The
Truth About Samuele
Bacchiocchi Part II
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to Bacchiocchi’s #86-89
Attack —2 — PART EIGHT— —
BACCHIOCCHI ENTERS “RETIREMENT” On July 1, 2000, when Samuele Bacchiocchi turned 62, he immediately
resigned from his denominational position at Andrews, totally losing his
means of support. In August 2002, he wrote this: “I wish that I could receive at least one pay check
at this time. The truth is that since I took an early retirement at the age
of 62 on July 1, 2000, in order to devote myself more fully to Biblical
research and lecturing, I receive no pay check at all at this time. I need to
reach the age of 65 before I will receive
the Social security and sustentation benefits.”—Bacchiocchi, Endtime Issues, #88, p. 8. Although Bacchiocchi has no apparent means of
support, he is mysteriously doing very well financially. After 23 years at the Seminary, he was able to
resign early; for he had left behind a solid group of associates whom he knew
would continue teaching the students as he had done. Now it was time to broaden his ministry to a far
wider number of our people. Bacchiocchi had enough contacts in place that he
quickly started speaking at meetings throughout the United States and
overseas. In addition, he started an e-mail newsletter, in which, little by
little, he carefully began teaching his “advance positions,” as he thought
the readers were ready for them. He calls these installment newsletters, “Bible studies.”
But they generally consist of his speculations about various topics. — PART NINE — —
THE ANTICHRIST AND LITTLE HORN Daniel spoke of the little horn (Dan 7-8), Paul
spoke of the man of sin (2 Thess 2:3), and several terms in Revelation are
used for that same organization. Of the four times the antichrist is
mentioned in the Bible, all are in two of John’s epistles: 1 John 2:18, 22;
4:3; and 2 John 7. In his summer 2002 Endtime Issues, #86, Bacchiocchi
declares that the antichrist of Bible prophecy includes not only the papacy,
but also Islam. He then attempts to show that the antichrist is not so much
Rome, but primarily Islam! Of course, such talk, coming from one who 15 years
earlier wrote the most flattering praise for the pope, seems strange. If
Bacchiocchi was an emissary of Rome, why would he speak negatively about
Rome? However, it
is a well-known fact that Jesuit agents are under orders by their superiors
to do whatever it takes in order to achieve their ultimate objective—even if
it requires, from time to time, a verbal attack on the Vatican and the pope
himself! “My son, heretofore you have been taught to act the
dissembler: Among Roman Catholics to be a Roman Catholic, and to be a spy
even among your own brethren; to believe no man, to trust no man. “Among the Reformers, to be a Reformer; among the
Huguenots, to be a Huguenot; among the Calvinists, to be a Calvinist; among
the Protestants, generally to be a Protestant. And obtaining their
confidence, to seek even to preach from their pulpits, and [if necessary to
complete your disguise] to denounce with all the vehemence in your nature our
Holy Religion and the Pope; and even to descend so low as to become a Jew among
the Jews—that you might be enabled to gather together all information for the
benefit of your Order as a faithful soldier of the Pope.”—The Jesuit Oath,
in ibid., p. 82. Throughout his study on the antichrist, Bacchiocchi
compares and contrasts Catholicism with Islam, in an effort to show that the
Biblical antichrist has primarily consisted of Islam
down through the centuries, and hardly anything else. A primary objective of the Jesuits has consistently
been to eliminate papal Rome from Bible prophecy. The following data on
futurism and preterism is from a forthcoming book by the present author: ———————— Francisco Ribera, in 1537-1541, developed what we
today call Futurism. He declared that the prophecies of Daniel and
Revelation would not be fulfilled until the very last days when, for 2300
literal days or about 7 years, an antichrist would appear. It was theorized
that, at that time, a Jewish temple would be rebuilt in old Jerusalem. (In
reality, the Muslims will never permit such a temple to be built on the
Temple Mount.) Samuel Maitland, William Burgh, John Darby, James
Todd, and John Henry Newman were later leading Protestant theologians who
infiltrated Jesuits used to spread this error throughout modern
Protestantism. The Plymouth Brethren, the High Church Oxford Movement in the
Anglican Church, and the Scofield
Bible especially helped in this work. A variant of this futurism was the development of dispensationalism, one form of
which pushes many of the prophecies to the last days, to be fulfilled by the
Jewish people. Another Jesuit, Luis de Alcazar (1554-1613)
developed the opposite position, known as Preterism. This is the
teaching that the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation were fulfilled in
ancient times by Antiochus IV Epiphanes,
Nero, and/or pagan Rome. Hugo Grotius, of Holland, and Hammond, of England,
helped further this error. Anti-Christian, German rationalists heavily
endorsed it. This included J.G. Eichhorn,
H.G.A. Ewald, G.C.F. Lucke, W.M.L. De Wette, Franz Delitzsch, and Julius Wellhausen. Since 1830, many
British and American Bible teachers have taught it to their students. ———————— Pursuing a similar line of reasoning, Samuele Bacchiocchi tries to
prove that the Biblical antichrist is actually Islam, more than anything
else. Actually, Bacchiocchi sees the antichrist as
including a great variety of people. “John sees the antichrist as a principle of
hostility and opposition to God.”—Endtime
Issues, #86, p. 17. Bacchiocchi then turns his attention to the little
horn of Daniel 7—and decides that it applies directly, not only to the
papacy, but to Islam. “Truly, the description of the Little Horn as a
power that began small but became exceedingly powerful fits well not only the
Papacy, but also Islam.”—Ibid., p. 18. However, Bacchiocchi adds that the little horn
applies more to Islam than to the papacy. Regarding the uprooting of three
horns, “this distinguishing mark fits better Islam than the Papacy”
(ibid.). Along with this, he says that, “comparing to the Papacy, Islam has
persecuted Christians far more intensively and extensively” (ibid., p.
20). So one can see the direction in which Bacchiocchi is
headed: The little horn of Daniel applies primarily or only to Islam. — PART TEN— —
THE 1260 YEARS Next, Bacchiocchi attacks our historic position on
the 1260-year prophecy. Because it is quite obvious that Islam cannot be
contained within a 1260-year time period between A.D. 538 and 1798,
Bacchiocchi must figure out a way to change that extremely important
prophecy. Near the end of his Endtime Issues, #86, Bacchiocchi
declares that our historic position on the 1260-year prophecy is incorrect.
