THE
BOOK OF REVELATION
By:
Bertrand L. Comparet
Lesson
#4 Of A Series Of 14, Transcribed From Audio Tapes
Transcribed
By:
Clifton
A. Emahiser’s
Teaching
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[Unless
in brackets, all of the message is by Bertrand L. Comparet.]
We’ve been working the last few months on the Book of Revelation. That’s a big
subject, and we’re going to go through a good many more months before we finish
it all. We had gotten into the matter of the opening of the seven seals. We saw
that at the opening of the first seal, John had a vision of a white horse. The
man who rode upon the horse wore a crown. He was given a bow and went out
conquering, and continued conquering, symbolic of the Roman
Empire in its period of expansion. We saw that was fulfilled exactly in the
history of the Roman Empire, covering the
period from 31 B.C. to 180 A.D. Then, the second seal was opened and John said,
when he had opened the second seal: “I heard the second living creature say,
come and see, And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon
to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there
was given unto him a great sword.” [See note #1 at end
of lesson.]
You
notice the first rider on the white horse, this was symbolic of the Roman Empire because it was, you might say, a matter of
uniform. The emperor, in all his processions, always rode a white horse, and the
conquering Roman generals in their triumphal processions always rode on white
horses. During this first period the rider had a bow, a weapon which strikes at
a long distance away. Rome had peace and prosperity at home, while
the warfare was on her borders as she expanded by conquest of other nations. But
now this second one – this rider was given a sword, a weapon with which you can
strike just at arms length. “And power was given him to take peace from the
earth, and that they should kill one another.” Hence, this obviously symbolizes
civil warfare at home. And so it was.
You
had a period in Rome, from 180 A.D. to 312 A.D., where much of
the time you didn’t have an orderly, legitimate succession of emperors coming to
the throne by legitimate inheritance. There were a few of them, but more often
the throne was seized by a military adventurer – whoever could get a
sufficiently large part of the army to back him was the next emperor. And he
didn’t always wait for the preceding emperor to die. He sometimes saw to that
little detail himself as part of his getting to the
throne.
So,
you had a group of, generally, thoroughly bad emperors in that period. Commodus
was one of the bloodiest and most licentious tyrants in history. Two emperors in
the period 192-193; Septimius Severus, 193 to 211 A.D.; Caracalla, 212 to 217,
(noted for his brutality); Elagabalus, 218 to 222, who was only noted for his
debauchery; Alexander Severus, 222 to 235, a barely able ruler; and then utter
chaos. Twelve emperors in the next 33 years, all of them put in office by
armies, nearly all of them assassinated by soldiers to make room for some new
emperor. And finally, the last of these emperors, Diocletian, from 284 to 305
A.D. Diocletian was a fairly able administrator and he did make some reform, but
at the cost of building up an enormous, top-heavy bureaucracy, with of course,
the attending enormous expenses, and increasing an already crushing burden of
taxation. And finally, Diocletian abdicated in 305 A.D., leaving the empire to
break down in total chaos, with the wild scramble of many military adventurers
trying to get the throne. Constantine, who had been in charge of the forces in
Britain – a very able soldier, a good administrator, very well liked by the army
– Constantine got the necessary military backing and seized the throne in 312 to
313 A.D. [See notes #2 and #3 at end of
lesson.]
Now
the third seal was symbolic of another stage of the breakdown and dissolution of
the Roman Empire. “And when he had opened the
third seal, I heard the third living creature say: Come and see. And I beheld,
and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures say, A measure of
wheat for a denarius, and three measures of barley for a denarius; and see thou hurt not the oil and the
wine.”
Note
that the rider on this horse had no crown. This was not an emperor. This measure
of wheat; a choínix, was about one
quart. The Roman coin, a denarius, worth about 24 cents in modern money, was a
day’s wage for a common laborer in those days. Thus, for a day’s wages you could
get a quart of wheat. Definitely hard times and inflation. That phrase “see that
thou hurt not the oil and the wine”, doesn’t seem to make very much sense. An
alternative translation of that is equally available. It reads: “see that thou
be not unjust regarding the oil and the wine.” Probably, under the circumstances
here, this is the correct one. Now the black horse, of course, is symbolic of
depression and gloom. The balance scale that the rider carried was a well known
symbol in the Roman Empire for two things. One
was justice; the claims of the opposing parties were weighed in the scales. And
the other was a symbol for commerce because, of course, the things bought and
sold were largely sold by weight, and while coined money was in use, its use was
not exclusive and you still, in many instances, had to weigh out an ingot of
gold or silver and determine the weight of it from which you could compute the
money values.
Now
the burden of taxation at this stage of the Roman
Empire was frightful. Taxes could be paid, of course, in money, by
those who had the money, and these were principally the people in the cities.
Farmers then, as today, saw very little money. Theirs was a barter economy. A
farmer generally had to pay his taxes in kind, from his crops. A farmer was
assessed a certain sum of money as his taxes for that year. Well, how were you
to determine what amount of his crops would equal that? There had to be a set
standard. So a choínix, a quart of
wheat, would serve for a denarius of taxes. As to the oil and the wine?
Apparently there was more fluctuation in value there, and this “see thou be not
unjust regarding the oil and the wine” – which as I say is an equally available
translation of the word – would seem to be a statement to the tax collectors:
“Don’t try to make an extra profit for your own pocket by valuing the oil and
the wine too low.” The period covered by this is, oh, 212 to 400 A.D. Roman
taxation always was heavy and burdensome, but a Roman citizen, in addition to
his extra privileges as a citizen, also carried some extra burden. There was a
special tax assessed on Roman citizens, in addition to the tax which was
assessed on mere non-citizen residents.
