With the advent of the eleventh century conditions became more settled in Europe. The successive waves of invaders which had kept the nations in tumult so long had spent their force. The various races mingled, and a new order of society began to take shape — the feudal system, with its rigid distinction between the classes. At the top were the nobility who owned the land, below them a class of armed, professional warriors, while at the bottom were the peasants who cultivated the land and were little more than slaves. Gradually towns began to multiply and the artisan and merchant classes developed. The Church of Rome, meanwhile, was growing in importance and power, the bishops rivaling the nobles in their prestige and influence, and the Papacy was encroaching more and more on the rights of temporal princes. Its Babylonish features were more and more evident. There is a mystic element about the rise of the Papacy which clearly points to supernatural influences. Its gradual ascent to the pinnacle of power which it finally reached was the work of no one man, nor was it consecutive. There were periods of eclipse. Behind its phases and its final achievements can be discerned the working of Satan, whom the Lord called the “prince of this world” (John 12:3131Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. (John 12:31)) and whom the Apostle Paul designated “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:44In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. (2 Corinthians 4:4)). God, in His providence, administered checks from time to time, but the “spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:22Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: (Ephesians 2:2) JND) was developing his malignant design, which had in view to corrupt the Church with the principles of the world and place at its head a man who would be subservient to him.
Thus was the Church alienated from its true Head, whose life here had been marked by lowliness and meekness, who had said explicitly, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:3636Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. (John 18:36)), and of His disciples, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:1616They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. (John 17:16)). The Church which professed the name of Christ was now ruled by haughty tyrants who scrupled not to plunge nations into war and pour out the blood of untold thousands in the achievement of their reckless ambitions. To realize the papal ambitions, nation was set against nation, and millions marched under the banner of the cross to destroy men for whom the Saviour died. Yet even true believers within the pale of the Romish system were so deluded by the darkness that shrouded the medieval world that they failed to see the appalling inconsistency of these outrageous crusades. But, as the Scripture says, those that dwell on the earth had been made drunk with the wine of her fornications. (See Revelation 17:22With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. (Revelation 17:2).)
The venality of some of the earlier popes brought the papal office into contempt, but there arose in this century a man of a different character who raised the Papacy to an elevation it had never before reached. This was Hildebrand, who became afterwards Pope Gregory VII. The details of his life are hardly germane to our history, but as he was one of the principal architects of the papal edifice, a reference must be made to him. Before he became pope, he had acted as adviser and deputy for several preceding pontiffs, so that when he reached the papal chair, he was already fully equipped for the lofty heights on which it was now placed.
As early as the ninth century a document had been fabricated called the Decretals of Isidore. This lying document attributed extraordinary powers to the Pope, among which was the power of the “keys,” authority to bind or loose the souls of men — attributing to him, in a word, an authority that belonged to God alone. To this was afterwards added the book of Canon law which gave him power to change doctrines of the Church at his will, making him the sole arbiter of faith. Moreover, in the eleventh century the election of the Pope was taken over by the college of cardinals. In theory, the Pope was now the supreme power in the world. It needed only the right man to make the theory effective in practice. This Gregory VII did. The chief prince in Europe at that time was Henry IV of Germany. It was not long before he and the Pope came into conflict. Gregory challenged the Emperor on what seemed very plausible religious grounds, insisting that in future no layman was to appoint anyone to ecclesiastical office, as had often been the custom in the past. Such appointments had been frequently made by the temporal head of the realm. A quarrel ensued. The Pope summoned the Emperor to appear before him at Rome and answer for his disobedience. He followed this up by excommunicating the Emperor and released his subjects from their oath of fidelity. The princes of his own dominions rose up against him and sided with the Pope. The proud emperor humbled himself. In the depth of winter he went across the Alps to appear before the imperious pontiff at the castle of Canossa. For three days he was kept shivering outside in the cold in the garb of a penitent, finally to bow in abject acknowledgment of his guilt before Gregory. A revulsion of feeling took place in the Emperor’s heart, and war between him and the Pope was declared. The Emperor had an anti-pope elected, and the Pope an anti-emperor. The Emperor’s arms prevailed. Rome was attacked and captured, the anti-pope enthroned and the rival popes excommunicated each other. Gregory VII died not long after this, but his successors struggled and fought and intrigued to maintain their authority over the kings of Europe.
