Today we will be looking together, God willing, at Chapter 6 of S.M. Molleton's work, Sketches from Church History, and we will be addressing a very important topic, and that is the rise of the papacy. Now, what I tend to find is that many Americans, in particular Christian Americans, are unclear as to where the papacy came from. It is something that suddenly appears. They read the Bible, and they see apostles, they see elders, they see deacons, they see a very simple church structure, dare I say a Presbyterian church structure. Incidentally, Presbyterianism comes from the word presbyter, and then The presbyter is an elder, and it refers to his age, because the idea was that when you were old, you were younger. This is the only generation that has thought that the younger are smarter than the older, and the people who have no life experience or wisdom are the best people to lead. isn't the case, but, you know, whatever. Moving on. So we see in church history the rise of this monumental church structure, and we see the rise of a hierarchy that we don't find in the Old or New Testaments. We see a pope, we see archbishops and cardinals, and all of these people with different ranks. We see a pyramid going up to the pope. in Western Christianity. Of course, in Eastern Christianity, eventually we're going to see a patriarch. But, in any event, as I said, we're going to be starting now with Chapter 6. So let's go ahead and get started with Chapter 6 of S. M. Haughton's Sketches from Church History, today looking at the rise of the papacy. Where did the structure of medieval Roman Catholicism come from? Before I get started, I'll begin with a word of prayer. God, our gracious Father, we ask now, Lord, that you would help us to understand and apply not just your word, Lord, but in this case the writings, uninspired but very helpful, of your servant S.M. Hawkins. Help us to understand how it is that medieval Christianity went wrong, the traditions that we imported, the structures that were not given in the Bible that were taken in. and help us, O Lord, ourselves not to be beguiled by tradition and not to hand over power to any person on earth as the head of the church. Lord, your church in past years, your people have been willing to die rather than say Caesar is Lord. They have also been willing to go to the gallows rather than say that the king was the head of the church. That was especially the case with the covenanters. We'll get to them eventually, but in the meantime I pray Lord that we would not call men here on earth father in the sense that Jesus forbids it. Let us not forget that he is the mediator between Amen. I'm God and he is the head here of the church on earth. Lord, help me now to read and to understand. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Reading now, Chapter 6, The Rise of the Papacy. One great law of the Kingdom of God is that He is greatest who serves best. He that is chief is as He that doth serve. Luke 22, 26. How difficult a lesson this is for all the followers of the Master Himself who said, I am among you as He that serveth. A most homely and expressive application of this lesson. was given by the Lord when He washed the disciples' feet just before the celebration of the Last Passover, with which we associate the institution of the Lord's Supper. In this chapter, we shall note how, contrary to the example and teaching of Christ, the spirit of selfishness and pride and seeking to be first began to show itself in the Church. Many Church officers wished to be regarded as great men, and finally the office of Pope was recognized, the Pope being the leader of leaders, the Supreme Father in the Church. The word Pope is but another form of the Latin word Papa, Father. The Christian Church of the New Testament knew only two permanent offices, that of the elder and that of the deacon. The elders were divided into two classes, those who served in preaching and teaching, and those who watched over the flock. The elders were also known as bishops, the word bishop meaning overseer, supervisor, or superintendent. But after a time, some bishops thought that they stood much higher in work and dignity than the other elders who, in their view, were an inferior class. This was entirely contrary to the words of the Lord. But be ye not called rabbi, for one is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon earth, for one is your father which is in heaven. That's Matthew 23.8. This of course does not refer to the use of father in family life, but to relationships in the Church of God. Now one of the things, and we'll see this, is that the way that the bishops, the men who thought that they were bishops and somebody of importance within the Church, These were inevitably the men, and S. M. Auden I'll make note of this, who were the leaders of larger cities. So therefore the Bishop of Rome thought that he was much more important than any of the presbyters in Rome, we should say. felt that they were much more important than the presbyters or elders in other cities that were smaller and of less importance in the worldly sense. Of course no city is less or more important, I'm sorry missional people, the city of Fayetteville