The death of Charlier Kirk

Many of us truthfully don't know what to think about the events that have happened recently. Some of us are just in shock. It's not just a left-right thing. It's a spiritual problem. I'm much more reserved about politics lately. In the past, I was much more "right-leaning" and now have become much more eclectic in my political views to the point where I don't even belong to a solid right/left paradigm. While I still would favor the laissez-faire market economy for practical reasons, I'm much less firm in my commitment to a political system as systems are not the problem. The problem is a spiritual problem. It's easy for many people to see the recent killings as evidence of a problem solely with the left, but I think there is real caution for retaliation from the right. It's not so much that Charlie Kirk was a "racist, rape apologist, bigot, sexist, grifter, etc.". It's that Charlie Kirk was killed simply because someone didn't want him to be alive, possibly because he disagreed with his politics.

While there are often moral views at stake in politics, much of political debate has little to do with morals and much more to do with systems and what system is the best. This is why I can't do partisan politics anymore as I've done more so in the past. Regardless of what position I'm taking in a political discord, I would have to be lumped into a system favoring a party and an outcome in favor of one party over another. People have turned politics into a war for control over each other. This is why Charlie Kirk was killed. Awful accusations and comparisons to Nazism and racism or communism and anti-religiosity are how people try to "win" their side of the argument.

I had intended to write about something else today, but I think with Charlie Kirk's death, there is a certain heaviness that a lot of us are feeling and it has much more to do with the symbolic meaning of how he died. If he had died some other way or even accidentally, we wouldn't be feeling so heavy, but we would certainly be sad for his wife and kids. Instead, we are feeling emotionally heavy and we also have breaking hearts for his wife and kids because he was killed. And he was killed for merely have the "wrong" political views. And what this means to all of us is a fear of what will happen if we exercise our own First Amendment rights.

Freedom of speech and freedom of the free exercise of religious practices are two of the biggest guarantees against a totalitarian society in order to uphold man's search for meaning and truthfulness. While many Catholics have come to oppose freedom of speech and freedom of religion in favor of forcible conversion to Catholicism, that view has never been consistent with a charitable response to the Faith. There must be liberty without fear in the approach to God, filled with utmost awe and reverence for the wonder and beauty of God. Perfect love casts out fear whereas coercion creates and stirs up fear. Perfect love does not insist on its own way. Many of us are now living in fear. Living in fear because an America we once thought was for the law-abiding and provided free and civic discourse is now under attack.

Although the media tries to deflect the blame on Trump, the reality is that he's not the one behind this. He's not the one ordering the execution of Minnesota lawmakers. He's not the one who opened fire on kids as they prayed in church. He's not the one who took up the knife and stabbed a Ukrainian refugee to death. He's not the one who shot and killed Charlie Kirk. Trump is a symptom. Politicians never solve any of the real issues because then they wouldn't have anything to run on. The problem is a spiritual problem. People have lost a desire to pursue and search for truth and have filled that gap with a desire for dominance and control. To each, one must become his own lord. This is why demagogues are the nominees of the parties and it is why people break into factions over their preferred demagogue. He speaks their own values, he does what they want to have carried out, and he rules over their enemies with an iron fist.

It is the fantasization of controlling and dominating and lording it over others. And what does Jesus say of that? It is the Pagans who lord it over one another (Luke 22:25). In the meanwhile, Christendom makes the same mistake that ancient Israel did. We too beg for a king just like the other nations (1 Sam. 8:5). A ruler to lord it over and dominate the others. We reject God as our own King and turn toward the secular state to dominate. It is becoming impossible to be a Christian while also moving with the flow of Christendom. And it doesn't matter where I turn to these days. The spiritual vacuum is devoid of reason. Truly, only in the silence can God be found. Only in the silence, away from the hustle and bustle and busyness of this world can God be found. The world is suffering from a spiritual vacuum and a vacuum must be filled. Progressive ideology has done away with meaning by embracing the times. Conservatism has done away with meaning by conserving the old wineskins. In the vacuum, there is only "right and wrong" for the adherents of these ideologies. And that vacuum is to be fulfilled by mankind rebelling against his own Creator.

Christendom is in an open state of rebellion against God. Progressivism is in an open state of rebellion against God. How does one find hope? God is not in the earthquake. He isn't the fire. He isn't in the thunder. He is in the silence. The world is oppressed and is lashing out from the tyranny that it has subjected itself to. We dominate over each other. We choose violence. We choose our own way. People are killed. Charlie Kirk's death seems to many to be an ominous foreshadowing of a horror to come. While it's difficult to see the future, I don't think anyone's thinking soberly. 

Why dispensationalism is not Scriptural

I've been noticing on social media lately, a lot of Christians, particularly Protestant Christians, trying to defend the claims of the State of Israel unconditionally on the grounds of the theology of dispensationalism. Dispensationalism is a philosophy rooted in the more extremes of Protestantism. It is an attempt to take literally all the texts of Scripture that refer to Israel and apply them literally to the "people of Israel". It has gained more ground since the founding of the modern State of Israel. And herein lies the fundamental distinction and the most significant flaw of dispensationalism. Even from a literalist reading of Scriptures, it does not compute. This is why Catholic and Orthodox theologians have never held to such a theological position and why the Reformed Christians in Anglicanism and Lutheranism have also refused to accept the position.

Dispensationalists caricature the historic orthodox position of the Church as "replacement" or "supercessionist" theology, but as one looks through Scriptures, it's actually neither. In fact, it's a theology of the fulfilment of the covenant. The Scriptures are divided into two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. But the word "Testament" is generally criticized as a bad translation. The more accurate translation, and what is more revealing, is "Covenant". In Genesis, God made a covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15-17). At the Last Supper, Jesus declared that what His Apostles were drinking was "the Blood of the New Covenant" (Matt. 26:28). Everything in Scripture about God's relationship with humanity centers around the idea of covenants. God makes multiple covenants in Genesis with Noah and with Abraham, and then He becomes a man and makes a New Covenant with the shedding of His own Blood. The Covenant establishes His bond with His people.

When He makes a covenant with Abraham, He promises that Abram will be a father of many descendants and describes the boundaries of their lands, that his descendants will number the stars of the Heavens, and that they will be held in captivity for four hundred years (Gen. 15:4-21). Then, God changes the name of Abram to Abraham and declares that Abraham will be the father of many nations (Gen. 17:7). Abraham is not to be the father of one nation only, but of multiple nations. We can see that there are many peoples throughout the world who confess the name of Christ. God foreshadows an everlasting covenant to be made with the descendants of Abraham. This is not just referring to one nation of Israel or one specific group of people. God's intentions, from the beginning, with Abraham, was to use the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh, to be a light for the whole world.

There are multiple instances where "Israel" is referred to in Scriptures. It is referred to in Scriptures as Jacob the Righteous, the son of Isaac. It is referred to in Scriptures as the Kingdom of Israel. It is referred to in Scriptures as the people of Israel, the people of the Kingdom of Israel. Even dispensationalists have to acknowledge that the modern State of Israel is not a Kingdom but a democratic parliamentary republic. But there are already is a King of Israel according to Scriptures! In the Davidic line of descent, the Messiah is born to the Virgin Mary and becomes King of Israel! Moreover, it is revealed in the fulfilment, that this King was to come, not just to the Hebrews but to all nations. Such was the mission work of Christ. He clarifies that He has come for the Hebrews first, but with full intention to incorporate the Gentiles. This became an early question for the Church (Acts 15:3-21). In this controversy over the question of the circumcision of the Gentiles, the Holy Prophet Amos is referenced, "I will raise up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down ... [a]nd all the Gentiles who are called by name" (Am. 9:11-12).

So even in the Old Covenant, it is explained that Gentiles were to be included in the promises of Israel! As St. Paul declares, "Now to Abraham and his Seed [Christ] were the promises made" (Gal. 3:16). Those who are included in the promise are of Israel, the Seed of Israel, because Christ is the firstfruits of Resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20). Christ has established Himself as firstborn of a brotherhood and this includes those who find Faith in Christ. Christ establishes Himself as King over all nations in the glory of His Resurrection and the splendor of His Godhood. The Kingdom of Israel, therefore, must be the Church. But St. Paul also recognizes that there is a remnant of Israel according to the flesh.

