p. 460 | THOUGHTS ON DANIEL by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 13, 1881

THOUGHTS ON DANIEL.

By Uriah Smith

BY ELD. U. SMITH.

CHAPTER VII.—THE GREAT IMAGE.

VERSE 23. Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down and break it in pieces. 24. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise; and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. 25. And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. 26. But the Judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.

We have here further particulars respecting the fourth beast, and the little horn.

Perhaps enough has already been said respecting the fourth beast (Rome), and the ten horns or ten kingdoms which arose therefrom. The little horn now more particularly demands attention. As stated in verse 8, we find the fulfillment of the prophecy concerning this horn, in the rise and work of the Papacy. It is a matter of both interest and importance, therefore, to inquire into the causes which resulted in the development of this anti-christian power.

The first pastors, or bishops, of Rome enjoyed a respect proportionate to the rank of the city in which they resided; and for the first few centuries of the Christian era, Rome was the largest, richest, and most powerful city in the world. It was the seat of empire, the capital of the nations. "All the inhabitants of the earth belong to her," said Julian; and Claudian declared her to be "the fountain of laws." "If Rome is the queen of cities, why should not her pastor be the king of bishops?" was the reasoning these Roman pastors adopted. "Why should not the Roman church be the mother of Christendom? Why should not all nations be her children, and her authority their sovereign law? It was easy," says D'Aubigne, from whom we quote these words (Hist. Ref., vol. 1, chap. 1), "for the ambitious heart of man to reason thus. Ambitious Rome did so."

The bishops in the different parts of the Roman empire felt a pleasure in yielding to the bishop of Rome some portion of that honor which Rome, as the queen city, received from the nations of the earth. There was originally no dependence implied in the honor thus paid. "But," continues D'Aubigne, "usurped power increases like an avalanche. Admonitions at first simply fraternal, soon became absolute commands, in the mouth of the pontiff. The western bishops favored this encroachment of the Roman pastors, either from jealousy of the eastern bishops, or because they preferred submitting to the supremacy of a pope rather than to the dominion of a temporal power."

Such were the influences clustering around the bishop of Rome, and thus was everything tending toward his speedy elevation to the supreme spiritual throne of Christendom. But the fourth century was destined to witness an obstacle thrown across the path of this ambitious dream. Arius, parish priest of the oldest and principal church of Alexandria, sprang his doctrine upon the world, occasioning so fierce a controversy in the Christian church that a general council was called at Nicæa, by the Emperor Constantine, in A. D. 325, to consider and adjust it. Arius maintained "that the Son was totally and essentially distinct from the Father; that he was the first and noblest of those beings whom the Father had created out of nothing, the instrument by whose subordinate operation the Almighty Father formed the universe, and therefore inferior to the Father both in nature and dignity." This opinion was condemned by the council, which decreed that Christ was of one and the same substance with the Father. Hereupon Arius was banished to Illyria, and his followers were compelled to give their assent to the creed composed on that occasion.—Mosheim, cent. 4, part 2, chap. 5. Stanley, Hist. of Eastern Church, p. 289.

The controversy itself, however, was not to be disposed of in this summary manner, but continued for ages to agitate the Christian world, the Arians everywhere becoming the bitter enemies of the pope and of the Roman Catholic Church. From these facts it is evident that the spread of Arianism would check the influence of the Catholics; and the possession of Rome and Italy by a people of the Arian persuasion, would be fatal to the supremacy of a Catholic bishop. But the prophecy had declared that this horn would rise to supreme power, and that in reaching this position it would Subdue three kings. Some difference of opinion has existed in regard to the particular powers which were overthrown in the interest of the Papacy, in reference to which the following remark by Albert Barnes seems very pertinent: "In the confusion that existed on the breaking up of the Roman empire, and the imperfect accounts of the transactions which occurred in the rise of the papal power, it would not be wonderful if it should be difficult to find events distinctly recorded that would be in all respects an accurate and absolute fulfillment of the vision. Yet it is possible to make out the fulfillment of this with a good degree of certainty in the history of the Papacy."—Notes on Dan. 7.

Mr. Mede supposed the three kingdoms plucked up to have been the Greeks, the Lombards, and the Franks; and Sir Isaac Newton supposes they were the Exarchate of Ravenna, the Lombards, and the Senate and Dukedom of Rome. Bishop Newton (Dissertation on the Prophecies, pp. 217, 218) states some serious objections to both these schemes. The Franks could not have been one of the these kingdoms; for they were never plucked up before the Papacy. The Lombards could not have been one of the three; for they were never made subject to the popes. Says Barnes, "I do not find, indeed, that the kingdom of the Lombards was, as is commonly stated, among the number of the temporal sovereignties that became subject to the authority of the popes." And the Senate and Dukedom of Rome could not have been the one; for, as such, they never constituted one of the ten kingdoms, three of which were to be plucked up before the little horn.

