Fulfilled prophecy with respect to Ancient Greece and Rome
Fulfilled prophecy in general
Before discussing the role of fulfilled prophecy and ancient Greece we need to consider the role of fulfilled prophecy in Christian doctrine. This has been a relatively neglected subject within contemporary Christianity. Our Victorian forbears wrote much on this subject, but it seems somewhat out of fashion these days – which is surprising since we are living in exciting days in which the whole panoply of fulfilled prophecy can be fully appreciated for the first time in history. I think one of the reasons for this is that there appear to be so many different opinions about the details. However, that is slightly unfair, since there are very few Bible doctrines which do not have varying interpretations and yet we would not ignore them for that reason. In reality the variations are often not great and the general thrust of the interpretations is fairly fixed.
Another objection which some people make is that these prophecies are somehow mysterious and were never meant to be understood – and yet that is not the impression one gets when reading the main books that contain prophecies relating to world histories e.g. Daniel and Revelation. Daniel always sought to understand the prophecies he was given, and in Revelation on at least two occasions John invites the reader to understand the significance of what has just been written (Rev 13:18 and 17:9); thus indicating that these books of prophecy were meant to be intelligible, even though their messages were coded. Furthermore in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 Paul expected his Thessalonian readers to understand what he is referring to (see 2 Thessalonians chapter 2:5-6 – this point will be explained in more detail later).
The approach I shall adopt in applying fulfilled prophecy to the study of history will be the historicist perspective. This was the dominant method of interpreting prophecy throughout most of church history, except during the Middle Ages, where for reasons that will become obvious when we study this period, it fell out of favour. Elliott in his book Horae Apocalypticae comments that the early Church Fathers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Hippolytus all read the prophecies regarding the 'man of sin' and the 'fourth empire with ten horns' as events that would take place soon after the fall of the Roman empire, in a manner that is consistent with the historicist interpretation of prophecy. It is only in the last 150 years that this approach has been replaced by the futurist interpretation of prophecy. Whilst the futurist scheme of interpretation usually leaves most of Daniel's prophecies untouched, it assumes that most of the book of Revelation and Paul's account of the 'man of sin' in 2 Thessalonians 2, refer to the last seven years of human history. (This is often tied in with the idea that the 70th week of Daniel 9 also refers to the last seven years of human history). As to the validity of the futurist approach I do not consider myself a good judge, having never studied it in detail and it may turn out to have some merit, since prophecies can be fulfilled twice – or in some cases more than twice. However, arguments about the validity of the futurist position do not invalidate the historicist method, since it must stand or fall on the evidence of history – i.e. does it accurately foretell the major events of the last 2500 years. As I hope to show it does this very well and in so doing demonstrates the authenticity of the Bible as the word of God, to be trusted in all that it says, and it points us to the almighty character of our God. (Isaiah Chapter 44 – 45 describes how God rebukes Israel for its unbelief by reminding them of how a graven image cannot foretell the future but He can. To prove the point God informs the Jews 200 years before the event that a man called Cyrus will cause Jerusalem to be rebuilt – which we know did subsequently happen – thus confirming there is no other God than our God! When teaching about fulfilled prophecy it is possible to achieve quite a ‘wow’ factor. After all it was on the road to Emmaus that Jesus 'beginning at Moses and all of the prophets... expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself' Luke 24:27).
With regard to the fulfilment of prophecy in the book of Daniel there is little debate among contemporary evangelical scholars. Unfortunately, with regard to the book of Revelation, there has been very little agreement because the rise of the futurist interpretation has eclipsed the historicist account and, by its very nature, the futurist position has little to say about the past. However, despite this confusion over the book of Revelation, I believe it is reasonable to use the most reliable of the historicist interpretations because the historical evidence confirms that this interpretation was both correct and, as we shall see, significant - but I would not expect others to follow that scheme unless they were convinced that it was correct – this does not apply to the book of Daniel where there is broad agreement. (Therefore where I believe there is a contentious issue I will make mention of that fact).
