Part VII
In order to properly understand the book of the Revelation we really need a diagram, like the one accompanying this article. For this we need a sheet of paper about Foolscap size. Starting about one and a half inches from the top, rule 21 lines a half an inch apart. A sheet of writing paper would do, but the lines are rather close together. A foolscap sheet, ruled in standard manner, is excellent if we count every second line.
Starting at the top, mark the lines 0, 100, 200, and so on down to 2,000. These represent our time scale. (There was really no year “0”-it was what we now call 1 B.C.)
Nebuchadnezzar’s Statue
About one inch from the right hand side of the sheet, draw a line down from 100 until we reach the year 312. Here draw a prominent line across the sheet. The line from 100 to 312 represents the period covered by the first six seals. The year 312 was the year in which Constantine became master of Rome. He moved his capital to Constantinople in 324, so we continue the line from 100 past 312 to 395. Here we must split the line—we move, say, a quarter of an inch to the right and draw another line from 395 to 1453. There we move an equal distance to the left and draw another line down from 395 to 1914-1918. These two lines represent the legs of Nebuchadnezzar’s image. We mark the left leg -Rome” near the top. Alongside, we place a bracket extending from the year 400 down to just past 500. This represents the effects of the first four trumpets. By this time the left or Western leg (Rome) had been reduced to the toe stage.
Now we move over to the right leg—label it “Constantinople”. We put a bracket from about 632 to 932. This represents the 5th trumpet—the Saracens who attacked the Eastern empire. There we put another bracket from 1037 to 1453, representing the other trumpet, when the Turks from across the Euphrates over-ran the Empire and took Constantinople, thus reducing the right leg to the toe stage.
And here is a lesson: looking at the statue as Nebuchadnezzar saw it, we would have expected the left and right legs to change into the toe stage simultaneously, not 900 years apart. Hence the moral—do not be too confident in predicting the future, you will be almost certainly wrong.We have now covered chapters 6, 8 and 9.
Religious Aspects
We now turn to the religious aspect of the Empire or, as some people prefer to say, “the ecclesiastical systems”. We recollect
that Rome was initially pagan. In the Revelation this aspect is represented as a dragon, probably a crocodile, So we draw a line about an inch to the left of the Nebuchadnezzar lines, commencing earlier than the 0 line, and we continue it down until we reach the 312 line, or to be precise, the year 324, when Constantine became an alleged Christian. We label this line “the Dragon”, and, to indicate the removal of the capital from Rome to Constantinople, we put a kink in the line, and start again about a quarter of an inch to the right. We continue this line down until we reach 632—which is opposite the top of the first bracket on the right leg of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue. From here, continue on as a rather vague dotted line down to the present day.
Let us now digest the fact that the dragon represents pagan Rome, and, when Constantine moved his capital from Rome to Constantinople, the dragon moved over too, so that from then on the dragon means Constantinople.
Let us now turn to chapter twelve.
War In Heaven
We now begin another history line, starting
from the Crucifixion: from this we count down 280 years—the natural period prior to the birth of the child referred to in chap. 12. 2—and then we reach the end of Constantine. Mark this 280 years by a dotted line and label it “Christianity”. It becomes a full line from the birth of the child—Constantine—the first “Christian” emperor. In verse 3 we see the dragon—representing pagan Rome—ready to devour the Christian child, but instead it is thrown out of the Roman Heaven, and Rome became the seat of “Christianity”, although the Western Empire fluctuated later in its allegiance to both Christianity and paganism, and therefore, as we said, continues to be represented by the dragon.
The Rise Of Papacy
Turning now to chapter 13, John saw a beast rise up out of the sea (Mediterranean). We note that originally the dragon (ch. 12. 3) had seven heads, ten horns, and seven crowns—indicating his Roman descent—but he lost his heritage, which we find has fallen to this new beast (which however has 10 crowns). We see then that the dragon and the sea-beast are different phases of Daniel’s fourth beast (Dan. 8).
Now an ecclesiastical system cannot exist without military support, so we look at our Nebuchadnezzar diagram, and we find that by 500 A.D. the left or Roman leg has been obliterated. Hence it follows that the so-called “Christian” church must, instead, rely on Constantinople for physical backing. And so it came about. Chap. 13. 2 tells us that the dragon gave the sea-beast not only power, but a seat and authority.
