What did Constantine actually do?

[Matt Black]

I raise this question primarily because there appears to be the theory going round in this forum that he somehow started the Catholic Church. First, I'd like those who hold to this view to expand on the 'somehow' bit eg: how exactly is he supposed to have founded the RCC?

Secondly, where is the evidence for this contention? All the history books I read tell me that he, far from making Christianity the state religion of the Empire, merely tolerated it (as opposed to persecuting it which his predecessor Diocletian did so vigorously less than a decade before). Please show in particular how the doctrine and practice of the Church changed during his reign so as to result in apostasy. Please also explain what therefore happened to the 'true Christians' and why there were no objections by them to this supposed apostasy; remember, these were the guys who less than a decade before Constantine's Edict of Toleration in 313 were willing to give their lives for their faith and their church - you would have thought that at least one of them would have stood up against a bit of apostasy.

So, let's have some evidence, please

Yours in Christ

Matt

[BobRyan]

Well - lets have one of the RC's OWN historians and best-selling authors address the point.

Surely THEY can be trusted - even if non-Catholic ones can not - eh?

Who finally stopped Rome’s persecution of the Christians?



The struggle for the soul of the Empire raged on a vast scale for though only a sprinkling in the West, Christians in the East numbered around 10 percent of the population, and in some cities even formed the majority. And it was mainly in the East that the blood flowed under Galerius (Diocletian’s successor) and Maximinus Daia.

It all came to a halt suddenly when Galerius by decree of 311 permitted Christians to resume their religious assemblies.. But a cruel reversal occurred when Galerius died and Maximinus Daia once more called for Christian blood.. But then as suddenly he ordered the whole business to cease again…. Pressure to stop persecuting had been put on Maximinus by the new conqueror of Italy and Africa, Constantine. (Bokenkotter "A Concise History of the Catholic Church" page 37)

When Constantine finally emerged victorious (over Maxentius) in 312, he attributed his victory to the help of the Christian God. According to the Christian writer Lactantius (d. 320) on the eve of Constantine’s fateful battle with Maxentius, Constantine had a vision of Christ, who told him to ornament the shields of his soldiers with the Savior’s monogram – the Greek letters chi and rho[/b]. Constantine obeyed and in the ensuing battle was victorious as promised Writing somewhat later Eusebius, in his [i]Life of Constantine, gave a more sensational account. Constantine and his whole army saw a luminous cross appear in the afternoon sky with the message “in this conquer” (Ibid 38) How much influence did Emperor Constantine have on the RCC “really”. How much of a role in moving it past the point of merely “Not persecuted” ?


At first Constantine observed an attitude of formal correctness toward paganism. He remained its Supreme Pontiff, paid homage to the sun god on the official coinage, and in general was careful not to alienate the pagan masses…But he gradually revealed his true feelings. He imposed restrictions on pagan practice and publicly displayed the Christian symbols He attached the standards of the army to a cross emblazoned with the monograme of Christ and issued coins picturing himself wearing a helmet stamped with the same monogram…he increasingly identified the interests of the state with those of Christianity.
(Bokenkotter "A Concise History of the Catholic Church" page 38)

“The emperor showed great generosity to the Church in lavishing donations on it and erecting numerous sumptuous basilicas, including the magnificent one over the supposed site of the tomb of Peter at Rome and another over the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem. He surrendered HIS Lateran palace in Rome to the bishop of Rome for a residence and it remained the Papal residence until 1308. When in 324 he moved the capital of the Empire to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople after him, he erected numerous churches there…

"This alliiance with the state profoundly influenced every aspect of the church's thought and life. It carried many advantages, but it also entailed
some serious drawbacks; ... Mass conversions where social conformity was the chief motivating factor; the widening gap between clergy and laity thanks to the official status conferred on them; persecution of dissenters as a menace to the unity of the state. The church would never be the same again - for better and for worse - and so Constantine's conversion is certainly one of the greatest turning points in the history of the Catholic church and of the world." Ibid - Pg 39

[D28guy]

Point...set...match.

...That was quick. :D

I wonder if this will be the shortest thread in the history of BB?

Mike

[D28guy]

Here is some more enlightening information regarding this topic...

What the Constantinian establishment of the Catholic Church meant was that the bishops (note that the Biblical, Presbyterian form of church government had been abandoned by the churches before the time of Constantine) now joined the bureaucrats to form a new governing class in the Empire.

The bishops of Italy became the heirs of the Roman Senate, and the bishop of Rome became the Emperor's successor. Throughout the Empire, Catholic bishops used monks (communist ascetics) as terrorists to enforce their rule:

"Bands of monastic vigilantes, led by Schenudi of Atripe (died c. 466) patrolled the towns of Upper Egypt ransacking the houses of pagan notables for idols. In North Africa, similar wandering monks, the Circumcellions, armed with cudgels called 'Israels,' stalked the great estates, their cry of 'Praise be to God' more fearful than the roaring of a mountain lion" (Brown, p. 104).

[And we wonder where the Muslims got the idea for their war cry, "Allah Akbar."]

"The Christian bishop," Brown reports, "now ruling large congregations and backed by the violence of the monks, had come to the fore. The Emperor Theodosius committed the bloodbath of Thessalonica [massacring the residents of the city in 390] … yet he went down to history as Theodosius the 'Great,' the exemplary Catholic monarch" (Brown, p. 106).

With its legal establishment, the Catholic Church became wealthy as well as bloody:

"Wealth might be used to cover the costs of an acquittal at the Last Day…. From the fifth century onwards, this rich flood welled into the Christian Church 'for the remission of sins.' The rise of the economic position of the Christian Church was sudden and dramatic: It mushroomed like a modern insurance company. By the sixth century, the income of the bishop of Ravenna was 12,000 gold pieces; the bishop of a small town drew a salary as great as that of a senatorial provincial governor" (Brown, p. 109).

The time-honored, traditional Roman system of exploitation of inferiors by superiors, with all the hierarchy exploiting the people, had been adopted by the Catholic Church-State. This exploitation was possible only because the Catholic Church had already rejected the Gospel of salvation by free grace.

The Catholic Church's rejection of the Gospel of justification by faith alone made all its subsequent errors and atrocities not only possible, but inevitable.


Constantine did not establish Christianity as the only lawful religion of the Empire (an act that would have been Antichristian); he established the Catholic Church as the only lawful church in the Empire, a different Antichristian act. Fifteen centuries after the birth of Christ, little had changed in Western Europe but the names of the gods worshiped.

The Western Europeans of the fifteenth century still lived in an enchanted world—a world of magic and miracles.

Instead of the twelve gods of ancient Rome, there were the cults of the twelve apostles, whose relics could cure diseases, control the weather, and inflict harm on those who opposed them.

Instead of the departmental deities of ancient Rome, there were the departmental Saints of papal Rome.

Instead of the cult of Diana, Queen of Heaven, there was the cult of Mary, Queen of Heaven.

The holidays (in pre-Reformation Germany, there were 161 days of holy fasting and abstinence each year), processions, sacrifices, and rituals continued; the apparitions, pilgrimages, relics, and shrines remained; the gladiatorial contests were replaced by autos da fe at which the religious would chant the Psalms and pray the liturgy.

Laing wrote, "though there is a notable difference in the character of the supernatural beings that in the fourth century succeeded to the multitudinous functions of the old departmental spirits, there is little or no change in the attitude of mind …."

The founders of the Catholic Church-State "were keenly interested in winning the pagans to the faith, and they succeeded. But undoubtedly one element in their success was the inclusion in their system of the doctrine of the veneration of Saints.

They seem to have felt that in order to make any headway at all, it was necessary for them to match the swarms of spirits available for the pagans with a multitude of wonder-working Saints and Martyrs. How far they were prepared to go is indicated by their favorable attitude toward the pagan veneration of Virgil that amounted almost to deification ….

The Saints succeeded to the worship of the dead just as they had succeeded to the cult of the departmental deities and to the little gods of the Roman household …. Reports of miracles wrought by human beings were common among the ancient Romans and were accepted by the great mass of people without question …. The [Roman] Christians adapted themselves to the pagan attitude.

They matched the miracle-workers of the pagans with the wonder-working Saints; and with their success the number of miracles increased. The sanctity of relics, well established as it has been among the pagans, acquired far greater vogue in [medieval] Christian times and was given a degree of emphasis that it had never had before

…. Like the deified heroes and emperors of pagan times, the Saints were honored with altars, sacred edifices, incense, lights, hymns, ex-voto offerings, festivals with illuminations and high hilarity, prayers, and invocations. They became intermediate divinities …." (Gordon J. Laing, Survivals of Roman Religion, pp. 8-9, 83, 120-121).

One Roman Catholic historian described the religion of early sixteenth-century Europe in these words:

"In 1509 when John Calvin was born, Western Christendom still shared a common religion of immanence. Heaven was never too far from Earth. The sacred was diffused in the profane, the spiritual in the material. Divine power, embodied in the [Roman] Church and its sacraments, reached down through innumerable points of contact to make itself felt: to forgive or punish, to protect against the ravages of nature, to heal, to soothe, and to work all sorts of wonders.

Priests could absolve adulterers and murderers, or bless fields and cattle. During their lives, saints could prevent lightning from striking, restore sight to the blind, or preach to birds and fish.

Unencumbered by the limitations of time and space, they could do even more through their images and relics after death.

A pious glance at a statue of St. Christopher in the morning ensured protection from illness and death throughout the day.

Burial in the habit of St. Francis improved the prospects for the afterlife.

A pilgrimage to Santiago, where the body of the apostle James had been deposited by angels, or to Canterbury … could make a lame man walk, or hasten a soul's release from purgatory.

he map of Europe bristled with holy places; life pulsated with the expectation of the miraculous. In the popular mind and in much of the official teaching of the [Roman] Church, almost anything was possible. One could even eat the flesh of the risen Christ in a consecrated wafer.

"Much of late medieval religion was magical, and … the difference between church men and magicians lay less in what they claimed they could do than in the authority on which their claims rested.

This is illustrated by the crucifix that 'controlled' the weather at Tallard …. Late medieval piety showed an almost irrepressible urge to localize the divine power, make it tangible, and bring it under control" (Carlos Eire, War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin, Cambridge, 1986, pp. 1 & 11).Link...click here (http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Cults/Catholicism/ch-state.htm)

Interesting reading for sure,

Mike

[Matt Black]

If all the above were true, then what happened to the Christians? What does that make of Jesus' promise that "I will build me Church and the gates of Hell will not overcome it"? I note in addition that the writer whom Mike quotes refers to the churches already having abandoned what he calls the Biblical model; that would suggest that he thinks the alleged 'rot' had set in before Constantine; I find that odd as again we have these Christians who were willing to be martyred for their faith.

Yours in Christ

Matt

[Ben W]

Constantine?

Doesnt he hunt down and kill demonic entities?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0360486/

[Doubting Thomas]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
If all the above were true, then what happened to the Christians? What does that make of Jesus' promise that "I will build me Church and the gates of Hell will not overcome it"? I note in addition that the writer whom Mike quotes refers to the churches already having abandoned what he calls the Biblical model; that would suggest that he thinks the alleged 'rot' had set in before Constantine; I find that odd as again we have these Christians who were willing to be martyred for their faith.

Yours in Christ

Matt As expected, Matt, you go a post-full of the typical historically (and very selectively at that!) revisionist, antiCatholic, Constanstanine-paganized-Christianity schtick. For a much more balanced view of the tension that remained between church and state even after Constantine's ascendancy, I recommend Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism by D.H.Williams. (And no one can honestly accuse the author of Roman bias/propoganda, since he is a BAPTIST professor of patristics.)

[Ed Edwards]

Does anybody know why Pope Liberius (was Pope 352-366)
was never sanctified? He is the first Pope that
wasn't sanctified (made a Saint).

The following data i pulled out of the Reader's Digest 1976
edition (Love those old year books smile.gif )
(starred data is NOT from Reader's Digest)

From 283 to 323 there were multiple emperors of the
Roman Empire.

From 308AD to 313 there were 4 emperors:
1. Maximian [to 313]
2. Galerius to 311, Licinius after 311 [to 323]
3. Maxentius
4. Constantine

After 323, Emperor Constatine the Great was
exclusive Emperor over all the Roman Empire.

Significant dates during this time:

*303 - the 10th and last Roman Persecution
inthe area of Diocletian (mostly Asia Minor)

313 - The Edict of Milan makes Christianity the
official religion of the Roman Empire

325AD - The First Council of Nicaea.

[ July 13, 2005, 08:43 AM: Message edited by: Ed Edwards ]

[mioque]

Liberius wasn't declared a saint because he didn't show any backbone when got caught up in the Arian controversy. Emperor Constantius (not to be confused with Constantine) who supported Arianism had Liberius banned to Thracia because the pope did not support that heresy. When overthere he caved in.

[Doubting Thomas]

Originally posted by mioque:
Liberius wasn't declared a saint because he didn't show any backbone when got caught up in the Arian controversy. Emperor Constantius (not to be confused with Constantine) who supported Arianism had Liberius banned to Thracia because the pope did not support that heresy. When overthere he caved in. That is correct. As I mentioned above, tension continued to exist between church and "state", particularly when emperors at various times supported the heretical factions (Arianism especially) against the orthodox. As a result of these factors Athanasius, the great defender of Nicene orthodoxy, was exiled on five different occasions.

[BobRyan]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
If all the above were true, then what happened to the Christians? What does that make of Jesus' promise that "I will build me Church and the gates of Hell will not overcome it"?
#1. Well we know that we can not simply turn a blind eye to what BOTH Catholic and nonCatholic historians admit - just because we made some wrong assumptions in one of the Gospel texts eh?

#2. God ALSO made FOREVER promises about His TEACHING WORD and the Spirit of God to the ONE TRUE Nation Church - and yet pronounced THEM as being in doctrinal error (substituting their own tradition for the Word of God) in Mark 7.

So does this mean that the promise has failed?

Funny you should ask --

Rom 9

3For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,
4who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service AND THE PROMISES
5whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.


6But it is not as though the Word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel;
7nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.”
8That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.
If it is true of God's ONE TRUE NATION Church -- then it is even MORE true of the Persecuted Church!!

It is NOT the fleshly "organization" that stands the test - but it is the INDIVIDUALS who are FAITHFUL.

Rom 2
25 For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
26 So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?
27 And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law?
28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.
29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.
This means that the 1260 years of the dark ages and persecution of the PURE church that follows the resurrection of Christ (as we see in Rev 12) - is a correct picture of the long centuries of persecution against Christians by both pagan and Papal Rome.

This means that the church "apostacy" - the "falling away" Paul predicted in 2Thess 2 - actually DID happen inside the church.

And those who REMAINED faithful and stood firm against error - were persecuted in fact the RCC said they were to be "exterminated" in the Lateran IV council.

The RCC's OWN histians admit to the permanent pagan influence in the RCC from the very earliest days!

How can one be sol willing to turn a blind eye to all of this.

It is one thing not to interpret the future - but not to "get history" even when both RC and non-RC historians "admit to it" to some degree??

Details - details - please!

In Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

The Catholic historian Thomas Bokenkotter's best selling pro-Catholic work "a concise history of the Catholic church" makes it abundantly clear..

Ibid -Pg 49 speaks of the change that occurred in the 4th century

"the clergy at first were not sharply differentiated from the laity..the clergy married, raised families, and earned their livelihood at some trade or profession. But as the practice grew of paying them..they withdrew more and more from secular pursuits, until by the fourth century such withdrawal was deemed obligatory"

"at first the Christian presbyter or elder (as they were really known) avoided any resemblance to the pagan or Jewish priests and, in fact even deliberately refused to be called a priest. He (the real Christian leader) saw his primary function as the ministry of the word. ..but the image of the Christian presbyter gradually took on a sacral character."

"the more elaborate liturgy of the post-Constantinian era, with its features borrowed from paganism, enhanced the image of the minister as a sacred personage. The ministry of the word diminished in importance when infant baptism became the rule rather than the exception, for infants could not be preached to. "

"before Constantine the whole church was considered the realm of the sacred (priesthood of all) as opposed to the profane world. After Constantine and the breakdown of the separation between the church and the world, the polarity between the sacred and profane was transformed into one between the sacred clergy and the profane laity"

"legislation to this effect was first passed at the local synod of Elvira, Spain and taken up by the popes beginning with Siricius (d. 399), who enforced clerical celebacy (which was adopted mainly on the grounds that sex was incompatible with the sacred character of the clergy)"

[BobRyan]

Ibid - Page 42
"the liturgy itself was considerably influenced by the Constantinian revolution. Millions of pagans suddenly entered the church
and some of their customs inevitably crept into the liturgy; the use of the kiss as a sign of reverence for holy objects, the practice of genuflection,
devotion to relics, use of candles, incense and other ceremonial features derived from the imperial court. Under this pagan influence Christians
began to face the east while praying which made it necessary for the priest to lead prayers while his back was toward the congregation."
…
pg 43
for a long time the celebrant was left considerable freedom to improvise in conducting the liturgy. Even wording of the canon was left to his
discretion.
I just can't believe that EVEN RC historians are to be ignored when they admit to some unflattering fact of RC history!!

Is there no limit??

[BobRyan]

Catholics of the 20th century publish the connection to paganism for the world to see and understand.

Pagan prayer methods.


Catholic Digest 12/1994 pg 129

“The Rosary is, unsurprisingly, Not mentioned in the Bible. Legend and history place its beginning in the 13th century long After the Bible was completed. As a Pagan practice, praying on counting beads goes back centuries before Christ…

Buddhists use prayer wheels and prayer beads for the same purpose… Counting prayer beads is common practice in religious cultures”.


Cath Digest 9/1993 pg 129
Question:
“My husband has been transferred to Japan and we have been here in Hiroshima for about two months. On a site seeing tour the Japanese guide brought me to a Buddhist shrine. There were statues of Buddha everywhere. The guide told me they represented different aspects of life and that the people offer food to the Buddhas and ask for Favors. It made me think of Our Catholic praying to the saints and wonder whether they have anything like the Ten Commandments to guide them.

There were fountains at the gate where pious visitors washed their hands before entering the shrine grounds. Could this be the same as our holy water?”

Ans:
“Very probably the physical washing signifies some kind of spiritual cleansing, AS it does with Us! Some Muslims say prayers on rosarylike beads Just as We do, so there is no copyright enforced on prayerful customs among the great world religions. The Pagan Romans prayed, each family to its Own household gods, JUST as we do to our patron saints. In Old Testament times the gentile had local gods for their town or country, and our Christian Saints eventually supplanted Them!

The Hebrews, of Course, had the mission of Wiping Out such heathen worship with the worship of the one true God, and while they have always had great respect for spiritual heroes, they Never set up any of their own race as substitutes for the local pagan gods!!
They had no need to make distinctions between praying TO the saints for their intercession with god and total adoration of God as the source of everything, as we must!

[Matt Black]

Except there is no record of anyone 'standing firm against error' against this supposed creeping corruption. So where's the evidence, Bob? I find it absolutely astonishing that true believers who had been in the catacombs and seen their brothers and sisters martyred less than a decade before and were willing to stand up for their faith against heresies such as Arianism scarcely a decade after the Edict of Milan would have said NOTHING about the paganism and corruption which you suppose came into the Church contemporaneously. Please produce at least one primary source document from that period to support your contention that anyone other than Arian heretics opposed and propsed an alternative to the Catholic-Orthodox Church in the 4th century

Yours in Christ

Matt

[Doubting Thomas]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Please produce at least one primary source document from that period to support your contention that anyone other than Arian heretics opposed and propsed an alternative to the Catholic-Orthodox Church in the 4th century

Yours in Christ

Matt Yes, "primary" is the key word.
(BTW--Matt, great point you made with the rest of your post. graemlins/thumbs.gif )

[BobRyan]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Except there is no record of anyone 'standing firm against error' against this supposed creeping corruption. Is your claim "corruption is ok as long a detailed and well preserved record of opposition is not available"????

IS that a "historical" argument for what Constantine did -- or simply a rabbit trail?

OR are you claiming that we currently have exhaustive accounts of all history for the past 2000 years??? Did you not "notice the detail" that even in the most successful region of the Roman empire the Christian component was no more than 10 PERCENT at the start of the 4th century???

Did you fail to read that RC historian account showing that violence and persecution began EARLY in the church of Rome -- with a permanent affect on the RCC???

OR are you not reading the non-Catholic histories that detail the record of WHY the RCC was calling for "extermination of heretics"???

OR are you simply trying to find how in the world God COULD have had a PERSECUTED church during the dark ages when the RCC dominated and "exterminated" at her pleasure??

Is it that the scenario of Rev 12 with the DARK AGES of persecution following the resurrection of Christ - does not seem to "fit history" in your view?

What is the "real" problem?

In Christ,

Bob

[Matt Black]

What I am saying Bob is that I find the following facts convincing:-

1. That the persecuted Catholic-Orthodox Church kept records of its opposition to persecution prior to 313 (and indeed during the brief revival of paganism under Julian in 361-363)

2. That the above persecuted Church kept records of its opposition to heresy prior to 313 (eg: Gnosticism, Montanism, Marcionism, Donatism, Novationism etc)

3. That the tolerated Church kept record of both its opposition to heresies (eg: Arianism, Pelagianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism) and paganism (eg: Julian) after 313.

4. That Christians were willing to risk exile and even death for their opposition to all of the above.

And yet you would have us believe that the 'true Christians' kept no records of their opposition to your alleged paganism and corruption after 313???!!!!

Yours in Christ

Matt

[BobRyan]

The 1260 years of persecution predicted in Rev 12 "can not be ignored".

The CHRISTIAN church was persecuted for FAR more than 1260 literal DAYS by pagan Rome ALONE after the resurrection of Christ. So - it is 1260 YEARS - not days that covers the timeline for the dark ages.

The RCC slaughter as many or more of ITS OWN during this time -- so it would be hard to accuse OTHERS of inflicting that amount of damage.

That the RCC was infested with Paganism (at least to some decree WITH EXAMPLES GIVEN) is admitted to in the RC quotes above. Interesting that you choose to ignore that.

There is no doubt that the RCC had many derogatory terms for all those they claimed to "exterminate" during the dark ages. I have no doubt about that at all.

I never claimed that the TRUE Christians were WIPED OUT by the RCC as it embraced the paganism IT CLAIMS to have embraced in the quotes above!!

You are simply going down a rabbit trail - which is surprising since your OP was supposedly about the IMPACT of paganism on the RCC - NOT about the ability of the RCC to squash the RECORDS of her victims.

Want to see some more "RC" Confessing??

In Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

Catholic Digest 11/1997 pg 100
The question:
A Baptist family who lives across the street gave me a book called the “Trail of Blood”, by J.M. Carroll. It attacks Catholic doctrine on infant Baptism, indulgences, purgatory, and so on. But I am writing to learn if there is anything in history that would justify the following quotation:

“The world has Never seen anything to compare with the persecution heaped upon the Baptists by the Catholic hierarchy of the Dark Ages. The Pope was the world’s dictator. This is why the Anabaptists before the Reformation called the Pope the Anti-Christ”. Then: “Fifty million died by persecution over a period of 1200 years because of the Catholic Church” The answer from Fr. Ken Ryan:

“There weren’t any Baptists until 1609, generally thought of as a year occurring after the Dark Ages. (that is why the article above includes Anabaptists) Anabaptists (means anti-baptism of infants – so they re-baptized them as adults) means “re-baptizers” and was a name given to groups existing in the 3rd, 4th, 11th and 12th centuries but they had no connection with the violent civil-religious (Catholic) reformers who appeared in 1521 at Zwickau in Saxony. These 16th century Anabaptists rejected Catholic doctrine on infant Baptism and Lutheran justification by faith, among other things, and intended to substitute a new “Kingdom of God” for the social and civil order of their time. John Leyden was proclaimed King of New Sion at Munster where museums and libraries were destroyed and polygamy was introduced. This group AND Many others were Exterminated during the Peasants Wars by a Combination of civil and religious authority. Whether they were persecuted or punished depends on your point of view”
In the article above – Fr. Ken Ryan makes the meaning of “extermination” of that group and “many other groups” clear for modern readers.
Catholic apologists like Catholic Digest’s Fr. Ken Ryan quoted above often argue that the RCC isn't accountable for the Inquisition, since the state carried out the torturing and the executions. It was the RCC who defined these people as "heretics", however, and the RCC handed them over to the state (John 19:11).


So whether you "like it or not" even the RC sources are ADMITTING to the extermination of fellow Christians!!

In Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

We know from the decrees of Popes and councils that the RCC viewed itself as having authority over the state.

The Fourth Lateran Council, for example, the ecumenical council that dogmatized transubstantiation, declared (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/lat4-c3.html):


”Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church; so that
whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath. But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the
supreme pontiff [the Pope], that he may declare the ruler's vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected as long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action. The same law is to be observed in regard to those
who have no chief rulers (that is, are independent). Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land.

Other councils, such as Vienna, issued anti-Semitic decrees that ordered the persecution of Jews. The persecution of other groups, such as the Waldensians, was also ordered by the RCC.
For example, Pope Innocent VIII issued a bull in 1487 ordering that people "rise up in arms against" and "tread under foot" the Waldensians.
Roman Catholic and former Jesuit Peter de Rosa writes in Vicars of Christ (Crown Publishers, 1988),


"Of eighty popes
in a line from the thirteenth century on not one of them disapproved of the theology and apparatus of the Inquisition. On the contrary, one after another [b]added his own cruel touches to the workings of this deadly machine."

[BobRyan]

The Catholic historian von Dollinger writes in The Pope and the Council,

"From 1200 to 1500 the long series of Papal ordinances on the Inquisition, ever increasing in severity and cruelty[b], and their whole policy towards
heresy, runs on without a break. [b]It is a rigidly consistent system of legislation; every Pope confirms and improves upon the devices of his predecessor....It was only the absolute dictation of the Popes, and the notion of their infallibility in all questions of Evangelical morality, that made the Christian world...[accept] the Inquisition, which contradicted the simplest principles of Christian justice and love to our neighbor, and would have been
rejected with universal horror in the ancient Church."

[BobRyan]

Vatican Hosts Inquisition Symposium

By CANDICE HUGHES[/b]

.c The Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) – The Vatican assembled a blue-ribbon panel of scholars Thursday to examine the Inquisition and declared its readiness to submit the church's darkest institution to the judgment of history.

The three-day symposium is part of the Roman Catholic Church's countdown to 2000. Pope John Paul II wants the church to begin the new millennium with a clear conscience, which means facing up to past sins.

For many people, the Inquisition is one of the church's worst transgressions. For centuries, ecclesiastical ``thought police'' tried, tortured and burned people at the stake for heresy and other crimes.

``The church cannot cross the threshold of the new millennium without pressing its children to purify themselves in repentance for their errors, infidelity, incoherence,'' Cardinal Roger Etchegaray said, opening the conference.

The inquisitors went after Protestants, Jews, Muslims and presumed heretics. They persecuted scientists like Galileo. They banned the Bible in anything but Latin, which few ordinary people could read.

The Inquisition began in the 13th century and lasted into the 19th. An index of banned books endured even longer, until 1966. And it was 1992 before the church rehabilitated Galileo, condemned for saying the Earth wasn't the center of the universe.

The symposium, which gathers experts from inside and outside the church, is the Vatican's first critical look at the church's record of repression.

Among other things, it will give scholars a chance to compare notes on what they've found in the secret Vatican archives on the Inquisition, which the Holy See only recently opened.

``The church is not afraid to submit its past to the judgment of history,'' said Etchegaray, a Frenchman who leads the Vatican's Commission on the Grand Jubilee.

Closed to the public and press, the symposium is not expected to produce any definitive statement from the Vatican on the Inquisition. That is expected in 2000 as part of the grand ``mea culpa'' at the start of Christianity's third millennium.

The great question is whether the pontiff will ask forgiveness for the sins of the church's members, as it did with the Holocaust, or for the sins of the church itself. Unlike the Holocaust, the Inquisition was a church initiative authorized by the popes themselves.

Etchegaray on Thursday swept aside the idea that it can be seen a series of local campaigns whose excesses might be blamed on secular authorities. There was only one Inquisition, he said, and it was undeniably an ecclesiastical institution.

The pontiff may give a hint as to his thinking on Saturday, when he meets with participants in the conference.

About 50 scholars from Europe, the United States and Latin America are taking part.

AP-NY-10-29-98 1403EST
[/quote]


================================================== ==========


Catholic Church says must own up for Inquisition

By Alessandra Galloni

VATICAN CITY, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The Vatican on Thursday said it had to take responsibility for one of the darkest eras in Roman Catholic church history and not lay blame for the Inquisition on civil prosecutors.

Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, head of the Vatican's main committee for the year 2000, opened a three-day symposium on the Inquisition saying it was time to re-examine the work of the special court the church set up in 1233 to curb heresy.

Etchegaray said some scholars claimed there were several inquisitions: one in Rome, which worked directly under the Holy See's control, and others in Spain and in Portugal which were often aided by the local civil courts.

``We cannot ignore the fact that this (attempt to distinguish between inquisitions) has allowed some to make apologetic arguments and lay responsibility for what Iberian tribunals did onto civil authorities,'' he said.

``The fact that the Spanish and Portuguese crowns...had powers of intervention...on inquisitory tribunals does not change the ecclesiastical character of the institution,'' he said.

Pope Gregory IX created the Inquisition to help curb heresy, but church officials soon began to count on civil authorities to fine, imprison and even torture heretics.

One of the Inquisition's best known victims was the astronomer Galileo, condemned for claiming the earth revolved around the sun.

The Inquisition reached its height in the 16th century to counter the Reformation. The department later became the Holy Office and its successor now is called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which controls the orthodoxy of Catholic teaching.

Some of the conclusions of the international symposium, which ends on Saturday, could be included in a major document in which the church is expected to ask forgiveness for its past errors as part of celebrations for the year 2000.

The church ``cannot pass into the new millennium without urging its sons to purify themselves, through penitence, of its errors, its infidelities and its incoherences...,'' Father Georges Cottier, a top Vatican theologian and head of the theological commission for the year 2000, told the symposium.

Etchegaray said the conference could also draw on examples that scholars had been able to examine since January, when the Vatican opened secret files.

The archives also opened the infamous Index of Forbidden Books which Roman Catholics were not allowed to read or possess on pain of excommunication. Even the bible was on the blacklist.

Pope John Paul has said in several documents and speeches that the Church needs to assume responsibility for the Inquisition, which was responsible for the forced conversion of Jews as well as the torture and killing of heretics.

While there may have been mitigating historical factors for the behaviour of some Catholics, the Pope has said this did not prevent the church from expressing regret for the wrongs of its members in some periods of history.

He initiated the procedure that led to the rehabilitation of Galileo, completed in 1992.

19:01 10-29-98

[D28guy]

For many people, the Inquisition is one of the church's worst transgressions. For centuries, ecclesiastical ``thought police'' tried, tortured and burned people at the stake for heresy and other crimes. The inquisitors went after Protestants, Jews, Muslims and presumed heretics. They persecuted scientists like Galileo. They banned the Bible in anything but Latin, which few ordinary people could read. The Inquisition began in the 13th century and lasted into the 19th. An index of banned books endured even longer, until 1966. And it was 1992 before the church rehabilitated Galileo, condemned for saying the Earth wasn't the center of the universe.And now of course we have literally decades of time where the Catholic Church routinely moved practicing child molesters from parish to parish to molest more children for no other reason than to protect(hush hush) the reputation of "Holy Mother Church".

The "Holy Apostolic Catholic Church".

Supposedly, Gods one true church through the centuries.

Sadly,

Mike

[Matt Black]

Guys, I accept all of the above re the Inquisition and paedophilia, both of which were appalling episodes. But nothing in what you say about the Inquisition supports the thesis that after Constantine there were 'true Christian groups' outside of the Catholic-Orthodox Church. The earliest group that we can claim were at least vaguely 'proto-evangelical' were the Waldenses, who don't appear until the 1160s. All the other groups who had been connected with Christianity but were then excluded and condemned as heretics were genuinely heretical: the Pelagians and semi-Pelagians (believed that Man could be saved by his own efforts), Arians (denied the divinity of Christ), Nestorians (Christ has two personalities), Monophysites (denied that Christ was fully human and fully divine) and various Gnostic dualist cults eg: Docetists, Manichees, Paulicians, Bogomils and Albigensian Cathars. None of these heretical groups were particularly against baptismal regeneration, infant baptism or the other so-called corruptions which you assert invaded the Church after Constantine, with the exception of the gnostic cults who had their own very heretical reasons for that; indeed, there is apart from that no evidence that any group wither within or outwith the Church opposed the things you say infiltrated the Church.

So, I ask again - where is the primary evidence for the existence of this 'Alternative Church', this company of 'true believers'?

Yours in Christ

Matt

[Ed Edwards]

Matt Black: "All the other groups who had been connected with Christianity but were then excluded and condemned as heretics were genuinely heretical: ... "

Unfortunately it is the survivors who write the
history. I'm finding out now some clues that
the Nestorians as the RCC damns them had more members
and more bishops abouyt 700AD than did the RCC.
I'm sure some of them even believed the Nestorian
heresy that (Christ has two personalities). The
Nestorian churches were crushed into nonexistance by
the Mongol Horde to their north and the rise of Islam
in their southwest.

Matt Black: "So, I ask again - where is the primary evidence for the existence of this 'Alternative Church', this company of 'true believers'?"

In heaven. Wait.

[Matt Black]

Sorry, Ed, but that's presupposition. If people are making these wild claims about Constantine and trying to be historical revisionists like Carroll, then they have to produce the primary source documents to substantiate their allegations.

For that I am certainly waiting

Yours in Christ

Matt

[Bro. James]

Source documents:

Mt. 16:18; Mt. 28:18-20; John 14:16-19; Eph. 3:21, there are many more which plainly teach that Jesus will never forsake His Bride.

Someone already made this observation: "history is written by the victors." Satan has won some battles--he has lost the war. Secular history will not point to Calvary nor to the Bride of Christ. One must flee to the only Truth: the revealed Word of God--"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us".

"It is finished."

Which side are we on?

Selah,

Bro. James

P.S. How many agree that the documents exist which put Constantine the Great, Czar of Rome,as the one who called together the "Council of Nicea"?

[Matt Black]

What's your point about Nicaea I?

The Biblical sources you quote could equally be used to support the contention that they refer to the Catholic-Orthodox Church which existed before and after 313; in fact, they are far more likely to support that than the hypothetical existence of some other church

Yours in Christ

Matt

[BobRyan]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
[QB] Guys, I accept all of the above re the Inquisition and paedophilia, both of which were appalling episodes. But nothing in what you say about the Inquisition supports the thesis that after Constantine there were 'true Christian groups' outside of the Catholic-Orthodox Church.
The Bible claims it in Rev 12 where for 1260 years in the dark ages the pure Christian church is being persecuted.

The RC documents given above SHOW that they ADMIT to this "Extermination and persecution".

In fact - EWTN even admits that were Billy Graham to have lived in the dark ages HE TOO would have been burned at the stake by the RCC!!

And the question you seem to be asking is "YES but would Graham's family have had ENDURING RECORDS that survived that persecution -- OR would the RCC not have described all such victims in GLOWING TERMS so that we could see in THEIR records the glorious faith of Graham".

