Under the Roman Empire
The church was born on the day of Pentecost. The church was at rest until Stephen was martyred. This all began when the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire in 31AD. Most of the apostles were killed. Persecution against the entire church began in 67AD.
The Christians were sewed up in skins of wild beast, and then worried by dogs until they expired. They were dressed in shirts made stiff with wax and set on fire. Others were crucified and boiled in oil. Others were scourged until their sinews and veins lay bare, and then killed.
The Roman Empire greatly persecuted the church from 67AD to 313AD under the reign of ten Roman Emperors; Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus, Severus, Maximus, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, and Diocletian.
Nero was the first emperor to begin a general campaign against the Christians. He murdered his mother, his wife and mistress. Rome accused him to have started “the Great fire of Rome”. Excusing himself, he laid blame on the Christians. The ghastly way in which the Christians were put to death aroused sympathy among many Romans, although most felt their execution justified.
The Roman historian Tacitus, in his book, Annals, published a few years after the event, made the following brief statement. Tacitus was a young boy living in Rome during the time of the persecutions:
“In their very deaths they were made the subjects of sport: for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when the day waned, burned to serve for the evening lights. Nero offered his own garden players for the spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the dress of a charioteer, or else standing in his chariot. For this cause a feeling of compassion arose towards the sufferers, though guilty and deserving of exemplary capital punishment, because they seemed not to be cut off for the public good, but were victims of the ferocity of one man".
The other Roman Emperors persecuted the Christians until the reign of Constantine. Constantine was made emperor of Rome in 308AD. At that time, the Roman Empire was falling and one of the reasons for the fall was the several pagan sects which reduced the strength of the emperor. He wanted to restore religious and political unity. He saw Christianity as a tool which he could use to unite the empire and strengthen the emperor. In 313AD, he signed the edict of Milan which decriminalized Christianity and stopped the Christian persecutions. Constantine called a worldwide council in the town of Nicaea wherein some Christian disputes were to be resolved. The disputes were principally between the Arian Christians and Non-Arian (Nicene) Christians. These two groups of Christians disagreed on the nature and person of Jesus. In response to this invitation, over 300 Bishops attended including Bishop Alexander (standing for Athanasius) who stood for the Non-Arians, and Eusebius of Nicodemia (standing for Arius) who stood for the Arians. The Arians believed that Jesus was just a creature without any divinity while the non-Arians believed that he was of the same essence as the Father-true God.
Even though persecution of the church had stopped in 313AD, the church began to face another more devastating challenge – idolatry. Even though Constantine had stopped the persecutions, he began to corrupt the pure Christian life based on faith in Christ Jesus.
The Roman Empire was so vast, expansive, and diverse. As a result, Constantine realized that not everyone would agree to forsake his or her religion to embrace Christianity. So, Constantine allowed, and even prompted, the `Christianization’ of pagan beliefs. Pagan beliefs were given new “Christian” identities. His aim of unifying Roman religion and politics was so strong that it was to be achieved at any costs. At the meeting at Nicaea, he wanted to reach an agreement by compromising the different beliefs of the Arians, the Nicenes and the moderates. He used his powers to retain instead of destroying pagan cults by giving them a new “Christian” dress. Some few examples include:
--The cult of Isis, an Egyptian mother-goddess religion, was absorbed into Christianity by replacing Isis with Mary. The titles that were used for Isis; “Queen of Heaven”, “mother of God” were attached to Mary.
--The Religion of Mithraism was replaced with Christianity. In Mithraism, there is a sacrificial meal which involves eating the flesh and drinking the blood of a bull. Mithras, the god of Mithraism was “present” in the flesh and the blood of the bull. It was believed that consuming the flesh and drinking the blood of the bull would grant. Mithraism had seven sacraments. Constantine and his successors found an easy substitute for the sacrificial meal of Mithraism in the concept of the Lord’s Supper. Sadly, the Christians had already started to attach some mysticism in the Lord’s Supper (which is just a remembrance supper). The Romanization of the Lord’s Supper completed the transition to the sacrificial consumption of Jesus Christ, now known as the Catholic Mass/Eucharist.
