Papal Prophetic Period by Calvin P. Bollman

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 25, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 21.

Papal Prophetic Period

By Calvin P. Bollman

What Events Marked Its Beginning? What Marked Its Close?

By Calvin P. Bollman

The papacy is at once a spiritual, an ecclesiastical, and a political power. In all its phases it is a growth, a development.

In the spiritual and ecclesiastical realms, the “mystery of iniquity” was working even as early as Paul’s day.

The political phase had its beginning in the time of Constantine, but was not fully developed until the pope became a temporal sovereign, about the middle of the eighth century.

It is less easy to trace the development of the spiritual phase; but as an ecclesiastical power, the papacy may be said, not indeed to have been established, but to have attained its majority, with the letter or decree of Justinian styling the bishop of Rome “head of all the churches,” A.D. 533. As the logical result of this decree, the pope was a few years later declared also “corrector of heretics,” by the same emperor.

“HEAD OF ALL THE CHURCHES”

But at the time the title, “head of all the churches,” was conferred upon the pope, the ambitions of that bishop were still strenuously opposed, as they had long been, by the Arian kingdoms, of which two still survived, the Vandals in Africa, and the Ostrogoths in Italy.

The very year Justinian’s decree was issued, Carthage, the Vandal capital, was overthrown; but not until three years later was the subjugation of the Vandals complete. At this time, the Ostrogoths ruled Italy from their capital at Ravenna, refusing to acknowledge the pretensions of the bishop of Rome.

In 537 Vitiges and his Goths laid siege to Rome itself in an effort to recover it from Belisarius. The next year,—namely, 538,—the siege was raised by Belisarius, the Goths sustaining a crushing defeat, from which they never fully recovered. Still they maintained their national existence fifteen years longer, during which time they carried on a more or less intermittent warfare with the forces of Justinian.

BEGINNING OF HER SUPREMACY

But so far as any effective national opposition to the claims of the papacy, was concerned, it ended in 538. From that year, therefore, we may reckon the 1,260 years of papal supremacy.

That these were eventful days is abundantly testified. Of the era of Justinian, Finlay remarks, “The unerring instinct of mankind has fixed on this period as one of the greatest in man’s annals.” And again he says, “With the conquest of Rome by Belisarius [A.D. 536], the history of the ancient city may be considered as terminating; and with his defense against Vitiges [A.D. 538] commences the history of the Middle Ages, of the time of destruction and of change.”

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION BRINGS THE CLIMAX

As the supremacy of the papacy was due to two specific acts,—first a decree, and five years later a military campaign making effective the decree,—so the close of the 1,260 years of that supremacy is marked by two events separated by a period of five years.

It will not be denied by any one, that the French Revolution was quite as much a revolt against the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church as against abuses under the civil government of Louis XVI. In 1793 the States-General of France, desiring to go to the root of the whole trouble, decreed the abolition not only of the state church, but of the whole papal system, and even of Christianity itself. Five years later,—namely, 1798,—a French army under General Berthier captured the city of Rome, declared the papacy abolished, established a republic in the states of the church in its stead, and carried the pope a prisoner to France.

NOT THE ONLY POPE DEPOSED

It is true, as is sometimes said, that Pius VI was not the only pope forcibly deposed from the papal office and deprived of his liberty; but he is the only one ever so deposed and imprisoned with the avowed object of abolishing the whole papal system. It is for this reason that the act of Berthier in 1798 stands forth preeminent as marking the end of the 1,260 years of papal supremacy, the giving of the deadly wound of Rev. 13: 10, the leading into captivity of the head of that system which had for centuries condemned millions to imprisonment and to death.