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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 13

Section 2 Subsection 27

Two Horns Like A Lamb's


 
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A horn is a dynastic symbol - a symbol of power. A dominion having two horns is a sovereignty dominated by a plurality of dynastic or ruling orders, which, in their speaking or ruling, "as a dragon," are imperial. But these two imperial dynastic orders are not compared to the horns of an antelope or a buffalo; if to the former, it would have indicated something analogous to swiftness; or to the latter, to endurance and strength; but they are likened to a lamb. Every one knows the characteristics of a lamb - meek, patient, inoffensive, and unresisting under the knife of the slayer. It is the Apocalyptic symbol of Deity sacrificially manifested in the flesh, through which the lamb-like characteristics were displayed. But it is not in this sense that we find the lamb's horns illustrative of the character of the Beast of the Earth; for the prophecy itself shows that its ruling characteristics are the very reverse of inoffensiveness and meekness; for it causes all who do not obey its mandates to be killed.

But a lamb being symbolical of "the Shepherd and Bishop of souls," comes also to represent things ecclesiastical. The true believers, or the saints, are all in the Lamb, because they are "in Christ," and constitute "his body the Ecclesia." They are, in other words, invested or clothed with the lambskin, and the horns of an animal are appendages of its skin. Hence, "horns like a lamb" would fitly symbolize a body ecclesiastical claiming to be Christian; and such a claimant might pass for Christian, if things were not affirmed of it incompatible with the principles of Christ. A truly Christian body would not set up an Image of the wounded sixth head of the beast to be worshipped upon the pain of death. This the Beast of the Earth was to do; and since he arose, has done. We are, therefore, under the necessity of concluding that whatever ecclesiastical domination may be represented by the sheep's clothing, "pallium," or state mantle, it is not a real sheep dominion, but a counterfeit one - the Dominion of the Romish Dragon in Sheep's clothing.

Such was the dominion of which Charlemagne was the founder in the eighth, and beginning of the ninth, centuries. These were the age of the Romish Bishops, as the eleventh and twelfth centuries were of the Popes. The Carlovingians and the Bishops were the Beast of the Earth in its primary phase. The position assumed by Charlemagne was military, civil and ecclesiastical. He was head of the church and head of the state. "The sovereign," says Hallam, "who maintained with the greatest vigor his ecclesiastical supremacy was Charlemagne. Most of the capitularies of his reign relate to the discipline of the church. Some of his regulations are such as men of high-church principles would, even in modern times, deem infringements of spiritual independence." He enacted of his own will that "no legend of doubtful authority should be read in the churches, but only the canonical books, and that no saint should be honored whom the whole church did not acknowledge. These were not passed in a synod of bishops, but enjoined by the sole authority of the emperor, who seems to have arrogated a legislative power over the church which he did not possess in temporal affairs. Many of his other laws relating to the ecclesiastical constitution, are enacted in a general council of the lay nobility as well as of the prelates, and are so blended with those of a secular nature, that the two orders may appear to have equally consented to the whole. But whatever share we may imagine the laity in general to have had in such matters, Charlemagne himself did not consider even theological decisions as beyond his province; and in more than one instance, manifested a determination not to surrender his own judgment, even in questions of that nature, to any ecclesiastical authority.

"This part of Charlemagne's conduct is duly to be taken into the account, before we censure his vast extension of ecclesiastical privileges. Nothing was more remote from his character than the bigotry of those weak princes who have suffered the clergy to reign under their names. He acted upon a systematic plan of government, conceived by his own comprehensive genius, but requiring too continual an application of similar talents for durable execution. It was the error of a superior mind, zealous for religion and learning, to believe that men (the clergy) dedicated to the functions of the one, and possessing what remained of the other, might, through strict rules of discipline, enforced by the constant vigilance of the sovereign, become fit instruments to reform and civilize a barbarous empire. It was the error of a magnanimous spirit to judge too favorably of human nature, and to presume that great trusts would be fulfilled, and great benefits remembered.

