America At 250

"Israel's birth came as redemption in the wake of an unprecedented crime — the Holocaust of the Jewish people. The 60 years that followed were punctuated by moments of pride and peril: victories in several wars of national survival, but also by continuing uncertainty about the country's future. Will Israel survive another 60 years if the next decades are dominated by nuclear proliferation, growing violence in the Middle East, intensifying popular passions among the demographically prolific Palestinians, and eventually, the fading of America's regional domination?" 

- Zbigniew Brzezinski, "Israel at 60" Time.

The myths we tell ourselves on a civilizational level are political in nature. The Holocaust and 9/11 are the most famous modern examples. 

Both stories served to cast Israel and America as victims of the Nazis and Muslims. And they have continued to function in that way well into the quarter mark of the 21st century. 

I don't believe peace in the Holy Land and the greater Near East is possible until both stories are finally put to bed. 

Stories are incredibly powerful motivators of human behaviour. If we keep telling ourselves we are victims of terror, of imperialism, of colonialism, of Zionism, of anti-Semitism, of history, of whatever boogeyman of the day, then we will always be trapped in that story.

The story that Palestinians tell themselves hasn't served them well. Granted, they're a colonized people, and they have made honest attempts at peace only to be rebuked by the state of Israel. But calling for the destruction of Israel, as extremist Palestinians and their supporters have done, only invites more violence. 

And Israel is the master of violence. We know the October 7 attacks were largely its doing, not Hamas. But you don't charm a beast by blasting insults at it. 

Palestinians and Muslims have to learn to embrace this beast, and hope it civilizes over time as its irrational anger and politically constructed collective trauma dissipates. 

Where is the so-called Islamic hospitality for Jews?

Iran over the last fifty years has played a very negative role in this process. Under the Ayatollahs it has taken an irresponsible stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its leaders have ran over their own people with the Palestinian bus on their way to Jerusalem.

And American leaders are guilty of the same crime, putting the interests of Israel above their own people for more than half a century.

This summer America will turn 250, and it must change directions or it won't see 300. It is currently unrecognizable to the Founding Fathers. 

I think the leaders of both America and Iran are smart enough to realize that their peoples reject war for foreign interests. They may be monsters but they're still shrewd political animals.

A war over the Holy Land will not serve neither America nor Iran. The region can't handle it. And the world won't tolerate it. 

They need to find a path to peace and create a new story. 

Epstein, Agent of Babylon

Related: David Graeber - Where Did Money REALLY Come From?

"The devil can cite scripture for his purpose." - William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice.

An excerpt from, "Usury and Cosmic Personalism" By R. J. Rushdoony, Chalcedon Foundation, December 15, 2009:

The modern system of commercial credit is, like the Babylonian, a form of slavery. The Civil War saw the abolition of limited private slavery, involving three million people, and the imposition of slavery to the state and the furtherance of slavery to financial interests. Some people are by nature slaves, demanding total security of a master, employer, or of the state. But to impose slavery on our children is no less a sin.

The Sabbath and Jubilee Years again are central. These were types, as was the weekly Sabbath, of the restoration of paradise and the work of Christ. Man ceases from working because he knows it is God's work of grace that saves him. All days of rest in other religions are imitations of biblical faith. No day of rest existed otherwise. Other religions, Babylonian and Pharisaic, are in essence and practice works religions. Christianity, as was true Old Testament faith, is not; hence, it rests in worship to indicate that salvation is not man's work. The rest of the land involved confidence that God's bounty would more than replenish what was lost by man's inactivity. DeTocqueville commented on the importance of the Christian Sabbath in the American republic. The decline of that day of rest has gone hand in hand with the rise of a works religion and a credit economy which mortgages man's future. The deeper significance of this external parallel is that civil slavery is the analogue of spiritual blindness and bondage. But, "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek may face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

The difference between the Babylonian and biblical outlooks has been cited; it remains now to develop it briefly. Economic man had high authority in Babylonian culture. War was seen in essentially economic terms and as a means to economic power. To the Babylonians of Nebuchadnezzar's day, "What mattered to them, so far as the king's victories were concerned, was not the glory of battle so much as the fact that it was a means of consolidating their economic supremacy."

