This is just an overview. I've said that of papal power. This isn't a history of the Reformation. I like that in Turretin. You always find Turretin, whenever he begins a subject, he says, first of all, what it's not. And then he tells you what it is. This is not a history of the Reformation. So don't look for it. Other false churches possess some marks of Antichrist. But she possesses them in all of its attributes. There have been many Antichrists as St. John, but Rome has them all. And she has them in excellence, if we can say it that way. This isn't simply about Rome, though. You say, well, why? Why are we just beating up on Rome? Isn't she down already? Well, not really. But still, it does have application for Protestants and evangelicals today, because we are bearing the marks of Antichrist today when we remove from Bible doctrine when we don't care about Bible doctrine anymore, when we don't care about how we draw near to God, when we want to take away instruction for the ministry. The main, if you will, office, I believe, of the minister is to teach. When Jesus, you always hear quite often in the Gospels, Jesus opened his mouth and taught. No drama shows, no stage shows, no magic shows. When evangelical churches begin to move into drama and displace preaching with drama, then we are beginning to take up the marks of Antichrist. We might as well simply go to the source to begin with. They've been at it a longer time and have it down perfectly. But we are, so-called evangelicals in general, beginning to pick up, imitate, and emulate the marks of Antichrist in departing from the truth. It doesn't mean that if there's a mark here or there, that that obviously displaces the church from being a true church. That's a difficult subject not to be dealt with by me, but we are developing marks. So it does have use and application for us. We don't want to pick up, we don't want to imitate Antichrist. We don't want to imitate her appeal to the populace, cathedrals, Have you ever been to it? I have not been. Cheryl and I have virtual vacations. We watch Rick Steves, and he goes to France and Germany and Spain, and that's the most we can afford. That's our virtual vacation. Remember me in Zurich, please, when you go. And they say that the cathedrals were books for the unlearned. But the cathedrals are old. Some of them are 200, 300 foot high. I doubt very much whether they're going to read very much up there. It's difficult even to look upon the Sistine Chapel from the floor and to get any distinctive view. How they can learn anything is beyond me. And even that, it must be instructed to them what they ought to be learning. Why not just teach them in the first place? It was said of Martin Bormann, the German head of the Nazi party, that he was either at your feet or at your neck. Rome was kind of like that. She knows how to behave herself in certain circumstances, in certain ages. At one moment, she's at the feet of people, at the feet of the nations, trying to wiggle her way back in to be a world power. She was very disappointed in after World War I when she wasn't there at the conference of Versailles. She expected to be there. She expected to be a main negotiator for the peace treaty. She was not. Or in certain times and ages, she's at the throat of people, or rather has her foot up on the necks. So she knows how to play to the age, time, and to the people that she has to deal with, like Martin Borman used to, a very feared and destructive man. It should be noticed also that the popes are said to be enthroned, even as the Anglican bishops. If you ever look up, for instance, Archbishop Cranmer, you'll see that it will say enthronement date. Today he was put into office, of course, as Archbishop. They are said to be enthroned. This is regal power that they pretend to have. We might also view it as when Constantine moved the capital to the Byzantine East, and it thus became Constantinople. He didn't necessarily want it called that, but it became called Constantinople. It was Byzantium to him. This gave This was, if you will, a conception, conceived the papacy, the power vacuum. Although there was the Western ex-arche or the Western civil ruler in Ravenna, which was a port a little north on the east coast of Italy, still Rome cannot be that easily displaced. The empire's fall in the West propagated the papacy. It helped to bring it forth, to give it birth. The Frankish alliance helped to nurse the papacy, to bring it under her wings, and to cut off the Pope's ties to the Eastern Empire. You must understand that when Rome fell in 476, Constantine did not fall. Byzantium, the Eastern Empire, was still strong. It had times of weakness. But it still had authority and sometimes it did lose that in a practical way to the Goths. But under Justinian, it was regained. Strong emperors like Justinian and Theodosius, they kept some power and authority and some civilization in the West. So you must not think of a total vacuum. But their alliance with the Frankish kingdom in the 8th century broke away, broke Rome's, if you will, tie to the Eastern Empire. They were no longer answerable to the Eastern Emperor. And of course, you know, that finally fell away in 1453. So we can see that the feudalism educated the papacy, teaching her how to take her part among the rulers and potentates. Of the West, the Crusades and papal sanctions helped to mature the papacy when she was able to send men off to war, to conquer nations, to put men under interdict. For instance, Barbarossa under interdict until he would go on crusade. And also the Renaissance helped to debauch the papacy. She had times of debauchery, many of them. But the Renaissance helped her to further that in returning to classical, if you will, to the civilization culture of old Greece and Rome, and the Reformation unmasked the papacy for what she had been. The non-papacy, we begin at about 68 after the death of Nero, and the times of persecution is about 10 times of persecution upon a couple of 10 periods. A couple of those are universal. If I remember right, and I may not, Decius and Diocletian were universal persecutions. But generally, most of them were not generalized, some here, some there. There was, at this period, an equality among presbyters. Bishops would have a synonymous name with presbyter, and yet it might be given to that person who would moderate. And certain cities had a certain prominence