Frankly - I am not sure why you are crawling out on that limb!

In Christ,

Bob

[Matt Black]

According to your interpretation of Rev 12; others would attribute a more eschatological meaning

Yours in Christ

Matt

[BobRyan]

Here is something from DHK -

Originally posted by DHK:
Pagan Doctrines and Practices

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />It is very evident that many of the doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church are Pagan in their origin.

Mariolatry was established as a doctrine of the Catholic Church at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Under the influence of Paganism it was felt that another mediator was needed. The Bible says there is but one mediator and he is specifically named. "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus." (1 Tim. 2:5) Not only was Mary added as the chief mediator but there followed a multitude of other mediators in the form of Patron saints.

Pilgrimages and the veneration of relics was borrowed from Paganism. In the fourth century Saint Helena, mother of Constantine and empress of the Roman Empire, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem where she is supposed to have found fragments of the true cross on which Christ was crucified. By the sixth century the belief in relics and their power to work miracles was widespread. Today relics form a vital part of the Catholic religion. The silence of the Scriptures and the testimony of historians make it evident that the veneration of relics came from Paganism and not from God.

The Rosary which is so dear to Catholics in their prayers is of very ancient origin. It is almost universal among all the pagan nations. Reference is made to it in Hindu sacred books. The Brahmins of Hindustan have long employed the rosary. It is a common thing among the adherents of the Buddhist faith. It is pagan in its origin and use. The Bible does not in the least way infer the need of a rosary to aid us in our prayer to God.

The doctrine of Purgatory is pagan in its origin. The Roman poet Virgil (70 B. C. - 19 B. C.) wrote of purgatory showing the pagans believed in it long before the Catholic Church taught it. If purgatory were Christian it could be found in the Bible.

Transubstantiation, which did not become a doctrine of the Catholic Church until the 13th century, is pagan. This Romish doctrine means that the bread and wine when blessed by the priest becomes the actual flesh and blood of Christ. The writer has witnessed a midnight mass (Mass is the center of Catholic worship) and the whole service was reeking with Paganism and Judaism. Many may say it is a beautiful service but to others it is a reminder of the pagan sacrifices and of the pagan mystery cults. If the doctrine of transubstantiation were Christian why did not the churches teach it in the first centuries?

The sign of the cross so frequently made by devout Catholics does not come from Christianity but from the Pagans. Actually the same sign now used by the adherents of Rome was used in the Babylonian Mysteries before Christ was ever crucified!

The infallibility of the pope which was not declared until 1870 could not be a Christian doctrine. Many historians believe that the idea for the powers of the pope with the College of Cardinals came from the Pagan College of Pontiff s with its Sovereign Pontiff which had no doubt been in Rome from the earliest times and must have been framed on the order of the original Council of Pontiff s at Babylon. The infallibility of the pope really sounds pagan when one observes that at one tune there were three popes, Urban VI, Clement VII, and Alexander V!

The way of salvation as taught by the Catholic Church is pagan. It is a way of salvation by works. There is not another church in the world so dedicated to teaching salvation by good works as the church of Rome. It is pagan. Salvation is by grace through faith. Eph. 2:8, 9 (Catholic translation)

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not from yourselves, for it is the gift of God; not as the outcome of works lest anyone may boast.Baptist Churches In All Ages (http://www.pbministries.org/History/Goodwin_&_Frazier/churches_01.htm)
DHK </font>[/QUOTE]

[BobRyan]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
[QB] According to your interpretation of Rev 12; others would attribute a more eschatological meaning

I think "some" might try to make the Jews the great "monster" of the book of Revelation - but that approach is very difficult to support while paying attention to the "details".

In Rev 12 it is pretty hard to ignore the birth of Christ and his resurrection and the persecution that follows.

It is also pretty hard to ignore the many centuries where this took place in ACTUAL history and not notice that Rev 12 is predicting that very thing - 1260 years of persecution --.

But if one were dedicated enough - the could turn a blind eye to all of that - I suppose.

IN Christ,

Bob

[Matt Black]

Since when was DHK a 4th century primary source document - he's not THAT old!!

Yours in Christ

Matt

[Bro. James]

Nicea I--the point: there was a State Religion in the 4th century--Christianized/Paganism?

Another point: the true churches were not involved with state religion.

Selah,

Bro. James

[Matt Black]

No state religion at the time of Nicaea I (325) - remember Constantine tolerated/ legalised Christianity, he didn't make it the state religion. That came later, with the prohobition of paganism by Theodosius in 390 (ie: after Nicaea I and Constantinople I).

Please give details of who and where these 'true churches' were.

Yours in Christ

Matt

[D28guy]

"Please give details of who and where these 'true churches' were."Who: The church is all born again people.

Where: Everywhere

Mike

[BobRyan]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Since when was DHK a 4th century primary source document - he's not THAT old!!
I checked the link that DHK post - some good information there - but not a single quote there of DHK.

Did you read it??

[BobRyan]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
No state religion at the time of Nicaea I (325) - remember Constantine tolerated/ legalised Christianity,
The "details" already posted here by CATHOLIC sources show that Constantine NOT ONLY legalized "tolerated" his new religion HE put restrictions on pagan practices and HE gave HIS own palace in Rome as the residence for the papacy.

In fact - when he left Rome -- he turned it over to the Bishop of Rome.

And of course - "dunked" his army pronouncing them all "Christians".

A more "state-like" religion one could not HOPE to find.

Imagine if the US turned the whitehouse over to the Catholic Bishop in Baltimore!!!

Imagine if the "Commander in Chief" pronounced all who serve in the Army - "Catholics"???

A more "state-like" religion you could not imagine (outside of Islam)

In Christ,

Bob

[Kamoroso]

THE VOICE OF THE
CHURCH by D.T. Taylor


THE WALDENSES, A. D. 314, TILL NOW
THE WALDENSES, VALDENSES, VAUDOIS or “People of the Valleys.” “Who has not heard,” says Elliott, “of the Waldenses?” “this most ancient stock of religion,” to use the words of the great Milton. In the language of Dr. Cheever, “They are an unconquered community of Protestant Christians, who have always existed directly at the doors of the Romish court, and beneath the reverberating thunders of the Vatican.” Romish and Protestant writers of the best authority have demonstrated their existence since the time of Pope Sylvester, and perhaps even from the days of the Apostles, and it is well known that they acknowledge no founder. But we need not stop to eulogize them, for their praise is in every mouth. We come to notice their faith, and on this we remark that, “They have always regarded the Papal Church as the Antichrist: the Babylon of the Apocalypse.” ( page 108 )


CHRIST AND ANTICHRIST
by Samuel J. Cassels

The holy wars against the Waldenses will next claim our attention. Some writers suppose that the Waldenses took their name and origin from Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant of Lyons. Others, however, place their origin in a much more remote antiquity. The opinion of Beza was, that Peter of Lyons derived his name Waldo, or Valdo, from the Waldenses. “According to other writers,” says Hallam, “the original Waldenses were a race of uncorrupted shepherds, who, in the valleys of the Alps, had shaken off, or perhaps never learned, the system of superstition on which the Catholic church depended for its ascendency.”13 Shoberl traces their origin to Claude, Bishop of Turin, who, when image-worship was introduced, in the beginning of the eighth century, made a bold stand against both this and several other corruptions of the Romish church. Here, amid the valleys of Piedmont, had these truly primitive and Christian people lived for centuries, separated by their locality from the rest of the world, and unobserved by even the eye of popish jealousy. ( pages 199&200 )


HISTORY OF THE
ANCIENT CHRISTIANS
by Jean Paul Perrin

Among these Witnesses, the first that we distinctly read of were the Pauliclans. They rose about A.D. 660. A very interesting account of these pious people is given in Milner’s Ecclesiastical History of the seventh century; and a still more extended and distinct account, in the Revelation Adam Blair’s History of the Waldenses, Book I. chapter I.

While the Paulicians were still maintaining their faithful testimony, the Waldenses arose; or, rather more probably, these two denominations had a common origin, and a common faith. The name Waldenses, the most common and popular one of these humble and devoted people, was evidently derived - not from Peter Waldo, but from the place of their abode. The following statement of the learned and ingenious Robert Robinson, a divine of Cambridge, in England, who died more than half a century ago, places the origin of this name in what I suppose to be the true light.

“From the Latin, Vallis, came the English, valley; the French and Spanish, valle; the Italian, valdesi; the Low Dutch, valleye; the Provencal, vaux, vaudais; the ecclesiastical Vallenses, Valdenses, Ualdenses, and Waldenses. The words simply signify vallies, - the inhabitants of vallies, and no more. It happened that the inhabitants of the Pyrenees did not profess the Catholic faith. It fell out also that the inhabitants of the rallies about the Alps did not embrace that faith. It happened, moreover, in the ninth century, that one Valdo, a friend and counselor of Berengarius, and a man of eminence, who had many followers, did not approve of the Papal discipline and doctrine. And it came to pass, about an hundred and thirty years after, that a rich merchant of Lyons, who was called Valdus, because he received his religious opinions from the inhabitants of the vallies, openly disavowed the Roman religion, supported many to teach the doctrines believed in the vallies, and became the instrument of the conversion of great numbers. All these people were called WALDENSES."


The same people, that is, a people who substantially agreed in faith and practice, were called by different names derived from their places of residence; from the names of distinguished leaders; and from a variety of minor peculiarities: - as Albigenses, from their principal seat being in the neighborhood of Alby, in Francs; Bohemian Brethren, from their being found in large numbers, in Bohemia; Catbari, or Puritans, from their opposition to the corruptions of the Papacy; Leonisis, or Poor men of Lyons, from their chief residence in the city of Lyons; Petrobrussians, Arnoldists, and Henricians, from the names of distinguished ministers and leaders; and a variety of other appellations, familiar to the students of ecclesiastical history. These names, however, will be found so fully enumerated and explained in the History itself, which I here recommend, that further remark upon them here is altogether unnecessary. ( pages 5&6 )

They renounced the Church of Rome as mystical Babylon, abhorred the Pope as the “Man of Sin,” and rejected all the traditions of the Papacy as of no authority among Christians. They held that there were only two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; that the other five, so named by the Romanists, have no just title to be called sacraments; and that of the five, three, viz. confirmation, penance, and extreme unction, have no foundation whatever in the word of God. ( page 7 )


MILLER’S CHURCH HISTORY
by Andrew Miller


VAUDOIS, ALBIGENSES, WALDENSES
The origin of the Western sectaries, so-called, under the common name of Waldenses, has been the subject of much controversy. One class of writers, favorable to Romanism, with the view of involving them in the common charge of Manicheism, have endeavored to prove that their opinions were of Eastern, or Paulician origin; while the opposite party affirm that they were free from the Manicheart error, and that they have been the inheritors and maintainers, from father to son, of a pure and scriptural Christianity, from the time of Constantine, if not from the days of the apostles. But as it is not so much our object at present to trace the history of these ancient, simple, and devoted christian people, as to bring out another feature of the papacy under Innocent, in its most fully expressed blasphemy and cruelty; we will merely satisfy the reader as to who these people were, and as to the scene of their slaughter. “The terms,” says Dr. Gilly, “Vaudois in French, Vallenses in Latin, Valdisi in Italian, and Waldenses in English ecclesiastical history, signifying nothing more or less than ‘men of the valleys;’ and as the valleys of Piedmont have had the honor of producing a race of people who have remained true to the faith introduced by the first missionaries who preached Christianity in those regions, the synonyms have been adopted as the distinguishing names of a religious community, faithful to the primitive creed, and free from the corruptions of the church of Rome.”
The Albigenses, though essentially one with the Waldenses in matters of faith, were so called because the greater part of Narbonnese-Gaul which they inhabited was called Albigesium, or from Albi, a town in Languedoc. The Alps separated the two communities. God found an asylum for the Waldenses in the valleys on the eastern side, and for the Albigenses in the valleys on the western side, of that great mountain range, where they were preserved and fortified for many centuries.
PETER WALDO From a similarity of names, Peter Valdo, or Waldo, the reformer of Lyons, has frequently been spoken of as the first founder of the Waldensian sect. This we think a mistake, but one easily made, and one which the Romanists eagerly improved as an argument against their antiquity, and one which has been adopted by most of the general histories. But Mr. Elliot, in his “Horae Apocalypticae,” and those mentioned in the note above, have examined the question with great patience and research, and, we believe, clearly established the conclusion of the orthodoxy and the antiquity of the “men of the valleys.”3 ( Chap. 25 page 607 )


A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE
BAPTIST DENOMINATION
VOLUME 1 by David Benedict


Sylvester was bishop of Rome in the reign of Constantine, and Catholics pretend that he was the thirty-fourth in succession. In the days of Sylvester, it is believed, that the people, who were afterwards called Waldenses, began to separate from the church, which had become a tool of state, and was fast plunging into error and superstition. (chap.1 page 17)

The Euchites among the Greeks were similar to the Waldenses or Waldensians among the Romans. The terms, Waldenses, Valenses or Vadois (all of the same import) signify the people of the valleys, and were applied in early times to those, who, tired of tyranny, pomp, and oppression, retired to obscure retreats where they might enjoy gospel purity and religious freedom. And in the end, all of their sentiments, and many who were not, were called Waldenses, whether they dwelt in rallies or on mountains, in cities or in caves: Just as a sect of christians are called Moravians, whether they dwell in Moravia, in England, in Greenland, or the West-India Islands. And the terms Euchites and Waldenses answered to that of Non-conformist in England, which every reader will understand. Among the English non-conformists, are comprehended Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, and so on. And so among the Greek Euchites and the Roman Waldenses, were a great variety of sects, who maintained a great diversity of opinions and practices, and among them were many who would be called Baptists, as we shall attempt to show in the next chapter but one. (page 33)


THE HISTORY OF THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH
VOL. 1 by William Jones


Eminent among these witnesses for the truth in times of general apostacy, stand the Waldenses. They first appear prominent in history in the twelfth century. Long before that, no doubt, in the valleys of the Alps, they had maintained the true religion, having retreated from the corruptions and persecutions of the Romish church. They had remained there in comparative quietude, perhaps esteemed too insignificant for molestation, until in the century named the papal hierarchy was startled at the wide prevalence and popularity of their doctrine, and hence felt it necessary to employ all the infernal machinery of persecution for their destruction. Their missionaries had gone into all the world, and then, in almost all the countries of Europe, as if by one consent, there started up simultaneously, great numbers of individuals who denounced the supremacy of the Pope, condemned the corruptions and venality of the priesthood, and boldly proclaimed that the church of Rome was the “whore of Babylon” predicted in the Apocalypse-they declared that Christ was the only head of the church, and that the Bible was the only infallible rule of faith and practice. These confessors obtained different names-from their localities, from their principal men, from some circumstances in their manner or some peculiarity in their doctrine, and from the wit and malice of their enemies. The most common names, however, by which they were called, were those of Waldenses and Albigenses-the former derived from the valleys of the Alps, and the other from the town of Albi, two places where for a long time their doctrine most flourished.

But these names are used with great latitude by historians. The papal writers from the twelfth to the sixteenth century - to the Reformation- often include under these names, and sometimes under one of them, all the dissenters from the church of Rome, however different and distinct in sentiment and practice; as they now call all denominations Protestants who do not admit the infallibility of their church. This fact must be kept prominently in view by all who would draw the proper distinctions among those who, in that age, in divers countries and for different causes, were marshaled in battle array against the papal dominion. Some were opposed merely to the supremacy of the Pope, others sought simply to reform the manners of the clergy. Here was a party that rejected the mummeries of the mass, or laughed at the folly of transubstantiation; and there was a party that abhorred the adoration of images, repudiated the intercession of saints and angels, refused homage to dead men’s bones, contemned penances and pilgrimages, and despised and ridiculed all the absurd superstitions and absurd practices under which the duped and deluded millions were crushed by a designing priesthood. Such persons were Reformers. They esteemed the church of Rome to be the church of Christ in a state of apostacy. They wished to purge her of pollution, and restore her to primitive purity and excellence. But Popery will not be reformed. The constituents of its being are impurity and sin. Hence its Reformers were denounced as heretics, fit only for chains and death; and hence, to call down upon them general odium, and to excuse and justify their persecution, they were denominated Waldenses and Albigenses-a peple who, it was notorious, declared the Pope to be the “son of perdition,” and his church “the whore of Babylon.” The true Waldenses and Albigenses were no Reformers of the Papism. They disclaimed all connection and kindredship with the church of Rome-denounced her ministers and ordinances as those of darkness; and roundly asserted that the church of Christ was never included within her precincts or befouled with her abominations. ( pages 3,4&5 )


TRUTH TRIUMPHANT
by Benjamin George Wilkinson
CHAPTER 6

VIGILANTIUS, LEADER OF THE WALDENSES
The paganism which so soon began to avenge itself by creeping into the doctrines and practices of the early church has never been altogether eradicated, and has always been ready to become the nucleus of heresy or corruption when faith declined or ardor cooled.1 THE earliest leader of prominence among the noble Waldenses in northern Italy and southern France is Vigilantius (A.D. 364-408). By some he has been accounted the first supreme director of the church of the Waldenses.In his time the protests against the introduction of pagan practices into
primitive Christianity swelled into a revolution. Then it was that the throngs who desired to maintain the faith once delivered to the saints in northern Italy and southwestern France were welded into an organized system. Desiring truth based on the Bible only, those who refused to follow the superstitious novelties being brought into the church were greatly influenced by the clear-cut scriptural teachings of Vigilantius. Undoubtedly Patrick of Ireland, who was at that same time enlarging the Irish Church, was stirred by the reforms taking place in south central Europe.


CHAPTER 15
EARLY WALDENSIAN HEROES
Whenever, therefore, in the following sketches, the terms Berengarians, Petrobrusians, Henricians, Arnoldists, Waldenses, Albigenses, Leonists, or the poor men of Lyons, Lollards, Cathari, etc, occur, it must be understood that they intend a people, who agreed in certain leading principles, however they might differ in some smaller matters, and that all of them were by the Catholics comprehended under the general name of Waldenses.1 Of them Sir James Mackintosh writes:
With the dawn of history, we discover some simple Christians in the valleys of the Alps, where they still exist under the ancient name of Vaudois, who by the light of the New Testament saw the extraordinary contrast between the purity of primitive times and the vices of the gorgeous and imperial hierarchy which surrounded them.” page 2


After Emperor Constantine had declared (A.D. 325) which of the Christian churches he recognized, and had decreed that the Roman world must conform to his decision, there came a straggle between the Christians who refused to compromise the teachings of the New Testament and those who were ready to accept the traditions of men. Mosheim declares: The ancient Britons and Scots could not be moved, for a long time, either by the threats or the promises of the papal legates, to subject themselves to the Roman decrees and laws; as is abundantly testified by Beda. The Gauls and the Spaniards, as no one can deny, attributed only so much authority to the pontiff, as they supposed would be for their own advantage. Nor in Italy itself, could he make the bishop of Ravenna and others bow obsequiously to his will. And of private individuals, there were many who expressed openly their detestation of his vices and his greediness of power. Nor are those destitute of arguments who assert, that the Waldenses, even in this age [seventh century], had fixed their residence in the valleys of Piedmont, and inveighed freely against Roman domination.” 4 ( pages 7&8 )

WALDENSES DATE BACK TO THE APOSTLES
The connection between the Waldenses, the Albigenses, and other believers in the New Testament and the primitive Christians of Western Europe is explained by Voltaire thus:
Auricular confession was not received so late as the eighth and ninth centuries in the countries beyond the Loire, in Languedoc and the Alps - Alcuin complains of this in his letters. The inhabitants of those countries appear to have always had an inclination to abide by the customs of the primitive church, and to reject the tenets and customs which the church in its more flourishing state judged convenient to adopt. Those who were called Manichaeans, and those who were afterward named Albigenses, Vaudois, Lollards, and who appeared so often under different names, were remnants of the first Gaulish Christians, who were attached to several ancient customs, which the Church of Rome thought proper to alter afterward.”6 For nearly two hundred years following the death of the apostles, the process of separation went on between these two classes of church members until the open rupture came. In the year 325 the first world council of the church was held at Nicaea, and at that time Sylvester was given great recognition as bishop of Rome. It is from the time of this Roman bishop that the Waldenses date their exclusion of the papal party from their communion. As the church historian Neander says: But it was not without some foundation of truth that the Waldenses of this period asserted the high antiquity of their sect, and maintained that from the time of the secularization of the church - that is, as they believed, from the time of Constantine’s gift to the Roman bishop Silvester [A.D. 314 - 336] - such an opposition as finally broke forth in them, had been existing all along.”7

These Christians of the Alps and Pyrenees have been called Waldenses from the Italian word for “valleys,” and where they spread over into France, they have been called Vaudois, a French word meaning “inhabitants of the valleys” in a certain province. Many writers constantly call them Vaudois. The enemies of this branch of the Church in the Wilderness have endeavored to confuse their history by tracing to a wrong source the origin of the name, Waldenses. They seek to connect its beginnings with Peter Waldo, an opulent merchant of Lyons, France, who came into notice about 1175. The story of this remarkable man commands a worthy niche in the temple of events. However, there is nothing in the original or the earliest documents of the Waldenses - their histories, poems, and confessions of faith - which can be traced to him or which make any mention of him.


Turning back the pages of history six hundred years before Peter Waldo, there is even a more famous name connected with the Waldenses. This leader was Vigilantius (or, Vigilantius Leo). He could be looked upon as a Spaniard, since the people of his regions were one in practically all points with those of northern Spain. Vigilantius took his stand against the new relapses into paganism. From these apostatizing tendencies the Christians of northern Italy, northern Spain, and southern France held aloof. The story of Vigilantius and how he came to identify himself with this region is told in another chapter.9 From connections with him, this people were for centuries called Leonists, as well as Waldenses and Vaudois. Reinerius Saccho, an officer of the Inquisition (c. A.D. 1250), wrote a treatise against the Waldenses which explains their early origin. ( page 8 )

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

[Kamoroso]

This writer contends that the great city we are discussing is none other than Rome, and the harlot, is none other than the Church of Rome. For she is the original form of apostate Christianity, that first abandoned the power of the Holy Spirit, in favor of the power of the state. She leaned on the latter, because she had already lost the former. Through compromise, and mixing pagan practices with the true religion, which is an abomination to God, she lost the power of the Holy Spirit, and thus strove for the power of the state.

It is not such a simple thing as to say that the Church of Rome was that apostate Christian institution which first sought the power of the state, over the power of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, she is the result of apostate Christianity seeking the power of the state, because she had lost the power of the Holy Spirit. Among the various apostate Christian entities of the day, she is the one who gained the favor of the state, to the furtherance of her ends. The struggle between these various groups of apostate Christians, requires to much detail to address. The observation of which, would convince any true Christian, of their fallen state. The purpose of the following is to establish the fact of her relations, and empowerment, with, and by the kings of this earth.

In any case, Constantine, the first supposed Christian emperor of the Roman empire, was the first to give apostate Christianity the power of the state. He did thus, by enacting the first Sunday law. Observe the following.

The text of Constantine's Sunday Law of 321 A.D. is :
"One the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits because it often happens that another day is not suitable for gain-sowing or vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them the second time." Codex Justinianus, lib. 3, tit. 12, 3; translated in History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff, D.D., (7-vol.ed.) Vol. III, p.380. New York, 1884

Dr. A.Chr. Bang says regarding this Law :
"This Sunday law constituted no real favoratism to Christianity..... It is evident from all his statuatory provisions that the Emperor during the time 313-323 with full consciousness has sought the realisation of his religeous aim: the amalgamation of heathenism and Christianity." Kirken og Romerstaten (The Church and the Roman State) p.256. Christiania, 1879

In A.D. 321, to please the bishops of the Catholic Church, he issued an edict commanding judges, townspeople, and mechanics to rest on Sunday. Yet in this also his paganism was still manifest, as the edict required rest on "the venerable day of the sun," and "enjoined the observance, or rather forbade the public desecration, of Sunday, not under the name of Sabbatum, or Dies Domini, but under its old astrological and heathen title, Dies Solis , familiar to all his subjects, so that the law was as applicable to the worshipers of Hercules, Apollo, and Mithras, as to the Christians." (History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3, sec. 75, par. 5.-Schaff.) ( The Great Empires of Prophecy by Alonzo Jones page 391 )

In the above quotes, we see some of the identifying marks of Babylon being fulfilled. The establishment of the first Sunday law came about through the illicit relationship of those who claimed to be God’s people, with the kings of the earth, and the false religious practices of the pagan religions of the nations of these kings. In Constantine, we find the first Emperor of Rome to begin committing fornication with the Mother of Harlots, that is Babylon. Let’s look at some more from A.T. Jones.

Then came Constantine, the best imperial representative of the new paganism, and the most devout worshiper of the sun as the supreme and universal deity, with the avowed purpose, as expressed in his own words, "First to bring the diverse judgments formed by all nations respecting the Deity to a condition, as it were, of settled uniformity." In Constantine the new paganism met its ideal, and the New Platonism - the apostate, paganized, sun-worshiping form of Christianity - met its long-wished-for instrument. In him the two streams met. In him the aspiration of Elagabalus, the hope of Ammonius Saccas and Clement, of Plotinus and Origen, and the ambition of the perverse-minded, self-exalted bishops, were all realized and accomplished - a new, imperial, and universal religion was created.
Therefore, "the reign of Constantine the Great forms one of the epochs in the history of the world. It is the era of the dissolution of the Roman Empire; the commencement, or rather consolidation, of a kind of Eastern despotism, with a new capital, a new patriciate, a new constitution, a new financial system, a new, though as yet imperfect, jurisprudence, and, finally, a new religion." ( Milman - History of Christianity, book 3, chap. 1, par. 1 )
The epoch thus formed was the epoch of the papacy; and the new religion thus created was the PAPAL RELIGION. ( The Great Empires of Prophecy by Alonzo Jones page 361 )

By instituting the first Sunday laws, Constantine gave the Church of Rome the power of the state. For this law commanded all, those in, and out of the faith, to observe this apostate Christian institution. This was just some of the beginnings of the Church of Rome’s illicit relationships with the kings, and pagan religions of this world. Though she claims to have been established by Christ, through the first Pope, Peter, she was really established through the power of the kings of this earth. It was these with whom she committed spiritual adultery, and fornication. Let’s look at some more historical facts confirming these truths found in the book The Two Republics, by A. T. Jones.

“The Catholic Church demanded assistance in her ambitious aim to make her power and authority absolute over all; and for Constantine’s purposes it was essential that the church should be a unit. These two considerations combined to produce results both immediate and remote, that proved a curse to the time then present and to ages to follow. The immediate result was that Constantine had no sooner compassed the destruction of Licinius in A.D. 323, than he issued an edict against the Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians, Cataphrygians, and “all who devised and supported heresies by means of private assemblies,” denouncing them and their heresies, and commanding them all to enter the Catholic Church. The edict runs as follows: —

“Victor Constantinus Maximus Augustus, to the heretics: Understand now, by this present statute, ye Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians, ye who are called Cataphrygians, and all ye who devise and support heresies by means of your private assemblies, with what a tissue of falsehood and vanity, with what destructive and venomous errors, your doctrines are inseparably interwoven; so that through you the healthy soul is stricken with disease, and the living becomes the prey of everlasting death. Ye haters and enemies of truth and life, in league with destruction: All your counsels are opposed to the truth, but familiar with deeds of baseness; fit subjects for the fabulous follies of the stage: and by these ye frame falsehoods, oppress the innocent, and withhold the light from them that believe. Ever trespassing under the mask of godliness, ye fill all things with defilement: ye pierce the pure and guileless conscience with deadly wounds, while ye withdraw, one may almost say, the very light of day from the eyes of men. But why should I particularize, when to speak of your criminality as it deserves, demands more time and leisure than I can give? For so long and unmeasured is the catalogue of your offenses, so hateful and altogether atrocious are they, that a single day would not suffice to recount them all. And indeed it is well to turn one’s ears and eyes from such a subject, lest by a description of each particular evil, the pure sincerity and freshness of one’s own faith be impaired. Why then do I still bear with such abounding evil; especially since this protracted clemency is the cause that some who were sound are become tainted with this pestilent disease? Why not at once strike, as it were, at the root of so great a mischief by a public manifestation of displeasure?
“Forasmuch, then, as it is no longer possible to bear with your pernicious errors, we give warning by this present statute that none of you henceforth presume to assemble yourselves together. We have directed, accordingly, that you be deprived of all the houses in which you are accustomed to hold your assemblies: and our care in this respect extends so far as to forbid the holding of your superstitious and senseless meetings, not in public merely, but in any private house or place whatsoever. Let those of you, therefore, who are desirous of embracing the true and pure religion, take the far better course of entering the Catholic Church, and uniting with it in holy fellowship, whereby you will be enabled to arrive at the knowledge of the truth. In any case, the delusions of your perverted understandings must entirely cease to mingle with and mar the felicity of our present times; I mean the impious and wretched doublemindedness of heretics and schismatics. For it is an object worthy of that prosperity which we enjoy through the favor of God, to endeavor to bring back those who in time past were living in the hope of future blessing, from all irregularity and error, to the right path, from darkness to light, from vanity to truth, from death to salvation. And in order that this remedy may be applied with effectual power, we have commanded (as before said), that you be positively deprived of every gathering point for your superstitious meetings; I mean all the houses of prayer (if such be worthy of the name) which belong to heretics, and that these be made over without delay to the Catholic Church; that any other places be confiscated to the public service, and no facility whatever be left for any future gathering; in order that from this day forward none of your unlawful assemblies may presume to appear in any public or private place. Let this edict be made public.” ( Eusebius’s- “Life of Constantine,” book 3, chaps. 64, 65. )


Some of the penal regulations of this edict “were copied from the edicts of Diocletian; and this method of conversion was applauded by the same bishops who had felt the hand of oppression, and had pleaded for the rights of humanity.” ( Gibbon- “Decline and Fall,” chap. 21, par. 1. )


As is obvious from the above edict, the establishment of the Church of Rome had nothing to do with the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To the contrary, she was established through the power of the state, not the power of the Holy Spirit. The emperor that established her power did so for purely political reasons, the establishment of his authority above all civil, or religious entities of the day.

As the emperor of the Rome, Constantine was already the head of all the pagan religions of that empire, and was himself a devout worshipper of the sun. His supposed conversion to Christianity was nothing more than a political ploy to be the head of this new religion also. Thus his purpose was, as already stated, "First to bring the diverse judgments formed by all nations respecting the Deity to a condition, as it were, of settled uniformity." This settled uniformity was to be under his authority, and complete control. Therefore, the establishment of the Church of Rome was brought about by the selfish motives, of a pagan emperor who would embrace Christianity, as a means of obtaining his goal. Not to mention the selfish motives, and ambitions of apostate Christians who were themselves seeking power, and prestige.

Apostate Christianity, having entered the stage of the politics of this world, has never ceased to be entangled in the same. She is ever entrenched in the political strife, struggles for supremacy, and unquenchable thirst for power of the same. The Church of Rome is the Mother of all supposed Christian institutions which have become more concerned with the politics of this world, and its struggles for power, than the fulfilling of the gospel commission. “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” ( Matt. 24:14 )

The following are more historical quotes, and facts regarding the establishment, or re-establishment of the Church of Rome’s authority. As a political entity of this world, her authority, and influence have continually, and are continually being challenged by others of the same. The history of her political struggles, and alliances with the kings of this earth, are sufficient proof that she is the Mother Of Harlots, who commits fornication with the kings of the earth. Thus, this identifying mark is fulfilled in her history. Of the many books that could be studied, for a more detailed history of her politics, the following are recommended by the writer. The Great Empires of Prophecy, and The Two Republics, both written by Alonzo Jones.


Gratian was but the tool of the bishops. Ambrose was at that time bishop of Milan, and never was episcopal ambition more arrogantly asserted than in that insolent prelate. Soon the mind of the bishop asserted the supremacy over that of the boy emperor, and Ambrose “wielded at his will the weak and irresolute Gratian.” ( Milman- “History of Christianity,” book 3, chap. 8, par. 28. )

But above all things else that Gratian did, that which redounded most to the glory of the Catholic Church was his choice of Theodosius as associate emperor. Valens was killed in a battle with the Goths, A.D. 378. A stronger hand than that of a youth of nineteen was required to hold the reins of government in the East. In the establishment of the Catholic Church, the place of Theodosius is second only to that of Constantine. About the beginning of the year 380 he was baptized by the Catholic bishop of Thessalonica, and immediately afterward he issued the following edict: —

“It is our pleasure that the nations which are governed by our clemency and moderation, should steadfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by St. Peter to the Romans, which faithful tradition has preserved, and which is now professed by the pontiff Damasus, and by Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the discipline of the apostles, and the doctrine of the gospel, let us believe the sole deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: under an equal majesty, and a pious Trinity. We authorize the followers of this doctrine to assume the title of Catholic Christians; and as we judge that all others are extravagant madmen, we brand them with the infamous name of “heretics,” and declare that their conventicles shall no longer usurp the respectable appellation of churches. Besides the condemnation of divine justice, they must expect to suffer the severe penalties which our authority, guided by heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict upon them.” ( Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall,” chap. 27, par. 6. )


This law was issued in the names of the three emperors, Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius. “Thus the religion of the whole Roman world was enacted by two feeble boys and a rude Spanish soldier.” ( Milman- “History of Christianity,” book 3, chap. 9, par. 1. )

In the supremacy of the papacy, Justinian holds the same place as does Constantine and Theodosius in the establishment of the Catholic Church. “Among the titles of greatness, the name ‘Pious’ was most pleasing to his ears; to promote the temporal and spiritual interests of the church was the serious business of his life; and the duty of father of his country was often sacrificed to that of defender of the faith.” ( Gibbon - “Decline and Fall,” chap. xlvii, par. 23. )

“The emperor Justinian unites in himself the most opposite vices, — insatiable rapacity
and lavish prodigality, intense pride and contemptible weakness, unmeasured ambition and dastardly cowardice.... In the Christian emperor, seem to meet the crimes of those who won or secured their empire by assassination of all whom they feared, the passion for public diversions without the accomplishments of Nero or the brute strength of Commodus, the dotage of Claudius.” ( Milman - “History of Latin Christianity,” book 3, chap. 4, par. 2. )


In the year 532, Justinian issued an edict declaring his intention “to unite all men in one faith.” Whether they were Jews, Gentiles, or Christians, all who did not within three months profess and embrace the Catholic faith, were by the edict “declared infamous, and as such excluded from all employments both civil and military; rendered incapable of leaving anything by will; and all their estates confiscated, whether real or personal.” As a result of this cruel edict, “Great numbers were driven from their habitations with their wives and children, stripped and naked. Others betook themselves to flight, carrying with them what they could conceal, for their support and maintenance; but they were plundered of what little they had, and many of them inhumanly massacred.” ( Bower - “History of the Popes,” Boniface 2,
par. 2. )


THE CODE OF OUR LORD
THE MOST SACRED EMPEROR JUSTINIAN.
SECOND EDITION.

