The emergence of Roman Catholicism
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Internal factors
Several historical factors, which vary in importance depending on the time, help to account for the emergence of Roman Catholicism. The two factors that are often regarded as most decisive—at any rate by the champions of the primacy of Rome in the church—are the primacy of St. Peter among the Twelve Apostles of Christ and the identification of Peter with the church of Rome. Although there are considerable variations in the enumerations of the Apostles in the New Testament (Matthew 10:2–5; Mark 3:16–19; Luke 6:14–16; Acts 1:13) and further variations in the manuscripts, what they all have in common is that they list (in Matthew’s words) “first, Simon called Peter.” “But I have prayed,” Jesus said to Peter, “that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32) and “Feed my lambs.…Tend my sheep.…Feed my sheep” (John 21:15–17). In perhaps the most important passage, at least as it was later understood, Jesus said to Peter,
And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock [Greek petra] I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
According to Roman Catholic teaching, this is the charter of the church—i.e., of the Roman Catholic Church.
The identification of this obvious primacy of Peter in the New Testament with the primacy of the church of Rome is not self-evident. For one thing, the New Testament is almost silent about a connection between Peter and Rome. The reference at the close of the Acts of the Apostles to the arrival of the Apostle Paul in Rome gives no indication that Peter was there as the leader of the Christian community or even as a resident, and the epistle that Paul had addressed somewhat earlier to the church at Rome devotes its entire closing chapter to greetings addressed to many believers in the city but fails to mention Peter’s name. On the other hand, in what is presumably a reference to a Christian congregation, the first of the two epistles ascribed to Peter uses the phrase “the chosen one at Babylon” (1 Peter 5:13), Babylon being a code name for Rome. It is, moreover, the unanimous testimony of early Christian tradition that Peter, having been at Jerusalem and then at Antioch, finally came to Rome, where he was crucified (with his head down, according to Christian tradition, in deference to the Crucifixion of Christ); there was and still is, however, disagreement about the exact location of his grave. Writing at about the end of the 2nd century, the North African theologian Tertullian (c. 160–c. 225) spoke of
Rome, from which there comes even into our own hands the very authority of the apostles themselves. How happy is its church, on which apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood! where Peter endures a passion like his Lord’s! where Paul wins his crown in a death like that of John [the Baptist]!
Indeed, Rome could claim affiliation with two apostles, Peter and Paul, as well as numerous other martyrs for the faith.
In addition to this apostolic argument for Roman primacy—and often interwoven with it—was the argument that Rome should be honored because of its position as the capital of the Roman Empire: the church in the prime city ought to be prime among the churches. Rome drew tourists, pilgrims, and other visitors from throughout the empire and beyond and eventually became, for church no less than for state, what Jerusalem had originally been called, “the church from which every church took its start, the mother city [metropolis] of the citizens of the new covenant.” Curiously, after the newly converted emperor Constantine (died 337) transferred the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople in 330, Rome’s civil authority was weakened, but its spiritual authority was strengthened: the title “supreme priest” (pontifex maximus), which had been the prerogative of the emperor, now devolved upon the pope. The transfer of the capital also occasioned a dispute between Rome (“Old Rome”) and Constantinople (“New Rome”) over whether the new capital should be entitled to a commensurate ecclesiastical preeminence alongside the see (seat of a bishop’s office) of Peter. The second and fourth ecumenical councils of the church (at Constantinople in 381 and at Chalcedon in 451) both legislated such a position for the see of Constantinople, but Rome refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of that prerogative.
It was also at the Council of Chalcedon—which was convoked to resolve the doctrinal controversy between Antioch and Alexandria over the person of Jesus Christ—that the council fathers accepted the formula proposed by Pope Leo I (reigned 440–461), which offered the orthodox teaching of Christ’s Incarnation and of the union of both his natures. Recognizing the authority with which Leo spoke, the council fathers declared, “Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo!” The council was only one in a long series of occasions when the authority of Rome, sometimes by invitation and sometimes by its own intervention, served as a court of appeal in jurisdictional and dogmatic disputes that had erupted in various parts of Christendom. During the first six centuries of the church, the bishop of every major Christian center was, at one time or another, charged with and convicted of heresy—except the bishop of Rome (though his turn would come). The titles that the see of Rome gradually assumed and the claims of primacy that it made within the life and governance of the church were, in many ways, little more than the formalization of what had become widely accepted practice.
