Cornelius a Lapide
Editorial Note
This prefatory dissertation is editorial material by the 1891 editor Peronne, surveying four interpretive systems for the Apocalypse. It is not part of Lapide's original commentary.
Table of Contents
Introduction
How variously at all times the book of the Apocalypse has been understood and expounded is sufficiently well known to all. There are, however, three hypotheses to be especially noted. The first, that of those, particularly the ancients, who understand the whole Apocalypse as concerning the last times of the world. The second, of those who hold that in this book is foretold and described the triumph of the Christian religion or of the Church of Christ first over Judaism, then over Heathenism: thus Alcazar, Salmeron, Bossuet in his celebrated work titled L'Apocalypse, ou révélation de S. Jean; Ellies Dupin, Analyse de l'Apocalypse, etc.; De Sacy, D. Calmet, etc., and more recently Allioli. The third, finally, of those who maintain that in the Apocalypse is to be found the history of the whole Church Militant in its individual six ages, and of the triumphant Church in its seventh age: thus Holzhauser, in the work titled in the French version: Interprétation de l'Apocalypse, renfermant les sept âges de l'Eglise catholique, translated and continued by Canon de Wuilleret; Joachim Trotti de la Chétardie, Explication de l'Apocalypse par l'histoire ecclésiastique; a certain Englishman (Charles Walmesley, bishop), who under the name of Pastorini brought into the light a book translated into French with this title: Histoire abrégée de la naissance, des progrès, de la décadence, etc., de la Réform. de Luther, tirée de l'Apocalypse; Verschraegue, Claræ simplicesque explicationes libri Apocalypseos, Tournai, 1855, etc.
The first of these interpretations, since Cornelius a Lapide expounds and indeed for the most part follows it at greater length, I think should be omitted here. But the latter two, expounded and illustrated chiefly by more recent interpreters, it will be worthwhile to reduce to a summary and as it were to set before the eyes.
Article I: Bossuet's Interpretation of the Apocalypse
1. The aim of John's prophecies is to show the kingdom and victories of Christ, which were to be a solace and protection to the afflicted Church, with His enemies subdued, as it is written: "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool," Psalm 109. But the chief enemy is that ancient serpent, of whom the Lord Himself says: "An enemy hath done this"; and again: "Now is the judgment of the world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out," John 12:31. He stirred up two enemies against the nascent Church, the Jews and the Gentiles, whose fates John foretells.
This first prediction is divided into two parts: he treats of the Jews from chapter 4, of the Gentiles from chapter 9, verse 15, and so on to the end of the nineteenth chapter. In chapter 20, however, the conquered Satan rises again with greater fury, and is again subdued. By these predictions we see the persecutor Satan in himself and in his own conquered, bound, loosed for a short time, by the last and dreadful judgment confined in eternal prison, by which the last enemy, death, is destroyed, 1 Corinthians 15:26; Apocalypse 20:10, 12.
2. The persecution by the Gentiles is well known; that of the Jews was more hidden, through the slanders by which they then incited the Romans, who held supreme power, and the kings. For thus from the very beginning they delivered Christ, and afterward Paul, to the Romans; James the brother of the Lord, and even Peter, to Herod. Nor were they made gentler after being cut down by Titus; John himself is witness after that destruction, writing to the Angel of Smyrna: "You are blasphemed by those who say they are Jews, and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan." When therefore the Jews did not desist from their purpose of persecuting Christians, the same John saw vengeance follow: "Behold," he says, "I will make those who say they are Jews, and are not, to come and adore before your feet," namely conquered and laid prostrate by Roman arms: which he will treat more copiously in chapter 4 and following.
3. I pass over, however, in those chapters those things which have no difficulty, namely the apparatus of judgment in chapter 4, the book unsealed by the Lamb in which the divine decrees are written in chapter 5, then chapter 6:1-2, concerning the first four seals: Christ borne on a white horse, like a triumphant conqueror, equipped with a bow, with attendant followers — war, famine, and pestilence — namely the three scourges to be sent forth at His pleasure, verses 4, 5, 7. With these therefore set forth, John will show to whom these scourges pertain.
4. At the fifth seal indeed are heard the souls of the saints demanding vengeance for their blood, and the vengeance is deferred "until their fellow-servants and their brethren, who are to be slain even as they, are completed." That these brethren who are awaited are themselves the elect from among the Jews is plain from the context, where openly and without enigma those who are to be sealed on their foreheads are said to be taken from every tribe of the children of Israel, and then the twelve tribes are enumerated one by one. Moreover at verse 9 we read: "After this I saw a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues," etc. Therefore those coming from the tribes of Israel are distinguished from those who shall arise from all the tribes of the earth, since the numerable are distinguished from the innumerable, and the men of one race from the whole human race. For in fact, and during the same times under Trajan and Hadrian, a grievous persecution was stirred up against Christians converted from heathenism; but here, those from all nations are mentioned only as joined to the Jews, as is fitting for the Gentiles grafted onto the good olive of the Jews, Rom. xi. This is also easily confirmed by the fact that throughout those chapters from the fourth to the middle of the ninth, no one is said to be condemned to punishment because of idols; rather this is reserved to the same chapter ix, verse 20, after the plagues sent from the Euphrates and from the armies of the East against the Roman persecutors and against the emperor Valerian, as will presently be declared at verses 14 and 20 of the same chapter — which is a clear argument that the preceding prophecies, from the fourth to the end of the eighth chapter, are destined not to the destruction of any nation given over to idols, but to the destruction of the Jews.
5. Now therefore, when those who had survived from the people of the Jews had been gathered, marked, and preordained unto eternal life, nothing stood in the way of the perfidious nation being given over to vengeance and scattered through the whole world with great slaughter of its own. Therefore the spirits of the winds, which had been restrained (vii, 1), are loosed (viii, 7); at the same time the prayers of the saints are admitted to the altar, which is Christ — both of those crying out beneath the altar (vi, 10) and also of those who from the earth joined their pious voices (viii, 1, 2, 3, etc.); and at once the trumpets of the divine judgments and the avengers of the world's vengeance sounded dreadfully, and at the first blast a horrible storm began to rise through the air: by which whirlwind, in prophetic style, great changes of affairs and bloody wars are wont to be portended, and after his manner John in general announces these things (vii), soon to come down to particulars. A great mountain is great power, in which sense Babylon is so called; a great and pestilential mountain bringing pestilence and destruction to the nations; the very power of Christ also is recorded as having grown from a small stone into a great mountain. A great burning mountain, then, is a great power breathing wrath against the Jews, who so often rebelled: cast into the sea, into the tumultuous crowd, and the sea appeared mixed with much blood and filled with corpses; and ships caught up by the whirlwind were sunk into the depths (verses 8, 9, 10). Therefore nearly six hundred thousand Jews were slain, besides those whom famine and flame had consumed, and innumerable captives sold off at a low price.
This victory cost the Romans so dear that Hadrian himself, when he sent his laureate dispatches to the senate concerning it, did not prefix the customary salutation (Dio, in his life of Hadrian) — by which he signified that the victory was grievous to the Romans also, as John had indicated by the figure of the great fiery mountain cast into the sea, and beaten back from the conflict of waves and flames.
