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How the Papacy Rose and the Church Was Oppressed | John Calvin · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome back to reformed thinking.
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We're here again for another deep dive, and today we're
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taking on a huge topic. We are.
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We're going to be working through a section of John
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Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.
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The goal here is pretty straightforward.
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We want to give you a structured analysis of the source material.
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And this isn't just Calvin offering his opinions.
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What's so compelling is that he builds his entire case using
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historical documents. He's citing council records,
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letters from early church fathers and detailing specific
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disputes. So this is a deep structure
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analysis. We're looking at how
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institutions rise and, well, how they decline.
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We're really trying to discern the difference between the
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ancient church order and what came later.
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The focus is on the specific documented historical process.
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OK, so let's frame this for you. Our mission is to trace the
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historical road map that Calvin lays out.
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We're looking at how the Bishop of Rome went from being, you
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know, a respected peer among other leaders.
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A first among equals, you might say.
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Right. And how that position
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incrementally grew, gathering more and more authority until it
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became this claim of absolute universal headship.
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A monarchy, really. And Calvin's whole argument is
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that this monarchy fundamentally oppressed the freedom of the
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ancient church. So we're tracing the chain of
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Immense using the evidence Calvin himself used to see how
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geographical prestige eventually morphed into a claim of divine
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right. Let's get into it.
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To really get a handle on how things changed, we have to start
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at the beginning. I mean with the structural
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foundation of the early church, the big ecumenical councils.
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You have to. Let's start with the Council of
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Nicaea in 325AD. What do those earliest, most
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respected documents actually say about the Roman bishops
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position? Well, the records, when I see, I
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give us a baseline, and it's a baseline that just profoundly
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contradicts the later papal claims.
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In what way? Calvin points out that, yes, the
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Roman Bishop was granted the first place among the
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patriarchs. It was an honor, a position of
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prestige. But that honor came with very
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specific, very clearly defined limits.
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The council decreed he was, and this is the key phrase, ordered
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to take care of the suburbicarian churches.
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That phrase suburbicarian churches sounds technical, but
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it's critical for understanding the original limits isn't.
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It it's everything. The suburbicarian churches were
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essentially the diocese in the immediate disinity of Rome, his
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local region. So it's basically his backyard.
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It's his backyard, the council is saying.
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This is your zone of direct oversight, and by assigning him
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specific regional boundaries it very clearly signals that he was
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1 chief overseeing one region. Just like the patriarchs of
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Alexandria or Antioch were overseeing theirs.
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Precisely. He was a regional Superintendent
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with a great deal of honor, but he wasn't the global CEO.
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The structure was collegial. And Calvin doesn't just stop at
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the written decree. He points to the the visual
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evidence, the seating arrangement at the council.
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Yeah, the optics, as we'd say today, if the Bishop of Rome,
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Julius, at that time was truly seen as the supreme head by
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divine right, you'd expect his representatives to be front and
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center running the show. But that's not what happened.
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Not at all. His delegates Vitas and
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Vincentius. When they showed up, they were
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given the 4th place in the proceedings, 4th.
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Place, not first. And even more telling,
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Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria, was the one who
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presided over this universal council.
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So you have the Bishop of Alexandria presiding, and Rome's
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guys are sitting several seats down.
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It's just compelling, verifiable historical evidence that a
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universal monarchical supremacy was not the recognized order in
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the early 4th century. Rome was respected, but it was
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not sovereign over the whole Church.
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So as we move forward in time until the 4th and 5th centuries,
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this whole issue of who gets to preside over the big councils
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becomes a a major point of contention to the fault line
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that Calvin really zeroes in on. How did the Roman Bishop start
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to, let's say, manufacture prestige of these later
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gatherings? What happened at the Council of
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Ephesus? At Ephesus, you can really see
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the shift from accepted custom to conscious political
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maneuvering. Celestine, the Roman Pontiff at
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the time, he know that Cyril of Alexandria was slated to
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preside. It was his right, based on his
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standing and the council's location.
