For Philip Kennedy
Faithful friend, who has managed to persist in affirming a Christian story
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Allen Lane is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published 2009
Copyright © Diarmaid MacCulloch, 2009
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover: The Eternal Blessing, anonymous artist, fifteenth-century painting in the Orte Museum, Italy © Sandro Vannini/Corbis
Cover design: Antonio Colaço
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-141-95795-1
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Introduction
PART I A Millennium of Beginnings (1000 BCE –100 CE)
1 Greece and Rome (c. 1000 BCE–100 CE)
Greek Beginnings
Hellenistic Greece
Rome and the Coming of the Roman Empire
2 Israel (c. 1000 BCE–100 CE)
A People and Their Land
The Exile and After
PART II One Church, One Faith, One Lord? (4 BCE–451 CE)
3 A Crucified Messiah (4 BCE–100 CE)
Beginnings
The Adult Jesus: A Public Campaign
Crucifixion and Resurrection
New Directions: Paul of Tarsus
The Gospel of John and Revelation
The Jewish Revolt and the End of Jerusalem
4 Boundaries Defined (50 CE–300)
Shaping the Church
Alternative Identities: Gnosticism, Marcionism
Canon, Creed, Ministry, Catholicity
Montanism: Prophecy Renewed and Suppressed
Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian
Alexandrian Theologians: Clement and Origen
5 The Prince: Ally or Enemy? (100–300)
The Church and the Roman Empire (100–200)
Third-century Imperial Crisis
From Persecution to Persecution (250–300)
Kings and Christians: Syria, Armenia
6 The Imperial Church (300–451)
Constantine and the God of Battles
The Beginnings of Monasticism
Constantine, Arius and the One God (306–25)
Councils and Dissidents from Nicaea to Chalcedon
Miaphysites and Nestorius
PART III Vanishing Futures: East and South (451–1500)
7 Defying Chalcedon: Asia and Africa (451–622)
Miaphysite Christianity and Its Missions
Ethiopia: The Christianity of ‘Union’
The Church of the East (451–622)
8 Islam: The Great Realignment (622–1500)
Muhammad and the Coming of Islam
Islam and the East
The Church in China
The Mongols: New Hope and Catastrophe
Islam and the African Churches
PART IV The Unpredictable Rise of Rome (300–1300)
9 The Making of Latin Christianity (300–500)
The Rome of the Popes (300–400)
A Religion Fit for Gentlemen (300–400)
Augustine: Shaper of the Western Church
Early Monasticism in the West (400–500)
10 Latin Christendom: New Frontiers (500–1000)
Changing Allegiances: Rome, Byzantium and Others
Missions in Northern Europe (500–600)
Obedient Anglo-Saxons and Other Converts (600–800)
Charlemagne, Carolingians and a New Roman Empire (800–1000)
11 The West: Universal Emperor or Universal Pope? (900–1200)
Abbots, Warriors and Popes: Cluny’s Legacy
The Vicar of Christ: Marriage, Celibacy and Universal Monarchy
The Age of the Crusades (1060–1200)
Cistercians, Carthusians and Mary (1100–1200)
12 A Church for All People? (1100–1300)
Theology, Heresy, Universities (1100–1300)
A Pastoral Revolution, Friars and the Fourth Lateran Council (1200–1260)
Thomas Aquinas: Philosophy and Faith
Love in a Cold Climate: Personal Devotion after 1200
PART V Orthodoxy: The Imperial Faith (451–1800)
13 Faith in a New Rome (451–900)
A Church to Shape Orthodoxy: Hagia Sophia
Byzantine Spirituality: Maximus and the Mystical Tradition
Smashing Images: The Iconoclastic Controversy (726–843)
Photios and New Missions to the West (850–900)
14 Orthodoxy: More Than an Empire (900–1700)
Crises and Crusaders (900–1200)
The Fourth Crusade and Its Aftermath (1204–1300)
Orthodox Renaissance, Ottomans and Hesychasm Triumphant (1300–1400)
Hopes Destroyed: Church Union, Ottoman Conquest (1400–1700)
15 Russia: The Third Rome (900–1800)
A New Threat to Christendom: Norsemen, Rus’ and Kiev (900–1240)
Tatars, Lithuania and Muscovy (1240–1448)
Muscovy Triumphant (1448–1547)
Ivan the Terrible and the New Patriarchate (1547–98)
From Muscovy to Russia (1598–1800)
PART VI Western Christianity Dismembered (1300–1800)
16 Perspectives on the True Church (1300–1517)
The Church, Death and Purgatory (1300–1500)
Papal Monarchy Challenged (1300–1500)
Nominalists, Lollards and Hussites (1300–1500)
Old Worlds Bring New: Humanism (1300–1500)
Reforming the Church in the Last Days (1500)
Erasmus: New Beginnings?
