Former Facts Friday: Pondering Church History "The Catholic Church, Part Three"
Read Part One: http://jonhearing.tumblr.com/post/6395818774/former-facts-friday-pondering-church-history-the
Read Part Two: http://jonhearing.tumblr.com/post/6627641030/former-facts-friday-pondering-church-history-the
So things were changing in the church. But to the point discussed thus far, none of these changes were THAT far off base right? Certainly they began some odd traditions and did some questionable things, but really it was nothing that was intolerable. In fact, the changes took place so slowly that few were bothered (except those pious monks who broke off from the mainstream church to begin monasteries all over Europe). It was kind of like the boiling of a frog. The common church people were just unaware of how hot things were getting all around them!
I hinted last week that perhaps one of the most significant changes in the Catholic Church, if not THE most significant change was the establishment of the pope. Now, there is some controversy about who was the first pope, and at some times early on there were multiple popes simultaneously and certain groups claimed one of them was the true line while other groups preferred the second line and so on. It can be very confusing.
What we do know is that two pope figures in particular were really significant in the molding of the office of the pope early on – Leo I around the year 400 and Gregory I around the year 540. Pope Leo gave the papacy its name and pomp while Gregory really gave the papacy its power. Leo CLAIMED to be the absolute effective ruler of Rome, but Gregory actually BECAME that powerhouse and showed it. He used his papal authority in ways it had never been used before!
Gregory began to build on the hierarchy of the leadership of the Catholic Church. The Bishop of Rome (later – the pope) had always been viewed as a leader among leaders in the church but he really put himself as a first among equals. He did grant a type of equality to the Bishops of Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople which made them the second tier of the levels of power in the Catholic Church. But Gregory in fact exercised authority and power over all other Bishops.
Despite the claim by Leo that the pope was head of the church, and despite the growth of the power of the papacy by Gregory, these powers led to decline in the honor of the papacy. The Papacy became a coveted political office, which drove many popes to corruption and dishonor. The papacy became a pawn for rich Italian families to attempt to gain power and glory.
This in turn drove the emergence of the idea of Christendom, the ungodly and unbiblical joining of church and state. The Part became the Whole. At one point, Western, Latin Christianity was a part of the church. Then it became this thing called Christendom, connecting church to territory. In 800, Charlemagne, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor. He completed the integration of church, state, and society by establishing the “Holy Roman Empire.” The humble church that Jesus came to establish had become an empire! Leo’s role in the crowning of the emperor staked a claim of supremacy for the Pope. Charlemagne reigned until 814 and he advanced the Papal cause most effectively. He enlarged the territory of Christendom, or Pope Christianity, in the name of the Christian God. As he conquered new lands, he Christianized them. His empire grew to include most of Western Europe.
No theological giants stocked the land during this time (500-1100) and the church seemed theologically confused or even back trodden. There really was a spiritual dark ages that took place. There have always been those who screamed against the formal institution of the church and what it was becoming, but the corruption in the upper echelons of the Catholic hierarchy was well underway, and a quick look at the progression of Catholic theology will make the point.
Gregory I introduced the idea of purgatory to the Christian world. He was also responsible for requiring the use of Latin in prayer and worship in the church as well as the redirection of prayers from God and his Son to the mother Mary, to dead saints, and even to angels. In 786, the veneration of crosses, images, and relics was authorized. In 927, The College of Cardinals was established. In 995, the canonization of dead people as “saints” was instituted. In the year 1000, attendance at mass was made mandatory. In 1079, Pope Gregory VII decrees the celibacy of the priesthood. In 1090, the Rosary is instituted and in 1190 the sale of indulgences is established to reduce one’s time in purgatory.
In 1215, Pope Innocent III explains transubstantiation and declares it doctrine, and introduces the confession of sins to priests. In 1439, the doctrine of the Seven Sacraments is affirmed. In 1545 the Council of Trent declared the Apocrypha part of the canon and declared Tradition to be equal in authority with the Bible (officially).
All of these elements of the Catholic Church were instituted along the way by the various popes. This idea of tradition and papal authority began early on in the church in an infant form. The early Bishops would site scripture as authoritative but would then attempt to give the CORRECT interpretation of that scripture based on succession, or based on who they were taught by. For example, they would read a text, give an interpretation of that text, and then validate THEIR interpretation based on who had taught them (i.e. “I received this interpretation from Thaddeus, who received it from Cornelius, who received it from Timothy, who received it from Paul, who was inspired by the Holy Spirit”). This set a foundation for traditionalism. For them, the correctness of interpretation did not come from exegesis of scripture but from the “traditional” interpretation.
This was the papacy in its premature form. The papacy is based on the idea that he is the successor of Peter, the “father” of the church. And because they are the successors of Peter (whether considered physical succession or spiritual succession), they have the same inspired authority that he had.
This is really what the idea of tradition versus Tradition comes down to. The papal decree, the voice of the church, was (and still is) considered as inspired and as authoritative as scripture. And thus all the past decrees of former popes, decisions made during times of corruption and competition, became considered the Tradition of Roman Catholicism, and were made equally authoritative as scripture. The true beauty of Protestantism is that our tradition, along with the implementation of reason, as well as experience, are all INFORMATIVE to how we construct our theology and practical ecclesiology BUT these things are always placed UNDER the absolute, divine authority of scripture. Thus Protestants are not bound to the decisions and decrees of some Christian leader in the 800s or 1300s. They are willing to admit that no man is perfect, not even a pope. They admit that the popes, though having good intentions at one time, were wrong in some instances. Protestants are not bound by Tradition, but bound to Scripture.
There were some that realized that the authority of the church had overstepped its bounds. There were some that were no longer willing to work within the broken system. There were leaders among those groups. And those leaders took on the Catholic Church in big ways, and thus the Protestant Reformation was born.
yousharknotpass
baratheonpilled
dededos
blakekathryn