The gift of the ministry is one of the greatest gifts which Christ has
bestowed upon the world. It is in reference to this that the Psalmist,
predicting the ascension of Christ, thus loftily speaks of its blessed
results: "Thou hast ascended up on high: Thou hast led captivity
captive; Thou hast received gifts for men, even for the
rebellious, that the Lord God might dwell among them" (Eph 4:8-11).
The Church of Rome, at its first planting, had the divinely bestowed
gift of a Scriptural ministry and government; and then "its faith was
spoken of throughout the whole world"; its works of righteousness were
both rich and abundant. But, in an evil hour, the Babylonian element
was admitted into its ministry, and thenceforth, that which had been
intended as a blessing, was converted into a curse. Since then,
instead of sanctifying men, it has only been the means of demoralising
them, and making them "twofold more the children of hell" than they
would have been had they been left simply to themselves.
If there be any who imagine that there is some occult and mysterious
virtue in an apostolic succession that comes through the Papacy, let
them seriously consider the real character of the Pope's own orders,
and of those of his bishops and clergy. From the Pope downwards, all
can be shown to be now radically Babylonian. The College of
Cardinals, with the Pope at its head, is just the counterpart of the
Pagan College of Pontiffs, with its "Pontifex Maximus," or "Sovereign
Pontiff," which had existed in Rome from the earliest times, and which
is known to have been framed on the model of the grand original
Council of Pontiffs at Babylon. The Pope now pretends to
supremacy in the Church as the successor of Peter, to whom it is
alleged that our Lord exclusively committed the keys of the kingdom of
heaven. But here is the important fact that, till the Pope was
invested with the title, which for a thousand years had had
attached to it the power of the keys of Janus and Cybele, * no such
claim to pre-eminence, or anything approaching to it, was ever
publicly made on his part, on the ground of his being the possessor
of the keys bestowed on Peter.
* It was only in the second century before the Christian
era that the worship of Cybele, under that name, was introduced
into Rome; but the same goddess, under the name of Cardea, with the
"power of the key," was worshipped in Rome, along with Janus,
ages before. OVID's Fasti
Very early, indeed, did the bishop of Rome show a proud and ambitious
spirit; but, for the first three centuries, their claim for superior
honour was founded simply on the dignity of their see, as being that
of the imperial city, the capital of the Roman world. When, however,
the seat of empire was removed to the East, and Constantinople
threatened to eclipse Rome, some new ground for maintaining the
dignity of the Bishop of Rome must be sought. That new ground was
found, when, about 378, the Pope fell heir to the keys that were the
symbols of two well-known Pagan divinities at Rome. Janus bore a key,
and Cybele bore a key; and these are the two keys that the Pope
emblazons on his arms as the ensigns of his spiritual authority. How
the Pope came to be regarded as wielding the power of these keys will
appear in the sequel; but that he did, in the popular apprehension,
become entitled to that power at the period referred to is certain.
Now, when he had come, in the estimation of the Pagans, to
occupy the place of the representatives of Janus and Cybele, and
therefore to be entitled to bear their keys, the Pope saw that if he
could only get it believed among the Christians that Peter
alone had the power of the keys, and that he was Peter's
successor, then the sight of these keys would keep up the delusion,
and thus, though the temporal dignity of Rome as a city should
decay, his own dignity as the Bishop of Rome would be more
firmly established than ever. On this policy it is evident he acted.
Some time was allowed to pass away, and then, when the secret working
of the Mystery of iniquity had prepared the way for it, for the first
time did the Pope publicly assert his pre-eminence, as founded on the
keys given to Peter. About 378 was he raised to the position which
gave him, in Pagan estimation, the power of the keys referred to. In
432, and not before, did he publicly lay claim to the possession of
Peter's keys. This, surely, is a striking coincidence. Does the reader
ask how it was possible that men could give credit to such a baseless
assumption? The words of Scripture, in regard to this very subject,
give a very solemn but satisfactory answer (2 Thess 2:10,11): "Because
they received not the love of the truth, that they might be
saved...For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they
should believe a lie." Few lies could be more gross; but, in course of
time, it came to be widely believed; and now, as the statue of Jupiter
is worshipped at Rome as the veritable image of Peter, so the keys of
Janus and Cybele have for ages been devoutly believed to represent the
keys of the same apostle.
While nothing but judicial infatuation can account for the credulity
of the Christians in regarding these keys as emblems of an exclusive
power given by Christ to the Pope through Peter, it is not difficult
to see how the Pagans would rally round the Pope all the more
readily when they heard him found his power on the possession of
Peter's keys. The keys that the Pope bore were the keys
of a "Peter" well known to the Pagans initiated in the Chaldean
Mysteries. That Peter the apostle was ever Bishop of Rome has been
proved again and again to be an arrant fable. That he ever even set
foot in Rome is at the best highly doubtful. His visit to that city
rests on no better authority than that of a writer at the end of the
second century or beginning of the third--viz., the author of the work
called The Clementines, who gravely tells us that on the
occasion of his visit, finding Simon Magus there, the apostle
challenged him to give proof of his miraculous or magical powers,
whereupon the sorcerer flew up into the air, and Peter brought him
down in such hast that his leg was broken. All historians of repute
have at once rejected this story of the apostolic encounter with the
magician as being destitute of all contemporary evidence; but as the
visit of Peter to Rome rests on the same authority, it must stand or
fall along with it, or, at least, it must be admitted to be extremely
doubtful. But, while this is the case with Peter the Christian,
it can be shown to be by no means doubtful that before the Christian
era, and downwards, there was a "Peter" at Rome, who occupied
the highest place in the Pagan priesthood. The priest who
explained the Mysteries to the initiated was sometimes called by a
Greek term, the Hierophant; but in primitive Chaldee, the real
language of the Mysteries, his title, as pronounced without the
points, was "Peter"--i.e., "the interpreter." As the revealer of that
which was hidden, nothing was more natural than that, while opening up
the esoteric doctrine of the Mysteries, he should be decorated with
the keys of the two divinities whose mysteries he unfolded. *
* The Turkish Mufties, or "interpreters" of the
Koran, derive that name from the very same verb as that from
which comes Miftah, a key.