THE STORY OF THE CHURCH: LIGHT OFF, LIGHT ON
In 64 A.D., during the reign of Nero as emperor of the Roman Empire, a group of anti-Christians gathered in Rome and crucified the chief of the apostles, Peter, upside down. About two hundred years later, people belonging to that same group met, this time, for a more serious attempt: that of claiming the apostolic mantle of Peter whom they had murdered; and that of usurping the office of Christ, their enemy.
Christ is the light of the world. John testifies that "in Him was life; and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
When physically present here on earth, He preached love and practised love, He healed the sick and raised the dead, free. He spread joy and happiness everywhere and brought man to the knowledge of the Father. Finally, He gave Himself up as supreme sacrifice to redeem the cosmos and humanity as a whole.
Having ransomed with His stainless blood, man became, once more, eligible for that light the Holy Spirit, His ascension meant descent, and it happened that on the day of Pentecost, the light descended and His disciples were also possessed of the light and continued to shine in the world.
The killing of the apostles and the establishment of the Roman Catholic church by the very group responsible for the murder caused a temporary eclipse of the light and began the reign of anti-Christ, the prince of darkness.
The disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ did not know that it would take another two thousand years before the physical manifestation of the kingdom of God on earth. They had believed it would happen immediately hence their selling of worldly possessions and commitment to common purse.
This marked the fulfilment of the scripture in 2nd Thessalonians 2:3-4: "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God."
In the above quotation, Christ is speaking through Paul in plain and emphatic language. He says the kingdom would not come until after the "rebellion" from the truth, after the "man of lawlessness.. – pagan and papal Roman had succeeded in wearing out the saints and suppressing the truth.
Imperial authority backed up the orthodox Catholic Church, and the church also backed up imperial policy. It was maintained that non-membership of the church was, in effect, an act of disloyalty to the emperor. Non-conformists were regarded as enemies of society, to be kept out of it or reduced to third-class status.
The Jews, Donatists and the Gnostics were persecuted, banished or burnt to death. The policy of the Roman Catholic was to force everyone to accept the Catholic faith. They argued that they were justified in that Christ Himself had "by great violence," forced Paul into Christianity. Augustine (bishop) drew attention to the text in Luke 1:23: "Compel them to come in."
The Catholic mass had been conducted in Greek until the time of Bishop Damasus who latinised it. He made the ceremony a much lengthier and more formal one. The scriptural aspects were made longer and standardised; prayers inserted at fixed intervals were also standardised. This is how they came by the Kyrie, the Sanctus, the Gloria and the creed. Some of the ceremonial aspects were copied from pagan rites, others from court practices and nothing was copied from Christ.
The so-called sign of the cross is, as a matter of fact, not sign of the cross at all but sign of the BEAST. It dates back to the time of Nebuchadnezar. He had caused a golden image to be made and commanded that at the blast of sound from all sorts of musical instruments, everybody in the Babylonian empire should make that sign by touching, with fingers, the head, the chest and each side of the shoulders and then bow down to worship the golden image of the beast. Anyone who refused was to be burnt up in a very hot furnace. Shedrach, Meshack and Abednego, whose story we are well acquainted with, were accused of not complying with this devilish command and it was only the divine intervention of God in person that saved the faithful trio. The Roman Catholic has taken over this sign of the beast from pagan Babylon and renamed it "sign of the Cross"; their Angelus also has its origin from there.
Their claim that the "age of miracles" was over stems from the fact that their church leaders could no longer spread the gospel, like the apostles did, with the aid of the Holy Spirit. From the time of Montanist onwards they had eliminated those who claim to be able to work miracles and speak with tongues.
Saints were believed to communicate with the world through contact with their earthly remains, and thus began the cult of relics. The possession of relics became the most important aspect of the Catholic religion. They were virtually indispensable for the saying of mass, being attached to the altar. They played a vital part in the judicial system, for swearings and judicial combats. Kings carried them into battle … William I went into action at Hastings wearing round his neck a string of relics given to him by the Pope.
The most important relic of all was the body of Peter, believed to have been buried on the site of the Vatican Church known as St. Peter’s Basilica. Possession of the body, the Catholics claimed, was the ultimate "Proof" that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome. Paul’s body was also in Rome. This made a certain Pope to remark that Peter and Paul, the most powerful of the apostles, had replaced Romulus and Remus as the city’s protectors. The Bishop of Rome, the Pope assumed the title of Vicar of St. Peter. This title, they maintained, until the forged donation of Constantine, when they also took on the title of vicar of the Son God (Vicarius Fi----- Dei).
