Daniel's Statue, Revelation,
Roman Empire
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4. THE ERA OF THE SPIRITUAL KINSHIP4.2. THE CHURCH DURING THE ROMAN EMPIREThe first seven Roman emperorsThe displacement of the Church from Jerusalem to Rome signifies the transition to the evangelization of "all nations" (Mk 13:10). The duration of this evangelization is consequently very long, for it has even not come to an end, and occupies two cycles. The biblical historiography ends with the description of St. Paul taken to Rome (Acts 27-28), which happened around 60 AD. However, prophetic accounts predict the rest of salvation history according to the known cyclic rhythm. These accounts are again found in the book of Daniel, but especially in the book of Revelation. The first thing we need to know to not get lost in this last book of the Bible is the present of St. John, the author of the apocalyptic visions, for this present is the starting point for the predicted events. However, this is only revealed in the 17th chapter, where a beast that "was, and is not, and is to ascend from the abyss and go to perdition" (Rev 17:8) is mentioned. This beast has seven heads (Rev 13:1), which signify seven hills and at the same time seven kings, "five of whom have fallen, one is reigning, the other has not yet come" (Rev 17:9-10). If five have fallen, the one who "is reigning" is consequently the sixth king, during the reign of which St. John received the apocalyptic visions. So it is already certain that at first these kings are Roman emperors, since St. John lived during their time. The Roman state officially remained a republic during the reign of Julius Caesar, for he did not receive the title of emperor, which at this time did not exist yet. This is why it is necessary to count from the first head of state who set up the Empire and officially obtained the adequate title. This was Octave, the adoptive son of Julius Caesar, better know as Augustus. The first five kings of the beast are therefore identical with Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Then followed a year during which four men claimed the title of Caesar. It is finally Vespasian who was successful over the others (see The future Antichrist and here). He is consequently the sixth king and St. John had his visions during his reign. And the seventh one, who "must remain only a little while" (Rev 17:10), is consequently Titus who had invested Jerusalem under the reign of Vespasian and who effectively only reigned from 24 June 79 to 13 September 81, that is just a little more than two and a half years. The beast that disappears and returns incorporates a prophecy that is of very heavy sense. Let’s restrict ourselves for the moment to the first seven Roman emperors. Limited to them, the beast that "was" at first necessarily means one of the five kings who "have fallen" (Rev 17:10). As for the beast that "is to ascend from the abyss", this must be the eighth king because he is the one who "has not yet come" and previously belonged to the seven (Rev 17:11), more exactly to the first five who "have fallen" :
Figure 10 By applying this enigma to the reality, there is only one plausible solution: Nero ordered the first persecution against the Christians, as a result of the burning of the city of Rome in 64, which he imputed to the Christians to divert suspicions away from himself. Nero committed suicide in 68, which equals to the disappeared beast. The second persecution took place in 90 under the reign of Domitian, the eighth emperor. In him Nero is like "resuscitated", since he ordered the second persecution against the Christians. As we are going to see, Nero and Domitian prefigure together the future Antichrist, of whom Revelation 13:3 predicts: "One of its heads seemed fatally wounded, but its mortal wound was healed", which indicates a real resurrection. Moreover, Domitian went "to perdition" (Rev 17:11), for he was assassinated, which indicates the disappearance of the beast. In this sense, the beast that "is not" corresponds to the sixth king, who "is reigning", as well as to the seventh king, that is to say to Vespasian and Titus, because they did not persecute the Christians (also see figure 13).
The Roman EmpireThe beast also refers to the Roman Empire in general, for according to Revelation 17:9 the seven heads at the same time signify the seven hills the city of Rome enclosed inside its battlements (Aventin, Caelius mons, Esquilin, Capitole, Palatin, Quirinal and Viminal). Rome was the capital of all the Roman Empire, its head as it were. The entire beast, which evidently not only has heads but also a body, consequently represents the Empire in general. This not only concerns its territory but also its history from the first to the last emperor. The beast is indeed designated by the encoded name 666 (Rev 31:18), which is traditionally deciphered by Caesar Neron. However, the beast is not only called thus because of Nero's persecutions but because of all the persecutions that committed the other emperors like Nero up to 311 AD. Hence, all emperors responsible for persecutions are compared to Nero because he was the first persecutor. This perhaps makes an allusion to the name of Julius Caesar, in honor of which all Roman leaders since Augustus received the title of Caesar (more exactly Augustus and Imperator Caesar Divi Filius) designating their status as emperor, because it was Julius Caesar who prepared the Roman republic for the totalitarian Empire. Caesar was by the way also used in other empires: in the Roman Eastern Empire the emperor was called Kaisar up to the 7th century, Kaiser in the Holy Roman Empire and Czar in the imperial Russia. Therefore, as Julius Caesar impregnated his name on the Roman emperors by his political impact, Revelation 31:18 attributes the name Nero to the emperors having committed savage persecutions, or even more or less to all, most of the emperors having indulged in the most disrupted delusions of grandeur, which Nero incarnated the first. The beast consequently not only has a meaning within the frame of the seven first emperors, but also within the frame of the whole Roman Empire. At this level of the state, the beast did evidently not disappear with Nero, but only much later with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, which began with the fall of the city of Rome during 410-455. The reascent of the beast on this large state level began with the reintroduction of the Roman culture by Charlemagne in the 8th century, which continued with the Renaissance and then the European imperialism and colonialism. The time of the disappearance of the beast is therefore the Christianization of Europe after the decline of the Empire. We will better analyze this further on.
