(3) Those districts in which Christianity was sparsely scattered,
viz. Palestine, Phoenicia, Arabia, certain parts of Mesopotamia,
the interior districts of Greece, the provinces on the north of
Greece, the northern districts of middle Italy, the provinces of
Mauretania and Tripolis. (4) Those districts in which Christianity
was extremely weak or where it was hardly found at all:
the districts to the north and north-west of the Black Sea, the
western section of upper Italy, middle and upper Gaul, Belgica,
Germany, Rhaetia, the towns of ancient Philistia. It is not
possible to obtain even an approximate estimate of the numbers
of the Christians at the time of Constantine. Friedländer, for
instance, does not think that they exceeded by much Gibbon’s
estimate for the reign of Decius, viz. one-twentieth of the
population. La Bastie and Burckhardt put the ratio at
one-twelfth, Matter at a fifth and Staudlin even at a half (see
Harnack ii. 453).
After the end of the 3rd century missionary enterprise was mainly concentrated on the outlying borders of the empire. In the 4th and 5th centuries may be mentioned Gregory the Illuminator, the “apostle of Armenia” (about 300), Ulfilas, the “apostle of the Goths,” about 325; Frumentius,[1] a bishop of Abyssinia, about 327; Nino, the Armenian girl who was the means of converting the kingdom of Iberia (now Georgia), about 330;[2] Chrysostom, who founded at Constantinople in A.D. 404 an institution in which Goths might be trained to preach the Gospel to their own people;[3] Martin of Tours, who evangelized the central districts of Gaul; Valentinus, the “apostle of Noricum,” about 440; Honoratus, who from his monastic home in the islet of Lerins, about 410, sent missionaries among the masses of heathendom in the neighbourhood of Arles, Lyons, Troyes, Metz and Nice; and St Patrick, who converted Ireland into “the isle of saints” (died either in 463 or 495).
The Medieval Period
With the 5th century the Church was confronted with numberless hordes, which were now precipitated over the entire face of Europe. Having for some time learnt to be aggressive, she girded herself for the difficult work of teaching the nations a higher faith than a savage form of nature-worship, and of fitting them to become members of an enlightened Christendom.
(a) The Celtic Missionaries.—The first pioneers who went forth to engage in this difficult enterprise came from the secluded Celtic Churches of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. Of many who deserve mention in connexion with this period, the most prominent were: Columba, the founder of the famous monastery of Iona in 563 and the evangelizer of the Albanian Scots and northern Picts; Aidan, the apostle of Northumbria; Columbanus, the apostle of the Burgundians of the Vosges (590); Callich or Gallus (d. 646), the evangelizer of north-eastern Switzerland and Alemannia; Kilian, the apostle of Thuringia; and Trudpert, the martyr of the Black Forest. The zeal of these men seemed to take the world by storm. Travelling generally in companies, and carrying a simple outfit, these Celtic pioneers flung themselves on the continent of Europe, and, not content with reproducing at Annegray or Luxeuil the willow or brushwood huts, the chapel and the round tower, which they had left behind in Derry or in the island of Hy (Iona), they braved the dangers of the northern seas, and penetrated as far as the Faroes and even far distant Iceland.[4] “Their zeal and success,” to quote the words of Kurtz, “are witnessed to by the fact that at the beginning of the 8th century, throughout all the district of the Rhine, as well as Hesse, Thuringia, Bavaria and Alemannia, we find a network of flourishing churches bearing the impress of Celtic institutions.”
