Sketches of Church History Part 13

Within a few years after the death of Gregory the Great, a new religion was set up by an Arabian named Mahomet, who seems to have been honest, although mistaken, at first, but grew less honest as he went on, and as he became more successful and powerful. His religion was made up partly from the Jewish, partly from the Christian, and partly from other religions which he found around him; but he gave out that it had been taught him by visions and revelations from heaven, and these pretended revelations were gathered into a book called the Koran, which serves Mahomet's followers for their Bible. This new religion was called _Islam_, which means submission to the will of G.o.d; and the sum of it was declared to be that "there is but one G.o.d, and Mahomet is his prophet."

One point in the new religion was, that every faithful Mahometan (or Mussulman, as they were called) was required once in his life to go on pilgrimage to Mecca, a city which was Mahomet's birthplace, and was considered to be especially holy; and to this day it is visited every year by great companies of pilgrims. Another remarkable thing was, that he commanded his followers to spread their religion by force; and this was done with such success, that within about sixty years after Mahomet's death they had conquered Syria and the Holy Land, Egypt, Persia, parts of Asia Minor, and all the north of Africa. A little later, they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and got possession of Spain, where their kingdom of Granada lasted until 1492, nearly eight hundred years. In the countries which the Mussulmans subdued, Christians were allowed to live and to keep up their religion; but they had to pay a heavy tribute, and to bear great hardships and disgraces at the hands of the conquerors.

I have mentioned that before Gregory the Great's time almost all Europe had been overrun by the rude nations of the north.[62] Learning nearly died out, and what remained of it was kept up by the monks and clergy only. There is but little to tell of the history of those times; for, although in the Greek empire there were great disputes about some doctrines and practices, these matters were such as you would not care to know about, nor would you be much the wiser if you did know.

[62] See Part I., chap XXIII.

I may, however, mention that one of these disputes was about images, to which the Christians of those ages, and especially the Greeks, had come by degrees to pay a sort of reverence which St. Augustine and other fathers of older days would have looked on with horror. It had become usual to fall down before images, to pray to them, to kiss them, to burn lights and incense in their honour, to adorn them with gold, silver, and precious stones, to lay the hand on them in taking oaths, and even to use them as G.o.dfathers or G.o.dmothers for children in baptism. Those who defend the use of images would tell us that the honour is not given to them, but to Almighty G.o.d, to the Saviour, and to the saints, through the images. But when we find, for instance, that people paid more honour to one image of the blessed Virgin than to another, and that they supposed their prayers to have a greater hope of being heard when they were said before one image than when they were said before another, we cannot help thinking that they believed the images themselves to have some particular virtue in them.

There were, then, some of the Greek emperors who tried to put down the superst.i.tious regard for images; and they were the more set on this because the Mahometans, who abhorred images, reproached the Christians for using them. These emperors, wishing to do away with the grounds for such reproaches, caused the figures of stone or metal to be broken, and the sacred pictures to be smeared over; and they persecuted very cruelly those who were foremost in defending them. Then came other emperors who were in favour of images; or widowed empresses, who governed during the boyhood of their sons, and took up the cause of images with great zeal; and thus the friends and the enemies of images succeeded each other by turns on the throne, so that the battle was fought, backwards and forwards, for a long time, until at length an agreement was come to which has ever since continued in the Greek Church. By this agreement, it was settled that the figures made by carving in stone or wood, or by casting metal into a mould, should be forbidden, but that the use of religious pictures (which were also called by the name of images) should be allowed. Hence it is said that the Greeks may not worship anything of which one can take the tip of the nose between his finger and his thumb.

But in the Latin Church the carved or molten images are still allowed; and among the poorer and less educated people there is a great deal of superst.i.tion connected with them.

CHAPTER II.

THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND.

A.D. 604-734.

While the light of the Gospel was darkened by the Mahometan conquests in some parts of the world where it had once shone brightly, it was spreading widely among the nations which had got possession of western Europe. In England, the successors of St. Augustine converted a large part of the Anglo-Saxons by their preaching, and much was also done by missionaries from the island of Iona, on the west of Scotland. There, as we have seen,[63] an Irish abbot, named Columba, had settled with some companions about the year 565, and from Iona their teaching had been carried all over the northern part of Britain. These missionaries from Iona to England found a home in the island of Lindisfarne, on the Northumbrian coast, which was given up to them by Oswald, king of Northumbria, and from them got the name of Holy Island. Oswald himself had been converted while an exile in Scotland; and, as he had learnt the language of the country there, he often helped the missionaries in their labours by interpreting what they said into the language of his own subjects who listened to them. The Scottish missionaries carried their labours even as far south as the river Thames; and their modest and humble ways gained the respect and love of the people so much that, as we are told by the Venerable Bede, wherever one of them appeared, he was joyfully received as the servant of G.o.d. Even those who met them on the road used eagerly to ask their blessing, and, whenever one of them came to any village, the inhabitants flocked to hear from him the message of the Gospel.

