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Mark of the Beast (history)
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THE MARK OF THE BEAST, A HISTORICAL LOOK.
How fair was the morning of the Church! how swift its
progress! What expectations it would have been natural to
form of the future history which had begun so well! Doubtless
they were formed in many a sanguine heart: but they were
clouded soon. It became evident that, when the first
conflicts were passed, others would succeed; and that the
long and weary war with the powers of darkness had only just
begun. The wrestlings "against principalities and powers,
and the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places"
(Eph 6:12) were yet to be more painfully felt, and believers
were prepared to be "partakers of Christ's sufferings," and
not to "think it...strange concerning the fiery trial
which...[was] to try...[them], as though some strange thing
happened unto...[them]" (1 Pe 4:12, 13, [KJV]).
But worse for the Church than the fightings without were the
fears within. Men who had long professed the Gospel "had
need to be taught again what were the first principles of the
oracles of God" (Heb 5:12). They were falling "from grace,"
and turning back to weak and beggarly elements, whereunto
they desired again to be in bondage" (Gal 5:4; 4:9). "Some
had already turned aside after Satan (1 Ti 5:15)," and, where
there was no special prevalence of error, a coldness and
worldliness of spirit drew forth the sad reflection that "all
seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's" (Php
2:21). Contentions were rife, and schisms were spreading;
and men, in the name of Christ and of truth, were "provoking
one another, envying one another." New forms of error began
to arise, from the combination of Christian ideas with the
rudiments of the world and the vagaries of oriental
philosophy.
Here were men, like Jannes and Jambres who withstood Moses,
"resisting the truth, reprobate concerning the faith" (2 Ti
3:8). Here were "Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning the
truth had erred, saying that the resurrection was past
already" (2 Ti 2:17). Here was the "knowledge falsely so
called" (1 Ti 6:20), teeming with a thousand protean forms of
falsehood.
While the Apostles wrote, the actual state and the visible
tendencies of things showed too plainly what Church history
would be; and, at the same time, prophetic intimations made
the prospect still more dark: for "the Spirit spake
expressly, that in the latter times men would depart from the
faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of
devils" (1 Ti 4:1)--that "in the last days grievous times
should come," marked by a darkness of moral condition which
it might have been expected that Gospel influences would have
dispelled (2 Ti 3:1-5)--that "there would be scoffers in the
last days, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where
is the promise of His coming?" (2 Pe 3:3)--that the day of
the Lord would not be "till the apostasy had come first, and
the man of sin had been revealed, the son of perdition, the
adversary who exalts himself above all that is called God or
an object of worship, so that he sits in the Temple of God,
showing himself that he is God" (2 Th 2:4-4). "The mystery
of lawlessness was already working, and as antichrist should
come, even then were there many antichrists" (1 Jn 2:18, 22),
men "denying the Father and the Son," "denying the Lord that
bought them" (2 Pe 2:1), "turning the grace of God into
lasciviousness" (Jude 4), and "bringing upon themselves swift
destruction."
I know not how any man, in closing the Epistles, could
expect to find the subsequent history of the Church
essentially different from what it is. In those writings we
seem, as it were, not to witness some passing storms which
clear the air, but to feel the whole atmosphere charged with
the elements of future tempest and death. Every moment the
forces of evil show themselves more plainly. They are
encountered, but not dissipated. Or, to change the figure, we
see battles fought by the leaders of our band, but no
security is promised by their victories. New assaults are
being prepared; new tactics will be tried; new enemies pour
in; the distant hills are black with gathering multitudes,
and the last exhortations of those who fall at their posts
call on their successors to "endure hardness as good soldiers
of Jesus Christ" (2 Ti 2:3), and "earnestly to contend for
the faith which was once delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).
The fact which I observe is not merely that these
indications of the future are in the Epistles, but that they
increase as we approach the close, and after the doctrines
of the Gospel have been fully wrought out, and the fullness
of personal salvation and the ideal character of the Church
have been placed in the clearest light, the shadows gather
and deepen on the external history. The last words of St.
