Historical Illustration
Such, then, is the meaning, or “mystery,” of the form of words presented in the prophecy. The Catholic Dragon, or Man of Sin power, incorporate in the unbaptized episcopal emperor, Constantine, and in the ignorant and superstitious ecclesiastics whom he had associated with himself in synodical session, was the effluent pursuer of the woman, who rejected the traditions and commands of the tribunal which had arraigned and condemned her, and all her seed, as odious and pestilent heretics. Having lost their cause at Rome and Arles, the Anti-catholic Donatists had appealed for the last time to Constantine himself, who in A. D. 316, examined the whole affair at Milan, in the presence of the contending parties. The issue, as might be expected from the character of the judges, was not more favorable to the Donatists than the decisions of the previous councils, which were confirmed by the sentence he pronounced. Condemned by the Bishop of Rome, and by that bishop’s imperial master, “this perverse sect,” as they are styled by Mosheim, are said to have loaded the emperor with “the bitterest reproaches,” and complained that Osius, bishop of Cordova, who was honored with his friendship, and was intimately connected with Cæcilianus, had, by corrupt insinuations, engaged him to pronounce an unrighteous sentence. “Perhaps their complaint,” says Gibbon, “was not without foundation, that the credulity of the emperor had been abused by the insidious arts of his favorite, Osius. The influence of falsehood and corruption might procure the condemnation of the innocent or aggravate the sentence of the guilty.” Be this as it may, “the Dragon, the old serpent, incited to great wrathfulness by these irritating trials, which disturbed the serenity of the party in power, deprived the anti-catholic Donatists of their churches in Africa, drove their bishops into exile, and carried his resentment so far as to put some of them to death. This was the commencement of the Catholic Dragon’s wrath against the woman, and of the war he waged against the remnants of her seed—ver. 7. The immediate effect of these violent measures, were desperate commotions and tumults in Africa, as the Donatists were exceedingly influential and numerous p. 119 in that wing of the great eagle. But these insurrections were regarded by them with the utmost detestation and abhorrence; and, therefore, though a persecuted people, we are not to attribute these popular uprisings in their defence to a spirit of recrimination in them against their “christian” oppressors. The Donatist Remnant had fled “into the wilderness” of Getulia that they might be “out of sight of the Serpent ”—of “the first Christian emperor” and his catholic myrmidons, who had seized their property, exiled their teachers, and put some to death. Upon this, the Spirit of Deity stirred up the indignation of “the Earth ”—of those who, though neither catholics nor Donatists, had spirit enough to defend the oppressed against imperial and ecclesiastical tyranny, and that in their own irregular and violent way. This situation of affairs may be illustrated by the following supposition. Thus, Christadelphians where known are in very bad odor with “every name and denomination,” against which they protest as the Anti-christian “Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.” Suppose these were to lay aside all their animosities and strifes, and to combine to suppress and exterminate them with fire and sword; would not the “infidels,” who have predilection for no sect, oppose force to force in their defence? There can be no doubt of it; and, though Christadelphians deprecate, and would discountenance all violence in their behalf, the infidels, as in the first French Revolution, would make the quarrel with the oppressor their own; and the most horrible cruelties would probably be perpetrated upon the enemy under the pretence of assisting them. To a certain extent, such an event occurred in the epoch of the American revolution, when the infidel leaders of revolt against British tyranny in church and State, interposed between the episcopal church and the Baptists and other sects it was oppressing, and proclaimed an equality of rights for sects of every name. But they were not content with proclamations; they drew the sword, and watered the earth with blood for seven years, to establish it. Shall we charge the Baptists and Quakers of that day with appealing to the arbitrament of arms against the Established Church of England, because they, in common with others, obtained exemption from future whippings and incarcerations on account of their religious principles, by the triumph of revolutionary unbelievers? Even supposing that many Baptists and Quakers were found in the ranks of the insurgents, as no doubt there were, should we, therefore, condemn the Baptist and Quaker bodies as baptized in human gore? A community is not to be condemned as a murderer of its species, because of the delinquency of some of its adherents; if so, then most of the apostolic churches would have to be condemned as anti-christian.
p. 120 The case, however, is entirely altered where a sect, as the Catholic Anglo-Episcopal, in its corporate capacity, condemns, imprisons, and puts to death as heretics, those who assert the imprescriptible and inalienable right of judging what is truth for themselves. Here the murder of “heretics” so-called, is the crime of the whole body; which, as in the case of individuals, will sooner or later suffer the just penalty of the divine law. The case of the Donatists is parallel to our supposition. The indignation of the people was roused, and in the language of the prophecy, “the Earth ran with help to the Woman.” The emperor and his party were alarmed, and Constantine endeavored by embassies and negotiations to allay the disturbances, but without effect.