But he says that he received such a torrent of responses to that newsletter
(of which he claims 95% agreed with his skepticism), that he spends most of
#87 amplifying his theories that Ellen White’s writings, especially Great
Controversy, were full of errors needing his (Bacchiocchi’s) corrections. Just now, we will focus on what he has to say about
the 1260-year prophecy. In order to build his case concerning this,
Bacchiocchi interweaves several arguments in #86, pp. 21-22, and #87,
pp. 11-16: • The 1260 years do not start in A.D. 538. • The 1260 years do not end in 1798. • Ellen White was in error when she wrote about that
time period in Great Controversy. • The 1260 years is symbolic and is not 1260 years
in length! The 1260-year prophecy is extremely important, and
helps identify the little horn. The following section is excerpted from a
forthcoming book by the present author: ———————— A.D. 508,
538, AND 1798 The historical basis for 508—What happened in 508 that made it important, as the
beginning of the 1290-year prophecy? About the year A.D. 508, Clovis, king of the Franks,
was converted to Catholicism and the victory over the Goths occurred. The
conversion of the Franks (France) and Goths (Germany) would, in later
centuries, result in greatly strengthening papal supremacy; so this was an
important date. We have always marked this as the beginning of the important
1290-year prophecy (Dan 12:11). Both the 1290- and 1260-year prophecies end
in 1798. The 1335-year prophecy of the next verse (Dan 12:12) also begins at
508 and reaches to 1843. This view is a correct historical fulfillment, and
agrees with our historic beliefs. The “daily” is applied to what happened
when the 1290- (instead of 1260-year) year prophecy began and establishes the
A.D. 508 date. It dovetails nicely with the A.D. 538 date which began the
1260-year prophecy. The historical basis for 538—The 1843 chart links “538” with the plucking up of
the three horns and the “commencement of papal supremacy.” This position is
based on the prophecy in Daniel 7:25 and the uprooting of the third horn (Dan
7:8, 20, 24). It focuses on what happened when the 1260 years began. According to our historic position, the missing
phrase accompanying “continual” (tamid)
is “paganism,” or “pagan supremacy,” which papal Rome took away at the
beginning of the 1260 years. In A.D. 538, Emperor Justinian’s general,
Belisarius, uprooted the third horn (the Ostrogoths). It is a known fact that, by this
act, papal Rome eliminated pagan supremacy in the West. In another sense, the papacy replaced the pagan abomination, which had extended back in history
to Cain, with a papal abomination which masqueraded as the true worship of
God. How did the papacy take away paganism?—Historians tell us that part of the way the papacy
took away paganism was by absorbing its essential elements. (See the present
author’s book, Mark of the Beast, 22-25, for quotations by historians
which verify this.) This is what made it Satan’s masterpiece of deception. It
was just the old pagan religions and repression, masquerading as
Christianity. The pagan abomination was
transferred into something more deadly. The Biblical basis for the date A.D. 538—What is the Bible evidence for beginning the 1260
years in 538? The critics charge that there is none. In reply, it has to
be something which can be confirmed by historians. Determining the
starting point is crucial. Some think the historical event is the taking away
of the daily in Daniel 8:11. But that does not provide a definitive date,
since the papacy was growing in power and influence from A.D. 330 (when Constantine
moved to Constantinople) onward. The starting point for the 1260 years is clearly
given to us twice in the previous chapter (Dan 7:8, 20). It is the
plucking up of the third horn. That event is solidly fixed by historians
as occurring in A.D. 538. None can question the dating of that event: the
overthrow of the Ostrogoths.
The historical importance of 538—It is charged by some that 508 and 538 are not
significant, since the papacy had supremacy centuries earlier. That is a
standard papal claim that its supremacy extends back to only a short time
after the apostles died. But that claim is not correct. Our historic dates
for the beginning of the 1290- and 1260-year time spans stand solid. Not
until the papacy had power over the nations did it have supremacy—and
this did not happen until those dates. When did the papacy replace paganism?—In order to better understand the relationship
between the 508 and 538 dates, we need to understand that the papacy was
growing in power for centuries. The full supremacy of the pope did not
occur until 508 and 538. Five events marked important turning points in
the gradual increase of the power of the Roman bishop. The first date was in A.D. 195, when Pope Victor demanded that all the Christian
churches obey his decree to henceforth observe Easter on Sunday (instead of
the day in the week on which the Jewish Passover fell). The other churches
were astonished at his audacity. Never before had one Christian church tried
to lord it over the others. It is significant that this first attempt at
gaining the supremacy was fought over Sunday sacredness, even though it was
only for the yearly Easter service. Significantly, it was the Roman bishop
who was championing it. Thoughtful historians recognize that, from its
earliest days, the strongest claims of the Roman bishop to supremacy were
based on its exaltation of Sunday. Yet, in spite of Pope Victor’s demands,
the other Christian churches refused to yield to his supremacy. Contrary
to pro-Catholic claims, papal supremacy does not date back to those earlier
centuries. The second date was in A.D. 321. Even though it did not mention the Christian
religion, Constantine’s monumental Sunday Law of 321 was a major achievement
for Pope Sylvester I. His close adviser, Eusebius, admits that they, the
papal authorities, influenced the emperor to enact that law (Great
Controversy, 574). But its enactment did not give the papacy supremacy.
The Sunday Law was carefully worded to placate both the Mithraites and the half-converted Christians. The third date was in A.D. 330, when Constantine I, nine years after issuing his
first Sunday Law (A.D. 321), moved the capital of the Roman Empire to faraway
Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople. This greatly increased the
position of the pope, but he still lacked civil power. The papacy could not
gain the supremacy until it became a church-state. The fourth date was A.D. 508, when Clovis, king of the Franks (modern France),
was nominally converted along with his subjects. That territory had been the
strong Roman province of Gaul. Imperial forces conquered the Goths at about
the same time. We date the 1290 years from this time. Pope Vigilius became, at that time,
an important new leader in the West. The fifth date was A.D. 538, when the third of the three horns was overthrown.
In 493, the Heruli had
been conquered; in 534 the Vandals were eliminated; and, in 538, the Ostrogoths vanquished. For the
first time, all the tribes opposing the pope had been crushed. The emperor,
Justinian, lived far away in Constantinople; and he and his successors did
not henceforth interfere in papal activities. We date the 1260 years from this point. At last,
the papacy had become a church-state, controlling territory in its own right.
