books. But it is
perhaps expressed more clearly and more strongly stated than in any other one
united presentation. He says that all people, for salvation, must be subject to
the Roman pontiff. He says that there are two swords, the temporal and the
spiritual, and that the power of the Church—the spiritual sword—is superior to
the temporal. He says the temporal is to be used for the Church, the spiritual
by the church. The spiritual by the hand of the priests, the temporal by the
hand of princes and kings, but at the nod and sufferance of the priests. One
sword must of necessity be subject to the other, and it is the temporal
authority subject to the spiritual. For the apostle said, "There is no
power but of God and the powers that be are ordained of God." And they
would not have been ordained unless one source had been made subject to the
other; and even as the lower is subjected by the other for higher things.
And
to the church and the church's power, the prophecy of Jeremiah attests,
"See I have set thee this day over the nations and kingdoms, to pluck up
and to break dawn, to destroy, to overthrow, to build and to plant."
Boniface said furthermore, that every human creature is subject to the Roman
pontiff; this we declare and say, define and pronounce, it is altogether
necessary to salvation. That is what he claims. So when Kennedy made the
statement two years ago that his oath of office was supreme; and nothing would
interfere with his fully carrying out the oath of office; that his religion was
a private matter; the Roman Catholic papers and magazines, all over the
country, rebuked him for his un-Christian statement, as they called it. It was
contrary to the teaching of the church, which declares that all creatures on
earth are subject to the Roman pontiff; and that the temporal sword must be
subject to the spiritual sword.
Now
Boniface made these declarations in very strong language; but he made them in
connection with his effort to force the king of France to do his will; and the
king of France refused to do what Boniface VIII wanted at several points; and
so Boniface VIII excommunicated the king of France; declared that he was no
longer king of France; and that the emperor of Germany should take over the
kingdom of France. But the Emperor of Germany declined the offer of the throne
of France, knowing that the only way he could take it would be to conquer it;
and he didn't have the power to do that anyway. But the king of France held a
council of the bishops of France, at which one of them brought charges that the
pope was guilty of heresy, adultery, all other sins, and should be removed from
the being pope; and they sent a group of men from the council to call on the
pope to appear in France before the council to answer the charges. A small body
of 300 mercenaries came to the pope's summer home outside of Rome; there they
came in and demanded the pope resign his papal office. He said, "Never! I
am pope, and pope I will die." The town was looted; the cathedral burned;
the pope was dragged off; but some Romans came and rescued him; he came back,
he came to Rome; he said, "Yesterday I was like Job, poor and without a
friend; today I have abundance of bread, wine and water." A month later,
while the forces were sacking in the streets with riot and tumult, he died. So
the people said, "he came in like a fox, he ruled like a lion, and he died
like a dog." And this shows the change which had come in the position and
power of the papacy during this century. The result of it was that, before
long, the papal power became absolutely subject to the king of France.
Three
years before Boniface died, the year 1300 was proclaimed as a Jubilee Year. We
have no evidence of a Jubilee Year before, but Boniface VIII declared that 1300
was a Jubilee Year; and any pilgrim who would come to Rome during the Jubilee
Year could get absolution from their sins. Thousands came; they say 300,000
people came to Rome that summer. And they say that the contributions in the
churches were so much that the priests stood with rakes, raking in the coins
that were put in the front of the church. And they gathered a tremendous number
of coins, which he used in his effort to overcome the power of the king of
France. But that started the Jubilee. It was so successful in 1300, they had
another in 1350, another in 1400; and then one of the popes said, "after
all, why should we wait 50 years for Jubilee; Christ only lived 33 years; we'll
make it 33 years." So they got three in a century. And then somebody
decided they might as well make it an even number with the centuries; so they
made four: each 25th year. And these Jubilees have been an occasion to bring
many people to Rome ever since. But it was Boniface VIII who started the
Jubilees. Next
A. The
Babylonian Captivity of the Church. Now by this phrase is meant the
subjugation of the pope to the king of France. So we have a period now, shortly
after Boniface VIII, in which the pope, under the power of the King of France,
moves the papacy away from Rome to Avignon, a town in southern France; and
there in southern France the popes have their court; they had taxes brought
them from all over Europe; they built a tremendous palace there; and for many
decades it was the papal headquarters, not Rome, but Avignon. They were to
quite an extent under the power of the king of France; for instance, according
to a Roman Catholic book, it was the king of France who desired to get the
wealth of the Knights Templar. Those of you who've read Ivanhoe are familiar with the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar
was an organization begun during the Crusades, of men who were priests, and at
the same time knights. They were subject to the vows of monks; but they were to
defend Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre; and they had big headquarters with
branches all over Europe.
Well,
the Roman Catholic stories say that it was the desire of the King of France to
get their wealth. Whether it was or not, we do not know. We do now this, that
the pope gave orders that the Knights Templars should be examined by torture;
for the claims of the terrible crimes they are supposed to have committed; and
in the end, many of them were burned at the stake, including the chief of them;
and most of their wealth was taken over by the King of France. We don't know—it
would be very hard to get the true facts. Were they guilty of the terrible
crimes of which they were accused? Or were they innocent of them, and was it
the King of France's desire to get their money? In any event, the pope went
along, and the pope gave his sanction and his authority to this terrible end of
the order of the Knights Templar.
Well, the popes were very wealthy, very prosperous, in Avignon; but naturally, Germany and England and other countries didn't like having the papal headquarters in France, and eventually it was moved back to Rome; and that brought on the great schism.
Yesterday we began XVI, the 14th century. Actually we have said a little about the 14th century already; we had discussed Boniface VIII, and he reigned until 1303. And we discussed the end of the life of Boniface VIII and the way in which his claims completely failed. He tried, as Innocent III had, a century before, to tell the English and the French kings what they must do; and neither of them paid a great amount of attention to him. He tried to order the empire as to what it should do; he tried to be the over-ruler, supervisor of all the kingdoms of Europe, as Innocent III had succeeded in being. But Boniface VIII failed; and at the end he had this struggle with the French king, and also with one of the leading families of Rome; and the two of them together almost killed him; and they did take him prisoner for a time; then he was brought back to Rome; and he was so humiliated by the shock and everything, that probably had a good bit to do with the fact that about a week after his return, he died. So that happened in the third year of the 14th century.
I
mentioned yesterday the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. Now that is a name
which, of course, is taken from the Bible; but it is a name which came to be
applied to this situation, and it can be quite appropriate. It is appropriate
because the popes were now a long ways away from where they were supposed to
be. If they were bishops of Rome, they had no business having a tremendous
palace in southern France, at which they lived in luxury, with great numbers of
retainers and associates there. It was the scandal of Europe; it was the life
of the court; it was so far from Rome; what was the purpose of it, if they were
bishops of Rome; as they claimed, if their whole power came from the fact that
these bishops of Rome—if they were elected by the clergy of Rome—what business
did they have way up there in Avignon?
So
the name has been used; I imagine it came to be used right at that time, the
Babylonian Captivity of the Church. Now it fits very excellently for a second
reason: because it was 70 years in length. It was just about exactly 70 years
between the time when they moved the papacy to Avignon and the time when they
moved back to Rome again. That of course fits with the Babylonian captivity in
the Bible. Then there's a third reason why the name fits; and that is that the
life of the popes in Avignon was truly Babylonian. It wasn't like the
captivity; the Jews were in oppression; but here the popes truly lived in luxury,
and with tremendous sums of money coming to them, constantly finding new means
of taxing the lower clergy all over the world, who must give added tribute to
the papal headquarters in Avignon. We have the great poet, Petrarch; we have an
account by him of Avignon; an account in which he speaks very devastatingly of
the corruption, the wickedness, the licentiousness of the whole set-up there.
Dante,
who is today considered by many as one of the very greatest poets in the
world's history, and who certainly is greater than all the other Italian
writers—I visited a big, fine second-hand bookstore in New York shortly after
the World War, when they were beginning to import books again from London; and
I noticed a whole shelf of various discussions in English of Dante. And I was
amazed to notice the prices of these books, which were pretty high; and I
mentioned it to the man who had selected the books in Europe to bring over. I
found later how he tripled or quadrupled the prices of everything; but these
were especially high; and I mentioned it to him, and he said, "Oh, we have
no difficulty selling books on Dante; there's a tremendous demand for them,
tremendous interest in Dante."
Well,
Dante is a poet of the Middle Ages; and his pictures of hell, purgatory and
heaven, as he describes his trip through them, give the medieval concept, the
medieval theology. There's no point at which he could be called heretical in
his view of the medieval church; but in it, he put several of the popes of this
period down in hell; and describes their tortures there in hell as he passed
through, and he describes what he says he saw. The Babylonian captivity, then,
was a time when these popes were in Avignon, just on the border of southern
France.
Now
of the popes, well, there are many details of course that could be looked at if
we had time; I don't feel it's necessary that we should. But our great interest
is in the events of the succeeding years, after the beginning of the Protestant
Reformation; but there is one of them with whom we should be familiar, so I
will call
1.