(b) The English Missionaries.—Thus they laid the foundations, aweing the heathen tribes by their indomitable spirit of self-sacrifice and the sternness of their rule of life. But, marvellous as it was, their work lacked the element of permanence; and it became clear that a more practical system must be devised and carried out. The men for this work were now ready, and the sons of the newly evangelized English Churches were ready to go forth. The energy which warriors were accustomed to put forth in their efforts to conquer was now “exhibited in the enterprise of conversion and teaching”[5] by Wilfrid on the coast of Friesland,[6] by Willibrord (658–715) in the neighbourhood of Utrecht,[7] by the martyr-brothers Ewald or Hewald amongst the “old” or continental Saxons,[8] by Swidbert the apostle of the tribes between the Ems and the Yssel, by Adelbert, a prince of the royal house of Northumbria, in the regions north of Holland, by Wursing, a native of Friesland, and one of the disciples of Willibrord, in the same region, and last, not least, by the famous Winfrid or Boniface, the “apostle of Germany” (680–755), who went forth first to assist Willibrord at Utrecht, then to labour in Thuringia and Upper Hessia, then with the aid of his kinsmen Wunibald and Willibald, their sister Walpurga, and her thirty companions, to consolidate the work of earlier missionaries, and finally to die a martyr on the shore of the Zuider Zee.
(c) Scandinavian Missions.—Devoted, however, as were the labours of Boniface and his disciples, all that he and they and the emperor Charlemagne after them achieved for the fierce untutored world of the 8th century seemed to have been done in vain when, in the 9th “on the north and north-west the pagan Scandinavians were hanging about every coast, and pouring in at every inlet; when on the east the pagan Hungarians were swarming like locusts and devastating Europe from the Baltic to the Alps; when on the south and south-east the Saracens were pressing on and on with their victorious hosts. It seemed then as if every pore of life were choked, and Christendom must be stifled and smothered in the fatal embrace.[9] But the devoted Anskar (801–865) went forth and sought out the Scandinavian viking, and handed on the torch of self-denying zeal to others, who saw, after the lapse of many years, the close of the monotonous tale of burning churches and pillaged monasteries, and taught the fierce Northman to learn respect for civilized institutions.[10] The gospel was first introduced into Norway in the 10th century by an Englishman named Hacon, though the real conversion of the country was due to Olaf Tryggvasön. About the same time, and largely owing to the exertions of Olaf, Iceland, Greenland and the Orkney and Shetland islands were also evangelized.
(d) Slavonic Missions.—Thus the “gospel of the kingdom” was successively proclaimed to the Roman, the Celtic, the Teutonic and the Scandinavian world. A contest still more stubborn remained with the Slavonic tribes, with their triple and many-headed divinities, their powers of good and powers of evil, who could be propitiated only with human sacrifices. Mission work commenced in Bulgaria during the latter part of the 9th century; thence it extended to Moravia, where in 863 two Greek missionaries—Cyril and Methodius—provided for the people a Slavonic Bible and a Slavonic Liturgy; thence to Bohemia and Poland, and so onwards to the Russian kingdom of Ruric the Northman, where about the close of the 10th century the Eastern Church “silently and almost unconsciously bore into the world her mightiest offspring.”[11] But, though the baptism of Vladimir (c. 956–1015) was a heavy blow to Slavonic idolatry, mission work was carried on with but partial success; and it taxed all the energies of Adalbert, bishop of Bremen, of Vicilin, bishop of Oldenburg, of Bishop Otto of Bamberg the apostle of the Pomeranians, of Adalbert the martyr-apostle of Prussia, to spread the word in that country, in Lithuania, and in the territory of the Wends. It was not till 1168 that the gigantic four-headed image of Swantevit was destroyed at Arcona, the capital of the island of Rügen, and this Mona of Slavonic superstition was included in the advancing circle of Christian
- ↑ Socrates, H.E. i. 15; Sozomen ii. 24; Theodoret i. 22.
- ↑ Socrates, H.E. i. 20; Sozomen ii. 7; Theodoret i. 24.
- ↑ Theodoret, H.E., v. 30.
- ↑ See A. W. Haddan, “Scots on the Continent,” Remains, p. 256.
- ↑ Church, Gifts of Civilization, p. 330.
- ↑ Bede, H.E. v. 19.
- ↑ “Annal. Xantenses,” Pertz, Mon. Germ. ii. 220.
- ↑ Bede, H.E. v. 10.
- ↑ See Lightfoot, Ancient and Modern Missions.
- ↑ See Hardwick, Middle Ages, pp. 109-114.
- ↑ Stanley, Eastern Church, p. 294.
