THE CHURCH BEFORE LUTHER

As is evident from the letters of the New Testament (apart from those written to the seven churches in Rev. 2-3), churches of Christian believers were settled in several cities in the Roman Empire—Colosse, Corinth, Ephesus, Jerusalem, Philippi, Rome and Thessalonica (in alphabetical order). If anything, Jerusalem may be regarded historically as the ‘mother church’ of Christianity (see Acts 15), although, strictly speaking, this title is reserved by Paul for the ‘heavenly Jerusalem’ (see Gal. 4: 26). However, there is no biblical evidence that any one church claimed priority over the others. With the passage of time, the Church of Rome gradually assumed a sense of priority since the Apostles Peter and Paul were martyred there. However, neither claimed to be ‘bishop’ of Rome. On the contrary, the early church historian Eusebius of Caesarea (d. 339) states that after Peter and Paul, ‘Linus was first bishop of Rome’ (Ecclesiastical History, III. 4. 8-9). This ‘Linus’ is mentioned by Paul (see 2 Tim. 4: 21).

The situation significantly changed after the Emperor Constantine (274-337)—following his conversion—bestowed honours and privileges on hitherto persecuted Christians. Rome actually declined in political importance after Constantine made Constantinople his ‘new Rome’. In the decades following the Emperor’s death, the Empire went into decline. Barbarian tribes made incursions into Italy and Alaric the Goth sacked Rome in 410. Out of the ruins of imperial Rome, the Church of Rome began to emerge as ecclesiastical ‘top dog’. This was a fulfilment of Paul’s prophecy regarding the ‘man of sin’ or antichrist (see 2 Thess. 2: 1-12). The developments of this period are aptly summed up by the 17th century English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) who described ecclesiastical Rome as ‘the ghost of the old Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof’ (Leviathan). The Papacy was slow in developing. Even ‘Pope’ Gregory the Great (590-604) disclaimed the title of ‘universal bishop’, an honour his successor Boniface III (in 607) adopted. Significantly, the title ‘pontifex maximus’ (or ‘supreme bridge builder’) once given to emperors became attributed to popes. Gregory had bestowed the ‘pallium’—an honour given to victorious generals by emperors—on the Roman missionaries to England and Germany respectively, Augustine (who came to England in 597) and Boniface.

The religion of Rome had departed significantly from the purity of the teaching it received from the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Prayers for the dead, the worship of relics and lighting of candles started around 300-375. The church father Jerome (c. 340-420)—translator of the Latin Vulgate Bible—approved of these novelties. He was opposed by Vigilantius of Leon, the first of many champions of the true Gospel to inhabit the Valleys of Piedmont (NW Italy) in the centuries before the Reformation. In addition to the growth of superstitious ritual, the heresy known as Pelagianism (salvation by ‘free will’ rather than ‘free grace’)—spread by the British monk Pelagius—began to infect the theology of salvation taught by Paul. Martin Luther rightly remarked on Paul’s warnings in Romans 16: 17-20: ‘It is as though he had foreseen that out of Rome and through the Romans would come the seductive and offensive canons and decretals and the whole squirming mass of human laws and commandments, which have now drowned the whole world and wiped out this Epistle and all the Holy Scriptures, along with the Spirit and with faith, so that nothing has remained there except the idol, Belly, whose servants St Paul here rebukes. God release us from them. Amen’ (Introduction to Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans).

Deviant Roman dogmas developed progressively. Marian devotion grew as the term ‘Mother of God’ was applied to Mary after the Council of Ephesus (431). Purgatory was established by Pope Gregory I in 593. The College of Cardinals was established in 927. The obligatory celibacy of the priesthood was decreed by Pope Gregory VII in 1079. Transubstantiation became a central feature of the Mass through the decree of Pope Innocent III in 1215. The seven sacraments were affirmed in 1439. Tradition was declared of equal authority to the Bible by the Council of Trent in 1545. After the Reformation era, Mary’s immaculate conception (though objected to by Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas in the middle ages) was made official in 1854. Papal infallibility was declared in 1870, and the bodily assumption (into heaven) of the Virgin Mary was proclaimed by Pope Pius XII in 1950.

Rev. Dr Alan C. Clifford