Dark Freedom: The Rise of Western Lawlessness - Chapter Seven

Dark Freedom: The Rise of Western Lawlessness - Chapter Seven

by C.W. Steinle
Copyright 2015 by C.W. Steinle

Copyrighted material.  All rights reserved.  No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise - without written permission from the publisher.  This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to purchase this book or share with another person, please purchase a copy for each reader from any online bookseller.  Visit Dark-Freedom.com for purchase details or: http://darkfreedombook.com/

Part II - The Legacy of the Manmade Church
The Renaissance of Classical Philosophy

The two prior chapters recounted the oppression of Europe by Church leaders who were not honest or humble enough to admit that they had ceased from following Christ.  Taking advantage of that Name above all names, they wore it as cloak for vice.  The papacy profaned that precious Name in exchange for worldly pleasures.  The people were compelled to make sense of this spiritual tragedy by drawing three general conclusions; that God is not able, that the Church must be reformed, or that a false Church had arisen and needed to be replaced by a revived Early Church.  (This third reaction bears similarities to the attitude of today's Emergent Church.)

Christians were left with the quandary of what to make of a Church which had obviously and inexcusably fallen into sin.  They were forced to answer the sensitive question of; "What constitutes the true Church?"  Obviously God, His Christ, and His Spirit could not have failed.  Christ said the gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church.  Reformers, like Martin Luther, affirmed that the Roman Church was part of the Universal Church, but that its leadership and practices had missed the mark.  Other groups, such as the Anabaptists, rejected Rome as a false Church.  But all of the major Reformers made a distinction between the masses who attend church and those individuals who have genuinely surrendered to Christ.  This distinction was necessary in order to maintain that the Catholic Church was the continuing Church of Christ; and at the same time, to account for souls in that Church, including its leaders, who had lived like they were sons of the devil.

Because the unfolding of the mystery of lawlessness is our chief interest, this chapter will cover the social and political thought of the late Middle Ages through the Renaissance.  During this period most people were still grounded in the Christian faith, whereas during the Enlightenment many began to fall into Deism.  We will continue to draw on the research and commentary of Philip Schaff through this third chapter of Church History.

The turn of the first millennium without the return of the Lord, along with the unsettling corruption of the Church, gave rise to a movement called Scholasticism.  The schoolmen began to make an extensive study of the sea of writings by the Church Fathers in order to solidify the doctrines of the faith.  The Bible became one of many sources used in this search for truth; thus, the writings of the Fathers were canonized and set on a par with the Scriptures.  Writings from outside the church were also included in scholars' libraries. These included classical Latin and Greek texts.  During the first millennium these writings were mostly banned because they promoted worldly wisdom and pagan morality.

The ban, which had been placed by the Church upon the study of the classic authors of antiquity and ancient institutions, palsied polite research and reading for a thousand years.  Even before Jerome, whose mind had been disciplined in the study of the classics, at last pronounced them unfit for the eye of a Christian, Tertullian's attitude was not favorable.  Cassian followed Jerome; and Alcuin, the chief scholar of the 9th century, turned away from Virgil as a collection of lying fables.⁷⁴

At first the schoolmen sided with the papal claims that the apostolic see held authority over the Church and the State.  But the northern nations of the Holy Roman Empire began to look to the classics of antiquity as reasonable alternatives to the violence and chaos caused by a Church which had been high-jacked by the selfish desires of fallen men.  The philosophies of men held the promise of a system that might better the human condition.  This study of the Humanities was even embraced by the churchmen.  People began to reason that God was in control of the spiritual realm, but man was the proprietor over the material realm, and should do whatever he could to make his world a better place.  Soon the Humanists began to estimate the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle to be equal, or even above, Christian ideology.  Thomas Aquinas studied Aristotle and incorporated some of Aristotle's philosophy into his theological catalog, the Summa Theologica.⁷⁵

Figure 6 - Celestial Orbs in the Latin Middle Ages⁷⁶

The scheme of the aforementioned division of spheres. · The empyrean (fiery) heaven, dwelling of God and of all the selected · 10 Tenth heaven, first cause · 9 Ninth heaven, crystalline · 8 Eighth heaven of the firmament · 7 Heaven of Saturn · 6 Jupiter · 5 Mars · 4 Sun · 3 Venus · 2 Mercury · 1 Moon

The image above depicts the medieval concept of the universe according to the scheme of Aristotle.  It was believed that the "Primu Mobile" (outer sphere) had its own consciousness, "nous", or Divine Mind; a concept tied to Plato's belief in the Demiurge and the World Soul.  The second book of Dante's Convivio describes the Ptolemaic universe.

"Outside all of these [orbs] the Catholics place the Empyrean heaven, which is to say, "the heaven of flame," or "luminous heaven"; and they hold it to be motionless because it has in itself, with respect to each of its parts, that which its matter desires.  This is why the Primum Mobile has the swiftest movement; for because of the most fervent desire that each part of the ninth heaven has to be conjoined with every part of that divinest, tranquil heaven, to which it is contiguous, it revolves beneath it with such desire that its velocity is almost incomprehensible.  Stillness and peace are the qualities of the place of that Supreme Deity which alone completely beholds itself.  This is the place of the blessed spirits, according to the will of the Holy Church, which cannot lie.  Aristotle, to anyone who rightly understands him, seems to hold the same opinion in the first book of Heaven and the World [i.e. De caelo].  This is the supreme edifice of the universe in which all the world is enclosed and beyond which there is nothing; it is not itself in space but was formed solely in the Primal Mind, which the Greeks call Protonoe.  This is that magnificence of which the Psalmist spoke when he says to God: "Your magnificence is exalted above the heavens."⁷⁷

He begins by citing "the Catholics," or orthodox belief, as authority for his account of this "abode of the supreme deity," but then goes on to treat the Empyrean as a created thing, "formed in the Primal Mind," and as the motionless cause of motion in the physical universe. If God dwells in this place, the Empyrean resides equally in Him, and the universe at large is encompassed, causally and locally, by the Empyrean. Dante deploys the Aristotelian physics of desire to explain the relationship of the Empyrean to the lesser heavens, yet it is at the same time beyond space, a wholly spiritual realm where blessed spirits participate in the divine mind. Dante seems to emphasize this double status by mingling theological and philosophical language, and invoking Aristotle and the neo-Platonists side by side with the poet of the Psalms.⁷⁸

The failure of religion's rule over the civil governments of Europe drove the people to contemplate other forms of government.  Through their rediscovery of Classical philosophy they were awakened to the thought that man could design his own ideal society.  Plato's The Republic provided a basic examination of various types of government.

During his life in Athens, Plato witnessed the fall of democracy and the installation of a tyrannical government.  In his Republic, Plato made a critique of various political structures.  Plato believed democracy to be the most unfavorable form of government.  He viewed democracy a great experiment that ended badly.  He concluded that it amounted to anarchy and resulted in slavery.  Athens was the first known attempt by a society to allow the crowd to rule themselves.

Just prior to 500 B.C. Athens became the first democracy in history.  The people had expelled a series of tyrants and established a popular assembly.  The other city-states mistrusted the Athenians and their aberrant form of government, and Athens gave the others additional cause for concern:  Following the expulsion of the Persians from Greece and, soon afterward, from some Greek cities of Asia Minor, Athens founded the Athenian League, a confederation of Greek cities around the Aegean Sea.⁷⁹  

Recall from Chapter Four that Plato's idea of Justice was an equity or balance between competing elements.  Plato proposed an ideal society with three types of citizens: rulers, auxiliaries, and producers.  Plato's three parts of the human soul were coincidental to his three types of citizens.  The rulers are men whose rational part holds mastery over the other parts of their soul.  The auxiliaries are men driven by their spirit of honor.  And the producers are people who are slaves to their appetites.   Plato says that these characteristics should be recognized in children so that they might be trained in the area for which they are naturally qualified.  Plato's proposed perfect state is, of course, ruled by a philosopher-king.

