The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

longer be borne, we make known by this law that no one of you may hereafter dare to
convene a congregation; and accordingly command that all the edifices in which you hold
such assemblies be taken away; it being our design not only not to allow your
superstitions and senseless assemblies in public, but not even to permit them in private
houses, or in any separate places; but what is far better that as many of you as are desirous
of the true and pure religion, should come to the Catholic Church, and partake of its
sanctity, through which you may be able to attain the truth. . . . And that the magistrate
may have the requisite power for this remedy, we have commanded as has already been
mentioned, that all the houses of your superstitions, that is, the oratories of all sects . . . be
without contradiction taken away and immediately delivered to the Catholic Church; but
other places adjudged to the public, that no opportunity be hereafter left you of
assembling. Accordingly, let not your forbidden congregations from this day venture to
meet in any place, whatever, whether public or private. Let this be
published.'"
Lack of space forbids us to further enlarge on the usurpations of the rights of Christians by
Constantine. Suffice it to say that he claimed and exercised the right to punish those who
disobeyed these decrees.
"He deposed and appointed bishops at his pleasure. . . . He banished Arius, ordered that
all books written by him and his partisans should be burned, and threatened death to any
who should attempt to conceal them."
Is it anything to be wondered at that we read next: "And the woman fled into the
wilderness [or desert], where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her
there a thousand two hundred and three-score days"? Literally a desert or wilderness in the
Scriptures means a place where there are few inhabitants; a place remote from the
habitations of men, where one might be concealed and unknown. Mr. Russell has given
the meaning as follows:
"A wilderness condition is one of separation from the blessings of civilization; it is a cut-off
condition, a separation from the world, . . . an outcast from the privileges and advantages
of the world's society."
Another has observed:
"This would well represent the fact that the true Church became for a time obscure and
unknown, as if it had fled away from the habitations of men, and had retired to the
solitude and loneliness of a desert."
The flight of the woman into the wilderness, while beginning at a particular date in
history, seems to have covered a long period of time. This, which is in harmony with the
facts of history, seems to be the most reasonable way to apply this part of the vision. The
flight, then, would cover an era--beginning about the time of Constantine's accession to the
throne of the West, 312 AD, and reaching to the time when the Papal Antichrist was fully