The roots, however, lie deeper, back into the Old Babylonian period of Hammurabi and earlier. There was a class known as tamkaru (singular tamkarum). The word tamkarum can be translated as merchant, broker, merchant banker, money-lender, and government agent.[31] Fulfilling all these functions, he was an able instrument of imperial power, in that, long before any armies marched, he had bound foreign powers to himself both hand and foot. This same policy characterized Assyria, and Nahum cited as a central sin of Assyria before God that it had "multiplied merchants above the stars of heaven,"[32] i.e., exercised economic slavery in one area after another. The Babylonians were money-lenders not only out of dedicated policy but with fervor, zest, and relish. One of their proverbs expresses this outlook clearly: "The giving of a loan is like making love; the returning of a loan is like having a son born."[33] They were thus a breed of proud and happy Shylocks. Their whole world of business moved in terms of credit financing, and their whole concept of social control and of imperialism rested on usury. It is not surprising that Babylon the Great, the harlot, is the type in Revelation of the one-world order which shall seduce all nations.

For biblical economy, loans are not the basis of normal operation as with Babylon, but of abnormal circumstances. As such, and definitely as such, they have their place, but they operate in terms of implicit as well as explicit restrictions. Two kinds of loans were recognized: to the believer without usury but with security, and to the unbeliever, with usury and security. But in both instances the presupposition is that something real, in goods or in money, is transferred, a tangible asset involving only the two parties to the contract. Modern banking, however, is radically different. Banks "create" money by fiat and by the unilateral action of simply recording a loan and a deposit on their books. The consequence is, not the personal and limited action of a biblical loan, but inflation, the dilution of the prior relationship of money units to total goods and services. As a result, there is a dilution of all money, and such "loans" mean an element of robbery in that they reduce the value of all other money units previously in existence. Fractional reserves and modern central banking (i.e., the Federal Reserve System) are modern applications of the old Babylonian principles and are equally conducive to the dream of empire.

Prior to the introduction of central banking, the ability to create fiat money was relatively limited, and it depended in large measure on the confidence of individuals in the local bank. Today, the instrument of control has passed to the larger units, and the Federal Reserve System, its directors and stockholders, the Treasury Department, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and other agencies are engaged in manipulating the money supply. In 1959, "Federal Reserve notes comprised 90% of paper money in circulation and 84% of total money in circulation."

Biblical law is hostile to this pyramiding of credit. It is premised on immediate responsibility, whereas the Babylonian and modern systems evade immediate responsibility. Today, the law penalizes the individual with almost unlimited liabilities, so that every kind of insurance is necessary for the individual as homeowner, driver, and parent (in the event that his child blackens a bully's eyes). On the other hand, corporate irresponsibility is fostered by limited liability laws which, over a period of time, separate property from control, ownership from management, and management from responsibility. Social irresponsibility is thus furthered, and the responsible man hamstrung. Biblical faith declares that a personal God created every fact in the universe, so that every fact is a personal fact. Impersonality is thus ruled out of the universe. As we deal with ourselves and everything under the sun, we deal also with our very personal Creator. Any attempt to introduce impersonality into the universe is to that degree an attempt to separate the universe from the government of God. The impersonal economics of Babylon and of today are thus anti-biblical and are attempts to substitute fiat "creations" of man for the absolute government of God. As such, they incur the wrath of God, whose advance judgment Scripture proclaims: "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen... And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her..." In terms of this comes the summons, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."

In conclusion, in Scripture interest was legal for loans which were not charity loans. Debt was not to be a normal thing or a way of life. Debt was an emergency, or "need," matter, not normally a consumption loan, and only a severely conservative production loan.

An excerpt from, "Understanding What God Commanded Moses About Usury" By Dr. Chad Brand, Institute For Faith, Work & Economics, March 15, 2023:

In the Ancient Near East, lending was very common, as attested by surviving evidence from the time. In Babylon, it was common to lend food or produce at thirty-three and one-third percent interest and to lend money (silver bullion) at twenty percent. In Nuzi in the same period, some loans were made at fifty percent, and there were specific regulations in many lands about what that interest could be.

