The Great Apostacy Doctrine or Not

[_Gazelam]

J. W. Draper in his book "Intellectual Development of Europe" (Vol.1, ch. XII, pp. 378-381.) states:


"To some it might seem, considering the interests of religion alone, desirable to omit all biographical reference to the popes; but this cannot be done with justice to the subject. The essential principle of the papacy, that the roman pontiff is the vicar of Christ upon earth, necessarily obtrudes his personal relation upon us. How shall we understand his faith unless we see it illustrated in his life ? Indeed the unhappy character of those relations was the inciting cause of the movements in Germany, France, and England, ending in the extinction of the papacy as an actual political power, movements to be understood only through a sufficient knowledge of the private lives and opinions of the popes. It is well, as far as possible, to abstain from burdening systems with the imperfections of individuals. In this case they are inseperably interwoven. The single peculiarity of the papacy is that, though its history may be imposing, its biography is infamous. I shall, however, forbear to speak of it in this latter respect more than the occasion seems necessarily to require; shall pass in some silence some of those cases which would profoundly shock my religious reader, and therefore restrict myself to the ages between the middle of the eighth and the middle of the eleventh centuries, excusing myself to the impartial critic by the apology that these were the ages with which I have been chiefly concerned in this chapter."

" On the death of Pope Paul I, who had attained to the pontificate A.D. 757, the Duke of Nepi compelled some Bishops to consecrate Constantine, one of his brothers, as Pope; but more legitimate electors subsequently, A.D. 768, choosing Stephen IV, the usurper and his adherents were severely punished; the eyes of Constantine were put out; the tongue of the Bishop Theodorus was amputated, and he was left in a dungeon to expire in the agonies of thirst. The nephews of Pope Adrian seized his successor, Pope Leo III, A.D.795, in the street, and, forcing him into a neighboring church, attempted to put out his eyes and cut out his tongue; at a later period, this pontiff, trying to supress a conspiricy to depose him, Rome became the scene of rebellion, murder and conflagration. His successor, Stephen V, A.D. 816, was ignominiously driven from the city; his successor, Paschal I, was accused of blinding and murdering two ecclesiastics in the Lateran Palace; it is necessary that imperial commissioners should investigate the matter, but the Pope died, after having exculpated himself by oath before thirty bishops. John VIII, A.D. 872, unable to resist the Mohammedans, was compelled to pay them tribute; the Bishop of Naples, maintaining a secret alliance with them, recieved his share of the plunder they collected. Him John excommunicated, nor would he give him absolution unless he would betray the chief Mohammedans and assassinate others himself."

"There was an ecclesiastical conspiricy to murder the Pope; some of the treasures of the church were seized; and the gate of St. Pancrazia was opened with false keys, to admit the Saracens into the city. Formosus, who had been engaged in these transactions, and excommunicated as a conspirator for the murder of John, was subsequently elected Pope, A.D. 891; he was suceeded by Boniface VI, A.D. 896, who had been deposed from the diaconate, and again from the priesthood, for his immoral and lewd life. By Stephen VII, who followed, the dead body of Formosus was taken from the grave, clothed in the papal habilaments, proped up in a chair, tried before a council, and the preposterous and indecent scene completed by cutting off three fingers of the corpse and casting it into the Tiber; but Stephen himself was destined to exemplify how low the papacy had fallen; he was thrown into prison and strangled."

" In the course of five years, from A.D. 896 to A.D. 900, five popes were consecrated. Leo V, who succeeded in A.D. 904, was in less than two months thrown into prison by Christopher, one of his chaplains, who usurped his place, and who, in his turn, was shortly expelled from Rome by Sergius III, who, by the aid of military force, seized the pontificate, A.D. 905. This man, according to the testimony of the times, lived in criminal intercourse with the prostitute Theodora, who, with her daughters Marozia and Theodora, also prostitutes, exercised an extraordinary control over him. The love of Theodora was also shared by John X: she gave him first archbishopric of Ravenna, and then translated him to Rome, A.D. 915, as Pope. John was not unsuited to the times; he organized a confederacy which perhaps prevented Rome from being captured by the Saracens, and the world was astonished and edified by the appearance of this warlike pontiff at the head of his troops. By the love of Theodora, as was said, he had maintained himself in the Papacy for fourteen years; by the intrigues and hatred of her daughter Marozia he was overthrown. She surprised him in the Lateran palace; killed his brother Peter before his face; threw him into prison, where he soon dies, smothered, as was asserted, with a pillow. After a short interval Marozia made her own son pope as John XI, A.D. 931. Many affirmed that Pope Sergius was his father, but she herself inclined to attribute him to her husband Alberic, whose brother Guido she subsequently married. Another of her sons, Alberic, so called from his supposed father, jealous of his brother John, cast him and their mother Marozia into prison. After a time Alberic's son was elected pope A.D. 956; he assumed the title of John XII, the amourous Marozia thus having given a son and a grandson to the papacy."

