ROMAN
CATHOLICISM
By
Lorraine Boettner
SECTION ONE
CHAPTER
ONE Introduction
CHAPTER TWO The Church
CHAPTER THREE The Priesthood
CHAPTER FOUR Tradition
CHAPTER FIVE
Peter
1. Historical Background
2.
Roman Catholicism a Poor Defense Against Communism
3.
Romanism an Age-long Development
4.
Protestantism and First Century Christianity
5.
Contrast Between Protestant and Roman Catholic Countries
In our twentieth
century America few among us seem to realize what a priceless heritage we
possess in the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and
freedom of assembly that is an integral part of our everyday life. Nor are many
aware of the bitter and prolonged struggles our forefathers went through at the
time of the Reformation and later to secure these freedoms. Instead it is quite
the common thing to take these for granted and to assume that they are the
natural rights of all men. But truly those of us who call ourselves Protestants
are the inheritors of a great tradition. And in a country such as the United
States our Roman Catholic friends also share these freedoms, little realizing
what it means to live under a clerical dictatorship such as their church imposes
wherever it has the power.
Roman
Catholics often attempt to represent Protestantism as something comparatively
new, as having originated with Martin Luther and John Calvin in the 16th
century. We do indeed owe a great debt to those leaders and to the Reformation
movement that swept over Europe at that time. But the basic principles and the
common system of doctrine taught by those Reformers and by the evangelical
churches ever since go back to the New Testament and to the first century
Christian church. Protestantism as it emerged in the 16th century was
not the beginning of something new, but a return to Bible Christianity and to
the simplicity of the Apostolic church from which the Roman Church had long
since departed.
The
positive and formal principle of this system is that the Bible is the Word of
God and therefore the authoritative rule of faith and practice. Its negative
principle is that any element of doctrine or practice in the church which cannot
be traced back to the New Testament is no essential part of Christianity.
The
basic features of Protestant belief therefore are:
For
more than a thousand years before the Reformation the popes had controlled
Europe and had said that there was only one way to worship God. That period is
appropriately known as the “Dark Ages.” In the church and, to a considerable
extent, in the state, too, the priests held the power. They suppressed the laity
until practically all their rights were taken away. They constantly pried into
private affairs, interfering even between husband and wife and between parents
and children by means of the confessional. All marriage was in their hands. They
interfered in the administration of public affairs, in the proceedings of the
courts, and in the disposition of estates. The revenues of the state built new
churches and paid the salaries of the priests in much the same manner as in
present day Spain. Anyone who dared resist ran the risk of losing his job, his
property, and even his life. Life under such tyranny was intolerable. From that
condition the Reformation brought deliverance.
One
of the first and most important results of the Reformation was that the Bible
was given to the people in their own languages. Previously the Bible had been
kept from them, on the pretext that only the church speaking through the priest
could interpret it correctly. Luther translated the Bible into his native
German, and edition followed edition in rapid succession. Similar translations
were made in England, France, Holland, and other countries.
Protestants
of our day who have not been called upon to suffer or to make any sacrifices to
secure this rich heritage are inclined to hold these blessings lightly. But the
advances that Romanism is making today in this nation and in other parts of the
world should cause even the most careless to stop and think. It seems that as
Protestants we have forgotten how to protest
against those same religious and political abuses that were common before
the Reformation. We need to acquaint ourselves with and to teach the principles
of our faith if we are not to be overwhelmed by a religious despotism that, if
it gains the upper hand, will be as cruel and oppressive as ever it was in
Germany, Italy, France, or Spain.
Our
American freedoms are being threatened today by two totalitarian systems,
Communism and Roman Catholicism. And of the two in our country Romanism is
growing faster than is Communism and is the more dangerous since it covers its
real nature with a cloak of religion. This nation has been well alerted to the
dangers of Communism, and it is generally opposed by the radio, the press, and
the churches. But Romanism has the support of these to a considerable extent,
and even the Protestant churches in many places take a conciliatory and
cooperative attitude toward it. Most people have only a very hazy notion as to
what is involved in the Roman system. And yet the one consuming purpose of the
Vatican is to convert the entire world, not to Christianity, but to Roman
Catholicism. Its influence is being applied vigorously at every level of our
local, state, and federal government. It is particularly significant that in
this country the hierarchy has taken as its slogan, not, “Make America
Christian,” but, “Make America Catholic.” And in that slogan are the
strong overtones of a full scale attack upon our Protestant heritage and those
precious rights of freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, and freedom of
speech.
We
cannot adequately understand this problem unless we realize that the kind of
Roman Catholicism that we see in the United States is, for the most part, not
real Roman Catholicism at all, that is, not Roman Catholicism as it exists where
it is the dominant force in the life of a nation, but a modified and compromised
form that has adjusted itself to life with a Protestant majority. Here it is
comparatively reticent about asserting its claims to be the only true church,
the only church that has a right to conduct public religious services, its right
to suppress all other forms of religion, its superiority to all national and
state governments, its control over all marriage, its right to direct all
education, and the obligation of the state to support its churches and schools
with tax money. That this is no visionary list of charges, but a cold and
realistic appraisal, is shown by the fact that in Spain, which is governed under
the terms of a concordat with the Vatican, and which is often praised by Roman
Catholic spokesmen as the ideal Catholic state, the Roman Church is now
exercising most of these so‑called “rights” or privileges.
In
order to see clearly what Roman Catholicism really is, we must see it as it was
during the Middle Ages, or as it has continued to be in certain countries such
as Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Southern Ireland, and Latin America, where it
has had political as well as ecclesiastical control. In those countries where it
has been dominant for centuries with little or no opposition from Protestantism,
we see the true fruits of the system in the lives of the people, with all of
their poverty, ignorance, superstition, and low moral standards. In each of
those countries a dominant pattern is discernible. Spain is a particularly good
example, for it is the most Roman Catholic country in Europe, yet it has the
lowest standard of living of any nation in Europe. The Latin American nations
have been predominantly Roman Catholic for four centuries, and today the
illiteracy rate ranges from 30 to 70 percent. The veteran radio political
analyst, Howard K. Smith, recently reported that “The average per capita
income in the United States is eight times that of any country in South
America” (March 3, 1960). The average per capita income in South America is
$280, one ninth that in the United States.
But
even in those countries we do not see the ultimate fruits of the system. For
over a period of years they have been influenced to some extent by Protestantism
and they have been receiving assistance from the Protestant nations,
particularly from the United States and England, so that their present
condition, economic, social, political, and religious, is not nearly as bad as
it would have been had they been left to themselves. Substantial aid has been
given since the close of the First World War. American foreign aid, economic and
military, granted to other nations since the Second World War through 1977,
amounted to $200 billion (Statistical Abstract of
the U.S., 1978). And
probably $50 billion more has been granted since that time, making a total of
approximately $250 billion. The Roman Catholic nations of Europe and Latin
America have profited greatly through this assistance.
American Catholicism, so different on the surface
from that found in Spain, Italy, and Latin America, is, nevertheless, all a part
of the same church, all run from Rome and by the same man who is the absolute
ruler over all of the branches and who has the authority to change policy in any
of those branches as he deems it safe or expedient. If he chose to give his
subjects in Spain or Colombia relatively more freedom and better schools, such
as are enjoyed by those in the United States, he could readily do so by
directing his priests and financial resources to that end. Undoubtedly Romanism
in the United States would be much the same as that found in other countries
were it not for the influence of evangelical Christianity as set forth by the
Protestant churches.
2
Roman
Catholicism a Poor Defense against Communism
We
have no hesitation in saying that most of the Roman Catholic nations, had they
been left to themselves, long ago would have fallen victims of Communism. In all
probability both Italy and France would have turned Communist at the close of
the Second World War had it not been for American aid and all of the political
influence that our government could lawfully exert toward those nations, and
even then the result was in doubt for some considerable time. The Vatican had
supported Mussolini’s Fascist and military policies, including the conquest of
Ethiopia (which conquest had been condemned by the League of Nations and by
practically all of the civilized world), his open and extensive support of
Franco in Spain with troops and arms, and his invasion of Albania and Greece.
After Italy entered the war on the side of Nazi Germany the Roman Church
supported the Italian war effort, which meant, of course, that our work of
carrying the war to a successful conclusion was made just that much harder.
During the war Pope Pius XII gave his blessing to large numbers of Italian and
German troops who appeared before him in uniform. With the defeat of Germany and
Italy those policies caused strong popular resentment. It is probable that, in
the turmoil that followed the ignominious fall of Mussolini, the Roman Catholic
Church would have been overthrown in much the same way that the Orthodox
Catholic Church in Russia was overthrown when the Czarist regime fell at the end
of the First World War, had not American military forces then in Italy preserved
order. In Russia a dead, formalistic church had lost the respect of the people
and had become identified with the despotic rule of the Czar since he was the
head of both the state and the church. When the people rose up in anger and
threw out the political government, they threw out the church with it and turned
to the other extreme, atheism. That has often been the case where the people
have known only one church. When that became corrupt they had no alternative but
to turn against religion altogether.
In
the critical Italian election held after the war, in April, 1948, the Communists
made a strong effort to gain control of the government, but a coalition of other
parties managed to gain the majority. Today the biggest Communist party outside
of Russia and Red China is found in Roman Catholic Italy, seat of the papacy,
precisely where, if Roman Catholicism is the effective defense against Communism
that it claims to be, we should find the least Communism. Approximately one
third of the voters in Italy today are Communist, as are approximately one
fourth of those in France.
Roman
Catholicism opposes Communism, of course, as one totalitarian system opposes
another. And for propaganda purposes she even attempts to present herself as the
chief opponent of, and the chief bulwark against, Communism. But the fact is
that during the past fifteen years Communism has made its greatest gains in
Roman Catholic nations, both in Europe and in Latin America, while the
Protestant nations, the United States, Britain, Canada, Holland, Norway, Sweden,
and Denmark, have been its most effective opponents. It is in reality only a
short step from a totalitarian church to a totalitarian state, since the people
have been trained to accept authority as it is imposed upon them rather than to
think for themselves and to manage their own affairs.
In
his very informative book, American Freedom and Catholic Power, Paul Blanshard, American sociologist and journalist who has
written extensively on church-state relations, says:
“In
several great crises in Europe the Vatican has, through passive and active
collaboration with fascism, thrown the balance of power against democracy. ...
It has aligned itself with the most reactionary forces in Europe and Latin
America. Surely it is not by accident that the two most fascist nations in the
world today—Spain and Portugal—are Catholic nations whose dictators have
been blessed by the pope and are conspicuously loyal to him! The Vatican’s
affinity with fascism is neither accidental nor incidental. Catholicism
conditions its people to accept censorship, thought control, and ultimately
dictatorship” (Rev. ed., 1958, p. 291; Beacon
Press, Boston).
And
Count Coudenhove‑Kalergi, a former Roman Catholic, says:
“Catholicism
is the fascist form of Christianity of which Calvinism represents its democratic
wing. The Catholic hierarchy rests fully and securely on the leadership
principle with the infallible pope in supreme command for a lifetime. ... Like
the Fascist party, its priesthood becomes a medium for an undemocratic minority
rule by a hierarchy. ... Catholic nations follow fascist doctrines more
willingly than Protestant nations, which are the main strongholds of democracy.
Democracy lays its stress on personal conscience; fascism on authority and
obedience” (Crusade for
Pan‑Europe, p. 173 ).
If
the United States should become Roman Catholic, the result undoubtedly would be
the rapid conquest of this country and the rest of the world by Russian
Communism. In view of the weak defense that the Roman Catholic countries are
able to put up intellectually, morally, or militarily, we are safe in saying
that one of the surest ways to turn this nation Communist would be to turn it
first to Roman Catholicism. We have acted as a strong restraint in keeping Roman
Catholic nations from going Communist. But who would restrain this nation? There
would be no other to serve that purpose, and our descent would be sure and
swift.
The
fact is that much of the popular support that the puppet governments behind the
Iron Curtain have received has been given because they have forbidden the Roman
Catholic Church to take any part in political affairs or to control the schools.
In several countries, both in Europe and in Latin America, the only choice the
people have is either Romanism or Communism. Protestantism, as an alternative
choice, is practically non‑existent. Those people have been taught hatred
for Protestantism from childhood, and few of them would try it. Many vote
Communist, not because they believe in the program, but because it is the only
effective instrument they have to oppose Roman Catholicism.
On the other hand, to see what the effect of Protestantism is upon a people we turn to the United States, where with complete separation of church and state the Reformation has made its greatest advance, and to Britain and the other nations where Protestantism has long been the dominant religion. These we find are unquestionably the most enlightened and advanced nations of the world; and in the main it is from these nations, where the people are accustomed to think and act for themselves and to govern themselves in both church and state, that the opposition to Communism has come.
One
of the first things that we want to point out in this study is that the Roman
Catholic Church has not always been what it is today. Rather, it has reached its
present state as the result of along, slow process of development as through the
centuries one new doctrine, or ritual, or custom after another has been added.
Even a superficial reading of the following list will make clear that most of
the distinctive features of the system were unknown to Apostolic Christianity,
and that one can hardly recognize in present day Romanism the original Christian
doctrines. Not all dates can be given with exactness since some doctrines and
rituals were debated or practiced over a period of time before their formal
acceptance.
1.
Prayers
for the dead: began
about a.d. 300.
2.
Making the sign
of the cross: a.d.
300.
3.
Wax
candles: about
a.d. 320.
4.
Veneration
of angels and dead saints,
and use of images:
a.d.
375.
5.
The
Mass, as a daily
celebration: a.d.
394.
6.
Beginning
of the exaltation of Mary,
the term “Mother of God” first applied
to her by the Council of Ephesus: a.d.
431.
7.
Priests began to dress differently from laymen:
a.d. 500.
8.
Extreme
Unction: a.d. 526.
9.
The doctrine of Purgatory, established by Gregory I:
a.d. 593.
10.
Latin
language, used
in prayer and worship, imposed by Gregory I:
a.d. 600.
11.
Prayers
directed to Mary, dead saints, and angels: about
a.d. 600.
12.
Title
of pope, or
universal bishop, given to Boniface III by emperor Phocas:
a.d. 607.
13.
Kissing
the pope’s foot, began with Pope Constantine: a.d. 709.
14.
Temporal
power of the popes, conferred by Pepin, king of the
Franks: a.d. 750.
15.
Worship
of the cross, images, and relics: authorized
in a.d. 786.
16.
Holy
water, mixed
with a pinch of salt and blessed by a priest:
a.d. 850.
17.
Worship
of St. Joseph:
a.d. 890.
18.
College
of Cardinals established:
a.d. 927.
19.
Baptism
of bells, instituted
by pope John XIII: a.d. 965.
20.
Canonization
of dead saints, first by Pope John XV:
a.d. 995.
21.
Fasting
on Fridays and during Lent: a.d. 998.
22.
The
Mass, developed
gradually as a sacrifice, attendance made obligatory in the 11th
century.
23.
Celibacy
of the priesthood, decreed by pope
Gregory VII (Hildebrand): a.d.
1079.
24.
The
Rosary, mechanical
praying with beads, invented by Peter the Hermit:
a.d. 1090.
25.
The
Inquisition, instituted
by the Council of Verona: a.d.
1184.
26.
Sale
of Indulgences:
a.d. 1190.
27.
Transubstantiation,
proclaimed by Pope Innocent III: a.d. 1215.
28.
Auricular
Confession of sins to a priest instead
of to God, instituted by Pope Innocent III, in Lateran Council:
a.d. 1215.
29.
Adoration
of the wafer (Host), decreed by Pope
Honorius III: a.d.
1220.
30.
Bible
forbidden to laymen, placed on the Index of Forbidden
Books by the Council of Toulouse: a.d. 1229.
31.
The
Scapular, invented
by Simon Stock, an English monk: a.d.
1251.
32.
Cup
forbidden to the people at communion
by Council of Constance: a.d.
1414.
33.
Purgatory
proclaimed as a dogma by the Council
of Florence: a.d.
1439.
34.
The doctrine of Seven Sacraments affirmed:
a.d. 1439.
35.
The Ave Maria (part of the last half was completed 50 years later and approved by Pope
Sixtus V at the end of the 16th century): a.d.
1508.
36.
Jesuit
order founded by Loyola: a.d. 1534.
37.
Tradition
declared of equal authority with the
Bible by the Council of Trent: a.d.
1545.
38.
Apocryphal
books added to the Bible by the
Council of Trent: a.d.
1546.
39.
Creed
of pope Pius IV imposed as the
official creed: a.d.
1560.
40.
Immaculate
Conception of the Virgin Mary,
proclaimed by Pope Pius IX: a.d.
1854.
41.
Syllabus
of Errors, proclaimed
by Pope Pius IX and ratified by the Vatican Council; condemned freedom of
religion, conscience, speech, press, and scientific discoveries which are
disapproved by the Roman Church; asserted the pope’s temporal authority over
all civil rulers: a.d. 1864.
42.
Infallibility
of the pope in matters of faith and
morals, proclaimed by the Vatican Council:
a.d. 1870.
43.
Public
Schools condemned by Pope Pius XI:
a.d. 1930.
44.
Assumption
of the Virgin Mary (bodily ascension
into heaven shortly after her death), proclaimed by Pope Pius XII:
a.d. 1950.
45.
Mary proclaimed Mother of the
Church by
Pope Paul VI: a.d. 1965.
Add
to these many others: monks, nuns, monasteries, convents, forty days Lent, holy
week, Palm Sunday, Ash Wednesday, All Saints day, Candlemas day, fish day,
meat days, incense, holy oil, holy palms, Christopher medals, charms, novenas,
and still others.
There you have it—the melancholy evidence of
Rome’s steadily increasing departure from the simplicity of the Gospel, a
departure so radical and far‑reaching at the present time that it has
produced a drastically anti‑evangelical church. It is clear beyond
possibility of doubt that the Roman Catholic religion as now practiced is the
outgrowth of centuries of error. Human inventions have been substituted for
Bible truth and practice. Intolerance and arrogance have replaced the love and
kindness and tolerance that were the distinguishing qualities of the first
century Christians, so that now in Roman Catholic countries Protestants and
others who are sincere believers in Christ but who do not acknowledge the
authority of the pope are subject to all kinds of restrictions and in some cases
even forbidden to practice their religion. The distinctive attitude of the
present day Roman Church was fixed largely by the Council of Trent
(1545‑1563), with its more than 100 anathemas or curses pronounced against
all who then or in the future would dare to differ with its decisions.
Think
what all of this means! Each of the above doctrines or practices can be
pin‑pointed to the exact or approximate date at which it became a part of
the system. And no single one of them became a part of the system until
centuries after the time of Christ! Most of these doctrines and practices are
binding on all Roman Catholics, for they have been proclaimed by a supposedly
infallible pope or church council. To deny any doctrine or practice so
proclaimed involves one in mortal sin.
What
will be next? Indications are that it will be another proclamation concerning
Mary. Two new doctrines are under discussion: Mary as Mediatrix, and Mary as
Co‑redemptrix. Important Roman Catholic authorities have already indicated
that these will be the next doctrines officially proclaimed. Mary is being
presented in current Roman teaching as a Mediator along with Christ. She is said
to be the “Mediatrix of all graces,” and the people are being told that the
way to approach Christ is through His mother. “To Christ through Mary,” is
the slogan. Her images outnumber those of Christ, and more prayer is offered to
her than to Christ.
It
is also being said that Mary’s sufferings, particularly those at the cross,
were redemptive in the same sense that Christ’s sufferings were redemptive. It
would seem that these two doctrines, if adopted, would in effect place Mary as a
fourth member of the Godhead, along with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And
presumably these doctrines, if adopted, will be officially announced by the
pope, for he was proclaimed infallible in this regard in 1870 and therefore no
longer needs the authority of an ecumenical council.
And
still the Roman Church boasts that she never changes or teaches new doctrines! Semper
idem—“Always the same”—is her motto! The fact that not one of the
doctrines in the above list has any support in the Bible disproves conclusively
the claim of the priests that their religion is the same as that taught by
Christ and that the popes have been the faithful custodians of that truth.
The
fact is that many of the above listed rites and ceremonies were taken directly
from paganism or from Old Testament Judaism. Some scholars say that as much as
75 percent of the Roman ritual is of pagan origin. John Henry Newman, later
cardinal, in his book, The Development of the Christian Religion, admits
that “Temples, incense, oil lamps, votive offerings, holy water, holy days and
seasons of devotion, processions, blessings of fields, sacerdotal vestments, the
tonsure (of priests, monks, and nuns), images, etc., are all of pagan origin”
(p. 359).
While the Roman
Church has been so free to hurl the name “heretic” at all who differ with
her, the above list shows that the real heretics are the Roman Catholics
themselves, and that the true orthodox are the evangelical Christians. Says the
Scripture:
“But
in vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men. ...
Making void the word of God by your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many
such like things ye do” (Mark 7:7,13).
“To
the law and to the testimony! if they speak not according to this word, surely
there is no morning for them” (Isaiah 8:20).
Surely
the Apostle Paul knew the human tendency to add to the Word of God when he gave
this warning to the early church:
“I know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:29-30). And even more strongly: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema” (Galatians 1:8).
Ever
since New Testament times there have been people who accepted the basic
principles now set forth in Protestantism. That is, they took the Bible as their
authoritative standard of belief and practice. They were not called Protestants.
Neither were they called Roman Catholics. They were simply called Christians.
During the first three centuries they continued to base their faith solely on
the Bible. They often faced persecution, sometimes from the Jews, sometimes from
the pagans of the Roman empire. But early in the fourth century the emperor
Constantine, who was the ruler in the West, began to favor Christianity, and
then in the year 324, after he had become ruler of all of the empire, made
Christianity the official religion. The result was that thousands of people who
still were pagans pressed into the church in order to gain the special
advantages and favors that went with such membership. They came in far greater
numbers than could be instructed or assimilated. Having been used to the more
elaborate pagan rituals, they were not satisfied with the simple Christian
worship but began to introduce their heathen beliefs and practices. Gradually,
through the neglect of the Bible and the ignorance of the people, more and more
heathen ideas were introduced until the church became more heathen than
Christian. Many of the heathen temples were taken over by the church and
re‑dedicated as Christian churches.
Thus
in time there was found in the church a sacrificing and gorgeously appareled
priesthood, an elaborate ritual, images, holy water, incense, monks and nuns,
the doctrine of purgatory, and in general a belief that salvation was to be
achieved by works rather than by grace. The church in Rome, and in general the
churches throughout the empire, ceased to be the apostolic Christian church, and
became for the most part a religious monstrosity.
There
remained, however, some groups, small in numbers, usually in isolated places,
and later primarily in the mountains of northern Italy, who maintained the
Christian faith in reasonable purity. There were also individuals throughout the
church in all ages, usually more or less independent of the church at large, who
continued to hold quite correct ideas concerning the Christian faith. But the
half paganized condition continued through the Middle Ages and on into the 16th
century when the religious revival in the West, known as the Reformation, shook
the church to its foundations. At that time some scholars bean to study Bible
manuscripts that had been brought to light by the forced flight of eastern monks
from their monasteries as the Mohammedan invasions extended into Europe, and
these scholars saw how far the church had departed from its original Scriptures.
First
there came the Renaissance, which was primarily a revival of learning, followed
shortly by the Reformation. Some of the scholars in the church were called
“Reformers.” They called the people back to the Bible, and there they saw
how wrong and contrary to Scripture was the use of images, holy water, priests
saying mass, and church services in Latin which the people could not understand.
The Reformers strongly attacked the ignorance and superstition that had become
such a large part of the church program, and gave the people a service in their
own language with preaching based on the Word of God. Protestantism, therefore,
was not a new religion, but a return to the faith of the early church. It was
Christianity cleaned up, with all the rubbish that had collected during the
Middle Ages thrown out.
The
Reformation, under Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and Knox, was literally a
“back‑to‑the‑Bible” movement, a return to apostolic
Christianity. Evangelical Christianity has established itself as the historic
faith of the first century, which came down through the ante-Nicene Fathers
and Augustine, which was largely obscured during the Middle Ages, but which
burst forth again in all its glory in the Reformation, and which has continued
to grow and increase down to our own time.
The
very name “Protestant,” first applied to those Reformers who protested
against the decrees issued by the Diet of Spires, implies in its broader sense
that the churches led by the Reformers “protested” against the false
doctrines and practices that were contrary to the teachings of the New
Testament. They demanded a return to the purity and simplicity of New Testament
Christianity. Protestantism did not begin with Luther and Calvin. It began with
the Gospel, with the life and death and resurrection of Christ. It teaches what
the New Testament teaches, nothing more and nothing less. It was not founded on
the writings of Luther, or Calvin, or any of the later writers, although those
writings proved helpful in the work of the church. Evangelical Protestantism
cannot change greatly, for it is founded on an unchanging Book, completed in the
first century and declared in the creeds of all evangelical churches to be the
Word of God. The names of Protestant churches are not very old, and the
denominations differ in regard to some doctrines; but the churches are in quite
close agreement concerning the essentials of the faith, each attempting to hold
in its purity the teachings of Christ and the apostles. The disagreement and
conflict which Rome attempts to picture as existing between Protestant
denominations is for the most part exaggeration, and is due largely to Rome’s
failure to understand what Protestantism really is.
How,
then, do we know whether or not any particular system sets forth true
Christianity? By comparing it with a recognized standard, especially with the
Bible which is the ultimate authority. Judged by that standard, evangelical
Protestantism is the same system of truth that was set forth in the New
Testament and practiced by the first century Christians. All accretions, such as
purgatory, the authority of tradition, the priesthood, the papacy, the worship
of the Virgin Mary and the saints, the veneration of relics, auricular
confession (“auricular”—pertaining to the ear—auricular confession,
therefore, means confession in the ear of a priest), penance, etc., are totally
without Scriptural basis and should be branded as false.
It
is a fact beyond challenge that the Protestant countries of Europe and the
Americas have been comparatively strong, progressive, enlightened, and free,
while the Roman Catholic countries have remained relatively stationary or have
stagnated and have had to be aided economically and politically by the
Protestant nations. The Middle Ages were dark because Romanism was dominant and
unchallenged. The light that we enjoy, which was first manifested in Europe and
then in America, we owe to the Protestant Reformation. How appropriate the
inscription on the Reformation monument in Geneva—Post tenebris
lux, “After the darkness,
light”!
The
lesson of history is that Romanism means the loss of religious liberty and the
arrest of national progress. If after living in the United States one who was
not aware of the contrast between Protestant and Roman Catholic cultures were to
visit some Roman Catholic countries in Europe or Latin America, not merely to
see places that have been fixed up to attract tourists but to live for some time
among the common people, it would make him sick at heart to see the ignorance,
poverty, superstition, illiteracy, suppression of religious freedom, and
legalized prostitution which particularly in Latin America is found in
practically every town of any size, a fairly consistent pattern in all of those
areas—characteristics of heathenism, characteristics of Romanism.
In
Latin America, where the Roman Church has been dominant for four centuries with
practically no competition from Protestantism, it has had ample opportunity to
bring forth the true fruits of the system. And there, as a church, it has failed
miserably. About 90 percent of the people have been baptized in the Roman
Catholic Church, but probably not more than 10, or at most 15, percent are
practicing Roman Catholics. The present writer is in receipt of a letter from a
missionary in Bolivia who writes: “The Roman Catholic Church in Bolivia is not
a Christian church at all but an unholy device for keeping the people in
ignorance and poverty.” He added that Romanism the world over is one unified
system, all under the control of the pope in Rome, and that it probably would be
as bad in the United States if it were not for the restraining influence of the
evangelical churches. Strong words those, but he was writing of a situation
concerning which we know but little in this country.
Governments
in Roman Catholic countries have been extremely unsteady. Repeatedly the people
shoot up their governments or overthrow them. Practically all of those countries
have been ruled by dictators at various times, and sometimes for long periods of
time. Since the Second World War France has had repeated governmental crises,
until a more stable situation was reached making General de Gaulle president and
giving him dictatorial powers. Italy has had 32 governmental crises in 25 years,
usually, as in France, characterized by resignation of the government, followed
by a period of uncertainty and paralysis until a new election was held or a new
alignment of parties was worked out. Spain, which is often pointed to as the
model Catholic state, is governed under a concordat with the Vatican, has only
one political party, the clerical-fascist party of General Franco, and has been
under the dictatorship of Franco since 1938. Portugal, too, is a
clerical‑fascist state, under dictator Antonio Salazar. In that country
the fall of the monarchy in 1910 was followed by a period of economic and
political chaos, with 40 governmental changes in 18 years, until Salazar became
minister of finance in 1928 and prime minister with dictatorial powers in 1932,
which position he has held ever since.1 In the Latin American nations
the overthrow of national governments, followed by periods of dictatorship, has
occurred repeatedly during the past 15 years—those in Argentina, Brazil,
Columbia, Venezuela, Peru, Cuba, Chile, and Nicaragua having been the most
recent.
1 Salazar’s dictatorship ended in 1968, and Franco’s ended in 1975.
It
cannot be passed off as mere chance that governments in Protestant countries,
such as the United States, Britain, Canada, Holland, and the Scandinavian
countries, have been so stable over long periods of time while those in the
Roman Catholic countries have been so unstable. The result follows in part at
least because of the contrasting doctrines of the relation that should exist
between church and state. Protestantism holds that the church and the state are
each of divine origin, that each is supreme in its own sphere and independent of
the other. Romanism holds that power comes to the state through the church, that
the church and state should be united with the church holding the superior
position, that the pope as God’s representative on earth is above all temporal
rulers, above all kings, presidents, and governors, that it is the duty of the
state to maintain a political atmosphere favorable to the Roman Catholic Church,
supporting it with public money while placing restrictions on all other
churches, and that the state should do the bidding of the church in punishing
heretics. Such doctrines undermine governments by weakening the confidence of
the people in them, while the Protestant doctrines strengthen and support them.
Throughout
history the Roman Church has sought to gain power from the state, but has never
willingly relinquished power to the state. It has always resented paying taxes
to the state, even on purely commercial properties that are owned and operated
by it, and it has resented any laws requiring its priests to pay income taxes.
The continual meddling of the Roman Church in politics, even to the extent of
sponsoring Roman Catholic political parties where it is strong enough to do so
(usually known as the “Christian Democratic” party, or a similar name, as in
Italy, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, etc.), has caused much resentment.
That, no doubt, is also its plan for the United States if and when it becomes
strong enough. Usually a political party is not instituted unless it can control
at least one fourth of the total vote. How can any unprejudiced person face
these facts and still not see the contrast between the two systems?
We
behold a strange phenomenon in the world today. While people in the
predominantly Roman Catholic countries are struggling to throw off the yoke of
the Roman Church, Protestant countries are welcoming it with open arms and
allowing it to dictate policies of state, education, medicine, social life,
entertainment, press, and radio. And in no Protestant country is this tendency
more clearly seen than in the United States. For 32 years, 1928‑1960, one
of our great political parties had an unbroken line of national party chairmen
who were members of that church, and in 1960 it succeeded in electing a Roman
Catholic president of the United States. Although the Constitution makes it
illegal to favor one church above another, repeatedly in recent years bills have
been passed by Congress and signed by nominally Protestant presidents granting
very substantial favors to the Roman Catholic Church. More than $24,000,000 in
public money has been given to the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines
since the close of the Second World War, allegedly for war damages, while hardly
one tenth that amount has been given to Protestant, Jewish, and other church
groups in that country. In June, 1956, Congress passed, and President Eisenhower
signed, a bill giving the Vatican nearly one million dollars ($964,199) for the
refurnishing of the pope’s summer home at Castel Gandolfo, just outside the
city of Rome, Italy—allegedly as war damages inflicted by American air raids,
although the State Department has held that this country has no legal obligation
for such damages. In election years, when no one wants to vote against the Roman
Catholic Church, Congress is particularly vulnerable to such pressures. But
nothing was appropriated to restore Protestant churches in Italy or in the other
war-ravaged countries! Those had no lobby in Washington to represent their
cause.
