Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
St. John in chapters XII and XIII recounted the dreadful and bitter persecution of Antichrist; now, lest the faithful be cast down, he recounts 144 thousand who at that time will generously resist Antichrist, not so much by tongue as by life. For amid the supreme license of morals which Antichrist will grant, they will preserve virginity; therefore he subjoins their glory and palms, namely that they were redeemed from the earth, as first-fruits to God and to the Lamb; that they follow the Lamb wherever He goes; that they have the name of God and of the Lamb on their foreheads; that they are God's harpers and sing a new canticle. Second, verse 6, he passes to the three voices of Angels, of whom the first proclaims that men should fear God, because His judgment is at hand. The second, verse 8, proclaims the fall and ruin of Babylon. The third, verse 9, threatens hell to the followers of Antichrist. Third, verse 13, he hears a voice from heaven: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Fourth, one Angel proclaims to Christ that He should reap the elect with His sickle. Another Angel proclaims to another that he should gather the clusters, that is, the reprobate, and cast them into the lake of God's wrath: into which, then, when cast, they are trodden there like grapes, so that their blood overflows up to the horses' bridles for 600 stadia. All these things look to this, that men may beware of sins, and not yield to the threats or promises of Antichrist.
Vulgate Text: Apocalypse 14:1-20
1. And I beheld, and lo a Lamb stood upon mount Sion, and with Him a hundred forty-four thousand, having His name, and the name of His Father, written on their foreheads. 2. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the noise of many waters, and as the voice of great thunder; and the voice which I heard, was as the voice of harpers, harping on their harps. 3. And they sung as it were a new canticle, before the throne, and before the four living creatures, and the ancients; and no man could say the canticle, but those hundred forty-four thousand, who were purchased from the earth. 4. These are they who were not defiled with women: for they are virgins. These follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were purchased from among men, the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb: 5. And in their mouth there was found no lie; for they are without spot before the throne of God. 6. And I saw another angel flying through the midst of heaven, having the eternal gospel, to preach unto them that sit upon the earth, and over every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people: 7. Saying with a loud voice: Fear the Lord, and give Him honour, because the hour of His judgment is come; and adore ye Him, that made heaven and earth, the sea, and the fountains of waters. 8. And another angel followed, saying: That great Babylon is fallen, is fallen; which made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. 9. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice: If any man shall adore the beast and his image, and receive his character in his forehead, or in his hand; 10. He also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mingled with pure wine in the cup of His wrath, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the sight of the holy angels, and in the sight of the Lamb: 11. And the smoke of their torments shall ascend up for ever and ever: neither have they rest day nor night, who have adored the beast, and his image, and whoever receiveth the character of his name. 12. Here is the patience of the saints, who keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. 13. And I heard a voice from heaven, saying to me: Write: Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord. From henceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; for their works follow them. 14. And I saw, and behold a white cloud; and upon the cloud one sitting like to the Son of man, having on His head a crown of gold, and in His hand a sharp sickle. 15. And another angel came out from the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that sat upon the cloud: Thrust in Thy sickle, and reap, because the hour is come to reap: for the harvest of the earth is ripe. 16. And He that sat on the cloud, thrust His sickle into the earth, and the earth was reaped. 17. And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. 18. And another angel came out from the altar, who had power over fire; and he cried with a loud voice to him that had the sharp sickle, saying: Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vineyard of the earth; because the grapes thereof are ripe. 19. And the angel thrust in his sharp sickle into the earth, and gathered the vineyard of the earth, and cast it into the great press of the wrath of God: 20. And the press was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the press, up to the horses' bridles, for a thousand and six hundred furlongs.
Verse 1: And Behold the Lamb Stood upon Mount Sion
1. AND I SAW, AND BEHOLD THE LAMB STOOD. — John throughout this work calls Christ the Lamb, and is wondrously delighted by that name, for reasons I gave at chapter V, verse 6, and because he alludes to Isaiah XVI, 1: "Send forth the Lamb, O Lord, the ruler of the earth, from the rock of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion." For this very Lamb, already sent forth and standing in Sion with many of His like followers, John here depicts. Third, and most especially, because he is here treating of the virgins who follow the Lamb. For these are αγνοι, that is, chaste. Christ therefore the Lamb (as is signified by this vision) loves little lambs, female lambs and male lambs, He loves the innocent, virgins and Martyrs. Whence St. Augustine, sermon 1 On the Innocents: "Lambs had to be sacrificed, because the Lamb was to be crucified, who takes away the sins of the world." Christ loves the Agneses and the chaste: as iron is drawn by the magnet, so Christ is drawn by His own Agnes. Whence the Apostle says: "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ," II Cor. XI, 2. Hence again Christ wills His own to be sheep, that they may allow themselves to be ruled by Him as sheep by a shepherd, fully resigned to Him. For He "leads out as sheep Joseph;" He is the shepherd of the sheep, of whom He says, John's Gospel, chapter X: "My sheep hear My voice." It is a wonder that lambs newly born recognize their mother's bleating among a thousand sheep and mothers, and at once run to their mother's udder; so too the mother recognizes her own among a thousand lambs. So the faithful of Christ hear and recognize His voice both inwardly and outwardly. Whence Christ also says: "I know My sheep, and Mine know Me." Hence He will place these sheep and lambs at the judgment on His right hand, and lead them with Himself into heaven; but the goats He will hurl down on His left into hell. Such were David and St. Paul saying: "For Thy sake we are killed all the day; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we overcome because of Him who loved us." Such were the Apostles, strong as lions but mild and patient as lambs, being sons and disciples of the Lamb of God, who heard from Him: "Go, behold I send you as lambs among wolves," Luke X, 3.
