14. The Wounding of One of the Heads
“And I saw one of his heads as if it had been wounded unto death”—Ver. 3.
John saw one of the heads, which were common to the Dragon and the Beast, “as if it had been wounded unto death.” This is as much as to say, that when he saw it lying prostrate, its death was only in appearance; it was not like the five heads that had preceded it. They were killed outright, never to recover sovereignty on the Seven Hills. But not so this Sixth Headship; for, though it seemed to be politically dead to all future sovereignty in Rome, where its supremacy p. 236 no longer existed, yet the time would arrive when a like form of government would be located within its walls; and IMPERIAL HEADSHIP, as an Eighth Sovereignty, once more elevate “the Eternal City” to the command of the world—in the words of Leo III., to “a wider rule through divine religion, than by the power of earthly domination;” or more correctly, “through the working of the Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all the deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish.” The head had received a severe wound, but not a fatal one; for, says John, “the plague of its death was healed.”
The apostle informs us that he saw “one of the heads” in this severely wounded condition; but he does not tell us which one of the seven it was. This he leaves us to find out for ourselves. Is the mystery, then, impenetrable? I think not. Let us see. In Ch. xvii. 10, the revelator tells him, in speaking of the Seven Heads, “they are seven sovereign powers; five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh he must continue a short space.” One is; that is, at the time he was speaking to John in Patmos. The Heads being attached to the Seven Mounts upon which Rome sits, we have only to ascertain what form of Sovereign Power obtained there while John was residing in Patmos. This is well known to have been the Imperial; which is a sovereignty headed up in one or more emperors, uniting in themselves the supreme, civil, spiritual, and military authority of the state. As five sovereign powers had fallen, this must have been the sixth, and only the sixth, because “the other,” or seventh, had not then as yet come.
Now, when the sovereign powers of a state fall, they are prostrated by wounding to death. This was the case in the fall, or removal of the five, especially the fifth, to make way for the sixth, which continued a long space in Rome, or over five hundred years; the Imperial Senate residing on the Seven Hills, and the Imperial Court of the West in Ravenna, and the Imperial Court of the East in Constantinople. This Imperial Sixth Head ruled all the Thirds of the Roman habitable; but, at the end of these centuries, the imperial authority was to be suppressed in Rome, and over the Third Part attached to the jurisdiction of that city. This was to be effected by wounding as if to death. The blowing of the fourth wind-trumpet inflicted the wound by which it was prostrated; so that when John saw it, it had the appearance of a dead head. This death state of the head was a necessary condition for the development of its successor in sovereign power. So long as the sixth flourished in political life on the Seven Hills, a successor could not exist in Rome. The death of the Sixth was indispensable to the manifestation of the Seventh. And it may p. 237 be noted here that there is nothing more said about the seventh head in this chapter than that the beast had seven heads. It does not seem to perform any important part in the prophecy; nevertheless, as a seventh potentate, coming in between the sixth and the eighth, its presence upon the arena was highly important to the preparation of the way of the full grown Man of Sin. In John’s time, “the other,” or the seventh, “had not yet come; and when he cometh he must continue a short space.” This “short space” was a period of great events. In the course of it, and during the nine decades that ushered it in, the Ten-Horn Sovereignties established themselves upon the western imperial third of the Roman Orb; Rome’s imperial dominion was abolished, and, in place thereof, a regal sovereignty was developed upon the seven mountains known in history as the GOTHIC KINGDOM OF ITALY. This was the Seventh Head, which was only to continue “a short space,” or sixty years. This passing away of the Sixth Head from Old Rome at the time of its successor, the Seventh Head’s inauguration, is thus symbolized in Apoc. viii. 12, “and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened.” The other two thirds were still unsmitten and left to shine in their proper spheres—two thirds of the sun, two thirds of the moon, and two thirds of the stars: that is, the imperial Sixth Head retained its position in Constantinople, whence it continued to exercise rule and authority, in all matters, civil and ecclesiastical, over the other unsubdued two thirds of the Roman world.
Under the rule of the Gothic Arian Seventh Head, there was no scope for the development of the imperial tendencies of the Trinitarian Bishop of Rome. However, he might long for Universal Headship over all spiritual concerns of the Roman habitable, his subordination to an Arian kingship was an insuperable obstacle. So long as Arianism was king in Rome, he could not include Italy and that city in his universality. Hence, the policy of Symmachus and his successors would be to procure the ruin of the Seventh Head, and to prevent the return of the Sixth; so that Rome, being freed from the presence of both king and emperor, opportunity would be afforded for their own development into an Image of the Sixth Head upon the Seven Hills.
