Daniel Chapter 7a | Table of Contents | Daniel Chapter 8a

Daniel Chapter 7 continued (b)

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      The following incident will show how completely the papacy was in subjection to his power. The Catholics in the East having begun a persecution against the Arians, A.D. 523, Theodoric summoned Pope John into his presence and thus addressed him:” ‘If the emperor [Justin, the predecessor of Justinian] therefore does not think fit to revoke the edict which he has lately issued against those of my persuasion [that is, the Arians], it is my firm resolution to issue the like edict against those of his [that is, the Catholics]; and to see it everywhere executed with the same rigor. Those who do not profess the faith of Nice, are heretics to him, and those who do are heretics to me. Whatever can excuse or justify his severity to the former, will excuse and justify mine to the latter. But the emperor,’ continued the king, ‘has none about him who dare freely and openly speak what they think, or to whom he would hearken if they did. But the great veneration which he professes for your See , leaves no room to doubt but he would hearken to you. I will therefore have you to repair forthwith to Constantinople, and there to remonstrate, both in my name and your own, against the violent measures in which that court has so rashly engaged. It is in your power to divert the emperor from them; and till you have, nay, till the Catholics [this name Theodoric applies to the Arians] are restored to the free exercise of their religion, and to all the churches from which they have been driven, you must not think of returning to Italy.’” [16]
      The pope who was thus peremptorily ordered by the Arian emperor not to set foot again upon Italian soil until he had carried out the will of the king, certainly could not hope for much advancement toward any kind of supremacy until that power was taken out of the way.
      The feelings of the papal party toward Theodoric may be accurately estimated, according to a quotation already given, by the vengeance which they took on his memory. They tore from his tomb the vase in which his Arian subjects had
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en-shrined his ashes. These feelings are put into language by Baronius, who inveighs “against Theodoric as a cruel barbarian, as a barbarous tyrant, as an impious Arian.” [17]
      While the Catholics were thus feeling the restraining power of an Arian king in Italy, they were suffering a violent persecution from the Arian Vandals in Africa. [18] Elliot says:” The Vandal kings were not only Arians, but persecutors of the Catholics; in Sardinia and Corsica under the Roman Episcopate, we may presume, as well as in Africa.” [19]
      Such was the position of affairs, when, A.D. 533, Justinian entered upon his Vandal and Gothic wars. Wishing to obtain the influence of the pope and the Catholic party, he issued that memorable decree which was to constitute the pope of all the churches, and from the carrying out of which A.D. 538, the period of papal supremacy is to be dated. And whoever will read the history of the African campaign, 533-534, and the Italian campaign, 534-538, will notice that the Catholics everywhere hailed as deliverers the army of Belisarius, the general of Justinian.
      But no decree of this nature could be carried into effect until the Arian horns which stood in its way were overthrown. A turn came, however, in the tide of affairs, for in the military campaign in Africa and Italy the victorious legions of Belisarius dealt a crushing blow to Arianism, so much so that its final supporters were vanquished.
      Procopius relates that the African war was undertaken by Justinian for the relief of the Christians (Catholics) in that quarter, and that when he expressed his intention in this respect, the prefect of the palace came very near dissuading him from his purpose. But a dream appeared to him in which he was bidden “not to shrink from the execution of his design;
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for by assisting the Christians he would overthrow the power of the Vandals.” [20]
      Mosheim declares: “It is true, the Greeks who had received the decrees of the Council of Nice [that is, from the Catholics], persecuted and oppressed the Arians wherever their influence and authority could reach; but the Nicenians, in their turn, were not less rigorously treated by their adversaries [the Arians], particularly in Africa and Italy, where they felt, in a very severe manner, the weight of the Arian power, and the bitterness of their resentment. the triumphs of Arianism were, however, transitory; and its prosperous days were entirely eclipsed when the Vandals were driven out of Africa, and the Goths out of Italy, by the arms of Justinian.” [21]
      Elliot summarizes: “I might cite three that were eradicated from before the pope out of the list first given, viz., the Heruli under Odoacer, the Vandals, and the Ostrogoths.” [22]
      From the historical testimony above cited, we think it clearly established that the three horns plucked up were the powers named: the Heruli, A.D. 493, the Vandals, in 534, and the Ostrogoths finally in 553, though effective opposition by the latter to the decree of Justinian ceased when they were driven from Rome by Belisarius in 583, [23] as stated on page 127.