STOOD UPON MOUNT SION — because at Sion the temple had been built by Solomon; hence Sion allegorically signified the new Church militant under Christ, because she began in Sion. For, as Isaiah foretold in chapter II, verse 3: "From Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." For Sion, signifying in Hebrew a watchtower, signifies the loftiness of all sanctity, which gazes constantly upon God, attends to and contemplates Him, and daily ascends and presses toward Him with great steps of virtue. Sion therefore, on the testimony of St. Jerome, Book I Against Jovinian, marks the summit of the virtues, which will be in those holy virgins at the end of the world — like that which the Apostles attained on Sion on the day of Pentecost. John therefore here perceives the virginal army of the Lamb at the summit of virtues, and in a similar perfection of spirit, such as was given to the Apostles and to the Sionides on Mount Sion. For there the Apostles and other first Christians were clothed with power from on high; there they received the divine Spirit into their innermost hearts, that they might give to all future ages a mirror and exemplar of chastity, poverty, contempt of wealth and the world, of charity, and of the heavenly life; there moreover they were imbued with heavenly strength to preach Christ's name throughout the whole world, and, if need be, to pour out their life for Him promptly and eagerly. With the same spirit and virtue will these Sionide virgins and martyrs be clothed, when they are about to fight with Antichrist.
Anagogically, however, Mount Sion signified the Church triumphant in heaven, and here he signifies it symbolically in the literal sense. For throughout this book John takes Sion, the temple, the altar, the incense, etc., in the anagogical sense, namely so that here in the literal sense they signify the heavenly fatherland, the glory of the heavenly ones, thanksgiving, joy and felicity. For, as the Psalmist says, Psalm LXXXIII, verse 8: "The God of gods shall be seen in Sion." So St. Gregory, Book V Commentary on the Book of Kings, chapter III, says that Sion is the loftiest summit of supernal felicity. Therefore John here saw the followers and soldiers of the Lamb against Antichrist, namely virgins and Martyrs, with victory now obtained, triumphing in Sion, that is in heaven; whence he soon adds concerning their voice: "And I heard a voice from heaven."
You will ask: why does John say, "I saw upon the mountain," and not "on the mountain"? I answer, first, in order to signify that Virginity far surpasses every height of the world's fabric, as well as of common virtue. "From heaven," says Ambrose, Book I On Virgins, "she summoned what she might imitate on earth. This (virginity), passing beyond clouds, air, Angels and stars, finds the Word of God in the very bosom of the Father, etc. Elias too, because he is found to have been mingled with no desires of bodily intercourse, was therefore caught up by chariot to heaven. For incorruption makes one near to God." Indeed she also represents and expresses in virgins, more than in other men, the image of the Holy Trinity; for "the holy Trinity is the first virgin:" for the Father is unbegotten; the Son is αμητωρ, who is begotten of the Father alone without a mother; the Holy Spirit is not generated, but spirated. Wherefore as the wind aspirates a breeze and a spirit, but does not generate: so too the Father with the Son spirates the Holy Spirit, but does not generate. Therefore B. Nazianzen rightly sings in his poem On Virginity:
The first Triad is virgin; since from the Father without beginning
the Son is born: for the Father drew His origin from none.
Hence Nazianzen holds that virginity surpasses marriage as much as the soul surpasses the flesh, heaven the earth, God man. Hear also St. Gregory, Book V on the Book of Kings, chapter III: "Well are the virgins said to be on high, because what surpasses human nature is set at the loftiest summit of the virtues. Whence also that virgin disciple beloved of Jesus, hinting at the place of virgins, says: I saw upon Mount Sion the Lamb standing, and with Him a hundred forty-four thousand; these are they who were not defiled with women: for they are virgins. They are said to be on the mount with the Lamb, because by the merit of incorruption, by which they separate themselves from earthly and carnal delights, they are sublimated in the everlasting glory of the Redeemer."
