This is the continuation of Chapter V. Name Locates Antichrist.

THIS leads us to the identification of this mysterious Power, It is remarkable that three phalanxes of Romish authorities combine in

1. —Identifying the city of Rome as the Babylon of the Apocalypse;
2. —The Bishop of Rome as the successor of Caesar seated at Rome;
3. —The Papacy and Church of Rome as the Antichrist of Scripture.

A.—TESTIMONY OF ROMISH WRITERS ON THE APOCALYPSE.

(1) The Jesuit, Sylvester J. Hunter, in his “Outline of Dogmatic Theology” (Vol. I:, P. 410) says: “There is no room for doubt that by the Babylon of the Apocalypse is meant the city of Rome. And down to the time of the Reformation it was the unanimous judgment of all writers. that the Babylon of St. Peter’s Epistle is this same Rome.”

(2) Cardinal Newman, before he joined the Church of Rome, in 1840 described the city of Rome as “a doomed city,” clearly pointed to “amid the obscurities of the fearful Apocalypse.”

(3) Bishop Bossuet, of Meaux (1690), in his work on the Apocalypse, taught that Babylon is a symbol of Rome Pagan (“Préf. sur l’Apocalypse,” § vii.).

(4) Bishop Walmsley (1771) did the same.

(5) Cardinal Baronius (“Annals,” sec. xvi., Pp. 344) said: “By Babylon is to be understood Rome.” “Rome is signified by Babylon; it is confessed of all.”

(6) Cardinal Bellarmine (“De Rom. Pont.,” c. iii., § 2, Preterea, Tome I., p. 232, Colon 1615): “John, in the Apocalypse, calls Rome Babylon.”

(7) Bishop Bossuet also admitted that “all the Fathers” taught that the Babylon of the Apocalypse is Rome (“Préf. sur l’Apocalypse”).

(8) Similar avowals might be cited from other Romish theologians, e.g., Salmeron, Alcasar, Maldonatus.

B.—ROMISH AUTHORITIES ON HISTORY.

(1) Duc de Broglie (“Histoire de l’Eglise,’”? VI., 424- 456): “The Bishop of Rome mounted the throne whence the Emperors fell, and took, little by little, the position rendered vacant by the desertion of the successor of Augustus.”

(2) The learned editor of the “Acta Sanctae Sedis” (V., 324) said of Pope Pius IX.: “The Captain who gloriously fills the place of the ancient Caesars.”

(3) Pope Pius IX., in his “Discorsi” (I., p. 253), said: “The Caesar who now addresses you, and to whom alone are obedience and fidelity due.”

(4) Cardinal Manning, in his “Temporal Power” (Preface, pp. 42-46), said: “From the abandonment of Rome (by Caesar) was. the liberation of the Pontiffs.” (2 Thess. ii. 7) “He was elevated to be, in his Divine Master’s Name, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” (2 Thess, ii. 4) “The abandonment of Rome …left them free to become independent sovereigns, and to take up the sovereignty the Emperor had just laid down.” (p. 50)

(5) Dr. Dollinger (“The Pope and the Council,” p. 165): “The Popes called their acts by the same name as the Caesarean laws—Rescripts and Decrees.” “The notions about the plenary powers of the Caesars prevalent in the latter days of the Roman Empire had their influence here.”

On p. 133 he says: “… the donation of Constantine was brought forward to show that the Pope was the rightful possessor as heir of the Roman Caesars in Italy.” On the Column of Trajan at Rome, the names of the Caesar who erected it, and of the Pope who restored it, are on the base, and both the Caesar and the Pope style themselves “Pontifex Maximus”!

(6) The monk, Damian, time of Hildebrand (Hallam’s “Middle Ages,’ ii., 275), makes Jesus Christ tell the Bishop of Rome that He has removed the regal power and conferred the entire Imperial Roman government upon the Pope.

(7) The Orator of the tenth Session of the fifth Lateran Council (Harduin, IX., 1789) declared that Constantine’s removal to Byzantium ceded to Bishop Sylvester the Roman seat of power.

(8) The Imperial title, “Augustus,” formerly belonging to the Caesars, and the almost equivalent title, “His Majesty,” were subsequently bestowed by the Pope upon Charlemagne and his successors, as token of his own supremacy, as Imperator of the Roman earth (see the Pope’s “optimum decretum” cited by Glaber Rodulphus, A.D. 900).

