CHARACTER OF THE GERMAN CHRISTIANITY AT THIS TIME.
The Christianity of the Germans, and even that of the Roman provinces, for many generations after the date of their “conversion,” was a very different kind of religion from that which is now held by enlightened Christians. Constantine and several of his successors were actually worshiped after death by multitudes of the Christians of those days. The apostolic doctrines were not conceived as a system of belief by the people, nor even by their teachers; the personal sovereignty of Christ as a king and warrior, and the future heaven or hell to be awarded by him, were apprehended as practical truths, but were overlaid with a dense mass of superstitious notions and observances, many of them legacies from heathenism. Above all, the Germans indulged without stint their passion for the wonderful; and the power of Christianity over them depended largely on the supply of miracles and of potent relics which it could furnish them. The workers of miraculous cures were numerous; they were esteemed as the favorites of heaven, and cities and princes contended with one another for their bones. Some of the popes were wise enough to discourage the zeal for miracles; and as late as A. D. 590, Pope Gregory I. wrote to St. Augustine, of England, cautioning him against spiritual pride as a worker of them. But it was not long before the papacy became the great center from which relics of the saints were distributed throughout the Church. The Roman catacombs were ransacked, and bones of saints found in an abundance sufficient to supply Christendom for ages. The Pope’s guaranty of genuineness was final; and this resource contributed immeasurably to increase the wealth and power of the Holy See. The legends of the saints, as circulated and preserved, mainly by tradition, were for centuries the intellectual food of the Church at large; and were filled with idle and monotonous tales of wonderful cures in mind and body, wrought by the holy men and women in their lives, or by their corpses or their tombs. No doubt was entertained, even by the most intelligent, of the truth of these miracles. The modern conception of nature, as the work of a divine will which is unchangeable, and which therefore expresses itself in fixed, uniform laws, was then unknown. The spiritual conception of Christianity, as life by a personal trust in a pure, holy, and loving God, was set forth, indeed, by a few writers and preachers, and was doubtless verified in the experience of many a humble heart; but it was far above the thoughts of the people, or even of the clergy at large. To them no religion was of any value which was not magical in its methods and powers, and a charm to secure good fortune or to avert danger. In short, the Church was one thing, Christianity another; and the priestly ambition of the great organization to rule over men’s lives and estates entirely eclipsed and obscured the spiritual work of the kingdom which is not of this world. Nothing in the early German character is more attractive than the habitual and general chastity of the people, and their reverence for the marriage tie. But the great migrations corrupted them; and the degradation of marriage in the succeeding centuries was promoted and completed by the influence of the Church. Hardly any agency can be traced in history which has wrought greater social and moral evil than the contempt for human love and for the marriage tie, which was sedulously cultivated by the Roman Church from the beginning of the fourth century. Yet, there are indications enough to satisfy us that the doctrines of the New Testament had not lost their power; and that truth, purity, divine charity, and Christian heroism were yet kept alive in many hearts. Thousands of men and women, whose minds and lives were darkened by the teachings and practices of asceticism, monasticism and gross superstitions, still cherished a devout, self-sacrificing love for their unseen Master and Lord and stood ready to die for him. Even the idea of Christian brotherhood was not entirely lost; and the common worship of the same Redeemer by master and slave did much to mitigate the horrors that grew out of their relation.[D]