External factors
In addition to various internal developments, at least two external factors contributed decisively at the beginning of the Middle Ages to the development of Roman Catholicism as a distinct form of Christianity. One was the rise of Islam in the 7th century. During the decade following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, his followers captured three of the five “patriarchates” of the early church—Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem—leaving only Rome and Constantinople, located at opposite ends of the Mediterranean and, eventually, also at opposite ends of the Schism of 1054.
The other external force that encouraged the emergence of Roman Catholicism as a distinct entity was the collapse of governmental and administrative structures in the Western Roman Empire in 476 and the migration into Europe of Germanic and other tribes that eventually established themselves as ruling elites. (The Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, survived as the Byzantine Empire until 1453.) Some of these peoples, particularly the Goths, had already become Christian before their arrival in western Europe. The form of Christianity they had adopted in the 4th century, generally known as Arianism, was, according to the ecumenical Council of Nicaea, heretical in its doctrine of the Trinity. Therefore, the future of medieval Europe belonged not to the tribes that had converted to an unorthodox Christianity but to the tribes, particularly the Franks, that had adhered to traditional Germanic religion and later became Christian. The Franks, after their arrival in Gaul, accepted Catholic teaching on the doctrine of the Trinity as well as the authority of the Catholic bishops of Gaul. The coronation by the pope of the Frankish king Charlemagne (c. 742–814) as emperor of the Romans on Christmas Day 800 was the culmination of the long-standing alliance of the Franks and the church.
The early medieval papacy
During the centuries that marked the transition from the early to the medieval church, Roman Catholicism benefited from the leadership of several outstanding popes. Two of these popes—who are called “Saint” by the Roman Catholic Church and who are among only three popes called “the Great” by historians—merit special consideration. Pope Leo I was, even for his non-Christian contemporaries, the embodiment of the ideal of “Romanness” in his resistance to foreign conquerors. In 452, with the help of the Apostles Peter and Paul and a host of angels (according to papal tradition), he persuaded Attila and the Huns to withdraw to the banks of the Danube, thus saving Rome from destruction. He repeated this triumph in 455, when his intercession with the Vandals mitigated their depredations in the city. His aforementioned intervention in the doctrinal controversy among Eastern theologians over the person of Christ and the role played by his Tome of 449 in the formula of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 were part of a concerted campaign by Leo to consolidate and extend the jurisdiction of the see of Rome to remote areas such as Gaul, Spain, and North Africa. This extended jurisdiction was officially acknowledged by the Roman emperor.
Pope Gregory I (reigned 590–604), more than any pope before or after him, laid the foundations for the Roman Catholicism of the Middle Ages. He sent St. Augustine of Canterbury (died 604/605) to bring about the conversion of England to the Christian faith, and he corresponded with the rulers of the Merovingian Franks and with the bishops of Gothic Spain. He built up papal administration in central Italy and negotiated with the Lombard rulers who occupied the peninsula. Rejecting the universalist claims of the patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory asserted papal primacy over moral issues and emphasized the humility of his office by styling himself the “servant of the servants of God.” His commitment to a life of service is demonstrated in his Pastoral Rule, a guidebook for bishops that outlines their obligations to teach and to serve as moral exemplars to their flocks. Gregory the Great was also one of the most important patrons of the Benedictine monastic movement, to which he owed a considerable part of his spiritual upbringing; he wrote a life of St. Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–c. 547).
Notwithstanding the contributions of these popes, medieval Roman Catholicism would not have taken the form it did without the conversion of the emperor Constantine in 312. Constantine legalized Christianity, promoted its interests, and took an active role in its institutional and doctrinal development. Even though some supported a heretical version of Christianity, all subsequent emperors except Julian the Apostate favored the faith. Theodosius I (347–395), however, made Catholic Christianity the official religion of the empire in 381 and prohibited the worship of pagan gods in 392. After Constantine every branch of Christendom had to work with rulers who claimed to profess its faith, and the manner in which the two main branches of the church (in Rome and Constantinople; before the Reformation) dealt with the state had a considerable impact on their development. As the church approached the conclusion of the first millennium of its history, it had become the legatee of the spiritual, administrative, and intellectual resources of the early centuries.
