BOOKS.

THE EASTERN CHURCH.*

IT has, especially within the last few years, been a matter of frequent observation that no small proportion of the best and most efficient professional work in the University of Oxford has been done by the holders of those professorships the appointment to which rests in the hands of the Crown. Whatever difference of opinion there may be as to the universal truth of this assertion, there can, at least, be none as to the wisdom and felicity of the particular act of selection which placed Dr. Stanley in the Oxford chair of Ecclesiastical History. We doubt whether, in any other man in England, there could be found an equal combination of the very distinct qualifications of a thorough familiarity with the subject, a singular faculty of brilliant and apt illustration, and a remarkable power of presenting the results of his inquiries in a form which is at once eminently attractive and practically useful. We are heartily glad that Professor Stanley has given the general public an opportunity of forming their own esti- mate of the admirable manner in which he has hitherto discharged the duties of his office, by the publication of a portion of those lectures, the full appreciation of which has as yet been necessarily confined to the comparatively small number who were fortunate enough to hear them delivered.

In the three inaugural lectures which form a kind of introduction

to the more special discourses which constitute the bulk of the pre- sent volume, Professor Stanley gives us his view of the province of ecclesiastical history, and of the manner in which its study may be most successfully prosecuted. This view is a very wide one. He notices the fact that the signification which is now generally attached to the term "ecclesiastical" is far below its original Apostolical mean- ing,—that it has gradually come to signify not the religious, not the moral, not even the social or political; interests of the Christian com- munity, but often the very opposite of these—its merely accidental, outward, ceremonial machinery. His first step is to restore the term to its original signification by laying down the position that "the

i

range of the history of the Church s as wide as the range of the world which it was designed to penetrate, as the whole body which its name includes." According.to his view, the first period in eccle- siastical history is the history of the people of Israel, as the true beginning and prototype of the Christian Church. The influence of the chosen people, however, expires with the close of the Apostolic age. Towards the end of the first century of the Christian era, we come to the pieriod of transition from the age of the Apostles to the age of the Fathers, from Christianity as we see it in the New Testament to Christianity as we see it in the next century, and as, to a certain extent, we have seen it ever since. Of this deeply-interesting period we know scarcely any- thing at all; and it is not until the close of the second century that the story of the Church once more becomes a history, and that we find in the African Churches the commencement of that continuous stream of ecclesiastical history which has flowed on, from that time forward, in an unbroken course. The first great outward event in ecclesiastical history, the conversion of the -Empire, belongs to the history of the Eastern Church. During the period of the first General Councils, the fortunes of the Eastern Church are identified with those of Christendom; and in subsequent times its connexion with the general course of ecclesiastical history depends mainly upon two very. different developments of religious life, the rise of Ma- hometamsm, and the rise of the Church and Empire of Russia. "With the exception," says Professor Stanley, "of these three stages, and viewed as part of the continuous history of the Church, Eastern Christianity must be considered but as the temporary halting place of the great spiritual migration which, from the clay that Abra- ham turned away his face from the rising of the sun, has been step- ping steadily westward."

