What is the Mark of the Beast? Revelation 13 Explained

INTRODUCTION

Purpose

This site identifies the Mark of the Beast through many articles, including articles on Daniel and Revelation. This article provides an overview of the key articles and references them for further reading.

Revelation 13: An Overview

Four Symbolic Powers – Four Human Organizations

Revelation 13 describes four ‘animals,’ representing four human organizations that oppose God and His people:

• • The Beast – A beast rises from the sea (v. 1). Revelation often refers to it simply as “the beast” (e.g., v. 3). The sea represents the peoples of the world (17:15), and the Beast symbolizes a human organization.
  • The Dragon – The Beast receives “his power and his throne and great authority” from a dragon (v. 2). The Dragon therefore symbolizes another powerful human organization—one that already existed when the Beast rose from the sea.
  • The False Prophet – In the second half of Revelation 13, a second beast rises, but now from the earth (v. 11). Elsewhere, it is called the False Prophet (16:13). It “exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence” (v. 12). It is the False Prophet because it deceives people by performing “great signs” (v. 13).
  • The Image of the Beast – Through these “signs,” the False Prophet deceives the earth’s inhabitants and tells them “to make an image to the beast” (v. 14). It is the Image—not the Beast itself or the False Prophet—that compels people to receive the Mark of the Sea Beast.

Since it is the image of the Beast, the Image is also an animal. But all four animals—the Dragon, the Sea Beast, the Land Beast, and the Image—symbolize human organizations.

The Dragon = the Source of the Beast’s Power.

Notice how frequently the phrases “gave him” and “given to him” occur in the following passage:

“13:2 The dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. . . . 13:5 There was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies, and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him. 13:7 It was also given to him – to make war with the saints and to overcome them, – and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him.”

In all these instances, “him” refers to the Beast. This repetition shows that the Beast receives from the Dragon not only its power, throne, and great authority, but also its blasphemous mouth, its authority to act for forty-two months, its power to wage war against and overcome the saints, and its authority over every people (13:2, 5, 7).

This authority passes from the Beast to the False Prophet (13:12), and the False Prophet gives life to the Image (13:15). Therefore. the Dragon is the ultimate source of the authority exercised by the other three powers. To understand the Mark of the Beast, one must identify the Beast. But identifying the Beast also requires understanding what the Dragon represents.

The Beast is Not the End-Time Persecutor.

The Beast is not the direct persecutor of God’s people in the end time. Its fatal wound (13:3) symbolizes a period when it is unable to exercise authority. After the wound heals, however, the Land Beast—the False Prophet—exercises all the Beast’s authority and leads the whole world to worship it (13:3, 12). The False Prophet then deceives the people into creating the Image of the Beast. This Image, rather than the Beast itself, enforces the Mark, prevents those who refuse from buying or selling, and even kills God’s people (13:15–17). The Sea Beast appears to remain in existence, but it does not directly persecute God’s end-time people. To understand the end-time conflict, one also needs to identify the organizations represented by the False Prophet and the Image of the Beast.

The 42 Months Precede the End Time.

The Dragon grants the Beast authority for 42 months (13:5). Since everything else in this chapter is symbolic, the 42 months should also be interpreted symbolically. This period appears seven times across five chapters of Daniel and Revelation, where it is also described as 1,260 days or “a time, times, and half a time.”

Revelation 13 consists of two main sections:

• • Verses 1–10 focus on the Beast from the sea. It says the Beast will have a fatal wound but be healed (v. 3) and will receive authority to rule for 42 months (v. 5). The question is whether the 42 months come before or after the wound.
  • Verses 11–18 describe the end-time crisis involving the Mark of the Beast. Here, the Sea Beast is no longer the direct actor. The Land Beast and the Image now hold the power.

The following explains the chronological sequence:

• • Since the Land Beast receives its authority from the Sea Beast (13:12), the Land Beast emerges after the Sea Beast already exists.
  • According to verse 12, the Land Beast deceives people into creating an Image of the Sea Beast only after the Sea Beast’s wound has been healed. In other words, verses 11-18 describe the period after the healing of the wound.
  • Because the Sea Beast received authority to act for 42 months (13:5), but is not the actor in the end-time conflict in verses 11–18, the 42 months relate to the period before the end-time conflict.

Since 13:11-18 describe the period after both the healing of the wound and after the 42 months:

• • The 42 months describe the period before the wound.
  • The wound is the end of the 42 months.
  • Verses 11-18 describe the end-time crisis after the wound has been healed.

The other instances where Daniel and Revelation mention this period (42 months) also put it before the end time:

• • Revelation 11 – At the end of the 1,260 days or 3½ times, the Beast kills God’s two witnesses. They remain dead for 3½ days, after which God raises them to life. Their death is therefore an end-time event that occurs after the 1,260 days.
  • Revelation 12 – During the “time, times, and half a time,” the woman hides from the Dragon in the wilderness. At the end of this period, the “earth” delivers her from her place of refuge and forces the Dragon to withdraw. The end-time conflict follows.

The article that discusses this period (see here) elaborates much further and identifies it specifically.

The Beast is Christian.

The following suggests that the Beast represents a Christian organization:

• • It specifically persecutes God’s people (13:5–7), meaning God’s true people, not nominal Christians, something secular organizations are unable to do.
  • It acts through the Land Beast, which has two horns like a Lamb (v. 11). Everywhere else in Revelation, the title “Lamb” refers to Jesus Christ (e.g., v. 8). The Land Beast therefore appears to be Christlike, but “spoke as a dragon” (v. 11).
  • The Land Beast is also called the False Prophet, implying a false Christian organization.
  • The Land Beast performs great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven (13:12–13). This is symbolic fire. Elijah called down fire from heaven to demonstrate that he spoke for God. Similarly, the Land Beast’s fire implies that it convinces the earth-dwellers it speaks for God. Revelation identifies it as the False Prophet (16:13), but most people will accept this organization as God’s true prophet!

The conflict in Revelation 13 is therefore not between the Church and the world, but between the mainstream Church and God’s people. The mainstream Church persecutes God’s people because they refuse to submit to its idolatrous practices. This further suggests that the Mark of the Beast is a Christian practice or symbol.

The Image is Unity of Church and State

As noted above, the Image of the Beast is the power that directly persecutes God’s end-time people. The False Prophet deceives the people into creating an Image of the Sea Beast (13:14). Therefore, they establish an organization modeled on the Beast at the height of its power, during the 42 months, before it receives its fatal wound.

The Image compels everyone to receive the Mark of the Beast. It prevents those who refuse the Mark from buying or selling and kills those who refuse to worship (obey) it (13:15–17). The Image therefore represents an organization with civil authority to enact and enforce religious laws. Thus, it symbolizes a union of Church and State.

The Seven Heads and Ten Horns

Both the Dragon and the Beast have seven heads and ten horns (12:3; 13:1), indicating that they belong to the same symbolic species. Later in this article, these features help identify both the Dragon and the Beast. It will be shown that they belong to the series of animals in Daniel 7, which, in total, also has seven heads and ten horns.

Because the Image is an image of the Beast, it may likewise be understood as a beast with seven heads and ten horns, belonging to the animal-kingdoms of Daniel 7.

Conclusions

Revelation 13 presents four entities opposed to God: the Dragon, the Beast, the Land Beast (the False Prophet), and the Image of the Beast. These entities symbolize four human organizations and arise in succession.

The principal organization in verses 1–10, “the Beast,” is understood as a Christian organization.

However, the Beast is not the original source of these evil powers. It continues the work of an earlier organization, symbolized as a Dragon, from which it receives its power and great authority. Therefore, to understand the Mark of the Beast, one has to identify both the Beast and the Dragon.

The organization symbolized by the Beast rules for a symbolic period of forty-two months, then suffers a major setback, but its authority is revived when a third organization, the False Prophet, comes to power.

The Beast and the False Prophet present themselves as Christian, they “spoke as a dragon.” Revelation 13 therefore depicts a conflict, not between the Church and the world, but between the mainstream Church and God’s true people, who are persecuted for refusing the Beast’s mark.

False Prophet – Although the False Prophet upholds the Beast’s principles, it persuades most people that it speaks for God.

Image of the Beast – The False Prophet deceives the people to re-establish the system that existed during the 42 months before the Beast’s fatal wound: a union of Church and State that uses civil law to enforce the Beast’s religious laws.

In the end time, therefore, the Dragon no longer appears to exist, while the Beast remains in the background rather than acting as the immediate aggressor. The direct enemy of God’s end-time people is the False Prophet, which represents false Christianity. By uniting Church and State, it turns the Beast’s principles into civil law.

MARK OF THE BEAST (Introduction)

Something the Beast is known for

Revelation 13 describes four distinct symbolic entities: the Dragon, the Sea Beast, the Land Beast, and the Image of the Beast. These represent four distinct human organizations. The Mark belongs specifically to the Beast—not to the Dragon or the False Prophet. The mark therefore identifies the Beast. It is something the Beast is especially known for. This article first identifies the organization symbolized by the Beast and then seeks to identify its mark by asking what distinguishes that organization.

The Counterpart of God’s Seal

The closing verses of Revelation 13 describe the Beast’s followers bearing its mark—its name—on their foreheads or right hands (13:16–17). The next chapter opens with God’s people, the 144,000, bearing God’s name on their foreheads instead (14:1). Revelation refers to God’s name on the forehead as the seal of God (7:3). Because both the seal and the mark are names on foreheads, God’s seal is the counterpart of the Beast’s mark. In the end time, every person will bear either the Beast’s mark or God’s seal.

The Mark on the Forehead

While the Beast’s mark—its name or the number of its name—is placed on the right hand or forehead (13:16), God’s seal is His name on the foreheads of His people (14:1). Neither the Mark nor the Seal should be interpreted as literal names written on literal foreheads. 14:4–5 explains God’s seal by portraying His people as pure in mind. Therefore, the forehead symbolizes the mind. To bear a name on the forehead signifies inward allegiance—a commitment of heart and mind to the religious system represented by that name:

God’s name on the forehead signifies allegiance to Him and His principles.

As the counterpart of God’s seal, the Beast’s name on the forehead symbolizes a mind committed to the Beast’s principles.

The Mark on the Hand

God’s seal is on the forehead only, whereas the Beast’s mark may be on either the forehead or the right hand. If the forehead symbolizes the mind, the hand symbolizes action. Bearing the mark only on the hand, therefore, represents outward compliance with the Beast’s demands out of fear, without agreeing to the Beast’s principles, for the people who refuse the mark will be killed (13:15). The end-time conflict thus divides humanity into three groups:

• • Those who have God’s name on their foreheads are committed to God and His principles;
  • Those who have the Beast’s name on their foreheads are committed to Satan’s principles; and
  • Those who have the Beast’s mark on their hands are not inwardly committed to the Beast’s principles, but since they have the Beast’s mark, they will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone (14:9–11).

God’s seal never appears only on the hand because God never compels outward obedience without an inward commitment.

“Buying and Selling” symbolize Sharing and Receiving the Gospel

God’s people, those who refuse the Beast’s mark, will be forbidden to buy or sell (13:17). Revelation uses buying and selling as symbols. Selling represents offering salvation, while buying represents accepting it:

• • In Revelation 3:18, for example, Jesus offers refined gold and white garments—symbols of salvation. To buy them is to receive the salvation He offers.
  • Similarly, when Jesus is said to have “purchased” people with His blood (5:9), the meaning is that He redeemed them. Similarly, the 144,000 have been “purchased from the earth” (14:3, 4).

Consistent with this symbolism, the seven letters of Revelation 2 and 3 use poverty and wealth to describe spiritual condition. Wealth signifies being right with God, whereas poverty signifies being spiritually lost:

Jesus said to Smyrna, “I know … your poverty (but you are rich)” (2:9). Smyrna was materially poor but spiritually rich; its members were right with God.

Laodicea represents the opposite condition. Jesus told its members, “You say, ‘I am rich … and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked’” (3:17). They claimed to be rich, meaning they thought themselves right with God, but Jesus accused them of poverty, meaning they were far from Him.

Accordingly, when only those who bear the Beast’s mark may buy and sell, it means that only they will be permitted to preach. God’s people will be silenced.

Consistent with this interpretation, another article identifies Babylon’s merchants as her false teachers. After the harlot Babylon is “burned up with fire,” “the merchants of the earth weep and mourn … because no one buys their cargoes any more” (18:8, 11), meaning that people will no longer accept their false teachings.

The Mark Contravenes God’s Law.

Because only those without the Mark are persecuted, the Beast’s Mark and God’s Seal must visibly distinguish one group from the other.

Because God’s people are willing to die rather than to accept the Beast’s mark, it must represent something contrary to God’s will. More specifically, the Mark seems to be a violation of the Ten Commandments:

• • Just as the Beast’s followers bear its mark on their foreheads and hands, God commanded ancient Israel to keep His commandments on their foreheads and hands (Exod. 13:9, 16). This imagery signifies continually thinking about and obeying His commandments (Deut. 6:6–8).
  • God’s end-time people are identified as those “who keep the commandments of God” (12:17; 14:12).
  • The Beast’s followers worship it and its Image, contravening the commandment to worship God alone.

Submission or Literal Worship?

Worship dominates Revelation 13 and 14. While people worship the Dragon, the Beast, and the Image of the Beast (13:4, 8, 12, 15; 14:9, 11), the three angels call the world to worship the Creator alone (14:7). The question arises: How does worship relate to the Mark?

The Greek word translated “worship” literally means to bow down before another. For that reason, and since the Beast symbolizes a human organization that cannot literally be worshiped like a god, worship in Revelation 13 and 14 may therefore signify submission and obedience:

• • Worshiping the Beast then means to submit to it. Because the Beast’s authority comes from the Dragon, submitting to the Beast ultimately means submitting to the Dragon. In that sense, people also worship the Dragon.
  • On the other hand, when the three angels in 14:7 call people to worship the Creator, it is a call to obey God.

Another possibility is that the three angels’ call to worship the Creator alone means the Mark involves literal worship of someone who is not the Creator.

Conclusions

• • The Mark is something for which the Beast is especially known.
  • Since God’s Seal is the counterpart of the Beast’s Mark, every person in the end time will bear either the Beast’s Mark or God’s Seal.
  • Both the Mark and the Seal are names placed on foreheads, symbolizing a mind commitment, either to God’s or to Satan’s principles.
  • Bearing the Beast’s Mark on the right hand signifies outward compliance motivated by fear rather than conviction.
  • The prohibition against buying or selling symbolizes an attempt to prevent God’s people from preaching and spreading their message.
  • The Mark of the Beast violates God’s law. More specifically, it may involve worshiping one who is not the Creator.

THE BEAST IS DANIEL’S HORN

In Daniel 7, the Antichrist is the 11th horn of the 4th animal. Another article argues that Daniel’s 11th horn and Revelation’s Beast symbolize the same entity. In summary:

The Beast Belongs to Daniel 7

As noted, Revelation’s Beast receives its power, throne, and great authority from the Dragon (13:2). Both the Dragon and Beast have seven heads and ten horns (12:3; 13:1), showing that they are closely related and belong to the same symbolic family. The following parallels indicate that this family is the sequence of empires and kingdoms described in Daniel 7.

(a) The Same Four Animals

In Revelation, the Beast resembles a leopard, has the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion, and receives its power, throne, and great authority from a dragon (Rev. 13:1–2). Daniel 7 presents the same four beasts. It explicitly names a lion, a bear, and a leopard, and describes the fourth as dragon-like.

(b) The Same Number of Heads and Horns

While Revelation’s Dragon and Beast each have seven heads and ten horns (12:3; 13:1), the four animals in Daniel 7 have, in total, the same number of heads and horns:

• The first three creatures have no horns, whereas the fourth “had ten” (v. 7).
• The first, second, and fourth creatures each have one head, while the fourth, the leopard, has four (v. 6). Together, therefore, the four creatures have seven heads.

(c) They Exist During the Same Historical Period

Daniel’s animals exist concurrently with Revelation’s Dragon and Beast. In both Daniel 7 and Revelation 13, these symbolic powers extend from before Christ to His return:

In Daniel 7, the four creatures symbolize four empires. As discussed below, and as conservative interpreters generally agree, the first is the Babylonian Empire. The fourth empire later fragments into several kingdoms, and its chief continuation, the eleventh horn, remains until Christ returns.

In Revelation, the Dragon first appears before Christ’s birth (12:3, 5). It gives its power and authority to the Beast, which continues until Christ returns (19:11, 19–20).

(d) Both Rise from the Sea

Like Revelation’s Beast (13:1), the four animals in Daniel 7 (v. 2) emerge from the sea.

Conclusion

These allusions to Daniel 7, in Revelation’s description of the Dragon and the Beast, are among the strongest in Revelation, and they are deliberate: they show that Revelation’s Dragon and Beast are somehow related to, or part of, the series of animal-empires in Daniel 7. Revelation 13, therefore, develops the story of Daniel 7 in greater detail.

This reflects a broader principle of prophetic interpretation: later prophecies often expand earlier ones. Daniel 2 establishes the basic framework; Daniel 7 develops it; and Daniel 8 and Daniel 11 add further detail. Revelation, grounded in Daniel’s prophecies, elaborates on and adds detail to Daniel’s beast-empires.

The Beast Is Daniel’s Eleventh Horn

The Main Character in Daniel 7 is the 11th Horn.

The four animals in Daniel 7 symbolize four successive empires. Ten horns arise from the fourth, explained as ten kings emerging from that empire (7:24). Thus, while each of the first three empires is replaced by another great empire, the fourth fragments into multiple kingdoms.

After the first ten horns, an eleventh horn grows from the fourth animal. As it rises, it uproots three of the earlier horns. Though initially small, it grows powerful, eventually dominates the other horn-kingdoms, blasphemes God, persecutes God’s people, and attempts to change His times and laws. A heavenly court then sits in judgment, and the horn is ultimately destroyed when Christ returns.

The eleventh horn, therefore, is the Antichrist. It is God’s main enemy and the central figure in Daniel 7. The chapter describes the preceding four creatures and ten horns only to enable the reader to identify the 11th horn.

As argued above, Revelation’s Dragon and Beast are part of the sequence of empires and kingdoms in Daniel 7, with the Dragon corresponding to Daniel’s fourth beast. The following parallels show that Revelation’s Beast is the same entity as Daniel’s eleventh horn:

(a) Both Are God’s Main Enemy.

Just as the eleventh horn is God’s principal enemy in Daniel, the Beast is His principal enemy in Revelation. They are two symbols of the same Antichrist. Like the horn, Revelation’s Beast blasphemes God, overcomes His people (13:5–7), and is destroyed only when Christ returns. Its importance is especially evident in the end-time crisis, when its mark identifies those who oppose God.

(b) Both succeed the Roman Empire

Revelation’s Beast receives something from each of the four animal kingdoms in Daniel 7. Therefore, like the eleventh horn, it arises after Daniel’s four empires.

More specifically, while Revelation’s Beast receives its throne from the Dragon, identified above as the Roman Empire, Daniel’s 11th horn grows out of Daniel’s 4th animal, also identified as the Roman Empire.

(c) Both Continue Rome’s Authority.

When Daniel 7 describes the destruction of the 11th horn, it says that “the beast was slain” (v11). In other words, the horn continues the fourth beast’s existence and authority: as long as the 11th horn remains, the fourth beast—the Roman Empire—remains:

“Then I kept looking because of the sound of the boastful words which the horn was speaking; I kept looking until the beast was slain, and its body was destroyed and given to the burning fire.” (verse 11, NASB)

Revelation’s Beast likewise continues Rome’s authority. The Dragon, identified above as Rome, gives the Beast its throne, authority, and great power (13:2).

(d) They reign for the same period.

Daniel’s eleventh horn reigns for “a time, times, and half a time” (7:25), while Revelation’s Beast reigns for forty-two months (13:5). These expressions describe the same period:

(i) They are numerically equivalent: a time, times, and half a time equals three and a half times, or three and a half years, which equals forty-two months.

(ii) Both refer to a period in which God’s people are persecuted. The same period also appears in Daniel 12 and Revelation 11 and 12, always in connection with such persecution.

(iii) Revelation 12 confirms that the “time, times, and half a time” and the forty-two months describe the same period. Verses 6 and 14 describe the same period. In both, the woman flees to a prepared place where she is nourished. But while one verse calls this period “a time, times, and half a time,” the other gives its length as 1,260 days. Therefore:

A time, times, and half a time = 1,260 days
Using the Jewish system of 30 days in a month: 1,260 days = 42 months
Thus, a time, times, and half a time equals forty-two months.

See here for a detailed discussion of this period.

(e) Both Continue Until Christ Returns

Both Daniel’s eleventh horn (7:26–27) and Revelation’s Beast (19:11, 20) are destroyed only when Christ returns. Therefore, both exist today, and both will exist during the end-time crisis.