Who are represented by “the Earth” in the period of the woman’s flight into, or towards, the wilderness, will readily appear from the following account. The persecution of the servants and brethren of Christ by the Catholic Serpent at this juncture was acquiring strength; the flame of discord gathered force daily, and seemed to portend the approaching horrors of civil war. To prevent this, Constantine, having tried in vain every other method of accommodation, abrogated at last, by the advice of the governors of Africa, the laws he had enacted against the Donatists, and allowed to the people the full liberty of adhering to that party which they in their minds preferred. This state of tranquillity, which did not long continue, was brought about by a horrible confederacy of desperate ruffians who passed under the name of CIRCUMCELLIONS. These bands were composed of a set of furious, fearless, and bloody men, formed of the rough and savage peasantry of the Numidian and Mauritanian villages, who were semi-pagans, and had been imperfectly reduced under the authority of the Roman laws. “This outrageous multitude,” says Mosheim, “whom no prospect of sufferings could terrify, and who, upon urgent occasions, faced death itself with the most audacious temerity, contributed to render the sect of the Donatists (whose cause they espoused) an object of the utmost abhorrence (to the Catholics) though it cannot be proved, by any records of undoubted authority, that the bishops of that faction (those at least who had any reputation for piety and virtue) either approved the proceedings or stirred up the violence of this odious rabble.” This was truly “the unterrified,” and unterrifiable, “democracy.” This may be styled the spontaneous soldiery of the Donatists, extemporized by the urgency of their distress. These Circumcellions never failed to take up arms to defend them against their enemies. The imperial officers were usually sustained by a military force in the execution of the wrath of the Catholic Dragon, which issued like a sweeping flood from its Mouth; but p. 121 it did not carry the woman away. It was sometimes successfully repelled. The blood of some Donatist teachers which had been shed by the imperialists, inflamed the Circumcellions with an eager desire of revenge. By their own cruelty and rashness, the ministers of persecution sometimes provoked their fate; and the guilt of an accidental tumult precipitated them into despair and rebellion. The leaders of the Circumcellions assumed the title of CAPTAINS OF THE SAINTS. Their principal weapon, as they were indifferently provided with swords and spears, was a huge and weighty club, which they termed AN ISRAELITE; and the well-known sound of “Praise be to God,” which they used as their war-cry, diffused consternation over the unarmed provinces of Africa. At first, their depredations were covered with the plea of necessity; but they soon exceeded the measure of subsistence, indulging without control their intemperance and avarice; burned the villages they had pillaged, and, in defiance of the Roman legions, reigned the licentious tyrants of the open country. The occupations of husbandry, and the administration of justice, were interrupted; and as the Circumcellions pretended to restore the primitive equality of mankind, and to reform the abuses of civil society, they opened a secure asylum for slaves and debtors and all other refugees, who fled to their standard in crowds from their pursuers; or in the language of the prophecy, “the Earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood.” When they were not resisted, they usually contented themselves with plunder, but the slightest opposition provoked them to acts of violence and murder; and some catholic priests, who had signalized their zeal, were tortured with the most refined and wanton barbarity. They engaged, and sometimes defeated, the provincial legions of the Dragon; and in the sanguinary action of Bagai, when the troops of Constans were sent against the Donatists, as a flood from the Dragon’s Mouth, the Circumcellions attacked in open field, but with unsuccessful valor, an advanced guard of the imperial cavalry. Those who were taken prisoners died without a murmur, either by the sword, the axe, or the fire; and the measures of retaliation were multiplied in rapid proportion, which aggravated the horrors of rebellion, and excluded the hope of mutual forgiveness.
Such disorders are the natural effects of religious tyranny; but the rage of the Circumcellions was enflamed by a phrenzy of a very extraordinary kind. Many of them were possessed with a horror of life, and the desire of martyrdom; and they deemed it of little moment by what means, or by what hands, they perished, if their conduct was sanctified by “the intention of devoting themselves to the glory of the true faith.” Such was “the Earth,” and such the manner in which she “opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which p. 122 the Catholic Dragon cast out of his mouth,” in voluntary defence of the woman’s seed in the African wing of the Great Eagle.
But the defensive operation of “the Earth” was not restricted to the African provinces of the empire. The peasantry of Paphlagonia was inspired by the same spirit. During the reign of Constantius, son and successor of Constantine, when the the catholic Trinitarians and catholic Arians unsheathed the sword of the flesh against one another to arbitrate the rights of Homoousion and Homoiousion to the claim of orthodoxy, the Novatians; another remnant of the woman’s anti-catholic seed, became obnoxious to the Arian emperor and patriarch of Constantinople. The latter distinguished pietist, whose name was Macedonius, being informed that a large district of Paphlagonia was almost entirely inhabited by the Novatians, resolved in fiery excess of zeal, either to convert them to Arian catholicity, or to exterminate them; and as he distrusted on this occasion the efficacy of an ecclesiastical mission, he determined to vomit forth a legionary flood to sweep them from the earth. To this end, he ordered a body of four thousand legionaries to march against these unoffending dissenters, and to reduce the territory of Mantinium under his patriarchal authority. “The Serpent cast out of his mouth water like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood.” But the armed flood did not accomplish the purpose of the Constantinopolitan government. It was foreshown in the prophecy that it should not succeed; for it was providentially arranged that the flood should be ineffectually expended upon the earth, as it is written, “the earth ran with help for the woman, and opened her mouth, and drank up the flood which the Dragon cast out of his mouth.” And so it came to pass; for the Paphlagonian peasants, animated by despair and religious fury, boldly encountered the invaders of their country; and though many of them were slain, the Serpent’s legions were vanquished by an irregular multitude armed only with scythes and axes; and except a few that escaped by flight, thousands of soldiers were left dead upon the field of battle. The Emperor Julian, who succeeded Constantius, an apostate from this sanguinary catholicism to paganism, speaking of his predecessor’s reign, in his fifty-third epistle, says, “many were imprisoned and persecuted and driven into exile. Whole troops of those who were styled ‘heretics,’ were massacred, particularly at Cyzicus and Samosata. In Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, and many other provinces, towns and villages were laid waste and utterly destroyed.”