But of the wounding of the Imperial Sixth, and the establishment of the Regal Seventh, Heads, I need not treat in this place. It will be sufficient here to refer the reader to pages 441, 445, Vol. II., for the historical exposition thereof, with this explanatory remark, that the obscuration of Rome’s imperial “day and night” would not cease p. 238 with the fall of the Seventh Head; but with the inauguration of the Eighth Head, or Image of the Sixth, upon the Seven Hills.
15. The Healing of the Deadly Wound
“And the plague of his death was healed”—Ver. 3.
“His deadly wound,” as it reads in the English version, is ἡ πληγη τον θανατον αυτον, in the original, which I have rendered, the plague of his death. The word πληγη, rendered wound, occurs fifteen times in the apocalypse. In five other places it is very properly rendered stripes; and in a sixth, Luke x. 30, it would have been better translated, laid on stripes, than “wounded”—πληγας επιθεντες. The judgments of the fifth and sixth trumpets, in the aggregate, are styled “plagues”—Ch. ix. 20; and the judgments the two prophets were able to inflict, are also styled “plagues”—Ch. xi. 6. The judgments of the Seven Vials are thrice termed the seven plagues in Ch. xv.; and the hail-storm that descends out of the heaven upon men, under the last vial is called a plague in Ch. xvi. 21. The plague of death that afflicted the Sixth Head, was a smiting plague; for, as the result of it, the sun, moon, and stars of the Roman heaven are said to have been “smitten.” Hence, also, in Ch. xiii, 13, it is referred to as ἡ πληγη της μαχαιρας, the plague of the sword. The warlike operations of Odoacer, king of the Heruli, against Romulus Augustulus; and those of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, against Odoacer, who, on the deposition of Augustulus, had become, by the title conferred upon him by Zeno, emperor of the Eastern Third, the Patrician Representative of the Sixth Head. These judgments by the sword, ultimating in the establishment of Theodoric in Rome as king of Italy, A.D. 493, made up the plague of the seeming death of the Sixth Head.
And, in this place, it will be right to state the reason why I have not reckoned the Heruli and the Ostrogoths as two of the ten horns. No barbarians, the throne of whose dominion was on the seven mountains, could be horns. Rome is the throne of the Heads, not of the Horns. Hence, there must be reckoned ten horns and one head contemporary with the continuance of the “short space” of Seventh Head Ascendancy in Rome. Neither can the Exarchate of Ravenna, nor the Dukedom of Rome, as Sir Isaac Newton and others suppose, be horns; for the former was the representative of the Sixth Head in Italy, and the latter, together with the Exarchate, are defective in this material attribute, that they were destitute of diadems; all the horns have diadems, but they had none.
p. 239 “It was healed,” says John. The plague of the death by the sword was healed. To heal a death plague is to cause to live that which was smitten. This is the interpretation put upon the phrase in the fourteenth verse in the words, “the beast which had the plague of the sword, and did live.” To heal is to institute a process of recovery. Healing is often a slow process, and always requires time; and the severer the injury to the constitution of the patient, the longer the time required for the recovery of health and strength. It is the same whether the patient be a sick man, or an enfeebled power. Time is demanded for a cure. It was so in the matter of restoring imperial dominion to Rome. There could, however, be no healing of “the plague of the sword,” that IMPERIALISM might live and flourish again in the Seven-Hilled City, so long as the REGAL Seventh Head exercised sovereignty therein. While this reigned in conjunction with the Ten Horns, Rome’s wounded imperialism was unhealed. The worship of “the peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues,” or “many waters” of the Roman Habitable, upon which the woman sits, was an e pluribus unum. It was no longer a worship, or political homage and allegiance, rendered to a Sole Emperor reigning in Constantinople; but it was a worship in which “they wondered after the beast in all the earth,” or empire; so that “they worshiped the Dragon which yielded authority to the Beast;” for the Seventh Head belonged both to the Dragon and the Beast; and the Ten Horns, as we have seen by their coinage, acknowledged the supremacy of the Emperor in Constantinople, whose Vice-Kings they claimed to be: while, at the same time, they recognized the Seventh Head as a legitimate sovereignty. The constitution of things was analogous to the United States system of powers, in which citizens owe a divided allegiance to their native state and to the general government—they worship the American Eagle, which gives authority to the State-Feathers of its wings; and they worship the Feathers. This is well understood. There is, however, this difference in the similitude, that whereas a Visigoth and a Frank, first worshiped their respective Horn-States; and secondly, the general government in Constantinople. Now, a Marylander or a Virginian first worships at Washington, and afterwards subordinately at Richmond or Annapolis. The comparison, however, is sufficiently close for illustration of the saying, “they worshiped the Dragon which yielded authority to the Beast; and they worshiped the Beast, saying, Who is like unto the Beast? Who is able to make war with him?”—Ver. 4. None. No beast-dominion can stand before him; for, as Daniel says of the SYSTEM OF POWERS represented by the Dragon and the Beast, it is “dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it p. 240 had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the brazen clawed feet of it”—Ch. vii. 7, 19. The history of Modern Europe amply shows the truth of the Beast’s invincibility. It is the predominant dominion upon the earth; and rules the so-called civilized nations of Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australia.
