TWENTY-FIVE: THE FIRST "REAL" POPES?
Some claim that Leo I was the first pope (440-461).
"He claimed that he was, by Divine appointment, Primate of all Bishops...that resistance to His authority was a sure way to Hell...advocated the death penalty for heresy..." (Halley, p. 770)
Again it is necessary to stop. Early in this history we see men taking it upon themselves to judge sin. How was it in the first church? Was there ever a death penalty? Yes, in the case of Ananias and his wife. Both of them lied to the apostles, and to the Holy Spirit in the apostles. They were soundly cursed, but death came through the direct intervention of God. (Acts 5)
Later we see Paul delivering someone to Satan by the Word of the Lord. That is, the offending brother was disfellowshipped. Later it would seem he was restored. In any case, God was given His needed time to do the work in the man.
The mongrel child of Rome and Christianity shows both of its roots in its handling of discipline through these dark years. There is the attempt to restore, in many cases (Christ). But upon failure to restore, excommunication (sometimes Christ). Then the unrepentant one is delivered to the "secular" arm, the military, the executioner. (Satan)
Note here the division between the true and the almost true.
c. 600 A.D.
Another candidate for first "real" pope is Gregory I (590-604). You will, I hope, forgive the ambiguity of the historians. The papacy slowly evolved. Snowballing through the history of the church, it picks up various elements on the way. Some see the finished product long before others, all know where it is heading.
Gregory does not claim jurisdiction over the growing Eastern "leg" of the church, centered in Constantinople. The leader of that church, though, called Patriarch (a fancier word which also means "father"), was calling himself the "universal bishop." Gregory was a bit perturbed at such arrogance, calling the title "vicious and haughty." He will not wear such a title himself, but he certainly behaves as though it were his!
Two things about this entry:
1) Gregory is a "good" man. Not as daring in his claims as future popes will be, and as pure and holy a man as ever sat on the chair. Be it known here that we do not decry the Papacy because of its later immorality alone, but because of its origin. That origin is the planning room of Satan, who began his world domination by building the original Babylon. The Papacy and its hierarchy are wrong because they were not given their commission by Jesus. It is necessary to understand this here, lest we are faced with the obvious argument about Protestants who have lapsed morally. Smear campaigns can be waged on either side. The fact remains that Jesus has initiated a fellowship, and Satan, a world power.
2) Concerning the Eastern Church. If Rome can be called the mother of all harlots, certainly her sister organization, now known as "orthodox," can be called the aunt. A study of her history, which cannot be covered here, reveals that she is a close relative of Rome in more ways than one. Recall that for the first 500 years of the Papacy, the two, though in conflict, were united. Only in 1054 does the inevitable separation, purely political, take place. But they remain one in kind, riding the backs of world powers to security, transforming the lowly faith of Jesus into secular dominion. The "east" practices most of the same inventions of the original, adding even more in the way of idolatry. She helps make Russia and Eastern Europe so bad that communism is a decided improvement!
TWENTY-SIX: ISLAM'S RELATION TO BABYLON
It is important that we stop again. Walk with me down this side trail a moment. As we are covering this story chronologically, it is necessary to examine the beginnings of another great religion, to see if there is any connection between her and Babylon.
It is hard to know exactly what to believe about the birth of the one we have come to know as Muhammad. We know it happened in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 6th century. It is said that miracles attended his birth and growth.( The reader is directed to the works of Sir John Glubb, The Life and Times of Mohammed, and Martin Lings,Muhammad:His Life Based On the Earliest Sources )
There is fairly strong evidence that there was a specific link between Muhammad and the Roman Church of his day. Augustine's work of bringing Arabs to Christ had been effective, though not totally so by any measurement.
The tradition is that when Muhammad was 9, a Roman Catholic monk confirmed that he was to be a prophet. Later, more reliable sources add that one named Waraquah, his wife's Roman Catholic cousin, endorses and encourages Muhammad's "visions."
Thus it is intimated that, though Muhammad initially doubted the validity of his supernatural occurrences, various Roman influences in his life gave him assurance. So the religion which now claims 1 out of every 5 or 6 people on earth - Islam - may have had at its very inception some nudges from the other religion that claims 1 out of every 5 or 6 people on earth.
I consider it worthy of thought that, had Muhammad not been encouraged by the growing apostasy of Rome, the faith we know of as Islam might never have happened. What if those "Christians" had brought Muhammad to Christ, rebuked teachings that were contrary to the apostles', and stopped him before he got started?
I will not belabor the point. Others advance theories about his connections to Rome that are not necessarily borne out by documentation. Let me stop here, as the main path beckons, and we must return.
TWENTY-SEVEN: THE POPES BECOME EARTHLY KINGS
c. 700 A.D.
