Byzantine prophecies on the Last Emperor and Era of Peace

Many of the posters on this forum will be familiar with the medieval, Latin-rite Catholic prophecies of a Great Monarch.

This figure - and the renewed Holy Roman imperium he is prophesised to establish - will fulfil the Pauline function of katechon (from Greek: τὸ κατέχον, "that which withholds", or ὁ κατέχων, "the one who withholds", the eschatological restrainer of the 'lawless one' or Son of Perdition and thus of the eschaton, as described by St. Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:6–7), exercised by the original Roman Empire according to Church Fathers ranging from St. John Chrysostom and Tertullian to St. Ephrem: which endured for well over a thousand years, from the beginning of the reign of Augustus in 27 BC till the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 and by the successor Holy Roman Empire in the West from the start of the reign of Charlemagne in 800 A.D. until its dissolution by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806.

Beginning with St. Irenaeus of Lyons in the second century A.D., almost all the Church Fathers see in the Roman Empire the power "restraining" the Antichrist and the end, according to 2 Thessalonians 2:7. From this even Tertullian, in the third century, normally hostile to Rome, nonetheless draws the conclusion that Christians should pray for the Roman "emperors, for the entire order of the empire, and for Roman institutions." A century later Lactantius expressed himself in similar terms, as had Origen before him.

The Great Monarch, in turn and in cooperation with another eschatological actor known as the Angelic Shepherd or Holy Pontiff, is expected to inaugurate a temporary triumph of the Church Militant on earth over her enemies (the so-called 'Second Pentecost') and his reign coincides with an unparalleled period of peace for the human race more generally (predicted by St. Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:3 ("when they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman") and Jesus himself in Matthew 24:37-39, as being a redux of the antediluvian peace and abundance prior to Noah's flood ("for as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man").

This period of peace will, apparently, see the rebirth as well as the rapid and universal expansion of the frontiers of Christendom to complete the full ingathering of the Gentiles (prophesised by Jesus himself in Matthew 24:14 ("And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations") and by St. Paul in Romans 11:25 ("a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in"). The Monarch or a later successor in his lineage at the end of the period of peace, then fulfils the Pauline prophecy in 1 Corinthians 15:24 ("Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he mut reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet") by abdicating and surrendering his crown to the Cross of Jesus, thus ending all earthly rule by mankind by giving it up to Jesus who will 'destroy every authority' at his Second Coming.

All of this follows in the wake of some future global 'chastisement' but precedes the final persecution of Antichrist and the Second Coming.

I expect, however, that the longstanding Byzantine eschatological tradition, which also prophesises the advent of a figure Eastern Orthodox saints refer to as the 'Last World Emperor' as the restorer of human prosperity as it was at the time of Noah and prior to the Flood (that, according to the scriptural exegesis found in many of these medieval Greek, Slavonic and Syriac texts), is bound to be much less widely known and discussed.

Basically, I hope to redress that 'lacuna' in this thread, where I will present the translated texts from academic sources in a representative sample of these Eastern Orthodox prophecies of the Middle Ages, with some attendant commentary later on from myself demonstrating their fundamental agreement, in important respects, with the Roman Catholic material we're already familiar with (from the likes of St. Bonaventure, St. Hildegard of Bingen, Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser, St. John Bosco and so on etc.) and other speculations of my own as to what the combined witness of the Catholic-Orthodox prophetic tradition might portend for our future.

At the outset, the first text for our consideration is one that should be more well-known, mainly because it is the 'ur-text' or original source, alongside the fourth century A.D. Latin Tiburtine Sibyl prophecy, of the entire Last Emperor/Great Monarch prophetic narrative. Pseudo-Methodius refers to the Last Roman Emperor throughout as 'King of the Greeks'. Here are some crucial excerpts:

 

The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius (circa. 690 A.D. ) [Vatican manuscript, Codex Syriacus 58]

“By the help of God the Lord of the Universe, wc wrote the discourse composed by my blessed Lord Methodius, bishop [in margin: bishop of Olympus] and martyr, concerning the succession of kings and the end of times...

(…) Thus also in the time of the punishment of these tyrants, few from many will be left over who are Christians, as Our Savior showed us in the Holy Gospel and said: When the Son of Man cometh, will he find faith on earth? [Luke 18:8]. Behold also, the spirit of those perfected in portents will grieve in those days of punishment and the multitude of the clergy will deny the true faith of the Christians and the Holy Cross and the mysteries of power. (…) In the last times men will abandon the faith and will go after unclean spirits and after the teachings of demons [I Tim. 4:1] and will be tyrants and slanderers and boastful and haters of virtue and traitors and wild. And all those who are false and weak in the faith will be tried and known in that punishment. They will separate themselves from the congregations of the Christians of their own accord, because that time challenges them to go after its uncleanness. (…)

And true men and clerics and wise men and good men will be held in contempt in their eyes and they will be like dung, for they will be to the punishment of the Ismaelites. And they will be distressed until they abandon hope for their lives. And honor will be lifted from the priests, and the divine liturgy and living sacrifice will cease from the Church. And at that time priests will be like the people, and their corpses will be thrown like mud upon the roads without burial...

For what reason does God avert his countenance from the aid of the faithful who will endure this distress? So that they be tried and the believers be separated from the unbelievers and the tares and those rejected from the select grains of wheat, because that time is indeed a testing furnace. For God will be patient [grant a respite] when the worshippers are persecuted who by the punishment will be known as sons, as the apostle proclaimed to us before: Yea, we are without punishment, we are strangers and not sons [Hebr. 12:7]. Also Our Savior ordered and said to us: Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and say about you every wicked word because of me lyingly. Thereupon rejoice and jubilate that your reward is great in heaven, for thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you [Matt. 5:12] and: He who hopes until the end will rest [Matt. 10:22]...

Then suddenly there will be awakened perdition and calamity as those of a woman in travail, and a king of the Greeks will go forth against them in great wrath, and he will be aroused against them like a man who shakes off his wine, and who plots against them as if they were dead men. He will go forth against them from the sea of the Cushites and will lay desolation and ruin in the desert of Jethrib and in the habitation of their fathers.

