Its use is thus described by the same author, when the Greeks turned its power against the Saracens, at the siege of Constantinople, A. D. 718:
“The Greeks would gladly have ransomed their religion and empire, by a fine or assessment of a piece of gold on the head of each inhabitant of the city; but the liberal offer was rejected with disdain, and the presumption of Moslemah was exalted by the speedy approach and invincible force of the natives of Egypt and Syria. They are said to have amounted to eighteen hundred ships: the number betrays their inconsiderable size; and of the twenty stout and capacious vessels, [pg 188] whose magnitude impeded their progress, each was manned with no more than one hundred heavy-armed soldiers. This huge armada proceeded on a smooth sea and with a gentle gale, towards the mouth of the Bosphorus; the surface of the strait was over-shadowed, in the language of the Greeks, with a moving forest, and the same fatal night had been fixed by the Saracen chief for a general assault by sea and land. To allure the confidence of the enemy, the emperor had thrown aside the chain that usually guarded the entrance of the harbor: but while they hesitated whether they should seize the opportunity or apprehend the snare, the ministers of destruction were at hand. The fireships of the Greeks were launched against them: the Arabs, their arms and vessels, were involved in the same flames, the disorderly fugitives were dashed against each other, or overwhelmed in the waves; and I no longer find a vestige of the fleet, that had threatened to extirpate the Roman name.”—Ib., p. 464.
It deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by its miracles. This deception resulted in the creation of:
The Image of the Beast.
“And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the wild beast, that the image of the wild beast should even [pg 189] speak, and to cause, that as many as would not worship the image of the wild beast, should be killed. And he causeth all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the bond, to receive a mark on their right hand, or on their forehead. And that no one might buy or sell, but he, who had the mark, the name of the wild beast, or the number of his name.”—Rev. 13:15-18.
This new creation is not another beast, but the image of one. An image is only the likeness of something. As the beast symbolizes a political power, its image must symbolize some analogous power of a different nature; and this likeness can only be found in a religious government.
1. The beast which received its death-wound (v. 14), was the form of government to which the image was made, i.e., the imperial. Of this the Roman hierarchy was a perfect counterpart. It was an ecclesiastical government, coëxtensive in its authority with the political power of the empire. And, like the officers of the civil, there was a regular gradation of rank in the subordinates of the religious government. The head of the former was an emperor, chosen by an electoral college,—the senators of Rome.[3] The head of the latter was a Pope, chosen in a similar manner by the college of Cardinals,—the ecclesiastical senators of the religious empire. Each of those bodies constituted the highest [pg 190] deliberative and legislative body in its respective government. The empire had its governors of provinces, appointed by the imperial head; and the spiritual rule of the church was, in like manner, sustained by diocesan bishops who, in their respective provinces, were governors in spiritual matters and creatures of the Pope. Subordinate offices in the state and church, also, singularly corresponded.
2. The religious customs of the empire, as well as its political, were likewise imitated by the papacy. Rome deified her heroes; the papacy canonized her saints. The ghosts of the departed were the gods of the heathen; and the papists supplicate the dead. The Pagans burned incense to their gods; the Papists burn incense in their religious ceremonies. The ancient heathen sprinkled themselves with “holy water;” the Papists use the same material in a similar manner. Lactantius says of the Pagans, they “light up candles to God as if he lived in the dark; and do they not deserve to pass for madmen who offer lamps to the author and giver of light?” This custom is imitated by the Papists in the use of wax candles on their altars.
The ancient Romans prostrated themselves before images of wood and stone; and Jerome tells us that “by idols were to be understood the images of the dead.” In Catholic Rome, worshippers prostrated themselves before [pg 191] images of departed saints. The old Roman Pantheon, which was dedicated by Agrippa “to Jove, and all the gods,” was re-consecrated by Pope Boniface IV., about A. D. 610, “to the blessed Virgin and all the saints.” As in the old pagan temple, any stranger could find the god of his own country; so in its re-consecrated state, each country could find its patron saint. Other temples were changed and re-consecrated in the same manner. The ancient statue of Jupiter stands now as the statue of St. Peter. The pagans had their vestal virgins; the Papists their nuns.
Dr. Middleton, who visited Rome in 1729, says: