Chrysostom's words uttered in the fourth century, "The Church is God,"
had become a fact. The profoundest wisdom, the greatest power, were
hers; the loftiest ideal had been realised as it has never been realised
before or since. As the wisdom of the Church had been a direct gift of
God, so her power, too, had divine origin and reached beyond this
earthly life. The Church alone held the key to eternal bliss, her curse
meant everlasting damnation. To be excommunicated was to be bereaved of
temporal and eternal happiness. A man who had been excommunicated was
worse off than a wild beast; he was surrendered to the devils in hell,
and he knew it. There was but one road to salvation: to do penance and
humbly submit to the Church. This has been symbolised for all times by
the memorable submission of the Roman-German emperor, who stood for
three days, barefooted and fasting, in the snow in the courtyard of
Canossa, before he was received back into the kingdom of God. The
kingdom of God was synonymous with the Church; Jews and pagans were the
natural children of the devil, but the dissenter, the heretic who dared
to question a single proposition of the divine system, or was bold
enough to think on original lines--in other words in contradiction to
tradition--voluntarily turned his back on God, and with seeing eyes went
into the kingdom of the devil.
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