The power of Rome lay in her ability to terrorize men. To the masses, whose minds were darkened by error and superstition, the Church represented God. The fears of the superstitious were preyed upon and the consciences of men held in an awful bondage. From the highest to the lowest, men were subject to the terrible ban of excommunication, which virtually outlawed them from society. Anyone who showed kindness or rendered assistance was also excommunicated. We see how this worked in the case of the Emperor of Germany, but if a monarch’s subjects remained loyal to him, there was the further penalty of interdict, by which the whole land was deprived of all the offices of the Church. No marriage could be celebrated. Even the dead remained unburied. The effect of this on the minds of the superstitious and the consciences of those piously inclined can well be imagined. The reader will recall that it was the Pope’s interdict that brought King John of England to his knees and compelled him to receive his crown from the papal legate.
While the power of the popes was exalted to such heights, the corruptions within the Church continually increased. The unscriptural doctrine of purgatory was nothing new, nor the reverence for relics, nor the worship of images, but to these things other abominations were added as time went on. The Lord’s supper had long since lost its simple character. It now became a sacrifice offered by the priest to make atonement for sins. The doctrine of transubstantiation — the notion that the consecration of the bread and wine transformed them into the actual body and blood of Christ — had been mooted in the ninth century. It was confirmed in 1215 by Pope Innocent III as an article of faith. But the corruption was carried further and the consecrated wafer made an object of worship, and when it was raised, the people were made to fall upon their knees and worship it. Auricular confession (the priest’s pretended authority to forgive sins), indulgences, absolutions and dispensations gave the Roman hierarchy an awful, if false, power over the souls of men. The place of the only Mediator, Christ Jesus, was taken by sinful men claiming the right to forgive sins on payment of money and enforcing their claims by holding the terrors of hell over the consciences of their dupes. All this brought a crop of evil too awful to contemplate. Every sin had its price and could be committed with impunity.
The celibacy of the clergy had been the custom of the Church for a long time, but it was not universally followed. Gregory VII determined to enforce it strictly. Those who had wives were ordered to dismiss them, and if they refused, they were taken from them by force. Many resigned their ecclesiastical appointments rather than sacrifice their wives. Happy homes were broken up and many were driven to despair or even insanity, while the passions of others found an outlet in secret sin. This unnatural and unscriptural law was another of the abominations which filled the cup of the harlot of Rome.
It seems that from very early times, piously inclined persons had sought to escape from the world and live in solitude, thinking thereby to become purer and more spiritual — a practice to which the New Testament lends no countenance. Such were the early anchorites or hermits. In the fourth century, communities of monks came into existence. In the Dark Ages the monasteries had often proved the refuge of true piety and learning, and, as we have seen, many a missionary went forth from their walls. But the system degenerated. In attempting to escape from the world, monks and nuns took the world with them in their own hearts, and the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life in due course filled these communities. Various attempts were made to reform them, and new and stricter orders came into being.
By the Middle Ages the monkish orders had become numerous and monasteries had greatly multiplied. They were exempted from the superintendence of the local bishop and made directly responsible to the Vatican. Thereby, their fortunes were bound up with the Papacy, of which they became the willing and obedient instruments, and they were contaminated by its vices of ambition and avarice and, provided they did not displease their master, were largely a law unto themselves. The corruption of the monastic orders was for long a recognized scandal in Christendom. Complaints were voiced at the Council of Paris in 1212 and at that of the Lateran in 1215. Fresh orders arose and still stricter rules were enforced, but decay set in again and again. Such were the evils of a system both unscriptural and unnatural. On the other hand, these institutions carried out various charitable services. The poor found relief, the traveller a resting-place, or the outcast a refuge, while many an earnest, if deluded, follower of Christ spent his life within their walls. They were one of the great features of civilized life in the Middle Ages and one of the great bulwarks of the papal regime.
