The Kings of the Earth v The Kings of the East

In his Lectures on the Apocalypse: Critical, Expository, and Practical (1849) Canon Wordsworth (later the Anglican Bishop of Lincoln), writes, after first stating that in his opinion, the term ‘Kings of the East’ was ‘figurative, and [was] to be understood spiritually’, that:

‘[T]he Kings from the East, or Sun-rising, whose Way is prepared, are the faithful soldiers of Christ. Their Kingdom is to serve Christ’; and ‘[The] Kings of the Earth are opposed to [the] Kings of the East . . . Such, then, is the Plague which St. John announces to the World in the Sixth Vial.’ (pp. 434, 436-437, 440).

As can be seen by the title-pages of the two books heading this post: the rivalry between the German Empire and its jealousy of the Imperial splendour and vastness of the British Empire, was one of the factors (taking place under the drying up of the Turkish Empire under the Sixth Vial) that contributed to the destructive passions let loose in the outbreak of the First Word War.

In a recent work concentrating on this aspect of the First World War its author Sean McMeekin remarks:

‘[Kaiser] Wilhelm [viewed himself] strutting across the world stage as a true modern Alexander, taking in Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Persia and toppling the British Raj. . . . Whereas Hitler was willing to concede the British their global, sea-based empire in exchange for recognition of his own domination of the Eurasian landmass, Wilhelm wanted the British Empire too, including its crown jewels of Egypt and India.’ (The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power 1898-1918; Allen Lane/Penguin Books, 2010; pp. 2-3).

And in the chapter entitled “A Gift from Mars: German Holy War Fever” Sean McMeekin writes:

‘We may never know for sure what was said behind closed doors in Berlin as the European diplomatic crisis heated up in July 1914. The key German policy-makers, including Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg and Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the General Staff, all burned their private papers from the period. Although there is clear evidence that Bethmann Hollweg (on Kaiser Wilhelm’s instructions) issued a ‘blank cheque’ inviting Vienna to retaliate against Serbia on 5 July, the extent to which the Germans deliberately sought to provoke a general European war remains controversial. . . .

‘If the evidence of premeditation in July is inconclusive, however, the extraordinary war fever which overcame the German government in August can be documented without a shadow of doubt. Audacious plans for world conquest were openly bandied about in once-conservative government ministries. The ‘gift from Mars’ meant that the gloves were finally off in Germany’s battle with Britain for global supremacy.’ (ibid. pp. 85-86)

And goes on later to state, that:

‘Because of the central role [that] the Kaiser’s jihad stratagem plays in Fritz Fischer’s controversial indictment, Germany’s Aims in the First World War, it has become customary for Fischer’s critics to dismiss these plans as peripheral to Germany’s overall war strategy. In a work still considered the gold standard, Germany and the Ottoman Empire, 1914-1918, Ulrich Trumpener writes that, although the anti-British holy war idea was a ‘recurring theme of the Kaiser’s famous marginalia, there is no evidence that Berlin had any coherent action plans on hand when World War I broke out’. Any measures the Germans did take to launch jihad-style uprisings against the Entente powers in August 1914, Trumpener writes, ‘bore all the hallmarks of hasty improvisation’. Those who have followed Trumpener’s analysis, such as David Fromkin, have likewise dismissed the importance of the jihad campaign, arguing that it had little bearing on either Turkey’s entry into the war or on the way the war was really fought.

‘To dismiss the importance of pan-Islam in Germany’s wartime plans, however, is to fall victim to hindsight. In 1914, if not when they were writing post-war memoirs, Germany’s leaders saw in Islam the secret weapon which would decide the world war.’ (ibid.pp. 86-87).

The quotes that follow below are taken from the two works whose title-pages are reproduced in the heading to this post - both of which were written whilst the First World War was still raging. First, from the uppermost work:

‘Backed as the [Baghdad Railway] project was by the German government, steadily growing in power and aggressiveness since the establishment of the united German Empire, it added to the already complicated Eastern Question an aggravating factor that contributed largely to the outbreak of the great war. The present struggle for supremacy among European powers resolves itself in its ultimate analysis into a rivalry for the control of the East as an adjunct to commercial expansion. The “trend towards the East” did not originate with modern Germany. It began with Greece, was taken up by ancient Rome and has actuated every Western power with ambitions to extend its commerce and its sphere of influence — Spain, Holland, England and France, and in days nearer to us Russia and Germany, Austria and Italy. Through a curious combination of circumstances, superinduced by the gradual weakening of the once dominant Turkish Empire, the struggle has shaped itself into its present aspect for a control of the great highway that is the key to the East — the nearer and the farther East.

‘A survey of the history of Asia Minor, as a resultant of the geographical contour of the region, furnishes the illustration to the thesis that the most recent events are merely the repetition on a larger scale of such as took place thousands of years ago, and at frequent intervals since. The weapons have changed, new contestants have arisen to take the place of civilizations that after serving their day faded out of sight, but the issue has ever remained the same. We are confronted by that issue to-day — the control of the highway that leads to the East. Through the war archaeological investigations and historical researches have been removed from their academic isolation to furnish the explanation for the political import of the Bagdad Railway project. The study of the remote past, so energetically pursued by European and American scholars during the past decades, is brought into the foreground through the stirring events of our days to illumine the bearings of the historic highway of Asia Minor on the issues at stake in the present world conflict. The decisive battlefields for the triumph of democracy are in the West, but the decision for supremacy among European nations lies in the East.’

(From: The War and the Bagdad Railway: The Story of Asia Minor and Its Relation to the Present Conflict; by Morris Jastrow, Jr., Ph.D., LL.D.,; published J. B. Lippcott Company, Philadelphia and London, 1917; pp. 29-30).

And from the second work:

'[T]here is a very serious and a real cause for this great world battle. That cause above all others was the colonial and commercial rivalries of the several nations of Europe as they center, in their interests, around England and Germany[1] who stand at the head of the Triple Entente, and the Triple Alliance respectively. “It has long been evident to students of world politics that there is only one international situation which threatens the peace of the civilized world. That is the rivalry between England and Germany. There is no other rivalry, dispute, or misunderstanding between nations that could not be settled peacefully and quickly if this Anglo-German problem did not, directly or indirectly, retard such a settlement. German and British policies on four continents are determined or conditioned by the mutual enmity and fear of these two powers. Because British policies and interests clash with German policies and interests, Europe is divided into two great groupings of nations, which during the past half decade have almost evenly balanced the military strength of the continent, and it has been the fear of disturbing this balance that has prevented the settlement of more than one grave political and economic and social question.”[2]'

(From the Introduction to The Anglo-German Commercial and Colonial Rivalry as a Cause of The Great War; by Oscar Albert Marti, M.A.; The Stratford Company, Publishers, 1917; pp. xiii-xiv).

From footnotes:

[1] “England with her long history of successful aggression, with her marvelous conviction that in persuing her interests she is spreading light among nations dwelling in darkness, and Germany, bone of the same bone, blood of the same blood, with a lesser force but perhaps a keener intelligence, compete in every corner of the globe. In the Transvaal, at the Cape, in Central Africa, in India and the East, in the islands of the South Sea, and in the far Northwest, wherever — and where has it not? — the flag has followed the Bible, there the German bagman is struggling with the English pedlar. Is there a mine to exploit, a railroad to build, a native to convert, from breadfruit to tinned meat, from temperance to trade gin, the German and the Englishman is struggling to be first. A million petty disputes build up the greatest cause of war the world has ever seen. If Germany were extinguished tomorrow there is not an Englishman in the world who would not be richer. Nations have fought for years over a city or right of succession. Must they not fight for two hundred fifty million pounds of commerce.” — Rohrbach, “German World Policies,” p. 180. Quoted from the “Saturday Review,” September, 1897.

[2] “Review of Reviews,” XLV, p. 281.

