Tag: Protestant Reformation

 Part 1: From Apostles to Apostates

“The Papacy grew up in silence and obscurity. The names of the early Bishops of Rome are known only by barren lists, spurious decrees and epistles inscribed centuries later with their names. After the embellishment , if not the invention of St Peter’s pontificate, his conflict with Simon Magus in the presence of the Emperor and the circumstances of his martyrdom, it was content with raising the successive Bishops to the rank of martyrs without any particular richness or fullness of legend.” 
“For some considerable part of the first three centuries, the Church of Rome and most, if not all the Churches of the West were, if we may so speak, Greek religious colonies.” Africa, not Rome, gave Birth to Latin Christianity.”
Historians History of the World vol 8 pp 519-522

The word “Pope” means Supreme Pontiff or Pontifex Maximus and was first used in the third century A.D. by Tertullian when he referred to Callixtus (217- 222 AD) as having assuming too much unilateral authority in his capacity as leader of the Christian Church. In fact, the title Pontifex Maximus had been used long before this time by the Pagans as their title of the highest position within the Roman Republic’s Religion. No scripture in the Bible makes any reference to such an office, and Peter and all other apostles certainly never made any reference to such a person holding power over all Christians. 

It is astonishing to believe that the sarcastically intended label would eventually become a title that instantly evoked fear and terror throughout the civilized world. The truth is, the development of the Papacy, as it was later called, was the result of political conquest, political aid and outright fraud perpetrated by the Roman Church on itself and by itself.

A review of the historical facts discloses that the concept of a superior Bishop, especially in Rome, that held jurisdiction over the entire Church in the West prior to the fifth century, is entirely fictional. So far as Rome holding any such jurisdiction over the Eastern Church, it too is fictional as Rome never at any time, held any such authority. 

In the early Church, under the Apostles, the Church was organized from the top down. Christ was at it head. A Presidency of three apostles had authority over the rest of the quorum of twelve apostles. They had the authority to call Bishops who were sustained by the people through a show of hands. 

After the death of the apostles, the Church was organized from the bottom up. The clergy called the Bishop and the people approved or disapproved by vote. Over time, the church organization began to resemble the Roman Imperial organization with the Bishops becoming Metropolitans. Branches resembled small communities which were under the Bishops’ jurisdiction. He had the authority to call councils. With no ground rules or limitations on their authority, there were widespread abuses. Bishops, irritated by the squabbling members whose votes were necessary for the appointment of other clergy, soon lobbied and got the members’ right to vote abolished.

Metropolitans themselves became competitive. Many of the Bishops were ambitious, specifically those in Antioch, Alexandria and Rome. It was for that very purpose that Constantine intervened hoping to solve the constant feuding among these Bishops and to bring peace and harmony to the Church. Constantine called the Nicaea Council which approved doctrine and gave legal recognition to Metropolitans by defining their jurisdictions.

The Bishop of Rome, of course, was one of those Metropolitans and had no universal authority granted to him above and beyond that which was also was given to all the other Bishops. Later claims to the line of authority from Peter being passed to Bishop Linus of Rome are bogus. Peter never was the Bishop of Rome or of any other Metropolitan. There was no transfer of apostolic authority to Linus or any other Bishop. The same applies to universal authority in jurisdiction or authority to the interpretation of policy, doctrine or the receiving of revelation for the entire Church.

In the First Council of Constantinople, called to settle Doctrinal disputes, Rome was not even present. It had no administrative function outside Italy and its islands. The term “Catholic Church,” meaning “Universal Church,” was really meant to signify “Universal Unity in Faith.” 

In the primitive Church, no one volunteered for the office of Bishop. It carried too great a risk to life and limb. However, with the change of recognition of Bishops, or Metropolitans, by the imperial authority, such an office became a coveted opportunity for wealth and power. Presents were showered upon the Bishops, and bribes were made in the hopes of future favours to the donors and parties for those held. The Churches formed by Paul and other missionaries were almost all in the capital cities rather than in outlying towns and villages. That’s where most people were and where the highest rate of conversions could be expected to come from. Just as today, one can see how easily the smaller branches, being weaker, would of necessity look to the more mature branches for leadership. This of course is exactly what happened. Disagreements or transgressions were referred to the larger centers to be resolved. Again, as the Church grew from the bottom up, the lack of any central figure or divine authority at the top to unify them, administration, common standards, guidelines or rules where made up on the spot and much confusion and abuse resulted.

Meanwhile, with the Bishops of Antioch and Alexandria in the East, and Rome in the West, all vying for superiority because of their claim to Peter as their Founder, competition and friction among the Bishops was rampant. When Constantinople became the “Second Rome” it did not hesitate to claim its Superiority as well. Couple that problem with the inability of the Bishops to come to a common consensus among themselves regarding doctrine, a common creed, orthodoxy or acceptable scriptures, the need for the Holy Ghost was never greater. As expected, only bickering, fighting and discord resulted. The battle lines drawn up between these factions formed a spiritual as well as a geographical fault line running between East and West. Eventually, that fault line would become a permanent split, a division of Christianity that, when it came, proved to be simultaneously catastrophic, calamitous and crippling. The Church was beyond repair and the greatest tragedy was, it was preventable. 

