Chapter 4 - The Little Horn Of Daniel 7
This brief study is intended to draw attention to
certain features of the commonly accepted interpretation of the Fourth Beast of
Daniel 7. It would seem that the familiar application of the little horn
prophecy to the Papacy is at best only a partial or preliminary fulfilment. At
several points the “Papal” interpretation is hardly adequate when
one considers the immense power and force of the language used.
For instance:
- Chapter 7:25: “he shall wear out the saints of the most
High”. When, it may be asked, has the Pope done this? For certainly the
Huguenots were not “saints” in the true sense of the term; and the
ancient confessions of faith of the Vaudois published in Muston’s
“Israel of the Alps” (trans. by Hazlitt) make it abundantly clear
that they were not “saints”. Then who? The present writer is
not aware of any documented history that would answer to this Scripture
adequately. Recent research by Bro Alan Eyre (first made public at Glasgow
Youth Gathering, Easter 1963) points to the probable conclusion that if the
Truth really existed in the 16th and 17th centuries, then its chief persecutors
were the leaders of the orthodox Protestant
churches![3]
- Verse
25 again: “they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and
the dividing of time” i.e. for the prophetic period of 1260 days or
“years”. If this is taken as ending in 1870, then the point must be
pressed that long before that date the Pope had no power at all to persecute any
Protestant, much less any “saint”, since such—if they existed
at all during the 18th century—were emphatically not to be found in
Catholic countries.
- There is also the awkward fact that
the “Papal” interpretation runs out at 1870, leaving an unexplained
hiatus of about a century up to the present day. Yet the prophecy says:
“they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing
of time”. That word “until” implies very strongly that with
the passing of the 3½ times there will also pass the power to persecute.
Verses 21, 22 are even more pointed: “the same horn made war with the
saints, and prevailed against them until the Ancient of days came . .
.”
- Can it be said of the Papacy that it has truly
fulfilled the words: “it shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it
down, and break it in pieces”?
- Does the Papacy
really speak “great words against the most High”? Surely a phrase
like this requires as its fulfilment an evil railing of the kind, which
Sennacherib indulged in before the walls of Jerusalem. The words are more
appropriate to modern atheistic Communism than to a church, which does worship
God, if only after a fashion.
- Are readers altogether
satisfied with the usual explanation concerning the three up-rooted horns, that
they were the three Papal states comprising “the Campagnia of Rome, the
Exarchate of Ravenna and the region of Pentapolis”? There seems to be a
singular lack of importance about these territories. Further, if three of the
horns correspond to these comparatively insignificant territories, how is the
rest of the “Roman habitable” to be covered by the other seven? A
consideration of the lists given by Dr. Thomas and Bro. C. C. Walker on pages
326, 327 of Elpis Israel (1924 edition) makes this problem
acute.
The existence of difficulties such as the
foregoing suggest that the “Papal” reference of the little horn
prophecy is only a partial fulfilment foreshadowing something yet more drastic
and precise in the Last Days.
It is interesting to observe that Dr. Thomas
seems to have swung away somewhat from his original ideas on this question as
expressed in Elpis Israel. In his Exposition of Daniel (page 13)
written some years later, he has the following:
The Feet of the Image and the Feet (misprint for
Horns?) of the Dragon have yet to be formed out of existing elements, and it is
the King of the North’s mission to accomplish the work . . . I know of no
place where it is written that the Horns and Toes were to have an uninterrupted
existence for 1260 years, but I do find that “The Ten Horns receive power
as kings one hour with the beast” . . . so that we need not be careful to
identify them until then.
Nevertheless, somewhat surprisingly the same page
identifies the little horn which up-roots three others as “The Holy Roman
Empire” in existence in A.D. 800. The two points of view are not easy to
reconcile. The present writer inclines to the idea implied in the quotation
given above, that the ten horns refer to a development in the time of the end,
and that it is in the Last Days when the little horn power will develop and do
its sinister work. Further reason for this view will be advanced in a later
chapter.
[3] The Anabaptists" by
Smithson supplies emphatic supporting evidence for this conclusion.