In a detailed study of such Ancient Near East practices, one scholar has demonstrated that the interest on such loans would be taken out at the time the loan was made, not at the time of repayment. Then, if the loan were not repaid on time, further interest would be charged. Such rates were injurious and subjected many of those who acquired them to be perpetually in the underclass. This was not to be the case for Israel, or so the Lord intended. God’s instructions to Moses here do not simply limit the rate of interest on loans to other Israelites to a moderate amount, but prohibit any interest on such loans. Theologian Walter Kaiser said in his commentary on Exodus, “This law is not dealing with ‘usury’ in our modern sense of the word, i.e., exorbitant or illegal interest, but interest of any kind to a fellow Israelite.”

The significance of this fact is highlighted by the fact that while many earlier portions of the Covenant Code were given in the third person (such as, “if a man seduces a virgin . . . he must pay the bride-price,” 22:16), beginning in verse 22 God the grammar now shifts to the second person; it is now not merely “he,” but “you” and “I.” “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender. . . . When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate” (22:25, 27).

This is obviously a matter that the Lord took with great seriousness. The Hebrew word translated “usury” in the KJV (“interest” in many recent translations) is nesek. The medieval Jewish commentator Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac) pointed out that this Hebrew root meant “to bite,” and commented, “it resembles the bite of a snake . . . inflicting a small wound in a person’s foot which he does not feel at first, but all at once it swells, and distends the whole body up to the top of his head. So it is with interest.” Brevard Childs, who quotes Rashi, and other modern commentators concur with that interpretation of the word.

An excerpt from, "Reshaping Christianity and the Modern State: A Journey from Usury to Fiscal Power" By Michael Hudson, September 1, 2024:

In a similar way my book Super Imperialism in 1972 was viewed by the U.S. Defense Department as a success story about how U.S. foreign policy was obtaining a free international financial ride. Going off gold in 1971 made the dollar the basic medium in which foreign central banks held their monetary reserves. These international reserves were funding the balance-of-payments costs of U.S. military spending abroad. The right wing celebrated this finding, while neither the left wing nor foreign victims criticized dollarization of the world financial system.

My warnings of a broad Latin American default created a backlash of denial I became a balance-of-payments advisor to Canada in the late 1970s and an advisor to UNITAR, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, which published my papers on why Latin America could not afford to pay its debts. I presented these findings at a large UNITAR meeting in Mexico City. The U.S. rapporteur deliberately misrepresented my talk, saying that I had explained how Third World countries could pay their debts with U.S. aid. I stood up and said that this was a falsification of what I and other members of my U.S. delegation (including Bob Fitch and Loren Goldner) believed. I demanded an apology from Luis Echeverria, who had convened the meeting. There was pandemonium and I walked out in protest. The Russian delegate came outside and said that I had taken over the conference by saying the unspeakable.

The “unspeakable” happened pretty quickly. The Italian funders of the UNITAR group insisted that it stop publishing my warnings about Third World debt. I realized that the idea that countries could not pay their debt was really important. It was not unthinkable at all, but it was unspeakable in polite company. In 1982, Mexico defaulted on its bonds, triggering the Latin American “debt bomb.”

I set about studying debt problems and cancellations in the ancient world. When William Shakespeare wrote plays about the kind of social and political intrigues that he found in England, he often placed their action in Italy or some other foreign land so as not to touch a sensitive domestic nerve. A similar logic led me to put the debt problem in its long perspective by writing a history of debt through the ages. I thought that people would be more willing to accept the idea that cancelling debts was needed to avoid economic polarization and impoverishment if they could see how societies through the ages had dealt with the problem of debts exceeding the ability of large parts of the economy to pay. Around 1980-1981, I began to draft this history. I thought that if this logic were accepted for the past, the implications for today would become less unthinkable.

I looked for examples of early recognition that if debts couldn’t be paid on a widespread basis, some authority was needed to write them down, or else a creditor oligarchy would emerge to polarize and ultimately impoverish the economy. Such polarization and impoverishment is clear enough in the modern world. If governments don’t write down Latin America’s debts, for example, the continent’s debtor countries will be obliged to go to the IMF, World Bank and the U.S. State Department. These institutions will insist that the debtor economy would have to “stabilize” its exchange rate by selling off its land, mineral rights and public infrastructure to foreign investors, using the sales proceeds to pay foreign creditors. That will strip away the assets and patrimony of debtor countries.