John XXII.
I mentioned yesterday how the first of these popes who preceded John XXII
ordered the Knights Templar dissolved; and he had most of their leaders burned
at the stake, under the claim that they were worshipping the devil; they were
carrying on all sorts of harlotry in their great castle; that they were extreme
heretics; the terrible things said against them, went beyond anything you find
in a book like Ivanhoe, for instance.
But there's a great question how much of truth there was in these charges;
there may been a great deal; there may not.
But
most people feel that the big element back of it was the desire of the king of
France to get their great wealth. McSorley speaks of the Knights Templar here,
and he blames it all on the king. The fact is, that the pope did it; the man
whom the Roman Catholics recognize as the divinely ordained head of the church;
he gave the order under which 54 knights, including the chief of the Knights
Templar, were publicly burned in Paris, as a result of these charges that were
made against him. But now, John XXII, when he became pope—he reigned from 1316
to 1334—and when he was elected pope, many felt that the papacy should move
back to Rome. They said that there had been more than two years after the death
of his predecessor; the 23 cardinals were now assembled at Lyons, and had not
been able to agree until this time. There at Lyons in southern France they met
to determine the new pope; and some of them were very anxious to move the
papacy back to Rome. They said this one pope had been at Avignon; well he'd
been up there to visit; but they said let's move the papacy back where it
belongs. And so before they would elect John XXII they made him promise; they
said, "Now we want you to promise this Avignon residence is at an end. Go
back to Rome." He said, "I promise that I will not mount a horse for
any purpose except to go to Rome." So they elected him pope; and as soon
as they did, he took a boat to Avignon; he went to Avignon, and there he
established a permanent papal court; he built a tremendous palace, and he found
many new ways of getting income from the various countries, all of which
supported a tremendous papal establishment there in Avignon.
Now John has been a matter of great discussion, especially in recent years when the idea has been advanced that the popes are infallible in doctrine. Because, before John became pope, he had written a book in which he had stated that the souls of the blessed do not see God until after the last judgment. McSorley says his enemies made this the basis of a charge of heresy. If the popes in the Inquisition tried someone for heresy, they don't say, "his enemies made this the basis of a charge of heresy," they say "his views were heretical and therefore he was charged." But in this case, McSorley says his enemies made this the basis of the charge of heresy.
Now
it is interesting to see whether the infallible pope doctrinally proceeded to
officially declare that the whole world adopt a view which he held to be the
true view on any theological matter. McSorley says that Emperor Louis urged the
cardinals to summon a general council to condemn the pope, but nothing came of
it. But in 1332, an assembly of theologians of Paris affirmed the condemnation
of John's teachings on this, and asked John to confirm their views. And the
next year, McSorley says, the pope declared he had not intended to define
Catholic doctrine; and later he entirely repudiated his former opinion,
declaring himself in agreement with the Paris theologians. Now that's just a
very brief account of it from McSorley. Of course he's trying to defend the
infallibility of the pope. But recognizing the fact that this pope had written
a book before he became pope, and then he continued to advocate the opinion
rather strongly after he became pope, McSorley doesn't bring that out. Until
the pope found the theologians almost solidly against him, holding that the
saved have the vision of Christ immediately after death, rather than having to
wait till the last judgment. And when he found himself nearly alone, against
the theologians, he gave up his views, and he admitted the theologians were
right. That is something you would expect from anyone in the leadership of any
church; people make mistakes, they find they were wrong; they can be forced by
the overwhelming pressure of the opinion of those who know anything about it,
to give up their views. But it does not fit with the idea that he is the
infallible leader of the church who is authoritative as far as doctrine is
concerned. Well, John XXII is one with whom we should be familiar.
But John XXII had controversy with the emperor. The emperor and the king of England and others were ready to admit that Rome was the head of the western empire; and that the Bishop of Rome the spiritual head of the church; but they were not ready to recognize—although they did begin to pay the tremendous taxes—they were not ready to recognize the complete authority over their actions by a man who lived in France and was very definitely under the thumb of the French king, as was shown in many ways.
There
was one good result of this which I'm going to place into a separate head.
B. Marsilius of
Padua (1275-1342) and William of Ockham (1287-1347). Padua is a city
which everyone has heard of. Thousands of Americans go through it, but
practically none ever stops there; and I was amazed to find I'd been through it
probably ten times and didn't even realize where it was. But it's just next to
Venice. Nearly every American that goes to Europe visits Venice; and on the way
he goes through Padua, and nobody notices it; it's just the next town inland to
Venice; but Padua in the Middle Ages was a very famous city; a center of law,
for the study of law; a great university town; it was an important center of
learning before the Counter-Reformation—that is, the efforts of the Roman
Catholic Church against Protestantism—cut down all intellectuality to a much
lower plane all through Italy.
But
Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham are two of the continental thinkers at
this time, facing the situation of the pope claiming authority over the
emperor; and the emperor trying to assert something of the authority which
previously many emperors had had over popes; these were two of the men who
faced the situation and tried to interpret it; and these two were perhaps the
leading thinkers of the first half of the century. They were very prominent
writers of the time and they had a great influence all through Europe.
McSorley
says Marsilius of Padua was rector of the University of Paris, later appointed
the canon of Padua; and he says that in his book, he went so far as
subordinating the pope and the Holy See to the civil power; that he is said to
have startled even the emperor. He taught that all power comes from the people;
they delegate part of it to the sovereign and part to the councils of popes,
bishops and priests. His theory of the relationship between church and state
has been called a true pagan concept and heretical assaults on the church's
constitution.
Then,
after a papal decision in 1327, he took refuge with the emperor who made him
Imperial Vicar. He was excommunicated by the pope; his views were condemned by
a papal commission. But you notice what his views were. What was his true pagan
concept? What was his heretical assault on the church constitution? It was the
idea that the power comes from the people, and that the people determine what
authority they should have in the state and what authority they should have in
the church. It was very, very similar to what we call our American view today
of the relation of church and state. Of course, we believe that the power in
all comes from God; but we believe that God delegates power to the people,
rather than to any top church official, who has a right to lord it over them.
And that the people have the right to determine who the officials should be to
carry out God's law in relation to them. It's rather interesting to find
Marsilius of Padua lived from 1275 to 1342; thus you see that in the first half
of this 14th century, a man who had been rector of the University of Paris,
canon of Padua, was the leading writer of the time; that he held this judgment
as to the power of the pope and even the power of the emperor.
Now
William of Ockham was a Franciscan. He also lived during the first half of this
century. McSorley says of him, "William of Ockham,, a Franciscan, studied
at Oxford and Paris, became a teacher at the University of Paris, and an
outstanding figure among the Schoolmen. He became one of the foremost defenders
of the emperor; among his work was a compendium of the errors of John XXII. He
recognized the spiritual authority of the church but denied the plenary power
of the pope. He maintained the right of the emperor to intervene in the
government of the church if the pope should be guilty of heresy. William of
Ockham held that the power of the church should rest in the representatives of
the members of the Church, rather than in the pope; that the pope should be a
sort of executive office, to carry out the desires of the church as a
whole."
Now
these two men had great influence in their day, and their views had much
influence on Martin Luther two centuries later. They are among the leading
thinkers and leading writers of this particular period. Now,
C. Urban VI
(1378-1389).
I don't know whether Urban VI Is the best title to give C, because really what
I'm dealing with is two things: I'm dealing with the end of the Babylonian
Captivity, and I am dealing with the beginning of the Great Schism. I'll give
you that title later, but these two are the things that are under C.
Urban
was about as lacking in urbanity as any man who ever had an important position.
But he took the name of Urban VI. It must be called an accident that Urban
became pope; but he is recognized, in the list today of the Roman Catholic
Church, as one of the inspired leaders of this church; and his character is
generally felt to be way superior to that of most of the other popes of the
century. That is to say, he is considered to have been conscientious, and to
have desired to improve and reform the immorality and worldliness of the
papacy. However, he did not show much sense in the way he went about it.
But
first let's see how he became pope. The papacy, while they were reigning in
Avignon, found it difficult to maintain their power over other parts of Europe;
the emperor naturally felt he was emperor over the Holy Roman Empire, and the
pope was head of the spiritual life of the empire; but the pope was under the
control of the king of France. The emperor didn't like that situation; and the
pope was constantly trying to control the emperor anyway, to determine who
would be the next emperor; to control the selection and the actions of the
emperor. Well, that didn't work very well. The Italians were quite incensed
about the bishop of Rome being in France all this time. And in Rome, things
were becoming very disorderly and confused, with petty nobles in Rome fighting
one another on the streets; constantly there was terrible discord and upheaval;
there was misery in Rome and in a large part of Italy; and the rest of Europe
said, "The Bishop of Rome pays no attention to Rome; what right has he
then to lord it over us?"
