Calvin's Institutes. 4.7.21: Cyprian, Gregory 1, and 12-Steps

Calvin’s Institutes, IV.7.19-22: “Later Papal claims contrary to principles of Gregory 1 and Bernard, 19-22”

IV.4.7.21: “Gregory condemned what popes now affirm”


Observations:


1. Cyprian, d.258: “None of us says he is the bishop of bishops, or by tyrannical terror compels his colleagues to obey him.”

2. Gregory the Great: “Peter was the chief member in the body; John, Andrew, and James were heads of particular groups of people. Yet all members of the church are under one Head. Indeed, the saints before the law, the saints under the law, the saints in grace, all perfecting the body of the Lord, have been constituted as its members. And no one every wished himself to be called ‘universal.’”

3. Gregory the Great in response to Eulogius, bp. of Alexandria, who asked to be commanded by Gregory the Great. “Remove, I beg of you, this word ‘command’ from my hearing; for I know who I am and who your are: in degree you are my brothers; in moral character, my fathers. Therefore, I have not commanded but have taken care to indicate what things seemed useful.”


4. Calvin says the current bishop of Rome does a “grave and frightful injury not only to the other bishops but also to the several churches. For in this way he mangles and slashes them so that he may build up his see from the ruin of theirs.”


5. Calvin: “He exempts himself from all judgments and wishes to rule in such a tyrannical fashion that he regards his own whim as law—such conduct is surely so unbecoming and so foreign to the ecclesiastical order that it can in no way be borne. For it is utterly abhorrent not only to a sense of piety but also humanity.”

Correlations:

1. Tertullian-Cyprian-Novatian-Donatus connection. Cyrpian’s response to Pope Stephen 1. Cyprian rebukes the bishop of Rome.

2. Re: the efficacy of baptism conducted by pagans or unbelievers. Cyprian held that such a baptism was invalid. “The majority of the North African bishops sided with Cyprian; and in the East he had a powerful ally in Firmilian, bishop of Caesarea. But the position of Stephen came to find general acceptance. Stephen in his letters used the claim of superiority of the Roman See over all bishoprics of the Church. To this claim Cyprian answered that the authority of the Roman bishop was coordinate with, not superior to, his own.”

3. Hildebrand (1020-1085, Pope, 1073-1085): “The papal claim of infallibility is strongly asserted in the Dictatus Papae, a papal document usually attributed to Hildebrand, but possibly to be dated a few years later than his death (1085).”

4. Hildebrand, the theocrat: “One of the great reforming popes, he is perhaps best known for the part he played in the Investiture Controversy with Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor affirming the primacy of the papal authority and the new canon law governing the election of the pope by the college of cardinals. He was at the forefront of both evolutionary developments in the relationship between the Emperor and the papacy during the years before becoming pope…. Gregory was during his own reign despised by many for his expansive use of papal powers. Joseph McCabe describes Gregory VII as a `rough and violent peasant, enlisting his brute strength in the service of the monastic ideal which he embraced.’”

5. Hildebrand, the theocrat: “His life-work was based on his conviction that the Church was founded by God and entrusted with the task of embracing all mankind in a single society in which divine will is the only law; that, in her capacity as a divine institution, she is supreme over all human structures, especially the secular state; and that the pope, in his role as head of the Church, is the vice-regent of God on earth, so that disobedience to him implies disobedience to God: or, in other words, a defection from Christianity.”

Interpretation:

Calvin continues to draw the contrast between the humbler, smaller, and less developed papay and the arrogant, larger, and evolved papacy—the groundwork is being laid to demonstrate that Rome is Antichrist.

Application:

1. Consider the silence in Confessional and wider evangelical circles. Do not separate from Trent's doctrines.

2. Consider the worldwide implications of this silence and ignorance, e.g. Third World and Southern Cone countries.

3. Consider the impact on a solitary Roman believer, the evangelistic necessity of the True Gospel and also the apologetics in informing a Romanist he’s accepted fictions and that these fictions are grammatico-political, not grammtico-historical exegeses of Scripture.

4. Pull—as should be done for the obstinate and unteachable—the integrity card. They’ve had centuries to get “rehab” and into a “detox” program.

5. A twelve-step program.