And from Chapter I of the same work (entitled, “The Colonial Ascendancy of Great Britain”):

'The tendency of the political development of the English People according to her own historians, and Anglophiles in general, has been one steady trend towards liberty and democracy. The English speaking people have regarded themselves as the torchbearers of that civilization which the world, at the first decade of the twentieth century, realized it had attained. From the standpoint of the Germans, however, England is viewed as the great robber state that, having taken advantage of the misfortunes of the other nations, gobbled up one-fifth of the land area of the habitable world and insists on holding possession, not by virtue of her power to defend, but by reason of her ability to bluff. Germany, also, regards herself as the heir presumptive to the colonial kingdom of the world. To her, England is a colossus with feet of iron mixed with miry clay; while Germany is the stone destined to smite the image on the feet, to its utter destruction, and eventually to become the great mountain that will fill the whole earth.' (ibid. p. 1).

(For other posts on the “Kings of the East” click on the link in the Index below).

Armageddon – the valley of “excision”

(Above: A WWI German machine-gun crew. From a footnote to the work cited below: 'Joel iii. 14. . . . a threshing instrument, formed with revolving cylinders, armed with sharp pieces of iron. See Jahn Archæol. Bibl. § 64.')

From Canon (later Bishop) Wordsworth's Lectures on the Apocalypse (1849):

'What is meant by Armageddon?

'St. John refers us to the Hebrew tongue, and there the word Har signifies a Mountain; and it is rightly affirmed that Armageddon is a word formed by St. John to signify a defeat and slaughter, such as that of the Kings of Canaan at Megiddo, in the region of Galilee, wrought by a miraculous interposition of Almighty God, discomfiting the vast and terrible army of Sisera and his confederate Princes. . . . (pp. 447).

'It must also be observed, that King Josiah was defeated and mortally wounded at Megiddo [2 Chron. xxxv. 20.]; and though Josiah was a pious King, yet it must be remembered that, when at Megiddo, he was disobeying a divine command, given him by the Prophet Jeremiah. He was endeavouring to repel Pharaoh-Necho, who was marching towards the river Euphrates, to besiege Babylon . . .

'Thus Megiddo, or Mageddo, was a name, made ready for St. John, to express a sudden and mysterious defeat and slaughter of God's foes, and of the allies of Babylon.

'This explanation is satisfactory, as far as it goes; and it must be carried further.

'St. John, in the Apocalypse, expresses ideas by Hebrew terms, understood literally.

'Thus, for example, the word Jew is always used in the Apocalypse in a spiritual sense, founded on its Hebrew etymology, which indicates one who confesses and praises God — a true Christian.

'Another reference to Hebrew etymology is found in the word Abaddon, formed by St. John to describe the Angel of the bottomless pit; and derived from a Hebrew term, signifying perdition. . . .

'Observe, also, St. John here specially calls our attention to the Hebrew etymology, by saying that the place is called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

'Armageddon is formed of two Hebrew words; the one signifying a Mountain, the other, a cutting to pieces; and thus it means the Mountain of excision, or of slaughter*.

[*From footnote: 'Lightfoot and Vitringa, who were the first of modern Interpreters that called attention to this etymology, do not seem to have been aware that they had been anticipated by Andreas and Arethas ad loc. (and in the Ancient Greek Catena, Cramer, p. 420,) and also by Ecumenius, ibid. p. 552, who deserve to be cited. Catena Cramer, p. 420. xvi. 16 . . .' ]

'When the Prophet Zechariah is speaking of the destruction of all nations that come against the City of God, he says that there will be a great mourning in the valley of Megiddon; and Megiddon is there translated by the Septuagint Interpreters, cut up, or destroyed.

'The word Armageddon, then, signifies a place of slaughter* [*From footnote: 'Lightfoot, Harmony N.T. on Rev. xvi. “The word Armageddon signifies a Mountain of men cut to pieces.”']; and it connects the judgments predicted in the Apocalypse with those foretold by the Hebrew Prophets.

'If we refer to the third chapter of the Prophet Joel, from the ninth verse to the end, we there see a sublime description of the gathering together of the foes of Christ, and of their final overthrow.

'Multitudes! Multitudes! exclaims the Prophet, in the valley of decision.

'The word here rendered decision is one which signifies threshing, bruising, cutting, and crushing* [*From footnote: 'Joel iii. 14. . . . a threshing instrument, formed with revolving cylinders, armed with sharp pieces of iron. See Jahn Archæol. Bibl. § 64.']; and the words rendered valley of decision are translated by the Septuagint, valley of judgment.

'It is observable, also, that God says by the Prophet Joel, in the same place, that He will gather all nations, and bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat. And again; Let the heathen come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. [Joel iii. 12.]

'In the word Jehoshaphat there is an historical reference to a signal and miraculous slaughter of God's enemies in King Jehoshaphat's reign; just as in the word Megiddo there is an historical reference of the same kind.

'And, in both cases, there is something more.

'Megiddo means destruction; and Jehoshaphat signifies judgment of God.

'All nations cannot be gathered together to one valley, or to one mountain, on earth.

'Hence it is rightly concluded, that the Valley of Jehoshaphat here mentioned is a general term for a signal execution of God's Judgment on all His enemies throughout the world.

'In a word, the gathering together of the nations to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, is the same as the gathering together to Armageddon.' (pp. 448-452).

* * * * * * *

Envoi:

From John S Fox's A Flood of Light Upon the Book of Revelation (The Association of the Covenant People, Burnaby, B.C., Canada; circa late 1940s) :

“ARMAGEDDON” AS A EUROPEAN

CONFLAGRATION

'In the Book of Revelation the name “Babylon” . . . certainly does not refer to the old Far-Eastern city, but rather to the New Testament prophetical Papal “Babylon”. That being so, why do prophetic interpreters claim that the reference here to “Ar-Megiddo” (if indeed it refers to “Megiddo” at all: see below) should refer to the Eastern or Palestinian Megiddo, when the whole context of the drama in which it is named occurs within the Papal regime of WESTERN EUROPE!

'There does not seem to be any reference to “Megiddo” at all in this Scripture, the word “Armageddon” being divisible into three Hebrew words; not two as usually suggested. Here the word “Arma” signifies “bare grain”: “Gai” signifies a “valley”: and “Don” signifies “judgment”.

'The composite word Armageddon thus depicts the fact that God's time had come to “thresh Babylon” (See Jer. 51. 33) in the “Valley of Jehoshaphat” which means the Valley where “Jehovah judges”, the name Jehoshaphat meaning “Jehovah judges”.' (pp. 114-115).

“Hitler's Pope”

From the Prologue to the above work:

'[Eugenio] Pacelli [later Pope Pius XII] was responsible for a treaty with Serbia which contributed to the tensions that led to the First World War. Twenty years later he struck an accord with Hitler which helped sweep the Führer to legal dictatorship while neutralizing the potential of Germany's 23 million Catholics (34 million after the Anschluss) to protest and resist. . . .

'In 1933 Pacelli found a successful negotiating partner for his Reich Concordat in the person of Adolf Hitler. Their treaty authorized the papacy to impose the new Church law on German Catholics and granted generous privileges to Catholic schools and the clergy. In exchange, the Catholic Church in Germany, its parliamentary political party, and its many hundreds of associations and newspapers “voluntarily” withdrew, following Pacelli's initiative, from social and political action. The abdication of German political Catholicism in 1933, negotiated and imposed from the Vatican by Pacelli with the agreement of Pope Pius XI, ensured that Nazism could rise unopposed by the most powerful Catholic community in the world – a reverse of the situation sixty years earlier, when German Catholics combated and defeated Bismarck's Kulturkampf persecutions from the grass roots. As Hitler himself boasted in a cabinet meeting on July 14, 1933, Pacelli's guarantee of nonintervention left the regime free to resolve the Jewish question. According to the cabinet minutes, “[Hitler] expressed the opinion that one should only consider it as a great achievement. The concordat gave Germany an opportunity and created an area of trust that was particularly significant in the developing struggle against international Jewry.”* [*From Notes: 'Quoted in S. Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, Vol. I: The Years of Persecution, 1933-39 (London, 1997), 49; Friedländer's German Source, Der Nationalsozialismus: Dokumente 1933-1945. (Frankfurt am Main, 1957), 130.'] The perception of papal endorsement of Nazism, in Germany and abroad, helped seal the fate of Europe.'

(Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pope Pius XII, by John Cornwell; American paperback edition; Penguin Books, 1999, 2000; pp. 4, 6-7).

5

PACELLI AND WEIMAR

'On June 30, 1920, Pacelli presented his credentials to the Reich, the first diplomat to do so under the Weimar government. Thus he became the senior diplomat in the capital, an honor that he was to grace with outstanding charm and distinction. Having warmly welcomed the nuncio, President Friedrich Ebert solemnly announced that his duty was to order, “with the proper authorities, the relations between Church and State in Germany [so] that they correspond to the new situation and to contemporary conditions.” Pacelli responded: “For my part, I will devote my entire strength to cultivating and strengthening the relations between the Holy See and Germany.” (Thirteen years later, Hitler used the self-same phrase, word for word, when he promised an immediate readjustment of relations between Berlin and the Holy See in exchange for the Center Party's acquiescence in the Enabling Act that awarded him dictatorial powers.)'* [*From Notes: 'See Scholder, The Churches and the Third Reich, Vol. I, 62 and 249.'] (ibid. p. 92).

7

HITLER AND GERMAN CATHOLICISM

'Hitler, in fact, had two views on the churches – public and private. In February of 1933 he was to declare in the Reichstag that the churches were to be an integral part of the German national life. Privately, the following month, he vowed to completely “eradicate” Christianity from Germany. “You are either a Christian or a German,” he said. “You cannot be both.”'* [*From Notes: 'Quoted in F. Zipfel, Kirchenkampf in Deutschland, 1933-45 (Berlin, 1965), 9, quoted in M. Housden, Resistance and Conformity in the Third Reich (London, 1997), 46.'] (ibid. pp. 105-106).

'In the spring of 1931, a Catholic Reichstag representative, Karl Trossmann, published a best-selling book entitled Hitler and Rome, in which he described the National Socialists as a “brutal party that would do away with all the rights of the people.” Hitler, he declared, was dragging Germany into a new war, a war that “would only end more disastrously than the last.” Not long after, the Catholic author Alfons Wild published a widely distributed essay entitled “Hitler and Catholicism,” in which he proclaimed that “Hitler's view of the world is not Christianity but the message of race, a message that does not proclaim peace and justice but rather violence and hate.”

'Meanwhile, two Catholic journalists, Fritz Gerlich and Ingbert Naab, excoriated National Socialism in the pages of the Munich-based periodical Der Gerade Weg [The Straight Path], characterizing the movement as a “plague.” In the issue dated July 21, 1932, the writers declared that “National Socialism means enmity with neighboring countries, despotism in internal affairs, civil war, international war. National Socialism means lies, hatred, fratricide and unbounded misery. Adolf Hitler preaches the law of lies. You who have fallen victim to the deceptions of one obsessed with despotism, wake up!”

'This vehement and united front of the Catholic Church in Germany, however, was not at one with the view from inside the Vatican – a view that was being increasingly shaped and promoted by Eugenio Pacelli.' (ibid. p. 110).

The Lateran Treaty and Its Aftermath

'Pius XI and Pacelli realized that no accommodation could be made with Communism, anywhere in the world. In the case of totalitarian movements and regimes of the Right, it was a different matter. In Italy the Holy See had signed a pact with Mussolini in February 1929, foreshadowing Pacelli's 1933 deal with Hitler. Negotiated and drafted by Pacelli's brother, Francesco, and his predecessor as Secretary of State, Pietro Gasparri, the accord, on the face of it and for the time being, ended the antagonisms that had existed between the Holy See and Italy since 1870.

'According to the terms of the Lateran Treaty, Roman Catholicism became the sole recognized religion in the country. . . . The Powerful democratic Catholic Popular Party (the Partito Popolare), in many respects similar to the Center Party in Germany, had been disbanded and its leader, Don Luigi Sturzo, exiled. Catholics had been instructed by the Vatican itself to withdraw from politics as Catholics, leaving a political vacuum in which the Fascists thrived. In the March elections following the Lateran Treaty, priests throughout Italy were encouraged by the Vatican to support the Fascists, and the Pope spoke of Mussolini as “a man sent by Providence.”' (ibid. p. 114).

'A few days after the signing of the Lateran Treaty, Hitler wrote an article for the Völkischer Beobachter [The Racial Observer, the official newspaper of the Nazi party], published on February 22, 1929, warmly welcoming the agreement. “The fact that the Curia is now making peace with Fascism,” he wrote, “shows that the Vatican trusts the new political realities far more than did the former liberal democracy with which it could not come to terms.” Turning to the German situation, he rebuked the Center Party leadership for its recalcitrant attachment to democratic politics. “By trying to preach that democracy is still in the best interests of German Catholics, the Center Party . . . is placing itself in stark contradiction to the spirit of the treaty signed today by the Holy See.”' (Ibid. p. 115).

* * *

'By late December [1931], the Pope [Pius XI] was repeating the suggestion to Baron von Ritter, the Bavarian envoy to the Holy See: that a cooperation between the Church in Germany and the National Socialists “perhaps only temporarily and for specific purposes” would “prevent a still greater evil.”'* [*From Notes: 'Report from Ritter to Munich, December 20, 1931, cited in Scholder, The Churches and the Third Reich, Vol. I, 154.'] (ibid. p. 125).

* * *

REAPPRAISALS:

On 26 July 1914, Baron von Ritter, the Chargé d' Affaires of Bavaria at the Holy See, had written to his Government:

“The Pope [Pius X] approves of Austria's harsh treatment of Serbia. He has no great opinion of the armies of Russia and France in the event of a war against Germany. The Cardinal Secretary of State does not see when Austria could make war if she does not decide to do so now.”

(Bayerische Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch [Bavarian Documents on the Outbreak of War] III, p. 206; as cited in the Vatican Against Europe, by Edmond Paris; The Wickliffe Press [Protestant Truth Society] edition, 1993; p. 47).

* * *

During the first Balkan war the Oesterreichs Katholische Sonntags Blatt expressed the following sentiments:

“Our ideal is not to perpetuate European Turkey, but to bring the Balkan Peninsula into the possession of Catholic Austria and the Catholic Church. . . . Just as a violent storm refreshes and cleanses the oppressive atmosphere, so we hold when it once comes to real war the moral and economic gain to Europe will in the end be very great. The social democracy is not yet strong enough to prevent a war. As a result of the emotional pressure of a European war it will break to pieces with its millions of casual followers, and under the same pressure modern liberalism will also break down. It will not hurt Europe if its conditions are for once well shaken up.”

(As cited in, The Inside Story of Austro-German Intrigue, or, How the World War Was Brought About, by Joseph Goricar, Formerly of the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Service, and Lyman Beecher Stowe; published Garden City New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1920; pp. 94-95).

* * *

“One might wonder for what motive the Catholic Church evinces herself so bellicose at an epoch when she is governed by a chief [Pope Pius X] who is truly a saint, imbued with veritably apostolic ideas. The answer is very simple. The Pope and the Curia see in Serbia the ravaging malady that little by little penetrated the Monarchy to the marrow, and which, in time, would end by disintegrating it.

“Despite all the other experiments attempted by the Curia in the course of the last decade, Austria-Hungary is and remains the Catholic State par excellence, the strongest rampart of the Faith which stands in our day for the Church of Christ. The fall of this rampart would signify for the Church the loss of its solidest prop; in the conflicts with the Orthodox Church she would see her most powerful champion struck down.

“Hence, just as for Austria-Hungary there is an immediate necessity of self-preservation to expel from its organism, even by force if need be, the dissolving malady, there is also for the Catholic Church an indirect necessity of doing or approving everything that would serve to attain that end.

“In this light, a harmony between the apostolic sentiment and the war spirit can easily be confirmed.”

(Despatch of 29 July, 1914, from Count Palffy, Austrian Chargé d' Affaires at the Vatican, to Count Berchtold, Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs; as cited in: Contemporary Italy: Its Intellectual and Moral Origins, by Count Carlo Sforza; Frederick Muller Ltd., London, 1946; p. 154).

