05 - Mystery Babylon
Babylon : A Mystery.
142. Of Babylon as a Mystery some account has already been given in paragraphs 35 and 36; but, while we would avoid repetition, it will be well to add a little more information on so important a subject. And, by so doing, we shall be able to show, that those who hold Babylon a Mystery to be merely another name for Rome, or the Papal Hierarchy, although they know something, have very little conception of the whole truth.
143. We have already seen, in paragraph 35, that the city of Babylon seems to have been originally built for the purpose of providing a centre for a godless Mystery, which Mystery, or idolatrous system of religion, was the first organized rebellion against the authority of God. It was established by Nimrod, and was the original false, or Pagan, religion of the world. From it, whether we call it the false religion, or, in figure, the false Woman, or Harlot, sprang all the other false religions of the world, and this is why we can so readily detect a family likeness in each of them. A Harlot herself, Babylon thus became - as Revelation 17:5, has it - "the Mother of the Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth."
144. At the head of the Mystery-organization was a Priest-king, who for some time was King of Babylon. But, after the capture of Babylon by the Medes and Persians, and the expulsion of the leaders of the Mystery, the latter fled to Pergamum, and made that city their head-quarters, and its King their Pontifex Maximus - a fact which, probably, has something to do with the Apocalyptic designation of Pergamum as the place “where Satan’s throne is" (Revelation 2:13). But Attalus, III., the last of the Priest-kings, who died about 133 B.C., bequeathed his royal and priestly office, together with all his dominions and his vast wealth, to the citizens of Rome. At that time, however, there was no King, or Emperor, of the Roman Empire; for the Republic had not yet been overthrown. Consequently, no citizen was competent to assume the power and dignities of Attalus, which had, therefore, to remain in abeyance for a century. But, about the end of that period, Julius Caesar, who had been previously invested with the title of Pontifex Maximus, or Supreme Pontiff of the Roman religion, became also Emperor. And so, at last, Rome had produced a citizen worthy to claim and exercise all the powers of Attalus. Forthwith he gave out that he was the son of Venus, and caused himself to be deified under the title of Divus Vulius, or the God Julius. And, from that time, the title of "Divus " was prefixed to the names of all the succeeding Emperors, who were regarded as the restored line of the Babylonian Supreme Pontiffs.
145. Thus, previously to the birth of Christ, Rome had become the centre of the Babylonian Mystery. It was, then, natural that the great persecutions of those who believed in the Lord Jesus, and were, therefore, utterly opposed to Babylonianism, should be carried on by Rome. And this, as history teaches us, was actually the case. The Ten Persecutions, from which the early Christians suffered, were directed by Roman Emperors, the later persecutions of Protestants by Popes; and both Emperors and Popes were lineal descendants of the Babylonian Pontiffs.
146. Now, although multitudes of Christians were done to death during the Ten Persecutions, yet the Church, as a whole, was by no means diminished, but increased and flourished upon the very efforts that were made for her destruction. For God was with her, and, consequently, not all the cruel malice of her foes could avail to check her progress.
147. But, in course of time, her wily persecutors began to realize this fact, and at once set themselves to devise more subtle means, if perchance they might be able to effect by craft that which violence had failed to accomplish. The cruel face of the Babylonian Harlot began to relax into a smile: her words no longer threatened, but were full of flattery: she offered compromises: she invited the Church to take her share of the honours, power, and wealth, of the children of this world; and the gilded bait was eagerly swallowed. And so, the nominal [carnal] Christians, though they had been reared in humility and disciplined by persecutions, forgot their past, and allowed themselves to be lured from the narrow way to the haunts of pride and luxury. As Christ Himself had foretold, the humble mustard plant, instead of continuing to exist as a lowly herb, suffered itself to be forced by an unnatural and artificial growth into a great tree. And then the birds of the air - those symbols of evil, which devour the good seed - came, found it a congenial resting-place, and made their nests in it.
148. In Revelation 2:6, we read of Nicolaitanism, and are told that it is a thing specially hated by the Lord. When we inquire into the meaning of the term, we find that it is derived from two Greek words, the first a verb signifying "to conquer" or to “subdue," the second a noun which means "people," and is the root of the English word "laity." Thus a Nicolaitan is one who subdues, or keeps under, the laity. The reference is, of course, to the rise, in very early times, of Clericalism and Ecclesiasticism, that system in which a distinctive order of men set themselves over the flock of God, to exercise lordship over His heritage; and this He has specially forbidden, and declared that He hates. If anyone would gain a comprehensive view of the oppressive and desolating effects of Nicolaitanism, when thoroughly carried out, he should read McCarthy’s "Priests and People in Ireland." The poverty, the ignorance, the failure in commerce, and all the woes of Catholic Ireland, are to be attributed to that cause, and to that cause alone.
