§ 26. THE EMPEROii-PAPACT AND THE HIEKARCIIY. I'SI
Melcliizeclek and the pious kings of Israel, and yielded them selves willing tools of the court. But there were never want ing also fearless defenders of the rights of the church against the civil power. Maximus the Confessor declared before his judges in Constantinople, that Melchizedek was a tjpe of Christ alone, not of the emperor.
In general the hierarchy formed a powerful and v/hole- Bome check on the imperial papacy, and preserved the freedom and independence of the church toward the temporal power. That age had only the alternative of imperial or episcopal despotism ; and of these the latter was the less hurtful and the more profitable, l)ecause it represented the higher intellectual and moral interests. Without the hierarchy, the church in the Roman empire and among the barbarians would have been the football of civil and military despots. It was, therefore, of the utmost importance, that the church, at the time of her marriage with the state, had already grown so large and strong as to withstand all material alteration by imperial caprice, and all effort to degrade her into a tool. The Apostolic Constitutions j)lace the bishops even above all kings and magistrates.' Chrysostom says that the first ministers of the state enjoyed no such lionor as the ministers of the church. And in general the ministers of the clnircli deserved their honor Though there were prelates enough who abused their powei to sordid ends, still there were men like Athanasius, Basil, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine, Leo, the purest and most venerable characters, which meet us in the fourth and fifth centuries, far surpassing the contemporary emperors. It was the universal opinion that the doctrines and institutions of the church, resting on divine revelation, are above all human power and will. The |)eople looked, in blind faith and superstition, to the clergy as their guides in all matters of conscience, and even the emperors had to pay the bishops, as the fathers of the churches, the greatest reverence, kiss their hands, beg heir blessing, and submit to their admonition and discipline.
^ Lib. ii. c n, where the bishop is reminded of his exalted position, a;? beoi «tc. Comp. c. 33 and 34.
138 THIRD PEEIOD. A.D. 311- 5D0.
In most cases tlie emperors were mere tools of parlies in tlie church. Arbitrary laws which were imposed upon the church from without rarely survived their makers, and were con demned by history. For there is a divine authority above all thrones, and kings, and bishops, and a power of truth above all the machinations of falsehood and intrigue.
The Western church, as a whole, preserved her independence far morr than the Eastern ; partly through the great firmness of tiie Roman character, partly through the favor of political circumstances, and of remoteness from the influence and the intrigues of the Byzantine court. Here the hierarchical principle develoj)ed itself from the time of Leo the Great even to the absolute papacy, which, however, after it fulfilled its mission for the world among the barbarian nations of the middle ages, degenerated into an insufferable tyranny over conscience, and thus exposed itself to destruction. In the Catholic system the freedom and independence of the church involve the supremacy of an exclusive priesthood and papacy ; in the Pi-otestant, they can be realized only on the broader basis of the universal priesthoo.i, in the self-government of the Christian people; though this is, as yet, in all Protestant established cliurches more or less restricted by the power of the state.
§ 27. Restriction of lieligious Freedom^ and Beginnings of Persecution of Heretics.
Sam. Eliot: History of Liberty, Boston, 1853, 4 vols. Early Christians, vols. i. and ii. The most important facts are scattered through the sections of the larger church histories on the heresies, the doctrinal controversies, and church discipline.
An inevitable consequence of the union of church and state was restriction of religious freedom in faith and worshij), and the civil punislnnent of departure from the doctrine and discipline of the established church.
The church, dominant and recognized by the state, gained indeed external freedom and authority, but in a measure a* the expense of inward liberty and self-control. She came, as