Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" / Volume 6, Slice 3

by Various

(b) The Nestorian and the Monophysite Churches.—Since the time when the church of eastern Syria had decided, in opposition to the church of the Empire, to cling to the ancient views of Syrian theologians—therefore also to the teaching and person of Nestorius—her relations were broken off with the church in western Syria and in Greek and Latin countries; but the power of Nestorian, or, as it was termed, Chaldaic Christianity, was not thereby diminished. Separated from the West, it directed its energies towards the East, and here its nearest neighbour was the Persian church. The latter followed, almost without opposition, the impulse received from Syria; from the rule of the patriarch Babacus (Syr. Bāb-hāi, 498-503) she may be considered definitely Nestorian. A certain number, too, of Arabic Christians, believers living on the west coast of India, the so-called Christians of St Thomas, and finally those belonging to places nearer the middle of Asia (Merv, Herat, Samarkand), remained in communion with the Nestorian church. Thus there survived in mid-Asia a widely-scattered remnant, which, although out of touch with the ancient usages of Christian civilization, yet in no way lacked higher culture. Nestorian philosophers and medical practitioners became the teachers of the great Arabian natural philosophers of the middle ages, and the latter obtained their knowledge of Greek learning from Syriac translations of the works of Greek thinkers.

Political conditions at the beginning of the middle ages favoured the Nestorian church, and the fact that the Arabs had conquered Syria, Palestine and Egypt, made it possible for her to exert an influence on the Christians in these countries. Of still more importance was the brisk commercial intercourse between central Asia and the countries of the Far East; for this led the Nestorians into China. The inscription of Si-ngan-fu (before 781) proves a surprisingly widespread extension of the Christian faith in that country. That it also possessed adherents in southern Siberia we gather from the inscriptions of Semiryetchensk, and in the beginning of the 11th century it found its way even into Mongolia. Nowhere were the nations Christian, but the Christian faith was everywhere accepted by a not insignificant minority. The foundation of the Mongolian empire in the beginning of the 13th century did not disturb the position of the Nestorian church; but the revival of the Mahommedan power, which was coincident with the downfall of the Mongolian empire, was pregnant with disaster for her. The greater part of Nestorian Christendom was now swallowed up by Islam, so that only remnants of this once extensive church have survived until modern times.

The middle ages were far more disastrous for the Monophysites than for the Nestorians; in their case there was no alternation of rise and decline, and we have only a long period of gradual exhaustion to chronicle. Egypt was the home of Monophysitism, whence it extended also into Syria. It was due to the great Jacob of Edessa (Jacob Baradaeus, d. 578) that it did not succumb to the persecution by the power of the Orthodox Empire, and out of gratitude to him the Monophysite Christians of Syria called themselves Jacobites. The Arab conquest (after 635) freed the Jacobite church entirely from the oppression of the Orthodox, and thereby assured its continuance. The church, however, never attained any greater development, but on the contrary continued to lose adherents from century to century. While Jacob of Edessa is said to have ordained some 100,000 priests and deacons for his fellow-believers, in the 16th century the Jacobites of Syria were estimated at only 50,000 families.

The Monophysite church of Egypt had a like fate. At the time of the separation of the churches the Greeks here had remained faithful to Orthodoxy, the Copts to Monophysitism. Here too the Arab conquest (641) put an end to the oppression of the native Christians by the Greek minority; but this did not afford the Coptic church any possibility of vigorous development. It succumbed to the ceaseless alternation of tolerance and persecution which characterized the Arab rule in Egypt, and the mass of the Coptic people became unfaithful to the Church. At the time of the conquest of the country by the Turks (1517) the Coptic church seems already to have fallen to the low condition in which the 19th century found it. Though at the time of the Arab conquest the Copts were reckoned at six millions, in 1820 the Coptic Christians numbered only about one hundred thousand, and it is improbable that their number can have been much greater at the close of the middle ages. Only in Abyssinia the daughter church of the Coptic church succeeded in keeping the whole people in the Christian faith. This fact, however, is the sole outcome of the history of a thousand years; a poor result, if measured by the standard of the rich history of the Western world, yet large enough not to exclude the hope of a new development.

