The fall of Rome
Germanic tribes had threatened the Roman frontier for several centuries. On the night of August 24,410, Alaric, king of the Visigoths, stormed the walls of Rome, broke into the city and pillaged it for three days. For the first time in 800 years the city of Rome had been conquered.
“The awful calamity that had befallen the ‘Mistress of the World’ shocked pagans and Christians alike” (B. K. Kuiper: The Church in History, p. 92).
The Visigoths withdrew to Gaul after plundering the city, but other barbarian tribes continued to plague the Western Empire. In 452, Atilla the Hun invaded Italy but was persuaded to withdraw, according to tradition, by a Roman delegation led by Pope Leo I. Finally, in 476, Odoacer, a Gothic chief, deposed the last Roman Emperor in the West.
Odoacer was himself overthrown in 493 by Theodoric, an Ostrogoth chief. After his death in 526, the generals of the Eastern Emperor Justinian (527-65) temporarily reconquered Italy. Thereafter the city of Rome and its patrician citizens suffered a precarious existence. The fall of the Western Roman Empire left a void which was filled by the papacy. Under its influence, the old Empire was in a sense kept alive — its religion and culture would be accepted by the barbarian invaders. The Germanic tribes were ultimately converted to Christianity, and the church remained the strongest force in the west.
Wounded unto death
“And I saw one of his heads as if it had been wounded unto death: and the plague of his death was healed; and there was wondering in the whole earth after the beast” (Rev. 13:3).
The Western Empire was to all appearances dead, and the city of Rome itself fell on hard times. “Yet the time would arrive when a like form of government would be located within its walls; and Imperial Headship once more elevate ‘the Eternal City’ to the command of the world– in the words of Leo III, to ‘a wider rule through divine religion, than by the power of earthly domination” (Eureka: An Exposition of the Apocalypse, Vol. III, p. 235).
The Emperors of the dying Western Empire literally passed their mantle to the Roman bishops. The decree of Valentinian III in 445 turned the pope’s claim to supremacy into law (Eerdmans ‘ Handbook to the History of Christianity, p. 193).
The papacy confirmed
“From A.D. 324 to A.D. 604-8, was this ‘god of guardian saints’ in the embryo, or fetal, state. He was quickened into political life as a future imperial element of the fourth beast dominion of the Court, by Justinian’s Code, A.D. 529, and his Decretal Epistle, A.D. 533; which affirmed the Roman Bishop’s universal supremacy in spiritual affairs. Seventy-five years after this quickening, he was born god of the Roman earth by Phocas, the dragon emperor, acknowledging the supremacy of his See, A.D. 604” (Eureka, Vol. II, pp. 606-7).
At the beginning of the Germanic occupation, the popes suffered some indignities but ultimately had their authority recognized by the barbarian rulers. In Constantinople, the Emperors of the Eastern Empire did what they could to strengthen the hand of the Roman bishop. It was to their political advantage. Both Justinian and Phocas issued decrees recognizing the pope as “Universal Overseer” of all Christendom.
Pope Gregory (called “the Great”) did much to consolidate the power of the papacy and to assure Catholic dominance in the west. He also did much to crystallize the errors in doctrine and practice that had been developing for several centuries. His views would characterize the medieval church.
“Gregory’s prolific writing . . . increased the popularity of allegorical interpretations of the Bible…He gave to early medieval Catholicism its distinctive character, stressing the cult of saints and relics, demonology, and ascetic virtues” (Handbook to the History of Christianity, p. 220).
The Old Testament parallel
When the Israelites turned from Yahweh to the worship of idols, God raised up Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar against them. Similarly, in the history of christendom desolators were brought upon the scene to punish an unrepentant Christianity. The church survived the incursions of the barbarians from the north to face an even more serious peril. The very existence of Christianity, both east and west, would be threatened.
The rise of Islam
In remote Arabia, an individual was being raised up whose influence would be felt throughout Christendom. He was Mohammed of Mecca (570-632), and his teachings would have a remarkable impact.
Mohammed was influenced by the Old Testament, which he accepted in part. He was impressed by the monotheism of the Jews, and he looked to Abraham (through Ishmael) as his natural and spiritual father. The God he proclaimed was called Allah — doubtless a word of common derivation with the Hebrew El. But his religion was the result of other influences as well. Though related to Judaism and Christianity, his teachings were uniquely his own.
