seventy weeks and the death of the Messiah. They were told also (see our version, Dan. ix. 26,) that the people of the Prince (youμevos) that should come should destroy the city and the sanctuary. And being thus forewarned, they escaped from the miseries of the siege, and the dreadful fate of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. HISTORICUS.

PAPAL ACTINGS, SYNCHRONICALLY WITH GOTHS, &c., IN THE DESOLATION OF OLD IMPERIAL ROME.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

DEAR SIR,-Allow me to ask a little space in your valuable periodical for the Paper following. Its object is to show the futility of the objections that have been strongly urged of late, from certain expressions in Apoc. xvii. 16, against the common Protestant view of the ten-horned Apocalyptic Beast, under its 8th and last head, as meant to symbolize the Roman Popes and Papal Empire :-that empire, namely, which was made up of the ten Romano-Gothic kingdoms ecclesiastically and spiritually subject to them. As read in the textus receptus indeed, (a text followed in our E. V., and which, as followed previously by Tertullian, and others too of the early fathers, I had long been content to accept,) the prophetic statement well suits that Protestant explanation. "The ten horns," it says, "which thou sawedst on the Beast, (ènì Tò Onpíov,) these shall hate the Harlot, and shall make her desolate, and shall burn her with fire:" there being added in the next verse, as if reporting of an act of theirs consequent on the former, that "they would (then) with one mind give their power to the Beast," i.e., as the Angel explains it, to the 8th and last head of the Beast ;* so as, in fact, to be fitly symbolized thenceforward as horns upon it. For, just according to that prophetic statement, things fell out with Rome in the 5th and 6th centuries. Goths, Vandals, and other barbaric tribes of kindred origin, to about the number of

Apoc. xvii. 8, 11: "The Beast which thou sawest was, and is not:... and the Beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth king, [ŏydoos, in the masculine,] and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition." In which remarkable passage the description of him, as being an 8th head, though of the seven, is explained by what is said in Apoc. xiii. 3 of that last head of the Beast, as rising out of the cicatrice of the former 7th, which had previously been "cut down as with a

sword;" "the deadly wound being thereby healed."-And his "being of the seven" (K Tŵν Enтα) signifies, I conceive, not merely his appearing 7th among the visible heads in the vision; but also his being one in character with the former seven;—really heathen like them, though professedly Christian. So John ii. 19; They went out from us, because they were not of us (μŵv)" :—i. e. not of our principles and character.

ten, (as Jerome himself, at the first, ominously counted them,) invaded the Roman empire, desolated Rome, partitioned its provinces and then attached themselves to Rome's reigning Popes, for the time being, as their common head, (these being the 8th ruling head, it seems, successionally, on that seven-hilled site,)* in their usurpingly-assumed character of Christ's Vicegerents on earth;-a title which was almost verbally the very realization of the long-dreaded prophetic appellative Antichrist.

But, say the objectors, by much the most and best Greek MSS. read κal, not ènì, in the verse under consideration; the Beast, or Beast's 8th ruling head, being thereby prophesied of as himself a participating agent, as well as the ten kings, in the desolations of Rome. "And how could that be said of the Popes, who were in fact, about the time referred to, the restorers of Rome? Admitting the xal, is not this prophetic statement fatal to the whole Protestant theory of the Roman Popes being the Beast, or Antichrist, of prophecy; and an indication almost unequivocal of this Antichrist, his ten subject kings, and all here told of them, having reference to a time yet future?"

The answer to these anti-Protestant objectors will be found

This is a condition of the problem of the Beast clearly implied, as Mede remarks; and which by every prophetic student ought to be well considered, and never forgotten. For there is ever observable a remarkable local appropriateness in Scripture symbols; as I have abundantly illustrated in Part ii. ch. 5. of my H. A. And by this law of local appropriateness the site of Rome's seven hills ought surely to attach to the Beast under each and every one of its seven heads, in their significance as kings, or rulers; seeing that their primary signification is said to be "the seven hills on which the Woman (Rome) sitteth."-- How incongruous would it be, and contrary to the analogy of all Scriptural symbolism, were the Beast, under those successive headships which primarily signified Rome's seven hills, applied secondarily to symbolize the seven successive world-powers of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, Antichrist,- -so as our AngloGerman futurist expositors would have it though, in the cases of all but one, the local sites of empire were, or (under Antichrist) would be, any where, every where, but on those seven hills!!

