Part 8 (1/2)

Workmen and slaves, and woe majority of the early converts to the new faith The character of its e of alovernress difficult, and in time to awaken powerful opposition [9] to it Yet, notwithstanding all these obstacles, its progress was relatively rapid

THE VICTORY OF CHRISTIANITY By the close of the first century there were Christian churches throughout most of Judea and Asia Minor, and in parts of Greece and Macedonia During the second century other churches were established in Asia Minor, in Greece, and along the Black Sea, and at a few places in Italy and France; and before four centuries had elapsed from the crucifixion Christian churches had been established throughout almost all the Roe

The e of hope that Christianity had to offer to all; the sireat appeal which it made to the emotional side of human life; the hope of a future life of reward for the burdens of this which it extended to all eary and heavy laden; the positiveness of conviction of its apostles and followers; and the coings of the ti educated men--all helped the new faith to win its way The unity in that Rome had everywhere established; [10] the Roman peace (_pax Romana_) that Rome had everywhere ies and ideas throughout the Mediterranean world; the right of freedom of travel and speech enjoyed by a Roman citizen, and of which Saint Paul and others on their travels took advantage; [11] the scatterhout the Empire, after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD--all these elements also helped

[ILlustRATION: FIG 27 THE GROWTH OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE END OF THE FOURTH CENTURY]

That Christianity made its headway unmolested must not be supposed While at first the tendency of educated Ronore or tolerate it, its challenge was so direct and provocative that this attitude could not long continue Under the Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD) ”all the Jeere continually ation of one Chrestus” were unsuccessfully ordered banished fron of the Emperor Nero, in 64 AD, many horrible tortures were inflicted on this as yet small sect It was not, however, till later, when the continued refusal of the Christians to offer sacrifices to the Eht thean to be much punished for their faith (R 31 a-b) The tis of many were that the adverse conditions in the Empire--war, famine, floods, pestilence, and barbarian inroads--were due to the neglect of the old state religion and to the tolerance extended the vast organized defiance of the law by the Christians In the first century they had been largely ignored In the second, in some places, they were punished In the third century, i of those ould restore the national religion to its earlier position, the Eradually driven to a series of heavy persecutions of the sect (R 30 a) But it had now become too late The blood of the martyrs proved to be the seed of the Church (R 35) The last great persecution under the Emperor Diocletian, in 303 (R 33), ended in virtual failure In 311 the Emperor Galerius placed Christianity on a plane of equality with other forms of worshi+p (R

36) In 313 Constantine ion of the State [12] and ordered freedoradually extended to the Christian clergy a long list of ious to those formerly enjoyed by the teachers of rhetoric under the Ean the policy, so liberally followed later, of endowing the Church In 391 the E the victory of Christianity complete In less than four centuries from the birth of its founder the Christian faith had won control of the great Einated In 529 the Ean schools, and the University of Athens, which had reht after the success of Christianity, closed its doors The victory was now complete

THE CONTRIBUTION OF CHRISTIANITY We have now before us the third great contribution upon which our reat contributions of Greece and Rome, which we have previously studied, there noas added, and added at a most opportune ti the Jewish idea of one God and freeing it from the narrow tribal limitations to which it had before been subject, Christianity eneral acceptance, first in the Roman world, and later in the Mohammedan world [14] With this was introduced the doctrine of the fatherhood of God and his love for man, the equality before God of all men and of the two sexes, and the sacredness of each individual in the eyes of the Father An entirely new conception of the individual was proclaiated The duty of all to make their lives conform to these new conceptions was asserted These ideas iy which were not only of great i with the downfall of civilization and the deluge of barbaris, but which have been of pri centuries In tiradually absorbed all other for the long period of darkness known as the Middle Ages

It reanized itself and beca the Middle Ages, what educational agencies it developed, and to what extent these were useful

II EDUCATIONAL AND GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION OF THE EARLY CHURCH

SCHOOLING OF THE EARLY CHURCH; CATECHUMENAL INSTRUCTION The early churches were bound together by no formal bond of union, and felt little need for such It was the belief of many that Christ would soon return and the world would end, hence there was little necessity for organization

There was also alment of God as the Father, a repentance for past sins, a Godly life, and a desire to be saved were about all that was expected of any one [15] The chief concern was the eneration of converts To accomplish this, in face of the practices of Roman society, a process of instruction and a period of probation for those wishi+ng to join the faith soon becaans, and the children of believers were thereafter alike subjected to this before full acceptance into the Church At stated ti the week the probationers met for instruction in morality and in the psalmody of the Church (R 39) These two subjects constituted al two or three years The teachers were ation

This personal instruction beca was known as _catechumenal_, that is, rudimentary, instruction Two sets of catechuive an idea as to the nature of the instruction They cover the essentials of church practice and the religious life (RS 39, 40) It was dropped entirely in the conversion of the barbarian tribes This instruction, and the preaching of the elders (presbyters, who later evolved into priests), constituted the for of the early converts to Christianity in Italy and the East Such instruction was never known in England, and but little in Gaul

The life in the Church made a moral and emotional, rather than an intellectual appeal In fact the early Christians felt but little need for the type of intellectual education provided by the Roman schools, and the character of the educated society about them, as they saw it, did notEven if the parents of converts wished to provide additional educational advantages for their children, what could they do? A modern author states well the predicament of such Christian parents, when he says:

All the schools were pagan Not only were all the ceremonies of the official faith--and more especially the festivals of Minerva, as the patroness of ular intervals in the schools, but the children were taught reading out of books saturated with the old y There the Christian child made his first acquaintance with the deities of Oly ideas entirely contrary to those which he had received at home The fables he had learned to detest in his own home were explained, elucidated, and held up to his adht to put hiht?

