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distinguish Christianity from other religions.
     In A.D . 340 Saint Cyril of Jerusalem had reasoned that what all men believe must be true, and ever since then the purity of the
     faith had derived from its wholeness, from the conviction, as expressed by an early Jesuit, that all who worshiped were united
     in “one sacramental system under the government of the Roman Pontiff.” Anyone not a member of the Church was to be cast out
     of this life, and more important, out of the next. It was consignment to the worst fate imaginable, like being exiled from
     an ancient German tribe—“to be given forth,” in the pagan Teutonic phrase, “to be a wolf in holy places.” The faithless
     were doomed; the Fifth Lateran Council (1512–1517) reaffirmed Saint Cyprian’s third-century dictum: “
Nulla salus extra ecclesiam
”—“Outside the Church there is no salvation.” Any other finding would have been inconceivable.
    Catholicism had thus found its greatest strength in total resistance to change. Saint Jean Baptiste de la Salle, in his
Les devoirs d’un Chrétien
(
Duties of a Christian
, 1703), defined Catholicism as “the society of the faithful collected into one and the same body, governed by its legitimate
     pastors, of whom Jesus Christ is the invisible head—the pope, the successor of Saint Peter, being his representative on
     earth.” Saint Vincent of Lérins had written in his
Commonitoria
(
Memoranda
, c. 430) that the Church had become “a faithful and ever watchful guardian of the dogmas which have been committed to her
     charge. In this secret deposit she changes nothing, she takes nothing from it, she adds nothing to it.”
    Subsequent spokesmen for the Holy See enlarged upon this, assuming, in God’s name, the right to prohibit changes by those
     who worshiped elsewhere or nowhere. Overstating this absolutism is impossible. “The Catholic Church holds it better,” wrote
     a Roman theologian, “that the entire population of the world should die of starvation in extremest agony … than that one soul,
     I will not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin.” In the words of one pope, “The Church is independent
     of any earthly power, not merely in regard to her lawful end and purpose, but also in regard to whatever means she may deem
     suitable and necessary to attain them.” Another pope, agreeing, declared that God had made the Vatican “a sharer in the divine
     magistracy, and granted her, by special privilege, immunity from error.” Even to “appeal from the living voice of the Church”
     was “a treason,” wrote a cardinal, “because that living voice is supreme; and to appeal from that supreme voice is also a
     heresy, because that voice, by divine assistance, is infallible.” A fellow cardinal put it even more clearly: “The Church
     is not susceptible of being reformed in her doctrines. The Church is the work of an Incarnate God. Like all God’s works, it
     is perfect. It is, therefore, incapable of reform.”

    T HE MOST BAFFLING , elusive, yet in many ways the most significant dimensions of the medieval mind were invisible and silent. One was the medieval
     man’s total lack of ego. Even those with creative powers had no sense of self. Each of the great soaring medieval cathedrals,
     our most treasured legacy from that age, required three or four centuries to complete. Canterbury was twenty-three generations
     in the making; Chartres, a former Druidic center, eighteen generations. Yet we know nothing of the architects or builders.
     They were glorifying God. To them their identity in this life was irrelevant. Noblemen had surnames, but fewer than one percent
     of the souls in Christendom were wellborn. Typically, the rest—nearly 60 million Europeans—were known as Hans, Jacques,
     Sal, Carlos, Will, or Will’s wife, Will’s son, or Will’s daughter. If that was inadequate or confusing, a nickname would do.
     Because most peasants lived and died without