§ 70. Constitution, Worship and Life.The Byzantine emperors had been long accustomed to carry out in a very high-handed manner their own will even in regard to the internal affairs of the church. The anointing with sacred oil gave them a sacerdotal character and entitled them to be styled ἅγιος. Most of the emperors, too, from Leo the Philosopher (§68, 1), possessed some measure of theological culture. The patriarchate, however, if amid so many arbitrary appointments and removals it fell into the proper hands, was always a power which even emperors had to respect. What protected it against all encroachments of the temporal power was the influence of the monks and through them of the people. In consequence of the controversies about images, Theodorus Studita (§66, 4) founded a strong party which fought with all energy against every interference of the State in ecclesiastical matters and against the appointing of ecclesiastical officers by the temporal power, but only with temporary success. The monks, who had been threatened by the iconoclastic Isaurian with utter extermination, at the restoration grew and prospered more than ever in outward appearance, but gave way more and more to spiritual corruption and extravagance. The Eastern monks had not that genial many-sided culture which was needed for the cultivation of the fields and the minds of the barbarians. They were deficient in those powers of tempering, renovating and ennobling, whereby the monks of the West accomplished such wonderful results. But, nevertheless, if in those debased and degenerate days one looks for examples of fidelity to convictions, firmness of character, independence and moral earnestness, he will always find the noblest in the monasteries.—Public worship had already in the previous period attained to almost complete development, but theory and practice received enrichment in various particulars.
The Byzantine emperors had been long accustomed to carry out in a very high-handed manner their own will even in regard to the internal affairs of the church. The anointing with sacred oil gave them a sacerdotal character and entitled them to be styled ἅγιος. Most of the emperors, too, from Leo the Philosopher (§68, 1), possessed some measure of theological culture. The patriarchate, however, if amid so many arbitrary appointments and removals it fell into the proper hands, was always a power which even emperors had to respect. What protected it against all encroachments of the temporal power was the influence of the monks and through them of the people. In consequence of the controversies about images, Theodorus Studita (§66, 4) founded a strong party which fought with all energy against every interference of the State in ecclesiastical matters and against the appointing of ecclesiastical officers by the temporal power, but only with temporary success. The monks, who had been threatened by the iconoclastic Isaurian with utter extermination, at the restoration grew and prospered more than ever in outward appearance, but gave way more and more to spiritual corruption and extravagance. The Eastern monks had not that genial many-sided culture which was needed for the cultivation of the fields and the minds of the barbarians. They were deficient in those powers of tempering, renovating and ennobling, whereby the monks of the West accomplished such wonderful results. But, nevertheless, if in those debased and degenerate days one looks for examples of fidelity to convictions, firmness of character, independence and moral earnestness, he will always find the noblest in the monasteries.—Public worship had already in the previous period attained to almost complete development, but theory and practice received enrichment in various particulars.
§ 70.1.The Arsenian Schism,A.D.1262-1312.—Michael Palæologus, after the death of the emperor Theodore Lascaris inA.D.1259, assumed the guardianship of his six years’ old son John, had himself crowned joint ruler, and inA.D.1261 had the eyes of the young prince put out so as to make him unfit for governing. The patriarch Arsenius then excommunicated him. Michael besought absolution, and in order to obtain it submitted to humiliating penances; but when the patriarch insisted that he should resign the throne, the emperor deposed and exiled him,A.D.1267. The numerous adherents of Arsenius refused to acknowledge the new patriarch Joseph (§67, 4), seceded from the national church, and when their leader died in exile inA.D.1273, their veneration for him expressed itself in burning hatred of his persecutors. When Joseph died inA.D.1283, an attempt was made to decide the controversy by a direct appeal to God’s judgment. Each of the two parties cast a tract in defence of its position into the fire, and both were consumed. The Arsenians, who had expected a miracle, felt themselves for the moment defeated and expressed a readiness to be reconciled. But on the third day they recalled their admissions and the schism continued, until the patriarch Niphon inA.D.1312 had the bones of Arsenius laid in the church of Sophia and pronounced a forty days’ suspension on all the clergy who had taken part against him.§ 70.2.Public Worship.—In the Greek church preaching retained its early prominence; the homiletical productions, however, are but of small value. The objection to hymns other than those found in Scripture was more and more overcome. As in earlier times (§59, 4) Troparies were added to the singing of psalms, so now the New Testament hymns of praise and doxologies were formed into a so-called Κανών,i.e.a collection of new odes arranged for the several festivals and saints’ days. The 8th century was the Augustan age of church song. To this period belonged the celebrated ἅγιοι μελωδοί, Andrew of Crete, John of Damascus, Cosmas of Jerusalem, and Theophanes of Nicæa. The singing after this as well as before was without instrumental accompaniment and also without harmonic arrangement.