Paul in the second Epistle to Timothy, with the Epistles of
St. John and St. Jude, breathe the language of a time in
which the tendencies of that history had distinctly shown
themselves.
The Church was in the beginning a community of brethren,
guided by a few of the brethren. All were taught of God, and
each had the privilege of drawing for himself from the divine
fountain of light. The Epistles which then settled the great
questions of doctrine did not bear the pompous title of a
single man--of a ruler. We learn from the Holy Scriptures,
that they began simply with these words: "The apostles and
elders and brethren send greetings unto the brethren."
But these very writings of the apostles already
foretell that from the midst of this brotherhood there shall
arise a power that will destroy this simple and primitive
order.
Let us contemplate the formation and trace the development
of this power so alien to the Church.
Paul of Tarsus, one of the greatest apostles of the new
religion, had arrived at Rome, the capital of the empire and
of the world, preaching in bondage the salvation which cometh
from God. A Church was formed beside the throne of the
Caesars. Composed at first of a few converted Jews, Greeks,
and Roman citizens, it was rendered famous by the teaching
and the death of the Apostle of the Gentiles. For a time it
shone out brightly, as a beacon upon a hill. Its faith was
everywhere celebrated; but erelong it declined from its
primitive condition. It was by small beginnings that both
imperial and Christian Rome advanced to the usurped dominion
of the world.
The first pastors or bishops of Rome early employed them-
selves in converting the neighboring cities and towns. The
necessity which the bishops and pastors of the Campagna felt
of applying in cases of difficulty to an enlightened guide,
and the gratitude they owed to the church of the metropolis,
led them to maintain a close union with it. As it has always
happened in analogous circumstances, this reasonable union
soon degenerated into dependence. The bishops of Rome
considered as a right that superiority which the surrounding
Churches had freely yielded. The encroachments of power form
a great part of history; as the resistance of those whose
liberties are invaded forms the other portion. The
ecclesiastical power could not escape the intoxication which
impels all who are lifted up to seek to mount still higher.
It obeyed this general law of human nature.
Nevertheless the supremacy of the Roman bishops was at
that period limited to the superintendence of the Churches
within the civil jurisdiction of the prefect of Rome. But
the rank which this imperial city held in the world offered a
prospect of still greater destinies to the ambition of its
first pastor. The respect enjoyed by the various Christian
bishops in the second century was proportionate to the rank
of the city in which they resided. Now Rome was the largest,
richest, and most powerful city in the world. It was the
seat of empire, the mother of nations. "All the inhabitants
of the earth belong to her," said Julian; and Claudian
declared her to be "the fountain of laws."
If Rome is the queen of cities, why should not her
pastor be the king of bishops? Why should not the Roman
church be the mother of Christendom? Why should not all
nations be her children, and her authority their sovereign
law? It was easy for the ambitious heart of man to reason
thus. Ambitious Rome did so.
Thus, when pagan Rome fell, she bequeathed to the humble
minister of the God of peace, sitting in the midst of her
ruins, the proud titles which her invincible sword had won
from the nations of the earth.
The bishops of the different parts of the empire,
fascinated by that charm which Rome had exercised for ages
over all nations, followed the example of the Campagna, and
aided this work of usurpation. They felt a pleasure in
yielding to the bishop of Rome some portion of that honor
which was due to the queen of the world. There was
originally no dependence implied in the honor thus paid. They
treated the Roman pastor as if they were on a level with him.
But usurped power increased like an avalanche. Admonitions,
at first simply fraternal, soon became absolute commands in
the mouth of the pontiff. A foremost place among equals
appeared to him a throne.
The Western bishops favored this encroachment of the
Roman pastors, either from jealousy of the Eastern bishops,
or because they preferred submitting to the supremacy of a
pope, rather than to the dominion of a temporal power.
On the other hand, the theological sects that distracted
the East, strove, each for itself, to interest Rome in its
favor they looked for victory in the support of the principal
church of the West.
