SeanAnderson
Puritan Board Freshman
I've been wondering, who might be considered the first Antichrist Pope?
The issues are:
1) The papal office developed gradually and became increasingly corrupt. Is there a defining moment at which the Bishop of Rome became Pope - as we know the papacy today - and Antichrist?
2) Before the Reformation, the Catholic Church (now the Romish Church) was arguably the visible church, despite its corruptions, to which all Christians might have considered themselves to belong.
While I'm sure that there were reprobate popes since antiquity and that Romish hierarchy has always been wrong, was it only with the repudiation of Protestantism that the Pope became Antichrist and the Church of Rome ceased to be catholic?
Notably, Calvin did not seem to consider all historical popes as antichrists.
The issues are:
1) The papal office developed gradually and became increasingly corrupt. Is there a defining moment at which the Bishop of Rome became Pope - as we know the papacy today - and Antichrist?
2) Before the Reformation, the Catholic Church (now the Romish Church) was arguably the visible church, despite its corruptions, to which all Christians might have considered themselves to belong.
While I'm sure that there were reprobate popes since antiquity and that Romish hierarchy has always been wrong, was it only with the repudiation of Protestantism that the Pope became Antichrist and the Church of Rome ceased to be catholic?
Notably, Calvin did not seem to consider all historical popes as antichrists.
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