After the death of Constantine, in the division of his empire between his three sons, Italy and Africa were allotted to Constans. He sent Macarius and Paulus into Africa to heal, if possible, this “deplorable p. 123 schism,” as Mosheim terms it; and to engage the Donatists to conclude a peace. The efforts of Constans to induce them to coalesce with the catholic church were strenuous, but ineffectual. Force and corruption were the royal arguments employed for their conversion by these imperial commissioners. The chief bishop among the Donatists opposed all these methods of reconciliation with the utmost vehemence; and his example was followed by the rest of his brethren. The idea was odious to them of a coalition with those, who in the Diocletian persecution and distress, in order to avoid martyrdom, had delivered up the Holy Scriptures, the best gift of the Deity to man. This zeal for the word was a remarkable characteristic of the Woman’s Seed. It underlaid the whole controversy between the Catholics and Dissenters of the period. The catholics very lightly esteemed the Scriptures; and were daily withdrawing the people’s attention from them more and more, until at length they came to legislate against the use of them by “the laity” at all. Not so their opponents, with whom the sacred writings have always been a tower of strength against their enemies. To the fugitive woman was providentially committed the custody of the Divine Oracles; for it is the remnants of her seed which are testified to have held the testimony of the anointed Jesus, which is to be found only in the Holy Scriptures. No wonder, therefore, that these worthy and excellent people turned a deaf ear to every overture of reconciliation with the word-neglecting adherents of the tyrannical church of Constans. The cruelties of Macarius and Paulus only exasperated “the earth,” and widened the breach. The Circumcellions, provoked by their arbitrary proceedings, wreaked their vengeance on the persecutors of the Donatists by assassinations and massacres executed with unrelenting fury. “The Dragon was wroth with the woman,” when he saw his projects baffled. He, therefore sent Macarius against them with a flood.” The Earth encountered the flood in the battle of Bagnia, A.D. 345, in which, however, the Circumcellions were defeated. This “servant of God,” as Gratus bishop of Carthage styled Macarius, now gave vent to the fury and rage of the Dragon, and indulged in crimes of deeper dye than he had yet perpetrated before victory. There was now no safety for the woman but in flight. Optatus of Milevi, a contemporary writer, whose testimony, Mosheim says, is beyond exception in this matter, informs us that a few of the Donatists submitted; “the greatest part of them saved themselves by flight;” numbers were sent into banishment, among them were DONATUS, whom they called “the Great,” on account of his learning and virtue; and many of them were punished with the utmost severity. “During these troubles,” says Dr. Mosheim, “which continued nearly thirteen p. 124 years, several steps were taken against the Donatists, which the equitable and impartial will be at a loss to reconcile with the dictates of humanity and justice; nor indeed do the catholics themselves deny the truth of this assertion.”
The following passage from a Donatist writer would seem to indicate that they discerned the apocalyptic sign of their time. In treating of the suffering of Marculus, he says, “Behold suddenly the polluted flood of the Macarian persecution burst forth from the tyrannical church of king Constans, and two beasts being sent to Africa from thence, to wit, Macarius and Paulus, a most horrible and cruel ecclesiastical war was proclaimed, that a christian people should be compelled by the naked swords of soldiers, by the standards of Serpents or Dragons (draconum prœsentibus signis) and by the blasts of trumpets, to unite with Traditors!” Compare this passage with the 15th and 16th verses of this chapter. How striking the resemblance! The Donatists, doubtless, discerned that “the polluted flood of the Macarian persecution which burst forth from the tyrannical church of king Constans,” was the “water like a flood the serpent or dragon cast out of his Mouth.” From this, and other instances, I doubt not, that among the woman’s seed there have been in all ages some who were able to discern the apocalyptic signs specially pertaining to the times in which they lived. They might not have been able to expound the apocalypse as a whole, but they could discern sufficient to answer the question. “Watchman, what of the night?” Let us be thankful, that the believer of the truth is also able, at this crisis of the woman’s history, to discern the signs of these times; so that when the Ancient of Days comes in as a thief upon an intoxicated and insane generation like ours, he will find us with our lamps trimmed and our lights brightly burning, ready to go out to meet Him.
“And the Dragon was enraged against the woman.” These calamities triumphed over them until A. D. 361, when the “earthquake” of Apoc. viii. 5, placed the anti-catholic nephew of Constantine, “Julian the Apostate,” so called, upon the Constantinopolitan throne of the Roman world. This imperial pagan proved more humane and merciful to the Donatists than his “christian” (?) predecessors. He permitted them to return to their country, and restored them to the enjoyment of their former liberty. This revolution so far renewed their vigor, that they recruited their wasted ranks by bringing over, in a short time, the majority of the provincials to their interests. Gratian published several edicts against them, and in A. D. 377, deprived them of their houses of assembly, and prohibited all their meetings public and private. But the fury of the Circumcellions, p. 125 and the apprehension of intestine tumults, prevented the vigorous execution of these laws. This appears from the numerous conventicles they possessed in Africa towards the conclusion of this fourth century, to which were attached not less than four hundred bishops. About this time a celebrated, or rather, notorious ecclesiastic entered the lists against them. This was that veritable saint of the Serpent calendar, equally glorified by Greek, Latin, and Protestant, historically known as St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo. He attacked them in every way; and as he was a hot-headed and active spirit, he animated against them the whole antichristian world with its imperial court. “The catholic bishops of Africa, “says Mosheim,” animated by the exhortations, and conducted by the counsels of this zealous prelate, exerted themselves with the utmost vigor in the destruction