(9) Just as Caesar had the power of making or unmaking sovereigns, assigning kingdoms, or taking them away, so the Bishops of Rome claimed the right to degrade or depose sovereigns, and to deprive them of kingdoms (see Baronius, “Annals’; Foulis, “Roman Treasons,” p. 115; Waddington, ch. xvi., p. 283; Daubuz, p. 585).

(10)-Pius VII., when he fulminated an “Excommunication against Napoleon,” June 10th, 1809, claimed this very authority, saying, “Let them learn that they are subject to our Throne, and to our commands ” (Abbé de Pradt, “Quatre Concordats”).

(11) Of course these Popes claimed to possess this deposing power, in virtue of being successors of Peter and Vicars of Christ—not as successors of Caesar; but the claim was false, for no such power was bestowed on Peter, whereas this power was bestowed by the Roman Republic upon Caesar, as its mouthpiece and executive officer; and it was solely as successors of Caesar that the Popes became imbued with the idea of temporal power. The Church of Rome, in its Breviary (May 25th) has a “Saint’s Day” in honor of Pope Gregory VII., because he “deprived the Emperor Henry IV. of his kingdom, and released his subjects from their oaths of allegiance to him.” Innocent III., Honorius III., Gregory IX., Innocent IV., Paul III., Pius V., Gregory XIII., Urban VIII., all used this Caesarean power, enforcing it by the terrors of religious interdict, falsely claimed from Christ.

C.—ROMISH EXPOSITORS OF PROPHECY.

(1) Cardinal Newman, in his Treatise on Antichrist, said, in 1840: “Here is an association which professes to take His place without warrant. It comes forward instead of Christ, and for Him; it speaks for Him, it develops His words, it suspends His appointments, it grants dispensations in matters of positive duty; it professes to minister grace; it absolves from sin, and all this on its own authority. Is it not, forthwith, according to the very force of the word, Antichrist? He who speaks for Christ must either be His true ambassador, or Antichrist. There is no medium between a Vice-Christ and Antichrist.”

(2) Cardinal Manning, in his “Caesarism and Ultramontanism” (1874, p. 36), said: “It is Christ or Antichrist.”

(3) The organ of the “Guild of Our Lady of Ransom,” edited by Father Philip Fletcher, in the February, 1914, number (p. 229), said: “The Vicar of Christ or Antichrist. … If the Pope is not the Vicar of Christ, he must be Antichrist; there is no middle view.”

(4) The Hon. G. A. Spencer, alias “Father Ignatius,” in reply to Dr. Cumming, said: “If the Church of Rome be not the Church of Christ, it is the masterpiece of the Devil; it can be nothing between.”

(5) Hortensius said: “The Pope and Christ make but one consistory, so that, sin excepted, to which the Pope is subject, the Pope, in a manner, can do all that God can do” (Extr. de Translat. Proccl. c. Quant Ab.; see Bishop Lowell’s “Works,” VI., 92, Oxford, 1787).

(6) De Maistre, in his book, “Du Pape,” said: “Without the Sovereign Pontiff there is no Christianity. Without the Pope, the divine institution loses its force, its divine character, its converting power.” (Vol. I., pp. xxii., xxxviii., Vol. II., 153; Paris, 1821, 2nd edition).

(7) The Bishop of Bayonne, in 1896, in his “Pastoral,” said: “We will say to the Pope, in all submission, even as to the Spirit of God on the day of Pentecost, ‘O Father of those who are in need, whose Word enlightens and comforts, cleanse us from our faults, uphold our weakness, heal our diseases, make straight our ways, make us obedient to your commands, enfold us in your holy fervour.’” And on his return from Rome, he further said: —

“The Eucharist of the Holy Spirit, which renders Him always present, under the corporeal substance, is the infallible Pope—os orbis. It has been said most justly that the Pope is the Ego of the Church—the Pope the visible personification of the Spirit of God. . . The Pope, the incarnation of om Holy Ghost” (“Church Review,” June 25th, 1896, p. 418).

(9) In Italian legendary lore, Satan is always associated with Rome. In the Roman Campagna there is a well-known resort, with a ruin and a cave, of which I possess a sketch. It is called by the Romans, “Sedia del Diavolo,” or “Seat of the Devil.”