Hence again Nazianzen says: "Chastity has shone forth, dividing the world," as it were establishing a certain supreme world divided and elevated above this lower one, and in it placing the virgins above all others. Therefore St. Cyprian, in his book On the Garb of Virgins, and from him St. Augustine, Book IV On the Doctrine of Christ, chapter XXI, speaking of virgins: "It is that flower of the ecclesiastical sprout, the ornament and adornment of spiritual grace, a glad disposition of praise and honor, a work entire and incorrupt, the image of God responding to the sanctity of the Lord, the more illustrious portion of Christ's flock. Through them, and in them, holy Mother Church's glorious fecundity rejoices and abundantly flowers; and the more that glorious virginity adds to her number, the more does the mother's joy increase." And St. Jerome, epistle 17 to Marcella: "Certainly, among the ornaments of the Church, the chorus of monks and virgins is a certain flower and most precious stone." Finally the Wise One, Ecclesiasticus XXVI, 20: "Every weight is not worth a continent soul."
Second, the "upon the mountain" signifies that virginity is an arduous thing, and he who would be a virgin must, as it were, strain and climb up upon a most lofty mountain, and emulate the life of the heavenly ones and of Angels. For, as St. Augustine says, Sermon 250 On the Season: "Among all the contests of Christians, only the battles of chastity are the harder, where the fight is daily and victory rare; chastity has drawn a heavy enemy, who is daily conquered, yet feared." Therefore Christ did not wish to command it, but to counsel it, and to entice us to it as to a sublime thing, saying: "He that can take it, let him take it," Matthew XIX, 12. Hence too all the Fathers equate virgins with, indeed prefer them to, Angels. Nazianzen calls virginity "the rival of angelic glory." St. Ambrose, Book On Virginity: "Chastity made the Angels: he who has kept it is an Angel; he who has lost it is a devil." St. Augustine, Book On Virginity, chapter XXIII: "Virginal integrity, and immunity from all sexual intercourse through pious continence, is an angelic portion, and in corruptible flesh a meditation of perpetual incorruption." St. Cyprian, Book On the Discipline of Virgins: "When you persevere chaste, and as virgins, you are equal to the Angels of God." St. Bernard, epistle 52 to Henry Archbishop of Sens: "Chastity makes an Angel out of a man. There is indeed a difference between the chaste man and the Angel, but in felicity, not in virtue; and if the latter's chastity is more blessed, the former's is recognized as stronger. Chastity alone is that which, in this place and time of mortality, represents a certain state of immortal glory." Indeed Christ also, Matthew XXII, 30: "In the resurrection," He says, "they shall neither marry nor be given in marriage; but they shall be as the Angels of God in heaven."
Hence again Viegas notes that the "upon the mountain" signifies that virgins, if they wish to guard and preserve their virginity, must flee the other sex, and withdraw into cells, cloisters and mountains. For, as Tertullian says, Book On Veiling Virgins: "Every public exposure of a good virgin is a suffering of defilement: however much you may strive with a good mind, she must be endangered by her own publication, while she is struck by uncertain and many eyes, while she is tickled by the fingers of those pointing her out, while she is loved too much, while in the midst of embraces and continual kisses she grows mingled together; thus the brow is hardened, thus modesty is rubbed away, thus it is loosed: pure virginity fears nothing more than itself; she does not wish to suffer even the eyes of women." The same, in his book On the Adornment of Women: "Since all of us are the temple of God, the Holy Spirit being brought into us and consecrated, the sacristan and overseer of that temple is modesty, which suffers nothing unclean or profane to be brought in, lest God who dwells there, offended, abandon the polluted seat." Virgins therefore, fleeing with Lot from the burning of Sodom, should think that what was said by the Angel in Genesis XIX, 17, was equally said to them: "Save thy soul, look not back behind thee, neither stay thou in all the country round about; but save thyself in the mountain, lest thou also perish together." So Nazianzen, Exhortation to Virgins: "Rightly, virgin, do you go forward; in the mountains may you be saved; do not look back to Sodom, lest you be hardened into a pillar of salt." See St. Jerome, epistle to Eustochium, On the Custody of Virginity; St. Basil, Ambrose, Ephrem, Nazianzen, and all who have written on virginity.