of those seditious sectaries (the Earth-assisted Woman) whom they justly looked upon, not only as troublesome to the (catholic) church by their obstinacy (as he calls her faithfulness to “the testimony of the anointed Jesus”) but as a nuisance to the State (or Dragon) by the brutal soldiery (“the earth”) which they employed in their cause (though on p. 124, § viii, he says, “the Donatists regarded the Circumcellions with the utmost detestation and abhorrence”). Accordingly, deputies were sent, A. D. 404, from the council of Carthage to the emperor Honorius to request that the laws enacted against heretics by the preceding emperors might have force against the Donatists, who denied that they belonged to the heretical tribe; and also to desire that bounds might be set to the barbarous fury of the Circumcellions.” In acceding to this request, the Dragon-emperor imposed a fine upon all the Donatists who refused to return into the bosom of the catholic church, and sent their bishops and teachers into banishment. In A. D. 405, new and severer laws were enacted against them under the title of Acts of Uniformity; and as the lay magistrates (the earth) were too tardy in the execution of vengeance for “christian priests,” the council of Carthage, A. D. 407, sent deputies a second time to the emperor, desiring that certain persons might be appointed to execute the new edicts with vigor and impartiality, in other words, without mercy. This was granted also. But the Donatists, though much shaken by these repeated assaults of the Dragon, were still “nourished” and “fed” by the providence of the Deity. Their strength revived A. D. 408, after Stilico had been put to death by the order of Honorius; and gained an accession of vigor the following year, in which the emperor published a law in favor of liberty of conscience, and prohibited all compulsion in matters of religion. This law, however, was not of long continuance. There is nothing the catholic clergy detest so much as liberty to think, speak, p. 126 and act, contrary to their traditions. This has been characteristic of them in all ages. It is a characteristic of the craft of all orders, though times and circumstances repress its manifestation when things are not convenient or propitious. Liberty to discuss freely the demerits of the Traditorial Church was terribly annoying to those who justified the delivering up of the Holy Scriptures to be burned as the redemption price of their nondeliverance. These word-despising catholic traditors would let the Dragon-government have no rest until the edict of toleration was repealed; and the blood of the Witnesses of Jesus was caused to flow afresh. The law was therefore abrogated at the earnest and repeated solicitation of the council of bishops which met at Carthage, A. D. 419; and Marcellinus, the tribune, was sent by Honorius into Africa with a flood of legionaries effluent of the Dragon’s Mouth. Full power was given to him to sweep the woman away; and so to bring to a conclusion, or to extinguish, the testimony of these faithful witnesses against that DIABOLICAL AND SATANIC APOSTASY, blasphemously styled “the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church.” Who can but be penetrated with disgust and horror at the villanous and execrable cruelty of the clergy of this and after ages! It was evident that the emperor was reluctant to persecute the Donatists. But, though an emperor, he doubtless had reason to fear, lest in shielding the lives of the innocent, he might forfeit his own at the bidding of his episcopal allies. Nothing but extermination seems to have satisfied these hissing serpents and dragon-speaking priests. How thankful ought we to be, that the Deity has put it into the heart of “the Earth,” to open her mouth against the execution of sanguinary vengeance upon the believers and advocates of the truth by the generation of vipers whose vested interests are opposed to it.
Marcellinus, by imperial commission, instituted a judicial investigation at Carthage. The trial lasted three days, and, as might be expected, judgment was given in favor of the dominant clergy. The catholic bishops present were 286; and those of the Donatists 279. The latter, like Paul, appealed to the emperor, but without any favorable result. The terrors of this persecution caused many to apostatize to the catholics; while the severest penalties were inflicted on those who continued to “obey the commandments of the Deity, and to hold the testimony of the anointed Jesus.” Fines, banishment, and confiscation of goods, were the ordinary punishments visited upon the Donatists; and says Mosheim, “the pain of death was inflicted upon such as surpassed the rest in perverseness, and were the seditious ringleaders of that stubborn faction.” Some avoided these penalties by flight, and others by concealing themselves; and p. 127 the malice of their enemies has not failed to blacken their memories by imputing to them the crime of suicide. In the meantime, the Circumcellion-Earth again “ran with help for the woman,” and interposed between her and her oppressors to ward off the execution of the sentence against her seed. They ran up and down through the African wing of the Great Eagle in the most outrageous manner, committing acts of great cruelty upon the catholics, and defending themselves by force of arms.
But, while the remnant of the woman’s seed, which, in those trying times, “kept the commandments of the Deity, and held the testimony of the anointed Jesus,” were thus witnessing unto death, and by their witnessing, tormenting them that dwelt upon the Catholic terrene, they had a powerful and influential intercessor within the veil, whose eyes beheld the ferocious wickedness of the Roman Serpent, and whose ears were not inattentive to their prayers. It is not difficult to conceive, that these prayers would be many, earnest and fervent; for, having faith in God and in his word, they would know that deliverance could come from him alone. He had placed them in the African Wing of the Great Eagle, to testify against the Laodicean Apostasy in Church and State. This was a dangerous mission, but it had to be done, and faithfully performed until there should be no catholic power there to witness against. This was their hope; but of the time when it should be broken in Africa, and they delivered, they had no knowledge. All they could do then was to “offer much incense upon the golden altar before the throne” (Apoc. viii 3)— pray much, “contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints,” and patiently wait for an answer to their earnest supplications, which would “ascend before the Deity out of the hand” of the incense-bearing angel of His presence.