"It is highly probable, indeed, that an ambitious hierarchy did not endure without reluctance this imperial supremacy of Charlemagne, though it was not expedient for them to resist a prince so formidable, and from whom they had so much to expect. But their dissatisfaction at a scheme of government incompatible with their own objects of perfect independence, produced a violent recoil under Louis the Debonair (Charlemagne's son and successor) who attempted to act the Censor of ecclesiastical abuses with as much earnestness as his father, though with very inferior qualifications for so delicate an undertaking. The bishops (the Romish Wolves in sheep's clothing) accordingly, were among the chief instigators of those numerous revolts of his children which harrassed this emperor. They set upon one occasion, the first example of a usurpation which was to become very dangerous to society, the deposition of sovereigns by ecclesiastical authority. Louis, a prisoner in the hands of his enemies, had been intimidated enough to undergo a public penance; and the Bishops pretended that, according to a canon of the church, he was incapable of returning after to a secular life, or preserving the character of sovereignty. Circumstances enabled him to retain the empire, in defiance of this sentence; but the church (the two horns like a lamb) had tasted the pleasures of trampling upon crowned heads, and was eager to repeat the experiment. Under the disjointed and feeble administration of his posterity in their several kingdoms the Bishops availed themselves of more than one opportunity to exalt their temporal power. Those weak Carlovingian princes, in their mutual animosities, encouraged the pretensions of a common enemy. Thus, Charles the Bald, and Louis of Bavaria, having driven their brother Lothaire from his dominions, held an assembly of some bishops, who adjudged him unworthy to reign, and after exacting a promise from the two allied brothers to govern better than he had done, permitted and commanded them to divide his territories. After concurring in this unprecedented encroachment, Charles the Bald had little right to complain when, some years afterwards, an assembly of bishops declared himself to have forfeited his crown, released his subjects from their allegiance, and transferred his kingdom to Louis of Bavaria. But, in truth, he did not pretend to deny the principle which he had contributed to maintain. Even in his own behalf he did not appeal to the rights of sovereigns, and of the nation they represented. 'No one,' said this degenerate grandson of Charlemagne, 'ought to have degraded me from the throne to which I was consecrated, until, at least, I have been heard and judged by the Bishops, through whose ministry I was consecrated, who are called the Thrones of God in which God sitteth, and by whom he dispenses his judgments; to whose paternal chastisement I was willing to submit, and do still submit myself'."

These are very remarkable passages, and throw considerable light upon the episcopal and ecclesiastical character of the new dominion of the earth. "It seemed," says Hallam, "as if Europe was about to pass under as absolute a domination of the hierarchy, as had been exercised by the priesthood of ancient Egypt, or the Druids of Gaul." Such was the appearance of things which did not belie the reality; so that the appearance, the reality, and the Apocalyptic representation thereof are found to be in harmony. What could more fitly symbolize a dominion in which the episcopal orders were the controlling element than a Beast with two horns like a Lamb, and speaking as a Dragon? The sheep's clothing was a mantle of the imperiality, and strikingly significant when we come to know the customs peculiar to the Romish, or Latin church. Dr. Keith quotes from "Rome in the XIXth Century," the following:

"There is a peculiar sort of blessing given to two lambs on Jan.21, at the church of St. Agnes without the walls; from the sainted fleeces of which are manufactured, I believe, by the hands of nuns, two holy mantles called pallj, which the pope presents to the Archbishops as his principal shepherds." This was a literal investiture with sheep's clothing, which was completed in the Mitre with its two horns, originally springing up right and left over each ear.

In one of his notes, Mr. Elliott informs the reader, that the Jesuit, Joseph Acosta, after approvingly stating the common patristic idea that the second Beast symbolized "a multitude of Antichrist's preachers on whom are the horns of a lamb, because through hypocrisy they pretend that they are saints," proceeds to express his opinion that probably some eminent church dignitary, supporting Antichrist, might very possibly be specially intended; because of two Lamb's horns being the symbol of the episcopal dignity: "quendam acerrimum Antichristi defensorem; eum merito non regem, aut militem, sed virum in ecciesia insignem, quod duo agni cornua episcopalis dignitatis insigne sinL

Another Jesuit named Lacunza in considering the beast of the earth's Lamb-like horns, seems to have recognized their identity with the priesthood to which he belonged. "Our priesthood it is," he exclaims, "and nothing else, which is here signified under the metaphor of a beast with two horns like those of a lamb."

Elliott also quotes from a work styled "The Church of our Fathers" in which the author in his chapter on the Mitre, observes how at the opening of the eleventh century, shortly after the Pope's complete subordination of the Western Clergy to himself, the first sproutings, as it were, of the two horns began to show themselves: and how the mitre then in England "arose into two short points, not raised before and behind as now, but right and left over each ear." He illustrates from figures on the font in Winchester Cathedral, as given in the Vetusta Monumenta. Bonanni remarks that the Greek Bishops do not use the mitre. It is a Latin distinctive.

