Antichrist prospered in the first 800 years

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Antichrist is a spirit

What facts do we know for sure on this topic?

Despite what churches teach, the Bible never says, "The Antichrist".

Waiting for the unscriptural "the Antichrist" makes the churches look for a political leader from Europe (or the Middle East or North Africa) to emerge as a One World Dictator from the area of the old Roman Empire. Many think it will be the President of the European Union. They wait in vain.

Because they look for a political leader they never think in terms of a church leader.

Look what Jesus said in His prayer in Gethsemane.

JOHN 17:12   While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost,

but the son of perdition;

that the scripture might be fulfilled.

Jesus describes Judas Iscariot as the son of perdition, the son from hell.

Judas was an apostle, a church leader. So the son of perdition refers to a leader in the church.

II THESSALONIANS 2:3   Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first,

and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

Politicians do not usually speak about sin and perdition (hell).

This is actually the language of church leaders.

So, the final One-World-Dictator will be a church leader.

Profound consequences will flow from your idea as to who or what the word "antichrist" refers to.

This concept will shape your beliefs to a significant extent. Especially, since church leaders are involved.

I JOHN 2:18Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time

:19 They went out from us, but they were not of us;

for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

Many antichrist spirits were originally in the early church.

They infected people's minds so that the people did not want to discipline themselves to obey the New Testament that the apostles wrote. They changed the verses in the Bible that did not suit them and introduced man-made doctrines.

I JOHN 4:3   And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

Antichrist is a spirit and there are many of them.

An antichrist spirit possesses a man and drives him to oppose God. The man dies but the spirit does not die. The spirit just jumps into the next man. So, beware of a succession of rulers. Like father and son being the pastors in order to keep the money in the family.

Antichrist spirits have been around since the early church. They were part of the original church but left to follow their own beliefs and thus set up an alternative or rival church system. Like Judas, they were followers of Christ until led astray, in his case, by the love of money. Leaders, like Judas, love money more than Christ.

LUKE 18:25   For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

No heavily laden camel could get through that narrow opening of the needle's eye gate.

The rich man would first have to unpack his camel if he wanted to enter the city.

Women, money, and fame or popularity are the downfall of church leaders.

So a rich church system becomes a possible candidate for the antichrist system. Today Christians pursue wealth and use their prosperity as proof of God’s blessing. But the early church gave away its wealth. Makes one think!

ACTS 2:44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common;

:45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

Perhaps our western world’s obsession with material success is not such a great idea after all.

MATTHEW 19:24And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Don’t say that we have not been warned. Matthew repeats the warning of Luke.

“Many antichrists” speak of many errors.

Antichrist is thus at least 2000 years old and is not necessarily a person but rather a system of “Christian” belief that is anti Scripture (since Christ is the Word) but has survived 2000 years to be the oldest of church beliefs and also very rich. Judas was a “disciple” of Jesus who was in it for the money.

This system of belief can also have a figurehead man as a leader. Like the Pope is the figurehead of the Roman Catholics.

Antichrist can refer to the religious system or to the figurehead.

Nazism can refer to the system of Nazis that ran Germany or to their figurehead, Adolf Hitler.

What clues can we pick up from the Bible to establish who this source of anti-Bible error is?

Let us ask that great prophet, Daniel.

DANIEL 9:26And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

"The people of the prince that shall come" were the Romans.

So Rome will be the seat of the final antichrist Prince of the church, the last Pope.

Each cardinal is called a Prince of the Church.

The Jewish temple was impressive but man-made. This man-made structure did not save the Jews from their destruction at the hands of the Romans in AD 70 after they had rejected Jesus in AD 33. Our man-made church systems will not save us from the 3.5 years of great Tribulation if we reject any Bible truths.

EPHESIANS 2:2Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world,

according to the prince of the power of the air,

the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

There are two main princes. Messiah the Prince (God incarnate in the Man Jesus) and Satan wanting to be incarnate in an end-time man and church figurehead as he did it in Judas.

JOHN 13:27And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.

At the end of time, Satan will enter a man (the figurehead of the antichrist church system) making him into a superman who will rule the world for the brief time of the 3.5 years of great Tribulation.

But there must be some antichrist religious system that has been built up over the past 2000 years for this end-time superman to take over.

This superman will be the final antichrist “prince that shall come”.

Who then are his people? Who will bring him into power? The people who destroyed the Jewish Temple.

These were the pagan Romans. The Jews had held off the Romans for 3 years in a desperate war starting in AD 66 when they defeated the Romans who were incompetently led. Then the Romans sent four legions under the competent general Vespasian and his son Titus. He began to ruthlessly take control of the countryside. When the emperor Nero died in AD 68 the Roman general Vespasian had to stop fighting as he needed permission from the new emperor to continue the war. But three generals, Galba, Ortho, and Vitellius each briefly seized power as Emperor for a few months and ignored Vespasian. As a result, Vespasian had to wait for orders so the Jewish war was put on hold. Then Vespasian’s soldiers declared him Emperor. So he returned to Rome in AD 70 to seize power and told his son Titus that he needed a quick and brutal victory over the Jews to boost his shares in Rome as the conquering hero and new Emperor. Titus besieged Jerusalem, starved the inhabitants, and finally slaughtered 1,100,000 Jews as the Romans destroyed Jerusalem.

In the process the temple caught fire. The golden vessels in the Temple melted and ran into the cracks between the stones. The Romans then tore the temple stones apart to get this gold.

Alexander the Great had conquered the Persians, who were the world’s first superpower, with 50,000 soldiers in less than four years. The Romans had sent 80,000 soldiers to Israel, which was just a remote Roman province, and this war had dragged on for four years. This made the Romans the laughing stock of the world. They were so mad with the Jews that they slaughtered 1.1 million Jews and razed the Temple to the ground to teach the Jews a lesson. 90,000 Jewish slaves were taken to Rome to build the Colosseum with all the wealth that Titus looted from the Temple. The Colosseum was to be the arena where Christians were later killed by wild beasts and lions.

So the pagan Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the Temple and are thus the people of the final antichrist prince that shall come. How is that possible?

The barbarians destroyed the pagan Roman Empire by AD 476. Then the pagan Roman spirit resurrected back to life as the Roman Catholic Church on the ruins of the pagan Roman Empire.

Historians called the Roman Catholic Church "baptized paganism".

Let us get another clue from Daniel.

He describes the rise of the antichrist system as a little horn.

DANIEL 7:25And he (the little horn) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

The little horn will change times

“Change times”.

Time is what we measure on a watch (the time of the day) or time is what we measure on a calendar (the time of the month or the time of the year).

What is called Communion today (or Mass in the Roman Catholic church) was an event that Jesus instituted after He and the disciples had finished the last supper of unleavened bread. This was eaten on the night before the Passover lamb was killed. He did this at night time and the Roman Catholic Church later changed the time of the day to daytime for this ceremony. The Protestants later copied this Catholic example of taking communion during daylight hours.

I CORINTHIANS 11:23For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus

the same night

in which he was betrayed took bread:

The ceremony was done at night but today the Catholic Church is happy to celebrate what they call Mass in the morning. Protestants follow their lead and are happy to celebrate what they call Communion in the morning as well. This makes it the Lord’s Breakfast, not the Lord's Supper.

JOHN 13:2And supper being ended,

the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him;

It was after supper that Jesus performed the ceremony that is called communion and feet-washing. (Most Christians have dropped the feet-washing part).

The time for this ceremony was changed from nighttime to morning. Christians accept this by saying that it makes no difference. So the Catholic Church changed the time of communion (or Mass) from nighttime to daytime. Thus they changed the time of the day for this ceremony.

Thinking, with human logic, to change times is the mark of the antichrist little horn. A religious system that was growing to power. Today the Catholic Church with 1.4 billion people is the world's biggest church. It is ruled from Vatican City, the world's smallest state or country. So the Vatican fits the symbol of a "little horn". A small but strong power.

Our function is to follow the example of Jesus and not to change what He did into something different that suits us better.

Christianity is more about sacrifice than about comfort and convenience.

That is why the feet-washing ceremony has also been dropped by most churches. It is too inconvenient.

Then the Roman Catholic Church changed the day of the month as well as changing the month.

Nobody knows the day or month when Jesus was born. God is not interested in birthdays.

Only two birthdays are mentioned in Scripture, Herod, and Pharaoh, both of whom murdered a person on their birthday. We, humans, make a fuss of birthdays and then think we can impress God by making up a date for the birthday of Jesus.

So the Roman Catholic Church took a day that we do not know, the actual day of Christ’s birth, and changed it to a fixed date, the 25th December. We have no evidence in Scripture that Jesus was born in December. But the Roman Catholics changed the unknown month of Christ's birth to December.

Easter was a date that we can know.

The first full moon is timed from the end of March or the beginning of April. This date can be any day of the week and will change from year to year which is how the Jews calculate the day of their Passover. But the Roman church changed the date to a Friday every year, however far away from the full moon this Friday happened to be.

They put the emphasis on the Friday, again for the convenience of having a weekend for the festival, rather than on the full moon. Once again the Protestants followed the Catholic example.

Catholic Encyclopaedia.
The earliest record of Christ's birth being observed on December 25, in Rome, is the Chronography in 354 A.D ( Philocalian Calendar of the year 354 ) which states that 25 December was the birthday of the unconquerable sun and the birthday of Jesus Christ. This document was based upon a calendar that dated to about 336 (Herman Wegman, Christian Worship in East and West, New York: Pueblo Publishing, 1985, 103). The Chronography was a document of the Church of Rome that listed the various martyrs' feasts for the year.

Around AD 350 it seems that the bishop of Rome, Julius, accepted December 25 because it was already a popular day for pagans to worship the birthday of their sun god.

