From The Book of Daniel by Taylor Bunch, 1950.
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5. After the Ten. The eleventh horn did not appear until after the ten were established. The Papacy would not reach the position of kingly power until after Rome was divided into the ten divisions, although it had been quietly developing since apostolic days. By the close of the fifth century the breaking up of Rome was complete. All during the overthrow of Imperial Rome and the establishment of the ten kingdoms the Papacy was growing up “in the midst of them.”–Douay. It was among them but not of them. Papal supremacy as a religio-political kingdom began in the sixth century and continued for twelve hundred years. The ten were established before the prophet saw the eleventh uproot the three and begin its persecuting and blasphemous career.
6. Uproots Three. “He shall subdue three kings,” is the prediction, or “before whom three fell.” The three were “plucked up by the roots,” indicating complete destruction. It was “three of the first horns” that were uprooted or subdued. In the fourth century, Arius, a priest of Alexandria, began teaching that Christ was the first created being and was therefore inferior to the Father. The Council of Nicea, called by Constantine in 325 A.D. , condemned Arius as a heretic and his teachings as heresy. Arianism, however, continued to grow until four of the ten kingdoms were Arian in belief . Three of these were the Heruli, the Vandals, and Ostrogoths. Through war and diplomacy the Papacy, which clung to the Nicene Creed, endeavored to destroy these heretical nations. It was three of the first that were uprooted and destroyed.
(1) The Heruli. “The first kingdom established by the barbarians in Italy was that of the Heruli.”–Ridpath. The historian gives the date of the overthrow of the Heruli as 493 A .D . They were overthrown by the Goths under Theodoric by what he called a divine commission �rom Zeno, the emperor of Eastern Rome. The fact that the Heruli and Ostrogoths were both Arian in belief did not restrain the scheming pontiff from using the one to destroy the other when the outcome resulted in his advancement in power. See History of the World, by Ridpath, Vol. 4, chap. 74, and Gibbon’s Roman Empire, chapters 39 and 40. The destruction of this Arian nation was complete. “After the middle of the sixth century, however, their name completely disappears.”–Encyclopedia Britannia, Vol. XIII, p. 403, art. “Heruli.” “After this their “name disappears from history.”–Standard Enyclopedia of World Knowledge Vol. XIII, p. 334. See also the New Standard Encyclopedia, art. “Heruli.” The kingdom was so completely uprooted that no trace is left, and no modern nation or province bears the name or can be identified with the Heruli .
2) The Vandals. The Vandals crossed into Northern Africa and took possession of Carthage in 431 A.D. They accepted the Arian doctrine and were therefore marked for destruction. Ridpath gives the date of their destruction as 534. “Their power was at its height when Genseric died (477). In his time the Vandals became Christians, but they were Arians, and fiercely persecuted orthodox believers and other heretics. In 533 the Byzantine general, Belisarius, landed in Africa. The Vandals were several times defeated, and Carthage was entered on Sept. 15, 533; and in November of the same year they were routed in the decisive battle of Tricamaron. In the next year Africa, Sardina, and Porsica were restored to the Roman Empire. As a nation, the Vandals soon ceased to exist.”–Nelson’s Encyclopedia, Vol. XII, art. “Vandals.”
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Further Evidence. “Being Arian Christians, the Vandals persecuted with furious zeal the orthodox party, the followers of Athanasius. Moved by the entreaties of the African Catholics, Justinian, the Eastern emperor, sent his general Belisarius to drive the barbarians from Africa. The expedition was successful….The Vandals remaining in the country were gradually absorbed by the old Roman population, and after a few generations no certain trace of the barbarian invaders could be detected….The Vandal nation had disappeared; the name alone remained.”–A History of Rome, by Myers, p. 193.
Race Exterminated. “The Arian heresy (of the Vandals) was proscribed, and the race of these remarkable conquerors was in a short time exterminated. A single generation sufficed to confound their women and children in the mass of the Roman inhabitants of the province, and their very name was soon totally forgotten. There are few instances in history of a nation disappearing so rapidly and so completely as the Vandals of Africa.”–History of Greece, George Finlay, Vol. I, p. 232. “It is reckoned that during the reign of Justinian, Africa lost five millions of inhabitants; thus Arianism was extinguished in that region, not by any enforcement of conformity, but by the extermination of the race which had introduced and professed it.”–History of the Christian Church, J.C. Robertson, Vol. I, p. 521.
(3) The Ostrogoths. Ridpath dates the establishment of the Ostrogothic nation in 493,and its overthrow in 538, and its total destruction in 554. The following is from Ridpath’s History of the World, Vol. IV, pp. 408-417: “Bishop Wulfila, or Ulfilas, labored for forty years among the Goths, and saw as the fruits of his labors the conversion of the entire people to the Arian branch of Christianity….The Ostrogoths had grown to be first in influence among the barbarian states….In religious faith Theodoric, like his people, was an Arian. This fact opened a chasm between the Goths and the Italians, the latter accepting the Nicene creed….Certain it is that Justinian, who had now succeeded to power at Constantinople, resolved to purge the church of heresy as well in the West as in his paternal dominions.” The agent of the emperor in the extermination of heresy was Belisarius who had destroyed the Vandal nation.
The Nation Destroyed. “Nearly the whole Gothic nation gathered around the Eternal City; but Belisarius held out until re-enforcements arrived from the East, and after a siege of a year and nine days’ duration, Rome was delivered from the clutch of her assailants. Vitiges (the Ostrogothic leader) was obliged to burn his tents and retreat (538) before his pursuing antagonist to Ravena….It was evident that the kingdom of the Goths was in the hour and article of death.” Speaking of the final defeat of the Goths in [538?] Ridpath says that there was “inflicted on the barbarians a defeat so decisive as to refix the status of Italy. The greater part of the Gothic army perished either by the sword or in attempting to cross the river…As for the Goths, they either retired to their native seats beyond the mountains or were absorbed by the Italians.”–Id. In chapter 41 of Gibbon’s Roman Empire is a graphic description of the campaigns of Belisarius against the Vandals and Ostrogoths resulting in their defeat and overthrow. Thus the three Arian nations who refused to renounce their heretical faith were uprooted or subdued and the other Arian peoples turned orthodox leaving the bishop of Rome the undisputed ruler of nations and the corrector of heretics. How completely the prophecy was fulfilled .
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