Mee wrote: "Peter was not a stationary relic but an active, executive presence, who took decisions". Boniface, setting out on his German mission, swore an oath ‘to you, St. Peter, and to your vicar.’ And Peter might show displeasure, and punish.
In 710, the Pope, as the imperial official in Rome, accused the archbishop of Ravena of rebellion and ordered his eyes to be put out. The sentence was presented as coming direct from St. Peter, who imposed it because the archbishop had disobeyed his vicar. The belief was, in fact, that while Peter’s relics did their work from his tomb, his earthly persona was entrusted to the current pope, who acted vicariously."
Pope Gregory IX in 1239 produced the heads of the apostles; Peter and Paul and carried them "in solemn procession" through Rome, and before a large crowd, Gregory removed his tiara and placed it on the head of Peter.
Although the Catholics believed that Peter was buried beneath the high altar of the Basilica, his head and, that of Paul were preserved in the lateran Basilica, along with other relics including the:
ark of the covenant; the tablets of Moses
the Rod of Aaron, an urn of Manna
the Virgin’s tunic
John the Baptist’s hair shirt
the five loaves and two fishes from the feeding of the five thousand
and the dining table used at the last supper.
The nearby chapel of St. Lawrence in the Lateran Palace boasted the foreskin and umbilical cord of Christ, preserved in a gold and jewelled crucifix filled with oil.
Whereas the heads of Peter and Paul were real relics as they were responsible for their murder, the rest, or majority of the rest were outright forgeries. Their altar stones, till date, contain either the teeth or pieces of bone of dead prophets or their so-called "saints.
The papacy became an independent power, thus, succeeding imperial Rome. The Pope, in order to consolidate his hold on his king – priest status, had to fight wars and enter into alliances with other princes, sometimes, at pains of ex-communication for the uncompromising ones. Here again, the Pope likened himself to Melchizedeck whom he claimed was a priest-king.
Sometime in the late 1070s, Gregory VII made a statement of papal claims, which amounted to a theory of papal world – government. Appeals to the papal court automatically hindered judgements from any other court. Johnson wrote: "The aggressive presentation of the new papal theory of world government amounted to a physical assault on the office of the emperor, and of the politico-religious structure on which it was based. The structure was a flimsy affair; it was crumbling away. It could not, withstand a determined papal war of destruction".
Pope Boniface VII in 1296 and 1300 made certain declarations in his bulls "Clericos Laicos" and "Unam Sanctam" which suggested a measure of possible control over the Universe, which was in consonance with the theory of limitless papal monarchy. The converting spirit of the Roman Catholic expressed itself in various forms of violence. The crusades were not missionary ventures but expressions of papal policy of expansionism. Three knightly orders, military in principle and practice, were established to promote Roman Catholic wars of conquest and colonialization.
Christ told Peter: "Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword." Christian tradition does not smile at violence. It was for this reason that the disciples of Christ preferred death to resistance. But the Pope, who claimed he was God’s representative or another God on earth, "took the sword" and fought wars. Pope Julius II is said to have had a very wonderful war policy: that of allying with friends against foes, and with foes against friends.
Mee wrote: "Julius war policy was simplicity itself. First he subdued some rebellious Italian city – states with the help of the French. Then he drove the French from Italy with the help of the Spanish. And last, but unsuccessfully, he tried to drive the Spanish from Italy. Allying with foes and turning on friends, he sought to strengthen the papacy and the Della Rovere dynasty.
He was the first Pope to ride out of Rome at the head of an army, and on the battlefield he was a holy terror. The leader of the rebellion in Perugia, Gianpaola Baglione, was so stunned to hear that Julius was at the head of his own cavalry that Baglione laid down his arms and offered Julius some more troops. Then the Pope set out over the Appenines to Bologna, crossing flooded rivers and scrambling up rocky ravines on foot. He was up at dawn each day to lead the march. In Bologna, Giovani Bentivoglio reviewed his troops- and fled the city."
In order to recover control of two towns from Venice, Julius allied himself with the French. "I will make Venice a little fishing village again," he threatened the Venetian ambassador. When the French vanquished Venice and returned the cities to Pope Julius, he announced that "those French men have taken away my appetite," and he allied with Venice to attack the French. He threatened to hang ambassadors or throw them in the river. On January 2, 1511, Pope Julius took to the battlefield again, through snow that was about five feet deep, saying, "Let’s see who has the bigger testicles, the King of France or I."