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So he was facing a situation where his C wouldn't be in the
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top spot. Exactly.
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And to get around this, Celestine comes up with a clever
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solution. He formally designates Cyril as
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his proxy. So it's a strategic.
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Move. Calvin calls it a trick.
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It was a way to formally attach the name of the Roman C to the
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first seat. A kind of appropriation of
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dignity. Even though his actual delegates
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were sitting lower down giving their opinions like everyone
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else. It shows that Rome was aware it
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didn't have an inherent right to preside and had to find other
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ways to look supreme. And this situation gets even
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more revealing at the Second Council of Ephesus and 4:49, the
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one that gets labeled the Robber Counsel.
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Yes, because of the violence and coercion involved.
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But for Calvin's argument, what happens there is a moment of,
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you know, stunning historical honesty.
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Because the Roman delegates just yield.
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They yield the presidency without a fight.
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Leo's representatives were there, but they let De Oscarus
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of Alexandria take the chair without any contention.
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And for Calvin, this is the proof point.
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Why is that so significant? Because, as he argues, Roman
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bishops were famously ambitious. He says they were never ashamed
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to raise the greatest contentions for their own
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honors. So the fact that Leo's delegates
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just let it go. Proves they knew they didn't
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have a right to it. It proves the first place was
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not theirs by right or by custom.
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If it had been a divine right, they would have fought tooth and
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nail for it. Their silence speaks volumes.
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Which makes the next council, Chelsea down at 4:51, so
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interesting because their Rome's representatives did get the
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first seat. They did, but the key, as Calvin
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dissects it, is how they got it. It wasn't by right.
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It is by explicit concession. Leo Self basically admitted
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this. He petitioned the Emperor
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Marcion and the Empress Pulcheria for the privilege.
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And what was his justification? He argued it was a matter of
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necessity. He claimed the previous
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moderators, the Eastern bishops at that disastrous Robber
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Council, had been so disorderly and unfit that someone else
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needed to take charge to ensure order.
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So it was framed as an emergency measure.
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It was secured purely as an extraordinary privilege based on
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a temporary crisis was a special favor, not a customary law.
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And that distinction between a special privilege and an
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established rule is just central to Calvin's entire argument
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about how this power was gradually usurped.
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And if the structure was really supposed to be collegial, we
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should be able to find examples of other non Roman bishops
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presiding over major councils. And we do.
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These examples confirm that authority was decentralized.
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Take the Council of Carthage, a hugely important council.
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Augustine himself was present. And who presided there?
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Aurelius, the Archbishop of Carthage.
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He presided even at a time when the specific authority of the
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Roman Pontiff was being actively debated and challenged by that
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very council. They didn't feel the need to
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wait for a Roman legate to run their meeting.
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There was even a universal council held in Italy itself,
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but not in Rome. Right, the Council of Aquileia.
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It was held in Italy and it was presided over by Ambrose, the
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Bishop of Milan, not the Roman Bishop.
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So at that point in time, Milan see was more illustrious.
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In many ways, yes, Calvin suggests it's spiritual and
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intellectual influence was arguably greater at that moment.
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It just demonstrates that honor and jurisdiction were often
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based on the personal prestige of the Bishop or the secular
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standing of the city, not on some single recognized
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monarchical head established by Peter.
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The picture is one of regional autonomy.
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So the council records paint a very clear picture of the
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structure, but the language they use with each other and, you
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know, day-to-day communications, that also tells a story.
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Oh, absolutely. The early titles and greetings
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are powerful evidence of a peer relationship.
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Like Cyprian writing to Cornelius in Rome.
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Exactly. Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage,
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calls Cornelius the Bishop of Rome, brother, fellow Bishop or
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colleagues. Those are terms of equality.
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Complete equality. Fraternal Co equality.
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You don't call your sovereign monarch.
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And it goes further. When Cyprian wrote to Stephen,
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who succeeded Cornelius, he spoke, as Calvin puts it, rather
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sternly to him, criticizing his arrogance.
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So he felt free to admonish the Bishop of Rome.
