Daniel 7, The 11th Horn, part 2
The 11th Horn Identified

Intro.

As noted in the previous posting, HERE, the “little horn�?of Daniel 7 was identified by the early Christians with the “man of sin�?/FONT> of 2 Thessalonians 2:3-8. And through the centuries these passage has been applied directly to the papacy by Roman Catholic clergy who have felt that the pope -- either the current one, or a future one, or the papacy as a whole (the entire line of popes) -- was the antichrist. As just a couple of examples -- below are some pre-Protestant Reformation era quotes by Roman Catholic bishops.

Catholic Testimony

Roman Catholic Archbishop, Arnulf of Orleans, in 991, in a council called by the king of France said:

“Looking at the actual state of the papacy, what do we behold? John [XII.] called Octavian, wallowing in the sty of filthy concupiscence, conspiring against the sovereign whom he had himself recently crowned; then Leo [VIII.] the neophyte, chased from the city by this Octavian; and that monster himself, after the commission of many murders and cruelties, dying by the hand of an assassin. Next we see the deacon Benedict, though freely elected by the Romans, carried away captive into the wilds of Germany by the new Caesar [Otho I.] and his pope Leo. Then a second Caesar [Otho II.], greater in arts and arms than the first [?], succeeds; and in his absence Boniface, a very monster of iniquity, reeking with the blood of his predecessor, mounts the throne of Peter. True, he is expelled and condemned; but only to return again, and redden his hands with the blood of the holy bishop John [XIV.]. Are there, indeed, any bold enough to maintain that the priests of the Lord over all the world are to take their law from monsters of guilt like these-men branded with ignominy, illiterate men, and ignorant alike of things human and divine? If, holy fathers, we be bound to weigh in the balance the lives, the morals, and the attainments of the meanest candidate for the sacerdotal office, how much more ought we to look to the fitness of him who aspires to be the lord and master of all priests! Yet how would it fare with us, if it should happen that the man the most deficient in all these virtues, one so abject as not to be worthy of the lowest place among the priesthood, should be chosen to fill the highest place of all? What would you say of such a one, when you behold him sitting upon the throne glittering in purple and gold? Must he not be the ’Antichrist, sitting in the temple of God, and showing himself as God?�?Verily such a one lacketh both wisdom and charity; he standeth in the temple as an image, as an idol, from which as from dead marble you would seek counsel�? Arnulf, ArchBishop of Orleans, speech at the Gallican Synod, Council of Rheims, 991

“With the greatest effort, Jesus also admonished that we avoid false Christs, false prophets who, clothed in sheep skin with the name of Christian and a Pontifical title, desire to rule and deceive us. It is fitting they be recognized by their thorny works, especially avarice, debauchery, strife, hatred, envy, wars, and the desire to have dominion, and blind ambition. Can there be a more obvious meaning to these words which our heavenly Emperor prophesies? He can only be point to the Pharisees and Scribes of Babylon who, under the title of Supreme Pontiff, we discern, unless we are blind, a most savage wolf whose skin feels as the skin of a Shepherd. �?One hundred and seventy years earlier, Hildebrand [Pope from 1073-1086] first laid the foundations of the rule of Antichrist, under the peaceful appearance of religion, but, in reality, was the first to inaugurate this nefarious war which has been faithfully continued by his successors. �?He who is the servant of servants desires to be Lord of Lords, as if he were God; he despises holy assemblies and the councils of the brethren, nay, rather of his own Lords �?He speaks great things as if he were God and is ever scheming and plotting in his heart how to strengthen his rule. To this end he changes laws, he enacts his own, he corrupts, he plunders, he defrauds, he kills; that morally depraved man whom they are accustomed to call the Antichrist, upon whose forehead is written the name of contempt, I am God, I cannot err; he sits in the temple of God and his domain is far and wide.�?Eberhard II, Archbishop of Salzburg, speech at Council of Ratisbon, 1240.

Eberhard ended up being excommunicated by the Pope. One can only wonder why.

"Man of sin"

Subsequent to the fall of Rome in 476, the weakening power of the emperors, and the gradual elevation of the Church and Bishop of Rome, gave rise to a new power within the empire, an apostate Christian dictatorship that wielded state authority - the papacy.

In 2 Thessalonians 2 Paul make two very important comments concerning the rise and fall of this “man of sin�?

First, he says, that the work of apostasy, “the mystery of iniquity�?/FONT> that would give rise to the “man of sin�?/FONT> had already begun in his own day.

Is it the Papacy?

The dawning of Papal Supremacy

“before whom there were three of the first horns
plucked up by the roots.�?(verse 8)
“and before whom three fell�?(verse 20)
“and he shall subdue three kings�?(verse 24)

In the earliest days of Christianity, the various bishops enjoyed a status equivalent to that of the city they presided over. Since Rome was the capital of the empire, the bishop of Rome ranked first among the bishops of the church. But there was originally no dependence or submission on the part of the other bishops implied. It was simply a courtesy given. But this simple courtesy was enough to whet the appetite of the bishops of Rome for more power. “If Rome is the queen of cities, why should not her pastor be the king of bishops? 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 for the ambitious heart of man to reason thus. Ambitious Rome did so.�?d’Aubigue, History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, Vol. I, p. 8.

When Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome, made the decision to move the capital of the empire to Constantinople, this only served to increase the stature, and the ambition, of the Roman bishops. But there were serious obstacles in the way of these ambitious desires. With the partition of the empire among the various barbarian tribes, Italy, and the city of Rome in particular came under the domination of first one then another of these barbarian tribes. And three of these tribes in particular proved to be galling thorns in the sides of the embryonic papacy, standing in the way of its ambitions. These were the Heruli, the Vandals and the Ostrogoths.

These barbarian tribes had been “Christianized�?prior to their invasion of the empire, but their brand of Christianity was Arian not Roman Catholicism. Arian’s took their name from Arius, the parish priest of Alexandria in northern Africa, who formulated the Arian doctrines and spread them across the Christian world. Arius taught “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.�?John Mosheim, An Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1, p. 412. This sparked a fierce controversy throughout Christendom, and when it was soundly condemned at the council of Nicaea (325), and Arius himself banished to Illyria, the Arians everywhere became the bitter enemies of the Roman Catholics.

And so it came to pass, that as the Roman empire was partitioned among these barbarian tribes, the Catholics in Rome found themselves under the complete domination of an Arian king. The tribe that took Rome was the Heruli. The Heruli were the last of the ten kingdoms to establish themselves, and Odoacer, their leader, the first of the barbarians to rule over Rome itself, taking the throne of Italy in 476. And the Catholics chaffed under the restrictions the Arian’s put them under. Figuratively speaking, they could not sneeze without first obtaining permission from their Arian overlords to do so. An incident that illustrates their complete subjection to their Arian masters took place in 483 upon the death of Pope Simplicius. Presuming to elect a new pope on their own, the clergy and the people had assembled for that purpose when Basilius, lieutenant of King Odoacer, burst into the assembly and declared all that had been done null and void, and ordered the election to begin all over again under his supervision and jurisdiction. And the Catholics had no choice but to do as they were told.

As prophecy specified, the papal horn was indeed a �?EM>little�?horn, but not without it’s allies. In the remnant that remained of the empire, Zeno, emperor of the East, himself a Catholic, found a way to help the pope in Rome. Seeing an opportunity to pit one Arian kingdom against the other, he accordingly set the Ostrogoths under the leadership of Theodoric against the Heruli. The Catholics didn’t really care who won the conflict, either way they would be rid of one or the other of them. As it turned out, it was the Ostrogoths under the leadership of Theodoric who emerged victorious. In 493 the Heruli were eradicated and disappeared from the pages of history. And now the papacy found itself under the rule of another Arian kingdom. And life under the Arian Ostrogoths was every bit as onerous for the Catholics as life under the Heruli had been. Anyway, as that may be, so far as the papacy was concerned, it was one down and two to go.

Meanwhile, as Catholics were chafing under the rule of the Arian Ostrogoths in Italy, they were also suffering violent persecution from the Arian Vandals in North Africa. “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.�?Edward B Elliott, Horae Apocalypicae, Vol. III, p. 139, Note 3. It was in 533, some 40 years after the overthrow of the Heruli, that Justinian, who at that time was emperor of the Eastern empire, embarked upon his Vandal and Gothic wars. Desiring the additional influence of the papacy in support of the war, he issued a decree that made the Roman bishop the supreme head of all the churches. But until such time as the two remaining Arian horns could be uprooted, that decree was just so many empty words on a scrap of paper, and the papacy powerless to put it into effect. But fate was on side of the papacy. In 534, just one year after the opening of the Vandal and Gothic wars, the Vandals were exterminated by the Catholic armies under the generalship of Belisarius. Two Arian horns had been uprooted. Only the Ostrogoth horn remained standing. Only the Ostrogoths stood in the way of the papacy and its grandiose dream of temporal and ecclesiastical supremacy.

Having defeated the Vandals, Belisarius turned his Catholic army north against the Arian Ostrogoths in Italy. Belisarisus�?advance was so rapid it took the Ostrogoths by surprise, and he entered Rome unopposed with a force of only 5000 men. The Ostrogoths counterattacked by surrounding Rome with 150,000 men, making Belisarius and his 5000 man army prisoners inside the city. Then the Ostrogoths made a huge blunder that would ultimately result in their total defeat. Thinking to deprive Belisarius and his small army of water and thus force them to surrender, they cut the fourteen aqueducts leading into the city. But the torrents of water that poured out of the broken aqueducts created a quagmire that bred malarial mosquitoes and caused malarial epidemics among the Ostrogoths surrounding the city. The 150,000 man Ostrogoth army was so grievously decimated by disease that on March 12, 538 Belisarius was able to march out of the city with his little 5000 man army and defeated the Ostrogoths. Small skirmishes would continue for a time, but the power of the Ostrogoths was broken and its horn uprooted, and the Ostrogoths like the Heruli and Vandals before them would vanish from the pages of history.  Nothing now stood in the way of the papacy and it’s ambitions. Three horns had fallen and the papacy was unleashed.

The papacy was still very much a “little horn�?/FONT> at this time, but with the fall of the third horn, it was now unleashed and free to peruse its vainglorious aspirations. With deliberate determination it assumed more and ever more power till at last it had achieved the temporal and ecclesiastical supremacy it had long desired and believed to be its God given right. It became “more stout [or greater] than his fellows�?/FONT> presuming to set up kings and emperors, or depose them at will, and to command the absolute unquestioning obedience of the people.