Most of the preceding analysis pertains to the whole of Christendom. The Eastern Orthodox Church has almost as large a share in the developments of the early centuries of Christianity as does the Roman Catholic Church, and even Protestantism looks to these centuries for its authentication. However, the Middle Ages may be defined as the era in which the distinctively Roman Catholic forms and institutions of the church were established. The following chronological account of medieval developments shows how these forms and institutions emerged from the context of the shared history of the early Christian centuries.
Michael Frassetto Jaroslav Jan PelikanThe church of the early Middle Ages
During the thousand years of the Middle Ages, from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance, the papacy matured and established itself as the preeminent authority over the church. Religious life assumed new forms or reformed established ones, and missionaries expanded the geographic boundaries of the faith. The most dramatic example of this missionary activity was the effort to retake the Holy Land by force during the Crusades, but less-violent missions were undertaken in pagan Europe and in the Islamic world. Evangelical missions were most frequently led by monks, who also preserved the traditions of Classical and Christian learning throughout the so-called Dark Ages. After the year 1000, cathedral schools replaced monasteries as cultural centers, and new forms of learning emerged. The cathedral schools were in turn supplanted by the universities, which promoted a “Catholic” learning that was inspired, oddly enough, by the transmission of the work of Aristotle through Arab scholars. Scholasticism, the highly formalized philosophical and theological systems developed by the medieval masters, dominated Roman Catholic thought into the 20th century and contributed to the formation of the European intellectual tradition. With the rise of the universities, the threefold structure of the ruling classes of Christendom was established: imperium (political authority), sacerdotium (ecclesiastical authority), and studium (intellectual authority). The principle that each of these classes was independent of the other two within its sphere of authority had enduring consequences in Europe.
The concept of Christendom
By the 10th century the religious and cultural community known as Christendom had come into being and was poised to enter a prolonged period of growth and expansion. Important progress had taken place well before this period, however. Beginning in the last years of the Roman Empire, the central institutions of medieval Catholic Christianity had gradually evolved, laying the foundation for the great advances of the later Middle Ages and beyond.
One of the most significant developments of the late ancient and early medieval periods—for Roman Catholicism and all forms of Christianity—was the emergence of Christian theology. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, Christian apologists attempted to explain their faith to their non-Christian contemporaries in the philosophical vocabulary of the age; among the most outstanding of such scholars was Origen (c. 185–c. 254), who developed a thoroughgoing Christian Neoplatonism. It was not until the 4th and 5th centuries, however, that the basic Christian doctrines were established. The Council of Nicaea and subsequent councils formulated the doctrines concerning the nature of the Godhead and the person of Christ. Subsequently, a number of Christian thinkers—the Latin Church Fathers—provided commentary on a wide range of issues, including the meaning of the sacraments, the Trinity, soteriology, eschatology, and ecclesiology. The most prominent and influential of these early theologians was St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430). His teachings on the sacraments, salvation, and the Trinity remained the starting point of discussion for Christian thinkers throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, and his monumental City of God (413–426/427) provided a Christian philosophy of history and a new way to understand human society and its relationship to God. Augustine’s works were a model of learned and elegant Latin style, as were the sermons of St. Ambrose (339–397), whose reputation for sanctity and celibacy—as well as his excommunication of Theodosius in 390—set important precedents. Another Church Father, St. Jerome (c. 347–419/420), produced a Latin translation of the Bible—the Vulgate—that would serve as the standard text for centuries to come. Later ecclesiastics, including Caesarius of Arles (c. 470–542) and Isidore of Sevilla (c. 560–636), produced a formidable body of Christian commentary and other scholarship that built upon the foundation of the Latin Church Fathers.
