The Watchtower Society and John and Morton Edgar - A2Z.org

Gregory II wrote a letter to Emperor Leo in 726 A. D. telling him that if he were to enter a grammar school andshow himself an enemy of image worship, the simple and pious children would throw their books at his head.That was the beginning of the fall of the Pagan power and of the rise of the great Antichrist system. Itcorresponds to the time at the end of the true 1260 days when Napoleon, the head of the civil power made thePope prisoner. Another thing which led to the establishment of the Antichrist system was that the people at thistime were awakened out of their lethargy and superstitious Paganism and converted to Christianity. The greatmissionary of the time was Boniface; he did a great work among the wild tribe of Germany and was called theApostle of Germany. But instead of bringing the people to Christ he brought them to the Pope, and instead ofusing the truth, he used frauds, etc. His work began in 715 and he died in 754. Afterwards Charles the Greatcarried on the work, and the way he did it was to war against and defeat a tribe and then order his soldiers tolead the captives to a river and baptize them, claiming they were Christians. A corresponding missionary andenlightening work but in a true sense has been going on by Christ and His church during this present time. Justas the people in the eighth century learned that they did not require to fear the power of the emperor, so thepeople in the nineteenth century learned that they did not require to fear the power of the Pope.Another work of the eighth century was the growing power of Papacy. It was during that time that the ideabecame universal that punishments for sin may be bought off by liberal gifts to the church. This led to theacquirement of great wealtb. Many of the people had been Druids and transferred to the Pope the greatveneration which they had for their chief priest, who had power over civil as well as religious matters.Now let us study the history of the Franks. The people of the west were becoming more and more enstrangedand the Pope of Rome took advantage of this. We read in the Scriptures of the woman Jezebel, and how shesecured her alms, not by her own power, but by her influence over her husband, King Ahab. A woman's tongueis her strongest weapon. So with the church. which is represented as a woman. Her only power was with hertongue, her mouth, a mouth speaking great things. The church wanted to establish herself as a world-wideempire, as the kingdom of Christ on earth. She could only do it by overcoming that which hindered this,namely, Pagan Rome, and the only way she could do this was by influencing the Franks, the most powerfultribe in the west, originally under Clovis, a powerful king. The successors of Clovis, however, had become sodegenerate that the prime minister, called the mayor of the palace, had become the real king. One of the first ofthese mayors of the palace was Charles Martel (Charles the Hammer) the grandfather of Charles the Great. Hewas the first who formed an alliance with Papacy; and in this way laid the foundation of the Papal supremacy.Martel was appointed to his office in 714, corresponding with 1789."Charles Martel Laid the Foundations of that Central Power of the Church in Western Christendom. He was thefirst of the new princes beyond the Alps who was invited by the Bishop of Rome to interfere in the affairs ofItaly.Thus the Foundation of the Frank Alliance Was Laid. From that time the Franks came to be looked upon as thenatural protectors of the Popes. Without the name of king, Charles Martel was the second founder of the Frankkingdom.There the foundation was laid, the beginning of the end of Pagan Rome, 714.When Charles Martel died, his son Pepin became mayor of the palace. He said: I am really the king, except inname. What he needed was the Pope's sanction. So he sent word to the Pope, who said to himself: What willbenefit me the most? At this time, the Lombards were enemies of the Pope and wanted to take away the Papalpower, so he said to himself: If I advocate the rights of the king, it will gain me nothing, but if I favor Pepin, hewill help me. So he made a compact with him. That was 754, which corresponds with 1829. In 754 the Popecrossed the Alps, deposed the king, put the crown on Pepin and anointed him with holy oil.* This deposition ofChildric III was the first instance of such interference on the part of the Popes. It was the first exercise on the