"More than a thousand years had elapsed since the birth of our Savior, and such was the condition of Rome. Well may the historian shut the annals of those times in disgust; well may the heart of the Christian sink within him at such a catalogue of hideous crime; well may he ask, Were these the viceregents of God upon earth—those who had truly reached that goal beyond which the last effort of human wickedness cannot pass?"21
Is it not difficult to reconcile one's mind to the thought that these men who ruled the Catholic Church for three centuries were the viceregents of God on earth? Or that through them a divine authority and a divine mission has been transmitted to later and happier times? To do so one would be under the necessity of maintaining that no amount of immorality, however infamous, can possibly disqualify men from acting as God's representatives. And such a position would be contrary to all the evidence of scripture, as well as revolting to sound reason.
Footnotes
1. Compare Luke x with Matt. x.
2. Acts xiv: 23. Acts xx: 17, 28.
3. Phillip i: 1. I Tim. iii. This also is the view of Clement of Rome who, in writing to the Corinthians in the third century, says of the apostles: "So preaching everywhere in country and town, they appointed their first fruits when they had proved them by the spirit, to be bishops and deacons unto them that should believe. And this they did do in no new fashion; for indeed it had been written concerning bishops and deacons from very ancient times; for thus saith the scriptures in a certain place: 'I will appoint their bishops in righteousness and their deacons in faith.'"
4. Eph. iv.
5. I Cor. xii.
6. Eph. iv.
7. Eph. iv.
8. "Ibid."
9. In this connection it may be observed that the vacancy in the quorum of the Twelve, occasioned by the apostasy of Judas, was filled (Acts i: 24-26). Paul, too, though not in the original Twelve was an Apostle, and so subscribes himself in nearly all his letters. Clement of Alexandria, an elder and writer of the second century, calls Clement of Rome, the "Apostle Clement." Though whether this is meant in a rather loose sense or because he had been ordained such by one of the apostles—for he was an associate of both Peter and Paul—does not appear. (Philip iv: 3.)
10. See epistle of Clement to the Corinthians.
11. Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., Cent. iv, Bk. ii, Part ii, ch. ii. See also his remarks on the government of the church in Cent. iii and ii.
12. The bishops of Jerusalem, in the 5th century, also contended for and at last secured the title of Patriarch. (Mosheim's E. Inst., Cent. v, Part ii, ch. ii.)
13. Mosheim's Eccl. Inst., Cent. iii, Part ii, ch. ii.
14. See pp. 21, 22.
15. Schlegel among them.
16. Mosheim's Eccl. Inst., Cent. iv, Part ii, ch. ii.
17. Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol. i, p. 359. Draper remarks also that "the children arising from these associations do not appear to have occasioned any extraordinary scandal."—Ibid.
18. The above quotation is taken from the third and fourth books on "The Providence of God," by Salvian.
19. Such are the representations of Caesar Baronius, a Catholic historian of the 16th century. He was a candidate for the papacy in 1605, and hence his devotion to the Catholic church cannot be doubted.
20. Milner's Ch. Hist., vol. III, Cent. x, ch. i.
21. Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol. i, pp. 378-382.
CHAPTER V.
CHANGE IN PUBLIC WORSHIP—IN THE ORDINANCES OF THE GOSPEL.
It yet remains to note some of those changes in the public worship of the church, and in the ordinances of the gospel, which contributed to the great apostasy.
The simplicity of the Christian religion was made a reproach to the Church of Christ by the pagan priests. "The Christians have no temples, therefore they have no gods," was an argument sufficiently convincing to the heathens. It was but natural, perhaps, to seek to cast off this reproach; but the effort to do so led to the introduction of many ceremonies quite at variance with the gospel. The early Christian Saints were accustomed to meet on the first day of the week for public worship; the meetings, during the first century at least, being held, for the most part, in private houses. The ceremonies were of the simplest character. They consisted of reading the scriptures, the exhortation of the president of the assembly—"neither eloquent nor long, but full of warmth and love,"1—the testimony of such as felt moved upon by the Holy Ghost to bear testimony, exhort or prophesy; the singing of hymns; the administration of the sacrament and prayers.
But all this was soon changed. The bishops and other public teachers in the third century, framed their discourses and exhortations according to the rules of Grecian eloquence; "and were better adapted," says a learned writer,2 "to call forth the admiration of the rude multitude who love display, than to amend the heart. And that no folly and no senseless custom might be omitted in their public assemblies, the people were allowed to applaud their orators, as had been practiced in the forums and theatres; nay, they were instructed both to applaud and to clap the preachers." This was a wide departure from that spirit of meekness and humility enjoined by Messiah upon his ministers. And when to these customs was added the splendid vestments of the clergy, the magnificence of the temples, with all the pageantry of altars, surrounded with burning tapers, clouds of incense, beautiful images, the chanting of choirs, processions and other mummeries without number—one sees but little left of that simple worship instituted by the Messiah and his apostles.
About the third century incense began to be used. The Christians of the first and second centuries abhorred the use of incense in public worship as being a part of the worship of idols.3 It first became a custom to use it at funerals against offensive smells; then in public worship to disguise the bad air of crowded assemblies; then at the consecration of bishops and magistrates, and by these steps its use at last degenerated into a superstitious rite.
In the fourth century matters became still worse. The public supplications by which the pagans were accustomed to appease their gods, were borrowed from them, and were celebrated in many places with great pomp. To the temples, to water consecrated in due form, and the images of holy men, the same efficacy was ascribed and the same privileges assigned as had been attributed to the pagan temples, statues and lustrations before the advent of Christ.4
In the third century also arose the worship of martyrs. It is true that worship or adoration was relative, and a distinction was made between the worship of martyrs and the worship paid to God; but by degrees the worship of martyrs was made to conform with that which the pagans had in former times paid to their gods.5 This was done out of indiscreet eagerness to allure the pagans to embrace Christianity.6 "When Gregory [surnamed Thaumaturgus on account of the numerous miracle she is said to have wrought—born in Pontus, in the second decade of the third century] perceived that the ignorant and simple multitude persisted in their idolatry, on account of the sensuous pleasures and delights it afforded—he allowed them in celebrating the memory of the holy martyrs, to indulge themselves and give a loose to pleasure (i. e., as the thing itself, and both what precedes and what