It was fairly easy to go back to the 19th century and see the financial ruin of Persia and Egypt as a result of debts owed to European bankers. I began taking notes going back to the medieval times and the Crusades with its revival of war debts, and to Rome and Greece such as Solon’s seisachtheia of 594 BC, and to the Biblical Jubilee year. In looking through this literature I found scattered references to earlier Near Eastern debt cancellations.

To trace down these references I began to read about Mesopotamia. Most of the writing was in French and German. I had studied linguistics at the University of Chicago for my BA, but I didn’t read cuneiform. So I began to read translations of the laws of Hammurabi and even more important, the debt cancellations or “clean slates” of Hammurabi and all the other members of his Babylonian dynasty, as well as those of neighboring lands, and earlier in Sumer.

I found that it didn’t matter that I hadn’t studied Assyriology. Having to read Bronze Age royal proclamations in translation actually turned out to be an advantage, because the translation of the royal inscriptions and proclamations was quite different in German, French, English and American. It seemed that each translator used their own preconceptions of what exactly rulers were doing when they “proclaimed order.”

The American popularizer of Sumer, Samuel Kramer, said that its royal amargi acts were simply a tax reduction. He wrote a New York Times op-ed urging Ronald Reagan to cut taxes just like Urukagina did around 2350 BC. Many Mesopotamian tax debts indeed were canceled, because the major debts in the Bronze Age were to the palace and to the temple officials, these being the period’s two large institutions. But these Clean Slates were much more than merely a tax-debt cancellation (much less a “cut”).

The British approach saw these royal proclamations as an expression of free trade. Wilfred Lambert and I had a discussion at one of the Rencontre meetings on that issue. He wanted to see whether I could, as an economist, talk about Assyriology. The one word he chose to discuss was andurarum, which was the Babylonian word that Hammurabi and Assyrian rulers used for a debt cancellation. As part of the Assyrian ruler’s cancellation of debts owed to the palace, royal tariffs on imports also were waived – a particular category of some royal claims, and not limited to the barley debts that were the main aim of royal proclamations. That special case was in a sense free trade, but only one byproduct of proclaiming a Clean Slate.

Andurarum meant literally a free-flowing, meaning that bond servants held by their creditors had the liberaty to go back to their original homes. House slaves (often “mountain girls” that debtors had pledged to creditors were returned to their former masters who owned them. And land that had been forfeited to creditors was restored to debtors. (The Babylonian word was cognate to Hebrew deror, the word used in Leviticus 25 for the kindred Jubilee Year.)

The Germans had just what I was focusing on: a debt cancellation. F. R. Krauss wrote a detailed study of this. But then the French assyriologist Dominique Charpin had the least anachronistic translation of all. He called it a “restoration of order,” a return to the “mother condition” ending the disorder. The root of the Sumerian term for such proclamations, amargi was ama, “mother.” For instance, when the Iraqi President Hussein said that his war against the American invasion by George W. Bush was going to be “the mother of all wars,” he meant the paradigmatic war. Amargi was the paradigmatic social balance that Bronze age society thought should be the norm.

Polybius's Histories

Wikipedia:

Polybius (c. 200 – c. 118 BC) was an ancient Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his Histories, a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covers the period 264–146, recording in detail events in Italy, Iberia, Greece, Macedonia, Syria, Egypt and Africa, and documents the Punic Wars and Macedonian Wars among many others.

Polybius's Histories is important not only for being the only Hellenistic historical work to survive in any substantial form, but also for its analysis of constitutional change and the mixed constitution. Polybius's discussion of the separation of powers in government, of checks and balances to limit power, and his introduction of "the people", all influenced Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws, John Locke's Two Treatises of Government, and the framers of the United States Constitution.

Polybius was a close friend and mentor to the Roman politician and general Scipio Aemilianus (also called Scipio Africanus the Younger), and had a lasting influence on his decision-making and life.

 . . .Polybius was considered a poor stylist by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing of Polybius's history that "no one has the endurance to reach [its] end". Nevertheless, clearly he was widely read by Romans and Greeks alike. He is quoted extensively by Strabo writing in the 1st century BC and Athenaeus in the 3rd century AD.

His emphasis on explaining causes of events, rather than just recounting events, influenced the historian Sempronius Asellio. Polybius is mentioned by Cicero and mined for information by Diodorus Siculus, Livy, Plutarch and Arrian. Much of the text that survives today from the later books of The Histories was preserved in Byzantine anthologies.