About
80 percent of the money provided by the government under the Hill‑Burton
bill for the building and operation of sectarian hospitals in the United States
($112,000,000 during the first ten years of its operation) went to Roman
Catholic institutions as that church eagerly took such money, while most
Protestant churches, desirous of maintaining the principle of separation of
church and state, were reluctant to accept it. In various places, particularly
in the bigger cities governed by Roman Catholic officials, public properties,
such as schools, hospitals, building sites, etc., have been turned over to the
Roman Catholic Church at give‑away prices. Similar things happen in
England, where, for instance, parochial schools receive 95 percent of their
total costs from the public treasury—but even so, the hierarchy is not
satisfied and is demanding complete financial equality with the public schools,
which, of course, is fair warning of what the Roman Church would like to achieve
in this country.
The hold that
Roman Catholicism is able to maintain over large numbers of people, not only in
Europe and Latin America but also in the United States, is due in part to its
appeal to unregenerate human nature. The Roman concept of sin is quite different
from that of Protestantism. Rome does not demand reform in her people. As long
as they acknowledge the church and meet the external requirements they are
allowed to do about as they please. In our country witness the many corrupt
politicians and gangsters in our cities in recent years who have been members of
that church and who have remained in good standing while continuing their evil
course over long periods of time. A case in point is that of Tom Pendergast, in
Kansas City, who with a large number of his accomplices finally was sent to the
penitentiary. When he died the Roman Catholic priest who conducted his funeral
praised him as a friend and commended his loyalty to his church, because, it was
said, he had not missed mass in 30 years. It can be assumed that Roman
Catholicism will remain popular as long as the majority of men remain
unregenerate.
But
the real cause of Roman Catholic growth and success is not to be found so much
in its aggressive policy in infiltrating governments, schools, press, radio,
etc., nor in its lax moral code. It is to be found rather in the
indifference of Protestants and their lack of devotion to their own evangelical
message. Modernistic and
liberal theology has so enervated many of the churches that they have little
zeal left to propagate their faith. Let Protestantism return to its evangelical
message and to the type of missionary zeal that governed the early Christians,
and let Protestants challenge Rome to full and open debate regarding the
distinctive doctrines that separate the two systems, and it will be seen that
the one thing Rome does not want is public discussion. Rome prefers to assert
her alleged “rights” and to have them accepted without too much question.
But Protestantism has the truth, and can win this battle any time that it is
willing to force the issue.
In
this regard J. Marcellus Kik, former associate editor of Christianity
Today, has written:
“That
there is still a remnant of paganism and papalism in the world is chiefly the
fault of the church. The Word of God is just as powerful in our generation as it
was during the early history of the church. The power of the Gospel is just as
strong in this century as in the days of the Reformation. These enemies could be
completely vanquished if the Christians of this day and age were as vigorous, as
bold, as earnest, as prayerful, and as faithful as Christians were in the first
several centuries and in the time of the Reformation” (Revelation
Twenty, p. 74).
Protestants do not desire controversy merely for
the sake of controversy, and often shrink from engaging in it. But in this time
of rising tensions certain issues must be faced. Rome continues to press her
propaganda drive. Where she is in the majority she takes special privileges for
herself and places restrictions on, or prohibits, other churches. Where she is
in the minority she asks for special favors, favors which by no stretch of the
imagination are ever given to Protestants in Roman Catholic countries, and seeks
quietly to infiltrate the government, schools, press, radio, hospitals, etc.
When Protestants are in the majority they tend to ignore those things. But when
some major issue arises, such as the nomination of an American ambassador to the
Vatican, or the nomination of a Roman Catholic for President of the United
States, Protestant opposition does become vocal. A few years ago when President
Truman sent the name of General Mark Clark to the Senate for confirmation as
American ambassador to the Vatican, there was vigorous protest and a full scale
debate was fast arising when General Clark requested that his name be withdrawn.
All that the hierarchy could do was to run for cover and cry “bigot” and
“persecutor” at anyone who opposed such a tie‑up with the Vatican.
They definitely did not want a public debate. But the result of such events is
to bring out into the open the issues which normally are more or less kept under
cover, and to afford opportunity for discussion of the issues on their merits.
The
kind of society that Roman Catholicism has produced in other countries where it
has been dominant should serve as a fair warning as to what we can expect if it
becomes dominant here. What clearer warning do we need? Let us take a good look
at conditions in those countries and then ask ourselves if a Roman Catholic
America is the kind of heritage we desire for ourselves and the kind we want to
pass on to later generations. Through the indifference of Protestants and the
aggressiveness of Romanists we are in danger of losing the very things that have
made this nation great.
Scripture
quotations throughout this book for the most part are from the American Standard
Version of 1901 rather than the King James Version since the former is
generally conceded to be more accurate. Quotations from the Roman Catholic
Confraternity Version are designated as such.
1. Definition
2. “Catholic”
3. What is a
“Sect”?
4. Church Government
5. The Church in
Politics
6. A Church Under
Foreign Control
7. The Unity and
Diversity of Protestantism
The Bible teaches that Christ founded His church,
the Christian church, and that He is both the foundation on which it rests, and
the head of the church which is His body: “For other foundation can no man lay
than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11);
“...being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ
himself being the chief corner stone” (Ephesians 2:20); “And he put all
things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to
the church, which is his body” (Ephesians 1:22-23); “...Christ also is the
head of the church” (Ephesians 5:23).
The
church is composed of all who are true Christians, those who have been “born
again,” or “born anew” (John 3:3), from all nations and denominations.
Local “churches of Christ” (Romans 16:16) are congregations of Christians
who gather together for worship and for missionary activity. And, while they are
many, they are all members of the one church of Christ: “For even as we have
many members in one body... so we, being many, are one body in Christ” (Romans
12:4-5). This is the true church.
A
truly broad and charitable definition of the church is given for example, in the
Westminster Confession of Faith, which says: “The visible church, which is
also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as
before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world, that profess
the true religion, together with their children; and is the kingdom of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the house and family of
God, out of which there is no
ordinary possibility of salvation” (XXV:2).
And
the Larger Catechism, in answer to the question, “What is the visible
church?” (Q. 62), says: “The
visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the
world do profess the true religion, and of their children.”
The
marks of a true church are:
John
Calvin insisted repeatedly on “the ministry of the Word and sacraments” as
the distinguishing marks of a true church. To these are generally added the
exercise of proper discipline, although minor errors and irregularities of
conduct do not in themselves give sufficient cause to withhold acknowledgment of
a true church. Dr. Louis Berkhof says concerning the faithful exercise of
discipline: “This is quite essential for maintaining the purity of doctrine
and for guarding the holiness of the sacraments. Churches that are lax in
discipline are bound to discover sooner or later within their circle an
eclipse of the light of the truth and an abuse of that which is holy” (Systematic
Theology, p. 578).
In
the Bible the word “church” never means a denomination. The Bible has
nothing to say about denominations. Whether a local church chooses to remain
strictly independent, or to enter into a working agreement with one or more
other local churches, and if so on what terms, is not discussed in Scripture,
but is left entirely to the choice of the church itself. And we find that in
actual practice churches range all the way from those that remain entirely
unrelated to any other, to the other extreme of those that subject themselves to
some hierarchy of denominational overlords who own the property and send the
minister. Surely the local church should own the building and grounds that it
has developed and paid for. Such ownership serves as a shield against undue
denominational pressure being brought to bear upon it. And, as it has the right
to decide whether or not it will join a denomination, so it should have the
right to withdraw from the denomination if it so chooses.
Usually
the word “church,” as used in the New Testament, means a local congregation
of Christians, such as “the church of God at Corinth,” “the church in
Jerusalem,” “the churches of Galatia,” “the church in thy house.” At
other times it may refer to the church at large, as when we are told that
“Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for it” (Ephesians 5:25). Or
again it may refer to the whole body of Christ in all ages, as when we read of
“the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in
heaven” (Hebrews 12:23). When our Lord prayed for unity, “that they may all
be one” (John 17:21), it was primarily a spiritual unity, a oneness of heart
and faith, of love and obedience, of true believers, and only secondarily a
unity of ecclesiastical organization, that He had in mind, as is made clear by
the fact that He illustrated that unity by the relationship which exists between
Himself and the Father—“even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee.”
Unity of faith must be achieved before there can be unity of organization. The
ideal, of course, would be for the church to be one in both faith and
organization. But it clearly is not yet ready for that. Much work remains to be
done in teaching God’s Word before that can be accomplished. As Christians
become more closely united in doctrine they work together more harmoniously and
want to be united more closely in organization. But unity of doctrine must
always remain primary, for that relates to the very purpose for which the church
was founded. The alleged tragedy of disunity of organization is more than offset
by the real tragedy of disunity of doctrine that results when conservative and
modernistic churches are combined in one organization.
It
is just here that the Romanists, who claim to be the only true church, err in
attempting to bring all churches, even to force all churches, into one external
and mechanical organization. The oneness for which Christ prayed was not
external and visible, but spiritual and invisible. There can be and actually is
real spiritual unity among Christians apart from organizational unity. The
church is not a mechanism, but a living organism, whose head is Christ; and any
unity that is mechanical and forced is bound to hinder the very thing that it is
designed to promote. When we hear the pope and occasionally other church leaders
talk about uniting all churches into one super organization, the words they
employ and their method of approach make it clear that what they have in mind is
not a spiritual unity of believers but an ecclesiastical and mechanical unity of
believers and unbelievers, designed primarily for what they think would be
greater efficiency of operation.
And,
after all, perhaps the diversity of churches, with a healthy spirit of rivalry
within proper limits, is one of God’s ways of keeping the stream of
Christianity from becoming stagnant. History is quite clear in showing that
where there has been enforced uniformity the church has stagnated, whether in
Italy, Spain, France, or Latin America. The confinement of religious life to a
dead level of uniformity does not solve our problems.
Something
should be said concerning the meaning of the term “catholic,” which the
Roman Church tries to appropriate exclusively to itself. Dr. J. G. Vos, editor
of Blue Banner Faith and Life,
gives this definition: “The
Catholic Church: The universal church of God, as distinguished from a
particular branch, congregation or denomination of that church.” “The Church
of Rome,” he continues, “has wrongly appropriated to itself the term
‘Catholic’; it is self‑contradictory to call a body ‘Roman’ (which
is particular) and at the same time ‘Catholic’ (which means universal).”
A
Catholic Dictionary gives this
definition: “Catholic. The word is derived from the Greek, and simply
means universal.”
Dr.
John H. Gerstner, Professor of Church History in Pittsburgh Theological
Seminary, in a booklet, The Gospel
According to Rome, says:
“Strictly
speaking ‘Roman Catholic’ is a contradiction of terms. Catholic means
universal; Roman means particular. It is the Protestant and not the Romanist who
believes in the catholic church. Protestants believe the church is universal or
catholic; Rome cannot discover it beyond her own communion. Our formula is: ‘Ubi
Spiritus ibi ecclesia’—‘Where
the Spirit is there is the church.’ Her motto is: ‘Ubi
ecclesia ibi Spiritus’—‘Where
the (Roman) church is there is the Spirit.’
“It is because
of the proper historic use of the word ‘catholic’ that Protestants do not
hesitate to recite it in the Apostles’ Creed. We cling to the word because we
cherish the concept. Rome has no monopoly on it; indeed, as we have suggested,
it is a question whether she has any right to it” (p. 14).
All
those who believe in Christ as Savior, regardless of what denomination they
belong to, are in fact members of the Christian catholic church. Evangelical
Protestants are the truest “catholics,” for they base their faith on the New
Testament as did the early Christians. The Roman Church has added many doctrines
and practices that are not found in the New Testament, and anyone who accepts
those becomes, to that extent, a Roman catholic, and by the same token ceases
to be a Christian catholic. Since the word “catholic” means “universal,”
the true Christian catholic church must include all
true believers, all who belong to the mystical or spiritual body of Christ
(“the church, which is his body”—Ephesians 1:22-23). But there have been,
and are, millions of Christians who have never had any connection with the Roman
church. The Roman Church, is, after all, a local church, with headquarters in
Rome, Italy and is limited to those who acknowledge the authority of the pope.
Even in her most extravagant claims the Roman Church claims only about one in
eight of the population of the world, and in the professedly Christian world she
has cut herself off from and broken communion with perhaps more than half of
Christendom, so that there are probably more professed Christians who reject her
authority than acknowledge it. And geographically she fails utterly to prove her
claim to universality. Even in the nominally Roman Catholic countries such as
Italy, France, Spain, and Latin America, Rome today probably does not have
effective control of more than fifteen percent of the people. In any event the
Roman Church clearly is not universal, but is only one among numerous others and
is outnumbered by the effective membership of the various Protestant and Eastern
Orthodox churches.
Bishop
J. C. Ryle, of Liverpool (England), has well said:
“There are
many ‘churches,’ but in the New Testament only one true church is
recognized. This true church is composed of all believers in the Lord Jesus. It
is made up of God’s elect—of all converted men and women—of all true
Christians. It is a church of which all the members are born again of the Holy
Spirit. They all possess repentance toward God, faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ, and holiness of life and conversation. They all draw their religion from
one single book—the Bible.
“It is the
church whose existence does not depend on forms, ceremonies, cathedrals,
churches, vestments, organs, or any act or favor whatever from the hand of man.
It has often lived on and continued when all these things have been taken from
it. This is the universal church of the Apostles’ Creed, and of the Nicene
Creed. This is the only church which is truly universal. Its members are found
in every part of the world where the Gospel is received and believed.”
And
Rev. Stephen L. Testa, a former Roman Catholic, and founder of The Scripture
Truth Society, has said:
“The Lord
Jesus Christ founded His church (Matthew 16:18), which was evangelical
Christian. He was to be the Head, the Holy Spirit the Guide, and the Bible the
only rule of faith and practice. It was made up of His followers who were born
again and pledged to continue His work of redemption in the world. It was catholic
in that it was designed
for all the people of the earth. The
church remained pure and faithful Gospel for to the about 300 years, which was
the golden age of martyrs and saints, who were persecuted by pagan Rome. After
the so‑called conversion of emperor Constantine (a.d.
310) Christianity was declared the state religion, and multitudes of
pagans were admitted to the church by baptism alone, without conversion. They
brought with them their pagan rites, ceremonies and practices which they
gradually introduced into the church with Christian names, all of which
corrupted the primitive faith, and the church became Romanized and paganized.
What makes a church truly catholic is its adherence to the Gospel of Christ and
the Apostles’ Creed. The Roman Church has added popery and so many other pagan
doctrines and practices that many people think it no longer either Christian or
catholic.
“The
Reformation of the 16th century was a protest against those pagan
doctrines, a wholesale withdrawal from the official church and a return to the
primitive catholic Christianity of the New Testament. The Roman Church today can
become again a truly catholic church by renouncing popery and those dogmas and
practices which are contrary to the Word of God and holding fast to its
primitive foundation, on which basis the reunion of all Christian churches could
be realized. The name ‘catholic,’ when applied to the Roman Church
exclusively, is a misnomer, for it befits better those Protestant churches which
hold fast to the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed without any additions whatever.
‘For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this
book, If any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues which
are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the
book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and
out of the holy city, which are written in this book’ (Revelation
22:18‑19).
“The true
church of Christ is invisible, made up of truly converted people who are to be
found in all the visible churches and whose names are written in heaven, and the
visible churches exist to train saints for the kingdom of Christ” (booklet, Is
Romanism in the Bible? p.
3).
Another
trait of the Roman Church is her attempt to brand all other church groups as
“sects,” and as schismatic. First, let us fix clearly in mind precisely what
a “sect” is. Dictionary definitions tend to emphasize the divisive,
schismatic, heretical elements in defining a sect. Hence we would define a sect
as a group that shuts itself in as God’s exclusive people, and shuts all
others out. By its exclusiveness a sect cuts itself off and isolates itself from
the main stream of Christian life. On that basis the Roman Church, with its
bigoted and offensive claim to be “the only true church,” its readiness to
brand all others as heretics, its anathemas or curses so readily pronounced
against all who dare to differ with its pronouncements, and its literally dozens
of heresies and practices which are not found in the New Testament,
automatically brands itself as the biggest and most prominent of all the sects.
This
sectarianism is shown, for instance, in statements such as the Syllabus
of Errors, issued by Pope
Pius IX, in 1864, and still in full force where the Roman Church can enforce its
will. The hierarchy in the United States plays down this Syllabus, and for many
years has conducted a subtle campaign designed to hide many of its distinctive
doctrines and so to gain favor with the American public. But here are its claims
in plain language. Some of the most distinctive articles in their affirmative
form are:
15.
“No man is free to embrace and profess that religion which he believes
to be true, guided by the light of reason.”
17.
“The eternal salvation of any out of the true church of Christ is not
even to be hoped for.”
18.
“Protestantism is not another and diversified form of the one true
Christian religion in which it is possible to please God equally as in the
Catholic Church.”
21.
“The Church has power to define dogmatically the religion of the
Catholic Church to be the only true religion.”
24.
“The Church has the power of employing force and (of exercising) direct
and indirect temporal power.”
37.
“No national Church can be instituted in a state of division and separation
from the authority of the Roman Pontiff.”
42.
“In legal conflict between Powers (Civil and Ecclesiastical) the Ecclesiastical
Law prevails.”
45.
“The direction of Public Schools in which the youth of Christian states
are brought up... neither can nor ought to be assumed by the Civil Authority
alone.”
48.
“Catholics cannot approve of a system of education for youth apart from
the Catholic faith, and disjoined from the authority of the Church.”
54.
“Kings and Princes [including, of course, Presidents, Prime Ministers,
etc.] are not only not exempt from the jurisdiction of the Church, but are
subordinate to the Church in litigated questions of jurisdiction.”
55.
“The Church ought to be in union with the State, and the State with the
Church.”
57.
“Philosophical principles, moral science, and civil laws may and must
be made to bend to Divine and Ecclesiastical authority.”
63.
“Subjects may not refuse obedience to legitimate princes, much less
rise in insurrection against them.”
67.
“The marriage tie is indissoluble by the law of nature; divorce,
properly so called, cannot in any case be pronounced by the civil authority.”
73.
“Marriage among Christians cannot be constituted by any civil contract;
the marriage‑contract among Christians must always be a sacrament; and the
contract is null if the sacrament does not exist.”
77.
“It is necessary even in the present day that the Catholic religion
shall be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other
forms of worship.”
78.
“Whence it has been unwisely provided by law, in some countries called
Catholic, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the free exercise of
their religion.”
80.
“The Roman Pontiff cannot and ought not to reconcile himself to, or
agree with, Progress, Liberalism, and Modern Civilization.”
These
statements are from the pope who just six years later established the doctrine
of papal infallibility! The Roman Church here condemns freedom of religion,
freedom of speech and of the press, the separation of church and state; asserts
the authority of the church over the state and of the pope over civil rulers,
the right of the church to direct all education, the right of the church to
suppress other faiths; condemns the public school system, and many other things
which are integral parts of our American way of life. Let no one say that this Syllabus
of Errors belongs to a former age and that it is not to be taken
seriously. Even today it forms a part of the ordination vows of every Roman
Catholic priest in the world. Every priest takes an oath on the Bible that he
believes and will defend the eighty articles of this Syllabus. No part of it has
ever been repudiated. Hence it contains official Roman Catholic doctrine. With
the church committed to this Syllabus, how
can anyone at one and the same time be a member of the Roman Catholic Church and
a loyal American citizen?
In
this Syllabus the Roman Church displays a bitter, sectarian spirit in its
relations with other churches. In every local community Roman Catholic priests
refuse to join ministerial associations or to cooperate with ministers from
other churches in any form of religious observances, and they not infrequently
refuse to cooperate even in non‑religious community projects.1
On
the other hand most Protestant churches are remarkably free from sectarianism.
Most of them take a broad, tolerant attitude in acknowledging as true Christians
any of their fellow men who base their hope for salvation on faith in Christ and
live a good Christian life—in which case, as we have just seen, they are
“catholic,” ecumenical in the best sense of the term.
It
may be charitably assumed that there are good Christians in all denominations,
including the Roman Catholic. For any one branch of the church to claim that
those within its fold alone constitute the body of true Christians is both crude
and impudent, and is inconsistent with the principles of love and charity so
clearly commanded in the Scriptures.
The
intolerance and sectarianism of Romanism is also shown in her attempt to use the
word “church” for herself alone, as a synonym for the Roman Catholic Church,
thereby unchurching all others, and by referring to Protestants as
“non‑Catholics.” Protestants are too lax in allowing the Roman Church
to deprecate them with terminology which implies that they have no place in the
church universal. The correct meaning of the term “church” and
“catholic” should be pointed out, and doctrinal and historical evidence
cited to show that the Roman Church herself is the church of schism and
innovation, that by adding a host of unscriptural doctrines she has departed
from the simplicity of the Gospel and from apostolic practice. It can be shown
that more than half of Rome’s present creed was unknown to the early church.
Consequently, she has neither the moral nor the logical right to appropriate to
herself the terms “church” and “catholic.”
We
suspect that it is just because the Roman Church knows that so much of her
doctrine and so many of her practices are unscriptural or anti‑Scriptural
that as a matter of self-defense she attempts to appropriate these terms to
herself. A more appropriate name for this church, one that we have used
frequently, is, the Roman Church, or the Church of Rome. These terms are
accurate, and moreover they are terms which appear frequently in her own
literature, written by representative Roman Catholics. Hence Protestants do that
church no injustice in speaking of it under these terms.
Furthermore,
in its official title—the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church—the Roman
Church seeks to appropriate the word “apostolic.” But again she has no right
to call herself apostolic, since she bears so little resemblance to that church,
more than half of her present doctrines and practices being unknown to the
apostolic church. She applies to herself the term “holy,” but the fact is
that through the ages and in her official capacity the Roman Church has been
guilty of the most atrocious crimes, practiced in the name of religion,
including murder, robbery, persecution of all kinds, bribery, fraud, deception,
and practically every other crime known to man. Such crimes have been practiced
not merely by church members, but by popes, cardinals, bishops, and priests who,
as a study of church history will show, undeniably were evil men. Those crimes
still are practiced where the Roman Church is attempting to suppress
Protestantism—in Colombia, for instance, since 1948, when the liberal
government was overthrown and a new government came into power with the support
of the Roman Catholic Church and a concordat with the Vatican, 116 Protestant
Christians have been killed because of their faith, 66 Protestant churches or
chapels have been destroyed by fire or bombing, over 200 Protestant schools have
been closed, and Protestant work of any kind forbidden in approximately two
thirds of the country which has been designated “mission territory” (see Report
of the Evangelical Confederation of Colombia, Bulletin No. 50, June 26,
1959).
The
assumption of Roman Catholic writers that theirs is the true church, and that it
is the same orthodox, martyr, missionary church of apostolic times is manifestly
false. The claim that the popes are in the direct line of succession from St.
Peter—even if such a claim could be proved, which it cannot—would mean but
little without imitation of the lives of the apostles and conformity to their
doctrines. Jeremiah rebuked the foolish confidence of the Jews in his day who
cried, “The temple of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah... are these” (7:4),
and called on them rather to prove their devotion to God with righteous and holy
living. Caiaphas was in the line of Aaron and was the successor of many pious
priests, but that did not make him and the Jews who crucified Jesus the true
church. John Calvin called the Church of Rome in his day a foul harlot rather
than the spouse of Christ, because of the low moral standard practiced and
tolerated by her priests. Her pretensions to be the true church of Christ were
shown by her actions to be false. How could she be the kingdom of Christ when
her way of life was at such variance with His Word?
1 Since the Second Vatican Council the priests have been given more freedom to cooperate with other ministers and to take part in some community projects.
As
Protestants we believe in and practice democracy in Church government as well as
in state government. We have local organizations in which ministers and laymen
with equal voting rights handle local church problems, and for the denominations
at large, general assemblies or conventions or conferences, composed of
ministers and elders, usually in equal numbers, who are the elected
representatives of the churches. Both the New Testament and the history of the
church during the first four or five centuries make it abundantly clear that
Christianity is essentially democratic in tendency. That tendency becomes
manifest wherever the spiritual life of the church is free to assert itself.
The
New Testament church was an organized band of baptized believers practicing New
Testament ordinances and actively engaged in carrying out the Great Commission.
Of that organization Christ alone was the Head. Believers were related to Him
and to each other as members of the body. Each local church appears to have been
a self-governing body. As the church in Jerusalem grew and needed more
organization, that was provided, not by hierarchical appointment, but in a
democratic way without consulting any other church. We read: “The twelve
called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, “...Look ye out
therefore, brethren, from among you seven men of good report” (Acts
6:2‑3). There was no dictation by Peter, nor by any
other apostle, nor by the apostles as a group. Rather it was “the
multitude of the disciples,” that is, the membership of the church, who made
the decision. Likewise, the church at Antioch sent out missionaries from its own
membership (in this instance, Paul and Barnabas), without seeking permission or
advice from any other body (Acts 13:1‑4).
But
while the New Testament churches were autonomous, there were certain ties which
bound them together, such as that of maintaining doctrinal purity, for which
purpose the Jerusalem conference was assembled (Acts 15:1‑29), that of
ministering to the material needs of the saints in sister churches in time of
crisis (Acts 11:27‑30, 2 Corinthians 9:1‑5), and a fellowship of
worship (Acts 2:46‑47, 20:6‑7; Hebrews 10:25). A study of the church
as it is set forth in the New Testament shows that it was absolutely dependent
upon the Word of God for its existence. It was, therefore, completely
subordinate to that authority in matters of doctrine.
The
fact of the matter is that we are told but very little about the organization of
the early church or about the relations that existed between the various bodies,
no doubt because the new congregations started in an elementary way and the
problems that developed within the congregations or between congregations
depended upon local circumstances. Elders were appointed in all the churches,
and these had the general oversight of their respective churches as regarded
teaching, preaching, and the administration of congregational affairs, including
their relations with other congregations. We are inclined to believe that the
early church was neither Episcopal, nor Presbyterian, nor Congregational, but a
combination of all three, and that local churches then as now may have differed
considerably in their manner of government. In any event it is quite clear that
the Roman Catholic Church, with its hierarchical form of government, was not
the New Testament church, for the institution of the papacy, with a sacrificing
priesthood, did not develop until some five centuries later.
The
spurious logic of the hierarchy through which it lays claim to supreme authority
over all Christians finds no support in Scripture. In fact the idea of a
totalitarian church in which the layman has no vote and no voice in the
formulation of doctrines, laws, and policies, a church in which he is told
what to believe and what to do but in which he is never invited to discuss or
help work out those beliefs and practices, seems to be the extreme opposite of
that set forth in the New Testament.
It
is a basic tenet of Protestantism that the Word of God as given in the
Scriptures is to be put into the language of the people and that it is
sufficiently clear so that the individual Christian has a responsibility to read
and to think for himself. He has the right of private judgment in spiritual
affairs. He cannot surrender his conscience to the church or to a priest, but
must think, speak, worship, and act in such a manner that he can give an account
to God for what he is and does. This does not mean that he is to ignore the
teaching of the church or the rich heritage of theological knowledge that has
been accumulated over the centuries. Rather within proper limits he will seek
the fellowship of the church with its accumulated wisdom and will further his
spiritual life in that atmosphere of mutual love and helpfulness which comes
through association with other Christians.
In
the typical Roman Catholic countries the essence of the church is composed of
the bishops and priests, to the exclusion of the laity which, while expected to
provide the financial support, is kept in the dark and in abject subservience to
a power‑hungry hierarchy. The lay people are purely passive in the life of
their church; they have no say in the choice of their priests and almost no say
in the administration of the material possessions of the church. Very little
emphasis, if indeed any at all, is placed on Bible study. Instead, moral
standards are inflexibly set by the church. The individual must submit his
conscience and his intelligence to this external authority, which tells him what
is right and what is wrong. From childhood he is trained to accept the
domination of the priest over the whole realm of his moral, social, and
political life. He is told what to do and how to do it, even as regards personal
and family affairs. Needless to say, not all Roman Catholics obey these
dictates, particularly if they have some contact with Protestant ideals of
freedom of religion and conduct. But the attitude of subservience is the ideal
which the hierarchy seeks to maintain in its people. Few Roman Catholics, even
in a Protestant country such as the United States, realize what a great debt
they owe to Protestantism. Instead they support their church in fighting
Protestantism.
The
Protestant ideal is that church leaders and church assemblies are altogether
distinct from the civil magistracy, and that they have no jurisdiction whatever
in civil and political affairs. It is, however, the duty of the church to teach
her people, through her ministry and laity, their duties in the state as
Christians. Her ministry as regards the state focuses at that point, and stops
right there. She does not seek to become a political power rivaling the state,
nor to become a state within a state. She must not allow herself to be used as a
pressure group for the securing of certain rights and temporal benefits for men,
nor to pressure the state for reform measures, even though such reforms may be
needed and desirable from the Christian viewpoint. Christians as individuals are
indeed to work for whatever reforms may be needed. But the church is not to do
so in her corporate capacity. Such action on the part of the church almost
invariably will detract from her primary mission of the proclamation of the
Gospel and ministering to the spiritual needs of men, and will tend to give
people a wrong conception as to what her true mission really is. And finally,
she must not pressure the state for public funds to support her local churches,
schools, and other institutions.
The
Westminster Confession of Faith sets forth the role of the church in these
words: “Synods and councils are to handle or conclude nothing, but that which
is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern
the commonwealth unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary; or by
way of advice for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by
the civil magistrate” (XXXI:4).
Protestantism
asks nothing of the state except such liberty and independence as it already
enjoys in most Protestant countries, and which, chiefly through Protestant
influence, the Roman Catholic Church also enjoys in those same countries.
In
almost total contrast with this, the Roman Catholic Church seeks to exert a
controlling influence in both the church and the state. This has been well
expressed by Avro Manhattan, a critic of Romanism, in The
Vatican in World Politics:
“The better to exert
its double activity (religious and political), the Catholic Church has two
facets: first, the religious institution, the Catholic Church itself; secondly,
the political power, the Vatican. Although they deal separately, whenever
convenient, with problems affecting religion and politics, the two are in
reality one. At the head of both stands the pope, who is the supreme religious
leader of the Catholic Church as a purely spiritual power, as well as the
supreme head of the Vatican in its quality of a world‑wide diplomatic-political
center and an independent sovereign state” (p. 19; Gaer Associates, New York;
1949).
The
Roman Catholic Church is both a church and a political system. As such it
attempts to exert its influence in every sphere of human activity,
expediency alone determining whether it moves as a religious institution
or as a political institution. These activities may be exercised separately or
in unison, depending on the purpose to be accomplished and the type of people
with whom it has to deal. On the lower level, through its local congregations,
it presents itself as a religious organization, and its appeals for money and
support and public trust are made on that basis. But in its higher branches, as
its influence is exerted through the hierarchy, it becomes increasingly a
political organization, until in the Vatican it is concerned almost exclusively
with political affairs and seeks to exert a controlling influence over the
affairs of nations. It has a Papal Secretary of State who visits other
governments and functions in much the same way that our American Secretary of
State functions in Washington. It sends ambassadors and ministers to other
nations, and receives ambassadors and ministers from other nations. All of this
political activity is, of course, utterly without Scriptural support, and is in
fact contrary to what the New Testament teaches concerning the nature and
purpose of the church.
C.