So the Romans twice changed the day of the month. Concerning 25 December, they changed a day we do not know (the birth date of Jesus) into a day we now falsely claim we do know, the birth date of Jesus as 25 December. At Easter, they changed a day we do know, the full moon, into a different day that has to be a Friday. Very seldom will Friday and the full moon coincide.
The calendar measures time for us over a long time span.

But Jesus was actually killed on a Thursday as He had to spend three nights in the tomb before rising up from the dead early on Sunday morning.

Thursday night. Friday night. Saturday night.

MATTHEW 12:40   For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The Passover lamb was chosen on the 10th day and killed on the 14th day.

EXODUS 12:3    Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:

:6   And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

Jesus was publically chosen on Palm Sunday. So that Sunday was the 10th day of the month.

So, the 14th day would be a Thursday.

Who changed the calendar? Rome did.

In 45 BC Julius Caesar, the most famous of the Romans, added 90 days to the year to get the months back in line with the seasons. After that big correction, he then established the length of the year as 365.25 days, and every fourth year he added an extra day to February to make a leap year. Though very accurate, this Julian calendar gained 3 days every 400 years and slowly fell out of touch with the actual seasons of the year.

So in 1582, the Roman Catholic Pope Gregory 13 (who ordered the Saint Bartholomew massacre of 50,000 Protestants) removed 10 days from the year to bring the calendar back in line with the seasons. To slightly shorten the year, Pope Gregory 13 then removed the leap years from every new century that could not be divided by 400. So the year 1600 had a leap year but not 1700 or 1800 or 1900. The year 2000 had a leap year. His Gregorian calendar, which we still use today, is only wrong by 1 day in every 2,800 years so we can accept it as very accurate. The year is now close to 365.24 days.

This makes an interesting link between the pagan Romans of Julius Caesar’s time and the Christian Roman Catholics. Both these Roman groups played the major roles in changing the calendar to fit in with the seasons.

The succession of Popes is the trail of the serpent

II CORINTHIANS 11:2For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

The Apostle Paul wanted the believers, the church, to be the Bride of Jesus Christ. So a woman is symbolic of a church. In Revelation 17 we read of a woman (a church) who rides on and thus controls a powerful wild beast. A beast in Scripture represents some power. One of the strongest powers on earth is to hero-worship some human. We speak of sports idols and movie idols (objects of worship). When it comes to hero-worship, the Roman Catholic Church provides a male icon in the form of the Pope and a female icon in the form of Mary.

REVELATION 17:3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

Pope Leo 12 in 1825 made a medal that symbolizes the Roman Catholic church as a woman (the mother church) holding out a cup, which represents doctrine as it contains wine which represents the stimulation of revelation.

The woman sits on the world, holding out a cup. The Catholic Church holds out its cup of doctrine to the world in order that the world might be brought under submission to the Catholic Church.

REVELATION 17:9And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.

REVELATION 17:18And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

A woman in the Bible represents a church but here the woman is also a city. Vatican City.

Is there a city, originally built on seven mountains or hills, that is so dominated by a powerful church that when people think of the city, they automatically think of the church that dominates it. There is such a city. Rome, the famous city of seven hills.

Vatican City is the nerve centre of the Roman Catholic Church.

The official headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church is the Lateran Palace on the Caelian Hill, which is one of the original 7 Hills of Rome.

REVELATION 17:8The beast

(the figurehead leader of the religious system)

that thou sawest was, and is not

(the leader dies);

and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit

(no Bible foundation for Catholic beliefs. They simply believe in their various human traditions such as "Mass", Christmas day, Christmas tree, rosary, cardinal, archbishop, Pope, nuns, statues in churches, praying to Mary and dead saints, sprinkling babies, Trinity, and various other unscriptural words and customs),

and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder

(at the immense wealth of the Catholic Church and its vast numbers of followers and the global political influence of the Pope),

whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was

(a Pope rules),

and is not

(the Pope dies or abdicates),

and yet is

(a new Pope is elected).

That is what saves the system because they can keep electing a new Pope when the previous one dies.

The Popes represent the longest unbroken line of rulers in the Western world today. People wonder that any organization could have survived so long and still be so influential and wealthy in today’s world.

Popes cannot marry so there is no danger of an incompetent son following on as Pope after his father.

The council of cardinals is free to choose the most competent man available.

"The beast that was, and is not, and yet is" describes the succession of Popes that claims to start with saint Peter.

REVELATION 17:4And the woman

(the church)

was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour,

(bishops wear purple, cardinals wear scarlet robes )

and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls

(a very wealthy church),

having a golden cup

(The cup represents the doctrines that she holds out to the world. The wine in the cup represents the stimulation of the revelation of that doctrine. The apostles were “drunk” as they staggered around under the stimulation of the revelation of the Holy Ghost baptism on the Day of Pentecost.)

ACTS 2:13 Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.

:14  But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:

:15 For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.

REVELATION 17:4 … having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: 

“fornication” means an unmarried woman who is messing around with men.

This church is not married to Christ. If she was the Bride of Christ she would be guilty of adultery.

This church does not preach the Bible but holds out to the people the traditions of men. The word “Christmas” is not in the Bible, nor is the 25th of December. Christmas comes from “Christ’s mass” which is obviously a Roman Catholic tradition as they invented the term “Mass” to describe their ceremonies.

The wise men went into a house, not into a stable.

They saw Jesus and Mary but not Joseph.

MATTHEW 2:11And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.

They gave gifts to Christ, not to each other. Thus the Catholic church has changed the story of the wise men to make them enter the stable, not a house. It has made up an unscriptural date for the birth of Jesus. The 25th of December was declared to be the birthday of the sun god in the year AD 274 by the sun-worshipping pagan Roman emperor Aurelian. Christmas trees were copied from the heathens.

JEREMIAH 10:2Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

:3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.

:4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

The Roman Catholics copied the heathens with this Christmas tradition (Jesus was not born in mid-winter because shepherds and sheep would be very cold if they were out at night. Mid-winter is too cold and wet) and then the Protestants copied it from the Catholics, the mother church.

REVELATION 17:5And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

(the harlots are the Protestants who came out of the Catholic system to worship God according to the Bible, but soon began messing around with human traditions too. Any woman messing around with other men is a harlot. So the Protestants are as guilty. They also put a man’s opinion above Scripture. So all are in the same condemnation.)

REVELATION 17:6And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

How can such a wealthy church kill so many Christians? The pagan Roman emperors killed about 3 million Christians before they lost power around the year AD 312 when Constantine stopped killing Christians.

The Roman Popes, inspired by the writings of Augustine of Hippo, the prince of persecutors, then began to kill Christians who disagreed with them until tens of millions had been martyred in the Dark Ages. This is excessive by any standards. Drunken, excessive behavior.

REVELATION 13:1   And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

REVELATION 13:3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

One of his seven heads.

The seven heads on the beast (or power) represent the seven hills that Rome was originally built on. The Temple of Jupiter building on the Capitoline hill was declared to be the headquarters of the pagan Roman Empire.

The name of blasphemy is to say that in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is the name of God. Three titles cannot be a name. The Trinity God has no name as you cannot find one name for three Persons.

Odoacer, the leader of the Heruli tribe, overthrew the teenaged emperor Romulus Augustulus in AD 476 and ruled in his stead, but not from the Capitoline hill. This hill thus lost its power to rule the empire.

The Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline hill was the headquarters of the pagan Roman empire.

The Roman empire thus ended, symbolized by the deadly wound that the barbarians dealt to the Capitoline hill, which used to be the seat of power. The Roman empire was split up by the invading barbarians. The Roman Caesars would never rule again.

But, amongst these barbarian tribes, the bishop of Rome began to gain power. Why?

Because the emperor Constantine wanted to go east to build Constantinople. So he gave vast wealth to the bishop of Rome so that he would be the emperor's strong man in Rome when the emperor was in Constantinople.

This gave the bishop of Rome great prestige. Around AD 311 the new emperor Constantine took the properties of the Lateran family, who had fought against him, and handed over to  Bishop Miltiades, the Lateran palace which was the finest palace in the world according to some people before it was burned down on different occasions and rebuilt. The final version, which still stands today, is far more modest. When Constantine went East to build the new city of Constantinople, he left the Roman bishop with much wealth and much political power because he was a personal friend of the emperor.

This Lateran Palace, on the Caelian hill, has always been the official headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church.

Next to the Lateran palace is the basilica (a fancy word for a fancy church building) that the next bishop of Rome, Sylvester, built with the money that Constantine gave him which made him incredibly rich. Constantine, the political emperor, thus bought the loyalty of the bishop of Rome. Constantine intended to be the religious head of the church and needed the backup of the Roman bishop. Constantine thus became the political head and the religious head of the Roman empire.

In AD 476 the Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus was kicked out of power and displaced by the barbarian general Odoacer. The bishops of Rome (who called themselves the Popes) now depended for protection on the Eastern Roman emperor who lived in Constantinople (called Istanbul today). When the emperor in Constantinople could not protect Italy anymore the Popes made alliances with barbarian kings. This first alliance was with the Franks who lived in France.

The forged Donation of Constantine

The Popes anointed and crowned the barbarian leaders as kings of their tribes and these kings then agreed to protect the Popes and their territory. As the barbarians became converted to Catholicism, so the Popes gained leadership over them. The turbulent and often short-lived lives of the barbarians made them in awe of the stability, technological progress, and pomp of the Romans. Eventually, the papacy picked up the political power that the Roman Caesars had lost and thus "the deadly wound was healed". Pagan Rome fell and then rose up from the ashes as the Roman Catholic Church which was essentially baptized paganism because they incorporated many pagan religious traditions into Christianity in order to make the pagans feel at home in the church.

The Pope in the Lateran Palace on the Caelian Hill picked up all the power that the Roman emperor, called a Caesar, had lost when the Capitoline hill was conquered.

