The History of Christianity - John S. C. Abbott (bookstand for reading .txt) 📗

The Anticipated Second Coming of Christ.—​State of the World in the Tenth Century.—​Enduring Architecture.—​Power of the Papacy.—​Vitality of the Christian Religion.—​The Pope and the Patriarch.—​Intolerance of Hildebrand.—​Humiliation of the Emperor Henry IV.—​Farewell Letter of Monomaque.—​The Crusades.—​Vladimir of Russia.—​His Introduction of Christianity to his Realms.—​Marriage with the Christian Princess Anne.—​Extirpation of Paganism.—​The Baptism.—​The Spiritual Conversion of Vladimir.

HERE had gradually arisen an almost universal impression in the Church, that, in just a thousand years after the advent of Christ, the world was to come to an end. Notwithstanding the emphatic declaration of Jesus, that not even the angels in heaven know the period of his second coming, through all the ages of the Church individuals have been appearing who have fixed upon a particular year when Christ was to come in clouds of glory.

The year of our Lord 999 was one of very solemn import. There was a deep-seated impression throughout all Christendom that it was to be the last year of time; and, indeed, all the signs in the heavens above and on the earth beneath indicated that event. There was almost universal anarchy,—no law, no government, no safety, anywhere. There were wars, and rumors of wars. Sin abounded. There were awful famines, followed by the fearful train of pestilence and death. The land was left untilled. There was no motive to plant when the harvest could never be gathered. The houses were left to fall into decay. Why make improvements, when in one short month they might be swallowed up in a general conflagration?

It is an almost inexplicable peculiarity of human wickedness, that danger and death are often the most intense incentives to reckless sin. While Christians were watching and praying for the coming of the Saviour to bring to a triumphal close this fearful tragedy of earth and time, the godless surrendered themselves to all excesses, and shouted, “Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die!”

The condition of society became quite unendurable. Robbers frequented every wood: in strong bands they ravaged villages, and even walled towns. As all were consuming, and few were producing, provisions soon disappeared. Despair gave loose to every passion. In many places the famine was so severe, that, when even rats and mice could no longer be procured, human flesh was sold in the markets: women and children were actually killed and roasted.

But, while many were thus stimulated to awful depravity, others, inspired by Christian principle, were impelled to prayer, and to every exercise of devotion which those dark days taught them could be acceptable to God. Kings, in several cases, laid aside their crowns, and, as humble monks, entered the monasteries, performing all the most onerous and humiliating duties of midnight vigils, fastings, penances, and prayers.

Henry, the Emperor of Germany, entered the Abbey of St. Vanne as a monk. The holy father in charge, who was truly a good man, enlightened and conscientious, received the emperor reluctantly. After much remonstrance, he, however, administered the oath by which the monarch vowed implicit obedience to the authority of his spiritual superior.

“Sire,” said this good monk to the emperor, “you are now under my orders: you have taken a solemn oath to obey me. I command you to retire immediately from the convent, and to resume the sceptre. Fulfil the duties of the kingly state to which God has called you. Go forth a monk of the Abbey of St. Vanne; but resume your responsibilities as Emperor of Germany.”

The emperor obeyed with simplicity of trust, and nobility of character, which have commanded the respect of all subsequent ages.

Robert, King of France, son of the illustrious Hugh Capet, entered the Abbey of St. Denis. Here he became one of the choir of the church, singing hymns and psalms of his own composition. Many of the nobles emancipated their slaves, and bestowed large sums in charity,—benevolence, indeed, which did not, perhaps, require a large exercise of self-denial, if sincere in their belief that the fires were just ready to burst out which were to wrap the world in flames.

As the year 999 drew near its end, men almost held their breath to watch the result. For a whole generation, all the pulpits of Christendom had been ringing with the text,—

“And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more; and, after that, he must be loosed a little season.”201

But the dawn of the eleventh century rose, and all things continued as they were from the beginning of the creation. Christians, finding that the world was not coming to an end, rallied for more energetic effort to make the world better. All Christendom combined in the crusades to arrest the progress of Mohammedanism, and to reclaim the Holy Land from Mohammedan sway. The churches were repaired. Stately cathedrals rose,—those massive piles of imposing architecture which are still the pride of Europe.

The impression that the world was to be stable for some centuries longer led to the projection of buildings on the most gigantic scale and of the most durable materials. Architecture became a science which enlisted the energies of the ablest minds; and here originated that Gothic architecture so much admired even at the present day. The foundations of these time-defying edifices were broad and deep; the walls of immense thickness; the roofs steep, effectually to shed rain and snow; the towers square, buttressed to sustain the church, and also to afford means, then so necessary, of military defence.