Conclusion

Revelation’s Beast and Daniel’s eleventh horn symbolize the same entity. Therefore, the Beast cannot be identified from Revelation alone. Because the main purpose of the series of animals and horns in Daniel is to enable the reader to identify the 11th horn, Revelation’s Beast must be identified mainly from Daniel’s prophecies. Identifying Revelation’s Beast requires identifying Daniel’s eleventh horn, which in turn requires identifying the fourth animal from which it emerges. That is the purpose of the next main section.

See here for the full article on the Identity of Revelation’s Beast.

THE BEAST IS ROMAN.

The previous section concluded that Revelation’s Beast and the 11th horn of Daniel 7’s 4th animal represent the same entity. This section shows further, from the visions in Daniel 2, 7, 8, and 11, that the fourth animal in Daniel 7 represents the Roman Empire. That would mean Daniel’s 11th horn, Revelation’s Beast, is a remnant of the Roman Empire.

Daniel 2 Divides History into Six Ages

God gave King Nebuchadnezzar a vision of the statue of a man. The statue’s parts represent six successive ages. The first four (2:32-33) symbolize four consecutive empires:

1. 1. 1. Head of Gold
      2. Breast of Silver
      3. Thighs of Bronze
      4. Legs of Iron

The fifth, symbolized by the statue’s feet and toes, partly iron and partly clay, is a “divided kingdom,” a time when multiple kingdoms will exist concurrently (2:41-3).

In the sixth and final phase, a single king will again rule the world, but it will be God’s eternal kingdom, ruled by Jesus Christ.

Daniel 2 identifies the head of gold with Nebuchadnezzar (2:38), but it will be followed by “another kingdom” (2:39). Therefore, the head of gold represents the entire Babylonian Empire, which was founded by Nabopolassar in 626 BC, inherited by Nebuchadnezzar II in 605 BC, and ended when the Persians captured Babylon in 539 BC.

The prophecy presents the first four kingdoms as worldwide. For example, God gave Nebuchadnezzar authority over “the whole world” (v. 38). Therefore, this article refers to the four kingdoms as empires.

Daniel 2 does not identify the three empires that follow Babylon. (See here for the article on Daniel 2.)

Daniel 7 describes the Same Six Ages

As noted above, the four animals in Daniel 7 represent four successive empires. The fourth is followed by ten horn-kingdoms, after which an eleventh horn-kingdom arises. For the following reasons, Daniel 7 describes the same sequence of empires and kingdoms as Daniel 2:

(a) In both visions, there are four empires.

Daniel 7 calls its four animals both “kings” and “kingdoms” (7:17, 23). In other words, a ‘king’ represents a kingdom. Each animal symbolizes a kingdom ruled by a succession of kings.

(b) In both visions, the four empires rule in succession.

Daniel 2: Nebuchadnezzar represents the first empire. He is told: “After you, there will arise another kingdom.” “Then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth (2:38-39).

Daniel 7: Verses 6–7 indicate the sequence of the beasts with the phrase “after this.” The fourth beast “was different from all the beasts that were before it” (verse 7). The fourth beast devours the “whole earth” (verse 23), leaving no room for the other beasts to rule at the same time.

(c) Both visions call the fourth empire the “fourth kingdom” (2:40; 7:23).

(d) Both visions associate the fourth kingdom with iron (2:40; 7:7).

(e) In both visions, during the fifth age, several kings rule concurrently:

Daniel 2: The fifth age is a “divided kingdom,” indicating that it consists of several coexisting parts. Some would be strong, others weak. They would attempt to unite through intermarriage, but fail. The imagery points to several kingdoms existing at the same time (vv. 41–43).

Daniel 7: This vision symbolizes the fifth age as eleven coexisting horns. For example, the 11th horn rises “among” the first ten and uproots three of them as it emerges (7:8). [Show More]

(f) In both visions, the divided kingdom is followed by God’s eternal kingdom (2:44; 7:26–27).

Therefore, Daniel 2 and 7 describe the same sequence of empires and kingdoms, and may be compared as follows:

Daniel 2	Daniel 7
Head of Gold	Lion
Silver Breast	Bear
Bronze Thighs	Leopard
Iron Legs	Fourth animal: dreadful, terrifying, and extremely strong.
Divided Kingdom – Feet of Iron and Clay	11 horns of the Fourth Animal
Eternal kingdom	Eternal kingdom

Conclusions:

Daniel 2 is the foundation for identifying Revelation’s Beast.
The Antichrist is prominent in Daniel 7, 8, and 11. Although Daniel 2 does not mention the Antichrist, it outlines history from Daniel’s time to God’s eternal kingdom. This provides the framework for interpreting Daniel’s later prophecies. The identification of Revelation’s Beast, which is the same as Daniel’s evil horn, begins in Daniel 2. [Show More]

The sixth age is God’s eternal kingdom.
In that kingdom, no trace of the present world order will remain (2:35). The stone that destroys the statue—symbolizing Christ’s return—becomes a great mountain: a kingdom that will never be destroyed (2:44); the everlasting kingdom (7:27). God’s kingdom has come. His principles will prevail. The current arrangement of kings and slaves, rich and poor, will disappear; the strong will serve the weak. No one will use personal gifts for self-exaltation or private gain, and the earth will be beautiful.

Daniel 7’s Fourth Beast: The Roman Empire

Purpose

Because Revelation’s Beast and the 11th horn of the 4th animal in Daniel 7 are the same entity, identifying Revelation’s Beast requires identifying Daniel’s fourth animal.

Daniel 2 identifies the first empires as Babylon, but does not name the three that follow.

Daniel 7 does not explicitly identify any of the empires. But Daniel 8 uses two animals as symbols for empires and explicitly names them:

• • Ram = “Media and Persia”
  • Goat = “Greece” (vv. 20-21)

This section identifies the four animal-empires in Daniel 7 by comparing them to the two animal-empires in Daniel 8.

Conservative vs. Liberal Interpretations

All interpreters identify the first empire as Babylon. The conservative interpretation understands the remaining empires as follows:

• Bear (Daniel 7) = Ram (Daniel 8) = Medo-Persia
• Leopard (Daniel 7)= Goat (Daniel 8) = Greece
• Therefore, the fourth empire (Daniel 7) = Rome, and the 11th horn is a remnant of the Roman Empire.

In the Liberal Interpretation, the Ram of Daniel 8 (Medo-Persia) comprises both the Bear and Leopard of Daniel 7: The Bear symbolizes the Medes and the Leopard the Persians. Therefore, the fourth empire is Greece, and the 11th horn is a Greek king.

These views may be compared as follows:

	Conservative		Liberal
Daniel 7	Daniel 8	Meaning	Daniel 8	Meaning
Lion	–	Babylon	–	Babylon
Bear	Ram	Medo-Persia	Ram	Medes
Leopard	Goat	Greece	Ram	Persians
Fourth	–	Rome	Goat	Greece

Bear = Medo-Persia

Daniel 7 and 8 describe the six animals through features such as heads, horns, wings, sides, ribs, and teeth. Therefore, we can identify the animals in Daniel 7 by comparing them with the animals in Daniel 8. On this basis, the Bear in Daniel 7 corresponds to the Ram in Daniel 8, for both the Bear and Ram:

• • Are higher on one side:
    The Bear is “raised up on one side” (7:5). The Ram has two horns, one longer than the other. The two sides symbolize the kingdoms of Media and Persia. The higher side represents the Persians. Initially, the Medes dominated Persia, but Cyrus reversed the relationship. By the time their combined forces conquered Babylon, Persia dominated the Medes.
  • Conquer three things:
    The Bear has three ribs between its teeth (7:5). Because animals symbolize kingdoms, the ribs may represent kingdoms or territories conquered. Similarly, the Ram charges in three directions: to the West, North, and South (8:4). The three conquered territories may correspond to the principal Medo-Persian conquests: Lydia in the north (547 BC), Babylon in the west (539 BC), and Egypt in the south (525 BC).

Leopard = Greece

Daniel 7’s Leopard corresponds to Daniel 8’s Goat, representing Greece, because:

• • Both are represented as fast:
    The Leopard has four wings (7:6), and the Goat moves so swiftly it seems to fly (8:5). This corresponds to the speed with which Alexander the Great conquered the known world: in about ten years.
  • Both have four parts:
    The leopard has four heads (7:6), while the goat grows four horns after its first horn is broken (8:8). These symbolize the four divisions of the Greek Empire after Alexander died at age 33.

The Liberal Interpretation does not fit.

This identification of the Bear as Medo-Persia and the Leopard as Greece supports the conservative interpretation. Furthermore:

• • In the Liberal interpretation, Daniel 8’s Ram corresponds to both the Bear and Leopard in Daniel 7. But the Ram and the Leopard share no similarities. In fact, they clearly differ: the Ram has two horns, indicating two divisions, while the Leopard has four heads, meaning four divisions.
  • In the Liberal interpretation, the 4th animal in Daniel 7 and the Greek Goat in Daniel 8 symbolize the same entity. However, nothing in their descriptions confirms that. On the contrary, they clearly differ. The 4th animal in Daniel 7 first has 10 horns; then an 11th comes up, uprooting 3 of the 10 horns and leaving 8 standing. Daniel 8’s Goat, by contrast, first has one horn and later four. Because the horns symbolize divisions of empires, the Goat and the 4th animal represent different entities.

Medo-Persia is a single empire.

To fit the text, the liberal interpretation treats Media and Persia as two separate empires. [Show More]

Historically, the Persians conquered the Medes around 550 BCE. Eleven years later, the combined Medo-Persian forces conquered Babylon under the supreme rule of Cyrus the Great. Moreover, contrary to the liberal interpretation, Daniel consistently presents the Medes and Persians as a single empire. For example:

• • • Daniel prophesied that the combined forces of the Medes and Persians would conquer Babylon (5:28).
    • He referred to the unchangeable law of the Medes and Persians (6:9, 13, and 16).
    • He identifies the ram as “the kings of Media and Persia” (8:20). It would be inconsistent to portray Media and Persia as one animal in Daniel 8 but as two animals in Daniel 7 and two metals in Daniel 2.

Fourth Animal = Rome

The preceding comparison supports the conservative interpretation. If the Bear represents Medo-Persia and the Leopard represents Greece, Daniel 7’s terrifying fourth animal must represent the Roman Empire:

• • • • • Lion = Babylonian Empire
        • Bear = Ram (Medo-Persia)
        • Leopard = Goat (Greece)
        • The dragonlike fourth animal = Roman Empire

The Dragon and the 11th Horn

It follows that:

• Revelation’s Dragon, which symbolizes the same entity as Daniel’s fourth animal, also represents the Roman Empire.
• The eleven horns of Daniel’s fourth animal represent the kingdoms into which the Roman Empire fragmented.
• Daniel’s eleventh horn—identified here with Revelation’s Beast—is therefore a remnant of the Roman Empire. That would mean it was initially part of the Roman Empire but became a distinct entity when the Empire fragmented. Daniel presents it as the most important fragment of the Roman Empire. By receiving authority from Revelation’s Dragon (13:2), interpreted as the Roman Empire, it continues Rome’s authority. Daniel 7 depicts the eleventh horn as initially small but growing in power, eventually dominating the other fragments, and being destroyed only at Christ’s return. In this sense, the Roman Empire is still with us!

Daniel 8: Three Views of the Evil Horn

A Short Overview of Daniel 8

Daniel 8 does not mention the first kingdom of Daniel 7, identified above as Babylon, nor God’s final, eternal kingdom. It describes only the two animals: the Ram and the Goat, which it explicitly identifies as Medo-Persia and Greece (8:20–21).

The goat first had one large horn, representing the Greek kingdom under Alexander the Great. That horn broke off, symbolizing Alexander’s death. Four horns grew in its place, extending toward the four winds of heaven (the four compass directions) (8:8), symbolizing the four parts into which Alexander’s generals divided the empire after his death.

However, the main figure in Daniel 8 is a little horn. Most of the chapter focuses on this horn. Like the little horn in Daniel 7, it represents the Antichrist. It would:

• • Blaspheme God,
  • Persecute God’s people (“the host of the stars” – 8:10),
  • Defile the sanctuary until the end of the 2,300 evenings and mornings (8:13–14),
  • Oppose God’s work of salvation (the daily or continual service – 8:11–12), and
  • Exalt itself against “the Prince of the host” (8:11, 25).

Daniel 7 and 8 describe the Same Antichrist

Commentators agree that the evil horns in Daniel 7 and 8 represent the same power. For example:

• Both visions symbolize this power as a horn.

• The horns are similar. Both begin small and grow powerful (7:8; 8:9). Both speak against God (7:8, 25; 8:11, 25), persecute God’s people (7:21, 25; 8:11, 25), are the main character in the visions, and are finally destroyed (7:26; 8:25).

• As a general principle, later prophecies amplify the earlier ones. For example, Daniel 7 repeats the four empires of Daniel 2 but gives more detail. [Show More]

If the horn in Daniel 7 is a remnant of Rome, as argued above, then the horn in Daniel 8 is also of Roman origin.

Liberal View: The Horn Is Antiochus IV

The liberal, or critical, view is common in academic scholarship. In this view, the Book of Daniel contains no inspired prophecies, was compiled in the middle of the second century BC, and is essentially history in the form of prophecy (see here). It explains the symbols as follows:

The fourth animal in Daniel 7 represents the Greek Empire.

The eleventh horn represents Antiochus IV, a Greek king who ruled in the second century BC, persecuted the Jews, and defiled the temple.

The first ten horns represent ten Greek kings who ruled one after another before Antiochus IV.

The 2,300 “evenings and mornings” refer to 2,300 morning and evening sacrifices, totaling 1,150 literal days, describing a period during Antiochus IV’s reign.

The sanctuary is the temple in Jerusalem. Antiochus defiled it, and Jewish rebels purified it in 165 or 164 BC.

Futurist View: The Horn Is a Future Antichrist

In the futurist view, Daniel’s horn represents an Antichrist who will appear near the end of history, shortly before Jesus returns. Futurists usually agree that Antiochus partly fulfilled the prophecy, but regard Antiochus as merely a type of an end-time Antichrist.

Some futurists apply the 2,300 “evenings and mornings” to the end time and understand them as 2,300 literal days. They expect the Jews to build another temple in Jerusalem. During the final seven years, the Antichrist will defile this temple. The 2300 days will end when Christ returns, ends the Antichrist’s reign, and restores the temple.

This view depends mainly on a dispensational reading of Daniel 9. It treats the final week of Daniel 9 as the last seven years of the present age. This site rejects that reading for several reasons:

• Restore: It assumes that Artaxerxes’ second decree restored Jerusalem. But the Hebrew word translated “restore” means returning a city to its former owner and allowing that owner to rule it under its own laws. The second decree did not do this.
• Rebuild: It assumes that the second decree allowed Jerusalem to be rebuilt. However, the rebuilding had already begun. Artaxerxes issued his second decree because the work was not progressing as expected.
• Prophetic Years: It treats the 490 years as “prophetic years” of 360 days, reducing them to about 483 solar years. Yet Israel also had weeks of literal years, with every seventh year as a Sabbath year, and the “70 weeks” in Daniel 9 are 70 cycles of 7 literal years each.
• Triumphal Entry: It says that the first 483 years ended with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. But this event came near the end of His earthly ministry, while verse 25 indicates that His ministry would begin when the 483 years ended.
• Covenant Suspended: It says that God suspended His covenant with Israel at the Cross. Yet for several years after the crucifixion, the Holy Spirit worked powerfully, particularly among Israel. Israel still had a final chance to repent.
• A Gap: It places a long gap between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks, but the text gives no hint of such a gap. Inserting an unspecified pause destroys the numerical precision of the 490-year timeline.

For more details, see here.

Historicist View: The Horn Is the Roman Church

The historicist view, held by many Reformers, identifies the evil horn with the medieval Roman Church. The rise of this church may be traced as follows:

Fourth Century: The Roman Church originated in the 4th century as the Roman Empire’s state church. In the Christian Roman Empire, law required all Romans to be Christians, but Church and State were united under a single head: the emperor. Emperors determined the theology of the Roman State Church. The emperors called the so-called ecumenical councils on their own initiative and for their own purposes. They appointed their agents as presiding officers and manipulated these councils to ensure outcomes they approved of. The so-called ecumenical councils of the fourth century are better understood as meetings of the Roman government to determine the Roman Empire’s state religion. Other Christian nations, such as the Germanic nations that ruled the Western Empire in the fifth century, were not invited. [Show More]

Fifth Century: In the fifth century, Arian Germanic peoples conquered the Western Roman Empire. The Roman State Church survived but came under Arian rule (🔗).

Sixth to Eighth Centuries: In the sixth century, the Eastern Roman Empire defeated and subjected the Western Arian kingdoms. Over the next two centuries, during the Byzantine Papacy, the Eastern Empire governed the West through the Roman State Church. During this period, the Germanic kings gradually converted their kingdoms from Arianism to the Roman State Church (🔗).

Ninth and Tenth Centuries: In the eighth century, Muslim victories weakened the Eastern Empire and significantly reduced its domination of the West. The Roman State Church became the Roman Church, supported by Western nations that had accepted it over the previous two centuries.

Eleventh Century: Like their earlier Roman counterparts, the Germanic kings ruled the Roman Church and appointed senior church officials. However, beginning in the 11th century, the Church gained independence from monarchs in what is called the Investiture Controversy.

High Middle Ages: More than that, beginning in the 12th century, known as the High Middle Ages, the Church claimed and often exercised power over the monarchs,

Eighteenth Century: Around the time of the French Revolution, growing separation of Church and State ended the Roman Church’s power to persecute and its former dominance over European political, social, and economic life.

Historicists apply the day-year principle: one prophetic day represents one literal year. They therefore understand the 2,300 evenings and mornings as 2,300 years, beginning during Medo-Persian rule and ending around the time of the French Revolution. [Show More]

In this view, cleansing the sanctuary represents restoring God’s people and His message after the corruptions, distortions, and persecutions of the Middle Ages.

Which View Best Fits the Text?

	Liberal/ Preterist	Historicist	Futurist/ Dispensational
Little horn	Antiochus IV	Roman Church	End-time Antichrist
2300 days	1150 past days	2300 historical years	2300 end-time days
Temple	In ancient Jerusalem	God’s people	In end-time Jerusalem
Cleansing	Before 164 BC	After the Middle Ages	Return of Christ

As noted above, the Dispensational view depends mainly on its reading of Daniel 9. The series of articles on Daniel 9 on this site has argued against that reading.

The comparison above between Daniel 7 and 8, which identifies the fourth animal—from which the eleventh horn grows—as the Roman Empire, argues against the liberal interpretation. The following points also weigh against the liberal interpretation:

1. The horns appear after the fourth empire. In the liberal view, the eleven horns are kings who rule during the fourth empire. Daniel 2 and 7, however, as discussed above, place the horns after that empire. The statue’s iron legs correspond to the fourth beast of Daniel 7, but the 11 horns correspond to the ‘divided kingdom’ in Daniel 2, which comes after the iron legs,

2. The horns rule at the same time. In the liberal view, the eleven horns are eleven Greek kings who rule one after another. Daniel 2 and 7, however, present them as coexisting rulers. For example, they would try to unite through marriage but would not remain united (2:43). Daniel 7 also describes the 11th horn among the other horns (7:8), which requires several rulers to exist at the same time. [Show More]

Daniel 8: The Horn Is Roman

Historicists base their view mainly on Daniel 2 and 7, and then use those chapters to explain Daniel 8 and 11. Liberal interpreters begin mainly with Daniel 8 and 11, and then use those chapters to explain Daniel 2 and 7. Daniel 8 and 11 describe the same evil power found in Daniel 7, but they lack a separate symbol for the Roman Empire, making it easier to identify that power with Antiochus IV. This section argues that Daniel 8 and 11 do not support the liberal view. Like Daniel 7, they point to a Roman Antichrist.

Where Does the Horn Come From?

In Daniel 8, Daniel first sees a Ram with two horns (v. 3) representing Medo-Persia (v. 20). He then sees a Goat with one large horn (verse 5). The Goat attacks the Ram, breaks its two horns, throws it to the ground, and tramples it (v. 7). The goat represents Greece (v. 21). Its large horn is then broken, and “four conspicuous horns” rise in its place towards the “four winds of heaven” (v. 8). Verse 9 continues by saying that still another horn—symbolizing the Antichrist—comes “out of one of them.” It begins small, grows powerful, persecutes God’s people, and defiles the sanctuary. The key question is: What does it mean when it says this horn comes “out of one of them?” Out of one of what? The previous phrase says the four horns rise toward the “four winds of heaven.” So:

• • Does the last horn come from one of the four horns, which represent the four kingdoms into which Alexander’s empire was divided?
  • Or does it come from one of the four winds, meaning one of the four compass directions?

Does It Come From a Greek Horn?

In the liberal view, the small horn comes from one of the four Greek horns. It therefore comes from the Greek Empire and may represent a Greek king such as Antiochus IV.

One problem with this view is that horns do not normally grow from other horns. They grow from an animal’s head.

