Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The fifth Angel sounds his trumpet, and a star falling from heaven opens the pit of the abyss: from which there come forth monstrous locusts like horses, crowned, having the hair of women and the teeth of lions, and the tails of scorpions, which with their king Abaddon torment men for five months. Secondly, in verse 13, the sixth Angel sounds his trumpet, and the four angels bound in the Euphrates are loosed, who gather a most great and terrible army, by which a third part of men was slain; and yet by these plagues the other impious were not torn and turned away from their crimes, as is said in verse 20.
Vulgate Text: Apocalypse 9:1-21
1 And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon the earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit. 2 And he opened the bottomless pit: and the smoke of the pit arose, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke of the pit. 3 And from the smoke of the pit there came out locusts upon the earth. And power was given to them, as the scorpions of the earth have power: 4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree: but only the men who have not the sign of God on their foreheads. 5 And it was given unto them that they should not kill them; but that they should torment them five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man. 6 And in those days men shall seek death, and shall not find it: and they shall desire to die, and death shall fly from them. 7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle: and on their heads were, as it were, crowns like gold: and their faces were as the faces of men. 8 And they had hair as the hair of women; and their teeth were as lions: 9 And they had breastplates as breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was as the noise of chariots and many horses running to battle. 10 And they had tails like to scorpions, and there were stings in their tails; and their power was to hurt men five months. And they had over them 11 A king, the angel of the bottomless pit; whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek Apollyon; in Latin Exterminans. 12 One woe is past, and behold there come yet two woes more hereafter. 13 And the sixth angel sounded the trumpet: and I heard a voice from the four horns of the great altar, which is before the eyes of God, 14 Saying to the sixth angel, who had the trumpet: Loose the four angels, who are bound in the great river Euphrates. 15 And the four angels were loosed, who were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year: for to kill the third part of men. 16 And the number of the army of horsemen was twenty thousand times ten thousand. And I heard the number of them. 17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision: and they that sat on them, had breastplates of fire, and of hyacinth, and of brimstone, and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions: and from their mouths proceeded fire, and smoke, and brimstone. 18 And by these three plagues was slain the third part of men, by the fire and by the smoke and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. 19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths, and in their tails. For, their tails are like to serpents, and have heads: and with them they hurt. 20 And the rest of the men, who were not slain by these plagues, did not do penance from the works of their hands, that they should not adore devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: 21 Neither did they do penance from their murders, nor from their sorceries, nor from their fornication, nor from their thefts.
Verse 1: I Saw a Star Fall from Heaven
You will ask: what is this star, what is the smoke, and what are these locusts and of what sort? First, Alcazar holds that in this chapter IX is narrated the fifth and sixth plague sent upon the unbelieving Jews. These two plagues, he says, are "horrible locusts and furious horses," or Sirens and Furies. For the Jews were handed over to the Sirens, that is, to their unbridled lusts, according to what David threatened against them in Psalm LXXX, 13: "I let them go according to the desires of their heart." Hence consequently they were handed over to the furies of conscience, that these from the memory of their crimes and from the atrocity of penalty and plagues might gnaw their heart and drive them as it were to madness — concerning which Cicero says in Pro Roscio Amerino: "These are the constant household furies of the impious, which day and night demand from most wicked sons the penalties due to their parents." Secondly, by the falling of the star is signified — not what some Astrologers maintain, namely that God sometimes permits the influence of the stars and the force of a depraved disposition to dominate the foolish and the wicked, and to subject them to the desires of their own heart, as Horace says, Book I, Ode 19:
Venus, rushing wholly upon me, has forsaken Cyprus;
and Cupid (as he himself feigns) hurls himself upon Anacreon. But rather this star signifies the Law of Moses, which as if rushing down from above oppressed the Jews, and on occasion kindled lust in them, Romans VII, verse 7; for the locusts are the desires of the heart and unbridled lusts, which, when this star opened the abyss, came forth from it. Thirdly, the well of the abyss is not hell, but a most deep well, so as to seem bottomless. This well is a symbol of God's just judgment (according to Psalm XXXV, 7: "Thy judgments are a great abyss"), by which God handed over the Jews to their own lusts, according to Proverbs XXII, 14: "The harlot is a deep ditch: he with whom the Lord is angry shall fall into it." For just as here the judgment of God, so there the harlot is figured as a deep well, into which by God's just judgment the sinner falls headlong. Furthermore, take "concupiscence" here not only of lust, but also of riches, goods, gluttony, and all vices; for ἄβυσσος is either a chasm or an expanse of waters lacking a bottom: for this is what the Hebrew tehom signifies. Hence in Genesis I, 2, it is said: "Darkness was upon the face of the abyss." And St. Augustine, in Book XXII Against Faustus: "The abyss," he says, "is an unfathomable depth of waters." Scapula also in his Lexicon: "The abyss," he says, "is a chasm of waters"; Pagninus says the same of the Hebrew tehom. Yet allegorically the abyss signifies hell — both because hell is as it were a sea into which the damned are plunged, and is most deep like a well or a most deep and dark prison; and because it is itself the depth of God's judgment, that is, the punishment which God justly inflicts upon the damned. Fourthly, the smoke of the well signifies that lusts are most obscure darknesses, and that the soul through them is not allowed to enjoy the sun, that is, the heavenly light, nor even the light of reason. From this smoke of hell, that is, from the error just named, and from the darkness of inordinate affection and deception, there come forth locusts, that is, inconstant and carnal desires: for the locust is a windy and voracious animal; hence it aptly signifies the hunger of appetites, and the variety and infinity of cupidities and cares, as also the insatiable belly of gluttons. Again, the locust is a restless, wandering, filthy, harmful, shameless, biting animal: such also is concupiscence. "And power was given to them, as the scorpions have power": for there are certain locusts which have a tail like that of a scorpion. He aptly signifies that the locusts, that is, the lusts going forth, fix their sting in the mind as well as in the body, just as the scorpion has teeth in its tail, as Pliny attests, Book XI, chapter XXXVII, according to Proverbs XXIII, 31: "Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when its color shines in the glass: it goeth in pleasantly, but in the end it will bite like a snake, and will spread venom like a basilisk." Wherefore Seneca said: "He who shuts off desire, by Hercules, contends with Jove for happiness." Sixthly, these locusts are commanded not to harm the herbs, but men: by which is signified that these locusts are spiritual and mystical, not physical and natural, namely the lusts already spoken of. Seventhly, when it is said: "That they should torment them five months," allusion is made to Genesis VII, 24, and chapter VIII, 1, where the Flood is said to have covered and held the earth one hundred and fifty days (for so many days are contained in five months). Just as then there was a flood of waters upon the world, and afterwards under Moses a flood of locusts covering all Egypt, Exodus X, 15: so here is signified the flood of lusts sent upon the Jews to last for 150 days, that is, for a very long time, until God in mercy upon them remembers Noah the mystical one, that is, Christ our Saviour, and sends His spirit and the west wind upon the earth, which will take away these locusts and convert the Jews to Christ — which will be at the end of the world. Eighthly, men shall seek death and shall not find it; because inordinate desires bring so many fears, anxieties, and torments to the mind, that men subject to them often desire death. Hence Pliny, Book VII, chapter L: "So many fears," he says, "so many cares, so often is death invoked, that no wish is more frequent." Therefore it is clear that these things arise from the tinder of concupiscence, without which there is no fear, no care, no anxiety. Hence wisely St. Bernard: "Take away self-will, and there will be no hell." Ninthly, they are "like horses prepared for battle," because the force, ardor, and impetus of concupiscence to trample down everything that resists it is greatest: thus we see the lustful and the wrathful rush into fires and swords, while they are driven by the goad of lust or anger. Tenthly, they have on their heads crowns of gold, because men, given over to their lusts, falsely think them to be as it were queens, to whom they ought to be subject and obey in all things: for to them they hand over the kingdom and rule of their heart. Whence Paul says, Romans V, 21, and VI, 12: "Let not sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey its lusts." Eleventhly, they have the faces of men and the hair of women, because they show themselves at first sight bland and soft, and so allure incautious men. This is what St. James says, I, 14: "Each one is tempted, drawn away and enticed by his own concupiscence." Twelfthly, they have the teeth of lions, because they bite and tear the soul, and have a deadly outcome. Hence concerning them Ecclesiasticus XXI, 3, says: "Its teeth are the teeth of a lion, slaying the souls of men." Thirteenthly, they make a noise with their wings like that of chariots, because by their cries saying, "Bring, bring," Proverbs XXX, 15, they so blunt and fill the ears of the mind, that they absorb its attention, and no place remains for adapting the ears to wholesome counsels. Fourteenthly, they have over them as king Abaddon, namely the devil, who through the lusts as his soldiers wages war against men. Hence Paul says of him II Timothy II, 26: "By whom they are held captive at his will." He is called the Exterminator, because he himself sharpens and inflames the lusts, that through them he may exterminate every seed of virtue. For, as the Apostle says: "Desires plunge men into ruin and perdition," I Timothy VI, 9. Where for "perdition" the Greek is ἀπώλειαν; whence he was here called ἀπολλύων, that is, destroyer or exterminator — these surely are the "graves of concupiscence," of which Numbers XI, 34. The saying is well known: "Drunkenness has slain more than the sword." Or by the Angel of the abyss take self-love; for this is the king of lusts, and directs, sends forth, and inflames them, to whom you may rightly apply that of Habakkuk III, 5: "Before His face shall go death, and the devil shall go forth before His feet." For truly self-love is to the soul itself as it were a most harmful demon. Thus far Alcazar — fittingly with respect to tropology, but not with respect to the letter, as he himself contends.