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Without fear that freedom shows they saw each other as equals in
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dignity and authority. And the African Church, which
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seems to have been a consistent source of resistance to Rome's
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growing ambition, actually went so far as to codify this
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rejection of unique titles. They did.
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They put it into the Council's rules.
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The Council of Carthage explicitly forbade anyone, and
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that included the Bishop of Rome from being called Prince of
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Priests or first Bishop. So what title did they allow?
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A very moderate one. The only permissible title was
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Bishop of the Prime Sea, and Calvin notes that for a good
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while the Roman Bishop was content with the simple common
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title of brother. It just makes the later
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invention of titles like Supreme Pontiff seem like a radical
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departure from the ancient Church.
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Now to really hammer home the theological point that a
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Bishop's rank shouldn't be based on his city zip code, Calvin
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brings in a witness from inside Rome itself, Jerome.
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Yes, Jerome, a Roman presbyter in the late 4th century, and he
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just provides the theological hammer.
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He completely dismantles the argument for geographical
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supremacy. What was his core argument?
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He shifted the whole perspective away from the secular prestige
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of the city of Rome and back to the spiritual reality of the
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Bishop's office. He stated it so bluntly, if
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authority is sought, the world is greater than a city.
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That line is just brutal. It is.
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He's basically saying your city's fame doesn't make you
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holier or more authoritative. He rebuked the arrogance that
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was growing in Rome and asserted the absolute parody of the
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office of Bishop. So Bishop is a Bishop is a
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Bishop. No matter where he is, that was
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Jerome's point. Whether he's in Rome or in a
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tiny, obscure town like Gubbio, or in the new capital of
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Constantinople, his merit and his priesthood are the same.
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Wealth or poverty, he said, do not make a Bishop higher or
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lower. And coming from a Roman
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presbyter, that testimony just fundamentally guts the later
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claims of a divine right for Roman supremacy.
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OK, this brings us to what might be the single strongest
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historical point in Calvin's case, the huge dispute in the
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late 6th century involving Pope Gregory the Thirst over the
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title Universal Bishop. This is the historical linchpin,
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because the argument against the title comes from a highly
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respected Pope himself. That would have to.
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The whole thing blew up when John the Faster, who was the
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Patriarch of Constantinople, started styling himself as
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ecumenical or universal Bishop. And Gregory the First did not
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like that. He responded with utter shock
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and just a fierce protest. But what's so critical to
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understand is why he protested. He didn't argue that the title
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belonged to him, to Rome. He denounced the title itself,
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full stop. What kind of language did he
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use? He called the title profane,
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sacrilegious and in his most famous phrase, he said anyone
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who uses it is the very precursor of Antichrist.
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So this wasn't just about humility.
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He saw a deep theological danger in the title itself.
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A catastrophic danger. He argued that it put the entire
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church at risk. His reasoning was the whole
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church falls from its condition. If anyone who is called
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universal falls, one man becomes a single point of failure for
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everyone. It's an enormous spiritual
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liability. And he didn't stop there.
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He connected the pride of seeking such a unique title to
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the devil himself, who tried to climb to the pinnacle of
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uniqueness, rejecting fellowship with the other angels.
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But he also had a very practical and institutional concern about
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what this title would do to the church structure.
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Yes, he said that if one person is called universal, then the
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the title of patriarch is stripped away from all the other
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bishops, it destroys their due honor.
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He said his own predecessors in Rome had refused this title for
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that very reason, lest when something was given exclusively
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to 1, all bishops should be deprived of their due honor.
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Now, Calvin does note the Gregory was actually mistaken on
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a point of fact. He thought the title had been
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offered to a previous Pope, Leo at Chelsedon.
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He was mistaken about that. It's not in the acts of the
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Council, but that factual error doesn't matter for the
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principal. Right, his theological rejection
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of the title itself is what stands it.
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Stands firm. Gregory Heff unequivocally
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denounced the title as wicked, profane, abominable, proud and
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sacrilegious, indeed, devised by the devil.
