THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY, or, THE HISTORY OF THE PAPACY

In what steps it rose to that height of power, and how fiercely it has at all times and everywhere been opposed by the godly. 

There are also set forth the rights of the Emperors, Kings, and Christian Princes against the Cardinals Bellarmine and Baronius. 

By Philippe de Mornay, Lord of Plessis-Marly, etc., Counselor of the Most Christian King in the sacred Consistory, Captain of a troop of cuirassiers, Governor of the territory of Saumur, Prefect of the Royal House of Navarre.

Excerpts of this classic 1611 Protestant Huguenot text translated from the original Latin in which Mornay highlights the history of the Popes’ gradual advancement in claiming supreme headship of the universal Church, proving he is the Antichrist. Mornay also highlights the Popes’ opposition.

SOURCE

THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY, OR, The History of the Papacy, by what steps it rose to that height of power, and how fiercely it has at all times and everywhere been opposed by the godly. 

The true interpretation of prophecy must wait until its historical fulfillment

Here it is our purpose to describe the advance of that mystery which was foretold by the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2, and which was expressed in detail by St. John in the Apocalypse, chapters 13, 14, 17, and 18. The series of times, the true interpreter of the Prophets, has not so much explained it from the event [as described in Scripture], as when it is actually fulfilled in reality; so that in this our age, having been brought to its height while affairs continually go from bad to worse, and by the plainest and fullest agreement and concurrence of events with the prophecies, it may be seen uncovered and brought out into open light.

Before the return of Christ, first must come the apostasy of the professing Christian Church, called “Roman Catholic,” and the revelation of the Man of Sin. He is the falling star, the Destroyer of Rev. 9:1.

Paul therefore says: That day of Christ—that glorious day of the Lord’s supreme coming—is not to be expected unless there first come that falling away, that notable defection, ἡ ἀποστασία [apostasy]; unless first the greater part of the Church has departed from the pure worship of God and of His Christ; unless also that Man of Sin has been revealed (ἀποκαλυφθῇ), that Son of Perdition; who is to be the very head and leader of the pernicious faction and defection; himself lost (Apocalypse 9:1) and about to destroy others; for which reason he is most justly called by Paul “the son of perdition” (υἱὸς ἀπωλείας) and by John “the Destroyer” (ἀπολλύων).

God does not want us to be ignorant of the identity of Babylon, admired and feared only by those whose names are not written in the Book of Life. 

Meanwhile, lest he should be a sudden stumbling-block, God has not wished us to be left ignorant of his portentous power: for by the name of Babylon He designates that enormous confusion; He places upon its head a Woman sitting upon a scarlet beast (Apocalypse 17:1, 3), a beast conspicuous with scarlet, gold, and purple, not so much rising above as hanging over all the inhabitants of the earth, and therefore not so much to be admired as to be feared—at least by those whose names have not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life. For when the kings whom she has made drunk with the wine of her abominations shall lend her their authority and power, shall give her their help and service, and shall vie with one another in contributing the means by which she may make war on the saints; and when the peoples themselves shall submit their necks to this harlot to be ridden upon, almost to be trampled under her feet—of whom John says: “The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits (as earlier of the beast, ‘sitting’), are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues,” etc. 

The apostasy is an empire; the Pope is that Man of Sin.

Thus, that Apostasy and the Man of Sin properly constitute an empire, of which the falling away (ἡ ἀποστασία) is the body—the faction of the Popes, itself degenerate from the true doctrine of Christ, and withdrawing its followers, fascinated by superstition and idolatry; while the head is the Man of Sin, the Pope himself or the Roman Pontiff, into whom that whole power contracts itself, as it were, and under whose name it exerts and extends its faculties. 

The Harlot commits the fornication of idolatry.

And just as Paul says of the Man of Sin that he is ὁ ἀντικείμενος — “he who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship” (2 Thessalonians 2:4) — so John says of the Harlot Woman and her adornment that she is “full of names of blasphemy.” And what blasphemy is more atrocious than when he calls himself God, and rises up and rebels against God and against His Word? The cup also is full of the abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And what fornication is more execrable than idolatry, which under that very name is so well known and so notorious in Holy Scripture? 

The Man of Sin is a professing Christian, but in reality is the disciple of Satan.

These things, meanwhile, under the appearance of religion, under the mask of hypocrisy, under the pretext of divine worship. So that that Man of Sin, supported by these things, “sits in the temple of God” (or “as God in the temple of God”), showing himself that he is God (2 Thessalonians 2:4). He will have, says John, two horns like a lamb (Apocalypse 13:11)—that is, he will put forward the doctrine of Christ — even though he speaks like a dragon. Thus, the fulfillment of the Papacy and the Pope, though, in reality, uphold the doctrine of Satan and of demons. 

The Man of Sin is the Antichrist who sits in the most conspicuous place in the Temple of God: the Church. His center of power is Rome, where he rules over the subservient people of the world.

And such, therefore, is the Antichrist described to us as one who is to come. As to the seat where he will establish himself—for this is the common name given to him—it is made clear to us in the same place. Paul says: “He will sit in the temple of God,” in the most conspicuous place of the visible Church. John speaks more expressly: upon seven mountains or hills—namely at Rome, which is everywhere celebrated as ἑπτάλοφος, “the city of the seven hills.” From there he will rule over many nations, and that by the authority properly belonging to this very seat; since, he says, “that great Harlot sits upon many waters.” And the Angel says: “The waters which you saw, where the Harlot sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues” (Apocalypse 17:15). 

The restrainer is the Roman Empire. Once taken out of the way, the Papacy rises to reveal a resurrected Roman Empire called “Holy.”

As to the time—which was especially being inquired after—Paul says in the same place: “And now you know what is restraining (τὸ κατέχον), that he may be revealed in his own time”—what hinders, what delays; namely the Roman Empire, into whose place he is to creep; for it must first be broken up before he comes out into the open. This he indicates in the following verse: “only he who now restrains (ὁ κατέχων) will do so until he is taken out of the way.” Upon its ruins, of course, the other is to be built. In this place, by τὸ κατέχον (“that which restrains”) he wished the Roman Empire to be expressed to us; by ὁ κατέχων (“he who restrains”), the form of that empire—namely the monarchical form. Just as above, by the falling away (ἀποστασία) he had designated the Papacy, the Roman Church; and in the Man of Sin, the Pope, the head of the Papacy. John speaks similarly and more clearly; for he having seen this, he says that it exercises all the power of the first Beast in its presence; it claims it for itself, draws it to itself, even though the empire resists; so that the deadly wound of the first Beast, however lethal, seems to have been healed; and at last it obtains for the first Beast both its restored spirit and its voice, so that the state of the Roman Empire seems as it were to come to life again in itself. 

The Antichrist is not a single man, but a dynasty of men who hold the office of the Pope, one man at a time.

Which certainly no single man, nor the course of a human life, could ever have accomplished; since empires, from the time they begin to decline toward ruin (such is their bulk), often overwhelm many centuries; and therefore, it had to be completed by a long progress of time, just as from the crumbling and falling walls of an empire another is gradually generated, formed, and rises up.

The mystery of iniquity does not use brute force to control the deceived.

This is clear from Paul: “For the mystery of iniquity,” he says, “is already at work” (2 Thessalonians 2:7)—Satan is already gradually weaving this web of his; not, I say, by open force, but, as he adds, “according to the working of Satan (κατ’ ἐνέργειαν τοῦ Σατανᾶ), with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deception of unrighteousness” (vv. 9–10). Which John also says: “He deceives the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the signs which were given him to do in the sight of the beast” (Apocalypse 13:14); and “She has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication” (14:8)—she has fascinated and demented them with superstition and idolatry. 

This evil ‘Holy’ Roman Empire and its leader is slain by the preaching of the Word in clarity and truth.

And correspondingly, this pestilent empire, this enemy of God and of Christ, does not wage war with any force of arms. On the contrary, says Paul, “he is slain by the Spirit of the mouth of God, and is destroyed by the brightness of His coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8)—first by the preaching of the Word, and then by the brightness of the true doctrine which was to shine forth in the last times; namely those things which are opposed to the tricks and darkness of Satan: the coming of Christ in clarity and truth, over against the coming of the Man of Sin in all the power of falsehood. As John says, the Lord proclaiming through an angel, through the ministry of His servants throughout the whole world with a loud voice: “If anyone worships the Beast and its image and receives its mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, mixed pure in the cup of His anger, and shall be tormented with fire in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb” (Apocalypse 14:9–10). But he immediately adds: “Here is the patience of the saints.” 

Which is what Paul says from the very threshold of the chapter: “Do not be quickly shaken in mind, nor troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as though the day of Christ were at hand” (2 Thessalonians 2:2). Although this mystery has already begun and is already here in fact, it must run its course and have its advances; but in the meantime the faithful must endure, while that Harlot says in her heart: “I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow” (Apocalypse 18:7); who will presently hear, in one day — indeed in one hour, indeed in a moment — when her plagues come, death and mourning and famine, and she shall be burned with fire, that voice of the angel thundering from heaven: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great,” etc. 

This mystery of the restrainer was purposefully spoken of in cipher due to the threat of reprisal from the Roman Empire for openly declaring its doom.

So that here again it is not a matter of the age of any single man, or the space of one century, but the series of many centuries, the course and decline of a great temporal empire gradually sinking into old age and feebleness; and likewise, the rise, growth, standing, and even the very nodding and fall of a spiritual tyranny. And lest you should think these things are from our own mind or interpretation, this is the voice of the Fathers, and indeed of the most ancient among them, who in all probability received the same from their predecessors. For to speak clearly at that time of the destruction of the Roman Empire was a crime; whence Paul says: “Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?” (2 Thessalonians 2:5) — clearly in person those things which now, being absent, I write as it were in cipher. John also: “The mystery… Babylon the great… Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the Beast… Here is the mind that has wisdom” (Apocalypse 13:18; 17:9). The same is the voice of the rest in succession, who, as the events of things successively explained the prophecies and drew back the veils of the prophecies, looked upon the matter more nearly and more clearly. 

To the first question, then: whether Antichrist is a single man or a company of men. 

Tertullian calls him “the prostituted city,” understanding by this spiritual fornication—the worship of idols. Ambrose calls him “the city of the Devil, the fornicating Rome.” Jerome calls him “Babylon,” and not only Rome but also the Roman Church. Augustine calls him both “the impious city, the body of the ungodly who make war against the Lamb,” and “this whole Babylon, the people of the unbelievers opposed to the people of God”; and if Antichrist is understood together with his prince, “then Rome is a second Babylon, a heretical Church, an unbelieving people under the name of a Christian people.” Gregory calls him “a multitude of those who preach Antichrist.” Among more recent writers, Thomas may be added: “It is a body,” he says, “not a single man.” The Ordinary Gloss: “Antichrist entire — head and body.” Cardinal Hugo: “A universality.” And so most others. 

To the second question: when he is to be revealed. 

They say, at the decline of the Roman Empire, upon whose ruins he is to be built. Tertullian: “He will not come until that which now restrains is taken out of the way”—who? unless it be the Roman state, whose dissolution into ten kings will bring in Antichrist, and then the wicked one will be revealed. And hence the early Christians used to pray to God for the delay of the end—that is, of the Roman state—in order to keep far off those fatal times of Antichrist.” Jerome: “Until the nations that are subject to the Roman Empire withdraw from them.” And Ambrose, in almost the same words, on 2 Thessalonians. Augustine also, explaining the same passage in The City of God, Book 20. Chrysostom adds the reason: “When the Roman Empire shall have been taken out of the way—for as long as the fear of that empire remains, no one will at once submit to Antichrist. But when that empire shall have been destroyed, he [Antichrist] will invade the vacant principality of the empire and will attempt to seize for himself the empire of both God and men”—that is, under the pretext of spiritual jurisdiction he will also invade the temporal. 

To the third question: where his seat will be—which we, with the Apostle, place in the more eminent place or nave of the visible Church; not in the Jerusalem temple.

Origen says: “He sits upon the chair of the Scriptures, bringing forth the testimonies of the ungodly from the Scriptures, and sits upon their building, showing himself as if he were God.” Namely, he who wishes to appear to draw his arguments from them, and from them claims that all power in heaven and on earth has been given to him. Jerome, explaining the same passage: “He will sit in the temple of God—either at Jerusalem, as some think; but we, taught by the word of the Savior that not one stone shall be left upon another, know that it is in the Church, as we truly judge.” Chrysostom absolutely: “In the temple of God—not in that which is at Jerusalem, but in the temple of the Church.” And the Scholiast in the same sense. Likewise: “The impious heresy, which is the army of Antichrist, will stand in the holy places of the Church, taking possession of the churches; and if anyone wishes to know which is the true Church, he may know it in so great a confusion of resemblance only from the Scriptures.” Hilary: “One thing I warn you: beware of Antichrist. For an evil love of walls has seized you; you wrongly venerate the Church of God in roofs and buildings; you wrongly thrust the name of peace under these things. Is it doubtful that Antichrist will be seated in these? Mountains and forests and lakes and prisons and chasms are safer for me; for in these the prophets either remained or plunged into them, prophesied by the Spirit of God.” Theodoret more clearly than is credible for that age: “He has called the churches the temple of God, in which he will seize the first seat, attempting to show himself as God.” And Oecumenius is of the same mind, as also Theophylact. The Antichrist will not literally sit in the temple of Jerusalem, but simply in the churches and in every divine temple. Thomas himself: “In the temple—that is, in the Church rather than at Jerusalem.” 

But Augustine goes deeper: “But in what temple of God he is to sit as God is uncertain—whether in that ruin of the temple which was built by King Solomon, or rather in the Church. For the Apostle would not call the temple of any idol or demon the temple of God. Hence, some wish that not the prince himself, but in a certain manner his whole body—that is, the multitude of men belonging to him, together with their own prince—should be understood in this place as Antichrist. And they think it more correct to say, even in Latin, as it stands in the Greek, not ‘in the temple of God,’ but ‘as the temple of God’ he sits—as if he himself were the temple of God, which is the Church.” This, of course, is drawn from that solemn thesis of his flatterers: “that in the person of the Roman Pontiff the universal Church consists and subsists.” 

Therefore, Antichrist is to sit in the Christian Church. But the question follows: Is it in the Latin Church of Rome?

Therefore, Antichrist is to sit in the Christian Church. But the question follows: is it in the Latin Church of Rome? And indeed, when Irenaeus examines that number of the Beast, 666, in the word Λατεῖνος (Lateinos), and although in a matter so obscure he affirms nothing, yet he indicates to us not obscurely that he was thinking of it. For he says: “It is very probable, because the most genuine kingdom has this name; for they are Latins who now reign. We will not glory in this.” 

Tertullian also, Jerome, Eusebius, Ambrose, Augustine, Andreas of Caesarea, Bede, Oecumenius, Lyra, Thomas, and Cajetan, when they understood Rome by Babylon—both in the last chapter of the first epistle of Peter [v. 13] and in the Apocalypse itself—are of the same mind as Bellarmine and Baronius, who maintain that in those places Rome is altogether signified; so much the more when they point out that scarlet Harlot who makes the kings of the earth drunk as Rome. Tertullian, Jerome, Arethas, Andreas of Caesarea, the Ordinary Gloss, and others [do the same]; Bellarmine and Baronius as well. 

Nay more, let us say even the Roman Church itself, whose corruption they already saw acquiring strength. Jerome, a Roman presbyter: “Read the Apocalypse of John, and consider what is sung of the purple-clad woman and of the blasphemy written on her forehead, of the seven mountains, of the many waters, of the end of Babylon: ‘Come out of her, my people,’ says the Lord, ‘and do not partake of her sins, and do not receive of her plagues; flee from the midst of Babylon and save everyone his soul, for Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become the habitation of demons and the hold of every unclean spirit.’” “Inasmuch as,” he says, “there is indeed a holy Church there, there are the trophies of the Apostles and Martyrs and the true confession of Christ. But ambition and power, and also luxury of the belly and of the throat which strive to overthrow the strength of the cross whose banner the austerity of preaching had raised”—and that at a time when the Roman Empire itself had professed the name of Christ. Wherefore he also commands all the godly to depart from her, even though the doctrine of Peter is founded upon the rock, Christ; even though her prophets, who are about to deceive her, continually cry “Peace, peace,” “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord,” so that she may sleep securely in her corruptions. 

Already then—which you may marvel at—Jerome, though a Roman presbyter, seemed to attack his own Hierarchy when, in the preface to the books of Didymus, he says: “When I was dwelling in Babylon and was a colonist of the purple-clad harlot and lived by the law of the Quirites [i.e., private citizens of ancient Rome], I wished to share something about the Holy Spirit and to dedicate the little work I had begun to the Pontiff of the same city. And behold, that pot which in Jeremiah is seen after the rod began to boil from the face of the north, and the Senate of the Pharisees cried out that there was no scribe or fictor, [i.e., a priest who offered sacrifices to the gods], but as if war of doctrines had been declared against them, the whole faction of ignorance conspired against me. Immediately I returned, as if by right of *postliminium, to Jerusalem, and after the hut of Romulus and the Lupercal games I beheld the lodging of Mary and the cave of the Savior.”

