The Sacred Scriptures - 29th Special Edition (Part 4/4)

The Sacred Scriptures

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» The Book of Psalms & The Book of Daniel «

~ all verses and explanations in German and English with »Appendix« in English ~

~ 29th Special Edition ~

Part 4/4

Johannes Biermanski

Ebozon Publishing

First edition January 2016

Copyright © 2016 by Ebozon Publishing

a brand of CONDURIS UG (haftungsbeschränkt)

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Cover design by Johannes Biermanski

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All rights reserved in all media. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical (including but not limited to: the internet, photocopying, recoding or by any information storage and retrieval system), without prior permission in writing from the author and/or publisher.

This book is written for the glorification

of his holy name.

Dieses Buch ist geschrieben zur Verherrlichung

seines heiligen Namens.

~ ~ Tetragramm/Tetragrammaton: ~ ~

{JAHWEH} YAHWEH

"The Holy Scripture shall be accepted as

an authoritative, infallible revelation

of God's will.

It is the benchmark for all doctrines and for the

character: the enunciator of principles,

the touchstone of experience.

The Bible and the Bible alone should be our

basis of faith, the only bond of unity.

God's word is infallible!

Hold the banner high, on which the Bible

is written, our faith and education scale."

Ellen G. White

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Die Heilige Schrift soll als eine maßgebende,

untrügliche Offenbarung des Willens Gottes

angenommen werden.

Sie ist der Maßstab aller Lehren und für den

Charakter; die Verkünderin der Grundsätze,

der Prüfstein der Erfahrung.

Die Bibel und die Bibel allein soll unsere

Glaubensgrundlage sein, das einzige Band der Einheit.

Gottes Wort ist unfehlbar!

Haltet das Banner hoch, auf welchem die Bibel

geschrieben steht, unser Maßstab für Glaube und

Erziehung."

Ellen G. White

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The seal of ELOHIM (G-d) can be found in the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandment, the Sabbath commandment:

His name is “YAHWEH”,

His territorial dominion is “Heaven and Earth”

and His title is “Creator”.

If the seal is removed from the fourth commandment of ELOHIM (G-d), the whole law then becomes invalid!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Das Siegel ELOHIMS (G-ttes) befindet sich im vierten Gebot der Zehn Gebote, dem Sabbatgebot:

Sein Name “JAHWEH”,

Sein Herrschaftsgebiet “Himmel und Erde”

und Sein Titel “Schöpfer”.

Wird das Siegel ELOHIMS (G-ttes) aus dem vierten Gebot entfernt, so ist das ganze Gesetz ungültig!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Note about Daniel, Chapter 7, Verses 21-28.

"VERSE 21. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; 22. Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom."

The wonderful wrath of this little horn against the saints particularly attracted the attention of Daniel. The rise of the ten horns, or the division of Rome into ten kingdoms, between the years A.D. 351 and 483, has already been noticed. (see on chapter 2:41.) As these horns denote kingdoms, the little horn must denote a kingdom also, but not of the same nature, because it was diverse from the others. They were political kingdoms. And now we have but to inquire if any kingdom has arisen among the ten kingdoms of the Roman empire since A.D. 483, and yet diverse from them all; and if so, what one? The answer is, Yes; the spiritual kingdom of the papacy. This answers to the symbol in every particular, as is easily proved; and nothing else will do it. See the specifications more particularly mentioned in verse 23.

Daniel beheld this horn making war upon the saints. Has such a war been waged by the papacy? Fifty million martyrs, with a voice like the sound of many waters answer. Yes.

Witness the cruel persecutions of the Waldenses, the Albigenses, and Protestants in general, by the papal power. It has been asserted that the persecutions, massacres, and religious wars excited by the Church and Bishop of Rome, have occasioned the shedding of far more blood of the saints of the Most High than all the enmity, hostility and persecutions of professed heathen peoples from the foundation of the world.

In verse 22 three consecutive events seem to be brought to view. Daniel, looking onward from the time when the little horn was in the height of its power to the full end of the long contest between the saints and Satan with all his agents, notes three prominent events that stand as land-marks along the way. (1) The coming of the Ancient of days; that is, the position which YAHWEH takes in the opening of the judgment scene described in verses 9, 10. (2) The judgment that is given to the saints; that is, the time when the saints sit with the Messiah in judgment a thousand years, following the first resurrection (Rev.20:14), apportioning to the wicked/lawless the punishment due for their sins. Then the martyrs will sit in judgment upon the great anti-Christian, persecuting power, which, in the days of their trial, hunted them like the beasts of the desert, and poured out their blood like water. (3) The time that the saints possess the kingdom; that is, the time of their entrance upon the possession of the new earth. Then the last vestige of the curse will have been wiped away; sin and sinners, root and branch, will have been destroyed; and the territory so long misruled by the wicked/lawless powers of earth, the enemies of God's people, will be taken by the righteous, to be held by them forever and ever.

