ory IX., and became the law of the church. Thus the Latin hierarchy caused them to be put to death who dissented from its faith, and refused to pay it the homage which it required.

Besides these endeavors to excite the magistrates to slaughter dissenters, Catholics who were not magistrates were encouraged by impunity and approbation to destroy them. Thus Urban II. : "In conformity with the custom of the Roman church, with which you are acquainted, impose on the murderers of excommunicated persons a measure of penance that accords with the institution. For we are not to regard them as homicides because, burning with the zeal of the Catholic mother against the excommunicated, they happen to slay some of them. Lest, however, the discipline of mother church should fall into disuse, according to the practice we have mentioned, impose on them a suitable penance, in order that they may conciliate the eyes of divine truth, if it chance that through human frailty they have been guilty of duplicity in that violence."

XI. The image caused all, the small and the great, the rich and the poor, and the free and the enslaved, to impress the name of the wild beast or the number of its name on their right hand, or on their forehead, as the worshippers of idols were accustomed to inscribe on themselves conspicuously the names of their deities, or such letters as, in their arithmetical use, were equivalent to the numbers represented by their names.

The name of the ten-horned wild beast is the name of the race that founded the empire over which it reigned under its seventh head, and whose language is the language of its population and rulers, and is Aarsivos therefore. The mark is the three letters, x.. 5., which express the number of that name. To mark themselves with that name or character, in a manner analogous to an inscription or brand, was therefore formally and conspicuously to assume it, or show by open and decisive acts that they were the worshippers of the Latin hierarchy, formed after the model of that wild beast, and bearing its name. Such acts were, a union with the Latin or Roman Catholic church, adoption and profession of its faith, reception of its sacraments, and obedience to its laws. Those who submitted to its rites, offered its worship, and honored its authority, gave as public and ample proof that they were worshippers of its hierarchy as though they had testified it by branding its name or mark on their foreheads or hands. And all were compelled, as is seen from the decrees of Lucius III. 'Decret. Gregorii IX. lib. v. tit. vii. c. 9, 13. " Labbei Concil. tom. xx. p. 713.

and Innocent III., to give that public proof of their submission to its authority, or forfeit their lives.

XII. And finally, the two-horned wild beast caused that no one should be able to buy or to sell, except he who had the mark, the name of the wild beast, or the number of its name.

All union in acts of religion with the excommunicated, was prohibited by the false canons ascribed to the apostles. The prohibition was extended, by the forged letters of Isidore, to all social acts. "Those who have been excommunicated by the priests, let no one receive before a fair examination by each party, nor join them in prayer, eating, drinking, or a kiss, nor bid them hail; for whoever knowingly communicates with them in these or other forbidden acts, subjects himself to a like excommunication." And this was held by Hadrian II., who ascended the pontifical throne in 867, as the law, and enjoined on Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, in respect to Charles, king of France. "If he choose to persist in his obstinacy rather than reform according to our commands, withdraw yourself from communion and intercourse with him, not bidding him hail, but wholly avoiding his presence, if you wish to have ecclesiastical intercourse with us." Though that command was resisted by Hincmar and his fellow bishops, as uncanonical, it appears to have become the law soon after of the church, and to have been extended to all commercial transactions; as Gregory VII., in 1078, represents himself as induced to mitigate it out of compassion to the multitudes who were debarred from the means of life by the hibition. "As we see many daily perish on account of excommunication, partly from ignorance, scrupulousness, fear, or necessity; overcome by pity, we for the time soften the sentence of excommunication as far as we can. We therefore, by apostolic authority, release from anathema wives, children, servants, captive women, or slaves, rustics, and all others who are not the ministers of the excommunicated in such a relation as to be the executors of their wicked designs; and those also who unknowingly communicate with the excommunicated, or with those who communicate with the excommunicated. To the stranger or traveller who passes into the territory of the excommunicated, where he cannot buy, or has not the means of buying, we give liberty to receive from the excommunicated. And should any one de

'Can. Apostol. c. x. Labbei Concil. tom. i. p. 31.

"Callisti Epist. ü. Labbei Concil. tom. i. p. 741.

pro

Hadriani Epist. xxv. Labbei tom. xv. p. 847. Bossuetüi Defens. Decl tom. i pp. 166, 167.

sire to give to the excommunicated for sustenance, not out of pride, but from humanity, we do not prohibit it."1

The prohibition was, however, renewed, and enforced with the utmost barbarity, by the council of Tours, under Alexander III., in 1163. "A damnable sect rose some time ago in the district of Toulouse, which, gradually spreading itself, like a cancer, through the neighboring regions, has now infected Gascony, and many other provinces. While it hid itself by its serpentine movements, it was destructive to the Lord's vine in proportion to the secrecy of its motion. Wherefore we command the bishops and all the Lord's priests residing in those parts, to watch against it, and enjoin, under the threat of an anathema, that no one, wherever the followers of that sect are found, should venture to yield them a retreat on his lands, give them succor, or have any communion whatever with them, by purchase or sale; so that, having lost all human aid, they may be compelled to return from the error of their way. Let whoever shall dare to contravene this command, be struck with an anathema, as a partaker of their iniquity."

