6. Other Marks of Identity

 

“He Shall Speak Great Words”

 

THE little horn was to “speak great words against the Most High.” Daniel 7:25. We shall now quote a few extracts from authentic Roman Catholic sources showing the fulfillment of this prophetic utterance: Pope Leo XIII in his “Great Encyclical Letters” says: “We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty.” - p. 304. In this encyclical the pope has capitalized all pronouns referring to himself and to God.

In a large, authentic work by F. Lucii Ferraris, called “Prompta Bibliotheca Canonica Juridica Moralis Theologica,” printed at Rome, 1890, and sanctioned by the Catholic Encyclopedia (Vol. VI, p. 48), we find the following statements regarding the power of the pope:

“The Pope is of so great dignity and so exalted that he is not a mere man, but as it were God, and the vicar of God. . . .

“Hence the Pope is crowned with a triple crown, as king of heaven and of earth and of the lower regions. . . .

“So that if it were possible that the angels might err in the faith, or might think contrary to the faith, they could be judged and excommunicated by the Pope. . . .

“The Pope is as it were God on earth, sole sovereign of the faithful of Christ, chief king of kings, having plenitude of power, to whom has been entrusted by the omnipotent God direction not only of the earthly but also of the heavenly kingdom.” - Quoted in “Source Book,” (Revised Edition) pp. 409, 410. Washington, D. C.: 1927.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says of the pope:

“The sentences which he gives are to be forthwith ratified in heaven.” - Vol. XII, art. “Pope,” p. 265.

Pope Leo XIII says:

“But the supreme teacher in the Church is the Roman Pontiff. Union of minds, therefore, requires, together with a perfect accord in the one faith, complete submission and obedience of will to the Church and to the Roman Pontiff, as to God Himself.” - “The Great Encyclical Letters,” p. 193.

We leave it with the reader to decide whether or not these are “great words.” St. Alphonstis de Liguori, a sainted doctor of the Roman church, claims the same power for the Roman priests. He says:

“The priest has the power of the keys, or the power of delivering sinners from hell, of making them worthy of paradise, and of changing them from the slaves of Satan into the children of God. And God himself is obliged to abide by the judgment of his priests. . . . The Sovereign Master of the universe only follows the servant by confirming in heaven all that the latter decides upon earth. “Dignity and Duties of the Priest,” pp. 27, 28. New York: Benziger Brothers., Printers to the Holy Apostolic See, 1888.

“Innocent III has written: ‘Indeed, it is not too much to say that in view of the sublimity of their offices the priests are so many gods.” - Id., p. 86. These must truly be called “great words.”

 

A Persecuting Power

 

The little horn was also to “wear out the saints of the Most High.” Daniel 7:25. That is, it was to persecute them till they were literally worn out. Has the Papacy fulfilled this part of the prophecy’? In order to do Roman Catholics no injustice, we shall quote from unquestioned authorities among them. And, since they persecute people for “heresy,” we must first let them define what they mean by “heresy.” In the New Catholic Dictionary, published by the Universal Knowledge Foundation, a Roman Catholic institution, New York, 1929, we read:

“Heresy (Gr., hairesis, choice), deciding for oneself what one shall believe and practise.” Art. “Heresy,” p. 440.

According to this definition any one who will not blindly submit to papal authority, but will read the Bible, deciding for himself what he shall believe, is a “heretic.” What official stand has the Catholic Church taken in regard to such heretics? This we find stated in the Catholic Encyclopedia in the following words:

“In the Bull ‘Ad exstirpanda’ (1252) Innocent IV says: ‘When those adjudged guilty of heresy have been given up to the civil power by the bishop or his representative, or the Inquisition, the podesta or chief magistrate of the city shall take them at once, and shall, within five days at the most, execute the laws made against them.’ . . . Nor could any doubt remain as to what civil regulations were meant, for the passages which ordered the burning of impenitent heretics were inserted in the papal decretals from the imperial constitutions ‘Commissis nobis’ and ‘Inconsutibilem tunicam.’ The aforesaid Bull ‘Ad exstirpanda’ remained thenceforth a fundamental document of the Inquisition, renewed or reinforced by several popes, Alexander IV (1254-61), Clement IV (1265-68), Nicolas IV (1288-92), Boniface VIII (1294-1303), and others. The civil authorities, therefore, were enjoined by the popes, under pain of excommunication to execute the legal sentences that condemned impenitent heretics to the stake. It is to be noted that excommunication itself was no trifle, for, if the person excommunicated did not free himself from excommunication within a year, he was held by the legislation of that period to be a heretic, and incurred all the penalties that affected heresy.” - Vol. VIII, p. 34 (See also “Dictionary of the Inquisition,” in “Illustrations of Popery,” J. P. Challender, pp. 377-386, New York, 1838; and “History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, H. C. Lea, Vol. 1. pp. 337 338, New York. 1888).