But we apprehend that the chief difficulty in the application made by these eminent commentators, lay in the fact that they supposed that the prophecy respecting the exaltation of the Papacy, was not, and could not have been, fulfilled, till the pope became a temporal prince; and hence they sought to find an accomplishment of the prophecy in the events which led to the pope's temporal sovereignty. Whereas we think the prophecy of verses 24, 25, refers not to his civil power, but to his power to domineer over the minds and consciences of men; that the pope reached this position, as will hereafter appear, in A. D. 538; and that the plucking up of the three horns took place before this, and to make way for this very exaltation to spiritual dominion. The insuperable difficulty in the way of all attempts to apply the prophecy to the Lombards and the other powers named above, is that they come altogether too late in point of time; for the prophecy deals with the arrogant efforts of the Roman pontiff to gain power, not with his endeavors to oppress and humble the nations after he had secured the supremacy.

The position is here confidently taken that the three powers, or horns, plucked up before the Papacy, were the Heruli, the Vandals, and the Ostrogoths; and this position rests upon the following statements of historians:—

Odoacer, the leader of the Heruli, was the first of the barbarians who reigned over the Romans. He took the throne of Italy, according to Gibbon (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 3, pp. 510, 515), in 476. Of his religious belief Gibbon (ib., 516) says, "Like the rest of the barbarians, he had been instructed in the Arian heresy; but he revered the monastic and episcopal characters, and the silence of the Catholics attests the toleration which they enjoyed."

Again he says (p. 547), "The Ostrogoths, the Burgundians, the Suevi, and the Vandals, who had listened to the eloquence of the Latin clergy, preferred the more intelligible lessons of the domestic teachers; and Arianism was adopted as the national faith of the warlike converts who were seated on the ruins of the Western empire. This irreconcilable difference of religion was a perpetual source of jealousy and hatred; and the reproach of Barbarian was embittered by the more odious epithet of Heretic. The heroes of the North who had submitted, with some reluctance, to believe that all their ancestors were in hell, were astonished and exasperated to learn that they themselves had only changed the mode of their eternal condemnation."

The reader is requested to consider carefully a few more historical statements which throw some light on the situation at this time. Stanley (History of the Eastern Church, p. 151,) says: "The whole of the vast Gothic population which descended on the Roman empire, so far as it was Christian at all, held to the faith of the Alexandrian heretic. Our first Teutonic version of the Scriptures was by an Arian missionary, Ulfilas. The first conqueror of Rome, Alaric, the first conqueror of Africa, Genseric, were Arians. Theodoric, the great king of Italy, and hero of the Nibelungen Lied, was an Arian. The vacant place in his massive tomb at Ravenna is a witness of the vengeance which the Orthodox took on his memory, when, in their triumph, they tore down the porphyry vase in which his Arian subjects had enshrined his ashes."

Ranke, in his History of the Popes (London ed. 1871), vol. 1, p. 9, says: "But she [the church] fell, as was inevitable, into many embarrassments, and found herself in an entirely altered condition. A pagan people took possession of Britain; Arian kings seized the greater part of the remaining West; while the Lombards, long attached to Arianism, and, as neighbors, most dangerous and hostile, established a powerful sovereignty before the very gates of Rome. The Roman Bishops, meanwhile, beset on all sides, exerted themselves with all the prudence and pertinacity which have remained their peculiar attributes, to regain the mastery—at least in their patriarchal diocese."

Machiavelli, in his History of Florence, p. 14, says: "Nearly all the wars which the northern barbarians carried on in Italy, it may be here remarked, were occasioned by the pontiffs; and the hordes with which the country was inundated, were generally called in by them."

These extracts give us a general view of the state of affairs at this time, and show us that though the hands of the Roman pontiffs might not be visibly manifest in the movements upon the political board, they constituted the power working assiduously behind the scenes to secure their own purposes. The relation which these Arian kings sustained to the pope, from which we can see the necessity of their being overthrown to make way for papal supremacy, is shown in the following testimony from Mosheim, given in his History of the Church, cent. 6, part 2, chap. 2, sec. 2:—

"On the other hand, it is certain, from a variety of the most authentic records, that both the emperors and the nations in general were far from being disposed to bear with patience the yoke of servitude which the popes were imposing upon the Christian church. The Gothic princes set bounds to the power of those arrogant prelates in Italy, permitted none to be raised to the pontificate without their approbation, and reserved to themselves the right of judging of the legality of every new election."

An instance in proof of this statement occurs in the history of Odoacer, the first Arian king above mentioned, as related by Bower in his History of the Popes, vol. 1, p. 271. When, on the death of Pope Simplicius, A. D. 483, the clergy and people had assembled for the election of a new pope, suddenly Basilius, præfectus, prætorio, and lieutenant of King Odoacer, appeared in the assembly, expressed his surprise that any such work as appointing a successor to the deceased pope should be undertaken without him, in the name of the king declared all that had been done null and void, and ordered the election to be begun anew. The horn which exercised such a restrictive power over the papal pontiff must certainly be taken out of the way before the pope could reach the predicted supremacy.