In the vision of the four great kingdoms of Daniel 7, the fourth was the one that engaged the special attention of the prophet. Though he lived in the days of Babylon, it was that fourth monarchy, Rome, and especially the events following the division of the empire, that gave him deepest concern:—
"Then I would know the truth," he said, "of the fourth beast. . . . And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom." Dan. 7: 19-22.
The symbol is clear. It shows an ecclesiastical, kingly power rising in the field of the divided Roman empire.
The empire, in fact, as shown by another line of prophetic history in the Revelation, was to give its ancient seat to this ecclesiastical power: "And the dragon [that had been working through pagan Rome] gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority." Rev. 13: 2. When Constantine removed the capital to Constantinople, that ancient city of the Cæsars was left to come into possession of the Papacy,—"that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth." Rev. 17: 18.
So the prophecy declared, and so it came to pass. Cardinal Manning wrote:—
From the hour when Constantine, in the language of the Roman law, "Deo jubente," by the command of God, translated the seat of empire to Constantinople, from that moment there never reigned in Rome a temporal prince to whom the bishop of Rome owed a permanent allegiance. From that hour God himself liberated his church.—"The Temporal Power of the Pope," page 12 (London), 1862.
And according to the prophecy, this ecclesiastical power that secured the ancient seat of empire, was to set itself forth as a king, even to rule "over the kings of the earth." The Rev. Jas. P. Conroy, in the American Catholic Quarterly Review (April, 1911), has said of the succession of the Papacy to the kingly throne:—
Long ages ago, when Rome through the neglect of the Western emperors was left to the mercy of barbarous hordes, Romans turned to one figure for aid and protection, and asked him to rule them; and thus, in this simple manner, the best title of all to kingly right, commenced the temporal sovereignty of the popes. And meekly stepping to the throne of Cæsar, the vicar of Christ took up the scepter to which the emperors and kings of Europe were to bow in reverence through so many ages.
The apostasy developed. The bishop of Rome gradually came to assert precedence over all the bishops. With the removal of the seat of the empire to Constantinople, the bishop of that city was a rival. Schaff says:—
In this long contest between the two leading patriarchs of Christendom, the patriarch of Rome at last carried the day. The monarchical tendency of the hierarchy was much stronger in the West than in the East, and was urging a universal monarchy in the church.—"History of the Christian Church," Vol. III, page 236, sec. 57.
Of the times of Pope Simplicius (A. D. 468-483), when the Western empire fell, and the division into ten kingdoms was completed, Schaff says:—
Now, to a certain extent, it [the Papacy] stepped into the imperial vacancy, and the successor of Peter became, in the mind of the Western nations, sole heir of the old Roman imperial succession.—Id., page 323, sec. 64.
The "little horn" of Daniel's prophecy was lifting itself up, with a look "more stout than his fellows." The Papacy was inheriting the power and seat and great authority, or prestige, of the universal Roman empire. The historical development was an exact filling in of the prophetic outlines. As an old English writer, Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury, quaintly said long ago:—7
If any man will consider the original of this great ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the Papacy is none other than the ghost of the deceased Roman empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.
Of the special work of this apostasy in relation to the truth of God, the angel said to Daniel:—
"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." Dan. 7: 25.
That was why Daniel said, as he pondered it after the vision, "My cogitations much troubled me, and my countenance changed in me." Verse 28. It is a mournful story that history tells of the fulfilment. A few glances at the sad record must suffice for this outline review:—
1. "He shall speak great words against the Most High."
All names which in the Scriptures are applied to Christ, by virtue of which it is established that he is over the church, all the same names are applied to the Pope.—Cardinal Bellarmine, "On the Authority of the Councils." Vol. II, page 17.
All they of the West have their eyes bent on our humility; they regard us a god on earth.—Pope Gregory II, to the Emperor Leo (Ranke's "History of the Popes," page 9, London, 1843).
The decision of the Pope and the decision of God constitute one decision. . . . Since, therefore, an appeal is always taken from an inferior judge to a superior, as no one is greater than himself, so no appeal holds when made from the Pope to God, because there is one consistory of the Pope himself and of God himself, of which consistory the Pope himself is the key-bearer and doorkeeper. Therefore no one can appeal from the Pope to God. . . . There is one decision and one curia of God and of the Pope.—Augustinus de Ancona, On an Appeal From a Decision of the Pope (from Latin copy of the writings of Augustinus, in British Museum).
How great a dignity God has conferred upon you [the priest]! how great is the privilege of your order! God has set you above kings and emperors, he has set your order above all orders; nay, rather, to express the idea more profoundly, he has set you above angels and archangels, above thrones and dominions.—St. Bernard, quoted in "Jesus Living in the Priest," by Rev. P. Millet, S. J. (New York, 1901, Benziger Brothers, printers to the Holy Apostolic See).
The prophet described that "little horn" rightly by the words, "Whose look was more stout than his fellows."
2. "And shall wear out the saints of the Most High."
The history fills in the prophetic outline in colors red and terrible. In the second century, when pagan Rome oppressed the Christians, Tertullian, one of the Catholic Fathers, wrote:—
It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions; one man's religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion—to which free will and not force should lead us.—"Ad Scapula," chap. 2 (Library of "Antenicene Fathers").
