When Compared with ‘Things Spiritual’, the Christ-is-God Doctrine Fails

WHAT SETS THE BIBLE apart from other books is the complete absence of error and contradiction among the writings contained therein. Owing to its inerrancy, the Bible alone is the ultimate basis and standard for determining the correctness and validity of any religious doctrine. One can rest assured that the teachings he follows are right and sound if they agree with the Scriptures; he can hence renounce or reject, without fear or worry, any belief that is contrary to even just a single correctly-translated verse of the Bible.

The most controversial religious issue, on which innumerable debates since the days of the Roman Emperor Constantine have been and still are engaged in by people professing to be Christians, is probably the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ: Is He God or man? What never fails to make many an inquisitive observer wonder, though, is the fact that both sides use the same unimpeachable source and basis – the Bible. Certainly, they cannot be both right. It behooves all to query: If the Bible contains no contradictions whatsoever, then how could two opposing sides use it as their common source and basis?

To test whether the use of a certain verse by either side is correct or not, one only has to compare it with the other related verses, for Apostle Paul says, “These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (I Cor. 2:13, King James Version)

Spiritual things will not contradict with other spiritual things when they are compared with one another. In no way will they manifest disagreement, but only harmony and unity. They go together perfectly well – at all times. With this apostolic method of teaching, nothing is added to or taken away from the Word. Corollarily, when one Bible verse seems to clash in meaning with another verse, the former or the latter is either mistranslated or misinterpreted.

Philippians 2:6One of the most oft-cited Bible verses relative to the issue under consideration, and which itself has given rise to much deliberations is Philippians 2:6, which says, “Who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God” (Ibid.). That this verse has been either paraphrased or liberally rendered by some translators who believe that Christ is God is very evident in the following versions:

“Christ was truly God. But he did not try to remain equal with God.” (Contemporary English Version)

“Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. (New Living Translation)

“Who, though he was God, did not demand and cling to his rights as God.” (Living Bible)

The most common explication of the verse by the advocates of the Christ-is God doctrine is that God divested Himself of His divine nature and became man or, as some would put it, that God walked incognito on earth in the person of Jesus Christ.

Even without delving into the Greek language in which Philippians 2:6 was originally written, one cannot but notice immediately the obvious and great discrepancy, incongruence, and absurdity of the three foregoing renderings and the interpretation that is responsible for them. Mere spiritual comparison of this verse with the other related verses plainly shows that such an interpretation, and its concomitant renderings, are wrong.

Two distinct beingsVerse nine, for example, states, “Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name” (KJV). The existence here of two distinct beings is undeniable: one is God, who “has highly exalted [Christ] and given Him the name which is above every name,” and the other one is Christ, who has been highly exalted by God. If “Christ was truly God,” as CEV rendered, how could He be “highly exalted … and given … the name which is above every name” by God? How could Christ and the God, who exalted Him, be both “truly God”?

In verse six itself, and using CEV, the mistranslation is quite obvious – “Christ was truly God. But he did not try to remain equal with God.” Again, the existence here of two distinct beings is very evident: one who “was truly God” and another one whom He “did not try to remain equal with.”

User-friendly translations seek to make the Bible more readable and easier to understand, but if a verse is rendered in such a way that its original meaning is lost or twisted in the process, then the verse cannot be relied upon as God’s Word. In view of this, strict accuracy, achieved by faithfulness to the original languages in which a text was written is, therefore, to be immensely preferred to readability.

Form, image: ‘near synonyms’The KJV renders the verse: “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” The phrases “being in the form of God” (which is written) and “being God” (which is concluded) definitely do not mean the same thing. Just because Christ is “in the form of God,” it does not necessarily mean that Christ “is God.” In fact, not only do they mean two different things – they also are “spiritually incomparable.” They are simply scripturally irreconcilable, considering the meaning of “form” and the fact that “form” and “image” (man, let it not be forgotten, was created in the image of God) are “near synonyms” (Christology in the Making: An Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, p. 115).

According to The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, “form” (“morphe” in Greek) denotes an expression of “essential attributes” or “essential qualities” of God: “6. Being in the form of God (AV). Better, Though in his pre-incarnate state he possessed the essential qualities of God, he did not consider his status of divine quality a prize to be selfishly hoarded (takingharpagmos passively). Morphe, form, in verses 6 and 7 denotes a permanent expression of essential attributes, while schema, fashion (v.8), refers to outward appearance that is subject to change” (p.1324).

