Hello and welcome to Hackberry House. I want to welcome you to a study today of church history. We're still going to need the Lord's blessing on this. Let's pray. Father, in Jesus' name, I do ask for your help in covering this difficult subject. We'll be able to see where your spirit has been throughout these many years since Jesus has come. We pray it in His name. Amen. At Hackberry House, you can find literature of all sorts, We invite you to go there and look around and find something that you like and just take it. It's all free. We're going through the Bible and in our pursuit of that goal, we came across the book of Revelation. We're just about to end our Bible study. But when we came to Revelation, we did a little bit of church history there in Revelation 1, 2, and 3, the letters to those seven churches. Then I thought it would be good just to take it from there all the way through church history as quickly as I can using Henry Halley from Halley's Bible Handbook as our guide. Then I want to come back to the text and touch the future, the end time things that Revelation 4-22 talks about. So we're still trying to do things in chronological order. But now you understand that what we're talking about today is not inspired history. It is Henry Halley's viewpoint of it. and pretty much mine, and a few other scholars I think, and I'm not one of those scholars, but a few other men who have studied these things, have come up with the same basic conclusions. Let me bring you now to page 767 in that 24th edition. We were talking about Mohammedanism, and then we started talking about the Papacy being a gradual development. first appearing as a world power, not really until the 6th century AD. They're the ones that say the first pope was Peter. We don't say that. The Bible doesn't say that. And true history doesn't say that. That's just them reading their ideas into it. But the Church was founded not as an institution of authority to force the name and teaching of Christ upon the world, but only as a witness-bearing institution to Christ, to hold Him before the people. Christ himself, and not the Church, is the transforming power in human life. But the Church was founded in the Roman Empire, and gradually developed a form of government like the political world in which it existed, becoming a vast autocratic organization, ruled from the top. At the close of the Apostolic Age, churches were independent, one of another, each being shepherded by a board of pastors. The main leader came to be called bishop. Now that's not even biblical. The others later were called presbyters. That's not biblical. Gradually the jurisdiction of the bishop came to include neighboring towns. That's not biblical. The word Pope means Papa or Father. At first it was applied to all the Western bishops. About A.D. 500 it began to be restricted to the Bishop of Rome. All of this is not scripture now. We're way outside scripture. The Roman Catholic list of popes includes the bishops of Rome from the first century onward. But for 500 years, bishops of Rome were not popes. They weren't called that even. The idea that the bishop of Rome should have authority over the whole church was a slow growth, bitterly contested at every step, and never has at any time been universally recognized. The Roman Catholic tradition that Peter was the first pope is fiction, pure and simple. There is no New Testament hint, no historical evidence whatever, that Peter was at any time bishop of Rome. Nor did Peter ever claim for himself such authority as the popes have claimed for themselves. It seems that Peter had a divine foreboding that his successors would be mainly concerned with lording it over God's flock, rather than showing themselves to be examples to the flock. That's from 1 Peter 5, 3. It mentions Linus and Cletus and Clement and these different men. Clement actually wrote a letter to the Corinthian church in the name of the Roman church, not in his own name, with no hint of papal authority, such as popes later assumed. He mentions other men that came on the scene. Victor I in 190-202 threatened to excommunicate the Eastern churches for celebrating Easter on the 14th of Nicene. So, you see, very early this thing got out of control. Polycrates, the bishop of Ephesus, replied he was not afraid of Victor's threats and asserted his independent authority. Irenaeus, although a Western bishop and in sympathy with the Western viewpoint, on Easter, that is the weekday rather than the monthday theory, rebuked Victor for trying to dictate to Eastern churches. And so you see it wasn't an all-powerful pope that was in charge in those days, but he was starting to assert authority. Talks about Zephyrinus Callixtus. Tertullian of Carthage called this Callixtus the first, who was the first to base his claim on Matthew 16, 18, called him a usurper. in speaking of himself as if he were the bishop over all the bishops. Many others are mentioned. I will not cover each one. In the year 253-257, Stephen I was the pope, and he was objected to some baptismal practices in the North African church. Cyprian, a famous church father who was a bishop there, answered him that each bishop was supreme in his own diocese. and he wouldn't yield to Stephen. Nevertheless, the feeling grew that Rome, the capital city, should be head of the Church, like it was the head of the Empire. Not a biblical feeling, it was just the feeling. Other popes come and go. We come to Sylvester I, Bishop of Rome, when under Constantine, Christianity was virtually made the state religion of the Roman Empire. The Church immediately became an institution of vast importance in world politics. Constantine regarded himself as head of the Church. that Roman Emperor? He's the one that called the Council of Nicaea. He's the one that presided over it. It was the first world council of the Church presided over by a Roman Emperor. This council accorded the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch full jurisdiction over their provinces as the Roman Bishop had over his. Not even a hint that they were to be subject to Rome. By the end of the fourth century, the churches and bishops of Christendom had come to be largely dominated from five great centers, and they are Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria. Those bishops became known as patriarchs. They were of equal authority, one with another. Each one had full control in his own province. Then after the division of the Roman Empire