Stanley Lowell, associate director of Protestants and Other Americans United for
Separation of Church and State, has recently said: “The fact is that the
Vatican is a state‑church hybrid which alternately poses as a church and
as a state depending on which will prove the more profitable at the moment. The
Vatican claims all prerogatives as a state, but denies all responsibility as a
state because it is a church” (Christianity Today,
February 1, 1960).
To
describe this activity there has been coined a word, “clericalism,” meaning
the organized political power of the higher clergy exerted in the affairs of a
nation. This preoccupation of the hierarchy with temporal affairs has led some
to declare, with good reason, that the Roman Church is not a church at all, but primarily
a government, a
political‑commercial system which cloaks itself with religion to give it
an air of respectability. The fact is that the Roman Catholic Church professes
to be a state, without accepting the responsibilities of a state government; and
at the same time it professes to be a church, without accepting the limitations
which the New Testament sets for the church.
This
double function has led to the conception of the Roman Church as an institution
needing rulers after the manner of the state. Hence the concentration of power
in the hands of the priests, bishops, and particularly in the hands of the pope
as the coordinator of this vast world system, and the blind obedience expected
from the laity in all countries to a foreign potentate of a clerical-fascist
state.
A specific example of what papal control can mean is seen in the issuance of a directive, in April, 1958, by the pope to all Roman Catholics in Italy, just prior to the election in that country, forbidding them to vote for any party or candidates not favored by the Roman Catholic church and declaring that anyone who did so vote would be subject to excommunication. The important thing about that directive is the principle involved. If the pope can issue a political order telling the Roman Catholics in Italy how to vote, he can do the same thing to those in the United States or in any other country. They all owe him the same kind and degree of obedience. The pope himself, of course, is the judge as to what parties or candidates are “Communistic” or otherwise not acceptable to the Roman Church. In Latin America Roman Catholic propaganda has long sought to identify Protestants and Communists as one and the same. That again serves as a clear warning as to what can happen here if Romanism comes into a position of dominance.
It
has been 186 years since the United States gained her independence. While all
other American churches that were in existence at that time have long since been
granted their independence or have declared their independence from the parent
churches in the country of their origin, the Roman Catholic Church remains as
firmly as ever under the control of the pope in Rome. Furthermore, there are no
democratic processes of any kind in the Roman Church by which the people can
indicate their preferences or desires to the Vatican, nor even so much as
express to the bishop of their diocese a choice regarding their own local
priests. Everything is autocratically controlled by the hierarchy. However, it
is true that while the local congregation has no official part in the matter of
choosing a priest, as a matter of practical church management the wishes and
advice of members of the congregation often are sought and taken into
consideration.
At
the head of this organization, with almost unlimited power, is the pope. The
next ranking officials, the cardinals, often called the “princes of the
church,” are appointed by the pope. There is no veto power, either in the
district or country over which the cardinal is to preside, or anywhere else in
the church, by which his appointment can be rejected or even questioned. If the
cardinal was a bishop or archbishop before his appointment, he continues to hold
that office and to exercise that authority after his appointment.
The
number of cardinals has varied somewhat, the full number having remained at 70
for the past several centuries, until Pope John XXIII, in 1960, increased the
number to 85.2 The pope alone decides how many cardinals there shall
be. Throughout most of history, a majority, often a large majority, have been
Italians. At the present time the Italians number 33 (several of those are from
the city of Rome), still far more than any other country, the next highest being
8 from France, then 6 from the United States, 5 from Spain, 4 from Germany, 3
from Brazil, 2 each from Britain, Canada, Portugal, and Argentina, and 1 each
from 18 other countries—surely not a very representative arrangement either
numerically or geographically. While only 6 of these are Americans, an increase
in 1959 from 4, the American branch of the Roman Church is by all odds the
strongest and most influential and, from all indications, furnishes considerably
more than half of the world revenues of the Vatican.
2
The number was increased to 134 by Pope Paul VI, in 1969, ten of whom are
Americans.
At
the death of a pope, the cardinals meet in Rome in the so‑called College
of Cardinals, and elect a new pope. This is their most important function.
Usually one is chosen from their own number. After the election of a new pope,
the cardinals individually pledge their complete allegiance to him, even to the
extent of prostrating themselves on the floor before him and kissing his foot as
a symbol of submission. What a servile act that is! They then disband and return
to their respective countries. They have no authority to re‑assemble, or
to remove a pope from office no matter what he may do. In the meantime they
remain subject to him, and can be removed from office by him at any time,
without any explanation whatever if he so desires.
Bishops
are usually nominated by the archbishops but receive their appointments directly
from the pope and remain immediately subject to him. Each bishop is required to
appear before the pope in Rome for ordination and to make his vows of allegiance
personally to him. They too pledge complete allegiance in an impressive and
colorful ceremony, also prostrating themselves before him and kissing his foot.
They are the pope’s chief liaison officers through which he maintains contact
with the church throughout the world. Each reports regularly to the pope
concerning the affairs of the church in his diocese, that is, the district over
which he has charge, and each must present himself in person to the pope at
least once every five to ten years.
Next
step down the ladder are the priests. They are immediately subject to the bishop
of the diocese. The bishop supervises their course of training, inquires into
the fitness of candidates, chooses those who shall be ordained, ordains them,
assigns them to churches, transfers them, and removes them from office as he
sees fit, without explanation if he wishes. Each priest pledges complete
allegiance to his bishop, and submits reports to him. No priest who has had
difficulties with his bishop will be accepted for work in any other diocese
until he has made satisfaction to his own bishop. He must at all costs remain on
good terms with his bishop, otherwise he is helpless.3
3
Since Vatican Two, some priests’ organizations have been formed in the United
States and in a few other countries, but for the most part their actions are
merely advisory.
The
people in turn are expected to obey the priest, and to support him and the
church through their services and money. They are trained and disciplined to
that end from childhood. No one is to question the authority of the priest, even
in domestic or family affairs. Democratic processes are discouraged. Lay
organizations have only very limited scope, usually are not encouraged, and are
excluded from authority in the church at large. Such lay organizations as do
exist have clerical sponsors.
While in
Protestant churches the people usually have the final say in regard to the
choice of ministers and the powers granted to them, in the Roman Church the
laity has no part at all in the ordination and calling of the clergy. The
Council of Trent, in a decree directed in part against Protestantism, placed
that power safely in the hands of the clergy, with the pronouncement: “In the
ordination of bishops, priests, and of the other orders neither the consent nor
vocation nor authority of the people... is required” (Sess. XXIII, Ch. 4), and
even pronounced a curse upon anyone claiming such rights for the laity (Canon
7).
The
Roman Catholic Church is, therefore, a totalitarian, autocratic organization
from top to bottom. And the pope, claiming jurisdiction over from 300 million to
450 million Roman Catholics, the owner of fabulous wealth, and holding life
tenure in his office, is by all odds the most absolute ruler in the world. And
through the years, the people, even in freedom-loving America, have shown
amazing docility in accepting the rule of the hierarchy.
In
every Roman Catholic diocese, unless there are special corporation laws in the
state favorable to the hierarchy, the title to all church property—grounds,
churches, schools, monasteries, convents, cemeteries, and commercial businesses
and properties owned by the church—is held by the bishop as an individual,
often as a “corporation sole,” which is a legal device by which he is
permitted to hold church property. He can mortgage, lease, or sell such
properties at will without consulting the people or the local church or diocese,
nor does he render any financial report to the people concerning such sales or
transactions. He reports only to the pope in Rome. Local church finances are in
the hands of the priest, or of the bishop to whom he reports. Control of church
finances and property by lay trustees such as is the custom in practically all
Protestant churches is forbidden, having been abolished by papal decree in the
last century. The bishop in turn, under Canon Law, that is, Roman Catholic Church law, holds the property in trust for and subject to the control of the pope.
The
purpose of the Roman Church in having all such property recorded in the name of
the bishop rather than treating it as a corporation is to avoid the necessity of
making public financial reports. Canon law does not permit the incorporating of
such properties unless the laws of the state are so drawn that they grant
special favors to the hierarchy—which in this Protestant country they usually
do not.
Where
the money comes from, and where it goes, is all a deep, dark secret—enabling
the hierarchy to accept money from various sources and for various causes which
if known might subject it to public criticism, also enabling it to channel money
into various projects at home and abroad to suit the purpose of the hierarchy
without the criticism that would be sure to arise if it were generally known how
the money was used. The implicit trust demanded by the Roman Church extends not
only to theological and ecclesiastical matters, but to financial matters as
well.
In
contrast with the secrecy practiced in the Roman Church, most Protestant
churches voluntarily make public reports at least once each year of all funds
received and expended, both locally and in the denomination at large. These
reports are included in the annual minutes, and sometimes are published in
newspapers and magazines. If anyone doubts that the finances of the Roman Church
are a closely guarded secret, let him try to find out how much money is
received, where it comes from, how it is expended in the local church, how much
is given to the bishop, and how much is sent to Rome. He will find that the
priest reports only to the bishop and that the bishop reports only to the pope.
Ironical as it may seem, this nation, mostly Protestant, is the main support of
the Roman Catholic Church in her world work. But it does at least point up the
fact that Roman Catholicism does better spiritually and economically where it
has to stand on its own feet, where it is not supported by the state but is in
competition with other churches.
In
regard to the ownership of church property, a present day case that has
attracted considerable attention is that of the De La Salle Institute, of Napa,
California. There a group of Roman Catholic monks producing wine and brandy
operate the largest brandy distillery in the United States, under the trade name
Christian Brothers. Until recently they had not paid income taxes for thirty
years. They have an outlet through the Seagrams company, one of the largest
whiskey distributors in the industry. The Bureau of Internal Revenue has ruled
that this company is subject to income tax, the amount involved being more than
$1,840,000. The Christian Brothers have claimed exemption from corporate taxes
on the profits of this commercial liquor business on the ground that the
distillery is church property, “an integral part of the Roman Catholic
Church,” held in trust for the benefit of the pope in Rome. When this case was
given some publicity Christian Brothers paid part of the tax, $490,000, for the
years 1952, 1953, and 1956, then filed a claim to recover the money. But after a
prolonged court trial the claim was rejected. Net corporate profits in the three
years involved were $3,250,000. See Church
and State, July‑August,
1961.
Various other church businesses over the country
come under this same classification, two prominent ones being a radio and
television broadcasting station in New Orleans, which accepts commercial
advertising, operated by Jesuit priests at Loyola University, and another in St.
Louis, also operated by Jesuit priests. Exemption from taxation, of course,
gives such companies a substantial advantage over other companies that pay
taxes. Such exemption is discriminatory and unfair and is an offense against all
people and corporations that do pay taxes.
It
has long been Roman Catholic policy to represent Protestantism as composed of
many denominations which are hopelessly divided and constantly quarreling among
themselves. In view of the Romanist emphasis on unity and solidarity, the Roman
Catholic laity has indeed found it hard to understand how there can be various
Protestant denominations, and this has presented a real stumbling‑block to
many who are inclined to leave the Church of Rome. They have been taught to
believe that each Protestant denomination claims to be exclusively the true
church (as does their own) and that one cannot be saved unless he belongs to
that church. The puzzle looks insolvable. They simply would not know where to
turn.
It
is true, of course, that the right of private judgment or private
interpretation, which is claimed by all Protestant churches, has resulted in the
rise of a great many denominations. But the remarkable thing is that in
Protestantism there is a strong undercurrent of spiritual unity. Mechanical and
organizational unity is a secondary thing with them. The great proportion of
Protestant denominations do not claim to be the only true church, but readily
and gladly acknowledge that salvation is to be found in any church where the
Gospel is faithfully preached.
The
various Protestant denominations agree quite fully on practically all of the
essentials of the faith. They believe that the Bible and the Bible alone is the
Word of God, and they accept it as the authoritative guide in church affairs.
They believe in the deity of Christ, in His sacrificial death on the cross as a
substitute for those who place their faith in Him, and that He alone is the Head
of the Church. They are in general agreement concerning the meaning of the
sacraments, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. They believe in the personal and
visible return of Christ, the resurrection of the body, a future judgment,
heaven and hell. Their ideas concerning moral character, spiritual life, and the
relationship that should exist between church and state are quite similar.
Whether called Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, or what not, they
all belong to one body, the church of Christ, just as the 50 states of the
United States have various names and local governments but all belong to one
nation. Their basic attitude toward one another is not that of opposition and
competition but rather of cooperation and friendship. Ministers of one
denomination are often invited to speak or to conduct the entire service in
churches of other denominations, and the laity is free to attend churches of
which they are not members. Union services, particularly in evangelistic
meetings, are common, often with all of the Protestant churches in a city
cooperating, as witness the famous Billy Sunday evangelistic campaigns of a few
years ago and the Billy Graham meetings in more recent years. On various radio
programs the listeners are scarcely aware of the denomination to which the
speaker belongs. Protestants thus acknowledge fellow Protestants in other
denominations as true Christians. And they are united in rejecting what they
believe to be the errors of the Roman Church, such as the priesthood, mass,
confession, purgatory, worship of the Virgin Mary, etc.
On
the other hand, the teachings that divide Protestants, while sometimes important
in themselves, are minor compared with their differences with Romanism. They may
differ in regard to the form of baptism or the Lord’s Supper; some are
Calvinists while others are Arminians; their form of church government may be
Episcopal, Presbyterian, or Congregational. But when the Bible is taken as the
authoritative guide, the liberty that each has to think through his own religion
and arrive at conclusions for himself does not make for such sharp divisions as
some might expect.
No
one has expressed more beautifully the unity of the Protestant churches than
that venerable Presbyterian theologian, Dr. Charles Hodge. Said he: “These
separate churches remain one: (1) because they continue to be subject to the
same Lord, to be animated by the same Spirit, and to possess the same faith; (2)
because they recognize each other as churches, just as every Christian
recognizes every other Christian as a fellow believer, and consequently
recognize each other’s members, ordinances, and acts of discipline; (3) they
continue one body because they are subject to one common tribunal. The tribunal
at first was the apostles, now the Bible and the mind of the church as a whole,
expressed sometimes in one way and sometimes in another” (article, reprinted
in Eternity magazine, June, 1958).
The
unity of spirit among Protestants minimizes very substantially the
denominational differences. Consequently, when Roman Catholics leave their
church and become Protestants, they usually are surprised at the unity of faith
and worship which they discover. The fact is that there is often more unity in
Protestantism than in Romanism. The rivalry that for centuries has existed
between the Dominicans arid the Franciscans, between both of those orders and
the Jesuits, and between various orders of monks and nuns, especially in
countries in which there were no Protestant churches, has often been sharp and
bitter. Such rivalries, however, usually are suppressed by the pope so that they
do not come to public attention.
Listen
to the testimony of a former priest, now superintendent of Memorial Hospital,
Phoenix, Arizona, concerning the unity that he finds in Protestantism and the
contrast between Romanism and Protestantism as regards the participation of the
laity in church services. Emmett McLoughlin, in his best seller book, People’s Padre, which
was published in 1954 and which now has passed the 250,000 mark, says:
“To me the
differences among Protestants, though doctrinal, are superficial and
non‑essential. Their unity is greater than their divergency. ...
“To me, the
outstanding characteristic of all Protestant forms of worship is their
enthusiasm. Whether in a revival tent, in an ivy-covered church, or in an
impressive cathedral, the members of the congregation show a spontaneity in
praying, singing, and listening that does not exist is Roman Catholic churches.
The reason is obvious: Most Protestants go to church because they want to;
Catholics generally are there because they are afraid not to be. Missing mass
deliberately on only one Sunday is for Catholics a mortal sin and damns their
souls to hell. The mass is a stereotyped Latin ritual that somehow is supposed
to placate God. Protestant services of any denomination, even the silent Quaker
service, call for an active and voluntary participation of all those present.
...
“The
Protestant clergy—and I know many of them intimately—seem far more sincere
and personally dedicated than the average Roman Catholic priest. This is
probably because they are in the ministry through adult choice, not drawn into
it when too young to know better. Protestants remain in the ministry because
they wish to, not because they are bound irrevocably by laws of their churches
or because of threats of divine and human reprisals if they leave the
ministry” (pp. 272-273).
And
Walter M. Montano, a former editor of
Christian Heritage, and also
a former Roman Catholic, says:
“One of the
outstanding marks of Protestantism is its unity
in diversity. This is a
characteristic inherent in its very nature, but unfortunately, is poorly
understood by many of its beneficiaries.
“This
diversity creates and stimulates freedom of action within the limits of what is
right before God and man. The dissenting groups or congregations, when released
from their Roman shackles, learn for the first time the blessings of freedom of
expression. Diversity blocks the road to any religious monopoly, and prevents
any man from standing in the place of God to rule the community with that
totalitarian despotism that in the lexicon of the Roman Church is called
‘papal infallibility.’
“In this
concept of Protestantism there is no room for anyone with the investiture of a
pope, and for this very reason, organic unity is a foreign element to
Protestantism. The lack of organic unity is the strength, not the weakness, of
Protestantism, and assures to us our freedom before God. ... Unity and liberty
are in opposition; as the one diminishes, the other increases. The Reformation
broke down unity; it gave liberty. ... America, in which of all countries the
Reformation at the present moment has farthest advanced, should offer to
thoughtful men much encouragement. Its cities are filled with churches built by
voluntary gifts; its clergy are voluntarily sustained, and are, in all
directions, engaged in enterprises of piety, education, mercy. What a difference
between their private lives and that of ecclesiastics before the Reformation!
“Unfortunately,
Protestants themselves at times succumb to a superficial criticism of our lack
of organic unity without realizing that it is the safeguard of our liberty in
Christ. We deplore the fact that in some isolated quarters there exist ideas and
ambitions to establish a ‘superchurch’ with a Protestant hierarchy and its
well constituted ecclesiastical army. This will never happen as long as
Christian Protestants remain loyal to the principles upon which Protestantism
was founded. There is an essential and vast difference between organic unity,
the boast of the Roman Church, and the spiritual unity, which identifies
Protestant Christianity. Organic unity produces a machine which is an end in
itself. Spiritual unity, on the other hand, the unity of the one true church of
Jesus Christ, binds the hearts of all under one Head, the Lord Jesus Christ,
while at the same time preserving the identity of each member” (Christian
Heritage, October, 1958).
Unfortunately among Protestants there are some who
are so absorbed with the idea of church union that they even hope for an
eventual union with the Roman Catholic Church. Concerning these Dr. Montano
says:
“These are foolish
men who choose to walk in darkness. They cannot see the right path because they
have chosen to be blind to the evils of the Roman Church, both past and present.
Both of these concepts, the desire for a Protestant ‘super‑church’ and
the desire for union with the Vatican, are the very antithesis of Protestantism
and will destroy the very thing that gave life to the Reformation. ... Only a
militant Protestantism can save America and the world.”
It
is not surprising that there are many branches of the Christian church. The
process of division started even in apostolic times, for we are told that Paul
and Barnabas, though loyal friends and faithful coworkers in the church,
disagreed because Barnabas insisted on taking Mark with them. In Acts 15:39 we
read: “And there arose a sharp contention, so that they parted asunder one
from the other.”
In
his first Epistle to the Corinthians Paul complained about divisions in the
church because some said, “I am of Paul... I am of Apollos... I am of
Peter... Is Christ divided?” (1:12‑13). That process has been going
on through the centuries. The church has never been one solid organization.
From the first centuries there have been schisms, and what are called heresies.
Furthermore, those often arose not outside of but within the Christian church
and were defended by members within the church. The church still has a long way
to go before spiritual unity becomes a reality. In the present state of the
church it is inevitable that there should be divisions. In answer to the Roman
Catholic claim to be the one true church, we reply, Nonsense! The Roman Church
is only one branch of a much larger body. The Eastern Orthodox Church is older
and has a more direct connection with apostolic Christianity than does the
Roman. Each Protestant denomination is as much a unit within itself as is the
Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Church. And most Protestant churches have a
record of much truer devotion and loyalty to the Scriptures, and of having
produced a higher morality and spirituality among their people than does either
the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Church.
There
is but one way to prevent divisions in the present day church, and that is by
making unity a higher virtue than truth. The Roman Church achieves unity by
eliminating religious liberty. A member of that church who will not subordinate
his judgment to that of the pope is excommunicated. But that kind of unity has
no attraction for men of strong religious convictions. When that alternative was
presented to Martin Luther he promptly showed his contempt for a church that
would make such a demand by burning the papal bull and denouncing the pope who
had issued it as Antichrist.
It
is to be acknowledged that many of the divisions that have occurred in the
Christian church have been unnecessary and that some have been detrimental. Some
have arisen because of evil motives on the part of certain groups, or because of
the personal ambitions of strong-willed leaders. But many others have arisen
because of natural circumstances, such as those of race, language, nationality,
geography, or honest difference of opinion. If we have true spiritual unity, the
lack of outward unity will not seriously hamper Christian life and practice. The
spiritual unity that characterizes evangelical Protestants is more important
than the organizational diversity that places them in different denominations.
Religious liberty by its very nature is sure to bring some degree of disunity,
precisely as political liberty does, for we do not all think alike or act alike.
But to suppress that liberty is to destroy the very basis for evangelical
theology.
It
is also true that this freedom on the part of Protestants has often placed them
at a disadvantage as they are confronted by an aggressive Roman Catholic Church
under unified leadership. But that is precisely the same problem that we face in
the political realm. It often happens that in local, state, or federal
government a well organized minority pressure group pushes through its program
and imposes its will on an unorganized majority. We have seen that particularly
in the big city political machines where time and again and sometimes for long
periods of time corrupt and unscrupulous minority groups have been in control.
But nowhere is such action more reprehensible than in the church as minority
pressure groups intimidate elected assemblies, the press, radio, television, the
movies, and other media that can be used to their advantage. The remedy for such
abuse, however, is not to abolish liberty, but, in the state, to inform and
arouse the electorate so that it will choose clean, honest officials; and in the
church, to so evangelize the membership and develop a wholesome Christian
conscience that such abuses will be impossible.
The primary point of cleavage between the Roman
Catholic and the other churches seems to be the fact that the Roman Church is
hierarchical and authoritarian in its form of government, while the others are
essentially democratic and place the control of church affairs in the hands of
the people. It was the Vatican Council of 1870, with its pronouncement of papal
infallibility, that sounded the death‑knoll of any democratic processes in
the Roman Church and placed it irrevocably on the road to totalitarianism.
The
Priesthood
1.
The Office of the Priest
2.
No New Testament Authority for a Human Priesthood
3.
Claims of the Roman Priesthood
4.
The Christian Ministry not a Sacrificing Ministry
5.
Training for the Priesthood
6.
Groups Within the Priesthood and Within the Laity
7.
Leaving the Priesthood
8. Renouncing Priestly Vows
The
office or work of the priest is perhaps the most difficult to present and the
least understood of any part of the Christian system. In the Old Testament the
work of Christ was prefigured under the three offices of prophet, priest, and
king. Each of these was given special prominence in the nation of Israel. Each
was designed to set forth a particular phase of the work of the coming Redeemer,
and each was filled, not by men who voluntarily took the work upon themselves,
but only by those who were divinely called to the work.
The
prophet was appointed to be God’s spokesman to the people, revealing to them
his will and purpose for their salvation. The priest was appointed to represent
the people before God, to offer sacrifices for them and to intercede with God on
their behalf. And the king was appointed to rule over the people, to defend them
and to restrain and conquer all His and their enemies. In the present study we
are concerned only with the priesthood.
The
essential idea of a priest is that of a mediator between God and man. In his
fallen estate man is a sinner, guilty before God, and alienated from Him. He has
no right of approach to God, nor does he have the ability, or even the desire,
to approach Him. Instead, he wants to flee from God, and to have nothing to do
with Him. He is, therefore, helpless until someone undertakes to act as his
representative before God.
In
ancient Israel the priests performed three primary duties: they ministered at
the sanctuary before God, offering sacrifices to Him in behalf of the people;
they taught the people the law of God; and they inquired for the people
concerning the divine will. Under the old covenant the men who held the offices
of prophet, priest, or king were only shadows or types of the great Prophet, the
great Priest, and the great King who was to come. With the coming of Christ each
of these offices found its fulfillment in Him. And with the accomplishment of
His work of redemption, each of these offices, as it functioned on the human
level, reached its fulfillment and was abolished. As regards the priesthood
Christ alone is now our Priest, our one and only High Priest. He fulfills that
office in that He once offered up Himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice,
thereby making unnecessary and putting an end to all other sacrifices. He paid
the debt for the sin of His people, and so opened the way for renewed fellowship
between them and God. And as the risen and exalted Savior of His people, He
intercedes effectually for them with God the Father.
All
of this is clearly set forth by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews who in
the ninth chapter says that “Christ having come a high priest of the good
things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with
hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet through the blood of goats
and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption” (vv. 11-12); that we are redeemed
through “the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself
without blemish unto God” (v. 14); that “Christ entered not into a holy
place made with hands, like in pattern to the true; but into heaven itself, now
to appear before the face of God for us” (v. 24); that “now once at the end
of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself” (v. 26); and in 8:1-2, that “We have such a high priest, who sat
down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister
of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not
man.”
Thus
under the figure of Israel’s sacrificing priesthood, particularly through the
figure of the high priest who entered into the holy of holies on the day of
atonement with blood that had been offered, we are shown that Christ, who is our
High Priest, has entered into the heavenly sanctuary with the merits of His
atoning sacrifice, that its atoning and cleansing power may be constantly
applied to all who put their trust in Him.
In
accordance with this New Testament change in the priesthood, through which the
old order of ritual and sacrifice which prefigured the atoning work of Christ
has been fulfilled and Christ alone has become our true High Priest, the human
priesthood as a distinct and separate order of men has fulfilled its function
and has been abolished. Furthermore, all born‑again believers, having now
been given the right of access to God through Christ their Savior, and being
able to go directly to God in prayer and so to intercede for themselves and
others, themselves become priests of God. For these are the functions of a
priest. This we term the universal
priesthood of believers. And this
is the distinctive feature of Protestantism as regards the doctrine of the
priesthood.
“Ye
also,” says Peter, “as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be
a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through
Jesus Christ. ... Ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a
people for God’s own possession” (1 Peter 2:5,9). In making that statement
Peter was not addressing a priestly caste, but
all true believers, as is
shown by the fact that his epistle was addressed to Jewish Christians who were
scattered throughout the various nations, “sojourners of the Dispersion”
(1:1), even to those who are as “newborn babes” in the faith (2:2). And in
Revelation 1:5‑6, John, writing to the seven churches in Asia Minor, says:
“Unto him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins by his blood: and he
made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father.”
The
sacrifices offered by the Christian in the exercise of this priesthood are, of
course, not for sin, as professedly are those of the Roman Catholic mass. Christ
offered the true and only sacrifice for sin, once
for all. His sacrifice was
perfect. When He had completed His work of redemption upon the cross and was
ready to give up His spirit He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). With His
sacrifice God was fully satisfied. It therefore does not need to be repeated,
nor supplemented, nor modified in any way.
The sacrifices offered by the Christian are termed
“spiritual,” and they relate to worship and service. First, there is the
sacrifice of praise: “Through him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise
to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which make confession in his
name” (Hebrews 13:15). This offering of thanks and praise to God in worship,
which expresses the gratitude of the heart, is an acceptable offering. Second,
there is the sacrifice offered through our gifts, as our substance is given for
the support of God’s work. He has declared that it is His pleasure to receive
such gifts when they are given willingly and with pure motives: “But to do
good and to communicate forget not [i.e., sharing with others, helping those who
are in need]; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased” (Hebrews 13:16).
And third, there is the offering of ourselves, our bodies, our lives, in
Christian service: “I beseech you
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service” (Romans
12:1). Furthermore, we are sons of God through faith in Christ (1 John
3:1‑2). As no longer servants but sons in His family, we have direct
access to Him as our Father and no longer need the mediation of any order of
human priests. To depend upon priestly mediation is by that much to return to
Judaism and to introduce an dement of apostasy into Christianity.
Thus
the New Testament sets forth a new and different kind of priesthood: first,
Christ, the true High Priest, who is in heaven; and second, the universal
priesthood of believers, through which they offer the “spiritual” sacrifices
of praise, of gifts, and of themselves in Christian service. It thereby
repudiates the pretentious claims of the Roman priesthood, which would
perpetuate the Jewish priesthood and limit it to a few chosen men who are set
apart from the laity, who profess to offer literal sacrifices in the mass, and
who supposedly are nearer to God than are other men.
Every
believer now has the inexpressibly high privilege of going directly to God in
prayer, without the mediation of any earthly priest, and of interceding for
himself and for others. We are told: “Ask, and it shall be given unto you;
seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew
7:7); “If ye shall ask anything of the Father, he will give it you in my
name” (John 16:23); “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be
saved” (Acts 2:21).
The
believer, of course, approaches God not in his own merits but only through the
merits of Christ who has made a perfect sacrifice for him. It is precisely at
this point that the Roman Catholic fails to see God’s true way of salvation,
for he thinks that man still must approach God as in Old Testament times through
a priest, or now perhaps through Mary or some saint whose merits can work for
him. But Paul says, “By grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not
of yourselves, it is the gift of God”
(Ephesians 2:8). Christians have, by virtue of their union with Christ,
free access to God at all times. This right is one of the finest things in the
Christian faith, and it is a present possession. Yet Rome would rob us of this
privilege and would interpose her priests and dead saints between the soul and
God. Rome’s teaching and practice is heresy, for in many places the Bible
invites us to come to God through Christ, without any reference to priests or
other intercessors.
The
Bible teaches that “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men,
the man Jesus Christ” (1 Timothy 2:5). The Church of Rome teaches that there
are many mediators—the priests, Mary, a host of saints, and the angels—and
that it is right and proper to pray to them. But to any honest priest in the
Church of Rome it must become more and more apparent that Christ is the only
true Priest, the only true Mediator, and that in serving as a priest, in
pretending to offer the sacrifice of the mass and to forgive sins, he is merely
acting the part of an impostor.
The
really decisive answer to all theories concerning a human priesthood is found in
the New Testament itself. There we are taught that the priesthood, along with
the other elements of the old dispensation, including the sacrificial system,
the ritual, the Levitical law, the temple, etc., has served its purpose and has
passed away. With the coming of Christ and the accomplishment of redemption
through His work, the entire Old Testament legalistic and ritualistic system
which had prefigured it became obsolete and passed away as a unit. It is very
inconsistent for the Roman Church to retain the priesthood while discarding the
other elements of that system.
An
enlightening article that appeared in the Chicago
Lutheran Theological Seminary Record,
July, 1952, somewhat abbreviated has this to say about the priesthood:
“The writers
of the New Testament had two separate words for elder and priest.
They do not mean the same thing at all, and the New Testament never
confuses them. It never says presbuteros, elder, when it means priest.
The New Testament word for priest is hiereus. In Greek, from Homer down, this word had a singular meaning. It
meant a man appointed, or consecrated, or otherwise endowed with power to
perform certain technical functions of ritual worship, especially to offer
acceptable sacrifices, and to make effectual prayers. Likewise in the Septuagint
hiereus is the regular if not
invariable translation of the Old Testament kohen
and kahen, the only Hebrew word for priest. It occurs more than 400 times
in the Old Testament in this sense. In the New Testament hiereus always means priest, never means elder. There is not
anywhere in the New Testament the shadow of an allusion to a Christian priest in
the ordinary sense of the word, that is, a man qualified as over against others
not qualified for the special function of offering sacrifices, making priestly
intercessions, or performing any other act which only a priest can perform. The
Epistle to the Hebrews attributed both priesthood and high-priesthood to Christ
and to Him alone. The argument of the Epistle not only indicates that a
Christian priesthood was unknown to the writer, but that such a priesthood is
unallowable. It is to Jesus only that Christians look as to a priest. He has
performed perfectly and permanently the function of a priest for all believers.
