Antipope

“ Clement VIII. (Aegidius Muñoz) , antipope from 1425 to the 26th of July 1429, was a canon at Barcelona until elected at Peñiscola by three cardinals whom the stubborn antipope Benedict XIII. had named on his death-bed. ”

“ The Pope is the devil. Were I able to slay the devil, why should I not risk my life in doing so? Look not on the Pope as a man; his very worshippers declare that he is no mere man, but partly man and partly God. For ‘God’ here read ‘devil.’ Just as Christ is God-made-flesh, so the Pope is the devil incarnate.” [1030] —“Who would not lend a hand against this arch-pestilential monster? There is none other such in the whole world as he, who exalts himself far above God. Other wolves there are indeed, yet none so impudent and imperious as this wolf and monster.” ”

“ The doctrine censured by the Pope, was that there is another world, and another race of men quite different from us, not children of Adam, and hence not redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. This was the sense in which the Pope understood the doctrine of the Antipodes, this was the sense in which it was understood by St. Augustine, and for that reason reprobated by him as well as by the Pope. And the very words, in which the accusation against Virgilius is formulated, clearly point to this “perverse and wicked” teaching. ”

“ If by antichrist be meant, one that usurps the office of a universal vicar of Christ, and constituting and governing head of the whole visible church, and hereby layeth the ground of schisms, and contentions, and bloodshed in the world, and would rob Christ of all his members, who are not of the pope's kingdom, and that formeth a multifarious ministry for this service, and corrupteth much of the doctrine, worship, and discipline of the church, in this sense no doubt but the pope is antichrist. ”

“ The Pope is a murderer of souls. He destroys the flock of Christ and fleeces it. More savage is he than Judas, and more unjust than Pilate, and worse and more wicked than Lucifer. He has exchanged all the ten commandments of God for this single one of his own, ‘Give me money, money, money.’ The Pope with his clergy are the forerunners of Antichrist, rather than the servants of Christ. ”

“ If a true Pope be anything, how tremendous and infinitely horrible a phenomenon must an Anti-pope be. Think of the adulteration of the infallible with the [Pg 76] fallible, of the doubts engendered, where certainty is imperatively needed, of the sacraments nullified, and the one half of sacred Christendom cheated into eternal perdition, as the necessary result of void ordinations, void baptisms, and void absolutions, and think for a moment how Petrarch, or still better how Dante, would have written on such a subject! ”

“ It is a temptation to our weakness and to our consciences to defend the Pope as we would defend ourselves—with the same care and zeal, with the same uneasy secret consciousness that there are weak points in the case which can best be concealed by diverting attention from them. What the defence gains in energy it loses in sincerity; the cause of the Church, which is the cause of truth, is mixed up and con [Pg 315] fused with human elements, and is injured by a degrading alliance. In this way even piety may lead to immorality, and devotion to the Pope may lead away from God. ”

“ The Theses solve the question in the affirmative. “The Pope is no ‘authority’ ordained by God ... on the contrary he is a robber, a ‘Bearwolf’ who gulps down everything. And just as everybody rightly seeks to destroy this monster, so also it is everyone’s duty to suppress the Pope by force, indeed, penance must be done by those who neglect it. If anyone is killed in defending a wild beast it is his own fault. In the same way it is not wrong to offer resistance to those who defend the Pope, even should they be Princes or Emperors.” ”

“ Without definitely assigning by name this or that pontiff to hell, as did Dante, yet Huss declared that popes there have been who had conferred ample indulgences by word— verbaliter—and are damned. Christ chose a thief as an Apostle: so may the cardinals choose an antichrist as Roman pontiff. The only standard by which it can be judged whether a pope is a vicar of Christ or antichrist is by his conformity to the law of Christ in daily life and ministries. ”

