Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/366

 3o8 Outlines of European History The " Cath- olic," or universal, church Organization of the Church before Con- stantine Bishops, priests, and archbishops Constantine favors the Church The end of the old religions control the sinful and expel those who brought disgrace upon their religion by notoriously bad conduct. Gradually the followers of Christ came to believe in a " Catholic " — that is, a universal — church which embraced all the groups of true believers in Christ, wherever they might be. To this one universal church all must belong who hoped to be saved.^ A sharp distinction was already made between the officers of the Church, who were called the clergy^ and the people, or laity. To the clergy was committed the government of the Church, as well as the teaching of its members. In each of the Roman cities was a bishop, and at the head of each of the country communities a priest, who had derived his name from the original elders mentioned in the New Testament.^ It was not unnatural that the bishops in the chief towns of the Roman provinces should be especially influential in church affairs. They came to be called archbishops, and might summon the bishops of the province to a council to decide important matters. Thus Christianity, once the faith of the weak and the de- spised, gained a strong organization and became politically powerful. The result was that in .^ 1 1 the Roman Emperor Galerius^ issued a decree placing the Christian religion upon the same leg^al footing as the worship of the Tinman crnrl<;. Constantine, the first Christ ian emperor, str ictly enforced this edict^^His successors soon began to issue laws which gave the Christian clergy important privileges and forbade the worship of the old pagan gods. The splendid temples of the gods, which fringed the Mediterranean (cut, p. i66) and extended far up the Nile into inner Africa, were then closed and deserted, as they are to-day (Fig. 28, Plate III, p. 180). 1 " Whoever separates himself from the Church," 258) " is separated from the promises of the Church. rites St. Cyprian (died . He is an alien, he is profane, he is an enemy ; he can no longer have God for his father who has not the Church for his mother. If any one could escape who was outside the Ark of Noah, so also may he escape who shall be outside the bounds of the Church." See Readings in European History^ chap. ii. 2 Our word " priest " comes from the Greek word presbyter, meaning " elder." 3 One of the emperors ruling jointly with Constantine,