deep spiritual conviction, it was so solidly grounded in the great awaken
ing of the times that it affected every domain of human life.

To a unique degree, medieval Europe had achieved a synthesis of
Palestinian religion, Greek philosophy, and Roman law. In the first
century, primitive Christianity had ventured out into the Graeco-Roman
world, a pure and undefiled offspring from Judaism. Encountering the
challenging forces of the Greek philosophies and oriental mystery re-
ligions, it had found it necessary to systematize and regulate its faith,
presenting it in terms familiar to the Hellenistic mind.

After three centuries of sporadic and ultimately futile persecution, it
had been adopted as a child of the Roman Empire and accorded all the
benefits and impunities of a church establishment. From that time it had
ever more drawn to its bosom the orderly principles of Roman law and
had appropriated for itself the Latin genius for administration. The
result was that even before the collapse of the empire in the West, the
Church had singularly equipped itself to assume political responsibilities.

At the dawning of the Middle Ages, the Christian Church had faced
the challenge of bringing unity to a Europe torn by repeated invasions,
by internal strife and dissension, and culturally weakened by the relative
ignorance and social immaturity resulting from these forces. Being con-
scious of its sacred commission to make the world one in Christ, and fol-
lowing in the Platonic tradition, it had envisioned the universe as one
well-articulated whole, pervaded by a divinely instituted harmony. Every
separate aim or object of any individual or group would require regula-
tion and control by the aim or object of the universe. Only in this way
could unity be preserved. From this it had followed that every earthly
organization should appear as an organic member of that Civitas Dei
which included both the heavens and the earth.

Mankind was a mystical body typified in two aspects, the spiritual
and the temporal; and represented by two persons, the world-priest and
the world-monarch. Obviously, the dualism of these two persons could
not have been final but called for reconciliation in some higher unity.
The central problem of the Middle Ages, therefore, had been to de-
termine how this unity could be achieved. In attempting to work out a
solution, the agents of church and state had been thrown into almost
constant competition, the papacy gradually extending its power and
influence through the help of an awe-inspiring sacramentarian system,
until, in the thirteenth century, under Innocent III, it had reached its
zenith.

Antecedent to the political decline of the papacy in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, there had arisen certain forces which would con-
tribute to the breakdown of medieval unity and the rise of the modern
spirit of individualism. First, there had been the emergence of national-

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