[N. B. *Postliminium is an ancient Roman legal doctrine that allowed captured citizens to recover their lost status, rights, and property immediately upon returning home.]

If Jerome had seen the centuries of our fathers, what would he have said—or would he not have spoken? 

Indeed, if someone applies those passages in the Apocalypse that belong to pagan Rome only to pagan Rome and not to the Roman Church, he would turn that most mysterious prophecy—recognized by its rich depth—into a dull and lifeless narrative for us. For what need was there that something known to everyone should be proclaimed with such majesty, in the name of God, in the power of His Spirit? [Was it a surprise], the fact that the Roman Empire was hostile to Christians—who had seen the murder of James the brother, in whose eyes so many myriads of Christians had been slaughtered throughout the whole world? And while pagan Rome still stood, who can show us those ten kings made drunk by her, who are nowhere among the nations?

[N. B. The conclusion follows from the logic of the text itself.

The Apocalypse describes ten kings who are made drunk by the great harlot (Babylon/Rome) and who later turn against her. Mornay’s point is this:

• If those passages refer only to pagan Rome, then we should be able to identify those ten kings in the history of the old Roman Empire.
• Yet no such group of ten kings who were intoxicated by pagan Rome and later destroyed her can be clearly shown among the nations.
• Therefore, limiting the prophecy strictly to pagan Rome leaves the vision without a real historical fulfillment that matches its details.

By contrast, when the same imagery is applied to the later Roman Church (the ecclesiastical Rome that succeeded the pagan empire), the picture of kings and nations being corrupted by her and eventually turning against her becomes historically intelligible. That is why the prophecy “cannot reasonably be limited to pagan Rome alone.”]

Wherefore the leading men among the Jesuits are compelled here to yield. Ribera: “It is to be understood of Rome not only as it once was under the pagan emperors, but also as it will be at the end of the age.” Viegas also: “All the things that are recounted in these chapters fit the city of Rome most openly.” Moreover, the name of Babylon is to be understood as transferred to that Rome which, before it received the faith of Christ served idols, and also to that which will exist in the time of Antichrist. And to what does this agree better than to the Papacy and the Roman synagogue? 

But here an objection arises: Has the Pontiff ever called himself God? 

And indeed, he freely often proclaims himself God on earth; and the Canonists not ungenerously bestow this very title upon him, who both wish him to be a partaker of the divine nature and profess that he rules over heaven and hell with all manner of power. This will appear only too clearly in the progress of this work and has been more fully proved in our treatise, On the Church, chapter 9, than that it should be repeated by us here. 

But this is now the point at issue, and the Spirit of God Himself had already warned us beforehand: that Antichrist, relying on false keys, would enter the temple of God, the Church of God, “with all deception of unrighteousness,” said Paul; “having two horns like a lamb,” says John—feigning himself a servant of God and counterfeiting His worship. Otherwise, who would not shut the doors against him? 

And this the Fathers also saw most clearly. Origen: “Antichrist takes only the name of Christ; he does neither His works nor the words of His truth. Christ is the Truth; simulated truth is Antichrist.” Again: “Antichrist is a false discourse which is found in the Scriptures, which simulates the truth, bringing forth testimonies of impious doctrines from the Scriptures for those who are unwilling to be reconciled from elsewhere; and he is the one who opposes and sits upon the chair of the Scriptures and upon their building, showing himself as if he were God.” Do we not, I ask, hear the Pope here, as he clamorously repeats that saying of his, “I will give to you,” “Feed my sheep,” “I have prayed for you, Peter,” and the rest? 

Cyprian in the same sense: “Presenting night for day, destruction for salvation, Antichrist under the name of Christ.” Whence also Augustine says: “We read of a Beast having two horns after the likeness of a lamb. Two Testaments,” he says, “after the likeness of the Church; and it spoke like a dragon. Under the Christian name it puts forward a lamb, that it may secretly pour in the poison of the dragon.” 

But Jerome more clearly: “He shall speak words against the Most High; or, as Symmachus interprets, ‘He shall speak words as God’—so that he who assumes the power of God also claims for himself words of divine majesty. He will try to change the laws of God and the ceremonies, and to subject all religion to his own power.” Again: “He will change and attempt to increase the sacraments of the Church.” When the Pontiff commands himself to be called the Most Holy Father; when he drives kings from their thrones at his pleasure; when he invents and reinvents religion, the divine precepts, and the sacraments instituted by God according to his own will—shall we not say that Jerome here prophesied? 

And thus far let these things stand for us in place of a preface: that we may understand in what sense the Fathers explained those notable passages of Paul and of John. 

Therefore, that mystery of iniquity, whose height our fathers saw, was already long since at work—even in the very time of Paul [2 Thess. 2:7]. Already then Satan was conceiving in his mind that monster of pride, relying without doubt upon the ambition of men, of whose contentions we have the record in Paul: “I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, I of Christ.” Does Christ Himself then reply, “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you?” (1 Corinthians 1:12–13). He would have said the same of Cephas, and Cephas of himself. Whence also Paul, in order to claim all things for Christ alone, says firmly: “Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:7). Both, meanwhile, are the same in ministry; both are ministers of the same rank. And when he is about to shut every way to inequality, he does not fear to say: “From those who seemed to be something—whatever they were, it makes no difference to me” (Galatians 2:6); and who were they? James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars. “Who,” he says, “when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed to me, as that of the circumcision was to Peter, and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship” (Galatians 2:7–9). 

Here, then, where is the prerogative, much less that superiority of which they speak? So far does he himself say elsewhere: “So that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ; and not where Christ was already named, lest I should build upon another man’s foundation” (Romans 15:19–20). While even Cephas—Peter himself—puts this law far from both himself and from anyone else: “The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am also an elder (συμπρεσβύτερος): Feed the flock of God which is among you… neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being examples to the flock. All of you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility; for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:1–5). For he held most firmly the warning of the Lord: “You know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them (κατακυριεύουσιν αὐτῶν); but it shall not be so among you” (Matthew 20:25–26)—not in the Church, not over My heritage or My portion. He used the same language there. 

How far this is from the opinion of Baronius, who contends that Christ, immediately after the resurrection itself, transferred the priesthood and the kingdom to the Popes; and that by the further argument that in Acts 5 the shadow of Peter is said to have healed the sick; from which it would appear that the Popes would have the same power as Christ Himself, though different in character—inasmuch as they would retain His shadow. But from the shadow of Peter to the shadow of Christ, and even to the power of Christ—what consequence is that [with the Popes]? Not that they may heal men, but that they may kill them, that they may destroy kings, that they may destroy kingdoms. For what other miracles have the Popes performed for these thousand years already? 

But after the departure of the Apostles, ambition did not long remain idle without setting its first footsteps. So that what Hegesippus, as recorded by Eusebius, says is found to be no less true in this chapter than in the rest: “Until the times of Trajan, the Church remained pure and uncorrupted. But after the sacred company of the Apostles had endured various ends of life and different kinds of death, then, indeed, the false and crafty conspiracy of ungodly error took its beginning—and that by the fraud and cunning of those who labored to disseminate a doctrine wholly alien from the truth; and who, when none of the Apostles any longer survived, now with bare head strove with all their strength to set up a false and fabricated doctrine in opposition to the sincere discourse of the truth.” 

This period falls about the hundredth year of the Lord. But the progress of this corruption we shall next pursue from those things which history supplies us. 

N. B. Rather then continue in order with Mornay’s book, I now post his conclusion. After the conclusion I will post his book covering the first 600 + years of the Church.

CONCLUSION

These, then, are the advances of the mystery of iniquity—that mystery which the Apostle Paul foretold in 2 Thessalonians 2:7, which already in his own time ἐνεργεῖται, “was working,” * was in action, creeping up on the Church by tunnels and windings, by frauds and evil arts; until at last it became a frontal piece for her which covered her forehead and took away from her all sense of shame; until it was brought to that height of pride in which the Apostle John in the Apocalypse represents the Roman Church, on whose forehead is written: “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of the fornications of the earth” (Revelation 17:5). 

[N. B. * Luke 9, Luke 22, Matthew 20, Mark 9.]  

And all this, indeed, according to Paul, κατ’ ἐνέργειαν τοῦ Σατανᾶ, “according to the working of Satan,” who acts and exercises his power in his ministers through signs and lying wonders. Add also, just as God sent τὴν ἐνέργειαν τῆς πλάνης, “the working of error,” or of seduction, upon those who rejected the truth and took pleasure in iniquity, who did not obey the admonitions and oppositions that were repeatedly reiterated by His servants, so that they should believe the lie. For it had been predicted that Antichrist would come, that a great apostasy or defection would take place; that the kings of the earth would have μίαν γνώμην, “one counsel,” and with one voice would cast their vote to give their power to the Beast (for so the Apostle calls her). 

Nay rather, he says, because the counsel of God (who recalls all things to His own glory) is of such a kind that they should conspire and give their kingdom to the Beast until the words of God are fulfilled; so that the whole world may the more clearly recognize that the efforts and counsels either of the world itself or of the prince of the world can do nothing against God; that, whether they wish it or not, they appear to wander from His providence only to submit to His jurisdiction and be drawn back to His honor; when it has seen the conspiracy of the son of perdition with these kings ending, just as once the conspiracy of the most abandoned Jews with the Pharisees ended, in the victory of the Lamb and the salvation of His own, and as it were recapitulated, by the power and guidance of that supreme counsel of which the blessed Peter spoke among the Jews: “You have taken Jesus and by the hands of wicked men have crucified and slain Him; but He was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” (τῇ ὡρισμένῃ βουλῇ καὶ προγνώσει τοῦ θεοῦ). 

Not otherwise does John here speak of Antichrist or the man of sin: “God has put it into their hearts to do what is pleasing to Him” (γνώμην αὐτοῦ). And what is that? That they should give their kingdom to the Beast and conspire for its exaltation against the Lamb. Let it therefore seem strange or foreign to no one that, trampling under foot all the obstacles which were repeatedly cast in its way, it made a path for itself. For, says Paul, it was necessary that it should at length strive to that end; so it was decreed. For, says John, the words of God must be fulfilled. But God, with the same power and facility with which He breaks through all barriers, will in His own time complete what remains of His work. 

We have, therefore, set forth its advances, both by the stages that are noted in history, and from the books and documents common among us, and from the very writings of its own authors, especially of the monks—those, for the most part, who accommodated their ministry to this mystery. For monks, as is known, are recognized as having been almost the only ones to write for many centuries past. We have from time to time pointed out the oppositions, according as it seemed good to God either to raise up from their midst or from elsewhere those who would set their heads against those who were oppressing or corrupting the Church; those men, meanwhile, for the most part broken and carried away, whether by the force of the torrent or by the effort and mass of their adversaries. For so it had been predicted (2 Thessalonians 2) because this victory is reserved to the Lamb alone, to the spirit of His mouth, to the brightness of His coming. 

Antichrist has successfully destroyed much of the written materials of godly Christians through the ages – materials which exposed and identified Antichrist and Mystery Babylon 

Yet these things come to be weighed the more heavily because the adverse party—the cohort of Antichrist once it gained power—was in every age continually diligent and crafty in abolishing, withdrawing, and corrupting instruments and documents (I mean the writings of the godly), so that they might extinguish our proofs; and in this they left nothing undone in the way of the utmost diligence and industry. Whence it has come about that we are compelled to discuss and defend our cause from their own instrument of the lawsuit, to seek our right from their documents, to produce witnesses from their own bosom, testimonies from their own mouth; that we are forced, as it has seemed good to God, to interrogate and adjure Balaam’s ass—the very beast on which he is carried; to bring forward and apply their own histories, councils, and decrees to their own refutation, and that the more weighty and the more effective. 

But it remains, by way of recapitulation, that we should set again before our eyes the place in which we first found either the Roman See or the Roman Bishop, and thence the state into which we have at length gradually brought him and now see him brought. 

Therefore, as regards the spiritual function, the Roman bishops in those first centuries, as we have seen, were called bishops and presbyters indiscriminately; they conducted themselves toward the rest after the manner of brothers, and even named the nearer ones “brothers and colleagues”; consulted equally and consulting on the affairs of the Church. No other purple shone upon them, no other scarlet; their only crimson was their own blood, their only glory the cross. 

But not long afterward that spirit begins to put itself forth in certain men—the spirit which had been at work already from the time of Paul—which, under the pretext of being the imperial city, draws the causes of the neighboring churches to itself, wishes its own counsels to be regarded as decrees, turns a spontaneously offered honor into a human right, and propriety into servitude. Yet that sting of ambition was from time to time struck back and not rarely blunted, both by the onset of persecution and by the virtue of the ancient Fathers. 

But when, peace having been restored to the churches by Constantine, and the princes favoring them, they had been increased in honors and wealth—behold, that spirit, ever watchful over its continual work and observing the moments for action, gradually both takes and makes courage. Because, therefore, the first See is freely conceded to the chief city, they contend that its Church ought to dominate the other churches—just as Rome (that is, the Republic) dominated the other cities and provinces, and just as the Roman bishop, after the manner of a monarch, [ought to dominate] the other bishops. To him, therefore, appeal is to be made from all the ends of the earth; from him mandates are to be expected, which all without exception are bound absolutely to obey. While he, on the contrary, ought to depend on no one and can be judged by no one—not even if all others agree in opposition. 

And to this belonged the flattering councils and decrees that we have seen, the forged acts, the falsified histories, the sacred Scriptures profaned and without any shame twisted into an alien sense; as well as the contestations and protests of all the most eminent men in every age against that domination over the other churches or bishops which they were claiming for themselves—a domination which these men complained was being usurped beyond and against all right, whether divine or human, under either no title or a false one. They dared to pronounce that it proceeded from no other and belonged to no other than the forerunner of Antichrist, Antichrist himself. 

Nor, however, should you ever suppose that he was drawn back from his purpose on that account. From Phocas, the parricide of his master the emperor Maurice, the Roman Pontiff is declared Universal Bishop—and not only does not blush to be so declared, but requests to be declared. Thenceforth, carried forward with full sails, he dares everything. As emperors and kings, with the affairs of the world in confusion, need his help or agency, he acquires authority in their dominions; he makes parties among the archbishops, entices the more ambitious with delegated power, draws them to himself, and binds them to himself by the pallium. And this at first is free and only a sign of closer goodwill; at last, by statute, it becomes necessary and a symbol of subjection—gradually, finally, sold, taxed, exacted, and rendered more expensive day by day, while the archbishops from time to time complain. 

Afterward he obtains from the princes that the clergy—the Lord’s portion and inheritance, as he says—should be exempt from all temporal jurisdiction, and should consequently obtain license for all vices and impunity for all crimes. And thus, by the character with which he has sealed them, he gradually withdraws them from their legitimate and natural lords and binds them to himself in voluntary servitude, not to say liege homage. By their ministry and intervention (and not without mystery) he sits and presides in the councils of princes and exercises his own kingdom in their kingdoms. In the consciences of kings and peoples he so establishes his tyranny that, while he binds them to his own lust by his censures and anathemas, he releases them from any duty and obedience at his pleasure. He sets princes against one another, stirs up nobles and common people against their own rulers, and even drives some to take up arms against their own countrymen. 

By these and similar arts he at length acquires the supreme power in spiritual things throughout the whole West. 

But because the East was less obedient, he excommunicates those churches and chooses for himself, from among his own, patriarchs of the Eastern churches—imaginary ones, to be sure, yet images of that universal monarchy which he claims for himself—who are to reside with him and sustain the person, or rather the mask, of the Eastern Church. Nay more, when celebrating the Mass he orders the Gospel and the Epistle to be read in both Latin and Greek, signifying both churches; but first in Latin and with seven candles lit, secondarily in Greek with only two, in order to designate the pre-eminence of the Latin Church—although meanwhile no one is unaware that the Greek Testament is the authentic one, while the Latin is a translation and taken from the Greek. 

Finally, from the fullness of his power he grants pardon for all sins whatsoever—thereby affecting the majesty of God, who alone forgives, and of Christ the Lamb of God, who alone takes away sins. Yet in truth he does not grant them, but traffics in them, markets them, and under that pretext plunders and despoils the whole world. For he institutes Jubilees at fixed times, which he gradually shortens—truly his own festivals and fairs, in which he exposes, distributes, and prostitutes his indulgences for sale. At his own will or lust he further opens heaven, curses the earth, blocks up Purgatory and hell, creates saints with the power of the gods (himself a god), binds demons, commands angels, is superior to ecumenical councils, Prince of the Catholic Church—nay, the Bridegroom, a title that belongs to one and only Christ and is to be communicated to no creature—God on earth, ruling from earth over heaven, and therefore to be venerated even by God Himself (that is, by his own god), whom he wishes both to be believed and to appear to believe to be God, and whom he orders to be carried about before him on a horse, so that he may procure greater reverence for himself, most often amid the baser impediments, the sutlers* and camp-followers. 

[N. B. *Civilian merchants who travel with an army or sets up a shop at a military post to sell extra food, clothing, and luxury goods to soldiers.] 