During the late ancient and early medieval periods there was also a significant growth in monasticism, the origins of which are traditionally associated with the Apostles in Jerusalem. Although the Apostles were thought to be the precursors of Christian monastics, they were not the founders of the movement, which began in Egypt with St. Anthony (c. 290–356). In imitation of Jesus’ wandering in the desert and to combat the temptations of the Devil, Anthony undertook a life of isolation, asceticism, contemplation, and piety that inspired numerous imitators. These first monks often went to great extremes in their acts of self-abasement before God, and their eremitic lifestyle remained the ideal for religious persons until the introduction of cenobitic, or communal, monasticism by St. Pachomius (c. 290–346) in the early 4th century. Among the many advocates of monasticism were St. Basil the Great (329–379), the father of Eastern monasticism, and St. John Cassian (360–435), whose writings were influential in the development of Western monasticism. The true father of Western monasticism, however, was St. Benedict of Nursia, whose rule was noted for its humanity and flexibility. The Rule of St. Benedict was the standard monastic rule in the Western church by the 9th century, and it served as the basis for the later Cluniac and Cistercian reform movements.
During the early Middle Ages, tensions between Rome and Constantinople increased, leading ultimately to the Schism of 1054. Separated by language (Latin and Greek, respectively) and liturgy, the Western and Eastern churches were divided further in the early 8th century by the imperial program of iconoclasm (the prohibition of the veneration of images of Christ and the saints), increased taxation of Rome by Constantinople, and the Byzantine emperor’s failure to protect the papacy and its territories from the depredations of the Lombard invaders. Angered by these developments, Pope Gregory III (reigned 731–741) sought an alliance with the Carolingian mayor of the palace, Charles Martel (c. 688–741). Although no agreement was reached, the initiative set the stage for a revolution in papal diplomacy and in the institutional orientation of the church at Rome. By the end of the 8th century, the church had become a fully Western entity, severing its alliance with the emperors in Constantinople and establishing a new alliance with the Carolingian dynasty (established in 751). The alliance played a critical role in the growth of the papal states. The establishment of the Carolingian-papal bond and the coronation of the first Carolingian king also provided the occasion for the composition of one of the great forgeries of the Middle Ages, the Donation of Constantine (generally thought to have been written in the mid-750s), which was based on pious legends that had been known since the 5th century and was subsequently used to justify papal claims of primacy. Although the formal break between the two churches did not come until three centuries later, differences over the insertion of the Filioque (Latin: “and from the Son”) clause in the creed, which confirmed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and the failure to invite a Carolingian representative to the Second Council of Nicaea further heightened tensions between East and West.

The Carolingian period is widely recognized as the high point in the development of the early medieval church. Beyond their alliance with the papacy, Carolingian rulers instituted a number of church reforms and began a cultural revival that directly influenced religious life. Many of the most important reforms were implemented by the greatest of the Carolingians, Charlemagne, and were intended to reestablish the proper organization of the episcopal hierarchy and to abolish the drunkenness, sexual immorality, and ignorance of the clergy. His royal and imperial decrees mandated the establishment of monastic and cathedral schools to teach both the laity and the clergy so that the fundamentals of the faith would be known to all. He attracted religious scholars to his court and rewarded them with important ecclesiastical posts. Charlemagne also presided over church councils that combated heresy, reformed the behavior of the clergy, and defined church teaching. His efforts bore fruit in the 9th century, when theologians discussed the question of predestination and began the debate—which would reach its culmination in the 13th century—over the exact nature of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Well before Charlemagne’s coronation, the papacy had made overtures to Carolingian rulers. Although Charles Martel rejected papal pleas for help, he did support the missionary activity of the Anglo-Saxon monk Boniface (c. 675–754), whose preaching to the Saxons and reform of the Frankish church was sanctioned by Rome. Boniface’s ties to Rome contributed to the growing interest in that city and to the devotion to St. Peter that characterized religious belief in the kingdom and especially in the Carolingian house. The relationship with Rome was formalized by Charlemagne’s father, Pippin III (died 768), who usurped the Frankish throne with papal approval and was later crowned king by the pope. But the event of greatest significance for relations between the papacy and Carolingian rulers was Charlemagne’s coronation as emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III (reigned 795–816). With few exceptions, during the rest of the Middle Ages emperors were created by papal coronation. The destinies of the two institutions were thus inextricably linked. This development contributed to contemporary understandings of the proper relationship between church and state and even to understandings of the church itself; it also led to controversy between later emperors and popes over the matter of universal authority in Christendom.