REVELATION 13:6And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name

[Roman Catholicism invented the Trinity and replaced the Name of Jesus Christ with the titles Father, Son, and Holy Ghost which are not names. The Protestants followed this example, baptizing in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost although they cannot tell you what the name (singular) of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is. It is, of course, the name of Jesus Christ. Ask a Christian what the name of God is and they cannot answer because they try to think of one name for three Persons which is not possible]

and his tabernacle

(they call the impressive Vatican buildings the seat of God on earth. But God wants to dwell in the hearts of men and women, not in a building),

and them that dwell in heaven

(they pray to the dead saints which is simply spiritualism and regarding Mary and the dead saints as intercessors is just another form of ancestor worship)

REVELATION 9:2And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

3 And there came out of the smoke locusts

(symbolizing destructive demons)

upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

The pit of hell opens and demonic influences sweep over the earth. When the Pope is elected, his election is indicated by means of smoke. The cardinals are sealed into a chamber and burn black smoke if no decision is made and finally burn white smoke when they agree on a new Pope.

REVELATION 9:11And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

Abaddon and Apollyon mean Destroyer. A destroyer who takes people's faith away from what is written in Scripture.

Demonology has a king who is the angel (or messenger) of the bottomless pit. A king wears a crown. For 600 years the Pope wore a fancy jeweled triple crown as king of heaven, earth, and purgatory. Jesus wore a crown of thorns.

The words “Pope”, “triple crown”, “purgatory” “cardinals”, “elect with smoke”, etc, are all unscriptural terms.

What we believe either comes from the Bible or from the bottomless pit.

666 is the number of the man Peter

The Catholic Church claims that only Peter has the keys to Heaven so only Peter decides whether to let you in or not.

Lucius Ferraris, Prompta Biblietheca, (edition of 1890), art, "Papa," II, Vol. VI, p. 43.

It was not until the eighth century [AD 700 -  800] that the Roman Church proclaimed authority over all of God's churches through the succession of Peter's bishopric. This was done with a forged document called "Donation of Constantine." It first appeared around the year 752 AD, four centuries after Constantine's death (337 AD). Bearing the forged name of the fourth century emperor, Constantine the Great, it originated the doctrine of apostolic succession and first coined the name

vicarius filii dei.

 This paper was confirmed by church council, incorporated in Roman Catholic canon law by Gratian, later endorsed by Pope Gregory XIII; (the Pope who changed the calendar) and cited by the Catholic scholar and historian Lucius Ferraris, who proved that it is a forged document.

"Ut sicut Beatus Petrus in terris

Vicarius Filii Dei

fuit constitutus, ita et Pontifices eius successores in terris principatus potestatem amplius, quam terrenae imperialis nostrae serenitatis mansuetudo haber videtur"

The translation reads :
As the blessed Peter is seen to have been constituted Vicar of the Son of God on the earth, so the pontiffs who are the representatives of that same chief of the apostles, should obtain from us and our empire the power of a supremacy greater than the clemency of our earthly imperial serenity.

Christopher B. Coleman, The Treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine, p. 13.

If Constantine had, in fact, penned the former document, it would still not be authority to exalt the Bishopric of one church over all others; yet this forged document actually became a "tool" to implement the

doctrine of Papal supremacy and infallibility through Peter.

The Pope claimed that Peter has the keys to Heaven so you must please Peter.

MATTHEW 16:19   And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

A very clever deception. Jesus is the Door to Heaven. But they were claiming that it is Peter who decides whether to open the Door for you or not.

What you do for the Popes, you do for Peter.

The Popes gain their prestige by promoting Peter to be the chief apostle and then claiming to be his successors. Peter himself never claimed to be a Pope nor was he interested in the wealth and territorial ambitions that have characterized the rise of the Roman Catholic church.

But the power to bind and loose was given to all the disciples.

MATTHEW 18:18   Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

How did Peter open the Door to Heaven? 

By repentance and baptism in the name of Jesus Christ.

ACTS 2:38   Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

:39   For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

What door did Peter close or bind?

The baptism of John the Baptist mentioned no name.

So Peter closed John the Baptist's baptism. All his living converts had to get re-baptized.

Any baptism without a name became invalid once the name of Jesus was announced by Peter.

Lord is a title. Christ is a title meaning Anointed One. The only name is Jesus.

But many men have the name of Jesus. So you must mention at least one title to show which Jesus.

Either Lord Jesus or Jesus Christ.  Or you can use both titles, Lord Jesus Christ. What counts is the name Jesus.

The men of Ephesus who had been baptized by John the Baptist had to get re-baptized.

Because no name had been mentioned by John the Baptist.
ACTS 19:3   And he [Paul] said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John's baptism.

:4   Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.

:5   When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Water baptism is the only ceremony where the Bride can take on the name of her Husband, Jesus Christ.

What deception did the Pope introduce?

Baptism in three titles which is effectively not a name. So the Pope offers the door that Peter locked.

Those who have been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost have actually not been baptized because no name was mentioned.

Their baptism was in vain.

There is no entrance through that door as it is another baptism without a name, just like John the Baptist had.

They need to get baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is a fraud.

Because the Pope has no idea what this name is. The three titles is certainly not a name.

This emphasis on one man, Peter,  and this claim that Peter was Vicarius Filii Dei opens an interesting possibility.

In Roman days the emperor had an official who ran the city when the emperor was away.

This official had the title "Vicarius urbis Romae"  which meant "in place of the city of Rome".

This was a title given to the emperor's representative to "stand in the place of" the city of Rome.

Latin uses certain capital letters for numbers when they are written in the uppercase.

They used a V in place of U.

VV became W which is pronounced as "double U".

IN  PLACE  OF              THE SON       OF GOD
V  I  C  A  R  I  V  S         F  I   L   I  I         D  E  I          (Latin uses a  V  for our U)
5  1  100        1  5                  1  50  1  1      500     1          (D = 500    C = 100   L = 50    V = 5   I = 1)

All these numbers add up to 666 which is the mark of the beast.

Thus this specific title which the Roman Catholic church claimed for Peter (which Peter himself never ever claimed) identifies the Roman Catholic Church with the following Scripture,

REVELATION 13:18
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

A "score" means 20.  "Threescore" means  3 x 20 = 60.

"Six hundred threescore and six" means  600 + 60 + 6  =  666.

The mark of the beast is linked to a man. The Roman Catholic church has corrupted the ministry of the Apostle Peter to such an extent, that their whole system can now be linked to the mark of the beast.

Peter himself cannot be blamed for this as he never made these claims.

VICARIVS FILII DEI was only used in history to apply to one man, Peter.

Peter never was a Pope

There is no historical proof that Peter ever was in Rome.

Paul wrote to the Romans and in his last Chapter, he greets about 27 people and never mentions Peter.

Obviously, Peter was not in Rome.

MARK 3:16And Simon he surnamed Peter;

Peter was his surname.

Popes always give themselves a new Christian name.

Peter was married and Popes are not allowed to marry which is a devilish doctrine.

MARK 1:29And forthwith, when they were come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.

:30 But Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever, and anon they tell him of her.

So Simon Peter had a wife. Thus he certainly was not the first Pope as the Roman Catholic church forbids their hierarchy from priests to popes from getting married.

Forbidding to let priests and Popes marry is a very dangerous doctrine.

I TIMOTHY 4:1   Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits,

and doctrines of devils;

:3    Forbidding to marry, 

Popes are infallible. But Paul openly rebuked Peter for being wrong.

GALATIANS 2:11   But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.

:12    For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.

But the title of Pope only entered the church just before AD 400.

Siricius who was bishop of Rome from AD 384 - 399 was the first bishop of Rome to call himself Pope and issue papal decretals to other churches that they had to obey.

This was 300 years after the death of Peter that the title of Pope was first adopted. So Peter was never a Pope.

In AD 382, Damasus was the bishop of Rome who first accepted the idea that the bishops of Rome were the successors of Peter. Again, this idea of apostolic succession was only developed some 300 years after the death of Peter.

Was Peter ever an apostle to the non-Jewish churches, was he ever an apostle to the Gentiles? No.

Scripture is plain on this subject where we will learn some interesting facts about his apostleship.

First, we will discover that Peter was not the Bishop of Rome, but was an apostle to the Jews as Paul plainly states:

Galatians 2:7-9, Douay On the contrary, when they saw that to me [Paul] was committed [by God] the gospel for the uncircumcised [Gentiles], as to Peter that for the circumcised [Jews] (for he [God] who worked in Peter for the apostleship of the circumcised [Jews] worked also in me among the Gentiles--and when they recognized the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas [Peter] and John, who were considered the pillars [of the Jerusalem church], gave to me and to Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles,

and they [Peter, James and John] to the circumcised [Jews]....

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pepin (or Pippin) (died 24 September 768), called the Younger, was the first King of the Franks (752–768) of the Carolingian dynasty. In 741 he and his brother Carloman succeeded their father, Charles Martel, as mayors of the palace and de facto rulers of the kingdom during an interregnum (737–743). After the retirement of Carloman (747), Pepin obtained the permission of Pope Zachary to depose the last of the Merovingian kings, Childeric III, and assume the throne (752).

Pepin needed the backing of the Pope to become the recognized king of the barbarian Franks.
The Pope needed Pepin to get rid of the barbarian Lombards who were invading Italy.

So Pope Stephen went to Paris to anoint Pepin and his sons as the royal line of the Franks.

Pepin's first major act as king was to go to war against the Lombard king Aistulf, who had expanded into the territory of Rome. Victorious, he forced the Lombard king to return property seized from the Church. He confirmed the Papacy in possession of Ravenna and the Pentapolis (five cities), the so-called Donation of Pepin (shown in red), whereby the Papal States were established and the temporal (political) reign of the Papacy began.
Pepin helped the Pope so that Peter would let him into Heaven.

