Decadence in Rome and Decadence in the USA Similarities


 (Koot van Wyk reflecting Kyungpook National University, Sangju Campus, South Korea, Conjoint lecturer of Advondale College, Australia, 14th of January 2021)


Procopius was the biographer of Justinian and what we are going to do here is to compare Biden with Justinian. Biden is the Transitional President after Trump who was the High-Pressed Salesman ruler. Biden is the first stammering president also suffering from what appeared to be Altzheimer or Amnesia. Memory loss. Loss of the ability to properly identify.

In his last paragraph of chapter XXX Procopius wrote about Theodora and Justinian and their problems affecting the empire negatively:

1.     Overalled the Spy System and lost Territory

2.    Defunded the Police.

3.    Landgrab from the rich.

4.    Stupid Innovations of expressions of loyalty to him and his wife.

5.    Treated Foreigners better than citizens.

6.    Socialism in palace.

7.    Broke with independency of the Justice System by bringing Judges in the palace to control the system.

8.    Wealth of Empire diminished considerably.

9.    Some said that maybe the wealth of the empire was given to Immigrants.

10.Some said that maybe he pocketed wealth for himself.

This decadence signals at the end of the Roman Empire and the Transition into the Holy Roman Empire in 538 A.D. with a greater role by the Papacy is what is at stake here.

Similarly from the 6th of January 2021 with Biden’s election recognized as the winner, dr. Marshall talks about the “United States of Pope Francis”. A Jesuit will pray at the inauguration. All high positions in the Empire will be in the hands of the papal representatives, as all members are in that totalitarian system. Catholicism tries to hide their nature of totalitarianism but there are many articles from both inside the Catholic circles as outsiders demonstrating that.

It is also remarkable that nearly all of the 10 points supra are in one way or another fanned out by the big tech and media controlled leftwing of the USA. Your tongue will stick to your mouth if you try to say that they are encouraging capitalism and not socialism.

There are more interesting aspects of the last days of Rome in 538 A.D. that one can p0int out.

The year 538 A.D. was really the fall of Rome.

The cracking of Rome was evidenced prophetically in 538 A.D. It was the time persecution of the saints was supposed to start and that was to be 1260 years until the papacy, who became the strong power during this long period in Europe was taken prisoner by secularism in the person of Napoleon and his General.

But if the historical microscope goes to 538 A.D. a surprising chain of events are known of signals that Rome was no longer what it was in its heyday. Andrews University church historian Daniel Augsburger collected them for the date of 538 A.D. and soon afterwards in 1952.

What you are going to find here is a comparison with the situation in the United States since 2016 and considering Daniel 11:45 as applicable to the president of the USA right as this time coming to his end without anyone to help him, the Time of Trouble kicks in right after this.

January 6 in 2021 is the date for the acceptance of the election results and January 14 , 2021 is the date of the so-called “Second Impeachment” of the President, depending from which corner you view it. 70 million yes and 70 million no. The cup is half full or half empty. Who knows?

This is already a signal of disaster.

Now to look at some of the Justinian deterioration signals in 538.

1.     Justinian decided in 538 A.D. that he is not a statesman but a Theologian. Where did we find Trump in Las Vegas a few days before the 6th if January? On a Saturday in a church event there. The video has some rare views. Nevertheless. Faith is not decadence but going for religion when decadence is creeping in is. Not if it is the right faith though. The way Justinian in 538 decided to prove he is a Theologian is to coin mints that shows him with a cross in his hand instead of a lance and on a horse in soldier wear. Also he would add the year on his coins from this year on, namely the 12th year, in Latin XII. He did.

2.    In 580 A.D. pope Gregory the Great said the following about Rome demonstrating its decadence: ““Where is the Senate, where are the people? The city is crumbling upon itself”. This is cited by dr. Daniel Augsburger from Andrews University in his study in 1952 on the 1260 days which is in the Adventist Archives in the James White Library. “The Beginning of the 1260 Days of Prophecy”. Center of Adventist Research Lower Floor, James White Library.

3.    Another evidence of decadence of the empire is from a source also cited by Augsburger. “““Imagination may strive to depict the desolate aspect of the city after its momentous conquest by Totila, or in the early days of the Byzantine dominion, when the scanty remnant of the populace, scourged by famine and pestilence, and menaced by the sword of the Lombard, seemed lost in the vast capital of the Caesars, Power, however, is denied us to visualize a picture so dark and terrible. Rome suffered a metamorphosis and became transformed into a city of cloisters, The metropolis of the universe was converted into a spiritual city, in which priests and monks bore entire sway, and built churches and convents with untiring zeal.” (Augsburger (1952): 4 citing from T. Hodgkin (1891). Theodoric the Goth (London), p. 181; read the graphic description of Vita, Historia Persecutionis Africanae Provinciae. I, ii, 5, 6).

