The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

VII. “System” Concept Gradually Supplants “Individual” View of Antichrist

Indeed, aside from the impetus given to the historical approach, to prophecy,, the most noticeable element of prophetic interpretation from the thirteenth century on into the Reformation was the progressive identification of the Roman church with Babylon and of the Papacy with the multiple prophetic symbols of the Antichrist, the Little Horn the Beast, and the Man of Sin. It was, in fact, the logical outcome of the restoration of historical interpretation, but it was a gradual growth, which could have been established only by the testimony of the passage of time. PFF1 904.3

1. ANTICHRIST ENTHRONED IN CHURCH

It was inevitable that Antichrist should at the beginning be anticipated simply as an individual, and that the 1260 days should likewise be regarded as literal time (three and a half years) consistent with the life of a single person. The Antichrist was early connected with these other prophetic figures, but the historical identification of this power was not made until between the tenth and thirteenth centuries—the climax of the multiple application coming with the dramatic accusations of Archbishop Eberhard of Salzburg, in 1240 ⁸ Yet the finger of accusation and identification had long been pointed in the direction of ecclesiastical Rome. PFF1 904.4

To begin with, Tichonius, out of his Donatist experience, saw the secularized church as Babylon, and Augustine mentioned the possibility that the Man of Sin would sit in the temple of the church, but these interpretations were not followed up. In the late ninth century, Berengaud’s identification of the ten horns of Revelation 17 and Daniel 7 as the kingdoms which divided the Roman Empire, such as the Goths, Vandals, et cetera, was a step toward placing the Little Horn in the past also, but it seems to have been unnoticed. PFF1 905.1

Then in 991 Arnulf, bishop of Orleans, sounded his battle cry against the degradation of the church, in which he described the proud pope as “Antichrist sitting in the temple of God, and demeaning himself as a god,” and declared that “the mystery of iniquity is begun.” PFF1 905.2

2. CHURCH AS BABYLON; “MYSTIC” ANTICHRIST AS FALSE POPE

In 1120 Bernard of Cluny’s bitter satire De Contemptu Mundi cried out against fallen Rome, characterizing the pope as “king of this odious Babylon.” Ten years later Bernard of Clairvaux, championing the cause of Pope Innocent II, denounced Anacletus, the antipope, as Antichrist and Beast of the Apocalypse, although he later also mentioned a future Antichrist. PFF1 905.3

Joachim, as loyal to the Papacy as Bernard of Clairvaux, expected Antichrist as a future usurper, a false pope from the heretics; he saw the Little Horn as the final king of the Saracens and Babylon as the worldly people throughout the Christian empire. Some of the works which were ascribed to him half a century later went much further, calling the Roman church Babylon or the current popes the abomination of desolation, although at this same time, when the pope and Frederick II were flinging the epithets Antichrist and Beast at each other, the Joachimites in Italy were expecting Frederick to emerge as the Antichrist in 1260 Eberhard’s trumpet blast against the Papacy seems not to have affected them; fifty years later Olivi repeated Joachim’s idea of Antichrist as a false pope, that is, the “mystic” Antichrist preceding the “great Antichrist” of tradition, although unlike Joachim, he characterized the Roman church as Babylon and the seat of the secular Beast. A little later Ubertino indicated Boniface VIII as this “mystic Antichrist” and the Beast. PFF1 905.4

3. EBERHARD SEES PAPACY AS MULTIPLE ANTICHRIST

But Eberhard’s interpretation, if it did not penetrate to the Joachimites in Italy, was significant as the forerunner of later pre Reformation and Reformation positions. It was natural for persecuted minorities like the Franciscan Spirituals, the Albigenses, and the Waldenses, to use such terms as Babylon and Antichrist to describe their oppressors, but Eberhard, a learned archbishop and man of affairs, had nothing in common with them. Neither was his characterization of the Papacy merely the rhetoric of controversy. It came in the setting of the contest between pope and emperor, but it was true prophetic exposition based on a keen analysis of the Little Horn of Daniel and the parallel prophecies, and a keen insight into history. Eberhard applied to the religio-political empire of the Papacy the threefold description of the Beast, the Man of Sin, and the Little Horn. PFF1 906.1

