129. THE ROMAN CHURCH
THE ROMAN CHURCH PROGRESSIVE
The separation of eastern and western Christianity naturally increased the importance of the Papacy. The popes henceforth had a free hand to guide the destinies of the Roman Church. That church under their direction was to show itself vigorous and progressive, with a wonderful power of adaptation to new and changed conditions.
THE ROMAN CHURCH SURVIVES THE EMPIRE
The Roman Empire in the West had gone down before the assaults of the Germanic barbarians, but in its place had arisen a new creation—the Roman Church. The chief city of the old empire became the capital of the Papacy. The pope took, and has since retained, the title of Supreme Pontiff (Pontifex Maximus), once given to the head of the Roman state religion. [35] Latin has continued to be the official language of Roman Catholicism. The Roman genius for law and government found a new expression in the creation of the papal power. The true successors of the ancient Roman statesmen were the popes of the Middle Ages. The idea of Rome, of her universality and of her eternity, lived on in the Roman Church.
WORK OF THE ROMAN CHURCH
The Roman Church, as the successor of the Roman Empire in the West, formed the chief center of civilization during the earlier part of the Middle Ages. She stood between the conquering Germans and the Romanized provincials and helped to join them both in lasting union. To the heathen she sent out her missionaries, preaching a religion of love and charity and introducing a higher morality than the barbarians had ever known before. She multiplied hospitals, orphanages, and asylums. Her bishops were the only protectors of the weak and the oppressed. She fostered education, art, and learning within the walls of churches and monasteries. Her priests and monks were the only teachers in an ignorant age. In an age of bloodshed and violence, when might made right, she proclaimed the superiority of the spirit to mere brute force. To sum up: the Roman Church was an indispensable agent in the making of medieval Europe.
THE MENACE TO CHRISTENDOM
Christianity in its Greek and Roman forms was not the only great religion of the Middle Ages. In the seventh century, before the separation of the two churches had been completed and before all Europe had become Christian, another religion arose. It grew with marvelous rapidity, stripped the Church of much territory in western Asia, northern Africa, and Spain, and promised for a time to become the dominant faith of the world. This was Islam, or Mohammedanism, the religion of the Arabs.