The
result was that, even in France, there was coming more and more of a movement
to get the pope back to Rome. And so the pope who preceded Urban VI, urged by
St. Catherine of Sienna, returned to Rome; in Rome he found riots, and he found
it necessary to withdraw to the country home of the pope a few miles away, the
place where Boniface VIII had died. And so he had moved back to Rome, and he
had been back there just a year when he died. And the cardinals were down there
at this town near Rome; and the Roman people now demanded that they have a
Roman elected as pope; the cardinals were here in the summer home of the pope,
with the great multitudes of people from Rome and the whole area gathered
around, demanding that they stop this thing of having the bishop of Rome be a
Frenchman living in France; that they—the majority of the cardinals were
French, though there were some of them Italian—that they elect a Roman or at
least an Italian.
And
the cardinals were under tremendous fear, because the people were brandishing
weapons and yelling about what must be done; and under the circumstances, the
cardinals proceeded to elect an Italian, a man who was the bishop of Bari, a
town. He was considered as being a conscientious man, who was not mixed up with
the worldliness for which the papacy had been so widely condemned; and he was a
man whom the crowd would feel was a satisfactory man, a real Italian; and they
proceeded to elect him, but to make him promise them that he, as soon as it was
safe to do so, would move back to Avignon. But he was not there; he was some
distance away, and the mob was getting very, very noisy outside; and so they
announced they had chosen an Italian; and the mob called, "Is he a Roman,
is he a Roman?" And the cardinals decided to take one of their number—a
very old man, who was from Rome—and to put the papal robes on him; but of
course he understood he wasn't elected pope; but they put the papal robes on
him, and took him out in front before the people, so they could see him, and be
applauded. And the result was that the mob quieted down; they thought this
Roman was the pope; but soon after they found that he wasn't, that it was Urban
VI—the man who took the name Urban VI—the Archbishop of Bari. Well, he became
pope then; the cardinals had elected him as pope; they proceeded to support
him; but it's very interesting—the account of him which is given by Farrow, in
his book, with the imprimatur of the church, which contains facts that you can
find in any book about the history of the church at this time. He says that
when they put this cardinal forward as the pope of Rome, the excitement rose to
such a height despite his objections,
"and
so happy was their temper that when informed of the trick, they bore no ill-feelings
and with equal heartiness and joy cheered the arrival of the real pope who,
after gathering twelve of his scattered electors, was installed in the name of
Urban VI. He quickly showed he had little respect for those who had given him
his position. The spirit of reform was strong within him, and he regarded with
horror clerical laxities which had been in large and flamboyant evidence during
previous regimes. Unfortunately, his measures against the abuses displayed
neither tact nor understanding nor tolerance, and a nature that hitherto had
borne a reputation for self confidence and austerity now became, with the
omnipotence of his rank, harsh and arrogant. He was the Pope; and his broad
squat figure and his swarthy countenance set in rigid lines he imperiously
summoned the Princes of the Church and rudely told them of their deficiencies
and of his resolution to change such things.... The six of their colleagues who
had remained at Avignon, who had at first accepted the calamity, for such it
was from their viewpoint, of the Italian triumph at the conclave; but now as
rumors reached them of the unpopular and uncouth methods of Urban, they sent a
representative, the Cardinal Archbishop of Amiens, to investigate. When this
prelate, with bold urbanity gently suggested to the Pope that he should come to
Avignon, Urban flew into an ungovernable rage and loudly swore.... The Avignon
emissary withdrew, but from then on the dark business of intrigue rapidly
gained momentum with the climax approaching when the impetuous pontiff, during
one of his rages, gave substance to the growing suspicion of his sanity, by
attempting to strike a distinguished prelate. The whispers and secret meetings
of the cardinals increased until there was a stealthy exodus of them from the city.
Even the Chamberlain of the papal court deserted Rome, taking with him,
significantly, the tiara. The conspirators, for such was now their status, made
rendezvous at Anagni and from there dramatically announced the election of
Urban to be invalid because it had been made under duress." That certainly
was true. They had elected him under fear of their lives, with the mob outside.
"It was a grave statement, coming as it did not from any heretical body
but from the men who held the electoral privileges. Urban's answer, after one
of his characteristic fits of anger, was to name 29 new cardinals; and two days
later his antagonists calmly proclaimed a new pope, Clement VII." [Farrow,
pp. 197-8]
So
now the Great Schism had begun. All of the cardinals forsook the pope and
elected a new cardinal, a man of high character, a man who was well thought of
everywhere, Cardinal Robin of Geneva. But the man they had previously elected,
they said they had elected him under compulsion; and therefore it was illegal.
He claimed to be pope, and he appointed 29 new cardinals. So now you have all
the cardinals of the new pope; and the man who claimed to be pope choosing a
new set of cardinals; and the whole European world was torn. Who was the pope?
And after a while, after 40 years, there was a third pope; and these three
popes, each claimed to be pope, each had cardinals, each had his court, each
excommunicated the other popes.
I
have a visualized Church History put out by a nun; and she had a picture in it of
the three popes; and each of them is dressed in all the papal regalia—I mean
it's a cartoon—it shows all the three in their papal regalia; and each of them
holding up his hand; giving his infallible declarations; and then, it shows a
common person saying, "Which one is the true pope?" And the answer
is, "Look for the Holy Spirit." And you see a bird hovering over the
head of one of them. That is the proof that this one is—that's the only way
they could tell. Because all three claimed to be; all three had been elected by
regular cardinals of the church; and all three of them claim to be the true
pope, and excommunicated the others.
But
at the point at which we are now looking, there are only two popes; one was in
France and one was in Italy; and naturally the Italians—most of them—recognized
the Italian pope, though there were some parts of Italy in the extreme south
that recognized the French one. France, naturally, recognized the French pope;
Germany naturally recognized the Italian pope; Spain recognized the French
pope; England recognized the Italian pope; Scotland recognized the French pope.
And thus Europe was just about split evenly in halves, half of it recognizing
one pope, and half recognizing the other. But we should not leave Urban
altogether without a little more about him.
Farrow
says, "The papacy had turned to the sword; and in an effort to stay it, a
woman's voice was suddenly heard. St. Catherine of Siena came to Avignon and
the power of her goodness and courage proved sufficient to penetrate the
morasses of court intrigue." [Farrow, p. 194]
One
book said that there were people recognized as saints by the Roman Catholic
Church, people who are today considered saints; one pope had certain ones;
another had others; and the third yet others; these were highly thought of
people who were absolutely convinced this was the right one. Of course that
made it very difficult for the ordinary person to know which was the one
selected by the Lord to be the head of the church. Now St. Catherine of Sienna,
who had had much to do with getting the previous pope to come back to Italy,
tried to persuade Urban; she said, "Accomplish your task with moderation.
For the love of Christ crucified, curb these sudden impulses, prompted by your
nature." So Farrow quotes her [ibid.].
But when he suspected the loyalty of Naples—and Naples did direct its loyalty
to the French pope—when he suspected this, because of his violent quarrel with
its ruler and with six of his cardinals, he tortured and then executed the six
cardinals.
And
Farrow goes on, "The advice went unheeded; and to the end of his days,
Urban persisted in disastrous actions. The unhappy man died on October 15,
1389, after a reign of eleven distressful years; and his death presented an
opportunity to the French pope and his supporters, which was not neglected. The
dark processes of intrigue and plot moved into action while the requiem for the
late pope still echoed in St. Peter's." The cardinals at Rome elected a
man to succeed him; and when the French pope died, they elected one to succeed
him. And so we have these two facing each other; and throughout Europe, people
were more and more becoming convinced that it was a situation which was
absolutely intolerable. Something must be done to remedy it, but it was a long
time before any leader could be found to remedy this situation.
But
before we see what was done, we must go on to one of the greatest men in the
Middle Ages. We, unfortunately, will not have time to spend much time with him,
but we must know a little about his activity, because he was a very great man,
and one who indirectly had a great effect upon modern days.
D. John Wyclif
(1320-1384).
He was an English scholar, and he had been active in Oxford University. But
during the time of the Babylonian captivity, the pope began to demand from
England more and more taxes; and King Edward III of England passed a law that
it should be illegal to send taxes out of England to any foreign ruler,
including the pope, without express permission of the King. And he passed a law
that it was illegal to carry any legal case outside the country, because the
pope was settling cases for all of Europe at Avignon, without the permission of
the English government. And John Wyclif, this scholar, was a man who was chosen
as the head of this representation of the king of England, to go over to
Avignon and to represent the English government in the claims that the popes
were exceeding their power. And when he returned to England, Wyclif was very
popular in England as the scholar who was defending the rights of the English
against the extreme exactions and claims of the pope.
Well,
now whether this started Wyclif studying the whole matter; or whether he
previously was well-engaged in it—and this simply made use of his previous
study; in either event, he went on to subject the whole theological system to a
very thorough examination. McSorley says of him, "Calling the Bible the
sufficient rule of faith, he helped to prepare a vernacular translation of it
so that the common people 'might discover for themselves the true Christian
doctrine'; and published also many tracts, sermons, and theological
treatises." [McSorley, p. 452].