Thus, the Spirit foreseeing that the Latin Episcopacy of the Western division of the Apostasy would symbolize its ecclesiastical dignity by a two-horned mitre and the fleeces of lamb, adopted them for the Apocalyptic symbol of a dominion to arise in the midst of Europe, the most striking characteristic of which would be its hierarchial and episcopal, so-called "Holy Roman," constitution. In other words, the two episcopal Lamb's horns are to the Beast of the Earth what the "Eyes like the eyes of a man" are to Daniel's Little Horn. The eyes and the Lamb's horns represent the same constituent of the dominion - the ecclesiastical orders of abbots, bishops, archbishops, cardinals and popes; a hierarchy of "Holy Orders" so-called which still support and over-shadow the secular thrones of the Latin world.

Charles the Fat was the last emperor of Charlemagne's family. From his abdication to the establishment of Otho the First may be deemed a vacancy of seventy four years. His father Henry the Fowler, by birth a Saxon, was elected, by the suffrage of the nation, to save and institute the kingdom of Germany. Its limits were enlarged on every side by his son, the first and greatest of the Othos. In the north, he propagated the two-horned superstition by the sword, and subjected the Slavic nations of the Elbe and Oder to its authority. He planted German colonies in the marshes of Brandenburg and Sleswig; and the king of  Denmark, and the dukes of Poland and Bohemia confessed themselves his tributary vassals. At the head of a victorious army, he passed the Alps, subdued the kingdom of Italy, delivered the Pope, and finally fixed the crown of the Two-Horned Romish Episcopal Dragon in the name and nation of Germany. "From that memorable era" (A.D. 962) says Gibbon, "two maxims of public jurisprudence were introduced by force and ratified by time; first, that the prince, who was elected in the German diet, acquired at that instant, the subject kingdoms of Italy and Rome: Second; But that he might not legally assume the titles of emperor and Augustus, till he had received the crown from the hands of the Roman Pontiff"(*)

The popes had not yet reached the height of their ambition. The secular constituent of the Beast was still the imperial master of the popes. This will appear from the established order of their election from A.D. 800 to A.D. 1060. On the death of a pope, the seven cardinal-bishops of Ostia, Porto, Velitra, Tusculum, Praeneste, Tibur, and the Sabines, the suburban dioceses of the Roman province, recommended a successor to the suffrage of the college of cardinals, and their choice was ratified or rejected by the applause or clamor of the Roman people. But the election was imperfect; nor could the pontiff be legally consecrated till the emperor, the Advocate of the Church, had graciously signified his approbation and consent. The imperial commission examined, on the spot, the form and freedom of the proceedings; nor was it till after a previous scrutiny into the qualification of the candidates, that he accepted an oath of fidelity, and confirmed the donations which had successively enriched the patrimony of St. Peter. In the frequent schisms, the rival claims were submitted to the sentence of the emperor; and in a synod of bishops he judged, condemned, and punished, the crimes of a guilty pontiff. Otho the First imposed a treaty on the senate and people, who engaged to prefer the candidate most acceptable to his majesty: his successors anticipated or prevented their choice; and bestowed the Roman benefice, as they bestowed the bishoprics of Cologne or Bamberg, on the chancellors or preceptors.

It is unnecessary to adduce any further historical illustration of this two-horned dominion of the earth. Enough has been cited for its identification. The history of the Holy Roman or German empire is the history of the Beast of the earth with two horns like a Lamb, and speaking as a Dragon. I shall therefore conclude this section in the words of Gibbon, that in the fourteenth century "the hereditary monarchs of Europe (the Ten Horns) confessed the preeminence of the German Caesar's rank and dignity; he was the first of the christian (catholic) princes, the temporal head of the great Republic of the West; to his person the title of majesty was long appropriated; and he disputed with the Pope the sublime prerogative of creating kings and assembling councils. The oracle of the civil law, the learned Bartolus, was a pensioner of Charles IV; and his school resounded with the doctrine, that the Roman emperor was the rightful sovereign of the earth from the rising to the setting sun. The contrary opinion was condemned, not as an error, but as a heresy, since even the gospel had pronounced, 'And there went forth a decree, that all the world should be taxed'."

 

 


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