HOMILETICS
SECT. XXIV.—THE LITTLE HORN (Chap. Daniel 7:8; Daniel 7:19-25)
We now come to that part of Daniel’s vision which especially distinguishes it from Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. The king only saw the feet of the image divided into ten toes: Daniel not only sees ten horns proceeding from the head of the fourth beast, corresponding with these ten toes, but another horn additional to these, which, though appearing as a “little horn,” engaged the special attention of the prophet, and constitutes the leading object in the vision. The character of the kingdoms of the world was to be concentrated in that horn or the power represented by it, and it was from it that the Church of God was mainly to suffer [165]. As a “horn,” it was to be a power like the rest; that term, expressive of the powerful weapon of many animals, being figuratively employed in the Scripture to denote power or strength, and so a kingdom or a sovereignty. See Deuteronomy 33:17; Psalms 18:2; Luke 1:69. In relation to the “little horn” we have to notice—
[165] “It is in the fearful shape of the last beast that the world-power will fully manifest that its whole nature is opposed to God. But as the interest which attaches to the four monarchies is led rapidly over the first three to centre in the last, so, for the same reason, in considering the last we are led to the final shape.… The description introduces these horns merely to show how an eleventh has sprung up in their midst, a king in whom the full haughty hatred and rebellion against God, His people, and His service, finds its representative.… The essential nature of the kingdoms of the world appears concentrated in the fourth kingdom; the nature of the fourth kingdom, in like manner, in its last worldly ruler. Thus it is only at the end that the peculiar character of the world-power, “the mystery of iniquity,” is unveiled, and we recognise in the eleventh horn no other than he whom Paul calls “the Man of Sin” and “the Son of Perdition” (2 Thessalonians 2.) Here, for the first time in the development of revelation, the idea of Antichrist is clearly unfolded; because here, for the first time, the entire course of the development of the godless and God-opposing world is clearly surveyed down to the very end.”—Auberlen. So Dr. Pusey, who also sees in the Little Horn mainly an Antichrist yet to come.” “Why should there not be under the fourth empire an antagonism to the true God, concentrated in and directed by one individual, as it was in and by Antiochus in the third? Human nature repeats itself. What man has done, man will do. We Christians look for an Antichrist yet to come. Our Lord forewarned of him and his deceivableness. St. Paul describes such an one as Daniel speaks of.” We must not, however, overlook the Antichrist of the past and the present, while even as Protestants we may also acknowledge an Antichrist yet to come.
I. Its rise. It is said to rise among the other ten horns, and so to be contemporaneous with them; and also after or behind them, and so in the time of its appearance posterior to the rest, as well as gradual in its growth and for a time unobserved. Before it, three of the ten were “plucked up by the roots and fell,” or, as it is interpreted by the angel, it subdued three out of the ten kings or kingdoms, and so made room for itself by occupying their place (Daniel 7:8; Daniel 7:10; Daniel 7:24). The other horns obtained their place as kingdoms out of the body of the fourth beast or Roman empire; this one was to obtain its place out of that beast only indirectly, by gaining it out of the others.
II. Its character and description.
(1.) A “little” horn; small in comparison with the rest, especially in its commencement, and humble, perhaps, in its profession.
(2.) “Diverse from the rest;” its diversity consisting in this, that it had “eyes” in it, like the eyes of a “man,” and a “mouth speaking great things,”—the eyes and the mouth sufficiently indicating a human being as represented by it [166], and a power of a peculiar character; the eyes of a man, not of a god; lamb-like, though speaking as a dragon (Revelation 13:11.)
(3.) The mouth uttered “great words against the Most High;” hence proud, arrogant, and blasphemous; while from the eyes was a “look more stout than his fellows,” also indicative of pride and haughtiness above that of the other powers, and an overbearing demeanour in respect to them.
(4.) He was to “make war with the saints of the Most High, to wear them out, and prevail against them;” a persecuting power, and one whose persecutions should be persevering and successful, against such as adhered to a holy life and the worship of God according to His Word.
(5.) He was to “think to change times and laws;” lofty in his pretensions, as superior to laws both human and divine, and affecting a power which is the prerogative of God (chap. Daniel 2:21).
5. The saints were to be “given into his hand” for a definite period, prophetically and enigmatically described as a “a time, times, and the dividing of a time;” his power over the saints or true worshippers of God to be absolute for a time, but that time a limited one. “To form a well-grounded judgment regarding the appearance of this last enemy,” observes Keil, “we must compare the description given of him here with the apocalyptic description of the same enemy under the image of the beast out of the sea or out of the abyss” (Revelation 13:1-8; Revelation 17:7-13); and we may add, with the description of the “Man of Sin” given by the apostle (2 Thessalonians 2:4, &c.), with an obvious allusion to the passage before us.
[166] “Eyes like the eyes of man.” “Eyes and seeing with eyes are the symbols of insight, circumspection, and prudence. The eyes of a man, not merely to indicate that the horn signified a man, which was already distinctly enough shown by the fact of eyes, &c., being attributed to it, nor yet to distinguish it from a beast; but in opposition to a higher celestial being, for whom it might, from the terribleness of its rule and government, be mistaken.”—Keil. Others have viewed the expression as indicative of the assumed blandness that accompanied papal arrogance, and the sharp look-out kept by the popes on their own and their families’ interests, as well as those of the Church.
