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THE KINGDOM OF RAVENNA

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International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 7, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 1.

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"THE KINGDOM OF RAVENNA."

By James White

IN an article published some time since in the SIGNS, I find the following remark about Sir Isaac Newton's enumeration of the ten kingdoms:—
“We know not at what date Sir Isaac found these, only that, as he names ‘the kingdom [exarchate] of Ravenna,’ it must have been somewhere between A. D. 554 and 752, for that is the time of the existence of the exarchate of Ravenna.”
Thinking that many readers may desire to know what Sir Isaac did say upon this subject, I submit the following:—
Sir Isaac Newton was far from being definite in regard to the rise of the ten kingdoms, as he gives, not the time when kingdoms were established within the territory of Western Rome, but the time of the reign of certain kings of the several nations, whether before or after they entered that territory. But the dates gathered from his comments are as follows: Vandals and Alans, Spain and Africa, 407–533; Suevians, Spain, 407–585; Visigoths, 400; Alans, Gallia, 407–511; Burgundians, 407–700; Franks, 407; Britons, 407; Huns, 406; Lombards, 395–774; Ravenna, 408–800.
Why he gives the Britons 407 is not easy to imagine. Honorius renounced his dominion over Britain in 414, releasing the inhabitants from their allegiance, because he was not able to spare soldiers to defend it. However, some help was sent in 416, and also in 418; but the Roman soldiers took their final leave in 420. (“History of Great Britain,” Robert Henry, D. D., London, 1771.) The Saxons took possession in 449.
The most singular part of his comments is his views of the plucking up of the three kingdoms. He gives them as follows: Ravenna, 752; Lombards, 774; Senate of Rome, 800! Thus he has three of the original kingdoms overthrown before the three are plucked up, and one of the three plucked up did not belong to the ten, except as a part of another of the three, for in his comments he included the city and Senate of Rome in the kingdom of Ravenna.
The plucking up of the last of the three which he names—Senate of Rome—he has accomplished by Charlemagne, A. D. 800, at which date the saints and times and laws were given into the hands of the Papacy. According to that, the 1260 years began at that time, and would end A. D. 2060. After the expiration of that period he thinks the kingdom and dominion will be given—“but by degrees”—to the people of the saints of the Most High.
This system, if it can be called a system, might be considered a curiosity if it had been written in the present century. The copy from which I take these items was printed in London in 1733,—more than half a century before the beast received its deadly wound. Still there are some things in these comments for which no good reason can be offered.
Had Sir Isaac Newton—and others as well—kept in view two expressions of the prophecy, he would of necessity have given a more consistent exposition: “There came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots.” Dan. 7:8.
J. H. W.