And the sons of the king of Greece will seize the places of the desert and will destroy with the sword the remnant that is left of them in the land of promise. And fear of all those around them will fall upon them. They and their wives and their sons and their leaders and all their camps and the entire land of the desert of their fathers will be given into the hands of the kings of the Greeks...

And the earth will be at peace, which was desolated of its inhabitants, and the remnant that is left will return, everyone to his land and to the inheritance of his fathers, Cappadocians and Armenians and Cilicians and Isaurians and Africans and Hellenes and Seleucians. And the entire remnant of the captives that remained and which was in servitude because of the captivity will return, every man to his country and to the house of his father. And men will multiply like locusts on the earth which has been devastated. And Egypt will be laid waste and Arabia will be burned and the land of Hebron will be laid waste and the tongue of the sea will be at peace. And all the wrath of the ire of the king of the Greeks will be completed upon those who denied.

And there will be peace on earth the like of which had never existed, because it is the last peace of the perfection of the world. And there will be joy upon the entire earth, and men will sit down in great peace and the churches will arise nearby, and cities will be built and priests will be freed from the tax, and priests and men will rest at that time from labor and tiredness and torture, because that is the peace of which He said in His gospel: There will be great peace the like of which never existed, and men will sit down in repose and will eat and drink and rejoice in the joy of their heart, and men will take wives and wives will be given to men [Matt. 24:38]. And they will build edifices and will plant vineyards. And when they eat and drink and rejoice and are merry, there is no wickedness and no thought of wickedness and no fear and trembling in their hearts. During that peace the Gates of the North will be opened and those hosts of nations will come forth who were imprisoned there, and the earth will shake before them...

And then the king of the Greeks descends and settles in Jerusalem for one week and a half week, in numbers ten years and a half. And then the Son of Perdition will be revealed, the false Christ...And immediately when the Son of Perdition is revealed, then the king of the Greeks will go up and will stand on Golgotha and the Holy Cross will be set [laid] in that place in which it [the Cross] was set up when it carried the Christ. And the king of the Greeks will place his diadem on top of the Holy Cross, and will stretch out his two hands to heaven and will hand over the kingship to God the Father. And the Holy Cross on which Christ was crucified will be raised to heaven and the crown of kingship with it...And immediately the Holy Cross will be raised to heaven, and the king of the Greeks will give up his soul to his creator. (…)"

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(continued...)

 

Our second prophecy is known as the Slavonic Visions of Daniel and it dates from about a century after Pseudo-Methodius. It is pseudonymously attributed to the biblical pre-exilic prophet Daniel but is, of course, the work of an anonymous Sicilian Christian prophet:


Vision of the Prophet Daniel on the Emperors and the Last Days and 0n the End of the World (circa. 829 A.D.) [CHILANDAR CODEX]

And afterward another horn will arise, which has a name adding up to 5,631. And it holds its throne as a cruel beginning of the entire world in the land of his empire. In his days there will arise four emperors, two from the East, two from the West, as you saw the four winds coming out and stirring up the sea...They will wage fierce war and destroy each other like the grass of the field. And there will be much disorder on earth. And there will arise an emperor from the City of the Sun and he will destroy them. And he will win a great victory and enter the City of the Seven Hills and bring peace to the people...
And he will send trustworthy envoys also to the Western legions. And when they reach the Western regions, the inhabitants of the city called Tyrannis will rebel, sally forth, and begin to commit acts of injustice. And afterward those who are in that place will rise up and destroy each other, by the sword. And they will arise against each other and fight battles with each other...

And Daniel said to the angel: Tell me, my lord, why do these afflictions befall the entire world? And the angel said to me: Because the Lord God does not Ishmael will he give him strength to encompass the land of Rome, but because of the sins of those residing in it. The honor of the priests will be cancelled and the sacrifice disappear from the churches. And the priests will be like the people. At that time in the seventh age when the number of the Ishmaelites will be full and when they already hold their power, they will plunder Persia and Romania (the Roman Empire] and the other islands of those[?] who reside near Jerusalem, and Calabria and Sicily. And they will blaspheme and say: The Romans will escape from our hands.

And without announcing it they will set forth secretly from the city called Rebel City and find there someone by divine revelation in the midst of it carrying two coins in order to receive crumbs. And they will seize him, whose name is in the thirtieth chapter, and lead him to Akrodunion. And there they will anoint him forthwith emperor, whom people considered like a dead man. He will set out against the Ishmaelites with great ire and a multitude of men . He will meet the Ishmaelites in a place called Perton and will fight a fierce battle. And there is in that place a well with two mouths so that the blood of Romans and Ishmaelites will be mingled. And the Lord God will surrender the Ishmaelites into the hands of the emperor. And afterward he will send envoys to all his islands and build naval armaments. And he will send his forces into the inner Roman lands and they will tame the Blond[?] Beards. Both will drive away Ishmael. And then there will be fulfilled the saying that dog and whelp together will pursue the field. And when the emperor journeys to Rome, he will come to a place called Longobardia...

And he will leave Rome with a multitude of people and journey on land to the City of the Seven Hills by the dry road. And none will oppose him because the Lord God is with him. And the fear of the emperor, whose name is in three hundred, meaning it begins with the letter tau, will be heard everywhere. And his sceptre rules thirty-two years.

And all his wrath will be directed, against both his ire and against those who have turned away from the Lord. And the entire earth will be at peace and there will be great rejoicing on earth such as neither existed nor will exist. And princes will be like emperors and paupers like rich men. And he will send envoys to the four corners of the entire world. And they will assemble pious men who fear God and seek retaliation for innocent blood and for the scoffing of the Church. And there will be talking among the many assembled. And the emperor will sit with them and they will discuss together. And the churches of the saints will be restored even in their images. And they will build the destroyed altars. And their will be none in those times to do or suffer injustice. And the sceptre will end in peace and the Lord God will grant it rest.

Afterward another sceptre will arise. In his times twelve emperors will arise from the Gates of the Snakes. And the earth will shake before their face and people will be afraid and flee to the mountains and the caves. And many will perish, and there will be none to bury the bodies. Indeed, those Unclean Peoples will depart from the mountains and begin to eat human flesh and to drink the blood of wild beasts. And these Unclean Peoples will eat the bodies of the dead. And the earth will be defiled by them. And none will be able to stand against them until the time that is ordered for them. And after their time is completed, the Lord will send one of his archangels and destroy them. And afterward there will arise a Roman Emperor. And he will take up residence at Jerusalem for twelve years. And afterward there will appear the Son of Perdition.

