As we have seen, the two periods of five symbolic months of years pertaining to the fifth trumpet, terminated with the divesting of the Caliph-Angel of the Abyss of all temporal power, which had enabled him to “torment” and “injure,” or destroy, the catholic worshippers of the daemonials and idols, for 300 years. Since that notable event, A.D. 933, their superstition and demoralization continued to intensify to the full establishment of what the moderns, in the plenitude of their own conceited wisdom, term “the dark ages.” Dark enough they were; nevertheless there were more in those ages than in this, who were scripturally enlightened in “the truth as it is in Jesus.” These were “the golden altar,” “the altar” of sacrifice, and “the holy city trodden under foot of the Gentiles” (ch. 11:1,2); in other words less highly figurative, “the Woman in the Wilderness” and the remnant of her seed, who keep the commandments of the Deity, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (ch. 12:6,17).
Parallel with the ascendancy of the Caliph-Angel of the Abyss, and far transcending the epoch of his loss of temporal power; that is, from A.D. 660 to A.D. 1200, the Woman’s Seed, under the tolerating government of the Arabs, and under the cruelly persecuting rule, both of the image-worshipping and Iconoclastic Greeks, was exceedingly active in opposing the superstition of the catholics of the Eastern Third. We shall have to speak of these more particularly in the exposition of the eleventh chapter; I need therefore only say here, that, while their labors were beneficial to individuals in regard to their eternal salvation, and as a protest against iniquity, it worked no change in the public conscience. The one hundred and thirty years that intervened between the Caliph- Angel’s loss of temporal power, and the loosing of the first of the four angel-powers from its Euphratean boundary, were a period of supine superstition. Indeed, not only for this period, but “from the beginning of the eighth century,” says Gibbon, “to the last ages of the Byzantine empire, the sound of controversy was seldom heard; curiosity was exhausted, zeal was fatigued, and in the decrees of six councils, the articles of the catholic faith had been irrevocably defined; and the prostrate Greeks were content to fast, to pray, and to believe, in blind obedience to the patriarch and his clergy. During a long dream of superstition, the Virgin and the Saints, their visions and miracles, their relics and images, were preached by the monks and worshipped by the people, including the first ranks of civil society.” The Iconoclasts somewhat rudely disturbed this dream; but the Eastern World embraced or deplored its visible deities, and the restoration of images was celebrated as the feast of orthodoxy. In this passive and unanimous state, the ecclesiastical rulers were relieved from the toil, or deprived of the pleasure of persecution. The old pagans had been superseded by the new; the Jews were silent and obscure; the disputes with the Latins were rare and remote hostilities; and the sects of Egypt and Syria enjoyed a free toleration under the shadow of the Arabian Caliphs. One enemy alone remained to disturb their spiritual slumbers; and these were the Altar- Worshippers of the apocalypse, whom they selected as the victims of diabolical tyranny: “the earth” that “helped” them (ch. 12:16) was at length exasperated to rebellion; and the exile into which they were driven, scattered over the west fresh seeds of antagonism to the Papal Power, styled “the Beast and his Image” (ch. 13).
What, then, could be done with such an incorrigible generation of daemonial and idol-worshippers, but to prepare powers, which when loosed against them, should proclaim idolatry a sin punishable with slavery or death? This was the course of the Eternal Spirit, as revealed in the vision of the second woe. The Euphratean Powers were prepared powers — powers prepared for a special mission, and therefore “angels” or messengers; and messengers are so called, because they are sent to perform’, or execute missions. The mission of these Euphrateans was to make war upon idolatry with sword and gun, until the dominion of the Eastern Dragonic Third should be transferred to the Conqueror; and so, in relation to the daemonial and idol-worshipping community, to all intents and purposes, “killed.” In the order, then, of things presented to our hand, I shall proceed to relate the