In
the year 212 A.D., the emperor Caracalla extended Roman citizenship to all free
men living in the Roman Empire. Now there is no
record of any Roman emperor ever doing anything good as a favor to anybody, I
believe, at least not on any large scale. And he was not trying to favor them
with Roman citizenship. He was making a rather large group of men subject to the
additional citizen’s tax. During this period of civil wars the treasury, of
course, was looted and had to be replenished as a rather constant thing. So, you
really had problems. The burden of taxation was growing very
heavy.
From
the death of Constantine in 337 A.D., there was a period of civil wars up to 351
A.D., then a rather precarious balance of authority, and the empire was split in
two in 379 A.D. You had the eastern portions of the Roman Empire ruled from
Constantinople, and the western and African portions of it ruled from Rome. From about 395 to
400 A.D., the excessive taxes, and then the beginning of the so-called barbarian
invasions, ruined first the outlying provinces, and finally Rome itself. The farmers
gradually were being driven off the land. They couldn’t raise the money to pay
the excessive taxes. They gave up the farms and drifted to the cities to become
part of the landless city rabble, supported on the public dole. You remember
their cry, “give us bread and circuses.” So vast areas of fertile farm lands
were left waste out in the provinces, and meantime, through all this
disintegration and decay, came the invasion of the so-called barbarian tribes.
Hence the black horse of depression and trouble is a good [symbol of bad times.]
Now
let’s go on to the fourth seal. This is Revelation 6, verses 7 and 8: “And when
he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature
say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat
on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over
the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with
death, and with the beasts of the earth.” Most translations seem to use that
word “pale” for this horse; actually it’s the Greek word chlorós, which means greenish. Decaying
flesh is apt to get a somewhat greenish tint, so it was symbolic here of death.
The rider was death, and “hell” was the Greek word hádes, meaning the unseen world. Power
was given them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, with
hunger and with death. Ferrar Fenton and Moffatt, for example, translate that
word “death” as “plague” or “disease”, because it’s what the obvious meaning is
here. “And with the beasts of the earth.” The period covered by this was from
about 250 to 300 A.D. This was reprobation coming on the Roman Empire for the conditions of the second and third
seals. You know, it’s characteristic of Yahweh’s judgment that you always get
the logical consequences of your own misdeeds. You could tell in advance what’s
going to happen to you if you didn’t reform, because the punishment, if you got
it, was going to be just what your own misdeeds built up.
So
there had been a long period of civil wars; desolation by contending armies and
by excessive taxation. During this period, from 250 to 300 A.D., there were
still intermittent civil wars going on, rival contenders to the throne, and of
course many killed that way. But the great invasions of the so-called barbarian
tribes gave them warfare on a tremendous scale and did indeed kill great
numbers. The combination of excessive taxes and ruthless warfare left great
areas devastated and uncultivated, so famine was a logical consequence, and many
places had it. These big abandoned areas led to the great increase in the number
of wild animals. And the wolf, you know, right down into relatively modern
times, has been quite a common predatory animal in Europe. Therefore, with great areas abandoned and left
vacant, you had a tremendous increase in the wild beasts, the wolves who also
took their toll. [See note #4 at end of
lesson.]
Speaking
of this period, the historian Gibbon, in his monumental work The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
says: “Plague raged without interruption in every province, every city, and
almost every family in the Roman Empire. During
this period, sometimes 5,000 persons died daily in Rome.” Well, the barbarian
invasions here covered especially the period from 235 to 284 A.D. The German
tribes, we know were among our own ancestors, the Israelites who had come out of
western Asia as the Scythians in their march into Europe. The German tribes began this invasion of the
provinces. A group of three of them, collectively called the Franks, overran the
entirety of Gaul, modern France, and then went down into Spain, and from the
coast of Spain and France they seized ships and spread all over the
Mediterranean shores. By this, however, they scattered their military forces so
widely that they lost a good deal of their power.
Four
other Germanic tribes, under the collective name of the Alemania, forced their
way over the Alps and overran all northern Italy down to Ravenna, in 272 A.D. Remember, they had to
fight their way, every inch of the way, in there. So this business of killing a
fourth of the people with the sword was a considerable reality. The two Gothic
tribes, the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, appeared on the lower Danube river along
the Black Sea coast. From there they ravaged
the coast of Asia Minor on the south side of the Black Sea and overran
Greece and the islands of the
Aegean Sea. Persia, meanwhile, was beginning to overrun the
Roman provinces in Asia Minor. The Saracens
were already starting to harass the borders of Egypt and Palestine. However, that the Persians and the
Saracens are really a part of a latter stage, we’ll deal with it in detail
later. One historian has said of this period, “Throughout the empire, the
country parts were infested by bands of brigands, and government hardly existed
outside the walls of the cities.” [See note #5 at end
of lesson.]
Now
the emperor Decius, an old school pagan Roman, felt the only salvation for
Rome was a return to the stern discipline of
ancient Rome.
And since the Christians resisted his attempt to force paganism on them, he
ferociously persecuted the Christians. The emperor Valerian, who ruled from 253
to 260 A.D., was incapable of defeating these invading so-called barbarian
tribes, so you had the frontier provinces being overrun by the Franks and Goths.
The emperor Aurelian, 270 to 275 A.D., defeated the Goths on the Danube river. But where the Roman Empire had gone beyond
that, clear through Romania,
he abandoned everything beyond the near bank of the Danube river, drew his
troops back and fortified the westerly bank of the Danube, hoping that he could hold that. Also, he built new walls around
the city of Rome because he expected it to be
besieged by the Alemania, who had driven deep into Italy.