The second exposition is that of Aureolus, Lyranus, and St. Antoninus, in Part I of the Chronicle, title VI, chapter 1, who hold that here is foretold the Vandal persecution, which was most grievous for five months — that is, under the five kings of the Vandals, namely Gunderic, Genseric, Huneric, Thrasamund, and Gelimer. For Stilicho the Vandal, a vigorous commander of the army under Theodosius the elder, was on his deathbed left by him as guardian of his sons and of the whole empire: wherefore he himself gave his two daughters successively as wives to Honorius. At length, wishing to transfer the empire from Honorius to himself and his son Eucherius, he secretly stirred up the Vandals against Honorius: but his treachery being detected, the traitor was beheaded with his son by Honorius. After Stilicho's death the Vandals made for themselves Corsico (Crocus) as king, who ravaged everything between the Alps and the Pyrenees. The Vandals were made Arians by the Goths. Corsico, besieging Arelate (Arles), was captured and killed by the Prefect of the city. To him succeeded Fredebaldus II, king of the Vandals; on whose death succeeded the third king Gunderic, the first king of the Vandals in Spain: to him likewise succeeded his brother Genseric, the fourth of their kings, who ravaged Africa and besieged Hippo, and in it St. Augustine, bishop of the city; then crossing into Italy, he took and plundered Rome, and soon also Capua and Nola, in which the bishop was St. Paulinus, who gave himself captive to the Vandals in place of a widow's son. Genseric was proclaimed the most fortunate and glorious of all kings, in that he was the conqueror of the two most powerful and chief cities of the whole world, Rome and Carthage. To Genseric succeeded another, Huneric, the fifth king of the Vandals, who sent into exile three hundred Bishops, Deacons, Presbyters, and 4,940 lay people, and afflicted many with martyrdom; he severely punished the citizens of Tipasa because they would not endure an Arian Bishop, and cut off their tongues and right hands; who nevertheless by miracle, God granting, spoke as if they had tongues: of whom one, when he sinned and fell into lust, lost this gift, as St. Gregory attests, Book III of the Dialogues, chapter XXXII. Huneric, after he had reigned eight years, was consumed by worms and perished. To Huneric succeeded Guntabundus; to him then his brother Thrasamund, who reigned 26 years. To Thrasamund succeeded his son Hilderic, whom he begot of the daughter of the Emperor Valentinian, who therefore from his mother sucked in the orthodox faith with her milk. Wherefore Gelimer, Hilderic's cousin-brother, eager for the kingdom, accused Hilderic of treason, that he was secretly conspiring with Justinian. Hilderic therefore, deprived of his kingdom by the Vandals, was given into custody, and Gelimer was substituted for him, who reigned five years. The Emperor Justinian, wishing to restore the kingdom to Hilderic, made war against Gelimer, sending Belisarius against him, by whom Gelimer was overcome and captured, bound with a silver chain, and led in triumph to Constantinople to the Emperor Justinian in the year of the Lord 536. Where, having seen the magnificence of Justinian, Gelimer rightly cried out: "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity. I yesterday was a king, now a captive and bound in chains as a slave." Then therefore the kingdom of the Vandals ceased, namely in the 95th year from their invasion and occupation of Africa, as St. Cyprian had foretold would happen, as Evagrius attests, Book IV, chapter XVI.
Lyranus, Aureolus, and St. Antoninus therefore hold that the falling star is the Arian Emperor Valens, or Genseric, who was the first Arian among the kings of the Vandals, and the first to be called into Africa by Count Boniface, who invaded it and held it himself and his posterity for 95 years, up to Gelimer, as I said. The locusts therefore are the Vandals; the five months they hold to be the five Arian kings just named, or the times of their reigns: for these, being Arians, grievously afflicted the Church, as among others an eyewitness recounts, who together with other orthodox suffered grievous things at their hands — Victor of Utica, in three books which he wrote On the Vandal Persecution, well worthy indeed of being read. But, as I have often shown, all these things from the sixth seal onward to the end of the Apocalypse refer to the last times of the world.
The third exposition therefore is that of our Blasius Viegas, who, following St. Augustine, Bede, Primasius, Gagnaeus, and many others, by this fifth angel takes the fifth order of preachers. The falling star, he says, is Lucifer. (Alcazar takes it as Judas the betrayer; Cardinal Bellarmine, as Luther; others, as Calvin and similar heretics — from clerics laymen, from monks husbands, from chaste men incestuous men, and so they take them as having fallen from the highest to the lowest of the abyss, that is, of heresy, and thence into Gehenna. Hence some have conjectured Luther's heresy will last five months, or 150 days, that is, 150 years: for they say a day is taken for a year). Lucifer therefore once fell from heaven like a falling star, and now again his fall has been represented to John through an imaginary vision. Whence Christ says of him: "I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven," Luke X, 18. The locusts are the heresiarchs and heretics, who at the end of the world will be very many like locusts, as Christ foretold, Matthew XXIV, 24. These Lucifer will lead out from hell with smoke, that is, with dense clouds of errors and heresies, which will obscure the sun, that is, the divinity and dignity of Christ; and the moon, that is, the Church; and the stars, that is, the faithful. Their power will be as that of scorpions, that is, most cunning and pernicious. They are commanded not to harm the grass, that is, the faithful who have faith and charity but tender and delicate; nor the green thing, that is, the faithful flourishing and strong in faith and charity; nor the trees, that is, the lofty saints and Prelates; but only those who do not have the seal of God, that is, who do not have faith and charity: for these easily fall into heresy. These therefore will persecute the Church even unto death and martyrdom: hence they have arms, horses, breastplates, etc.
You will ask, why are the heretics called locusts? The cited authors reply, and Cardinal Bellarmine beautifully and at length in the oration which he prefixed to his last volume, and Viegas here: First, because, as locusts most harm green things, so heretics harm faith and virtues. Secondly, because they conspire against the Church, as the locust goes forth wholly in its troops, Book of Proverbs chapter XXX, verse 27. Thirdly, on account of the leaps of locusts, which heretics imitate by their inconstancy, by which they leap from one error and heresy into another. Fourthly, because heretics pollute everything with their festering mouth, and are like locusts inclined to the belly, that is, to gluttony and lust. Wherefore as ambition and lust are steps to heresy, so humility, chastity, and innocence of life are most efficacious means, that one may preserve a sound faith and not slip into heresy.
Note first: These locusts have crowns on their head, because the heretics seduce kings and princes (as Arius did Constantine and Constantius, the Eutychians Justinian, the Monothelites Heraclius, Luther the Duke of Saxony), who defend and propagate them and their heresies by arms. These crowns are like gold: first, because the heretics, and the princes their adherents, display zeal of faith and ardor of charity; secondly, because their victory against the Church is futile, shadowy, and evanescent; hence it appears gold, but is not; for by their persecution they do not conquer, but are conquered, both heretics and tyrants, by the patience and constancy of the Orthodox, as Viegas beautifully shows, section 7, number 3. Moreover Cardinal Bellarmine, by the crowns as it were of gold, takes the pride of the heretics, as of Luther, who in his epistle to George, Duke of Saxony, says that he surpasses St. Augustine and Ambrose. Likewise in the book Against the Bull of Leo X, he dared to excommunicate the Supreme Pontiff, together with the whole Church which adheres to him. Hence they call themselves Prophets, Evangelists, third Elijahs, reformers of the Church, restorers of faith and religion.
Secondly, they have a human face, that is, they feign humanity and benevolence, but they bite, because they have lion-like teeth. Tropologically such is the detractor, concerning whom Psalm CXXXIX: "They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent's." For the serpent's tongue, as Pliny says, Book V, chapter XXXVII, is most slender, three-forked, vibrating, of a black color, and if you draw it out, very long. Such is the tongue of the detractor, and especially three-forked, because it harms himself, the hearers, and those whom he detracts; thus with a single stroke he strikes and wounds three. So the ministers of heretics continually detract monks, Clerics, the Pontiff; and even the Saints and the Blessed Virgin.
Thirdly, they have hair like that of women. First, because they are effeminate and lustful. Secondly, because they are weak and feeble like a woman, so that they cannot conquer the Church which is a heroine. Thirdly, because heresy, unless it puts on the hair and paint of cosmetics, displeases all. Fourthly, because almost all heretics, as St. Jerome attests in his letter to Ctesiphon, have propagated their heresies with the help of women.