A second problem is that the Hebrew genders do not match. Hebrew nouns and pronouns have grammatical gender, but English translations do not show it. In verse 9, “one” is feminine and “them” is masculine. The pronouns ‘one’ and ‘them’ therefore point to different things. Therefore, the phrase ‘one of them’ cannot mean ‘one horn of the four horns,’ for if that were the meaning, both words would have the same gender. [Show More]

Does It come from a Compass Direction?

Verse 8 ends with the four winds of heaven, and verse 9 begins by saying that the small horn came from one of them. The horn may therefore come from one of the four winds—that is, from one of the four compass directions.

The Hebrew genders support this reading. “Winds” and “one” are feminine, while “heavens” and “them” are masculine. The two phrases therefore match as shown below:

The genders confirm this interpretation. The words ‘winds’ and ‘one’ are feminine, and the words ‘heavens’ and ‘them’ are masculine. Therefore, these two phrases align as follows:

		Feminine	Masculine
8:8	Four horns came up toward	the four winds	of the heavens.
8:9	Out of	one	of them	came forth a small horn.

The Horn Comes From Rome

If the small horn comes from one of the four winds (compass directions), it does not come from one of the Greek horns. It is therefore not Greek in origin.

Since horns normally grow on heads, it is the horn of some animal. The next empire after Greece was Rome. On this reading, the small horn comes from the Roman Empire.

Where is Rome in Daniel 8?

Liberal interpreters object that Daniel 8 has no separate symbol for the Roman Empire. The chapter moves from Greece directly to the evil horn. Where, then, is Rome? The answer proposed here is that the horn in Daniel 8 represents both the fourth beast of Daniel 7 and its eleventh horn. Two points support this view.

First, Daniel 7 presents the horn as a continuation of the fourth beast. When the horn is destroyed, the beast itself is destroyed:

“Then I kept looking because of the sound of the boastful words which the horn was speaking; I kept looking until the beast was slain, and its body was destroyed and given to the burning fire” (7:11).

Second, the horn in Daniel 8 grows in two stages. These represent the political and religious stages of the fourth empire:

It first grows outward (horizontally) across the earth (verse 9). This represents political Rome.

It then grows upward towards the host of heaven and throws some of the host and stars to the earth (verse 10). This represents the religious phase and matches the eleventh horn in Daniel 7.

This shift in focus, from the political to the religious phase of the fourth empire, is a growing trend as we move from vision to vision:

Daniel 2 covers the period from Babylon to Christ’s return, but it does not mention the Antichrist.

Daniel 7 covers the same period but adds the Antichrist as a central figure. It describes the fourth beast in only two verses (7:7, 19), while about six verses focus on the horn.

Daniel 8 narrows the focus further. It leaves out Babylon and God’s final kingdom, and it combines the fourth beast and its horn into a single symbol.

Daniel 8 can leave out these details because it is part of a larger series of visions. Daniel 2, 7, and 8 belong together, and each chapter adds information not given in the others.

Daniel 8 gives more attention to the Antichrist because identifying this anti-God power is a main purpose of Daniel’s visions. The only reason that the visions mention the political empires is to enable the reader to identify the evil anti-God power.

Daniel 11: Is the Vile Person Antiochus?

Purpose

In the liberal interpretation, the Antichrist is the Greek king Antiochus IV. Liberal scholars give special attention to Daniel 11 because it offers the strongest support for this view. But this section argues that Daniel 11, like Daniel 7 and 8, points instead to a Roman Antichrist.

Overview of Verses 1–20

The vision names the Persian kingdom (11:2), but not the later kingdoms or kings. Daniel 11 does not use animals as symbols. Instead, it calls the Antichrist “a despicable person” (11:21).

Most interpreters agree on the meaning of the first twenty verses. Verses 1–13 describe key events in the change from the Persian Empire to the Greek Empire:

• The chapter begins with several Persian kings, ending with Xerxes. His failed attack on Greece (11:2) helped bring Greece onto the world stage.
• The prophecy then passes over about 150 years of Persian rule and moves to the first Greek king, the “mighty king,” Alexander the Great (11:3). After his death, his kingdom was divided into four parts (11:4).
• Verses 5–13 describe important events in two of these four kingdoms, namely those kingdoms that threatened Judea. The Seleucid kingdom in the Middle East is called the “king of the north” because it lay north of Judea, and the Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt is called the “king of the south” because it lay south of Judea. The events described in these verses agree fairly well with what we know about the history of the Ptolemies and Seleucids.

Most interpreters agree that verses 14–20 describe Antiochus III, a Greek king and the father and predecessor of Antiochus IV. Daniel 11 gives more detail about Antiochus III than about any earlier king. One critical scholar writes:

Daniel 11:2-20 is a very accurate & historically corroborated sequence of events from the third year (Dan 10:1) of the Persian era up to the predecessor of Antiochus IV: some 366 years! Only the names and dates are missing. Most details are about the conflicts between the kings of the South (the Ptolemies of Egypt) and the kings of the North (the Seleucids of Mesopotamia / Syria). The Seleucids are shown to become stronger and stronger (despite some setbacks) … Of course, Jerusalem was in the middle and changed hands (197, from Egypt to Syria).

The views of interpreters begin to differ at verse 21, where the “vile person” appears.

The Liberal View

Liberal scholars identify the Antichrist in Daniel 11 as Antiochus IV for three main reasons:

(a) Daniel 11 gives much attention to Antiochus III, which may suggest that the next king is his son, Antiochus IV.

(b) Antiochus IV may fit the order of kings. Antiochus III dies in 11:19, and the vile person appears in 11:21. If verse 20 describes Seleucus IV rather than Heliodorus, Antiochus IV follows naturally.

(c) Some of the vile person’s actions resemble those of Antiochus IV, including two attacks on Egypt (compare 11:25, 29) and the persecution of God’s people.

The Same Antichrist as in Daniel 7 and 8

Interpreters generally agree that the vile person in Daniel 11 is the same Antichrist as described in Daniel 7 and 8:

(a) Later prophecies in Daniel usually add detail to earlier ones. Daniel 11 does not use beasts and horns. Instead, it describes a series of individual kings. Even so, it covers the same kingdoms found in Daniel 7 and 8.

(b) The horns in Daniel 7 and 8 and the vile person in Daniel 11 do the same kinds of things, such as:

• • • • Persecute God’s people (7:25; 11:32–34);
      • Rule for “a time, two times, and half a time” (7:25; 12:7). (12:6, 7 explains the vile person’s persecution of God’s people (11:32-34) as “a time, two times, and half a time.”)
      • Defile the temple (11:31; 8:11);
        (The Vile Person profanes the strong temple (11:31), which is equivalent to the casting down of the place of the temple by the horn in 8:11.)
      • Set up “the abomination” (11:31; 8:11–13);
        (An abomination is a sin (e.g., Deut. 7:25). Both 11:31 and 8:11-12 mention an “abomination” in connection with the “regular sacrifice”—the tamid.)
      • Remove the continual sacrifice, or tamid (8:11; 11:31);
      • Use deceit (8:25; 11:21–24); and
      • Exalt themselves (8:11; 11:36–37).

Liberal scholars identify the vile person in Daniel 11 as Antiochus IV. Since Daniel 7 and 8 describe the same Antichrist, they also identify the Antichrist in those chapters as Antiochus IV.

The Vile Person Cannot Be Antiochus IV

The vile person in Daniel 11 cannot be Antiochus IV for three main reasons:

(a) Verses 21–22 point to Jesus.

The vile person sweeps away “the arms of the flood” and breaks the “prince of the covenant” (11:21–22). Strong links between 11:22 and Daniel 9 suggest that this prince is Jesus Christ:

• • • The word “flood,” as a noun, appears only in 9:26 and 11:22.
    • The word nagid, meaning “prince,” appears only in 11:22 and 9:24–27. Daniel 9 uses this term for both the “Messiah the Prince” (9:25) and “the prince who is to come” (9:26).
    • In both 9:26 and 11:22, the nagid is destroyed: he is “cut off” in 9:26 and “broken” in 11:22.
    • Only 9:24–27 and 11:22 connect a prince and a covenant. The prince confirms the covenant in 9:27 and the nagid-prince of the covenant is broken in 11:22.
    • Elsewhere in Daniel, “covenant” always refers to God’s covenant (9:4; 11:28, 30, 32). This suggests that 11:22 also refers to God’s covenant with Israel.

These parallels suggest that the prince of the covenant in 11:22 is the same prince who confirms the covenant in 9:27, whom this website identifies as Jesus Christ (see here). Therefore, the breaking of the prince in 11:22 points to Christ’s death on the Cross. Because Jesus died about two hundred years after Antiochus IV, the vile person who breaks the prince cannot be Antiochus.

(b) The description goes beyond Antiochus IV.

Liberal scholars argue that Antiochus IV fits the vile person in Daniel 11. Yet several details do not fit him. Antiochus did not start small, gain power through deceit, greatly expand his kingdom, become greater than his predecessors, distribute plunder, exalt himself above every god, serve a strange god, reject his fathers’ gods, or kill the prince of the covenant (see here). Interpreters also agree that the events at the “time of the end” (11:40–45) do not match what happened after Antiochus IV. As Desmond Ford noted:

“Verses 21-35 fit his (Antiochus’s) time perfectly, but let it be noted that this interpretation by no means exhausts the passage” [Desmond Ford, Daniel and the Coming King, p. 144].

Antiochus IV may therefore be a partial fulfillment—a preview of the later and much greater Antichrist—but not the final fulfillment.

(c) Jesus placed the abomination of desolation in the future.

Daniel 11:31 says that forces from the vile person will set up the abomination of desolation. Jesus said that the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel, was still future in His day (Matthew 24:15). Daniel’s prophecy therefore cannot end with Antiochus IV. Jesus understood the vile person as an Antichrist who would arise after His time.

Where is Rome?

A possible objection is that Daniel 11 does not mention Rome. Without an intervening empire, it continues from Antiochus III to the vile person.

On the other hand, if 11:22 describes Christ’s death, the vile person, who breaks the prince of the covenant, must be the Roman Empire. Verse 22 describes one flood sweeping away another. This may be the Roman Empire sweeping away the Greek Empire.

As argued above, as we move from prophecy to prophecy, the focus shifts from the political powers to the antichrist:

• • In Daniel 2, the focus is on the political powers. It does not mention the Antichrist.
  • Daniel 7 still describes the political empires, but it gives much more attention to the Antichrist.
  • In Daniel 8, the political empires begin to fade. The evil horn represents both the Roman Empire and its Antichrist successor. Political Rome appears only in the horn’s initial horizontal growth.
  • Daniel 11 continues this pattern. One figure, the “despicable person” (NASB), represents both the Roman Empire and its Antichrist successor. Political Rome appears as the flood that sweeps away the “overflowing forces” and breaks the Prince of the Covenant.

These prophecies should be read together. Daniel 2 and 7 describe the political empires most clearly, so these earlier visions should guide how we identify the powers in Daniel 11.

Why does Daniel 11 focus on Antiochus III?

Liberal scholars argue that Daniel 11 focuses on Antiochus III to introduce the next king, Antiochus IV. This article offers another explanation: Antiochus III is important because his failed war against Rome shifted power from Greece to Rome.

Daniel 11:2–3 gives a similar example. Verse 2 focuses on the Persian king Xerxes, not to identify the next Persian king, but because his failed wars against Greece shifted the balance of power to Greece. The prophecy then jumps over about 150 years and seven Persian kings—Artaxerxes I, Darius II, Xerxes II, Artaxerxes II, Artaxerxes III, Arses, and Darius III—to Alexander the Great, the first Greek emperor (11:3).

Similarly, Daniel 11 may focus on Antiochus III because his failed wars against Rome shifted the balance of power to Rome. Greece came under growing Roman control, and Antiochus and his sons had to pay heavy penalties to Rome. The prophecy then passes over about 170 years and several Greek kings. Verse 19 describes the death of Antiochus III, while verse 22 points about 200 years ahead to Christ’s death under Rome.

Main Conclusions

Revelation’s Beast and the 11th horn of Daniel 7 represent the same power.

The fourth beast in Daniel 7 represents the Roman Empire. Its eleven horns represent the kingdoms that formed when the Empire broke apart. Revelation’s Beast, representing the same power as Daniel’s eleventh horn, is therefore a remnant of the Roman Empire.

The horn in Daniel 8 does not grow from one of the Greek horns. It comes from one of the four “winds,” or compass directions. It therefore represents the empire that followed Greece: Rome.

The vile person in Daniel 11 also represents a Roman power. Although this figure shares some features with Antiochus IV, it still differs in important ways. Antiochus was only a preview of the later and greater Antichrist.

IDENTIFYING THE BEAST

As argued above, the Beast in Revelation and the eleventh horn in Daniel 7 represent the same power. A primary purpose of Daniel’s visions is to enable readers to identify this power. The Beast is therefore identified mainly from Daniel’s prophecy.

The eleventh horn emerges from the fourth beast in Daniel 7, which has been identified as the Roman Empire. The eleventh horn therefore represents a remnant of that Empire. According to Daniel 7 and Revelation 13, the Beast:

1. 1. Was part of the Roman Empire.
   2. Became a separate power when the Empire fragmented.
   3. Was the last kingdom to emerge from the fragmenting Empire.
   4. Removed three other kingdoms as it rose to power.
   5. Began as a small and weak power.
   6. Grew very powerful and eventually ruled over the other kingdoms.
   7. Speaks against God.
   8. Persecutes God’s people.
   9. Rules for “a time, times, and half a time” (Daniel 7:25), or 42 months (Revelation 13:5).
   10. Attempts to change God’s times and laws.
   11. Still exists today, because it will be destroyed only when Christ returns.

The purpose of the subsequent sections is to show that the only power in history that fits this description is the State Church of the Roman Empire, which later developed into the Roman Church.

1. WAS PART OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Purpose

Because the eleventh horn in Daniel 7 emerged from the fourth beast, identified as the Roman Empire, it symbolizes an organization that arose within the Empire but became a separate entity as the Empire fragmented.

In the ancient world, rulers generally determined the religion of their people, and each nation had an official religion. The Roman Empire was no exception. It was traditionally pagan and persecuted Christians. In the early fourth century, however, Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and issued an edict granting religious freedom. The fourth century then became the era of the great Arian Controversy, and in the fifth century the Empire began to fragment. This section therefore outlines the fourth-century controversy, explains the nature of the State Church of the Roman Empire, and shows that it was an integral part of the Empire.

Quotations from Recognized Patristic Scholars

The Traditional Account Is Flawed

In the 20th century, the discovery of previously unavailable ancient documents stimulated a major expansion of research on the fourth-century controversy. Consequently, scholars now interpret the fourth-century Arian Controversy very differently from their nineteenth-century predecessors.

Ayres wrote in 2004: “A vast amount of scholarship over the past thirty years has offered revisionist accounts of themes and figures from the fourth century” (Ayres, p. 2).

The traditional account of the controversy largely reflects the interpretation advanced by the Nicenes, especially Athanasius. R. P. C. Hanson, widely regarded as one of the leading twentieth-century scholars of the controversy, described this account as history written by the victors and therefore deeply biased:

“The accounts of what happened which have come down to us were mostly written by those who belonged to the school of thought which eventually prevailed and have been deeply coloured by that fact” (Hanson, p. xviii-xix).

In many instances, Athanasius’s account misrepresents the Arian position. For example, his quotations from Arius’s writings include numerous derogatory and hostile editorial comments that clearly originated with Athanasius. Such additions helped to distort the perceived nature of the controversy.

“Athanasius, a fierce opponent of Arius … certainly would not have stopped short of misrepresenting what he said” (Hanson, p. 10).

“The quotations from the Thalia in Orationes con. Arianos I.5-6 are full of derogatory and hostile editorial corrections clearly emanating from Athanasius” (Hanson, p. 11).

“If Athanasius’ account does shape our understanding, we risk misconceiving the nature of the fourth-century crisis” (Williams, p. 234).

Hanson went further, arguing that the traditional account of the controversy, still common at the beginning of the twentieth century, was a complete travesty that could safely be disregarded:

The “conventional account of the Controversy, which stems originally from the version given of it by the victorious party, is now recognized by a large number of scholars to be a complete travesty” (Hanson).

“The study of the Arian problem over the last hundred years has been like a long-distance gun trying to hit a target. The first sighting shots are very wide of the mark, but gradually the shells fall nearer and nearer. The diatribes of Gwatkin and of Harnack (published around the year 1900) can today be completely ignored” (Hanson, p. 95-96).

Readers familiar only with the traditional account of the Arian Controversy may therefore find some of the following statements surprising.

The Term “Arian” Is a Serious Misnomer

The fourth-century anti-Nicenes are traditionally called “Arians,” implying that Arius developed a new theology that came to dominate the fourth-century Church. However, as discussed here, this label seriously distorts the nature of the controversy. Arius was not a leader, did not create a new theology, had only a few genuine followers, founded no enduring school of disciples, and had little influence after Nicaea. Rather, he was a conservative who belonged to an existing theological tradition. Ayres calls the anti-Nicenes “Eusebians” and includes Arius among them. This article therefore often refers to the anti-Nicenes as Eusebians or ‘Arians.’

“The expression ‘the Arian Controversy’ is a serious misnomer” (Hanson, p. xvii).

“This controversy is mistakenly called Arian. No clear party sought to preserve Arius’ theology” (Ayres, p. 13).

Why, then, are the anti-Nicenes called ‘Arians’? The reason is that Athanasius used Arius as a “straw man.” He began his polemics by claiming that Arius had developed a new theology and then grouped his traditionalist opponents under the broad label “Arians.” Yet these opponents did not simply follow Arius. For example, they did not share his distinctive view that the Son was created out of nothing. Instead, they believed that the Son was generated directly from the Father’s own being and shared His divine attributes.

“’Arianism’ as a coherent system, founded by a single great figure and sustained by his disciples, is a fantasy … based on the polemic of Nicene writers, above all Athanasius” (Williams, p. 82).

“Athanasius … was determined to show that any proposed alternative to the Nicene formula collapsed back into some version of Arius’ teaching, with all the incoherence and inadequacy that teaching displayed” (Williams, p. 247).

He was “put forth from the being of the Father, not by a partaking or a cutting or a division, but unspeakably and, for us, unexplainably” (Ayres, p. 58, quoting Eusebius, the real leader of the so-called Arians).

Authors Quoted

To avoid repeating the errors of the traditional account, this website relies almost exclusively on recognized historians of early Christianity whose works have been published within the past fifty years. In many respects, their accounts of the controversy differ sharply from those presented in traditional handbooks:

Hanson, R.P.C.
The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God – The Arian Controversy 318-381 (1987)

Williams, Rowan
Arius, Heresy & Tradition (2002/1988)

Ayres, Lewis
Nicaea and its Legacy, An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (2004)

Anatolios, Khaled
Retrieving Nicaea (2011)

What was the Traditional View?

Was the Trinity doctrine Traditional?

Trinitarians often claim that the Trinity doctrine was the traditional orthodox belief. They commonly support this claim by showing that the pre-Nicene Fathers described the Son as God and then concluding that these writers were therefore Trinitarians. However, this approach is seriously flawed for the following reasons:

First, although the pre-Nicene Fathers called the Son “God,” the Arians also used this title for Him. Actually, they did not have a word exactly equivalent to the modern English term “God.” The Greek word they used, theos, had a broader and more flexible range of meaning.

“It must be understood that in the fourth century the word ‘God’ (theos, deus) had not acquired the significance which in our twentieth-century world it has acquired … viz. the one and sole true God. The word could apply to many gradations of divinity and was not as absolute to Athanasius as it is to us” (Hanson, p. 456).

Second, apart from Monarchians, who regarded the Father and Son as two names for the same Being, all Christian writers of the first three centuries understood the Son to be subordinate to the Father:

“With the exception of Athanasius virtually every theologian, East and West, accepted some form of subordinationism at least up to the year 355; subordinationism might indeed, until the denouement (end) of the controversy, have been described as accepted orthodoxy” (Hanson, p. xix).

The original Nicenes, such as Alexander and Athanasius, also described the Son as subordinate:

“All important scholars since Petavius admit subordination in the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity” (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. III (311–600) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950) 683).

“In all the previous discussions (before Basil of Caesarea, in other words, including Athanasius) of the term (homoousios) … a certain ontological subordination is at least implied” (Ayres, p. 206).

Third, the central claim of the classical doctrine of the Trinity is that the Father and Son are a single Being, sharing one divine mind, will, consciousness, and action. Although the doctrine speaks of three Persons in God, the term “Person” can be misleading if it is understood to imply three distinct minds (see here). Therefore, even describing the Son as God or as “fully divine” does not necessarily establish the classical doctrine of the Trinity.

What Was the Core Issue in the Controversy?

Below, this article will show that the Church’s traditional position was Arianism. For that purpose, the term must first be defined. This requires identifying the central issue in the controversy.

Not Whether the Son Is Divine

As stated, all sides described the Son as God. The issue was not whether the Son is divine. The Arians described the Son as ‘God’ (theos) and as “God from God” (Hanson, p. 6). They said: “The peoples … crucified the God of the four corners of the earth” (Hanson, p. 40, quoting Asterius, a leading ‘Arian’).