called patriarchal cities, the father cities, those mother cities which helped to propagate the other, the core, the countryside. And the particular cities of importance was initially Jerusalem. However, after 70 AD, she had mostly an honorary position. Jerome, who dies in 420, will die in Bethlehem, but in the east, that's unusual. Most were in the west, unless they were in places of a monastery or places where they were out as hermits. like Anthony and such. But Jerusalem was the first place, but mostly an honorary position. And then it was Antioch, a very powerful position, with its own school of thought. Then there was Alexandria, another powerful patriarchal city with its own particular school of thought. And then Rome, and then after Constantine's removal of the capital, of which he robbed much of the West. It was built, if I remember right, in approximately 10 years or so. Very fast paced. Much of the work was not well done. And what he did was he robbed a lot of the West, treasures and buildings and other things, and to put it in the East to build it quickly so it could be done in his lifetime. And so Constantinople became a patriarch. As the ages progressed, of course, and with the rise of Islam, there was simply Rome and Constantinople as the major patriarchal cities. Rome, however, did gain in the West and throughout Christendom a preeminence above the rest for many reasons, some of which that she was politically central. Rome was the center of the world from about 500 BC to about 500 AD, approximately a millennium. We'll find out that the Roman Empire lasted about a millennium. Hitler's Third Reich, which he wanted to make a millennium empire, lasted just a little short, 13 years. So Rome always had a central and a prominent place. She had men who were well-educated as well. Many of the men who exercised office in Rome, as you would imagine, in a major city where people are more educated, more erudite, you're going to find that the ministry is going to have to come up to that level as well. And so Rome did. She had men who were educated, men who were qualified, many of the men. For instance, Jerome, for example, Gregory the Great, for example, had held civic positions there. You know, Ambrose was later on forced, and a lot of them had to be pressed into service. I think legitimately, in many of the cases, sometimes it was simply a formality, oh, no, no, no, no, no, why they're walking forward. But Ambrose was put in Milan, Bishop of Milan. Under him, Augustine began to come to some understanding of the truth. So for their gifts and qualities, they were well respected. They were well full of charity as well. Rome had a good reputation in the beginning of receiving those under persecution, of helping the poor. being filled with many good works. She was not born Antichrist. She was a faithful church in many ways. The location of her martyrs, the sites of her martyrs was in Rome. And as time grew on, these became places of idolatry. The martyrs who were known as confessors, they became men, even if they lived, for instance, if they suffered, but lived, for instance, at the Council of Nicaea, Constantine rose from his throne and humbly and reverently received some of the confessors, kissing their hand or whatever it was that was injured and palsied and lame. They were looked upon with almost idolatrous superstition. As we can see, some of them, for instance, I believe, Ignatius running to the stake and forbidding anybody to intervene in his behalf. The desire to be a martyr was beyond, in many ways, a proper biblical understanding of it. And there were some also exhortations that men ought not to seek it because it had become so popular. But Rome was filled with sites, these kinds of sites, when, if you remember, Constantine, when he was converted, his mother, Helena, would go and visit these certain holy sites and make monuments and places of prayer for them. So these, Rome was filled with these sites. It became sort of looked upon as a holy city. And thus, for all these reasons, she began to rise in the estimation of people. There was almost, if you will, a natural disposition for Rome's position and place. The Edict of Milan, Constantine's battle against Maxentius. I believe it's Maxentius. The Melvian Bridge in 312, thus the issue, the Edict of Milan, which made Christianity not the state religion, but a religion to be tolerated. But in all practical effects, it had become the state religion very soon after that. You can think of Kennedy's quote, remember when he said that a rising tide lifts all ships. Well, when Constantine became a Christian, if we can say it that way, although he was not baptized until near the end of his death by Eusebius of Nicomedia, not the historian, that's Eusebius of Caesarea. Augustus, excuse me, Constantine was baptized by an Arianizing bishop, Nicomedia, Eusebius of Nicomedia. However, when he became a Christian, all of the offices of the church rose with him, with his rising, if you will, with his lifting up of the church. It also helped to lift up the status of the officers of the church particularly the bishops and particularly the bishops of the major cities of Rome and Constantinople. And so this gave them some, if you will, some state power to back them up. You know that Constantine sat at the council of Nicaea. And so we could see the great power that the civil authority was now given to its bishops. That would also play in a role. to the preeminence of Rome and of Constantinople too. Constantine, however, held the title, continued to hold the title, Pontifex Maximus. However, the effective division of the empire when Constantine moved the empire to the east, because this was a very formidable position to hold, Tactically, strategically, what is now Istanbul was a very formidable place, surrounded by water, able to be defended very well. For whatever reasons, he moved it. There are other reasons. He left an ex-archeator, a civil ruler, a man in his place in Ravina. But Rome was open to the high influence of the Bishop of Rome, who already had a great influence already. But this already gave if you will, it gave leave for him now to spread his wings, to exercise his authority. And when there were problems and divisions and heresies and squabbles, he became the go-to person to settle them. There were certain early teachers, such as Irenaeus. I should begin with Ignatius, I suppose. But Ignatius