“ Luther wrote a pamphlet: "Against the Bull of the Antichrist," and had it distributed broadcast among the people. In it he said: "If the Pope does not retract and condemn this bull, and punish Dr. Eck besides, then no one is to doubt that the Pope is God's enemy, Christ's persecutor, Christendom's destroyer, and the true Antichrist." He wrote to a friend: "I am much more courageous now, since I know that the Pope [55] has become manifest as the Antichrist and the chair of Satan." ”

“ He is certain that it is all a romance. A line of conduct scrupulously fair, and even friendly, is pursued towards him. He is convinced that it is merely a cover for a vile intrigue by which he is to be disgraced and ruined. It is vain to ask him for proofs. He has none, and wants none, except those which he carries in his own bosom.
Whether Pope's malignity at length provoked Addison to retaliate for the first and last time cannot now be known with certainty. We have only Pope's story, which runs thus. A pamphlet appeared containing some reflections which stung Pope to the quick. ”

“ In Melanchthon’s Schmalkalden writing “On the Power and Primacy,” we read, that “the Popes defend godless rites and idolatry”; they had introduced horrible darkness into the Church. “The marks of Antichrist agree with the empire of the Pope,” as is plain from Paul. [1470] “The Pope arrogates to himself the right to alter the doctrine of Christ.... He even claims rights over the souls of the departed.” “He makes himself God,” for he recognises no authority above him. “These errors he vindicates with the utmost cruelty ... slaying all who differ from him.” ”

“ What is far worse, and a real masterpiece of all the devils in hell, is, that he usurps the authority to set up laws and articles of faith.... He roars, as though chock-full of devils, that whosoever does not obey him and his Romish Church cannot be saved.... Papistically, knavishly, nay, in a truly devilish way, does the Pope, like the stupid scoundrel he is, use the name of the holy Roman Church, when he really means his school of knaves, his Church of harlots and hermaphrodites, the devil’s own hotchpotch.... ”

“ Even with regard to a distinctively anti-catholic doctrine, which he imbibed very early in life, he varied much less than is commonly supposed. For many years antichrist was for him the pope. When he gave up this interpretation it was to substitute for it the spirit of the world working in the church for temporal ends. As he expressed it in writing to a friend in 1876, ‘The church is in the world and the world in the church and the world “totus in maligno positus est.” ”

“ The Papacy is nothing but the empire of Babylon and of the veritable Antichrist, because with its doctrines and laws it merely makes sin more plentiful; hence the Pope is the ‘man of sin’ and the ‘son of destruction.’” [410]
Hereby he had prepared the way for his attack upon Leo the Tenth’s Bull of Excommunication, which he published in German and Latin at the end of October, 1520, under the title, “Widder die Bullen des Endchrists” and “Adversus execrabilem Antichristi bullam.” ”

“ All that a good man could do to dissipate the evil elements he did. But the conspiracy abroad and the conspiracy at home were too much for him. Indeed, the existence of the Papacy as a temporal power always depended on the sense of right and the good-will of men. There have been a few fighting popes in other days; but as a matter of fact the Papacy has always been a power built essentially on peace; and if powerful enemies insisted on invading 1682it, it was always open to them. The pope, like the Master whose vicar he is, is “the prince of peace.” ”

“ For, as Christ is true God and man, so Antichrist is the incarnation of the devil.” [353]
“The superstition of the Pope exceeds that of the Jews.” Though the Pope drags countless souls down to hell, yet we may not say to him: “For shame! Why act you thus?” “Had not his prestige been overthrown by the Word [i.e. by my preaching] even the devil would have vomited him forth. But this deliverance [from the Pope] we esteem a small matter and have become ungrateful. God, however, will send other forms of darkness to avenge this ingratitude ”

“ His sermons are chiefly drawn from the Old Testament, especially from the prophets in their denunciation of woes; like them, he is stern, awful, sublime. He does not attack the polity or the constitution of the Church, but its corruptions. He does not call the Pope a usurper, a fraud, an impostor; he does not attack the office; but if the Pope is a bad man he denounces his crimes. He is still the Dominican monk, owning his allegiance, but demanding the reformation of the head of the Church, to whom God has given the keys of Saint Peter. ”

