This the ninth in a series reviewing John C. Wright’s A Universal Apologia for the Catholic Church. See the index.
The Problem
We now delve into the question of the Roman Catholic Eucharist. Wright explains:
A Matter of History
Wright makes this claim:
Both the Paulicians and Albigensians (or Cathars)[1] appeared to be closely related, both referring to themselves as “Good Christians”. Their names were given to them by their enemies in the Roman Catholic Church and many of the accusations made against them were fabricated. Henry James Warner (The Albigensian heresy, 1922, p.5-6,9,11,14) wrote:
For their “heresy”, Pope Alexander II at the Council of Tours in 1163 in Canon 4 declared:
Revelation
Before we discuss the Eucharist, we need to first visit John’s Apocalypse: the book of Revelation. In Revelation 13, we read of the Beast, False Prophet, the Image of the Beast, and the Mark of the Beast.
The False Prophet—the second beast—is described in Revelation 13:11, 16:13, 19:20, and 20:10. These are the signs of the False Prophet:
- Comes up out of the earth
- False Prophet comes peacefully, as a lamb, with persuasive words, garnering sympathy.
- The prophet’s message comes from the dragon—Satan.
- The False Prophet’s mission is to force humanity to worship the Antichrist.
- False Prophet has all the authority of the Antichrist.
- False Prophet has signs and wonders:
- Fire from heaven
- Convince to worship the idolatrous image of the beast
- The image of the beast can speak
- Those who refuse to worship the image will be put to death
- They will receive the mark of the beast on their right hand or on their forehead or else be unable to buy or sell.
The False Prophet is [the Apparition of] Mary. “She” comes as an demonic angel of light[3] from the earth. “She” is a lamb whispering persuasive words. Her mission is to support the beast—Papal Roman Catholicism—who falsely declares the power of Christ to himself. Mary has been granted great authority in the Roman Catholic Church.
Prophecy Fulfilled
Here are the signs of the False Prophet:
The False Prophet can call down fire from heaven. At the Miracle of the Sun, that Mary performed at Fatima Portugal on October 13, 1917, as many as 100,000 pilgrims were on hand to witness fire from heaven that dried up the heavy rain from the ground. There is also a report of another Miracle of the Sun on December 8, 1949 by Mary in Heroldsbach, Germany to 10,000 witnesses. Pius XII in his memoirs wrote that
The Host can speak. There are numerous instances spanning centuries of the Host speaking to its recipients, in audible words. There are also well known cases of the host turning into actual flesh—heart muscle—and blood. If the Host can turn into actual flesh and blood, what difficulty is speaking? I do not dismiss these claims as legendary, but quite real. At least one example has been lab tested to confirm that it turned into heart muscle.
Those who refused to worship the image were killed. For centuries of history, the Roman Catholic Church executed people for refusing to take the Roman Catholic Eucharist (e.g. Inquisition; Reformations). The Albigensian Crusade specifically targeted the Cathars over a period of 20 years.
The Host is the mark received on their right hands or forehead. This is mentioned time and again in Revelation: Revelation 13:16-17, 14:9, 11, 15:2, 16:2, 19:20 and 20:4. But what does this mean?
The Host
The Bible mentions receiving a mark on the forehead or hand three other times. The first is in Exodus 13:6-9 and refers to the repeated observance of the unleavened bread of the Passover feast. The second is in Exodus 13:12-16 and refers to the redemption of the firstborn when Israel entered Canaan, like a sign on the hand and forehead. The third is in Deuteronomy 6:6-8 and 11:18, whether the commandments of God are to be placed in one’s heart and mind, as symbols on the hand and forehead.
Of these, only the first applies. Unleavened bread is the only one of the three that is an object made by man: something that can be an idol. And it applies perfectly. The Host is quite literally the unleavened Passover bread. As receiving the unleavened Passover bread is “a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead”, so too is receiving the Host. But the Roman Catholic Host is false. It is not the actual body of Christ. It is an idol. Participating in Roman communion is to take the Mark of the Beast on your hand or forehead and to worship an idol.
Moreover, as cited above, the Catholic Church forbid those who rejected the its idolatrous eucharist from buying and selling. And this is just one example.
Roman Eucharist
Let’s once again reiterate what Wright has said:
Far from being a novelty, Luther was just one of a long line of Christians, like Aerius, Jovinianus, Vigilantius, Sarmatio Barbatianus, Paulicians, Aligensians, Bogomils, Waldensians, Anabaptists, and others: Protestants who rejected the Roman Church. The church has long recognized the idolatry of the Rome’s eucharist and has called Rome to repentance time after time after time. It was no discovery, recent or otherwise, but Rome in its arrogance continues to insist on error.
Footnotes
[1] And also the Bogomils and the Waldensians.
[2] In the same way, the Roman Catholic libelous accusation of dualism leveled at the Paulicians, Albigensians, and Bogomils, is refuted with scripture and history and reflects both the Roman Catholic’s ignorance of scripture and their propensity to spread falsehoods about heretics.
The Paulicians were accused of being “dualists,” and yet no evidence exists from their own hands or mouths suggesting that they were any more “dualist” than the New Testament itself is “dualist” [..] They were accused of teaching that Satan had created the world—an accusation, we hasten to add, that does not arise until 500 years after the Paulicians were first identified by name (Garsoïan, 166)—but when we see how the Early Church understood these “dualist” verses, we can see that the Paulicians were simply expressing what the Scriptures and the Early Church understood about the evil times in which they lived.
The Paulicians were classified as Manichæans and were accused of being disciples of the heretic Paul of Samosata, and yet “all the Byzantine sources concede[d]” that the Paulicians freely anathematized Manes and Paul of Samosata (Garsoïan, 116).
“For this reason, true Paulicianism cannot in any real sense be considered as the purveyor of Manichean beliefs to the medieval world. Nor does it seem to be the link between dualist heresies of late antiquity and those of Western Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.” (Garsoïan, Nina G., The Paulician Heresy (Paris: Mouton & Col (1967) 233)
Pingback: Waldensians: An Historical Overview
Pingback: exousia vs authentein
Pingback: Eschatology: The Image and Mark of the Beast