Principles of western civilisation

vnt THE GREAT ANTINOMY: FIRST STAGE 259

ends to which men had come to hold allegiance. It must be the desire, nay, it must be the highest and imperative duty of the State to fulfil the office of guardian, of regulator, of champion of the spiritual interests which were now placed above the end of temporal welfare.

Slowly, therefore, as the world was caught in the toil of forces inherent in the new concept, we see it being carried irresistibly forward in a direction already determined by inherent necessity.

At an early period after the outward conversion of the State, we see, accordingly, the emperors claiming, in the name of the State regarded as the highest embodiment of the new religion, to exercise the highest authority in religious matters. We have the spectacle of Constantius attempting to impose Arianism on the empire. We see the emperor for the time being deciding the issues in conflicts of religious opinion. We have the spectacle of Zeno, Justinian, and Heraclius, Leo the Isaurian, and Constantine the Fifth,! each claiming to interfere in religious controversy, and to direct and interpret by imperial authority the doctrines and interests of the Church.

But it is when we turn to Western Europe that we see the world becoming gradually and steadily enveloped in the influence of a single all-embracing idea. As the spread of the new belief amongst the peoples of Western and Northern Europe rises towards the central events of the Middle Ages,” namely, the alliance of the See of Rome with the temporal power of the incoming races of the north

1 Cf. History of the Later Roman Empire, by J. B. Bury, vol. 1. vi. vi. 2 Cf. The Holy Roman Empire, by James Bryce, ch. v.