      Little Horn to “Speak Great Words Against the Most High.” —This prophecy, too, has been unhappily fulfilled in the history of the pontiffs. They have sought, or at least have permitted to be applied to them, titles which would be hyperbolical and blasphemous if applied to an angel of God.
      Lucius Ferraris, in his Prompta Bibliotheca which the Catholic Encylopedia refers to as “a veritable encyclopedia of religious knowledge” and “a precious mine of information,” declares, in its article on the pope, that “the pope is of so great dignity and so exalted that he is not a mere man, but as it
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were God, and the vicar of God. . . . The pope is of such lofty and supreme dignity that, properly speaking, he has not been established in any rank of dignity, but rather has been placed upon the very summit of all ranks of dignities. . . . The pope is called most holy because he is rightfully presumed to be such...
      “The pope alone is deservedly called by the name ‘most holy,’ because he alone is the vicar of Christ, who is the fountain and source and fullness of all holiness. . . . ‘He is likewise the divine monarch and supreme emperor, and king of kings.’ . . . Hence the pope is crowned with a triple crown, as king of heaven and of earth and of the lower regions. . . . Moreover the superiority and the power of the Roman Pontiff by no means pertain only to heavenly things, to earthly things, and to things under the earth, but are even over angels, than whom he is greater. . . . So that if it were possible that the angels might err in the faith, or might think contrary to the faith, they could be judged and excommunicated by the pope. . . . For he is of so great dignity and power that he forms one and the same tribunal with Christ. . . .
      “The pope is as it were God on earth, sole sovereign of the faithful of Christ, chief king of kings, having plenitude of power, to whom has been intrusted by the omnipotent God direction not only of the earthly but also of the heavenly kingdom. . . . The pope is of so great authority and power that he can modify, explain, or interpret even divine laws.” [24]
      Christopher Marcellus, at the fourth session of the fifth Lateran Council in an oration to the Pope, exclaimed: “Thou are the shepherd, thou art the physician, thou art the director, thou art the husbandman; finally, thou art another God on earth.” [25]
      Again, Adam Clarke says on verse 25:” ‘He shall speak as if he were God.’ So St. Jerome quotes from Symmachus. To
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none can this apply so well or so fully as to the popes of Rome. They have assumed infallibility, which belongs only to God. They profess to forgive sins, which belongs only to God. They profess to open and shut heaven, which belongs only to God. They profess to be higher than all the kings of the earth, which belongs only to God. And they go beyond God in pretending to loose whole nations from their oath of allegiance to their kings, when such kings do not please them. And they go against God when they give indulgences for sin. This is the worst of all blasphemies.” [26]
      Little Horn to “Wear Out the Saints of the Most High.” —It requires but little historical investigation to prove that Rome, both in the times of antiquity and during the Dark Ages, carried forward a work of destruction against the church of God. Abundant evidences can be given showing that prior to and following the great work of Reformation, wars, crusades, massacres, inquisitions, and persecutions of all kinds were the methods adopted to compel all to submit to the Roman yoke.