II. The West. (a) The Early Middle Ages. The Catholic Church as influenced by the Foundation of the Teutonic States.—While the Eastern Church was stereotyping those peculiar characteristics which made her a thing apart, the Church of the West was brought face to face with the greatest revolution that Europe has ever experienced. At the end of the 6th century all the provinces of the Empire had become independent kingdoms, in which conquerors of Germanic race formed the dominant nationality. The remnants of the Empire showed an uncommonly tough vitality. It is true that the Teutonic states succeeded everywhere in establishing themselves; but only in England and in the erstwhile Roman Germany did the Roman nationality succumb to the Teutonic. In the other countries it not only maintained itself, but was able to assimilate the ruling German race; the Lombards, West Goths, Swabians, and even the Franks in the greater part of Gaul became Romanized. Consequently the position of the Christian Church was never seriously affected. This is the great fact which stands out at the beginning of the history of the Church in the middle ages. The continuity of the political history of Europe was violently interrupted by the Germanic invasion, but not that of the history of the Church. For, in view of the facts above stated, it was of small significance that in Britain Christianity was driven back into the western portion of the island still held by the Britons, and that in the countries of the Rhine and Danube a few bishoprics disappeared.

This was of the less importance, as the Church immediately made preparations to win back the lost territory. On the frontier line of ancient and medieval times stands the figure of Gregory I., the incarnation as it were of the change that was taking place: half Father of the Church, half medieval pope. He it was who sent the monk Augustine to England, in order to win over the Anglo-Saxons to the Christian faith. Augustine was not the first preacher of the Gospel at Canterbury. A Frankish bishop, Liudhard, had laboured there before his time; but the mission of Augustine and his ordination as a bishop were decisive in the conversion of the country and the establishment of the Anglo-Saxon church. On the continent an extension of the Frankish supremacy towards the east had already led to the advance of Christendom. Not only were the bishoprics in the towns of the Rhine country re-established, but as the Franks colonized the country on both sides of the Main, they carried the Christian faith into the very heart of Germany. Finally, the dependence of the Swabian and Bavarian peoples on the Frankish empire paved the way for Christianity in those provinces also. Celtic monks worked as missionaries in this part of the country side by side with Franks. In England it had not been possible to bring the old British and the young Anglo-Saxon churches into friendly union; but in spite of this the Celts did not abstain from working at the common tasks of Christendom, and the continent has much to thank them for. When the first century of the middle ages came to an end the Church had not only reoccupied the former territory of the Empire, she had already begun to overstep its limits.

In so doing she had remained as of old and had yet become new. Creed and dogma, above all, remained unchanged. The doctrinal decisions of the ancient Church remained the indestructible canon of belief, and what the theologians of the ancient Church had taught was reverenced as beyond improvement. The entire form of divine worship remained therefore unaltered. Even where the Latin tongue was not understood by the people, the Church preserved it in the Mass and in the administration of the sacraments, in her exorcisms and in her benedictions. Furthermore, the organization of ecclesiastical offices remained unchanged: the division of the Church into bishoprics and the grouping together of bishoprics into metropolitan dioceses. Finally, the property and the whole social status of the Church and of the hierarchy remained unchanged, as did also the conviction that the perfection of the Christian life was to be sought and found in the monastic profession.

Nevertheless, the new conditions did exercise the strongest influence upon the character of the Church. The churches of the Lombards, West Goths, Franks and Anglo-Saxons, all counted themselves parts of the Catholic Church; but the Catholic Church had altered its condition; it lacked the power of organization, and split up into territorial churches. Under the Empire the ecumenical council had been looked upon as the highest representative organ of the Catholic Church; but the earlier centuries of the middle ages witnessed the convocation of no ecumenical councils. Under the Empire the bishop of Rome had possessed in the Church an authority recognized and protected by the State; respect for Rome and for the successor of Saint Peter was not forgotten by the new territorial churches, but it had altered in character; legal authority had become merely moral authority; its wielder could exhort, warn, advise but could not command.

On the other hand, the kings did command in the Church. They certainly claimed no authority over faith or doctrine, and they too respected doctrinal law; but they succeeded in asserting their rights to a practical share in the government of the Church. The clergy and laity of a diocese together elected their bishop, as they had done before; but no one could become a bishop against the will of the king, and the confirmation of their choice rested with him. The bishops continued to meet in synods as before, but the councils became territorial synods; they were called together at irregular intervals by the king, and their decisions obtained legal effect only by royal sanction.

In these circumstances the intrusion of Germanic elements into ecclesiastical law is easy to understand. This is most clearly recognizable in the case of churches which arose alongside the episcopal cathedrals. In the Empire all churches, and all the property of the Church, were at the disposal of the bishops; in Germanic countries, on the contrary, the territorial nobles were looked upon as the owners of churches built upon their lands, and these became “proprietary churches.” The logical consequence of this was that the territorial nobles claimed the right of appointing clergy, and the enjoyment of the revenues of these churches derived from the land (tithes). Even a certain number of the monastic establishments came in this way into the possession of the feudal landowners, who nominated abbots and abbesses as they appointed the incumbents of their churches.