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said that the builders were repeatedly foiled by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and whirlwinds. The attempt was abandoned. Julian perished in the Persian war, A.D. 363. The brothers Valentian and Valens came to the throne in 364, governing the West and East respectively. In their reign the Goths, under Hermanius, King of the Ostrogoths, to the number of 200,000, were forced across the Danube by the pressure of the Huns, Tartar and Scythian hordes, from beyond the great wall of China. They settled in the Roman provinces with the consent of Valens, but revolted, and slew him at the battle of Adrianople (A.D. 378), in which engagement 40,000 Romans were slain. Gibbon calls this "the disastrous period of the fall of the Roman Empire, which may justly be dated from the reign of Valens" (D. and F., c. xxvi.).

At one and the same time the Suevi, Alani, and Franks invaded Gaul, and the Persians overflowed the Euphrates. In the second year of this reign the greater part of the Roman world was shaken by a violent and destructive earthquake. Then followed the reigns of Gratian, Valentian II., and Theodosius (A.D. 379-395), filled with domestic and foreign

wars.

Theodosius was the last Emperor who saw all the Roman provinces united under one sovereign. His seat of empire was Constantinople. The fifth century saw the downfall of Rome itself, through the invasion of barbarian hordes. Two numerous armies of Goths, under Alaric, crossed the Julian Alps, and conquered the provinces of Istria and Venetia. Alaric was defeated in 402, but returned in 410, when he took Rome, and delivered it to the fury of his soldiers. "Now the long-haired Goths, with Vandals, Suevi, Burgundians, and Alani marched from the shores of the Baltic almost to the gates of Rome, and never afterwards retreated. This may be considered as the fall of the Roman Empire beyond the Alps" (D. and F., cap. xxx.). The siege of Rome by Alaric, in the reign of Honorius, gave rise to a famine, which is described by Gibbon:

"The unfortunate city gradually experienced the distress of scarcity, and at length the horrid calamities of famine. The daily allowance of three pounds of bread was reduced to one half, to one third, to nothing; and the price of corn still continued to rise in a rapid and extravagant proportion. The poorer citizens, who were unable to purchase the necessaries of life, solicited the precarious charity of the rich. . . . The progress of famine invaded the marble palaces of the senators themselves. . . . The food, the most repugnant to sense or imagination; the aliments, the most unwholesome and pernicious to the constitution, were eagerly devoured and fiercely disputed, by the rage of hunger. A dark suspicion was

entertained that some desperate wretches fed on the bodies of their fellow-creatures whom they had secretly murdered; and even mothers (such was the horrid conflict of the two most powerful instincts implanted by nature in the human breast)—even mothers are said to have tasted the flesh of their slaughtered infants. Many thousands of the inhabitants of Rome expired in their houses or in the streets for want of sustenance; and as the public sepulchres without the walls were in the power of the enemy, the stench which arose from so many putrid and unburied carcasses infected the air; and the miseries of famine were succeeded and aggravated by the contagion of a pestilential disease" (D. and F., xxxi.).

In the meanwhile the Suevi, Alani, and Vandals fought their way through Gaul and Spain, where they settled, in 409-the Suevi in the north, the Alani in the west, and the Vandals in the south. The Goths settled down in the provinces close to the Pyrenees. These petty kings, who held their places and power with the consent of Rome, often subsequently joined the Romans in their wars (see R. xvii. 12-16). Boniface invited the Vandals into Africa to aid him with their army. The Vandals finally settled there, A.D. 432.

In the year 451 Attila, King of the Huns, invaded the western provinces with an army of 500,000 men, who had not long before invaded and plundered the eastern provinces. The Romans, calling the Goths, Franks, and other kings to their aid, met and stopped him on the plains of Chalons: 180,000, some say 300,000, dead bodies were left on the field. The following year (452) Attila again invaded Italy, plundering and laying waste all the Roman cities on his line of march, and reducing them to ruins. The battle of Chalons seems to have been prefigured in the great battle described in chapter xix. of the Apocalypse, the battle of Armagedon.

In the year 455, the Romans being at civil war, Eudoxia, widow of the murdered Valentinian, called to her aid the Vandals from Africa. They came across in fleets, under Genseric, and captured Rome, which was given up to pillage for fourteen days and nights; but the principal buildings, and the lives of the citizens, were spared, at the prayer of Pope St. Leo. The Vandals, under Genseric, stretched from Tangier to Tripoli. Their fleets at Carthage claimed the empire of the Mediterranean. In the spring of each year they returned to the pillage of Italy, sometimes crossing the Straits of Gibraltar, and invading Italy from the west. The treasures and spoils of Rome were transferred to Carthage.

In the year 476 Odoacer, King of the Heruli, conquered Italy, and captured Rome. He pensioned off Romulus Augustulus, the last of the emperors of the west, and proclaimed

himself King of Italy. So ended the last of the Roman emperors. The dynasty of "the beast" came to an end with Romulus Augustulus, two names which stand for the City and Empire of Rome!

"I have now accomplished the laborious narrative of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, from the fortunate age of Trajan and the Antonines to its total extinction in the west, about five centuries after the Christian era" (Gibbon, op. cit. cap. xxxviii.).

In the year 489 Theodoric of the East Goths, or Ostrogoths, invaded Italy, and added it to his dominions. He reigned A.D. 493-526. Totila, one of his successors, completed the ruin of Rome in 546. The Roman citizens again suffered the terrible agonies of famine during the siege of Rome by Totila. He ground it down under the iron heel of despotism, and left no spark of life in it.