But oceans of blood have been shed in the past 1,335 years of its existence, in attaining to a dominion so extended. This sanguinary and all-conquering career commenced with war between the imperial and regal potentates of Rome and Constantinople, which, after twenty years continuance with various fortune to the combatants, ultimated in the removal and final death of the Seventh Head, which marked the termination of the “short space” of its reign. As, then, the removal of the Seventh Head was an indispensable prerequisite to the healing, or causing imperialism to live again in Rome, I shall now proceed to an historical sketch of its suppression, and then return to the exhibition of the healing of “the plague of the death,” which had been inflicted upon its predecessor by the sword; which will afford scope, also, for accompanying the Name of Blasphemy in further development, until we find it seated imperially upon the seven heads.
16. The Rise and Decollation of the Seventh Head
The Roman Empire of the West was extinguished A. D. 476-479, by the conquering sword of the king of the Heruli, Odoacer. This ruler reigned in Rome about fourteen years, when he was succeeded by the renowned Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, the Arian king of Italy. This prince was born in the neighborhood of Vienna, and educated at Constantinople with care and tenderness. On his father’s death he had succeeded to the hereditary throne of the Amali, who were subsidized as defenders of the frontier by the government of Constantinople. His people murmured at this arrangement, until he found it necessary to withdraw from the service of the emperor, and to lead them to some enterprize by which their fortunes would be improved. Having determined on this course he wrote to the emperor Zeno in the following words: “Although your servant is maintained in affluence by your liberality, graciously listen to the wishes of my heart! Italy, the inheritance of your predecessors, and Rome itself, the Heart and Mistress of the world, now fluctuate under the violence of Odoacer, the Mercenary. Direct me, with my national troops, to march against the tyrant. If I fall, you will be relieved from an expensive and troublesome friend; if, with the divine permission, p. 241 I succeed, I shall govern in your name, and to your glory, the Roman Senate, and the part of the republic delivered from slavery by my victorious arms.” Theodoric’s proposal was accepted by the Byzantine Court. He marched against the tyrant in the depth of a rigorous winter, and after many obscure and bloody battles, he descended from the Julian Alps and displayed his invincible banners on the confines of Italy. The conflict between Odoacer and Theodoric was severe; but at length the former capitulated, and, being removed by death, the royalty of Theodoric was proclaimed by the Ostrogoths, “with the tardy, reluctant, ambiguous consent of the Emperor of the East.”
After this manner the Seventh Head was developed and established upon the Seven Hills; the Dragon tardily, reluctantly and ambiguously, ceding to it “his power, and his throne, and extensive jurisdiction”—ch. xiii. 2. Theodoric reigned thirty-three years, from A. D. 493 to A. D. 526. Among the barbarian Horns of the West the victory of Theodoric had spread a general alarm. But as soon as it appeared that he was satiated with conquest and desired peace, terror was changed into respect, and they submitted to a powerful mediation, which was uniformly employed for the best purposes of reconciling their quarrels and civilizing their manners. A wife, two daughters, a sister and a niece, united the family of Theodoric with the kings of the Franks, the Burgundians, the Visigoths, the Vandals and the Thuringians, aud contributed to maintain the harmony, or at least the balance, of the great western Republic of the horns. He reduced, under a strong and regular government, the unprofitable countries of Rhœtia, Noricum, Dalmatia and Pannonia, from the source of the Danube and the territory of the Bavarians, to the kingdom erected by the Gepidæ on the ruins of Sirmium. His greatness awakened the jealousy of Anastasius, the emperor of the east, who ravaged the sea-coast of Calabria and Apulia, but the activity and moderation of Theodoric were soon rewarded by a solid and honorable peace. He maintained with a powerful hand the balance of the Horn-Powers of the west, till it was at length overthrown by the ambition of Clovis, king of the Franks, whose progress he checked in the midst of their victorious career. By the Visigoths he was revered as a national protector and guardian of their infant prince. Under this respectable character, the king of Italy restored the prætorian prœfecture of the Gauls, reformed some abuses in the civil government of Spain, and accepted the annual tribute and apparent submission of its military governor. The sovereignty of the Seventh Head was established from Sicily to the Danube, and from Belgrade to the Atlantic ocean, and the Greeks themselves have acknowledged that p. 242 Theodoric reigned over the fairest portion of the western empire.