III. Its identification. This power intended to be identified as truly as the four beasts themselves. The minute and varied description obviously given with this view. This description, including both its rise and character, ought apparently to leave no room for doubt as to what is intended by it, and no difficulty in identifying it when the power indicated should appear. The question is, has such a power already appeared, or are we still to look for it? The latter unlikely, as the fourth beast, from which it springs, has confessedly appeared two thousand years ago, and the ten kingdoms, among and behind which it was to rise, have probably been in existence about fourteen centuries. Has, then, any power appeared during that period to which the description is at all applicable, and to which it has been applied? There is a well-known power to which the description has appeared so applicable, that for more than three hundred years the description has been actually and unhesitatingly applied to it by almost all who have studied this passage, with the exception, of course, of those who are in any way connected with the power itself; although it is probable that the horn may not even yet have fully developed itself [167]. That power is the Papacy, with the Bishop of Rome as its head and representative [168]; for nearly thirteen centuries a temporal power, like the other horns, though now no longer such [169]; but so diverse from them as to be at the same time a spiritual power, while the rest were only secular ones. The identity has appeared—
[167] Jerome and the fathers, as well as De Lyra, Hugo, and Roman Catholic writers generally, interpret the little horn of the Antichrist, who should come in the end of the world, after the Roman empire is destroyed. Some of the Reformers, as Melanchthon and Osiander, understood it of the Turkish empire. Calvin thinks that historically this prophecy of the Little Horn was fulfilled before the coming of the Messiah into the world, in the person of Julius Cæsar, Augustus, and the other emperors; but that it may, by analogy, be applied, as it was by some, to the Pope or to the Turks; “and these applications,” he says, “by way of analogy I mislike not.” Œcolampadius understood it of the Pope in the West, and the Turkish empire in the East. Bullinger, and the Reformers in general, applied the prophecy entirely to the Papacy. Junius, Polanus, and Willet understood it historically of Antiochus Epiphanes, but typically of Antichrist. Dr. Lee, of Cambridge, applies it to heathen Rome and the persecuting emperors from Nero to Constantine. The Futurists, with Roman Catholic writers, understand it of an Antichrist yet to come.
[168] Dr. Rule observes that the description given of the Little Horn exactly answers to the Papacy, and regards the assumption of absolute sovereignty over the city and territory of Rome by Pope Innocent III. as the uprising of it, a sovereign pontiff over a temporal dominion, armed also with military powers. “Here,” says Muratori, in relating this event, “expired the last breath of the Augusti in Rome; and henceforth the prefects of Rome, the Senate, and the other magistrates, swore fealty to the Roman Pontiff only.” Professor Bush says, “This Little Horn is unquestionably the ecclesiastical power of the Papacy. This horn did not come till after the empire received its deadly wound by the hands of the Goths.”
[169] That the Bishop of Rome became a temporal ruler, receiving his place and rank as such among and soon after the other rulers of the kingdoms formed out of the dismembered Roman empire, every one knows. One of the most remarkable events of recent years was the entire cessation of this temporal sovereignty of the Pope, when in 1870, after the French Emperor had withdrawn his troops from Rome, Victor Emmanuel, as king of Italy, at the voice of the people, assumed the entire government of the country, leaving Pius IX. only the Vatican and its precincts for his residence; the Pope exclaiming against the act as one of wicked sacrilege and spoliation, and endeavouring to rouse all Catholic Europe to aid him in recovering the lost “patrimony of St. Peter.” The Times of the period said, “In the same year the Papacy has assumed the highest spiritual exaltation to which it could aspire, and lost the temporal sovereignty which it had held for a thousand years.”
1. In the rise of the Papacy. The Little Horn rose among, and at the same time after or behind, the other ten; while three of these were plucked up and fell before it, so that their place was occupied by it, or, as interpreted by the angel, three kingdoms, states, or powers were subdued by it [170]. It is known that it was while the Northern nations were establishing for themselves kingdoms out of the decaying Roman empire that the Bishops of Rome also became temporal rulers, and that they did so after occasioning the fall of some of those rulers, probably those of Lombardy, Ravenna, and Rome, whose territories then became their own under the name of the States of the Church [171]. A writer on prophecy remarks: “The Little Horn came up among the ten horns, of which three fell before it. This determines the appearance of the Little Horn to be not before the appearance of the ten, of which not one came into being till after the year 487 of the Christian era, until which time the Roman empire continued under its emperors, undivided into any of those ten kingdoms which arose afterwards. At that time Augustulus, the last Emperor of the West, was forced to resign; and for three hundred years the empire remained without even a nominal head.” It is in remarkable agreement with this fact that Paul speaks of the “Man of Sin” as being hindered at that time from revealing himself by something which he does not name, but which would one day be taken out of the way; that hindrance being doubtless the Roman imperial power, which for obvious reasons Paul did not think it expedient to name. The circumstance of the three horns or states being rooted up to make way for the temporal power of the Papacy seems openly declared in the “triple crown” which the Pope still continues to wear.
[170] “Before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots.” “He shall subdue three kings” (Daniel 7:8; Daniel 7:24). יְהַשְׁפִּיל (yehashpil), “shall overthrow, deprive of sovereignty.”—Keil. Some have understood the number three as indefinite. So Calvin and Œcolampadius, but understanding it as denoting much or many. Most have viewed it as a definite number. Jerome and others after him understood the three horns to be Egypt, Africa, and Ethiopia, which were to be subdued by Antichrist. Melanchthon thought of Egypt, Syria, and Cilicia, to be taken by the Turks; while Osiander and Pfaff understood them to be Asia, Greece, and Egypt. Bullinger, applying the prophecy to the Papacy, regarded the three horns as the Emperor Leo, or the Exarchate of Ravenna, taken by Gregory II.; Childeric, king of France, deposed by Pope Zachary; and the Lombards with the government they obtained from Leo III. Dr. Rule considers them to be the Roman Senate and people, with the so-called patrimony of St. Peter, gained a.d. 498; Apulia, otherwise called Naples, and Sicily, obtained in 1266. He observes that, simultaneously with these acquisitions, the work of persecution, foretold in the next verses, rapidly advanced. According to Mr. Birks, the three horns were the kingdom of the Heruli under Odoacer, that of the Ostrogoths under Theodoric, who at the instigation of the Pope overthrew the former, and took possession of that part of Italy forming the Exarchate of Ravenna, which again, at the Pope’s instance, was overthrown by Belisarius and Narses, lieutenants of the Emperor Justinian; the third power overthrown being that of the Lombards under Alboin and Aistulph. To obtain freedom from the threatened yoke of the Lombards, and to secure still farther the possession of a temporal dominion, the Pope made his appeal to Pepin, son of Charles Martel, as well as to Charles (Charlemagne) and Carloman, the three kings of the Franks. “Pepin and Charlemagne willingly undertook the task of uprooting the Lombard kingdom, the last enemy that stood in the way of the ambitious See.” After the surrender of Pavia, “the last obstacle was now removed, and the popes rose at length to temporal dominion, and obtained a firm and settled place among the powers and kingdoms of the Western Empire. ‘The Church’s ancient patrimony of farms and houses,’ says Gibbon, ‘was transformed by the bounty of the Carlovingians into the temporal dominion of cities and provinces; and the donation of the Exarchate was the first-fruits of the victories of Pepin.’ The ample province of the Exarchate, granted to the Papacy by the usurper Pepin, might comprise all the provinces of Italy which had obeyed the Emperor and his vicegerent; but its strict and proper limits were included in the territory of Ravenna, Bologna, and Ferrara, and its inseparable dependency was the Pentapolis.”