Truly can it be said that A.D. 508 and 538 marked the historical beginning of
papal supremacy. Historians are agreed that the papacy was increasing
in power for several centuries. But A.D. 508 and 538 are crucial. Both dates
combine to mark the transition to papal supremacy. The way it is worded, the
1843 chart lists both as key events (more on this later). From 538,
onward, the papacy surged forward in its blasphemous claims and tyrannical
rule. Pagan supremacy—Exactly
what was the “continual” (the tamid)
that the papacy took away in 538? In one sense, it was the desolating abomination
of paganism. In another sense, it was pagan supremacy. The supremacy
of paganism essentially ended in 538 and was replaced by papal ascendency. It is claimed that our traditional view is incorrect,
because the papacy is said to have had full supremacy prior to A.D. 538. The
historical facts, given above, shows that
charge to be incorrect. But there is also other evidence: Who uprooted the three horns?—It is an intriguing fact that the papacy did not
uproot even one of the three horns. It did not do this—and the reason was
that, prior to the beginning of the 1290 and 1260 years, it did not yet have
the supremacy to do so. It lacked the civil power and force of arms. Emperor Justinian sent General Belisarius all the
way from Constantinople to conquer those western heathen tribes, and
Belisarius did it with remarkable success against great odds. Historically,
the papacy did not take away the horns. They were, as Daniel explains,
subdued before it (Dan 7:20). However, Justinian had Belisarius do it at the
request of the pope. It was in this sense that the papacy “took away”
paganism (“He shall subdue three kings”; Dan 7:24). The result is the same.
By 538, the papacy was freed from outside interference and able to track down
and destroy Christians over a wide area, as predicted in Revelation 12. The A.D. 538 transition—When the Heruli
and confederated tribes under the Heruli
chief, Odoacer, removed the last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, from his throne in
Rome in A.D. 476, the barbarian tribes overran the Roman Empire. At this point, a struggle for theological and
political power began by the Roman Catholic papacy against, not only paganism
but also, Arianism. The conversion of Clovis, the king of the Franks
(in Gaul, modern France), to Catholicism brought a powerful support to the
papacy. A.D. 538 marked a pivotal turning point, for in that
year the Arians were driven out of Rome.
It came about in this way: The Arian Heruli
had controlled Rome for a number of years. In A.D. 488, the Eastern Roman
Emperor, Zeno, asked Theodoric, head of the Arian Ostrogoths, to conquer the Heruli, which he did. Then General Belisarius conquered the remaining
Arian powers, the Vandals in North Africa (534) and the Ostrogoths in Italy (537-538). In A.D. 538, the Roman Catholic emperor, Justinian,
ordered all citizens of the empire to become Roman Catholic within three
months, or leave the empire. Those who refused, both Arians and pagans, had
their property confiscated. (See
Sumerbell, History of the
Christian Church, pp. 310-311.) Another major event occurred that same year (A.D.
538): Roman Catholicism promulgated the first
religious Sunday law. This was the 28th canon of the Third Council of
Orleans, France, which convened that year. It was the first Sunday law
to forbid rural agricultural labor (J.N. Andrews, History of the Sabbath,
2nd ed., p. 372). A.D. 538 was clearly the key date, although advances
and setbacks occurred for quite some time, both before and afterward. Prior
to 538, the papacy gradually moved toward supremacy. After that date, from
time to time it gained increased supremacy. (For example, in 756, the
Frankish king Pepin waged two military campaigns against the Lombards who had captured
central Italy, liberating the area for papal rule.) But 538 marked the
transition. Did the Vandals and Ostrogoths return later?—It has been suggested that these two tribes were not
fully subdued by A.D. 538. But Robert Browning, in his recent book, Justinian
and Theodora, describes in detail what happened. In 534, the Vandals were
totally vanquished by Belisarius and “the Vandals as a people vanished from
the face of the earth” (Browning, pp. 24-25). In the spring of 538, Belisarius
conquered the Ostrogoths;
and, shortly thereafter, “the Ostrogothic
kingdom had ceased to exist” (ibid., p. 114). When did the pagan little horn become the papal
little horn?—In Daniel 8, the little
horn power arises as the next major power, supplanting the four Grecian
territorial kingdoms, as it gradually conquers them (Dan 8:9). But, at some
point in history, this pagan power (Imperial Rome) becomes the papal power
(the papacy). When, historically, does this occur? There are three primary
events which led to the transition. Historians recognize them as highly
significant. The first event
occurred in A.D. 330, when, nine years after his first Sunday law of A.D.
321, Constantine I journeyed east and turned the little town of Byzantium
into his magnificent new capital which he named Constantinople (modern
Istanbul). It was 1,150 miles due east of the city of Rome. In so doing, the
emperor gave the pope enormous influence over the Italian peninsula. But make
no mistake; although his capital was far away to the East, Constantine and
his successors still governed the entire empire and Italy was still harassed
by Gothic tribes from the north. Although the pope had more power, he was
still politically very weak. The second event is
the year A.D. 508. At about that time Clovis, king of the Franks, was
converted to Catholicism and the victory over the Goths occurred. This was a
significant date in the gradual increase
of papal power. The conversion of the Franks (France) would, in later
centuries, greatly strengthen papal supremacy; so it was an important date.
We recognize it as the beginning of the 1290 years. The third event
marked the beginning of full papal control, a control which it extended throughout
Europe and held for centuries. In A.D. 538, the uprooting of the third
opposing horn (the Ostrogoths)
occurred. We date the beginning of the 1260 years to this year. This was the
most important date of the three, marking the rise of the papal power for two
reasons: First, for the first time, the papacy had both religious and
political power. The harassment of pagan forces was immensely lessened.
Second, this event (the uprooting of the third horn) was specifically
mentioned three times in prophecy (Dan 7:8, 20, 24). Special power during the 1260 years—It was given its religious power over the nations at
exactly the time predicted—during the 1260 years (Dan 7:25). It is
significant that the 1260-year prophecy is mentioned twice in Daniel (Dan
7:25; 12:7) and five times in Revelation (11:2, 3; 12:6, 14; 13:5). It is the
primary time span marking papal authority. The 1260 years began in A.D. 538. In 533, Justinian
recognized the pope’s ecclesiastical supremacy as “head of all the holy
churches” in both East and West. In 538, the Ostrogoths were defeated and the papacy was freed
from the domination of the Arian kings in the West; so the papacy could
henceforth grow in power, unhindered by anyone. Having attained full power and authority in the
West, the papacy entered upon its 1260 years of dominance in Europe. This
date, A.D. 538, is solidly established as the beginning of the 1260-year
prophecy. 1798 and the end of the 1260 years—Just as a cluster of events surrounded the A.D. 538
transition of the papacy into supremacy, so several events clustered about
1798, when both the 1260 and 1290 years ended. On February 10, 1798,
Napoleon’s general, Alexander Berthier,
entered Rome and proclaimed Rome to be a republic. The aged Pope Pius VI,
refusing to recognize the proclamation, fled for refuge first to Siena and
then near Florence. He there set up a small curia to administer the church.