In the third century, Lactantius, another great Catholic Father, wrote:—
It is religion alone in which freedom has placed its dwelling. For it is a matter which is voluntary above all others, nor can necessity be imposed upon any, so as to worship that which he does not wish to worship.—"Epitome of the Divine Institutes," chap. 54 ("The Antenicene Fathers," Vol. VII).
This is in accord with the teaching of Jesus:—
"Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's; and unto God the things that are God's." Matt. 22: 21. "If any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not. . . . The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." John 12: 47, 48. "My kingdom is not of this world." John 18: 36.
"The weapons of our warfare," said the apostle Paul, "are not carnal." But a change came, a "falling away," as the prophecy predicted. The fallen church coveted the power of earthly kingdoms; and laying aside the "sword of the Spirit," it seized the sword of civil power. Prof. Alfred Baudrillart, rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris, says:—
The Catholic Church is a respecter of conscience and of liberty, as we were lately reminded in clear and beautiful language from the pulpit of Notre Dame; with Saint Bernard, the Fathers, and other theologians, she believes and professes that faith is a work of persuasion, not of force, "fides suadenda est, non imponenda." She has, and she loudly proclaims that she has, a "horror of blood." Nevertheless when confronted by heresy, she does not content herself with persuasion; arguments of an intellectual and moral order appear to her insufficient, and she has recourse to force, to corporal punishment, to torture. She creates tribunals like those of the Inquisition. She calls the laws of state to her aid; if necessary, she encourages a crusade, or a religious war, and all her "horror of blood" practically culminates into urging the secular power to shed it, which proceeding is almost more odious—for it is less frank—than shedding it herself. Especially did she act thus in the sixteenth century with regard to Protestants. Not content to reform morally, to preach by example, to convert people by eloquent and holy missionaries, she lit in Italy, in the Low Countries, and above all in Spain, the funeral piles of the Inquisition. In France, under Francis I and Henry II, in England under Mary Tudor, she tortured the heretics, whilst both in France and Germany during the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century, if she did not actually begin, at any rate she encouraged and actively aided the religious wars. No one will deny that we have here a great scandal to our contemporaries.—"The Catholic Church, the Renaissance and Protestantism," pages 182, 183 (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., London, 1908).
The testimony is sufficient to recall the long history of those dark days when the Roman Catholic Church was dominant among earthly powers. It shows that the cruel work predicted was accomplished. The Catholic writer states the facts frankly; for his answer to this record of the past is that a change has come. "A gentler spirit prevails." "The church no longer thinks of using its ancient rights, and the state, supposing it returned to Catholicism, would beware of helping her even if asked."—Id., page 184. And, furthermore, the writer shows that some Protestants in the old days got possession of civil power and used it against Catholics, even to the death, and against dissenters from popular religious practises and teachings.
But this is only to argue that those who came out from the Roman Papacy in the Reformation times saw many things with the eyes of their former teacher. The leaven of the papal principle of union of the civil and the religious was still working. And no Protestant can consistently protest against the persecutions of the dark ages who does not take his stand squarely on the Christian principle that religion shall not seek the aid of civil power.
3. "And think to change times and laws."
As the apostasy was a "falling away" from the truth of God, the change in times and laws must relate to God's law and God's time. Yet it was all to be done in the name of divine authority; for the "lawless" one of prophecy was to sit "as God," "in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God."
The standards of the Roman Church plainly declare that the church has made one great change that affects God's law at the very point of God's time. The law of God says:—
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God."
The Catholic Church claims to have changed the day of the Sabbath. In the Catholic work, "An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine" (page 58), under questions on the fourth commandment, we read:—
Question.—By whom was it changed?
Answer.—By the governors of the church.
Ques.—How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days?
Ans.—By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of, and therefore they fondly contradict themselves by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same church.
Ques.—How prove you this?
Ans.—Because by keeping Sunday they acknowledge the church's power to ordain feasts and to command them under sin.8
The prophecy foretold that this apostasy, which began its lawless working in apostolic days, would "think" to change times and laws. In Challoner's "Catholic Christian Instructed," page 211, we read again:—
Ques.—What was the reason why the weekly Sabbath was changed from the Saturday to the Sunday?
Ans.—Because our Lord fully accomplished the work of our redemption by rising from the dead on a Sunday, and by sending down the Holy Ghost on a Sunday; as therefore the work of our redemption was a greater work than that of our creation, the primitive church thought [italics ours] the day in which this work was completely finished, was more worthy her religious observation than that in which God rested from the creation, and should properly be called the Lord's day.
That is what the primitive church "thought," the catechism says; and that is what the prophecy said the church of the "falling away" would "think." However early it began to work, it came to its full development within a few centuries of apostolic times. The councils of this church denounced the keeping of the seventh day, which God had made holy, and enjoined the Sunday festival, which men had substituted. The Scriptures know nothing of First-day sacredness. Cardinal Gibbons says:—
You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.—"The Faith of Our Fathers," page 111.
The three counts of the prophecy are sustained by history. The Roman Papacy has spoken great words against the Most High; it has worn out the saints of the Most High; and it has thought to change the times and the laws of the Most High. W. A. S.