His priesthood, being perfect and eternal, renders a continuous human priesthood
both needless and anachronistic.”
Paul
enumerates the different kinds of ministers and agents in the Christian church,
and the office of priest is not among them: “And he gave some to be apostles;
and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers”
(Ephesians 4:11). And again, “And God hath set some in the church, first
apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers. ...” (1 Corinthians 12:28).
There is never any mention of priests. The only mediatorial priesthood
recognized in the New Testament is that of Christ, the great High Priest, and to
Him alone is the title “priest” (hiereus) given: “Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of
Melchizedek” (Hebrews 7:17); “But he, because he abideth for ever, hath his
priesthood unchangeable. Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them
that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession
for them. For such a high priest became us, holy, guiltless, undefiled,
separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily,
like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and
then for the sins of the people: for this he did once
for all, when he offered up himself” (Hebrews 7:24‑27), “For
by one offering he hath perfected for
ever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).
Since
the priesthood occupied such an important place in the Old Testament
dispensation and in the thinking of the Jewish people, it is inconceivable that,
had it been continued in the New Testament dispensation, God would have made no
mention of it at all—how priests were to be chosen, and ordained, and how they
were to carry out their functions in this radically different dispensation. The
fact of the matter is that the Old Testament priesthood was the human,
Aaronistic priesthood, and that by its very nature it was, like the sacrificial
system and the elaborate temple worship of which it was a part, a temporary
affair, a mere shadow and prefigurement of the reality that was to come. And so,
with the coming of Christ and the establishment of His priesthood, it fell away,
as the stars fade before the rising sun, and as the petals fall away before the
developing fruit. The priesthood as an order of clergy has been abolished.
In
the Epistle to the Hebrews several chapters are devoted to showing that the Old
Testament priesthood has been abolished and that there is no place in
Christianity for a sacrificing priesthood, because Christ, “through his own
blood, entered in once for all into
the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption,” and that He has offered “one sacrifice for sins
for ever” (9:12, 10:12).
The many human priests with their innumerable animal sacrifices were effective
in their work of reconciling the people to God only because they represented the
true High Priest and the one true sacrifice that was to come. But after the
reality appeared, there would be no more need for the shadows and types that had
preceded it. Hence we read concerning the sacrifice of Christ: “But now once
at the end of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the
sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26); and again: “We have been sanctified
through the offering of the body of Christ once
for all” (Hebrews 10:10).
The
sacrifice of Christ was therefore a “once‑for‑all” sacrifice
which only He could make, and which cannot be repeated. By its very nature it
was final and complete. It was a work of Deity, and so cannot be repeated by man
any more than can the work of creation. By that one sacrifice the utmost demands
of God’s justice were fully and forever satisfied. Final atonement has been
accomplished! No further order of priests is needed to offer additional
sacrifices or to perpetuate that one. His was the one sacrifice to end all
sacrifices. Let all men now look to that one sacrifice on Calvary! Any
continuing priesthood and any “unbloody repetition of the mass,” which
professes to offer the same sacrifice that Christ offered on Calvary, is in
reality merely a sham and a recrudescence of Judaism within the Christian
Church.
The
abolition of the priestly caste which through the old dispensation stood between
God and man was dramatically illustrated at the very moment that Christ died on
the cross. When He cried, “It is finished,” a strange sound filled the
temple as the veil that separated the sanctuary from the holy of holies was torn
from top to bottom. The ministering priests found themselves gazing at the torn
veil with wondering eyes, for God’s own hand had removed the curtain and had
opened the way into the holy of holies, symbolizing by that act that no longer
did man have to approach Him through the mediation of a priest, but that the way
of access to Him is now open to all.
But
the veil which had been torn by the hand of God was patched up again by priestly
hands, and for forty years, until the fall of Jerusalem, sacrifices continued to
be offered in a restored temple service, and in Judaism the veil continued to
stand between God and men. In our day the Roman priesthood has again patched up
the veil. Through the use of spurious sacraments, the sacrifice of the mass, the
confessional, indulgences, and other such priestly instruments it insists on
keeping in place the curtain that God Himself has removed. It continues to place
fallible human priests, the Virgin Mary and dead saints as mediators between the
sinner and God, although the Bible declares most clearly that “There is one
God, and one mediator between God and
men, himself man, Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).
Hence
the continuing priesthood in the Church of Rome is absolutely unscriptural and
unchristian. It owes its existence solely to a man‑made development that
can be traced in detail in the history of the church, for it was not until the
third or fourth century that priests began to appear in the church. That system
has been a source of untold evil. But papal dominance has been built upon that
practice and is dependent on its continuance. Without a hierarchical priesthood
the papal system would immediately disintegrate.
The
Apostle Peter, far from making himself a priest or a pope, was content to call
himself one of the many elders, a presbuteros.
And he specifically warned the elders against that most glaring error of
the Roman Catholic priests, lording it over the charge allotted to them. He
urged rather that they serve as examples to the flock: “The elders therefore
among you I exhort, who am a fellow‑elder, and a witness of the sufferings
of Christ, who am also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Tend the
flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint,
but willingly, according to the will of God; nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a
ready mind; neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making
yourselves ensamples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:1‑3).
As
regards priestly innovations that have been made by the Roman Church, Dr. R.
Laird Harris, Professor of Old Testament in Covenant Theological Seminary, in
St. Louis, writes:
“First century
Christianity had no priests. The New Testament nowhere uses the word to describe
a leader in Christian service. The Jewish priesthood was changed, we are told in
Hebrews 7:12. Christ is now our ‘priest forever after the order of
Melchizedek’ (Hebrews 7:17). It is true that the Douay but not the
Confraternity version does use the word ‘priest’ (in a Christian
connection), but the Greek never uses the word ‘hiereus’ (priest), nor does
the Latin so use ‘sacerdos’ (priest). It is good that this clear
mistranslation of the Douay has been corrected in the newer Roman Catholic
Confraternity edition. Christian priests are a Roman Catholic invention”
(booklet, Fundamental Protestant Doctrines, II, p.3).
But
the doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers is not merely a negative
teaching abolishing an order of clergy. For along with that freedom which makes
the believer responsible only to God for his faith and life, there is an added
responsibility. We are members of a Christian community, “an elect race, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession” (1 Peter
2:9). As Christians, then, we are not “laymen,” not mere spectators of the
Christian enterprise who may or may not engage in it as we choose, but
“priests,” and therefore responsible to God for the faith and lives of
others. We are under obligation to make known this message of salvation. The
word “layman” is not found in the New Testament, nor is there any
“layman’s movement” in the Bible. A priest is inevitably involved in the
lives of others, and is responsible to God for others. He has the high privilege
and duty of making God known to others. This priesthood, therefore, applies to
all believers, and consists of two things: (1) Immediate access to God in prayer
for one’s self, and (2) the right and duty of intercession for others. Only as
we grasp these ideas can we appreciate the full, rich meaning of the doctrine of
the universal priesthood of believers.
Furthermore,
we are a royal priesthood. That means
that we have been called, chosen, by the King of Kings to be His priests before
our fellow men. We are not first of all clergy and laymen. We are first of all a
royal priesthood, under obligation individually
to make known the message of salvation. And the strength of Protestantism
lies precisely here, in the willingness of its people to accept this strange
office and all that it means, and to serve in the household of God as the royal
priests that we really are.
The
Council of Trent, whose decrees must be accepted by all Roman Catholics under
pain of mortal sin or excommunication, says:
“The priest is the man
of God, the minister of God. ... He that despiseth the priest despiseth God; he
that hears him hears God. The priest remits sins as God, and that which he calls
his body at the altar is adored as God by himself and by the congregation. ...
It is clear that their function is such that none greater can be conceived.
Wherefore they are justly called not only angels, but also God, holding as they
do among us the power and authority of the immortal God.”
In
a similar vein a Roman Catholic book, carrying the imprimatur of
the Archbishop of Ottawa, Canada, says:
“Without the priest
the death and passion of our Lord would be of no avail to us. See the power of
the priest! By one word from his lips he changes a piece of bread into a God! A
greater fact than the creation of a world. If I were to meet a priest and an
angel, I would salute the priest more saluting the angel. The priest holds the
place of God.”
To
millions of Christians who are outside the Roman Church such words border on
blasphemy, if indeed they are not blasphemy. Surely such declarations are a
usurpation of the power that belongs only to God.
It
is surprising how little Scripture authority even the Roman Church cites as a
basis for her doctrine of the priesthood. Her main and almost only support is
found in two verses, Matthew 16:18‑19—which she has misinterpreted, and
then, by adding one human tradition to another, has built up an elaborate system
which not only has no real support in Scripture but which actually is contrary
to Scripture. And by teaching her people this one interpretation and denying
them the right to read or hear any other, she has misled millions so that they
have come to believe that this is true Christianity. These verses read:
“And I say unto thee,
thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it. And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of
heaven; and whatever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and
whatever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Confraternity
Version).
There
are various interpretations of these verses. Suffice it to say here that this
passage contains symbolical language and that the interpretation of the
“rock,” the “keys,” the “gates of hell,” and the “binding” and
“loosing” adopted by Rome is by no means the only one, nor even the most
plausible one. We shall treat these verses more fully in connection with the
discussion of Peter as the alleged head of the church on earth.
There
is probably no other doctrine revealed in Scripture that the Roman Church has so
obviously turned upside down as that of the priesthood. The function of no New
Testament minister or official resembled that of a priest of the Roman Church.
The titles of “archbishop,” “cardinal” (“prince of the church,” as
they like to be called), and “pope” are not even in the Bible. The term
“bishop” (overseer, or shepherd of the flock) designated an entirely
different office than does that term in the present day Roman Church. In fact
the terms “bishop” (episcopos) and “elder” (presbyteros) were used interchangeably. Elders could be of two kinds—what
we term the teaching elder, or pastor, and the ruling elder, who represented the
congregation in the general affairs of the church.
Paul ordained elders in the newly established
churches and gave his assistants, Timothy and Titus, instructions for choosing
and ordaining elders in every city (1 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:5). During the Middle
Ages the teaching elder became a priest at the altar, and the function of the
ruling elder was usurped by bishops, cardinals, and the pope, until practically
no authority was left in the hands of the congregation, which of course is the
condition that continues in the Roman Catholic churches of today. Rome has
robbed the laity of nearly all of its privileges.
Christ
intended that His church, which consists of all true believers, should enjoy all
of the rights and privileges that were conferred by Him. But Rome withdraws
those rights and privileges from the people, and invests them in an order of
priesthood. Christ bade His followers practice humility, acknowledge one another
as equals, and serve one another (Matthew 20:25‑28, 23:8; 1 Peter 5:3, 2
Corinthians 4:5). But Rome denies this equality and sets up the priest as a
dictator belonging to a sacred order, altogether apart from and superior to the
people of the parish. The loyal Roman Catholic must heed what the priest says,
for priestly dignity is above all. The priest dictates to his people concerning
their church, school, marriage, children, family affairs, political activities,
what literature they should read, and so on, all of which he may inquire into
intimately in the confessional. From before birth until after death that
influence continues. As father confessor and “director of conscience,” and
as God’s spokesman to the people, his word is not to be questioned.
The
feeling of fear and dread of the priest, so characteristic of the people in
Romanist lands, is comparable only to the fear and dread that pagan people have
for the witch doctor. Says one from Southern Ireland who has had ample
opportunity to observe from within the workings of that system: “You who have
never been under this influence, who have from childhood been allowed freedom of
speech, liberty of conscience, and who see no distinction between your clergy
and laity, you cannot, you never will understand the influence that Roman
Catholic priests have over the laity of their own nationality” (Margaret
Shepherd, My Life in the Convent, p.
46).
Romanism
puts the priest between the Christian believer and the knowledge of God as
revealed in the Scriptures, and makes him the sole interpreter of truth. It puts
the priest between the confession of sins and the forgiveness of sins. It
carries this interposition through to the last hour, in which the priest, in the
sacrament of extreme unction, stands between the soul and eternity, and even
after death the release of the soul from purgatory and its entrance into
heavenly joy is still dependent on the priest’s prayers which must be paid for
by relatives or friends. The Roman priests, in designating themselves, the
Virgin Mary, and the saints as mediators, and in making membership in their
church the indispensable requirement for salvation, place a screen between God
and the people. And where does Christ come in, in this system? If you search you
will find Him in the background, behind the priest, behind the Virgin, behind
the church. The inevitable result is that the spiritual life of the Roman
Catholic is weak and anemic, and that Roman Catholic countries, such as Spain,
Italy, Southern Ireland, Quebec, and Latin America, are immersed in spiritual
darkness.
No
matter what the moral character of a priest, his prayers and his ministrations
are declared to be valid and efficacious because he is in holy orders. The
Council of Trent has declared that “Even those priests who are living in
mortal sin exercise the same function of forgiving sins as ministers of
Christ”—such a declaration was necessary at that time, in the middle of the
16th century, if the Roman Church was to continue to function at all,
because of the general and well-known immorality of the priests. Just as the
medicine given by the doctor is supposed to cure the patient regardless of the
moral character of the doctor, so the priest’s official acts are supposed to
be valid and efficacious regardless of his personal character. He is accounted a
“good priest” so long as he remains loyal to the church and the rituals and
ceremonies performed by him are correct. Says one writer, “When you see the
way the system of the priesthood works out in daily life, be glad you are a
Protestant.”
Few
Protestants realize the nature and significance of the vast chasm which
separates the Roman Catholic priesthood from the people. No such gulf exists
between the Protestant clergyman and his congregation. A fiction of sacerdotal
wisdom and holiness, particularly as displayed in the sacrifice of the mass,
sets the priest apart from the awed and reverent Catholic laity. Yet the Roman
Church seeks to have the world believe that a close unity exists between the
clergy and the laity. And an almost total ignorance on the part of the Catholic
people concerning the political machinations of the hierarchy leaves them
usually not only willing but even proud to be identified with whatever program
is put forth in the name of the Roman Church.
In
our method of choosing a minister, which we believe is in harmony with the
teaching of Scripture and the practice of the early church, we choose a man not
because he is of a superior order, but because of our belief that he is capable
of ministering the things of the Spirit to his fellow men and because we believe
he will live an honest, humble, sincere, and upright life. Ordinarily the
minister marries and dwells in a family because this is the natural state of
man, and hence he is closer to his people than is the celibate priest. He is
chosen by the people, not, however, to govern according to the will of the
people, but according to the will of Christ as revealed in the Scriptures. He is
among the flock as a spiritual leader, friend, and counsellor, not to be
ministered unto, but to minister.
We
have said that it is the work of a priest to represent man before God, to offer
sacrifices, to intercede for men, and so to make God propitious, that is,
favorably inclined toward them. In all pre‑Christian religions, Judaism
included, there were two common elements: (1) a human priesthood and (2) the
teaching that the salvation provided was incomplete. In the very nature of the
case their sacrifices were of limited value and therefore deficient. In the
pagan religions this usually led to belief in a future round of existence after
death wherein the still unsaved sinner would have to make further expiation for
his sins. In Judaism it was shown in the never-ending cycle of those sacrifices
as day after day the same ritual was repeated.
Now,
Roman Catholicism, although it professes to be Christian, possesses those same
two elements. It claims a human priesthood, and it teaches that salvation in
this life is not complete, but that after death the soul must suffer a longer or
shorter time in purgatory and that repeated masses must be said to pay the debt
for sin. But Protestantism teaches that with the coming of Christ and the
completion of His work on Calvary a new element was added, one which completely
eliminates the other two, namely, the evangel, or the “good news” that
because Christ was both God and man His sacrifice was of infinite value, and
that it was therefore complete,
efficacious, and final.
This
is the clear teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews, for there we read:
“By which will
we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all. And every priest indeed standeth day by day ministering and
offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, the which can never take away sins: but
he, when he had offered one sacrifice for
sins for ever, sat
down on the right hand of God; henceforth expecting till his enemies be made the
footstool of his feet. For by one offering
he hath perfected
for ever them that are sanctified” (10:10‑14).
And
again:
“[Christ] who needeth
not daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his
own sins, and then for the sins of the people: for this he did once
for all, when he offered up himself” (7:27).
Here
we are taught, first of all, that the pre‑Christian element of an
incomplete salvation was superseded by the complete salvation obtained through
the one efficacious sacrifice offered by Christ, and, secondly, that the human
priesthood offering daily sacrifices for the sins of men was eliminated, having
been done away through the once for
all sacrifice for sins when Christ offered up Himself. This means further that
sin cannot persist as something to be expiated for after death; that we are
saved completely, not half‑saved; and that therefore there can be no such
place as purgatory.
In
the Jewish priesthood, (1) there were many priests, (2) they were men of
infirmity, and (3) it was necessary that they repeat their sacrifices many
times, for their own sins and for those of the people. These same reasons apply
with equal force against the Roman priesthood: (1) they too are many, (2) they
too are men of infirmity, and (3) they too repeat their sacrifices many times
for themselves and for the people. In the nature of the case there could be
nothing permanent about the work of the Jewish priesthood, for it was merely a
foreshadowing or a prefiguring of the work that was to be accomplished by
Christ. But the “one sacrifice,” offered “once for all,” by Christ paid
the penalty for the sin of His people and so fulfilled the ritual and made all
further sacrifices unnecessary. There is, therefore, no place for a sacrificing
priesthood in the Christian dispensation.
This
same truth is taught when we are told that after Christ had completed His work,
He “sat down” on the right hand of God, thus symbolizing that His work was
finished, that nothing more needed to be added. In Hebrews 1:3 we read: “Who
being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and
upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification for
sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high”; and in Hebrews
10:12‑13: “But he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever,
sat down on the right hand of God, thenceforth expecting till his enemies be
made the footstool of his feet.”
The
greatness and completeness and finality of Christ’s sacrificial work is seen
in His royal rest. The fact that He has sat down is of special interest since in
the tabernacle and the temple there were no seats or benches on which the
priests could ever sit down or rest. Their work was never done. Their sacrifices
had to be repeated daily because there was no saving power in them. Therefore
their task was endless. But the work of Christ was entirely different. His
sacrifice of Himself was “once for all.” By that one sacrifice He made
perfect provision both for the sinner and for the sin. Therefore, as our High
Priest, He sat down in the place of authority, and is now waiting until His
enemies are brought into subjection and His kingdom is brought to fruition.
It
is interesting to notice that when Christ sent out His apostles He commanded
them to preach and teach, but that He said not one word about sacrifice. In the
Great Commission He said: “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the
nations, baptizing them... teaching them...” (Matthew 28:19‑20). Yet the
most prominent feature of the Roman priesthood is its sacerdotal or sacrificial
character. The mass is the very heart of the service. In the first part of the
ordination service for a priest he is addressed as follows: “Receive thou the
power to offer sacrifices to God, and to celebrate masses, both for the living
and for the dead. In the name of the Lord. Amen.”
In
the Book of Acts there are many references to the founding of churches,
preaching the Word, the assembling of Christians, the governing of the churches,
and the matter of controversies with those who advocate error. But there are no
references whatever to a sacrificing priesthood. Paul likewise through his
epistles gave many directions concerning the duties of the ministry. But nowhere
is there even a hint that the ministers were to offer sacrifices, nowhere even
an allusion to the mass! The Greek word for priest, hiereus,
as we have noted, is never applied to New Testament ministers. Strange
indeed, if this was the work of the early ministers, that in Scripture we find
no references whatever to it!
But in contrast with this, in later ages, after the
Roman Catholic Church had developed, we find the writings of the spokesmen for
the church filled with references to the mass—how, when, how often, and under
what circumstances it is to be administered. It became, during the Middle Ages,
as it is today, the most distinctive feature of the Roman worship, the primary
thing that they profess to do. Surely it is clear that the sacrifice of the mass
is a later development, a radical perversion, and that the Roman Catholic
priesthood is following a system quite foreign to that of the early church.
Some
Roman Catholics who have turned to Protestantism have said that before they left
the Roman Church the charges which hurt them most were those which declared that
the Bible does not reveal a teaching authority with the pope and the priesthood
as its divinely authorized agents, and that the blessed sacrament of the altar
does not exist in the New Testament. But with further investigation they were
forced to conclude that such was the case and that in truth the sole support of
the priesthood was nothing other than the traditions of men.
Our
conclusion concerning the priesthood must be that Christ alone is our true High
Priest, the only Mediator between God and men, the reality toward which the
entire Old Testament ritual and sacrifice and priesthood looked forward, and
that when He completed His work that entire system fell away. Consequently, we
reject all merely human and earthly priests, whether in the Roman Catholic
Church or in heathen religions, and look upon their continued practice as simply
an attempt to usurp divine authority.
There
are approximately 56,540 Roman Catholic priests in the United States. And there
are 237 bishops, archbishops, and cardinals who make up the American hierarchy,
according to The Official Catholic
Directory (May, 1963). The large proportion of the priests, some 34,465, are
what are termed diocesan priests, whose work is in the local churches, while the
remainder, some 22,075, are in the various religious orders, such as the
Franciscan, Dominican, Benedictine, and Jesuit. Those in the various orders tend
to specialize in some specific work, e.g., the Franciscans dedicating themselves
to the relief of suffering and want, the Dominicans to theological and
ministerial studies, the Benedictines to service in the schools and churches,
and the Jesuits to the field of education, although the various fields overlap
considerably. There are about 35,000 Jesuits in the world, some 8,000 of whom are in the United States. There are also about 177,000 nuns
in the United States who work primarily in the schools and hospitals, although
some are cloistered.
Many
people find it difficult to understand why so many young people choose to
dedicate themselves for life to the rigorous system of the Roman Catholic Church
as priests and nuns. The answer is that most of them do not enter as a result of
free personal choice, but are recruited while quite young, usually between the
ages of sixteen and eighteen, with greater or lesser degrees of leading or
persuasion by the priests who are instructed to keep their eyes open for
promising boys and girls. The confessional, which affords the priests an
opportunity to know intimately the personalities, ambitions, and problems of the
young people, affords an excellent opportunity for such leading. The church
seeks candidates for its personnel and tries to gain their commitment at that
period in the lives of boys and girls when spiritual ideals are strongest but
illusive and superficial. That is the age when the ambitions of youth soar
highest and when they feel the urge for self-sacrifice in building a better
world. The ones the church wants are, for the most part, selected by the
priests, cultivated over a period of time, sometimes even for years, and so led
into the various fields of service, although the priests are by no means
successful in getting all they want. The result is that many a boy and girl who
had never felt any natural inclination toward the priesthood or convent life has
found himself or herself following that road and more or less committed to it
before realizing the consequences.
Most
of those who eventually enter the priesthood are recruited from the middle or
lower class families, boys who for the most part would not have much chance for
higher education or for advancement in life, and to whom ordination means
promotion to a position of prestige which their family status would not likely
attain for them. Training is for the most part provided without cost. In their
new positions, with their handsome rectories, luxurious vestments and beautiful
automobiles they can feel superior to their parishioners. Those become most
beholden to the hierarchy for the advantages that they have received, and are
the most easily controlled. Having been drilled and disciplined into the system,
they feel powerless to change. This is especially true of those who come from
orphanages, whether priests or nuns. They are the real victims of the system.
That is an unhealthy situation and deeply unjust, but one that is difficult to
control or remedy.
A
former English priest, Joseph McCabe, in his book, The
Popes and Their Church, says
that the Jesuits and Benedictines, who control large schools, appeal more to the
middle class, but that as a rule they fail to
secure the more intelligent of their pupils, that the intellectual and moral
level of priests is not nearly as high as, for instance, that of teachers and
doctors, and that only a minority have any exceptional ability or deep religious
feeling. Other writers have said substantially the same thing. Furthermore, the
idea has been promoted among Roman Catholics that it is a special honor to have
in one’s family a priest or nun, and unusual privileges and favors, sometimes
quite substantial, are directed by the church toward the families of those so
chosen. Getting into the service of the Roman Church is not so difficult;
getting out after one has committed himself or herself is the real problem.
In
order to understand why Roman Catholic priests act as they do, and why the
priesthood is able to hold them so firmly, it is necessary to know something
about the training they receive. That has been set forth clearly by Mr.
McLoughlin, and we present in considerable detail the account of his training in
St. Anthony’s Seminary, at Santa Barbara, California, which he informs us was
during the years 1922-27. He says:
“When a boy
enters a seminary, he begins twelve years of the most thorough and effective
intellectual indoctrination the world has ever known. It begins gently, with a
blending of the legitimate pleasures of boyhood, the stimulus of competition in
studies, and the pageantry of the forms of an ancient religion unseen in an
ordinary parish church. It ends twelve years later, with a mental rigidity and
acceptance of medieval superstitions and religious concepts as archaic as those
of the Buddhist monks upon the isolated, frozen mountains of Tibet. It may
surprise non-Catholic Americans to learn that the story of Tibet in Lowell
Thomas’ On Top of the World has
its counterpart in the hundreds of Roman Catholic seminaries flourishing in the
cities and countrysides of America.
“The course of
training for the priesthood is roughly divided into two periods. The first six
years are spent in the junior seminary—four years of high school and two years
of what would be considered college work. The senior seminary provides the last
college years, devoted mainly to Catholic philosophy, plus four years of
training in all the intricacies of Catholic theology. Between the junior and
senior seminaries in religious orders (Franciscans, Dominicans, Vincentians),
there comes a year devoted entirely to religious indoctrination. This is the
novitiate. ...
“All our
textbooks, even in high school courses, were written by Catholic authors. No
daily newspapers were permitted, and no non-Catholic magazines. All incoming
mail was opened by the Prefect of discipline, a priest; if he deemed advisable,
the letters were confiscated. All outgoing mail had to be placed in the
Prefect’s office in unsealed envelopes. Along with newspapers and movies,
radios were forbidden for the use of junior seminarians. The priests in their
supervised recreation hall were permitted a radio—but we were not admitted to
that hall. Not only were we gradually withdrawn from the world but we grew to
feel that the non‑Catholic public disliked us and, if given opportunity,
would persecute us. ...
“During these
junior years, the boy has no official ties binding him to the Church. He may
leave the seminary at any time, without penalty. Many boys do so; and others are
dismissed as being too worldly or intellectually unqualified for the intense
indoctrination ahead. ...
“With one
magnificent gesture, the ceremony of entering the novitiate sweeps aside the
centuries. The aspirant for the priesthood in the Franciscan Order finds
himself, in spirit, walking the ancient streets of Assisi, eating in its
hallowed monastic halls, and chanting the sixth-century hymns of Gregory the
Great. ... To symbolize more effectively the repudiation of the ‘old’ man
and the start of a ‘new’ spiritual life, even our names were changed. I had
been christened John Patrick. I was now named Emmett—or, in Latin, Emmatus—in
memory of an obscure saint in early Irish and French history. ...
“During this
year our seclusion from American life and our indoctrination in the ‘spirit’
of the Catholic Church became so intensive that I came to feel that I alone was
a true Christian, privileged to commune with God. I believed that the American
way of life was pagan and sinful, a rebirth of the Roman Empire and destined to
the same disgraceful doom in the ashes of history. I came to believe that the
American government was to be tolerated though wrong—tolerated because it
gives unlimited freedom to the Roman Catholic Church, wrong because it gives
freedom to other churches. I believed the ideal form of government was the one
in which I was living in the seclusion of my spirit—the era when the papacy
made kings because the power to govern came from God to the king through his
‘representative,’ the pope. My boyhood concept of civics—of the right of
man to the processes of law and government through the consent of the
governed—faded away under the constant repetition of the teachings of Thomas
Aquinas and the moral theologians. The Constitution of my country and the laws
of its states dimmed into trivialities in comparison with the all‑powerful
Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church. I became in all truth a citizen of the
Church, living—by accident—in the United States.
“Such
intensive indoctrination was unknown to the Western world outside the Roman
Catholic Church until it was copied by Fascism, Nazism, and Communism. The
training for the priesthood goes on, after the novitiate year, for six more
years. We were no longer permitted to visit our homes, even for vacations,
unless a death occurred in our families. ...
“The process
of indoctrination in all seminaries is intensified by the use of the Latin
language. All textbooks of Catholic philosophy and theology are in Latin. The
lectures by professors (at least in my day) were in Latin. Examinations were
conducted in Latin. We reached the point where we were thinking in Latin, the
language of the early centuries of Christianity. Subconsciously we were living
not in the age of presidents and politicians, or labor unions and capitalists,
but in the age of masters and slaves, of kings and serfs, of popes, representing
God, and the faithful, who meekly acquiesced in their decisions as coming from
the throne of God Himself.
“The chains
with which the religious orders of the Roman Catholic Church bind their priestly
aspirants to a lifetime of service are the three vows of obedience, poverty, and
chastity.
“The vow of
obedience is the most important of the three. It identifies all ecclesiastical
superiors with the Church, and it identifies the Roman Catholic Church with God.
Every command by the superior of a religious community or by a church pastor, no
matter how petulant, how ill‑advised, or how unjust, must be
considered as a command from God Himself and must be obeyed as such under
penalty of sin. ...
“The robe of
every Franciscan monk is girded with a rope. One strand hangs from his side. It
has three knots on it symbolizing the three vows—poverty, chastity, and
(the bottom knot) obedience. The young Franciscan is trained that when the
Provincial Superior greets him he must kneel on one knee and kiss the lowest
knot on the Superior’s cord, and then his hand. It is the token of complete,
abject, unreasoning obedience. ...
“The
student
priest must learn to crush the desire of the flesh by fasting,
self‑denial, and even physical pain. Many Americans have read of the
ascetics and hermits of the early middle ages of Christianity who mortified the
flesh by wearing hair shirts, fastening chains about their waists, and sleeping
on boards or in bare coffins. But it might surprise these Americans to know that
in the senior seminaries for Franciscan priests in the United States there
hangs, inside the door of every cell or bedroom, a scourge or whip. It is made
of several strands of heavy cord, each knotted at the end. Each Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday evening at 5:45 o’clock we closed the doors of our
cells; to the chant of the ‘miserere’ we disrobed and ‘scourged our flesh
to bring it into submission.’ The Superior patrolled the corridors to listen
to the sound of beating—the assurance of compliance. ...
“The
distinction between the licit and the illicit was so elusive in our minds that
we could not discern it. We were warned constantly about the danger of any
association with women. The saints had characterized them as tools of the devil,
devils themselves in beautiful forms, instruments permitted by God to exist and
test man’s virtue of chastity” (People’s
Padre, pp. 7-18).
At the conclusion of the book Mr. McLoughlin says:
“To non‑Catholic
America, I have attempted to portray life within the priesthood as it actually
is. I have emphasized the long, narrow, effective mental indoctrination of the
seminary, taking young boys from their families, walling them off from society,
from world events, from modern education through the formative years of
adolescence, and then turning them out into the ‘vineyard’ after ordination
as thoroughly dedicated as a Russian envoy to the United Nations. I have
pictured the tyranny of fear that chains these men to their religious posts long
after they have become disillusioned and yearn for the freedom and normal life
of America. I have tried to show, through my own experience and through
correspondence, the miasmic fog which the Church has intentionally spread to
conceal the truth from the Roman Catholics who blindly follow it—stifling
their freedom of thought, of worship, of action, and of life itself. I contend
that this foreign thing is far more subtle, far less forthright, but just as
inimical to the American concept of life as Communism itself. It is often the
indirect cause of Communism by keeping whole nations in ignorance and poverty
and by developing techniques of fear, indoctrination, and mental tyranny that
the Kremlin exploits. The Inquisition led by the Catholic Church in the
sixteenth century finds its parallel in the political persecution by the
Communists in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Russia” (p. 279).
