What Has Religion Done For Mankind?

CHAPTER XXI

The Falling Away from Christianity

THE virgin congregation of the first century underwent much persecution at the instigation of the Serpent's seed, and yet it grew and spread to all nations. This not proving successful at all, the Serpent determined upon a more cunning strategy, the perverting of the truth by apostates inside the congregation. Jesus warned of this. In his parable he foretold that Satan the enemy would sow weeds, imitation Christians, among the wheat, "the sons of the kingdom," particularly after the twelve apostles fell asleep in death. —Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, NW.

² Peter drew an illustration from the history of the Israelite people and said that as false prophets arose among them, "there will also be false teachers among you. These very ones will quietly bring in destructive sects and will disown even the owner that bought them, bringing speedy destruction upon themselves. Furthermore, many will turn out of the way and follow their acts of loose conduct." (2 Peter 2:1-3, NW) In farewell warning to the overseers from the congregation at Ephesus Paul said: "I know that after my going away oppressive wolves will enter in among you and will not treat the flock with tenderness, and from among you yourselves men will rise and speak

twisted things to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore keep awake." (Acts 20:29-31, NW) Was it any wonder that Jude found it necessary to write the Christians to "put up a hard fight for the faith that was once for all time delivered to the holy ones"? —Jude 3, NW.

³ About thirty years later, or about two years before the end of the first century, John, the only surviving apostle, disclosed how far apostasy had progressed, saying: "Young children, it is the last hour, and, just as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now there have come to be many antichrists; from which fact we gain the knowledge that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of our kind; for if they had been of our kind, they would have remained with us. But they went out that it might be shown up that not all are of our kind." That was why he urged them to continue remaining in union with the heavenly Father and with his Son. —1 John 2:18,19, 24, NW.

⁴ Time proved the accuracy of these prophetic warnings. During the next century the faithful Christians concerned themselves with assembling the inspired writings of Jesus' disciples that thus they might have all these together with the Hebrew Scriptures and so have the complete Bible. These they began binding together in codex form, that is, in book form with separate pages and with lids. The professed Christians may not have become prominent in worldly affairs, but many of

them began to yield to the popularity of the Greek philosophy. They showed they placed such Babylonish philosophy above the Holy Scriptures, for they endeavored to wrest the Scriptures to harmonize with such Grecian philosophy, so compromising the truth. In the latter half of this second century Theophilus, the so-called "bishop" of Antioch in Syria, came into prominence and betrayed himself as tainted with popular paganism. Writing in Greek in defense of his religion he introduced into his doctrine the word trias (τριας), which means "triad or trinity".

⁵ A contemporary of Theophilus in Northern Africa, a Latin writer named Tertullian, of the city of Carthage opposite Italy, wrote in defense of his religion and introduced into his writings the word trinitas, which means "trinity". From then on trinitarian doctrine came to infect the belief of professed Christians more and more. Such doctrine is altogether foreign to true Christianity. The word trias (τριας) is not even found in the inspired Christian Greek Scriptures, and the word trinitas is not found in even the Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate.

⁶ Then there was Origen (A.D. 185-254) of Caesarea, famous for his Biblical criticism and his Hexapla. He yielded to the philosophy of Plato on the human soul's immortality. He was therefore led to believe in the "pre-existence of human souls, and their incarceration in bodies for offenses previously committed". (Mosheim's Institutes of Ecclesiastical History) Babylonish Hinduism this!

⁷ Due to the apostasy from the simplicity of the original Christian faith the professed Christianity became more popular as it compromised with the accepted pagan philosophies of the world. The real fusion of paganism and apostate Christianity, however, came in the first quarter of the fourth century. Constantine was fighting for control of Rome. So he turned his military might against Maxentius who had usurped the government of Italy and Africa. It took three battles to conquer him. During this military campaign for worldly political office Constantine claimed he saw a cross flaming in the heavens, beneath the sun, and displaying this inscription, In hoc signo vinces, that is, "By this sign you will conquer." The following night Christ is said to have appeared to him and to have ordered him to take for his standard an imitation of the fiery cross seen in the heavenly vision. So he had a standard made in this form, which was called the labarum.

⁸ The Roman Catholic Hierarchy claim this was a sign from heaven which led to Constantine's conversion to the Christianity of the day. But faithful upholders of the Holy Scriptures can take no such view of the matter. Jesus told his own countrymen, the Jews, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe," and he called them an adulterous and wicked gen-

eration because of always wanting a sign. Hence he said no sign would be given but the sign of the prophet Jonah who came out of the belly of the huge fish. It is absolutely unscriptural, therefore, to argue that Jesus would stultify himself and send a sign from heaven to a pagan in order to convert him to Christianity, and especially when that pagan was shedding blood with carnal weapons in order to gain political supremacy in the aggressive Roman empire. That was not the way that the Italian centurion Cornelius was converted.

