Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Historian Will Durant on that 4th Beast in Daniel

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. 
Daniel 7:7

"Historian Will Durant writes of Daniel’s fourth beast: 
When Christianity conquered Rome, 
the ecclesiastical structure of the pagan church
the title and vestments of the Pontifex Maximus
the worship of the Great Mother goddess 
and a multitude of comforting divinities … 
the joy and solemnity of old festivals, 
and the pageantry of immemorial ceremony, 
passed like maternal blood into the new religion, and captive Rome captured her conqueror
The reigns and skills of government were handed down by a dying
empire to a virile
Papacy
The lost power of the broken sword was reclaimed by the magic of the consoling word. 
The armies of the state were replaced by the missionaries of the church, moving in all directions along the Roman roads, and the revolted provinces, accepting Christianity, again acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome.
The church, with the shadow of ancient authority behind it, was the only symbol left of imperial Rome
Its bishop, the pope of Rome, was the city’s only recourse for leadership and protection.
The Roman Empire in Europe would be replaced by the spiritual empire, which came to be temporal as well, whose reigning seigneur was the bishop of Rome” (Caesar and Christ, page 672)."  
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