Bishop of Rome

“ Since the bishop of Rome—having erected a monarchy in Christendom, by grasping at domination over all the churches and pastors—has raised himself to the point of calling himself God, to seek to be adored, to boast that he is all-powerful in heaven and on earth, to dispose of all ecclesiastical matters, to decide upon articles of faith, to authorize and interpret the Scriptures at his pleasure ”

“ The Bishop of Rome had not only ceased, in the tenth century, to exercise any considerable influence over the churches beyond the Alps, but was himself controlled by the restless nobles of central Italy. He appears much less important, in the chronicles of the time, than the Archbishop of Rheims or Mayence. There is no more extraordinary revolution recorded in history than that which raised the weak and demoralized papacy of the tenth century to a supreme place in European affairs. ”

“ The question of the position of the bishop of Rome in the Christian Church lacks but a few generations of being as old as Christianity itself. His relation to secular governments became an acute problem as soon as the imperial government broke down in Italy, and has remained so to the present moment. For centuries the Papacy was the strongest institution in western Europe. ”

“ Peter. Among them were men of commanding leadership, men of brains and faith, fearless administrators, aggressive judges, and men conscious of the tremendous part the Papacy was destined to play in the world's history. Conscious of their own power, and standing [181] on their lofty assumptions, they took advantage of every condition and circumstance to increase their authority and prerogatives. Thus the office of the Bishop of Rome continually grew in power and jurisdiction. ”

“ There are, besides the Pope, who exercises immediate authority by virtue of his universal episcopate, papal commissaries in the separate dioceses, who call themselves Bishops, and are so named by the Roman Chancery. They exercise the powers delegated to them by the one true and universal Bishop, and carry out the particular orders they receive from Rome. According to this view the whole Church has, properly speaking, no other right or law or order but the pleasure of the reigning Pope. This is the most perfect form of absolutism ever yet excogitated in any man's brains. ”

“ Cranmer immediately did, and in his declaration, not only quoted the authority of the Scriptures, of general councils and the ancient writers, but maintained that the bishop of Rome had no authority whatever to dispense with the word of God. ”

“ It is the same here universally; when one talks with a Roman, the Curia, the Pope, is everything, and the Church nothing but the “contribuens plebs.” My informant thought it was easy enough to understand the view of born Romans, but difficult to give any rational account of the attitude of the episcopal majority, for it must be clear to every one of them that the promulgation of the new dogma would destroy irrevocably all episcopal independence of Rome, and strip the nimbus from the brow of the Bishop who is a successor of the Apostles. ”

“ This practice was forbidden in Rome by Numa, a pagan prince; yet commanded in Rome by the pope, a Christian bishop, but, in this, anti-christian. The use of images in the church of Rome, at this day, is so plainly contrary to the letter of this command, and so impossible to be reconciled to it, that in all their catechisms and books of devotion, which they put into the hands of the people, they leave out this commandment, joining the reason of it to the first; and so the third commandment they call the second, the fourth the third, &c.; ”

“ Marcellus, bishop of Rome, being banished on account of his faith, fell a martyr to the miseries he suffered in exile, 16th Jan. ”

“ In the reign of the Greek Emperor Justinian, and again in the reign of Phocas, the Bishop of Rome obtained some dominion over the Greek Churches, but of no long continuance. His standing dominion was only over the nations of the Western Empire, represented by Daniel's fourth Beast. ”

“ ONE summer evening in the year 1848, three Cardinals and a missionary Bishop from America were dining together in the gardens of a villa in the Sabine hills, overlooking Rome. ”

“ Advantage to the Roman Bishops of the Misfortunes of the Empire.—The claims of the Roman bishops were greatly favored from the very first by the spell in which the world was held by the name and prestige of imperial Rome. Thence it had been accustomed to receive its commands in all temporal matters; how very natural, then, that thither it should turn for command and guidance in spiritual affairs. The Roman bishops in thus occupying the geographical and political centre of the world enjoyed a great advantage over all other bishops and patriarchs. ”

“ Soon after, upon Christmas-day, the people of Rome, who had hitherto elected their Bishop, and reckoned that they and their Senate inherited the rights of the antient Senate and people of Rome, voted Charles their Emperor, and subjected themselves to him in such manner as the old Roman Empire and their Senate were subjected to the old Roman Emperors. The Pope crowned him, and anointed him with holy oil, and worshipped him on his knees after the manner of adoring the old Roman Emperors; as the aforesaid Poet thus relates:
Post laudes igitur dictas & summus eundem
Præsul adoravit, sicut mos debitus olim ”

“ Though many of the Roman codgers are more or less connected with the Vatican, there are scores who have no relations with it, Protestants, Greek Orthodox, Hebrews, and the like.
Rome must have been more picturesque when the Pope took his airing on the Pincio, instead of walking and driving inside the walls of the Vatican garden, as he does now. In those days the whole populace went down on their knees whenever he appeared. Then the cardinals wore their splendid vermilion robes every day: they must have made a joyful note of color in the landscape! ”