in AD 395 into East and West, the patriarchs of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria gradually came to acknowledge the leadership of Constantinople, not Rome. And so the struggle for the leadership of Christendom was between Rome and Constantinople. In 385-398, Seretius was the Bishop of Rome, and in his lust for worldly power, he claimed the universal jurisdiction over the Church. But unfortunately for him, in his day, the empire divided into two separate empires, East and West, which was making it more and more difficult for the Roman pontiff to claim authority over everything. So, as I say, it was, as Halley says, it was bitterly condested at all steps, never fully accepted by the whole Church that the Pope was, in Rome, was to be the main man. In 402 we've got Innocent I calling himself ruler of the Church of God, claiming the right to settle the most important matters of controversy, Sixtus III is in 432. The Western Empire was now rapidly dissolving amid the storms of the barbarian migration. And in the distress and anxiety of the times, Augustine wrote his monumental work, The City of God, in which he envisioned a universal Christian empire. This book had vast influence in molding opinion favorable to a universal church hierarchy under one head. This promoted Rome's claim for lordship. So the Church was changing its nature, making itself over into the image of the Roman Empire. Then there's Leo I, called by some historians the first Pope in 440. The misfortunes of the Empire were his opportunity. The East was torn with controversies, the West was breaking up before the barbarians. Leo was the strong man of the hour. He claimed that he was, by divine appointment, the primate of all bishops. And he obtained from Emperor Valentinian imperial recognition for his claim. He's the one who persuaded Attila the Hun to spare the city of Rome. So he was a powerful man. And not all that bad a man in some ways. Many of these popes were good men. But we're talking about a structure here. We're not so much talking about men. Well, when the Western Roman Empire came to an end in AD 476, Simplicius was the pope. The Popes were now free from civil authority. Various new small kingdoms of the barbarians into which the West was now broken furnished the Pope's opportunity for advantageous alliances. So you see, from the beginning they're trying to be a political power, not a spiritual one. Gradually the Pope became the most commanding figure in the West. The first real Pope, according to Halley, would be Gregory I in AD 590, generally regarded as the first Pope. He appeared at a time of political anarchy and great public distress throughout Europe. Italy, after the fall of Rome, had become a Gothic kingdom. Later, a Byzantine province under control of the Eastern Emperor, now was being pillaged by the Lombards. Gregory's influence over the various kings had a stabilizing effect. He established for himself complete control over the churches of Italy, Spain, Gaul, and England, whose conversion to Christianity was the great event of his time. He labored untiringly for the purification of the Church, deposed neglectful or unworthy bishops, opposed with great zeal the practice of simony or the sale of office. He exerted great influence in the East, although he did not claim jurisdiction over the Eastern Church. The Patriarch of Constantinople called himself Universal Bishop. This irritated Gregory, who rejected the title as vicious and haughty, and refused to allow it to be implied to himself. Yet he exercised all of the authority that that title stood for. Personally, he was a good man, one of the purest and best of the popes, untiring in his efforts for justice to the oppressed, unbounded in his charities to the poor. If all popes had been like him, what a different estimate the world would have of the papacy. We move down to the 700s. Zacharias, the pope, was instrumental in making Pepin, the father of Charlemagne, king of the Franks. Stephen II, the next Pope, at his request, Pepin led his army to Italy, conquered the Lombards and gave their lands to the Pope. This was the beginning of the Papal States or temporal dominion of the Popes. Civil control of Rome and central Italy by the Popes, established by Popes Zacharias and Stephen and recognized by Pepin, was later confirmed by Charlemagne. So Central Italy, once the head of the Roman Empire, later a Gothic kingdom, is now ruled by the head of the Church. This temporal kingdom of the Church lasted 1,100 years until 1870, when King Victor Emmanuel of Italy took possession of Rome and just added the Papal States to his Kingdom of Italy. Leo III in AD 795, in return for Charlemagne's recognition of the Pope's temporal power over the Papal States, conferred on Charlemagne the title of Roman Emperor. And so now we've got a holy Roman Empire, which wasn't holy and wasn't really that much Roman, but was an empire and continues unto this day. Charlemagne was the King of the Franks, grandson of Charles Martel, who had saved Europe from the Mohammedans. He was one of the greatest rulers of all time. and he helped the Pope and the Pope helped him. We'll let that go. And so the Holy Roman Empire itself was in a sense the reestablishment of the Western Roman Empire with German kings on the throne bearing the title of Caesar. German kings bearing the title of Caesar, which was conferred by the Popes. The Popes are really controlling everything here. They've moved into this power vacuum in Rome and taken over. The Church was a state institution. Jurisdiction was not always easy to define. The arrangements resulted in many bitter struggles between emperors and popes. The Holy Roman Empire, a name rather than an accomplished fact, lived a thousand years and was brought to an end by Napoleon in 1806. It served a purpose in blending the Roman and German civilizations out of which the life of the modern world arose. Nicholas I was the first pope to wear a crown. To promote his claim of universal authority, he used with great effect what we call the Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals, a book that appeared about 857 containing documents that purported to be letters and decrees of bishops and councils of the 2nd and 3rd century, all tending to exalt the power of the Pope, but they were deliberate forgeries and corruptions of ancient historical documents. But, you see, their spurious character was not discovered until centuries later. Whether