      The story of medieval persecution is a frightful one, and we dread to dwell upon its detail. Yet for a proper understanding of this passage it is necessary that we recall some of the happenings of these unhappy times. Albert Barnes, in his comment on this passage, remarks:
      “Can anyone doubt that this is true of the papacy? The Inquisition, the ‘persecutions of the Waldenses;’ the ravages of the Duke of Alva; the fires of Smithfield; the tortures at Goa —indeed, the whole history of the papacy may be appealed to in proof that his is applicable to that power. If anything could have ‘worn out the saints of the Most High’ —could have cut them off from the earth of that evangelical religion would have become extinct, it would have been the persecutions of the papal power. In the year 1208, a crusade was proclaimed by Pope Innocent III against the Waldenses and Albigenses, in which a million of men perished. From the beginning of the
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order of the Jesuits, in the year 1540, to 1580, nine hundred thousand were destroyed. One hundred and fifty thousand perished by the Inquisition in thirty years. In the Low Countries fifty thousand persons were hanged, beheaded, burned, and buried alive, for the crime of heresy, within the space of thirty-eight years from the edict of Charles V against the Protestants, to the peace of Chateau Cambreses in 1559. Eighteen thousand suffered by the hand of the executioner in the space of five years and a half during the administration of the Duke of Alva. Indeed, the slightest acquaintance with the history of the papacy will convince any one that what is here said of ‘making war with the saints’ (verse 21), and ‘wearing out the saints of the Most High’ (verse 25), is strictly applicable to that power, and will accurately describe its history.” [27]
      These facts are confirmed by the testimony of W. E. H. Lecky. He declares:
      “That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind, will be questioned by no Protestant who has a complete knowledge of history. The memorials, indeed, of many of her persecutions are now so scanty that it is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no powers of imagination can adequately realize their sufferings. . . . These atrocities were not perpetrated in the brief paroxysms of a reign of terror, or by the hands of obscure sectaries, but were inflicted by a triumphant church, with every circumstance of solemnity and deliberation.” [28]
      It makes no difference that in numerous instances the victims were turned over to the civil authorities. It was the church that made the decision upon the question of heresy, and it then passed the offenders over to the secular court. But in those days the secular power was but the tool in the
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hands of the church. It was under its control and did its bidding. When the church delivered its prisoners to the executioners to be destroyed, with fiendish mockery it made use of the following formula: “And we do leave and deliver thee to the secular arm, and to the power of the secular court; but at the same time do most earnestly beseech that court so to moderate its sentence as not to touch thy blood, or to put thy life in any danger.” [29] Then, as intended, the unfortunate victims of popish hate were immediately executed.
      The testimony of Lepicier is to the point in this connection: “The civil power can only punish the crime of unbelief in the manner and to the extent that the crime is judicially made known to it by ecclesiastical persons, skilled in the doctrine of the faith. But the church taking cognizance by herself of the crime of unbelief, can by herself decree the sentence of death, yet not execute it; but she hands over the execution of it to the secular arm.” [30]
      The false claims of some Catholics that their church has never killed dissenters, have been flatly denied by one of their own standard writers, Cardinal Bellarmine, who was born in Tuscany in 1542, and who, after his death in 1621, came very near being placed in the calendar of saints on account of his great services in behalf of the church. This man, on one occasion, under the spur of controversy, betrayed himself into an admission of the real facts in the case. Luther having said that the church (meaning the true church) never burned heretics, Bellarmine, understanding it of the Roman Catholic Church, made answer: “This argument proves not the sentiment, but the ignorance or impudence of Luther; for as almost an infinite number were either burned or otherwise put to death, Luther either did no know it, and was therefore ignorant; or if he knew it, he is convicted of impudence and falsehood —for that
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heretics were often burned by the church, may be proved by adducing a few from many examples.” [31]
      Alfred Baudrillart, rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris, when referring to the attitude of the church toward heresy, remarks:
      “When confronted by heresy, she does not content herself with persuasion; arguments of an intellectual and moral order appear to her insufficient, and she has recourse to force, to corporal punishment, to torture. She creates tribunals like those of the Inquisition, she calls the laws of state to her aid, if necessary she encourages a crusade, or a religious war, and all her ‘horror of blood’ practically culminates into urging the secular power to shed it, which proceeding is almost more odious —for it is less frank— than shedding it herself.