4.    The empire became so international that the Latin language fell in disuse and Justinian had to write his novels in Greek to allow more to understand it. Also some barbarism entered the Latin Dictionaries. The USA was already that open door to all nations as Emma in her poem for the Statue of Liberty wrote in 1886. And increasingly so. The Biden win in 2021 was basically due to  immigrants and African American voting and minorities with Kamela Harris in mind as an easy ticket with the weak aged Biden. The wives of the big tech owner of Facebook, Zuckerberg and also the main Republican Senator Chairman are both Chinese.

5.    The empire’s architecture changed. Architecture before and after 538 A.D. changed for example the mosaics before was still Roman but after 538 A.D. they were oriental.

6.    When Totila arrived in 546 A.D. “When Totila arrived in 546 A.D. there were only about 500 000 people in the city but they were humiliated for 40 days begging for food and for forty days Rome presented the spectacle of Niniveh and Babylon”. (Augsburger (1952): 7). Keep in mind Niniveh was an empire also called Babylon in cuneiform tablets, illustrating to us that all empires main capitals are called “Babylon” in ancient times. What is the capital of the Papacy? What is the capital of the USA? Where was the siege of the Congress meetings? So is Washington “Babylon”? In ancient biblical literature by Luke, Peter, Judaism of the Targums, Cuneiform tablets, this answer is affirmative. At least as I see it. (For those who want to take this topic further, see Stephanie Dalley “Babylon as a Name for Niniveh and Other Cities” in RAI of 2005). See also Amos 5:25-27 that speaks of Damascus but when Luke cites it in Acts 7:43 he used the word Babylon and 1 Peter 5:13 that speaks of Rome as Babylon and wonder about Revelation 18 in our own day?

7.    Justinian limited the powers of the consuls in 538 A.D. How much Biden is going to limit the power of the opposition in his system is going to be interesting to see. They already were speaking of enlarging the Senate by including more Democrat areas represented.

8.    The years after 538 A.D. were disastrous and the church had to feed the people. (see Augsburger (1952): 8 citing Diehl, Justinien. p. 627). The Pandemic has already many people on food handouts in the USA today and the whole world may be very close to that.

9.    The Gothic wars is considered by one author to be the end of the Roman empire and the beginning of the Papal one. C. Diehl wrote “In this hour which marks for her (Rome) the end of ancient times, she was taking on the aspect that she was to keep during the whole Middle Ages and upon the debris of the palaces of the Caesars was slowly rising the authority of the popes.”

10.The papacy found good grounds to fertile on the ruins of the Roman empire. Augsburger cited that F. Lot says: "The pontifical theocracy of the Middle Ages and of modern times germinated amongst the ruins of ancient Rome." (Augsburger (1952): 8 citing Lot, 269).

11.   Gregory the Great also described this rise to power of the Papacy on the ruins of the Roman Empire. The current Rise of the Papacy Power in the USA find a similarity for me here. Says Gregory the Great: “Amid the frightful storms of the Gothic War classical civilization perished in Rome and throughout Italy. In cities burnt, desolated and mutilated, ruins remained the sole evidence of former splendor. The prophecy of the Sybil was fulfilled. The night of barbarism had descended on the Latin world, a darkness in which no light was visible other than of the tapers of the church and the lonely student lamp of the monk brooding in his cloister” (Augsburger (1952): 8 citing Gregory at Gregorovius, I, 481). Nearly all the Supreme Court Judges are Catholic in the USA. The Speaker of the House of Representatives are, the President is. Really as dr. Taylor Marshall said: “The United States of Pope Francis” in a recent Youtube on the matter.

12.  George Butler in 1885, as a president of the Seventh Day Adventist church, cites a speech of a bishop at the Ecumenical Council in 1870 which said: "Pope Vigilius, A.D. 538, bought the papacy from Belisarius, agent of the Emperor Justinian; though to be sure he broke his promise, and paid nothing.63 Is this mode of gaining the tiara canonical?" (Vatican Council 1870: 189 cited in George Butler 1885: 42 from the American Tract Society Pamphlet with the title: "The Speech of a Bishop in the Vatican Council"). So with a transitional pivotal point in history, the papacy shifted in to play a dominant role in the Roman Empire and similarly with the shifting in the Biden the papacy also is playing a dominant role and even more so from now on. (Butler, G. I., (1885). Facts for the Times: A Collection of Valuable Historical Extracts on a Great Variety of Subjects of special interest to the Bible student, from eminent authors, ancient and modern (Battle Creek, Michigan: Review and Herald).