Second Age.—The Church of the Middle Ages, or Romano-Germanic Catholicism, from Gregory the Great to the Reformation (A.D. 590-1517).
Fourth Period.—The commencement of the Middle Ages, the planting of the Church among the Germanic nations, to the time of Hildebrand (A.D. 590-1049).
Fifth Period.—The flourishing period of the Middle Ages, the summit of the Papacy, monasticism, and scholastic and mystic theology, to Boniface VIII. (A.D. 1049-1303).
Sixth Period.—The dissolution of the Middle Ages and preparation for the Reformation (A.D. 1303-1517).
Third Age.—The Modern or Evangelical Protestant Church in conflict with the Roman Catholic Church from the Reformation to the present time.
Seventh Period.—The Reformation, or productive Protestantism and reacting Romanism (A.D. 1517-1600).
Eighth Period.—Orthodox Confessional and Scholastic Protestantism in conflict with ultramontane Jesuitism, and this again with semi-Protestant Jansenism (seventeenth century and first part of eighteenth).
Ninth Period.—Subjective and negative Protestantism, Rationalism, and Sectarianism, and positive preparation for a new age in both Churches (middle of eighteenth century to present time).
THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH.
The Apostolic period, from A.D. 30 to 100, or rather 117, the death of John, may be subdivided into three: (1) the founding of the Christian Church among the Jews, chiefly the labours of St. Peter, A.D. 30-50; (2) the founding of the Christian Church among the Gentiles, or the labours of St. Paul (A.D. 50-64), who made Christianity more and more independent of Jerusalem, and the destruction of Jerusalem completed the severance; (3) the summing-up and organic union of Jewish and Gentile Christianity in one whole, chiefly the work of John. The three important local centres were Jerusalem, the mother Church of Jewish Christianity; Antioch, the starting-point of the heathen missions; Ephesus, the later residence of John. At the same time, Rome, where Peter and Paul spent their last days, was the centre of Western Christianity. The Apostolic period differs essentially from all subsequent periods. In the first place, Christianity comes forth from the bosom of Judaism, and for a long time clothes itself in the forms of that religion. The Apostles are all Jews. In their preaching they all, not excepting Paul, go first to their brethren, preach in the synagogues, visit the Temple at Jerusalem. The Church gradually separates from the home of its birth. The second peculiarity is the unstained purity and primitive freshness of doctrine and life, and its extraordinary spiritual gifts, working harmoniously together, and providing, by their creative and controlling power, for all the wants and relations of the infant Church. Müller called the first century the century of wonders. At the head of the Church were men who enjoyed immediate intercourse with the Saviour of the world, were trained by Him in person, and filled in an extraordinary degree with the Holy Ghost. Such infallible vehicles of Divine revelation, such sanctified and influential persons, are found in no subsequent age. The Apostolic period contained the germs of all subsequent periods, Christian personalities, and tendencies.