We
urge everyone who possibly can to read this very informative and interesting
book by Mr. McLoughlin. It is written in a truly Christian spirit by one who
knows intimately the Roman Catholic Church, written not in spite, or hatred, or
vindictiveness, but to acquaint Roman Catholics themselves with the truth
concerning the secret inner workings of their hierarchy, and to inform those
outside the Roman Church concerning the nature of this growth that has spread so
luxuriously in our free and hospitable land while at the same time choking
freedom of thought and action in those lands which it controls.
We
should add that the priestly course of preparation reaches its climax in a
colorful and solemn ordination ceremony, in which the bishop pronounces the
awesome words: “Thou art a priest forever, according to the order of
Melchizedek.” To himself and to the Roman Catholic world the young priest
becomes an alter Christus, “another
Christ,” offering in the mass the same sacrifice that Christ offered on the
cross. People bow before him and kiss his hands as a token of respect and
submission. Ordinarily a priest is not ordained before the age of 24, although
ordination can be performed earlier by special permission. According to Canon
Law, a priest once ordained can never lose his ordination. Even if he leaves the
Roman Catholic Church, renounces it, and becomes a Protestant minister, he still
remains a priest, although unable to function as a priest until be returns and
repents.
After
the new recruits have finished their long course of preparation and are ordained
as priests, what is their reaction to the environment in which they find
themselves? Dee Smith, a former Roman Catholic layman who writes with an
intimate knowledge of conditions within the Roman Church, finds that when they
emerge from the seminary they gradually evolve into three fairly distinct groups
which may be classified as:
(1) the naive, (2) the disillusioned, and (3) the aggressive. He says:
1. “The naive
are worthy souls so honest themselves that they never question the honesty of
others. Even repeated experiences of hypocrisy and corruption among their
priestly brothers are insufficient to shake their faith or extinguish their
inexhaustible charity. Such priests never advance to high rank among the clergy.
They are found in poor city parishes, lonely country stations, or out in the
mission field, sharing the meager life of their parishioners.
2. “What of
the disillusioned? Emmett McLoughlin estimates that about 17 percent of the
priests would like to leave not only the priesthood but also the church. ... Not
all who leave have the stamina to stay with it. The memory of indolent, well-padded
living is too beguiling. Expecting the same thing, plus adulation, in the
Protestant camp and not finding it, these feeble characters inevitably return to
Rome.
“In their eagerness not to jeopardize their cushy sinecure a second time they cravenly accept the hypocritical ‘penances’ handed out to them and become the most ardent of Rome’s propagandists. Nevertheless it would be unfair to judge harshly all disillusioned priests who fail to break with Rome. When one considers the scurrilous attacks which will be made upon them in the Roman Catholic press, the boycott pressures which will starve them out of a means of livelihood, the malignant persecution which will seek them out and hound them wherever they go, one can readily understand that the decision to leave is a more heroic one than most of us are ever called upon to make. It cannot be denied that some of these priests are good men who, to atone for their lack of courage, do what they can to comfort, encourage, and assuage the lot of the duped and betrayed Catholic people.
3.
“Nothing, however, can be said in extenuation of the aggressive cohort of the
priesthood, the class which comprises the hierarchy and upper clergy as well as
many of the lower. No man can rise very high in the ranks of the Roman Catholic
priesthood unless he is of this class. In fact, the savagery of their
intolerance against all who stand in the way of ruthless ambition extends far
beyond their hatred of their tacit opponent, the non‑Catholic world, and
intimately permeates their own relationships. The viciousness of their tactics
against one another in the competition for promotion is precisely the same
quality as that of medieval cardinals who hired prisoners and assassins to
dispose of their rivals in the Consistory.
“Their
objective is not merely a life of privilege, luxury, and carnal
self‑indulgence. In fact, there are among them men of rigid ascetic
character. But each and every man of them is driven by an insatiable lust for
power. Each sees himself as a factor to be reckoned with in a
globe‑dominating force. Having lost the capacity for love, they seek the
fear of their fellow men—the more abject the headier. Is it any wonder that
the hierarchy’s own security demands an impassable gulf between the decent,
well‑meaning Catholic people and these men with the hearts and spiritual
nature of wolves, these men with no God but Greed, no religion but Power?” (Christian
Heritage, May, 1959).
The
chief victims of the Roman Catholic system are the people themselves, who are
schooled to accept the teachings of their church implicitly and who are almost
totally ignorant of the political machinations of their clergy. Again we are
indebted to Dee Smith for an analysis which, with some degree of overlapping,
groups the Roman Catholic laity as follows:
1.
First there is that comparatively small group of people whom we may
designate as “converts” to Romanism, or “joiners,” those who when they
see the Roman Church growing in influence “jump on the band wagon.” Such as
these would join most any movement, even the Communist if it appeared to offer
them advancement. They have only a nominal Christianity, and usually have
suffered frustration in some form. In Romanism they become the center of
attention and gain a position of influence that would not otherwise be
attainable to them.
2.
A second group, much the largest group in the Roman Church, consists of
those whom we may designate as spiritual suicides. They shrink from any serious
thought concerning religious truths which they do not want to face, truths which
if followed through might involve them in arduous spiritual effort. In the Roman
Catholic Church they gain a promise of heaven through the payment of money and
the recitation of sterile formulas. They are content simply to float along and
to leave the spiritual and intellectual problems to others.
3.
A third group consists of those who are genuinely naive. For them, as Dee
Smith says, “the beautiful music, gorgeous trappings, fragrant incense,
majestic temples, and eye‑filling spectacles perform the office for which
Rome designed them, namely, to lull the senses into a state of euphoria which
the victim mistakes for heavenly transport. Like wide-eyed children at a circus,
the victims of this form of mass hypnosis see nothing of the shoddy meanness
behind the glitter.”
4.
There are those whom we may term the “practical Catholics,” those who
for personal reasons make a career of their church connections. They are the
typical members who are always ready to do the bidding of the clergy, serving as
a front against the non‑Catholic world, bullying bookstores into refusing
to handle anti‑Catholic literature, organizing boycotts, coercing
businessmen to support Catholic charities, posing the threat of the “Catholic
vote,” etc.
5.
Another group is that of the “nominal Catholics,” those who are
members of the church simply because they were born such. They follow the rules
of the church only so far as it suits their convenience. They are not critical
of the church, but neither do they have any particular devotion for it. They
generally attend mass, and they vote for Roman Catholic candidates. They are,
however, unsteady and a source of concern to the clergy.
6.
There is a comparatively small group of real liberals, men of integrity
who try to reconcile the teachings of their church with their consciences as
long as possible, but who in a showdown between church and conscience follow
their conscience and walk out of the church.
7.
Lastly, there is the group, consisting of perhaps one third of the
membership, who by any standard are good, honest, self‑respecting people.
They are, to be sure, somewhat naive, but they are good neighbors to their
Protestant fellow citizens and are the kind of people for whose sake
Protestants sometimes resent any insinuations
against the Roman Catholic
Church. They are people who, if they knew the true purpose, motives, and
character of their church’s leadership, would leave in disgust at the betrayal
of their faith. They are good not because they are Roman Catholics but in spite
of that fact. They are the kind of people who, not going to the trouble to
investigate the doctrinal tenets of the faith they profess, would be good in any
faith in which they might have membership. Innocently and unknowingly they serve
as a perfect smokescreen for the hierarchy. By using the good character and
sincere faith of these followers, and by surrounding themselves with a
stage‑setting of exalted faith, the priests are able to create the
illusion of true religion for their entire system. But that system in its basic
reality remains like the magnificent Hollywood temples, so impressive and
awesome to the untrained eye, but in reality nothing more than plywood and
canvas (cf., Christian Heritage, May,
1959).
Protestants
who have made any effort to talk with Roman Catholics about spiritual things
know that they have received but very little Bible instruction from their
priests. But that lack of Bible knowledge is but a natural consequence of the
fact that the priests themselves have only a minimum of Bible study in their
seminary training. L. H. Lehmann, a former priest who founded The Converted Catholic Magazine (now Christian Heritage), says
that only in the last years of their training in seminary did they have any
Bible study, and that even then it was in Latin. “The Scripture course
itself,” he says, “was merely an apologetic for papal interpretation of
certain texts of Scripture to suit the past historical development and aims of
the papal power. Nothing was taught or indicated to us about the spiritual,
individual message of Christ in the Gospel itself. Hence, what was sought in
teaching the Bible was a glib use of tag‑ends of texts in defense of papal
power. The letter of texts, apart from
their content, supplied the pretext for Roman Catholic use of Scripture. The spirit
of the word was overlooked” (The
Soul of a
Priest, p. 54).
A further word about the different orders of
priests: As we have indicated earlier, there are two classes: (1) Secular or
Diocesan priests, who are responsible only to the local bishop, and who usually
are assigned to churches; and (2) Religious priests, who belong to an order, and
who in most cases are responsible to an abbot who rules the monastery. Secular
priests take the vows of chastity and obedience, but not of poverty, and so may
own property. Members of religious orders take the three vows, poverty,
chastity, and obedience, and are of two classes—monks, who withdraw from the
world for religious motives, usually live in a monastery, and engage in
meditation, study, writing, etc.; and the plain religious priests, who engage in
various public activities for the order to which they belong. Those belonging to
an order, taking the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but not being
ordained as priests, are called Brothers. These may teach in church schools, or engage in other kinds of
church work. The Jesuits belong to an order but are not monastic, and usually
are engaged in educational work in the colleges and seminaries.
As
a rule the monks have a reputation for being lazy, the Jesuits for being
industrious. The Jesuits are tightly organized under a military type of
discipline, and their number is relatively fewer than those of the other orders.
Their influence, however, has been out of proportion to their numbers. For
centuries they have been the real power behind the papacy, often determining the
election of popes, but apparently not trusted by their fellow priests and not
being able to elect any of their own number. They have been the object of much
criticism because of their advocacy of questionable moral principles, the word
“Jesuitical” having entered the dictionary as a synonym for that which is
crafty, deceptive, cunning. On various occasions the Jesuits have been banned
from practically all of the European and South American countries, from Catholic
as well as from Protestant countries. On one occasion the order was condemned
and dissolved by a pope, but was restored by a later pope. Often there is bitter
rivalry between them and the other orders, which they tend to look upon as
inferior, or at least as less efficient.
A
custom of the Roman priesthood offensive to Protestants is that of having people
address them as “father,” and particularly that of calling the pope the
“Holy Father” (capitalized)—which we term simply blasphemy. In this
connection Christ Himself commanded in the clearest language that the term
“father” in a spiritual sense should not be used when addressing our fellow
men. “Call no man your father on the earth,” said He, “for one is your
Father, even he who is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9). Yet the priests continually
and openly violate that command.
The
priesthood is the real crux of the Roman system. Most of those men, even during
their seminary course, as we have indicated, have but very little Bible study;
and much of what they do have relates to disconnected portions of Scripture and
is given primarily with the purpose of preparing them to answer the arguments
that Protestants make against the Roman system. Such has been the testimony of
various ones who have left the priesthood. There is in this regard a great
contrast between the Protestant and Roman Catholic training for the ministry or
the priesthood. Rome simply does not like Bible study either for her priests or
for her people, for they find too many things there that are not in accord with
their church.
We
believe that if these men could be persuaded to make an unprejudiced study of
the Bible, many would be convinced of the error of their system and would turn
from it. An encouraging feature in this regard is that a considerable number,
after years of useless priestly ministry, have on their own accord made a
serious study of the Bible and have found that it not only does not teach the
distinctive doctrines of their church but that it contradicts those doctrines.
When an honest priest studies Protestantism without prejudice, in the light of
the Word of God and not of Roman tradition, he cannot but recognize that it is
Christianity in its purity and in its originality. Much to his surprise and
contrary to all that he has been taught, he finds that Protestantism is very
simple, very clear, and profoundly attractive. He finds that its doctrines are
based solidly on the Bible, which is the true manual and code of Christianity.
Says Lucien Vinet, a former Canadian priest:
“In the Church
of Rome faith is based on the authority of a man, the Pope, and the traditions
of men, namely the opinions of former theologians such as the Fathers of the
Church.
“In Roman
Catholicism, Christianity is the doctrines and practices of men; in
Protestantism, Christianity is the doctrines of Christ as revealed to us, not by
fallible men, but by the infallible Bible” (I Was a Priest,
p. 126).
Many a priest, struggling against moral degradation
and frustration of mind (and one who spends much time in the confessional has an
abundance of both), has had an intense battle within himself as to whether or
not he should remain in the Church of Rome. He possesses a Bible, but in
accordance with the rules of his church he usually does not dare to read it
apart from the assigned notes and commentaries, and so remains ignorant of its
saving message. How difficult it is for him to realize that all that anyone has
to do to receive forgiveness from sins and to experience the joy of salvation is
to confess his sins to Christ and to put his trust in Him alone! When he does
read the Bible he finds that most of the doctrines that he has held and taught
either were perversions of the Scripture or that they were the inventions of
men. Would that thousands of those men could be persuaded to turn from that
false and subversive system to the clear teachings of Scripture! The key to the
whole problem is the priest. And the task before us is to persuade him to read
the Bible with an open mind.
It
may seem surprising that it takes so long for a priest to discover the truth.
But the fact is that a candidate for the priesthood enters the twelve-year
course of training from parochial school as just a boy—the preferable age is
16—that during his training he is quite effectively cut off from the
surrounding world, and that he is an adult before he completes his training. He
has not known any other kind of life. During that long and intensive course
practically all of those who show signs of independent thinking, those whose
dispositions indicate that they might not be obedient to their superior, and
those in whose make‑up there are any traits which might indicate lack of
perseverance or failure for any reason, are weeded out. Not all who finish the
course are chosen by the bishop for ordination. But those who are chosen are
pretty much of a type that can be reasonably depended upon to continue loyal and
submissive to the church. Those who become priests are not so much those who
have volunteered for that service but rather those who have been chosen by the
hierarchy and carefully screened and trained for that occupation. They are what
we may term “hard core Romanists.”
Becoming
a Roman Catholic priest is a far different thing from becoming a Protestant
minister. Everything possible has been done to impress upon the Roman priest the
idea that if he breaks with the Roman Catholic Church he will not be trusted by
anyone, either within or outside of the Roman Church, and that he cannot make
his way in the commercial world for which he now is so entirely unfitted. His
intensive training in Latin, doctrine, liturgies, and church history, is of
comparatively little value in the outside world, and in fact has been in part
designed to unfit him for anything except the priesthood. He has been
disciplined for that particular work, and his soul is in a real sense held
captive within the walls of Roman Catholic dogma and within the bonds of the
priesthood. It is an exceedingly difficult thing for one who has been so
trained, and who has committed himself to that system, to break those bonds and
to come out into a new kind of life—even into the freedom of the Gospel, for
he does not know what that means. This is particularly true if he does not reach
that decision until middle age or later. Furthermore, the Roman Catholic people
are forbidden to have anything to do with one who has left the priesthood.
Getting into, or getting out of, the priesthood is no easy task.
Certainly
there are many priests who do not believe what they are teaching, at least not
all that they are teaching. Many are ill at ease, and a considerable number are
struggling against a real sense of frustration. But they usually remain in the
priesthood because they fed more or less helpless and do not have the courage to
break away.
Emmett
McLoughlin, in an address in Constitution Hall, in Washington, D.C., in 1954,
said:
“It
is not unusual for people to change their religious affiliation, but it is
considered very unusual for Roman Catholic priests to leave the priesthood. Yet
one third of the class of which I was ordained have deserted the hierarchy. I
know ten priests who have quit St. Mary’s Church in Phoenix where I lived for
fourteen years. The number of priests quitting the priesthood is kept as secret
as possible. ... According to the best estimate I have been able to find, at
least 30 percent of all Roman Catholic priests leave Rome.”
In
his People’s Padre he says:
“The hold of
the Roman Catholic hierarchy over most of the clergy, as I have observed it, is
not the bond of love, or of loyalty, or of religion. It is the almost
unbreakable chain of fear—fear of hell, fear of family, fear of the public,
fear of destitution and insecurity. I firmly believe that, in place of the 30
percent of the clergy who probably leave the priesthood today, fully 75 percent
would do so if it were not for fear. ...
“Most priests,
torn between the intellectual realization that they have been misled by the
hierarchy and the fear of family reaction, hesitate and live on through barren
years in the priesthood. ... Every priest is taught through the years that
anyone who leaves the priesthood will be not only cursed by God but rejected by
the public. The priest believes that people will sneer at him as one who has
violated his solemn promises and therefore cannot be trusted with
responsibility. In Catholic circles mention is never made of ex‑priests
who are successful—only of those who have strayed, who have starved, and who
have groveled back to the hierarchy, sick, drunken, broken in spirit, begging to
do penance for the sake of clothes on their backs and food in their bellies”
(pp. 98-100). “Hundreds of priests quit the church every year. Hundreds more
would if they had the means of earning a living” (p. 203).
And
again:
“My
experience has proved that an ex‑priest can overcome his own fears and
survive the most concentrated attacks of Roman Catholicism. That experience
proves also that the American non‑Catholic public still believes strongly
in freedom of thought, freedom of religion, and freedom of the right to change
one’s means of livelihood—and that it will support a man who exercises that
right. There is no need for any disillusioned priest or nun to seek the
protective anonymity of Los Angeles, New York, or Detroit. He needs only the
courage of his convictions, a willingness to work, a deep confidence in America,
and a solid faith in God” (p. 261).
Lucien
Vinet gives the following analysis as to why priests remain in the priesthood:
“There is no doubt
that the great majority of the Roman priests in the ministry of their church
have come to realize, just as many ex-priests have done, the hypocrisy,
intrigue, and falsehood of Romanism. There are various reasons why so many
intellectual men still cling to a false religious system and even spend much
time and energy in defending this un-Christian religious organization.
Priests who
remain in the priesthood can be classed in four categories:
1.
“There are some priests who really are convinced that Christ founded
the Roman Church and that ‘Out of the Church of Rome there is no salvation.’
They explain the contradiction between the doctrines of
Christ and those of Rome as apparent only and believe that the traditions of
the Roman Church have equal doctrinal value as the words of
the Holy Spirit in the Bible. They excuse the many scandals of Romanism as a
necessary human factor in the organization of the Church of
God on earth. They believe in the infallible teaching authority of the pope
and therefore placate their conscience in relying on the Pontiff of Rome for
their spiritual and doctrinal convictions. We met very few priests during the
nine years of our life in the priesthood, who could be sincerely classed in this
category. Most priests know just as well as we do that Christ is the only
Teacher of Christianity and that Romanism is anti‑Christian in its
doctrines and practices.
2.
“There are priests who are fully convinced of the falsehood and
hypocrisy of the Roman priesthood, but find it impossible to leave the
priesthood. ... Many of them hope that some day an opportunity will be given
them to quit Romanism. They realize that their training in the Seminaries
provides no preparation whatever for a proper position in life that will enable
them to earn a decent living. Their knowledge of Latin, Greek, History of the
Church, and Roman Theology is to them of very little use to obtain a decent
position in our modern world. By the time they fully realize that their priesthood is a usurpation of the only
priesthood of Christ and that of the
priesthood of believers, they are usually too old to start a new training for a
proper career in life. Their health not be as good as it used to be and they
fear that if they leave the comfortable existence they now enjoy, they might
land in the poor house.
“The
greatest incentive that keeps priests in the priesthood is fear. They fear the
curse and persecution of Rome, the rebukes of some of their Roman Catholic
friends, and the loss of esteem and association of their families. Some of them,
of course, fear hard work.
3.
“There are now the priests who stay in the priesthood because they like
the comfort and pleasure that the Roman ministry affords them. It is the very
life of a priest that they like. They command the respect and obedience of many
credulous Roman Catholics and they enjoy to the utmost dictating to them. ...
Their life is assured and they have no troubles. Even if they cannot accept all
the doctrines of the Church, they do not have to admit it publicly. They can
travel extensively in distant lands where their identity is not known and where
they can enjoy life as any other human being would do. ...
4.
“Finally there is a group of priests who remain in the priesthood, not
on account of their Roman religious convictions and not because they find
material comfort in the Roman ministry, but because they experience
indescribable mental and sexual pleasure in the very exercise of their Roman
ministry. These priests appear to the world as deeply religious and ascetic.
They seldom indulge in material comforts and no one can accuse them of any
actual sins of any visible form whatsoever, but they are spiritual perverts. The
greatest satisfaction or pleasure of their lives is not ‘wine, women, and
song,’ but the torturing of human souls in confession and in spiritual
direction. They love to explore secrets of souls and hearts. They experience
sordid pleasure in embarrassing female penitents by impertinent questions and
prescriptions. Only the Roman system of confession can provide them with the
means of indulging in these criminal and sordid pleasures” (I Was a Priest,
pp. 75-80).
Mr. Vinet also recalls the suggestion of an old priest that if the priests in Canada were given ten thousand dollars each there would not be enough priests left to man the churches. We don’t suppose anyone is going to offer that kind of an inducement for them to leave the priesthood, either in Canada or in the United States. But undoubtedly the fear of not being able to make a livelihood has kept many in their positions.
We
do not hesitate to say that a priest who becomes disillusioned and finds that
the Church of Rome has deceived him with false pretensions should repudiate his
vows, declare his independence, and make a new start. In such a case the church
has misrepresented herself to him, the ideal that she held before him has proved
deceptive and fruitless, and he therefore is not bound to continue in such a
relationship. He has not failed the priesthood; the priesthood has failed him,
and has been revealed as something other than that which it was represented as
being at the time of his ordination. He was led to believe that the Roman Church
was the only true church, God’s chosen and exclusive instrument for the
salvation of souls. She has failed to substantiate her claim to be the only true
church, and has been found rather to be a mixture of truth and error, with error
in many cases overshadowing the truth.
Insofar
as the Roman Church has extracted vows that are unscriptural and unreasonable,
it is right that those vows should be repudiated. This principle applies not
only to priests and nuns, but also to parents who, in signing a marriage
contract that was forced upon them, have pledged away the religious freedom of
their children even before they were born. No man has the right to swear away
his own religious or civil liberty or that of others and so to place himself or
those who are given into his care in a state of subjection to a fellow mortal.
Human slavery, whether physical or spiritual, is wrong and cannot be tolerated.
Enforced spiritual servitude of one’s self or of one’s children to another
person or institution can be as degrading and galling as physical servitude.
“Ye were bought with a price; become not bondservants of men,” says the
Scripture (1 Corinthians 7:23). “Ye were redeemed... with precious blood...
even the blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19). “No man can serve two
masters” (Matthew 6:24). Christ is our true Master; He has set us free, and no
other person or organization has the right to usurp that freedom.
It
is universally acknowledged that when one party to a contract breaks that
contract and makes impossible its normal functioning, the other party is not
under obligation to continue fulfilling its terms. Yet that is the condition in
which many a priest and nun has found himself or herself. Even in human
contracts only those obligations continue to be binding which the person to whom
the promise was made wishes us to observe them; and certainly in this field of
promises to God it is only reasonable to suppose that we are not bound to do
what God does not want us to do, merely because we were led through false
pretenses or false motives to promise that we would do it. In this instance the
priest has made an unscriptural vow of complete obedience to another man, the
bishop, and has pledged himself to a service that in reality does not exist. We
have already seen that with the coming of Christ and the completion of His work
on Calvary the human priesthood was abolished forever. Hence the Roman
priesthood is in reality nothing but a sham and a delusion.
On
these grounds all priestly vows are to be considered null and void. This was the
position taken by the Reformers, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and others, as they
renounced the authority of Rome, and the Gospel became the proclamation of
liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who were bound.
Those
who leave Romanism for this reason are not traitors to the church of Christ, as
the Roman Church attempts to make them believe. On the contrary they are
enlightened and intelligent men, courageously following the path of duty. “The
real traitor,” says Lucien Vinet, “is the Roman priest who knows the
wickedness of Romanism and yet clings to it for material gain” (I Was a Priest, p. 10).
“It
must come as a shock to non‑Catholics,” says McLoughlin, “to realize
the possessiveness of even the lay Catholics toward their clergy. It is accepted
practice among Protestant, Mormon, and Jewish groups to recognize a
clergyman’s right to change his vocation. Rabbis become merchants, Mormon
bishops enter politics, and ministers in unknown numbers exchange the pulpit
for farming, law, mining, teaching, trade, or just plain loafing. But not so a
former Roman Catholic priest” (People’s Padre, p. 176).
McLoughlin
expresses as follows his justification for leaving the priesthood:
“Many letters from
Roman Catholics had lamented that I had broken my solemn vows, my word to God.
But I felt no guilt. I had entered sincerely into a contract, a bilateral
contract, when I solemnly vowed poverty, chastity, and obedience. I was one
party to the agreement. The Provincial Superior claimed to represent God. My
indoctrination trained me to believe that he did. I know now that he did not.
The contract was null and void” (p. 183).
And
again:
“I was an unsuspecting
pawn or tool in the greatest swindle of all history. ... I have not defied
God—I have rejected an organization that has usurped the prerogative of God
and claims an exclusive right of speaking in His name. My only regret is that
it took me so many years to come to my senses” (pp. 203, 204).
1.
What Tradition Is
2.
How Tradition Nullifies the Word of God
3.
The Apocrypha
4.
The Nature of the Apocryphal Books
5.
The Vulgate and Modern Translations
6.
The Question of Authority
7.
Tradition Condemned by the Scriptures
8.
The Protestant Attitude toward the Bible
9.
The Roman Catholic Attitude toward the Bible
10.
Interpreting the Bible
Protestantism
and Roman Catholicism agree that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. But they
differ widely in regard to the place that it is to have in the life of the
church. Protestantism holds that the Bible alone is the authoritative and
sufficient rule of faith and practice. But Romanism holds that the Bible must be
supplemented by a great body of tradition consisting of 14 or 15 apocryphal
books or portions of books equivalent to about two thirds the volume of the New
Testament, the voluminous writings of the Greek and Latin church fathers, and a
huge collection of church council pronouncements and papal decrees as of equal
value and authority—a veritable library in itself.
It
is very evident that this difference of opinion concerning the authoritative
basis of the church is bound to have radical and far-reaching effects. The
age-long controversy between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism comes to a head
regarding the question of authority. Right here, we believe, is the basic difference between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.
And, we may add, we believe that in its use of tradition is to be found
the Achilles’ heel of Roman Catholicism. For it is in this that Romanism finds
the authority for its distinctive doctrines.
Every religious movement that develops some unity,
and continues to live, has its traditions. These traditions gather up the
beliefs, thinking, practices, and rules of the group, particularly as these are
expressed in its doctrinal standards and forms of government. In this manner the
movement gives stability to and regulates its own manner of life, and hands that
stability and manner of life on to the next generation.
We
do not reject all tradition, but rather make judicious use of it insofar as it
accords with Scripture and is founded on truth. We should, for instance, treat
with respect and study with care the confessions and council pronouncements of
the various churches, particularly those of the ancient church and of
Reformation days. We should also give careful attention to the confessions and
council decisions of the present day churches, scrutinizing most carefully of
course those of the denomination to which we belong. But we do not give any
church the right to formulate new doctrine or to make decisions contrary to the
teaching of Scripture. The history of the church at large shows all too clearly
that church leaders and church councils can and do make mistakes, some of them
serious. Consequently their decisions should have no authority except as they
are based on Scripture.
Protestants
differ from Roman Catholics in that they keep these standards strictly
subordinate to Scripture, and in that they are ever ready to re‑examine
them for that purpose. In other words they insist that, in the life of the
church, Scripture is primary, and the denominational standards are subordinate
or secondary. They thus use their traditions with one controlling caution—they
continually ask if this or that aspect of their belief and practice is true to
the Bible. They subject every statement of tradition to that test, and they are
willing to change any element that fails to meet that test.
In
contrast with this, Roman Catholics hold that there are two sources of
authority—Scripture, and developing tradition, with the church being the judge
of Scripture and therefore able to say authoritatively what the right
interpretation of Scripture is. This, in effect, gives three authorities—the
Bible, tradition, and the church. The primacy is in the hands of the church
since it controls both tradition and the interpretation of Scripture. This,
therefore, is the basis on which the Roman system rests. If this can be shown to
be erroneous, it will be seen that the whole system rests on a false basis.
As
Roman Catholicism works out in actual practice, the traditions of the church at
any time are what the church says they are, Scripture means what the church says
it means, and the people are permitted to read the Bible only in an approved
version and within the limits of a predetermined interpretation. But when the
Christian message is thus shackled by tradition and ecclesiastically dictated
interpretation, it ceases to be the free grace of God offered to repentant
sinners, and becomes an instrument in the hands of the clergy for the control of
the people. In professing to interpret the Bible in the light of tradition, the
Roman Church in reality places tradition above the Bible, so that the Roman
Catholic is governed, not by the Bible, nor by the Bible and tradition, but by
the church itself, which sets up the tradition and says what it means.
Theoretically, the Roman Church accepts the Bible, but in practice she does not
leave her members free to follow it. The errors that are found in her traditions
obscure and nullify much of the truth that she professes to hold. To cite but
one example of what this means in actual practice, while the Roman Catholic
Church, in professing allegiance to the Bible, must agree with the Protestant
churches that there is “one mediator also between God and men, himself man,
Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2.5), she introduces a host of other mediators—the
Virgin Mary, the priests, and hundreds of saints and angels—which effectively
sets aside the truth contained in the Scripture statement.
We
give credit to Rome for this: she professes to hold that the Bible is the Word
of God. She repudiates and denounces modernism, which in reality is a more or
less consistent denial of the supernatural throughout the Christian system and
which unfortunately has come to have a strong influence in some Protestant
churches. Modernists seek to reduce some of the historical accounts of the
Bible, as for example those of the creation of man and of the fall, to mere
myths or legends. Also, modernists usually say that the Bible contains
the Word of God, but deny that it is in all its parts actually the Word of
God.
But
having said that, we must point out how Rome also nullifies or destroys the
Word. She maintains that alongside of the written Word there is also an
unwritten Word, an oral tradition, which was taught by Christ and the apostles
but which is not in the Bible, which rather was handed down generation after
generation by word of mouth. This unwritten Word of God, it is said, comes to
expression in the pronouncements of the church councils and in papal decrees. It
takes precedence over the written Word and interprets it. The pope, as God’s
personal representative on the earth, can legislate for things additional to the
Bible as new situations arise.
The Council of
Trent, the most authoritative of all Roman councils and the one of greatest
historical importance, in the year 1546, declared that the Word of God is
contained both in the Bible and in tradition, that the two are of equal
authority, and that it is the duty of every Christian to accord them equal
veneration and respect. Thus, while modernism takes away from the Word of God,
Romanism adds to it. Both are in error, and each would seem to be about equally
bad. It would be hard to say which has done more to undermine true religion.
The
untrustworthiness of oral tradition, however, is apparent for several reasons.
In the first place, the early Christians, who were closest to Christ and the
apostles, and whose testimony therefore would have been most valuable, wrote but
very little because of the persecutions to which they were exposed. And what is
found in the writings of the second and third centuries has but little reference
to the doctrines which at present are in dispute between Protestants and Roman
Catholics. Tradition, therefore, for hundreds of years allegedly was transmitted
by mere report.
And it is this which Rome receives as of equal authority with the written
Word. But so unreliable is report that it has become a proverb that “a story
never loses in its carriage.” In other words, a story seldom retains its
original character without addition and exaggeration. Fortunately, we have a
remarkable instance in the New Testament itself in which report or tradition
circulated a falsehood, showing how easily oral tradition can become corrupted,
how in a particular instance it did become corrupted even in the apostolic age.
In John 21:21‑23 we read:
“Peter therefore seeing him (John) saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this
man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that
to thee? follow thou me. This saying therefore went forth among the brethren,
that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, that he should
not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?”
Surely we cannot build a church on such an insecure foundation as oral
tradition!
