Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/319

Rh with a growing antipathy to the habits of churches of other races. The adoption of Christianity by Constantine, followed by the close alliance of Church and State, or rather dominance of the Church by the State, had as its natural consequence a tendency to limit the Church which deemed itself Catholic to the confines of the Roman Empire. By an inevitable reaction the patriotism of local churches in other countries would tend to develop their individuality. This process was hindered by persecution, which led foreign Christians ill-treated by their own government to look to the friendly Roman Empire for protection. Still, it could not be ultimately frustrated.

The second cause of separation—the doctrinal and polemical—was much more thorough and effectual. As early as the second century there had been heretical bodies, such as the and the, existing as regularly organised churches; and a little later orthodox but schismatic communions, such as the  and the , each regarding itself as the one true Church. The Christological controversies had more serious and permanent consequences, because here national and racial influences combined with the doctrinal to aggravate and perpetuate the severance. In this way Monophysites became Coptic and Syrian Churches, and Nestorians shaped into Churches of Persia, Chaldæa, and other Eastern parts. The Mohammedan conquests tended to confirm these divisions. They made communication between the Christians within their dominions and the Church of the empire difficult and precarious. But that was not all. Under the tolerant caliphs the territory of Islam became a harbour of refuge for Christians angrily denounced and driven from pillar to post by the holy orthodox Church of the empire. The scornful Arab made no difference between the various schools of "infidels" whom he tolerated. Thus churches excommunicated as heretical by the Greek and Roman authorities remained in safety out of the clutches of the tyrannical emperors and ecclesiastics, who would have harried them if they had had a chance to do so. Mean-