Updated 1 July 2020
Finally, the fourth kingdom, which history shows to have been the Roman Empire (753 B.C. - A.D. 476), absorbed the Grecian divisions one after the other; adopted the Greek literature, architecture, literacy and many of the gods and cults of nations they conquered. Rome was initially a small City known as the City of the Seven Hills, on the west coast along the shores of the Tiber river. In ancient times, hills were sacred high places, used to worship and offer sacrifices to deities.
It grew in size and strength through trade, much like how the European Union was formed, and “though the city owed its prosperity to trade in the early years, it was the Roman warfare which would make it a powerful force in the ancient world”, again like Romans the EU’s ambition is to develop military and defence alliance, which they could not fully implement due to the UK’s opposition, nevertheless they continue to pursue the strategy outlined in the Lisbon Treaty. From Augustus to Constantine there were 54 Emperors. I did an internet search for the worst Roman Emperors; the lists were almost identical. Many were mad, bad and decidedly dangerous to know but they left out Hadrian, another bizarre character.
Within the Roman Empire existed “Client states” or vassals of the Roman Empire, these were ruled by native dynasties but paid tribute to Rome in exchange for military assistance and could also conscript free men for the Roman army. One of these was the Herodian dynasty.
Antipater, (died 43 BC), was a royal dynasty of the Idumaean (the Greek name for the land of Edom) and was the founder of the Herodian dynasty in Judea. Antipater gained power in Judaea by making himself useful to the Romans. In return for Antipater’s support, Caesar appointed him procurator of Judaea in 47 BC. Although Antipater was assassinated by a political rival four years later, his son, Herod I the Great, was later made king of Judaea by the Romans. Antipater, was an Edomite who converted to Judaism in the 2nd century BC - he was hated by the Jews as a foreigner and semi-Jew. The Idumeans had been forcibly converted to Judaism by the Sadducee-influenced (Jewish aristocratic class) Hasmonean leader John Hyrcanus, descendant of the Maccabees. Forcible conversion was not recognized by the Jews or their religious leaders, so even though Antipater and Herod the Great may have considered themselves of the Jewish faith, they were not considered Jewish by the observant and nationalist Jews of Judea, and were resented for their Edomite ancestry, their Hellenized culture, and their collusion with the Roman invaders. The Edomites were descendants of Esau.
We know from Old Testament history that the abhorrence of Esau towards Jacob for tricking him into giving up his share of the inheritance was passed on to their descendants, as such the Edomites and the Israelites were constant enemies, much like the descendants of Ishmael, the Arabs are today. The Ishmaelites were merchants who traded spices touring from Gilead to Egypt while riding on their camels, their genealogy can be traced to Abraham. The childless Sarah gave Hagar to the 85-year-old Abraham as a concubine, so that she could have her husband’s child through her maid (a common family arrangement in the ancient Near East). Hagar was purchased in Egypt and was the servant of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. She conceived a child with Abraham and named him Ishmael. This is despite God’s Covenant promise to Abraham (Genesis 15) and later God’s confirms that the promise is for him and Sarah, but Ishmael will also be blessed by God through a separate covenant. 19 Then God said:
“No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him. 20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. 21 But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year.” 22 Then He finished talking with him, and God went up from Abraham. (Genesis 17:19-22).
Abraham’s sin with Hagar has resulted in centuries of sorrow and bloodshed, as the descendants of Isaac (the Jews) and Ishmael (the Arabs) have been mortal enemies since Bible days.
The Muslims claim that Mohammed, the father of Islam, is said to have been from the line of Ishmael, which is one reason Muslims (believers of Islam, a religion created in the 6th century, much later than Judaism and Christianity) claim a right to the Promised Land, Israel. Hagar is a revered woman in Islam since Ishmael is the father of the Arabic people. The Qur’anic version of the Genesis account twists the story to make Hagar the heroine of the story and her son, Ishmael, the child of promise instead of Isaac. Today and throughout history the Arabs have been blessed in their land as God promised, we only have to look at the oil, and before oil, trades routes to nations from Ancient Arabia.