The Catholic church gained a strip of territory running from Rome across Italy, called the Papal States.
The Pope crowned the barbarian Pepin king of the Franks in AD 754  as well as his son Charlemagne in AD 800 (the most famous king of the barbarian tribes). Thus the Pope became a kingmaker amongst the barbarians. As the barbarians converted to Catholicism, so the Pope became their spiritual head as well. The Pope was picking up the power that the Roman Caesars had lost.

REVELATION 17:2With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication,

and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

Thanks to the enlarged Papal States, the papacy gained enough power and prestige to interact with kings and world leaders.

Around AD 860 Pope Nicholas I began to wear a crown to make himself equal with the kings and emperors.

By 1315 this had become a triple crown to make the Pope king of Heaven, Earth, and Purgatory (the domain of demons). The triple crown indicated that the Pope thought he was now superior to all the kings.

REVELATION 6:2   And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

White is religious.

A bow without an arrow is a bluffer who deceives.

This is that spirit of antichrist that was in the early church and rides on the white horse of religious deception to fool the churches in the 7 church ages. That spirit is still riding through the churches today convincing some that the antivirus vaccine is the mark of the beast, amongst all its other deceptions.

Μatthew 16:16"Thou art the Christ the son of the living God"

Of all the disciples, only Peter had a clear revelation of who Jesus was.

Matthew 16:18  Jesus said , "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock

(the rock of revelation of Who Jesus is)

Ι will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it

The Pope changed this by claiming Peter was the rock. The same Peter who would deny Jesus three times.

MATTHEW 26:33Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.

:34 Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

Peter (petros in Greek) only means a stone or pebble, not a rock.

GALATIANS 2:11
But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.

:12 For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.

So Peter wanted Gentiles to live by Jewish law. Paul straightened Peter out proving that Peter was not the chief apostle as the Roman Church claims. He had that doctrine wrong so he certainly was not infallible, for those who try to make him the first Pope.

MATTHEW 16.19And Ι will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bοund in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven

On the day of Pentecost, Peter bound up the baptism of John the Baptist so that it was no longer valid. John only baptized for repentance but did not mention the Name of the Saviour, the sacrificial Lamb, Whose Blood had made repentance possible.

ACTS 2:38Then Peter said unto them, Repent,

(that is how we are loosed from sin)

and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ

(evidence that we understand who God is and have not been fooled by human opinions. Upon this Rock, the revelation of Who Jesus is. He is God the Father, that great Holy Spirit dwelling within the Man Jesus Christ.

As the Father, God was above His people the Jews.

As the Son, God walked around in the Man Jesus who was Emmanuel, God with us.

As the Holy Spirit, God returned to live in the hearts of His people, the church.)

for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

So the early church was saved through repentance and washed by the Blood of the Lamb. They also knew that the Lord Jesus Christ was the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This baptism loosed the understanding of Who God is. The Jehovah of the Old Testament was none other than the Jesus of the New Testament.

The Son is the Man that the fullness of the Godhead dwelled in bodily, so that God could live with us.

COLOSSIANS 2:9   For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit represent the three manifestations of God.

God above the Jews. God with the Jews as the Man Jesus. God in the hearts of His church.

If Peter was the first Pope and as such was infallible, then notice that he baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ. Why do his successors, the long line of Popes, not do the same thing? They all baptize in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost even though they cannot tell us what that name is.

But “binding and loosing” was claimed by the Pope as the power of withholding or granting forgiveness for sin which the Popes used in their contests with the political authorities during the Middle Ages.

MATTHEW 16:22Then Peter took him (Jesus), and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee,Lord: this shall not be unto thee.

Having been given the keys, Peter went straight off into error, contradicting Jesus.

:23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

A significant statement. The keys did not prevent Peter’s opinion from being satanic. So what about the Popes who claimed to have Peter’s authority.

Apostolic tradition means that the Popes claimed to be the successors of Peter and as such, they could forgive sin or withhold forgiveness as they chose.

Pope Boniface Ι (418-422) claimed that the government and essence of the universal Church, which Christ entrusted to Peter, descended to his successors, the bishops of Rome, and that the rulings of the Popes were irreversible. No one, Boniface declared, who disobeyed them could remain a member of the Christian community or hope for salvation.

(What about Paul who corrected Peter?)

Pope Gelasius Ι (492-496) was the first to refer to the Pope as Vicarius Petri (vicar of Peter) and even Vicarius Christi (vicar of Christ).

“Vicarius Petri” means in place of Peter. The Pope claims to be Peter’s representative on Earth.

II THESSALONIANS 2:4Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God

(the rich and beautiful Vatican),

shewing himself that he is God

(being able to forgive sin or withhold forgiveness as the Pope can bind or loose sins).

The bishop of Rome, in the days of the Roman empire, had been the Roman emperor’s representative when the Roman emperor was away from Rome.

So the Roman bishop had been “Vicarius urbis Romae” (in place of the city of Rome)
When barbarian tribes had threatened the empire, the Roman bishop had emerged as the leader and representative of the emperor in Italy.

Then the Pope claimed to be Peter’s representative. Vicarius Petri.

Then the Pope claimed that Peter was Christ’s representative. Vicarius Filii Dei.

This title was only applied to Peter. There is no obvious evidence today that any Pope applied it to himself.

Peter never ever claimed such a title.

Thus Vicarius Filii Dei (666) has, as far as can be proven, only been applied by the Roman Catholic church to one man, Peter.

Peter is not in any way to blame for this as he never made any such claims.

It is the Roman Catholic Church that has attempted to elevate and corrupt the position of Peter.
Nebuchadnezzar built a statue of the holy man Daniel which is why Daniel did not have to bow down to the image of himself. Daniel was not to blame for this statue.

John twice fell down to worship an angel who was a prophet.

REVELATION 19:10And I fell at his feet to worship him.

And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

REVELATION 22:8And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen,

I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel

which shewed me these things.

9 Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.

We humans easily elevate a holy person.

REVELATION 13:18Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Peter gave authority to local elders and not one man

Peter never claimed this title. Peter never gave any authority to any bishop in Rome.
When Peter advised how the church should be managed he wrote to the elders, not to any bishop.

I PETER 5:1The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:

:2 Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof,

not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre,

(not to get rich)

but of a ready mind;

:3 Neither as being lords over God's heritage

(an elevated Pope),

but being ensamples to the flock.

Thus Peter never agreed with one man dominating the church.

The Popes wanted a priest to control a local church. When the Pope controlled the priest, he automatically controlled the church.

Protestants have followed this Catholic tradition by allowing a pastor or reverend to dominate each church.

God wanted a group of elders to guide each church.

Paul wrote to the Romans and greeted a whole group of about 27 of them by name in the last chapter of the Book of Romans, never mentioning Peter. So Peter was not in Rome.

Paul spoke of ordaining married elders into positions of responsibility,  so an elder is a bishop. Thus bishops can be married, which is not what the Roman Catholic church allows.

TITUS 1:5 For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee:

:6 If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.

:7 For a bishop must be blameless,

as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;

So bishops are simply blameless elders. An elder is a man, a bishop is his title.

Elders are always spoken of in the plural.

Peter was the apostle to the Jews.
The word “interpreter” comes from “petr roma” which means the “great interpreter’. The pagans believed this great man would interpret the will of their gods to them.

When the barbarians came to Rome it was easy to convince them that the “petr roma” was none other than “Peter of Rome”. So Catholicism was built on Peter’s reputation. Hence Jesus called Peter 'Satan' to show that a succession based on Peter is dodgy from the start.

Peter never claimed to be a Pope. He was married and baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ. He preached repentance. He once said “ Silver and gold have I none” and then healed a beggar instead of asking for money.

ACTS 3:6Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.

Popes are rich, unmarried, and invented “Father, Son and Holy Ghost" as the “name” of God. How can 3 titles be one name? They invented the Trinity where Jesus is shrunk down to be the second Person in the Godhead. Paul did the opposite. He put the fullness of the Godhead in Christ.

COLOSSIANS 2:9For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

MATTHEW 23:9And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven..

But, Catholic priests are called father.
Pope comes from the Italian word Pappas which means father.

I CORINTHIANS 11:4Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.

Have you ever seen a picture of the Pope without his head being covered? He always wears, in public, some form of head covering.

Why? Pontifex Maximus or Pontiff was the High Priest of the Babylonian mysteries and he always had his head covered for his priestly duties. The Popes took over the title and as such have to have their heads covered.

The first Roman emperor Augustus, acting as Pontiff with his head covered.

A statue of the emperor Augustus who was Pontifex Maximus or Pontiff ( High priest of the Babylonian mysteries ), shows him with part of his robe over his head.

A modern Pope acting as Pontiff wears a white "skull cap" to cover his head.

The triple crown was worn by the Pope. Jesus wore a crown of thorns.

The mysteries of ancient Babylon (which was God’s first enemy after the Flood in the days of Nimrod the rebel against God) moved to the city of Pergamos which was later taken over by Lysimachus. He was one of the Greek generals who split up the world kingdom of Alexander into four empires after Alexander's death. His kingdom of Pergamum was the dwelling place of the evil mysteries of Babylon. Then the kingdom of Pergamum and its evil mysteries were given to the Romans in 133 BC when god-king Attalus III died in Pergamos where he had ruled. He left his Pergamum kingdom to Rome in his will as he had no child and wanted to avoid a civil war when he died. Pergamum was a very rich area and this began the process of making Rome rich which corrupted the character of the Romans.

When Darius the Mede had conquered Babylon, the priests of the Babylonian mysteries had fled for safety and the Pontiff or High Priest of the Babylonian mysteries settled in the city of Pergamos.