⁹ Moreover, after his victory over his political opponent Maxentius, Constantine was declared by the Roman Senate to be Augustus and also Pontifex Maximus, on October 28, 312. By this Constantine became the Chief Priest of the pagan Roman religion, which was far different from getting baptized to indicate his conversion to Christianity. The fact is, he was not baptized till he fell sick twenty-five years later, in 337, the year he died. Constantine was a pagan worshiper of the sun god, and the symbol of this false god was the cross or the letter T, the initial letter of the false god Tammuz. If what Constantine saw in vision was a cross, then it was the sign of his god, for Jesus Christ was not hanged upon a cross but was hanged upon a simple stake. It was from Constantine's time onward that the symbol of the apostate Christianity which he professed to accept was the cross.

¹⁰ In January, 313, Constantine published the

memorable edict of toleration in favor of the Christians. He was politician enough to see that the religious organization of which he was Pontifex Maximus was headed for shipwreck and that the apostate Christianity of his day was a powerful religious movement in his empire. So he endeavored to get a fusion of the two religions, by a compromise from each side. He succeeded. The bishop of Rome was not Pontifex Maximus then. Constantine was, and as such this unbaptized Roman emperor called a council for the settlement of the religious issue which was dividing the professed Christians and troubling his empire. He called it to meet A.D. 325, not at Rome, but at Nice, in Asia Minor. Only 318, about one-sixth of the bishops called, came. The bishop of Rome did not preside. The emperor as Pontifex Maximus did. The sessions were not in Latin, but in Greek.

¹¹ After wrangling two months pro and con on the trinity, the unbaptized emperor, Constantine, not the bishop of Rome, decided that this should be the doctrine of the professed Christian church. The Nicene Creed upholding the trinity was drawn up in Greek, not Latin, and was enforced by the sword of the state. However, it is not enforced by the "sword of the spirit, that is, the word of God". (Ephesians 6:17, CB; Dy) Arius, who had wielded the "sword of the spirit" to prove that the trinity was not Scriptural or Christian, was banished, and the emperor sided with Athanasius. From this developed the Athanasian creed which states: "And the catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance.

... So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet there are, not three Gods, but one God." You understand?

¹² Constantine was really the first Roman Catholic pope. The Roman Senate placed him among the gods, and the apostate Christians of the East reckoned him among the saints. This, despite the fact that after his vision of the cross he killed his son, his second wife, several others of his relatives, and some of his most intimate friends. To fuse apostate Christianity more solidly with paganism, Constantine assigned the bishops political positions and thus wedded the church with the political state. So these bishops proved they did not have the pure apostolic religion, for the disciple James writes: "Religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation: and to keep one's self unspotted from this world. Adulterers, know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God."  —James 1:27; 4:4, Dy; CB.

¹³ It was the Augustine born twenty-nine years after the Nicene Council who popularized the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul among the professed Christians, despite objections by those who clung to the Holy Scriptures. Thus Augustine put pagan Plato ahead of Christ. In the following century Vigilius of Thapsus, south of Carthage, made a citation in his Latin writings which has become verses 7 and 8 of 1 John, chap-

ter 5, namely, "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." The words "in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth" are not found in any Greek manuscript till a thousand years after Vigilius; nor were they found in Jerome's Latin Vulgate, nor in any Latin manuscript before the ninth century, nor are they quoted by any of the Greek ecclesiastical writers. The words are recognized as a forgery and spurious and so have been omitted from modern Bible translations. But for centuries they have been used as the main support of the "trinity".

¹⁴ Constantine's successors followed his example in adopting the title Pontifex Maximus until Gratian, emperor of Rome of the Western Empire. (A.D. 375-383) He refused to assume the title and the insignia of Pontifex Maximus, a dignity till then considered as annexed to that of emperor. So in 378 the bishop of Rome, Damasus, took over the title, and now this title, borrowed from a pagan cult, is one of the chief designations of the pope or pontiff of Vatican City.

