Studies in the Prophecies’
“Babylon the Great”—No. 4
THE downfall of the ancient city of Babylon in the land of Chaldea was clearly foretold by the prophets, and the prophecies have been fulfilled. It was declared that “Babylon shall become heaps,” and the present location of “the glory of kingdoms” is distinguished by the various “heaps” which mark the place. But although Babylon fell, the spirit of Babylon still survived. The spirit of rebellion and rivalry was not destroyed in the destruction of Babylon. There still remained the determined opposition against the government of God and the same fixed purpose to dethrone God and to put another in his place. The temporal kingdom of ancient Babylon finds its counterpart in the spiritual kingdom of modern Babylon. In its spirit of rebellion and opposition to God, in its refusal to give to God the place which belongs to him and the determination to put another on the throne in his place, and in the revelation of pride and self-exaltation, ancient Babylon was a type and a prophecy. This will appear from a study of the scriptures which deal with this question. To John, the revelator, there was given in holy vision a view of modern Babylon; “And he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stone and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations, even the unclean things of her fornication, and upon her forehead a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of the Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” The interpretation and the application of this symbolic prophecy are readily made by a comparison with other prophecies. The beast “having seven heads and ten horns” is the same as the beast from the sea which is described in Rev. 13: 1, 2. And this beast from the sea is simply another phase or a variation of the “great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns,” which is described in Rev. 12: 3. And both of these symbols are closely related to the great and terrible beast which Daniel saw in vision. “After this I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, a fourth beast, terrible and powerful, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.” When Daniel “desired to know the truth concerning the fourth beast,” he was told that “the fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom upon earth, . . . and as for the ten horns, out of this kingdom shall ten kings arise.” The fourth universal kingdom upon the earth from the time of Daniel was Rome, “the iron monarchy of Rome,” which was later divided into ten kingdoms. And this ten-horned beast of Daniel’s vision, and the ten-horned dragon, and the ten-horned beast from the sea, and the ten-horned, scarlet-colored beast, upon which the woman sat, are all closely related. Under these different symbols are presented various phases of the history of Rome and Romanism. The picture is completed by the prophecy given through the apostle Paul: “Let no man beguile you in any wise: for it [the day of the Lord] will not be, except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God. Remember ye not that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know that which restraineth, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work.” Thus “there are three distinct sets of prophecies of the rise, character, deeds, and doom of Romanism. The first is found in the book of Daniel, the second in the epistles of Paul, and the third in the letters and Apocalypse of John; and no one of these three is complete in itself. It is only by combining their separate features that we obtain the perfect portrait.” The expression “the mystery of lawlessness,” directly connects Paul’s prophecy of “the falling away” with John’s prophecy of the woman who was seated upon the scarlet-colored beast, for upon her forehead a name was written, “Mystery, Babylon the Great.” Both are dealing with an apostate church. Paul speaks of “the man of sin” who5“opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God.” John speaks of the woman as “having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations, even the unclean things of her fornication.” But John designates this apostate church as “Babylon the Great.” Paul’s prophecy then is a further description in plain and simple language of the characteristics of “Babylon the Great,” and Daniel’s prophecy of the little horn is a prophecy of “Babylon the Great.” But there is no reasonable doubt that the prophecy of the little horn of Daniel and the prophecy of “the man of sin” of Paul are prophecies of the papacy, and we are therefore justified in the conclusion that the papacy is modern Babylon, “Babylon the Great” of our own time. We may still further demonstrate this identification of “Babylon the Great” with the papacy by giving a little consideration to the number of the beast from the sea, mentioned in Revelation 13. “Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man: and his number is six hundred and sixty and six.” The number of the pope, the man who is the head of “the mystery of iniquity,” is six hundred and sixty-six. But ancient Babylon had her system of mysteries, as well as modern Babylon, and in order to connect the two systems by showing that their numbers are the same “we have now only to inquire what was the name by which Nimrod was known as the god of the Chaldean Mysteries. That name . . . was Saturn. Saturn and Mystery are both Chaldean words, and they are correlative terms. As Mystery signifies the hidden system, so Saturn signifies the hidden god. To those who were initiated the god was revealed; to all else he was hidden. Now, the name Saturn in Chaldee is pronounced Satur, but, as every Chaldee scholar knows, consists of only four letters,—S-t-u-r. This name contains exactly the apocalyptic number 666:—
S equals 60
T equals 400
U equals 6
R equals 200
666
. . . Thus, then, the pope has a double claim to the name and number of the beast. He is the only legitimate representative of the original Saturn at this day in existence, and he reigns in the very city of the seven hills where the Roman Saturn formerly reigned; and, from his residence in which, the whole of Italy was ‘long after called by his name,’ being commonly named ‘the Saturnian land.’” Who can doubt, then, that in the principles of government, in the religion, and in the religious teaching of ancient Babylon, we have a picture, a concrete prophecy, of modern Babylon, the papacy? and who can fail to see that in the experiences of ancient Babylon there are lessons of value for our own time? It is plain that in modern Babylon the great rebel leader is seeking to accomplish what he failed to accomplish in ancient Babylon. And as in the olden time the prophet Jeremiah uttered the warning, “Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every man his life; be not cut off in her iniquity;” so in this time we have the warning, “Come forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” We may therefore receive light for our own experience in this last generation just before the final overthrow of “Babylon the Great” by studying the creed and the teaching of ancient Babylon, and by observing the cause of her downfall. This we hope to do in future articles.