With regard to what constitutes the most accurate historicist account, consensus of opinion would point to Edward Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae, which can be accessed online using the the following website http:www.harvestherald.com/horae/ - be aware it is very long and learned! For a synopsis, wikipedia has a good article on the Horae Apocalypticae. Interestingly, as with most historicist interpreters, Elliott’s mistake is to try and interpret current or recent events in the light of the book of Revelation. This is a difficult task since you often need hindsight to appreciate the significance or, more often, lack of significance an event has. Therefore I think Elliott’s handling of the ‘Bowl’s of Judgement’ in Chapter 16 is poor, but that does not invalidate his previous analysis; it just illustrates the difficulty of assigning prophetic significance to situations when you are too close to them in time. However, it is fair to say that this weakness has been used by opponents of the historicist method to discredit the whole interpretive framework when, in reality, it is only a problem with one aspect of it, an aspect one would naturally expect to have difficulties with.
Fulfilled Prophecy and Ancient Greece
In Daniel there are 4 prophetic references to ancient Greece; they are in Daniel chapter 2, 7, 8 and 10-11. Daniel chapter 2 is Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a statue, the golden head referring to Babylon, the silver chest to the Medes and the Persians, while the Bronze thighs refer to Greece. Likewise, in chapter 7, reference is made to 4 empires, one following after the other with the third empire again being that of Greece. In this case Babylon is the winged lion, Medo-Persian is the bear and Greece the fast leopard. Chapter 8 of Daniel is the most interesting of these prophecies for the history of Greece, as it refers particularly to the reign of Alexander the Great - describing clearly the speed of his conquest and the manner of his death; including the accurate description of his kingdom being divided into four parts after his death and not going to his son.
Interestingly Josephus, the first century AD chronicler of history, makes a comment on this prophecy stating that Alexander the Great granted favourable conditions to the Jews after he had read this prophecy in Daniel, correctly supposing it referred to him – Book 11 Chapter 8 'Antiquities of the Jews'. Likewise, Josephus records that Cyrus gave the order to rebuild Jerusalem after reading the prophecies in Isaiah 44 – 45 which refer to him – see Book 11 chapter 1. Both these examples illustrate that prophecy not only has the ability to encourage the believer, as he sees it being fulfilled, but it can be used by God to assist his people in their own circumstances. We will see this twin effect later when we consider the Reformation and the establishment of the state of Israel.
The other prophetic reference to Ancient Greece can be found in the detailed accounts of Chapter 10 and 11 of Daniel. These prophecies refer to a time after the death of Alexander the Great when his empire, as prophesied in Chapter 8 of Daniel, was divided into four parts. For the purpose of this prophecy, which is primarily referring to the fate of Israel, the two parts of the Greek empire that are relevant are the Kingdom of the North – the Seleucids of Syria, and the Kingdom of the South – the Ptolemies of Egypt. Their wars and diplomacy were obviously of interest to God's people who were sandwiched in the middle. Also, unlike the Babylonians and the Persians, the Greeks were not just interested in ruling other nations, they also wanted to influence the native cultures. A bit like the West today, the Greeks genuinely felt they had a superior culture that should be adopted by any rational human civilisation. So the model of Greek life was exported to every part of their empire. Now this posed a problem to the Jews who had a set of standards that had distinctives which went against the Greek idea of culture. For example the Jews viewed nakedness as sinful – therefore they did not accept or appreciate the Greek vision of athletics – something the Greeks were very proud of. This distinctiveness of the Jewish people made them vulnerable to a ruler who took exception to what he saw as Jewish stubbornness, especially if he felt his kingdom needed unity at this time. Such a ruler did arise and his name was Antiochus Epiphanes – who is the original type of the anti-Christ. It was he who desecrated the temple and forced pigs to be slaughtered in it and by such actions caused the Jewish people to revolt successfully in 165AD under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus.
The issues raised by this period usefully illustrate some of the problems we as God's people face today. We are surrounded by a dominant culture that is incredibly self-assured and that views our distinctiveness as threatening or subversive. How we respond to this is an issue of great importance. In the end those who sought to compromise with the Greeks – the Hellenised Jews – became irrelevant because ultimately the Greeks had no real sympathy or understanding for the Jewish people. Therefore, when it suited them to ride roughshod over important aspects of the Jewish religion, the Hellenised Jews had no power or authority to resist them. It was left to the non-compromising Jews to make a stand for truth and to fight the forces arrayed against them. It was their determination to resist the culture that surrounded them that saved God's people from facing cultural extinction and God blessed them by giving them deliverance. The feast of Hanukkah which Jesus attended (see John 10:22 where it is known as the feast of Dedication) refers to the rededication of the temple after its desecration by Antiochus Epiphanes. Interestingly Josephus also links these events to Chapters 10 – 11 of Daniel in Book 12 Chapter 7 section 6 of 'Antiquities', when he states;
'This desolation came to pass according to the prophecy of Daniel, which was given 408 years before; for he declared that the Macedonian would dissolve that worship'.