But it was for nought, for he was captured and the papacy was abolished. All
of Europe was astonished: The papacy was gone. Russia and Austria decided to restore the pope to
his pontifical throne. But even that desperate attempt failed. The pope was
hurried from prison to prison in France. The objective of Napoleon was to
permanently end the papacy. Pius VI was 81 years old and ill when he was
seized. On August 17 (some historians say August 29), 1799, he died in the
French fortress of Valence, France. All Europe recognized that the papacy was
dead. The 1798 captivity was unique in at least two ways:
First, it came as the climax of several centuries of decline in the influence
of Catholicism on the minds of Europeans. Second, it was not merely a
military or political coup, but a stroke deliberately intended to forever
terminate the papacy. A.D. 1798 marked the end of
papal supremacy—The papacy had been losing political and religious
power since the sixteenth century, yet it had continued exerting a strong
influence over nations all the way up to the end of the eighteenth century. How did it maintain that supremacy during that long
period of time? Speaking of 1798, we are told: “In many of the nations of Europe the powers that
ruled in church and state had for centuries been controlled by Satan through
the medium of the papacy.”—Great Controversy, 268-269. But 1798 marked a significant changeover. “Though a new pope was soon afterward elected, the
papal hierarchy has never since been able to wield the power which it before
possessed.”—Great Controversy, 266. The remarkably successful revolution in America
(1776-1781) encouraged the French to try to do it also; but, lacking
Christian principles, they utterly failed. However, throughout the nineteenth
century, nation after nation in Europe moved into representative monarchies
or full democracies. The papacy could not regain its lost supremacy. Pius IX (1846-1878) tried
desperately to re-establish that power,
with his 1854 Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary; his infamous Syllabus
of Errors (the “Index”), in which he listed all the principles of
religious freedom and modern science as heretical; and his mammoth debacle,
which is a shame to every Catholic leader since then: his Dogma of Papal
Infallibility, which he rammed through the Vatican I Council (1869-1870)
on July 18, 1870. But those actions were but the desperate attempts of a
loser to regain power. In the midst of Pius IX’s reign, Victor Emmanuel II, king of Sardinia,
captured Rome, united Italy, and declared himself its king. In the process,
the States of the Church, which included part of central Italy, were taken
from the pontiff. But that was just an aftermath to an earlier lost majesty
and power over the nations. The healing of the wound—In connection with the above paragraph, it should be
mentioned that Mussolini’s Treaty of the Vatican with Pope Pius XI (through
Cardinal Gasparri) on
February 11, 1929, is generally thought to be the “healing of the wound,” the
restoration of papal supremacy. On that date, the Vatican was given 108.7
acres of land. In truth, the real healing of the wound and
restoration of that supremacy will occur when the U.S. National Sunday Law is
enacted, to be followed by enactment of Sunday Laws by nations throughout the
world. Only then will the predicted papal supremacy over the nations again
occur (read Great Controversy, 448-449, 580-581). (For historical data on the 1929
event, see our Mark of the Beast, pp. 32-33.) “Protestants little know what they are doing when
they propose to accept the aid of Rome in the work of Sunday exaltation. While
they are bent upon the accomplishment of their purpose, Rome is aiming to
re-establish her power, to recover her lost supremacy. Let the principle once
be established in the United States that the church may employ or control the
power of the state; that religious observances may be enforced by secular
laws; in short, that the authority of church and state is to dominate the
conscience, and the triumph of Rome in this country is assured.”—Great
Controversy, 581. Relation of 1798 to the American Revolution—Another important event also occurred close to the
year 1798. You will want to carefully read Great Controversy, 439-440.
It explains that the Revelator predicted that, at about the same time that
the papacy would come to its end, an important new nation would be rising
“out of the earth”—where there were few people (Rev 13:1-11). “What nation of the New World was in 1798 rising
into power . . The
application of the symbol admits of no question. One nation, and only one,
meets the specifications of this prophecy; it points unmistakably to the
United States of America.”—Great Controversy, 440. It is important that we not forget this linkage. The
year 1798 not only marks the end of papal supremacy, but also the rising of
America to what eventually would become an international power overawing all
other nations on earth. A recent news report stated that the U.S. is now
militarily stronger than the next 16 most powerful military nations in the
world combined! That is incredible. ———————— That concludes the excerpted section from a
forthcoming book by the present author. Regarding the 1260-year prophecy, Bacchiocchi also
tries to downplay the terrible persecution by the papacy that was predicted.
But the verdict of history is quite different: “Compared with the persecution of heresy in Europe
from 1227 to 1492, the persecution of Christians by Romans in the first three
centuries after Christ was a mild and humane procedure.”—Will and Ariel
Durant, The Age of Faith, p. 784. Writing of the persecution of French Huguenots in
1685 under King Louis XIV, Durant makes a similar, equally amazing
comparison: “This holy terror of 1685 . . was
far worse than the Revolutionary terror of 1793.”—Will and Ariel Durant,
The Age of Louis XIV, p. 73. Is the 1260-year prophecy symbolic?—After taking the reader through involved reasoning
to conclude that the 1260-year prophecy began in A.D. 451 or as late as 756
and ended in 1870 (1419 years or 1114 years, not 1260), Bacchiocchi concluded
by claiming that the 1260 years is totally symbolic and is without years in
length! He says the 1260-year prophecy is actually not a time span, but is
symbolic of half of a perfect number 7. This is the type of Jesuit reasoning that we find in
Jesuit writings. Everything is confused and designed to mystify the reader,
so he can more easily be caught in a net of Catholic deception. An ultimate
goal of the Jesuits is to remove the papacy from every Bible prophecy. The
1260 years is one of those Bible prophecies. In Endtime
Issues, #86, under the heading, “The Time of the Domination of the
Antichrist,” Bacchiocchi mystifies the 1260 years into a marvelous
nothingness: “In Daniel 7:25 and 12:7, the three and a half years
are the time when the Antichrist power oppresses the saints of the Most High.”—Endtime Issues, #86,
p. 21. He then says this: “A more satisfactory interpretation of the prophetic
period of three and a half years is suggested by its symbolic usage to
represent, on the one hand the time of domination of the Antichrist, and on
the other hand the protection of God’s people in time of persecution.”—Ibid.,
p. 22. “Three and a half is half of seven, which is the
number of God’s completion and perfection, Half of seven suggests
incompletion and limitation.”—Ibid. Bacchiocchi then mentions that Elijah’s famine and
Christ’s ministry each lasted only three and a half years. “The attacks against Christ lasted only three and a
half years. Why? Because half a week stands for incompletion, limitation. The
forces of evil were limited by God and could not accomplish the complete
destruction of Christ and His work.”—Ibid. This is the kind of strange reasoning we find in
papal documents: Because Christ’s ministry lasted three and a half years, therefore He was only
partly destroyed! Perhaps Jesuits may believe that Christ was partly
destroyed at Calvary, but we don’t. It is amazing how frail mortals imagine that they
can “correct” the Inspired Writings; After sitting in infallible judgment on
pages in Great Controversy, only a few pages away he is spouting
ridiculous speculations which reveal a shallow mind. You will recall that we earlier mentioned that
Francisco Ribera, in 1537-1541, developed the error of Futurism,
declaring that the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation would not be fulfilled
until seven literal years in the last days. Bacchiocchi’s theory sounds something like that. At one point in #87, Bacchiocchi says, “What
I am suggesting is only a proposed interpretation, not a dogmatic position.