Nicholas knew them to be forgeries, at least he lied in stating that they'd been kept in the archives of the Roman Church from ancient times. But they served their purpose in stamping 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 other one agency and forms to a large extent the basis of the canon law of the Roman Church. It's built on lies. Although the Empire had been divided since 395, and although there had been a long and bitter struggle between the Popes of Rome and the Patriarchs of Constantinople for supremacy, yet the Church had remained one. But up to 869, all ecumenical councils had been held in or near Constantinople and in the Greek language. But now, at last, the Pope's insistent claim of being Lord of Christendom had become unbearable, and the East definitely separated itself. The Council of Constantinople of 869 was the last general ecumenical council where they all came together. Henceforth, the Greek Church had its councils and the Roman had its. The breach grew wider with the centuries. The brutal treatment of Constantinople by the armies of Pope Innocent III during the Crusades embittered the East all the more, and the creation of the dogma of papal infallibility in 1870 further deepened the chasm. Now, I know this doesn't sound much, like church history, does it? This is what's called the church down through history, and it's a very dark story. In fact, it gets even darker. I'm on page 774 for those who may be following. In fact, let's stop right there and see if we can find some questions to go with this lesson. We're on Lesson 51, Church History, Part 2. If you want to look it up on the Internet, on my website, library page of myheartcried.net. Scroll down to these lessons. You'll find Lesson 51. You can print it out and come along with us. Number one, how was it that the church started looking like the empire? Well, it ruled from the top, like a pyramid. What did bishop come to mean? The main leader of a group of elders, instead of just one of the elders like it is in Scripture. Three, what does Pope mean? It means father. Four, why did the Bishop of Rome feel he should rule the Church? Well, Rome was the political capital, so they thought it should be the spiritual capital, but we know Jerusalem is to be that, and really in the Church there is no capital but Christ. Five, did the whole Church ever accept the rule of Rome? No, never, and of course it does not today. Number six, how many centers of Christianity developed? by the end of the fourth century. Did they see Rome as number one? Well, there was five, and no, they did not. Seven, what happened in the empire that caused difficulty to the growing desire for papal power? Well, there were two separate empires, East and West. Eight, how did Augustine promote the papacy? He wrote The City of God, and this was about a universal church empire. Number nine, which two men are sometimes called the first real Pope? Well, Leo I, and Gregory I. 10. How did Leo I and following popes take advantage of the empire's problems? Weak emperors created a power vacuum. 11. Who ruled the eastern leg while Gregory ruled the west? That was the Patriarch of Constantinople. 12. How did the Papal States begin? Pepin leads an army to Italy and conquers the Lombards the land is given to the Pope. It's really central Italy. 13. What was the Holy Roman Empire? Well, Charlemagne and Leo III re-established the Western Roman Empire. It lasted for a thousand years. There were German kings calling themselves Caesar. 14. Read about the Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals and try to describe them. Well, they purported to be letters written in the 2nd and 3rd century. Actually, they were written in 857. At least they appeared then. The power was given to the Pope. The Roman Catholic Church has long since agreed that they were totally false. 15. What division took place in 869? Rome slash Constantinople split. All right. We go back to Halle now. We've got several popes here. With these popes around the late 800s, the darkest period of the papacy begins from 870 to 1050. 200 years, called by historians the midnight of the dark ages. You've got bribery, corruption, immorality, bloodshed from the holy man. This is not from the world. We don't know what the world was doing. It was evidently very dark when the leadership got so dark. The Rule of the Harlots in the 900s talks about people who had mistresses, the popes who had mistresses. She, that is Marozia, and her mother Theodora, and her sister, filled the papal chair with their paramours and bastard sons and turned the papal palace into a den of robbers. It's called the Rule of the Harlots. John X was brought from Ravenna to Rome and made Pope by Theodore for the more convenient gratification of her passion. John XII, guilty of almost every crime, violated virgins and widows high and low, lived with his father's mistress, made the papal palace a brothel, was killed while in the act of adultery by the woman's enraged husband. Boniface VII murdered Pope John XIV 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, Boniface VII, called them monsters of guilt, wreaking in blood and filth, Antichrist sitting in the temple of God. Benedict VIII bought the office of Pope with open bribery. This was called simony, that is the purchase or sale of church office with money. John XIX bought the papacy, passed through all the necessary clerical degrees in one day. Benedict IX was made Pope as a boy, twelve years old, through a money bargain with the powerful families that ruled Rome, surpassed John XII in wickedness, committed murders and adulteries in broad daylight, robbed pilgrims on the graves of martyrs, a hideous criminal. The people even drove him out of Rome. Gregory VI bought the papacy. Clement II was appointed Pope by Emperor Henry III of Germany because no Roman clergyman could be found who was free of the pollution of simony and fornication. Damascus II in 1048 started some loud protests against papal infamy and a cry for reform was finally found in Hildebrand. Hildebrand was a small man, very, well, not too good looking. feeble in voice, great in intellect, however, fiery in spirit, determined, and a zealous advocate of papal absolutism. But he was with the reformists. He led the papacy into its golden age. His great object, he is Hildebrand, but also Pope Gregory VII was his papal name. He wanted to reform the clergy. The two main sins were immorality and simony. He