"After a period of thirteen centuries the institution of Romulus expired; and if the nobles of Rome still assumed the titles of senators, few subsequent traces can be discovered of a public council or constitutional order" (A.D. 553). (Gibbon.)

We have now seen the end of the Roman Empire (A.D. 476) and of the proud city of Rome (A.D. 546). It is very important that we should bear these dates in mind, for they fix the period of the end of the "Roman theme" in the Apocalypse, the fall of "Babylon," and the beginning of the "millennium" which followed.

Gibbon in his "Decline and Fall" shows that all the barbarian tribes which marched across the stage of his history at first in conflict with Rome, were afterwards used as allies. They fought in the Roman ranks, from time to time, against each other, and helped to prop the tottering power of Rome, whose motto was divide et impera. But they almost all settled down in the long run on Roman soil and built up kingdoms for themselves upon her ruins. The Visigoths settled in Spain, the Goths and Ostrogoths in Gaul and Italy, the Alani in Ĝaul, the Burgundians in Burgundy, the Armoricans in Brittany, the Franks on the Rhine, the Thuringians and Suevi in Germany, the Saxons in Britain, the Huns in Thrace, and the Vandals in Carthage. These things are foretold in the Revelation of S. John. An angel declares-" And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, who have not yet received a kingdom, but shall receive power as kings one hour after the beast. These have one design, and their strength and power they shall deliver to the beast. . . . And the ten horns which thou sawest on the beast, these shall hate the harlot (Rome), and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and

shall burn her with fire. For God hath given into their hearts to do that which pleaseth him, that they give their kingdom to the beast until the words of God be fulfilled" (R. xvii. 12, 13, 16, 17).

We can see now how impossible it would be to explain in the first century such matters as the rise of kingdoms then unknown. This part of Revelation must have been an enigma to all, down to the middle ages. In the meantime the exegetical efforts of the ancients had crystallised into a tradition concerning Antichrist, which claimed assent by reason of its antiquity. The transfer of the seat of Empire from Rome to Constantinople brought about a train of ecclesiastical events which enters into the study of Revelation. Constantinople was solemnly proclaimed the capital of the Roman Empire by Constantine in the year 330. He endowed it with magnificent buildings which he embellished with treasures taken from the rest of the Empire. It was his idea that "New Rome" should be the seat of the civil and ecclesiastical governments of the Empire. Although Antioch succeeded Jerusalem in the Primacy of the East, we find Eudoxius, Bishop of Antioch in 360, leaving his see for that of Constantinople. The second Ecumenical Council, A.D. 381, gave the Bishop of Constantinople first place, after Rome. Constantinople claimed primacy over the Churches of the East, and by the Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451, it was allowed the primacy over 420 dioceses. Constantinople was in constant conflict with Rome, and was in fact setting itself up as an autonomous and rival Church, as it is now.

Jesus Christ, in the book of Revelation, addressing the angel or supreme Bishop of the Church in the third era of its existence, called by the name of Pergamos, says, "I know where thou dwellest, where the seat of Satan is, and thou holdest fast my name and hast not denied my faith" (R. ii. 13). Foreseeing the event our Lord declares Rome to be the seat of the head of His Church in the third age which extended from the Edict of Milan, 312, to the sixth century. Rome held fast to the name and faith of Jesus Christ, which were assailed in this age by many heresies, for the most part bred in the Sees under Constantinople. The Arian heresy, which denied that Christ was co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, devastated the Church of the fourth century. Constantine, towards the close of his reign, his son Constantius, and other Roman emperors favoured Arianism.

The Arian heresy was condemned at the Council of Nicæa, A.D. 325. The Macedonian heresy, which impugned the divinity of the Holy Ghost, was broached by Macedonius, Bishop of Constantinople, A.D. 360. The Pelagian heresy regarding grace and original sin appeared about the year 400 A.D. Later

(A.D. 420) Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, taught that the Blessed Virgin was not the mother of God, but of the man Christ. Later again (A.D. 440) Eutyches, the superior of a monastery near Constantinople, taught that there was only one nature in Christ. These were the great heresies which tormented the early Church, and often led to persecution and bloodshed. They came to an end in the beginning of the sixth century, perishing with the fall of the Empire and of pagan Rome.

The political forecast of Revelation stops at the destruction of the city of pagan Rome.

From the sixth century onward to the sixteenth the Revelation predicts a period of a thousand years in which Satan will be chained up, as regards bloody persecution of the Church. At the end of that period it is predicted that he will be loosed again for a short time. These things, in point of fact, have happened. The Revelation further predicts that in the last days Satan will seduce the nations, and they will go up and surround "the Camp of the Saints," i.e., Rome, and "the beloved city," the Civitas Dei, of S. Augustine, i.e., the Church. And after these happenings the day of judgment will appear.

If we depended solely upon the close of the Book of Revelation for eschatological knowledge, we might well expect the end to come quickly, for the "Camp of the Saints," Rome, is surrounded, and the Church is attacked on all sides. But in the Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, we get further information as to the last days. We are told that three ages intervene between the millennium and the end of the world. The penultimate age of the Church (in which we live) will be characterised by a remarkable series of conversions to the Church, especially of the clergy of its erstwhile persecutors. We are told also that the last age of the Church will be characterised by extreme indifference; that it will be wanting both in the fear and love of the Lord.

Opinions will probably differ as to whether the Church at present exhibits these characteristics of the last age or not.

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