BOOK 1.
________________________________________

TITLE 1.
CONCERNING THE MOST EXALTED TRINITY AND THE
CATHOLIC FAITH AND PROVIDING THAT NO ONE
SHALL DARE TO PUBLICLY OPPOSE THEM.
1. The Emperors Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius to the people of the City of Constantinople.
We desire that all peoples subject to Our benign Empire shall live under the same religion that the Divine Peter, the Apostle, gave to the Romans, and which the said religion declares was introduced by himself, and which it is well known that the Pontiff Damascus, and Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic sanctity, embraced; that is to say, in accordance with the rules of apostolic discipline and the evangelical doctrine, we should believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit constitute a single Deity, endowed with equal majesty, and united in the Holy Trinity.
(1) We order all those who follow this law to assume the name of Catholic Christians, and considering others as demented and insane, We order that they shall bear the infamy of heresy; and when the Divine vengeance which they merit has been appeased, they shall afterwards be punished in accordance with Our resentment, which we have acquired from the judgment of Heaven.
Dated at Thessalonica, on the third of the Kalends of March, during the Consulate of Gratian, Consul for the fifth time, and Theodosius.
2. The Same Emperors to Eutropius, Praetorian Prefect.
Let no place be afforded to heretics for the conduct of their ceremonies, and let no occasion be offered for them to display the insanity of their obstinate minds. Let all persons know that if any privilege has been fraudulently obtained by means of any rescript whatsoever, by persons of this kind, it will not be valid. Let all bodies of heretics be prevented from holding unlawful assemblies, and let the name of the only and the greatest God be celebrated everywhere, and let the observance of the Nicene Creed, recently transmitted to Our ancestors, and firmly established by the testimony and practice of Divine Religion, always remain secure.
(1) Moreover, he who is an adherent of the Nicene Faith, and a true believer in the Catholic religion, should be understood to be one [pg. 10] who believes that Almighty God and Christ, the son of God, are one person, God of God, Light of Light; and let no one, by rejection, dishonor the Holy Spirit, whom we expect, and have received from the Supreme Parent of all things, in whom the sentiment of a pure and undefiled faith flourishes, as well as the belief in the undivided substance of a Holy Trinity, which true believers indicate by the Greek word These things, indeed do not require further proof, and should be respected.
(2) Let those who do not accept those doctrines cease to apply the name of true religion to their fraudulent belief; and let them be branded with their open crimes, and, having been removed from the threshhold of all churches, be utterly excluded from them, as We forbid all heretics to hold unlawful assemblies within cities. If, however, any seditious outbreak should be attempted, We order them to be driven outside the the walls of the City, with relentless violence, and We direct that all Catholic Churches, throughout the entire world, shall be placed under the control of the orthodox bishops who have embraced the Nicene Creed.
Given at Constantinople, on the fourth of the ides of January, under the Consulate of Flavius Eucharius and Flavius Syagrius.
3. The Emperor Martian to Palladius, Praetorian Prefect.
No one, whether he belongs to the clergy, the army, or to any other condition of men, shall, with a view to causing a tumult and giving occasion to treachery, attempt to discuss the Christian religion publicly in the presence of an assembled and listening crowd; for he commits an injury against the most reverend Synod who publicly contradicts what has once been decided and properly established; as those matters relative to the Christian faith have been settled by the priests who met at Chalcedony by Our order, and are known to be in conformity with the apostolic explanations and conclusions of the three hundred and eight Holy Fathers assembled in Nicea, and the hundred and fifty who met in this Imperial City; for the violators of this law shall not go unpunished, because they not only oppose the true faith, but they also profane its venerated mysteries by engaging in contests of this kind with Jews and Pagans. Therefore, if any person who has ventured to publicly discuss religious matters is a member of the clergy, he shall be removed from his order; if he is a member of the army, he shall be degraded; and any others who are guilty of this offence, who are freemen, shall be banished from this most Sacred City, and shall be subjected to the punishment prescribed by law according to the power of the court; and if they are slaves, they shall undergo severest penalty.
Given at Constantinople, on the eighth of the Ides of February, under the consulship of Patricius.
4. John, Bishop of the City of Rome, to his most Illustrious and Merciful Son Justinian.
Among the conspicuous reasons for praising your wisdom and gentleness, Most Christian of Emperors, and one which radiates light [pg. 11]as a star, is the fact that through love of the Faith, and actuated by zeal for charity, you, learned in ecclesiastical discipline, have preserved reverence for the See of Rome, and have subjected all things to its authority, and have given it unity. The following precept was communicated to its founder, that is to say, the first of the Apostles, by the mouth of the Lord, namely: "Feed my lambs."
This See is indeed the head of all churches, as the rules of the Fathers and the decrees of the Emperors assert, and the words of your most reverend piety testify. It is therefore claimed that what the Scriptures state, namely, "By Me Kings reign, and the Powers dispense justice;" will be accomplished in you. For there is nothing which shines with a more brilliant lustre than genuine faith when displayed by a prince, since there is nothing which prevents destruction as true religion does, for as both of them have reference to the Author of Life and Light, they disperse darkness and prevent apostasy. Wherefore, Most Glorious of Princes, the Divine Power is implored by the prayers of all to preserve your piety in this ardor for the Faith, in this devotion of your mind, and in this zeal for true religion, without failure, during your entire existence. For we believe that this is for the benefit of the Holy Churches, as it was written, "The king rules with his lips," and again, "The heart of the King is in the hand of God, and it will incline to whatever side God wishes"; that is to say, that He may confirm your empire, and maintain your kingdoms for the peace of the Church and the unity of religion; guard their authority, and preserve him in that sublime tranquillity which is so grateful to him; and no small change is granted by the Divine Power through whose agency a divided church is not afflicted by any griefs or subject to any reproaches. For it is written, "A just king, who is upon his throne, has no reason to apprehend any misfortune."
We have received with all due respect the evidences of your serenity, through Hypatius and Demetrius, most holy men, my brothers and fellow-bishops, from whose statements we have learned that you have promulgated an Edict addressed to your faithful people, and dictated by your love of the Faith, for the purpose of overthrowing the designs of heretics, which is in accordance with the evangelical tenets, and which we have confirmed by our authority with the consent of our brethren and fellow bishops, for the reason that it is in conformity with the apostolic doctrine.
The following is the text of the letter of the Emperor Justinian, Victorious, Pious, Happy, Renowned, Triumphant, always Augustus, to John, Patriarch, and most Holy Archbishop of the fair City of Rome:
With honor to the Apostolic See, and to your Holiness, which is, and always has been remembered in Our prayers, both now and formerly, and honoring your happiness, as is proper in the case of one who is considered as a father, We hasten to bring to the knowledge of Your Holiness everything relating to the condition of the Church, as We have always had the greatest desire to preserve the unity of your Apostolic See, and the condition of the Holy Churches of God, as they [pg. 12] exist at the present time, that they may remain without disturbance or opposition. Therefore, We have exerted Ourselves to unite all the priests of the East and subject them to the See of Your Holiness, and hence the questions which have at present arisen, although they are manifest and free from doubt, and according to the doctrines of your Apostolic See, are constantly firmly observed and preached by all priests, We have still considered it necessary that they should be brought to the attention of Your Holiness. For we do not suffer anything which has reference to the state of the Church, even though what causes difficulty may be clear and free from doubt, to be discussed without being brought to the notice of Your Holiness, because you are the head of all the Holy Churches, for We shall exert Ourselves in every way (as has already been stated), to increase the honor and authority of your See.
________________________________________
[pg. 125]
One Hundred and Thirty-First New Constitution.
The Emperor Justinian to Peter, Most Glorious Imperial Praetorian Prefect.
PREFACE.
We enact the present law with reference to ecclesiastical rules and privileges and other subjects in which holy churches and religious establishments are intrusted.
Chapter I.
Concerning Four Holy Councils.
Therefore We order that the sacred, ecclesiastical rules which were adopted and confirmed by the four Holy Councils, that is to say, that of the three hundred and eighteen bishops held at Nicea, that of the one hundred and fifty bishops held at Constantinople, the first one of Ephesus, where Nestorius was condemned, and the one assembled at Chalcedon, where Eutyches and Nestorius were anathematized, shall be considered as laws. We accept the dogmas of these four Councils as sacred writings, and observe their rules as legally effective.
Chapter II.
Concerning The Precedence of Partriarchs.
Hence, in accordance with the provisions of these Councils, We order that the Most Holy Pope of ancient Rome shall hold the first rank of all the Pontiffs, but the Most Blessed Archbishop of Constantinople, or New Rome, shall occupy the second place after the Holy Apostolic See of ancient Rome, which shall take precedence over all other sees.
________________________________________
Source: Corpus Juris Civilis (The Civil Law, the Code of Justinian), by S.P. Scott, A.M., published by the Central Trust Company, Cincinnati, copyright 1932, Volume 12 [of 17], pages 9-12, 125.

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

[D28guy]

Keith,

Very interesting reading indeed. Thanks for posting it.

God bless,

Mike

[Ed Edwards]

Dead men don't write histories.
Dead men don't form earthly churches.
The RCC killed those whose doctrines
conflicted the RCC.
Dead men don't write histories.
Dead men don't form earthly churches.

[Bro. James]

"Who and Where"-- NT Testament Assemblies--4th cent:

Jesus told his disciples(first assembly): "You will be witnesses of me in Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth." See Acts 1:1-9. See also Acts 8:1-12. This is the "who and where' of the first century.

That these scriptures were fulfilled is evident. The scripture refers to churches in specific places: Jerusalem, Samaria, Corinth, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Galatia, Philippi, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea--to name a few. These were real assemblies with real people in real places.

The specifics(x-y coordinates)in the 4th century may vary, but the point is: the true assemblies have been in every century--along with the "unlawful" assemblies. This is all fulfulment of scripture: "On this rock, I will build my assembly, the gates of hell shall not prevail", "I will never leave you nor forsake you"--there are many more.

To say that the apostates of the 4th cent who were "propped" by the Roman Empire were the true assemblies of God, is a denial of the promises of God.

"Let God be found true--
And every man--a liar."

Selah,

Bro. James

[BobRyan]

Originally posted by Ed Edwards:
[QB] Dead men don't write histories.
Dead men don't form earthly churches.
The RCC killed those whose doctrines
conflicted the RCC.
True - but Matt seems focused on trying to find out if the RCC was successfull in "exterminating ALL" who opposed them or where "some" successful in preserving the truth of the Gospel. And if so - were they ALSO successful at recording history in such a way as to have it preserved OUTSIDE of the RCC monks and libraries.


In Christ,

Bob

[BobRyan]

Keith - those were some great quotes!

[Bro. James]

That the New Testament Assembly will be in every generation is proven by Scripture.

That the New Testament Assembly will be persecuted is proven by Scripture.

The above is corroborated(not that it needs to be) by secular history--not necessarily in the same verbiage. "Historic gems" are gleaned from the writings of the enemies of Christ--the wolves in sheeps clothing. Look for the heretics--the New Testament Churches are usually found there. (not all heretics are true followers)

One of the proofs of the above is gleaned from the fact that translations of the scripture headed for the common man were banned and burned. This is part of the fulfillment of Mt. 16:18--the gates of Hell assailing the New Testament Church. Satan does not want the truth going out to the people--he wants them to stay in creeds and cathechisms where he can control men's souls.

The Truth will set one free--free indeed--from the yoke of bondage of salvation by works.

Selah,

Bro. James

[Kamoroso]

The following is a chapter from the book, FACTS OF FAITH, by Christian Edwardson

MAKING AMERICA CATHOLIC

THE Roman hierarchy knew that the older Protestants, who had read about the persecutions of the Dark Ages, and who knew some of the inside workings of the papal church, would never become Catholics. Rome’s hope lay in capturing the younger generation. If the Papacy could cover up those dark pages of its history, when it waded in the blood of martyrs, and could appear in the beautiful modern dress of a real champion for liberty, as a lover of science, art, and education, it would appeal to the American youth, and the battle would be won.

The Jesuits, who through years of experience in Europe, have become experts in molding young minds, are now establishing schools everywhere, that are patronized by thousands of Protestant youth. They have also undertaken the delicate task of Romanizing the textbooks of our public schools, and books of reference, in order to cover up their past, and to whitewash the Dark Ages. That Romanists desire to cover up their past record of bloody persecution is acknowledged by that honorable Roman Catholic author, Alfred Baudrillart, Rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris. After giving a frank statement of the many persecutions of which his church is guilty, he says in the words of Mgr. d’Hulst: “Indeed, even among our friends and our brothers we find those who dare not look this problem in the face. They ask permission from the Church to ignore or even to deny all those facts and institutions in the past which have made orthodoxy compulsory.’’’-’’ The Catholic Church; the Renaissance and Protestantism,’’ Alfred Archeveque Cardinal BaudrilIart, pp. I83, 184.


ROMANIZING TEXTBOOKS

In the first place, all general histories used in our public schools and high schools had to be revised to eliminate every bishops as before. The priest’s education is to be thoroughly revised and modernized-with special attention to modern propaganda methods. In addition there will be established in each country a central bureau, responsible only to Rome, to combat red agitation with every political weapon available .... The church must fight, and at once. “Coughlin has shown us the way of getting at the modern man. He has embarrassed us by showing and using the political power of the church so openly .... We know how to tackle America today, and that is our most important problem at the moment.

“Pacelli is contacting the American cardinals and leading Catholic personalities,... to explain the Vatican’s plan for the new crusade .... The Catholic political organizations in the large cities, like Tammany Hall, will give the church a good lever. Those contactsare also being carefully inspected by the pope’s minister.

“The Vatican itself resembles a general staff headquarters preparing plans and arms for a big offensive. Since the time of the Counter- Reformation, churchmen say, no such extensive reorganization of personnel and propaganda methods has been undertaken. The whole world-wide net of Catholic organizations and suborganizations is being contacted directly from Rome and cleared for action.

The church is to be adjusted to modern political, social, and cultural conditions”-P. 10, col. 3, 4, used by permission. This article speaks of Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, then papal secretary of state, coming from the Vatican to effect the above. mentioned reorganization. He toured the United States “in a chartered airplane.” Christian Science Monitor says: “The visit of a high Roman prelate to the United States on the eve of an election is as unprecedented as it is delicate”-Oct. 2, 1926.

This Catholic plan of conquest was well understood years ago. An illustration in Harper’s Weekly of October 1, 1870, pictured the pope pointing to America as “The Promised Land,” also “The Jesuits and the British Press,” by Michael J. F. McCarthy).

Now the “Catholic Action” is focused on America, not in an antagonistic way, but quietly, in wisely planned, systematically organized, and well directed efforts along numerous lines, so as to gain favor among Protestants, and not to be suspected as propaganda. And, remarkable as it may sound, Protestant leaders and people are totally asleep on the Catholic question, even more so than the Huguenots were in France before the St. Bartholomew’s Massacre.

Dr. E. Boyd Barrett, for many years a Jesuit, and still a Roman Catholic, as far as the author knows, has the following to say about the plans of his church: “In theory, Catholic Action is the work and service of lay Catholics in the cause of religion, under the guidance of the bishops. In practice it is the Catholic group fighting their way to control America”-”Rome Stoops to Conquer,” p. 15. New York: 1935. “The effort, the fight, may be drawn out. It may last for five or ten years. Even if it last for twenty-what is twenty years in the life of Rome? The fight must be fought to a finish-opposition must be worn down if it cannot be swept away. Rome’s immortal destiny hangs on the outcome. That destiny overshadows the land. “And in the fight, as she has ever fought when battles were most desperate in the past, Rome will use steel, and gold, and silvery lies. Rome will stoop to conquer.”-Id., pp. 266, 267.

In a communication from Vatican City, published in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, November 4, 1936, we read: “Pope Pius feels that the United States is the ideal base for Catholicism’s great drive .... “The Catholic Movement, Rome’s militant organization numbering millions all over the world, will be marshaled direct from Rome by Monsignor Pizzardo-next to Pacelli the Holy See’s shrewdest diplomat and politician-instead of by the localtrace of the objectionable features from their pages. Plain historical facts of the Middle Ages,-such as the popes’ interference with public government (as in the case of Henry IV, Emperor of Germany, A. D. 1077, and King John of England, A. D. 1213); the persecution of Waldenses, Albigenses, and Huguenots; the Inquisition; the sale of indulgences; and the Reformation,-all had to be eliminated or rewritten so as to exonerate the Papacy, and brand its opponents simply as political offenders and revolutionists, who suffered at the hand of the civil government, instead of being persecuted by the Church for their religion.

Such radical changes could never have been accomplished so quietly if Protestantism had not been asleep. At times it became necessary to create public sentiment against a certain textbook through newspaper articles written by some learned Catholic professor, and then pressure was brought to bear on school boards to eliminate it, substituting for it a Romanized book. Thus Swinton’s “Outlines of History” was thrown out of the schools, and “Anderson’s History” was blacklisted, but later revised according to Catholic wishes, and brought back to take the place of Swinton’s.

Myers’s “Medieval and Modern History” was also censored. At first the author refused to change it, claiming “history is history,” but later it was revised and came into quite general use for a time. Not all of this was done in the dark. As one example of protest we refer the reader to Senate Document on Public Hearing before the United States Committee on Education and Labor, Friday, February 15, 1889, and Friday, February 22, 1889, on “Senate Resolution No. 86: Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Respecting Establishment of Religion and Free Public Schools,” which unmasks some of this work. We shall now point out two of the vital changes made in our textbooks:

(1) The Catholic Church will never acknowledge the Reformation of the sixteenth century as a reform, but brands it as a “revolt” against the authority of the pope, and as a “revolution.” A sure earmark, therefore, of all Romanized textbooks is the fact that they never speak of the Reformation as a work of reform but as “the Protestant Revolt,” “the Protestant Revolution,” “the so-called Reformation,” or “what is called the Reformation.” Let any one look it up in the schoolbooks used by his children, and see for himself.

To give the readers who may not have seen the textbooks used in our schools today an idea of what the Protestant children are taught, we shall take the “History of Western Europe,” by Professor J. II. Robinson, as an example. It has the following chapters on the Reformation of the sixteenth century: chapter 24, “Germany Before the Protestant Revolt”; chapter 25, “Martin Luther and His Revolt Against the Church”; chapter 26, “Course of the Protestant Revolt in Germany”; chapter 27, “The Protestant Revolt in Switzerland and England.” Chapter 25 says: “As Luther became a confessed revolutionist, he began to find friends among other revolutionists and reformers.”-P. 393. Chapter 28 takes up the effort of the Catholics to destroy the Reformation by a counterreform, by the work of the Jesuits, and the bloody persecution of Protestants in Spain, in the Netherlands, and France. This chapter is entitled: “The Catholic Reformation,” and yet it comes the farthest from deserving the title of reformation of all the above- mentioned chapters. In these Romanized textbooks the historical facts of the Middle Ages are entirely reversed. The way the last-mentioned chapter extols the Jesuits shows who has put their stamp on the book. Senator Thomas E. Watson truthfully says:

“In the public schools the Catholics have stealthily introduced textbooks written by Jesuits; and your children are being taught that the Roman church was misunderstood in the past; that its doctrines are not fatal to humanity and gospel religion; that its record is not saturated with the blood of innocent millions, murdered by papal persecutors, and that there never was such a monstrosity as the alleged sale of papal pardons of sins. “Educate youth in this Catholic way, and the consequences are logical.”-”Roman Catholics in America Falsifying History and Poisoning the Minds of Protestant School Children,” p. 5. Thompson, Ga.: 1928.

SALE OF INDULGENCES

Histories used in the public schools in the United States up to the year 1900 were opposed by the Roman Catholic Church on the ground that they were not stating the truth about
“indulgences." These histories simply stated that Martin Luther began the Reformation by opposing Tetzel’s sale of indulgences, which is a historical fact. “An Introduction to the History of Western Europe,” by Professor J. H. Robinson, says: “It is a common mistake of Protestants to suppose that the indulgence was forgiveness granted beforehand for sins to be committed in the future. There is absolutely no foundation for this idea”-P. 391. Ginn and Co.: 1903.

This statement is copied on page 311 in “A General History of Europe,” by Robinson, Breasted, and Smith, a textbook quite generally used of late. We shall leave it with the reader to judge whether such statements actually represent the Protestant conception of “indulgences,” or whether they are part of a program to cover up historical facts; and we would respectfully ask: Are not American youth entitled to know the unvarnished facts of history?

The historical facts about “indulgences,” gathered from unquestionable sources, are found on pages 162-172 of this book. It is here shown that the idea of “indulgences” had so degenerated between the eleventh and the sixteenth centuries, that they were actually sold for money. Tetzel’s “Indulgences” read: I “absolve thee... from all thy sins, transgressions and excesses.., and I restore thee.., to that innocence and purity which thou possessedst at baptism; so that, when thou diest, the gates of punishment shall be shut, and the gates of the paradise of delight shall be open.”- Coxe’s “House of Austria,” Vol. I, p. 385. London: George Bell and Sons, 1906.

REVISING BOOKS OF REFERENCE

The next step in the papal plan was to revise all books of reference, such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, and larger historical works, so as to mold the minds not only of pupils but also of teachers and of preachers. An example of this is seen in the revision of the New International Encyclopedia. The editor of the Catholic Mirror (at that time the official organ of Cardinal Gibbons), in a lengthy editorial, dated October 28, 1905, tells of how the publishers of that Encyclopedia cooperated with the Jesuits in revising it. He quoted the following letter from the Rev. Thomas J. Campbell, S. J., which he had just received: “Dodd, Mead and Co. sent their representatives to us, and not only expressed a desire to avoid misstatements in their encyclopedia, but asked for some one to excise whatever might be offensive .... Mr. Conde B. Pallen took the matter in hand, and was afforded full liberty to revise and correct not only the topics which dealt professedly with Catholic subjects but those also which might have even an indirect bearing on them .... The firm has done all in its power to make it acceptable to Catholics.”- Quoted in “Liberty,” Vol. V, No. 3, pp. 34, 35. Washington, D. C., I910.

After this was done, every effort was made to get this New International Encyclopedia into the hands of all Protestant ministers in this country, who were unaware of its Romanlzed features. Its molding influence was soon seen in the striking similarity in viewpoint (on many subjects) between the Roman theology and that of the Protestant pulpit and press, and this is becoming more so now after practically all encyclopedias have been Romanized. Even Webster’s Dictionary has not been allowed to speak its old familiar truths any more. We read: “Time was when complaint was common that injustice was done to the Catholics in ‘Webster’s Dictionary.’ There is no room for such a thing in the new ‘Webster’s International Dictionary,’ issued by G. and C. Merriam Co., Springfield, Mass., because Vicar-General Callaghan, of the diocese of Little Rock, has revised and edited everything appertaining to the church.” -” Freeman’s Journal” of New York, May 28, 1892. Since then a Catholic official has been regularly connected with the editorial staff, whenever a new revision was made, as can be seen in the preface of later editions. Suppose, in the next encyclopedia, we ask brewery officials to edit everything pertaining to temperance and the liquor question, and ask the officials of Wall Street to edit all that pertains to capital and labor, wouldwe then get a more correct and unbiased representation of these subjects? We ask why, then, should Roman Catholic officials edit everything pertaining to the Protestant controversy with Rome?

At the First American Catholic Missionary Congress, held at Chicago, November 17, 1908, Dr. William McGinnis outlined the program of the International Catholic Truth Society for making America Catholic:

(1) by Romanizing our schoolbooks,
(2) by revising our books of reference,
(3) by controlling the daily press,
(4) by capturing the libraries. He said in part:
“A few years ago the publishers of an encyclopedia in twelve volumes entered the office of the Truth Society and said: ‘We realize there are many misstatements and errors regarding things Catholic in this work, but we put the whole edition in your hands and will accept every correction you make and every addition which you wish to insert.’... So, likewise, one of the largest publishing houses of the United States, a house that supplies perhaps one third of the textbooks used in the public schools of America, asked that certain books might be examined and erroneous statements and unjust charges against the Church be corrected .... And we are happy to say that in practically every case these misrepresentations of the Church that otherwise would have gone into the minds of millions of children were courteously corrected by gentlemanly authors.”-” The Two Great American Catholic Missionary Congresses,” pp. 427, 428. Chicago: J. S. Hyland and Co., 1914.

Many Protestant parents would not send their children to Catholic parochial schools, but they will allow them to be taught the same thing from Romanized textbooks, without any protest!

We ask, What made the More-mentioned publishers so anxious to have the Catholics revise the public schoolbooks and encyclopedias, which they intended to publish? Why did they not go to some Protestant organization to have the books revised? Was it because Protestants are not educated? Certainly not! But these publishers knew from experience, that, unless the books were Romanized, Catholic societies would stir up such opposition against their use, that it would result in financial loss to the publishers. Dr. McGinnis tells the secret when he relates how he had urged the Knights of Columbus to “wake up” and “form a committee,” to examine the “histories of education in use in high schools and normal schools.” He says: “The spirit of Knighthood was not dead in that Council, the subject was investigated, the book I had quoted from was the textbook of the class, and, after much discussion, it was removed from the curriculum of the school.”-Id., pp. 423, 424.

Any one who will take the trouble to examine the textbooks used in our public schools before 1900, and compare them with those used after this Romanizing propaganda began, wi1l discover the fact that the Romanizing features have been introduced gradually into a series of textbooks, the one taking the place of the other as fast as the public could assimilate the Catholic sentiments and phraseology, and the same is true regarding books of reference.

MUZZLING THE PUBLIC PRESS

Dr. McGinnis also spoke of their plans regarding the daily papers. He said: “We may consider briefly the program of the International Catholic Truth Society in reference to two great agencies in the formation of the minds and hearts of the great American people, — the press and the public libraries.

“Our daily press... mold[s] the thought and influence[s] the will of the country .... We do demand that the great Catholic Church, in her saving doctrines and in her marvelous activities, should be brought more prominently before the American public.”-Id., p. 419.

Dr. McGinnis further stated that arrangements had been made with the Vatican for Catholic reporters all over the world to furnish material for the “Truth Society” to be used in the daily press, and then he says: “With a membership of two or three thousand scholarly, zealous priests and laymen, and the headquarters of the Society acting as a clearing house, calumnies would not remain unanswered, misstatements of doctrines would be corrected.”-Id., pp. 420, 421.

“We realize, moreover, that refutations and corrections, valuable though they be, are not sufficient. We want to carry the campaign a little farther. We want to make of the press of this country a positive agency in the dissemination of Catholic ideas .... We are now furnishing on the first and third Sundays of each month one column or a column and a half of positive Catholic matter to daily papers .... But the ‘Notes and Comments’... deal with such topics as the conversion of some distinguished scholar, the life work of a recently deceased Catholic who was eminent in the domain of physical science, archeological discoveries bearing upon Christian doctrine, important congresses abroad .... If the demands of our people prove that the new feature is appreciated, the ‘service’ will become weekly, and it will bring light and sympathy for things Catholic to many millions of readers.”-Id., pp. 421,422.

“The demands” must have proved successful, for instead of this “new feature” appearing weekly, articles and notes seem to appear almost daily. Though it is legitimate for religious denominations to make use of the public press, for them to muzzle the freedom of the press is not legitimate! When large religious organizations parade their great number of adherents and bring pressure to bear on the press, threatening nonsupport if the other side appears in its columns, while they monopolize them with their own propaganda, such organizations lose the respect of thinking people.

CAPTURING THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES

At the before-mentioned Catholic Congress plans were also laid for making the public libraries agencies in their propaganda. Dr. McGinnis says: “Another force, second only to the school and the press in shaping the thoughts of the nation, is the public library system of the United States .... I ask why, in the name of the God of truth, is the great Catholic Church excluded from the shelves of the public libraries of the United States?... Create a strong, legitimate demand for Catholic literature, and the public libraries will meet the demand.”- Id., pp.422,423.

But how did that Congress propose to “create” this strong “demand” for Catholic books? Here is their scheme: They will supply their people with lists of books to be asked for at the libraries, and when several hundred or thousand people have called for the same books, it will create a demand. “The demand for such literature must be brought to the public libraries. We wish to emphasize the fact that the demand must be made in good faith-the books are called for at the library because the man wants to read them. The International Catholic Truth Society will supply general and special lists of books, and the Spiritual Director... will... designate appropriate works for individual members. From this widespread bona fide demand for Catholic works at public libraries three results will follow. [It will help the members.] Their work will be instrumental in placing these books within the reach of the great non-Catholic American public, who will thus have some opportunity to find out what the Church’s doctrines and practices really are, and finally the increased circulation of such literature will be a well-deserved and muchneeded stimulus to Catholic writers.”-Id., p. 424. See also “Catholic Digest,” March, 1937, pp. 126, 127, and “America,” September 13, 1913, pp. 547, 548.

Mr. Michael J. F. McCarty, of England, gives us some interesting facts regarding a similar work done by Jesuits in England. He says that they suppress books of Protestant authors, and bring to the front those of Catholics, and as a result of this systematic work, he says: “Many Protestant authors are forced to speak favorably and kindly of Romanism .... The publication of books containing friendly allusibn to Protestant Christianity has almost ceased in England, [while the other kind of books] floods the country.”-”The Jesuits and the British Press,” p. 52. Edinburgh and London: 1910.

But, in addition to this, the Jesuits always have a man, either a priest or a layman, on the committee of almost every public library in Great Britain. “The Jesuits’ man comes provided with two lists, a black list, which includes every well-known book, ancient and modern, adverse to Romanism; and a white list of new books especially [avorable to Romanism which he submits beforehand to the librarian, and eventually succeeds in getting placed in the library.”-Pp. 50, 51.

It is quite evident from our investigation of the facts that the Jesuits are the same in America as in England. Besides this, the few remaining books from the days when it was not so unpopular to state the unvarnished facts about medieval history have been diminishing in number by being worn out or purposely destroyed.

CENSORSHIP OF BOOKS

Those who write histories today have more source matter on ancient history, but less on medieval, than historians had four hundred years ago; for after the Reformation had fully aroused the papal church to action, her emissaries, especially the vigilant Jesuits, searched out and destroyed every evidence that was damaging to her. When Bishop Gilbert Burnet, D. D., prepared to write his “History of the English Reformation,” he became surprised, while searching among court records and public registers, to find so much missing, till he finally discovered the cause. He says: “In the search I made of the Rolls and other offices, I wondered much to miss several commissions, patents, and other writings, which by clear evidence I knew were granted, and yet none of them appeared on record.

“But as I continued down my search to the fourth year of Queen Mary, I found in the twelfth roll of that year, a commission which cleared all my former doubts, and by which I saw what was become of the things I had so anxiously searched after. We have heard of the expurgation of books practiced in the Church of Rome; but it might have been imagined that public registers and records would have been safe; yet lest these should have been afterwards confessors, it was resolved they should then be martyrs; for on the 29th of December, in the fourth year of her reign, a commission was issued out under the great seal to Bonner, Bishop of London, Cole, Dean of St. Paul’s, and Martine, a doctor of the civil law, [which commanded the destruction of] divers compts, books, scrolls, instruments....
“When I saw this, I soon knew which way so many writings had gone”-”History of the Reformation of the Church of England,’’ 2- vol. ed., Vol. I, Preface, p. xiii. London: 1880.

Let no one, therefore, say that statements in older histories are not true because we cannot now find sources to prove them. The reader may not know that back of all this activity stands the Roman Curia, one department of which is the Sacred Congregation of the Index, which meets at Rome on stated days to decide what books are forbidden, and to make lists of them, called “The Index of Prohibited Books.”* The writer has examined two editions of this “Index,” one early edition, and their latest one of 1930 by Pope Plus XI. Some books are permanently forbidden, while others are forbidden until certain corrections are made in them, which explains the revisions of our schoolbooks, for the “Index” says:

“Can. 1396. Books condemned by the Holy See are prohibited all over the world and in whatever language into which they may have been translated.

“Can. 1397, Sec. 1. It is the duty of all the faithful, particularly of clerics, or those holding high positions and noted for their learning, to denounce any book, they may consider dangerous, to the local Ordinaries, or to the Holy See ....

“Sec. 3. Those to whom such denunciations are made are bound in conscience not to reveal the names of the accusers.

“Sec. 4. Local Ordinaries, either directly themselves, or through the agency of capable priests, are in duty bound to keep a close watch on the books that are published, or sold, within their territory ....

“Can. 1398, Sec. 1. The condemnation of a book entails the prohibition, without especial permission, either to publish, to read, to keep, to sell, to translate it, or in any way to pass it on to others.

“Sec. 2. A book which has been prohibited in any way may not be republished, unless, after the necessary corrections have been made.”-”Index,” of 1930, pp. xvi, xvii. Vatican Polyglot Press.

The Catholic Encyclopedia has this to say about the “Censorship of Books”: “In general, censorship of books is a supervision of the press in order to prevent any abuse of it. “The reverse of censorship is freedom of the press.”- Vol. III, p.

This “supervision of the press” extends also to articles written in magazines and newspapers, and among the special organizations working in this field is the International Catholic Truth Society, and the Catholic International Associated Press. Reporting the Louisville federation convention of the latter, Michael Kenny, S. J., in America (a Jesuit weekly) for August 31, 1912, says of their Catholic Press Bureau:

“We have it in our power to compel our papers, the thinking machines of the people, to tell the truth and refrain from transmitting slanders on Catholic matters. We can prevent the wells at which the people drink from being poisoned. We can, follow-lng the lead of the Austrian Catholic Congress, establish a Catholic International Associated Press, and to accomplish this object every Catholic of the right spirit, reading in the daily papers calumnies of our religion and the most brazen justification of the robber bands who drive our religious from their homes and confiscate their property, should be willing to contribute a tithe of his possessions. All this and more can be accomplished by federated action .... Marching shoulder-to shoulder with the spirit of soldiers on the battlefield at the call of the Church, we can successfully combat the organizations of her enemies and make this an era of Catholic manhood.”-”America,” August 31, 19I2, p. 486, article by M. Kenny, S. J.

As a result of this organized effort no newspapers in the United States will
accept any news that reflects unfavorably on the Catholic Church or its propaganda in this country, while news unfavorable to Protestants is
printed.

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

[Link]

Matt,

I think you have a point about people aruging from silence of history. I would like to find the answer to some of your questions.

One thing I would like to point out is that around the 6th or 7th century, there was an 'iconoclastic' movement against the use of relics in the church, at least in the east. Considering the widespread worship of ingraved images in the Roman Catholic Church, it is refreshing to see in history that some opposed this. Maybe it is one of the reasons the eastern church members only went so far as to bow down to two dimensional images, rather than to graven images, in their use of icons. Those who disagree with iconoclasts may wish to attribute the movement to Islam.

I have also read an interpretation of history which attributes Nestor's comments that got him branded as a heretic as an overstated case against Maryolatry.

Which brings me to another issue-- if we do get our understanding of doctrine from scripture rather than from the Roman Catholic Church, how can we reject all historical 'heretics' as if they were not true Christians.

The Arians rejected the deity of Christ. But something I notice from scripture is that the statement that one has to believe in or properly understand Christ's deity is absent from many presentations of the Gospel. When Peter presented the Gospel to the highly monotheistic Jews in Acts 2, he did not tell them that they had to believe in the deity of Christ to be saved. While Paul makes some strong statements about his belief in Christ's deity that fit within, and help us form, our concept of orthodoxy on the issue; he does not list belief in Christ deity as a requirement for salvation in his presentations of the Gospel in Acts or in Romans, his longest epistle that lays out his teachings on salvation.