" John was only nineteen years old when he thus became the head of christendom. His reign was characterized by the most shocking immoralities, so that the Emperor Otho I was compelled by the german clergy to interfere. A synod was summoned for his trial in the church of St.Peter, before which it appeared that John had recieved bribes for the consecration of bishops; that he had ordained one who was but ten years old, and had performed that ceremony over another in a stable; he was charged with incest with one of his fathers concubines, and with so many adulteries that the Lateran Palace had become a brothel; he put out the eyes of one ecclesiastic, and castrated another, both dying in consequence of their injuries; he was given to drunkeness, gambling, and the invocation of Jupiter and Venus. When cited to appear before the council, he sent word that "he had gone out hunting", and to the fathers who remonstrated with him, he threateningly remarked that "Judas, as well as the other disciples, recieved from his Master the power of binding and loosing, but that as soon as he proved a traitor to the common cause, the only power he retained was that of binding his own neck". Hereupon he was deposed, and Leo VIII elected in his stead, A.D. 963; but subsequently getting the upper hand, he seized his antagonists, cut off the hand of one, the nose, finger, toungue of others. His life was eventually brought to an end by the vengeance of a man whose wife he had seduced."

" After such details it is almost needless to allude to the annals of succeeding popes: to relate that John XIII was strangled in prison; that Boniface VII imprisoned Benedict VII and killed him by starvation; that John XIV was secrectly put to death in the dungeons of the castle of St. Angelo; that the corpse of Boniface was dragged by the populace through the streets. The sentiment of reverance for the sovreign pontiff, nay, even respect, had become extinct in Rome; throughout Europe the clergy were so shocked at the state of things, that, in their indignation, they began to look with approbation on the intention of the Emperor Otho to take from the italians their privilege of appointing the successor of St. Peter, and confine it to his own family. But his kinsmen, Gregory V, whom he placed on the pontifical throne, was very soon compelled by the Romans to fly; his excomunications and religious thunders were turned into derision by them; they were too well aquainted with the true nature of those terrors; they were living behind the scenes. A terrible punishment awaited the Anti-Pope John XVI. Otho returned into Italy, seized him, put out his eyes, cut off his nose and tongue, and sent him through the streets mounted on an ass, with his face to the tail, and a wine bladder on his head."

"It semed impossible that things could become worse: yet Rome had still to see Benedict IX, A.D. 1033, a boy of less than twelve years, raised to the Apostolic throne. Of this pontiff, one of his successors, Victor III, declared that his life was so shameful, so foul, so excrable, that he shuddered to describe it. He ruled like a captain of banditti rather than a prelate. The people at last, unable to bear his adulteries, homicides, and abominations any longer, rose against him. In despair of maintaining his position, he put up the paupacy at Auction! It was bought by a presbyter named John, who became Gregory VI, A.D. 1045."


Could the Authority of Christ travelled by this route?

[_Bond...James Bond]

The Apostacy started with the death of the original Apostles.

It wasn't any speedy thing, but was well underway by 200 AD.

As far as the Dark Ages are concerned, there is a reason the following period was called the Rennaisance.

Not to burst your bubble Gaz, but the Dark Ages lasted from near the end of the Western Roman Empire (AD 400) up until AD 1000 or so....and the Renaissance didn't get going until the AD 1200s at the earliest (during the Later Middle Ages (1000-1500AD).

In 200AD things were still rolling along (in fact this was just a few years after the 5 Good Emperors period [which is considered something of a 2nd Golden Age in Roman History after the Pax Romana Augustus Period]).

Moreover, I hope you aren't saying the Dark Ages began as a result of the "Great Apostacy" And even if you try to link those two together, the Dark Ages only covers Western Europe, while the Eastern Roman Empire (a.k.a. The Byzantines) and the Muslim World (not to mention Asia) continued to truck along better than ever.

[_Gazelam]

I only stated that they were around the same time.

Revelation had ceased. Soon after the Catholic church was formed. That was the Apostasy.

[_Bond...James Bond]

I only stated that they were around the same time.

"Around".....you were off by at least 200 years Gaz.

Revelation had ceased. Soon after the Catholic church was formed. That was the Apostasy.

Didn't the Catholic Church form before the last Apostles died (in other words, when did the Apostacy happen?)