Church History

Important department of theological and general study, always cultivated, cultivated, though seldom impartially. It deals with the outward and inward fortunes of organized Christianity, the development of doctrine, the rise of sects and heresies, the varied relations between spiritual and temporal powers. Long under persecution, the Ch. became dominant in the Roman Empire ab. 320. Then came the œcumenical councils, papal pretensions, the split between East and West, the gradual conversion of the north, and the darkne of the Middle Ages. The crusades against the Moslems 1095-1272 widened the views of Christen dom; those against the Albigenses stimulated the persecuting spirit, which raged for four centuries. The Protestant Reformation broke the previous uniformity and changed the face of Europe; violently suppre ed in the south, it prospered in the north and west, and gave rise to many contending sects. Liberty of religious thought and action is a precious plant of recent growth; but Christian unity appears a millennial dream.