Rome carefully enregistered these applications and
intercessions, and smiled to see all nations voluntarily
throwing themselves into her arms. She neglected no
opportunity of increasing and extending her power. The
praises and flattery, the exaggerated compliments and
consultations of other Churches, became in her eyes and in
her hands the titles and documents of her authority. Such is
man exalted to a throne: the incense of courts intoxicates
him, his brain grows dizzy. What he possesses becomes a
motive for attaining still more.
The doctrine of the Church and the necessity of its
visible unity, which had begun to gain ground in the third
century, favored the pretensions of Rome. The Church is,
above all things, the assembly of "them that are sanctified
in Christ Jesus" (1 Cor. i. 2)--"the assembly of the
first-born which are written in heaven"(Heb. xii. 23). Yet
the Church of our Lord is not simply inward and invisible; it
is necessary that it should be manifested, and it is with a
view to this manifestation that the sacraments of Baptism and
the Lord's Supper were instituted. The visible Church has
features different from those which distinguish it as an
invisible Church. The invisible Church, which is the body of
Christ, is necessarily and eternally one. The visible Church
no doubt partakes of the unity of the former; but, considered
by itself, plurality is a characteristic already ascribed to
it in the New Testament. While speaking of one Church of
God, it no sooner refers to its manifestation to the world,
than it enumerates "the Churches of Galatia, of Macedonia, of
Judea, all Churches of the saints." These Churches may
undoubtedly, to a certain extent, look for visible unity;
but if this union be wanting, they lose none of the essential
qualities of the Church of Christ. The strong bond which
originally united the members of the Church, was that living
faith of the heart which connected them all with Christ as
their common head. Different causes soon concurred to
originate and develop the idea of a necessity for external
union. Men accustomed to the political forms and
associations of an earthly country, carried their views and
habits into the spiritual and eternal kingdom of Christ.
Persecution, powerless to destroy or even to shake this new
community, made it only the more sensible of its own
strength, and pressed it into a more compact body. To the
errors that sprung up in the theosophic schools and in the
various sects, was opposed the one and universal truth
received from the apostles, and preserved in the Church. This
was well, so long as the invisible and spiritual Church was
identical with the visible and external Church. But a great
separation took place erelong: the form and the life became
disunited. The semblance of an identical and exterior
organization was gradually substituted for that interior and
spiritual communion, which is the essence of the religion of
God. Men forsook the precious perfume of faith, and bowed
down before the empty vessel that had contained it. They
sought other bonds of union, for faith in the heart no longer
connected the members of the Church; and they were united by
means of bishops, archbishops, popes, mitres, canons, and
ceremonies. The living Church retiring gradually within the
lonely sanctuary of a few solitary hearts, an external
Church was substituted in its place, and all its forms were
declared to be of divine appointment. Salvation no longer
flowing from the Word, which was henceforward put out of
sight, the priests affirmed that it was conveyed by means of
the forms they had themselves invented, and that no one could
attain it except by these channels. No one, said they, can
by his own faith attain to everlasting life. Christ
communicated to the apostles, and these to the bishops, the
unction of the Holy Spirit; and this Spirit is to be procured
only in that order of succession! Originally, whoever
possessed the spirit of Jesus Christ was a member of the
Church; now the terms were inverted, and it was maintained
that he only who was a member of the Church could receive the
Spirit.
As these ideas became established, the distinction
between the people and the clergy was more strongly marked.
The salvation of souls no longer depended entirely on faith
in Christ, but also, and in a more especial manner, on union
with the Church. The representatives and heads of the Church
were made partakers of the trust that should be placed in
Christ alone, and became the real mediators of their flocks.
The idea of a universal Christian priesthood was gradually
lost sight of; the servants of the Church of Christ were
compared to the priests of the old covenant; and those who
separated from the bishop were placed in the same rank with
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram! From a peculiar priesthood, such
as was then formed in the Church, to a sovereign priesthood,
such as Rome claims, the transition was easy.