In Romans 9-11, where many dispensationalists come away with the understanding that their opponents' theology is somehow a "replacement" theology, they miss on key concepts that St. Paul speaks of the remnant of Israel (Rom. 9:27-28). The point is to show that Abraham has descendants according to the flesh, but that the flesh will account for nothing in the judgment from God. Much the same, even Jesus makes note of this in His dispute with the Pharisees where He declares that they are not the children of Abraham but of the Devil (Jn. 8:44). St. Paul is much aware of the statements made by Christ and is making an argument showing that the Gentiles are indeed apart of the Covenant, but how the Covenant is not superceded at all. Ironic that fulfilment theology is often termed "supercessionist" because it is anything but!

When I went to a non-denominational church when I was younger, the pastor once informed us that Paul was a "Jew" and emphasized in his lecture the Jewishness of Paul. I was both disturbed and perplexed. This is because the distinguishing of Judaism and Christianity as a religion nor the ethnic distinction was actually applied. But if we look at Scriptures, we do come across the statements made by St. John that there are Jews who say they are Jews but are of the Synagogue of Satan (Rev. 2:9, 3:9). It is not the replacement of Israel that we are looking at in Scriptures, but the fulfilment of Israel. The writers of the Catholic epistles want us to come away with the understanding that we are indeed correctly called Israel, have the promises of Israel, and are included in that. They cite the Old Testament's references that include the Gentiles in that Covenant and show the intent to incorporate the Gentiles into that Covenant. The Gentiles are restored with the tabernacle of David. That is the Church. Anything that contradicts is actually supercessionist and replacement. Was St. Paul a "Jew"? He was a Jew who was a Jew in reality. But that is because the true Jewish religion is not that of Rabbinic Judaism, but that of the Messianic following of Christ in the Sacrament of the Blessed Eucharist. Both "Christian" and "Jew" is appropriate for Christians are Jews of the New Covenant. Those tied to the Old Covenant stand in rejection of Christ. They deny that Christ came in the flesh and are Antichrist (1 Jn. 2:22, 4:3; 2 Jn. 1:7). Thus, St. John distinguishes between Jews who are of the Synagogue of Satan and practitioners of the true Faith (called Christians).

The word "Christian" was first applied to those who followed Christ as the Messiah by the opponents of Christianity and not by Christians themselves. The first Christians more than likely would have viewed themselves as a sect of Judaism at the time. When we sort through the anachronisms, and understand the texts according to the way the early Christians saw it, we see that they viewed Jewishness far differently than it is understood nowadays, Israel is a Kingdom of which the Church (Ekklesia - gathering) is the standing army, and the Eucharist is the sacrifice. Because many Protestants have rejected that the Eucharist is sacrifice and that Jesus's pouring Himself out on the Cross once and for all is infinitely offered on the Holy Altars, they miss out on this. That's how dispensationalism is arrived at. Because Lutherans and Anglicans haven't dismissed that theology of the Eucharist, they have retained the same views as historic Christianity. Dispensationalism is, effectively, replacement theology because it throws the Gentiles out of the Covenant and replaces the Kingdom of Israel with the modern State of Israel. Dispensationalism, therefore, is heretical.

Christ in the Book of the Holy Prophet Daniel

The Christian looks at the Old Testament with the constant anticipation of Christ that was experienced by the Jewish world as they awaited their Messiah. As we approach the Nativity on our Festal Calendar season, we also take a moment to remember the Holy Prophet Daniel and more specifically the Three Children. On December 11, we commemorated St. Daniel the Stylite who not only was named after the Holy Prophet Daniel, he was also buried on top of the remains of the Three Children, Radshach, Meshach, and Abednego. The Book of the Prophet Daniel is filled with foreshadowings of the Messiah's impending coming. Not just His second coming which is often times considered when looking at the apocalyptic narratives, but also the first coming too. Scripture is a multi-layered cake and different parts of Scriptures often times have multiple meanings. We can see the multitude of meanings in the apocalyptic literature of the Holy Prophet Daniel especially.

We start in Daniel 2. Many people see this as a foreshadowing of the world empires before the second coming of Christ. While this is certainly one way of reading it and also one of the more traditional ways of reading it, we must remember the multitude of meaning that Scriptures have and remember there might be another meaning. In Daniel 2, there is a statue with a gold head, silver chest, bronze waist, iron legs, and iron and clay feet. A stone is thrown at the statue's feet shattering it to pieces. Nebuchadnezzar is troubled by the statue's image in his dream and seeks out to find someone who can interpret the dream. None of the astrologers of the Emperor can give an adequate interpretation until the Holy Prophet Daniel, with discernment given to him by the Only Wise God, is able to decipher the dream's meaning. The statue shows the successive Empires that shall dominate the world, one after the other. Tradition understands them as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. The rock that is thrown at the statue will bring an abrupt end to the current era, dismantling the present kingdoms, establishing an everlasting kingdom. Most see Rome as the end of history and so look for some kind of antichrist from this passage. While the apocalyptic narrative definitely foretells the antichrist, this is a narrative of the Messiah. It was in a period in which Rome was being divided up into a Triumvirate, the Republic was dissolving after the Julius Caesar's dictatorship and his son Octavius Augustus was reigning upon the newly erected throne of the Roman Empire when an infant was born. Octavius was proclaiming himself to be the son of a god but the one that was born was the Son of God. Octavius proclaimed the Pax Romana but the Son of God proclaimed the Pax Christi. Indeed, a new kingdom, the Church, was established from the rubble of the Roman civil wars which savaged the world. The clay and iron couldn't withhold and Christ came down and established His own kingdom. It was a kingdom not of this world. It was a rock thrown from Heaven.

In the very next chapter of the Holy Prophet Daniel, we see the Three Children refuse to bow down before the false idol of the Emperor's. As a punishment, the Three Children are thrown into a fiery furnace with flames so hot that the men who threw them into the fire all died the moment the flames came near to them. Assuredly, Nebuchadnezzar had presumed the Three Children would be incinerated but he was in for a surprise. When Nebuchadnezzar looked into the furnace, he saw a fourth man in the furnace. The Hebrew text does not possess a definitive article so it is very possible he presumed it to be one of his own gods, but he recognized in the fourth figure and proclaimed that it was "one like a son of god!" Christians understand that this divine being who appeared in the furnace was Christ Himself. The Angel of God in the Old Testament is commonly held to be a Christophany or an appearance of Christ. And this is identified later in the text as an Angel of the God of the Three Children. While Nebuchadnezzar may not have understood who the being was, later generations have given new meaning to his words which shows that the Three Children very clearly understood that this being was not only a son of god but the Son of God who had come to save them from the fires of the furnace.

Once more, we see in Daniel 7 another prophecy of the things to come and the end of the world. There are four successive beasts. The beasts are identified in tradition as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. From the Roman beast, there stem ten kings and from there, a little horn comes out with great blasphemies, speaking these until fire is reigned down upon the beast from Heaven and the eternal kingdom of the saints is established. One like the Son of Man is then seen ascending upward to the Ancient of Days. While this is typically interpreted in the Cosmic Battle between Christ and Antichrist, there is an additional foreshadowing of this battle which is found in the incarnation of Christ. Christ comes into a divided Roman world that is wrested in its factionalism. From the chaos of the civil wars comes the Roman monarchy and the claims that the Emperor is the son of a god. But Christ comes in a very unique and unexpected way. He ushers in the true Peace while Rome claims a time of peace for itself. He is the Son of God but Rome can only claim such. While this is indeed is a very prophetic text about the coming antichrist, it is also a text which prophecies the initial conquering of Christ on the Cross and His establishment of His earthly Kingdom, not of this world.

Daniel 11:36-45 has baffled many scholars and eschatologists for years because there is failure to understand the often times dual fulfillment of prophecy. While there is grounds that this is a prophecy for the coming antichrist, it is also a Messianic prophecy of the first coming of Christ too. This is missed when people get fixated on the futuristic interpretations of Scriptures and fail to see that the Lord's Day has been here for quite some time. This is why He invites us into His Church now. Because the Church is the Kingdom of God. It is very easy to see how Herod fulfills the description of the one described in Daniel 11:36-39. He was thought of as a Jew being an Idumean but proclaimed the gods of the Romans and the Greeks. He thought of himself above all the priests and above all in the land of Judea. He sought the blood of all the infants throughout the land of Judea going against the natural maternal inclinations of women. He spoke great blasphemies against the Most High God and sought the death of the One Who was God in the flesh. Herod then supported Mark Antony in his war against Octavius as the King of the South attacked the King of the North and the news of the Messiah's coming brought great trouble to Herod. This was brought to him by the three kings of Orient. Herod would eventually succumb to madness, killing his own son and then dying of an illness. In Daniel 12:1, we finally see Michael the Archangel taking the stand for the Israelites, just as was done in Revelation 12. Revelation 12 is also given a double-meaning in its reference not only to battle of Christ and Antichrist but also the Virgin Mary's fleeing to the wilderness to give birth to the Messiah.