Wyclif
felt that the Bible should be the true source of Christian belief; and he went
on studying the claims of the medieval church, and its views; and one by one he
brought them in relation to the Biblical teaching. He wrote very
extensively—mainly in Latin, some also in English; he was a very prominent
scholar, and very highly thought of at Oxford University. He proceeded to
undertake a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English. And
he made the translation—did a great part of it himself, he got others to help
in portions of it—and he began sending people around the country to read it to
people. There was no printing yet, of course; but they would have copies in
manuscript of the translation. And they would come into a place; and they would
read the Bible to the people in the English. Usually a knight would go along,
an armored knight who would stand there as a guard, and protect him through the
reading of the Bible.
This
knight would stand there with his heavy armor and his training. It would have
taken a military force to interfere; and no ordinary person would dare
interfere with the reader; and they would read the Bible. And so he sent his
readers around, two by two, to read the Bible to people, all through England.
He went on with his writing; taking up one dogma after another; and as long as
he was dealing principally with the claims of the pope, the people of England,
including most of the nobility, were very much in favor of it; but when he got
into the doctrines more, and he took up the doctrine of transubstantiation; and
he wrote a book on the eucharist, denying the idea of transubstantiation; this
had become the central feature of the medieva1 church by this time; it aroused
the leaders of the clergy very solidly against him.
He
was forced to leave Oxford; he went to a little town and there became rector of
the church; and there he devoted himself to continuing his translation work,
his writing, and his preaching. But he was giving the communion one day, when
he suddenly had a stroke and fell over dead. Some of his enemies say that this
happened right at the point of the communion at which he denied the
transubstantiation; that it was the judgment of God against him.
It's
very interesting how his influence went on. In England, it almost entirely died
out. He had a large group of followers at his death, including quite a number
of the nobility. But the government, under the control of the leaders of the
clergy, was set against Wyclif's teaching, and against his making the
Scriptures available in the common language. In 1401, just a few years after
Wyclif's death, a law was passed in England for the burning of heretics. Such
laws had been in other countries for a long time before this. But in England
they had not had any until 1401. This law was passed, and they began burning
Wyclif's followers at the stake. One of them—one of the leading nobles in
England—had been a close friend of the king before he became king. The king
tried to persuade him to give up the following of Wyclif; but when he refused,
he was burned at the stake; and the work was thus destroyed in England to the
extent that—150 years later—when the Reformation began, there were only a few
people here and there, particularly very poor people, who had copies of
Wyclif's translation and who were devoted to his teaching. There were very,
very few, and his influence had practically been killed in England, because of
his translation.
At
the town of Constance [in Germany], which we look at later in the next
century—I'm just mentioning it in this connection, in 1415—Wyclif's teachings
were condemned; and they dug up his body, burned it, and scattered the ashes on
the river. Someone later said that this river went into a larger river and from
that into the Rhine, and from that on to the ocean; and thus the ideas of
Wyclif were scattered like his bones.
Well,
that would not have been the case if it had not been for the Wyclif movement
later on; because it was completely ended as far as his influence in England
was concerned, just for a very few poor people here and there, constantly in
danger of being killed for following his teachings. The general attitude was
that the Latin was the Bible, and that the scholars could study it, but that
the ordinary person would just get confused by it. And if a person didn't know
enough to know Latin, he didn't know enough to try to interpret it.
But
the great opposition to him did not come on account of the translation. It came
on account of his denial of transubstantiation; and then of course, that was
connected up with this; because the people who read the translation began arguing
on transubstantiation; for or against it, on the basis of the translation. They
said a person should be a scholar; should at least know Latin, which was the
language of scholarship, before he was able to discuss such matters. Now the
influence of John Wyclif practically died out in England; though for another 50
years after his death, this influence continued much more strongly in another
country hundreds of miles away from England, using a language which practically
no English can use; very few English know this language at all.
Yet in that country, the teachings of John Wyclif spread far greater than they ever had in England. A most interesting thing: one of the English kings at this time, the time of Wyclif, married a girl from Czechoslovakia; and when she came, she brought some people with her, from Czechoslovakia; and they became interested in Wyclif's writings; and they took them back with them to their country, which we today call Czechoslovakia; it was then called Bohemia. And the writings of John Wyclif—this is getting into the next century, the 15th century, we're just at the end of the 14th now—the writings of John Wyclif kindled the zeal of one of the great preachers of the world's history, a Czech called John Huss. And John Huss's writings and his sermons are—many of them—word for word, translations of John Wyclif. He was tremendously influenced by John Wyclif; he was a good scholar, but not as great a scholar as John Wyclif—but he was a tremendous preacher; a man of tremendous ability; and he preached in the Czech language; and he fired the Czech people—they called them Bohemians of course. And the result was that, eventually, thousands of those people, in standing for the things of John Huss, resisted the finest soldiers of Europe; and armed with nothing but pitchforks and rakes they drove back the armed knights of Europe; and it took nearly 200 years before they finally could be demolished and brought under control; and finally, then, after 200 years, the Czechs were brought under control; and it was made punishable by death to have the Czech translation of the Bible; and for another 200 years it was strictly forbidden in Czechoslovakia; and then 200 years later, when the Austrian emperor gave permission to the Czechs to again have freedom of worship, hundreds of copies of John Huss's Bible were brought out, that had been hidden for 200 years and secretly studied by the Czechs. It was one of the great evangelical movements of history, was this Czech movement, which was a direct result of the teaching of John Wyclif. His teaching died out in England, but in Czechoslovakia, they had this tremendous continual result in the great Hussite movement, and that went on into the next century.
So
we had better do so also.
We
took far less time on the 14th century than we did on the 13th. McSorley calls
the 13th century The Papacy Dominant; the 14th he calls The Decline; and while
it was a time of much intellectual activity, it was a time in the religious
area—as far as the papacy was concerned—of definite decline, without the great
writers or leaders for religious movements of the previous century. And we are
able to pass over it much more quickly than most of the previous centuries. But
now we come to the 15th century which is the century immediately before the
Reformation, the Reformation of the 16th century; and it is laying the
foundation for the situation that developed there.
A.
The Great Schism.
That was the matter which disturbed the people of Europe at the beginning of
this century. There were two popes; there was a French pope and an Italian
pope. Half of Europe thought the French pope was the established leader of the
church, who should be given complete obedience; the other half thought it was
the Italian; and everyone felt it was an impossible situation. Something should
be done to remedy it, but what could you do that would remedy it? So they tried
to get the popes to resign. Each of them would promise he'll resign if the
other one would too; but what proof did he have the other one would; and
everybody was afraid that, if one of them resigned, the other would say,
"Well now, I am the pope; everybody must obey me," and no progress
would be made.
And
so in 1409, a number of the cardinals of both popes got together in Italy at
Pisa; and there at Pisa in Italy, they held a council; and at this council,
these cardinals declared that both of the popes were deposed; neither of them
was the true pope; and they elected a new man to be the pope; and this new man,
who took the name of Alexander V at Pisa, they declared was the true pope.
He
announced that Gregory and Benedict and a few others were heretics and
schismatic; but comparatively few people recognized him; so after 1409, you
simply had three popes instead of two. And each of them denounced the others,
and declared the others were heretics, schismatic, and so on; and no one was a
true Christian; no one could be saved unless he was subject to him; and of
course, this was a worse situation yet. And so the leaders of the church were
disturbed about the division of the papacy; they were disturbed about the
terrible corruption in the church; which they said needed reform of its head
and its members; and they were disturbed about the rise of heresy in the
Hussite movement, which followed Wyclif's teaching. So they called another
council, the council of Constance, which is one of the most important councils
in the history of the Christian Church—the Council of Constance, from
1414-1418. It ran for 4 years. It was very important, but we will look at it
next time.
We
were talking about the Great Schism. Some countries considered one to be pope;
some a second; some a third. There are some people who are today honored as
saints in the Roman Church, who considered one to be the real pope; some who
considered a second; some who considered a third. And therefore it's a question
to ask, "Who was the real pope?"
The answer is, "They were equally real, and equally unreal." But if the question is, "Who does the Roman Catholic Church today consider to be the real pope?"—I don't know how soon it was after that time that the church decided upon a definite attitude—but they did decide that since Urban VI had been elected by the cardinals, that he was the real pope; and so the Roman line is the line that they today consider to be real pope; and they consider all the rest as anti-popes. They have adopted that line today. And in fact, they even say the council of Constance got its whole authority from the last one of this line; though that's purely theoretical
And
we noticed that in 1409 there was an attempt made to put an end to the Great
Schism. When you have had for 35 years half of Europe considering that the pope
in Avignon was the pope; and half of Europe considering that the pope in Rome
is the pope; everybody realized that it was an absolutely impossible situation;
and an attempt was made to heal the schism in 1409 by most of the cardinals
deserting both popes; they called a council to meet at Pisa in Italy; and there
at Pisa these cardinals proceeded to desire to bring order in the church and to
do away with the schism. But they, after talking a while about restoring it,
they finally settled on electing a new pope, and deposing the other two. The
only trouble is, the other two didn't pay any attention to their order deposing
them. We can hold a meeting here today; and we can order Khrushchev to be
deposed from being premier of Russia; but I don't think Khrushchev would pay any
attention to it; and neither the Roman pope nor the Avignon pope paid any
attention to the fact that most of their cardinals had gone to Pisa and elected
a third pope. So now you had three popes instead of two, after 1409.
