The Greeks, on the other hand, were mingled with a host of Northern and Oriental races, especially the Sclavs and the Armenians and other peoples of Western Asia. The Latins were invigorated and transformed by an infusion of German blood resulting from successive Gothic invasions. But historically, in the period with which we are concerned, neither of these races was self-contained or unmixed with alien elements. It is true that the Greek and Latin races were near akin, members of the common Aryan stock which has peopled India, Persia, and Europe. First among these causes we must place the racial. Deep lying, slow moving, gigantic forces, operating through centuries, worked with the inevitability of fate.ġ.
#The division 2 wiki series#
The occurrence of various incidents-each in itself apparently so unimportant-in a series coming down several centuries points to the existence of persistent causes lurking beneath. Nevertheless, we must not set down the final result to a mere chapter of accidents. A personal quarrel between two patriarchs, a slight step of advance in the implied claims of a title, and last of all, a subtle point in the definition of the Trinity-these are among the influences that in course of time by their cumulative effect scooped out the great chasm, like the water brooks that running for past ages have at length separated whole mountains. In tracing the causes of this tremendous cleavage of Christendom we may be surprised to see how insignificant and unimportant some of them were. As we contemplate them in their stubborn separation we may be reminded of Coleridge's famous metaphor in Christobel. The division followed centuries of close mutual communication, and it was so gradual that much of the common thought and life of the patristic trunk from which they spring is to be found in each of these great branches. And yet the Western Church stands for orthodoxy in its proud claim to infallibility, and the Eastern is equally intolerant of heresy, schism, or insubordination. The one is especially concerned with the defence of the creed, the other with the maintenance of organic unity. The note of the Eastern Church is said to be orthodoxy and that of the Western catholicity, so that the one is called "The Holy Orthodox Church," and the other "The Catholic Church." To some extent these differences of title are indicative of distinctions in the essential characters of the bodies they represent. Both are episcopal, sacerdotal, sacramental, orthodox in relation to the historic creeds. In discipline, ritual, and doctrine they are much nearer together than Roman Catholics and Protestants, nearer even than High Anglicans and Evangelical Churchmen. When we look at the two great communions, each of which claims to be the one genuine Church, we see them to have so much in common that we may wonder at the absolutely irreconcilable attitude they maintain towards each other. The most momentous fact in the history of Christendom during the Middle Ages is the separation between the Eastern and the Western Churches.