Someday I will write more generally about the 1919 Bible Conference, but for now, I want to discuss one of the unsettled issues that was discussed there, namely the identity of the “daily” in the eighth chapter of Daniel. A few days ago, a friend asked me for my opinion on the “daily” and I realized I had not studied it closely and did not really have one.
In Daniel 8, we find this passage:
“9 And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.
10 And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.
11 Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of the sanctuary was cast down.
12 And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practiced, and prospered.
The word “sacrifice” in verse 11 and 12 of the 1611 (KJV) version is not in the original Hebrew, but was supplied by the translators. Hence, it is not necessarily clear from the text that the term “daily” refers to the daily sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem. This uncertainty has given rise to much controversy within Adventism.
Scriptural and Historical Context
The context is the succession of the powers of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome so often discussed in Daniel’s prophecy:
5 “As I was thinking about this, suddenly a goat with a prominent horn between its eyes came from the west, crossing the whole earth without touching the ground. 6 It came toward the two-horned ram I had seen standing beside the canal and charged at it in great rage. 7 I saw it attack the ram furiously, striking the ram and shattering its two horns. The ram was powerless to stand against it; the goat knocked it to the ground and trampled on it, and none could rescue the ram from its power. 8 The goat became very great, but at the height of its power the large horn was broken off, and in its place four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven.” Dan. 8:5-8 NIV
The “goat” is Greece; “the prominent horn” is Alexander the Great, who conquered much of the then known world. “Crossing the whole earth without touching the ground” describes the speed with which Alexander moved and conquered. He came to power in 336 BC, upon the assassination of his father, Phillip of Macedon; he was only 20 years of age. Within a few years, Alexander had taken all of Greece, modern Turkey (Asia Minor), and the Levant, including Egypt.
The ram with two horns is the Medo-Persian Empire, which Alexander swiftly and utterly destroyed, defeating the larger army of Persian emperor Darius III at the battle of Gaugamela, in 331 BC; Alexander had mopped up the remnants of the Persian empire by 330 BC. He then drove across what is now Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and into northern India before retreating to Babylon. There, in 323 BC, Alexander died at the young age of 32, apparently of disease aggravated by alcoholism. His untimely death is what Daniel 8:8 refers to in saying “at the height of its power, the large horn was broken off.”
“In its place four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven.” The four “horns” that took Alexander’s place, were Alexander’s four lieutenants: Cassander, Ptolemy, Lysimachus and Seleucus. Cassander got Greece and Macedonia, Ptolemy took Egypt, eastern North Africa, and a part of southern Asia Minor called Silicia, and Lysimachus inherited southeastern Europe (Thrace) and western and northern Asia Minor. By far the biggest land area, from central Asia Minor to the Indus River in Pakistan, went to Seleucus. (See map)
Who is the “little horn” or “another horn”?
That brings us to the beginning of the passage in question:
“The goat became very great, but at the height of its power the large horn was broken off, and in its place four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven. And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.” Daniel 8:8-9.
Spoiler alert: Adventists have always agreed that this new horn or “little horn” is Rome. But how are we to interpret Daniel 8:9, which seems to state that the new “horn” or kingdom grew out of one of the four Hellenistic kingdoms, when Rome did not?
Some Adventists have taken the view that the “them” in the phrase, “Out of one of them . . .” refers to “the four winds of heaven.” The antecedent of “them” is unclear, they argue, and since Rome grew up on the Italian peninsula, and was never within the kingdom of any of Alexander’s four successors (see the map), “out of one of them” must simply mean out of one of the directions of the four winds of heaven. This is the position, for example, that Norman McNulty takes in his book “Daniel” (p. 120-121).
At the 1919 Bible Conference, H.C. Lacey argued that because Rome conquered Macedonia, which was Alexander’s homeland, and had been within Cassander’s territory, Rome came out of Cassander’s “horn” or kingdom. (There was a series of wars between Rome and Macedonia in the 2nd Century before Christ, including two battles of Pydna. After winning the first battle of Pydna in 168 BC, Rome divided Macedonia up into four vassal states, but after one of these rebelled and had to be defeated at the second battle of Pydna, in 148 BC, Rome simply made Macedonia a Roman province.)
“Ethnically and racially the Roman power didn’t emerge from the Greek,” said Lacey, “but when Rome conquered Macedon at the battle of Pydna, it stepped on the stage and began its career of universal supremacy. . . . it rose to prominence and dominance after it conquered Macedon, and so came out of it.”
Uriah Smith held a similar position, writing:
“The little horn comes forth from one of the horns of the goat. How, it may be asked, can this be true of Rome? . . . Earthly governments are not introduced into prophecy till they become in some way connected with the people of God. Rome became connected with the Jews, the people of God at that time, by the famous Jewish League of 161 BC. (1 Maccabees 8; Josephus’ Antiquities, book 12, chap. 10, sec. 6; Prideaux, Vol. II, p. 166.) But seven years before this, in 168 BC, Rome had conquered Macedonia, and made that country a part of its empire. Rome is therefore introduced into prophecy just as, from the conquered Macedonian horn of the goat, it is going forth to new conquests in other directions. It therefore appeared to the prophet . . . as coming forth from one of the horns of the goat.”