Roman Empire (Also see Addendum 4)
Central to the biblical prophecy found in Daniel (and therefore Revelation) is the place held by the Roman Empire. It is the 4th Beast, terrible and made of iron, in Daniel Chapter 7, and it is the 4th empire made of iron in Daniel Chapter 2. Both prophecies refer to the brutal strength of this empire, and it is a characteristic of the Roman empire that its army was highly professional and, at the height of its power, almost unbeatable. Also Rome was ruthless in its suppression of dissent, imposing its laws and values across its empire with great effectiveness. From the point of view of spreading the gospel this had the great advantage of providing political stability, good reasonably safe roads for ease of communication and a common language. The disadvantage was that once the empire made Christianity illegal then its ability to persecute the Christians could also be very effective. Fortunately, though these persecutions were cruel, they were often patchy and did not always last very long, so that the church not only survived them but actually flourished and grew. Indeed some have argued that these persecutions actually preserved the church from the curse of people seeking position and power through the offices of the church. Using the historicist method of interpretation this would explain the mystery of lawlessness mentioned in 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2. As mentioned earlier in the section on fulfilled prophecy, the evidence is that the early church understood that the one who restrained this mystery was the Roman emperor - unwittingly through persecutions! Hence the oblique reference in 2 Thessalonians 2:6 to the fact that the Thessalonians knew who the restraining force was, and verse 5 implies that Paul had already told them these things. The reason for the cryptic code language in Paul's letters and in the book of Revelation with respect to these matters was that the writers did not wish to invite unnecessary persecution of the church by suggesting that the rule of the Roman emperors might come to an end. (A good example of this can be found in Revelation 17:9 where the seven heads are referred to as seven mountains which the woman is sitting on, and the reader is expected to know what this picture refers to. At that time the most obvious answer would be Rome – the city built on seven hills). Confirmation of this guarded approach can be seen in Josephus's account of Daniel Chapter 2, where he avoids giving the interpretation that Rome forms part of the statue since that would imply the stone would destroy Rome – a thing that would be unwise to mention. Whiston, in his commentary on Josephus, is also of the same opinion on this matter, and it is noticeable that this is the only prophecy of Daniel, along with Daniel 7 (which also implies the destruction of Rome) for which Josephus does not give, or at least imply, the interpretation (Book 10 Chapter 11 section 3). In fact early records suggest that the early church always protested that they were obedient to those in authority and that they prayed for them and, as a consequence, they should not be subject to the persecutions they were suffering.
From the historicist perspective the great persecutions of the Roman Empire, particularly those of Diocletian, are referred to in the 5th seal which describes the cry of the martyrs. Interestingly Revelation 6:11 implies that they form the first group of martyrs and that there would be a later group under the persecutions by the beast that were to follow. When dealing with the Roman period it is worth reminding pupils that the church suffered repeated and often fierce persecution. However the history of this period suggests that the church viewed martyrdom as a great privilege! (For the record the other seals refer to the initial success of the pagan emperors from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius – the white horse of victory. Then there is the red horse of conflict, which reflects the almost constant state of civil war within the empire during the first half of the third century. The black horse is more obscure, but probably deals with the growing corruption and taxation of this period which, for Gibbon, was one of the main contributing causes of the decline of Rome. Finally, the pale horse reflects the high level of mortality through disease and famine that afflicted the empire during the second half of the third century. With regard to the sixth seal this relates to the perception of the pagan Romans, as they saw their privileges and position in the empire rapidly disappear with the advent of Constantine as emperor.)
Another interesting aspect of fulfilled prophecy with regard to the Roman Empire can be seen in Daniel 9:26 where it states that the Messiah will be cut off and the city of the sanctuary will be destroyed. Josephus, in book 10 chapter 11 section 7, states that “in the very same manner Daniel also wrote concerning the Roman government and that our country should be made desolate by them. All these things did this man leave in writing as god had shown them to him, insomuch, that such as read his prophecies, and see how they have been fulfilled, would wonder at the honour where with god had honoured Daniel”. From this statement we can only assume that Josephus had interpreted Daniel 9:26 as referring to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, which he had personally observed. If that is the case, then this gives credence to the view that Josephus may have believed that Jesus was the Messiah, since that is the reasonable conclusion if you believe that the Romans were part of the fulfilment of that prophecy.