Now
I'm not asking you to remember all the names of these popes, but I'm going to
read them to you. I don't remember them myself, but I'm going to read you these
names just so you will have an idea of it:
Urban
VI is one you should remember. He is the man who in 1378 became the pope in
Rome. And Urban VI, at Rome, was succeeded after a few years—after he had
murdered six or seven of the cardinals, made everybody hate him—he finally was
succeeded by Boniface IX who reigned from 1389 to 1404; and he by Innocent VII
from 1404 to 1406; and he by Gregory XII, 1406 to 1415. I'm not going to ask
you to remember any of those names except Urban VI.
I
did not ask you to remember the name of the new Avignon pope, but I will
mention him; you can find it in any history book: Clement VII, who reigned from
1378 to 1394; he was succeeded by Benedict XIII, who thought that he reigned
from 1394 to 1424. That was his consideration, that he was pope from 1394 to
1424. While in Pisa, a pope was appointed—an elderly man, a very elderly
man—who took the name of Alexander V; but Alexander V, after one year, died,
1409 to 1410; you do not have to remember the name of Alexander V, but I am
asking you to remember the name of the man who succeeded him, who was thought
by probably more people than any other of these to be the true pope in the few
years after the council of Pisa. That was John XXIII. He was pope from 1410 to
1415.
[student:
Why do popes change their names?] Originally popes simply used their own names.
Originally. Many centuries passed before any pope used anything but his own
name. But then the time came when one of the popes took a notion, when he
became pope, to change his name, and take the name of an illustrious
predecessor; and then others started doing it, and then soon the habit got so established
that all popes did it. But of course a pope would take the name of John; he'd
simply be pope John, and they did not use numbers after their name. But as time
went on and historians began to find it difficult to keep them apart, they
began to count them up and say well this is the 17th; so you find a
little question. You find differences as to whether the pope Stephen who dug up
Formosus' body and tried it publicly, whether he was Stephen VI or VII. It has
been decided now that he was Stephen VI; but earlier they weren't sure whether
there had been five Stephens or six before him. But I would imagine that by
this time, we're speaking of now, they had pretty well settled on the numerical
system. They might be incorrect; they might have miscounted one way or the
other; but they pretty well agree, so while everybody called him Pope John,
they would refer to him as John XXIII; he was the 23rd as far as they knew—of
that name—who was a pope. Is there anybody here who remembers a John before
him? It is a fact that you have 23 Johns and very few of them have been given
special notice. It's rather interesting. But there are two of them whom I
mentioned very particularly: John XII, according to McSorley is the worst man,
save one, who was ever Pope. Benedict IX was even worse. John XII was a young
Roman noble—noble in rank certainly not in character—one of the most wicked men
that ever lived in Italy. And he was pope; and he is the one I want you also to
remember, because of his extreme machinations. That's John the XII. And John
XXII, I discussed yesterday; he was a pope at Avignon, who had written a book
which, after he became pope, was widely attacked as heretical; and he withdrew
the views in it, after defending them for quite a while; he found the pressure
was too great and he withdrew. And four Johns I would like everyone to
remember: John XII, John XXII, John XXIII, and the new John XXIII; but the new
one won't enter into this particular course. But then there was no John in
between the John XXIII back then and the new John today. There had been such
terrible wickedness among the Johns that nobody took the name until now; and he
(the new John) thinks that by living an illustrious life he can expunge this
memory of previous Johns.
Well,
the only names I'm asking you to remember of them is Urban VI of the Roman
popes during the Schism, and John XXIII, the second of the Pisa popes; and John
XXIII was probably considered by the overwhelming majority of people in this
century to be the real pope; and his point was the Pisa council deposed the
other two popes; and they established Alexander V, whom he had succeeded. Many
people said he had poisoned him in order to succeed him, but we can't prove
that. It may be and it may not. But he said he was the new pope; and it was he
who called the council that put an end to the Schism.
But
we will now leave the Schism and the council for a minute to take up
B.
John Huss (1369-1415). And here we take up one of the greatest men of Christian
history. I wish we had time to spend weeks on this and really get to know him,
because he was a great man of Christian History.
It
is very interesting that this movement which began in England, with Wyclif,
should have a fair amount of influence in England. Oxford University was
entirely under the control of Wyclif and his men; until the church stepped in,
put out all the Wyclif followers; forbade any student having Wyclif's views to
even attend Oxford. It was good as dead. It was made punishable by death to
follow Wyclif; and there were no more English nobles following Wyclif. Some of
them—50 years later—were burned at the stake. But 150 years later, there were a
few people in England—a few poor people—who rather secretly were reading copies
of Wyclif's translation of the Bible. Wyclif's movement affected quite a few
people in his day; a few in the next generation; and hardly any 150 years
later. It just died out with the specter of the persecution.
But
Wyclif's view—we might say it was like a fire—it starts up and makes a flame,
and then it dies down in a few years. But one little cinder, one little bit of
burning wood from it, blew in the wind way over to Czechoslovakia, and there it
caught fire until it was a far greater fire than the original, one whose
effects have lasted right up to the present day. This was due to the fact that
the king of England had married the sister of the king of Bohemia. And this
king of England only lived a very brief time, he was deposed as king of
England; and his wife went back after his death to her own country; but she had
brought with her scholars from Bohemia, and they took back with them the
writings of Wyclif. And today if you want to find the best selection in the
world of the writings of John Wyclif—a far more complete selection than can be
found anywhere else—you go to Vienna; and there in Vienna in the library, you
find a collection of the writings of John Wyclif, which an Austrian Emperor 100
years ago collected in Czechoslovakia. Because his writings were taken—hundreds
of pages, thousands of pages, dozens of books, great, great big books—to help
the students of Bohemia.
And
there they were studied by John Huss; and John Huss was a good student, and a
great person. He was a very, very earnest Christian; and he in Czechoslovakia
studied these teachings. He did not pay attention to the later teachings of
John Wyclif. There's nothing in his teaching which denied any of Wyclif's
teaching; but his emphasis was on the positive part of Wyclif's teaching, rather
than the negative. That is to say, John Huss preached salvation by faith in
Christ; he preached the absolute authority of the Bible, compared to any other
authority; and you do not find in his teaching anything which would hold to the
Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and these other superstitions
which Wyclif attacked; but Huss did not himself take much time attacking these
superstitions. He spent his time presenting the positive evangelical doctrines
that Wyclif had presented.
Now
if Huss had lived longer, maybe he would have spent time on these negative
aspects too. But he did not have an extremely long life, unfortunately. During
his life he became a great influence at the university. As early as 1402 he was
the chief exponent and professor of Wyclifian views at the university. He'd
been born in 1369, by the way; he was a highly educated man. In 1402 he was
rector of the University in Prague. His preaching and his writing and his
influence aroused the leaders of the people in Prague, in Czechoslovakia; and
soon it had a tremendous influence there; and the people there were rejecting
the efforts of any of these folks to force them to fall in line with the
superstitious views, or the demands of the popes.
Huss
was ordered by the Roman clergy to stop teaching. He said that the Lord had
called him to preach; and that he could not, in obedience to the mandate of
pope or archbishop, cease to preach. This would be to disobey God, and imperil
his own salvation. He was driven from the city; but out in the country, he
preached in the fields and in the woods. Lords in their strong castles
protected him; every now and then he was able to get into Prague to preach
some; and he kept up correspondence with the leaders of the university; his
correspondence was filled with quotations from the Scriptures; and Huss
reminded his friends that Christ Himself was excommunicated as a malefactor and
crucified. He said, "You can't look for help from the saints." He
said, "It is Christ alone, from whom we have our salvation, and who should
be the central feature in our life today."
Well,
we cannot go into the details of Huss's life; we'll look at some of the details
of his death in a minute. But we will first go on now to
a. End the
Schism. The
Council of Pisa had failed. Its purpose was to put an end to the schism. Now
instead of having two popes, you have three: Pope John was the leading
ecclesiastical power in Italy. There was Pope Gregory still there, the Roman line
from Urban VI. He had little following but he had some. And he had more
following outside of Italy than in it. The pope in France had a little control
over Scotland and Spain. In France the people were getting more and more
disgusted with the schism; the University of Paris was leading in the desire to
put an end to it; so more of them were looking to Pope John in Italy than were
looking to Pope Benedict in France. But there were enough people following each
of these three that you had an extremely unsatisfactory situation; and leaders
everywhere were determined an end must be put to this situation; we must have
this schism ended and have one man recognized as the executive head of the
Christian Church.
b. Reform the
Church. But
in addition to this, there was great dissatisfaction all through the Christian
world with the condition of the church. Scholars were saying, preachers were
declaring, the church must be reformed in root and branch; they pointed to the
popes; the old line of Urban VI, they pointed to Urban VI's extreme attitude,
his murdering of his cardinals, the different things about him; they pointed to
the old man who was his successor now, who wasn't able to do very much anyway.
