[Sidenote: St. Paul and St. James in Spain.]
The CHURCH OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL traces its foundation to St. Paul, who speaks of his intended visit to Spain, Rom. xv. 24; and there is also a tradition that St. James the Great preached the Gospel here. This Church, too, is spoken of by St. Irenaeus, and again by Tertullian. { 79} Its first known martyr was St. Fructuosus, A.D. 259, and its first Council that of Elvira, about A.D. 300. The names of nineteen Spanish Bishops are mentioned as present at it. The Council of Nice, A.D. 325, was under the presidency of Hosius, the Bishop of the Spanish diocese of Cordova. [Sidenote: Arianism of Visigoths.] About A.D. 470, the Visigoths, who were Arians, passed over from France into Spain, and were only gradually converted to the Catholic Faith.
We must look to a later period (see Chapter XI.) for the foundation of other Churches of the West in Northern and Central Europe, that is to say, the SCANDINAVIAN CHURCHES, including NORWAY, SWEDEN, and DENMARK, as well as those contained in the large extent of country to which we often give the comprehensive name of Germany.
The Churches now comprehended in EUROPEAN TURKEY and GREECE were, as we have already seen (pp. 37 to 40), the fruits of the labours of St. Paul, and, like the Church of Rome, had wealth and learning to encounter instead of poverty and ignorance. The Book of Acts records very fully the earliest history of these Churches, and a large proportion of St. Paul's Epistles are addressed to them. [Sidenote: Liability of the Greeks to heresy.] The theorizing and philosophical tendencies of the Greeks made them very liable be led away by heretical teachers, and we find that the Church in Greece, from St. Paul's time downwards, was continually disturbed by the presence of those who taught or listened to "some new thing." Hence all the General Councils, summoned for the authoritative settlement of the faith of the Church, were held either in Greece, or in that part of Asia which had been colonized by Greeks. Arianism in particular, { 80} for a long period, caused the most violent dissensions throughout the Eastern world, and these were the occasion of that first Great Council of Nicaea which, though not actually held in Greece, was only separated from it by the narrow strait of the Bosphorus. [Sidenote: Origin of jealousies between Rome and Constantinople.] The building of Constantinople, A.D. 330, gave a Christian capital to Greece, and, indeed, to the whole of the Eastern Roman empire; and from this time may be dated the jealousies and struggles for supremacy which took place between the Church in Italy and the Church in Greece, and resulted eventually in the Great schism between East and West[2].