“But this glorious church was not to remain glorious.  Sad but true, there came an apostasy foretold by the apostles.  Peter foretold it (2 Pet. 2:1, 2).  Paul foretold it (2 Thess. 2:3, 4).  And notice how far short some of the seven churches of Asia were before John’s death (Rev. 2 and 3).  Marsh’s Church History says:  ’Almost proportionate with the extension of Christianity was the decrease in the church of vital piety.  A philosophizing spirit among the higher, and a wild monkish superstition among the lower orders, fast took the place in the third century of the faith and humility of the first Christians.  Many of the clergy became very corrupt, and excessively ambitious.  In consequence of this, there was an awful deflection of Christianity.’  Milner’s Church History says:  ’And if the faith of Christ was so much declined (and its decayed state ought to be dated from about the year 270), we need not wonder that such scenes as Eusebius hints at without any circumstantial details took place in the Christian world.’

“When Constantine made Christianity the religion of Rome the apostatizing processes were greatly accelerated.  The constitution of the church was patterned after that of the civil government.  The Holy Spirit had to retire from the active government of the church because forms and legality had taken place.  The Word of God ceased to have authority, its place being taken by the laws and decrees of the councils.  The clergy arose to great power and pomp and there was a long line of graduations made in the ministry, some of these offices given much more authority than others.”

“Is that the way the papacy was formed?” asked Robert.

“Indeed it was,” said the preacher.  “The chief minister of large cities obtained control of the ministry of that city and surrounding towns.  These chief ministers were called diocesans.  Ministers in still more prominent places came to have a still wider authority and were called metropolitans, those over large districts were called patriarchs, and so the grasping for supremacy went on.  When the Mohammedan conquest had reduced the importance of the other patriarchates, the conflict for supremacy lay between the Patriarch of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople.  At last the Patriarch of Rome gained the greater prestige and authority and was called pope, and became supreme head of the Western or Roman Catholic Church.

“The great apostasy lasted twelve hundred and sixty years, or until A.D. 1530.  This time was foretold in Rev. 12:6; 14-17, where the woman, under which figure the church is presented, fled into the wilderness for 1260 days or ‘a time, and times, and half a time,’ and in chapter 13:1-10, the beast, under which figure Roman Catholicism is represented, had power to continue ‘forty and two months,’ (forty-two months) or 1260 days, which, taking the usual Biblical method of interpreting prophetical time (see Dan. 4:25; Num. 14:34; and Ezek. 4:6) means 1260 years.