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This is the key moment. At a time when the Sea of Rome
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held enormous prestige, its greatest leader explicitly
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condemned the central claim that would later define the papacy.
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Any claim to inherent universal supremacy has to somehow get
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around the direct condemnation from Pope Gregory the Great.
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All right, so we've seen the principles of coequality in the
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early church. Now we need to transition to the
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actual historical mechanisms that allowed Roman jurisdiction
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to grow beyond those ancient boundaries.
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This is where the story shifts from, you know, canonical order
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to what looks a lot like political opportunism.
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And it seems like external crises were the main driver.
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They really were. Crisis creates opportunity.
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In the 4th and 5th centuries you have the Aryan factions just
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tearing the Eastern churches apart.
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And this created refugees. It did.
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Orthodox defenders, men like the great Athanasius, were
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persecuted. Thrown out of their own
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churches, they were forced to seek asylum in the West and
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specifically in Rome. And in their moment of
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desperation, they were willing to grant the Roman sea a level
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of authority they never would have under normal circumstances.
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So their desperate need for an ally, for political and
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financial support, started to blur the lines.
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Communion with Rome started to feel like a necessity for
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Orthodoxy. That's it.
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They needed help, and Rome was the place to get it.
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So this process began where being in communion with the
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Roman Church was seen not just as fellowship between equals,
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but as a crucial tool to strengthen the pious and defend
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the truth. And of course, Rome was more
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than happy to be seen as the ultimate refuge of Orthodoxy.
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And once you open that door, as Calvin describes it, evil and
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wicked men start to see an opportunity.
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They start using Rome as a kind of a loophole to escape local
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justice. This system of appeals becomes
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the real engine of jurisdictional growth.
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It was a vital mechanism for Rome.
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And at work. You'd have press bitters who
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were condemned by their local Bishop, or even bishops
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condemned by their regional synods in places like Gaul or
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Africa. And what do they do?
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They immediately appeal to Rome. It's a way to get out of
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trouble. It's a naked attempt to flee a
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lawful judgment, and Calvin notes that the Roman bishops
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received these appeals more avidly than they should have.
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They saw a chance to meddle in business far and wide, often
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siding with the wrong 'cause simply because it expanded their
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own jurisdiction. And this audacity, this grabbing
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of judicial power, eventually led to organized resistance,
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specifically from those African bishops again.
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The African bishops, men like Augustine, were fierce guardians
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of their local autonomy. They were not going to let this
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happen so. They fought back.
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They did. At the councils of Carthage and
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Milavis. They passed a decree that no one
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should appeal beyond the sea, meaning to Rome under penalty of
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excommunication. It was a direct shot across the
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bow trying to shut down the Roman appeal system for good.
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And how did Rome respond to that?
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The Roman Pontiff tried to get the decree overturned and his
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argument was that the privilege to hear these appeals had been
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granted to Rome by the universally respected Council of
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Nicaea. Wait, he claimed Nicaea gave
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them this power and this leads directly to the the forgery
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scandal that Calvin details? It does.
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It's an incredible story. The Roman legate show up in
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Africa with documents from their own archives, supposedly from
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Lycia, backing up their claim. But the Africans were
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suspicious. They were meticulous.
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They refused to just take Romans word for it.
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They sent their own people to Constantinople and other cities
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in Greece to find older, more reliable copies of the Nicean
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Acts. And what did they find?
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The discovery was damning. They found that, as Calvin puts
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it, no such thing as the Romans pretended was written.
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It was a complete fabrication. So what had Rome done?
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They've been caught red handed, substituting the Cannons of the
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Senate of Sartica, a smaller, much earlier local council, for
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the cannons of the Great Ecumenical Council of Nicaea.
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Sardika had granted some limited appeal rights to the Pope at the
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time, but Nicaea had not. That is just blatant
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institutional deceit. They tried to pass off a fake
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document to establish universal judicial authority.
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It's political corruption documented inside the ancient
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church, and Calvin points out it didn't stop there.
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Later, and even more shameful forgery appeared a letter where
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a Carthaginian Bishop supposedly begs for pardon because his
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predecessor had resisted the Apostolic See.