Wycliffe’s commentary is corroborated by a more pronounced explanation by other Bible commentators, who says that “in the form of God” does not refer to the “divine essence” or “divine nature” but to “the external self-manifesting characteristics” of God. “… Who subsisting (or existing, viz., originally: the Greek is not the simple substantive verb, to be) in the form of God (the divine essence is not meant: but the external self-manifesting characteristics of God, the form shining forth from His glorious essence. The divine nature had infinite BEAUTY in itself, even without any creature contemplating that beauty: that beauty was ‘the form of God’; as ‘the formof a servant’ (vs. 7) …” (Practical and Explanatory Commentary on the Whole Bible, p. 1305)

Contrary to the popular understanding that Christ’s “being in the form of God” in Philippians 2:6 means that Christ is God, the use by the Apostle Paul of the word “form” (which is synonymous with “image”) to refer to Christ is in itself an unequivocal proof that Christ is man, for, of all creatures, it is really man who was created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). “It has long been recognized that…(form) and,,,(image) are near synonyms and that in Hebrew thought the visible ‘form of God’ is his glory …” (Christology in the Making: An Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, p. 115).

Therefore, Apostle Paul’s reference to Christ as “being in the form of God” in Philippians 2:6 is synonymous – or spiritually comparable – with his allusion to Christ as being “the image of the invisible God” in Colossians 1:15. But Christ’s being “the image of the invisible God” does not make Him God, just as all other men’s being created in the image of God does not make us all Gods. No doubt, Philippians 2:6 and Colossians 1:15 are spiritually comparable; they both underscore Christ’s being a man, and not His allegedly being God.

In righteousness and holinessLest Christ’s being the image of God be misconstrued to mean in the visual sense, Apostle Paul, at once, clarifies that God is “invisible” (Col. 1:15; I Tim. 1:17) – a term spiritually comparable with Christ’s statement that “God is Spirit” (John 4:24), which means that God has no flesh and bones (Luke 24:36-39).

In what sense then is Christ the image of the invisible God, a characteristic that not only He, in fact, but all men should possess since all men have been created in God’s image? In righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:23-24,TEV)

Although God has made mankind upright in keeping with His desire that men be in His image, yet men “have gone in search of many schemes,” thereby failing to live up to his Maker’s design. “This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes” (Eccles. 7:29, New International Version).

It is for this reason that all men need the Lord Jesus Christ, for Christ, being the only man who is sinless (I Pet. 2:21-22), is the only one who has lived up to God’s purpose of creating man in His image. Apostle Paul says, “It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption” (I Cor. 1:30, NIV, emphasis ours).

Owing to this, Paul urges the Christians who have truly “heard about [Christ] and were taught in him” that for them to be in “the likeness of God,” they must “put off [their] old nature which belongs to [their] former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of [their] minds, and put on the new nature, created after likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:20-24, Revised Standard Version, emphasis ours).

And to be able to heed this exhortation, they need to have the mind of Christ – humble and obedient. Paul says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, … And being found in appearance as a man, He humble Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:5, 8, New King James Version).

Christ is in the form or image of God in righteousness and holiness, and His followers should be so, too.

God does not change
The error in the belief that “God became man” lies in the fact that the true God of the Bible – who is neither man nor the son of man (Num. 23:19) – is immutable. God does not change, as He Himself says, “For I the Lord do not change” (Mal. 3:6, RSV). Consistent with this, Apostle James write:

“Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17, Ibid.)

Clearly then, the belief that “God became man” is, to say the least, not spiritually comparable with other related verses. We can come up with a host of other related Bible verses with which the Christ-is-God interpretation of Philippians 2:6 simply cannot be spiritually compared. Instead of the verse introducing Christ as God, it actually all the more affirms the doctrine that Christ is man, and not God. Thus, when compared with “spiritual things” (I Cor. 2:13, KJV), the Christ-is-God dogma miserably fails.

References:

Dunn, James D.G. Christology in the Making: An Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation. London: SCM Press Ltd. 1980.

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown. Practical and Explanatory Commentary on the Whole Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961.

