In Gaul, under the leadership of the famous bishop of Tours, the old Gods were declared to be the predecessors of the Christian devils and their temples were therefore ordered to be wiped off the face of the earth.
If, as sometimes happened in remote country districts, the peasants rushed forth to the defense of their beloved shrines, the soldiers were called out and by means of the ax and the gallows made an end to such “insurrections of Satan.”
In Greece, the work of destruction proceeded more slowly. But finally in the year 394, the Olympic games were abolished. As soon as this center of Greek national life (after an uninterrupted existence of eleven hundred and seventy years) had come to an end, the rest was comparatively easy. One after the other, the philosophers were expelled from the country. Finally, by order of the Emperor Justinian, the University of Athens was closed. The funds established for its maintenance were confiscated. The last seven professors, deprived of their livelihood, fled to Persia where King Chosroes received them hospitably and allowed them to spend the rest of their days peacefully playing the new and mysterious Indian game called “chess.”
In the first half of the fifth century, archbishop Chrysostomus could truthfully state that the works of the old authors and philosophers had disappeared from the face of the earth. Cicero and Socrates and Virgil and Homer (not to mention the mathematicians and the astronomers and the physicians who were an object of special abomination to all good Christians) lay forgotten in a thousand attics and cellars. Six hundred years were to go by before they were called back to life, and in the meantime the world would be obliged to subsist on such literary fare as it pleased the theologians to place before it.
A strange diet, and not exactly (in the jargon of the medical faculty) a balanced one.
For the Church, although triumphant over its pagan enemies, was beset by many and serious tribulations. The poor peasant in Gaul and Lusitania, clamoring to burn incense in honor of his ancient Gods, could be silenced easily enough. He was a heathen and the law was on the side of the Christian. But the Ostrogoth or the Alaman or the Longobard who declared that Arius, the priest of Alexandria, was right in his opinion upon the true nature of Christ and that Athanasius, the bishop of that same city and Arius’ bitter enemy, was wrong (or vice versa)—the Longobard or Frank who stoutly maintained that Christ was not “of the same nature” but of a “like nature only” with God (or vice versa)—the Vandal or the Saxon who insisted that Nestor spoke the truth when he called the Virgin Mary the “mother of Christ” and not the “mother of God” (or vice versa)—the Burgundian or Frisian who denied that Jesus was possessed of two natures, one human and one divine (or vice versa)—all these simple-minded but strong-armed barbarians who had accepted Christianity and were, outside of their unfortunate errors of opinion, staunch friends and supporters of the Church—these indeed could not be punished with a general anathema and a threat of perpetual hell fire. They must be persuaded gently that they were wrong and must be brought within the fold with charitable expressions of love and devotion. But before all else they must be given a definite creed that they might know for once and for all what they must hold to be true and what they must reject as false.
It was that desire for unity of some sort in all matters pertaining to the faith which finally caused those famous gatherings which have become known as Oecumenical or Universal Councils, and which since the middle of the fourth century have been called together at irregular intervals to decide what doctrine is right and what doctrine contains the germ of heresy and should therefore be adjudged erroneous, unsound, fallacious and heretical.
The first of those Oecumenical councils was held in the town of Nicaea, not far from the ruins of Troy, in the year 325. The second one, fifty-six years later, was held in Constantinople. The third one in the year 431 in Ephesus. Thereafter they followed each other in rapid succession in Chalcedon, twice again in Constantinople, once more in Nicaea and finally once again in Constantinople in the year 869.
After that, however, they were held in Rome or in some particular town of western Europe designated by the Pope. For it was generally accepted from the fourth century on that although the emperor had the technical right to call together such meetings (a privilege which incidentally obliged him to pay the traveling expenses of his faithful bishops) that very serious attention should be paid to the suggestions made by the powerful Bishop of Rome. And although we do not know with any degree of certainty who occupied the chair in Nicaea, all later councils were dominated by the Popes and the decisions of these holy gatherings were not regarded as binding unless they had obtained the official approval of the supreme pontiff himself or one of his delegates.
Hence we can now say farewell to Constantinople and travel to the more congenial regions of the west.