On his first full day as Pontiff, Pope Francis made a visit to Santa Maria Maggiore to leave flowers and pray at the shrine of Mary. This basilica is the largest Catholic Marian church in Rome. Archeological evidence indicates that the church was probably first built in the early 400s. The building of churches in Rome during this period was meant to suggest that Rome was not just the center of the Roman Empire but also the center of the “Christian” world. Does the ancient “Christianity” of Rome lend credence to the Catholic Church’s claim that theirs is “the sole church of Christ”? Roman Catholics more times than not appeal to tradition rather than scripture to justify this claim. In this post we examine if Catholic tradition is in-line with scripture as well as the brief overview of the history behind it.
The apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit appealed to the scriptures (not tradition) to succinctly define the gospel when he wrote “I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you… how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:1-4). Early believers turned the world upside down through simple obedience to the Lord’s command, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel.” The dark world in which they entered with the light of the gospel was ruled by pagan Rome. For many it would mean persecution, torture, and death.
In spite of persecution Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire. In the first two centuries the churches multiplied rapidly and some of those that were the first to be established (e.g. Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth) grew to be very large. For instance, we are told in scripture that the church in Jerusalem had many thousands of members (Acts 2:41; 4:4; 5:14). However, even in the days of persecution there was a perceptible slipping away from the stabilizing influence of scripture. This apostasy was prophesied in the New Testament (1 Tim. 4; 2 Pet. 2; Gal. 1; 2 Thes. 2; Acts 20; Rev. 2) and in fact was beginning to manifest itself in apostolic times. For example, reading the Acts and the epistles reveal that the apostle Paul had the mighty task of correcting false doctrine and church practice in his day.
As churches swelled in members, they of necessity had many elders or spiritual leaders (Acts 20:17). To clarify terms, the Bible also uses the words pastor and bishop. The term elder has a wider range than the term bishop. Elder may refer to Old or New Testament offices. It may also refer to men of age, experience, and wisdom (1 Pet. 5:1-4). Bishop refers to a specific New Testament office (1 Tim. 3:1-11). Both “elder” and “bishop” may be used as synonyms of the term “pastor” but are used to describe different aspects of the same office. “Elder” emphasizes the person (experience, wisdom, spirituality) whereas “bishop” emphasizes the office (duties, rule). Today, when people think of a bishop, they think of a high-ranking powerful church dignitary. They picture a man arrayed in distinctive garments, residing in a palace, in charge of a diocese, ruling like a prince over a number of churches. That concept of a bishop comes from Rome, not the Bible.
As one moves away from the time of the apostles, the word “bishop” gathered non-biblical traditions. Some of the bishops or pastors began to assume authority not given to them in the New Testament. They began to claim authority over other churches. They, with their many elders, began to lord it over God’s heritage. This was possibly the first serious departure form the New Testament order.
Another vital change which seemed to have its beginning before the close of the second century involved the great doctrine of salvation itself. Jewish and pagan influences that emphasized ceremonies latched on to the ordinance of baptism and falsely reasoned that it had something to do with salvation and so during this period “baptismal regeneration” began to take hold among some of the churches. The heresy of baptismal regeneration teaches, briefly, that sprinkled water or immersion in water, in the name of certain formulas (Acts 2:38), produces a magical transformation in a sinner of such a character that it brings forth a “new creature in Christ” who has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. With Acts 15:9,11 showing clearly that water baptism had nothing to do with salvation, with 1 Peter 3:19-21 showing that water baptism was only a figure of salvation (never a “sign” or a “seal”), with no water in Ephesians 4 or Romans 6, with Gentiles being baptized in water AFTER they were saved (Acts 10), with the gospel defined (1 Cor. 15:1-6) as a doctrine excluding water baptism (1 Cor. 1:14-16) and with “obedience” to that gospel defined as “exercising FAITH in it” (Rom. 10:9-10; 1:5; 16:26), baptismal regeneration has falsely run through many centuries of church history as “Christian” doctrine.
A third serious error that began to creep in among churches at this time was a direct result of baptismal regeneration. Since there were some who, contrary to scripture, believed that baptism was necessary for salvation it was naturally concluded that the sooner baptism took place the better. Hence arose infant baptism.