“We should avoid thinking of these controversies as focusing on the status of Christ as ‘divine’ or ‘not divine’” (Ayres, p. 3).

“It is misleading to assume that these controversies were about ‘the divinity of Christ’” (Ayres, p. 14).

Not Whether the Son Is a Created Being

It is also often claimed that the Arians regarded the Son as a created being. They did not regard the Son as created. Arius taught that the Son was a created being. Athanasius labeled his opponents as “Arians,” meaning followers of Arius, and many people still use this term for the fourth-century anti-Nicenes. Patristic scholars, however, generally regard this label as misleading:

“This controversy is mistakenly called Arian. No clear party sought to preserve Arius’ theology. Many who are termed Arian justly protested their ignorance of his teaching or works: their theologies often have significantly different concerns and preoccupations” (Ayres, p. 13).

“’Arianism’ as a coherent system, founded by a single great figure and sustained by his disciples, is a fantasy … based on the polemic of Nicene writers, above all Athanasius” (Williams, p. 82).

In the view of most anti-Nicenes, the Son was mysteriously and uniquely begotten from the Father’s own being. For example, one principal leader of the anti-Nicenes was Eusebius of Caesarea. This can be seen in how Ayres classifies the competing groups in the early fourth century. He identifies one of the four groups as the “Eusebians” and places Arius within it:

“My second theological trajectory is the one in which we locate Arius himself. This loose alliance I will term ‘Eusebian’. When I use this term I mean to designate any who would have found common ground with either of Arius’ most prominent supporters, Eusebius of Nicomedia or Eusebius of Caesarea” (Ayres, p. 52).

According to Eusebius, the Son was generated or begotten from the Father’s being:

Eusebius of Caesarea, the theological leader of the Arians, said: “He alone was born of the Father himself” (Ayres, p. 58).

He was “put forth from the being of the Father, not by a partaking or a cutting or a division, but unspeakably and, for us, unexplainably” (Ayres, p. 58, quoting Eusebius).

Eusebius “consistently rejects the doctrine that the Son was produced from nonexistence” (Hanson, p. 59; cf. p. 52, 53). “He is ‘of no other substance or essence but of the Father” (Eusebius’s Letter).

The ‘Arians’ permitted worship of the Son, identified the personal appearances of Yahweh in the Old Testament with Jesus Christ, and described Him as God and the Creator of all things.

Not Whether the Son Is Subordinate to the Father

The issue was also not whether the Son is subordinate to the Father. Arianism is often identified as the view that the Son is subordinate to the Father, yet all writers of the first three centuries regarded the Son as subordinate:

“’Subordinationism’, it is true was pre-Nicene orthodoxy” [Henry Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers p. 239.]

“There is no theologian in the Eastern or the Western Church before the outbreak of the Arian Controversy [in the fourth century], who does not in some sense regard the Son as subordinate to the Father” (Hanson, p. 64).

The original Nicenes, such as Alexander and Athanasius, also regarded the Son as subordinate to the Father. The original Nicene view was not equivalent to the later Trinity doctrine. They understood the Son as intrinsic to the Father’s being:

“In the Father we have the Son: this is a summary of Athanasius’ theology” (Hanson, p. 426).

“The Son is in the Father ontologically” (Hanson, p. 428).

“Athanasius’ increasing clarity in treating the Son as intrinsic to the Father’s being” (Ayres, p. 113).

Therefore, the Son is of the same substance as the Father, while remaining ontologically subordinate to Him.

“He (Alexander) argues for a ‘great distance’ between the unbegotten Father and the created order, and then describes the nature (φύσις) of the only-begotten Word as mediating between these two, ‘holding the middle place’ (μεσιτεύουσα)” (Ayres, p. 44).

“All important scholars since Petavius admit subordination in the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity” (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. III (311–600) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950) 683).

“In all the previous discussions (before Basil of Caesarea, in other words, including Athanasius) of the term (homoousios) … a certain ontological subordination is at least implied” (Ayres, p. 206).

Full equality probably emerged later in the fourth century with the Cappadocian Fathers. See here for further discussion.

Not Whether the Son Is “a God”

The issue was likewise not whether the Son is “a god,” as one member of a group of gods. If this is the position of Jehovah’s Witnesses, it was not the position of the “Arians.” They affirmed a trinity, but whereas the traditional doctrine of the Trinity describes the Father, Son, and Spirit as one Being with one mind, the “Arians” understood them as three divine Beings with distinct minds.

“We have to resist the anachronistic characterization of him (Arius) as an antitrinitarian theologian. He writes simply, ‘So there are three hypostaseis,’ meaning the set of beings that form the object (or objects) of Christian confession. … the three hypostaseis seemingly form a certain unity” (Anatolios, pp. 47-48).

Arius wrote: “There exists a Trinity in unequal glories” (Ayres, p. 55).

“Certainly, there is a Trinity … their individual realities do not mix with each other, and they possess glories of different levels. (The Father is) infinitely more splendid in his glories” (Hanson, p. 14, describing the Arian view).

For Eusebius, a leading figure among the so-called Arians, the Son belonged to the Godhead:

“Eusebius of Caesarea … his estimate of the Holy Spirit was so low that he would not have included him within the Godhead, and so would only recognize two hypostases” (Hanson, pp. 150-1).

Whether the Son Is a Distinct Being

The central issue in the Arian Controversy was whether the Father and Son are one Being with one mind, or two distinct Beings with distinct minds. Most other differences between the two sides followed from this fundamental question:

If the Father and Son are one Being, it follows that the Son is of the same substance as the Father and is equally eternal, immortal, impassible, immutable, and invisible.

If, however, the Father and Son are two distinct Beings, the Son depends on the Father for His existence, because only one Being is uncaused. On this view, the Son is subordinate to the Father, of a different substance, and capable of mortality, change, suffering, and visibility.

Both positions existed by at least the second century:

The view that the Father and Son are one Being was held by second-century Monarchians, by Sabellius in the third century, and by the original Nicenes in the fourth century.

The view that the Godhead consists of two Beings, the Father and the Son, was held by the second-century Logos theologians, by Origen, the most influential writer of the third century, and by the fourth-century “Arians.”

To confirm that this was the core issue, consider the following quote:

“Behind the original controversy lie conflicting approaches to the Word’s generation: to what extent can we think of it as the emergence of one distinct thing from another? How does one understand the distinction between God and Word, Father and Son: is this the distinction of two separate beings? Are the two distinct in a way parallel to the seemingly necessary hierarchy of source and product that we see in the creation? Or is this distinction analogous to that of a person who speaks his or her word (the word being here only a dependent and temporary product of the speaker)?” (Ayres, p. 3).

One Hypostasis or Two Hypostases?

In the Greek terminology of the fourth-century debate, the central question was whether the Father and Son are one hypostasis or two hypostases.

“As the fourth century progressed, hypostasis became, more and more, the one term that was the center of controversy” (Lienhard).

The creeds formulated in 341 and 343 show the importance of this issue.

In 341, the Eastern Eusebian bishops formulated the Dedication Creed, which explicitly affirmed three hypostases.

“The creed clearly and strongly argues against Sabellian emphases and those emphases were associated with Marcellan theology. We see these emphases, for instance, in the insistence that there are three names which ‘signify exactly the particular hypostasis and order and glory of each’” (Ayres, p. 119).

In response, a Western delegation that included Athanasius, the leading Nicene, and Marcellus, the leading Sabellian, formulated the Serdica Manifesto in 343. Because no emperor directed the delegation toward either position, this statement is especially important for understanding Nicene theology at this stage of the controversy. It was probably the only fourth-century Nicene confession produced without imperial interference, and it explicitly presented one hypostasis in God as the traditional view.

“The doctrinal statement of the Western Council of Sardica (342 or 343), in which Athanasius and Marcellus participated, insisted even more belligerently that ‘We have received and been taught, and we hold this catholic and apostolic tradition and faith and confession: there is one hypostasis (which is termed ‘essence’ [ousia] by the heretics) of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’” (Lienhard)

Since the later-developed Trinity doctrine is sometimes explained as one ousia (substance), subsisting in three hypostases (Persons), some may be surprised to learn that Athanasius taught that there is one hypostasis in God:

The “clear inference from his (Athanasius’) usage” is that “there is only one hypostasis in God” (Ayres, p. 48).

Consistent with Athanasius’s theology, the Nicene Creed also appears to affirm one hypostasis. It condemns those who say that the Son is ‘of another hypostasis or ousia’ from the Father (Hanson, p. 167).

“If we are to take the creed N at its face value, the theology of Eustathius and Marcellus [the two leading Sabellians at Nicaea] was the theology which triumphed at Nicaea. That creed admits the possibility of only one ousia and one hypostasis” (Hanson, p. 235).

The “Arians,” by contrast, affirmed two hypostases in the Godhead; three if the Holy Spirit is counted:

“We have to resist the anachronistic characterization of him (Arius) as an antitrinitarian theologian.” “He writes simply, ‘So there are three hypostaseis,’” meaning “the set of beings that form the object (or objects) of Christian confession. … the three hypostaseis seemingly form a certain unity” (Anatolios, pp. 47-48).

Was Arianism the Traditional View?

The Nicenes believed that the Father and Son are one Being. If Arianism is defined as the belief that they are two distinct Beings, then Arianism represented the traditional view when the controversy began. The following evidence supports this conclusion:

1. Arianism Continued the Logos-Theology Tradition

During the first three centuries, when Christianity was still subject to persecution, Greek philosophy was highly esteemed throughout the Roman intellectual world.

“When Christianity emerged during the second century into a non-Jewish, largely Gentile milieu … The intellectual world of the Late Roman Empire … was dominated by the inheritance and the practice of Greek philosophy” (Hanson).

From the second century onward, beginning with Justin Martyr, Christian apologists trained in Greek philosophy identified Jesus Christ with the Logos of Greek thought. Within this framework, the pre-existent Son was understood as a second divine Being, distinct from and subordinate to the High God.

“The group of writers whom we call the Apologists” “used to great effect several features of contemporary Greek philosophy to enable them to construct their doctrines of God. They identified the pre-existent Christ, thought of as manifesting himself on critical occasions throughout the history of the Jewish people, with the nous or Second Hypostasis of contemporary Middle Platonist philosophy, and also borrowed some traits from the divine Logos of Stoicism (including its name)” (Hanson).

This became the majority position in the Gentile Church and remained dominant into the fourth century.

“The theological structure provided by the Apologists lasted as the main, widely-accepted, one might almost say traditional framework for a Christian doctrine of God well into the fourth century, and was, in differing form, the basic picture of God with which the great majority of those who were first involved in the Arian Controversy were familiar and which they accepted” (Hanson).

Both Nicene and Arian theology shared certain features with Logos theology. However, as discussed above, the central fourth-century issue was whether the Son is a distinct Being, as the Arians maintained, or an intrinsic aspect of the Father, as the Nicenes believed. Because Arianism, like Logos theology, regarded the Son as a distinct Being, it continued the Logos-theology tradition. Nicene theology, by contrast, departed from that tradition by understanding the Son as intrinsic to the Father. The similarities between Nicene theology and Logos theology were therefore comparatively minor and limited. (See here) Referring to the teachings of “the Apologists of the second century,” Hanson says:

”The result of the great controversy of the fourth century was to reject this doctrine as heretical” (Hanson, p. 872).

2. Arianism Continued Origen’s Theological Tradition

Origen, the most influential Christian writer of the third century, refined and expanded Logos theology while continuing to describe the Son as a second divine Being. Like the ‘Arians,’ he taught that the Godhead consists of three hypostases.

“Origen does consider the Son to be a distinct being dependent on the Father for his existence” (Ayres, p. 23).

“He (Origen) taught that there were three hypostases within the Godhead” (Hanson, p. 184).

“He (Origen) deplores those heretics who confuse the ‘concepts’ of Father and Son and make them out to be one in hupostasis” (Williams, p. 132).

3. “One Being” Theology Had Been Rejected

The belief that the Father and Son are one Being also existed in the third century. In the second century, it appeared as Monarchianism, which identified Jesus Christ with the Father Himself. In the third century, this position developed into Sabellianism. [Show More]

However, this remained a minority position and was formally condemned. Sabellius was deposed in 220, and in 268 a council at Antioch deposed Paul of Samosata for teaching a form of Sabellianism. [Show More]

4. Arius Was a Conservative Theologian

The traditional account presents Nicene theology—which later developed into the modern doctrine of the Trinity—as the accepted orthodoxy at the beginning of the fourth century, and portrays Arius as having initiated the controversy by introducing a novel heresy. In reality, the Controversy was a continuation of the 3rd-century controversy:

“We will find pre-existing deep theological tensions at the beginning of the fourth century. Controversy over Arius was the spark that ignited a fire waiting to happen, and the origins of the dispute do not lie simply in the beliefs of one thinker, but in existing tensions that formed his background” (Ayres, p. 20).

Arius’s theology was therefore not entirely new. Rather, he is described as a theological conservative:

“Arius was a committed theological conservative; more specifically, a conservative Alexandrian” (Williams, p. 175).

“In Alexandria he (Arius) represented … a conservative theology” (Williams, p. 233).

Joseph Lienhard wrote that Arius was simply an adherent of the “dyohypostatic” tradition—the belief that the Father and Son are two distinct Beings (hypostases).

“Arius … represents a school … and the school was to some extent independent of him. Arianism did not look back on him later with respect and awe as its founder” (Hanson, p. 97).

5. The Conventional Doctrine Portrayed the Son as a Demigod

Hanson wrote that the “conventional Trinitarian doctrine” with which Christianity entered the fourth century effectively made the Son a demigod. This indicates that the later classical doctrine of the Trinity was not yet the conventional position. Hanson added that Arianism likewise presented the Son as, in effect, a demigod, but emphasized that the antecedents of this view were already present in Christian theology before the fourth century.

The “conventional Trinitarian doctrine with which Christianity entered the fourth century … was to make the Son into a demi-god … a second, created god lower than the High God” (Hanson).

“Arianism … does present the Son as in effect a demi-god, even though the antecedents of this doctrine are not to be found in pagan religion nor directly in Greek philosophy but in various theological strands to be detected in Christian theology before the fourth century” (Hanson).

Describing the Arian view as presenting the Son as a demigod may, however, be misleading. As noted above, the Arians regarded the Son as the second Being of the Godhead, mysteriously and uniquely begotten from the Father’s own being.

The State Church of the Roman Empire

Purpose of this section

This section explains that, in the Roman Empire, Church and State were united under a single head—the emperor. The emperors determined the religion of the Roman Empire, and the so-called ecumenical councils were tools designed and managed by the emperors for that purpose.

In the ancient world, rulers generally determined the religion of their nations; there was no separation of Church and State. The Roman Empire was no exception. Traditionally pagan, it outlawed and persecuted Christianity. In the early fourth century, however, Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and legalized it in 313.

Only about five years later, the Controversy began in Alexandria as a dispute between Bishop Alexander and one of his priests, Arius. Over the subsequent about 60 years of the Controversy, the emperors intervened in doctrinal disputes, supported particular factions, and enforced unity through measures such as calling and controlling councils and the exile of bishops. The emperor was the final authority in ecclesiastical disputes. As the respected patristic scholar Simonetti stated:

“The Emperor was in fact the head of the church” (Hanson, p. 849)

Similarly, R. P. C. Hanson, one of the most influential patristic scholars of the twentieth century, wrote:

“The truth is that in the Christian church of the fourth century there was no alternative authority comparable to that of the Emperor. The century did indeed see an increase in the power of the bishop of Rome, but he still could not be regarded as a figure even remotely as powerful as that of the Emperor” (Hanson, p. 854).

“If we ask the question, what was considered to constitute the ultimate authority in doctrine during the period reviewed in these pages, there can be only one answer. The will of the Emperor was the final authority” (Hanson, p. 849).

As argued above, Arianism, defined as the view that the Son is the second Being of the Godhead, subordinate to the Father, was the Church’s traditional position. During the fourth century, however, due to the influence of the emperors, Nicene theology was eventually established as the official religion of the Empire. The ecclesiastical organization that was established within the Roman Empire by the end of that century did not represent Christianity in general. It was the State Church of the Roman Empire. Outside the Empire, Arianism continued to flourish. In the fifth century, Germanic peoples conquered much of the Western Empire, and large parts of Europe were again under Arian rule. The purpose of this following overview of the fourth century is to illustrate the decisive influence of the emperors on the Church within the Empire:

The Council of Nicaea (325)

Purpose of this section

Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea on his own authority to serve imperial purposes. He appointed his adviser Ossius of Cordoba to preside, actively guided the proceedings, supported and enforced the inclusion of the controversial term homoousios, exiled those who refused to sign, and implemented the Council’s decisions through state power. In practice, he functioned as the operational head of the Church. Although Nicaea is commonly called the first ecumenical council, it was also an imperial assembly:

The Emperors Legalized Christianity

Religious freedom in the modern sense did not exist in the Roman Empire, because emperors determined which religions were permitted. After three centuries of periodic persecution by Roman authorities, Constantine legalized Christianity in 313.

Constantine Appealed to Alexander and Arius

Before Constantine fully understood the dispute, he wrote to Alexander and Arius, urging them to end their quarrel. His intervention appears to have been motivated less by doctrinal concerns than by the threat that division within the Church posed to imperial unity.

He wrote: “For as long as you continue to contend about these small and very insignificant questions, I believe it indeed to be not merely unbecoming, but positively evil, that so large a portion of God’s people which belong to your jurisdiction should be thus divided.”
(Davis, Leo Donald. The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology. Vol. 21. Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press, 1990. 55)

“Since Constantine desired that the church should contribute to the social and moral strength of the empire, religious dissension was a menace to the public welfare” (Boyd, The Ecclesiastical Edicts of the Theodosian Code, p. 34).

The Council of Antioch Before Nicaea

A few months before Nicaea, an anti-Arian council met at Antioch. Most participants supported Alexander. The council provisionally excommunicated Eusebius of Caesarea, one of Arius’s principal supporters and one of the period’s most respected theologians. Constantine approved the gathering, and his religious adviser Ossius presided. Thus, even before Nicaea, Constantine had aligned himself with the Nicene side.

“Ossius … represented the policy of Constantine” (Hanson, p. 170).

“He (Ossius) had recently presided in a similar capacity (as the emperor’s agent) over the Council of Antioch” (Hanson, p. 154).

Constantine Summons the Council

Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea on his own initiative and purpose; the Church did not ask him to do so. The gathering was therefore an imperial assembly called to serve imperial purposes. The delegates came almost exclusively from the Eastern part of the Empire. Having conquered the Eastern Empire the previous year, Constantine also sought to restore order within the Eastern Church.

“Constantine himself summoned the bishops” (Ayres, p. 18).

“It was then certainly Constantine who convoked the Council of Nicaea” (Hanson, p. 153-4).

It was Constantine’s Council.

Constantine introduced the idea of a general council. Never before had representatives from across the Empire gathered in this way, and the Church lacked both the authority and the resources to convene an assembly on this scale. Only the emperor could summon such a council. These gatherings were therefore not purely ecclesiastical: they were intended to serve imperial goals, and expected to remain under the emperor’s direction.

Nicaea “was the first time that any attempt had been made to summon a general council of the whole church at which, at least in theory, the church in every part of the Roman Empire should be represented” (Hanson, p. 152).

“The general council was the very invention and creation of the Emperor. General councils, or councils aspiring to be general, were the children of imperial policy and the Emperor was expected to dominate and control them” (Hanson, p. 855).

Ossius presided as Constantine’s Agent.

To maintain imperial influence over the Council of Nicaea, Constantine appointed his religious adviser Ossius to preside as the emperor’s representative.

“Ossius the bishop of Cordoba in Spain … apparently acted in some sort of advisory capacity to Constantine, and perhaps also served as his representative in these events” (Ayres, p. 18).

Ossius presided “as the Emperor’s representative” (Hanson, p. 154) and as Constantine’s “agent” (Hanson, p. 190).

Constantine supported the Nicenes.

Arius is often—and correctly—described as having enjoyed substantial support. Modern patristic scholarship has also characterized him as a theological conservative. The traditional view within much of the Church understood the Son as a second divine Being subordinate to the Father, a position that Arius also held:

“Arius was a committed theological conservative; more specifically, a conservative Alexandrian” (Williams, 175).

Arius had a “strong commitment to belief in three distinct divine hypostases” (Williams, p. 97).

Alexander, by contrast, held—like the Sabellians—that the Son was not a distinct person, but that the Father and Son were one person, or hypostasis. This position had already been rejected in the third century.

“The fragments of Eustathius that survive present a doctrine that is close to Marcellus, and to Alexander and Athanasius. Eustathius insists there is only one hypostasis” (Ayres, p. 69). [Eustathius and Marcellus were the leading Sabellians at Nicaea.]

