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4. The
Prophecy about 1260 days
of
the power of the little horn
A horn in a prophecy. A
horn in a prophecy symbolizes a some person. As we will see later, in the
prophecy about 2300 days it represents Alexander the Great and his 4 generals.
The little horn has eyes and mouth, it acting against the saints, and even it
symbolizes the system- papacy, it still represents a one person at time – a
pop.
Adventists do not have an order in their explanations on this subject: they
agree that in 2300 days prophecy a horn represents a person, however they teach
that 10 horns of the awful beast –Roman empire- are 10 tribes the empire was
divided into. We need to understand what it really means, because we will need
it further. So, lets see is Adventists point about 10 horns as 10 tribes the
right one? Adventists
teach: 10 German tribes divided Roman empire: Three: So
the prophecy tells, that all 10 horns were until the little horn appeared, and after the little horn had appeared 3 horns were plucked out. And after they disappeared the little horn got eyes and mouth speaking
blasphemy. However Vandals disappeared in 533AD, before the apparition of the
horn . Heruly were not plucked out by roots. There was no pressure on them. They
were just mixed with Romans, were christianized and Romanized, and it’s not
known when they finally disappeared. Ostrogoths
disappeared in 553, however papacy (the little horn) didn’t have an
independency (eyes and mouth) at that time. Another
problem is that: there were more than the listed 10 tribes at that time, besides
them these are: Gepids (disappeared in 567), Rugians (in 554), Basques
(inhabited Pyrenees in North-Central Spain and the adjoining region of
South-Western France), Viennensis (today France), Gauls (France), Bavarians
(south Germany)… So
10 horns in this prophecy can not represent 10 nations. However they are
represent 10 persons.
Lets make a little
excursion in Roman history. In 395 AD -
Roman emperor Theodosius I died and
the empire was divided between his too sons: Honorius
got the West (in 402 he made Ravenna the capital of the West instead of
Rome), Arcadius
- East (Byzantium - Constantinople). At that time the western empire had
many interventions from different Germanic tribes. In
410 Rome was occupied by Visigoths. That was the first time since 390 BC that Rome had been
sacked. The
West sank into anarchy. In this
general disintegration the bishops of Rome, greatly
increased their power and prestige, thus restoring to Rome in the religious
field the importance it had lost in the political. Thus by the efforts
of Roman bishop Leo I (St. Leo the Great) Atilla,
king of the Huns (445–53), was kept from sacking Rome.
In 455 Vandals took Rome. In 475 Huns drove western Emperor Julius Nepos out of Ravenna and proclaimed their king - Romulus Augustus as emperor. In
476, Heruli sacked Rome, deposed Romulus Augustus and erected their ruler -
Odoacer. At that time Western Roman empire finished: after 476 rulers of the
western land were foreigners. Odoacer made
pacts with the Franks and Visigoths against the Burgundians, Alamanni, and
Saxons, his kingdom expanded, his popularity among the Italic people grew, that
started to worry Eastern Emperor Zeno, who increasingly saw Odoacer as a rival. In
488 he asked Ostrogoths
recover Italy from Odoacer. By
493 Ravenna was taken by Ostrogoths. Later Ostrogothic power was fully
established over Italy, Sicily and Dalmatia. On other hand there was no imperial
organized power on those
lands, emperor and his army were far away, in Constantinople.
People didn’t have a protection from foreign tyrants. The only imperial power
there was the Church, which by bribery, diplomacy, threats and promises of a
divine help could achieve some freedoms from Ostrogoths for roman people. In
537 Ostrogoths besieged Rome. In 538
Justinian’s general Belisarius
freed Rome. In 546, the Ostrogoths under Totila recaptured and sacked the city
of Rome. The Byzantine
general Belisarius recaptured Rome but the Ostrogoths took it again in 549.
Only with death of Totila in 552 the long struggle between Byzantium and
the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy was finished, and Rome was freed from
the Ostrogoths for good. Eastern
emperor Maurice I (582 - 602) get worried and for control of the West the
imperial exarchate in Ravenna was organized, where his representative should
have executive power of the
emperor and be in connection with him all the time.
This is the map of 600AD. Pink – imperial territory, orange – Lombard’s territory. Lucania and Calabria were separated for a short time. On the next map you will see that they were united under one name- Calabria. Besides the Exarchate of Ravenna, Sicily also belonged to Byzantine, but it formed a separate government. Corsica and Sardinia, while they remained Byzantine, belonged to the Byzantine Exarchate of Africa. Because of theological differences (iconoclasm) with the church of the East, popes of the West had big problems with the imperial power, which support the eastern church. In 715-16 pope Gregory II (715-31) excommunicated emperor Leo III, who tried to impose iconoclasm in Italy by an imperial edict. Pope Zacharias (741–52) even didn’t seek confirmation of his election from the Byzantine emperor any longer. That results in popular uprising directed at the exarch of Ravenna, the emperor’s viceroy in Italy. In 751 using the problems the papacy had with the empire, Lombards took the Exarchate of Ravenna. Pope Stephen II appealed to the ruler of Franks Pepin the Short for help to return the territories of the Exarchate in exchange for recognition him as king of Franks. Pepin proclaimed himself as a king, and later (754, 756) had invaded Italy against the Lombards from whom he wrested the exarchate of Ravenna and other cities
In
756 Pepin the Short gave the pope temporal jurisdiction over Rome and
surrounding areas, thus creating the Papal States. Three rulers of: 1) Ravenna,
2) Duchy of Pentapolis, 3) Duchy of Perugia (Perusia), whose land was
included in the Church property, lost their positions.
