| “a mouth speaking great things.�?(verse 8)
“a mouth that spake very great things�?(verse 20)
“great words against the most High.�?(verse 25) As already noted in an earlier posting, the Aramaic �?I>lesad �?translated ‘against�?in verse 25 may be interpreted as meaning that in its opposition to the Most High the little horn would set itself up as being equal with God. This ties in with Revelation 13:5 where we are told that the dragon beast �?/FONT>was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies.�?/FONT> In Scripture there are two things that are specifically identified as being blasphemy. The first is for a man to claim to be able to forgive sin. (Luke 5:21). The second is for a man to claim to be God. (John 10:33). The papacy claims both. Volumes could be written on this one aspect of the little horn alone, but I will simply post a few brief comments from good solid Roman Catholic sources. “The priest holds the place of the Saviour Himself, when by saying ‘Ego to absolvo�?[I thee absolve], he absolves from sin. �?To pardon a single sin requires all the omnipotence of God. �?But what only God can do by His omnipotence, the priest can also do by saying ‘Ego to absolva a peccatis tuis.�?�?Innocent III has written: ‘Indeed, it is not to much to say that in view of the sublimity of their offices the priest are so many gods.�?�?Saint Alphonsus da Ligouri “Dignity and Duties of the Priest�? pg 34-36 "For thou art the shepherd, thou art the physician, thou art the director, thou art the husbandman; finally, thou art another God on earth." Christopher Marcellus, Oration in the Fifth Lateran Council, Session IV (1512), in Mansi SC, Vol. 32, col. 761. Latin. "Therefore the decision of the Pope and the decision of God constitute one decision. . . . Since, therefore, an appeal is always made from an inferior judge to a superior, just as no one is greater than himself, so no appeal holds when made from the Pope to God, because there is one consistory of the Pope himself and of God Himself." Augustinus Triumphus, Summa de Potestate Ecclesiastica, 1483, questio 6. Latin. "But the supreme teacher in the Church is the Roman Pontiff. Union of minds, therefore, requires, together with a perfect accord in the one faith, complete submission and obedience of will to the Church and to the Roman Pontiff, as to God Himself." Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter, "On the Chief Duties of Christians as Citizens," dated January 10, 1890, trans. in The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII, New York: Benzinger, 1903, p. 193. Lucius Ferraris, in his Prompta Bibliotheca which the Catholic Encylopedia refers to as "a veritable encyclopedia of religious knowledge" and "a precious mine of information," declares, in its article on the pope, that: "the pope is of so great dignity and so exalted that he is not a mere man, but as it were God, and the vicar of God. . . . The pope is of such lofty and supreme dignity that, properly speaking, he has not been established in any rank of dignity, but rather has been placed upon the very summit of all ranks of dignities. . . . The pope is called most holy because he is rightfully presumed to be such... "The pope alone is deservedly called by the name 'most holy,' because he alone is the vicar of Christ, who is the fountain and source and fullness of all holiness. . . . 'He is likewise the divine monarch and supreme emperor, and king of kings.' . . . Hence the pope is crowned with a triple crown, as king of heaven and of earth and of the lower regions. . . . Moreover the superiority and the power of the Roman Pontiff by no means pertain only to heavenly things, to earthly things, and to things under the earth, but are even over angels, than whom he is greater. . . . So that if it were possible that the angels might err in the faith, or might think contrary to the faith, they could be judged and excommunicated by the pope. . . .For he is of so great dignity and power that he forms one and the same tribunal with Christ. . . . "The pope is as it were God on earth, sole sovereign of the faithful of Christ, chief king of kings, having plenitude of power, to whom has been entrusted by the omnipotent God direction not only of the earthly but also of the heavenly kingdom. …�?Translated from Lucius Ferraris, Prompta Bibliotheca, art. "Papa," II, Vol. VI, pp. 26-29. |
| “war with the saints, and prevailed against them.�?(verse 20)
“wear out the saints of the most High.�?(verse 25) The persecutions of the papacy are well known. The papacy allowed no dissent from its doctrines, and dealt harshly with those who dared to do so. There was religious oppression on every level. Wars were launched to crush dissent. The Inquisition used all means to search out and suppress dissent from Rome. Volumes could be written on it, but there is one aspect of the “legal torture�?practiced by the Inquisitors that is especially relevant. The Roman legal system was rough. In the courts of the Roman Empire a person accused of a crime was assumed to be guilty. This was in harmony with Roman law. And since the accused was guilty they saw no reason not to apply torture to force the person to confess their crime. Indeed, such torture ass regarded as an appropriate part of the punishment. When the barbarian tribes carved up the Roman Empire, the practice of legal torture largely ceased. When around 850 a church court tortured a monk called Gottschalk for holding a non-Catholic view of predestination, the people of Lyons, France, made a vigorous protest. They reminded their bishop that in the Bible Paul says, “Brethern, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourself, lest you too be tempted.�?Galatians 6:1. But in the twelfth century someone discovered ancient volumes containing the laws of the Roman Empire. This discovery stimulated a great revival of Roman law and with it a revival of the Roman practice of legal torture. “Under the influence of Germanic customs and concepts, torture was little used form the 9th to the 12th centuries, but with the revival of Roman law the practice was reestablished in the 12th century. �?In 1252 [Pope] Innocent IV sanctioned the infliction of torture by the civil authorities upon heretics, and torture came to have a recognized place in the procedure of the inquisitorial courts.�?Catholic Encyclopedia: art. Torture. And thus -- “In the most brutal and non-Christian aspect of its medieval activity, the Roman Church appears as a direct and dynamic descendant of the Roman Empire. The little horn emerged unmistakably from the head of the terrible beast.