Imatges de pàgina
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year, proposed as the date of the latter three times and a half, must be immediately followed by the rise of the spiritual Empire founded by the Arabian impostor.

II. The three chronological notes, then, by which we are to determine the commencement of the latter three times and a half, are these:

1. The giving of the times and the laws and the saints of the Most High into the hand of the western little horn;

2. The synchronical completion of the demonolatrous Apostasy by the revelation of the lawless one its authoritative head;

3. The immediately consecutive rise of the eastern little horn.

No date of the latter three times and a half can be admitted, unless, with a fatal exactness, it be characterised by all these three particulars: but, if a date can be found, which is thus characterised, we shall have attained to a very high degree of moral probability, that this date is the true date of the period in question.

: III. Having now obtained three tests or eminent chronological notes by which we may determine the commencement of the latter three times and a half, let us forthwith turn to the volume of History.

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1. The first and palmary test is The giving of the times and the laws and the saints of the Most High into the hand of the western little horn: for, according to Daniel, when the times and the

laws and the saints are thus given, the latter three times and a half commence.

Of this test, the certainty is at present very generally allowed: but, so far as I can judge, its precise import has never yet been thoroughly understood.

Those, who have rightly adopted it as a test, have invariably supposed, that the language of the prophet enigmatically relates, with more or less intensity, to a grant from the imperial head of the Roman World, by which the Latin Patriarch was constituted the ruler of all the Churches, and by which he was made a supreme judge in all spiritual cases.

Hence, some have contended, that the true date of the three times and a half is the year 533; because, in that year, the Emperor Justinian declared the Roman Church to be the head of all the Churches, and pronounced that every ecclesiastical matter ought to be laid before the Pope in his high capacity of the chief of all the priests of God: while others again have maintained, that the true date of the period is the year 606; because, in that year, according to Anastasius Bibliothecarius and Paulus Diaconus, the Emperor Phocas adjudged the palm of ecclesiastical supremacy to the Roman Pontiff rather than to the Patriarch of Constantinople, and declared the Apostolic See of St. Peter to be the head of all the Churches.

Now, against both these several dates, it might be sufficient to urge, that, if the prophecy alluded

to an imperial decree secularly conferring upon the Pope the authority of an Universal Episcopate, it ought most naturally to be understood as alluding to the earliest decree by which an ecclesiastical supremacy was awarded to the Bishop of Rome. Hence, on such an hypothesis, the edict of Theodosius the second and Valentinian the third, which was issued in the year 445, ought certainly to be ésteemed that peculiar edict, to which the prophecy alludes when it declares that the times and the laws and the saints should be given into the hand of the western little horn.

This earlier decree of Theodosius and Valentinian is in purport quite as full, as any later edict either of Justinian or of Phocas: for it sets forth, that the primacy of the Catholic Church ought to be assigned to the Apostolic See of St. Peter; and it enacts, that no one should presumė to contest the authority of that See, because the peace of all the Churches would then be most effectually preserved, if THE WHOLE UNIVERSE should acknowledge its proper spiritual ruler, And it would, assuredly, be more extensively efficacious because Theodosius and Valentinian, being respectively Emperors both of the East and of the West, conjointly reigned, however much at that time the real power of the western Cesar might have been abridged, over a larger portion of the Roman World than either Justinian or Phocas, who severally were no more than Emperors of the East.

If, therefore, the latter three times and a half ought to be reckoned from some imperial edict which secularly constituted the Pope supreme spiritual governor of all the Churches, they clearly ought to be reckoned from the original decree of Theodosius and Valentinian in the year 445 for that decree, so far as it was available, actually conferred upon the Roman Pontiff an unlimited spiritual authority both over the East and over the West; while the other two later decrees, issued by Emperors who reigned only in the East, merely recited and confirmed the already existing grant of their predecessors.

In short, according to the avowed principle of the theory before us, the times and the laws and the saints were given, both chronologically first and geographically most extensively, into the hand of the little western horn, by the joint decree of Theodosius and Valentinian in the year 445. Therefore, if this principle be well founded, the year 445, not the year 533 or the year 606, must obviously be received as the true date of the commencement of the latter three times and a half1.

Since much has been disputed on the present subject, and since on most insufficient grounds some modern writers strenuously contend that the latter three times and a half ought to be reckoned from the decree of Justinian in the year 533; I subjoin the original documents, on which the whole question depends.

I. After Constantine's secular ratification of the sixth Canon of the first Council of Nice, the earliest direct decree, in favour

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But the truth of the matter is, that the very principle, of reckoning the latter three times and

of the Roman Church, was that of Gratian and Valentinian the second. This was passed, toward the end of the year 378, or at the beginning of the year 379 and it respects the progress of appeals, from Bishops to their Metropolitans, and from Metropolitans to the Roman Pontiff.

Volumus, ut quicunque judicio Damasi, quod ille cum concilio quinque vel septem habuerit Episcoporum, vel eorum qui catholici sunt judicio vel concilio condemnatus fuerit; si justè voluerit ecclesiam retentare, ut qui ad sacerdotale judicium per contumeliam non ivisset: ut ab illustribus viris Præfectis Prætorio Galliæ atque Italiæ, authoritate adhibita, ad episcopale judicium remittatur, sive a Consularibus vel Vicariis, ut ad urbem Romam sub prosecutione perveniat. Aut, si in longinquioribus partibus alicujus ferocitas talis emerserit, omnis ejus causæ edictio ad Metropolita in eadem Provincia Episcopi deduceretur examen. Vel si ipse Metropolitanus est, Romam necessario, vel ad eos quos Romanus Episcopus judices dederit, sine delatione contendat. Quod si vel Metropolitani Episcopi vel cujuscunque sacerdotis iniquitas est suspecta aut gratia; ad Romanum Episcopum, vel ad concilium quindecim finitimorumEpiscoporum accersitum liceat provocare; modo ne, post examen habitum, quod definitum fuerit, integretur.

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The appeals, regulated in this edict, were only those of the Western Empire: for the edict is addressed exclusively to the Pretorian Prefects of Italy and Gaul; the Prefect of Italy having, under his jurisdiction, Italy, the western Illyricum, and Africa; while the Prefect of Gaul governed Gaul, Spain, and Britain.

II. Such scantiness of authority by no means satisfied the ambition of Pope Leo I. He procured, therefore, in the year 445, a much more ample edict from the Emperors Theodosius the second and Valentinian the third.

Certum est et nobis et imperio nostro unicum esse præsidium

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