In like manner the third Lateran council in 1179: "Inasmuch as in Gascony, Albigese, the province of Toulouse, and other places, the damnable perversity of the heretics by some called Cathari, by others Patarini, by others Publicani, and by others still other names, so that they now no longer exercise their depravity secretly as some do, but publicly show their error, and draw the simple and weak to unite with them; we sentence them, and their defenders and harborers, to an anathema, and forbid under an anathema that any should presume to keep them in their houses, or on their lands, sustain them, or transact any business with them." 13

The agencies of the wild beasts, the image, and the people, thus corresponded in all respects with the representations of the prophecy.

The views which expositors have given of this passage are very dissimilar, inconsistent with the characteristics of the symbols, and at war with analogy. Grotius interprets the twohorned beast as denoting magic, which is to make a living being the symbol of a mere art, or deceptive agency, and is therefore against analogy.

Mr. Daubuz exhibits it as representing the two patriarchal lines of Rome and Constantinople. But a wild beast is a sym

bol, not merely of a line of persons of the same rank, but of a vast combination and succession of persons of various grades, who together fill the offices, and exert the various powers of a government. It represents the intermediate and lower ranks, therefore, as truly as the higher; and its chief is denoted by its head, not by its whole body. It is the symbol also of an aggressive, cruel, and bloody combination of rulers; and of a civil and military power therefore, not merely an ecclesiastical. But the bishops of Constantinople have no civil or military power: nor have those of Rome simply as bishops. Their power as civil monarchs is founded by them on the gift of princes, or the right of conquest, not deduced from the apostles; and was acquired long after they had raised the fabric of their ecclesiastical hierarchy to a vast height. The peculiar actions moreover ascribed to this beast have no counterpart in the agency of the bishops of Constantinople. They never caused the Gothic nations of the western empire to worship the first wild beast, by the ascription to Constantine and his successors of the rights of God which they impiously arrogated; nor induced them to subject their national hierarchies to the supremacy of the pope. So far from it, they were rivals of the Roman patriarchs, and struggled for ages to obstruct their power. The agencies ascribed to this wild beast towards the Gothic conquerors, it is notorious, were exerted by the Latin hierarchy, not by the Greek.

The assumption by Vitringa, that the two-horned beast symbolizes the two orders of friars, the Dominican and Franciscan of the Catholic church, is equally exceptionable. They did not constitute a civil and military, nor even an ecclesiastical government; but were merely two among the numerous orders embraced in the Catholic hierarchy. Nor did they belong wholly or chiefly to the hierarchy of the papal territory. A vast proportion of them were civil subjects of the kings represented by the horns of the first wild beast, and exerted their agency in their dominions. But the two-horned wild beast symbolizes the rulers only, civil and ecclesiastical, of the papal, in contradistinction from the other kingdoms.

Mr. Faber exhibits the two-horned wild beast as the symbol of the spiritual empire of the papacy, which, whether he means, as he doubtless does, mere territory, or population, is erroneous and absurd. If it be the mere territory, it is the territory of the western Roman empire, and the same so far therefore, according to his representation, as the ten-horned wild beast symbolizes. That construction is against analogy also, as living beings are

symbols only of living beings, never of inanimate objects. If it be the population instead of territory, who then are they whom this beast persuades to make an image to the ten-horned wild beast? And who are the inhabitants of the earth that admire and worship that monster?

Mr. Elliott's exposition of this symbol, as denoting the Romish clergy of all orders beneath the pope, is obnoxious to similar objections. By far the greatest part of them neither belonged to the hierarchy of the papal territory, nor were subjects of the papal civil kingdom, but had their birth within the dominions, and exerted their agency under the jurisdiction of the other kings.

Mr. Mede interpreted the symbol of the pope and his clergy, without consideration whether the latter were within the papal territory, or of the other kingdoms; which is to confound those who are symbolized by the image, with those whom the twohorned wild beast represents.

Dean Woodhouse regards the two horns as denoting the papists and Mahometans. But who then does the beast itself denote? Not the false prophet, as he represents. That were to make that which the beast denotes less than that which is symbolized by its horns, inasmuch as the false teachers who are represented by the false prophet are less in number than the whole body of papists whom they teach. And who on that exposition are the subjects of the horns? As they are symbols of a succession of persons exercising a government, they must have subjects and a territory. If the whole body of papists and Mahometans, then, are dynasties or governments, whom do they rule, and where are their dominions? But neither the whole body of the papists, nor the Mahometans, are rulers. They are not the bodies therefore denoted by the horns. Nor have the Mahometans, or their rulers, ever exerted the agency ascribed to the wild beast. They never caused the nations of the western empire to worship the first wild beast, nor led them to adopt the Christian religion as the religion of the state, and place their national churches under the jurisdiction of the pope.

Mr. Faber's and Mr. Elliott's supposition, that the Romish regular and secular clergy are symbolized by the horns, is equally exceptionable. They are not kingly heads of a government, either civil or ecclesiastical.

Mr. Daubuz regarded the image as the same as the two-horned wild beast, which causes the nations to make and worship it. But that is to exhibit it as existing and acting before it was made, and contriving and prompting its own production, which is absurd.