Because their beliefs descended from Nimrod, this Babylonian priesthood was held in very high regard by the pagans. They were rated as the real deal because of their succession from Nimrod.
REVELATION 2:12And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges;

13 I know thy works, and where thou dwellest,

even where Satan's seat is:

Pergamos was obviously a source of serious error to be called “Satan’s seat”.

Nimrod was the founder of serious error after the Flood of Noah and he built up a kingdom and the Tower of Babel. So error had now moved from Babylon to Pergamos and then on to Rome.

First, Julius Caesar as Dictator, and then the Roman Emperors took over the pagan title of Pontiff. Constantine became Emperor in AD 312 and made Christianity an accepted religion of the empire. The emperors, although Christians, kept the Pontiff title. In 379 Theodosius, a Christian, was chosen to become emperor and dropped this heathen title. He then referred to his uncle Damasus, the Bishop of Rome, as Pontiff. By AD 450, Pope Leo I demanded to be recognized as the Pontiff because the title of Pontiff helped the Popes in their quest to gain power and authority over the barbarian people who were breaking up the Roman empire. Thus the Pope became the head of the mysteries of Babylon and  Roman Catholicism became Mystery Babylon.

REVELATION 9:2And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

:3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

:4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

Natural locusts eat greenery. That is what makes them destructive. These are not natural locusts, they are symbols of destructive demonology. Have you noticed how demonic the characters look in supposedly innocent children's comic books? This is evidence of the opening of the pit of hell in our day. Demonology is unleashed. Look at the vicious and merciless Muslim jihad terrorists. Hamas terrorists microwaved a Jewish baby in an oven. Their sadistic cruelty is beyond comprehension.

REVELATION 9:11And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

A king wears a crown. The Pope wore a triple crown for 600 years.

REVELATION 17:5And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

Roman Catholicism is the mother church. The Protestant churches came out of Roman Catholicism and are the daughter churches.

EZEKIEL 16:44 Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter.

So Protestants, like the Roman Catholics, prefer human leadership and traditions.

Daniel’s image of the Gentiles began with the head of gold which was the Babylonian kingdom under their great ruler Nebuchadnezzar. The religious mysteries of Babylon were set up in the city of Pergamos after Babylon was conquered by the Medes and the Persians. There they passed through the kingdom of the Persians (the chest and arms) and the Greeks (the belly and thighs) and ended up in the year 133 BC as being part of the Roman Empire.  Julius Caesar in 63 BC bribed his way to being declared Pontiff or Pontifex Maximus. This title stayed with the Roman Emperors until it was discarded by Theodosius after he was chosen to become Emperor. He called himself a Christian and refused to be Emperor and pagan High Priest.

Around the time of  Pope Leo (about AD 450) this title of Pontifex Maximus or Pontiff had somehow become a part of the papacy as it gave the Pope much prestige amongst the barbarians who were taking over the Roman Empire. Thus, going back to Daniel's Gentile image, the iron legs of pagan Rome, which absorbed the mysteries of Babylon, became the pieces of iron (Mystery Babylon, the Roman Catholic Church). These were mixed with the clay (Bible-believing Christians) in the feet of the image (which represent the 2000 years of church history, the seven church ages) until a Stone (the Second Coming of Jesus) hits the image in the feet to end our world system.

The map of Italy shows it to be in the shape of a leg with the island of Sicily poised to hit the leg in the feet. Geographically, this is the area that corresponds to the leg and foot of Daniel’s image.

3 non Trinity tribes are uprooted to protect the Pope

The Roman spirit is to elevate a supreme leader and then get people to follow human traditions that are not in the Bible.

We were never asked to celebrate the Lord's birth. Christmas day. 25th December. Christmas trees. Easter eggs. Human leadership of the church. Gay rights. Same-sex marriage. People prefer to obey human traditions rather than Scripture. But Catholicism has always had a man, the priest, in charge of the church. Then there were bishops in charge of priests, then archbishops then cardinals then finally the Pope.

A man-made hierarchy as shown in Matthew 13:32.

MATTHEW 13:32   Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

This shows the rise of the church hierarchy that was sponsored and supported by the Emperor Constantine.

Notice all the unscriptural titles in this unscriptural church structure.

The Trinity was a major belief amongst the pagans. This was such a common belief amongst so many of the ancient pagans that by adopting it, the Pope made Catholicism far more acceptable to the barbarians. At the Mass ceremony (which the Protestants call communion), only the priests drank the wine in the Dark Ages. This helped to elevate the priests above the laity or congregation. The people eat an intact round wafer (in Egypt this round wafer was a symbol of their sun god Ra or Ammon Ra) but Jesus broke bread at the last supper.

In 133 BC the Roman empire was not very big. It is represented by the green portions on the map.

Then, Attalus III, king of the Pergamum empire in Asia Minor, (shown in red) died and gave his territory to Rome. This made the Roman empire much bigger and much richer as this was a very wealthy area.

REVELATION 12:3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

:4 And his tail

(the tail in the vision is the “tale” or story that he told to deceive them)

drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth:

(there are 3 types of people, Jew, Gentile, and Samaritans who are partly Jew and partly Gentile. One-third part refers to the Jews and the Devil used Rome to kill the Messiah which cost those Jews their eternal life as they demanded and agreed to the crucifixion and were thus erased from the Book of Life)

and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered

(Rome entered Palestine in 63 BC to conquer it),

for to devour her child as soon as it was born

(Rome made Herod king of the Jews, and Herod gave the order to kill the baby boys in order to eliminate Jesus).

After the Pergamum empire was added to the Roman empire, Pompey the Great, a Roman general set out to conquer the East and he marched through Pontus, Cilicia (modern-day Turkey), and Syria (which included Palestine) in 3 years from 66 BC to 63 BC. Thus Rome took over Palestine and the Dragon (Rome) was in place to try to kill Jesus when He was born. Julius Caesar became Pontifex Maximus (high priest of the Babylonian mysteries) in 63 BC and finally defeated Pompey and conquered Egypt, to become the one-man dictator of Rome.

This gave birth to the dictatorship spirit of pagan Rome which evolved into calling the Dictator an Emperor or Caesar.

The spirit of pagan Rome is to rule by dictatorship. The Pope is the only dictator in Europe.

The Roman general Pompey added the red parts of the map to the Roman Empire.

By 63 BC Rome had taken over Palestine, just before Jesus was to be born there.

The Roman spirit is always to have one man in charge, even of a local church.
Julius Caesar was helped by Antipas the father of Herod. Herod was friendly to the Romans who made Herod king of the Jews.

Herod was made king of the Jews by Rome. Thus he was extremely scared of the Messiah who was to be born King of the Jews. Feeling threatened, Herod was determined to kill Jesus and thus eliminate this threat to his kingship. The wise men had travelled for two years to get to Jerusalem after seeing the Star that announced the birth of Jesus.

MATTHEW 2:16Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.

The mysteries of Babylon first went to Pergamos then to Rome.
Julius Caesar (JC) became Pontiff in 63 BC. Notice, the same initials as Jesus Christ.

The beast with 10 horns

DANIEL 7:7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.

:8 I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn,

before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots:

and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.

("Great things". Human wisdom and tradition, not Scripture).

Three non-Trinitarian barbarian tribes were destroyed so that the Trinitarian Pope could rule freely in Italy.

The tribes were the Vandals, the Heruli, and the Ostrogoths. This destroyed the opposition to the Trinity belief.

When emperor Theodosius died in AD 395  he split the kingdom in half between his two sons. Rome was the main city in the western half, shown in green. Constantinople was the main city in the eastern half of the empire, shown in yellow-brown. This represented the two iron legs of Rome in Daniel’s image.

Unrest in China caused millions to flee. They bumped into the Huns who then were pushed westwards out of Asia until they bumped into the Roman Empire. This began the real breakup of the Roman empire as other tribes realized they could also attack Rome and gain land and loot.

Attila became king of the Huns in AD 433 and his first order of affairs was to unite his subjects for the purpose of creating one of the most formidable and feared armies Asia had ever seen.

He attacked the Roman empire in AD 441  and continued with this devastation and warfare until he died in AD 453. His thirteen years of warfare weakened the Roman empire. The Huns also drove many Germanic tribes into the Roman empire. Fear of the Huns made these German tribes prefer to fight the Romans as they fled from before the Huns.

Many other Barbarian tribes invaded the Roman Empire to look for food, money, and land. After the Huns there would be nine other tribes among the many tribes that broke up the Roman empire,

which would not only break up the empire but would also play an important part in helping to aid the rise of the Roman Catholic Church.

Just before he died, Attila invaded Italy. Pope Leo I persuaded him not to attack Rome. Then Atilla died. So this greatly increased the prestige of the Pope. Even the fearsome Atilla had listened to him.

Daniel saw the Roman empire as a vicious beast. It had one head and 10 horns. The ten horns represented 10 of the barbarian tribes that would break up the Roman empire and then play a prominent role in the rise of the Roman Catholic church, represented by the little horn that arose after three of the horns were destroyed.

The Heruli tribe under Odoacer conquered Rome in AD 476 but were Arian, not Trinitarian.

The Ostrogoths, Heruli, and Vandals were all non-Trinitarian believers. The emperor in Constantinople asked Theodoric the Ostrogoth to annihilate the Heruli. This he did between AD 489  and AD 493 when he murdered Odoacer. The Heruli departed the scene. The first horn has been eliminated or plucked out. A non-Trinitarian tribe was annihilated because they blocked the Pope's religious influence in his desire to spread Trinitarianism.

Thus the first non-Trinitarian tribe was wiped out, the first of the three horns was plucked up by the roots.
But the Ostrogoths were also non-Trinitarians as were the Vandals in North Africa.

