That interposition is referred to in these words (Rev 12:16): "The earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood, which the dragon cast out of his mouth." What means the symbol of the "earth's opening its mouth"? In the natural world, when the earth opens its mouth, there is an earthquake; and an "earthquake," according to the figurative language of the Apocalypse, as all admit, just means a great political convulsion. Now, when we examine the history of the period in question, we find that the fact exactly agrees with the prefiguration; that soon after the Bishop of Rome because Pontiff, and, as Pontiff, set himself so zealously to bring in Paganism into the Church, those political convulsions began in the civil empire of Rome, which never ceased till the framework of that empire was broken up, and it was shattered to pieces. But for this the spiritual power of the Papacy might have been firmly established over all the nations of the West, long before the time it actually was so. It is clear, that immediately after Damasus, the Roman bishop, received his pontifical power, the predicted "apostacy" (1 Tim 4:3), so far as Rome was concerned, was broadly developed. Then were men "forbidden to marry," * and "commanded to abstain from meats."
* The celibacy of the clergy was enacted by Syricius, Bishop of Rome, AD 385. (GIESELER)
Then, with a factitious doctrine of sin, a factitious holiness also was inculcated, and people were led to believe that all baptised persons were necessarily regenerated. Had the Roman Empire of the West remained under one civil head, backed by that civil head, the Bishop of Rome might very soon have infected all parts of that empire with the Pagan corruption he had evidently given himself up to propagate. Considering the cruelty with which Jovinian, and all who opposed the Pagan doctrines in regard to marriage and abstinence, were treated by the Pontifex of Rome, under favour of the imperial power, it may easily be seen how serious would have been the consequences to the cause of truth in the Western Empire had this state of matters been allowed to pursue its natural course. But now the great Lord of the Church interfered. The "revolt of the Goths," and the sack of Rome by Alaric the Goth in 410, gave that shock to the Roman Empire which issued, by 476, in its complete upbreaking and the extinction of the imperial power. Although, therefore, in pursuance of the policy previously inaugurated, the Bishop of Rome was formally recognised, by an imperial edict in 445, as "Head of all the Churches of the West," all bishops being commanded "to hold and observe as a law whatever it should please the Bishop of Rome to ordain or decree"; the convulsions of the empire, and the extinction, soon thereafter, of the imperial power itself, to a large extent nullified the disastrous effects of this edict.