Catholic Rome and Babylon

A look at the Protestant position on the Papacy in the 17th and 18th century.

By ALFRED VAUCHER, Professor of Bible, Seminaire Adventiste du Saleve, France

Toward the end of the seventeenth century, Pierre Jurieu (1637-1713), minister of the French Protestant church in Rotterdam (formerly, professor of theology in the Protestant Academy of Sedan, which was closed by the French government in 1681 because of its Protestant witness), published a book on the Papacy, which made consider­able stir.' Jurieu identified the Roman Cath­olic Church with the mystic Babylon of Reve­lation, and saw the antichrist in the Papacy. This proposition, of course, was not a new thing, having been held by Luther, and long before him by the Waldensians and other op­ponents of the papal theocracy. But in Jurieu's book this teaching was presented with rigor­ous logic and a remarkable abundance of arguments.

Fiercely attacked by the French priest and celebrated critic, Richard Simon (1618-1712),' Jurieu defended himself in his book on the fulfillment of prophecy.' Simon answered without delay,' and then Jacques-Benigne Bossuet (1627-1724), bishop of Meaux, de­cided to enter the debate.' Jurieu had proved that "the Babylon of Revelation 17 and 18 is antichristian, papal Rome, not pagan Rome." 6 In contrast to Jurieu, Bossuet maintained that "as a constant tradition among the Fathers since the beginnings of Christianity, Babylon, whose fall was predicted by St. John, was conquering Rome with her empire; and so falls to the ground the Protestant system, which fails to seek, as the Fathers do, the fall of a great empire and of a Rome mistress of the universe through her victories, rather than the fall of a Christian church, which St. Peter's chair put at the head of the Christian churches."'

In order to "vindicate the insult made to St. Peter's chair by those who consider it as the seat of the antichristian kingdom," 8 Bos­suet adopts the Praeterist system of the Jesuit, Alcazar (1554-1613), according to which the first twenty chapters of the book of Revela­tion have been entirely fulfilled in the past history of pagan Rome. Coming to chapter 17, he says: "St. John explains clearly that the beast and the woman are, in the main, the same thing, both being Rome with her em­pire."'

Bossuet, nevertheless, perceived the difficulties of his position. After he had resolutely set aside the futuristic interpretation of the book of Revelation, he admitted that its proph­ecies might have a further fulfillment in the last days. He said: "I cannot consent to the argument of those who put off the fulfillment at the end of the age." But a little farther on we find: "Who is not able to see that it is very easy to find a connected and literal ex­planation of Revelation, perfectly fulfilled in the sack of Rome under Alaric, without ex­cluding any other possible fulfillment at the end of the age ?"" How surprised Bossuet would have been had some one told him that Catholic authors would assume the duty of re­futing his explanation.

Everybody knows how the jansenists have separated their cause from the cause of Prot­estantism. But they also vehemently attacked the Jesuits, considered as responsible for the constitution Unigenitus (1713), by which Pope Clement XI condemned Quesnel. Fight­ing at the same time against both Protestants and Catholics who approved the constitution, a Jansenist brought out a very interesting book on spiritual Babylon." First appears this state­ment: "I repudiate with abhorrence the im­pious idea that the Babylon of St. John is the Roman Church ;" and then the author adds: "I assert without any fear that the Roman court, with her pride, her false pretensions, her teachings, her deportment; briefly, all the corruption found in her and the spirit so radi­cally opposed to her church and to the see of St. Peter that animates her, constitute the Babylon of St. John."                                                                                                                This idea was welcomed by an Italian Benedictine monk from Bergamo, Giangirolamo Caleppio."

A Jansenist also, Caleppio laments the apos­tasy of the Catholic Church; he says God will finally reject her, and order the faithful Chris­tians to come out of this spiritual Babylon. Meanwhile, he finds fault with the Protestants, who, according to him, have left the Catholic Church before the time set. The same censure had been passed on Protestants by the Abbot of Fourquevaux.

At the same time when Caleppio's first dis­sertation was printed, a Jesuit from Chile, Manuel de Lacunza y Diaz (1731-1801), began the study of Biblical prophecies. Banished from Spain and all Spanish possessions with the other Jesuits, he had settled in the town of Imola, near Bologna. Having lost every hope of being reestablished in his former office, after his order had been suppressed by Pope Clement XIV (1773), Lacunza dedicated him­self to long meditations and wrote a large book, in Spanish, upon the second coming of our Lord."