149. The Roman Catholic Church is Nicolaitanism and Sectarianism in their extremist forms, and every Protestant sect is only less so in proportion as it retires from the ways of the great Roman Apostasy. Sectarianism is the natural result of the Nicolaitanism so hated by God. For, whenever men with the privileges of a caste govern a religious community, they become, in their anxiety to keep their party together, rabidly jealous of their laws and doctrines, and intolerant of those who venture to differ from them.
150. The final merging of the nominal Church in the Apostasy may be said to have taken place about A.D. 366, when Damasus, having been elected Bishop of Rome, and, therefore, head of the so-called Christian Church, was also consecrated Pontifex Maxinius, or Royal High Priest of the great Pagan world or Babylonian Mystery. This horrible union of offices produced the Church of Rome. What wonder, then, that she is called a Harlot! She is not so merely because she is the actual descendant and representative of the Babylonian Whore, the original Mother of the Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth; but, also, because she has played, and is playing, the whore herself in her present form and in her present habitation. For, with lying mouth, she claims to be united to the Lord Jesus; whereas she has nothing whatever to do with Him. On the contrary, she destroys His Word, transgresses His commandments, and despises His will.
151. Rome is, therefore, the Babylon in Mystery of the Revelation, in so far as she is the direct descendant and actual representative of the Babylonian Hierarchy. But, in her character of an Apostate Christian Church, she is not at present able to discharge all the functions of the ancient Mystery. For the moment, her powers of persecution are limited; but her arrogant pretensions are in no respect diminished. By force of circumstances, she is compelled for a time to refrain from the many acts of aggression which she has in mind: but it is under vehement protest that she does so. When once she finds herself strong enough to work her own will and it may not be long before she is so - her persecuting malice may be expected to break forth with tenfold vigour and bitterness, owing to its long enforced suppression. May we once more entreat our readers to give heed to the emphatic warning contained in paragraph 63 ?
152. Before we leave the subject of Babylon in Mystery, it may be profitable to point out some of the effects of the abominable compromise between nominal Christianity and Paganism, which may be detected in Churches that are without the pale of the Roman Obedience. For Protestants of all denominations, except, perhaps, the Open Brethren and the friends, have received many of their symbols, forms, ceremonies, feast and fast days, &c., from Rome., and, therefore, ultimately from Babylon.
153. The present Episcopal Church of England is a Reformed Church of Rome; and the various Dissenting communities which have seceded from her have, some in one way some in another, still further purified themselves. In far too many Episcopal places of worship, there is little or no objection to many of the errors and harlotries of the Roman Church: the reform is very superficial, and its results seem to be rapidly disappearing. In some cases, however, a more sweeping change has, undoubtedly, been effected; but, even in these, it is not difficult to detect the marks of Rome. Not seldom, however, the relics of Paganism are retained through ignorance: hence the following particulars may be useful:-
154. CHRISTMAS. - We have grown into the habit of regarding the twenty-fifth day of December as the anniversary of the birth of the Lord Jesus. But this is an absolute error. In Judaea, shepherds cannot tend their flocks at night in the open fields during the month of December. Christ was, probably, born in April; and Christians never celebrated Christmas until the Fourth Century. But, when Constantine the Great was trying in every possible way to reconcile and unite his Pagan and Christian subjects, he induced the too yielding Christians to accept the twenty-fifth of December as the date for their principal festival in honour of Christ. His reason for fixing on that particular day was as follows:- For many centuries before Christ the Pagans throughout the world had been accustomed to observe it as the birthday of the Sun-god; and it seemed likely that the union of Pagans and Christians would be greatly promoted, if the latter could be persuaded to keep a similar festival on the same day; indeed, such an arrangement might ultimately result in the identification of Christ and Apollo. Now, the Pagans had a good reason for their choice of the day; for, in a sense, it is the actual birthday of the sun. The twenty-second of December is the shortest day; but, on the twenty fifth, the sun begins to rise above the solstice, so that the day may fairly be considered as his natal day. But the Christians, without any reason whatever, save the wish to curry favour with the Emperor and the Roman people, were induced to celebrate a festival of their Lord at the same time, and so, as it were, to allow Apollo to dictate to Christ. This was, indeed, an undignified concession to the Pagans. And, whenever a Christian believer observes Christmas, he is indirectly, though, no doubt, unintentionally, honouring a heathen deity. Perhaps it is worth while to notice, that the feasting hilarity and exchanging of gifts, with which Christmas is celebrated, were characteristic of the Pagan festival, but have no precedent in the New Testament. The yule log and the Christmas tree are also Pagan, having been invented to typify the death and resurrection of the false Christ.