What I am doing is thinking aloud.” —He is urging major changes in the Spirit
of Prophecy and our doctrinal positions; yet he says he is proposing
suggestions or thinking aloud! If that is all he is doing, Bacchiocchi needs
to turn off his computer and start reading the Inspired Books. They are the only
ones which can get him back on the right track. —
PART ELEVEN— ATTACK ON
THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY BACCHIOCCHI: EGW IS IN ERROR In order to strengthen his rejection of the dating of
the 1260-year prophecy, Bacchiocchi interweaves a direct attack on Ellen
White’s writings. In order to do this, he uses the words, “papal supremacy,”
very loosely. Two “errors” “corrected” in the 1911 Great
Controversy—He claims that her
book, Great Controversy, is filled with errors which he does not have
time to mention. Then he cites two examples of errors in the 1888 edition
which were corrected in the 1911 edition. We will discover that they are not
errors after all! The first “corrected error”—Bacchiocchi claims that “papal supremacy” actually
began long before A.D. 538. Here is the first supposed “error” in Great
Controversy that he says was corrected in the next edition of that book: “The 1260 years of papal supremacy began with the
establishment of the papacy in A.D. 538, and would therefore terminate in
1798.”—Great Controversy, 1888 ed., p. 254. “The 1260 years of papal supremacy began in A.D.
538, and would terminate in 1798.”—Great Controversy, 1911 ed., p. 254. The 1911 statement may appear to be a little
clearer, but it actually says essentially the same thing. Papal supremacy was fully established in A.D. 538;
that is what both passages say. And it is the truth. For centuries, the
papacy had been moving closer to that supremacy. By 538, the objective was
attained. By that date, it was fully established as the religio/political
powerhouse of the western half of the empire. In later years, that supremacy
increased even more in strength. That is what we learn from history and from
both editions of the above passage. But Bacchiocchi says no. “The development of the ‘supremacy of the papacy’
began long before 538.”—Bacchiocchi, Endtime Issues, #87, p. 11. We agree that movement toward that supremacy began
earlier. But it did not arrive until 538. Bacchiocchi then cites his Gregorian doctoral thesis
as proof: “In my dissertation I have shown that the
development of the papal primacy began already in the second century, when
the Pope exercised his ecumenical
authority by imposing on Christian churches at large Easter-Sunday,
weekly Sunday, and by condemning various movements like the Montanists [early Christians
who opposed worldliness].”—Ibid. If that is what is written in his doctoral thesis,
it surely must be full of flaws. Bacchiocchi’s
thesis was apparently written to please his instructors at the Gregoriana. Little wonder that
the pope gave him a medal for his defense of Catholic errors. But notice
these historical facts which contradict the above paragraph: • There were no “popes” in the second century. • The leader of the church at Rome had no
“ecumenical authority” over the other churches in the second century. • The other churches rejected his attempt to
exercise authority in regard to Sabbathkeeping
and all other matters. In A.D. 195, when Victor I (189-190), bishop of the
church at Rome, issued an order for all the churches of Christendom to hold
their yearly commemorative gatherings, in honor of Christ’s spring
resurrection, on a Sunday instead of the Jewish passover (Nisan 14)—they rejected his overtures
toward inter-church domination. • Although not mentioned in his Endtime Issues, #87, Bacchiocchi
primarily bases his case on a pseudopigraphal
writing (a fake letter), supposedly written by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons,
which was inserted into manuscripts of Irenaeus’ book, Against Heresies
(composed c.A.D.
175-189). This false document says that the church at Rome is
“the very great, the very ancient and universally known Church founded and
organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul,” and
that “it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this
Church, on account of its pre-eminent authority; that is, the faithful
everywhere” (Irenaeus, Adversus
haereses 3, 3, 1,
Anti-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, p. 415; quoted in Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath to
Sunday, 209). The above statement is obviously a fraudulent
manuscript, brought forward centuries later by the papacy as additional
evidence that it had primacy over the Christian churches all the way back to
within a hundred years after the New Testament ended! Read the statement
again. The very wording is a patent fraud. “Notwithstanding that vice prevailed, even among the
leaders of the Roman Church, her influence seemed steadily to increase. About
the close of the eighth century, papists put forth the claim that in the
first ages of the church the bishops of Rome had possessed the same spiritual
power which they now assumed. To establish this claim, some means must be
employed to give it a show of authority; and this was readily suggested by
the father of lies. Ancient writings were forged by monks. Decrees of
councils before unheard of were discovered, establishing the universal
supremacy of the pope from the earliest times. And a church that had rejected
the truth greedily accepted these deceptions. “The few faithful builders upon the true foundation
(1 Corinthians 3:10, 11) were perplexed and hindered as the rubbish of false
doctrine obstructed the work. Like the builders upon the wall of Jerusalem in
Nehemiah’s day, some were ready to say: ‘The strength of the bearers of
burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish; so that we are not able to
build.’ Nehemiah 4:10. Wearied with the constant struggle against
persecution, fraud, iniquity, and every other obstacle that Satan could
devise to hinder their progress, some who had been faithful builders became
disheartened; and for the sake of peace and security for their property and
their lives, they turned away from the true foundation.”—Great
Controversy, 56. Either Bacchiocchi is a Jesuit
agent, peddling their lies or the poor
guy was brainwashed during his five years at the pope’s university and cannot
be trusted to provide reliable information on either theology or church
history. Take your choice. Albert H. Newman (no relation to Cardinal Newman)
wrote an outstanding two-volume, Manual of Church History. In the
section on Victor and the Easter controversy, Newman summarized Irenaeus’
true position on it, based on authentic documents he penned, revealing that
Irenaeus bitterly opposed Victor’s
attempt to lord it over the other local churches and try to enforce