�?C. Mervyn Maxwell, God Cares, Vol 1, pp 133. Albert Barnes, in his commentary on Daniel 7 writes: "Can anyone doubt that this is true of the papacy? The Inquisition, the 'persecutions of the Waldenses;' the ravages of the Duke of Alva; the fires of Smithfield; the tortures at Goa--indeed, the whole history of the papacy may be appealed to in proof that his is applicable to that power. If anything could have 'worn out the saints of the Most High'--could have cut them off from the earth of that evangelical religion would have become extinct, it would have been the persecutions of the papal power. “In the year 1208, a crusade was proclaimed by Pope Innocent III against the Waldenses and Albigenses, in which a million of men perished. From the beginning of the order of the Jesuits, in the year 1540, to 1580, nine hundred thousand were destroyed. One hundred and fifty thousand perished by the Inquisition in thirty years. In the Low Countries fifty thousand persons were hanged, beheaded, burned, and buried alive, for the crime of heresy, within the space of thirty-eight years from the edict of Charles V against the Protestants, to the peace of Chateau Cambreses in 1559. Eighteen thousand suffered by the hand of the executioner in the space of five years and a half during the administration of the Duke of Alva. Indeed, the slightest acquaintance with the history of the papacy will convince any one that what is here said of 'making war with the saints' (verse 21), and 'wearing out the saints of the Most High' (verse 25), is strictly applicable to that power, and will accurately describe its history." Albert Barnes, Notes on Daniel, p. 328, comment on Daniel 7: 25. And as W. E. H. Lecky. notes: "These atrocities were not perpetrated in the brief paroxysms of a reign of terror, or by the hands of obscure sectaries, but were inflicted by a triumphant church, with every circumstance of solemnity and deliberation." William E. H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, Vol. II, pp. 37 It makes no difference that in numerous instances the victims were turned over to the civil authorities. It was the church that made the decision upon the question of heresy, and it then passed the offenders over to the secular court. But in those days the secular power was but the tool in the hands of the church. It was under its control and did its bidding. When the church delivered its prisoners to the executioners to be destroyed it made use of the following formula: "And we do leave and deliver thee to the secular arm, and to the power of the secular court; but at the same time do most earnestly beseech that court so to moderate its sentence as not to touch thy blood, or to put thy life in any danger." Michael Geddes, "A View of the Court of Inquisition in Portugal," Miscellaneous Tracts, Vol. I, p. 408. See also Philip Limborch, The History of the Inquisition, Vol. II, p. 289. Then, as intended, the unfortunate victims were executed. "The civil power can only punish the crime of unbelief in the manner and to the extent that the crime is judicially made known to it by ecclesiastical persons, skilled in the doctrine of the faith. But the church taking cognizance by herself of the crime of unbelief, can by herself decree the sentence of death, yet not execute it; but she hands over the execution of it to the secular arm." Alexius M. Lepicier, The Stability and Progress of Dogma, p. 195. Cardinal Bellarmine, (born in Tuscany in 1542, and after his death in 1621, came very near being placed in the calendar of saints), on one occasion, in the heat of the moment, confessed the real facts concerning papal persecutions. Martin Luther had said that the church (meaning the true church) never burned heretics. Cardinal Bellarmine misunderstood Luther, and thinking he was speaking of the Roman Catholic Church, responded by saying: "This argument proves not the sentiment, but the ignorance or impudence of Luther; for as almost an infinite number were either burned or otherwise put to death, Luther either did no know it, and was therefore ignorant; or if he knew it, he is convicted of impudence and falsehood--for that heretics were often burned by the church, may be proved by adducing a few from many examples." John Dowling, The History of Romanism, p. 547. Alfred Baudrillart, rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris, wrote: "When confronted by heresy, she does not content herself with persuasion; arguments of an intellectual and moral order appear to her insufficient, and she has recourse to force, to corporal punishment, to torture. She creates tribunals like those of the Inquisition, she calls the laws of state to her aid, if necessary she encourages a crusade, or a religious war, and all her 'horror of blood' practically culminates into urging the secular power to shed it, which proceeding is almost more odious--for it is less frank--than shedding it herself. "Especially did she act thus in the sixteenth century with regard to Protestants. Not content to reform morally, to teach by example, to convert people by eloquent and holy missionaries, she lit in Italy, in the Low Countries, and above all in Spain, the funeral piles of the Inquisition. In France under Francis I and Henri II, in England under Mary Tudor, she tortured the heretics, while both in France and Germany, during the second half of the sixteenth, and first half of the seventeenth centuries, if she did not actually begin, at any rate she encouraged and actively aided the religious wars." Alfred Baudrillart, The Catholic Church, the Renaissance, and Protestantism, pp. 182, 183. In a letter of Pope Martin V (A.D. 1417-1431), the following instructions were given to the King of Poland: " 'Know that the interest of the Holy See, and those of your crown make it a duty to exterminate the Hussites. Remember that these impious persons dare proclaim principles of equality, they maintain that all Christians are brethren, and that God has not given to privileged men the right of ruling nations; they hold that Christ came on earth to abolish slavery; they call the people to liberty, that is, to the annihilation of kings and priests! Whilst there is still time, then, turn your forces against Bohemia; burn, massacre, make deserts everywhere, for nothing could be more agreeable to God, or more useful to the cause of kings, than the extermination of the Hussites.' " L. M. de Cormenin, The Public and Private History of the Popes of Rome, Vol. II, pp. 116, 117. Heresy was not to be tolerated, but destroyed. Pagan Rome persecuted the Christian church relentlessly -- Yet it is said that the early Christians prayed for the continuance of imperial Rome. Why? Because they understood from prophecy that when imperial Rome should fall, another far worse persecuting power would arise, which would literally "wear out the saints of the Most High," |
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