In his effort to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Julius proclaimed a special indulgence in Italy. "In laying the cornerstone of Christendom’s greatest Cathedral, Julius built in a fault that would help to topple the Roman catholic Church." He is reputed to have been the one who organised the Swiss Guard and commissioned Michelangelo to design the uniforms, that the guard still wears today at the Vatican.
Popes and Cardinals murdered their opponents. There were rampant cases of poisoning, strangling and throwing in the river, hanging and burning alive. The Popes had their prisons where their opponents or "heretics" were thrown in. Cardinals bribed to be voted Pope. The whole organisation was so corrupt that church offices were sold, kickbacks solicited; and it was only concerned with money, power, and law.
Petrarch wrote: "Here reign the successors of the poor, fishermen of Galilee they have quite forgotten their origins… Babylon, the home of all vices and misery …… there is no piety, no charity, no faith, no reverence, no fear of God, nothing holy, nothing just, nothing sacred. All you have ever heard or read are of perfidy, deceit, hardness of pride, shamelessness and unrestrained debauchery – in short every example of impiety and evil the world has to show you are collected here…. Here one loses all good things, first liberty, then successively repose, happiness, faith, hope and charity."
The corruption of the Roman Church had been in existence centuries before Martin Luther was born. When Luther whispered that the Pope might be anti-Christ, some were shockingly surprised, but it was an old charge.
On March 9, 1513, Cardinal Giovanni de Medici was elected Pope and he took on the name Leo. By 1514, he ordered the master of the palace to make sure, on pain of ex-communication, that no sermon exceeds thirty minutes in length. Some years later, he directed Paris de Grasis to remind the master of the palace that the council of the lateran had decreed that no sermon must exceed fifteen minutes.
Conversely, Leo doubled his predecessor’s budget for the papal household, nearly 700 servants worked around the clock to keep up with the successive banquets, carnivals, plays and mock battles in which people gambled up and down the banks of River Tiber. His hunting expeditions, for which between 1000 and 2000 select friends were invited to take part in, lasted for many weeks, sometimes months.
On the corruption of Leo’s period Mee wrote: "There was scarcely a peasant in Europe who did not know of a nunnery where the good sisters received young men from Oxford in their cells, or of priests who charged a mite too much for burial services or were ignorant of their religion or always drunk from tippling mass wine. A priest who was guilty of murder escapes punishment by ‘benefit of clergy’. A bailiff of a local convent pimps for the nuns. Stories of Leo’s Rome could not have been shocking to most Europeans: Their own parish priests engaged in the same debaucheries and hypocrisies, and on an unstylishly petty level. While the Pope milked the archbishops, the nuns of Godstow spread syphilis in England – and, what was worse, they spread it to their neighbours’ husbands".
People from all walks of life remarked about the corruption of the Roman Church, and the clergy was accused of every form of sin. Petrarch, Dante and Boccaccio lambasted the church. Chaucer, in his "Canterbury tales," hints satirically on the corruption of the clergy in his sketches of the prioress, the monk dressed in fine gray fur, or the wanton or merry friar, who made a nice profit from hearing widows’ confessions and was always giving hair-pins to "faire wives." The friar, according to Chaucer, knew the hotels in every town.
In spite of the efforts of reformers and revolutionaries, the kings of Europe who contended for church lands, the disagreement in the church itself between the Pope and the Cardinals who scrambled for councils, the early fifteenth century Avig-nonese seperation, the new feeling and growth of the spirit of nationalism, economic depression, the archbishops who resisted the pope, the emerging independent social classes, the Roman Catholic church remained unrepentant and none could change or even dared to challenge.
Many have wondered why the so-called reformation did not occur long before Martin Luther appeared on the scene. In spite of all the forces that worked against the Roman Catholic Church, it remained unconquerable for one crucial reason, that is, the keys emblem on the coat of arms of the papacy.
The Roman Catholic Church rests on the structure of those crossed keys. The pope was believed to hold the keys to heaven and it is unthinkable that any celestial candidate could be so unreasonable as to point a finger at its gateman! Political or moral or economic arguments could get nowhere.
Martin Luther’s revolution was, in effect, a theological revolution. It was an important theological argument that vibrated and shook the foundations and finally exploded causing a split in the Roman church.