* * *

“[T]he Papacy, distressed by the ebbing of its strength . . . will hate Orthodoxy worse than Scepticism, and will endeavour to persuade mankind that they cannot be Christians unless they are Papists, and thus will do the Dragon's work, and promote Infidelity.”

(From: Lectures on the Apocalypse; Critical, Expository, and Practical; Delivered Before the University of Cambridge by Chr. Wordsworth, D.D., Canon of Westminster; Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; Third Edition; London: Francis & John Rivington, St. Paul's Church Yard, and Waterloo Place, 1852; pp. 387-388).

A(i)r-mageddon: the “great hail” of Revelation 16:21

THE AFTERMATH: COLOGNE 1945

“The 'fall of hail' is to be viewed as accompanying, not following, the fall of cities . . . As hail-stones are symbolical of divine judgments, and as there may be allusions here to another of the plagues of Egypt, (Exod. ix. 18:) so more especially may the facts of history supply the figurative language with which the judgments of the vials terminate. If any escaped the destroying sword in the battle of Armageddon, they are overtaken by these ponderous hail-stones out of heaven . . .”

(From: Notes on the Apocalypse; With An Appendix, containing dissertations on some of the Apocalyptical symbols, together with animadversions on the interpretation of several among the most learned and approved expositors of Britain and America, by David Steele, Sr., Pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian Congregation, Philadelphia; Philadelphia: Young & Ferguson, No. 14 South Seventh St., 1870; p. 246).

Moving on from a work detailing some of the prophetic interpretations of some of “the most learned and approved expositors of Britain and America”; to the actual “facts of history”, and the aviators of Britain and America:

“A(i)r- mageddon in West”

“FROM dawn onwards yesterday the thunder of massed aircraft filled the sky over the north German plain as the greatest tactical air blitz in history gained momentum.

“Bomber Command, the Eighth & Ninth U.S.A.A.F. And the entire strength of R.A.F. Second T.A.F. were flying into yesterday's onslaught, in which well over 6,000 sorties were flown.”

(From a newspaper clipping reproduced in John S. Fox's Today, Tomorrow and the Great Beyond – newspaper and date of publication not stated.)

The British historian Andrew Roberts, in a chapter (entitled, “The Cruel Reality”) concentrating on the Anglo-American air offensive against Germany (to be found in his latest history of the Second World War), remarked that the “division of labour between [the USAAF's] daylight and [the RAF's] night-time bombing automatically solved a number of possible operational problems [that would have otherwise existed between the two allied forces].” And went on to state that: “On 6 March 1944 the Americans began daylight raids on Berlin, which was now being pounded almost round the clock.”

“they have no rest day nor night . . .” (Rev. 15:11).

Andrew Roberts concluded the aforementioned chapter, on the following note:

“The fact that more than ten times the number of Germans died – some 600,000 in all – in the retaliation against the Blitz than Britons who actually died in the Blitz itself echoes the biblical phrase about David multiplying the numbers killed by Saul. . . . Whereas the Luftwaffe flattened 400 acres of London, the RAF and USAAF turned 6,247 acres of Berlin into little more than rubble. Total War did not allow for what is today called 'a proportionate response'. No fewer than sixty major German industrial cities suffered colossal material damage during the Second World War. Yet Germany is today such a model democracy, and so pacific in her foreign policy, partly because of the terrible retribution that that war visited upon her. If the Second World War had not seen civilian casualties on German soil, just as the Great War had not, a new spirit of revanchism might have been rekindled there. As it was, the Germans looked into the face of Armageddon, and it has instilled an aversion for foreign military intervention that might occasionally frustrate NATO policy-makers today, but is overall a very welcome development for the world.”

(The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, 2009; pp. 459-460).

Williamson Murray, writing in War in the Air 1914-45 (Cassell History of Warfare series, 1999, 2002), first remarks that:

“[T]he most controversial aspect of Anglo-American air power [during the Second World War] had to do with the Combined Bomber Offensive, the strategic bombing effort against Germany. This author at least would rate its contribution as one of the four essential elements in Allied victory over Nazi Germany, the others being the Eastern Front, the battle of the Atlantic and American productive superiority.”

He then goes on to state:

“It is hard to measure the impact of bombing because, in contradiction to many of the tenets of air power, so much of its effect was indirect. . . . The responses that the Nazi government made to the night-bomber offensive suggest the profound indirect impact of the Combined Bomber Offensive. The growth of the Flak (anti-aircraft fire) forces defending the Reich at a time when on any number of fronts German ground forces were confronting increasingly numerous and effective opponents suggests the impact the bombing made on the minds of the Nazi leadership and their worries that the home front might again collapse as in 1918. The number of Flak batteries rose from 791 guarding the Reich in 1940, to 967 in 1941, 1,148 in 1942 and 2,132 in 1943. By the end of 1943 the Germans had nearly 10,000 high-velocity anti-aircraft guns and 500,000 men firing huge numbers of shells into the skies over the Reich and hitting little. The impact of such weapons and manpower on other fronts in 1943 or 1944 hardly needs emphasis.

“The second indirect effect of 'area' bombing also occurred in the minds of the Nazi leadership. Worried by the bombing's impact on German morale, Hitler and his advisers hit on a strategy of retaliation. . . As a result, the Germans poured enormous resources into the so-called revenge weapons, the V-1 and V-2. The former did not require a huge investment, but the latter made no sense at all. The V-2 demanded complex technological support; it was inordinately expensive; it used scarce resources; and its production overloaded the instrument and electrical-component industries. . . . After the war the US Strategic Bombing Survey estimated that the industrial effort and resources devoted to these weapons was roughly equivalent to that of the production of 24,000 fighter aircraft. A more recent analysis has calculated that the V-2 programme was roughly equivalent in proportional terms to the cost of the Manhattan project (the atomic bomb) in the United States – all in order to produce a one-way weapon that carried a ton of explosives and needed a target the size of the entire metropolitan area of London.” (pp. 180-182).

AFTERMATH

After the “great hail” of the aerial bombardment that laid waste so many of the cities of Europe during the Second World War, the post-war record adequately testifies to the abandonment of the belief of organising society on Godly principles. The Council of Europe, in a poster from circa 1990, thought it fit to symbolise the construction of the new Europe, by showing the image of the Tower of Babel being rebuilt. Based on the famous painting by the Flemish artist Breughel it ominously showed 11 of the 12 stars of the EU flag inverted. (The twelfth star's position was obscured by the structure of the 'Tower'). Christopher Story in The European Union Collective – Enemy of its Member States, writes: “The upside-down pentagram, often superimposed on a goat's head, is a commonly used symbol in occult and satanic rituals. The distorted circle of upside-down stars in the poster conveyed the subliminal message that the European Union is bound to and by a Force that is defiantly opposed to the Truth.” The wording of the poster was also in open defiance of God's judgement at Babel – it read: “Europe: Many tongues, one voice.”

Whilst doing some research on Duncan Sandys and flying saucers (see my first posting on this blog, Churchill, Sandys and flying saucers, from 31/08/2009) I happened to chance upon an interesting document, dating from just a few years after the close of the Second World War, that indicates that an anti-Christian zeitgeist was noted to be at work – by some of those at the very heart of the project to unite Europe – and was present within the movement from the laying of its initial foundations.

First a brief quote to give the historical setting:

“In summer 1948, Duncan Sandys, British Conservative MP and President of the International Committee for European Unity, gives an initial assessment of the Congress of Europe in The Hague and identifies the areas which are not entirely satisfactory.”

Now to quote the relevant part of Sandys' assessment:

“(c) the failure to recognise that our civilisation has broken down because our standards and values have been too low, and an unwillingness to recognise that we must draw fresh inspiration from those spiritual resources which we, each in our own way, consider adequate and valid.

Two disquieting consequences followed from this.

(i) the belief that all that is needed is to apply the same ideals, seek the same goal, and work the same machinery on a bigger scale, and all will be well.