“ He taught the mob to call them “blasphemous ministers of the Babylonian whore,” knaves, bloodhounds, hypocrites and murderers. In the Articles of Schmalkalden which found a place among the Symbolic Books, he introduces the Pope as the “dragon” who leads astray the whole world, as the “real Antichrist” and as the “devil himself” whom it was impossible to “worship as [246] Master or as God,” for which reason he would not suffer the Pope as “Head or Lord”; they must say to him: “May God rebuke thee, Satan!” ”

“ But divine authority commands all not to be allies and defenders of impiety and unjust cruelty.
On this account our consciences are sufficiently excused; for the errors of the kingdom of the Pope are manifest. And Scripture with its entire voice exclaims that these errors are a teaching of demons and of Antichrist. 43] The idolatry in the profanation of the masses is manifest, which, besides other faults [besides being altogether useless] are shamelessly applied to most shameful gain [and trafficking] . 44] The doctrine of repentance has been utterly corrupted by the Pope and his adherents. ”

“ There can be no truth among a people, where the pope is exalted into the place of God. From the earliest times he has been a liar, and his lies obtain credence even in other countries, because they emanate from Rome. If we, then, no longer admit them, let us be the first to denounce that popery by which Rome is oppressed and dishonoured. ”

“ And we gather from the tenor of history that such atrocities grow out of events—and events of great importance grow out of creeds—and a struggle for religious supremacy (and the Papacy must ever strive to that end) always tends to persecution; and what shall we say, when persecution is a duty of obedience, and the consciences of the many are merged in the infallibility of a Pope? The history of the Popes shows a frightful list of these claimants of infallibility.
Few who speak or who write on this Papal Aggression approach the principle of toleration with any doubt ”

“ Both in the comprehensiveness of their charges and in the slashing hatred which informs them (however feeble the verse) , One Epistle and The Blatant Beast offer as fair a sample as any two such pamphlets can of the calumny, detraction, and critical misunderstanding Pope endured, for the most part patiently, from the publication of his Essay on Criticism to the year of his death. “Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past,” (Epistle to Arbuthnot, l. 358) he exclaimed in his role as Satirist. ”

“ Now they make the Pope a vicegerent of Christ exalted in heaven, and some have let the devil rule them so thoroughly that they have maintained that the Pope is above the angels in heaven and has power over them, which is precisely the true work of the true antichrist. ”

“ Such extravagant, over-presumptuous, and more than wicked doings of the pope have been devised by the devil, in order that under their cover he may in time bring in Antichrist, and raise the pope above God, as many are already doing and have done. It is not proper for the pope to exalt himself above the temporal authorities, save only in spiritual offices such as preaching and absolving. ”

“ We turn gladly from these miserable hostilities, disgraceful to all concerned. Were any excuse available for Pope, it would be in the brutality of taunts, coming not only from rough dwellers in Grub Street, but from the most polished representatives of the highest classes, upon personal defects, which the most ungenerous assailant might surely have spared. But it must also be granted that Pope was neither the last to give provocation, nor at all inclined to refrain from the use of poisoned weapons. ”

“ In destroying the government of the priests, and in depriving the Pope of his authority, we have most certainly no intention to offer any offence, either to religion or to God; we assert unequivocally that the religion we are desirous to profess is not one of human councils, or of vain traditions, and we are not disposed to admit that the Pope is God. ”

“ Victor Emmanuel has tried the experiment of letting the Pope play the prisoner or the freeman, the prophet, priest, or Caesar, the tribune or the medicine-man, just at his wayward will. The enmity of the Pope has been good for Italy as for England, Germany, America, and all countries favoured with it; but if the day comes when the Pope meets the bow of any future Prime Minister of Italy with a responsive bow, then may we begin to look for fresh cycles of conspiracy and convulsion.
The future must be its own interpreter. ”