This Revelation Timeline Decoded Bible study focuses on the word ‘Babylon’ as it is a code word for Rome.
John could not openly identify Rome because that would have invited more persecution from the Romans. So he coded Revelation with the word Babylon, which the early church understood was Rome, the great city of their time.
Peter called Rome by the name Babylon, when he was in Rome.
The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son. 1 Peter 5:13
Every time that the name Babylon is mentioned in Revelation, it is followed by ‘the great’. John identified the ‘great city’ in the following verses, which in John’s day was Rome:
And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth. Revelation 17:18
And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! Revelation 18:16
People may argue that Revelation 11:8 is speaking about Jerusalem, but the context is the Two Witnesses which have been pronounced dead.
It is referring to the Word of God and the Church of Christ, which the Roman Catholic Church had persecuted so relentlessly during the Dark Ages, that they were as dead, and did not testify against the Popes anymore.
So the context is pointing to Rome, not Jerusalem. Rome governed Judea and Jerusalem in Messiah’s life.
Rome killed the Two Witnesses.
Rome killed the Word of God, which became flesh in Messiah.
Rome killed the Church of Christ, which is the body of Messiah.
So by killing the Word of God and the Church of Christ, they symbolically crucified Messiah.
One could also argue that the Church of Rome crucifies Christ every day when they perform their Babylonian Mass.
The woman in Revelation 17 represents an apostate church, which points to the Roman Catholic Church, which resides in the Vatican.
And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
The word Vatican is a shortened form of the word Vaticanus, just like Claudian is a shortened form of Claudianus.
Vaticanus collis or vaticanus mons mean “the prophetic hill or mountain“, which can be rephrased as the hill or mountain of prophecy.
Where does the word “Vatican” come from and what does it mean?
The word derives from the Latin vates, which means “tellers of the future.”
This name was the name given to a hillside on the west bank of the Tiber River in Rome because daily lineups of fortunetellers used to hawk their “wares” there to passersby on the street.
In the fourteenth century, when the papacy was returned to Rome from Avignon (France), the present-day Vatican became the residence of the popes, and the word came to refer to the enclave in the middle of Rome that had become the seat of the Roman Catholic Church. (Source: Incredible Book of Vatican Facts and Papal Curiosities, by Nino Lo Bello – 1998)
Vaticanus is a combination of Vatic + anus, just as Romanus is a combination of Rome + anus.
Interestingly, the word anus in Latin also means “old woman“, so Vaticanus is a combination two words that also result in The Old Woman of Prophecy, this woman being symbolic of the Catholic Church.
Note on this Vatican issued coin from 1958, it reads in Italian “CITTÁ DEL VATICANO”, which as we can now see, means City of Prophecy.
She has the golden cup of abominations, with a sun worship symbol above it, as they are really sun worshipers; under the guise of a christian church.
At her feet is her title, FIDES, which means faith. This woman is symbolic of the Roman Catholic faith, or Roman Catholic Church.
The Popes of Rome in the Vatican have great influence with the religious and political leaders of the world.
“And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” Revelation 17:18
Below is a papal medal minted by Pius XI in 1929 to commemorate both the Lateran Treaty, which restored Papal sovereignty and made Vatican City an independent state, and the 50th jubilee of his priesthood.
This represents the Jesuits causing men to make an image to the beast, in that they gave the Popes civil power again, after it was removed in 1798 A.D.
Just as with the Roman Emperors had both civil and ecclesiastical power, the Popes of Rome had that power for 1,260 years from 538-1798 A.D.
And with the Lateran Treaty, the Popes of Rome, who are now covertly controlled by the Jesuit Generals, have both civil and ecclesiastical power.
They have the title of Pontifex Maximus, as the Popes of Rome took power in 538 A.D., shortly after the last Western Roman Emperor was removed from power in 476 A.D.
The title of the Roman Emperors, who were the civil and religious leaders, was Pontifex Maximus, and so the deadly head wound was healed.
You can see their Sun god symbol above the golden cup of abominations, as they are Babylonian sun worshipers.
Catholic teachings identifies the Church as a Mother.
She is the Bride of all Catholic priests, bishops, cardinals and Popes.
All who are devoted to the Catholic “Mother” Church as priests, bishops, cardinals and Popes are forbidden to marry because they are married to the “Great Whore, Mystery Babylon, and the Mother of Harlots”.
The exact spot where St. Peter’s Basilica stands today, in Vatican City, is over the historical site of the Circus of Nero.