These unscriptural changes were not made in a day, nor within a year, rather they came about slowly and never within all the churches. The three Bible issues above (church government, baptismal regeneration, infant baptism), which determined the future course of the local assemblies for the next 1500 years, occurred during the 10 imperial persecutions (A.D. 81-313). The persecutions themselves developed a unique situation. They could not help but lead to a super-reverence for spiritual leaders who suffered martyrdom. This super-reverence gradually developed into something akin to idolatry.
At this point in history (A.D. 100-200), where the corpses of the martyrs begin to be venerated as religious objects and martyrdom became the test of a true “saint”, the dangerous seeds of heresy found fertile ground, for who could resist believing a man’s theology who loved God enough to die for Him? It should be remembered that all godly men have two natures, all godly men are subject to satanic attack, all godly men can be misled, and all godly men can be used by Satan at times (Mt. 16:23). Who would be a better carrier of false doctrine than such a man? Wouldn’t false doctrine from such a man act much quicker in the leavening process than doctrine from a man like Marcion the “heretic”? Although we cannot throw stones when it comes to the spiritual and devotional life of many of these men, or their personal purity and courage, we are betraying the word of God if we allow them to prevail upon us with their opinions and preferences that clearly contradict God Almighty as revealed in His word.
Ignatius’ (A.D. 35-108) harmless word “catholic” – if he ever wrote it at all – was converted into the expression “The Catholic Church” by Polycarp before his martyrdom, at least according to a “slightly legendary account”[1] preserved by Roman Catholics 300 years later. “Slightly” is hardly the word for it. There are fifty Roman Catholic forgeries admitted to be such by the Catholics themselves in their official Catholic Encyclopedia, in which it says in part, “Substituting of false documents and tampering with genuine ones was quite a trade in the Middle Ages” and in another section the Encyclopedia says, “Writers of the fourth century were prone to describe many practices (i.e. The Lenten Fast of Forty Days) as apostolic institutions which certainly had no claim to be so regarded.” (New York: The Encyclopedia Press, 1913), I., pp. 636,632,610,613,572; II, pp. 299-300; III, p. 484; IV, pp. 14,41,42,44; V, pp. 773,177,195; VI, 136). In regards to the epistles from Ignatian, not all that is called “Ignatius” is “of” Ignatius. There are copies of these epistles both in Greek and Syriac. If Ignatius was bishop of Antioch in Syria it would seem that it should be closest to the originals. It should be noted that the Syrian copy did not contain the word “catholic,” which appears for the first time in the history of the church in a likely forged Greek copy of “The Epistles of Ignatius.” The Syriac copies also omit the panegyric on the episcopal hierarchy (the Bible also omits it). The Syriac copies also omit the statement that the “eucharist” is the dead flesh of Jesus Christ’s corpse “resurrected” (the Bible also omits it).
Polycarp (AD 69-155) was martyred under Antoninus Pius (A.D.137-161). Like Ignatius, Polycarp is claimed by the Roman Catholic Church. By rummaging through a variety of “epistles” – some spurious and some genuine – the later popes found the expression “faith is the mother of us all”[2]. Even though this blatantly contradicted the clear statement of the Bible (Gal. 4:26), it was adopted immediately by the Catholic Church.
The germs of the papacy can be found in the writings of Irenaeus (A.D. 120-192), who calls Rome the “greatest” and oldest church “acknowledged by all” and founded by Paul and Peter.[3] What is Irenaues’ scriptural authority for saying that Peter helped found the Roman church? None. The epistle to the Romans is written by Paul (not Peter), and the Christians at Rome (Rom. 16) do not count Peter as a member of any church in Rome, let alone a founder or even a bishop.
The theological school in Alexandria, Egypt, brought into prominence by Origen Adamantius (A.D. 185-284), elevated Greek philosophy and was influenced by gnosticism. The school was an amalgamation of the sun worshipping Egyptians, intellect worshipping Greeks and sign observing Jews.[4] It arose to suggest to the body of Christ and the later church “fathers” the most insidious and damnable doctrines the local assemblies ever had to combat: the teachings that babies needed to be regenerated by sprinkling water, that this sprinkling took away original sin, and that a New Testament bishop was a priest who belonged to an organization destined to rule the political, economic, and social world before Jesus Christ came back. All four of these non-biblical, non-Christian teachings originated in Alexandria, Egypt.