They pointed to some of the attitudes of Benedict; and then, when they pointed
to John, who most everybody thought was the real pope, some people said in his
youth he had been a pirate; everybody knew he had been a soldier up through the
years to the time when he became pope; though he had been a cardinal, his whole
effort had been in war rather than in affairs of government, affairs of the
church; and there were all sorts of rumors about him continuing the worst of
sins. They said the church should be reformed in root and in branch. All over
there were very ignorant priests, knowing nothing about the gospel; simply
going through ceremonies; not trained; not understanding the Latin words which
they followed. Many of them living in the vilest of sin; the condition of the
church everywhere was such that they felt there must be a reform; there must be
an improvement in the church everywhere; and so they wanted to have a council
which would reform the church.
It
was hoped that the Pisa council would reform the church. But once the Pisa
council had a new pope selected, he had said, "I'll take care of the
reforming; you folks don't need to stay around anymore." And they had
adjourned, and he hadn't done anything. He died practically within a year; and
he was succeeded by John XXIII, who was the last man anyone would ever think of
as a man who would be likely to make any real reforms. So they wanted a council
that would make a real reform in the church; and then third, there was
c. The Hussite
movement. The
Wyclif movement still had some influence in England. There were some nobles,
still at this time, following Wyclif's teaching; his poor priests, as they
called them, were going about England preaching the Bible; it had some
influence; but in Czechoslovakia, there were thousands of people following
Huss; and ignoring the commands of the bishops and the archbishops that Huss
should quit preaching; and that they should come back to putting their
attention to the ceremonies of the church, as they had done before; and they
felt something must be done about this heresy; so we have these three things
that were in people's minds in feeling there must be a general council called.
Now
someone asked me yesterday, is this an ecumenical council? Well, the word
ecumenical was used first of the Council of Nicea, as the great general council;
the Council of Nicea represented all parts of the world at the time. Succeeding
councils, many were held, but certain of them were designated as general
councils, and they were considered to represent all of the parts of the
Christian church that time; though there were a few sects that were not
included in the later councils—sects of orthodox Christians—but they were small
in proportion to the whole. So you had six ecumenical councils that are
accepted pretty much by all modern Christian groups. Then you get on to the
seventh ecumenical council, and people are not so ready to pay much attention
to it today; and when you get to the 8th, there was a western 8th
and an eastern 8th, both held in Constantinople, The western half thought it
was the general council; the eastern thought it was; so it is pretty clear that
neither was. And after that, you have the west and the east separated, so that
no councils can really claim to represent the whole of professing Christendom
any more after that; although in the west, there were occasional councils
claiming to be general councils, and to represent the whole territory; though
they actually would only represent the west. So that it's pretty hard to do
much with numbers after the 8th general council.
But
at Pisa the attempt was made to have a general council to really reform the
church. Now it was felt we must have one that will really do the job. So the
emperor, Sigismund, who felt that it was necessary to get to an end to this
situation—to all three of these problems mentioned—the emperor Sigismund got in
touch with John XXIII and asked him to call a general council; and John XXIII
thought he'd like to have this general council in Italy. Well, that takes us on
to
2.
Its Beginning.
How did it get started? Well, all over Europe people wanted it; but as for the
matter of how to do it, Sigismund took the initiative; and he got in touch with
John XXIII, who of course agreed, we must put an end to the schism; but John
felt that the way to put an end to the schism was to recognize the Pisa council
and depose the other two popes, and so he was the real pope. And that's what he
was maneuvering to try to get done. So he said, "Let's have a meeting in
Italy," and the emperor said, "Let's not be way down there in Italy;
it's too far from most of the countries of Europe," and the pope said,
"Yes, but we can't go way across the Alps for one." Well, he says,
"If you don't, we have to," so they argued back and forth; and
finally, much to John's disgust, he was finally induced to hold a conference at
Constance, which is at the extreme southern end of Germany, just north of
Switzerland. And at this town of Constance, they called it for a good many
months later; they called it to meet in 1414. It was a little town of 5500
people, very beautiful, situated on Lake Constance, a very lovely place.
But
the council when it came, lasted for four years; and the whole number of people
brought there on account of the council ran around 50,000. Schaff writes,
"There were in attendance on the council, 33 cardinals, 5 patriarchs, 47
archbishops, 145 bishops, 93 titular bishops, 217 doctors of theology, 361
doctors in both laws, 171 doctors of medicine... 83 kings and princes
represented by envoys, 38 dukes, 173 counts, 71 barons, more than 1500
knights.... 700 women of the streets practiced their trade openly or in rented
houses. There were 36,000 beds for strangers. 500 are said to have been drowned
in the lake during the progress of the council." [Schaff, VI, p. 150]
Schaff
follows this account by quotes from a letter by Huss: "I would that ye
might see this Council, which is called the Most Holy Council, and incapable of
error; in sooth you would gaze on a scene of foulness; for it is a common
proverb among the Swiss, that a generation will not suffice to cleanse
Constance from the sins which the Council have committed in that city."
[Workman Letters of Hus, p.263,
"Letter to the Faithful Bohemians", written from prison, June 26,
1415. Quoted in Schaff] His next letter, written two days later said, "I
had many reasons for suspecting that I was to die on the morrow after sending
my last letter. But I hear that my death is put off...But I rejoice that they
were compelled to read my books, in which their wickedness was revealed. I know
that they have perused these books more carefully than the Holy Scriptures in
their desire to discover my errors." [ibid.]
It
was as large a council, perhaps the largest council that ever was held. This
council set to work with these three objectives; and they persuaded John XXIII
to call the council there. John came with a great retinue, and he was expecting
to run the council; but no sooner did the council get started, than he gathered
the people didn't like him very much. They didn't think he was the sort of man
who should be head of the Christian church. And he began to see that most of
them there didn't want to get rid of the other two and keep him; they wanted to
get rid of all three and get a new one; and he rather didn't like that; we'll
see later what happened to him.
3.
Huss and Jerome of Prague. Some of the people there were agreed that what we
want to do is to get the schism ended as quickly as possible; others felt,
"No, what we want to do is reform the church." Others said, "No,
what we want to do is to get the church reformed and then get a new pope."
But all agreed that it was vital to put an end to this heretical movement; it
was threatening to divide Europe; spread all through Czechoslovakia; and they
sent a representative to John Huss, and asked him to come and present his views
to the council. John Huss was a very great orator; a very able figure who could
move multitudes; and he felt that justice and right were so thoroughly with
him, that if he presented what he believed to the council, they would be
convinced; and the council would accept the evangelical views of the
Scriptures; and would declare, "That's what should be taught throughout
Europe."
But
he had sense enough not to come without a thorough guarantee; and Emperor
Sigismund gave him a safe conduct; he gave him assurance he could go to the
council; he could be heard there; he could travel back to his home safely;
orders from the emperor that no one is to interfere with John Huss in any way
until his return to his home. Well, these orders were given; John Huss came to
the council; and there John Huss began preaching and holding meetings in his
home. Some people in the council wanted to reform the schism quickly; some
wanted to reform church quickly; but all agreed we must do something about
heresy. So one night, as John Huss was finishing supper with some of his
friends, a burgher came to the door, and said "Mr. Huss, the cardinals are
meeting and would like to have you come and speak with them." And Huss
said, "Well, he said, what do they want?" "Well, they want to
talk with you; would you come now please?" So Huss, taking a friend with
him, went, and met with the cardinals; and they began talking with him; and he
discussed things freely with them; and after they had talked a while, then they
turned to the friend and said, "You may go." But, he said,
"Isn't John coming with me? Are you ready to come, John?" They said,
"He's not going, he's staying here."
So
they took him and put him into prison. They put him into prison; they bound him
with a heavy chain to the wall; put him at the bottom of a deep dungeon, where
the was no light; and he stayed there for nearly a year; and when the emperor
Sigismund heard of it, he was thoroughly disgusted; he said, "I've given
him an absolute safe conduct; I guaranteed nothing would happen till he could
get back safely." People said to Sigismund, "What right has the
emperor to give an order that the spiritual authorities cannot change? Besides
this," they said, "when a man makes a false promise contrary to the
interests of the church, it is better broken than kept." They said,
"Think of Herod when he promised Salome he would give her anything she
wanted; she said, the head of John the Baptist on a platter; wouldn't it have
been better if he had broken the promise instead of going ahead?" Well,
now, they said, "You've given a wrong oath to protect a heretic."