In 535 the Emperor Justinian of Constantinople decreed that the Bishop of Rome was the chief Bishop, and in 608 Phocas, Emperor in Constantinople, decreed that the Bishop of Rome—henceforth known as the Pope—was the supreme ruler of the Christian Church. Verse 5 tells us that he received power for 42 months—that is, 1,260 years: so we put a cross at 608, and continue our line down to 1868 (of which we will have more to say later), and we label this line “the Beast of the Sea”.
The Man Of Sin
So we see the Man of Sin spoken of by Paul fully revealed—the Pagan system which “let” (as the A.V. puts it—really it did not let), or rather hindered it, having been removed and a mouth as seen by Daniel was given authority to speak great things. However, if we look again at our statue’s right leg, we find that shortly after 600 A.D. it was smitten by the Saracens, and could no longer support the Pope effectively. Another prop was necessary.
The Beast Of The Earth
We have earlier noted that the sea-beast was so described because it arose from the countries near the Mediterranean sea. So therefore, the beast of the earth represents a new power arising inland, from the remnants of the northern parts of the Roman earth. The Saracens, spreading across Europe, were stopped at Tours in 732 by the French, who were growing into a powerful nation—one of the ten toes, of course, a tenth of the Roman City. Later, Pepin, King of France, presented the Pope with three principalities in Italy which were henceforth known as the States of the Church. The Popes retained them until they were taken over by the Italian people in the period 1868-1870, just 1260 years after the decree of Phocas.
Pepin was succeeded by Charlemagne, who added Germany, Austria and Hungary to his domains. This empire—the beast of the earth—was known as the Holy Roman Empire. The last of its Emperors was Franz-Joseph of Austria-Hungary, whose Empire vanished during the 191 4-18 war.
We therefore move back to the left leg of the statue, continue it as a dotted line for a while, then as a full line from about 730 down to 1914 and label it “Beast of Earth—Holy Roman Empire”. It fulfils the specification in chap. 13. 11-12. He took over the authority of the old eastern Roman empire—the dragon—and compelled people to worship the papal beast of the sea.
The Image Of The Beast
By clothing the Pope with new authority Charlemagne inaugurated another phase of the man of sin—the Pope became the supreme spiritual authority in all Christianity and no king could be crowned without his approval—in fact he crowned them himself sometimes. This change is described in verse 14 as the creation of an image or replica of the beast of the sea. So we return to our diagram, and round about the year 750 we draw a short line horizontally—that is, to the left—about half an inch long, connected to the sea-beast line, and from the left end we draw a line down from 750 to 1870, where we join the sea-beast line to it, and continue as a dotted line to the present day. We label this “Image of the Beast”.
We have now answered some more of our original questions. We have seen Nebuchadnezzar’s statue turn into the two legged and then the ten-toe stage. We have seen the removal of the “let or hindrance” and the development of the Man of Sin. We now turn to the question of what happens to the true believers during this time.
God’s Witnesses
We turn back to chap. 12. 6, where we see the Christian Woman, having given birth to her child, flees away to the wilderness for 1,260 years. The true believers left the so-called Christian church, which they recognised to be “phoney’. We can count the 1,260 years possibly from about A.D. 312 to 1572. We turn back to chap. 11, where in verses 1 and 2 we read that the (spiritual) “Holy City” would be trodden underfoot for 42 months—another 1,260 years. This we think is identical with the 42 months from 608 to 1868, which we have shown as the duration of the Beast of the Sea. In verse 3 we read that God’s “Two Witnesses” prophecy 1,260 days clothed in sackcloth. This is the same 1,260 years of the woman, during which remnants of the true believers witnessed against the false church. We therefore return to our diagram and mark the sea-beast line, 608 to 1868 as 42 months to distinguish it from this other 1,260 years. We also start a new line about an inch to the left, beginning at the year 312, connected to the “Christianity” line which later became Papal. Let us draw an arrow showing that the true “Christian” aspect moved over to our new line. We draw this line from 312 down to 1572 and label it “1260—the Two Witnesses”. The reason for their being two witnesses, not one, is a little beyond the scope of this essay.
This period of witnessing ends with the massacre of the French Protestants (Huguenots) on St. Bartholomew’s day, 1572. They are described in verse 7 as being killed by the Beast which arises out of the bottomless pit. With this further complication we postpone our studies for the time being.
Daniel The Prophet – (Part 3)