Having thus defined the field within which, on the present occa-

sion, he proposes to confine his labours, Professor Stanley proceeds to indicate his views as to the manner in which these labours may most profitably be carried on. Alluding to the general impression that, of all historical studies, that of the history of the Church is the driest and most repulsive, he states his conviction, that the remedy for this evil is to be found in directing our attention mainly to the historical aspect of the object of our enquiry. Doctrines and opinions, the statement and discussion of which forms the staple of many eccle- siastical histories, gain immensely in vitality and power when viewed through the medium of the lives, characters, and circumstances of those by whom they were received and taught. Creeds, again, "if we regard them merely in their cut-and-dried results, may indeed serve many useful ends; they supply stakes to make hedges against intruders, planks to cross our enemy's trenches, fagots to burn here- tics :" but they affect us with a far deeper interest, and do us a far truer service, if we connect them with the lips by which they were first uttered, the hands by which they were first written. And we must remember that, after all, events and persons, not institutions and opinions, are the proper materials for ecclesiastical, as for all other, history. As it is impossible to study all events and persons with equal minuteness, the best course is, in either case, to select those which are of the greatest importance, and to study them in all the detail in which they can be represented to us. Take, for in- stance, the general councils of the Church. They are, as Professor • Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church, with an Introduction on the Study of Ecclesiastical History. By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Regius Professor of Eccle- siastical History in the University of Oxford, and Canon of Christ Church. London: Murray. Oxford: J. H. and J. Parker. Stanley happily observes, the pitched battles of ecclesiastical history; and must be studied in the same way in which we study the battles of military history. Weanust enquire when, where, and how they were fought; for here, as in actual battles, the locality often contains the key of the position. Apply. the same principles to the study of great men; and aim at endowing each with a 'distinct perso lity, and obtaining a definite idea of his most characteristic features, both mental and bodily. By conducting our investigations in accordance with these rules many advantages will be secured. We shall avoid falling into the very common error of regarding all matters connected with religion as of equal importance; we shall be able to understand the close connexion that exists between civil and ecclesiastical his- tory, the elements of both of which are combined in the more pro- minent characters and events which are the special objects of our study ; we shall find a protection against "the prevailing sins of ecclesiastical historians—exclusiveness and partiality ;" and we shall have an opportunity of "setting our foot from time to time upon that firmest of all grounds, which every student of history ought to touch once in his life, original authorities." Professor Stanley, in short, applies to the study of ecclesiastical history those principles which were laid down by his friend and teacher, Dr. Arnold, for the guidance of the general historical student ; and the superstructure which he has raised is worthy of the foundation on which it is based. In accordance with the foregoing rules, Professor Stanley selects three leading events in the history of the Eastern Church, and pro- ceeds to narrate them with great minuteness of detail. They are those to which we have already alluded as connecting the history of the Eastern Church with the general course of ecclesiastical history —the first general council, the rise of Mahometanism, and the estab- lishment of the Russian Church, and, through the Church, of the Russian Empire. After a brief description of the various subordinate churches of which the Eastern Church is composed, he. proceeds to devote no less than four out of the twelve lectures contained in the present volume to a detailed account of the first council of Nictea. There are several reasons for selecting this assembly alone from the seven general councils which belong -peculiarly to the Eastern Church. In the first place, it alone of all the councils retains a hold on the mass of Christendom, and its creed is the only creed accepted throughout the Universal Church. In the second place, the heresy against which it was mainly directed is the only one of any lasting significance in the general history of the Church. Again, it was the earliest great historical event which had affected the whole Church since the close of the Apostolic age. We are able to derive our knowledge of it, in great measure, from contemporary sources ; for, though the actual reports of the council are not extant, its decrees and official letters still remain, and we have the accounts, more or less perfect, of four eye-witnesses. And what is, if possible, of still greater moment, the sympathies of two out of these four eye-witnesses were with the heretical and losing side. Having thus vindicated his selection of the first as the most important and the most thoroughly representative of the East- ern general councils, Professor Stanley proceeds to describe its proceedings with a vividness of narration, and a minuteness of detail which have never before been even aimed at by any English ecclesiastical historian. It is plainly- impossible, within the space at our command, to make even the slightest attempt at repro- ducing his brilliant and life-like picture of this great event ; but the following extract, containing the portrait of one of its principal figures, will give some idea of the manner in which the historical painter has performed his work.

"Next after the Pope and Deacon of Alexandria, we must turn to one of its most important Presbyters—the parish priest, as we should call him, according to the first beginnings of a parochial system organised at Alexandria—the incum- bent of the parish church of Baucalis. In appearance he is the very opposite of Athanasius. He is sixty years of age, very tall and thin, and apparently unable to support his stature ; he has an odd way of contorting and twisting himself, which his enemies compare to the wriuglings of a snake. He would be hand- some but for the emaciation and deadly pallor of his face, and a downcast look, imparted by a weakness of eyesight. At times his veins throb and swell, and his limbs tremble, as if suffering from some violent internal complaint—the same, _perhaps, that will terminate one day in his sudden and frightful death. There is a wild look about him, which at first sight is startling. His dress and de- meanour are those of a rigid ascetic. He wears a long coat with short sleeves, and a scarf of only half size, such as was the mark of an austere life; and his hair hangs in a tangled mass over his head. He is usually silent, but at times breaks out into fierce excitement, such as will give the impression of madness. Yet, with all this, there is a sweetness in his voice, and a winning, earnest manner, which fascinates those who come across him. Amongst the religious ladies of Alexandria he is said to have had from the first a following of not less than seven hundred. This strange, captivating, moon-struck giant is the heretic Arius—or, as his adversaries called him, the madman of Ares, or Mars. Close beside him was a group of his countrymen, of whom we know little, except their fidelity to him, through good report and evil: Saras, like himself a presbyter, from the Libyan province- Euzoms, a deacon of Egypt ; Achilles, a reader; Theonas, Bishop of Marmanca in the Cyrenaica, and Sectuidts, Bishop of Ptole- mais in the Delta."

