The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2019 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 59

Kings, Bishops and Popes

At about the same time that the Jews were setting up Bar Kokhba as a Romish ruler, what were the Christians doing?

Well…

The two spiritual leaders of the world are Yeshua the Son of God and Satan, the Father of sin. Satan is the god of this world and Yeshua calls his people out of this world.

These two leaders have opposite spirits.

Christ obeys the Ten Commandments. That’s why He was accepted as the blood sacrifice for all who break the Ten Commandments.

Satan disobeys the Ten Commandments. Eve and Adam and all their descendants who, like Satan, have broken the Ten Commandments must have the blood sacrifice of Christ. As with Eve and Adam, the devil made us do it.

Satan tries to get people to follow his example instead of Christ’s example. Satan tries to get people to break God’s Law.

He does this by seduction, making sin appear attractive.

He does this by coercion, using force to harm and kill those who do try to obey God’s Commandments.

He does this by deception, to get people to think they are obeying God by breaking His commandments.

Needless to say, Satan is a dangerous adversary for us.

Job 1
6) Now it happened on the day when God’s sons came to present themselves before Yahweh, that Satan also came among them.
7) Yahweh said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”

And what was Satan doing when he was going back and forth on the earth?

1Pet 5
8) Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Seduction, coercion, deception – anything to get you to break God’s Ten Commandments. That’s Satan’s desire.

Sin by seduction is easy to understand. Eve saw the forbidden fruit and it looked good. Fornication and adultery seem enticing. The pride of life and lust for the world are natural for human nature.

Sin by coercion is easy to understand. The early Christians had to sacrifice to the Roman emperor or face death. One pinch of incense would appease Caesar and Satan. Many Christians chose that one pinch path, willing to trade their souls for their lives. Many did not and their dying prayers were incense to God.

But the third way that Satan gets people to follow him is harder to perceive.

Satan gets people to think they’re following God by following a ruler between them and Christ. This may be a political king or a religious ruler. This ruler may say that he himself is following Christ. In fact, the ruler may be largely obedient.

However, in an attempt to achieve human unity and physically control the carnal human spirit, the obedient ruler urges people to follow him personally. Since people can see and hear that ruler, it’s much easier to follow him than it is to follow an invisible God. So they follow God by following a man of God.

They think.

With that government in place, at some point that ruler, or more likely a successor of that ruler, stops obeying God’s Commandments. He then orders his followers to follow him in breaking God’s Commandments. Most of those followers do that, because they’re following the religious ruler, who they think to be righteous because he’s the religious ruler. The people then break God’s Commandments while they think they’re obeying God. Thus Satan gets people to follow him, while they think they’re following Christ.

It didn’t take long for that to happen with the Christians.

John was the last writer of the New Testament. In his three short letters, even though he was probably the only original apostle left, John did not make himself out to be a pope. He never wrote about everyone needing to be loyal to him personally. He hardly mentions himself at all.

He was the opposite of Barack Obama.

In his little letters, John talks about not sinning, about false brethren who had gone out, about having love for one another – but he never sets himself up as a powerful pope or rabbi.

He never says, “If you don’t follow me, you’re not following God!”

He never says, “You can be saved only if you’re in my group!”

On the other hand, apparently Diotrephes did.

3John 1
8) We therefore ought to receive such, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.
9) I wrote to the assembly, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, doesn’t accept what we say.
10) Therefore, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words. Not content with this, neither does he himself receive the brothers, and those who would, he forbids and throws out of the assembly.

Diotrephes accused John — Yeshua’s bosom buddy! — with “wicked words” – or in the Good News Bible:“the terrible things he says about us and the lies he tells!” And those who believed like John and not like Diotrephes, Diotrephes kicked out of the flock. He deflocked them.

Notice that it was Diotrephes alone who kicked people out of the assembly. It wasn’t the assembly who put people out. It wasn’t a small group of elders or shepherds who put people out. The kicker-outer was solely –

Diotrephes.

How could Diotrephes do that?

Because he loved to be first among them. He was the religious ruler, the rabbi, the archbishop, the popino – the one man in charge whom everybody had to agree with.

Diotrephes had set up the government of Rome in the flock of Yeshua.

Some people call this one man rule the government of God. Actually it’s the government of Satan. One man ruled in the government of Babylon and Persia and Greece and Rome, the four powerful historical governments of the world –

Satan’s world.

And at some point, gradually or suddenly, that government of Rome, the government of Diotrephes, the government of one man rule, –

Became the government of the Christians.