      “Especially did she act thus in the sixteenth century with regard to Protestants. Not content to reform morally, to teach by example, to convert people by eloquent and holy missionaries, she lit in Italy, in the Low Countries, and above all in Spain, the funeral piles of the Inquisition. In France under Francis I and Henri II, in England under Mary Tudor, she tortured the heretics, while both in France and Germany, during the second half of the sixteenth, and first half of the seventeenth centuries, if she did not actually begin, at any rate she encouraged and actively aided the religious wars.” [32]
      In a letter of Pope Martin V (A.D. 1417-1431), are the following instructions to the King of Poland:
      “‘Know that the interest of the Holy See, and those of your crown make it a duty to exterminate the Hussites. Remember that these impious persons dare proclaim principles of equality, they maintain that all Christians are brethren, and that God has not given to privileged men the right of ruling nations; they hold that Christ came on earth to abolish slavery; they call the people to liberty, that is, to the annihilation of kings
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and priests! Whilst there is still time, then, turn your forces against Bohemia; burn, massacre, make deserts everywhere, for nothing could be more agreeable to God, or more useful to the cause of kings, than the extermination of the Hussites.’” [33]
      All this was in harmony with the teaching of the church. Heresy was not to be tolerated, but to be destroyed.
      Pagan Rome persecuted the Christian church relentlessly. It is estimated that three million Christians perished in the first three centuries of the Christian Era. Yet it is said that the primitive Christians prayed for the continuance of imperial Rome, for the knew that when this form of government should cease, another far worse persecuting power would arise, which would literally “wear out the saints of the Most High,” as this prophecy declares. Pagan Rome could slay the infants, but spare the mothers; but papal Rome slew both mothers and infants together. No age, no sex, no condition in life, was exempt from her relentless rage.
      Little Horn to “Think to Change Times and Laws.” —What laws and whose? Not the laws of other earthly governments; for it was nothing marvelous or strange for one power to change the laws of another, whenever it could bring such power under its dominion. Not human laws of any kind; for the little horn had power to change these so far as its jurisdiction extended; but the times and laws in question were such as this power should only think to change, but not be able to change. They are the laws of the same Being to whom the saints belong who are worn out by this power, namely, the laws of the Most High. And has the papacy attempted this? —Yes, even this.
      It has added the second commandment of the Decalogue to the first, making them one, and divided the tenth into two, making the ninth forbid the coveting of a neighbor’s wife, and the tenth that of a neighbor’s property —thus making up the
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full number ten. While the full wording of the second commandment is retained in the Roman Catholic Bible and in the Roman Catechism authorized by the Council of Trent, painstaking explanation is made that in the case of images and likenesses of any kind except that of God Himself, their making and use are not forbidden by the commandment when employed only to venerate the virtues of the saints and not to worship them as gods, which latter is expressly forbidden in the commandment. The same principle is applied also to ashes, bones, and other relics of saints, and to representations of angels.
      As to the fourth commandment, numbered as the third in their arrangement, the catechism of highest authority in the Roman Catholic Church retains the commandment entire, and urges punctilious observance of the Sabbath in the personal life and in public worship as a sacred privilege and duty. Nevertheless the position is taken that the particular day on which the Sabbath is to be observed, was connected with the ceremonial ordinances of the Jews, and was with them done away in Christ. Reasons are then given why the Sabbath should be observed on the first day of the week commonly called Sunday.
      In support of the foregoing brief statement on the changing of “times and laws” by the papacy, we draw evidence from the catechism of highest authority in the Roman Catholic Church, cited hereafter. According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, “the authority of this catechism is higher than that of any other, but is, or course not on a level with that of the canons and decrees of a council.” [34]
      Before making quotations, it should be first stated that in the polity of the Roman Catholic Church, the canons and decrees of an ecumenical church council are both official and supreme. Outstanding among such ecumenical church councils is the Council of Trent, held at Trent, Italy, from 1545 to
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1563. Since that council, called to counteract the spreading influence of the Protestant Reformation, dealt so widely with the doctrines and usages of the church, it officially decreed the following: “The holy synod commands all bishops. . . [to explain the sacraments] according to the form to be prescribed by the holy synod for all the sacraments in a catechism, which bishops will take care to have faithfully translated into the vulgar tongue, and expounded to the people by the parish priests.” [35]
      In pursuance of this command, a catechism was composed in Latin for the Roman Catholic Church by St. Charles Borromeo and other theologians, in 1566, and published in Rome by the Vatican Congregation for Propagation of the Faith, under the title Catechismus Romanus ex decreto Sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini, jussu S. Pii V Pontificis Maximi editus, in other words, Roman Catechism according to the decree of the Sacred Council of Trent, published by order of St. Pius V, Pontifex Maximus.