Plato identified five types of government: tyranny, timocracy, aristocracy, oligarchy, and democracy.  Tyranny is imposed government, established by the tyrant or by an outside party.  A timocracy is a government in which the right to rule is based on the value of the individual in terms of their ability to produce revenue for the community.  An aristocracy is governed by the most qualified members of society - such as the philosophers.  Plato said that a democracy occurs when an oligarchy breaks down and the lowest class, which is driven by immediate gratification, takes control.  The democratic man is obsessed with unnecessary desires and is disorderly.  Because they lack the intellect of the Philosopher, and the Auxiliary's sense of honor, the public will desire to do whatever they want, whenever they please - leading the society to become the slaves to their appetites.

Plato was not eclectic in his disgust with the democratic man. (This explains why democracy was not perceived as a desirable form of government for two thousand years after the Athenian experiment.)  The reason for western civilization to have changed its view can be explained quite simply.  Throughout history, until the Renaissance, the community was perceived as meriting the greatest importance.  People were given recognition by their community based upon how well they could work within that community toward the survival and benefit of society as a whole.  Not until the latter years of the Renaissance did individualism emerge.  It is an interesting observation that this inward focus set the stage for the rise of Deism and Atheism.

The overbearing government by the Roman Catholic Church resulted in the same reaction that Israel had as they fled from the oppression of Rehoboam: "Each of you to your own tent, O Israel!"- II Chron. 10:16 Going to one’s own tent implied more than a redirection of allegiance to a different government.  It expressed a desire by Israel to return to the days before Saul; a regret that they had ever asked for a king.  Individualism was the natural reaction of the people to Rome's unreasonable micromanagement of the Empire.  But the Europeans were accustomed to kings, so their first response was to free their individual nations from the yoke of Rome.

We will now trace the history of reform over time and throughout Europe in order to follow the changes in prevailing attitudes concerning authority and the law.  Pay close attention to the struggle to resolve these two dichotomies: the authority of the Bible vs. the authority of the Church; and, human authority vs. the conviction of conscience.

Those who were closest to Rome were unable to ignore the problems caused by her meddling in worldly affairs.  Italy bore the greatest exposure in the fight between the popes and the kings for control over the Empire.  Consequently, Florence became the incubator of the Renaissance.  Dante Alighieri was born in the mid-thirteenth century and was caught in the midst of these controversies.   The Florentines became divided over the issue of dominance by the Holy Roman Empire, which at that time was controlled by Philip IV of France.  Dante sided with the party who wanted more independence from The Roman Empire, which eventually resulted in his banishment from Florence.  In his work, The Monarchia,⁸⁰ Dante said that civil and religious authority should be separated.  He believed in the necessity of a potentate with enough authority to keep peace and maintain order.  This organization of society, Dante insisted, was necessary for civilization to thrive.  The happiness of individuals can only be achieved as the greater community is enriched.  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy offers the following commentary.

The Monarchia is in its own way as idiosyncratic as the Convivio. Its purpose, foreshadowed in the discussion of empire in Convivio IV, is to demonstrate the necessity of a single ruling power, reverent toward but independent of the Church, capable of ordering the will of collective humanity in peace and concord. Under such a power the potential intellect of humanity can be fully actuated—the intellect, that is, of collective humanity, existent throughout the world, acting as one. For just as a multitude of species must continually be generated to actualize the full potentiality of prime matter, so the full intellectual capacity of humanity cannot be realized at one time nor in a single individual [Mon. 1.3.3–8]. Here Dante adds his own further particularization of this Aristotelian doctrine [De Anima 3.5, 430a10–15], asserting that no single household, community, or city can bring it to realization. The ordering of the collective human will to the goal of realizing its intellectual potential requires universal peace [1.4], and this in turn requires a single ordering power through whose authority humanity may achieve unity and so realize the intention and likeness of God [1.8].   The basis of this argument for empire is evidently the first sentence of the Prologue to Thomas' literal commentary on the Metaphysics, where he declares that when several things are ordered to a single end, one of them must govern, "as the Philosopher teaches in his Politics" [Thomas, Exp. Metaph., Proemium; Aristotle, Politics 1.5, 1254a-55a.]

The second of the Monarchia's three books deals with the great example of Rome, describing the city's providential role in world history, largely by way of citations from Roman literature aimed at demonstrating the consistent dedication of Roman power to the public good, and the conformity of Roman imperium with the order of nature and the will of God. The third book deals with the crucial issue of the relationship between political and ecclesiastical authority. Dante argues on various grounds that power in the temporal realm is neither derived from nor dependent on spiritual authority, though it benefits from the power of the Papacy to bless its activity. These arguments consist largely in refutations of traditional claims for the temporal authority of the Papacy, but the final chapter makes the argument on positive grounds. Since man consists of soul and body, his nature partakes of both the corruptible and the incorruptible. Uniting two natures, his existence must necessarily be ordered to the goals of both these natures [Mon. 3.16.7–9]:

Ineffable providence has thus set before us two goals to aim at: i.e. happiness in this life, which consists in the exercise of our own powers and is figured in the earthly paradise; and happiness in the eternal life, which consists in the enjoyment of the vision of God (to which our own powers cannot raise us except with the help of God's light) and which is signified by the heavenly paradise. Now these two kinds of happiness must be reached by different means, as representing different ends. For we attain the first through the teachings of philosophy, provided that we follow them putting into practice the moral and intellectual virtues; whereas we attain the second through spiritual teachings which transcend human reason, provided that we follow them putting into practice the theological virtues, i.e. faith, hope, and charity. These ends and the means to attain them have been shown to us on the one hand by human reason, which has been entirely revealed to us by the philosophers, and on the other by the Holy Spirit . . .

This is Dante's most explicit, uncompromising claim for the autonomy of reason, reinforced by the entire world-historical argument of the Monarchia and constituting its final justification for world empire. Dante here goes well beyond Augustine's sense of the stabilizing function of empire, and eliminates any hint of the anti-Roman emphasis in Augustine's separation of the earthly and heavenly cities. In the final sentences of the Monarchia the temporal monarch becomes, like the aspiring intellect of the Convivio, the uniquely privileged beneficiary of a divine bounty which, "without any intermediary, descends into him from the Fountainhead of universal authority" [Mon. 3.16.15]. Like the Averroistic reasoning of his earlier claim that only under a world empire can humanity realize its intellectual destiny, this crowning claim shows Dante appropriating Aristotle to the service of a unique and almost desperate vision of empire as a redemptive force. But whether we consider the world view of the Monarchia an aberration [D'Entreves, 51] or take it as Dante's straightforward exposition of his views on the relations of secular and religious authority, its categorical definition of the twofold purpose of human life is impossible to explain away. In the Paradiso [8.115–17] as in the Monarchia, to be a "citizen" is essential to human happiness, and the idea of an imperial authority independent of papal control remained fundamental to his political thought.⁸¹

Shortly after Dante, another advocate for civil independence arose from the western shores of the Empire.  Just as the remoteness of Rome from the center of Christianity had allowed her to rebel against Constantinople, so England's distance from Rome provided her with the leeway to be the last to submit, and among the first to be stirred by the spirit of freedom.  John Wycliffe has been called the Morningstar of the Reformation.  He is often remembered as a Bible translator, but his greatest impact on Europe during his lifetime was made by his political boldness in contesting against Rome's far reaching tentacles.  Wycliffe's opinion that authority must be questioned or rejected if it acts wickedly, was boldly declared by his words, "There is no moral obligation to pay tax or tithe to bad rulers either in Church or state.  It is permitted to punish or depose them and to reclaim the wealth which the clergy have diverted from the poor."⁸²

In the summer of 1374, Wycliffe went to Bruges as a member of the commission appointed by the king to negotiate peace with France and to treat with the pope's agents on the filling of ecclesiastical appointments in England.  His name was second in the list of commissioners, following the name of the bishop of Bangor.  At Bruges we find him for the first time in close association with John of Gaunt, Edward's favorite son, an association which continued for several years, and for a time inured to his protection from ecclesiastical violence.