This Encyclopedia was printed in 1910, and bears the sanction of the Catholic authorities, and of their “censor,” so that here is up-to-date authority showing that the Roman church sanctions persecution. The Roman church here acknowledges, that, when she was in power, she forced the civil government to burn those whom she termed heretics, and the government officials who failed to execute her laws, became heretics by that neglect, and suffered the punishment of heretics. Professor Alfred Baudrillart, a Roman Catholic scholar in France, who is now a Catholic Cardinal, says:

“The Catholic Church is a respecter of conscience and of liberty. . . . She has, and she loudly proclaims that she has, a ‘horror of blood.’ Nevertheless when confronted by heresy she does not content herself with persuasion; arguments of an intellectual and moral order appear to her insufficient, and she has recourse to force, to corporal punishment, to torture. She creates tribunals like those of the Inquisition, she calls the laws of the State to her aid, if necessary she encourages a crusade, or a religious war and all her ‘horror of blood’ practically culminates into urging the secular power to shed it, which proceeding is almost more odious - for it is less frank - than shedding it herself. Especially did she act thus in the sixteenth century with regard to Protestants. Not content to reform morally, to preach by example, to convert people by eloquent and holy missionaries, she lit in Italy, in the Low Countries, and above all in Spain, the funeral piles of the Inquisition. In France under Francis I and Henry II, in England under Mary Tudor, she tortured the heretics, whilst both in France and Germany during the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century if she did not actually begin, at any rate she encouraged and actively aided, the religious wars. No one will deny that we have here a great scandal to our contemporaries. . . .

“Indeed, even among our friends and our brothers we find those who dare not look this problem in the face. They ask permission from the Church to ignore or even deny all those acts and institutions in the past which have made orthodoxy compulsory (This explains why some Catholic authors deny that their church ever persecuted).“The Catholic Church, the Renaissance, and Protestantism,” pp. 182-184. London: 1908. This book bears the sanction of the Roman Catholic authorities, and of their “censor.”

Andrew Steinmetz says:

“Catholics easily account for their devotion to the Holy See, in spite of its historical abominations, which, however, very few of them are aware of their accredited histories in common use, ‘with permission of authority,’ veiling the subject with painful dexterity.” - “History of the Jesuits,” Vol. I, p. 13. London: 1848.

Dr. C. H. Lea says:

“In view of the unvarying policy of the Church during the three centuries under consideration, and for a century and a half later, there is a typical instance of the manner in which history is written to order, in the quiet assertion of the latest Catholic historian of the Inquisition that ‘the Church took no part in the corporal punishment of heretics.”‘ - “History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages,” Vol. I, p. 540. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1888.

 

Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241) made the following decree for the destruction of all heretics, which is binding on civil rulers:

“Temporal princes shall be reminded and exhorted, and if needs be, compelled by spiritual censures, to discharge every one of their functions: and that, as they desire to be reckoned and held faithful, so, for the defense of the faith, let them publicly make oath that they will endeavour, bona fide with all their might, to extirpate from their territories all heretics marked by the Church; so that when anyone is about to assume any authority, whether spiritual or temporal, he shall be held bound to confirm his title by this oath. And if a temporal prince, being required and admonished by the Church, shall neglect to purge his kingdom from this heretical pravity, the metropolitan and other provincial bishops shall bind him in fetters of excommunication; and if he obstinately refuse to make satisfaction this shall be notified within a year to the Supreme Pontiff, that then he may declare his subjects absolved from their allegiance, and leave their lands to be occupied by Catholics, who, the heretics being exterminated, may possess them unchallenged, and preserve them in the purity of the faith.”- “Decretalium Gregorii Papae Noni Conpilatio;” Liber V, Titulus VII, Capitulum XIII, (A Collection of the Decretals of Gregory IX, Book 5, Title 7, Chapter 13), dated April 20, 1619.

The sainted Catholic doctor, Thornas Aquinas, says:

“If counterfeiters of money or other criminals are justly delivered over to death forthwith by the secular authorities, much more can heretics, after they are convicted of heresy, be not only forthwith excommunicated, but as surely put to death. “Summa Theologica,” 2a, 2ae, qu. xi, art. iii.

That this principle is sanctioned by modern Catholic priests, we can see from the following statement:

“The church has persecuted. Only a tyro in church history will deny that. . . . Protestants were persecuted in France and Spain with the full approval of the church authorities. We have always defended the persecution of the Huguenots, and the Spanish Inquisition.” - “Western Watchman,” official organ of Father Phelan. St. Louis, Mo.: Dec. 24, 1908.

We have now seen from the “decretals” of popes, from sainted doctors of the Roman church, and from authentic Catholic books, that they sanction and defend persecution, and history amply bears out the fact. Dr. J. Dowling says:

“From the birth of Popery in 606, to the present time, it is estimated by careful and credible historians, that more than fifty millions of the human family, have been slaughtered for the crime of heresy by popish persecutors, an average of more than forty thousand religious murders for every year of the existence of Popery.” - “History of Romanism,” pp. 541, 542. New York: 1871.

W. E. H. Leeky says:

“That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind, will be questioned by no Protestant who has a competent knowledge of history. The memorials, indeed, of many of her persecutions are now so scanty, that it is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no power of imagination can adequately realize their sufferings.” - “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe,” Vol. II, p. 32. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910.