Herodian Kingdom/Dynasty
Herod also known as Herod the Great and Herod I, was a Roman client king of Judea, referred to as the Herodian kingdom/dynasty. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea, including his renovation of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the expansion of the Temple Mount towards its north, the construction of the port at Caesarea Maritima, the fortresses at Masada, Masada, Herodium, Alexandrium, Hyrcania, and Machaerus in which he and his family could take refuge in case of insurrection and the Temple of Augustus. He also re-build Samaria and named it Sebaste after the emperor (Augustus’ name in Greek is Sebaste). Sebaste is located in Samaria, on a hill northwest of Nāblus. Herod is the same king who ordered the execution of all male children two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem recorded history and the gospels. After an unsuccessful attempt at suicide, Herod died. His final testament provided that, subject to Augustus’s sanction, his realm would be divided among his sons: Archelaus should be king of Judaea and Samaria (present day referred to as the ‘West Bank’), with Philip and Antipas sharing the remainder as tetrarchs. Most of the building projects were dedicated to Pagan gods or deified emperors though he considered himself Jewish, nevertheless he tried to appease the Jews with restoring their Temple.
The Herodian Tetrarchy was formed following the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC, when his kingdom was divided between his sons Herod Archelaus as governor, Herod Antipas and Philip as tetrarchs in inheritance, while Herod's sister Salome I shortly ruled a toparchy of Jamnia. Upon the deposition of Herod Archelaus in 6 CE, his territories (Judea, Samaria and Idumea) were transformed into a Roman province.
Philip the Tetrarch was assigned to the region east of the Sea of Galilee, in modern northern Israel, Lebanon, and southern Syria and reigned during the ministry of John the Baptist (Mt. 11:11). When Augustus died in 14AD, he was succeeded by his son Tiberius. Luke tells us that John the Baptist began preaching during the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar (Luke 3:1-2). It was Herod Antipas who imprisoned and beheaded John the Baptist in 28AD who publicly rebuked Herod, Philip's brother, for his adulterous "marriage" to Herodias (Mark 6:14-28). He named his new capital Tiberias on the ruins of Rakkath (Joshua 19:35) in honour of Tiberius. Another city connected to Philip is Caesarea Philippi, originally known as Baal Hermon and Baal Gad (1 Chronicles 5:23 23; Joshua 11:17; Joshua 13:5; Judges 3:3), located near the ancient city of Dan. This site was later named Panias after the Greek god Pan who was worshiped there. The context of the Cave of Pan and the Temple of Augustus give added meaning to the events in Matthew 16 - the great confession and the transfiguration both occurred in the vicinity of the city (Matt 16:13), then known as Caesarea Philippi. Today, the city is commonly referred to by its modern name, Banias.
Second fulfilment of the abomination of desolation
“Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. 2 And Jesus said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”” (Matt 24:1-2)
The account of the following events in Rome during the persecutions of the Jews and Christians are recorded by historians and writers: Christian writer Tertullian, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius, Sulpicius Severus, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius, Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus and Publius Cornelius Tacitus one of many that mentions Jesus and the persecution of Christians by Rome.
The Roman campaign against the Jews started after the rule of the two "mad" brothers, emperors Caligula and Nero. Sometime in AD 39/40 the Greek population of Jamnia in Judea erected an altar to the imperial cult (worship of the emperor) and the resident Jews promptly tore it down, resulting in serious communal rioting. The destruction of an altar for his own worship was apparently taken as a personal insult by Caligula who was already beset by strife between Jews and Greeks in Alexandria, both of whom had delegations in Rome seeking his intervention. The emperor struck a counter-blow by instructing Petronius, Governor of all Syria also known as legatus Augusti pro praetore (literally: "envoy of the emperor - acting for the praetor") with an army that the temple at Jerusalem should be converted into an imperial shrine with an enormous statue of the emperor in the guise of the Romans' supreme god Jupiter. The Governor was to use two of his available four legions to enforce this decree. Petronius withdraw his forces and used well-judged delaying tactics. However, Caligula was dead before this structure could be implemented and before the command issued by Caligula to kill Petronius was carried out. After his death there was a relative calm under Emperor Claudius, Caligula's uncle. Early in his reign, the Greeks and Jews of Alexandria sent him two embassies at once after riots broke out between the two communities. This resulted in the famous "Letter to the Alexandrians", which reaffirmed Jewish rights in the city but also forbade them to move in more families en masse. According to Josephus, he then reaffirmed the rights and freedoms of all the Jews in the Empire. According to ancient historians, Claudius was murdered by poison. After Claudius, Nero became the new Emperor with the consent of the Praetorian Guard.