      This book was translated into English by “Very Rev. J. Donovan, D. D. . . . Domestic Prelate to His Holiness Gregory XVI,” etc., and published in Dublin with a preface dated June 10, 1829. The title of this book reads, Catechism According to the Decree of the Council of Trent, edited by the command of our Most Illustrious Lord Pius the Fifth.
      From the fifth edition of this Roman Catechism published in Rome in 1796, we quote the following from Donovan’s English Translation, in regard to the fourth (Catholic third) commandment:
      “It pleased the church of God, that the religious celebration of the Sabbath day should be transferred to the Lord’s day [meaning Sunday]; for as on that day light first shone on the world; so by the resurrection of our Redeemer on that day, who opened to us the gate to life eternal, our life was recalled out of darkness into light; whence also the Apostles would have it named ‘the Lord’s day.’ We also observe in the
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Sacred Scriptures that this day was held sacred because on that day the creations of the world commenced, and the Holy Ghost was given to the apostles.” [36]
      Here is the declaration of the papacy that the Roman Catholic Church changed the time for observing the Sabbath from the seventh day according to the decalogue to the first day of the week, which it here erroneously calls “the Lord’s day.” (See comment on Revelation 1:10.) It will be observed that the apostles are here charged with making the change from seventh day to the first, but without any proof whatsoever from the Scriptures, because there is no such proof. All the reasons for the change given in this declaration, are purely of human and ecclesiastical invention.
      The foregoing testimony is sufficient to show how the papacy has thought to change times and laws. How later Roman Catholic catechisms for instruction of “the faithful” come out boldly in declaring that the church changed the day, and even taunt Protestants with acceptance and observance of the change, will be found in our comment on the mark of the beast in Revelation 13, pages 607-612.
      Before leaving this matter of the change of the Sabbath, it will be enlightening to observe other reasons given by the papacy for the change than the false one that it was made by the apostles. In the same Roman Catechism referred to above, is an attempt to explain how the Sabbath commandment differs from the others in the decalogue:
      “That difference, then, appears certain, that the other precepts of the decalogue belong to the natural law, and are perpetual and unalterable, whence is it that, although the law of Moses has been abrogated, yet the Christian people observe all the commandments which are contained in the two tables, not because Moses so commanded, but because they agree with the law of nature, by the force of which men are impelled to their observance; whereas this commandment,
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touching the sanctification of the Sabbath, if considered as to the time appointed [for its observance], is not fixed and unalterable, but susceptible of change, nor does it belong to the moral but ceremonial law, neither is it a principle of the natural law, for we are [not] taught or formed by nature to give external worship to God on that rather than on any other day; but from the time the people of Israel were liberated from the bondage of Pharaoh, they observed the Sabbath day. . . .
      “But the time when the observance of the Sabbath was to be removed, is that same time when the other Hebrew rites and ceremonies were to be abrogated, namely, at the death of Christ; for as those ceremonies are, as it were, images that shadowed forth the light and truth (Hebrews x, 1), it was, therefore, necessary that they should be removed at the coming of the light and truth, which is Jesus Christ.” [37]
      The reader needs only to be reminded that the ten-commandment law was written with God’s finger on tables of stone, while the ceremonial laws were written by Moses in a book. More than this, the decalogue was written by Moses in a book. More than this, the decalogue was written before the ceremonial laws were given to Moses. Shall we charge God with mixing in one ceremonial command with the nine of the moral law, and leave it to a presumptuous ecclesiastical body to make the correction? The reason also for the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, as given in the commandment itself, is that the Creator Himself rested on that day, and set it apart as a memorial of His work of creation, but with no intimation whatever of its being “a shadow of things to come” in Christ, to whom all ceremonial ordinances pointed forward.
      One more quotation from the Roman Catechism is worth noticing:
      “The Apostles, therefore, resolved to consecrate the first day of the seven to divine worship, which they called ‘the Lord’s day;’ for St. John, in his Apocalypse, makes mention of ‘the Lord’s day’ (Apocalypse i,10); and the Apostle orders
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collections to made on the first day of the week’ (1 Corinthians xvi,2), which is, as St. Chrysostom interprets, the Lord’s day; to give us to understand, that even the Lord’s day was kept holy in the church.” [38]
      In addition to falsely charging the apostles with changing the day of the Sabbath, it is here represented that the business reckoning of one’s accounts on the first day of the week is a reason for its observance as the Sabbath contrary to God’s unchangeable law.
