By the accession of Constantine to the sole sovereignty of the Roman Empire, A. D. 324, ancient Christianity may be conveniently divided into two great periods. In the first, it wa...
On account of various principles of the Roman law, Christians were always liable to severe penalties, and parts of the Church occasionally suffered fearfully. But it was only in ex...
In the East the leading theologians of the fourth century were educated under the influence of Origenism; among these were Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazia...
The Anglo-Saxon Church owes its foundation to the missionary zeal and wise direction of Gregory the Great. Augustine, whom Gregory sent, arrived in the kingdom of Kent 597, and est...
In the period between the conversion of the Franks and the rise of the dynasty of Charles Martel, or the period comprising the sixth and seventh centuries, the foundation was laid...
The penitential system, as it was organized in the Western Church in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, was but the carrying out of principles which had appeared elsewhere i...
The Gnostic systems having most influence within the Church and effect upon its development were those of Basilides and Valentinus. Of these teachers and their followers we have no...
In the second century the Church passed through an internal crisis even more trying than the great persecutions of the following centuries and with results far more momentous. Of t...
The characteristic Eastern and Western conceptions of Christianity began to be clearly differentiated in the early years of the third century. A juristic conception of the Church a...
The last of the persecutions was closely connected with the increased efficiency of the imperial administration after a period of anarchy, and was more effective because of the gre...
In reply to the attacks made upon Christianity, the apologists defended their religion along three lines: It was philosophically justified; it was true; it did not favor immorality...
Monarchianism is a general term used to include all the unsuccessful attempts of teachers within the Church to explain the divine element in Christ without doing violence to the do...
The Monothelete controversy was the natural outcome of the earlier Christological controversies. With the assertion of the two complete and persisting natures of Christ, the questi...
The Council of Ephesus was called to settle the dispute which had arisen between Cyril and the Alexandrians and Nestorius, archbishop of Constantinople, and the Antiochians. Severa...
In the first centuries of monasticism in the West, the greatest variety was to be found among the constitutions of the various monastic houses and the rules drawn up by great leade...
The Arian controversy began in Alexandria about 318, as related by Socrates (a). The positions of the two parties were defined from the beginning both by Alexander, bishop of Alexa...
The Pelagian controversy, in which the characteristic teaching of Augustine found its best expression, may be divided into three periods. In the first period, beginning about 411,...
In baptism the convert received remission of all former sins, and, what was equivalent, admission to the Church. If he sinned gravely after baptism, could he again obtain remission...
After the Decian-Valerian persecution (250-260) the Church enjoyed a long peace, rarely interrupted anywhere by hostile measures, until the outbreak of the second great general per...
What is commonly called the persecution under Domitian (81-96) does not seem to have been a persecution of Christianity as such. The charges of atheism and superstition may have be...
Under the sons of Constantine a harsher policy toward heathenism was adopted. Laws were passed forbidding heathen sacrifices (a, b), and although these were not carried out vigorou...
The accession of Septimius Severus, A. D. 193, marks a change in the condition of the Empire. It was becoming more harassed by frontier wars, not always waged successfully. Barbari...
The Roman Church took very early a leading place in the Christian Church, even before the rise of the Petrine tradition, and its importance was generally recognized. Its charity wa...
The elevation of the Church exposed the Church to worldliness whereby selfish men, or men carried away with partisan zeal, took advantages of its privileges or contended fiercely f...
The post-apostolic age, extending from circa 100 to circa 140, is the age of the beginnings of Gentile Christianity on an extended scale. It is marked by the rapid spread of Christ...
In the writings of Tertullian a conception of Christianity is quite fully developed according to which the Gospel was a new law of life, with its prescribed holy seasons and hours...
After a period of anarchy Diocletian (284-305) undertook a reorganization of the Empire for the sake of greater efficiency. Following a precedent of earlier successful emperors, he...
Constantine's religious policy in respect to heathenism may have been from the first to establish Christianity as the sole religion of the Empire and to put down heathenism. If so,...
The internal crisis, or the conflict with heresy, led the Church to perfect its organization, and, as a result, the foundation was laid for such a development of the episcopate tha...
Mohammed (571-632) began his work as a prophet at Mecca about 613, having been "called" about three years earlier. He was driven from Mecca in 622 and fled to Yathrib, afterward kn...