Furthermore,
that the body of tradition is not of divine origin nor apostolic is proved by
the fact that some traditions contradict others. The church fathers repeatedly
contradict one another. When a Roman Catholic priest is ordained, he solemnly
vows to interpret the Scriptures only according to “the unanimous consent of
the fathers.” But such “unanimous consent” is purely a myth. The fact is
they scarcely agree on any doctrine. They contradict each other, and even
contradict themselves as they change their minds and affirm what they previously
had denied. Augustine, the greatest of the fathers, in his later life wrote a
special book in which he set forth his Retractions.
Some of the fathers of the second century held that Christ would return
shortly and that He would reign personally in Jerusalem for a thousand years.
But two of the best known scholars of the early church, Origen (185‑254),
and Augustine (354‑430),
wrote against that view. The early fathers condemned the use of images in
worship, while later ones approved such use. The early fathers almost
unanimously advocated the reading and free use of the Scriptures, while the
later ones restricted such reading and use. Gregory the Great, bishop of Rome
and the greatest of the early bishops, denounced the assumption of the title of
Universal Bishop as anti‑Christian. But later popes even to the present
day have been very insistent on using that and similar titles which assert
universal authority. Where, then, is the universal tradition and unanimous
consent of the fathers to papal doctrine?
The
men who wrote the books of the Bible were inspired by the Holy Spirit and so
were preserved from error. But the traditions of the church fathers, the church
councils, and the popes are of a lower order and contain many errors and
contradictions.
Bellarmine
(1542-1621), a Jesuit and a noted Roman Catholic writer, divides tradition into
three classes—divine, apostolic, and ecclesiastical. Divine traditions are
those which it is alleged Christ Himself taught or ordained, which were not
written but were handed down generation after generation by word of mouth.
Apostolic traditions are those which were taught by the apostles but not
written. And ecclesiastical traditions are those council pronouncements and
papal decrees which have accumulated through the centuries. We insist, however,
that it would have been utterly impossible for those traditions to have been
handed down with accuracy generation after generation by word of mouth and in an
atmosphere dark with superstition and immorality such as characterized the
entire church, laity and priesthood alike, through long periods of its history.
And we assert that there is no proof whatever that they were so transmitted.
Clearly the bulk of those traditions originated with the monks during the Middle
Ages.
When
the leaders of the Reformation appealed to Scripture and thundered against the
errors of the Roman Church, that church had to defend herself. And since she
could not do so from the Bible alone, she resorted to these other writings. The
result is that the most prominent doctrines and practices of the Roman Church,
such as purgatory, the priesthood, the mass, transubstantiation, prayers for the
dead, indulgences, penance, worship of the Virgin Mary, the use of images in
worship, holy water, rosary beads, celibacy of priests and nuns, the papacy
itself, and numerous others, are founded solely on tradition.
It
is on such a basis as this that the Roman Church seeks to establish herself as
“the only true church.” But when the Roman Catholic layman searches his
Bible for confirmation of the distinctive doctrines of his church, he finds
either absolute silence or a distinct negative. The Bible, for instance, has
nothing to say about the pope or the papacy as an institution, and it is
emphatic and uncompromising in its commands against the use of images or idols
in worship. It is natural that the Roman Church does not want to give up
tradition. It cannot. If it were to give up tradition the whole system would
fall to the ground, so much of its doctrine and practice has no other
foundation.
Technically,
the Roman Church does not claim that the pope receives new revelations or that
he is inspired by the Holy Spirit as were the prophets and apostles when they
wrote Scripture. In fact it denies that it formulates any new doctrines at all.
Rather it insists that in ex cathedra pronouncements
the Holy Spirit enables the pope to draw out and proclaim what belonged to the
original revelation. But it does claim a divine presence of the Holy Spirit in
the giving of ex cathedra pronouncements
and in the formulation of traditions—which we would say is precisely the same
in principle as claiming inspiration. At any rate, by this device it professes
to maintain the unchangeability of the church while in reality it adds new
doctrines.
It
is obvious how inaccessible the Roman rule of faith is. No priest has the rule
of his faith, which he vows to accept at ordination, unless he has all these
numerous and ponderous volumes. No one could possibly master such a mass of
materials, even if they contained no contradictions. And such a rule of faith is
utterly beyond the reach of the laity.
The
14 or 15 books that the Roman Catholic Church adds to the Bible and pronounces
equally inspired and authoritative are known as the Apocrypha. These are printed
as a part of the Bible and must be accepted by all Roman Catholics as genuine
under penalty of mortal sin.
The
word Apocrypha is from the Greek apokrupha,
meaning hidden things, and is used by ecclesiastical writers for matters
which are (1) secret or mysterious; or (2) unknown in origin, forged, or
spurious; or (3) unrecognized or uncanonical. It is primarily in the sense of
spurious or uncanonical that we use the term. The books had this name before
they were officially approved by the Council of Trent, and so it is not a name
given them by Protestants. They are listed as follows:
1. The First Book of Esdras
2.
The Second Book of Esdras
3.
Tobit
4.
Judith
5.
The additions to the book of Esther
6.
The Wisdom of Solomon
7.
Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach
8.
Baruch
9.
The Letter of Jeremiah
10.
The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men
11.
Susanna
12.
Bell and the Dragon
13.
The Prayer of Manasseh
14.
The First Book of Maccabees
15.
The Second Book of Maccabees
Of
these only the First and Second Books of Esdras (the latter of which contains an
emphatic denial of the value of prayers for the dead, 7:105), and The Prayer of
Azariah, were not officially accepted at the Council of Trent. The books
accepted add a volume of literature abut two thirds the size of the New
Testament, or if the entire 15 be included, about 84 percent of the size of the
New Testament. By way of comparison, a word count of the Old Testament in the
King James Version shows a total of 592,439 words, the New Testament 181,253
words, and the Apocrypha 152,185 words. And since the Apocryphal books are pre-Christian,
having been written between the close of the Old Testament and the coming of
Christ, the effect of such an addition is to give greater prominence to the Old
Testament and therefore to Jewish life and thought, and to decrease relatively
the importance of the New Testament.
The
Hebrew Old Testament was completed some four hundred years before the time of
Christ. In the second century b.c.,
a Greek translation by Hebrew scholars was made in Alexandria, Egypt, and was
called the Septuagint because the translators numbered 70. There developed an
important difference, however, between the Greek translation and the Hebrew
canon since the Septuagint contained a dozen or more Apocryphal books
interspersed among the books of the Hebrew Bible. But not all copies contained
the same books—suggesting that there was no general agreement among the
translators as to which of these additional books were authoritative.
The Septuagint translation came into general use in
Palestine, and that was the popular version at the time of Christ. But the
Palestinian Jews never accepted the Apocryphal additions. And Protestants accept
only the 39 books of the Old Testament that were in the Hebrew Bible at the time
of Christ.
There is no record that Christ or any of the
apostles ever quoted from the Apocryphal books or that they made any reference
to them, although they undoubtedly knew of them. There are in the New Testament
about 290 direct quotations from and about 370 allusions to passages in the Old
Testament; yet among all of those there is not a single reference either by
Christ or any of the apostles to the Apocryphal writings. They quote from every
major book of the Old Testament and from all but four of the smaller ones. They
thus set their stamp of approval upon the Jewish Old Testament. Christ quoted it
as authoritative, and said, “The Scriptures cannot be broken” (John 10:35).
But the reason that neither He nor the apostles ever once referred to the
Apocryphal books is obvious. They did not regard those books as Scripture, and
they did not intend that legendary books should become a part of the Bible.
Romanists sometimes charge Protestants with having “cut those books out of the
Bible.” But the record makes it clear that if anyone cut them out, it was
Christ Himself.
This is all the
more significant when we remember that the language commonly spoken in Palestine
in the days of Christ was not Hebrew, but Aramaic, that Greek was one of the
spoken languages of Palestine at that time, that bilingual Christians who spoke
both Aramaic and Greek probably were in the church from the first, and that
Christ Himself probably could speak Greek as well as Aramaic. Furthermore, the
New Testament books were written in Greek, and in those books we find that while
some of the quotations were from the Old Testament reflecting the direct use of
the Hebrew, the prevailing practice was to quote from the Greek of the
Septuagint. Hence the writers undoubtedly were familiar with the Apocryphal
books and undoubtedly would have made some quotations from them if they had been
regarded as Scripture.
So,
we find that at the time of Christ there were two versions of the Old Testament
current in Palestine, the more liberal Alexandrian Septuagint, including the
Apocryphal books, in Greek, and the more conservative Hebrew version which
included only the canonical books of the Jews, and that the Roman Catholic Bible
follows the Alexandrian while the Protestant Bible follows the Hebrew version.
The
loose talk of some Roman Catholic writers about the “Greek Bible,” the form
of the Septuagint that originated in Alexandria, Egypt, being the Bible of the
early church, is no credit to scholarship for it ignores the most important
point of all, namely, that so far as the evidence goes, Jesus and the New
Testament writers did not consider the Apocryphal books canonical but instead
accepted the Palestinian version of the Old Testament.
Furthermore,
Josephus, the noted Jewish historian, about a.d.
90, gave a list of the books of the Jewish law and prophets, but he did not
include the Apocryphal books. Other Jewish sources support Josephus. The
Apocrypha was rejected by Origen, who is generally acknowledged to have been the
most learned man in the church before Augustine, by Tertullian, an outstanding
scholar in the early third century, by Athanasius, the champion of orthodoxy at
the Council of Nicaea and by Jerome, the translator of the Latin Vulgate which
became the authorized Roman Catholic Bible.
Jerome
declared emphatically that the Apocrypha was no part of the Old Testament
Scriptures. However, against his wishes and his better judgment, he allowed
himself to be persuaded by two of his bishop friends who admired the books of
Tobit and Judith to make a hurried translation of those. He is said to have
translated the former at one sitting, and neither of them received the careful
attention that had been given to the books which he considered canonical. But it
is unfortunate that he did make the translations, for they were later bound up
with his Vulgate, and served to encourage the addition of other Apocryphal
books. Augustine alone of the prominent scholars in the early church was willing
to give the Apocrypha a place in the Bible, but it is not certain that he
considered it authoritative in all cases. Yet in spite of all of these things,
the 53 bishops of the Council of Trent, in the year 1546, pronounced the
Apocryphal books canonical and deserving “equal veneration” with the books
of the Bible.
Even
within the Roman Church, opinion regarding the canonicity of the Apocrypha has
been divided. We have pointed out that Jerome categorically denied that it
formed any part of the inspired Scriptures. Cardinal Cajetan, Luther’s
opponent at Augsburg in 1518, in his Commentary
on all the Authentic Historical Books
of the Old Testament, which
he dedicated in 1532 to pope Clement VII, approved the Hebrew canon as over
against the Alexandrian. And within the Council of Trent itself several of its
members were opposed to the inclusion of these books in the Bible. Thus, even
within the papacy, the Apocrypha was not considered canonical until the Council
of Trent added it to the Old Testament and pronounced it so—nearly 2,000 years
after the Old Testament was completed and closed.
Dr.
Harris writing on this subject says:
“Pope Gregory
the Great declared that First Maccabees, an Apocryphal book, is not canonical.
Cardinal Zomenes, in his Polyglot Bible just before the Council of Trent,
excluded the Apocrypha and his work was approved by pope Leo X. Could these
popes have been mistaken or not? If they were correct, the decision of the
Council of Trent was wrong. If they were wrong where is a pope’s infallibility
as a teacher of doctrine?” (Fundamental
Protestant Doctrines, I, p. 4).
The
real reason for the addition of the Apocryphal books to the Bible by the Roman
Church, as we have said, is to be found in connection with
events at the time of the Reformation. The Reformers vigorously attacked
doctrines which they regarded as unscriptural. The doctrine of purgatory in
particular was in need of defense, and the Roman scholars thought they found
support in 2 Maccabees 12:40‑45, which tells of the work of Judas
Maccabeus, who after a battle sent money to Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice for
soldiers who had died while guilty of the sin of idolatry. But, as we shall show
when we discuss the doctrine of purgatory, this passage really does not support
the Roman Catholic position at all. For idolatry is a mortal sin, and according
to Roman Catholic doctrine, those dying in mortal sin go directly to hell. Only
those who are guilty of venial sin go to purgatory and so only they can be
helped by masses and prayers. This again illustrates the desperate nature of the
search for support of the distinctive Roman Catholic doctrines.
What,
then, is the nature of these books that have caused so much dispute? In the
first place they are useful in giving a history of Judaism as it existed between
the close of the Old Testament and the opening of the New Testament, and in that
regard they are on a par with the writings of Josephus and Philo and other
authors of the time. They do not give a continuous history, but particularly in
1 and 2 Maccabees they narrate important phases of Jewish history. Most of the
books, however, must be classed as religious novels, pious fiction, abounding in
repetitions and trivial details which are of little interest to the average
reader. They contain doctrines that are unscriptural, and stories that are
fantastic and incredible. The colorful tale of Tobit, for instance, is clearly
fictitious, written by a pious Jew about 190‑170 b.c.,
and intended to provide religious and moral instruction in the form of an
adventure story. Judith, another popular story, is also clearly fictitious.
Ecclesiasticus has historical value in that it pictures many aspects of the
Judaism of Palestine during the second century b.c.
But none of the writers claim inspiration for their
works, and some explicitly disclaim it (Prologue to Ecclesiasticus; 1 Maccabees
4:46, 9:27; 2 Maccabees 2:23, 15:38). They add nothing essential either to the
record of God’s dealings with His people Israel as recorded in the Old
Testament, or to the Christian Gospel as recorded in the New Testament.
Some
examples of the numerous errors in these books are: Judith, chapter 1, vv.
1‑7, calls Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians and declares that he
reigned in Nineveh. But we know that he was king of Babylon (Daniel 4:4-6,30).
In Tobit an angel is represented as telling a lie, claiming that he is Azarius,
the son of Ananias. But an angel is a created spirit and cannot be the son of
any human being. The book of Baruch purports to have been written by a man of
that name who was secretary to Jeremiah (1:1). But he quotes from Daniel, and
the book of Daniel was not written until long after the time of Jeremiah, for
Jeremiah wrote at the beginning of the 70-year captivity and Daniel at its
close.
In
answer to the question as to why these books were never accepted by the Jews as
canonical, Dr. Edward J. Young, Professor of Old Testament in Westminster
Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, says:
“The answer
must be that these books were never regarded as divinely inspired. ... Both
Judith and Tobit contain historical, chronological and geographical errors. The
books justify falsehood and deception and make salvation to depend upon works of
merit. Almsgiving, for example, is said to deliver from death (Tobit 12:9, 4:10,
14:10‑11).
“Judith lives
a life of falsehood and deception in which she is represented as assisted by God
(9:10,13). Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon inculcate a morality based
on expediency. Wisdom teaches the creation of the world out of
pre‑existent matter (7:17). Ecclesiasticus teaches that giving of alms
makes atonement for sin (3:3), and in 1 Maccabees there are historical and
geographical errors. This is not to deny many fine and commendable things in the
Apocrypha, but the books nevertheless show themselves at points to be at
variance with divinely revealed truth. They were consequently never adopted by
the Jews as canonical” (Revelation
and the Bible, p. 167).
Dr. Allan MacRae, Professor of Old Testament in
Faith Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, says:
“The so-called
Apocryphal books of the Old Testament are books written by godly Jews and
containing only their fallible human ideas. They are in no sense the Word of
God, nor can they ever become the Word of God. The Jews did not consider these
books as part of the Word of God. Jesus Christ did not set His seal upon them as
He did upon the actual books of the Old Testament. They are never quoted in the
New Testament. There is no evidence that any of the apostles ever considered any
of the books as, in any sense, a part of the Word of God.
“It is true
that many people in the Middle Ages became confused and thought that some of
these books were part of the Word of God. This is because they were included in
copies of the Vulgate. However, the man who translated the Vulgate into Latin
from the original Hebrew never intended that they should be so included. St.
Jerome, the learned translator of the Vulgate, wrote an introduction in which he
strongly and clearly expressed his belief that only the books that are today
included in our Old Testament belonged in the Bible, and that the so-called
Apocrypha are in no sense a portion of God’s Word.”
The
Westminster Confession of Faith, which presents the views of the Presbyterian
and Reformed churches, in a statement not designed to forbid
reading of the books of the Apocrypha, but to differentiate between their
proper and improper use, says:
“The
books commonly called Apocryphal, not being of divine inspiration, are no part
of the Canon of Scripture; and therefore are of no authority in the Church of
God, nor to be otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings”
(Ch. 1, sec. 3).
The
Lutheran Church in Germany made no official pronouncement regarding the
Apocrypha, but in the Bible prepared by Martin Luther, which for centuries
remained the standard Bible of the Lutheran churches at home and abroad, it was
included but was printed at the end of the Old Testament and in smaller print,
which was generally understood to mean that it was considered as of secondary
importance as compared with the Old and New Testament.
The
Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the United States do not accept
the Apocrypha as fully canonical, but they do include some readings from those
books in their church manual—which indicates that they assign those readings a
position higher than they give to the good writings of outstanding church
leaders and near equal authority with the Old and New Testament. The sixth of
the Thirty‑nine Articles calls the Apocryphal treatises books which “the
Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it
not apply them to establish any doctrine.”
The
position of the Eastern Orthodox Church is not clear. It has debated the issue
through its long history, but has made no final decision. In practice it has
tended to accept the Apocrypha as authoritative, but it has not subjected itself
to the rigid ecclesiastical control of doctrine as has the Roman Church, and the
result is that some church fathers and theologians quote it authoritatively
while others reject it. The Septuagint version of the Old Testament is still in
use in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The
British and Foreign Bible Society, in 1827, ruled against including the
Apocrypha in its Bibles, and the American Bible Society has followed that
example. Nearly all Protestant churches today oppose the use of the Apocrypha.
There
were also a considerable number of New Testament Apocryphal books which at times
circulated among the Jews or the Christians or both. These were written during
the period from the second to the eighth century, and were designed primarily to
supplement, or in some instances to correct, the canonical books. Dr. Bruce M.
Metzger, Professor of New Testament in Princeton Theological Seminary, says
concerning these books:
“Because the
four Gospels say little of Jesus’ infancy, childhood, and early manhood, and
are silent altogether regarding His experiences during the three days in the
tomb, several Apocryphal gospels were produced to satisfy the pious curiosity of
Christians regarding these two periods of Jesus’ life. ... Still other gospels
were written to support heretical doctrines, such as Docetism (the view that Jesus only seemed to
be human) in the Gospel of the Egyptians, or to minimize the guilt of Pilate,
such as the Gospel according to Peter and the Gospel of Nicodemus. ...
“The most
cogent proof that these books are intrinsically on a different plane from the
books of the New Testament is afforded by reading them side by side with the
books of the New Testament and allowing each to make its own impression. Then,
in the words of M. R.
James, ‘it will very quickly be seen that there is no question of
anyone’s having excluded them from the New Testament: they have done that for
themselves.’ ... The authors did not hesitate to elaborate marvelous tales,
and, in the credulous temper of that age, almost anything was believed” (Introduction
to the Apocrypha,
pp. 249-250, 262-263).
Some of the New Testament Apocryphal or
pseudonymous books were: The General Epistle of Barnabas, First Epistle of
Clement to the Corinthians, Second Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians,
Apostolic Constitutions, First Book of Hermas, Second Book of Hermas, Third Book
of Hermas, various epistles of Ignatius, the Gospel of the Infancy of the
Savior, a mutilated and altered Gospel of John, and the Gospel of the Nativity
of Mary.
These
spurious writings, however, were never included in the Roman Catholic Bible. The
Council of Trent evidently selected only books that would help them in their
controversy with the Reformers, and none of these gave promise of doing that.
Furthermore, these books are important, not as a reliable source of historical
information about the age with which they purport to deal (that is, the first
centuries of the Christian era), but because of what they reveal about the age
in which they were produced, showing something of the legend, folklore,
ignorance, and superstition so prevalent in that age in which many of the
distinctive doctrines of the Roman Church have their roots. That such tales
could have been believed shows the depth of the ignorance and superstition to
which the people were accustomed.
The
official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church is the Latin translation of
Jerome, called the Vulgate (meaning “common”). Jerome was
commissioned by Bishop Damasus near the close of the fourth century to prepare a
standard Latin version of the Bible, and his purpose was to put the Bible into
the common language of the people in accurate, readable form. Had the Roman
Catholic Church continued to promote the study of the Bible by the common people
how different might have the course of church and world history! But
unfortunately that course was reversed by later popes, the Bible was withheld
from the people, and to a large extent even from the priests. Only in recent
years has Rome given the Bible to the people in some countries, and then mostly
because of Protestant pressure.
The
church historian, A. M. Renwick, of Edinburgh, Scotland, in his book, The Story of the Church,
says: “Jerome (340-420), one of the most interesting and picturesque figures
in church history, was born in northern Dalmatia (now Yugoslavia). He produced
the Latin Vulgate Version of the Bible, which, even today, is the only version
recognized as authentic by the Roman Church. ... He spent thirty-four years at
Bethlehem, where he lived mostly in a cave as a hermit and carried out his
immense literary and scholarly labors” (p. 5).
The
Roman Church seems to hold the Latin Vulgate translation of about a.d.
400, to be infallible. The Council of Trent decreed: “If any one receive not,
as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts... as they
are contained in the Old Latin Vulgate edition... let him be anathema!” The
Vatican Council of 1870 (the council that set forth the doctrine of the
infallibility of the pope) reaffirmed the declaration of the Council of Trent
that “these books of the Old Testament and New Testament are to be received as
sacred and canonical, in their integrity, with all their parts, as they are
enumerated in the decree of the said council, and are contained in the ancient
Latin edition of the Vulgate,” adding that “they contain revelation, with no
admixture of error” (Chapter II).
In
the year 1590 Sixtus V issued an edition of the Vulgate which he declared to be
final, and prohibited under an anathema the publication of any new editions
thereafter unless they should be exactly like that one. However, he died soon
after, and scholars found numerous errors in his edition. Two years later a new
edition was published under Pope Clement VIII, and that is the one in general
use today. Clearly Sixtus V was in error—another example of the absurdity of
that doctrine which holds that the pope is infallible in matters of faith and
morals. This doctrine of the authority or infallibility of the Vulgate has
caused Roman scholars much difficulty in recent years, because many errors have
been pointed out and are now acknowledged by all scholars.
The
Roman Catholic Douay version of the Bible (New Testament, 1582, and Old
Testament, 1609) was made from the Latin Vulgate, as are the Roman Catholic
translations into modern languages. The recent Confraternity version of the New
Testament (1941) carries the notation “Translated from the Latin Vulgate.”
The inaccuracies of Jerome’s Vulgate are legion, as measured by present day
scholarship, and the text has not been revised for centuries. So even the best
of present day Roman Catholic versions, according to the notation on its own
flyleaf, is a translation of a translation—an English translation of a Latin
translation of the original Greek.
Roman
Catholics pride themselves on a long history. Yet how much more accurate are the
Protestant translations of the Bible! Protestant scholars go back to the
original Greek and Hebrew Scriptures, which are much older than the Vulgate to
which Roman Catholics are bound, and they use all the aids that modern
scholarship and research can provide. Yet the priests tell their people that it
is a mortal sin to read a Protestant Bible, and they destroy Protestant Bibles
wherever possible, allegedly on the grounds that they contain error! In 1957 a
large stock of Bibles in Madrid, Spain, belonging to the British and Foreign
Bible Society was seized and burned. Yet as Protestants we would not dream of
destroying Roman Catholic Bibles. Rather we acknowledge that despite their
limitations they are quite good translations, and that they contain God’s
truth in clear enough revelation to enlighten any who will read them in a
sincere search for truth, that apart from their interpretative notes they are
surprisingly like our King James and American Standard versions. After all, the
most distinctive features of the Roman Catholic religion come not from their
Bibles but from their traditions.
We
have said that the most controversial issue between Protestants and Roman
Catholics is the question of authority—What is the final seat of authority
in religion?—and that Protestants hold that the Bible alone is the final
rule of faith and practice, while Roman Catholics hold that it is the Bible and
tradition as interpreted by the church. In actual practice the Roman Church,
since the infallibility decree of 1870, holds that the final seat of authority
is the pope speaking for the church.
But
we need only read church history to discover that when another source of
authority is placed alongside Scripture as of equal importance, Scripture
eventually becomes relegated to the background. Whether that other source be
reason, emotion, or tradition, the inevitable result is that it supplants
Scripture and causes it gradually to fade away. If that other source be reason,
we get rationalism. If it be emotion, we get mysticism. And if it be tradition,
we get ecclesiastical dictation or clericalism. In each case the Bible, while
still given lip service, is effectually superseded.
At
the time of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther took his stand solidly on
the Bible and refused to be moved unless it could be shown that his teaching was
contrary to the Bible. Summoned to appear before the Diet of Worms to give an
account of his beliefs, the closing words of his masterful address were: “Here
I take my stand; I can do no other; so help me, God.” It could not be shown
that his teaching was contrary to the Bible, and his position was unassailable.
The
primary and almost immediate result of the Reformation was to bring the
doctrines of Scripture clearly before men’s minds as the Reformers based their
teaching squarely on the Scriptures to the exclusion of all accumulated
tradition. While the Church of Rome declared that “it belongs to the church to
judge of the true sense of Scripture,” the Reformers, both on the Continent
and in England, declared that even lay people, with the guidance of the Holy
Spirit, can interpret Scripture by diligent and prayerful searching and reading.
It
is true, of course, that the person who has not been born again, that is, the
one who has not been the object of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit and
who therefore is not a Christian, is not able to understand spiritual truth.
This too is clearly taught in Scripture: “Now the natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he
cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
But every born again Christian has the gift of the Holy Spirit, and is therefore
able to understand the basic essentials of what God has written. It is also true
that many people, even among born again believers, differ on minor points. But
that is because they have not read the Scriptures carefully enough and compared
the various parts. The remedy for that is more devoted, patient, diligent Bible
study. In any event there is no reference whatever in the Bible that even hints
that God has delegated the interpretation of Scripture to any one individual or
group of individuals.
If it be asked how the Church of Rome, which contains
important elements of truth, has become honeycombed with paganism, how even a
professedly Christian church has managed to build up a semi‑pagan
organization, the answer is that the illegitimate authority that Rome has given
to uninspired tradition has produced the effect. That development had an almost
exact parallel in the nation of Israel. Israel had the inspired prophets, but
she preferred the pleasing and flattering teachings of the false prophets, and
so developed a set of traditions which in time came to supplant the true
teachings of the prophets. In the teachings and writings of the false prophets
the rulers of the Jews found the things they wanted, just as the popes and
bishops have found in the manmade traditions of their church things which appeal
to their selfish and prideful natures and which gave them what they wanted under
the cover of religion. A study of religious errors will show that they have this
common characteristic—they consist either of additions to Scripture, or of
subtractions from Scripture, or perhaps a mixture of the two.
We
do not deny, of course, the statement of the Romanists that much of
what Jesus said and did is not recorded in the Gospels. John says plainly:
“Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of his disciples,
which are not written in this book: but these things are written that ye
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may
have life in his name” (20:30‑31). But we do maintain that that which is written is sufficient. It is Protestant doctrine that the Bible contains all that is
necessary to salvation, and no other writings or church pronouncements are to be
regarded as having divine authority.
Numerous
references set forth the sufficiency of Scripture. Nowhere do we find even a hint
that these need to be supplemented by church councils or papal decrees of any
kind. Some of these are as follows:
“To the law
and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because
there is no morning for them” (or as the King James Version says, “it is
because there is no light in them”) (Isaiah 8:20).
“All scripture
is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:18).
“Ye search the
scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are
they which bear witness of me” (John 5:39).
Our
Lord proclaimed the infallibility of Scripture, for He said: “The scriptures
cannot be broken” (John 10:35).
The brothers
of the rich man had sufficient evidence because, said Jesus, “They have Moses and the prophets” (Luke 16:29).
Jesus’
rebuke to the Sadducees was, “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures”
(Matthew 22:29).
When
Jesus reasoned with His disciples after His resurrection in regard to the
purpose and necessity of His death, we are told: “And beginning from Moses and
from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things
concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).
Peter
wrote: “And we have the word of prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well
that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place. ... For no prophecy
ever came by the will of man: but men from God, being moved by the Holy
Spirit” (2 Peter 1:19,21).
James
quoted Scripture in the Council of Jerusalem to settle the question that was at
issue (Acts 15:16-18).
Paul repeatedly appealed to Scripture, as when he
asks: “For what saith the scripture?” (Romans 4:3). And to Timothy he wrote:
“From a babe thou hast known the sacred writings which are able to make thee
whole unto salvation” (2 Timothy 3:15).
The
diligence of the Bereans in testing all things by Scripture is commended: “Now
these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word
with all readiness of mind, examining the scriptures daily, whether these things
were so” (Acts 17:11). The Scriptures which the Bereans had were the Old Testament. They
compared Paul’s teachings about Jesus with what the Old Testament had
predicted. They were not theologians or scholars, but ordinary religious people,
and yet the writer of the book of Acts (Luke) implies that by comparing the
teachings of the great Apostle Paul with Scripture they were able to determine
whether he was right or wrong.
And the book of Revelation pronounces a blessing on
both the reader and those who hear: “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that
hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things that are written therein:
for the time is at hand” (1:3).
Thus
the sufficiency of Scripture is everywhere assumed. In all these cases our Lord
and the New Testament writers referred to Scripture as clear, authoritative, and
final. Never once did they say or imply that extra‑Scriptural tradition
was needed to supplement Scripture, or that any man or group of men was
authorized to give authoritative interpretations of Scripture.
In
New Testament times the Jews had a great body of tradition, the accumulation of
centuries, which they gave precedence over Scripture. But Jesus never mentioned
tradition except to condemn it and to warn against it. He rebuked the Pharisees
with these words: “Ye leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the
tradition of men. ... Ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your
tradition... making void the word of God by your tradition” (Mark 7:8,9,13).
“And he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the
commandment of God because of your tradition. ... Ye have made void the word of
God because of your tradition. ... But in vain do they worship me, teaching as
their doctrines the precepts of men” (Matthew 15:3,6,9).
Thus
our Lord rebuked the Pharisees for doing precisely what the Church of Rome does
today, for substituting a body of human teachings and making it equal to or even
superior to the Word of God.
Early
in the Old Testament Moses warned against this same danger: “Ye shall not add
unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish from it, that ye
may keep the commandments of Jehovah your God which I command you”
(Deuteronomy 4:2). Paul gave a clear warning against the use of tradition: “Take heed
lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you through his philosophy and
with deceit, after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and
not after Christ” (Colossians 2:8).
And John, in the final book of the New Testament set forth the severe
penalty for adding to or taking away from the Word of God: “I testify unto
every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall
add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues which are written in this
book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this
prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, out of the holy
city, which are written in this book” (Revelation 22:18-19).
In
the Roman Church of today we have a perfect illustration of the attitude which
characterized the Pharisees and scribes, who substituted a body of human
teachings and made them equal to or even superior to the Word of God. In
Jesus’ day traditionalism had become so perverse and powerful that it finally
crucified Him. Religion was so blinded by its own distortions of the Word of God
that it took the cross to expose it and upset it and to reveal the truth once
more. In a similar way the Church of Rome is following a set of traditions that
she has accumulated through the centuries, which by her own pronouncements she
has elevated to equal authority with, or even to superiority over the Word of
God. Her purpose, of course, is to justify doctrines and practices which have no
basis in Scripture, or which are in violation of Scripture commands.
In
order for Rome to defend her use of tradition, which admittedly came into use
long after the New Testament was completed, it was necessary for her to assert
that the authority of the church is superior to that of the Scriptures.