“From a tender regard to the expiring prejudices of Rome,” says the historian, “the barbarian declined the name, the purple and the diadem of the emperors; but he assumed, under the hereditary title of king, the whole substance and plenitude of imperial prerogative. His addresses to the eastern throne were respectful and ambiguous; he celebrated in pompous style the harmony of The Two Republics, applauded his own government as the perfect similitude of a sole and undivided empire (or Head), and claimed above the kings of the earth (the Diademed Horns) the same pre-eminence which he modestly allowed to the person or rank of Anastasius.” “They worshiped the Dragon, and they worshiped the Beast,” which is further illustrated by Gibbon, who continues: “the alliance of the East and West was annually declared by the unanimous choice of two consuls; but it should seem that the Italian candidate, who was named by Theodoric, accepted a formal confirmation from the sovereign at Constantinople.” The fifteen regions of Italy were governed according to the principles and even the forms of Roman jurisprudence. The civil administration, with its honors and emoluments, was confined to the Italians, for whom were reserved the arts of peace, and the Goths were used for the service of war and public defence. These barbarians held their lands and benefices as a military stipend; at the sound of the trumpet they were prepared to march under the conduct of their provincial officers, and the whole extent of Italy was distributed into the several quarters of a well-regulated camp.
With the protection, Theodoric assumed the legal supremacy of the Catholic Church. He was not ignorant of the dignity and importance of the Bishop of Rome, to whom was now appropriated the name of POPE. When “the chair of St. Peter” was disputed by Symmachus and Lawrence, they appeared at his summons before the tribunal of an Arian king, and he confirmed the election of the one he most approved. At the end of his life, in a moment of jealousy and resentment, he prevented the choice of the Romans, by nominating a pope in the palace of Ravenna. This produced great excitement, which he controlled, and the last decree of the Senate was enacted to extinguish, if it were possible, “the scandalous venality of the papal elections.”
The reign of Theodoric was mild, tolerant and promotive of the prosperity, security and happiness of the people. But his ungrateful subjects could never be cordially reconciled to the origin, the religion, or even the virtues of the Gothic conqueror; past calamities p. 243 were forgotten, and the sense or suspicion of injuries was rendered still more exquisite by the present felicity of the times. The religious toleration which Theodoric had the glory of introducing into the catholic world, was painful and offensive to the Trinitarian zeal of the Italians. They dared not disturb the armed heresy of the Goths; therefore, they sought to vent their pious and cowardly rage by falling upon the rich and defenceless Jews. Their persons were insulted, their effects were pillaged, and their synagogues were burnt by the mad populace of Rome and Ravenna, inflamed by the most frivolous or extravagant pretences. A legal inquiry was instantly directed by the king; who, as the authors of the tumult had escaped, condemned the whole community to repair the damage; and the obstinate bigots who refused their contributions, were whipped through the streets by the hand of the executioner. This simple act of justice exasperated the discontent of the Trinitarians, who applauded the merit and patience of these so-called “holy confessors;” and from three hundred pulpits deplored the persecution of the church. “At the close of a glorious life,” says Gibbon, “the king of Italy discovered he had excited the hatred of a people whose happiness he had labored so assiduously to promote; and his mind was soured by indignation, jealousy and the bitterness of unrequited love.” Thus were embittered the relations between the Gothic Head and the Trinitarian Italians, who were devoted to the traditions of the Council of Nice, whom Theodoric suspected of a secret and treasonable correspondence with the Byzantine representative of the Head smitten by the sword. The powers of this government were then in the hands of JUSTINIAN, who already meditated the extirpation of heresy, and the reconquest of Italy and Africa; in other words, the healing of the plague of the sword, with which imperialism had been smitten in these countries, as it were, to death. A rigorous law which was published at Constantinople to reduce the Arians by the dread of punishment within the pale of the catholic orthodoxy, awakened the just resentment of Theodoric, who claimed for his distressed brethren of the East the same indulgence which he had so long granted to the Trinitarian Catholics of his dominions. At his stern command, the Bishop of Rome, with four illustrious senators, embarked on an embassy. The singular veneration shown to the Bishop, who was the first pope that had visited Constantinople, was punished by Theodoric as a crime; and a mandate was prepared in Italy to prohibit, after a stated day, the exercise of the catholic worship. “By the bigotry of his subjects and enemies,” says Gibbon, “the most tolerant of princes was driven to the brink of persecution.” The celebrated Boethius, a Roman senator, philosopher and p. 244 minister of state, his father-in-law the patrician Symmachus, and Albinus, also a senator, were accused of treason for “hoping the liberty of Rome,” and actually inviting the Emperor Justinian to deliver Italy from the Goths; in other words, to undertake the healing of the wounded head that it might live. The suspicions of Theodoric were probably not groundless, and could only be appeased by their blood. They were executed, and the treason charged assumed a terrible reality in succeeding reigns.