[171] The following are extracts from Clement’s letter, written towards the end of the first century, to allay some disturbances in the Church at Corinth in regard to the pastorate. “These things, beloved, we write not only to admonish you of your duty, but to admonish ourselves, for we are in the same race and conflict. Wherefore, let us abandon vain and empty cares, and advance to the glorious and venerable rule of our calling. Let us look to what is beautiful, and pleasing, and acceptable in the eyes of our Creator. Let us fix our eyes on the blood of Christ, and consider how precious to God is that blood, which, having been shed for our salvation, has offered the grace of repentance to all the world.… Christ belongs to those who conduct themselves humbly, not those who exalt themselves over His flock with pride and arrogance.… Let us attach ourselves to those to whom grace has been given by God. Let us put on concord with moderation of mind, endued with the gift of self-control. Temerity, arrogance, and audacity belong to those who are accursed of God; moderation, humility, and meekness to those who are blessed of Him.… The apostles, preaching the Word through regions and cities, proving their first-fruits in the Spirit, appointed bishops and deacons of those who believed. The apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that contentions would arise about the name of the episcopate, and on that account, being endowed with perfect foreknowledge, they appointed persons previously indicated, and left successions of ministers and officers afterwards described, that other approved men might succeed to their place and discharge their offices. Look diligently into the Scriptures. Take into your hands the epistles of the blessed Apostle Paul. Consider what he wrote to you near the very beginning of his preaching the gospel. Being certainly divinely inspired, he reminded you in an epistle concerning himself, Cephas, and Apollos, that even then there were seditions and party feelings among you.… Whosoever is zealous, pitiful, and full of love among you, let him say, ‘If any sedition, contention, or division, has arisen through me, I will depart; I will go away whithersoever you wish; I will do whatever is commanded by the people; that only the flock of Christ may live in peace with the elders (or presbyters) that have been appointed over them.’ ”
“The tempter,” says Gavazzi, “came over the Alps in the Gallic Pepin; he showed from a pinnacle of earthly power and aggrandisement the kingdoms of this world, and pledged himself to secure their homage, if, falling prostrate before God’s adversary, ‘Christ’s Vicar’ should adore him. The sacrilegious bargain was struck; the ark of the Lord was placed in the temple of Dagon; the bishops of Rome, who over and over again suffered death rather than offer incense to Pagan idols, fell into the palpable snare of Satan; and the hand that bore on its finger the brightest of sacerdotal gems in the ‘ring of the fisherman’ was outstretched, with scandalous avidity, to burn a fatal frankincense on the altar of secular ambition. A visible change fell on the Papacy. The gory crown of martyrdom was exchanged for the glittering tiara.”
Mr. Mede supposed the three “uprooted” or “depressed” horns to be, first, the Greeks, that is, the entire kingdom of Italy, which in 554 was ended by the Exarchate or dependent government of the Greek emperor, which continued for fifteen years; second, the Lombards, who possessed the country for about 200 years; and, third, the Franks, who stretched their authority into the immediate vicinity of Rome.
2. In the character of the Papacy.
(1.) The horn was a “little” one. The territory of the Papacy has always been small in comparison with that of the other powers, never exceeding the extent of an Italian province. The Pope properly and originally a humble minister of Jesus Christ, on a level with the other bishops or presiding ministers of the Churches, and possessing no territory or temporal jurisdiction whatever; so “little” that the apostle does not even salute or mention him in his Epistle to the Church at Rome. The Epistle of Clement, one of the first Bishops of Rome, if not the very first, written to the Church of Corinth, breathes the very spirit of humility [172], a humility which is affected by his successors, while each calls himself the “servant of servants” and a successor of “the fisherman.”
[172] The following are extracts from Clement’s letter, written towards the end of the first century, to allay some disturbances in the Church at Corinth in regard to the pastorate. “These things, beloved, we write not only to admonish you of your duty, but to admonish ourselves, for we are in the same race and conflict. Wherefore, let us abandon vain and empty cares, and advance to the glorious and venerable rule of our calling. Let us look to what is beautiful, and pleasing, and acceptable in the eyes of our Creator. Let us fix our eyes on the blood of Christ, and consider how precious to God is that blood, which, having been shed for our salvation, has offered the grace of repentance to all the world.… Christ belongs to those who conduct themselves humbly, not those who exalt themselves over His flock with pride and arrogance.… Let us attach ourselves to those to whom grace has been given by God. Let us put on concord with moderation of mind, endued with the gift of self-control. Temerity, arrogance, and audacity belong to those who are accursed of God; moderation, humility, and meekness to those who are blessed of Him.… The apostles, preaching the Word through regions and cities, proving their first-fruits in the Spirit, appointed bishops and deacons of those who believed. The apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that contentions would arise about the name of the episcopate, and on that account, being endowed with perfect foreknowledge, they appointed persons previously indicated, and left successions of ministers and officers afterwards described, that other approved men might succeed to their place and discharge their offices. Look diligently into the Scriptures. Take into your hands the epistles of the blessed Apostle Paul. Consider what he wrote to you near the very beginning of his preaching the gospel. Being certainly divinely inspired, he reminded you in an epistle concerning himself, Cephas, and Apollos, that even then there were seditions and party feelings among you.… Whosoever is zealous, pitiful, and full of love among you, let him say, ‘If any sedition, contention, or division, has arisen through me, I will depart; I will go away whithersoever you wish; I will do whatever is commanded by the people; that only the flock of Christ may live in peace with the elders (or presbyters) that have been appointed over them.’ ”
(2.) It was “diverse from the first” (Daniel 7:24), having the eyes and mouth of a man. The difference of the Papacy from the other powers, as already noticed, conspicuous in this, that it was at the same time both a temporal and a spiritual power, the Pope being both a secular prince and a spiritual teacher, or, as Gibbon expresses it, “a Christian bishop invested with the prerogatives of a temporal prince.” The Pope claimed both swords, the civil and the ecclesiastical; a combination perhaps indicated in the Revelation by the two separate beasts, the one rising out of the sea and the other out of the earth (Revelation 13:1-11), or in the fact that the latter had two horns like a lamb, while it spake like a dragon (Daniel 7:11).