Why, then, did only two of approximately 250–300 bishops reject the deliberately anti-Arian Nicene Creed? Alexander prevailed at Nicaea because his position had the emperor’s support:

“In older narratives of the fourth century it was reasonably easy to understand why the Nicene creed was agreed with little dissent: only the few ‘heretics’ would refuse such a clear acknowledgement of the Church’s constant faith. Without this older narrative, matters are more complex” (Ayres, p. 88).

“Constantine had taken Alexander’s part” (Ayres, p. 89).

“This imperial pressure coupled with the role of his advisers in broadly supporting the agenda of Alexander must have been a powerful force” (Ayres, p. 89).

Constantine insisted on Homoousios.

Traditional accounts of the controversy often present homoousios as an established Christian term whose adoption at Nicaea marked a decisive victory for the church’s traditional teaching. But such accounts are deeply mistaken:

In the “centuries-old account of the Council of Nicaea: … The whole power of the mysterious dogma is at once established by the one word homoousios … with one pronouncement the Church identified a term (homoousios) that secured its … beliefs against heresy.” But “such older accounts are deeply mistaken” (Ayres, 11).

At the time, many regarded homoousios as objectionable. It was neither a biblical term nor part of standard Christian vocabulary; it had been drawn from pagan philosophical usage and was associated with Sabellianism. Constantine’s influence at Nicaea is therefore especially evident in his role in securing its inclusion: he personally proposed, explained, and pressed for the term.

“To say that the Son was ‘of the substance’ of the Father, and that he was ‘consubstantial’ with him were certainly startling innovations. Nothing comparable to this had been said in any creed or profession of faith before” (Hanson, p. 166-7).

Constantine “pressed for its inclusion” (Hanson, p. 211).

“Eusebius, in his Letter to his Diocese written in 326, writes that Constantine himself spoke, endorsing the term homoousios” (Ayres, p. 90).

Constantine exiled those who Refused to Sign

The bishops knew that refusing to accept the Creed could result in exile to another part of the Empire. This raises an important question: how many might have opposed the Nicene Creed if they were not threatened with exile? Only the emperor could exile bishops or permit their return. This power enabled Constantine to function, in practice, as the effective head of the imperial Church, uniting ecclesiastical and state authority in one person.

“Two bishops who refused to sign the Creed … were deposed by the Council and exiled by the Emperor. Arius himself was exiled” (Hanson, p. 162-3).

“The third letter of Arius is … sent to the Emperor Constantine by Arius and Euzoius who are in exile and are in this letter pleading for a return from exile and a re-admission to the Church (which they presumably imagine that Constantine can effect)” (Hanson, p. 8).

“Simonetti remarks that the Emperor was in fact the head of the church” (Hanson, p. 849).

Constantine’s goal was Political.

Constantine did not convene the Council of Nicaea primarily to identify and establish right doctrine. He acted because division within the Church threatened the unity of the Empire. His broader objective was political stability. The general council therefore became a means of governing the Church in the interests of imperial unity.

“Constantine’s attitude reflects deeply embedded Roman attitudes about the social function of religion” (Ayres, p. 88).

“Constantine . . . seems to have promoted Christianity as a unifying religion for the empire” (Ayres, p. 87).

“The same desire to preserve unity within the church . . . led Constantine to intercede for the settlement of the Arian controversy. . . . Believing ‘disunity in the church’ a danger to the state ‘more grievous than any kind of war’“ (Boyd, The Ecclesiastical Edicts of the Theodosian Code, p. 37).

Conclusion

In practice, at Nicaea, Constantine functioned as the head of the Church within the Empire. R. P. C. Hanson summarizes his role as follows:

“Constantine took part in the Council of Nicaea and ensured that it reached the kind of conclusion which he thought best” (Hanson, p. 850).

The Post-Nicaea Reversal

Although the First Council of Nicaea (325 AD) initially deposed Arius and his followers, a dramatic reversal occurred over the next decade. Within ten years, the exiled Arians were permitted to return.

“Arius and most of his supporters were, at Constantine’s request, readmitted to communion within two or three years of the council” (Ayres, p. 100).

At the same time, leading defenders of the Nicene Creed were deposed, disgraced, or exiled.

“Within ten years of the Council of Nicaea all the leading supporters of the creed of that Council had been deposed or disgraced or exiled—Athanasius, Eustathius and Marcellus, and with them a large number of other bishops who are presumed to have belonged to the same school of thought” (Hanson, p. 274).

Concurrently, the crucial term homoousios largely vanished from theological discourse for nearly 30 years:

“For 30 or more years after 325, the Council of Nicaea is hardly mentioned and the word homoousion rarely used” (Lienhard, p. 416).

The Third-Century Roots of the Conflict

The fourth-century controversy was not new; rather, as Lewis Ayres notes, it was “a complex affair in which tensions between pre-existing theological traditions intensified as a result of dispute over Arius, and over events following the Council of Nicaea” (Ayres, pp. 11-12). The dispute in the 4th century built upon 3rd-century divisions between the teachings of Origen (who taught three distinct hypostases or minds) and Sabellius (who taught that Father, Son, and Spirit are three modes of a single Being). The Church had formally rejected Sabellianism in the third century. Consequently, the vast majority of Eastern clergy at Nicaea followed Origen.

The Power Struggle at Nicaea

At the Council of Nicaea in 325, to oppose the Arians/Eusebians, the Nicenes (Alexander) and Sabellians (such as Eustathius and Marcellus) formed an alliance.

“Marcellus, Eustathius and Alexander were able to make common cause against the Eusebians” (Ayres, p. 69).

Emperor Constantine backed this alliance:

“Constantine had taken Alexander’s part” (Ayres, p. 89).

The alliance and the emperor’s backing gave the Sabellians significant influence over the council’s terminology. For example, upon discovering that the Sabellian Eustathius and his followers favored the term homoousios, Emperor Constantine personally pressed for its inclusion in the Creed:

“Once he (Constantine) discovered that the Eustathians [the Sabellians] … were in favour of it (homoousios) … he pressed for its inclusion” (Hanson, p. 211).

Following the council, Constantine exiled Arius, two Libyan bishops, and shortly after, the prominent Arian leader Eusebius of Nicomedia.

Unraveling the Causes of the Reversal

So, what caused the post-Nicaea reversal?

Traditional accounts often attribute this reversal to a malicious political campaign by an “Arian Conspiracy” aimed at systematically removing Nicene bishops. However, Hanson finds no evidence of a centralized, systematic conspiracy (Hanson, p. 279).

Arius’ own specific theological writings played little role in post-Nicaea debates. As Ayres states, “Arius’ own theology is of little importance in understanding the major debates of the rest of the century” (Ayres, pp. 56–57).

Neither was Athanasius Involved. Athanasius was not a leading figure at Nicaea and did not become a zealous defender of the Creed until his second exile (Hanson, p. 275).

The true core conflict post-Nicaea arose because the Sabellians claimed the Nicene Creed—and specifically the term homoousios—as a formal endorsement of Sabellianism. Both men “presented their theologies as the natural context for Nicaea’s creed” (Ayres, p. 105). To anti-Nicene leaders like Eusebius of Caesarea, the ancient error of Sabellius effectively erased the proper distinction of Persons within the Godhead. Consequently, the Eusebian faction targeted Eustathius and Marcellus, not to promote pro-Arianism, but to “restore proper balance to the Church’s understanding of its doctrine of God” (Hanson, p. 276).

However, the Eusebian victory would not have been possible without the support of the emperor. In the fourth-century Roman Empire, supreme doctrinal authority rested with the emperor. As Hanson points out, “The will of the Emperor was the final authority” (Hanson, p. 849), and there was “no alternative authority comparable to that of the Emperor” (Hanson, p. 854). Constantine’s willingness to allow Eusebian bishops to remove key supporters of the Creed shifted the balance of power decisively. [Show More]

The Council of Tyre

Athanasius was justly condemned

Traditionally revered as the unwavering hero of the fourth-century Arian Controversy, Athanasius of Alexandria has long enjoyed a legacy as a gentle and tender defender of the faith. However, historical analysis of R.P.C. Hanson’s The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, chapter 9, reveals a startlingly different reality. Based on contemporary papyrus evidence and ancient sources, Hanson demonstrates that seven years after becoming bishop of Alexandria in 328, Athanasius was justly condemned and deposed for utilizing barbaric, thug-like violence against his opponents within the church.

Recent discoveries confirmed his guilt.

The Melitians appealed to the Emperor Constantine, accusing Athanasius of causing church divisions, preventing entry to church buildings, imprisonment, beatings, woundings, and church burnings. While historians previously dismissed these as partisan propaganda, the 20th-century discovery of contemporary papyrus letters published by H.I. Bell in Jews and Christians in Egypt proved the charges were grounded in fact.

The Council of Tyre

After a failed preliminary council at Caesarea in 334, Emperor Constantine compelled Athanasius to attend the Council of Tyre in 335. Despite arriving with a hostile contingent of Egyptian bishops, Athanasius was found guilty of using indefensible administrative violence. The council deposed him as archbishop of Alexandria, excommunicated him, and banned him from returning to his see.

Athanasius’s Defense

Faced with legitimate charges of brutality, Athanasius deflected blame by employing three primary tactics:

• Inventing an Arian Conspiracy: Athanasius consistently claimed that the charges against him were fabricated by “Arians” to eliminate him as a theological rival. However, the chronology does not support this. As Hanson notes, Athanasius’s first efforts at gangsterism in his diocese had nothing to do with differences of opinion on the Arian Controversy, but were directed against the Melitians. He rejected the compromise arrangement made concerning them at the Council of Nicaea. Once he was in the saddle, he determined to suppress them with a strong hand, and was not at all scrupulous about the methods he used (Hanson, p. 254).
• Evading the Core Charges: When accused of assaulting figures like Ischyras, Athanasius bypassed the violence entirely, instead arguing technicalities regarding Ischyras’s clerical status.
• Slandering His Judges: He painted the respectable Council of Tyre—composed partly of confessors from the Great Persecution—as a gang of conspirators.

Conclusion

Because Athanasius’s theology eventually triumphed, subsequent centuries preserved his writings while neglecting those of his opponents, allowing his self-exculpating narrative to persist. However, historical hindsight reveals a darker legacy:

We can see by virtue of historical hindsight that Athanasius in following this policy set an evil example to his successors of the use of force and intrigue (Hanson, p. 255).

See here for more detail.

From the Council of Tyre to the Council of Rome

At the Council of Tyre in AD 335, the Eastern Church excommunicated Athanasius for acting violently against the Melitians.

After Constantine’s death in 337, the new emperor granted all exiled Nicene bishops, including Athanasius, permission to return to their sees.

In 338, the Eusebians—led by Eusebius of Nicomedia—brought fresh charges against Athanasius. They argued that a properly constituted synod had legally deposed him on charges that could not be easily dismissed, protesting that it violated all church order to reinstate him solely on the emperor’s arbitrary command.

Athanasius then developed a polemical strategy: He branded his enemies as “Arians”—followers of a theology already condemned at Nicaea—while insisting he was completely innocent of violence and merely the victim of an Arian conspiracy.

This rhetorical strategy proved remarkably successful. He used it in his appeal to Bishop Julius of Rome in 339–340. Up to that point, the Western Church remained on the periphery of the controversy, but Julius’s acceptance of Athanasius’s narrative thrust Rome directly into the conflict.

During the winter of 338–339, the Eusebian party deposed Athanasius once more. The Eastern Emperor Constantius then had troops forcibly expel Athanasius from his episcopal residence. The resulting civil unrest sparked violent riots that consumed two large churches in flames and left several people dead.

Athanasius appealed once more to Julius of Rome, traveling there later that year. Julius formally invited the Eusebian party to attend a council in Rome in 340 to investigate the cases of both Athanasius and Marcellus.

Bishop Julius wrote to both factions—the Eastern leaders in Antioch and the Alexandrian bishops—summoning them to a formal synod in Rome.

The Eastern bishops defended the absolute legality of the Council of Tire, asserting that the Eastern Church did not view itself as subordinate to the church in Rome.

Julius proceeded with his Council of Rome in early 341 without any Eastern representatives present. The council pronounced Athanasius entirely blameless and declared Marcellus fully orthodox.

Following the council, Julius dispatched an aggressive letter to the Eusebian bishops in Antioch. Derisively labeling them “the party of Eusebius,” he claimed direct judicial oversight over them, accused them of harboring heretical Arians, and challenged their commitment to the Nicene Creed. He insisted that Athanasius and Marcellus had suffered a grave injustice and praised Marcellus as a champion against Arianism.

These events widened a chasm between the Eastern and Western Churches, igniting a bitter cycle of rival councils and competing creeds throughout the 340s.

Later that same year, the East convened a council to address Julius’s overreach and issued the Dedication Creed. Subsequent efforts by the emperors to achieve reconciliation at the Council of Serdica in AD 343 failed completely, as the rival factions refused to meet as a unified body, sealing the formal fracture of early Christian unity.

For more detail, see here.

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ORIGIN OF THE ROMAN CHURCH

Purpose

Because the eleventh horn in Daniel 7 emerged from the fourth beast, identified as the Roman Empire, it symbolizes an organization that arose within the Empire but became a separate entity as the Empire fragmented. Daniel 7 describes it as the last of the eleven horns: it arose by uprooting three other horns, was initially small, grew in power until it became greater than the others, persecuted God’s people for a time, times, and half a time, and will be destroyed only when Christ returns. This article argues that the State Church of the ancient Roman Empire is the only historical entity that fits this description.

Historically, the Roman Empire was pagan but became Christian in the fourth century, the same century in which the great Arian Controversy unfolded. In the fifth century, the Empire began to fragment. This section therefore provides an overview of the fourth-century controversy, explains the nature of the State Church of the Roman Empire, and shows how it formed an integral part of the Empire before becoming an independent entity during the Empire’s fragmentation. It then traces how this Church grew in power, became the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, and continues to exist today—destined, according to this interpretation, to remain until Christ returns.

This section offers an in-depth historical analysis, grounded in the conviction that those who do not understand history are bound to repeat it.

Authors Quoted

The Traditional Account

The discovery of previously unavailable ancient documents sparked a major expansion of twentieth-century research. As a result, scholars today interpret the fourth-century Arian Controversy very differently from their nineteenth-century predecessors.

Ayres wrote in 2004: “A vast amount of scholarship over the past thirty years has offered revisionist accounts of themes and figures from the fourth century” (Ayres, p. 2).

The traditional account of the controversy largely reflects the interpretation advanced by the Nicenes, especially Athanasius. R. P. C. Hanson, widely regarded as one of the foremost twentieth-century scholars of the controversy, characterized this account as history written by the victors and therefore as deeply biased:

“The accounts of what happened which have come down to us were mostly written by those who belonged to the school of thought which eventually prevailed and have been deeply coloured by that fact” (Hanson, p. xviii-xix).

In many instances, Athanasius’s account misrepresents the Arian position. For example, his quotations from Arius’s writings contain numerous derogatory and hostile editorial remarks that clearly originated with Athanasius. Such additions helped to distort the perceived nature of the controversy.

“Athanasius, a fierce opponent of Arius … certainly would not have stopped short of misrepresenting what he said” (Hanson, p. 10).

“The quotations from the Thalia in Orationes con. Arianos I.5-6 are full of derogatory and hostile editorial corrections clearly emanating from Athanasius” (Hanson, p. 11).

“If Athanasius’ account does shape our understanding, we risk misconceiving the nature of the fourth-century crisis” (Williams, p. 234).

Hanson went further, arguing that the traditional account of the controversy, still common at the beginning of the twentieth century, was a complete travesty that could safely be disregarded:

The “conventional account of the Controversy, which stems originally from the version given of it by the victorious party, is now recognised by a large number of scholars to be a complete travesty” (Hanson).

“The study of the Arian problem over the last hundred years has been like a long-distance gun trying to hit a target. The first sighting shots are very wide of the mark, but gradually the shells fall nearer and nearer. The diatribes of Gwatkin and of Harnack (published around the year 1900) can today be completely ignored” (Hanson, p. 95-96).

Readers familiar only with the traditional account of the Arian Controversy may therefore find some of the statements below surprising.

Authors Quoted

To avoid repeating the errors of the traditional account, this website relies almost exclusively on recognized patristic historians whose works were published during the past fifty years. In many respects, their accounts of the controversy differ sharply from those found in traditional handbooks:

Hanson, R.P.C.
The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God – The Arian Controversy 318-381 (1987)

Williams, Rowan
Arius, Heresy & Tradition (2002/1988)

Ayres, Lewis
Nicaea and its Legacy, An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (2004)

Anatolios, Khaled
Retrieving Nicaea (2011)

The terms Ousia and Hypostasis

Terminology presents a major challenge in this article because the meanings of some terms have changed over time. A brief clarification is therefore necessary.

In the standard Trinity doctrine, the Father, Son, and Spirit are one Being, sharing a single mind, consciousness, and action. Their distinction is often expressed by calling them three “Persons,” but this term may be misleading if they share a single mind. Scholars have therefore proposed alternatives such as “ways of existing” or “modes.” Another approach is to use the fourth-century Greek term hypostasis and describe the Father, Son, and Spirit as three hypostases.

In the standard Trinity doctrine, the Father, Son, and Spirit are a single Being, with a single mind, consciousness, and action. The distinction between the Father, Son, and Spirit is sometimes explained as three ‘Persons,’ but since they share a single mind, that term is misleading. Therefore, scholars search for alternative terms. Some propose ‘ways of existing’ or ‘modes.’ Another approach is to use the 4th-century Greek term hypostasis,  and to say that the Father, Son, and Spirit are three hypostases.

The terms ousia and, particularly, hypostasis were key words in the Controversy:

“As the fourth century progressed, hypostasis became, more and more, the one term that was the center of controversy” (Lienhard).

Nicenes treated ousia and hypostasis as synonyms:

“The evidence that for Athanasius hypostasis was the same as ousia is unmistakable” (Hanson, p. 445).

“The two words were, in the early fourth century, first and foremost synonyms” (Lienhard).

Hanson explains hypostasis as meaning “individual existence” (Hanson, p. 193). Litfin explains it as a “distinct existence” or a ‘distinct personality.’ Each hypostasis, therefore, was a distinct being with a distinct mind. For example, those who believed that the Father and Son are two hypostases said that they are one in harmony of wills or one in agreement.

“Asterius . . . asserts that . . . the Father and the Son are . . . two hypostaseis, and two prosôpa. The two are one, he insists, in harmony of wills” (Lienhard).

So, both hypostasis and ousia can today more or less be translated as “person.” But that means that hypostasis is not an appropriate term for explaining the Father, Son, and Spirit in the traditional Trinity doctrine.

Nicene Creed – One Hypostasis

The Nicene Creed uses both ousia and hypostasis. It says that the Son was begotten from the ousia of the Father, and that He is of the same ousia as the Father (homoousios). The Creed even seems to say that the Father and Son are a single ousia and hypostasis:

“If we are to take the creed N at its face value, the theology of Eustathius and Marcellus [the two leading Sabellians at Nicaea] was the theology which triumphed at Nicaea. That creed admits the possibility of only one ousia and one hypostasis” (Hanson, p. 235).

Therefore, the Nicene Creed seems to say that the Father and Son are a single Person. That statement should surprise the reader, but the clear teaching of the original Nicenes, such as Athanasius and Marcellus, was that the Father and Son are a single hypostasis: a single Person.

The “clear inference from his (Athanasius’) usage” is that “there is only one hypostasis in God” (Ayres, p. 48).

In other words, for the original Nicenes, as in the Traditional Trinity doctrine, the Father and Son are a single Being with a single mind. For example, Athanasius described the ‘Arian’ proposal that the Father and Son could potentially disagree as utter nonsense.

“He (Athanasius) is appalled at the Arian statement that the Son exercises his own judgment of free-will” (Hanson, p. 428).

Serdica Manifesto – One hypostasis

The Serdica Manifesto shows what the Western Nicenes originally really believed. It was prepared by the Western delegation, which included Athanasius and Marcellus, and there was no emperor to push them in one or the other direction. For that reason, this statement is very important for our understanding of the opposing views. It was the only Nicene statement of belief in the 4th century that was free from emperor interference. It explicitly confessed one hypostasis in God.

“The doctrinal statement of the Western Council of Sardica (342 or 343), in which Athanasius and Marcellus participated, insisted even more belligerently that ‘We have received and been taught, and we hold this catholic and apostolic tradition and faith and confession: there is one hypostasis (which is termed ‘essence’ [ousia] by the heretics) of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’” (Lienhard)

Cappadocians – Three hypostases

Against the Nicene teaching of one hypostasis, the ‘Arians’ always taught three hypostases in God. The Cappadocians began as ‘Arians,’ specifically, Homoousian Arians. In other words, they taught that the Father and Son are two Beings of similar substance. Later, they came to accept the term homoousios, but continued to teach three hypostases. They described the Father, Son, and Spirit as three distinct Beings with exactly the same type of substance.

While Athanasius treated hypostasis and ousia as synonyms, it seems as if Arius and some other leading Arians, such as Asterius, did not confuse the term.

“It seems likely that he (Arius) was one of the few during this period who did not confuse the two” (Hanson, p. 187).