Fourthly, the breast armed with an iron breastplate signifies their obstinacy, which is so great that, although they may be clearly convinced, they prefer to die rather than withdraw from their error. The likeness of horses is a sign of audacity and rashness. Fifthly, they have stinging tails like scorpions, because although they have a soft mouth and offer the allurements of the flesh, in the end they entangle soul and body in many difficulties in this life, and in eternal fires in the next. Sixthly, the flying chariots signify the wonderful swiftness with which heresy, like a plague and a flame, ravages and devastates various provinces by its onset. Seventhly, the king of the abyss Abaddon, that is, the exterminator, presides over them; because, as Bellarmine rightly says, the heretics, e.g. Luther, and his lineage and offspring, rage against heaven, the lands, Purgatory, hell. In heaven they have robbed God of the Trinity, Christ of His deity and humanity, the Saints of blessedness, and these together with the angels of all cult and veneration. On earth and in the Church they have exterminated a great part of Holy Scripture, almost all the Sacraments, all traditions, the priesthood, sacrifice, vows, fasts, feasts, temples, altars, relics, crosses, images, all monuments of piety, ecclesiastical laws, the universal discipline and order, the obedience of peoples toward princes, the power of princes over subjects, and finally all modesty, modesty (of dress), reverence, every virtue and spirit, all the comeliness and beauty of the house of God. They try utterly to overthrow Purgatory. Indeed, many of the Lutherans even deny a true and local hell, and feign in their own head some imaginary hells. Thus they do not even hold back their venomous tongue from their own king of the abyss, but insult him and take from him jurisdiction over his subjects. Certainly Calvin teaches that hell and its torments are nothing else than the apprehension by which the reprobate apprehend God angry with them. Namely, this greatly torments the impious, who, if they did not feel the lashes and fires of an angry God, would push aside their wrath toward God and would not be moved a whit by His wraths or threats, much less tormented.
But although these things may be aptly said, they nevertheless seem mystical rather than literal. Add: this exposition is contradicted by the fact that these locusts torment men, so that they desire to die — which does not befit heretics; for it belongs to these to pervert men in faith and morals, not to torment or kill; rather, those who are perverted and seduced by them, since they look only to the pleasures and conveniences of this life, supremely love life and shudder at death. Thirdly, these locusts will torment those who do not have the seal of God; but the heretics torment those who have this seal, namely the faithful and Orthodox.
Furthermore, our heretics, and especially the English Calvinists, are insipid and impudent here, who, in order to vindicate themselves, here render tit-for-tat to the Catholics. From among them one (from one learn all) — a more recent commentator on this passage of the Apocalypse — by this star fallen from heaven and unbarring the well of the abyss understands Muhammad and Antichrist, that is, the Roman Pontiff; for each, he says, began at the same time, namely about the year of the Lord 600. For then the Roman Pontiffs, falling away from the purity of the faith and religion of their Fathers, introduced superstitions, such as Masses, invocations of Saints, prayers for the dead, the cult of relics, of images, of ceremonies. Then Boniface III obtained from the Emperor Phocas to be called Universal Bishop. Soon Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon, the temple of Gentile idolatry, to All Saints, exercising the same impiety, namely worshiping a new army of gods, when he sanctioned their feast throughout the whole world, lest it should be the crime only of the one city of Rome. He brings forward many other things about Boniface V, Theodatus, and others, but plainly false, which he imputes to them by calumny; nor does he refrain from his slanderous tongue and pen even by tearing apart St. Gregory. The smoke therefore, he says, is heresy in doctrine, and in worship superstition, by which the sun and air, that is, the light of truth, in the Church has been darkened. From this smoke came forth locusts: the Eastern locusts are the Mohammedans; the Western are the monks, nuns, the numerous cohort of Religious, the Cardinals with the whole Pontifical hierarchy. All these beetles have swarmed forth from the same smoke, or from the dung of ignorance and error. These, being Mendicant friars, do not kill but torment men; because they despoil heirs of their patrimonies, sitting beside dying parents and extorting from them — partly by threats of Purgatory, partly by hope of liberating them thence by their prayers and Masses — rich estates, lands, fields, large sums of money, and even sons and daughters: for they teach that it is lawful for sons to enter Religion against their parents' will. A greater torment and butchery was to throw a snare upon consciences, and to impose upon them the necessity of annually confessing all sins with their individual circumstances. They have crowns on their head, because they are tonsured in the manner of a crown. They have the hair of women, because they are devotees of the Blessed Virgin, and cover and veil themselves under her name, as the Carmelites are called by Honorius III the family of the Virgin, and therefore wear a white mantle. Thus the heretic trifles and blasphemes, and vomits forth calumnies, each of which has already been refuted a thousand times by Cardinal Bellarmine, Gretser, Sander, Stapleton, and many others.
But, what does this have to do with the seventh and last seal of the Apocalypse, which will bring the last plagues to the world, and with them its end and exit? For already a thousand years and more have passed from the rise of Muhammad, and from St. Gregory and Boniface III. Again, what agreement is there of Muhammad with the Pontiff, that they should be one and the same star? what consent of the Saracens with monks, that both should be the same locusts? — when it is established that these differ from those toto caelo (by the whole heaven) in faith, race, location, life, and morals, so much so that the Saracens are the bitterest enemies of monks. Thirdly, before Muhammad and St. Gregory, the Roman Pontiff was head of the whole Church, there was the sacrifice of the Mass, there were monks and anchorites, there was invocation of Saints, the cult of relics, of images, etc., as is clear from St. Jerome Against Vigilantius, from St. Augustine, Book XXII On the City of God, chapter VIII, from St. Basil, the homily On the Forty Martyrs, and On the Constitutions of the Monastery. For Basil himself was a monk, and prescribed rules and constitutions for monks; indeed of the four Doctors of the Church, both Greek and Latin, three were monks, namely from the Greeks St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Chrysostom; from the Latins St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and St. Gregory. Therefore the invention of these is falsely attributed to Boniface III and his successors. It is wondrous indeed that the English so cry out against St. Gregory and monks, when by him and his monks, St. Augustine and his companions, sent by him to England, they were converted from paganism to the faith of Christ, as the Venerable Bede and all others testify. Surely heresy is shameless, and is like a harlot who, when caught in adultery, cries out that any witnesses, even eyewitnesses, are pimps and harlots; for so Luther, Calvin, and other heretics impute the crime of heresy to the Orthodox, and call them heretics and idolaters, because they see themselves condemned by them. Fourthly, the Mohammedans did not torment for five months, but killed and still kill Christians; for they propagate their sect by the sword according to the precept of Muhammad. Fifthly, the Saracens have vexed the Church not for five months, but already for a thousand years; the monks however were born almost with Christ, as is clear from St. Dionysius, Book On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Sixthly, monks have crowns on their head, but not of gold, as these locusts have: granted that they have the hair of the Blessed Virgin, yet they do not have the hair of women, as the apostate Luther had, bound to his nun, and his soft and effeminate offspring of Ministers. Finally, monks do not have scorpions' tails, nor lions' teeth, nor iron breastplates, etc.
The fourth and more fitting explanation therefore is that of Ribera, which Primasius and his followers favor, saying: "The horses are men, the riders are wicked spirits." Ribera says therefore: the fifth Angel sounds the trumpet, and soon the star, that is, an angel from among the good, who presides over hell, descends from heaven having the key of the abyss, that is, having the power of opening and unlocking hell. For the keys of the infernal prison are not committed to Lucifer or to the demons, since they are condemned and incarcerated, but to good angels, as ministers of God and His justice. From hell comes forth smoke, that is, the furious and most cruel machinations of the demons against men. Hence the sun and air are darkened, that is, the minds of men are blinded, so that they do not look up to heaven, but downcast they gaze upon and seek the earth, says Richardus. For we are forced to take these things symbolically and figuratively, because there is properly no key of hell; nor any door of it, or aperture, which would breathe out smoke upon the earth so as to obscure the sun; and it is clear from what follows that the locusts, being similar to so many beasts, must be taken figuratively.
The locusts therefore will be a certain army of barbarians, sent by the demon against the impious, that they may ravage and torment them for five months, as the Goths, Alans, Vandals, and Lombards once did. To these first it was given, that is, permitted, that they should not kill, but for a very long time torture them more grievously than death, as if with the torment of a scorpion, which is stealthy and cruel. Secondly, they are like horses prepared for battle, because they will be most warlike horsemen. Thirdly, they have crowns like to gold, that is, helmets gleaming like gold. For so "crown" is taken for "helmet" by Virgil, Aeneid V:
For all, after the custom, the hair shorn, pressed by the crown (helmet).
Where Servius (says): "Crown, he says, that is, helmet; and he used the speech of Homer, who called the helmet στέφανον, that is, a crown. Whence explaining he adds: He cast the empty helmet before his feet." Fourthly, the face only is of men, because the heart and mind will be as it were of lions. Fifthly, they have hair like that of women; because they will be soft and effeminate, and they will display this in the cultivation of the body, especially in curls and braided locks. Sixthly, they have teeth as it were of lions, that they may bite and wound most powerfully. Seventhly, they have breastplates as iron, that is, of iron; but he says "as," because this was a vision; and because he called these soldiers locusts, to whom a breastplate does not properly belong. Eighthly, the sound of their wings is the swift onset and din of them, which will arise from the multitude of light chariots rushing forth to battle. Ninthly, they have tails as it were of scorpions, so that, just as scorpions secretly harm by their tail, so also these may secretly harm, and that at the end and in their departure. Tenthly, they have as king the angel of the abyss, that is, the devil rousing them.