Cyprian (A.D. 200-258), who, in spite of his zeal for Christ, was probably more responsible for the destruction of New Testament Christianity than any man outside Origen himself.[5] It was Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage and a contemporary of Origen, who stated that the church was built on Peter, that Peter was in Rome, and that the Roman church was the “chair of Peter”.[6] Every Catholic scholar will look back to Cyprian’s words as if they were inspired in spite of the biblical teaching that Peter was never in Rome (Rom. 15:20-22), was not a Gentile (Gal. 2:15), was married (Matt. 8:14), preached in the east not the west (1 Pet. 5:13), would not let anyone bow down to him (Acts 10:26) and taught salvation by grace (Acts 15:11) before water baptism (Acts 10). But since Cyprian “died for what he believed”, why make a liar out of him? You can be right about the virgin birth and the deity of Christ and still be so wrong about the new birth that you spend an eternity in hell. The seeds of the papacy are found in the writings of Cyprian. From Augustine (354-430) onward, the Roman Catholic Church comes into full view. Warfield states that Augustine was in a “true sense the founder of Roman Catholicism.”[7]
It should be noted that not every doctrine espoused by the “church fathers” were in error for nearly every one of them (with the exception of Origen, Clement, and Dionysius) was what we now call “premillennialist.”[8] In early times, the Bible doctrine was called “Chiliasm.” Briefly, chiliasm was a negative view of human nature that said man in his natural state, or even regenerated by the Holy Spirit, is still so evil in his nature that he is unable to do God’s will “in earth, as it is in heaven” with any amount of time or resources.Therefore, the thousand year reign of perfect peace spoken of in both Testaments cannot come in upon this earth until the King of Kings, the Lord Jesus Christ, returns visibly and bodily to set up that kingdom. This layout of Biblical doctrine was espoused by Barnabas, Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Lactantius, Commodian, Victorinus, and Methodius; the list of premillenial witnesses, therefore, runs unbroken from AD 120 to 311. Origen, however, called this major Bible truth “a Jewish dream”.[9]
Among the writings of the church fathers are found the departures from scripture that eventually leavened and corrupted the Christian assemblies and became consolidated into an official body of creedal beliefs: the beliefs of Roman Catholicism. Saved people can certainly teach false doctrine. The Roman Catholic Church of A.D. 600-1500 was at perfect liberty to dissect the writings of the church fathers at any time and to remove statements from their contexts, forge false documents[10], take statements literally that were figurative[11], and on scores of occasions to simply misquote the “father.”[12] Their “opinions” enter into "doctrine" as softly and politely as the proverbial camel who got his head into the tent. By the time of Hippolytus (A.D. 235), the Roman bishop was not only claiming absolute power in his own jurisdiction but was saying (Callistus) that a Roman bishop can never be deposed or compelled to resign no matter what kind of sin he is committing. In erecting her monstrous superstructure of “tradition” the Catholic Church builds so feverishly on these little fables that by A.D. 400 no one could recognize Biblical Christianity. The foundation of the Roman Catholic Church had been laid before A.D. 300. Only prayers to Mary, a few candles, teachings on clerical celibacy[13], and purgatory are needed to complete the tower.
The apostate church to this point had no political world ruler to sponsor her and enforce her false doctrines on the local assemblies which are scattered all over the empire. When Constantine became Emperor of Rome early in the fourth century, seeing that Christianity was ascending in importance while paganism was rapidly losing its hold, he nominally embraced Christianity, though in reality he never believed in salvation by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ. He doesn’t mention the name of Jesus Christ one time in his letters to his bishops nor does he mention it on his death bed. He doesn’t even profess to have obtained salvation until a week before his death, and then he obtains it by being sprinkled with water which he says “confers immortality.”[14] After being sprinkled he prayed, without using the name of Jesus one time, and then he said that in his own estimation he appeared to have “deserved immortal life.”[15]
Constantine exempted clergy from taxes (A.D. 313), abolished a few pagan practices that were offensive to Christians (A.D. 315), enjoined the observance of Sunday by all unsaved pagans (A.D. 321) and then (A.D. 324) promised every “convert” to “Christianity” twenty pieces of gold and a white robe.The influx of pagans into the local assemblies at this time was beyond belief. To “go with the tide” now meant to “become a Christian.” Christianity had become popular. The apostasy which had grown steadily under persecution amidst the teachings of the “church fathers” now spread much more rapidly.
The Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 which initiates the Pergamos church period (Rev. 2:12) marks the end of New Testament biblical Christianity as found in the New Testament, at least from the predominance and effectiveness of that type of Christianity. From here on any assembly taking biblical paths will have to withstand an Imperial Church State in order to maintain the purity and integrity of its congregation. The Council of Nicea was called by Constantine and the Nicene Creed adopted, and force began to be applied to bring about unity, because unity is a valuable political asset. “Unity” was so important that “divisions” among Christians (those that differed from the Roman Church) were not to be tolerated. In short, the Roman emperor was now ready, willing and able to exterminate any Christian believers who didn’t believe what the Roman Church was suppose to believe. Whereas, during the days of Pagan Rome the Emperor was the Pontifex Maximus of Paganism, Constantine, after embracing nominal Christianity, retained the title. In the days of Pagan Rome, the Emperor was the protector of the state religion, he began to assume the same role with reference to Christianity. “Christianity” now became the state religion. Heathens were driven from their magnificent temples and these were given to the “Christians.” The temples were filled with beautiful sculptures, which they hesitated to discard, so the names of the idols changed and they began to be venerated as the virgin Mary and various saints. The smoke of heathen sacrifices was replaced with “incense” burned by a “Christian priest”[16]; water immersion into the “mysteries” was replaced by baby sprinkling into the church; heathen candles were replaced with Christian candles. From Nicaea on, the Roman Catholic Church is in clear view, and although she had no official “pope” until Gregory the Great, all of the accruements and appendages are present when Constantine dismissed the council. The Catholic Church became the only church and when Constantine left Rome for Istanbul (Byzantium) to rename it after himself (Constantinople), he left the Roman bishop in Rome (A.D. 330) with not only a “splendid residence” but a “new Christian Rome.”[17]
By A.D. 343 the Roman bishop was well on his way to the place of military dictator. By the end of the 4th century the feuding amongst some bishops divided them off into five geographical areas, and the leaders of these ecclesiastical centers became known as the five patriarchs. They “fed the flock” (supposedly) in Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. Quite naturally Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem all leaned toward Constantinople, which was nearer “home base” than Rome. From Augustine’s time up to A.D. 500, this period marks the use of the word “pope” or “papa” for the western bishops; then in A.D. 500 the word came to mean the bishop of Rome, who by A.D. 590 was recognized as a “universal bishop”.
In contrast to the apostasy of the Roman Church, recognize that there has existed from early times (A.D. 33) to the present time a continuous chain of Christians who believed the scriptures they had access to was the word of God and were actively engaged in trying to convert people to the very Author of scripture. Among them were Donatists, Montanists, Paterines, Cathari, Paulicians, Ana-Baptists, and later on Petro-Brussians, Arnoldists, Henricians, Albigenses, and Waldenses. They were often labeled from the name of their leader or where they were located. Sometimes one group of these were the most prominent and sometimes another. These Christians throughout church history often vary in some of their doctrinal beliefs, and they also have no one name by which they can be identified through twenty centuries.