When Charlemagne - the son of Pepin the Short, came to power after death of his brother Carloman, with whom he shared in the succession to his father’s kingdom, he disinherited his sons, who fled with their mother to the king of the Lombards. When in 772 Lombards conquered part of the papal lands and attempted to force Pope Adrian I to recognize Carloman’s sons, Charlemagne intervened (773) on the side of the pope and defeated the Lombards. He confirmed the papacy in possession of Ravenna, Pentapolis and Perugia the so-called Donation of Pepin. The coronation (in 800) at
Rome of Charlemagne as emperor of the West ended all question of Byzantine
authority over Rome, but it also inaugurated an era characterized by the
ambiguous relationship between the emperors and the popes. That era was
punctuated by visits to the city by the German kings, to be crowned emperor or
to secure the election of a pope to their liking or to impose their will on the
pope. Thus, 2)
papacy didn’t receive power in
538 as Adventist teach, it received
the juridical right for the power in 606 as we will see further. 3)
When papacy appeared in 606 (apparition of the little horn) the western
Empire was divided into 10 regions
(from 580-90) with 10 rulers (10 horns). In 756 three regions: Ravenna,
Pentapolis and Perugia, were added to Duchy of Rome – the Roman Church. Just
in that time the church got the power to recognize (Pepin the Short-
Carolingians) or reject (Merovingian dynasty) emperors (i.e. the little horn
received eyes and mouth to dictate
its conditions).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrogothic The only goal of this lesson is to find out the time of the power of the little horn -Vatican. Adventist teach, that 1260 years of the little horn power lasted from 538AD to 1798AD. In 1798 “French armies under Gen. Louis Alexandre Berthier marched on Rome, … and demanded that Pius [VI] renounce his temporal [civil] sovereignty. At his refusal the pope was taken prisoner and held first at Siena and ultimately at Valence, France, where he died." (Infopedia, Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopedia on CD-ROM. Copyright 1996 by Soft Key) http://www.bibleexplained.com/revelation/r-seg13-14/rev13b.html 1260 years earlier, in AD. 538, the Ostrogoths were defeated in their attempt to take the city of Rome, Rome was freed, and pope in Rome got the power in the Western Roman Empire (Thomas Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, 2nd ed. Oxford Clrendon Press, 1885-1889; 4:250). There
4 points made by Adventists are wrong: 1)When
in 538AD emperor Justinian
reconquered the city of Rome
from the Ostrogoths Vatican hadn’t gain a power. The emperor tried to conquer the western provinces from the Germanic
tribes in order to expand the borders of the Byzantine empire. Justinian viewed
himself as the new Constantine I. He believed in a Mediterranean-wide Christian
order politically, religiously and economically united under a single Christian
emperor. The Church was an instrument in the hands of the emperor, and even
Justinian gave the church a lot of his concern, he never gave a sovereign
independent authority to it. A
pope still remained under
submission of the emperor. 2). As we shall see further, when in 1798 the French general put the Roman pope into the prison, he didn't destroy the papacy. We need to remember, that the little horn represents not just a certain individual, but the system - papacy, and it peacefully existed more than 50 years after Pius VI was taken to the prison. 3) The Bible says: “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 favor of the saints of the most High” (Dan.7:21). The battle with the saints is the inquisition which was carried on by the Roman Catholic church. During it millions non believers along with true believers who rejected prayers to icons, to saints, Mary and ctr. were killed. The inquisition in Spain, where it was especially long, was finished completely only in 1834 (www.answers.com). Vatican could not lose its authority in 1798 and continue the inquisition till 1834. Besides
historical discrepancies, there are also a theological roughness. So, Daniel
told about a little horn, that « he shall be broken without hand» (8:25). Taking the pope by Napoleon to the prison in 1798 AD is “by
hand”. Thus, 1798 AD as the
end of the power of the little horn-Vatican- is the wrong date. In 1797 Napoleon Bonaparte imposed the Treaty of Tolentino on the pope Pius VI. By its terms the papacy was forced to cede part of the Papal States to a puppet republic Napoleon had organized in Northern Italy. The French authorities ordered Pius VI to leave the Vatican. He was escorted to Sienna in 1798, where he died in 1799. The papal conclave eventually gathered on the island of San Grigorio Maggiore, where after three months it elected cardinal Chiaramonte who took the name of Pius VII. He returned to Rome in July 1800. In Rome Pope Pius VII stiffened against Napoleon. In 1809 Napoleon annexed the Papal States to his empire, arrested the pope, and transported him to Savona. Eventually the pope remained a prisoner until after Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig in the Battle of Nations in 1813. By his resistance to Napoleon Pius VII had won the good will and admiration of the European powers, and at the Congress of Vienna (1814) he received back all the Papal States. Hence from 1798 to 1809 the papacy was in danger to lose its territory, in 1809 it lost the territory and after 1813 the papacy took its territory back. The power of Vatican shook a little but still remained strong. The papacy was caught up in the movement for Italian unification after 1848 and ultimately lost its temporal sovereignty. In the time of the Revolution of 1848 extremists seized control of Rome, denounced the pope Pius IX as a traitor to his country, stabbed to death his prime minister and forced the pope to flee in disguise. 9 February 1849 a democratic republic abolished the temporal (political) power of the pope. The