But armed soldiers are not rightly compared to unwarlike locusts. Secondly, since horses are here named, no riders or horsemen are named; therefore there were none. Thirdly, these locusts have various and monstrous forms, plainly different from the form and habit of soldiers. Fourthly, soldiers fight with swords and lances: but these locusts sting and wound with the sting of their tail, as if they were scorpions. Fifthly, this plague of the fifth angel is distinguished from the following plague of the sixth angel, in which two hundred million soldiers are sent by four angels against the impious: therefore this was not (a plague) of soldiers.
I say therefore: the plainest and most fitting sense is (which Ribera also judges probable) that you take these things properly, as they sound. The locusts therefore will be demons, who will put on the appearance and form of locusts, but new and monstrous, since composed and patched together from various animals, namely lion, scorpion, horse, and man. This opinion is proved, first, from the refutation of the others; for it does not appear what could be taken more plainly and more congruously by these locusts so monstrous, than monstrous demons and their monstrous bodies in which they are accustomed to appear — especially since all the other plagues are to be taken literally, as they sound: therefore this one too. Secondly, because they come forth from the pit of the abyss, that is, of hell: therefore they are infernal; therefore they are demons. Third, because at the end of the world the plagues will be new, unusual, and unheard-of; and then Satan and his demons will be loosed, as is said in chapter xx, verse 3, who, once loosed, will exert all their power and fury upon men. As, therefore, they now invisibly tempt and harass men, so then they will visibly vex and torment them. Fourth, even now at the death of men a demon is wont to appear visibly to the dying, that he may engage in the final struggle and agony with him, and claim his soul for himself if he can, as he appeared to St. Martin as he was dying, and daily appears to those at the point of death, as we hear and perceive from those very persons; which Bartholius Sibylla confirms with many examples in his book Peregrin. quaest., final question: therefore he will do the same at the end and as it were the agony of the world, after which he will no longer have the power of tempting and tormenting men. Fifth, the king of these locusts is the demon called Abaddon, verse 11: for all agree that this is a demon; therefore his subjects also, namely these locusts, will likewise be demons. Sixth, to St. Anthony, Hilarion, and other Saints, demons appeared in a similarly terrifying and monstrous shape of bears, lions, wolves, and even in a mixed form and species of various animals. Therefore much more will they so appear at the end of the world, since they will no longer show themselves nor appear to the world. Seventh, men's conception is that the demons are monstrous creatures composed of various horrific animals; and so in images, namely in depictions of hell and the like, painters depict them, that is, with a horrific and variously horned head, a bristly and stinging tail, horrific wings, a lion-like mouth and teeth, etc. And rightly so, because demons are wont to assume such monstrous bodies at God's nod and command, so that through these monstrous forms the deformity of their souls (and of each of its faculties) defiled by so many vices may be displayed. Finally, that the demons will appear in this monstrous form at the destruction of Babylon and of other unfaithful and impious cities, and much more at the destruction of the world, of which those were a type and prelude, Isaiah teaches in chapter xxxiv, verse 14: "Demons, he says, shall meet onocentaurs, and the hairy one shall cry out to his fellow: there hath the lamia lain down, and found rest for herself." And chapter xiii, verse 21: "Wild beasts shall rest there, and their houses shall be filled with serpents; and ostriches shall dwell there, and the hairy ones shall dance there: owls shall answer one another there in its houses, and sirens in the temples of pleasure." For those who were the authors of devastation and destruction, it is fitting that, as conquerors of the city and of the world, they should now dwell and rule in it, devastated and almost destroyed. Therefore, when at the trumpet of the fifth angel a star, that is, an angel, balancing himself downward from heaven, opens and unbars hell, an opening will be made, and as it were a furnace, from which an immense infernal smoke will exhale, such as is wont to exhale from Etna and Vesuvius (which therefore are by many considered and called the furnace and mouth of hell), and so great that it darkens the air and the sun, of which Virgil sings in Aeneid 1:
Suddenly the clouds snatch the sun and the day from the Trojans' eyes; black night broods upon the sea.
From this furnace and its foul smoke and gloom there will come forth bands, that is, innumerable demons, similar in number and form to huge locusts. For the locust is a foul, noxious, proud animal, winged and flying, biting, stinging, restless, inconstant, and putrid (whence one of the greatest plagues of Egypt was the locusts, Exodus vii, 17). But such in every respect are the demons. Again, the locust is a symbol of the slanderer and the envious man (such as the demons are), because in the bosom of its heart, as in a stomach, they have teeth, since they have a mouth and teeth slanting downward, and therefore close to the breast and heart; nay, they have besides other teeth in the occiput, with which they make a strident noise, if we may believe Pliny and others, whom Aldrovandus cites, treatise De Insectis, p. 420. Again, the Egyptians, wishing to signify one tyrannically dominating his subjects, used to depict an octopus and a locust. For locusts, as Horus says, and from him Aldrovandus in Locusta, exert their strength against octopuses and conquer them. But tyrants of all are the demons. Besides this, Pierius, Hierog. 18, teaches that it is a symbol of popular sedition if one paints two locusts attacking each other; for locusts fight with their horns among themselves and butt like rams. They fight for pastures, or for offspring, or for females, as Aldrovandus teaches from Albert. Such are the demons, in tumult among themselves, quarreling and fighting.
To this exposition is joined the opinion of our Father Lessius, book XIII De Perfectionibus divinis, chapter xviii, where he holds that these locusts will not only have the appearance and look of locusts, but will be true and living locusts, though strange and monstrous. For by divine power a very deep chasm (perhaps reaching even to hell: for a little later that immense chasm, by which all the impious will be swallowed up into the lower regions, will be opened to that depth) will be opened somewhere on earth or in the mountains; whence as from a pit of the abyss, that is, an abyssal and most profound one, an immense force of smoke will issue forth, as we read has often issued from Etna and Vesuvius. From which it is clear that in the bowels of the earth many and immense fires lie hidden, which are now held in check, so that at the end of the world they may burst forth, and first infest everything with smoke and ashes, then together with the fire of the conflagration burn up the earth. Now while that smoke lasts, it will be easy by divine power to bring forth a strange race of stinging and venomous locusts, which will issue from the smoke and occupy everything far and wide; just as formerly immense bands, first of frogs, then of locusts, afterward of gnats, lastly of flies, occupied all Egypt, and that suddenly, by divine power forming those animals, as is clear from Exodus chapter vii and following. In a similar manner the fields of the Philistines suddenly poured forth an infinite multitude of mice, 1 Kings v. As for their form, it is not necessary that their faces should be plainly similar to a human face, nor of the same size; it is sufficient that there be a rough similarity, such as is found in apes. The same is to be thought concerning their hairs or curls, and their teeth. This opinion is proved, first, because the locusts sent by Moses into Egypt were true locusts; therefore these also will be true: for those were the precursors and harbingers of these. Second, because St. John expressly calls them locusts, and gives them a sting, and compares them to scorpions. Since therefore we take the sting here as real, which they will truly have, and the scorpion as real, why not also the locusts as real? Why shall we interpret them mystically or symbolically? Third, because there is no genus of animals in which there is so great a variety of strange forms as in the locust, as is clear from the various and monstrous species of them which Aldrovandus enumerates and depicts in Locusta. Fourth, because the other plagues here, namely of fire, hail, the falling star, the burning mountain, the heat, the rivers turned into blood, the earthquake, the wound, the loosing of demons, etc., are to be taken literally, as they sound: why not also these of the locusts? Wherefore this opinion, as it is very literal, so it is very probable: to which however add that these locusts will be directed and impelled by the demon Abaddon and his companions. For these will not attack the herbs and shoots, as locusts are wont, but men, and only those who do not have the sign of God on their foreheads, as St. John says, verse 4. But this sign, and the men marked with it, locusts cannot discern, nor do they naturally desire to sting or torture them: both these things therefore will be the work of the demons who impel the locusts, who by God's command will execute through the locusts His vengeance on impious men. Wherefore what is said here of the locusts also applies to the demons who move them, some things more, some less: just as what is said in Genesis iii of the serpent tempting Eve applies partly to the serpent, partly and rather to the demon possessing the serpent and speaking through it. Let us therefore apply each of the properties of the locusts which St. John here ascribes to them, to the demons. He says therefore:
So R. David, and from him Pagninus in his Lexicon, under the word arbe, and Arias Montanus and Christopher a Castro on Joel chapter i, verse 4. Furthermore the demons, whom the locusts signify, are rightly compared to scorpions. For the scorpion (of which we see many here at Rome) is a little animal of the insect genus, having horns in front like a crab, with which embracing and gripping its prey, it then bends back the sting which it carries in its tail, and stinging the enemy and the prey with it, instills the venom, by which it kills and dispatches it. Whence Ovid, book IV of the Fasti:
..... The scorpion, to be feared for the sharpness of its tail.