155. EASTER takes its very name front the Assyrian goddess Ishtar, who is frequently mentioned in Assyrian records. The "hot cross buns" of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Easter Sunday, were in vogue among the Babylonians 1300 years before the Christian era. We inherit them through the Roman Catholic Church.
156. LENT, again, the ‘forty days’ fast preparatory to the festivities of Easter, is of Babylonian origin, and was observed many a long century before the Christian era.
157. The priest’s tonsure, the bishop’s mitre and crozier, the priest’s vestments, the nimbus, the round sacramental cakes, or wafers - all these originated in Babylon.
158. Baptismal regeneration is a purely Pagan doctrine. To this day there are Pagan religions which teach, that baptism, or washing, removes sin. At Benares, the Hindus may he seen every morning, by thousands, cleansing themselves from corporal and spiritual defilements by bathing in the Ganges. The first act in Chaldean initiation was to plunge the candidate into water, until he was half drowned, after which rite he was reckoned among the "twice born." This doctrine, again, has come to us through Rome.
159. The symbol of the cross, too, is purely Pagan, and was the ancient sign of life through the conjunction of the sexes. It is strange, indeed, that professed Christians should have taken to worship the implement of Satan on which their Lord was put to death, and that often this worship should supersede that of the Lord Himself! But He is our God: let us worship Him.
160. The Eastward position is wholly Pagan, being, naturally, connected with the worship of the sun. How well this was known even to the Jews, we may see by a remarkable passage in Ezekiel 8:15-16, which, also, tells us that the practice is an abomination to the Lord, and that it was one of the sins which caused Him to give up Jerusalem to destruction. The celibacy of the priest, also, was instituted and strictly maintained at Babylon.
161. The Virgin Mary. Under this name the chief and most popular deity of the Roman Church is worshipped as the Queen of Heaven. She has, however, nothing to do with our Lord’s mother, but is the great Pagan goddess of nature, disguised, and with another name added to her long list of appellations. Down the ages she has been worshipped as Mylitta, Astarte, Aphrodite, and Venus. She was usually connected with a son; and - under the name of Isis, at least, - was, nevertheless, regarded as a virgin and immaculate. But, in the New Testament, the Lord’s mother is never called a virgin after the birth of her First-born Son, and subsequently had other sons, and also daughters, His brethren and sisters in the flesh. Still further, had she been an immaculate goddess, He would not have taken our nature upon Himself, and the plan of redemption would have been frustrated.
162. Many similar facts might be cited; but these, surely, are sufficient to show, that the purer any sect desires to be, the more completely must it separate itself from the appalling corruptions of the Catholic Church. But, when we inspect the observances of many of the Protestant Churches, we are at once reminded of that Parable in which the Lord likens the Kingdom of the Heavens, in its present state of Mystery, to "leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened" (Matthew 13:33). The meal was good, and fit to be used for an offering to the Lord (Leviticus 2:1); but the leaven was corrupting, and by defiling the meal made it unfit for presentation to Him (Leviticus 2:11). Now, the woman represents the Ecclesiastical System, or Catholic Church, which, as soon as it was formed, began to put the leaven of Babylonianism into the pure flour of God’s Word, until all the doctrines of Christ had become leavened and changed by it. And where can we now find a recognized form of worship which is not more or less tainted by this process?
163. But Babylon in Mystery, or the Roman Catholic Church, will not retain her influential position until the Lord comes. Her powers for evil are at present greatly paralysed, as we have already seen; but they will recover their strength. And, after she has once more made herself drunken with the blood of the saints (Revelation 17:6), the hour of her judgment will have come. The very Ten Horns, or Ten Kingdoms, which she may have been instrumental in forming, will turn against her, and there will be none to deliver her from an inexorable, cruel, and utter, destruction.