11. Ilistoiij of Christianity in Germany. — As some of the German tribes were under the rule of the Romans at the beginning of the Christian ara, Christianity be- came known to the Germans at a very earh' date. Some of the episcopal sees, as Cologne, even claim to have had disciples of the apostles as their first bishops. Peter is said (Baron, ad ann. 46) to have ordained the bishops Eucharius, Egistus. and Marcianus for Ger- many. In 314, when the Council of Aries was held, we have trustworthy information of a bishopric in Co- logne. In the south of Germany, on the other hand,
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^ve find tlie first Christians at Aut!;usta Yinclelicorum (Auysburi^), in Klioetia, into which Christianity was in- troduced by the bishop Narcissus, in the time of Dio- clesian (isi-SOo). In the following centuries tlie num- ber of bishoprics in Western Germany gradually in- creased, and at the beginning of tlie Gth century we find subject to the jurisdiction of the metropolitan of Treves, bishops at Cologne, jMentz, Martigny, Worms, Spires, besides a number of others whose sees now be- long to France or Switzerland. Next to south-western Germany, it was the south-east in whicli Christianity made the greatest progress. At the beginning of the 7th century there were in the two Noricums, or mod- ern Bavaria and Austria, proportionally almost as many Christian churches as in the other countries of the ancient Western empire, and Bavaria, in particular, became an entirely Christian state. Even before this time many of the German tribes which had invaded and conquered the western provinces of the Eoman empire had either become Christian or were inclined to be so. The Goths received the first announcement of Christianity from prisoners taken in war, and a Gothic metropolitan liad a seat in the Sj'nod of Nicasa. Among the West Gothic princes, Fritigern was favor- able to Christianity, but Athanarich cruellj' persecuted it. When the Western Goths, conquered by the Huns, had to seek refuge in the Roman empire, they had to consent to be baptized. The form of Christianity which the)' then received from the emperor Valens was Arian. Other German tribes, like the Eastern Goths and the Vandals, likewise became Christians of the Arian faith, which was carried by the German con- querors into Spain, Italy, and Northern Africa. To an Arian bishop of the West Goths, Ultilas, Germany is indebted for the first German version of the Bible. Tlie conversion of Clovis, the king of the Franks, to the Catholic Church, gave to the German tribes who had left the fatherland the first orthodox king ; and the success of the Franks in their wars with the Arian kings, in which they were aided not a little by the Catholic subjects of the latter, soon led to the destruc- tion of Arianism as a national religion in the Germanic world. Under the influence of the Franks, in the be- ginning of the 8th century, the Catholic Church press- ed forward as far as the Saale and the Elbe, but it was nnder no ecclesiastical regulations, and was much cor- rupted b}' paganism. British monks carried the Gospel as far as the Main, and among the Alemanni, but they had no connection with Kome. See Colu.-mbanus ; G.VLL. Winfrcd, the Anglo-Saxon monk, better known rmder the name of Boniface (q. v.), was sent from Rome to undertake the conversion of Germanj', and finally became the apostle of the Germans, and the founder of the German Church. He made the Ger- man Church dependent upon Rome, and, in consequence of the ])lenary powers given him by the Roman see, was looked upon as the general bisho]) of German}'. The last serious struggle in defence of German pagan- ism was made liy the Saxons; but, finally acknowledg- ing their inability to resist Charlemagne, they resolved to adopt the religion of the conquerors, and become one nation with the Franks. The Christianization of Eastern Germany, which at that time was chiefly in- habited by Slavic tribes, was not completed until the 13th centurj'.
When the Roman empire had been revived in the German nation b}' the Othos, the emperor was regard- ed as the political head of Christendom in the West, and the hoh' empire as a divine institution. The old legal principle that God has divided all power on earth between the emperor and the pope was frequently con- strued in German)' so as to mean that the emperor car- ried the secular sword as a feudal investiture from the pope. The efforts of medieval popes to enlarge the papal power at the expense of the imperial, and even to estal)lish the absolute superiority of the pope over all secular power and the whole world, led to continual
wars oetween the emperors and the popes. The popes entiiely failed to carry through their theocratic idea; but tlie authority of the emperors of Germany, as the first among the Christian rulers, likewise steadily de- clined.
In the IGtli century Germany was the bu-thplace of the great reformation of the Church, which substituted the Lutheran and Reformed churches for that of Rome not only in a large portion of (ierinauy, but in a num- ber of other European countries. It seemed at one time probable that the whole of the German empire might be gained for the Reformation; but, after man)' wars, one of which, the Thirt)- Years' War, was one of the fiercest and longest religious wars on record, the activity of the Jesuits and the courts of Austria and Bavaria saved a large portion of Germany, especially in South Germany, for the old Church.