The Climax of Clerisy

The Climax of Clerisy

We have traced the development of the clerical system from its inception until, through its characteristic departure from the teaching of the Word of God; the way was opened for the adoption of the pagan ceremonies, customs, and ritual which were practiced among the various heathen nations where Christendom had spread. We have also traced these influences to their primal source in Babylon. We then marked the further developments which led to the rise of the papal system. It remains for us to consider the final stage by which the system became established in the Roman world.

When once, under the patronage of Constantine the Great, the Church had formed an alliance with the state, a union radically opposed to the teaching of Christ, the further course of apostasy was inevitably determined by this new relationship, and not by divine truth. Such an unscriptural union could not result in harmonious relations. The unbounded ambition of the Church prelates was ever directed toward supreme domination. This on the other hand was resisted by the efforts of the state to curtail the rights which the Church claimed. The struggle for government became intensified after the death of Constantine, which took place in the year 337. At that time considerable dissension arose among the four supreme ecclesiastical Patriarchs—those, namely, in Rome, Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria. Indeed, the religious history of that time is largely one of the struggles of these officials each to attain to complete supremacy over the others.

The patriarch of Constantinople was able, through the favor of the imperial court, to subordinate those at Alexandria and Antioch to himself. His efforts to subdue the Roman pontiff were unsuccessful. Various causes tended to enhance the power of the latter. Firstly, bishops and other prelates of the eastern countries, suffering from the aggression of the patriarch at Constantinople, constantly made application to the Roman pontiff. Secondly, the decreasing power and the indolence of the emperors who ruled at Rome made way for the Roman prelate to extend his power in every direction; and when the emperors ceased to reside in the city itself; their absence tended the more to enhance the prestige of the leading Church dignitary. Thirdly, the policy of the barbarians from northern Europe, who were advancing on the Roman territories in the West and making inroads upon Italy itself, had the same effect. The chiefs of these Northern hordes, seeing that the Roman people were now dependent almost entirely upon the patriarch at Rome, found it their wisest plan to secure his favor. Accordingly they bestowed what honors and privileges they could upon him. Fourthly, that which especially concentrated authority in the hands of the Roman pontiff was the successful promulgation of the idea that St. Peter was the founder of the church at Rome, and that the Roman bishops were the direct ecclesiastical descendants of that apostle. It was asserted that St. Peter held the supremacy among the apostles and that this position was permanently vested in his successors at Rome.

This theory, which was entirely void of foundation, was an ingenious device. Its general acceptance in the fifth century put the ecclesiastical rivals at Constantinople on a much inferior level in the public estimation, for the only claim which these latter could make as the foundation of their authority was the imperial patronage.

The Western prelate who was most aggressive in establishing on a secure basis the universal authority of the Seat of Rome was Damascus. By his murderous defeat of his rival Ursicinus in a.d. 367, he obtained unquestioned possession of the chief Episcopal chair. He it was who completed the union of the Christian and heathen communities, which formed the subject of our last chapter. In the year 378 he received from the emperor the title and office of Pontifex Maximus, a title permanently retained by the popes.

This title had been held by the high priest of pagan Rome. Its connection with Babylonish priest-craft is significant. When Cyrus, the Persian monarch, captured Babylon in 589 b.c., the Chaldean priests (of the ancient Nimrod cult) were expelled and fled to Asia Minor. Here they found a refuge under the king of the Lydian realm, by whom they were welcomed, and at whose capital Pergamos their hierarchy was established. At this city they and their successors continued during the period of the Grecian rule, which succeeded that of the Persians. This is perhaps the point of the reference to Pergamos as “Satan’s throne” in the epistle to the church in that town (Rev. 2:13). At the death of Attalus III, the last of the Lydian kings, in 133 b.c., his kingdom, and the Babylonish priesthood with it, passed under the dominion of the Romans. From Pergamos Julius Caesar, in the next century, removed the priests and all their paraphernalia to Rome. This he did for political reasons. Already as head of the Roman state he had accepted from the people the priestly office of Pontifex Maximus, and now, combining in himself the political and religious authority over the Republic, his ends would be well served by incorporating under his high priesthood the Chaldean system with which he had become acquainted in the Lydian kingdom. The gorgeous ritual of the Chaldean priests would add splendor and influence to the Roman religion. Thus did Rome become the seat of the Babylonian abominations.

From the time of Damasus, Church authority at Rome was considered superior to that of the civil government. In matters of doctrine the Roman prelate was the infallible judge. All ecclesiastical appointments lay in his jurisdiction. For any individual to separate from the Church of Rome involved schism. At the beginning of the fifth century, Innocent the First widely extended the recognition of Roman ecclesiastical supremacy and the skill and energy of Leo the Great, who acceded to the pontificate in 440, brought about the universal acknowledgment of the dominant authority of the Roman Seat. Subsequent events issued in the accession of the popes to temporal power.

From small beginnings of departure from the principles of apostolic teaching concerning the churches, there had developed by gradual stages a system the existence of which is utterly contrary to the Word of God. The structure was reared on an unscriptural basis. With those who reared it lies responsibility for the admission into the Church of a host of evils, perversions of the very essentials of the Christian faith, corrupt practices and abominations, wrought in the name and under the guise of religion.

The whole system was such a travesty of the teachings and principles laid down in the New Testament that, even after the Protestant Reformation, many of the truths of the Word of God still lay obscured under the dust heap of ecclesiasticism. That great revival opened the eyes of multitudes to many of the glaring errors which human tradition and ambitious assumption had substituted for the foundation truths of the faith. The history of Protestantism is largely a history not only of struggles against the tyranny and oppression of the Romish system, but, as the Word of God regains its authority over the heart and conscience, of gradual emancipation from the remnants of ecclesiastical domination and tradition which continue to exist even in countries where Rome does not hold sway.

Nothing but the Word of God itself, under the guidance of the Spirit of God who indicted it, can effect complete emancipation. Creeds drawn up by human arrangements, however pure and noble the motive, can never take the place of the Scriptures themselves. Only when men, in response to the strivings and guidance of the Spirit, have had resort to the Bible itself, have they found their way into that happy freedom from human tradition which adherence to the Word of God effects. The mists of error will still hang round the soul where the teaching of a church, or a sect, or a company of men, or a single individual, are adhered to instead of the holy, liberating truth of God.

In His prayer on the night of His betrayal the Lord said, “I have given them Thy Word,” and this holds good for the entire Volume of the Scriptures. His other statement is also applicable to it, “Thy Word is truth.” It remains absolute as the revelation of the will of God for all His people. The Scriptures were not provided as a partial guide, requiring additions and modifications by church councils and their decrees. Apostolic teaching itself is clear upon this point. The apostles taught the churches to adhere to the truths which they had imparted to them.

The faith which has been “once for all delivered to the saints,” is a complete cycle of divine instruction. It claims the obedience of those who would do the will of God. Only by faithfully fulfilling that which is therein revealed can we do what is pleasing to God, meet with His entire approbation here, and receive our full reward hereafter. Those who have shaken themselves free from the shackles of ecclesiastical tradition, in whatever shape or form, and have followed the light of truth as taught by Christ and His apostles, have found therein complete satisfaction for the soul and a joyous consciousness of the fulfillment of the will of God.

These are days of confusion. There is a call to escape from the bonds of ministerialism, from even the remnants of clerical contravention of the Word of God concerning Church truth, and to recognize the guidance and prerogatives of the Spirit of God, and the spiritual ministry which He provides. The source and nature of this we pointed out in the opening chapter. Our future and eternal rewards for faithfulness to God will depend upon our adherence simply and solely to the Scriptures.