And when the Son of Perdition will appear the Roman Emperor will ascend the Place of Skulls. And the Emperor will place his crown on the Cross and pray to the Lord God. And he will lift his hands to heaven and hand over the Christian Empire to the God and Father. And after that the Son of Perdition will begin t0 do signs and wonders. And the springs will dry lip and the Egyptian sun be turned into blood. And two men will appear who have not tasted death, Enoch and Elijah. And the Son of Perdition will fight with them and slay them on the Cross (on which was crucified Our God Jesus) and he will receive their soul from their mouth. Glory to Our God forever and ever.​

(continued...)​

 

Our third text is an apocalyptic prophecy from the tenth century Life of St. Andrew the Fool, by a Constantinopolitan priest and hagiographer Nicephorus.

St. Andrew foretells that "God will raise up an emperor from poverty" who will bring prosperity and peace to the Romans before moving on to "humble the sons of Hagar." Then, he is said to restore imperial frontiers on land as well as at sea in a majestic era of peace that will involve much social levelling and reform. He will rebuild churches and subdue transgressors and wealthy magnates, while upholding a strict Catholic orthodoxy. The 32-year reign of this Victorious Emperor is followed by four subsequent emperors, the third of whom is a good Christian emperor from Ethiopia who, during his twelve-year reign, repairs the churches that his predecessors have destroyed. His rule is characterized by widespread joy.

Next, an Arab ruler briefly ascends to the throne and is again a virtuous, benevolent ruler. It is he who abdicates in Jerusalem after having erected and previously assembled the True Cross from its numerous fragments and is the actual Last Good and True Emperor of the katechonic dynasty founded by the Great Monarch. Thereafter, three young men are said to plunge into a devastating civil war for hegemony, after which a female ruler assumes the government of the empire. After her reign, the imperial government perseveres but is said to be transferred to various cities including Rome, Thessaloniki, and Sylaion, which, however, are ultimately unable to stop the gradual disintegration of imperial power. The complete dissolution of the imperial power finally comes with the arrival of eschatological peoples from the North (Gog and Magog), after which the Antichrist finally rises now that the last earthly dominion and civilization of Christendom has passed.

To quote one scholar: "Rydén explained this phenomenon by maintaining that there is a shift in quality after the ceremonial abdication. Accordingly, no good or pious Byzantine ruler follows the abdication. What is more, any imperial restoration will be utterly impossible. My understanding would be that the abdication marks the point, following which there is no chance left to reverse or even to halt the gradual and ultimate decline of the empire".

I excerpt below only the Great Monarch and age of peace sections of this prophecy:


The Andreas Salos Apocalypse, from the Life of St. Andrew the Fool (late ninth - early tenth century A.D.) [Vasiliev, Anecdota Graeco-Byzantina pp. 50- 58]

“This town ruling over many nations will be unconquerable by the nations, and unsubdued, for God’s Mother has kept it from such fate through the protection of her own wings; and by her mediation (to her Son) it will be kept invulnerable…

And there is a (prophetic) word saying that the Agarene nation will come into it and will slay large crowds with the sword. And I myself say that also the blond nation shall come into the town, the nation whose name is in the 17th letter of the 24 letters recapitulated. But it will come in and they will strew the ground with the corpses of the sinners, and woe to them from the two branches whose swords moving like breeze, and sharp scythes too, mowing wheat in summer, will not return to their places anymore, and neither will they stay here…

Because in the last days God the Lord will raise a king from poverty and he will reign in justice; he will become agreeable to everyone through charity, and will abolish every war, and he will take care that the poor become rich. And there will be peace in the way it was in Noah’s days, because none will ever make war. In those days men will be very rich, in peace and in deep calmness eating and drinking, getting married and making marriages, living in much freedom, unmindfully relying on earthly things. And owing to the lack of war on earth, they will cut up their swords and change them into scythes and agricultural tools.

And after that he will turn toward the east and will humble the sons of Agar. Because the Lord will be angry with them because of their blasphemy blaspheming our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the sodomy they practice. And many of them, receiving the holy baptism, will become agreeable and will be honored by that devout king; as to the rest of them, the king will destroy and burn and put them to death.

In those times the planet will be restored; also Illyricon of the kingdom of the Romans (Greeks); and Egypt will bring her treaties. And he will lay his right hand on the nations all around. And he will tame the blond nations; and will defeat those who hate him.

For thirty and two years will he govern the kingdom. He will not impose taxes for 12 years, and will not accept presents. And he will raise the shattered altars and will have the holy churches rebuilt. There will not be law suits in those days, and neither wrongdoers or wronged people. Because all the earth shall shrink before his face; and he will, through fear, make the sons of men be prudent. And he will exterminate those magnates who will transgress the law.”
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(continued....)

 

Our fourth Byzantine prophetic text is called The Cento of the True Emperor, so entitled by its first editor, Petrus Lambecius. In the printed edition the title is followed by a subtitle: Concerning the much-discussed beggar and chosen emperor, known and unknown. The signs identifying him are set forth at great length: physical characteristics, attire, moral and mental qualities partially expressed by means of pairs of paradoxes, as well as cryptic allusions to his name. The text ends with a reference to another illustrious person from the East resembling the beggar-emperor, whom I take to be essentially an Eastern Orthodox analogue to the Holy Pontiff acting in concert with him in the Catholic prophecies.


The Cento of the True Emperor (from the first half of the 14th century) [Georgii Codini Excerpta, 1655]

“The one true King, who inhabits a humid place to avoid the heat; whom men have exiled from his own dwelling and gave him a place to live in the islands; who is involved in navigation and fishing every week; he will be revealed at the time of the Ishmaelites’ power comes to an end. He will closely follow the days of ‘Livas’ and the second one will become first and the first one will become second.

What then will happen afterwards in the killing-fields in the middle of the city and upon an avenue that is paved?