If we disagree with the Arians, does that mean we reject them as brethren? And honestly, can we say that a Nestorian's understanding of the deity of Christ is any less accurate than the understanding of many laymen who sit on the pew in our churches? If you ask some people to describe the trinity, they will describe it as being like steam, water, and ice. Other people will describe it like the parts of a boiled egg. I even heard one youth pastor compare the concept to Siamese twins. If we can accept laymen as brethren based on their faith in Christ, and not their mastery of theological concepts, can we not acept the idea that some Arians may have been brethren in the faith?

How many Arians (or Ebionites perhaps?) were there among the tens of thousands of early believers in Jerusalem?

[Matt Black]

Keith, thank you at least for citing some primary source documents - you're the first person on this thread who has!

I do however take issue with some of the conclusions arising from your source material - namely that the groups cited as heretics by the three Emperors quoted were part of this 'true alternative church' that everyone seems so keen on proving existed after Constantine. Let's look at some of them:-

The Valentinians - Gnostic dualists, who believed that the earth was created by a 'Demiurge' (false god) and that matter was evil. Believed in two classes of believers - the 'psychics' or ordinary believers and the 'pneumatics' or spirit-filled believers (similar to what some extreme charismatics and Pentecostals believe today)

Marcionites - followers of Marcion who believed that the OT should be excluded from the canon of Scipture and that the NT should be just Paul's epistles. Believed that the God of the OT was evil (similar to the Valentinian's demiurge) and different to the good God of the NT

Manichees - another gnostic dualist cult

Paulinists/ Paulicians - ditto; kind of the successors to Marcion also

Albigensians/ Cathars - again gnostic dualists with similarities this time to the Valentinians as believing in two classes of believers, the second, elite group in this case being the 'perfecti' who had received the 'sacrament' of the consolamentum, which then required the 'perfecti' to fast until death

Novatians - schismatics rather than heretics, and the only groups I would agree were Christians, albeit not in communion with the Catholic-Orthodox Church

So, as you can see from the above, there is no evidence of any non-heretical groups apart from the Novatians prior to the Waldenses from primary source documents eg: Milton lived some 1300 years after the period under consideration!

Link, the problem I have with your suggestions is, as illustrated by my list of groups above, that once you throw the baby out with the bathwater in rejecting what the Church was up to the in 4th century, you admit all sorts of heretical groups as 'Christian' such as the Arians and the gnostics on the simple basis that they were 'associated with Christianity but not Catholic'. (You also, incidentally, call into question the canon of Scripture by this methodology, but that's another matter ;) )

Yours in Christ

Matt

[Link]

Constantine is the 'whipping boy' for a lot of church traditions. He was an influential person in history, and his reign was a historical turning point.

In house church circles, some people think that during Constantine's reign, Christians suddenly started meeting in houses, adopted liturgical worship, and started praying to saints. The idea of an overnight switch from informal house church Christianity to formal Roman Catholicism during the reign of Constantine does seem unrealistic, imo.

There were written liturgies before Constantine. Synagogue liturgy may have had an effect on Christians, some of whom were Jewish, before Constantine. Gregory of Armenia apparently was involved in choosing or developing liturgies for Armenia.

Greogory is also said to have been involved with building a church building before Constantine. There were some church buildings before Constantine in Armenia and elsewhere. Armenia was 'Christianized' a decade or two before Constantine's reign.

Constantine was probably very important in the shift from meeting in homes to meeting in the church building. Christians may have met primarily in homes in his day. But there were also houses that had evolved from being residents to being used just as church meeting houses. (St. Peter's home if I am not mistaken may be an example of this.) Constantine's contribution would have been in making church buildings on the model of a Roman civic building.

Putting money into the church brought other changes as well. I have read that pagans flooded the church during Constantine's time, bringing in their practices and seeking to become priests to get a salary. I do not know if this is accurate or not, as the source of this contained many innaccuracies. There may be some truth to it, though I do not know if all these changes occurred during Constantine's lifetime.

[Matt Black]

Yes, there is evidence of liturgical use as far back as the NT itself. The earliest extant church building is at Dura-Europos on the Euphrates (close to Armenia); it dates from the 3rd century and is basically a private house consisting of two rooms knocked into one plus a baptistery tacked on to one end. It would have held a few dozen worshippers.

Yours in Christ

Matt

[Bro. James]

Since when does "The Assembly" have a connection with a building?

The Apostle Paul, circa, Acts 17:24,25 said that God does not dwell in temples made with hands.

Look for "The Faith Once for all delivered to the Saints", not the buildings where they may have met. Their trail is written in blood. Most of their meeting houses have been destroyed--the faithfulness of their witness abides even until today--by the Grace of God--He has preserved a remnant.

Selah,

Bro. James

[Link]

Matt Black wrote,

**So, as you can see from the above, there is no evidence of any non-heretical groups apart from the Novatians prior to the Waldenses from primary source documents eg: Milton lived some 1300 years after the period under consideration!**

Since the Waldensians claimed their succession went back as far as a bishop in the 300's, that may be far back enough to satisfy a lot of evangelicals looking for a lineage. Btw, would you reject the Donatists as well? Weren't the Waldensians paedobaptists, btw, rather than credobaptists? This is one of my chief concerns when I look at history, whether at heretical groups, or the larger church.

**Link, the problem I have with your suggestions is, as illustrated by my list of groups above, that once you throw the baby out with the bathwater in rejecting what the Church was up to the in 4th century, you admit all sorts of heretical groups as 'Christian' such as the Arians and the gnostics on the simple basis that they were 'associated with Christianity but not Catholic'.***

That is not what I am arguing at all. I am not arguing that Arians are the 'one true church' that the Great Church was not. I am not arguing that anyone who was not Catholic was Biblically orthodox. If we do rject the idea that one had to be Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox to be saved, then it does not make sense for us to reject the 'heretics' as automatically unsaved because of their separation with the larger church institutions. If an Arian met the biblical requirements for salvation, then how can we say he was nto saved because he held to a wrong view of Christ's nature? How many 'Oneness' Baptists and other evangelicals are there whose understanding of the Trinity goes no further than 'Jesus is God.' Since when is doctrinal accuracy in all matters, even important matters, a requirement for salvation. I do not see this in scripture. There is doctrinal error that can prevent salvation, for example, not believing in that Christ rose from the dead.

I have read authors who argued that various groups labeled as heretical by the RCC throughout history were actually orthodox. When you look at what was written about these groups, you find that they were allegedly Gnostic or held to other heretical concepts. For example, one author argued that the Paulicans returned to Biblical faith. The author pointed out many areas in which they returned to simple New Testament church life. But he also referred to one of their writings, the Key of Life, if I am not mistaken, and one web page article I read quoted this document as stating that the Spirit is not a person. The author of the document saw the Spirit as some kind of force, if I remember correctly.

Be that as it may, if one Paulican document had a mistaken view of the Spirit, does that mean all Paulicans were heretics? Paulican, for all we know, may have been a broad term used to describe the movements of Christians in a certain area who met simply without accepting the system of monarchical bishops as seen throughout the empire. If there is one heretical view in 'Paulican' writings, does that mean all of them were heretics.

Imagine this scenario. Imagine that after a thousand years the 'Three Self' church in China became the dominant religious organization in the world. Three-self authors chose some kind of label to describe all 20th and 21st century house church Christians. Then they chose a few heretical documents from the Eastern Lightening cult, who believed that a woman was an incarnation of Christ, and said this was typical of all house church people's beliefs. We know, since we live in the 20th century, that the 'house church movement' in China is not on humanly-organized movement. There are real churches there. There are cults. There are real churches that can fall into error like any other church. We should not dismiss all 'heretical' groups as heretical.

On the other hand, given what evidence we have-- or do not have-- it would not be wise to argue that all Paulicans or Cathars, or whatever, were orthodox, when we have no solid evidence of a Biblical orthodox church among these groups. If there were Cathar Gnostics, the RCC may have labeled some Biblically orthodox churches as 'Cathar' because they shared a trait with the Cathars-- that of rejecting papal authority. So we should leave open the possiblity that some of the people within these historical movements--labeled by their opponents-- may have been real believers in real churches. But I think it is fair for you to ask for very specific examples.


The Montanists may be another group, much earlier, that was unfairly labeled. The history of Montanism was written by its opponents. Originally, it was accepted within various portions of the church. Even if Montanist did go off in the wrong direction, if accounts of him are corect, it is quite possible that some of those labeled as Montonists throughout the Roman Empire were more orthodox. I can hardly see Tertullian believing that Montanus was the promised paraclete. Paraclete was a real word in Greek, or is derived from one. The prediction of the kingdom of God descending in Phrygia could ahve been an allegorical prophecy, rather than a far-reaching eschatalogical interpretation. What really separated the MOntanists, from what I have read, was Montanus' setting up a rival bishoprick.


** (You also, incidentally, call into question the canon of Scripture by this methodology, but that's another matter )**

I do not see the connection. Even if some members of the 'heretical' groups did not have the same canon, I do not believe accepting the canon is a requirement for salvation, so my suggestions do not challenge the canon. in fact, many of the patristic heros of the Great Church in the 200's held to slightly different views on what books should be in the canon. I do not question their salvation based on these grounds. If you mean that the canon was decided on by the 'Great church' after the date that some say it was corrupt, you raise an important point.

By the way, do you have a source for the idea that the Paulicans were like Marcion in rejecting the canon? I have not come across that before.


On liturgy, what is your New Testament evidence for liturgy? Acts 13? Revelation?

A friend of mine who lived in Jerusalem and knows about these sort of things says archeologists have found a synagogue with Christian 'graffito' written in it, with the Torah nitch facing the Tomb of the Holy Sepulcre rather than the temple mount built on the traditional site of the Upper Room site (believed to be St. John Mark's mother's house.) C.f. James 2:2. He also likes to refer to a quote in reference to an 'ekklesia' being located on the temple mount site in the early second century as a possible reference to a structure as an 'ekklesia.' Overall, I see the pattern of scripture, at least among the Gentiles, was for churches to meet in homes. It makes much more sense in missions situations, especially in terms of stewardship of funds.

[Matt Black]

Ah, now I see what you are saying! Yes, I agree that groups should not be rejected and dismissed as heretical simply because they were not part of the Catholic-Orthodox Church, and that we should judge each of them on their own merits. But that's the problem - when I examine each of these groups, I find them wanting doctrinally.

Doctrine IS IMO important soteriologically - whether we correctly worship and serve God flows from whether we have a correct picture of Him. Let's take an analogy: if I described a giraffe to someone who had never seen one before as being a tall mammal with long legs which eats leaves and has brown and yellow patterned fur, you as an observer of that description would probably say "Fair enough; it's not a complete description ro 100% accurate but it will do." But if I was to say that a giraffe was a large heavy mammal with grey leathery skin, big ears, a trunk and tusks, you would quite rightly protest that that wasn't a giraffe at all but an elephant. To my mind it is the same with God; for example, the Trinity IS IMO a core Christian doctrine - it describes not just how God is but Who He is, and to abandon it is to abandon something essential in God's nature and to render the object of our worship a being other than God. Thus a JW or Christadelphian (or ancient Arian), because they have a deficient, non-Trinitarian view of God, are rightly called heretics by us since they are thus unable to form a salvifically effective relationship with Him.

The Waldensians did subsequently claim a succession from the 300s but they were no more able to produce documentary evidence of this than were subsequent claimants of that theory, such as some of the posters here...

I would not necessarily go so far as to say that the Montanists were heretics - at least, no more so than some of their modern charismatic descendants. Heterodox, perhaps.

No, the canon is not a requirement for salvation - otherwise there would have been no salvation possible until the late 4th century! i now understand what you were saying and that you weren't calling into question the settlement of the canon.

There are several examples of liturgy; here are a couple from Philippians: 2:6-11; 4:20. Jesus' discourse on the Bread of Life in Jn 6 is generally accepted by Biblical scholars to have been used as a Eucharistic liturgy by the Johannine community

Yours in Christ

Matt

[Kamoroso]

The Abominations and Filthiness of Her Fornication

Having already established the Church of Rome’s adulterous relations with the kings of the earth, let us move on to the abomination and filthiness of her fornication. As it is the intention of the writer, to prove from history that the identifying marks of the Mother of Harlots apply to the Church of Rome, it is therefore necessary to examine the records of history.

Before we begin to examine some of this history, let us first discover the meaning of abominations from the scriptures. What did the Lord refer to as an abomination in the Holy Scriptures? The answer to this question, will determine what we will identify as such, within the Church of Rome.

Deuteronomy 7 25 The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein: for it is an abomination to the LORD thy God. 26 Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.

Worshipping, or bowing down to, or owning idols, is an abomination to the Lord.

Deuteronomy 12 29 When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; 30 Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. 31 Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. 32 What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.

Following the example of how other nations worshiped their god’s is an abomination unto the Lord.

Deuteronomy 17 1 Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the LORD thy God any bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, or any evilfavouredness: for that is an abomination unto the LORD thy God. 2 If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, 3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel: 5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.

Offering and incomplete, or blemished sacrifice to the Lord, is an abomination unto the Lord. Worshiping other god’s, particularly, the sun, moon, or stars, is an abomination unto the Lord.


Deuteronomy 18 9 When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, 11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. 12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee. 13 Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God.

It is an abomination for God’s people to learn to do after the people which the Lord has given into their hands. They should not worship their god’s, or incorporate their practices of worship into their own.


Deuteronomy 32 16 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger. 17 They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. 18 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee. 19 And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters. 20 And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith

Incorporating the practices of other religions into the true religion, is an abomination unto the Lord.

II Kings 23 23 But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the LORD in Jerusalem. 24 Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.

Those who spoke to the dead, practiced magic, worshipped images, and idols, were an abomination unto he Lord.

zra 9 12 Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth for ever: that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever. 13 And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and hast given us such deliverance as this; 14 Should we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the people of these abominations? wouldest not thou be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us, so that there should be no remnant nor escaping?

Practicing the abominations of the nations around them, was the breaking of God’s commandments. The breaking of God’s commandments is an abomination. Not just that someone sinned, but that they accepted and believed, and practiced, that which was the breaking of God’s commandments. This is an abomination.

No doubt, many reading have already associated many of the above abominations with the Church of Rome. For her adherents do pray to the dead in Mary and the saints. They do also bow down to images of the same. Many of these very images were incorporated from the pagan religions which permeated through the Church of Rome through her absorbance of the pagan worshippers that were declared Christian by the edicts of kings, and emperors. The effect of which, was the amalgamation of pagan, and Christian practices.

The vast majority of Christians worship God today on the day of the Sun. They do not realize where, by whom, and how this day was even established. The previous chapter touched upon this subject briefly in order to show the Church of Rome’s connection to the kings of this earth. Some of the same material will be repeated in this chapter, since the establishment of Sunday worship is synonymous with the harlot committing fornication with the kings of the earth, as well as having a cup full of the abominations of her fornication. These two go hand in hand since it is by her adulteress relations with the kings of the earth, that the practices of their pagan religions become intertwined with this apostate Christian entity. In any case, even though many of us already know these things, here is the some of the history of how these things came about.


The worship of the Christian martyrs

The ruin of the Pagan religion is described by the sophists as a dreadful and amazing prodigy, which covered the earth with darkness and restored the ancient dominion of chaos and of night. They relate in solemn and pathetic strains; that the temples were converted into sepulchres, and that the holy places, which had been adorned by the statues of the gods, were basely polluted by the relics of Christian martyrs. "The monks" (a race of filthy animals, to whom; Eunapius is tempted to refuse the name of men) "are the authors of the new worship, which, in. the place of those deities who are conceived by the understanding, has substituted the meanest and most contemptible slaves. The heads, salted and pickled, of those infamous malefactors, who for the multitude of their crimes have suffered a just and ignominious death; their bodies, still marked by the impression of the lash and the scars of those tortures which were inflicted by the sentence of the magistrate; such" (continues Eunapius) "are the gods which the earth produces in our days; such are the martyrs, the supreme arbitrators of our prayers and petitions to the Deity, whose tombs are now consecrated as the objects of the veneration of the people." Without approving the malice, it is natural enough to share the surprise of the sophist, the spectator of a revolution which raised those obscure victims of the laws of Rome to the rank of celestial and invisible protectors of the Roman empire. The grateful respect of the Christians for the martyrs of the faith was exalted, by time and victory, into religious adoration; and the most illustrious of the saints and prophets were deservedly associated to the honours of the martyrs. One hundred and fifty years after the glorious deaths of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Vatican and the Ostian road were distinguished by the tombs, or rather by the trophies, of those; spiritual heroes. In the age which followed the conversion of Constantine, the emperors, the consuls, and the generals of armies devoutly visited the sepulchres of a tent-maker and a fisherman; and their venerable bones were deposited under the altars of Christ, on which the bishops of the royal city continually offered the unbloody sacrifice. The new capital of the Eastern world, unable to produce any ancient and domestic trophies, was enriched by the spoils of dependent provinces. The bodies of St. Andrew, St. Luke, and St. Timothy had reposed near three hundred years in the obscure graves from whence they were transported, in solemn pomp, to the church of the apostles, which the magnificence of Constantine had founded on the banks of the Thracian Bosphorus. About fifty years afterwards the same banks were honoured by the presence of Samuel, the judge and prophet of the people of Israel. His ashes, deposited in a golden vase, and covered with a silken veil, were delivered by the bishops into each other's hands. The relics of Samuel were received by the people with the same joy and reverence which they would have shown to the living prophet; the highways, from Palestine to the gates of Constantinople, were filled with an uninterrupted procession; and the emperor Arcadius himself, at the head of the most illustrious members of the clergy and senate, advanced to meet his extraordinary guest, who had always deserved and claimed the homage of kings. The example of Rome and Constantinople confirmed the faith and discipline of the catholic world. The honours of the saints and martyrs, after a feeble and ineffectual murmur of profane reason, were universally established; and in the age of Ambrose and Jerom something was still deemed wanting to the sanctity of a Christian church, till it had been consecrated by some portion of holy relics, which fixed and inflamed the devotion of the faithful.

General Reflections

In the long period of twelve hundred years, which elapsed between the reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther, the worship of saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect simplicity of the Christian model; and some symptoms of degeneracy may be observed even in the first generations which adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation.
I. Fabulous martyrs and relics.
I. The satisfactory experience that the relics of saints were more valuable than gold or precious stones stimulated the clergy to multiply the treasures of the church. Without much regard for truth or probability, they invented names for skeletons, and actions for names. The fame of the apostles, and of the holy men who had imitated their virtues, was darkened by religious fiction. To the invincible band of genuine and primitive martyrs they added myriads of imaginary heroes, who had never existed, except in the fancy of crafty or credulous legendaries; and there is reason to suspect that Tours might not be the only diocese in which the bones of a malefactor were adored instead of those of a saint. A superstitious practice, which tended to increase the temptations of fraud and credulity, insensibly extinguished the light of history and of reason in the Christian world.

II Miracles

II. But the progress of superstition would have been much less rapid and victorious if the faith of the people had not been assisted by the seasonable aid of visions and miracles to ascertain the authenticity and virtue of the most suspicious relics. In the reign of the younger Theodosius, Lucian, a presbyter of Jerusalem, and the ecclesiastical minister of the village of Caphargamala, about twenty miles from the city, related a very singular dream, which, to remove his doubts, had been repeated on three successive Saturdays. A venerable figure stood before him, in the silence of the night, with a long beard, a white robe, and a gold rod; announced himself by the name of Gamaliel; and revealed to the astonished presbyter, that his own corpse, with the bodies of his son Abibas, his friend Nicodemus, and the illustrious Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian faith, were secretly buried in the adjacent field. He added, with some impatience, that it was time to release himself and his companions from their obscure prison; that their appearance would be salutary to a distressed world; and that they had made choice of Lucian to inform the bishop of Jerusalem of their situation and their wishes. The doubts and difficulties which still retarded this important discovery were successively removed by new visions; and the ground was opened by the bishop in the presence of an innumerable multitude; The coffins of Gamaliel, of his son, and of his friend, were found in regular order; but when the fourth coffin, which contained the remains of Stephen, was shown to the light, the earth trembled, and an odour such as that of Paradise was smelt, which instantly cured the various diseases of seventy-three of the assistants. The companions of Stephen were left in their peaceful residence of Caphargamala; but the relics of the first martyr were transported, in solemn procession, to a church constructed in their honour on Mount Sion; and the minute particles of those relics, a drop of blood, or the scrapings of a bone, were acknowledged, in almost every province of the Roman world, to possess a divine and miraculous virtue. The grave and learned Augustin, whose understanding scarcely admits the excuse of credulity, has attested the innumerable prodigies which were performed in Africa by the relics of St. Stephen; and this marvellous narrative is inserted in the elaborate work of the City of God, which the bishop of Hippo designed as a solid and immortal proof of the truth of Christianity. Augustin solemnly declares that he has selected those miracles only which were publicly certified by the persons who were either the objects, or the spectators, of the power of the martyr. Many prodigies were omitted or forgotten; and Hippo had been less favourably treated than the other cities of the province. And yet the bishop enumerates above seventy miracles, of which three were resurrections from the dead, in the space of two years, and within the limits of his own diocese. If we enlarge our view to all the diocese, and all the saints, of the Christian world, it will not be easy to calculate the fables, and the errors, which issued from this inexhaustible source. But we may surely be allowed to observe that a miracle, in that age of superstition and credulity, lost its name and its merit, since it could scarcely be considered as a deviation from the ordinary and established: laws of nature.

III Revival of polytheism.

III. The innumerable miracles, of which the tombs of the martyrs were the perpetual theatre, revealed to the pious believer the actual state and constitution of the invisible world; and his religious speculations appeared to be founded on the firm basis of fact and experience. What ever might be the condition of vulgar souls in the long interval between the dissolution and the resurrection of their bodies, it was evident. that the superior spirits of the saints and martyrs did not consume that portion of their existence in silent and inglorious sleep. It was evident (without presuming to determine the place of their habitation, or the nature of their felicity) that they enjoyed the lively and active consciousness of their happiness, their virtue, and their powers; and that they had already secured the possession of their eternal reward. The enlargement of their intellectual faculties surpassed the measure of the human imagination; since it was proved by experience that they were capable of hearing and understanding the various petitions of their numerous votaries, who, in the same moment of time, but in the most distant parts of the world, invoked the name and assistance of Stephen or of Martin. The confidence of their petitioners was founded on the persuasion that the saints, who reigned with Christ, cast an eye of pity upon earth; that they were warmly interested in the prosperity of the Catholic church; and that the individuals who imitated the example of their faith and piety were the peculiar and favourite objects of their most tender regard. Sometimes, indeed, their friendship might be influenced by considerations of a less exalted kind: they viewed with partial affection the places which had been consecrated by their birth, their residence, their death, their burial, or the possession of their relics. The meaner passions of pride, avarice, and revenge, may be deemed unworthy of a celestial breast; yet the saints themselves condescended to testify their grateful approbation of the liberality of their votaries; and the sharpest bolts of punishment were hurled against those impious wretches who violated their magnificent shrines, or disbelieved their supernatural power. Atrocious, indeed, must have been the guilt, and strange would have been the scepticism, of those men, if they had obstinately resisted the proofs of a divine agency, which the elements, the whole range of the animal creation, and even the subtle and invisible operations of the human mind, were compelled to obey. The immediate, and almost instantaneous, effects, that were supposed to follow the prayer, or the offence, satisfied the Christians of the ample measure of favour and authority which the saints enjoyed in the presence of the Supreme God; and it seemed almost superfluous to inquire whether they were continually obliged to intercede before the throne of grace, or whether they might not be permitted to exercise, according to the dictates of their benevolence and justice, the delegated powers of their subordinate ministry. The imagination, which had been raised by a painful effort to the contemplation and worship of the Universal Cause, eagerly embraced such inferior objects of adoration as were more proportioned to its gross conceptions and imperfect faculties. The sublime and simple theology of the primitive Christians was gradually corrupted: and the MONARCHY of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology which tended to restore the reign of polytheism.

IV Introduction of Pagan ceremonies.

IV. As the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the standard of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were introduced that seemed most powerfully to affect the senses of the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth century, Tertullian, or Lactantius, had been suddenly raised from the dead, to assist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as the doors of the church were thrown open, they must have been offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused, at noon-day, a gaudy, superfluous, and, in their opinion, a sacrilegious light. If they approached the balustrade of the altar, they made their way through the prostrate crowd, consisting, for the most part, of strangers and pilgrims, who resorted to the city on the vigil of the feast; and who already felt the strong intoxication of fanaticism, and, perhaps, of wine. Their devout kisses were imprinted on the walls and pavement of the sacred edifice; and their fervent prayers were directed, whatever might be the language of their church, to the bones, the blood, or the ashes of the saint, which were usually concealed, by a linen or silken veil, from the eyes of the vulgar. The Christians frequented the tombs of the martyrs, in the hope of obtaining, from their powerful intercession, every sort of spiritual, but more especially of temporal, blessings. They implored the preservation of their health, or the cure of their infirmities; the fruitfulness of their barren wives, or the safety and happiness of their children. Whenever they undertook any distant or dangerous journey, they requested that the holy martyrs would be their guides and protectors on the road; and if they returned without having experienced any misfortune, they again hastened to the tombs of the martyrs, to celebrate, with grateful thanksgivings, their obligations to the memory and relics of those heavenly patrons. The walls were hung round with symbols of the favours which they had received; eyes, and hands, and feet, of gold and silver: and edifying pictures, which could not long escape the abuse of indiscreet or idolatrous devotion, represented the image, the attributes, and the miracles of the tutelar saint. The same uniform original spirit of superstition might suggest, in the most distant ages and countries, the same methods of deceiving the credulity, and of affecting the senses of mankind: but it must ingenuously be confessed that the ministers of the catholic church imitated the profane model which they were impatient to destroy. The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of Paganism, if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire: but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals. ( The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, Chapter 28 )

The above account by Edward Gibbon, is a revelation of the repetitive cycle of the history of humanity in relation to God’s grace and mercy towards us. Just as the nation of Israel in the days of old, continuously fell prey to the dangers of success, so too did Christianity follow in suit.

When God had blessed the nation of Israel, and had subdued her enemies round about, apostasy was soon at the doors. It was by trusting in alliances with other heathen nations, and incorporating the religious practices of these nations, and those which they had conquered, that the apostasy spread throughout Israel. These things were repeatedly denounced by God’s prophets, as abominations. So to, as soon as Christianity had conquered paganism, if you will, she made the same mistakes. Incorporating the religious practices and ceremonies of conquered paganism into her own ranks. It was thus, that she obtained the favor of those who once opposed her, including the kings of this earth. Having established their approval, they then entered into forbidden relationships with these kings, and their unconverted subjects.

That which was abominable in the sight of God during the old covenant, was, and is still abominable to Him today. The Church of Rome, is the Mother of all apostate “ Christian” entities of this world, that have incorporated these abominations within their ranks. That is, the religious practices and ceremonies of paganism, and the reliance upon the civil powers of this earth, to enforce their dogmas. Let us examine some more history regarding the same.


“Popery, then, we hold to be an after-growth of Paganism, whose deadly wound, dealt by the spiritual sword of Christianity, was healed. Its oracles had been silenced, its shrines demolished, and its gods consigned to oblivion; but the deep corruption of the human race, not yet cured by the promised effusion of the Spirit upon all flesh, revived it anew, and, under a Christian mask, reared other temples in its honour, built it another Pantheon, and replenished it with other gods, which, in fact, were but the ancient divinities under new names. All idolatries, in whatever age or country they have existed, are to be viewed but as successive developments of the one grand apostacy. That apostacy was commenced in Eden, and consummated at Rome. It had its rise in the plucking of the forbidden fruit; and it attained its acme in the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome,--Christ's Vicar on earth. The hope that he would "be as God," led man to commit the first sin; and that sin was perfected when the Pope "exalted himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Popery is but the natural development of this great original transgression. It is just the early idolatries ripened and perfected. It is manifestly an enormous expansion of the same intensely malignant and fearfully destructive principle which these idolatries contained. The ancient Chaldean worshipping the sun,--the Greek deifying the powers of nature,--and the Roman exalting the race of primeval men into gods, are but varied manifestations of the same evil principle, namely, the utter alienation of the heart from God,--its proneness to hide itself amid the darkness of its own corrupt imaginations, and to become a god unto itself. That principle received the most fearful development which appears possible on earth, in the Mystery of Iniquity which came to be seated on the Seven Hills; for therein man deified himself, became God, nay, arrogated powers which lifted him high above God. Popery is the last, the most matured, the most subtle, the most skilfully contriven, and the most essentially diabolical form of idolatry which the world ever saw, or which, there is reason to believe, it ever will see. It is the ne plus ultra of man's wickedness, and the chef d'oeuvre of Satan's cunning and malignity. It is the greatest calamity, next to the Fall, which ever befell the human family. Farther away from God the world could not exist at all. The cement that holds society together, already greatly weakened, would be altogether destroyed, and the social fabric would instantly fall in ruins.” ( History of the Papacy. By Rev. J.A. Wylie, LL.D. Chapter I. )

No sooner were the apostles removed from the stage of action, no sooner was their watchful attention gone and their apostolic authority removed, than this very thing appeared of which the apostle had spoken. Certain bishops, in order to make easier the conversion of the heathen, to multiply disciples, and by this increase their own influence and authority, began to adopt heathen customs and forms.

When the canon of Scripture was closed, and the last of the apostles was dead, the first century was gone; and within twenty years of that time the perversion of the truth of Christ had become wide-spread. In the history of this century and of this subject the record is, — “It is certain that to religious worship, both public and private, many rites were added, without necessity, and to the offense of sober and good men.” ( Mosheim - “Ecclesiastical History,” Murdock’s translation, century 2, part 2, chap. iv, par. 1. )

And the reason of this is stated to be that —
“The Christians were pronounced atheists, because they were destitute of temples, altars, victims, priests, and all that pomp in which the vulgar suppose the essence of religion to consist. For unenlightened persons are prone to estimate religion by what meets their eyes. To silence this accusation, the Christian doctors thought it necessary to introduce some external rites, which would strike the senses of the people, so that they could maintain themselves really to possess all those things of which Christians were charged with being destitute, though under different forms.” ( Mosheim - Id., par. 3. )

This was at once to accommodate the Christian worship and its forms to that of the heathen, and was almost at one step to heathenize Christianity. No heathen element or form can be connected with Christianity or its worship, and Christianity remain pure.

Of all the ceremonies of the heathen, the mysteries were the most sacred and most universally practised. Some mysteries were in honor of Bacchus, some of Cybele, but the greatest of all, those considered the most sacred of all and the most widely practised, were the Eleusinian, so called because celebrated at Eleusis in Greece. But whatever was the mystery thatwas celebrated, there was always in it, as an essential part of it, the elements of abomination that characterized sun-worship everywhere, because the mysteries were simply forms of the wide-spread and multiform worship of the sun.

We will pause here for a brief moment to take note of the above statement. The vast majority of the pagan rites and ceremonies adopted by apostate Christianity, were elements of the many, and varied forms of Sun worship. This same fact holds true also, to the varied forms of worship adopted by apostate Israel during the old covenant. This issue we will address in greater detail later in this book.

Among the first of the perversions of the Christian worship was to give to its forms the title and air of the mysteries. For says the record: — “Among the Greeks and the people of the East, nothing was held more sacred than what were called the mysteries. This circumstance led the Christians, in order to impart dignity to their religion, to say that they also had similar mysteries, or certain holy rites concealed from the vulgar; and they not only applied the terms used in the pagan mysteries to Christian institutions, particularly baptism and the Lord’s Supper, but they gradually introduced also the rites which were designated by these terms.” ( Mosheim - Id., par. 5. )


It was to accommodate the Christian worship to the minds of a people who practised these things that the bishops gave to the Christian ordinances the name of mysteries. The Lord’s Supper was made the greater mystery, baptism the lesser and the initiatory rite to the celebration of the former. After the heathen manner also a white garment was used as the initiatory robe, and the candidate, having been baptized, and thus initiated into the lesser mysteries, was admitted into what was called in the church the order of catechumens, in which order they remained a certain length of time, as in the heathen celebration, before they were admitted to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, the greater mystery.

“This practice originated in the Eastern provinces, and then after the time of Hadrian (who first introduced the pagan mysteries among the Latins) it spread among the Christians of the West.” The reign of Hadrian was from 117-138. Therefore, before the second century was half gone, before the last of the apostles had been dead forty years, this apostasy, this working of the mystery of iniquity, had so largely spread over both the East and the West, that it is literally true that “a large part, therefore, of the Christian observances and institutions, even in this century, had the aspect of the pagan mysteries.”(Mosheim “Ecclesiastical History,” century 2, part 2, chap. 4, par. 5. ) ( The Great Empires of Prophecy, A. T. Jones )

When Christianity conquered Rome the ecclesiastical structure of the pagan church, the title and vestments of the pontifex maximus, the worship of the Great Mother and a multitude of comforting divinities, the sense of supersensible presences everywhere, the joy or solemnity of old festivals, and the pageantry of immemorial ceremony, passed like maternal blood into the new religion, and captive Rome captured her conqueror. The reins and skill of government were handed down by a dying empire to a virile papacy; the lost power of the broken sword was rewon by the magic of the consoling word; the armies of the state were replaced by the missionaries of the Church moving in all directions along the Roman roads; and the revolted provinces, accepting Christianity, again acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome. Through the long struggles of the Age of Faith the authority of the ancient capital persisted and grew, until in the Renaissance the classic culture seemed to rise from the grave, and the immortal city became once more the center of summit of the world's life and wealth and art. When, in 1936, Rome celebrated the 2689th anniversary of her foundation, she could look back upon the most impressive continuity of government and civilization in the history of mankind. May she rise again.(CAESAR AND CHRIST, A history of Roman Civilization and of Christianity from their beginnings to A.D.325. By Will Durant-1944)

Some of the following is repeated from the previous chapter. The writer deems it necessary for the sake of establishing the link between Sunday sacredness, and Sun worship.