All these things under the pretext of Christ, under the pretext of that vicariate—namely of Him to whom, after the glorious resurrection, “all power was given by the Father in heaven and on earth.” So much so that in the Mass which is celebrated when the See is vacant, for the purpose of obtaining a new Pope, that Tract from the Prophet* is sung: “His ruler shall be from him (namely from Israel) and the Prince shall be brought forth from the midst of him”—which was spoken of Jesus Christ our Lord; and that saying of John in the Gospel is also accommodated to the future election: “I will not leave you orphans; I will ask the Father and He will give you another Paraclete”—which again was spoken of the Holy Spirit—so that now there is nothing so blasphemous that they blush at it or dare not attempt it. 

[N. B.*Jeremiah 30:1.] 

Nay, as soon as he is elected and has put on the red buskins and shoes, he is lifted up and placed upon the altar, the seat of his God, and is himself adored—with a religious adoration due to God. What more? In the schools themselves, under Pope Leo X, they were not afraid to dispute (note, reader) how far his vicariate extended: whether the Pope can abrogate what was decreed by the written Apostles; whether he can establish anything that conflicts with evangelical doctrine; whether he can frame a new article in the creed of faith; whether he has greater power than Peter, or equal; whether he can command the angels; whether he can abolish Purgatory; whether he is a mere man, or as it were God; whether he shares both natures with Christ; in every single word—nay, in the very points—how many felonies they commit, how manifoldly they injure the divine majesty. 

When, therefore, we recall all these things, how else can we apply or explain that prophetic passage of Paul (2 Thessalonians 2:4) than that “he will exalt himself against everything that is called God or that is worshipped”? For let there be given to us, throughout these entire sixteen centuries, anyone else [who fits the description]; so much so that “he sits in the temple of God as God, showing himself that he is God”—in the Church itself; so that we need not seek him among the Turks in Assyria. Nay, he is himself the whole Church, which he contracts and draws together into his own person—head and body at once, the bridegroom himself and the bride, if he is to be believed. 

And to whom else again shall we accommodate the revelation of St. John concerning the Beast rising out of the earth, which had two horns like a lamb but spoke like a dragon? Concerning the Woman, likewise, full of names of blasphemy? For where is speech about Christ more frequent, faith rarer? Where are blows more frequent between kisses, and kisses between blows? Under that most sacred name, such immense, such atrocious blasphemies? In that year [they] properly [begin] to clothe [him] in purple, to put a reed in his hand, and in mockery to say to him—as if in the affairs of men, and especially in the government of the Church, he sees nothing— “Who is it that struck you?” And these things concerning spiritual domination are more than enough. 

[N. B. The author is saying that in a particular year (the exact year is not given in the excerpt), people began to treat “him” – the Pope, or the papal office – in the same mocking way:

• They clothe him in purple — the color of imperial and ecclesiastical pomp — as if he were a true king.
• They put a reed in his hand — a worthless, fragile stick standing for empty or merely human authority.
• Then, treating him as spiritually blind or incompetent (“as if in the affairs of men, and especially in the government of the Church, he sees nothing”), they mockingly ask the same question that was put to the blindfolded Christ: “Who is it that struck you?”

In other words, the elevation and royal trappings of the papal office are portrayed as a solemn farce. The Pope is dressed up and given symbols of power, yet he is regarded as unable to perceive the true spiritual condition of the Church or the real blows being struck against it. The whole scene is presented as a deliberate, ironic parallel to the soldiers’ mockery of Jesus.

Now concerning the temporal. We find the Roman bishops under persecution instructed by the Testament of the Saviour not to affect worldly power, but on the contrary to suffer harsh things from earthly princes; admonished also by the epistles of Paul and Peter, and by their examples, to honor the kings and powers of the world and to obey even the wayward and morose; not to dominate, not even over the Lord’s clergy—whence they have the name of clergy. And indeed, down to Constantine and for some time afterward they have no temporal jurisdiction; they themselves neither obtain nor claim any. Nay, even from the time when they were endowed by the gifts of Christian princes, for many centuries they both speak and live after the manner of the other vassals, clients, and subjects. They permit without contradiction both general and provincial councils to the emperors and Christian princes; they allow them to be summoned and even governed by them, and submit to those that are summoned; they go and return at their commands without complaint, and do not so much as murmur about those documents of theirs—if it concerned the honor of Christ or the salvation of the Church that this Vicar of Christ should be acknowledged throughout the whole world, girt and equipped with both swords. With what zeal—or rather, with what negligence—did they allow rights of such enormous importance simply to perish and be destroyed? Rights that were quietly taken from them by long usage, to the clear loss of Peter’s authority [i.e., the real, limited, legitimate authority of Peter] and then openly usurped—namely, the claim to universal monarchy—without a single protest and without any formal announcement that a new order of things had begun? 

But the Roman empire is already verging toward ruin, whether pressed by internal diseases or by the North repeatedly pouring itself into Italy. Then it seemed good to the Roman bishops to build upon its ruins, to abuse the absence and weakness of the emperors, whom, thrust back into Greece, the arms of the Lombards shut out of Italy. Under the pretext of the images which they [iconoclast Emperors of the 8^th century] were unwilling to admit into the churches, they [pro-images Roman Bishops] barred them from the very thresholds of the Church [i.e., excommunicated them as heretics], releasing subjects from the bond of fidelity, withdrawing the released from obedience to their princes, and at length binding them to themselves. Finally, when the Lombards became too powerful in Italy, the Popes overthrew them by calling in the Franks. Later, when the Franks themselves grew strong, the Popes set the Germans against them—always bringing in a more distant power to check the one that was closer at hand. 

As soon as anyone has gained credit and authority among the people, they cast him down by means of another intruded person who must necessarily depend upon their favor. Finally, when the Germans are endeavoring to establish their empire in Italy, they sowed factions in Germany itself and stirred up sons against fathers, the divine and human bond, the civil as well as the natural, being broken—always under the pretext of heresies. Whenever princes or bishops refused to allow the Popes unrestricted control of the episcopate, or carefully maintained church discipline, or defended free canonical elections, or tried to restrain papal exactions and plunder, the Popes branded such resistance a foul heresy—and, if their word is to be trusted, the heresy of simony. 

Until at length, through manifold conspiracies of which they themselves are the chief instigators, they gradually obtained their release from the oath of fidelity which they were accustomed to render to the Caesars. At first, finally, they compelled the Caesars themselves, before they are received at Rome—into their own house, that is, the ancient seat of the empire—to swear to them fidelity in set words; and openly to declare they have no right over Rome and will remain there no more days than it shall please the Pontiff; and that they hold all those donations [i.e., the Donation of Constantine, etc.] however frivolous and purely baseless, ratified and firm before all things [i.e., formally recognize these fabricated ‘donations’ as true]. Nay further, by these sins they compel the suppliants to request with all humility that the crown be placed upon them by the Pontiffs—who both by the authority of the doctors and by open war maintain and assert that they are superior to the emperors, seniors indeed to their own vassals, who possess the empire by their benefice under the condition of liege homage; monarchs even of the whole world, the direct lords of the earth. *By which right, when the New World was discovered, they do not blush to give it, as it were, in emphyteusis. * 

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[N. B. *“By which right” refers to the supreme temporal authority the popes claimed over the whole earth (as “direct lords of the world”). When the Americas (“the New World”) were discovered at the end of the 15th century, the Popes (especially Alexander VI in the bull Inter caetera of 1493) did not hesitate to grant the newly found lands to the kings of Spain and Portugal. 

“In emphyteusis” is a legal term from Roman and medieval law. Emphyteusis was a long-term (sometimes perpetual) lease of land in which the tenant held extensive rights of use and inheritance, but ultimate ownership remained with the landlord, to whom a yearly rent or acknowledgment was due. 

Mornay’s point is sarcastic: the popes acted as if the entire New World belonged to them by right, and they merely leased it out to the Spanish and Portuguese crowns under this form of tenure—without any embarrassment (“they do not blush”). He presents this as the logical extreme of the papal claim to universal temporal dominion.] 

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And among the kings they divide it as if it were the patrimony of Peter. Which is also attested by the words customarily used in the investiture of the Popes: “I invest you with the Papacy, that you may preside over the city and the world.” Finally [they claim] it is their right, at their own will, to gird and ungird kings and emperors with the sword-belt, to appoint and depose them, to decide concerning a vacant empire; and, if the electors chance to disagree, to elect the emperor themselves. All of which things have been usurped by them to the fraud of every legitimate polity, and even to the contumely of God Himself, through whom kings reign—He who alone either confers or transfers empires—something which, except for Satan alone, no one has ever dared, or will ever dare, to arrogate to himself in the world. 

And under this name, meanwhile, he is adored by the emperors and uses them as his grooms: he not only suffers them, when he is about to mount or dismount, to hold the stirrup, and, once he is seated, to lead the horse by the bridle a few paces, but scarcely deigns even with some perfunctory word to decline this kind of service offered to him. But if it is not performed dexterously enough, it becomes a heinous crime that no sacrifices can atone for—as we have seen in certain cases. He even orders the designated—nay, the already created—Caesar to ask humbly from him the imperial crown, and, as a sign of tribute, to cast a mass of gold at his feet. Why not also frankincense and myrrh, as the Magi offered to Christ? 

Moreover, in all acts, whether ecclesiastical or even civil, he is placed in a more elevated position, and that at a defined height: so that the emperor’s place is no higher than where the Pontiff places his feet; the chair is also less high and broad, and the footstool smaller, whether in the church, or in the chapel, or in the council. And he offers him water for washing his hands; and in the office he [the emperor] trails his [the Pope’s] train, and at the collation he presents the napkin to him. * 

[N. B. * In these highly ritualized papal court ceremonies, the emperor (or other high-ranking secular ruler) was required to perform menial service for the Pope. One of those acts was to hand the Pope the napkin (or towel) used at the table—exactly the kind of service a personal attendant or servant would render.] 

For this general axiom dictates that the Pope is to show reverence to no mortal whatsoever by rising openly or by inclining or uncovering the head; only to the Roman emperor, after he has received him seated for the kiss of the foot and of the hand, does the Roman emperor rise a little and receive him kindly with a mutual embrace of charity. 

Nay, the greatest kings are bound by their own statutes, when they enter any of their cities, either to lead the Pope’s horse by the bridle, or, if the Pope is carried in a litter, [i.e., the portable ceremonial throne], to take the litter upon their shoulders, other nobles of the realm afterwards submitting their necks in their place. The Cardinals, meeting him, as soon as they catch sight of him from afar, dismount from their horses at a distance, throw themselves down to kiss his foot and hand, and presently, a ladder having been brought for the purpose, are admitted to the kiss of the mouth. What is an idol, or idolatry, if this is not? 

And yet from these rules an art has been constituted, a code of laws as it were digested, which it is impious either to omit or to pass over without crime against both divine and human majesty. But when Christ our Lord, whose vicar he claims to be, “being in the form of God, emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant,” etc., for which reason also God has highly exalted Him: what kind of servant, finally, is this who arrogates to himself the title of Master and Prince? And what do we expect, except that at the appointed time he should be cast headlong from that height of pride? And since Christ, in order to draw us to Himself into heaven, became obedient even unto the death of the cross, this little man ὑπεραιρόμενος, who exalts himself above God—whither does he snatch us who either follow or obey him, if not into hell? 

The Roman Empire is the ‘Restrainer.’

But when we see him generated from the corruption of the Roman empire and raised to this height from its ruins, do not the words of the Apostle come to mind—even with the Fathers themselves as interpreters—“and now you know what restrains,” that which was to precede his coming; “only he who now holds is to hold until he be taken out of the way”? The empire, that is, must first be abolished before he is revealed.

The first Beast is the old Roman State; the second Beast is the Papacy

Those words also of the Evangelist concerning the second Beast, the Papacy, which exercises all the power of the first Beast, namely of the [old] Roman state, he exercised in his presence— as if to say, in his mouth, before his eyes— and he caused the earth and its inhabitants to worship the Beast (Rome), whose deadly wound had been healed, restored by the substitution of papal authority; so that whoever would not worship the image of the Beast should be killed, the glory of this empire being renewed in him. 

[N. B. in this passage, the Papacy is portrayed as the power that takes over and revives the authority of that fallen Roman Empire, so that people once again give a kind of worship/allegiance to “Rome.”

“Roman state” = the ancient Roman Empire (especially its political authority centered in Rome).]

And these things, meanwhile, Paul says are “according to the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness” (2 Thessalonians 2)—not so much by open force, as it is according to the operation of Satan with every seduction of iniquity; or, according to John, by the enchantment and cup of this Harlot— this Roman Lais,* who so intoxicated kings and princes with her blandishments and allurements that, inflamed with love for her, they rush headlong into her embraces and overthrow one another for her favor. 

[N. B. Lais (Latin Lais, Greek Λαΐς) was the name of more than one famous ancient Greek courtesan (hetaira). 

The two best-known were: 

• Lais of Corinth (5th–4th century BC) — celebrated for her extraordinary beauty and for charging extremely high fees. She became a byword for a luxurious, seductive, and expensive prostitute. 

• Lais of Hyccara (Sicily, 4th century BC) — another renowned courtesan, also famous for her beauty and wit. 

In classical literature the name “Lais” came to stand for a glamorous, intoxicating, and morally corrupting prostitute who ensnares powerful men.] 

The inhabitants of the earth, the miserable peoples, have been so intoxicated with the wine of her fornication that their princes, in order to win her favor for themselves, force the people to swallow all her inventions; her abuses, indulgences, Jubilees, Crusades (as they call them), and the rest of the abominations without number or measure, so that they truly suffer vertigo and lose the use of all their senses. 

This Antichrist is also surnamed ὁ ἀντικείμενος, “the Man of Sin”—not without mystery, nor without remarkable emphasis. And in this very seat, more than in any other empire, it is easy for us to point out many Neros, Caligulas, and Heliogabaluses*—monsters of every kind of injustice, tyranny, and impiety: profane men, magicians, necromancers, atheists, and worse, if anything can be worse—all of them attested everywhere by their own historians. For this reason, many have believed that the very nature of this Chair is pestilential: it infects with its own contagion whoever sits upon it.

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[N. B. *Heliogabalus (also spelled Elagabalus; Latin Heliogabalus or Elagabalus) was a Roman emperor who reigned from 218 to 222 AD. He is remembered as one of the most notorious and scandalous emperors in Roman history. Ancient sources (especially the Historia Augusta, Cassius Dio, and Herodian) portray him as: 

• Extremely decadent and sexually promiscuous 

• Obsessed with the Syrian sun-god Elagabal (from whom he took his name) 

• Forced the Roman elite to worship his foreign god and even attempted to make Elagabal the chief deity of Rome. 

• Famous for extravagant, bizarre, and often grotesque behavior, including public sexual displays, marrying multiple times (including a Vestal Virgin), and elevating low-born favorites to high office. 

Because of this reputation for extreme impiety, tyranny, and moral depravity, later writers (including Mornay) used “Heliogabalus” as a byword for a monstrous, impious, and tyrannical ruler—alongside Nero and Caligula. When Mornay writes “Heliogabalos” (plural), he means “many rulers like Heliogabalus”—i.e., a succession of Popes who, in his view, matched or exceeded that emperor’s level of corruption and impiety.] 

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The Man of Sin is synonymous with the Harlot

Thus, the fact that impiety has customarily filled this seat to the highest degree has given occasion for Paul to call him “the Man of Sin,” and John to call her “the Harlot,” by way of excellence— in the same sense in which the Evangelists call a prostituted woman “a sinner,” that is, one who continually lies upon and is immersed in sin. 

But it is useful to penetrate further. He is “the Man of Sin,” properly Antichrist, not only because he is constantly in sin, but because he seeks profit from sin, sows sin, digs it, manures it, propagates it, and multiplies it by innumerable arts. In short, if one trusts him, he abolishes all sins—both those of omission and those of commission, the blacker and more atrocious ones. Indeed, in order to draw greater money to himself, what is not sin before God, what is indifferent or adiaphorous, he makes into sin by his own laws and prohibitions, and exaggerates far beyond that which is truly sin. 

Of this matter those books of his, The Taxes of the Apostolic Chancery and of the Sacred Penitentiary, give abundant proof—books that even now stand for sale at Rome, and at this very moment have been printed at Paris in the Rue Saint-Jacques under the sign of the Golden Sun. Among the innkeepers and brokers of the Roman Curia they are no less familiar than a calendar among farmers or a tariff among merchants. In them, of course, are sold and assigned at a price dispensations and absolutions of every kind: from carnal and spiritual consanguinity (according to the degree, or defect of age); from defect of orders and missing years; * 

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[N. B. *In the language of the medieval and early modern papal chancery and penitentiary, two common canonical irregularities were: 

• Defect of orders (defectus ordinum): A person who had not properly received the required sequence of holy orders (or who had received them irregularly) was barred from exercising the corresponding ministry or from being promoted to a higher order. A paid dispensation was needed to remove this legal obstacle. 