[63] Part I., p. 139.

But these Scottish missionaries differed in some respects from the clergy who were connected with St. Augustine; and after a time a great meeting was held at Whitby, in Yorkshire, to settle the questions between them and the Roman Church. We must not suppose that these differences were of any real importance; for they were only about such small matters as the reckoning of the day on which Easter should be kept, and the way in which the hair of the clergy should be clipped or shaven. But, although these were mere trifles, the two parties were each so set on their own ways that no agreement could be come to; and the end was, that the Scottish missionaries went back to their own country, and did no more work for spreading the Gospel in England, although after a while the Scottish clergy, and those of Ireland too, were persuaded to shave their hair and to reckon their Easter in the same way as the other clergy of the West.

In those dark times some of the most learned and famous men were English monks. Among them I shall mention only Bede, who is commonly called the Venerable, and to whose care we owe almost all our knowledge of the early history of the Church in this land. Bede was born about the year 673, near Jarrow, in Northumberland, and at the age of seven he entered the monastery of Jarrow, where the rest of his life was spent. He tells us of himself that he made it his pleasure every day "either to learn or to teach or to write something;" and, after having written many precious books during his quiet life in his cell at Jarrow, he died on the eve of Ascension-day in the year 734, just as he had finished a translation of St. John's Gospel.

CHAPTER III.

ST. BONIFACE.

A.D. 680-755.

Although the Church of Ireland was in a somewhat rough state at home, many of its clergy undertook missionary work on the Continent; and by them and others much was done for the conversion of various tribes in Germany and in the Netherlands. But the most famous missionary of those times was an Englishman named Winfrid, who is styled the Apostle of Germany.

Winfrid was born near Crediton, in Devonshire, about the year 680. He became a monk at an early age, and perhaps it was then that he took the name of Boniface, by which he is best known. He might probably have risen to a high place in the church of his own country if he had wished to do so; but he was filled with a glowing desire to preach the Gospel to the heathen. He therefore refused all the tempting offers which were made to him at home, crossed the sea, and began to labour in Friesland and about the lower part of the Rhine. For three years he a.s.sisted another famous English missionary, Willibrord, bishop of Utrecht, who wished to make Boniface his successor; but Boniface thought that he was bound rather to labour in some country where his work was more needed; so, leaving Willibrord, he went into Hessia, where he made and baptized many thousands of converts. The pope, Gregory the Second, on hearing of this success, invited him to Rome, consecrated him as a bishop, and sent him back with letters recommending him to the princes and people of the countries in which his work was to lie. (A.D. 723.)

The government of the Franks was then in a very odd state. There were kings over them; but these kings, instead of carrying on the government for themselves, and leading their nation in war, were shut up in their palaces, except that once in the year they were brought out in a cart drawn by bullocks to appear at the national a.s.semblies. These poor "do-nothings" (as the kings of the old French race are called) were without any strength or spirit. From their way of life, they allowed their hair to grow without being shorn; and the Greeks, who lived far away from them, and knew of them only by hearsay, believed, not only that their hair was long, but that it grew down their backs like the bristles of a hog. And, while the kings had sunk into this pitiable state, the real work of the kingly office was done, and the kingly power was really enjoyed, by great officers who were called mayors of the palace.

At the time which I am speaking of, the mayor of the palace was Charles, who was afterwards known by the name of Martel, or _The Hammer_. Charles had done a great service to Christendom by defeating a vast army of Mahometans, who had forced their way from Spain into the heart of France, and driving the remains of them back across the Pyrenees. It is said that they lost 375,000 men in the battle which they fought with Charles near Poitiers (A.D. 732); and, although this number is no doubt beyond the truth, it is certain that the infidels were so much weakened that they never ventured to attempt any more conquests in western Europe. But, although Charles had thus done very great things for the Christian world, it would seem that he himself did not care much for religion; and, although he gave Boniface a letter of protection, he did not help or encourage him greatly in his missionary labours. But Boniface was resolved to carry on bravely what he believed to be G.o.d's work. He preached in Hessia and Thuringia, and made many thousands of converts. He built churches and monasteries, and brought over from England large numbers of clergy to help him in preaching and in the Christian training of his converts, for which purpose he also obtained supplies of books from his own country. He founded bishoprics, and held councils of clergy and laymen for the settlement of the Church's affairs. Finding that the Hessians paid reverence to an old oak-tree, which was sacred to one of their G.o.ds, he resolved to cut it down. The heathens stood around, looking fiercely at him, cursing and threatening him, and expecting to see him and his companions struck dead by the vengeance of their G.o.ds. But when he had only just begun to attack the oak we are told that a great wind suddenly arose, and struck it so that it fell to the ground in four pieces. The people, seeing this, took it for a sign from heaven, and consented to give up their old idolatry; and Boniface turned the wood of the huge old oak to use by building a chapel with it.

