Calvinism a life-system - pagina 216

CALVINISM AND ART.

212

Church a somewhat

Christian in

place.

in

the

The

roughly high

demoralized,

was

still

and

civilization

bound,

made

its

world,

at

its

the outset,

to

dominating overestimation of

by

itself

its

Therefore,

splendour.

artistic

here

is

appearance

which, though tho-

recommended

oppose principle to

order to

in

Roman

Greek and

explanation

fuller

Christian Religion

principle, Christianity

react against the then-

art,

and thereby to break

the dangerous influence which Paganism was exercising, in

by the enchantment of

last convulsion,

its

As

world.

tiful

Paganism

therefore,

remained a

of

relation

long,

struggle to

Christianity

This

hostile one.

first

art

as for

life

could

or

death, the

not but be an

period was followed almost im-

Roman

mediately by the influx into the highly civilized

Empire of the

almost barbaric Germanic

still

beau-

its

the stri^ggle with

tribes,

whose speedy baptism the centre of power gra-

after

removed from

dually

Alps,

Italy

to

beyond the Northern

to the Church, as early as the 8th

thus giving,

century an almost exclusive ascendency over the whole of Europe. for

several

human

Thanks centuries

to

this

constellation, the

Church

became the guardian of higher

and so nobly did she acquit herself of

life,

this

exalted task that no religious hatred or party prejudice

dares

question any longer the glorious result she then

In the

achieved.

literal

sense of the word,

all

human

development of that period depended entirely upon the

No

church. shielded

nated

by

that

passion,

science

and no art could prosper unless

ecclesiastical protection.

And

hence

specifically Christian art, which, in

tried

to

embody

the

maximum

its

origifirst

of spiritual

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