Thanks for posting
@Brakelite ..I will study this more carefully.
In order to fully appreciate the connections between the theory of spiritual adultery and the Catholic church, you need to understand the history of the Roman church in its relationship first to the emperors, and secondly to the kings and queens and rulers of the nations throughout the dark ages.
KJV Revelation 17:1-6
1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:
2 With 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.
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:
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
6 And 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.
KJV Jeremiah 3:6-11
6 The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot.
7 And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
9 And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
10 And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD.
11 And the LORD said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous
Judah.
Below is a small excerpt from a much larger study on the books of Daniel and Revelation. This excerpt is in context with the little horn power that grew from the Roman head of the 4th beast...
"A brilliant military commander, Constantine also understood that there could be no political stability without religious unity. Yet to accomplish that feat would require a union between paganism and Christianity. How could it be accomplished? The Empire needed an ecumenical religion that would appeal to every citizen in a multi-cultural society. Giving Christianity official status was not enough to bring internal peace to the Empire: Christianity had to undergo a transformation so that pagans could ‘convert’ without giving up their old beliefs and rituals. Constantine himself exemplified this expediency. He adopted Christ as the new god that had given him victory in the crucial battle at Milvian Bridge in 312 A. D., and brought him into Rome as its conqueror. Yet, as Caesar, he continued to function as the Pontifex Maximus of the Empire’s pagan priesthood, known as the Pontifical College. . . As a ‘Christian’ Emperor, he automatically became the de facto civil head of the Christian church and seduced her with promises of power. Thus began the destruction of Christianity and the process that created Roman Catholicism as it is today.” (Dave Hunt, Global Peace, pp. 106-107)
“It was ‘Christianity’, in fact, which gave the Empire a unity and continuity that held it together culturally and religiously. When the Empire later disintegrated politically under the onslaught of the Barbarians, it was held together religiously by the all-pervasive presence of the Roman Catholic Church with its ingenious ecumenical blend of paganism and Christianity still headquartered in Rome.” (Dave Hunt, Global Peace, p. 110)
The great philosopher and historian, Will Durant, remarks: “When Christianity conquered Rome, the ecclesiastical structure of the pagan church, the title and vestments of the Pontifex Maximus, the worship of the Great Mother and a multitude of comforting divinities, the sense of super-sensible presences everywhere, the joy or solemnity of old festivals, and the pageantry of immemorial ceremony, passed like maternal blood into the new religion, and captive Rome captured her conqueror. While Christianity converted the world, the world converted Christianity. . .” (Will Durant, Civilization: Caesar and Christ, Volume 3, p. 657.
John Henry Cardinal Newman makes this admission: “We are told in various ways by Eusebius, that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made familiar to most of us. The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees, incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness, holy water; asylums; holy days and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments; the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleisen, are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the church.” (Henry Cardinal Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, p. 373)
Philip Schaff, one of the greatest church historians ever to wield a pen, wrote the following: “But the elevation of Christianity as the religion of the state presents also an opposite aspect to our contemplation. It involved great risk of degeneracy to the church. The Roman state, with its laws, institutions, and usages, was still deeply rooted in heathenism, and could not be transformed by a magical stroke. The christianizing of the state amounted therefore in great measure to a paganizing and secularizing of the church. The world overcame the church, as much as the church overcame the world, and the temporal gain of Christianity was in many respects cancelled by spiritual loss. The mass of the Roman Empire was baptized only with water, not with the Spirit of the gospel, and it smuggled heathen manners and practices into the sanctuary under a new name. The very combination of the cross with the military ensign by Constantine was the most doubtful omen, portending an unhappy mixture of the temporal and the spiritual powers.” (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 3, p. 93, bold is mine) 3) The architecture at the Vatican is Roman. The architecture of the Vatican is virtually identical to the old city. Also, the old city of Rome was filled with statues of gods and heroes as is Vatican City. 4) The Papal church is called the Roman Catholic Church.
5) The official language of the Vatican is Latin, the language of ancient Rome.
6) In official documents, the Vatican employs Roman numerals. 7) The headquarters of the Papacy is Vatican City, which is located in the geographical location of ancient Rome. Says the Catholic Encyclopedia: “It [Vatican City] is within the city of Rome, called the city of seven hills, that the entire area of Vatican State proper is now confined”. (The Catholic Encyclopedia, Tomas Nelson Publishers, 1976. Article: ‘Rome’) 8)
Historians and theologians consistently emphasize that Papal Rome inherited and perpetuated the Roman Empire but in a different way: It was a religious-political system. Notice the following quotations from church historians and theologians:
“Within three centuries, the Roman Church had transformed the administrative organization of the Roman Empire into an ecclesiastical system of bishoprics, dioceses, monasteries, colonies, garrisons, schools, libraries, administrative centers, envoys, representatives, courts of justice, and a criminal system of intricate laws all under the direct control of the pope. His Roman Palace, the Lateran, became the new Senate. The new senators were the cardinals. The bishops who lived in Rome and the priests and deacons helped the pope to administer this new imperium.” (Malachi Martin, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church, p. 105, )