and Irenaeus and Cyprian, these are second century, I believe Cyprian died in about 220 or somewhere, 250 I think, and also Jerome. These particular writers gave in their writings a preeminence to the Roman bishop, particularly when there was the rise of heresies For instance, the rise of the Catharist movement. That's particularly said as a Donatist movement, but in under Augustine time. But there was an earlier movement as well. It also had to do with persecution, confessing Christ, and failing to confess Christ. And what do you do with the lapsed? And this caused some divisions. Also some other divisions concerned over doctrine and heresies. When these squabbles arose, whether it be for doctrine, whether it be for discipline, Often the Church of Rome would be solicited as an umpire. And Cyprian and the others, in trying to figure out how to find unity in the church, because if every man is left to his own interpretation of the Bible, there will be endless and constant division. And so they said, you will find unity in the episcopacy. Now they didn't necessarily say that the patriarch of Rome, although they did give him the preeminence of that, But they did say that you ought to find unity, authentic unity, in the episcopacy. And so when there's a division, you look to the episcopal. And ultimately, in a division of bishops, you look to the greater episcopal, the preeminent episcopal. And that would be in Rome. Now, the Patriarch of Constantinople wouldn't necessarily agree with that. And that quarrel would go and would continue into the time of Leo I, the great, and of Gregory I. I'm going much too slow. I'm going to try and move a little higher up in altitude. Leo was, in the real sense, the first man who could be looked upon as a pope. The word pope, papa, was used in the West, and it also had a Greek term as well, very similar. It was used simply for, it was used prior to this time, and it was used generally, and it was used as a term of respect and honor. When it became to use officially wasn't until much later, but there's a difference between when something is official and when something is a de facto. And it became de factoly used for Rome long before in the 12th century it became an official use. just like transubstantiation. The argument went on in the ninth century, but it wasn't finally decreed until the 13th century. But until that period, it was de facto the confession of the church. So in the real sense of the term, Leo, he has the power in some ways. He has the desire to see the supremacy of Rome. He was a very gifted and qualified man, though. He was no fool. He was a sound man doctrinally. His tomb during the Council of Chalcedon in 451 was, although they didn't receive it because of the Eastern patriarch's resistance to it, nevertheless, it was very well and very good against Eutychian heresy. He was also, Leo was a man of aristocratic He was an aristocrat. Gregory was a patrician, a man from a patrician family. And so they were men with very important lines, lineage. They were used to, if you will, move with men of power and of authority. Leo exercised that authority more than Gregory did. He pressed hard for Rome's supremacy in the West. However, the Gauls and the East, Constantinople, resisted his claims to supremacy. Gregory is the first to style himself Servus Servorum Dei, the servant of servants of God, and they keep that to this very day. It's interesting, Servus Servorum is part of the Hametic curse. In Genesis 9.25, he shall be a servant of servants. So I guess he could have that title. Gregory was a man of very much talent, both Leo and Gregory, hopefully unwittingly and hopefully not to the extent that they would ever want to see it. I'm convinced of that, at least with Gregory, that they would never want to see Rome to be what it had become, but by their gifts and by their desire for, in this idea of unity within the bishop, and within Rome being that preeminent bishop in the West, helped by their gifts, abilities, their zeal, and with Gregory, his great administrative ability to promote that preeminence in the West, and to help, if you will, to lay or to pour the foundation of the papacy, which would in time harden to a very solid foundation. Gregory happened to be the first one who came also from a monastic background. Also, Gregory is one of the four doctors of the church, along with Ambrose and Jerome and Augustine. These are the four doctors, if you will, the ancient doctors of the church. Gregory also had an effect that in sending out missionaries, this also helped to procure a faithful church's Let me rephrase that. This also helped to procure distant churches who are faithful and answerable to Rome. For instance, Augustine, not Augustine of Hippo, who died in 430, but Augustine of Canterbury, the first, I suppose, bishop of Britain. And he was sent over there to Britain to convert the Britons. And this helped to This brought a faithful following from distant lands. Also Boniface, but this is later though, but also Boniface, the apostle to the Germans, will be sent out. And Boniface is very, very loyal to the Roman church. But Gregory would send out missionaries and make converts, of course, and these would be loyal to their mother church, which would be Rome. These missionary movements help also to lay a foundation for Roman supremacy. During this time, let's see, 376 was the first time that Rome was successfully invaded. There's great movements going on from the east, mostly Germanic at this time, pressing behind them are probably Asiatic. Nevertheless, in 451, there's an important battle at Shillong, which is in Gaul, modern day France. And this is the last time that a Western power, that is Byzantine Western power from Ravenna, a military power, and with the Gauls, with the Franks, they're able to stop Attila. Gregory had successfully stopped Attila, and this is another reason why his diplomacy was seen as Rome would be a diplomatic, even in civil and military affairs. He successfully, Gregory did, prevent Attila from sacking Rome as he did Geiseric, the Vandal, from sacking Rome. But at 451, Attila went north and was successfully stopped. At this time, a king was set in place for the Franks to gather that tribe unto a single, if you could, a single person, single dynasty that was Merovich, which gave rise to the Merovinian kingdom of the Franks. This is important. We can see, if you will, two