      This quotation also reveals the fact that the practices and interpretations of the Fathers, such as “St. Chrysostom,” here mentioned, are relied on rather than the Scriptures themselves for proof that the Sabbath of God’s law was changed to Sunday.
      One more observation is appropriate here, especially for Protestant clergy and laymen to consider. In this Roman Catechism, composed by order of Pope Pius V about the middle of the sixteenth century, is contained virtually every argument used by Protestants in our day to support the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. Note these:
      They assume without proof that the seventh-day Sabbath was part of the ceremonial law (though embodied in the very heart of the moral law written by the finger of God), and therefore done away in Christ.
      They boldly claim that the apostles ordained that the first day of the week be observed in place of the seventh, citing John’s use of the term “Lord’s day” in Revelation 1:10, despite the fact that the only day God ever set apart as holy and claimed as His own by resting on it Himself was the seventh day of the fourth commandment.
      They claim that the Sabbath law of rest “agrees with the law of nature” requiring cessation of labor and a period for meditation and worship, but assert that the time of its observance
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is “susceptible of change,” since, according to their argument, it does not “belong to the moral but ceremonial law,” and was therefore changed by the apostles, by the Fathers, and by the church to the first day of the week.
      The arguments they use for such change are that light first shone on the world on the first day of the week, the resurrection of Christ took place on that day, the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles on the same day of the week, Paul admonished Christians to reckon their business accounts and lay aside a portion for the Lord on the first day of the week —all of human invention and without Scriptural authority as reasons for such a change. The only reasons given by the Creator and Lord of the Sabbath, are that He created the world in six days, rested on the seventh, and set apart that day for holy use on the same permanent and unalterable basis as He created all other things on the other days of creation week.
      Protestants may not be aware that in defense of the Sunday sabbath they are using the Roman Catholic arguments contained in the Catechism of the Council of Trent published in the sixteenth century, but every one of them mentioned above is found in that work. Our appeal to every Protestant is to break away fully from the papacy, and hold to the Bible and the Bible only in his belief and practice.
      “A Time and Times and the Dividing of Time.” —The pronoun “they” in the sentence containing this phrase embraces the saints, the times, and the laws just mentioned. How long a time were they to be given into the hands of this power. A time, as we have seen from Daniel 4:23, is one year; two times, the least that could be denoted by the plural, two years, and the dividing of time, or half a time, half a year. The word “dividing” in the phrase “dividing of time” is translated from the Chaldee word {Hebrew- gl]p]} pelage, which Gesenius defines as “a half,” and refers to Daniel 7:25 as an example. The Septuagint translates it “half.” We thus have three years and a half for the continuance of this power. The Chaldee word for “time” in the text before us, is {Hebrew- wD^u]} iddan, which
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Gesenius defines thus: “Time. Spec. in prophetic language for a year. Daniel 7:25, {Hebrew- wD^u] gl^p]w iyg]e]u]Ádu]} for a year, also two years and half a year; i.e., for three years and a half; comp. Jos. B.J.I.I.I.”
      We must now consider that we are in the midst of symbolic prophecy; hence in this measurement the time is not literal, but symbolic. The inquiry then arises, How long a period is denoted by the three years and a half of prophetic time? The principle given us in the Bible is, that when a day is used in symbolic prophecy, it stands for a year. (Ezekiel 4:6; Numbers 14:34.) Under the Hebrew word for day, {Hebrew- sw{y} yom, Gesenius has this remark on its plural: “Sometimes {Hebrew- syf]y*} [yamim] marks a definite space of time; viz., a year; as also Syr. and Chald. {Hebrew- weu]} [iddan] denotes both time and year; and as in English several words signifying time, weight, measure, are likewise used to denote certain specified times, weights, and measures.”
