In one of the greatest of the great prophecies of the Bible, JEHOVAH gives the entire history of the human race in advance from about 500 B.C., to the end of time. JEHOVAH presented this history in advance in the form of a terrifying statue or image that appeared to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in a nightmare . . . which the king promptly forgot when he awoke. None of his astrologers or "wise men" could be of any help to him in interpreting the dream because they were all charlatans and fakes. Daniel the Jewish prophet, who was a captive in Babylon, came to the rescue and told the king his forgotten dream . . . and its interpretation:
Notice that the 4 empires follow one another in SUCCESSION and there is no gap or break between them.
The stone that destroys the image represents Christ at His Second Coming. The 4 metals correspond to the 4 empires which the king saw in his dream. The toes of iron and clay represent monarchies and democracies existing side by side. The two systems are inimical, yet they have coexisted for the past 200 years:
The United States of Israel is the country of the common man and has forced monarchies to share rulership of the earth with the PEOPLE:
The stone or Rock symbolizes Christ, who will destroy all human governments at the end of time.
The Roman Empire began to split in two at the time of Emperor Constantine. The Roman Empire began to divide with Emperor ConstantineEven before the time of Constantine, there were several Roman Emperors who lived in several cities besides Rome. The division started in earnest with Constantine.
In 324, he decided to build a new capital in the East at Byzantium, and leave Old Rome to the Papal dynasty. After he became sole master of the Roman Empire, Constantine began building a new capital at a Greek city called Byzantium. Constantine had a monumental ego....Only one conqueror in history named a city after himself and that was Alexander the Great. Naturally, Old Rome was not about to give pride of place to this new upstart so the rivalry and competition began almost immediately. Islam was founded to overthrow Constantinople!!Only 50 years after the founding of Islam by Mohammad, a huge Arab army . . . and NAVY . . . attacked Constantinople....Conquering Constantinople required a huge number of ships which you would not normally associate with desert dwellers.
A knowledge of combined operations by land and sea was necessary for the conquest of Constantinople. Also a knowledge of siegecraft and the use of battering rams and powerful catapults. The first Muslim siege of Constantinople began in 674It so happens that the first besiegers of Constantinople were DESERT DWELLING Arabs. The first siege began in 674 and lasted for 5 years. Caliph Muawiyah I surrounded Constantiniople with a huge Arab army and navy. This was a miraculous accomplishment for desert dwelling Arabs.
Roman Emperor Constantine IV led the heroic defense of the city. The Arab besiegers were almost completely annihilated by the Eastern Romans. The Eastern Romans had a secret weapon called Greek Fire. It was somewhat like napalm and actually burned on the water. It was the ancient world's equivalent of the atomic bomb.
The besiegers were barbecued with this Greek Fire: and the siege was a total failure, with thousands of Arab casualties:
The siege turned out to be a total failure, with thousands of Arab casualties. The second Muslim siege of Constantinople began in 717The proud Arabs were very bitter about their failure to take Constantinople. The tried again in 717 with a new Caliph.
Roman Emperor Leo III led the heroic defense of the city: For forty years the setback at Constantinople rankled with the Umayyad caliphs in Damascus. It remained inconceivable within Islamic theology that the whole of humankind would not, in time, either accept Islam or submit to Muslim rule. In 717 a second and even more determined attempt was made to overcome the obstacle that hindered the spread of the Faith into Europe. The Arab attack came at a time of turmoil within the empire. A new emperor, Leo III, had been crowned on March 25, 717; five months later he found an army of 80,000 men dug in the length of the land walls and a fleet of 1,800 ships controlling the straits. The Arabs had advanced their strategy from the previous siege. It was quickly realized by the Muslim general Maslama that the walls of the city were invulnerable to siege machines; this time there was to be a total blockade. The seriousness of his intentions was underlined by the fact that his army brought wheat seed with them. In the autumn of 717 they plowed the ground and planted a food supply outside the walls for harvesting the following spring. Then they settled down to wait. A foray by the Greek fire ships had some success but failed to break the stranglehold. Everything had been carefully planned to crush the infidels. (Crowley, 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West. p. 13). It seems that all of JEHOVAH's creation was at war with the Muslims because on their way home an undersea volcano erupted and a storm destroyed most of the fleet. Charlemagne—the phony "holy" Roman EmperorNot a singe year went by but Old Rome sought to destroy her rival....The list of attackers included Persians, Arabs, Slavs, Bulgars, Magyars, Khazars, etc. etc; but all without success. In the year 800 A.D., a golden opportunity presented itself to annex the Eastern Empire to Rome, and achieve by diplomacy what arms had failed to accomplish.