The doctrinal differences among these early believers can be understood considering that during the early days of Christianity many had only portions of the Old and New Testaments. However, the fact the books of our Bible were already in use and recognized as scripture among believers is evident. The Old Testament scriptures were formed into a canon and preserved by an official priest class from one tribe.[18] The New Testament knows no priesthood but a priesthood of believers (1 Pet. 2:5); any book written and preserved by them would be unofficial[19] and subject to the universal acceptance of the body of Christ, apart from any ecclesiastical tribunal or council.[20] The 27 books of the New Testament proved to be the inspired words of the living God by virtue of their own merit and the witness of the Author (the Holy Spirit) to those words and those words only. Since the church “fathers” quote the scriptures more than 35,000 times (19,368 from the Gospels alone)[21], it is perfectly evident that the "Bible" was around somewhere in the first three centuries of church history. Latin translations[22] from it were made around AD 150-180. Polycarp (A.D. 69-155) quotes Matthew, Luke, John, Acts, and ten of Paul’s epistles. Irenaeus (A.D. 125-192) quotes all four of the Gospels and the book of Acts, plus thirteen Pauline epistles. Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 150-217) quotes four Gospels, Acts, the Pauline epistles, 1 Peter, 1 John, Hebrews, Jude, James, and Revelation. When these quotations are combined (plus Tertullian, A.D. 150-200), we find all twenty-seven New Testament books in use before the year A.D. 200. With an Old Latin version being quoted around A.D. 150-180 and an Old Syriac version being quoted about the same time[23], there is no doubt about the existence of a New Testament in the local churches. Since the manuscripts had to be copied by hand into thousands of copies, the original manuscripts were so battered with being carried about and copied that they could not have lasted fifty years. There are papyrus fragments from the second and third centuries that have many of the King James readings in them[24]. Athanasius (A.D. 296-372) lists twenty-seven books in a pastoral letter, and Gregory of Nazianzen (A.D. 330-390) lists twenty-six of them (omitting only the book of Revelation) before the Council of Carthage ever met (A.D. 397).25 The Council of Carthage was only forced to recognize what God had already established: twenty-seven inspired books.
According to most church historians26 (Mosheim, Robinson, Armitage, Vedder, Newman, et al.), only ADULT BELIEVERS were immersed up until the year A.D. 200. Tertullian27 says, in A.D. 216, that adults only are the proper subjects for baptism and later he rejected water baptism as a means of regeneration and said that it was a teaching of the devil28. Clement of Rome as far back as A.D. 96 said that no one could be baptized until he had first received instruction and had been examined[29]. Dionysius of Alexandria (A.D. 254) would not baptize until a profession of faith was made[30]. Hilary of Poitiers (A.D. 360), Athanasius (A.D. 360), Jerome of Dalmatia (A.D. 378), and Basil of Caesarea (A.D. 379) taught that no one should be baptized until they openly and publicly professed faith in Jesus Christ31. Likewise said Chrysostom (A.D. 400), Gregory of Nazianzen (A.D. 386) and Ambrose of Milan (A.D. 390)32. Origen was responsible for the acceptance of infant baptism. In Alexandria by A.D. 220, baptism was taught to be the “sacrament” by which a person becomes a church member; before, it had only signified a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. There are evidences that the group called Donatists (also called Montenses) were being killed for “rebaptizing” adults before the Council of Numidia (A.D. 415) stated that people who reject infant baptism are accursed33. According to Augustine, the only true baptism was water baptism in the Catholic Church, and any baptism out of the Catholic Church was heretical.
Constantine found his authority questioned by these “dissenters” (Donatists) who refused to baptize infants and who held that baptismal regeneration was a doctrine of the devil.[34] Constantine could have restrained himself, only the Donatists immediately brought up the first and main problem that has been the first and main problem on this earth since Genesis 3:1. Who is in charge? Constantine did the only thing that a good “Christian” emperor could do under such circumstances: he began killing Donatists.[35] Optaus, the Bishop of Mela at Numidia (Council of A.D. 411) wrote a book against them, and back in A.D. 377 the Emperor Gratian deprived the Donatists of all of their churches, prohibiting their assemblies in public and private.[36] The death sentence was passed on all Donatists by Honorius and Theodosius (emperors) if they were caught rebaptizing any “Catholics.”[37]
