Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The Lamb opens the seven seals of the sealed book, namely: He opens the first, verse 1, and there comes forth a white horse with a rider having a bow and a crown. He opens the second, verse 3, and there comes forth a red horse with a rider having a great sword. He opens the third, verse 5, and there comes forth a black horse with a rider having in his hand a balance. He opens the fourth, verse 7, and there comes forth a pale horse, on which sits Death, whom Hell follows. He opens the fifth, verse 9, and there come forth the souls of the holy Martyrs seeking vengeance. He opens the sixth, verse 12, and there is a great earthquake, the sun is darkened, the moon turns red as blood, the stars fall from heaven, and all men, terrified, hide themselves in caves.
Vulgate Text: Apocalypse 6:1-17
1. And I saw that the Lamb had opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures, as it were the voice of thunder, saying: Come, and see. 2. And I saw: and behold a white horse, and he that sat on him had a bow, and there was a crown given him, and he went forth conquering that he might conquer. 3. And when He had opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature, saying: Come, and see. 4. And there went out another horse that was red: and to him that sat thereon, it was given that he should take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another, and a great sword was given to him. 5. And when He had opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature, saying: Come, and see. And behold a black horse, and he that sat on him had a pair of scales in his hand. 6. And I heard as it were a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying: Two pounds of wheat for a penny, and thrice two pounds of barley for a penny, and see thou hurt not the wine and the oil. 7. And when He had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature, saying: Come, and see. 8. And behold a pale horse, and he that sat upon him, his name was Death, and hell followed him. And power was given to him over the four parts of the earth, to kill with sword, with famine, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. 9. And when He had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. 10. And they cried with a loud voice, saying: How long, O Lord (holy and true) dost Thou not judge and revenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 11. And white robes were given to every one of them one; and it was said to them, that they should rest for a little time, till their fellow servants, and their brethren, who are to be slain, even as they, should be filled up. 12. And I saw, when He had opened the sixth seal, and behold there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair: and the whole moon became as blood: 13. And the stars from heaven fell upon the earth, as the fig tree casteth its green figs when it is shaken by a great wind: 14. And the heaven departed as a book folded up: and every mountain, and the islands were moved out of their places. 15. And the kings of the earth, and the princes, and tribunes, and the rich, and the strong, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of mountains: 16. And they say to the mountains and the rocks: Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: 17. For the great day of their wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?
Verse 1: And I Heard One of the Four Living Creatures
1. "And I heard one of the four living creatures." — "One," that is the first, namely the lion, as is clear from chapter IV, verse 7; for the second, third, and fourth follow. Furthermore, the lion shows this vision of the white horse to St. John, saying: "Come, and see;" because Christ, His rider and horseman, is here brought in as king, and as the subduer of enemies, victor and triumphant, as will soon be apparent. Hence the voice of the lion announcing Christ is like thunder, which strikes and lays low all. Mystically Rupertus takes the thunder for the doctrine of Christ resounding throughout the whole world: "A voice is heard, he says, as it were of thunder, because clearly not as shameful vanity whispers in corners, but the fullness of the virgin birth loves to be proclaimed openly to the whole world, so that it is rightly compared to thundering heavens."
Verse 2: And I Saw, and Behold a White Horse
2. "And I saw: and behold a white horse." — From the first four seals of the sealed book come forth four horses, namely the first white, the second red, the third black, the fourth pale.
You will ask what these signify? First, Victorinus by the white horse takes the preaching of the Gospel, which subdued the world to itself and to Christ; by the three remaining ones he takes the wars, famines, and plagues predicted by Christ in the Gospel.
Second, Bede by the white horse and the rider takes the contests and victories of the Apostles; by the red, the passions of the Martyrs, who immediately followed the Apostles; by the black, the deceits and malice of hypocrites and false brethren; by the pale, the cunning and frauds of heretics.
Third, Andreas of Caesarea and Aretas agree with Bede on the first and second horse; but by the third, namely the black horse, they take the apostasy of weak Christians from Christ and the faith; and by the pale they take the punishment of the same.
Fourth, Ambrose thinks that by the seven seals are portended the things which happened or will happen to the saints and elect in the seven ages of the world. Whence he refers the first four seals to the Old Testament, namely to the facts and deeds which occurred in it; but the last three he refers to the New Testament: so that the fifth seal pertains to the Martyrs; the sixth, to the reprobation of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles; the seventh, to the Antichrist.
Fifth, Rupertus: The seven seals, he says, signify the seven principal mysteries of the life of Christ, namely the nativity, the cross, the resurrection, the ascension, the sending of the Holy Spirit, the calling of the Gentiles, and the universal judgment.
Sixth, Alcazar by the first four seals, namely by the four horses and riders of different colors, holds that there is represented the conversion and felicity of the Jews, who will believe in Christ and submit themselves to Him; but by the last three is signified the unhappiness and punishments of the Jews unbelieving and rebellious to Christ. Whence he himself here notes. 3: Four disordered loves, he says, dominated man and the world like tyrants: the first was the excessive love of life and of pleasures; the second, of riches; the third, of honor; the fourth, of one's own opinion and judgment. From these four Christ rescued Christians, especially those of the primitive Church. For He subdued them from the dominion of their own judgment, when He subjected them to His faith, which is the foundation of the spiritual life. Then He drove out the pursuit of honor, when He stirred them up to profess and preach the faith of Christ freely amid so many reproaches and mockeries of the Gentiles. Third, by Evangelical and voluntary poverty, He extinguished in them the cupidity of riches. Fourth, He taught them to despise life and to love martyrdom: whence on the fourth pale horse sits "death," signifying the death and martyrdom of the Jews who followed Christ; on the third, namely the black, sits poverty, which the poor suffer; on the second, the red, the rider is the very disturbance of peace, or the boldness which disturbs peace: whence a sword was given to him, that he might take peace from the earth; on the first, namely the white, the rider is Christ, piercing hearts, according to that of Psalm 44, 6: "Thy sharp arrows (the people shall fall under Thee) in the hearts of the king's enemies," that is of those who previously were enemies. Therefore the riders of the four horses are: faith and truth, boldness, poverty, death: which four kill the disordered loves already mentioned. Hence aptly the color of the first horse is white, which is the symbol of meekness; the color of the second horse is red: for this is the symbol of boldness and ardor; the color of the third is black, which is the symbol of humility; the fourth is pale, because it carries death, which makes men pale. Furthermore aptly the white horse is attributed to faith, because the white color is proper to a tame and gentle horse: whence also white horses have hair smooth and soft like silk thread. Hence also white horses are weaker than others of other colors. Whence Virgil in the Georgics: "The color, he says, is worst in whites." So faith gently tames man's judgment and reason, and as it were subjects it weak to Christ.
Again, faith is here depicted as a horseman bearing a bow, by prosopopoeia, just as by it the Poets attach a bow and arrows to love, or Cupid, to signify the most efficacious force of love by which it strikes and wounds hearts, so that it draws and leads them, not where reason, but where love itself snatches them. For thus faith snatched men into love of a wondrous and unwonted thing, namely Christ crucified, so that they should place in Him all hope and felicity. Hence it bears a crown as a sign of victory. Whence St. John says, Epistle 1, chap. 5, verse 4: "This is the victory which overcometh the world, our faith."
But all these things are allegorical, not literal, and ingeniously devised for an apt accommodation of a preconceived sense, so that it may be congruously adapted to the individual parts of the vision. Add: it is the common opinion of the Fathers and Interpreters that the rider of this horse is not faith, but Christ.
Seventh, Aureolus and Viegas, by each of these horses take the Roman Empire, under different Emperors, however, who are signified by the riders and horsemen, as Zacharias chapter 6 designates the four Monarchies by four chariots. The first reason for this symbol is that the horse is an imperious and glorious animal, as is a monarchy; the second, that empires like horses are governed by God, with their reins loosened or restricted at God's pleasure; the third, that empires just like swift horses run their course and often fall and throw off their riders and kings; the fourth, that the horse is a warlike animal, also wanton and lascivious: such also are empires.
Therefore the first horse, namely the white, signifies the Empire of C. Caligula, who did not impede the Gospel of Christ, but raged against the Jews, the enemies of Christ. The second horse, the red, signifies the Empire of Nero, who has a great sword, because he was most cruel and most bloody. The third horse, the black, signifies the Empire of Titus, who besieged Jerusalem, and devastated it with grim famine and the sword. To him it is said: "The wine and the oil hurt thou not," that is, do not touch the Christians, who because of charity are compared to wine, because of mercy to oil. For Titus did not harm the Christians, but they escaped from Jerusalem to Pella, according to Eusebius, book 3, chapter 5. Titus has a balance in his hand, that is, divine justice: for he was the executor of it. The pale horse signifies the Empire of Domitian, who by his persecution struck immense fear and pallor both into the Roman Senators and into Christians, whom he despoiled partly of their goods, partly of their lives. Whence he himself is here called death: wherefore he too was killed by his own people, and thrust down into hell for his crimes. Viegas notes rightly that death sits on this horse, on account of the swiftness of its course, by which it not only overtakes men, but often runs ahead, when, as it were flying ahead, it demolishes and cuts off their hope. Again, that this horse is χλωρόν, that is pale, or, as Tertullian, in De Pudicitia, chap. 20, translates, green: because death to the impious is pale, that is, to be feared and sad, and makes them livid; but to the good it is green, that is, sweet and placid, and offers the hope of the harvest of eternal life.
The fifth seal, bringing to light the souls of the slain, signifies the Empire of Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, and the other following Emperors, up to Diocletian, who pertains to the sixth seal. Then therefore there were very many Martyrs, who cry out beneath the altar, and demand vengeance from God.
The sixth seal signifies the most bitter persecution of Diocletian, in which the earthquake signifies the commotion of all the Roman governors, by his order, against the Christians. The sun, that is Christ, was then seen to be darkened and blackened among the unbelievers; the moon, that is the Church, became red; the stars, that is many illustrious men, fell away from the faith and from heaven.
The seventh seal, of which chapter VIII, signifies the great upheaval of the Church, the consolation, peace, and joy under Constantine the Great, after the four evil angels, that is, the four tyrants, were defeated. During it there was silence for half an hour, which signifies the latent and silent persecution of Julian the Apostate, but very brief: for Julian reigned only for two years. So Aureolus.
This opinion appears apt and plausible from the very outcome of events: but the following seem to oppose it. First, that it embraces only what was to come in the Church from Christ to Constantine, and then leaps from Constantine to Antichrist: whereas between the two many wonderful things have happened, equally to be noted and foretold, as the times of Constantine and the preceding Emperors. Secondly, that John saw only four horses, while there were ten persecutions of the Church: therefore he ought to have seen ten horses. Thirdly, that this exposition embraces under the fifth seal six persecutions, which were from Trajan to Diocletian, but to the other seals it attributes only one persecution each, although the persecution of Trajan and those that followed were equally severe, indeed more severe, than the preceding ones. Fourthly, John seems to have wished to embrace all the persecutions of the Church under the four horses: for after them in the fifth, sixth and seventh seals he brings forth not horses, but other visions. Why does he change the horses into other visions, if he is treating of the same persecutions? For one was very similar to the other in matter, manner, author, severity, etc. Therefore, since the earlier persecutions are aptly denoted by horses, the later ones also seem to have been meant to be designated by horses.
I therefore say that the seven seals signify seven mysteries, as well as times, arcane and secret, established and sealed by God, by which the things contained in these seals, each in its own order and in its own century successively, before and until Antichrist, and the end of the world (for the things to come under Antichrist, and at the end of the world, are contained described in the sealed book itself), shall be made manifest and shall in fact come to pass, so that as one ceases another that follows next will succeed in its order, e.g., so that the cessation of the second is the beginning of the third, and the cessation of the third is the beginning of the fourth, as I taught in chapter V, verse 1. Therefore at the first seal Christ is here introduced, as a rider robed in white, who with three following horses and riders, namely the red, the black, and the pale, will contend successively, and as it were enter into a duel, and at length will overthrow and conquer each one: namely the Gentiles, whom the red horse signifies; the heretics, whom the black horse signifies; the Turks and Saracens, whom the pale horse signifies: so that He contends with every kind of enemy and of men, conquers and triumphs. And so, when at this first seal John says: "And behold a white horse, and he that sat on him had a bow, and a crown was given unto him, and he went forth conquering that he might conquer," I reply, explain, and say that by this symbol of the white horse and the rider is signified the most warlike and most victorious state of the primitive Church. For the horse is, first, a symbol of war; whence Virgil, in the third book of the Aeneid, says that Anchises, the father of Aeneas, on seeing certain horses, exclaimed:
"War, O hospitable land, you bring: For war horses are armed, for war these herds are prepared."
And Lucretius calls the offspring of horses warlike. Hence the horse was sacred to Mars among the Gentiles, and they sacrificed it to Mars on the Ides of December. Plutarch relates, and from him Pierius, Hieroglyph. IV, that Horus after his death appeared to Osiris, and when asked which animal was more useful in war, replied, the horse. And when Osiris thought the lion was superior, Horus replied that the lion could indeed be of help, but once he had taken to flight he was beyond recall; whereas a warrior must sometimes give way, sometimes attack the enemy again from a line already broken: therefore the horse is more suitable and serviceable for all these duties. Aristotle in his Ethics especially praises this virtue in the horse, that it is fit for running and carrying a man, and least timid for attacking and awaiting an enemy. Hence also Zechariah in chapter VI represents the conflicts of the four monarchies by white, red, black, and dappled horses; and these four horses and riders of St. John allude to them. Hence perhaps these same horses also allude to the four-fold charioteers of that age, namely the four factions of the Circus charioteers, distinguished and named by four colors, which in St. John's time were famous at Rome and elsewhere, and not infrequently contended against one another: indeed afterwards often, and notably under the Emperor Justinian, they stirred up grave seditions and tumults in the republic, as Procopius testifies in the Anecdotes of Justinian, Marcellinus in the Chronicle, Theophanes and Zonaras in their accounts of Justinian; while each one drew many, even princes, into his faction, and incited them to ravage the opposing faction by slaughter, just as in the memory of our forefathers the Ghibellines and Guelphs did in Italy; for in the Circus there were charioteers, some in white, some in red, some in green, some in blue, concerning all of whom there are extant Epigrams in book V of the Anthology, and Dio in his book on Domitian, book LIX, and Suetonius in his Life of Vitellius, chapter XIV. The Whites correspond to the white horse and rider of St. John, the Reds to the red, the Greens to the black, the Blues to the pale. For the green color is leek-colored, or verdant, compounded of yellow and black, as Plato testifies in the Timaeus; the venetus color was cyan, or sky-blue, that is, sea-colored, says Vegetius, which approaches the pale.
Furthermore, by these four colors they seem to have represented the four elements, and their mutual fight and contention, namely fire by red: for fire is red; by white, the air: for the air appears white when it is serene; by venetus, or sky-blue, water and the sea; by green, or verdant, the earth clothed with green grass. For God, the supreme charioteer, governs these four elements, and brings them together and tempers them with one another. Whence concerning the origin of the Blues and Greens we read thus in the ancient Collections of Histories, Vatican Codex 96: "Oenomaus first invented the colors of the Circus, by which he represented as it were a contest of land and sea. Lots were cast; whoever was assigned the part of acting on behalf of the land in the contest, he put on a green garment; and a sky-blue one, who took the part of the sea. This contest Oenomaus established on the 24th day of March. And if the green color had won, all hoped for the fertility of the earth; if the sky-blue, for tranquil navigation of the sea. Therefore the farmers wished victory to the green color, the sailors to the sky-blue."