developments in the west of Rome, of the papacy, and of the Frankish Empire. And these two are rising up kind of simultaneously, and they will come together, and they will, hand in hand, help one another up. Eventually, they're going to come to heads, but that's not now. Right now, they're helping one another up. The Frankish kingdom is a very important kingdom in the history and development of France. As the Germans moved westward, we have the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths. You had the Lombards and you had the Vandals, all Germanic. They were Aryan. And Gregory, in his missionary efforts, managed to I might use the word in quotes, convert the Lombards to orthodoxy. And that's good. Better to be orthodox than to be Aryan. But they were still a problem. They were still a threat. The Pope needed somebody else to help him, to relieve him of the constant threat of these very aggressive Lombards, who in the main and in the masses were still pagan. I'm not going to get into Boniface III. We don't have time. Gregory I dies in 604. Boniface III dies in 607. He had a very, very short papacy, not even a year. But in that little bit of time, he sought to get the emperor to acknowledge him as supreme and universal head of the church. Phocas was willing to do this because he was a regicide. He murdered Maurice, the Eastern Emperor, and six of his sons in front of him. Gregory I, to his shame, acknowledged this legitimacy because Phocas would help him with the Lombards in the West. So we can see the dealing that's going on. Did Gregory quite realize what he was doing? Did he quite realize the evil man that focused? Don't know. But that was the facts of the case. And in 607, Boniface III seeks the supremacy from this wicked man focused who is willing to make a deal and at least give him the title. It's up to him to get the power, but maybe he can get the title. Moving on, the budding papacy, 732. I do want to mention one other thing. There's an important event that we cannot skip over, and that's Islam. 622, the date of the Hegira, of his fleeing. That's 622. By 632, Islam is in full bloom now. Christianity begins its dissemination through evangelization and through laying down their lives. You know where I'm going. Islam begins with taking out their sword and putting people under the power of Islam with their lives. It's the people who have to die or believe. Islam makes a very, very fast, in 100 years, for instance, the first time that Rome was invaded successfully by the Germanic tribes, 376 approximately. You know, historians have to have some date. And that's generally where the date's placed. In 100 years, Rome will fall. Islam, 622. 632, excuse me. 632, as Rome, as Islam now begins to be a very strong, as she begins to move out to conquer lands, 100 years, 100 years, the ancient empire will be gone except for Constantinople and Italy. Italy's already under the power of the Germanic tribes. But now the East, Constantinople, is holding out and will hold out. The Crusades will try and deliver the East from the Islamic war. They'll take Jerusalem and hold it for 88 years, but that's the most success they have. Otherwise, all the Crusades, eight Crusades and one Children's, are an utter failure. And it basically gets these rioting Germans and rioting feudal lords out of Europe get them over there where they can fight somebody that needs killing, I say, says the Pope, and to give himself some space and room to work there in Europe. But 100 years, Jerusalem is lost. Antioch is lost. Alexandria is lost. Constantinople is surrounded. All of North Africa, the land of Augustine, if you will, all of North Africa is lost. That crescent of the Islam is exactly what it does. It makes a crescent right around. It goes to the Middle East, North Africa, through Spain, and 732 is stopped by Charles Martel. Charles Martel holds an office of the Mayor de Palais. It's an official position, sort of like Churchill would hold in World War II. You have the King, who has a titular position, and then you have the Prime Minister, who has a real power. Well, later on, a man is going to think, And he's going to say to Zachary, I have a question for you. Who is, and this is Pepin the Short. I believe his title was Pepin the Third, but he's called Pepin the Short. And he says, who has the real power? Who has the real title of a king? The one who actually wields the power or the man who just has the name? Well, Zachary thinks, well, I think the man who has the power. And there's in quid pro quo fashion, he allows or he legitimizes, he gives his blessing to the deposing of Kildarek III, who was the last Merovinian king. Puts him in a monastery, and in the feudal times, that's how you got rid of your enemies, pretty much. They put him in a monastery. Sometimes they did a little worse things to him. But they put him out of the way so that their threat would be no more. And Pepin the Short became King of the Franks. This is going to give rise, and it's not going to be named after his name, but it's going to be named after his son, Charles. And it's going to be the Carolinian dynasty. So if you want, the Franks have two major dynasties, the Merovinian and the Carolinian. The Carolinian dynasty is very important. Now the Frankish kingdom is becoming a very powerful, powerful nation. They can do Rome a lot of good. Zachary dies shortly after that, and Stephen II, and by the way, Zachary sends Boniface, the apostle to the Germans, to crown Pepin king. Stephen II, the pope, because Zachary dies shortly thereafter, Stephen II crowns him and makes him a patrician of the Roman people. In 800, Charlemagne, on Christmas Day, December 25, when he's in Rome, Charlemagne is going to be crowned. And according to his biographer of the 8th century, no, no, no, yes, 8th to 9th century, around the 800s, Supposedly, he didn't know he was going to be crowned emperor. Modern historians, they're skeptical about everything, though. So they think that there was some collusion there. Charlemagne would never allow himself to be crowned emperor had he not previously known it. Who knows? But in either way, in 800, on Christmas Day, he was crowned holy Roman emperor. It was not simply the Roman Empire now, but it was now styled holy because it was orthodox And it was Christian. This would not be put down later on. This would last about 1,000 years. And it will be put down by Napoleon, who