1 Cor. 6:2, 3; Mat. 25:34.

"VERSE 23. "Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be mightily from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. 24. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise; and another shall rise after them; and he shall be mightily from the first, and he shall subdue/put down three kings. 25. And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. 26. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it to the end."

We have here further particulars respecting the fourth beast and the little horn.

Perhaps enough has already been said respecting the fourth beast (Rome) and the ten horns, or ten kingdoms, which arose therefrom. The little horn now more particularly demands attention. As stated on verse 8, we find the fulfilment of the prophecy concerning this horn in the rise and work of the papacy. It is a matter of both interest and importance, therefore, to inquire into the causes which resulted in the development of this anti-Christian power.

The first pastors or bishops of Rome enjoyed a respect proportionate to the rank of the city in which they resided; and for the first few centuries of the Christian era, Rome was the largest, richest, and most powerful city in the world. It was the seat of empire, the capital of the nations. "All the inhabitants of the earth belong to her," said Julian; and Claudian declared her to be "the fountain of laws." "If Rome is the queen of cities, why should not her pastor be the king of bishops?" was the reasoning these Roman pastors adopted. "Why should not the Roman Church be the mother of Christendom? Why should not all nations be her children, and her authority their sovereign law?" "It was easy," says D'Aubigne, from whom we quote these words ("History of the Reformation," Vol. I, chap.1), "for the ambitious heart of man to reason thus. Ambitious Rome did so."

The bishops in the different parts of the Roman empire felt a pleasure in yielding to the Bishop of Rome some portion of that honor which Rome, as the queen city, received from the nations of the earth. There was originally no dependence implied in the honor thus paid. "But," continues D'Aubigne, "usurped power increased like an avalanche. Admonitions, at first simply fraternal, soon became absolute commands in the mouth of the pontiff. The western bishops favored this encroachment of the Roman pastors, either from jealousy of the eastern bishops, or because they preferred submitting to the supremacy of a Pope rather than to the dominion of a temporal power."

Such were the influences clustering around the Bishop of Rome, and thus circumstances tended toward his speedy elevation to the supreme spiritual throne of Christendom. But the fourth century was destined to witness an obstacle thrown across the path of this ambitious dream. Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, began to teach and maintain "that the Son was totally and essentially distinct from the Father; that he was the first and noblest of those beings whom the Father had created out of nothing, the instrument by whose subordinate operation the Almighty Father formed the universe, and therefore inferior to the Father both in nature and dignity." - This theory occasioned so fierce a controversy in the Christian church that a general council was called at Nicaea, by the emperor Constantine, A.D.325, to consider and adjust it. This opinion was condemned by the council, which decreed that Christ was of one and the same substance with the Father. Hereupon Arius was banished to Illyria, and his followers were compelled to give their assent to the creed composed on that occasion. (Mosheim, cent. 4, part 2, chap. 4: Stanley, History of the Eastern Church, p. 239.)

The controversy itself, however, was not to be disposed of in this summary manner, but continued for ages to agitate the Christian world, the Arians everywhere becoming the bitter enemies of the Roman Catholic Church, and of the pope, the Bishop of Rome, who championed the couse of orthodoxy. From these facts it is evident that the spread of Arianism would check the influence of the Catholics; and the possession of Rome and Italy by a people of the Arian persuasion, would be fatal to the supremacy of a Catholic bishop. But the prophecy had declared that this horn would rise to supreme power, and that in reaching this position it would subdue three kings.

Some difference of opinion has existed in regard to the particular powers which were overthrown in the interest of the papacy, in reference to which the following remark by Albert Barnes seems very pertinent: "In the confusion that existed on the breaking up of the Roman empire, and the imperfect accounts of the transactions which occurred in the rise of the papal power, it would not be wonderful if it should be difficult to find events distinctly recorded that would be in all respects an accurate and absolute fulfilment of the vision. Yet it is possible to make out the fulfilment of this with a good degree of certainty in the history of the papacy." - Notes on Daniel 7.

Mr Mede supposes the three kingdoms plucked up to have been the Greeks, the Lombards, the Franks; and Sir Isaac Newton supposes they were the Exarchate of Ravenna, the Lombards, the Senate and Dukedom of Rome. Bishop Newton (Dissertation on the Prophecies, pp. 217, 218) states some serious objections to both these schemes. The Franks could not have been one of these kingdoms; for they were never plucked up before the papacy. The Lombards could not have been one; for they were never made subject to the popes. Says Barnes, " I do not find, indeed, that the kingdom of the Lombards was, as is commonly stated, among the number of the temporal sovereignties that became subject to the authority of the popes." And the Senate and Dukedom of Rome could not have been one; for they, as such, never constituted one of the ten kingdoms, three of which were to be plucked up before the little horn.

