Dogmas on Creation and Fall: The Church's Middle Road
On the feast of the office of St peter, the ultimate witness to the gospel in all ages
One of the herod kings was called Antipas.
In the apocalypse third letter to the churches, a mystical person named Antipas is called a faithful witness and is put to death or is martyred, quotes and quote, in those days , as it is said.
There is no space here to give a rigorous treatment of the Apocalypse letters as a symbol of the great ages of the church in one delineation, but suffice it to say that if we flip-flop the negative antipas of Herod into a positive figure, then the pope is in fact the ultimate earthly King of the church, standing in place of Christ not to usurp his role but to be quote on quote the supreme witness to the gospel , hence mirroring that the mystical antipas is the faithful witness of christ, the ultimate faithful witness .
His martyrdom in that apocalypse letter can then symbolize a spiritual martyrdom, which is to say to reject the doctrine of his supreme witness, which happened in the great schism.
For a far greater and deeper analysis that supports these arguments, , you can see my introductory treatment of the Apocalypse seven letters in the link below
http://theologyoftheages.org/content/apocalypse/synthesis/apocalypse-letters-i.php