On his return to England, he began to speak as a religious reformer.  He preached in Oxford and London against the pope's secular sovereignty, running about, as the old chronicler has it, from place to place, and barking against the Church.  It was soon after this that, in one of his tracts, he styled the bishop of Rome "the anti-Christ, the proud, worldly priest of Rome, and the most cursed of clippers and cut-purses."  He maintained that he "has no more power in binding and loosing than any priest, and that the temporal lords may seize the possessions of the clergy if pressed by necessity."⁸³

With the year 1378 Wycliffe's distinctive career as a doctrinal reformer opens.  He had defended English rights against foreign encroachment.  He now assailed, at a number of points, the theological structure the Schoolmen and mediaeval popes had laboriously reared, and the abuses that had crept into the Church.  The spectacle of Christendom divided by two papal courts, each fulminating anathema against the other, was enough to shake confidence in the divine origin of the papacy.  In sermons, tracts and larger writings, Wycliffe brought Scripture and common sense to bear. . . . As Luther is the most vigorous tract writer that Germany has produced, so Wycliffe is the foremost religious pamphleteer that has arisen in England; . . . .⁸⁴ 

It was in 1381, the year before Courtenay said his memorable words, that Walden reports that Wycliffe "began to determine matters upon the sacrament of the altar."  To attempt an innovation at this crucial point required courage of the highest order.  In 12 theses he declared the Church's doctrine unscriptural and misleading.  For the first time since the promulgation of the dogma of transubstantiation by the Fourth Lateran was it seriously called in question by a theological expert.⁸⁵

Wycliffe also became aware of the importance of distinguishing between man's philosophy and the truth of God's Word.  According to Schaff, Wycliffe confessed that in his earlier years he had leaned on the classical systems instead of fully relying on the Bible.  John Wycliffe was one of the first politically active Christians to realize that the problem of government should not be solved through the application of pagan principles.

As for the philosophy of the pagan world, whatever it offers that is in accord with the Scriptures is true.  The religious philosophy which the Christian learns from Aristotle he learns because it was taught by the authors of Scripture.  The Greek thinker made mistakes, as when he asserted that creation is eternal.  In several places Wycliffe confesses that he himself had at one time been led astray by logic and the desire to win fame, but was thankful to God that he had been converted to the full acceptance of the Scriptures as they are and to find in them all logic.⁸⁶

While it is not our intent to cover the history and theology of entire Protestant Movement, it is worth noting why Wycliffe has been called the Morningstar of the Reformation.  Although Wycliffe's writings were banned in England, they made their way into the hands of one of his European contemporaries, John Hus of Bohemia.  Hus translated Wycliffe's writings into Czech and read them from the pulpit.  The Czech nation was the first to reject the Christianity taught by Rome, and to form its own doctrines.  The Bohemian Movement was condemned by the papacy and Hus was burned at the stake.  But the Bohemian Kingdom withstood a series of papal crusades against it and was eventually left to practice its faith as Hussites.   Hus' primary grievances with Rome were over the sale of indulgences and the teaching of transubstantiation.  Thus, Wycliffe's teachings had gained acceptance in Northern Europe long before Luther.  And the Czechs' tenacity also set a precedent that would allow Martin Luther and his nation the ability to defy Rome.

Back in Florence the European Morningstar, Girolamo Savonarola, began around 1490 to condemn the immorality and greed of the province.  He became politically active when the ruling family of the Medici was expelled.  Savonarola spoke out publically against Pope Alexander VI until he was banned from speaking in public.  But he continued to speak out in spite of the ban.  After he was excommunicated he continued to call for reform until at last he was burned at the stake in 1498.  After the Medici family was restored to power, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote the political handbook, The Prince.⁸⁷ Like his predecessor Dante, Machiavelli was convinced of the benefit of a local authoritative ruler who could defend the province from the dictates of the Empire.

These early responses to the Church's dominance were aimed at establishing even stronger local magistrates who could defend their own territories from the political struggle between the papacy and the kings of Europe.  Because of Europe's faith at this time, they still believed their civil authorities were under God's control.

Wycliffe's call for a national response to reject a corrupted clergy was eventually consummated in the Peace of Westphalia, which dissolved the Holy Roman Empire; thus allowing the sovereign nations of Europe to regain their autonomy.  But first the spiritual monopoly of the Roman Catholic Church had to be broken so that the nations might object to the papacy without the fear of eternal condemnation.  The authority question during the Protestant Reformation will be examined in the next chapter.

The Renaissance was merely the revival of the Humanities.  Not until the Enlightenment did Humanism emerge in its present form.  Platonism and Neo-Platonism were interwoven with Scholasticism during the Renaissance in the hopes that mankind might lay hold of the mysteries of God by using the tools of the Ancient Greeks.  The Church had opened itself up to the doctrines of men when it granted the weight of Scriptures to oral traditions and the writings of the Church Fathers.

The Greek and Latin philosophers, as Paul put it, were merely groping that they might find God.  Yet their murky visions were accepted by the Schoolmen as if they had already found Him.  In their foolishness these Christian theologians opened the door to the belief that all of the nations worship the same God.  The Church sought to gain a clearer understanding of God by merging the Gentiles' darkened image of God with the Bible's revelation of God.  Instead, they further contaminated and diluted the Church's knowledge of God.  Furthermore, the writings of the Fathers and scholars remain bound within the Latin concepts of God to this day.  The God of the Bible is the Creator of all men.  But He has chosen to reveal Himself through the Jews.  God is not the god that all nations worship.  This false doctrine of Universalism is a growing pestilence that is leading the unsaved down the road with those who are the enemies of the cross of Christ.

"Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power." – Col. 2:8-10

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Dark Freedom: The Rise of Western Lawlessness - Chapter Five

Dark Freedom: The Rise of Western Lawlessness - Chapter Five

by C.W. Steinle
Copyright 2015 by C.W. Steinle

Copyrighted material.  All rights reserved.  No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise - without written permission from the publisher.  This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people.  If you would like to purchase this book or share with another person, please purchase a copy for each reader from any online bookseller.  Visit Dark-Freedom.com for purchase details or: http://darkfreedombook.com/

Part II - The Legacy of the Manmade Church  

The Unorthodox Kingdoms of Rome and Constantinople

As we continue to unearth the foundations of the present state of lawlessness it is necessary to understand the catastrophic failure of the Western Church, a failure which was sufficient to precipitate the Reformation.  Actions have their equal and opposite reaction.  Protestants are generally well enough aware of Rome's deficiencies in order to justify the existence of their own denomination.  What is rarely acknowledged is the damage inflicted on the world outside the Church.  And the world also reacted with its own equitable opposition.  The alternatives to authoritative government and the revival of the Humanities during the Renaissance can be greatly attributed to the atrocious conduct of the Church Militant.