17 A House Divided (1517–1660)
A Door in Wittenberg
The Farmers’ War and Zwingli
Reformations Radical and Magisterial: Anabaptists and Henry VIII
Strassburg, England and Geneva (1540–60)
Reformed Protestants, Confessionalization and Toleration (1560–1660)
Reformation Crises: The Thirty Years War and Britain
18 Rome’s Renewal (1500–1700)
Cross-currents in Spain and Italy: Valdesians and Jesuits (1500–1540)
Regensburg and Trent: A Contest Resolved (1541–59)
Counter-Reformations after Trent: England, Spain and the Mystics
Trent Delayed: France and Poland-Lithuania
Lives Separated: Saints, Splendour, Sex and Witches
19 A Worldwide Faith (1500–1800)
Iberian Empires: The Western Church Exported
Counter-Reformation in a New World
Counter-Reformation in Asia: Empires Unconquered
Counter-Reformation in Africa: The Blight of the Slave Trade
20 Protestant Awakenings (1600–1800)
Protestants and American Colonization
The Fight for Protestant Survival (1660–1800)
Pietism and the Moravians
The Evangelical Revival: Methodism
The Great Awakenings and the American Revolution
PART VII God in the Dock (1492–present)
21 Enlightenment: Ally or Enemy? (1492–1815)
Natural and Unnatural Philosophy (1492–1700)
Judaism, Scepticism and Deism (1492–1700)
Social Watersheds in the Netherlands and England (1650–1750)
Gender Roles in the Enlightenment
Enlightenment in the Eighteenth Century
The French Revolution (1789–1815)
Aftermath of Revolution: A Europe of Nation-states
22 Europe Re-enchanted or Disenchanted? (1815–1914)
Catholicism Ascendant: Mary’s Triumph and the Challenge of Liberalism
Protestantism: Bibles and ‘First-wave’ Feminism
A Protestant Enlightenment: Schleiermacher, Hegel and Their Heirs
British Protestantism and the Oxford Movement
Orthodoxy: Russia and Ottoman Decay
Masters of Suspicion: Geology, Biblical Criticism and Atheism
23 To Make the World Protestant (1700–1914)
Slavery and Its Abolition: A New Christian Taboo
A Protestant World Mission: Oceania and Australasia
Africa: An Islamic or a Protestant Century?
India: The Great Rebellion and the Limits of Colonial Mission
China, Korea, Japan
America: The New Protestant Empire
24 Not Peace but a Sword (1914–60)
A War That Killed Christendom (1914–18)
Great Britain: The Last Years of Christian Empire
Catholics and Christ the King: The Second Age of Catholic Missions
The Churches and Nazism: The Second World War
World Christianity Realigned: Ecumenical Beginnings
World Christianity Realigned: Pentecostals and New Churches
25 Culture Wars (1960–present)
The Second Vatican Council: Half a Revolution
Catholics, Protestants and Liberation
A Cultural Revolution from the Sixties
Old-time Religion: Affirmations
Freedom: Prospects and Fears
Illustrations
Notes
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Greece and Asia Minor
Palestine: The Geography
Palestine in the Time of Jesus
Christianity in the Second Century
The Early Church in the Middle East
Ethiopia, Eastern Arabia, the Red Sea and Egypt
The Middle East after the Abbasid Conquest
Asia in 1260
Christian Western Europe in the Seventh Century
Cluny and the Santiago Pilgrimage
The Balkans and the Black Sea in the Time of Photios
The Byzantine Empire at the Death of Basil II
The Byzantine Empire Reunited under Michael Palaeologos
Eastern Europe in 1300
Muscovy and Eastern Europe after the Death of Ivan IV
Imperial Russia at the Death of Peter the Great
Spain and Portugal in 1492
The Holy Roman Empire in 1530
Europe after the Peace of Westphalia
The Iberian Worldwide Empires in 1600
North America in 1700
Africa at the End of the Nineteenth Century
Europe in 1914
Europe in 1922
The Middle East and Turkey after 1923
Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be happy to make good in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention.