(3) “His look was more stout than his fellows” (Daniel 7:20). It is well known what anathemas were fulminated by the Popes against all who refused to acknowledge their supremacy or submit to their authority; how kings were deposed and their kingdoms placed under interdicts which deprived them of religious ordinances, their subjects released from their allegiance, and their crown given to another. This “stout look,” and the claim of making and unmaking kings at pleasure, conspicuous in the person of Gregory VII. (A.D. 1073). “I have received,” said he, “from God the power of binding and of loosing in heaven and in earth; and by this power I forbid Henry (the Fourth, Emperor of Germany) the government of the whole realm of Germany and Italy. I also loose all Christians from the oaths they have taken to him; and I decree that no man shall obey him as king” [173]. Among the “stout words” of the Papacy are the following, spoken by the same Gregory: “The Roman Pontiff alone can be called universal. He alone has a right to use imperial ornaments. Princes are bound to kiss his feet, and his feet only. He has a right to depose emperors. No book can be called canonical without his authority. His sentence can be annulled by none, but he may annul the decrees of all.” It is also to be remembered that the popes claim infallibility.
[173] These were not empty words. Henry, driven to despair, in a winter of unusual severity, crossed the Alps with the determination of seeking the Pope’s forgiveness and reconciliation. Gregory was at Canossa, a fortress near Reggio. The Emperor was admitted without hit guards into an outer courtof the castle, where he was kept standing for three successive days, from morning to evening, in a woollen shirt, and with bare feet, while Gregory, shut up with the Countess, refused to admit him into his presence. On the fourth day he obtained absolution, but only on condition that he appeared on a certain day to receive the Pope’s decision as to whether or not he should be restored to his kingdom, till which time he was not to assume the insignia of royalty. It was this same Pope who endeavoured to compel William the Conqueror to do homage for the crown of England, and who menaced Philip I. of France with deposition. The language and bearing of Adrian IV., in 1155, to the Emperor Frederick was of a similar character. The Pope insisted on the Emperor becoming his equerry and holding his stirrup while he mounted. “To place your name before ours,” said he to the Emperor, “is arrogance, is insolence; and to cause bishops to render homage to you, those whom the Scripture calls gods, sons of the Most High, is to want that faith which you have sworn to St. Peter and to us. Hasten then to amend, lest that, in taking to yourself what does not belong to you, you lose the crown with which we have gratified you.”
(4.) “It had eyes like the eyes of man” (Daniel 7:8). The very title of bishop, which is simply “overseer,” as in Acts 20:28 and 1 Peter 5:3, is in perfect agreement with this mark of the horn. The popes, as bishops or overseers, being spiritual teachers, are supposed to be endowed with wisdom and knowledge to qualify them for their office, of which the eyes of a man are a well-known symbol [174].
[174] See note (2).
(5.) The horn had also “a mouth speaking great things,” even “great words against the Most High.” The first of these expressions indicates pride and arrogance, the latter blasphemy. The Papal bulls leave little room for doubt as to the applicability of the former to the Papacy. “The tribunals of kings,” say they, “are subject to the sacerdotal power.” “Since the Holy Roman Church, over which Christ has willed that we preside, is set for a mirror and example, whatever it has decreed, whatever it now ordains, must be perpetually and irrefragably observed by all men.” The words spoken against or (as the word is also rendered) as the Most High [175] are such as tend to set God aside. These have not been wanting in the lips of the Papacy. “The Roman Pontiff,” says Pope Stephen, “is to judge all men, and to be judged by no man.” “The Pope is styled God,” says Pope Nicholas, “by the pious prince; and it is manifest that God cannot be judged by man.” This mark may be truly regarded as made good, as Bishop Newton observes, by the popes “setting up themselves against all laws human and divine, arrogating to themselves godlike attributes and titles, and exacting obedience to their ordinances and decrees.” A bull of Pope Boniface declares that “all the faithful of Christ are, by necessity of salvation, subject to the Roman Pontiff, who has both swords, and judges all men, but is judged by none” [176]. Again we have to remember the claim to infallibility by the Pope, that infallibility having been recently made an article of faith in the Romish Church.
[175] “Against the Most High.” לְצַד (le-tsadh), “at the side of.” Keil observes that this term properly means against or at the side of, and is more expressive than עַל (‘al); denoting that he would use language by which he would set God aside, and would regard and give himself out as God. Compare 2 Thessalonians 2:4.
[176] It is this Pope of whom Gavazzi, in the oration already quoted from, says, “Swelling with the pride and pomp of Satanic inflation, Boniface VIII., having fouliy dethroned his still living predecessor, Celestine V., burst on the world with his blasphemous bull, Unam Sanctam, and laid his monstrous mandate on mankind, involving the human race in sacerdotal serfdom. By one fell swoop he abrogated the authority of kings within their dominions, of magistrates within the circle of their attributions, of fathers within the sacred precincts of their households. Popes became arbiters of universal sovereignty, bishops bearded monarchs, and priests lorded it over the domestic hearth.… Every human right, claim, property, franchise, or feeling at variance with the predominance of the Popedom was, ipso facto, inimical to Heaven and the God of eternal justice.”
