The world: historical and actual . ther, were ruled far more by the ecclesiastical than the secularpower. Itwas notthe unionof churchand state,but thesovereign-ty of thechurchover thestate. Inthe lan-guage o fPope lu-ll o c e n t,-T hesetwo bran-ches ofpowerwere thesun andmoon ; the church being the sun, and the state, or crown, being merelythe moon. The voice of Rome was heard at everycourt, and the influences of the pontificate weresupreme in all Europe for a thousand years. The church was far from perfect, but its powerMas a mighty agency for good. If it was autocratic,it did much to break
The world: historical and actual . ther, were ruled far more by the ecclesiastical than the secularpower. Itwas notthe unionof churchand state,but thesovereign-ty of thechurchover thestate. Inthe lan-guage o fPope lu-ll o c e n t,-T hesetwo bran-ches ofpowerwere thesun andmoon ; the church being the sun, and the state, or crown, being merelythe moon. The voice of Rome was heard at everycourt, and the influences of the pontificate weresupreme in all Europe for a thousand years. The church was far from perfect, but its powerMas a mighty agency for good. If it was autocratic,it did much to break down that bulwark of autocracy,the arrogance of birth. The priesthood, from thelowest to the highest, was open to all, however hum-ble, and the stable-boys son might hold the keys ofSt. Peter. There was something higher than roy-alty, and more potent than the blood 1 if kings. Grad-ually and imperceptibly this idea prepared the wayfor democratic ideas. The priests were the allies ofkings, it is true, in a certain sense, they heing. N1CENE COUNCIL. drawn together by a common danger and interestfrequently; but undoubtedly the church did verymuch to undermine the monarchy. In the domain of learning it was a very potentbenefit. The priests were generally far from being-men of learning, but the church did much to en-courage the cause of education, nevertheless; andfurther, when the floods of ignorance and devas-tation swept over all Europe, threatening to utterly destroy theciviliza-tion ofAthe n s,Alexan-dria andRome, themonaster-ies of thecontinentserved a sthe arkwherein tosave alivesome por-tion of an-cient liter-ature. Weh a v c al-ready seenthat muchof the clas-sics hasbeen lostfore ver. Here and there a studious recluse clung to Plato,Aristotle, Homer, Virgil, Horace, or Cicero, and sothe destruction was not complete. The church, as abody, deserves all credit for the preservation of an-cient literature, for fortunately it had individualscholars among its secluded monks and pr
Size: 1804px × 1384px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectworldhistory, bookyea