the keeping of Easter Sunday. “Irenaeus looked upon the Church as an organic unity
. . He nowhere lays stress
upon episcopacy as a divine institution, but makes the liberty and
independence of each church (including a city with its surrounding villages)
the fundamental principle of the ecclesiastical constitution.”—Newman, Manual
of Church History, Vol. 1, p. 252. Newman goes on to explain that Victor was “arrogant
enough to break off communion with the other churches” because they would not
accept his Easter Sunday theory. “Irenaeus,” he says, “censures severely his
intolerant conduct” (ibid.). The second “corrected error—The second “glaring mistake” that Bacchiocchi says
Ellen White made in the 1888 edition, which he says was corrected in the
1911, was this: “The infliction of the deadly wound points to the
abolition of the papacy in 1798.”—Great Controversy, 1888 ed., p. 554. “The infliction of the deadly wound points to the
downfall of the papacy in 1798.”—Great Controversy, 1911 ed., p. 579. Once again, both statements say the same thing. We
earlier found that, in 1798, General Berthier
took Pope Pius VI captive and abolished the papacy. All Europe recognized
that the downfall of the papacy had occurred. Everyone was shocked. The
papacy was gone! All other papal crises, before and after, were as
nothing compared with this. Consider what happened to the Vatican and the city
of Rome: “The French imposed severe military levies and
imposts upon Rome and carried the most valuable works of art to Paris; and
Rome was subjected to a pillage unsurpassed by those of the Goths, Vandals or
Normans centuries before. Priestly robes were burned for the gold in their
embroidery; palaces and churches were ransacked, and their treasures of art
were carried away or destroyed. The Romans
. . rose
against the French, but were reduced to submission with terrible loss of
life.”—I.S. Smith, Standard History of the World, Vol. 7, p. 3416. It was not until September 18, 1801, that Bonaparte
made a treaty, called the Concordat with a new pope (Giovanni Angelo Braschi; Pius VII; 1800-1823),
thus establishing him on his throne in the midst of a gutted city. Is Great Controversy “full of error”?—Bacchiocchi claims that this invaluable book has
error running all through it. He says that he will not take time to cite it
all, but will only mention two examples (quoted above). We have found that
both “corrections” were not corrections. About a decade ago, the present writer closely
compared the 1888 edition with the 1911 edition; and, aside from some of the
cited historical quotations, he could not find one significant change, not
one. Check it out for yourself: Take a copy of our
paperback 1888 edition (which is an exact duplicate of the original) and
compare it, paragraph by paragraph, with the 1911. Aside from the historical
quotations, you will find no changes of significance, nothing. What about those historical quotations? Different
ones were at times quoted in the 1911, when the ones Ellen White had quoted
in the 1888 could not be located (so source references could be attached to
them). Another difference was that all the 1888 edition
quotations from J.H. Merle D’Aubigné,
were taken from one English translation of his History of the Reformation
of the Sixteenth Century while those in the 1911 were taken from a
different English translation. The reason: After 1888, D’Aubigné officially approved a different English
translation (because he was given royalties from its sale). Bacchiocchi says early Sabbathkeeping untrue—Bacchiocchi next tells us there is a need for
further corrections in the Spirit of Prophecy books, and cites two examples. You will recall that, earlier in this study, we
learned that Monachino,
in his preface to Bacchiocchi’s
book, cited the two objectives of the thesis and book: (1) To prove that the
papacy changed the Sabbath to Sunday as early as the second century, and that
all Christians obediently accepted the change. (2) Sundaykeepers should hallow and honor Sunday more
than they now do. It is the first of those two objectives that Bacchiocchi
is promoting in this attack on Great Controversy, pp. 52 and 53, which
says the opposite. • Bacchiocchi
says the following statement is in error: “In the first centuries the true Sabbath had been
kept by all Christians. They were jealous for the honor of God, and,
believing that His law is immutable, they zealously guarded the sacredness of
its precepts.”—Great Controversy, 52. Bacchiocchi was taught at the Jesuit university that
nearly all Christians were keeping Sunday in the second century A.D. • Bacchiocchi
claims that Ellen White taught: (1) All Christians kept the Bible Sabbath
before the time of Constantine. (2) No Christians kept Sunday until the time
of Constantine. He says this sentence proves his point: “In the early part of the fourth century the emperor
Constantine issued a decree making Sunday a public festival throughout the
Roman Empire.”—Great Controversy, 53. Bacchiocchi, considered to be a Jesuit-trained
expert on the Sabbath in the early church, is wrong again. Here are the
facts: (1) Ellen White wrote, “In the first centuries the true
Sabbath had been kept by all Christians.” That is true. Although worldlings,
professing faith in Christ, kept Sunday at Alexandria and Rome, genuine
Christians continued to keep the true Bible Sabbath in the first centuries. Two church historians who wrote a full hundred years
after the time of Constantine’s Sunday edict declared that all Christians,
with the exception of those in Alexandria, Egypt, Rome, and Italy, were still
keeping the Bible Sabbath. (Their statements will be quoted shortly.) So
Ellen White was correct in her statement. (2) Bacchiocchi charges that Ellen White claimed that no
Sundaykeeping in
Christendom occurred until the time of Constantine. But she never said that in her Great Controversy,
p. 53, statement, above, which he quoted or anywhere else. She never said
that no professed Christians kept Sunday before the time of Constantine. Bacchiocchi was careful not to quote the complete
passage on p. 52 (quoted soon), which disproves his charge. But, first, let us consider the structure of most of
Great Controversy, chapter 3 (The Apostasy). Ellen White introduces it
with the statement: “Little by
little, at first in stealth and silence, and then more openly as it
increased in strength and gained control of the minds of men, ‘the mystery of
iniquity’ carried forward its deceptive and blasphemous work. Almost
imperceptibly the customs of heathenism found their way into the
Christian church.”—Great Controversy, 49:2. That is how the changeover to Sunday—as well as the
other apostasies—was done. Read the entire paragraph. Then, beginning on p. 51,
she lists item after item that was changed: Bible forbidden (p. 51),
the worship of idols (p. 52), the change from Sabbath to Sunday (pp.