Wherefore Plato, when he had once mounted a horse, immediately leapt down to the ground, saying that he feared he might be contaminated with some equine pride. Such were the Apostles, namely in fighting against demons, the world, and sins, fierce and breathing fire. Secondly, because of the office of the horse to carry the rider; about which is the adage: ἵππος με φέρει, βασιλεύς με τρέφει, the horse carries me, the king feeds me. For when a certain young man was serving for pay under King Philip, he was advised to seek discharge and renounce military service. He refused to do so, saying he lived most comfortably, since he both walked on another's feet, namely the horse's, and was fed with another's money, namely the king's. Whence Horace in his Epistles, under the persona of Aristippus, uses this:
"It is far more splendid that a horse should carry me, and a king feed me."
The same was the office of the Apostles; for the Apostles, like horses, carried the rider Christ, both through holy works and through Evangelical preaching. So the horse of Christ was Paul, Andrew, John, etc. Thirdly, because of the wonderful agility and swiftness of the horse. For likewise of the Apostles it is said: "Their sound went out into all the earth;" and: "He hath rejoiced as a giant to run the way: his going out is from the end of heaven, and his circuit even to the end thereof," Psalm XVIII, 7. Fourthly, because of the patience and obedience of the horse, by which it suffers itself to be ruled by the bridle and to be led every which way at the rider's nod. For thus the Apostles in all things followed the leading and prompting of Christ's grace. Finally, because the horse is a symbol of salvation and happiness, won through martial courage and victory. For thus the Apostles, by contending against infidelity and impiety, brought forth salvation and happiness to the world. Wherefore Zechariah, chapter X, verse 3, says: "The Lord hath placed the house of Judah as the horse of His glory in battle." And Proverbs XXI, 31: "The horse is prepared for the day of battle: but the Lord giveth safety." And Habakkuk, chapter III, 8: "Thou shalt ride upon Thy horses, and Thy chariots are salvation." And Psalm LXVII, 18: "The chariot of God is attended by ten thousands," who, following St. Irenaeus, the first and earliest author of this explanation, all agree and conspire together with one voice in this.
Note: The Apostles are rightly compared to a horse, as Thomas Anglicus notes. First, because of its alacrity and fierceness in battle, which Job beautifully describes with these praises of it, in chapter XXXIX, verse 20: "The glory of his nostrils is terror, he diggeth the earth with his hoof, he leapeth boldly, he goeth forth to meet armed men, he despiseth fear, neither giveth he way to the sword. Above him shall the quiver rattle, the spear and shield shall glitter. Hot and fierce, he swalloweth up the ground, neither doth he make account when the noise of the trumpet soundeth. When he heareth the trumpet, he saith: Ha! He smelleth the battle afar off, the encouraging of the captains, and the shouting of the army." And Virgil, in the eighth book of the Aeneid:
"With four-footed sound the hoof shakes the crumbling plain."
Secondly, the horse is a symbol of empire. To those digging the foundations of the walls of Carthage, says Virgil in Aeneid I, was offered up "the head of a fierce horse." Hence they conjectured that the city would be warlike and dominant. Suetonius narrates in his Life of Julius Caesar, chapter LXI, that in the house of Caesar there was born a horse with almost human feet, namely with hooves split in the manner of fingers; and the soothsayers replied that the empire of the world was portended to him in whose house such a horse was brought forth. Caesar therefore reared it with great care, and was the first to mount it, since it would not endure another rider. The horse also gave to Aelius Pertinax, who after Commodus seized the empire, a sign of his invading the kingdom. For at the very hour he was born, a colt climbed up onto the tiles of the roof, and after lingering there briefly, fell down and died at the same moment. Which was an augury to Pertinax of his future exaltation, though it would not last long. Finally, Suetonius in his Life of Nero, chapter XLVI, narrates that his Asturian horse, in which he most delighted, was seen in a dream with the hinder part of its body changed into the likeness of an ape, and with only its head intact, uttering melodious neighings: it was an omen, says Suetonius, that that fierceness of the horse was about to depart into the mockery of an ape.
Thirdly, the horse is a symbol of victory. Thus of Marcellus Virgil sings in book VI of the Aeneid:
"He shall stay the Roman state with his horses amid the great trembling tumult, and shall lay low the Carthaginians."
On the contrary, the Consul Flaminius, setting out against Hannibal, when he leaped upon his horse, the horse suddenly collapsed and threw the consul over its head, a sign of an inauspicious undertaking, says Plutarch; whereby a little later he himself with his army was overcome by Hannibal in a most foul disaster at Lake Trasimene, and was slain and fell.
I therefore say first: The white horse is the Apostles and other heralds of the Gospel, as St. Ignatius, Polycarp, Dionysius, etc., through whom Christ overcame and subjected the world to Himself. Thus Aretas, Andreas, Haymo, Tichonius, Ribera, Pererius and others everywhere. Therefore, for God or Christ to mount upon a horse is for Him to hasten and to advance to the aid and salvation of His people, like a warrior against His enemies. Thus the angels guarding Elisha against the Syrians appeared on horses and chariots of war (2 Kings 6:17). Thus the terrible horse, fighting for the temple and the Jews, struck Heliodorus with its forefeet when he wished to invade the temple's treasure (2 Maccabees 3:25). Thus five angels appeared on shining horses, two of whom placed Judas Maccabaeus in their midst and won victory for him and the Jews against the forces of Antiochus by hurling weapons and lightning bolts (2 Maccabees 10:29). Thus often St. James, mounted on a white horse and gleaming with radiant arms, brought aid and victory to the Spaniards when they invoked him (as their Annals record), and especially to King Ramiro in the year of the Lord 834, when, having suffered defeat at the hands of the Moors, he was fleeing into the mountain of Clavigium. While praying, he was admonished by St. James to confess and communicate together with his soldiers and so attack the Moors again, for he himself would go before the camp. He said it and did it: for, mounted on a white horse, he went before the camp, and seventy thousand Moors fell, the rest being either captured or escaped in flight. Roman historians narrate or recount the same of Castor and Pollux, that, appearing on white horses, they brought aid to the Romans when reduced to the greatest distress, and went before their camps.
And from this seems to have flowed the old proverb, "To go before with white horses," customarily said of those who are far superior in some matter — either because anciently white horses were considered better, or because victors in triumph were accustomed to be carried on white horses, as Pomponius Laetus writes of the triumph of Diocletian and Maximian: "Behind the triumphant chariots of gold and precious gems, which were drawn by four horses contending with snow in whiteness," etc.; or because white horses were believed by the Gentiles to be more fortunate and auspicious.
Finally, at Rome on the most festive day of all, when the new Pontiff is led to the Lateran to take possession of the Pontificate, amid the common applause of the city and the world, all the prelates are accustomed to ride alongside him on white horses. And this perhaps, like many other things, was taken from this passage of the Apocalypse, namely that they may represent this white horse whose rider is Christ, of whom the new Pontiff is the vicar and successor.
"And he went forth conquering and to conquer," — namely, that by clashing with the three following horses, inasmuch as they are hostile, He might conquer them. Secondly, that through the Apostles and their successors He might gradually conquer and subjugate the whole world to His faith and obedience. For this phrase, "He went forth conquering and to conquer," signifies that He would gradually proceed from the victory over one nation to the subjugation and victory over another, and that with a continuous progress and increase of victories. For although in the first Apostolic century He conquered and converted many through them, yet He conquered far more in the second and third centuries, namely from Trajan up to Constantine, under whom He thereafter conquered the entire world and made it Christian, so that Christ was worshipped publicly everywhere, while the temples of the idols were closed by Constantine's edict.
The symbol of this victory is the white horse. Hence in Philostratus in the Heroica, we read that the Gentiles sacrificed a foal of white color to the Sun in order to obtain victory.
I say secondly: The Rider of this horse is Christ, as is clear from chapter 19, verse 11. Of Him Origen speaks beautifully in homily 2 on the Canticle, on that text, "I have likened thee to the cavalry of Pharaoh": The horse, he says, and the cavalry of God and of Christ are the Apostles and holy souls. The Rider is the Word of God, whose bridle they receive, that He may turn them wherever He wills, so that they are led and led back to all good things not by themselves but by the will of the Rider, and are restrained from evil. This sitting, says Thomas Anglicus, takes place by means of a saddle, which is the justice of life, of which it is said in Psalm 88: "Justice and judgment are the preparation of Thy throne." The two spurs of this Rider are: fear, by which evil is shunned; and love, by which good is brought to perfection; His bridle is the virtue of prudence and discretion.
I say thirdly: The bow of Christ is sacred Scripture, that is, the word of God, from which proceed as many arrows as there are words and sentences. With this bow Christ slays some — namely, the devil, death, sin, hell; others He wounds unto life. Or rather, this bow is evangelical preaching, grace and calling, by which Christ overthrows His enemies and leads to God and to salvation those wounded by His salutary arrows. This is what Isaiah says in chapter 49, verse 2: "The Lord called me from the womb, and made me like a chosen arrow; in His quiver He hid me." See what is said there.
I say fourthly: This horse is white, to signify that this battle will be joyful and festive, inasmuch as it will have a certain victory as its end. Hence Christ is also adorned with a crown, because He is King and Conqueror. A Conqueror, I say, not like a commander of camps among men, who, while subduing the enemy, makes him a subject; but One who, in subduing him, makes him a friend out of an enemy, pious out of impious — indeed, makes him His own soldier, that He may use him as a new arrow to strike and subdue others. For Christ, from the enemies overthrown and stricken by Him, forges new arrows for Himself, with which He may transfix others and others with His love. For this is what this arrow accomplishes, namely the charity and love of Christ: those struck by it are not content with their own salvation alone, but thirst for the salvation of all others, and zealously procure it. Wherefore they shoot and strike others with the same arrow with which they themselves were transfixed. Hence this arrow is called by Isaiah "a chosen arrow." And the Psalmist: "The sharp arrows," he says, "of the mighty," Psalm 119; on which St. Augustine: "The sharp arrows of the mighty," he says, "are the words of God. Behold, they are cast forth and transfix hearts, that love may be aroused, not destruction prepared. He shoots the heart of the lover that He may help the lover, He shoots that He may make a lover;" and: "Thy sharp arrows (whereby peoples shall fall under Thee) into the hearts of the King's enemies," Psalm 44:6.
Morally, the author of his Life beautifully adapts these things to St. Vincent Ferrer, Apostolic Doctor and Preacher of the Order of St. Dominic, in chapter 1, which is found in Surius for April 5. "For Vincent," says the author, "was of insuperable strength of soul, and conquered the errors of the world by his marvelous wisdom; conquered loves by the perfect chastity of mind and body; conquered terrors by incredible fortitude and patience of soul. He is compared to a horse because he ran throughout the whole world preaching, and to a white one on account of the splendor, modesty, and brilliance of his teaching, and the flashing of his miracles. Upon this white horse Christ sat. For, as St. Augustine says, the grace of Christ is in the soul of a holy man as the rider upon a horse. This Rider has a bow, which is the Scripture of the Old and New Testament, by which the perfidy of the Jews and the perversity of heretics are pierced, while the Christian religion is defended. To this white horse a threefold crown was given: one from the stars, and this on account of the multitude of his marvelous virtues; another of gold, on account of his erudition and the great clarity of his doctrine, of which Ecclesiasticus 45: A crown of gold upon his head; the third of precious stone, of which Psalm 20: Thou hast set on his head a crown of precious stone. This horse went forth conquering the pleasures of the flesh, the delights of the world, and the wiles of the devil. He went forth into the field of worldly tribulations, that he might conquer the flesh by chastity, the world by poverty, the demon by humility, vice by perfect charity." Which things the author then narrates and confirms at length through examples in four books.
Verses 3-4: The Second Seal and the Red Horse
3 and 4. "And when He had opened the second seal, I heard the second animal" (having the appearance of a calf, ch. 4, v. 7, and aptly so: for it shows the victims of the Martyrs, whose symbol and great part was once the calf: so Andreas of Caesarea) "saying: Come and see: and there went forth another horse, red."
Note: The three following horses, namely the red, black, and pale, are set in opposition to the first, inasmuch as it is white and auspicious, whose Rider is Christ. For that the other three are not Christ's is clear, because the second, the red, disturbs the peace of the earth; the third, the black, has fraudulent scales; the fourth has Death as its rider and Hell as its companion, which work that slaughter. So teach Tichonius, Primasius, Bede, Haymo, Lyra, Thomas, Joachim, Aureolus, Pannonius, Ribera, Viegas, Pererius — although Ambrose, Aretas, Arias, and Alcazar deny it, holding that all these four horses have the same Rider, namely Christ, and pertain to His salvation, redemption, and victory.
But the opinion of the former, being more common, is also far more probable. Thus the colors of these three first horses — to set the two latter in opposition to the first — were imitated by Tamerlane, the most savage Emperor of the Scythians. For when he was besieging cities, on the first day he used a white tent, on the second a red, on the third a black, that by this terror he might compel his enemies to surrender. For by this thing he signified that, if they surrendered on the first day, they would find him merciful; if they resisted obstinately until the second, they would pay with their own blood; if they persisted even to the third day, he himself would lay all things waste with smoke and fire in final destruction.
Now, besides the expositions which I brought forward at verse 1 — especially that of Alcazar, who holds that the Rider of this horse is the boldness of the first Christians in promulgating their faith, who took worldly peace away from the earth and substituted the true peace of God (such as is the Evangelical), whence Christ said of them: "I came not to send peace, but the sword; for I came to separate a man," etc., Matthew 10:34. The great sword of this rider is the preaching of the Gospel, which introduced into the world a great separation, discords, and dissensions of the faithful from the unfaithful. But, omitting this opinion, on which I spoke at verse 1,
First, Haymo: The red horse, he says, is the body of the devil — that is, the multitude of all the reprobate, which is set in opposition to the white horse of the elect. This horse is red, because it is bloodied with the slaughter of souls. Its Rider is the devil, whose sword is the wicked suggestion of the lusts.
Secondly, more particularly and more aptly, Andreas of Caesarea, Ribera, and others whom I cited on the first seal of the white horse explain it thus: Just as by the first horse, the white one, the first state of the Church — namely the Apostolic — is signified, so by the red horse the second state, immediately succeeding the first, is signified, namely the state of the Martyrs. Therefore the red horse signifies the Pagan people — that is, the Gentiles and infidels, the persecutors of the Church — and accordingly the ten very bloody persecutions of the Christians, which lasted from Nero up to Constantine for 250 years. The first persecution was carried out by Nero, who killed the heads of the Church, Peter and Paul. The second by Domitian, who cast John into a vat of boiling oil, but, when he came forth from it unharmed, banished him to Patmos. The third under Trajan, who exposed St. Ignatius to lions at Rome in the amphitheater. The fourth under Antoninus, who, both elsewhere — as Eusebius writes in book 5 of the History, ch. 1 — and at Rome by the arch of St. Vitus, killed many thousands of Christians, whose bodies Sts. Praxedes and Pudentiana buried in their own houses, which were afterward converted into churches, as we see and read inscribed in them. Wherefore then suffered St. Polycarp, Gervasius and Protasius, Felicitas with her seven sons, Justin who had written an Apology for the Christians to the Emperor, and others, until Antoninus, in the Marcomannic war, in the extreme thirst of his army, having obtained rain by the prayers of the Christian legion (which was thence called Fulminatrix), checked the persecution. The fifth was under Septimius Severus, who was truly severe and cruel: under him suffered Pope Victor, Leonides the father of Origen, and Origen himself as a boy sought martyrdom, as Eusebius testifies in book 6, chapters 2 and 3, and others; whence Tertullian then wrote his Apology for the Christians. The sixth was under Julius Maximinus, whose arrogance matched the vastness of his body, so that he thought himself immortal and incapable of being killed; and his cruelty matched it, so that some called him a Cyclops, others a Busiris, others a Sciron, others a Phalaris, others a Typhon, others a Gyges: under him suffered the Pontiffs Pontianus and Anterus. See Orosius, book 7, chapter 9, and Eusebius, book 6, chapter 21. The seventh was under Decius, under whom suffered St. Cornelius, Fabian, Babylas, St. Apollonia, St. Agatha. The eighth under Valerian, under whom suffered St. Lawrence, Cyprian, and others, until, by the just vengeance of God, Valerian was captured by Sapor king of the Persians, and being forced to offer his back to him as a footstool when about to mount his horse, he there miserably perished. The ninth was under Aurelian, under whom suffered Athenodorus, brother of Gregory Thaumaturgus; Pope Felix, Agapitus a boy of fifteen years, and others. The tenth, and the most savage, was under Diocletian and Maximian, under whom suffered St. Sebastian, St. Maurice with his Theban legion, Sts. Cosmas and Damian, St. Agnes, St. Eulalia, St. Vincent, and very many others: so that in one month seventeen thousand Christians were slain. Whence Eusebius, book 8.
The Rider of this horse is Trajan, Antoninus, Decius, Diocletian, and the other Roman Emperors and tyrants. For these bear a sword, because they unsheathed it against the Christians. To these the red color is fitting, which signifies war, battles, slaughter: whence that of Isaiah 63:1: "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?" and verse 2: "Why then is thy apparel red, and thy garments like theirs that tread in the wine-press?" For the red color, fiery and inflamed, denotes wrath, zeal, and slaughters: hence Alciatus, Emblem 117:
"But the red garment adorns armed horsemen."
And Alexander ab Alexandro, in book 1 of the Genial Days, chapter 20, and Tiraquellus on the same passage, report from Xenophon, Aelian, Plutarch, and Valerius that the Persians and Lacedaemonians, when going to war, were accustomed to be clothed in red garments.
"And it was given," — that is, it was permitted by God. For they can do no evil in this world except by power and leave granted by God: just as in a well-ordered commonwealth there cannot be usurers and panders except by power received from the prince.
Verse 5: The Third Seal and the Black Horse
5. "And when He had opened the third seal, I heard the third animal" (which was a man, as is clear from ch. 4, v. 7) "saying: Come and see. And behold a black horse."
First, Haymo again takes this horse to mean the multitude of the reprobate. For these in the second seal were compared to the red horse on account of cruelty; here, however, he says, they are compared to the black horse on account of the foulness of their vices. But these seals plainly signify different things and different persecutions.
Secondly, Alcazar holds that the Rider of this black horse is, by personification, the voluntary poverty and indigence of the Christians of the primitive Church: hence he has scales in his hand, with which he weighs not wheat but the necessity of each one, and the moneys to be distributed to each, that they might be apportioned according to the just measure of necessity — namely, that for the day's labor each one would receive a denarius for a bilibris (in Greek chœnix), that is, a measure of wheat that would suffice for buying his daily food. For the denarius signifies the price that was paid daily to the laborer for his day's work. This is what the Apostle teaches the faithful in 1 Timothy 6:8: "Having food and wherewith to be clothed, with these let us be content."
Furthermore, says Alcazar, "wine and oil," because they have the article in Greek, are to be taken mystically, as if to say "Hurt not the wine and the oil," that is, we Christians ask that we be not, in such great adversities and afflictions, deprived of oil — that is, of the light and knowledge of the happiness which is included in the holy poverty we have chosen — nor that the unction of the Holy Spirit be lacking, which restores and consoles us. Again, that the wine of spiritual joy may be given to us, by which sustained, we may count as nothing the lack of temporal things. For, as Seneca says in book 1, epistle 2: "A joyful poverty is an honorable thing. But if it is joyful, it is not poverty." Therefore, in the unsealing of this third seal, Christ teaches that the abundance of things which the Prophets foretold the Messiah would bring is not temporal but spiritual, and accordingly is not harmed by voluntary poverty but increased. Finally, that here is signified the immense scarcity of provisions which would befall the Christians banished to Patmos, namely so great that two pounds — that is, 24 ounces of grain — would have to be bought for a denarius. But these things are mystical, not literal: and they suppose this horse, equally with the first, to be Christ's, the contrary of which I have shown above from the common opinion of the Interpreters.
Thirdly, Aureolus and Lyra take this black horse to mean Titus, who laid waste Jerusalem. He holds the balance of divine justice and vengeance, which he carries out against the Jews who slew Christ. Again, they say, the balance signifies and contains five Jews, on account of the five books of Moses, which it as it were represents: therefore two pounds of wheat are ten noble Jews, who were sold by the Romans for one denarius; the three pounds of barley are thirty of the ignoble and plebeian Jews, who were likewise sold for one denarius. "Hurt not the wine and the oil," as if to say: You, O Titus, the faithful who have believed in Christ, both from the Jews and from the Gentiles, and who are signified by wine on account of charity, by oil on account of mercy — touch them not, afflict them not. And so it happened. For the Christians, with the siege imminent, migrated from Jerusalem to Pella by warning of God, as Eusebius reports in book 3 of the History, chapter 5. But this devastation of Jerusalem had already passed 25 years before, when John saw and wrote these things, and was very well known and widely reported throughout the world: why then would he himself here signify it so obscurely, through the riddles of two pounds, wheat, barley, and denarius?
Therefore, fourthly, more aptly, Thomas Anglicus, Joachim, Gagneius, Pererius, and Ribera, by the black horse take the heretics, who dwell in the black darkness of errors and are enemies of the truth. Hence they are diametrically opposed to the first, white horse upon which Christ sits. For the devil, seeing that he was making no progress against the Church through the Gentile emperors and tyrants, but rather that the Church was growing and becoming more illustrious through persecutions, stirred up heretics, who vexed the Church more and harmed her more: and especially soon afterward, in the time of Constantine the Great — who checked the persecutions and gave peace to the Church — he raised up Arius and the Arians. Wherefore many take this horse to mean the Vandals and the Goths, who were Arians and laid waste the Church marvelously for three hundred years and more, as is clear from Victor of Utica in his work on the Vandals, from Procopius, Baronius, and others. These therefore are the black horse. For this color denotes and befits men of darkness, those who flee the light, slanderers, the wicked: and such are the heretics, whose faith, conscience, and morals are black. So Pythagoras admonished: "That we should not taste of those whose tail is black;" by which he forbade us to associate with those who were black with depravity of morals. And Horace: "This man is black; thou, Roman, beware of him." Thus idolaters in Scripture are called Ethiopians, as in Amos 9:7: "Are you not as the children of the Ethiopians unto Me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord." On which St. Jerome: "In all the Scriptures," he says, "those are called Ethiopians who are utterly sunk in vices," such as the idolaters and heretics. Hence Lamentations 4:8: the Nazarites, whiter than snow when they purely worshipped God, afterward turned to vices and idols, hear: "Their face is blackened beyond coals." Hence also Saul the malignant, and the slanderer and persecutor of David, is called Chush — that is, Ethiopian — in the title of Psalm 7. Hear also Cicero, On Behalf of Caecinna: "Sextus Clodius, whose name is Phormio, no less black, no less confident than that Phormio of Terence," as if to say, Sextus Clodius is just as wicked and bold as the Phormio of Terence. The common proverb is: "Whether thou art white or black, I know not."
The Rider of this horse is the devil, or the heresiarch himself — for example, Arius. He has a balance, that is, sacred Scripture, by which he wishes to weigh and examine all things; not in his mind but in his hand, as if movable and pliable at will, that he may twist and bend it, as he pleases, to his errors. The balance can also, with Pererius, be understood as feigned and ostentatious justice, or a feigned love of truth and rectitude. Thus Arius weighed the Son with the Father in the balance, teaching that it was unjust that the Son should be equal to the Father in duration, dignity, and divinity. These the third animal — namely the man, whose face it bears, which is the mark of reason and equity — shows to John: because heretics counterfeit the appearance of man and humanity, when they are rapacious wolves. Secondly, because nearly all heresies have been opposed to the Son of Man, that is, to Christ, and have taken from Him either His divinity, or His humanity — namely body, or mind, or human will. Thirdly, because the man signifies the doctors and preachers who detect and refute heresies.
Verse 6: Two Pounds of Wheat for a Penny
6. "Two pounds of wheat for a penny, and three pounds of barley for a penny: and hurt not the wine and the oil," — namely, you, O horseman and black horse. For this the third animal, or third Cherub having the appearance of a man, commands him from God. For "two pounds" the Greek has chœnix, which is a measure of dry goods containing as much wheat as suffices one man for the food of one day. Hence the proverb: "Sit not upon the chœnix," that is, do not depend, do not trust upon the daily ration. Furthermore, although chœnices were various, and of various quantity and measure, yet the Attic and common chœnix, as Alciatus teaches in his book On Weights and Measures from Pollux and Suidas, contained 27 ounces — that is, two pounds and a quarter pound besides. Whence our Translator renders "bilibris" (two pounds), which name is more familiar to the Latins than the Greek chœnix; for a pound contains 12 ounces: therefore a bilibris contains 24 ounces. See more on the chœnix in Alcazar, note 7, where among other things he cites the words of Galen saying: "A chœnix contains three cotyls;" and three cotyls, he says, hold exactly 25 ounces of water, but 24 ounces of common grain. I say common: for the best grain is of the same weight as water, as Prado teaches, and Alcazar from him. The denarius is the price of a day's labor: for the daily wage of a workman was a denarius. Therefore the bilibris signifies sacred Scripture (for this is the pound, as I said a little before), which is as it were twofold, namely of the New and Old Testament. This is the chœnix, because it suffices for the daily nourishment of the soul. The denarius signifies the merit of sound faith and of a daily holy life. The wheat is the Gospel; the barley is the harsh Old Law. Aptly, the wheat of one chœnix is valued at a denarius, but three chœnices of barley at the same denarius: because the price of wheat compared to barley is usually triple; and such is the doctrine of the New Testament in respect of the Old — namely, three times better and more perfect, and three times better and more nourishingly feeding the soul. The wine and oil are the medicine of our Samaritan, Christ the Lord, as is clear from Luke 10:34 — namely, they are the holy Sacraments. The sense, therefore, is, as if to say: Fear not this horse and the black rider, O My faithful; for although the Arians and Vandals rage against you equally, indeed more, than Decius and Diocletian, yet I shall be with you, I shall nourish, feed, and strengthen you. Although they may try with all their power to snatch from you doctrine and the food of the soul, yet they shall not be able to take away the provision of sacred doctrine, of truth and faith, which suffices you daily for the food and strength of the spirit: for I will procure that for you in the midst of heretics and enemies, if you persevere daily in the study and exercise of Christian life, as you ought: so Ribera.
Furthermore, the words "bilibris" and "denarius" signify that there shall be a great scarcity of spiritual provisions — that is, of the word of God — under the Arians, the Goths, and other heretics. For wheat is dear, when two of its pounds are sold for a denarius, that is for ten asses, that is for ten Italian baiocchi, namely one Julio, or a Spanish real, which among the Belgians is worth five stuivers; for this is the denarius, which contains a drachma of silver, and is the fourth part of a stater or shekel: for the shekel contains four drachmae of silver, and is worth four reales, that is one Brabantic florin. He notes therefore the wonderful propagation of Arianism and its savagery against the Orthodox, by which through the Emperor Constantine, Ursacius, Valens and other Arians most Bishops were deceived, or became Arians: so much so that in the general Council of Ariminum, as also in others, the condemnation of the homoousion and the Nicene faith was loudly proclaimed, and the whole world groaning marveled to find itself Arian, says St. Jerome, so that the defense of the homoousion and the true faith was reduced almost to St. Athanasius alone; yet at that time Christ did not desert His faithful, but through St. Athanasius and other priests and the Orthodox supplied to the faithful the necessary nourishment of the word of God, of the homoousion, of the true faith, and of the Holy Sacraments, although soberly, and often by stealth (as happens in places where heretics dominate, as in England, Scotland, Holland), and only for necessity, not for abundance.
Otherwise Pererius: The wheat, he says, are the Prelates and holy men; the barley is the faithful common people. All these, if they persist in the faith, will be given the same denarius of a day's labor, namely eternal life, as we read in the parable of the laborers, Matt. XX, that Christ paid out the same denarius to each one.
Also otherwise Viegas, sect. 10: The wheat, he says, are the more distinguished Christians; the barley are the more sluggish. These are seduced by heretics for one denarius, that is for the brief and base pleasure of this life, or the moral license that heresy and heretics bring. But "hurt not the wine and oil," as if to say: Those eminent in charity, whom the wine designates, and in mercy, whom the oil designates, O heretic, you shall not be able to seduce.
Verses 7-8: The Fourth Seal and the Pale Horse
7 and 8. "And when He had opened the fourth seal, etc., and behold a pale horse." — The Greek χλωρός signifies the green color of plants, and from there the squalor and paleness of the same when they wither and dry up. Wherefore Chloris is set down by Ovid as the goddess of flowers: who, when she was a famous nymph and was being married to Zephyr, received as it were a dowry from her husband that she should have power over all flowers: whence she says herself in Ovid, book V of the Fasti:
"I was Chloris, who am called Flora: the Greek letter of our name has been corrupted in Latin sound."
Hence χλωρὸν δέος is called pale fear, because it makes men pale; and Constantius, the father of Constantine the Great, was surnamed Chlorus, because of his paleness, says Zonaras in his account of Diocletian. This sickly color suits this horse, since death itself sits upon it.
Now first, Lyranus and Aureolus understand by this pale horse the persecution of Domitian; Andreas of Caesarea, that of Diocletian; Ribera, that of Trajan, which according to Eusebius was the most severe, and killed very many. Hence it is compared to a pale horse: for paleness belongs to the dying.
But all these persecutions have been designated by the second horse, namely the red, as I showed a little earlier.