      Bible students have recognized this principle through the ages. The following quotation reveal the agreement of various authorities on this point. Joachim, abbot of Calabria, one of the great ecclesiastical figures of the twelfth century, applied the year-day principle to the 1260-year period. “The woman, clothed with the sun, who signifies the church, remained hidden in the wilderness from the face of the serpent, a day without doubt being accepted for a year and a thousand two hundred and sixty days for the same number of years.” [39]
      “Three times and an half; that is, for 1260 solar years, reckoning a time for a calendar year of 360 days, and a day for a solar year. After which ‘the judgment is to sit, and they shall take away his dominion,’ not at once, but by degrees, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.” [40]
      The Bible year, which must be used as the basis of reckoning, contained three hundred and sixty days. (See comments on Revelation 11:3.) Three years and a half contained
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twelve hundred and sixty days. As each day stands for a year, we have twelve hundred and sixty years for the continuation of the supremacy of this horn. Did the papacy posses dominion that length of time? The answer again is, Yes. The edict of the emperor Justinian, dated A.D. 533, made the bishop of Rome the head of all the churches. But this edict could not go into effect until the Arian Ostrogoths, the last of the three horns that were plucked up to make room for the papacy, were driven from Rome; and this was not accomplished, as already shown, until A.D. 538. (See p. 127.) The edict would have been of no effect had this latter event not been accomplished; hence from this latter year we are to reckon, as this was the earliest point where the saints were in reality in the hands of this power. From this point did the papacy hold supremacy for twelve hundred and sixty years? Exactly. For 538 + 1260 = 1798; and in the year 1798, Berthier, with a French army, entered Rome, proclaimed a republic, took the pope prisoner, and inflicted a deadly wound upon the papacy. Though it has never since enjoyed all the privileges and immunities which it possessed before, we are seeing a gradual restoration of its former strength.
      The Judgment Shall Sit. —After describing the terrible career of the little horn, and stating that the saints should be given into his hand for 1260 years, bringing us down to 1798, verse 26 declares: “But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.” In verse 10 of the same chapter we have substantially the same expression regarding the judgment: “The judgment was set.” It would seem consistent to suppose that the same judgment is referred to in both instances. But the sublime scene described in verse 10 is the opening of the investigative judgment in the sanctuary in heaven, as will appear in remarks on Daniel 8:14 and 9:25-27. The opening of this judgment scene is located by the prophecy at the close of the great prophetic period of 2300 years, which terminated in 1844. (See comments on Daniel 9:25-27.)
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      Four years after this, in 1848, the great revolution which shook so many thrones in Europe, also drove the pope from his dominions. His restoration shortly after was through the forces of foreign bayonets, by which alone he was upheld until his final loss of temporal power in 1870. The overthrow of the papacy in 1798 marked the conclusion of the prophetic period of 1260 years, and constituted the “deadly wound,” prophesied in Revelation 13:3 to come upon this power; but this deadly wound was to be “healed.”
      Deadly Wound to Be Healed. —In 1800 another pope was elected, his palace and his temporal dominion over the Papal States were restored, and, as George Croly, noted British commentator, says, every prerogative except that of a systematic persecutor was again his, for the “deadly wound” was beginning to be healed.
      How could that “deadly wound” be healed, and the specifications of Daniel 7:26, “They shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end,” be realized? How are we to explain this apparent paradox? Whatever the exegetical difficulties may be, the fact remains that in the history of the papacy these two specifications are being seen.
      In 1844 the judgment began its work in the heavenly sanctuary. (Verse 10.) In verse 11 we are told that because of “the great words which the horn spake. . .the beast was slain.” December 8, 1854, the dogma of the Immaculate conception was decreed by the pope. In 1870 the armies of Victor Emmanuel took away the temporal power of the pope, the very year that the Twentieth Ecumenical Council decreed the infallibility of the pope when speaking ex cathedra, that is, when as shepherd and teacher of all Christians he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals. But despite the increasing honors heaped upon the office of the bishop of Rome by the clergy, the pope’s temporal power was wholly taken away. Thereafter the popes shut themselves up as prisoners in the Vatican at Rome until the signing of the concordat with
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Italy, in 1929, which restored “his dominion” over the Vatican City, a small section of the city of Rome.