In some places Boniface found a strange mixture of heathen superst.i.tions with Christianity, and he did all that he could to root them out. He had also much trouble with missionaries from Ireland, whose notions of Christian doctrine and practice differed in some things from his; and perhaps he did not always treat them with so much of wisdom and gentleness as might have been wished. But after all he was right in thinking that the sight of more than one kind of Christian religion, different from each other and opposed to each other, must puzzle the heathen and hinder their conversion; so that we can understand his jealousy of those Irish missionaries, even if we cannot wholly approve of it.

In reward of his labours and success, Boniface was made an archbishop by Pope Gregory III. in 732; and, although at first he was not fixed in any one place, he soon brought the German Church into such a state of order that it seemed to be time for choosing some city as the seat of its chief bishop, just as the chief bishop of England was settled at Canterbury. Boniface himself wished to fix himself at Cologne; but at that very time the bishop of Mentz got into trouble by killing a Saxon, who, in a former war, had killed the bishop's father. Although it had been quite a common thing in those rough days for bishops to take a part in fighting, Boniface and his councils had made rules forbidding such things, as unbecoming the ministers of peace; and the case of the bishop of Mentz, coming just after those rules had been made, could not well be pa.s.sed over. The bishop, therefore, was obliged to give up his see; and Mentz was chosen to be the place where Boniface should be fixed as archbishop and primate of Germany, having under him five bishops, and all the nations which had received the Gospel through his preaching.

When Boniface had grown old, he felt himself again drawn to Frisia, where, as we have seen,[64] he had laboured in his early life; and at the age of seventy-five he left his archbishopric, with all that invited him to spend his last days there in quiet and honour, that he might once more go forth as a missionary to the barbarous Frieslanders. Among them he preached with much success; but on Whitsun eve, 755, while he was expecting a great number of his converts to meet, that they might receive confirmation from him, he and his companions were attacked by an armed party of heathens, and the whole of the missionaries, fifty-two in number, were martyred. But although Boniface thus ended his active and useful life by martyrdom at the hands of those whom he wished to bring into the way of salvation, his work was carried on by other missionaries, and the conversion of the Frisians was completed within no long time. Boniface's body was carried up the Rhine, and was buried at Fulda, a monastery which he had founded amidst the loneliness of a vast forest; and there the tomb of the "Apostle of the Germans" was visited with reverence for centuries.

[64] Page 174.

CHAPTER IV.

PIPIN AND CHARLES THE GREAT.

A.D. 741-814.

PART I.

Towards the end of St. Boniface's life, a great change took place in the government of the Franks. Pipin, who had succeeded his father, Charles Martel, as mayor of the palace, grew tired of being called a servant while he was really the master; and the French sent to ask the pope, whose name was Zacharias, whether the man who really had the kingly power ought not also to have the t.i.tle of king. Zacharias, who had been greatly obliged to the Franks for helping him against his enemies the Lombards, answered them in the way that they seemed to wish and to expect; and accordingly they chose Pipin as their king. And while, according to the custom in such cases, Pipin was lifted up on a shield and displayed to the people, while he was anointed and crowned, the last of the poor old race of "do-nothing" kings was forced to let his long hair be shorn until he looked like a monk, and was then shut up in a monastery for the rest of his days.

Pipin afterwards went into Italy for the help of the pope, and bestowed on the Roman Church a large tract of country which he had taken from the Lombards. And this _donation_ (as it was called) or gift, was the first land which the popes possessed in such a way that they were counted as the sovereigns of it.

Pipin died in 768, and was succeeded by his son Charles, who is commonly called Charlemagne (or Charles the Great). Under Charles the connexion between the Franks and the Popes became still closer than before; and when Charles put down the Lombard kingdom in Italy (A.D. 774), the popes came in for part of the spoil.