is not less important than the city of Los Angeles and in God's eyes even though It is a less populous city. It is still the case that our worth in this world is not to be determined by the size of the city we live in or the size of the church that we are pastors over. That is a common misconception today. We can make fun of the medieval church for thinking that because your city was larger and therefore you were more important because of that, but forget that we treat men who have larger churches simply in terms of the number of members who come on a Sunday or are on the rolls as far more important than the pastors of smaller churches. So we too find ourselves falling prey to the same misunderstanding. Well, if a first step is taken on the declining path, a second one soon follows, and a third and a fourth with increasing speed. Thus the Church went down the path of decline with astounding rapidity. Soon the bishops in large cities who had charge of influential congregations exalted themselves above those in the less important churches and began to dictate to them. The bishops of Rome, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Ephesus, Corinth, and Constantinople considered themselves as possessors of the highest authority. They called themselves patriarchs, ruling fathers, and exercised a supreme power over other churches. It is only natural that among these patriarchs a struggle for preeminence arose. For years there was a bitter contest culminating in the strife between the patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople for the highest position in the Church at large. Constantine the Great, for a variety of reasons, had transferred the seat of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium on the Bosphorus. a narrow strait that separates Europe from Asia, and had renamed it after himself. After this, no emperor resided in Italy, and as years passed, the bishops of Rome seized the opportunity to amass power to themselves. Claims began to be made that the Apostle Peter had lived and labored at Rome for some 25 years. The New Testament knows nothing of this. There is no evidence that Peter was ever bishop of Rome, or that he was in that city for any length of time. although it is probable that he died there. But Rome prevailed over Constantinople, at least in the West. The Patriarch of Rome claimed the highest authority in the whole Church and declared himself the successor of Peter. The name Patriarch was changed to Pope early in the 6th century. One important Bishop of Rome was Innocent I, 402 AD, who made it a rule that no important decision must be taken by churches in the West without the knowledge and approval of the Bishop of Rome. Zosimus, the next Bishop of Rome, went a step further and said that no one had the right to question a decision taken by the Church of Rome. Leo I, Bishop of Rome for 21 years from 440, a man of great ability, strengthened Rome's hold on all Western churches. Another famous bishop was Gregory I, known as the Great, who was in power from 590 to 604. The emperors at Constantinople governed Italy by a man called the Exarch, who lived at Ravenna, a port on the Adriatic Sea well to the north of Rome. But his rule was weak, and when the Lombards pressed into Italy from the north, it was Gregory who took chief responsibility for defending Italy against the enemy. So then in matters temporal as well as in matters spiritual, he became very important. It was he, too, who appointed provincial bishops as his deputies or vicars. As a mark of their authority, he presented them with the paul or paulium, a coveted article of dress. Gregory also reformed church music so thoroughly that almost all the music of the Middle Ages was called by his name. You remember the Gregorian chant, which, interestingly enough, many New Agers love and and use it for meditation and so on. I do love Gregorian chants, obviously I don't use them for the same reason that New Agers use them. I don't believe that they're ... well, they're very difficult to sing, and thus using them in modern churches is probably a non-starter, but moving on. And even an event of great importance took place in the year 800 for Charlemagne, that is Charles the Great incidentally comes from the the Latin idea, Charles Magnus, Charles the Great, King of the Franks, who ruled much of the Western and Central Europe, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III in that year. The Western half of the old Roman Empire had been overwhelmed by the barbarians of Northeast and Eastern Europe in the 5th century. The revived empire, very dissimilar from the old, lasted at least in name until it was ended by Napoleon 1,000 years later. The coronation of Charles made the popes think they had the power and right to enthrone and depose monarchs at their will. Two famous documents, both of them forgeries, further assisted the growth of the power of the papacy. The so-called Donation of Constantine claimed that the emperor of that name, when he went to live at Byzantium, had granted the bishops of Rome very extensive rights in Italy, including the privilege of wearing a golden crown. Later documents called decretals, professing