During a Friday, in the third hour of the day (3:00 o’ clock in the morning), while three are perturbed the third arrives first. And it is then that the Anointed One will be made manifest; he, who is destined to be revealed, will become manifest by means of arrows [arcs] and by signs emanating from the Lord. The King will hear the voice and the instructions by an Angel appearing to him as a man dressed in white, who is his Guardian Angel.

And while he is still asleep, the Guardian Angel will take him by the hand and will speak into his ear and say to him: “Arise, you who are sleeping and rise from your grave for, from among the dead; and Christ will shine upon you, for, He is calling you to govern a large number of people.”

And the Guardian Angel will say to him further: “come forth from your hiding place, do not hide yourself any longer, many are those who are searching and asking for you; everybody will exit and only you, alone, will enter.” And the Angel will address him for the third time and will give him stone tablets, upon which two Commandments are etched:​

1. to avenge, to effect justice among the nations, and to persecute impiety; and
2. to exterminate through fire all those engaging in acts of sodomy; and to chase the bad Priests away from the holy places and to restore the worthy ones to the Altars; by so doing, he will well please the God of Heaven and Earth.

The King has identifying marks: the nail of the big toe of his right foot has a callosity; his voice is soothing; his features are prepossessing; his figure delicate like that of a woman; he is about middle-aged; he began developing a bald head and his hair has started to turn gray a little; he is intelligent and knows many things, he has foresight and is cognizant of the text of prophecies, which he relates to others and shares that information with others; his nose is a little curved; the eyes are prominent. He is poor, his hair is cut short and he is dressed in poor clothing which is used for custodial work.

And the King will be mild in character and gentle and merciful; liberal, forceful, formidable and brave. His right hand has joints of two chains; an he has two purple crosses on his two shoulders, upon the chest and also exactly upon his neck. He also has design of chains (tattoo or coat of arms?) on his sides, and upon his neck, and upon his thighs and upon his arms; the name (identity) of the King is concealed and hidden among the nations.

And this name of the King is similar to the last day the week, the seventh one. And it can also be written from the first letter into the 18th letter, namely the 301st one. The King is a man of piety and pays great attention to prophecies. Men thought of him as a nobody who is useful for nothing.

However, in the End Times, the Lord will place hand upon the head of this King and the oil consecration will anoint him, consequently, he will become noted in History as the ‘anointed one’; and he will march forward to fight against the Ishmaelites. And he will conquer them because in those days mankind will be afflicted and they will turn their faces to the soil of the earth and will sprinkle their heads with dirt and will cry aloud towards the Lord and God of Heaven and earth; and then the Lord will hear their supplications and He will place His ears upon inhabitants of the earth, and He will dispatch his Archangel in the form of a human being, and the Archangel will come to the islands.

And the Archangel will find the holy man he is looking for, the anointed one, who is unseen by the men of the world and not recognized by one person; the useful, yet useless; the pauper, yet desiring nothing of value; the merciful one and recipient of alms; the naked one and yet dressed in fine linen; the mortified one in the flesh, and yet he is very lively and vibrant in his spirit; the healthy one and at the same time the crippled one [some sort of ailment in his feet or legs], the leader and the first person ever to undertake a certain task and yet considered useful for nothing; the inexperienced one and yet very intelligent; the one who is obscure and invisible to everyone else, yet, to God and to himself he is known; the one emanating from a lower class and of royal progeny simultaneously, himself the son of a King and he, on his turn, the king of glory;

He has set his place of residence at the outer area of the City of Byzantium, close to the western gate of the city, in the vicinity of the “Sigma.”

He was schooled and educated ever since he was born, and the king has a name 80 figures long. And it is from the 12th element. [12th element of the Greek Alphabet is A, to the sound of L ???]. And the other name is written from the first letter into the 18th letter.

And he will be made similar to the Most High God.

And the name of his Father is a divine royal title. He is high-minded; he is without father, without mother and without a genealogy.’


And the King has three joints. He has been with only one woman and bore children with her, boys and girls. The names of the male and the female children, respectively, begin with the letters m, d, g, a, a, a, i [english equivalent of the Greek: mu, delta, gamma, alpha, alpha, alpha, iota].

And it will become obvious that these are truly his own offspring by virtue of the birth mark of the nail in the toe of the right foot and of his right eye, which is the squinty eye of unchastity.

And the King is a holy person in the eyes of God; he has beauty marks on his right side, also under the breast; and more on the shoulder, and on the thigh and on the earlobe, as well as on the right eyebrow according to the measure of charity.

He is graceful, charming and his cheeks turn red when he blushes. He is tall in stature, he has a beard, and there is a moustache, also. He is gentle, soft-spoken, he has dark hair, his head begins to turn bald in the front, he has an elderly looks, he is a victor and he carries trophies. He is a king, the very best one among all kings.

He has set up his living quarters in the place with four gates, in the cooler portion of the SIGMA and in the southern part of the sea of Marmara, and in an area without renown, muddy and miry.

He is coming out from the golden gate and the wooden one (the Xylokerkos); and his tabernacle is connected with two gates (or doors) that are revolving around an axis. The street on the Right Hand Side is broad and paved with stones cut and carved in squared shapes. There is a serpentine column flat on the ground and a fourth one representing an animal and there is also a female charioteer standing opposite his tabernacle. And an unidentified male has arrived holding a wreath speaking in loud voice regarding the destiny of the chosen king. Opposite his tabernacle there is a place of worship of a male god to which sacrifices and worship is being offered by the king having one belt; and its name is etched.​

 

And he brings forth both the war and the military devices of the blond ones (blond nation?), and the effusion of blood in a small drinking cup placed in the earth.

Depicted on his back, the King features the king of the animals [a lion?], and on his chest he has the mark of his army. On the Left Hand Side of his quarters there is a very narrowed street; and there is a profusion of waters and deep waters making sounds and waves beating against the steep littoral of the seven-hilled city, and a river is making loud noises as it bursts out from the iron steep side.