¹⁵ Bishop Leo I (A.D. 440-461) was the first who tried to be a totalitarian pope in the modern sense. He tried to establish the "apostolic chair" as a spiritual supremacy over every branch of the Catholic religious organization and to establish for its occupant the exclusive use of the title of

Papa (Pope) of the whole Catholic organization. In support of this he tried to prove that the bishop of Rome is the apostolic successor of Peter. Strong opposition to this was organized in both the East and the West. The general council in Ephesus, A.D. 449, treated Leo's envoys with indignity and threatened them with violence. It is said that Leo I originated the fasts of Lent and Pentecost.

¹⁶ Gregory I (A.D. 595-604) was the first to discover "purgatory". It was by means of the apparitions and visions which he related in his dialogues that he first discovered it. He claimed his discovery was because "the end of this world was at hand, and the nearer we came to the other [world] the more we discovered it!"

¹⁷ A.D. 533 Emperor Justinian addressed the bishop of Rome as the head among all the bishops of the Eastern and Western congregations of the empire. Addressing Pope John II, he said: "The victorious Justinian, the devout, the fortunate, the renowned, the triumphant, the ever august, to John, the most holy archbishop of the fostering city of Rome, and patriarch. —Rendering honor to the Apostolic See and to your Holiness . . . we do not permit that any question be raised as to anything which concerns the state of the churches, however plain and certain it be, that be not also made known to your Holiness, who is the Head of all the holy churches. . . ." —Thy Kingdom Come, pages 70-72.

¹⁸ Thus in the course of the apostasy from true

Christianity there developed a division into the clergy and the laity, reaching its culmination in an exalted hierarchy with the pope at its head. He was called the "father of fathers" (pater patrum) and "holy father", in absolute violation of Jesus' command: "Call none your father upon earth; for one is your father, who is in heaven." (Matthew 23:9, Dy; CB) In harmony with his own command Jesus never let anyone call him "father" upon earth. Sometimes he addressed others as "Son", "Daughter," and "Children". (Matthew 9:2; Mark 10:24; Luke 8:48; John 13:33; 21:5) But he never received or accepted the spiritual title "Father" from them. He reserved that term only for his heavenly Father. Only once does the expression "Holy Father" occur in the entire Bible. That is where Jesus prayed to God and said: "Holy Father, keep them in thy name whom thou hast given me." (John 17:11, Dy) It is blasphemy for any religious potentate who claims to be the "Vicar of Christ" to demand and to receive the title "Holy Father". This practice bespeaks rank apostasy.

¹⁹ The Roman Catholic cardinal, John Henry Newman, composer of the song "Lead, Kindly Light", is outspoken enough to admit that the Roman Catholic system has disobeyed God's command to avoid becoming infected with pagan religion and getting snared by it. He admits that she has continually made compromises with demonism. In 1878 he published his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. In chapter 8 he asks concerning the Roman Catholic Church:

"Had it the power, while keeping its own identity, of absorbing its antagonists, as Aaron's rod, according to St. Jerome's illustration, devoured the rods of the sorcerers of Egypt? Did it incorporate them into itself, or was it dissolved into them? Did it assimilate them into its own substance, or, keeping its name, was it simply infected by them?" Then in disbelief of Jehovah God's warning Newman answers:

"Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of evil, and to transmute the very instruments and appendages of DEMON-WORSHIP to an evangelical use, and feeling also that these usages had originally come from primitive revelations and from the instinct of nature, though they had been corrupted; and that they must invent what they needed, if they did not use what they found; and that they were moreover possessed of the very archetypes, of which paganism attempted the shadows; the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared, should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of the educated class."

Then, betraying the fusion of apostate Christianity with paganism, this British cardinal continues:

"The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields;

sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the [song] Kyrie Eleison [Lord, have mercy], are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church." —Pages 355, 371, 373, Edition of 1881.

²⁰ Michael Williams, once a leading defender of Roman Catholicism in America, contributed an article to the Brooklyn Eagle (New York) under date of February 21,1943, and in it he quoted the following statement made by the late Pope Pius XI to newspapermen in Rome:

"The Head of the Catholic Church would consider it his duty to deal with the Devil himself, to say nothing about any mortals who, hypothetically, or in reality, were merely agents of the Dictator of Diabolism, if reasonable grounds existed to support the hope that such dealings would protect, or advance, the interests of religion among mankind."

This statement, coming from the pope who made concordats with the Fascist dictator Mussolini in 1929 and the Nazi Fuehrer Hitler in 1933, is proof that the spirit of Catholicism is the same today as in the time of Constantine. In stark naked contrast to the refusal of Jesus on the mount of temptation to make any bargain with the Devil for worldly political power, the Catholic spirit is one of compromise with demonism, Babylon's religion, for world control.