Protestantism holds that the Scriptures are the infallible rule of faith and
practice, and that the church as an institution and all believers must be
governed by that authority. The Church of Rome, on the other hand, holds that
she is the supreme authority in matters of faith and practice. She even attempts
to say that the Roman Catholic Church produced the Bible, and that the pope as
the vicar of Christ on earth has the right to legislate for the church. But such
claims are absurd, because the New Testament was completed in the first century
of the Christian era while the Roman Catholic Church with its distinctive
features and its separate existence did not come into being until about four
centuries later. Furthermore, the sin and corruption that have characterized the
Roman Church, particularly during the Middle Ages when so many of her doctrines
and practices originated, is proof that she is in no sense superior to the Bible
but quite the contrary. But because of that teaching, the average Roman Catholic
may not be particularly impressed when it is pointed out to him that the
doctrines of purgatory, the mass, indulgences, penance, the use of images, etc.,
are not in Bible or even that they are contrary to the Bible. He believes these
things, not because he has Scriptural authority for them, but because the church
teaches them. This again shows how pernicious can be the use of tradition.
The
reason that the Jews had departed from their Scriptures was that they accepted
tradition and the decisions of their councils as their guide of faith. The Roman
Church has made the same mistake. She, too, has compromised the truth of the
Bible in order to follow tradition. When she began putting herself on a par with
Scripture she found it impossible to stop there. The next step was to place
herself above Scripture, and she has
assumed that position ever since.
The
first complete English Bible was translated by John Wycliffe, “the morning
star of the Reformation,” about 1382. Before his time there was no Bible in
English, although a few fragmentary portions had been translated. Wycliffe knew
only the Latin Bible, so his version, like the Roman Catholic versions even to
the present day, was a translation of a translation. The first English New
Testament translated from the original Greek was that of William Tyndale, in
1525-26. That work was made possible through the publication of the Greek New
Testament by Erasmus a few years earlier. But since the church authorities in
England (Henry VIII was king and also the head of the church) did not want the
people to have the Bible in their own language, Tyndale was forbidden to carry
on his work in England. He went instead to Germany, where the work of Luther had
provided a hospitable environment for such a venture. His work was completed and
published in the city of Worms, in 1526. However, it was condemned by the
English government, and in order to gain entrance into England had to be
smuggled in a few copies at a time.
But
Tyndale eventually paid with his life for his devotion to the Bible. Having
taken up residence in Antwerp, Belgium, opposition to his work began and
continued until he was arrested and condemned. In 1536 he was put to death by
strangling and his body was burned. His dying words were, “O God, open the
king of England’s eyes.” That prayer was answered, and God opened the eyes
of Henry VIII. In 1536 there appeared the Miles
Coverdale version of the Bible, which also was published outside England,
but which circulated with considerable freedom in England. And in 1539 the
second edition was published in England and circulated freely. Coverdale was the
friend and colleague of Tyndale, and the translation was largely Tyndale’s.
The
next important translation was the Geneva Bible,
translated during the reign of Roman Catholic Queen Mary Tudor by a group of
English scholars, exiles in Geneva, Switzerland, hence its name. This became the
Bible of the intrepid John Knox and of the early Puritans. It seems to have been
the Bible used by Shakespeare. The next important translation was the King James
version, published in 1611. This was the Bible usually used by Cromwell’s army
and the Scottish Covenanters, also used by John Bunyan. It was brought to this
country by the Pilgrims and Puritans. To this day it continues to be the most
popular of all English versions.
Up
until the time of the Reformation the Bible had been a book for priests only. It
was written in Latin, and the Roman Church refused to allow it to be translated
into the languages of the common people. But when the Reformers came on the
scene all of that was changed. Luther translated the entire Bible into German
for the people of his native land, and within 25 years of its appearance one
hundred editions of the German Bible came off the press. It was also soon
translated into most of the vernacular tongues of Europe, and wherever the light
of the Reformation went it became the book of the common people. Decrees of
popes and church councils gave way to the Word of Life. The Protestant churches
of Europe and America have labored earnestly to put the Bible into the hands of
the people in their own languages and have urged the people everywhere to read
it for themselves. Protestant Bible societies now circulate more copies of the
Bible each year than were circulated in the fifteen centuries that preceded the
Reformation.
According
to the 1983 report of the American Bible Society, about 2,000,000 copies of the
complete Bible, Old and New Testaments, are printed in the United States each
year, and more than 3,000,000 copies of the New Testament, and many millions of
portions of the Bible (at least one book, usually one of the Gospels) are
printed each year. And the 1984 report says that the complete Bible is now
available in 286 languages and dialects, the New Testament in 594 more, and some
portion of the Bible in 928 more, making a total of 1,808 languages and dialects
into which the Bible or some part of it has been translated. Today the Bible is
available in whole or in part in the native tongues of probably 96 percent of
the people of the world.
Dr.
Hugh Thompson Kerr, late Presbyterian minister in Pittsburgh, has well said:
“Protestants
have been the pioneers in Bible translation and have organized and supported the
great world‑encircling Bible societies. They believe that the Bible needs
no other interpreter than the Holy Spirit. The Bible read under the guidance of
the Holy Spirit is the Christian’s authoritative guide. Protestants therefore
claim that they truly represent and interpret Christianity as it is set forth in
the Bible. They hold that anyone who will read the Bible prayerfully, with the
aid of the best scholarship, will reach the conclusion that Protestantism
honestly interprets the teachings and confirms the practice of early
Christianity” (booklet, What Protestants Believe, p. 8).
And
another says:
“The fact is,
the Bible was written for the common people. The language of the Old Testament
was the language spoken in the homes and market places of the Hebrews. The New
Testament Greek was not the classical Greek of an earlier period but the Greek
spoken by the common people. It was called the koine, which
means the common language, what we would call today ‘newspaper
language.’ This shows that God intended the common people to understand the
Bible. Any man with ordinary intelligence and able to read English can read and
learn that Jesus is the Saviour of sinners” (Edward J. Tunis, booklet, What
Rome Teaches,
p. 9).
The Protestant ideal is that everyone should read
the Bible. Right here, we believe, is the reason that the Protestant
nations—the United States, England, Scotland, Holland, and the Scandinavian
nations—have followed one line of development, while the Roman Catholic
nations—Italy, Spain, France, and the Latin American nations—have followed a
distinctly different pattern. Protestants believe that those who study the Bible
in sincerity and with prayer will have no difficulty in understanding its basic
truths. The words of Jesus, previously quoted, imply that the common people
should know the Bible and that they are able to understand it.
It
is virtually axiomatic that where there is an open Bible, men will not long
remain in bondage. But by the same token where the Bible is a closed book, men
soon find themselves in darkness and servitude. Everywhere it has been the
precursor of civilization and liberty, driving out barbarity and despotism as
bats and vermin flee from the sunshine. In every land where its free and
unrestrained reading has been encouraged, it has dispelled ignorance and
superstition.
In
contrast with the Protestant attitude toward the Bible, the Roman Church has
traditionally opposed its free use by the people. Even today in the
predominantly Roman Catholic countries, it keeps the Bible from the people, or
at least makes no effort to provide it for them. The result is that the people
in those countries know practically nothing about the Bible except as some
Protestant organizations have gone in and distributed copies. In countries where
the Roman Church is in keen competition with Protestantism it has allowed the
people to have the Bible if there is a demand for it, but it has always insisted
strenuously that the version must be the Douay, or more recently the
Confraternity, each of which contains a set of notes printed on the same page
with the text and giving the Roman Catholic interpretation of disputed passages.
Even to
this day any other version, even the Bible as such without note or comment,
is suspect. The alleged reason is that these versions contain “errors.” But
the real reason is that the Church of Rome does not want the Bible read apart
from her interpretative notes.
The
Bible was first officially forbidden to the people by the Church of Rome and placed on
the Index of Forbidden Books by the
Council of Valencia (a cathedral city in southeastern Spain) in the year 1229,
with the following decree:
“We prohibit also the
permitting of the laity to have the books of the Old and New Testament, unless
any one should wish, from a feeling of devotion, to have a psalter or breviary
for divine service, or the hours of the blessed Mary. But we strictly forbid
them to have the abovementioned books in the vulgar tongue.”
Here
we see that the Bible was forbidden to the laity, except for the Psalms or
breviary (book of devotions), and even then it could be only is
Latin—which of course placed it beyond the reach of the common people.
That decree was passed at the time the Waldensians were gaining strength, and it
was enforced with bitter persecution.
The
Council of Trent reaffirmed that decree and prohibited the use of the Scriptures by
any member of the church unless he obtained permission from his superior. The decree read as follows:
“In as much as
it is manifest, from experience, that if the Holy Bible, translated into the
vulgar tongue, be indiscriminately allowed to everyone, the temerity of men will
cause more evil than good to arise from it; it is, on this point, referred to
the judgment of the bishops, or inquisitors, who may, by the advice of the
priest or confessor, permit the reading of the Bible translated into the vulgar
tongue by Catholic authors, to those persons whose faith and piety, they
apprehend, will
be augmented, and not injured by it; and this permission they must have in
writing.”
To this
decree, as to more than a hundred others passed by this council, was attached an
anathema against anyone who should dare to violate it, and also penalties were
fixed against the illegal possessor or seller of books. Here we observe
particularly the statement that the reading of the Bible in the native tongue
will do “more evil than good”! Imagine that, as the deliberate teaching of a
church professing to be Christian! How insulting to God is such teaching, that
His Word as read by the people will do more evil than good! That attitude toward
the Word of God is the mark, not of a true church, but of a false church.
While
it has been the policy of the Roman Church to withhold the Bible from the
people, Peter, the alleged founder of that church, refers to Scripture as “the
word of prophecy made more sure,” and likens it to “a lamp shining in a dark
place” (2 Peter 1:19). What a blessing it would be to the world if the Roman
Church would really follow the
teaching of Peter!
Early
in the history of Israel God instructed Moses to make the words of the law known
and easily accessible to all the people: “And thou shalt teach them diligently
unto thy children, and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house,
and when thou walkest in the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest
up. ... And thou shalt write them upon the door‑posts of thy house, and
upon thy gates” (Deuteronomy 6:7‑9). Another verse which expresses the
preciousness of Scripture and its importance to the individual is Psalm 119:11:
“Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.”
Even
where permission to read the Bible is granted by the Council of Trent, to those
who presumably are so thoroughly indoctrinated with Roman Catholicism that
nothing will shake their faith, that permission must be in writing!
Liguori,
one of the highest authorities on Canon Law, whose books probably are considered
more authoritative and probably are quoted more often than those of any other
writer, says: “The Scriptures and books of Controversy may not be permitted in
the vulgar tongue, as also they cannot be read without permission.”
Four
different popes during the eighteenth century made pronouncements against giving
the Bible to the people in their own language, typical of which was that of
Clement XI (1713) in the Bull Unigenitus: “We strictly forbid them (the
laity) to have the books of the Old and New Testament in the vulgar tongue.”
As for the Encyclical of Leo XIII (1893) on “The Study of the Bible,”
sometimes quoted by Roman Catholics as a statement urging the laity to study the
Bible, it should be observed that (1) the Bible which was cited for study was
the Latin Vulgate, which of course was not available to the common people nor
understood by them; (2) the statement forbade them to interpret it otherwise
than as the church interpreted it; and (3) it did not rescind or modify the prior law
of the church which refused the free use of the Scriptures to the laity.
Such
was the teaching and practice of the Roman Church for centuries. For one to
possess or read the Bible in his native tongue without permission in writing
from his superior and under the watchful eye of the bishop was a mortal sin, for
which absolution could not be granted until the book was delivered to the
priest. As the top‑heavy structure of law and ritual developed, the Bible
had to be denied to the people. Otherwise they would have seen that it was
merely a manmade structure. On the other hand, the Bible had to be preserved as
a reference book for the theologians and priests in order to sustain the power
of the priesthood by plausible and elastic interpretations of certain texts. But
so far as the people were concerned it might as well have been forgotten. Small
wonder it is that ignorance, superstition, poverty, and low moral conditions
have been so characteristic of Roman Catholic countries.
In
Protestant countries, however, in recent years a considerable change has taken
place in Roman Catholic practice, and, shamed into a different attitude because
of Protestant criticism, the Roman Church now grants her people the privilege of
reading the Bible, and even stocks it in the book stores—using, of course,
only the approved versions. The Roman Church does not wish to appear to be the
foe of the Bible, so indefensible is that position. An annual “Catholic Bible
Week” has been instituted, and indulgences granted for reading the Bible at
least fifteen minutes each day. But this appears to be an unnatural emphasis, by
no means given with a clear conscience permitted but not looked upon favorably
by the authorities in Rome. Significantly, no similar program of Bible reading
has been instituted in the predominantly Roman Catholic countries. Only in
Protestant countries, and primarily in the United States, is this policy
followed. And it certainly comes very late in the long, long history of the
Roman Church. One can easily guess what the result would be if for some reason
the Protestant influence were removed.
Unfortunately,
it still is a mortal sin for a Roman Catholic anywhere to read the King James,
American Standard, Revised Standard, or any other Protestant version. So, even
the Bible as such remains on the Index of
Forbidden Books!1 It is made fit for a Roman Catholic to read
only when it is annotated by an authorized theologian! What St. Paul wrote, if
it stands by itself, is on the Index. What was written by St. Peter himself,
who according to Roman Catholic tradition was the first pope, is on the
Index unless some Roman Catholic annotates his writing. Yet the Roman Church
does not claim infallibility for the theologian who annotates it! So here we
have the very height of absurdity—it takes the work of a theologian who is not
infallible to correct and edit and make lawful and orthodox the text of those
who wrote by divine inspiration! The attitude of the Roman Church toward the
Bible societies has been one of sustained opposition. Several acts of the popes
have been directed exclusively against them. In 1824 Pope Leo XII, in an
encyclical letter said: “You are aware, venerable brethren, that a certain
society called the Bible society strolls with effrontery throughout the world,
which society, contrary to the well-known decree of the Council of Trent,
labors with all its might and by every means to translate—or rather to
pervert—the Scriptures into the vulgar tongue of every nation. ... We, in
conformity with our apostolic duty, exhort you to turn away your flock by all
means from these poisonous pastures.” In 1844 Pope Gregory XVI again condemned
these societies, and Pope Pius IX, author of the decree of papal infallibility,
who died in 1878, denounced “these cunning and infamous societies, which call
themselves Bible societies, and give the Scriptures to inexperienced youth.”
1
Technically the Index was dropped in 1965, but general supervision over
books allowed continues through the newly established magazine supervision Nuntius
(Herald). The imprimatur remains in force, and gives another
effective means of control. Since the Second Vatican Council, restrictions
against other versions have been relaxed to some extent.
But
in reality who can estimate the vast good that these noble organizations and
their faithful colporteurs have brought to the nations of the world? Most
prominent among these have been the British and Foreign Bible Society, the
American Bible Society, the Bible Society of Scotland, and that of the
Netherlands, which have translated the Scriptures into hundreds of languages and
dialects, and which now circulate millions of copies of the Bible every year.
Many times Bibles have been publicly burned by the priests. That the real
attitude of the Vatican toward the Bible has not changed is shown by the fact
that in 1957 the depot of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Madrid,
Spain, was closed and its stock of Bibles confiscated and burned. After the
Spanish civil war, which brought Franco and the Roman Catholic Church to power,
Spanish children returning from hospitable Swiss families with Bibles in their
pockets were forced at the Spanish frontier to hand those precious books over to
the local priest. Time and again in Colombia during the past ten years Bibles
have been taken from Protestants by fanatical Romanist groups and burned, almost
always at the instigation of the local priests, usually in communities where new
Protestant churches were being formed. The fact remains that only in those
countries where Protestantism is dominant does the Bible circulate freely. Think
of the popes, who profess to be God’s representatives on earth, forbidding
their people and all others to read God’s own Book of Life! Surely the Church
of Rome by such action proves itself apostate and false.
So,
for a thousand years, from the early sixth century to the sixteenth century,
while the Roman Church held sway, the Bible remained a closed book. The Roman
Church, instead of being a kingdom of light, became a kingdom of darkness,
promoting ignorance and superstition and holding the people in bondage. In most
Roman Catholic countries today the Bible remains a closed book. Only since the
time of the Protestant Reformation has it circulated freely in any country.
Among
evangelical Christians in the United States there are thousands of classes
studying the Bible. But among Roman Catholics such groups are very rare. Even a
brief discussion with Roman Catholics will reveal that they know very little
about the doctrines or the history of their church, and that they know almost
nothing at all about the Bible.
Rome’s
traditional policy of seeking to limit the circulation of the Bible and of
anathematizing or destroying all copies that are not annotated with her
distinctive doctrines shows that she is really afraid of it. She is opposed to
it because it is opposed to her. The plain fact is that she cannot hold her
people when they become spiritually enlightened and discover that her
distinctive doctrines are merely manmade inventions.
A
curious fact in regard to the Index of Forbidden Books is that the Roman Church
permits the reading of some books by ecclesiastical writers outside her fold
when those books contain nothing contrary to her doctrines. Even some heathen
books are allowed to adults, because of their “elegance and propriety.” But
not the Bible—unless it carries her interpretation! The traditional attitude
of the Roman Catholic Church toward the promotion and study of the Bible has
been, we believe, the greatest spiritual and cultural tragedy since the influx
of the pagans into the church in the fourth century.
While
the Roman Catholic people in the United States have access to the Bible, they
are told that they cannot understand it and that it must be interpreted for them
by the church speaking through the priest. People ordinarily do not waste their
time reading a book that they are persuaded they cannot understand.
The
priests in turn are pledged not to interpret the Bible for themselves, but only
as the church interprets it, and according to “the unanimous consent of the
fathers.” But the church has never issued an official commentary giving that
interpretation. And as we have pointed out earlier, the unanimous consent of the
fathers is purely a myth, for there is scarcely a point of doctrine on which
they do not differ. The doctrine of the immaculate conception, for instance, was
denied by Anselm, Bonaventura, and Thomas Aquinas, three of the greatest Roman
theologians. Yet Rome presumes to teach that Mary was born without sin, and that
that is the unanimous teaching of the fathers.
In
their insistence on following an official interpretation, the Roman Catholics
are pursuing a course similar to that of the Christian Scientists, who also have
the Bible but insist that it must be interpreted by Mary Baker Eddy’s book, Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures,
and that of the Mormons, who likewise have the Bible but interpret it by
the Book of Mormon.
The practical result of the priests and people
being told that they cannot interpret the Bible for themselves is that they read
it but very little. Why should they? They cannot understand it. They may read a
few pages here and there, but even among the priests there is scarcely one in
twenty who reads it from beginning to end and really studies it. Instead the
priests spend hours reading their breviaries, books of daily devotions and
prayers, as required by their church, but which are of human origin. This
practice of representing the Bible as a mysterious book is a part of Rome’s
over‑all program of presenting Christianity as a mystery religion, in
which the mass in particular as well as various other practices are set forth as
mysteries which are not to be understood but which are to be accepted with
implicit faith.
The
priests and the people alike look upon the Bible as a mysterious book, and
anyway the interpretation is given to them in pope’s decrees and church
council pronouncements, which are declared to be clearer and more easily
understood. Furthermore, these latter supersede Scripture. Experience proves
that whenever an interpretation becomes more important than a document, the
document becomes buried and the interpretation alone survives. For this reason
the average Roman Catholic is faithful to his church but neglects his Bible.
Instead of following the teachings of God the priests and people follow the
traditions of men.
A
fraudulent claim recently put forth by the Knights of Columbus in a series of
newspaper and magazine ads designed to appeal to Protestants and others is that
the Roman Catholic Church produced the Bible and that we received it from her.
Some of her spokesmen attempt to say that the canon of the Bible was established
in the fourth century, by the pope and council of Carthage, in a.d. 397. But that statement is erroneous on two counts. In
the first place, there was no pope as such in a.d.
397. It was not until the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, that the bishop of Rome
was designated pope, and the authority of the bishop of Rome never has been
acknowledged by the Eastern churches. Previous to that time all priests and
bishops were called popes (Latin, papa), and in the Eastern churches that
title is applied to ordinary priests even to the present day. The Council of
Chalcedon attempted to restrict the title exclusively to the bishop of Rome, who
at that time was Leo I, and conferred it posthumously on all previous bishops of
Rome in order to make it appear that an unbroken succession of popes had
proceeded from Peter.
And
in the second place, the New Testament was produced during the first century of
the Christian era and had assumed its present form centuries before the Roman
Catholic Church developed its distinctive characteristics. At that time the
Eastern churches were dominant in Christian affairs, and the Church in Rome was
relatively insignificant. Gregory I, called Gregory the Great, who was
consecrated pope in 590 and died in 604, was in effect the founder of the papal
system. He reorganized the church, revised the ritual, restored monastic
discipline, attempted to enforce celibacy among the clergy, and extended the
authority of the Roman Church into many countries adjacent to Italy. He more
than anyone else gave the Roman Church its distinctive form and set the course
that it was to follow in its later history.
Furthermore,
long before the Council of Carthage, the particular books now found in the New
Testament, and only those, had come to be looked upon by the church at large as
the inspired and infallible Word of God on the basis of their genuineness and
authority. These particular writings, in distinction from all other books of
that age, manifest within themselves this genuineness and authority as we read
them; and the Council of Carthage did not so much choose the books that were to
be accepted in the New Testament, but rather placed its stamp of approval on the
selection that by that time, under the providential control of the Holy Spirit,
had come to be looked upon by the church as the New Testament canon. The Old
Testament canon was completed and had assumed its present form long before the
coming of Christ. The Roman Church, of course, had nothing whatever to do with
that.
Peter
1.
The Roman Catholic Position
2.
The “Rock”
3.
The “Keys”
4.
Papal Authority not Claimed by Peter
5.
Paul’s Attitude toward Peter
6.
Attitude of the Other Apostles toward Peter
7.
Was Peter Ever in Rome?
8.
Paul’s Epistle to the Romans
9.
Conclusion
1
The Roman Catholic Position
The
controversial passage in regard to Peter’s place in the Church is Matthew
16:13-19, which reads as follows:
“Now Jesus, having
come into the district of Caesarea Philippi, began to ask his disciples, saying,
‘Who do men say the Son of Man is?’ But they said, ‘Some say, John the
Baptist; and others, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.’ He
said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered and said,
‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Then Jesus answered and
said, ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Bar‑Jona, for flesh and blood hath not
revealed this to thee, but my Father in heaven. And I say to thee, thou art
Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it. And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven;
and whatever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever
thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Confraternity Version).
To
this passage the Confraternity Version adds the following interpretation:
“The rock was
Peter. ... The gates of hell: hostile,
evil powers. Their aggressive force will struggle in vain against the Church.
She shall never be overcome; she is indefectible. And since she has the office
of teacher (cf. 28, 16‑20), and since she would be overcome if error
prevailed, she is infallible.
“Keys: a symbol of authority. Peter has the power to admit
into the Church and to exclude therefrom. Nor is he merely the porter; he has
complete power within the Church. ‘To bind and to loose’ seems to have been
used by the Jews in the sense of to forbid or to permit; but the present context
requires a more comprehensive meaning. In heaven God ratifies the decisions
which Peter makes on earth in the name of Christ” (pp. 36-37).
And
the late Cardinal Gibbons, a former archbishop of Baltimore and one of the most
representative American Roman Catholics, in his widely read book, Faith of our Fathers, set
forth the position of his church in these words:
“The Catholic Church
teaches that our Lord conferred on St. Peter the first place of honor and
jurisdiction in the government of His whole church, and that the same spiritual
supremacy has always resided in the popes, or bishops of Rome, as being the
successors of St. Peter. Consequently, to be true followers of Christ all
Christians, both among the clergy and laity, must be in communion with the See
of Rome, where Peter rules in the person of his successor” (p. 95).
The
whole structure of the Roman Church is built on the assumption that in Matthew
16:13-19 Christ appointed Peter the first pope and so established the papacy.
Disprove the primacy of Peter, and the foundation of the papacy is destroyed.
Destroy the papacy, and the whole Roman hierarchy topples with it. Their system
of priesthood depends absolutely upon their claim that Peter was the first pope
at Rome, and that they are his successors. We propose to show that (1) Matthew
16:13‑19 does not teach that Christ appointed Peter a pope; (2) that there
is no proof that Peter ever was in Rome; and (3) that the New Testament records,
particularly Peter’s own writings, show that he never claimed authority over
the other apostles or over the church, and that that authority was never
accorded to him.
2
The “Rock”
“And I say to thee,
thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18, Confraternity Version).
Romanists
quote this verse with relish, and add their own interpretation to establish
their claim for papal authority. But in the Greek the word Peter is Petros,
a person, masculine, while the word “rock,” petra, is feminine and refers not to a person but to the declaration
of Christ’s deity that Peter had just uttered—“Thou art the Christ, the
Son of the living God.”
Using Peter’s name and making, as it were, a play
upon words, Jesus said to Peter, “You are Petros, and upon this petra I will
build my church.” The truth that Peter had just confessed was the foundation
upon which Christ would build His church. He meant that Peter had seen the
basic, essential truth concerning His person, the essential truth upon which the
church would be founded, and that nothing would be able to overthrow that truth,
not even all the forces of evil that might be arrayed against it. Peter was the
first among the disciples to see our Lord as the Christ of God. Christ commended
him for that spiritual insight, and said that His church would be founded upon
that fact. And that, of course, was a far different thing from founding the
church on Peter.
Had
Christ intended to say that the Church would be founded on Peter, it would have
been ridiculous for Him to have shifted to the feminine form of the word in the
middle of the statement, saying, if we may translate literally and somewhat
whimsically, “And I say unto thee, that thou art Mr. Rock, and upon this, the
Miss Rock, I will build my church.” Clearly it was upon the truth that Peter
had expressed, the deity of Christ, and not upon weak, vacillating Peter, that
the church would be founded. The Greek “petros” is commonly used of a small,
movable stone, a mere pebble, as it were. But “petra” means an immovable
foundation, in this instance, the basic truth that Peter had just confessed, the
deity of Christ. And in fact, that is the point of conflict in the churches
today between evangelicals on the one hand, and modernists or liberals on the
other—whether the church is founded on a truly divine Christ as revealed in a
fully trustworthy Bible, or whether it is essentially a social service and moral
welfare organization which recognizes Christ as an example, an outstandingly
great and good man, but denies or ignores His deity.
The
Bible tells us plainly, not that the church is built upon Peter, but that it is
“built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself
being the chief corner stone” (Ephesians 2:20). And again, “For other
foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1
Corinthians 3:11). Without that foundation the true Christian church could not
exist.
If
Matthew 16:18 had been intended to teach that the church is founded on Peter, it
would have read something like this: “Thou art Peter, and upon you I will
build my church”; or, “Thou art Peter, and upon you the rock I will build my
church.” But that is not what Christ said. He made two complete, distinct
statements. He said, “Thou art Peter,” and, “Upon this rock (change of
gender, indicating change of subject) I will build my church.”
The
gates of hell were not to prevail against the church. But the gates of hell did
prevail against Peter shortly afterward, as recorded in this same chapter, when
he attempted to deny that Christ would be crucified, and almost immediately
afterward, in the presence of the other disciples, received the stinging rebuke,
“Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art a stumbling block unto me, for thou
mindest not the things of God but the things of men” (v. 23)—surely strong
words to use against one who had just been appointed pope!
Later
we read that Peter slept in Gethsemane, during Christ’s agony. His rash act in
cutting off the servant’s ear drew Christ’s rebuke. He boasted that he was
ready to die for his Master, but shortly afterward shamefully denied with oaths
and curses that he even knew Him. And even after Pentecost Peter still was
subject to such serious error that his hypocrisy had to be rebuked by Paul, who
says: “But when Cephas came to Antioch [at which time he was in full
possession of his papal powers, according to Romanist doctrine], I resisted him
to the face, because he stood condemned” (Galatians 2:11). And yet Romanists
allege that their pope, as Peter’s successor, is infallible in matters of
faith and morals!
The
Gospel written by Mark, who is described in early Christian literature as
Peter’s close companion and understudy, does not even record the remark about
the “rock” in reporting Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi (Mark
8:27‑30). No, Christ did not build His church upon a weak, sinful man.
Rather the essential deity of Christ, which was so forcefully set forth in
Peter’s confession, was the foundation stone, the starting point, on which the
church would be built.
That
no superior standing was conferred upon Peter is clear from the later disputes
among the disciples concerning who should be greatest among them. Had such rank
already been given, Christ would simply have referred to His grant of power to
Peter. Instead we read:
“And they came to
Capernaum: and when he was in the house he asked them, What were ye reasoning on
the way? But they held their Peace: for they had disputed one with another on
the way, who was the greatest. And he sat down, and called the twelve; and he
saith unto them, If any man would be first, he shall be last of all, and servant
of all” (Mark 9:33‑35).
And
again:
“And there came near
unto him James and John, the sons of Zebedee, saying unto him, Teacher, we would
that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall ask of thee. And he said
unto them, What would ye that I should do for you? And they said unto him, Grant
unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and one on thy left hand, in thy
glory. And when the ten heard it, they began to be moved with indignation
concerning James and John. And Jesus called them unto him, and saith unto them,
Ye know that they who are accounted to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them;
and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it is not so among you:
but whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever
would be first among you, shall be servant of all” (Mark 10:34-44).
It
is interesting to notice that some of the church fathers, Augustine and Jerome
among them, gave the Protestant explanation of this verse, understanding the
“rock” to mean not Peter but Christ. Others, of course, gave the papal
interpretation. But this shows that there was no “unanimous consent of the
fathers,” as the Roman Church claims, on this subject.
Dr.
Harris says concerning the reference to the “rock”:
“Mark’s
Gospel is connected with Peter by all early Christian tradition and it does not
even include this word of Jesus to Peter. Likewise in the Epistles of Peter
there is no such claim. In 1 Peter 2:6‑8 Christ is called a rock and a
chief cornerstone. But Peter here claims nothing for himself. Indeed he is
explicit in calling all believers living stones built up a spiritual house with
Christ as the head of the corner.
“Christ is
repeatedly called a Rock. The background for this is that around thirty-four
times in the Old Testament God is called a Rock or the Rock of Israel. It was a
designation of God. In the Messianic passages, Isaiah 8:14; 28:16; and Psalm
118:22, Christ is called a Rock or Stone upon which we should believe. These
passages are quoted in the New Testament and for that reason Christ is called a
Rock several times. It designates Him as divine. For that reason, every Jew,
knowing the Old Testament, would refuse the designation to Peter or to anyone
except insofar as we are children of Christ. He is the Rock. We are living
stones built upon Him. Ephesians 2:20 says this plainly. We are built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief
cornerstone. Paul says of the Rock from which the Israelites drank that it
typified Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4). In the New Testament there are twelve
foundations and on them are the names of the twelve apostles—none of them are
made pre-eminent” (The
Bible Presbyterian Reporter, January,
1959.)
And Dr. Henry M. Woods says:
“If Christ had meant that Peter was to be the foundation, the natural form of statement would have been, ‘Thou art Peter, and on thee I will build my church’; but He does not say this, because Peter was not to be the rock on which the church was built. Note also that in the expression ‘on this rock,’ our Lord purposely uses a different Greek word, Petra, from that used for Peter, Petros. He did this to show that, not Peter, but the great truth which had just been revealed to him, viz., that our Lord was ‘the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ was to be the church’s foundation. Built on the Christ, the everlasting Saviour, the gates of hell would never prevail against the Church. But built on the well‑meaning but sinful Peter, the gates of hell would surely prevail; for a little later our Lord had to severely rebuke Peter, calling him ‘Satan’” (Our Priceless Heritage, p. 40).