Before reviewing the period from the Apologetic Age to the Middle Ages we must take care to acknowledge that the Church Triumph has prevailed, and will prevail, regardless of man's blunders.  Later chapters of this book will further identify Christ's Church and biblical Christianity.  But as the Nation of Israel has foreshadowed the Israel of God under the new covenant, the same application can be made that Paul made of Israel when he said that not all who were of Israel were actually Israel.  "For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, "In Isaac your seed shall be called."  That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed." – Rom. 9:6b-8

It is critical, then, that we make the same distinction concerning the Church.  Within the institutional Church there are some members who have faith in God and His Son.  There are some members who do not have faith, but who belong to the Church as one would belong to a club or society.  Paul states in his Second Letter to Timothy: "Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are His,’ and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.’  But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor." - II Tim. 2:19-20   In this illustration let us assume that the Church is that "great house."  God knows those who have faith and are truly His.
The second part of the "seal" mentioned in these verses begins with "Let," which is a directive and not a fact.  This brings us to a secondary division of members.  Both the faithful members and the faithless members of the Church are capable of sin, the former because of weakness, the latter because they remain under the bondage of sin.  Next Paul encourages the faithful to walk according to their high calling so that they might live honorably.  "Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work." – II Tim. 2:21 As we examine the iniquity of those in high office we must remember that only the Lord knows whether these individuals' names have been written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
The world is not able to make these distinctions.  Those outside the Church were given the impression that Christ's Church had failed.  But Christ's true Church has not failed.  Only sinful men have failed.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ's true Church cannot fail, and will never fail.  Christ will faithfully shepherd His remnant of followers to the end of the age no matter how wildly Christian leaders might stray.  Neither false doctrines nor false prophets will defeat Christ's Church.  Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on!⁴³

The word "orthodoxy" means "correct belief."  As we learned in earlier chapters, biblical Orthodox Judaism was already under siege by the doctrines of men in the pre-Christian era.  This chapter and the next are not so much focused on orthodoxy, but on orthopraxy - that is, the practices of the Church and the conduct of the clergy.  The Church has always struggled against, and in some ways comingled with, the ways of the world in which it abides.  But the Early Church did not aspire to be all things to all people as many of today's seeker-friendly fellowships.  The Church's issues in the first centuries had more to do with its tendency to emulate the world's ways.  In their humanity, and according to the prevalent customs of prestige of office, Church leaders sought the succession of apostolic power without the succession of Christ's humility.  Paul paints a proper picture of Christian leadership to the Corinthian Church:

"For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men.  We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ!  We are weak, but you are strong!  You are distinguished, but we are dishonored!  To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless.  And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat.  We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now." - I Cor. 4:9-13

The waywardness of the Western Church has of course had more of an impact on the lawlessness of western culture than the Eastern Church, and therefore will receive the most attention in these chapters.  But some of the problems with the Byzantine Church are covered as well so that it might be understood that no human church is perfect.  Before we look at these two institutional kingdoms, their corruption, and their strife with one another, we will recount their common departure from the simplicity of the apostolic churches.  The History of the Christian Church by Philip Schaff is quoted extensively in this chapter and the next two chapters of Part II.  Schaff's exhaustive eight volume work may be accessed online at: http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/About.htm.⁴⁴

For at least the first centuries of the church, elders were appointed to oversee the individual congregations.  According to the Didache⁴⁵ (an account of Early Church liturgy at the end of the first century), church services consisted of: worship, reading from the gospels, communion, and a free exhortation - provided a qualified teacher was present.  Each of the churches was independent, apart from their common belief in Christ.  After the Age of the Apostles, some strife began to arise over who should appoint the elders.  This was the chief issue which Clement of Rome addressed in his letter to the Corinthians known as First Clement.⁴⁶  It was the firm conviction of Clement and Ignatius that congregants should submit to those who had been appointed by the Apostles, or had been appointed the Apostles' appointees.  By the time of Irenaeus of Lyons, this tradition was known as the principle of apostolic succession.

In the first centuries after Christ, cities that were established and visited by the Apostles were given special honor.  These included Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, Corinth, and Ephesus.  Because of the Apostle's faithfulness in carrying out the great commission, the Christian Church expanded rapidly.  By the end of the second century the church leaders in the larger cities began to be elevated above the leaders of rural churches, as though they were more capable and authoritative than the leaders of the smaller country churches.  Soon the city churches assumed an implied authority over the country churches, thereby overriding, to some extent, the significance of direct apostolic appointment.  Until this time, each church leader was the overseer of his own congregation.  In order to clarify the presumed authority of the city overseers to oversee the surrounding smaller fellowships, a distinction in nomenclature had to be made.  The title of "overseer" was retained by the city pastors and the smaller church pastors were given the title of priests.  The common English title of "bishop" is derived from the Old English words for priest or overseer, "bisceop" or "biscop."  Instead of having oversight of a congregation, the city overseer became the overseer of the area of his authority - his "see."  In the Eastern Church the dominance of the city overseers was more obviously designated by the title of "metropolitan."

Ten waves of persecution in various sectors of the Empire had not been able to stifle the Church.  After nearly three hundred years of expansion, the Christian population of the eastern half of the Roman Empire had to be recognized by the state.  Although the Apostles had carried Christianity to the extremities of the known world, the Eastern Mediterranean continued to be the center of Christianity for the first five centuries.  Below are two maps showing the churches mentioned in the Bible and the churches attending the Nicene Council.

Figure 4 - Apostolic Churches of the Bible⁴⁷

Figure 5 - Churches Attending Council of Nicaea, 325 A.D.⁴⁸

The Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. legalized Christianity.  At the same time, Constantine, who had won the title of Emperor under the banner of Christ, began to undertake the standardization of Christian doctrine.  The Council of Nicaea was held near Constantinople to formalize doctrine and to identify heresies.  Thus, Constantine brought the Church under the wings of the Eastern Roman Empire which, at that time, was still the center of Christianity.  But the old ruling families of Rome and their wealth remained in Italy.  By 380 A.D., Theodosius made Christianity the Empire's official religion.

It should be noted that most religions throughout history have been state-supported.  Israel, and the nations surrounding Israel, built temples for worship.  The ruins of the temples built by Greece and Rome still stand throughout the Mediterranean as monuments to the ancient tradition of state sponsorship.  The modern State of Israel was established to be a Jewish nation, and, appropriately, neighborhood synagogues have been provided by the government.  Only in America has a popular religion been denied the support of the government.  The denial of state support for the popular faith implies an underlying distrust in the goodness of that faith.  America's arrangement can be directly linked to the Roman Catholic Church's attempt to take over the governments of Europe; a saga so unpleasant that the American founding fathers determined it would not be allowed to happen in the New World.

In the fourth century, the popular religion had never been separated from any state; therefore, the Christian Church had no reason to think that support by the state would be in any way detrimental.  Protection by the state was certainly a comforting alternative to the persecution that the church had endured during the three prior centuries.  But the Church's fusion with the Empire did have its undesirable consequences.