put a lot of medieval Europe right out the window. Napoleon was a very powerful man, very famous man. And if you will, you can see Napoleon is that man who just was like the Gordian knot of Alexander, just basically cut the Middle Ages right off at its feet. But anyway. But Stephen II needs some help from the Lombards now. I made you king. Now I need some help over here. I've got these Lombards that are constantly nipping at me and threatening me. Can you come over and help me? I know I'm simplifying it. So he makes two incursions into Italy, delivers much territory from the Lombards, and the Western emperor, He says, well, this is mine. Well, the pope has made his break. Zachary was the last pope under the auspices of the Eastern Empire. Stephen, the pope, doesn't even bother to look at the East. He's got Pepin, and soon there'll be Charlemagne. And Charlemagne's already acting with his father, anyway, in war. He's learning war. He's learning how to rule and how to govern. None of these men, however, though, are intimidated and brought under any kind of vassalage to the Pope. While they are helping him and while they are, if you will, supporting him in his dominion, Italy there, they're not allowing him to encroach upon theirs, especially Charlemagne. He's a very powerful ruler. Pepin takes these lands that he just took from the Lombards. And instead of giving them to the Eastern Emperor, because it belonged to Ravenna, the ruler in the West, he gives these lands to the Pope. These become the Papal States. This becomes the donation of Pepin, a legitimate act in history. It's not like the donation of Constantine, which was a forgery, or the Isidore and Decretos, which were 8th century forgeries. This was a legitimate gift. and a donation of Pepin. This is now a time when the Pope becomes a temporal ruler. This is in 756, so the mid-half of the 8th century. The Pope now becomes a temporal and therefore a feudal power. This was ended in 1870. Remember, the pastor had mentioned, I think it was in his first lecture, that the Roman citizens were prohibited from voting. Do you remember that? That was 1903, I believe, and it took at least three popes, if I remember right, until they began to be allowed to vote. And the reason for that was this. Girobaldi and others, when they established Italian nationalism, Nationalism began to rise in the 15th, 14th, 15th century, began to rise. I'll make a long story short. Nationalism never came to Germany until Bismarck, and that's very late. They were like St. Paul, born out of time. Germany was very late in becoming a nation. Italy was very late in becoming a nation. That is, they had these states, okay, and Germany had these states, the Palatine, Saxony, Bavaria, but they never really came together. so they could fight as a nation like France and Britain. Bismarck brought that together in Germany. Garibaldi and others brought that together in Italy. He took the Papal States away and they initiated some voting for the people so that they could have something of a populist rule. And the Pope disallowed it. He says he would not allow that because the Pope had been robbed of his Papal States. He had been robbed of his territory. He was not going to acknowledge nationalism, and he was not going to acknowledge that. I don't know how I got off of that, but anyway. So during this time, the Popes began to use, during this time of Pepin and Charlemagne, they began to use some false documents. I already mentioned them, the Donation of Constantine and the Isidorian Decretos. Briefly, the donation of Constantine is a forgery of the 8th or 9th century, probably the 8th because it's being used in the 7th. Modern historians want to put it back later. Who am I to contradict them? But I'm going to anyway because they were being used in the 750s. And they were being used against the Frankish Empire to say, look, Constantine, when he went to the east, this document says, he gave us He gave us the West, okay? That's ours. Constantine gave us the Western Empire. This is the donation of Constantine. It's a false forgery of that time period to use upon the gullible Franks. Well, they weren't that gullible. They didn't believe it. And Isidorean decrees are sorts of supposedly all these legislations, these ecclesiastical legislations from Clement on to, I can't remember where it stops, maybe Gregory. And they're trying to make precedence for this is how you ought to behave. And these were false. And it reminds us of Churchill's quote who said that truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. This is very true. This was the way Rome and many within her would not at all fail to go to lies and falsehoods when it comes to worship, when it comes to dealing with their enemies, or dealing with their antagonists, or dealing with kings. If it takes a lie to promote the truth, and this is what made the Jesuits so detestable. Not only did they hold to a doctrine that assassination of civil rulers is lawful, but they believed in accommodations when it came to missionaries. Why are the Jesuits so successful in places like Japan and China and in the South Americas? Well, one reason is that their accommodation theory of taking the heathen worship and accommodating it to Christianity. Also, their view of undermining the state, undermining the magistrate because they had a loyalty oath to the Pope. I'll get to this later. I'll just get to it now and skip it later. But you know that the Jesuits, when they were founded during the Council of Trent, I believe in 1534, they had a loyalty oath to the Pope that this should take us back now, or take us forward, rather, take us forward. I know, Nazi Germany, everything somehow ends up going to Nazi Germany. Well, you know, they kind of epitomize a lot of things just like Rome. And when the brown shirts began to be disruptive and you had the knight of the long knives as Hitler said, you can't have constant revolution. He put down the brown shirts, put Ernest Rheim to death, and established now, I mean, they were already established, but now he elevated the SS. And they had a personal, unlike the Wehrmacht, who had an oath to the state, they had a personal oath to him. And Heinrich Himmler, when he came up with his, when he developed one of the early founders of the SS, he developed an organizational scheme directly from the Jesuits. So they do have some very wicked ways in which they will work