“A law of the year 321 ordered tribunals, shops, and workshops to be closed on the day of the sun, and he [Constantine] sent to the legions, to be recited upon that day, a form of prayer which could have been employed by a worshiper of Mithra, of Serapis, or of Apollo, quite as well as by a Christian believer. This was the official sanction of the old custom of addressing a prayer to the rising sun. IN DETERMINING WHAT DAYS SHOULD BE REGARDED AS HOLY, and in the composition of a prayer for national use, CONSTANTINE EXERCISED ONE OF THE RIGHTS BELONGING TO HIM AS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS; and it caused no surprise that he should do this.” ( Duruy - “History of Rome,” chap. 102, part 1:par. 4 from end. )


The text of Constantine's Sunday Law of 321 A.D. is :
"One the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits because it often happens that another day is not suitable for gain-sowing or vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them the second time." Codex Justinianus, lib. 3, tit. 12, 3; translated in History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff, D.D., (7-vol.ed.) Vol. III, p.380. New York, 1884

Dr. A.Chr. Bang says regarding this Law :
"This Sunday law constituted no real favoratism to Christianity..... It is evident from all his statuatory provisions that the Emperor during the time 313-323 with full consciousness has sought the realisation of his religeous aim: the amalgamation of heathenism and Christianity." Kirken og Romerstaten (The Church and the Roman State) p.256. Christiania, 1879

In A.D. 321, to please the bishops of the Catholic Church, he issued an edict commanding judges, townspeople, and mechanics to rest on Sunday.
Yet in this also his paganism was still manifest, as the edict required rest on
"the venerable day of the sun," and "enjoined the observance, or rather forbade the public desecration, of Sunday, not under the name of Sabbatum, or Dies Domini, but under its old astrological and heathen title, Dies Solis , familiar to all his subjects, so that the law was as applicable to the worshipers of Hercules, Apollo, and Mithras, as to the Christians." (History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3, sec. 75, par. 5.-Schaff.) ( The Great Empires of Prophecy by Alonzo Jones page 391 )

Then came Constantine, the best imperial representative of the new paganism, and the most devout worshiper of the sun as the supreme and universal deity, with the avowed purpose, as expressed in his own words, "First to bring the diverse judgments formed by all nations respecting the Deity to a condition, as it were, of settled uniformity." In Constantine the new paganism met its ideal, and the New Platonism - the apostate, paganized, sun-worshiping form of Christianity - met its long-wished-for instrument. In him the two streams met. In him the aspiration of Elagabalus, the hope of Ammonius Saccas and Clement, of Plotinus and Origen, and the ambition of the perverse-minded, self-exalted bishops, were all realized and accomplished - a new, imperial, and universal religion was created.
Therefore, "the reign of Constantine the Great forms one of the epochs in the history of the world. It is the era of the dissolution of the Roman Empire; the commencement, or rather consolidation, of a kind of Eastern despotism, with a new capital, a new patriciate, a new constitution, a new financial system, a new, though as yet imperfect, jurisprudence, and, finally, a new religion." ( Milman - History of Christianity, book 3, chap. 1, par. 1 )
The epoch thus formed was the epoch of the papacy; and the new religion thus created was the PAPAL RELIGION. ( The Great Empires of Prophecy by Alonzo Jones page 361 )


"Aurelian ... created a new cult of the 'Invincible Son.' Worshipped in a splendid temple, served by pontiffs who were raised to the level of the ancient pontiffs of Rome .... On establishing this new cult, Aurelian in reality proclaimed the dethronement of the old Roman idolatry and the accession of Semitic Sun-Worship." Franz Cumont, "Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans," p. 55, 56.

"The two opposed creeds [Christianity and Mithraism] moved in the same intellectual and moral sphere, and one could actually pass from one to the other without shock or interruption." Cumont, ibid. p. 210.


"Our observance of Sunday as the Lord's day is apparently derived from Mithraism. The argument that has sometimes been used against this claim, namely, that Sunday was chosen because of the resurrection on that day, is not well supported." Gordon J. Laing, "Survivals of Roman Religion," p. 148.


"As a solar festival, Sunday was the sacred day of Mithra; and it is interesting to notice that since Mithra was addressed as Dominus, 'Lord,' Sunday must have been the 'Lord's Day' long before the Christian times." A. Weigall, "The Paganism in Our Christianity," p. 145.


We have now established that he Church of Rome has unquestionably committed fornication with the kings of the earth, which resulted in her wielding of the cup filled with the abominations of the earth. We have also established that Sun worship played an extensive roll in filling this cup of abominations. This would include the fact that Sunday sacredness was established through this union of apostate Christianity and Sun worshipping paganism. Thus, Sunday sacredness, is as much of an abomination to God, as is any other of the pagan rites and ceremonies adopted by apostate Christianity. Let us move on to the establishment of the fact, that the Church of Rome is responsible for the blood of the saints.

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

[Ed Edwards]

Originally posted by Kamoroso:
...

We have now established that he Church of Rome has unquestionably committed fornication with the kings of the earth, which resulted in her wielding of the cup filled with the abominations of the earth. We have also established that Sun worship played an extensive roll in filling this cup of abominations. This would include the fact that Sunday sacredness was established through this union of apostate Christianity and Sun worshiping paganism. Thus, Sunday sacredness, is as much of an abomination to God, as is any other of the pagan rites and ceremonies adopted by apostate Christianity. Let us move on to the establishment of the fact, that the Church of Rome is responsible for the blood of the saints.

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith I do not agree with the logic to this point.
However, if one uses that logic, then there
are some more conclusions that MUST BE DRAWN.

This Sunday Worship is the MARK OF THE BEAST
mentioned in Revelation Chapter 3. Those who
worship on Sunday take the mark of the Beast
(Rome) and worship the Beast (Rome).

14:9-11 (HCSB = Holman Christian Standard Bible):

9 And a third angel followed them and spoke with a loud voice: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand,
10 he will also drink the wine of God's wrath, which is mixed full strength in the cup of His anger. He will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the sight of the holy angels and in the sight of the Lamb,
11 and the smoke of their torment will go up forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or anyone who receives the mark of his name

If Sunday worship is 'as proved' in the previous
post, it means you who fell for the RCC
trick of Sunday worship -- you will fry forever
as The Christ looks on gleefully at your
suffering and torment.

Sorry folks, using proof by Reducto Absurdium
shows that somebody made some false assumptions
in their logic :(

Jesus is NOT going smile upon the eternal
torture of those who worship him on the
wrong day of the week. Jesus is going to come
get you before the Tribulation so you will
never have to take the physical Mark of the
Beast - you will live in heaven praising
Jesus forever, not tied to an eternal whipping
post.

[Matt Black]

Yes, indeed, by that logic we should all throw in our lot with Bob and become SDAs.

Constantine did not invent a new kind of Christianity or Church, but submitted to and worked with a pre-existing set of beliefs, practices and structures; many of the matters 'complained about' by his detractors here already existed prior to the Milvian Bridge event.

Now, Constantine may not have understood those beliefs and practices (he only got baptised on his deathbed), may have been selective in what he did adopt and may have continued to display older habits of mind. The major point is, however, that he indentified himself with a theology and a community of considerable antiquity which, having survived both persecution and heresy, was both confident and self-assured.

That there was innovation and interference, inspired both by his convictions (erroneously or otherwise held) and his desire for a string unified Empire, is not open to doubt; and innovation implied, amongst other things, Christian status, wealth, privilege and power. It is equally true, however, that the main features of 4th century Christianity - its resources, organisation and doctrine; its spiritual values and aspirations - were substantially in place by the late 3rd century...

Yours in Christ

Matt

[Kamoroso]

You forget, there is no mark of the beast, until a certain type of worship is forced upon the entire world. Until that point, the mark of the beast does not exist.

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

[Bro. James]

Constantine, near death, indicated how he regarded the efficacy of baptism. "Sin real hard until the last days, then wash away the sin with baptism". He must have been taught this by those "religious" who were married to the State--a marriage which was consumated by Constantine.

Baptismal regeneration and other "salvation by works" errors have been around since Cain made an unacceptable offering.

The gospel is: saved by Grace, not by works. The holy see has had problems with this since day one--so have her daughters. The pedo-baptists are everywhere. That does not make it right.

There is something bogus about Constantine's apparition--in hoc signo vinces. Satan will give one a vision. The symbol which Constantine claims to have seen is pagan--just like the "church" he married to the empire. It later became the Holy Roman Empire. This paganistic system has split, reformed, re-reformed, and ecumenized. It is still pagan in origin.

True Christianity is not pagan in origin--contrary to the secular history books and other efforts to "shroud" the Truth of "Jesus Christ and Him crucified". See John 14:6,7.

The scripture shows up the religions of the world for what they are--phony. You will not find this in the "Daily News" in the "Religion Section", and probably not in most seminaries.

Selah,

Bro. James

[Bro. James]

Sorry, "Sin real hard until the last days..." is this author's sarcasm--not a quote from the Writings of Constantine, The Great. This is not readily apparent in the structure or grammar of the paragraph.

Bro. James

[Claudia_T]

Here is a chapter in the Book Great Controversy by Ellen White that talks a little about Constantine


LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE THREATENED


Romanism is now regarded by Protestants with far greater favor than in former years. In those countries where Catholicism is not in the ascendancy, and the papists are taking a conciliatory course in order to gain influence, there is an increasing indifference concerning the doctrines that separate the reformed churches from the papal hierarchy; the opinion is gaining ground that, after all, we do not differ so widely upon vital points as has been supposed, and that a little concession on our part will bring us into a better understanding with Rome. The time was when Protestants placed a high value upon the liberty of conscience which had been so dearly purchased. They taught their children to abhor popery and held that to seek harmony with Rome would be disloyalty to God. But how widely different are the sentiments now expressed!

The defenders of the papacy declare that the church has been maligned, and the Protestant world are inclined to accept the statement. Many urge that it is unjust to judge the church of today by the abominations and absurdities that marked her reign during the centuries of ignorance and darkness. They excuse her horrible cruelty as the result of the barbarism of the times and plead that the influence of modern civilization has changed her sentiments.


Have these persons forgotten the claim of infallibility put forth for eight hundred years by this haughty power? So far from being relinquished, this claim was affirmed in the nineteenth century with greater positiveness than ever before. As Rome asserts that the "church never erred; nor will it, according to the Scriptures, ever err" (John L. von Mosheim, Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, book 3, century II, part 2, chapter 2, section 9, note 17), how can she renounce the principles which governed her course in past ages?

The papal church will never relinquish her claim to infallibility. All that she has done in her persecution of those who reject her dogmas she holds to be right; and would she not repeat the same acts, should the opportunity be presented? Let the restraints now imposed by secular governments be removed and Rome be reinstated in her former power, and there would speedily be a revival of her tyranny and persecution.

A well-known writer speaks thus of the attitude of the papal hierarchy as regards freedom of conscience, and of the perils which especially threaten the United States from the success of her policy:

"There are many who are disposed to attribute any fear of Roman Catholicism in the United States to bigotry or childishness. Such see nothing in the character and attitude of Romanism that is hostile to our free institutions, or find nothing portentous in its growth. Let us, then, first compare some of the fundamental principles of our government with those of the Catholic Church.

"The Constitution of the United States guarantees liberty of conscience. Nothing is dearer or more fundamental. Pope Pius IX, in his Encyclical Letter of August 15, 1854, said: `The absurd and erroneous doctrines or ravings in defense of liberty of conscience are a most pestilential error--a pest, of all others, most to be dreaded in a state.' The same pope, in his Encyclical Letter of December 8, 1864, anathematized `those who assert the liberty of conscience and of religious worship,' also 'all such as maintain that the church may not employ force.'

"The pacific tone of Rome in the United States does not imply a change of heart. She is tolerant where she is helpless. Says Bishop O'Connor: 'Religious liberty is merely endured until the opposite can be carried into effect without peril to the Catholic world.'. . . The archbishop of St. Louis once said: 'Heresy and unbelief are crimes; and in Christian countries, as in Italy and Spain, for instance, where all the people are Catholics, and where the Catholic religion is an essential part of the law of the land, they are punished as other crimes.'. . .

"Every cardinal, archbishop, and bishop in the Catholic Church takes an oath of allegiance to the pope, in which occur the following words: 'Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our said lord (the pope), or his aforesaid successors, I will to my utmost persecute and oppose.'"--Josiah Strong, Our Country, ch. 5, pars. 2-4.


It is true that there are real Christians in the Roman Catholic communion. Thousands in that church are serving God according to the best light they have. They are not allowed access to His word, and therefore they do not discern the truth. [PUBLISHED IN 1888 AND 1911. SEE APPENDIX.] They have never seen the contrast between a living heart service and a round of mere forms and ceremonies. God looks with pitying tenderness upon these souls, educated as they are in a faith that is delusive and unsatisfying. He will cause rays of light to penetrate the dense darkness that surrounds them. He will reveal to them the truth as it is in Jesus, and many will yet take their position with His people.

But Romanism as a system is no more in harmony with the gospel of Christ now than at any former period in her history. The Protestant churches are in great darkness, or they would discern the signs of the times. The Roman Church is far-reaching in her plans and modes of operation. She is employing every device to extend her influence and increase her power in preparation for a fierce and determined conflict to regain control of the world, to re-establish persecution, and to undo all that Protestantism has done. Catholicism is gaining ground upon every side. See the increasing number of her churches and chapels in Protestant countries. Look at the popularity of her colleges and seminaries in America, so widely patronized by Protestants. Look at the growth of ritualism in England and the frequent defections to the ranks of the Catholics. These things should awaken the anxiety of all who prize the pure principles of the gospel.

Protestants have tampered with and patronized popery; they have made compromises and concessions which papists themselves are surprised to see and fail to understand. Men are closing their eyes to the real character of Romanism and the dangers to be apprehended from her supremacy. The people need to be aroused to resist the advances of this most dangerous foe to civil and religious liberty.

Many Protestants suppose that the Catholic religion is unattractive and that its worship is a dull, meaningless round of ceremony. Here they mistake. While Romanism is based upon deception, it is not a coarse and clumsy imposture. The religious service of the Roman Church is a most impressive ceremonial. Its gorgeous display and solemn rites fascinate the senses of the people and silence the voice of reason and of conscience. The eye is charmed. Magnificent churches, imposing processions, golden altars, jeweled shrines, choice paintings, and exquisite sculpture appeal to the love of beauty. The ear also is captivated. The music is unsurpassed. The rich notes of the deep-toned organ, blending with the melody of many voices as it swells through the lofty domes and pillared aisles of her grand cathedrals, cannot fail to impress the mind with awe and reverence.

This outward splendor, pomp, and ceremony, that only mocks the longings of the sin-sick soul, is an evidence of inward corruption. The religion of Christ needs not such attractions to recommend it. In the light shining from the cross, true Christianity appears so pure and lovely that no external decorations can enhance its true worth. It is the beauty of holiness, a meek and quiet spirit, which is of value with God.

Brilliancy of style is not necessarily an index of pure, elevated thought. High conceptions of art, delicate refinement of taste, often exist in minds that are earthly and sensual. They are often employed by Satan to lead men to forget the necessities of the soul, to lose sight of the future, immortal life, to turn away from their infinite Helper, and to live for this world alone.

A religion of externals is attractive to the unrenewed heart. The pomp and ceremony of the Catholic worship has a seductive, bewitching power, by which many are deceived; and they come to look upon the Roman Church as the very gate of heaven. None but those who have planted their feet firmly upon the foundation of truth, and whose hearts are renewed by the Spirit of God, are proof against her influence. Thousands who have not an experimental knowledge of Christ will be led to accept the forms of godliness without the power. Such a religion is just what the multitudes desire.

The church's claim to the right to pardon leads the Romanist to feel at liberty to sin; and the ordinance of confession, without which her pardon is not granted, tends also to give license to evil. He who kneels before fallen man, and opens in confession the secret thoughts and imaginations of his heart, is debasing his manhood and degrading every noble instinct of his soul. In unfolding the sins of his life to a priest,--an erring, sinful mortal, and too often corrupted with wine and licentiousness,--his standard of character is lowered, and he is defiled in consequence. His thought of God is degraded to the likeness of fallen humanity, for the priest stands as a representative of God. This degrading confession of man to man is the secret spring from which has flowed much of the evil that is defiling the world and fitting it for the final destruction. Yet to him who loves self-indulgence, it is more pleasing to confess to a fellow mortal than to open the soul to God. It is more palatable to human nature to do penance than to renounce sin; it is easier to mortify the flesh by sackcloth and nettles and galling chains than to crucify fleshly lusts. Heavy is the yoke which the carnal heart is willing to bear rather than bow to the yoke of Christ.

There is a striking similarity between the Church of Rome and the Jewish Church at the time of Christ's first advent. While the Jews secretly trampled upon every principle of the law of God, they were outwardly rigorous in the observance of its precepts, loading it down with exactions and traditions that made obedience painful and burdensome. As the Jews professed to revere the law, so do Romanists claim to reverence the cross. They exalt the symbol of Christ's sufferings, while in their lives they deny Him whom it represents.

Papists place crosses upon their churches, upon their altars, and upon their garments. Everywhere is seen the insignia of the cross. Everywhere it is outwardly honored and exalted. But the teachings of Christ are buried beneath a mass of senseless traditions, false interpretations, and rigorous exactions. The Saviour's words concerning the bigoted Jews, apply with still greater force to the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church: "They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers." Matthew 23:4. Conscientious souls are kept in constant terror fearing the wrath of an offended God, while many of the dignitaries of the church are living in luxury and sensual pleasure.

The worship of images and relics, the invocation of saints, and the exaltation of the pope are devices of Satan to attract the minds of the people from God and from His Son. To accomplish their ruin, he endeavors to turn their attention from Him through whom alone they can find salvation. He will direct them to any object that can be substituted for the One who has said: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28.

It is Satan's constant effort to misrepresent the character of God, the nature of sin, and the real issues at stake in the great controversy. His sophistry lessens the obligation of the divine law and gives men license to sin. At the same time he causes them to cherish false conceptions of God so that they regard Him with fear and hate rather than with love. The cruelty inherent in his own character is attributed to the Creator; it is embodied in systems of religion and expressed in modes of worship. Thus the minds of men are blinded, and Satan secures them as his agents to war against God. By perverted conceptions of the divine attributes, heathen nations were led to believe human sacrifices necessary to secure the favor of Deity; and horrible cruelties have been perpetrated under the various forms of idolatry.

The Roman Catholic Church, uniting the forms of paganism and Christianity, and, like paganism, misrepresenting the character of God, has resorted to practices no less cruel and revolting. In the days of Rome's supremacy there were instruments of torture to compel assent to her doctrines. There was the stake for those who would not concede to her claims. There were massacres on a scale that will never be known until revealed in the judgment. Dignitaries of the church studied, under Satan their master, to invent means to cause the greatest possible torture and not end the life of the victim. In many cases the infernal process was repeated to the utmost limit of human endurance, until nature gave up the struggle, and the sufferer hailed death as a sweet release.

Such was the fate of Rome's opponents. For her adherents she had the discipline of the scourge, of famishing hunger, of bodily austerities in every conceivable, heart-sickening form. To secure the favor of Heaven, penitents violated the laws of God by violating the laws of nature. They were taught to sunder the ties which He has formed to bless and gladden man's earthly sojourn. The churchyard contains millions of victims who spent their lives in vain endeavors to subdue their natural affections, to repress, as offensive to God, every thought and feeling of sympathy with their fellow creatures.

If we desire to understand the determined cruelty of Satan, manifested for hundreds of years, not among those who never heard of God, but in the very heart and throughout the extent of Christendom, we have only to look at the history of Romanism. Through this mammoth system of deception the prince of evil achieves his purpose of bringing dishonor to God and wretchedness to man. And as we see how he succeeds in disguising himself and accomplishing his work through the leaders of the church, we may better understand why he has so great antipathy to the Bible. If that Book is read, the mercy and love of God will be revealed; it will be seen that He lays upon men none of these heavy burdens. All that He asks is a broken and contrite heart, a humble, obedient spirit.

Christ gives no example in His life for men and women to shut themselves in monasteries in order to become fitted for heaven. He has never taught that love and sympathy must be repressed. The Saviour's heart overflowed with love. The nearer man approaches to moral perfection, the keener are his sensibilities, the more acute is his perception of sin, and the deeper his sympathy for the afflicted. The pope claims to be the vicar of Christ; but how does his character bear comparison with that of our Saviour? Was Christ ever known to consign men to the prison or the rack because they did not pay Him homage as the King of heaven? Was His voice heard condemning to death those who did not accept Him? When He was slighted by the people of a Samaritan village, the apostle John was filled with indignation, and inquired: "Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?" Jesus looked with pity upon His disciple, and rebuked his harsh spirit, saying: "The Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." Luke 9:54, 56. How different from the spirit manifested by Christ is that of His professed vicar.

The Roman Church now presents a fair front to the world, covering with apologies her record of horrible cruelties. She has clothed herself in Christlike garments; but she is unchanged. Every principle of the papacy that existed in past ages exists today. The doctrines devised in the darkest ages are still held. Let none deceive themselves. The papacy that Protestants are now so ready to honor is the same that ruled the world in the days of the Reformation, when men of God stood up, at the peril of their lives, to expose her iniquity. She possesses the same pride and arrogant assumption that lorded it over kings and princes, and claimed the prerogatives of God. Her spirit is no less cruel and despotic now than when she crushed out human liberty and slew the saints of the Most High.

The papacy is just what prophecy declared that she would be, the apostasy of the latter times. 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4. It is a part of her policy to assume the character which will best accomplish her purpose; but beneath the variable appearance of the chameleon she conceals the invariable venom of the serpent. "Faith ought not to be kept with heretics, nor persons suspected of heresy" (Lenfant, volume 1, page 516), she declares. Shall this power, whose record for a thousand years is written in the blood of the saints, be now acknowledged as a part of the church of Christ?

It is not without reason that the claim has been put forth in Protestant countries that Catholicism differs less widely from Protestantism than in former times. There has been a change; but the change is not in the papacy. Catholicism indeed resembles much of the Protestantism that now exists, because Protestantism has so greatly degenerated since the days of the Reformers.

As the Protestant churches have been seeking the favor of the world, false charity has blinded their eyes. They do not see but that it is right to believe good of all evil, and as the inevitable result they will finally believe evil of all good.


Instead of standing in defense of the faith once delivered to the saints, they are now, as it were, apologizing to Rome for their uncharitable opinion of her, begging pardon for their bigotry.

A large class, even of those who look upon Romanism with no favor, apprehend little danger from her power and influence. Many urge that the intellectual and moral darkness prevailing during the Middle Ages favored the spread of her dogmas, superstitions, and oppression, and that the greater intelligence of modern times, the general diffusion of knowledge, and the increasing liberality in matters of religion forbid a revival of intolerance and tyranny. The very thought that such a state of things will exist in this enlightened age is ridiculed. It is true that great light, intellectual, moral, and religious, is shining upon this generation. In the open pages of God's Holy Word, light from heaven has been shed upon the world. But it should be remembered that the greater the light bestowed, the greater the darkness of those who pervert and reject it.

A prayerful study of the Bible would show Protestants the real character of the papacy and would cause them to abhor and to shun it; but many are so wise in their own conceit that they feel no need of humbly seeking God that they may be led into the truth. Although priding themselves on their enlightenment, they are ignorant both of the Scriptures and of the power of God. They must have some means of quieting their consciences, and they seek that which is least spiritual and humiliating. What they desire is a method of forgetting God which shall pass as a method of remembering Him. The papacy is well adapted to meet the wants of all these. It is prepared for two classes of mankind, embracing nearly the whole world--those who would be saved by their merits, and those who would be saved in their sins. Here is the secret of its power.

A day of great intellectual darkness has been shown to be favorable to the success of the papacy. It will yet be demonstrated that a day of great intellectual light is equally favorable for its success. In past ages, when men were without God's word and without the knowledge of the truth, their eyes were blindfolded, and thousands were ensnared, not seeing the net spread for their feet. In this generation there are many whose eyes become dazzled by the glare of human speculations, "science falsely so called;" they discern not the net, and walk into it as readily as if blindfolded. God designed that man's intellectual powers should be held as a gift from his Maker and should be employed in the service of truth and righteousness; but when pride and ambition are cherished, and men exalt their own theories above the word of God, then intelligence can accomplish greater harm than ignorance. Thus the false science of the present day, which undermines faith in the Bible, will prove as successful in preparing the way for the acceptance of the papacy, with its pleasing forms, as did the withholding of knowledge in opening the way for its aggrandizement in the Dark Ages.

In the movements now in progress in the United States to secure for the institutions and usages of the church the support of the state, Protestants are following in the steps of papists. Nay, more, they are opening the door for the papacy to regain in Protestant America the supremacy which she has lost in the Old World. And that which gives greater significance to this movement is the fact that the principal object contemplated is the enforcement of Sunday observance--a custom which originated with Rome, and which she claims as the sign of her authority. It is the spirit of the papacy--the spirit of conformity to worldly customs, the veneration for human traditions above the commandments of God--that is permeating the Protestant churches and leading them on to do the same work of Sunday exaltation which the papacy has done before them.

If the reader would understand the agencies to be employed in the soon-coming contest, he has but to trace the record of the means which Rome employed for the same object in ages past. If he would know how papists and Protestants united will deal with those who reject their dogmas, let him see the spirit which Rome manifested toward the Sabbath and its defenders.

Royal edicts, general councils, and church ordinances sustained by secular power were the steps by which the pagan festival attained its position of honor in the Christian world. The first public measure enforcing Sunday observance was the law enacted by Constantine. (A.D. 321; see Appendix note for page 53.) This edict required townspeople to rest on "the venerable day of the sun," but permitted countrymen to continue their agricultural pursuits. Though virtually a heathen statute, it was enforced by the emperor after his nominal acceptance of Christianity.

The royal mandate not proving a sufficient substitute for divine authority, Eusebius, a bishop who sought the favor of princes, and who was the special friend and flatterer of Constantine, advanced the claim that Christ had transferred the Sabbath to Sunday. Not a single testimony of the Scriptures was produced in proof of the new doctrine. Eusebius himself unwittingly acknowledges its falsity and points to the real authors of the change. "All things," he says, "whatever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's Day."--Robert Cox, Sabbath Laws and Sabbath Duties, page 538. But the Sunday argument, groundless as it was, served to embolden men in trampling upon the Sabbath of the Lord. All who desired to be honored by the world accepted the popular festival.

As the papacy became firmly established, the work of Sunday exaltation was continued. For a time the people engaged in agricultural labor when not attending church, and the seventh day was still regarded as the Sabbath. But steadily a change was effected. Those in holy office were forbidden to pass judgment in any civil controversy on the Sunday. Soon after, all persons, of whatever rank, were commanded to refrain from common labor on pain of a fine for freemen and stripes in the case of servants. Later it was decreed that rich men should be punished with the loss of half of their estates; and finally, that if still obstinate they should be made slaves. The lower classes were to suffer perpetual banishment.

Miracles also were called into requisition. Among other wonders it was reported that as a husbandman who was about to plow his field on Sunday cleaned his plow with an iron, the iron stuck fast in his hand, and for two years he carried it about with him, "to his exceeding great pain and shame."--Francis West, Historical and Practical Discourse on the Lord's Day, page 174.

Later the pope gave directions that the parish priest should admonish the violators of Sunday and wish them to go to church and say their prayers, lest they bring some great calamity on themselves and neighbors. An ecclesiastical council brought forward the argument, since so widely employed, even by Protestants, that because persons had been struck by lightning while laboring on Sunday, it must be the Sabbath. "It is apparent," said the prelates, "how high the displeasure of God was upon their neglect of this day." An appeal was then made that priests and ministers, kings and princes, and all faithful people "use their utmost endeavors and care that the day be restored to its honor, and, for the credit of Christianity, more devoutly observed for the time to come."--Thomas Morer, Discourse in Six Dialogues on the Name, Notion, and Observation of the Lord's Day, page 271.

The decrees of councils proving insufficient, the secular authorities were besought to issue an edict that would strike terror to the hearts of the people and force them to refrain from labor on the Sunday. At a synod held in Rome, all previous decisions were reaffirmed with greater force and solemnity. They were also incorporated into the ecclesiastical law and enforced by the civil authorities throughout nearly all Christendom. (See Heylyn, History of the Sabbath, pt. 2, ch. 5, sec. 7.)


Still the absence of Scriptural authority for Sundaykeeping occasioned no little embarrassment. The people questioned the right of their teachers to set aside the positive declaration of Jehovah, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," in order to honor the day of the sun. To supply the lack of Bible testimony, other expedients were necessary. A zealous advocate of Sunday, who about the close of the twelfth century visited the churches of England, was resisted by faithful witnesses for the truth; and so fruitless were his efforts that he departed from the country for a season and cast about him for some means to enforce his teachings. When he returned, the lack was supplied, and in his after labors he met with greater success. He brought with him a roll purporting to be from God Himself, which contained the needed command for Sunday observance, with awful threats to terrify the disobedient. This precious document-- as base a counterfeit as the institution it supported--was said to have fallen from heaven and to have been found in Jerusalem, upon the altar of St. Simeon, in Golgotha. But, in fact, the pontifical palace at Rome was the source whence it proceeded. Frauds and forgeries to advance the power and prosperity of the church have in all ages been esteemed lawful by the papal hierarchy.

The roll forbade labor from the ninth hour, three o'clock, on Saturday afternoon, till sunrise on Monday; and its authority was declared to be confirmed by many miracles. It was reported that persons laboring beyond the appointed hour were stricken with paralysis. A miller who attempted to grind his corn, saw, instead of flour, a torrent of blood come forth, and the mill wheel stood still, notwithstanding the strong rush of water. A woman who placed dough in the oven found it raw when taken out, though the oven was very hot. Another who had dough prepared for baking at the ninth hour, but determined to set it aside till Monday, found, the next day, that it had been made into loaves and baked by divine power. A man who baked bread after the ninth hour on Saturday found, when he broke it the next morning, that blood started therefrom. By such absurd and superstitious fabrications did the advocates of Sunday endeavor to establish its sacredness. (See Roger de Hoveden, Annals, vol. 2, pp. 526-530.)

In Scotland, as in England, a greater regard for Sunday was secured by uniting with it a portion of the ancient Sabbath. But the time required to be kept holy varied. An edict from the king of Scotland declared that "Saturday from twelve at noon ought to be accounted holy," and that no man, from that time till Monday morning, should engage in worldly business.--Morer, pages 290, 291.

But notwithstanding all the efforts to establish Sunday sacredness, papists themselves publicly confessed the divine authority of the Sabbath and the human origin of the institution by which it had been supplanted. In the sixteenth century a papal council plainly declared: "Let all Christians remember that the seventh day was consecrated by God, and hath been received and observed, not only by the Jews, but by all others who pretend to worship God; though we Christians have changed their Sabbath into the Lord's Day."-- Ibid., pages 281, 282. Those who were tampering with the divine law were not ignorant of the character of their work. They were deliberately setting themselves above God.

A striking illustration of Rome's policy toward those who disagree with her was given in the long and bloody persecution of the Waldenses, some of whom were observers of the Sabbath. Others suffered in a similar manner for their fidelity to the fourth commandment. The history of the churches of Ethiopia and Abyssinia is especially significant. Amid the gloom of the Dark Ages, the Christians of Central Africa were lost sight of and forgotten by the world, and for many centuries they enjoyed freedom in the exercise of their faith. But at last Rome learned of their existence, and the emperor of Abyssinia was soon beguiled into an acknowledgment of the pope as the vicar of Christ. Other concessions followed.


An edict was issued forbidding the observance of the Sabbath under the severest penalties. (See Michael Geddes, Church History of Ethiopia, pages 311, 312.) But papal tyranny soon became a yoke so galling that the Abyssinians determined to break it from their necks. After a terrible struggle the Romanists were banished from their dominions, and the ancient faith was restored. The churches rejoiced in their freedom, and they never forgot the lesson they had learned concerning the deception, the fanaticism, and the despotic power of Rome. Within their solitary realm they were content to remain, unknown to the rest of Christendom.

The churches of Africa held the Sabbath as it was held by the papal church before her complete apostasy. While they kept the seventh day in obedience to the commandment of God, they abstained from labor on the Sunday in conformity to the custom of the church. Upon obtaining supreme power, Rome had trampled upon the Sabbath of God to exalt her own; but the churches of Africa, hidden for nearly a thousand years, did not share in this apostasy. When brought under the sway of Rome, they were forced to set aside the true and exalt the false sabbath; but no sooner had they regained their independence than they returned to obedience to the fourth commandment.

These records of the past clearly reveal the enmity of Rome toward the true Sabbath and its defenders, and the means which she employs to honor the institution of her creating. The word of God teaches that these scenes are to be repeated as Roman Catholics and Protestants shall unite for the exaltation of the Sunday.

The prophecy of Revelation 13 declares that the power represented by the beast with lamblike horns shall cause "the earth and them which dwell therein" to worship the papacy --there symbolized by the beast "like unto a leopard." The beast with two horns is also to say "to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast;" and, furthermore, it is to command all, "both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond," to receive the mark of the beast. Revelation 13:11-16. It has been shown that the United States is the power represented by the beast with lamblike horns, and that this prophecy will be fulfilled when the United States shall enforce Sunday observance, which Rome claims as the special acknowledgment of her supremacy. But in this homage to the papacy the United States will not be alone. The influence of Rome in the countries that once acknowledged her dominion is still far from being destroyed. And prophecy foretells a restoration of her power. "I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast." Verse 3. The infliction of the deadly wound points to the downfall of the papacy in 1798. After this, says the prophet, "his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast." Paul states plainly that the "man of sin" will continue until the second advent. 2 Thessalonians 2:3-8. To the very close of time he will carry forward the work of deception. And the revelator declares, also referring to the papacy: "All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life." Revelation 13:8. In both the Old and the New World, the papacy will receive homage in the honor paid to the Sunday institution, that rests solely upon the authority of the Roman Church.

Since the middle of the nineteenth century, students of prophecy in the United States have presented this testimony to the world. In the events now taking place is seen a rapid advance toward the fulfillment of the prediction. With Protestant teachers there is the same claim of divine authority for Sundaykeeping, and the same lack of Scriptural evidence, as with the papal leaders who fabricated miracles to supply the place of a command from God. The assertion that God's judgments are visited upon men for their violation of the Sunday-sabbath, will be repeated; already it is beginning to be urged. And a movement to enforce Sunday observance is fast gaining ground.

Marvelous in her shrewdness and cunning is the Roman Church. She can read what is to be. She bides her time, seeing that the Protestant churches are paying her homage in their acceptance of the false sabbath and that they are preparing to enforce it by the very means which she herself employed in bygone days. Those who reject the light of truth will yet seek the aid of this self-styled infallible power to exalt an institution that originated with her. How readily she will come to the help of Protestants in this work it is not difficult to conjecture. Who understands better than the papal leaders how to deal with those who are disobedient to the church?

The Roman Catholic Church, with all its ramifications throughout the world, forms one vast organization under the control, and designed to serve the interests, of the papal see. Its millions of communicants, in every country on the globe, are instructed to hold themselves as bound in allegiance to the pope. Whatever their nationality or their government, they are to regard the authority of the church as above all other. Though they may take the oath pledging their loyalty to the state, yet back of this lies the vow of obedience to Rome, absolving them from every pledge inimical to her interests.

History testifies of her artful and persistent efforts to insinuate herself into the affairs of nations; and having gained a foothold, to further her own aims, even at the ruin of princes and people. In the year 1204, Pope Innocent III extracted from Peter II, king of Arragon, the following extraordinary oath: "I, Peter, king of Arragonians, profess and promise to be ever faithful and obedient to my lord, Pope Innocent, to his Catholic successors, and the Roman Church, and faithfully to preserve my kingdom in his obedience, defending the Catholic faith, and persecuting heretical pravity." --John Dowling, The History of Romanism, b. 5, ch. 6, sec. 55. This is in harmony with the claims regarding the power of the Roman pontiff "that it is lawful for him to depose emperors" and "that he can absolve subjects from their allegiance to unrighteous rulers."--Mosheim, b. 3, cent. 11, pt. 2, ch. 2, sec. 9, note 17.

And let it be remembered, it is the boast of Rome that she never changes. The principles of Gregory VII and Innocent III are still the principles of the Roman Catholic Church. And had she but the power, she would put them in practice with as much vigor now as in past centuries. Protestants little know what they are doing when they propose to accept the aid of Rome in the work of Sunday exaltation. While they are bent upon the accomplishment of their purpose, Rome is aiming to re-establish her power, to recover her lost supremacy. Let the principle once be established in the United States that the church may employ or control the power of the state; that religious observances may be enforced by secular laws; in short, that the authority of church and state is to dominate the conscience, and the triumph of Rome in this country is assured.