Obviously, by the time John wrote his letters – when he had to tell them what sin was and that they shouldn’t sin! — the Christian assemblies were having great spiritual problems. And if Diotrephes was trying to set himself up as a popino, it’s doubtful that he was the only one.

With human nature erupting in the Christian assemblies – chaos, confusion, and carnality – it’s not surprising that Christians would resort to the same human government as Israel long before them.

“Give us a king to lead us!” 1 Samuel 8:6, New English Translation.

Eusebius, Christian historian of the fourth century, was a Constantine crony. Since Eusebius supported the Roman emperor, he obviously supported Romish government. Eusebius listed what he said were the first 15 bishops of Jerusalem, as if they were sole religious rulers of the area.

Then along came bishop number 16….

1. The chronology of the bishops of Jerusalem I have nowhere found preserved in writing; for tradition says that they were all short lived.
2. But I have learned this much from writings, that until the siege of the Jews, which took place under Adrian [Hadrian], there were fifteen bishops in succession there, all of whom are said to have been of Hebrew descent, and to have received the knowledge of Christ in purity, so that they were approved by those who were able to judge of such matters, and were deemed worthy of the episcopate. For their whole church consisted then of believing Hebrews who continued from the days of the apostles until the siege which took place at this time; in which siege the Jews, having again rebelled against the Romans, were conquered after severe battles.
3. But since the bishops of the circumcision ceased at this time, it is proper to give here a list of their names from the beginning. The first, then, was James, the so-called brother of the Lord; the second, Symeon; the third, Justus; the fourth, Zacchæus; the fifth, Tobias; the sixth, Benjamin; the seventh, John; the eighth, Matthias; the ninth, Philip; the tenth, Seneca; the eleventh, Justus; the twelfth, Levi; the thirteenth, Ephres; the fourteenth, Joseph; and finally, the fifteenth, Judas.
4. These are the bishops of Jerusalem that lived between the age of the apostles and the time referred to, all of them belonging to the circumcision. (Eusebius. The History of the Church, Book IV, Chapter V. Translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert. Digireads, 2005, p. 71).
   Translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 1. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1890.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2501.htm 5/25/19.

We have already discussed how James was not the head of the flock. Jerusalem was the birth place and focal point of the early assembly, and if James had been a local pope in Jerusalem, then he would have been pope over the whole worldwide flock. But Paul said that James, Peter and John seemed to be pillars. He did not say that James seemed to be pope. The decision on circumcision in Acts 15 was sent out not by James, but by all the apostles, elders and the whole assembly at Jerusalem.

James was not a pope, a monarchic mega-ruler, either over the whole world or over just Jerusalem. He was a respected apostle who wrote one letter in the New Testament.

So Eusebius’ assumption that the earliest flock had the same type of government as Constantine’s Rome, with James being the sole head of the assembly in Jerusalem, was wrong. In the same way, succeeding Jewish or Hebrew bishops also may not have been popinos. They may have followed the example of the first assembly, unity by spirit and not by compulsion.

Ultimately, though, the worldly approach to government prevailed among those who were not to be of this world.

For example, during the reign of Hadrian, who put down the Bar Kokhba rebellion, Eusebius lists these bishopricks among the Gentile Christians.

In the third year of the same reign, Alexander, bishop of Rome, died after holding office ten years. His successor was Xystus. About the same time Primus, bishop of Alexandria, died in the twelfth year of his episcopate, and was succeeded by Justus. Eusebius Church History, Book IV, chapter 4.

So the practice of one man ruling over an area took root very early in Christian history.

The principle of bishoprics or pastorates is similar to the principle of denominations. Christ forbids denominations because they pit Christians against one another. The ultimate purpose of denominations is boasting, as Paul brought out in the first five chapters of 1 Corinthians. Paulites were better than Peterinos who were better than Apollonesians. To whatever degree, then, Baptists think they’re better than Methodists, who consider themselves better than Episcopalians, who look down on Baptists. That’s why people are in their particular denominations, because they think theirs is better than the others.

Similarly, setting up bishoprics or dioceses or pastorates is defining a territory where one man rules; and when any other Christian comes into that territory, he’s not an equal brother but a subject of that bishop.

Physical requirements like sacrifices, circumcision, garment fringes and blue threads, were given to Israel to remind them to be obedient. They did not work. Often those with the showiest physical signs were the most disobedient in spirit. The New Covenant is based not on physical reminders of sin and obedience, but on a change of heart. If the heart is changed from disobedient to obedient, then the physical signs, which didn’t work anyway, are not needed.

