SECOND PERIOD.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH PREDOMINANT AMONG THE GERMANIC AND SLAVIC NATIONS. SHE CONVERTS THEM TO CHRISTIANITY, AND CIVILIZES THEM. HER HISTORY TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

§ 144. Character of the Roman Catholic Church during the Present Period.

Relic of Möhler's (Hist. Polit. Papers, Vol. X., p. 564–574.) †*J. v. Görres, 1. 1. year 1851, Vol. XXVIII., p. 397-407. The same Six Lectures on the Fundamental Principle, Method, and Chronological Sequence of Universal History, Breslau, 1830. De Broglie, le Moyen âge et l'Église catholique, Paris, 1852. Montalembert, in the Introduction to his Monks of the West, Boston, 1872.

A strange feeling of sadness comes over the historian when about to enter upon the Middle Ages. The Ancient World, shrouded in all the glory of the past, and rich in the splendid and incomparable creations of the human mind, is rapidly passing out of view, and Graeco-Roman civilization, poisoned and rotted to the very core, is about to fall to pieces, to be again restored for a season, by the benign and energizing influence of Christianity, to something of its ancient strength and beauty. But Roman society had spent its vital forces and vivifying energies; had become a physical and a moral wreck, and had already gone beyond all possibility of radical and perfect cure, before it passed under the influence of the Church. And, though she might give a lease of existence and impart a measure of her own beauty to a body whose very life-springs were well-nigh dried up, she could not again make it what it once had been, or restore to it the graceful symmetry and agile strength that it had once possessed. But she did what she could; and then bore away to an honorable VOL. II-1

grave a civilization whose vital powers were exhausted, and whose remedy was beyond her reach.

The Ancient World, weary of the very refinement of its culture, and disheartened at the problem of life, had neither the energy to rouse its vital forces into action, nor the courage to put an end to an existence that had long since become useless. The great Roman Empire, whose name was once so respected and whose power was so irresistible, lay like some shattered form, worn with fatigue and enervated with excess, when the Germanic nations, led on by a higher impulse than barbarous instinct, came forth from their mountains and forests in the North, and precipitated themselves with resistless. fury upon the fertile plains of the South. Barbarity hovered like some dense storm-cloud over the fair face of Europe, ready at any moment to break and shroud in a night of chaos those once flourishing seats of learning and civilization. But amid the wreck of the Ancient World, where all around was desolation and ruin, these young and vigorous nations of the North came into contact with a divine and spiritual power by which their rude and untutored strength was overawed and subdued, to which they bowed down and did homage, which they shortly accepted as the inspirer of their lives and the guide of their conduct, and which they finally reverenced as a teacher and a ruler, and cherished as a fond and solicitous mother.

At the opening of the Middle Ages, a new scene of action is entered upon, and possesses, in the character of the conflicts in which Christianity will engage, and in the triumphs which it is destined to achieve, features peculiarly its own. The home of culture and refinement and the center of great events have been permanently transferred from the East to the West, and from the South to the North.

Again, among the nations of antiquity, the aims, the hopes, the aspirations, and the endeavors of man were centered in the political importance and temporal prosperity of the State, and he possessed no motive of action higher or more potent. than these could supply. The security and well-being of the Commonwealth were the sufficient aim and purpose of his

life. These were his sole and his all, and constituted the one supreme rule of his conduct.

But in the Middle Ages all this is changed. The motives and purposes of human exertion reached out beyond all objects of sense, and up into a region of thought higher and more pure than any merely natural aspirations could inspire. Hence the character of the progress of mankind will not, in time to come as in time gone by, vary with the varying character of the different nations, as each comes to the front upon the political stage of the world, and, after a season, passes away to make room for its successor, but will have one distinguishing and family feature which will be unmistakably impressed upon all the nations of Europe, because the individual purposes, aims, and aspirations of each will be the common purposes, aims, and aspirations of all, and each separately, and all combined, will employ the same means to work them out. These nations are introduced to history in the infancy of their civilization, and their road of passage to a vigorous manhood is clearly marked across the centuries of the Middle Ages.

In the countries now inhabited by the barbarian conquerors of the Roman Empire, and during these ages, when, according to the fine expression of Herder,1 "the barque of the Church was freighted with the destiny of mankind," the Church took up a new position and pursued a line of action to which she had no parallel in her past history.

Furnished with all the external implements of conquest the wealth of ancient culture could supply, and preserving that internal compactness and strength which were a consequence of her well-ordered hierarchy, she went forth to the conflict among the rude and barbarous peoples of Europe, whose souls she regenerated and whose hearts she subdued. Having thus lifted humanity up to a higher estate, she proclaimed herself its guardian, and, as such, carried the weight of her influence into every great question of public and private life; extended the circumference of her jurisdiction till it included questions of a purely civil character; and

1 Herder, Ideas on the History of Mankind. Stuttg. 1828, Pt. IV., p. 208.

finally her Supreme Head, who during this period reached the zenith of his power, arbitrated between princes and subjects, and nations and peoples.

The principle of unity running through the many and diverse tendencies of mediaeval national life, giving the character of oneness to what would else be but a tangled and unintelligible mass of facts, is entirely due to the subduing and predominant influence of the Church and the energizing life of her religion, whose teachings schooled the minds of all to common purposes of action, inspired them with common motives, and furnished a common center, toward which every endeavor gravitated, and in which might be found its sufficient explanation. Hence the very character and genius of the Middle Ages are but the natural outgrowth of religion and of the social organization that came into existence under its influence.

Some writers prefer to find in the condition of the Church, at this time, only a fit subject for hostile criticism, and the abundant source of all the evils that came upon the Middle Ages; while others, more temperate and unquestionably more fair, candidly admit that, in this age when civilization was still in its infancy, she alone possessed and preserved the principle of spiritual and moral fecundity which was to work out the full development of mankind thoughout all coming time.1 That the Church exercised a beneficent action and a salutary influence upon the Middle Ages, has been asserted and maintained by men of every shade of opinion, whose ability is beyond all reasonable question, and whose principles are such as to acquit them of any suspicion of undue partiality.

Herder, the eloquent panegyrist of humanity, says, in his Ideas on the History of Mankind: "It is doubtlessly true to say that the Roman hierarchy was a necessary power, without

1† Wührer, The Beneficent Influence of the Church during the Middle Ages for the Decrease of Ignorance, Barbarity, and Lawlessness. (Pletz, New Theol. Journal, Vienna, 1831, Vol. I., p. 219 sq.) †Kober, Influence of the Church and her Legislation on Morality, Humanity, and Civilization during the M. A. (Tübing. Theol. Quart. 1858, pp. 443-449.) Compare Guizot, l'église et la société chrétienne, Paris, 1861, p. 65..

2 Ideas on the Hist. of Mankind, Pt. IV., p. 303. Cf. p. 194 sq.