Having [great] wrath.—Being very greatly angered at Papacy's aggressions. The Papal policy has ever been to crowd the civil powers as far as they could possibly go, then wait until a generation had passed and crowd some more. The horns have always hated the whore.—Rev. 17:16.
Because he knoweth he hath but a short time.—Had Papacy been able to bring it about it would surely, in time, have deprived all the rulers of the world of every [pg 191] particle of civil, social, ecclesiastical and financial power. There has never been any limit to its ambitions or pretensions, and there is none now.
12:13. And when the dragon.—The civil powers of the old Roman Empire, under the control of the Papacy.
Saw that he was cast unto the earth.—Deprived of the superstitious reverence now almost wholly absorbed by the Papacy.
He persecuted.—Not on his own account, but under the orders and instructions and encouragements of the Papacy, and to win Papal approval.
The woman which brought forth the man child.—The true Church. For details of the infamous work of Charles V, Emperor of Germany and King of Spain and the Netherlands, the Duke of Alva, Philip II of Spain, the French kings Francis and Henry, see pages 337-338 of Studies in the Scriptures, Vol. II. These are but illustrations of what occurred in all parts of the old Roman world, and were all done at the behest of the Papacy.
12:14. And to the woman.—The true Church.
Were given Two Wings.—The Old and New Testaments.
Of a great eagle.—The eagle is a symbol of wisdom, a fit representative of the Scriptures in which are contained the words of our God. (Rev. 4:7.) “I bare you on eagle's wings, and brought you unto Myself.”—Ex. 19:4; Deut. 32:11-12.
That she might fly into the wilderness.—Separateness from the world; ostracism; represented by Elijah's three and a half years in the wilderness.—Rev. 2:20.