See on v. 25.

Generally taken to be a symbol of intelligence. In contrast with the barbarians, who were largely illiterate, the power represented by the “little horn” was noted for its intelligence, its insight, and its foresight.

 With the ten horns representing the divided state of the Roman Empire after its fall (see on v. 7), the little horn must represent some power that would come into being among them and take the place of some of these kingdoms (see quotation in comments on ch. 8:23).

The “little horn” is a symbol of papal Rome. Hence the plucking up of three horns symbolizes the overthrow of three of the barbarian nations. Among the principal obstructions to the rise of papal Rome to political power were the Heruli, the Vandals, and the Ostrogoths. All three were supporters of Arianism, which was the most formidable rival of Catholicism.

The Heruli were the first of the barbarian tribes to rule over Rome. They were German auxiliary troops in Rome who mutinied, and in 476 deposed the boy Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the West. At the head of the Heruli and the other mercenary troops was Odovacar (Odoacer), who made himself king in Rome. Odovacar, an Arian, though tolerant toward the Catholics, was hated by the Italians. At the suggestion of the Emperor Zeno of the Eastern Empire, Theodoric, leader of the Ostrogoths, next invaded Italy. He arrived there in 489, and in 493 secured Odovacar’s surrender and soon afterward killed him (see Thomas Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, vol. 3, pp. 180-213).

So far as the position of the Roman Church was concerned the arrival of Theodoric marked no change for the better, but merely a change of leaders. Theodoric was as strong an Arian as his predecessor on the throne of Italy. Although he granted toleration to the various religions in his kingdom, the lofty ambitions of the Roman pontiff could not succeed under a system that granted only toleration.

In the meantime the Vandals, led by Gaiseric (Genseric), had settled in North Africa, having taken Carthage in 439. Being fanatically Arian and warlike, they posed a threat to the supremacy of the Catholic Church in the West. They were particularly intolerant toward the Catholics, whom they termed heretics. To help the cause of the Catholics in the West the Emperor Justinian, who ruled the Eastern half of the Roman Empire in Constantinople, dispatched Belisarius, the ablest of his generals. Belisarius completely vanquished the Vandals in 534.

 This victory left the Ostrogoths in Italy as the sole surviving Arian power of significance to hinder the hegemony of the papacy in the West (see Hodgkin, op. cit., vol. 3, ch. 15). Having wiped out the Vandals, Belisarius in 534 began his campaign against the Ostrogoths in Italy. Though this campaign lasted for twenty years before the imperial armies emerged completely victorious (see Hodgkin, op. cit., vol. 5, pp. 3-66), the decisive action occurred early in the campaign. The Ostrogoths, who had been driven from Rome, returned and laid siege to it in 537. The siege lasted for a full year, but in 538 Justinian landed another army in Italy, and in March the Ostrogoths abandoned the siege (see Hodgkin, op. cit., vol. 4, pp. 73-113, 210-252; Charles Diehl, “Justinian,” in Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 2, p. 15). It is true that they re-entered the city for a very brief time in 540, but their stand was short-lived. Their withdrawal from Rome in 538 marked the real end of Ostrogothic power, though not of the Ostrogothic nation.

Thus was “plucked up” the third of the three horns that stood in the way of the little horn.

Justinian is noted not only for his success in temporarily reuniting Italy and parts of the West with the Eastern half of what had been the Roman Empire, but also for the gathering and organizing of the then-existing laws of the empire, including new edicts of Justinian himself, into a unified code. Incorporated into this imperial code were two official letters of Justinian, which had all the force of royal edicts, in which he legally confirmed the bishop of Rome as the “head of all the holy churches” and “head of all the holy priests of God” (Code of Justinian, book 1, title 1). In the later epistle he also commends the pope’s activities as corrector of heretics.

Although this legal recognition of the pope’s ecclesiastical supremacy was dated in 533, it is obvious that the imperial edict could not become effective for the pope so long as the Arian Ostrogothic kingdom was in control of Rome and the greater part of Italy. Not until the rule of the Goths was broken could the papacy be free to develop fully its power. In 538, for the first time since the end of the Western imperial line, the city of Rome was freed from the domination of an Arian kingdom. In that year the Ostrogothic kingdom received its deathblow (although the Ostrogoths survived some years longer as a people). That is why 538 is a more significant date than 533.

To summarize:

 (1) The pope had already been recognized generally (though by no means universally) as supreme bishop in the churches of the West, and had exercised considerable political influence, from time to time, under the patronage of the Western emperors.

 (2) In 533 Justinian recognized the pope’s ecclesiastical supremacy as “head of all the holy churches” in both East and West, and this legal recognition was incorporated into the imperial code of laws (534).

 (3) In 538 the papacy was effectively freed from the domination of the Arian kingdoms that followed the Western emperors in the control of Rome and Italy.

From then on the papacy was in a position to increase its ecclesiastical power. The other kingdoms became Catholic, one by one, and since the distant Eastern emperors did not retain control of Italy, in the turbulent developments that followed, the pope emerged often as the leading figure in the West. The papacy acquired territorial rule and eventually it reached its peak in political as well as religious dominance in Europe (see Additional Note at the end of this chapter). Though this dominance came much later, the turning point can be found in the time of Justinian.

Some find it significant that Vigilius, the pope who held office in 538, had, the year before, replaced a pope who had been under Gothic influence. The new pope owed his office to the Empress Theodora, and was regarded by Justinian as the means of uniting all the churches, East and West, under his own imperial dominance. It has been pointed out that, beginning with Vigilius, the popes were more and more men of the state as well as of the church, and often became rulers of the state (Charles Bemont and G. Monod, Medieval Europe, p. 121).

Aramaic qodam, a word occurring frequently in Daniel, meaning either “before in point of time,” or “in the presence of.” The phrase “before whom” may be interpreted as meaning “to make way for him.”

Better, “another horn, a little one.” Though small at the beginning, this little horn is described later as “more stout than his fellows,” literally, “greater than its companions.” It will be seen that this was the continuation of the Roman power in the Roman Church.

 “Out of the ruins of political Rome, arose the great moral Empire in the ‘giant form’ of the Roman Church” (A. C. Flick, The Rise of the Medieval Church [1900], p. 150). See further on vs. 24, 25. “Under the Roman Empire the popes had no temporal powers. But when the Roman Empire had disintegrated and its place had been taken by a number of rude, barbarous kingdoms, the Roman Catholic church not only became independent of the states in religious affairs but dominated secular affairs as well. At times, under such rulers as Charlemagne (768-814), Otto the Great (936-73), and Henry III (1039-56), the civil power controlled the church to some extent; but in general, under the weak political system of feudalism, the well-organized, unified, and centralized church, with the pope at its head, was not only independent in ecclesiastical affairs but also controlled civil affairs” (Carl Conrad Eckhardt, The Papacy and World-Affairs [1937], p. 1).