Revelation, History of Europe and the Antichrist

The beast ascending from the abyss

The history of Europe predicted by Revelation

According to the statue of the four metals, the two cultures represented by the legs and the feet are part of the same kingdom since they are both constituted of iron, the clay of the feet being neutral at this level because as a non-metal it does not have a meaning as a state. Consequently, the Roman empire and the different states that formed in Europe on the ancient territory of the Western empire have common origins.

This is confirmed by the prophecy of the beast that “was, and is not, and is to ascend from the abyss and go to perdition” (Rev 17:8). We have seen that the beast not only signifies the first seven Roman emperors, but also the totality of the Roman empire, its seven heads representing the seven hills of the city of Rome, which was the head of the whole empire. The collapse of this empire in the fifth century consequently corresponds to the disappeared beast. This is why the ten kings “who have not yet received royal power” (Rev 17:12) represent the beast that will return, from the viewpoint of St. John. This is an ascent as kingdoms at first, although later they will obtain a meaning as personal kings (see figure 21). So at first the ten kings refer to the different states that formed after the decline of Rome, which means that the Roman empire and these states are represented by the same beast. They are composed of the same “stuff” the Roman state was made of, as also the prophecy of the statue implies.

According to the prophecy of the statue (Dan 2:39-40), a change of power only occurred when an armed victory of one nation over another took place. This is why the kinship between the Roman state and Europe seems to contradict the fact that the Romans were conquered by foreign people, namely by the Visigoths and Vandals. As the name implies, however, the Western empire was only a part of the whole Roman empire. The other part, the Eastern or Byzantine empire, only disintegrated in the fifteenth century, when it was conquered by the Ottomans. Before this occurred, Charlemagne restored the Roman culture in the Occident, which then remained intact until our days in a certain sense, as we shall see. Moreover, Russia became the spiritual heir of Byzantium, which transmitted its culture and religion to it and thereby also became “alive” again.

This thesis is confirmed by the fact that a fundamental change of power must go along with an important territorial change: the territory of the Babylonians was restricted to the region of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and to the countries on the Mediterranean coast. That of the Persians was already much larger since it occupied the same territory of the Babylonians, but in addition spread toward the region where today Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan are found. The Greeks occupied the region of what is now Greece with a very large part around as well, which tended rather to the East. In contrast with this, the Romans occupied approximately the same territory that later became known as Europe. In addition, it is only because of its history, in which is precisely implied the Roman epoch, that Europe is considered a continent, for it is not entirely surrounded by the sea, it even separates states (Russia and Turkey), and should consequently not be considered a continent from a purely geographical point of view.

According to the biblical prophecies, the Roman empire has therefore never ceased to exist and survived up to our days, being reborn in the various European states and later growing in the Western and Russian imperialism. Thus the Western world, mainly protected by the United States of America, and its former rival the Soviet Union in the East were formed. Similar rivalries are still visible today. Especially America today shares many characteristics with the antique Roman empire, as Bender points out.[59]

However, the so-called Western and Eastern Bloc in the twentieth century made part of a single entity, namely the modern industrial civilization. This unity is easily observable today since the Eastern Bloc has dissolved and has rapidly adopted Western capitalist structures. Between them lies the same division that had already existed during the Roman epoch, separating the Western from the Eastern empire. This is represented by the two legs of Daniel’s statue for the Roman epoch and by the two feet for our time. In this sense, the origin of the term Europe is interesting: the Greeks were the first to call Central Greece by this name and it seems that they had inherited it from the Assyrians, who distinguished asu, the country of the rising sun, the Orient, from ereb or irib, the country of the setting sun, the Occident.[60]

Another common point, which is also necessary to mention, is that the citizens of this modern civilization mainly belong to the white race, which precisely issued from Europe. This fact is neither mentioned to depreciate nor to valorize the white race, because there are no superior or inferior human races as compared to others. We are not the product of natural selection of the fittest (see here). The evil aspect of the apocalyptic beast will in the first place appear in the time of the future Antichrists, that is to say, when the ten kings as persons will step in and persecute the Church. In addition, according to Daniel’s statue, our society is mixed up with Christian values. So it would be wrong to generally demonize our very heterogeneous civilization.