final step in Italian Unification against Austria was the seizure of Rome in
1870, when the papacy lost everything: the Papal States with the capital of Rome
being in the possession of the papacy since 756AD, as a result of National
Liberation movement was included in the structure of the Italian kingdom…The
“Roman Question” was not settled until 1929. (The data is taken from
Collier’s Encyclopedia, “papacy”). 1260
prophetic years of the power of Vatican = 1243 years according to the solar
calendar (1260x360÷365=1243). 606
A.D. is as a milestone in the development of the Papacy. In this year Roman
Bishop Boniface III obtained the
decree from Emperor Phocas which
restated that "the See of Blessed Peter the Apostle should be the head of
all the Churches". This ensured that the title of "Universal
Bishop" belonged exclusively to the Bishop of Rome, also he gain the title
«vicar of Jesus on Earth» and «Pope», which means : “Father”. Actually similar edicts were three. The first one was issued in 445 on the application of Roman bishop Leo (440-461) by western emperor Valentinian III and eastern emperor Theodosius II. There in the edict it was stated that the Roman pontiff is the Director of all Christendom and the bishops and universal clergy were commanded to obey him as their rule ("Rectortotius Ecclesiae." - D'Aubigné's History, vol. i. p. 42. taken from http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/papacy/01-02.htm ). Owing to the bright personality of bishop Leo the edict was not discussed during his lifetime. However in 476 when emperor of Western Roman empire Romulus Augustus was forced to abdicate of the throne , and all the power was concentrated on the part of Eastern empire (Constantinople), the church of Constantinople began to apply for its superiority. Besides that, bishops of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem began to challenge the superiority of Rome also. In 533 emperor Justinian I, wishing to unite the empire under the one church by avoiding some conflicts, had decided not to change a current position of the Roman church in Christendom. He issued the letter, which had all importance of a decree. There he again confirmed the superiority of Rome. However
the Byzantian emperor Maurice (582-602) decided that it is time for the church
of Constantinople to be the chief of
all churches. And in 588
Constantinopolitan synod rejected the
decree of Roman emperor Justinian I given in 533 AD and granted
the title of "ecumenical" or "universal bishop" to
patriarch of Constantinople John IV the Faster.
John IV didn’t use this title.
In
595 John died and the patriarch of Constantinople became Cyriacus (595-606), who
had accepted the title. Pontiff of Rome Gregory I (590-604) was angry, he wrote
to the Emperor Maurice (582
- 602) and asked for the title
"universal bishop" to be stripped from the bishop of Constantinople,
but Maurice refused. When in 602 AD Maurice was murdered by Phocas, who became the next emperor. Gregory I got a hope that new emperor will be much more easy to deal with and in 603AD he sent Boniface, deacon, as his nuncio to the court of Constantinople with the goal to convince the new emperor that the title has to belong only to the Church of Rome. Boniface got the emperor’s attention and even became his associate. In 604AD Gregory I died and
Sabinian became the bishop of Rome. On
the death of Sabinian in February 606, Boniface was elected as his successor –
Boniface III. At that time Boniface was still in Constantinople. There,
having convinced Phocas that he will take care that all the church will pray for
emperor's well beeing, if Phocas will make him the chief of all churches
Boniface in the same 606 AD received the long-awaited decree. However
his return from Constantinople to Rome was delayed by a year, that is why in
many documents his episcopacy was stated from 607, when he began his work as
bishop of Rome. The decree of Phocas not only had stopped all attempts of other
churches to establish their leadership, but also had stopped attempts of all
subsequent emperors to take away from the Roman church its authority. Thus,
1260 years of the little horn (1243 solar years) begun in 606AD when
the papacy received temporal
authority, and had been ended in 1849 when the papacy lost its political power. 1849 http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/%7EChastain/rz/romanrep.htm 1849
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/~Chastain/ip/papalsta.htm 606
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc4.i.iv.vi.html http://historymedren.about.com/library/atlas/natmapeur814.htm
map
of Europe after death of Charlemagne |
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