• Missing years (anni deficientes or defectus aetatis): Canon law set minimum ages for each order (for example, a man had to be a certain age to become a subdeacon, deacon, priest, or bishop). If a candidate was younger than the required age, he was said to have “missing years.” A dispensation could be purchased to allow ordination or promotion despite the age deficiency. 

Mornay is pointing out that the official Tax books of the Apostolic Chancery and Sacred Penitentiary listed fixed prices for granting these (and many other) dispensations—turning what should have been matters of ecclesiastical discipline into a commercial transaction.] 

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 ……from *imperfection of members, whether natural or accidental (according as the members are more or less noble or useful);  

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[N. B. In medieval and early-modern canon law, certain physical defects or mutilations rendered a man irregular—that is, legally barred from receiving holy orders or from exercising certain ecclesiastical functions. These defects were divided into two categories: 

• Natural imperfections: congenital (present from birth), such as being born without a hand, missing an eye, or having a severe deformity. 

• Accidental imperfections: acquired later in life through injury, disease, surgery, or punishment (for example, the loss of a limb or an eye). 

The seriousness of the irregularity—and therefore the price of the dispensation needed to overcome it—depended on how “noble” or “useful” the affected body part was considered. Losing a hand, an eye, or another member judged essential for the proper performance of liturgical or priestly duties was treated more severely than a lesser or less functional defect. 

Mornay is pointing out that the official Tax books of the Apostolic Chancery and Sacred Penitentiary listed fixed monetary rates for granting dispensations even for these physical irregularities, turning bodily defects into items on a commercial tariff.] 

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……..from *irregularity arising from a vicious motion or from ministry without promotion (and what kind of consecration, according to their own rules, can follow from that?);  

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[N. B. *In the technical language of the papal Penitentiary and Chancery, two related canonical irregularities are being listed: 

• Irregularity arising from a vicious motion (irregularitas ex vitioso motu) This refers to an irregularity incurred through certain sinful or disordered acts—most often specific sexual sins (especially those regarded as “unnatural” or violent) or other crimes that canon law treated as permanently barring a man from ordination or from exercising sacred functions. The “vicious motion” points to the disordered or criminal act that produced the legal impediment. 

• Ministry without promotion (ministerium sine promotione). This means exercising the functions of a sacred order (for example, celebrating Mass, hearing confessions, or performing other priestly acts) without having been properly and successively promoted (ordained) to that order. In other words, someone acting as a priest who had never been validly ordained as one, or a lower cleric usurping higher functions. 

Mornay adds the sarcastic parenthetical remark: “(and what kind of consecration, according to their own rules, can follow from that?)” He is pointing out the internal contradiction: if a man has already exercised ministry without proper promotion (i.e., without valid ordination), then any later “consecration” or regularization becomes highly questionable even by the Church’s own canonical principles. Yet the Tax books still offered a fixed price to dispense the irregularity and, in effect, paper over the problem.] 

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……..from defect of birth arising from illicit intercourse, from bigamy, from every kind of mutilation, from homicide of every sort committed by a cleric or a layman—against father, mother, son, brother, sister, wife, etc. 

And yet these are to be redeemed at a lower price than the dispensation of any ordinary priest. Likewise, from sorcery, enchantment, witchcraft, sacrilege, simony, and all their species and branches; from lapses of the flesh, fornication, adultery, incest (with no exception, acceptance, or distinction); and (what is horrible) from unnatural intercourse and bestiality— for so they express them one by one. The absolution of these monstrous crimes or wicked deeds costs less than the smallest dispensation for eating flesh, butter, milk, or cheese on days prohibited by the Pope. 

[N. B. My next treatise will include translation of portions of the official Taxes of the Apostolic Chancery and of the Sacred Penitentiary.] 

Nor do they blush to add in express words that such graces are not granted to the poor because they are destitute of goods and means, and therefore there is no consolation for them. Indeed, in our own days the censors have noted, in their Expurgatory Indexes compiled by order of the Popes and the Council of Trent, that distinguished man among their own, Claude d’Espence, who, in writing on the Epistle to Titus, said these little books were circulating in men’s hands to the great disgrace of the Church, and were even being put into daily execution—books in which more impiety and wickedness could be learned in a single moment, as it were, than from all the Summists* put together. 

[N. B. *“The Summists” (Summistae) were the authors of the great late-medieval and early modern moral and pastoral handbooks known as Summae. When Mornay (quoting Claude d’Espence) says that more impiety and wickedness could be learned from the papal tax-books “than from all the Summists put together,” he is making a sharp rhetorical point: even the most detailed and lengthy moral-theology manuals of the age did not contain as much concentrated moral corruption as the official pricelists for dispensations and absolutions.] 

And let the reader not begrudge the trouble of examining the passage itself, taking care only to use an edition that has not been corrupted by those forgers. 

Let us continue, since the matter so requires, both the merchandise and the merchants. There are offered for sale in the same place dispensations concerning oaths, concerning the commutation of vows, concerning offices, concerning breviaries, concerning prayers, concerning the Hours to be said according to a use other than that of one’s own diocese, or the Roman use, or even to be said out of order (a rare device for scraping together money). Likewise, dispensations for reducing Masses according to the proportion of the revenues; so that it may be permitted to say them both before sunrise and twice in one day. There are also dispensations concerning foods—for a person, for a family, for kindred, for a college, for a city, for a diocese, for a province—each of which is taxed according to a preserved proportion. 

An *indult* for carrying the Body of the Lord around once, twice, three times a year or more often; for changing a name or surname by chirograph—to what good end? [N. B. A papal chirograph is a letter or decree written (or at least signed) by the Pope’s own hand]. Or for passing from one monastery to another; for visiting the Holy Sepulcher; for carrying on commerce with infidels and transporting goods to them, whether licit or illicit; that Jews may be permitted to have a public or private synagogue; that Christians may eat an animal slaughtered by a Saracen. Meanwhile, as we have seen, it was no matter of religion for these good prelates to accept an annual stipend from the Turk. Thus, in all indifferent matters they establish religion according to their own pleasure—more scrupulous in trivial things than in solid ones, and far more rigid enforcers of their own inventions than of the divine commandments. 

[N. B. *An indult is a special permission or privilege granted by the Pope (or by someone acting with papal authority) that allows a person, group, or institution to do something that is otherwise not permitted by the ordinary rules of canon law.]

But how widely, how multiplied is simony extended and spread among them? How does that heresy, which they derive from Simon Magus—the profane sale of all those things which are either truly sacred, or at least sacred to them (and how far removed from Simon Peter!)—rage through the whole world by their means? Indulgences at a fixed price, general and particular; burial before the altar, in the choir, in the temple, to the left, to the right; even to be granted to the excommunicated and the despairing; the unwearied trafficking in benefices, with cure and without cure, compatible and incompatible, vacancies, preventions, resignations; *commendams,* *expectatives,* *reserved cases,* *expeditions according to a certain clause,* and of infinite kinds—so many and of such sorts that they far surpass the formulas of ancient law; so that a volume of Calepinus would scarcely suffice merely to comprehend the names. And to know these Daedalean windings, these manifold tricks—how laborious it is! You must of necessity spend more time on them than would be required to run through the entire encyclopedia of the disciplines, through philosophy, or through the whole of jurisprudence.

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[N. B. *Commendams* (or in commendam) refer to an old ecclesiastical practice in which a person (often a cardinal, bishop, or even a layman) was given the income and administration of a church benefice — such as an abbey, monastery, or parish — without actually performing the spiritual duties of that office or residing there.

*Expectatives* (or gratiae expectativae) were papal grants that gave a person the right to a church benefice in the future, before it actually became vacant. Like commendams, expectatives became a major abuse in the late medieval and early modern Church, allowing the papal court to control and monetize future appointments.

*Reserved cases* (casus reservati) are certain grave sins or ecclesiastical offenses whose absolution (forgiveness in the sacrament of penance) is reserved to a higher authority — usually the Pope, a bishop, or someone specially delegated by them.

*Expeditions according to a certain clause* describes the formal issuance of papal documents that were not open-ended, but carefully worded with particular legal conditions or restrictions. This fits the same category as the other terms, all of which concern the technical machinery by which the papacy controlled and distributed ecclesiastical offices, revenues, and privileges.]

Here, however, the tables of all the moneychangers throughout the whole of Europe are continually occupied; by these runnings to and fro the horses stationed everywhere are worn out. From this come so many officials, so many brokers and agents both in the Curia and scattered throughout the whole world—more of them, and of more kinds, than are found in the official lists of the Western or Eastern Empires. From simony alone they draw far more than a livelihood—they draw luxury and pride 

They have even introduced *Mamelukes and Janissaries into the Papal Curia itself; it was not enough for them to have drawn all the Roman titles to themselves—they had to borrow both offices and the very names of offices from the Sultans and from the infidels. 

[N. B. *When Mornay says the Papal Curia introduced “Mamelukes and Janissaries,” he speaks metaphorically and polemically. He means that the Roman court had filled itself with foreign, militaristic, or mercenary-like elements—outsiders who served the Pope’s power in a way comparable to the slave-soldier castes of the Islamic world—rather than remaining a purely spiritual or traditionally Roman institution.] 

And so when we observe this trafficking in sin, how great a facility—or rather a power—of sinning the Pope has introduced by means of his dispensations and absolutions; or rather, having fixed a price for anything committed or to be committed, however execrable it may be—shall we not say that he is truly that Man of Sin, to whom every sin is so cheap, so light, and to whom it is so easy to grant pardon for any crime against the law of God or against nature, without any distinction? Especially since from the tables of his own market it is clear to everyone at what price each outrage stands, and how he may know himself exempted from punishment. For he wishes the world to be persuaded that whoever has satisfied this table has abundantly satisfied God, and that there is nothing further to be concerned about at His tribunal. 

I ask you, reader: if Satan himself were present and wished to open the floodgates of sin and pour sin out over the whole world like a deluge, could he invent anything more apt? This is certainly not what Paul meant when he said that sin abounded so that grace might abound still more—he who sets before us the turpitude of sin in the righteousness of God and the holiness of the law; the wrath of God kindled against sin, even against those things which seem lighter to us, to be quenched and propitiated by no human merit, by no price, but only by the blood of the only-begotten Son of God poured out for sinners; to whom alone we must have recourse with right faith and serious repentance. 

But do doctrines so contrary flow from the same spring? And when one is truly Christ’s, while the other only pretends His name, whose finally is this doctrine, if not Antichrist’s? — of whom it is written: “a mouth speaking great things… a mouth opened in blasphemies against the Most High” (Daniel 7; Revelation 13).  

In this base commerce, in this infamous huckstering of sin, by which this Harlot, prostituted under every leafy tree, has entangled every kind of human being, do we not recognize those words of John? “Small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, received a mark on their hand, and no one could buy or sell…” (Revelation 13). What class of people can escape this system? Who, whether in the higher or the lower occupations, can manage without these dealings—whether it be for a dispensation, an absolution, a benefice, an office, military service, or membership in a fraternity [i.e., religious order]—either for sins already committed or for those yet to be committed? 

Are these not, therefore, the very merchants of whom John speaks: “The merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her delicacies” (Revelation 18)—delicacies that distilled from the abyss of her luxury and from her very sacrileges? 

But when we enter more deeply and behold that this Babylon, this great mass, this so arrogant edifice, has no other foundation than absurdity, no other material than iniquity, no other cement than impiety—must we not conclude with the Apostle that God has truly sent upon men a strong delusion, so that they should receive that Man of Sin, that Antichrist, and believe the lie because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved? While that Man of Sin flatters them and supplies them, as it were, with narcotics, so that, immersed in his allurements, they may lull and stupefy the sense of conscience and the sting of sin. 

I pass over his other doctrines: the merit of men, by which the merit of Christ’s passion is reduced to nothing; the daily sacrifice of the altar, by which that unique and perpetual sacrifice once offered on the cross is abolished; the Christian religion transformed and absorbed into ceremonies, superstition, and idol-madness—stations, relics, Agnus Deis, little images, blessed grains; new laws, new sacraments, a new Gospel, and (had not God prevented it) a new Christ—a pure Koran thrust in the place of the Gospel. Of these things we have already spoken more fully in their proper place. 

But if one should wish to consider his seat and his pomp: he sits at Rome in the seven-hilled city. He rides solemnly through the city, mounted on a magnificently caparisoned white horse; the Emperor or a King, if present, leads the horse by the hand—if not, some person of the highest dignity. He himself is conspicuous in purple and scarlet, and wears on his head the tiara marked with a triple crown (commonly called the kingdom), adorned with the rarest gems, as a sign, they say, of supreme dignity both priestly and imperial. 

There follows the flock of the purple-clad—namely the Cardinals—likewise resplendent in scarlet. And if he must go out of the city, there is a scarlet-covered litter; twelve red banners; then the standard-bearers, noblemen with the banners of the city, follow, adorned as tonsured and tailored; then four nobles carrying four crimson hats upon certain poles measuring three or four palms, who are called the shield-bearers of honor. The whole apparatus, in short, is scarlet. 

When therefore John in the Apocalypse says, “Come, I will show you the damnation of the great Harlot with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication,” he immediately shows you a woman sitting upon a scarlet beast—set upon an empire whose seat is purely scarlet—herself clothed in purple and scarlet, and gilded with gold and precious stones, and on her forehead a name written in a title (these are his own words): “Mystery, Babylon the Great”—not the ancient Babylon in reality, but in mystery—“the mother of fornications and abominations of the earth,” carnal beyond all license, spiritual beyond all shame. What need is there now to name her, when she herself betrays herself, and he [John] speaks clearly enough? 

Does it not indeed seem that Satan has, as it were out of wantonness, redeemed this work—so that he might display the pattern of his art to the world, and as it were upbraid us with our own blindness, and bring this Man onto the stage as if into a theatre? For so long beforehand, so expressly, so clearly had we been forewarned by the Spirit of the Almighty God, through the mouths of the Prophets and Apostles, concerning the coming of Antichrist—his character, his deeds, his actions, his seat, his clothing, his pomp — and now he has been brought in by him in exactly the same attire, in the same posture, so that he might, as it were, mock us: who would ever have believed that such a one would be received and adored? And that for so many centuries Satan himself would be in him? 

Moreover, all these circumstances are described in the book of the Papal Ceremonies, printed at Venice in the month of November in the year 1516, and dedicated to Leo X. 

At what more fitting time, then, does Martin Luther—after so many others who had already made blasphemies overflow throughout all Europe—impatiently break out in Germany against the Pope? That Augustinian monk, Doctor of Theology, born in a humble station, of no authority, in the farthest regions of the world, with a few companions of the same condition, stirred by the same zeal and driven by the same Spirit. At whose voice—indeed the voice of Almighty God thundering through them—countless people throughout all Europe are aroused, who either, intoxicated, were sleeping that sleep of death, or, still half-asleep, needed to be awakened and animated by these instruments. 

They dare, in the midst of so much pomp of Babylonian pride, so much glitter of the harlot’s paint, to call the Beast by its proper name—amid swords, whirlpools, flames, the fury of magistrates, the rage of the people, the madness of attendants. And from this, in every nation, young and old, women and children, under these auspices, openly assert and publicly profess the same. In their weakness they subdue, crush, and confound its power; in their simplicity its cunning; in their humility its pride; in their patience its cruelty. Above all, by the purity of their doctrine—through the supreme benefit of God—they restore the Gospel to the light; and by the constancy of their martyrdom they display, as it were, the faith of the primitive Church risen again. 

So much so that in a short time solid nations fall away from the Roman See; many kings and princes—even among those who had contributed most to that monstrous mass [the entire papal system]—now glory in being laden with its spoils. On every side godly and learned men come forth who, kindled with the zeal of God, strenuously undermine this mass that is soon to collapse under their labors. 

Is this not according to that word of Paul: “And then shall that Wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth” (2 Thessalonians 2:8)? And of John also: “These kings shall hate the Harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire” (Revelation 17). 

This Harlot, indeed, although she strives to harden her forehead like a man, says in her heart: “I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow” (Revelation 18:7). “I could not err, I cannot err; whatever these men may say, my baseness is elegance to me, and the pustules that break out from my impurity are pearls and gems.” She repeats her blasphemies against Christ the Son of God all the more fiercely; she rages against His sacred Word; she challenges it to trial, and if it is heard she is ready to convict it of insufficiency, imperfection, dangerous and treacherous ambiguity—and of whatever is worse. How marvelously is it cast down and made to sink beneath the Roman Church! Meanwhile, the Pope claims to be superior even to the Church herself when she is represented in general councils—making one man more powerful than the whole body. If that is so, how much more superior and exalted must sacred Scripture be—the very Word of God—and therefore God Himself? 

And by this very fact he is even more evidently that Antichrist designated by the Apostles whom we are seeking. Therefore, after we have wished to apply the balm against the pain, if by any means it might be cured—something which she herself stubbornly rejects—we have endeavored to procure a holy reformation in the Church. Against this the Papacy rises up and rages, deliberately thrusting upon us worse Popes out of hatred for it, and repeatedly putting forward more absurd assertions: the infallibility of tradition and the uselessness of the written Word, which was engraved by the finger of God and inspired in the Prophets and Apostles. 

