Finally, through the mutual jealousy and ambition of the bishops of Rome and Constantinople, a controversy arose which, in the ninth century, resulted in a great and lasting division of Christendom into two great ecclesiastical bodies; viz., the Greek Catholic or Eastern Church, and the Roman Catholic or Western Church. In the Western Church the secular or civil power continued to be regarded as subordinate to ecclesiastical authority, a sort of convenient instrument to execute the decrees of the church. Hence Roman Catholic Christianity drew to itself all that prestige in the propagation of its doctrines which comes from the authority and support of the state; and though the power of the state was held to be subordinate to that of the church, no one who has read our Christian annals can help being struck with the importance of the civil power as a factor in the propagation of Roman Catholic Christianity. The barbarous peoples who came in contact with the Christian nations, were often compelled to accept the so-called Christian religion as one of the terms of capitulation; and the fear of the sword often eked out the arguments of the priests, and was generally much more effective.
I think it proper that the above statement should be emphasized by the following proofs:
"In the year 772, A. D., Charlemagne, king of the Franks, undertook to tame, and to withdraw from idolatry, the extensive nation of the Saxons, who occupied a large portion of Germany, and were almost perpetually at war with the Franks, respecting their boundaries and other things; for he hoped that if their minds could become imbued with the Christian doctrines, they would gradually lay aside their ferocity, and learn to yield submission to the empire of the Franks. The first attack upon their heathenism produced little effect, being made not with the force of arms, but by some bishops and monks whom the victor had left for that purpose among the vanquished nation. But much better success attended the subsequent wars which Charlemagne undertook, in the years 775, 776, and 780, A D., against that heroic people, so fond of liberty, and so impatient, especially of sacerdotal domination. For in these assaults, not only rewards, but also the sword and punishments were so successfully applied upon those adhering to the superstition of their ancestors, that they reluctantly ceased from resistance, and allowed the doctors whom Charles employed to administer to them Christian baptism. Widekind and Albion, indeed, who were two of the most valiant Saxon chiefs, renewed their former insurrections; and attempted to prostrate again by violence and war, that Christianity which had been set up by violence. But the martial courage, and the liberality of Charles at length brought them, in the year 785, solemnly to declare that they were Christians, and would continue to be so. * * * The Huns inhabiting Pannonia, were treated the same way as the Saxons; for Charles so exhausted and humbled them by successive wars, as to compel them to prefer becoming Christians to being slaves."5
In Denmark, during the tenth century, "the Christian cause had to struggle with great difficulties and adversities, under King Gorman, although the queen was a professed Christian. But Harald, surnamed Blatand, the son of Gorman, having been vanquished by Otto the Great, about the middle of the century, made a profession of Christianity in the year 949, and was baptized. * * * Perhaps Harald, who had his birth and education from a Christian mother, Tyra, was not greatly averse from the Christian religion; and yet it is clear that in the present transaction he yielded rather to the demands of his conqueror, than to his own inclinations. For Otto, being satisfied that the Danes would never cease to harass their neighbors with wars and rapine, if they retained the martial religion of their fathers, made it a condition of the peace with Harald that he and his people should become Christians."6
"Waldemar I., King of Denmark, obtained very great fame by the many wars he undertook against the pagan nations, the Slavs, the Wends, the Vandals, and others. He fought not only for the interests of his subjects, but likewise for the extension of Christianity; and wherever he was successful, he demolished the temples and images of the gods, the altars and groves, and commanded the Christian worship to be set up. * * * The Fins who infested Sweden with frequent inroads, were attacked by Eric IX., King of Sweden, called St. Eric, after his death, and by him subdued after many bloody battles. * * * The vanquished nation was commanded to follow the religion of the conqueror, which most of them did with reluctance and disgust."
"Towards the close of the century (the tenth), * * * some merchants of Bremen or of Lubec trading to Livonia, took along with them Mainhard, a regular canon of St. Augustine in the monastery of Segberg in Halsatia, to bring that warlike and uncivilized nation to the Christian faith. But as few listened to him, Mainhard consulted the Roman pontiff, who created him the first bishop of the Livonians, and desired that war should be waged against the opposers. This war, which was first waged with the Esthonians, was extended farther and prosecuted more rigorously by Berthold, the second bishop of the Livonians, after the death of Mainhard; for this, Berthold, formerly Abbot of Lucca, marched with a strong army from Saxony, and recommended Christianity not by arguments but by slaughter and battle. Following his example, the third bishop, Albert, previously a canon of Bremen, entering Livonia in the year 1198, well supported by a fresh army raised in Saxony, and fixing his camp at Riga, he instituted, by authority of Innocent III., the Roman pontiff, the military order of knight's sword-bearers, who should compel the Livonians by force of arms to submit to baptism. New forces were marched from time to time from Germany, by whose valor and that of the sword-bearers the wretched people were subdued and exhausted, so that they at last substituted the images of Christ and the saints in place of their idols."7
A volume of evidence similar in import to the foregoing could be compiled, showing that from the accession of Constantine the Great down to the sixteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church did not hesitate to employ the civil power to enforce conversion and punish recalcitrants.
If the Eastern Church has been less successful in extending the borders of Christianity by means of conquests waged by the civil power, it was because the division of the world it occupied afforded less opportunity than Western Europe, where a great struggle was on between the race of men made weak by the effete civilization of Rome and the more vigorous barbarians. But while the Eastern Church made less direct use of the sword to extend its dominions, it nevertheless had the state for an ally which sustained it at need.
When in the sixteenth century the great revolt against the authority of the pope and the religion of the Roman Catholic Church gave birth to the Protestant churches, they, too, in the main, formed alliances with the states in which they were founded. Nay, in the very struggle for their existence, the states of Germany, of Holland, Scandinavia and of England, drew the sword in their behalf and by their support made it possible for the seceding religionists to establish churches despite all efforts of the Roman pontiffs to prevent them; and after the revolution was an accomplished fact, the states above enumerated continued to give support to the churches founded within their borders. If the church and the state in some instances were regarded as separate and distinct societies, they acted at the same time as close neighbors, and nearly interested in each other's welfare. If they lived separate, they were not estranged; and each at need gave the other support.
I have thought it necessary to call the attention of the reader to the conditions in which Christianity has existed since the days of Constantine under all three great divisions of Christendom—the Roman Catholic, the Greek Catholic, and Protestant—in order that he might be reminded of the fact that circumstances of the most propitious character have existed for the propagation of the so-called Christian religion. Christendom has had at its command the wealth and intelligence of Europe; it has been able to follow the commerce of European states into every country