There is a grove of pine trees which was planted at the time of the King’s birth. There are branches and there is a nest on the branches of the trees of the kind of bird that possesses a crop. In the nests there are the young ones of various types of birds and also of pigeons. There is also here a huge tower and formidable fortifications. The King is being attended to by a man dressed in black. He is giving and receiving mercy. And there is also a ‘wolf with the name of an animal’ who is playing music of some kind. And the illustrious King was born in this orderly life to preserve every piety and every prophecy. He has not spoken of the prophecies in the past and has not been used for anything, people in the past treated him with contempt and scorn, considering him as good as dead and useful for nothing.

God will reveal him and will make him manifest and will anoint him with oil in the End Times; this King actually has been anointed with the holy oil of God while still in his mother’s womb.

And the particular manner of the king’s manifestation to the world will take place as follows:

​

A star will appear for three days long and during the third hour of the night, on the eve of the feast day of the Mother of the Most High it will become visible in the middle of the City. And this star is not one among the planets, but rather it is of the kind that appeared during the Salvation-bringing Nativity of Christ. And a herald speaking with a very loud voice in the course of the three days will summon and will reveal the one hoped for. Then the inhabitants of the City, watching the phenomena in the heavens and hearing the thunderous proclamation of the herald will become overwhelmed; and having stood still with emotions of joy and fear simultaneously, they will cry aloud that they are unable to learn the identity of the man of hope.

At that moment in time everyone will be looking up to the heavens and ardently and for prolonged stretches of time will be praying aloud ‘Lord have Mercy’. These people had already beaten their foreheads to the ground, and sprinkled dirt upon their heads, and sighed and shed tears because of the tribulation that is coming their way. They will address to God their prayers and He will favorably receive their supplication. And with a merciful eye He will look down upon the inhabitants of the earth; the chosen one will then become revealed for the sake of the chosen Elect who will be left alive at that time.

There will become visible in the sky a ‘nebulous firmament of the sun’ being in size similar to a summer-time threshing floor using six oxen; under that image there will be suspended a cross, and at the left hand side from the purple cross an extended arrow [arc], such as the one that was settling our affairs in eternal covenant; and since everybody ignores the identity of the man of hope, the arc will bend back [or, reflect] at the southern portion thereof, which is becoming decomposed in the vault of the heavens.

And the revealing will be brought about by showing the place of the residence of the One True King; then the people having given glory to God, will make haste and go running in a hurry to the edge of the arc [arrow]; and having received the precious and aged-looking King with lit candles and palm-branches and beautiful songs they will fetch him to the Great Zion. For, they desire all pomp and circumstance for the occasion.

And when the One True King will eventually issue forth opposite his tabernacles between two vaults and an image [icon] standing on a high place, the star that appeared in the heavens from the Right Hand Side of the purple cross will pour out and touch him on his hands and anoint him with spiritual light.

And the invisible herald from Heaven with his thunderous voice will say to the people: ‘Is this man agreeable to you’? At that moment everybody will be taken by fear and terror and ecstasy, because of the thunderous tone of the sound of the message. And afterwards, beating their breasts, with tears and sighs, raising their hands towards Heaven, they will say: “Yes, Lord, because it is You Who gave him, he is agreeable to us”; and having paid homage to the King they will bring him to the Great Zion.

And the King having prayed to God, and having beaten upon the gates, they will become opened while everybody is turning his head and watching. And those who were there at that location will run away filled with much fear and terror; and those with the King having all prayed they will elevate him on a high spot and will proclaim him their hereditary Monarch; afterwards, having sung hymns, they will turn around and they will arrive to the palace by night time and the signs in the skies will fade and change.

Two Guardian Angels will also be leading the way, having the appearance of men dressed in white robes; and in his ears they will tell him what he must do in the future. And there will be many who would like to lay their hands upon him, but they will not do it, having seen the signs emanating from God and also because they are being constrained by Angels. And they will say to themselves: ‘we heard about him that he is the good one of God. And as far as we are concerned, we all are constrained by our own chains, and we are sharing in the sins and trespasses of these famous names also, and of those who are collecting taxes along with the very impious priests.

And, consequently, many will escape to the tenebrous and ill-lit places of the earth. And everybody remaining who did not flee having given glory to God will become pacified.

And there is also another man emanating from the East, he, too, is illustrious in his deeds and favored by fortune; he also has been a poor man, and like the Elect King he is going from glory to glory in a lifestyle of virtue; pious to a very high degree; his body and hair are shining; and he is carrying inside him the hope of the invisible God; he is similar to the poor King and likewise a Chosen One by God; and he also has received from Above the calling of God and has been imbued by the Light of God [the Holy spirit].”​

 

I have others but that should suffice for now!

 

OK, to relate all of that now to the Catholic mystics and saints of the Great Monarch in the Latin West (as well as a few other Eastern Orthodox prophecies not excerpted above that I will cite or allude to in passing).

What stands out to me first is the *timescale* involved and the varying accounts of just how close, or far, the reign of the Great Monarch is to the time of the emergence of Antichrist.

Pseudo-Methodius appears to indicate that the Last Emperor who will defeat the 'sons of Hagar' and reign during the period of peace, is also the one who surrenders his crown and abdicates his rule on the Mount of Olives at the advent of Antichrist. This scenario would thus involve a very short era of peace, lasting all but a few decades, and ending abruptly with the final persecution and imminence of the Second Coming.

Such an interpretation is supported by a few witnesses in the West as well, such as the tenth century monk Adso of Montier-en-Der (910/920 – 992): "Some of our teachers say that a King of the Franks will possess the entire Roman Empire. He will be the greatest and last of all Monarchs. After having wisely governed his kingdom, he will go into Jerusalem and will lay his sceptre and his crown upon the Mount of Olives. Immediately afterwards, Antichrist will come." (Adso of Montier-en-Der, De ortu et tempore Antichristi).

However, subsequent prophecies in both the Byzantine and Latin Catholic 'great monarch' traditions negate this 'short period of peace reign of the Great Monarch immediately followed by Antichrist' schema, in favour of a much longer era of peace and interlude of time between the age of the Great Monarch and that of the Antichrist.