When Theodoric the Ostrogoth died, the Eastern Roman emperor in Constantinople wanted to wipe out the non-Trinitarian Ostrogoths (shown in green on the next map). He could not attack Italy directly as there were too many rough mountains in the way. Like the Americans in World war II, he sent General Belisarius from Constantinople to first conquer North Africa (purple arrows) and then invade Italy from North Africa. Belisarius landed in North Africa, where he annihilated the Vandals between 533 AD and 534 AD. The Vandals had migrated along the blue arrow to get to North Africa. The violet arrow shows the route that Belisarius followed to get from Constantinople to North Africa.

General Belisarius first had to conquer North Africa and then use that as a base from which he could sail to Italy and conquer the Ostrogoths. In the process of doing this, he wiped out the Vandals, who just happened to be non-Trinitarians. So the second horn was plucked out to establish the Pope as the religious head of Italy.

Then Belisarius sailed north to attack the non-Trinitarian Ostrogoths in Italy.

He then fought the Ostrogoths for 20 years in Italy from AD 535 to 554 to eliminate the

non-Trinitarian Ostrogoths and leave the Pope in charge of Italy.

The invasion of  Italy was successfully carried out by Belisarius and another general called Narses.
The Vandals and the Ostrogoths disappeared from history. Thus all three barbarian tribes that did not believe in the Trinity were eliminated or dispersed amongst the other barbarian tribes.

The doctrine of the Trinity could now be spread by the Pope without any opposition.

Then the Lombards invaded Italy. The emperor in Constantinople was too weak to stop them.
The Pope turned to the Franks. He offered to make Pippin (or Pepin) king of the Franks if he would defeat the Lombards. Pippin did this, giving the land around Rome to the Pope, thinking that he was doing a favour to Saint Peter. Thus the Pope gained political power over a section of Italy. So three non-Trinitarian horns (barbarian tribes) were plucked up by the roots (totally destroyed) to make room for the future little horn (the Roman Catholic Vatican City) to rise to power by convincing everyone, including the Protestants, that there is a Trinity and that a man must control and dominate the church.
A little horn represents a little power in size.

The Vatican City is the smallest state on earth, occupying about 1 square kilometer and having less than 800 citizens.

The Sistine Chapel in the Vatican is the most famous chapel on earth thanks to the incredible painting skills of Michelangelo. In the name of art, stress was laid on flesh-revealing dress and nudity, which indicated the Greek influence of Daniel’s image, as the Greeks had an obsession with nudity and statues. The Roman Catholic church is full of statues.

LEVITICUS 26:1Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image,

The Nicaean Council was set up in AD 325 with the emperor Constantine declaring himself as head of the church. He gave political power and much money to the bishop of Rome so that the Roman bishop could be his strong man in Rome while he, Constantine, lived in Constantinople. At this council, the Trinity (an unscriptural word) was made the official doctrine of the church. The council also chose to set a date for Easter that would not coincide with the Jewish Passover.

Seat of Peter in the Lateran Palace given to the Pope

REVELATION 13:1   And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

REVELATION 13:2And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion:

and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

The Lateran palace which the emperor Constantine gave to the Bishop of Rome is still officially the seat of the Roman Pope.

In this palace, a treaty was signed with Mussolini, the Italian dictator, in 1929 whereby the Vatican City became an independent state with one extra piece of territory that is outside the Vatican, namely the Lateran palace and basilica (big church).

Let us do a quick summary of the rise of the Roman Catholic church to become the influential player that it is on the world scene.

The claim that the Pope is in charge of the church was first made by Pope Leo I  440 – 461  but this claim only really became effective under Innocent III around AD 1200 as the Successor of Peter who was thus entitled to claim all the supreme power for himself.

There was often a conflict between political aims of the Popes and their pastoral duties, the religion of the spirit. It is difficult to love your brother as yourself when you are trying to conquer his territory.

To build up the Pope’s supreme authority,  a huge administrative and legal machinery had to be established. During the years AD 450 - 500 when this religious-political system became big enough to give the Pope more prestige, the Bishop of Rome then claimed the common title "papa" or Pope, used by church leaders,  exclusively for himself.

This was not always successful as even in AD 1075 Gregory VII insisted that there was only one Pope.

Many causes of Rome’s rise were accidental and unforeseen and quite outside the Pope’s control and were piecemeal reactions to particular circumstances.

A great capacity for survival as it adapted to a changing world was an outstanding feature of the Roman church. As the system grew it began to interpret its often haphazard progress as a systematic chain of events that linked it to Saint Peter.

The Roman church was quick to come to terms with the Roman Empire under its emperors. The organization of the empire was easily copied. Nicolaitanism is to give preeminence to a holy man that uplifts the man until he is entitled to be worshiped. This was Caesar-worship, where the emperor was regarded as being a god. Elaborate ceremonies upheld the power of the ruler. It is difficult today to imagine a more elaborate ceremony than a high Mass that is held at the high altar of the Vatican. The Roman church quickly adopted paganism's traditions and ceremonies to make it more acceptable to the pagans. They developed the idea of "apostolic succession", where it tried to trace its ancestry back to St Peter, to give it a prestige that others could not compete with.

Rome adjusted to the German kingdoms' political power play after the Roman Empire ended in 476 AD, as well as the national states that were arising in the 1400s.  Today it is adjusting to the modern third world of Asia, Africa, and South America. The Roman church is thus a survivor of note.

In AD 325 the Bishop of Rome had no great standing.

The papacy began when the Bishop of Rome became more than a bishop and more than the first bishop of the Roman Empire.

By eliminating the non-Trinitarian Vandals, Heruli, and Ostrogoths,

the Devil effectively exterminated the spiritual opposition to the Roman church.

From AD 600 -700, it seemed that the Mediterranean civilization would collapse, dragging the church into bankruptcy. This was largely due to the terrible consequences of the wars of Belisarius. Some historians claimed he killed about 15 million people in his battles, and then famine and plague swept through the devastated lands to kill another 85 million. This awful scenario brought on the Dark Ages. Europe would be cold, dark, and dirty for a long time before it could recover.

When this crisis of the Dark Ages was surmounted, the papacy began to emerge as a formative influence in Europe.

In the great depression of 1929,  bankruptcy threatened everyone but it was at this time that the Vatican City gained independence at the Lateran treaty with Mussolini. In recognizing Roman Catholicism as an independent state (the little horn of Daniel's prophecy), the world went bankrupt financially. A symbol of the spiritual bankruptcy of accepting Roman Catholic leadership. When the Roman Church rose to power, that era is known as the Dark Ages. So Rome is ordained to lead the world into darkness.

The Roman church certainly knows how to survive although the actual origins of the Roman church are obscure because there is little fact but much conjecture.

There were Christians amongst the Jews by AD 49.

About  AD 36 Junius and Andronicus (Romans 16:7) took the Gospel to Rome.

Constant inter-Jewish arguments led to the expulsion of Jews under Claudius for 13 years until 54 AD.

Early Christian churches were small communities, and such authority as they possessed they exercised in common.

Paul visited during AD 61 - 63. Direct evidence is lacking but Paul was probably executed in Rome about AD 67.

Rome was burned in AD 64. Nero blamed the Christians and Jews and his savage persecution of Jews and Christians (which he thought was a Jewish sect) virtually eliminated the church.

Around AD 100 the last apostle, John, died.  Then human errors began to creep in.

After AD 150 Christians began to define grades in the church hierarchy and the title of bishop no longer applied to an elder but was reserved for the leader of the church.

This idea began in the east, where people wanted human leaders to do the thinking for them. Hippolytus began this idea in Rome after AD 200.

Then the idea formed that one man was a bishop for the whole city. Thus a whole city fell under the religious control of one man, the bishop. This was not Scriptural.

PHILIPPIANS 1:1Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:

Paul greets the bishops (plural) of the city of Philippi. They were the elders.

About AD 220,  Callistus began the idea that Peter was first bishop of Rome. Not that Peter ever was in Rome. He wrote from Babylon, where he worked amongst the Jews that Nebuchadnezzar had taken to Babylon.

In AD 240 the idea started that Peter laid hands on Clement as bishop of Rome and entrusted him with his chair of discourse. There is absolutely no history for this.

Many small sects developed. There were plenty of heresies.  People now felt the need for a leader (who they would call a bishop to give him an exalted status) to protect the truth.

Bishops of cities met in synods to define what they thought was the truth. Each city had to have a bishop. But a Roman province had many cities. So who was going to be in charge of all these bishops?

Metropolitans, a new title copied from the Roman empire,  began to control the bishops in the provinces.

In AD 200 Tertullian of Carthage said that

Apostolic succession meant that only churches started by an apostle could have the truth.

Jerusalem,  Antioch,  Alexandria,  Ephesus,  Smyrna,  Philippi,  Thessalonica,  Corinth, and Rome thus qualified.

Only four of these churches became influential, Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria.

The other churches faded from the scene as time went on.

Later, when Constantinople was built, the church of Constantinople also became influential.

Rome was the only apostolic church in the western half of the Roman empire.

So this suited the Roman church as she had no competitors in her half of the empire.

Tertullian said " Peter has the keys; thus he is the first of the apostles".

This grew to chief apostle and then to prince of the apostles.

There is no historical record that Peter was ever in Rome, but the Roman church endlessly claimed this until even many Protestants now believe that he was in Rome.

Around AD 200, Victor, bishop of Rome, tried to tell Asia Minor how to celebrate Easter.

Callistus, bishop of Rome, in AD 220, first invoked Peter’s authority to impose his doctrine of penance on all other churches.

Stephen, bishop of Rome, in AD 254, claimed the chair of Peter (cathedra Petri) but the church was still a loose federation.

Papal rights got no further until the bishops of Rome Damasus (AD 366 – 84)  and  Leo I (AD 440 - 61). These two powerful men gave a big boost to the central authority of the leader of the Roman church.

Emperor Decius (AD 249 – 251) renewed the persecution of the Christians which continued intermittently until AD 311. Rome was hard hit during these persecutions. Bishop Xystus and his college were executed.

