Four Kingdoms of Daniel - Traditional Views

Traditional Views

The traditional interpretation of the four kingdoms, shared among Jewish and Christian expositors, for over two millennia, is that of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. This view conforms to the text of Daniel, which considers the Medo-Persian Empire as one, as with the “law of the Medes and Persians”(6:8, 12, 15) These views have been supported by the Jewish Talmud, medieval Jewish commentators, Christian Church Fathers, Jerome, and Calvin.

Jerome specifically identified the four kingdoms of Daniel 2 in this way. The 'four monarchies' theory existed alongside the Six Ages and the Three Eras, as general historical structures, in the work of Augustine of Hippo, a contemporary of Jerome.

During the Medieval ages, the orthodox Christian interpretation followed the commentary by Jerome on the Book of Daniel. It tied the fourth monarchy and its end to the end of the Roman Empire; which was considered not to have yet come to pass. This is the case for example in the tenth-century writer Adso, whose Libellus de Antichristo incorporated the characteristic medieval myth of the Last World Emperor. The principle of translatio imperii was used by Otto of Freising, who took the Holy Roman Empire to be the continuation of the Roman Empire (as fourth monarchy).