In fact, no sooner was the erroneous notion of the
necessity for a visible unity of the Church established, than
another appeared--the necessity for an outward
representation of that union. Although we find no traces in
the Gospel of Peter's superiority over the other apostles;
although the very idea of a primacy is opposed to the
fraternal relations which united the brethren, and even to
the spirit of the Gospel dispensation, which on the contrary
requires all the children of the Father to "minister one to
another," acknowledging only one teacher and one master;
although Christ had strongly rebuked his disciples, whenever
ambitious desires of pre-eminence were conceived in their
carnal hearts the primacy of St. Peter was invented and
supported by texts wrongly interpreted, and men next
acknowledged in this apostle and in his self-styled
successors at Rome, the visible representatives of visible
unity--the heads of the universal Church.
The constitution of the Patriarchate contributed in like
manner to the exaltation of the Papacy. As early as the
three first centuries the metropolitan Churches had enjoyed
peculiar honor. The council of Nice, in its sixth canon,
mentions three cities, whose Churches, according to it,
exercised a long- established authority over those of the
surrounding provinces: these were Alexandria, Rome, and
Antioch. The political origin of this distinction is
indicated by the name which was at first given to the bishops
of these cities: they were called Exarchs, from the title of
the civil governors. Somewhat later they received the more
ecclesiastical appellation of Patriarchs. We find this title
first employed at the council of Constantinople, but in a
different sense from that which it afterwards received. It
was not until shortly before the council of Chalcedon that it
was given exclusively to the great metropolitans. The second
general council created a new patriarchate, that of
Constantinople itself, the new Rome, the second capital of
the empire. The church of Byzantium, so long obscure,
enjoyed the same privileges, and was placed by the council of
Chalcedon in the same rank as the Church of Rome. Rome at
that time shared the patriarchal supremacy with these three
churches. But when the Mahometan invasion had destroyed the
sees of Alexandria and of Antioch,--when the see of
Constantinople fell away, and in later times even separated
from the West, Rome remained alone, and the circumstances of
the times gathered all the Western Churches around her see,
which from that time has been without a rival.
New and more powerful friends than all the rest soon came
to her assistance. Ignorance and superstition took
possession of the Church, and delivered it, fettered and
blindfold, into the hands of Rome.
Yet this bondage was not effected without a struggle.
Frequently did the Churches proclaim their independence; and
their courageous voices were especially heard from
Proconsular Africa and from the East.
But Rome found new allies to stifle the cries of the
churches. Princes, whom those stormy times often shook upon
their thrones, offered their protection if Rome would in its
turn support them. They conceded to her the spiritual
authority, provided she would make a return in secular power.
They were lavish of the souls of men, in the hope that she
would aid them against their enemies. The power of the
hierarchy which was ascending, and the imperial power which
was declining, leant thus one upon the other, and by this
alliance accelerated their twofold destiny.
Rome could not lose by it. An edict of Theodosius II and
of Valentinian III proclaimed the Roman bishop "rector of
the whole Church." Justinian published a similar decree.
These edicts did not contain all that the popes pretended to
see in them; but in those times of ignorance it was easy for
them to secure that interpretation which was most favorable
to themselves. The dominion of the emperors in Italy
becoming daily more precarious, the bishops of Rome took
advantage of this circumstance to free themselves from their
dependence.
But already had issued from the forests of the North the
most effectual promoters of the papal power. The barbarians
who had invaded and settled in the West, after being satiated
with blood and plunder, lowered their reeking swords before
the intellectual power that met them face to face. Recently
converted to Christianity, ignorant of the spiritual
character of the Church, and feeling the want of a certain
external pomp in religion, they prostrated themselves, half
savage and half heathen as they were, at the feet of the
high-priest of Rome. With their aid the West was in his
power. At first the Vandals, then the Ostrogoths, somewhat
later the Burgundians and Alans, next the Visigoths, and
lastly the Lombards and Anglo-Saxons, came and bent the knee
to the Roman pontiff. It was the sturdy shoulders of those
children of the idolatrous north that succeeded in placing on
the supreme throne of Christendom a pastor of the banks of
the Tiber.
At the beginning of the seventh century these events were
accomplishing in the West, precisely at the period when the
power of Mahomet arose in the East, prepared to invade
another quarter of the world.