Thereupon at the third trumpet the very cause of the evil is disclosed, with "a great star falling from heaven," verses 10-11; and Cochebas, or Barcochebas, by whom as leader and instigator the Jews had rebelled, could not be more aptly designated. For Cochebas in his very name is called a "star," so that the prophet seems not only to have indicated him but to have called him by his very name. Furthermore he boasted that he himself had descended from heaven as a star to bring salvation to his people, applying that oracle: "A star shall arise out of Jacob," Num. 24:17. See Eusebius, IV, 6. But John shows that what was to come was not a kindly star shining from heaven, but an ill-omened constellation. Teachers, indeed, are wont to be designated by the name of stars; but false and erring teachers are stars, yet falling stars; and by the testimony of St. Jude, "wandering stars." John adds the name of that falling star — wormwood, verse 11 — from its effect, in which sense the Scriptures put forth six hundred names; because by the works of the false Messiah Barcochebas the Jews were plunged into sorrows and reproaches, eternally driven out from the remnants of Jerusalem, and granted only the liberty of weeping yearly over the city's ashes, with not even the name left to them, since Ælius Hadrian called it Ælia.
Here all things fit exactly. And it is no wonder that John signified that these things were soon to come, chapter i, 3. Again, however, the souls of the martyrs are commanded to "rest for a little time," vi, 11: since the war against the Jews was begun in the ninth and last year of Trajan, scarcely the fifteenth from John's death, and not long after, under the emperor Hadrian, was brought to an end.
As for what is mentioned at the fourth trumpet — "the third part of the sun, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars darkened," viii, 12 — we easily refer this to the Deuteroses of the Jews introduced about the same time, and to the oracles of the prophets, on the authority of Akiba (most learned of the Rabbis), wrenched against Christ to favor Akiba: which was the cause of blindness for the Jews and Gentiles, the Scriptures concerning Christ, the Church, and the preaching of the Apostles being darkened as far as possible, and as it were a third part of the light withdrawn — although more than enough still remained to convince the minds of the unbelievers.
6. Chapter ix, 1-13. Jewish matters being dispatched, John was about to pass to the vengeance of the Gentiles. But some delay was interposed on account of the heretics, sprung indeed from Christians but akin to the Jews, who arose during nearly the same times: I said akin to the Jews, and not undeservedly placed after the Jewish nation, because, after the manner of the Jews, they believed Christ was a mere man, and not God, and did not exist before Mary. Therefore, after the three woes were heard at the fourth trumpet, when the fifth trumpet sounded, after Cochebas the false teacher of the Jews, another star — another teacher and false master of subsequent Jewish errors — was seen to have fallen from heaven and as it were from the highest citadel of doctrine; and these remnants of the Jewish leaven John had cut off in Cerinthus and Ebion, when he wrote his Gospel near the end of his life; but he had foreseen that they would secretly endure under the name of the Alogi (Epiphanius, heresy 52), and later more openly revive under Pope Victor, with Theodotus the Byzantine as their leader — a man learned and renowned in all the arts of Greece, but chiefly in confession of the name of Christ, on whose account he was thrown into prison; while his companions hastened to martyrdom, he himself, having denied Christ, fell from so noble a confession as it were from heaven. But that he might fall yet more shamefully, he denied the divinity of Christ, lest he should seem to have sinned against God rather than against man. He therefore, illustrious in doctrine and confession, fell as a star; "and to him was given the key of the pit of the abyss, and he opened the pit." For nowhere among the prophets will you find that other calamities — for instance wars, pestilence, and famine — emerged from infernal regions, but rather heresies, or the seduction of souls, are the proper business of hell and of Satan. In Theodotus are figured those who afterwards followed the Jewish opinions about God and Christ — Praxeas, Noetus, Sabellius, Paul of Samosata, etc.; indeed even Arius and Nestorius, whom we hold to be not expressed here, but as it were designated and prefigured in the very source.
There follows: "And he opened the pit of the abyss, and there ascended smoke from the pit," etc., ch. ix, 2: which surely portend a foul gloom for the whole world, the course of the Gospel — which is the light of the world — being retarded by heresies. For from the beginning Celsus and the other enemies of the Christian religion, while imputing to that religion the insanities of heretics and mixing falsehoods with truths, also (and this was most pernicious) said that Christianity, being at variance with itself, was nothing else but, like the other sects, a human invention split into changing opinions. The locusts therefore which "came out of the smoke of the pit," verse 3 ff., denote these heresies. For there is no animal which more subtly and deceitfully creeps into houses and even bedchambers, or strikes men more secretly. Moreover, these locusts of John do not harm all, but only those who "have not the seal of God" and the saving faith, as it were inscribed by pious profession "on their foreheads." And there is that singular thing, that "though they have faces like the faces of men (warlike), and teeth like the teeth of lions," yet they have hair like the hair of women — soft, effeminate — which is also recorded of Paul of Samosata and his disciples (Eusebius).
These things being expounded, John concludes thus: "One (or the first) woe is past, and behold, there come two woes more after these things." That first woe, compared with the second, will lead us to the reign of Valerian; in whose times it is established that the Jewish error was condemned in Paul of Samosata by the most solemn judgment of the whole Catholic Church — which was a fitting end to the Jewish matters, and was set as the conclusion of the first woe.
7. In the remaining part of chapter ix, from verse 13 to the end, when the sixth trumpet sounds, the revived armies of the Parthians or Persians are described, and the beginning of the ruin brought on the Roman empire by the disaster of Valerian — by which the strength of the empire being turned toward the East, an entrance was opened to the Goths, who then first appeared, and to the rest of the invaders of the western parts, who would in the end overthrow them. John has graphically set forth the characters of the eastern armies — first by their immense cavalry, then by the kind of arms and the manner of fighting, with arrows shot both from the front and from behind, as it were from the tails of the horses. By these plagues not indeed all the Roman forces were consumed, but yet a third part was destroyed by slaughter; and it is expressly added, "the rest of the men who were not slain did not repent" from worshipping their demons and idols of gold, silver, stone, and wood. Here it should be noted that idols are mentioned here for the first time, so that it may be clear that this prophecy chiefly pertains to the Gentiles.
8. The first woe therefore is past, as the punishment exacted from the Jews. Now, in chapter x, a new series of prophecies arises against the Gentiles, the Angel saying to John in verse 11: "Thou must prophesy again to the Gentiles," as if to say: Hitherto thou hast announced their fates only to the Jews; but now in a new order thou must prophesy to all the nations, and the judgments of the whole Roman Empire must be laid open; and these thou hast tasted in chapter ix, 14: but now both what has already been said must be impressed afresh, and all the rest must be set forth more fully, and warning must be given "about many kings" — whether persecutors (Wisd. xiii, xvii. 9) or avengers of persecution (ibid. 16). These things begin from chapter xi.
9. There follow six visions concerning the vengeance of the Gentiles.
First vision, chapter xi. Compare Lactantius, On the Death of the Persecutors, chapter xix, 11. "The holy city shall be trampled" — that is, the Christian Church — in that manner in which Jerusalem once was under the illustrious Antiochus; for from this source are taken the images and ornaments of the prophecy; "for forty-two months," that is, three and a half years, which all understand to be likewise repeated from Antiochus' persecution: so that the affairs of the Church should be in that state in which during those three and a half years under Antiochus the affairs of the Jews had been — which were a type of these. The "two witnesses" are the innumerable martyrs and confessors, who when persecution pressed in nonetheless preached the Gospel, indeed fertilized it with their blood. As for the fact that many Catholics think Enoch and Elijah must necessarily be brought in here, let them remember that the two witnesses of John "are to be killed by the beast that ascends from the sea," verse 7, that is, by reigning and persecuting Rome, while in fact the death of Enoch and Elijah is reserved for the last times of the world, when Satan is again loosed and Antichrist rages. Therefore these things cannot literally be applied to Enoch and Elijah, but only figuratively and in an accommodated manner. "The earthquake," verse 13, is to be interpreted of civil wars; the rest of the same verse, of Constantine's victory. Amid these things the second woe passed away, and the third was at once announced, to last until the end of the prophecy and of the Roman destruction, verse 14.