to be letters and decrees of bishops of Rome going back to apostolic days, exalted the powers of the church in general and assisted the bishops of Rome to establish their authority in both church and state. It should be noted that all of these documents claiming to be from Constantine and the Apostles and so on were forged. They were created later on in order specifically to give power to these people. They have no more worth or value than the Gnostic Gospels. and yet they were fundamental in establishing rights for the papacy that prevailed for thousands of years and to a certain extent are still present within the structure of the Church of Rome. The rivalry between the Popes of Rome and the Patriarchs of Constantinople finally resulted in the separation of the Eastern from the Western part of the Church. There always had been a difference in language, the East using the Greek, the West the Latin language, but there also sprang up differences in doctrine. The most important of these concerned the Holy Spirit, for the Greek Church asserted that he proceeds from the Father alone, whereas the Roman Church rightly teaches that he proceeds from the Father and the Son. This was incidentally called the Filioque clause, and the sun, the Eastern Orthodox to this day are still enraged by the idea that you could say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the sun. But attempts to prevent division failed, and in 1053 the breach between the two churches became final. Since that date, the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church have existed independently of each other, yet in most respects they are very much alike. but not only in the exaltation of church dignitaries were the signs of apostasy visible. In the form and practice of private church worship, the difference between what we find in the New Testament and what was observable in the churches of both East and West was amazingly great. Magnificent church buildings were erected, the Sophia Church at Constantinople being the finest of them all. That is the Hagia Sophia that is today, of course, the Blue Mosque. One point of difference also that's worth remarking, and it's also a point of great tension and help to speed the break between the Western and the Eastern churches, that is, the break between what was to become Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, and that was the date of various festivals. They disagreed on when Easter should be held, when Christmas should be held, when all of these lesser feast times, Epiphany and so on, should be held. And one of the problems that they had was, of course, there's very little or no biblical data as to when those feasts should be, quote, observed. The fact is they shouldn't be observed at all. They were things that were invented by men and forced upon the Church as liturgical observances, but they have no basis whatsoever in Scripture. So essentially you're arguing over when my tradition is better. No, my tradition is better, going back and forth like that. when in fact the problem is your traditions generally. Jesus never told us we should observe his birthday. Jesus never said that there was one Sunday that was to be set apart, especially as a memorial to the resurrection. In fact every Sunday is supposed to be a memorial to Christ rising again. That's why we meet on Sunday. The Lord's Day is a memorial to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's when we begin to accord special importance to particular days of the year that aren't accorded special importance within the New Testament that we begin to make serious errors. And of course Satan was able to use that to sow schism, discord, and division within the Church. Sad, isn't it? But there we go. Since that date the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church have existed independently of each other, yet in most respects they are very much alike. Not only in the exaltation of church dignitaries with the signs of apostasy visible and the form and practice of public worship, the difference between what we find in the New Testament and what was observable in the churches of both East and West was amazingly great. Magnificent church buildings were erected, the Sophia Church at Constantinople being the finest of them all. These buildings were lavishly furnished. in harmony with a gold-covered throne for the bishop or patriarch. They were normally divided into three parts, one for the catechumens, that is candidates for baptism or minors, one for the laity, the mass of the congregation not holding church office, and a third for the bishop and lesser church officers. The bishop appeared in public worship in ornate and expensive apparel consisting of a pure white garment or cloak over which a brightly colored tunic or robe, everything pointed to outward show and inward emptiness. It was a period of pomp and pride, of sounding brass and tinkling cymbals without spiritual reality. Just to make a point here, The dress obviously, and I think the Roman Catholic Church admits this, of the apostles in worship was very simple. They wore their street clothes and garb. One of the things that we saw in the Reformation was that the teachers