Prophetic Specifications of the Little Horn—Their Application to Rome
In our last issue, twenty-nine specifications of the prophecy of Daniel 8 were noted. The first three of these pertain to the time of the culmination of the prophecy in its fulness, its intensity, its understanding: (1) The vision that is twice told belongs to "the time of the end;" (2) It reveals what shall be in "the latter time of the indignation;" (3) It belongs to the "many days to come," and therefore is to be considered as among the many things "shut up" until "the appointed time of the end." Dan. 8: 26; 12: 4-9. Besides these three specifications regarding the vision in general, and its culmination in "the time of the end," we have twenty-six specifications, or particulars, concerning the character and work of that little horn. Thirteen of these are taken from the prophet’s description of the symbol and its work (Dan. 8: 9-14), and thirteen from Gabriel’s explanation (verses 20-25). In our study of the application of these particulars we will simplify as far as consistent, by combining duplicate specifications and merging others, as follows: - The little horn power came out of one of the four powers represented by the four horns of the goat. Verse 9.
- It arises to power in the latter time of the kingdom of the four horns, when their transgressions are come to the full. Verse 23.
- It would wax "exceeding great." Verse 9.
- Its conquests would be extended toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.
- It would be a cruel, destroying power, symbolized by the fierce countenance. Verses 23, 24.
- It would deal in and understand dark sentences. Verse 23. Compare Deut. 28:49, 50.
- It would become mighty not by its own power—that is, it would be supported and made mighty by another. Verse 24.
- It waxed great to the host of heaven, casting down some of the host of the stars to the ground, destroying wonderfully the mighty ones and the holy people. Verses 10, 24. Compare chapter 7:24, 25.
- It would magnify itself in its heart. Verse 25. Compare chapter 11:36; 2 Thess. 2:4.
- It would magnify itself even to the Prince of the host, or stand up against the Prince of Princes. Verses 11, 25.
- It would take away from the Prince of the host the daily (sacrifice, or continual burnt offering) given into its power through transgression. Verse 11.
- The place of the Prince's sanctuary would be cast down. Verse 11.
- The host of the Prince, together with the continual, was given over to it through transgression. Verse 12.
- It would destroy many by peace and prosperity. Verse 25.
- It did its pleasure, and prospered for a long time. Verses 12, 24.
- It cast down the truth to the ground, corrupting it by craft and policy. Verses 12, 25.
- Its blasting, blighting effect would be manifest until the long period of 2,300 evenings and mornings should end. Verse 14.
- It should be broken without hand, or continue until God should judge. Verse 26.
Analogy, as well as the terms of the prophecy, would fix the application of the above particulars to the successor in world empire of Grecia; and that successor is Rome — Rome in its entirety as a world power. Do these particulars — earmarks, so to speak, these insignia of identification — apply to Rome? We believe they do. Let us study them. In the prophet’s vision, the little horn came out of one of the four horns of the goat. Is this true of Rome? Note the following: (a) In all probability the Latin tribes, the ancient people who made Rome great, came from Greece, or were but offshoots of the Hellenic or Grecian tribes. Ridpath says: "The Greek and Latin languages, if other evidence were wanting, prove conclusively the original tribal identity of the two races by which they were spoken. The institutions of the two peoples also, springing naturally into existence under the necessity of their surroundings and the impulse of innate preference, point with equal certainty to the primitive unity of the Græco-Italic race."—"Universal History," volume 3, page 47. The historian goes farther than this. He gives good evidence in the same connection that the Pelasgians, the earliest inhabitants of Italy, were identical with the Græco-Italic family. "Adams’s Historical Chart" also places the origin of Rome with the Grecian people. (b) Rome’s world triumphs were just beginning when she came into decisive conflict with one of the divisions of Alexander’s empire. Up to the time of her war with Macedon, the conquests of Rome were confined to the Mediterranean. All Italy was not conquered until B.C. 266. Syracuse was captured in B.C. 212. It was twelve years later before Roman ascendancy was assured in the Mediterranean by the conquest of Carthage. Then began war with Macedon, the strength of the Grecian empire, and the people whence Rome sprang was conquered in B.C. 168. Really the decisive battle was fought in B.C. 197. Macedon became a second-rate power, and Philip V paid tribute to Rome. Had Rome failed in her wars with Macedon she never would have become a world power; but that conquest gave Rome greatly added prestige, and whetted her insatiate ambition for world conquest. (c) The little horn was a continuation of the beast power. It was a development in the kingdom of man, as was the iron which followed