Before leaving this subject, we may briefly mention the rise of the mendicant orders, the Friars, who wandered from place to place and lived on the alms of the people. These began with the Dominicans, who were commissioned to convert the Albigenses. Contemporary with them arose the Franciscan order.
Out of the Dominican order rose that terrible instrument of persecution, the Inquisition. These traveling orders became, in course of time, competitors of the regular clergy, whose functions they, to some extent, usurped. They became the universal emissaries of the Pope. They penetrated the homes of the rich and the poor, became constant attendants on the deathbed of the rich, arranged wills to their own advantage, and thus diverted the wealth of the people to their own or the Church’s benefit. Beginning with vows of poverty, they acquired both wealth and influence.
Another evil fruit of popery was the crusades. Pope Sylvester II urged the warriors of Europe to turn the swords they used on one another against the infidel — against those who dominated the Holy Land — promising them that thereby they would gain pardon for all their crimes. That the abominable notion that men could atone for their murders and thefts and adulteries by slaying the heathen could ever have been seriously proposed and really believed only shows the depths of Satanic darkness into which Christendom had sunk. For two centuries the crusades continued, some of them consisting of bands of unarmed children who ventured forth with the fanatical idea that their very appearance would overwhelm the infidel, only to perish miserably before reaching their destination. It is said that over seven million so-called Christians perished by sword or famine or pestilence, and half as many Saracens died as a result of these wicked and foolish campaigns. The flower of Europe’s manhood was thus squandered, and the kings and nobles were weakened and impoverished. In the end all was lost, and by 1291 Palestine was again in infidel hands. Even this was turned to account by papal craft, for in 1300 the goal of pilgrimage was skillfully changed from Jerusalem to Rome. But the wealth and power of the Papacy still increased and the next crusades were directed against those harmless followers of Christ, the Albigenses.
In this period the Church became the outstanding feature of the world. The treasures of human art and skill were devoted to it; the wealth and glory of the world flowed into it. It is said that in the twelfth century one-half of the cultivated land of Europe was ecclesiastical property. Kings bowed before the man who pretended to be its head; the masses were slaves to its dogmas and superstitions. To maintain its malign authority and keep men under its evil spell, it denied them the one source of light and life, the Holy Scriptures. The time came when to possess or read them was a capital crime. Things got worse rather than better up to the time of the Reformation. In their lust for power and by their continual extortions, the popes came into conflict with the secular powers. At times there were rival popes who attempted to excommunicate each other, and they strove for the support of rival political factions in Europe. The general state of the clergy and the people was utterly corrupt. A Roman Catholic historian has written:
“The people were faithful only in name; princes and subjects, clergy and laity had all alike departed from purity of faith and morals. Sacrilege and violence, gross fornication, injustice, luxury and a long catalog of other sins betokened that the love of many had waxed cold and that faith was no longer found in the earth. The bishops were grossly negligent, dumb dogs, not able to bark, acceptors of persons, leaving the sheep to wolves as hirelings, given to simony, and followers of Gehazi.”
Frederic II of Germany, writing to King Henry III of England, said, “The Roman Church burns with avarice; it is not ashamed to despoil sovereign princes and make them tributary; it is known by its fruits. It sends on every side legates with power to punish, to suspend, and to excommunicate — not to diffuse the Word of God, but to amass money. It professes to be our mother and nurse, while it is our stepmother and the source of every evil.”
Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, said of the bishops, “They are ministers of Christ, but servants of Antichrist; the gold on their spurs, their reins and saddles is brighter than on their altars; their tables are splendid with dishes and cups, thence their drunkenness and gluttony; their larders are stored with provisions and their cellars overflow with wine — and for such rewards as these, men seek to become bishops, for these things are not bestowed on merit, but on things which walk in darkness.”
He wrote scathingly, too, of the intemperance, feasting and revels of the monks and their voluptuous prodigality.