Possibly given their ‘Arian’ background, the Cappadocians continued to make a distinction between these terms.

To summarise, hypostasis was the key term in the Controversy. While the original Nicenes proclaimed one hypostasis in God, the Arians believed in three hypostases. A hypostasis was understood as a distinct Being.

The terms Arian / Eusebian

The term ‘Arian’ is a serious misnomer.

The fourth-century anti-Nicenes are traditionally called “Arians,” which suggests that Arius developed a new theology, which dominated the fourth-century Church. However, As discussed here, that label seriously distorts the nature of the controversy. Arius was not a leader, did not develop a new theology, had only a few real followers, left behind no school of disciples, and had little significance after Nicaea. Rather, he was a conservative who belonged to an existing group. Ayres calls the anti-Nicenes “Eusebians” and includes Arius among them. Therefore, this article often refers to the anti-Nicenes as Eusebians or ‘Arians’.

“The expression ‘the Arian Controversy’ is a serious misnomer” (Hanson, p. xvii).

“This controversy is mistakenly called Arian. No clear party sought to preserve Arius’ theology” (Ayres, p. 13).

Origin of the term ‘Arian’

If the traditional view was that the Son is a second divine being, subordinate to the Father, why is it called Arianism? The reason is that Athanasius, who himself deviated from this established tradition, used Arius as a “straw man.” Athanasius began his polemics with the claim that Arius developed a new theology, and grouped all his traditionalist opponents under the umbrella label of “Arians.” But his opponents did not follow Arius. For example, they did not share Arius’s extreme view that the Son was created out of nothing. Rather, they believed that the Son was generated directly from the Father’s own being, and shared His divine attributes.

“’Arianism’ as a coherent system, founded by a single great figure and sustained by his disciples, is a fantasy … based on the polemic of Nicene writers, above all Athanasius” (Williams, p. 82).

“Athanasius … was determined to show that any proposed alternative to the Nicene formula collapsed back into some version of Arius’ teaching, with all the incoherence and inadequacy that teaching displayed” (Williams, p. 247).

Pre-Nicene: What view was Orthodox?

Modern readers are often surprised to learn that the early Church did not originally teach the modern Trinity doctrine.

Jesus Christ as the Logos of Greek philosophy

While Christianity was persecuted, the Roman intellectual world held Greek philosophy in high regard.

“When Christianity emerged during the second century into a non-Jewish, largely Gentile milieu … The intellectual world of the Late Roman Empire … was dominated by the inheritance and the practice of Greek philosophy” (Hanson).

From the 2nd century onward, beginning with Justin Martin, the Christian apologists, themselves well-trained in Greek philosophy, presented Jesus Christ as the Logos of Greek philosophy. In this view, the preincarnate Son was a second divine Being, distinct from and subordinate to the High God.

“They identified the pre-existent Christ … with the nous or Second Hypostasis of contemporary Middle Platonist philosophy, and also borrowed some traits from the divine Logos of Stoicism (including its name)” (Hanson).

This was the majority view in the Gentile Church and remained the dominant view into the 4th century.

“The theological structure provided by the Apologists lasted as the main, widely-accepted, one might almost say traditional framework for a Christian doctrine of God well into the fourth century, and was, in differing form, the basic picture of God with which the great majority of those who were first involved in the Arian Controversy were familiar and which they accepted” (Hanson).

Origen

Origen, the most influential writer of the 3rd century, refined and expanded Logos-theology, but he still described the Son as a second divine Being. He taught three hypostases.

“Origen does consider the Son to be a distinct being dependent on the Father for his existence” (Ayres, p. 23).

“He (Origen) taught that there were three hypostases within the Godhead” (Hanson, p. 184).

“He (Origen) deplores those heretics who confuse the ‘concepts’ of Father and Son and make them out to be one in hupostasis” (Williams, p. 132).

All regarded the Son as Subordinate.

During the first three centuries, and into the fourth, all theologians regarded the Son as subordinate to the Father.

“’Subordinationism’, it is true was pre-Nicene orthodoxy” [Henry Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers p. 239.]

“There is no theologian in the Eastern or the Western Church before the outbreak of the Arian Controversy [in the fourth century], who does not in some sense regard the Son as subordinate to the Father” (Hanson, p. 64).

‘One Being’ theology was rejected.

While Logos-theology taught that the Son is a second divine Being, in the Trinity doctrine, the Father and Son are a single Being. It is usually claimed that they exist as three Persons, but that term is misleading because, in the classical Trinity doctrine, the Father, Son, and Spirit share a single mind, will, and action.

The view that the Father and Son are a single Being also existed in the 3rd century. In the 2nd century, this appeared in the form of Monarchianism, the view that Jesus Christ is Himself the Father. In the 3rd century, it was refined into Sabellianism.

“This ‘monarchian’ view was an attempt to retain a strict type of monotheism for the Christian faith. It accomplished this goal by suggesting the Father and Son were different expressions of the same being, without any personal distinctions between them. In other words, the Father is himself the Son, and therefore experiences the Son’s human frailties” (Litfin).

“As Sabellius held to the simple unity of the person and nature of God, and yet supposed the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to differ really from each other, and not to be three names of the one God, acting in different ways; we are obliged to believe, that he considered the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as being three portions of the divine nature.” (Von Mosheim).

However, this was a minority view and was formally condemned. Sabellius himself was deposed in 220. In 268, Paul of Samosata was deposed by a council in Antioch for teaching a form of Sabellianism.

“In using the expression ‘of one substance’, Paul (of Samosata) declared that Father and Son were a solitary unit;” “a primitive undifferentiated unity” (Williams, pp. 159-160).

Rome had a Monarchian tradition.

While the “two-being” (dyohypostatic) view of Logos-theology thrived in the Greek East, where Christianity originated and where most Christians still lived, the Western Latin Church in Rome had a “one-being” (miahypostatic or Monarchian) tradition. In the 3rd century, while Christianity was still outlawed and persecuted, Rome’s influence was limited.

“The Western bishops made no serious attempt to analyse the complexity of the situation which faced them; they had hitherto remained on the periphery of the controversy; their traditional Monarchianism could square well enough with the little they knew of the Council of Nicaea” (Hanson, p. 272).

“Westerners, especially Romans, are probably rightly said to have held on to the spirit of the monarchian theology of the late second and early third centuries” (Lienhard).

In the 4th century, however, the Church in Rome, as the Capital of the Empire and with its large population, became very important. Therefore, in the 4th century, it influenced churches in other centers with its Monarchian view.

As an example of the view of the Church in Rome, around the year 260, there was a dispute between Rome and Alexandria over the term homoousios (see here). In this dispute, Alexandria opposed homoousios and regarded the Son as a second hypostasis or person. In contrast, Rome championed homoousios and had a Sabellian view. It held that the Father and Son are a single hypostasis.

Rome taught one hypostasis.
“Dionysius of Rome … said that it is wrong to divide the divine monarchy ‘into three sorts of … separated hypostases and three Godheads’; people who hold this in effect produce three gods” (Hanson, p. 185).

Rome has a Sabellian theology.
“His (the bishop of Rome) doctrine could only with difficulty be distinguished from that of Sabellius” (Hanson, p. 193).

Arianism was the ‘orthodox’ view.

In the traditional account of the Arian Controversy, Nicene theology (which later evolved into today’s Trinity doctrine) was the accepted orthodoxy at the beginning of the 4th century, but Arius caused the Controversy by developing a novel heresy. In reality, Arius was a conservative:

“Arius was a committed theological conservative; more specifically, a conservative Alexandrian” (Williams, p. 175).

Joseph Lienhard wrote that Arius was simply an adherent of the “dyohypostatic” tradition—the belief that the Father and Son are two distinct Beings (hypostases).

Nicenes believed that the Father and Son are a single Being. If Arianism is defined as the view that the Son is a distinct Being, subordinate to the Father, Arianism was the traditional view when the Controversy began. That is what Logos-theology, Origen, and most Christians in the 3rd century believed.

Logos-theology: Son is the second hypostasis
“The group of writers whom we call the Apologists” “used to great effect several features of contemporary Greek philosophy to enable them to construct their doctrines of God. They identified the pre-existent Christ, thought of as manifesting himself on critical occasions throughout the history of the Jewish people, with the nous or Second Hypostasis of contemporary Middle Platonist philosophy, and also borrowed some traits from the divine Logos of Stoicism (including its name)” (Hanson).

For example, Hanson wrote that ‘the conventional Trinitarian doctrine’, with which Christianity entered the fourth century, was to make the Son into a demi-god. In other words, the Trinity doctrine was not the conventional Trinitarian doctrine. Hanson then adds that Arianism does present the Son as in effect a demi-god, but the antecedents of this doctrine are found in Christian theology before the fourth century.

The “conventional Trinitarian doctrine with which Christianity entered the fourth century … was to make the Son into a demi-god … a second, created god lower than the High God” (Hanson).

“Arianism … does present the Son as in effect a demi-god, even though the antecedents of this doctrine are not to be found in pagan religion nor directly in Greek philosophy but in various theological strands to be detected in Christian theology before the fourth century” (Hanson).

The description of Arianism as believing that the Son is a demi-god is perhaps unfortunate. As mentioned below, the Arians believed that the Son is the second Being of the Godhead, mysteriously and uniquely begotten from the Father’s being (see here).

It used to be said that Arius was a heretic. However, since Arianism was the orthodox view, experts now describe him as a conservative. He defended a view that was traditional in Alexandria.

“Arius was a committed theological conservative; more specifically, a conservative Alexandrian” (Williams, p. 175).

“In Alexandria he (Arius) represented … a conservative theology” (Williams, p. 233).

“Arius … represents a school … and the school was to some extent independent of him. Arianism did not look back on him later with respect and awe as its founder” (Hanson, p. 97).

Conclusion

In contrast with the Trinity doctrine, in which the Father and Son are one single Being with a single mind, will, and action (see here), during the first three centuries, and when the Church entered the fourth century, the mainstream view was that the Son is a second, distinct divine Being, subordinate to the Father. This was taught by Origen, the most influential writer of the first four centuries, and by most other important writers.

The Role of the Emperor

To understand the nature of the Arian Controversy, it is critical to understand the role of the emperors. They not only decided which religions to allow, but they also chose sides in doctrinal disputes and decided which Christian factions to allow and which to squash through imperial force. In this way, effectively, the emperors became the final judges in doctrinal disputes. In the Christian Roman Empire, Church and State were one. As the respected patristic scholar Simonetti stated (Hanson, p. 849), “the Emperor was in fact the head of the church.” For example, R.P.C. Hanson, probably the most influential patristic scholar of the 20th century, wrote:

“The truth is that in the Christian church of the fourth century there was no alternative authority comparable to that of the Emperor. The century did indeed see an increase in the power of the bishop of Rome, but he still could not be regarded as a figure even remotely as powerful as that of the Emperor” (Hanson, p. 854).

“If we ask the question, what was considered to constitute the ultimate authority in doctrine during the period reviewed in these pages, there can be only one answer. The will of the Emperor was the final authority” (Hanson, p. 849).

Ecumenical Councils

The two ecumenical councils of that century, Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381, were not really ecumenical:

• • They were not called or requested by the Church. They were called by the emperors on their own initiative and for their own purposes.
  • Both were almost exclusively Eastern and excluded Christians outside the empire.
  • Both were controlled by the emperor, for example, through the appointment by the emperor’s agent as chairperson.
  • As will be discussed, the so-called Second Ecumenical Council was a local synod of Antioch, to which the emperor only invited Nicenes.

In fact, these councils were not even church councils. It is more appropriate to describe them as meetings of the Roman Empire to formulate the empire’s religious policy. For that purpose, the senior church officials were invited. Although the emperor listened to the different sides, the final decision was his.

“The history of the period shows time and time again that local councils could be overawed or manipulated by the Emperor or his agents. The general council was the very invention and creation of the Emperor. General councils, or councils aspiring to be general, were the children of imperial policy, and the Emperor was expected to dominate and control them” (Hanson, p. 855).

In the years 359-360, a series of church councils was held that was much more ecumenical. It involved the entire Roman Church. However, these councils were unable to come to a consensus. Consequently, the Arian Emperor of that time, Constantius, Constantine’s son, manipulated the councils to accept an Eusebian Creed. This manipulation was not more severe than in 325 and 381, but since this series of councils concluded with an Eusebian Creed, it is not regarded as Ecumenical today.

And the emperors invited only Romans. Other nations, such as the Goths, also became Christian, but they were not invited to these councils.

First Ecumenical Council (325 AD)

Christianity Legalized

In ancient times, kings and rulers determined the religions of their nations. The same applied to the Roman Empire. It outlawed and persecuted Christianity during the first three centuries. A primary task of the emperors was to keep the empire united, and religious division endangered political unity.

Everything changed with Emperor Constantine. After he himself had become a Christian, he legalized Christianity in 313.

Controversy Continued

After Emperor Constantine became a Christian and legalized Christianity in 313, he found that Christianity was divided. It is traditionally claimed that Arius caused the Controversy by formulating a new heresy. In reality, the Controversy was a continuation of the 3rd-century controversy. As stated, Arius was a conservative.

“We will find pre-existing deep theological tensions at the beginning of the fourth century. Controversy over Arius was the spark that ignited a fire waiting to happen, and the origins of the dispute do not lie simply in the beliefs of one thinker, but in existing tensions that formed his background” (Ayres, p. 20).

East vs. the West

For most of the fourth century, the majority view in the West was Nicene, but in the East it was Arian. This division came from the 3rd century. As mentioned above, in the 3rd century, the Church in Rome in the Latin West had a Monarchian tradition, but the Greek East deposed the Sabellians: both Sabellius himself and Paul of Samosata.

Emperor Constantine took the Western/Nicene side.

At first, Constantine ruled only the Western Empire and took the Roman/Nicene side, as represented by Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria.

“Constantine had taken Alexander’s part” (Ayres, p. 89).

Emperor Constantine called the council.

In 324, he became emperor of the entire empire. In the next year, 325, he called the Nicene Council, commonly called the First Ecumenical Council. The Nicene Council was not called or requested by the church. The emperor called it on his own initiative and for his own purpose,

The Council was overwhelmingly Eastern.

Almost all delegates were from the Eastern Church:

“The Council was overwhelmingly Eastern, and only represented the Western Church in a meagre way” (Hanson, p. 156).

Homoousios

In the traditional account of the Controversy, homoousios was a traditional term, and its adoption at Nicaea was a great victory for the traditional view, but such older accounts are deeply mistaken:

In the “centuries-old account of the Council of Nicaea: … The whole power of the mysterious dogma is at once established by the one word homoousios … with one pronouncement the Church identified a term (homoousios) that secured its … beliefs against heresy.” But “such older accounts are deeply mistaken” (Ayres, 11).

In the 3rd century, this term had been associated with Sabellianism. For example, in a dispute between Rome and Alexandria, around the year 260, Rome had a Sabellian theology and championed the term. At that time, Alexandria opposed homoousios.

At Nicaea, Constantine personally insisted on including the controversial term homoousios (“of one substance”) in the Nicene Creed.

Constantine ensured an outcome.

The Nicene Council was one example of unity enforced by the emperor. Constantine’s presence and influence ensured that the council reached the kind of conclusion which he thought best, and exiled those who refused to agree:

“Constantine took part in the Council of Nicaea and ensured that it reached the kind of conclusion which he thought best” (Hanson, p. 850).

Nicene Creed – A Drawn Battle

It is often claimed that Nicene theology was victorious at the Nicene Council. However, since the Creed seems to confess only one hypostasis in God, and since ‘one hypostasis’ was the hallmark of Sabellianism, it is probably truer to say that Sabellianism was the victor.

“If we are to take the creed N at its face value, the theology of Eustathius and Marcellus [the two leading Sabellians at Nicaea] was the theology which triumphed at Nicaea. That creed admits the possibility of only one ousia and one hypostasis. This was the hallmark of the theology of these two men” (Hanson, p. 235).

But R.P.C. Hanson calls the Nicene Creed a “drawn battle”:

“It is going too far to say that N is a clearly Sabellian document. … It is exceeding the evidence to represent the Council as a total victory for the anti-Origenist opponents of the doctrine of three hypostases. It was more like a drawn battle” (Hanson, p. 172).

Since almost all delegates were from the Greek East, Eusebians were the vast majority at the council. Alexander allied with the Sabellians and the alliance enjoyed the support of the emperor, but, to ensure that the Eusebian majority accepted the creed, the Nicenes were limited in the extent to which they could push their agenda.

“It is not quite accurate to say that the creed reflects the beliefs of those who held the initiative at Nicaea. Rather, the creed shows the extent to which those who held the initiative could push their perspective while still achieving sufficient support for victory at the council” (Ayres, p. 91).

The ambiguity of the Creed enabled the Eusebians to interpret the Creed according to their theology. They interpreted homoousios as merely meaning that the Son is like the Father. Alexander and the Sabellians, naturally, interpreted the Creed very differently.

Post-Nicaea Reversal

The Council had consequences in the subsequent years. It resulted in a dispute between the Eusebians and Sabellians about the meaning of the term homoousios.

In the decade after Nicaea, Constantine learned the other side of the story and switched sides. For example, he was baptized by the leader of the Eusebians, Eusebius of Nicomedia. Therefore, he allowed all exiled Eusebians to return, and all leading Nicenes to be exiled. Consequently, the term homoousios also disappeared, and the Church returned to the pre-Nicene Arian orthodoxy. The decisions at Nicaea were effectively reversed.

“Within ten years of the Council of Nicaea all the leading supporters of the creed of that Council had been deposed or disgraced or exiled – Athanasius, Eustathius and Marcellus, and with them a large number of other bishops who are presumed to have belonged to the same school of thought” (Hanson, p. 274).

“What is conventionally regarded as the key-word in the Creed homoousion, falls completely out of the controversy very shortly after the Council of Nicaea and is not heard of for over twenty years” (Hanson Lecture).

The Core of the Controversy

The core issue in the Arian Controversy was whether the Father and Son are one single Being, with a single mind, as the Nicenes held, or whether the Father and preincarnate Son are two Beings, with two distinct minds, as the Eusebians believed.

All or most other differences between the two sides derive from this core issue.

If the Father and Son are a single Being, then it logically follows that the Son is of the same substance as the Father, and as eternal, immortal, impassible, immutable, and invisible as the Father.

But if the Son is a second divine Being, dependent for His existence on the Father, and subordinate to the Father, then it can be argued that He is of a different substance, mortal, mutable, passible, and visible.

In the Greek terminology of the 4th century, the core issue was whether the Father and Son are one hypostasis or two hypostases.

Second and Third Centuries

This began already in the 2nd century: While Logos-theology taught that the Son is a distinct Being, the Monarchians held that the Father and Son are the exact same Person.

It continued in the 3rd century. Logos-theology and Origen continued to teach that the Son is a distinct Being. The Sabellians possibly made a distinction between the Father and Son within the one divine Being, but still held that the Father and Son are one single Person.

Original Nicene Theology

The Father’s Wisdom

This dispute continued in the 4th century. The Nicenes believed that only one divine Being exists. Nicene theology was not identical with Sabellianism. Sabellianism was vague about the distinction between the Father and Son. They regarded the Son merely as a temporary, internal word of the Father. The original Nicene were much more specific about the distinction between the Father and Son. They believed that the Son is an aspect of the Father, namely, specifically, the Father’s own and only Wisdom and Power. Without the Son, they said, the Father would not have any wisdom or power. In other words, in the original Nicene theology, only one divine Person, or hypostasis, exists. Furthermore, if the Son is the Father’s own and only wisdom and power, the Son is really the Father, and the Son is the Father. See here for a discussion of Nicene theology.

The Son is subordinate to the Father.

Arianism is often identified as the view that the Son is subordinate to the Father. In reality, since the Nicenes believed that the Son is an internal aspect of the Father, the Son is ontologically subordinate to the Father, even if He is of the same substance as the Father. The Trinity doctrine, as we know it today, in which the three ‘Persons’ are equal, only became established in the fifth century. See here for a further discussion.

‘Arianism’

In contrast, the Arians, following the traditional Logos-theology and Origen, believed in two distinct Beings in the Godhead: the Father and Son. They believed that the Son was mysteriously and uniquely begotten from the Father’s own being. Therefore, there is no being comparable to the Son. They believed that the Spirit is a Person, but they would not include Him in the Godhead.

In Arianism, the Son is divine. It is often also said that the Arians held that the Son is a created being. That is a misunderstanding of the issue. In the Arian view, the Son is the Second Being of the Godhead. They allowed worship of the Son, claimed that all personal appearances of Yahweh in the Old Testament were really Jesus Christ, and described Him as God and the Creator of all things. Arianism must not be confused with Jehovah’s Witnesses. For Eusebius, the real leader of the so-called Arians, there are two hypostases in the Godhead: the Father and the Son.

“We have to resist the anachronistic characterization of him (Arius) as an antitrinitarian theologian. He writes simply, ‘So there are three hypostaseis,’ meaning the set of beings that form the object (or objects) of Christian confession. … the three hypostaseis seemingly form a certain unity” (Anatolios, pp. 47-48).