the brass in the image. The metals were distinct, but both belonged to the same image. Grecia and Rome were distinct powers, but both were Babylonian, both having the same Babylonian spirit of exaltation, rebellion against God, and intolerance toward His people — Rome’s origin racially being Hellenic, her nature Babylonian as was that of preceding dynasties, and the prestige coming from her power in overthrowing Macedon. (d) Then, too, the very corruptions in Rome, Mahaffy points out, came from the debasing influences of depraved Greek culture, which Rome absorbed, so that while Rome conquered Greece politically, she herself was banefully molded by Greece. What wonder, then, that God represented this horn as having its base, its root, its feeder, in another horn without which it must have remained an inconsiderable power! From the conquest of Macedon and Greece, Rome began her world conquering career. Thus in the light of her origin and the position and prestige to which conquest raised her, Rome could well be said to have come forth from one of the four horns (the Macedonian) of the goat. The little horn arises to world power in the latter time of the four horn kingdoms, when their transgressions are come to the full. God not only tolerates earthly empires, kingdoms, States; He uses them as long as they will be used. Nebuchadnezzar was His servant (Jer. 27: 6); so also was Cyrus (Isa. 44: 28; 45: 1-3); and so also are other powers. "The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will." Dan. 4: 17. "He removeth kings, and setteth up kings." Dan. 2: 21. He would have used Egypt to her good even as He used Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia, Rome, Germany, England, America; but if a State will not be used of God, He will cast it down from its great height, break down its mighty walls, and open its invulnerable gates. The day of each great world power is reckoned from the time of its certain dominance to its decline. But one king is named in God’s Word after the great Nebuchadnezzar, under whose rule Babylon reached her zenith, and that is the weak, dissolute, sacrilegious Belshazzar, under whom the empire came to an end. But one Persian king is referred to in Dan. 11: 3, after Darius Hystaspes brought the empire to its greatest glory, and that is Xerxes, under whom Persia began her decline by the loss of European prestige and territory. The four divisions of Alexander’s empire began their career in B.C. 301. As great kingdoms they ran a brief course. Macedon and Greece passed through a fearfully checkered career after the death of Cassander. Lysimachus lost his dominions in Asia Minor and Europe, then including Macedon, in the year 281 B.C., to Seleucus. The Syrian division reached its climax in the reign of Antiochus Magnus, B.C. 238 to 187, who in his later years felt the heavy hand of Rome, and paid tribute to the power on the Tiber. But two kings of Syria came into the power of chapter 11, after Antiochus Magnus, when Rome again speaks. Egypt is also at this time in her degenerate condition, under the protection of Rome. It was truly in the latter time of their kingdom that Rome became the rising power in the world. And the corruptions and weaknesses of all these powers had become so manifest that God appointed their doom. They had filled up the measure of their iniquity, and the coming event of Roman triumph had "cast its shadows before." The little horn was to wax exceeding great (verse 9). The Medo-Persian ram became "great" (verse 4); the Grecian goat became "very great" (verse 8); the little horn waxed "exceeding great." While we would not contend that the terms relating to the growth and progress of the three prophetic symbols of Daniel 8 are a series of comparative terms, yet they are striking in this respect. They clearly show that the power of the little horn required a stronger term to express its growth than did either that of the ram or that of the goat. The ram became "great;" the goat "very great;" and the little horn waxed "exceeding great." It was a worthy world power successor of the goat empire, tho it originated in the goat empire itself. God saw in the very small origin of that Roman people the iron power which would rule the world. Antiochus IV found his own territory subject to Rome, and he left it less than he found it, submitting himself to the demands of Rome. Brought down by his former friend, Popilius, Antiochus grew less; Rome waxed exceeding great. The conquests of the little horn would be waged toward the south and toward the east and toward the pleasant land (Palestine). Rome began her world-conquering career toward the south. Syracuse was subjugated in B.C. 212, Carthage was conquered in B.C. 200, during the very time when Antiochus the Great was waging conquering wars in the Far East. In 168 B.C. Macedon was fully conquered, and the mighty European power on the Tiber stepped forth from the great drama as a world conqueror, and as a world dictator. Rome came into league with the Jews in B.C. 161. Syria continued by sufferance. Egypt finally fell in B.C. 31, and the kingdom of David in the "pleasant land" met the third overturning predicted in Eze. 21: 25-27. Rome was universal.7 The little horn would be a cruel, destroying power. Its