From this time the evil continued to increase. In the
eighth century we see the Roman bishops resisting on the one
hand the Greek emperors, their lawful sovereigns, and
endeavouring to expel them from Italy, while with the other
they court the mayors of the palace in France, begging from
this new power, just beginning to rise in the West, a share
in the wreck of the empire. Rome founded her usurped
authority between the East, which she repelled, and the West,
which she summoned to her aid. She raised her throne between
two revolts. Startled by the shouts of the Arabs, now become
masters of Spain, and who boasted that they would speedily
arrive in Italy by the gates of the Pyrenees and Alps, and
proclaim the name of Mahomet on the Seven Hills; alarmed at
the insolence of Astolphus, who at the head of his Lombards,
roaring like a lion, and brandishing his sword before the
gates of the eternal city, threatened to put every Roman to
death: Rome, in the prospect of ruin, turned her frightened
eyes around her, and threw herself into the arms of the
Franks. The usurper Pepin demanded her pretended sanction of
his new authority; it was granted, and the Papacy obtained in
return his promise to be the defender of the "Republic of
God." Pepin wrested from the Lombards the cities they had
taken from the Greek emperor; yet, instead of restoring them
to that prince, he laid they keys on St. Peter's altar, and
swore with uplifted hands that he had not taken up arms for
man, but to obtain from God the remission of his sins, and to
do homage for his conquests to St. Peter. Thus did France
establish the temporal power of the popes.
Charlemagne appeared; the first time he ascends the
stairs to the basilic of St. Peter, devoutly kissing each
step. A second time he presents himself, lord of all the
nations that formed the empire of the West, and of Rome
itself. Leo III thought fit to bestow the imperial title on
him who already possessed the power; and on Christmas day, in
the year 800, he placed the diadem of the Roman emperors on
the brow of the son of Pepin. From this time the pope
belongs to the empire of the Franks: his connection with the
East is ended. He broke off from a decayed and falling tree
to graft himself upon a wild and vigorous sapling. A future
elevation, to which he would have never dared aspire, awaits
him among these German tribes with whom he now unites
himself.
Charlemagne bequeathed to his feeble successors only the
wrecks of his power. In the ninth century disunion
everywhere weakened the civil authority. Rome saw that this
was the moment to exalt herself. When could the Church hope
for a more favorable opportunity of becoming independent of
the state, than when the crown which Charles had worn was
broken, and its fragments lay scattered over his former
empire?
Then appeared the False Decretals of Isidore. In this
collection of the pretended decrees of the popes, the most
ancient bishops, who were contemporary with Tacitus and
Quintilian, were made to speak the barbarous Latin of the
ninth century. The customs and constitutions of the Franks
were seriously attributed to the Romans in the time of the
emperors. Popes quoted the Bible in the Latin translation of
Jerome, who had lived one, two or three centuries after them;
and Victor, bishop of Rome, in the year 192, wrote to
Theophilus, who was archbishop of Alexandria in 385. The
impostor who had fabricated this collection endeavored to
prove that all bishops derived their authority from the
bishop of Rome, who held his own immediately from Christ. He
not only recorded all the successive conquests of the
pontiffs, but even carried them back to the earliest times.
The popes were not ashamed to avail themselves of this
contemptible imposture. As early as 865, Nicholas I drew
from its stores of weapons by which to combat princes and
bishops. This impudent invention was for ages the arsenal of
Rome.
Nevertheless, the vices and crimes of the pontiffs
suspended for a time the effect of the decretals. The Papacy
celebrated its admission to the table of kings by shameful
orgies. She became intoxicated: her senses were lost in the
midst of drunken revellings. It is about this period that
tradition places upon the papal throne a woman named Joan,
who had taken refuge in Rome with her lover, and whose sex
was betrayed by the pangs of childbirth during a solemn
procession. But let us not needlessly augment the shame of
the pontifical court. Abandoned women at this time governed
Rome; and that throne which pretended to rise above the
majesty of kings was sunk deep in the dregs of vice. Theodora
and Marozia installed and deposed at their pleasure the
self-styled masters of the Church of Christ, and placed their
lovers, sons, and grandsons in St. Peter's chair. These
scandals, which are but too well authenticated, may perhaps
have given rise to the tradition of Pope Joan.
