The Age of Reason - D. J. Medley (free novels .txt) 📗

it seemed as if the prospect of a peaceful reunion of the Churches alone might remove the pretext now given to the princes of the West for a new crusade directed against Constantinople. This was no imaginary danger; for Charles of Anjou and Naples had made himself the champion of the dispossessed Latin Emperor and was preparing to attack. So Michael Palaeologus who had rewon Constantinople for the Greeks and himself, made overtures to Pope Urban IV; and negotiations were thus begun which ended in the appearance of Greek delegates at the second Council of Lyons in 1274. These accepted, on behalf of the Greek Church and empire, the primacy of Rome and the Latin Creed. In return, the Bulgarian Church was once more restored to its own Metropolitan at Achrida. But all Michael's coercive efforts failed to make the union acceptable to his own clergy and people. It was so difficult to carry out the promised assimilation of the Greek to the Latin forms that the Popes became impatient; and when Nicholas III, the opponent of Charles of Sicily, was succeeded by Martin IV, the tool of that ambitious monarch, the excommunication launched by the new Pope against the Eastern Emperor was merely a preliminary step to the general attack on the empire planned by Charles. Michael's son and successor Andronicus entirely repudiated the agreement made at Lyons; but the misfortunes of Charles in Sicily removed the serious danger of invasion from the West. Overtures for ecclesiastical union were not renewed until the conquests of the Turks in the Balkan peninsula forced the Greeks to seek external aid.

[Sidenote: Internal condition of Church.]

The internal condition of the Eastern Church during these centuries does not call for much detailed treatment. The end of the iconoclastic quarrel had been followed by the development of great elaboration of ceremonial in the services. It is true that learning was not dead and that the Emperors of the Comnenan house distinctly encouraged it. But the literature of ancient Greece and the theological works of the Fathers of the early Church appeared to the writers of these centuries to have exhausted all earthly possibilities in their respective spheres. The writings of learned Christians did not rescue their religion from pure formalism; while the study of the classics led them to the ancient philosophers and landed many of the students in paganism. Under the circumstances it is not perhaps wonderful that there arose a sect called Gnosimachi who deprecated any attempt after knowledge of the Scriptures on the ground that God demands good deeds done in all simplicity. It is, however, among the monks, if anywhere, that personal piety should have been retained. But such as existed, was inclined to take fantastic forms; and we are told of those who wrapped themselves round with the odour of sanctity by self-inflicted tortures of a useless and meaningless kind. There was no foundation of new monastic Orders in the East such as during these centuries led to the maintenance of the missionary spirit in the West. But it was from the monastic bodies alone that any opposition was offered to the actions of the Emperor. The most noteworthy case was that of the Abbot Nicephorus Blemmydes whose attempts to promote an understanding between the Eastern and Western Churches (1245) were foiled, because he had the temerity to deal harshly with the mistress of the Emperor John Dukas. Indeed the imperial authority was an influence stronger than any other, with the possible exception of hatred of the Latin Church. Such dogmatic discussions as occasionally arose, were concerned with unimportant points: but the participation of the Emperor did not necessarily tend to either truth or peace. Manuel I not only intervened in such disputes, but even started them himself and enforced his view by punishing those who took the opposite side.

[Sidenote: Heresies.]

The Eastern Church, like that of the West, had to deal with heretical sects. The Paulicians who in the ninth century had formed a politico-religious community on the confines of the empire, were deprived of their political power by Basil I in 872; while in 969 John Tzimisces transferred a portion of them from their settlements in Asia Minor to the district of Philippopolis in Thrace. Here they throve, until their desertion of the Emperor Alexius in his war against Robert Guiscard and the Normans ended the toleration hitherto extended to the exercise of their religion, and the "thirteenth apostle," as his literary daughter Anna Comnena styles him, entered on a plan of forcible conversion. Alexius also dealt severely with another body of heretics. The Bogomiles were perhaps a revival of the earlier sect of the Euchites or Messalians who are mentioned by writers of the fourth century. The origin of the name is obscure, but it is said to mean "Friends of God." Their tenets resembled those of the Cathari with whom they were most probably connected. Alexius by pretending sympathy got from their leader an avowal of his doctrines and then had him burnt (1116). But in neither of these cases did violent suppression achieve its purpose. Despite the foundation of the orthodox city of Alexiopolis in the neighbourhood, the Paulicians still continued about Philippopolis, where they were secretly strengthened in their particularist attitude by the continued presence of the remnants of the Bogomiles. Even a century later the Patriarch Germanus (1230) attacks the latter on the plea that they are still secretly making converts.

[Sidenote: Other Eastern Churches.]

Of the other Christian Churches of the East we have seen that the Nestorians were very active among the Tartars throughout Asia. They and their Syrian neighbours but dogmatic opponents, the Jacobites, a monophysite body, adopted a conciliatory disposition towards the crusaders. In 1237 the prior of the Dominicans in Jerusalem reported to Gregory IX that the Maphrian of the Jacobites, a kind of lesser patriarch, had acknowledged the supremacy of Rome; but a submission given from stress of circumstances carried no permanent weight; and subsequent correspondence between Innocent IV and officials of both churches seems to have been wilfully misunderstood at Rome. There were two other Christian churches whose conduct was guided by proximity to the Mohammedans. The small body of the Maronites on Mount Lebanon kept their ancient customs but attached themselves to the Roman Church in 1182 and remained faithful to her. The more important Armenian Church wavered between Rome and Constantinople. Manuel Comnenus made overtures to the Patriarch or Catholicos, which were prevented from coming to any result by the emperor's death. Shortly afterwards Leo the Great of Armenia was recognised as King by the Emperor Henry VI and was crowned by the Archbishop of Mainz; and in return he and his Catholicos recognised the supremacy of Rome. In 1240 the Greek patriarch tried to win over the Catholicos to the Eastern Church. In 1292 the Armenian King Haiton II, who became a Franciscan friar, persuaded his church to accept the Roman customs: but despite this nominal subjection to Rome, the obstinacy of the people prevented any real change in either doctrine or organisation.

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