These evil results may be summed up under the general designation of the secularization of the church.  By taking in the whole population of the Roman Empire the church became, indeed, a church of the masses, a church of the people, but at the same time more or less a church of the world.  Christianity became a matter of fashion.  The number of hypocrites and formal professors rapidly increased; a strict discipline, zeal, self-sacrifice, and brotherly love proportionally ebbed away; and many heathen customs and usages, under altered names, crept into the worship of God and the life of the Christian people.  The Roman state had grown up under the influence of idolatry, and was not to be magically transformed at a stroke.  With the secularizing process, therefore, a paganizing tendency went hand in hand.⁴⁹

Under Constantine the church began to adopt the political structure of the empire.  Christendom was divided into four prefectures consisting of the Orient, Illyria, Italy, and Gaul.  Although Constantinople was never visited by the Apostles, the city was designated as having its own see on a par with the other apostolic sees.  The next adaptation to the Church's new political environment was the exaltation of the empire's four great capitals; Constantinople, Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch.  Jerusalem was given an honorary place with the four capitals.  These five greater sees became the five Patriarchates of the Church.  Thus, the honor of the Biblical churches was transferred to the most important cities of the Roman Empire, although according to early traditions, the church at Alexandria was established by John Mark rather than by one of the Twelve.  The Emperor Constantine likewise increasingly perceived himself as God's appointed administrator over the Christian World.

Constantine once said to the bishops at a banquet, that he also, as a Christian emperor, was a divinely appointed bishop, a bishop over the external affairs of the church, while the internal affairs belonged to the bishops proper.⁵⁰

Because Constantinople was located near the center of the empire's Christian community, it quickly grew and became a gathering place for bishops and the logical place for doctrinal discussions.  The twenty-eighth canon of the Council of Chalcedon, held in 451 A.D., claimed Constantinople (New Rome) to be the primary see having authority over all of Christendom.  "The bishop of New Rome shall enjoy the same honor as the bishop of Old Rome, on account of the removal of the Empire.  For this reason the bishops of Pontus, of Asia, and of Thrace, as well as the Barbarian bishops shall be ordained by the bishop of Constantinople."⁵¹ This declaration granted Constantinople the authority to appoint the bishop of Rome (Pontus).

Constantinople's bid for control was quickly countered by Rome's own Council, and the battle for control began.  But, in the fifth and sixth centuries, Muslims gained such a foothold in the eastern sees of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria that the continuing influence of Constantinople was thwarted.  In the meantime, because Old Rome was the only designated Patriarchate of the Western Mediterranean, she became the new hub of the Christian world.   The Eastern Orthodox Church has never, to this day, acknowledged the superiority of Rome.  Nevertheless, even the churches of the eastern empire began to look to Old Rome for advice in the midst of controversies following the Muslim invasion of the Eastern Mediterranean.

The union of Christianity with the Roman Empire corrupted both the Byzantine and the Roman churches.  The world's influence in the East was most profoundly manifested in glamour and wealth.  Much like today's church-goers dress up for weekly worship, the nationalized Church felt that it should express the dignity and splendor of the kingdom of Christ on earth.

The secularization of the church appeared most strikingly in the prevalence of mammon worship and luxury compared with the poverty and simplicity of the primitive Christians.  The aristocracy of the later empire had a morbid passion for outward display and the sensual enjoyments of wealth, without the taste, the politeness, or the culture of true civilization.  The gentlemen measured their fortune by the number of their marble palaces, baths, slaves, and gilded carriages; the ladies indulged in raiment of silk and gold ornamented with secular or religious figures, and in heavy golden necklaces, bracelets, and rings, and went to church in the same flaunting dress as to the theatre.  Chrysostom addresses a patrician of Antioch: "You count so and so many acres of land, ten or twenty palaces, as many baths, a thousand or two thousand slaves, carriages plated with silver and gold."  Gregory Nazianzen, who presided for a time in the second ecumenical council of Constantinople in 381, gives us the following picture, evidently rhetorically colored, yet drawn from life, of the luxury of the degenerate civilization of that period: "We repose in splendor on high and sumptuous cushions, upon the most exquisite covers, which one is almost afraid to touch, and are vexed if we but hear the voice of a moaning pauper; our chamber must breathe the odor of flowers, even rare flowers; our table must flow with the most fragrant and costly ointment, so that we come perfectly effeminate.  Slaves must stand ready, richly adored and in order, with waving, maidenlike hair, and faces shorn perfectly smooth, more adorned throughout than is good for lascivious eyes; some, to hold cups both delicately and firmly with the tips of their fingers, others, to fan fresh air upon the head.  Our table must bend under the load of dishes, while all the kingdoms of nature, air, water and earth, furnish copious contributions, and there must be almost no room for the artificial products of cook and baker. . . .  The poor man is content with water; but we fill our goblets with wine to drunkenness, nay, immeasurably beyond it.  We refuse one wine, another we pronounce excellent when well flavored, over a third we institute philosophical discussions; nay, we count it a pity, if he does not, as a king, add to the domestic wine a foreign also."  Still more unfavorable are the pictures which, a half century later, the Gallic presbyter, Salvianus, draws of the general moral condition of the Christians in the Roman Empire.

It is true, these earnest protests against degeneracy themselves, as well as the honor in which monasticism and ascetic contempt of the world were universally held, attest the existence of a better spirit.  But the uncontrollable progress of avarice, prodigality, voluptuousness, theatre going, intemperance, lewdness, in short, of all the heathen vices, which Christianity had come to eradicate, still carried the Roman empire and people with rapid strides toward dissolution, and gave it at last into the hands of the rude, but simple and morally vigorous barbarians.  When the Christians were awakened by the crashings of the falling empire, and anxiously asked why God had permitted it, Salvian, the Jeremiah of his time, answered: "Think of your vileness and your crimes, and see whether you are worthy of the divine protection."  Nothing but the divine judgment of destruction upon this nominally Christian, but essentially heathen world could open the way for the moral regeneration of society.  There must be new, fresh nations, if the Christian civilization prepared in the old Roman Empire was to take firm root and bear ripe fruit.

The unnatural confusion of Christianity with the world culminated in the imperial court of Constantinople, which, it is true, never violated moral decency so grossly as the court of a Nero or a Domitian, but in vain pomp and prodigality far outdid the courts of the better heathen emperors, and degenerated into complete oriental despotism.  The household of Constantius, according toe the description of Libanius, embraced no less than a thousand barbers, a thousand cup bearers, a thousand cooks, and so many eunuchs, that they could be compared only to the insects of a summer day.  This boundless luxury was for a time suppressed by the pagan Julian, who delighted in stoical and cynical severity, and was fond of displaying it; but under his Christian successors the same prodigality returned; especially under Theodosius and his sons.  These emperors, who prohibited idolatry upon pain of death, called their laws, edicts, and palaces "divine," bore themselves as gods upon earth, and, on the rare occasions when they showed themselves to the people, unfurled an incredible magnificence and empty splendor.

"When Arcadius," to borrow a graphic description from a modern historian, "condescended to reveal to the public the majesty of the sovereign, he was preceded by a vast multitude of attendants, dukes, tribunes, civil and military officers, their horses glittering with golden ornaments, with shields of gold set with precious stones, and golden lances.  They proclaimed the coming of the emperor, and commanded the ignoble crowd to clear the streets before him.  The emperor stood or reclined on a gorgeous chariot, surrounded by his immediate attendants, distinguished by shields with golden bosses set round with golden eyes, and drawn by white mules with gilded trappings; the chariot was set with precious stones, and golden fans vibrated with the movement, and cooled the air.  The multitude contemplated at a distance the snow-white cushions, the silken carpets, with dragons inwoven upon them in rich colors.  Those who were fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of the emperor, beheld his ears loaded with golden rings, his arms with golden chains, his diadem set with gems of all hues, his purple robes, which with the diadem, were reserved for the emperor, in all their sutures embroidered with precious stones.  The wondering people, on their return to their homes, could talk of nothing but the splendor of the spectacle: the robes, the mules, the carpets, the size and splendor of the jewels.  On his return to the palace, the emperor walked on gold; ships were employed with the express purpose of bringing gold dust from remote provinces, which was strewn by the officious care of a host of attendants, so that the emperor rarely set his foot on the bare pavement."