God's word has given warning of the impending danger; let this be unheeded, and the Protestant world will learn what the purposes of Rome really are, only when it is too late to escape the snare. She is silently growing into power. Her doctrines are exerting their influence in legislative halls, in the churches, and in the hearts of men. She is piling up her lofty and massive structures in the secret recesses of which her former persecutions will be repeated. Stealthily and unsuspectedly she is strengthening her forces to further her own ends when the time shall come for her to strike. All that she desires is vantage ground, and this is already being given her. We shall soon see and shall feel what the purpose of the Roman element is. Whoever shall believe and obey the word of God will thereby incur reproach and persecution.

[Claudia_T]

By Vance Ferrell

FOUR VITAL PRINCIPALS

God’s plan to save men from sin is based upon four vital principles. Satan is working to destroy one or more of these principles from the mind of every person now living on earth. He well knows that he only needs to substitute one of four changes in order to succeed. It matters not which one it is.

Here they are:

1. Change the authority of the Bible, in explaining and defining the way of salvation,-to the authority of a church, through the decrees of its councils, the sayings of its “saints,” or the dogmas of its leaders.

Church authority is very important-Christ gave it to us-but never when set above Scripture.

2. Eliminate Christ, our only source of righteousness in attaining salvation,-through the introduction of meritorious works, image worship, invocation, or legalism (attempting to obey God’s law by one’s own efforts, without relying wholly on the merits of Christ’s intercession, which alone can enable him to do it).

3. Abolish the blood atonement, through the rejection of His atoning sacrifice on earth or the rejection of its application in heaven or by the substitution of the sacrifice of the Mass.

4. Destroy the unchangeable moral Ten Commandment Law, the only standard of sin and righteousness,-through an entire rejection of it or by changing one or more of its rules (especially seen in the second regarding image worship, and the fourth regarding the seventh day Sabbath).

Each of the above changes has been introduced into the church through the ages, and now exists in various denominations. The one change which has become the most strikingly widespread is the change of the Fourth Commandment. (You will find it in its original form, as given by God, in the Bible: Read Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 16; 20:8-11.)



WHO MADE THE CHANGE?

The Bible prophesies that a power would arise that would seek to change God’s law (Daniel 7:25). Such a change has been attempted. The moral law, resting beneath the throne of God, tells us that the seventh day is the one selected for us, by God, as our Sabbath rest. But men today are observing the first day. How did this come about? When did it happen? What does the Bible say about it? What should we do about it?

The seventh-day Sabbath was not changed by Christ. Jesus is the One who created all things (1 Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 3:9; John 1:1-3, 14; Hebrews 1:1-3) and One who gave the law at Sinai (1 Corinthians 10:4; Nehemiah 9:12-13). Jesus, therefore, made the Sabbath at Creation, and spoke it at Sinai; and Jesus does not change (Hebrews 13:8).

The seventh-day Sabbath was not changed by God. God does not change (Matthew 3:6; James 1:17; Ecclesiastes 3:14), and His moral law does not change (Psalm 119:152; 111:7-8: Matthew 5:17-19).

The “Lord's Day,” mentioned in Revelation 1:10, is the “day of the Lord” in the fourth commandment-the seventh day (Exodus 20:8-11). The statement, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God” is found seven times in the Bible (Exodus 16:26; 20:11; 13:12; 31:15; 35:2; Leviticus 23:3; Deuteronomy 5:14). Jesus, the Creator, (Hebrews 1:1-2), is the One who gave us the Sabbath, and therefore the One who says, “The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28).

While on earth Jesus kept His Father’s commandments (John 15:10), and fulfilled the law (gave a perfect example of obedience).-He did not come to abolish or destroy it (Matthew 5:17-19). Rather, He magnified it and explained its spiritual significance (Isaiah 42:21; cf. Matthew 5:21-22; 27-28). He always kept the Sabbath (Luke 4:16); and, following His sacrifice on Friday, He rested in the tomb on the Sabbath (Luke 23:54-24:1).

What about after His death? He had given His followers no command to cease observing it; and so, following His burial on Friday, they prepared for it, and then “rested on the Sabbath day according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56). Not until the Sabbath was past did they bring the spices, they had prepared on Friday, to the tomb for His burial (read Luke 23:52-24:1). Jesus’ followers sacredly observed it during His life and following His death (Acts 15:19-21; 18:11-14).

There is no word, no hint of a change anywhere in the Bible-and certainly not in the New Testament. Jesus, Himself, gave a special command to those living, when the prophecy of Matthew 24 would be fulfilled, to sacredly guard their Sabbath observance (Matthew 24:20). This prophecy was partially fulfilled when Jerusalem was besieged and destroyed in A.D. 70-39 years after Calvary. Many of its prophecies are still to be fulfilled in the future, and so this means that the command of Matthew 24:20 is for us today.

Some think that there must be a text somewhere in the Bible that says we should keep Sunday, the first day of the week instead of Saturday, the seventh day. One man repeatedly offered $1,000 to anyone who would produce such a text. He still has the money.

The reward was never claimed, and here is why: Sunday, the first day of the week, is mentioned in the Bible only eight times. Genesis 1:5 tells about the first day of Creation Week. Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1-2, 9; Luke 14:1; John 20:19-all refer to Christ’s resurrection from the dead (following His rest in the tomb on the seventh-day Sabbath).

Nothing is said of its supposed sanctity (on the contrary, Luke 24:12-15 tells of His 15-mile journey with two disciples on that same first Sunday after His death). John 20:19 tells of a Sunday gathering, but not for worship, but “for fear of the Jews.”

There are 84 Sabbath services referred to in Acts, and only one Sunday service (Acts 20:7-14). Paul held a farewell meeting “on the evening after Sabbath” (therefore on Saturday night)-In the Bible, the new day begins at sunset (Leviticus 23:32; Genesis 1:5). The next morning, Sunday morning, he traveled over land 19 miles to meet Luke and other friends who came, by boat, to join him (Acts 20:13-14). At this Sunday meeting they “broke bread.” This does not indicate Sunday sacredness, for “they broke bread daily” (Acts 2:46). There is as much reason for keeping Sunday sacred because of Acts 20:7 as there is for keeping Wednesday sacred because of Acts 20:15-17).

The last Sunday text, 1 Corinthians 16:1-2, is the only time in all his writings that Paul mentions the first day. This passage does not mean a weekly meeting, but just the contrary: “Let everyone of you lay by him in store”-privately, at home-so that there will be “no gatherings when I come.” The believers normally kept Sabbath; and, after it was passed, they were to figure their earnings for the week and then set aside a portion. Budgets and bookkeeping are not proper business for the Sabbath, so Paul told them to do it on Sunday! “Let each one of you put on one side and store at home” (1 Corinthians 16:1-2, Weymouth).

Paul frequently spoke against those who professed the law and rejected Christ. This is just as bad as to profess Christ and knowingly reject His law; so Paul spoke against such a practice. But he did not seek to change the law. “God forbid, yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31). Paul would have no more right than we to change the moral code of God, and he knew it.

Some suggest that possibly the seven-day weekly cycle has been changed at some time in the past, and that the true Sabbath cannot now be identified. Thank God, He has not let this happen. He will not allow a clear-cut command to be so clouded.

Abundant historical evidence is available to establish that the seventh-day weekly cycle has never been changed (space forbids including it here, but it may be obtained free of charge by writing to the publishers of this tract. Evidence more irrefutable than paper records has been provided).

God has preserved the Jewish race alive through the ages for several reasons. One of these is to provide living proof in every generation, as to which day is the seventh-day Sabbath of the Bible. This is an evidence that cannot be dented. Men may reject God’s Sabbath, but they cannot destroy its identity. Ask any Jewish neighbor which day is the Sabbath. he will tell you that it is Saturday-the seventh day.

We have seen what the Bible says-now, what do men say?-Do men claim that there is a Bible text for the change?

Roman Catholics say there is no Bible proof:

“You may read the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday” (Cardinal Gibbons, Faith of Our Fathers, 89).

“Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles…from the beginning to the end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transference of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first.” (“Catholic Press,” Sydney, Australia, August 25, 1900).

Protestants say there is no Bible proof:

“The notion of a formal substitution (of the first for the seventh day)…and the transference to it, perhaps in a spiritual form, of the Sabbatical obligation established by the fourth commandment, has no basis…whatever either in Holy Scripture or in Christian antiquity” (Smith and Chetham’s Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, Article, “Sabbath”).

“It is quite clear that however rigidly or devotedly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping Sabbath. the Sabbath was founded on a specific Divine command. We can plead no such command for the observance of Sunday…There is not a single line in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday” (Dr. R.W. Dale in The Ten Commandments,106-107 [Congregational]).

“There was and is a commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath was not Sunday. It will, however, be readily said, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week. Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament, absolutely not” (Dr. E.R. Hiscox, author of The Baptist Manual, report of his sermon at the Baptist Ministers’ Convention, in New York Examiner, November 16, 1893 [Baptist]).

“There is no word, no hint in the New Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday. The observance of Sunday…into the rest of Sunday no Divine law enters” (Canon Eyton, of Westminster, in Ten Commandments [Presbyterian]).

“The Bible commandment says on the seventh day thou shalt rest. That is Saturday. Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on Sunday” (Phillip Carrington [Episcopal], quoted in Toronto Daily Star, October 26, 1949).

WHEN AND WHY WAS IT MADE?

Historians say there is no Bible proof:

“Unquestionably the first law, either ecclesiastical or civil, by which the Sabbatical observance of Sunday is known to have been ordained is the Sabbatical Edict of Constantine, A.D. 321” (Chambers’ Encyclopedia, article: “Sunday”).

This Roman emperor had not yet professed Christianity at the time of this edict, and he speaks of Sunday as the venerable day of the sun” in the decree. The other main religion in the empire at that time, Mithraism, was a system of sun worship. The followers of Mithra worshiped him on the fist day of the week, commonly called Sunday, and for this reason Constantine made this edict of A.D. 321, in order to strengthen the weakening empire through the uniting of the two main religions found within it.

“The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the early apostles to establish a Divine command in this respect, and far from the early apostolic church to transfer the law of the Sabbath to Sunday” (Neander, History of the Christian Religion and Church, 186).

God predicted this attempted change in Daniel 7:25. the little horn, or Papacy, was to “think to change” God’s laws. The Papacy removed the second commandment against idolatry, changed the fourth commandment which tells us which day is the Sabbath, and made two commandments of the tenth, which forbids us to covet. You will find this in any Roman Catholic catechism.

The big question, then, is Why did the Roman Catholic Church try to change the law?

“Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of evil, and transmute the very instruments of demon worship to an evangelical use,…the rulers of the church from early times were prepared, should occasion arise, to adopt, imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of the educated class” (Cardinal Newman [Roman Catholic], in his Christian Doctrine).

“The Church took the pagan philosophy and made it the buckler of faith against the heathen” (“Catholic World,” Easter Issue, March, 1895).

“And indeed, all writers who are acquainted with antiquity-be they lay or clerical, Protestant or papal, Italian or foreign-agree as to the pagan origin of Rome’s present usages and ceremonies” (Mourant Brock).

The church tried to change the law and encouraged Constantine to pass civil ordinances, or Sunday laws, to support their change, in order to adapt to the pagan customs and the pagans themselves who were coming into the church. Such pagan customs included the worship of the sun on Sunday.

Only God can change the law, and so Paul predicted the rise of a man who would call himself God (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).

“We hold upon this earth the place of Almighty God” (Pope Leo XIII).

“This judicial authority will even include the power to forgive sins” (The Catholic Encyclopedia).

“The Pope can modify the Divine Law” (Ferrort’s Ecclestastical Dictionary [Roman Catholic]).

“The pope has authority and has often exercised it, to dispense with the commands of Christ…the pope’s will stands for reason. He can dispense above the law; and of wrong make right, by correcting and changing the laws” (from Pope Nicholas’ time).

Does Catholicism admit making the change?

It really boasts the fact:

“The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday” (“Catholic Mirror,” September 23, 1893).

“Ques. Which is the Sabbath day?

“Ans. Saturday is the Sabbath day.

“Ques. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

“Ans. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday” (priest Peter Getermann, Convert’s Catechism [Roman Catholic], 50).

“The Bible says, Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. The Catholic Church says, No. By my Divine power I abolish the Sabbath day, and command you to keep holy the first day of the week” (“American Sentinel” [N.Y., Roman Catholic], June 1, 1893, 173, by priest T. Enright, C.S.S.R., of Redemptorist College, Kansas City, Missouri).

GOD CALLS MEN TO RESTORE HIS STANDARD
God predicted that men would attempt to change the law and the Sabbath (Daniel 7:25; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4), and He foretells that men, living at the close of time, will restore it in their lives (Isaiah 58:12-14). He says that the final remnant of His people, living just before He returns, will be keeping it (Revelation 12:17; 14:12-15). He says that those who enter the gates of the New Jerusalem and partake of its fruit will be keeping it (Revelation 22:14). And he says that, in the New Earth, He will be worshiped by all His creatures on the Sabbath (Isaiah 66:22-23).

Prophecy declares that, as the period of Investigative Judgment is about to close, and just before probation ends, a great crisis will come upon the nations of earth (Revelation 14:6-14). This crisis will arise in regard to God’s great standard of righteousness-the standard of the Judgment-the moral law. Read Revelation 13 and 14 carefully. This tells us that, in our own time, men will unite through legislative decrees to enforce the observance of a counterfeit standard.

Rapid developments can now be seen in the passage of Sunday closing laws in both state and national assemblies. Many, in supporting such laws, little realize the events and conditions they are thereby hastening; but, when men unite to enforce a man-made Sabbath, it will be the signal for the end. Watch the Sunday “blue law” movement, read your Bible, and be ready to act. Perilous times are ahead.



THE SEAL OF GOD

In the Bible, seal, sign, and mark are used interchangeably (cf. Romans 4:11; Ezekiel 9:4;Revelation7:2-3). The time is just ahead when one class will receive the mark of obedience to God’s law; the other will receive the mark of rebellion against it.
What is the Seal of God? By the agency of His Spirit, He seals His servants (Ephesians 1:13) for the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30). That with which they are sealed is the Constitution of heaven—the Ten Commandments. All will see that they belong to God (Isaiah 8:16).

God’s identifying seal of ownership is the fourth commandment—the Sabbath commandment. An official government seal must have three essential elements. It must include; 1. The name of the person issuing the seal; 2. The official title of the person; 3. The jurisdiction, or dominion, over which the official rules. All this is found in the Fourth Commandment—the Sabbath Commandment: the “Maker,” or “Creator;” the dominion—“heaven and earth” Exodus (Exodus 20: 8-11). The Sabbath is a perpetual sign of His Creatorship and Lordship (Exodus 31:17, 13;Ezekiel 20:20). God’s Seal, instituted at the close of Creation (Genesis 2:1-3;Exodus 20:8-11). Will remain in effect throughout eternity) Isaiah 66:22-23).

There are many, many, false gods today. Who is the true God? How can we identify Him? The Bible tells us how—through His Seal. This is why it is so important. It is His special Mark.

The True God is the Creator—the One who made us (Jeremiah 10:10-25). We worship Him on the seventh day because God has given it to us as the memorial of Creation (Genesis 2:1-3) and because it is Creation that gives God the right to rule and receive our worship (Jeremiah 10:10-13; Revelation 4:11; Isaiah 45:15-18). The Sabbath is the special Bible sign, or seal, for God’s people that “the Lord is God: It is He that hath made us and not we ourselves” (Psalm 100:3;Psalm 95:6-11).

The Sabbath is the identifying sign that the Lord is God. It forbids and eliminates idolatry in those who keep it, for it is the memorial of the Creator (read Ezekiel 20:20;Exodus 31:16-17).

And, in addition, the Sabbath is also the sign, or seal, of redemption and recreation from sin (read Exodus 31:13;Ezekiel 20: 12). It is the special symbol, or seal, of righteousness by faith (Hebrews 3 and 4).

The weekly rest from our secular labor, in accordance with God’s commandment, symbolizes this ceasing from our own plans and efforts to attain righteousness and our quiet and full submission to Jesus’ righteousness.

God’s seal, instituted at the close of Creation (Genesis 1:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11) and based upon the unchangeable facts of Creation (Exodus 31:17;20:8-11), will remain in effect throughout eternity (Isaiah 66:22-23).

Properly kept, in worship and communion with God (especially and whenever possible, out-of-doors among the things of nature), the Sabbath is a continual witness of the Creator and a weekly deepening of our bond of union with Him. It becomes the hallowed time wherein is treasured our deepest joys and our fondest memories. It becomes the special time when the seal of His character—His moral law—is placed in our lives (Isaiah 8:16). For it is on this day, above all others, that we come the closest to our Creator. We think His thoughts after Him—and these thoughts become our own (Isaiah 58:13-14).



THE MARK OF THE BEAST

What is the mark of the beast? Revelation 13 tells us. It is the mark, or sign, of opposition to God and His seal. It is instituted by the beast and its image. The beast is the power that “speaks blasphemies” (Revelation 13:5-6), was worshiped “by all the world” (Revelation 13:3-4, 7-8), was persecuted and “made war with the saints: (Daniel 7:25) for 42 prophetic months, or 1260 years, during the Dark Ages. One head was wounded, or taken captive, at the close of this period, A.D. 1798 (Revelation 13: 3, 10), and it has since been shorn of its previous power; but prophecy declares that this power will be revived (Revelation 13:3).

The number of the beast, “for it is the number of a man,” is found in his official title: VICARIUS FILII DEI, Vicegerent of the Son of God. This name is blasphemy (Revelation 13:5-6); for the One now upon earth and second in command to Christ, is the Holy Spirit (John 15:26; 16:13; cf. Acts 10:19-20;13:2). Jesus calls sin against the Holy Spirit blasphemy (Matthew 12:31-32). This name is found in the papal tiara, or crown, of the pope in the Vatican at Rome, and is one of his titles.

The beast, or Papacy, is a combining of church and state—a religious power obtaining the aid of civil law to enforce its doctrinal beliefs, upon pain of criminal punishment.

God predicted the papal change of His law (Daniel 7:25). Dos the Papacy deny the change?—She not only does not deny the change, but she claims the change of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday as her “mark.”

First, she proves her power by this act:

“Ques. Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept?

“Ans. “Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her—she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority” (priest Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism [Roman Catholic], 174).

“Ques. How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days?

“Ans. “Because by keeping Sunday they acknowledge the church’s power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin” (priest Henry Tuberville, An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine [Roman Catholic], 58).

Second, she claims the act and its significance as a MARK of her power:

“Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act…and the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical power” (from the office of Cardinal Gibbons, through Chancellor H.F. Thomas [Roman Catholic].



JESUS IS WAITING FOR YOU TO DECIDE
Two verses before the Second Coming of Christ (Revelation 14:14-15) is the third angel’s call—a worldwide message to shun the mark of the beast and to seek the religion of the saints: “Here is the patience of the saints: Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus” Revelation 14:12).

God is calling us back to the pure Christianity of the saints of old. He is calling us back to true Bible religion. He is calling us to obey the Father’s laws, by faith in the Son’s righteousness. He is calling us to righteousness (right doing) by faith.

The President of Redemptorist College (Roman Catholic), in Kansas City, Missouri, the Jesuit priest, Thomas Enright, C.S.S.R., repeatedly offered $1,000 for one Bible text that would prove Sunday to be the true Sabbath.

The news of the offer traveled across the nation and made quite a stir, but the money was never claimed. No one could find such a text. The present author has a photo static copy of a letter in Enright’s own handwriting, dated June 16, 1899: “I hereby offer $1,000, to anyone who can prove to me, from the Bible alone, that I am bound under pain of grievous sin, to keep Sunday holy” (Thomas Enright, C.S.S.R.).”

The real issue behind the matter is brought out in the Hartford (Kansas) Weekly Call, of February 22, 1884, where Enright wrote: “I will give one thousand dollars to any man who will prove by the Bible alone that Sunday is the day we are bound to keep…the observance of Sunday is solely a law of the Catholic Church. The Church changed the Sabbath to Sunday and all the world bows down and worships upon that day in silent obedience to the mandates of the Catholic Church.”

God loved Adam and Eve. He gave them a world of wonderful things—all of it the out flowing of a deep, unutterable, love. But the fruit of one tree He asked them not to partake of. This was to be a test of their love for Him. Tests are needed in life, for it is by the tests that we grow. Each of us knows this fact, but God who made us knows it better than we. God loves us today, with the same deep love. His plans for us have not changed. Deeper than we can imagine is His desire to take sin out of our hearts. He has given us His holy Ten Commandment Law to reveal His purpose for our lives—holiness, Godlikeness—to be obtained alone through the blood (the obedient life) of Jesus.

He has placed a test in the law—the test of faith—that by it we might grow. As by faith we come and worship Him on His day, He intends to give us power to overcome sin in our lives. The Bible speaks much of the “Sabbath blessing.” This blessing is real, and it is for those only who worship God on the day He gives for worship. Come to God this very week, next Sabbath, and begin a new life, a new walk, a new experience—with your Creator.

[Matt Black]

OK, so Constantine shifted the main day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. And....? I can understand how that matters to an SDA but it matters little to me and I suspect matters little to most of the non-SDA posters on this board.

Yours in Christ

Matt

[Born Again Catholic]

Matt

SDA theology hinges on Sunday worship being wrong and introduced by Constantine. They believe sunday worship is the mark of the beast.

As we know Christ makes all things new, and well before constantine, the church fathers talk about celebrating on the Lords Day ,Sunday the 8th day of creation.

Constantine did not introduce sunday worship.

[Kamoroso]

OK, so Constantine shifted the main day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. And....? I can understand how that matters to an SDA but it matters little to me and I suspect matters little to most of the non-SDA posters on this board.Just because a person thinks something, doesn't make it so. You think it doesn't matter, but you are wrong. Choosing to follow your own course regarding how, and when you will worship God, over the way that God has clearly instructed you to do so, is going to mean a whole lot to whoever does it, in the end. Let me give you an example from the scriptures.

Chap. 4

[quote]"So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.
And Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.
Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?
"If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it."
And Cain told Abel, his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him." (Gen. 4:3-8)

Here is the first account of religious persecution found in the bible. It clearly reveals the enmity that exists between those who are of God and those who are of the world. Let it be noticed that both Cain and Abel were religious, that is, they both believed in God, and they both brought an offering to Him. The difference between God's people and those of this world has nothing to do with whether they are religious or not, but rather, whom their religion has them put their faith in. There is only one who can save, there is no other gospel unto salvation other than the gospel of Jesus Christ. "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12)

It was faith in the Son of God that made Able's offering acceptable to Him. The lamb offered by Abel is a type and symbol of Jesus Christ the Lamb of God throughout the scriptures. The apostle Paul testifies to this, "By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks." (Heb. 11:4) Abel believed in God's plan for his salvation, and this was reckoned unto him as righteousness.

Cain's offering on the other hand, was not accepted by God, because it was not given by faith in the Lamb of God. The scriptures testify that Cain's deeds were not righteous, that is by faith in God, but were evil, coming forth from self trust.

"By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.
For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another;
not as Cain, who was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother's were righteous." (1 Jn. 3:10-12)

Cain's offering was not by faith in God, but rather of his own works. He thought that he could give an offering from the labor of his own hands.

"And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor was it that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood not his own.
Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
And in as much as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgement,
so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him." (Heb. 9:22-28)

There is no room for the plans, ideas, or works of men in God's plan of salvation. There is no glory for man, all the glory goes to God. Christ Jesus and Him crucified. Any attempt by man to obtain salvation by his own works will utterly fail.

Cain knew what God's requirement was in regard to the offering, but instead of bringing a lamb, the symbol of Christ, he brought of the fruit of the ground. Very possibly the fruits that Cain brought were the products of his own labor, "but Cain was a tiller of the ground." (Gen. 4:2) Maybe he thought to bring the best that he could offer of the works of his hands, not understanding or accepting that man can play no part in salvation, for all his works are unrighteousness before God. The works of man come from self, they have a selfish motivation, in this case an attempt to exalt self, to make his own labors a part of salvation, which comes only from God. All the works of man are unacceptable to God, "For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away." (Isa. 64:6)

The only works that are acceptable to God are His works in us, they do not come forth from self, but from a desire to serve God. "For thou dost not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; Thou art not pleased with burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. (Ps. 51:16 & 17)

Paul says, "I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship." (Rom. 12:1)

Cain could have followed Able's example, he could have sacrificed his own imaginings and followed God's instructions, by faith accepting His will. The only actions that are acceptable to God are those that are a result of faith, "and whatever is not from faith is sin." (Rom. 14:23)

When God gives a command we either trust and believe Him by following that command, or we trust our own thoughts and feelings more and do what they compel us to do. Cain, knowing what God required, chose to do otherwise. It could not have been faith in God that led him to do so, for God had not instructed him to do what he had done. Therefore his actions were not acceptable to God. Since he put his own ideas in the place where only God's belong, that is first in everything.

Abel believed in God's plan for salvation, therefore his actions were in accordance with His will. He brought the proper offering because he believed God, and knew that he was saved, not in order to be saved. Abel's life and actions were a constant rebuke to Cain. They were a reminder that his own actions and deeds were not in accordance with God's will. This was the reason that Cain killed his brother and it is the same reason that God's servants have always been persecuted and killed by those of this world. Christ Himself was killed for the very same reason.

The carnal heart is self centered and seeks its own glorification. Religion is fine with the carnal nature as long as self can be involved and share in its glory. It is when religion demands the complete sacrifice of self that the carnal nature has a problem. True religion, that is of Christ, and false religion cannot coexist without strife. Their underlying principles are antagonistic and cannot be reconciled. One allows the uplifting of self and the other demands the surrender of self. Moreover, the crucifixion of self.

True godliness consists of selfless service for others as Christ demonstrated when here on earth as one of us. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." (Luke 4:18 & 19) Christ's desire was to bring salvation to all, and we are commissioned to do the same. "And He said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.'" (Mark 16:15).

However the heart that refuses to be converted is faced with a dilemma, it is in opposition to Christ likeness and is uncomfortable in its presence. It is a constant rebuke for the unconverted heart to be in the presence of a converted one. The unconverted heart is compelled to either change itself or to attempt to change the one who causes their guilt. This is when coercion or force usually comes into play. The one who refuses to be converted must attempt to change those who are, or get rid of them altogether. This is what has been going on in this world since the fall. Cain obviously chose to remove the one whose presence rebuked his life.

Coercion and force are tools of the devil. The life and death of Christ revealed God's intentions. He would rather die than force obedience from those He has created. If God believed in force then He would not have had to give His life in our place. He could have forced obedience from us or just recreated us so that we could not sin. The power of choice is a gift from God, and the price of this gift was the life of His Son. In the beginning, before the fall, Adam and Eve worshipped and served God by their own choice. The Lord put a tree in the garden and commanded them not to eat from it. This very act gave man the power of choice.

If Adam and Eve were not aware that there was something that they could do that was contrary to God's will, then they would not have the power of choice. They would have done what was right and obeyed God simply because that was all they knew how to do. It is evident that God desires that His own worship and obey Him because they choose to, and not because they are incapable of doing otherwise.

As we know, Adam and Eve chose to disobey God and ate from the forbidden tree. They chose to listen to the deceptions of Satan at which point they lost their power to choose and became like the one whom they obeyed. "Know ye not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" (Rom. 6:16)

Except for the Son of God and His sacrifice for us we would all be left in this condition. By the grace of God and the gift of His Son to us and in us we can once again choose whom we will serve.

Those who refuse to be converted and continue to serve self, that is sin, cannot tolerate the presence of those who serve God. The scriptures are filled with this conflict from beginning to end. God's people have been persecuted and killed at the hands of self servers since the beginning of sin's entrance to this planet. All the prophets of the old testament, Christ Himself, His apostles, and His followers throughout history died at the hands of those who would make themselves God.

God does not believe in force, instead of forcing man to do what is right, God emptied Himself, took the form of a bond servant and humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil. 2:7 & 8)

He showed man what was right and then offers him the power to do what is right. Yet He lets man choose for himself whether he will obey God or not. On the other hand Satan and his followers put themselves first, and anybody or anything can be sacrificed in order to get what they want. They exalt themselves and demand that others follow them, while God emptied Himself and offers all a choice. Force and coercion are acceptable to the unconverted heart to fulfill their need, which is to silence the convictions of those who remind them of their true condition.

So it is, that God, in Christ and His followers have been and will continue to be compelled to go against their conscience by the world around them. This struggle will come to a climax and then the Lord will deliver His people. The prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation have much to say about these issues. Form scripture we know that Satan's deceptions and false religions will become very great even miracle working powers, however one characteristic will always give them away. Whenever a religion incorporates force or coercion into its ranks we know that it is false and self serving.

The world is swiftly moving towards the Great climax of this struggle. Will Christians make the same mistakes that most of Israel made, and find themselves on the wrong side when Christ returns to earth the second time. This we will examine in the next chapters.[/qoute]

The only confusion about which day God has commanded us to set aside for worshipping Him, comes from those who do not wish to observe it. You admit that the day of worship was changed by a man, and not God. Then you act as though this is not a big deal. You are wrong. Choosing to obey the dictates of a unconverted pagan Emporer, over the conclusive command of God, will certainly result in the loss of the salvation that God has offered through faith in His Word. The Lord Jesus Christ is the WORD OF GOD. Whose word are you going to put your faith in.

Just so you understand the issue, let me show you the intentions of the Church of Rome.

The following quote is from Pope John Paul II's APOSTOLIC LETTER DIES DOMINI.

Therefore, also in the particular circumstances of our own time, Christians will naturally strive to ensure that civil legislation respects their duty to keep Sunday holy. In any case, they are obliged in conscience to arrange their Sunday rest in a way which allows them to take part in the Eucharist, refraining from work and activities which are incompatible with the sanctification of the Lord's Day, with its characteristic joy and necessary rest for spirit and body. (112)

It is the intention of the Church of Rome to exalt their man made day of worship above all others by it's enforcement through civil legislation. This is to go the way of Cain. The Church of Rome will lead an entire world in rebellion against God, to go the way of Cain, by choosing their own form of worship, over that which God has commanded. This matters brother.

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

[Matt Black]

And you are no more qualified to comment on what God has commanded that they are - or me for that matter. Face it - we all love to proof-text to justify our positions and we can all arrive at any number of mutually-contradictory positions by so doing (which is why sola Scriptura is a load of hogwash - but that's another thread ;) ).

Let me ask my 'alternative church' question another way. One of the consequences of the Constantinian Settlement was the temporary ascendancy of Arianism, which flourished with state support, particularly under Constantine's sons. But the true Church still not only continued but very much made its presence felt, through individuals like Athanasius, who several times endured exile and its privations for the sake of orthodox Trinitarianism (and,whilst he was at it, was able to come up with our earliest documented NT canon). Both his opposition to Arianism and his canon were well-documented. So here is an example of the true Church continuing in the face of state-sponsored 'Christian' persecution.

Now, some here would have us believe that in the fourth century the Catholic Church arose and the true Christians, as an 'alternative church' separated from the Catholics and went into opposition. If that is so, their situation would be analogous to that of Athanasius - and yet where is their equivalent? Where are the records of their dissent from Catholicism-Orthodoxy? Who were their Athanasius-type heroes?

Yours in Christ

Matt

[D28guy]

Matt Black,

Of course, the scriptures identify false "professing" christian groups , but concerning differing convictions on non-foundational issues, Matt Black says...

"And you are no more qualified to comment on what God has commanded that they are - or me for that matter. Face it - we all love to proof-text to justify our positions and we can all arrive at any number of mutually-contradictory positions by so doing (which is why sola Scriptura is a load of hogwash - but that's another thread ).And yet God says...

"Let your brother be fully convinced in His own mind..."

and...

"...for who are you to judge your brother"

and...

"These were more fairminded than those in Thessolanica, in that they searched the scriptures daily to see wether these things are so"

and...

"All scripture is given by inspiration og God, and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in rightiousness, that the man of God might be sufficient, fully prepared for every good work"

I choose to believe God.

And if evangelicalism is so flawed, who do your propose as the better alternative?

Liberal protestantism?

graemlins/laugh.gif

The Orthodox with their "desert fathers"??

graemlins/laugh.gif graemlins/laugh.gif

(((CATHOLICISM????)))

graemlins/laugh.gif graemlins/laugh.gif graemlins/laugh.gif graemlins/laugh.gif graemlins/laugh.gif

Lets take a look at the most well know groups who claim that they are the supposed guarians of truth, and who proclaim that they are the only ones on earth who are capable of properly and innerantly interpreting the scriptures...

The Jehovahs Witnesses

The Catholic Church of Rome

The Mormons

Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science

Good things do not happen when a group adopts such cultic and devilish attitudes.


"Let me ask my 'alternative church' question another way. One of the consequences of the Constantinian Settlement was the temporary ascendancy of Arianism, which flourished with state support, particularly under Constantine's sons. But the true Church still not only continued but very much made its presence felt, through individuals like Athanasius, who several times endured exile and its privations for the sake of orthodox Trinitarianism (and,whilst he was at it, was able to come up with our earliest documented NT canon)."And after that the "true church" began its 1600 year plunge into more and progressivly more and more church sponsored idolatry, heresy, and falsehood...while at the same time having progressively more and more of the blood of the true saints of God on her hands.

"So here is an example of the true Church continuing in the face of state-sponsored 'Christian' persecution."The true church...all born again people (irrespective of what "group" they are part of)...has survived for 2000 years now, since its beginning 2000 years ago, all through its intense persecution for the prophesied 1600 year old persecution, and right on up to today.

Now, some here would have us believe that in the fourth century the Catholic Church arose and the true Christians, as an 'alternative church' separated from the Catholics and went into opposition.Not all of them seperated. Many could very well have stayed in the organised "church", ignoring the progressivly more and more falsehood going on around them, keeping the truth in their heart while witnessing to others regarding that truth as God opened doors.

"If that is so, their situation would be analogous to that of Athanasius - and yet where is their equivalent? Where are the records of their dissent from Catholicism-Orthodoxy? Who were their Athanasius-type heroes?"Some examples have been given on these forums, others couldnt do that because they had been murdered. As someone else said, dead men cant do much documenting.

If their was anything in writing what to you think the Catholic Church would do with those records, since in their twisted minds these christians were actually heretics?

God bless,

Mike

[BobRyan]

Many thanks to Keith for SHOWING how faulty man-made records are "tampered with" so that historic revisionism by an all-controlling power (as the despotic RCC in the dark ages) would decrease the "Accuracy" of the documents.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/3312/4.html#000047

Many thanks to Matt for showing how these "Details" can be "ignored" by the masses.

Thanks goes to LINK for showing how specific groups were open to slander and revisionism by those who perpetrated crimes and violence against them.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/3312/4.html#000053

And of course many thanks to Keith again for that list of ancient groups that many historians for centuries have viewed as early groups in opposition to the blatant and profound errors of Catholicism!

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/3312/3.html#000039

(With Matt also showing ways that the masses might have been persuaded to also ignore those details of history)


In Christ,

Bob

[Matt Black]

Mike, I hear what you are saying but the fact is the Catholics and Orthodox did preserve the writings of their opponents - how else would we have the works of Arius, or Tertullian post-conversion to Montanism? Or the various gnostic Gospels and other writings? It does seem rather odd that they would suppress some and not others...