53-54), etc. It is for this reason that 52:0 speaks of a general
council, convened to establish image worship and, then, in 52:1, begins
discussion of the change of the Sabbath to Sunday. Bacchiocchi quotes three sentences from that
paragraph and one sentence from the next page (quoted above). But that introductory paragraph to the change of the
Sabbath says something quite different. Here is nearly all of it. She has finished
talking about later councils, commanding idolatry, and returns us to the
earliest centuries: “The spirit of concession to paganism opened the way
for a still further disregard of Heaven’s authority. Satan, working
through unconsecrated leaders of the church, tampered with the fourth
commandment also, and essayed to set aside the ancient Sabbath, the day
which God had blessed and sanctified (Genesis 2:2, 3), and in its stead to
exalt the festival observed by the heathen as ‘the venerable day of
the sun.’ This change was not at first attempted openly. In the first
centuries the true Sabbath had been kept by all [genuine] Christians.
They were jealous for the honor of God, and, believing that His law is
immutable, they zealously guarded the sacredness of its precepts. But with
great subtlety Satan worked through his agents to bring about his object.
That the attention of the people might be called to the Sunday, it was
made a festival in honor of the resurrection of Christ. Religious services
were held upon it; yet it was regarded as a day of recreation, the Sabbath
being still sacredly observed.”—Great Controversy, 52:1. You have just read a clear, accurate statement on
Sabbath- and Sundaykeeping
by Christians, prior to the time of Constantine. The reader is introduced to Constantine’s
cooperation with church leaders on p. 53:1. He issued an edict decreeing
Sunday sacredness, yet— “While many [not all] God-fearing Christians
were gradually led to regard Sunday as possessing a degree of sacredness, they
still held the true Sabbath as the holy of the Lord and observed it in
obedience to the fourth commandment.”—Great Controversy, 53:1. According to that statement, even after Constantine’s
time, most Christians continued worshiping God on the Bible Sabbath; and some
observed both days. Here are the two remarkable statements, by reliable
historians, which prove this. Both were written about one hundred years after
Constantine issued his Sunday law: “Although almost all churches throughout the world
celebrate the sacred mysteries on the Sabbath of every week, yet the
Christians of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition,
have ceased to do this.”—Socrates Scholasticus,
Ecclesiastical History 5, 22; Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2, 2:132.
[This statement was written about A.D. 440. He was not the famous Greek
philosopher, Socrates of Athens (469-399 B.C.).] “The people of Constantinople, and almost
everywhere, assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the first day of
the week, which custom is never observed at Rome or at Alexandria.”—Sozomen”; Ecclesiastical
History 7, 13; Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2, 1:159. [Sozomen lived c.A.D. 400-c.447.] Strand, an Adventist church historian, wrote this
confirmation: “The situation in Rome and Alexandria, however, was
not typical of the rest of early Christianity. In those two cities there was
an evident early attempt by Christians to terminate observance of the
seventh-day Sabbath, but elsewhere throughout the Christian world Sunday
observance simply arose alongside observance of Saturday.”—Kenneth Strand,
“The Sabbath and Sunday from the Second through Fifth Centuries,” in The
Sabbath and Sunday in History, p. 323. Quoting Hippolytus
of Rome and Origen of Alexandria, Strand adds that it was not until the fifth
century that all the Christians in those two cities—Rome and
Alexandria—stopped observing the Bible Sabbath. Contrary to what Monachino and Bacchiocchi would have us believe,
the seventh-day Sabbath was such an obvious Bible teaching that, for
centuries, Christians continued to faithfully hallow it. “Not all Christians in those two cities abandoned
the Sabbath immediately and totally during the second century. By the time of
Socrates Scholasticus and
Sozomen in the fifth
century, however, it is clear that the omission of special Saturday worship
services was an established fact having some degree of antiquity.”—Ibid.,
p. 324. Great Controversy, pp. 52-53, is in total agreement. All true
Christians were keeping the Bible Sabbath even after Constantine’s time, but
they began observing religious services on Sunday in honor of the
resurrection while using the rest of the day for recreation. Think not that, because Bacchiocchi ignores them,
that Socrates and Sozomen
were fictional characters. Both were major fifth century church historians. “In the following [fifth] century Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, each in his own way,
continued the Church History of Eusebius to his own time. These include
accounts of the great Christological controversies, and of the struggle of
Christianity with paganism during the fourth and part of the fifth centuries . . Cassiodorus, a
Roman statesman, had the Church Histories of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret translated into Latin by Epiphanius . . This so-called ‘Tripartite
[triple] History,’ along with that of Eusebius, formed the chief authority on
ancient church history throughout the Middle Ages . . The works of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, like that of Eusebius, are available in
excellent translations in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers.”—Albert Henry Newman, A Manual of Church History,
Vol. 1, pp. 12-13. But, in strong contrast, Bacchiocchi was taught by
his Jesuit instructors that, because of the authoritative supremacy of the
Roman pope, nearly all Christians had abandoned the Bible Sabbath and were
keeping Sunday as early as the second century—within 50 years after the time
of the Apostle John! The Jesuit/Monachino/Bacchiocchi
objectives are (1) to extend the authoritative supremacy of the papacy back
to nearly the time of the Apostles; (2) to downgrade the Bible Sabbath as contemptable in the eyes of the
believers, by the time John had died; and (3) to exalt Sunday as sacredly
observed by the very earliest Christians. Did you notice that, earlier in this study, we found
that a key objection of Bacchiocchi against our 1260-year interpretation
is—that it does not give the papacy supremacy until A.D. 538? It is my personal belief that Bacchiocchi, who
spends a great deal of time holding seminars, can pour out such a volume of
carefully contrived newsletters month after month, because he has several
ghostwriters helping him. His contacts with the Vatican did not end when he
was hired at Andrews. Endtime
Issues, #87, dated August 1, 2002, contained 24 full-size pages. Issues,
#88, appearing 20 days later, on August 21, had 29 pages. Yet in the back
of his #87, he listed five two-day seminars he would be holding between those
two newsletters: August 2-3 in Detroit, Michigan; 9-10 in Miami, Florida;
16-17 in Dallas, Texas; 23-24 in Toronto, Canada; 30-31 in Gentry, Arkansas (#Endtime Issues, #87, pp.