At the end of 66 AD, conflict broke out between Greeks and Jews in Jerusalem and Caesarea. Nero dispatched Vespasian to Judea to put down the revolution; Vespasian had isolated Jerusalem and was ready to begin a siege. The empire, however, was in turmoil, with unrest in the east and revolt in the west. Nero committed suicide which was documented by the Roman historian Suetonius. Vespasian, who was acclaimed emperor (Flavian dynasty) left for Rome to secure his throne and gave his son Titus responsibility for ending the Jewish war. One million Jews were killed, 95,000 captives were taken as prisoners and others were driven out of their homeland and relocated to various areas within the Roman Empire. The Temple’s items were “deposited in the newly built Temple of Peace, except the Law and the purple veils of the holy place, which Vespasian reserved for his palace”. The Arch of Titus in Rome was constructed by Roman emperor Domitian after the death of his brother and predecessor, emperor Titus and stands there still today. The arch was erected to commemorate Titus' successes in the conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple - it depicts images of Roman soldiers carrying looted Temple items. After AD70, Jews and Jewish Proselytes were only allowed to practice their religion if they paid the Jewish tax. Our only first-hand account of the Roman assault on the Temple comes from the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius. Josephus was a former leader of the Jewish Revolt who had surrendered to the Romans and had won favour from Vespasian. In gratitude, Josephus took on Vespasian's family name - Flavius - as his own.
Although the nation was in exile from their land, the Jews did not forget Jerusalem or their Temple Mount. Their daily prayer was for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. The traditional Jewish prayer book contains the following passage: “Because of our sins we were exiled from our country and banished from our land. We cannot go up as pilgrims to worship Thee, to perform our duties in Thy chosen house, the great and Holy Temple which was called by Thy name, on account of the hand that was let loose on Thy sanctuary. May it be Thy will, Lord our God and God of our fathers, merciful King, in Thy abundant love again to have mercy on us and on Thy sanctuary; rebuild it speedily and magnify its glory”.
Despite these events a number of Jews continued to live in Israel until a second revolt (AD132-135) by the false Messiah, Simon Bar-Cocheba. The Jews rebelled against Emperor Hadrian’s restrictions on Jewish religious freedom and observances (which included a ban on the practice of male circumcision), the construction of a new city, Aelia Capitolina, over the ruins of Jerusalem and the erection of a temple to Jupiter on the Temple Mount. Hadrian also renamed the land of Israel and Judea as Palastina ('Palestine') after the ancient enemies of the Jews - the Philistines, an attempt to erase the historical ties of the Jewish people to the region, similar to what the UN, EU and Muslim nations are doing now. After AD135, Jews and Christian Jews were barred from Jerusalem except for the day of Tisha B'Av, when Jews mourn the destruction of the two temples, both events occurred on the same day. The 9th of Av, Tisha b'Av, also commemorates a list of other catastrophes:
1. The Spies Returned With a Bad Report
2. The Battle at Betar Was Lost
3. The Romans Plowed the Beit Hamikdash
4. The Jews Were Expelled From England
5. The Jews Were Banished From Spain
6. Both World Wars Began
Any future hope of the temple being rebuild was crushed by Emperor Hadrian’s actions in Jerusalem until Roman Emperor, Flavius Claudius Julianus, a nephew of Constantine - also known as Julian the Apostate, issued a command to rebuild the Temple and commissioned Alypius of Antioch, a geographer and a vicarius of Roman Britain, to complete the task in an effort to de-Christianize Rome by restoring pagan and Jewish practices. Unfortunately, this ended in tragedy. Ammianus Marcellinus, a friend of Julian wrote this about the effort:
“Julian thought to rebuild at an extravagant expense the proud Temple once at Jerusalem, and committed this task to Alypius of Antioch. Alypius set vigorously to work, and was seconded by the governor of the province; when fearful balls of fire, breaking out near the foundations, continued their attacks, till the workmen, after repeated scorchings, could approach no more: and he gave up the attempt.” (The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus, Book 23 Chap. 1 Line 3).
