What is the history of the Catholic Church?

But also within the church things changed. Some bishops exerted spiritual authority over surrounding areas so that a system of mother and daughter churches came into being. The bishops of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople were now metropolities, which means that they were recognized (by the Council of Nicaea in 325) as preeminent in their own areas. Meanwhile the growth in the authority of the bishop of Rome WAS of vital significance. In Rome the bishop claimed the primacy not because of the status of his city in the empire, which was seen as an historical accident, but asserted that Rome's position was due to its bishop's position as successor to Peter, seen as the founder of the Roman church, on whom Christ had promised He would build His church. This view, though not for some time accepted even in the West, was the foundation for the eventual supremacy of the bishop of Rome in the Middle Ages.

I have already tried to point out that every one of these names seems to be significant. Thyatira is perhaps the most difficult of all to define. Scholars tell us that it comes from two words, one meaning a sacrifice, or an incense-offering; the other, that which goes on continually. A suggested interpretation, therefore, is "continual sacrifice." And this is very significant, because Thyatira undoubtedly sets forth the period which was the result of the union of church and State, already noticed. It was in the 7th century that the Bishop of Rome was first regularly recognized as Christ's vicegerent, and visible head of the church. This was, properly speaking, the beginning of the papacy. There was no Roman Catholic church, in the full sense, until the Pope was the acknowledged head of Christendom. It is important for Protestants to keep this in mind. You will often hear papists say, "You know the first church was the Roman Catholic church, and all the different branches of the Protestant church have simply broken off from Rome. There was no Protestant church until the days of Luther." That is an absolute sophistry. There was no such thing as the papacy until the 7th century of the Christian era. For six centuries before that, the church was becoming more and more corrupt -- had been drifting further away from the Word of God until, in the 7th century men professing themselves to be servants of God were ready to acknowledge the Pope as head of all Christendom. A Roman Catholic once asked a bright Protestant school-girl, "Where was your church before the days of Henry VIII?" "Why, sir, where yours never was, in the Bible," was her sensible and correct reply. It is a far cry from the simplicity of early Christians, when in the 7th century they were ready to own the pretensions of the bishop of Rome.

Thyatira gives us a picture of the professing Church during the Middle Ages, the period in history called the Dark Ages. The Thyatira period began around 600 AD and continued to the eve of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. It was in the seventh century that the Bishop of Rome was first recognized as the vice-regent of Christ on earth. He became the pope and the acknowledged head of the Church. This was the beginning of the Roman system of the Papacy. It is during this period of Thyatira that Roman Catholicism developed and became the corrupt Church of systematized evil which we know today. During this time Christianity became heathenized.

The withdrawal of the emperors from Rome, as the royal residence, was thus favourable to the development of the ecclesiastical power there; for, though deserted by her rulers, she was still venerated as the real capital of the world. Hence Rome possessed many advantages as the seat of the supreme bishop. But that which chiefly pushed on and consolidated the power of the Roman See was the growing belief, all over Christendom, that St. Peter was its founder. The Roman bishops denied that their precedence originated in the imperial greatness of the city, but in their lineal descent from St. Peter. This dogma was generally received about the commencement of the fifth century.

By such arguments the church of Rome established her right to govern the universal church. She maintained that Peter was primate amongst the apostles, and that his primacy is inherited by the bishops of Rome. But it may be well to notice here, the twofold aspect of Romanism — ecclesiastical and political. In both characters she claimed supremacy. Ecclesiastically she maintained, 1, that the bishop of Rome is the infallible judge in all questions of doctrine; 2, that he has the inherent right to supreme government in assembling general councils, and presiding over them: 3, that the right of making ecclesiastical appointments belongs to him; 4, that separation from the communion of the church of Rome involves the guilt of schism. Politically she claimed, she aspired to, and gained preeminence and power over all European society as well as all European governments. We shall see abundant proof of these particulars in the course of her well-defined history, which we will now go on with.

It was not till after the first council of Nice that the supremacy of the Romish bishops was generally allowed. The early bishops of Rome are scarcely known in ecclesiastical history. The accession of Innocent I., in the year 402, gave force and definition to this new tenet of the Latin church. Till this time there had been no legal recognition of the supremacy of Rome, though she was considered the principal church in the West, and had been frequently appealed to by the other great bishops for a spiritual judgment in matters of dispute. When the Greek church fell into Arianism, the Latin adhered firmly to the Nicene creed, which raised her much in the opinion of all the West. "Upon the mind of Innocent," says Milman, "appears first to have dawned the vast conception of Rome's universal ecclesiastical supremacy; dim as yet and shadowy, but full and comprehensive in its outline."