From the examples cited above, the Visions of Daniel text notes that while the Good Emperor's "sceptre rules thirty-two years", he does not abdicate his royal power and surrender his crown on the Mount of Olives, instead leaving that duty to a much later successor. Indeed, we learn according to the text that he dies during or at least in the great peace that he inaugurated, "his sceptre will end in peace and the Lord God will grant it rest" and that after his death, "another sceptre will arise" with a chain of twelve emperors. Only after the tenures of these twelve successive emperors have ended will there "arise [another] Roman Emperor. And he will take up residence at Jerusalem for twelve years. And afterward there will appear the Son of Perdition". It is this later emperor, a successor to the Great Monarch (after at least decades but possibly even centuries, who can say?) who reigns during the advent of Antichrist and is the one to surrender his royal crown and dissolve his earthly rule.

The prophecy of St. Andrew the Fool adopts the same interpretation but lengthens the 'time gap' between Era of Peace and Antichrist even further. According to the Andreas Salos apocalypse, the 32-year reign of this Victorious Emperor is followed by four subsequent emperors, the third of whom is a good Christian emperor from Ethiopia who, during his twelve-year reign, repairs the churches that his predecessors have destroyed. His rule is characterized by widespread joy. Next, an Arab ruler briefly ascends to the throne and is again a virtuous, benevolent ruler - and it is he who is the one, this time, to fulfil Paul's prophecy in 1 Corinthians 15:24 by surrendering his earthly crown to Christ in Jerusalem. However, for St. Andrew - and unlike both Pseudo-Methodius and Visions of Daniel - this action, which removes the katechon of 2 Thessalonians 2:6–7, the Roman imperial power re-established by the earlier Great Monarch that withholds/restrains the Son of Perdition, does not immediately result in the rise of Antichrist and his final persecution.

Rather, for St. Andrew, the abdication of the Last Emperor (in this case the good Arab one) is the removal of the katechon not in the sense of destroying the imperial restraining power entirely (thus taking it out of the way completely so that Antichrist can come on the scene) but rather signifies the 'point of no return', following which there is no chance left to reverse or even to halt the gradual and ultimate disintegration of the Great Monarch's empire and the simultaneous advent of the rule of Antichrist at it's demise. But in a decaying and increasingly chaotic state, the empire 'limps' on through a series of further bad emperors, until it finally disintegrates at the hands of anonymous 'peoples from the North'.

(continued...)

 

This scenario, in both Visions of Daniel and Andreas Salos, is further backed up by another Eastern Orthodox prophecy not excerpted above, a prophecy addressed to the Byzantine Emperor Manual II Palaeologus (1391-1425 AD) by a 99 year old monk, which states in reference to the Great Monarch:

"But then, an Angel of the Lord God will descent from heaven through the merciful good will of God, and the Angel will hold in his hands the scepter and the sword of the most saintly Emperor Constantine and he will crown the Emperor of Peace. This King will already be in Constantinople, and will be a participant in the war along with the rest; and the Angel will offer to him the scepter and the sword and he will call him ‘Charitable One’, and he will say to him: ‘be strong and courageous and be victorious over the enemies of Christ and of His Holy Apostles and immediately that battle and war will stop; and three Angels will take the King and having escorted him to the great Church of the Holy Wisdom of God they will crown him Emperor...

And there, in the new Zion, namely, the Church of Holy Wisdom of God (Haghia Sophia) the people shall gather in order to pay homage to this benevolent Emperor; and people will come from all over the world, everyone will come to pay him homage.

Seeing them coming from far away, the Emperor shall rise to go to greet them and with much joy he will accept them; they will ask where he comes from, and King will tell them; and then he will provide a large sum of money to all those who come to the city Constantinople, and they will ask what is the purpose of the money, and he will then respond ‘that much even more than this is for you and for all those who come to the City to settle; I will provide such person houses and lands and everything else he wishes; and I be like one of your brothers to you and we shall all be brothers, and our father is the Lord Jesus Christ’...

And rejoicing and exultation shall prevail all over the world, and there shall be no one who is spreading injustice or is a victim of injustice, considering that all evildoers will have been already wiped out from the face of the earth. And the earth will give forth it’s fruits an enormous crop, a hundredfold, and according to the common saying milk and honey will flow from the land.

The Emperor shall spend three years warring against the non-Christian nations; afterwards he will return to the Queen of Cities, Constantinople, and there he shall rest in joy for the duration of 20 years; and afterwards his own son will reign in great joy for 30 years."​

As you can see from the above, this prophecy again presupposes that the Great Monarch will die and be succeeded by an heir (in the above case, his son who will go on to reign in his own right and 'continuing' the period of peace in 'great joy' for thirty more years). It thus implies that the task of surrendering the crown and sceptre in Jerusalem, and making way for the Antichrist and Eschaton, must be left to a later successor to the restored imperial office.

What's interesting is that if one reads the original prophecy of Pseudo-Methodius above closely, it makes a few cryptic references as well to the 'sons of the King of the Greeks' who accompany him in campaigns: "And the sons of the king of Greece will seize the places of the desert and will destroy with the sword the remnant that is left of them in the land of promise. And fear of all those around them will fall upon them. They and their wives and their sons and their leaders and all their camps and the entire land of the desert of their fathers will be given into the hands of the kings of the Greeks."

This passage is intriguing because it subsequently, at the end, calls these 'sons of the king of Greece' the Kings of the Greeks in the plural. This seems to leave open the possibility that they (which could technically and cryptically include any and all subsequent descendants of the Great Monarch i.e. Jesus is the 'Son of David' because he is a descendant of his) will reign after him and that the King of the Greeks in the text who later, "descends and settles in Jerusalem for one week and a half week, in numbers ten years and a half. And then the Son of Perdition will be revealed, the false Christ" may not be the original Great Monarch but could be any one of these of his sons who reign as 'kings of Greece' after him.

It would seem that this is the interpretation of the prophecy that later prophets in the Byzantine eschatological tradition embraced.

And this schema, which involves a lengthy period of peace and subsequent decline of imperial rule with Antichrist arising only after a descendant of the Great Monarch (one of his 'sons') finally abdicates in Jerusalem and/or the empire disintegrates entirely, coheres with the visions of St. Hildegard of Bingen and Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser in the Latin West, the former of whom in her Book of Divine Works and Letter to the Clergy of Trier (1160) a period of peace that "will not wither quickly, but will last for a long time" in her Age of the Lion, which she prophesizes will involve "a great plenty of temporal things and a great abundance of spiritual goods", the conversion of "some part even of the Jews [who] will rejoice and confess that he has come" with "so many new and unknown arrangements with respect to order and peace" because "the Princes and everyone else will put God's decrees into proper practice. They will forbid all weapons used to kill people and only tolerate such iron tools as are needed in farming and for the benefit of humanity".