A separate lecture is devoted to the consideration of the historical position, with reference to the Eastern Church, of the two most taro- minent figures in the first Nictean Council, the Emperor Constantine, and the Patriarch Athanasius. These two discourses, together with that in which the rise of Mahometanism and its connexion with, and influence on, both Eastern and Western Christianity, are briefly but most suggestively sketched, we must hastily pass over, in order to arrive at the four concluding lectures which are devoted to the history-of the establishment of the Russian Church and Empire. There is so close a connexion between these two institutions that the history of the one cannot be separated from that of the other; and, accordingly, Professor Stanley's account of the Russian Church gives us no small insight into the history of the Russian Empire. Professor Stanley divides the cedes siastical history of Russia into four periods : 1, the period of its foundation, from the close of the tenth century to the beginning of the fourteenth ; 2, that of its consolidation, which terminates about the middle of the seventeenth century ; 3, that of its transition, which extends to the beginning of the eighteenth century ; and 4, that of its reformation, from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the present time. The principal event of the first of these periods, during which the city of Kieff was the central point of Russian Christianity, was the wholesale conversion of the EmperorVladimir and hi subjects to the faith of the Eastern Church. The second period represents

the .Middle Ages of the Russian empire ; and, as might be expected, begins and ends much later than the corresponding epoch in the west

of Europe. Of this whole period the local scene and the outward symbol is the holy city of Moscow. Its two most prominent institu- tions are the Czar and the Metropolitan of Moscow. The Czar unites in his own person the functions of priest and king, and is the supreme authority in ecclesiastical as well as in secular matters, to an extent which has never been realized in any Western country. The Metro- politan is not the first, but the second, person in the Russian Church; and neither the grandeur of the office nor the enthusiasm of the people has ever raised the primates of Russia to a level of political import- ance with the popet, or even with the prelates, of Western Europe. The two leading events of this period are the emancipation of Russia from the yoke of the Mongol Tartars, and from that of the Poles. In both these cases the clergy were the deliverers of their country. The struggle against the Tartars was the Russian Crusade ; and to it is to be attributed the strong anti.Mussulman feeling which ani- mates the heart of every Russian peasant at the present day. Simi- larly, the struggle with the Poles was, to the national mind, a struggle against papal supremacy, Poland being to Russia the chief repre- sentative of the Latin Church. The commencement of the third period is marked by the selection of the Emperor from the ranks of the clergy, the founder of the Romanoff family being the son of Philaret, the patriarch of Moscow. Iii this period we have the parallel, such as it is, which Russian history presents to the Western Reformation. In the preceding epoch, indeed, Ivan the Terrible had made an attempt to reform monastic abuses in his own charac- teristic manner, by exposing to a wild boar "seven rebellious big fat friars, one after the other, with a cross-and beads in one hand, and, through the Emperor's great favour, a boar-spear in the other ;" a contest which, despite the Emperor's great favour, ended most disas- trously for the Church party. But it was the patriarch Nicon, the leading figure of this period, who first attempted the reformation of the Russian Church. To the Western mind his reforms appear to be of a very trivial nature, being, with the. exception of a crusade against intemperance, which he put down "with a hedge-hog hand," chiefly directed to points of ceremonial observance. They were, nevertheless, the only ones of which the Russian Church was ca- pable; and the opposition which they excited was powerful enough to bring about the defeat and final exile of their originator. The picture drawn by Professor Stanley of this great man is singularly lifelike and vivid. To him was owing the revival of preaching, a practice which provoked some curious comments from the Arch-