10. Second vision concerning the vengeance of the Gentiles, chapter xii.
Among the singular characters and marks of the Diocletian persecution, none is more notable than this: that it rose up three times, and was as often suppressed by princes in favor of the Christians. The matter stood thus: in the year of Christ 303, with Diocletian, Maximian Herculius, and the other Maximian, namely Galerius, as authors, the persecution was begun; in the year 311, which was the eighth of the persecution, it ceased by Galerius' edict and Constantine's victory. Not long after, in the year 312, it was renewed by the emperor Maximinus as if with a new beginning, and was repressed by Constantine and Licinius. Thirdly, Licinius, separated from Constantine, by himself stirred up persecution, and was broken by the third victory of Constantine; and the peace of the Christians was established by stable law. Now these things have been expressed by John, and the three occasions distinctly noted. The dragon about to devour the woman — namely the Church — and the child (that strong one who was to rule "the nations with an iron rod," and soon to reign under Constantine the prince), of the woman fleeing into the desert, verses 4, 6 — behold the first onset of the persecutor. The dragon vanquished in battle, and the song of victory chanted: "Now is the kingdom of God and of His Christ," verses 9, 10 — behold him broken and bruised. The dragon stirred to anger and persecuting the fleeing woman, verses 13, 14 — behold the second attempt. But the woman aided by the earth, which swallows up the floods of persecutions — behold again the cessation. Finally, the dragon again "angry and about to make war with the rest of the seed of the woman," and accomplishing nothing — behold the third and last and futile efforts, and the rest of the woman.
11. Third vision concerning the vengeance of the Gentiles, chapter xiii.
Here is described the third character of the Diocletian persecution, and the most singular and proper one: that this persecution alone of all was carried on under seven Augusti; that with these removed, it was exhausted — being the mortal wound inflicted on idolatry; that finally that wound was healed, and the persecuting idolatry itself under Julian the Apostate took up again not only its life but its rule. The seven-headed beast, then, is the seven Augusti, under whom that ten-year persecution is recorded as having been carried on. First Diocletian, from the very beginning alone, took the rest into the empire; to him are added Maximian Herculius, Galerius Maximian, Constantius Chlorus, Maxentius, Maximinus, and finally Licinius. But since these seven did not rage all at the same time nor with the same severity, the Apostle chose three to set forth in a singular manner — the two Maximians and Diocletian himself, from whom the whole mass came forth. We set forth the history on the authority of Lactantius, whose words are these: "From the East unto the West three most savage beasts raged," On the Death of the Persecutors, xvi. A passage altogether well known for describing, under those three wild beasts we have named, the foul and atrocious beginnings of persecution from the year 303 itself. Now to the individual characters: "The beast which I saw was like a leopard," Apoc. xiii, 2. Here we set Maximian Herculius — variable, shifty, now casting off his empire, now resuming his title, now a friend to his son Maxentius, to his son-in-law Constantine, even to Galerius himself, now at odds with them: no leopard had a more variegated color or skin. "His feet were the feet of a bear," a misshapen, rapacious, northern animal — Galerius from the regions beyond the Danube, of whom Lactantius: "Natural barbarism and ferocity, foreign to Roman blood: he had bears most like his own ferocity and bulk," ibid. ix, 21. John continues: "And his mouth like the mouth of a lion." To the mouth pertain the deadly edicts. These bore the name of Diocletian, first of the emperors: bloody utterances befit the lion.
"The mortal wound," by which one head is slain, and then "healed," is idolatry — its strength lost, its empire lost, as it were dead, yet recovering, when after 50 years, in which it seemed to have lain conquered and disarmed under Constantine and his sons, it was at last restored to reign and to persecute by Julian the Apostate. To this then pertains that saying of our Prophet: "And the whole earth wondered after the beast" — namely, everywhere on earth the slavery of idols was astounded that it should be so unexpectedly restored. "And they worshipped the dragon," they cultivated their accustomed demons; "and they worshipped the beast," the Roman empire itself, the emperors themselves, Julian himself, who carried himself as a god, as Serapis, as the son of the sun, and set forth his own images along with idols to be worshipped with incense and fumes; "saying: Who is like the beast, and who can fight with him?" — who has raised himself up, and shown that the Roman gods are invincible. "For there was given to him power," not poured out and unlimited at his pleasure, but, as to the rest, as to Antiochus, "forty-two months" — circumscribed within a certain space by divine power, and ended by the very slaying and punishment of so great a persecutor; which he himself was forced to confess, saying: "Thou hast conquered, Galilean," Theodoret III, 22.
"Another beast," verse 11, are the sophists and magicians, e.g. Iamblichus and Maximus, who already from the times of Diocletian, then under Julian the Apostate, with false philosophy and magical arts and tricks came to the aid of idolatry. "It had two horns like a lamb," by which is signified that Julian usurped many things from Christian institutions for the splendor of idolatry, e.g. care of the poor, the majesty of the priesthood, etc.
12. Fourth vision concerning the vengeance of the Gentiles, chapter xiv.
Above Mount Sion appears the glory of the martyrs, verses 1-2, for the consolation of the harassed Church; the eternal Gospel appears, borne by an Angel through the midst of heaven, verses 6-7, that is, made manifest in the whole world. "That great Babylon," that is, Rome, paid the penalties of divine justice, the Angel crying out: "It is fallen, it is fallen," verse 8. She was conquered, captured, given over as prey and mockery to Alaric, given up to the barbarians, deprived of her former empire and splendor; then in the city and outside the city a twofold sickle is sent, for the harvest and for the vintage, verse 16. For in the city itself Genseric, entreated by Pope St. Leo, spared blood and reaped the wealth. But in the vintage shed blood is signified. "The wine-press was trodden outside the city," verse 20. A little after Genseric, by the same Pope Leo, Attila the Hun, deterred from the blood of the citizens, turned to ravaging the provinces with fire and sword, and there went out "blood from the wine-press unto the bridles of the horses for sixteen hundred furlongs," that is, almost 70 leagues; and as if grapes had been trodden, the wine-presses overflowed far and wide.
13. Fifth vision concerning the seven vials and plagues, chapters xv and xvi.
Those dreadful plagues all pertain to one and the same time, namely that of Valerian, an otherwise good prince but a dire persecutor.
The first vial poured out on the earth signifies the most grievous ulcer, or pestilential swelling, sent against the pagans: not that the Christians were entirely immune, but that they were less severely struck. See Eusebius, VII, 22.
When the second and third vials were poured out into the sea and into the rivers, in the very body of the empire and then through each province, civil wars broke out, and everywhere gore and corpse-blood appeared, with the divine judgment proclaimed by the angels, that the bloody Romans, after such great slaughters of the saints, might be sated with the citizens' blood for which they thirsted.
The fourth vial was poured out upon the sun, as if to enkindle its heat, whence heats, notable droughts, barrenness, and famines, which are recorded as occurring during these times. See Dionysius of Alexandria and St. Cyprian, To Demetrianus.