Arius wrote: “There exists a Trinity in unequal glories” (Ayres, p. 55).

“Certainly, there is a Trinity … their individual realities do not mix with each other, and they possess glories of different levels. (The Father is) infinitely more splendid in his glories” (Hanson, p. 14, describing the Arian view).

“Eusebius of Caesarea … his estimate of the Holy Spirit was so low that he would not have included him within the Godhead, and so would only recognize two hypostases” (Hanson, pp. 150-1).

Mid-century – ‘Arian’ Domination

Most mid-fourth-century emperors sided with the Eusebians. Arian emperors, such as Constantius and Valens, forced the Western Latin Church to accept Eusebian creeds and exiled Nicene bishops to the other ends of the empire. Therefore, Arianism dominated. Around the year 359, Jerome remarked that the whole Church had become Arian.

Rome became prominent.

However, the Church in Rome, strongly supported by Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, continued to oppose the Eusebians. Since it was the church of the Capital, it had significant influence in the Western Latin Church.

Arian Factions

However, in the 350s, Arianism evolved into factions, including the Heterousians, Homoiousians, and the dominant Arian view, the Homoians. The Homoians refused to refer to God’s substance because the Bible says nothing about it.

Cappadocian Fathers

Cappadocians believed in three Beings in the Godhead.

The Cappadocians also accepted homoousios but understood it as meaning two substances that are alike in all respects. Therefore, they believed that the Son is a distinct hypostasis (Person).

Basil described the Father and Son as “invariably like according to essence” (Ayres, p. 189) or “like without a difference” (Ayres, p. 190).

Athanasius opposed the Cappadocians. ()

But the Western Nicenes did not accept Basil’s views, as reflected in the Meletian Schism, a dispute in the late fourth century between the Western Nicenes, including Athanasius, and the Cappadocians. In other words, this left the two most prominent Nicenes of the 4th century, Athanasius and Basil of Caesarea, in opposing camps.

The Western Nicenes, including Athanasius, believed that the Cappadocian view of three hypostases was Arianism. They supported Paulinus, a Sabellian, as bishop for Antioch. As discussed above, Athanasius was not a Trinitarian. He believed in only one hypostasis in the Godhead.

?Hanson describes Paulinus as “a Sabellian heretic” (Hanson’s Lecture). He was “Marcellan/Sabellian” (Hanson, p. 799).

The Western Nicenes taught that the Father and Son are a single hypostasis (Person) and accepted ‘homoousios’ as meaning ‘one substance.’ But Basil of Caesarea, the first of the Cappadocians, regarded this as Sabellianism.

“The schism at Antioch, between the Eustathians, or old Catholic party, under their Bishop Paulinus … and the new Catholic party under S. Meletius, had troubled both the East and West. The holiest Bishops in the East, such as S. Basil and S. Eusebius of Samosata, sided with Meletius. S. Damasus and the Western Bishops communicated with Paulinus. Meletius asserted Three Hypostases in the HOLY TRINITY, Paulinus One: S. Damasus would not allow the former, for fear of being considered an Arian, nor S. Basil the latter, lest he should be imagined a Sabellian.” [A History of the Holy Eastern Church, Volume 1, by John Mason Neale, page 204].

“Basil suspected that Paulinus was at heart a Sabellian, believing in only one Person (hypostasis) in the Godhead. Paulinus’ association with the remaining followers of Marcellus and his continuing to favour the expression ‘one hypostasis’ … rendered him suspect” (Hanson, p. 801).

After Athanasius had died (373), this dispute continued with his successor (Peter) and Pope Damasus supporting the Sabellian Paulinus against the Cappadocians.

“The opening of the year 375 saw the ironical situation in which the Pope, Damasus, and the archbishop of Alexandria, Peter, were supporting Paulinus of Antioch, a Sabellian heretic, and Vitalis, an Apollinarian heretic, against Basil of Caesarea, the champion of Nicene orthodoxy in the East, later to be acknowledged universally as a great Doctor of the Church” (Hanson’s Lecture).

?Paulinus derived “his tradition in continuity from Eustathius who had been bishop about forty years before” (Hanson, p. 800-1). Eustathius was deposed for Sabellianism.

Second Ecumenical Council (381 AD)

Emperor Theodosius / The Edict of Thessalonica (380 AD)

The definitive turning point came in 379, when a committed Nicene, Theodosius, became emperor in the traditionally Eusebian East. As stated, in the Roman Empire, the emperors not only decided which religions to legalize, but also decided which factions of religions to allow. For that reason, and because ‘one hypostasis’ theology already dominated the church in Rome in the Latin West, the rise of a ‘one hypostasis’ emperor in the Eusebian East was bound to have a major impact.

Theodosius did what no other emperor had done before him. Unlike previous emperors, who called and manipulated church councils to enforce their preferred views, Theodosius ended the controversy by imperial decree. In 380, with the support of the Western Emperor Gratian, he issued the Edict of Thessalonica. It legally defined the acceptable Christian faith, making Nicene theology—later developed into the Trinity doctrine— the only legal religion of the Roman Empire.

“Theodosius made known by law his intention of leading all his subjects to the reception of that faith which was professed by Damasus, bishop of ROME, and by Peter, bishop of ALEXANDRIA” (Sozomen’s Church History VII.4).

Specifically, the Edict prescribed the Western version of Nicene theology. For example, it named the bishops of Rome and Alexandria as the standards of the acceptable faith, and described the Trinity as the “one God.”

In ancient times, also in the Roman Empire, separation of State and Religion did not exist. Consequently, throughout the century, the emperor was expected to act as the head of the church. Theodosius did not create the State Church of the Roman Empire; it already existed. Through the Edict, Theodosius merely acted as head of the State Church and prescribed its theology by law. Not only was Nicene theology now the only legal religion, but all Romans, not only believers, were required to be Christians, specifically Nicene Christians.

“Constantine established the precedent for imperial intervention in ecclesiastical affairs … while Gratian and Theodosius finally and decisively fixed the alliance of the state with ecclesial creed and persecution” (The Ecclesiastical Edicts of the Theodosian Code – Boyd, p. 33).

The following are other examples of how Theodosius acted as the head of the State Church:

• Even before the council in 381, he unilaterally exiled the Arian bishop of the Capital, Constantinople, and appointed a Nicene as bishop.
• There were several Christian factions, not just two. In 383, Theodosius summoned a council of all factions, such as the Anomoeans, Macedonians, and Novatians, and personally decided which factions would be allowed. He accepted only the Nicenes and the Novatianists (Ayres, p. 259). “The other sects lost the right to meet, ordain priests, or spread their beliefs” (Boyd, page 47).

The Edict also outlawed all other views and initiated severe persecution. Theodosius ruthlessly persecuted the Eusebians. Their churches were confiscated, and they were forced out of cities and towns. In this way, ‘Arianism’ was eliminated from the Roman State Church.

“On January 10 (381), Theodosius issued an edict … No church was to be occupied for worship by any heretics, no heretics were to gather together for worship within the walls of any town” (Hanson, p. 805).

Theodosius instructed that “all churches shall immediately be surrendered to those bishops who confess that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one majesty and power” (Ayres, p. 252).

Second Ecumenical Council (381 AD)

In the next year, 381, Emperor Theodosius, not the Pope or the Church, called the Council of Constantinople, also known as the Second Ecumenical Council. “Ecumenical” implies it had worldwide representation. However:

• Since Theodosius had already outlawed all opposing views, with threats of punishment, he invited only Nicenes. Predictably, the outcome was a Nicene Creed.
• Since Theodosius was emperor only in the East, he invited only Easterners. Nobody from the West attended. In fact, only bishops from the jurisdiction of the church in Antioch were invited. It was probably intended to address the Meletian Schism.
• Also, only delegates from the Roman Empire attended. Christians from the Germanic nations, who would 30 years later sack Rome, were not invited. It was strictly a meeting of the Roman State Church.
• Since only Nicenes were invited, the outcome was secured. To further guarantee his desired outcome, Theodosius even appointed a trusted unbaptized senior government official both as the Bishop of Constantinople and chairperson of the Council.

In these ways, the emperors ensured that the councils reached acceptable solutions. Therefore, if the Controversy was ended by this council, as is often stated. it was not ended by the church in general, but by the emperors.

Roman State Church

The Roman State Church is the organization that was subsequently formed within the Roman Empire. Through severe persecution, the empire eliminated non-Nicene elements from the Roman Church.

From the emperors, the Church received protection and authority over people.

However, it was subject to the authority of the emperors. The emperor was effectively the head of the church. For example, a couple of years later, Emperor Theodosius held another council at which all ‘sects’ had to present their theologies to him. He personally and unilaterally decided which were acceptable and which were not.

We must distinguish between Christianity in general, and the Roman State Church, a specific organization formed within the Roman Empire.

In modern society, Church and State are often two distinct things. That was not the case in the Roman Empire. Church and State were united under a single head, the emperor.

“Gratian and Theodosius finally and decisively fixed the alliance of the state with ecclesiastical creed and persecution” (Boyd, p33).

Fifth Century – Arian Rule

So far, we have mostly discussed Christianity within the Roman Empire. However, Germanic nations, such as the Goths, also accepted Christianity. These nations converted before the time of Theodosius, at a time when ‘Arianism’ still dominated and remained ‘Arian’ after the Edict of Thessalonica. Consequently, in the fifth century, after these Germanic tribes migrated into the Empire and defeated the imperial forces, conquered the Western Empire, and divided it into several Germanic kingdoms, Europe was again under ‘Arian’ rule.

In the East, the Roman Empire continued to rule. In the West, these Arian nations wished to remain part of the Roman Empire, to benefit from the protection and wealth it offered. Therefore, they tolerated the Roman State Church, with its Nicene theology and hierarchy of bishops. For several reasons, such as its strong central organization, it even flourished. However, it was now subject to Arian rule. Two parallel hierarchies of bishops existed: Roman (Nicene) and Arian.

6th to 8th Centuries: End of ‘Arianism’

In the sixth century, the Eastern Emperor Justinian defeated and subdued the Arian kingdoms in the West, liberating the State Church of the Roman Empire in the West from ‘Arian’ domination.

For the next two centuries, the Eastern Empire ruled the West through the Roman Church, supported by the Imperial Forces. This era is commonly known as the Byzantine Papacy because the Western Roman Church, which was a Latin-speaking organization, became dominated by Greek-speakers from the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire.

However, in the phrase ‘Byzantine Papacy,’ the term ‘Papacy’ is not appropriate, for it implies that the Pope was the head of the church. During this period, the church remained squarely under the control of the Eastern emperor. To be appointed, the popes required the approval of the Eastern emperors.

During this period, due to the dominance of the Eastern Roman Empire and its Roman State Church, the defeated ‘Arian’ kingdoms abandoned ‘Arianism’ and converted to the Roman State Church. Conversion was imposed top-down: kings made the decision for political purposes and forced their people to follow. This was the real end of Arianism.

The practice of the Eastern Empire to rule the West through the Roman State Church transformed the Church into a very powerful political animal and an important part of the Roman Empire.

The Roman State Church become the Roman Church.

In the 8th century, the Byzantine Empire lost its richest provinces to Islamic conquests. Suddenly, much of the Christian world was under Islamic rule. This weakened the Eastern Roman Empire, rendered it unable to further control or protect the Western Roman State Church, and ended the Byzantine Papacy. Pope Zachary, in 741, was the last pope to seek the emperor’s approval for his election.

But the Western kingdoms that, over the previous two centuries, had converted to the Roman State Church now supported and protected it. Since the Church was no longer the State Church of the Roman Empire, it became simply the Roman Church.

9th century – Carolingian Dynasty

The Frankish Carolingian dynasty, founded by Charlemagne (Charles the Great), dominated the West in the 9th century. It ruled in western and central Europe from 800 to 888. Charlemagne was the first emperor to rule most of the West since the fall of the Western Roman Empire three centuries earlier.

However, like the Roman Empire before them, the Carolingians dominated the Roman Church. They asserted “immense authority over the Western church” (Britannica).

On the other hand, the pope exercised influence in Carolingian affairs by claiming the right to crown emperors and by sometimes directly intervening in political disputes. Church and State were united.

10th century – Ottonian Dynasty

After Carolingian power waned, the Ottonian dynasty in Germany became the preeminent power in Europe. Otto I was German king from 936. He suppressed rebellious vassals, consolidated the German Reich, revived Charlemagne’s empire, used the church to stabilize the empire, and became the Holy Roman Emperor (962–973). The Ottonians protected the Church but also dominated it. They treated churches as their property, appointed bishops, and forbade appeals to Rome. (Britannica)

11th century – Transformation

Yet, as mentioned, these Western kingdoms dominated the Church. Throughout the first millennium, the Church was always ruled by civil powers, the Roman Emperors in the fourth century, Arian kings in the fifth, Eastern Emperors from the 6th to 8th centuries, the Carolingians in the 9th, and by the Ottonians in the 10th century. Traditionally, the monarchs controlled the appointment of popes and high-ranking church officials.

In the 11th century, however, the Church began to transform from being subordinate to the monarchs to being supreme over them. Through the Investiture Controversy, the Church challenged the authority of monarchs to control the appointment of popes and high-ranking church officials. For example:

• In 1059, the church formed the College of Cardinals to appoint new popes, restricting interference from political rulers.
• In 1122, representatives of the Church and the monarch met in the German city of Worms. They reached a compromise known as the Concordat of Worms. By its terms, the Monarch agreed that the Church itself would appoint its officials, but retained the right to veto the appointment of bishops. This was a victory for the Church. Nevertheless, the emperor also retained considerable power over Church appointments.

The humiliation of King Henry IV before Pope Gregory VII, during the Investiture Controversy, illustrates how powerful the Papacy had become:

• In 1075, Pope Gregory VII claimed the pope as the highest authority in the church and banned lay investiture. The German emperor, King Henry IV of the Holy Roman Empire, the mightiest king in Europe at the time, responded by ordering Gregory to step down. Gregory then excommunicated the king, and the German princes and bishops sided with the pope.
• To save his throne, the king sought the pope’s forgiveness. Stripped of his royal robes and clad as a penitent, he came barefoot in ice and snow and requested admission to the pope’s presence. Three days he remained at the door of the citadel, fasting and exposed to the wintry weather, before Pope Gregory received and absolved him.

Imagine the head of the mightiest nation today having to ask the pope for forgiveness in this way.

In this way, the State Church of the Roman Empire transitioned from being a part of the Roman Empire into a sovereign power: the independent, continent-dominating powerhouse that dominated Europe’s nations and kings during the High Middle Ages.

High Middle Ages

Daniel 7 indicates that the 11th horn would become larger than the others (7:20, 24), meaning that it would dominate the other kingdoms.

During the High Middle Ages, beginning in thew 12th century, the Roman Church was the dominant power in Europe. It had full control over the appointment of its officials, but also sought authority over the monarchs. In the pontificate of Innocent III (1198–1216), papal claims to authority reached their zenith. The Pope:

• Claimed jurisdiction over all matters relating to sin.
• Involved himself in the political affairs of France and the Holy Roman Empire.
• Called the Fourth Crusade (1202–04), which led to the sack of Constantinople.
• Approved legislation requiring Jews to wear special clothing.
• Declared that the pope stood between God and humankind as the vicar of Christ, meaning the pope took the place of Christ.

Innocent’s successors continued and further extended papal authority. To reign lawfully, emperors and kings had to be in communion with the Pope. Otherwise, the Pope could declare the ruler unfit to reign:

“Emperors and kings had to … be in communion with the Pope, as essential conditions of their reigning lawfully; if these conditions were broken, of which the Pope was the judge, then … he could … declare their ruler unfit to reign.” [Cath Dic, 257]

The Little Horn had grown “larger than its associates,” as Daniel 7 predicted.

During this period of increasing dominance, the popes also sought to establish Rome’s primacy over the church worldwide. This worsened tensions between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, and led to the Schism of 1054.

Conclusions

The Reformers identified the Antichrist, symbolized as the Beast of Revelation and as the Horn of Daniel, as the Roman Church. The purpose of this article is to confirm that identification.

A first characteristic of the Horn of Daniel is that it grows out of the fourth animal of Daniel 7, which was identified as the Roman Empire. In other words, the organization symbolized as the Horn was part of the Empire, but became a separate organization with the collapse of the Empire. As shown above, this was true of the Roman Church. It originated in the 4th century as the State Church of the Roman Empire, with all Romans as members, and the emperor as the head. But, with the fall of Rome, it became a separate organization, with the Pope as its head.

THE HORN IDENTIFIED

Purpose

It was argued above that the Beast of Revelation and the Horn of Daniel 7 are the same entity. Therefore, the Beast is identified from Daniel’s prophecy. The purpose here is to show that the Roman Church is the only entity that fits the description of Daniel’s Horn.

The previous section showed that the Roman Church is a remnant of the Roman Empire, as prophesied by Daniel 7. This section will show that the State Church of the Roman Empire corresponds to various other aspects of the 11th horn of Daniel 7, such as that it:

• Was the last of the 11 horns,
• Uprooted three other horns as it came up,
• Was small at first,
• Grew “larger than its associates,”
• Persecuted God’s people,
• Reigned for a time, times, and half a time, and
• Will only be destroyed when Christ returns.

Uprooted three other horns.

In Daniel 7, there were first 10 horns, symbolizing the kingdoms into which the Roman Empire fragmented. Then the evil 11th horn came up by uprooting three other horns. This symbolizes a further kingdom that arose when the Empire fragmented. It came out last, after the other 10 kingdoms had already formed, and it became established by destroying three other kingdoms. In the events of the 5th and 6th centuries, this describes the Roman State Church:

• The Germanic nations of Europe converted to Christianity while ‘Arianism’ still dominated. Therefore, they were Arians and remained Arian after the Roman Empire made Nicene theology its State Religion. The first 10 horns symbolize the multiple Arian kingdoms into which the Germanic tribes, in the fifth century, defeating the imperial forces, divided the Western Empire. Ten is a round or symbolic number. It does not have to be literally 10.
• The 3 horns, which the Little Horn uprooted, symbolize the three Western ‘Arian’ kingdoms that the Eastern Empire, under Emperor Justinian, in the sixth century defeated and subjected. His aim was to expand the Empire to its previous glory and to liberate the Roman State Church from Arian domination.
• In 533–534, his troops dispersed the Vandals of North Africa to the fringes of the empire.
• After a protracted war, Justinian defeated the Ostrogoths in Italy in 553. They returned to South Austria.
• The Eastern Empire, already in 507, used the Franks to drive the Visigoths out of Gaul. In 552, Justinian recovered a strip of land that prevented the Visigoths from being a further threat to the Roman Church in Italy.

These three Arian nations were the most direct threat to the Roman Church. After they were removed, the Roman State Church, with the supported of the Imperial Forces, began to dominate the defeated Arian kingdoms.

According to Daniel 7, this was the birth of the Antichrist. This was when the 11th horn came up. The first 10 horns came up in the 5th century, but the 11th in the 6th.

Began small.

Like the Little Horn of Daniel (7:8; 8:9), the Roman State Church began small. After the Eastern Empire, in the 6th century, liberated the State Church in the West, the Church remained subject to the Eastern Emperor. One Cambridge article explained the attitude of the Byzantine Empire as follows:

“The idea of papal sovereignty was foreign to the Byzantines. … unintelligible, unreasonable, and unhistorical. … (in) their concept of the order of the Christian world … The Christian Roman Emperor was the elect of God and … God’s vice-gerent [God’s agent on earth] on earth … His patriarchs or supreme bishops of the Christian Empire … were the spiritual heads of the Christian world, acting in harmony with him. Church and State were therefore one, indissoluble and interdependent.”

For example, the Emperor still approved the appointment of popes. Empire. Authors often describe the Roman Church of this period as the Papacy, but that name is misleading because the Pope was subject to the authority of the emperor.

In the eighth century, after the Eastern Empire lost most of its wealth and power to Muslim conquests, the Western Roman Church survived but remained subject to, first, the Carolingian and then the Ottonian Dynasties.

Therefore, until the 10th century, the Roman Church remained ‘small.’ The monarchs controlled the appointments of popes and high-ranking church officials.

Grew “larger than its associates.”

Like the Little Horn of Daniel 7, the Roman State Church grew “larger than its associates.” As discussed, in the 11th century, for the first time, the Roman Church became able to appoint popes and bishops without outside interference. Starting in the 12th century, during the High Middle Ages, the Roman Church attained power that rivaled and exceeded that of the Western Monarchs. It became the Church of the Middle Ages, dominating the nations of Europe.