Concerning it Pliny relates these things, book XI, chapter xxv. First, the scorpion is "a troublesome pest of the venom of serpents, except that they kill with a more grievous punishment by a slow death over three days"; its venom therefore is slow, but a grievous and deadly torment. Second, "to virgins always with a lethal blow, and to women almost entirely; but to men in the morning, as they come out of their caverns, before by any chance blow they have discharged their hungry venom." Third, it is by nature exceedingly irascible. Whence the adage σκόρπιον ὀκτάπουν ἐγείρεις, you stir up an eight-footed scorpion; and σκορπιόω, which is the same as I irritate, I provoke to anger, that he may be angered like a scorpion. Hence fourthly, as if furious, it always bears its drawn weapon, namely the sting of its tail, ready to lacerate and inflict a deadly wound. Other insects sheathe their stings within: only the scorpion thrusts forth its sting like a lance, which is not idle, but "its tail is always in striking position, and it does not cease for a moment to plot, lest at any time it should lack opportunity." Moreover "it strikes with an oblique and bent blow"; it also walks with an oblique gait, that it may strike unexpectedly. Fifth, "its venom is at its highest at midday, when they have grown hot with the heat of the sun; and likewise when they are thirsty, they are insatiable in drinking. Sixth, it is established that the seven-jointed tails are fiercer: for in most they are six-jointed. Seventh, this is a plague of Africa; the south wind even makes them flying: they could not live within the region of the Sicilian sky; yet they are sometimes seen in Italy, but harmless. Eighth, in Scythia they kill even swine, otherwise more resistant to such venoms. Ninth, the ash of these scorpions drunk in wine is reputed a remedy for one who has been struck. Tenth, they think that scorpions do not at all harm those who have no blood. Eleventh, some think that even the offspring is devoured by them; that only one most clever is left, which by placing itself on its mother's haunches, is safe both from the tail and the bite, in that place. That this is the avenger of the rest, which afterwards from above kills its parents. They are born eleven at a time."
Thus far Pliny, all of which clearly signify that this animal is of remarkable malice, ferocity, vengefulness, and harmfulness: such in every respect is the demon. First then, at the end of the world these demons in the form of locusts, and tailed like scorpions, will sting men with the sting of their tail, in such a way that they will not immediately kill men, but with a slow torment over five months, as is said in verse 10, they will torment them. Second, they will rage more against those who burn with concupiscence for women. Third, they will be full of wraths, savagery, and fury, and therefore will always carry the sting of their tail thrust out for striking. Fourth, they will strike the unwary obliquely. Fifth, glowing with the fire of hell, and thirsting for the utmost slaughter of men, they will sharpen all their venom against them. Sixth, with the seven joints of their tail they will strengthen and reinforce their venomous sting: which fittingly and symbolically signify the wiles, frauds, and machinations of the demons, which they interweave with one another like joints, so that, if a man extricates himself from one, he is soon entangled in another. Seventh, they will be flying creatures: for they will have wings. Eighth, they will harm more those who, after their fashion, have served the belly and the abdomen. Ninth, the remedy will be their own ash, if indeed sinners, mindful of their ash and of death, both their own and of the devil (who because of pride was made as it were ash from an angel, and in the second death, namely in Gehenna, is continually burned, and only just not reduced to ash), humble themselves, are pierced with compunction, do penance, and are reconciled to God. Tenth, they will harm none who are pious and spiritual, but only the impious, who wallow in flesh and blood, and who shed the blood of the Saints. Eleventh, their offspring, namely the wicked, they will torment and as it were kill, and will in turn be tormented by them, while the reprobate curse them as authors of their damnation, equally as torturers, and call down all curses. Likewise in Gehenna the demons and the damned will mutually lacerate one another, and snarl like dogs, and bite each other.
Verse 4: It Was Commanded Them Not to Hurt the Grass
Hence it is clear that these locusts will not be properly so called: for the food and harm of these is in grasses; but they will be demons, who like scorpions will harm none except the one having blood, that is, the impious man — as if to say, these locusts will not be like others, herbivorous, but carnivorous. Moreover God will not permit them to exert all their power and venom: for thus they would kill all mortals; but only that they may torment those who do not have the sign of God, of which in chapter vii, verse 5, for five months. For if this plague lasted longer, men would despair and kill themselves. Whence he says in verse 6: "Men shall seek death, and shall not find it." For so great will be their torment that they will desire death, and yet not be able to die, as happens when someone has drunk a slow and not sufficiently efficacious venom, which does not immediately kill, but so torments that the man can neither live nor die.
Verse 7: The Locusts Were Like Horses Prepared for Battle
Note: these demons will be similar, first, to great locusts as to their wings and feet; second, to horses as to their form, size, boldness, and warlike use; indeed the locust standing upon its feet as if prepared to fly and dart down has the appearance of an armed and mailed horse (whence by the Italians locusts are called cavallette, that is little horses, foals): for it is mailed, and has wings instead of stings; and it flies by leaping, and leaps by flying. So Pineda on that passage of Job chapter xxxix, 20: "Wilt thou raise him up like the locusts?" Third, to men as to their breastplates; fourth, to women as to their face, hair, and golden crowns; fifth, to lions as to their teeth; sixth, to scorpions as to their tail and sting. What these things symbolically signify I have said above from Viegas and Ribera; for what they attribute to heretics and soldiers can and ought in like manner, and with greater reason, be applied to the demons.
Verse 8: Their Teeth Were as the Teeth of Lions
In three ways these demons will torment men: first, by stinging with the sting of their tail like a scorpion; second, by biting with their teeth, like lions: for the bite of a lion's tooth is venomous. Whence, as Pliny says, book VIII, chapter xvi, treating of the lion: "From every wound, whether of tooth or claw inflicted, black blood flows." Third, by terrifying men and striking them both by the sight of such horrible monsters, and by the hearing, when they will hear their sound, as of horse-chariots. Moreover, how voracious and noxious the teeth of locusts are, we see in Apulia near us, which from time to time is wholly devoured by locusts, although it is otherwise most fertile.
Verse 9: They Had Breastplates as of Iron
There is in India an animal which has its hide compacted like a breastplate; for which reason it is called by the Spaniards the armadillo; and the rhinoceros has its own breastplate, and that a very hard one: so also the locusts seem to have their own breastplate, but these diabolical ones will have one far greater and harder.
Verse 9 (continued): The Voice of Their Wings as Chariots Running to Battle
He calls "voice" the strident sound which the locusts produce by the beating of their wings, concerning which Pliny, book XI, chapter xxix: "Their voice, he says, seems to issue from the occiput: in that place at the joining of the shoulder-blades they are thought to have as it were teeth, and by rubbing these together they produce the strident sound." He calls them teeth not properly so called in the mouth, as Alcazar explains, as if locusts made their strident sound with the mouth as well as with the wings. For Pliny places these teeth not in the mouth of locusts, but in the shoulder-blades; he therefore calls "teeth" the wings sharpened and protruding like teeth; whence John here also says this voice was of the wings, not of the mouth. Thus symbolically falsehood, familiar to demons and heretics, always lurks behind, never juts out in the open; for they say one thing, and think another: whence to God and men liars are hateful, says Nicolaus Causinus, Parab. hist. book IX, chapter xlix. The voice therefore of heretics proceeds not from the heart and mouth, but as it were from the occiput, just as the voice of demons does.
Verse 11: They Had a King, the Angel of the Abyss
"The locust, says Solomon, Proverbs xxx, 27, has no king, and goes forth all of them by their bands"; but these infernal ones have, and will have one as long as this world lasts, and the life of men on earth, against whom they fight. For they know that every army without a leader and head is weak, and that strength and vigor depend on its head; whence that captain of war used to say: "Stronger is an army of stags led by a lion, than of lions led by a stag." Wherefore soldiers also, when, their pay being unpaid, they rebel against their prince and the commonwealth, immediately choose a head and leader from their own band, the most vigorous, whom they call the Elect; otherwise they would be like a headless man, without head, without leader and director, and like a commonwealth lacking magistrate, in which one destroys another; and so the citizens themselves destroy and ruin their own commonwealth. See here how great and how necessary is the good of order and obedience; and on the contrary how great is the evil of disorder and headlessness, which even the demons themselves, though most wicked and most proud, flee and detest.
Again, see how great is the force of a crowd, what a multitude can do, even of the smallest and most unwarlike things. For locusts, though base and small, by their abundance utterly devour and devastate whole provinces. Thus the Turks overcome and subdue all things by the multitude of their army. Thus the demons, though weak, by their number afflict and torment the whole world. There is a symbol on this matter in Nicolaus Causinus, book IX of Parab. hist., chapter xxxi: "A dragon consumed by ants," that is, a prince oppressed by the people. So Suetonius in Tiberius: There was, he says, among Tiberius's amusements a serpent dragon, which according to custom he was about to feed with his own hand, when he found it consumed by ants, and was warned to beware the force of the multitude; for the dragon is a symbol of kings, the ants of the people. Wisely therefore Ptolemy in the proem of the Almagest: "It is better, he says, to rule the reins of the people, than to have many soldiers." For a prince is safer and stronger surrounded by the love of subjects than by the arms of soldiers. On the other hand: "You who are terrible to many, fear many."