All throughout the writing of the Holy Prophet Daniel we see the presence of the Coming of Christ foreshadowed in not only the first but also in the second coming. It is revealed for Christians that there is a cosmic battle between Christ and Antichrist and the enemies of Christianity and the followers of the Kingdom that is established not of human hands. But we are given the hope that our side is victorious. We see in the coming of Christ in His incarnation that He has already proclaimed victory. He set up and established a Kingdom already. The prophecies of Daniel are fulfilled in the Nativity which is why the Holy Prophet Daniel's celebration falls just before the Nativity and not afterward. It is a poetic way to end the narrative of the Holy Scriptures that point to and foreshadow Christ. Christ is all throughout Scriptures and Christians are given this revelation because they have been entered into the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, the Church. The Church is the eschatological fulfillment of these pages and the Church is what the infant Christ established. The Church is what was brought to life when Christ stormed the gates of Hades. The Church is what proclaims the victory of Christ! Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit! Unto ages and ages, Amen!

History of the Franks, Book I

Here begins St. Gregory of Tours's Historiae Francorum. This is the earliest written source on the Merovingian dynasty that exists today. Gregory introduces himself and provides the reasons he writes the work. He introduces himself as a Catholic, makes his creed known, renounces the Arians, and explains his purpose in writing is to show how many  years have passed since the creation of the world. "[O]f that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the son, but the Father. ... They should understand that by this Son is meant the Christian people." (I) The coming of Christ will not occur unless the Antichrist shows up first introducing circumcision in the Temple of God. This is what St. Gregory understands Antichrist will do. It is certainly not an infallible position but we ought to consider this when we think on coming Antichrist. St. Gregory is living in a time period in which people have been ravaged by plague, persecution of the True Faith, and apostasy. Many people thought the world was ending in his day just as many people believe the world to be ending now. His intention is to show that the world has existed much long this far, and there have been much worse days leading up to the current day.

St. Gregory begins his history by going through the Scriptures, all the way through the Roman Empire and Gaul as it existed under the Roman Empire. We see in St. Gregory a Christocentric hermeneutic throughout his coverage of the Scriptures. In fact, this is how St. Gregory goes through his entire history. This shows for a Christian, not just sacred history, but also secular history, is Christ-centered, looking toward the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection, and having this focal point of the telos of history. This Christocentric hermeneutic permeates his introduction and his entire coverage of the Old Testament. Christocentric hermeneutics are a hermeneutical method that understands Sacred Scriptures in light of what is revealed in the revelation of Christ in the New Testament. This seems only one-sided in that it focuses only on the incarnation but a proper sense of Christocentric hermeneutics is all-encompassing. While for Evangelical Protestants, the Christocentric hermeneutic is limited to the life of Christ and after the Resurrection and for liberal Protestants, it is limited to the words of Christ only, for a Catholic, Christocentric hermeneutics point us toward the Divine Liturgy, the sacrifice of the Eucharist, the Church, and the ultimate eschatological goal for all humanity.

God's wrath is conceived of in the writings of Scriptures but it is something understood much differently in the Traditional theology of the Church. The Lord has anger but it is not to be thought of as a man. How could God wipe out all of humanity in anger as He did in Genesis 6. As an Anglican, this text always confused me. In fact, this text confused me until I read the narrative of St. Gregory of Tours on the Old Testament's Sacred History. "[God] is moved to anger so that He may fill us with awe, He drives us forth so that He may call us back. He is enraged that He may reform us. ... [T]he shape of the Ark represented the concept of the mother Church, which moves forward between the rocks of life here below, protecting us from the evils which threaten us, and defending us in her loving embrace and guardianship." (I.4) St. Gregory sees the Church at the center of the narrative of the Deluge for it is in the Church where men are saved. Outside the Church, the men drown in the deluge of evils, pestilences, heresies, idolatries, and various immoralities. God's wrath is not directed at people but is directed at actions. It is directed in order to reform. It is directed at the oppressors, whether they be the chains of sin and corruption or the demonic forces that seek to pursue us and hold us captive.

The flight from Egypt through the parting of the Red Sea is seen with the New Testament revelation of baptism in mind (I.10). "Some pass through in the first hour: these are they who are reborn by baptism. ... Those who are converted later in life pass through at the third hour. Those who control the lust of the flesh pass through at the last hour." St. Gregory also sees Zerubbabel as a Christ-like figure in the Old Testament. The captivity that the Israelites were under "is a symbol of the enslavement that the soul of a sinner is led...unless some Zerubbabel, that is Christ Himself, can rescue it" (I.15). St. Gregory's Christocentric reading of the New Testament is nothing new. This is a common theme in the Church today as we look to baptism as being what frees us from the captivity to the Devil and sin. We are led into the Ark of the Church. The very area where the Faithful stand during the Liturgy is called the "nave" a word which comes from the Latin for "ship" or "ark". Just as Zerubbabel rebuilt the physical Temple, so does Christ build the spiritual Temple.

On events concerning ancient history, St. Gregory understands Chus, the son of Ham, as the founder of the Zoroastrian religion (I.5). The Pharaoh who perished during the pursuit of Moses and the Israelites he states was Cenchris (I.17). Controversially, he calls Julius Caesar the first Emperor of the Romans (I.18). This is also where he first describes the founding of Lyons in Gaul. The forty-fourth year of the reign of Octavian Augustus from whom the name of the month of August is derived, is the year in which Christ was born (I.19). St. Gregory describes the persecution of Christians in Gaul specifically but also throughout the Roman Empire. Beginning with the Emperor Nero and going through to Diocletian in chapters 25-35. St. Gregory's view is consistent with what the classicists conclude of today's repertoire though these same classicists refuse to consider it an actual persecution. The persecutions against orthodox Christians were from the inside as Christians contended against heresies and from the outside as they contended against the Pagan Romans and the Pagan Alemanni who would take over the Gallic region.

Nero launched the first campaign against Christianity in the Roman Empire (1.25). After him, Domitian. It was under Domitian that John the Apostle would be exiled. After Domitian, the persecution temporarily ended yet again and "climbed into the tomb while still alive. It is said that John will not experience death until our Lord shall come again at Judgment Day, for he himself said in his Gospel: 'I will that he tarry till I come.'" (I.26) Under Trajan, Clement, the Bishop of Rome suffered (I.27) and under Antoninus, Justin and Polycarp suffered (I.28). Photinus, the Bishop of Lyons was martyred and St. Irenaeus who was sent by Polycarp converted the whole city of Lyons to Christianity. There, the Devil resumed his tyranny and began a persecution so fierce that "rivers of Christian blood ran through the streets" (I.29).

He describes several martyrs, including the Bishop Dionysius of Paris, under the brutal persecution of the Roman Emperor Decius. Saturninus of Toulose, when he was put to death, exclaimed to two of his priests, "Now I am about to be sacrificed and the moment of my immolation is at hand. Stand by me, I beg you, until I meet my end." (I.30). Valerianus and Gallienus were twenty-seventh in the succession of Roman Imperial rule and they would begin a fierce persecution of Christians. I was here that King Chroc of the Alemanni moved in and subdued Gaul but as when Satan casts out Satan, another demon moves and brings friends with him. Chroc "destroyed down to its very foundations every single building which had been put up in ancient times" (I.32). Privatus refused to sacrifice to the devils of the Alemanni and Chroc had him beaten to death with sticks, after which, Chroc was captured in Arles, "submitted to various tortures and then died by a blow from the sword, paying the penalty for which he deserved for the sufferings which he had inflicted on God's people." (I.34) Under Diocletian, Quirinus had a millstone tied to his neck and was thrown into a river yet remained afloat for no sin weighed him down. Quirinus yielded himself up to God saying, "Lord Jesus, You who sit in glory on the right hand of the Father, do not allow me to be taken from my course, but receive my soul and deign to add me to Your martyrs in eternal rest." (I.35)

Here is a difference between humanistic "pro-life" doctrine and the Christian's outlook on life. The Christian views life with a teleological goal of eternity. Thus, repentance is what is most important, not a consistent position to extend life as long as possible. We see this reflected later in St. Gregory the Great's response to the pandemic breaking out in his own time frame. The response from the Pope was not to quarantine everyone but to call Christians to repentance, to reflect on the life they've been given, and to gather all the Christians together in prayer of repentance together. Much different than today's world in which the solution is to isolate all men from each other in order to hopefully tack on a couple extra days to one's life which is mortal at any rate and assume we hold control over all events in the course of history. The former is truly a commitment to the beauty of life and the beauty of living. The latter is narcissism.

