rea IV. saec. init.). Throughout the
East the whole question became involved in confusion, and was not
decided in accordance with clear principles. In giving up the last
remnant of her exclusiveness (the canons of Elvira are still very strict
while those of Arles are lax), the Church became "Catholic" in quite a
special sense, in other words, she became a community where everyone
could find his place, provided he submitted to certain regulations and
rules. Then, and not till then, was the Church's pre-eminent importance
for society and the state assured. It was no longer variance, and no
longer the sword (Matt. X. 34, 35), but peace and safety that she
brought; she was now capable of becoming an educative or, since there
was little more to educate in the older society, a conservative power.
At an earlier date the Apologists (Justin, Melito, Tertullian himself)
had already extolled her as such, but it was not till now that she
really possessed this capacity. Among Christians, first the Encratites
and Marcionites, next the adherents of the new prophecy, and lastly the
Novatians had by turns opposed the naturalisation of their religion in
the world and the transformation of the Church into a political
commonwealth. Their demands had progressively become less exacting,
whence also their internal vigour had grown ever weaker. But, in view of
the continuous secularising of Christendom, the Montanist demands at the
beginning of the 3rd century already denoted no less than those of the
Encratites about the middle of the second, and no more than those of the
Novatians about the middle of the third. The Church resolutely declared
war on all these attempts to elevate evangelical perfection to an
inflexible law for all, and overthrew her opponents. She pressed on in
her world-wide mission and appeased her conscience by allowing a twofold
morality within her bounds. Thus she created the conditions which
enabled the ideal of evangelical perfection to be realised in her own
midst, in the form of monasticism, without threatening her existence.
"What is monasticism but an ecclesiastical institution that makes it
possible to separate oneself from the world and to remain in the Church,
to separate oneself from the outward Church without renouncing her, to
set oneself apart for purposes of sanctification and yet to claim the
highest rank among her members, to form a brotherhood and yet to further
the interests of the Church?" In succeeding t