A wondrous example of chastity, as well as of flight, was given by St. Pelagia, virgin of Antioch and martyr at fifteen years of age, whose feast the Church keeps on July 9: whom St. Ambrose marvelously celebrates, Book III On Virgins, near the beginning; and St. Chrysostom wrote two homilies on her praises, which are extant in Lipomanus, vol. VII; St. Augustine also celebrates her, Book I On the City, chapter XXVI. When she was alone at home, and saw herself besieged by persecutors — that is, as St. Ambrose says, "by the plunderers of her faith or modesty" — her mother and sisters being absent, devoid of help but more full of God: "What are we doing," she said, "unless we look ahead, captive virginity? Let us die, if we may; or if they will not allow us, let us die. Now I will hurl myself down and overturn the sacrilegious altars, and quench the kindled hearths with my blood." Therefore she hurled herself from on high, and so flew up to heaven. For this is what she herself indicates by saying "Hurled down," and St. Chrysostom plainly asserts it. Whence it is strange that Baronius in his Martyrology should say that St. Ambrose asserts that she cast herself with her mother into the river. For this St. Ambrose asserts of her sisters, but not of herself. For he subjoins: "But when the detestable persecutors saw the prey of her modesty snatched from them, they began to seek her mother and sisters. Yet they, by spiritual flight, were already holding the field of chastity: when suddenly, with persecutors threatening on this side, and on the other a torrent river barring their flight, they were enclosed for the crown. 'Why do we fear?' they say. 'Behold water; who hinders us from being baptized? And this is the baptism by which sins are forgiven, kingdoms are sought. Let the water receive us which opens heaven, covers the lower regions, hides death, makes Martyrs. Thee, Founder of all things, we beseech, O God, that the wave may not scatter the bodies emptied of spirit, nor death separate the funerals of those whose life affection did not separate; but let there be one constancy, one death, one burial also.' Having spoken thus, and being suspended a little while, with their bosoms girt up to cover their modesty and not impede their step, with hands joined as though leading choruses, they went forward into the midst of the channel, where the wave was more torrential, where the depth was more sheer, directing their steps thither. None drew back her foot, none halted her step, none tried where to fix her step: anxious when the earth met them, distressed at the shallows, glad at the depths. You might have seen the pious mother binding her hands in a knot, rejoicing over her pledge, fearing over the fall, lest the waves should bear her daughters from her. 'These victims, O Christ,' she said, 'I sacrifice to Thee, leaders of virginity, captains of chastity, companions of passion.' But who could justly marvel that there was so great a constancy in them while alive, when even when dead they preserved an immobile station of their bodies? The wave did not strip the corpses, the rapid currents of the river did not roll them. Indeed even the holy mother, though wanting in sense, yet by piety still preserved her embrace and the religious knot she had tied, nor did death loosen it, so that she who had paid the debt of religion died with piety as her heir. For those whom she had joined for martyrdom she vindicated up to the tomb."
ONE HUNDRED FORTY-FOUR THOUSAND. — Some think, as St. Jerome, Book I Against Jovinian, and Alcazar, that these are the same as those of like number sealed in chapter VII; but it is far truer that they are distinct: for these are virgins; those are faithful and holy of every state, even the conjugal; those are all Jews, these are both Jews and Gentiles. Here therefore is described the number, as well as the lot, of the virgins, which will be in the time of Antichrist, namely those who at that time will most strongly overcome the most powerful vice of lust, to which both the flesh and, more so, Antichrist will incite. For this the very words and text clearly signify; for nothing forces us to take refuge in allegories or tropes. So Aretas, Ribera, Viegas, and others, who take these plainly as they sound, of no others than virgins to come at the end of the world.
Furthermore Viegas judges that here a definite number is put for an indefinite one: For more, he says, will be virgins at the end of the world than 144 thousand, as is plain from this, that even children and infants alone, who are surely virgins, will be more numerous. For in Nineveh alone in the time of Jonah, there were more than 120 thousand little ones and innocents, Jonah IV, 11; and so he himself thinks the number 100 signifies the totality of infants and virgin children, who will then exist; the number 40 signifies the totality of virgins consecrated to God who will then exist; lastly the number 4 signifies all men and women who will then cultivate virginity in the world. Better and more literally, Ribera thinks that there will be precisely 144 thousand virgins at the end of the world. For what other reason could John precisely posit and define this number? Why would he add to the 40 a 4, not a 6 or an 8, unless because it signifies precisely so many will be? For here cannot be assigned that cause which was given in chapter VII. There only those are recounted who will be elect from each of the twelve tribes of the Jews, and from each are counted twelve thousand (because twelve is the symbol of universality, and signifies all the faithful, who are disciples and sons of twelve Patriarchs as well as Apostles), which all combined make 144 thousand. But here St. John numbers indiscriminately all virgins, both of Gentiles and of Jews.
To Viegas's argument he responds that infants and small children are not numbered here: for in them virginity is not a virtue, but a condition of age. But here are reckoned virgins who, for virginity, will stand and contend against Antichrist even unto death, and so all receive from God the laurel of virginity, and many even of martyrdom. For it is plain that little ones are no more capable of the laurel of virginity than of virtue.
St. Cyprian notes, in his Book On the Garb of Virgins, that only male virgins are numbered here, not female; because John does not say "These (fem.) are," but "These (masc.) are who are not defiled with women;" yet by the masculine females are also signified, because woman is a portion of man and taken from man. But I say that both females and males are numbered here. For in females, as the more fragile, virginity will be stronger and more generous. In the masculine gender therefore, as the more noble, the feminine is understood — as covering, indeed, both. Nor could John have spoken otherwise, and embraced both at once. For if he had said in the feminine "These are," he would have excluded males. For males are not customarily comprehended and understood under females, as females are under males.
Furthermore the Church reads these verses in place of the Epistle on the feast of the Holy Innocents: whence some have opined that the Innocents slain by Herod were 144 thousand. But rashly: for the Church only accommodates this to them because they are innocents, since she knows that literally this refers not to them, but to future virgins.
