Within the library of apocalyptic literature, Daniel’s visions certainly occupy a shelf of their own. And yet his visions could conceivably be further subdivided into three different genres: the Dynastic, the Mosaic, and the Cardinal. Such a distinction between the three types of Daniel’s visions makes chapter 11 stand out in stark relief compared to the others, both in style and in content. When the unique aspects of the chapter are so recognized, chapter 11 is shown to be a continuous, uninterrupted narrative that was entirely fulfilled during the period of Greek rule that is signified by the Bronze, Leopard and He-goat periods of Daniel’s other visions. Continue reading The Shifting Frame→
The Taurus Mountains, here viewed from Cyprus, form an intimidating barrier to all who wish to possess what lies beyond them.
The Taurus Mountains of Asia Minor were formed long ago by the collision of the European, African and Arabian tectonic plates. They climb out of the the quiet shores of Lake Eğirdir in the west like a youth emerging from a refreshing swim, and then stand up and run on a southeasterly course toward the Bay of Pamphylia on the southern coast. Here they have left only a narrow sliver of arable land as a gift to the brigands and pirates who would one day terrorize the shipping lanes of the Mediterranean from the isolated cove. From Pamphylia, the mountains have come to full stature and tightly hug the shoreline, their feet playing in the waves of the Mediterranean. They form an imposing and deadly barrier to any who might dare to approach them. As an indication of the relative speed of the colliding plates, the Taurus as viewed from Cyprus (shown above) appear almost as a towering cliff or as a cresting wave of rocks about to crash down upon the watery plain of the Mediterranean. Now nearing Cilicia the rocky crags have briefly turned due east and then, as if losing interest in the sea, proceed northeasterly, leaving the plains of Cilicia as another gift to the pirates, situated as they were between the Taurus mountains of Asia Minor and the Amanus mountains of Syria. Here at Cilicia the Taurus mountains become the Anti-Taurus, and continue on their course until they reach the southeastern shores of the Black Sea to be united with their sister range, the Pontic Mountains that have served in a similar capacity along the northern coast. Continue reading The Bounds of their Habitation→
“Neither shall he regard the god of his fathers … ” (Daniel 11:37)
As we have highlighted in the preceding weeks, when examined in their context, the events of Daniel 8 and 9 culminate in the rise and fall of Antiochus IV, king of Syria, from 175 – 163 B.C.. The context of Daniel 9 is fundamentally Mosaic rather than Messianic, and its basis is the Leviticus 26 Protocol. The fulfillment of Daniel 9 is found in the restoration of the Temple under the First Covenant, using Ezekiel’s instructions, as we described in All the Evenings and Mornings. Notably, the background of the successive chastisements prescribed in Leviticus 26 is Jewish idolatry, sabbath violations, and profanation of the sanctuary (Leviticus 26:1-2). The objective of the successive chastisements under Leviticus 26 is that the Jews “confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers,” and that “their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity” (Leviticus 26:40-41). As Ezekiel prescribed to the Jews in captivity, “if they be ashamed of all that they have done” they will restore the Temple in accordance with “the pattern” he was given for them (Ezekiel 43:11), and as Gabriel prophesied, the final outcome of the Seventy Weeks was that the Temple would be anointed in accordance with the instructions in Exodus 40 (Daniel 9:24). In 164 B.C., in what would become the first celebration of Hannukha, the Jews finally rededicated the Temple as prescribed and prophesied. It was the conclusion of the Seventieth Week of Daniel 9, the objective of which was for the Jews to repent of their idolatry, sabbath violations and sanctuary profanations, by restoring the Mosaic order according to Ezekiel’s pattern. These events were prophesied to occur under the period of Greek rule, in the aftermath of the four-way division of Alexander’s empire, as described in Daniel 8. Having laid this groundwork, including the Reduction of the Diadochi last week, we now proceed with an analysis of Daniel chapter 8. Continue reading The Rise of Antiochus IV→
“…and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven.” (Daniel 8:8)