The Angel poured out the fifth bowl "upon the seat of the beast," which seat is Rome, equally the seat of empire and of idolatry; "and his kingdom became darkened," when the emperor Valerian was captured, and his body was placed beneath Sapor the Persian as a mounting-block for his horse: meanwhile, by this example, the imperial majesty was obscured and trampled, and throughout the provinces thirty tyrants arose, among whom were ignoble men, and even two women are recorded, to the disgrace of so great an empire.
The sixth bowl was poured out "upon that great river Euphrates," and as if it were dried up, it opened the way "for the kings of the East," and for those vast armies of which it was treated in chapter IX, 14. John "brings forth the kings from the whole earth," namely foreigners and Romans, into a place called in Hebrew Armageddon, which is Mount Mageddon, as into the place, namely, where, as is customary in the Scriptures, royal armies are wont to be slain: where Sisera and the kings of Canaan were utterly destroyed, where Ahaziah king of Judah fell, where Josiah was killed by Necho king of Egypt, from which followed that great mourning in Zechariah "in Mageddon," XII, 11, that is, as great as lamentation can be: just so great a mourning arose also in the Roman empire, when two kings, Valerian and Julian, were also slain.
Finally, the seventh bowl was poured into the air, whence lightnings and thunders, winds and tempests are wont to arise, by which even the earth itself is shaken. By this plague is designated, under King Valerian, a certain universal commotion and decline of the whole Roman empire, with the barbarian nations being then chiefly displayed — Suevi, Alans, and especially Goths who would lead the column. In this commotion, then, that Spirit, witness of future things, sees as it were in the cause, and shows John the Roman state utterly falling apart and the convulsions of the failing empire, and "a great voice from the throne is heard crying: It is done;" the Roman empire is proclaimed at an end: behold, after long having been shaken, it now collapses; and "the great city was divided into three parts;" the Empire of the West, where Rome the seat of empire was situated, was divided among three emperors — Honorius the legitimate at Ravenna, Attalus at Rome, and Constantine in Gaul.
Thus although intent on the affairs of Valerian, he is led on to the times of the empire failing under Honorius, as to another blow from the same upheaval; nothing more remains than that he should signify directly and plainly the very destruction of Rome itself — until now signified only obliquely — which pertains to chapter XVII.
Note that the beast, although considered by John in a special way in Diocletian and the ten-year persecution, is generally idolatry dominating Rome and the whole empire, and is named here for that reason. The image of the beast adored is nothing other than the image of the Roman emperor set before the martyrs for sacrifices and libations — which Eusebius, VII, 17, attests was also done under Valerian.
14. The Sixth Vision: On the Babylonian Harlot, Chapter XVII.
Since there has been hardly any disagreement among interpreters here, it will suffice to recall a few points.
"The seven heads are seven kings: five have fallen, one is, and another has not yet come, and when he comes, he must remain for a short time;" these words contain a clear history of future things. For it was to come about that five kings — namely Diocletian, the two Maximians, Constantius Chlorus, and Maxentius — would pass away in their own place, and the whole persecution would flourish in Maximinus alone; Licinius, who would afterwards be a persecutor, was then yet to be awaited.
"And the beast which was and is not, is herself the eighth (in Greek, he is the eighth king), and is of the seven" kings, or heads. What is this other than that very same one in some manner doubled, a new Augustus superimposed upon himself, who is reckoned among the seven and can also be counted as the eighth? Lactantius further unfolds the matter in these words: "Maxentius, after his father (Maximian Herculius) had laid down the empire, sent him the purple and named him Augustus a second time," On the Death of the Persecutors, XXVI, XXVIII.
I pass over the destruction of Babylon, that is, of Rome, in chapter XVIII, as well as the praises of the heavenly spirits in chapter XIX.
15. After the Apostle has most copiously set forth the events of the first persecutions impending under the Roman empire, he passes to the last persecution at the end of the age, and compresses its three chief circumstances into a single chapter XX — namely, concerning the devil bound and loosed, concerning the reign of Christ, and concerning the thousand years.
The serpent is not bound by the Angel, nor shut up in the abyss, so as not to harm at all, nor to tempt, nor to persecute Christians; but rather, that there should not occur, as once under paganism, a universal seduction or persecution. Nor was John silent on this. For he was bound and shut up, "so that he should no longer seduce," as once, "the nations indefinitely." That universal seduction will never return.
By the thousand years, which is a perfect number, is denoted the whole compass of years by which one reaches to the end of the world.
"And they (the blessed) reigned with Christ a thousand years." If only celestial glory and reign were meant here, that empire would be called everlasting, and not for a thousand years. When therefore it is said that blessed souls will reign with Christ, it is certainly to be understood of that reign, that is, of the glory of the holy souls in the Church of Christ up to the end of the world, before the final resurrection.
Three things must be noted here. First, that it concerns souls separated from the body, lest we suspect anything of the millenarian error. Second, that it concerns those who suffered under the beast, that is, in the Roman persecution: so the Apostle proclaims the glory of those whose torments he had seen. Third, that this glory is attributed to them, that they may sit with Christ, that they may judge with Christ.
Nazianzen speaks excellently concerning this glory and reign of the blessed (martyrs) with Christ through a thousand years: "You (he addresses Julian the Apostate) did not fear the victims slain for Christ, nor those great champions, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, James, Stephen, Andrew, Thecla, and others who before and after them contended for the truth with sword, fire, beasts, and tyrants — as if in alien bodies, indeed, as if already in no bodies; in whose names splendid honors and festivals have been established; by whom demons are driven away, diseases healed; whose are the apparitions, whose the predictions; whose bodies can do as much as their blessed souls; whose mere drop of blood, and however slight the relics of their passion, can do as much as their bodies," Oration 3.
In the interpretation of the last two chapters, Bossuet scarcely differs from our Cornelius.
Article II: Allioli's Interpretation of the Apocalypse
The theme of the Apocalypse is: the Contest of Christ with His enemies and victory over them. Now Christ's enemies were Jews and Gentiles; hence there are two parts of this book, in the first of which the Christian religion's victory over Judaism is described; in the second, Gentility, or Ethnicism, is shown defeated by the same Christian religion.
After the title (chapter I, 1-3) and the prologue, with the epistles to the seven Churches added (I, 4 – IV), the first part begins, from chapter V to chapter XII, where the matter is Judaism conquered by Christ and the Christian religion. The signs of this are: that the divine vengeance is threatened in the same words with which Christ foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, chapter VI, 13 ff.; that both those who are afflicted with punishment and those who are exempted from it are likewise Jews, chapter VII; that the temple and the holy city are foretold to be assaulted by the Gentiles, XI, 1-2. However, if anyone contends that the final judgment and the end of the world are also described here, and that the sense of the words the seer uses is not exhausted by the destruction of the Jewish state, I cast my vote with him.
I. Overview of the First Part, Chapters VI - XII.
The fates of men and of kingdoms are known to God alone, chapter V; in truth, Christ predicts that He will triumph over Judaism, chapter VI, 2, and that the Jews themselves will be cut off by war (verse 4), famine (5), and death (by enemy sword and pestilence). The saints who were slain by the Jews in martyrdom, now blessed in heaven, do not ask out of desire for revenge, but inquire when what Christ Himself had foretold, Matthew XXIV, 6-34, will come to pass. Therefore a dreadful slaughter is announced, verses 12 ff., and presses on; however, the Christians, gathered both from Jews and Gentiles, will be immune from dangers, chapter VII. Soon, in chapter VIII, 2-5, while the dwellers in heaven are amazed, six angels announce — as if at a trumpet signal given — the progress of divine vengeance against the Jews, indeed they execute it, from chapter VIII, 7, to the end of chapter IX. The Angel of the Testament, bearing the person of Christ, thunders that the overthrow of the Jewish state, whose preparation and beginning had been described in the preceding visions, is now to be consummated. In chapter XI, 1-14, the temple is handed over to the Gentiles, by which is signified its destruction and the end of the Levitical worship; then, verses 15-19, the seventh angel sings of the Christian religion triumphing over Judaism; finally, in chapter XII, the seer describes again in a special vision under the symbol of a woman in labor the victory of the Christian Church, as if to repeat in summary the earlier part of the prophecy.