Some
of the Roman emperors, during this period, did succeed in defeating some of the
Gothic armies in individual battles, but while they could win an occasional
battle, they could never win the war, and the Roman forces were successively
driven back into Rome itself. The emperor Diocletian, who ruled
from 284 to 305 A.D., ruled simply as a typical oriental tyrant – no pretense of
respecting the ancient Roman constitution. He did get several military victories
over the barbarians, but as I say, he abdicated in the year 305 A.D. and left
everything open to chaos. A well written and thorough history, The History Of Nations, volume 4, pages
115 and 116, sums up conditions: “The system of imperial taxation was intensely
oppressive. Peasants, though legally free, were in fact registered and bound to
the soil in order to guard against any of them evading his share of taxes. The
restrictions thus placed upon natural movements of population, produced in time
of famine, pestilence, or war, the direst distress.”
In
the best of times the local officials could only escape ruin for themselves by
grinding to the utmost the classes below them. Under this evil system, the
wealth and population of the empire were fast sinking, while the luxury of the
managers and the necessities of the government increased.
Gaul
had suffered much from the incursion of the barbarians and from civil wars
during the last half century, and this distress led to the insurrection of the
Begandæ, or rustic banditi. For several years the
country was overrun with troops of fanatic and furious marauders who attacked
all property, and in the case of Autun, sacked and destroyed one of the chief
centers of Gaulish civilization. The insurrection at length died out, but the
imperial government failed to learn from it the urgent necessity of devising
some less exhausting system of taxation. A bit later, in the same area, it was
said of the Bourbon kings, “They could never learn anything and they could never
forget anything – they always repeated the same old mistakes.” And that is also
the case with the Roman emperors.
[See note #11 at end of
lesson.]
Now,
going on to the fifth seal – this is thrown in here as sort of a parenthesis –
Revelation 6, verses 9 to 11: “And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw
under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of Yahweh, and
for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How
long, O Yahweh, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them
that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and
it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until
their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be
fulfilled.”
In
other words, as part of Yahweh’s destiny, it had been determined that a certain
length of time had to go on, that a certain number of people had to be given
their opportunity to hear Christianity preached, to see if they had what it took
to really absorb it and live up to it under conditions of terrific difficulty
and oppression. So, those who had been previous martyrs were told “You rest.
There is yet more to come, more martyrs; not until the number of them is
complete will the end be.” This perhaps referred to the last period of pagan
persecution of Christians under Diocletian, from 293 to 303 A.D. This was the
most severe persecution there had been since that under Nero, 64 to 68
A.D.
How
far into the future this looks is a matter of opinion (maybe your guess is as
good as mine). It certainly covered the frightful religious persecutions of the
middle ages. I don’t doubt it covered the frightful persecution of Christians
under Communism in Russia and the satellite slave states
she controls. Over 30 million Christians have been murdered on account of their
religion. That came within our own lifetime. And what about persecution yet to
come under the further spread of Communism? How much of this will we see in our
own land when the traitors who are in high public office sell us out to
Communism, as they are so diligently trying to do right now? [See note #6 at end of lesson.]
Next,
going on to the sixth seal, Revelation chapter 6, verses 12 to 17: “And I beheld
when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and
the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the
stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely
figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll
when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of
their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men,
and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free
man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to
the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that
sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his
wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”
This
definitely depicts the final break-up of the old Roman imperial system. Remember that the Book of Revelation is
entirely symbolic in form. When it talks about the stars of heaven falling to
the earth, it doesn’t mean that stars bigger than our whole solar system are
going to fall on the earth. These aren’t the literal stars of the universe.
These heavens, as used here, are the background against which all this exists.
The Roman Empire, ruling a vast area of other
nations of subject peoples, was depicted as the sun. And the power of it was
entirely destroyed; the sun, it says, “was darkened black”, it gave no light.
The moon dimmed to the color of blood.” Sometimes you’ve seen the moon rise
through the smoke of a forest or brush fire and seen it gleam almost blood red
like that. Indeed, you had some of that in this period because you did have
cities burned and looted in the warfare that went on. “The stars of heaven
falling” – well those stars were the Roman nobles who were nearly all pagan.
Paganism continued to exist side by side with a certain variety of
“Christianity” for centuries. I say a certain variety of “Christianity” because
only a part of them were real deeply sincere Christians, and a considerable part
of them were, as you find in any age when it doesn’t cost anything to be a
“Christian”, people who just go along for the ride. It’s the fashionable thing
to do, to go to “church,” and you know, you meet somebody there who maybe you
want to sell insurance to a little later, and so on. So, you had that type of
person in the “church”, as well as those who were deeply sincere Christians.
[See note #7 at end of
lesson.]
When
Constantine was
putting on his battle for the throne, one of the generals who opposed him,
Licinius, was the last one who openly campaigned as a pagan. He tried to
overthrow Constantine after Constantine had gotten the throne in 323 A.D. Constantine had campaigned
openly as a Christian, and Licinius was the last one who made an issue of his
paganism. Since it was generally believed in ancient Rome that her military successes came from her loyalty to
her old pagan gods, for several generations after Constantine, whenever Rome was in military danger, there was a
revival of paganism because, as I say, you had it existing side by side with
Christianity. The first emperor to refuse the pagan title of Pontifex Maximus,
the high priest of Jupiter, was the emperor Gratian in 375 A.D. Constantine,
while he claimed to be Christian right to his dying day, bore the title of
Pontifex Maximus, high priest of Jupiter. It was not until on his death bed that
he was baptized and became formally a member of the Christian “Church”.
Constantine had established a new capital of the
empire at Constantinople, and afterward very rarely visited Rome, and the emperors
after him followed that. So the city of Rome
itself, without being formally disavowed, particularly sank to the actual status
of a mere provincial capital like Alexandria. [See notes
#8 and #9 at end of lesson.]