Under Constantine, Christianity was legalized but struggles would ensue amongst his successors, some of them being Arians. It is after Constantine II that St. Gregory seems more observant to the Western half of the Empire. In fact, he skirts over many Eastern Emperors but begins a focus on Gaul. St. Martin comes to Gaul during the reign of Constantius, performs many miracles, destroys pagan temples, raises the dead, converts men to Christianity and reposes in Tours. St. Hilary went to Heaven in the town of Poitiers under the fourth year of Emperors Valentianus and Valens (I.39). Rome was a diarchy after Diocletian, reverted back to a monarchy under Constantine and after Constantine went back to a diarchy. Valens attempted to conscript monks into his military and perished in battle from the Goths (I.41). Gratianus succeeded Valens as the sole monarch and made Theodosius his colleague in the East (I.42). The Roman commander Maximus made a coup against Gratianus after conquering the Britons through his tyranny. His soldiers viewed him as Emperor. He captured Gratianus and put him to death. Theodosius, a God-fearing man and devoted to God, with the help of God, stripped Maximus of his imperial authority and had Maximus put to death. Rome was once again a monarchy. (I.43) St. Gregory then describes Bishop Urbicus's fall into temptation, and then the successors Legonus, Illidius, and Nepotianus (I.44-46).

St. Gregory concludes this chapter with the feud that broke out between the monks of Poitiers and the people of Tours over the burial of the body of St. Martin. The monks of Poitiers argued that St. Martin should be buried in their city since he had received his clerical orders from Poitiers and the people of Tours had his miracles. The people of Tours argued that he should be buried in their city since he was their shepherd and that he performed more miracles while in Poitiers than he did while in Tours. During the night, the Poitiers party supposed to be guarding the body fell asleep and the Tours party was able to seize the body and by the will of God allowing this to happen, the body of St. Martin now sleeps in the city of Tours. (I.48)

The Holy Prophet Elias

Elias is the most significant of the prophets of the Old Testament. It was Elias who showed up along with Moses at the Transfiguration and it is Elias who is prophesied to announce the second coming of Christ. It was the character of Elias which St. John the Baptist carried with him as he preached the Gospel announcing Christ's first coming. St. John was not literally Elias though so the prophesy of Elias's announcement of the Messiah's coming is only partially fulfilled by John in the incarnation. It will be wholly pronounced at the very end of the world. Elias vigorously combatted the apostasy of Israel and denounced the wicked king Ahab who governed like a tyrant.

Elias had prayed to God to bring a drought to Israel. Being the only faithful when Ahab had ruled, his life was in constant danger from the king but God had granted him His full protection. The drought in Israel lasted for three and a half years, during which time, Elias lived with a widow in Zarephath who had only one son. She had only a small amount of meal in a jar and oil in a jug but Elias announced to her that this would not dry up until the Lord would send rain to the earth once again. And each day, she would use the oil and meal to make bread and it would not dry up. It continued to last as Elias had prophesied it would. The widow of Zarephath is remembered for her hospitality to the Holy Prophet. It also came about that her son died while Elias was with her. She started blaming Elias and accusing God until Elias raised her son from the dead, foreshadowing Christ's resurrection of the only son of the widow of Nain and the resurrection of Christ himself. Seeing Elias raise her son, she realized Elias was truly a man of God.

Elias would return one last time to Israel as the drought was ending and would put the prophets of Baal to the test. They would see whose God could bring fire. The prophets of Baal gathered the driest of sticks hoping this would set a fire as the prayed. Elias, seeing their god fail to light the fire mocked their idol and their moronic faith in such a Pachamama character like that. Elias gathered around moist sticks and branches, placed water around his pile of sticks, and prayed God light the fire. The fire ignited and the prophets of Baal were dumbstruck yet refused to believe in the God of Elias. Elias then slashed their throats. Knowing the king had him on the run, he would flee into the wilderness.

There we see Elias in a much different state. For many of us, we see the Church in crisis just as it was in the days of Elias. We cry out to God and we wonder if we are the only one with the true faith. This was Elias before his final reward. On his way to Horeb, he was strengthened by an angel and as he dwelt in a cave, food was brought to him by the ravens showing that even the most rapturous of birds must submit and obey the will of God. He cried out, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the Israelites have forsaken the covenant, I am the only one left, and now they seek to take away my life." Elias begged for death. Then, standing before the mountain, he observed the great wind which broke the mountains. But the Lord was not in the wind. Then there was an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. Then there was a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire. Finally, there was silence. It was in the silence that Elias heard the voice of God calling out to him. It is not in the noisiness of the world that we find God but when we rest our hearts to the point of silence. This is when we confront our own thoughts and when God calls our thoughts to Himself.

Elias was commanded to appoint Elisha as his successor and he was taken up in the wind, with Elisha following him, in a cloud of fire on a chariot. Elisha received the mantle of the Holy Prophet and Elisha carried with him the charism of his elder. Elias did not die a natural death. According to tradition, when the Two Witnesses at the end of time announce the coming of Christ and expose the works of the Antichrist, they will be put to death by his ministers. These Two Witnesses are reckoned to be Enoch and Elias for neither Enoch nor Elias have died. Thus, although Elias has not died as of current, it is inevitable that he will be slaughtered by the Antichrist. Holy Prophet Elias, pray for us as we find ourselves alone against those who ought to be our brothers!

Biden is excommunicated

I haven't discussed politricks on this blog in a while but the deliberations by the U.S.C.C.B. over whether to commune Biden, the Vatican's response to bishops who have lashed out against the traitorous heretic, and the media's phoniness about this intra-Catholic skirmish has my skin boiling. First off, if you're an orthodox Catholic, don't think for a moment that any member of the U.S.C.C.B. is "on your side". They aren't. José Gómez assaults the truths of the Catholic faith just as much as Biden does. Gómez's vision is clearly to turn the Church into a functional political party. While the Church is a political party as it is the Kingdom of God, what I mean is that these bishops want to turn the Church into an earthly political party. They don't intend to elevate the Church at all. In fact, they are politicizing the Eucharist. These people want to make a show of Biden to bolster their own political power so it looks like they're on the "right side" of orthodoxy within the Catholic Church. The fact of the matter, an "excommunication" decision on their part is nothing more than a justification for their complicity with the lockdown orders, their siding with the rejection of the Church's traditional upholding of the death penalty, their support of the destruction of the Catholic liturgy, and their support of the democratic ideology. These bishops favor moving the Church to an earthly political power. They couldn't care any less about the Heavenly Kingdom of the Church.

Secondly, the media has portrayed this as an intra-Catholic struggle between "right-wing" Catholics and "liberal" Catholics. There are no such monickers to describe Catholics. This is entirely a struggle over the essence of the Catholic faith here. The Catholic moral doctrine is at stake. Do we put a hammer down against sin or not? Do we condemn sin in the flesh or not? Are we about building up and converting sinners into saints or not? Are we about transforming people from ravenous wolves into the most peaceful and humble of sheep or not? This is what is at stake. There shouldn't be any politics involved in the life of the Catholic any more than what is required to catch fish for the Lord and reap in the harvest. The media wants to pretend that this is a political struggle for the Church which is why they've applied political terms and placed it in the Church. This is not a political struggle for power in the Church. It shouldn't be. This is a struggle for the essence of Truth. It is a spiritual struggle. Do the orthodox prevail within the Church or are we to be cast out with our Holy Father John Chrysostom along with St. Olympias and suffer martyrdom with Tigrius and Eutropius? This is a spiritual struggle over sin for the faithful. We may be bludgeoned by heretical bishops but the struggle will not last forever. St. John Chrysostom reminds us that the battle is over sin (Letters to Olympias), not over clerical power. Will we be given over to Satan by our ecclesiastical hierarchy or will we be preserved as the Kingdom of Heaven by our hierarchy?