The circus was the site of the first organized, Roman sponsored martyrdoms of Christians in 65 AD. The Roman Catholic Church is built on unholy ground – the soil on which it stands is soaked with the blood of Jews and Christians. Blood that was willfully and deliberately shed by the Romans.
Bible Commentators:
Matthew Poole’s Commentary on the Holy Bible says:
Most judicious interpreters, by the great city here, understand Rome, which is seven or eight times (under the name of Babylon) so called in this book, Revelation 14:8; 16:19; 18:10,16,18-19,21; nor is any other city but that so called.
Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Babylon the great. Papal Rome, the nominal head of the Christian world, as Babylon had been of the heathen world.
John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“Babylon the great”; that is, the great city, by which name the church of Rome may well be called, because of the signification of it, confusion, its doctrine and worship being a confused mixture of Paganism, Judaism, and Christianity; and because of the pride and haughtiness of it, its tyranny and cruelty, and its sorceries and idolatry.
Quotes about the word Babylon pointing to Rome:
Early Church Father, Victorinus, who wrote the earliest commentary on the Apocalypse extant, says, on Revelation xvii.: “The seven heads are the seven hills on which the woman sitteth – that is, the city of Rome.”
Early Church Father, Tertullian in his answers to the Jews, says: “Babylon, in our John, is a figure of the city Rome, as being equally great and proud of her sway, and triumphant over the saints” (chap. ix)
Early Church Father, Eusebius Pamphilius, in 303 ad. stated:
“It is said that Peter’s first epistle… was composed at Rome itself; and that he himself indicates this by referring to that city, figuratively as Babylon.“
Dante (1265-1321) denounced the Church of Rome as the Babylon of the apocalypse, painting the papacy in his poem on Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, in vivid colors, as the world behold them.
In History Unveiling Prophecy, written in 1905, Henry Grattan Guinness declared:
The character and history of the Church of Rome, her proud position as seated on “the seven hills” of the Imperial city, and “reigning over the kings” and peoples of the earth, her gorgeous self-adornment, her fabulous wealth and luxury, her adulterous association with kings and princes of the Roman Empire, her multiplied idolatries, and cruel persecutions of the saints, and her judgment as finally hated and cast off, stripped and torn by the ten horned wild beast power which had previously carried her, and done her bidding; all this has been recognized as marvelously portrayed in the Apocalyptic vision of the harlot “Babylon the Great,” drunken with “the blood of the saints and of the martyrs of Jesus.”
Roman Catholic theologians have admitted the Rome is Babylon of prophecy.
Protestant interpreters maintain, while Roman Catholic interpreters admit, that the Babylon of the Apocalypse is Rome.
Cardinal Bellarmine says: “Rome is signified in the Apocalypse by the name of Babylon.“
Cardinal Baronius says: “All persons confess that Rome is denoted by the name Babylon in the Apocalypse of John.”
A top apologist for the Roman Catholic Church, Karl Keating, emphatically states:
“Babylon is a code word for Rome. It is used that way six times in the last book of the Bible” [four of the 6-times used, are in chapters 17-18 and in extra-biblical works such as Sibylling Oracles (5, 159f), the Apocalypse of Baruch (ii, 1), and 4 Esdras (3:1).
Revered Cardinal Gibbons of the Roman Catholic Church states:
“The penetration of the religion of Babylon became so general and well known that Rome was called the New Babylon” – Faith of our fathers 1917 ed. Cardinal Gibbons, p. 106
Revered Cardinal Newman of the Roman Catholic Church admits in his book that;
the “temples, incense, oil lamps, votive offerings, holy water, Holidays, seasons of devotion, processions, blessings of the fields, sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure (of priests, monks, nuns), images, and statues… are all of PAGAN ORIGIN” – The Development of the Christian Religion Cardinal Newman p.359
Augustine of the Roman Catholic Church in his book “The city of God” which is based on the Apocalypse, defines two societies in the world;
the harlot city of Babylon, which is empowered by Satan through the Roman beast; and the Bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem, which is empowered by Christ.
Augustine, a Catholic, proclaimed Rome as Babylon;
“Rome, the second Babylon, and the daughter of the first, to which it pleased God to subject the whole world, and bring it all under the sovereignty, was not founded.” (City of God, book xviii., chapt. xxii)
David Nikao Wilcoxson
Next Revelation Timeline Decoded Study: Revelation 17 – Mystery Babylon