Rome became one wild theater of disorders, the possession
of which was disputed by the most powerful families of
Italy. The counts of Tuscany were generally victorious. In
1033, this house dared to place on the pontifical throne,
under the name of Benedict IX, a youth brought up in
debauchery. This boy of twelve years old continued, when
pope, the same horrible and degrading vices. Another party
chose Sylvester III in his stead; and Benedict, whose
conscience was loaded with adulteries, and whose hands were
stained with murder, at last sold the Papacy to a Roman
ecclesiastic.
The emperors of Germany, filled with indignation at such
enormities, purged Rome with the sword. The empire,
asserting its paramount rights, drew the triple crown from
the mire into which it had fallen, and saved the degraded
papacy by giving it respectable men as its chiefs. Henry III
deposed three popes in 1046, and his finger, decorated with
the ring of the Roman patricians, pointed out the bishop to
whom the keys of St. Peter should be confided. Four popes,
all Germans, and nominated by the emperor, succeeded. When
the Roman pontiff died, the deputies of that church repaired
to the imperial court, like the envoys of other dioceses, to
solicit a new bishop. With joy the emperor beheld the popes
reforming abuses, strengthening the Church, holding councils,
installing and deposing prelates, in defiance of foreign
monarchs: The Papacy by these pretensions did but exalt the
power of the emperor, its lord paramount. But to allow of
such practices was to expose his own authority to great
danger. The power which the popes thus gradually recovered
might be turned suddenly against the emperor himself. When
the reptile had gained strength, it might wound the bosom
that had cherished it: and this result followed.
And now begins a new era for the papacy. It rises from
its humiliation, and soon tramples the princes of the earth
under foot. To exalt the Papacy is to exalt the Church, to
advance religion, to ensure to the spirit the victory over
the flesh, and to God the conquest of the world. Such are
its maxims: in these ambition finds its advantage, and
fanaticism its excuse.
The whole of this new policy is personified in one man:
Hildebrand.
This pope, who has been by turns indiscreetly exalted or
unjustly traduced, is the personification of the Roman
pontificate in all its strength and glory. He is one of
those normal characters in history, which include within
themselves a new order of things, similar to those presented
in other spheres by Charlemagne, Luther, and Napoleon.
This monk, the son of a carpenter of Savoy, was brought
up in a Roman convent, and had quitted Rome at the period
when Henry III had there deposed three popes, and taken
refuge in France in the austere convent of Cluny. In 1048,
Bruno, bishop of Toul, having been nominated pope by the
emperor at Worms, who was holding the German Diet in that
city, assumed the pontifical habits, and took the name of Leo
IX; but Hildebrand, who had hastened thither, refused to
recognize him, since it was (said he) from the secular power
that he held the tiara. Leo, yielding to the irresistible
power of a strong mind and of a deep conviction, immediately
humbled himself, laid aside his sacerdotal ornaments, and
clad in the garb of a pilgrim, set out barefoot for Rome
along with Hildebrand (says an historian), in order to be
there legitimately elected by the clergy and the Roman
people. From this time Hildebrand was the soul of the
Papacy, until he became pope himself. He had governed the
Church under the name of several pontiffs, before he reigned
in person as Gregory VII. One grand idea had taken
possession of this great genius. He desired to establish a
visible theocracy, of which the pope, as vicar of Jesus
Christ, should be the head. The recollection of the universal
dominion of heathen Rome haunted his imagination and animated
his zeal. He wished to restore to papal Rome all that
imperial Rome had lost. "What Marius and Caesar," said his
flatterers, "could not effect by torrents of blood, thou hast
accomplished by a word."
Gregory VII was not directed by the spirit of the Lord.
That spirit of truth, humility, and long-suffering was
unknown to him. He sacrificed the truth whenever he judged
it necessary to his policy. This he did particularly in the
case of Berenger, archdeacon of Angers. But a spirit far
superior to that of the generality of pontiffs--a deep
conviction of the justice of his cause--undoubtedly animated
him. He was bold, ambitious, persevering in his designs, and
at the same time skillful and politic in the use of the means
that would ensure success.