In this first part, note the following point by point:
Chapter VI: when the six seals are opened, God only threatens and prepares His vengeance against the Jews, not yet executing it.
VII, 1. The angels are commanded to hold back the winds, lest they harm the earth. Winds easily stir up storms and tempests. When therefore they are held back so that they cannot blow, no storms are to be feared. Since storms are a symbol of great calamities (cf. Dan. VII, 2), nothing else seems to be signified by this image except a delay of the disaster impending upon the Jews' affairs, granted for the sake of the Christians.
v. 4. It is known that Cestius besieged Jerusalem, and neglecting the opportunities of capturing it, lifted the siege the following month and led away his army. The Christians who were in the city, mindful of Christ's warning (Matt. XXIV, 16), immediately left the city and Judea for Pella. See Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., book III, chapter V. Some also were scattered through Europe and Asia, and when Titus besieged the city, there was no Christian in it. See Josephus, De Bello Judaico, book II, chapter XXII.
v. 9. The Christians from the Gentiles are commemorated here to signify that the Christian Church is composed chiefly of them. That John foresaw not only the calamities of Jerusalem under Titus and the Romans, but also more remote events, namely the end of the world, is clear from this too.
VIII, 1. Now when the seventh seal is unsealed, the beginning of vengeance is at hand, and in the second part of the visions (in which the angels sound their trumpets) the description of vengeance beginning and growing is laid open.
v. 2. Rightly are the trumpets given to angels who are about to announce a deadly war.
v. 3. Incense is the common symbol of prayers.
v. 4. This verse symbolically signifies that the prayers of the Christians were pleasing to God, and that they are now about to be heard, with the reins as it were loosed for vengeance against the Jews.
v. 7 ff. With marvelous order seven calamities (trumpets) succeed one another, described by various symbols: by the first four, inanimate things — earth, sea, rivers, and heaven — are struck; by the fifth and sixth, men; by the seventh, universal destruction is accomplished.
IX, 1. The star which falls from heaven when the fifth seal is opened is Satan. The key of the pit is given to him, namely the power of sending his own onto the earth to harm men.
v. 3. The locusts are Satan's cohorts or satellites, who so blinded the mind of the Jews that, dissenting among themselves and given over to every vice, they harmed their own affairs more than the Romans themselves did.
v. 13. The arrival of the Roman army campaigning under Titus is described.
Rosenmüller on this passage: "An army is imagined, having as its leaders demons set as commanders, always most ready to inflict evils. Now, since the Jews used to assign desert places as the abode of evil demons, they had to be said to be banished there and bound in chains as long as their power of harming was taken from them, Zech. V, 11; Tob. VIII, 3. The place of this prison is set in the desert regions by the Euphrates, because men born or brought up in Palestine would perhaps shudder at no other region more. Now the heavenly voice commands the evil demons, there bound in chains, to be released from their bonds: by which is signified that the Roman army is now preparing itself for the march against the Jews."
v. 20. "That they should adore demons and golden idols." Some think that the Jews who, to save their lives, surrendered to the Romans, sacrificed to the gods and adored the military standards as evidence that they would remain faithful to the Romans. Others understand this in a less literal sense, namely that the Jews served money, gems, and tables, by which, being inanimate things, they could not be saved in danger. The reason is given here why God added final destruction to the plagues of the people of Jerusalem — because men had not been corrected at all.
X, 1. The Angel of the Testament (Malachi III, 1) is described, bearing the person of Christ, an angel, I say, the leader and protector of the people of Israel, the companion of their journeys and labors, and the promulgator of the Law on Mount Sinai. He is openly designated as such by the rainbow, which is the sign of God's covenant with men (Gen. IX, 13), and by other symbols. Because the Jews had hardened under the preceding plagues, this angel announces to them the imminent end of the covenant — namely, that after the brief time given for repentance has elapsed, the holy city will be destroyed (XI, 1-13), and the triumph of the Christian Church over Judaism, proclaimed by the seventh Angel (XI, 15 ff.).
v. 4. "Seal," that is, hold closed, do not deliver them for reading: by metonymy, because we are accustomed to seal up things we wish hidden from others, like wills; that is, the final destruction is not yet ripe; first the two prophets must preach repentance; then, unless the Jews come to their senses, when the seventh angel's trumpet sounds, the Jewish state will be destroyed.
v. 6. "There shall be time no longer," that is, no further delay shall be granted. The word χρόνος also means delay, and Hesychius interprets the verb χρονίζω as διατρίβω, I delay.
v. 9. "Devour it." This eating enigmatically signifies comprehension, which is followed by meditation, as a kind of digestion. Thus what we learn well, we are said to turn into our juice and blood. And the Latins' usages of "to drink in," "to imbibe," "to devour," "to swallow down," with respect to things to be perceived by the mind, are well enough known.
v. 11. The Gentiles are mentioned, because the prophecy pertains to them also (XI, 3).
Chapter XI. See what we have noted on pages 222 ff.
vv. 1-3. With the Jewish War having begun, before the destruction of the nation is consummated, God arouses the Jews to repentance both by threats and by the preaching of two prophets.
v. 4. The image is taken from Zechariah IV, 11, 14, where it concerns Zerubbabel, prince of the laymen, and Jesus, prince of the priests.
vv. 5, 6. The images are taken from 2 Kings I, 9-12; Sirach XLVIII, 3; Exodus VII–IX. The sense is: God will protect Christians just as He once protected Elijah; there is nothing so great and astonishing that they cannot obtain it from God if there be need.
v. 7. The beast is Satan.
v. 8. The Prophets often compare Judea to Sodom in its sins and punishment. It is also compared to Egypt, either because of its idolatry, or because as Egypt had oppressed Jacob's people by force, so Jerusalem oppressed Christ's people.
v. 10. By this image is described the madness of the Zealots, who, despising the warnings of the Christians and trusting in their own strength and in heavenly aid, considered victory ratified and certain.
v. 11. The sense is: not long after, God will avenge their injuries by permitting Jerusalem itself to be stormed by enemies.
v. 13. The storming of the city.
v. 15. What the seventh trumpet announces it was unnecessary to state, because it is sufficiently clear of itself — namely, the final destruction of Judaism, so that the kingdom of God is now the Christian Church alone. This is the theme of the epinicion (victory hymn) that follows.
Chapter XII. The Church of the Palestinian Christians, source and mother of the rest, has just been described as victor over Judaism: now this will be made clear anew by a new symbol — namely, that the nascent Church was harassed by the Jews at Satan's instigation, but with God's aid remained unharmed, indeed routed her enemies.
vv. 1-2. That the woman who gives birth is the Blessed Virgin is self-evident: "Mary here," says St. Augustine, "is a figure of God's Church before Christ, from which Christ Himself was born, and which soon became the first and mother of the Christian Church."
v. 4. "A third part of the stars," namely the Scribes, Pharisees, and Doctors of the Law puffed up by their vain wisdom, indeed wasted away.
v. 6. These things are said by anticipation: for the battle of Michael with the Dragon preceded; with this finished, the Dragon persecuted the woman, verse 14.