HAVING HIS NAME (the Lamb's), AND THE NAME OF HIS FATHER WRITTEN ON THEIR FOREHEADS. — This writing or character of the Lamb will be opposed to the character of Antichrist, of which in the preceding chapter at the end. The sense therefore is, as if to say: These virgins, followers of the Lamb, freely professed and called themselves servants — nay, brides — of Christ and of God the Father; that is, that they had offered and consecrated to God and to Christ not only faith and religion, but also perpetual virginity for eternity, after the manner of martyrs, who consecrated their blood and life to God. For chastity also has its own martyrdom, and that a difficult and long one.
Again, these were known and called by all the familiars and intimates of Christ and the Father, and in His court and household to be as it were the first and chief, indeed queens, being brides, of whom Paul says, II Corinthians XI, 2: "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." It is a catachresis. For it is not necessary to say that this name will actually be inscribed on the foreheads of virgins. Symbolically, however, John saw it inscribed on them, to signify this free profession of theirs which I have spoken of. If anyone, however, would have it actually inscribed for their honor and glory, I will not oppose; especially since the character of Antichrist, to which this is here opposed, will be real and visible, as I said in the preceding chapter at the end. See what was said about the sign of the cross, with which all the faithful in the time of Antichrist will be signed, chapter VII, verse 3.
Note again here that chastity is a princely, royal, and divine virtue, so that virgins are marked with the name of God, and bear His name and title on their forehead. Therefore King David, having fallen from the royal degree of chastity into adultery, prays in Psalm L, 14, saying: "Strengthen me with a princely Spirit;" where for "princely" the Hebrew has נדיבה nedibah, that is "princely," which is befitting a king and a prince, as if to say: Restore to me the spirit of chastity as it were the prince, which I lost by adultery, and confirm me with it, that I may again represent and embody king and prince. Second, Hugo: "Virgins have the name of God written on their foreheads, because they are called by the same name by which God is called: for they are called gods." For so God says to judges: "I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you the sons of the Most High;" much more will He say the same to virgins.
Verse 2: A Voice from Heaven as of Many Waters
2. AND I HEARD A VOICE FROM HEAVEN, AS THE VOICE OF MANY WATERS. — One and the same voice and jubilation of the 144 thousand, namely the virgins, is here compared to three different voices or sounds: first, to the sound of many waters, because it was sonorous, and combined of many and varied voices and sounds, as many waters falling on rocks or dashed against them are sonorous, and emit a great and varied din. Second, to the sound of great thunder, which is not only sonorous but also terrible and dreadful, being celestial; and this first, because the voice of virgins is heavenly, and to the impious and incestuous at the end of the world will be terrible and dreadful as thunder. So when St. Paul disputed of chastity, justice, judgment, the incestuous Governor Felix was made to tremble, Acts XXIV, 25. Second, because as thunder is born from the collision of cloud and from the violence of lightning bursting forth from cloud, so third, this voice of the virgins is similar to the sound of a cithara: first, because it is most sweet, and with the sweetest song it charms God, the Angels, and the Saints. For these virgins, by singing with the mouth, just as by striking citharas with the hands, sing in unison a new song unheard of in the world. So Scipio in Cicero, in the book On the Republic, says that the state is a harmony. "Just as in strings and pipes, and in singing itself and in voices, a certain harmony must be maintained from distinct sounds, so from the highest, middle, and lowest orders intervening as sounds, the state by moderate reason and the agreement of the most dissimilar sings together: and what is called harmony by musicians in song, that is concord in the state, the closest and best bond of safety in every republic, and one which by no means can exist without justice," as St. Augustine reports in book II of On the City of God, chapter 21.
Second, the sound of the cithara signifies the harmony of all the virtues in virgins: so St. Jerome on Isaiah XVI, verse 11. For virginity is born of abstinence, penance, and humility; it is nourished by prudence, fortitude, and obedience; it is perfected by solitude, silence, charity, prayer, and other virtues. For all the virtues stand on watch around virginity, as it were, to protect it, and form a chorus around it. Third, Rupert: "The citharas signify the breasts of the faithful, in which through faith the heavenly music dwells." Faith therefore is compared to the cithara, and because faith alone does not suffice for salvation, hence the strings of God's commandments must be stretched on it, and these must be handled and struck with the hands, that is, perfected and fulfilled by working and carrying out, that the harmony may be complete. Fourth, the stretching of the strings on the cithara and their sound signifies the distention and mortification of the flesh, which is the mother and nurse of virginity, and therefore sounds most sweetly in the ears of God. Thus Ansbertus: "That they are said to have the citharas of God, triumphing over the beast — understand it thus, that is to say: They themselves were God's citharas, having their hearts dedicated to praise, and resounding with the harmonious truth of both Testaments. Or certainly they have citharas, namely the pleasures of the flesh affixed to the wood of the Passion. For the Passion of Christ is the wood of the cithara; the strings stretched over it are the bodies of the saints that have died to earthly desires. Of whom Paul says: They who are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences. With whose voice also the Psalmist says, Psalm 118:8: 'Pierce Thou my flesh with Thy fear; for I am afraid of Thy judgments.'"