(10) Cardinal Newman, in his Essay on the “Development of Christian Doctrine,” says of the Church of Rome: “She is a Church . . . crafty, obstinate, willful, malicious, cruel, unnatural, ruled by a Spirit who is Sovereign in his management over her, and most subtle and most successful in the use of her gifts—that Evil One which governs her. … Satan ever acts on a system, various, manifold, and intricate, with parts and instruments of different qualities, some almost purely evil, others so unexceptionable that, in themselves, they are really Angels of Light.” (Advertisement, p. v.).

On p. 73 he says: “Rome is either the pillar and ground of the Truth or she is Antichrist.”

(11) Pope Pius X. in 1912 said to the “Apostolic Union” in Rome: “The Pope is the guardian of dogma and morals; he is the depository of those principles which render families honest, nations great, and souls holy; he is the counselor of princes and of people; he is the head, under whom no one can feel himself tyrannized over, because he represents God Himself. He is the Father (par excellence), because he unites within himself all that there is that is lovable, sacred, and Divine.”

(12) The Corpus Juris Canonici, or Canon Law of Rome, repeatedly asserts that the Roman Pontiff bears the authority of the true God on earth (Corp. Jur. Can. Joan., Gib., t. ii., pp. 6-9).

As the Pagan Caesars were styled “Our Lord and God” (Dominus et deus imperator), so the Pope for centuries accepted that title. Innocent III. and Leo X. did so, and the Jesuit Father” Sydney Smith, in his C.T.S. Tract, “Does the Pope claim to be God?”? admits that the “Bishop of the Apostolic See” was “occasionally styled terrenus Deus, an earthly God, or alter Deus in terris, another God on earth.” In the Gloss on the Extravaganza of Pope John XXII., A.D. 1316-34, the Canon Law styles him “our Lord God the Pope.” This was continued in all editions of the Canon Law up to A.D. 1612, when Protestant exposure caused subsequent editions to suppress the word “God.” But no Pope has ever refused that impious title. On the contrary.

(12a) In the Decretum of Gratian, the foundation of Canon Law, “Satis Evidenter ” (Decret, prima pars discussio, 96, cap. 7, Taurini, 1620), we read: “It is clearly enough shown that the Pope, who it is certain was styled a god by that pious Prince Constantine . . . can neither be bound nor loosed in any degree by the secular power; and that God cannot be judged by man is manifest.” This is ascribed to Pope Nicholas I.

More than 100 examples of extravagances similar to this are collected in the Gravamina adversus Syn, Trident, Restit, p. ii; caus… viii., ob Tyrannidem Papae, p. 201, Argent, 1585.

Pereira, a priest and doctor at Lisbon, wrote: “It is quite certain that the Popes have never reproved or rejected this title, for the passage in the Gloss referred to appears in the edition of the Canon Law published at Rome in 1580 by Gregory XIII., and the Index Expurgatorius of Pius V., which orders the erasure of other passages, yet leaves this one” (p. 180, English Translation by Mr. Landon, London, 1847. Tentativa Theologia, a Treatise on Episcopal rights, etc., by Father A. Pereira, Priest and Doctor of Lisbon).

When Pope Alexander VI. entered St. Peter’s as Pontifex Maximus, one of the triumphal arches had: “Rome was great under Caesar, but now she is greatest; the former was a man, the latter is a god.” (Curio Storia di Milano, Part VII., p. 888).

Pope Innocent III. (Const. Decr., lib. i. de tr. episc., fol. 615) said: “One who occupies the place . . . of the true God on earth.”

Mussus (Episc. Bit. Comment. c. xiv., fol. 608) said: “One whom we regard as God, and whom we ought to listen to as though we heard God speaking.”

Decius (Comment in jus. Pontific, Lec. II.) says: “The Pope can do all things God can do.”

(13) Pope Leo XIII., in his Apostolic Letter of June 20th, 1894, said of himself: “We hold the place of Almighty God on earth.” His successor, Pius X., said: “The Pope . . . is Jesus Christ Himself, hidden under the veil of flesh,” “all must be subject to him.”

(14) Monseigneur Bougaud, Bishop of Laval, in 1890 applied that very phrase to Leo. XIII., in his “Le Christianisme et les Temps Présents” (4th edit., Paris), and a great deal more to the same effect.

Vol. IV., p. 310, “The Pope is the second method of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Church.” “The Pope and God are the same, so he has all power in heaven and earth’’ (Barclay, Cap. XXVII., p. 218, citing Petrus Bertrandus. Pius V., Cardinal Cusa supported this statement).