Rome: Western and Eastern Division
The fate of Western Rome was partially sealed in the late third century, when the Emperor Diocletian divided the Empire into two halves. This confirms Daniel’s prophecies (Daniel 2 and 7:24-27) concerning the final empire, which is Rome.
40 Then a fourth kingdom (Rome) will be strong as iron, for iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things; and like iron which crushes things in pieces, it will break and crush all these [others]. 41 And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but there will be in it some of the durability and strength of iron, just as you saw the iron mixed with common clay. 42 As the [ten] toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so some of the kingdom will be strong, and another part of it will be brittle. 43 And as you saw the iron mixed with common clay, so they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not merge [for such diverse things or ideologies cannot unite], even as iron does not mix with clay. (Daniel 2:40-43 Amp).
Daniel 2:32 Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream outlines the further history of Gentile world power. The four metals of which the statue was made represented four successive empires, each with the power to rule the inhabited earth—though each stopped short of that. They were: (1) Babylon (Jer 51:7); (2) Medo-Persia; (3) Greece under Alexander; and (4) Rome. The latter power was divided first into the two legs, corresponding to the eastern and western Roman Empires, and then (after a very long time apparently) into the ten toes, a confederacy made up largely of European nations (7:24-27). Footnotes - Amplified Bible
Diocletian was the first Emperor to divide the Roman Empire into a Tetrarchy. In 286 he elevated Maximian to the rank of augustus (emperor) and gave him control of the Western Empire while he himself ruled the East. On 1 May 305, Diocletian and Maximian abdicated, replaced by Galerius and Constantius, who appointed Maximinus II and Valerius Severus, respectively, as their caesars, creating the Second Tetrarchy. The Tetrarchy collapsed after the unexpected death of Constantius in 306. His son, Constantine the Great (Constantine I), was declared Western Emperor. After Constantine unified the empire, he refounded the city of Byzantium in modern-day Turkey as Nova Roma ("New Rome"), later called Constantinople, and made it the capital of the Roman Empire.
It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. The eastern half of the Roman empire not only survived the collapse of its western partner in the third quarter of the fifth century, but went on to thrive in the sixth. In September 476 AD, the last Roman emperor of the west, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by a Germanic prince called Odovacar, who became the first Barbarian to rule in Rome. The whole of Italy was quickly conquered, and Odoacer’s rule became recognized in the Eastern Empire, Byzantine.
In the five centuries following the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century, the city remained under Roman then the Byzantine Empire also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople, the name of the city to which Constantine moved his capital, leaving Rome, and rebuilt under the new name of Constantinople (modern Istanbul, formerly Byzantium).
The Rise of the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire
The Holy Roman Emperor, officially the Emperor of the Romans and also the German-Roman Emperor (German: Römisch-deutscher Kaiser, lit. 'Roman-German emperor'), was the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. Voltaire remarked that “The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman, nor an Empire.” The Empire was considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be the only legal successor of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. For centuries the domain religion of the Western Europe was Roman Catholicism until the 11th century when the west and east of Europe separated to form separate theology, Orthodox (following correct beliefs) and catholic (universal). Later the addition of Lutherans and Calvinism was added to the Western Europe’s Roman Catholicism. These differences enhanced the cultural and religious distinctiveness between Eastern and Western Europe. This division dominated Europe for centuries and continues until today, although recently there has been signs of unity.
Ottoman Empire
The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror. With Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean Basin, the Ottoman Empire was at the centre of interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds for six centuries. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, was last seen casting off his imperial regalia and throwing himself into hand-to-hand combat after the walls of the city were taken. Moreover, the possession of Constantinople stimulated in Mehmed a desire to place under his dominion not merely the Islamic and Turkic worlds but also a re-created Byzantine Empire and, perhaps, the entire world of Christendom. By 1517, Bayezid’s son, Selim I, brought Syria, Arabia, Palestine (Israel), and Egypt under Ottoman control. The Ottoman Empire reached its peak between 1520 and 1566, during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. This period was marked by great power, stability and wealth.
