a rich store of church melodies, and also (a more questionable success,) the formal establishment of the doctrine of purgatory. But the consequences of his missionary zeal now claim

attention.

The new and different conditions under which the promulgation of Christianity continued to advance, subsequently to the great revolution caused by the fall of the old Roman empire, are very striking. In the period intervening between its first preaching, and the above-mentioned event, Christianity had struck root in a soil for which the ancient Greek and Roman culture had previously done their utmost. Strange and noxious growths in some instances arose, as might have been anticipated, but the result of the harvest bore testimony to the divine origin of the seed and the heavenly wisdom of the husbandman. To set forth the futility of mere human attempts after virtue and happiness, man had been allowed to put forth all his resources before the coming of Christ lighted up the darkness,—and the amalgamation of Christ's doctrines with all of good that previously existed, (in moral and intellectual training, as well as in social and legal institutions,) showed how wisely these were fitted for their universal mission. Such were the days, as has been truly written, of Clement of Alexandria and Origen, of Cyprian, of Basil and Gregory of Nazianzum, of Jerome and Augustinemen reared in all the learning and arts of Greece and Rome, before they took upon them the ministry of, or, at the least, attached themselves to, the Christian church*.

A different era commences with the fall of the Roman empire. It is the peculiar mark of the long and dreary season which followed that Christianity still advanced; but it rose now from a savage and tangled wilderness, utterly destitute of the face of cultivation which had seemed to cheer the former time. In this was shown again the intrinsic force of Christianity. The cold hearts of the frozen north were melted by its influence, and from this source have been derived the peculiarities of the middle ages, and much of both good and evil in the present social system. It should ever be borne in mind, that the form in which these

* Mohler. Symbolik. 356. Ed. iv.

rude people first became acquainted with Christianity was not the pure one in which it was originally preached by Christ and his apostles. The words of life, as proclaimed to the barbarians of central Europe, were blended with much extraneous and less pure matter, gathered during the first centuries of the Christian church. The doctrines of the Gospel were regarded, not clearly and immediately, but through the fallible media of the writings and opinions of men, eminent indeed for their holiness of life and purpose, but as men not infallible. Few writers have conferred greater benefits upon subsequent generations than St. Augustine of Hippo. In more than one branch of the Christian church, and on more than one occasion, a return to pure and vital religion has been united with the partial republication of his doctrines. But at the period now under consideration, not Christ but Augustine was directly preached. How far his system contributed, as extremes ever will, to forward the opposite one of Pelagius is not now the question; but the doctrine of the authority of the Church, as laid down by him and supported by his all-powerful name, was the parent of most important and enduring effects upon subsequent generations *.

With the main doctrines of Christianity, the new and indiscriminating converts of modern Germany and France received all its subsequent and extrinsic appendages: but the new circumstances under which the church was now placed rendered many changes unavoidable. Protection and security against the rude and capricious sovereigns who now professed the Christian faith were as necessary as they had ever been against the aggressions of the Byzantine court in its most corrupt days. These objects were attained by the superstitious regard paid to the church as the representative of a visible theocracy. Connected with this were the high notions entertained of the dignity of the sacerdotal character for some time established in the Western church, and which had been introduced with

*"In demselben Verhältniss, in welchem, in der Christlichen Kirche ein hierarchischer Stand sich bildete, und die Haupter desselben vorzugsweise als die Repräsentanten desselben betrachtet wurden, auch das Christenthum aufs neue heidnische und jüdische Elemente erhielt, und den priesterlichen Character der vorchristlichen Religionen, nur mit Christlich modificirten Formen, in sich aufnahm." Baur, Der Gegensatz des Catholicismus und Protestantismus, 381. Compare also Neander, iii. 2, 3. and Guizot, iii. 121, 122.

Christianity into Germany; notions more agreeable to a halfcivilized people than an invisible church and purely spiritual powers. But although thus reverenced for their sanctity, learning, and the superior culture and organization of their order, the clergy were still exposed to many rude attacks from the jealousy, the avarice and the many bad passions of their barbarous rulers. The struggle of many years was required to consolidate the theocratic system, which under such a state of things was alone able to secure the independence of the church. In the Frank, and in some degree in all the new kingdoms which arose after the fall of the Roman empire, the nomination of the bishops was reserved by the princes to themselves, a privilege most fatal to the independence and purity of the church under the existing circumstances. Unlike the emperors, who did not ordinarily extend their interference beyond filling up vacancies in the chief cities, the new rulers could not brook the disposal of such rich and influential offices by other hands than their own. The servility and flattery of greedy expectants confirmed them in their views, and church authority being principally lodged in the bishops, discipline was neglected, and a low tone of morality and accomplishments rapidly gained ground. Another opening for the interference of the state in ecclesiastical matters was, that the aid of the temporal arm was now required by the church to enforce her regulations. The provincial synods, which had been previously left to the direction of the metropolitans, were by this means brought under the influence of the temporal power, hitherto exerted only in the case of general councils. Very shortly afterwards, the synods thus convened and directed by temporal princes were absorbed in the general meetings of the estates, and laws, temporal and ecclesiastical, were enacted in the same assembly; the civil authority enforcing the mandates and regulations of the church, and the prelates lending the support of their sacred order to temporal enactments.