(ii) an indifference and insensibility to Christian values and convictions. Here I speak with restrained but deep concern. The strain put upon some of us was heavy and at times almost unbearable. The to us almost blasphemous use of the 'Annunciation' and 'the Nativity' in the Report of the Political Commission was almost intolerable. In private I was informed that it was not the report of the Commission but a personal statement of M. Ramadier, but it was never publicly stated to be such. And this did not stand alone. In the Cultural Commission there was a definite resistance to the inclusion of the very word Christian, and the dialectics of the Chairman as to its use added to the tension under which some of us laboured.”

(Source: Archives historiques de l'Union européenne, Florence, Villa Il Poggiolo. Dépôts, DEP. Mouvement européen. ME 1183.)

Sandys was not alone in expressing these sentiments: the same year The Hague also witnessed the final debate on the United Nations Organisation's “Declaration of Human Rights”, at which the representative from the Netherlands gave the following speech – in which he addressed, what he thought was the document's major flaw and deficiency:

“I only want to stress one particular aspect which, to our great regret, has not obtained due recognition in this document. I am referring to the origin of these rights. The fact that man's rights and freedoms are based on his divine origin and immortal destiny. The fact that there is a Supreme Being who is the fount of these rights, increases their value and importance. To ignore this relation would mean the same thing as breaking a plant from its roots, or building a house and forgetting its foundations.” (Our rights as human beings – A discussion guide on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 3rd revision, United Nations Dept. of Public Information, New York., 1953).

A few years previous to his attendance at The Hague, whilst Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Supply, Sandys had been tasked with eliminating the V-1 and V-2 menaces – against which the full onslaught of Bomber Command was swiftly turned. A year after final victory had been achieved - in what was the twentieth century's second great global conflict, the British Daily Sketch ran a leading article in its 5th June 1946 edition, entitled, “To Whom is the Victory?”, and asked, “Are we a nation of infidels or 'an acceptable people in the sight of God'? Have we no gratitude in our hearts? No faith?” In answer to these pivotal questions, the following discourse was provided:

“It would seem as if uncertain answers would have to be given to each of these important questions.

“On Saturday next, June 8, 1946, this nation will celebrate, in the streets of London, its glorious victory over two great enemies. That dual triumph, whatever unbelievers may hold to the contrary, we believe to be due solely to the mercy of Almighty God. We believe that but for His Divine Intervention we should be fed with the bread of tears, biting the dust in humiliation and degradation. Defeat and all the sorrows that wait on the vanquished would have been our lot.

“Pick up your official programme. Search its twenty pages from end to end. You will find a single reference to God on its front page in the motto of the Kings of England – Dieu et mon droit.

“In the days of our trial, in the dark and terrifying years through which we had to pass, we felt it necessary to organize, throughout the land, twenty-six days and two whole weeks of urgent prayer. We filled our churches with congregations kneeling in genuine devotion and faith to the great Mediator and Advocate, imploring His forgiveness for their sins, pleading for help in our tribulation and the danger of others than ourselves. He answered our cry. Now that victory has come, we adorn our houses and streets with decorations, make the night brilliant with illuminations. . . . Could we not have spared two minutes for prayer to God?”

* * *

“And the cities of the nations fell . . . And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven... and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.”

(Revelation 16:19, 21).

* * *

Envoi

From Canon Wordworth's, Lectures on the Apocalypse (3rd edition; 1852) :

“What shall we think, when we see that some Nations of Christendom no longer promote the Religion of Christ? CHRIST Himself has declared, All Kings shall bow down before Me, all Nations shall do Me service; but many now venture to proclaim Religious Indifference as one of their principles of national Law. The political Equality of all Religions — this is their Shibboleth. All Creeds are to be treated as equally true — and therefore all Creeds may be regarded as equally false. They denounce all opposition to this impious principle as bigotry and intolerance! They vaunt and glory in this principle as if it were a noble privilege! And so they appear to be ready, and almost eager, to erase the cross of Christ from the forehead of Christendom, and to make it into a Pantheon!

“What, again, are the words of men, blending the holiest names with unholiest acts, making Christianity a watchword of Socialism and Communism, and using the Gospel itself as a lever to shake the World, and even, if it were possible, to subvert the throne of God?

“Are there not here some sounds of a gathering together of armies, some blasts of the trumpets of war, some unfurlings of hostile banners, some noise of chariots and trampling of horses rushing to the battle?

“In a word, is not the World at this hour on the eve of an Armageddon?

“Observe now what follows.

“The plague of the Frogs was the last effort of the magicians of Egypt. The going forth of the unclean spirits, like frogs, from the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, to gather their forces together against Christ, will, it is probable, be the final struggle of their united powers. Their confederacy will be routed in the mystical conflict of Armageddon.

“Then, says St. John, The Beast will be taken, and his False Prophet, that wrought miracles before him; . . . and these both will be cast alive into the lake of fire. But then the Dragon, or Satan, will remain; and he will no longer use any specious arts [the 1st edition of 1849 reads “any specious names”]; he will return to the form he wore in the first Seal, and will wage an open war with Heaven.

“His doom is also revealed. The Devil will be cast into the lake of fire, where the Beast and False Prophet are. Christ's victory will then be complete. The Kingdom of this World will become the KINGDOM of the LORD and of HIS CHRIST.” (pp. 413-414).

* * *

Amen

The best laid schemes of FROGS and men . . .

ILLUSTRATIONS

OF

PROPHECY:

IN THE COURSE OF WHICH

ARE ELUCIDATED MANY PREDICTIONS, WHICH OCCUR

IN ISAIAH, OR DANIEL,

IN THE WRITINGS OF THE EVANGELISTS,

OR THE BOOK OF REVELATION;

And which are thought to foretell, among other Great Events,

A Revolution in France, favourable to the Interests of Mankind,

The Overthrow of the Papal Power, and of Ecclesiastical Tyranny,

The Downfal of Civil Despotism,

And the subsequent Melioration of the State of the World:

TOGETHER

WITH A LARGE COLLECTION OF

EXTRACTS,

INTERSPERSED THROUGH THE WORK, AND TAKEN FROM

NUMEROUS COMMENTATORS;

AND PARTICULARLY FROM

Joseph Mede, Vitringa, Dr. Thomas Goodwin, Dr. Henry More, Dr. John Owen, Dr. Cressener, Peter Jurieu, Brenius, Bishop Chandler, Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. William Lowth, Fleming, Bengelius, Daubuz, Whitby, Lowman, Bishop Newton, and Bishop Hurd.

VOL. I

LONDON.— M,DCC,XCVI.

[1796]

CHAPTER XVI.

ON THE GENERAL COURSE OF FUTURE EVENTS,

AND PARTICULARLY ON THE PREDICTION OF

THE WAR OF ARMAGEDDON.

'“In the ordinary wars which nations have waged,” says a recent writer*, “they have, perhaps, lost one hundred thousand lives, and slaughtered as many of their enemies; countries have been laid waste, and taxes incurred to the oppression of the industrious; but in other respects they may have sat down much as they were [. . .]” [* Mr. Bicheno in, The Signs of the Times, p. 42.]

'I now pass to a very remarkable prediction, already alluded to, which distinctly announces a military combination of divers European kings against the happiness of mankind. As the exact time is not marked out, it remains to be illustrated by the Event. It is plain, however, from its situation in ch. xvi. that it is to be accomplished during the period of the seven vials: It is plain, that the confederacy is to be planned and completed, and that the war is to be commenced, prosecuted, and concluded, whilst they are pouring out.

'But, previously to citing it, I shall allege one or two preliminary observations. The first, which is from Daubuz, there has before been occasion to cite. “Wherever the Beast and False Prophet are named, by the Beast must be understood the former with seven heads and ten horns; and by the False Prophet, the Beast with two horns.” Now it has been already seen, that the former of these is the representative of the antichristian princes who inhabit the Western part of the Roman empire; and that the latter is emblematic of the members of the antichristian priesthood. And if the Dragon be mentioned as joined with them in a great confederacy, it must signify such antichristian potentates, as have entered into the confederacy, but do not constitute a part of the proper ten-horned Beast. Such for instance may be the empress of Russia, the king of Prussia, and some of the princes of Germany, who reign over territories that lie out of the bounds of the Western Roman empire.