These prayers had been partially replied to in the salutary events of the Julian Revolution, A. D. 361-’3. The angel Incense-Bearer had taken fire from the Golden Altar, and cast it from his censor into the earth; and there were in consequence, “voices, thunderings and lightnings, and an earthquake”—Apoc. viii. 5. The time had now arrived to answer their prayers more fully in the breaking of the power of the catholic oppressor in Africa, by the events of the Second Wind Trumpet. For details, see Vol. 2, p. 423. The instrument of this great and righteous retribution was the world-wide renowned and terrible GENSERIC, whose invasion of Africa, A. D. 439, was favored and prompted by the impolitic persecution of the Donatists. The king of the Vandals, though a catholic, was an enemy of the Trinitarian communion. He presented himself to the Donatists as a powerful deliverer from whom they might reasonably expect the p. 128 repeal of the odious and oppressive edicts of the Dragon-emperors. Having wrested the province from the hands of the Romans, he ministered “food” and “nourishment” to the woman in protecting her seed, and giving them liberty and peace.
“But the wounds,” says Mosheim, “which this sect had received from the vigorous execution of the imperial laws, were so deep, that though it began to revive and multiply by the assistance of the Vandals, it could never regain its former strength and lustre.” They continued to enjoy the sweets of freedom as long as the Vandals reigned in Africa. These formidable barbarians were the Deity’s messengers of wrath to punish the Trinitarian Catholics of the African Wing for the serpent ferocity with which they tormented his faithful witnesses. The scene, however, was greatly changed when the empire of the Vandals was overturned by the forces of Justinian, A. D. 534. Then, now nearly 1335 years ago, the African Wing was re-annexed to the body of the Great Eagle, and the Donatist section of the Witnesses was brought into contact and collision again with the “Dragon, the old Serpent.” They still continued a separate body, and not only retained their testimony, but toward the conclusion of the sixth century, and particularly from A. D. 591, defended their principles with renewed vigor, and were bold enough to proclaim the gospel publicly in the ears of the Homoousian Serpents themselves. Gregory, bishop of Rome, opposed these efforts with all the spirit and assiduity of the Antichrist, and tried various methods of putting them down; or, as Mosheim expresses it, “of depressing this faction which was pluming its wings anew, and aiming at the revival of those lamentable divisions which it had formerly excited in the church.” From this time, however, they do not appear to have attracted the notice of ecclesiastics. The early subjection of Africa to the Mohammedans will account for this. The mission of the Witnesses was not against Mohammedanism; but against Homoousian Blasphemy. When this was eradicated by the Saracens, the witnessing of the woman’s seed was no longer required in Africa. As the Vandals favored Homoiousianism, which was the creed of Genseric, it is highly probable that they were from this time confounded with the Arians. The names of Arians and Manichæans, although originally employed to designate sectaries of the class the apostle terms “false teachers privily bringing in damnable heresies” (2 Peter, ii, 1), they were afterwards used by the ignorant and malicious to distinguish the inhabitants of the mountains and valleys of the other wing of the Great Eagle, in after times known by the general terms Albigenses and Waldenses. In fact, all who repudiated the Bishop of Rome after he had been created a god by the Dragon-power, as the Antichrist, were denounced as Manichæans, p. 129 though they held nothing in common with those semi-pagans. Odious names imposed upon “heretics,” so called, by catholic doctors and councils rarely expressed the truth concerning them. It is the serpent’s policy to call good things which are obnoxious to him and his sect by bad names. To bestow names expressive of the reality would be to speak the truth; and the highest authority has declared “that there is no truth in him”—Jno. viii. 44. Not being ignorant of this device, we are not to be hoodwinked by the foul names and hard speeches bestowed upon alleged “heretics” by popes, inquisitors, monks and doctors of “the church.” These all being ignorant of what constitutes a saint, are more likely to style him an Arian or Manichæan, or by any other name that prejudice or malice may invent, than by one that truly and scripturally represents him. “The saints of the Highest Ones” have been denounced as “heretics” by the ruling faction ever since the woman fled into the wilderness; and will doubtless continue to be until the times of the down-treading of the Holy City shall be fulfilled.
Thus, then, while the eleventh chapter exhibits the sack-cloth-witnessing of the woman’s seed “before the god of the earth” for the truth of “the God of heaven” in the Alpine Wing of the Great Eagle (verses 4-13,); this twelfth chapter, verses 14-17, represents her obedient and faithful remnant and protectors at war with the Serpent and Dragon of Constantinople and Rome, in the African Wing more especially, and before the Bishop of Rome was developed by the authority of the Constantinopolitan Serpent into the Supreme Pontiff of Antichristendom, apocalyptically styled “the god of the earth; and by Daniel, “a foreign god, a god of guardians, acknowledged by the king who does according to his will; a god whom his pagan ancestors did not know.” The twelfth chapter concludes at the epoch in which history loses all trace of a people, whose testimony against the superstition by law established kept the African Wing of the Catholic Empire in an excited and tumultuous condition to the great annoyance of all privileged bishops, priests, aud deacons, who sought peace and comfort in high places for three hundred years. This brings us down to A. D. 612; or about five years after the Dragon had confirmed the gift of all heretics into the hand of the Bishop of Rome, who had been “acknowledged” by Justinian as a god over all the spiritual affairs of his empire, A. D. 533.
When the witnessing remnant had accomplished its mission against the Apostasy in Africa, the power of their oppressor, the Catholic Church, was broken there by the Saracens, as predicted in Apoc. ix. 1-11. “The common granary of Rome and mankind” as the fertile and highly cultivated province is styled by Gibbon, was appropriated p. 130 by the followers of Mohammed, who have possessed it, (Algiers excepted, and since A. D. 1830 occupied by the French) from Tangier to Tripoli, unto this day. Thus had been blotted out from the arena of their power and glory, the people who had become “drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus”—Apoc. xvii. 6; a fate richly deserved, and one which awaits the same class of superstitious savages in all of the other wing and body of the Great Eagle.