Secondly, Alcazar takes this death to mean the death both of the Martyrs and of other faithful, namely of the Jews converted to Christ. For death, he says, is here introduced by personification, as it were slaying the Jews believing in Christ. Hell follows it: for those whom death itself slays, hell soon devours, and shuts up in its underground caverns, namely the body in the tomb, the soul in limbo. For this was the common order of nature before Christ and the grace of Christ, by which He opened heaven and lifted His own up there. By this seal, then, something new and unheard of appeared, namely that death, as a minister of Christ sitting on a horse, was approaching for the complete salvation of the Jews who received Christ Himself. By which it is intimated that the cruelty and slaughter of death wrought on the servants of Christ was not true death and destruction, and a way to hell, as the Gentiles thought; but was a way to their absolute happiness. Wherefore the first Christians did not dread death, but desired and sought it: for they knew from Paul that for the body to die and be buried in the faithful is the same as to be sown, that it may be born again and rise gloriously in the resurrection. 1 Cor. XV, 42. Furthermore, four kinds of death are here named, by which the first Christians died. The first is the sword, which signifies the chastisement of the flesh and the bridling of the affections, which the Gospel of Christ teaches and commands. The second is famine, which signifies zeal for the divine glory and emulation for the salvation of neighbors, of which Christ says in Matt. V, 6: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice." The third is death, by which God strictly punished sinning Christians, as He punished Ananias and Sapphira, Acts V; and Paul, 1 Cor. V, 5, says that he delivered the fornicator over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh; and in 1 Corinth. XI, 30, he writes that many die because they approached the Eucharist unworthily. The fourth are beasts, by which martyrdom is signified: for many were in fact thrown to beasts. Alcazar then adds: Yet I think it simpler and more apt that by "sword, famine, and death" are designated wars, famines, and pestilence (for death, or mortality, often signifies pestilence), which were sent by God not only against the rebellious Jews, but also against those who had received Christ; but the former went through these to hell, the latter to heaven and happiness. And in this way it became evident how great is the wisdom of God, by which He gives life by killing men and saves by destroying, as is excellently depicted in Job chapters XXXIX and XL.
But that this horse is not friendly and auspicious, but hostile and inauspicious, and that it does not have Christ as its rider, or Christ's minister, but Christ's adversary and rival, I have taught above from the common opinion of the Interpreters. Add that this explanation is too narrow, because it restricts this seal, like the preceding ones, to the Jews alone; nor does it cohere well enough, because by "death" he takes both the death inflicted upon the Martyrs for confession of the faith, and that inflicted by God upon other Christians on account of sins, either their own or those of the commonwealth. Finally, he mixes in many things which are more tropological than literal.
Thirdly, Thomas Anglicus, Dionysius, Gagneius, Richardus, Viegas and many others understand by this black horse hypocrites and impious faithful, because by their evil life and crimes they are opposed to the Gospel, and by their depraved example do no small harm to the Church (so that these three horses signify the three enemies of the white horse, that is, of the Church and Christ, namely the red signifies the world, the black the demon, the pale the flesh). These are pale, because hypocrites by fastings and maceration of the flesh, or at least by paint and ostentation of it, disfigure their faces, says Richardus and Hugo; or because they pretend to shine with charity and wisdom, and by the very simulation grow pale, says Dionysius; or because they have lost fiery charity by their luxury, and so have grown pale. To this horse and rider it is permitted to slay men "with the sword" of an impious tongue, inciting others to sins; and "with famine," that is by the lack of the word of God; and "with death," that is by pestilent morals; and "with the beasts of the earth," that is by brutish and irrational vices.
This sense is more general, and more moral than literal: nor does it follow the preceding one, namely the third horse, the black, in a sufficiently fitting order. For in the time of that horse, that is in the time of the heresies, indeed even in the time of the persecutions of the Gentiles, and so in any age, there have been impious men and hypocrites in the Church.
Fourthly therefore and best, Joachim, Seraphinus Firmanus, Pannonius and Pererius understand by this pale horse the sect of Mahomet, the Turks and Saracens, the most hostile and most renowned enemies of Christians for these thousand years now. For these, after the Goths, Arians, and other ancient heretics, soon afterwards most grievously assailed the Church, and continually assail her: and this is, as it were, the fourth age of the Church. This sect is rightly compared to a horse, because it is plainly irrational, brutish, and carnal. Whence the fourth animal, namely the eagle, which is sublime and heavenly, displays it. This horse is pale, because it corresponds to its rider: for its rider is pale death. Again, the paleness signifies the envy, malice, and hatred of the Saracens against Christians (whence also fittingly many Turks have a pale countenance), and their wickedness and malice, besides their lust: for in this Mahomet surpassed his own, and permitted, indeed promised, it by his law: whence also he introduced polygamy. For lust drains the spirit and the blood, and so makes men pale and wan. Finally, paleness denotes their avarice, as we see the Turks to be most greedy for gold, and therefore among them justice is for sale for gold. For misers, on account of cares and fears of heaping up and preserving wealth, grow pale. Wherefore Diogenes wittily, when asked why gold was pale: "Because, he said, it has many gaping after it and lying in wait for it;" Laertius is the witness, Book VI. The rider of this horse is death, that is, Mahomet, who, when the sect of Arius was failing, soon arose under the reign of the Emperor Heraclius, in the year of Christ 630, and propagated his sect by the sword, namely by killing all who resisted him. For this was Mahomet's symbol, which the Saracens daily in their Mosques or shrines proclaim until they are hoarse: "There is no God but one, and Mahomet is his Apostle." Whoever was unwilling to accept and profess this was killed by him; but those who accepted, were spared, and were therefore called Musulmans, that is, the saved and freed from death (from the root של schalam, which in Hebrew and Arabic signifies to be safe, sound, prosperous): but these were killed by him with a worse, namely spiritual, death. Hell follows him, that is, Antichrist. For he himself is the precursor of Antichrist, who will be the abyss of vices, and as it were hell; and he prepares the way for him: for the sect of Mahomet is thought to be going to last until Antichrist, says Firmanus; and so John Annius and others have thought Mahomet himself to be Antichrist. Again, all of hell and all the demons seem to have run together to help Mahomet and propagate his sect. Thirdly, hell properly follows him, because he himself has thrust very many more into hell than the Goths and other heretics. For his sect by very many victories has occupied not only Trebizond and Constantinople, two empires of the East, but also the greater part of the world, and occupies more day by day; so that, having recently subdued greater Hungary and Transylvania, it now threatens Germany, Italy, and Poland, and that through the dissensions of the Christian princes: for by these it grows; and the Christians as if blinded do not see it, or do not care. Whence he is here said to have ravaged through the four parts of the earth: to this one therefore it is given to slay the inhabitants of the world by sword, famine, death, and beasts of the earth. For these are the four scourges of God, of which Ezekiel says, chapter XIV, verse 21: "If I shall send My four grievous judgments, the sword, and famine, and the noisome beasts, and the pestilence (which here John calls death) into Jerusalem, to cut off from it man and beast." For the Saracens have killed many Christians by the sword, others by famine, others by hardships, and the pestilence consequent thereon, others by other kinds of death, others also by exposing them to lions, bears, and other beasts.
Some add that the kingdom of the Turks is called death and hell, because its strength and soldiers consist of Scythians, especially those dwelling next to the Cimmerian Bosphorus and the Black Sea. For there is Mount Cerberion and the town, Cocytus, Phlegethon and Tartarus: wherefore Homer places the seat of hell among the Cimmerians, either on account of perpetual darkness, or on account of the frequent mining-pits for metals, or on account of the deeply shaded valleys inaccessible to the winter sun; so much so that the Gentiles supposed the gate of hell to be there. And in this way they take that passage of Isaiah xxviii, 15: "We have struck a covenant with death, and with hell we have made a pact," namely with the Cimmerians, that is, with the Assyrians reigning in Pontus and the Bosphorus. To this purpose belongs that line of Tibullus:
"Would that I might one day know the Elysian fields, The Lethean barge, and the Cimmerian lakes,"
that is, the dark and infernal places. They think St. John also alluded to this in chap. xx, vers. 14, when he said: "And hell and death were cast into the lake of fire"; for hell properly cannot be cast into the lake of fire, that is, into hell itself; rather the Cimmerians, Turks, and Scythians, who dwell in Pontus as though in hell, and are wild and cruel, and live like infernal men, will be cast there. This allusion is neither incongruous nor inelegant; yet St. John means more, as I have said a little before.
Therefore, just as by the second red horse the Gentiles and Pagans, persecutors of the Church, are signified; by the third, namely the black, the Arians, Goths, Vandals, and other heretics: so by the pale horse are signified the Saracens, Turks, and Tartars (out of whom Gog and Magog will come forth, of which see chap. xx, vers. 7). For these, beyond the other two — beyond the Gentiles and the Goths — have been and are the most fierce and continual enemies, through ten centuries, of the first white horse and rider, that is, of Christ and Christians. And so there is signified here the bitter, long, and continual struggle and warfare of the Church, as well as her victory, with every kind of enemy and man. For first, through three hundred years she contended with the Gentiles and Roman Emperors: these she at last subdued, when Constantine and the succeeding Emperors bowed their necks to Christ and the Church. Secondly, she contended with the Arians, Nestorians, Eutychians, and other heretics, through the same number, namely the three hundred years next following; but these too she either routed or extinguished. Thirdly, she has contended, and still contends, with the Turks and Saracens: these also in their time she will scatter, especially when their monarchy shall begin to fall and collapse, of which ruin we behold the beginnings and the omens. After all these, as it were ahead of the line and as advance archers, will follow the fiercest enemy, Antichrist, who, sprung from the Jews, will first through the Jews, then through Gog and Magog, most grievously afflict Christians; but him too Christ will soon destroy at His coming to judgment, when He will crown the militant Church after so many struggles and victories, and lead her in triumph to His heavenly kingdom. For then "the saints of the most high God shall receive the kingdom, and shall possess the kingdom forever, and ever and ever," says Daniel, chap. vii, vers. 18. This is the matter, this the theme, this the order and series of the whole Apocalypse. For in the sealed book itself is contained the struggle and victory over Antichrist; in the seals of the book are contained the previous persecutions of the Gentiles already mentioned. In a similar way Daniel, in chap. vii, vers. 4, compares to four beasts the four monarchies, of which one in turn assails and overthrows the other in war, and transfers the empire to itself: namely a lioness, a bear, a leopard, and a fourth of terrible, marvelous, and unusual form; and Zechariah, in chaps. i and vi, compares the same to chariots and to horses of various colors, just as John does here.
From what has been said it follows that Saracenism is the fourth and last general persecution of the Church, and that after it the end of the world will soon follow. For to that end St. John passes immediately in the sixth seal, vers. 12; and consequently it is approaching in this the sixth millennium of those years: for the age of the world is six thousand years, as I will show in chap. xx, vers. 5. Hence also the Saracens and Turks loudly proclaim, and boast as though it were an oracle, that their sect will last a thousand years.
Verse 9: The Souls Under the Altar
9. "And when He had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those slain." — That is, of all the Martyrs who were slain, whether by the Roman Emperors, or by the Goths, the Arians, and other heretics, or by the Turks and Saracens. For since in the first seal, by the white horse, was signified the joyful and prosperous reign of Christ in the Church, soon afterward the three following seals unsealed three horses opposed to that one — that is, three general persecutions of the Church, succeeding one another in order, and to last until Antichrist. Hence in this fifth seal there is fittingly and consequently introduced the common voice of the faithful who suffered in them, that is, of the Martyrs longing and praying for an end and term of the persecutions, that God may end, restrain, and stay them; and may crown those who suffered, namely the Martyrs, but punish the persecutors and drive them down into hell. To them God answers, and bids them rest yet a little while, until their fellow-servants, and their brethren, who are to be slain as they were — namely by Antichrist — be filled up. For Antichrist's time will be brief, in which the number of Martyrs and Elect shall be filled up, and therefore the end of all things and the universal judgment, and the glorious kingdom of Christ and His elect, will soon come. Wrongly therefore, and too narrowly, does Alcazar judge that in this seal there is only the voice of Christians slain by the Jews.
You will ask: what is this altar? Some, from this passage, have supposed that the souls of the saints, before the day of judgment, do not see God, but are in certain quiet and pleasant places, which here are called the altar. And first, Origen, in book II of the Periarchon, supposes that souls immediately after death are led to certain earthly places, where they are purified and learn many things; thence are led to airy regions, where they learn more; and finally are carried up above heaven to Christ, and there obtain full knowledge of all things. Secondly, Victorinus supposes this altar to be certain pleasant subterranean places, similar to the Elysian fields. Thirdly, Tertullian, in his book On the Soul, near the end, supposes this place of souls to be the earthly paradise, in which, he says, they attain to Elijah and Enoch. Fourthly, St. Bernard, in sermon 4 on the Feast of All Saints, holds that souls immediately after death are caught up above heaven, and there dwell with Christ. Therefore they are "under the altar," that is, they enjoy the sight of the humanity of Christ, but not yet of His divinity. And so other Fathers also, such as Irenaeus, Hilary, Ambrose, and Origen, seem to deny that the souls of the Saints, before the day of judgment, enjoy the vision of God. But these can be conveniently explained, namely so that they only mean to say that those souls do not enjoy the entire blessedness of the whole man, because they lack the glory of the body: thus that they have an incomplete and imperfect beatitude, and await its completion in the resurrection.
Wherefore wrongly, drawing on these very Fathers and on this passage of the Apocalypse, the Greeks, Vigilantius, and Calvin teach that souls after death rest under the altar and as it were sleep, and do not see God, and that even until the day of judgment. Whence St. Jerome, writing against Vigilantius, rightly calls him the "Dormitantian," and adds: "Thou waking dost sleep, and sleeping dost write." For that these souls do not sleep is plain, because they cry out and demand vindication; and because they shall follow the Lamb wheresoever He goeth, chap. xiv, vers. 4. This therefore is an error and a heresy. For it is of faith that souls fully purged from sins, immediately after death, see God and are blessed. So defines the Council of Florence, the Council of Trent, and Benedict II, as well as Innocent III in the Decretals issued on this matter. And John signifies this sufficiently here, when he says that these souls have white robes, and are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night, chap. following [vii], vers. 15. For this altar under which John saw them is next to the Holy of Holies, and therefore in Scripture is called the altar of the oracle, that is of the Holy of Holies, which represented the empyrean heaven and God dwelling in it. Hence, since by the death of Christ the intermediate veil — which was between the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place, in which this altar was — has now been rent, they clearly see God dwelling in the Holy of Holies, as will be evident in chap. viii, vers. 3. See Bellarmine, book I On the Beatitude of the Saints, chap. iii.
The Orthodox therefore, who believe that the holy souls already see God, interpret this altar in various ways. First, Ambrose, Haymo, Richard, and Rivera take the altar to mean the care of Christ, or that fruition, to whom, through whom, for whom, and upon whom the holy Martyrs were sacrificed, and under whose protection they now blessedly live.
Secondly, Joachim says: The altar is the Roman Church, under whose faith and obedience many Christians, in the fifth seal — that is, in the fifth age of the Church, then, namely in the time of Joachim's flourishing — were slain by the Mohammedans in Africa.
Thirdly, Dionysius says that the souls are under the altar, that is, that they are in the most secure protection of God, according to that of Wisdom III: "The souls of the just are in the hand of God."