Third, it does not matter what the vote result is for Truth is not a democracy but a person. Our clergy are corrupt parasites much the same way that heretical politicians like Alexandria Occasio-Cortez, Nancy Pelosi, Tim Kaine, Andrew Cuomo, Paul Ryan, Gina Raimondo, and Joe Biden are. Parasites consume a host in order to live. These politicians, like our bishops, have no power if they are given no host. The reality is, their host has become the Catholic Church and the holy sacraments. These politicians have no allegiance to the Catholic faith as is displayed by their sin and their hatred to their brethren. He who loves not his brother loves not God, as the Apostle John the Evangelist has spoken. How can you love your brother if you willfully engage in the persecution of your brother? You cannot. Biden has willfully engaged in the persecution of a group of Catholic nuns when he served as Vice President with Obama. He loves not his brother as was shown with his engagement in the persecution with those who served the Church faithfully. If Biden claims he is a Catholic, then those nuns were his brethren and he engaged in persecution against them. He hates his fellow Catholic. He hates his fellow brethren. He loves not his brother. He loves not God. This is not an open question. Biden is a persecutor from within. Any love of God he claims to have is a sham. He hates his brothers so he also hates God.

Fourth, this is not a dispute. Catholic ecclesiology is clear on the subject. Manifest heretics, according to St. Cyprian, are not members of the Church. An excommunication is merely only a pastoral declaration that someone is not a member of the Church in the hopes that it serves to call them back to repentance. Pastoral care, unlike what the phony Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who himself does not hold any formal authority as a Cardinal, is about bringing people to repentance. The Catholic faithful do not commune with heretics nor are subjected to heretics. A manifest heretic is an open heretic who has been denounced previously for his apostasy and his open contradictions to the tradition of the faith. No one in Washington, D.C. has any subjection to the authority of Wilton Gregory just as Nestorius lost his episcopal authority from the moment he began preaching his heresies about the Holy Theotokos. Biden has been denounced publicly as a heretic multiple times. He has no real or authentic communion with Holy Mother Church. He is excommunicated. No declaration is needed. The fact that we have bishops who think that we can still commune a heretic shows that the Church is in as bad, if not worse, a situation since the Arian crisis. The bishops need to get their act together and recall what the Church teaches about manifest heretics like Biden and Gregory. We have communion with neither of them. As St. Jerome once asked the Pope, "must we be separated from the Arians by mere walls?"

Fifth, Biden is not just a heretic for his stance on abortion. The bishops want to make this solely about abortion because they would like not to admit their dreadful stances on other social issues and the entirety of the social doctrine of the faith for it would expose them. The bishops are only intent on being secular humanists and supporters of the establishment political position as much as they can. This is why they are only concerned with abortion. But Biden is in open denial of Catholic teaching on numerous issues. He upholds democratic ideology which the Church condemns. Until he acknowledges that his authority comes from God, it is inevitable that Biden's reign will be taken away and he will be made to dine on grass like a cow, just as Nebuchadnezzar was made to dine on grass like a beast of the earth. Biden's authority will be degraded if he continues to claim falsely that his authority comes from the people. That is the democratic ideology that he adheres to. That is condemned by the Church. It made Pontius Pilate a pawn of the Synagogue of Satan as he put Our Lord to death. Biden has acted as an official at a gay "marriage", defiling the sanctity of marriage. That act alone excommunicates him automatically. Any one suggesting he is still a "Catholic" either has not read canon law or is not aware of this for anyone who even attends a gay "marriage" is automatically excommunicated and Biden officiated one. Biden also has enacted openly racist policies favoring "coloured" people over others. It does not matter what the skin color is, racism is racism. Biden has assisted at a Novus Ordo "Mass" which indicates he may not be genuinely fulfilling his Sunday obligations. Need I mention Quod Primum which automatically excommunicates those who attend or create "new Masses" other than the ones instituted by Holy Mother Church which are 200 years old or older at the time of the writing? And the document was written in the 16th century? Biden has persecuted his brethren for standing against contraceptives. Thus, Biden has defiled the Church's teaching on abortificients and contraceptives and has shown that he does not love his brother, therefore, he does not love God. The bishops want to make this about abortion so they can claim this is about preserving human dignity. They are only concerned with a materialistic humanist agenda. If they excommunicated Biden for all the reasons he is already excommunicated for, they would have to excommunicate themselves as well. The bishops' real goal here is humanism.

Sixth, the Eucharist has routinely been "politicized". If anyone in the hierarchy is sensitive about denying a politician the Eucharist over the concern that the Eucharist is "politicized", they really ought to show their flocks the money flowing into their pockets first and then read their history books second. The Church has been no stranger to calling Catholic politicians and statesmen back to the herd. We excommunicated Frederick II. We excommunicated the Simoniac Henry IV. We excommunicated the murderer Henry II. We threatened the excommunication of Henry III of England. We excommunicated the adulterer Henry VIII. We interdicted the Netherlands, Germany, and England. Oh yes, we've "politicized" the Eucharist. The Catholic Church has always used these as a means of calling people back to the herd so that they may receive the Eucharist again, not to their deaths but to eternal life. This is what the Eucharist is about. In reality, the bishops refusing to declare a heretic to be excommunicated have politicized the Eucharist for they see in the Eucharist political gain for themselves. They see in the Eucharist a source of political power much like the Arians who booted St. Athanasius out of their Church have done. They see denying people the Eucharist as a threat, not to pastoral care of the flock, but to their image and social standing among the humanist liberals. And the U.S.C.C.B. isn't really better as they are only concerned with one heresy held by Biden. These are not your friends, nor are they God's friends, even if they do rightfully conclude that Biden is to be denied Holy Communion. But that's beside the point. There is no declaration needed for a manifest heretic. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. is already excommunicated and any bishop who says otherwise is a wolf in sheep clothing at this point.

Historicism Debunked, Pt. 5 - Origins of Futurism

It is fictitiously claimed by historicist conspiracy theorists that the origins of the doctrine of futurism were concocted by the Jesuit ministers of the Roman Catholic Church as a clever way to distract people from knowing "who the real Antichrist is". One such character who does this is a character we've seen in this series before. His site can be found here. It is quite clear from reading his sources on both preterism and futurism, the former we will tackle in the next article of this series, that he straw-mans both positions! Futurism does not insist on the "resurrection" of a Roman Empire. Futurism rather holds the postulation, historically Rome has not been divided up into ten kings and the Roman Empire may not have actually fallen to begin with as even Spain can claim legitimacy to the Roman Imperial Throne due to its connections with the Habsburgs. We established this position in the previous entry.

He contends that the Futurist school was created out of "panic" as the Pope was being exposed as the Antichrist as Martin Luther and the Reformers began "exposing" the Pope as the true Antichrist that Scriptures identified. Let alone, they can't even tell you which Pope was the Antichrist! But that's beside the point, the historicist school says the Papacy as an office is the Antichrist conflating its ecclesiastical role with the role of the Church played by those operating mostly independent of the Papacy and confusing its role as a secular role as opposed to a religious role. Thus, the historicist argument continues to be void of actual historical substance to back it up. I always found it rather odd that the Papacy even lacks a military. One could say the Swiss Guard is their military but that's more of a body-guard unit of Swiss soldiers. In fact, among the requirements to being in the Swiss guard is that you have to be Swiss. That's not a Papal militia but a secular militia supplied by an independent sovereign. Historicism can never make up its mind as to whether the Papacy is the Beast or the Whore of Babylon. Some say the entire Catholic Church led by the Papacy is the Whore of Babylon. Maybe the reason why historicism is such a bungled mess of interpretation has less to do with the book of Revelation being difficult but rather because the historicist school belongs in the trash-bin of history.

So the Pope, now freaking out (allegedly) because he was identified as the Biblical Antichrist got this guy named Francisco Ribera. The rest of the article's polemics is actually a bit humorous so let me quote it:

"Like Martin Luther, Francisco Ribera also read by candlelight the prophecies about the Antichrist, the Beast, the little horn and that man of sin. But because the Pope was his boss, he came to conclusions vastly different from that of the Protestants. “Why, these prophecies don’t apply to the Catholic Church at all!” Ribera said. Then to whom do they apply? Ribera proclaimed, “To only one sinister man who will rise up at the end of time!” “Fantastic!” was the reply from Rome, and this viewpoint was quickly adopted as the official Roman Catholic position on the Antichrist."

Thus, Ribera is now the "father of Futurism". Only this is wrong. Very wrong. Futurism actually had a very strong history in the Roman Catholic Church prior to the Protestant Reformation. It goes back to St. Irenaeus of Lyons. St. Irenaeus was the disciple of St. Ignatius who was a disciple of St. John, the one who wrote the Apocalypse. This is why the futurist school has maintained weight even with a position that the Olivet Discourse was entirely fulfilled (though most Furturists contend the Olivet Discourse was not entirely fulfilled). We'll go back to different preterist schools in another post though. For now, we will look at the classical futurist position developed by St. Irenaeus.

