Horae Apocalypticae - The Hour, and Day, and Month and Year

The Hour, and Day, and Month and Year

After the fall of Constantinople, it was no surprise the western church failed to repent. Revelation 9:20 prophesied as much. Edward Elliott pointed to the marked contrast between material progress and spiritual stagnation at the time. On the civic side, there was

• the growth of free towns and communes
• the increased importance of trade and self-importance of the mercantile classes
• the growth of learning across Europe from Oxford to Prague
• the popular enthusiasm for printing and vernacular literature.

But, on the spiritual side, there was

• superstition and repackaged heathenism which reached full decadence with the introduction of the rosary in 1460
• worship directed towards "the spirits of dead men deified", particularly Canterbury which was dedicated to Beckett, not God
• bloodthirsty vindictiveness from the Inquisition amid the persecution of Waldenses, Taborites and others
• the abject failure of all attempts at internal reform such as the mendicant friars and the Council of Constance (1414)

Reverend Elliott devoted nearly forty pages to a detailed description of the scene at the papal election (10 March 1512) of Leo X, drawing out how he felt it was a perfectly inverted parody of the vision of the mighty angel at Revelation 10: 1-4 and thus confirmed the papacy in the role of antichrist and usurper of Christ's prerogative and glory. The appearance of the angel in the prophecies caused Edward Elliott to part company with his great forerunner in interpretation, Joseph Mede. For Mede, the angel's little book was a "new and distinct prophecy" concerning the fate of the church, whereas the sealed book that the Lamb had opened had dealt only with the fate of the Empire. But Reverend Elliott did not see it this way. For him, the mighty angel (who was none other than Christ himself) heralded the Reformation. The Reformation could only have been by "direct intervention of Divine providence" because nothing could have been less likely to succeed by human agency alone given all the failed precedents. The Reformation was, effectively, "the republication of the gospel" and the tenth of the city to be destroyed was a quit-rent taken to show God owned all.