The fact that the Bishop of Rome began to acquire more recognition than his rival Bishops was due to his location, greed and political timing. Rome was located at the historical seat of the Empire. Having the ear and the cooperation of the Emperor was no small advantage. He, no doubt, used this advantage often. 

Another was an event which at first seemed innocuous and of little consequence. It started when the Council of Constantinople gave a designation of a purely religious Honorarium to the Bishop of Jerusalem called “Patriarchate”. This was an ancient title and tradition, which, because it was not the real title, significantly, fell short of satisfying the ambitious Bishops of Jerusalem. They were hoping for the official title of Patriarch.

At the Conference at Nicaea, they were finally given their coveted title along with jurisdiction and supremacy over Phoenicia and Arabia. Palestine had already been given to them by Emperor Theodosius. But the rank of Patriarch was a coveted position that had been considered for many years but not as yet officially instituted. The Bishops of Antioch and Alexandria also received their title 50 years after the council of Nicaea. How is it that Rome had been left out? Obviously at that time, Rome, as the only Western Metropolitan, was not considered that important. Even the preference of the new seat of power at Constantinople, resulted in the Bishop there obtaining the title of Patriarch. That was years before Rome’s Bishop was finally granted his Patriarch title in 451.A.D.

Now, all five Patriarchs occupied a superior position when compared to the other Bishops. These were the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Constantinople, Antioch, Rome and Alexandria. All of them however continued to act independently because they could not exercise authority beyond their own diocese. They couldn’t even form a quorum when they were asked to call an ecumenical council by the Emperor.

The first evidence of seismic trouble was felt when the Emperor decreed, because of their location, (one in the old Capital and the other in the New), the two Patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople, would be given “pre-eminence” above the other three. This served to emphasize that their locations gave them no-small preferential advantage. This political favouritism was not received well by the other Bishops. As feared, at the Council of Constantinople 381A.D., the Bishops gave the first priority to Constantinople.

The second seismic tremor was felt when a statement regarding the status of superiority of Rome above all other Bishops was made by Bishop Damasus ( 366-384 AD). Being emboldened by the newly granted favouritism by Emperor Theodosius the Great, and taking the statement made by Christ to Peter as his justification, he pronounced that:
“The Holy Roman Church is raised above all others not by decrees of councils, but by the words of our Lord who said, “Thou art Peter and on this rock will I build my Church.” 

He went on to explain,  “By the presence and victory of Peter, Rome was raised above all other cities. The Eastern patriarchates are next in line and owe their origin to their relation to Peter the Apostle. The second see was consecrated at Alexandria in the name of Peter by his disciple Mark. It is also on account of the blessed apostle Peter that the third see, that of Antioch, must be honoured because Peter sojourned there before coming to Rome.”

Bishop Siricius (384-399 AD) issued what is called The First Decretal saying, “Peter Speaks through Sericius.” Leo, Bishop of Rome (440 – 461 AD) also sent a doctrinal letter to Flavian, Bishop of Constantinople, in which he stated, “Peter has spoken through Leo.” These consecutive assertions were followed up by a further attempt to establish Rome as superior at the next Council.

At the council of Nicaea, Alexandria had been the most prominent. But now at the council of Constantinople, some 56 years later, Rome made its bid for first place. They supported the claim by a falsified version of the 6th cannon of the council of Nicaea.

The council saw it quite differently. They judged that Constantinople and Rome were of an equal political level and therefor they reasoned, the two should be on equal ecclesiastical levels as well. Rome, sensing that a rival in Constantinople with equal prerogatives was dangerous, protested against this action. It again quoted the sixth cannon of the council of Nicaea in which there had been interpolated, the words “Rome has always held the primacy.” 

As far as is known, the first use of this statement was at the council of Chalcedon by representatives of Leo the Great. After the falsified cannon was read, the cannon was again read in its original form, this time without the addition. When the council reconvened with its verdict, it went against the motion from Rome, in spite of its protests, and gave Constantinople equal status with Rome.

What is to be noted here is that it was the council that held a superior authority over the Bishops. It also reconfirms that Rome enjoyed no special status or superiority over the other Patriarchs in spite of their several attempts to have such.

This episode reveals the lengths to which the Patriarchs were willing to go to establish their superiority. If anyone held authority over all other Patriarchs, it was the State through the councils. Therein is evidence that Rome had no special power of jurisdiction over any of the other Bishops or Patriarchs. But this was the date when the earth began to shift in that direction.

The Roman Empire fell in 476 A.D.

