Rome as the Great City of Revelation

[dnlcnwy]

Hey all

This is my first post here and I am utterly unfamiliar with the personalities who post here. I am looking for like minded thinkers (partial preterists who identify Rome as the great city/Babylon of Revelation) to discuss a theory of mine. Specifically, I identify the first and second beasts of Revelation as the early, pagan Roman Empire and the latter ostensibly Christian Roman Empire, respectively. I can justify this theory from apocalyptic passages in Daniel and Ezekial, but I want to see if there is any interest first.

[JAYMZ]

I go back and forth on this subject.
Id be interested in what you have to say.

[dnlcnwy]

Well, in Daniel the rules for interpreting apocalyptic metaphor are laid out pretty clearly. Beasts correspond to kingdoms and the characteristics of the Beast should match those of the kingdoms they represent. Gibbon stated flatly in his history that the latter Empire was culturally and politically distinct from the pagan Empire that preceeded it. If the latter Empire was a second kingdom that just happened to occupy the same geographical local as the pagan empire then the second, earth Beast of revelation should be a metaphore for it. There are some interesting parallels between the earth Beast and the latter Empire. The earth Beast had two horns, the latter Empire had two capitols, the earth Beast looked like a lamb but spoke like a dragon, the latter Empire was ostensibly Christian but if anything was even more despotic than the pagan Empire. The earth Beast exercises all the authority of the first Beast in it's sight, the latter Empire tried to preserve a myth of continuity with the powerful pagan empire when in fact it was a palpably weaker break with the past. I could go on. I think that the warning we should take from the experience of the Church under the pagan and Constantinian empires is that there are two great threats that the Church faces from the state, oppression, which we got from the pagan rulers, and being co-opted, which we got from Constantine and his successors.

[John Goddard]

Hey all

This is my first post here and I am utterly unfamiliar with the personalities who post here. I am looking for like minded thinkers (partial preterists who identify Rome as the great city/Babylon of Revelation) to discuss a theory of mine. Specifically, I identify the first and second beasts of Revelation as the early, pagan Roman Empire and the latter ostensibly Christian Roman Empire, respectively. I can justify this theory from apocalyptic passages in Daniel and Ezekial, but I want to see if there is any interest first.

The prince's (Jesus) people who destroy the Temple in Daniel 9:26 are Romans who become RCC. Jesus wields Rome as an Iron Rod to break Clay Jews over the centuries, Revelation 2:27.

Gentile Sister to Christianity is Islam who also breaks Jews, and they also break each other:

Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

All three religions mingle in Daniel 2:43: The Gentile Iron Beast Serpent Seed, and the Clay Jews Seed of Man. Also here when discussing the New Covenant:

Jeremiah 31:27 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.

Which Jesus foretells himself:

Matthew 12:26 And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?

Which is here:

Daniel 2:40 And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.

---------------

However, when you get to Revelation, we see something like this:

Beast = Satan = Gentile Power like Rome.
10 Horns = 10 Tribes = Lost Sheep of the House of Israel.
Harlot = Jews = House of Judah.

The Harlot is ruling with the Beast for a while, Revelation 17:18.

This kind of took place with Rome and Herodians. This 2 Kingdom coalition which tries to kill Jesus is the first Antichrist, which is the Beast and Harlot of Revelation 17:3.

And thus a model for the 2 Horn Kingdom of the False Prophet of Revelation 13:11, it looks like a Jewish Lamb but speaks like a Gentile Dragon.

John 19:15 But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.

What about today? Jews are again ruling without Jesus right now.

If Jesus came for the Lost House of Israel, then the 10 Horns would seem to be Christianity and Islam as part of the Gentile Beast.

So if we can identify the Harlot and 10 Horns, who is the Beast that allows the Harlot to rule with him for a time? If the Beast is also Satan, then it is a great power in the world like Babylon, Greece, Rome, etc.

And one that Jews, Christians, and Muslims are dominated by.

[seanD]

10 Horns = 10 Tribes = Lost Sheep of the House of Israel

That interesting, because there are historians who have argued that the lost tribes scattered out into the world and now form different nations of the world -- such as U.S. being Manasseh, U.K. being Ephraim, Dan being France (I think), etc.

Harlot = Jews = House of Judah.

Do you believe that the Harlot is Israel? Because the angel describes her as Babylon that is an actual place.

[dnlcnwy]

Here is a brief paper I have written on the subject.

[John Goddard]

That interesting, because there are historians who have argued that the lost tribes scattered out into the world and now form different nations of the world -- such as U.S. being Manasseh, U.K. being Ephraim, Dan being France (I think), etc.

They are the 10 Horns scattered in the Gentile nations of the Beast. Five wise virgins, five foolish ones, Matthew 25:1. Etc. Whenever you see ten of something, consider that it could possibly relate to the ten tribes.

Do you believe that the Harlot is Israel? Because the angel describes her as Babylon that is an actual place.

The Harlot is Jews/Judah/Jerusalem in Ezekiel.

Ezekiel 23:17 And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her mind was alienated from them.

It is spiritually also Sodom and Egypt:

Revelation 11:8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

Where the Harlot is also Babylon since she rules with the Beast over kings of the earth, and together they are the 2 Horns of the False Prophet which is an image of the Antichrist Beast Rome + Herodian Israel that had been killed but exists again.

--------------------------

Matthew 23:37-38 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

Revelation 17:16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

Which recalls this:

Isaiah 6:13 But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

Isaiah 7:1 And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.