Verse 11 (continued): Whose Name in Hebrew Is Abaddon
The Hebrew אבד abad in qal means to perish: thence אבד ibbed in piel, actively means to destroy, to ruin: thence Abaddon is the same as destruction, that is, destroyer or ruiner (for the Hebrews often put abstracts for concretes); in Greek ἀπολλύων, in Latin exterminans (the Exterminator). The word "exterminans" is not in the Greek, as is clear; for John wrote in Greek, not in Latin. Valla is indignant that the Interpreter added this of his own to the text. But rashly; for he added nothing of his own, but only translated the Greek word into Latin (which is the office of an Interpreter), so that the Latins as well as the Greeks might understand what ἀπολλύων is. The Arabic therefore translates wrongly: And the angel of the abyss reigned over them, whose name in Hebrew is Machdom, and his interpretation in Ionic is Praising.
St. Gregory notes, homily 34 on the Gospels, that angels do not of themselves have names (for angels do not know and address one another by name, but by species and vision), but obtain them from the ministry which they perform among men. The same is true of the evil angels.
Verse 12: One Woe Is Past, Two More Are Coming
One woe (one plague, namely the fifth, of the fifth angel, that is, of the locusts, of which I have just spoken) is past, and behold there come yet two woes more, — namely the two plagues of the sixth and seventh angels; whence he subjoins the plague of the sixth angel, saying:
Verses 13 and 14: The Sixth Angel; the Voice from the Four Horns of the Golden Altar
This golden altar is the altar of incense, which St. John saw in heaven (of which I spoke at chapter viii, verse 3), representing Christ. From thence therefore it appeared to John that this voice came forth — as if to say: From Christ and the merits of Christ, and from the prayers of the Saints, who rest under this altar, as I said at chapter vi, verse 9, this voice flowed, commanding the impious to be punished by the sixth plague of an enormous hostile army. For so great were the crimes of the impious that the altar itself seems to expostulate, cry out, and demand vengeance against the impious.
You will ask, what is this plague, of what sort, and by whom will it be carried out? First, Alcazar holds that this plague consists of the wraths, hatreds, and furies by which God punished the Jews who rejected Christ. For since the locusts symbolically signified their concupiscence, order itself requires that the furious horses which follow should signify the furies of wraths; for these are wont to follow from concupiscences impeded by others, and are stirred up and inflamed by evil angels. Second, the cry from the four corners of the altar signifies that the entire Christian religion (for the altar with fire in the ancient coinage is its symbol) complains about the Jews and demands vengeance on their whole nation. The altar therefore cries out to the angel — as if to say: Such is the audacity and malice of the Jews that it can no longer be borne: do thou therefore unleash thy plague upon them. Third, the four angels who stir up these wraths are "self-love, desire of riches, vain esteem of men, and self-judgment," who had been bound in the Euphrates, that is, in their happy success, when pleasures, honors, and wealth came as they wished. For the Euphrates flowing in a full channel, gladdening Babylon and rendering it fertile and sumptuous, aptly represents the pleasures and delights of a city hostile to God, and prosperous successes according to one's will. But when these their delicacies were snatched away from the Jews through Titus, these four angels, that is, the perverse loves just mentioned, hitherto lulled and as it were bound, were loosed and stirred up the Jews to wraths and furies. Fourth, when he adds: "That they should kill the third part of men," this signifies that the wraths of the Jews invaded and slew not so much the Romans, the enemies of the Jews, as the Jews themselves. For wrath rushes upon the angry man as an enemy, lacerating and tormenting him. Again, he understands the wraths which the Jews vomited upon the Christians, when they persecuted them. Now it is well known that many are killed and perish by their own wraths and furies. Whence Ecclesiasticus, chapter xxx, verse 26, says: "Envy and anger shorten the days." And Proverbs, chapter xiv, verse 30: "Envy is the rottenness of the bones." Fifth, they are said to be twenty times ten thousand times ten thousand, because the army of wraths, tumults, and furies, since it arises from disordered affections of the soul, is innumerable. Whence from these arise innumerable lawsuits, quarrels, and discords. Let irascible men note these things; for while they do not resist their wraths, but indulge them, what do they do but stir up and let loose against themselves and their peace and conscience infinite cohorts of internal tumults and raging enemies? Sixth, the lion-like heads of the horses represent the pride and cruelty of wrath. Seventh, fire signifies the burning heat of wrath and of the angry man, smoke the gloom of perturbed reason, sulphur fury. For "anger is a brief fury." Eighth, the tails have serpents instead of bristles, because bristles thrown into water and kept there are easily converted into snakes. This signifies that wrath, although in the beginning, while it carries out the desired vengeance, may seem agreeable and pleasing, yet in the end leaves the sting of conscience, and bites and lacerates it like a snake. So the Poets paint the Furies (whom they reckon as three, daughters of Acheron and Night, who, as Servius says, are called Direæ in heaven, Furies on earth, Eumenides in the underworld, and are the avengers and torments of a wicked mind, as Cicero says in the oration for Roscius Amerinus) in such a way that on their head instead of hairs they give them snakes, in their hands burning torches, in which there is fire, smoke, sulphur. Ninth, they have hyacinth breastplates, that is of cloth of hyacinth and violet color, which is a ridiculous armor; because the angry oppose to their wrath these breastplates, that is, bald and ridiculous excuses, namely that they are angered with right, that they are moved by zeal of justice, that it is unworthy to suffer such things, that a noble man may not leave such things unavenged for honor's sake, etc.: all of which are nothing else than wrath and the fuel of wrath, that is, fire and sulphur. Tenth, the rest, although they see these plagues, did not repent, but went on to worship their idols, that is, to apply themselves to heaping up gold and silver. For avarice is the service of idols, as the Apostle says. But these things are mystical and tropological. Whoever therefore desires an ingenious moral symbol of wrath, let him use this.
Second, Aureolus, Lyranus, and Antoninus, in the first part of the Chronicle, title VI, chapter 1, § 7, think that here is signified the fourth general schism, very harmful to the Church, which was between Pope Symmachus and the Antipope Laurentius, and their followers, in the year of Christ 498, of which Nicephorus, book XVI, chapter xxxv. The voice from the altar was the voice of St. Paschasius the Cardinal, who together with others was the cause of the schism by electing Laurentius, and therefore after death was punished in Purgatory, when he appeared to St. Germanus Bishop of Capua in the Baths of Pozzuoli, as St. Gregory narrates, book IV of the Dialogues, chapter xl. At the same time the Eutychian Emperor Anastasius was reigning at Constantinople, and in Italy the Arian king Theodoric. When therefore Paschasius sounded the trumpet, that is, gave the call for Laurentius to be made Pope, the four angels were loosed, namely Symmachus, Laurentius, the Emperor Anastasius, and king Theodoric, who previously had been bound in the Euphrates, that is, in the Roman Empire, which is the fourth among kingdoms, as the Euphrates is the fourth river of paradise, Genesis chapter ii. Then therefore on account of this schism many were killed on both sides. "That sedition, says Nicephorus, lasted for three years not without slaughters, robberies, and other calamities. But king Theodoric, who then held Rome, though he was an Arian, nevertheless gathered a Synod of Bishops, and confirmed the episcopate to Symmachus; but Laurentius being driven out, he assigned him a throne at Nuceria." Anastasius indeed and Theodoric persecuted the Christians. Whence Theodoric killed Pope John by wasting him in prison, and Symmachus (as also Boethius) by the sword. Hence to a certain holy man Theodoric was seen at the hour in which he died, between John and Symmachus, ungirt, unshod, and with bound hands, being led and cast into a Vulcanian pot, as St. Gregory relates, IV Dialog., xl. Because therefore the Church was then divided among these four princes, each part fighting for its own prince, hence their army is said to have been twenty times ten thousand times ten thousand, that is, an infinite multitude. From the mouth of Laurentius and Symmachus proceeds the smoke of ambition and vanity; and therefore in turn they have hyacinth breastplates, which designate hypocrisy and vain appearance; from the mouth of Theodoric proceeds the fire of Arian perfidy; from the mouth of Anastasius proceeds the sulphur of the Eutychian heresy. They had power not only in the mouth, but also in the tails, because between Symmachus and Laurentius, and between Theodoric and Anastasius, the matter was carried on not only by the mouth, that is, by disagreements and threats, but also by tails, that is, by hidden frauds and simulations. Finally, when it is added: "The rest of the men who were not killed," etc., Lyranus and Antoninus think it signifies a certain slaughter of Pagans which took place in the time of Theodoric, when the Saxons were fighting against the Thuringians, where many were killed on both sides.
But this explanation is displeasing to Viegas and others, and rightly so. For first, Symmachus was not ambitious, but mild and of very gentle manners; nay rather he is enrolled in the catalog of Saints. Moreover it is false that Paschasius was the author of the schism, and that he sounded the trumpet to it. For its author was Festus, a Roman Patrician, who in order to gain the favor of the Emperor Anastasius, after the election of Symmachus, on the same day in the basilica of St. Mary, corrupting some with money, thrust in Laurentius. Paschasius therefore underwent purgatory, not because he created Laurentius Pope, but because he adhered to him until death, and favored his cause, as St. Gregory narrates. Where what is said, "until death," understand exclusively: for he repented as he was dying. For it is established among the orthodox that no one remaining in schism and dying in it is saved. For he is not admitted into the heavenly Church who has separated himself from the earthly one. Wherefore schism is a mortal sin, and schismatics are not only cut off and severed from the grace of God, but also from the Church, unless through ignorance their fault be either wholly or in part excused, so that it not be mortal.