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It just reveals the synagogue mechanism behind this rise to
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power. And this gradual creep of
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jurisdiction wasn't just in judicial appeals.
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It was happening with routine things like ordaining bishops
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and calling councils. Yes, the same pattern.
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Ancient councils were clear. Bishops should be ordained by
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the metropolitan Bishop within their own province.
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Rome's direct authority was limited to its own patriarchate.
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So how did that change? It started as a voluntary
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courtesy. A distant province might invite
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a Roman legate to witness an ordination as a sign of
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fellowship. But over generations, what
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started as voluntary recognition slowly hardened into a
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compulsory right. Courtesy became jurisdiction.
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And when it came to calling the big universal councils, the
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Roman Bishop simply didn't have the power he later claimed.
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The historical reality is crystal clear.
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Only the Emperor could call a universal council.
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The Roman Bishop was summoned just like all the others.
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If he had tried to summon all of Christendom on his own
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authority, it would have been rejected out of hand.
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The story then takes a major turn when the Western Roman
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Empire begins to fall apart. This chaos becomes the the
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footal ground for Rome's political consolidation.
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It does. The whole focus shifts to
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worldly stability, the collapse of the empire, the constant
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invasions across Gall, Spain, Italy.
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Bishops were desperate for an anchor.
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And Rome was that anchor. It became an island of relative
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stability in a sea of total chaos.
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So bishops naturally started to ally themselves more closely
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with Rome. They needed an institution that
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could survive, and Rome offered that.
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This greatly increased its prestige and with that it's
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temporal power. But it's so important to
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remember that even during this period, a figure like Gregory
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the Sirst, who we've already discussed, still held a very
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limited view of his own authority.
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He wasn't acting like a monarch. No, not at all.
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Gregory's view was carefully balanced.
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He said he had jurisdiction only to correct those who sinned.
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But when there was no fault, he insisted all are equal according
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to the order of humility. That's a profoundly anti
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monarchical statement. It is, and he openly saw himself
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his subject to the Emperor. We have records of him waiting
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for the Emperor's direct command before he would act as a judge
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in a case involving the Primate of Byzantium.
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He wasn't above the secular order.
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And we know from his own letters that he wasn't happy about all
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these new secular duties. He complained bitterly about
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them. Calvin quotes him lamenting that
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he's been drawn back into the world by all these
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administrative affairs. He wish he could just focus on
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his pastoral duties. So even this great Roman Bishop
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in the 6th century saw the accumulation of worldly power as
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a distraction, not a divine right.
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This brings us to the core reason for Rome's initial
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primacy, which was entirely secular.
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It was a clash over the prestige of place, yes.
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Why was Rome first in the first place?
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The reason was simple. It was the imperial capital.
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That's it. And so when the Empire got a
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second capital. Constantinople.
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This immediately created a rivalry based on the exact same
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principle, the Council of Constantinople decreed that the
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Bishop of that city, the New Rome, should have privileges of
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honor second only to Old Rome. And this idea, this geographical
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reasoning, terrified the Roman bishops.
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Pope Leo fought against it bitterly.
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He did, and Calvin argues his protest was based purely on
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ambition, not on preserving ancient tradition.
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Leo was afraid that as the glory of Old Rome faded,
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Constantinople would use the same secular argument to claim
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the top spot. So the hierarchy he was based on
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the temporal power of the Empire, a rule Rome was happy to
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use when it was on top, but rejected when its status
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declined. Precisely, they needed a
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spiritual claim to replace the fading secular 1.
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The story then moves from this rivalry to just blatant cynical
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political deal making. This is what finally secured
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Rome's official headship. This is the turning point.
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The controversy over the universal title wasn't settled
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by a church council. It was settled by a military
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usurper named Focus. What was the deal?
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Focus had murdered the legitimate Emperor Maurice.
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He was a tyrant who needed legitimacy, and he needed it
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fast. So he made a deal with Pope
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Boniface, the Third in six O 7 AD Focus granted Boniface the
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headship of all churches. It was a political exchange.
