Last modified on July 12, 2016, at 07:23

Vatican Hill

Vatican Hill (Latin: Mons Vaticanus, Italian: Colle Vaticano) is a hill located across the Tiber River from the traditional seven hills of Rome. It is the location of St. Peter's Basilica. From the 8th century B.C., when Rome was traditionally founded (the year A.U.C. One), and through A.D. the mid-9th century, Vatican Hill was outside Rome, and was never one of the famous "seven hills of Rome" (the seat of the Caesars and of pagan imperial Roman power). When John the Apostle wrote the Book of Revelation in the first century of Christianity the Vatican Hill was not politically, geographically and civically included within the limits of the city of Rome as one of "the seven heads" mentioned in the Revelation.

"This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven hills on which the woman is seated" Revelation 17:9 RSV

Almost unanimously, and for centuries, Roman citizens and the Senate consistently rejected petitions by inhabitants of the Vatican Hill to be included within the precincts of the city of Rome.

Afterward, in the 9th century, the Vatican Hill was finally included within the city limits of Rome during the reign of Pope Leo IV, who, between A.D. 848 and 852, expanded the city walls to protect St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican.

With the rise of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, many militantly anti-Catholic writers then and now have consistently argued (falsely) that one of the "proofs" that the Catholic Church was the very "Whore of Babylon" described in the Book of Revelation lies in the fact that the center of Catholicism, the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica, was and is situated directly on the Vatican Hill, which they firmly assert (falsely) was and is one of the famous "seven hills of Rome". This assertion is historically untrue and has no basis in fact, which seriously damages the credibility of the writers. Yet many evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant Christians, even now, taking this charge as truth, without examining and testing it, and not knowing the documented facts of the history of Rome, sincerely believe on this basis (among others) that Catholicism is Satanic and that the Catholic Church is the "Harlot of Babylon" seated on "the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her". (See 2 Peter 3:15-17, and 1 John 2:18-19 and 4:1.)

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