Oh, and I'm looking for Christian 'Athanasian' heroes, not gnostic ones...and, as no-one has produced any primary source documents to demonstrate the existence of any Christian groups outside of the jurisdiction of the historic patriarchates, I think that you know as well as I do that that answers your 'alternatice church' question.

Yours in Christ

Matt

[D28guy]

Bob,

How did you those links in your post to go right to the correct post, even though they were down from the top of the page?

I didnt think each post on a page has its own adress? I cant seem to find that happening when I check the "properties".

Mike

[Ed Edwards]

#000047 refers to the 47th response post (count the
OP = opening post, as #0. The posts are 15 per page.
Thus this will cause a point to the third post
on page 4.

page - post #s
---- - -------
- 1 -- 0-14
- 2 -- 15-29
- 3 -- 30-44
- 4 -- 45-59

I really doubt that BobRyan figures this all out in his
head, he does it automatic somehow, but i don't know how :confused:

[D28guy]

Hmmm, I'm just curious how it works. Going to a particular page is a digital thing. But scrolling down to a post in the middle of a page is a mechanical thing. We have to literally use our little wheel thing on our little mouse thing to scroll down. I dont know how a link...wich is a digital thing...can automatically do the mechanical part.

Of course, this is coming from someone who knows about as much about computers and my dog does. graemlins/laugh.gif

My lack of knowledge concerning computers only fuels how much I absolutly loathe them. There are times when I could very easilly...and JOYFULLY :D ...take a sledgehammer to this one eyed idiot box in front of me right now. graemlins/thumbs.gif

The only reason I dont is because of some of the neat things you can do with them. Read out of town newspapers, have discussions with bluegrass music, or theology, enthusists at any time of day or night, etc etc etc.

But oh, to just drop it out of a 12 story window! graemlins/thumbs.gif

Watch it smash to smithereens! graemlins/thumbs.gif graemlins/thumbs.gif graemlins/thumbs.gif

Mike

[Matt Black]

Whatever Constantine did (and that's still a matter for debate among historians) he certainly didn't "invent" the Catholic Church, Roman or otherwise. The word "catholic" is used in patristic literature of the 1st and early 2nd centuries, so the idea of catholicity was around a long time before Constantine. There were also bishops (episkopoi) of Rome from the first century - whether you accept that Peter was the first of these or not.

My own opinion on what Constantine did was that with a politician's eye he spotted the Next Big Thing - the religion that might just provide a cultural framework for all the people of the Roman Empire, from Northumbria to the Egyptian desert, from the Atlantic coast of Spain to the borders of India. He first tolerated this religion, then set about making it fashionable.

From the point of view of church "politics", probably the most important thing he did was to initiate the Ecumenical Councils so that Christians from all over the Empire could come together in unity of faith. Now, it might be possible for fundamentalists and such like to say that the Councils were a bad thing, but remember that if you're going to do so, you're also chucking out little things like the Nicene Creed. Which, to some of us, might not seem like a very good idea.

On the 'post-Constantinian alternative church' theory, there IS some evidence to indicate that, but it doesn't point in the direction its proponents would like. It was when Christianity became acceptable under Constantine and his successors that many people felt that it lost its missionary zeal and went "soft". The type of person who became Christian changed from those who were willing to risk martyrdom for the faith to those who didn't want to risk social exclusion by not being Christian. At this point some "hardcore" Christians withdrew from the perceived corruption of the faith that was taking place in the large cities to set up hermitages and later monasteries in the deserts and became the "desert fathers" who perserved the earlier zeal. Of course, this had been to a degree happening already, but the absence of persecution hastened the process. So, if you want to go looking for a post-Constantinian 'alternative' to Catholicism then you end up with...er...Mike's "Orthodox Church with their desert fathers"...

...but I hope that that doesn't make Mike any more inclined to teach his monitor to fly... :D


Yours in Christ

Matt

[Kamoroso]

PROJECT WITTENBERG
__________
Of the Power and Primacy of the Pope
Treatise Compiled by the Theologians
Assembled at Smalcald, in the Year 1537

Published in:
Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books
of the Ev. Lutheran Church.(St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921), pp.503-529.


The Roman Pontiff claims for himself [in the first place] that by divine right he is [supreme] above all bishops and pastors [in all Christendom].

Secondly, he adds also that by divine right he has both swords, i.e., the authority also of bestowing kingdoms [enthroning and deposing kings, regulating secular dominions etc.].

And thirdly, he says that to believe this is necessary for salvation. And for these reasons the Roman bishop calls himself [and boasts that he is] the vicar of Christ on earth.

These three articles we hold to be false, godless, tyrannical, and [quite] pernicious to the Church.

Now, in order that our proof [reason and opinion] may be understood, we shall first define what they call being above all [what it means that he boasts of being supreme] by divine right. For they mean that he is universal [that the Pope is the general bishop over the entire Christian Church], or, as they say, ecumenical bishop, i.e., from whom all bishops and pastors throughout the entire world ought to seek ordination and [confirmation, who [alone] is to have the right of electing, ordaining, confirming, deposing all bishops [and pastors]. Besides this, he arrogates to himself the authority to make [all kinds of] laws concerning acts of worship, concerning changing the Sacraments [and] concerning doctrine, and wishes his articles, his decrees, his laws [his statutes and ordinances] to be considered equal to the divine laws [to other articles of the Christian Creed and the Holy Scriptures], i.e., he holds that by the papal laws the consciences of men are so bound that those who neglect them, even without public offense, sin mortally [that they cannot be omitted without sin. For he wishes to found this power upon divine right and the Holy Scriptures; yea, he wishes to have it preferred to the Holy Scriptures and God's commands]. And what he adds is still more horrible, namely, that it is necessary to believe all these things in order to be saved [all these things shall and must be believed at the peril of forfeiting salvation].

In the first place, therefore, let us show from the [holy] Gospel that the Roman bishop is not by divine right above [cannot arrogate to himself any supremacy whatever over] other bishops and pastors.

Luke 22, 25. Christ expressly prohibits lordship among the apostles [that no apostle should have any supremacy over the rest]. For this was the very question, namely, that when Christ spake of His passion, they were disputing who should be at the head, and as it were the vicar of the absent Christ. There Christ reproves this error of the apostles and teaches that there shall not be lordship or superiority among them, but that the apostles should be sent forth as equals to the common ministry of the Gospel. Accordingly, He says: The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors, but ye shall not be so; but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. The antithesis here shows that lordship [among the apostles] is disapproved.

II. Matt. 18, 2. The same is taught by the parable when Christ in the same dispute concerning the kingdom places a little child in the midst, signifying that among ministers there is not to be sovereignty, just as a child neither takes nor seeks sovereignty for himself.

III. John 20, 21. Christ sends forth His disciples on an equality, without any distinction [so that no one of them was to have more or less power than any other], when He says: As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. [These words are clear and plain:] He says that He sends them individually in the same manner as He Himself was sent; hence He grants to no one a prerogative or lordship above the rest.

IV. Gal. 2, 7 f. St. Paul manifestly affirms that he was neither ordained nor confirmed [and endorsed] by Peter, nor does he acknowledge Peter to be one from whom confirmation should be sought. And he expressly contends concerning this point that his call does not depend upon the authority of Peter. But he ought to have acknowledged Peter as a superior if Peter was superior by divine right [if Peter, indeed, had received such supremacy from Christ]. Paul accordingly says that he had at once preached the Gospel [freely for a long time] without consulting Peter. Also: Of those who seemed to be somewhat (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me; God accepteth no man's person). And: They who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me. Since Paul, then, clearly testifies that he did not even wish to seek for the confirmation of Peter [for permission to preach] even when he had come to him, he teaches that the authority of the ministry depends upon the Word of God, and that Peter was not superior to the other apostles, and that it was not from this one individual Peter that ordination or confirmation was to be sought [that the office of the ministry proceeds from the general call of the apostles, and that it is not necessary for all to have the call or confirmation of this one person, Peter, alone].

V. In 1 Cor. 3, 6, Paul makes ministers equal, and teaches that the Church is above the ministers. Hence superiority or lordship over the Church or the rest of the ministers is not ascribed to Peter [in preference to other apostles]. For he says thus: All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, i.e., let neither the other ministers nor Peter assume for themselves lordship or superiority over the Church; let them not burden the Church with traditions; let not the authority of any avail more than the Word [of God]; let not the authority of Cephas be opposed to the authority of the other apostles, as they reasoned at that time: "Cephas, who is an apostle of higher rank, observes this; therefore, both Paul and the rest ought to observe this." Paul removes this pretext from Peter, and denies [Not so, says Paul, and makes Peter doff his little hat, namely, the claim] that his authority is to be preferred to the rest or to the Church.

[b]VI. The Council of Nice resolved that the bishop of Alexandria should administer the churches in the East, and the Roman bishop the suburban, i.e., those which were in the Roman provinces in the West. From this start by a human law, i.e. the resolution of the Council, the authority of the Roman bishop first arose. If the Roman bishop already had the superiority by divine law, it would not have been lawful for the Council to take any right from him and transfer it to the bishop of Alexandria; nay, all the bishops of the East ought perpetually to have sought ordination and confirmation from the bishop of Rome.

VII. Again the Council of Nice determined that bishops should be elected by their own churches, in the presence of some neighboring bishop or of several. The same was observed [for a long time, not only in the East, but] also in the West and in the Latin churches, as Cyprian and Augustine testify. For Cyprian says in his fourth letter to Cornelius: Accordingly, as regards the divine observance and apostolic practice, you must diligently keep and practice what is also observed among us and in almost all the provinces, that for celebrating ordination properly, whatsoever bishops of the same province live nearest should come together with the people for whom a pastor is being appointed, and the bishop should be chosen in the presence of the people, who most fully know the life of each one, which we also have seen done among us at the ordination of our colleague Sabinus, that by the suffrage of the entire brotherhood, and by the judgment of the bishops who had assembled in their presence, the episcopate was conferred and hands laid on him.

Cyprian calls this custom a divine tradition and an apostolic observance, and affirms that it is observed in almost all the provinces.

Since, therefore, neither ordination nor confirmation was sought from a bishop of Rome in the greater part of the world in the Latin and Greek churches, it is sufficiently apparent that the churches did not then accord superiority and domination to the bishop of Rome.

[b]Such superiority is impossible. For it is impossible for one bishop to be the overseer of the churches of the whole world, or for churches situated in the most distant lands to seek ordination [for all their ministers] from one. For it is manifest that the kingdom of Christ is scattered throughout the whole world; and to-day there are many churches in the East which do not seek ordination or confirmation from the Roman bishop [which have ministers ordained neither by the Pope nor his bishops]. Therefore, since such superiority [which the Pope, contrary to all Scripture, arrogates to himself] is impossible, and the churches in the greater part of the world have not acknowledged [nor made use of] it, it is sufficiently apparent that it was not instituted [by Christ, and does not spring from divine law].

VIII. Many ancient synods have been proclaimed and held in which the bishop of Rome did not preside; as that of Nice and most others. This, too, testifies that the Church did not then acknowledge the primacy or superiority of the bishop of Rome.

IX. Jerome says: If the question is concerning authority, the world is greater than the city. Wherever there has been a bishop, whether at Rome, or Eugubium, or Constantinople, or Rhegium, or Alexandria, he is of the same dignity and priesthood.

X. Gregory, writing to the patriarch at Alexandria, forbids that he be called universal bishop. And in the Records he says that in the Council of Chalcedon the primacy was offered to the bishop of Rome, but was not accepted.

XI. Lastly, how can the Pope be over the entire Church by divine right when the Church has the election, and the custom gradually prevailed that bishops of Rome were confirmed by the emperors? Also, when for a long time there had been contests concerning the primacy between the bishops of Rome and Constantinople, the Emperor Phocas finally determined that the primacy should be assigned to the bishop of Rome. But if the ancient Church had acknowledged the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, this contention could not have occurred, neither would there have been need of the decree of the emperor.

But they cite against us certain passages, namely, Matt. 16, 18 f.: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church; also: I will give unto thee the keys; also John 21, 15: Feed My sheep, and some others. But since this entire controversy has been fully and accurately treated elsewhere in the books of our theologians, and everything cannot be reviewed in this place, we refer to those writings, and wish them to be regarded as repeated. Yet we shall reply briefly concerning the interpretation [of the passages quoted].

In all these passages Peter is the representative of the entire assembly of apostles [and does not speak for himself alone, but for all the apostles], as appears from the text itself. For Christ asks not Peter alone, but says: Whom do ye say that I am? And what is here said [to Peter alone] in the singular number: I will give unto thee the keys; and whatsoever thou shalt bind, etc., is elsewhere expressed [to their entire number], in the plural Matt. 18, 18: Whatsoever ye shall bind, etc. And in John 20, 23: Whosesoever sins ye remit, etc. These words testify that the keys are given alike to all the apostles and that all the apostles are alike sent forth [to preach].

In addition to this, it is necessary to acknowledge that the keys belong not to the person of one particular man, but to the Church, as many most clear and firm arguments testify. For Christ, speaking concerning the keys, Matt. 18, 19, adds: If two or three of you shall agree on earth, etc. Therefore he grants the keys principally and immediately to the Church, just as also for this reason the Church has principally the right of calling. [For just as the promise of the Gospel belongs certainly and immediately to the entire Church, so the keys belong immediately to the entire Church, because the keys are nothing else than the office whereby this promise is communicated to every one who desires it, just as it is actually manifest that the Church has the power to ordain ministers of the Church. And Christ speaks in these words: Whatsoever ye shall bind, etc., and indicates to whom He has given the keys, namely, to the Church: Where two or three are gathered together in My name. Likewise Christ gives supreme and final jurisdiction to the Church, when He says: Tell it unto the Church.]

Therefore it is necessary that in these passages Peter is the representative of the entire assembly of the apostles, and for this reason they do not accord to Peter any prerogative or superiority, or lordship [which he had, or was to have had, ln preference to the other apostles].

However, as to the declaration: Upon this rock I will build My Church, certainly the Church has not been built upon the authority of man, but upon the ministry of the confession which Peter made, in which he proclaims that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. He accordingly addresses him as a minister: Upon this rock, i.e., upon this ministry. [Therefore he addresses him as a minister of this office in which this confession and doctrine is to be in operation and says: Upon this rock, i.e., this preaching and ministry.]

Furthermore, the ministry of the New Testament is not bound to places and persons as the Levitical ministry, but it is dispersed throughout the whole world, and is there where God gives His gifts, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers; neither does this ministry avail on account of the authority of any person, but on account of the Word given by Christ. [Nor does the person of a teacher add anything to this word and office; it matters not who is preaching and teaching it; if there are hearts who receive and cling to it to them it is done as they hear and believe.] And in this way, not as referring to the person of Peter, most of the holy Fathers, as Origen, Cyprian, Augustine, Hilary, and Bede, interpret this passage: Upon this rock. Chrysostom says thus: "Upon this rock," not upon Peter. For He built His Church not upon man, but upon the faith of Peter. But what was his faith? "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Hilary says: To Peter the Father revealed that he should say, "Thou art the Son of the living God." Therefore the building of the Church is upon this rock of confession; this faith is the foundation of the Church.

And as to that which is said John 21, 15 ff.: Feed My sheep, and, Lovest thou Me more than these? it does not as yet follow hence that a peculiar superiority was given Peter. He bids him "feed," i.e., teach the Word [the Gospel], or rule the Church with the Word [the Gospel], which Peter has in common with the other apostles.

The second article is still clearer, that Christ gave to the apostles only spiritual power, i.e., the command to teach the Gospel to announce the forgiveness of sins, to administer the Sacraments, to excommunicate the godless without bodily force [by the Word], and that He did not give the power of the sword, or the right to establish, occupy or confer kingdoms of the world [to set up or depose kings]. For Christ says, Matt. 28, 19. 20: Go ye, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; also John 20, 21: As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.

Now, it is manifest that Christ was not sent to bear the sword or possess a worldly kingdom [rule in a worldly fashion], as He Himself says, John 18, 36: My kingdom is not of this world. And Paul says, 2 Cor. 1, 24: Not for that we have dominion over your faith; and 2 Cor. 10, 4: The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, etc.

Accordingly, that Christ in His passion is crowned with thorns and led forth to be derided in royal purple, this signified that in the future, after His spiritual kingdom was despised, i.e., the Gospel was suppressed, another kingdom of a worldly kind would be set up [in its place] with the pretext of ecclesiastical power. Therefore the Constitution of Boniface VIII and the chapter Omnes, Dist. 22 and similar opinions which contend that the Pope is by divine right the ruler of the kingdoms of the world, are [utterly] false and godless. From this persuasion horrible darkness has been brought into the Church, and after that also great commotions have arisen in Europe. For the ministry of the Gospel was neglected, the knowledge of faith and the spiritual kingdom became extinct, Christian righteousness was supposed to be that external government which the Pope had established.

Next, the Popes began to seize upon kingdoms for themselves; they transferred kingdoms, they vexed with unjust excommunications and wars the kings of almost all nations in Europe, but especially the German emperors, sometimes for the purpose of occupying cities of Italy, at other times for the purpose of reducing to subjection the bishops of Germany, and wresting from the emperors the conferring of episcopates. Yea, in the Clementines it is even written: When the empire is vacant, the Pope is the legitimate successor.

Thus the Pope has not only usurped dominion, contrary to Christ's command, but has also tyrannically exalted himself above all kings. And in this matter the deed itself is not to be reprehended as much as it is to be detested, that he assigns as a pretext the authority of Christ; that he transfers the keys to a worldly government; that he binds salvation to these godless and execrable opinions, when he says it is necessary to salvation for men to believe that this dominion belongs to him by divine right.

Since these great errors obscure [the doctrine of] faith and [of] the kingdom of Christ they are in no way to be concealed. For the result shows that they have been great pests to the Church.

In the third place, this must be added: Even though the bishop of Rome had the primacy and superiority by divine right nevertheless obedience would not be due those pontiffs who defend godless services, idolatry, and doctrine conflicting with the Gospel. Nay; such pontiffs and such a government ought to be held accursed, as Paul clearly teaches, Gal. 1, 8: Though an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. And in Acts 5, 29: We ought to obey God rather than men. Likewise the canons also clearly teach that a heretical Pope is not to be obeyed.

The Levitical high priest was the chief priest by divine right, and yet godless high priests were not to be obeyed, as Jeremiah and other prophets dissented from the high priests, the apostles dissented from Caiaphas and did not have to obey them.

Now, it is manifest that the Roman pontiffs, with their adherents, defend [and practice] godless doctrines and godless services. And the marks [all the vices] of Antichrist plainly agree with the kingdom of the Pope and his adherents. For Paul, 2 Ep. 2, 3, in describing to the Thessalonians Antichrist, calls him an adversary of Christ, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God. He speaks therefore of one ruling in the Church, not of heathen kings, and he calls this one the adversary of Christ, because he will devise doctrine conflicting with the Gospel, and will assume to himself divine authority.

Moreover, it is manifest, in the first place, that the Pope rules in the Church, and by the pretext of ecclesiastical authority and of the ministry has established for himself this kingdom. For he assigns as a pretext these words: I will give to thee the keys. Secondly, the doctrine of the Pope conflicts in many ways with the Gospel, and [thirdly] the Pope assumes to himself divine authority in a threefold manner. First, because he takes to himself the right to change the doctrine of Christ and services instituted by God, and wants his own doctrine and his own services to be observed as divine; secondly, because he takes to himself the power not only of binding and loosing in this life, but also the jurisdiction over souls after this life; thirdly, because the Pope does not want to be judged by the Church or by any one, and puts his own authority ahead of the decision of Councils and the entire Church. But to be unwilling to be judged by the Church or by any one is to make oneself God. Lastly, these errors so horrible, and this impiety, he defends with the greatest cruelty, and puts to death those dissenting.

This being the case, all Christians ought to beware of becoming partakers of the godless doctrine, blasphemies, and unjust cruelty of the Pope. On this account they ought to desert and execrate the Pope with his adherents as the kingdom of Antichrist; just as Christ has commanded, Matt. 7,15: Beware of false prophets. And Paul commands that godless teachers should be avoided and execrated as cursed, Gal. 1, 8; Titus 3, 10. And 2 Cor. 6, 14 he says: Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what communion hath light with darkness?

To dissent from the agreement of so many nations and to be called schismatics is a grave matter. But divine authority commands all not to be allies and defenders of impiety and unjust cruelty.

On this account our consciences are sufficiently excused; for the errors of the kingdom of the Pope are manifest. And Scripture with its entire voice exclaims that these errors are a teaching of demons and of Antichrist. The idolatry in the profanation of the masses is manifest, which, besides other faults [besides being altogether useless] are shamelessly applied to most shameful gain [and trafficking]. The doctrine of repentance has been utterly corrupted by the Pope and his adherents. For they teach that sins are remitted because of the worth of our works. Then they bid us doubt whether the remission takes place. They nowhere teach that sins are remitted freely for Christ's sake, and that by this faith we obtain remission of sins.

Thus they obscure the glory of Christ, and deprive consciences of firm consolation, and abolish true divine services, namely, the exercises of faith struggling with [unbelief and] despair [concerning the promise of the Gospel] .

They have obscured the doctrine concerning sin, and have invented a tradition concerning the enumeration of offenses, producing many errors and despair.

They have devised, in addition, satisfactions, whereby they have also obscured the benefit [and merit] of Christ.

From these, indulgences have been born, which are pure lies, fabricated for the sake of gain.

Then, how many abuses and what horrible idolatry the invocation of saints has produced!

What shameful acts have arisen from the tradition concerning celibacy!

What darkness the doctrine concerning vows has spread over the Gospel! There they feigned that vows are righteousness before God and merit the remission of sins. Thus they have transferred the benefit of Christ to human traditions, and have altogether extinguished the doctrine concerning faith. They have feigned that the most trifling traditions are services of God and perfection and have preferred these to the works of callings which God requires and has ordained. Neither are these errors to be regarded as light; for they detract from the glory of Christ and bring destruction to souls, neither can they be passed by unnoticed.

Then to these errors two great sins are added: The first, that he defends these errors by unjust cruelty and death-penalties. The second, that he wrests the decision from the Church, and does not permit ecclesiastical controversies [such matters of religion] to be judged according to the prescribed mode; yea he contends that he is above the Council, and can rescind the decrees of Councils, as the canons sometimes impudently speak. But that this was much more impudently done by the pontiffs, examples testify.

Quest. 9, canon 3, says: No one shall judge the first seat; for the judge is judged neither by the emperor, nor by all the clergy, nor by the kings, nor by the people.

The Pope exercises a twofold tyranny: he defends his errors by force and by murders, and forbids judicial examination. The latter does even more injury than any executions because, when the true judgment of the Church is removed, godless dogmas and godless services cannot be removed, and for many ages they destroy innumerable souls.

Therefore let the godly consider the great errors of the kingdom of the Pope and his tyranny, and let them ponder, first, that the errors must be rejected and the true doctrine embraced, for the glory of God and to the salvation of souls. Then let them ponder also how great a crime it is to aid unjust cruelty in killing saints, whose blood God will undoubtedly avenge.

But especially the chief members of the Church, kings and princes, ought to guard the interests of the Church, and to see to it that errors be removed and consciences be healed [rightly instructed], as God expressly exhorts kings, Ps. 2, 10: Be wise, now, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth. For it should be the first care of kings [and great lords] to advance the glory of God. Therefore it would be very shameful for them to lend their influence and power to confirm idolatry and infinite other crimes, and to slaughter saints.

And even though the Pope should hold Synods [a Council], how can the Church be healed if the Pope suffers nothing to be decreed contrary to his will, if he allows no one to express his opinion except his adherents whom he has bound by dreadful oaths and curses to the defense of his tyranny and wickedness without any exception concerning God's Word [not even the Word of God being excepted]?

But since the decisions of Synods are the decisions of the Church, and not of the Popes, it is especially incumbent on kings to check the license of the Popes [not allow such wantonness], and to act so that the power of judging and decreeing from the Word of God is not wrested from the Church. And as the rest of the Christians must censure all other errors of the Pope, so they must also rebuke the Pope when he evades and impedes the true investigation and true decision of the Church.

Therefore, even though the bishop of Rome had the primacy by divine right, yet since he defends godless services and doctrine conflicting with the Gospel, obedience is not due him; yea, it is necessary to resist him as Antichrist. The errors of the Pope are manifest and not trifling.

Manifest also is the cruelty [against godly Christians] which he exercises. And it is clear that it is God's command that we flee idolatry, godless doctrine, and unjust cruelty. On this account all the godly have great, compelling, and manifest reasons for not obeying the Pope. And these compelling reasons comfort the godly against all the reproaches which are usually cast against them concerning offenses, schism, and discord [which they are said to cause].

But those who agree with the Pope, and defend his doctrine and [false] services, defile themselves with idolatry and blasphemous opinions, become guilty of the blood of the godly, whom the Pope [and his adherents] persecutes, detract from the glory of God, and hinder the welfare of the Church, because they strengthen errors and crimes to all posterity [in the sight of all the world and to the injury of all descendants].

Of the Power and Jurisdiction of Bishops.

[In our Confession and the Apology we have in general recounted what we have had to say concerning ecclesiastical power. For] The Gospel assigns to those who preside over churches the command to teach the Gospel to remit sins, to administer the Sacraments and besides jurisdiction, namely, the command to excommunicate those whose crimes are known, and again to absolve those who repent.

And by the confession of all, even of the adversaries, it is clear that this power by divine right is common to all who preside over churches, whether they are called pastors, or elders, or bishops. And accordingly Jerome openly teaches in the apostolic letters that all who preside over churches are both bishops and elders, and cites from Titus 1, 5 f.: For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest ordain elders in every city [and afterwards calls these persons bishops]. Then he adds: A bishop must be the husband of one wife. Likewise Peter and John call themselves elders [or priests] 1 Pet. 5, 1, 2 John 1. And he then adds: But that afterwards one was chosen to be placed over the rest, this was done as a remedy for schism, lest each one by attracting [a congregation here or there] to himself might rend the Church of Christ. For at Alexandria, from Mark the evangelist to the bishops Heracles and Dionysius, the elders always elected one from among themselves, and placed him in a higher station, whom they called bishop; just as an army would make a commander for itself. The deacons, moreover, may elect from among themselves one whom they know to be active, and name him archdeacon. For with the exception of ordination, what does the bishop that the elder does not?

Jerome, therefore, teaches that it is by human authority that the grades of bishop and elder or pastor are distinct. And the subject itself declares this, because the power [the office and command] is the same, as he has said above. But one matter afterwards made a distinction between bishops and pastors namely, ordination, because it was [so] arranged that one bishop should ordain ministers in a number of churches.

But since by divine authority the grades of bishop and pastor are not diverse, it is manifest that ordination administered by a pastor in his own church is valid by divine law [if a pastor in his own church ordains certain suitable persons to the ministry, such ordination is, according to divine law, undoubtedly effective and right].

Therefore, when the regular bishops become enemies of the Church, or are unwilling to administer ordination, the churches retain their own right. [Because the regular bishops persecute the Gospel and refuse to ordain suitable persons, every church has in this case full authority to ordain its own ministers.]

For wherever the Church is, there is the authority [command] to administer the Gospel. Therefore it is necessary for the Church to retain the authority to call, elect, and ordain ministers. And this authority is a gift which in reality is given to the Church, which no human power can wrest from the Church, as Paul also testifies to the Ephesians, 4, 8, when he says: He ascended, He gave gifts to men. And he enumerates among the gifts specially belonging to the Church pastors and teachers, and adds that such are given for the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Hence, wherever there is a true church, the right to elect and ordain ministers necessarily exists. Just as in a case of necessity even a layman absolves, and becomes the minister and pastor of another; as Augustine narrates the story of two Christians in a ship, one of whom baptized the catechumen, who after Baptism then absolved the baptizer.
Here belong the statements of Christ which testify that the keys have been given to the Church, and not merely to certain persons, Matt. 18, 20: Where two or three are gathered together in My name, etc.

Lastly, the statement of Peter also confirms this, 1 Ep. 2, 9: Ye are a royal priesthood. These words pertain to the true Church, which certainly has the right to elect and ordain ministers since it alone has the priesthood.

And this also a most common custom of the Church testifies. For formerly the people elected pastors and bishops. Then came a bishop, either of that church or a neighboring one, who confirmed tho one elected by the laying on of hands; and ordination was nothing else than such a ratification. Afterwards new ceremonies were added, many of which Dionysius describes. But he is a recent and fictitious author, whoever he may be [this book of Dionysius is a new fiction under a false title], just as the writings of Clement also are spurious [have a false title and have been manufactured by a wicked scoundrel long after Clement]. Then more modern writers added [that the bishop said to those whom he was ordaining]: I give thee the power to sacrifice for the living and the dead. But not even this is in Dionysius.

From all these things it is clear that the Church retains the right to elect and ordain ministers. And the wickedness and tyranny of bishops afford cause for schism and discord [therefore, if the bishops either are heretics, or will not ordain suitable persons, the churches are in duty bound before God, according to divine law, to ordain for themselves pastors and ministers. Even though this be now called an irregularity or schism, it should be known that the godless doctrine and tyranny of the bishops is chargeable with it], because Paul, Gal. 1, 7 f., enjoins that bishops who teach and defend a godless doctrine and godless services should be regarded as accursed.

We have spoken of ordination, which alone, as Jerome says, distinguished bishops from other elders. Therefore there is need of no discussion concerning the other duties of bishops. Nor is it indeed necessary to speak of confirmation, nor of the consecration of bells [nor other tomfoolery of this kind], which are almost the only things which they have retained. Something must be said concerning jurisdiction.

It is certain that the common jurisdiction of excommunicating those guilty of manifest crimes belongs to all pastors. This they have tyrannically transferred to themselves alone, and have applied it to the acquisition of gain. For it is certain that the officials, as they are called employed a license not to be tolerated and either on account of avarice or because of other wanton desires tormented men and excommunicated them without any due process of law. But what tyranny is it for the officials in the states to have arbitrary power to condemn and excommunicate men without due process of law! And in what kind of affairs did they abuse this power? Indeed, not in punishing true offenses, but in regard to the violation of fasts or festivals, or like trifles! Only, they sometimes punished adulteries; and in this matter they often vexed [abused and defamed] innocent and honorable men. Besides, since this is a most grievous offense, nobody certainly is to be condemned without due process of law.

Since, therefore, bishops have tyrannically transferred this jurisdiction to themselves alone, and have basely abused it, there is no need, because of this jurisdiction, to obey bishops. But since there are just reasons why we do not obey, it is right also to restore this jurisdiction to godly pastors [to whom, by Christ's command, it belongs], and to see to it that it is legitimately exercised for the reformation of morals and the glory of God.

There remains the jurisdiction in those cases which, according to canonical law, pertain to the ecclesiastical court, as they call it, and especially in cases of matrimony. This, too, the bishops have only by human right, and that, not a very old one, as appears from the Codex and Novellae of Justinian that decisions concerning marriage at that time belonged to the magistrates. And by divine right worldly magistrates are compelled to make these decisions if the bishops [judge unjustly or] are negligent. The canons also concede the same. Therefore, also on account of this jurisdiction it is not necessary to obey bishops. And, indeed, since they have framed certain unjust laws concerning marriages, and observe them in their courts, there is need also for this reason to establish other courts. For the traditions concerning spiritual relationship [the prohibition of marriage between sponsors] are unjust. Unjust also is the tradition which forbids an innocent person to marry after divorce. Unjust also is the law which in general approves all clandestine and underhanded betrothals in violation of the right of parents. Unjust also is the law concerning the celibacy of priests. There are also other snares of consciences in their laws, to recite all of which is of no profit. It is sufficient to have recited this, that there are many unjust laws of the Pope concerning matrimonial subjects on account of which the magistrates ought to establish other courts.

Since, therefore, the bishops, who are devoted to the Pope, defend godless doctrine and godless services, and do not ordain godly teachers, yea, aid the cruelty of the Pope, and, besides, have wrested the jurisdiction from pastors, and exercise it only tyrannically [for their own profit]; and lastly, since in matrimonial cases they observe many unjust laws, there are reasons sufficiently numerous and necessary why the churches should not recognize these as bishops.

But they themselves should remember that riches [estates and revenues] have been given to bishops as alms for the administration and advantage of the churches [that they may serve the Church, and perform their office the more efficiently], as the rule says: The benefice is given because of the office. Therefore they cannot with a good conscience possess these alms, and meanwhile defraud the Church, which has need of these means for supporting ministers, and aiding studies [educating learned men], and caring for the poor and establishing courts, especially matrimonial. For so great is the variety and extent of matrimonial controversies that there is need of a special tribunal for these, and for establishing this, the endowments of the Church are needed. Peter predicted, 2 Ep. 2, 13, that there would be godless bishops, who would abuse the alms of the Church for luxury and neglect the ministry. Therefore [since the Holy Spirit in that connection utters dire threats] let those who defraud the Church know that they will pay God the penalty for this crime.
_____________________
DOCTORS AND PREACHERS

Who Subscribed the Augsburg Confession
and Apology, A. D. 1537.

According to the command of the most illustrious princes and of the orders and states professing the doctrine of the Gospel, we have reread the articles of the Confession presented to the Emperor in the Assembly at Augsburg, and by the favor of God all the preachers who have been present in this Assembly at Smalcald harmoniously declare that they believe and teach in their churches according to the articles of the Confession and Apology. They also declare that they approve the article concerning the primacy of the Pope and his power, and the power and jurisdiction of bishops, which was presented to the princes in this Assembly at Smalcald. Accordingly, they subscribe their names.

I, Dr. John Bugenhagen, Pomeranus, subscribe the Articles of the Augsburg Confession, the Apology, and the Article presented to the princes at Smalcald concerning the Papacy.

I also, Dr. Urban Rhegius, Superintendent of the churches in the Duchy of Lueneburg, subscribe.

Nicolaus Amsdorf of Magdeburg subscribed.

Georpe Spalatin of Altenburg subscribed.

I, Andrew Osiander, subscribe.

Magister Veit Dieterich of Nuernberg subscribed.

Stephen Agricola, Minister at Hof, subscribed with his own hand.

John Draconites of Marburg subscribed.

Conrad Figenbotz subscribed to all throughout.

Martin Bucer.

I, Erhard Schnepf, subscribe.

Paul Rhodius, Preacher in Stettin.

Gerhard Oeniken, Minister of the Church at Minden.

Brixius Northanus, Minister at Soest.

Simon Schnevveis, Pastor of Crailsheim.

I, Pomeranus, again subscribe in the name of Magister John Brentz, as he ordered me.

Philip Melanchthon subscribes with his own hand.

Anthony Corvinus subscribes with his own hand, as well as in the name of Adam a Fulda.

John Schlainhauffen subscribes with his own hand.

Magister George Helt of Forchheim.

Michael Coelius, Preacher at Mansfeld.

Peter Geltner, Preacher of the Church of Frankfort.

Dionysius Melander subscribed.

Paul Fagius of Strassburg.

Wendel Faber, Pastor of Seeburg in Mansfeld
Conrad Oettinger of Pforzheim, Preacher of Ulric, Duke of Wuerttemberg.

