It's True-All Roads Do Lead to Rome

 

In 587 BC Nebuchadrezzar, King of Babylon, had a profoundly important prophetic dream that a young Jewish eunuch by the name of Daniel was called upon to interpret. These were Daniel's words to the king, taken from the book of Daniel chapter 2:

 

Thou, O king, sawest, & behold a great image. 

This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; & the form thereof was terrible. 

This image's head was of fine gold, his breast & his arms of silver, his belly & his thighs of brass,

His legs of iron, his feet part of iron & part of clay.

 

This is the dream; & we will tell the interpretaion thereof before the king.

 

Thou, O king, art a king of kings....Thou art this head of gold.

And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee,

& another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.

And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron:

foreasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces & subdueth all things:

and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces & bruise.

And whereas thou sawest the feet & toes, part of potters' clay, & part of iron,

the kingdom shall be divided;

but there shall be in it of the strength of iron,

forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.

 

Daniel's words proved to be historically accurate. His interpretation established the glorious Babylonian kingdom of Nebuchadrezzar as the head of gold. However, it endured only 50 years.  Sometime before 538 BC Babylonia was conquered by the Medo-Persians represented in the dream as the breastplate & arms of silver. The Medo-Persians in turn were conquered by the Grecians in 331 BC, the torso of brass.  Lastly, the Romans conquered Grecia in 27 BC.

The legs of iron illustrate the fact that the Roman Empire had 2 divisions. This is the part that contains pertinent information for us today.

 

In another letter I discussed the fact that the bible will often use the efficiency of a single codex to explain 2 parallel events. In theological discourse these are called 'types' & 'antitypes'. The function is similar to the 'condensation' mechanism that Freud identified in dreams which is when a single object or event contains several accurate

interpretations. Although the type/antitype definition does not fully apply to the interpretation I'm about to present, it still elucidates the fact that use of multiple prophetic accuracies condensed into a single textual format is characteristic of biblical scripture. For lack of time, you must forgive me for not providing more information on this topic. Fortunately,  you can always google 'biblical types & antitypes' for further clarification. That said, let's focus once again on Nebechadrezzar's vision of the fourth empire. I'm hoping to present a compelling argument here that the 2 legs of Rome can be successfully interpreted both spatially & chronologically.

 

The first leg, of course, was Rome as it existed at the time of Christ. It's spatial counterpart was established centuries later in 330 AD when the Emperor Constantine transferred his Empire's capital city from Rome to Constantinople or what today is known as Istanbul, Turkey.  The city of Constantinople remained the second capital of the Roman Empire from 330 until 395 AD.  Throughout the periods of both the Roman &, later, Byzantine control the area was predominantly Christian.  That came to a dramatic end when the city was conquered by the Islamist Ottoman Empire in 1453 at which point Constantinople was transformed into an Islamic stronghold that operated under the Sharia Law caliphate system. Although this brutal caliphate system was terminated when the Ottoman Empire was defeated in WW1, Turkish territory continues to be an Islamic stronghold to this day. 

 

The chronological counterpart of the Roman Empire would have to be the government that supplanted it,

the Holy Roman Empire.  If you've read my earlier writings you already understand that the Holy Roman Empire was in fact the germanic First Reich which retained power from 962-1806.  Wikipedia describes it as 'a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe'.  Sound familiar?  It was this government that colluded with the Vatican & its pope to solidify Catholicism's absolute & unbridled power throughout Europe.  Moreover, it was under this government that the majority of people in Europe experienced immeasurable, humanly inflicted suffering, enduring the nightmarish torments of the Spanish Inquistion & the bleak misery of the Dark Ages. 

 

And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron:

foreasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces & subdueth all things:

and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces & bruise.

 

Certainly both the Islamic Caliphate system & the germanic-Vatican collusion abundantly satisfy this chilling description of the 4th empire spoken of by Daniel.  Yet there was another critical segment to the revelation Daniel gave when describing the fourth kingdom:

 

And whereas thou sawest the feet & toes, part of potters' clay, & part of iron,

the kingdom shall be divided;

but there shall be in it of the strength of iron,

forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.

 

 

In order to understand this portion it is first remind ourselves of the metaphorical uses of both 'clay' & 'iron' in the bible. 'Clay' always refers to humankind & it's fallability, while 'iron' expresses unyielding strength.

 

 

 

TO BE REFINED & CONTINUED