Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/419

 HISTORY

369

HISTORY

(1) The civil life of the various Western peoples was no longer regarded as identified with the life and aims of the Universal Church. Protestantism cut otf whole nations, especially in Central and Northern Europe, from ecclesiastical unity and entered on a conflict with the Church which has not yet terminated. On the other hand, the faithful adherents of the Church were more closely united, while the great (Ecumenical Council of Trent laid a firm foundation for a thorough reformation in the inner or ilomestic life of the Church, which was soon realized through the activity of new orders (especially the Jesuits) and through an extra- ordinary .series of great saints. The popes again de- voted themselves exclusively to their religious mission and took up the Catholic reforms with great energ)'. The newly discovered countries of the West, and the changed relations between Europe and the Eastern nations aroused in many missionaries a very active zeal for the conversion of the pagan world. The ef- forts of these messengers of the Faith were crowned with such success that the Church was in some meas- ure compensated for the defection in Europe.

(2) The subsequent epoch shows again a decline of ecclesiastical influence and religious life. Since the middle of the seventeenth century, there exist three great religious associations: the true Catholic f church; the Greek schLsmatical church, which found a powerful protector in Russia, together with the smaller schis- matical churches of the East; Protestantism, which, however, never constituted a united religious asso- ciation, but split up constantly into numerous sects, accepted the direct supremacy of the secular power, and was by the latter organized in each land as a national church. The growing absolutism of states and princes was in this way strongly furthered. In Catholic countries also the princes tried to use the Church as an " instrumentum regni", and to weaken as much as possible the influence of the papacy. Public life lost steadily its former salutary contact with a universal and powerful religion. Moreover, a thoroughly infidel philosophy now levelled its attacks against Christian revelation in general. Protestant- ism rapidly begot a race of unbelievers and shallow free-thinkers who spread on all sides a superficial scepticism. The political issue of so many fatal influ- ences was the French Revolution, which in turn in- flicted the severest injuries on ecclesiastical life.

(3) With the nineteenth century appeared the mod- ern constitutional state based on principles of the broadest political liberty. Although in the first dec- ades of the nineteenth century the Church was often hampered in her work by the downfall of the old politi- cal system, she nevertheless secured liberty under the new national popular government, fully developed her own religious energies, and in most countries was able to exhibit an upward movement in every sphere of religious life. Great popes guided this advance with a strong hand despite the loss of their secular power. The (Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, by defining papal infallibility, supported with firmness ecclesiasti- cal authority against a false subjectivism. The defec- tion of the Old Catholics was relatively unimportant. While Protestantism is the daih' prey of infidelity and loses steadily all claim to be considered a religion based on Divine revelation, the Catholic Church ap- pears in its compact unity as the true guardian of the unadulterated deposit of faith, which its Divine Founder originally entrusted to it. The conflict is ever more active between the Church, as the champion of supernatural revelation, and infidelity, which aims at supremacy in public life, politics, the sciences, liter- ature, and art. The non-Eiu-opean coimtries begin to play an important role in tlie world, and point to new fields of ecclesiastical activity. The Catholic faithful have increased so rapidly during the last century, and the importance of several non-European countries on ecclesiastical life has taken on such proportions, that-

VII.— 24

the universal history of the Church is becoming more and more a religious history of the world.

The great turning-points in the historical develop- ment of the Church do not appear suddenly or without due cause. As a rule divers important events occur- ring within the shorter epochs bring about eventually a change of universal import for the life of the Church, and compel us to recognize the arrival of a new period. Naturally, between these prominent turning-points there are shorter or longer intervals of transition, so that the exact limits of the chief periods are variously set down by different ecclesiastical historians, accord- ing to the importance which they severally attach to one or the other of the aforesaid momentous events or situations. The division between the first and second periods has its justification in the fact that, owing to the downfall of the Western Roman Empire and to the relations between the Church and the new Western nations, essentially new forms of life were called into being, while in the East Byzantine culture had become firmly established. The turning-point between the old ancl the new state of things did not, however, im- mediately follow the conversion of the Teutonic tribes; a consitlerable time elapsed before Western life was moving easily in all its new forms. Some (Neander, Jacobi, Baur, etc.) consider the pontificate of Ciregory the Great in 590, or (Moeller, Muller), more generally, the end of the sixth and the middle of the seventh century as the close of the first period; others (Dol- linger, Kurtz) take the Sixth General Council in 680, or (Alzog, Hergem-other, von Funk, Knopfier) the TruUan sjTiod of 692, or the end of the seventh century; others again close the first period with St. Boniface (Ritter, Niedner), or with the Iconoclasts (Gieseler, Moehler), or with Charlemagne (Hefele, Ilase, Weingarten). For the West Kraus regards the beginning of the seventh century as the close of the first period; for the East, the end of the same century. Speaking generally, however, it seems more reasonable to accept the end of the seventh century as the close of the first period. Similarly, along the line of division between the second and the third periods are crowded events of great importance to ecclesiastical life: the Renaissance with its influence upon all intellectual life, the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, the discovery of America and the new problems which the Church had to solve in consequence, the appearance of Luther and the heresy of Protestantism, the Council of Trent with its decisive influence on the evolution of the interior life of the Church. Protestant historians re- gard the appearance of Luther as the beginning of the third period. A few Catholic authors (e. g. Kraus) close the second period with the middle of the fifteenth century; it is to be noted, however, that the new his- torical factors in the life of the Church which condi- tion the third period become prominent only after the Council of Trent, itself an important result of Prot- estantism. It seems, therefore, advisable to regard the beginning of the sixteenth century as the com- mencement of the third period.

Nor do authors perfectly agree on the turning-points which are to be inserted within the chief periods. It is true that the conversion of Constantine the Great affected the life of the Church so profoundly that the reign of this first Christian emperor is generally ac- cepted as marking a sub-division in the first period. In the second period, especially prominent personalities usually mark the Hmits of the several sub-divisions, e. g. Charlemagne, Gregory VII, Boniface VIII, though this leads to the imdervaluation of other impor- tant factors e. g. the Greek Schism, the Crusades. Recent writers, therefore, assume other boundary lines which emphasize the forces active in the life of the Chm'ch rather than prominent personalities. In sub- dividing the third period the same diflficulty presents itself. Many historians consider the French Revolu- tion at the end of the eighteenth century as an event