One of the most critical phases in Western Civilization is the period of post-Alexandrian Greece prior to the rise of Rome. It is the period following Alexander’s death in 323 B.C. when his kingdom was divided, leading up to the period of Rome’s dominance on the world stage. That period weighs heavily in any discussion of Danielic eschatology, especially Daniel chapters 8 and 11, because in those chapters, he prophesies about exactly that period in history—the division of Alexander’s kingdom and the wars that followed. The fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecies of the period are foundational to Christian eschatology, and much of what John saw in Revelation draws on the imagery and symbolism of Daniel’s several visions of the post-Alexandrian Greek empire. For this reason, a comprehensive Christian eschatology cannot be developed without knowledge of the era. And yet, from an historiographical perspective, it is one of the darkest periods in human history, for very little written evidence exists from which a complete story can emerge. Thus, at the period in history when our need for data is most critical, the historical record is least generous. Continue reading Reduction of the Diadochi→
“And the evening and the morning were the first day.” (Genesis 1:5)
When we left off in our last post, we concluded that while the Little Horn of Daniel 8 and the Little Horn of Daniel 7 share much in common, the Scriptures nonetheless differentiate between the two. Although they are both similarly hostile to God’s holy people (Daniel 8:24, 7:25), they are nevertheless distinguished one from the other, separated in time by the succession of empires. The Little Horn of Daniel 8 is Greek in identity and the Little Horn of Daniel 7 is Roman. Among the significant differences between the two, one of the most prominent is the period of persecution by the Little Horn of Daniel 8. The duration of his persecution is described in terms of literal days: “Unto two thousand and three hundred evenings and mornings” (Daniel 8:14). As with the days of creation (Genesis 1), “the evening and the morning” is one literal day, and 2,300 such evenings and mornings is 2,300 literal days. Those 2,300 literal days all occur within the One Week of Daniel 9:27; the 1,290 days of Daniel 12:11 all occur within those 2,300 literal days; and the 1,290 literal days, plus an additional 45 literal days, comprise the 1,335 literal days of Daniel 12:12. Our objective this week is to identify those three periods of literal days— all the evenings and mornings. Continue reading All the Evenings and Mornings…→
Intercalation is only necessary when literal days are in view.
Of the many things Daniel shows us in his visions, one of the most prominent is that of imperial succession. Son follows father in the succession of kings, and empire follows empire in the succession of kingdoms. Daniel 2 speaks explicitly of four empires—Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome—and Daniel 7 speaks explicitly of the same four. When those two visions are harmonized, what emerges is a Fifth Empire, the Empire of Roman Catholicism that arose after the thirteen-way fragmentation of Rome. We explored the emergence of Roman Catholicism as the successor to those Four Empires in our series, The Fifth Empire, and in our article The Fourteenth Diocese. Like a river flowing relentlessly and continuously onward, the prophetic timeline depicted in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 flowed from Babylon to the rise of Antichrist without gaps or discontinuities—Babylon, then Medo-Persia, then Greece, then Rome. Then Papal Roman Catholicism, the arrogant Little Horn of Daniel 7, the persecutor of God’s holy people.
Jesus did not say the Seventieth Week of Daniel was yet future. He said the Statue of Jupiter would return as a herald of the demise of Judæa.
In the last two weeks, we have laid the foundation for an analysis of the Seventieth Week of Daniel. In The Leviticus 26 Protocol, we showed that the Seventy Weeks of Daniel 9 are inextricably related to the Seventy Year chastisement described in Jeremiah 25 and 29. The latter chastisement (Seventy Weeks of Years) is a seven-fold prolongation of the former chastisement (Seventy Years) and thus, the Weeks and Years must in some way share a common point of beginning. In our follow up article, Rightly Dividing the Weeks, we showed that Gabriel, in explaining the vision to Daniel, divided the Seventy Weeks into three subsets—the Sixty-two, the Seven and the One. The Seven Weeks (587 – 538 B.C.) ran concurrently with the Sixty-two (605 – 171 B.C.), which was only possible if Gabriel had first “divided” the Weeks, which is precisely what he did when he announced them to Daniel. That is why the “anointed” is described as being “cut off” after the Sixty-two Weeks (Daniel 9:26), rather than after the often alleged, but Scripturally untenable, “Sixty-nine.”