In Against Heresies, St. Irenaeus interprets the four beasts in Daniel 7 as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Macedonia, and Rome (Bk. V, ch. 26). St. Irenaeus describes the fall of the Roman Empire particularly as "The ten toes, therefore, are these ten kings, among whom the kingdom shall be partitioned, of whom some indeed shall be strong and active, or energetic; others, again, shall be sluggish and useless, and shall not agree" (ibid). On the number 666, St. Irenaeus has this to say:

"the name Evanthas (ΕΥΑΝΘΑΣ) contains the required number, but I make no allegation regarding it. Then also Lateinos (ΛΑΤΕΙΝΟΣ) has the number six hundred and sixty-six; and it is a very probable [solution], this being the name of the last kingdom [of the four seen by Daniel]. For the Latins are they who at present bear rule: I will not, however, make any boast over this [coincidence]. Teitan too, (ΤΕΙΤΑΝ, the first syllable being written with the two Greek vowels ε and ι, among all the names which are found among us, is rather worthy of credit. For it has in itself the predicted number, and is composed of six letters, each syllable containing three letters; and [the word itself] is ancient, and removed from ordinary use; for among our kings we find none bearing this name Titan, nor have any of the idols which are worshipped in public among the Greeks and barbarians this appellation. Among many persons, too, this name is accounted divine, so that even the sun is termed Titan by those who do now possess [the rule]."

Clearly, St. Irenaeus holds the interpretation of Daniel 7 as being a literal division of ten kings and one man coming to uproot three of the kingdoms possessed by those ten kings. But he holds Antichrist as a literal man, not an "office" of the Papacy. The Papacy was of course alive and active in the days of St. Irenaeus and St. Irenaeus even has a list of the prominent Popes in order to prove Apostolic Succession! (Bk. 3, ch. III) So the Papacy did not arise from obscurity as this little horn did.

St. Hippolytus follows St. Irenaeus and writes this of the ten horns:

"As these things, then, are in the future, and as the ten toes of the image are equivalent to (so many) democracies, and the ten horns of the fourth beast are distributed over ten kingdoms, let us look at the subject a little more closely, and consider these matters as in the clear light of a personal survey." (On Christ and Antichrist)

And of course, this is futurist thinking. The Barbarian kingdoms, though uncivilized, were monarchies, not democracies. Thus, the division into ten horns could not be the division of the Western Half in 476! Further, Sts. Hippolytus and Irenaeus are indeed thinking holistically of the Roman Empire. It is difficult to tell whether they would have thought the Holy Roman Empire the legitimate succession but they would have definitely acknowledged the legitimacy of Constantine's successors! Of course, if historicism is merely the position that Biblical prophecy unfolds throughout history, then technically all of the early church's positions on the subject are historicist. Because they felt the collapse of Rome was to come and that it would be divided into ten kingdoms. This was a prophecy in the making.

The Ven. Bede also maintains a futurist approach in his Explanation of the Apocalypse and we can see a clear depiction of the reign of Antichrist as futuristic in St. Hildegard of Bingen's Scivias (Bk. 3, Vision 11). All of these came long before St. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine and Francisco Ribera so to say that the origins of futurism lie with the Jesuits is an intellectually dishonest and deceitful abuse and misunderstanding of historical theology on this subject.

Historicism Debunked, Pt. 4 - The Fall of Rome

One of the many claims made by historicists, and their entire theology rests on this, is that Rome fell in 476 A.D. This is the foundation claim of historicists because they insist that the ten horns on the beast are the barbarian tribes that sacked the Western half of the Roman Empire. David Nikao Wilcoxson maintains this view. But if the view is historically untenable, then of course, it collapses in toto. Indeed, the view is actually highly historically untenable. There is a German thesis that has also been developed on the subject of the history of imperial claims to the title of Roman Emperor called the zweikaiserproblem or "problem of two emperors". It reflects on the fact there often was not a single Roman Emperor in charge of the entire territories of the Roman Empire at a given time.

It was during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian that the Roman Empire was first divided into a tetrarchy of two Augusti or ruling Emperors and two Ceasares or designated successors. "The system, often called the Dominate, soon fell apart and Constantine restored the monarchy by defeating all his rivals (313 AD). Later, however, the Empire was permanently split between the two sons of Theodosius, in 395 AD. The Eastern half, with its capital in Constantinople, is also known as the Byzantine Empire." (Francois Velde, "The Title of Emperor") Those Eastern Emperors reigned in an unbroken line of succession through until the sack of Constantinople in 1453 A.D.! The problem is that a modernist historians typically try to negate the impact of Christianity on the Empire and proclaim that Rome was inherently Pagan. Thus, when the Western half was sacked in 476 A.D., the entire Empire fell. But how could that be if the Empire's capital wasn't even in Rome at the time?

Another further point to make is the succession through the West of the Emperor Charlemagne. Some may not recognize his legitimacy to the claim of Roman Empire, but the West did. And they may have had a solid basis for it too. The West eventually claimed a thesis of translatio imperii on the grounds that it too was permitted to have a Western Emperor and that the Empress Theodora arose through questionable means.

"While in practice there had been no emperor in the West since 480, this does not mean the position was vacant. In Roman political thought the empire was universal and indivisible. When in the fourth and fifth centuries there had been separate emperors in East and West, they were seen as colleagues ruling a single empire. This view of the indivisible nature of the empire survived in eight-century Constantinople, whose citizens still saw themselves as Romans. It was also shared by the Western kings who continued to recognize the superior status of the emperors in Constantinople. So, Charles could not be proclaimed Emperor without Eastern agreement, which was unlikely to be forthcoming.

Pope Leo, however, had a solution to this constitutional issue. The young emperor Constantine VI had been blinded and killed by his mother in 797 when he tried to revive the iconoclast policies of his predecessors. She had then taken the throne for herself, the first woman to rule in her own right in the history of the Roman empire, but the uneasy nature of her position was indicated by her using the male form of the imperial title. Her regime remained weak until her overthrow in 802. However, in the West in 800 the fact that she was a woman allowed it to be claimed that the imperial office was vacant, and thus no Eastern consent was needed." (Roger Collins, Keeper of the Keys of Heaven, 147)

Philotheus of Pskov, in the 16th century, developed an idea of understanding Russia as the Third Rome. To him, there couldn't be a "Fourth Rome". Russia was the final Rome. Rome had to be led by a Christian in accordance with his interpretation of prophecy. (Marshall T. Poe, "Moscow, the Third Rome", in The National Council for Soviet and East European Research, 4) This, of course, led to a development of another translatio imperii thesis among the Russians. Also justified by the fact that Ivan III was wed to the niece of the last Paleologue emperor in 1472. Peter the Great showed the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna a letter signed by Maximilian I recognizing the title of Emperor and Autocrat of All Russians as applied to the Czar Ivan III. (Velde) This indicates that the Russians even acknowledged the legitimacy of the Holy Roman Empire.

There was even reference to the Ottoman Emperor, after the sack of Constantinople in 1453 A.D., as the "Prince of Turkish Romans" (Katharina Süß, "Der 'Fall' Konstantinople(s)"). Considering that often in the Roman Imperial of ancient, and even through the Byzantine medieval period, Emperors often arose through treacheries, civil wars (as did the Paleologues), and other means, the Ottoman Emperor would have just as much claim to legitimacy as soon as he inherited the throne as any one else. Certainly, partisans will view the date of the Fall of Rome differently but the established evidence shows that only a hack could trace the Fall of Rome back to 476 A.D.! Considering this is the basis of the historicist school of the interpretation of the Book of Revelation, the actual facts of history show the entire interpretation sorely wanting. Of course, the Fourth Beast subdues the entire world under its dominion. Perhaps we can see this with the claims of legitimacy made to being the genuine successor of the Roman Empire? Maybe there is something to say on this as to how everyone wants to rule the Roman Empire. From France and Germany to Constantinople to Moscow. All roads lead to Rome, don't they? This raging beast ultimately sees kings divide it into ten parts. Was that really fulfilled with the barbarian invasions? But Rome hadn't conquered the world just yet!