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A clear quid pro quo focus got the friendship of the
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influential Roman Bishop after his bloody coup, and in return
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Rome got official ecclesiastical supremacy.
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It was a deal made with a murderer.
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But the truly decisive deal for Western Europe, the one that
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completely changed the church structure there, was the
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alliance between Pepin and Pope Zacharias a century later.
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That transaction cemented papal supremacy not through any
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spiritual revival, but through a political deal involving
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treason. Pepin wanted to overthrow the
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lawful king of the Franks. Pope Zacharias helped him do it.
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And in return. In return for helping with this
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perfidy and robbery, as Calvin calls it, the Roman Sea was
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granted jurisdiction over all the churches of Gaul.
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Calvin's description of this is just shocking, and it's
22:00
bluntness. He compares them to robbers
22:02
dividing up their loot. Pepin gets the crown of a
22:05
Kingdom, and Zacharias gets spiritual control over it as his
22:09
share of the spoils. This power was then strengthened
22:13
by Charlemagne for similar political reasons, and at that
22:16
point, Calvin concludes, the old ancient form of the church was
22:20
utterly wiped out in Gaul. In Germany, the jurisdiction was
22:24
established by royal decree rooted in political corruption.
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So after these political deals solidified Rome's power, the
22:31
trajectory just accelerates toward moral and spiritual
22:35
decay. And now we have to jump forward
22:37
several centuries to the 12th century to see how people within
22:40
the church were reacting to this.
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Yes, and this is crucial. Calvin brings in Bernard of
22:45
Clairvau, one of the most respected spiritual figures of
22:47
that era. Bernard's critique, written 400
22:50
years before the Reformation, shows this wasn't a new problem.
22:53
What kind of picture did Bernard paint?
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A horrifying 1. He described Rome as a place
22:58
where the ambitious, the greedy, the simoniacs, people buying and
23:02
selling church offices, all converge to get church honors by
23:06
invoking the Pope's authority. It wasn't just criticizing the
23:09
Pope, but the whole culture of the institution.
23:11
The entire system he said that fraud, deception and violence
23:15
have prevailed in Rome he saw a system built on getting favors
23:19
and money, not on dispensing justice or teaching piety he.
23:23
Had a particularly sharp critique of the financial
23:25
corruption, didn't he, saying people paid more attention to
23:27
the both hands than his mouth. That quote is unforgettable, He
23:31
said. Few pay attention to the mouth
23:33
of the law giver all to his hands, and the hands, he said,
23:37
do all the Pope's business. Bernard saw the lifeblood of the
23:41
poor being spent in the streets of the rich.
23:43
He said these were pastures of devils rather than of sheep.
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He knew the thirst for money was just eating away at the
23:48
spiritual core. And that system of appeals, the
23:51
very mechanism that helped Rome grow its power, Bernard saw it
23:55
as actively destroying the Church's structure.
23:57
He voiced the common complaint of the time.
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He said the churches were being mangled and dismembered by the
24:03
appeal process. It was pulling local leaders out
24:06
from under their proper oversight, dragging every
24:09
dispute to Rome and completely undermining local discipline.
24:12
And what was his conclusion about the Pope's power?
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A damning 1. He concluded that in behaving
24:18
this way, the Pope proved he had fullness of power but not of
24:21
righteousness. Unchecked jurisdiction had led
24:24
directly to the abandonment of justice.
24:26
So if that was the view in the 12th century, by the 16th when
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Calvin is writing, these corrupt practices have hardened into
24:33
absolute dogma. They're codified into an
24:36
unchallengeable monarchy. The Pope is now officially
24:39
defined as the supreme head of the Church on Earth, the
24:42
universal Bishop of the whole world.
24:44
The very title Gregory I called sacrilegious.
24:46
And the claims just become more and more extreme.
24:49
They become exorbitant. It's asserted that the Pope's
24:51
pronouncements are to be received as if they came from
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Peter's own divine voice, that provincial councils have no
24:57
force without him, that he can ordain clergy anywhere,
25:00
overriding all local authority. All power, doctrine, law,
25:04
discipline is vested in the Roman Pontiff alone.
