23. Surely a pall of darkness had fallen upon the earth. The Church of Christ had long since ceased to exist. In place of a priesthood conferred by divine authority, a man-created papacy ruled with the iron hand of tyranny and without regard to moral restraint. In a scholarly work Dr. J. W. Draper gives a list of pontiffs who had stood at the head of the Church from the middle of the eighth to the middle of the eleventh centuries, with biographical notes of each.—(See Note 3, end of chapter.) And what a picture is there outlined! To win the papal crown no crime was too great, and for a period of centuries the immoralities of many of the popes and their subordinates are too shocking for detailed description. It may be claimed that the author last cited, and whose words are given below, was an avowed opponent of the Roman Catholic Church, and that, therefore, his judgment is prejudiced; in reply let it be said that the attested facts of history support the dread arraignment. In commenting on the facts set forth, Dr. Draper says:
24. "More than a thousand years had elapsed since the birth of our Savior, and such was the condition of Rome. Well may the historian shut the annals of those times in disgust. Well may the heart of the Christian sink within him at such a catalogue of hideous crimes. Well may we ask, Were these the vicegerents of God upon earth—these, who had truly reached the goal beyond which the last effort of human wickedness cannot pass? Not until several centuries after these events did public opinion come to the true and philosophical conclusion—the total rejection of the divine claims of the papacy. For a time the evils were attributed to the manner of the pontifical election, as if they could by any possibility influence the descent of a power which claimed to be supernatural and under the immediate care of God. * * * No one can study the development of the Italian ecclesiastical power without discovering how completely it depended on human agency, too often on human passion and intrigue; how completely wanting it was of any mark of the divine construction and care—the offspring of man, not of God, and therefore bearing upon it the lineaments of human passions, human virtues, and human sins."—(Draper, "Intellectual Development of Europe;" Vol. 1, p. 382.)
25. By increasing changes and unauthorized alterations in organization and government, the earthly establishment known as "the Church," with popes, cardinals, abbots, friars, monks, exorcists, acolytes, etc., lost all semblance to the Church as established by Christ and maintained by His apostles. The Catholic argument that there has been an uninterrupted succession of authority in the priesthood from the Apostle Peter to the present occupant of the papal throne, is untenable in the light of history, and unreasonable in the light of fact. Authority to speak and act in the name of God, power to officiate in the saving ordinances of the gospel of Christ, the high privilege of serving as a duly commissioned ambassador of the court of Heaven,—these are not to be had as the gifts of princes, nor are they to be bought for money, nor can they be won as trophies of the bloody sword. The history of the papacy is the condemnation of the Church of Rome.—(See Notes 2 and 3, end of chapter.)
NOTES.
1. The Roman Church Responsible for the Traffic in "Indulgences." In view of the claim asserted by some defenders of the Roman Church, to the effect that the shameful traffic in indulgences was not sanctioned by the church, and that the church cannot be held accountable for the excesses to which its subordinates may go in their alleged official acts, the following remarks by Milner, the judicious authority on Church History (Cent. XVI, chap. 2.), may be of interest: "It does not appear that the rulers of the hierarchy ever found the least fault with Tetzel as exceeding his commission, till an opposition was openly made to the practice of indulgences. Whence it is evident, that the protestants have not unjustly censured the corruption of the court of Rome in this respect. * * * The indulgences were farmed to the highest bidders, and the undertakers employed such deputies to carry on the traffic as they thought most likely to promote their lucrative views. The inferior officers concerned in this commerce were daily seen in public houses enjoying themselves in riot and voluptuousness (Maimbourg, p. 11). In fine, whatever the greatest enemy of popery could have wished, was at that time exhibited with the most undisguised impudence and temerity, as if on purpose to render that wicked ecclesiastical system infamous before all mankind."
The author proceeds to comment on the graded prices by which these indulgences were placed within the pecuniary reach of all classes, and finds in the wholesale traffic proof of profound ignorance and dire superstition, and then points out the need of a new gospel dispensation as follows: "This, however, was the very situation of things which opened the way for the reception of the gospel. But who was to proclaim the gospel in its native beauty and simplicity? The princes, the bishops, and the learned men of the times saw all this scandalous traffic respecting the pardon of sins; but none was found who possessed the knowledge, the courage, and the honesty, necessary to detect the fraud, and to lay open to mankind the true doctrine of salvation by the remission of sins through Jesus Christ." Milner finds the inauguration of a new era in the "Reformation" during the sixteenth century. It is sufficient for our present purpose to know that he recognized the need of preparation whereby the way would be opened "for the reception of the gospel."—(Milner, "Ch. Hist.," Cent. XVI, ch. 2; italics introduced.)
2. Three Popes at One Time. "One of the severest blows given both the temporal and the spiritual authority of the popes, was the removal, in 1309, through the influence of the French king, Philip the Fair, of the papal chair from Rome to Avignon, in Provence, near the frontier of France. Here it remained for a space of about seventy years, an era known in church history as the Babylonian Captivity. While it was established here, all the popes were French, and of course all their policies were shaped and controlled by the French kings. * * * The discontent awakened among the Italians by the situation of the papal court at length led to an open rupture between them and the French party. In 1378 the opposing factions each elected a pope, and thus there were two heads of the church, one at Avignon and the other at Rome. The spectacle of two rival popes, each claiming to be the rightful successor of St. Peter, and the sole infallible head of the church, very naturally led men to question the claims and infallibility of both. It gave the reverence which the world had so generally held for the Roman See a rude shock, and one from which it never recovered. Finally, in 1409, a general council of the church assembled at Pisa, for the purpose of composing the shameful quarrel. The council deposed both popes, and elected Alexander V as the supreme head of the church. But matters, instead of being mended hereby, were only made worse; for neither of the deposed pontiffs would lay down his authority in obedience to the demands of the council, and consequently there were now three popes instead of two. In 1414 another council was called, at Constance, for the settlement of the growing dispute. Two of the claimants were deposed and one resigned. A new pope was then elected—Pope Martin V. In his person the Catholic world was again united under a single spiritual head. The schism was outwardly healed, but the wound had been too deep not to leave permanent marks upon the church."—(P. V. N. Meyers, "Gen. Hist.," pp. 457, 458. Italics introduced.)
The rupture between the French and Italian factions, referred to by
Meyers in the quotation given above, is known in history as the Great
Schism. It may be regarded as the decisive beginning of decline in the
temporal power of the popes.
3. The Papacy Condemns Itself. The line of succession in the papacy for a limited period as referred to in the text, is given by Draper as follows:
"To some it might seem, considering the interests of religion alone, desirable to omit all biographical reference to the popes; but this cannot be done with justice to the subject. The essential principle of the papacy, that the Roman pontiff is the vicar of Christ upon earth, necessarily obtrudes his personal relations upon us. How shall we understand his faith unless we see it illustrated in his life? Indeed, the unhappy character of those relations was the inciting cause of the movements in Germany, France, and England, ending in the extinction of the papacy as an actual political power, movements to be understood only through a sufficient knowledge of the private lives and opinions of the popes. It is well, as far as possible, to abstain from burdening systems with the imperfections of individuals. In this case they are inseparably interwoven. The signal peculiarity of the papacy is that, though its history may be imposing, its biography is infamous. I shall, however, forbear to speak of it in this latter respect more than the occasion seems necessarily to require; shall pass in silence some of those cases which would profoundly shock my religious reader, and therefore restrict myself to the ages between the middle of the eighth and the middle of the eleventh centuries, excusing myself to the impartial critic by the apology that these were the ages with which I have been chiefly concerned in this chapter.