Second, because the Euphrates is far from Rome; nor can Rome be called Euphrates, but rather Babylon: for this lies adjacent to the Euphrates. Third, the schism of Laurentius and Symmachus was not in all of Italy, but only in Rome. Again, between Anastasius and Theodoric there was no war, but by threats alone Theodoric forced Anastasius, who was peace-loving, to concede the Churches to the Arians. Fourth, the Thuringians and Saxons have no connection with Anastasius and Theodoric, as do all the things which are recounted in this chapter among themselves.
Third, Bede, Richard, Andreas, Rupertus, Aretas, and Viegas refer these things to the last times of the world. The sixth angel here therefore will be some chief demon. He will loose the four angels, that is, all the demons bound in the Euphrates of Babylon, that is, in the congregation and confusion of the impious, who at the end of the world will harass the whole Church in every way. Whence they are said to be twenty times ten thousand times ten thousand.
Fourth and best, Ribera takes this plague properly, as the words sound, and thinks that there will be an innumerable army of fierce men and soldiers, which at the end of the world will punish and slay the impious men, namely a third part of them. The good angel therefore sounding the trumpet will loose the four angels. Whom and of what sort? Some in Andreas and Aretas think that these four are good angels, namely Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel, of whom mention is made in book IV of Esdras IV, 1, and chapter v, verse 20. But it is clear that these four angels are evil, and are demons; for these alone are bound, not the good ones. These therefore are the four chief demons, who as it were preside over the four parts of the world; they were bound at the passion of Christ, lest they harm men as much as before. These at the end of the world will be loosed again, that they may rage and punish the impious. Moreover these demons are bound in the Euphrates. For this place is fitting for this. First, because the Euphrates flows by Babylon; and Babylon is a type of the kingdom of the devil and of the impious. Second, because the Euphrates in another respect is a type of Baptism: for through the Euphrates Abraham crossed into the promised land, and from this he was called Hebrew, that is, one crossing, or one across the river. Perhaps also thirdly, says Andreas, because from there Antichrist is to be born or to come forth. Moreover, although these arch-demons are bound, they nevertheless have their hounds, as it were, sent forth everywhere, who tempt and harass men, as experience attests. In a like manner Asmodeus, the king of lusts, bound by Raphael in the desert of Egypt, Tobit chapter viii, 3, nevertheless sends throughout the world his demons as wantons, sirens, and cupids: just as also Philostratus in his Icon. relates concerning the drunken and lascivious demons of Andros setting forth, as our Serarius rightly observes, writing on Tobit chapter viii: thus Lucifer bound in hell has his messengers everywhere; nay he himself will be loosed at the time of Antichrist, as will be clear at chapter xx, verses 2 and 3.
You will ask, how and with what cords are the demons bound? I reply that they are bound in a certain place when in that place they are detained by divine or angelic decree and power, so that they cannot move themselves from the place and depart from it. This can be done in three ways: First, if God withdraws from them the divine concurrence, which is necessary for motion and departure, and at the same time always preserves them in their "ubi," that is, in their position and mode of existing in that place, to which He wishes to fix them. Second, morally, if He hinders them from departing, e.g., by threatening them sharper punishments if they depart, and punishing them if they depart, and compelling them to return: thus to Asmodeus a certain portion of the Egyptian desert, beyond which it is not permitted to him to go forth even a foot's pace, was designated and prescribed by Raphael. Third, physically, wholly and naturally, if He impresses on them a mode, or some quality of detention or union to the place, e.g., an enduring impulse and force. For we see a similar force, though transient, impressed on bodies, such as stones, by which they are lifted on high, when they are thrown thither. As therefore a robust man can violently detain another less strong in a certain place by a force impressed on him, so also can an angel a demon. For a similar force, though not corporeal but spiritual, a superior and more powerful spirit can impress on an inferior and less powerful spirit; and in fact the angels impress this force on the demons, when they violently expel and thrust them from a certain place, e.g., from the obsessed bodies of the possessed. For why could not God produce a similar force, not transient, as that is, but enduring longer? For He has implanted a more wonderful force in the fire of hell, by which He not only detains, but also acts upon the souls of the damned, and the demons themselves, and burns and torments them. This is what St. Peter says, 2 Epistle ii, 4: "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but delivered them, drawn down by the cords of hell, into Tartarus to be tormented." Where note from the Greek that the word "rudentibus" does not refer to those drawn down ten thousand: therefore two myriads of myriads are twenty thousand times ten thousand, that is, two hundred times a thousand thousand, or two hundred million. Vast and monstrous will be this army of horsemen, such as never has been seen in the world. From this some conjecture that the foot-army, which usually is joined to the cavalry and far surpasses it in number, will be much larger and as it were innumerable. But thus this army would be excessive and almost immeasurable, which no province could feed or sustain; inasmuch as it would comprise the greater part of the men in the world, and consequently very many of the impious, whom God will wish to punish with this army. Since therefore he makes no mention of foot-soldiers, it seems they will be none or very few; but the whole, or almost the whole, army will be cavalry, such as that of the Tartars, Persians, Poles, etc. The multitude of Xerxes' army is celebrated by the mouths of all, who, with the preparation of five years, led a thousand thousand, that is a million men, into battle against the Greeks.
Looking down on this number from a high watchtower, as Valerius and from him St. Jerome attest, he is said to have wept, because out of so great a multitude no one would survive after a hundred years. Therefore he himself joined the seas with bridges. He cut off Mount Athos from the mainland, as Pliny attests, book IV, chapter x. But what are these things compared to these forces of the Apocalypse? Xerxes led out one million: here two hundred millions of men are said to be led out. Therefore Xerxes had only the two-hundredth part of this army, and yet Lucan sings of Xerxes, book II:
Daring much with his bridges,
He brought Europe to Asia, and Sestos to Abydos,
And marched over the strait of the swift Hellespont.
Wherefore to some this number seems incredible, since in the whole world there scarcely seem to be two hundred million men. But they err: for in the kingdom of China alone there are reckoned 250 million men, as our Father Nicholas Trigault teaches in his book On the Chinese Expedition: of whom a fifth part, namely fifty million, can be soldiers. Add as many from Ethiopia: for the offspring and abundance of the Ethiopians is wonderful. Add as many from Tartary, and as many from India, and you will have two hundred million. Add then that there will be very many men: for most will be carnal, and will be devoted to procreation.
One could also suspect that a good part of this army will be of demons, who, clothed in the appearance and form not of locusts, as those of the preceding trumpet in v. 3, but of men and horsemen, will afflict and chastise the impious. For their leaders will be the four Archdemons, as is clear from v. 14, who in v. 15 are said to be about to slay, namely both by themselves, and through their associates, namely the demons, a third part of men. And of these can be literally verified what is said in v. 17: "The heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and from their mouths proceeded fire, and smoke, and brimstone"; and that v. 19: "Their tails are like serpents, having heads: and with these they harm." For demons can easily assume the form of serpents, lions, and any animals, or attach them to their horses, and join them by appearance.
You ask, by what cords are the demons sent by God bound? For what cords could drag down angels from heaven? But to the word "delivered up," we say: God delivered them up and consigned them to the prison and infernal fire, and bound them there in perpetuity, and as it were with certain cords, or, as the Greek has, σειραῖς ζόφου, that is with chains of darkness, He fastened them. For thus St. Jude explains in his epistle, v. 6, saying: "The angels who kept not their principality, He has reserved under darkness in everlasting chains." In another way they are bound, that is, the demons allow themselves to be bound by magicians, when by agreement and pact they enclose them, either willingly, or compelled by a superior demon, in rings, so that those who wear the rings have demons familiar and obedient to them. Thus St. Jerome in the Life of St. Hilarion narrates that a demon, sent by a lover into a maiden whom he ardently loved, when St. Hilarion expelled him, cried out: "O the crosses, O the torments which I suffer! You compel me to depart, and I am held bound beneath the threshold. I do not depart, unless the young man who holds me releases me." Then the old man said: "Great is your strength, you who are held fast by a thread and a thin plate!" And indeed from this binding the weakness and vileness of the demons is plain. Whence
Morally, St. Antony in Athanasius: "We ought not, he says, to fear the threats of the demon: for he has been hooked by the Lord with the hook of the cross like a dragon, bound with a halter like a beast of burden, and like a fugitive slave fettered with a ring, and his lips pierced with a bracelet, he is not permitted to devour any of the faithful." And St. Augustine, sermon 197 On the Times: "If the devil is bound, he says, why does he still prevail so much? But he dominates the lukewarm and the negligent, and those who do not fear God in truth. He is bound as a dog tied with chains; and he can bite no one except him who joins himself to him by deadly security. Now it seems, brethren, that that man is foolish whom a chained dog bites. Do not join yourself to him through the pleasures and lusts of the world, and he will not presume to approach you: he can bark, he can solicit, but he cannot bite at all, except one who is willing. For he harms not by compelling, but by persuading; nor does he extort consent from us, but asks for it."
