Four kingdoms of Daniel

Historical background

The Book of Daniel originated from a collection of legends circulating in the Jewish community in Babylon and Mesopotamia in the Persian and early Hellenistic periods (5th to 3rd centuries BCE), and was later expanded by the visions of chapters 7-12 in the Maccabean era (mid-2nd century).

The "four kingdoms" theme appears explicitly in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7, and is implicit in the imagery of Daniel 8. Daniel's concept of four successive world empires is drawn from Greek theories of mythological history; The symbolism of four metals in the statue in chapter 2 is drawn from Persian writings, while the four "beasts from the sea" in chapter 7 reflect Hosea 13:7–8, in which God threatens that he will be to Israel like a lion, a leopard, a bear or a wild beast. The consensus among scholars is that the four beasts of chapter 7, like the metals of chapter 2, symbolise Babylon, Media, Persia and the Seleucid Greeks, with Antiochus IV as the "small horn" that uproots three others (Antiochus usurped the rights of several other claimants to become king).

Daniel 2

In chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a statue made of four different materials, identified as four kingdoms:

1. Head of gold,
   explicitly identified as King Nebuchadnezzar.[v.37-38]
2. Chest and arms of silver.
   Identified as an "inferior" kingdom to follow Nebuchadnezzar.[v.39]
3. Belly and thighs of bronze.
   A third kingdom which shall rule over all the earth.[v.39]
4. Legs of iron with feet of mingled iron and clay
   Interpreted as a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, but the feet and toes partly of clay and partly of iron show it shall be a divided kingdom.[v.41]

Daniel 7

In chapter 7, Daniel has a vision of four beasts coming up out of the sea, and is told that they represent four kingdoms:

1. A beast like a lion with eagle’s wings;
2. A beast like a bear, raised up on one side, with three ribs between its teeth;
3. A beast like a leopard with four wings and four heads;
4. A fourth beast, with large iron teeth and ten horns.
   This is explained as a fourth kingdom, different from all the other kingdoms; it "will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it."[v.23] The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom.[V.24] A further horn (the "little horn") then appears and uproots three of the previous horns: this is explained as a future king.

Daniel 8

In chapter 8 Daniel sees a ram with two horns destroyed by a he-goat with a single horn; the horn breaks and four horns appear, followed once again by the "little horn."

Schools of thought

From the time of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, the "four monarchies" model became widely used by all for universal history, in parallel with eschatology, among Protestants. Some continued to defend its use in universal history in the early 18th century; but the periodization w

[Christopher Cellarius]] (1638–1707), based on the distinctive nature of medieval Latin. The modern historicist interpretations and eschatological views of the Book of Daniel with the Book of Revelation closely resemble and continue earlier historical Protestant interpretations.

There are references in classical literature and arts that apparently predate the use of the succession of kingdoms in the Book of Daniel. One appears in Aemilius Sura, an author quoted by Velleius Paterculus (c. 19 BC – c. AD 31). This gives Assyria, Media, Persia and Macedonia as the imperial powers. The fifth empire became identified with the Romans. (After the 17th century, the concept of a fifth monarchy was re-introduced from Christian millennarian ideas.)

An interpretation that became orthodox after Swain (1940) sees the "four kingdoms" theory becoming the property of Greek and Roman writers at the beginning of the 1st century BCE, as an import from Asia Minor. They built on a three-kingdom sequence, already mentioned by Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC) and by Ctesias (fl. 401 BC). Mendels (1981) contests this dating and origin, placing it later in the century.

Jewish Reconstructionists and Full Preterists believe that Daniel is completely fulfilled, and that the believers are now working to establish the Kingdom of God on earth.

Two main schools of thought on the four kingdoms of Daniel, are:

1. the traditionalist view, supporting the conflation of Medo-Persia and identifying the last kingdom as the Roman Empire.
2. the Maccabean thesis, a view that supports the separation of the Medes from the Persians and identifies the last kingdom as the Seleucid Empire.

Roman Empire schema

The following interpretation represents a traditional view of Jewish and Christian Historicists, Futurists, Dispensationalists, Partial Preterists, and other futuristic Jewish and Christian hybrids, as well as certain Messianic Jews, who typically identify the kingdoms in Daniel (with variations) as:

1. the Babylonian Empire
2. the Medo-Persian Empire
3. the Greek Empire of Alexander
4. the Roman Empire, with other implications to come later

Jerome (c.  347 – 420) described this scheme in his Commentary on Daniel. Within this framework there are numerous variations.

Use with Book of Revelation

Christian interpreters typically read the Book of Daniel along with the New Testament's Book of Revelation. The Church Fathers interpreted the beast in Revelation 13 as the empire of Rome. The majority of modern scholarly commentators understand the "city on seven hills" in Revelation as a reference to Rome.