What follows upon the description of the Sixty-two Weeks is the most detailed description of any Week in the ninth chapter of Daniel. What we will demonstrate is that the Seventieth Week of Daniel was fulfilled between 171 and 164 B.C., in the period of Greek rule over Israel. As we shall also demonstrate, Jesus acknowledged the past fulfillment of Daniel’s Seventieth Week when He instructed His audience in Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14 to watch carefully for the soon return of the Abomination of Desolation to the Holy Land. Continue reading The Seventieth Week of Daniel 9→
There is a reason that Gabriel only describes the Seventy Weeks in terms of Sixty-two, Seven and One.
When we left off last week with The Leviticus 26 Protocol, we mentioned that Gabriel had multiplied the Seventy Year Babylonian Exile in accordance with Leviticus 26 to arrive at Seventy Weeks of Years in Daniel 9:24. As specified in the Law of Moses, Israel had been punished for disobedience, and when Israel still would not hearken unto the Lord, her punishment was multiplied seven-fold. But Gabriel had done more than that. He had multiplied the Seventy Years, but then he divided the Seventy Weeks. Although Gabriel announced the “Seventy Weeks” in Daniel 9:24, he never mentions them in those words again, and instead describes the prophecy in three subsets of Weeks. He speaks of the Seven Weeks (Daniel 9:25), the Sixty-two Weeks (Daniel 9:25,26) and the One Week (Daniel 9:27), but never again of the Seventy. That division is reflected clearly in the text, but many translations and interpretations have long since obscured the meaning by trying to put the Seventy Weeks back together again. Continue reading Rightly Dividing the Weeks→
“And I will make your cities [desolate], and [desolate] your sanctuaries unto desolation… And I will [desolate] the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall [desolate] it” (Leviticus 26:31-32)When approaching the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks in Daniel 9, the ancient and frequent temptation has been immediately to rush forward to the last four verses of the chapter and read about “Messiah the Prince” Who will come (Daniel 9:25) and “confirm the covenant” (Daniel 9:27) to “make an end of sins,” “make reconciliation for iniquity,” and bring about “everlasting righteousness” (Daniel 9:24). In other words, the temptation is to read the chapter in a Messianic context. Once it is established that Daniel 9 is a Messianic prophecy, all that remains is somehow to make the numbers of the prophecy work out.
Bread is curiously prominent in a book that makes no direct mention of it.
Those who have been reading this blog for any length of time are at least peripherally aware of the eschatology espoused here. We believe that the prophesied Antichrist of which we are warned by the apostles and prophets was manifested in the rise of Roman Catholicism and is personified in the Papacy of Rome. As we noted last week, in The Fourteenth Diocese, Daniel foresaw that the Antichrist would emerge among of the thirteen fragments of the Roman Empire, would uproot three dioceses in the process, subduing their three metropolitans, and rise up among the remaining ten, growing “more stout than his fellows” (Daniel 7:8,20-22,24-26). That is precisely what Roman Catholicism did as it claimed Rome, Alexandria and Antioch as a single See of St. Peter, aggregating for itself the three Dioceses of Italy, Egypt and Oriens. The papacy of Rome is the Little Horn of Daniel 7 and the dioceses of Diocletian’s reorganization are the other horns of the vision. That reorganization into dioceses began in 293 A.D., and was completed by the end of the fourth century. As prophesied, Roman Catholicism emerged during that time frame when the Papacy came up among the dioceses, “speaking great things” (Daniel 7:8). Continue reading It’s About the Bread→
The reorganized Roman empire established Milan as the Metropolis of the Diocese of Italy, making Urbis Romæ a minor urban territory in an empire of thirteen dioceses.
