now comes into the service of the church. A Christian archi- tecture, a Christian sculpture, a Christian painting, music, and poetry arise, favoring at once devotion and solemnity, and all sorts of superstition and empty display. The introduction of religious images succeeds only after long and violent opposi- tion. The element of priesthood and of mystery is developed, but in connection with a superstitious reliance upon a certain magical operation of outward rites. Church festivals are multiplied and celebrated with great pomp ; and not exclu- sively in honor of Christ, but in connection with an extrava- gant veneration of martyrs and saints, which borders on idolatry, and often reminds us of the heathen hero-worship not yet uprooted from the general mind. The multiplication and accumulation of religious ceremonies impressed the senses and the imagination, but prejudiced simplicity, spirituality, and fervor in the worship of God. Hence also tho beginnings of reaction against ceremonialism and formalism. Notwithstanding the complete and sudden change of the social and political circumstances of the church, which meets us on the threshold of this period, we have still before us the natural, necessary continuation of the pre-Constantine churcli in its light and shade, and the gradual transition of the old § 1. INTEODUCTION A2>!T> GENEKAL VIEW. 9 Graeco-Roman Catliolicisin into the Germano-Roman Cathol- icism of the middle age. Our attention will now for the first time be turned in earnest, not only to Christianity in the Roman empire, but also to Christianity among the Germanic barbarians, who from East and North threaten the empire and the entire civilization of classic antiquity. The church prolonged, indeed, the ex- istence of the Roman empire, gave it a new splendor and elevation, new strength and unity, as well as comfort in mis- fortune ; but could not prevent its final dissolution, first in the West (a.d. 476), afterwards (1453) in the East. But she herself survived the storms of the great migration, brought the pagan invaders under the influence of Christianity, taught the bar- barians the arts of peace, planted a higher civilization upon the ruins of the ancient world, and thus gave new proof of the indestructible, all-subduing energy of her life. In a minute history of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries we should mark the following subdivisions : 1. The Constantinian and Athanasian, or the Nicene and Trinitarian age, from 311 to the second general council in 381, distinguished by the conversion of Constantine, the alliance of the empire with the church, and the great Arian and semi- Ai'ian controversy concerning the Divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit. 2. The post-Nicene, or Christological and Augustinian age, extending to the fourth general council in 451, and includ- ing the Kestorian and Eutychian disputes on the person of Christ, and the Pelagian controversy on sin and grace. 3. The age of Leo the Great (440-461), or the rise of the papal supremacy in the West, amidst the barbarian devasta- tions which made an end to the