of the church, men like Calvin and Luther, began to wear their normal apparel in the pulpit. Now they were doctors of divinity and they would teach their classes wearing the robe of a Doctor of Divinity, that black robe that came to be known as the Geneva gown. So they would wear that in the pulpit because that was their ordinary work dress. People were scandalized by that. It is interesting though that the Geneva gown was black and rather simple. We tend to find that when men are moving towards high church liturgy and things like that, what they will do is they begin to put on those white robes as well. A friend of mine who was attending a church that was becoming Anglo-Catholic, that is, It was supposedly a Presbyterian church but trending towards Episcopal church order and Roman Catholic traditions and rites. He said he knew things were going wrong when the pastor took off the Geneva gown that he had previously worn and began wearing a white robe and then gradually began adding more and more things to that white robe until he was wearing basically the vestments of a Roman Catholic or an Episcopal priest, but at the same time proclaiming that he was a Presbyterian in any event. The simplicity of worship is a critical mark, well, not a mark of the true Church, but it's a critical thing to maintaining biblical orthodoxy, believe it or not. So, another sign of apostasy was the praying to saints and worship of images. It originated in the fallen way. The memory of the martyrs who had suffered cruel deaths under Roman emperors lived vividly in the minds of the people. The stories of their lives and deaths were read and reread. This might indeed have been very beneficial, but when the graves of these heroes were visited, memorial services were held, churches were named after them, and even in the days of Augustine, people began to invoke deceased saints. Not only the martyrs, but famous bishops were idolized. Mary, the mother of Jesus, blessed among women, was unduly exalted, and the time came when she was looked upon as the queen of heaven, and worship was paid to her. Images were placed in the churches. At first they were found only in the homes of the people, but in the fourth or fifth century they were also placed in church buildings." Now a word on that. If you talk to Roman Catholic authorities and you say, that men and women are bowing down before images of saints, ordinary people, and they're praying to them. The answer that they will typically give you is, well, no, you see they're venerating them, they're not actually worshiping them. But the problem is, the average Roman Catholic laity doesn't see the distinction between Dulia and Latria, the two Roman words for those particular practices. Now from their perspective they are praying to this person and then they're expecting that person to have influence over God. So you pray to Mary and the supposition is that Mary, the mother of Christ, because she's his mother or was his earthly mother, can now take your prayers and say, my son, this person has asked for your help and I'm asking you now, will you please intercede for them? What the Word of God tells us, though, is we don't need any mediators between us and Jesus. We can pray directly to Jesus, and we should be. There's no cause to bow down before the images, or the supposed images, of saints, or certainly to bow and scrape before their relics, that is, bits and pieces of the same. became very common in medieval Roman Catholicism, for them to take the bones of saints, or the clothing of saints, supposedly, and to bring them to churches, and then to ascribe miracles to them. People who had been paralyzed had gone to this church that contained a fragment of the fingernail of Joseph of Arimathea, and they had prayed before it, and and boom they had been cured of their paralysis or their eczema or whatever it was that they'd gone to be cured of. This is not biblical. Clearly it's superstition, it's paganism really, but it was imported more and more into the Church. After this was, I'm sorry, all this was contrary to true Christian doctrine. From the teaching of the New Testament, we find nothing of superiors and inferiors in the Church of God. Peter himself tells us that all the people of the Lord belong to a royal priesthood, an holy nation, that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. That's 1 Peter 2, 9. Preachers, elders, deacons, church members without office are all alike, and although there are differences among them because of their work and service, the differences do not affect their oneness in Christ. We shall explain later how Popes claimed and exercised powers which rendered them lords over God's heritage, not in samples to the Church, but little, if at all, different from territorial kings and princes. Before the Middle Ages ended, popes and rival popes clashed with one another. At one time, three popes hurled their curses at their rivals, and when the 16th century Reformation got underway, we find the first English Protestant archbishop saying, as he was about to be burned at the stake, as for the pope, I refuse him as Christ's enemy and Antichrist with all his false doctrines. Cogent word, indeed.