Pfeiffer, Charles F. and Everett F. Harrison. The Wycliffe Bible Commentary: A Phrase by Phrase Commentary of the Bible. Chicago: The Moody Bible Institute, 1990.

The Fact And The Process Of Apostasy

APOSTASY IS A defection, a falling away from what one believed in, as apostasy from one’s religion, creed, or politics. Thus, one becomes an apostate as soon as he departs from his former belief, whatever it was. What undergoes change is not the person nor his nature but his beliefs.

In the field of religion, apostasy is one of the most controversial and confused terms. Reformers accused the Catholic Church of having departed from the original teachings of Christ. The Catholic Church turns the table on them by calling them apostates or separated brethren.

This article will determine the issue of who really departed from the truth or from the teachings of Jesus Christ. Two things must be made clear: a) what Christ and the Apostles taught and b) if the bishops who succeeded the Apostles in the administration of the Church continued such teachings or not. If they did, then there was no apostasy; if they did not, then there was an apostasy.


Christ’s Teachings Are In The Bible

Not all the things done by Christ and the Apostles were written (cf. Jn. 20:30-31). In fact there were some things that God did not want to be written (cf. Dan. 12:4; Rev. 10:4). The Apostles wrote down what they witnessed (cf. 1 Jn. 1:1-4). All such writings were inspired by God, should be used for doctrine, correction, instruction, and they make man perfect (cf. II Tim. 3:16-17). What were written are enough and nothing should be added to them nor subtracted from them (cf. Rev. 22:18-19) for what are written were written so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing we might have eternal life through His name (cf. Jn. 20:30-31). Apostle Paul adds that we must not go beyond what is written (cf. I Cor. 4:6). And if the Apostles did give instructions by word of mouth, such instructions were taken from what they had witnessed and such things they wrote down (cf. I Jn. 1:1-4).

Thus, the teachings of Christ and the Apostles on which we must remain if we are to be true Christians are written in the Bible, and for as long as we remain in them, we are truly Christ’s disciples (cf. Jn. 8:31) or Christians (cf. Acts 11:26).


The Process of Apostasy

The process of apostasy or the turning away from the teachings of God as written in the Bible, was already at work even during the times of the apostles (cf. II Thess. 2:7). Apostle Paul warned the Christians in Galatia that those who teach doctrines different from what the Apostles already taught be accursed (cf. Gal. 1:6-9). But for as long as the Apostles were still alive and in control of Church administration, such forces of iniquity did not succeed in enticing the entire living members of the Church away from what the Apostles taught them (cf. II Thess. 2:7).

With the death of the Apostles, however, something happened to the Church of Christ:

“For the years after the record in Acts ends, evidence for the history of the Christian Church becomes more scanty. There began to be passing references to it in pagan writers. These writers make it seem likely that the Roman Emperor Nero blamed the Christians for the burning of the city of Rome in A.D. 64. It is also very likely that Saint Peter and Saint Paul were put to death at Rome about this time… .

“When the original Apostles died, the leadership of the Church was taken over by local pastors known as bishops. Under them were ministers of lower rank, known as presbyters and deacons. The Church organized the area of the Roman Empire into provinces. The bishops at the head of the Christian communities in the large cities such as Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage ranked highest.” (The New Book of Knowledge, vol. 3, pp. 280-281)

Thus, when the Apostles died, not much was recorded on what went on in the Church of Christ but during this period of silence the administration of the Church fell into the hands of the bishops.

Apostle Paul describes the bishop as he was in the first century Church of Christ. His qualities are detailed in I Timothy 3:2-7 as:

“…blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; Not given to wine, no striker not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?). Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.” (King James Version)

Apostle Paul further says that a bishop should be “holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.” (cf. Titus 1:9)

Thus, among other things, a bishop in the first century Church of Christ is a husband of one wife and a teacher of things taught by the Apostles and Christ, things that are written in the Bible.