wanted to reform these things, But now all the bishops and priests had paid for their office. It gave them a chance to live in luxury. Kings habitually sold these offices to the highest bidder. Gregory VII said, no, you can't do that anymore. And so Henry IV, the emperor of Germany and Hildebrand, got into a little struggle. He, in fact, deposed Gregory Hildebrand. Gregory, in return, excommunicated him, deposed him, and a war followed. For years, Italy was devastated by the opposing armies. This is all being done in the name of Jesus Christ, by the way. Gregory, at the end, was driven from Rome and died in exile, but he had, in great measure, made the papacy independent of imperial power. Repeatedly, Gregory called himself overlord of kings and princes. I'm moving on to 776, skipping over some of the popes. In fact, a lot of the popes I have to skip. It's just too much territory to cover. I want to get back to Revelation as soon as we can. I kind of miss it already, don't you? Isn't this horrible? Being done in the name of Jesus. Adrian IV, 1154, the only English pope, gave Ireland to the King of England and authorized him to take possession. This was renewed by the next pope and carried out. Alexander III in conflict with the four anti-popes. Renewed war with the German emperor for supremacy. Many campaigns and pitched battles between the papal armies and German armies with terrible slaughter. And we'll talk about anti-pope later. The summit of papal power was in the reign of Innocent III. Yes, it's called a reign indeed. Most powerful of all the popes. Claimed to be the vicar of Christ. Vicar of God, supreme sovereign over the church and over the world, claimed the right to depose kings and princes and that all things on earth and heaven and hell are subject to the vicar of Christ. He brought the church into supreme control of the state. He ordered two crusades, decreed transubstantiation, confirmed auricular confession, declared that Peter's successor can never in any way depart from the Catholic faith. That's papal infallibility. condemned the Magna Carta here in the Americas, forbade the reading of the Bible in the vernacular, ordered the extermination of heretics, instituted the Inquisition, ordered the massacre of the Albigensians, God-fearing men. More blood was shed under his direction and that of his immediate successors than in any other period of Church history, except in the Papacy's effort to crush the Reformation, and that's coming up. The Inquisition is next, called the Holy Office, was instituted by Pope Innocent III, the same man, and perfected under the second following Pope Gregory IX. It was the church court for detection and punishment of heretics. Under it, everyone was required to inform against heretic. Anyone suspected was liable to torture, without even knowing the name of his accuser. The proceedings were secret. The inquisitor pronounced sentence. The victim was turned over to civil authorities to be in prison for life or to be burned. The victim's property was confiscated and divided between the church and the state. More of the Inquisition I will just have to pass over. There's continued war with the German Emperor in following Pope's Honorarius III Gregory IX, Innocent IV, gave papal sanction to the use of torture in extracting confession from suspected heretics. Under these three popes, Emperor Frederick II of Germany led his empire in its last great struggle with the papacy. After repeated wars, the papacy emerged supreme. But it began its decline and the end of the 13th century, beginning of 1300s, Boniface VIII and his famous bull, Unum Sanctum, said, we declare, affirm, define and pronounce, that's pretty solid, don't you think, that it is altogether necessary for salvation that every creature be subject to the Roman pontiff. It's still there, folks, it's on the books. They are now redefining salvation and subject and a whole lot of other stuff, but you know what the words meant. However, he himself was so corrupt that Dante, who visited Rome during his pontificate, called the Vatican a sewer of corruption and assigned him, along with Nicholas III and Clement V, to the lowest parts of hell. We do not judge men, but you can see something is afoul in Rome. The papacy had been victorious in its 200-year struggle with the German Empire. Boniface received the papacy at its height, but he met his match in Philip the Fair. King of France, at whose feet the Papacy was humbled to the dust and began its era of decline. Thank God! Among the French people a feeling of nationalism and a spirit of independence was developing, an outgrowth in part of the Papacy's brutal massacre of the French Albigensis in the preceding century, and Philip the Fair, with whom the history of modern France begins, took up the struggle with the Papacy. His conflict started with Pope Boniface VIII, over taxation of the French clergy. The papacy was brought into complete submission to the state, and after the death of Pope Benedict XI, the papal palace was removed from Rome to Avignon in France. And for seventy years, the papacy was a mere tool of the French court. Can you believe it? The avarice of the Avignon popes knew no bounds. Burdensome taxes were imposed, Every church office was sold for money. Many new offices were created to be sold to fill the coffers of popes and support the luxurious and immoral court. Petrarch accused the papal household of rape, adultery, and all manner of fornication. In many parishes, men insisted on priests keeping concubines as a protection for their own families. Oh, the captivity was a blow to papal prestige. Then we have 40 years, from 1377 to 1417, in which there were two sets of Popes, one at Rome, one at Avignon, each claiming to be Vicar of Christ, hurling anathemas and curses at each other. John XXIII is called by some the most depraved criminal who ever sat on the papal throne, guilty of almost every crime, as Cardinal in Bologna, or Bologna, two hundred maidens, nuns, and married women fell victims to his amours. As Pope, he violated virgins and nuns, lived in adultery with his brother's wife, was guilty of sodomy and other nameless vices, bought the papal office, sold cardinalates to children of wealthy families, openly denied the future life. Well, Martin V comes along and heals the papal schism But the schism had been regarded by Europe as a scandal. By it, the papacy suffered great loss of prestige. Then we have the Renaissance popes. Nicholas