They said, "No oath to protect a heretic is valid." And so Sigismund
objected and resisted, but they insisted; and he was so anxious to heal the
schism and reform the church, that he thought for the sake of the greatest
good, he would overlook the breaking of his promise in this regard, and so he
did nothing for Huss. So they kept Huss in prison; and when they finally
brought him out and brought him before the council, they spent a long time
trying to find what they could convict him of; because they did not have
definite statements of his like they had in Wyclif's writing. He had not gotten
into much of the negative thought.
But
they did find this very clearly: that the Bible is the authority. The Bible is
the authority, and if any church, and even a pope, disagreed with the Bible, he
is wrong. And they said, "This is denying the authority of Holy
Scripture." So they brought John Huss out, and they brought him to the
great cathedral to appear for trial; and Huss was ready to present his views,
but they wouldn't let him say a thing. All they would do was say, "Here we
find in one of your sermons you say the Bible is the authority; anything contrary
to this is wrong. Is this true? Are you ready to recant, take this back?"
He said, "I can't do that." And then he started describing his view;
and they said, "That's enough, that's enough, yes or no?" And all
they would let him say was, yes or no. "Will you recant these
things?" Of course he couldn't recant them; so they sentenced him to be
killed; they put a big paper hat on his head with pictures of the devil on it;
they came and took his ecclesiastical robe off him; deposed him from the rank
of being a priest; they said, "Take him out and burn him; and they took
him out across the river there; and there they tied him to the stake; and they
there declared that they were delivering his soul over to the devil. They had
given him the offer, through his recanting, if he would take back his heresy,
he would not be killed but simply imprisoned for life. What the Inquisition
always did; if one recanted, he was imprisoned for life; if he did not, he was
killed.
So
they burned him there at the stake. And when word of this reached
Czechoslovakia, it caused a tremendous storm, which resulted in battles that
went on for 150 years; it was not till 1621 that Czechoslovakia was reduced to
complete control of Roman Catholic Church. It was a tremendous movement which
now has completely—well, practically—disappeared; we don't know who are
Christians in secret today, but under the Communists now; and then all those
long years under Roman Catholic tyranny; and they had only a brief time,
between the first and second World War, when they had freedom in
Czechoslovakia. But mentioned here in the heading is Jerome of Prague.
Jerome
of Prague was Huss's best friend; and when Huss went to the Council, and got an
idea of how things were looking, he wrote a letter to Jerome of Prague; and he
said, "Don't come to the Council; stay away from here." But he was
already on the way; the note failed to reach him. He came to the Council and
soon after they seized Huss, they seized Jerome of Prague; and after Huss was
burned, then Jerome of Prague, one of his followers, was also brought for
trial; and he, not being a great speaker like John Huss, was given a little
more opportunity to defend himself.
A
man who later was secretary to one of the popes—a typical humanist of the day,
a man who believed in nothing—but would never say anything contrary to the
principles of the church, was present at the trial of Jerome of Prague; and he
wrote a letter to a friend of his, in which he made very clear that he himself
of course would accept anything the church said, but he couldn't help but
admire Jerome of Prague; and I want to read you excerpts from a letter he
wrote. This man was later a papal secretary, a man who had great influence; but
a man who wrote many very obscene and wicked things. He was a man with no
belief; but he was a very able man; and he was a good writer; and could not
help being impressed by Jerome of Prague.
"Poggio to Leonardo Aretino,
When for several days I was staying at the baths, I wrote thence a letter to
our Nicholas which I suppose you will read. When I returned to Constance, or a
few days later, the case of Jerome was taken up ... I confess that I have never
seen any one, who in a matter of pleading, involving life or death, came so
near the eloquence of the ancients, whom we so greatly admire. It was wonderful
to see with what words, with what eloquence, with what arguments, with what
countenance, with what language and with what confidence he replied to his
adversaries, and how justly he put his case: so that it is impossible not to
regret that so noble and prominent a genius should be diverted to the interests
of heresy, if indeed those things are true, which are charged against him. For
I have no disposition to pass judgment... Nor do I intend to give a detailed
report of the case... it would be too long, and the work of many days. I shall
touch upon certain of the more important points, in which you may observe the
learning of the man... It pleased the assembly that he should reply publicly to
those charges one by one which had been brought against him. So he was led into
the assembly, and when he was ordered to reply to these things he still
refused, saying that he ought to be allowed to state his own case, rather than
to reply to the slanders of his adversaries.... But when this concession was
denied him, still standing in the midst of the assembly, he said: “how great a
wrong is this, that while for three hundred and forty days I have languished in
strictest confinement, in squalor and filth, shackled and deprived of
everything, you have constantly given audience to my opponents and detractors,
and yet refuse to hear me one single hour.... If you have prejudged me in your
minds an evil man, how will you be able to determine what I really am? And (he
said) you are men, not gods; not immortal, but mortal, liable to fall into
error, to mistake, to be deceived, duped and led astray. In this gathering are
said to be the lights of the world, the wiser ones of earth. Most of all it
becomes you then to take great pains, lest anything be done inconsiderately or
unadvisedly against justice. For my part I am a human being, whose life is in
the balance; but I say these things not for my own sake, who am but mortal. It
seems to me unworthy of your wisdom to set against me so many men in violation
of all justice, and a thing likely to be harmful not so much in this instance
as by example. These and many things beside he said most elegantly, interrupted
in his speech with the noise and murmurings of many present. Then it was
decreed that he should reply first to the errors which were urged against him;
and that afterwards an opportunity be given him to speak as he chose. Thereupon
the heads of the accusation were read one by one from the pulpit and afterwards
substantiated with testimony. Then he was asked if he desired to make
objection.... It is incredible how adroitly he replied, and with what arguments
he defended himself. He advanced nothing unworthy of a good man; as though he
felt confident, as he publicly asserted, that no just reason could be found for
his death nor even for his conviction of the least offence. He declared all the
charges to be false, invented by his rivals.... Many he touched with humor,
many with satire, many he often caused to laugh in spite of the sad affair,
jesting at their reproaches.... On the third day the accused, rising, said:
“Since you have listened so attentively to my adversaries; it is right and
proper that you should hear me with unbiased minds.” Then notwithstanding much
confusion, permission was granted him to speak.... Then he laid bare the causes
of their hatred in such a way that he lacked little of bringing conviction.
They were of such a character that (except in the matter of faith) little
credence would have been given to their evidence. The minds of all were moved
and turned toward mercy; for he added that he had come to Constance of his own
free will, to clear himself. He described his life and studies, full of
services and virtues. Such he said was the custom of the most learned and
holiest men of old, that they held diverse opinions in matters of faith, not to
the injury of the faith, but to the discovery of the truth. In this way
Augustine and Jerome differed, not alone that they held diverse opinions, but
also contrary ones; and this with no suspicion of heresy.... All expected that
either he should purge himself of heresy, by retracting the things charged
against him, or should ask pardon for his errors. But he asserted that he had
not erred, and pointing out the falsity of the charges made by others, was
unwilling himself to retract. So coming down to praise John Huss, who had been
condemned to be burnt, he called him a good man, just and holy, unworthy of
such a death, saying that he himself was prepared to go to any punishment
whatsoever, with brave and steadfast mind... In his praise of John Huss he said
that Huss had never held opinions hostile to the Church of God itself, but only
against the abuses of the clergy, against the pride, the arrogance and the pomp
of prelates.... It seemed to this good man a shame that it should come to be
wasted upon harlots, banquets, food for horses and dogs, elegant garments and
other things unworthy of the religion of Christ. But here he displayed the
greatest cleverness; for when his speech was often interrupted with various
disturbances, and he was assailed by some who carped at his opinions, he left
no one of them unscathed, but turned trenchantly upon them, forced them either
to blush or to be still. When murmurs rose he was silent, occasionally rebuking
the throng. And then he proceeded with his discourse, beseeching them and
imploring that they should suffer him to speak (when they were no longer
disposed to give him audience). He never showed fear of these outcries, but his
mind remained firm and fearless.... His voice was full, clear and soft; his
posture oratorical with a certain dignity, expressing indignation and moving
pity, which, however, he neither sought, nor desired to obtain. He stood there
fearless and unterrified, not alone despising death, but seeking it; so that
you would have said he was another Cato. O man, worthy of the everlasting
memory of men! I praise not that which he advanced... but I admire his
learning, his comprehensive knowledge, his eloquence, his persuasiveness of
speech, his cleverness in reply.... When he persevered in his errors, and was
condemned by the council for heresy and burned with fire, he went to his fate
with joyful and willing countenance; for he feared not the fire, nor any kind
of torture or death.... But what most showed his strength of courage was this:
when the executioners wished to start the fire behind his back (that he might
not see it), “Come here,” he said, “and light the fire in front of me. If I had
been afraid of it, I should never have come to this place (which it was
possible to avoid.)”... I saw this death, and watched its stages, one by
one.... Nor did Socrates drink the poison so willingly as he accepted fire. But
enough of this. Be economical of my words, if I have been too long. The affair
really demands a longer description; but I do not wish to be verbose. Farewell,
my excellent Leonardo. Constance, the third day before the Calends of June, the
same day on which this Jerome suffered the penalty of heresy. Farewell, and
love me. [Whitcomb, Literary Sourcebook
of the Italian Renaissance (1900), p.40. Letter written the same day on
which Jerome was burned at the stake.]