A period of decadence
The advances made in church organization and in reformation of religious life could not be sustained in the post-Carolingian world. Indeed, the 10th century has traditionally been regarded as a period of decay and corruption within the church. As a result of the breakup of the Carolingian empire and a new wave of invasions, the church suffered materially and spiritually as both Christian and non-Christian warriors exploited it and its wealth. The monasteries suffered most during this period, but the general turmoil of the time contributed to the failure of the church to maintain the discipline and integrity of religious life. The laity suffered from the ignorance of rural priests, and clerics of all ranks were guilty of concubinage and other abuses.
The papacy itself offers the best example of the abysmal situation of the church in the 10th and 11th centuries. The decline of Carolingian power left it without a protector and once again subject to the whims of the local aristocracy, who struggled among themselves for control of the office and its extensive territories in central Italy. The popes appointed by Italian nobles were sometimes violent and debauched and did little more than promote their family interests. Ill-suited for any pastoral role, they were sometimes not even priests when appointed; according to tradition, one new pope, Benedict IX, was an adolescent boy. Some of these popes had mistresses and children, and many came to power through bribery or other illicit means. Even imperial intervention beginning in the late 10th century failed to bring an end to papal corruption, because local families reasserted their control over Rome during imperial absences.
Despite the decadence of this period, a number of developments offered promise for the future. Even the papacy enjoyed periods of renewed vigor during these dark times. Popes Leo VII (reigned 936–939) and Agapetus II (reigned 946–955) were active reformers, and Benedict VIII (reigned 1012–24) issued legislation against simony. During the papacy of Sylvester II (reigned 999–1003), who was recognized as the most learned man of his time, the dignity of the office was briefly restored. Moreover, no matter how depraved the reigning pope may have been, Rome remained the spiritual capital of the Western church. Since at least the Carolingian period, devotion to St. Peter had been growing throughout Europe, and it remained an important characteristic of religiosity in the 10th and 11th centuries. Peter’s growing prestige attracted numerous pilgrims to Rome, even during times when his successor was devoid of any virtue.
The evolution of the church was also influenced by events outside Rome. One of the most important of these was the resurrection of imperial authority and the Carolingian ideal of government by the German king Otto I (912–973). Under him the bishops and greater abbots were drawn into royal service and enriched with estates and counties, for which they paid homage. Otto conquered northern Italy and was crowned emperor in 962 by Pope John XII (reigned 955–964). In the following year, Otto deposed the pope for immoral behavior (tradition holds that John died of a stroke while in bed with a woman). Both Otto and his grandson Otto III (980–1002) appointed and removed popes, presided at synods, and extended their authority over the church. Otto III, an enlightened ruler, appointed as pope his former tutor—Gerbert of Aurillac, who took the name Sylvester II—with the intention of reviving a Christian Roman empire. Otto’s death at an early age ended that dream, and the papacy became mired in local politics for the next half century until another German ruler intervened in its affairs.
The revival of imperial power in Germany would have lasting influence on the development of the church, as would the foundation of the reformed monastery of Cluny in Burgundy in 909. Indeed, the first stirrings of the great reform movement that transformed the church in the 11th century are thought to have taken place at Cluny. Established by Duke William I, the Pious, of Aquitaine, Cluny rose to prominence under the direction of abbots Odo, Odilo, and Hugh, who were the spiritual leaders of their age. From its beginning, Cluny enjoyed close ties with Rome because William placed the monastery under the protection of St. Peter and St. Paul and the pope. William also ensured Cluny’s independence by forbidding any secular or religious authority from interfering in its affairs. Cluny developed a reputation as the highest form of religious life—indeed, as a paradise on earth—and its abbots spread Cluniac practices by reforming other monasteries. Cluniac monks lived strictly canonical lives, opposing simony and clerical unchastity. They also participated in an elaborate liturgical routine, singing the monastic hours (liturgical or devotional services for use at certain hours of the day, according to the monastic daily schedule) and offering prayers for the dead and the monastery’s numerous benefactors. Cluny was not the only reformed house—Gorze was the most notable of several others—but it was the greatest, and the ideals it embodied set an important precedent.