Boniface Wolfart, Minister of the Word of the Church at Augsburg.

John Aepinus, Superintendent of Hamburg, subscribed with his own hand.

John Amsterdam of Bremen does the same.

John Fontanus, Superintendent of Lower Hesse, subscribed.

Frederick Myconius subscribed for himself and Justus Menius. Amobrose Blaurer.

I have read, and again and again reread, the Confession and Apology presented at Augsburg by the Most Illustrious Prince, the Elector of Saxony, and by the other princes and estates of the Roman Empire, to his Imperial Majesty. I have also read the Formula of Concord concerning the Sacrament, made at Wittenberg with Dr. Bucer and others. I have also read the articles written at the Assembly at Smalcald in the German language by Dr. Martin Luther, our most revered preceptor, and the tract concerning the Papacy and the Power and Jurisdiction of Bishops. And in my humble opinion I judge that all these agree with Holy Scripture, and with the belief of the true and genuine catholic Church. But although in so great a number of most learned men who have now assembled at Smalcald I acknowledge that I am of all the least yet, as I am not permitted to await the end of the assembly, I ask you, most renowned man, Dr. John Bugenhagen, most revered Father in Christ, that your courtesy may add my name, if it be necessary, to all that I have above mentioned. For I testify in this my own handwriting that I thus hold, confess, and constantly will teach, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

John Brentz, Minister of Hall.
Done at Smalcald February 23, 1537.

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

[Kamoroso]

Excerpt from-
THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION OF FAITH

Which Was Submitted to His Imperial Majesty Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg in the Year 1530.
by Philip Melanchthon, 1497-1560


Article XXVIII: Of Ecclesiastical Power. There has been great controversy concerning the Power of Bishops, in which some have awkwardly confounded the power of the Church and the power of the sword. And from this confusion very great wars and tumults have resulted, while the Pontiffs, emboldened by the power of the Keys, not only have instituted new services and burdened consciences with reservation of cases and ruthless excommunications, but have also undertaken to transfer the kingdoms of this world, and to take the Empire from the Emperor. These wrongs have long since been rebuked in the Church by learned and godly men. Therefore our teachers, for the comforting of men's consciences, were constrained to show the difference between the power of the Church and the power of the sword, and taught that both of them, because of God's commandment, are to be held in reverence and honor, as the chief blessings of God on earth.

But this is their opinion, that the power of the Keys, or the power of the bishops, according to the Gospel, is a power or commandment of God, to preach the Gospel, to remit and retain sins, and to administer Sacraments. For with this commandment Christ sends forth His Apostles, John 20, 21 sqq.: As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained. Mark 16, 15: Go preach the Gospel to every creature.

This power is exercised only by teaching or preaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments, according to their calling either to many or to individuals. For thereby are granted, not bodily, but eternal things, as eternal righteousness, the Holy Ghost, eternal life. These things cannot come but by the ministry of the Word and the Sacraments, as Paul says, Rom. 1, 16: The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. Therefore, since the power of the Church grants eternal things, and is exercised only by the ministry of the Word, it does not interfere with civil government; no more than the art of singing interferes with civil government. For civil government deals with other things than does the Gospel. The civil rulers defend not minds, but bodies and bodily things against manifest injuries, and restrain men with the sword and bodily punishments in order to preserve civil justice and peace.

Therefore the power of the Church and the civil power must not be confounded. The power of the Church has its own commission to teach the Gospel and to administer the Sacraments. Let it not break into the office of another; Let it not transfer the kingdoms of this world; let it not abrogate the laws of civil rulers; let it not abolish lawful obedience; let it not interfere with judgments concerning civil ordinances or contracts; let it not prescribe laws to civil rulers concerning the form of the Commonwealth. As Christ says, John 18, 33: My kingdom is not of this world; also Luke 12, 14: Who made Me a judge or a divider over you? Paul also says, Phil. 3, 20: Our citizenship is in heaven; 2 Cor. 10, 4: The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the casting down of imaginations.

After this manner our teachers discriminate between the duties of both these powers, and command that both be honored and acknowledged as gifts and blessings of God. If bishops have any power of the sword, that power they have, not as bishops, by the commission of the Gospel, but by human law having received it of kings and emperors for the civil administration of what is theirs. This, however, is another office than the ministry of the Gospel.

When, therefore, the question is concerning the jurisdiction of bishops, civil authority must be distinguished from ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Again, according to the Gospel or, as they say, by divine right, there belongs to the bishops as bishops, that is, to those to whom has been committed the ministry of the Word and the Sacraments, no jurisdiction except to forgive sins, to judge doctrine, to reject doctrines contrary to the Gospel, and to exclude from the communion of the Church wicked men, whose wickedness is known, and this without human force, simply by the Word. Herein the congregations of necessity and by divine right must obey them, according to Luke 10, 16: He that heareth you heareth Me. But when they teach or ordain anything against the Gospel, then the congregations have a commandment of God prohibiting obedience, Matt. 7, 15: Beware of false prophets; Gal. 1, 8: Though an angel from heaven preach any other gospel, let him be accursed; 2 Cor. 13, 8: We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. Also: The power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction. So, also, the Canonical Laws command (II. Q. VII. Cap., Sacerdotes, and Cap. Oves). And Augustine (Contra Petiliani Epistolam): Neither must we submit to Catholic bishops if they chance to err, or hold anything contrary to the Canonical Scriptures of God.

If they have any other power or jurisdiction, in hearing and judging certain cases, as of matrimony or of tithes, etc., they have it by human right, in which matters princes are bound, even against their will, when the ordinaries fail, to dispense justice to their subjects for the maintenance of peace.

Moreover, it is disputed whether bishops or pastors have the right to introduce ceremonies in the Church, and to make laws concerning meats, holy-days and grades, that is, orders of ministers, etc. They that give this right to the bishops refer to this testimony John 16, 12. 13: I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth. They also refer to the example of the Apostles, who commanded to abstain from blood and from things strangled, Acts 15, 29. They refer to the Sabbath-day as having been changed into the Lord's Day, contrary to the Decalog, as it seems. Neither is there any example whereof they make more than concerning the changing of the Sabbath-day. Great, say they, is the power of the Church, since it has dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments!

But concerning this question it is taught on our part (as has been shown above) that bishops have no power to decree anything against the Gospel. The Canonical Laws teach the same thing (Dist. IX) . Now, it is against Scripture to establish or require the observance of any traditions, to the end that by such observance we may make satisfaction for sins, or merit grace and righteousness. For the glory of Christ's merit suffers injury when, by such observances, we undertake to merit justification. But it is manifest that, by such belief, traditions have almost infinitely multiplied in the Church, the doctrine concerning faith and the righteousness of faith being meanwhile suppressed. For gradually more holy-days were made, fasts appointed, new ceremonies and services in honor of saints instituted, because the authors of such things thought that by these works they were meriting grace. Thus in times past the Penitential Canons increased, whereof we still see some traces in the satisfactions.

Again, the authors of traditions do contrary to the command of God when they find matters of sin in foods, in days, and like things, and burden the Church with bondage of the law, as if there ought to be among Christians, in order to merit justification a service like the Levitical, the arrangement of which God had committed to the Apostles and bishops. For thus some of them write; and the Pontiffs in some measure seem to be misled by the example of the law of Moses. Hence are such burdens, as that they make it mortal sin, even without offense to others, to do manual labor on holy-days, a mortal sin to omit the Canonical Hours, that certain foods defile the conscience that fastings are works which appease God that sin in a reserved case cannot be forgiven but by the authority of him who reserved it; whereas the Canons themselves speak only of the reserving of the ecclesiastical penalty, and not of the reserving of the guilt.

Whence have the bishops the right to lay these traditions upon the Church for the ensnaring of consciences, when Peter, Acts 15, 10, forbids to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, and Paul says, 2 Cor. 13, 10, that the power given him was to edification not to destruction? Why, therefore, do they increase sins by these traditions?

But there are clear testimonies which prohibit the making of such traditions, as though they merited grace or were necessary to salvation. Paul says, Col. 2, 16-23: Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath-days. If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances (touch not; taste not; handle not, which all are to perish with the using) after the commandments and doctrines of men! which things have indeed a show of wisdom. Also in Titus 1, 14 he openly forbids traditions: Not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth.

And Christ, Matt. 15, 14. 13, says of those who require traditions: Let them alone; they be blind leaders of the blind; and He rejects such services: Every plant which My heavenly Father hath not planted shall be plucked up.

If bishops have the right to burden churches with infinite traditions, and to ensnare consciences, why does Scripture so often prohibit to make, and to listen to, traditions? Why does it call them "doctrines of devils"? 1 Tim. 4, 1. Did the Holy Ghost in vain forewarn of these things?

Since, therefore, ordinances instituted as things necessary, or with an opinion of meriting grace, are contrary to the Gospel, it follows that it is not lawful for any bishop to institute or exact such services. For it is necessary that the doctrine of Christian liberty be preserved in the churches, namely, that the bondage of the Law is not necessary to justification, as it is written in the Epistle to the Galatians, 5, 1: Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. It is necessary that the chief article of the Gospel be preserved, to wit, that we obtain grace freely by faith in Christ, and not for certain observances or acts of worship devised by men.

What, then, are we to think of the Sunday and like rites in the house of God? To this we answer that it is lawful for bishops or pastors to make ordinances that things be done orderly in the Church, not that thereby we should merit grace or make satisfaction for sins, or that consciences be bound to judge them necessary services, and to think that it is a sin to break them without offense to others. So Paul ordains, 1 Cor. 11, 5, that women should cover their heads in the congregation, 1 Cor. 14, 30, that interpreters be heard in order in the church, etc.

It is proper that the churches should keep such ordinances for the sake of love and tranquillity, so far that one do not offend another, that all things be done in the churches in order, and without confusion, 1 Cor. 14, 40; comp. Phil. 2, 14; but so that consciences be not burdened to think that they are necessary to salvation, or to judge that they sin when they break them without offense to others; as no one will say that a woman sins who goes out in public with her head uncovered provided only that no offense be given.

Of this kind is the observance of the Lord's Day, Easter, Pentecost, and like holy-days and rites. For those who judge that by the authority of the Church the observance of the Lord's Day instead of the Sabbath-day was ordained as a thing necessary, do greatly err. Scripture has abrogated the Sabbath-day; for it teaches that, since the Gospel has been revealed, all the ceremonies of Moses can be omitted. And yet, because it was necessary to appoint a certain day, that the people might know when they ought to come together, it appears that the Church designated the Lord's Day for this purpose; and this day seems to have been chosen all the more for this additional reason, that men might have an example of Christian liberty, and might know that the keeping neither of the Sabbath nor of any other day is necessary.

There are monstrous disputations concerning the changing of the law, the ceremonies of the new law, the changing of the Sabbath-day, which all have sprung from the false belief that there must needs be in the Church a service like to the Levitical, and that Christ had given commission to the Apostles and bishops to devise new ceremonies as necessary to salvation. These errors crept into the Church when the righteousness of faith was not taught clearly enough. Some dispute that the keeping of the Lord's Day is not indeed of divine right, but in a manner so. They prescribe concerning holy-days, how far it is lawful to work. What else are such disputations than snares of consciences? For although they endeavor to modify the traditions, yet the mitigation can never be perceived as long as the opinion remains that they are necessary, which must needs remain where the righteousness of faith and Christian liberty are not known.

The Apostles commanded Acts 15, 20 to abstain from blood. Who does now observe it? And yet they that do it not sin not; for not even the Apostles themselves wanted to burden consciences with such bondage; but they forbade it for a time, to avoid offense. For in this decree we must perpetually consider what the aim of the Gospel is.

Scarcely any Canons are kept with exactness, and from day to day many go out of use even among those who are the most zealous advocates of traditions. Neither can due regard be paid to consciences unless this mitigation be observed, that we know that the Canons are kept without holding them to be necessary, and that no harm is done consciences, even though traditions go out of use.

But the bishops might easily retain the lawful obedience of the people if they would not insist upon the observance of such traditions as cannot be kept with a good conscience. Now they command celibacy; they admit none unless they swear that they will not teach the pure doctrine of the Gospel. The churches do not ask that the bishops should restore concord at the expense of their honor; which, nevertheless, it would be proper for good pastors to do. They ask only that they would release unjust burdens which are new and have been received contrary to the custom of the Church Catholic. It may be that in the beginning there were plausible reasons for some of these ordinances; and yet they are not adapted to later times. It is also evident that some were adopted through erroneous conceptions. Therefore it would be befitting the clemency of the Pontiffs to mitigate them now, because such a modification does not shake the unity of the Church. For many human traditions have been changed in process of time, as the Canons themselves show. But if it be impossible to obtain a mitigation of such observances as cannot be kept without sin, we are bound to follow the apostolic rule, Acts 5, 29, which commands us to obey God rather than men.

Peter, 1 Pet. 5, 3, forbids bishops to be lords, and to rule over the churches. It is not our design now to wrest the government from the bishops, but this one thing is asked, namely, that they allow the Gospel to be purely taught, and that they relax some few observances which cannot be kept without sin. But if they make no concession, it is for them to see how they shall give account to God for furnishing, by their obstinacy, a cause for schism.

Conclusion.

These are the chief articles which seem to be in controversy. For although we might have spoken of more abuses, yet, to avoid undue length, we have set forth the chief points, from which the rest may be readily judged. There have been great complaints concerning indulgences, pilgrimages, and the abuse of excommunications. The parishes have been vexed in many ways by the dealers in indulgences. There were endless contentions between the pastors and the monks concerning the parochial right, confessions, burials, sermons on extraordinary occasions, and innumerable other things. Issues of this sort we have passed over so that the chief points in this matter, having been briefly set forth, might be the more readily understood. Nor has anything been here said or adduced to the reproach of any one. Only those things have been recounted whereof we thought that it was necessary to speak, in order that it might be understood that in doctrine and ceremonies nothing has been received on our part against Scripture or the Church Catholic. For it is manifest that we have taken most diligent care that no new and ungodly doctrine should creep into our churches.

The above articles we desire to present in accordance with the edict of Your Imperial Majesty, in order to exhibit our Confession and let men see a summary of the doctrine of our teachers. If there is anything that any one might desire in this Confession, we are ready, God willing, to present ampler information according to the Scriptures.

Your Imperial Majesty's faithful subjects:

John, Duke of Saxony, Elector.

George, Margrave of Brandenburg.

Ernest, Duke of Lueneberg.

Philip, Landgrave of Hesse.

John Frederick, Duke of Saxony.

Francis, Duke of Lueneburg.

Wolfgang, Prince of Anhalt.

Senate and Magistracy of Nuremburg.

Senate of Reutlingen.


Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

[Kamoroso]

History, The falsification of.

J. McCabe, Rationalists Encyclopaedia

It will be gathered from a large number of articles in this Encyclopedia that the great gain of the adoption of scientific methods in modern history and of extensive discoveries in archaeology is offset by a lamentable falsification owing to concessions to religious writers or sectarian influence. It has gravely increased the difficulty of the Rationalist education of the public that, just when science has generally succeeded in silencing "the drum ecclesiastic" (in Huxley's phrase), history is increasingly listening to it. Recent issues of the leading encyclopedias have permitted very serious alterations of historical articles or invited clerical writers to contribute articles on subjects on which they could not be expected to be impartial or accurately informed. Serious attempts have been made even to impose the new spirit of accommodation upon teachers of history in universities, colleges, and the national schools. Poynter tells of an amazing plot of this nature in his Roman Catholics and School History Books (1930). However one may analyse the motives or the influences, conscious or subconscious, the evil begins with a number of professors or writers of history of some distinction, especially in the United States. [See, for example, the articles Arabs; Christianity; Dark Age; Democracy; Middle Age; Monasticism; Papacy; Philanthropy; Reformation; Rome; Thirteenth Century; and subsidiary articles mentioned in them.] The intellectual and moral status of pre-Christian civilizations is vindicated against ancient calumnies by virtually all modern authorities; yet in the case of Rome, while Protestant writers like Dr. E. Reich and Sir S. Dill have been generous in stating the truth, a number of recent historical writers, men who show no command of classical literature and the inscriptions, have used language in conformity with the old prejudices. This encourages theological writers to repeat their discredited claims that the Gospels brought a new and higher type of religion and ethic into the contemporary Roman world; that the Christians generally exhibited a superior type of character which attracted thoughtful Greeks and Romans; and that the acceptance - in reality enforcement - of the Christian religion was followed by a social and moral improvement. But greater evil is done by a falsification of the social history of the Christian, or at least the Catholic, era. In this respect Catholics have had a remarkable success in adulterating history. On the plea that the Protestant and Rationalist historians of the last century were moved by a prejudice against Catholicism, or that the development of psychology and of economic and social science gives the historian a new equipment for the study of earlier peoples, some historians - this does not apply to the Cambridge Mediaeval History - profess to give a new and sounder estimate of the period of solid Church influence. The title given to the first half, the Dark Age, is, largely on the quite false ground that it means the whole of the Middle Ages, declared to be unjust, and the second part, the Renaissance in the broader sense, is described more or less in harmony with the claims of Catholic writers. The historians in question betray that they have no command, as the historians of the last century had, of medieval literature. They ignore completely the immense literature which tells the licence and coarseness of life of the clergy, monks - all that they say of monasticism is to give a description of the ideal of a Benedictine abbey or describe Francis of Assisi - and people of all classes; and they profess that it is a mark of liberality to follow Catholic writers on the work of Gregory VII or Innocent III, the Massacre of the Albigensians and the Hussites, the Inquisition and the Reformation (See Coulter's Sectarian History, 1937). Admirable as it is to trace neglected social, political, and economic factors in this stretch of history, the deliberate suppression of its many evil features falsifies history and the sociological valuation of institutions. The same tendency is seen in the deliberate depreciation of the Arab-Persian civilization, which conceals the real source of the European Renaissance and confirms the preposterous claim that the Roman Church inspired it. Even in the modern period we find the same grave departure from the canons of history in the undiscriminating condemnation of the French Revolution, the suppression of the terrible injustices of French life which led to it, and especially the concealment of what Lord Acton called the savagery of the Roman Church in its fight against progress from the fall of Napoleon to 1870 (in Spain and Russia until recently). This falsification of history, at least by the suppression of facts and of relevant but distasteful contemporary documents, is one of the most unfortunate features of modern culture. The scores of articles in this Encyclopaedia in which it is exposed show that a new and thorough history of the Christian era is urgently needed.

Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

[Kamoroso]

Papacy, The.

J. McCabe, Rationalists Encyclopaedia

The Roman Catholic institution of a monarchic rule of the Church by Popes. In Latin, as in English, a word for "father" was taken from the easy labial muttering (pa-pa) of the infant, and in the early Church this was applied to the superintendents, or "overseers" (episcopi, or bishops), of each small community who were presumably selected from the older men. As long as all bishops were Popes (Papae), as they still are in the East, there was no Papacy (Papatus, correctly rendered in English, "Popery"); but the disuse of Greek (which was the official language of the Roman Church during the first two or three centuries) and the growing arrogation of supreme power by the Bishop of Rome restricted the title to him in the West and established the institution of the Papacy. In a famous sentence Hobbes (Leviathan, Ch. 47) describes it as "the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof." The description, though often regarded as flippant by historians who have not made a critical study of Papal history, is nearer to the truth than Hobbes knew. Since the Papacy does not mean the rule of the Roman diocese by its bishops, but the rule of the entire Catholic Church - it emphatically insists on its right to rule even the Greek and Oriental Churches - it did not exist until after the fall of Rome, and its establishment was in the highest degree facilitated by the general ignorance and demoralization which followed the collapse of the Empire. This is the first point of importance in connection with the nature and history of the Papacy, and the evidence is misrepresented by Catholic apologists with the kind of audacity which one is compelled to regard as untruthfulness. We have then to inquire how, between 400 and 1300, the Popes constructed a power which is unique in the history of religion, and to examine the character of the men who exercised this power and claimed so close a relation to God that they bore the title of "His Holiness," the nature and range of their influence on civilization, and the means by which a power based upon admitted forgeries and false historical statements is maintained, and to what extent it is maintained, in the modern world.
(1) In the most pretentious and most authoritative presentment of the Catholic position, the Catholic Encyclopaedia, the important article on the Popes is written by the English Jesuit, Fr. Joyce, and he summarizes the first four centuries in these words: "History bears complete testimony that from the earliest times the Roman Church has ever claimed the supreme leadership, and that that leadership has been freely acknowledged by the universal Church." Under pressure, the Jesuit, and the hierarchy which sponsors the Encyclopaedia, might plead the vagueness of the word "leadership" (instead of power), but the character of the statement may be judged from the fact that from the time when Rome, in the last decade of the second century, first asserted its authority over other Churches until the fall of the Empire, the claim was in every single case repudiated, generally with scorn, and no section of the Eastern half of the "Universal Church" ever admitted it. In Catholic theory the claim is based upon the alleged founding of the Roman bishopric by Peter. Under that title it will be shown that Peter, assuming him to have been an historical character, never reached Rome. The tradition was fabricated in Rome in the second half of the second century. At the end of the first century the Roman community had, as it states in its Letter to the Corinthians , a bishop and deacons. That the bishop was named Clement, and that he wrote the letter, is a later tradition; but the letter is a democratic admonition from one small community to another, and not in any sense a Papal document. The Roman Church remained (outside the city) very obscure and unimportant until the time of Pope Victor (189-98), who claimed a right to dictate to the Churches of Asia Minor. By this time the curious pun about Peter and the rock had been successfully interpolated in Matthew (xvi, 18), and the Bishop of Rome, Victor, had the new and peculiar distinction of being a friend of the most important person in the imperial palace, the Emperor's very wanton mistress, Marcia. The Asiatic bishops rejected the claim and "bitterly reproached Victor," Bishop Eusebius tells us. [See Victor.] Tertullian, in Africa, apparently refers to this when in his treatise On Chastity (c. 1) he refers, with heavy irony, to the Pope as claiming to be "the Supreme Pontiff, that is to say the Bishop of Bishops." It was not until more than fifty years later that the Popes - Cornelius (251-3), Stephen (254-7) - ventured to reassert the claim. They tried to dictate to the bishops of the African province, which was then next in importance to the Roman. Here the attitude of the apologist is amazing. He quotes Cyprian, the head of the African Church and the most saintly bishop of that age, as one who recognized Papal supremacy because, before the quarrel began, he spoke of the Roman as "the principal Church" and "the source of sacerdotal unity": an expression of its importance as being in the imperial city and as the centre from which Africa had been Christianized. But, while every Catholic writer on the subject quotes this and represents it as a recognition of the Papal claim, none of them tell how, when the Popes made their claim, Cyprian repudiated it with anger and scorn in his letters (especially LIV, LXVII, and LXXII). In the last of these he writes in the name of the eighty African bishops, and says in plain and very ironical Latin: "None of us regards himself as the Bishop of Bishops or seeks by tyrannical threats to compel his colleagues to obey him." Pope Julius, in 340, attempted to give orders to the Eastern bishops, and their reply, says the ecclesiastical historian Sozomen, was "full of irony and not devoid of serious threats" (Ecclesiastical History, III, 8). Pope Damasus repeated the attempt in 382, and the reply was equally disdainful (Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, V, 9). That was the last word of the Greek Church on the matter, and the Popes had to be content to assert themselves in the West. Every Catholic writer quotes Augustine as admitting the claim and closing a controversy with the words "Rome has spoken." These writers must know that what Augustine actually said was that the case was closed because the African and the Roman Churches had jointly reached the same conclusion, and that Augustine and his African bishops repudiated the Pope's claim of authority as scornfully as Cyprian and the Greeks had done
(Labbé, Collectio Conciliorum, 419 and 424). Finally, Pope Leo I, in 445, the African Church being now in ruins under the Vandals, tried to assert the claim in the one comparatively free western province outside Italy, southern Gaul, and its great leader, Hilary, replied to him, the Pope says (Letters, X, 3), in "language which no layman even should dare to use and no priest to hear." Leo got the last miserable representative of the Emperors to declare that the Pope had this authority, but the Empire fell, and there was no prelate left outside Rome of sufficient strength or ability to resist. Until Western Christendom was shattered, in the fifth century, every single Papal assertion of supremacy was heatedly repudiated and rebuked.
(2) Gaul now passed under the Frank barbarians, Spain under the Visigoths, and Africa under the Vandals, while the Greek Church finally turned away from Rome. The population of Europe was reduced to less than a tenth of what it had been, the school-system was totally destroyed, and the Popes ruled a field of ruins. Hence the profound historical truth of the saying of Hobbes. In such a situation, with a beggared and densely ignorant people looking to distant Rome, which few now visited, as the "See of Peter" and the source of bogus relics and spurious lives of the martyrs, every strong, able, or covetous Pope began to seek an enlargement of his authority. Leo I, under whom the forgery of Canons of earlier Councils began, and Innocent I were such men, but there was little opportunity until the time of Gregory I (590-604), who was, though the most saintly man who had yet worn the tiara, content to make the Papacy the richest owner of land and slaves in Europe. [See Gregory I.] The Lombards annexed a very large part of the Papal estates, and by a series of forgeries which would have been possible only in an age of the densest ignorance [see Donation of Constantine and Papal States], the Popes of the eighth century got them restored and enormously enlarged by the Franks. The "temporal power" (the possessions) of the Papacy here reached its greatest extent, and its further history is one of incessant and bloody conflict. In the ninth century Pope Nicholas I tried to use a similar collection of forgeries, the Forged Decretals , to augment the spiritual or ecclesiastical power of the Papacy, and from the great French prelate, Archbishop Hincmar, met a scornful resistance such as the early claims had met. But the age was one of deepening gloom and barbaric violence, and the death of Nicholas, in 867, was followed by ghastly outrages in Rome which inaugurated the Rule of the whores and a century and a hall, with a few short intervals of comparative decency, of unparalleled corruption. Thirty Popes occupied the sodden "throne of Peter" in a single century, and the theory of a leadership of the world was forgotten. In the end a body of reformed monks persuaded the Roman (German) Emperors to intervene - with the vices of the Emperors themselves they did not interfere - and one of these, Hildebrand, became Gregory VII , and gave the Papal theory of power almost its greatest expansion. The Pope was the absolute ruler of the world, in secular as well as religious matters. But Gregory's reckless use of armies, armed mobs, and forged documents provoked a reaction and a contempt of Papal anathemas. The Romans themselves drove him into exile, and the chief authority on the period, Gregorovius, describes how, three years later, his successor, Urban II, "seated in the deserted Lateran surrounded by rude partisans and no less rude bishops, gazing on the ruins of churches and streets - memories of Gregory VII - and on a city silent as death, squalid, and inhabited by a tattered, murderous, and miserable population, presents a gloomy picture of the decadence of the Papacy" (History of the City of Rome, IV, 277). Europe was now rising - the Dark Age was over - but the city of the Popes continued to present a spectacle of barbaric violence and corruption, until the greatest of the Popes, Innocent III (1198-1216) acceded. He completed Hildebrand's scheme of supreme power; but by what means he attained it and how he used it are told in the article on him. We do not doubt that men like Gregory and Innocent fabricated this power, however unscrupulous the means they employed, in the belief that an omnipotent Pope would make the world virtuous; but the historians who accuse us of overlooking this themselves forget two crucial facts. First, in the belief of such Popes the first virtue to secure was rigid orthodoxy and submission, since it was not sound social conduct in this world, but salvation in the next that they sought for men; so they inevitably destroyed freedom, consecrated violence, and tried to arrest or pervert the new intellectual development. Secondly, the vast new power created was no more used to promote virtue by the successors of Innocent than it had been by the successors of Gregory. The thirteenth century , which Innocent inaugurated, is one of the loosest (sexually) in history, and it reeked with cruelty and injustice, especially in Italy. Its Papal history ended in the extraordinary scandal of the pontificate of Boniface VIII (1294-1303), and this was followed by the depravity of the Papal Court at Avignon (1309-77), the disgusting Popes of the Great Schism (1378-1414), under whom even the best Catholic historian, Pastor, says, "the prevailing immorality exceeded anything that had been witnessed since the tenth century" (History of the Popes, I, 97), and the Popes of the Renaissance (1450-1650), when, considering the new enlightenment of Europe, the Papacy sank to a lower depth than ever and, except during a few short periods, remained in its corruption longer than ever. [See articles on each of these phases.]
(3) The phrases "Holy See" and "His Holiness," which Catholic pressure or intrigue now compels even the daily papers to use, represent a third aspect of what one is tempted to call the great imposture of Catholic literature on the Papacy. The faithful, who are graciously permitted to know that there were "few bad Popes," are reconciled to this on the singular ground that the Church never claimed "impeccability" for its Popes. It is one of the peculiar growths of the semi-Fascist atmosphere of the Church, with its prohibition to read critics under pain of eternal damnation, that a Catholic regards each Pope as "the Vicar of Christ," elected by the Holy Ghost and in intimate relation with the Deity, yet considers the inclusion in the series of a number of corrupt men as a matter of no consequence. This can be effected only by representing the vicious Popes as very rare occurrences in a unique succession of wise and saintly men. In point of historical fact no other religion of which we have adequate knowledge - Brahmanism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, or Islam - presents such a spectacle of corruption in its higher spiritual authorities and their elections to office as does the history of the Popes. No one questions that many of them were able men, or, on the Catholic standard, holy men, but Catholic accounts of them are monstrous. They give the title of "martyr" to nearly every Pope to the year 310, while even Catholic historians like Duchesne admit that at the most only two out of thirty were martyrs. They give the distinction of "Saint" to every Pope except one to the year 530, whereas four-fifths of them are obscure men of unknown character, and the only three whose character is clear to the year 440 - Victor, Callistus, and Damasus - were very far from saintly. Of ninety Popes, to the year 870, the great majority are of unknown character, and a number of the remainder, who do "stand out" in history - not the official Pontifical Book, which makes martyrs with such fluency and canonizes recognizable bad characters - are there on account of their vices or crimes (Symmachus, Vigilius, Pelagius, Stephen II, Stephen IV, and Paschal I). Then came the Rule of the Whores and the Iron Age, nearly two centuries of chronic and incredible degradation of the Papal Court, during which the vilest types of men [see John XI; John XII; John XIV; etc.] became "Vicars of Christ." For other" monsters of vice," as the contemporary documents call them, see Avignon; Boniface VIII; John XXIII; and Renaissance. But these are only the particularly vicious types. We may sum up the biography of the Popes (and the "holiness" of the Papacy) by saying that, of the 260 Popes one-fourth are of unknown character and half the remainder had grave defects of character. At least thirty were sexually loose men (in half a dozen cases paederasts) and a dozen are credibly charged with murder and mutilation. If moreover, we judge them from the Catholic point of view, more than one half of the 200 Popes, from the year 300 to 1650, were notoriously guilty of vices that are held to be worse than sexual irregularities: simony, nepotism, and protecting the corruption of the Papal Court and the clergy.
(4) The Catholic historian Hayward says, among other painful admissions about this period, that by 1650 "the Papacy began to abandon the guidance of the world" and "its prestige had sunk so low that nobody took any notice" of it (History of the Popes, Engl. trans., 1931). This, it should be noticed, was after the Council of Trent and the Counter-Reformation are supposed to have purified it and strengthened it.
In the article on the Counter-Reformation we explain that its dozen years of puritanism, and short-sighted neglect of greater evils, really left the Papal Court still very corrupt, and it was the scorn of Europe, with the exception of the pontificate of the genial Benedict XIV, until the French Revolution, the disdainful treatment of it by Napoleon, and the occupation of Italy by the French stirred it, like an aged lady, into a flutter of futile agitation. During the fifty years of grim reaction which followed the fall of Napoleon, it supported the vilest measures of the Catholic monarchs [see Democracy] and felt that it could safely return to the old corruption. Two loose but able cardinal Secretaries of State managed the Church for Popes of questionable character, and the period closed with the futilities of Pius IX. Under Leo XIII , and largely on account of his blunders, the Papacy lost tens of millions of its subjects, but one of the developments of the new scientific civilization gave it a fresh hope. The scientific conquest of the death-rate led to a rapid increase of population, and, while more advanced countries met this by industrial progress and the control of the birth-rate, the Church forbade any such control, under the usual "pain of hell," in impoverished Catholic countries, and from these (Ireland, Italy, and Poland particularly) tens of millions of Catholics were drafted into the British Empire and the United States. This caused an illusion of growth in the richest and best-educated countries in the world, and gave the Popes, for the first time since the Reformation, a large power of political bargaining and a new prestige. What vast and continued losses this new situation concealed will be shown under Statistics; and an article on the Roman Catholic Church will describe the methods (business organizations, intrigue, censorship, untruthful literature, etc.) by which the Popes retain so many adherents even in advanced countries, and how the present Pope, reverting to the most fanatical traditions of the institution, sought alliance with corrupt forces of reaction to crush the spreading rebellion in Catholic countries, dupe the democracies, and curry favour with what he expected to be the triumphant new autocracies. Apart from two small Catholic works translated from the French and German (Hayward's History of the Popes, 1931, and Seppelt and Loeffler's Short History of the Popes, 1932), which have the defects of their kind, the only general history available is McCabe's History of the Popes (1939, with full contemporary and modern authorities). Most works on the Papacy cover only sections of the vast field. Milman's History of Latin Christianity (4th ed., 9 vols., 1867) is still of value for the early period, Mgr. Duchesne's History of the Christian Church (Engl. trans., 3 vols., 1904-29) is the work of a liberal Catholic scholar. The Catholic work of Mgr. Mann, covering the earlier period (Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, 13 vols., 1902-15), is richly documented, but equally rich in illustrations of the vices of the modern apologist. Prof. Ludwig Pastor's History of the Popes from the End of the Middle Ages (Engl. trans., 14 vols., 1891-1924) is a learned and conscientious study of the Papacy during the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Counter-Reformation, written by a Catholic under the illusion that Leo XIII meant what he said when he threw open the Vatican Secret Archives to scholars - after, as Pastor admits, abstracting the choicest records - and urged Catholic historians to tell the truth. L. von Ranke's works on the same period (The Popes of Rome, Engl. trans., 2 vols., 1846-7, etc.) are invaluable for documents (largely not translated), and Gregorovius's History of the City of Rome (Engl. trans., 8 vols., 1900-9) is of great value and candour for the whole mediaeval period. Bishop Creighton's History of the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of Rome (6 vols., 1897) is weakened by suppressions of ugly facts; Barry's Papal Monarchy (1902) is a superficial Catholic effort posing as impartial; and E. Binrey's Decline and Fall of the Mediaeval Papacy (1934) recalls Gibbon only by its title.


Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

[Matt Black]

Er...what has any of this got to do with 4th century writings?

Yours in Christ

Matt

[Matt Black]

Bump

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

What did Constantine actually do? The thread, not so? Well, he only put into civil law what had long been pagan religious superstition. Paul already encountered it, Gal.4:10. Justin was the first Christian who by adulteration of Mt.28:1, gave Sunday-observance a Christian disguise.

[El_Guero]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Er...what has any of this got to do with 4th century writings?

Yours in Christ

Matt Absolutely nothing? That would be my guess.

[El_Guero]

I think that the Greek church would claim that Constantine extablished the Orthodox churches.

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

What the Greek Church would claim could never be what Constantine actually did.
Constantine was a heathen - by confession who claimed the right to rule the Church - he was the Emperor was he not?