But the reader is not to suppose that the ferocity of the Catholic Dragon was confined to the seven fertile and populous provinces of the African Wing. All dissentients who protested against the imperial superstition in other provinces suffered as well as the Donatists. I have already referred to the case of the Novatians in Paphlagonia. By whatever name reproached, “the Serpent cast water, like a flood, out of his mouth after” them all. They were cast down, but not destroyed; persecuted and tormented in every way, yet not exterminated; for, says Mosheim, in speaking of “the heresies” of the 9th century, “the sects that had sprung up in the early ages of the church subsisted still, with little change in their situation or circumstances;” and it may be added, that the saints of the Holy City and the witnesses of Jesus against the Laodicean Catholic Apostasy, have always existed under names imposed upon them, and holding views falsely attributed to them, by the malignity of their enemies, to the present day.
27. The Woe
The song of victory acclaimed by the privileged adherents of the MAN-CHILD OF SIN, in which they are made to ascribe their triumph over “the Great Fiery-Red Dragon” of Pagan Rome, not to themselves, but to the self-sacrificing dovotion of their brethren, and to the faithfulness of their testimony even unto death; this epinikion, as it is styled by some, is contained, as we have seen, in the tenth, eleventh, and first clause of the twelfth verse of this chapter. The whole of the twelfth verse does not belong to the song. This verse should have begun at the word “Woe!” The address to “the inhabiters of the earth and sea” is continuous of the subject of the ninth verse, and in place would read thus: “the Dragon was cast out INTO THE EARTH, and his angels were cast out with him. WOE to the inhabiters OF THE EARTH and sea! for the DIABOLOS is come down unto you having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And when the Dragon saw that he was cast INTO THE EARTH, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the Man-Child”—Verses 12, 13.
p. 131 It is evident from this connection, that the casting out of the Dragon into the earth; and the beginning of the “woe” to the earth, were synchronous, or contemporaneous events. Though cast out of the heaven, he still retained power as the Diabolos to persecute the woman. He had lost position in the heaven. The Supreme Dragon-power and authority was located apocalyptically upon the “Seven Mountains,” the area of the “Seven Heads”—ch. xvii. 9, 10. To be excluded from the exercise of dominion in ROME, the Queen City, over Italy and the African Wing of the Great Eagle, was to be cast out of the heaven; but this might obtain without the entire deprivation of authority and power. “The earth and sea,” or all the Roman Habitable not included in Italy and Africa, still remained to be governed by emperors enthroned in other capitals. To lose authority in Rome, but yet to retain it in the earth and sea habitable, was to fall from the one “into” the other.
This was the fate of the Pagan-Roman Power, the subject of the prophecy. As we have seen elsewhere, it was “cast down” from supreme authority, and “cast out” from the “Seven Mountains into the earth,” when Maxentius was dethroned and superseded in the government by Constantine, A.D. 312. But the dominion of the idols was not thereby abolished; the situation, or relative position of parties, had only been changed. The imperial ascendancy of the idols had been destroyed in Italy, Africa, Spain, Gaul, and Britain; but they were still sovereign in the lower, or less dignified and important countries of Illyricum, Dacia, Macedonia, Thrace, Grecia, Asia Minor, Armenia, Syria, and Egypt. Of these countries, Illyricum, comprehending the region south and west of the Danube, north of Macedonia, north-east of the Adriatic, and north of Lombardy and Venetia; DACIA, including Hungary and the region between the lower Danube and the Balkan Mountains; GREECE, MACEDONIA, and THRACE; these constituted “the inhabiters of the earth:” while Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria, and the East, were occupied by “the inhabiters of the sea.” Before the idols lost their ascendancy, all these countries were ruled by the great political firm “Dragon, Serpent, Diabolos and Satan.” But these partners in iniquity quarreled, though all brethren of the same church. Dragon and Serpent lost caste, having fallen deeply into debt with nothing to pay. Their creditors therefore pronounced against them; and caused two other parties of the same name (and as after experience proved, of characters no less iniquitous) to take their place in the establishment. It was now “a house divided against itself,” consisting of Catholic and Pagan parties in the State—Dragon and Serpent catholic; and Diabolos and Satan zealous worshipers of the gods of their ancestors. The situation being p. 132 thus changed, the administration of affairs was changed also. DIABOLOS was allowed to retain the direction and supervision of things spiritual and temporal in “the earth and sea;” while the catholic members of the firm rejoiced in the greater dignity and authority of the Italian Heaven.
But DIABOLOS saw clearly that this arrangement could not stand. He not only knew that the house of the kingdom was divided against itself; but that such a house must fall. The administrative elements were too incompatible to work in harmony together; for, though essentially there is no difference between Catholicism and Paganism, yet the intense lust of the former for universal empire would inevitably bring on a collision that would ultimate in the destruction of the weaker of the firm. Diabolos therefore knew that “he had but a short time.” He was determined, then, to make the most of his present opportunities, and to pour out the “great wrath” of idol worship upon the sympathizers with Dragon and Serpent, the catholic partners of the West, whom he might find among his subjects of “the earth and sea.”
DIABOLOS represented the interests of “the Great Fiery-Red Dragon” in “the earth and sea” after his supersession by the Man-Child of Sin upon the “Seven Mountains.” His principal agents after the fall of Maxentius, were Maximin and Licinius; the former the ruler of “the sea;” and the latter, of “the earth,” as already defined. The “short time” providentially allotted to him to exhaust his “great wrath” upon the woman-inhabiters of the earth and sea, was a period of twenty years from A.D. 312 to A.D. 324. This great wrath constituted the “WOE” upon them; and consisted in the persecution of Maximin, “the most implacable enemy” of anti-pagans; his war with Licinius; the persecution of Licinius; and Licinius’ war with Constantine, when he led the forces of “the earth and sea” in the great and final conflict between the Michael and the Dragon—Verses 7, 8.
