The Roman Empire | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 22, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 40.

The Roman Empire.

“And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron; forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things; and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.” Dan. 2:40.

It is certain that of these four kingdoms of the prophecy, each is universal in its time and place, and so in the very nature of the case must be successive. Of the kingdoms of Nebuchadnezzar it is said, “Wheresoever the children of men dwell, . . . hath He given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all.” Of the next kingdom it was said: “And after thee shall arise another kingdom.” The preceding one extending over all civilized countries, when another should arise it must establish its authority and ascendancy, or it could not be recognized as “another kingdom;” and the only way in which it could possibly so establish itself would be by overturning the power which then exerted the universal rule, which, of necessity, would plant itself as the successor in that supremacy. This view is made positive by the words which introduce the next; the “third kingdom of brass, which” should “bear rule over all the earth.” By the terms which describe the place of each of these three kingdoms it is literally impossible that more than one of them could be in existence at the same time.

Having seen the extent of the “third kingdom”—that of the Grecian—it is plain that when the “fourth kingdom” shall arise it must be universal, as was each of the three which preceded it in the description given by the prophet. Especially must this be so, in view of the words in which it is set forth as being “strong as iron,” and as iron that breaketh all things, “so shall it break in pieces and bruise.” This shows that, as iron is the strongest of metals, so the fourth kingdom should be the strongest of these kingdoms. Therefore the fourth kingdom must be stronger than the Grecian under Alexander the Great; and as that bore rule over all the then known earth, this can do no less; and for the fourth kingdom we must look for one that ruled the more widely known world more absolutely than it was ruled by Alexander the Great.

This fourth kingdom is fairly, and nicely, introduced in the last historical quotation which we gave on the extent of the kingdom of Alexander the Great. We will here reproduce that part of the quotation:—

“History may allow us to think that Alexander and a Roman ambassador did meet at Babylon; that the greatest man of the ancient world saw and spoke with a citizen of that great nation, which was destined to succeed him in his appointed work, and to found a wider and still more enduring empire.”—Arnold’s History of Rome, chap. 30, par. 2.

And every school-boy who has ever read in McGuffey’s old Fifth Reader, knows of “Rome, That sat on her seven hills, and from her throne Of beauty ruled the world!” And how that “in that elder day, to be a Roman, Was greater than a king.”

The Scripture, too, speaks of the widespread power of Rome, saying:— “And in those days there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” Luke 2:1.

Cæsar Augustus was the first emperor of Rome. His name was originally Caius Octavius; but as he was grand-nephew to the great Julius Cæsar, and as that great man adopted him into his own family titles and honors, and made him his heir, with the name of Caius Octavius was incorporated that of Julius Cæsar, and then his name stood, Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus. Then when he became the sole head of the mighty empire of Rome, as he already bore the name of the “greatest man of the Roman, or perhaps of all the ancient world,” in casting about for a title most befitting his majesty,—

“At last he fixed upon the epithet Augustus, a name which no man had borne before, and which, on the contrary, had been applied to things the most noble, most venerable, and most sacred. The rites of the gods were called august; their temples were august. The word itself was derived from the holy auguries; it was connected in meaning with the abstract term authority, and with all that increases and flourishes upon earth. The use of this glorious title could not fail to smooth the way to the general acceptance of the divine character of the mortal who was deemed worthy to bear it.”—Encyc. Brit., art. Augustus and the Augustan Age.

And as thus he bore the greatest name,—Cæsar,—and the most sacred and authoritative title known to the Roman world, his own name now assumed the form Cæsar Augustus. He it was who issued the decree “that all the world should be taxed.” Not taxed in the form of levying and collecting money, as we now understand the word, but rather an enrollment, or, as we would now express it, he ordered a census of the empire to be taken.

To see how fitly Luke’s words describe the extent of the power of Cæsar Augustus and of Rome, and to show how perfectly Rome fulfills the prophecy of the fourth kingdom, we shall now present the testimony of the most authoritative writers. We can introduce this no better than with the following words of Gibbon:—

“The empire of the Romans filled the world, and when that empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. The slave of imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to drag his gilded chain in Rome and the senate, or to wear out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or the frozen banks of the Danube, expected his fate in silent despair. To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. On every side he was encompassed with a vast extent of sea and land, which he could never hope to traverse without being discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master. Beyond the frontiers, his anxious view could discover nothing except the ocean, inhospitable deserts, hostile tribes of barbarians, of fierce manners and unknown language, or dependent kings, who would gladly purchase the emperor’s protection by the sacrifice of an obnoxious fugitive. Wherever you are, said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus, remember that you are equally within the power of the conqueror.”—Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 3, par. 37.