The prophecy of Daniel's statueLet’s first make a little detour to the book of Daniel, where we find parallels concerning the beast: in chapter 2 Daniel relates that Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king responsible for the Jewish exile, had a dream of a statue. Its head was composed of gold, its chest and arms of silver, its stomach and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, and its feet of a mix of iron and clay (Dan 2:31-33). These four metals represent four kingdoms. The first is that of the Babylonians, of whom Nebuchadnezzar was the king at the time (Dan 2:37-44). The other kingdoms are not revealed, but they shall succeed one after another as victors over the formers (Dan 2:39-40). Thus it is easy to determine the four kingdoms of the statue: the Babylonians were conquered by the Persians, who were in turn defeated by the Greeks, and who finally were beaten by the Romans. Hence the golden head represents the Babylonians, the silver chest and arms the Persians, the bronze stomach and thighs the Greeks, and finally the iron legs and feet the Romans. Yet only the legs are entirely constituted of iron. The feet are composed of an iron and clay mix representing "a kingdom that will be divided" (Dan 2:41). That perfectly describes what happened with the Roman Empire: in the beginning it was "strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things" (Dan 2:40). Later, it broke down and several states were formed in nascent Europe. The iron and the clay also signify force and fragility (Dan 2:42): the feet are weakened by the clay and their breaking by a stone reduces to dust the whole statue, at the place of which the kingdom of God sets up (Dan 2:34-35; 2:44-45). So it is evident that the clay is part of God’s future kingdom, since it already weakens the feet and therefore the stability of all the statue broken later by God. One is tempted to say that correspondingly the clay represents the Church, which slowly incorporated to the Empire and so contributed to its fall. That is however only partly true, the clay indeed representing the Church, but in another historic context, because the whole duration of the Roman Empire is exclusively represented by the legs entirely constituted of iron, the feet representing the states that were formed on its territory after its decline. Daniel indeed writes that the iron and the clay will marry (Dan 2:43), which can only correspond to the epoch of the State Church, which precisely began after the decline of the Empire. Formerly, this was not at all a marriage since the Church was persecuted by the Roman state. Daniel also predicts the end of this marriage: "...but they will not hold together" (Dan 2:43), which means that the iron and clay mix corresponds to the entire time of the State Church until the complete separation of these two parts. Until today, this has even not yet taken place in all countries of Christian tradition. Hence, the clay of the feet represents a very long period of history, one that has even not come to an end yet. The parallel with the apocalyptic beast is consequently manifest (see figure 11): the legs of iron represent the beast who "was". Then there was the marriage between the Church and the European states expressed by the mix of iron and clay, which equals to the beast that "is not", since the persecutions against the Christians ceased. This goes together with: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is and who was, and who is coming" (Rev 1:8). Christ also was and will return, but contrarily to the beast that "is not", the Lord still "is" after having been, which indicates the victory of the Gospel after the collapse of Rome. However, this disappearance of the beast is not the final perdition yet, which will realize only after its reascent according to Revelation 17:8. The beast has consequently to return to definitively get lost. This reascent corresponds to the divorce between the Church and the State (Dan 2:43), which during the end times will result in new persecutions against the Church by the State. So the beast will have returned, but to "go to perdition" during the end of the world accompanied by the return of Christ, to which corresponds "who is coming" (Rev 1:8).
Figure 11 The four phases of the Roman EmpireThe first phase of the third cycle of the spiritual era corresponds to the welcome of the Gospel by the pagans after the persecutions by the Jews and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 (see Summary of Salvation History). It overlaps with the phase of sin hold by the persecutions of Nero in 64 AD and Domitian toward 90. But there were still persecutions until 311, almost as long as "the beast was", that is to say as the Roman Empire kept its unity, but they amplified and were particularly atrocious during Decius (249-251), who for the first time systematically proceeded with new legislations at the expense of the Christians, Diokletian (284-305), and especially Galerius (305-311). The phase of judgment arrived with the fall of Rome, followed by the invasion of the Cousins in 410 and Vandals in 455, which provoked the decomposition of the whole Western Empire and the dethronement of the last Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, by Odoacer in 476. There were also other disasters, with the result that the Christians almost confused them with the end of the world. Saint Augustine gives us a impressive testimony of this time in Sermons to the People: "People say sometimes: ‘The days of judgment are arriving, there are so many evils, so many tribulations multiply. See, all what the prophets predicted is almost accomplished, the day of judgment is imminent.’ Those who speak this language, and who speak it with faith, think that they will soon meet the Spouse. But despite war after war, tribulation after tribulation, earthquake after earthquake, famine after famine, invasion after invasion, the Spouse has not yet come. It is therefore by waiting on his arrival that lull all those who say: ‘He is coming and the day of judgment finds us here.’ By speaking thus, one sleeps. So let’s keep from sleeping and persevere in charity before sleeping. That the sleep finds us awaiting the Spouse" (Sermon 93:7). The phase of revival consists of the cessation of hostilities by the Roman state against the Christians, which corresponds to the temporary marriage of this state with the terrestrial representative of the future celestial Kingdom, that is to say with the Church. Thus the State was tamed, and this corresponds to the time of the disappeared beast. The Christian religion was in fact tolerated by Galerius in 311 and Constantine the Great in 313. In 381, it was even made obligatory for all citizens by Theodosius the Great. This was consequently still before the fall of Rome, which is a precursory sign due to the overlapping of the phases, the real revival setting up with the spreading of the Gospel in all Europe after the fall of the Empire. Thus, the word of the Lord: "The Gospel must first be preached to all nations" (Mk 13:10), began its realization. |
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