BEAST LITTLE-HORN IDENTIFIED!
At this point in the study you should have a basic understanding of the fulfilled prophecies of the rise and fall of kingdoms in Daniel starting from Babylon. Now let’s focus again on the little horn as revealed in Daniel chapters 7 and 8. Remember the little horn in Daniel is the same religious- governmental kingdom depicted as a leopard-like beast in Revelation chapters 13 and 14. This kingdom is the fifth kingdom within the feet of the statue in Daniel chapter 2. In this study we already identified several characteristics of this religious-governmental kingdom. Now let’s go ahead and identify exactly who it is? Are you ready for this? Let’s look at each clue already identified and match it with historical facts to verify its prophetic fulfillment. Plus, we will look at some more clues from Daniel chapters 7 and 8. (If you need a refresher review Chapter 8: Beast & Little Horn)
According to history, what kingdom rose into power among many nations with several languages after the fall of Pagan Rome?
History reveals that by 538 AD, Papal Rome, head of the Roman Catholic Church, also became a dominating governmental monarch that ruled a large portion of what used to be the Roman Empire. “Catholic” means “universal.” Papal Rome believes they are the head of the “Universal” Church.
By 476 AD much of the western Roman Empire, which is now known as modern Europe, was divided into ten tribal factions or barbarous states (see chart on page 98). These ten divisions represent the ten toes on the statue in Daniel chapter 2 and they also correspond with the ten horns that are on the dreadful fourth beast of Daniel 7:7.
Daniel 7:7 - “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.”
Remember, this fourth beast represents the Roman Empire. The ten horns on the beast represents the ten divisions of the Roman Empire (western territory - modern Europe) by 476 AD. In Daniel 7:8 and 24 it predicted that the little horn (Papal Rome) would grow out of the Roman Empire and “pluck up” three of the ten tribal states.
Daniel 7:8 - “I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.”
Daniel 7:24 - “And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.”
History records that Papal Rome, also known as the papacy, deceitfully and with craft took control over the collapsed Roman Empire. As predicted in Daniel 7:7 and 24, the papacy orchestrated the defeat of three of the ten barbarian tribal nations that gave them absolute monarchical governmental power over the former Roman Empire. They cleverly uprooted the Heruli in 493 AD, the Vandals in 534 AD, and the Ostrogoths in 538 AD.
The head of the papacy, known as the pope, was given absolute and “kingly” authority. As the Roman Empire was collapsing, the papacy whose headquarters were established in Rome, had control and a strong grip on the majority of the Christian churches throughout the empire through compromise, bullying, and deceit. Even though the Christian church was in an apostate condition, they had grown steadily throughout the empire with strong political influence.
Many historians credit Roman Emperor Constantine as the one who helped Papal Rome to gain political prominence after his questionable conversion experience to Christianity in 312 AD during the battle of the Milvian Bridge. In 313 AD he made Christianity an official religion of the Roman Empire, led by the papacy. The papacy was also given the right to receive gifts from the citizens of Rome in which Constantine personally donated large sums of money and land that greatly enriched the papacy. What added to the papacy’s power was when Constantine relocated the capital of Rome to the eastern part of the Roman Empire, Constantinople, in 330 AD. This move allowed the papacy to fill the political void that Constantine left behind in Rome and to freely operate and grow in the western part of the Roman Empire. The pope, the leader of the papacy, was not only seen as one with supreme spiritual authority, but also of great political influence.
“Long ages ago, when Rome through the neglect of the Western emperors was left to the mercy of the barbarous hordes, the Romans turned to one figure for aid and protection, and asked him to rule them; and thus commenced the temporal sovereignty of the popes. And meekly stepping to the throne of Caesar, the vicar of Christ took up the scepter to which the emperors and kings of Europe were to bow in reverence through so many ages.” - American Catholic Quarterly Review, April, 1911
“Under the Roman Empire the popes had no temporal powers. But when the Roman Empire had disintegrated and its place had been taken by a number of rude, barbarous kingdoms, the Roman Catholic church not only became independent of the states in religious affairs, but dominated secular affairs as well. At times, under such rulers as Charlemagne (768-814), Otto the Great (936-973), and Henry III (1039-1056), the civil power controlled the church to some extent; but in general, under the weak political system of feudalism, the well-organized, unified, and centralized church, with the pope at its head, was not only independent in ecclesiastical affairs but also controlled civil affairs.” - Carl Conrad Eckhardt, The Papacy and World-Affairs, The University of Chicago Press, 1937, p. 1
“The removal of the capital of the Empire from Rome to Constantinople in 330, left the Western Church, practically free from imperial power, to develop its own form of organization. The Bishop of Rome, in the seat of the Caesars, was now the greatest man in the West, and was soon [when the barbarians overran the Empire] forced to become the political as well as the spiritual head.” - A.C. Flick, The Rise of the Mediaeval Church, p. 168
Referring to the papacy’s rise during the time that the Roman Empire was crumbling around 500 AD, “No, the [Catholic] Church will not descend into the tomb. It will survive the Empire. At length a second empire