The bishops that took control of the Church administration in the second century were of a different breed. They were priests who were not allowed to marry and taught things not coming from the Bible. Moreover, the bishops of the first century Church were not monarchical:

“In Acts 20:28, …the fact that there were several bishops in one community excludes the monarchical concept of the term…” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 2, p. 585)

In spite of this clear evidence from the Bible that the original bishop in the Church of Christ was not monarchical, Catholic Church authorities inject the idea that the monarchical episcopate which prevailed in the second century must have come from oral tradition:

“Therefore, since there is no clear evidence in NT for a monarchical episcopate, this office, which was firmly established by the early decades of the 2d century must have been based on oral apostolic tradition going back ultimately to Christ.” (Ibid.)

A monarchical episcopate is defined as “one single bishop assisted by priests and deacons” (Ibid. p. 589), a thing that did not prevail during the time of the Apostles. In spite of this difference in administration between the first century Church of Christ and that of the second, Catholic authorities reject the first and accept the second:

“The testimony of Ignatius from the first decade of the 2d century, along with the evidence of the writers from the second half of that century and the earliest catalogs of bishops in the principal Churches – all of which trace a line of succession of individual bishops back to the apostolic age – satisfies most Catholic theologians that this form of Church government was the only one ever recognized as normal and regular.” (Ibid.)

This control of the Church administration by the bishops who began to teach different doctrines was the fulfillment of what Apostle Paul prophesied concerning the overseers (bishop):

“Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” (Acts 20:30, KJV)

Soon after the bishops took over the administration of the Church in the second century, the doctrines of this Church began to be infected with poison:

“At first the history of the Roman Church is identical with the history of the Christian truth. But unhappily there came a time when streams of poison began to flow from the once pure fountain.” (The World’s Great Events, vol. 2, pp 163-164)
From Church of Christ To Catholic Church

The great apostasy did not consist in the destruction of the first century Church of Christ and the establishment of another one. It consisted in the deterioration of the Church established by Christ. As already mentioned, there was a sort of “news blockout” during the years immediately after the death of the Apostles. During this period the bishops took over the administration of the Church. When events began to be recorded again, what was revealed was a Church very different from what Christ founded:

“For fifty years after St. Paul’s life a curtain hangs over the church, through which we strive vainly to look; and when at last it rises about 120 A.D. with the writings of the earliest church-fathers, we find a church in many aspects very different from that in the days of St. Peter and St. Paul.” (The Story of the Christian Church, p. 41)

The differences between what used to be the Church of Christ in the first century and the Church that was revealed in the second to the fourth centuries are profound:

“It is necessary to note that we should recall the reader’s attention to the profound differences between this fully developed Christianity of Nicaea and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth….What is clearly apparent is that the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth was a prophetic teaching of the new type that began with the Hebrew prophets. It was not priestly, it had no consecrated temple, and no altar. It had no rites and ceremonies. Its sacrifice was ‘a broken and contrite heart’. Its only organization was an organization of preachers, and its chief function was the sermon. But the fully fledge Christianity of the fourth century, though it preserved as its nucleus the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels, was mainly a priestly religion, of a type already familiar to the world for thousands of years. The center of its elaborate ritual was an altar, and the essential act or worship the sacrifice, by a consecrated priest, of the Mass.” (The Outline of History, pp. 552-553)

These profound changes, made on the original teachings of Christ, dealt great violence on the teachings of the Bible for the purpose of enhancing the interests of the Catholic Church:

“Jesus too, being a Galilean, was of Aryan stock, a remarkable man whose teachings had, in the course of centuries, been deformed out of all recognition in the interests of the Catholic Church.” (The Vatican in the Age of Dictators, p. 168)

Adding insult to injury, Catholic authorities acknowledge such changes without shame and even with pride:

“We Catholics acknowledge readily, without any shame, nay with pride, that Catholicism cannot be identified simply and wholly with primitive Christianity, nor even with the Gospel of Christ, in the same way that the great oak cannot be identified with the tiny acorn.” (The Spirit of Catholicism, p. 2)

“ ‘Without the Scriptures’, says Mohler, ‘the true form of the sayings of Jesus would have been withheld from us….Yet the Catholic does not derive his faith in Jesus from Scripture’.” (Ibid. p. 50)

Hence, those responsible for this apostasy of the first century Church of Christ were the bishops under whose administration these profound changes took place. The first bishop identified as having introduced changes into the Church was Ignatius, bishop of Antioch who was martyred in Rome about 110 A.D. He was the first to use the term Catholic Church in reference to the Church of Christ:

