The Walls of Constantinople

by B. Granville Baker

Where Christianity has gained hold over the minds of men, it not only influences their thoughts and actions more than any other motive power, but it has the result, perhaps quite contrary to the intentions of its Founder, of crystallizing the national characteristics of the different races that become subject to its influence. This leads to a definite expression of national sentiments, aims and ambitions, and so it happened when Christianity was in the full vigour of youth. Those communities whose life was lived under a southern sun, in lands where tradition and history receded into the dim vistas that hide the origin of all things, lands like Syria and Egypt drifted into a spiritual nirvana of lazy and contemplative devotion. No wonder then that the fierce onrush of those who were inflamed by Mahomed’s fighting creed met with no resistance, and Islam is now the faith of those lands of ruin and golden sand.

The Western nations took to the new creed without any loss of the fighting qualities of their race; and in fact the preaching of the new religion seems to have had but little effect upon their methods of expressing their convictions on any subject, and equally little power to check ambition. So the Western Church was forced to adopt the strenuous method of the people under its spiritual sway, aided therein by the strain of stronger Northern races that had revived the moribund communities in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome.

Then the direction taken by the Western Church led to absolute power over the bodies and souls of men. The superstitions grafted on the doctrines of the Church to enhance the power of its ministers proved a weapon of irresistible force in the hands of an unscrupulous and ambitious Pontiff. The warrior kings of warlike nations quailed before the power of the Head of Western Christendom, and one of Germany’s haughty Emperors crept barefooted through the snow to Canossa, there to implore the Pontiff’s pardon.

This ambition has fired the Western Church through all these ages that saw the gradual development of Europe, has led to many and most bloody wars, occasioned revolting crimes, and still acts as an incentive to the “Kultur Kampf,” against which even Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, did not battle with unqualified success. As may be supposed, the ambitious strivings of the Roman See were not directed only against the Western nations whom Christendom had reached mainly through its agents. It cast longing glances at the Eastern capital. The Greeks, however, took their religion in yet another form, approached it in yet another spirit. At Constantinople the Emperor and the Patriarch lived side by side, and were busily engaged in checking each other’s authority, or offering a united front against Roman interference. No attempt seems to have been made on the part of any Archbishop of the Eastern capital to arrogate to himself temporal power. It was politically impossible, so long as successors to the throne of Cæsar were to be found among victorious generals, whenever the scions of the Imperial family showed signs of weakness. Again the genius of the Greek expressed itself in a different sense.

The Roman Church laid down its dogmata, and no one was found to cavil at them, or those that did, until Luther’s time, met with a short shrift and a blazing pyre. The populace of the Eastern Empire, and more expressly of Constantinople, knew none of this intellectual submission to ecclesiastical authority, and exercised their keen wits in disputations, subtle or extravagant, according to individual taste. Vehement controversies raged constantly around the mysteries of the Christian Creed, and served at once to sharpen the intellect and obscure the purity of the Faith. New sects were for ever springing up, some to be suppressed by edict of an Emperor, or to prolong their precarious existence under persecution, others to die yet more surely of neglect.

High and low entered into these contests, perhaps not always urged by the purest motives—the Isaurian Emperors condemned the use of Icons, and Theodora in sanguinary devotion restored them to the Churches. Paulicians, who abhorred all images, were introduced from the banks of the Euphrates into Constantinople and Thrace by Constantine, whom the worshippers of images surnamed Copronymus, in the middle of the eighth century. They suffered much persecution from time to time; and again were encouraged and in fact reinforced by another Emperor, John Zimisces, who transported a large colony of them to the valleys of Mount Hæmus. Under good treatment they became arrogant, and being doughty warriors resented the injuries they frequently received at the hands of the Eastern clergy. They retired to their native land, and there were subject to renewed attacks by their Christian brethren of the Eastern fold, and by any armed and adventurous nation of a different Faith who happened to pass that way.

Asia too has had experience of a religious war lasting thirty years and devastating many tracts of fair and fertile country, an example followed by Europe nearly eight centuries later.

Thus the religious life of Constantine’s great city was not without intense excitement to those who lived within the walls. After the first eight centuries of the Christian era, the interest somewhat abated, the degenerate population seemed to have lost its appetite for controversy. A definite separation from Rome had not been brought about, though it may be supposed that the Roman Pontiff exercised little direct control over the religious destinies of the Eastern Empire.

The recital of religious differences, of disputes concerning the mysteries of any faith make unpleasant reading at any time. But yet such matters have to be faced if we would restore some of the testimony of these silent witnesses, the ruined walls of Constantinople. Thus if we are to read the history their stones record, we cannot overlook the darker pages, the depth of shadows that offer such contrast to the brighter passages of the chronicles of this Imperial City.

The Eastern and the Western world were never really in accord on any subject—the bonds that united them were frail and might snap at the death of one strong man or the other, who like Constantine had firm hold of the reins of government. But the Western Empire was no more, and owing to this and the disorders that ensued in consequence, the Eastern Empire gained in importance. It at least presented a united front to outward enemies, so when Charlemagne restored the western Roman Empire, a rivalry of power seemed imminent—this marked the distance East and West had travelled on diverging roads and brought about a separation of the Greek and Latin Churches. The intellectual pride of the Greeks could not submit to any dictation on the subject of the Christian doctrine from the See of Rome; Roman ambition would not allow outlying communities to formulate new doctrines or to revise old ones. In everything the adherents of the Eastern and Western Churches found points of disagreement. It needed but a small pretext to bring about a schism, small at this period of time but great and momentous to those who struggled through the controversy. A pretext was not long wanting. About the middle of the ninth century Photius, a layman, captain of the guards, was promoted by merit and favour to the office of Patriarch of Constantinople. In ecclesiastical science and in the purity of morals he was equally well qualified for his high office. But Ignatius, his predecessor, who had abdicated, had still many obstinate supporters, and they appealed to Pope Nicholas I, one of the proudest and most ambitious of the Roman Pontiffs, who welcomed an opportunity of judging and condemning his rival of the East.