p. 155 | PONTIFF | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 18, 1876

FromThe Review and Herald, Review and Herald, Vol. 47, No. 20.

PONTIFF

“A high priest, especially one of the sacred college in ancient Rome which had the supreme jurisdiction over all matters of religion; at the head of which was the Pontifex Maximus, pope.”—Worcester.

INSTITUTED.

Plutarch’s Lives, vol. ii. p. 142: “To Numa is attributed the institution of that high order of priests called pontifices, over which he is said to have presided himself the Pontifex Maximus, as the emperors of Rome did afterward.”

HISTORY.

Gibbon, vol. iii. p. 227: “The office of supreme pontiff, which from the time of Numa to that of Augustus has always been exercised by one of the most eminent of the senators, was at length united to the imperial dignity.” P. 367: “The title, the ensigns, the prerogatives of sovereign pontiff, which had been instituted by Numa and assumed by Augustus, were accepted, without hesitation, by seven Christian emperors.” P. 368, Note: “Gratian was the first who refused the pontifical robe.” Tytler, p. 94: “Even the Christian emperors held, like their pagan predecessors, the office of Pontifex Maximus, whose authority, though weakened in the latter ages, was still protected by the laws. Gratian was the first who refused that ancient dignity as a profanation.”

Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 277: “The care of religion was the right as well as duty of the civil magistrate. Constantine and his successors could not easily persuade themselves that they had forfeited by their conversion any branch of the imperial prerogatives, or that they were incapable of giving laws to a religion which they had protected and embraced. The emperors still continued to exercise a supreme jurisdiction over ecclesiastical order; and the sixteenth book of the Theodosian code represents, under a variety of titles, the authority which they assumed in the government of the Catholic church.”

Augustulus, the last emperor of Rome, was conquered by Odoacer, king of the Heruli, A. D. 476. Gibbon says, vol. iii. p. 512, “The unfortunate Augustulus was made the instrument of his own disgrace; and he signified his resignation to the Senate, and that assembly in their last act of obedience to a Roman prince still affected the spirit of freedom and the forms of the constitution. An epistle was addressed, by their unanimous decree, to the Emperor Zeno, the son-in-law and successor of Leo, who had lately been restored after a short rebellion, to the Byzantine throne. They solemnly disclaimed the necessity or even the wish of continuing any longer the imperial succession in Italy; since in their opinion the majesty of a sole monarch is sufficient to pervade and to protect, at the same time, both the East and the West. In their own name and in the name of the people, they consented that the seat of universal empire should be transferred from Rome to Constantinople.” Zeno accepted it. Gib., vol. iii. p. 513. The office of pontiff, which was a part of the imperial office, was transferred to Zeno, Emperor of the East, A. D. 476, and although the pontifical authority (as Tytler says, p. 94) was “weakened in the latter ages, it was still protected by the laws,” as appears fifty-seven years later, when the Emperor Justinian, in A. D. 533, concedes the supremacy of the pontificate to old Rome.”

Rev. Geo. Croly, 3d edition, p. 133, quotes proof from the Justinian code, the 9th preamble of the Novellæ, and the 31st, chap. 2, of ecclesiastical titles and privileges: “As the elder Rome was the founder of the laws, so it was not to be questioned that in her was the supremacy of the pontificate. We therefore decree that the most holy pope of the elder Rome is the first of all the priesthood.” I found the whole detail of Justinian’s grant of supremacy to the pope formally given.

Croly quotes the letter of Justinian, to the pope: “Justinian, pious, fortunate, renowned, triumphant, emperor, consul, etc., to John 2d, the most holy archbishop of our city of Rome, and patriarch. Rendering honor to the apostolic see, and to your holiness (as always was and is our desire), and as it becomes us, honoring your blessedness as a father, we have laid without delay, before the notice of your holiness, all things pertaining to the state of the church. Since it has always been our earnest study to preserve the unity of your holy see, and the state of the holy churches of God, which has hitherto obtained, and will remain, without any interfering opposition, therefore we hasten to subject, and to unite to your holiness, all the priests of the whole East. As to the matters which are presently agitated, although clear and undoubted, as according to the doctrine of your apostolic see assuredly resolved and decided by all priests, we have yet deemed it necessary to lay them before your holiness. Nor do we suffer anything which belongs to the state of the church, however manifest and undoubted, that is agitated, to pass without the knowledge of your holiness, who are the head of the holy churches. For in all things (as has been said or resolved) we are prompt to increase the honor and authority of your see.”

Croly says, “The supremacy of the pope had, by these mandates and edicts, received the fullest sanction that could be given by the authority of the master of the Roman world.” Keith’s “Signs of the Times” agrees with Croly; and the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities says, “From the time of Theodosius, the emperors no longer appear [in the robe] in the dignity of pontiff; but at last the title was assumed by the Christian [so-called] bishop of Rome.”

CHARACTER.

Let Philip Schaff tell, quoted by A. H. Lewis, p. 121, (P. Schaff, Church History, vol. ii. p. 13, “Constantine”): “Down to the end of his life he retained the title and dignity of Pontifex Maximus, or high priest of the heathen hierarchy.”

THE CHRISTIAN HIGH PRIEST.

Heb. 7: 22–27: “By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death; but this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s; for this he did once, when he offered up himself.”—Leman Andrus, in Sabbath Recorder.