While Origen was busy corrupting manuscripts of scripture there was a movement among believers in the eastern end of the Roman Empire. Back in the area where the original New Testament manuscripts were written, there arose a group known as “Messalines” or “Euchites” who ran afoul of the local assemblies that allowed worldliness in their congregations. The term “Euchite” among Greeks was a general name for dissenters such as the English word “nonconformist.” The problem seems to be that the Euchites would rebaptize a man on his confession of salvation if he said that he had been baptized BEFORE he was really saved which was exactly how the Montantists handled such matters. Evidently someone had been baptizing people prematuraly. These early Greek “puritans” were also called Poblicans, Poplicans, and Philopopolitans; sometimes they were simply called by the name of the country where they migrated (Phyrgians, Bulgarians, Armenians, etc.). In history they are connected with a bishop of Antioch named Paul of Samosata. These Euchites immigrated to Thrace and Bulgaria, and from these roots and from this stock came the Paulicians, Cathari, and Bogomiles of the next six centuries.[38]
By the time of Decius Trajan (A.D. 249), the local churches were beginning to branch off into groups that demanded separation and that demanded a congregation of baptized believers only, opposed to congregations that would baptize someone even if they were not saved. In A.D. 281 a group known as the Novatians arose. They insisted upon adult immersion of believers only and a pure discipline in the local church; they rejected anyone’s baptism who had been baptized by an immoral bishop (Callistus, for example) or anyone who had defected under persecution by denying the Lord Jesus Christ.[39]
Every local assembly throughout this period (A.D. 100-300) that desired to follow the scriptures instead of the traditions of men had to eventually break with the real apostates who were calling themselves “Catholic.”[40] These groups (Montanists, Novatians, Donatists, Paulicians, Paterines, Picards, Lionists, Bulgarians, Montenses, Messalians, Euchites, etc.) became the offscouring of the Church in Rome and became branded by Catholic historians as “heretics.” To give the student of history the impression that heretics are only “splinter groups” a number of names were invented for these believers. This is to give the impression to the reader that on one hand there is a large, unified body of “orthodox believers” (catholics) and on the other hand there are thousands of sects or “cults” which are “heretical schismatics”. It’s propaganda.
This post is much longer than I care to write for a blog but not nearly an exhaustive treatment of early church history. Hopefully enough information has been provided to show those earnestly seeking truth that Roman Catholic tradition is not in-line with scripture nor does it portray an accurate view of church history.
1 Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1910), II, p. 52
2 The Epistle of Polycarp, chapter 4; Schaff, II, p. 52
3 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, cited by Musurillo, p. 139
4 Nathan Ausubel, The Book of Jewish Knowledge (New York: Crown Publishers, 1964), p. 86
5 Schaff, p. 262,244,151
6 Ibid, p. 161
7 Benjamin Warfield, Studies in Tertullian and Augustine (London: Oxford University Press, 1930), pp.114-116,121,126
8 Froom, Prophetic Faith, pp. 362-364
9 Schaff, p. 619
10 Catholic Encylopedia, XIV, p. 766; Civilta Cattolica, April 1948; Benedict XIV, papal bull (1750), sections 3-4
11 Schaff, III, pp. 633-637
12 Morrow, My Catholic Faith (Kenosha, WI: Mission House, 1960), p. 279
13 Henry Lea, History of Clerical Celibacy in the Christian Church (London: Watts and Co., 1932), pp.13-113
14 Luibheld, p.211
15 Ibid, p. 212
16 Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VII, pp. 500-570
17 Schaff, V, p. 75
18 Edward Hills, Believing Bible Study (Des Moines, IA: The Christian Research Press, 1967), p. 9
19 Ibid., pp. 37, 170, 171
20 Ibid., pp. 35
21 Rev. H.S. Miller, Biblical Introduction (Houghton, NY: Word Bearer Press, 1937) pp. 259-260
22 Ibid, p. 150
23 Rev. H.S. Miller, Biblical Introduction (Houghton, NY: Word Bearer Press, 1937) p. 132
24 Wilbur N Pickering, The Identity of the New Testament Text (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1977), pp. 44-51. 62-77
25 International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1939), I, pp. 166
26 Mosheim, Cent. 2, part 2
27 Tertullian, De Baptismo (Baptist Magazine, Vol. V, p. 210, cited by Orchard, p.33)
28 Wall, History of Infant Baptism, V, p. 50, cited by Orchard, p.33
29 Morningus, History of the Baptists, p. 2, citing 1 Clement
30 Danver, History of the Baptists, p. 63, cited by Orchard, p. 35
31 Orchard, pp. 38-41
32 Ibid, pp. 42-44
33 Orchard, pp. 94-99
34 Orchard, p.88
35 Armitage, p. 202
36 Orchard, p. 90
37 Orchard, p. 94
38 Thomas Armitage, The History of the Baptists (Minneapolis, MN: reprint by JAmes and Klock Pub. Co., copyright 1886), p. 275
39 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, edited by Isaac Boyle, translated by C.F. Cruse (1955), p. 25
40 Armitage, pp. 53-57
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