After
the division of the empire in 379 A.D., you had one emperor ruling the eastern
half of the Roman Empire from Constantinople
and one ruling the European and North African parts. The Western Roman Empire
rarely ruled from the city of Rome. Usually, the cities of Ravenna or Milan were the official capitals. Hence, you
can see how the Roman sun had lost its light! Now the absence of the
emperor from Rome left no one else to whom popular support
could rally, except the “church.” The growing power of the bishop of Rome as Pope of the
“Church” dates from this period, because with other power vacated, somebody had
to take over and keep order. In the History Of Nations, volume 4, page 131,
it says: “In the absences of the emperors from Rome, the position of the bishop of that city
had become one of no mean secular importance. It conferred wealth and splendor,
attracted the devotion of women of the highest rank, and raised its fortunate
holder to the pinnacle of fashion as well as luxury. Accordingly, it became the
object of contentious rivalry and was sought for with all the artifice and
violence which had formally disgraced the competition for the consulship. The
Episcopal chair of Rome was now indeed a prize worth contending
for by any ambitious man.”
As
I said, the emperor Gratian, 375 A.D., refused the pagan title of Pontifex
Maximus. Gratian ordered the removal of the altar and the idol of the goddess of
Victory from the senate house. Now all through Constantine’s time, here in the house of the
Roman Senate, stood this pagan idol of Victory with the altar. The senators made
their sacrifices on this altar of Victory, which Constantine himself took part
in periodically. But now Gratian was making a clean sweep of it. There was a
bitter contest over that. Paganism was still strong enough to make quite a
fight, but an unsuccessful one. Thus, with the pagan priests and nobility, “the
stars fell to earth”; the Roman sun lost its power. The moon, possibly symbolic
of the emperor himself, because remember, the western part of Rome, overrun now by
invading so-called barbarian tribes, was losing its power and prestige rapidly.
In fact, from the death of the emperor Gratian in 383 A.D., the military
conqueror often disdained to take for himself the title of emperor. He would put
some puppet in power as emperor while the conquering general himself, who
exercised the real power, didn’t bother taking the title. Some of them, for
example, merely adopted the title “patrician.” Well from this time on the
breakdown of the whole Roman civilization was complete.
You
find no example of men of greatness contending for power in there. You had
little groups of treacherous, violent politicians contending for the power,
trying to get what they could by violence; and what they couldn’t by violence,
to gain by treachery. It was a period of completely ignoble men. Only the
invading Goths showed truthfulness, fidelity and good character. An allied
association of these Germanic tribes, the Suevi, Alemania, Vandals, and Alans
invaded Italy in 406 A.D. and
got as far as the city of Florence before they were defeated and turned
back. But they went on through Gaul into Spain, and those provinces were very quickly lost
from the Roman Empire. Rome had no more control over either Gaul or
Spain. The Visigoths, under Alaric,
besieged Rome in
408 A.D. In fact, they got to the gates of the city and were finally bought off
by an enormous ransom paid to them.
In
409 A.D., Alaric returned with his Visigoths and blockaded Rome, which surrendered.
Alaric appointed, as emperor, one of his own officers, Attalus. In 410 A.D.,
Alaric returned, captured Rome and allowed his soldiers six days to
pillage the city. Now it’s worthy of note that the Christian “churches” were
respected as places of sanctuary. He gave orders to all his men that no
Christians were to be bothered or interfered with in any way. They couldn’t be
plundered or killed, and those who gathered for safety in the Christian
“churches” were not molested in any way. Alaric then went on to plunder the rest
of central and southern Italy. He then withdrew his forces,
crossed through southern Gaul and into Spain and Portugal, and these Visigoths set up a kingdom in
southern Gaul, and in Spain
and Portugal. From then on –
oh, allow them to, perhaps, 425 A.D. to get over there – from then on the
Visigoths were the dominant people in Spain and Portugal, until
711 A.D, when the Moorish conquest began. [See note #10
at end of lesson.]
Most
of the Christian Romans saw this series of terrific defeats and plundering as
Yahweh’s judgment on paganism. So the pagan temples were turned into Christian
“churches”, and the Catholic “Church” simply took over the existing paganism.
They took over the old pagan temples and made them “churches.” The idols in them
were now said to be statues of Saint Peter or “Saint somebody else”, and the
congregations were welcomed into the Catholic “Church.” You see, unfortunately,
any institution or organization which must be administered by people is subject
to their errors of judgment, and this was a terrific one because it didn’t
Christianize the pagans. It just paganized the Christians.
The
invasions of the so-called barbarian tribes continued heavier and heavier. Who
the Romans called Attalus was, of course, a German named Adolf, successor to
Alaric as chief of the Visigoths, who led the Visigoths out of
Italy and into
Spain and southern Gaul. Even after they settled there, they themselves were
overrun by an enormous horde of Suevi, Alans, Vandals and Burgundians who
largely went on to the south of Spain. Now, you know of course, there
is in Spain a province which
we call Andalusia, but the name of it
originally was Vandalusia because that is where the tribe of Vandals settled.
When they overran Italy and
Rome, they
showed no respect for the Roman pomp and splendor. Pagan Rome was receiving its
judgment at the hands of Yahweh, and it was getting a thorough judgment. As
pagan Rome had overrun nation after nation with
terrific brutality, so pagan Rome was getting a taste of the same thing.
And, from then until today, they have made “vandal” a name for somebody busting
things up. But the Romans got it back themselves as a well earned judgment.
[For reference to “Burgundians”, see note #11 at end of
lesson.]