The Christianity of the Byzantine court lived in the atmosphere of intrigue, dissimulation, and flattery.  Even the court divines and bishops could hardly escape the contamination, though their high office, with its sacred functions, was certainly a protecting wall around them.  One of these bishops congratulated Constantine, at the celebration of the third decennium of his reign (the tricennalia), that he had been appointed by God ruler over all in this world, and would reign with the Son of God in the other!  This blasphemous flattery was too much even for the vain emperor, and he exhorted the bishop rather to pray God that he might be worthy to be one of his servants in this world and the next.  Even the church historian and bishop Eusebius, who elsewhere knew well enough how to value the higher blessings, and lamented the indescribable hypocrisy of the sham Christianity around the emperor, suffered himself to be so far blinded by the splendor of the imperial favor, as to see in a banquet, which Constantine gave in his palace to the bishops at the close of the council of Nice, in honor of his twenty years’ reign (the vicennalia), an emblem of the glorious reign of Christ upon the earth!

And these were bishops, of whom many still bore in their body the marks of the Diocletian persecution.  So rapidly had changed the spirit of the age.  While, on the other hand, the well-known firmness of Ambrose with Theodosius, and the life of Chrysostom, afford delightful proof that there were not wanting, even in this age, bishops of Christian earnestness and courage to rebuke the sins of crowned heads.⁵²

Only to this extent will we examine the Eastern Church.  The rest of this chapter and the next will focus on Rome and her influence on greater Europe.  The Western Church had a humbler beginning, but gathered strength over time to regain her title as the capital of Western Civilization.  Rome's distance from Constantinople became its greatest advantage.  Her remoteness enabled her to avoid the doctrinal conflicts disputed at Constantinople by sending emissaries to the ecumenical councils, while at the same time holding her own Latin councils.

The old ruling families of Rome rekindled their determination that Rome should once again become the center of civilization.  But there is simply no indication from Scripture that God has ever desired to have His name placed upon any city other than Jerusalem.  Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well: "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.  You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.  But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.  God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." - John 4:21-24

Rome began to make assertions that it should be the headquarters of Christian authority because Peter, the first of the Apostles, had died there.  During the following centuries further assertions were made by Rome about Peter's primacy.  By the end of the first millennium Rome was claiming to have spiritual and earthly dominion over the entire world.  History has shown that Rome's first claims to authority were as fictitious as the last.

Peter did, in fact, die outside of Rome; but reasonable evidence indicates that he did so near the end of his life, and that he was not the founder of the Church at Rome.  Because this book is not intended to be a history book, we will merely list the evidence for this conclusion and leave further investigation to the reader.

• Rome's claim of superiority was rejected by the other Patriarchates, and expressly denied by Constantinople.
• Constantine was not aware of any directive by Peter to make Rome the head of the Church.
• Peter carried out much of his ministry around Antioch.
• Peter appointed his successor at Antioch with no indication that he should take the "seat" of Peter.

Chrysostom, for instance, calls Ignatius of Antioch a "successor of Peter, on whom, after Peter, the government of the church devolved," and in another place says still more distinctly:  "Since I have named Peter, I am reminded of another Peter [Flavian, bishop of Antioch], our common father and teacher, who has inherited as well the virtues as the chair of Peter.  Yea, for this is the privilege of this city of ours [Antioch], to have first had the coryphaeus of the apostles for its teacher.  For it was proper that the city, where the Christian name originated, should receive the first of the apostles for its pastor.  But after we had him for our teacher, we did not retain him, but transferred him to imperial Rome."⁵³

There is no indication that Jesus' reference to the keys of the kingdom applied to anything other than spiritual matters.  Many Church Fathers attest that the keys were given equally to all of the Apostles.

• Many Church Fathers assert that the "rock" upon which the Church was founded applies to "all believing Christians."
• There is no record of Peter having authority over the other Disciples.  He was called to account by Paul in Galatians; and James, rather than Peter, made the final decision at the first Church Council of Jerusalem.
• There is no record that the offices of the Twelve Apostles were intended to be perpetual "seats" which should be filled after the original Twelve. (If so, where are the other eleven chairs?)
• Of the many Christian leaders addressed by Paul in his Letter to the Romans, Peter is not recognized as being present in Rome.
• Eusebius, the first Church Historian, writing at the beginning of the fourth century, refers to the overseer at Rome as the Bishop of Rome.
• The first use of the word "pope" to refer to a church leader was during the bishopric of Heraklas, the thirteenth Bishop of Alexandria, from 232 to 249.
• John I. was the first Bishop of Rome to go by the title of "pope", around the year 525.
• The claim of Rome's superiority was even rejected by the surrounding churches in Italy.

In the first place, even in Italy, several metropolitans maintained, down to the close of our period, their own supreme headship, independent of Roman and all other jurisdiction.  The archbishops of Milan, who traced their church to the apostle Barnabas, came into no contact with the pope till the latter part of the sixth century, and were ordained without him or his pallium.  Gregory I., in 593, during the ravages of the Longobards, was the first who endeavored to exercise patriarchal rights there:  he reinstated an excommunicated presbyter, who had appealed to him.  The metropolitans of Aquileia, who derived their church from the evangelist Mark, and whose city was elevated by Constantine the Great to be the capital of Venetia and Istria, vied with Milan, and even with Rome, calling themselves "patriarchs," and refusing submission to the papal jurisdiction even under Gregory the Great.  The bishop of Ravenna likewise, after 408, when the emperor Honorius selected that city for his residence, became a powerful metropolitan, with jurisdiction over fourteen bishoprics.  Nevertheless he received the pallium from Gregory the Great, and examples occur of ordination by the Roman bishop.⁵⁴ 

Neither did the British church recognize Rome as its head for the first five centuries.

The early British church held from the first a very isolated position, and was driven back by the invasion of the pagan Anglo-Saxons, about the middle of the fifth century, into the mountains of Wales, Cornwallis, Cumberland, and the still more secluded islands.  Not till the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons under Gregory the Great did a regular connection begin between England and Rome.⁵⁵

• Lastly, even if a successor of Peter were to occupy his supposed "seat", the notion of that seat morphing into the seat of Christ on earth is a vain imagination and is blasphemous.  Furthermore, anyone who would claim such authority would appropriately be called an antichrist.

In preparation for the next chapter, we must take the time to understand the development of the Roman Church’s authority in civil affairs.  Part of Rome's claim to civil authority was based on the premise that Constantine himself had handed over the Roman Empire's authority of the Western Empire to the Church by the so-called Donation of Constantine.  This matter will be covered as we follow the development of Canon Law.

The misdirection of the Church eventually turned the Western World away from God's law and His government.  This religious fiasco prepared the soil of Europe for the germination and growth of lawlessness.  It is important to know how the Roman law was established, and how the Roman version of government rose to dominate the Western Empire.  The remainder of this chapter discusses the development of Church laws.  The next chapter will follow the rise of Rome's government.

The Canon laws were at last rejected, in part because of their inhumane oppression, and in part because they were discovered to be based upon fraudulent information.  These frauds were created solely by the design of a Church that was disillusioned by the belief that it was divinely ordained to establish the kingdom of God on earth by the strong arm of mortals.  We will see in the next chapter that this perceived divine calling was also mixed with the desire for individual power and personal enrichment.  The following excerpts from Schaff's Church History contain a clear account of the rise and failure of Canon Law.