Where it is that Syria is a shadow of the Beast, allied with the 10 Horn Tribes of Israel, attacking Judah. And if you believe this applies to Jesus:

Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Then you must believe a Gentile Beast + House of Israel against House of Judah has a future fulfillment as well, not just in the time of Ahaz.

The last really good candidate would be Hitler + Church against Jews. Problem is, Jews hadn't been ruling a whole lot over kings of the world yet.

But they are now, so time will tell if the Holocaust was a warning heeded such as the men of Nineveh listened and repented. Or if Jews are going to be double-crossed by the Gentiles they trust, as they were with Egypt, Babylon, Rome, etc.

[dnlcnwy]

Guys, I think you need to take a couple of deep breaths. The scope of the apocalypse is largely bound by the rise of Imperial Rome a little prior to Christ's birth and the sack of Rome in AD 410. Except for the millennium and the events immediately surrounding the second coming look for prophetic fulfillment within these time brackets. For example, the ten kings of Daniel's apocalypse are probably a reference to the barracks emperors, a chain of men with little imperial legitimacy who each briefly ruled Rome or a significant part of the empire during the imperial crises. These men came from a variety of different backgrounds within the empire but were all persecutors of the Church.

[Obsidian]

Your position is incredibly uncharitable toward the Christian emperors, dnlcnwy. They made great efforts to reform the laws, suppress heresy, and spread the gospel. Obviously a few of the later ones (following Theodosius the Great) got a little carried away by their authoritarian power, but to call them a demonic beast is rather extreme.

I think the "two horns" reference is simply a statement that the earth beast "looked like a lamb." Lambs have two horns, or at least some of them.

[John Goddard]

The scope of the apocalypse is largely bound by the rise of Imperial Rome a little prior to Christ's birth and the sack of Rome in AD 410.

The biggest Head of the Beast and Antichrist so far was the one who sent Jesus to the cross, the coalition of Romans and Jews who ruled along with Gentile authority. That coalition ended in 70 AD. However:

Revelation 13:3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

The Gentile West grew out of Rome. Jews now rule along with the Gentile West in a secular coalition still not acknowledging Jesus as King.

So the facts speak for themselves.

[dnlcnwy]

With all due respect Obsidian you are viewing the history of the latter Empire through rose colored glasses. To Cite one example of the perniciousness of "Christian" Rome consider the Arian heresy. The emperor was on the side of the heretics then and nearly ran Athanasies into the ground in an attempt to squash orthodoxy. Even when the emperors were orthodox the very idea of using the power of the state to coerce sound doctrine from its citizens should be repugnant. Christ said point blank that "my kingdom is not of this world" and rejected the use of temporal power to further spiritual ends.

[Obsidian]

His kingdom was certainly not of the world, but I'm not aware of any time when he condemned the use of governmental power. In fact, he fiercely condemned governmental authorities like the Pharisees for subverting justice, and he also seemed to launch a thinly veiled attack against Herod and his wife for their wrongful divorce.

Ultimately, there's a thin line between justice and spirituality. Some of the Roman emperors went overboard, but they didn't exactly have John Locke to read, you know.

The closest thing I can find to condemning theocracy would be Jesus's parable of the wheat and tares. But considering you are a preterist, you must admit that this parable could be interpreted as past history.

With regard to Arians, Constantine was responsible for their original condemnation. I think one (or maybe two) emperors later sided with the Arians, but certainly not all of them. From what I can tell, Athanasius kept getting kicked out of the empire because he was a pain in the neck. He held the right theological position, yes, but he was maybe a bit overzealous.

In my opinion, Arianism isn't that bad of a heresy anyway. Many Christians today have a rather weak understanding of the Trinity, and they don't seem too much the worse for it. I think the early church was a little too obsessed about christology, to the point that they seriously neglected more important matters. They fiercely condemned various distortions of trinitarian theology, but they allowed legalism, asceticism, and works-based salvation to spring forth. And they also seriously failed to educate and train the laity.

[dnlcnwy]

Obsidian

I argue from the epistles. When believers were taking matters of law outside the church and suing each other in worldly courts Paul explicitly condemned it. He told the church to settle its matters within itself, even going so far as telling Christians to accept being wronged before going to a civil authority for resolution of conflict. I go now from the lesser to the greater. If the church was to settle temporal issues within itself, how much more was it to settle doctrinal issues from within.

I am going to make a guess here. Are you by any chance a reconstructionist or a Kingdom now theologen?

[Obsidian]

Yes I am, and as a preterist, I'm surprised you wouldn't be.

You make a reasonable point, but someone could argue that the concept was no longer applicable once the empire became Christianized. In the passage you cite, Paul himself stated that Christians "will judge the world." The whole point of the passage was that it was embarassing for Christians to argue with each other in front of pagans.

I don't think I actually favor theocracy -- John Locke is my hero -- but you can see where they were coming from. And simply because they held to a different interpretation does not make them a satanic "earth beast."

I should clarify that I do think Rome may be the Babylon of Revelation (although I am uncertain). But it seems quite a stretch to suggest that the earth beast was Christian Rome. Exactly what significance would there be for the "earth" part of the symbolism?

[dnlcnwy]

I am reaching at his point, but I think the second beast rises up out of the earth because it is a kind of unholy resurrection of the pagan empire. Remember that in Daniel's apocalypse each beast comes up out of the sea and is described as a power that establishes itself by conquest from without. The latter Empire rose out of the chaos of the Imperial Crisis and was more of a re-organization from within. It was distinct from the pagan empire. Gibbon described Diocletian and Constantine as founders of a new empire.