V authorized the King of Portugal to war on African peoples, take their property and enslave people. Pius II was said to have been the father of many illegitimate children. In between that is a man named Calixtus III, whom Halley mentions as a pope of blameless life, and so every once in a while you do have a few good popes. The Church likes to talk about a few bad ones. I would have to take issue with them with these facts in front of me. The Spanish Inquisition was sanctioned by a pope, Sixtus IV, decreed that money also would deliver souls from purgatory. He was implicated in a plot to murder de' Medici and others who opposed his policies. He made eight of his nephew's cardinals, while as yet some of them were mere boys. His lavish lifestyle rivaled that of the Caesars. Then you've got Innocent VIII and 16 children by various married women. He appointed the brutal Thomas of Torquemada, the Inquisitor General of Spain, and ordered all rulers to deliver up heretics to him. permitted bullfights on St. Peter's Square, was background for Savonarola's cry against papal corruption. Alexander VI is called the most corrupt of the Renaissance popes, licentious, avaricious, depraved. He bought the papacy, he made many new cardinals for money, had a number of illegitimate children whom he openly acknowledged and appointed to high church office while they were yet children, had for a mistress a sister of a cardinal who became next pope, Pius III. in the days of the Reformation. These are the popes in those days anyway. Julius II, very, very rich, bought the papacy. Leo X was pope when Luther started the Protestant Reformation. Was made an archbishop at 8, a cardinal at 13. Was taught to regard ecclesiastical office purely as a source of revenue. He bargained for the papal chair. He sold church honors. Into all of this mess enter the Jesuits. This is Rome's answer to the Lutheran secession, the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. The Inquisition under the leadership of the Jesuits. We talked about the Inquisition, but these are the men in charge of it. This was an order founded by Ignatius Loyola, a Spaniard, on the principle of absolute and unconditional obedience, not to Christ, but to the Pope. Their object was the recovery of territory lost to the Protestants and the Muslims. and the conquest of the entire heathen world for the Roman Catholic Church. They wanted to destroy heresy, that is, anything that's different from what the Pope said. For the accomplishment of which anything was justifiable, deception, immorality, vice, murder, their motto was for the greater glory of God. In France they were responsible for the St. Bartholomew's Massacre, persecution of the Huguenots, revocation of the toleration edict of Nantes and the French Revolution. We move on to some of the modern popes. Here's Clement XI, declared that kings reign only with the pope's sanction, issued a bull against Bible reading. Clement XIV abolished forever the Society of Jesuits, but the next pope, Pius VII, restored the Jesuits. Leo XII condemned all religious freedom, tolerance, Bible societies and Bible translations declared that everyone separated from the Roman Catholic Church, however unblameable in other respects, has no part in eternal life. We just updated by 600 years the statement of Rome that is still in effect, that if you're not a Catholic, you are lost. And we have people on our side saying, if you are Catholic, the same is true. Pius IX lost the papal states, thank God, decreed papal infallibility, proclaimed the right to suppress heresy by force, condemned the separation of church and state, commanded Catholics to obey the head of the church rather than civil rulers, denounced liberty of conscience, liberty of worship, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, decreed the immaculate conception and deity of Mary, condemned Bible societies declare that Protestantism is no form of the Christian religion and that every dogma of the Roman Catholic Church has been dictated by Christ through his vice-regents on earth. Halley begins to talk about papal infallibility, the idea that the Pope is infallible. It found no expression in Christian literature for 600 years. It arose with the appearance of the false decretals. Many popes from Innocent III onward advocated it, but the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basil expressly decreed that popes are subject to councils. Pius IX said, of his own sovereign authority and without the cooperation of a council, he proclaimed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. He wanted to feel out what the Roman Catholic world would do with this, and they accepted it. They loved it. Now the Eastern Church believed that this was the papacy's crowning blasphemy, saying he was infallible. Loss of temporal power since 754, the popes had been civil rulers of a kingdom called the Papal States. We talked about that earlier. Pius IX ruled Rome with the help of 10,000 French troops, but on the outbreak of the war between France and Germany in 1870, these troops had to be recalled. and then Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, took possession of Rome when it was not protected and added the Papal States to his kingdom, as we said. His temporal power was restored on a miniature scale by none other than Mussolini, the one that you know of, yes, Mussolini. And though Vatican City comprises only a hundred acres, the Pope is again a sovereign in his own little kingdom. That's right. It is a state, a political state. Present-day popes include Leo XIII, who claimed he was appointed to be head of all rulers, that he holds all, on this earth, the place of Almighty God, emphasized papal infallibility, pronounced Protestants enemies of the Christian name, proclaimed the only method of cooperation, complete submission to the Roman pontiff. Folks, this is only a hundred and some years ago. These are modern popes saying this. It's only in our day that things have changed so radically. He was against Americanism, He proclaimed the only method of cooperation, complete submission to the Roman Pontiff. Pius X denounced the leaders of the Reformation as enemies of the cross of Christ. Pius XI reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church to be the only Church of Christ and the reunion of Christendom impossible except by submission to Rome. Then he's got Pius XII, John XXIII, you know about him, and Paul VI, both of whom had that famous Vatican II council. After that was Pope John Paul I, who was, some people say, assassinated or just died from something very soon after in office, and then the present Pope from 1978 until our day. And as I proclaim this today, this is, where are we, July 29, 2002, the Pope is on his way to Mexico and looking more feeble than he ever has before. 