Second temple theory

Full Preterists, Idealists, certain Reconstructionists and other non-futurists likewise typically believe in the same general sequence, but teach that Daniel's prophecies ended with the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, and have few to no implications beyond that. Jewish and Christian Futurists, Dispensationalists, and, to some degree, Partial Preterists believe that the prophecies of Daniel stopped with the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem; but will resume at some point in the future after a gap in prophecy that accounts for the Church Age.

Traditional views

The traditional interpretation of the four kingdoms, shared among Jewish and Christian expositors for over two millennia, identifies the kingdoms as the empires of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. This view conforms to the text of Daniel, which considers the Medo-Persian Empire as one, as with the "law of the Medes and Persians"^{(6:8, 12, 15)} These views have the support of the Jewish Talmud, medieval Jewish commentators, Christian Church Fathers, Jerome, and Calvin.

Jerome specifically identified the four kingdoms of Daniel 2 in this way. The "four monarchies" theory existed alongside the Six Ages and the Three Eras, as general historical structures, in the work of Augustine of Hippo, a contemporary of Jerome.

The alternative view which sees the sequence ending with Greece and the Diadochi, thus excluding Rome, is not without historical precedent however. The pagan critic of Christianity, Porphyry, suggested a variation of this interpretation in the third century CE. In the following centuries, several Eastern Christians espoused this view, including Ephrem the Syrian, Polychronius, and Cosmas Indicopleustes.

During the Medieval ages the orthodox Christian interpretation followed the commentary by Jerome on the Book of Daniel. It tied the fourth monarchy and its end to the end of the Roman Empire; which was considered not to have yet come to pass. This is the case for example in the tenth-century writer Adso, whose Libellus de Antichristo incorporated the characteristic medieval myth of the Last World Emperor. Otto of Freising used the principle of translatio imperii and took the Holy Roman Empire as the continuation of the Roman Empire (as fourth monarchy).

Protestant Reformation

The eschatological theory of four monarchies was particularly emphasized by a series of Protestant theologians, such as Jerome Zanchius, Joseph Mede, and John Lightfoot. Mede and other writers (such as William Guild, Edward Haughton and Nathaniel Stephens) expected the imminent end of the fourth empire, and a new age. The early modern version of the four monarchies in universal history was subsequently often attributed to the chronologist and astrologer Johann Carion, based on his Chronika (1532). Developments of his Protestant world chronology were endorsed in an influential preface of Philipp Melanchthon (published 1557).

The theory was topical in the 1550s. Johann Sleidan in his De quatuor imperiis summis (1556) tried to summarise the status of the "four monarchies" as historical theory; he had already alluded to it in previous works. Sleidan's influential slant on the theory was both theological, with a Protestant tone of apocalyptic decline over time, and an appeal to German nationalist feeling in terms of translatio imperii. The Speculum coniugiorum (1556) of the jurist Alonso De la Vera Cruz, in New Spain, indirectly analysed the theory. It cast doubts on the Holy Roman Emperor's universal imperium, by pointing out the historical 'monarchies' in question had in no case held exclusive sway. The Carion/Melanchthon view was that the Kingdom of Egypt must be considered a subsidiary power to Babylon: just as France was secondary compared to the Empire.

The Catholic Jean Bodin was concerned to argue against the whole theory of 'four monarchies' as a historical paradigm. He devoted a chapter to refuting it, alongside the classical scheme of a Golden Age, in his 1566 Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem.

Fifth Monarchists

In the conditions leading to the English Civil War and the disruption that followed, many Protestants were millennarians, believing they were living in the 'end of days'. The Fifth Monarchists were a significant element of the Parliamentary grouping and, in January 1661, after Charles II took the throne following the English Restoration, 50 militant Fifth Monarchists under Thomas Venner attempted to take over London to start the 'Fifth Monarchy of King Jesus'. After the failure of this uprising, Fifth Monarchists became a quiescent and devotional part of religious dissent.

Seventh-day Adventist view

The Seventh-day Adventist Church shares the traditional view that the four kingdoms of Daniel, as paralleled in chapters 2 and 7, correspond to the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire and the Roman Empire. Furthermore, they hold the view that the ram and goat correspond to the Achaemenid Empire, and the Macedonian Empire. They also hold to the traditional view that the "little horn" in Daniel 7:8 refers to the Papacy; the reference to changing "times and law" (Daniel 7:25) refers to the change of the Christian sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, and the attack on the sanctuary (Daniel 8:11) to the mediatorial ministry of Roman Catholic priests. The "time, times and half a time" (Daniel 7:25) represents for Adventists a period of 1260 years from 538 CE to 1798 CE, when the Roman Catholic Church dominated the Christian world. The feet of the statue in Daniel 2, made of mixed iron and clay, represent modern Europe. The Adventist interpretation depends on the day-year principle", the established idea that when used in prophetic context, a day is equivalent to a year.