—There was a great diversity of opinion in regard to the idea of the sacraments and their number. Damascenus speaks only of two: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Theodorus Studita, on the other hand, accepts the six enumerated by the Pseudo-Areopagite (§58). Petrus [Peter] Mogilas in his Anti-ProtestantConfessio orthodoxaofA.D.1643 (§ 152, 3) is the first confidently to assert that even among the Latins of the Middle Ages the Sacraments had been regarded as seven in number. The Greeks differed from the Latins in maintaining the necessity of immersion in baptism, in connecting the chrism with the baptism, using leavened bread in the Supper and giving both elements to all communicants. From the time of Joh. Damascenus the teachers of the church decidedly subscribed to the doctrine of Transubstantiation; but in regard to penance and confession they stoutly maintained (§61, 1), that not the priest but God alone can forgive sins. TheUnctio inferiorum, εὐχέλαιον, also made way in the Greek church, applied in the form of the cross to forehead, breast, hands and feet; yet with this difference that, expressly repudiating the designation “extreme” unction, it was given not only in cases of mortal illness, but also in less serious ailments, and had in view bodily cure as well as spiritual benefit.—The emperor Leo VI. the Philosopher made the benediction of the church (§61, 2) obligatory for a legally valid marriage.§ 70.3.Monasticism.—The most celebrated of all the monastic associations were those of Mount Athos in Thessaly, which was covered with monasteries and hermit cells, and as “the holy mount” had become already a hallowed spot and the resort of pilgrims for all Greek Christendom. The monastery of Studion, too (§44, 3), was held in high repute. There was no want of ascetic extravagances among the monks. There were numerous stylites; many also spent their lives on high trees, δενδρίται, or shut up in cages built on high platforms (κιονῖται), or in subterranean caverns, etc. Others bound themselves to perpetual silence. Many again wore constantly a shirt of iron (σιδηρούμενοι), etc. A rare sort of pious monkish practice made its appearance in the 12th century among theEcetæ, Ἱκέται. They were monks who danced and sang hymns with like-minded nuns in their monasteries after the pattern of Exod. xv. 20, 21. Although they continued orthodox in their doctrine and were never charged with any act of immorality, Nicetas Acominatus proceeded against them as heretics.§ 70.4.Endeavours at Reformation.—In the beginning of the 12th century a pious monk at Constantinople, Constantinus Chrysomalus, protested against prevailing hypocrisy and formalism. A decade later the monk Niphon took a similar stand. Around both gathered groups of clergy and laymen who, putting themselves under their pastoral direction and neglecting the outward forms of the church, applied themselves to the deepening of the spiritual life. Both brought down on themselves the anathema of the church. The patriarch Cosmas, who was not convinced that Niphon was a heretic and so received him into his house and at his table, was deposed inA.D.1150. Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica (§68, 5), carried on his reformatory efforts quite within the limits of the dominant institutions of the church, and so kept himself safe from the machinations of his enemies. Relentlessly and powerfully he struggled against the corruption in the Christian life of the people, and especially against the formalism and hypocrisy, the rudeness and vulgarity, the spiritual blindness and pride, and the eccentric caricatures of ascetism that were exhibited by the monks, though he was himself in heart and soul a monk. Two hundred years later Nicolas Cabasilas (§68, 5) yet more distinctly maintained that a consistent life was the test and love the root of all virtue.
§ 70.1.The Arsenian Schism,A.D.1262-1312.—Michael Palæologus, after the death of the emperor Theodore Lascaris inA.D.1259, assumed the guardianship of his six years’ old son John, had himself crowned joint ruler, and inA.D.1261 had the eyes of the young prince put out so as to make him unfit for governing. The patriarch Arsenius then excommunicated him. Michael besought absolution, and in order to obtain it submitted to humiliating penances; but when the patriarch insisted that he should resign the throne, the emperor deposed and exiled him,A.D.1267. The numerous adherents of Arsenius refused to acknowledge the new patriarch Joseph (§67, 4), seceded from the national church, and when their leader died in exile inA.D.1273, their veneration for him expressed itself in burning hatred of his persecutors. When Joseph died inA.D.1283, an attempt was made to decide the controversy by a direct appeal to God’s judgment. Each of the two parties cast a tract in defence of its position into the fire, and both were consumed. The Arsenians, who had expected a miracle, felt themselves for the moment defeated and expressed a readiness to be reconciled. But on the third day they recalled their admissions and the schism continued, until the patriarch Niphon inA.D.1312 had the bones of Arsenius laid in the church of Sophia and pronounced a forty days’ suspension on all the clergy who had taken part against him.