3
The “Keys”
“And I will give thee
the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever thou shalt bind on earth shall
be bound in heaven, and whatever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in
heaven” (Matthew 16:19, Confraternity Version).
Admittedly
this is a difficult verse to interpret, and numerous explanations have been
given. It is important to notice, however, that the authority to bind and to
loose was not given exclusively to Peter. In the eighteenth chapter of Matthew
the same power is given to all of the
disciples. There we read:
“At that hour the disciples came to Jesus. ...
Amen. I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven” (vv. 1,18,
Confraternity Version).
Consequently
Matthew 16:19 does not prove any superiority on Peter’s part. Even the scribes
and Pharisees had this same power, for Jesus said to
them: “But woe upon you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye
shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye enter not in yourselves, neither
suffer them that are entering in to enter” (Matthew 23:13). And on another
occasion He said: “The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat: all things
therefore whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe: but do not ye after
their works; for they say, and do not. Yea, they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born, and lay them on men’s
shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger” (Matthew
23:2‑4).
Here
the expression clearly means that the scribes and Pharisees, in that the Word of
God was in their hands, thereby had the power, in declaring that Word to the
people, to open the kingdom of heaven to them,
and in withholding that Word they shut the kingdom of heaven against people.
That was Moses’ function in giving the law. It was, there fore, a declaratory
power, the authority to announce the
terms on which God would grant salvation, not an absolute power to admit or
to exclude from the kingdom of heaven. Only God can do that, and He never
delegates that authority to men.
And
in Luke 11:52 Jesus says: “Woe unto you lawyers! for ye took away the key of
knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye
hindered.” Here, the key of the knowledge of the way of salvation, by which
entrance into the kingdom of heaven is obtained, was in the hands of the
Pharisees in that they had the law of Moses in their possession, and were
therefore the custodians of the Word of God. In that sense they possessed the
key to the kingdom. They took away that key in that they failed to proclaim the
Word of God to the people. They were not entering into the kingdom of heaven
themselves, and they were hindering those who wanted to enter.
Furthermore,
we notice that in the words spoken to Peter, it was “things,” not
“persons,” that were to be bound or loosed—“whatsoever,” not
“whomsoever”—things such as the ceremonial laws and customs of the Old
Testament dispensation were to be done away with, and new rituals and practices
of the Gospel age were to be established.
Thus
the “keys” symbolize the authority to open, in this instance, to open the
kingdom of heaven to men through the proclamation of the Gospel. What the
disciples were commissioned to do, given the privilege of doing, was the
opposite of that which the scribes and Pharisees were doing; that is, they were
to facilitate the entrance of the people into the kingdom of heaven.
There
was, of course, no physical seat which had been used by Moses and which now was
being used by the scribes and Pharisees. But the scribes and Pharisees, who were
in possession of the law of Moses, were giving precepts which in themselves were
authoritative and good and which therefore were to be obeyed; but since they did
not live up to those precepts the people were not to follow their example.
It
is clear that the keys were symbolical of authority, which here is specified as
the power of binding and loosing; and it is also clear that the consequences of
what the disciples did in this regard would go far beyond earth and would have
their permanent results in heaven. They were in a real sense building for
eternity. In referring to the keys of the kingdom Jesus was continuing the
figure in which He had been comparing the kingdom of heaven to a house which He
was about to build. It would be built upon a solid rock (Matthew 7:24). Entrance
into that house was through the door of faith. This door was to be opened, first
to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles. And Peter, who had been the first of the
disciples to comprehend the person of Christ in His true deity and to confess
that deity before the other disciples, was commissioned to be the first to open
that door. In this sense the keys were first given to him. To him was given the
distinction and high honor among the apostles of being the first to open the
door of faith to the Jewish world, which he did on the day of Pentecost when
through his sermon some three thousand Jews were converted (Acts 2:14‑42),
and a short time later the distinction and high honor of opening the door of
faith to the Gentile world, which he did in the house of Cornelius (Acts
10:1‑48). And while the keys were in this respect first given to Peter,
they were soon afterward also given to the other disciples as they too
proclaimed the Gospel both to Jews and Gentiles. But while Peter was given the
distinction and honor of being the first to open the kingdom to the Jews, and
then to the Gentiles, he did not claim nor assume any other authority, and was
in all other respects on precisely the same footing as were the other apostles.
Possession
of the keys, therefore, did not mean that Peter had sovereignly within his own
person the authority to determine who should be admitted to heaven and who
should be excluded, as the Roman Church now attempts to confer that authority on
the pope and priests. Ultimate authority is in the hands of Christ alone—it is
He “that openeth and none shall shut, and that shutteth and none openeth”
(Revelation 3:7). But it did mean that Peter, and later the other apostles,
being in possession of the Gospel message, truly did open the door and present
the opportunity to enter in as they proclaimed the message before the people.
This same privilege of opening the door or of closing the door of salvation to
others is given to every Christian, for the command that Christ gave His church
was to go and make disciples of all the nations. Thus “the power of the
keys” is a declarative power only.
It
can almost be said that the Roman Catholics build their church upon these two
verses which speak of the “rock” and the “keys.” They say that the power
given to Peter was absolute and that it was transferred by him to his
successors, although they have to admit that there is not one verse in Scripture
which teaches such a transfer. Under this “power of the keys” the Roman
Church claims that “In heaven God ratifies the decisions which Peter makes on
earth” (footnote, Confraternity Version, p. 37).
But
it is interesting to see how Peter himself understood this grant of power. In
his exercise of the power of the keys he says: “And it shall be, that
whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21). And
at the house of the Roman centurion Cornelius he again gave a universal Gospel
invitation: “To him [Christ] bear all the prophets witness, that through his
name every one that believeth on him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts
10:43). So, in the preaching of Peter, as elsewhere in the New Testament,
salvation is set forth as based on faith in Christ, and nowhere is obedience to
Peter, or to the pope, or to any other man even hinted at.
Rome
terribly abuses this “power of the keys” to insure obedience to her commands
on the part of her church members and to instill in them a sense of fear and of
constant dependence on the church for their salvation. This sense of fear and
dependence, with constant references to “Mother Church,” goes far to explain
the power that the Roman Church has over her members, even cowing them to the
extent that they are afraid to read or to listen to anything contrary to what
their church teaches. And since that teaching is drilled into them from
childhood, the truly formidable power that the Roman Church exercises over the
laity can be easily understood.
4
Papal Authority Not Claimed by Peter
The
Roman Church claims that Peter was the first bishop or pope in Rome and that the
later popes are his successors. But the best proof of a man’s position and
authority is his own testimony. Does Peter claim to be a pope, or to have
primacy over the other apostles? Fortunately, he wrote two epistles or letters
which are found in the New Testament. There he gives his position and certain
instructions as to how others in the same position are to perform their duties.
We read:
“Peter, an
apostle of Jesus Christ. ... The elders therefore among you I exhort, who am a fellow-elder, and a witness of the
sufferings of Christ, who am also a partaker of the glory that shall be
revealed: Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight,
not of constraint, but willingly, according to the will of God; nor yet for
filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as lording it over the charge
allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock” (1
Peter 1:1, 5:1-3).
Here
Peter refers to himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder (the word in the
Greek is presbuteros), which of course has nothing to do with a sacrificing
priesthood. He does not claim the highest place in the church as some would
expect him to do or as some would claim for him. He assumes no ecclesiastical
superiority, but with profound humility puts himself on a level with those whom
he exhorts. He makes it clear that the church must be democratic, not
authoritarian. He forbids the leaders to lord it over the people, to work for
money or to take money unjustly. He says that they are to serve the people
willingly, even eagerly, and that by their general lives they are to make
themselves examples for the people.
But the fact is that the Church of Rome acts
directly contrary to these instructions. Can anyone imagine the proud popes of
later times adopting such a role of humility? It was several centuries later,
when the church had lost much of its original simplicity and spiritual power,
and had been submerged in a flood of worldliness, that the autocratic authority
of the popes began to appear. After the fourth century, when the Roman empire
had fallen, the bishops of Rome stepped into Caesar’s shoes, took his pagan
title of Pontifex Maximus, the supreme high priest of the pagan Roman religion,
sat down on Caesar’s throne, and wrapped themselves in Caesar’s gaudy
trappings. And that role they have continued ever since.
In
regard to the title Pontifex, the Standard International Encyclopedia
says this was “the title given by the ancient Romans to members of one of the
two celebrated religious colleges. The chief of the order was called Pontifex
Maximus. The pontiffs had general control of the official religion, and their
head was the highest religious authority in the state. ... Following Julius
Caesar the emperor was the Pontifex Maximus. In the time of Theodosius [emperor,
died a.d. 395] the title became
equivalent to Pope, now one of the titles of the
head of the Roman Catholic
Church.”
Peter
refused to accept homage from men—as when Cornelius the Roman centurion fell
down at his feet and would have worshipped him, Peter protested quickly and
said, “Stand up; I myself also am a man” (Acts 10:25-26). Yet the popes
accept the blasphemous title of “Holy Father” as theirs as a matter of
right. And how the cardinals, bishops, and priests do like to set themselves
apart from the congregations and to lord it over the people!
Surely if Peter had been a pope, “the supreme head of the church,” he would have declared that fact in his general epistles, for that was the place of all others to have asserted his authority. The popes have never been slow to make such claims for themselves, or to extend their authority as far as possible. But instead Peter refers to himself only as an apostle (of which there were eleven others), and as an elder or presbyter, that is, simply as a minister of Christ.
5
Paul’s Attitude toward Peter
It
is very interesting to notice Paul’s attitude toward Peter. Paul was called to
be an apostle at a later time, after church had been launched. Yet Peter had
nothing to do with that choice, as he surely would have had, if he had been
pope. Instead God called and ordained Paul without consulting Peter, as He has
called and ordained many thousands of ministers and evangelists since then
without reference to the popes of Rome. Paul was easily the greatest of the
apostles, with a deeper insight into the way of salvation and a larger revealed
knowledge concerning the mysteries of life and death. He wrote much more of the
New Testament than did Peter. His thirteen epistles contain 2,023 verses, while
Peter’s two epistles contain only 166 verses. And if we ascribe the Epistle to
the Hebrews to Paul, as does the Roman Catholic Church (Confraternity Version,
p. 397), he wrote an even larger proportion. Peter’s epistles do not stand
first among the epistles, but after those of Paul; and in fact his second
epistle was one of the last to be accepted by the church. Paul worked more
recorded miracles than did Peter, and be seems to have established more churches
than did Peter. Apart from the church at Rome, which we believe was established
by laymen, Paul established more prominent and more permanent churches than did
Peter. And, so far as the New Testament record goes, Paul’s influence in the
church at Rome was much greater than was that of Peter. Paul mentions Peter more
than once, but nowhere does he defer to Peter’s authority, or acknowledge him
as pope.
Indeed,
quite the contrary is the case. Paul had founded the church at Corinth, but when
some there rebelled against his authority, even to the extent of favoring Peter,
he does not give even an inch on his own authority. Instead he vigorously
defends his authority, declaring, “Am I not an apostle? have I not seen Jesus
our Lord?” (1 Corinthians 9:1), and again, “For in nothing was I behind the
very chiefest apostles” (2 Corinthians 12:11), or, as translated in the
Confraternity Version, “In no way have I fallen short of the most eminent
apostles.” He declares that he has been “intrusted with the gospel of the
uncircumcision, even as Peter with the gospel of the circumcision” (Galatians
2:7). He therefore put himself on a level with all the other apostles. Certainly
those ideas were incompatible with any idea of a pope in Paul’s day.
But
beyond all that, on one occasion Paul publicly rebuked peter. When Peter at
Antioch sided with the “false brethren” (v. 4) in their Jewish legalism and
“drew back and separated himself” from the Gentiles and was even the cause
of Barnabas being misled, Paul administered a severe rebuke. We read:
“But when Cephas came
to Antioch, I resisted him to the face, because he stood condemned. For before
that certain came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came, he
drew back and separated himself, fearing them that were of the circumcision. And
the rest of the Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that even Barnabas
was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not
uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Cephas before them
all, If thou, being a Jew, livest as do the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews,
how compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?” (Galatians 2:11-14).
He
then impressed upon Peter some good, sound, evangelical theology, declaring
that:
“...a man is not
justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ... because
by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (v. 16).
In
other words, Paul gave the “Holy Father” a “dressing down” before them
all, accusing him of not walking uprightly in the truth of the Gospel. Surely
that was no way to talk to a pope! Imagine anyone today, even a cardinal, taking
it upon himself to rebuke and instruct a real pope with such language! Just who
was Paul that he should rebuke the Vicar of Christ for unchristian conduct? If
Peter was the chief it was Paul’s duty and the duty of the other apostles to
recognize him as such and to teach only what he approved. Obviously Paul did not
regard Peter as infallible in faith and morals, or recognize any supremacy on
his part.
6
Attitude of the Other Apostles toward Peter
The
other apostles as well as Paul seem totally unaware of any appointment that made
Peter the head of the church. Nowhere do they acknowledge his authority. And
nowhere does he attempt to exercise authority over them. The only instance in
which another man was chosen to succeed an apostle is recorded in Acts
1:15‑26, and there the choice was made not by Peter but by popular choice
on the part the brethren who numbered about one hundred and twenty, and by the
casting of lots.
On another
occasion Peter, together with John, was sent by the apostles to preach the
Gospel in Samaria (Acts 8:14). Imagine the pope today being sent
by the cardinals or bishops on any such mission. It is well known that today the
popes seldom if ever preach. They do issue statements, and they address select
audiences which come to them. But they do not go out and preach the Gospel as
did Peter and the other apostles.
The
important church council in Jerusalem (Acts 15) reveals quite clearly how the
unity of the church was expressed in apostolic days. Differences had arisen when
certain men from Judaea came down to Antioch, in Syria, where Paul and Barnabas
were working and insisted that certain parts of the Jewish ritual must be
observed. Had the present Roman Catholic theory of the papacy been followed,
there would have been no need at all for a council. The church in Antioch would
have written a letter to Peter, the bishop of Rome, and he would have sent them
an encyclical or bull settling the matter. And of all the churches the one at
Antioch was the last that should have appealed to Jerusalem. For according to
Roman Catholic legend Peter was bishop in Antioch for seven years before
transferring his see to Rome! But the appeal was made, not to Peter, but to a
church council in Jerusalem. At that council not Peter but James presided and
announced the decision with the words, “Wherefore my judgment is...” (v.
19). And his judgment was accepted by the apostles and presbyters. Peter was
present, but only after there had been “much questioning” (v. 7) did he even
so much as express an opinion. He did not attempt to make any infallible
pronouncements although the subject under discussion was a vital matter of
faith. In any event it is clear that the unity of the early church was
maintained not by the voice of Peter but by the decision of the ecumenical
council which was presided over by James, the leader of the Jerusalem church.
Furthermore, after that council Peter is
never again mentioned in the book of Acts.
It
is an old human failing for people to want to exercise authority over their
fellow men. We are told that the disciples disputed among themselves which was
to be accounted the greatest. Jesus rebuked them with the words: “If any man
would be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). On
another occasion the mother of James and John came to Jesus with the request
that her two sons should have the chief places in the kingdom. But He called the
disciples to Him and said, “Ye know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it
over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Not so shall it be
among you: but whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister;
and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant: even as the Son of
man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a
ransom for many” (Matthew 20:25-28). And even on the night in which Christ was
delivered up to die they contended among themselves “which of them was
accounted to be greatest” (Luke 22:24). In each instance Jesus taught them
that they were not to seek to exercise lordship, but rather to excel in service.
But in no instance did He settle the dispute by reminding them that Peter was
the Prince of the Apostles. In fact they could not have argued that question at
all if Peter had already been given the place of preeminence, as the Roman
Church holds.
Christ
alone is the Head of the church. “Other foundation can no man lay than that
which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11). The church is
“built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself
being the chief corner stone” (Ephesians 2:20). Paul says that God “gave him
[Christ] to be head over all things to the church, which is his body”
(Ephesians 1:22-23). Besides Him there can be no earthly foundation or head of
the church. Only a monstrosity can have two heads for one body.
7
Was Peter Ever in Rome?
According
to Roman Catholic tradition Peter was the first bishop of Rome, his pontificate
lasted twenty-five years, from a.d.
42 to 67, and he was martyred in Rome in a.d.
67. The Douay and Confraternity versions say that he was in Rome before the
Jerusalem council of Acts 15, and that he returned to Jerusalem for that
council, after which he went to Antioch, and then returned to Rome. In the
Confraternity Version we read:
“After
the resurrection the primacy was conferred upon him and immediately after the
ascension he began to exercise it. After preaching in Jerusalem and Palestine he
went to Rome, probably after his liberation from prison. Some years later he was
in Jerusalem for the first church council, and shortly afterward at Antioch. In
the year 67 he was martyred is Rome” (Introduction to the First Epistle of St.
Peter).
The
remarkable thing, however, about Peter’s alleged bishopric in Rome, is that
the New Testament has not one word to say about it. The word Rome occurs only
nine times in the Bible, and never is Peter mentioned in connection with it.
There is no allusion to Rome in either of his epistles. Paul’s journey to that
city is recorded in great detail (Acts 27 and 28). There is in fact no New
Testament evidence, nor any historical proof of any kind, that Peter ever was in
Rome. All rests on legend. The first twelve chapters of the book of Acts tell of
Peter’s ministry and travels in Palestine and Syria. Surely if he had gone to
the capital of the empire, that would have been mentioned. We may well ask, if
Peter was superior to Paul, why does he receive so little attention after Paul
comes on the scene? Not much is known about his later life, except that he
traveled extensively, and that on at least some of his missionary journeys he
was accompanied by his wife—for Paul says, “Have we no right to lead about a
wife that is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brethren of
the Lord, and Cephas” (1 Corinthians 9:5). (The Confraternity Version here
reads “sister” instead of “wife”; but the Greek word is gune,
wife, not adelphe, sister.)
We
know nothing at all about the origins of Christianity in Rome. This is
acknowledged even by some Roman Catholic historians. It was already a
flourishing church when Paul wrote his letter to the Romans in a.d.
58. Quite possibly it had been founded by some of those who were present in
Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost and heard Peter’s great sermon when some
3,000 were converted, for Luke says that in that audience were “sojourners
from Rome, both Jews and proselytes” (Acts 2:10). In any event there is
nothing but unfounded tradition to support the claim that Peter founded the
church in Rome and that he was its bishop for 25 years. The fact is that the
apostles did not settle in one place as did the diocesan bishops of much later
date, so that it is quite incorrect to speak of Rome as the “See of Peter,”
or to speak of the popes occupying “the chair” of St. Peter.
Legend
was early busy with the life of Peter. The one which tells of his
twenty‑five years’ episcopate in Rome has its roots in the apocryphal
stories originating with a heretical group, the Ebionites, who rejected much of
the supernatural content of the New Testament, and the account is discredited
both by its origin and by its internal inconsistencies. The first reference that
might be given any credence at all is found in the writings of Eusebius, and
that reference is doubted even by some Roman Catholic writers. Eusebius wrote in
Greek about the year 310, and his work was translated by Jerome. A 17th
century historian, William Cave (1637-1713), chaplain to King Charles II of
England, in his most important work, The
Lives of the Apostles, says:
“It cannot be
denied that in St. Jerome’s translation it is expressly said that he (Peter)
continued twenty‑five years as bishop in that city: but then it is as
evident that this was his own addition, who probably set things down as the
report went in his time, no such thing
being found in the Greek copy of Eusebius.”
Exhaustive
research by archaeologists has been made down through the centuries to find some
inscription in the Catacombs and other ruins of ancient places in Rome that
would indicate that Peter at least visited Rome. But the only things found which
gave any promise at all were some bones of uncertain origin. L. H. Lehmann, who
was educated for the priesthood at the University for the Propagation of the
Faith, Rome, tells us of a lecture by a noted Roman archaeologist, Professor
Marucchi, given before his class, in which he said that no shred of evidence of
Peter’s having been in the Eternal City had ever been unearthed, and of
another archaeologist, Di Rossi, who declared that for forty years his greatest
ambition had been to unearth in Rome some inscription which would verify the
papal claim that the Apostle Peter was actually in Rome, but that he was forced
to admit that he had given up hope of success in his search. He had the promise
of handsome rewards by the church if he succeeded. What he had dug up verified
what the New Testament says about the formation of the Christian church in Rome,
but remained absolutely silent regarding the claims of the bishops of Rome to be
the successors of the apostle Peter (cf., The
Soul of a Priest, p. 10).
And,
after all, suppose Peter’s bones should be found and identified beyond
question, what would that prove? The important thing is, does the Church of Rome
teach the same Gospel that Peter taught? Succession to Peter should be claimed,
not by those who say they have discovered his bones, but by those who teach the
Gospel that he taught—the evangelical message of salvation by grace through
faith.
Furthermore,
if mere residence conferred superiority, then Antioch would outrank Rome; for
the same tradition which asserts that Peter resided in Rome asserts that he first
resided in Antioch, a small city in Syria. It is well known that during the
time of the apostles and for generations later the Eastern cities and the
Eastern church had the greatest influence, and that the Roman church was
comparatively insignificant. The first councils were held in Eastern cities and
were composed almost altogether of Eastern bishops. Four of the patriarchates
were Eastern—Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople, and Alexandria. Rome did not
gain the ascendancy until centuries later, after the breakup of the Roman
empire. If any church had a special right to be called the Mistress of all the
churches, it surely was the church in Jerusalem, where our Lord lived and
taught, where He was crucified, where Christianity
was first preached by Peter and the other apostles, where Peter’s great
Pentecostal sermon was delivered, and from which went forth to Antioch and
Rome and to all the world the glad tidings of salvation. Long before the
Reformation Rome’s claim to be the only true church was rejected by the
eastern churches, which were the most ancient and in the
early days much the most influential churches in the world.
Another
interesting and very important if not decisive line of evidence in this regard
is the fact that Paul was preeminently the apostle to the Gentiles while Peter
was preeminently the apostle to the Jews, this division of labor having been by
divine appointment. In Galatians 2:7-8 Paul says that he “had been intrusted
with the gospel of the uncircumcision, even as Peter with the gospel of the
circumcision (for he that wrought for Peter unto the apostleship of the
circumcision wrought for me also unto the Gentiles).” Thus Paul’s work was
primarily among the Gentiles, while Peter’s was primarily among the Jews.
Peter ministered to the Jews who were in exile in Asia Minor, “to the elect
who are sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and
Bithynia” (1 Peter 1:1), and in his journeys he went as far east as Babylon,
from which city his first epistle (and probably his second) was addressed to the
Jewish Christians in Asia Minor: “She that is in Babylon, elect together with
you, saluteth you” (1 Peter 5:13). As most of Paul’s letters were addressed
to churches he had evangelized, so Peter wrote to the Jewish brethren that he
had evangelized, who were scattered through those provinces. While there is no
Scriptural evidence at all that Peter went west to Rome, here is a plain
statement of Scripture that he did go east to Babylon. Why cannot the Roman
Church take Peter’s word to that effect?
But
his testimony, of course, must be circumvented by those who are so anxious to
place him in Rome, and they take a curious way to do it. The Confraternity
edition has an introductory note to 1 Peter which reads: “The place of
composition is given as ‘Babylon’... a cryptic designation of the city of
Rome.”
But
there is no good reason for saying that “Babylon” means “Rome.” The
reason alleged by the Church of Rome for understanding Babylon to mean Rome is
that in the book of Revelation Rome is called by that name (Revelation 17:5,
18:2). But there is a great difference between an apocalyptic book such as the
book of Revelation, which for the most part is written in figurative and
symbolic language, and an epistle such as this which is written in a
straightforward, matter-of-fact style.
In
regard to Peter’s assignment to work among the Jews, it is known that there
were many Jews in Babylon in New Testament times. Many had not returned to
Palestine after the Exile. Many others, such as those in Asia Minor and Egypt,
had been driven out or had left Palestine for various reasons. Josephus says
that some “gave Hyrcanus, the
high priest, a habitation at Babylon, where there were Jews
in great numbers” (Antiquities, Book
XV, Ch. II, 2). Peter’s assigned ministry to the Jews took him to those places
where the Jews were in the greatest numbers, even to Babylon.
8
Paul’s Epistle to the Romans
The
strongest reason of all for believing that Peter never was in Rome
is found in Paul’s epistle to the Romans. According to Roman Church
tradition, Peter reigned as pope in Rome for 25 years, from a.d.
42 to 67. It is generally agreed that Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome
was written in the year a.d. 58, at
the very height of Peter’s alleged episcopacy there. He did not address his
letter to Peter, as he should have done if Peter was in Rome and the head of all
the churches, but to the saints in the church in Rome. How strange for a
missionary to write to a church and not mention the pastor! That would be an
inexcusable affront. What would we think of a minister today who would dare to
write to a congregation in a distant city and without mentioning their pastor
tell them that he was anxious to go there that he might have some fruit among
them even as he has had in his own community (1:13), that he was anxious to
instruct and strengthen them, and that he was anxious to preach the Gospel there
where it had not been preached before? How would their pastor feel if he knew
that such greetings had been sent to 27 of his most prominent members who were
mentioned by name in the epistle (Ch. 16)? Would he stand for such ministerial
ethics? And if he were the most prominent minister in the land, as allegedly was
the bishop of Rome, such an affront would be all the more inexcusable. This
point alone ought to open the eyes of the most obdurate person blinded by the
traditions of the Roman Church.
If
Peter had been working in the church in Rome for some 16 years, why did Paul
write to the people of the church in these words: “For I long to see you, that
I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the and ye may be established”
(1:11)? Was not that a gratuitous insult to Peter? Was it not a most
presumptuous thing for Paul to go over the head of the pope? And if Peter was
there and had been there for 16 years, why was it necessary for Paul to go at
all, especially since in his letter he says that he does not build on
another’s foundation: “making it my aim so to preach the gospel, not where
Christ was already named, that I might not build upon another man’s
foundation” (15:20)? This indicates clearly that Peter was not then in Rome,
and that he had not been there, that in fact Paul was writing this letter
because no apostle had yet been in Rome to clarify the Gospel to them and to
establish them in
the faith. At the conclusion of this letter Paul sends greetings to the 27
people mentioned above, including some women, also to several groups. But he
does not mention Peter in any capacity.
And
again, had Peter been in Rome prior to or at the time when Paul arrived there as
a prisoner in a.d. 61, Paul could
not have failed to have mentioned him, for in the epistles written from there
during his imprisonment—Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon—he
gives a complete list of his fellow workers in Rome, and Peter’s name is not
among them. He spent two whole years there as a prisoner, and received all who
came to visit him (Acts 28:30). Nor does he mention Peter in his second epistle
to Timothy, which was written from Rome during his second imprisonment, in a.d.
67, the year that Peter is alleged to have suffered martyrdom in Rome, and
shortly before his own death (2 Timothy 4:6‑8). He says that all his
friends have forsaken him, and that only Luke is with him (4:10-11). Where was
Peter? If Peter was in Rome when Paul was there as a prisoner, he surely lacked
Christian courtesy since he never called to offer aid. Surely he must have been
the first absentee bishop on a big scale!
All
of this makes it quite certain that Peter never was in Rome at all. Not one of
the early church fathers gives any support to the belief that Peter was a bishop
in Rome until Jerome in the fifth century. Du Pin, a Roman Catholic historian,
acknowledges that “the primacy of Peter is not recorded by the early Christian
writers, Justin Martyr (139), Irenaeus (178), Clement of Alexandria (190), or
others of the most ancient fathers.” The Roman Church thus builds her papal
system, not on New Testament teaching, nor upon the facts of history, but only
on unfounded traditions.
The
chronological table for Peter’s work, so far as we can work it out, seems to
be roughly as follows:
Most
Bible students agree that Paul’s conversion occurred in the year a.d.
37. After that he went to Arabia (Galatians 1:17) , and after three years went
up to Jerusalem where he remained with Peter for 15 days (Galatians 1:18). That
brings us to the year a.d. 40.
Fourteen years later he again went to Jerusalem (Galatians 2:1), where he
attended the Jerusalem council described in Acts 15, in which Peter also
participated (v. 6). This conference dealt primarily with the problems which
arose in connection with the presentation of the Gospel in Jewish and Gentile
communities. Paul and Barnabas presented their case, and were authorized by the
council to continue their ministry to the Gentiles (Acts 15:22‑29); and
this quite clearly was the occasion on which Paul was assigned to work primarily
among the Gentiles while Peter was assigned to work primarily among the Jews
(Galatians 2:7‑8), since this same Jerusalem council is spoken of in the
immediate context (Galatians 2:1‑10). So this brings us to the year a.d.
54, and Peter still is in Syria, 12 years after the time that the Roman
tradition says that he began his reign in Rome.
Sometime
after the Jerusalem council Peter also came to Antioch, on which occasion it was
necessary for Paul to reprimand him because of his conformity to Judaistic
rituals (Galatians 2:11-21). And the same Roman tradition which says that Peter
reigned in Rome also says that he governed the church in Antioch for seven years
before going to Rome. Hence we reach the year a.d.
61, with Peter still in Syria! Indeed, how could Peter have gone to Rome, which
was the very center of the Gentile world? Would he defy the decision reached by
all the apostles and brethren from the various churches who met in the famous
first Christian council in Jerusalem? Clearly the Scriptural evidence is that
Peter accepted that decision, and that his work was primarily among the Jews of
the dispersion, first in Asia Minor, and later as far east as Babylon—that in
fact his work took him in the opposite direction from that which Roman tradition
assigns to him!
And
even if Peter had been the first bishop of Rome, that would not mean that the
bishops who followed him would have had any of the special powers that he had.
The apostles had the power to work miracles and to write inspired Scripture.
Even if Peter had been granted special powers above those of the other apostles,
there is nothing in Scripture to indicate that those powers could have been
transmitted to his successors. In his second epistle he makes a reference to his
approaching death (1:14), and surely that would have been the appropriate place
to have said who his successor should be and what the method of choosing future
bishops should be. But he gives no indication that he even thought of such
things. Peter as an apostle had qualifications and gifts which the popes do not
have and dare not claim. The fact of the matter is that with the passing of the
apostles their place as guides to the church was taken not by an infallible pope
but by an inspired and infallible Scripture
which had been developed by that time, which we call the New Testament, through
which God would speak to the church from that time until the end of the age.
We
may be certain that if the humble, spiritually‑minded Peter were to come
back to earth he would not acknowledge as his successor the proud pontiff who
wears the elaborate, triple-decked, gold bejeweled crown, who wears such
fabulously expensive clothing, who is carried on the shoulders of the people who
stands before the high altar of worship, who is surrounded by a Swiss military
guard, and who receives such servile obedience from the people that he is in
effect, if not in reality, worshipped by them. The dedicated Christian minister
who serves his people faithfully and humbly, and not the pope, is the true
successor of Peter.
9
Conclusion
Let
it be understood that we do not seek to minimize or downgrade but only to expose
the preposterous claims that the Roman Church makes for its popes and hierarchy.
Peter was a prince of God, but he was not the Prince of the Apostles. He,
together with the other apostles, Mary, and the early Christians, turned from
the religion in which they were born, Judaism, and became simply Christians,
followers of Christ. Not one of them was a Roman Catholic. Roman Catholicism did
not develop until centuries later.
The
doctrine of the primacy of Peter is just one more of the many errors that the
Church of Rome has added to the Christian religion. With the exposure of that
fallacy the foundation of the Roman Church is swept away. The whole papal system
stands or falls depending on whether or not Peter was a pope in Rome, and
neither the New Testament nor reliable historical records give any reason to
believe that he ever held that position or that he ever was in Rome.
END OF SECTION ONE
