History of Government by Alonzo Trevier Jones

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 2, 1904

History of Government

By Alonzo Trevier Jones

IX. ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNMENT OF ROME.

WHEN Rome perished every form of government and every device as to government had been tried, and had failed, all but one; that one form, that remaining device was government wholly by the church—ecclesiastical government. The last stage of the Roman Government had been a government in which the church was united with the State, in which the church worked hand in hand with the State, and traded church support for State favors. But the State, not the church; the emperor, not the bishop; was the ruling power.

The bishops had promised to the imperial power, and even to themselves, that that system should be the very kingdom of God come on earth. But that bow of promise was most rudely dispelled when it was found that ruin rode swiftly in every element, and from every direction. Yet, in the face of all this, the bishops would not acknowledge themselves mistaken, except in the matter of time and order. They still insisted that they were right as to the coming and the reign of the kingdom and city of God; but that there must be a cleansing and an overturning that would clearly give to the church alone full and undisputed sway. For this the church of Rome aspired and conspired to take to herself the power and the dominion over the earth, and demonstrate that the perfection of government on earth was the church of Rome. The ruling power in this church was the bishopric of Rome, and the only thing contemplated by Rome's prelates was that this new order of things, this new form of government in the world, would be, in substance and vital principle, only the government of Rome continued. Through Rome, cleansed by the divine judgments, ruined, revivified, and glorified by the divine presence, benediction would come to bless the earth with perfect peace. Thus would original Rome reach its true goal, and its original purpose in the world be truly fulfilled.

Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome (440-461), lived and exercised his bishopric in the very midst of the whirl of events that brought ruin to the Roman Empire. And it was he who conceived and prophesied this grand future for the church of Rome. He declared that the former Rome was but the promise of the latter Rome; that the glories of the former were to be reproduced in Catholic Rome; that Romulus and Remus were but the precursors of Peter and Paul, and the successors of Romulus, therefore the precursors of the successors of Peter, and that as the former Rome had ruled the world, so the latter, by the see of the holy blessed Peter, as head of the world, would dominate the earth.

This conception was never lost by the Papacy. And when, only fifteen years afterward, the Roman Empire had in itself perished, and only the Papacy survived the ruin and firmly held place and power in Rome, this conception was only the more strongly and with the more certitude held and asserted.

This conception was also intentionally and systematically developed. The Scriptures were industriously studied and ingeniously perverted to maintain it. By a perverse application of the Levitical system of the Old Testament, the authority and eternity of the Roman priesthood was established; and by perverse deductions "from the New Testament, the authority and eternity of Rome herself was established." First, taking the ground that she was the only true continuation of original Rome, upon that the Papacy took the ground that wherever the New Testament cited or referred to the authority of original Rome, she was meant, because she was the only true continuation of original Rome. Accordingly, where the New Testament enjoins submission to the powers that be, or obedience to governors, it means the Papacy, because the only power and the only governors that then were, were Roman. "Every passage was seized on where submission to the powers that be is enjoined; every instance cited where obedience had actually been rendered to the imperial officials; special emphasis being laid on the sanction which Christ Himself had given to Roman dominion by pacifying the world through Augustus, by being born at the time of the taxing, by paying tribute to Caesar, by saying to Pilate: 'Thou couldst have no power at all against Me except it were given thee from above.'"—Bryce. And since Christ had recognized the authority of Pilate, who was but the representative of Rome, who should dare to disregard the authority of the Papacy, the true continuation of that authority to which even the Lord from heaven had submitted?

Sustained by Forgery.

The power that was usurped by the church and her popes upon these perversions of Scripture, was finally confirmed by a specific and downright forgery. This "most stupendous of all the medieval forgeries" consisted of "The Imperial Edict of Donation," or "The Donation of Constantine." "Itself a portentous falsehood, it is the most unimpeachable evidence of the thoughts and beliefs of the priesthood which framed it." It proceeds to tell how that Constantine the Great, having been cured of leprosy by the prayers of Sylvester, bishop of Rome, resolved, as a reward of gratitude, that he would forsake Rome, and found a new capital, "lest the continuance of the secular government should cramp the freedom of the spiritual." It declares that "Constantine found Bishop Sylvester in one of the monasteries on Mount Soracte, and, having mounted him on a mule, he took hold of his bridle rein, and, walking all the way, the emperor conducted Sylvester to Rome, and placed him on the papal throne." Then the forgery makes Constantine decree as follows:—

We attribute to the see of Peter, all the dignity, all the glory, all the authority, of the imperial power. Furthermore, we give to Sylvester and to his successors our palace of the Lateran, which is incontestably the finest palace on earth; we give him our crown, our miter, our diadem, and all our imperial vestments; we transfer to him the imperial dignity. We bestow on the holy pontiff in free gift the city of Rome, and all the western cities in Italy. To cede precedence to him, we divest ourselves of our authority over all these provinces; and we withdraw from Rome, transferring the seat of our empire to Byzantium; inasmuch as it is not proper that an earthly emperor should preserve the least authority where God hath established the head of His religion.

It was strictly in the exercise of this power, conceived by Leo the Great, and systematized by his successors, that the Papacy exercised the prerogative of restoring and re-establishing the Roman Empire, in the proclaiming and crowning of Charlemagne as emperor, and Augustus; and then of asserting supreme power over emperor, empire, and all, and using this as the means by which she herself would attain to that supreme height of worldly ambition and priestly arrogance; where she herself would assume entirely to herself all the power and prerogative of that enormous assumption, and, "arrayed with sword and crown and scepter," in the sight of the assembled multitude, would shout, "There is no other Caesar, nor king, nor emperor, than I, the sovereign pontiff, and the successor of the apostles."