What could be done that he ht be educated, like every one else, and yet not run the risk of losing his faith? [16]

CATECHETICAL SCHOOLS After Christianity had begun tothe more serious-minded and better-educated citizens of the Roman Empire, the need for more than rudian to be felt Especially was this the case in the places where Christian workers came in contact with the best scholars of the hellenic learning, and particularly at Alexandria, Athens, and the cities of Asia Minor The speculative Greek would not be satisfied with the sianized faith of the early Christians He wanted to understand it as a systeht, and asked many questions that were hard to answer To meet the critical inquiry of learned Greeks, it becay of the Church, in the East at least, should be equipped with a training similar to that of their critics As a result there was finally evolved, first at Alexandria, and later at other places in the E schools for the leaders of the Church

These came to be known as _catechetical_ schools, fro method of instruction, and this terious instruction (whence _catechishout western Europe Pantaenus, a converted Greek Stoic, who became head of the catechuht to the training of future Christian leaders the strength of Greek learning and Greek philosophic thought He and his successors, Cleen, developed here an i was used to interpret the Scriptures and train leaders for the service of the Church Similar schools were opened at Antioch, Edessa, Nisibis, and Caesarea (See Map, p 89), and these developed into a rudiical schools for the education of the eastern Christian clergy In these schools Christian faith and doctrine were for tinctured through and through with Greek philosophic thought Out of these schools careat Fathers of the early Church;and reconcile Christianity and Greek philosophic thinking [17]

REJECTION OF PAGAN LEARNING IN THE WEST In the West, where the leaders of the Church came from the less philosophic and more practical Roman stock, and where the contact with a decadent society wakened a greater reaction, the tendency was to reject the hellenic learning, and to depend more upon emotional faith and the enforcement of a moral life By the close of the third century the hostility to the pagan schools and to the hellenic learning had here become pronounced (R 41) Even the Fathers of the Latin Church, the greatest of whom had been teachers of oratory or rhetoric in Roradually ca as undesirable for Christians and in a large degree as a robbery froustine, in his _Confessions_, hopes that God il Jeroes Tertullian, in his _Prescription against Heresies_, exclaims:

What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? What between heretics and Christians? Aith all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic coory the Great, Pope of the Church from 590 to 604, and who had been well educated as a youth in the surviving Roan learning ”I anity that the words of the oracle of Heaven should be restrained by the rules of Donatus” (gramiving instruction in gra with--”the praise of Christ cannot lie in one mouth with the praise of Jupiter Consider yourself what a crime it is for bishops to recite ould be iiously- declined rapidly in importance in the West as the Church attained supreely at the instigation of Saint Augustine, forbade the clergy to read any pagan author In tiely died out in the West, and was for a tiotten, and was not known again in the West for nearly a thousand years [20]

THE CHURCH PERFECTS A STRONG ORGANIZATION As was previously stated (p

92), but little need was felt during the first two centuries for a systeovernment As the expected return of Christ did not take place, and as the need for a foran to be felt, the next step was the development of these features The system of belief and the ceremonials of worshi+p finally evolved are ht and practices of the East, while the forovernment is derived more from Roman sources In the second century the Old Testament was translated into Greek at Alexandria, and the ”Apostles' Creed” was fors deeanized into the New Testament, also in Greek In 325 the first General Council of the Church was held at Nicaea, in Asia Minor It formulated the Nicene Creed (R 42), and twenty canons or laws for the government of the Church A second General Council, held at Constantinople in 381, revised the Nicene Creed and adopted additional canons

[Illustration: FIG 28 A BISHOP Seventh Century (Santo Venanzio, Roenius of the western branch of the Church was Saint Augustine (354-430) He gave to the Western or Latin Church, then beginning to take on its separate existence, the body of doctrine needed to enable it to put into shape the things for which it stood The systey evolved before the separation of the eastern and western branches of the Church was not so finished and so finely speculative as that of the Greek branch, but was al, and anized

The influence of Roovern no other overnmental system was copied The bishop of a city corresponded to the Roman overnor of a province; and the patriarch to the ruler of a division of the Empire As Rome had been a universal E city, [21] the idea of a universal Church was natural and the supreradually asserted and determined [22]

A STATE WITHIN A STATE There was thus developed in the West, as it were a State within a State That is, within the Roovernors, andtheir power froradually developed another State, consisting of those who had accepted the Christian faith, and who rendered their chief allegiance, through priest, bishop, and archbishop, to a central head of the Church ed allegiance to no earthly ruler That Christianity, viewed froovernmental point of vieas a serious element of weakness in the Roman State and helped its downfall, there can be no question In the eastern part of the Empire the Church was always much more closely identified with the State Fortunately for civilization, before the Roe had descended, the Christian Church had succeeded in forovern authority, and was fast taking over the power of the State itself

THE CATHEDRAL OR EPISCOPAL SCHOOLS The first churches throughout the Empire were in the cities, and made their early converts there [23]