The cultural and political evolution of Europe

Let us analyze more deeply the kinship between antiquity and the modern world according to the biblical prophecies: the Christianization of Europe carried along a considerable diminution of the Roman culture because it was considered evil. But this diminution also had negative consequences for the Church because the scribes and priests became unable to read important texts written in Latin and Greek like, for instance, the works of the early Church Fathers and the Vulgate Bible.

Charlemagne became aware of these problems in the eighth century and remedied them by promoting ancient works, art, public instruction, science, philosophy, Roman law, the Latin language, and so on, because he wanted knowledgeable officials and priests. Thus, the antique culture began to spread once again. Schools were opened and the Roman culture experienced a new spring named the Carolingian renaissance, which perpetuated through the next centuries. The first medieval universities were founded thereafter,[61] thanks to which the Roman language, Latin, stayed alive until the nineteenth century.

Charlemagne also renewed the political culture of ancient Rome by having himself crowned Cæsar following the example of the Roman emperors, which was a novelty since the decline of the empire in Western Europe. Pope Leo III crowned him, which shows that at this time the relation between Church and State was still a harmonious marriage according to Daniel’s prophecy of the statue.

In 962, Otto the Great founded the Holy Roman Empire in Central Europe, which subsisted until 1806 when it was gobbled up by the first French Empire founded by Napoleon, who also dreamed of re-establishing the ancient Roman empire. So too did Mussolini and Hitler, with his vision of a great Germany, which many people considered the Third Reich after the Holy Roman Empire, the first, and the German Empire of Otto of Bismarck, the second. This belief in a third empire was based on the theory of Joachim of Fiore, according to whom history succeeds to three Kingdoms representing the divine Trinity, that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Hitler misused this popular belief for his propaganda but abandoned it later, probably because it was too strongly linked to Christian values.

Let us return to Charlemagne: what he had sown in the eighth century, the Carolingian renaissance, only began to bloom with the renaissance of the twelfth century and later with the Italian Renaissance spreading all over Europe between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. The term renaissance, adopted later for these historical phenomena, is from the French and means rebirth, namely of the Roman culture. During this epoch, not only classical antiquity was reborn, also modern history took its beginnings and has become “adult” today. Modernity is essentially characterized by science and philosophy, which were invented in the classical age and took on a new lease of life with the Renaissance. This is why the revivification of the antique spirit indeed ignited – with Humanism, the Age of Reason and Enlightenment – a slow divorce with the Church and return to paganism, which today is more and more influential in modern society and closely resembles that of antiquity.

The along going scientific revolution also invented modern industry, which is not only behind prosperity but also military superiority, thanks to which Europe became the political center of the whole world at the epoch of colonialism, during which slavery was reintroduced for the first time since antiquity. Today these former colonies, especially the United States, have become independent, yet they retain cultural bonds with Europe. It is well known that America plays a dominant role in the whole world, not only on the political level, but also culturally (music, film, literature, sport, and so on). It inherited this role from Europe, which therefore, directly or indirectly, imposed its culture in the world as formerly the city of Rome little by little dictated its way of life everywhere on the territory of the Roman empire.

Accordingly, our modern culture has a very distant past and the reascent of the beast proceeds very slowly, almost imperceptibly. There is a common thread through the innumerable events that mark our history despite its complexity and its duration spreading over several centuries.

The values of the metals of Daniel’s statue

As seen in Daniel’s prophecy of the statue, the time since the fall of Rome until today is indeed much longer than the duration of the other kingdoms represented by Daniel’s statue. Therefore, the place occupied by its feet seems to be too small, also in regard to the territorial and social importance of the industrialized civilization. However, the statue does not represent a time scale, otherwise one could approximately calculate the date of the end of the world, which shall not be possible according to Mark 13:32. It does not take into account geographical and sociological criteria either.

On the contrary, the metals represent spiritual values that make the magnitude of the Kingdom of God, which grows on earth after the collapse of all terrestrial power (Dan 2:44) and becomes “a great mountain that fills the whole earth” (Dan 2:35). Thus we have to determine what is great or small as compared to the values of this divine Kingdom, which indeed refers to the millennial reign (see here) and will be populated by few persons, at least in the beginning since there will not be many people who survive the preceding judgment, as discussed in The flood of fire of the end times. During that time, it is likely that one will no longer use modern technology, which currently confers a material importance to our civilization. So the magnitude of the Kingdom of God described by Dan 2:35 will without doubt be spiritual, which is in accordance with what Jesus said: “the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven will be the one who humbles oneself like a child” (Mt 18:4).