The religion of Islam (an Arabic term meaning “submission to the will of God”) spread rapidly among the Arab peoples and unified them in a common cause. Idol worshipers had to accept Islam or the sword, but Jews and Christians were (at first) left alone as fellow monotheists. After the death of “the prophet,” the religion of Mohammed spread beyond Arabia and soon became a menace to the world of Christendom.
The fifth trumpet
“I saw a star fall from heaven unto earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit…And there came out of the pit locusts upon the earth” (Rev. 9:1-3).
The Saracens were cruel conquerors, but the laws of Islam commanded restraints. “It was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads” (Rev. 9:4). This verse reflects almost verbatim the counsel of Abubeker to his chiefs. “When you fight the battles of the Lord, acquit yourselves like men, without turning your backs; but let not your victory be stained with the blood of women or children. Destroy no palm trees, nor burn any fields of corn. Cut down no fruit trees, nor do any mischief to cattle, only such as you kill to eat” (Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 3, p. 147).
The Saracens
Mohammed died in 632, but his influence lived on. In the next one hundred years, his followers, hosts of fierce horsemen, swept out of the deserts of Arabia, conquered Persia, penetrated into India, overran the imperial province of Asia Minor, twice laid siege to Constantinople itself, and took away from the Eastern Empire the provinces of Syria, Palestine, Egypt and North Africa.
The followers of Mohammed were zealously devoted to their cause, and they were very successful in their conquests. By the beginning of the eighth century Islam reached almost to Constantinople. In the west the Muslims occupied Spain and threatened Catholic Europe. They began to encircle the Mediterranean, forming a great crescent from Spain to Persia. Europe and all Christianity faced a Muslim onslaught, and the lands the Saracens penetrated were invariably converted to the religion of Islam. It now seemed as if all Europe might become Muslim as well. Finally, at the battle of Tours in Gaul, the Muslim forces were defeated by the armies of Charles Martel.
Providence allowed the forces of Islam to go so far and no further. Christianity remained the religion of most of Europe, and for that we can be thankful. Though it was and is an apostate Christianity, it has preserved the Scriptures which continue to witness to the Truth for those who seek it. If Islam had prevailed, the New Testament might well have been lost for us. In North Africa, Syria, Asia Minor and the Middle East, Christianity was practically eradicated by the Saracen hordes.
The sixth trumpet
There were later invasions of Muslim troops into the Eastern Empire, and their conquests were less benign than the Saracens had been. These were led by the Tartars, fierce and fanatical Muslims who loved warfare. They included the Seljuk Turks and their conquests included Asia Minor and Palestine.
The second Tartar invasion occurred toward the end of the twelfth century. Genghis Khan, “Universal Sovereign,” swept over all the lands his cavalry could reach from Central Asia. “Persians, Saracens, Turks, Greeks — Christians and Mohammedans — fell victims alike to the conqueror’s insatiable thirst for blood and plunder. Cities disappeared as he advanced. Rich plains were transformed into horrid deserts…the most terrible scourge that ever afflicted the human race” (Myers, Mediaeval and Modern History, p. 239).
The Ottoman Turks
Finally the Ottomans formed their empire in Asia Minor. From that vantage point they sent their invading forces into Mesopotamia, Egypt and south eastern Europe. They absorbed Palestine into their domain, and they seriously threatened eastern Christianity. In 1453, they succeeded where other Muslim forces had failed. They took Constantinople, and the Eastern Roman Empire ceased to exist. The church of St. Sophia in Constantinople was the eastern equivalent of St. Peter’s in Rome. The Turks appropriated it, replaced the cross on the dome with a crescent and turned it into a mosque.
The victorious Turks advanced into Europe until they arrived at the walls of Vienna itself. There at last they were turned back, and again Providence decided just how far the tide of Islam would be permitted to go.
The lesson of history
The calamities which came upon Christendom through this long period of conquest were significant. They can be compared to the tribulations of Israel and Judah at the hands of Assyria and Babylon. In each instance, the intended purpose of repentance — of turning to God and the Truth — was lost upon a people who would go their own way.
“And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues, yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts” (Rev. 9:20-21).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One