Daniel 7:7

"After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrible and powerful, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet: and it was diverse from all the other beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the other horns were plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things."

See the chapter introduction for some of the reasons why it is necessary to see this fourth beast as a prophetic reference to the Roman Empire and to no other. In the mid-19th century, Alexander Campbell debated Bishop Purcell of the Roman Catholic Church, affirming that, "The Scriptures teach that the hierarchical Papacy of the Roman Church is `The great Harlot' of John's apocalypse, `The Man of Sin' of Paul, and `the Little Horn' of Daniel." It is the resistance of this interpretation that leads to the false allegations seeking to deny this. This interpretation is still true, no matter how men may resent it. Sir Isaac Newton, one of the greatest intellectual giants of an entire millennium, unequivocally interpreted this `little horn" as follows:

"The little horn is a little kingdom. It was a horn of the fourth beast, and rooted up three of the first horns; and therefore we are to look for it among the nations of the Latin Empire. But it was a kingdom of a different kind from the other ten kingdoms, having a life and soul peculiar to itself, with eyes and a mouth. By its eyes it was a Seer;, and by its mouth speaking great things and changing times and laws, it was a Prophet as well as a King. And such a Seer, Prophet, and King, is the Church of Rome."[14]

There is not a Protestant church of any name on earth today that was not founded upon the premise that this interpretation of "the little horn" is true and correct. Furthermore, Sir Isaac Newton went on to identify in detail the "ten kingdoms" (the ten horns) that succeeded the fall of Rome in 476 A.D., and to identify the "three" which were rooted up by the "little horn," the same three being "The Exarchate of Ravenna," "The kingdom of Lombardy," and "the Duchy of Rome," these three becoming "the Patrimony of Peter," making the Roman church a small temporal kingdom, which began about that time to coin money, and to assume other signs of temporal authority, such as the establishment of an armed force (the Papal Guards), etc. It was shortly after the development of this usurpation that the Papacy claimed authority over the kings of the earth, one Pope even presuming to crown Charlemagne as "King of the Holy Roman Empire" on Christmas Day, 800 A.D.[15]

The identification of the hierarchical apparatus of the Medieval apostate Church as the little horn of Daniel has been accepted through the entire series of our commentaries; and related passages in the Epistles, and in the Book of Revelation are all synchronized with this interpretation. We do not feel that it is necessary to go into all of this in detail here; but supporting passages in the New Testament should be consulted in the commentaries for further comment on this interpretation.

Needless to say, there is absolutely nothing in the description of this fourth beast that gives any hint whatever that the Greek empire is the world power represented by that beast. The critics have tried to find "ten kings" in the Greek Empire; but they are not there. Keil has devoted 22 pages of detailed studies to this question, pp. 245 to 267; and reference is here made to this very excellent study. Of all the preposterous postulations the critical enemies of the truth have ever made, this attempt to make the fourth beast mean the Greek empire is the most ridiculous and unbelievable of all.