George of ConvertJournal.Com wrote a piece on the myth of the Whore of Babylon. It’s a good piece but I have to respectfully disagree on certain points.

[+] The Bible does not come from the Catholic Church. Its original language is not Latin — the “Old Testament” was written in Hebrew and translated to Greek during the period between the testaments in a form known as the Septuagint (for the 72 scholars doing the translation). The “New Testament” was originally written in Koine Greek, the dialect of Greek leftover from the Greek occupation of Palestine at the time of Alexander the Great. It would be more proper to say that the Bible came from the church catholic or the universal church because East and West were unified at the time of the decisions being made on the canon of Scripture. St. Jerome’s Vulgate wasn’t commissioned until the late 4th century and isn’t completely his own translation — it’s more his editing. (Source: Wikipedia) The Eastern Church never used the Latin version.

=Church History Interlude=
The Roman Empire was split in half around the time of Christ with a ruling party in the East at Constantinople (formerly Adrianople) and a ruling party in the West at Rome. (One of Justinian’s aims was unifying the empire again during his rule in Constantinople.) The fall of the Roman Empire in 475 was the fall of the Western Empire. The East didn’t fall until 1000 years later. The Pope was also not the sole bishop of the Church — he’s the bishop of Rome. There were also bishops at Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople. The BIG schism in 1054 happened over the filioque clause in the Nicene Creed which is the part where the Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son”. Frederica Mathewes-Green explains it well in Facing East when she explains that it was originally a triangle with the Father at the top and Son and Holy Spirit as the bottom points. The filioque clause put the Father and Son on equal footing and the Spirit at the bottom, effectively turning the triangle on its side or upside down.

[+] Luther’s writing, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, has nothing to do with the idea of the Roman Catholic Church as the “whore of Babylon”. The premise of The Babylonian Captivity of the Church is that the Church was holding the wine element of the Eucharist captive in the same way that the Babylonians held the Jews captive. At the time, there wasn’t good catechisis on the elements of the Eucharist and the Host was considered to be magical with people rushing in to see the Elevation of it. The wine was rarely if ever given to the laity. Luther’s issue was with that. Improved catechesis after the Council of Trent remedied that issue.

[+] George erroneously argues that Luther was the first to shatter Christian unity. In actuality, the true shattering of Christian unity was the Great Schism in 1054 in which both East and West excommunicated each other. Luther was also not completely the first to disagree with the Church. Some of his teachings were similar to Jan Hus who was raising issues in the eastern part of the Holy Roman Empire.

The argument I have with George is that Luther was a man of his time and he saw some grave injustices being committed by the Roman Catholic Church. (I am being very intentional about using “Roman Catholic Church” because “catholic” by itself means “universal”. Churches that alter the Nicene Creed to read “one holy Christian and apostolic Church” incur my ire for that reason.) His first opus, The 95 Theses, were written in Latin and intended for dialogue. Unfortunately for Luther, the printing press was the new and cool invention and they were circulated and translated far more than he intended. They addressed the sale of indulgences by the Roman Catholic Church to pay for the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica. Fear tactics were being used to sell them, in the case of Luther’s district by a shifty monk named Johann Tetzel, and they argue that if the Pope could remit the sins of all in a plenary indulgence if he so chose. Other arguments followed about things like the withholding of sacraments and matters of erroneous theology. He escaped death because his patron Frederick of Saxony hid him in the Wartburg.

Most, if not all, of Luther’s complaints and issues were addressed and remedied at either the Council of Trent or the Second Vatican Council. However, distance has grown between the Roman Catholic Church and many of the Protestant denominations so that unity is probably not going to happen. One of my big pet peeves as a church historian is that many Protestant denominations are ignorant of their roots and do perpetuate the myth of the Roman Catholic Church as the “whore of Babylon”. The ELCA and AALC do not teach this. Other more conservative Lutheran sects do and I find that to be a pity. (One of my big gripes is that many Lutherans seem to think that the Lutheran Church “magically” descended from Heaven in 1517, completely ignoring the fact that, DUDE, we have a shared history with the Roman Catholic Church.)

Rome is perhaps the city of seven hills mentioned in the Book of Revelation but to say the Roman Catholic Church is “the whore of Babylon” is false teaching. It fits the time of Luther, however, because he and his compatriots thought they were living in the End Times as the Turks were coming ever closer to parts of the Holy Roman Empire. (Read Luther’s commentaries on the Book of Ezekiel for more on this.)

George further cites the axing of the Apocrypha from the canon of Scripture as well as Revelation (though he forgets to mention James). I do take issue with that as the books in the Apocrypha give us the history of the time “between the Testaments”. They do not, however, allude to the coming of Christ which is why they got the ax. The Epistle of James fails to mention Jesus which is why it was almost axed. The Book of Revelation was suspect but kept in the canon. In more recent times, readings from the Apocrypha are creeping into the lectionary in churches that follow the Revised Common Lectionary (the Roman Catholic Church and the mainline Protestant churches).

I agree with George wholeheartedly that it is false to teach that the church in Rome is “the whore of Babylon” but I cannot agree with where he is finding the assertion.