for the Pope. The truth is not that all that important. I'm thinking of a Jesuit that was mentioned, Bellarmine, in our last, in the lecture previous, Bellarmine, however you pronounce his word, who when he died he said, I am thankful that I have no sins to confess. Gregory VII, when he died, said, I have loved truth and hated iniquity. These men are utterly deceived about themselves. Bellarmine died in 1621, a famous apologist against the Protestants. He was a Jesuit, by the way. The rise of the Holy Roman Empire, we mentioned that. We're going to skip, go to the mature papacy. the mature papacy, 910 to 1303. I'm skipping over a lot, forgive me. I'd rather get through most of it somewhat superficially than some of it with more detail. Remember, 910, there was a famous movement known as the Clooney Movement. The early part of the 10th century is known as the Pornocracy because men of the most Men of reprobate morals. Men of utter reprobate morals. If we were to discuss and go into detail, we would have to send all the children out and stop filming. Men of horrendous practices. Otto I put a stop to that. Clooney movement was trying to bring some of these reforms into being. They did have some qualms, obviously, against the morals of the church. But what they particularly strove against was civil interference with their power and authority. The Clooney movement had many supporters. It began in 910, lasted about a couple hundred years of efficiency. Bernard, I believe, oh, he was a Sturgeon. Never mind. The Clooney movement had one, they had three things they wanted to work against. simony, celibacy, and investiture, civil or civil investiture. They worked against simony because before, you could buy the office. If you had enough money, wealth, power, you could buy the office. You could buy a bishopric. You could even buy the papacy. The Clooney movement wanted to put a stop to the wealthy and powerful of taking over the church. So they wanted to put a stop to simony. Stop buying the offices, because they were for sale, many of them. Also, they wanted to enforce celibacy. This was not universally recognized. Many bishops had wives, were married. And while the monastic order was given to celibacy, not necessarily, if we will, the priesthood or the episcopal offices. The Cluny movement wanted all to be celibate. Why? Because they didn't want a lineage. They didn't want a dynasty in there. If you get a lineage in the papacy, he can leave it to his son, who leaves it to his son, who leaves it to his son, and pretty soon the papacy comes like Florentine. You have Lorenzo the Magnificent ruling it, and they didn't want that. Also, they wanted to stop lay investiture. Lay investiture is when a civil power, for instance, a duke or a king or an emperor, He has an archbishop. Oh, Archbishop so-and-so died. Hmm, that's a very powerful office. Why has it become so powerful? Because over the time, and we can think of the Pharisees like this, right? Children, leave your wealth to the church. Leave your wealth and your property to the church. Our monks will pray for your soul. You remember in Henry V? where one of his acts of penance is that he's putting these chapels throughout England who will pray for the soul of his departed father. This was historical. And so a man may leave his wealth, his lands, to the bishop or to the church. The church, this was very common, and the church became very powerful. They became great landholders. they became enormous property owners. When Francis later on, during the Lateran Council in 1215, Francis of Assisi, he's going to get permission to start a new order. The Crusades will begin military orders. Francis is a preaching order, a mendicant order, because they were beggars. Mendicant means to beg, and he was a begging order. And the Dominicans, but Francis, who knew For instance, Saint Benedict, when he tried to bring discipline to his order in the 7th century, they tried to poison him. The monasteries, the monastic institutions and movements became corrupt very fast. They had land given to them, they had wealth given to them, and not many of them said, oh no, we've got to give this to the poor. They didn't do that. Francis wanted to stop that. I'm not saying he was a necessarily great guy at all. He was a mystic and a nut. But he tried to stop that, and it didn't work. As soon as his body was in the grave, they said, you know what? We can own land now. And they did. And that's the way it went. And so when an office opened up, it was a powerful office, a very powerful office. It vied with the civil ruler. And so the civil ruler wanted to have a point who would step into that office. He didn't want somebody in Italy and Rome telling him who he was going to because that man is going to be loyal to the Pope and he may bring the king under a sanction or begin telling the king how to rule his land and that's exactly what he would do. And so when it came to lay investiture that became a big problem and this was one of the big problems of the medieval period is a constant battle is lay investiture. And that also became, later on, in the Church of Scotland, that also became a problem as well, of patronage, of lay patronage. And there, putting liberals in office, right, to undermine the foundation of the church. But now, this is one of the things that the Cluny wanted to do. They wanted to stop these three things, OK? Simony, celibacy, and lay investiture. I'm not going to go through all the other people. Let's just mention one man. Hildebrand, a German, I believe Pope Gregory IX, I believe, I may be wrong. He brought him back with him on one of his visits to the East, to Germany. He brought a man back with him, Hildebrand. Hildebrand was a German. He was a, he was, I suppose if you had to have a personality type, he would, There we go again. Be like Hitler in the sense of his will. He was a man who had a will like an iron flint. I know that's a mixed metaphor. He had a tremendous will. Something like Napoleon did as well. A tremendous will. Ian Kershaw has a two-volume biography of Hitler. Churchill called him the evil genius, and he was a genius, but he was evil. But he had a will that would not be moved. Gregory was like that. He wasn't a man of great learning or deep into any of that, but it was his will that made people afraid of him. It was his will that allowed him his fearlessness in what he believed, and I do believe