'St. John commences the passage by alluding to those partisans of the princes, who provoke the war, and employ themselves with activity in concerting the general alliance. It is as follows: and I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the Dragon, and out of the mouth of the Beast, and out of the mouth the False Prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto, or, as I think it ought rather to be translated, among the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. — And he gathered them together into a place, called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

'In the first of these verses, St. John has wrapped up his meaning under the cover of prophetic emblems. In the next, he changes his style; and employing phraseology for the most part plain and unfigured, proceeds to explain the reason, why he had described the emissaries as coming out of the mouth of the Dragon and the Beast. For, says he, they go forth among the kings of the earth and of the whole world. To these two verses a remark of bp. [Bishop] Newton is applicable. “It is customary with the prophets, after they have described a thing in the most symbolical and figurative diction, to represent the same again in plainer language.” This episode is introduced between the sixth and the seventh vials. With a reference to the expression, and I saw, Daubuz says, “This is a fresh vision that is, the vision of a fresh matter different from the former, and therefore hath this fresh mark of attention. The Holy Ghost has here followed the method observed before in those parts of the vision, which are distinguished by seven epochas: namely, to have an episode or parenthesis discovering some collateral and remarkable accidents, which seem not to follow the same kind of matters, and could not be so well placed elsewhere; and this is done constantly after the sixth epocha.” But there is another reason, more weighty than mere precedent, to account why this episode is placed just before the description of the seventh vial. Though the confederacy of princes which it announces may be supposed to exist during the effusion of the most early of the vials, and the war conducted by them may continue to be carried on while the six first are pouring out; there nevertheless appears to be a manifest propriety, why it should be inserted immediately before the seventh [vial], because it is descriptive of those great events, which are the foundation, and indeed the immediate cause, of the mighty Revolution foretold in the last of the vials.

'The persons spoken of in this episode are represented as coming out of the mouth of the Dragon, &c; and this, says Daubuz, is a symbol of decorum, because they are said to be spirits. Of the passage that follows from this author a part has before been cited. “The mouth,” he says, “is the organ of speech, and words in the sacred style are the same as commands and actions, because they imply the effects of the thoughts, — To come out of the mouth therefore signifies to be constituted and commanded; to become an agent or minister, under a superior power.” Accordingly those mentioned in the verse under consideration are, he adds, such agents, as execute the commands of those, “out of whose mouth they are said to come” Though they are, says Vitringa, a numerous body of men, they are spoken of as if they were only three, because the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, from whom they proceed, are three in number.

'Since the False Prophet is mentioned, it is plain, that the war of Armageddon shall be some war, which shall not only be distinguished by an extraordinary confederacy of princes, but which shall also meet with the marked approbation of the [Roman] ecclesiastical orders; a war, which the great body of priests, in the different hierarchies, shall be active to kindle, and zealous to promote. . . .' (pp. 289-293).

* * *

'The word Armageddon alludes, says Vitringa, to the Valley of Megiddo, which is mentioned in the book of Chronicles and in the prophecy of Zechariah. Indeed, says Lowman, Megiddo, being “famous in the history of God's people for several memorable slaughters, became a proverbial expression for a place of destruction and mourning.” The commentators accordingly observe, that it here signifies such a place; and Vitringa declares, that it without doubt points to some great plain situated in Europe, wherein the two parties are to be engaged together. The defeat at Armageddon, says this eminent commentator, will cause the mightiest changes, and draw after it the downfal of the antichristian empire, as is most clearly evident from the succeding prophecy. “The battle of Armageddon,” says Mede, “shall give an end to the antichristian sovereignty.” But it is not to a single engagement, but to a war, in which a succession of battles are to be fought, that the prediction of St. John probably refers; for the word translated battle signifies more properly a war, and it has been seen, that that other word, day, standing in connexion with it, is perfectly reconcileable with this notion. . . . Mr. Lowman [says] “Whoever the three unclean spirits are,— they seem plainly to intimate some powerful league or CONFEDERACY, by which the principal Popish Powers* [*from footnote: 'Who are the principal Popish Powers? Austria and Spain.'] shall be engaged with all their forces in some war, in which they shall be totally overthrown, and which shall end in their final destruction, as seems to be more fully expressed in the description of the seventh vial or last cup.” If Mr. Lowman apprehended, that these coalesced princes would be such only as profess popery, he would have found it a task of no small difficulty to have assigned any valid reason for drawing such a line of distinction. The expression, the kings of the earth, is general, and appears to be no farther restricted, than to the European quarter of the world. They go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, i.e. says Peganius, “of the whole Roman dominion, as we read of Augustus, that he taxed all the world, Luke 2. Among these are perhaps comprehended also those kings and princes, that heretofore were under the Roman jurisdiction, but have renounced the Romish religion: for certainly, amongst them also, all things are not so very well.”

'It is said in v. 16, and he gathered them, that is, says Mr. Cradock in his paraphrase, “God by his all wise providence permitted it so to be.” To the same purpose Mr. Brightman. “Whatsoever the kings of the earth aimed at, God's secret providence shall so guide and over-rule them, that whatsoever destruction they devise and intend to bring upon others, it should fall upon themselves.” It is worthy of remark, says Mr. Bicheno, “that these foul spirits are to go forth unto the kings of the earth, and not to the people,which seems to indicate that it, will be a war, in which kings will be more interested than mankind at large.” The prophet says of them, that “they are the spirits of devils working miracles. No one supposes these to be real miracles. This figurative language is used to set forth the impostures, lies, and frauds, with which they deceive men, and draw them into their destructive measures.”' (pp. 294-296).

* * *

'As the Psalmist says [Ps. cv. 30.], describing the plagues of Egypt, the land brought forth Frogs, even in their Kings' chambers. . . . Such is the Plague which St. John announces to the World in the Sixth Vial. He represents it as issuing from the mouth of the Dragon, – the Devil – and of the Beast, and of the False Prophet.'

(Canon Wordsworth, Lectures on the Apocalypse, Third Edition, 1852. p. 387).

* * *

'When we read in Revelation xvi. 13, 14, of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, as the prime agents in bringing about the final war of Armageddon, we cannot imagine three visible corporeal beings on earth, working to stir up the war by breathing frog-like spirits out of their mouths; but, consistently with the Historical method which we have followed, assigning a symbolical meaning to these strange symbolic figures which St. John saw again and again in his visions, we must understand that Satan, together with the Papal Power, and the body of the Romish Priesthood, the most complete organization in the world, will work by all the dark means which may then be at their disposal, in order to embroil the nations, as they have often done before . . .

'Some interesting information concerning the scheming ambition of the Papacy in the present [1898], and its power to embroil the nations in the future, is given in a remarkable article contributed to McClure's Magazine by M. de Blowitz, who from his experience and political insight is admitted to be an authority on such a matter. He Says : “To the Vatican flow innumerable missives from every corner of the world, and could I only tell some of them, it would seem how long still is the arm extending from the shadow of St. Peter's: how dreadful still are the lips that speak in the shade of the Vatican. I should show the Holy Father and his cardinals writing to the Emperor of Austria, directing him by counsel and advice, and sometimes almost by orders.”'

(From: Daniel and the Revelation: The Chart of Prophecy, and our place in it; A Study of the Historical and Futurist Interpretation, by Rev. Joseph Tanner, B.A.; Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1898. pp. 206-207, 215).

* * *

'“The day before, on 26 July [1914], Baron Ritter, Chargé d' Affaires of Bavaria at the Holy See, had written to his Government: “The Pope approves of Austria's harsh treatment of Serbia. He has no great opinion of the armies of Russia and France in the event of a war against Germany. The Cardinal Secretary of State does not see when Austria could make war if she does not decide to do so now.” [Author's Note: This despatch from Baron Ritter appears in, Bayerische Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, III (Bavarian Documents on the Outbreak of War), p. 206.]