Under the Roman state, the religious laws - the jus sacrum, jus pontificium - were not a distinct body of legislation.  In the Christian Church the conception of a distinct and superior divine law existed from the beginning.  The formulation of a written code followed the meeting of Christian synods and their regulations.  As the jurisdiction of the hierarchy and the institution of the mediaeval papacy were developed, this legislation came to include civil obligations and all civil penalties except the death penalty.  The Church encroached more and more upon the jurisdiction of the civil court.  Conflict was inevitable.  Not only was the independence of civil law as a distinct branch of procedure threatened, but even its very existence.  It was not till the fourteenth century that the secular governments were able successfully to resist such encroachments and to regain some of the just prerogatives of which the civil courts had been robbed.  "Oh, that the canon law might be purged from the superfluities of the civil law and be ordered by theology," exclaimed Roger Bacon, writing in the thirteenth century.  "Then would the government of the Church be carried on honorably and suitably to its high position."⁵⁶

The universal councils, through their disciplinary enactments or canons, were the main fountain of ecclesiastical law.  To their canons were added the decrees of the most important provincial councils of the fourth century, at Ancyra (314), Neo-Caesarea (314), Antioch (341), Sardica (343), Grangra (365), and laodicea (between 343 and 381); and in a third series, the orders of eminent bishops, popes, and emperors.  From these sources arose, after the beginning of the fifth century, or at all events before the council of Chalcedon, various collections of the church laws in the East, in North Africa, in Italy, Gaul, and Spain; which, however, had only provincial authority, and in many respects did not agree among themselves.]  A codex canonum ecclesia universae did not exist.  The earlier collections became eclipsed by two, which, the one in the West, the other in the East, attained the highest consideration.

The most important Latin collection comes from the Roman, though by descent Scythian, Abbot Dionysius Exigutus, who also, notwithstanding the chronological error at the base of his reckoning, immortalized himself by the introduction of the Christian calendar, the "Dionysian Era."  It was a great thought of this "little" monk to view Christ as the turning point of ages, and to introduce this view into chronology.  About the year 500 Dionysius translated for the bishop Stephen of Salona a collection of canons from Greek into Latin, which is till extant, with its prefatory address to Stephen.  It contains, first, the fifty so-called Apostolic Canons, which pretend to have been collected by Clement of Rome, but in truth were a gradual production of the third and fourth centuries; then the canons of the most important councils of the fourth and fifth centuries, including those of Sardica and Africa; and lastly, the papal decretal letters from Siricius (385) to Anastasius II. (498). The Codex Dionysii was gradually enlarged by additions, genuine and spurious, and through the favor of the popes, attained the authority of law almost throughout the West.  Yet there were other collections also in use, particularly in Spain and North Africa.

Some fifty years after Dionysius, John Scholasticus, previously and advocate, then presbyter at Antioch, and after 564 patriarch of Constantinople, published a collection of canons in Greek, which surpassed the former in completeness and convenience of arrangement, and for this reason, as well as the eminence of the author, soon rose to universal authority in the Greek church.  In it he gives eighty-five Apostolic Canons, and the ordinances of the councils of Ancyra (314) and Nicaea (325), down to that of Chalcedon (451), in fifty titles, according to the order of subjects.  The second Trullan council (Quinisextum, of 692), which passes with the Greeks for ecumenical, adopted the eighty-five Apostolic Canons, while it rejected the Apostolic Constitutions, because, though, like the canons, of apostolic origin, they had been early adulterated.  Thus arose the difference between the Greek and Latin churches in reference to the number of the so-called apostolic canons; the Latin Church retaining only the fifty of the Dionysian collection.

The same John, while patriarch of Constantinople, compiled from the Novelles of Justinian a collection of the ecclesiastical state-laws, or nomoi, as they were called in distinction from the synodal church-laws or kanones.  Practical wants then led to a union of the two, under the title of Nomocanon.

These books of ecclesiastical law served to complete and confirm the hierarchical organization, to regulate the life of the clergy, and to promote order and discipline; but they tended also to fix upon the church an outward legalism, and to embarrass the spirit of progress.⁵⁷

During the chaotic confusion under the Carolingians, in the middle of the ninth century, a mysterious book made its appearance, which gave legal expression to the popular opinion of the papacy, raised and strengthened its power more than any other agency, and forms to a large extent the basis of the canon law of the Church of Rome.  This is a collection of ecclesiastical laws under the false name of bishop Isidor of Seville (died 636), hence called the "Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals."  He was the reputed (though not the real) author of an earlier collection, based upon that of the Roman abbot, Dionysius Exiguus, in the sixth century, and used as the law-book of the church in Spain, hence called the "Hispana."  In these earlier collections the letters and decrees (Epistolae Decretales) of the popes from the time of Siricius (384) occupy a prominent place.  A decretal in the canonical sense is an authoritative rescript of a pope in reply to some questions, while a decree is a papal ordinance enacted with the advice of the Cardinals, without a previous inquiry.  A canon is a law ordained by a general or provincial synod.  A dogma is an ecclesiastical law relating to doctrine.  The earliest decretals had moral rather than legislative force.  But as the questions and appeals to the pope multiplied, the papal answers grew in authority.  Fictitious documents, canons, and decretals were nothing new; but the Pseudo-Isidorian collection is the most colossal and effective fraud known in the history of ecclesiastical literature. 

1. The contents of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals.  The book is divided into three parts.  The first part contains fifty Apostolical Canons from the collection of Dionysius, sixty spurious decretals of the Roman bishops from Clement (d. 101) to Melchiades (d. 314).  The second part comprehends the forged document of the donation of Constantine, some tracts concerning the Council of Nicaea, and the canons of the Greek, African, Gallic, and Spanish Councils down to 683, from the Spanish collection.  The third part, after a preface copied from the Hispana, gives in chronological order the decretals of the popes from Sylvester (d. 335) to Gregory II (d. 731), among which thirty-five are forged, including all before Damasus; but the genuine letters also, which are taken from the Isidorian collection, contain interpolations.  In many editions the Capitula Angilramni are appended.

All these documents make up a manual of orthodox doctrine and clerical discipline.  They give dogmatic decisions against heresies, especially Arianism (which lingered long in Spain), and directions on worship, the sacraments, feasts and fasts, sacred rites and costumes, the consecration of churches, church property, and especially on church polity.  The work breathes throughout the spirit of churchly and priestly piety and reverence.

2. The sacerdotal system.  Pseudo-Isidor advocates the papal theocracy.  The clergy is a divinely instituted, consecrated, and inviolable caste, mediating between God and the people, as in the Jewish dispensation.  The priests are the "familiares Dei," the "spirituales," the laity the "carnales."  He who sins against them sins against God.  They are subject to no earthly tribunal, and responsible to God alone, who appointed them judges of men.  The privileges of the priesthood culminate in the episcopal dignity, and the episcopal dignity culminates in the papacy.  The cathedra Petri is the fountain of all power.  Without the consent of the pope no bishop can be deposed, no council be convened.  He is the ultimate umpire of all controversy, and from him there is no appeal.  He is often called "episcopus universalis," notwithstanding the protest of Gregory I. 