Aurelian (AD 270 - 275), who made December 25 the birthday of the sun god, was a cruel persecutor of the church. Then Diocletian, in his systematic attempt to destroy Christianity between AD 300 and 311, caused much apostasy as many Christians including Pope Marcellinus renounced their faith.

Unity in the face of these external threats improved the  Pope’s claims as Rome was very generous in sending aid and money to the persecuted brethren.

Jerusalem was the top church under the apostle James. But James was killed around AD 62, and when Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70 by Titus, this was a big boost for the Roman church as a serious competitor was eliminated. Many years later, the church in Jerusalem would rise from the ashes and become influential again. But in the meanwhile, the Roman church had also become very influential.

Rome was the capital of the Empire. The church had contacts with the government, especially Christians in government. Rome could intervene with authorities on behalf of other churches.  Rome accumulated wealth and used this to help other churches.

Roman martyrs under emperors Nero, Decius, and Valerian added to Rome's prestige.

Until just before AD 200 the Roman bishop was the only bishop in Italy.

Thus by AD 313 the Roman bishop had influence and prestige but was just a bishop amongst bishops.

The church was a loose federation with a diversity of belief and practice.

Constantine tolerated Christianity as a most favoured religion.

He showered privileges and gifts on the Roman church to give it a boost.

He built a large basilica (fancy church) over what was claimed to be St Peter’s shrine in the Vatican.

An intense public relations campaign was underway to prove that Peter had been in Rome.

Around AD 311- 312 he handed over the Lateran Palace to bishop Miltiades. This profoundly affected the position of the papacy.

Sylvester (AD 314 – 335) began to build the great Lateran basilica or church in AD 314 next to the new papal palace,

which was the Lateran Palace, the official seat of the bishop of Rome.

The Roman church began to accumulate estates.

In AD 325 a big outpouring of money was arranged by Constantine to establish the bishop of Rome as the emperor’s figurehead in the west.

Constantine was a tyrant and evil genius. He wanted a state religion to underpin his government. It must be a unified pillar of his imperial structure.

He would not leave the church alone. He would unify it. He imposed his own formula at the Nicaean Council in AD 325 to settle the Arian controversy of the Godhead.

Theological conflicts ripped the fabric of the empire. Emperors resorted to any authority which might serve as a unifying force.

Rome, thanks to the prestige of Peter, was eminent.

The pagan "Petr Roma", the "great interpreter" of the will of the gods, was claimed to be Peter of Rome and this appealed immensely to the heathens.

In AD 378, Emperor Gratian supported the Roman bishop’s claim to authority over other bishops in the west.

In AD 379, Emperor Theodosius abandons the title of Pontiff or Pontifex Maximus, high priest of the Babylonian mysteries.

In AD 380, Theodosius and two co-emperors recognized the bishop of Rome as the guardian of the true faith. The Roman bishop's followers were the only true Catholic Christians.

In AD 382, Theodosius gives the title of Pontiff to his uncle Damasus, who was Bishop of Rome.

In AD 391, Theodosius I  prohibited heathen cults, and Christianity became the official religion.

Theodosius acknowledged that the Church was above the State in matters of religion.

Justinian (AD 527 – 565)  deposed two Popes and appointed an unworthy man called Pelagius as Pope.

In AD 395 the empire was divided as each of the two sons of Theodosius took control of half the empire.

In AD 286, Diocletian had moved the seat of government away from Rome to Milan. The church in Milan rose spectacularly.

In AD 402, the seat moved to Ravenna. Rome sank to the level of a provincial city and surrendered control of northern Italy to Milan. Constantinople was the great religious rival in the East.

Damasus I (AD 366 – 384) started a reaction that continued to Gregory I (AD 590 – 604) to assert papal primacy. The Pope is the head of the church.

In AD 381, at the second ecumenical council in Constantinople,  Constantinople was placed above Antioch and Alexandria. Pope Damasus from Rome was not invited, and he replied in AD 392 that Rome’s position at the top comes not from a council but from Christ’s powers given to Peter.

Damasus called Rome the apostolic see. He called other bishops sons instead of brothers. And used the plural of majesty, referring to himself as "us" and "we".

The ambitions of Constantinople’s bishop forced Rome to claim papal primacy.

By AD 399  Siricius had called himself Pope.

Innocent I (AD 401 - 417) said that “ the Pope’s decisions affect all the churches of the world ”.

Boniface I (AD 418 - 422) claimed that the Roman church is head and the other churches are members. Bishops must be subject to his discipline.

In AD 431 the council of Ephesus rejected Rome’s claim that the Pope was head of the entire faith.

Pontiff or Pontifex Maximus enters the church

Pontifex Maximus was High Priest of the Babylonian mysteries.

Then came a radical change in circumstance.

Leo I (AD 440 – 461) claimed the Pontifex Maximus title. How this title got into the church seems to be a bit fuzzy. But it did get in as the Pope is still called Pontiff today.

He claimed Peter was the prince of apostles and prince of the church who rules all who are ruled by Christ.

The church is a monarchy ruled by the Pope acting on Peter’s behalf.

Leo claimed that the Pope was representative of St Peter and, as such, has supreme power.

“ The cure of the universal church should converge towards Peter’s one seat ” (in the Lateran palace).

In AD 445, Valentinian III claimed that “ the authority of Rome shall be law for all ”

The Pope was the top leader in the west with unchallenged supremacy. But was deadlocked in the east by Constantinople’s claims to lead the church.

The Nestorian controversy in the east meant some parties would, out of self-interest, turn to Rome as having authority over the churches of the world.

Then came the barbarians.

In the west, the Huns drove the Germanic tribes into the Roman provinces. Rome was sacked by Alaric in AD 410.

By AD 442, Spain and North Africa were under the control of Visigoths and Vandals. Church organization collapsed.

Bishops who rejected papal interference 20 years before turned willingly to Rome for help and support.

Leo said that he helped the universal church. The emperor backed his actions, anxious to underwrite any authority which seemed to hold the crumbling empire together.

In AD 452, Pope Leo, with the senate's embassy, begged Atilla the Hun to spare Rome. Atilla backed off. What a boost to the prestige of the Pope. The real reason was that southern Italy had little food and a lot of plagues. But Leo got the credit.

In AD 455, Leo tried to beg the Vandals to spare Rome.  They sacked the city and stole the Jewish candlestick that Titus had looted from the Jewish temple when he destroyed it.

Odoacer the Heruli ruled Rome from AD 476 – 493  and was killed and replaced by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. Theodoric gave Pope Gelasius I (AD 492 – 96) some protection.

Then the Burgundians and Franks overran Gaul (today's France).

The Pope’s authority over the west had shrunk to central and southern Italy, so it needed the protection of the eastern empire ruled by Constantinople.

Syria, with the city of Antioch, and Egypt with the city of Alexandria rose in importance as food suppliers.

Jerusalem was built up again and became an influential church too.  Rome shrank.

In AD 533 Justinian began the reconquest to destroy Arianism, the barbarians who did not believe the Trinity.

What saved Rome was the Muslims, who captured Syria in AD 640 and Egypt in AD 642 as well as North Africa. The Muslims were responsible for removing Rome's church rivals Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Carthage. Then the Lombards invaded northern Italy in AD 568. The emperor of Constantinople now had big problems in the east and could not interfere in the west. Pope Stephen II (AD 752 – 757)  turned to the Frank’s barbarian king Pippin (or Pepin) because the emperor could not help.

Gregory I (AD 590 – 601) converted the Anglo – Saxons in England. He replied to Constantinople's bishop that none of the patriarchs (bishops of the big cities) are universal with dominion over the whole church. He was a strong man who helped the poor and ruled the papal states efficiently. This gave a big boost to the Pope's prestige.

The civil administration in Italy broke down with the Lombard threat of invasion, and the Roman church had to supply water and food for the poor. The church estates became well organized, and the Roman church became a territorial power. Gregory provisioned the city of Rome, bought corn from Sicily, and in AD 591 and AD 593, he bought off the Lombards. Then he began to pay the local troops who looked to him as the head. He converted the Arian Lombards to Catholicism. Their conversion was complete by AD 680. Then the Visigoths in Spain also threw off Arianism.

A bitter East-west schism developed when eastern Emperor Leo III  in AD 726 attacked the worship of images. The Roman Pope was insistent that images were important.

The Greek cities of Illyria and Sicily and southern Italy (Rome’s main source of wealth) were removed from Rome by the Emperor of Constantinople. Rome was effectively quarantined from the empire. She was not the main church of the empire anymore.  Then the Lombards advanced again after 50 years.

The Pope crowned Pepin as king of the Franks so that he could conquer the Lombaards who threatened the Pope. Thus the Popes gained influence as king-makers amongst the barbarians.

Suddenly the Pope was king of a territory that he gained from the Barbarian Franks. But the Pope had lost in his dealings with the Eastern Emperor of Constantinople. So now the Roman church turned to the Western barbarian tribes.

Thus the pressure of events forced a reaction that helped in the rise of the Catholic church.

Constantine, by recognition and money, had got the church to move with the imperial or eastern influence. Showering money on the Roman bishop made the bishop obey Constantine, but it also gave the bishop of Rome great prestige in the eyes of many people.

Since Gregory I  the Roman church had hovered between two worlds, trying to compete with Constantinople.

Nicolaitans elevate a holy man above the church

After AD 754, the Catholic church turned to the west using the Franks as their protector. As the Successor of Peter and the head of the church, the Pope had great prestige amongst the barbarians.  In the new environment of the barbarian tribes, the Catholic church acquired the authority it needed.

The king of the Franks needed the Pope to crown him as that would give him legitimacy. The Pope needed the military protection of the Franks who were the strongest of the tribes in that region. It was a relationship that suited both sides.