American Harlot

"Behold, I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast" (Rev. 17:4). She had the name, "Mystery, Babylon the Great" (17:5). There are metaphorical symbols that we may not fully understand but we are given to know that the Antichrist will find himself opposed to the Whore of Babylon just before her judgment. He will be God's instrument of vengeance against the Great Harlot. The Harlot has carried out great influence and has even gone to cause these kings who will work together with the Antichrist to overthrow the Harlot. We don't know who the Harlot is. St. John Henry Cardinal Newman has the following to say about what tradition has stated about her:

"Secondly, let it be considered, that as Babylon is a type of Rome, and of the world of sin and vanity, so Rome in turn may be a type also, whether of some other city, or of a proud and deceiving world. The woman is said to be Babylon as well as Rome, and as she is something more than Babylon, namely, Rome, so again she may be something more than Rome, which is yet to come. Various great cities in Scripture are made, in their ungodliness and ruin, types of the world itself." ("Lectures on Antichrist", Part 4)

In reading Richard Bauckham's The Theology of the Book of Revelation, he writes the following about this Mother of Harlots:

"From John's perspective Rome's evil lay primarily in absolutizing her power and prosperity. Consequently she pursued and maintained them at the expense of her victims. According to 18:24, it is not just for the martyrdom of Christians, but for the slaughter of all her innocent victims that Rome will be judged: 'in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who have been slain on earth'. There is therefore a sense in which Revelation takes a view from the 'underside of history', from the perspective of the victims of Rome's power and glory. It takes this perspective not because John and his Christian readers necessarily belonged to the classes which suffered rather than shared Rome's power and prosperity. It takes this perspective because, if they are faithful in their witness to the true God, their opposition to Rome's oppression and their dissociation of themselves from Rome's evil will make them victims of Rome in solidarity with the other victims of Rome. The special significance of Christian martyrdom is that it makes the issue clear. Those who bear witness to the one true God, the only true absolute, to whom all political power is subject, expose Rome's idolatrous self-deification for what it is." (38-39)

It is interesting that everything that Bauckham writes here can very elaborately be applied to the United States of America today. In the Harlot is found the blood of all the innocent, oppressed, prophets, and saints. It is her judgment that reveals to the world the evils of Babylon the Great and yet, the world, participating in her sins, has also become and taken part in the sins of Babylon the Great to such an extent that they mourn her death. Christians are told to join the courts of Heaven in celebrating the triumph of Heaven over the Whore of Babylon as she is ultimately devoured by even the very barbarous enemies of the Antichrist. Her sins have worn down the saints of the Most High to such an extent that those who provide faithful witness will already be in a state of desiring the ultimate triumph over the Great Harlot. They will not mourn for the rest of the world who partakes in her sins for next, the Antichrist who leveled her will also be slain.

But does this apply so strongly to Rome? Maybe the ancient readers viewed it as such but Babylon is called "Mystery" here. A "mystery", as the ancient Christians understood the term, was something that one was to be initiated into. As Newman gives us Babylon as a type, and Rome as a type, so maybe also the great misunderstanding of this Evil Harlot that extended her sins to the Heavens. On many issues, St. Augustine not only exonerated, but also proved why God allowed Rome to blossom and grow. It was not because of her wickedness, certainly not. But because she was morally superior to the other nations. Yet Rome became infatuated with its false deities and so it refused to acknowledge that it was the true God who delivered the Carthaginians and the Druids into her hands.

According to the Romans, the Carthaginians were slain for their infatuation with the evils and horrors of infanticide. There is some speculation that the Carthaginians might have even come from the same bloodlines as the Philistines and worshiped the same demons as the Philistines. This horrified the far more civilized Romans and they declared war on Carthage and subdued it. Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars, recounts the horrifying details of the Druid practice of human sacrifice. Horrified by this, Caesar, in his highest and most civil sensibilities, declared all-out war on the Druids until they put an immediate end to the practice. But Rome refused to admit that God had delivered these into her hands.

Rome's chief sin was not its immorality but its haughtiness and its self-deification.

Certainly Christians underwent many persecutions under Rome but these were at different intervals of time, with some persecutions being worse, some Emperors being more tolerable toward the Christian religion, and then settling down the next minute. These were persecution cycles they went through. Candida Moss declares it The Myth of Persecution but that is an instance of extreme nonsense from the anti-Christian world. There was persecution, but it exited at differing intervals until the Holy Emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be legal. Even during and after Constantine, orthodox Christians still experienced different intervals of persecution which depended on the governing authorities of the Roman Empire. The sack in 476 A.D. spared the West and enabled Christianity to rule the Empire as Charlemagne was soon crowned as Emperor Augustus by the Pope of Rome. To the great fury of the Roman Emperor in Constantinople. But the result is clear. The subjection of the Roman Emperor, whether in the West or in the East, to the Church, proved decisive in Rome's survival. This is the argument that St. Augustine makes in The City of God. Though pride is the deadliest of all sins, it is hard to see that as extending to the offense of Heaven as greatly as the Harlot's sins. No, the sin here must be seen as unforgivable. Pride is a deadly sin but it is forgivable through the greatest acts of humility.

There are some who revel in the sins they commit and they look for ways to commit even greater sins. This is the manifestation of the sin of the Whore of Babylon. We have seen with our governors here in America how they revel and glorify in the sin of murder. One governor says, "I can kill them when they're 24 weeks in the womb!" And the next governor says, "I can kill them when they're outside the womb!" It's no longer that they are horrified by the sinfulness of their perversities but instead they go out of their way to increase the number of their sins! They bask in these sins. They raise their hearts to the skies and say, "Nothing shall happen to us! Those who criticize us are morons! Nothing to see here!" Everything of the Whore of Babylon, from persecution of the saints through murderous campaigns of the Ku Klux Klan's assaults and killings of Catholics, to the chaining of slaves, to the leveling of innocent civilians overseas, to even the slaying of infants! Everything of the Whore of Babylon is a sin of which the stench reaches to the heights of the Most High.

The religion of Antichrist is rather interesting. He will honor a god of forces and yet exalt himself above all that which is called God. Much the same, the Whore of Babylon seems to mimic or even foreshadow the religion of Antichrist in a sense. St. Hippolytus tells us that when Rome is subdued by the ten kings, these kings will hold sovereignty over democracies that resemble kingdoms. "As these things, then, are in the future, and as the ten toes of the image are equivalent to (so many) democracies, and the ten horns of the fourth beast are distributed over ten kingdoms" (On Christ and Antichrist, 27). And St. John Henry Cardinal Newman remarks on the lust of the United States of America for its state religion:

"On the other hand, after having broken away from all restraint as regards God and man, they gave a name to that reprobate state itself into which they had thrown themselves, and exalted it, that very negation of religion, or rather that real and living blasphemy, into a kind of god. They called it LIBERTY, and they literally worshipped it as a divinity. It would almost be incredible, that men who had flung off all religion should be at the pains to assume a new and senseless worship of their own devising, whether in superstition or in mockery, were not events so recent and so notorious. After abjuring our Lord and Saviour, and blasphemously declaring Him to be an impostor, they proceeded to decree, in the public assembly of the nation, the adoration of Liberty and Equality as divinities: and they appointed festivals besides in honour of Reason, the Country, the Constitution, and the Virtues. Further, they determined that tutelary gods, even dead men, may be canonized, consecrated, and worshipped; and they enrolled in the number of these some of the most notorious infidels and profligates of the last century. The remains of the two principal of these were brought in solemn procession into one of their churches, and placed upon the holy altar itself; incense was offered to them, and the assembled multitude bowed down in worship before one of them—before what remained on earth of an inveterate enemy of Christ." ("Lectures on Antichrist", Part 2)

He further states of the American religion, "And further, let it be remarked, that there was a tendency in the infatuated people I have spoken of, to introduce the old Roman democratic worship, as if further to show us that Rome, the fourth monster of the prophet's vision, is not dead. They even went so far as to restore the worship of one of the Roman divinities (Ceres) by name, raised a statue to her, and appointed a festival in her honour."

Babylon is a type, Rome is a type, and currently, America is a type. If course for our history is not reversed drastically, the current state of both political affairs and religious affairs could usher in the Reign of Antichrist sooner than we imagine. Of the day and hour no one knows. And the Great Harlot shall not be revealed to us until her destruction. But we can clearly see how the United States of America fulfills so many characteristics. The question is whether it will continue to harden and claim that she is Queen, not a widow. Will she begin an even greater persecution of Christians than did even the Soviet Union? I resist speculating more for while the United States clearly fits the description of this effeminate Harlot, I do not believe any one will know until the coming of Antichrist who she actually is.