As we walk on, we see "papa" becoming an earthly monarch by securing the help of other kings to do his bidding. For example, at a simple request of Pepin,Roman emperor in the 700's, Pope Stephen is able to gain mastery over the Lombards, who rule central Italy. Their land is given to the Pope, so he can have a domain of his own. This is the beginning of the "Papal States" or "Temporal" dominion of the Popes. Only in 1870 will this land finally be lost by the church. More about it then.
c. 800 A.D.
Leo III, Pope, and the great Charlemagne, help each other's rise to power (see how this works?) in the 800's. Charlemagne agrees that the Papal States should remain Papal, and in turn Papa calls Charlemagne Roman Emperor. The beginnings of the Holy Roman Empire.
People have said that this union was neither Holy,nor Roman, nor a true Empire. On the last two counts I differ, agreeing only that it was far from holy.
But Roman it was, having the seal of the Man in Rome, who will always be pulling the strings. And an Empire, yes, though small for now.
I see a woman riding a beast.
TWENTY-EIGHT: THE PAPACY HELPED BY FRAUD
How do the people of this era continue to buy such teachings of Papal supremacy? Can no one see through the mask and realize the glory has departed?
One thing that helps for about 700 years is a little-talked-about but now openly-admitted collection of forged documents known as the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. We call them in these days simply the false decretals.
The book appears first in 857, and is compiled by Isidore Mercator of France. According to Halley, p. 773, the book contains
"documents that purported to be letters and decrees of bishops and councils of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, all tending to exalt the power of the Pope. They were deliberate forgeries and corruptions of ancient historical documents, but their spurious character was not discovered till some centuries later."
The Catholic Encyclopedia gives further details:
"...apocryphal papal letters contained in a collection of canon laws about the middle of the 9th century by an author who used a pseudonym, Isidore Mercator."
The collection included a list of 60 apocryphal letters attributed to popes from Clement (88-97 A.D) to Melchiades (311-314 A.D.). 58 of the 60 are known forgeries of Isidore. A further group of papal letters begins in 314 and goes all the way to 715, Pope Gregory. Of these 33 letters, 30 are fake.
Of this genre was "The Donation of Constantine," circulated for centuries, which said that Constantine gave to the Pope all the provinces of the western Empire (since Constantine had moved east).
Nicholas I is the Pope who first uses the decretals. Does he know they are forgeries? He states that they have been in the archives of the Roman Church " from ancient times."
Whatever he knows or doesn't know, they are false, but they stamp
"the claims of the Medieval Priesthood with the authority of antiquity. The Papacy, which was the growth of several centuries, was made to appear as something complete and unchangeable from the very beginning. The object was to antedate by five centuries the Pope's temporal power. It was the most colossal literary fraud in history. Yet, it strengthened the Papacy more than any one agency, and forms to large extent the basis of the canon law of the Roman church." (emphasis mine, quotes from Halley)
These documents are considered genuine until the Reformation light breaks upon the world (specifically 1558), and the church is suddenly subject to investigation. May I suggest that had there been no reformation, there would have been no investigation, and we would still be asked to believe these Decretals! May I further suggest that countries in our own day that are totally dominated by Rome are likewise without the protection of investigation, and are being deceived?
But again we are ahead of things: back to the 9th century.
TWENTY-NINE: AGAIN, THE JEWISH THREAD
How fares the Jew in this day? I give you one quote that reflects the official attitude of the church:
"They are accursed in the city and in the country, at the beginning and ending of their lives, their flocks, their meat, their granaries...are accursed."
Thus says a bishop of the period. Morais, who quotes him in his book, A Short History of Anti-Semitism, says:
"Here[in Deuteronomy and the prophets] was the Bible itself proclaiming the Jews as a faithless, contemptible, stiff-necked, wicked people...the Jews had brought upon themselves all the curses of killing Christ. Given these premises, the conclusion was unavoidable: it was not only right that accursed people should suffer, but it was positively a Christian duty to make them suffer..." (emphasis mine)
Now, I believe the Bible to be true, word for word. God's dealings with Israel are God's business. The true church must part company with Babylon when it plays God and chastises on God's behalf. Let us who are of the day love the Jew, for whom the Jew Jesus died. Let us obey the Jewish Scriptures given by the Jewish apostles who record Y'shua's final command:
"Go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature."
To the Jew first and to the Gentile last. That's God's program. The persecution campaign stems from Babylon, and the one in Isaiah 14 called Babylon's King, Lucifer.
When "the church" persecutes the Jews, well, pardon me, but their threads are showing.
THIRTY: MIDNIGHT
Ready for more walking? Light another candle, it gets even darker ahead.
The Midnight of the Dark Ages is said to have been from about 870 to 1050 A.D. Here we will see bribery, corruption, immorality, bloodshed...in the name of Jesus.