On the other hand, let it be remem. bered, that no less an authority than

the greatest of Roman historians' Tacitus, (St. John's own contemporary,) specifies Kings, Consuls, Dictators, Decemvirs, Military Tribunes, Emperors, as the six successive constitutional ruling heads, who, and who alone, down to his time, had exercised supreme executive ruling authority on the site of Rome's seven hills: and that Gibbon, our own great historian, specifies as one yet later, (a 7th,) the Diocletianic quadripartite emperorship. Which 7th ruling head,-just accordantly with what the Angel said of the Beast's 7th head continuing but a short space, only lasted, in fact, about 30 years, and was then cut down, as it were, by the Constantinian sword:-the national heathen religion being at the same time abandoned for Christianity; the seat of imperial rule removed from Rome to Constantinople; and so the site of the seven hills left vacant of all ruling power, till the Popes upraised themselves, an 8th head, upon it, in the character of Peter's successors in that particular see, and consequently the earthly Vice-gerents of Christ, that is, of God. Whence, as Gibbon (still using an Apocalyptic figure) expresses it, the revivification, or resuscitation, of the before apparently defunct Apocalyptic Beast, or Roman empire.

to be very simple and complete:-not to speak now of the really fatal objections which may be shown, and indeed have abundantly been shown, to surround and crush the futurist antagonistic theory.* Admitting the kaì, all that we have to do in order to see the consistency of the passage so read with the common Protestant view, is this:-first to observe that, although in the pictorial vision alike the Woman and the Beast were depicted under their last phases of existence,-the Beast with his 8th and last head, the Woman as seated on him under that his last phase and headship, and moreover as holding out the same cup of her fornication which is ascribed to her in the graphic description in the next following chapter, Apoc. xviii., of her final utter destruction,t-yet in the Angel's explanatory comment there is distinct notice made of her under that earlier phase which she wore, when the Beast was yet under its 6th head in the time of St. John, as Rome imperial, "the great city then ruling over the kings of the earth :"-secondly, to look carefully into the history of Rome during those 5th and 6th centuries which have been already referred to; and there to mark how the Popes then took their part, just as well as Goths and Vandals, in the desolations of that old imperial Rome.

On which latter point we have the advantage of the light shed upon the subject by the lately published work of M. Gregorovius on the "History of Medieval Rome." Abstracts of it have been given in late Nos. both of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews. And it is my chief object in this Paper to draw the attention of such of your readers as are students of prophecy to his testimony on the question before us. It is to the effect following.‡

Premising that "when, in A.D. 403, Honorius led up the Capitoline hill the triumph for Stilicho's victory, the buildings of imperial Rome were yet standing in their grandeur," he goes on thus to speak of the subsequent devastations

the territory of the old Roman empire, not two: 2ndly, that the only new division of the great Roman city really prophesied of as shortly preceding her final destruction, is a division (whether secular or ecclesiastical,) into three, not into ten, parts. So, under the 7th Vial, Apoc. xvi. 19.

+ Compare Apoc. xvii. 4, xviii. 3. Very striking is the agreement of this picture of the Roman Harlot in the Apocalyptic vision, holding out the cup of her fornication, and with that of Papal Rome, holding out her cup, in the last Papal Jubilean medal of A. D. 1825;-a medal copied in my H. A. vol. iv. p. 34.