If we judge the four terrestrial kingdoms according to the values of the Kingdom of Heaven, they descend from these values, for the most ancient of the four kingdoms, that of the Babylonians, is represented by the golden head of the statue (Dan 2:37-38). So it is at the top and is considered the kingdom closest to the Kingdom of Heaven. The others descend successively from the top to the ground and correspondingly lose their value. This is also confirmed by the decreasing values of the metals, that is to say, by the gold, the silver, the bronze and the iron, which rusts and is ephemeral. Iron is however the best metal for making war. Thus it expresses the military domination of the industrialized civilization. But it is nevertheless found on the lowest rank, which points to a certain incompatibility of military power with spiritual values. On that level, the modern civilization is consequently the least among the other kingdoms, since it is represented by the iron feet standing in the dust.

In order to sustain this assumption, one also has to mention that two World Wars have taken place during modern history with an attempt at the genocide of the Jewish people and a number of killed people never attained in history before. Another genocide of our time just as reprehensible is abortion, which is committed even during “times of peace”. Greed has become a plague like never before, there has never been such a big difference between poor and rich people and countries as in our days, just to mention a few signs of decadence.

A reliable indicator in order to know if a society is compatible with the Kingdom of God is the way it treats its weakest individuals. This may be women or children, of course, and the working class. But there are even weaker individuals: animals. Never in history have animals been treated so badly as in modern times. They are tortured and massacred in experiments, kept in small cages as pets, for eggs, fur or bear bile production [62], force-fed for foie gras (especially in France and Hungary), killed for aphrodisiacs and so on.

Another prerogative of a modern welfare society is to eat meat at least once per day for the best affordable prices, with the effect that myriads of domestic animals are produced with the lowest possible costs, cramped in insalubrious and dark installations or even in cages during their whole life.[63] The worldwide meat production has reached immoderate proportions: production of cereals to feed domestic animals in order to produce meat has outreached the cereal production for human consumption with devastating social and environmental consequences.[64]

A society that regards animals in such a contemptuous manner is in complete contradiction with God, who did not predestine animals in the first place to serve humankind but created them with the same love as humans. The fact that God tolerates eating meat in a moderate manner (Gen 9:3) may be considered a concession to the wickedness of human behavior (Gen 6:5). In any case, Adam and Eve were vegetarians before their sin (Gen 2:16), which shows that originally animals were not predestined to be eaten, nor to be otherwise ill-treated or killed. So God is certainly not insensitive to the suffering of animals, as also Matthew 10:29 shows.

In a similar sense, the religious sacrifices of animals in the time of Israel were allowed by God because they were intended to prefigure the sacrifice of the cross. However, Jesus’ sacrifice has its sense in that it shall reveal our sins, our evil behavior regarding God, who we all killed at the cross, in order to make us able to repent. This is why all animals killed for whatever reason along with the millions of killed human babies through abortion symbolize God’s sacrifice and prefigure the future slaughter of the last Saints (see here). At this stage, the madness of modern society will ultimately be revealed. Its social degradation due to apostasy will then reach a point of no return and thereby render its salvation impossible.

The future Antichrist

Remember that the ten horns of the beast apply to the European states that formed on the territory of the ancient Western Roman empire. In the future, they will also apply to the individual leaders of the ten most important states of modern times. These ten heads of state will have some points in common with the seven Roman emperors represented by the seven heads of the beast: as one of them, Domitian, “resuscitated” somehow and became the eighth one (see The first seven Roman emperors), there will be a last one, who will possibly really resuscitate according to Revelation 13:3: “One of its heads seemed fatally wounded, but its mortal wound was healed.”