In illustration of the absolute power exerted by the emperor, Gibbon subjoins the following two notes:—

“Seriphus was a small and rocky island in the Ægean Sea, the inhabitants of which were despised for their ignorance and obscurity. The place of Ovid’s exile is well known, by his just, but unmanly lamentations. It should seem, that he only received an order to leave Rome in so many days, and to transport himself to Tomi. Guards and gaolers were unnecessary. “Under Tiberius, a Roman knight attempted to fly to the Parthians. He was stopped in the straits of Sicily; but so little danger did there appear in the example, that the most jealous of tyrants disdained to punish it.”—Id.

Ovid was banished by Cæsar Augustus. Tomi was a “semi-Greek semi-barbaric town,” on the coast of the Black Sea; about ninety miles south of the mouth of the Danube. There, to “the very outskirts of civilization,” he was ordered to go; there he went, and there he remained about eight years, even to the day of his death; and all that was required to either take or keep him there, was the word of the emperor of Rome. Thus far-reaching; and so absolute, was the power of Rome.

“That imperatorial dignity . . . was undoubtedly the sublimest incarnation of power, and a monument the mightiest of greatness built by human hands, which upon this planet has been suffered to appear.”—De Quincey’s Essays, The Cæsars, chap. 6, last paragraph, last sentence.

“But the same omnipresence of imperial anger and retribution which withered the hopes of the poor humble prisoner, met and confounded the emperor himself, when hurled from his giddy height by some fortunate rival. All the kingdoms of the earth, to one in that situation, became but so many wards of the same infinite prison. Flight, if it were even successful for the moment, did but little retard his inevitable doom. And so evident was this, that hardly in one instance did the fallen prince attempt to fly, but passively met the death which was inevitable, in the very spot where ruin had overtaken him.”—Id., The Cæsars, introduction, par. 12.

“Rome, therefore, which came last in the succession, and swallowed up the three great powers that had seriatim cast the human race into one mould, and had brought them under the unity of a single will, entered by inheritance upon all that its predecessors in that career had appropriated, but in a condition of far ampler development. Estimated merely by longitude and latitude, the territory of the Roman Empire was the finest, by much, that has ever fallen under a single scepter. . . . Rome laid a belt about the Mediterranean of a thousand miles in breadth; and within that zone she comprehended not only all the great cities of the ancient world, but so perfectly did she lay the garden of the world in every climate, and for every mode of natural wealth, within her own ring-fence, that, since that era, no land, no part and parcel of the Roman Empire, has ever risen into strength and opulence, except where unusual artificial industry has availed to counteract the tendencies of nature. So entirely had Rome engrossed whatsoever was rich by the mere bounty of native endowment. Vast, therefore unexampled, immeasurable, was the basis of natural power upon which the Roman throne reposed.”—Id., paragraph 8.

“Its range, the compass of its extent, was appalling to the imagination. Coming last among what are called the great monarchies of prophecy, it was the only one which realized in perfection the idea of a monarchia, being (except for Parthia and the great fable of India beyond it) strictly coincident with the civilized world: Civilization and this empire were commensurate; they were interchangeable ideas and co-extensive. . . . The vast power and domination of the Roman Empire, for the three centuries which followed the battle of Actium, have dazzled the historic eye. . . . The battle of Actium was followed by the final conquest of Egypt. That conquest rounded and integrated the glorious empire; it was now circular as a shield. . . . From that day forward, for three hundred years, there was silence in the world; no muttering was heard; no eye winked beneath the wing. Winds of hostility might still rave at intervals; but it was on the outside of the mighty empire; it was at a dream-like distance; and, like the storms that beat against some monumental castle, and at the doors and windows seem to call, they rather irritated and vivified the sense of security, than at all disturbed its luxurious lull.”—Id., Philosophy of Roman History, par. 1, 2.

(To be Continued.)

A. T. J.