But I reply that here a twofold altar is signified: namely the altar of holocausts, which was in the courtyard; and the altar of incense, which was in the Holy Place. For on the former, as it were, were the bodies of the Martyrs offered up, and under it as it were buried; while in the latter their souls, transferred after death, as it were rest, breathing forth a continual incense of praise to God. I say therefore first that the altar of holocausts is alluded to and noted here. This is plain, because under it lurk the souls of the slain, that is, of those sacrificed at the altar; and because they cry out, demanding vindication for their sacrifice. On this point note: the bodies of the Martyrs, by ancient custom and by the sanction of Pope Felix I, used to be buried under the altar, as St. Augustine teaches in sermon 11 De Sanctis, and Anselm, Richard, and others; for since the Martyrs, like a holocaust, had been offered to God upon this altar, hence they were likewise buried beneath it. This was done, first, so that they might honor the Martyrs by so sacred a place. Thus St. Ambrose, when by revelation of St. Paul he had found the relics of St. Gervasius and St. Protasius, hid them under the altar, as he himself attests in epist. 54 to his sister Marcellina: "Let," he says, "these triumphant victims succeed to the place where Christ is the victim. But He upon the altar, who suffered for all; these under the altar, who have been redeemed by His passion. This place therefore I had predestined for myself. For it is fitting that the priest should rest where he was wont to offer. But I yield the right-hand portion to the sacred victims: that place was due to the Martyrs." Secondly, that the bodies and tombs of the Martyrs might be a continual stimulus of devotion, virtue, and fortitude — to be imitated — for those praying at the altar. Thirdly, that the Martyrs might offer their prayers before God and assist them. Hence the altar was called the Tomb of the Martyr, the Memorial of the Martyr, the Martyrium, or the Confession. For "Martyrium" in Greek is the same as "Confession" in Latin — that is, a testimony, as John here says, which the Martyr bore to the faith, and sealed by his death and blood. For "Martyr" is the same as "confessor," or witness of the faith. Hence later, upon these tombs and altars of theirs — when, namely, under Constantine the Church had obtained peace — they built a church or temple, which they accordingly called a Martyrium. So in the Council of Chalcedon the church of St. Euphemia is called a Martyrium. Again, by an extension of the meaning of the word, every church came to be called a Martyrium, because they would transfer thither some relics of Martyrs — or at least of Saints — and there enshrine them, in order to approach as nearly as possible to the primitive custom of building altars and temples upon the tombs of Martyrs. Hence by Canon Law it has been decreed that an altar shall not be consecrated unless relics of a Martyr, or of some Saint, have been brought into it. Wherefore the priest, when about to approach the altar, prays and says: "We beseech Thee, O Lord, by the merits of Thy Saints, whose relics are here." So the Church of the Resurrection, raised at Jerusalem on Golgotha, was called Martyrium, says Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 14. See Barchius in Martyrology, 6 July. And this is the origin and cause why at Rome, in the basilicas of St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Lawrence, St. Sebastian, St. Cecilia, St. Susanna, and commonly in other churches where the Martyrs are buried, the altar is signified placed in the basilicas; we see steps and descents into crypts, or into chapels beneath them. For in these crypts the Martyrs were properly buried: hence the very crypt or tomb of the Martyr was called the Confession, or the Martyrium; above which they then built an altar and a church, which thenceforth was also called a Martyrium, as I said a little before. Moreover from this we understand that phrase which we so often read in the Lives of the Saints and the Martyrologies: "This Saint was buried in the Confession of St. Lawrence, St. Susanna, St. Prisca," etc.; for "in the Confession" is the same as in the crypt or tomb of St. Lawrence, St. Susanna, St. Prisca, etc.: for not the whole church was called the Confession, but the Martyrium, as Baronius shrewdly noted.
The sense therefore of this passage is, as if to say: I saw by a symbolic vision the souls of the Martyrs under the altar, because according to the body they were buried under it — they who upon the altar offered their life to God as a holocaust: so that it is a synecdoche, namely the part being put for the whole, that is, the soul for the man, in particular for the Martyr. Thus in Genesis XLVI, seventy souls, that is, persons, are said to have come out of Jacob's loins. The Martyrs therefore cry out, that is, the souls of the Martyrs through their bodies; they cry, I say, from this their place of Martyrdom and tomb for vengeance, just as the blood of Abel cried out the same, Genesis IV, 10. Whence follows: "There were given to them white robes," as it were in consolation and reward. For the discussion here concerns the seals which covered persecutions, and matters to be carried out not in heaven but on earth. In place of the souls, then, He calls it the altar: because where the body is, there the soul is reckoned to be also. Secondly, because these souls, that is, these Martyrs, are like victims which are burned upon the altar, whose ashes used to fall through the grate beneath the altar, so that they seemed to be buried as it were beneath the altar: for in like manner the bodies of the Martyrs, immolated as on an altar, slipped down beneath it and were buried; whence also at the consecration of an altar the Pontiff says: "You have received your seats beneath the altar of God, intercede for us": so Viegas, Ribera and others, and indeed St. Augustine, sermon 11 On the Saints, whom hear: "Rightly do the souls of the just rest beneath the altar, because upon the altar the Body of the Lord is offered. Nor without reason do the just there demand vengeance for their blood, where also Christ's blood is poured out for sinners. Fittingly therefore, and as it were by a kind of fellowship, burial was decreed for the Martyrs there where the death of the Lord is daily celebrated. Not without reason, I say, by a kind of fellowship a tomb is set up for those slain there, where the members of the Lord's slaying are placed, so that those whom He had bound to Christ by the cause of one passion, the religion also of one place might unite."
I say secondly: Under this symbol, and the symbolic vision of the souls beneath the earthly altar of holocausts, in which the bodies of the Martyrs were immolated and buried, is signified the altar placed in which the souls of the Martyrs properly rest. For to this, after the immolation and burial of the body in the altar of holocausts, their blessed souls were transferred: for there they received white robes, and continually praise God: whence that altar of theirs ought rather to be called the altar of incense than of holocausts, as will soon be clear. This altar therefore is the more secret and heavenly inner sanctuary, namely the place of the felicity and glory of the Martyrs in heaven. For that this altar is in heaven is clear first from the fact that in the next chapter, verse 9, of similar souls it is said that they are before the throne of God, and in the temple — namely the heavenly one — serve Him day and night. I say similar: for both these and those are souls of those who have been slain; and although those will be in the last times of Antichrist, nevertheless they will rest equally with these for a little while, until the number of their fellow servants be filled up. Secondly, the same will appear more clearly in chapter VIII, verse 3, where the angel offers the incense of these souls, that is, prayers and praises, to God upon the altar of incense. Under it therefore they rest as it were in heaven; but in such a way that, the veil which divided this altar and the Sanctuary from the Holy of Holies having been torn asunder by Christ, they may see God dwelling in the Holy of Holies, as I shall there show: whence it is plain that they are already blessed. And so just as the place of the felicity of the Blessed is called the bosom of Abraham, on account of rest: so here it is called the altar, on account of the praise of God, and on account of the victim of martyrdom: for the proper place and tomb of the Martyrs is the altar, as I have already said. It is also called a couch, because in it as in a bed they rest; for this is what the Psalmist says, Psalm CXLIX, 5: "The saints shall rejoice in glory, they shall be joyful in their beds." Thus when St. Evergislus, Archbishop of Cologne, recited the first hemistich, namely: "The saints shall rejoice in glory," as he was entering the church of St. Gereon and the Theban Martyrs, he heard the next part added and answered by them themselves: "They shall be joyful in their beds," as Helinandus reports in the Life of St. Gereon. There therefore the very souls of the Martyrs themselves confess that they still rest, and there they await the glory of rest and of blessed eternity. Whence at Rome in the cemetery of St. Priscilla, this voice of theirs is read inscribed upon the very threshold: "Here we await rest."
Note: John here alludes, as in some other places, to Book IV of Esdras, chapter IV, verse 35, where the souls in the storehouses cry out to God almost the same thing as here. For Esdras says there: "Did not the souls of the just in their storehouses inquire about these things, saying: How long do I hope thus? and when shall the fruit of the threshing-floor of our reward come? Jeremiel the archangel answered them, and said: When the number of the seeds in you shall be fulfilled; for the world is weighed in the balance, and the measure has measured the times, and it is not moved nor stirred up, until the predetermined measure be completed." Although Esdras saw these storehouses of souls not in heaven, but in hell, or limbo, as he himself says at verse 41; for thither at that time all souls used to descend, since Christ had not yet come who opened heaven for them. For this reason he calls them storehouses, that is, cellars, or crypts; and concerning these subterranean places he plainly says in chapter IV, verse 41: "In hell the storehouses of souls are likened to a womb: for as that, etc., so also these hasten to give back what has been committed to them." Wherefore Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the flesh, chapter XXVII, citing that of Isaiah, chapter XXVI: "Go, my people, enter into thy chambers (that is, sepulchres);" to which place Esdras alludes, just as John does here; for "chambers" he reads "storeroom-cells," that is, cellars, or pantries, "in which," he says, "salted flesh, set aside for use, is preserved, to be brought forth thence in its time: for so also from the tombs the bodies will come forth, when the Lord shall command." For the third and fourth books of Esdras have their own authority, although not the canonical authority of Sacred Scripture: hence they are appended to the canonical books, and many things from them are cited and recited by the Church in the office of the Mass and the Divine Office; most of the Fathers too not infrequently cite them, and by name St. Ambrose, in his book On the Good of Death, cites this passage about the souls dwelling in the storehouses. Wherefore weighty men place the third and fourth books of Esdras among the canonical books of the third order (that is, those which, although not canonical, nevertheless come nearest to them), as also the third and fourth books of the Maccabees, and the book of Hermas, which by the ancients is called the Book of the Shepherd because in it an angel in the form of a shepherd is introduced speaking and teaching. Without reason, then, do Sixtus of Siena and a few others reject this book of Esdras as fabulous, as I have said in commenting on Esdras.
Just as therefore before Christ the souls were said to be in the storehouses, or cells in limbo, awaiting Christ and the blessed resurrection, so after Christ they are said to be under the altar, namely the altar of incense in heaven; for because they are the souls of those slain for Christ, hence, just as their body is said to be under the altar of holocausts on earth, so also the soul of the same is said to be under the altar of incense in heaven, awaiting union with the body, so that, clothed with it upon the altar, they may as it were be elevated to perfect glory and consummate beatitude. For the altar of holocausts was in the courtyard, which signified the earth: whence under it the earthly bodies of the Martyrs are said to be buried. The altar of incense, however, was the altar of the oracle, that is, of the Holy of Holies, namely of the empyrean heaven: whence under it the blessed souls are placed, so that by this it may be symbolically signified that these are the souls of the Martyrs, and that they await the reward of martyrdom, namely the glorious body, as well as vengeance against their murderers; for because they are bare souls, hence, as though to cover their nakedness, they are said to be under the altar, and to lie as it were beneath it, and to be covered by it, that is, hidden from men, until in the resurrection, given and clothed with the glorious body, they may publicly display themselves and their glory and the laurel of martyrdom to the whole world.
"Of those slain for the Word of God" (and therefore Martyrs), "and for the testimony which they held," — which they were defending, namely the truth of the faith and innocence of life: for this is the testimony of the martyrs; whence Alcazar: "For the testimony," he says, that is, for the doctrine which they were defending. For "testimony" is often used for doctrine. Instead of "the souls of those slain," some read, ψυχάς τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐσφραγισμένων, that is, the souls of sealed men; but our text and others read, ἐσφαγμένων, that is, of those slaughtered, slain.
Verse 10: And They Cried with a Loud Voice
10. "And they cried out with a loud voice." — "A great cry is a great desire"; for the words of souls are the desires themselves: for each one cries out less the less he desires. For if desire were not speech, the Prophet would not say: "Thy ear hath heard the desire of their heart," says St. Gregory, Book II Moralia, chapter IV.
"Saying," — from zeal for justice, not for vengeance, seeking namely that the kingdom of impiety and sin be destroyed, and that the godly be freed from it, and the impious punished, so that the kingdom of God may come upon all, says St. Augustine in the place cited.
"How long, O Lord (Thou who art) holy and true," — that is, equitable and just, whose office accordingly is to protect the holy and the true, that is, the just; but to restrain and punish the impious and the unjust, such as are those who persecute and slay us Thy faithful. "Holy" therefore "and true" is the same as "holily and truthfully": for nominatives are put for vocatives in the Attic manner. Similar is what is sung on Good Friday: "Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us;" "Holy", that is, "O Holy One".
"Dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" — Judgment pertains to the cognizance of the cause, vengeance to carrying out and executing the judged matter, that is, the sentence given on behalf of the innocent against the wrongdoer.
You will ask, what judgment, what vengeance do the souls of the Martyrs demand of God? Alcazar first responds that they ask for vengeance upon the Jews who slew Christ and upon the persecutors of Christians, and that in this life, namely that God would cut them off through Titus, Hadrian, etc. For, he says, they do not pray, nor wish, to hasten and anticipate by their prayers the day of the last judgment fixed by God, but they ask for the avenging which the blood of the Martyrs demanded against the persecutors. But this vengeance and this destruction had already been done and had passed 25 years before: to what end therefore do they desire these things as if not yet done, but as still to come?
Secondly, others commonly hold that they ask for the vengeance of condemnation to be borne and exercised against the persecutors of the faithful on the day of judgment.
But I say that these souls primarily do not so much demand the punishment and condemnation of those who do wrong and of the persecutors, as the deliverance of the innocent — namely themselves and their followers — from the wrong. For this is signified by the Hebrew Danakam, that is, to avenge, when it is construed with the preposition מן min, that is, from, out of, of; and by the Greek ἐκδικέω, when construed with the preposition ἐκ, as is done here: for they wish to be avenged ἐκ τῶν κατοικούντων ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, that is, from those dwelling on the earth. Thus in 1 Kings (1 Sam.) chapter XXIV, verse 14, David says to Saul: "The Lord judge between me and thee, and let the Lord avenge me of thee; but let not my hand be against thee." "Avenge," that is, "deliver me from thy so bitter persecution": for he does not in his presence imprecate death and the vengeance of God upon Saul. For he says: "Let not my hand be against thee," as if to say: Far be it from me to slay thee, even though I had thee in my hand; for I do not desire and seek death for thee, but deliverance and safety for myself from thee. For he himself was most gentle: whence we sing of him, Psalm CXXXI, 1: "Remember, O Lord, David, and all his meekness." Thus in Luke XVIII, 3, the widow says to the judge: "Avenge," that is, "deliver," "me of my adversary." So the judges and avengers of Israel in the book of Judges are called Joshua, Gideon, Samson and others, who delivered Israel from the rod of the Philistines and other Gentiles, and asserted them into liberty: even though they often did this with the slaughter of the enemy. Thus we commonly say that a prince has avenged Christians from the hand of the Turks into freedom, when he has snatched them from the captivity of the Turks and made them free. Thus says Simon the Maccabee, 1 Maccabees chapter XIII, verse 6: "I will avenge," that is, "I will deliver from the yoke and tyranny of Antiochus," "my nation and the holy things, our children also and our wives: because all the nations are gathered together to destroy us." The souls of the Martyrs therefore here desire vengeance, that is, their own deliverance, and that twofold: first, that God restore to them their blood unjustly shed, and their bodies unjustly slain, which still remain and are held in this unjust slaying and death, and that He again cover and clothe the nakedness of the soul stripped: whence they receive an answer from God, that for their bodies they should receive white robes, with which to cover and clothe themselves, until the number of their fellow servants be filled up; for then they are to be clothed fully with a glorious body. Whence St. Gregory, Book II Moralia, chapter IV: "What," he says, "is it for the souls to make a petition for vengeance, but to desire the last day of judgment, and the resurrection of their extinct bodies?"
