The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:Gradual Clarification of Hazy Points Continues

I. Application of Prophecies to Turks Followed by Some

The application of the Little Horn of Daniel 7 and the beast of Revelation 13 to Mohammed or the Turks, on the part of some of the Reformers, goes back in its origin to the time of the early Crusades. Before 1200 Joachim, on a visit to the Holy Land, conceived the fourth beast and its ten horns to be the Saracens, and the Little Horn to be Mohammed, whom he also assigned to the seventh head of the beast of Revelation 13. ¹ In 1213 Innocent III, in a letter preliminary to the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, doubtless countering the applications to the Papacy, made both the beast and the false prophet to be Mohammed, and applied the 666 to him. ² A century later De Lyra could see little in the Apocalypse but pagans, Byzantines, and Turks, and the false prophet as Mohammed. ³ PFF2 307.1

In 1480 GIOVANNI NANNI (Nannis, or Annius), of Viterbo, consolidated these positions. He believed that the mystical Babylon of the Turks and Saracens was to be conquered by the Latin church, and made out Mohammed as the man of sin and Antichrist. In 1580 GENEBRARD, says Maitland, first found 666 in the name Mohammed. ⁴ Consequently, when the Reformation was launched, although there was unanimity regarding the Papacy as the Antichrist, the Beast, the Babylon, and the Harlot, some seem to have followed the papal interpretation so far as to also include Mohammed or the Turks. Some had the Turk as the Little Horn, the three horns plucked up being, for example, Egypt, Africa, and Greece; others had both an Eastern and a Western Antichrist—the Turk being a sort of lesser partner in the kingdom of Antichrist. But a growing number contended that the reference was to the Papacy alone. This will be increasingly apparent as the Reformation witnesses continue to testify. PFF2 307.2