The ideas of Lacunza on the apocalyptic Babylon are so akin to those of the Abbot of Fourquevaux, and of Father Caleppio, that one cannot but think he has borrowed from them. Lacunza reminded the followers of Bossuet that pagan Rome has never been guilty of fornication with the kings of the earth; that the destruction threatened to Baby­lon cannot be a past event, as it belongs to the seven last vials; that Alaric's invasion, which did not bring the total ruin of ancient Rome, happened when Rome had already made a pro­fession of Christianity. He then impugns the futurist interpretation, according to which Rome will be ruined when, having ceased to be Catholic, it will be pagan again. He thinks Protestants have taken an unfair advantage of the prophecies in their controversy with Catholicism, but acknowledges that they have mingled truth with fables. Then he con­cludes:

"Rome, not idolatrous but Christian, not the head of the Roman Empire, but the head of Christendom, and center of unity of the true church of the living God, may very well without ceasing from this dignity, at some time or other incur the guilt, and before God be guilty of fornication with the kings of the earth, and amenable to all its consequences. And in this there is not any inconsistency, however much her defenders may shake the head. And this same Rome, in that same state, may receive upon herself the horrible chastisement spoken of in the prophecy." "

In France, at the beginning of the nine­teenth century, Abbot Bernard Lambert (1738-1813) came to the same conclusion: "We must either boldly contradict Revelation's prophecy on the terrible catastrophe threatened to Rome, or frankly admit that these threaten­ings concern Christian Rome and will be de­layed until a time still future." '"

No wonder the books of fathers Lacunza and Lambert were put in the Index of pro­hibited books. It is only strange that those of Jean-Pierre Agier (1748-1823) escaped the same fate. A Jansenist and a Galilean, he pre­sented the same theories.'

To be sure, the Protestant position must be very strong in order to draw out such admis­sions from writers who were born in Catholi­cism and remained Catholic until their death.

Notes:

1 "Prejuges legitimes contre le Papisme," Amster­dam, 1685.

2 'Reponse au Livre intitule : Sentiments de quelques theologiens de Hollande sur  l'Hist. Crit. du V.  T.," Rott„ 1686, pp. 218-221.

"L'Accomplissement des Propheties ou la deliv­ranee prochaine de l'Eglise," t. I, Rott., 1686, pp. 354-374. This chapter was omitted, however, in the second and third editions.

4 "De l'Inspiration des Livres sacres : avec une Reponse au Livre intitule: Defense des sentiments de quelques theol. de Holl. sur l'Hist. Crit. du V. T.," Rott., 1687, pp. 186-198. See also "Lettre des Rab­bins des deux Synagogues d'Amsterdam a M. Jurieu," Bruxelles (Amsterdam), 1686. This letter was later inserted in "Lettres choisies," t. I, Rott., 1702, pp. 301-320.

5 "L'Apocalypse, avec une explication," Paris, 1689.

6 Such is the title of chapter 8, in the first of "Accompl. des Proph.," first ed. 

7 Translated from the Preface of his Comm., pp. 26, 27.

8 Id., p. 71.

"L'Apoc.," p. 262.

10 "Preface, p. 14; pp. 41, 42.

11 "Idee de la Babylone spirituelle predite par les S. Ecritures, oil I 'on fait voir contre les protestants et les constitutionnaires que cette Babylone ne peut etre l'eglise catholique et que neanmoins elle doit se former clans le sein de cette meme Eglise," Utrecht, 1733. (Idea of spiritual Babylon foretold by the Holy Scriptures, in which one shows against Protestants and the defenders of the constitution that this Baby­lon cannot be the Catholic Church and that, never­theless, it is to be formed in the breast of this same church.) This anonymous work is supposed to have been written by jean-Baptiste-Raymond de Pavie de Beccarie de Fourquevaux (1693-1768). See Barbier, "Diet. des Anon.," t. II, 1874, col. 877. Querard, "La France litt.," t, III, 1829, p. 187.

12 Idee, p. 196.

13 "Del Ritorno degli Ebrei alla Chiesa, e di cio the vi ha da porgere occasione," Brescia, 1772. Anonymous dissertation. A French translation was issued in 1775 by the same editor. Another disserta­tion, signed with the initials of Caleppio, came to light a few years later: "Dell 'Epoca della Conver­sione degli Ebrei," Ven., 1779.

14 "La venida del Mesias en gloria y magestad." On account of the opposition of the ecclesiastical au­thority, the book could not be printed before the Spanish revolution. Several editions, without appro­bation, saw the light in Cadiz between 18to and 1812. In 1816, General Belgrano, sent to England by the Argentine government, issued a fine edition in Lon­don. Other editions came out in Mexico in 1821, 1822, and 1825; and in Paris in 1825. The last edition was printed in London, in 1826.

15 " Quoted from Edward Irving's English transla­tion: "The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Maj­esty," London, 1827, Vol. I, p. 252.

16 "Exposition des predictions et des promesses faites a l'Eglise," t. II, Paris, 1806, p. 347.

17 Explaining Revelation 17 in his "Comm. sur l'Apoc.," t. II, Paris, 1823, p. 124, Agier says, con­cerning Babylon: "Christian Rome, present Rome."

By ALFRED VAUCHER, Professor of Bible, Seminaire Adventiste du Saleve, France

April 1938

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