His works reappeared in the Western world first in Florence during the Italian Renaissance. Polybius gained a following in Italy, and although poor Latin translations hampered proper scholarship on his works, they contributed to the city's historical and political discourse. Niccolò Machiavelli in his Discourses on Livy evinces familiarity with Polybius. Vernacular translations in French, German, Italian and English first appeared during the 16th century. Consequently, in the late 16th century, Polybius's works found a greater reading audience among the learned public. Study of the correspondence of such men as Isaac Casaubon, Jacques Auguste de Thou, William Camden and Paolo Sarpi reveals a growing interest in Polybius's works and thought during the period. Despite the existence of both printed editions in the vernacular and increased scholarly interest, however, Polybius remained a "historian's historian", not much read by the public at large.

Polybius's political analysis has influenced republican thinkers from Cicero to Montesquieu to the Founding Fathers of the United States. John Adams, for example, considered him one of the most important teachers of constitutional theory. Since the Age of Enlightenment, Polybius has in general held appeal to those interested in Hellenistic Greece and early Republican Rome, while his political and military writings have lost influence in academia. More recently, thorough work on the Greek text of Polybius, and his historical technique, has increased the academic understanding and appreciation of him as a historian.

Video Title: Brian McGing introduces Polybius: The Histories. Source: Oxford Academic (Oxford University Press). Date Published: March 29, 2012. Description:

In this short film, Brian McGing of Trinity College, Dublin, introduces the work of the ancient Greek historian, Polybius. His edition of Polybius's Histories, translated by Robin Waterfield, is available as an Oxford World's Classic. 

 

Video Title: Greek and Roman Historians: Lecture Nine: Polybius. Source: Fr. Dn. Matthew Keil. Date Published: March 21, 2024.

The Assassination of Gaddafi's Son, The Assad Getaway, And The Dynastic Principle In Politics

After reading Robert Worth's "The Fall of The House of Assad" published on February 6 in The Atlantic, I just have to say, man, what a disgrace. 

So many good men died for that piece of shit. He didn't even have the decency to make one final speech and explain to Syrians why he abandoned them in the middle of the night. It was like he was never their leader. He just happened to occupy an office he inherited from his father. 

I don't think he ever wanted to be the president of Syria. As I've said in the past, the honourable thing to have done was to commit suicide, not hop on a jet to Moscow as soon as the clock struck midnight.

But Assad was never a fighter. That's clear now. Putin, the Ayatollahs and Hezbollah propped up a mouse. They wasted men and money on a nobody.

And now a sly fox has captured the chickens. 

The current Al-Qaeda figurehead in Damascus is illegitimate. He was not popularly elected, and his hold on power is tenuous because he gained the throne largely without a fight. Backdoor dealing and political intrigue elevated him to the president's chair, not military conquest. 

Even now, fourteen months after seizing the capital, he still has to rely on Turkey, the United States, Israel, France, England, the EU, and the Arab monarchs to impress his power on Syrians. 

And many of them have already defied him, most recently the tribes that left the Kurdish-led administration in the north of the country to join the Damascus government. Apparently they want a cut of the oil money that they grown used to getting for the past decade which they're not receiving presently. 

The government of Damascus thinks they're ruling over scared slaves. But things have changed. A decade of war, starvation sanctions, and high inflation has turned Syrians more combative towards the government. Many of them are armed. These are tough people. They aren't willing to acquiesce so cheaply and suffer another dictatorship, even one couched in religious appeal.

The country is still a mess, and it will be for the foreseeable future. An Al-Qaeda inspired regime cannot bring political stability to a country of diverse sects and ethnicities. And I'm guessing that's what Israel is banking on.

Libya still hasn't recovered from the disaster in 2011, and now Gaddafi's second son and successor is dead, so the country's future looks even more bleak.

The problem with Assad, Gaddafi, and ad hoc political dynasties is that they forget about the succession. 

Gaddafi should have handed power over to his son many moons ago. Assad should have transferred his dying regime to other, more capable hands since he was never interested in ruling.

These Arab dictators were outwitted by the Jews because of their own frailties and weaknesses. They thought they were lions, but true lions prepare for succession and don't allow their kingdoms to be taken over by hyenas.