 John Lothrop Motley, speaking of papal persecution in the Netherlands, says:

“Upon February 16, 1568, a sentence of the Holy Office [the Inquisition] condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. . . . A proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution. . . . This is probably the most concise death warrant that was ever framed. Three millions of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines.” - “The Rise of the Dutch Republic,” (2-vol. ed.) Vol. I, p. 626. New York.

Many Roman Catholic authors today have tried to prove that their church does not sanction persecution, but facts of history are too plain to be denied. Eternity alone will reveal what God’s dear children suffered during the Dark Ages. Accordingly as the Papacy attained to power, the common people became more oppressed, until “the noon of the Papacy was the midnight of the world.” - “History of Protestantism,” J. A. Wylie, LL.D., Vol. I, p. 16. London.

 

 

“Think to Change Times and Law”

 

But Daniel 7: 25 has still another prediction concerning the “little horn”; namely, that it should “ think to change times and laws,” or as the Revised Version has it: “times and the law.” James Moffatt’s translation reads: “He shall plan to alter the sacred seasons and the law.” Now, as the two preceding statements in this verse depict what the Papacy should do against the Most High, we must conclude that it is also the “times and the law” of the Most High which the Papacy should attempt to change. This could not refer to the ceremonial laws of the Jews, which were abolished at the cross (Ephesians 2:15; Hebrews 9:9,10), but to the Ten Commandments, which are binding in the Christian era, to which dispensation this prophecy applies. (Matthew 5:17-19, 19:16-19; Luke 16:17; Romans 3:31, 7:7, 12, 14; James 2:10, 11.) From the prophecy of Daniel 7:25 it is therefore evident that the Papacy would attempt to make some changes in the moral law.

After the worship of images had crept into the church during the fourth to the sixth centuries, its leaders finally removed the second commandment from their doctrinal books, because it forbids us to bow down to images (Exodus 20:4, 5), and they divided the tenth, so as to retain ten in number. Thus the Catholic Church has two commandments against coveting, while Paul six times speaks of it as only one “commandment.” (Romans 7:7-13) Then, too, the Lord has purposely reversed the order of the supposed ninth and tenth commandments in Deuteronomy 5:21 to what they are in Exodus 20:17, so that the Catholics, following Deuteronomy 5:21, have “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” as their ninth commandment, while the Lutherans, following Exodus 20:17, have it as part of their tenth commandment, and their ninth command is: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house.” Thus we see how people get themselves into trouble when they attempt to change the law of God.

The Papacy was also to change times. But the only commandment of the ten that has to do with time is the fourth, which commands us to keep holy the seventh day, on which God rested at creation. (Exodus 20:10, 11; Genesis 2:1-3) It is a remarkable fact that Christ, His apostles, and their followers kept the seventh day in common with the Jews (Mark 6:2, 3; Luke 4:16, 31, 23:52-56; Acts 13:42, 44, 16:12, 13, 17:2, 18:1-4), and that the New Testament is entirely silent in regard to any change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. This would be natural enough if the original Sabbath, which they were then keeping, should continue. But if a new day was to take its place in the Christian church, its Founder would certainly have given explicit directions for its observance. Yet not a word was spoken by Christ or His apostles, either before or after His resurrection, as to such a change. . It is another remarkable fact that Sunday is never called by any sacred title in the New Testament, but always referred to as a weekday, never as a holy day. It is classed as one of the weekdays, being called “the first day of the week.”

And yet we find the Christian world generally keeping it. Who made this change, when it is not recorded in the Bible? When, how, and why was it made? Who dared to lay hands on Jehovah’s law, and change His Holy Sabbath, without any warrant of Scripture?

All Protestant denominations disclaim any part in this crime. But the Roman Catholic Church boasts of having made this change, and even points to it as an evidence of its authority to act in Christ’s stead upon earth. We shall therefore ask her two pointed questions: 1. Men did you change the Sabbath? 2. Why did you do it? Here are her answers:

“The first proposition needs little proof. The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her Divine mission changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.” - “The Christian Sabbath,” p. 29. Baltimore, Md.: “Catholic Mirror,” Sept. 23, 1898.

“Ques. - Which is the Sabbath day? Ans. - Saturday is the Sabbath day.

“Ques. - Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? Ans. - We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the council of Laodicea (A. D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday. . . .

“ The Church substituted Sunday for Saturday by the plenitude of that divine power which Jesus Christ bestowed upon her. “The Convert’s Catechism of Christian Doctrine,” Rev. Peter Geiermann, C. SS. R., p. 50. St. Louis, Mo.: 1934. (This work received the “apostolic blessing” of Pope Pius X Jan. 25, 1910.)

 “The Church . . . took the pagan Sunday and made it the Christian Sunday . . . . And thus the pagan Sunday, dedicated to Balder, became the Christian Sunday, sacred to Jesus.” - “Catholic World,” (New York), March, 1894, p. 809.

We shall enter into this subject more thoroughly in the following chapters.

 

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