But we apprehend that the chief difficulty in the application made by these eminent commentators, lay in the fact that they supposed that the prophecy respecting the exaltation of the papacy had not been fulfilled, and could not have been, till the Pope became a temporal prince; and hence they sought to find an accomplishment of the prophecy in the events which led to the pope's temporal sovereignty. Whereas, evidently, the prophecy of verses 24, 25 refers, not to his civil power, but to his power to domineer over the minds and consciences of men; and the pope reached this position, as will hereafter appear, in A.D. 538; and the plucking up of the three horns took place before this, and to make way for this very exaltation to spiritual dominion. The insuperable difficulty in the way of all attempts to apply the prophecy to the Lombards and the other powers named above is that they come altogether too late in point of time; for the prophecy deals with the arrogant efforts of the Roman pontiff to gain power, not with his endeavors to oppress and humble the nations after he had secured the supremacy.

The position is here confidently taken that the three powers, or horns, plucked up before the papacy, were the Heruli, the Vandals, and the Ostrogoths; and this position rests upon the following statements of historians.

Odoacer, the leader of the Heruli, was the first of the barbarians who reigned over the Romans. He took the throne of Italy, according to Gibbon (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol.III, pp. 510,515), in 476. Of his religious belief Gibbon (p. 516) says: "Like the rest of the barbarians, he had been instructed in the Arian heresy; but he revered the monastic and episcopal characters, and the silence of the Catholics attests the toleration which they enjoyed."

Again he says (p. 547): "The Ostrogoths, the Burgundians, the Suevi, and the Vandals, who had listened to the eloquence of the Latin clergy, preferred the more intelligible lessons of their domestic teachers; and Arianism was adopted as the national faith of the warlike converts who were seated on the ruins of the western empire. This irreconcilable difference of religion was a perpetual source of jealousy and hatred; and the reproach of barbarian was embittered by the more odious epithet of heretic. The heroes of the North, who had submitted, with some reluctance, to believe that all their ancestors were in hell, were astonished and exasperated to learn that they themselves had only changed the mode of their eternal condemnation."

The reader is requested to consider carefully a few more historical statements which throw some light on the situation at this time. Stanley (History of the Eastern Church, p. 151) says: "The whole of the vast Gothic population which descended on the Roman empire, so far as it was Christian at all, held to the faith of the Alexandrian heretic. Our first Teutonic version of the Scriptures was by an Arian missionary, Ulfilas [Wulfila]. The first conqueror of Rome, Alaric, and the first conqueror of Africa, Genseric, were Arians. Theodoric, the great king of Italy, and hero of the 'Nibelungen Lied,' was an Arian. The vacant place in his massive tomb at Ravenna is a witness of the vengeance which the Orthodox took on his memory, when, in their triumph, they tore down the porphyry vase in which his Arian subjects had enshrined his ashes."

Ranke, in his History of the Popes (London, edition of 1871), Vol.I, p. 9, says: "But she {the church} fell, as was inevitable, into many embarrassments, and found herself in an entirely altered condition. A pagan people took possession of Britain; Arian kings seized the greater part of the remaining West; while the Lombards, long attached to Arianism, and as neighbors most dangerous and hostile, established a powerful sovereignty before the very gates of Rome. The Roman bishops, meanwhile, beset on all sides, exerted themselves with all the prudence and pertinacity which have remained their peculiar attributes, to regain the mastery, at least in the patriarchal diocese."

Machiavelli, in his History of Florence, p. 14, says: "Nearly all the wars which the northern barbarians carried on in Italy, it may be here remarked, were occasioned by the pontiffs; and the hordes with which the country was inundated, were generally called in by them."

These extracts give us a general view of the state of affairs at this time, and show us that though the hands of the Roman pontiffs might not be visibly manifest in the movements upon the political board, they constituted the power working assiduously behind the scenes to secure their own purposes. The relation which these Arian kings sustained to the Pope, from which we can see the necessity of their being overthrown to make way for papal supremacy, is shown in the following testimony from Mosheim, given in his History of the Church, cent.6, part 2, chap.2, sec.2:-

"On the other hand, it is certain, from a variety of the most authentic records, that both the emperors and the nations in general were far from being disposed to bear with patience the yoke of servitude which the popes were imposing upon the Christian church. The Gothic princes set bounds to the power of these arrogant prelates in Italy, permitted none to be raised to the pontificate without their approbation, and reserved to themselves the right of judging of the legality of every new election."

An instance in proof of this statement occurs in the history of Odoacer, the first Arian king above mentioned, as related by Bower in his History of the Popes, Vol.I, p. 271. When, on the death of Pope Simplicius, A.D. 483, the clergy and people had assembled for the election of a new Pope, suddenly Basilius, lieutenant of King Odoacer, appeared in the assembly, expressed his surprise that any such work as appointing a successor to the deceased pope should be undertaken without him, in the name of the king declared all that had been done null and void, and ordered the election to be begun anew. Certainly the horn which exercised such a restrictive power over the papal pontiff must be taken away before the pope could reach the predicted supremacy.