The churches established in the newly-converted districts, adopted, among other institutions, that of metropolitans; and regulations were passed by different synods confirmatory of their authority; but many causes combined to accelerate the downfall of an institution, when rightly administered, most

valuable and important. Under the Roman empire, the ancient metropolitans possessed a claim to authority, from the recognised importance of their cities, which their recently created brethren could not hope to equal. Personal qualities, not the rank of episcopal cities, became now in a great measure the standard by which the importance of bishops was measured. Their own national spirit of independence rendered the Frank bishops indisposed to submit to the authority of their metropolitans, and the overthrow of the latter was facilitated by the absence of the propriety and legal right which had attached to the bishops of a provincial metropolis under a former state of things.

A distant despotism was deemed less irksome than limited rights of superintendence exercised in their immediate vicinity. They sought protection against the metropolitans in the person of the bishops of Rome, who were not slow to avail themselves of an opening so full of promise for their future ascendency. The neglect, oppression, and tyranny of various metropolitans, which kindled a spirit ultimately fatal to their authority, have been alleged as the causes of the downfall of their order. This explanation is in part correct, but the efficient and proximate causes of their decay are to be found, as stated, in the national impatience of control shown by the Frank bishops, on the one hand; and, on the other, absence of political and local authority in the newly-established metropolitan sees. Their downfall was the harbinger of the despotism which followed in the centralization of vast actual power in the hands of the bishops of Rome, already formidable as the object of prescriptive veneration*.

It has been justly observed, that to study aright the constitution of the church during the middle ages, those steps should never be lost sight of which led to the establishment

* Walter's Kirchenrecht §. 148, and note b. Neander, iii. 128, et seq. Guizot, ii. 22-31. 66 'L'évêque de Rome, déjà en possession d'une grande influence là même ou sa suprématie officielle n'était pas reconnue, combattait avec ardeur l'établissement des patriarches: dans les Gaules, son habileté consista à faire passer la primatie d'un métropolitain à l'autre, à empêcher qu'elle ne se fixât long-temps sur le même siège. La seule circonstance du morcellement des Gaules en états différens leur devait être fatale. A la province du métropolitain de Lyons, par exemple, appartenaient des évêques dépendant du royaume des Visigoths et de celui des Francs, et qui saisissaient avec empressement ce moyen d'échapper à son pouvoir, bien surs d'être soutenus par le souverain temporel."

of a theocratic system, uniting the whole body of Christian people in obedience to one visible head, or, in other words, the consolidation of the papal power. No ordinary degree of historical value attaches to all that contributed to the accomplishment of this object, which had floated before the imagination of early occupants of the see of Rome as a remote and contingent vision of glory, until the events of following ages had brought within the grasp of their successors the tangible sceptre which was to rule the earth.

Among these means, whatever was the object with which they were originally composed, the false decretals stand conspicuously forward. As is well known, a collection of ecclesiastical laws, drawn up by Dionysius in the sixth century, containing papal decretals from the pontificate of Siricius, was regarded as authoritative in the Western church.

The superiority of the compilation of Dionysius to the Translatio prisca, which had hitherto been the standard of reference, with the fact of its compilation in Rome, the centre of government and learning, gave to his work a currency and authority which no similar collection had obtained. Subsequent popes, instead of referring to the documents deposited in their archives, quoted the decretal epistles of their predecessors from this collection. It is to be traced in most parts of the Christian world, and was everywhere regarded as authoritative. The decretal epistles of the bishops of Rome were now circulated for the first time in a clear, accessible and methodized shape, and (what must have contributed not a little to nourish feelings of reverence to the papal see) in the same collection and apparently with the same authority as the decisions of synods. The collection was framed with a view to the regulation of church discipline; but it would be wrong to infer that the design of the mighty papacy had been now fully laid: many important and boding symptoms, it is true, may be discerned anterior to the reign of Charlemagne, but these are isolated; hitherto there was no attempt at systematic domination.

This collection of Dionysius had subsequently been altered by the incorporation of rules agreed to at various provincial Councils, of which revisions the principal were those belonging to the churches of Gaul and Spain: among the latter of these, that bearing the respectable name of Isidore of Seville