Persecutes God’s People

The 11th horn will “wear out the saints of the Most High” (Daniel 7:25). The Roman Church, like the Little Horn, wore out the saints of the Most High. During the Middle Ages, it sustained its position by brutal forms of coercion: torturing, imprisoning, and killing countless millions of people, seeking to compel or exterminate people who dared to stand up against its evil innovations. For example:

• Innocent III (1198–1216) called the Albigensian Crusade in southern France, resulting in the massacre of God’s people.
• The Inquisition is infamous for the severity of its tortures. The Spanish Inquisition alone resulted in some 32,000 executions. (History.com)
• The Roman Church instigated the Waldensian massacres. The Waldensians, who dwelt in the Italian Alps, criticized Catholic beliefs and identified the Church as the harlot of the Apocalypse. In response, the Catholic Church called for the destruction of the Waldensians, absolving all who would perpetrate such crimes. In consequence, the Waldensians were looted, raped, tortured, and massacred. Clark’s Martyrology counts the number of Waldensian martyrs during the first half of the 13th century in France alone at two million. They were almost completely destroyed as a people, and most of their literary record was erased from the face of the earth. (Thomas Armitage, A History of the Baptists, “Post-Apostolic Times – The Waldensians,” 1890).

These atrocities alone are sufficient to identify the Roman Church as the Antichrist because the Bible always describes the Antichrist as the persecutor of God’s people (Rev 13:7; 11:2; 18:24 and Dan 7:25). The Roman Church killed people in the cruelest ways possible, such as burning them alive at the stake. This reveals the true nature of the beast.

During the two or three centuries after the Reformation, Protestants gave estimates of the number of people killed by the Papacy that vary from 50 million to 150 million. David Plaisted discusses the estimates of the Number Killed by the Roman Church in the Middle Ages. The following are some of his quotes:

“From the birth of Popery in 606 to the present time, it is estimated by careful and credible historians, that more than fifty millions of the human family, have been slaughtered for the crime of heresy by popish persecutors, an average of more than forty thousand religious murders for every year of the existence of popery” (John Dowling, “History of Romanism, pp. 541-2. New York: 1871).

“That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind, will be questioned by no Protestant who has a competent knowledge of history. The memorials, indeed, of many of her persecutions are now so scanty, that it is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no power of imagination can adequately realize their sufferings” (W. E. H. Lecky, “History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe,” Vol. II, p. 32. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910).

“Need I speak to you of the thirty years war in Germany, which was mainly instigated by the Jesuits, in order to deprive the Protestants of the right of free religious worship, secured to them by the treaty of Augsburg? Or of the Irish rebellion, of the inhuman butchery of about fifteen millions of Indians in South America, Mexico and Cuba, by the Spanish papists? In short, it is calculated by authentic historians, that papal Rome has shed the blood of sixty-eight millions of the human race in order to establish her unfounded claims to religious dominion” (S. S. Schmucker, Professor of Theology in the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, The Glorious Reformation, Published by Gould and Newman, 1838).

Without persecution, the Roman Church might not have existed today. It began to exist in the 4th century, when Emperor Theodosius violently persecuted Arians, was liberated from Arian domination when Emperor Justinian violently suppressed the Western Arian nations, and continued to use violence during the Middle Ages. That violence will resume. In the End Time, the Image of the Beast will kill those who refuse to worship it.

Reigns for a time, times, and a half

“The saints of the Highest One … will be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time” (Dan 7:25). This is the same as the 42 months and the 1260 days:

• For example, Revelation 12:6 and 14 describe the same event, but one verse counts it as 1260 days and the other as “a time and times and half a time.”
• The three periods are also numerically equal (3½ years = 42 months = 1260 days, using the moon cycle of approximately 30 days per month).

This period appears seven times in five different chapters of Daniel and Revelation. It is, therefore, a very important period. Unless this period is understood, the prophecies cannot be understood.

This period is not the End Time. In the prophecies, it always precedes the End Time. For example:

• In Revelation 12, after the 3½ times, the woman (God’s people) will be released from the wilderness of obscurity in which she was held during the 3½ times (Rev 12:16-17).
• In Daniel 12, after this period, Daniel’s prophecies would be unsealed, studied, and understood (Dan 12:4, 9).

It is a symbolic period. It is not literally 1260 days:

• Daniel and Revelation are symbolic books. Since the context is symbolic, the 3½ times must also be symbolic.
• The apocalyptic time prophecies, literally interpreted, allow too little time for what must happen. For example, the ten horns are ten kings who will rule for “one hour” (Rev 17:12).
• Since the 3½ times are found in prophecies that cover vast periods, it should also be a long period.

The Reformers interpreted a day in apocalyptic prophecies as a literal year. In other words, 1260 days symbolize 1260 years. There are many indications that support this approach. The question is, where do we locate the 1260 Years in history?

• Since it is the period of the 11th horn of the 4th animal (Dan 7:25), it began when that horn came into existence. The 11th horn came up when it uprooted three of the other horns (Dan 7:8). That was in the mid-sixth century when the Eastern Emperor Justinian defeated and subjected three Arian Western kingdoms.
• 1260 years later bring us to the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, a decisive turning point in the history of Europe and the Western World. The 3½ times or 42 months, therefore, represent more or less the Middle Ages, the period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance.

Destroyed when Christ returns.

According to Daniel 7, the 11th horn will only be destroyed when Christ returns (Dan 7:26, 11). Therefore, it must still exist today.

The Roman Church still exists today. It is the same organization that began as the State Church of the Roman Empire, whose theology was described by the Edict of Thessalonica, and that was liberated from Arian domination by Emperor Justinian. It no longer has the power it once had, but it remains extremely large, wealthy, and powerful.

A Christian Organization

The above identified the Antichrist from the Book of Daniel. Since the Beast in Revelation is the same as the 11th horn in Daniel, it can also be identified from the Book of Revelation. Like Daniel’s Horn, Revelation’s Beast blasphemes God, persecutes God’s people, and reigns for the same period, counted as 42 months in Revelation (13:5). Revelation implies further that the Beast is a Christian organization, a ‘church,’ not a political power:

(a) It is a deliberate counterfeit of Jesus Christ:

• Like Jesus, the Beast has a ministry that lasts three and a half years (42 months), is killed, but is resurrected from the dead (13:3).
• Like Jesus received His authority from the Father (Matt 28:18), the Sea Beast received its authority from the Dragon (13:2).
• Like Jesus is the image of God (Col 1:15; John 14:9), the Beast is an image of the Dragon. Both have seven heads and ten horns.

(b) Two Horns like a Lamb (13:11)

The first part of Revelation 13 describes the Beast. In 13:11, another beast appears. It has two horns like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon (13:11). Revelation refers to Jesus as a lamb 28 times. 13:11 is the only instance in Revelation where “lamb” does not refer to Jesus. Since the beast from the earth is lamb-like, it looks like Jesus. It is Christian in appearance. However, it “spoke as a dragon” (13:11). In Revelation, to speak means to act. In other words, although this beast looks Christian, it acts like the dragon.

Since this second beast “exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence” (13:12), the first beast, the Beast, is also Christian in appearance.

The Beast persecutes God’s true people.

Only a Christian organization can persecute God’s true people. A secular organization would not know who God’s people are. But the Beast knows who God’s people are because they protest against its unbiblical doctrines and practices.

In Revelation, the enemy is in the Church.

• In the seven letters (chapters 2 and 3), the enemy is always inside the church.
• God’s people are represented as a pure woman (12:1), but the enemy as a harlot (17:1).

Conclusion

The Roman Church is the only historical entity that fits both the timing and the characteristics of the 11th horn of Daniel 7.

Miracles encourage Faith.

To believe in God is not always easy. We live in a world where we see evil, pain, and death. We get used to these things, and sometimes we fail to see the infinite miracles of life in us and around us. For example, see Inner Life of a Cell. We must also observe the miracles in the Bible, such as the miracle of His laws, the Sermon on the Mount, and the prophecies. Daniel 9 seems to be a clear prediction of the life and death of Jesus Christ. And Daniel 7 seems to be a clear prediction of the Church of the Roman Empire. The accuracy with which God’s predicted this entity is a great encouragement to the believer.

The Beast will not be the Primary end-time Actor.

However, we should not expect the Roman Church to play the leading role in the end-time crisis. According to Revelation 13, a second beast will arise, exercise all the authority of the first beast in his presence, perform great signs, and deceive the earth-dwellers, telling them to make an image to the beast. It is then the Image who, in the end-time, will force people to receive the beast’s mark and who will persecute those who refuse. In the end-time, therefore, we must expect another organization that will do the work of the Roman Church.

The Mark of the Beast

Above, this article concluded that the Beast in Revelation is the same as the 11th horn of the 4th animal in Daniel 7, and that both symbolize the Roman Church, which originated during the 4th-century Arian Controversy as the Roman State Church. Then the question is, what is the Mark of the Beast? The following are some possibilities:

A Literal Mark

Some proposed that the mark will be a literal mark on literal foreheads, perhaps in a modern form, such as an implanted microchip. Such interpretations have no respect for the symbolic nature of apocalyptic prophecies. As discussed above, the forehead symbolizes the mind. A name symbolizes character 

The Trinity Doctrine

Another possibility is that the Mark is the Trinity doctrine. This may be argued as follows:

The Mark is a sin.

Firstly, in Revelation 13 and 14, God’s people refuse the Mark. Therefore, the Mark must be some evil practice or teaching. This conclusion is supported by the description of God’s people, in the context, as those who keep the commandments of God (Rev 12:17; 14:12).

The reader may object that the Trinity doctrine is a sound Biblical teaching. This site maintains that it is not. The Trinity is discussed in more detail in another article (see here). It is camouflaged by misleading statements, such as the claim that God is one Being, existing in three Persons. In reality:

First, while the Bible clearly presents the Father and Son as two distinct Beings with two distinct minds, the Trinity doctrine teaches that they are a single Being with a single mind. Since they share a single mind, the term ‘three Persons’ is misleading.

Second, while the Bible states that the Son of God was incarnated as a human being, Jesus Christ, in the Trinity doctrine, the Son cannot become incarnate because He is indivisible from the Father. They share a single indivisible being. Furthermore, in the Trinity doctrine, the Son is as immutable and invisible as the Father. Immutable means that He cannot change. For these reasons, He cannot become incarnate.

Third, in the Trinity doctrine, Jesus Christ has two natures, undivided in one Person. In other words, He has both a divine and a human mind. Sometimes His divine mind spoke, for example, when He said He and the Father are one. At other times, His human mind spoke, for example, when He said He does not know the day or hour of His return. In the Bible, there is no evidence for two distinct minds in Jesus Christ.

Four, while the Bible declares that the Son suffered and died for the sins of the world, in the Trinity doctrine, the Son of God is impassible and immortal, meaning He cannot suffer or die. It was merely His human nature, a human body and mind, that died. This is in direct contradiction to Jesus’ statement, “I was dead” (Rev 1:18).

The Mark deviated from the Tradition.

Secondly, because the Mark is an evil practice or teaching, it deviates from the Church’s original teaching.

The Roman State Church came into existence in the 4th century. It was a new organization, but not a new theology. As discussed aboce, it was essentially the continuation of the Monarchian tradition of the Church in Rome.

But the original teaching of the Church, at least of the Gentile church of the second and third centuries, was Arianism. The heart and foundational principle of Arianism was that the divine Son of God became a human being, suffered, and died for the sins of the world. Arianism argued that since the Son could become incarnate, suffer, and die, He must have a lower level of divinity than the Father, who is immutable, impassible, and immortal. That means that the Son must be a second divine Being, distinct from the Father. That was the core issue between the Nicenes and Arians. In Nicene theology, Father and Son are a single Being. In Arianism, Father and Son are two distinct Beings. All other differences between the Nicenes and Arians stem from this core difference. See here 

That the Son is a second divine being was also the majority view of the pre-Nicene church. For example, that is what Logos-theology and Origen taught. That is also the view of most theologians during the Arian Controversy, and was continued by the Arian kingdoms that ruled Europe after the Western Empire fragmented. The Roman State Church, established by the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, deviated from this tradition.

Associated with the Trinity Doctrine

Thirdly, further evidence, for the view that the Mark of the Beast is the Trinity doctrine, is the strong association of the Beast, the Roman Church, with the Trinity doctrine. The Trinity doctrine was and is the founding and core doctrine of the Roman Church. The following are examples of that strong association:

(a) The 4th-century Arian Controversy gave birth to the Roman State Church. That Controversy was about the nature of Christ. As explained, the core issue was whether the Son is an internal aspect of the Father, as the Nicenes held, or a distinct Being, as Arians believed. The Roman Empire put an end to the Controversy when it made Nicene theology, which later developed into the Trinity doctrine, the Roman State Religion. Since the Beast was formed during a Controversy over the nature of Christ, we have good reason to believe that the Trinity doctrine is the Mark of the Beast.

(b) The Edict of Thessalonica of 380 may be regarded as the founding statement of the Roman State Church. It defined the theology of that church. It defined God. That Edict was the first clear statement of the Trinity doctrine. It explicitly identified the ‘one God’ as the Trinity. In contrast, the Creed formulated the next year, 381, at the so-called Second Ecumenical Council, still identified the ‘one God’ as the Father.

(c) According to Daniel 7, the Roman Church began its distinct existence when the 11th horn rose up, uprooting three other horns. After the Western Roman Empire fragmented, it was divided between several Arian kingdoms. The three horns symbolize the three Arian kingdoms that the Eastern Empire had to defeat to liberate the Roman State Church from Arian domination. This fact, that the Beast became a distinct entity by defeating three Arian nations, supports the view that the Mark relates to the nature of the Son, which the Roman Church expresses with the Trinity doctrine.

(d) The Image will attempt to force all people to accept the Mark of the Beast. That implies that the Mark of the Beast is not something new that will be invented in the end-time. Rather, it is something we all know about today, for which the Roman Church has always been particularly known. That is most true of the Trinity doctrine, which is regarded as its foundational doctrine. The Trinity doctrine defines God and marks the boundary between insiders and outsiders.

The Trinity Doctrine in Revelation

So far, this section has argued that the Trinity doctrine contradicts sound Biblical teaching, deviates from the Church’s traditional teaching, and is at the core of the Roman Church. We will now discuss direct evidence in the Book of Revelation that the Trinity doctrine is the Beast’s Mark:

The frequent use of the term “worship” in Revelation 13-14 identifies worship as the key issue in the end-time crisis. While some people worship the Dragon, the Beast, and the Image of the Beast, others worship the Creator God. Worship is related to the Trinity doctrine, for the doctrine defines God, and, therefore, Christian worship.

Specifically, 14:7 defines God and true Christian worship. It is arguably the most important verse in the entire Book of Revelation, for it says what God’s people must do while the Image of the Beast forces people to accept the Mark. In other words, it gives the opposite of the Mark.

14:7 seems to warn against the Trinity doctrine. It commands all to fear and worship the Creator God (Rev 14:7). In Revelation, the Creator God as the Father alone (e.g., Rev 4:11). Revelation always distinguishes between God and Jesus (e.g., Rev 1:1), between the Almighty and Jesus (e.g., Rev 21:22), and describes the Father as Jesus’s God (Rev 1:6; 3:2, 12). In other words, the Son is not God and He is not the Almighty. Therefore, when 14:7 says that we must worship the Creator God alone, it means that we must worship the Father alone. This firstly confirms that worship is the core issue in the end-time controversy. It also seems to warn specifically against the Trinity doctrine, in which the Son is as much the Creator God as the Father is. [Show More]

A Counterfeit Sabbath

The SDA Church holds that the Mark of the Beast will be a counterfeit Sabbath. 14:7 alludes to the Sabbath commandment when it says that all must worship the Creator.

It is argued that, when Jesus died, His followers kept the Sabbath, and the Sabbath command was never repealed, at least not explicitly. The Old Testament describes Sabbath-keeping as the norm of faithfulness to God, which is related to the Seal of God, the counterpart to the Mark of the Beast.

However, we should not assume that the Mark is simply the opposite of, or a counterfeit of, the Seal. The Mark is something the Beast is particularly known for. The Seal is something God marks His people with. Even if Seal is the Sabbath, the Mark could very well be something completely different.

Furthermore, the Roman Church is not known for Sunday worship, not in the same way it is known for the Trinity doctrine. For example, the Roman Church was not established as a result of a dispute about the Sabbath. [Show More]

Final Judgment

The person will never change.

A further possibility is that the Mark is not a specific practice or doctrine, nor even a physical mark, but rather means that the person is doomed to eternal destruction. In support of this option:

A person who has received the Mark of the Beast will never repent. For example, the seven plagues will be poured out on the people with the Mark, but they will refuse to repent (Rev 16:2, 9, 11).

Similarly, a person who has received the Seal of God will never become unfaithful (Rev 7:3).

Name symbolizes character.

Another argument in support of this view is that both the Mark and the Seal are names on foreheads. ‘Name’ stands for character. For example, when the Beast blasphemes God’s name (Rev 13:6), it means that it insults God. Therefore, the name on the foreheads symbolize the character the person has developed, God’s character or Satan’s character. For example, Rev 14:4-5 describes the 144,000 as pure in mind.

Conclusion

Therefore, the Mark and the Seal could symbolize that the person has made a final decision, for or against God. The Image of the Beast kills those who refuse the Mark and prohibits them from buying and selling. In this way, each person is forced to make a final decision. Consequently, God’s people receive the Seal of God during and through the Persecution of Revelation 13 (see here).

The Mark identifies a person as permanently the Beast’s property, like the Seal identifies a person as God’s eternal property.

Conclusion

It may be dangerous to overspecify the Mark of the Beast. The more specific we are, the higher the probability of getting it wrong. It is preferable to state the Mark in general terms and to wait to see what specific form it will take.

However, it seems clear that people will be forced to accept a teaching of practice for which the Roman Church is particularly known, but which is not consistent with God’s will and law.

Force can take subtle forms, but it does not make it less brutal. Whenever people are forced to adopt a certain view, we see the Antichrist at work.

The end-time crisis will be a conflict between two Christian systems of worship. God’s people will worship the Creator God. The Beast’s followers will be the majority, and they will occupy the high places. However, theirs will be a false system of worship. The two systems of worship will have many similarities, but also many differences.

Other Articles

Other articles in this series

Trinity Doctrine

• • • Discussion of the Trinity doctrine  MP3
    • Eternal Generation
    • Eastern Orthodoxy

Arian Controversy

• • • The True Origin of the Trinity Doctrine
    • A lecture by R.P.C. Hanson
    • What was the Core Issue? 
    • Incarnation and Soteriology  MP3

Pre-Nicene Fathers

• • • Justin Martyr
    • Logos-theology  MP3
    • Monarchianism  MP3
    • Did they describe Jesus as “God?”
    • Tertullian’s theology was similar to Sabellianism.  MP3
    • Was Sabellius an early Trinitarian?

Arius

• • • Arianism was orthodox when the Controversy began.
    • Arius Scholarship over the Centuries
    • What did Arius teach?
    • Did Arius say time existed before the Son?
    • Did he cause the Arian Controversy?
    • Why do many regard him as an antichrist?
    • How did he differ from the pre-Nicene fathers?
    • Was Origen the ultimate source of his heresy?

The Nicene Council (AD 325)

• • • Emperor Constantine manipulated the Council.
    • How Arians justified acceptance of the Creed
    • Was the Creed a Sabellian victory?
    • The Trinity doctrine did not exist in 325.
    • The Trinity doctrine deviates from the Nicene Creed.
    • Subordination in the Nicene Creed  MP3
    • What did homoousios mean?
    • The Egyptian Origin of Homoousios
    • Homoousios disappeared after Nicaea.
    • All main Nicenes were deposed after Nicaea.

The Divided Empire (340s)

• • • The West vindicated Athanasius and Marcellus (341).
    • The Eastern Dedication Council (341)
    • The Council of Serdica (343)
    • The Macrostich (Long Lines Creed) (344)

Arianism

• • • What is Arianism? What was its core teaching?
    • Athanasius invented Arianism.
    • Homoian Arianism (Rejected all substance language)
    • Homoiousian Arianism (Similar substance)
    • In Arianism, the Son is the second Being of the Godhead. MP3

Nicenes

• • • Athanasius was a Unitarian, not a Trinitarian.
    • Athanasius’s view of Incarnation
    • Athanasius’ revised explanation of the Nicene Creed (362)
    • Was Athanasius justly deposed for violence?
    • What did the Sabellians teach?
    • Basil of Caesarea taught three divine Beings.
    • The Meletian Schism – Athanasius vs. Basil

Emperor Theodosius

• • • Nicene theology became the State Religion (380).
    • The Council of Constantinople of AD 381
    • The Creed of 381
    • Why Theodosius succeeded in ending the Controversy

Later Centuries

• • • 5th century: Arianism again dominated.  MP3
    • 6th to 8th centuries: The End of Arianism   MP3
    • Daniel’s 11th horn is the Roman Church.
    • The Catholic Church and the Waldensian massacres.

Other Article Series

• • • The Book of Daniel
    • The Book of Revelation
    • The Mark of the Beast
    • Is Jesus the Most High God?
    • The Trinity Doctrine
    • The Origin of the Trinity Doctrine
    • The Origin of Evil
    • Death, Eternal Life, and Eternal Torment
    • ALL ARTICLES ON THIS WEBSITE