On the death of Theodoric, August 30, A. D. 526, the throne of the Seventh Head was occupied by his grandson, Athalaric, aged ten years, with his mother Amalasuntha as guardian and regent of the kingdom of Italy. She ruled the country about eight years, during which a spirit of discord and disaffection prevailed, and the Goths supported with reluctance the indignity of a female reign. Her son Athalaric dying, she caused it to be announced to the Senate of Rome and the Emperor of Constantinople, that she and Theodatus, her cousin, had jointly ascended the throne of Italy. But this regal partnership was soon dissolved by Theodatus, by whose orders she was first imprisoned, and then strangled in the bath, A. D. 535.
The emperor Justinian, who had recently “plucked up by the roots” the Vandal Horn in Africa, beheld with joy the dissensions of the Goths in Italy, who were feebly and unworthily governed by Theodatus. He considered the opportunity as favorable for the healing of his wounded authority over Italy. He demanded therefore the abdication of the Gothic king, and the surrender of the ancient provinces of the empire. Though agreed to by the weakness and imbecility of Theodatus, its execution was prevented by his assassination, and the elevation of Vitiges to the throne. Justinian, however, was not to be thwarted in this way. He ordered BELISARIUS to invade Italy with the forces of the empire, and to wrest it from the Goths. The invasion was easy, but the expulsion of two hundred thousand warlike barbarians in arms, proved to be a work of great difficulty.
Having recovered Sicily, the general of Justinian landed his forces in Italy, A. D. 536. From the capture of Naples he proceeded against Rome, which had been left to a feeble garrison, and the fidelity of its citizens. “But,” says Gibbon, “a momentary enthusiasm of religion and patriotism was kindled in their minds, They furiously exclaimed, that THE APOSTOLIC THRONE should no longer be profaned by the triumph or toleration of Arianism; that the tombs of the Cæsars should no longer be trampled by the savages of the north; and, without reflecting, that Italy must sink into a province of Constantinople, they fondly hailed the restoration of the Roman emperor p. 245 as a new era of freedom and prosperity. The deputies of the pope and clergy, of the Senate and people, invited the lieutenant of Justinian to accept their voluntary allegiance, and to enter the city whose gates would be thrown open for his reception.” He readily accepted their allegiance, and made his entrance at the Asinarian gate, while the Gothic garrison departed without molestation along the Flaminian way; and the city after sixty years’ servitude, was delivered from the yoke of the barbarians. The keys of Rome were sent to the throne of the emperor Justinian, to whom they were delivered by the Gothic commander of the garrison, who refused to accompany his troops in their retreat.
But Vitiges was not idle. During the winter season he collected an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men. With these forces he besieged Belisarius in Rome for more than a year. The city was greatly distressed. The general pitied the sufferings of the people, whose loyalty to the emperor had notably decayed, while their discontents proportionately increased. “Adversity,” says Gibbon, “had awakened the Romans from the dreams of grandeur and freedom, and taught them the humiliating lesson, that it was of small moment to their real happiness, whether the name of their master was derived from the Gothic or the Latin language.” Among the disaffected was Sylverius, the incumbent of the recently erected “Apostolic Throne.” A letter subscribed by him was intercepted, which assured the king of the Goths, that the Asinarian gate, adjoining to the Lateran church, should be secretly opened to his troops. On this proof of treason, he was summoned to attend at the headquarters of Belisarius, and there to give an account of himself. The ecclesiastics who followed the pope, were detained in an anteroom, and he alone was admitted into the presence of the general. Belisarius was silent, but the voice of reproach and menace issued from the mouth of Antonina, his imperious wife. Being convicted of the treason, the pretended successor of St. Peter was despoiled of his pontifical ornaments, clad in the mean habit of a monk, and embarked without delay for a distant exile in the east, and was afterwards either slain or murdered upon a desolate island. At the emperor’s command, the clergy of Rome proceeded to the choice of a new bishop; they therefore elected a deacon Vigilius, who had purchased the papal throne by a bribe of two hundred pounds of gold. From these circumstances the reader will perceive the relation in which the bishop of Rome stood to the imperial power in the first half of the sixth century. He was still subject to the civil authority though spiritual “Head of all the Churches” of the empire. The imperial authority was now in Rome again in power, or maintained by force of arms.