The city of Rome was the capital seat of the empire at its founding, and retained that primacy for centuries. But for a brief period from 293 A.D. to the latter part of the fourth century, Rome was relegated to the status of a third tier Metropolis behind the tetrarch capitals and the metropolitan seats of Diocletian’s new dioceses. The division of the empire started in 293 A.D. with the formation of 12 dioceses under four tetrarchs, presiding from Nicomedia, Smirmium, Milan and Trier. Each tetrarch was assigned the rule over three dioceses, and each diocese was in turn ruled from its chief metropolis by a vicarius or equivalent. Notably, the city of Rome was reduced in stature, and was made neither a tetrarch capital, nor even the chief metropolis of the Diocese of Italy. Nevertheless, the city of Rome was also assigned its own vicarius, and he ruled over his limited jurisdiction in the heart of Italy. Over the course of the fourth century, the tetrarchy faded away, but the diocesan system endured. Further reorganizations occurred in which two dioceses were combined into one, and two others were divided into four. The eventual outcome by the end of the fourth century was a fully reorganized Roman empire of thirteen dioceses under thirteen vicars—and within one of those dioceses, a greatly diminished city of Rome, a comparatively small vicariate in an empire of dioceses. Although the Vicar of Rome had not received a diocese to manage, the city of Rome and its suburbs comprised what could almost be called a little diocese of their own. We might even call it “the fourteenth diocese.” That little “fourteenth diocese” had been diminished in Diocletian’s reorganization, but under the administration of a pope, it would one day rise up again to rule the empire. Only three metropolitan cities stood in his way, and he would dispatch them short order. Continue reading The Fourteenth Diocese→
Measure Rome first by the Word of God. And then by what she hates.
In our article last week, Longing for Nicæa, we mentioned that Rome’s relationship with the Early Church manifests in a love-hate dichotomy. She loves to identify with the era in order to allege antiquity, but she hates what she finds there, for it betrays her later origins. Last week we showed how frequently Rome appeals to the Nicæan and ante-Nicæan era to prove the antiquity of her novelties, and how frequently she is rebuffed by the Early Church. This week we show how frequently Rome has to distance herself from the Nicæan and ante-Nicæan church because the Early Church was in fact a different religion from Roman Catholicism. Continue reading The Object of Her Irrepressible Scorn→
Rome will never have that for which she longs the most.
Roman Catholicism, as a religion, is a novelty of the late fourth century, but in order to be taken seriously she must at every opportunity claim Nicæan and ante-Nicæan origins for her novelties. Yet at the same time, there is nothing so foreign to Roman Catholicism as the Nicæan and ante-Nicæan Church. For this reason, while Roman Catholicism constantly attempts to lay claim to apostolicity, she must always at the same time distance herself from the practices and beliefs of the Church of the apostles. It is a love-hate relationship. Rome strives diligently to identify herself with the apostolic era, and then exhausts herself explaining why the Church of that era was so different from Roman Catholicism. What we find as we examine Rome’s vain striving for antiquity and continuity is an uncomfortable truth that lies beneath the surface of all of her posturing, a truth that can never be uttered aloud: She does not know whence she came. Continue reading Longing for Nicæa→
Decades after Nicæa, Alexandria was still located within the Diocese of Oriens.
Last week we addressed the portion of Canon 6 of Nicæa which has for many centuries been used by Roman Catholic apologists to advance the case for Roman primacy. Their argument is based on one of the most pervasive myths in the history of ecclesiology. The text of Canon 6 refers to a “similar custom” regarding the Bishop of Rome, and uses that “similar custom” as the basis for recognizing the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan of Alexandria within the three specified provinces of Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis. As we discussed in last week’s article, the problem facing the council of Nicæa was that under Diocletian’s reorganization of the empire in 293 A.D., the Metropolitans of Alexandria and Antioch were located within a single civil diocese—the Diocese of Oriens, or “the East.” Diocletian’s arrangement made it impossible for the council simply to define Metropolitan jurisdiction in diocesan terms. To do so would have perpetuated the very problem the council was attempting to solve. Continue reading “Unless I am deceived…”→
The Council of Nicæa recognized that the Bishop of Rome was a small fish in a big pond.