Charles the Great reigned as king of the Franks until December 25, 800 A.D. With the unmarried Empress Irene on the throne at Constantinople, the Pope quickly had Charles crowned "holy" Roman Emperor. The next step was to propose a marriage between the two, thus annexing the Eastern Empire to Rome. The scheme failed miserably, and Irene was deposed and died in exile. This unholy Roman "empire" was also called the First Reich. It was abolished by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806. The 4 crusades to conquer ConstantinopleBy the year 1000 A.D., Old Rome was getting desperate. All the attempts to conquer Constantinople by her mercenaries had ended in failure....Even the attempt to capture the Empire through marriage had failed. Beginning in 1069, Old Rome launched 4 massive Crusades to conquer Constantinople. All were failures except the last or Fourth Crusade.
The first three Crusades ended in failure, but the fourth and last established a short lived Latin Empire in Constantinople.
A rabble rousing monk named Peter the Hermit persuaded thousands of Europeans to join in a Crusade to "liberate" the Holy Land from the Arabs. In August 1095, a huge undisciplined mob appeared outside the gates of Constantinople. Emperor Alexius was appalled. He kept a watchful eye on them and refused to allow them into the city . . . except in small groups. He quickly put them on ships and ferried them across the Bosporus:
The next two Crusades were also total failures as far as conquering Constantinople was concerned, so we must concentrate on the fourth and last Crusade.
The Latin empire that was established by the Crusaders fell apart in 1261. The Eastern Empire pulled further away from Old Rome after this brutal conquest and occupation by the Latins. The Council of Florence in 1439The Council of Florence, which ended on July 5, 1439, was the last great desperate effort by Old Rome to end the Great Schism before the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks. The Council began in 1431 in Basel, Switzerland, and became known as the Council of Ferrara after its transfer to Ferrara was decreed by Pope Eugene IV. The Council transferred to Florence in 1439 because of the danger of plague at Ferrara, and because the city of Florence had agreed, against future payment, to finance the Council.
The Council was also the last great event before the Discovery of the New World by John Cabot and the Reformation. Old Rome used every weapon in her arsenal to get the Orthodox to sign the decrees reuniting the 2 churches. All the Greeks present at the Council—even the Emperor—signed the decrees of union—except for one man: Saint Mark of Ephesus. For his uncompromising stand, Saint Mark died an untimely death at the young age of 52. The voluntary union sought by Old Rome never materialized—so she unleashed her Muslim Turks against the city only 14 years later. Constantinople finally fell to the Turks in 1453Old Rome was finally able to eliminate her Eastern rival in 1453. After fighting heroically for 1000 years, the Empire finally came to an end.
The Orthodox church preserved the manuscripts of the Greek New Testament....The conquest of Constantinople by the Turks caused many of the Greek scholars to flee to Italy, bringing their manuscripts with them. The Orthodox church preserved the Greek New Covenant manuscriptsThe Orthodox church preserved the Greek New Covenant manuscripts that survived from the last great pagan persecution under Emperor Diocletian. When Constantinople fell, many of the Greek scholars fled to Italy, bringing their priceless manuscripts with them. This was later to lead to the Renaissance and Reformation. Venice—the adopted homeland of John Cabot—always had a very special relationship with the Eastern Roman Empire:
The true name of the Messiah—Joshua of Nazareth—was changed in all the surviving Greek manuscripts.
Erasmus of Rotterdam was the intellectual giant of the Renaissance in Europe. He was the most learned man of his age. Every university in Europe vied for the honor of having him as a member of their faculty. He was also the editor of the Greek New Testament that Saint Martin Luther used to launch the blessed Reformation. It was said that "Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched." Erasmus had nothing but contempt for the corrupt clergy. His father and mother, Gerard and Margaret Brandt, are the subjects of The Cloister and the Hearth. William Tyndale used the same Byzantine text as Saint Martin Luther in his superb English translation of the New Covenant. Moscow is the successor of Constantinople!!The Triune God, who sees all things in advance, had a new home for the Orthodox church in Russia.
Due to her family traditions, she encouraged imperial ideas in the mind of her husband, Ivan. It was through her influence that the ceremonious etiquette of Constantinople (along with the imperial double-headed eagle and all that it implied) was adopted by the court of Moscow.
We shouldn't fail to mention that the Julian calendar was imported to Moscow from Constantinople, as well as the Greek based Cyrillic alphabet. Vital Links Constantine's 6 Major Changes to Christianity. The Vatican Against the Orthodox Church by Avro Manhattan Crowley, Roger. 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West. Hyperion, New York, 2005. Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (in 6 volumes). Methuen & Co., London, 1909. Gill, Rev. Joseph, S.J. The Council of Florence. Cambridge University Press. London, 1959. Herrin Judith. Byzantium. The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2008. Meyendorff, John. Byzantium and the Rise of Russia. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood, New York, 1989. Norwich, John Julius. A Short History of Byzantium. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1997. Papadakis, Aristeides. The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood, New York, 1994. Riley-Smith, Jonathan (Editor). The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades. Oxford University Press, New York, 1997. Wells, Colin, Sailing From Byzantium. How a Lost Empire Shaped the World. Delacorte Press, New York, 2006. Copyright © 2008 by Niall Kilkenny
|