p. 246 Had this been permanent the pope would never have become a temporal sovereign; but would have lived and died the servant of the emperors. Hence, the removal of this pressure was necessary to the setting up of an imperial episcopal image upon the seven hills. The decollation of the Seventh Head, and the reduction of Rome to a subordinate rank among cities, would accomplish this; and therefore the calamities of the times as developed in this Gothic war.
Succors arriving from Constantinople, Rome was delivered from the Goths, who raised the siege, and fell back upon Ravenna. This well fortified city was at length captured by Belisarius, who also obtained possession of Vitiges the Gothic king, whom he sent prisoner to Constantinople, A. D. 539. By these reverses they lost their king, an inconsiderable loss truly, their capital, their treasures, the provinces from Sicily to the Alps, and the military force of two hundred thousand barbarians magnificently equipped with horses and arms. Yet all was not lost. Totila the nephew of the captive king, was chosen to succeed him; and, at the head of five thousand soldiers, generously undertook the restoration of the kingdom of Italy.
Having routed twenty thousand Romans near Faenza, he crossed the Po, and traversing the Apennine, laid siege to Naples, which he reduced; and then retracing his steps, laid siege to Rome, whose Senate and people he calmly exhorted to compare the tyranny of the Greeks with the blessings of the Gothic reign.
Totila was chaste and temperate; and none were deceived who depended on his faith or his clemency. By his virtues in contrast with the vices of the officials, who served the interests of imperialism, a new people, under the appellation of Goths, was insensibly formed in his camp. The situation of the imperialists had already become desperate; and the return of Belisarius to save the country he had subdued in the first war, was pressed with equal vehemence by his friends and enemies. He reluctantly accepted the painful task of supporting his own reputation, and retrieving the faults of his successors. The sea being open to the Romans, he entered the port of Ravenna. From thence he addressed both the Goths and Italians in the name of Justinian, his gracious master, who, he said, was inclined to pardon and reward. But not a man was tempted to desert the standard of the Gothic king. Belisarius soon discovered that he had been sent by Justinian to remain the idle and impotent spectator of the glory of the young barbarian Totila. This he by no means approved; and, in an epistle to the emperor, exhibited a lively picture of the crisis, which caused him great distress. “Most excellent prince,” says he, “we are arrived in Italy, destitute of all the necessary implements of war, men, horses, arms, and money. In our late p. 247 circuit through the villages of Thrace and Illyricum, we have collected. with extreme difficulty, about four thousand recruits, naked, and unskilled in the use of weapons and the exercises of the camp. The soldiers already stationed in the province are discontented, fearful, and dismayed; at the sound of an enemy, they dismiss their horses, and cast their arms on the ground. No taxes can be raised, since Italy is in the hands of the barbarians; the failure of payment has deprived us of the right of command, or even of admonition. Be assured, Dread Sir, that the greater part of your troops have already deserted to the Goths. If the war could be achieved by the presence of Belisarius alone, your wishes are satisfied; Belisarius is in the midst of Italy. But, if you desire to conquer, far other preparations are requisite: without a military force, the title of general is an empty name. It would be expedient to restore to my service my own veterans and domestic guards. Before I can take the field, I must receive an adequate supply of light and heavy armed troops; and it is only with ready money that you can procure the indispensable aid of a powerful body of the cavalry of the Huns,”
In the meantime, the siege of Rome was closely pressed by Totila, A. D. 546. The inhabitants were gradually reduced to feed on dead horses, dogs, cats, and mice, and eagerly to snatch the grass, and even the nettles, which grew among the ruins of the city. The failure of Belisarius to throw supplies into the place, left Rome without protection to the mercy or indignation of Totila; by whose instrumentality the Deity was inflicting plagues upon the Trinitarian adherents of the Name of Blasphemy upon the Seven Hills. The continuance of hostilities “had embittered the national hatred; the Arian clergy were ignominiously driven from Rome; Pelagius, the archdeacon, returned without success from an embassy to the Gothic camp; and a Sicilian bishop, the envoy or nuncio of pope Vigilius, was deprived of both his hands, for daring to utter falsehoods in the service of the Trinitarian church and state.