countenance was "fierce." It destroyed wonderfully. It symbolized a strong, energetic, cruel power. So Rome is called in Deut. 28: 50 "a nation of fierce countenance." See also Isa. 19: 4. Fierce, strong, harsh, over-mastering, cruel, well describes the Roman power in its entirety. The little horn power would deal in dark sentences. In warning Moses of the coming oppressors, God describes Rome as "a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand." Deut. 28: 49. This was true when Rome came into connection with Israel. How true it is, also, in Rome's ecclesiastical, or ritual services, conducted largely in a tongue not understood by the people, and manifest, too, in all her subtle disquisitions and definitions in theology! The little horn would become mighty, but not by its own power. Verse 24. The great apostasies of the world are portrayed in the form of a great seven-headed, ten-horned, composite beast in Rev. 13: 1-10. Among these great powers is Rome, represented in her two phases by two of the heads. It is said of this beast, especially in its Roman phase, "The dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority." Rev. 13: 2. By referring to the previous chapter, we learn that the dragon is a symbol of that arch-apostate, the devil, working through earthly powers. Rev. 12: 3, 4, 9. His very masterpiece for world dominion, for overmastering lordship of the bodies and souls of men, has been Rome in both pagan and papal phases. That her devotees do not see this, that many are conscientious, sincere, faithful to the light they have, does not alter the great fact that the exaltation of men to the place of God, the effort to control and bind conscience, is not of God, but is of the evil one. The little horn power would wax great to the host of heaven. Verses 10, 24. In other words, it assumed to govern conscience, and took a stronger hold upon the relationship between God and man than any previous power had assumed to do. It cast down some of the host of the stars to the ground, and trampled upon them. God's people are likened to the stars. Gen. 15: 5; Heb. 11: 12. It would destroy wonderfully the mighty ones, the holy people. The margin reads, "He shall corrupt the mighty ones." In other words, he will do the work of the one who gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority. When Lucifer fell he drew after him the third part of the stars, or angels of God. He corrupted the mighty; he cast them down to earth. The evidences are that he is a cruel master, a persecuting tyrant to his own. The little horn power carries on the same work in the earth that Satan began among the sons of God on high. The little horn power destroys by corrupting and persecuting. The very heart of God's people, the priesthood, became corrupted in Roman politics in the very beginning of Rome's connection with the Jews. And that work has gone on from that time to the present. It would magnify itself in its heart. Even so Rome is referred to in Dan. 11: 36, 37; and 2 Thess. 2: 4. Even so will great Babylon do, that last great, queenly apostasy which shall commit fornication with all the kings of the earth, and which is met in no other power save that of the Papacy and those who follow that system. Rev. 18: 7. Rome's ancient emperors in paganism assumed divine prerogatives. These assumptions have been magnified under the Papacy in the titles conferred upon man, in the assumption of authority to make and unmake kings, to speak infallibly, to forgive sins, to change the law of the Most High, and to deliver over to death all who will not bow to her assumptions and imperial mandates. We wish to say again, and emphasize the thought, that we are not condemning individuals, persons, Catholics, but the system of the Papacy. There are many Roman Catholics who live above the system, who, tho hindered in knowledge by the system, are true in heart to God. All of them, as all outside of the Roman fold, are amenable to God, and shall stand before His judgment-seat; and there we leave them, praying for them the same mercy and grace we ask for ourselves. But we believe that the system itself which exalts man to the place of God is evil, and it is against this which God warns us in this and kindred prophecies. It magnified itself even to the Prince of the host. In the angel's explanation he says, "He shall also stand up against the Prince of Princes." Verses 11, 25. This, too, has been emphatically true of Rome. Herod was a subject-king of Rome. The devil instigated him to destroy the little children — the slaughter of which is recorded in Matthew 2 — in the hope of slaying the infant Jesus. Pilate was a Roman governor who pronounced sentence of condemnation and death upon Jesus, at the time of His crucifixion. In a far subtler way the Roman power in its papal form has taken the Saviour from His rightful place, shut Him from humanity by a cordon of priests and saints, taken from Him the glory of His humiliation, degraded Him by the "sacrifice of the mass," and made access to His eternal, infinite depths of love impossible save through a finite mediator. Truly that horn has stood up against the Prince of Princes, who longs to come into closest living connection with every soul redeemed by His blood. But of this more later.