The Council of Nicæa, as church historians well know, was convened to address the errors of Arianism. Early in the 4th century, Alexander of Alexandria, sent a letter to Constantinople warning of the spreading error (Alexander of Alexandria, To Alexander, Bishop of the City of Constantinople, paragraph 1 (320 A.D.)). Within four years the dispute had captured the attention of the emperor, who sent his emissary, Bishop Hosius of Cordoba, to Alexandria to lend his prestige to the resolution of the matter (Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, Book I, Chapter 7). Finally, in 325 A.D., a general council was convened in Nicæa to address the matter and put it to rest. Because of its significance to the doctrinal health of the church, the Arian heresy typically receives first billing whenever the Council of Nicæa is described. But there was another significant matter, another dispute, that threatened the administrative health of the church. The way that dispute was addressed at Nicæa puzzled Patristic writers and church historians for the next twelve hundred years and led to one of the most pervasive myths in the history of ecclesiology. That dispute was the matter of Metropolitan jurisdiction and the boundaries within which a Metropolitan bishop was authorized to act. The myth that resulted from Nicæa’s solution was the false belief that the Council had acknowledged the primacy of the Bishop of Rome.
If Maurice de la Taille is right, then Jesus founded His Church upon a cumulative probability of zero.
Those who have read our recent article, Melito’s Sacrifice, or last year’s Removing Jesus, are by now familiar with the Roman Catholic propensity for moving Jesus’ sacrifice back to Thursday night at the Last Supper. Rome’s sacrifice of the Mass is ostensibly grounded in Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper, and because Roman Catholicism considers the Mass to be a sacrifice, her apologists are ever eager to turn the Last Supper into a sacrifice of Jesus’ body and blood. As we have noted, apologist Art Sippo says “The Last Supper was the real sacrificial offering of Christ for sin” (Catholic Legate, Q&A on the Sacraments), and apologist Scott Hahn says “Jesus’ institution of the Holy Eucharist was nothing less than the sacrifice of the New Covenant Passover” (Scott Hahn, The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass, 9:00-9:10).
The Roman Catholic mass sacrifice is essentially meaningless if Rome cannot prove that Jesus actually sacrificed His body and blood on Thursday night. One of the main points in Hahn’s talk on the sacrifice of the Mass was that he did not finally understand this concept until he read the 2nd century work, Peri Pascha, by Melito of Sardis. Yet when one reads Melito’s Peri Pascha, there is simply no reference to a Thursday sacrifice. Every reference to Jesus’ sacrifice in Peri Pascha is a reference to the cross. What we found with Hahn we have found to be typical of Roman apologists—they must first read their beliefs into the Early Church first in order to get the Early Church to reflect their beliefs. Continue reading The ‘Certainty’ of ‘Cumulative Probability’→
Roman Catholics are forced to rely on private interpretation in order to avoid the pitfalls of private interpretation.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “revelation,” or the “deposit of faith,” is that “which has been committed” to the Roman Catholic church, “and which she proposes to all her members for their acceptance.” As Catholic Answers helpfully defines, the “doctrines of the Catholic Church are the deposit of faith revealed by Jesus Christ, taught by the apostles, and handed down in their entirety by the apostles to their successors.” Having been entrusted with “the faith which was once delivered” (Jude 3), the Roman Catholic church is alleged to be the only authorized custodian and teacher of that deposit (Catholic Encyclopedia, Revelation). Continue reading It’s extremely complex→
For all of his hand waving, Scott Hahn cannot get Melito of Sardis to move Jesus’ sacrifice back in time to Thursday evening.