Verse 15: That They Should Kill a Third Part of Men
Not of the sealed, as is clear from what was said in chapter VII, v. 3, and chapter IX, v. 4, namely the impious and reprobate. The same is clear from this, that if these slain were the pious and just, then no just men would remain any longer in the world. For the others who are not slain will be idolaters, as it is said. Therefore he speaks here only of the unsealed and impious (whose are these vengeances and punishments), of whom he says a third part is to be slain; but the others will remain in their idolatry and crimes.
Verse 16: The Number of the Army of Horsemen
In Greek δύο μυριάδες μυριάδων: thus our Arethas reads, and others (although the Complutensian editions do not have the τὸ δύο), that is, two myriads of myriads, that is two thousand times one hundred thousand. For a myriad is in Gehenna prepared and threatens. Thus Virgil, Aeneid XII, sings of Turnus:
He then girds about his shoulders a corslet stiff
With gold and pale orichalcum.
And Livy, book V of the Macedonian War, treating of horsemen: "Partly, he says, armored, whom they call cataphracts; partly using arrows from horseback."
St. John alludes to Jeremiah LI, 27, where, urging on the fierce horses and horsemen of the Persians to the destruction of Babylon, he says: "Bring up the horse like the stinging locust"; for the bruchus is a kind of locust. Moreover, that the horses of the Persians are exceedingly fierce, so that they seem to have stings of themselves, and to need no spurs, Oppian teaches, when he says:
Those citizens who dwell by the green waves of the Euphrates
Use great-souled horses, like lions, in their wars.
They flash gleaming eyes, and a great strength in the breast
Lifts up bold spirits to fervent wars.
There is added a swiftness of pace, and that they are able
To bear unflinchingly the lion's countenance.
Such will be also these horses of St. John at the end of the world.
Verse 17: I Saw the Horses in the Vision
And the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and from their mouths proceeded fire, and smoke, and brimstone. — By the horses understand also the horsemen themselves, by metonymy. He signifies by hyperbole that the horses and horsemen will be formidable like lions, breathing smoke from their nostrils, and seeming to breathe fires, brimstone, and flames. Again, the horsemen will breathe fire, smoke, and brimstone, that is, conflagrations, and they will bring every kind of devastation upon the world by their threatening words and commands, exhorting one another, and shouting fuego, fuego, as we remember happened in the sack and ruin of Antwerp (which they themselves call the Fury) in our age, when the greater and nobler part of that once most celebrated city and emporium was horribly consumed by Spanish fire. Thirdly, here are properly signified the soldiers' bombards, and the fire of sulphurous powder. For when soldiers fire them, they so apply the instrument to the mouth, that they seem to emit fire and sulphurous smoke from the mouth. And in this way they were presented to the mind of St. John in the vision. Thus Father Lessius, book XIII On the Divine Perfections, chapter XVIII. Add that, if a good part of this army is of demons, of them these things can be taken literally as they sound, as I said a little earlier. I say the same of the serpent-tails, of which he subjoins, saying:
Ribera is of opinion that this army will be that of those ten kings, who before Antichrist will overthrow Babylon, as John describes, chapter XVIII; therefore he places this chapter XVIII by hysterologia in that location, when it ought in proper order to be placed here. Whence some infer that this number of soldiers will exist, not at once, but successively; for through many years the battles of these kings will endure. But I shall show that this is less probable in chapter XVII, verse 16. It could more probably be said that this army will prepare the way for Antichrist, and will belong to Antichrist himself, who is now beginning and growing strong, so that by it he may subdue the nations to himself, and at length become king and monarch of the world. For shortly we shall hear of his kingdom, monarchy, and war, which he will then wage against Christians, in chapter XI, in the very sealed book, whose last seal is here unsealed, so that after these things the reading of the sealed book, which treats of the monarchy of Antichrist, seems immediately to follow.
And thus (as I will now say) I saw the horses in the vision, — namely, having heads as it were of lions, hyacinth breastplates, etc., as follows.
Verse 17 (continued): Breastplates of Fire, Hyacinth, and Brimstone; Lion-Heads Breathing Fire
And they who sat upon them, had breastplates of fire, and of hyacinth, and of brimstone, — Namely, some horsemen had fiery breastplates, that is, shining and radiating, and flaming, and therefore terrible like fire; others had hyacinth breastplates, that is, of violet or sky-colored, so that they might seem to be sent from heaven by God; others had sulphurous, that is, red and saffron-colored like brimstone. For these colors, or at least tunics of such colors, these horsemen will put over their breastplates, both for ornament and for terror, so as to strike the enemy, as our horsemen do, whom accordingly the Flemish call rote rocken, blauwe rocken, geele rocken; and the French, as well as the Italians and Spaniards, casaque rouge, casaque bleue, casaque jaune. Therefore these last will have breastplates, or tunics over breastplates, saffron or sulphurous, that through them God may signify the vengeance which He has decreed to exercise through these horsemen against lusts, and foul sins and sinners, and that through them He may prognostically indicate the infernal brimstone, which for the impious
Verse 19: The Power of the Horses Is in Their Mouth and in Their Tails
For their tails are like serpents, having heads: and with these they harm. — It is plain that these things are to be taken not literally, but symbolically, just as the heads of lions and the fire and brimstone proceeding from the mouth. For no horses have serpent-tails, or heads on their tails. Therefore these headed tails signify military swords, which stand out behind like tails, and have hilts like a head: for he describes their weapons, namely the bombards, by fire, smoke and brimstone, and the swords by the headed tails. Or certainly by the tails understand the camp-followers and servants of the soldiers, who are usually the worst, and like serpents secretly do harm by fires, thefts, poisons, and other ways. Thus Father Lessius in the place already cited. Moreover, these tails signify their final empire, which now seemed peaceful and quiet, because by their tyranny they had suppressed or subdued all enemies; yet it would be as dire as their beginning, namely, that in the end they will return to their heads, that is, to their first cruelty, and to their dire and harsh empires, so that again they may seem to breathe and exhale fire, smoke and brimstone from the mouth. Again, that they will be virulent and treacherous like serpents. Whence Richard of St. Victor, asking why their tails terminate in the heads of serpents, answers: Because the impious, when they cannot harm by open persecution, take beginnings of harm by hidden and fraudulent dissimulation. And Joachim: "Because, he says, when they are thought to rest from inflicting evils, then unexpectedly they commit worse evils; and so their tails, that is, the end of preceding evils, terminate in heads, that is, in the beginnings of future ones."
Symbolically St. Gregory, book XXXIII Moralia, chapter XXVIII, or according to another edition XXIII, attributes these things to heretics: "Because, he says, what is said by them with flattering words, is commanded by their patron princes striking with swords. Hence their power is in the mouth and in the tails. For in the mouth is figured the knowledge of teachers, but in the tail the power of secular men. For by the tail which is behind, is signified the temporal things of this age which are to be put aside. For everything that passes is behind, but everything that, coming, remains is before. Therefore in these horses, that is, in the most wicked preachers everywhere running by the impulse of the carnal, the power is in the mouth and in the tail; because they preach indeed by persuading perverse things, but supported by temporal powers, they exalt themselves by those things which are behind."
Note here in passing in what place, according to St. Gregory, all temporal things, and the very empires of the world, are to be held; for by the tail they are here designated, that they may be understood as to be subordinated to justice and virtue, as also to the Church.
Verse 20: The Rest of Men Did No Penance
"Neither," that is not, or not even then, as if to say: The other men, when they saw so many slaughters and funerals, were not even then compunctious, nor came to their senses, nor were they brought back to their right mind by such great plagues of their associates. This is plain from the Greek. Wondrous therefore will then be the obstinacy of men, who, having seen so many signs and plagues, will nevertheless persist in their crimes and idolatry. Similar was the obstinacy of Pharaoh, Exodus VII and following, who, having seen so many portents and scourges of Moses, was hardened the more by them, and resisted God and Moses more strongly. Its causes will be various. The first, the habit of sinning, and from this the immense force of concupiscence: on account of which we see drunkards do not abstain from wine, the lustful from venery, even if they see present and certain pestilence, indeed death threatening them therefrom. The second, infidelity, because they will not believe these plagues to be inflicted by God; but to come to pass by fate, or by some sickness of the world, and as it were by the defect of old age, as the Stoics thought, and now the Politici. The third, that then the devil will be loosed, who will exert all his last powers: whence he will then as it were possess the souls and bodies of the impious. The fourth, because these plagues will stir up in them, as impious, bile and impatience whence they will blaspheme God, or the author of the plagues, because He inflicts so many and so great things upon them, as St. John says in chapter XVI, v. 9.
Verse 20 (continued): That They Should Not Adore Demons
Hence it is plain that idolatry will be reborn at the end of the world, but Antichrist coming afterward will overthrow it: for he himself alone will wish to be worshipped as God, as Daniel foretold, chapter XI, v. 36 and following.