25:08
But the most stunning claim, the one that Calvin says formally
25:11
establishes the tyranny, is the idea that the Pope has no judge
25:14
on earth. This is the one, this claim of
25:17
total exemption from accountability.
25:19
It dismantles any rule of law within the Church.
25:22
The Romanist asserted no one has the right to review the
25:24
judgements of the sea, and that the judge, the Pope, will be
25:28
judged neither by emperor nor by kings, nor by all the clergy,
25:31
nor by the people. And their justification was
25:33
theological. Yes, they claimed God had
25:36
reserved the Bishop of Rome for his own judgement.
25:38
Calvin just highlights the extreme danger here.
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You set one man up as the judge of all and he refuses to give an
25:44
account for his actions, even if he exercises tyranny or throws
25:48
the whole church into confusion. It's the definition of
25:51
unaccountable power. Given this history, Cowan then
25:54
moves to his final break. He starts to question whether
25:58
there's even a real church or a real bishopric left in Rome to
26:02
inherit any of these ancient privileges.
26:04
He brings it all back to first principles.
26:06
His argument is that even if all those historical claims were
26:09
true, which he has just argued they are not, they're worthless
26:13
unless a true church and a true Bishop actually exist in Rome
26:17
right now. A place that isn't a church
26:19
can't be the mother of church churches.
26:20
And a man who doesn't do the job of a Bishop can't be the Prince
26:24
of bishops. So what are the essential non
26:26
negotiable duties of a Bishop? According to Christ's
26:29
institution, there are three First, you have to faithfully
26:33
teach the Word of God. Second, you have to properly
26:36
administer the sacraments. And 3rd, you have to maintain
26:39
holy discipline. And Calvin then does this sort
26:42
of an audit. Does the pontiff do any of these
26:44
things? A brutal audit, and his
26:46
conclusion is that the pontiff doesn't touch any part of that
26:49
essential spiritual office with his little finger.
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The Pope is a secular ruler concerned with wealth and
26:56
politics. He's not engaged in the ministry
26:58
of the Word, the sacraments, or discipline.
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Therefore, Calvin concludes, he is no Bishop.
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And since there's no true Bishop executing the office, Calvin
27:08
identifies the institution itself as the primary source of
27:12
spiritual darkness in the world. He asserts that the papacy of
27:15
his day is the source, or at least the main strength of all
27:18
the perverse doctrines, superstitions, and idolatry
27:21
flooding the world. He argues the only reason the
27:24
Pope's rage so fiercely against the Gospel is self preservation.
27:27
They know their entire Kingdom will collapse as soon as the
27:30
pure Gospel of Christ takes hold.
27:31
Which leads him to his most theologically charged claim,
27:34
aimed directly at the head of the system.
27:36
Yes, he says he's speaking from the lips of the Apostle Paul,
27:39
referencing 2 Thessalonians 2 when he calls the Roman Pontiff
27:42
Antichrist, and he's very specific about what he means by
27:45
that. It's not just an insult.
27:47
No, it's a theological definition, he says.
27:49
It refers to a tyranny over souls, one that operates under
27:53
the mask of the Church and one that consists in depriving God
27:56
of his honor to take it for oneself.
27:58
The Pope cannot be Christ's vicar or Peter's successor
28:01
because his entire project is to persecute the Gospel and
28:05
demolish what Peter built. And Calvin points to actual
28:08
historical examples of the sea falling into clear heresy,
28:11
proving its doctrinal instability.
28:14
The case of Pope John 2 takes a second is a big one.
28:16
That case is just undeniable proof of institutional failure.
28:20
John 2 take a second, openly taught that souls are mortal and
28:23
die with their bodies until the resurrection.
28:25
A radical heresy? And the Cardinals didn't stop
28:28
him. That's the shocking part.
28:30
None of them initially opposed this madness.