“The name Catholic as a name is not applied to the Catholic Church in the Bible. ..St. Ignatius of Antioch, writing to the Christians of Smyrna about the year 110, is the first to use the name ‘The Catholic Church’ …” (The Question Box, p. 132)

This same Ignatius introduced the doctrine that Christ is both God and man. “He asserted unequivocally both the divinity and humanity of Christ, the Savior.” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 7, p. 353)

Ignatius is one of the so-called Antenicene Fathers who were divided into three groups, namely:
1. Apostolic Fathers – supposedly had personal contact with the Apostles or were instructed by their disciples. To this group belong Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyna, and Clement of Rome.
2. Greek Apologists – born of the Church’s reaction to paganism. To this group belong Justin Martyr, Athenagoras of Athens, Theophilus of Antioch, and Irenaeus.
3. Theologians – to this group belong Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, and Cyprian.

These Church Fathers were the source of the teachings that the Catholic Church taught and implemented beginning the second century and formalized by the decrees of the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. Such persons were not immune from errors and yet, the apostatized church approved their teachings:

“Obviously much that Christ and the apostles preached was in time reduced to writing. Hence there grew up a library composed of men called ‘the fathers of the Church’. They were called so because in apostolic days the word ‘father’ also meant teacher of spiritual things, and these were among her earliest teachers. But, unlike the apostles, all of whom enjoyed infallibility, they were not immune from error nor inspired as the scriptural writers had been. In so far as they dealt with questions of faith and morals, much of what they wrote was approved by the Church, and thus, became part of written tradition.” (Whereon to Stand: What Catholics Believe and Why, p. 142)

As a result of the teachings of these early Church Fathers, the Church of Christ or Christianity became Roman Catholicism, the last and the greatest of the mystery religions:

“On that dies Domini, or Lord’s Day, the Christians assembled for their weekly ritual. Their clergy read from the Scriptures, led them in prayer, and preached sermons of doctrinal instruction, moral exhortation, and sectarian controversy…

“By the close of the second century, these weekly ceremonies had taken the form of the Christian Mass. Based partly on the Judaic Temple service, partly on Greek mystery rituals of purification, vicarious sacrifice, and participation through communion, in the death-overcoming powers, of the deity, the Mass grew slowly into a rich congeries of prayers, psalms, readings, sermon, antiphonal recitations, and, above all, that symbolic atoning sacrifice of the ‘Lamb of God’ which replaced, in Christianity, the bloody offerings of older faiths. The bread and wine which these cults had considered as gifts placed upon the altar before the god were now conceived as changed by the priestly act of consecration into the body and blood of Christ, and were presented to God as a repetition of the self-immolation of Jesus on the cross. Then, in an intense and moving ceremony, the worshippers partook of the very life and substance of their Saviour. It was a conception long sanctified by time; the pagan mind needed no schooling to receive it; by embodying it in the ‘mystery of the Mass’, Christianity became the last and the greatest of the mystery religions.” (Ceasar and Christ, pp. 599-600) 
From Persecuted Church To Persecutor Church

The first century Church of Christ suffered persecution at the very moment of its inception. Christ was Himself crucified by the Jews; Stephen the deacon was stoned to death with the approval of Saul who was to become the Apostle Paul later. After the Jews came the Roman emperors, from Nero (54-68) to Diocletian (284-305). The persecution was in progress when the Church of Christ developed into the Catholic Church in the second century. Thus, those faithful to the Church of Christ in the first century were killed and wiped out by the second century in the Roman persecution. By the second century the Church of Christ had already apostatized into the Catholic Church but the Roman persecutions continued, and those getting killed were no longer true Christians but followers of the bishops called Catholics. Among the victims was Ignatius himself who began calling the Church of Christ Catholic Church. Even Popes were killed. A former Jesuit priest says:

“Between the death of Simon Peter the Apostle in A.D. 67, and the year 312, there were thirty-one popes, successors to Peter as bishops of Rome. Not one of the first eighteen popes died in bed. All perished violently.” (The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Church, p. 3)

These two centuries of intermittent persecutions led to the killings of thousands of Catholics still called by historians as Christians.