St. Hildegard's period of peace is succeeded by another age, that of the Pale Horse, in which "justice and piety will grow increasingly weary and disappear, [but then] will soon regroup their forces. Now evil will rise up, only to decline again. None of these things will be able to maintain itself for long in power. Each of these developments will waver to and fro, achieving prominence in one time and then moving into the background" (Liber Divinorum Operum 10:21). In other words, an extended period while the renewed Holy Roman Empire still endures and like the Eastern Orthodox emperors there are both good and less stellar emperors but the Antichrist's emergence is still held at bay by this katechonic power. There's no guessing how long this will go on for until the Age reaches its great consummation, which involves a second briefer period of peace and illumination: "renewal of spiritual strength again revealed through prophecy, abundance and peace" followed by the disintegration of the empire, and "heresies cropping up everywhere in anticipation of the coming of Antichrist".

As she writes:

"Yet in these days, the Emperors of the Roman office shall fall from the strength by which they once vigorously held the Roman Empire, and they shall become weak in their own glory, so that the imperial power entrusted to their hands for a time by divine judgment shall decrease and fail. For they shall be morally filthy and lukewarm and servile and repulsive, and useless in all things. Though they wish to be honored by the people, they shall not seek the people’s prosperity; and so none will be able to honor or revere them. Wherefore the kings and princes of many peoples, who were at one time subject to the Roman Empire, shall remove themselves from it and suffer no longer to be subject to it. And so the Roman imperial power shall be scattered in weakness. For each nation and every people shall establish then their own king to obey, saying that the spread of Roman imperial power had become more of a burden to them than an honor..."​

Only then will Antichrist come.

Likewise, Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser in 1646 predicted that "peace will reign over the whole earth because God will bind Satan for many years until the days of the Son of Perdition...The Great Monarch of the world will create new laws for the new mankind and will cause a new age to begin, in which there will be only one flock and one Shepherd, and peace will be of long, long duration, for the glory of God in heaven and earth" and notes, moreover, that this era of peace will see the entire world fall "under the protection of the great Monarch and his Successors".

It thus seems clear to me that the combined witness of these Eastern Orthodox and Catholic prophecies suggests that the Great Monarch will not be the one to abdicate his 'katechonic' imperial power (which 'withholds/restrains' the advent of the Man of Lawlessness, the Antichrist) in Jerusalem - even though he could do this - but rather that by the grace of God he will elect to extend the era of peace and after it the survival of the katechonic empire through a chain of successor rulers/emperors, one of whom will ultimately perform this task and thus make way for the imminent arrival of Antichrist and ultimately the Second Coming, as St. Paul predicted:

"And you know what is now restraining him [the Antichrist], so that he may be revealed when his time comes. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but only until the one who now restrains it [the Roman Emperor, katechon in the Greek] is removed. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming." (2 Thessalonians 2:6-8).​

 

Greetings! I was wondering if I could copy these (or if you could post them) on the St. Isadore's Lounge (the successor to Catholic Answers Forum) (https://forum.stisidoreslounge.com/t/end-times-speculation-xxiv-ver-3-0/83).

 

Hello Muzhik,

Thanks for your request!

You are more than welcome to copy my quotations from prophecies in this thread to the other forum.

I haven't signed up to St. Isidore's Lounge with an account yet (though I'll set up one so that I can discuss these matters over there too, I think it requires an invite code, I was a member of the old CAF before it closed but didn't migrate over), so I'm happy for you to post of them over there in my stead.

Kind regards,

Vouthon

 

IIRC, if you go to the sign-up section and fill out the form they'll email the invite code to you.

 

Muzhik, who owns this site?

 

Vouthon, thank you for your wonderful long posts. I’m wading through them.

 

I tried to sign up / create an account but you had to punch an invite code in on the sign-in page

 

She said to email her at mh_36@yahoo.com and to make sure you say in the email that you're Muzhik's friend.

 

looking at the history of the Early Church the first 6 Ecumenical Councils were convened by the Roman emperor; I believe that the future monarch could play a role similar to that of these emperors in fighting heresies.

 

Spot on mate, this is precisely one of the key roles allotted to him in both the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox prophecies.

From my excerpted texts above, you will note that the second one, the ninth century Visions of Daniel, predicts that the Great Monarch will convene an ecumenical council:

"And he will send envoys to the four corners of the entire world. And they will assemble pious men who fear God and seek retaliation for innocent blood and for the scoffing of the Church. And there will be talking among the many assembled. And the emperor will sit with them and they will discuss together."​

This prediction is found in nearly every Great Monarch prophecy, whether Greek, Syriac, Slavonic or Latin.

For example, St. Hildegard of Bingen (famous Latin Doctor of the Church from the 12th century) prophesized in her Letter to the Clergy of Cologne that the princes (secular rulers, led by the Great Monarch Emperor) and the bishops of the church (led, of course, by the Angelic Shepherd Pope) will extirpate heresies:

The distinctive characteristic of the times that follow will be manly fortitude, so that even all the bishops will run to the first dawn of justice with fear and shame and wisdom, and the princes of the world will be in complete accord with one another, for, like a “man of war” (Is. 42:13), they will raise up the banner of concord against the erring times of terrible heresies. God will utterly destroy all these heresies, in His own good time and pleasure...
​

In this same vein, Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser wrote in the 17th century:

"Then will the hand of the Almighty produce a marvelous change, according to human notions seemingly impossible. For that STRONG MONARCH, (whose name is to be “the help of God",) will subject all things to himself, and will zealously assist the true Church of Christ. All heresies will be banished into hell..."​

 

Many thanks, I'll be right on it!

 

Another aspect of the authentic prophecies, as opposed to the royalist folklore or forgeries of the nineteenth century - whether Western or Eastern Catholic - which I think is worthy of note, is the idea that the Great Monarch will be of economically poor birth status or humble estate, as well as coming from relative or total obscurity.