Sir Robert Anderson - The Coming Prince

 

Wikipedia:

Sir Robert Anderson KCB (29 May 1841 – 15 November 1918) was the second Assistant Commissioner (Crime) of the London Metropolitan Police, from 1888 to 1901. He was also an intelligence officer, theologian and writer.

. . .He was especially close to some of the greatest biblical teachers of his day, including James Martin Gray, Cyrus Scofield, A. C. Dixon, Horatius Bonar and E. W. Bullinger. He also preached with John Nelson Darby in the West of Ireland. Anderson was a member of the Plymouth Brethren, first with Darby then with the Open Brethren party, before returning to his Presbyterian roots. He wrote numerous theological works: C. H. Spurgeon commented that Anderson's book Human Destiny was "the most valuable contribution on the subject" that he had seen.

Today he is best known for his book, The Coming Prince, linked below, in which he explained the prophecy of the Book of Daniel 9:24. Daniel said the Jewish Messiah would come 483 years after the commandment (of Artaxerxes, king of Persia) to rebuild and restore Jerusalem. Anderson's calculations showed that Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem to public acclaim, Luke 19, known as the Triumphal Entry, on the precise day that was prophesied by Daniel.

An excerpt from, "The Coming Prince" by Sir Robert Anderson, 1894, Chapter 15:

The personality of Satan and his interest in and close connection with our race throughout its history, are among the most certain though most mysterious facts of revelation. The popular classification of angels, men, and devils, as including intelligent creation, is misleading. The angels[18] that fell are "reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the Great Day." (Jude 6) Demons are frequently mentioned in the narrative of the Gospels, and they have also a place in the doctrine of the Epistles. But THE DEVIL is a being who, like the Archangel, seems, in his own domain, to have no peer.

     Another fact which claims notice here is the hold which serpent worship has had upon mankind. Among the nations of the ancient world there was scarcely one in whose religious system it had not a place. In heathen mythology there is scarcely a hero or a god whose history is not connected in some way with the sacred serpent. "Wherever the devil reigned the serpent was held in some peculiar veneration."

     The true significance of this depends on a just appreciation of the nature of idol worship. It may be questioned whether idolatry as popularly understood has ever prevailed except among the most debased and ignorant of races. It is not the emblem that is worshipped, but a power or being which the emblem represents. When the Apostle warned the Corinthian Church against participating in anything devoted to an idol, he was careful to explain that the idol in itself was nothing. "But" (he declared) "the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, not to God, and I would not that ye should have fellowship with demons." (1 Corinthians 10:20.)

     This will afford an insight into the character of the predicted serpent worship of the last days.[21] Satan's master lie will be a travesty of the incarnation: he will energize a man who will claim universal worship as being the manifestation of the Deity in human form. And not only will there be a false Messiah, but another being, his equal in miraculous power, yet having for his only mission to obtain for him the homage of mankind. The mystery of the Godhead will thus be parodied by the mystery of iniquity, and the Father, the Son, and the Spirit will have their counterpart in the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet.

A silent heaven marks this age of grace. Whirlwind and earthquake and fire may awe, yet, as in the days of the old Hebrew prophet, God is not in these, but in the "still small voice" which tells of mercy and seeks to win lost men from the power of darkness to Himself. But the very silence which betokens that the throne of God is now a throne of grace is appealed to as the crowning proof that God is but a myth; and the coarse blasphemer's favorite trick is to challenge the Almighty to declare Himself by some signal act of judgment. In days to come, the impious challenge will be taken up by Satan, and death shall seize on men who refuse to bow before the image of the Beast.

     The Antichrist will be more than a profane and brutal persecutor like Antiochus Epiphanes and some of the Emperors of Pagan Rome; more than a vulgar impostor like Barcochab. Miracles alone can silence the skepticism of apostates, and in the exercise of all the Dragon's delegated power, the Beast will command the homage of a world that has rejected grace. "All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life." (Revelation 8:8) If it were possible, the very elect would be deceived by his mighty "signs and wonders"; (Matthew 24:24) but faith, divinely given, is a sure, as it is the only, safeguard against credulity and superstition.

     But this is what he will become in the zenith of his career. In his origin he is described as a "little horn," (Daniel 7:8) – like Alexander of Macedon, the king of a petty kingdom. Possibly he will be the head of some new Principality to arise in the final dismemberment of Turkey; it may be on the banks of the Euphrates, or perhaps upon the Asian shore of the Aegean Sea. The name of Babylon is strangely connected with events to come, and Pergamus, so long the home of serpent worship in its vilest forms, is the only place on earth which Scripture has identified with Satan's throne (Revelation 2:13).