Secondly, they desire vengeance, that is, the deliverance of the Church and of the faithful from the tyranny of the persecutors, namely that God restrain and check it, and restore peace and quiet to the Church: to whom likewise God replies that He will shortly bring this about, but that they must yet wait a little while, until the number of the Martyrs and of the elect be filled up. Secondarily however and consequently they also desire vengeance properly so called from zeal for justice, as if they should say: How long, O just Lord, dost Thou not do justice, that Thou mayest deliver us and the innocent Church, but punish the persecutors, so that all may praise and celebrate Thy justice toward both? For this the blood of the Martyrs demands. For it is the same to say that the souls ask for vengeance as to say that their blood demands the same. He alludes to 4 Esdras XV, 8: "Behold, the innocent and just blood crieth out to me, and the souls of the just cry out perseveringly." Whence St. Augustine, sermon 59 On the Time, vol. X, teaches that these souls ask that the kingdom of sin be overthrown.
Thirdly, indirectly and as it were from afar they pray that the day of the last judgment be hastened: for on that day this full vengeance is to be carried out. Not that they desire the decree of God concerning that day, already fixed and established, to be changed and hastened: for this cannot happen; but that they abstract from this decree, and as it were anticipate it. For God, on account of the prayers of the Saints, has decreed that the end of the world and the day of judgment should come and be hastened sooner, when otherwise He could have deferred it longer, and in fact would have deferred it longer, had not these prayers of the Saints been foreseen and accepted by Him. In like manner, on account of the prayers of Daniel and the Prophets, the 70 weeks of the advent of the Messiah are said to have been shortened, Daniel IX, 20, joined with verse 24. These prayers therefore stand antecedently to this decree, not consequently: in the same way the prayers of the Saints stand toward God's predestination, namely toward the election of this or that person to salvation and glory.
Wherefore St. Augustine, sermon 11 On the Saints, accuses the slothfulness of preachers and of the faithful, in that this is the cause why the resurrection and the glorious reign of the Blessed are deferred. "You see," he says, "that on account of us (when He says: Until the number of fellow servants be completed) the vengeance of the Martyrs is delayed. For while we lag behind, their blood is unavenged. But this happens through our slothfulness, who do not live religiously, who do not work piously, as is fitting. For if our justice in good works toward the Lord went ahead, the number of fellow servants which is awaited would already be complete. Whence it behooves us, dearest brethren, since we venerate the first-fruits of the Martyrs in today's festivity, diligently to think about the eternal festivity of the Martyrs which is in heaven, and following their footsteps as far as we can, to take care that we ourselves become partakers of that same supernal festivity," that we may complete the number of citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, and so hasten the glorious reign of Christ and of the Saints.
Morally, St. Bernard, sermon 3 on the Feast of All Saints: "Whence to thee, O wretched flesh, O foul and stinking one, whence to thee this? The holy souls whom God marked with His own image desire thee; whom He redeemed with His own blood, await thee; and without thee their joy cannot be filled, their glory perfected, their beatitude consummated. So strongly does this natural desire flourish in them, that not yet does their whole affection freely go forth into God, but is in some way contracted and makes a wrinkle, while they are inclined by desire of thee. Therefore they are without spot," as John says, chapter XIV, verse 5, "but not without wrinkle."
Verse 11: White Robes Were Given to Each
11. "And to each of them white robes were given," — that is, full purity, rest, and the certain hope of beatitude, says Andreas of Caesarea and St. Bernard, in the place cited above. But I say: the white robe is the glory and beatitude of the soul which the Martyrs received, namely the light of glory, the vision and fruition of God, and consequently the humanity of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin, of the holy Angels, and of all the Blessed. For this glory, like a white robe, clothes and adorns the soul stripped and despoiled of the body. It is white, because bright and splendid, and because it is a symbol of the innocence and purity of the Martyrs, to which it has been given in reward. Hence also at the Transfiguration the face of Christ shone like the sun, and His garments were made white as snow, that is, gleaming and resplendent with wonderful light. This therefore is the white robe which Christ promised to him who overcomes in chapter III, verse 5, saying: "He that shall overcome, shall thus be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life." See there what is said. Whence it is plain that these souls see God, and are blessed: for this beatitude was promised to him who overcomes under the name of the robe, or white garment. For this reason also he says that to the Martyrs were given white robes "one for each." For each received only one, namely the glory of the soul: for in the resurrection each will receive double robes: for to them will be added the glory of the body. Moreover that white robes are a symbol of glory and felicity, is plain from the next chapter, verses 13 and 14, where to those standing before the throne of God are given palms and robes. Thus St. Gregory in his commentary on Psalm IV of Penitence, verse 10, and St. Anselm, Richard, Haymo, Bede here, and St. Augustine, sermon 11 On the Saints. For the stola among the ancients was the garment of a respectable and noble woman, falling all the way to the feet. Whence Horace, Book I of Satires, satire 2:
"A robe falling to the ankles, and surrounded by a palla."
And Martial:
"Whoever is a despiser of the robe or the purple, Has wronged with impious verse those whom he ought to honor."
Hence a woman wearing the stola was called wealthy and of the first rank: by contrast a woman wearing the toga was called plebeian and of the second class, as may be seen in Horace, in the place cited. For this reason the stola, especially when white and splendid, is in Scripture a symbol of glory, immortality and felicity. Hence Pharaoh clothed Joseph with a robe of fine linen, Genesis XLI, 42; and 1 Chronicles XV, verse 27: "David was clothed with a robe of fine linen." Judith XVI, verse 10, after the victory "received a new robe." Mordecai was clothed with a robe and set upon a horse by Haman at the king's command, who wished to honor him, Esther VI, verse 11. Of wisdom it is said in Ecclesiasticus VI, 30: "Her chains shall be to thee a robe of glory;" and verse 32: "Thou shalt put her on as a robe of glory." And in chapter XLV, verse 12, he says that Aaron at God's command put on the holy robe. And in chapter L, verse 11, he says that Simon the high priest received the robe of glory. In Isaiah chapter LXIII, 1, of Christ the victor it is said: "This beautiful one in His robe." In 1 Maccabees VI, 15, Antiochus gave to Philip his confidant his own robe and ring. Ibidem chapter X, verse 21: "Jonathan put on the holy robe." Mark XII, 38: "Beware, says Christ, of the Scribes, who desire to walk in robes;" and chapter XVI, verse 5, the women at Christ's tomb saw an angel covered with a white robe.
You will say: Burning hope which is deferred afflicts the soul: how then are these souls of the Martyrs, ardently hoping and demanding the aforesaid vengeance, blessed? I reply: This hope is ordered, is calm and composed in the Blessed: for they acquiesce in the will of God; for they do not hope, nor wish, that this vengeance should be done immediately, but that it be done in its time, which God has appointed and ordained: therefore they signify that they have only an immense desire of it, but one resigned to the will of God.
Morally, Tertullian, in his book On the Adornment of Women, at the end, exhorts them from this passage to adorn themselves with robes, not of purple, fine linen, or gold, but of innocence, holiness and fortitude: "The times of Christians are always, and now especially, pierced through not with gold but with iron: the robes of martyrdoms are being prepared, sustained by angels as bearers. Come forth now, decked out with the ornaments of the Apostles, taking whiteness from simplicity, blush from modesty, your eyes painted with shame and your spirit with silence, putting the word of God into your ears, fastening the yoke of Christ to your necks. Submit your head to your husbands, and you will be sufficiently adorned. Occupy your hands with wool, fix your feet at home, and you will please more than in gold. Clothe yourselves with the silk of probity, the fine linen of holiness, the purple of modesty. Thus painted, you will have God as your lover."
"And it was said to them that they should rest yet a little while, until their fellow servants be completed." — Alcazar expounds, "that they should rest," namely from the vision, not of God, but of vengeance upon their enemies, namely upon the Jews, which they demand, as if to say: God immediately clothed the souls of the Martyrs with the robe of glory, but as for their petition for vengeance, He commanded here that they rest a little, signifying that it must be deferred until the number of Martyrs to be slain by them be completed, which when completed He would punish them and cut them off through Titus and the Romans.
But, as I have said often already, these things must be referred to all the Martyrs, and to the end of the world. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Just as your bodies, O holy souls, empurpled with your own blood, rest in their tombs (which are thence called in Greek coemeteria, that is, dormitories) under the altar of holocausts, awaiting the glory of the resurrection, so do you likewise rest under the altar of incense in heaven, in your white robes, that is, in your light of glory and beatitude, and wait a little for the same resurrection: for shortly the body, which here you handed over to death for Me, I will restore to you glorious, and at the same time I will avenge and punish your persecutors and murderers, condemning and driving them into hell; shortly, I say, namely after the number of your fellows, namely the Martyrs, has been completed, which will soon be done through Antichrist. Aptly St. Augustine, sermon 11 On the Saints: "In such a manner," he says, "does Almighty God speak to the Saints, as any father of a household having many sons, and to each one returning from the field and asking that he give them food, replies: Your meal is indeed prepared; but wait for your brothers, so that, when you are placed together, you may all eat in common." And St. Gregory, II Moralia, IV: "To answer them (the souls) is for them to have to wait for the gathering of the brethren — to pour into their minds the willingness for delays of waiting, so that, when they desire the resurrection of the flesh, they may also rejoice in the increase of brethren to be gathered."
Verse 12: The Sixth Seal and the Great Earthquake
12. "And I saw when He opened the sixth seal: and behold, a great earthquake occurred, etc." — First, Aretas refers these to the prodigies done at the death of Christ; but these things had long been past, not future.
Secondly, Ambrose and Rupert refer these things to the reprobation of the Jews and their destruction through Titus; as the things which follow in chapter VII they refer to the most joyful calling of the Gentiles. See Pererius applying each detail on page 462. To this is added Alcazar, who thinks that by this sixth seal are signified the dread threats with which God wished the Jews to be forewarned before their destruction, and before the punishments of the seven plagues, which are contained in the seventh seal: moreover that these threats are compared with the prodigies which will threaten the imminent day of the last judgment, because the former were a type of the latter: hence also Christ, Matthew XXIV, compares the destruction of the city of Jerusalem with the destruction of the world, and immediately passes from the one to the other. Now these threats are seven. The first is the earthquake, which signifies the great change and disturbance of things which happened at Jerusalem, when they stirred up sedition and war against the Romans. The second is the darkening of the sun: this signifies the signs and prodigies which were seen, testifying to God's indignation against the Jews. For God, about to inflict punishments, clothes Himself as it were in a mournful garment, in the manner in which the kings of Portugal of old, when about to pass sentence of death, used to put on sackcloth. The third is the blood of the moon, which denotes the greatest punishment which threatened them for the blood of Christ shed. The fourth is the falling of the stars, which symbolically indicates the slaying which they inflicted upon St. James, Stephen and other most holy men, which also threatened ruin to the Jews. The fifth is the rolling up of heaven, which is a symbol of the departure of Christians from the city of Jerusalem, which also was no light threat to the city: for since here God is signified by the sun, Christ by the moon, the Apostles and apostolic men by the stars; hence consequently and aptly the primitive Church, or the first Christians, are signified by the heaven; of these same Christ says: "The powers of the heavens shall be moved." For the powers of heaven are the army of heaven, namely the Church militant, which could have defended Jerusalem from destruction, but deserting it and depriving it of its protection, exposed the same to the Romans as prey. Again, in the rolled-up book is noted the blinding of the Jews, as if all their wisdom had been folded up and rolled together, so that they knew as it were nothing, could find no reasons for saving themselves and the city. The sixth is the moving and withdrawal of mountains and islands, which portends that God removes and takes away from Titus and the Romans all obstacles, difficulties and hindrances, and as it were levels the way into Judea, so that they may subdue and overthrow it. The seventh is the fear and common horror of all, saying to the mountains: Fall upon us, which figures the immense fear which had pervaded the Jews, an evident argument that God now wished to exercise the severest vengeance upon them.
But all these things likewise were now past, not future, and therefore historical, not prophetic. It is established however that the Apocalypse is a prophecy of future things. So this sense is a certain accommodation, and an adaptation rather than the genuine exposition. Add that in verse 15 kings are named, who it is established were not at Jerusalem. Moreover, that they will say to the mountains: "Hide us from the face of the Lamb," does not fit the Jews, who did not acknowledge Christ nor the Lamb, but rather called Him a bear and a wolf.
Thirdly, Aureolus and Lyranus refer these things to the persecution of Diocletian, when Christians said to the mountains, that is, to the Blessed in heaven, invoking them: "Fall," that is, "protect us." But this exposition is forced and contorted, as is clear: and it is also out of order. For the persecution of Diocletian, like that of the other Emperors, was represented by the second seal, namely the red horse, as I have shown at chapter VI, 2.
I say therefore that St. John here passes over to the latest times, and to the end of the world. This is clear from his very words, which properly can fit no other thing, especially if one compare them with the words of Christ in Matthew XXIV, 25 (where He describes the destruction of the world and the signs preceding it); for one will see almost the same things said here as those which Christ says there. For what is said here: "The sun became black," is said there: "The sun shall be darkened;" here the stars are said to fall from heaven, there the same is said; here: "The moon became as blood," there: "The moon shall not give her light;" here it is said: "The heaven receded as a scroll rolled up," there: "The powers of the heavens shall be moved;" here they say "to the mountains: Fall upon us," there they will say the same, as is plain in Luke XXIII, 30. The very order of the Apocalypse and of the seven seals demands the same. For when St. John in the second, third and fourth seals had represented the three general and more illustrious persecutions of the Church, to last successively up to the end of the world (whence in the fifth seal he introduced the common voice of the Martyrs, desiring the end): hence in this sixth seal he passes to the same; nay, from this place onward to the end of the book he speaks of the last times of the world.
Therefore by this sixth seal he describes the last vengeance of God upon the impious, and the horrible signs which will go before, and will indicate that the last judgment is at hand. So Victorinus, Primasius, Ticonius, Haymo, Andreas, Bede, Ribera, Pererius and others.
You will say: These signs will follow Antichrist; for they will be next to the judgment: but these seven seals signify those things which will happen before Antichrist: therefore they are different from those signs that come after Antichrist. I reply: Some think that all these signs, as also the other plagues to be inflicted on the world by the seventh seal, which are recounted in chapters VIII and IX, will be before Antichrist: for they are contained in these seals, which must be unsealed and unrolled before the sealed book, that is, the times of Antichrist, can succeed and be seen. For thus in the best order is this prophecy of the Apocalypse marked out and proceeds, and is as it were a prophetic history of things in successive time and order to come. Reason also favors it: for that these dismal prodigies will not be after the death of Antichrist seems to be proved from the fact that after the death of Antichrist there will be the highest peace and quiet in the world, as I have shown in Daniel XII; whence also Christ in Luke XII, 40, and Matthew XXIV, 37, predicted that He would come to judgment on an unforeseen day, and suddenly, when men will be intent on gluttony and pleasures, as they did in the days of Noah: whereas on the contrary He says of these signs, that men will wither for fear and expectation of the other prodigies, which will come upon the whole world.
But it is hard and difficult to believe that all these signs are to be fulfilled before Antichrist. For they are signs of the imminent judgment, and of the coming Judge; whence the impious in verse 16 say "to the mountains and rocks: Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath is come: and who shall be able to stand?" How will they say these things, if between these signs and the day of judgment many years intervene, namely the whole time of the reign or at least of the monarchy of Antichrist, which will be of three and a half years? How are these signs called signs of the judgment, and of Christ the Judge, when rather they ought to be called signs of the coming Antichrist?