(15) Dr. Sheehan, Bishop of Waterford, in 1909 said of the Pope: “Before them stood a man who possessed almost incredible power, . . . He simply wielded a mighty power that reached from end to end of the earth, and regulated the words and deeds of millions and tens of millions of people. That power was the invisible power of the Almighty God. On that Papal Throne sat one who exercised the authority of the Great God Himself, and who really and truly was the representative of God.”

(16) The Catechism of the Council of Trent, speaking on the “Sacrament of Orders,” defines Roman bishops and priests as “a kind of mediatory” and “interpreters of God” “who in His name. . . sustain the part of God Himself on earth,” and are therefore “deservedly called gods“; and as the Council of Trent (Session XXV.) decreed that princes, bishops, priests, and people, magistrates and fficials must “yield reverence to the . . . Supreme Pontiff,” and that “Canons, General Councils and apostolic i.e., Papal enactments . . . must be exactly observed, by all,” and as the “Supreme Pontiff” is the “Papa” or Universal Father of all, he obviously is “above all that is called God” on earth, according to Romish teaching. And as the Catechism of the Council of Trent also describes bishops and priests as holding an office “most glorious, than which naught greater can be imagined,” what is to be thought of the “Supreme Pontiff” but that he is God?

(17) The Jesuit organ, “The Month” (Vol. XVIII. for 1879, p. 320) said: “It is false to say that the Pope can in no instance depose a sovereign; we cannot say that they do not possess the power.”

(18) Pope Pius IX. (“Discorsi del Sommo Pontefice, Pio IX., pronunziati in Vaticano, ai Fedeli di Roma e dell’ orba. . .” Vols. I. and II., 1872-3), who himself revised his “Speeches,” is, by the Editor, the Rev. Don Pasquale de Franciscis, described as “the portentous Father of the Nations,” “the living Christ,” “The Voice of God,” nay, “God, that condemns,” “the Lamb of the Vatican.”

(19) In these Speeches the Pope alludes to himself thus: ‘Keep, my Jesus, this flock, that God has given to You and to me.” “I am the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and I have the right to employ the very words of Jesus Christ. My Father, those whom Thou hast given me I will not lose” “I am the personal Representative of God on earth.” His foot is “most sacred.” He is “infallible”; “superior to prophets,” and “his words are to be accepted as words proceeding from Jesus Christ.” To him alone is committed, “by Divine Right, the Pastorate of the entire Church.” He is the “Supreme Judge of Christendom.” He denounces as “filthy concubinage” Marriages civilly contracted, and so releases men and women from reciprocal vows and obligations. He possesses authority to “depose princes” and to annul laws made by civil governments. (See also Allocutions of 1855, 1856, 1862, 1863.)

(20) Bishop Clifford (“Pastoral Letter,” p. 12), Cardinal Newman and the “Tablet” (November 21st, 1874) speak of the Pope’s deposing power as a “right,” and in the authorized Edition of Pius IX.’s “Speeches” it is described as “exercised in virtue of Papal authority.” Cardinal Manning (“Vatican Decrees,” PP. 49-51, and “Essays”) says the Pope “has a supreme judicial office, in respect of the moral law, over all nations, and over all persons, both governors and governed,” by the “authority of God.”

(21) This claim is openly made in the Brief of Pope Innocent III., entitled “Novit,” in the “Decretum” of Pope Gregory IX. (“Corpus Juris Canonici,” II., 1, 13, Leipzic Edition, 1839); and in the “Syllabus” of Pope Pius IX. in 1864, and in his Address of July 21st, 1873.

(22) Cardinal Manning (“The Present Crisis of the Holy See,” London, 1861, Pp. 73) said: “The Catholic Church . . . cannot cease to preach the doctrine of the sovereignty, both spiritual and temporal, of the Holy See”’ (where mark the word “See,” and compare it with Daniel vii. 8). In his “Caesarism and Ultramontanism” (1874, pp. 35, 36), he said: “This is the doctrine of the Bull Unam Sanctam, and of the Syllabus, and of the Vatican Council. Any power which is independent, and can alone fix the limits of its own jurisdiction, and can thereby fix the limits of all other jurisdictions, is (ipso facto) supreme. But the Church of Jesus Christ (i.e., the Papal Church) . . . is all this, or is nothing, or worse than nothing, an imposture and a usurpation—that is, it is Christ or Antichrist.”