So the antichrist spirit arose through elevated human leadership and a forsaking of Biblical accuracy, not to mention an obsession with dabbling in politics and a strong materialistic desire to gain and rule and tax as big a territory as possible.

The Roman Catholic Church chose to put men's opinions above Scripture. Nicolaitans ("nico" means to conquer so this means conquering the laity, the ordinary people in the church) is achieved by the lifting up of a holy man and bringing the people into submission to him as the only way to get right with God. It starts with ideas and deeds which spread and become accepted as the way of worship, and slowly these ideas become the official doctrine that everyone must believe. These ideas then become the law of the church and are regarded as more important than Scripture. Anyone who opposes them is in trouble.

REVELATION 2:6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

The first church saw these unscriptural deeds sneaking in.

Ignatius, a prominent early Christian who died about AD 130, set himself up as the bishop of Antioch in Syria and was accepted as such.

Wikipedia

In these letters Ignatius appears to be the first to argue for the “monarchical bishop” in the local congregation. He describes a three-tiered ministry of bishop, elders and deacons in each church.

In Ignatius’ view the term bishop is reserved for a single member of the presbytery who is so exalted above the elders that he presides in the place of God himself.

“Let the bishop preside in God’s place,

and presbyters take the place of the apostolic council, and let the deacons...be entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ” (Epistle to the Magnesians 6.1).

Here is the first clear cut elevation of a holy man above the church members

Wikipedia

Ignatius was partly motivated by his concern for unity in the church. There were factions and doctrines in Antioch that he had opposed as heretical.

He thought having a single bishop presiding over a church and demanding obedience as if he were Jesus Christ would prevent divisions.

Ignatius wrote to the Philippians, “Pay heed to the bishop, the presbytery, and the deacons ....

Do nothing apart from the bishop;

keep your bodies as if they were God’s temple; value unity; flee schism; imitate Jesus Christ as he imitated his Father” (7.1-2).

In his letter to the Smyrnaeans he wrote, “Flee from schism as the source of mischief...

Nobody must do anything that has to do with the Church without the bishop’s approval....

In that way everything you do will be on the safe side and valid” (6-9).

This was not a prevalent view in the early second century, but rather was a new trend in the church.

Although Ignatius addresses Polycarp as “bishop of the church of the Smyrnaeans” (Epistle to Polycarp),

Polycarp identifies himself simply as “Polycarp and those who are with him as presbyters” (Epistle to the Philippians).

Polycarp was simply one of a plurality of overseers; there was no “monarchical” bishop at Philippi (Everett Ferguson, Early Christians Speak 175).

Ignatius does not even mention a bishop in Rome, which supports evidence from Clement and Hermas that the church in Rome was governed by a plurality of elders at the beginning of the second century (Ferguson 174).

The “monarchical bishop” eventually spread among the churches, as attested in the writings of Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria, but not until later in the century.

The authority of the bishop was apparently not being extended beyond the local congregation in Ignatius’ day (Ferguson 175).

First century churches were autonomous, each governed by a plurality of elders (Acts 11:30; 14:23; Titus 1:5). The New Testament calls them “bishops,” “elders,” or “pastors,” using those terms to describe various functions of those who oversee or shepherd the local church (Acts 20:17, 28; 1 Pet. 5:1-3).

Ignatius was thus one of the first to advocate a pattern for church government that deviated from the New Testament model.

This deviation from Scripture, one man controlling a church in a city, slowly spread throughout the Roman Empire after AD 100 until it became accepted that each city must be led by a bishop. After a while, nobody ever questioned this from Scripture. It just became the accepted pattern.

Ignatius wrote to the Philippians, “Pay heed to the bishop, the presbytery, and the deacons.... Do nothing apart from the bishop".... “Let the bishop preside in God’s place,...

So Ignatius had a pattern where there was one man, the bishop, in charge of the Christians at the city of Philippi (named after Philip the father of Alexander the Great who established the city). Alexander was the western king who went east to conquer the Persians and bring everyone into submission to his will. He was also the first western man to be worshipped as god, firstly in the east and then later in the west.

Conquering everyone and being worshiped as god, these became the characteristics of the Roman Catholic Pope.

Writing to the Christians at Philippi, Paul's epistle is called the Book of Philippians.

But "bishops" in the plural was mentioned by Paul writing to these selfsame Philippians in the city of Philippi.

PHILIPPIANS 1:1 Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:

So with one sentence, Paul demolishes the concept of one-man rule by an elevated bishop since he clearly states that there was more than one bishop in the city.

Even some Protestants today claim that the first man to found a church in a city is the bishop of that city and that all the believers should be subject to him.

"Join my church" is a common invitation made by Christians, but it has the hidden sting of "becoming subject to my pastor's rule and opinions".

Polycarp did not call himself bishop of Smyrna.

Polycarp was simply one of a plurality of overseers; there was no “monarchical” bishop at Philippi

(Everett Ferguson, Early Christians Speak 175).

So Polycarp was Scriptural and obeyed Paul.

Ignatius contradicted Paul's epistle, and his unscriptural pattern of one-man dominance of a church in a city was to become the established pattern for Christian churches. By the year AD 200, it was commonly accepted that a city had a dominant bishop who was the head of the church in that city

REVELATION 2:15 So hast thou also them that

hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans,

which thing I hate.

The deeds of the Nicolaitans in the first church age had become the established doctrine in the third church age.  This is always the trend when we forsake the Bible pattern for a more convenient or efficient human pattern.

By the time of the third church age, which started when Constantine stopped persecuting the Christians around AD 312, this doctrine of elevated bishops controlling the church in a city was now part of official church law and custom. You could not argue against it.

Then as the Roman Catholic church grew bigger, there had to be archbishops (unscriptural word) in charge of bishops. Even some Protestant churches have archbishops. So powerful is this flood tide of the error to bring the believers under the control of an elevated human leader.  Then archbishops had to be controlled by cardinals (a pagan title), and finally, the boss of the whole pyramid was the Pope, which, in Italian, means father. "Pope" is not just an unscriptural title, but it actually contradicts Scripture.

MATTHEW 23:9 And call no man your father upon the earth:

for one is your Father, which is in heaven

You have a single human father who gave you natural life. But no man is your spiritual father because when you were born again, you received the Spirit of eternal life from Jesus alone, not from anyone else. This makes Him your spiritual Father and also makes Him the Head of the church.

EPHESIANS 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife,

even as Christ is the head of the church:

and he is the saviour of the body.

The church is the Body of believers. Only Jesus can save the church.

Today churches are in submission to the rule and dictates of the pastor, and nobody questions where he gets his authority from. It is certainly not from the Bible as the word "pastor" is only mentioned once in the New Testament, and then that office is listed fourth out of five ministries.

EPHESIANS 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

:12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Pastors have a role to play in helping people with their personal problems and their spiritual growth, by using pastoral care. But they are not there to run the church as a one-man show.

Teachers are supposed to teach Bible doctrine, but today it is the pastors who do the teaching of unscriptural doctrines.

Pastors are not there to tell people who they cannot listen to nor who they should not invite into their homes.

Pastors are not there to reject people who do not agree with them. They are not there to have preeminence in the church.

These were the characteristics of a man Diotrephes.

III JOHN 1:9 I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes,

who loveth to have the preeminence among them,

receiveth us not.

10 Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith,

neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.

Who casts people out of the church today? Who has this man-made authority? The pastor.

So the Roman Catholic tradition of submission to the will and dictates of the elevated leader of the church has now also moved into the Protestant churches.

When God set the church in order, He did not even mention the word "pastor".

I CORINTHIANS 12:28  And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.

The doctrine of Trinity corrupted the Bible truth

The doctrine of Trinity means that there is no one Name for God.

So baptism no longer happens in the Name of Jesus Christ. Protestants have followed this example as well.

ACTS 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and

be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ

for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

ACTS 8:12 But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

Philip never preached the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

ACTS 19:4 Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.

:5 When they heard this, they were

baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

ROMANS 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were

baptized into his death?

Only the Son died, not the Father or the Holy Ghost.  So what does the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost have to do with baptism into His death, unless the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is the Name of Jesus?

COLOSSIANS 3:17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed,

do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to

God and the Father

by him.

A Trinitarian now has to say that God and the Father are two different People. The Trinity causes confused thinking.

Baptism is a deed that must be done in the name of Jesus.

Elevated human leadership corrupted the early church but became immensely popular.

The Roman Catholic Church adopted this model and then wove the interesting pagan beliefs into their religion to achieve an even wider influence. Scripture was forsaken, but immense popularity and wealth gave them the conviction that they were right.

This was the spirit of ancient Rome. Clamping the yoke of submission onto the necks of a once free people.

The Roman senate was divided into factions that only united to become servile to the emperor.

Obedience to the will of one man became the key to success.

Given enough power, even an upright man will begin to stoop.

Obedience to the will and traditions of man undermine our personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

This study has exposed one tentacle of the antichrist spirit as it arose in the early Roman Catholic Church and then infiltrated the Protestant daughters who tried to escape from Roman Catholicism.

Are we slaves to the rules and traditions of a man or are we free to follow the Scripture?

Get it wrong, and the 3.5 years of great Tribulation await you. This great Tribulation time will be a great wake-up call to countless Christians, the so-called sleeping foolish virgins.

MATTHEW 24:21For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

REVELATION 2:22Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and

them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation,

except they repent of their deeds.

REVELATION 7:9After this I beheld, and, lo,

a great multitude, which no man could number,

of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

REVELATION 7:13And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? 

:14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me,

These are they which came out of great tribulation,

and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

People's opinions and assumptions, driven by the desire to gain and dominate others, have hardened over the centuries into doctrines, maintained by powerful interest groups.

Their beliefs have risen into rigid walls that protect denominational religion and act as barriers against open-minded thinking.