In the reign of Theodosius, Theodosius issued a decree that effectively made Nicene Christianity the official state church of the Roman empire (the edict of Thessalonica), but, he neither prevented nor punished the destruction of prominent Hellenistic temples of classical antiquity. After his death, his sons inherited the east and west halves respectively, and it was never again re-united. The Western empire collapsed on 475AD while the East became the Byzantine Empire. In the West, the Bishops were forced to adapt more quickly and flexibly to drastically changing circumstances. The Bishops of the East maintained clear allegiance to The Eastern Roman Emperor, the Bishop of Rome. As the political boundaries of the Roman Empire diminished and then collapsed in the West, Christianity spread beyond the old borders of the Empire and into lands that had never been under Rome.
Constantine never really accepted Christianity. It was only at his death in 337AD, that Eusebius baptized in his villa Nicomedia under the Arian form of Christianity. He was known to have paganized “Christianity” and Christianized paganism. He saw Christianity as a means with which he could unite the falling Roman Empire. Christians were legally united and given a name as the Roman Universal (catholic) Church. The Roman Catholic Church had spread throughout the Roman Empire such that when the Roman Empire eventually fell, authority was left in the hands of the church for centuries under the leadership of the pope. The Roman Catholic Church being involved with politics had its own enemies.
The various practices and new beliefs brought in by Constantine and his successors led the church into the dark ages. This dark period started in the 4th century and ended in the 16th century. A little light sprung in the 15th century when Martin Luther, Wycliffe, William Tyndale, and Myles Coverdale translated the Bible into English and German language. Spiritual ignorance prevailed during the Dark Age. With this vacuum, fear and superstitions took the lead. The church experienced about 1200years of darkness.
Under the Holy Roman Empire
The popes were often physically attacked by their enemies in the streets of Rome. In 799, Pope Leo needed help from the Frankish king. After being physically attacked by his enemies in the streets of Rome (their stated intention is to blind him and cut out his tongue, to make him incapable of office), Leo III made his way through the Alps to visit Charlemagne at Paderborn.
As a result, Charlemagne travels to Rome in 800AD to support the pope. Unexpectedly, as Charlemagne rises from prayer, the pope places a crown on his head and acclaims him emperor. This public alliance between the pope and the ruler of a confederation of Germanic tribes now reflects the reality of political power in the West and it launches the concept of the New Holy Roman Empire which ruled most of continental Europe and which will play an important role throughout the middle ages.
The Holy Roman Empire only became established in the next century by Otto I. Before this time, Charlemagne divides his Europe to his 3 sons into;
Western Francia – France (west) and dutchy of Burgundy (dutchy of South France)
Middle Francia – Italy and Burgundy (kingdom of South France)
Eastern Francia—Germany (which now, it was made up of present day Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Netherlands)
In 961AD, Berenger (king of Italy) is defeated by the Saxon king of Germany, Otto I, which overflows the Germanic dynasty of Roman Emperors. Italy is thus officially incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire constituted Germany, South France, and Italy. These countries are the present-day Germany, Italy, South France, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia, and Western Poland.
The coronation of Otto I as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by pope Gregory V was seen to transfer the Roman Imperial office to the heirs of the east Franks, the Germans. The seat of the emperor remained among the Germans until the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in the aftermath of the Napoleonic war in 1806AD.
The term “Holy Roman Empire” used regularly from 1184AD challenged the monopoly of “the sacred” presented by the papacy of the “Holy Roman Church” and presented the empire as an equal heir to the legacy of Rome. It was also used to take over the Roman Empire that had collapsed. The first official use of the full term, “Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation” in 1474 acknowledged that the empire had been for some time a German political unit in all practical terms. At the same time, the term also underscores a sense that it was the unique destiny of Germans to rule the universal sacred empire of the Christendom. The Holy Roman Empire dating from the 8th century AD until 1806 AD was the first German Empire (the 1st Reich). The Roman Catholic pope of Rome together with the German emperor as their henchman ruled the Holy Roman Empire.