The
Roman legions had been withdrawn from Britain in the year 408 A.D. The last
Roman troops were taken home in the vain hope of saving Rome. But you remember, in
409 and 410 it was taken by the Visigoths. Now the Vandals, after going through
this Visigothic kingdom down to the south of Spain under their leader Genseric, crossed over
into Africa in 429 A.D. In the year 434, the
emperor Valentinian formally ceded the province of Africa – that’s all of North
Africa except Egypt – to Genseric. So here, in the
break-up of it, you had the European provinces overrun, till Rome couldn’t even hold Italy. She had
lost Gaul, she had lost Spain
and she had lost North Africa. Genseric built
an enormous navy at the sea ports on the north coast of Africa, conquered many
Mediterranean islands, and harassed the coast of Italy and Greece.
A
little after this there appeared a new scourge, the Huns, under Attila. These
were a Mongolian people, horsemen. Attila called himself “the scourge of God.”
And he was interested not merely in conquest and loot, but in utter cruelty,
murder and desolation. It was his own boast that “the grass never grows again
where my horses’ hooves have trod.” He ravaged Thrace and Illyria, attacked tribes as far up as
the Elbe river on the shores of the Baltic Sea, and attacked the Visigoths in
Gaul, where the Visigoths finally defeated the Huns with heavy slaughter near
Chalons in France on the
Marne river in 451 A.D. So Attila retreated
then; pulled back. In 452 he invaded Italy. He was persuaded by Pope Leo
the Great to spare the city of Rome on condition of being paid an enormous
tribute bribe from the emperor Valentinian. Hence he led his troops back to the
river Danube, and died there. [See notes #12A, #12B and #13 at end of
lesson.]
That
broke up the Hun invasion. All the various sub-chiefs under Attila were willing
to be sub-chiefs under his leadership. But now that he was gone, every one of
these sub-chiefs felt himself just as worthy as any other to take Attila’s place
as leader of the horde. But there was nobody who could hold it together and they
retreated back into Mongolia. [See note #14 at end of lesson.]
In
455 A.D., a fleet of Vandal ships from the North African coast sailed up the
Tiber river, captured the city of Rome and pillaged it for 14 days. They carried
off all the treasure; all the gold and silver they could find. Now Rome had brought back to
the city as trophies many great treasures. You’ll remember that when they
conquered the city of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, they
looted the Temple there of all its gold and silver that
came from ornaments, and so on. In the city of Rome, the Arch of Triumph set up by Titus showed, among the
other carved panels on it, Roman soldiers carrying off the seven branched golden
candlesticks from the temple at Jerusalem. Well, that was still held in
Rome at 455 A.D., and the invading Vandals
captured this golden candlestick and took it back to Africa with them. Storms sank some of their ships and some
of the treasures were lost, but this one with the golden candlestick made it
safely.
About a century later, the emperor Justinian, ruling the Eastern Empire,
recovered this, and he had it replaced in Jerusalem. That’s the last that is known of it.
Nothing is known of its fate from then on.
Besides
taking the city of Rome and looting it, the Vandals plundered all
the more southerly Italian cities. Then the Germanic tribe of Suevi, under their
leader Ricimer, captured and pillaged Rome again in 472 A.D. The last emperor of the
western half of the Roman Empire, Romulus
Augustulus, was deposed by Odoacer, the chief and leader of a group of Germanic
tribes. So in 476 A.D., Romulus Augustulus was deposed and sent home. Odoacer
didn’t bother killing him. He just said “here, go home; you have no authority.”
Most historians agree, that is the definite end of the Empire of
Rome.
Some
of these invasions perhaps blend in to part of the invasions and destruction of
the empire, which was symbolized by the next series of things under the seven
trumpets. We’ve already covered the opening of the sixth seal. When the seventh
seal is opened, instead of that bringing about by itself any particular incident
like the earlier six, it is marked by divisions of seven different revelations,
each coming at the time of the blowing of the trumpet. Now that is a big and
complicated subject and there is no point in trying to get into it tonight
because we couldn’t do enough to be worth it in the time we have left.
Therefore, I think this is a good place to break off on what we have been
studying tonight. Now does anybody have any questions on it? [See note #15 at end of lesson.]
[Question
from the audience:]
“The question of these so-called barbarians. Aren’t they actually the old
ancient Israelites?” [Answer:] They were. The
Israelites had been deported into the area around the southerly end of the
Caspian Sea, which came to be called Scythia.
They extended, of course, not just around the southerly end, but up the western
and eastern sides of the Caspian Sea. There,
for a period of time, they grew great in number and tremendous in military
strength. And then they began their long march into their European homeland
going, some of them, around the easterly end of the Caspian Sea and across the
base of the Crimean peninsula at the east end of the Black Sea, into the Danube
valley. Others came up on the westerly side of the Caspian Sea and in the narrow
mountainous region between that and the Black Sea, where the Caucasus mountains are. They came through there and moved
on up into the areas of Europe. Because they
came through the Caucasus mountains, the white race of Europe is often called Caucasian. But, the historians who
recognize them as Caucasians ought to look a little farther and ask: “Where were
they before they came through the Caucasus
mountains?”
[Question
from the audience:]
“Who were the Alemania?, I know ‘what’s-his-name’ there – Armstrong – says they
are the ancient Assyrians.” [Answer:] No. The
pagans and the atheists have not been any great burden to Christianity. Those
who have harmed Christianity the most have been those who tried to consider
themselves devout Christians out of their unlimited and total ignorance they
scrambled everything up, trying to make it accord with what they think the Bible
says. Now just as they try to say that the Turks are the Edomites, had they only
bothered to read history, they couldn’t have made that mistake, because you
can’t trace any more Edomites into Turkey than you can trace into Brooklyn, New
York. [I think Comparet goofed
by making a comparison to Brooklyn N.Y.
where there are many Edomite-Jews.] And so, they have tried to say the
Germans are the descendants of the old Assyrians.
