The Church and the Barbarians | Page 2

VIII
THE CHURCH IN ASIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
CHAPTER IX
THE CHURCH IN AFRICA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
CHAPTER X
THE CHURCH IN THE WESTERN ISLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
CHAPTER XI
THE CONVERSION OF SLAVS AND NORTHMEN . . . . . . . . . . .
123
CHAPTER XII
PROGRESS OF THE CHURCH IN GERMANY . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
CHAPTER XIII
THE POPES AND THE REVIVAL OF THE EMPIRE . . . . . . . . . 143
CHAPTER XIV
THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
CHAPTER XV
LEARNING AND MONASTICISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

CHAPTER XVI
SACRAMENTS AND LITURGIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
CHAPTER XVII
THE END OF THE DARK AGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
APPENDIX I LIST OF EMPERORS AND POPES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
205
APPENDIX II A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
209
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

{1}
THE CHURCH AND THE BARBARIANS
CHAPTER I
THE CHURCH AND ITS PROSPECTS IN THE FIFTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: The task of the Church]
The year 461 saw the great organisation which had ruled and united
Europe for so long trembling into decay. The history of the Empire in
relation to Christianity is indeed a remarkable one. The imperial
religion had been the necessary and deadly foe of the religion of Jesus
Christ; it had fought and had been conquered. Gradually the Empire
itself with all its institutions and laws had been transformed, at least
outwardly, into a Christian power. Questions of Christian theology had
become questions of imperial politics. A Roman of the second century
would have wondered indeed at the transformation which had come
over the world he knew: it seemed as if the kingdoms of the earth had

become the kingdoms of the Lord and of His Christ. But also it seemed
that the new wine had burst the old bottles. The boundaries of the
Roman world had been outstepped: nations had come in from the East
and from the West. The {2} system which had been supreme was not
elastic: the new ideas, Christian and barbarian alike, pressed upon it till
it gave way and collapsed. And so it came about that if Christianity had
conquered the old world, it had still to conquer the new.
[Sidenote: The decaying Empire.]
Now before the Church in the fifth century there were set several
powers, interests, duties, with which she was called upon to deal; and
her dealing with them was the work of the next five centuries. They
were,--the Empire, Christian, but obsolescent; the new nations, still
heathen, which were struggling for territory within the bounds of the
Empire, and for sway over the imperial institutions; the distant tribes
untouched by the message of Christ; and the growth, within the Church
itself, of new and great organisations, which were destined in great
measure to guide and direct her work. Politics, theology, organisation,
missions, had all their share in the work of the Church from 461 to
1003. In each we shall find her influence: to harmonise them we must
find a principle which runs through her relation to them all.
[Sidenote: The need of unity.]
The central idea of the period with which we are to deal is unity. Up till
the fifth century, till the Council of Chalcedon (451) completed the
primary definition of the orthodox Christian faith in the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ, Christians were striving for conversion, organisation,
definition. All these aims still remained, but in less prominence. The
Church's order was completed, the Church's creed was practically fixed,
and the dominant nations in Europe had owned the name of Christ.
There remained a new and severe test. Would the {3} Church win the
new barbarian conquerors as she had won the old imperial power?
There was to be a great epoch of missionary energy. But of the