In the 17th century, the Muslim Ottomans ruled vast swathes of eastern Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East. Ottoman power extended from the Persian Gulf to central Europe. The Ottomans ruled almost the entire north coast of Africa and west to Egypt and the Holy Lands (modern-day Israel). Just before the end of World War I, Sultan Mehmet V died and Mehmed VI became the new Sultan.
The Ottoman Empire had an unstable relation with Russia and with the Allied Powers. They entered the war by carrying out a surprise attack on Russia's Black Sea coast on 29 October 1914. The Ottomans thought that German victories early in the war meant that Germany would win. They fought the Allied Powers, which were composed of France, Russia, Great Britain, and eventually the United States. The Occupation of Constantinople took place in accordance with the Armistice of Mudros, ending the Ottoman participation in World War I.
Islam was the official religion of the Ottoman Empire. The highest position in Islam, caliphate (supreme religious and political leader of all Muslims across the world), was claimed by the sultan, after the defeat of the Mamluks which was established as Ottoman Caliphate. The Ottoman Caliphate, under the Ottoman dynasty of the Ottoman Empire, was the last Sunni Islamic caliphate of the late medieval and the early modern era (c. 1500 to around c. 1800 (most often 1815).
Mehmet VI (14 January 1861 – 16 May 1926), was the 36th and last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigning from July 4, 1918 until November 1, 1922 when the Ottoman Empire dissolved after World War I and was replaced by the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. The Ottoman Caliphate, the world's last widely recognized caliphate, was abolished on 3 March 1924.
Post-World War I: Allied Powers - the Victors
On November 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour wrote a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild. There are many conflicting reasons as to why the British issued a declaration. The contents of this letter became known as the Balfour Declaration:
“His Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country”.
World War I or the Great War” ended With the Treaty of Versailles (city in France) on June 28, 1919. The war that started in 1914 finally ended in World War I in 1918. This first global conflict had claimed from 9 million to 13 million lives and caused unprecedented damage. Germany had formally surrendered on November 11, 1918, and all nations had agreed to stop fighting while the terms of peace were negotiated. On June 28, 1919, Germany and the Allied Nations (including Britain, France, Italy and Russia) signed the Treaty of Versailles, formally ending the war.
The San Remo Conference was an international meeting of the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council as an outgrowth of the Paris Peace Conference, held at Villa Devachan in Sanremo, Italy, from 19 to 26 April 1920. It involved the allocation of Class "A" League of Nations mandates for administration of the former Ottoman-ruled lands of the Middle East by the victorious powers. This agreement between post-World War I allied powers, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan with the United States as a neutral observer, was adopted on April 25, 1920. During the San Remo Conference, Prime Minister David Lloyd George (Britain), was charged with establishing a "national home for the Jewish people" in Israel or “Palestine”. In 1921, Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill severed nearly four-fifths of Palestine (Jewish land), some 35,000 square miles to create a brand-new Arab entity, Transjordan, this was accomplished by the creation of the Emirate of Trans-Jordan in 1946 (now Jordan).
The Great War, World War 1, ended with the defeat of the Central Powers and their military collapse went hand-in-hand with the disappearance from the map of three vast and centuries-old land empires: the Ottoman, Habsburg and Romanov empires (Russia).
Holy Roman Emperors
The Franks were members of a Germanic-speaking people who invaded the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Dominating present-day northern France, Belgium, and western Germany, the Franks established the most powerful Christian kingdom of early medieval western Europe. Though the term “Holy Roman Empire” was not used until much later, the empire traces its beginnings to Charlemagne, who took control of the Frankish dominion in 768. The papacy’s close ties to the Franks and its growing estrangement from the Eastern Roman Empire led to Pope Leo III’s crowning the Frankish king Charlemagne (Charles I), the founder of the Holy Roman empire, reviving the title in Western Europe, more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
On 25 December 800, Charlemagne was crowned as the "Emperor of the Romans". These Emperors were frequently controlled by family dynasties and although essentially independent of each other, these entities all pledged common allegiance to a monarch elected by the most senior of his peers and formally anointed Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope. The title continued in the Carolingian family until 888 and from 896 to 899, after which it was contested by the rulers of Italy in a series of civil wars until the death of the last Italian claimant, Berengar I, in 924. The title was revived again in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor, fashioning himself as the successor of Charlemagne and beginning a continuous existence of the empire for over eight centuries. For a complete list of the Holy Roman Emperors and how the empire evolved, can be found here
The formation of the Habsburg dynasty began with the election of Rudolf I as King of Germany in 1273 and his acquisition of the Duchy of Austria for his house in 1282. The House of Habsburgs or the House of Austria, a royal German family, one of the principal sovereign dynasties of Europe from the 15th to the 20th century. The throne of the Holy Roman Empire was continuously occupied by the Habsburgs until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. The final emperors were from the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, from 1765–1806. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (1792-1806) after a devastating defeat to Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz.