     Of the great political changes which must precede his advent, the most conspicuous are the restoration of the Jews to Palestine, and the predicted division of the Roman earth. The former of these events has already been considered in a previous chapter, and as regards the latter there is but little to be said. The attempt to enumerate the ten kingdoms of the future would involve a profitless inquiry.[26] History repeats itself; and if there be any element of periodicity in the political diseases by which nations are afflicted, Europe will inevitably pass through another crisis such as that which darkened the last decade of the eighteenth century. And should another revolution produce another Napoleon, it is impossible to foretell how far kingdoms may become consolidated, and boundaries may be changed. Moreover in forecasting the fulfillment of these prophecies, we are dealing with events which, while they may occur within the lifetime of living men, may yet be delayed for centuries. Our part is not to prophecy, but only to interpret; and we may well rest content with the certainty that when the Apocalyptic visions are in fact fulfilled, their fulfillment will be clear, not merely to minds educated in mysticism, but to all who are capable of observing public facts.

Through the gradual unfolding, it may be, of influences even now in operation; or far more probably as the outcome of some great European crisis in the future, this confederation of nations[27] shall be developed, and thus the stage will be prepared on which shall appear that awful Being, the great leader of men in the eventful days which are to close the era of Gentile supremacy.

     If we are to understand aright the predicted course of the Antichrist's career, certain points connected with it must be clearly kept in view. The first is that up to a certain epoch he will be, notwithstanding his pre-eminence, no more than human. And here we must judge of the future by the past. At two-and-twenty years of age, Alexander crossed the Hellespont, the prince of a petty Grecian state. Four years later he had founded an Empire and given a new direction to the history of the world.

     In the career of Napoleon Bonaparte, modern history affords a parallel still more striking and complete. When, now just a hundred years ago, he entered the French military school at Brienne, he was an unknown lad, without even the advantages which rank and wealth afford. So utterly obscure was his position that, not only did he owe his admission to the school to the influence of the Governor of Corsica, but calumny has found it possible to use that trifling act of friendly patronage to the disparagement of his mother's name. If then such a man, by the gigantic force of his personal qualities, combined with the accident of favoring circumstances, could attain the place which history has assigned to him, the fact affords the fullest answer to every objection which can be urged against the credibility of the predicted career of the man of prophecy.

     Nor will it avail to urge that the last fifty years have so developed the mental activity of civilized races, and have produced such a spirit of independence, that the suggestion of a career like Napoleon's being repeated in days to come involves an anachronism. "In proportion as the general standard of mental cultivation is raised, and man made equal with man, the ordinary power of genius is diminished, but its extraordinary power is increased, its reach deepened, its hold rendered more firm. As men become familiar with the achievements and the exercise of talent, they learn to despise and disregard its daily examples, and to be more independent of mere men of ability; but they only become more completely in the power of gigantic intellect, and the slaves of pre-eminent and unapproachable talent."

By the sheer force of transcendent genius the man of prophecy will gain a place of undisputed pre-eminence in the world; but if the facts of his after career are to be understood, considerations of a wholly different kind must be taken into account. A strange crisis marks his course. At first the patron of religion, a true "eldest son of the church," he becomes a relentless and profane persecutor. At first no more than a king of men, commanding the allegiance of the Roman earth, he afterwards claims to be divine, and demands the worship of Christendom.

     And we have seen how this extraordinary change in his career takes place at that epoch of tremendous import in the history of the future, the beginning of the 1, 260 days of the latter half of Daniel's seventieth week. Then it is that that mysterious event takes place, described as "war in heaven" between the Archangel and the Dragon. As the result of that amazing struggle, Satan and his angels are "cast out into the earth," and the Seer bewails mankind because the devil is come down into their midst, "having great wrath because he knoweth that he hath but a short time" (Revelation 12:7, 12).