The wars and strife continued unabated after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Germanic tribes, the Barbarians, Huns, Goths, Franks, Burgundians, Vandals, Angles, Jutes and Saxons each extracted their toll. Most of these tribes had been converted to Arian Christianity and not bound by the Roman Church. Then Clovis, an ambitious King of the Franks, began taking over Gaul and some of the German tribes. When Clovis converted to Christianity, those under his rule were forced to accept the Roman Pope and Church upon threat of death.

Meanwhile, the Roman senate in Constantinople, no longer supported by a distant weak Emperor, began to crumble. People began to look at the church as the only instrument of authority that had not been beaten down and could be relied upon. This greatly boosted the recognition of the Patriarch of Rome and in turn, rekindled his desire for Western Empire domination. Rome as an Empire, had always looked upon the Church as a means to control both the lives and religion of its people to advance the unity of the Empire.

That, as it turns out, was also the dream of Gregory the Great who was Bishop of Rome (590 – 604A.D.). His goal was to expand Christianity beyond the Borders of the Empire and unite all Christians, binding (subjecting) them to the Church in Rome ecclesiastically, just as they had been united to the Empire politically.

By the time of Pope Leo III (795 to 816 AD), the church had managed to get some extra resources, thanks to a forged document known as the Donation of Constantine. With this boost of military might, all Leo III needed was a like-minded Commander to lead the troops. Charlemagne, King of the Franks fit that profile exactly. 

Charlemagne set out to reclaim all the territories the Church had lost, and he succeeded. They were restored to the Western Empire through Charlemagne’s successful campaigns and then placed under the rule of the Bishop of Rome.

Step by step, country after country, as Charlemagne invaded, he first persuaded, and when that failed, secured conversions through force. In this manner, the Roman ecclesiastic power was extended to Britain, France, Spain, Germany and Africa. 

For the first time, the Bishop of Rome had an army big enough to match his ambitions. Charlemagne had saved Leo III from the Lombards and given Leo III unprecedented power. In recognition, on Christmas day 800 A.D. Leo III placed the crown of gold on the head of Charlemagne and proclaimed him Emperor. Leo II had now created what he had always envisioned, A Holy Roman Empire working hand in hand with the Holy Catholic Church. Each would have world-wide dominion, each advancing the interests of the other, and each supreme in their own domain. The Church and the Empire. The Emperor and the Pope, each looking at the world with the goal of total domination.  

In the minds of ambitious men, there is never room for the word “sufficient.” There can never be enough to satisfy greed, power or the need for possessions. The beautiful arrangement spoke by words of the mouth was doomed the moment they spoke them because the men who were bound by it never had accepted its limitations as a condition in their hearts.

While the Pope had the right to crown the Emperor and to govern all the affairs of the Western Universal Christian Church of Rome, it was not long before Charlemagne began to resort to his old familiar tactic of force to exercise his superiority over the Church. He began by appointing and deposing Bishops. He made them vassals of the State, swearing them by allegiance to the Empire, not the Church. It was he who called the councils and it was upon his own authority decisions were made regarding doctrine and dogma.

As the church became more and more to resemble their civic counterparts, a movement broke out among the Bishops, eager to strengthen the hand of the Pope whose reason for existence had been removed, and of course to free themselves from the oaths that bound them to the State. 

In the middle of the ninth century, there appeared a document known as the “Isidorian Decretals”. Citing ancient cannon laws, the Bishops claimed that the Roman Church had received revenues, large tracts of lands and endowments from Constantine. This, they claimed proved that:

1/ The temporal power of the Pope was in existence before Charlemagne made his offering to the Church. 

2/ The spiritual power of the Pope is infinitely superior to the secular powers held by the Emperor and Princesses. (The Pope had given him the crown and the powers vested in it.)

3/ The Bishops stand in the same relationship to the Pope as the apostles stood in relation to Peter.

4/ Provincial Synods (meeting of Bishops) cannot be held unless summoned by the Pope.

5/ The conclusions reached by the Synods can only be valid if recognized as such by the Pope.

6/ None of the clergy can be summoned before a secular tribunal. A layman cannot accuse a Priest.  (It requires 72 trustworthy witnesses to substantiate a charge against a Bishop.)

It was brilliant, it was effective enough to convince the Emperor to back off.

There was only one problem with these Decretals: they were, all of them, to the very last, forgeries.

Throughout the middle ages, the decretals were held to be genuine. By the time they were found to be otherwise, the sixteenth century had arrived and so many other things were going on, including the Protestant Reformation, that this affair mattered little. There was already an abundance of evidence to bring a solid case of corruption against the Church by the reformers.

Upon the death of Charlemagne in 843, his empire was divided among his three grandsons. One formed modern Germany, one modern France and the third, a zone between the two.

Before too long they had broken into smaller kingdoms or fiefdoms. This left Europe without any leadership. The most wealthy or powerful of the nobility and landowners gathered the dispossessed peasants around them for mutual protection. Man’s god ruled without opposition. His word was sacrosanct, and the mighty hand of the kings’ forces were there to see they were obeyed. And thus, the age of Feudalism had begun.