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national schismatic churches under Moslem rulers, and only the largest

fragment of the Church of the East is the State Church of the greatly

reduced Eastern empire. In the West, the imperial influence has ceased,

and the Roman see has allied its fortunes with the rising Frankish power,

and the rise of a Western empire is already foreshadowed.



In this period, the imperial ecclesiastical system, which had begun with

Constantine, found its completion in the Caesaropapism which was

definitively established by Justinian as the constitution of the Eastern

Church. But at the same time the Monophysite churches seceded and became

permanent national churches. The long Christological controversy found, at

least as regards Monophysitism, its settlement on a basis derived from the

revived Aristotelian philosophy; and the mystical piety of the East, with

its apparatus of hierarchy and sacraments, found its characteristic

expression in the works of Dionysius the Areopagite.



While in the East the Church was assuming its permanent form, in the West

the condition of the Church was being profoundly influenced by the

completely changed political organization of what had been the Roman

Empire of the West, but was now parcelled out among new Germanic

nationalities. The Church in the various kingdoms, in spite of its

adherence to the see of Rome as the centre of Catholic unity, came, to no

small extent, under the secular authority, and Christianity in Ireland, in

Spain, among the Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and even among the Lombards in

Italy assumed a national character, coming largely under the control and

subject to the laws and customs of the nation. In this period were laid

the foundations of the leading ecclesiastical institutions of the Middle

Ages, as the Church, although still under the influence of antiquity,

adapted itself and its institutions to the changed condition due to the

political situation and took up its duty of training the rude peoples that

had come within its fold.



The seventh and eighth centuries saw the completion of the revolution in

the ecclesiastical situation. In the East, in the territories in which the

national churches of the Monophysites were established, the Moslem rule

protected them from the attempts of the orthodox emperors to enforce

uniformity. The attempts made to recover their allegiance before they

succumbed to Islam had only ended in a serious dispute within the Orthodox

Church, the Monothelete controversy, which ended in the Sixth General

Council of 681. In Italy the Arian Lombards were gradually won to the

Catholic faith, but the Roman see soon found itself embarrassed by the too

near secular authority. Accordingly, when the controversy with the East

over Iconoclasm broke out, the Roman Church became practically independent

of the Eastern imperial authority, and in its conflict with the Lombards

came into alliance with the rising Frankish power. With this, the

transition to the Middle Ages may be said to have been completed. It was,

however, only the last of a series of acts whereby the Church was severing

itself from the ancient order and coming into closer alliance with the new

order in the life of the West. Henceforth the Church, which found its

centre in the Roman see, belongs to the West, and its relations to the

East, although no formal schism had occurred, are of continued and

increasing estrangement or alienation.





The Cambridge Medieval History, vol. II, will cover the entire

period and give ample bibliographical references.







Chapter I. The Church In The Eastern Empire





The century extending from the accession of Justin I (518-528) to the end

of the Persian wars of Heraclius (610-641), or from 518 to 628, is the

most brilliant period of the Eastern Empire. The rise of Islam had not yet

taken place, whereby the best provinces in Asia and Africa were cut off

from the Empire. A large part of the West was recovered under Justinian,

and under Heraclius the power of Persia, the ancient enemy of the Roman

Empire, which had been a menace since the latter part of the third

century, was completely overthrown in the most brilliant series of

campaigns since the foundation of the Roman Empire. With the death of

Justin II (565-578), the family of Justin came to an end after occupying

the throne for sixty years. But under Tiberius (578-582) and Maurice

(582-602) the policy of Justinian was continued in all essentials in the

stereotyped form known as Byzantinism. The Church became practically a

department of the State and of the political machinery. The only

limitation upon the will of the Emperor was the determined resistance of

the Monophysites and smaller factions. Maurice was succeeded by the rude

Phocas (602-610), whom a military revolution placed upon the throne, and

who instituted a reign of terror and blood. Upon his downfall, Heraclius

(610-641) ascended the throne.