Following Halley and another witness named Pigott, we proceed. First, Pigott in Freedom's Foe-The Vatican, p. 93:
"Pope Formosa (891), who had been excommunicated by Pope John VIII, had the latter murdered and made a deal with the ambitious Arnulf to run the Empire together. All subjects had to swear the sacred oath: ' I swear by these Holy Mysteries that, saving my honor, my law, and the fidelity I owe to my lord, the Pope Formosus, I both am and will be faithful all my life to the Emperor Arnulf ' (Annales Bertiniani, A.D. 895; Muratori, RIS, vol. 2, pt. 1, p. 574) "
Pigott's carefully documented work goes on:
"A Roman prostitute, Theodora, demanded the embraces of Bishop John of Ravenna, whom she made bishop of Rome (Pope John X, 914). When the pope quarreled with his concubine's daughter, Marozia, they strangled him. Pope Sergius lived with the 'whore' Marozia, who made their illegitimate son Pope John XI(Liber Pontificalis , vol. 2, p. 243) The Venerable Italian Cardinal Baronius (d 1607) writes in his Church Annals under A.D. 931: ' They elected to pope the very son of Marozia, named John, whom the same whore bore to Pope Sergius.' (Baronius, vol. 15, p. 639).
"Cardinal Baronius calls this era of the papacy 'the reign of the whores.' But the popes were no worse than their predecessors. Under the year 901 Baronius describes the popes of A.D. 752 to 901: 'This century is unfortunate, as for nearly 150 years the popes have fallen from all virtues of their predecessors, and have
become apostates rather than apostles.' Thus he explodes the fable that there were just a 'few bad popes'. He describes these popes: ' What a shame, what a pity. What monsters, horrible to behold...What evils did they not perpetrate, what tragedies did they not cause? With what impurities was this See...then stained; with what rottenness infected; with what filth defiled; and by these things blackened with perpetual infamy ' (Baronius 15, 501). 'And what sort of Cardinals, Deacons, and Priests were chosen by these monsters? ' asked Cardinal Baronius. The Catholic Encyclopedia answers that question: ' The episcopal Sees...were treated as property which descended by hereditary right from father to son...not only priests but bishops openly took wives and begot children to whom they transmitted their benefices ' (C.E. 3, 485).
"What the greatest Catholic scholar, Monsignor Duchesne, says of these popes has never been said of the era of Al Capone or the Mafia: ' The Lateran became a resort of persons of ill fame, and no virtuous woman could remain in safety at Rome.' (Duchesne, Beginnings of the Temporal Sovereignty of the Popes, 1908 ed., p.224)
"In order not to be accused of 'smearing' the papacy, we will refrain from quoting Catholic scholars, and quote directly from the Vatican archives. Pope John XII (d. 964) 'spent his entire life in adultery' (Liber Pontificalis , vol. 2, p. 246). The people of Rome cried out: ' The Lateran Palace, which once was the meeting place of the saints, is now a public whore house ' (Migne, P.L. 136, 900). The Roman Council (963) found the pope guilty of adultery 'with the widow of Reynard, and with Stephanie, his father's concubine, and with the widow Anna, and with his own grand-daughter, and he turned the Holy Palace into a brothel and whore house ' (Mansi, Conc., vol. 17A, p. 466). 'Pope John...while he was enjoying himself with the wife of another man, was struck dead by the Devil '(Migne, P.L. 136, 908)."
Halley says of this John XII:
"A grandson of Marozia...guilty of almost every crime; violated virgins and widows, high and low; lived with his father's mistress; was killed while in the act of adultery by the woman's enraged husband."
Boniface VII continues this spectacle by murdering Pope John XIV, the previous pope, and
"maintained himself on the blood-stained Papal throne by a lavish distribution of stolen money. The Bishop of Orleans, referring to John XII, Leo VIII, and Boniface VII, called them ' monsters of guilt, reeking in blood and filth. Antichrist sitting in the temple of God.' " (p. 774)
But we said no smear tactics. We allow that Protestants have failings. But the subject of our study is the self-proclaimed leader of all Christendom, if not the whole world, the one who is the professed representative of Jesus Christ on this planet, the only authoritative voice of the Living God. This one who calls himself 'Innocent' and 'Pius', but who lives like the Devil.
And consistently, year after year, predecessor after predecessor, behaving in this way. Cannot the church at some point say, "We know who you are by the fruit hanging from your branches "?
Trees that have apples hanging from them are apple trees. A world power that has prostitution, confusion, murder, deception, and perversions hanging from it must be the product of the father of lies sleeping with the mother of abominations.
But! It is only the close of the first millennium. The institution has yet nearly one thousand years to change its ways. Let's see if that indeed happens.