When Martin Luther proclaimed that man is saved "by faith alone," there was, apparently, no more use for the Pope’s gold keys nor his gatemanism, and all forces, which had hitherto regarded the papacy unconquerable, rose up to assault the establishment with a vengeance. This was the midwife of Protestantism. The granting of indulgences, which had provoked Luther into writing his ninety five thesis, was a subject nobody in the Roman Church was altogether clear about. The principles that were commonly believed, in Luther’s day, to govern the granting of indulgences grew up carelessly, with every one caring less for the theory since the practice was so profitable.
According to the teaching of the Roman catholic church, "Christ’s sacrifice on the cross paid for man’s sins, so that in the ‘treasury’ of the church, there was a vast store of merits, of the saints who, being better than they needed to be, had some leftover merits which could be disbursed to others. This treasury was something in which all members of the church were shareholders and from which, by making the proper investment, they could draw dividends. The Pope controlled the dividends – it was his keys that opened the door to the vaults, it was believed, and so to heaven. . . . .
Theory always followed practice in the growth of indulgences. Many men died, after all, without having worked out all their penances and so had to spend time in purgatory before their souls were cleansed of all worldly dross. Although indulgences originally applied only to penance imposed by priests on earth, gradually they were extended to cover all temporal punishments that might be coming to man, in purgatory as well as on earth.
And whereas no doctor of the church had ever said that indulgences carried with them the forgiveness of sins but only release from the temporal punishment for sins, ordinary Catholics, ever indifferent to nice theological hair-splitting, assumed they were buying forgiveness. The indulgence sellers, the relic hawkers, and even the hard pressed Vatican itself, were happy to let the common folk believe whatever they wanted so long as the cash kept coming in. . . . .
"Were your father and mother suffering in purgatory? Buy a packet of letters of indulgence to ‘assign’ to them, and up they go to heaven. Had you neglected to fast during lent? You could buy a ‘butter letter’. Did you intend to sin? You could buy a receipted indulgence from another and have your sin paid for in advance. So the indulgence peddlers said, in any case, and no one cared to disbelieve them."
A set of three beliefs that supported the so called reformation were now prominent in Luther’s sermons and lectures; Man is saved "only through grace" which comes "only through faith" which comes "only through Christ." In that manner, not only was the practice of indulgence-peddling corrupt, but the theory itself could not be supported theologically.
When Protestantism came to birth, the movement itself was split beyond redemption with none of the factions or churches achieving real reformation. It was maintained that Luther has more Catholic opponents. Lutheranism was, in essence, moderate doctrinally and structurally, a form of state Catholicism, deprived of its mechanical aspects, stripped and made simple, but not remarkably different from the Catholicism of the middle-ages.
By the mid-sixteenth century, there were three types of State religion in the Western world: Papal Catholicism, State Christianity (Lutheranism), and Calvinist Theocracy.
Luther, like the Pope, encouraged killing and Calvin also encouraged violence. Catholics believed that salvation was based on sales of indulgences and relics and the authority of the papacy; Lutheranism was based on justification by faith and Calvinism was based on predestination. All spoke the same "blasphemous" language to prove that the product of a system cannot change the system.
The lamb-like beast of Rev. 13 causes man to worship the "beast," and a union is formed with parallel purpose between Catholicism and later day Protestantism co-operating together with the civil power against the Lamb of God. Each of them in theory was Universalist in its aims. They were all motivated by the same theory of creating the city of God on earth and usurping the position of the Lord Jesus Christ as the supreme ruler of the universe.
When our Lord Jesus Christ departed this plane of manifest, and later followed by his Apostles, the light was eclipsed and darkness took over. The history of the Dark Ages is the history of Catholicism. And the history of Catholicism is the history of murder, war, deprivation, bribery and corruption, cheating, lying, base spirits worship, fear, distrust selfishness, hate, hopelessness, faithlessness, deceit, immorality.
DARKNESS.
Protestantism is the product of Catholicism and therefore are of the same 'tribe and tongue' Ever since, it has been a question of divide and rule. Now we have a proliferation of them, some, with very funny names, each claiming to have been approved by God Himself and therefore, the best.
Now the inhabitants of the whole world have a reason to rejoice for the darkness, which had enveloped the world for almost two milleniums, is fast giving way because of the re-appearance, in a big way, of the self-same LIGHT.
This time He is to abolish forever darkness and shine in the world lavishly till eternity.
By Elder Ifiok Ekah.
Thank You Good Father