[Question
from the audience:]
“Could it possibly be the fact that after 70 A.D., when the Jews were driven out
of Jerusalem – can they use that as a reason why
the Edomite-Jews finally got up into Byzantium? Could that possibly be the reason?”
[Answer:] No. In their stupendous ignorance,
they don’t even recognize that the Jews, by and large, are the Edomites. They
say, “Oh, those are the descendants of Judah.” No descendant of
Judah was ever a “Jew” by race, and
not too many of them were Jews by religion. What happened upon the overthrow of
the ancient Assyrian Empire, was that the survivors didn’t dare stay around.
Since they’d lost their military power, they didn’t dare stay around where they
were close to the other nations they had formerly so horribly mistreated. – They
fled. – And they fled on into southwestern Russia, one of the areas of Georgia and the Ukraine. Now, on
the palaces of the Assyrian kings, the walls of their palace rooms were
decorated with very beautiful glazed tiles with painted designs fired into the
glazing on them in which they showed – this was the work of their own best
artists – they showed Assyrians in various activities. This isn’t their enemies’
caricature of them. This is the Assyrians’ representation of themselves, and
they were plain hooked-nosed kikes. Now you can’t find that type in
Germany except of those who are
definitely identified as Jews. [See note #’s16 and 17
at end of lesson.]
[At
this point there is a question from the audience about Britain. Answer:]
Well, there are a number of good things that can be said about the British.
Counterbalancing it, there are no people in human history who have been given to
as much lying about their enemies as the British. Their propaganda has been
their strong force to try to line up sympathy and alliances. Not too long after
the end of World War I, the Englishman who had been in charge of English
propaganda during the war wrote a book exposing how he himself had directed
English propaganda with stories of German atrocities which were completely false
– never happened at all. He made them up as pure fiction, but he knew it would
help to get America into the
war on the side of England
against Germany. [See note #18 at end of lesson.]
He
told of one instance, for example, where he put out a dispatch saying that, when
the German troops went into some little village in Belgium, they
tortured the priest of the “church” for some hours until he finally agreed to
ring the “church” bell in celebration of the coming of the Germans. Now no such
incident happened, and the man himself, in his own book, admits it was a
complete lie. As you probably know, there are two distinct groups of people in
Belgium. There’s the one group whose
language and sympathies are French, and the other group whose race and
sympathies are German. Now whenever German troops went into a village where the
people were of the German racial stock and sympathies, they were treated with
joy. And undoubtedly, in some of those the “church” bells were rung as a
celebration. Now if the German soldiers had wanted to order the “church” bells
rung, they wouldn’t have waited several hours while the priest made up his mind
under torture – they’d have rung it. Some German sergeant would have turned to a
soldier and said, “go ring the bell.” And it would have been done. So, he was
making up all kinds of fictitious atrocities that never happened at all. There
were no more atrocities committed by the German army than there were with the
American army in either war. They applied the name Hun to the Germans as part of
a propaganda effort to get the American people all steamed up, to get them into
the war on the side of Britain.
[Question
from the audience:]
“Is there any residual Mongolian stock in the Prussians?” [Answer:] No. Now East Prussia, you get to the point where there
is a little overlapping of Slavic people. Our people are long headed, and there
are among East Prussians some who have that
typical bullet head of the Slavs. You’ll remember old General Von Hindenburg,
who, as I say, could take his collar off without unbuttoning it. That betrays a
mixture of Slavic blood there.
[Comment
from the audience:]
“You hear that Adenauer had Mongolian blood in him. I don’t know whether it is
true or not?” [Answer:] Well, there have been,
of course, among all modern nations, instances of some people who mixed with
dark races, and it might be possible that in his family that had been done. But,
it’s in no way characteristic of Germany. [At
this point, there continues some unintelligible conversation, and then the
subject of the Book of Esther in the Bible comes up. At this time Bertrand L.
Comparet continues:] No, you find the Bible consistently, with a couple
of exceptions, written by prophets and apostles of one racial and religious
group only. Now I say a couple of exceptions. I spoke to you before concerning
the Book of Esther; it is a complete fraud – It never belonged in the Bible at
all. For the first 200 years of its existence, it was well known that it was
simply a work of fiction. But you’ll remember – it tells about the Jews
murdering a lot of people and stealing their property. And whereas it had no
standing among the Rabbis up until the fall of Jerusalem, after Jerusalem was
taken and the Jews were driven out, most of them were driven up into
Constantinople, then suddenly – oh, along in the neighborhood of 100 A.D. – the
Rabbis began declaring that this was the holiest book of all, and that after all
the prophets had been forgotten, that the Book of Esther and the law (the five
books of the Pentateuch) would stand as the only remaining holy works. Now when
the “church” came to choose what it would accept as the canonical books of the
Old Testament, they sanctioned the Jewish accepted canon, and that was the books
of the Old Testament. And by that time, the Jews said, “Sure, this is our holy
book.” It tells about Jews murdering people and stealing their property. And so
the “church” took it over, but it doesn’t belong in the Bible at all. [See note #19 at end of lesson.]
The
Song of Songs of Solomon is a beautiful book of ancient poetry, very true. A
great deal of poetry has been written by a great many people, yet has no
religious significance whatsoever. And that is true of Song of Songs of Solomon,
which doesn’t belong in there because there is no religious significance to it.
[See note #20 at end of
lesson.]
[Question
from the audience concerning the proof of authentic inspired books of the Bible.
