The Fall of Pagan Rome
PROOF OF THE GOSPEL & GROUNDS FOR CHRISTIAN ENCOURAGEMENT
Fall of Pagan Rome |
Fall of
Jerusalem |
Fall of Temple-Based Worship |
The Rise of Civilization |
Immanuel - God With Us
"It is significant that the decline of the Roman Empire dates from the fall of Jerusalem."
[G. N. M. Collins, "Zechariah,"
The New Bible Commentary, F. Davidson, ed., 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1954), 761.]
Ignatius
"A Star shone forth in heaven above all that were before It, and Its light was inexpressible, while Its novelty struck men with astonishment. And all the rest of the stars, with the sun and moon, formed a chorus to this Star. It far exceeded them all in brightness, and agitation was felt as to whence this new Spectacle [proceeded]. Hence worldly wisdom became folly; conjuration was seen to be mere trifling; and magic became utterly ridiculous. Every law of wickedness vanished away; the darkness of ignorance was dispersed; and tyrannical authority was destroyed, God being manifested as a Man, and Man displaying power as God. ...Now that received a beginning which was perfected by God. Henceforth all things were in a state of tumult, because He meditated the abolition of death." (Longer version, Chapter 19)
“And here, at the manifestation of the Son, magic began to be destroyed, and all bonds were loosed; and the ancient kingdom and the error of evil was destroyed. Henceforward all things were moved together, and the destruction of death was devised, and there was the commencement of that which was perfected in God.” (The Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians, Chapter 19 (c. A.D. 100 - 115) ;
Syriac version, Chapter 19)
Thomas Scott
"It is also observable, that the Romans after having been thus made the executioners of divine vengeance on the Jewish nation, never prospered as they had done before; but the Lord evidently fought against them, and all the nations which composed their overgrown empire; till at last it was subverted, and their fairest cities and provinces were ravaged by barbarous invaders." [Thomas Scott, The Holy Bible, etc., 956.]
George Caird
"The first readers were almost certainly well versed in the sort of symbolic language and imagery in which the book is written. Whether they had formerly been Jews or pagans, they would read the language of myth as fluently as any modern reader of the daily papers reads the conventional symbols of a political cartoon. Much of this language we can reconstruct for ourselves from the Old Testament and Jewish apocalyptic writings on the one hand and from Greek and Roman literature, inscriptions, and coinage on the other (Black's New Testament Commentaries, "A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine," 2nd edition, p. 6)."
"Our difficulties begin when we try to decide how far to take this picture language literally and how far to take it figuratively. When John echoes the Roman legend that the dead Nero was about to return, how literally does he mean it? Does he believe that Nero was not in fact dead, or that he would be resurrected, or that another paranoiac would come to fill his empty shoes? (Black's New Testament Commentaries, "A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine," 2nd edition. p. 7)."
"Misleading to say that in Revelation the monster
is Rome, and still more misleading to say that it is ruler worship. The monster is both an older and a newer phenomenon than Caesar, and the great city is more ancient and more modern than Rome" (Black's New Testament Commentaries, "A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine," 2nd edition, p. xii)." (Revelation: Book of Cosmic Symbols)
Abbott, Jacob,
Rome. Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 36, issue 211 (December 1867).
Abbott, Lyman,
The Eternal City. Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 44, issue 259 (December 1871).
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