§ 70.2.Public Worship.—In the Greek church preaching retained its early prominence; the homiletical productions, however, are but of small value. The objection to hymns other than those found in Scripture was more and more overcome. As in earlier times (§59, 4) Troparies were added to the singing of psalms, so now the New Testament hymns of praise and doxologies were formed into a so-called Κανών,i.e.a collection of new odes arranged for the several festivals and saints’ days. The 8th century was the Augustan age of church song. To this period belonged the celebrated ἅγιοι μελωδοί, Andrew of Crete, John of Damascus, Cosmas of Jerusalem, and Theophanes of Nicæa. The singing after this as well as before was without instrumental accompaniment and also without harmonic arrangement.—There was a great diversity of opinion in regard to the idea of the sacraments and their number. Damascenus speaks only of two: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Theodorus Studita, on the other hand, accepts the six enumerated by the Pseudo-Areopagite (§58). Petrus [Peter] Mogilas in his Anti-ProtestantConfessio orthodoxaofA.D.1643 (§ 152, 3) is the first confidently to assert that even among the Latins of the Middle Ages the Sacraments had been regarded as seven in number. The Greeks differed from the Latins in maintaining the necessity of immersion in baptism, in connecting the chrism with the baptism, using leavened bread in the Supper and giving both elements to all communicants. From the time of Joh. Damascenus the teachers of the church decidedly subscribed to the doctrine of Transubstantiation; but in regard to penance and confession they stoutly maintained (§61, 1), that not the priest but God alone can forgive sins. TheUnctio inferiorum, εὐχέλαιον, also made way in the Greek church, applied in the form of the cross to forehead, breast, hands and feet; yet with this difference that, expressly repudiating the designation “extreme” unction, it was given not only in cases of mortal illness, but also in less serious ailments, and had in view bodily cure as well as spiritual benefit.—The emperor Leo VI. the Philosopher made the benediction of the church (§61, 2) obligatory for a legally valid marriage.
§ 70.3.Monasticism.—The most celebrated of all the monastic associations were those of Mount Athos in Thessaly, which was covered with monasteries and hermit cells, and as “the holy mount” had become already a hallowed spot and the resort of pilgrims for all Greek Christendom. The monastery of Studion, too (§44, 3), was held in high repute. There was no want of ascetic extravagances among the monks. There were numerous stylites; many also spent their lives on high trees, δενδρίται, or shut up in cages built on high platforms (κιονῖται), or in subterranean caverns, etc. Others bound themselves to perpetual silence. Many again wore constantly a shirt of iron (σιδηρούμενοι), etc. A rare sort of pious monkish practice made its appearance in the 12th century among theEcetæ, Ἱκέται. They were monks who danced and sang hymns with like-minded nuns in their monasteries after the pattern of Exod. xv. 20, 21. Although they continued orthodox in their doctrine and were never charged with any act of immorality, Nicetas Acominatus proceeded against them as heretics.
§ 70.4.Endeavours at Reformation.—In the beginning of the 12th century a pious monk at Constantinople, Constantinus Chrysomalus, protested against prevailing hypocrisy and formalism. A decade later the monk Niphon took a similar stand. Around both gathered groups of clergy and laymen who, putting themselves under their pastoral direction and neglecting the outward forms of the church, applied themselves to the deepening of the spiritual life. Both brought down on themselves the anathema of the church. The patriarch Cosmas, who was not convinced that Niphon was a heretic and so received him into his house and at his table, was deposed inA.D.1150. Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica (§68, 5), carried on his reformatory efforts quite within the limits of the dominant institutions of the church, and so kept himself safe from the machinations of his enemies. Relentlessly and powerfully he struggled against the corruption in the Christian life of the people, and especially against the formalism and hypocrisy, the rudeness and vulgarity, the spiritual blindness and pride, and the eccentric caricatures of ascetism that were exhibited by the monks, though he was himself in heart and soul a monk. Two hundred years later Nicolas Cabasilas (§68, 5) yet more distinctly maintained that a consistent life was the test and love the root of all virtue.