On the 3rd October, 1869, Cardinal Manning preached a sermon on the Papacy in which he put these words into the mouth of the Pope: “I claim to be the Supreme Judge and director of the consciences of men. I am the Sole Last Supreme Judge of what is right and wrong.”

(23) The “Constitutio Dogmatica Prima de Ecclesii Christi,” issued by the Vatican Council of 1870, after declaring the “Roman Pontiff” to be “Pastor and Teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority,” asserts him to be “Infallible” when defining doctrines of “faith or morals,” and orders all—under pain of damnation —to obey him in matters of “discipline”; because than the authority of the “Apostolic See” none is greater, as the Pope is “the Supreme Judge of the Faithful.”

(24) Pope Pius IX., in his Speeches, described the triple- crowned tiara of the Pope as a symbol of his Tri-regno, touching Heaven, Earth and (heathen) Purgatory (Discorsi, i, 133).

(25) Pope Pius X., on November 19th, 1912, said to the “Apostolic Union of Priests” (“Western Watchman,” December 12th, 1912): “And how ought the Pope to be loved? Not by words, but in deed and truth. He who loves me will keep my word. No limit is set to the field in which the Pope can, and must, exercise his authority, and the authority of the Pope is not placed after that of other per- sons, . . . because he who is holy cannot dissent from the Pope. But you, dear brothers, make solemn profession of your obedience, of your devotion to the Pope.”

On the 30th April, 1922, in the Vatican Throne Room, a throng of Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, and Nuns, boys and girls, who all fell on their knees, were addressed from the Throne by Pope Pius XI., who, in a haughty tone, said: “You know that I am the Holy Father, the representative of God on the earth, the Vicar of Christ, which means that I am God on the earth.” (“The Bulwark,” October, 1922, p- 104).

(26) In a tract entitled “De la Dévotion au Pape,” dedicated to Pius X., published by Paul Salmon, Tours, 1904, the author, Arsene Pierre Milet, described by Cardinal Merry del Val as “a devout priest,” says: “Since the Pope represents God on earth, we ought to love him as God Himself.”

(27) In the “Life of Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan,” with preface by Bishop Ullathorne, p. 430, 1912, we read of the Pope—”it was the God of Earth prostrate in adoration before the God of Heaven”—i.e., the Wafer.

(28) Bishop Ullathorne (Letters from Rome) says: “The multitudes kneel when the Pontiff lifts up the God of Heaven and earth in his mortal hands.”

(29) Coadjutor Bishop Luton, on Friday, January 27th, 1922, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Auckland, N.Z., preaching about Benedict XIV., said: “The Papacy is old and trained in the knowledge of the world. The statesmen and policies of even the oldest and most experienced cabinets of the world are but as yesterday when compared with those of the ever-renewed line of White Shepherds of Rome’s Seven Hills” (The N.Z. Sentinel, February 1st, 1922, p. 4).

(30) Tyrrell S.J., in his “ Mediaevalism,” 3rd Edition, p. 70, said: “When we fall at the Pope’s feet to offer him homage of our mind, and to accept his teaching, it is again, in a certain way, Jesus Christ whom we adore in His doctrinal presence.”

(31) Thomas Aquinas (XXXIV. Ed., Paris, xx., 549-580) says: “There is no difference between the Pope and Jesus Christ.”

(32) Dr. Sheehan, Bishop of Waterford (Waterford News, November 20th, 1908) said in a sermon: “It would be hard, no doubt, for those who had not experienced it, to understand the intense feeling of a body of Catholics standing for the first time in the presence of the figure of Jesus Christ” (i.e., the Pope).

(33) Pope Leo XIII, in his Encyclical De Unitate, applied John x. 27 to himself, and added, “What Jesus Christ had said of Himself we may truly repeat of ourselves.”

(34) Ferraris, “Prompta Bibliotheca,’ Art Papa: “The Pope is as it were God on Earth . . . so that if it were possible that the Angels might err in the faith, or might think contrary to the faith, they could be judged and excommunicated by the Pope.”’

(35) Lord Acton (Quirinus—Letters_ on the Council, p. 285) reports Speech of Pius IX.: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

Continued in Chapter VII. Antichrist Revealed by Chain of Evidences

All chapters of The Antichrist: His Portrait and History