At length on Dec. 17, the Goths were treacherously admitted into the city. As soon as daylight had displayed the entire victory of the Goths, Totila devoutly visited the so-called tomb of St. Peter; but while he prayed at the altar, twenty-five soldiers and sixty citizens, were put to the sword in the vestibule of the temple. The archdeacon Pelagius stood before him with “the gospel” in his hand, and exclaimed, “O Lord, be merciful to your servant.” “Pelagius,” said Totila, with an insulting smile, “your pride now condescends to become a suppliant.” “I am a suppliant,” he prudently replied, “God has now made us your subjects, and as your subjects we are entitled to your clemency.” At his humble prayer the lives of the Romans p. 248 were spared, and the passions of the hungry soldiers restrained. But they were rewarded with the freedom of pillage. The next day he pronounced two orations, to congratulate and admonish the victorious Goths, and to reproach the Senate, as the vilest of slaves, with their perjury, folly, and ingratitude. Yet he consented to forgive their revolt. Against the city he appeared inexorable; and the world was astonished at the fatal decree, that Rome should be changed into a pasture for cattle. The firm and temperate remonstrance of Belisarius suspended the execution; and Totila was at length persuaded to preserve Rome as the ornament of his kingdom. Having demolished one third of the walls in different parts, and stationed an army about fifteen miles from the city to observe the motions of Belisarius, he marched with the remainder of his forces into Lucania and Apulia. The Senators were dragged in his train, and afterwards confined in the fortress of Campania; the citizens with their wives and children, and the pope and his clergy of all ranks and degrees, were dispersed in exile; and during forty days and more Rome was abandoned to desolate and dreary solitude.
And here it would be well for the reader to pause, and reflect upon this chasm of forty days in the life of “THE MISTRESS OF THE WORLD”—“the Woman, that Great City,” which in the apostles’ day, and ecclesiastically in ours, “reigneth over the regal powers of the earth”—ch. xvii. 18. If the foundation of Rome be correctly stated at 753 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, the “Eternal City,” so-called, became a vacant space twelve hundred and ninety-nine years after. This chasm of forty days is nearly the central epoch of the city’s existence. Twelve hundred and sixty years afterwards, Totila was represented by Napoleon, crowned emperor and king of Italy by the Pope. Totila was not unlike his modern representative in some respects. He had but little respect for Rome or its bishop. He filled Rome with darkness, so that no political lights, civil or ecclesiastical, shone in it for forty days; so also, Napoleon, as the executive of the Fifth Vial, poured vengeance upon Rome; and filled the kingdom, of which it is the seat or throne, with darkness. When Totila consented not to reduce it to a pasture for cattle, but to leave it a vacant and standing monument of the wrath of heaven, he carried off the pope with him into captivity; and 1260 years after, Napoleon degraded the city to a subordinate rank, and transferred the pope from a throne to captivity at Fontainbleau. Thirteen hundred and twenty years (1320) have now elapsed since this notable forty days of solitude; and it is exceedingly probable that but few more years will elapse ere this renowned centre of crime, blasphemy, and everything unclean and p. 249 hateful, find itself submerged in the unfathomable depths of a solitude, whose silence will never again be broken by the trumpet, nor its darkness dispelled by a glimmering of light—ch. xviii. 22, 23.
After this forty days of solitude the city was reoccupied by Belisarius, who sent its keys (for there were then no “St. Peter’s keys” to send) a second time to Justinian, But the imperialists were unable to hold it. In A.D. 549, the Goths laid siege to it again, and took it. Totila no longer desired to destroy the edifices of Rome, which he now respected as the throne of the Gothic kingdom; the Senate and people were now restored, and the means of subsistence were liberally provided. He reduced the cities of Rhegium and Tarentum; and annexed Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. At every step of his victories, he repeated to Justinian his desire of peace, applauded the concord of their predecessors, and offered to employ the Gothic arms in the service of the Dragon-empire.