Historicism Debunked, Pt. 3 - The Myth of Persecution

In order to bolster their claims that the Papacy is the Antichrist, Protestants are obliged to come up with a whole persecution legend of how the Papacy somehow rose up to persecute the "true Christians" and was in power performing this action the whole time. This is historically problematic to say the least. Numerous details are left out. Numbers from the Inquisitions, Religious Wars, and individual massacres are grotesquely inflated, context is ignored, and they'll even claim certain sects as their own. Let's just state this, it's a fictitious claim to begin with so naturally, numbers have to be inflated. One source claims that the Inquisitions killed an estimated 50,000,000-150,000,000 people! I tried to contact the author of that website in the past, ages ago, asking him what his credentials were. His health seems to be poor and at the time, his wife was also battling a serious illness. It seems she has since reposed as well. He never got back to me. I contacted him recently but have still not heard a response. I don't know if it's because he is simply so caught up in this fictitious narrative that he thinks any one who disagrees with him is a Satanic Beast or simply that he doesn't want to engage in counter-arguments. Regardless, he needs serious prayer so if you can commend him to your prayers, that would be the Christian thing to do.

But again, these numbers are grotesquely exaggerated and there is a huge context missing. Since all historicists maintain that the Papacy is a persecuting power, let's see if they can actually back those claims up. Albert Barnes, in his Biblical Commentary on the Book of Daniel states the following,

"This would be a persecuting power - "making war with the saints," and "wearing out the saints of the Most High." 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 this 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 so 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, or 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 Cambresis in 1559. Eighteen thousand suffered by the hands 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 anyone that what is here said of "making war with the saints" Daniel 7:21, and "wearing out the saints of the Most High" Daniel 7:25, is strictly applicable to that power, and will accurately describe its history."

If I count correctly, that is a grand total of 2,280,000 Protestants killed by the Papacy. Definitely no where near the number claimed by the previous source cited. Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Book of Revelation also cites Bp. Thomas Newton saying the exact same thing. But here's the full context.

Heretics are a pestilence upon the Church. When one actually studies the context of these "persecutions", one will see that not only have Protestants committed equal crimes against Catholics throughout the years, but also that in many instances, Protestants were the instigators. Who exactly were the Waldensians, the Lollards, and the Albigensians? It's important to start with the Albigensians. The Albigensians, or the Cathar movement, was a sect that "believed the material world was the creation of an evil deity, and that the pope's church was not only corrupt, but also false and evil...[they] also believed in reincarnation and rejected the sacraments, prayers for the dead, and the veneration of images and relics" (47)

Waldensians initially sought approval for their order from the Pope, but somewhere down the line, distanced themselves even more overtly from him and began "to argue that that the ultimate supreme authority was the Bible, not the pope. In addition, much like the Cathars, the Waldenses also questioned the validity of the church's sacraments, prayers for the dead, and the veneration of saints and icons." (Carlos M.N. Eire, Reformations: The Early Modern World, 48)

The Lollards who followed Wycliffe's sacramentarian movement gained incredible popularity in England but then showed a demonic hostility toward iconography, "On taking an image of St. Catherine [of Alexandria] from a chapel, one Lollard said to another: Aha...my dear chap, now God has sent us fuel to cook our cabbage and appease hunger. This holy image will make a bonfire for us. By axe and fire she will undergo a new martyrdom, and perhaps through cruelty of those new torments she will come at last to the kingdom of heaven." (52)

Anabaptists weren't all peaceful either. One sect, "a group of fanatics under Jan van Batenburg (1495-1538" were known as "swordsmen" and "indulged in sporadic terrorism in the Netherlands for nearly a decade after 1535" (Euan Cameron, The European Reformation, 333).

St. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine highlights the fact of religious wars ongoing between Protestants and Catholics and notes that,

"St. Augustine, disputing on this citation, says in the time of Antichrist the Devil will be loosed, and hence that persecution will be much more severe than all the ones that preceded it; the Devil can do so much more cruelly loosed than bound....Hippolytus the Martyr and St. Cyril say that the martyrs whom Antichrist will kill are going to be more illustrious than all the previous ones, because the old martyrs fought against the human ministers of the devil, but these will fight against the Devil himself...we have experienced nothing like that from the year 600 or even 1000." (On the Roman Pontiff, Bk. III, ch. VII)

He then challenges the heretics, "what comparison is there of that sort of persecution with that carried out by Nero, Domitian, Decius, Diocletian, and others? Accordingly, for one heretic who is burned, a thousand Christians formerly were burned—and that was exercised in the whole Roman world, not only in one place. Furthermore, at present when the supreme penalty is given a man is merely burned, but in ancient times they exercised the most unbelievable torments." (ibid)

And this is evident when one examines the martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria, the Forty Martyrs who had rocks thrown at them, the martyr Barbara who was locked in the tower by her father, the martyr Irene who escaped numerous tortures before finally laying down in a coffin having converted thousands to Christianity, St. George who was brutally tortured multiple times before finally being being beheaded, etc. And further, "the fact is that heretics killed many more Catholics in the last ten or fifteen years in France and Flanders than inquisitors burned heretics in perhaps the last hundred." (ibid)

One could even add that if one takes the date of 538 as the start of supposed "Antichrist" reign, you have to take into account the Holy Emperor Justinian's torments of a demon that caused him to turn on numerous orthodox Christians, the iconoclastic Roman Emperors who persecuted men such as St. John of Damascus, framing him for a crime that had the Muhammadans cut his hand off, the imprisonment of St. Maximus the Confessor whose tongue was cut out, and numerous Patriarchs of Constantinople who were deposed by these Emperors for upholding the orthodox Catholic doctrine. And yet it's the Papacy who is the persecuting power? Clerics don't even have the authority to kill or maim a heretic. Only the legitimate authorities of a State have that right! (St. Alphonsus de Liguori, Moral Theology, Bk. IV, 378)

Now, let's not sanitize history. Catholics have done some wretched things, especially to the Waldensians.

"Those in the Piedmont valleys enjoyed religious peace from 1536-1559, owing to the political dependence of the districts upon France. A contrary policy was pursued by the Dukes of Savoy; but the Waldenses at the very outset successfully resisted, and in 1561 were granted in certain districts the free exercise of their religion. In 1655 violence was again fruitlessly resorted to. Later in the same century (1686, 1699) some of them, under stress of renewed persecution, emigrated to Switzerland and Germany." (New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, "Waldenses")

Catholics are not perfect but indeed are sinners too. That said, the Protestants have done some nasty things to Catholics. And sites that claim this exaggerated number do a grotesque disservice to Christianity in toto by claiming such egregious absurdities as it clearly leads men away from God. 2,300,000 still seems like an exaggeration but when you give about 1,260 years for "beast power" to reign, that is remarkably light. Especially when you consider how much Adolf Hitler massacred in regards to innocent non-combatants in the years of 1939-1945. Or even how much Stalin was able to kill during his great persecutions of political opponents. And one final note, we may not ever know the exact total of numbers but...

"These data and others of the same nature bear out the assertion that the Inquisition marks a substantial advance in the contemporary administration of justice, and therefore in the general civilization of mankind. A more terrible fate awaited the heretic when judged by a secular court. In 1249 Count Raymund VII of Toulouse caused eighty confessed heretics to be burned in his presence without permitting them to recant. It is impossible to imagine any such trials before the Inquisition courts. The large numbers of burnings detailed in various histories are completely unauthenticated, and are either the deliberate invention of pamphleteers, or are based on materials that pertain to the Spanish Inquisition of later times or the German witchcraft trials (Vacandard, op. cit., 237 sqq.)." (New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, "Inquisition")

Overall, the numbers of 50,000,000-150,000,000 given by our first source are a drastically unverified claim and to insist that the Catholic Church is just covering up the true numbers to "hide itself" from being identified as "the Antichrist" is just absurd. It's a blanket statement. Protestants underwent no where near the persecution that was let loose by the Roman Empire on the faithful Christians. That's just an historic fact. Much of their claim is based on a moronic persecution complex built on inflated pride. The Waldensians clearly disturbed public peace in preaching and spreading their errors into the Church much like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons go door-knocking on everyone's house nowadays disturbing them. The State's response toward them was brutal at times, and possibly over-the-top, but no where near the level of persecution. The Albigensians weren't even Christians but were Gnostics who held to "Good-god, bad-god" ideology and other Gnostic theology. The Lollards themselves persecuted and smashed churches much like the Black Lives Matter idiot, Shaun King, commands that his demented followers destroy all images of "White Jesus". At certain points, the Protestant killings of Catholics rivaled, if not even flat-out exceeded the numbers killed by Catholics. So the "beast" is not the Papacy. The Papacy never persecuted Christians. This is just simple nonsense.

Nevertheless, keep the man who wrote the article linked in your prayers. He needs healing. Both from his heresy and from the ailments he faces. God bless his soul!