Is it not now lawful for us to cry out with the Prophet: “We have healed Babylon, but she is not healed; forsake her, and let us go everyone into his own country” (Jeremiah 51)? Let us now wash our hands and wait until God Himself decides concerning her—especially since her judgment has reached unto heaven, and Jehovah has brought forth our righteousness against her. 

And what, then, should we expect from the same counsel, the same prophecy, and the same certainty that immediately follows—except that these kings, these very empires which have adored her, should complete the work of God? For He will put it into their hearts to do what is pleasing to Him and to execute His sentence. 

Nor should the present state of affairs disturb us. In one day, in one hour, even in a single moment His works are accomplished; and this very work will, without doubt, be accomplished. And already long ago, as if speaking of a thing already done and most certainly near, the Angel cries out and repeats: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen!” (Revelation 18). 

But far be it from us also to neglect the proclamation that follows: “Come out of her, my people!” (Revelation 18). We to whom it has been given by God to know her; you who perhaps know her all too well—beware lest it be to your own loss. Who now can still plead any excuse? “Do not share in her sins, and do not receive of her plagues” (Revelation 18:4)—lest, contracting the contagion of her idolatry and sorceries, you become partakers of the sentence of eternal fire long since pronounced against her, which awaits her. 

But because we ourselves are for the most part unbelieving and dull, let us ask God that He would, by His pure mercy, draw us out of this spiritual Sodom (for so John calls her), just as He drew Lot—seizing us by the hand of His angels and pulling us with Him; that He would grant us not to look back behind us, but to reach the holy mountain, that little Zoar—His Church, though small and despised in the eyes of the world—before He rains down His thunderbolts upon Babylon. 

“Is it not a little one?” said Lot; “and my soul shall live.” 

And to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, for the depths of His judgments and of His mercies, be praise and glory forever and ever. 

[N. B. I now return to Mornay’s historical proofs for the Advance of Iniquity in the Papacy]

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 1 

In the year 195, therefore, a controversy arose concerning the Passover [i.e., Easter]: whether it should be celebrated on the fourteenth day of the moon, according to Jewish custom, or on the following Lord’s Day. And different synods went different ways. The churches of Palestine, Rome, Corinth, Gaul, Osrhoene, and Pontus preferred the Lord’s Day; all the churches of Asia Minor altogether preferred the fourteenth. The former relied on a tradition which they called apostolic; the latter on a continuous observance which they claimed to have received from the Apostle John, and which had been accepted at Ephesus and throughout all Asia. This difference, indeed, was entirely without crime, since it did not concern the faith; and therefore, it was not of such a kind that it ought to have disturbed the union and concord of the Church. 

Polycarp of Ephesus, bishop in Asia, together with his colleagues, defends their cause by letter, of which a copy is preserved in Eusebius. He relies, he says, upon Scripture, upon the example of St. John, upon many distinguished martyrs, and further upon the continuous and uniform practice of the Asian churches. 

Nor was Victor, Bishop of Rome, without something to answer or something to object. What does he do? “Victor,” says Eusebius, “who presided over the church of the Romans (τῆς Ῥωμαίων προεστώς—not, I say, over the universal Church), cuts off from communion (ἀποτέμνει) all the churches of Asia, together with the neighboring ones, as being of another faith and opinion (ἑτεροδόξως), and by letters accuses and traduces them, declaring that all the brethren inhabiting that region are to be altogether excluded from communion.” 

THE OPPOSITION 

But Eusebius adds: “These things pleased the rest of the bishops very little.” As if the author wished to hint that Victor dared this against the Asian churches not by the authority of a Roman synod, but by his own obstinacy. “On the contrary,” he says, “they earnestly exhorted him.” Rufinus renders it: “They restrained him, that he should take diligent care for peace, concord, and charity toward his neighbors.” 

The words of those who more sharply and severely rebuked Victor are still preserved in writing. Among them was Irenaeus who, although writing in the name of the brethren in Gaul over whom he presided, taught that the mystery of the Lord’s resurrection ought indeed to be celebrated only on the Lord’s Day (and therefore they agreed on the substance of the matter). Nevertheless, he maintained that Victor ought not, for the sake of observing a tradition based on ancient custom, cut off the churches of God. In this, they both accused and condemned him of abusing his power. 

Nor should it be omitted that the interpreter [Eusebius] introduces Irenaeus as if he said that Victor was admonished “not to cut off entire churches of God from the body of the universal Church of Christ”—so that we might conclude that Irenaeus regarded the Roman Church as the universal Church. But the author simply says τὰς ὅλας ἐκκλησίας Θεοῦ (“entire churches of God”). And indeed, his meaning is clear from the very context of the letter. 

“The presbyters,” he [Irenaeus] says, writing to Victor, “who before Soter presided over the church which you now rule—Anicetus, we mean, Pius, Hyginus, Telesphorus, and Sixtus—did not observe it in this way, nor did they permit their successors to observe it. Yet nonetheless, those who did not observe it (namely the fourteenth of the moon), when they came to them from the parishes (that is, the churches) in which it was observed, still kept the peace with them; nor were any ever rejected for this reason (διὰ τὸ τοιοῦτο)—that is, because of this difference of observance. On the contrary, those presbyters who preceded you, even though they themselves did not observe it, used to send the Eucharist to the bishops in other churches who did observe it, and shared the same sacraments with them.” 

[N. B. Irenaeus is reminding Victor that those earlier Roman bishops (before Soter) did not treat the difference over the date of Easter as a reason to break communion with the Asian churches.] 

And thus Polycarp, when with Anicetus the presbyter (that is, the Roman bishop), although he could not persuade him to depart from his own custom—being a disciple of St. John—still they parted from one another in peace, the whole Church remaining in concord, both those who observed (the fourteenth of the moon) and those who did not. 

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[N. B. This incident refers to a meeting that took place in Rome around AD 154–155 between two important early Christian leaders: 

The Two Men 

Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna in Asia Minor, was a highly respected figure who had been a personal disciple of the Apostle John. He and the churches of Asia Minor followed the Quartodeciman practice: they celebrated the Christian Passover (Easter) on the 14th day of the Jewish month Nisan, the same date as the Jewish Passover, regardless of the day of the week. 

Anicetus, bishop of Rome (c. 155–166), followed the practice that was becoming standard in Rome and most of the West: celebrating Easter on the Sunday following the 14th of Nisan. 

What Happened 

When Polycarp visited Rome, the two bishops discussed the difference in their Easter customs. Neither could persuade the other to change: 

Polycarp appealed to the tradition he had received from the Apostle John. 

Anicetus appealed to the tradition of the Roman church. 

Despite their disagreement, they remained in full communion. As a sign of respect and unity, Anicetus even invited Polycarp to celebrate the Eucharist in his place. They parted peacefully, and the difference in practice did not become a cause of division. 

Why It Matters 

This peaceful meeting stands in sharp contrast to the later action of Victor I (c. 189–199), who tried to excommunicate the Asian churches over the same issue. Irenaeus (himself a disciple of Polycarp) later cited this earlier example to rebuke Victor, showing that previous Roman bishops had tolerated the difference without breaking fellowship. 

In short, the Polycarp–Anicetus meeting is one of the clearest early examples of unity maintained in diversity of practice within the early Church.] 

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And Irenaeus wrote these and other things to the same effect, not only to Victor, but also to most of the other presidents of the various churches concerning this controversy. 

Here, meanwhile, [Jesuit Cardinal] Bellarmine says: “Victor acted rightly and prudently in order to oppose Judaism.” But (with his good leave) Irenaeus is certainly of more weight with us than he is, and so are the churches of our Gaul, and so many others, which, while agreeing with Victor on the substance of the matter, nevertheless condemn Victor’s action. Eusebius himself, outside the heat of the controversy, says that Irenaeus rebuked Victor προσηκόντως—opportunely and appropriately. Indeed, Vicelius [16^th century German Catholic priest] openly acknowledges, not unwillingly, that in this age the flesh was already prevailing over the Spirit in Victor. And Irenaeus himself seems to allude to this when he speaks of those “who are puffed up with the pride of the principal confession, from whom we ought to withdraw.” 

But Baronius makes himself ridiculous here when he does not hesitate to assert that Theophilus, Bishop of Caesarea, convened the Palestinian Synod by the decree and command of the Roman bishop; and he praises Bede, writing seven hundred years later in his book, On the Vernal Equinox, as his authority. Let the reader judge how probable this is—or rather, with what fidelity—against Irenaeus, Polycrates, and Eusebius. Against Polycrates, I say, who states clearly: “There is still found the writing of the bishops who were then assembled (συνκεκροτημένων) in Palestine, over whom Theophilus presided (ὧν προΐστατο Θεόφιλος).” In the same sense he adds that there is also another writing of those at Rome which makes mention of Bishop Victor (ἐπισκόπου Βίκτορος δηλοῦσα). 

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[N. B. Philippe de Mornay is sharply criticizing Cardinal Baronius for twisting the historical evidence about the Paschal controversy (c. AD 195). What Baronius claimed: 

Theophilus, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, convened a synod of Palestinian bishops by the decree and command of Victor, the bishop of Rome. In other words, Baronius presented Victor as already exercising supreme authority over other churches, ordering them to hold synods. As his authority for this claim, Baronius appealed to Bede, who wrote about 700 years later (On the Vernal Equinox). 

Why Mornay says this is ridiculous 

Mornay points out that the much earlier and more reliable sources directly contradict Baronius: 

Polycrates of Ephesus (a contemporary of the events) says that the bishops of Palestine assembled themselves and that Theophilus presided over them. There is no mention of any order or command coming from Rome. 

Polycrates also mentions a separate writing from the Roman bishops that simply mentions Victor — not that Victor commanded or controlled the other synods. 

Irenaeus and Eusebius likewise give no support for the idea that Victor was issuing binding decrees to other churches. 

Mornay’s Point 

Baronius is anachronistically projecting later papal claims of supremacy back onto the late 2nd century. He prefers a much later and weaker source (Bede) over the clear testimony of the actual participants and early historians. This, Mornay argues, shows a lack of historical fidelity. 

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Where, indeed, is there any prerogative at all? The same man even dares to affirm of the Synod of the Asian churches that Polycrates performed the office of a legate in Victor’s name—simply because he writes that the bishops assembled themselves at his request concerning this controversy: “whom you asked / requested” (οὓς ἠξιώσατε), he says. Are we then to take every request of the Roman bishops as commands and imperial orders? And from this are we next to conclude that they already possessed full power? 

And all this rests continually on the absurd presupposition that already at that time the Roman bishop was acknowledged by all as the bishop of the universal Church, and even as Pontifex Maximus. […………………………………] 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 2 

Around the year 250, Stephen, Bishop of the city [of Rome], dared to usurp the same authority over the churches of Spain and Africa that Victor had previously attempted. 

In Spain, Basilides, Bishop of Astorga, and Martial, Bishop of Mérida, had, during a fierce persecution, offered sacrifice to idols. For this reason, they were deposed from the ministry. These men crept to Stephen, by whose favor they hoped to be restored, and he himself did not fail to seize the opportunity, writing vigorously to the churches of Spain. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

In the mid-3rd century, Spanish bishops Basilides and Martial, who had sacrificed to idols during persecution, were deposed by their local churches. They appealed to Bishop Stephen of Rome, who tried to reinstate them. The Spanish and African churches rejected this interference. In a synod (whose letter is preserved by Cyprian), they insisted that discipline must follow divine law, not human favor, and that cases must be judged where the crime occurred. They treated the Roman bishop simply as a “colleague,” not a superior with appellate power. 

Cyprian strongly opposed appeals to Rome by condemned clergy, arguing that each bishop is responsible for his own flock and that the African judgment was final. Later Roman claims of supremacy (advanced by Bellarmine and Baronius) are rejected as anachronistic. Early sources (Clement, Ignatius, Cyprian, Nazianzen, Constantine) show that the title “Universal Bishop” could be applied to various leading bishops and that the episcopate was one [office], shared by all. The title “Supreme Pontiff” is dismissed as derived from pagan rather than apostolic sources. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 3 

Not long afterward [the year 258] another question arises: whether those who return to the orthodox Church, having been baptized by heretics, ought to be rebaptized. Stephen, Bishop of Rome, denied it; Cyprian affirmed it. 

Stephen’s cause was indeed better than Cyprian’s, if only he had conducted it with moderation and contended by reason rather than by power. For he replies curtly to the synodal letter of the seventy-one bishops assembled in Africa: “If anyone comes from any heresy whatever, let nothing be innovated except what has been handed down—namely, that hands be laid upon him in repentance.” He takes it as settled that other churches must immediately obey him when he issues absolute commands. When they do not do so, he first cuts off the African churches from communion, and soon afterward the Eastern churches as well, which adhered to them. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

In the mid-3rd century, a major controversy arose over whether persons baptized by heretics should be rebaptized when they entered the orthodox Church. Cyprian of Carthage and the African and Eastern churches insisted on rebaptism; Stephen of Rome rejected it and demanded that all churches obey his ruling. When they refused, Stephen broke communion with the African churches and later with the Eastern churches that supported them. 

Cyprian answered firmly but moderately. He accused Stephen of arrogance, of writing ignorantly, and of elevating custom above truth. He reminded Stephen that even Peter, when corrected by Paul, did not claim primacy or demand obedience, but accepted legitimate counsel [Gal. 2:11-14]. Cyprian insisted that bishops must both teach and learn, and that custom without truth is merely “the antiquity of error.” 

The Eastern bishops, led by Firmilian of Caesarea, replied far more sharply. They declared that Stephen, by cutting off so many churches, had in reality cut himself off from the unity of the Church and had become the true schismatic. They rejected his claim to the chair of Peter as a pretext for tyranny, noted that he had refused even ordinary hospitality to their legates, and charged him with tearing the brotherhood apart while defending heretics. Their letter is so severe that later Roman editors wished it had never been published. 

Cyprian, by contrast, continued to speak of Stephen as a colleague, refused to escalate the quarrel, and wrote treatises on patience and against envy in order to preserve peace. 

Mornay’s larger point is that these events already reveal the early stirrings of Roman ambition. Even while the Church was still under persecution, bishops of Rome were attempting to assert a primacy that other churches neither acknowledged nor obeyed. Later Roman historians such as Baronius try to read later papal claims back into these episodes, treating ordinary fraternal correspondence or joint synodal action as proof of Roman jurisdiction. The contemporary evidence (Cyprian, Firmilian, Athanasius, Eusebius) shows no such primacy: bishops addressed one another as equals and colleagues, major heresies were judged by regional synods, and Roman interventions were frequently resisted or ignored. 

Thus, the controversy over heretical baptism stands as an early and clear illustration of the tension between emerging Roman claims and the actual collegial practice of the ancient Church. 

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[N. B. The controversy between Cyprian (who insisted on rebaptizing those baptized by heretics) and Stephen of Rome (who rejected rebaptism) was never fully resolved in their lifetimes. Both men died in the mid-250s (Stephen in 257, Cyprian in 258) while the dispute was still unresolved and communion between Rome and the African/Eastern churches remained broken. The issue was gradually settled in favor of Stephen’s position (acceptance of heretical baptism if performed with the correct Trinitarian formula): 

Council of Arles (314) — The first Western council after the end of persecution ruled that those baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit should not be rebaptized, but only have hands laid on them. 

Council of Nicaea (325) — Canon 8 and related decisions distinguished between different groups of heretics. In general, the Council accepted the baptism of those who had used the proper Trinitarian form and rejected only the baptism of more extreme groups (such as the Paulicians). 

By the late 4th and early 5th centuries, the Roman/Western practice of recognizing heretical baptism (provided the correct form was used) became the standard position of the Church, later articulated clearly by Augustine in his debates with the Donatists. Although Cyprian’s view had strong support in Africa and the East during the controversy, the Church ultimately adopted the position held by Stephen of Rome: baptism performed with water in the name of the Trinity is valid even if administered by a heretic and therefore, does not need to be repeated. 

It must be noted that not all Reformers were in agreement. The Radical Reformers, i.e., the Anabaptists, denied the Reformers’ baptism on these main grounds: 

1. Baptism requires personal faith 

They insisted that the New Testament pattern is that people first repent and believe, and only then are baptized (Acts 2:38, 41; 8:12, 36–38; 16:31–33). Because infants cannot repent or exercise personal faith, infant baptism (practiced by both Rome and the magisterial Reformers) is not true Christian baptism. 

2. Baptism is the public confession of a believer 

They saw baptism as the believer’s own act of obedience and confession of faith, not primarily as God’s act of incorporating someone into the covenant. A baptism performed on an unconscious infant cannot be a confession of faith; therefore, it is invalid. 

3. A true church is a gathered community of believers 

The Anabaptists rejected the idea of a mixed territorial church that includes both the regenerate and the unregenerate. They argued that only those who give credible evidence of regeneration should be baptized and admitted to the church. Baptism administered in a state church that baptizes entire populations indiscriminately is therefore not the baptism of Christ’s true church. 