One of the bases of her claim of right to rule the world was that she was the sole embodiment on earth of the principles of the Prince of Peace, and that the bishop of Rome was the very vicegerent of the person of the Prince of Peace, and, therefore, she would assure the reign of peace to the full extent of her recognized dominion. But the fact proved that at every step of the way in her climbing to that pinnacle of world power, and in maintaining herself there, she kept kingdoms and nations, and even all Europe, and beyond, in a constant turmoil of war and anarchy. And in order to save their own kingdoms from sheer anarchy, and to preserve even society itself from annihilation by the anarchism of the Papacy, the heads of the nations of Europe, the secular powers, were compelled to assemble in a general council, specifically "for the reformation of the church in its head and members," at which council they took her down from her high throne of universal supremacy, and seated her upon a stool of submission and subjection. In complete and horrible measure, there had been demonstrated to all the world that the essence of the Papacy and the ultimate of her rule is only anarchy.

Such was the result to the nations of Europe, and to Europe as a whole, with respect to government itself. But the real dominion claimed by the Papacy is of the heart and life—the soul—of man. As essential to the proper demonstration of this dominion, she claims that the temporal power of the world must be absolutely subject to her will; that power she had surely gained, and the universality of her rule had been recognized, so that she had a fair, free, and open field to demonstrate exactly what she would do. And as respected the temporal power, and even her own power in government, the result was only anarchy.

Speculation in Crime.

And the result of her rule in her own peculiar claim of dominion over the soul of man, demonstrated universally in her dominion over those who were become her own, and who acknowledge themselves her own—in this dominion, the result was in nowise different from that in the other. Her whole power to the full extent of her recognized dominion was devoted to the seducing, and even the compelling, of mankind to sin. She actually speculated in human corruption. Pope John XXII., regularly listed, and set a tax upon, the sins of men. The list of taxes drawn up by John XXII., as levied upon the licentious practises of ecclesiastics, priests, nuns, and the laity; on murder and other enormities, as well as lesser crimes and breaches of monastic rules and church requirements; is sufficient to cover almost every sin that mankind could commit. Yet, all these sins were regularly taxed at a certain rate, down to the single "sou" (cent), and even to the "denier." So that it is literally true that no inconsiderable portion of the revenues of the Papacy were derived from a regularly assessed tax upon the sins of men. Well did the abbot of Usperey exclaim:—

O Vatican, rejoice now, all treasuries are open to thee; thou canst draw in with full hands! Rejoice in the crimes of the children of men, since thy wealth depends on their abandonment and iniquity! Urge on to debauchery, excite to rape, incest, even parricide: for, the greater the crime, the more gold will it bring thee. Rejoice thou! Shout forth songs of gladness! Now the human race is subjected to thy laws! Now thou reignest through depravity of morals and the inundation of ignoble thoughts. The children of men can now commit with impunity every crime, since they know that thou wilt absolve them for a little gold. Provided he brings thee gold, let him be soiled with blood and lust; thou wilt open the kingdom of heaven to debauchery, Sodomites, assassins, parricides. What do I say? Thou wilt sell God Himself for gold!

The truth of this is abundantly confirmed by the latest historian of the Papacy, referring to the Papacy in the time when she held undisputed sway and unlimited power over people and nations: "No more unexceptionable witness as to the church of the twelfth century can be had than St. Bernard, and he is never weary of denouncing the pride, the wickedness, the ambition, and the lust that reigned everywhere. When fornication, adultery, incest, palled upon the exhausted senses, a zest was sought in deeper depths of degradation." The bishop of Lincoln declared in the presence of Pope Innocent IV. and his cardinals that "the clergy were a source of pollution to the whole earth." And when the earnest inquisitor of Passau, about 1260, undertook to explain the stubbornness of the heresy, which he was vainly endeavoring to suppress, he did so by drawing up a list of the crimes prevalent among the clergy, which is awful in the completeness of its details. A church such as he describes, was "an unmitigated curse, politically, socially, and morally."

Such was the church of Rome; such she demonstrated herself essentially to be; when she had full power and undisputed sway to reveal herself exactly as she would. And it has been truly observed that "those who know what Rome has once been, are best able to appreciate what she is." And even in this our day of the twentieth century, the truth of this is abundantly confirmed by the oft and gladly repeated boast of Rome's chiefest advocates that "Rome never changes"! It is the truth.

It was Paul’s great joy as he neared the end of his life that he had "kept the faith." But he did not keep it by putting it away in the safe deposit vault of his own inner consciousness. He kept it by telling it to everybody he met on the street, by carrying it from land to land and preaching it under every conceivable circumstance, unto all sorts and conditions of men. And so the only way we can keep that kind of faith and trust in God that will be a fountain of good cheer and song in our hearts is by serving our fellow men with unselfish love.—Rev. Louis Albert Banks.

"NATURE helps every man to become what he desires to become. If you put forth no effort, nature assumes that your wish is to be nobody, and she grants your prayer."

History of Government BY ALONZO TREVIER JONES AUTHOR OF "TWO REPUBLICS," "EMPIRES OF THE BIBLE," "GREAT EMPIRES OF PROPHECY," ECCLESIASTICAL EMPIRE," ETC.