(6.) “He shall think to change times and laws” (Daniel 7:25) [177]. The presence of this mark in the Papacy already apparent. Everything was to be entirely in accordance with Papal decree. The observance of saints’ days established; the marriage vow, in the case of the clergy, cancelled and marriage itself forbidden [178]; subjects, as, for example, the English in relation to Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, released from their allegiance to their sovereigns; the cup in the Lord’s Supper forbidden to the laity [179]; and the making and worshipping of images sanctioned [180]. Bishop Newton mentions also as instances of this mark of the Little Horn, the Pope’s “appointing fasts and feasts; canonising saints; granting pardons and indulgences for sins; instituting new modes of worship; imposing new articles of faith [as recently the Immaculate Conception]; enjoining new rules of practice; and reversing at pleasure the laws both of God and man.” The traditions of the Fathers and decrees of Councils are made to supersede and set aside the Word of God. “The holy and inspired fathers and teachers,” says Gregory III., “and the six Councils in Christ, these are our scriptures and our light to salvation.”
[177] “To change times and laws.” Keil observes that to “change times” belongs to the all-perfect power of God (cf. Daniel 2:21), the creator and ordainer of times (Genesis 1:14); and that there is no ground for supposing that זמניז (zimnin), “times,” is to be specially understood of “festivals or sacred times,” since the word, like the corresponding Hebrew one, מועֲדִים (mo’adhim), does not throughout signify merely festival times (cf. Genesis 1:14; Genesis 17:21; Genesis 18:14, &c.) The sin is that he does not in his ordinances regard the fundamental conditions given by God, but so changes the laws of human life that he puts his own pleasure in the place of the divine arrangements, דַּת (dath), a law, rite, custom, or constitution. Calvin, applying the passage to the Roman emperors, says they perverted all laws, human and divine. Dr. Pusey, on the other hand, translates “essaying to change worship and law;” and has in a footnote,זִמְנִין (zimnin) “set times,” that is, probably, the times of the set feasts (as we speak of sacred “seasons”), and so the worship of those times. He observes that in Onkelos זִמְנִין (zimnin) stands for מוֹעֲדִים (mo’adh im), Genesis 1:14; and Jonathan puts זמני מועד (zimne mo’ed) for מועד (mo’ed), Zephaniah 3:18. Pseudo-Jonathan uses the word זמן (zeman) in paraphrasing מוֹעֲדיֵיְהֹוָה (mo’adhe Jehovah), “the feasts of the Lord.” Elsewhere זמן is used of the place of the sacred assembly (Numbers 1:1; Isaiah 33:20), but מועד of the festival (Lamentations 1:4; Hosea 9:5).
[178] A decretal of Callixtus II. says, “We entirely interdict priests, deacons, sub-deacons, and monks from contracting marriages; we decide also that, according to the sacred canons, the marriages contracted by persons of this kind be dissolved, and the persons brought to penance.” This Pope, as well as Pope Agatho, writes that the decretal epistles of the Roman Pontiff are to be received among the Scriptures, though they are not embodied in the code of canons, just as the Old and New Testaments are so received, “because a judgment of holy Pope Innocent seems to be published” for doing so.
[179] In regard to the use of the cup, Pope Gregory VII. thus wrote to Wratislaus, king of Bohemia, “What your people ignorantly require can in no wise be conceded to them; and we now forbid it by the power of God and His holy Apostle Peter.”
[180] Gregory III. convened an assembly of 93 bishops in 732, and with their assent published a general excommunication against all who were opposed to the worship of images. The same Pope wrote to the Emperor Leo, “Do you cease to persecute images and all will be quiet.”
(7.) He was to “make war with the saints and prevail against them,” and “wear them out” (Daniel 7:21; Daniel 7:25). It is well known that one of the most prominent features of the Papacy in past centuries was the persecution of the saints under the name of heretics, that is, of those who refused, in matters of doctrine and practice, to submit to the authority of the Pope instead of the Word of God, and who said, with Peter and the other apostles, “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29; Acts 4:19) [181]. “If any one,” said Pope Nicolas in a Council at Rome, “shall presume to dispute the dogmas, commands, interdicts, sanctions, or decrees wholesomely published by the head of the Apostolic See, let him be accursed.” “It is permitted neither to think nor to speak differently from the Roman Church.” Such were to be handed over to the secular power, to be punished with the loss of goods, imprisonment, and even death. The burning of heretics, according to the bull De Comburendo, is too well known in England. The term “Crusades” was given to those military enterprises undertaken to extirpate the Waldenses and Albigenses; and the same Papal indulgences were promised to those who fell in such undertakings as were bestowed on those who died in the wars against the infidels [182]. The “wearing out of the saints” may be seen in the decree of Pope Pelagius, that those guilty of schism or separation from the Roman See were to be “crushed by the secular power, and restrained not only by exile, but by proscription of their goods, and by severe imprisonment.” How far the Papacy “prevailed” against the saints, or so-called heretics, appears from the fact that in a Council of the Lateran, held in May 1514, about three years and a half before the breaking out of the Reformation under Luther, the Hussites were summoned to appear; and when no appearance was made, the doctor of the Council uttered the remarkable words, “There is an end to resistance to the Papal rule and religion; there is none to oppose; the whole body of Christendom is now subject to its head.”