Human government faces the same quandary. Dictatorial type governments are set up to control the people under them. Conflicts and chaos, from uncontrolled human nature, lead people to turn to this type of government. However, if the hearts of those people are changed and their human nature is overcome, then those all-controlling governments, which cannot change human nature and don’t work long term, are not needed.

People who rule themselves do not need a dictator.

So the first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem, according to Eusebius, were of the circumcision, meaning they were Hebrews.

What about number sixteen?

Eusebius goes on:
The war raged most fiercely in the eighteenth year of Adrian, at the city of Bithara, which was a very secure fortress, situated not far from Jerusalem. When the siege had lasted a long time, and the rebels had been driven to the last extremity by hunger and thirst, and the instigator of the rebellion had suffered his just punishment, the whole nation was prohibited from this time on by a decree, and by the commands of Adrian, from ever going up to the country about Jerusalem. For the emperor gave orders that they should not even see from a distance the land of their fathers. Such is the account of Aristo of Pella.

And thus, when the city had been emptied of the Jewish nation and had suffered the total destruction of its ancient inhabitants, it was colonized by a different race, and the Roman city which subsequently arose changed its name and was called Ælia, in honor of the emperor Ælius Adrian. And as the church there was now composed of Gentiles, the first one to assume the government of it after the bishops of the circumcision was Marcus. Eusebius Church History, book IV, chapter 6.

So after the Bar Kokhba revolt, Hadrian ordered Jews not to even come near Jerusalem.

How did that affect the Christians there?

Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire gave his version of the change in the Jerusalem assembly, and how it became a church.

The emperor founded, under the name of Alia Capitolina, a new city on Mount Sion, to which he gave the privileges of a colony; and denouncing the severest penalties against any of the Jewish people who should dare to approach its precincts, he fixed a vigilant garrison of a Roman cohort to enforce the execution of his orders. The Nazarenes had only one way left to escape the common proscription, and the force of truth was on this occasion assisted by the influence of temporal advantages.

They elected Marcus for their bishop, a prelate of the race of the Gentiles, and most probably a native either of Italy or of some of the Latin provinces. At his persuasion the most considerable part of the congregation renounced the Mosaic law, in the practice of which they had persevered above a century. By this sacrifice of their habits and prejudices they purchased a free admission into the colony of Hadrian…
Gibbon E. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume I, Chapter XV, Section I. ca. 1776-1788.

Marcus left his mark on the Jerusalem church. They “renounced the Mosaic law,” and changed the “practice of which they had persevered above a century.” Those who did not follow Marcus were called Nazarenes. The Jerusalem assembly was split between commandment keepers and commandment breakers.

The Mosaic Law means different things to different people.

Sacrifices were a central part of the law of Moses, yet obviously the Jerusalem Christians did not offer sacrifices, even when the Temple stood.

Circumcision was included in the law of Moses, and some Jewish Christians wanted to maintain that practice. However, Paul was adamant that circumcision of the heart was required of all Christians, circumcision of the flesh was required of none. Peter was wrong when he refused to eat with uncircumcised Christians because there was no spiritual difference between Jews and Gentiles. Therefore circumcision has no spiritual effect and is useless for any Christian, including Jews.

The Ten Commandments were included in the law of Moses, but they preceded and succeeded that. The Ten Commandments, first written on tablets of stone with the finger of Yahweh, are now written in the hearts of believers with the same finger. The Ten Commandments are in the Ark of the Covenant at the very throne of God in heaven, right under the Mercy Seat. Breaking the Ten Commandments is the whole problem with humanity. Breaking the Ten Commandments is the religion of Satan. Breaking the Ten Commandments is what Christ never did. Those Commandments include the Sabbath, the sign of the Creator.

The Law of Moses also included the Feasts, which told of Christ’s first coming and still tell of His second coming. Yeshua was born at a festival time, He died at a festival time, and He began His flock began on a festival. That flock, Jews and Gentiles, observed those holy Feasts.

It’s widely believed that the Law of Moses includes all of the above, not only sacrifices and circumcision but also Ten Commandments and Feasts. So when Marcus led the Christians away from the “law of Moses,” he led them away from obeying the Ten Commandments and Feasts.