      Verse 27 And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him. 28 Hitherto is the end of the matter. As for me Daniel, my cogitations much troubled me, and my countenance changed in me: but I kept the matter in my heart.
      After beholding the dark and desolate picture of papal oppression of the church, the prophet is permitted once more to turn his eyes upon the glorious period of the saints’ rest, when they shall have the kingdom, free from all oppressive powers, in everlasting possession. How could the children of God keep heart in this present evil world, amid the misrule and oppression of the governments of earth, and the abominations that are done in the land, if they could not look forward to the kingdom of God and the return of their Lord, with full assurance that the promises concerning them both shall certainly be fulfilled, and that speedily?

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      [1] The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. VI, pp. 425, 426. By permission of the Macmillan Company, publishers in the United States.
      [2] Ibid., pp. 461-504.
      [3] Jean Henri Merle d’Aubigne, History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, Vol. I, p. 8.
      [4] Ibid., p. 9.
      [5] See John L. Mosheim, An Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern, Vol. I, p. 412; Arthur P. Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church, pp. 239, 240.
      [6] Albert Barnes, Notes on Daniel, p. 324, comment on Daniel 7:25.
      [7] Thomas Newton, Dissertations on the Prophecies, Vol. I, pp. 275, 276.
      [8] Albert Barnes, Notes on Daniel, p. 327, comment on Daniel 7:25.
      [9] Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. III, chap. 36, pp. 515, 516.
      [10] Ibid., chap. 37, p. 547.
      [11] Arthur P. Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church, p. 151.
      [12] Leopold Ranke, History of the Popes, Vol. I, p. 9.
      [13] Niccolo Machiavelli, History of Florence, p. 14.
      [14] John L. Mosheim, An Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern, Vol. I, p. 113, 114.
      [15] See Archibald Bower, The History of the Popes, Vol. I, p. 257.
      [16] Ibid., Vol. I, p. 325.
      [17] Ibid., p. 328.
      [18] Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. III, chap. 37, pp. 548-552.
      [19] Edward B. Elliott, Horae, Apocalypticae, Vol. III, p. 139, Note 3.
      [20] Theodoret and Evagrius, A History of the Church, p. 399.
      [21] John L. Mosheim, An Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern, Vol. I, p. 142, 143.
      [22] Edward B. Elliott, Horae, Apocalypticae, Vol. III, p. 139, Note 1.
      [23] See Student’s Gibbon, pp. 309-319.
      [24] Translated from Lucius Ferraris, Prompta Bibliotheca, art. “Papa,” II, Vol. VI, pp. 26-29.
      [25] P. Joannis Harduin, Acta Conciliorum, Vol. IX, p. 1651.
      [26] Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Old Testament, Vol. IV, p. 596, note on Daniel 7:25.
      [27] Albert Barnes, Notes on Daniel, p. 328, comment on Daniel 7:25.
      [28] William E. H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, Vol. II, pp. 35, 37.
      [29] Michael Geddes, “A View of the Court of Inquisition in Portugal,” Miscellaneous Tracts, Vol. I, p. 408. See also Philip Limborch, The History of the Inquisition, Vol. II, p. 289.
      [30] Alexius M. Lepicier, The Stability and Progress of Dogma, p. 195.
      [31] John Dowling, The History of Romanism, p. 547.
      [32] Alfred Baudrillart, The Catholic Church, the Renaissance, and Protestantism, pp. 182, 183.
      [33] L. M. de Cormenin, The Public and Private History of the Popes of Rome, Vol. II, pp. 116, 117.
      [34] Catholic Encyclopedia, art. “Doctrine, Christian,” Vol. V, p. 79.
      [35] J. Donovan, quoting from “council of Trent, Sess. xxiv, c. vii, on Reformation,” Catechism of the Council of Trent, p. 4.
      [36] Catechism of the Council of Trent, p. 347.
      [37] Ibid., pp. 342, 343.
      [38] Ibid., pp. 343, 344.
      [39] Joachim of Floris, Concordantia, book 2, chap. 16, p. 12b.
      [40] Sir Issac Newton, Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel, pp. 127, 128.


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