Endpapers: Jacopo Tintoretto, The Crucifixion, 1565 (detail). Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice. Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library
1. The Gospel According to St John (Bodmer Papyrus 66). Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, Stiftung Martin Bodmer, Geneva. Photo: akg-images/CDA/Guillemot
2. Crypt of St Cornelius in the San Callisto catacombs, Rome, Italy. Illustration from Felix Benoist, Rome dans sa Grandeur, 1870. Photo: The Art Archive/Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs Paris/Alfredo Dagli Orti
3. Stump of the pillar of Simeon Stylites, Basilica of Qal’at Sam’an, Aleppo, Syria. Photo: D. Newham/Alamy
4. Nave of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna. Photo: akg-images/Cameraphoto
5. Interior of dome of Hagia Sophia. Photo: Image Bank/Getty Images
6. Ta Qin pagoda near Wuchun, Xi’an, China. Photo: The author
7. Nestorian stele from Xi’an. Musée Guimet, Paris. Photo: © RMN/ Thierry Ollivier
8. Skellig Michael, Ireland. Photo: © Chris Hill/Scenic Ireland
9. Bet Giyorgis (Church of St George), Lalibela, Ethiopia. Photo: AGE Fotostock/Photolibrary
10. Floor plan of the monastery of Sankt Gallen. Facsimile of the original in the Stiftsbibliothek St Gallen, Switzerland. Photo: akg-images
11. View of St Vitus Cathedral, Prague, in 1793. Photo: akg-images
12. The Reign of Antichrist, woodcut from Hartmann Schedel, The Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493. Photo: akg-images
13. View of Cluny Abbey, from Voyage Pittoresque de la France, 1787 by J.-B. Lallemand. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Photo: Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library
14. St Andrews Cathedral. Photo: istockphoto
15. Ignatius of Loyola, by Jacopino del Conte. Curia Generalizia of the Society of Jesus, Rome. Photo: akg-images
16. Don Antonio Manuel ne Vunda, of Kongo, bust in Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome. Photo: © Fototeca Nazionale, ICCD, Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, Rome
17. Stake at Bruges during the Government of Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, by Franz Hogenberg. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Photo: Lauros/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library
18. The Supper at Emmaus, by Caravaggio. National Gallery, London. Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library
19. The Raising of Lazarus, Byzantine mosaic in Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna. Photo: Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library
20. Stone bells being struck to summon worshippers in Ethiopia. Photo: K. Nomachi/Corbis
21. Copts celebrating Easter at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem. Photo: © Israelimages/Garo Nalbandian
22. Christ Pantocrator, Byzantine mosaic in the tympanum. Kariye Camii, Istanbul. Photo: akg-images/Erich Lessing
23. The Man, symbol of St Matthew the Evangelist, illumination from The Book of Durrow. © The Board of Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library
24. St Francis Receiving the Stigmata, by Bonaventura Berlinghieri. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library
25. The Nativity, by Giotto. Arena Chapel, Padua. Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library
26. The Donation of Constantine (detail), by Giulio Romano and Francesco Penni. Sala di Constantino, Vatican, Rome. Photo: akg-images
27. Empress Theodora with her Court, Byzantine mosaic. San Vitale, Ravenna. Photo: Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library
28. Interior of the rotunda of Aachen Cathedral, Germany. Photo: Bildarchiv Monheim GmbH/Alamy
29. Consecration of the Church at Cluny by Pope Urban II in 1095. French School, 12th century. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library
30. The Mater Dolorosa, c. 1480 by the Lautenbach Master, Strasbourg Workshop. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection, 1998 (1998.215.2). Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
31. Distant view of Chartres Cathedral. Photo: Stephane Ouzounoff/Photolibrary
32. Pilgrim arriving at Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Photo: © Jean Gaumy/Magnum Photos
33. Miniature from the Khludov Psalter showing Psalm 68. © State Historical Museum, Moscow
34. Apse of Church of Hagia Eirene, Istanbul. Photo: The author
35. Organ in the Grote Kerk, Haarlem. © Florian Monheim/akg-images
36. First page of the score of the St John Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach. Photo: akg-images
37. George Whitefield Preaching, by John Collet. Private Collection. Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library
38. John Wesley’s viewpoint in the New Room, Bristol. Photo: Alamy
39. Apotheosis of Saint-Napoleon. Photo: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
40. Apotheosis of Washington, by an unknown artist. Photo: Courtesy Morristown National Historical Park, Morristown, New Jersey
41. Baptism at Work House Pond, Fayette County, Kentucky. Bullock Photograph Collection, Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky
42. Ebenezer Brewer, frontispiece to his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1910.
43. Title page of Ebenezer Brewer, ‘Theology in Science’.
44. At the Lourdes Fountain, c. 1890, print after a painting by José Ramón Garnelo y Alda. Photo: akg-images
45. Monument to Giordano Bruno, photographed c. 1900. Campo dei Fiori, Rome. Photo: Alinari Archives, Florence
46. Jesuits from a mission in China, c. 1900. Bibliothèque Les Fontaines, Chantilly. Photo: Archives Charmet/The Bridgeman Art Library
47. The Lutheran/Reformed Cathedral, Berlin. Photo: istockphoto
48. Pulpit at Martin Luther Memorial Church, Mariendorf, Berlin. Photo © Mechthild Wilhelmi
49. Frank Weston, Anglican Bishop of Zanzibar, Anglo Catholic Conference, London, 1920. Photo: British Illustrations
50. Aimee Semple McPherson. Photo: Bettmann/Corbis
51. Smyrna on fire, 13 September 1922. Photo: Private Collection
52. Robert Runcie umpiring the Lambeth Conference Cricket Match. Photo: © Tony Weaver/Sunday Express
53. Pope John Paul meeting an Indian in Manaus, Brazil, July 1980. Photo: PA Photos
54. Triumph of the Eucharist and of the Catholic Faith, c. 1561, enamel plaque by Léonard Limosin. Henry Clay Frick Bequest Acc. No. 1916.4.22. Copyright The Frick Collection, New York
55. The Croy Tapestry, 1554, by Peter Heymann. Greifswald Universitaet, Greifswald, Germany. Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library
56. Transfiguration of Christ, by Theophanes the Greek. Tretjakov Gallery, Moscow. Photo: akg-images
57. Scene from altarpiece of the Royal Chapel showing Moors being baptized, 1520–22, by Felipe Vigarny de Borgona. Capilla Real, Granada, Spain. Photo: The Art Archive/Corbis
58. Iconostasis, St Simeon Stylites Church, Moscow. Photo: P. W. de Ruyter
59. The Wedding of Martín García de Loyola and Beatriz Clara Coya. Copy of the painting in the Templo de la Compañía de Jesús Church, Cuzco, Peru. Photo: Pedro de Osma Museum, Lima
60. Interior of Santa Maria Tonantzintla Church, Puebla region, Mexico. Photo: The Art Archive/Gianni Dagli Orti
61. Representation of St Patrick in the vodou temple of Hounfor, La Plaine, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Photo: © Chantal Regnault
62. Portrait of Christian and Rebekka Protten, with child from her previous marriage to a Moravian missionary, by Abraham Brandt. Photo: Courtesy Archiv der Brüder-Unität, Herrnhut, Germany (GS 393)
63. The Hireling Shepherd, by William Holman Hunt. © Manchester Art Gallery. Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library
64. The Tragic Prelude, mural by John Steuart Curry in Kansas State Capitol, Topeka. Photo: Kansas State Historical Society
65. The Blessed Virgin Chastising the Infant Jesus Before Three Witnesses: A.B., P.E. and the Painter, by Max Ernst. Museum Ludwig, Cologne. Photo: Peter Willi/The Bridgeman Art Library. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2009.