Secondly, in the next chapter, in the seventh seal we shall hear of the conversion of the Jews to Christ, which will happen at the end of the world, especially after Antichrist has been slain: therefore some of these seals will not be previous, but posterior to Antichrist. The same is manifest from the fact that in the seventh seal the seventh angel, sounding the trumpet, is said to bring about the consummation of all things: which surely will happen, not before, but after Antichrist. For so it is held in chapter X, verse 7, and chapter XI, verse 15.
Thirdly, Christ in Matthew XXIV, 29, says that these signs will be after the tribulation of those days, that is, after the persecution of Antichrist, as many say; more truly however Ribera so expounds, "after the tribulation," namely begun, but not yet completed. Now this tribulation of the world will begin before Antichrist. For Christ in a few words gathers and rolls together many things, which will come about successively over many years at the end of the world. Finally there too Christ says of these signs: "When ye see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors," namely the day of the Lord and the coming of Christ to judgment. Wherefore that these signs will be, not before, but after the destruction of Antichrist, Francisco Suarez expressly teaches, Part III, Question LIX, disputation 56, section 3, and very many others.
I say therefore that these signs are to be begun before Antichrist, and so are placed among the seals; but are to be perfected and completed after Antichrist, so that some of them happen before, and some, and indeed more and greater ones, after Antichrist. St. John, in order to join all things together as pertaining to the same matter, has embraced everything in the same seal: which insofar as they will go before Antichrist, so far pertain to the seals; insofar as they will follow, so far pertain to the sealed book. For since that desolation and destruction of the world will be the last and greatest, therefore God from afar over many years before it happens, will threaten it and begin to send upon the world the plagues that precede it. For so He did in the destruction of Jerusalem and of other cities and kingdoms. For He admonished and forewarned the impious Jews through Isaiah, Hosea, Joel, indeed through Elijah, Elisha, and the other Prophets for a hundred years of the future destruction by the Chaldeans, so that they might repent of their impiety and thus escape destruction. He did the same at the flood: He commanded Noah in the five hundredth year of his age to build the ark, that through it He might foretell and threaten the impending flood to men, although He did not bring on the flood until Noah's six hundredth year: He gave therefore the world a hundred years to repent. Why should He not do the same, or something similar, at the final destruction of the world, when not by water but by a flood of fire it shall be wholly overwhelmed and shall burn up? And so before Antichrist, impiety and the wicked will overflow in the world, and to them God will threaten destruction; and therefore He will begin to send those signs that precede it and the harbingers of its plagues — namely unusual earthquakes, the roarings and overflowings of the sea, lightnings, thunders, eclipses, darkenings of the sun, moon, and stars — so that the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the air may seem to rage against the wicked and to threaten them with destruction and ruin; from which will follow famines, pestilences, and wars, which Christ then foretold would come; but the wicked will despise them, and so God will heap plagues upon plagues. Antichrist will come, who will be the head and summit of impiety. Wherefore God will hurl from heaven sharper punishments upon him and his wicked followers, driving them into Tartarus; then He will rage against the rest of the wicked, and against the whole world, and will inflict upon it the worst evils — and among them a complete darkening of the sun, moon, and stars; and at last He will bring upon the world its final day by the fire of conflagration, and then Christ Himself will descend from heaven and will come to judgment: yet in such a way that, after the slaughter of Antichrist and his followers, and the plagues of the wicked, God will give the world some time of quiet, in which the Christians who fell in the persecution of Antichrist, the Jews and all the nations smitten by so many plagues, may breathe again, be reconciled to God, be justified and saved. At which time worldly men, like children once the rod is removed, will return to their natural disposition, will marry and be given in marriage, will feast, as they did in the days of Noah, until from an unforeseen quarter God shall bring on the end of the world and send Christ as Judge, as Christ foretold in Matt. xxiv, 37, and John in Apoc. xiii and following, and Daniel ch. xii, v. 12: "Blessed," he says, "is he that waiteth, and cometh unto the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days," that is, he who shall live after the times and death of Antichrist, as I have shown there.
Wherefore it is little probable, what St. Jerome and St. Chrysostom on Matt. xxiv hold, and Eusebius of Emesa in his homily on the XXIV Sunday after Pentecost, namely that these signs in the sun, moon, and stars will be after the general resurrection at the very coming of the Lord, and hence will not be prior to the judgment but in the judgment itself. Their argument is: Because, they say, immediately after these signs Christ adds: "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn." For "they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven." But this argument does not press home. For Christ in St. Matthew joins together and heaps up many things concerning the destruction of the city and of the world, which nevertheless will not happen at the same time, but at a time greatly disjoined and separated; nay rather, St. Matthew, after he had said that Christ would come with great power and majesty, adds: "And He shall send His angels with a trumpet;" though this is to happen not after, but before the coming of Christ to judgment.
"And the sun became black." — You may ask whether these signs, as they sound, will come to pass literally. First, St. Augustine, Epistle 80 to Hesychius, and after him Primasius, Andreas and Bede, take these signs mystically for the persecution of Antichrist, and so explain them: The sun and moon, that is the Church, will be darkened; the stars, that is the illustrious Saints, will fall away from faith, and consequently from heaven and salvation. But that this exposition is mystical, not literal, no one fails to see.
Secondly, St. Chrysostom and Jerome and Bede on Matt. xxiv; Eusebius of Emesa, homily on the XXIV Sunday after Pentecost; Hilary, canon 26 on Matthew; St. Thomas in Opusc. X, art. 36, think these signs will occur on the very day of judgment, namely that Christ coming will shine with so great a light, and will pierce the whole world with His rays, that by His brightness He will obscure the brilliance of the sun, moon, and stars. So too St. Augustine, sermon 130 On the Times, where he attributes this particularly to the splendor of the cross, which will be so great that it will conceal the sun. But I have already shown that these signs will precede judgment, and consequently come before the coming of Christ. Hence Joel II, 10ff. clearly says: "The sun shall be turned into darkness, before the day of the Lord come." And Christ in Luke xxi, 26: "Men withering away for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world."
Thirdly, Origen, tract. 30 on Matthew, thinks that the sun, moon, and stars will be darkened by the smoke that will proceed from the fire of the world's conflagration. But these signs will be before the end of the world, which this conflagration will bring about; whence Origen does not persist in this exposition. Indeed, Suarez at the place cited holds that the fire of the world's conflagration will come after the day of judgment itself.
Fourthly, Rabanus on Matt. xxiv, and St. Thomas in IV, dist. XLVIII, Quæst. I, art. 4, little quest. 2, reports this and does not disapprove, holding that the sun, and consequently the moon and the other stars, will be deprived by God of their intrinsic and connatural light.
Fifthly, Dionysius the Carthusian takes these literally, but thinks they are spoken hyperbolically, just as the Prophets say that at the destruction of Jerusalem and of Babylon the sun was to be darkened. But because those destructions were only a type and a thin shadow of the destruction of the whole world, which will be most horrendous and portentous, hence these signs are to be taken literally and in the highest sense.
I say, sixthly, that these things are plainly to be taken literally, as they sound. At the end of the world, therefore, God, for the punishment of sinners, will make the sun black like a sackcloth of hair, which is black from the black bristles and hairs of which it is woven. Now this will happen partly from the density of clouds which God will place between the sun and the earth, as Ribera and Dominic Soto hold in IV, dist. 46, Quæst. II, art. 2; partly from miraculous eclipses, as Pererius holds, which will arise from unusual motions of the heavens, which will move now slower, now faster than usual. Hence Lactantius, bk. VII, ch. xvi, says of the sun and moon: "They will perform extraordinary motions, so that it will not be easy for man either to recognize the course of the stars or the reckoning of the seasons. For there will be summer in winter, or winter in summer: then the year will be shortened, the month will be diminished, and the day will be compressed into a brief space." If these things are true, it will be easy then for various eclipses to be produced. Thirdly, God will suspend not the light, but the illumination of the sun and stars, namely by denying to the light of the sun and stars that concurrence without which it cannot diffuse its light and illuminate the world: hence from this will follow the densest and universal darkness throughout the whole world; and He will do this by a very easy action and the slightest change of things and of nature: so Francisco Suarez, III part., Quæst. LIX, art. 6, disp. LVI, sect. 3.
"The whole moon became as blood." — This will happen by the interposition of a cloud so disposed that, through the impression of the moon's rays, the moon itself will appear wholly bloody, to signify the severity of the divine judgment, says Suarez at the same place: for the reddened moon represents gore, that is, the slaughter of the wicked, on account of the blood of Christ either shed or neglected and spurned by them; likewise on account of the blood shed of the Martyrs, especially of Elijah and Enoch, and of other faithful by Antichrist and the Antichristians. Again, a reddened moon portends winds, storms, and tempests of God's wrath and punishments, which God will pour out upon sins and sinners; for
"A pale moon rains, a red one blows, a white one brings fair weather."
And Virgil, Georgics I:
"But if she suffuses her face with maidenly blush, there will be wind."
For blood in Scripture is a symbol of sin. Hence Hosea IV, 2 says: "Blood hath touched blood." And Isaiah ch. I, v. 15: "Your hands are full of blood." See what is said there. There will be therefore at that time an unusual partly reddening, partly darkening, and as it were a swooning, of the sun, moon, and stars. First, that it may signify that the joy of the wicked is now obscured and brought to an end.
Secondly, the moon will be made red, that she may appear as it were to blush with shame in her countenance at the most foul and atrocious crimes of men, perpetrated chiefly at night when the moon shines, in beds and in darkness; for at the sight of so many and so enormous crimes of men, perpetrated from the beginning of the world to its end, the sun, moon, and stars will as it were blush, that they have served such impious masters and have offered their light to their crimes. St. Antoninus gives this cause, IV part of the Summa, tit. XIV, ch. xi, § 2. Thus at the martyrdom of Felix, an African Bishop, in the year of Christ 302, the moon was turned into blood, as the trustworthy Acts of October 24th relate, which Baronius cites and approves.
Thirdly, the sun and stars, as if struck with fear of Christ the coming Judge, will withdraw their splendor: just as men in fear are wont to draw heat and blood inward to strengthen the heart, and so to grow pale, says Maldonatus on Matt. xxiv. For all these signs tend to this end: that vengeance may be taken upon impious men (such as most will then be; for few then will be faithful and pious, as Christ foretold in Luke ch. xviii), and that they themselves may be struck with fear and may expect greater punishments.
Verse 13: And the Stars from Heaven Fell upon the Earth
"And the stars from heaven fell upon the earth." — First, some say: "They fell," that is, they set, suddenly snatched to the other hemisphere; for so the Poets signify the setting of the stars, saying that they cast themselves into the Ocean or sea. Hence Virgil, Aeneid II:
"And now the dewy night precipitates from heaven, and the falling stars persuade to sleep."
Thus at Rome and elsewhere, those who dwell not far from the sea, in summer pleasantly behold the sun's setting at evening. For it seems to them that the sun balances itself amid the waves repeatedly, and at last suddenly sinks down into them. But here it is said: "The stars fell upon the earth," not into the sea, nor into another hemisphere.
Secondly, Origen, tract. 30 on Matt.: "The stars," he says, "fell from heaven, that is, with their fuel failing they lost their light, and what remained of earthly substance in them fell to the earth." For he himself thinks, following Plato's view in the Timaeus, that the heavens and the stars are composed and fused out of the elements, and therefore need nourishment like our fire or a lamp: wherefore as their food gradually fails at the end of the world, the light also of the stars, or that fiery substance in them, will fail; while what is earthly will fall back to its own elements and to the earth. But this rests on a twofold error: first, that the heavens and the stars are elemental; secondly, that they need nourishment.
Thirdly, Jansenius and Cajetan on Matt. xxiv: The stars, they say, will withdraw their light and will not be seen, so that they will appear to have fallen from heaven. They will fall therefore not from their place, but from their light.
Fourthly, Maldonatus at the same place holds that stars properly so called will fall from heaven at the end of the world. For I assent rather, he says, to Christ affirming this than to Aristotle denying that it can happen. But in that case the heavens — nay, all the heavens of the Planets — would have to be split open; and where would these stars fall? For any fixed star in the firmament that is visible to us is greater than the whole earth. Better therefore Ribera and Pererius take "stars" to mean comets, lightnings, falling fires, and other fiery meteors like stars, of which many will be at the end of the world, of new and prodigious size, form, figure, motion and fall. For God will hurl them down, as it were horrible thunderbolts and thunders, and dash them upon the earth to terrify men.
"As a fig tree casteth" (βάλλει, that is, throws away, overturns. So the Syriac. Some therefore wrongly read "sendeth.") "her unripe figs" (ὀλύνθους, that is, unripe figs) "when she is moved by a great wind." — It signifies that God, on account of crimes, will impose an end on the world sooner than the opinion of men and the nature of things would suppose, although it could naturally endure longer, as He did at the flood of Noah. For so unripe figs from the fig tree fall down untimely before maturity. Again, "unripe figs" signify the most joyful and flourishing spring of beatitude which the Blessed shall then begin. The Arabic translates, "as a fig tree, when its grass-green fruit falls from a great wind."
Verse 14: And the Heaven Departed as a Book Folded Up
14. "And the heaven departed as a book folded up," — εἰλισσόμενος, that is, that is rolled up or folded together; Syriac: "the heavens were separated as a book that is rolled up;" Arabic: "the heaven shall be wrapped up as a sheet of paper." As if to say: As a book in the manner of the ancients rolled around a cylinder (as cloth is wound around a roller) could not be read since its letters were hidden, so the heaven and its stars (which are like letters) will be hidden by black clouds and darkness, so that they cannot be seen, and will appear to have withdrawn into another world. Again, the known use, motion, and splendor of the heavens, the gazing on the stars, and from these the conjectural prognostication and divination, will cease; just as we cease to use a book and cannot read it when we fold or close it. He alludes to, indeed cites, Isaiah xxxiv, 4, where Isaiah says the same: see what is said there. Hence St. Thomas and Suarez explain it thus: as if to say, men and Astrologers will no longer divine from the stars as from a prognostic book. The heaven, says Suarez, will withdraw — not by local motion, but from the eyes of men — as a book folded up is wont to withdraw, because its letters cannot be seen. So he himself at the place cited, and bk. II On Superstition, ch. xi. Another reason for this phrase is given by St. Augustine, bk. V On Genesis according to the Letter, ch. xx: God, he says, brought forth the ages, when they were first established, as it were folded up, and unfolds them in the times that follow; that is, through the motions of the heavens and the vicissitudes of times, He gradually unfolds the wrapped-up world, drawing forth various individuals out of the capacity of species, and various effects out of the bosom of their causes, and especially out of the motion and influence of the heavens and of the sun. When therefore He ceases from this motion and from this unfolding of His providence, and removes or suspends the individuals and effects that flow from it, as He will do on the day of judgment, then His providence is said to fold up and roll together the book and the heaven.
Andrew of Caesarea explains contrariwise: The heaven, he says, departed from its former folding-up and concealment of the things which it contained, because then the eternal things will be opened.
