A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient)

by John Henry Blunt

Section 4. Continental Churches.

The CHURCH OF ITALY, as we have already seen (pp. 42, 43), was founded by the joint labours of St. Peter and St. Paul, but the circumstances of its foundation were very different from those of the Churches of our own islands. Difficulties encountered by the Church in Italy from high civilization Christianity in Italy had to make its way amongst a highly civilized people, a nation of deep thinkers and philosophers, whose opposition to the truths of the Gospel was a far more subtle thing than the rude ignorance of barbarians. and political power. Besides this, the infant Church in Italy was brought face to face with the might of the Roman emperors who were at that time the rulers of the known world; and though their persecution of their Christian subjects extended more or less to all parts of the empire, yet Italy was the chief battle-field on which the first great contest between the Church and the world was fought. Hence the history of the early Church of Italy is a history of alternating persecutions and times of peace[1], during which Christianity was constantly taking deeper root and spreading more widely through the country, until the conversion of Constantine, A.D. 312, led to the establishment and endowment of the Church. Decay of the Roman empire. As the Church was growing stronger and taking deeper root, the worn-out Roman empire was gradually decaying and fading away, and, practically, it came to an end with the division of East and West, A.D. 395.

Resistance to the inroads of the barbarians was no longer possible. Rome was sacked successively by different nations of Central Europe, and at length the kingdom of the Goths in Italy was established under Theodoric, A.D. 493. Arianism of barbarian conquerors. These rude nations, though professing Christianity, had received with it the heretical doctrines of Anus, owing to their teachers having belonged to those eastern portions of Europe, which, from their nearness to Asia, were most infected with this heresy.

The CHURCH OF FRANCE was probably founded by St. Paul, but we have no certain account of its early history. Asiatic origin of Early French Bishops, "Trophimus the Ephesian" is believed to have been the first Bishop of Arles, and Pothinus, another Greek Asiatic, occupied the see of Lyons at the time of the persecution under Marcus Aurelius, A.D. 161-A.D. 180, during which he suffered martyrdom. His successor was St. Irenaeus, a native, probably, of Smyrna, who was martyred under Severus, A.D. 202. This long-continued connexion with the Churches of Asia Minor left its traces on the liturgy and customs of the Church of France, and through it of Britain and Ireland, these latter Churches adhering to the Eastern mode of computing Easter even after the Western reckoning had been adopted in France. and of French Liturgy. The liturgy used in France, as well as in Britain and Spain, is known to have been founded on that used in Ephesus and in the other Asiatic cities, which was almost certainly that used by St. John himself.

Intercourse between English and French Churches.

A Council was summoned by Constantine, A.D. 314, at the French city of Arles, and one French Bishop at least was present at the great Nicaean Council, A.D. 323. About a century later (A.D. 429), St. Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, and St. Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, were sent over to Britain to assist in combating the errors of Pelagius, the neighbour Churches of England and France maintaining apparently very friendly relations. Many of the barbarian tribes who overran France in the beginning of the fifth century, though professing Christianity, were deeply infected with the Arian heresy. The Franks, however, who were heathens at their first entrance into the country, embraced the orthodox faith, and eventually became masters of the kingdom under Clovis, A.D. 486.

St. Paul and St. James in Spain.

The CHURCH OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL traces its foundation to St. Paul, who speaks of his intended visit to Spain, Rom. xv. 24; and there is also a tradition that St. James the Great preached the Gospel here. This Church, too, is spoken of by St. Irenaeus, and again by Tertullian. Its first known martyr was St. Fructuosus, A.D. 259, and its first Council that of Elvira, about A.D. 300. The names of nineteen Spanish Bishops are mentioned as present at it. The Council of Nice, A.D. 325, was under the presidency of Hosius, the Bishop of the Spanish diocese of Cordova. Arianism of Visigoths. About A.D. 470, the Visigoths, who were Arians, passed over from France into Spain, and were only gradually converted to the Catholic Faith.

We must look to a later period (see Chapter XI.) for the foundation of other Churches of the West in Northern and Central Europe, that is to say, the SCANDINAVIAN CHURCHES, including NORWAY, SWEDEN, and DENMARK, as well as those contained in the large extent of country to which we often give the comprehensive name of Germany.

The Churches now comprehended in EUROPEAN TURKEY and GREECE were, as we have already seen (pp. 37 to 40), the fruits of the labours of St. Paul, and, like the Church of Rome, had wealth and learning to encounter instead of poverty and ignorance. The Book of Acts records very fully the earliest history of these Churches, and a large proportion of St. Paul's Epistles are addressed to them. Liability of the Greeks to heresy. The theorizing and philosophical tendencies of the Greeks made them very liable be led away by heretical teachers, and we find that the Church in Greece, from St. Paul's time downwards, was continually disturbed by the presence of those who taught or listened to "some new thing." Hence all the General Councils, summoned for the authoritative settlement of the faith of the Church, were held either in Greece, or in that part of Asia which had been colonized by Greeks. Arianism in particular, for a long period, caused the most violent dissensions throughout the Eastern world, and these were the occasion of that first Great Council of Nicaea which, though not actually held in Greece, was only separated from it by the narrow strait of the Bosphorus. Origin of jealousies between Rome and Constantinople. The building of Constantinople, A.D. 330, gave a Christian capital to Greece, and, indeed, to the whole of the Eastern Roman empire; and from this time may be dated the jealousies and struggles for supremacy which took place between the Church in Italy and the Church in Greece, and resulted eventually in the Great schism between East and West[2].