The image is taken from the Virgin Mary fleeing into Egypt with the infant Jesus. During the war of the Romans with the Jews, the Christians also in Judea were exposed to great dangers. But they consulted their safety by flight. Namely, they withdrew to Pella in Peraea. The time here again is three and a half years — as long as the Jewish War lasted under Vespasian and Titus as commanders.
v. 17. Since Satan had accomplished nothing against the Christians from the Jews, or against the Christian assemblies in Judea, he leaves the woman, intending to vent all his rage upon the Christians from the Gentiles: which is indeed a fitting transition from the first part of this book to the second.
II. Overview of the Second Part, Chapters XIII-XX, 5.
The Roman empire and its anti-Christian power on one side (XIII, 1-18), and on the other the chorus of Saints (XIV, 1-5), come on stage as if two athletes about to contend with one another: the one powerful in strength and cunning, the other unarmed by singing divine praises. God declares Himself patron of the pious: therefore by two angels is foretold the destruction of the Roman empire and the punishment to be exacted from the enemies of the Christian name (XIV, 6-13); the Messiah commands His ministers to go forth as reapers and vintagers to execute the divine decrees (XIV, 14-20). While the seven angels stand as if in readiness to perform Christ's commands, the Elect, standing around the throne of God, sing the epinicion. With the hymn sung, the seven avenging bowls — like so many voices summoning to repentance through fear of calamities — are poured out upon the earth (XV, 5-18). When men do not come to their senses, the Roman empire, consumed by both internal and external calamities, totters and falls apart (XVI, 19-21). In the city of Rome, as in the head of its empire, Ethnicism (paganism) had settled: therefore here a prophecy is set against Rome. That city, polluted by idolatrous worship, drunk on the blood of the Christians, foul with lusts, with the strength of the empire broken, can scarcely have rulers, until it ceases to be the chief seat of the empire (XVII, 1-11). The kings who initially followed Rome's party and fought against Christ's Church, converted to the Lamb, accomplish the destruction of pagan Rome (XVII, 12-18). Now Rome's destruction is solemnized: first by public mourning and lamentation over the city's so grievous ruin (XVIII, 1-24); then by the epinicion sung in heaven throughout the world for so memorable a victory (XIX, 1-10); finally by a solemn triumphal procession (11-21).
These things accomplished, the most joyful destinies of the Christian religion and of the Messianic kingdom on these lands are described, after idolatry has been extirpated in most regions of the world, that is, with the devil bound for a thousand years. The things that follow narrate the final events of the world.
In this second part, note the following point by point:
Chapter XIII. See what we have noted on pages 252 ff.
v. 6. "The tabernacle," that is, the worship and religion of the Christians. "And those who dwell in heaven," that is, the blessed Martyrs whom the pagans did not cease to tear with insults even after their death; or rather the Christians dwelling on earth. Cf. 1 Cor. III, 16, 17.
v. 16. That images spoke was believed by the pagans, and by diabolical art it is permissible to believe it. Lactantius, book II, chapter VII: "This too is wonderful, that the image of Fortuna Muliebris is reported to have spoken not only once; likewise that of Juno Moneta," etc. The image of Apollonius also spoke by the power of a demon, as is reported by Philostratus.
XVI, 17. With Constantine converted to the Christian faith, paganism was finished.
Chapter XVII. See the notes on page 303 ff.
XVIII, 4. When destruction by Alaric was just at hand for the city, many Christians left it — for example, St. Paula, who fled to Bethlehem to St. Jerome.
v. 8. Rome is taken by storm by Alaric.
vv. 21-24. Images taken from the Prophets, and not to be pressed literally.
Article III: Bartholomäus Holzhauser's Interpretation of the Apocalypse
The seven Churches that are in Asia, to whom John writes by name, are a type of the whole Catholic Church in her various ages, namely seven. We are warned of this by the Holy Spirit; for, the warnings to the angels of these Churches having been completed (III, 22), St. John adds: "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches." These words are surely those of one rousing attention to some mystery, that is, to a higher and more remote sense to be understood.
Moreover, to the individual ages correspond both the individual days of creation, the seven epochs of Israelite history, and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.
There are several repetitions in the Apocalypse, or rather quasi-repetitions, because in each one the history of the Church is run through morally from beginning to end, but not all the same facts are found in each, with all the same circumstances; and the facts which on either side are the same in each are indeed represented by other images, and contain other instructions. From this perspective, the whole book can be divided thus:
Chapters I-III: warnings to the seven Churches of Asia, by which a general overview of ecclesiastical history is sketched.
IV-XI. The history of the Church from its beginning to its end is set forth by various symbols, point by point.
XII-XIX. Second repetition, in which few but most important events are foretold.
XX. Third repetition, in which, omitting what pertains to the nascent Church, certain things pertaining to her end are delineated.
XXI-XXII. Fourth repetition, in which only the final destinies of the Church Militant and her perennial triumph in heaven are described.
Note that no individual age of the Church begins or ends at a fixed point of time, such that at the same moment one age has fully ceased or another alone is in vigor. On the contrary, the transition from one age to another happens gradually and imperceptibly, so that as some age verges to its end, another age has already begun to arise and as it were glides in.
Overview of the Seven Ages of the Church.
I. Ephesus. The Seminal Age, in which the Gospel is sown throughout the world like a grain of mustard, and God grafts His vineyard into Christ. The time of the Apostles. Toward its end all the Apostles, except John, were taken away by martyrdom; their successors contend against the Nicolaitans; the first charity grew lukewarm. Correlatives: 1° The Gift of wisdom, by which the things above are savored, not the things upon the earth, Acts II, 45 [Col. III, 2]. 2° The first day of creation, when, with the Spirit of the Lord hovering over the waters of the abyss, light was made and divided from darkness. 3° The first age of the world, from Adam to Noah, in which the race of men was propagated according to the flesh.
II. Smyrna. "Be faithful unto death." The Irrigating Age, in which the Lord's newly planted vineyard is watered by the blood of the Martyrs. "You will have tribulation ten days:" by this are signified the ten general persecutions. Correlatives: 1° The gift of fortitude. 2° The second day of creation, on which the firmament was made in the midst of the waters, by which is figured the fortitude of the Martyrs in the midst of the floods of tribulation. 3° The second age of the world, from Noah to Abraham, in which the blood of victims was first poured out in honor of God.
III. Pergamum, noble for the praise of the sciences. The Illuminative Age, from Constantine to Charlemagne. The Holy Fathers illuminate the Church by their doctrine and disperse heresies. Correlatives: 1° The gift of understanding, by which the mysteries of the Holy Trinity are asserted and illustrated by the Holy Doctors. 2° The third day of creation, when, with the waters receding into one place, dry land appeared, and the earth brought forth green herb and fruit-bearing tree: not otherwise does the field of the Church, watered by the baptismal waves, produce the grass and flowers of every virtue, as well as fruit-bearing trees, namely the Holy Doctors. 3° The third age of the world, in which on one side the enemies of the Israelites and the impious were punished by death, namely the Sodomites, Pharaoh, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and on the other God gave the Law of Moses, which perfects and illustrates the natural law: so in this third age of the Church, heretics are confuted by the Doctors; hence, "because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam… the doctrine of the Nicolaitans," II, 14-15.
