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!

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. 1

Historicism is the popular Protestant interpretation of the Book of Revelation which applies all of the prophecies somehow, conveniently, to the Catholic Church. It is heretical, obviously enough, but it also has significant flaws and fails to even fit neatly into history. Historicism understands the days to be an allegorical reference to years and much of it hinges on this symbols for if these symbols aren't correct, then their whole entire theology collapses. We'll get into the problems with where the apostasy begins and the 1260 "years" in another part, but to open up, I just wanted to point out the glaring flaws in the interpretation first and foremost as well as a little bit about my own background.

When I was younger, I was always attracted to the beauty of Catholicism. I thought of the tranquility of lighting a candle during the church "service" (which I now realize is actually properly called a Liturgy in the East and more frequently called a Mass in the West). I grew up non-denominational. We were charismatic, pietistic, and Arminian. We absolutely despised Calvinists as evil for denying the obvious. But that was the only basic doctrine we seemed to have. I didn't learn things like the Trinity. I learned the basic part but I didn't learn very much in terms of systematic theology or why it was important. There was no deification of the soul through grace, no working out our own salvation. We came across the text, "Not everyone who says, 'Lord, Lord!' will make it into Heaven" but we understood it to mean "only if you say, 'Lord, Lord!' will you make it into Heaven". There was no essence of Christianity. We had people who were formerly Catholic. I wonder why now but based on the debasement of modern Catholic thought, there may be an answer to that. They felt Catholics were only really "quasi-Christian" at best. It seemed strange I couldn't get a definite answer.

Then, my senior year in high school, I discovered some very nasty interpretations of the Book of the Revelation toward the Catholic Church. Some of these interpreted the apocalyptic prophecies of Daniel and Revelation as being about the unfolding events of history and identified the Papacy as the Antichrist and the Catholic Church as the Whore of Babylon. I was very shocked at this but being young and naïve, I thought it a reasonable interpretation. Though this led to an objectively good thing. I began to forge an interest in both history and historical theology and I wanted to know more about the teachings of the Catholic faith too. I am grateful for the Catholics who tolerated my silliness back then and I ask for the forgiveness of any one I led astray in all this.

It was in studying history, I realized soon enough that the historicist interpretation of the Scriptures was a whole bunch of garbage. It was an exercise in eisegesis of the Scriptures and an abuse of shoehorning history to fit an agenda. Namely, the agenda to remain anti-Catholic and in error. We'll get into more detail later but first, I want to focus on the more asinine interpretations of the historicist school to show how contradictory and what a load of bull-hockey it truly is.

The first one to take note of is the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod's (WELS) statement of faith that the Pope is the Antichrist based on the teaching of the Man of Sin appearing in the Scriptures. You can read their full statement here. Obviously, this is ludicrous for multiple reasons. The first of which is that said "Man of Sin" will proclaim himself as God in the Temple of God and direct worship toward himself. Even if we do not understand the Temple of God as the Jewish Temple as it would have been understood at the time St. Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians, if the Man of Sin is standing in the Christian Churches showing himself to be God, then it is better to remain Catholic. For to abandon the Church is to abandon Christ. So WELS refutes its own doctrine on the subject. Secondly, the Pope never shows himself to be God but always directs the faithful's worship to the true God. So for WELS to say the Papacy fulfills this is nuts.

The second one to take note, and we'll be going after this one throughout this series, is the Seventh Day Adventist doctrine which can be found on multiple official SDA websites and SDA off-shoot websites. They teach that the four beasts in Daniel 7 are the Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Greeks, and Roman Empire. That the 10 horns are 10 Barbarian tribes that sacked the Western portion of the Roman Empire. That Justinian's crowning of the Pope in 538 (source???) started 1260 years until Napoleon Bonaparte's abuse of the Papacy in 1798 resulted in the "fatal wound". This theory can be guffawed at so badly that one wonders why waste a series of blog posts writing a refutation of it? Because it's fun and riveting to write about actual history as an historian. I'll go over the flaws more in-depth obviously but to begin with...

1. The 10 horns are on the beast's head. They cover symbolically the whole beast by being on his head. The Roman Empire did not collapse in 476 A.D. as modern Pagans claim but in 1453 A.D. as historians claim. Therefore, there was no rooting up of three horns that could have even possibly happened in 538 A.D.!

2. The fatal wound came before the beast's 1260 day reign so to insist that a fatal wound occurred after is just forcing historical data to match your heretical theology.

3. The SDA position also insists that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon, the woman that is ultimately devoured by the beast and the 10 horns. So how can the Catholic Church be both Antichrist and then devour itself?

It was probably the absurdity of the SDA position being forced into my head to consider so much that made me break away from it. But the more and more I consider, the more I realize that there is an agenda behind those who back this ludicrous interpretation. When I was an Arian heretic, I claimed this interpretation because it did justify my Arian beliefs. I fell back on this interpretation in debates with Catholics online because I didn't want to accept the teachings of the Church. As this series continues, I hope people realize and can see what I eventually realized myself about this historicist nonsense. It is nothing more than a mask to keep you from seeing and realizing the beauty of Holy Mother Church. But as this mask is removed, as real history is discovered, we will eventually say with St. John Henry Newman, "To be steeped in history is to cease to be a Protestant."