This World's Kingdom

Fourth Beast-Rome

In this dream the Lion represents Babylon, the Bear represents Medo-Persia, the Leopard Greece, and the fourth beast, “dreadful and terrible,” is Rome. We pay particular attention to the last one because it reaches into modern history. It had ten horns, and, like the ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, these represent the divisions of power which came out of the empire once ruled by Rome.A “little horn” arose after the ten. It replaced three of them and ruled among them. This “little horn” represents the gradual rise to power of the Church of Rome, Papacy. It effectively replaced three divisions of the Roman Empire in Italy (the Heruli, the Eastern Exarchate, and the Ostrogoths). Papacy became established as a civil power. The “eyes of a man” represent the intelligence of this system, and its “mouth” and words represent Papacy's bombastic claims and decrees.

This fourth beast is also depicted in Revelation as a “dragon,” representing “the Devil” and his influence (Revelation 12:9). This dragon, Pagan Rome, persecuted the early Church and produced many martyrs, but then Satan changed his ways. As he often transforms himself to appear as an “angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14), so Pagan Rome was transformed from heathenism to Catholicism and claimed to be Christ's Kingdom. Under Papal Rome, not only were God's Plan and character misrepresented, but great bloody persecutions more severe and protracted than even those of Pagan Rome, were brought against the true Church, After giving some details of the Papal horn, the Prophet states it would lose its dominion by a gradual process until it was completely destroyed.

The turning point ending Papacy's power to persecute came in 1799, when the Pope died in France as a prisoner of Napoleon. The prayers and curses of the Pope availed nothing. The Vatican's temporal power waned rapidly until 1870 when it lost the last vestige of temporal power at the hands of Victor Emmanuel. Ironically, in that same year, with the great words which the horn was speaking (Daniel 7:11), Papacy declared the infallibility of the Popes!

The preceding beasts “had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time” (Daniel 7:12). As each one lost their empire, their dominion passed to the next. The lives of Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece were each prolonged as the succeeding empires absorbed their customs, cultures and practices into their own government. For example, when Persia conquered the Chaldeans at Babylon, Daniel was retained as an administrator. Alexander the Great of Greece adopted various Persian customs, and during the Roman Empire, Greek culture and language was widespread.

However, the life of the final beast, Rome, would not be prolonged. “I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame” (Daniel 7:11). No successor empire builds upon this one, or incorporates it. It is succeeded by the Kingdom of Christ, which is a new and pure government provided by God.