deacon of Antioch, who was present on more than one occasion. "Remark, brother," says this worthy man, "what happened now,—

an occurrence which surprised and confounded our understandings. It was, that so far were they from being content with their lengthened services, that the Deacon brought to the Patriarch the book of Lessons, which they opened before him ; and he began to read the lesson for this day, on the subject of the Second Advent ; and not only did he read it, but he preached and expounded the meanings of the words to the standing and silent assembly, until our spirits were broken within us during the tedious while. God preserve us and save us !" On another occasion he exclaims "God grant him mode- ration! What should we say to this in our country ?" The leading figure of the fourth period was Peter the Great. It was to be ex- pected that a sovereign who was so bent upon the temporal advance- ment of his people should bestow some of his attention upon their spiritual affairs. Foremost among his ecclesiastical reforms are the abolition of the office of Patriarch, and the substitution of a synod of prelates, presided over by the Emperor or his secretary; and the alteration of the calendar so as to make it coincide with that adopted by the rest of Europe. He further introduced into churches pictures painted by Western artists, insisted on the use of tobacco and potatoes, and entered on a crusade against beards—which last innovation, how.. ever, was successfully resisted by the peasantry and clergy. His reforms produced a schism in the Russian Church, those who refused to adopt them forming themselves into a sect called the Rascolniks or "Separatists," the extreme party of which assumed the name of Starovers, or "Old Believers," and still claim to be the one true orthodox Church of Russia. One of their most singular tenets is that they consider the ancient wandering state of the Russian pea- sants as the mark of true Christianity; and consequently regard passports as the marks of the Beast, and light huge bonfires to burn any that they can lay hold of. Of both these dissenting bodies Pro- fessor Stanley gives a remarkably interesting account. Want of space alone precludes us from dwelling upon Professor Stanley's statement of the advantages which are to be derived from the study of the history of the Eastern Church. We must, how- ever, quote one passage from the lecture in which he dwells, upon this aspect of his subject. The effect to which he alludes is the attraction which is so often exercised by "the magnetic power of those associations which appeal to the imaginative, the social, the devotional parts of our nature."

"The body with which we are most familiar as producing this effect, is the ancient and energetic community whose seat is at Rome. In it we usually see the chief impersonation of high ecclesiastical pretensions of an elaborate ritual, of outward devotion, of wide dominion, of venerable tradition. It is close at hand; and, therefore' whether we attack or admire, it fills the whole of our view. But this effect is considerably modified by the apparition of the Eastern Church. Turn from the Tiber to the Bosphorus: we shall see that there are two kings in the field, two suns in the heavens. That figure which seemed so imposing when it was the only one which met our view, changes all its propor- tions when we see that it is overtopped by a vaster, loftier, darker figure behind. If we are bent on having dogmatical belief and conservative tradition to its fullest extent, We must go not to the Church which calls itself Catholic, but to the Church which calls itself Orthodox—to the Church which will die but never surrender the minutest point which Council or Father has bequeathed to it. If we are to make the most of monasticism as a necessary model of Christian per- fection, we ought not to stop short with the Grande Chartreuse, or Monte Casino, when we can have the seclusion of Mount Athos, or the exaltation of Simeon StyRes. If we are to have the ancient theory of sacramental forms carried out to its extreme limits, we must not halt half-way with a Church which him cur- tailed the waters of baptism, and deferred confirmation and communion to years of discretion : we must take refuge in the ancient Eastern ritual, which still retains the threefold immersion, which still offers the rites of chrism and of the encharist to the unconscious touch of infancy."

The foregoing analysis, imperfect as it necessarily is, will, we hope, enable the reader to form some idea of the extraordinary merit of Professor Stanley's work. It is, in every respect, a most valuable and important contribution to ecclesiastical history. We heartily hope that the present volume will be only the first of a low" series ; and we shall look forward with especial anxiety to the time ;hen. the same dispassionate judgment and brilliant power of illustration which have given us so deep an insight into the Eastern Church will be brought to bear upon the more eventful and more immediately inte- resting history of 'Western Christianity.