A more modern historian says:
According to rabbinic sources, he [Hadrian] prohibited public gatherings for instruction in Jewish law, forbade the proper observance of the Sabbath and holidays and outlawed many important rituals. (Barron SW.  Social and Religious History of the Jews, Volume 2: Christian Era: the First Five Centuries.  Columbia University Press, 1952, p. 107).

Johann Lorenz Mosheim, a German Lutheran historian in the first half of the 1700’s, discussed why the Christians in Jerusalem changed so radically under Hadrian’s rule.

Feeling it was the first importance to their well-being, to procure for themselves the liberty of removing their effects into the city of Ælia, [Hadrian’s new Jerusalem] and to be admitted in the rights of citizenship there, a considerable number of the Christians came to the resolution of formally renouncing all obedience to the law of Moses. The immediate author of this measure was, in all likelihood, that very Marcus whom they appointed as their bishop: a man whose name evidently speaks him to have been a Roman, and who doubtless was not unknown in his nation that had been the chief command in Palestine and might possibly have been related to some officer of eminence there. Perceiving, therefore, one of their own nation placed at the head of Christendom, the Roman prefects dismissed at once all apprehension of their exciting disturbance in the newly-established colony, and from this time ceased to regard them as Jews….

Nothing, in fact, can be better attested than that there existed in Palestine two Christian churches, by the one of which an observance of the Mosaic law was retained, and by the other disregarded. This division amongst the Christians of Jewish origin, did not take place before the time of Hadrian, for it can be ascertained, that previously to his reign the Christians of Palestine were unanimous in an adherence to the ceremonious observances of their forefathers. There can be no doubt, therefore, but that this separation originated in the major part of them having been prevailed on by Marcus to renounce the Mosaic ritual, by way of getting rid of the numerous inconveniences to which they were exposed, and procuring for themselves a reception, as citizens, into the newly-founded colony of Ælia Capitolina.
(Mosheim JL. Commentaries on the affairs of the Christians before the time of Constantine the Great: or, An enlarged view of the ecclesiastical history of the first three centuries, Volume 2. Translated by Robert Studley Vidal.)

So Marcus left his mark.

Before him, all the Christians in Jerusalem had believed like the first Christians on Pentecost. They believed like James, the brother of Yeshua, who was used by God to write a New Testament book. They were all Feast observers, knowing their flock had begun on a festival. They were all Sabbath keepers, who tried to obey the Ten Commandments. When James said, “For Moses from generations of old has in every city those who preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath,” he was talking about Jewish and Gentile Christians being in synagogues every Sabbath. The first Gentile Christian Cornelius was “a devout man, and one who feared God with all his house.”  That means that Cornelius and his whole household observed Feasts and Sabbaths. And all those first fifteen bishops and those Jerusalem Christians had believed like that for over a hundred years.

Then along came Marcus.

No Jews or Christians who observed God’s holy Feasts and Sabbaths were allowed in Hadrian’s new Jerusalem, Aelia Capitolina. The Aelia was from Hadrian’s family name — he humbly named the new city after himself! — and the Capitolina was named after Jupiter. [Jerusalem] “was made a Roman colony, inhabited wholly by foreigners, the Jews being forbidden to approach it on pain of death: a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus was erected on Mount Moriah, and the old name of Jerusalem was sought to be supplanted by that of Elia Capitolina, conferred upon it in honor of the emperor AElius Hadrianus and Jupiter Capitolinus,” Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, article Jerusalem.

Why on earth would any Christian want to be in such a city? Who wanted to be in Aelia Capitolina, Hadrian’s New Jerusalem, with the temple of Jupiter on the Temple Mount? Who wanted to see a statue of Hadrian and his horsey where the Holy of Holies had been?

Who?

Only those Christians who wanted to fit in with Rome.

Marcus led those Romish Christians in their new beliefs that Rome accepted. And those Christians also accepted the Roman kind of government – one man rule. And that one man rule – Marcus – led those Christians into anomia – lawbreaking.

Having just one man as the spiritual leader of a group lifts up that one man. He gets to thinking more of himself than he should. The people also think more of him than they should. It’s bad for him; it’s bad for them. And at some point, such a government always leads to apostacy and anomia, as with Marcus.

What’s more, if you accept the government of Rome – one man rule – on a local basis, then it’s logical to accept it on a worldwide basis. If it’s good to have a local bishop or priest or pastor, then by the same reasoning, it must be good to have a worldwide bishop or priest or pastor. You logically progress from a local bishop to the pontifex maximus, the “greatest priest” –

The Pope in Rome.