Answer:]
The proof consists of their ability to prophesy many centuries into the future,
and have their prophecies come true. That’s the challenge that, in several books
of the Old Testament, Yahweh hurls at the pagan gods. He said, “I foretell the
future, and it comes to pass. Let’s see you do it.” Which, of course, none of
them could. As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof, and
the proof of the Bible is in the fulfillment of its prophesies. The prophesies
in the Bible were not, any of them, the easy sort of thing that most anybody
could prophesy. Any one of us could prophesy that, in another ten years, the
smog will be worse, our traffic problem will be still worse, more people will be
getting killed in traffic accidents, and so on. That’s the logical easy thing.
But the Bible prophesies were all of the opposite type. In the light of the
conditions existing at the time the prophet wrote these things, what he
prophesied was so unlikely that the people just howled with laughter that
anybody could be so silly as to prophesy such an unlikely thing. [End of Comparet’s Lesson #4.]
CRITICAL
NOTES ON LESSON #4
Comments
by William Finck initialed W.R.F.
Comments
by Clifton A. Emahiser in brackets in lesson text as “your
transcriber”
or
initialed C.A.E. in critical
notes.
Note
#1:
There is no question that, after Actium in 31 B.C., Rome’s form of government
was permanently changed, that the “Republic” was gone, and that the empire would
be ruled by a single man, after nearly 100 years of civil war (with Marius,
Sulla, Crassus, Pompey and Caesar). However, Rome
became an empire (by definition of the word) long before Actium. Before Actium, Rome
had subjected Egypt, North
Africa, Gaul, Spain, and much of the Near
East. I would set the beginning of the period at about 201 B.C., at
the end of the Punic Wars – or perhaps 264 B.C., at the start of the
Punic Wars would be better! After Actium, in 31 B.C., Rome made few small territorial gains – offhand, I recall
the conquests of Britain and
Dacia and the
securing of the eastern frontier with (or from) the Parthians, and little else.
So by Actium, the “white horse” period seems to
be waning, and the “red horse” period already begun! W.R.F.
Note
#2:
Some details are wanting in the succession of emperors given here, i.e. Macrinus
was omitted et al. W.R.F.
Note
#3:
There were 13 emperors between Alexander Severus and Claudius II (see note #12,
Lesson #3), and eight more, forgotten here, between Claudius II and Domitian.
There were 51 years and a total of 22 emperors between Alexander Severius
and Domitian! W.R.F.
Note
#4:
I do not agree that the “barbarian” invasions of Rome should be connected to the “pale horse.”
The green (pale) horse represents the decay and sickness of the empire, no
doubt, but the sword here seems to be an internal one; for the “barbarian”
children of Israel are not “Death” and “Hell”!
Comparet misses the true symbolism of “the beasts of the earth”, much to my
disappointment. For the “beasts” here are clearly the “clay” of Daniel 2:41-43,
the “seed of enosh” with which at least a portion of the Romans mingled
themselves. Surely these beasts caused the people of Rome much trouble in their
time of famine (the “black horse” period), and it was they who historically bore
the “sword” here! Comparet’s comments concerning wolves – and surely four-legged
wolves here – border on the incredulous, something I would expect rather from a
modern “judeo-christian” minister. W.R.F.
Note
#5:
While the taking of some Roman provinces by the Goths surely must have
contributed to the famine of Rome, which relied heavily on grain from its
provinces, the Goths are not the “pale horse”, but I think they are rather the
instruments of wrath described in the next, the 6th seal. The Black & Pale
horses weakened the empire, giving the Goths opportunity. That a strain of
malaria hit Rome
circa 450 A.D., evidence of at least part of this “pale horse”, see Archaeology Odyssey, July-August 2001,
page 12. W.R.F.
Note
#6:
The traitors who were, and still remain in high public office had already sold
us to communism, even before these sermons were taped! W.R.F.
Note
#7:
The Roman nobles cannot be both the “stars of heaven” of Rev. 6:13 and the
“great men” and “chief captains”, etc. of Rev. 6:15. While the sun and moon
indeed represent the power and authority of the Roman empire – here being
extinguished, the “stars of heaven” are the children of Israel (compare Judges
5:20), who were about to “fall unto the earth”, or invade Roman territory
(earth). “The heaven departed” may signify the failing of administration and
order within the empire. That “every mountain and island” were moved is obvious.
Rev. 6:15 shows the fear of the Roman upper-classes for the invaders – and many
of them probably did flee into hiding, as this was the beginning of the end for
Rome’s empire.
W.R.F.
Note
#8:
Constantine and Licinius each held and ruled territory within the empire from
307-323 A.D. W.R.F.
Note
#9:
As we have discussed elsewhere, it is evident that “Jupiter” is a contraction
for “Iove, Pater”, and that it is the equivalent of “Yahweh Father.” Could it be
that this was initially set up as a replacement for the high priest/temple model
at Jerusalem by Israelite colonists in
Italy, or first in Troy? And with good –
albeit wayward – intentions? I surely believe so, and that “Pontifex Maximus”
was a colonial continuation of such a model, is at least a possibility. W.R.F.
Note
#10:
If a Goth, “Attalus”, ruled over Rome from 409,
why did Alaric have to again conquer Rome in 410? Comparet draws a very incomplete
picture here. W.R.F.