By the 12th century AD, the Catholic Church had spread strongly through the whole of Germany and held religious and political power. For over 7 centuries, all Roman Catholic popes were Germans. Each time the pope wanted to deal away with Reformers, he engaged the emperor. Thus, prompted and supported, the emperor undertook the extirpation of the Protestants or those who refused to adhere to the Catholic doctrine. For this, a formidable army was raised in Germany, Italy, and Spain. Another powerful instrument which the Roman Catholic Church used to oppress the masses was the “Holy Office” or the Inquisition. It began in the 11th century after enlightened Christians who were called “heretics” like the Waldenses, Albigenses, Baptist and others revealed the lies of the religious system of the papal church. The inquisition rose to such an extent that it is estimated to have caused the death of over 70 million people in Europe, not to talk of those in other continents. Spain was the most powerful in these inquisitions. The Inquisition was a tribunal wherein an accused is judged according to Roman Catholic doctrine and if found guilty is sentenced to death. Wherever the popery had power, there was the tribunal. In the 13th century, the pope Dom was at the summit of mortal dominion; it was independent of all kingdoms, it ruled with a great power never since possessed by a human scepter; it was acknowledged sovereign of body and soul; to all earthly intents, its power was immeasurable for good or evil. Even though it did spread literature, Christianity, and freedom to the ends of Europe and the world, its nature was very hostile and full of evil.
The Roman Catholic Church proclaimed a person a heretic if he did NOT;
--Believe in purgatory or pay money to get the souls of their friends out of it.
--Bow to images
--Make offerings or prayers for the dead
--Believe in the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church
--Confess to Priest and receive absolution
--Believe in the real presence of the host (Christ Jesus is present in the Eucharist)
--Believe in Transubstantiation (the bread and the wine was the real body and blood of Christ meaning that the Eucharist is the sacrifice being offered to God for the remission of the sins of the those attending mass)
--Acknowledge the pope’s infallibility
--Go to pilgrimage
--Go to mass
--Pray to dead saints for remission of sins
Other abominable practices of the Roman Catholic:
--Use of candles, altars, bowls, incense
--The doctrine of the trinity
--The Holy water (water and salt)
--Baptism by sprinkling instead of Baptism by immersion in the name of Jesus.
--Infant baptism
--Church membership was based on accepting the doctrine rather than believing in Jesus.
--The use of the rosary, cross, and the scapular as aids to prayer and protection.
--The implementation of Holy days and Christmas
--The Abstaining from meat
--The forbidding for priest to marry
--The Clergy and the laity system
--The believe on dogmas
--The erection of the “virgin Mary”
Christians who refused to accept these errors and doctrines were judged and made to face horrible deaths. Some were burnt alive, others beheaded, others crucified, some were drowned in water, others were cut into small pieces until they expired, and others were broiled while others fried in hot coal. Some were left to starve to death while others were given to wild animals for food. Others were hanged, others squeezed to ashes by machines, others had their brains dashed out by a heavy hammer, and others were stoned. Some were raped and then pierced, others were tied in a bag together with snakes and scorpions and thrown into the sea. Some were burnt in slow flames of fire until they expired while others will have hot irons placed on the tender parts of their bodies and then killed.
Protestants were expelled from all offices, trades, privileges, and employments; thereby depriving them of the means of getting their bread: and they proceeded to such excess in this brutality, that they would not suffer even the midwives to officiate, but compelled the pregnant women to submit themselves in that crisis of nature to their enemies, the brutal Roman Catholics. Their children were taken from them to be educated by the Catholics, and at seven years of age, made to embrace popery (Fox’s book of martyrs).
Many abominable practices crept into the church, and attempted to wipe out light of the gospel. When Martin Luther and his companions translated the Bible into different languages, people saw the darkness that covered the Roman Catholic Church. This revelation caused the rise of Protestantism.