28:32
It took the King of France to step in and compel the Pope to
28:35
recant. A temporal king had to correct
28:37
the spiritual head of the Church on a core doctrine.
28:40
It showed the sea had utterly fallen from the faith.
28:42
The Romanists, of course, had a scriptural defense for papal
28:45
infallibility. They pointed to Luke 22 where
28:48
Christ says to Peter, I have prayed for you that your faith
28:50
may not fail. Calvin calls this shameless
28:53
mockery, and his rebuttal is a rhetorical masterpiece.
28:58
What's his counter argument? He says OK, if you insist on
29:01
applying everything said to Peter to his successors, then
29:03
you have to take the bad with the good.
29:05
You can't just pick to choose the verses you like.
29:07
Exactly, and so he says, if I have prayed for you applies to
29:12
all popes, then they must all be Satan's since the Lord also said
29:16
to Peter, get behind me Satan. It just exposes the complete
29:19
fallacy of their selective use of scripture.
29:22
And beyond the heresy, the simple moral abandonment of the
29:25
leadership was, for Calvin, the final proof.
29:29
He doesn't hold back at all when describing the Renaissance
29:31
Pope's of his era, Julius Leo Clement.
29:34
He and others describe them as men prostituted to all
29:37
wickedness, filthiness, and uncleanness, resembling monsters
29:41
rather than men. They were devoid of religion.
29:43
So he concludes that Rome, even if it was once the head of the
29:46
churches, is now not worthy of being considered among the
29:49
smallest toes of the church's feet.
29:51
And the rapid rise of the Cardinals provides a final, tidy
29:54
little picture of this whole institutional inflation.
29:57
It's a perfect microcosm. In Gregory's time, a cardinal
30:01
was just a local Roman priest subject to the Bishop.
30:04
Now, in the 16th century, their status has exploded.
30:08
They're called cousins of kings and emperors.
30:10
They rule vast territories. They wield immense wealth.
30:13
It's a completely new role. Utterly new, IT shows how the
30:16
whole hierarchy inflated itself right along with its head,
30:20
deviating completely from the ancient, modest structure of the
30:23
Church. So after all of that, what does
30:26
this all mean? We've traced this long
30:28
documented historical path from a collegial structure to a
30:32
singular, absolute monarchy. The synthesis is incredibly
30:36
clear, I think. The material Calvin presents
30:38
shows a documented shift from an ancient church order, which was
30:41
rooted in shared authority and defined boundaries, to a
30:45
political monarchy. And this shift wasn't driven by
30:47
Apostolic succession of function, but by political
30:49
expediency, by taking advantage of crises, and in some key
30:53
cases, by outright fabric legal authority.
30:55
The true spiritual office teaching discipline was just
30:58
systematically sacrificed for worldly status.
31:00
That's the core of it, and the central conflict that runs
31:03
through all these centuries of history is this profound
31:06
contrast between two opposing models of authority.
31:10
On one hand. On one side you have the
31:12
moderation and genuine humility of someone like Gregory A Thirst
31:15
who abhorred the idea of unique headship, and on the other you
31:19
have the absolute tyrannical self exempting claims of the
31:22
later popes who denied any accountability to any earthly
31:25
authority. This contrast just illuminates
31:28
how the quest for worldly influence corrupts spiritual
31:31
functions. The source material ends on a
31:32
heavy note citing the prophet Malachi.
31:35
You have therefore avoided the covenant of Levi, says the Lord.
31:38
So I have rendered you despised and a base to all the people.
31:41
And that leaves a question for you to consider.
31:44
If this source material shows that seeking external power and
31:47
political alliance inevitably undermined the internal
31:50
spiritual integrity of a religious institution, what
31:53
current institutions today, and it doesn't matter what sphere
31:56
they're in, whether it's media or technology or government,
31:59
risk sacrificing their original purity of purpose for worldly
32:02
influence and political gain? And what are the specific
32:05
warning signs, like a love of money or refusal of
32:07
accountability, that they too might eventually be rendered,
32:11
despised and abased in the eyes of the very people they were
32:13
meant to serve? Curve.