     The next feature in the vision is the rise of the ten-horned Beast. (Revelation 13:1) This is not the event described in the seventh of Daniel. The Beast, doubtless, is the same both in Daniel and the Apocalypse, representing the last great empire upon earth; but in the Apocalypse it appears at a later stage of its development. Three periods of its history are marked in Daniel. In the first it has ten horns. In the second it has eleven, for the little horn comes up among the ten. In the third, it has but eight, for the eleventh has grown in power, and three of the ten have been torn away by it. Up to this point Daniel's vision represents the Beast merely as "the fourth kingdom upon earth," the Roman empire as revived in future times, and here the vision turns away from the history of the Beast to describe the action of the little horn as a blasphemer and persecutor.

It is at this epoch that the thirteenth chapter of Revelation opens. The three first stages of the history of the empire are past, and a fourth has been developed. It is no longer a confederacy of nations bound together by treaty, with a Napoleon rising up in the midst of them and struggling for supremacy; but a confederacy of kings who are the lieutenants of one great Kaiser, a man whose transcendent greatness has secured to him an undisputed pre-eminence. And this is the man whom the Dragon will single out to administer his awful power on earth in days to come. And from the hour in which he sells himself to Satan he will be so energized by Satan, that "ALL power and signs and lying wonders" shall characterize his after course.

     There is a danger lest in dwelling on these visions as though they were enigmas to be solved, we should forget how appalling are the events of which they speak, and how tremendous the forces which will be in exercise at the time of their accomplishment. During this age of grace Satan's power on earth is so restrained that men forget his very existence. This, indeed, will be the secret of his future triumphs. And yet how unspeakably terrible must be the dragon's power, witness the temptation of our Lord! It is written, "The devil, taking Him up into an high mountain, showed unto Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; and the devil said unto Him, All this power will I give Thee, and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it. If Thou, therefore, wilt worship me, all shall be Thine." (Luke 4:5-7)

     It is this same awful being who shall give to the Beast his throne, his power, and great authority, (Revelation 8:2) – all that Christ refused in the days of His humiliation. The mind that has realized this stupendous fact will not be slow to accept what follows:

"And power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations; and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb" (Revelation 13:7, 8).

Of the events which afterwards must follow upon earth, it behooves us to speak with deep solemnity and studied reserve. The phenomenon of sudden and absolute darkness is inconceivably terrible, even when eagerly looked for with full intelligence of the causes which produce it. How unspeakable then would be its awfulness, if unexpected, unaccounted for, and prolonged, it may be for days together. And such shall be the sign which Holy Writ declares shall mark the advent of earth's last great woe. The signs and wonders of Satanic power shall still command the homage of mankind, while the thunders of a heaven no longer silent will break forth upon the apostate race. Then will be the time of "the seven last plagues," wherein "is filled up the wrath of God," – the time when "the vials of the wrath of God" shall be poured out upon the earth. (Revelation 15:1; 16:1.) And if in this day of grace the heights and depths of God's longsuffering mercy transcend all human thoughts, His WRATH will be no less Divine. "The day of vengeance of our God," "the great and the terrible day of the Lord," – such are the names divinely given to describe that time of unexampled horror.

     And yet when in the midnight darkness of the last apostasy, Divine longsuffering will only serve to blind and harden, mercy itself shall welcome the awful breaking of the day of vengeance, for blessing lies beyond it. Another day is still to follow. Earth's history, as unfolded in the Scriptures, reaches; on to a Sabbatic age of blessedness and peace; an age when heaven shall rule upon the earth, when, "the Lord shall rejoice in all His works," (Psalm 104:31) and prove Himself to be the God of every creature He has made (Psalm 145:9-16).

     Further still, the veil is raised, and a brief glimpse afforded us of a glorious eternity beyond, when every trace of sin shall have been wiped out for ever, when heaven will join with earth, and "the tabernacle of God" – the dwelling place of the Almighty – shall be with men, "and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God"[33]

     It was a calamity for the Church of God when the light of prophecy became dimmed in fruitless controversy, and the study of these visions, vouchsafed by God to warn, and guide, and cheer His saints in evil days, was dismissed as utterly unprofitable. They abound in promises which God designed to feed His people's faith and fire their zeal, and a special blessing rests on those who read, and hear, and cherish them. (Revelation 1:3) One of the most hopeful features of the present hour is the increasing interest they everywhere excite; and if these pages should avail to deepen or direct the enthusiasm even of a few in the study of a theme which is inexhaustible, the labor they have cost will be abundantly rewarded.