That
very Christian letter, written by this utter unbeliever who later became a
papal secretary, shows how he could not but admire the constancy of Jerome as
he followed Huss to the burning flame.
4.
John XXIII (1410-1415). John was hoping that he would be recognized as the pope,
but he saw that people more and more would not. He gave the sermon at the
opening of the council, on "speak only the truth." And somebody said
it was a queer sermon for him to give, because they didn't remember any time
he'd ever spoken the truth. And he thought people were more and more unfriendly
to him and so he began to make preparations to get away.
The
council was upset. What would happen if they didn't even have a pope there?
They said the council of Pisa was a council but they had no pope there. Well,
now here they had a pope, but what would they do if he left? So they made him
swear that he would not leave the council until it was resolved. And four days
later, all of a sudden, they found he had disguised himself as a groom and
ridden a horse out of the city and gotten away. And they said to him later,
"You promised you would never leave till we dissolved." "Oh,
yes," he said, "but the fact is, that if the pope leaves, that
automatically dissolves it." So he said, "I did not break my
oath."
So
then the leaders of the Council voted that they declare the pope is only the
executive head of the church; the council is the voice of God; it is the
authority; the pope must obey the council; the council has just as much
authority without the pope present as it has when he is here. They took that
strong stand on the authority of councils, and the pope being only an executive
officer of the council.
Eventually
they managed to seize him; and they brought him back to the council. And there,
when they had him back before the council, they put him on trial; and they
accused him of 70 different charges. And these charges of which he was accused
included just about every wicked thing you could think of. It really is—they
say that ten of the charges were so very unmentionable that they decided not to
publish them. But they accused him of every crime against morality, against
decency, that you can possibly think of; and the Roman Catholic books of today
say that the charges which were made against John were frightfully exaggerated;
many of these things were not true; and yet of course, it must be admitted that
he had lived a bad life; that he was a wicked man; and that he was certainly
very worldly and not a man who was worthy to be a head of the church; and of course,
they've gotten around it very nicely now by saying the Roman popes were the
genuine popes; and John, while most people then recognized him as the true
pope, they say he was an anti-pope.
But
he was deposed and put into prison, where he remained for ten years; after
which he was released and made an archbishop. But he died then a year after his
release. If we had six years for Church History instead of two, we could go
into detail in such a way that it would be much more interesting than touching
on it here. We will be able to do that in the fall, because with Luther we go
into much detail; and it is far more interesting. Here we have to hit the high
spots. But this is number 4, John XXIII. If time permitted I would read some of
the accusations against him. Well,
5.
Efforts at Reform.
The council, as you know, lasted four years; and in the council there was a
constant division among the people: shall we proceed and get a new pope? Or
shall we reform the church? Some said, "We've got to have an executive
head for the church before we can carry out reform." Others said, "At
Pisa once they got a pope, and then they had to reform him." They said,
"Let's proceed to reform the church first." And so they appointed all
sorts of committees to look into the matter of reforming the church; and they
brought in their criticisms, their suggestions of the terrible corruption that
was in all parts of the church then, and the great need for reform; but they
couldn't agree on what to do about it. They argued and discussed it; it went on
for four years; and more and more the pressure came, "Let's get a pope we
can agree upon." And so in the end, Pope Gregory, the old man who traced
his line back to Urban VI, he agreed to resign; he came to the Council, gave them
his blessing; and agreed to resign, The Roman Catholics today say the Council
gets its authority because Gregory came and gave them his blessing. But nobody
then thought so. But he came and gave them his blessing; and he resigned and
they made him Archbishop; they said he should be a leader of the cardinals
after that. He was a very old man. The other pope absolutely refused to resign;
and everybody in France left him; everybody in Spain except one town; and in
one town in Spain, he continued another ten years, as pope with only one town
supporting him.
But
the council declared that he was deposed, that he was no longer pope, and they
proceeded to elect a pope. So
6.
The New Pope Martin V. And it is very interesting to see what Farrow says
about the new pope. If I could lay my hand on it—yes, Farrow speaks of the
Avignon pope, he says, "To his death in the stern precincts of a lofty
Spanish town, he remained a pope without a church, pathetically and daily
delivering interdicts of excommunication against an unbelieving world." So
for ten years then you have the Avignon pope in Spain there, declaring that no
one could be saved who was not subject to him, but nobody was paying any
attention to him except the one town. But now he says, "For two years the
papal throne remained empty; and while the electors slowly pondered, the
ambassadors of various nations and interests pressed forward the claims of
their candidates with a multiplicity of development.
Finally
on November 11, 1419, a name was announced; and the cardinal Colonna became
pope Martin V. Farrow continued, "His very name [Colonna] was a signal for
the lowering of hope, and it was apparent that his family had lost neither its
ambition nor its peculiar genius; yet while he cannot be absolved of nepotism,
and he was not the great reformer so urgently needed in the church, he was at
least in the temporal sense a good ruler; and furthermore his private life was
decent and free from scandal, a circumstance not so rare as might be desired in
the lives of other great prelates who had attained their status in a similar
way." That's what Farrow says in his Roman Catholic history of the popes.
And they elected Martin V pope; and by this time, they were all getting pretty
tired; and Martin said to them, "Why did you folks worry about reform in
the church? I will take care of that; I will reform the church." And they
said, "Well, how do we know you'll do it?" "Oh, of course, you
can trust me; I'm the Vicar of Christ on earth; I'm head of the church; I will
certainly reform it all through." Well, they said, "We're not sure,
so here's what we'll do; we will disband the council; after four years
everybody is dead tired; we will adjourn, but we will meet again in ten
years." And they passed very strict rules: every ten years, there is to be
a meeting of the general council; the general council has authority over the
church; the general council is going to watch the reforms that the popes are
carrying through; the pope is executive officer, but the general councils make
the decisions. This was the attitude and the decision of the council of
Constance, which was accepted as a general council and an authority; the Roman Catholic Encyclopedia says that the
general councils are authoritative in their decisions. And this was the
decision of the council of Constance. However
D.
The Popes of the 15th Century. And Martin V is called sometimes
"the second founder of the papacy." He was a very clever man. And he
proceeded to build up the papal power; and to ignore reforms except for just a
few pretenses here and there; and ten years later, when it was time for another
council, he had died; and his successor proceeded to make all kinds of excuses
against calling one. And when they called it, and the plague broke out in the
town, he said it was an unhealthy place, and they had better move to another
place; and he made difficulties and finally it adjourned. So then 20 years
later, the time came, and they called another council; but then the pope
managed to scheme and maneuver in such a way that that council adjourned
without accomplishing anything; and they quit calling them after that.
So
all the plans of the council of Constance for reform ended in nothing; and the
popes for the rest of the century became increasingly more corrupt. They vary; some
of them better than others; none of them sunk to the utter degeneration of the
popes of the 10th century; but some of them were just about as immoral as the
popes of the 10th century; some of them had their mistresses right in the
Vatican with them; their children they made cardinals when they were little
boys; the corruption at the end of this century in the papacy was as bad as it
had been before; except that they were more able men; and their power was
greater, their money was greater, and their influence was greater than during
that time before the German emperors really established the papacy.
In
1400, the need of reform was thoroughly recognized; the council of Constance
made a great effort; and all it succeeded in doing was burning John Huss and
Jerome of Prague; putting an end to the schism; and getting new popes who
cleverly maneuvered to destroy all the desires of the council. And so that
leads us to
E.
Europe on the Eve of the Reformation. The church is riddled with corruption;
everywhere there is a lack of education; lack of any understanding of spiritual
things; particularly in the spiritual leaders; and this condition had been
recognized by the council of Constance. The leaders of all of Europe had come
together, recognizing something must be done; but nothing came of it. A hundred
years went by; the church became more and more corrupt in these hundred years;
though people realized the need of reform. And a hundred years later, when
Martin Luther began the Reformation, the need was just as great as it had been
in 1400, but the popes were strongly entrenched; everybody remembered what had
happened to John Huss; and when the emperor at Salzburg told Martin Luther,
"You come to Rome, and present your case, and I'll give you safe conduct
to come and return, safely." Luther's friends said, "Remember what
happened to John Huss." And Luther said, "I will probably be burned,
but I'm going to go and witness before the emperor." He said, "If
there were as many devils in the forests as there are tiles on the housetops,
I'd still go to Rome." What happened there, we look at in the next course.
End of Pre-Reformation Church History
June, 1960