CHAPTER IX
ORGANISATION AND WORSHIP
The Church which had commenced as a simple brotherhood of Christians had now developed into a highly elaborated hierarchical organisation. Genuine Christianity with hope of future salvation was taken to be conterminous with membership in the Catholic Church. This membership was secured by baptism, and continued subject to discipline. Orthodoxy in belief and tolerable correctness of conduct were recognised conditions, failure in regard to either of which could be punished with excommunication—specifically exclusion from attendance at the Eucharist. But in point of fact discipline was almost confined to the question of orthodoxy, and there almost exclusively among the clergy; so that much laxity of conduct prevailed among the laity, who, though subject to pastoral oversight, rarely suffered the extreme penalty of expulsion from the Church. In other words, from being a select community dedicated to a holy life, the Church tended to become co-extensive with Christendom, especially with the empire regarded as Christian, though of course only consisting of the baptised. Then those men and women who aimed at a higher life began to separate themselves from the secularised Church. Yet they did not form a church within the Church. They
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