commencement of the middle age, when preaching undergoes a change, and declines till it almost disappears. You will understand that this is a gradual process. The decline can be traced before 600, and it is not at its lowest till long after that date; but 600 is a marked epoch.

The period is a very long and important one, filled with great events and great contests, apologetical and polemical, with histories of councils, and of great men in all the fields of Christian thought; but it is not with these that we have to do. Our concern is with the character of preaching, and with what illustrates it. We can, of course, only select a few preachers of the greatest name and influence, as typical of the time.

between

Churches.

The Church of this period falls into halves- Contrast occasioned by geography, or, more properly speak- Eastern and ing, by race-the Eastern and the Western Western Churches. Even during the unbroken unity of the Roman Empire, there were two influences at work. Though Greece was conquered, its language, its literature, its philosophy, remained and modified the thinking of the conquerors.* This influence was often of a very subtle and

* Cf. Horace, Epistles II. i. 156. Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit.

330 A.D.

speculative kind, and became even more so from its proximity to the great mystical systems of the East, the religions of Zoroaster and Mani, not to speak of others still more oriental. But with all this modification the mind of the West retained

its own bias. It was more practical and

humanistic. The East tended to ascend from the human to the Divine, the West to descend from the Divine to the human.

The greatest impulse to the separation of the Churches was given when Constantine transferred the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople. The jealousy of feeling widened till it led to the final breach which continues to this day. The histories of those two Churches have been very different. The Eastern began with wonderful brilliancy, but it was ere long clouded, and it has never returned to its first promise. The Western seemed at first likely to be engulfed and to disappear amidst the irruptions of the heathen hordes of the north. But its missionary zeal subdued these hordes and made them the greatest elements of its strength. It is through them, above all, in Europe and America and our far-off colonies that present history is fulfilling ancient prophecy, and giving to Christ the

promise of the world's possession. Out of the eater has come forth meat, and out of the strong has come forth sweetness.

When Pilate wrote the inscription on the cross, it was in three languages-in Hebrew, in Greek, and in Latin. The word of God passed from the Hebrew and became more living in the Greek; from the Greek to a wider life in the Latin or great West; may we not expect that the life will return again and restore what has fallen, that it will revive the East and bring in Israel? The history of the human race is one of fall and recovery, and it would seem as if this were also to be the history of the Church. "And so shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun."

Preaching of

We shall to-day confine ourselves to the Change in the preaching of the Eastern Church in its early the Eastern period. After the year 200 A.D., there was a Church. marked change in the character of preaching. It left its simple, unadorned form, and took to itself the helps of knowledge and rhetoric. The causes of this were various, and, so to say, Causes. inevitable.

(1.) First, there was the great increase in the Increased number of Christians. In spite of all the forces of numbers.

Change in

the audiences.

There

persecution, and all the reproaches cast upon
Christianity, as they are indicated by the brief
descriptions of Pliny and Tacitus, and as they
come out more fully in Celsus and Porphyry, it was
taking possession of the cities and, ultimately,
of the country. The reason lay in the insuffi-
ciency of polytheism, and of the philosophies, to
satisfy the intellectual and moral want of the time.
There was a great void, and there were deep
desires which heathenism could not meet.
was, besides, the life of the first Christians, which
overcame all calumny, so pure and loving and
self-sacrificing and steadfast to the death. And
I have no doubt that the preaching, simple as it
was, did its work. It brought before those who
stole in to hear it a new world and a new power-
the love of God in Christ and life eternal. But
its success involved a change in its character.
You cannot speak to a thousand people as you
can to a hundred. When a preacher has a
large basilica, and a sea of up-turned faces, he
must, in spite of himself, use some of the methods
of oratory.

(2.) Another cause of the change was the character of the new audiences. I remarked upon the evidence of this in the Lateran inscriptions, which

are, at first, of a very unlettered or indeed illiterate. kind, but begin, as time advances, to imitate the old classical sarcophagi, with different emblems. Partly, Christianity was raising its adherents through the character which it gave them; and partly, the upper classes gradually became Christian, till Constantine acknowledged Christianity as the state religion.* 323 A.D This change in the character of the audience affected the preaching by calling for adaptation to a different class of hearers. It became more cultured, and also, perhaps, less spiritual.

races.

(3.) Preaching was also affected by the new The new races that were now receiving and dealing with Christian truth. God has made of one blood all nations of men, and the Gospel is adapted to the common needs of human nature; but each race has its peculiar character of mind. The Semitic has more of the intuitional-of direct vision; the Aryan, or Indo-European, more of reflection, of criticism, of philosophy. Although this contrast is frequently exaggerated, there is essential truth in it. The Gospel was now entering among the great races of the West-Greek and Roman, Teutonic and

* Some think it might have been better had he contented himself with the full toleration which he gave it eleven years before.