The Congress of Vienna
After the abdication of Napoleon following the War of the Sixth Coalition, Austria participated as a leading member of the Holy Alliance at the Congress of Vienna. The Congress of Vienna) of 1814–1815 was one of the most important international conferences in European history. It remade Europe after the downfall of French Emperor Napoleon I, culminating in a new European map and the restoration of Francis' ancient dominions (except the Holy Roman Empire which was dissolved). Due to the establishment of the Concert of Europe, which largely resisted popular nationalist and liberal tendencies, Francis became viewed as a reactionary later in his reign.
Idea of a United Europe
The idea of the “EU project” is not a recent phenomenon. Indeed, as far back as in the autumn of 1814 the heads of the five reigning dynasties and representatives from 216 noble families began gathering in Vienna which included the four powers, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain, that were chiefly instrumental in the overthrow of Napoleon. The Congress was led by Prince von Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein (5 May 1773 – 11 June 1859). Metternich was a German noble, diplomat and statesman, serving as the Austrian Empire's Foreign Minister from 1809 and Chancellor from 1821. The Congress was held for nine months from September 1814 to June 1815, and these men redraw the boundaries or borders of Europe, they scorned the theories of democratic government, and they opposed the doctrines of national self-determination. Sound familiar?
The spirit of European unity was again revised by Richard Graf Coudenhove Kalergi (16 November 1894 – 27 July 1972). Coudenhove was the founder of International Paneuropean Union. Coudenhove published an article "Pan-Europa - a proposal" on 15 November 1922 in the "Vossische Zeitung, Berlin addressing the ideas for a politically, economically and militarily United Europe.
His successor was Dr. Otto von Habsburg, (20 November 1912 – 4 July 2011), also known by his Imperial and Royal name as Crown Prince Otto of Austria, was the last Crown Prince of Austria. He was the Head of the House of Habsburg between 1922 and 2007 and at the same time, the Habsburg pretender to the former thrones. In 1988 at the European Parliament, whilst Pope John II was giving a speech, Iain Paisley help up a poster reading "Pope John Paul II Antichrist", Otto, along with other MEPs ejected him from the building. Otto was Roman Catholic.
Europe and Charlemagne
Charlemagne is celebrated by the Europe as the “father of Europe” even the Economist has a column on European politics named after Charlemagne and an associated blog 'Charlemagne's notebook'. The legacy of Charlemagne continues to cast a shadow over Europe, “Napoleon had himself painted with Charlemagne’s name on a rock beneath him; and he declared “I am Charlemagne” to papal envoys” and he was celebrated by the Nazis as the founder of the First Reich. For bible prophecy students, Europe will be a major player in end time events.
The Jews continued to be scattered all over the Roman Empire, finally ending up in Europe and endued persecution and genocide at the hands of the European countries often encouraged or aided by the Catholic Church for example Pope Pius XII, even if many try to rewrite history. Though the Jews were exiled twice by the Assyrians and Babylonians, it was the Rome empire that took control of them in their own land, caused destruction and renamed their land. Since the Romans, and early European history, Jews were persecuted and dispersed about the nations. Anti-Semitism is now rising again in Europe, especially in France and German, UK, and the least country you will expect, which is America. This will increase and will only end when Jesus Christ the Messiah returns, fulfilling the role of Israel’s Deliverer and King in His second coming (Zechariah 12:10 and Revelation 1:7).
The European Union is rapidly fulfilling prophecy in becoming the prophesied revived Roman Empire, the final worldly kingdom of human history. According to prophecy, this kingdom will give rise to an ecumenical and apostate religion, a global government, and a global economy. Out of this kingdom will arise the most evil dictator ever known to man – the Antichrist.
“And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.” Revelation 17:12-13