“ Oftentimes, too, the cardinal lives in the religious house of some community, and then much of the state can be dispensed with. But for the red calotte which he wears on his head, you often could not distinguish him from the other clergymen in the establishment.
The same spirit seems to characterize the bishops who are now gathered together in Rome. All their splendor is in the church and for religion. In their private life they certainly do not belong to that class of strangers from whose lavish expenditures in fashionable life the Romans will reap a rich harvest. ”

“ But I must here note, that as “words are things,” and as infinite damage has been done to history and to Christian truth by tolerating this empiricism of Rome, I have restored scientific accuracy, in this series, whenever reference is made to the primitive bishops of Rome, who were no more “Popes” than Cincinnatus was an emperor. It is time that theological science should accept, like other sciences, the language of truth and the terminology of demonstrated fact. The early bishops of Rome were geographically important, and were honoured as sitting in the only apostolic see of the West ”

“ And for such purposes doth that man of Sinne, and Antichristian tyrant, keep constantly in Rome so many poor Pensionary Bishops as hounds at his table, smelling out his ambitious thoughts, with whom he fills the Synods, when he calls them, charging them never to leave off barking and wearying out the rest of the Prelates, untill they have them all as a prey unto his proud and ambitious designes ”

“ The scenes that Rome witnessed in its last declining days as the city of the popes will dwell in the memory of men. The bishops of all the earth, in numbers unprecedented, flocking to what was vainly thought to be the rocking chair of Peter, was perhaps one of the most striking testimonies to a scoffing and unbelieving 1688age of the immense vitality of the faith, of the vastness, the splendor, and renown of the Catholic Church. ”

“ The bishops of Rome, like those of inferior sees, were regularly elected by the citizens, laymen as well as ecclesiastics. But their consecration was deferred until the popular choice had received the sovereign's sanction. The Romans regularly despatched letters to Constantinople or to the exarchs of Ravenna, praying that their election of a pope might be confirmed. ”

“ Henceforth we shall tell them that God inspires one man in Rome with all truth, from whom all others receive it. That is short, simple, and what a child can understand.”
But the main strength of the papal army consists in the 120 Bishops from the kingdom of Italy with the the exception of 10, the 143 from the States of the Church, and the 120 titular Bishops without subjects or dioceses, most of them created by the present Pope, who represent nobody but themselves, or rather him who has raised them from the dust and set mitres on their heads. That makes altogether 373 Italians. ”

“ However, in the Fifth Century, the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Constantinople began, in the East, to usurp this Prerogative, pretending, that no Bishops ought to be ordained in their respective Dioceses, without their Knowlege, Consent, and Approbation; and the Patriarch of Rome, still more ambitious and encroaching, claimed a Right to ordain the Bishops throughout all the Provinces of the West, which occasioned endless Disputes, as we shall see in the Sequel of this History. ”

“ The supremacy of the see of Rome advanced with rapid strides during this century. The people depending, in their superstitious ignorance, on the clergy, and the clergy on the bishops, it became the interest of the savage kings to be on friendly terms with the latter, and to increase their influence; and as the bishops, in their turn, leant upon the central authority of Rome, the power of the pontiff rapidly increased. ”

“ To the presbyters and deacons must be added the rural bishops of the Roman district who came in time to assist the Pope at the great ecclesiastical solemnities, and are an example of those parochial oversights, no larger than parishes, over which we find "bishops" presiding at a time when—except in the great metropolitan Sees—bishops were little more than rural deans. ”

“ The priesthoods. In Rome a special branch of the administration was that of public religion, which dealt with the official relations of the community towards its divine protectors. This sphere was under the direction of a college of priests, at whose head stood the pontifex maximus. Special priestly brotherhoods or guilds cared for the performance of particular religious ceremonies, while the use of divination in its political aspect was under the supervision of the college of augurs. ”

“ With the exception of the pontifex maximus, who was elected by the people from an early date, the priesthoods were filled by nomination or coöptation. The Roman priesthood did not form a separate caste in the community but, since these priestly offices were held by the same men who, in another capacity, acted as magistrates and senators, the Roman official religion was subordinated to the interests of the state and tended more and more to assume a purely formal character. ”

“ The first persecution of the church took place in the year 67, under Nero, the sixth emperor of Rome. ”

“ Nor do I know what is become
Of him, more than the Pope of Rome. ”

“ To whom he answered, I am persuaded that I am in the right opinion, and I see no cause to recant; for all the filthiness and idolatry lies in the church of Rome. ”

“ During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, dæmons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral or physical government of the world. ”

“ and the Church of Rome, formerly the most holy of all Churches, has become the most lawless den of thieves, the most shameless of all brothels, the very kingdom of sin, death, and hell; so that not even antichrist, if he were to come, could devise any addition to its wickedness. ”

“ "Because we have been removing restraints on Papal aggression, while other nations have been imposing restraints. There are those at Rome who believe all England to be Romish at heart, because here in England a Roman Catholic can say what he will, and print what he will." ”

“ 100 The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a rule, That 'every man in want is knave or fool:' 'God cannot love' (says Blunt, with tearless eyes) 'The wretch he starves'—and piously denies: But the good bishop, with a meeker air, Admits, and leaves them, Providence's care. ”

“ I had taken to heart the words of the wise Roman who said, "To be banished from Rome is but to live outside of Rome." ”