that what he believed was sincere to his own understanding, false though that may be. Well, he was the Pope of the greatest pretensions. He does not allow the Latin Vulgate to be translated into the vernacular. Why? Because he's protecting the office of the minister. The office of the minister, the Bible belongs to the church, to us all. It is not in the hands of a priest's craft. It is not in the hands of select men. As he became Gregory VII, who died in 1085, he believed that if you translate it, that you implicitly give it to the people. It's not theirs. The right of interpretation belongs to the officers of the church and particularly to the Pope. Therefore, it needs to be locked up. We got the key. We're going to keep it. And they did. In a battle with Henry IV, the emperor of Germany, There is a problem with lay investiture. Henry IV, German emperor, he puts in three of his bishops. Gregory VII doesn't want those. He wants men loyal to the Pope. He doesn't want men loyal to Henry. Henry says, I'm going to keep them. Gregory says, no, you're not. Henry says, yes, I am. Gregory puts him under excommunication and puts all the land under an interdict. An interdict is where the churches are closed. Sorry. You're dead, they're just going to have to lay on the table. If you're dying, your priest is not going to come to you. If your child needs baptism, he's not going to get it. No communion, the church will be closed for all of your people. And by the way, anybody has a right to rise up and to make rebellion against the king and the emperor, as it was in England later on against King John, which gave birth to the Magna Carta because it weakened him. In Henry IV, he finds out that you've got German nobles who, they say, hey, Henry's pretty weak. Let's get him, boys. And they do. They support the Pope. If a prince has other nobles who would love to have his position or who would love to be out from under his thumb, the Pope just gave them leave. And he did. And it worked. found out, well, I've got to make peace with the Pope, I've got to get this interdict removed because I am not getting supported at home. So the Pope is in route to somewhere, I can't remember where, but he finds out that Henry IV is coming his way. So he takes a divergent route and goes to Canossa and in that castle fortress he locks himself in with his retinue. Henry IV comes in for three days and three nights. He finds out, the Pope does, that he is not there to make war against him but to make penance and peace. Well, he doesn't quite know what to do. He certainly doesn't trust him. But can he withhold penance from a man who is seeking it and who is at least outwardly trying to meet the demands of the sanction? Well, after three days, he finally has to let Henry in, makes his peace. Henry, the interdict, the excommunication is lifted. The interdict is removed. People are now bound to be loyal to him. But another disruption occurs. This time it fails. Henry has put down those nobles who had threatened not to support him during the first one. And now he has men who are more supportive of him, men who will back him up when the Pope throws another papal bull of excommunication against him so therefore he marches on Rome Gregory at this time has lost power is losing face and now he must call upon not the Roman nobles who won't support him but he has to call upon those in the south the Normans to come help him remember the Norseman during Charlemagne's time were beginning to move in the 10th century sometimes Charlemagne would be sitting in his castle at Aachen And he would see, this is, of course, according to his biography, I believe, it may be legend, maybe not, but sounds good. He sees these Viking ships moving in the distance, and he waves his, he's not able to put them down. He's able to put down the Anglo-Saxons time and time again. He's not able to put the Norsemen down. They're seafarers, and so they have places in northern France and different places, and they also made place in Sicily. And so by this time now, they are Christianized, settled, and he goes to the Normans to come to his aid. They come to Rome, they save him, but since he has the support of nobody, he has to leave with the Normans and dies en route. A very unhappy man and a man ultimately defeated in his desire to rule over princes. Also during this time, there is a movement of other Muslims called the Seljuk Turks. And they began to displace the Arabs within the Middle East and Africa, such as Alexandria. There was a pilgrimage and some trade where the Christians would make holy pilgrimages to places like Bethlehem, Jerusalem. This was stopped, though, with the Seljuk Turks. And now the church was not allowed and the people were not allowed to go make their pilgrimages. Also, with you have the constant warfare going on in Europe, Urban II, who died in 1099, along with the preaching of Bernard of Clairvaux, preach up and support a crusade, the very first one in, and I think it's 1099, the very first one to go and deliver Jerusalem from the Turks, and this one does succeed, the last 88 years, And a plenary, what's important about this is this begins a time of indulgences. Pope Urban says, if you go on pilgrimage, I'm sorry, if you go on this crusade, you will get a plenary indulgence. And this will be used to get the people to support crusades or later on during the Renaissance period to support building projects or whatever it is that the Roman Pontiff needs when he needs money There are the indulgences, and these will get used in that behalf. The fact that you can do something, or you can contribute money if you can't go. If you can't go, contribute money, and you will get an indulgence, you see. This raises people. This raises money. They began, even the Pope, tearing off his red vestments and making red crosses, and they went in the name of the cross. And during this time of crusading, you have different orders like the Templars and the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights, monastic, military monastic orders rising up and going on into the East. This is a time of great power as well for the Pope. He is making crusades. He's making war on the infidels. He's sending kings like Richard and Barbarossa and Louis the Pious. He's sending them on crusades and wielding great power. introducing indulgences into the scheme of things. And indulgences is something that Rome will use much of