IV. Thyatira. The Peaceful Age, from Charlemagne to the Emperor Charles V and Pope Leo X. Christ reigns through His Church. Warnings against worldly and secular morals. Jezebel. Correlatives: 1° The gift of piety. Saints Francis, Thomas, Bonaventure, etc., etc. 2° The fourth day of creation: "Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven," etc. 3° The fourth age of the world, from Moses to the Temple of Solomon. The Psalms of David.
V. Sardis. "You have a name that you are alive, and you are dead." The Purgative Age, from Charles V to the advent of the Holy Pontiff and the Mighty King. Christ will sift His wheat. Wars, seditions, heresies; the Church afflicted, stripped of her riches and honors, the monasteries despoiled. Correlatives: 1° The gift of counsel. 2° The fifth day of creation: "Let the waters bring forth the creeping creature having life, and the fowl above the earth under the firmament of heaven." Fish and birds are a symbol both of unbridled freedom and of carnal men. Cf. St. Jude's Epistle, verses 10 ff. 3° The fifth age of the world, from the Temple of Solomon to the captivity. The schism of Jeroboam. Luther.
VI. Philadelphia, the love of brethren. The age of consolation, from the coming of the Mighty King and the holy Pontiff to the Antichrist. For the calamities of the fifth age, God will console the Church. The universality and unity of the Catholic Church. The profession of the Christian faith without exterior or temporal power. A Church flourishing with religious and priests. Good shepherds. Many saints and Doctors. Peace will prevail under the reign of the Mighty King and his successors. Correlatives: 1° The gift of prudence. 2° The sixth day of creation. "And rule (men) over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the heavens, and all living things that move upon the earth," by which words the dominion of the Mighty King is signified. 3° The sixth age of the world, which begins from the liberation of the Jews and the rebuilding of the temple and the City. The Mighty King will destroy republics, will overthrow the Turkish empire, and will rule in the East and in the West.
VII. Laodicea, the judgment of peoples. The age of desolation. The Antichrist. The end of the world. "Neither hot, nor cold." Forgetfulness of divine worship, likewise of all virtues. Rare profession of the Christian faith. The completion of human affairs upon the earth. Correlatives: 1° The gift of knowledge. All shall know Christ the Judge as God. In Heaven the clear vision will empty out faith. 2° The seventh day of creation. With His work completed, God will rest with His saints. 3° Christ's prior coming to earth through the Incarnation.
Now a few things concerning the individual chapters.
Chap. VI. The first seal: Christ's warlike expedition entering the world, that having conquered it He may reign in it; the second: Nero; the third: the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jewish state; the fourth: Domitian; the fifth: the Christians are afflicted, from Trajan up to Diocletian; the sixth: Diocletian and Maximian.
Chap. VII. God consoles the Church Militant. The four Angels are Galerius, Maxentius, Maximinus, and Licinius. Verses 9-17, the consolation of the Church Triumphant, the victory of the Martyrs.
Chap. VIII. The seventh seal: the Church fights against the heresiarchs and their supporters until the consummation of the age; likewise, against Julian the Apostate.
Verse 7. The first Angel sounding the trumpet, Arius; the second, Macedonius; the third, Pelagius; the fourth, Nestorius; the fifth, chap. IX, Eudoxus: the star which falls from heaven is the emperor Valens; the locusts, the Goths, Vandals, etc.; the sixth, Luther: the four Angels to be loosed are his supporters, both princes and priests or religious. Verses 20-21. Calamities brought about by the Catholics themselves.
Chap. X. The consolation of the Church in the sixth age. St. Ignatius and the Jesuits. The Council of Trent. The infidels are evangelized. Catholic kings.
Chap. XI, 1. The Catholic Church is propagated and exalted throughout the whole world. Verse 2. A part of the earth is reserved for the Gentiles (the Turks) and for the Antichrist, so that the Church never occupies it. Verses 3-13. The persecution of the Antichrist. Verses 14-19. The last trumpet and plague. Cf. Matt. 24:29 ff.; Luke 21:25 ff.
Chap. XII. The sign or woman is the Church; the boy, Heraclius; the dragon, Chosroes.
Chap. XIII, 1-10. The Church is opposed both by Mohammed and by the Antichrist. Verses 11-18, the execrable and impious Antipope causes the beast to be worshipped.
Chap. XIV, 1-14. The glory and triumph of the Martyrs. Verses 14-20, the extirpation of heresies.
Chap. XV, 1-4. The Christians and Jews who survive the Antichrist give praise to Almighty God and to His Son Jesus Christ.
With this little verse Holzhauser's Commentary closes. When asked why he did not finish it, he is reported to have answered that he was lacking his former genius and light, and so was already unequal to so great a task. The work was recently re-edited in Vienna in Austria, 1850, by the care of the society called the Mechitarists; more recently Canon de Wuilleret translated it into French and brought it to a conclusion, under this title: Interprétation de l'Apocalypse, renfermant les sept âges de l'Église Cath., etc., by Barthélemi Holzhauser; work translated from the Latin and continued by Canon de Wuilleret, 1856, at Vivès. In the judgment of Haneberg, Geschichte der biblischen Offenbarung, part VIII, chap. IV, § XI, Holzhauser holds the first place among all interpreters of the Apocalypse.
I shall also subjoin here in a few words, with your kind leave, excellent Reader, lest I omit anything, a synopsis of another Commentary on the Apocalypse, more pious indeed than acute. The title of the work is: Clear and Simple Explanations of the Book of the Apocalypse, by the author P. F. Verschraege, Tournai, 1855.
Article IV: Verschraege's Interpretation of the Apocalypse
1. "The work is divided into seven parts, of which six represent the six ordinary days of the Great Week, through the six principal ages of the Church of Christ, beginning from the Lord's Ascension; the seventh part, however, is considered as the great and eternal Sabbath, to which there belongs, as a sort of Parasceve (Preparation), whatever sad thing must precede the last day of the world, and also the last judgment: just as in the old law the evening of the sixth feria, and the whole following night, belonged to the Sabbath. In the six prior parts, then, under various and varied images, the Ecclesiastical History is repeated six times; in the last part is given the description of the heavenly Jerusalem."
2. Asia (I, 4), containing seven Churches, signifies the whole Catholic world, not only in its extension, but also in its duration, inasmuch as it contains the whole Church of Christ from its beginning to its end on earth. For the word Asia signifies muddy or turbid: such indeed can the Church Militant always be called, both on account of the continuous tribulations she suffers, and on account of the very many sins of many of her members; although in another sense she truly is wholly "beautiful," and no "stain" is found in her.
Furthermore, just as seven particular Churches are numbered in Asia Minor, so there are seven principal epochs or ages of the universal Church. Consequently their Angels also prefigured the Supreme Pontiffs, not some one for each epoch, but all who in those various times were to exist. Likewise the state of each of those Churches, of which there is question here, foretold the state of the universal Church, which in its diverse epochs, either disturbed by calamities through persecutions, heresies, schisms, or scandals, or made illustrious by triumphs, was foreseen in a prophetic spirit by St. John. All things therefore which the inspired writer says in the following Epistles concerning the Bishops or Angels of those seven Churches, and concerning the peoples committed to them, can or ought to be understood not of them only, but also and perhaps especially of the Roman Pontiffs in the seven epochs of the Catholic Church, and of the whole Christian people committed to them.
The epochs of the Church of Christ, which are usually called ages, are divided in various ways by various authors. After all have been carefully considered, the division has pleased us best which the work entitled Bible de Vence proposes and follows, where it is taken thus:
The first age, from the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel by the Apostles, up to Arianism, around the year of Christ 320.