Thus, the great wrath of Diabolos expended itself in the complete bankruptcy of the old concern. But this house had been so long established, that it was deemed expedient to continue it under the ancient style of “Dragon, Old Serpent, Diabolos, and Satan;” the essential difference between the old house and the new being, that the former did business in the interest of Jupiter and the Idols; while the sharp practice of the latter is in the name of an imaginary Peter and fictitious saints. The foundations of the two houses are the same. They are based solely in the flesh and the speculations of the fleshly mind so that their normal condition is “enmity against Deity,” and hatred of those who “keep his commandments, and hold the testimony of the anointed Jesus.”
p. 13328. Other Remnants of the Woman’s Seed
The Novatian remnant was numerous in most parts of the Great Roman Eagle until towards the end of the sixth century. After this their name is not found in the history of the times. This arose from the fact of other leaders appearing to direct the witnessing of the woman’s seed against traditions and superstitions more recently introduced by the Catholic Satan. Laxity of discipline, which was protested against by Novatianus, had caused the division of Anti-pagans into two distinct bodies, A.D. 251, or thereabouts. The majority styled themselves Catholics; the others, NOVATIANS, and Puritans. Some sixty or seventy years after, these received an accession of strength and numbers by the secession from the catholics of multitudes, who were opposed to professors being ordained bishops, who surrendered the Holy Scriptures to be burned as the condition of personal safety in the Diocletian persecution; and who were also opposed to the incorporation of the church with the Roman State. These at the end of the sixth century were no longer the leading questions of the day. All the Woman’s witnessing seed, whether called Novatians or Donatists, were united in judgment concerning them; but there were other topics that now came to demand more especial attention, in the witnessing for which other names than Novatian and Donatus strongly attracted the notice of mankind.
The tyranny and arrogance of catholic bishops had become insufferable. Their oppressiveness created what might be styled the episcopal question; or the inquiry, Does the New Testament make any difference, in order or degree, between Presbyters and Bishops? The difference was generally admitted in the fourth century; but is without the least sanction in the apostolic writings. This was the earnest conviction of a presbyter named Ærius, whom Mosheim depreciates by nicknaming him “a Semi-Arian.” He says, that in the latter, part of the fourth century, “He erected a new sect, and excited divisions throughout Armenia, Pontus, and Cappadocia, by propagating opinions different from those that were commonly received. One of his principal tenets was, that bishops were not distinguished from presbyters by any divine right; and that according to the institution of the New Testament, their offices and authority were absolutely the same.” Had this tenet been received and maintained by the catholic church, the world could never have been afflicted by the blasting presence of the Roman Pontiffs. “How far Ærius pursued this opinion, through its natural consequences, is not certainly known; but we know with the utmost certainty, that it was highly agreeable to many good p. 134 christians, who were no longer able to bear the tyranny and arrogance of the bishops of this century.”
“There were other things in which Ærius differed from the common notions of the time: he condemned prayers for the dead, stated fasts, the celebration of Easter, and other rites of that nature, in which the multitude erroneously imagine that the life and soul of religion consists. His great purpose seems to have been that of reducing Christianity to its primitive simplicity. This was a great and noble enterprise, and places the Ærians, as those who associated themselves with Ærius were styled, in the apocalyptic category of “the remnants of the woman’s seed.”
But the Novatian and Donatista remnants were not only reinforced by the Ærians; their strength and influence were augmented in the middle of the seventh century by the Paulicians. It was about A. D. 653, that a new sect arose in the Roman East, upon which this name was bestowed. There resided in the city of Mananalis, in Armenia, a person of the class to whom the gospel is preached, the obscure, whose name was Constantine. One day a stranger called upon him, who had been a prisoner among the Saracens in Syria, and having obtained his release, was returning home through this city. He was kindly received by Constantine, and for some days entertained at his house. The stranger had been a deacon of a church. In return for the hospitality he had received, he presented Constantine with two manuscripts; one of the “four gospels;” the other, of Paul’s epistles. Constantine studied them as they deserved to be; and when he came to understand them, he would touch no other books; and commenced to teach the doctrines of Christ and his apostle to the Gentiles. He threw away his Manichæan library, exploded and rejected many popular absurdities; and led his countrymen to abandon their former teachers whom they had most venerated; and opened an effective battery upon the superstitions of the catholic church and its hierarchy.
The history of the Paulicians is traceable only through the writings of their adversaries. The account given of their origin is derived from Peter the Sicilian, who was sent by Basil the Great to the Paulicians in Armenia, A. D. 870, to negociate with them an exchange of prisoners. The following extract from Gibbon will show the special abominations against which they faithfully testified in their character of a remnant of the woman’s seed. “Against the gradual innovations of discipline and doctrine,” says he, “they were as strongly guarded by habit and aversion as by the silence of the Apostle Paul and the evangelists. The objects which had been transformed by the magic of superstition, appeared to the eyes of the p. 135 Paulicians in their genuine and naked colors. They reasoned that an image made with hands was the common workmanship of a mortal artist, to whose skill alone the wood and canvas must be indebted for their merit or value;—that miraculous relics were a heap of bones and ashes, destitute of life or virtue, or of any relation, perhaps, with the person to whom they were ascribed;—that the true and vivifying cross was a piece of sound or rotten timber;—the body and blood of Christ, a loaf of bread and a cup of wine, the gifts of nature and the symbols of grace. The Mother of God, in the creed of the Paulicians, was degraded from her celestial honors and immaculate virginity; and the saints and angels were no longer solicited to exercise the laborious office of mediation in heaven and ministry upon earth.”