'“The authenticity of [this text] . . . has been acknowledged after many debates in the Catholic press . . .” notes Pierre Dominique [La politique des Jésuites, pp. 248 and 250]. “The key to the question maintains Count Sforza, along with a few others, was the necessity of converting Francis Joseph to the idea of war. The opinions of the Pope and his minister were certainly the most likely to influence him. Hence the [latter] despatch of [July 29, from] Count Palffy. . . .”'

(Edmond Paris, The Vatican Against Europe. First Published France 1959; First English Edition 1961; Reprinted 1993 by The Wickliffe Press, p. 47).

* * *

Envoi

'Lateran Treaty. A treaty concluded between the Holy See and the kingdom of Italy in 1929, establishing as sovereign the Vatican City State, thus ending the “Roman Question” began in 1870 when the temporal power of the papacy was finally abrogated and Rome became the capital of the Italian kingdom.'

'Lateran. The ancient palace of the Laterani family, which was appropriated by Nero (AD 66) and later given to Pope Sylvester I (reigned 314-335) by the Emperor Constantine. It remained the official residence of the popes until the departure to Avignon in 1309. The present palace is now a museum. Legend derives the name from Latin latere, “to hide”, and rana, “frog”, and accounts for it by saying that Nero once vomited a frog covered with blood, which he believed to be his own progeny and so hid in a vault. The palace built on its site was called the “Lateran”, or palace of the hidden frog.'

(From: Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable; Fifteenth Edition (paperback), 1997; pp. 615-616).

And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs . . .

(Rev 16:13)

From “Kulturkampf”, to mourning over her . . .

Kaiser Wilhelm (William) II

(Born 1859; German Emperor 1888-1918; died 1941)

From the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors:

“Kulturkampf conflict 1872-87 between the German government and the papacy”.

Returning back to Bishop Christopher Wordsworth (1807-85), and his work Union with Rome; the following is taken from the Tenth Edition of the said work – published three years after his death; and coinciding with the ascension, that very same year, of Kaiser Wilhelm II to the throne of the German Empire :

“The Apocalypse foretells a remarkable phenomenon, which may soon be manifested, namely that, Powers, which have destroyed the mystical Babylon, will mourn over her.

“The cause of this seemingly strange anomaly is now beginning to disclose itself. Where Ultramontanism is dominant, there the Papacy will now have acquired new force; but in other places, where Ultramontanism does not prevail, there, as is notorious, the usurpation and corruptions of the Roman Church have given a strong impetus to Infidelity. Infidelity produces Anarchy. Anarchy is impatient of all civil rule, especially of royal power. As long as kings reigned by hereditary right, or where they were allied with the Papacy, and wherever the religion of Rome had some hold over the minds of the people, there the Throne rested (though not very securely) on some religious foundation. But this foundation has almost disappeared. Many European Sovereigns are now nominees of the people. They are made and unmade by popular passion. And the Papacy is no longer confederate with them, but is arrayed against them. Can such Monarchies have any permanence? Is it not probable, that the time will soon come, when some of them may even regret their own act in destroying the temporal power of the Papacy, and, according to the prophecy of the Apocalypse, mourn over the ruins of that mystical Babylon which they themselves have laid low?”

(From, Union with Rome. “Is not the Church of Rome the Babylon of the Book of Revelation?” An Essay, by Chr. Wordsworth, D.D. Late Bishop of Lincoln; Tenth Edition, Rivingtons, Waterloo Place, London, 1888; pp. 103-104)

In the light of the above, the quote that follows below is from a small pro-German work emanating from America (purporting to be based on “the Light of Bible Prophecy”), and published in the very same year as the outbreak of the First World War; in it its Author writes the following – which supplies the historical realisation to Bishop Wordsworth's above apocalyptical dissertations, regarding things, which as he wrote, would – according to the divine revelation held within the pages of the Apocalypse – “soon come” to be :

“The Kaiser has a reputation for being a devout churchman. He has said on several occasions he believed himself appointed of God. Some years ago he said he felt he was called to do two things in his career. One was to oppose socialism, which was anarchy against governments; the other [was] to uphold the Pope of Rome, because the Pope stood for God and the Bible, and because unbelief was anarchy against God. He believed the Pope had more influence for peace than any other man in Europe. . . .”

(Quoted from: The European War in the Light of Bible Prophecy, by G.H. Gudebrod [German-American?]; 44 Court Street, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1914; Pages unnumbered).

Antebellum: Upon the Seven Hills

The first work quoted below is from a work by the late Rev James Aitken Wylie (1808-90) – the author of the 1848 work, The Seventh Vial, that was the main text of my second posting on this blog on 1 September 2009.

And the second authority (after a brief introduction from another source) is the nineteenth century Anglican Bishop of Lincoln, Christopher Wordsworth, D.D. (1807-85); the nephew of the poet 'Wordsworth', who (in the conclusion of the work sourced) remarks of the coming, “final struggle of Christianity against open Infidelity”.

First from Wylie's work:

'Societies, not less than individuals, reap as they have sowed; and in the convulsions and revolutions of our times, Rome is reaping the fruit of ages of superstition and despotism. The Papacy at this moment is fighting its third great battle. Its first was with the empire; in that it was victorious. Its second was with Christianity, in the persons of its Albigensian and Waldensian confessors; and in that, too, it was victorious. Its third great war is that which it is now waging with an ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM, which has risen contemporaneously, and with extraordinary intensity and power, in all the Catholic countries of Europe. Whence has come this new and destructive principle? It is the natural issue of the bondage in which the human mind has so long been retained,—of the violence done to reason and faith,—for superstition is the parent of atheism. The national mind in France long struggled to find vent through means of Christianity. This was denied it. It next sought liberty in scepticism, which speedily terminated in atheism. With French infidelity came French democracy. We have already said that the democratic element entered the world with Christianity, and revived again in the Reformation of John Calvin. There is this difference, however, that whereas the doctrine of Calvin would have given true liberty,—constitutional government,—to Europe, the doctrine of Voltaire gave it an anarchy which baptized itself in blood. Scepticism, engendered thus from superstition, has overspread Europe, and set free the masses from all divine control, and, by necessary consequence, from all earthly authority. The brood of revolutions which now torments Europe is the progeny of Rome. From her own loins has sprung the hydra that threatens to tear her in pieces. The sorceress of the Seven Hills, like the Hag of Pandemonium, is now

“With terrors and with clamours compass’d round Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed.”'

(Taken from: The Papacy: its History, Dogmas, Genius, and Prospects, by Rev James A Wylie, LL.D, 1851).

Before moving on to quote from Bishop Wordsworth's work – I'll first give the following brief quote – by means of introduction to it:

'In common with most of the learned Divines of the Church of England since the Reformation and – as we have seen – in accordance with the teaching of her Homilies, we object to Reunion with the Papacy because the Church of Rome is the Babylon of the Revelation. This has been clearly and conclusively proved in that brief, able, unanswered, and unanswerable treatise of the late Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, of Lincoln, entitled :– Union with Rome: Is not the Church of Rome the Babylon of the Apocalypse? I cannot too urgently press upon my readers the great advantage of reading this shilling book. It was not written by an Evangelical Churchman, but by one of the old-fashioned High Church School, one whose great learning is acknowledged by all scholars.'

(Walter Walsh writing in, The Secret History of the Oxford Movement, Third Edition; London: Swan Sonenschein & Co., Ltd., Paternoster Square, E.C., 1898).

To begin – first the title-page to Bishop Wordsworth's above mentioned work:

UNION WITH ROME.

“IS NOT THE CHURCH OF ROME THE

BABYLON OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION?”

An Essay,

BY

CHR. WORDSWORTH, D.D.

LATE BISHOP OF LINCOLN.

TENTH EDITION.

RIVINGTONS,

WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON.

MDCCCXXXVIII.

