Page:Nicolae Iorga - My American lectures.djvu/47

 domination. The Roumanians preserved the latin nomenclature, easily traceable in the Roumanian, viz: Dumnezeu (God); creștin (Christian); botez (baptism); Paști (Easter); Crăciun (Christmas); preot (priest) popa (Latin: pope); cruce (crux: cross); sfânt (saint), Sânvăsiiu (St. Basil), etc.: other latin names have remained too, viz: câșlegi and cârnelegi (for the terms of the fast); Bobotează (the Day of Baptism); martur (martyr); mărturisire (testimony or confession); cuminecătură (communion); crez (credo); închinare (inclinatio); rugăciune (prayer), altar; etc. The word for «church » is even still more interesting: the French language retains «eglise», «basoche» and « baseille »: the Italian and Portuguese preserve only the derivates of the Greek « ecclesia». All Latin churches were subject to official influence, derived from the Greek of the Niceean Council. Only the scattered Roumanches in the Alpine valleys, there forsaken Latins, and the Roumanians know the single cognomen taken from the civil society: « baselgia » by the former; «biserica» by the later.

The best proof of the Latin origins of the Christianity of Dacia lies there, the Greek having disappeared with the Cappadocians of the Trajanic colonization. In Dalmatia, for a long time in dispute between the eastern and western empires, the old Roman episcopacy remained, preserved alike against the pagan barbarians and the Imperial church of a different linguistic and hierarchical character. In Antivari, the city opposed to the Itahan Bari, in Ragusa also, bishops ruled who had to decide the question of supremacy. Each of the centres abandoned by the emperors, at least for a certain time, recognised the local religious chief to be a substitute for the -civil and military authorities. Before the arrival of the Slavs such prelates had the same position of popular authority and ecclesiastical prestige as St. Severin before the