“The Paulician teachers were distinguished only by their (assumed) scriptural names, by the modest title of fellow-pilgrims, by the austerity of their lives, their zealous knowledge, and the credit of some extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. But they were incapable of desiring, or at least of obtaining, the wealth and honors of the catholic prelacy; such antichristian pride they bitterly censured; and even the rank of elders or presbyters was condemned as an institution of the Jewish Synagogue.”
By the labors of Constantine, who added Sylvanus to his name, numerous disciples were made and collected into societies; and “the remnant,” in a little time, was diffused over the provinces of Asia Minor and the region westward of the Euphrates. Ecclesias were constituted, as much upon the plan and model of the apostolic ecclesias as it was in their power to form them. Six of their principal congregations were designated by the names of those to which the Apostle Paul addressed his epistles; and their pastors adopted scriptural names, as Titus, Timothy, Sylvanus, Tychicus, and so forth. “This innocent allegory,” says Gibbon, “revived the memory and examples of the first ages.” Their endeavor was to bring their contemporaries back to the original simplicity of christian faith and practice. In this good and laudable enterprise Constantine Sylvanus spent twenty-seven years of his life with considerable success. The Catholic Dragon was greatly alarmed at the defections caused by his labors; and at the formidable proportions into which “the remnant” was being developed. After the ancient method of dealing with heretics, he proceeded to “cast out water like a flood” to sweep them away. He began to persecute the Paulicians with the most sanguinary severity; and the bloody scenes of the Great Fiery-Red Dragon ministered by Galerius and Maximin were repeated under catholic names and forms. “To their excellent deeds,” says the bigoted p. 136 Peter of Sicily, “the divine and orthodox emperors added this virtue, that they ordered the Montanists and Manichæans (as he falsely styled the Paulicians) to be capitally punished, and their books, wherever found, to be committed to the flames; and further, that if any person was found to have secreted them, he was to be put to death, and his goods confiscated.” “What more,” asks Mr. Gibbon, “could bigotry and persecution desire?”
In the outpouring of the flood, a Greek official named Simeon, armed with legal and military powers, appeared at Colonia to strike the shepherd, and to reclaim, if possible, the lost sheep of Satan’s flock. By a refinement of cruelty, this monster of vengeance planted Constantine Sylvanus before a line of his disciples, who were commanded, as the price of their pardon, and a proof of their repentance, to stone him to death. But they nobly refused to imbue their hands in his blood. Only one apostate named Justus, but styled by the wretched catholics, a new David, could be found boldly to overthrow the Goliah of heresy. This Judas again deceived and betrayed his unsuspecting brethren; and as many as were ascertained and could be collected, were massed together into an immense pile, and by order of Justinian the Second, whose native cruelty was stimulated by the piety of superstition, consumed to ashes.
But Simeon, the officer, who had breathed out threatenings and slaughters against them, struck with astonishment at their valor, in the face of such cruel torments, like another Paul, became a preacher of the faith he once destroyed. He renounced his honors and fortune, and three years afterwards became the successor of Constantine Sylvanus, and at last sealed his witnessing for the anointed Jesus against the apostasy with his blood.
But though they did not fear to die for the faith, “the Paulicians,” says Gibbon, “were not ambitious of martyrdom; but in a calamitous period of one hundred and fifty years, their patience sustained whatever zeal could inflict. From the blood and ashes of the first victims, a succession of teachers and congregations arose.” The great instrument of their multiplication was the New Testament, as illustrated in the following example related by Peter of Sicily. A young man named Sergius, conversing one day with an aged woman, of the Paulician Remnant, was thus addressed by her :—“I hear, Sir, that you excel in literature and erudition, and are besides, in every respect a good man: tell me, then, why do you not read the sacred gospels?” He answered, Nobis profanis ista legere non licet, sed sacerdotibus duntaxat—“it is not lawful for us the profane to read them, but for the priests only.” “Not so,” she replied; “there is no respect of persons with God; he wills that all men should be saved, p. 137 and come to the knowledge of the truth; but your priests, because they adulterate the word of God, do not read all to you.” She then repeated to him various portions of the holy scriptures. After hearing them, he took the gospels, examined them for himself, and became a Paulician. Sergius was an important acquisition to the remnant. For thirty-four years he devoted himself to the ministry of the word; or to give it in his own words, “From the east to the west, and from the north to the south, have I been proclaiming the good news of salvation, and laboring on my knees.” And this he did with such success that the catholic clergy of Rome and Constantinople considered him to be the forerunner of Antichrist; and declared that he was producing the great apostasy foretold by the Apostle Paul! Peter of Sicily pronounced him “the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the Devil’s chiefest champion, the crafty dissembler of virtue (that is, an accomplished hypocrite), the enemy of the cross of Christ, a blasphemer, the hater of Christ, the mother of harlots;” “all which epithets,” says Turner, “have only one meaning, namely, that he taught with great effect.”
The Paulician Remnant of the Woman’s Seed were harassed by the ferocity of the Catholic Dragon for a long period. Michael the first, and Leo the Armenian, were foremost in the race of persecution; “but,” says Gibbon, “the prize must doubtless be adjudged to the sanguinary devotion of Theodora, who restored the images to the oriental church. Her inquisitors explored the cities and mountains of the Lesser Asia, and the flatterers of the empress have affirmed that, in a short reign, one hundred thousand Paulicians were extirpated by the sword, the gibbet, or the flames!”