66. Healing prophetesses and drummer, Twelve Apostles Church, Ghana. Photo: The author
67. Interior of St Sava, Belgrade, Serbia. Photo: O. Nikishin/Getty Images
68. Yoido megachurch, Seoul, South Korea. Photo © H. Kubota/ Magnum Photos
Such a hubristic enterprise as a single-volume history of quite a lot of history floats on a sea of friendship and help. As ever, Stuart Proffitt has been the prince of editors, combining encouragement, critical judgement and a relish for getting prose exactly right, and Joy de Menil and Kathryn Court have also provided thorough and invaluable editorial comment from across the Atlantic. Unflappable and assiduous in their help in preparing the text have been Sam Baddeley, Lesley Levene, Cecilia Mackay and Huub Stegeman. My literary agent, Felicity Bryan, once more had the ability to envisage me writing this book when I might have felt faint-hearted, and has always been there to cheer me on. Many professional colleagues have shown generosity in their conversation and replies to importunacies as I have been constructing the book; some of them have even taken on the penitential task of reading drafts of the text. I am indebted to them all, but particularly to Sam Baddeley, Sebastian Brock, James Carleton Paget, Andrew Chandler, Eamon Duffy, Craig Harline, Philip Kennedy, Judith Maltby, Andrew Pettegree, Miri Rubin, John Wolffe and Hugh Wybrew. I am also grateful for advice on particular points to Sarah Apetrei, Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, Pier Giorgio Borbone, Michael Bourdeaux, Frank Bremer, Michael Chisholm, Tom Earle, Massimo Firpo, Peter Groves, Ahmad Gunny, Peter Jackson, Ian Ker, Sangkeun Kim, Graeme Murdock, Matteo Nicolini-Zani, Martin Palmer, Mark Schaan, Bettina Schmidt, Andrew Spicer, Dom Marie-Robert Torczynski, Dom Gabriel van Dijck, Steve Watts, Philip Weller and Jonathan Yonan, and to Pier Giorgio Borbone, Joel Cabrita and John Edwards for permission to quote unpublished material. Remaining imperfections are of course my responsibility and not theirs.
My colleagues in the Theology Faculty and the Humanities Division of the University of Oxford made researching for and writing this book much easier by their forbearance and flexibility in agreeing to my having an extended period of unpaid leave to create it, and I am especially grateful to the Rev. Dr Charlotte Methuen for being my alter ego in the university during this period. It has been a privilege to be a member of a university where there are so many seminars and lectures on offer to give glimpses of specialist wisdom across the whole span of Christian history, and I am grateful to all the convenors and lecturers who have given me a hospitable welcome when, as a bogus asylum seeker, I have sought self-improvement on their shore. As ever, Oxford’s wonderfully rich library resources and benevolent librarians have been a luxury at my disposal, and I am particularly appreciative of the help of Alan Brown. As festive companions and encouragers in this venture, my colleagues in the running of the Journal of Ecclesiastical History have been exemplary: Martin Brett, James Carleton Paget, Christine Linehan and Anne Waites.
Colleagues in a different enterprise have been all those involved in making the BBC television series which has accompanied the writing of this book, a mammoth operation which has brought much fun and many varied expeditions round the world. Among the very many involved in that process, I particularly thank Gillian Bancroft, Jean-Claude Bragard, Kathryn Blennerhassett, Nick Holden-Sim, Mike Jackson, Roger Lucas, Erin Mactague, Lucy Robinson, Sian Salt, Graham Veevers and Michael Wakelin. Both projects spanned a new time in my life. I am especially in Sam Baddeley’s debt for his friendship and shrewd advice. Support, morale-boosting or wise words have also come from Mark Achurch, Isabel and Rosa Gerenstein, Peter and Bea Groves, Gaynor Humphrey, Philip Kennedy, Craig Leaper, Judith Maltby, Jane Upperton and Allen Young, to name the principals among legion.
Diarmaid MacCulloch
St Cross College, Oxford
Passiontide 2009
Organized Christianity came into existence, and exists, to preserve a treasure, a command to be executed, a promise to be repeated, a mission to be fulfilled. This treasure belongs to past, present, and future; it is potential, yet active; an object of contemplation, yet the inspiration of right conduct. An unfathomable mystery, it must be related to all knowledge. And in their endeavours to guard and transmit their trust, its guardians have raised the most perplexing issues. They have caused endless destruction of life in the name of universal peace. They have built up the most realistic of political systems in the effort to establish a kingdom not of this world. In the exploration of the recesses of the soul, they have developed the arts and sciences, and constructed theories of the universe. And, in their desire to satisfy the deepest needs of mankind, they have raised up against themselves the visions, prophecies, and extravagances of excitable and obstinate men, and the dislike of many sensible men.
The treasure which has caused all this activity was cast into the world with a few simple sentences. ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and thy neighbour as thyself. What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’ And again, ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. No one cometh to the Father, save by Me. Take, eat; this is my body.’ And again, ‘Go and preach the Kingdom of God. Feed my sheep. Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. I have come not to bring peace, but a sword.’
Maurice Powicke, ‘The Christian Life’, in The Legacy of the Middle Ages
(Oxford, 1926)