His first task was to organize the militia of the
church. It was necessary to gain strength before attacking
the empire. A council held at Rome removed the pastors from
their families, and compelled them to become the devoted
adherents of the hierarchy. The law of celibacy, planned and
carried out by popes, who were themselves monks, changed the
clergy into a sort of monastic order. Gregory VII claimed
the same power over all the bishops and priests of
Christendom, that an abbot of Cluny exercises in the order
over which he presides. The legates of Hildebrand, who
compared themselves to the proconsuls of ancient Rome,
travelled through the provinces, depriving the pastors of
their legitimate wives; and, if necessary, the pope himself
raised the populace against the married clergy.
But chief of all, Gregory designed emancipating Rome from
its subjection to the empire. Never would he have dared
conceive so bold a scheme, if the troubles that afflicted the
minority of Henry IV, and the revolt of the German princes
against that young emperor, had not favored its execution.
The pope was at this time one of the magnates of the empire.
Making common cause with the other great vassals, he
strengthened himself by the aristocratic interest, and then
forbade all ecclesiastics, under pain of excommunication, to
receive investiture from the emperor. He broke the ancient
ties that connected the Churches and their pastors with the
royal authority, but it was to bind them all to the
pontifical throne. To this throne he undertook to chain
priests, kings, and people, and to make the pope a universal
monarch. It was Rome alone that every priest should fear: it
was in Rome alone that he should hope. The kingdoms and
principalities of the earth are her domain. All kings were
to tremble at the thunderbolts hurled by the Jupiter of
modern Rome. Woe to him who resists! Subjects are released
from their oaths of allegiance; the whole country is placed
under an interdict; public worship ceases; the churches are
closed; the bells are mute; the sacraments are no longer
administered; and the malediction extends even to the dead,
to whom the earth, at the command of a haughty pontiff,
denies the repose of the tomb.
The pope, subordinate from the very beginning of his
existence successively to the Roman, Frank, and German
emperors, was now free, and he trod for the first time as
their equal, if not their master. Yet Gregory VII was
humbled in his turn: Rome was taken, and Hildebrand compelled
to flee. He died at Salerno, exclaiming, "I have loved
righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore do I die in
exile." Who shall dare charge with hypocrisy these words
uttered on the very brink of the grave?
The successors of Gregory, like soldiers arriving after
a victory, threw themselves as conquerors on the enslaved
Churches. Spain rescued from Islamism, Prussia reclaimed from
idolatry, fell into the arms of the crowned priest. The
Crusades, which were undertaken at his instigation, extended
and confirmed his authority. The pious pilgrims, who in
imagination had seen saints and angels leading their armed
bands,--who, entering humble and barefoot within the walls of
Jerusalem, burnt the Jews in their synagogue, and watered
with the blood of thousands of Saracens the places where they
came to trace the sacred footsteps of the Prince of
Peace,--carried into the East the name of the pope, who had
been forgotten there since he had exchanged the supremacy of
the Greeks for that of the Franks.
In another quarter the power of the Church effected what
the arms of the republic and of the empire had been unable to
accomplish. The Germans laid at the feet of a bishop those
tributes which their ancestors had refused to the most
powerful generals. Their princes, on succeeding to the
imperial dignity, imagined they received a crown from the
popes, but it was a yoke that was placed upon their necks.
The kingdoms of Christendom, already subject to the spiritual
authority of Rome, now became her serfs and tributaries.
Thus everything was changed in the Church.
It was at first a community of brethren, and now an absolute
monarchy was established in its bosom. All Christians were
priests of the living God, with humble pastors as their
guides. But a haughty head is upraised in the midst of these
pastors; a mysterious voice utters words full of pride; an
iron hand compels all men, great and small, rich and poor,
bond and free, to wear the badge of its power. The holy and
primitive equality of souls before God is lost sight of. At
the voice of one man Christendom is divided into two unequal
parties: on the one side is a separate caste of priests,
daring to usurp the name of the Church, and claiming to be
invested with peculiar privileges in the eyes of the Lord;
and, on the other, servile flocks reduced to a blind and
passive submission--a people gagged and fettered, and given
over to a haughty caste. Every tribe, language, and nation
of Christendom, submits to the dominion of this spiritual
king, who has received power to conquer.