[181] “Make war with the saints” (Daniel 7:21). In our own country, in the short reign of Queen Mary, three hundred persons are said to have been cruelly put to death for no other reason than because they refused to acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope. This is written within little more than a stone’s throw of the monument that commemorates the martyrdom of Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer, and the cross in front of Balliol College, Oxford, that marks the spot on which they suffered death. It is computed that in the South of France, between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries inclusive, about a million of those called Waldenses and Albigenses suffered death as heretics, especially by armies sent against them for that purpose, after receiving the papal blessing. Nearly a million suffered on the same account after the institution of the order of the Jesuits. In the Netherlands, it was the boast of the Duke of Alva that 36,000 heretics had been put to death by the common executioner within a few years. In Ireland, 150,000 are said to have been massacred in one province in virtue of a papal edict dated May 25, 1643, in which the Pope granted a full and plenary indulgence and absolute remission of all their sins “to all the Christians in the kingdom of Ireland, so long as they should war against the heretics and other enemies of the Catholic faith.” In the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1572, thirty thousand at least, in Paris and throughout France, are said to have been horribly butchered within thirty days, for which the Pope ordered public thanks to be given, and a medal to be struck in commemoration of the event. This feature of the Little Horn is acknowledged and justified in the Rhemish New Testament, where it is said in a note at Revelation 17:6, that the blood of the heretics is not to be considered as the blood of the saints, but is “no more than the blood of thieves, mankillers, and other malefactors, for the shedding of which, by order of justice, no commonwealth shall answer.” So Pope Urban II., encouraging the shedding of such blood, states, “We do not count them murderers who, burning with zeal for their Catholic mother against the excommunicate, may happen to have slain some of them.” Sismondi, himself a Roman Catholic, intimates what was the crime of those whose blood was thus to be shed: “Many sects,” he says, “existed in Provence, and this was the necessary consequence of the freedom of inquiry which was the essence of their doctrine. With one accord they considered that the Romish Church had changed the nature of Christianity, and that she was the object described in the Apocalypse as the woman of Babylon.” He adds: “To maintain unity of faith, the Church had recourse to the expedient of burning all those who separated themselves from her.”
[182] “Let the Catholics,” said Innocent III. in the Lateral) Council, “who, after taking the sign of the cross, devote themselves to the extermination of heretics, enjoy the same indulgence, and be protected with the same privilege, which is granted to those who go to the succour of the Holy Land.”
(8.) The saints were to be “given into the hand” of the Little Horn for a limited period, here called “a time, times, and the dividing of a time.” This enigmatical period, found also in chap. 12, as well as in the Book of Revelation, is generally understood to be equivalent to three years and a half, or, as it is expressed in the Apocalypse, 1260 days, 360 being reckoned to a year, and also forty and two months (Revelation 12:14; Revelation 12:16; Revelation 11:2-3; Revelation 13:5 [183], the half of the “seven times” already mentioned in connection with Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity. The period in the text for the dominion of the Little Horn over the saints is also that of the “scattering or crushing of the power of the holy people” (chap. Daniel 12:7); of the woman’s abode in the wilderness (Revelation 12:6; Revelation 12:14); of the treading of the holy city under foot by the Gentiles (Revelation 12:2); of the prophesying of the two witnesses in sackcloth (Revelation 12:3); and of the effective continuance of the beast out of the sea (Revelation 13:5). Probably the same period, and the same experience of humiliation and suffering on the part of the saints under the same power, intended under these various symbolical representations. The three years and a half, however, might be understood either literally or figuratively; either as ordinary years, or, as they are called, prophetical ones, each day being reckoned a year. The latter is generally understood, though there may be also a fulfilment of the prophecy on the smaller as well as on the larger scale. It is remarkable that from the time that the Bishop of Rome became a temporal prince, namely, in the early part of the seventh century (A.D. 606), till the cessation of his temporal power in 1870, is just 1264 years, the period in the text on the larger or year-day scale, with perhaps four years more [184]. It is also remarkable that from the time in which all Christendom was declared to be subject to the Roman Pontiff, May 1514, to the breaking out of the Reformation under Luther, that effected the deliverance of so large a portion from his spiritual sway, was just three years and a half on the shorter or literal day scale. Twelve centuries ago, more or less, the saints, or those who chose to obey the Word of God rather than the edicts and decrees of man, seemed to be given into the hand of the Roman Pontiff. There seems little reason to doubt that happily that period of subjection has come to an end. The Papacy can no longer persecute the so-called heretics as before. The Scriptures are openly sold and the Gospel is freely preached even in Rome itself. The Inquisition is at an end. Dr. Achilli and the two Madiai were among its last prisoners, the latter having been given up at the demand of Protestant Europe. The French Revolution in 1792–3, exactly 1260 years after the edict of Justinian seemed formally to give the Church into the hands of the Roman bishop, was doubtless the commencement of his fall [185]; one of the most marked results of that event being the freedom of religious worship among the nations of Europe, which during the last ten years may be said to have been all but complete. This circumstance might seem to leave no doubt as to the identification of the Little Horn with the Papacy, and to establish the opinion that has largely prevailed for centuries [186].