128 This Maurice, whom he relates as the most pious lord constituted by God, had just murdered his master and predecessor to get the empire. He says in both that Chalcedon had offered Rome the title, and Leo had refused it, which was a great untruth. Who would think that we are occupied with those who profess to be the followers of the blessed Lord (who forbade withal any to be great among His disciples), or that such authorities could be alleged as a foundation and security for divine faith? Rome, as a great centre, did early acquire great power, and sought greater. The Emperors leaving Rome left them free. The setting up Constantinople as a new patriarchate above Alexandria and Antioch excited the jealousy of those sees, and they often appealed to Rome to help them. Rome profited by this too. In the west was no other patriarch, so Rome had free scope, though for centuries Africa openly and positively condemned and rejected all appeals there, decreeing, so late as Augustine, that if any one did so appeal, he should be excommunicated, as we have already seen. When the Emperors lost the West, the German nations having overrun the western empire, the popes formed the only centre, and, these nations being heathen or Arian, they extended their influence gradually over them. Ireland and Britain, strange to say, remained entirely independent till much later, the eighth century.

59 As long as the emperors were heathen, the influence of these sees was increasing from various causes; but still the independence of the bishops was maintained to a very great degree, particularly in Asia Minor and Africa, where Ephesus (afterwards made metropolitan) and Carthage held respectively a large share of influence. In the matter of re-baptizing heretics these two provinces maintained, in the third century, their entire independence of Rome, and Cyprian used very strong language indeed. But Alexandria swayed practically over Egypt and Libya; and Antioch over Asia, till Jerusalem became, in subsequent times, a patriarchate. Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul, I may add, and the British Christians were also free from Rome's metropolitan sway, which extended over the suburbicarian provinces, now the estates of the Church, the kingdom of the two Sicilies, and Sardinia. But there was no great see in all the West to counterbalance Rome; and it gradually extended its influence over Gaul and Spain and Illyricum (which remained, however, a contested sphere till much later times), by appointing some leading bishopric or metropolitan in Gaul, not the regular local metropolitan, as its legate. By this, and some cleverly interpreted and extended canons of a packed Sardican council, appended to the canons of the council of Nice, and a forged addition to the sixth of Nice itself, the influence of princes, and an unceasing practical use of good opportunities, until the West came under its influence. The almost total destruction of the British Churches (which had been founded from the East, as their way of keeping Easter proved) by the Saxons, and the conversion of these latter by persons sent from Rome, brought England under its rule, though the northern Church, which had meanwhile extended itself to middle England, only submitted to Rome e after the controversy of Whitby, between Wilfrid and Colman, about 654. It was only at the council of Trent, and with the strenuous resistance of the Spanish prelates, that the bishops were declared to derive their authority from the pope. The supremacy of a general council over him was decreed and acted on in the fifteenth century at Constance.

60 I have just run through the history of the Western or Latin hierarchical prelacy, to complete it; I return to the general history of patriarchs. The profession of Christianity by the emperor, and establishment of the capital at Constantinople, raised up, as we have seen, a rival to Rome. But the Greeks disputed about words; the Romans pursued unceasingly their end - the establishment of hierarchical supremacy; advancing a claim which no one knew; using opportunities to act in it, which others afforded them; and then making the ancient claim the proof of an ancient right. Another circumstance favoured this. Constantinople sought to extend, and did extend, its influence over the eastern empire, by arbitrating in disputes between bishops and between metropolitans. In the council of Constantinople, Rome, as Old Rome, was allowed the first rank; but Constantinople, as New Rome, the second. At that of Chalcedon, Constantinople was given the same rank, isa presbeia, as being the emperor's city. But this pressure of Constantinople on Antioch and Alexandria, threw these rather into the arms of Rome. Leo speaks of the three sees of Peter in a remarkable manner; and, in the endless theological disputes of the East, the quiet and steady good sense of the Roman west made Rome a continual arbiter as to doctrine. This (as in the case of Leo, a really able man, and, I am disposed to think, with right intentions, but, as a true Roman, always seeking political influence) gave them a decisive weight in all these questions. In Leo's person it took somewhat the form, in his letter to Flavian, of dogmatical authority. Still Constantinople and Rome contended for influence; and one had it in the West, because there was no emperor; the other in the East, because there was. But evil bore its fruits in judgment. Constantinople, in the purpose of John the Faster, put forth the claim of oecumenical bishop, on charges brought against the patriarch of Antioch which were tried at Constantinople. Pope Pelagius annulled all the proceedings on this account; but John used it again when he acknowledged the accession of Gregory. Gregory denounced him as a forerunner of Antichrist, and then took the well-known papal title of "servant of the servants of God." Though Rome (he would have it believed, on the authority of the council of Chalcedon) had a title to be called universal pope, he refrained through humility. But it did not end here. Gregory pursued his efforts to hinder the pretensions of Constantinople, and renounced communion with it. Maurice, the emperor, who resisted the influence of Rome, was murdered with all his family, and his murderer was congratulated by Gregory in the most fulsome way. Photius, the new emperor, in return for this made a decree, that, as Constantinople had claimed to be head of all the churches, Rome should be primate of all the holy churches.

