“Nothing, I found, concurred so much with my original intention of conversing with the ancients; or so much helped my imagination, to find myself wandering about in old heathen Rome, as to observe and attend to their religious worship; all whose ceremonies appear plainly to have been copied from the rituals of primitive Paganism: as if handed down by an uninterrupted succession from the priests of old, to the priests of new Rome, whilst each of them readily explained, and called to mind some passages of a classic author, where the same ceremony was described, as transacted in the same form and manner, and in the same place where I now saw it executed [pg 192] before my eyes.”—Dowl. Hist. of Rom., p. 114.
Says Mr. Lord:
“After a struggle of more than four centuries, the ecclesiastics of all the hierarchies in the empire were united in one vast organization, with the pontiff as their supreme legislative and judicial head, and a single ecclesiastical government was established over the whole Roman church, after the model of the civil government of the ancient empire under Constantine and his successors. It is, accordingly, denominated by Catholics themselves a monarchy. ‘All Catholic doctors agree in this, that the ecclesiastical government committed to men by God is a monarchy.’—Bellarmini de Rom. Pont., lib. i., c. v. Bellarmine devotes his first book ‘of the Pontiff’ to prove that such is and ought to be its government. ‘If the monarchical is the best form of government, as we have shown, and it is certain that the church of God instituted by Christ its head, who is supremely wise, ought to be governed in the best manner, who can deny that its rule ought to be monarchical?’—Ib., i., c. ix., p. 527.
“The canonists are accustomed, accordingly, to denominate the Pope a king.
“The pontiffs were as absolutely the legislative and judicial head of this ecclesiastical kingdom, as the emperors from Constantine to Augustulus were of the civil empire, and imposed [pg 193] whatever laws they pleased on subordinate ecclesiastics and on the church by decrees, in the same manner as those emperors enacted laws by edicts. The decrees, bulls of canonization, sentences, charters, and other legislative and judicial acts of the pontiffs, from Gregory VII., in 1073, to Benedict XIV., in 1757, collected in the Bullarium Magnum, fill nineteen folios. Many others are contained in the decretals and councils.
“They appointed to all ecclesiastical offices throughout the empire, as the Christian emperors appointed to all civil and military offices in their dominions.
“They exacted oaths of fidelity from all whom they advanced to important offices; as the emperors exacted engagements of fidelity from their civil magistrates.
“They established courts in which all violations of their laws were tried, and a tribunal at the capital for the decision of appeals. There were gradations of rank in the hierarchy, like those of the magistrates of the civil empire. The hierarchies, as nationalized by Constantine, were formed in each patriarchate, after the model of the civil government in the provinces. The hierarchy of the western kingdoms, under the Pope, was formed after that pattern; having archbishops or metropolitans at the head of the clergy of each nation, or large district, and bishops, abbots, and [pg 194] a long catalogue of subordinate ranks, under each metropolitan.
“They levied taxes for their support on ecclesiastics and laics.
“They inflicted ecclesiastical penalties on the violators of their laws; exclusion from communion, suspension from office, deposition, excommunication, and a sentence of eternal death.”—Exp. of Apoc., pp. 429-432.