[Sic MDCCCLXXXVIII (1888)]

And now to the work proper:

'[T]he marvel predicted by the Apocalypse is this and a stupendous mystery it is that some of the Powers of the Earth, which received strength with the Beast, and at one time gave up their might to it, would, under the overruling sway of God's retributive justice, arise against the Woman seated on the Beast, and “tear her flesh,” and burn her with fire. And, what is still more marvellous, they will do this, although, in the first instance, they have been leagued with the Beast and with the False Prophet, or False Teacher, who is the Ally of the Beast, on whom the Woman sits as a Queen, in opposition to Christ: and it is foretold, that they will punish Rome in a mysterious transport of indignation, and in a wild ecstasy of revenge.

'Such is the prophecy of St John. And let us ask the candid reader, Is not this prophecy even now in course of fulfilment, in the eyes of the World?

'Of all the princely houses of Europe that were once devoted to the Roman Papacy, none was a more abject vassal of it, than the house of Savoy. In the seventeenth century, AD 1655, it executed with ruthless obsequiousness the sanguinary mandates of Rome, exhorting it to exterminate the Vaudois – the Protestant communities of the Alps – with fire and sword. Such was its eagerness in the work of destruction, that Oliver Cromwell wrote a letter of expostulation to the Duke of Savoy, and sent an ambassador from England to deprecate this crusade of desolation; and Milton then wrote his famous sonnet, which has proved almost prophetic, “On the late Massacre in Piedmont,”

“Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold.”

'And what is now the case, at the present time?

'A Prince of that same house, the house of Savoy, has now been raised up to the Throne of Italy, Victor Emmanuel; and he has “torn the flesh” of Rome, he has despoiled her of the greater part of her temporal dominions; France (which is now virtually mistress of Rome), Spain, and Portugal, have recognized him as King of Italy; he has suppressed her Monasteries, and has thus deprived Rome of her most powerful spiritual Army; and it is not improbable, that either his dynasty, or that of some other secular Potentates formerly devoted to the Papacy, may be employed as an instrument for inflicting more chastisements on Papal Rome.' (pp. 29-30).

And again, later in the same work, from its:

POSTSCRIPT

ON SOME PASSING EVENTS, CONSIDERED WITH REFEEENCE TO PROPHECIES IN THE APOCALYPSE.

' . . . It was there foretold, that the mystical Babylon would be punished for her sins. It was also prophesied there that (as the literal Babylon was punished by the Medes and Persians, who were formerly subject to her, and who rose up against her, and took the city, according to Daniel's interpretation of the handwriting on the wall), so likewise the mystical Babylon would be chastised by God, using the agency of some who had once been her allies and tributaries. It was predicted that some of them would revolt from her, and “hate her, and make her desolate and naked, and tear her flesh;” in other words, that they would despoil her of her Temporal Power, and would ravage her dominions, and take from her that carnal Sovereignty in which she trusted.

'And what is now the fact?

'The House of Savoy, which was once the most devoted vassal of the Papacy, and which exercised its power in obedience to the Papacy in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries in successive sanguinary persecutions of its own Protestant subjects, the Waldenses, whom it almost exterminated at her bidding, has been raised up by Almighty God against the Papacy in the person of Victor Emmanuel, a Prince of that house, and now King of Italy.

'Not by conquests of his own, but by the inscrutable Providence of God, overruling the events of War for his exaltation and aggrandizement, and for the humiliation and overthrow of the Temporal Power of the Papacy, Victor Emmanuel has now become Sovereign of Rome and of all the Papal States.

'It is also a remarkable coincidence, that the promulgation of the dogma of the personal Infallibility of the Papacy by the present Pope, in the Council which commenced its sessions on the Festival of the Immaculate Conception, was followed on the next day after that promulgation (July 19, 1870) by the declaration of War on the part of France against Prussia; which has led to the sudden humiliation of France, the protectress of Rome, and to the withdrawal of the French troops from Rome, and to the opening of the gates of Rome to the forces of Victor Emmanuel.

'It is also worthy of notice that in the same year, 1870, on the very next day after the Anniversary of the Festival of the Immaculate Conception on which (in 1854) the novel dogma of the Immaculate Conception was promulgated, and on which (in 1869) the Vatican Council met, which has decreed the Pope's Infallibility, a public document and Manifesto was laid before the Italian Parliament, in which the Government of the King of Italy announced a royal decree, accepting the City and provinces of Rome, transferred to the King by a “plebiscito” of the Roman people themselves, and in which it is declared that the Pope's Temporal Power is extinct, and that Rome is no longer to be the Metropolis of the Roman Papacy, but is henceforth to become, in lieu of Florence, the Capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

'These coincidences were undesigned; the principal actors in them thought nothing of the Apocalypse. But they who have that divine book in their hands, and who remember Christ's command to “discern the signs of the times,” and who consider the blessing which is promised to those who read and meditate upon the Apocalypse, will mark these facts, and will observe these coincidences, and will enquire with reverence, whether the prophecies of the Book of Revelation are not now receiving their accomplishment in Italy and at Rome.

'It was foretold, in these prophecies, as has been already noticed, that some who have been tributaries and vassals of the mystical Babylon, will “tear her flesh, and make her desolate and naked, and burn her with fire.” That prophecy has a spiritual meaning. The mystical Babylon is compared to a faithless woman, and her chastisement is likened to that which was inflicted on Hebrew women for harlotry. They who were once her votaries will tear the flesh of her who once enchanted them with her charms. It is added that they will “burn her with fire;” this is also a figurative phrase; and its meaning is that, as, among the Hebrews, unchaste women were burnt, so the mystical Babylon will be punished, and her glory will be consumed for her sins, as with fire.

'I do not venture to express a confident opinion, whether the present occupation of Rome by the arms of Victor Emmanuel, and the destruction of the Temporal Power of the Papacy by the People of Italy, including the Romans themselves, and by the Sovereign of Italy at the invitation of the Romans themselves, is a fulfilment of this prophecy; but it seems to be an approach towards it. Time will show. The capture of the literal Babylon by Cyrus was not the total destruction of Babylon, it was the transfer of its sovereignty from the Babylonians to the Medes and Persians.' (pp. 97-99).

'We are no advocates of aggression, or apologists of spoliation, but we cannot fail to remark, that it is written in the Apocalypse concerning the mystical Babylon, “Her sins have reached unto heaven” (did they not reach to heaven when the Pope proclaimed himself to be Infallible? did they not then come to a head? And is it surprising that the cup of God's wrath should now overflow upon her?), “and God hath remembered her iniquities; reward her, even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.” And we cannot but observe the evidence which is now displayed to the world, that God is a righteous Judge, that He is the moral Governor of the world, and Arbiter of the destinies of nations, and that, after long forbearance, He punishes Churches and Empires in a manner proportioned to their sins; and that the prophecies of the Apocalypse are true.

'There are other portions of this prophecy which now claim careful attention.

'The Apocalypse predicts that the spiritual dominion of the Papacy will survive the fall of the temporal power of Rome.

'In that Book the mystical Babylon falls, but that spiritual Empire, which is personified as the Beast (a term derived from Daniel's prophecy) on which she sits, is described as remaining after her fall. The fall of the Pope's temporal power will not be the extinction of the Papacy. On the contrary, it is very probable, that the fall of the temporal power of the Papacy will add fresh strength and confidence to its spiritual domination.' (pp. 100-101).

'There is another prophecy in the Book of Revelation which is a fit subject for solemn meditation at the present time.

'It seems to foretell, that after the destruction of its temporal sway, the Papacy will act, if not in alliance with some Infidel powers, yet concurrently with them...

[As detailed in his earlier work: Lectures on the Apocalypse; Critical, Expository, and Practical; delivered before the University of Cambridge; by Chr. Wordsworth D.D. (then) Canon of Westminster; published by Francis & John Rivington, London, 1852]

' . . . [T]hen [after this] the final struggle of Christianity against open Infidelity will ensue; and then, after that great conflict, the Victory of Christ will be complete, and the General Resurrection and Universal Judgment of quick and dead will take place, and His faithful soldiers and servants will be received into the everlasting glory of His heavenly kingdom. Then will be the consummation of all things which is revealed in the last chapters of the Apocalypse. . . . “The Spirit and the Bride say, Come . . . . . Amen, so come, Lord Jesus.”' (pp. 104-105).