What is the official pronouncement concerning the Pope in
our day? Here it comes:
" The Pope is of so great dignity and so exalted that he is
not a mere man, but as it were God and the VICAR OF GOD."
"The Pope is of such lofty and supreme dignity that, properly
speaking, he has not been established in any rank of dignity,
but rather has been placed upon the very summit of all ranks
and dignities..."
"He is likewise the divine monarch and supreme emperor and
king of kings."
"HENCE THE POPE IS CROWNED WITH A TRIPLE CROWN, AS KING OF
HEAVEN AND OF EARTH AND OF THE LOWER REGIONS." Ferraris'
Eccl. Dictionary (CATHOLIC) Article, Pope.
"What are the letters supposed to be in the Pope's crown and
what do they signify, if anything?"
"The letters inscribed in the Pope's miter are these:
VICARIVS FILII DEI, which is the latin for 'VICAR OF THE SON
OF GOD.' Catholics hold that the church, which is a visible
society, must have a visible head. Christ, before HIS
ascension into heaven, appointed St. Peter to act as his
representative . . . Hence to the Bishop of Rome, as head of
the church, was given the title, 'VICAR OF CHRIST.'
Our Sunday Visitor. (Catholic Weekly) "Bureau of information
Huntington, Ind. April 18, 1915.
If you take the roman numerals from the Popes title and add
them up you will get 666, thus he wears 666 on his miter. In
his book "The Great Apostasy," Joseph F Berg, after having
proved that 666 can be gotten from the Greek word LATEINOS
and the Hebrew word ROMIITH which also refer to the Cathioic
Church, he states: "Now we challenge the world to find
another name in these languages: Greek, Hebrew, and Latin,
which shall designate the same number."
Even the Romanists themselves shame you in their clear-
sighted comprehension of the issues of this question.
Cardinal Manning says, "The Catholic Church is either the
masterpiece of Satan or the kingdom of the Son of God."
Cardinal Newman says, "a sacerdotal order is historically the
essence of the church of Rome; if not divinely appointed, it
is doctrinally the essence of antichrist." In both these
statements the issue is clear, and it is the same. Rome
herself admits, openly admits, that if she is not the very
kingdom of Christ, she is that of Antichrist. Rome declares
that she is one or the other. She herself propounds and
argues this solemn alternative.
You shrink from it, do you? I accept it. Conscience
constrains me. History compels me. The past, the awful past
rises before me. I see THE GREAT APOSTASY, I see the
desolation of Christendom, I see the smoking ruins, I see the
reign of monsters; I see those vicegods, that Gregory VII.,
that Innocent III., that Boniface VIII., that Alexander VI.,
that Gregory XIII., that Pius IX.; I see their long
succession, I hear their insufferable blasphemies, I see
their abominable lives; I see them worshipped by blinded
generations, bestowing hollow benedictions, bartering lying
indulgences, creating a paganized Christianity; I see their
liveried slaves, their slaven priests, their celibate
confessors; I see the infamous confessional, the ruined
women, the murdered innocents; I hear the lying absolutions,
the dying groans; I hear the cries of the victims; I hear the
anathemas, the curses, the thunders of the interdicts; I see
the racks, the dungeons, the stakes; I see that inhuman
Inquisition, those fires of Smithfield, those butcheries of
St. Bartholomew, that Spanish armada, those unspeakable
dragonnades, that endless train of wars, that dreadful
multitude of massacres. I see it all, and in the name of the
ruin it has wrought in the church and in the world, in the
name of the truth it has denied, the temple it has defiled,
the God it has blasphemed, the souls it has destroyed; in the
name of the millions it has deluded, the millions it has
slaughtered, the millions it has damned; with holy
confessors, with noble reformers, with innumerable martyrs,
with the saints of ages, I denounce it as the masterpiece of
Satan, as the body and soul and essence of antichrist.
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