One of the more curious implications of the Roman Catholic sacrifice of the Mass is that Jesus actually did not offer Himself as a sacrifice on the cross. Instead, they say, He offered Himself as a sacrifice at the Last Supper. For example, Roman Catholic apologist Art Sippo at the Catholic Legate, explains:
“The Last Supper was the real sacrificial offering of Christ for sin and it certainly was unbloody. Without the Last Supper I defy you to find any reference to the Body and Blood of Christ being offered as a sacrifice for sin in the entire of the Passion Narratives. Christ did not offer his body and blood to God during the passion.” (Catholic Legate, Q&A on the Sacraments)
As we showed in week 8 of our series, Their Praise was their Sacrifice, this concept of the Last Supper as a sacrifice came late in time, and actually originated in the latter part of the 4th century when Gregory of Nyssa was trying to calculate the three days between Jesus’ death and his resurrection. In his 382 A.D. oration, On the Space of Three Days between the Death and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Gregory of Nyssa got creative in his analysis of Matthew 12:40, which says that “the Son of man” must “be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” By Gregory’s reckoning, he could only account for two. Continue reading Melito’s Sacrifice→
The Early Church apparently lost track of “the Ark,” but found it again at the end of the 4th century.
Protestants who interact with Roman Catholics in any capacity are often surprised to find that they believe Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant. As Pope Pius XII explained in Munificentissiumus Deus in 1950—his “infallible” proclamation that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven—many Church Fathers have understood the Ark of the Covenant “as a type of the most pure body of the Virgin Mary” (Munificentissiumus Deus, 26). Thus, David’s exclamation, “Arise, O LORD, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength” (Psalm 132:8), is taken to prefigure Mary’s bodily assumption into Heaven (Munificentissiumus Deus, 29). Catholic Answers explains in an article by Steve Ray that the Woman of Revelation 12:1 is Mary, and because John saw the ark of the testimony in the heavenly temple in the preceding verse (Revelation 11:19), it must mean that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant (Catholic Answers, Mary, Ark of the New Covenant). Steve Ray, former Protestant and now Roman Catholic apologist, tells us not to worry about the novelty of this Roman Catholic teaching on Mary. After all, he says, it is an apostolic teaching from the earliest days of Christianity:
“The understanding of Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant is nothing new. It was taught and celebrated early in Christian history.” (Steve Ray, Ark of the New Covenant -Quotes from the Fathers).
The problem with Steve Ray’s claim is a familiar one: the teaching and celebration of Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant originated in the latter part of the 4th century, and there is no evidence that it was proposed, believed or celebrated any earlier than that. “Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant” is something new indeed. Continue reading Searching for the Lost Ark→
The Early Church rejected as “unlawful” and “unholy” the Roman Catholic novelty of relic veneration.
Over the last month we reviewed the history of Roman Catholicism’s use of the Council of Sardica to claim Roman Primacy, focusing last week on Pope Zosimus’ and Pope Leo’s attempts to stamp that alleged primacy with Nicene authority. It was under their pontificates—and the intervening pontificates of Boniface, Celestine and Sixtus III—that the canons of Sardica (343 A.D.) were circulated as if they were the canons of Nicæa (325 A.D.), and thus were used to advance two errors simultaneously: 1) the claim that the Council of Sardica had affirmed Roman Primacy, and 2) the claim that Roman Primacy had manifested as early as the Nicene era. The error of Zosimus and the fraud of Leo are just one example of what we see consistently in Roman Catholicism: the attempt to stamp novel and idolatrous practices with Nicene and ante-Nicene authenticity. The more distant the origins of the idolatry from Nicæa , the more creative the historical revisionism necessary to “prove” the antiquity of the practice. Relic veneration is one more example of this propensity in Roman apologetics. Continue reading Diggin’ Up Bones→
Follow