Instead of "the heaven departed as a book folded up," Christ, Matt. xxiv, says: "The powers of the heavens shall be moved." Where, first, St. Chrysostom takes these powers to be the angels, who, he says, will be amazed at such prodigies, and, as St. Thomas says, will cease from moving the heavens. Hence also St. Augustine, sermon 130 On the Times: "As when a prince is judging, not only the accused but even the officers, who are conscious of no fault, are seized with fear and trembling because of the dread of the judge: so also then, when the human race is judged, the heavenly ministers will fear, and amid the terrible array will tremble with horrible dread before the judge looking on," that is, they will appear to tremble; for they cannot truly tremble, since they are blessed, in whom no trembling falls, nor any passion or perturbation. Besides, enjoying heaven and God, they will marvel at nothing under heaven and God, as too small. So also "the wise man," says Seneca, "lifting his soul above the earth and the moon, fears nothing on the earth, nor wonders at anything." For this is the mark of the magnanimous. Thus Cyrus, says Xenophon, was taught to admire nothing.
Secondly, Cajetan, Titelmann, and Pererius take these powers to be the influences of the heavens, which will cease at the end of the world.
Thirdly, Eusebius, in St. Thomas's Catena, on Matt. xxiv, takes these powers to be the gates of heaven, which will be opened to Christ as He descends to judgment and again ascends to the heavenly throne.
Fourthly and genuinely, Jansenius says these powers are the stars of heaven: for these in Scripture are called the host of the heavens; so that, just as he said a little earlier, "The stars shall fall from heaven," so here he speaks of the same, but ethereal and heavenly, and not, as a little earlier, of aerial ones, saying that they will be shaken and as it were tremble. To this view come also Hessels and Maldonatus on Matt. xxiv: The powers, they say, of the heavens are the poles and hinges of the heavens; as if to say, the very hinges and bases and foundations of the heavens will be shaken, so that the heavens will seem to be shaken and torn from their hinges. For this is what Job says, ch. ix, v. 6: "Who moveth the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof are shaken." And ch. xxvi, v. 11: "The pillars of heaven tremble, and dread at His beck."
Fifthly, Francisco Suarez, III part., Quæst. LIX, art. 6, disp. LVI, sect. 3: The powers of the heavens, he says, that is, the angels, will be moved; for they will move and prepare themselves to become ministers of divine justice, who will move the heavens and the elements, who, namely, will cause and effect all those wonderful changes and motions in the sun, the stars, the sea, and the earth. For these will be, as it seems, greater than can come about through the mere influence or power of the stars. They will therefore be brought about through angels, to whom rightly may be applied that of Psalm CXLIX: "Two-edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance upon the nations, chastisements among the people, to execute upon them the judgment that is written." And to this also can be referred many things said in the Apocalypse, namely that St. John saw angels now sounding trumpets, now pouring out the golden vials full of the wrath of God, and the like, which can be read from ch. viii to xvi. Thus far Suarez. To this is added Lactantius, bk. VII, ch. xvi, who by these powers understands the angels who move the heavens. These, he says, will be moved, because they will change the order and manner of moving the heavens, and will now accelerate it, now retard it, etc., as I have related above in his own words. Hence also follows:
"And every mountain, and the islands, were moved out of their places," — properly, as the words sound. For if the stars shall fall from heaven and the heaven shall depart as a book folded up, what wonder if on the earth mountains and islands are moved out of their places? For there will be on that horrible day as it were the setting of the world, an inversion and overturning of the whole Universe, so that all things, inverted, will go upward, downward, forward, backward, to ruin. Thus "in the consulship of L. Marcius and Sex. Julius," says Pliny, bk. II, ch. LXXXIII, "in the territory of Modena two mountains rushed together, leaping at one another and recoiling with a very great crash, with flame and smoke going forth between them into the heavens by daylight, while a great crowd of Roman knights, of households and travellers looked on from the Aemilian Way. By that collision all the country-houses were crushed." And a little after: "No less marvellous a portent our own age has known, in the last year of Nero, when meadows and olive-trees, with a public road between them, crossed over to opposite sites, in the territory of the Marrucini." And in the following chapter: "The greatest earthquake within mortal memory occurred under the principate of Tiberius Caesar, when twelve cities of Asia were laid prostrate in one night." See the same author bk. II, ch. xc and following, where he recounts lands changed places with the sea by earthquake, swallowed up, absorbed. And ch. xciv, he says that ground is always quaking in the territory of Gabii and Reate. And ch. xcv: "Certain islands," he says, "are always afloat, as in the Caecuban district, and in the same Reatine, Mutinese, and Statonian; in the lake of Vadimon and at the Cutilian waters there is a thick wood, which is never seen in the same place by day or night: in Lydia those called Calaminae are driven not only by winds, but even by poles whithersoever one wills. There are also in Nymphaeum small ones called Saltuares, because at the music of harmony they move to the beats of the keeping feet. In the great Tarquinian lake of Italy two woods are carried about, now showing a triangular shape, now a round one in their compass, as the winds drive them; never a square." Such floating lands and islands are seen near Saint-Omer in Belgium, and they were once shown to me there. It is memorable what Gregory of Tours writes, bk. IV, ch. xxx: "The fortress of Tauredunum in Gaul," he says, "is situated on a mountain above the Rhone. There was heard, indeed, for more than sixty days a murmuring sound issuing from the mountain, until at last, marvellously split off from another neighboring mountain, it rushed headlong into the Rhone with the whole fortress and all its inhabitants. This happened in the reign of Justinian." Something similar happened recently in the year of the Lord 1618, on the 4th of September. For when I was then in Italy, I learned for certain at Rome that the town of Piuro in the Valtelline (which is subject to the Rhætians, who are now called Grisons), not far from Como, situated at the foot of a mountain, was, when that mountain — through an internal wind which excited an earthquake — collapsed, completely overwhelmed and buried, and all its inhabitants (reckoned at about three thousand) were likewise buried, only five having escaped. A sign preceded: the drying-up of the river that flowed through the town; and two swarms of bees fighting one another so furiously that on both sides all fell down dead. This horrible example struck the Grisons and all Italy. The damage was estimated at two millions of gold. The ancient Historians relate that Sicily was once joined to Italy, and afterwards, when the land had been broken up by the waves of the sea, the water tore it away through the breach and made it an island. So Diodorus, bk. IV, ch. XIV.
Secondly, from these words: "And every mountain, and the islands, were moved out of their places," some are of opinion that at the end of the world the mountains will be levelled into the valleys and made equal with them, so that the earth may be quite round, as it was created on the first day of the world. For on the third day, for the use of men and animals, God raised up and reared part of the earth into mountains, and on the other side took it down and sank it into valleys, as I taught on Gen. ch. I, 8. When therefore the use and life of men and animals shall cease, the earth seems destined to return wholly to its primordial spherical shape: which if it be true, then the mountains will be levelled. Similarly they think that the islands which arose in the sea will at the end of the world be swallowed up by the sea, that the sea, full again, may receive its own place and bed which it first received in Gen. ch. I, v. 9 and 10. What will come of this, experience and the end of the world will teach. For for the contrary opinion makes this, that mountains and islands contribute not a little to the beauty and variety of the Universe: hence they were brought forth by God not on the first day of the world, when it was rough and unformed, but on the third, when the earth was formed and adorned.
Verse 15: Every Bondman and Every Freeman
15. "Every bondman and every freeman," — every man of whatever condition, the impious namely. For this is the punishment of the wicked, as is also the cry and groan that follows. For then nearly all will be unbelievers and impious, and soon, when Antichrist shall reign, they will follow him as their king and monarch, both that they may escape his torments and that they may obtain wealth and honors from him. For so we have seen in this age, when a king becomes a heretic or a schismatic, the whole kingdom and almost all the subjects become heretics or schismatics. Few then will be faithful who adhere to Elijah and Enoch, fewer still who along with them will resist Antichrist to his face. This is what Christ says in Luke xviii, 8: "The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, faith on earth?" And Matt. xxiv, 12: "And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold."
Verse 16: And They Say to the Mountains and the Rocks
"And they say to the mountains and the rocks" (great ones, says the Arabic, namely cliffs): "Fall upon us." — He cites the words of Hosea ch. x, v. 8, but in an allegorical sense. For Hosea literally speaks of the captivity, despair, and extreme calamity of the ten tribes, when the city and kingdom of Samaria was destroyed by Shalmaneser, and the ten tribes were carried off by him into Assyria. In the same way men will say the same thing, perceiving the plagues of God at the end of the world, both before Antichrist, and still more under Antichrist, and most of all after him, when Christ shall now be coming to judgment. St. Luke has the same words, and attributes them to the Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem; for both of these were a type of the destruction and consummation of the world.
He alludes also to Isaiah II, 19, where, concerning the same Jews besieged and oppressed, he says: "They shall go into the holes of rocks, and into the caverns of the earth from the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of His majesty, when He shall rise up to strike the earth."
"From the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne" (the heavenly throne of His divinity, namely from the face of God), "and from the wrath of the Lamb," — namely of Christ the man coming to judgment. For although unbelievers and impious men, especially Antichristians and persecutors of the faithful, will at first not believe in the power, vengeance, and providence of God and of Christ, yet when they shall hear the Martyrs in the tribunals proclaiming and threatening this again and again, and shall see them generously and cheerfully suffering and dying for it, and shall soon perceive their sayings to be verified in fact, and the plagues and vengeance foretold by them to be sent upon themselves, even unwillingly they will believe that these things are inflicted on them by God and Christ, and that sharper things are presently to be inflicted. So Antiochus, while mocking and slaying the Jews and laughing at their sacred things and their God, was struck by God, and acknowledged his own guilt and God's just vengeance upon him, II Macc. ch. ix, 8. So also Pharaoh in the Red Sea, seeing the lightnings hurled at him from heaven, and himself overwhelmed by the sea, said: Let us flee from Israel, "for the Lord fights for them against us." So the Emperor Maximian, a fierce persecutor of Christians, when he felt sharp pains and putrid diseases sent upon him by God, acknowledged that these things were justly inflicted on him by God on account of the Christians, and stopped the persecution. So Julian, pierced by a heavenly weapon: "Thou hast conquered, O Galilean," he said, "Thou hast conquered."
Verse 17: For the Great Day of Their Wrath Is Come
17. "Of their wrath," — of God and the Lamb: in Greek αὐτοῦ, that is, of Him. For God and the Lamb are one in divine nature. Leo the Great acutely conjectures how formidable will be the power of the angered Lamb, from His own gentleness and meekness, sermon I On the Passion of the Lord: "'I am He,' He says (John xviii, 5), and at His voice the crowd of the wicked is laid prostrate. What now shall His majesty be able to do when about to judge, whose humility about to be judged could do this?" And Gregory, bk. XVII Moralia, ch. xxi: "Who shall endure His wrath, whose very meekness could not be endured?"
Moreover, so great will be the fear and so great the shame of the damned before Christ the Judge, that He will so strike and terrify their conscience that they will wish rather to be overwhelmed and covered by the mountains, indeed to be in hell, than in the valley of Jehoshaphat before the angry Christ. St. Basil rightly judges that the most bitter torment branded into the damned by the avenging flames of hell is far lighter and more tolerable than that shame and confusion. For weighing that most severe rebuke, Luke XII, 20: "Thou fool, this night they require thy soul of thee: and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?" he speaks thus in his homily Against the Greedy Rich: "That mockery of folly surpasses the eternal punishment." Read Cardinal Toletus on Luke XII, annotation 39.
Note: These same horrible signs, preceding the judgment and destruction of the world, other Prophets foretold, partly in a literal sense, partly in an allegorical. Hence Tertullian, in the book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ch. XXII, citing the words of Christ in Matt. xxiv on the destruction of the city and of the world, says: "After He had declared: 'And then Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the nations,' from there He now preaches to the world and to the age, according to Joel and Daniel and the whole council of the Prophets, the future signs in the sun, moon, and stars."
First, then, Joel ch. III, v. 2 says of it literally thus: "I will gather together all nations into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will plead with them there for My people;" and v. 14: "The day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their shining." And ch. II, v. 1, under the type of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans: "Behold the day of the Lord cometh," he says, "a day of darkness and of gloominess;" and v. 10: "At His presence the earth hath trembled, the heavens are moved. The sun and moon are darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their shining. And the Lord hath uttered His voice before the face of His army." And v. 30: "I will show wonders in the heavens, and in the earth, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and horrible day of the Lord come."
Second is Isaiah, who in ch. XIII, v. 9, speaking literally of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, allegorically, as under a type of it, depicts the day of the destruction of the world thus: "Behold the day of the Lord shall come, a cruel day, and full of indignation, and of wrath, and fury, to lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven, and their brightness shall not display their light: the sun shall be darkened in his rising, and the moon shall not shine with her light. And I will visit the evils of the world," etc.
Third is Jeremiah, the disciple of Isaiah, ch. XV, v. 9: "She that bore seven is grown weak, her soul hath fainted away: her sun is gone down, while it was yet day, she is confounded, and ashamed."
Fourth is Amos, who likewise literally threatens the city of Jerusalem and allegorically the world with the final disaster, ch. VIII, v. 9: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the sun shall go down at midday, and I will make the earth dark in the day of light: and I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation: and I will bring up sackcloth upon every back of yours, and baldness upon every head: and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the latter end thereof as a bitter day."
Fifth is Ezekiel, who literally describes the slaughter of Pharaoh and of Egypt, allegorically of Antichrist and of the wicked and of the world, in ch. XXXII, 7: "I will cover the heavens, when thou shalt be put out, and I will make the stars thereof dark: I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the lights of heaven I will make to mourn over thee: and I will cause darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God, when thy wounded shall fall in the midst of the land." See on the horror of the last judgment St. Basil, sermon On the Judgment, and St. Ephrem, sermon On the Holy Cross and On the Second Coming of the Lord, and likewise sermon On the Fear of God, vol. III.
Morally, note that the punishment, fear, and dread of the wicked, and the timorous expectation of unknown and impending plagues, is and will be enormous; "Worse than war is the fear itself of war." Thus often the accused are more afflicted by the fear and apprehension of the death to which they have been condemned, than by death itself: for at every moment they are so distressed that they seem to die a thousand times. Wherefore Seneca, in his book On the Happy Life, ch. IV and following, teaches that a wretched life is set in fear and in desire, while a happy life is set in the contempt and victory over both. "The highest good," he says, "is a soul that despises chance things, that rejoices in virtue, whom chance does not exalt nor break; for whom true pleasure is the contempt of pleasures. For what hinders us from calling that soul blessed which is free, upright, undaunted, steadfast, set beyond fear, beyond desire — for whom the one good is honesty, the one evil baseness? The rest is a vile crowd of things, neither detracting from the happy life, nor adding to it. He who is so founded must, willing or unwilling, be followed by continuous cheerfulness and a deep joy coming from on high. On which day he will be above pleasure, and above pain." And ch. V: "Happy is he who, by the benefit of reason, neither desires nor fears. For then the mind is pure and freed from all evils, when it has escaped not only lacerations but even pin-pricks, ever to stand where it took its stand, and to vindicate its seat even when fortune is angry and assails it. For as for pleasure, although it be poured around on every side and flow in by all ways, what mortal in whom any vestige of manhood remains would wish to be tickled by day and by night, and, abandoning the soul, give labor to the body?"