The castle of the noble rose by the same impulse which reared such majestic sacred edifices. Thus Melrose and Kenilworth, Heidelberg and Drachenfels, came into being.

In France alone, at the beginning of the eleventh century, there were a thousand four hundred and thirty-four monasteries. Poverty was universal. The cottages of the peasants were mere hovels, without windows, damp and airless,—wretched kennels in which the joyless inmates crept to sleep. By the side of these abodes of want and woe the church rose in palatial splendor, with its massive walls, its majestic spire, its spacious aisles, and its statuary and paintings, which charmed the docile and unlettered multitude. The whole population of the village could assemble beneath its vaulted ceiling. It was the poor man’s palace: he felt that it belonged to him. There he received his bride. In the churchyard he laid his dead. The church-bell rang merrily on festal-days, and tolled sadly when sorrow crashed. Life’s burden weighed heavily on all hearts. To the poor, unlettered, ignorant peasant, the church was every thing: its religious pageants pleased his eye; the church-door was ever open for his devotions; the sanctuary was his refuge in danger; its massive grandeur filled his heart with pride; its gilded shows and stately ceremonies took the place of amusements; the officiating priests and bishops presented to his reverential eyes an aspect almost divine.

We see the remains of this deep reverence in the attachment to their forms of religion of nearly all the peasantry of Catholic Europe at the present day. The Church, with its imposing ceremonies, hallowed to them by all the associations of childhood and by the traditions of past generations, still exerts over them a power which seems almost miraculous.

The wonderful vitality which there is in the Church of Christ, and the amazing influence which the teachings of Jesus exert over the human mind, are in nothing more remarkable than in the stability with which Christianity and its doctrines survive all the ordinary changes of time. Dynasties rise and fall like ocean-waves, leaving no perceptible influence behind them; but Christianity rides over all these storms of time with immortal life. The Roman empire crumbles to dust; the Eastern and Western empires moulder away; the Gothic kingdoms appear, and vanish like a vision of the night; the Vandals and the Huns, the Ostrogoths and the Normans, flit across the scene, each with their brief span of life.

Yet Christianity, like the sun struggling through the clouds of a stormy day, calmly, steadily, surely, continues on its course. Though a storm-cloud may transiently obscure its brightness, nothing can impede its onward progress; and, at the present day, Christianity, triumphant over all the conflicts of centuries, shines brighter, clearer, with more world-wide healing in its beams, than ever before.

The Bishop of Rome had become the recognized head of the Western Church. Wielding both temporal and spiritual power, the pope towered in dignity above all the monarchs of Europe. Towards the close of the eleventh century, Hildebrand, with the title of Gregory VII., occupied the pontifical chair. Henry IV., Emperor of Germany, claimed the right of appointing bishops in his own realms. The pope haughtily summoned the emperor immediately to repair to his presence in Rome, and answer for his conduct. Henry, indignant at such an insult, issued a decree declaring Gregory VII. no longer worthy of being regarded as pope.

In retaliation, the exasperated pontiff excommunicated the emperor, deposing him from his throne, and prohibiting his subjects, under pain of eternal damnation, from supporting the emperor, or from ministering in any way to his wants. The superstitious people, believing that the pope had entire power to send them all to hell, in their terror simultaneously and universally abandoned the emperor. No servant dared to engage in his employ; no soldier dared to serve under his banner. The emperor found himself in an hour utterly crushed and helpless. The pope summoned a congress, and appointed another emperor in the place of his deposed victim.

Henry, finding himself thus overwhelmed beyond all possibility of resistance, in dismay and despair crossed the Alps in the dead of winter to throw himself at the feet of the offended pontiff, and implore forgiveness. Gregory VII. was then at the Castle of Canossa, in Tuscany. For three days, in mid-winter, the abject monarch stood a suppliant at the gate of the castle before he could be admitted. Barefoot, bareheaded, and clothed in a woollen shirt, he was compelled thus to wait, day after day, that all might witness his abject humiliation. At length, the haughty pontiff consented to grant absolution to the humiliated and penitent emperor.

The extravagance of the claims of Hildebrand seem to approach insanity. He published a collection of maxims, which is still extant. Among them are the following, which evince his spirit, and the arrogance of the papacy at that day:—

“There is but one