The Anabaptists used the term “mixed territorial church” (or “state church”) for any church that: 

Was established by civil authority, 

Embraced the entire population of a given territory, 

Baptized infants as a matter of course, and 

Therefore, contained both genuine believers and unbelievers side by side. 

Churches the Anabaptists Opposed on This Ground 

They applied the criticism to virtually all the major churches of their day: 

The Roman Catholic Church (the original territorial church after Constantine) 

The Lutheran churches in Germany and Scandinavia 

The Reformed (Calvinist) churches in Switzerland, parts of Germany, the Netherlands, and Scotland 

The Church of England (Anglican) 

The Zwinglian churches in Zurich and other Swiss cities 

In every case the pattern was the same: the civil government enforced religious uniformity; infants were baptized, and membership in the church was largely identical with citizenship in the territory. 

The Anabaptist Alternative 

Against all of these, the Anabaptists insisted on a gathered church (or “believers’ church”) composed only of those who personally confessed faith in Christ and submitted to baptism and church discipline as voluntary disciples. 

The entire Constantinian model of a territorial, state-supported, mixed church was what they rejected. 

4. Continuity with a corrupt system 

Many Anabaptists regarded both Roman and magisterial-Reformer baptism as part of a fallen Constantinian system. Because the Reformers continued the practice of infant baptism inherited from Rome, the Anabaptists considered their baptism still compromised by the same error. 

So, the Reformers were not united on this question. The magisterial Reformers stood with Stephen; the Anabaptists stood closer to Cyprian. 

In the 19^th century James Henley Thornwell, a Southern Presbyterian theologian of the mid-nineteenth century, wrote Sacramental Sorcery: The Invalidity of Roman Catholic Baptism, answering fellow Presbyterian, Princeton professor and theologian, Charles Hodge, who taught [as did the Seminary] its validity, despite the 1845 Presbyterian General Assembly (Old School) declaring that Romanist baptism is not Christian baptism. According to the Trinity Review, “It was Hodge’s error that became the majority view in Presbyterian churches in the twentieth century and contributed to the ecumenism and apostasy of that century. This single example illustrates how seminaries can corrupt churches and entire denominations by their errant teaching.” According to Thornwell, “Lying vanities, as they [Rome’s sacraments] are, according to the teaching of   the mother of harlots, they are yet the Saviours to which the millions of her deluded children cling for acceptance before God. They are accustomed to use nothing higher in the scale of excellence than the empty pageantry of ceremonial pomp, or to dream of nothing better in the way of felicity than the solemn farce of sacerdotal benediction; their hopes are falsehood and their food is dust.” 

Thornwell continues, “I cannot, therefore, disguise my astonishment, that Princeton [Seminary] should have represented that the views of Rome and of ourselves, in regard to the nature of the sacraments, are precisely the same. She teaches that they are causes of grace, and we that they are signs. She teaches that they dispense the blessings of salvation by their own power: we, that they are nothing without the Holy Ghost. According to her, they justify, regenerate and sanctify. According to us, they point to Him who, of God, is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. According to Rome, they work infallibly, where material dispositions exist. According to us, they are lifeless and unmeaning, when estranged from faith. We insist that they are seals of the everlasting covenant, and Rome, if she speaks at all, upon this point, mutters the confused babble of Babel. Rome’s sacraments and ours belong essentially to different categories. They are as wide apart as action and passion. Hers is a species of deity, and ours are content to be elements of earth. When she baptizes, her water penetrates the soul, purges the conscience, and purifies the heart. When we baptize, we wash only the flesh, while our faith contemplates the covenant of God, and His unchanging faithfulness. Our baptism represents what the blood of the Redeemer, applied by the Eternal Spirit, performs upon the souls of believers. Rome’s does the work itself. Our’s is vain without the Holy Ghost. Rome’s is all the Holy Ghost she needs.” 

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THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 4 – Summary 

Philippe de Mornay argues that the Christian Church began to decline during periods of relative peace. Even in the midst of persecution (around AD 253), Cyprian already lamented the worldliness of many bishops: they neglected their flocks, pursued secular business and usury, and lived in luxury while the poor in the Church went hungry. Eusebius attributes the severity of the Diocletian persecution (c. 302) to the same internal corruption—pastors driven by ambition, mutual hatred, and the love of power. 

When Constantine embraced Christianity (c. 310–330), he poured immense wealth upon the churches, especially the Roman church, transferring pagan temple revenues and granting estates and ornaments. Legacies to the Church became common. With wealth came a growing desire for primacy, visible in the (often spurious) letters attributed to early Roman bishops such as Sylvester. 

Mornay then dismantles the famous “Donation of Constantine,” the forged document claiming that Constantine gave the city of Rome, much of Italy, and supremacy over all other churches to Pope Sylvester. He shows that the entire weight of historical evidence rejects it: contemporary historians (Eusebius, Zosimus, etc.) know nothing of it; later popes and canonists treated it as apocryphal; distinguished Roman Catholic scholars (Cardinal Cusanus, Lorenzo Valla, Guicciardini, Aeneas Sylvius/Pius II, and others) exposed it as a fabrication; and even the alleged autograph in the Vatican contains a note admitting it is a long-standing fable. The document’s internal claims are historically and theologically absurd. 

Baronius, though unable to defend the Donation, tries to pass over it in silence while still treating it as settled. Mornay concludes that the Roman bishops had not yet reached the height of power they later claimed. The influx of wealth under Constantine marked the beginning of serious corruption, as pagan ceremonies and worldly ambition entered the Church—facts that even Baronius is forced to acknowledge. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

Mornay argues that the sudden wealth poured into the Church under Constantine was viewed by many of the godly as a dangerous omen. A later legend even claims a heavenly voice declared that “poison has been poured into the Church.” Historical facts confirm that Constantine did not treat the Bishop of Rome as a supreme judge. In the Donatist controversy he appointed other Western bishops as judges and only later added the Roman Bishop as an equal; when the case was appealed, Constantine himself convened and presided over the Council of Arles. Likewise at the Council of Nicaea (325), Constantine convened and presided, while the Roman legates held only fourth place. 

The sixth canon of Nicaea is decisive. It confirms the “ancient customs” by which the Bishop of Alexandria governed Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis, “since a like custom also exists for the Bishop of Rome.” The canon speaks of custom (ἔθη, συνήθεια), not of divine law or Petrine privilege. Parallel rights are recognized for Antioch and an honorary rank for Jerusalem. Rufinus (c. 60 years later) explains that the Roman Bishop’s care was limited to the “suburbicarian,” churches around Rome. Later writers, such as Balsamon, expanded the claim only after Roman ambition had grown. 

Later Roman apologists (Nicholas I, Gratian’s interpreters, Bellarmine, Baronius) tried to rewrite or supplement the canon to assert that Nicaea recognized a universal primacy of divine origin. Mornay shows that their key phrases are absent from the authentic Greek text, from Rufinus, from Balsamon, and from the Vatican manuscript used by Gelasius of Cyzicus. At Chalcedon the same principle appears: Constantinople receives equal honorary rank “because it is New Rome”—an argument from the dignity of the imperial city, not from Peter or the Gospel. When the Roman legates protested, the imperial judges and the synod upheld the decision. 

Thus, the evidence of the early fourth century places the bishop of Rome among the great patriarchal sees with a regional jurisdiction based on custom, not with a universal, divinely conferred supremacy. The later claims of the Papacy represent a large historical expansion beyond the ancient order. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 5 – Summary 

Around 337 a letter attributed to Mark, Bishop of Rome, claims the title of Universal Bishop and asserts the perpetual purity of the Roman Church on the basis of Christ’s prayer for Peter. The letter is regarded as suspect. His successor Julius attempted, on the ground of the dignity of his See, to restore bishops deposed by Eastern synods and demanded that the Easterners justify their sentences before him. Later versions of such letters invent the claim that Nicaea had already given Rome exclusive rights to judge bishops and to convoke universal councils—claims that are historically false. In 347 the Council of Sardica, at Hosius’s suggestion, allowed deposed bishops who believed their cause just to appeal to Julius of Rome for a fresh hearing. Later Roman bishops generalized this limited, temporary provision into a permanent and universal right of appellate jurisdiction. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

Athanasius could answer the Roman claims by pointing to Christ’s promise to Peter as applying to the whole Church, not solely to the Roman see. The weakness of those claims is shown by the fact that Liberius, Julius’s successor, later condemned Athanasius and accepted an Arianizing creed—an act denounced by Hilary, Athanasius, and Jerome, and acknowledged even by Bellarmine. 

When Julius of Rome rebuked the Eastern bishops for deposing certain men without consulting him and attempted to restore them, the Eastern bishops convened a council at Antioch. They rejected his claim to regulate them, insisted they were under no obligation to receive a norm from him, and replied that they would not be governed by his authority. While they paid honor to the Roman Church as an apostolic see, they refused to accept second rank merely because of the size of the Roman church and demanded that Julius approve their depositions if he wished communion with them. 

Julius was offended, yet the later letter attributed to him (claiming that Nicaea forbade any council or deposition of bishops without Roman authority) is shown to be a later invention that contradicts the contemporary historians Socrates and Sozomen. Under the pretext of defending Athanasius, Roman ambition for supremacy was already advancing. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 6 

In 366, Liberius’s successor produced a violent struggle between Damasus and Ursinus. Contemporary sources report that the conflict became a bloody civil war within the churches themselves: Rufinus says the places of prayer were filled with human blood, and Ammianus Marcellinus records that 137 corpses were found in a single day in the basilica of Sicininus. Damasus’s stronger faction prevailed. 

Ammianus explains the intensity of the struggle by the immense worldly attractions of the Roman bishopric: wealth from the offerings of rich women, carriages, splendid clothing, and banquets that surpassed royal tables. He contrasts this luxury with the frugal and modest lives of many provincial bishops. Later Catholic defenders such as Baronius tried to dismiss Ammianus as a pagan driven by envy, yet the same opulence is confirmed by Jerome’s anecdote that the pagan consul Praetextatus remarked he would become a Christian overnight if made Bishop of Rome. Mornay uses the episode to illustrate how far the Roman See had already departed from apostolic simplicity into pride, ambition, and worldly splendor. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

Jerome identifies the Roman clergy of his day with the purple-clad Babylon of Revelation: ambition and power corrupt even a church that still possesses apostolic monuments and true confession. He explicitly calls Rome “Babylon” and its clergy a Pharisaic senate and faction of ignorance. He also insists that every bishop, whether of Rome or of the smallest town, holds the same priesthood and apostolic succession; rank is not determined by the size or wealth of the city. 

Basil, hard-pressed by Arianism in the East, briefly considers seeking help from the West but recoils from Western (especially Roman) pride. He complains that the Westerners, led by Damasus, neither know the Eastern situation nor wish to learn it, and that they judge dignity by arrogance. Although Athanasius and Basil repeatedly sought Damasus’s assistance, he remained indifferent, offered no reply, and even suspected Basil of heresy. The Easterners therefore turned instead to the bishops of Italy and Gaul, urging them to convene a proper synod and to inform the Emperor—from whom, rather than from Damasus, they expected any remedy. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 7 

Some commend the virtues of [Pope] Damasus; yet if the letters attributed to him are genuine, he was by no means sluggish in promoting that primacy. In particular, in a letter to Stephen, Bishop of Mauretania, he contends that all greater causes are to be referred to him and decided by his authority alone; and that the creation of bishops also belongs to his right—so much so that Isidore the Merchant supplies us with a letter in which Aurelius, Bishop of Carthage, asks Damasus to send him the decrees of the Roman Pontiffs, namely so that from them he may thereafter administer his own church. But Baronius was ashamed of this falsehood, for it is too enormous to deceive anyone; since in the time of Damasus that Aurelius was only serving as a deacon of the church of Carthage. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

The actual practice of the late fourth century plainly contradicts later claims of Roman supremacy. Major ecclesiastical appointments throughout the Christian world were made by provincial bishops according to the ancient canons of Nicaea, without any reference to the consent or counsel of the bishop of Rome. The Fathers of the Council of Constantinople (381) openly reminded Damasus of this principle: each province’s bishops, with neighboring colleagues if needed, were to ordain and administer their own churches. They informed him that Nectarius had been elected at Constantinople, Flavian at Antioch, and Cyril at Jerusalem, and asked only for fraternal congratulations, not for confirmation. Their letters were addressed not to Damasus alone but to the whole Western synod gathered at Rome. Ambrose of Milan was likewise elected by the people and confirmed by the emperor without any appeal to Rome. 

The Council of Constantinople itself was summoned by the Emperor Theodosius and presided over by Nectarius of Constantinople. No legate of Damasus was present. The council reaffirmed the Nicene rule of diocesan and provincial autonomy, forbidding bishops to interfere outside their own boundaries. It granted the Bishop of Constantinople “the honor of primacy after the Roman Bishop, because it is New Rome”—a dignity based solely on the political status of the imperial city, not on any evangelical or Petrine right. Concerning any special authority of the Roman bishop the council said nothing. 

Bellarmine later tried to claim that the council acknowledged itself summoned by Damasus’s command and recognized Rome as its head. Both assertions are false. The relevant letter is not from the Constantinopolitan Fathers, and the actual correspondence addresses the Western bishops as fellow members of the one Church, not as subjects of a Roman head. The Fathers explicitly reject party slogans such as “I am of Cephas,” thereby touching the very claim of Petrine primacy that Damasus was advancing. 

Although Leo the Great later attacked the council’s authority, his predecessor Damasus himself acquiesced in it, replied amicably, and two years later formally approved its canons. The Roman synod under Damasus, by contrast, ranked as little more than a provincial gathering. The evidence of 381 thus measures the real extent of Roman primacy at that time: an honorary precedence among equals, not a universal jurisdiction of divine right. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 8 – Summary 

Checked by the firmness of the Eastern churches, the Roman bishops turned their efforts toward the West, especially Africa, where a shorter path to primacy seemed open. Damasus, encouraged by a complaint from Stephen of Mauretania, vigorously asserted that the Roman Church was “the firmament of all bishops and the summit of all churches,” and that the highest ecclesiastical causes must be reserved to the Roman see, which he styled “Father of Fathers.” This matched the older African habit (already criticized by Cyprian) of appealing to Rome when disciplined at home. 

The earliest genuine Roman decretals begin with Siricius (c. 386). In a letter to Himerius of Tarragona he insists that no priest may be ignorant of the statutes of the Apostolic See and orders them circulated throughout Spain. In a later letter to the African bishops, he forbids the ordination of any bishop without the knowledge of the Apostolic See (or “Primate”). Some later interpreters took “Primate” to mean the Bishop of Rome, reflecting the growing Roman claim that only their see deserved the title “Apostolic.” 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

While Siricius sat at Rome, the African bishops at the second Council of Carthage ruled that no one may ordain a bishop without consulting the provincial primate (the metropolitan), not the Bishop of Rome. The third Council of Carthage (397) went further, forbidding the bishop of the first see to be called “Prince of Priests” or any similar title, and adding that not even the Roman Pontiff should be styled “universal Bishop.” 

