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“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.”
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Western Rome was divided into ten Barbarian kingdoms. Seven of these ten kingdoms were converted to Christianity and submitted to the authority of the Bishop of Rome. However, three of the kingdoms converted to Christianity but embraced the heretical teachings of Arius. Arius (who was presbyter in Alexandria around the year 320 A. D.) taught that ‘Christ was created out of nothing as the first and greatest of all creatures’.
The teachings of Arius were condemned in two great church councils, Nicaea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD). These three Arian kingdoms were a threat to the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome [later called the Pope]. These three kingdoms eventually were uprooted by the imperial power acting under the influence of the Bishop of Rome. The Ostrogoths, by order of the emperor, dealt the heretical Heruli a devastating defeat in 493.
“His [Odovacar, king of the Heruli’s] interference in the Papal election had cast into the Roman Church the seed of a deep and threatening distrust towards him.”
“Rome could never forgive such an affront, and through its faithful ally, the emperor, another barbarian nation, the Ostrogoths, were called in to destroy the Heruli. Niccolo Machiavelli relates how the popes used such a method. He says:
‘Nearly all the wars which the northern barbarians carried on in Italy, it may be here remarked, were occasioned by the pontiffs; and the hordes, with which the country was inundated, were generally called in by them[the popes]. The same mode of proceeding still continued, and kept Italy weak and unsettled.’
The Pope requested the emperor to do something about the unorthodox Heruli. In response, the emperor sent Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths to do battle with Odovacar, king of the Heruli. Odovacar was slain by Theodoric and the Heruli disappeared from history. The first of the three horns was now uprooted.
The second horn to be uprooted was the Vandals. In 538 the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, Justinian, bestowed the title of Universal Bishop upon Pope Vigilius. The popes, by an act of self-appropriation, had long before taken the religio-political title of Pontifex Maximus after Emperor Gratian ceased to use that imperial title in 375.
Justinian became Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in 527. A man of religious inclinations, he instituted “holy” wars against the Vandals and the Ostrogoths. He was protecting the Catholic faith against Arian invaders. The Arians taught that Christ was altogether human and not divine. Under Justinian’s general, Belisarius, the Vandals were overthrown in 536. “After this,” “the Vandals disappeared from history.”
But according to the prophecy of Daniel chapter seven, there was one remaining horn which needed to be uprooted, and it was the most formidable of all: the Ostrogoths. After the Ostrogoths conquered the Heruli, they became extremely powerful. They were also Arians, so the Bishop of Rome [the Pope] implored Justinian to uproot the Ostrogoths. Justinian, in turn, implored the Franks to help him in his holy enterprise:
“When Justinian first meditated the conquest of Italy, he sent ambassadors to the kings of the Franks, and adjured them, by the common ties of alliance and religion, to join in the holy enterprise against the Arians.”
In 538 Justinian’s forces evicted the Ostrogoths from Rome. They were extinct before 554.
And a direct fulfilment of the prophecy, “...he shall subdue three kings.” The last of the three uprooted horns had met its demise, never to rise again. The way was now open for the Papacy to rule Western Europe.