This situation changed with Constantine who legalised Christianity in 313AD. In many ways this was a disaster for the Church because it meant that people saw the church as an avenue for advancement so that the quality of its leaders rapidly deteriorated. However, before this was to have a serious effect, two important decisions were made that helped secure the future of the church. First, the church agreed on the full divinity of Christ, in what is known as the Nicene Creed. This was vitally important because of the rapid rise of the false doctrines of Arius – who argued that Christ's divinity was less than that of God the Father. Within a few years of the Nicene Creed being accepted the teachings of Arius re-emerged and almost caused the church to seriously weaken its position on the preeminence of Christ. One excellent character-study of this period is Athanasius who, almost alone among the Bishops, refused to give any ground on this doctrine even though the emperor and the senior leaders of the Church begged him to compromise for the sake of unity. In the end it became known as 'Athanasius against the world', and Athanasius won because he rightly understood that the full divinity of Christ was an essential doctrine – an absolute pillar of the Gospel.
'Christ “was made man that we might be made divine” …
Athanasius argued that if Christ was less than God then he could
not be our saviour. Only God could restore man to communion
with himself'
p136, A Lion Handbook, The History of Christianity
In many ways I wish the Church had had someone of the calibre of Athanasius to stand up for the doctrine of creation in the 19th and 20th centuries, when it was so effectively undermined by the rise of Darwinian evolution. Instead we have a situation where there is not a single UK bible teaching institute I know of that teaches the creation account expounded in Genesis 1 – 11 within the traditional 6000 year framework. The result of our lack of commitment to a central truth of the gospel has, I believe, been catastrophic for the church. Without such a framework for creation the 'fall of man' becomes difficult to defend as an historical event, and without the 'fall of man' what was the point of redemption? This is not a licence to be contentious about every small doctrinal point, but there are certain major doctrines such as the divinity of Christ, the status of God as Creator and the 'fall of man' that are non-negotiable and need to be defended at all cost. (I suggest the inerrancy of the bible is another important doctrine). Athanasius makes a good role-model as a fearless Christian who was able to stand up for what he believed in no matter what was the cost or loss of reputation.
The other useful consequence of this brief period when the church was free from persecution (brief, because within 100 years of Christianity becoming legal the empire in the west began to fall apart), was the agreement on what constituted the canon of the New Testament – this was finalised in the council of Constantinople. This council did not invent the Canon, it was largely agreed on by common usage, but what it did do was give a final official seal on this matter so that the church could go forward with confidence.
As a side note on this issue, from about this period onwards we find most Greek editions of the bible are very similar. They are often referred to as the 'textus receptus' – however the versions before this time often have a number of minor differences. Since the 19th century it is these earlier versions that have become the basis for modern translations of the Bible. In fact only the King James and the New King James versions of the Bible retain adherence to the 'textus receptus'. Normally as a historian one would give more credence to older versions of a manuscript than the newer versions – hence the preference of modern translators for these older manuscripts – however in this case that may not be so wise, since the standardised 'textus receptus' could well be the product of the churches’ collective wisdom on what was their best understanding of the original manuscripts; whereas these older manuscripts are a collection of documents that reflect the understandably more chaotic nature of the church under persecution prior to Constantine. Unfortunately we do not know the history behind these early documents to verify how reliable they are. I mention this in detail because I use this as one of the reasons why I want young people to be exposed to the New King James version of the Bible. I feel it is important that the church does not lose the tradition of having translations of the bible that use the 'textus receptus'.
Summing up the Roman Empire from a Christian perspective, it is clear that God foreknew its appearance in history and, using Daniel Chapters 2 and 7, there is another opportunity for demonstrating God's power and wisdom in predicting the future so accurately . The Roman Empire provided the stability needed for the Gospel to spread quickly and, in a strange way, its persecutions kept the church reasonably pure for the first 300 years. The brief respite from persecution, brought about by Constantine, allowed the church to agree on the divinity of Christ and the Canon of the Bible; however it had the negative effect of weakening the integrity of the church – an issue that would increasingly plague the church for the next 1200-1300 years