later. Innocent III, this brings us about to the time of 1215 at the Lateran Council. It's called Lateran because it was at the Lateran Palace. Vatican is called Vatican because it was at the Vatican. Vatican I and II were held at the Vatican. Lateran was held. That's simply why it's called the Lateran Council. It's the fourth one, I believe. In these, this is the high point, the zenith point of papal power. Although there were other popes who made great pretensions thereafter, Innocent III held it in actual fact. The council, it's under Innocent that King John of England is excommunicated. All of England is put under the papal sanction. King Henry must give up his entire kingdom as a vassal to the pope. King John is so weakened by this and his nobles that some of the people and some others, nobles, rise up and force him to sign the Magna Carta, which giving them more rights and liberties. Innocent didn't like that at all, and he nullifies that Magna Carta. But he is ineffective in doing that. It's there to stay, and it will only grow. But that is something by his bringing under the king, he also weakened the authority of the king as well. The Fourth Crusade, move on. The Lateran Council also produced two very famous orders, the Dominicans and the Franciscans. They became very famous. Thomas, of course, was a Dominican. I believe Duns Scotus was a Franciscan, but I can't remember. But they produced many, during the scholastic period, they produced many scholars and many theologians of the period. The Dominicans also, became in charge of what became the Inquisition as well. They became very prominent. These are two very important orders which were brought forth under Innocent III. Also, Gregory IX introducing the Papal Inquisition. We'll have to pass that. 1303, the death of Boniface VIII, who made great papal claims for himself, but he didn't have the power of Innocent III. He is eventually abused when he comes head-to-head with Henry, I'm sorry, Philip IV of France, and he loses that battle. At this time, England's France is becoming very powerful. France is going to be a great obstacle to papal pretensions and power. I've already used up the time. I can't remember when I started, but I think it's probably an hour ago. Our flight was more treetop level than I thought. Be it to say that in going toe-to-toe with Philip IV, Boniface lost. When he died, this opened up a vacuum. Philip, if you will, put his own man in there. And the Roman papacy, the headquarters of it, was moved from Rome to Avignon, France for 70 years, called the Babylonian captivity. These were all French popes. French popes. It was Gregory the 11th who in 1378 brings it back into Rome. He was going to take it back to Avedon again, but he died and wasn't able to. So when Gregory the 11th dies in Rome in 1378, it stays there. But Avedon doesn't like that. The France doesn't like that. It has another pope and thus you begin a papal schism which lasts from 14 to 1417. So from 13 1378 to 1417, I believe. Yes. Also, what Gregory XI did is he took the hands of electing the Pope out of the hands of nobles and emperors, and he put it into the hands of a college of cardinals, 70. You know, you can think of the 70 of the Septuagint. It's more than that now. but he puts it in the hands of the 70, these are Cardinals, and these men now elect the Pope. This is trying once again to take it, to totally free up the Pope from any sort of outside power, trying to stop what happened in the Avignon captivity, the Babylonian captivity. Thus, you put the election in the hands of Cardinals, you won't have a Philip IV or any other French king putting a Pope into that chair. But this created a schism. This was not just bowed to. It created a schism and it lasted until you had three councils, Pisa, Constance, and what was the last one? Pisa, Constance, and Basil. But Constance was the important one. Constance was the one that brought it to an end with the election of Martin V. However, if you'll notice that a council decided who would be Pope. Now that was a very bad precedent set. And Eugene had to put a stop to that immediately. And so when the Council of Basel was called, this was a conciliar, a council movement, council over pope, council over pope. The conciliar movement lost. And Eugene V disbanded the Council of Basel and reestablished the authority of the pope. But it's a very important incident in that a council settled who would be pope And then in black widow-like attitude, the pope, who was just brought in by the council, seeks to kill the council. I'm going to have to stop there. I cannot go into the pagan papacy or anything else, the apostate papacy. And I really can't even get to the conclusion. I'll say this. I was going to end it with a quote I was going to begin it with an analogy from Dick Van Dyke. You know, I like Dick Van Dyke. My favorite show, Dick Van Dyke's show. And he has one of the shows. It's called The Curious Thing About Women. Well, she's opening his mail in the morning, you know, and he doesn't like it. She says, well, I'm giving you the gist of it. He says, you're taking all the flavor out of it. She says, I've condensed it for you. He says, I don't like condensed mail for breakfast. He says, well, what if I was to tell you that Romeo and Juliet was about two young teenagers who fell in love, run away from home, and were dead? That'd take all the flavor out of it. Well, I'm afraid that this overview was kind of like that. It's going to have to be something like two young teenagers, this office in Rome, got too big for itself, got in a fight with the whole world, ended up losing, but still remains very strong. I also want to end it with a reference to Star Wars. At the end of Star Wars, you know, after he says, you know, I'm your father, oh, Darth Vader, he comes, he finally sees the light, right? He finally sees the light, boy. And at the end, you're seeing there, there's Obi-Wan Kenobi, and there's Darth Vader, hand in hand. Everything is just origin-like, wonderful. Even Satan comes. He doesn't. Rome, we ought never to look for their reclamation. In our confession of faith, we are to pray for the fall, not conversion, the fall of Antichrist. We are never to look for her recovery, never to look for her reclamation. She is reprobate. And any sort of ecumenism with her is sinful. We cannot make claims to union with her. Thank you for your time and your indulgence.