4. SPECIFICATIONS MINUTELY FULFILLED IN PAPACY

Others before him had used the names, but he enumerated the prophetic specifications that had been fulfilled in the historical Papacy, particularly in the papal empire from the time of Gregory VII. He based this identification not only on the characteristics but also on the fact that the Papacy rose to power after the fall of the Roman Empire, among the kingdoms which fell heir to the Roman territory. Thus Eberhard pointed to a historical fulfillment; these prophecies had foretold of persecuting and presumptuous power that would arise under certain circumstances and display certain characteristics, and when he saw that these specifications had been met in detail in` the historical Papacy he discarded the popular concept of a future individual Antichrist, and declared that here was the fulfillment—that what the prophets had spoken had come to pass. lie draws a remarkably full picture. He does not touch the prophetic period of the three and one-half times, but he applies nearly all the specifications of the multiple prophecy ⁹ PFF1 906.2

5. LONG DEVELOPMENT OF LITTLE HORN

This religio-political principle, which had existed in embryo in the time of the early church, said Eberhard, became an empire in, the time of Hildebrand. The Little Horn, which had burrowed its way up among the divisions of the Roman Empire during the fourth, fifth, arid sixth centuries, and which had enthroned itself in the church, was not only domineering the saints but presuming to control the state. Its reign was thus announced as an accomplished fact. It is one that should be pondered by every Christian student. PFF1 907.1

Were these declarations fantastic, or were they premised on a sound basis? Did they point in the right direction? Did the historical development vindicate such an assumption? Had the church already in the time of the apostles begun to travel a path that was to develop a spirit so utterly foreign to that of the One who breathed out His life in humility do the hill of Golgotha that it would finally lift itself to the throne and reach for the sword? That such had been the story of the centuries up td Eberhard’s time is a remarkable fact. PFF1 907.2

6. FULFILLMENT DECLARED ONLY AFTER LONG CENTURIES

We have seen how the time finally came when prophetic intetpretation pointed out that a religio-political power answering to this description had gradually grown up in the established church” in the old seat of empire and patterned upon its lines. But this historical identification was not made, of course, until long after the early church period. No one could see such a development from the early trends until centuries afterward. Eberhard did not point to the rise of the Little Horn a$ a contemporary fulfillment, but as one which had taken place long ago. At the time when the Papacy was enthroned in the church, men could not see in it the upthrust of the Little Horn among the ten horn kingdoms. With minds fascinated by the dominant Augustinian theory of a then-present millennium, with all its spiritualizing and allegorizing involvements, and by the extra Biblical traditions of Antichrist, they had their eyes fixed upon a future tyrant to appear briefly at the end of the indeterminate thousand years of the church’s present reign. PFF1 907.3

Gregory I set the course for the ship of the church of Rome, arid the succeeding popes strove to fulfill Augustine’s dream of the city of God.—the millennium established on earth, the world ruled by divine precepts dispensed by God’s duly ordained representatives. As they increasingly succeeded in realizing their, ambitions, their expanding expanding power was ac companied by worldliness and corruption, And when the pinnacle was reached in a papal empire, ¹⁰ the Antichristian characteristics became plain enough to see, and accusations were increasingly leveled at the Papacy. PFF1 908.1

The dominant hierarchy intermingling the world arid the church, persecuted the dissenters, who sought to perpetuate the pristine purity of the early gospel. The latter were not a single group; they were scattered widely; and varied in character, often flourishing in secluded spots that offered shelter and possible refuge from the raging storm of persecution that sought to overwhelm them. In the, history of the church we find the perpetual conflict between the dominant, worldly church and the underground streams of varied and persistent antisacerdotal or reforming schisms and heresies. ¹¹ PFF1 908.2

When this conflict came to a head, from about the time of Eberhard and onward, we find systematic persecution developing, and irrepressible dissent breaking forth in spite of it, until finally the pre-Reformation movements were to merge into the mighty Protestant revolution. And the identification of the papal system from Scripture prophecy was the militant rallying cry in the great struggle for spiritual freedom. PFF1 909.1