So also St. Gregory, in book II of the Morals, chapter 31, where explaining that passage of Job, chapter 30: "My cithara is turned into mourning, and my organ into the voice of those that weep," he speaks thus: "Because the organ sounds through pipes and the cithara through strings, by the cithara right action can be designated, and by the organ holy preaching. By the pipes of the organ we fittingly understand the mouths of preachers; by the strings of the cithara, the intention of those who live rightly. While this is stretched toward the other life through the affliction of the flesh, it sounds, as it were, like a thinned string on the cithara through the admiration of those who behold. For the string is dried so that it may render fitting song on the cithara; because holy men also chastise (and dry up by fasts) their body, and subject it to servitude, and tend from the lowest to the highest things." This therefore is the cithara of Christ's cross, which the cithara of David prefigured, with which he, by playing, drove away the evil spirit that troubled Saul, 1 Kings 16:23. For, as Eucherius says in the same place, and from him Bede and Angelomus: "That boy, singing on the cithara sweetly, indeed strongly, restrained the malignant spirit that was working in Saul; not because that cithara had such great power, but because the figure of Christ's cross, which was mystically borne by the wood and the stretching of the strings, and the Passion itself was being sung, by which then already the spirit of the demon was being suppressed; giving thereby morally an example, that we should provoke the pride of the rich by humble speech to some good;" and by stretching and striking down the pride of the flesh by mortification, let us sing a sweet and chaste melody to God. For just as humility is in danger amid honors, and poverty amid wealth, so chastity is in danger amid delights. This above all St. Charles Borromeo perceived and taught, who, declaring war upon all pleasures in order to preserve chastity, lived a most austere life; and he wrote to a certain Cardinal, that "without penance and harshness of life it is impossible to preserve chastity," since the flesh, the demon, and the world attack it so greatly. Wherefore chastity is called from chastisement, says St. Thomas, II-II, Question 151, article 1: "The name of chastity is taken from this, that concupiscence is chastised by reason, which must be restrained as a boy," as is plain from the Philosopher, in book II of the Ethics, last chapter. For just as boys, because they cannot be ruled by reason, which they lack, must be governed and restrained by the rod, so also concupiscence, which is like a boy, must be tamed by chastisement. This is what St. Jerome says to Furia: "The burning arrows of the devil are to be extinguished by the rigor of fasts and vigils." If you object that from this you would be weak or infirm, St. Jerome answers in the Life of St. Paula: "It is better that the stomach should suffer than the mind." And St. Anthony in Athanasius: "Believe me, brethren, Satan greatly fears the vigils of the pious, prayers, fasts, and voluntary poverty." And even Christ, in Mark 9:28: "This kind can come out by nothing, except by prayer and fasting." In the Chronicles of St. Francis, part I, book VI, chapter 32, it is related that a certain man asked a holy man: Why did John the Baptist, sanctified in the womb, go into the desert and there lead so austere a life? The Saint replied: Tell me also: Why is fresh meat, though it be good, salted? And when he said, that it might be preserved and not be corrupted; the Saint added: "So likewise the Baptist seasoned his body with the salt of penance, that he might preserve it holy and pure from sin," according to what the Church sings of him: "Lest he should be able to defile his life by even the lightest stain." It is a maxim of St. Francis, which he asserted he had learned by experience: "Demons shudder at and flee austerity of life and the rigor of penance; but they approach those who treat the flesh delicately, and tempt and assail them strongly." So the Chronicles of the Order of St. Francis, part I, book I, chapter 21.
Hence Alcazar mystically (though he himself thinks it is literal): The voice, he says, of the Apostles was as it were a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters and of great thunder, because like heavenly thunder it struck the minds of those who heard, prostrated them, and converted them to Christ; but the voice of the early faithful, who were perfect and as it were Religious, and therefore stood upon Mount Sion, was as it were the voice of cithara-players. First, because the concord and harmony of all of them was most sweet. Second, because they praised God not only with the mouth but also with the hands, that is, with pious and holy works. Third, because in afflictions, persecutions, martyrdoms, and on the racks, stretched out like strings on a cithara, they were giving thanks to God; which was a great praise and glory of God and of the Apostles, and a confusion and astonishment to the Gentiles. And this is the new song unheard of in former ages which they sang, namely the exultant boasting of the Apostles, Martyrs, and faithful in the very storms of persecutions and tortures.
To these cithara-players, then, that of the Psalmist most fittingly applies, Psalm 32:2: "Give praise to the Lord on the cithara;" and Psalm 42:2: "I will give praise to Thee on the cithara, O God, my God." Such a cithara-player was St. Boniface the Martyr, whose feast the Church celebrates on May 14, who, when he was being torn apart with iron hooks, and sharp reeds were driven between the nails and flesh of his hands, and molten lead was poured into his mouth, was heard to utter only this voice as if playing the cithara: "I give Thee thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God."