1978 to 2002 is a very long reign and some people say that the next reign is going to be a very significant one, but that's speculation. Summary, the papacy is an Italian institution. It was the ghost of the Roman Empire come to life in the garb of Christianity. The Popes mostly have been Italians. the most luxurious court in all of Europe. Most of them have been absorbed in the pursuit of secular power. Some of the men have been okay, but many of them very evil men. Their attitude toward the Bible Hildebrand says, don't read the Bible to the Bohemians. Innocent III said, don't read the Bible in your own language. Gregory IX said, you can't even own a Bible. You can't have any translations of the Bible. Translations among the Albigensians and Waldensians were burned. People burned themselves. People were burned for having them. Paul IV prohibited the possession of translations without permission of the Inquisition. The Jesuits induced Clement XI to condemn the reading of the Bible by the laity, and so on. In Catholic countries, the Bible is an unknown book. It's becoming that way in Protestant countries, too, because Protestants are not reading it. The papacy in the state, Hildebrand called himself overlord of kings and princes. Everybody, he said, has to obey the head of the church rather than civil rulers. Well, the papacy is not the church. Not at all. It's a political machine that got control of the church. and by assumed prerogatives interposed itself between God and God's people. As for tolerance, Pope Clement VIII declared that the toleration edict of Nantes whereby liberty of conscience is granted to everybody is the most cursed thing in the world. No, not tolerant. The papacy has fought religious freedom at every step. Much Roman, much, sorry, However much that Roman priests in our country may cry tolerance, the official infallible law of the system to which they belong is against it, and don't let them fool you. Is there a providential purpose in the papacy? It may be, Halle says, that in the providence of God, the papacy served a purpose in the Middle Ages in saving Western Europe from chaos and in blending the Roman and German civilizations. But just suppose that the Church itself had never been made a state institution, that it entirely avoided the pursuit of secular power and confined itself exclusively to its original policy of winning converts to Christ and training them in His ways. Then there might have been the Millennium instead of the Dark Ages, Halle says. The story of the papacy has been written as a background to the Reformation. Let's go to the Reformation now Bring them up front in the foreground of the story. We start with the Albigensis from Southern France. They preached against the immoralities of the priesthood, preached against pilgrimages, worship of saints and images, completely rejected the clergy and its claims, criticized church conditions, opposed the claims of the Church of Rome, made great use of the scriptures, lived self-denying lives, and had great zeal for moral purity. Perhaps a majority of the population of South France was Albegenzis in 1167 by 1200, very numerous in North Italy too. In 1208 a crusade was ordered by Pope Innocent III. A bloody war of extermination followed. Scarcely paralleled in history, town after town was put to the sword and the inhabitants murdered without distinction of age or sex. In 1229 the Inquisition was established and within a hundred years The Albugenses were utterly rooted out. Then there's the Waldenses. Southern France, Northern Italy, similar to Albugenses but not identical. Founded by Waldo, a rich merchant of Lyon in South France. He gave his property to the poor and went about preaching. Opposed clerical usurpation and profligacy. denied the exclusive right of the clergy to teach the gospel, rejected the masses, prayers for the dead and purgatory, taught the Bible as the sole rule of belief in life. Their preaching kindled a great desire among the people to read the Bible. They were gradually repressed. However, they have survived and are today the leading Protestant body in Italy. John Wycliffe, in 1300s, a teacher at Oxford, England, preached against the spiritual domination of the priesthood, the authority of the Pope, opposed the existence of the Popes, Cardinals, Patriarchs, Monks, attacked transubstantiation, auricular confession, advocated the people's right to read the Bible, translated the Bible into English. John Huss is a student of Wycliffe, although he's Bohemian, which is Czechoslovakia today, became a fearless preacher, attacked the vices of the clergy and the corruptions of the church, with impassioned vehemence condemned the sale of indulgences, exalted the scriptures, was burned alive at the stake. And his followers, a large part of that bohemian population, were almost again extirpated by a crusade ordered by the Pope. Is this Christ? Is this what Christ does? No. from Florence preached like a Hebrew prophet to vast crowds who thronged his cathedral. He preached against the sensuality and sin of the city and against papal vice. The penitent city reformed, but Pope Alexander VI sought in every way to silence the righteous preacher, even tried to bribe him with a cardinal's hat. But in vain. He was hanged and burned in the great square in Florence 19 years before Luther even posted his 95 theses. Then there were the Anabaptists who appeared through the Middle Ages in various European countries, under different names, in independent groups, representing a variety of doctrines, but usually strongly anti-clerical, rejecting infant baptism, devoted to the scriptures, and standing for absolute separation of church and state. Then he talks a bit about the Renaissance, or revival of learning. It helped along the Reformation movement. There arose a passion for the ancient classics. Vast sums of money were spent in the collection of manuscripts and the founding of libraries, and then printing was invented, and God used that to spread his word throughout that world. Renewed knowledge of the sources of Christian doctrine revealed a vast difference between the native simplicity of the Gospel and the ecclesiastical fabric that professed to be founded upon it. The Reformation owed its being to the direct contact of the mind with the Scriptures, and it resulted in the emancipation of the human mind from priestly and papal authority." Well put, I think. He talks about Erasmus, the greatest scholar of the Reformation. He wanted to free men from false ideas about religion. He was a critic of the Roman Catholic Church and delighted especially to ridicule unholy men in holy orders. He helped the Reformation but never actually joined it. Let's take a break there and go back to our questions before we answer more deeply into the Reformation. When was the midnight in the Dark Ages? Back to number 16. Well that was from the 800s to 1050. Number 17, when was the rule of the harlots and why so named? Three immoral women put popes on the throne. 