not seem to match what the tribes did historically. Alaric and Rhadagaius did not have much in common. Theodoric, perhaps the most successful Goth, went unmentioned. The threefold split of Empire had preceded this period by a hundred years or more. Reverend Elliott may have enjoyed greater success relating the spiritual state of the Empire to John's prophecies. He saw this as a time when "the mystery of iniquity" was intensifying ready for the onslaught of the Beast. Specific superstitions of apostasy were the invocation of saints, purgatory, imposition of a priesthood between the people and God, prayers for the dead, private confession and indulgences. “The fifth and sixth trumpets cover the destruction of the Eastern Empire, the fifth Trumpet indicating the Islamic Saracens and the sixth the Osmanli Turks.”. Reverend Elliott was aware of possible underlying contradictions. Islam was also a reaction against the kind of idolatry which was a feature in the apostasy of the Christian church. A similar difficulty was experienced with the iconoclast reaction against superstition in the Eastern Christian church. Elliott acknowledged that many of the figures involved in the Roman apostasy, such as Pope Gregory the Great, were men of high piety and scholarship. These prophecies are said to be brought to conclusion when Mehmed II united the Ottoman Empire with the incorporation of Baghdad in 1530 and the killing of one-third was said to be achieved by the taking of Constantinople (1453) by the use of cannon fire. The hour, and day, and month and year After the fall of Constantinople, it was no surprise the western church failed to repent. Revelation 9:20 prophesied as much. Edward Elliott pointed to the marked contrast between material progress and spiritual stagnation at the time. On the civic side, there was the growth of free towns and communes the increased importance of trade and self-importance of the mercantile classes the growth of learning across Europe from Oxford to Prague the popular enthusiasm for printing and vernacular literature. But, on the spiritual side, there was superstition and repackaged heathenism which reached full decadence with the introduction of the rosary in 1460 worship directed towards "the spirits of dead men deified", particularly Canterbury which was dedicated to Beckett, not God bloodthirsty vindictiveness from the Inquisition amid the persecution of Waldenses, Taborites and others the abject failure of all attempts at internal reform such as the mendicant friars and