21-22). He also listed 8 new audio cassettes and 4 videos he has just
completed (ibid, pp. 22-23). Bacchiocchi is doing all this at the age of 62 when
others around him are nearing retirement. He is in the midst of a continuing,
ongoing heavy schedule of meetings, seminars, and the preparation of tapes
and videos; and he must take time to schedule all this. In the midst of all
that, those lengthy newsletters, with their extensive references to a variety
of sources, are churned out. “Did Sunday originate with the power of the State?”—That is the ingeniously worded title of Bacchiocchi’s next charge of
error against Great Controversy. In
order to prove his point, he quotes this sentence: “It was on [“in” in Great Controversy] behalf
of the Sunday that popery first asserted its arrogant claims; and its first
resort to the power of the state was to compel the observance of Sunday as
‘the Lord’s day.’ ”—Great Controversy, 447 [pp. 446-447 in Great
Controversy]. Note my bracketed corrections in the above
Bacchiocchi quotation. Here, as in a
number of other places in his newsletters, Bacchiocchi’s helpers, not as acquainted with
English and the Spirit of Prophecy as well as Bacchiocchi and American
Adventists would be, do not write too accurately. Bacchiocchi then quotes a second “erroneous”
passage: “Royal edicts, general councils, and church ordinances
sustained by secular power were the steps by which the
pagan festival attained its position of honor in the Christian world.”—Great
Controversy, 574. He then explains the way in which the above two
quotations are in error: “Both statements just cited are inaccurate, because
the secular power of the state did not influence or compel Christians to
adopt Sunday during the second and third centuries.”—Endtime Issues, #87, p. 15. According to Bacchiocchi, Ellen White teaches that Sundaykeeping originated with
the power of the State, and that second-century Christians got the Roman
government to enact ordinances doing this. That charge is ridiculous. Notice
that the very next sentence in her statement refers to a fourth-century edict:
“The first public measure enforcing Sunday
observance was the law enacted by Constantine.”—Great Controversy, 574. The present writer has also done extensive research
into the history of the change of the Sabbath, but he did not have Jesuit research
assistants. (See his 256-page book, Beyond Pitcairn, written after he
completed over 120 pages of Sabbath tracts on the subject). The truth is that Sundaykeeping originated with Persian Mithraism,
which compromising half-baptized “Christians” at the “Christian” seminary at
Alexandria, Egypt, were the first to copy. This worldly innovation then moved
to Rome, where, in order to increase their influence, Roman church leaders
demanded without success that the other churches worship on Sunday. So they
next introduced Sunday as a resurrection memorial, to be observed voluntarily
along with the Bible Sabbath. It is historically true that “it was in behalf
of the Sunday that popery first asserted its arrogant claims.” Then, two years before Constantine eliminated the
last of his rivals (Licinius,
head of the Eastern half of the empire),
Roman church leaders induced him to issue the first of his six Sunday laws.
It is historically true that the papacy’s first resort to the power of the
state was to compel the observance of Sunday as “the Lord’s day.” Prior to
Constantine, the Christian church never—not once—had any power with the
government! After the fourth century, “royal edicts, general
councils, and church ordinances sustained by secular power were the steps by
which the pagan festival attained its position of honor in the Christian
world.” Once again, Ellen White is right. Yet Bacchiocchi claims that the above-quoted two
passages (GC 446-447 and 574) are not historically correct! I am gaining the impression that Bacchiocchi, in his
newsletters, is feeding Adventists a pack of falsehoods. We are confronted
with a phalanx of writers, some doing research while others busily put it in
written form and then send handfuls of it to Bacchiocchi to mail out over
his name. As it was before, so it will be again. “The few faithful builders upon the true foundation
(1 Corinthians 3:10, 11) were perplexed and hindered as the rubbish of false
doctrine obstructed the work.”—Great Controversy, 56. “Those were days of peril for the church of Christ.
The faithful standard-bearers were few indeed. Though the truth was not left
without witnesses, yet at times it seemed that error and superstition would
wholly prevail, and true religion would be banished from the earth.”—Great
Controversy, 55. This is what we get when we hire a Jesuit-trained
“Adventist” to teach error to our future church workers for 23 years at
Andrews and then, upon retirement, to focus on giving the rest of us all
those errors. At least, we are now discovering what he has been teaching our
pastors and leaders all those years. The ecumenical councils—This man, in his newsletters, repeatedly avowing
highest respect for Ellen White and her writings, asks “Was the Sabbath
condemned by ecumenical councils?” and then quotes this “error”: “Through half-converted pagans, ambitious prelates,
and world-loving churchmen he accomplished his purpose. Vast councils were
held from time to time, in which the dignitaries of the church were convened
from all the world. In
nearly every council the Sabbath which God had instituted was pressed down a
little lower, while the Sunday was correspondingly exalted.”—Great
Controversy, 53. Bacchiocchi says she is wrong because there were
only seven ecumenical councils and the Sabbath was not mentioned in their
official reports. Consider this: First,
historical records were repeatedly changed. Fraudulent documents were added
and genuine ones were removed. Second,
many things were discussed and urged at the ecumenical, and other, councils
which were not entered as official actions. Go to any local church board
meeting and listen to everything that is said (all the while you would like
to go home because it is getting past 10 p.m.) and then read the official
minutes which contain only a few lines. “In nearly every council the Sabbath
which God had instituted was pressed down a little lower, while the Sunday
was correspondingly exalted.” It is true, even though the Vatican-doctored
records do not reveal all of it. For over a thousand years, church records
were left to the tender mercies of Catholic leaders. And we know what kind of
men they were like. Luther in Rome: “Everywhere he looked upon scenes
that filled him with astonishment and horror. He saw that iniquity existed
among all classes of the clergy. He heard indecent jokes from prelates, and
was filled with horror at their awful profanity, even during mass. As he
mingled with the monks and citizens he met dissipation, debauchery. Turn
where he would, in the place of sanctity he found profanation. ‘No one can
imagine,’ he wrote, ‘what sins and infamous actions are committed in Rome;
they must be seen and heard to be believed. Thus they are in the habit of
saying, ‘If there is a hell, Rome is built over it: it is an abyss whence issues
every kind of sin’ ” (D’ Aubigné,
bk. 2, ch. 6).”—Great Controversy, 125. Third, she
did not say “ecumenical councils.” There were many large councils; probably many of these were too
embarrassing to permit their records to remain in existence. Fourth,
major church councils did mention it. For example, the very first religious
law enacted by the Catholic Church in western Europe is to be found in the
28th canon (church law) of the Third Council of Orleans, France, which was
held in A.D. 538. Notice the date: A.D. 538—when the 1260 years began! This
law was the first to prohibit agricultural work on Sunday in rural areas.
J.N. Andrews, in his History of the Sabbath, mentioned it (pp.
372-373), but Bacchiocchi’s
handlers could not find that book in the Vatican archives. They probably
consigned that 1873 book to the flames long ago. Bacchiocchi’s point appears to be that the papacy was such a nice
organization, it did not
persecute Sabbathkeepers in later centuries. |