Emperor Constantine (306-337) stopped the persecutions, legalized and favored the Catholic Church and assumed control over it. Thus began a pro-Christian imperial policy which later turned into a policy of persecution of heretics and pagans:

“This pro-Christian imperial policy…began with Constantine, who favored the Christians and only tolerated paganism, hoping it to die a natural death. His three sons, however, who succeeded him at his death in 337, took a more resolute stance. This was especially true of Constantius, who was left sole ruler in 350. He aimed at total extirpation of paganism; he ordered the temples closed and imposed the death penalty for participating in sacrifices.” (A Concise History of the Catholic Church, p. 68)

“Meanwhile, Gratian was taking steps to stamp out paganism, and in 391 and 392 Theodosius issued stringent laws against idolatry. Sacrifice to pagan gods, whether in public or in private, was to be regarded as treason, and paganism gradually died out during the following century. The legal triumph of the Church over heresy and paganism and its evolution from a persecuted sect to a persecuting state church were complete.” (A Survey of European Civilization, p. 95)

Thus, the persecuted Church of Christ of the first century which became the persecuted Catholic Church from the second to the fourth century became allied with the Roman emperors in the fourth century and started persecuting not only pagans but also its own members who dared to refuse allegiance to it or who questioned its authority and teachings, members classified as heretics.

History records that by the 13th century, this persecution by the apostate Church surpassed in cruelty the persecutions done by the Roman emperors.

“The Inquisition lasted over two hundred years…If men or women or children refused to accept Christianity, they were tortured until they died.

“Even the early Christians, before Constantine, who were tortured and killed and fed to the lions in Rome, and who are known to us as Martyrs, were not treated more cruelly than the non-Christians during the Inquisition. (How the Great Religions Began, p. 214)
Conclusion

The true Church of Christ established by Christ in Jerusalem in the first century followed a set of tenets which Christ received from God, which the Apostles received from Christ, and which the Apostles committed into writing. Such written words make references to the Old Testament so that the true Church of Christ also recognizes the Old Testament as words of God. God commands that nothing should be added to nor subtracted from what has been written in the Holy Scriptures.

For as long as the Apostles were at the helm of Church administration, the Church followed to the letter all the commandments written in the Bible. But with the death of the Apostles, the bishops took control of the Church and they introduced teachings not drawn from what is written in the Bible but from tradition, writings of the so-called Church Fathers, theologians, and other sources.

By the second century, the bishops change the name of the Church, injected new doctrines into it, changed its hierarchy so that what emerged by the year 120 A.D. was a Church radically different in form and content from the Church during the time of Apostle Peter and Paul.

The apostasy did not consist in the establishment of a new Church but in the introduction of teachings foreign to it and not written in the Bible. The Church of Christ during the time of the Apostles became the Catholic Church of the bishops in the second century, persecuted by the Roman emperors until the fourth century, allied itself with the Roman emperors from that time on and became a persecutor Church, killing both pagans and alleged heretics with unspeakable cruelty.

This is the Church that turned away from Christ’s teachings as written in the Bible, the Church that took on teachings of men, the Church that apostatized, the Church that calls itself The Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church.


Bibliography

Books:

Adam, Karl. The Spirit of Catholicism. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1954

Bokenkotter, Thomas. A Concise History of the Catholic Church. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1977.

Brunini, John Gilland. Whereon to Stand: What Catholics Believe and Why. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1961.

Conway, Rev. Bertrand L. The Question Box. New York: The Paullist Press, 1929.

Durant, Will. The Story of Civilization, Part III: Ceasar and Christ. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944.

Ferguson, Wallace K. and Geoffrey Bruun. A Survey of European Civilization. Bostan: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1962.

Gaer, Joseph. How the Great Religions Began. London: The New American Library Limited, 1956.

Hurlbut, Jesse Lyman, D.D. The Story of the Christian Church. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1969.

Martin, Malachi. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Catholic Church. New York: Bantam Books, 1981.

Rhodes, Anthony. The Vatican in the Age of the Dictators, 1922-1945. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973.

Wells, H.G. The Outline of History. New York: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc., 1931


General References:

New Catholic Encyclopedia, vols. 2 and 3. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1967.

The New Book of Knowledge, vol. 3. Connecticut:Grolier Inc., 1983.

The World’s Great Events, vol. 2:From BC 207 to AD 1190. New York: P. F. Gollier & Sons Corporation, 1948.