See "Quarterly Review," No. 229, p. 200, &c.

of them. "To the ravages of armies [as of the Goths, Vandals, &c.] were now added many other causes of destruction ;-hurricanes and earthquakes, floods and fires. But the main cause of the destruction of ancient Rome was the change from Paganism to Christianity. Few temples became churches: [so as thereby to ensure their preservation under the then new religious regime, like as in the one case of the still consequently standing Pantheon:] and religious motives combined with the distresses of the times in consigning to desolation its theatres and other places of diversion. For, as the Popes increased in wealth, they built churches more and more; with regard, not to the number of inhabitants (now so reduced), but to the number of saints who might thus be honoured. Pillars and ornamental marbles were transferred from temples to churches; and the buildings from which they had been torn abandoned to ruin." A notice of the common practice of thus destroying public edifices at Rome, for the sake of the materials, occurs in an edict of the Emperor Majorian; who, in A.D. 458, forbade such doings under heavy penalties. And his example was followed, some fifty years after, by the Ostrogothic king Theodoric. But, somewhat later, "when the Popes had become independent, and were able to dispose [of course for money] of the ancient buildings of their city, without asking the consent of Emperor, Exarch, or King, [say from A.D. 500 to 600,] the work of demolition was freely carried on": so that "for centuries Rome was like a great lime-pit, into which the most precious marbles were cast, to be burnt into mortar." Pope Gregory, adds our author, in his Discourses on the miseries of the times, may be considered to have pronounced "the funeral sermon of old Rome." But not, indeed, even then did the Popes cease from their destruction of the monuments of imperial heathen Rome. As a notable example to the contrary, our author specifies the destruction by Pope Honorius, shortly after Gregory's time, of the magnificent temple of Venus and Rome, built after the designs of the Emperor Hadrian.

Such is the account given by M. Gregorovius of the desolations of old imperial Rome, at the period already specified, alike by the Gothic barbarian invaders, and by the Roman Popes.

But, indeed, Gregorovius is not the first who has thus strongly marked the prominent acting of the Popes in the demolition of the grand monuments, as well as appropriation of what remained of the riches, of old imperial Rome. Subsequently to my perusal of the interesting abstracts given of his work in the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, I was struck by the following lines in our poet Pope's poem on "The Medal";lines characterized by his usual point, terseness, and accu

racy.

"See the wild waste of all-devouring years,
How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears!
With nodding arches, broken temples spread,
The very tombs now vanished, like their dead!
Imperial wonders! ...

Some felt the silent stroke of mould'ring age;
Some hostile fury; some religious rage.

Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire:
And Papal piety, and Gothic fire."

Thus the prophecy in Apoc. xvii. 16 is seen to have had its fulfilment in accordance with the above-mentioned Protestant explanation, when read with the kaì quite as exactly (perhaps indeed even more so) as when read with the ènì. "And the ten horns which thou sawedst, and the Beast, [or Beast's 8th and last ruling head, the Popes,] these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her with fire." This was in fact an essential help to the Popes in their reconstruction of Rome as Rome Papal:-a reconstruction of it precisely corresponding with what the early father Hippolytus had been led by Scripture prophecy to anticipate as the work of Antichrist.

I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully,

E. B. ELLIOTT.

CORRESPONDENCE.

PARSONAGE HOUSES.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

DEAR SIR,-Many readers of the Christian Observer will remember the really eloquent meditation of that eminent demagogue, William Cobbett, on the moral beauty and social advantage of our parochial divisions. Writing from memory, we can only remind them that he represents himself on an eminence in the region of Winchester, and there is revealed to his admiring vision a panoramic display of some ten or a dozen parish churches, and his mind is rapt in ecstasy by the fact that, in all the semi-barbarous parishes of England, a gentleman, and an educated gentleman, was resident, adapted to raise the tone and exalt the morals of all within the sphere of his influence. Theoretically, and to a vast extent practically, this is the social condition of Protestant England.

To protect and maintain this peculiarity is expedient, and that every church should have in reasonable contact its parsonage and its schools, is a desideratum which none can gainsay. In calling attention to the subject of parsonage houses, we do think it a question for honest scrutiny. The public papers have told us that in the