Verse 3: They Sang as it Were a New Canticle
3. AND THEY SUNG AS IT WERE A NEW CANTICLE. — The word "as it were" (quasi) is not a mark of similitude, but of truth and asseveration; for it often signifies this among the Hebrews. So in John 1:14 it is said: "We saw His glory, as it were of the only-begotten." Where it is clear that the "as it were" is not assimilative but assertive; for the sense is, as if to say: We saw His glory such and so great as befit and were fitting to the only-begotten Son of God. Secondly and better: St. John throughout this passage uses "as it were," because he was not hearing the actual real voices of the virgins themselves, but they were only being presented and represented to his fancy or mind through prophetic and imaginary, or intellectual vision, so that he seemed to hear them. For fancy, and still more intellect, eminently contains all senses and sensations. Wherefore in the intellect to see and to hear are the same, as I showed in the first Canon on Isaiah.
Furthermore, this new canticle is the praise of God, the exultation and jubilation of the virgins on account of so rare and remarkable a gift of chastity, granted to them above many others (to whom this has been denied). So St. Gregory, III part of the Pastoral, admonition 29; Ribera and others. "Singularly," says St. Gregory, "to sing the canticle to the Lamb is to rejoice with Him forever before all the faithful, even for the incorruption of the flesh. Yet the other elect can hear this canticle, although they cannot sing it; because through charity indeed they are joyful in their loftiness, although they do not rise to their rewards." Furthermore, what this canticle is in particular, or in itself, blessed experience will teach us, when in heaven we shall sing it or hear it. Truly the Wise One says: "Innocence is a silver trumpet." Furthermore, just as virginity is a new virtue and proper to the New Testament, almost unknown in the Old: so its reward and canticle will also be new. In a similar way St. John calls the commandment of charity new, 1 Epistle, chapter 2, verse 7. See what is said there.
AND NO MAN COULD SAY. — It seems should be corrected to "could learn": for this is what the Greek μαθειν means; as if to suggest that other Saints are eager for this canticle, just as for the laurel of virginity, but cannot aspire to it; for virginity, once lost, cannot be repaired. The Roman Bible, however, St. Gregory, and others read "say;" and the sense comes to the same: for a canticle is learned in order to be said and sung. Memorable is what we read of St. Emeric in his Life by Surius, on November 4, that a certain Conrad, on account of enormous sins, by command of the Pontiff bore an iron breastplate fastened to his naked body with iron chains, until divinely the chains were dissolved, and the writing of his sins inscribed on parchment was blotted out: and that he visited many churches of the Saints in hope of indulgence, but in vain; at last he came to the sepulcher of St. Stephen, king of Hungary, who appeared to him saying: "Rise, friend, and go to the monument of my son Emeric, which is nearby. He, because by preserving the integrity of the flesh he merited a special grace before God, will obtain pardon for your deeds. For he is of the number of those who have not defiled their garments, and follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes, and before the throne of God sing a new canticle." And the man awoke, immediately betook himself to the chapel of Blessed Emeric, poured out prayers there, and more quickly than expected the iron bonds burst apart, the parchment of sins showed no trace of written letter.
WHO WERE PURCHASED FROM THE EARTH. — The Syriac: These were bought by Jesus out of men as first-fruits to God and to the Lamb. The Arabic: These are they who were bought from men first, to God and to the Lamb, as if to say: These are they who, by the price of Christ's blood, received this perfect purity of body and soul, that they might lead here on earth a more lofty heavenly life, and therefore are God's "as first-fruits," that is, most select and most pleasing fruits and offerings, such as in the Old Testament were the first-fruits of crops and of men. It seems then that Christ, in a special manner, prayed, labored, and offered, destined, and applied the price of His blood to God the Father for the virgins as if for the most precious gems to be purchased.
Verse 4: These Follow the Lamb Whithersoever He Goes
4. THESE ARE THEY WHO WERE NOT DEFILED WITH WOMEN; FOR THEY ARE VIRGINS. — Hence it is plain that here we are dealing literally with virgins properly so called, who will be at the time of Antichrist. Therefore mystical, not literal, is what Alcazar holds, namely that here all those are called virgins who do not contaminate themselves with disordered affection for created things, and who follow Christ bearing His cross even to Mount Calvary in constant contempt for temporal things and life, and in desire of divine glory: such as were the Christians of the primitive Church (whence they are here called "first-fruits"), and now are the Religious, who follow after angelic purity, and join the observance of God's precepts with the observance of the counsels, which is "to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes."