Meanwhile, Zeno, the emperor of the East, and friend of the pope, was anxious to drive Odoacer out of Italy (Machiavelli, p. 6), a movement which he soon had the satisfaction of seeing accomplished without trouble to himself, in the following manner. Theodoric had come to the throne of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Moesia and Pannonia. Being on friendly terms with Zeno, he wrote him, stating that it was impossible for him to restrain his Goths within the impoverished province of Pannonia, and asking his permission to lead them to some against the kingdom of Odoacer. "Italy, the inheritance of your predecessors, and Rome itself, the head and mistress of the world, now fluctuates under the violence an oppression of Odacer the mercenary. Direkt me, with my national troops, to march against the tyrant." Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. XXXIX., par. 5.

The history of Odoacer shows him to have been a wise and moderate ruler. It was only the Bishop and clergy of Rome that complained of violence, oppression, and tyranny, and it was doubtless at their instigation that Theodoric and Zeno planned the subjugation of the Heruli. The offer of Theodoric was accepted, and he received permission to march against Odoacer, and take possession of Italy. Accordingly, after a three years' war, the Herulian kingdom in Italy was overthrown, Odoacer was treacherously slain, and Theodoric established his Ostrogoths in the Italian peninsula. As already stated, he was an Arian, and the law of Odoacer subjecting the election of the pope to the approval of the king, was still retained.

The following incident will show how completely the papacy was in subjection to his power. The Catholics in the East, having commenced a persecution against the Arians in 523, Theodoric summoned Pope John into his presence, and thus addressed him: "If the emperor [Justin, the predecessor of Justinian] does not think fit to revoke the edict which he has lately issued against those of my persuasion [that is, the Arians], it is my firm resolution to issue the like edict against those of his [that is, the Catholics]; and to see it everywhere executed with the same rigor. Those who do not profess the faith of Nicaea are heretics to him, and those who do are heretics to me. Whatever can excuse or justify his severity to the former, will excuse the justify mine to the latter. But the emperor," continued the king, "has none about him who dare freely and openly speak what they think, or to whom he would hearken if they did. But the great veneration which he professes for your See, leaves no room to doubt but he would hearken to you. I will therefore have you to repair forthwith to Constantinople, and there to remonstrate, both in my name and your own, against the violent measures in which that court has so rashly engaged. It is in your power to divert the emperor from them; and till you have, nay, till the Catholics [this name Theodoric applies to the Arians] are restored to the free exercise of their religion, and to all the churches from which they have been driven, you must not think of returning to Italy." - Bower's History of the Popes, Vol. I, p. 325.

The pope who was thus peremptorily ordered not to set his foot again upon Italian soil until he had carried out the will of the king, certainly could not hope for much advancement toward any kind of supremacy till that power was taken out of the way. Baronius maintains that the Pope sacrificed himself on this occasion, and advised the emperor not by any means to comply with the demand the king had sent him. But Bower thinks this inconsistent, since he could not, he says, "sacrifice himself without sacrificing, at the same time, the far greater part of the innocent Catholics in the West, who were either subject to King Theodoric, or to other Arian princes in alliance with him." It is certain that the pope and the other ambassadors were treated with severity on their return,which Bower explains on this wise: "Others arraign them all of high treason; and truly the chief men of Rome were suspected at this very time of carrying on a treasonable correspondence with the court of Constantinople, and machinating the ruin of the Gothic empire in Italy." - Id., p. 326.

The feelings of the papal party toward Theodoric may be accurately estimated, according to a quotation already given, by the vengeance which they took on his memory, when they tore from his massive tomb in Ravenna the porphyry vase in which his Arian subjects had enshrined his ashes. But these feelings are put into language by Baronius, who inveighs "against Theodoric as a cruel barbarian, as a barbarous tyrant, as an impious Arian." But "having exaggerated with all his eloquence, and bewailed the deplorable condition of the Roman Church reduced by that heretic to a state of slavery, he comforts himself in the end, and dries up his tears, with the pious thought that the author of such a calamity died soon after, and was eternally damned!" - Bower, Vol.I, p. 328; Compare Baronius' Annals, A.D. 526, p. 116.

While the Catholics were thus feeling the restraining power of an Arian king in Italy, they were suffering a violent persecution from the Arian Vandals in Africa. (Gibbon, chap. 37, sec. 2.) Elliott, in his Horae Apocalypticae, Vol. III, p. 152, note 3, says: "The Vandal kings were not only Arians, but persecutors of the Catholics: in Sardinia and Corsica, under the Roman Episcopate, we may presume, as well as in Africa."