3. The aim of the Pseudo-Isidor is, by such a collection of authoritative decisions to protect the clergy against the secular power and against moral degeneracy.  The power of the metropolitans is rather lowered in order to secure to the pope the definitive sentence in the trials of bishops.  But it is manifestly wrong if older writers have put the chief aim of the work in the elevation of the papacy.  The papacy appears rather as a means for the protection of the episcopacy in its conflict with civil government.  It is the supreme guarantee of the rights of the bishops.

4. The genuineness of Psedo-Isidor was not doubted during the middle ages (Hincmar only denied the legal application to the French church), but is now universally given up by Roman Catholic as well as Protestant historians.

The forgery is apparent.  It is inconceivable that Dionysius Exiguus, who lived in Rome, should have been ignorant of such a large number of papal letters.  The collection moreover is full of anachronisms: Roman bishops of the second and third centuries write in the Frankish Latin of the ninth century on doctrinal topics in the spirit of the post-Nicene orthodoxy and on mediaeval relations in church and state; they quote the Bible after the version of Jerome as amended under Charlemagne; Victor addresses Theophilus of Alexandria, who lived two hundred years later, on the paschal controversies of the second century.

The Donation of Constantine, which is incorporated in this collection, is an older forgery, and exists also in several Greek texts.  It affirms that Constantine, when he was baptized by pope Sylvester, A.D. 324 (he was not baptized till 337, by the Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia), presented him with the Lateran palace and all imperial insignia, together with the Roman and Italian territory.  The object of the forgery was to antedate by five centuries the temporal power of the papacy, which rests on the donations of Pepin and Charlemagne.  The only foundation in fact is the donation of the Lateran palace, which was originally the palace of the Lateran family, then of the emperors, and last of the popes.  The wife of Constantine, Fausta, resided in it, and on the transfer of the seat of empire to Constantinople, he left it to Sylvester, as the chief of the Roman clergy and nobility.  Hence it contains to this day the pontifical throne with inscriptions: "Haec est papalis sedes et pontificalis."  There the pope takes possession of the see of Rome.  But the whole history of Constantine and his successors shows conclusively that they had no idea of transferring any part of their temporal sovereignty to the Roman pontiff.

5. The authorship must be assigned to some ecclesiastic of the Frankish church, probably of the diocese of Rheims, between 847 and 865 (or 857), but scholars differ as to the writer.  Pseudo-Isidor literally quotes passages from a Paris Council of 829, and agrees in part with the collection of Benedictus Levita, completed in 847; on the other hand his is first quoted by a French Synod at Chiersy in 857, and then by Hincmar of Rheims repeatedly since 859.  All the manuscripts are of French origin.  The complaints of ecclesiastical disorder, depositions of bishops without trial, frivolous divorces, frequent sacrilege, suit best the period of the civil wars among the grandsons of Charlemagne.  In Rome the Decretals were first known and quoted in 865 by pope Nicolaus I.

From the same period and of the same spirit are several collections of Capitula or Capitularia, i. e. of royal ecclesiastical ordinances which under the Carolingians took the place of synodical decisions.  Among these we mention the collection of Ansegi, abbot of Fontenelles (827), of Benedictus Levita of Mayence (847), and Capitula Angilramni, falsely ascribed to bishop Angilramnus of Metz (d. 701).

6. Significance of Pseudo-Isidor.  It consists not so much in the novelty of the views and claims of the mediaeval priesthood, but in tracing them back from the ninth to the third and second centuries, and stamping them with the authority of antiquity.  Some of the leading principles had indeed been already asserted in the letters of Leon I. and other documents of the fifth century, yea the papal animus may be traced to Victor in the second century and the Judaizing opponents of St. Paul.  But in this collection the entire hierarchical and sacerdotal system, which was the growth of several centuries, appears as something complete and unchangeable from the very beginning.  We have a parallel phenomenon in the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons which gather into one whole the ecclesiastical decisions of the first three centuries, and trace them directly to the apostles or their disciple, Clement of Rome.⁵⁸ 

The work of Gratian superseded these earlier compilations, and it enjoys the honor of being the monumental work on canon law.  Gratian, a Camaldulensian monk, and an Italian by birth, taught at the convent of St. Felix, Bologna, at the same time that Irnerius was teaching civil law in the same city.  No details of his life have been handed down.  His biography is his great compilation which was made about 1140-1150.  Its original title, A Concordance of Differing Canons, concordantia canonum discordantium, has given way to the simple title, Decretum, the Book of Decrees.  The work was a legal encyclopedia, and at once became the manual in its department, as the Sentences of the Lombard, Gratian's contemporary, became the manual of theology.⁵⁹ 

Gratian's aim was to produce a work in which all real or apparent contradictions between customs and regulations in vogue in the Church should be removed or explained.  This he secured by exclusion and by comments called the dicta Gratiani, sayings of Gratian.  The work is divided into three parts.  The first, in one hundred and one sections or distinctiones, treats of the sources of canon law, councils and the mode of their convention, the authority of decretals, the election of the Roman pontiff, the election and consecration of bishops, the papal prerogative, papal legates, the ordination of the clergy, clerical celibacy, and kindred topics.  The second, in thirty-six sections or causae, discusses different questions of procedure, such as the ordination and trial of bishops and the lower clergy, excommunications, simony, clerical and church property, marriage, heresy, magic, and penance.  The third part is devoted to the sacraments of the eucharist and baptism and the consecration of churches.  The scholastic method is pursued.  A statement is made and objections, if any, are then formally refuted by citation of synodal acts and the testimony of the Fathers, popes, and other churchmen.  The first distinction opens with the statement that the human race is governed by two principles, natural law and customs.  Then a number of questions are propounded such as what is law, what are customs, what kinds of law there are, what is natural law, civil law, and the law of nations?⁶⁰ 

The canon law attempted the task of legislating in detail for all phases of human life - clerical, ecclesiastical, social, domestic - from the cradle to the grave by the sacramental decisions of the priesthood.  It invaded the realm of the common law and threatened to completely set it aside.  The Church had not only its own code and its specifically religious penalties, but also its own prisons.

This body of law was an improvement upon the arbitrary and barbaric severity of princes.  It, at least, started out from the principles of justice and humanity.  But it degenerated into an attempt to do for the individual action of the Christian world what the Pharisees attempted to do for Jewish life.  It made the huge mistake of substituting an endless number of enactments, often the inventions of casuistry, for inclusive, comprehensive moral principles.  It put a crushing restraint upon the progress of thought and bound weights, heavy to be borne, upon the necks of men.  It had the virtues and all the vices of the papal system.  It protected the clergy in the commission of crimes by demanding that they be tried in ecclesiastical courts for all offences whatsoever.  It became a mighty support for the papal claims.  It confirmed and perpetuated the fiction of the pseudo-Isidorian decretals and perpetrated new forgeries.  It taught that the decisions of Rome are final.  As Christ is above the law, even so is the pope.⁶¹ 

These principles, set forth in clear statements, were advocated by Thomas Aquinas and the other Schoolmen and asserted by the greatest of the popes.  At last the legalistic tyranny became too heavy for the enlightened conscience of Europe to bear, as was the case with the ceremonial law in the days of the Apostles, against which Peter protested at the council of Jerusalem and Paul in his Epistles.  The Reformers raised their voices in protest against it.  Into the same flames which consumed the papal bull at Wittenberg, 1520, Luther threw a copy of the canon law, the one representing the effrontery of an infallible pope, the other intolerable arrogance of a human lawgiver in matters of religion, and both destructive of the liberty of the individual.  In his Address to the Christian Nobles, Luther declared that it did not contain two lines adapted to instruct a religious man and that it includes so many dangerous regulations that the best disposition of it is to make of it a dung heap.⁶²

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