THE NEW EUROPE
atheists are never tired of pointing to the fact that one and the same church is praying in Germany for a German, in France for a French victory; but they are as beside the mark as the theologians and scholastics.
Certainly the polemics between French and German Catholics, between Catholic and Protestant, between Catholic and Orthodox, make melancholy and depressing reading. Only in one respect do they deserve to be studied, namely, as a key to the question how far the churches share the responsibility for having brought about this war.
It is easy to understand why politicians and publicists avoid the religious questions of the war. Being all members of distinct parties, and, therefore, the slaves of a partisan outlook, they are afraid of offending the religious sentiments of either side. But it is quite possible to discuss the matter without hurting religious susceptibilities. Indeed, I think that the gravest offence which could be offered to thinking men would be the assumption that they cannot listen to a serious criticism of the churches and their significance in the present struggle.
The churches, as an ethical organisation of society, come into close relations with the State, as its political organisation: the nature of these relations has varied in different periods and stages of culture. In the Middle Ages, Church and State formed a peculiar theocratic unity: its two chief types were the Roman and the Byzantine. In the former, the Church had the upper hand; in the latter, the State. The Reformation put an end to theocratic tendencies, and the State gained in strength—in Protestant countries, through the religious and ecclesiastical revival; in Catholic countries, through the Counter-Reformation. This double process lies at the root of modern State-absolutism. The great Catholic theocracy split up into smaller and more national theocracies, differing from the medieval in creed and organisation. Modern democracy is opposed to theocracy as distinct from religion; but democracy is as yet in its first stages.
It was only to be expected that the various churches would, on the whole, espouse the policy of their own States. For instance, official Austria, so far as it has any idea at all, still relies in every respect upon the Church, tottering, from the force of habit, in the direction given by the counter-Reformation. It is well known that Francis Ferdinand
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