Wherever one comes out on the explanation of that particular issue—whether Rome comes from one of the four winds or from Cassander’s former kingdom of Macedonia—it is clear that the new horn, the horn that starts out “little,” is Rome. We know this both from the geography and from the structure of the Book of Daniel.
Daniel 8:9 tells us that this other horn, which is a new “horn” or kingdom, “started small but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the beautiful land.” We are still discussing the era before Christ when, as Smith notes above, God’s people were the Jews, so these azimuths or compass directions refer to the land of literal Israel. This new power started small but grew to the southeast, toward Israel. What power would need to conquer in a southeasterly direction to get to Israel? Rome. If you start in Israel, reverse the direction, and go in a northwesterly direction, where might you end up? Rome.
Perhaps the most persuasive proof that the “little horn’ is Rome is the structure of the book of Daniel, in which four great world empires—Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome—always succeed one another in the same historical order (Daniel 7:17). In Daniel 2, Babylon is the head of gold (Dan. 2:37-38), Medo Persia is the chest and arms of silver, Greece is the belly and thighs of bronze, and Rome is the legs of iron. In Daniel 7, Babylon is the winged lion, Medo-Persia is the bear raised on one side with four ribs in its mouth, Greece is the leopard with four wings like a bird, and four heads, and Rome is the terrifying, immensely powerful beast with large iron teeth and ten horns. In Daniel 8, the ram with two horns is Medo-Persia (Dan. 8:3-4; 20) and the goat with the prominent horn is Greece (Dan. 8:5-8; 21-22). Given this consistent pattern, what power ought we to be looking for after Greece, when we get to Daniel 8:9? Rome, of course.
The power arising in Daniel 8:9 is Rome; to use a Latin phrase, there can be no bona fide argument to the contrary.
Pagan or Papal Rome?
But Rome had both a pagan period and a much longer papal period. To which is the prophecy of Daniel 8:9-12 referring? Perhaps to both, but primarily to the pagan phase. Because of the vivid picture of the birth of the papacy in Daniel 7:8, in which a “little horn” uproots three of the ten barbarian tribes that succeeded pagan Rome (the Ostrogoths, Heruli, and Vandals), we Adventists have come to think of the “little horn” as exclusively the papacy, or Rome in its papal phase.
But that is obviously not true here. Consider this passage from Uriah Smith:
“The little horn waxed great toward the south. This was true of Rome. Egypt was made a province of the Roman empire in 30 BC, and continued such for some centuries. The little horn waxed great toward the east. This also was true of Rome. Rome conquered Syria in 65 BC and made it a province. The little horn waxed great toward the pleasant land. So did Rome. Judea is called the pleasant land in many scriptures. The Romans made it a province of their empire in 63 BC, and eventually destroyed the city and the temple, and scattered the Jews over the face of the whole earth.” Daniel and the Revelation, pp. 133-34
What “little horn” is Smith referring to? Obviously pagan Rome. It was pagan Rome that conquered Syria, Egypt, and Judea, not the Papacy. Arguably, these three eastern provinces of the Roman Empire were never within the papacy, having been ruled by pagan Rome, then populated by various (Christologically) non-Catholic Christians, and finally having been conquered by Islam early in the 8th Century. So the Rome that conquered to the east and the south can have been pagan Rome only, not papal Rome.
What About Antiochus IV Epiphanes?
The most popular view among non-Adventists is that the new horn or little horn was Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who persecuted the Jews, sacrificing swine in the temple at Jerusalem. But Antiochus does not fit the prophetic description.
First, Antiochus was a monarch in the Seleucid line, the 8th king in that direct lineage; hence, he was simply one of the four “horns” that succeeded Alexander, not a new horn, or “another horn.”
Second, Judea was a borderland between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, and was controlled by each at different times. (The Seleucids and Ptolemies were the kings of the north and south, respectively, in Daniel 11:5-13.) When Antiochus came to power in 175 BC, Jerusalem was already controlled by the Seleucids, so Antiochus did not need to “grow” in any direction to rule Jerusalem. But even had that not been the case, Antiochus’ route to conquer Jerusalem and Judea would have been directly south, not south and east (see map). Antiochus was not coming from the scripturally specified direction.
Third, Scripture says that this little horn “waxed exceeding great,” but Antiochus was neither very great, nor did he get greater. His father having lost an important battle with Rome, Antiochus was a tributary to Rome (the power that truly was “waxing exceeding great” at this time) and was obliged to abandon a successful campaign against the Ptolemies in Egypt because Rome did not want him ruling there.
Fourth, Scripture says that this little horn “magnified himself even to the Prince of the Hosts,” the Prince of Hosts being a clear reference to Christ, but Antiochus died over 160 years before Christ was born. He never did anything vis-a-vis Christ.
Clearly, the “little horn” is not referring to Antiochus IV Epiphanes.