[183] “A time and times and the dividing of a time” (Daniel 7:26). Some have understood by this only an indefinite though lengthened period. So Calvin, who applied the prophecy to the persecutions under Nero and other Roman emperors. By the “dividing” or half of a time he understood the shortening of the period for the elect’s sakes. Bullinger viewed it as a definite time fixed by God, but known only to Himself. Œcolampadius understood half a week or three days and a half, God thus shortening the time. Osiander regarded it as three and a half prophetic years or 1278 solar years, during which the rule of Mahometanism, commencing in the year 613, should continue. Jerome, and Roman Catholic writers after him, understand it of three and a half literal years, the period for the tyranny of Antichrist before the end of the world. Similarly other Futurists. Junius and a few others applied it historically to the time during which Antiochus Epiphanes persecuted the Jews. Joseph Mede was “the well-known reviver of the year-day theory. Before his time it was a vague assertion; he first gave it shape and form, and plausible consistency. Since his day it has been adopted by many intelligent critics, among whom are Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, Faber, Frere, Keith, and Birks.”—Translator’s Preface to Calvin on Daniel. Professor Lee refers the expression to “the latter half (mystically speaking) of the seventieth week of our prophet” (ch. 9); that week of seven days being equivalent here to Ezekiel’s period of seven years. Professor Bush says, “The grand principle into which the usage of a day for a year is to be resolved is that of miniature symbolisation.” Mr. Brooks (Elements of Prophetic Interpretation) says, “The literal meaning of a ‘time’ is a year; and the expression in Daniel 7:23 may signify, mystically, if calculated by lunar time, a period of 1260 years.” Mr. Bickersteth (Practical Guide to the Prophecies) says, “The time, times, and half a time, the forty and two months and 1260 days, are the same interval; the time, times, and half a time of Daniel and the Revelation are the same period; a prophetic day is a natural year, as three and a half times are the half of seven times, the whole season of Gentile power, and the same with the ‘latter times’ of St. Paul” He thinks the three and a half times began with Justinian’s Code in 532–533. “By this edict (of Justinian),” says Mr. Irving, “ecclesiastical power over the faith of the West and against the saints who dwelt there was given to the Bishop of Rome, which imperial edicts being seconded by the imperial arms, brought to nothing the heretical powers who might have opposed his entering into possession. In twenty years from that date he ordered heretics to be burned by the temporal powers—the first indication of that mixture and combination of powers, civil and ecclesiastical, which is the proper character of the whole period. Then, also, mass was introduced. In sixty years he had made such great strides towards absolute supremacy, that in the reign of Gregory the Great, who resisted the Bishop of Constantinople’s supremacy, were introduced purgatory, invocation of saints, expiations by masses, lustrations of the Blessed Virgin, and the celibacy of the clergy was attempted. In seventy years he obtained from the emperor the sole title of Universal Bishop. In little more than a century the service was performed in Latin, and the ignorance of the people sealed. In two centuries the Pope had obtained the pride and power to excommunicate the Emperor of the East for prohibiting image-worship.” Dr. Cox thinks that “the computation must be made from the period when the Little Horn or ecclesiastical power of the Church of Rome should arise;” and that “that application of the prophecy is most probable which fixes on the time when, by the decree of Phocas, the Roman Pontiff was constituted Universal Bishop and supreme head of the Church.” This was in the year of our Lord 606. Some students of prophecy see in the term “times,” &c, the half of the period of Nebuchadnezzar’s humiliation and insanity, symbolical of the time (2520 years) during which the covenant people should be under the dominion of the Gentile monarchies as the chastisement of their unfaithfulness, this period having different crises as stages of commencement. Of these, Mr. Guinness (Approaching End of the Age) mentions four, from the invasion of Pul, king of Assyria, in 770 b.c., to the final fall of the throne of David and full captivity of Judah under Nebuchadnezzar in 602. These stages of commencement have corresponding terminations, the first being in 1750, the period of Voltaire, and the last in 1918, yet to come. It was during the latter half of these mystical “seven times” that the Little Horn was to have power over the saints, the case of Israel being bound up with that of the Christian Church, which was to be under captivity by the same power that was to tyrannise over Israel, namely, the last of the four beasts. See farther the note under chap. Daniel 12:7.
[184] The spiritual power of the Papacy may, of course, have a different period for its termination, and outlive the temporal, which constituted it the Little Horn. Mr. Bosanquet remarks: “We see no room left for doubt that these 1260 years mark the duration of the Papal power. The temporal power of the Papacy seems to be vanishing before our eyes, if indeed it has not already ceased to exist [it has apparently done so, namely, in 1870], but how long the spiritual power shall be allowed to linger on in the ancient seat of its dominion, is a question to be solved by time. Wherever we may be disposed to fix the date of its commencement, it is clear that the time of expiration cannot be very far remote.” Some, however, date from the eighth century. “From the time,” says Bishop Newton, “of Pepin’s grant of Aistulph’s dominions in 755, the popes, having now become temporal princes, did no longer date their epistles and bulls by the year of the Emperor’s reign, but by the year of their own advancement to the Papal chair. Charles the Great, son and successor of Pepin, confirmed the grant, adding other territories, and giving the Pope to hold under himself the duchy of Rome, over which he gradually obtained the absolute authority, being about the same time declared superior to all human jurisdiction, while Charles in return was chosen Emperor of the West. Lewis the Pious, son and successor to Charles the Great, confirmed the donations of his father and grandfather, including Rome and its duchy, the popes to hold them in their own right, principality, and dominion to the end of the world.” “It should seem,” adds the Bishop, “that the ‘time, times,’ &c., are to be computed from this full establishment of the power of the Pope in the eighth century.” Gibbon speaks of Gregory I., who wrote so defiantly against the Emperor Leo about images in the eighth century, as the founder of the Papal monarchy; and Milner says, “From this time I look on the Pope of Rome as Antichrist.”
[185] One of the effects of the Revolution in 1792–3 was the destruction of the established religion in France, the chief support of the Papacy. As the edict of Justinian in 533 might be said to be the beginning of the Little Horn as a temporal power, and the giving of the saints into his hand, though its full growth was not for some time after, so the commencement of his fall as such, and the deliverance of the saints from his hand, might be dated from the French Revolution, though not to be completed till several years afterwards. The Convention, which met on the 20th September 1792, first decreed the eternal abolition of monarchy, and on the seventh day of its sitting, it was proposed by M. Manuel that, as royalty was abolished, the order of priests and all religious establishments should be abolished with it. This, however, was only done on the 31st of May in the following year, when the success of the Jacobin conspirators completed the destruction of the civil establishment of religion in France. On the 17th of June the report of Camille Jourdan on the freedom of religious worship was ordered to be printed by the unanimous vote of the Council of Five Hundred.
