A New Witness for God (Vol. 1-3). B. H. Roberts

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СКАЧАТЬ the west it was otherwise. There all was activity. The Roman pontiffs not only sent their missionaries to the barbarians to preach the supremacy of the popes, but the barbarians came to Rome. They came with arms in their hands and as conquerors, it is true, and in the closing years of the fifth century obtained an easy victory over the western division of the empire. But if imperial Rome was vanquished, there arose above its ruins papal Rome, in majesty no less splendid than that possessed by imperial Rome in her palmiest days; and in the course of time the victorious barbarians bowed in as humble submission to the wand of the popes, as their ancestors had to the eagle-mounted standard of the emperors. Moreover, the barbarous nations that fell under the influence of the Roman missionaries were accustomed to hold their priests in a superstitious reverence. In portions of Western Europe the Druid priests had reigned over both people and magistrates, controlling absolutely the jurisdiction of the latter; and, in the case of the supreme priest, according to some authorities,¹⁵ the reverence of the barbarians amounted to worship. This reverence, on their conversion to Christianity, was readily transferred to the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church; and made possible that spiritual and temporal despotism before which monarchs trembled and the world stood in abject fear.

      Having traced the rise of the Church of Rome to this point, it yet remains to say that the corruption of her clergy and members kept pace with the developing splendor of the hierarchy. The pride, ambition and wickedness which bishops and other ministers of the church practiced in the second and third centuries have already been pointed out, and at the same time it was suggested that in these matters there was not likely to be any improvement after ease and luxury—ever the panderers to immorality—had increased the appetite for sensual pleasures and supplied the means of gratification.

      Early in the history of the church the morality of the times not only excused but justified lying and deceit whenever it was supposed that the interests of religion could be promoted by it; and hence the existence of that mass of childish fable and falsehood respecting the infancy and youth of Messiah, and the wonder-working power of the relics of the saints and martyrs which has brought the Christian religion into contempt. Not even the greatest and most pious teachers of the first five or six centuries are free from this leprosy;¹⁶ and if such characters as Ambrose, Hilary, Augustine, Gregory Nazianzen, and Jerome are not free from it, how much more may we expect to find it a vice with men of less reputation!

      The attempt to live in a state of celibacy gave rise to many scandals in the church. Ambitious of a peculiar sanctity, the clergy began to abstain from marriage, but not from the pleasures supposed to be peculiar to the married state. It became the custom for the priests to live with "sub-introduced women," who "passed as sisters of the priests, the correctness of whose taste was often exemplified by the remarkable beauty of their sinful partners."¹⁷ It is only fair to say that a law of Honorius condemned this practice, but it is to be feared that the only effect of the law upon those undertaking to live in the unnatural condition which celibacy imposes was merely to drive the practice from the public gaze.

      Of all the writers who have given us a description of the moral condition of the church in the period of which I write, I think Salvian, who wrote about the middle of the fifth century, is the most vivid, and hence I quote in part his arraignment:

      "The very church which should be the body to appease the anger of God, alas! what reigns there but disorders calculated to incense the Most High? It is more common to meet with Christians who are guilty of the greatest abominations than with those who are wholly exempt from crime. So that today it is a sort of sanctity among us to be less vicious than the generality of Christians. We insult the majesty of the Most High at the foot of his altars. Men, the most steeped in crime, enter the holy places without respect for them. True, all men ought to pay their vows to God, but why should they seek his temples to propitiate him, only to go forth to provoke him? Why enter the church to deplore their former sins, and upon going forth—what do I say?—in those very courts they commit fresh sins, their mouths and their hearts contradict one another. Their prayers are criminal meditations rather than vows of expiation. Scarcely is service ended before each returns to his old practices. Some go to their wine, others to their impurities, still others to robbing and brigandage, so that we cannot doubt that these things had been occupying them while they were in the church. Nor is it the lowest of the people who are thus guilty. There is no rank whatever in the church which does not commit all sorts of crimes.

      "It may be urged that we are better at heart than the barbarians who oppose us. Suppose this to be granted; we ought to be better than they. But as a matter of fact, they are more virtuous than we. The mass of Christians are below the barbarians in probity. True, all kinds of sins are found among them; but what one is not found among us? The several nations have their peculiar sin; the Saxons are cruel, the Franks perfidious; the Gepidae inhuman; the Huns lewd. But we, having the law of God to restrain us, are given over to all these offenses. Then, to confine ourselves to the single sin of swearing, can many be found among the faithful who have not the name of Jesus Christ constantly upon their lips in support of their perjuries? This practice coming down from the higher to the lower classes, has so prevailed that Christians might be deemed pagans. This, although the law of God expressly forbids to take his name in vain. We read this law; but we do not practice it; as a consequence the pagans taunt us that we boast ourselves the sole possessors of God's laws and of the rules of truth and of what that law enjoins. 'Christians, indeed, to the shame of Jesus Christ,' say they."¹⁸

      In book VI. on The Providence of God, Salvian continues his arraignment: "We rush from the churches to the theatres, even in the midst of our perils. In Carthage the theatres were thronged while the enemy were before the walls, and the cries of those perishing outside under the sword mingled with the shouts of the spectators in the circus. Nor are we better here in Gaul. Treves has been taken four times, and has only increased in wickedness under her misfortunes. The same state of things exists in Cologne—deplorable wickedness among young and old, low and high. The smaller cities have been blind and insensible to the dangers threatening, until they have overwhelmed them. It seems to be the destiny of the Roman empire to perish rather than reform; they must cease to be, in order to cease to be vicious. A part of the inhabitants of Treves, having escaped from the ruins, petitions the emperor for—what? A theatre, spectacles, public shows! A city which thrice overthrown could not correct itself, well deserved to suffer a fourth destruction. * * * Would that my voice might be heard by all Romans! I would cry: Let us all blush that today the only cities where impurity does not reign are those which have submitted to the barbarians. Think not, then, that they conquer and we yield by the simple force of nature. Rather let us admit that we succumb through dissoluteness of our morals, of which our calamities are the just punishment."

      The moral condition of the church did not improve in the sixth nor the seventh century. It kept getting worse and worse until in the tenth century those writers most interested in upholding the purity of the church declare that this was an iron age, barren of all goodness; a leaden age, abounding in all wickedness; and a dark age, remarkable for the scarcity of writers and men of learning. Christ is represented as in a very deep sleep, the ship as covered with waves, and there were no disciples who by their cries might wake him, being themselves asleep.¹⁹ "Infidel Malice," says Milner, "has with pleasure recorded the vices and crimes of the popes of this century. Nor is it my intention to attempt to palliate the account of their wickedness. It was as deep and atrocious as language can paint; nor can a reasonable man desire more authentic evidence of history than that which the records both of civil and ecclesiastical history afford concerning the corruption of the whole church."²⁰

      As already remarked, it is the contention of the Roman Catholic Church that from Peter to Leo XIII. there has been an uninterrupted line of bishops in the see of Rome who have held divine authority; who succeeded both to the divine authority and mission of St. Peter; with power to bind and loose on earth and in heaven; who were, in fact, the vicars of Christ on earth, presidents of the church universal.

      It now becomes my duty to refute that claim and give further proof of the complete apostasy of the church by СКАЧАТЬ