18. What is simony? That's the offering of money for church office. 19. In what sense were the years 1049 to 1294 golden years for Rome? It was the greatest power of all time that they had. 20. Describe the contest between Hildebrand and Henry. Kings sold offices, Hildebrand said no, and they fired each other basically. 21. Who was the most powerful Pope of all and how powerful was he? Innocent III. Why, all things, all things, he said, were subject to him. 22. Describe the Inquisition. That was the punishment of heretics, torture. Informers were sent to find out who these men were. 23. What was Unum Sanctum? Boniface VIII wrote that. He said it was necessary for salvation. to belong to the Roman church. Number 24, under whose reign in Rome was the papacy humbled and by whom? That would be Boniface and Philip. 25, to what country was the papal palace transferred and who was the king? That would be France, Philip in 1305 to 1377. What is this French period called? It's called the Babylonian captivity of the church. Of course, we believe that church is Babylon, so it was the Babylonian captivity of Babylon. 27. After the 70 years, what went on for 40 years? There were two sets of popes, one in Rome and one in Avignon. Forgive me for my bad pronunciation of French words. Avignon? Avignon? I don't know. Number 28. The most depraved of all the popes, John XXIII. Not the same John XXIII that you know of in our day. 29. Did the papal practices get better during the Renaissance? No, not at all. 30. Who was the Pope of Luther's day? That would be Leo X. How young were some church officers? They were seven years old on up. 32. Who executed the Inquisition? The Jesuits. 33. Who started the Jesuits? Ignatius of Loyola. 34. What was the original goal of the Society of Jesus? The recovery of losses to Protestants and Muslims. the conquest of the heathen world. 35. What crimes did Jesuits commit? Well, there was massacre, revolution. That's probably good enough. Many, many people killed because of the Jesuits. 36. Who condemned Bible societies? That would be Pius VII. 37. Where did the idea of papal infallibility come from? From the false decretals, assertions, conflicts, popes, and emperors. 38. How did the Popes lose their territory? The French troops recalled during the Franco-German War in 1870 and so Victor Emmanuel moved in and took possession. 39. Through what modern leader was territory restored to the Pope? That would be Mussolini, believe it or not. 40. Who said that the only way to unity is through Rome? Pius XI. Then there are the Popes in your lifetime, John Paul I, who died, and John Paul II, who is still with us. Number 41, how did the papacy become so rich? Through the sale of offices. 42, describe papal attitudes toward the Bible. Well, Hildebrand, Innocent III, Paul IV, Clement II, Leo XII, Pius VIII, Gregory XVI, Pius and I were all against people reading the Bible for one reason or another. What about the popes and tolerance? They condemned it. They're in favor of it only when they're in a minority. They did not allow people to go with their own conscience. You might want to ask yourself, as I did in your notes here, were there any true believers during this time? Did all true believers come out of Rome? I don't think so. I don't think so. They never have all come out of Rome. There's always some people in there getting the light, but they don't come out right away, always. So there's always some of God's people there. Be careful how you speak to a Romanist. You may be speaking to the next person who's coming out. Be very careful. 44. What Protestant groups surfaced in France, Spain, and Italy over 300 years before Luther? That would be the Albigensies and the Waldensies. 45. Who was the first English reformer? Wycliffe. 46, what bohemian was Wycliffe's student? That's Huss. And number 47, why did Halle, I meant Erasmus, stress scriptures so much? It was freeing men from false ideas. The best way to do that was the Bible. I was a misprint there. The word Halle should be Erasmus. And that brings us to Martin Luther himself. The Reformation, we say, officially begins with him, but my, as you can see, it's been going on unofficially for 300 years. Next to Jesus and Paul, according to Halley, he's the greatest man of all the ages. I don't know if I agree with that. He led the world in its break for freedom from the most despotic institution in history. It talks about his life, how he was a fine student, a great talker, an exemplary monk, a religious man, but one day in 1508, while reading Romans, his enlightenment and peace came suddenly. Oh, he had such anguish as no pen can describe, it is said, but now he sees the light suddenly when he reads the words, the just shall live by faith. He saw at last that salvation was to be gained by trust in God through Christ and not by the rituals and sacraments and penances of the Roman system. It changed his whole life, and yes, the whole course of history. Indulgences of his day, Tetzel sold indulgences. It was the occasion of Luther's break with Rome. According to Romanist teaching, purgatory is very much the same as hell, only it doesn't last as long, but everybody has to go through it. Now, the Pope claimed to have the power to lessen or even remit those sufferings. This prerogative belonged exclusively to the Pope. It began with the Popes mentioned here, Pope Paschal and John VIII. Indulgences were found to be exceedingly profitable and soon came into general use. If you they were offered as inducement to go on crusades, or wars against heretics, or against some king whom the Pope wished to punish. They were sold for money. Pope Sixtus was the first to apply them to souls already in purgatory, so selling the privilege to sin became one of the main sources of papal revenue. 