[186] It was the belief of the Early Church that the little horn of Daniel and the “Man of Sin” spoken of by Paul (2 Thessalonians 2.) was the same Antichrist, who was even expected shortly to appear. Justin Martyr says, “He being at hand who was to speak blasphemous words against the Most High, whom the prophet Daniel foretold was to continue for a time, times, &c.” Tertullian, referring to 2 Thessalonians 2., says, “Who can this be but the Roman State, the division of which into ten kingdoms will bring on Antichrist, and then the Wicked One shall be revealed?” Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, about the year 360, referring to the same passage, says, “Thus the predicted Antichrist will come when the times of the Roman empire shall be fulfilled, and the consummation of the world shall approach. Ten kings of the Romans shall rise together, in different places indeed, but they shall reign at the same time. Among them the eleventh is Antichrist, who by magical and wicked artifices shall seize the Roman power.” Cyril believed that the apostasy or falling away which was to precede the appearance of the Man of Sin, or Antichrist, had already taken place in his day. “Formerly,” he says, “the heretics were manifest, but now the Church is filled with heretics in disguise. For men have fallen away from the truth, and have itching ears. Is it a plausible theory? All listen to it gladly. Is it a word of correction? All turn away from it. Most have departed from right words, and rather choose the evil than desire the good. This therefore is the falling away, and the Enemy (Antichrist) is soon to be looked for.”
As yet probably they had no idea that the Bishop of Rome was to be he; for his coming was to be a “mystery of iniquity,” and “mystery” was to be the name of the system of which he was the head, as the word is said to be actually found on the Papal mitre. But a few centuries awoke the suspicion. In the Middle Ages it was believed by many that the Antichrist had already appeared in the person of the Popes. In the tenth century Arnulph, Bishop of Orleans, addressing a Council at Rheims, said: “O deplorable Rome, who in the days of our forefathers produced so many burning and shining lights! thou hast brought forth in our times only dismal darkness worthy of the detestation of posterity.… What think you, reverend fathers, of this man, the Pope, placed on a lofty throne, shining with purple and gold? Whom do you account him? If destitute of love and puffed up with pride of knowledge only, he is Antichrist sitting in the temple of God.” It is said in a work published in 1120, “The great Antichrist is already come; in vain is he yet expected; already by the permission of God is he advanced in years.” Roman Catholic writers, of course, refuse to believe that the Papacy is “the Little Horn or Antichrist;” and some few Protestants agree with them in thinking that that power is still future; while others, as the German Rationalists, would see in it only Antiochus Epiphanes. In reference to this last opinion, it is enough to say, with Auberlen, that the Little Horn is found among the ten kingdoms of the fourth beast or Roman Empire, while Antiochus Epiphanes belonged to the third or Grecian, which, according to chap. 8, is well known to have been divided, not into ten, but into four kingdoms. That the Roman Empire was broken up into about ten different kingdoms many centuries ago, and that the Papacy, as a temporal power, sprung up among them, are facts not to be disputed.
From the prophecy regarding the Little Horn we may notice—
1. The providence of God as ruling both in the world and in the Church. “He putteth down one and setteth up another.” Even the Little Horn, which was to prove such a scourge to the Church and to the world, was entirely under His control, and employed as His instrument in accomplishing the purposes of His infinite wisdom. The saints were to be “given” into His hand, as Judah and its king were given into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar (chap. Daniel 1:2). The same Providence limited the continuance of the subjection in both cases. What is done wickedly by man is permitted and controlled wisely and holily by God.
2. The comfort of God’s people to know that their sufferings are meted out, both in intensity and duration, by a Father’s hand. It was a fiery trial that was to try the saints when they were to be given into the hand of the Little Horn, who was to make war upon them, and prevail against them, and wear them out. But it was to continue only for a time, a long time indeed, as indicated in the expression “a time, times, and the dividing of a time;” but still it was to come to an end. “Thou shalt have tribulation ten days,”—not more. “In measure when it shooteth forth, Thou wilt debate with it: He stayeth His rough wind in the day of His east wind” (Isaiah 27:8). The “time to favour Zion, even the set time,” comes.
3. The preciousness and power of divine grace in sustaining the people of God under protracted persecutions and afflictions. No small affliction to the saints who held fast the Word of God to have war made upon them by a mighty and prevailing power, and to be worn out by exile, imprisonment, and loss of goods, year after year, the same thing being continued century after century. No small amount of grace needed to sustain them in the conflict, so as to be faithful unto death. But the promise is sure. “My grace is sufficient for thee; my strength is made perfect in weakness.” “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” Though appointed as sheep to the slaughter, we are made more than conquerors through Him that loved us. “They overcame through the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.”
4. The divine, and therefore indestructible, nature of the Church and religion of Jesus Christ, which has held out under centuries of cruel persecution. To exhibit this, probably one reason why such a state of things is permitted to take place. The bush burns, but is not consumed, because the Lord Himself is in it. The gates and power of hell unable to prevail against the Church of Christ, because founded on the Rock of Ages. The Church outlives the furnace, because One like the Son of God—the Son of God Himself—is with it there. “If this counsel or work be of men, it will come to nought; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it.” “Although,” says Sismondi, himself a Roman Catholic, “for two hundred years the fires were never quenched, still every day saw Catholics abjuring the faith of their fathers, and embracing the religion which often guided them to the stake. In vain Gregory IX., in 1231, put to death every heretic whom he found concealed in Rome.”
5. Cause for joy and thanksgiving that the wearing out of the saints by the Little Horn is at or near its close. There may yet be possibly a period of intense suffering from that same Little Horn under a changed aspect; but if so, it will be but of short continuance; perhaps the “time, times, and dividing of a time,” on the shorter literal day scale. But we may well rejoice and give thanks that the long-protracted period of “wearing out” is at an end. The fires of Smithfield and the tortures of the Inquisition, we may believe, are over. Even in Rome men may read the Bible and worship God according to it without being afraid. Let us thank God for liberty of conscience in Europe.
6. The prediction regarding the Little Horn, with its manifest fulfilment, another remarkable evidence of divine inspiration. That horn, as rising out of the fourth beast, and among the other ten, acknowledged not to be Antiochus Epiphanes, and must therefore be found long after the time when the prophecy was written. The prediction minute and detailed; and its fulfilment, in a power that for twelve centuries has been the most prominent and conspicuous one in Europe, singularly exact. The fulfilment of such prediction, though perfectly natural, yet partaking of the nature of a miracle, as being beyond any mere human power to foresee it, and as such an evidence of the divine origin of the prediction.