Daniel also writes about this sovereign in the vision of the four beasts (Dan 7), which represent the same kingdoms as the statue. The last beast of this vision is consequently the same as the one of Revelation. This is why it also has ten horns and teeth of iron (Dan 7:7, Rev 17:12). Daniel writes that among these ten horns an eleventh small horn rose, which uprooted three of the first horns (Dan 7:8). This resembles Vespasian, who was victorious over the three other emperors aspiring to power (Galba, Otho and Vitellius).[65] If we add these three emperors to the eight, there are eleven up to Domitian. So Domitian may also be considered the eleventh emperor. However, it was Vespasian who won the civil war. So Vespasian and Domitian collectively resemble this future eleventh potentate, who will eliminate three others in order to gain access to power.

This is why neither Vespasian (he is not the eleventh emperor) nor Domitian (he is not the winner of the civil war) perfectly corresponds to the prophecy of Daniel. They also lack other characteristics of the Antichrist, who will persecute the Christians like Nero. This is why Nero, Vespasian and Domitian collectively prefigure certain characteristics that will only later be united in a single person, that is to say, in the future Antichrist, who will be victorious over three other potentates like Vespasian, will die and return to life as prefigured by Domitian, and will persecute the Christians like Nero, as summarized by figure 21.

	The beast was...	...is not...	...returns
Roman emperors	5th emperor (Nero)	6th and 7th emperor (Vespasian and Titus)	8th emperor (Domitian)
Civilizations	The Roman empire	Christianization of nascent Europe	Renaissance and modern civilization
Future Antichrist	The 11th king	The 11th king is dead	He resuscitates

Figure 21: The different historical meanings of the beast of Revelation.

By the elimination of three others by the eleventh sovereign, there are consequently eight, as at the time of the first eight Roman emperors, who were also eleven by counting the three eliminated by Vespasian. The numbers eight and eleven, or seven and ten, therefore have a meaning for both ancient Rome and the future, which allows us to conclude that the seven heads of the beast are not only limited to ancient Rome and its emperors but also to the future. This also applies to the ten horns, which do not refer exclusively to the future of the Antichrist either, but the whole beast with its seven heads and its ten horns refers both to ancient Rome and to modern times.

This is important to clarify because Revelation 13:3 states that “one of its heads [of the beast] seemed fatally wounded, but its mortal wound was healed”. If therefore the heads only referred to the past and the horns to the future, this passage would only refer to one of the first Roman emperors, which however cannot be true because none of them is really dead and has come back to life in the biological sense. After this miraculous healing, the Antichrist and the Devil, represented by the dragon, will be adored by the whole world (Rev 13:3-4). This is also a detail that is only prefigured by ancient times, namely by the imperial cult of the Roman emperors. In fact, during the persecutions by Decius and Diocletian, a libellus was given to Roman citizens, a document certifying sacrifices to pagan gods allowing them to pursue trades. So Christians refusing to sacrifice to the Roman gods did not obtain such a libellus and were consequently severely hindered in their daily life. However, Revelation 13:15-17 reports a request to carry the name of the Antichrist on the front or on the right hand to be allowed to buy and sell, which is not quite the same as the Roman libellus.

There is also something else that only agrees with a future time, namely the reign of the ten kings, which will be simultaneous and not successive as during the Roman empire. This is expressed by Revelation 17:12: “but for one hour they will receive royal authority” and demonstrates simultaneity, which is also confirmed by the war they will lead together against Christ (Rev 17:14), that is, against the Church. Since the ten horns also represent an equal number of states, its ten heads of state will separately reign in the ten strongest states and not in a single state as in the Roman epoch. If therefore the Antichrist will reverse three other despots, he will at the same time seize their territories. This is also what Hitler did in the beginning of World War II. So we see that the future is prefigured by the past in many ways.

To conclude, it is worth mentioning that the Antichrist – contrary to a simplistic but unfortunately current logic – will not come out of the most influential and strongest nation, for Daniel describes the Antichrist as “a little horn” that rose among the others (Dan 7:8), without telling that it was the smallest one. In the beginning, the Antichrist will hence reign over a relatively modest nation as compared with the great powers. In fact, Hitler also reigned over a relatively modest nation. Germany was of course very strong compared with France or Great Britain, but was not as strong as America or the USSR, which were already superpowers. This detail could possibly help to pacify the Americanophobia of certain persons.

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Revelation, History of Europe and the Antichrist

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The beast ascending from the abyss

The history of Europe predicted by Revelation

The cultural and political evolution of Europe

The values of the metals of Daniel’s statue

The future Antichrist

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