Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 675

Chap. V]

THE INTERNAL CONFLICT

§ 102.

651

with the ecclesiastical organization and the Church with her ban had anathematized whoever had been conquered by ;

This effected too close a bond between theology and the Church, which resulted after the death of the theology.

coryphaei in a limitation of liberty for theology as a science,

even as in the Church everything was compelled to exhibit one mould and move in the same direction. Multiformity of life was lost in the uniformity of the

itself too largely in

traditional

ecclesiastical

type,

and

as

soon as opposition

and almost every were like an army

ceased, theology lost the spur for action,

reason for existence. dismissed,

since

period of the

Her

practitioners

victory had been

achieved.

Fathers in the fourth and

The

fifth

heroic

centuries,

is followed by a period of lassitude and deathlike which gradually turned into the barrenness of the

therefore, stillness,

Middle Ages. itself so

At

strongly

first this

felt.

baneful uniformity did not

The

make

schools of Antioch and Alexan-

and Edessa, of North Africa and of Rome, were strong with the vigor of youth, each having a theological tendency of its own. But when presently the Eastern schools lost their significance, and the West appeared in the foreground, and in the West Rome's preponderance assumed proportions which became more and more decisive, the distinction was gradually lost sight of between "heretical departure " and " difference of tendency among the orthodox." All differences were looked upon with envy. Unity in the most absolute sense had become the watchword. And when finally this unity was carried off as spoils, it seemed more easy to maintain this unity thenceforth by ecclesiastical decisions than by theologic debate. Theology had done her duty, now the Church wa^ to have the word. Not dria, of Nisibis

theolog}'-,

but the Hierarchy, as early as the sixth century,

held the reins of power which are to maintain the principle of

And though it is self-evident that there life. remained certain variations, and that absolute unity has never been obtained, Rome, nevertheless, preferred to allow these variations sufificient playground within its own organization, and when needed to provide diversion by monastic the Christian still

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