But, Justinian, true to the character of “the king who” should “do according to his will” (Dan. xi. 35), was deaf to the voice of peace; but he neglected, through indolence, the prosecution of the war. From this slumber he was aroused by Vigilius, “the Head of all the churches” of his estate, and the patrician Cethagus, who appeared before his throne, and adjured him in the name of the Deity and the people, to resume the conquest and deliverance of Italy. An army was assembled, and under the command of Narses, was ordered to march against the Goths. Totila, conscious that the clergy and people of Italy aspired to a second revolution, resolved to risk the Gothic kingdom on the chance of a day, in which the valiant would be animated by instant danger, and the disaffected might be awed by mutual ignorance. The decisive battle was fought at Taginas, about ninety-five miles from Rome, in July, A.D. 552. The Goths were defeated, and Totila was slain. Narses, having paid his devotions to “the blessed Virgin,” his imaginary goddess, and peculiar patroness, whose inspiration he professed had revealed to him the day, and the word of battle, advanced towards Rome, which did not long delay his progress. The keys of the city were for the third time sent to Justinian, under whose reign it had been five times taken and recovered. “But the deliverance of Rome,” says Gibbon, “was the last calamity of the Roman people.” Three hundred youths of the noblest families, who were hostages in the hands of the Goths, were slain by Teias, the successor of Totila. “The fate of the Senate suggests an awful lesson of the vicissitude of human affairs. All the fortresses of Campania were stained with patrician blood. After a period of thirteen centuries, the institution of Romulus expired; and if the nobles of Rome still assumed the title of senators, few subsequent p. 250 traces can be discovered of a public council, or constitutional order. Ascend six hundred years, and contemplate the kings of the earth soliciting an audience, as the slaves or freedmen of the ROMAN SENATE!”
In the following March, A,D. 553, was fought the battle of the Draco, in which the new king was slain. While exchanging his buckler his uncovered side was pierced with a mortal dart. “He fell, and his head exalted upon a spear, proclaimed to the nations that the Gothic kingdom was no more.”
Thus, after a reign of sixty years, the Seventh Head of the Dragon and the Beast was destroyed from the Seven Hills. The Roman Senate and the Gothic kingdom became extinct together. Their place was filled by the Exarchs of Ravenna, who were the representatives in peace and war of the Constantinopolitan Dragon. But, though this power, after the agitation of a long tempest, had regained possession of Italy, the wounded Sixth Head was not yet “healed;” neither indeed could it be until Rome again became the throne of an imperial dominion. Instead of this, on the fall of the Seventh Head, whose “short space” had passed away with the death of Teias, the former Mistress of the World was dethroned. The civil state of Italy was fixed, A. D. 554, by a pragmatic sanction of twenty-seven articles, which the emperor Justinian promulgated at the request of the pope, who was still a subject, ruled by the emperor’s lieutenant resident in Ravenna. Justinian introduced his own jurisprudence into the schools and tribunals of the west; and ratified the acts of Theodoric and his immediate successors. Under the Exarchs of Ravenna, ROME was degraded to the second rank among the cities of the empire. The regulation of weights and measures was delegated to the pope and municipal senate. But, however benevolent their edicts, the power of rulers is most effectual to destroy; and twenty years of the Gothic war had consummated the distress and depopulation of Italy; so that “a strict interpretation of the evidence of Procopius,” says Gibbon, “would swell the loss of Italy above the total sum of her present inhabitants.”
The Sixth and the Seventh Heads which hindered the manifestation of the Name of Blasphemy upon the Seven Hills being taken out of the way, scope was now afforded for its development into the EIGHTH HEAD of the Beast. From the epoch of the settlement of Italy A. D. 554-559, and during the ensuing two hundred and forty years of Rome’s eclipse, the greatest, or most influential subject in the degraded city, was the pope. There was no constitutional superior therein to over-awe or keep him down. In the times of the Seventh Head, which was Arian, he was in great trouble, and especially during p. 251 the Gothic war. Indeed, he has always fallen upon troublous times when he has had for ruler or neighbor, an independent king of Italy. It is so at this day. A king of Italy naturally enough claims Rome for the capital of his kingdom, which is incompatible with the sovereignty and independence of the Name of Blasphemy upon the Seven Hills.
Having, then, put the reader in possession of so much of history as will enable him to identify the Seventh Head; and having brought him down to the epoch of its decollation, or destruction, which was necessary for the subsequent “healing” of the wounded Sixth Head of Rome’s imperialism; it behooves us to pause in our exposition, that we may bring up arrears in regard to the development of the Name of Blasphemy upon the heads. When this is sufficiently advanced we shall have brought the ecclesiastical into line with the civil; and be prepared to carry them on together until the healing process is completed in their expansion into the Eighth Head upon the Seven Hills, as symbolized in this thirteenth chapter by the Beast of the Earth with Two Horns like a lamb, and speaking as a Dragon.