This is a very common 'theme' and you can see it in a number of the above prophecies: for instance the second prophecy, the ninth century prophetic exegesis of Daniel, states that "from the city called Rebel City [they] find there someone by divine revelation in the midst of it carrying two coins in order to receive crumbs. And they will seize him, whose name is in the thirtieth chapter, and lead him to Akrodunion. And there they will anoint him forthwith emperor".

Here the Great Monarch is depicted, literally, as a beggar and, indeed, in the later Cento of the True Emperor from the 14th century he is actually named "the much-discussed beggar and chosen emperor, known and unknown". Other prophecies do not go quite as far in describing him as an actual 'down-and-out' but there is a clear consensus that he will be from poor and working class stock, as the Cento notes: "he is intelligent and knows many things, he has foresight and is cognizant of the text of prophecies, which he relates to others and shares that information with others; his nose is a little curved; the eyes are prominent. He is poor, his hair is cut short and he is dressed in poor clothing which is used for custodial work."

Likewise, the tenth century prophecy of St. Andrew the Fool from Constantinople again reiterates that he will rise from poverty: "in the last days God the Lord will raise a king from poverty and he will reign in justice; he will become agreeable to everyone through charity, and will abolish every war, and he will take care that the poor become rich. And there will be peace in the way it was in Noah’s days."

Once again, the character trait described here is consistent with many of the Western prophecies of the Latin Church, which also emphasize his very lowly origins. To cite only one example among many, there is a curial prophecy of the Last Emperor from the thirteenth century English Cistercian Cardinal John of Toledo, dating from the 1250-60s:

A new king will come and will prostrate the whole world, To vanquish with horror of war the farthest region. He hastens from the high and craggy mountains, From an unhoped-for source, a mild man without guile. Poor in resources, rich in goodness, richest in his Bountiful understanding. Because of his merit God will be his seer. He will conquer the Sicilians and the evil tribe of the Savage Frederick. They will not be named any more. He will rebuild all the things which the harsh Frederick, His savage shoot, and its successor overthrew. Under the guidance of the Pope he will put the Romans in sore straits; They will strengthen Rome and thus bear the burden. After that, by battle they will drag the followers of Mohammed to Christ. So that there will be one flock and one shepherd. You, my companions, have confidence that all these things Were revealed to me.

Translated from 0. Halder-Egger, "ltalienische Prophetieen,"' Neues Archiv (1905), 30:383-84. ​

I have noticed a tendency, based on some spurious prophecies widely distributed on the internet (but not authentically medieval), for people to speculate on Great Monarch candidates by scouring the ranks of Catholic royal dynasties or deposed-in-exile houses, such as the Hapsburgs.

All of these persons, including those belonging to the deposed royal houses, are wealthy.

According to the witness of the authentic prophecies, the consensus is that the real Great Monarch will be like King David, Cyrus the Great and Our Lord Jesus Himself - hailing from a poor, humble background with few economic resources prior to his ascent to power and fame.

Consider his typological predecessors in the Old Testament, after whom the Great Monarch will be patterned: in the First Book of Samuel chapter 16, King Saul is the ruling monarch of the Kingdom of Israel, when God suddenly directs the prophet Samuel to go to the obscure village of Bethlehem and anoint a mere shepherd-boy and musician, the youngest son of the farmer Jesse, as the new King:

"The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.”... But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”...

Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.”

Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward." ​

(1 Samuel 16:1-13)​

This poor, unknown young man tending his father's flock in the fields, then goes on to defeat Goliath and unify Israel and Judah, establishing the United Kingdom's capital in Jerusalem which will henceforth be known forever as the Holy City and inaugurating the new dynasty from which, centuries later, the Son of God himself will issue in the same village of Bethlehem - again as the son of poor parents, Joseph the carpenter and his young wife Mary, Our Lady.

Another typological forbear of the Great Monarch in the Bible is Cyrus the Great, Liberator of the Jews from the Babylonian Exile and the Persian Emperor who issues the Edict of Restoration that enables the exiles to return to Israel and build the Second Jerusalem Temple. In the Book of Isaiah he is hailed as God's instrument and anointed one for this purpose:

"Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
whose right hand I have grasped
to subdue nations before him
and strip kings of their robes,
to open doors before him—
and the gates shall not be closed:
2 I will go before you
and level the mountains,
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
and cut through the bars of iron,
3 I will give you the treasures of darkness
and riches hidden in secret places,
so that you may know that it is I, the Lord,
the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
4 For the sake of my servant Jacob,
and Israel my chosen,
I call you by your name,
I surname you, though you do not know me.
5 I am the Lord, and there is no other;
besides me there is no god."

(Isaiah 45:1-5)

​

According to the partly legendary account of his early life written by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (484 - 430 BC) and Xenophon, Cyrus - though of royal Median heritage - was raised by a shepherd: "Since power was thicker than blood for the Median king, he summoned his pregnant daughter and insisted the child be killed as soon as it was born. The task was delegated to a shepherd, Mithradates, who did not kill the infant Cyrus and instead raised him as one of his own sons. Herodotus claimed the ruse was uncovered when Cyrus reached the age of 10 because his behavior was “too noble.”".

A third example one could cite is that of Constantine the Great, first Christian Roman Emperor who issued the Edict of Milan freeing the Christians from persecution and convened the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D., another figure from antiquity whom the prophecies describe as a typological forbear of the Great Monarch. His father Flavius Constantius had been an officer in the Roman Army, while his mother St. Helena had been "a Greek woman of low social standing from Helenopolis of Bithynia" who was merely the concubine, not the legal wife, of his father and was abandoned by him when he was compelled to marry a woman of higher social status as he advanced up the social hierarchy.

As one can see, King David, Cyrus the Great (at least according to Herodotus and Xenophon) and Constantine the Great were not men who inherited their royal or imperial office by primogeniture. Rather, they were sons of shepherds and poor concubines who had to prove themselves and seize power through merit by the grace of God, serving as His instruments for a given purpose in salvation history.

The Great Monarch is prophesized to be in the exact same mould as these, his forbears - he will not succeed to his throne or rule by inheritance but rather by merit, and apparently partly miraculous means, coming from a poor and unknown background.

(continued...)