Siricius was also the first to impose clerical celibacy—a discipline the Council of Nicaea had rejected—and is credited with introducing the liturgical commemoration of the saints, a practice Mornay links to pagan models. Both innovations illustrate the parallel corruption of doctrine and discipline in this period. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 9 – Summary 

Innocent I (401) advanced Roman claims without restraint. In a letter to Victricius of Rouen he asserted that major ecclesiastical cases, after local episcopal judgment, must be referred by appeal to the Apostolic See. Though earlier practice (even in Victricius’s own affairs) had been otherwise, Innocent claimed the same appellate right in Macedonia and assumed it was acknowledged everywhere. The narrative then turns to examine whether this ambition met with any check. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

In 402 and 413 African councils at Milevis and Carthage condemned Pelagianism (and Donatism) on their own authority, without first consulting Innocent I. Only after pronouncing sentence did they ask him to add the weight of the Apostolic See. Their letters, while respectful, treat him as a colleague whose confirmation would strengthen an already decided judgment, not as a superior whose prior approval was required. Innocent replied by claiming that ancient custom demanded all major provincial decisions be referred to Rome before they could be considered final—an assertion that the African proceedings themselves directly contradicted. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 10 – Summary 

Zosimus, like his predecessor, actively pushed Roman primacy. At the large African Council of Carthage (c. 417), he sent legates (Faustinus of Potentia and the presbyters Philip and Asellus) to persuade the bishops to accept appeals to Rome. The legates presented a text they claimed came from the Council of Nicaea, allowing a deposed bishop to appeal to the Bishop of Rome, who could then order a new examination by neighboring bishops or even send his own presbyter. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

When Zosimus’s legates presented a supposed Nicene canon allowing appeals to Rome, the African bishops (led by Alypius and Aurelius) could not find it in any Greek copies of the Council of Nicaea. They therefore requested authentic texts from the major Eastern Sees. Cyril of Alexandria and Atticus of Constantinople supplied sealed copies confirming the absence of any such canon. On this basis the African synod reaffirmed its own rule (already stated at Milevis): lower clergy and bishops may appeal only to their provincial primates; anyone who appeals “beyond the sea” (i.e., to Rome) is to be excluded from communion in Africa. The synod then closed by writing to Celestine, the new bishop of Rome. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 11 – Summary   

Around the year 450, Leo I, tenacious of the primacy, diligently inculcates that saying of his, “You are Peter.” “Peter,” he says, “is called the rock when the foundation is pronounced, and in his see the power lives, the authority excels. The brothers have known him to be the primate of all the bishops, etc. Never has Christ given except through him whatever He has not denied to another.” This he was preaching at Rome among his own people 

Leo I strongly asserted Roman primacy, complaining that Flavian of Constantinople had not first consulted him about Eutyches and had ignored Eutyches’s appeal to Rome. He likewise rebuked Hilarius of Arles for ordaining and deposing bishops without reference to Rome, while flattering the Gallic bishops with mild language that still pressed his claims. Writing to the emperors, he styled himself “Pope of the Catholic Church of the city of Rome” and sometimes “universal.” At the Council of Chalcedon his legates sought to limit the rising authority of Constantinople by appealing to the Nicene canons. The narrative then turns to examine how far these claims were accepted by others. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

Leo I sometimes speaks of Peter’s confession as the common foundation of the whole Church, yet he does not stop there but presses a special Roman privilege. Flavian of Constantinople, when criticized by Leo over Eutyches, explains the just grounds for the condemnation and asks Leo only to make the decision known within his own sphere; he treats appeals to Rome as unknown in the East and expects Leo to uphold, not overturn, the Eastern sentence. In Gaul, Leo accuses Hilarius of Arles of claiming metropolitan rights and of slighting Petrine authority, but the real issue is Leo’s own primacy. Despite Leo’s efforts, Gallic bishops continued to act independently: around 478 Sidonius Apollinaris, by common consent of the bishops, simply named the new metropolitan of Bourges without reference to Rome. Sidonius even addressed another Gallic bishop with the exalted titles later claimed as exclusively Roman, showing how foreign such Roman pretensions still were to the Western churches outside Italy. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 12 – Summary 

After the Council of Constantinople granted honorary primacy to its bishop as “New Rome,” perpetual rivalry arose between Rome and Constantinople. Constantinople refused to accept a superior; Rome refused to accept an equal. Each sought to expand its influence—Constantinople over the East, Rome over both East and West. Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, resenting Constantinople’s new claims, often turned to Rome for support, sometimes deferring to it more than necessary and thereby giving Roman writers such as Baronius material for exaggerated claims of primacy. 

Baronius asserts that Pope Simplicius “confirmed” Calendion as bishop of Antioch and granted Acacius of Constantinople a Roman vicariate over the East. Contemporary evidence does not support these assertions. Evagrius simply records Calendion’s election and actions without mentioning Roman confirmation; Calendion’s predecessor had been ordained by Acacius himself. Language about a “delegated office” is ambiguous and need not refer to a grant from Simplicius. Acacius is addressed merely as archbishop, and when imperial power favored Peter Mongus against the more orthodox John of Alexandria, Simplicius moderated his tone and spoke of the need for a common conciliar decision rather than unilateral Roman authority. 

The claim that John of Alexandria formally “appealed” to Rome, as Athanasius supposedly had, rests on the late and distant testimony of Liberatus. Evagrius describes John as a fugitive who fled to Rome after being expelled by the emperor for perjury and simony, and who stirred up trouble there by presenting himself as a champion of Chalcedon. There is no evidence of a juridical appeal or of Rome deciding the case. Simplicius wrote to the emperor; the emperor replied by reiterating the charge of perjury. John later received the minor Italian see of Nola. Acacius’s request that Rome not receive fugitive Alexandrian clergy is ordinary ecclesiastical language, not proof of Roman appellate jurisdiction. 

In short, the late-fifth-century evidence shows competition and occasional tactical alliances, not an established Roman right to confirm Eastern patriarchs or to exercise ordinary jurisdiction in the East. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

The jurisdictional conflicts between Rome and Constantinople stemmed from the Chalcedonian canon elevating the see of New Rome, which the Roman bishops refused to accept. While they continually appealed to the authority of the ancient universal councils, the Emperor Leo (472) issued a law confirming all the privileges of the Constantinopolitan Church—including precedence in episcopal ordinations and the right of sitting first—explicitly on account of its status as the royal city. Simplicius’s repeated protests to the emperors were in vain. 

Faced with this, Gelasius shifted the ground of the argument. He no longer relied primarily on the Nicene canons or ancient custom, but rested the Roman claim on the single text “You are Peter.” On this basis he asserted that the Apostolic See possessed the power to reverse unjust synodal decisions and to condemn without any synod at all, that appeals might be made to Rome from anywhere but never from Rome, and that the Roman Church was without spot or wrinkle and subject to no judgment. These axioms have already pointed toward ecclesiastical tyranny. The danger became concrete when Gelasius’s next successor, Anastasius, was accused of the Acacian communion that Gelasius had opposed. 

On the relation of spiritual and temporal power, however, Gelasius still spoke with restraint. He taught that after Christ, who is both King and Priest, the two offices must remain distinct: emperors need pontiffs for eternal life, and pontiffs may use imperial arrangements for temporal affairs, but neither should usurp the other’s sphere. This Gelasian principle stands in clear tension with the later claims of Gregory VII. Finally, Baronius’s inference that the mere approval of a book by Gelasius proves a standing Roman right to license or suppress writings is dismissed as frivolous; the same practice was common among many learned bishops. With these developments, the narrative reaches the year 500. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 13 – Summary 

While northern invaders devastated Italy, the Roman episcopate itself became a prize seized by violence, intrigue, and the open buying of votes. Bargaining over a living pope’s succession and sealing such pacts by oath had become routine. A synod under Symmachus tried in vain to stop the abuses; the result was repeated bloodshed that forced emperors and even barbarian rulers to intervene. Amid these scandals Symmachus still claimed that the mere dignity of the Roman see conferred holiness on its occupant—a claim later endorsed in canon law. The contrast with Anastasius II, said to have been struck by divine judgment for compromising with heresy, only underscores the corruption. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

After taking control of Italy (c. 472), the Arian ruler Odoacer, careful not to disturb the city at a papal vacancy, enacted a law requiring that no election of a bishop of Rome take place without his consultation. Contemporary testimony presents him as moderate toward the Catholic Church despite his Arianism. About 498, after the death of Anastasius II, the law became relevant. Eastern imperial money helped split the Roman clergy into factions supporting Symmachus and Laurentius. The wiser party submitted the dispute to Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king, who decided for Symmachus. Symmachus promptly sought to abolish Odoacer’s law, though the restriction effectively continued until the late seventh century. 

The rivalry soon turned violent. When Laurentius was recalled, open fighting broke out in Rome; priests, clergy, citizens, and even consecrated virgins were killed. Theodoric, weary of the bloodshed, expelled both claimants and temporarily installed Peter of Altinum. Flattering writers such as Ennodius later portrayed those who died for Symmachus as martyrs, a judgment Baronius endorses; the author sharply rejects the comparison, noting that true ecclesiastical martyrdom seeks to preserve the Church’s unity, not to seize a bishopric by force. 

A later Roman synod under Symmachus was itself summoned by Theodoric at Symmachus’s request, despite initial claims that only the Roman bishop possessed the right to convene it. The episode illustrates both the deep corruption of papal elections in this period and the practical dependence of the Roman See on the authority of the barbarian rulers of Italy. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 14 

Now, in this century, which closes the five hundred years from Christ, many opportunities present themselves that offer the Roman bishops facility for managing their affairs successfully: the absence of the emperors, who for the most part resided at Constantinople and, in order to retain the loyalty of the Romans, willingly gratified the Roman bishops—and all the more earnestly because those bishops themselves, by the absence of the Caesars, diligently abused [the situation] for their own ambition; the arrival or influx also of the northern peoples, whose leaders mutually supplanted and expelled one another, and who, in order to plant their foot more firmly in Italy, sought to win the favor of those [bishops] by every form of flattery; the crop of heresies continually sprouting up, whose leaders, now overthrown and condemned in Africa, now in the East, in order to withdraw themselves from the law, abused the primacy of the Roman pontiffs, fleeing to them either under the appearance of an appeal or in the hope of a retraction. 

Let us add that all throughout the world undoubtedly sought the friendship of the bishop of the first see, whose dwelling was the chief city, the epitome of the world, once the origin and fountain of counsel in weightier matters. Nor do most perceive that their consultations, little by little, are being treated as supplications, that counsel is passing into sheer command, arbitration into judgment and into a matter already judged, and is degenerating. 

For the rest, because a stain upon doctrine is accustomed to follow the corruption of discipline, in the same century the invocation and adoration of the saints and martyrs is propagated. They already step into the place of the gods; the tendrils of the pagans almost overshadow and choke the vineyard of Christ; very few prune them back or resist the advancing superstition. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

Although Roman bishops continually sought to extend their authority, they still met with resistance. Leo had been forced into line; Symmachus was roughly handled in the Illyrian provinces and even summoned by his own clergy to answer charges before Theodoric. The claim that no one may say to the Roman bishop “Why do you do this?” was therefore already contradicted by events. 

A still clearer check appears in the remarkable letter addressed to Anastasius II by the bishops of Gaul and Germany in the time of Clovis. They declare outright that the authority of councils is greater than that of any single pope, citing Paul’s public rebuke of Peter as precedent. They mock the Italian bishops as diseased physicians who presume to cure others while themselves suffering from avarice and neglecting their own flocks. If the Gauls are spiritually sick, the Italians should come to them as true physicians rather than demand that the sick travel to Rome; the Gauls already possess the perfect remedy in Christ and have no need of Roman “drugs.” 

The letter warns the Italians not to condemn the consciences of the Gallic bishops or to use royal power under the pretext of zeal, lest the judgment rebound upon themselves. It accuses the Italian hierarchy of making themselves gods, of lacking a legitimate Melchizedekian vocation, and of risking the fate of Uzzah if they lay unauthorized hands on the ark of another church. It closes with the syllogism that since all bishops share one power, that power belongs equally to each. 

The document thus preserves a contemporary Gallic judgment that treated the Roman bishop as a colleague subject to the same limits as any other bishop, not as an unaccountable superior. 

And there you have, Reader, the judgment of our bishops concerning the Roman bishops at that time.

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 15 – Summary 

Hormisdas actively advanced Roman claims. In the West he appointed provincial vicars (Avitus in Gaul, John and Sallustius in Spain), a title the local bishops accepted out of mutual ambition. In the East, under the pretext of upholding Chalcedon, he sent carefully instructed legates to Emperor Anastasius. To avoid endorsing the canons that equalized Old and New Rome, he professed to recognize only Nicaea. The legates recorded every honor shown them in minute detail, creating lasting documentary precedents. Despite Eastern emperors’ willingness to concede much for Western support, Roman success remained incomplete. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

Hormisdas’s legates, accustomed to command rather than consult, met firm resistance from Patriarch John of Constantinople, who rejected their claim to jurisdiction and asserted his own authority. Emperor Anastasius, offended, dismissed them under harsh conditions. Under the orthodox emperor Justin a synod was held at Constantinople in which the patriarch continued to be styled “Ecumenical,” showing that the East did not concede Roman supremacy. Baronius interprets the Eastern request for Roman legates and mutual communion as proof of growing Roman jurisdiction; the author replies that fraternal invitation and the mutual title “brother and fellow minister” prove the opposite. Hormisdas’ required a libellus [i.e., written document] with its strong Petrine claims, which was resisted by the Constantinopolitan patriarch; a compromise formula was adopted, but the customary address remained that of equal colleagues, not of a superior and subjects. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 16 – Summary 

Around the year 524, When Emperor Justin seized the churches held by the Arians, the Arian king Theodoric of Italy sent Pope John I (with Roman senators) as his legate to demand their restoration, threatening retaliation against Catholics in Italy. Sources differ on the reception: Nicephorus reports that John insisted on sitting above the patriarch of Constantinople; Marcellinus places him on the left; the Liber Pontificalis claims Justin humbled himself and adored the Pope. Baronius attempts to soften or reinterpret these accounts in Rome’s favor. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

Theodoric, angered by the honors shown to Pope John I in Constantinople (or suspecting disloyalty), imprisoned him at Ravenna on his return; John died there. Later legend turned John into a martyr and invented a story of Theodoric’s soul being cast into a volcanic pit, but contemporary evidence does not support the martyrdom claim. Theodoric, seeing papal elections corrupted by force and ambition, intervened to secure the orderly choice of Felix IV. His successor Athalaric (also Arian) likewise acted at the request of the Roman clergy to curb simony and ease certain legal burdens on them. Baronius condemns these Gothic rulers as tyrannical barbarians for involving themselves in papal elections, yet overlooks that similar measures had earlier been taken by Odoacer to prevent bloodshed, and that the Romans themselves sought Athalaric’s help. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 17 – Summary 

After the death of Felix (c. 530), Rome again split between rival claimants, Boniface and Dioscorus. Dioscorus’s death after eighteen days left Boniface II in possession. To prevent future disorders he obtained a synodal decree allowing him to designate his own successor and named the deacon Vigilius; when Vigilius appeared too eager, Boniface reversed course, charged him with treason, and burned the document—thereby claiming that the Holy Spirit alone directs papal elections. 

In a letter to Eulalius, Boniface asserted a Petrine authority over the universal Church, comparing the necessary superiority of one pastor over others to that of archangels over angels. By this authority, he claimed, his legates had restored the Church of Carthage to Roman communion—the same African church that a century earlier, under Aurelius and with Augustine present, had rejected both Roman legates ‘a latere’ [i.e., confidential representatives] and appeals across the sea. Boniface portrayed the earlier African resistance as diabolically inspired pride and presented Eulalius’s submission as a humble recognition of Roman privileges. 

Mornay argues that any such submission was extracted from an Africa already shattered by Vandal conquest and Arian domination. If the original controversy had been of small moment, as Bellarmine claimed, the Roman anathema that fell upon so many African bishops (including, by implication, Augustine) becomes all the more indefensible. Baronius’s attempt to dismiss the letter as a forgery is answered by noting that Catholic controversialists themselves produced it and that it stands in the authentic collections approved by Gregory XIII. Boniface’s further boast that Justin and Justinian sent him professions of faith is discounted, since the Emperors regularly sent such statements to other bishops simply to advertise their orthodoxy. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

Despite imperial professions of faith and Justinian’s legislation, Roman ambition continued unchecked. After Boniface’s death, papal elections were so openly corrupted by the purchase of senators’ votes that the Roman Senate issued a decree nullifying all such contracts and treating the participants as guilty of sacrilege. The Senate and the Defender of the Roman Church then appealed to the Arian king Athalaric, who confirmed the decree by royal law addressed to Pope John. The law recounts that sacred vessels had even been pledged to finance electoral promises and orders the Senate’s decision enforced. Athalaric further commanded that both the royal and senatorial enactments be inscribed on marble and set up before St. Peter’s as a public and perpetual testimony—leaving a lasting mark of shame on the Roman clergy. Baronius’s attempt to credit the initiative solely to the pope finds no support in the sources. 

[N. B. The shame was the public exposure of the open corruption in the election of the bishop of Rome. 

Specifically: 

Candidates (or their agents) had been buying the votes of senators with money. 

In the process they had extorted promises that even drained the resources of the poor. 

Sacred vessels belonging to the Church had been pledged or put up for sale to finance these electoral bribes. 

Athalaric ordered that both the Senate’s decree condemning these practices and his own confirming law be cut into marble tablets and permanently displayed in front of the atrium of St. Peter’s. The inscription stood as a public, enduring record that the Roman clergy had sunk to simony and the trafficking of holy things in order to seize the papal office. That permanent public monument is what the text calls a lasting mark of ignominy (shame) branded upon them. It no longer exists today.] 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 18 – Summary 

The Roman Bishops’ persistent appetite for domination repeatedly drew them into the power struggles of the Gothic kings who ruled Italy. Those kings, in turn, frequently intervened in papal elections—more by purchased influence than by genuine favor—and then employed the newly elected Popes as their own emissaries. Thus, Theodatus sent the newly chosen Agapetus to Justinian to excuse the murder of Amalasuntha, and afterward imposed Silverius (son of Hormisdas) as Agapetus’s successor without proper deliberation, forcing reluctant clergy to subscribe. 

Silverius’s tenure was short. The empress Theodora (a Eutychian), through her agent Vigilius, offered the papal office and large sums of gold in exchange for a secret promise to abolish the Council of Chalcedon and to write letters confirming the faith of the monophysite leaders. Vigilius accepted. When he reached Italy, he found Silverius already ordained, so he bribed Belisarius with a further promise of gold to remove him. Belisarius summoned Silverius to the palace, accused him of treasonous correspondence with the Goths (letters that had been forged for the purpose), and, after repeated summonses, lured him from sanctuary. Silverius entered the palace alone and was never seen again by his supporters. The next day Belisarius ordered the clergy to elect a new Pope; under his pressure Vigilius was ordained and Silverius was banished to Patara in Lycia.  