But the most remarkable effect of this connexion was at a later time, when Pope Leo III. had been attacked in a Roman street by some conspirators, who tried to blind him and to cut out his tongue. But they were not able to do their work thoroughly, and Leo recovered the use both of his tongue and of his eyes. He then went into Germany to ask Charles to help him against his enemies; and on his return to Rome he was followed by Charles. There, on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, when a vast congregation was a.s.sembled in the great church of St. Peter, the pope suddenly placed a golden crown on the king's head, while the people shouted, "Long life and victory to our emperor, Charles!" So now, after a long time, an emperor was set up again in the West; and, although these new emperors were German, they all styled themselves emperors of the Romans. The popes afterwards pretended that they had a right to bestow the empire as they liked, and that Leo had taken it from the Greeks, and given it to the Germans. But this was quite untrue. Charles seems to have made up his mind to be emperor, but he was very angry with the pope for giving him the crown by surprise, instead of letting him take his own way about it; and, if he had been left to himself, he would have taken care to manage the matter so that the pope should not appear to do anything more than to crown him in form after he had been chosen by the Roman people.

PART II.

Charles was really a great man, although he had very serious faults, and did many blameable things. He carried his conquests so far that the Greeks had a proverb, "Have the Frank for thy friend, but not for thy neighbour,"--meaning that the Franks were likely to try to make their neighbours' lands their own. He thought it his duty to spread the Christian faith by force, if it could not be done in a gentler way; and thus, when he had conquered the Saxons in Germany, he made them be baptized and pay t.i.thes to the Church. But I need hardly say that people's belief is not to be forced in this way; and many of those who submitted to be baptized at the conqueror's command had no belief in the Gospel, and no understanding of it. There is a story told of some who came to be baptized over and over again for the sake of the white dresses which were given to them at their baptism; and when one of these had once got a dress which was coa.r.s.er than usual, he declared that such a sack was fitter for a swineherd than for a warrior, and that he would have nothing to do with it or with the Christian religion. The Saxons gave Charles a great deal of trouble, for his war with them lasted no less than thirty-three years; and at one time he was so much provoked by their frequent revolts that he had the cruelty to put 4,500 Saxon prisoners to death.

But there are better things to be told of Charles. He took very great pains to restore learning, which had long been in a state of decay. He invited learned men from Italy and from England to settle in his kingdom; and of all these, the most famous was a Northumbrian named Alcuin. Alcuin gave him wise and good advice as to the best way of treating the Saxons in order to bring them to the faith; and when Charles was on his way to Rome, just before he was crowned as emperor, Alcuin presented him with a large Latin Bible, written expressly for his use; for we must remember that printing was not invented until more than six hundred years later, so that all books in Charles's days were _ma.n.u.script_ (or written by hand). Some people have believed that an ancient ma.n.u.script Bible which is now to be seen in the great library at Paris is the very one which Alcuin gave to Charles.

We are told that when Charles found himself at a loss for help in educating his people, he said to Alcuin that he wished he might have twelve such learned clerks as Jerome and Augustine; and that Alcuin answered, "The Maker of heaven and earth has had only two such; and are you so unreasonable as to wish for twelve?"

Alcuin was made master of the palace school, which moved about wherever the court was, and in which the pupils were Charles's own children and the sons of his chief n.o.bles; and besides this, care was taken for the education of the clergy and of the people in general. Charles himself tried very hard to learn reading and writing when he was already in middle age; but although he became able to read, and used to keep little tablets under his pillow, in order that he might practise writing while lying awake in bed, he never was able to write easily. Many curious stories are told of the way in which he overlooked the service in his chapel, where he desired that everything should be done as well as possible. He would point with his finger or with his staff at any person whom he wished to read in chapel, and when he wished any one to stop he coughed; and it was expected that at these signals each person would begin or stop at once, although it might be in the middle of a sentence.

During this time the question of images, which I have already mentioned,[65] came up again in the Greek Church. A council was held in 787 at Nicaea, where the first general council had met in the time of Constantine, more than four centuries and a half before;[66] and in this second Nicene council images were approved of. In the West, the popes were also for them; but they were condemned in a council at Frankfort, and a book was written against them in the name of Charles. It is supposed that this book was mostly the work of Alcuin, but that Charles, besides allowing it to go forth with his name and authority, had really himself had a share in making it.

[65] Page 170.

[66] See Part I., chap. XI.

Charles the Great died in the year 814. A short time before his death, he sent for his son Lewis, and in the great church at Aix-la-Chapelle, which was Charles's favourite place of abode, he took from the altar a golden crown, and with his own hands placed it on the head of Lewis. By this he meant to show that he did not believe the empire to depend on the pope's will, but considered it to be given to himself and his successors by G.o.d alone.