1517, John Texel came to Germany selling these things. He was one of many men who did this. He said to the people, as soon as your coin clinks in the chest, the souls of your friends will rise out of purgatory into heaven. This horrified Luther, and he posted 95 theses against it on the church door of Wittenberg, as you know. It was merely a notice that he was willing to discuss these things. The printed copies were eagerly sought all over Germany. It proved to be the spark that set Europe aflame. He was excommunicated in 1520. This is the penalty due for heresy. When he received the notification, he just burned it up. Luther did. The Diet of Worms, 1521. Luther was summoned by Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. This is Germany, Spain, Netherlands, and Austria. To appear before the Diet of Worms, and in the presence of the assembled dignitaries, he was told to retract. He says, I can't do it. He says, here I stand. I can do naught else. So help me God." He was condemned, but he had too many friends among the German princes for the edict to be carried out. He was hid by a friend for about a year, then returned to Wittenberg to continue his work of speaking and writing. Translate the Bible into German. Well, the Pope turned around and declared war on Germany and the German Protestants anyway. Many princes with their whole states had been won to Luther's cause. By 1540, all of North Germany had become Lutheran. Much of it is to this day, by the way. That would be in East Germany, the old East Germany. The name Protestant comes later on in the Diet of Spires, at which Roman Catholics were in the majority. They ruled that Catholics could teach their religion in Lutheran states, but Lutheran could not teach in Catholic states in Germany. Against this, the Lutheran princes made formal protest. When the Lutheran princes made formal protests, they were nicknamed Protestants. That name has stuck to this day, Protestants. Well, the Reformation spreads to Switzerland with Zwingli and Calvin. Calvin is actually a Frenchman who accepted the Reformation teachings. He's driven out of France, goes to Geneva, Switzerland. did his reformation there. Many imperfections with these men. Halley doesn't bring this out as much, and I think he should. There was a lot of bad stuff going on with some of the Reformation men, Luther included, Calvin included. Some of them hated each other, would have excommunicated each other, some of them. They were still under the sway of Rome, much of them, and as you can see Lutheranism today and much of Calvinism, that is Presbyterianism, is very formalistic and ritualistic, much like what it came out of. They've got some good doctrines now, and you've got some great people here and there in all these groups. But in fact, they didn't come far enough away from Rome. Halley goes on to talk about the Reformation in the Netherlands, where it was received early. He gives statistics there, but there were some problems. In 1535, Charles V, the Emperor, ordered the Inquisition to take place in the Netherlands and he decreed death by fire for Anabaptists. Philip II, successor, reissued the edicts of his father and with Jesuit help carried on the persecution with still greater fury. By one sentence of the Inquisition, the whole population was condemned to death. More than 100,000 were massacred with unbelievable brutality. Some were chained to a stake near the fire, slowly roasted to death. Some were thrown into dungeons, scourged, tortured on the rack before being burned. Women were burned alive, pressed into coffins too small, trampled down with the feet of the executioner. Protestants of Netherlands, after incredible suffering, won their independence. Holland on the north became Protestant. Belgium on the south, though, Roman Catholic. In Scandinavia, he talks about how Lutheranism took hold. In France, Luther's teaching had penetrated it. By 1559, there were 400,000 Protestants. In France, they were called Huguenots. Their earnest, piety, and pure lives were in striking contrast to the scandalous lives of the Roman clergy. In 1557, Pope Pius urged their extermination. Then he talks about Bartholomew's Massacre. Catherine de' Medici, mother of the king, an ardent Romanist and willing tool of the Pope, gave the order, and on the night of August 24, 1572, 70,000 Huguenots, including most of their leaders, were massacred, though there was great rejoicing in Rome. The Pope and his College of Cardinals went in solemn procession to the church in San Marco and ordered the Te Deum to be sung in thanksgiving. The Pope struck a medal in commemoration of the massacre, sent a Cardinal to Paris to bear the King and Queen Mother the congratulations of Pope and Cardinals. There's a response to that, but we don't have time for it today. Let me just finish a few questions. Number 48, what verse saved Monk Martin? The just shall live by faith. 49, what are indulgences? Pardon of sins without confession, without repentance, and so on. 50. What spark set Europe aflame? The 95 Theses against indulgences. 51. Who won the Pope's war against the Lutherans? That was Emperor Charles V. 52. Whence the name Protestant? Lutheran princes protested papal usurpation. 53. What church started in Switzerland and by whom? That's the Reformed Church and by Zwingli and Calvin. Presbyterian also by Calvin. 54. What happened to believers in the Netherlands during this period? Horrible, horrible persecution and massacre. 55. Describe the St. Bartholomew's Massacre. 70,000 French Protestants killed by Catherine de' Medici, the mother of the king in the Roman Catholic system, and great rejoicing followed in Rome. There you have it, at least a good portion of it. Lord willing, we'll finish up Church history for sure. I say for sure and Lord willing at the same time. My plan is to finish it in the next lesson and in the next lesson also we'll get back to Revelation and the way I see it now, that next lesson will have Church history and Revelation and then another two lessons after that will conclude our Through the Bible. God bless you for paying attention to this serious matter of the history of at least Christendom and some of God's people during these 2,000 years we've been with Christ. God bless you today.