The second age, from the beginning of Arianism up to the invasion of the Barbarians into the Roman Empire, begun through the Huns and Goths, in the year 395. This age is the briefest in duration, but very notable for its events.
The third age, from the aforesaid invasion up to the beginning of Mohammedanism, in the year of the Lord 609.
The fourth age, from the beginning of Mohammedanism up to the beginning of Lutheranism, in the year 1517. This age is by far the longest up to the present, and on account of the tyranny of the Mohammedans and the schism of the Greeks, very calamitous.
The fifth age, from the beginning of Lutheranism up to the complete extinction of the Roman Empire under Francis II, who abdicated, being compelled by Napoleon, in the year 1806. For his son and successor did not resume the title of Roman Emperor.
The sixth age, is and will be from the aforesaid abdication up to the immediate preludes of the last judgment. It is uncertain how long this is yet to last.
The seventh and necessarily last age will be the blessed eternity in which the great Sabbath will be celebrated, that is, when God shall have entered into His rest with all His elect.
3. Meanwhile it must be noted that both the beginning and the end of each age must not be taken altogether strictly, precisely as a year or some absolutely determined day, because great events are wont to be gradually prepared from afar before they take a clearly distinct beginning; and similarly, after their course is completed, they vanish only gradually.
4. Thus then the prophetic history of the universal Church will be found, first, in the order in which those seven particular Churches are placed in this book, in their state and the signification of their name; second, in the opening of the seven seals and the consequences of each; third, in the sounding of the seven trumpets, and those things which we shall see come to pass after each blast. Thus we arrive at the twelfth chapter, where, through the appearance of the symbolic Woman, the fourth repetition begins — but not so complete, nor so clearly distinguished into seven epochs, as the preceding ones, yet again leading the reader from the beginning to the end of ecclesiastical history. In chapter XV the same history is taken up a fifth time through the pouring out of the seven vials, which repetition is again clearly distinguished into seven epochs and comprised in two chapters. Afterwards there follows the sixth repetition, which closes the history of the Church Militant, but cannot easily be distributed through seven epochs; nevertheless it evidently begins also with the first calamities of the Christians under the tyranny of the Pagans, and is concluded with the last judgment, set forth indeed more clearly than in the preceding repetitions. Finally the book of the Apocalypse is closed with the history, or description, of the Church Triumphant in the heavens, in which there is nevertheless repeated some recapitulation or remembrance of past things which took place on earth.
5. Now let us come to the individual Ages, chapters II-III.
1° Ephesus signifies desire; by that name then is called the city which is the first see of the seven Churches. By that mystical desire the Catholic Church is fittingly represented in her first Age, while all the Apostles and many others of Christ's and the Apostles' disciples, recently enkindled by the fire of the Holy Spirit, most ardently desired the progress of the kingdom of Christ, for which alone they desired to live and to die. In that first epoch of the universal Church, its Angels, or Bishops, that is, the Supreme Pontiffs, who afterwards were called by the special name of Popes, were St. Peter and his successors up to Arianism, all of whom have been inscribed in the catalogue of the saints.
2° The name Smyrna signifies myrrh, which signification is not without mystery, since indeed that Church of Smyrna fittingly represents the Catholic Church in the second age, on account of the excessive bitternesses with which the Spouse of Christ was then filled, which arose from the most vehement persecutions and from the furious heresy of the Arians. All things which are written to the Bishop and Church of Smyrna can also be applied to the Roman Pontiffs and the universal Church in the second epoch: for against St. Sylvester and his successors the Arians, Donatists, Novatians, Sabellians, and also princes, the protectors of those heretics, raged greatly.
3° The name of the city Pergamus, or Pergamum, signifies elevation, which seems to come from this, that it was situated in an elevated or mountainous place, and not in a valley; but perhaps still more from the disposition of divine Providence, because its Church was to prefigure the universal Church in her third age, in which that true Spouse of Christ, notwithstanding all persecutions, was beginning notably to be elevated or exalted above her raging enemies, through the triumphs of the true faith over idolatry and over all the heresies of those times. In that epoch also there were found men very notable under every respect, who successively occupied the chair of St. Peter; the greatest holy Fathers and Ecclesiastical Writers flourished; the principal councils of ancient times, both general and particular, were celebrated; many Religious Orders were already instituted; very many nations were converted to Christ, etc.
4° Thyatira signifies aromas, otherwise also the sacrifice of labor and contrition; whence the Church of Thyatira fittingly seems to prefigure and foretell the universal Church in her fourth age, existing in many labors and contritions, in very many anxieties and storms, offering many sacrifices of good odor to God the Father and to her most beloved Spouse Christ, both amid the horrid vexations of the Mohammedans, and amid the continual troubles of the Greeks, whence followed their schism; and finally amid the violent turbulences and commotions of the new heretics of the 15th and 16th centuries. Moreover, in those centuries also the Catholic Church suffered very many things from emperors, kings, and other princes, either because they themselves embraced heresy, or because they favored heretics or schismatics, or because they tried to usurp the rights of the Church, or in any other ways rebelled against their most pious Mother.
5° The name Sardis signifies prince, or beginning of gladness, otherwise also a song of joy. As to which signification of the name, and the many things said about the Bishop, if they are applied to the universal Church in her fifth age, it must be noted that at that time (the 16th century and thereafter) many Religious Orders either flourished anew, or were reformed, or were then instituted; that many nations, especially through the labors of the Jesuits, were brought to the Church of Christ; very many things also through the Council of Trent were explained, established, renewed, reformed; that very many errors were condemned, abuses proscribed, seminaries instituted, etc., by all of which the Church carried off new and splendid victories over adverse powers; and thus indeed the prophetic signification of the name Sardis seems wholly to have been fulfilled.
6° The name Philadelphia, composed of two Greek words, signifies the love of a brother, or fraternity. How aptly this suits this our most difficult age of the Church you will understand if you note, first, that in the concourse of peoples, nations, and sects such as occurs today, there already shines forth a certain — and indeed a very notable — fraternity, such as perhaps was never before seen in the world; and it could be taken as a prelude to the future conversion to the same faith. For very many inveterate and most pernicious prejudices against the faith and the Catholic Church have thence occasionally been dissipated. Secondly, all non-Catholic sects know — indeed see, as it were, with their eyes — that God loves the Catholic Church and effectively protects her; by palpable experience they have come to know the power of the Catholic faith, and from this very many have been convinced of its truth. Thirdly, that sixth age of the Church endures longer, and must not be terminated except after the universal conversion of all peoples, the last persecution of the Antichrist being only then ended; and then, with all peoples at length gathered into one faith, united in the same charity, there will indeed be true and universal fraternity; therefore then in its full splendor will appear the great Church of Philadelphia.
7° The name Laodicia, or Laodicea, signifies a just people, and most aptly prefigures the seventh age of the universal Church, located in blessed eternity, where the people, alone and wholly truly just, will be established under the sole supreme Bishop, Christ.
A. G.
Editorial Note on Crampon's Annotations
Annotations with which Aug. Crampon, presbyter of the diocese of Amiens, has illustrated and enriched the Commentaries of the Reverend Father Cornelius a Lapide on the Apocalypse of the Blessed Apostle John.
Nothing hinders them from being printed.
Given at Amiens, the 23rd day of October, in the year 1859.
+ JAC. ANTONIUS, Bishop of Amiens.