The Crusades seem to have saved France, Cen tral Germany, Scandinavia and even Britain from the hand of the Saracen. All of Central and Western Europe had been torn up by a feudal and predatory system. The Crusades broke up this system and bound the people together by a common law. When the last Crusader came home from Palestine he found himself a member of a broad commonwealth and not the head of a clan. The cruelty of rulers was arrested. The voice of the people was heard for the first time, and kings learned that there was a limit to their au thority. Commerce took larger and freer shape The far Eastern countries were brought into close relationship with the Western.
(6) The Eastern and the Western Church. Many things early contributed to give pre-emi nence to the bishop of Rome. The Church at Rome was firm in the midst of many heresies. After the overthrow of Jerusalem it was believed to be the oldest apostolic Church. In the giving of alms, in missionary zeal and in devotional pur ity, the Roman Christians had no superiors. The certain residence of Paul in Rome, and the already growing impression of Peter's sojourn there, were important apostolical associations which clothed the Roman society with great sanctity. By the middle of the second century there was frequent mention of the primacy of Rome. So soon as this intimation was expressed strong words were spoken against it.
The resisting force lay in the Eastern Church, where Antioch was leader. But there was little cohesion in the East. It was regarded as provin cial, while in spiritual affairs Rome came con stantly into more prominent leadership. The pro tests from the East after a time received little or no attention. When Firmilian, the bishop of Cap padocian Cesarea, dared to charge Stephen of Rome with boasting of episcopal superiority he was laughed at in the Western metropolis.
When Constantine made the obscure Byzantium (thereafter called Constantinople), which had been subordinate to Heraclea, the capital of Thrace, his vast capital and the center of imperial authority, much advantage to the Church was expected. But when he passed away, there was little purity left. The palace became a nest of intrigue and revolu tion. But the Roman Church life had the equi poise of power. It had neither the wish nor the talent for theological invention.
The divisions of the Eastern empire, the de cline of moral life, the universal spread, of con troversy, and particularly the pre-eminent ability of several of the bishops of Rome, were calculated to advance the claims of that patriarchate above all others. Gregory the Great devoted himself to
the purification of the life of the Church and the enforcement of monastic discipline. He was es pecially active in his encouragement of missions. Under him the authority of the Roman bishop advanced far beyond its former dimensions. He created the papacy of history. He preserved ami cable relations with the emperor, and yet held firmly to his ecclesiastical independence.
From the middle of the eleventh century to the thirteenth the papacy grew into enormous pro portions. There never floated before the mind of Julius Cesar or Trajan a larger empire than that to which Gregory VII (Hildebrand) and other occupants of the Roman see aspired.
The doctrinal divergence between the East and the West was first perceptible in the different teaching on the divinity of the Holy Ghost. The Council of Constantinople decided in 381 that the Holy Ghost is equal in essence with the Son, and that both are consubstantial with the Father. The Western teaching, guided chiefly through the clear and logical intellect of Augustine, held that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. In 5 Pi) the Toledo Council. in accordance with this view, added to the symbol of Constanti nople the term Filioque—"and from the Son." The Eastern Church held that the patriarch of Constantinople was equal in rank to the Roman bishop. At Rome this claim was indignantly re jected.
The complete schism took place in to54. Con stantine NIonomachus, the Byzantine emperor. hav ing in view a war, applied to the Roman pope for friendly support. This overture awakened the wrath of Michael Cerularius, patriarch of Con stantinople, and of Leo of Achrida, metropolitan of Bulgaria. They wrote a letter to the bishops of the Latin Church, charging it with grave doc trinal errors and urging it to renounce them. This letter reached Pope Leo IX. He was intensely excited, and bitter letters passed between Rome and Constantinople. The pope sent three dele gates to the latter city. But only a fiercer ani mosity ensued. The signal of an • open and final rupture was given by the issuing of a public ex communication of the patriarch by the legates,in the Church of St. Sophia, and their withdrawal to Rome.