During the reign of this great pope the Roman See rose to its utmost height. The thirteenth century is commonly distinguished as the noon-day of pontifical glory. We have seen the dawn of papal assumption, or rather the first streaks of dawn, in the bold conceptions of Innocent I. and Leo the Great in the fifth century. Gregory the Great in the seventh, and Nicholas and John in the ninth centuries, did much towards laying the foundations of the great papal scheme; but it was Gregory VII. that raised the superstructure. The one grand object of this bold, ambitious, unscrupulous priest was to restore to papal Rome all that imperial Rome had lost; and thus to set the chair of St. Peter above all other thrones. But the daring pope perished in the desperate struggle. Rome was taken, as we have seen; Hildebrand was compelled to flee, and died in exile at Salerno. For more than a hundred years after his death, no pope filled the chair who could complete the work which he had begun. But in the beginning of the thirteenth century the superior genius of Gregory was surpassed by Innocent. The bold schemes which the former had planned were fully executed by the latter. No doubt the conjunction of many circumstances was favourable, and the powers of his mind were adapted to the accomplishment of his grand object, so that he fully obtained what had haunted the imagination of popes for ages — "sacerdotal supremacy, regal monarchy, and dominion over the kings of the earth." The crowned priest of Rome now moved with a masterly hand, and with unwearied application, the whole machinery of popery, that he might maintain and consolidate the absolute sovereignty of the Roman See. But here, on this summit, we must pause a little for reflection. Let us endeavour to ascertain the mind of God on this great religious system, not merely the testimony of history.

The history of the papal influence was this — when there were emperors, they ruled; but the pope's influence was growing ecclesiastically, though often resisted. When the empire fell, they were the chief influence (except the Arian Goths in Italy), and did pretty freely what they pleased, increasing in power in respect of Constantinople. However the Gothic kings confirmed them, and interfered, and were appealed to, as we have seen. When for a time the eastern empire reconquered Italy, the popes were servile and submissive to the emperors; they could not help it. When these were driven out again, they were oppressed by Lombards, but established in Rome by the Franks, Charlemagne however fully holding his own, and ruling at Rome. When the succeeding Carlovingian emperors were weak and divided, their power grew. Powerful emperors contended for the right of confirmation of popes and local investiture of prelates; and the history of the middle ages is the history of this conflict, the popes raising Italy against them (Guelphs and Ghibelines), and the emperors sometimes doing as they pleased. But the German emperors having to contend with subject princes as powerful as themselves, and jealous of them, the pope and they coalesced against the emperors: the popes even supported the rebellion of a son against his father the Emperor. In Boniface the eighth's time they laid their hand on France; but this was more united, and there was a signal failure. The pope had to give way. The next pope had his seat at Avignon, under French influence — the Avignon popes and the court being degraded to the last degree. At the end they had one pope at Rome and another at Avignon, this giving rise to the question whether the authority of a council were not superior to that of a pope, and to the three councils of Pisa, Basle (Florence, Lausanne), and Constance, which so puzzle Roman Catholic theorists. There was a universal cry for reformation in head and members, always avoided. At last came the Reformation, which threw the whole power into the pope's hands, the bishops holding only under him. And though Louis XIV maintained Gallican liberties, as they are called, yet the clergy are simply slaves to the pope. The Jesuit society sprang up at that time more powerful than the pope himself, and recovered southern Germany to popery.

N*. There is a sense, though I do not like the terms, in which that is true; but you forget, Mr. O., that we have not yet found the true church, so that your warnings can have no effect at all. Every true Christian belongs to the church of God, and has to seek to live in its unity; but Romanism you have not shewn to be that church. As yet we have found, outside scripture, no solid foundation for anything. Popes and councils have striven for superiority. The popes seeking ambitiously for the universal authority, the pretension to which they once condemned, and when the progress of Mahometanism in the East, and the decay of the Greek church, left them free, plunging into such wickedness and oppression as roused the clergy, supported by the princes of Europe, to seek to assert the superiority of a council over them, which they confirmed because they could not help it, evaded as soon as the councils were over, and by their wickedness, and at last specially by their sale of indulgences, which was really selling permission to sin, brought about the Reformation, that is, the breaking loose of half western Europe from their sway, Eastern Europe having never been under it. This brought on the Council of Trent, which, in fixing the Romanist in his errors, gave a deeper character of apostasy from the truth to Rome, and left the separation of Northern Europe where it was.