Note
#11:
The learned Sharon Turner, in his History
of the Anglo-Saxons, calls the Burgundians “Bagaudae”, as Comparet
apparently also often has called them. On page 131 of his first volume, in
chapter 8 of Book II, Turner gives in a note several versions of the word in
other dialects, which mean “warlike” in Irish, “fighting” in Erse, and “rebel”
in Hebrew. Turner’s source must be referring to a word related to those found at
Strong’s Hebrew #’s 898, 899, 900 and
901. Turner calls the Burgundians “Affiliated Robbers”! W.R.F.
Note
#12A:
Was Attila the Hun a “Mongol” (chinaman)? The Barnes Review once ran an article,
in a very early edition, that presented evidence that Attila was a blond of
Aryan stock, as were his “Huns.” The Niebelungenlied is a Germanic poem of which
most parts date to the 5th century A.D. The main characters of the poem were
Burgundian nobles, whose kingdom had its capital at Worms in the Rhineland
(and which is near my own Finck ancestral village). A Burgundian princess,
Kriemhild, was married to Siegfried, a prince from the Netherlands who
later died. After Siegfried’s death, the princess was remarried to Etzel, the
king of the Huns, who in the poem was depicted as a just, civilized man
deserving of much respect. “Etzel” is the Rhenish name for Attila. While the
Niebelungenlied is laced with historical anachronisms, mostly due to the later
additions to the tale by medieval monks and its historical value is thereby
questionable, it does depict an Attila far different from that drawn by his
biggest detractors: the “church” of Rome, and drawn by people with nothing to
gain in his misrepresentation. Contrary evidence supporting Comparet’s
assessment here shall be discussed in later notes. See also note #’s13, 14 and
12B below. W.R.F.
[Special
note by Clifton A. Emahiser: There may be some who, when they read William
Finck’s critical note #’s 12A & 12B at lesson #4 and note #’s 4B & 6 at
lesson #5 pertaining to Attila, may think they see a conflict in what Finck is
saying. But if one can grasp the context of his notes, there is no discord.
Finck’s purpose in all these mentioned notes is to present a balanced view of
Attila, as opposed to Comparet’s unbalanced opinion, since there are certainly
two entirely different views of Attila’s character to consider, and therefore,
it may be quite difficult to determine the truth of his identity,
ethnographically speaking. What it all boils down to is this; Finck is
endeavoring to present both sides fairly, hesitating to leap into false
conclusions. Finck believes that once the facts are placed before the reader, it
then becomes the reader’s responsibility to sort out the truth from the fiction.
Above all, I would highly recommend that each reader seriously consider William
Finck’s note #4B at lesson #5 concerning the term “wormwood.”]
Note
#12B:
I suspect that Comparet is correct in identifying the “star” of Rev. 8:10-11
with Attila, and will accept that for my purposes here. If so, then the “hail
and fire” of Rev. 8:7 and the “great mountain” of Rev. 8:8 (note Dan. 2:45) must
be the Germanic tribes – Goths and Vandals – who invaded the empire just before
Attila did. If this is so, do the “bitter waters” indicate a mixed-blood people?
Does the “star fallen from heaven” represent a “fallen angel” – that Attila was
a descendant – at least, in part – of the serpents? This same symbol is used of
the “angel” who released the Arab mixed-blooded hordes at Rev. 9:1. W.R.F.
Note
#13:
Britannica under “Attila” claims the
“decisive engagement” between the Goths and the Huns was the “Battle of the
Catalaunian Plains, or, according to some authorities, of Maurica (both places
are unidentified).” Yet the American
Heritage College Dictionary says at Châlons-sur-Marne: “The Huns under
Attila were defeated here in A.D. 451.” W.R.F.
Note
#14:
I’ve never read – in what little I’ve read of the period – that the Huns
“returned back into Mongolia.” I suspect this may be a
“cover” for the fact that there are no “mongolians” found in Hungary
for us to identify as “Huns.” W.R.F.
Note
#15:
The invasions are all a part of the same chain of events – it’s Comparet who is
trying to divide them, artificially, between the sixth seal and the first four
trumpets of the seventh seal. See note #’s 4, 5, 7 and 12B. W.R.F.
Note
#16:
Diodorus Siculus reports that a “colony” of Assyrians were deported to
Pontus – on the south shore
of the Black Sea, by the Scythians. Surely many
peoples found their way up through the Caucasus in later days – and most of the
strangers there were eventually Judaized or Islamized – but I have never read of
Assyrians fleeing up into Europe in the period Comparet is talking about! W.R.F.
Note
#17:
Assyrian art distinctly shows two types of profile – the Adamic and the
Hittite-Kenite, or “hooked-nosed” types. That there were Assyrians to repent –
Adamites in Jonah 3:7- in the days of Jonah, shows that the Assyrians were
NOT all “hooked-nosed kikes”, and Comparet is not as well enlightened as
he ought to be in his assessment here. Just like England and America, Assyria
was an Adamic Nation waxed powerful, and so infiltrated and influenced by
“hooked-nosed kikes” – the same old story over again! Scripture rightly verifies
that they were undoubtedly mixed, as the Assyrian leadership’s policy was to
relocate various populations in order to promote further race-mixing; the same
agenda as their mixed-blood descendants are promoting in all Israel lands
today! No doubt, what the Assyrian-Adamites needed to repent of, was their
race-mixing with those non-Assyrian-Hittite-Kenite-kikes! Comparet’s failure to
see these things is quite disappointing. W.R.F.
Note
#18:
The Balfour Declaration, and not German atrocities, got America into
World War I. The atrocity stories only helped to manipulate public opinion in
favor of the war – which would have been entered into regardless. W.R.F.
Note
#19:
Adenauer was a flunky for Anglo-American interests, and probably a jew himself!
W.R.F.
Note
#20:
While the Canticles (Song of Solomon, Song of Songs) has no “religious
significance”, what does that matter? The book would not have survived if it
weren’t part of “Scripture”, and fortunately it did survive, because it
is of great anthropological interest: it proves beyond doubt that Solomon and
his wife were white people! Comparet should have spent as much time studying it
as he spent criticizing it! W.R.F.