Once in office, Vigilius delayed fulfilling his promises to Theodora and Belisarius. The local bishop of Patara appealed to the emperor on Silverius’s behalf, and Justinian ordered the exile recalled and the forged letters examined. When Silverius returned to Italy, Vigilius, fearing deposition, demanded that Silverius be handed over to him—otherwise, he declared, he could not carry out what was required of him. The episode marks a striking advance of intrigue, simony, and imperial manipulation within the Roman See. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

Liberatus reports that Anthimus, under pressure from Agapetus, returned his pallium and left the see; Agapetus then ordained Mennas in his place. Justinian’s Novel 42, however, states that Anthimus was condemned and deposed by the common vote of both Agapetus and a Constantinopolitan synod. Baronius tries to read this as a unilateral exercise of papal plenitude of power, but the language and the necessity of a synod refute that interpretation. Justinian further insists that imperial confirmation regularly accompanies such priestly sentences. Agapetus’s own synodical letter speaks in the name of the whole assembly and records that Mennas was received by the Church of Constantinople with the consent of clergy, people, and emperors. Nothing in the episode demonstrates an act of papal omnipotence. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 19  

Vigilius having died on the journey, Pelagius I succeeds. He, because Justinian had nominated him, in order to gratify him, by his own authority compels the bishops of Italy, without consulting them, to receive the fifth universal Constantinopolitan synod. And those [bishops] were complaining that few Western bishops had been present; not a single metropolitan. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

Year 556: Many northern Italian bishops—especially those of Liguria, Venetia, and Istria, led by Macedonius of Aquileia, Honoratus of Milan, and Maximianus of Ravenna—refused to accept the Fifth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople II). Fearing that it had compromised the definition of Chalcedon, they insisted on examining the whole matter themselves and assembled at Aquileia to deliberate. When Macedonius died during these delays, Honoratus of Milan promptly consecrated Paulinus as his successor at Aquileia. The assembled bishops then formally rejected the Constantinopolitan synod and withdrew from the authority of the Roman see. 

Pope Pelagius I appealed to the imperial general Narses, asking him to arrest the leading dissenters and send them to the emperor at Constantinople, and to coerce the rest by force of law. Notably, Pelagius did not complain about Paulinus’s irregular consecration or the lack of a pallium; instead, he stressed the injury done to imperial authority. Narses complied and tried to suppress the resistance, but was himself cut off from their communion for doing so. Pelagius pressed further, demanding that at least Paulinus and Honoratus be sent bound to Constantinople. Narses finally arrested some and drove others into flight (Vitalis of Altinum fled as far as Mainz). 

Even in the suburbicarian province of Tuscany, Pelagius was not obeyed. In letters to several Tuscan bishops he complained that they had withdrawn from his communion and omitted his name from the liturgy. These bishops clearly did not regard the Roman see as immune from error; Pelagius was forced to send them a confession of faith to clear himself. The resistance hardened into the lasting schism of Aquileia: the bishops of Venice and Istria elevated their own metropolitan to the rank of patriarch, an office the Roman bishops were never able to extinguish. 

THE ADVANCE OF INIQUITY # 20  

The Constantinopolitan synod, and the second of Chalcedon and the fifth universal [councils], had equalized the Constantinopolitan bishop with the Roman in all dignities and privileges, as we have seen, in proportion to the place which each city then held in temporal affairs—equal, except only for the prerogative of the first see. But the Roman [bishop] bore this with difficulty, impatient of an equal no less than the Constantinopolitan of a superior. Therefore, as the Roman strives in all his acts to conduct himself as universal, John the Fourth, called the Faster, bishop of Constantinople, thinking it necessary to forestall him, endeavors to exercise the authority of the Oecumenical [bishop]; and this about the year 580, the more boldly because he sees the imperial throne established at Constantinople, the seat of the Exarchate at Ravenna, and Rome itself besieged by the Lombards—the Roman bishop consequently reduced to such straits that Pelagius II, elected during the siege upon the death of Benedict I, cannot send to the emperor to obtain his consent. Wherefore it comes about that, the siege having been raised by rains, it is necessary for the deacon Gregory to go to Constantinople, who conciliates the emperor, because, says Platina, “Nothing had yet been done by the clergy in electing the pontiff unless the emperor had approved his election.” And we reckon this attempt of the Constantinopolitan bishop among the advances of ecclesiastical tyranny, because thereafter, with singular cleverness, the Roman bishops convert this impious audacity to their own use and increase, so that the Constantinopolitan seems only to have sharpened their taste and stirred up their boldness. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

After the Lombard siege of Rome was lifted, Pelagius II wrote to the bishops who had gathered in Constantinople at the summons of John the Faster. He declared their assembly illegitimate: without Roman authority it was no synod but a mere conventicle, and those who remained in it risked losing communion with the Apostolic See. 

He rejected outright the title “Universal Bishop.” No patriarch, he insisted, had ever used so profane a word. If even the “Supreme Patriarch” (a rank Pelagius claimed for the Roman see) were called universal, the title of patriarch would be stripped from all the others. Far better that no one seizes an honor that diminishes his brothers. Therefore, no one should ever be addressed as universal in letters. 

This passage entered Gratian’s Decretum almost verbatim (Distinction 99, Nullus), with the explicit addition that “not even the Roman pontiff is to be called universal.” 

Pelagius reinforced the warning with two arguments. First, the devil is already fastening his teeth on the Church’s leading members; when such pride appears among priests, Antichrist himself is near—the one who “exalts himself above all that is called God” (2 Thessalonians 2). John, by claiming the title, was running ahead of that figure. Second, the claim to universality, however cloaked in humility, attempts to appropriate to a single bishop what belongs only to the one Head, Christ—the same pride with which the tempter first approached Adam. 

If the title is allowed, the honor of every patriarch is denied, the one who claims it risks perishing in error, and no bishop remains in the truth. The only safe course is to stand firm and neither give nor accept the false name of “universal.” 

THE ADVANCEMENT OF INIQUITY # 21 – Summary 

Earlier councils had placed the bishop of Constantinople on equal footing with the Roman bishop in dignity (except for Rome’s formal primacy of the first see). Rome resented the equality. Around 580, while Rome was besieged by the Lombards and the imperial court was firmly established in the East, John the Faster of Constantinople seized the opportunity to claim the title of “Ecumenical” bishop. After the siege lifted, the newly elected Pelagius II still needed imperial approval and sent the deacon Gregory to obtain it.  Mornay regards John’s claim as a step in the growth of ecclesiastical tyranny—one that the Roman bishops later appropriated and turned to their own advantage. 

THE OPPOSITION – Summary 

After the Lombard siege of Rome was lifted, Pelagius II wrote to the bishops assembled in Constantinople under John the Faster. He declared their gathering illegitimate without Roman authority—no true synod, but a mere conventicle—and warned that those who remained in it risked losing communion with the Apostolic See. 

He rejected the title “Universal Bishop” as utterly improper. No patriarch had ever used so profane a word. If even the “Supreme Patriarch” (the rank Pelagius claimed for Rome) were called “Universal,” the very name of patriarch would be taken from all the others. No one should seize an honor that diminishes his brothers. Therefore, no one is ever to be addressed as “Universal” in letters. 

This passage entered Gratian’s Decretum almost verbatim (Distinction 99, Nullus), with the explicit statement that “not even the Roman Pontiff is to be called Universal.” 

Pelagius reinforced the warning with two arguments. First, the devil is already fastening his teeth on the Church’s leading members; when such pride appears among priests, Antichrist himself is near—the one who “exalts himself above all that is called God” (2 Thessalonians 2). John, by claiming the title, was a forerunner of that figure. Second, the claim to universality, however cloaked in humility, attempts to appropriate to a single bishop what belongs only to the one Head, Christ—the same pride with which the tempter first approached Adam. 

If the title is allowed, the honor of every patriarch is denied, the claimant risks perishing in error, and no bishop remains in the truth. The only safe course is to stand firm and neither give nor accept the false name of “Universal.” 

THE ADVANCEMENT OF INIQUITY # 22   

Around the year 590, Gregory the Great succeeded Pelagius II [as Bishop of Rome; d. 604]. During Gregory’s pontificate, John IV (the Faster), Bishop of Constantinople, continued pressing the claim [of ‘Universal Bishop’] he had already begun. By God’s singular providence this controversy needed to be pursued with greater sharpness, so that the Roman bishops—and Gregory above all—would be forced to pronounce judgment against themselves with their own mouths. 

The emperor Maurice supported John, whose See lay in the imperial capital, and thereby strengthened his own political position. In letters to Gregory, he urged him to maintain peace and concord with John. Gregory, though he professed contentment with a humbler title, did not for that reason cease extending his own authority. 

THE OPPOSITION to the Title of ‘Universal Bishop’ 

Thus, offended by this title, Gregory writes to Emperor Maurice and to the Augusta [i.e., the Empress Constantina]. To the Augusta indeed [he says] that Maurice has done what became a religious lord, in giving such commands to the priests; but, he continues, “By the almighty Lord I beg that you do not permit the times of your piety to be stained by the elation of one man”—alluding perpetually to that ὑπεραιρόμενον [‘exaltation of oneself’] cited in the second chapter of the second epistle to the Thessalonians— “or give any assent whatsoever to so perverse a word.”  

[N. B. Maurice ordered the Roman side to drop the controversy, accept the situation, and maintain ecclesiastical harmony rather than continue protesting the title. Gregory acknowledges that such an order was appropriate for a Christian emperor to give, but then immediately begs the empress (and Maurice) not to allow the Church to be stained by that one man’s prideful claim.] 

Likewise: “It is very sad that it should be patiently endured that, the brothers being despised, the aforesaid brother and fellow bishop of mine should try to be called ‘Bishop’ alone.” And therefore, for Gregory to be called ‘universal’ or ‘sole bishop’ is altogether the same thing. “And in this pride of his, what else is designated but that the times of Antichrist are already near? Because he is plainly imitating him (Lucifer) who, despising the legions of angels in their social joy, tried to break forth to the height of singularity, saying, ‘I will exalt my throne above the stars of heaven… and I will be like the Most High.’” 

To Maurice, in the same sense, [he wrote]: “It is clear to all who know the Gospel that by the Lord’s voice the care of the whole Church was committed to the holy Peter, prince of all the apostles,” etc. “The care of the whole Church and the principate is committed to him, and yet he is not called ‘Universal Apostle;’ and yet, the most holy man, my fellow-priest John, tries to be called ‘Universal Bishop.’ I am compelled to cry out and say, ‘O times, O manners!’ Behold, all things in the parts of Europe have been handed over to the law of the barbarians. Cities destroyed, camps overthrown, provinces depopulated, no cultivator inhabits the land; yet the priests, who ought to be lying in tears on the pavement in ashes, seek for themselves names of vanity and glory in new and profane words.” By which words no one fails to see that the title of “Universal” is purely condemned—no less in anyone else than in John himself. Wherefore, following as it were opposite footsteps, he first wished to be called “servant of the servants”; whose example his successors imitated. 

Gregory proceeds further and enlists Eulogius of Alexandria and also Anastasius of Antioch as supporters of his cause, that by common hand they may hinder the rigor of that man’s elevation of self, and that he may in passing gladly persuade them that the title of ‘Universal’ was once offered to the Roman Bishop by the Council of Chalcedon—which, as we have already shown from the perpetual Acts of the synod, is false. But he returns in the meantime to this point, that he may openly say: “None of my predecessors ever consented to use this so profane word because plainly if one patriarch is called ‘Universal,’ the name of patriarch is taken away from the rest. But far be this,” he says, “far be it from a Christian mind that anyone should wish to seize this for himself. Therefore, let your holiness never name anyone ‘Universal’ in his letters.” And here he inculcates what Pelagius had said above: “Because he is near of whom it is written, ‘He is king over all the children of pride’—which I am compelled to say not without heavy grief—our brother and fellow-bishop John, despising the Lord’s commands, the apostolic precepts, and the rules of the Fathers, tries by elation to be his [Antichrist’s] forerunner, so that he may attempt to ascribe all things to himself, and all things which cohere only to the one Head, namely Christ.” 

Writing with the same candor to John of Constantinople himself: “At the time when you confessed yourself unworthy even to be called ‘Bishop,’ you have at length been brought to this, that, despising the brothers, you desire to be called ‘Bishop’ alone, etc. What will you say to Christ, the Head of the universal Church, in the examination of the last judgment, you who try to subject all His members to yourself by the appellation of ‘Universal?’ Who, I ask, is proposed for imitation in this so perverse a word, unless he (Lucifer) who, despising the legions of angels established with him in society, tried to break forth to the height of singularity, so that he might seem subject to none and alone to preside over all?” And he cites at great length the whole passage of Isaiah 14. 

“Certainly, the apostle Peter is the first member of the holy universal Church. Paul, Andrew, John—what else are they than heads of particular peoples? And yet under one Head all are members of the Church. Yet none of them ever wished to call himself ‘Universal’—a name which no one who was truly holy ever presumed to be called; no one seized for himself this rash name,” etc. “Not Peter himself, nor consequently the Roman Pontiff under the pretext of Peter.” 

But hear what follows: “’Little children, it is the last hour,’ according as Christ foretold. Pestilence and the sword rage through the world, etc. All things that were predicted are coming to pass. The king of pride is near, and—what it is impious to say—an army of priests is prepared: because they fight for the neck of elation, though he had been placed to give the leadership of humility.” The king of pride is of course Antichrist, relying on the escort of the clergy; concerning whose self-elevation both Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2 and Gregory everywhere cites from Paul. 

It is to be noted, moreover, that he gave orders to the deacon Sabinianus that he should not celebrate the solemnities of the Mass with John unless he abstained from the title of ‘Universal.’ When Cyriacus, John’s successor, persisted in the same footsteps, Gregory addresses Anastasius bishop of Antioch in these words: “In receiving the synodical letter of our brother and fellow-priest Cyriacus, it was not fitting that I should make delays for the sake of the cause of a profane word, lest I disturb the unity of the holy Church; but nevertheless I took care to admonish him concerning that same superstitious and empty word (‘Universal’), saying that he could not have peace with us unless he corrected the elation of the aforesaid word,” etc., “because if we bear this calmly we corrupt the faith of the universal Church,” etc. “And that I may be silent about the injury to your honor: if one bishop is called ‘Universal,’ the universal Church falls; if one is universal, all fall. But far be this folly, far be this levity from my ears.” Nay more, he asks Cyriacus himself by letter that in this first work he hasten to remove the word of pride by which a heavy scandal is generated in the churches. “For,” he says, “whoever desires to be honored against God is not honorable to me”—implying that he who calls himself ‘Universal’ acts against God. “And because the enemy of the almighty God, Antichrist, is near, I earnestly desire that he find nothing of his own, not only in the manners but not even in the vocabulary of the priests.” 

But because the emperor Maurice commands that under the pretext of a frivolous word no scandal arise between them, [Gregory] says: “I ask that the imperial piety consider that some things are frivolous and quite harmless, others vehemently harmful. Is it not true that when Antichrist shall say that he is God, it will be very frivolous, and yet extremely pernicious?” If we consider the quantity of the word, there are two syllables. But if we consider the weight of the iniquity, it is universal destruction. I, however, say confidently that whoever calls himself, or desires to be called, ‘Universal priest,’ in his elation is the forerunner of Antichrist because by pride he sets himself before the rest. Nor is he led into error by a dissimilar pride, because just as that perverse one wishes to appear God above all men, so whoever this man is who desires to be called priest alone, exalts himself above the other priests.” 

And in the same sense to Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria. But lest they say that Gregory reserved for himself what he wished to snatch away from John, he writes again to Eulogius: “Your Beatitude has taken care to indicate that you no longer write to certain persons those words which have proceeded from the root of vanity, and he speaks to me saying, ‘as you have commanded.’ I ask that you remove that word ‘command’ from my hearing; for I know who I am and who you are. In office you are brothers to me, in manners, fathers. I, therefore, did not command, but took care to indicate what seemed useful. Yet I do not find that Your Beatitude has been willing to retain perfectly this very thing which I brought to your memory. For I said that you ought not to write any such thing either to me or to anyone else. And behold, in the preface of the letter which you directed to me, who forbade it, you took care to imprint the word of a proud appellation, calling me ‘Universal Pope.’ I ask that your most sweet holiness not do this to me because what is offered to another more than reason requires is subtracted from you. For I do not seek to prosper by words, but by manners. Nor do I reckon that to be honor in which I know my brothers lose their own honor. For my honor is the honor of the universal Church. My honor is the solid vigor of my brothers. Then am I truly honored when the honor due is not denied to each one. For if your holiness calls me ‘Universal Pope,’ it denies that which it confesses me to be—’universal.’ But far be this. Let words depart which inflate unity and wound charity.” 

This passage is inserted word for word into the Decree [Distinction 99, chapter Primatus], so that Gregory the Thirteenth, finding no other remedy in reforming it, was compelled to abjure Gregory the Great. 

[N. B. Morney continues his history up to the year 1517. He then finishes with his conclusion which is posted above.] 

END