Mystical also is what Ambrose says on chapter 11 of the second epistle to the Corinthians, verse 1, citing this passage: "By women he signified error, because error began through a woman; just as he also calls Jezebel a woman in Apocalypse 2:20, on account of the wife of Ahab, who out of zeal for Baal killed the Prophets, when by it idolatry is understood, by which morals and the truth of faith are corrupted. For if by 'women' you understand women, so as to think the virgins are so called because they preserved their bodies undefiled, he excludes from this glory the saints, because all the Apostles, except John and Paul, had wives." Our Jerome follows St. Ambrose. Prado on Ezechiel chapter 16:13: "These are they who were not defiled with women; for they are virgins, that is, the Martyrs, who refused to render worship to idols even at the cost of their life, and persisted constant in unimpaired faith."
THESE FOLLOW THE LAMB WHITHERSOEVER HE GOES. — "They follow," namely with the steps not so much of the body, as of the soul, intellect, and will; that is to say, as inseparable, and most dearly loved by Him, companions and attendants of the Lamb, they follow Him into all the heavenly joys which are promised to those who follow the Lamb, that is, to the clean of heart; for these are the joys of the Lamb and of the lambs, that is, of the virgins; but they will not follow into the joys of the lions, or of the bulls and slain calves, namely of the Martyrs, heralds, and doctors of the Gospel.
Francis Ribera, however, understands this following with respect to absolutely all the heavenly joys and rewards: Because, he says, those virgins at the end of the world will also excel in martyrdom, doctrine, and other virtues; wherefore they will receive the joys and rewards of all. But granted that this will be true of many, nevertheless St. John here speaks properly only of the very virginity of the last virgins and its reward; for he commends them solely from virginity.
Better therefore Viegas and Alcazar judge that by this phrase, "They follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes," nothing else is signified than that the Lamb takes wondrous delight in the virgins, so that He never wishes them to depart from His side, but they accompany and follow Him in every direction; just as the chief and most noble virgins accompany a virgin queen and bride, according to that of Psalm 44: "The queen stood on Thy right hand in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety." And: "The daughters of Tyre with gifts, etc. After her shall virgins be brought to the king: her neighbors shall be brought to Thee. They shall be brought with gladness and rejoicing: they shall be brought into the temple of the king." For just as a queen has all her pleasure, conversation, and consolation in her gynaeceum of maidens, which perpetually surrounds her like a chorus: so Christ has the same in His company of virgins. Again, just as musicians follow a prince, and charm him with wondrous harmony, and are his delight: so also the virgins to Christ. For they themselves are the cithara-players of Christ, who playing on their citharas, as I said in verse 2, marvelously delight Him. Finally, as a bride accompanies her bridegroom, so the virgins accompany Christ: for they are the spouses of Christ; as the Apostle says in 2 Corinthians 11:2. Christ therefore loves the virgins, and is delighted with them, as a bridegroom with his bride.
Beautifully St. Augustine, in the book On Holy Virginity, chapter 27: "Whither do we suppose this Lamb goes: into what glades and meadows? where, believe, the grasses are joys, not the vain joys of this world, lying with madness: nor such joys as in the very kingdom of God will be for the rest who are not virgins, but distinct from the lot of all other joys. The joy of the virgins of Christ is from Christ, in Christ, with Christ, after Christ, through Christ, on account of Christ. For there are other things for others, but nothing such for any. Go into these things, 'follow the Lamb, because the flesh of the Lamb is also virgin. For He retained this in Himself when grown, which His conception and birth did not take from His Mother.'" And chapter 29: "The rest of the multitude of the faithful, which cannot follow the Lamb thus far, will see you: it will see and not envy; but rejoicing with you, what it does not have in itself, it will have in you. For it will not be able to say that new canticle proper to you, but it will be able to hear it and to be delighted with your so excellent good." He adds in chapter 2: "None guards the virginal good, except God Himself who gave it, and God who is charity. The guardian therefore of virginity is charity, but the place of this guardian is humility. For there dwells He who said, upon the humble and the quiet, and trembling at His words, His Spirit rests. Humble married persons more easily follow the Lamb, even if not whithersoever He goes, certainly as far as they are able, than proud virgins." Tertullian, in book I to His Wife, speaking of virgins: "To God the maidens are beautiful, with Him they live, with Him they converse: Him they handle by day and night, they assign their prayers as God's dowries; from the same they obtain dignity, like marital gifts, as often as they desire. Thus they have laid hold for themselves of the eternal good of the Lord, and now on earth, by not marrying, they are reckoned of the angelic family." St. Bernard to his sister On the Way of Living Well, sermon 12: "If you have followed Christ with your whole mind, and have loved Him with your whole mind, without any doubt you will rejoice with Him in the heavenly fatherland, and with Him you will follow with the holy virgins, whithersoever He goes. If with all devotion you cleave to Christ, and sigh for Him day and night in this present age, without doubt you will exult with Him in the heavenly palace, and amid the choirs of virgins you will sing to Him sweet hymns, as it is written: O Thou who feedest among the lilies, surrounded by choirs of virgins, adorning the brides with glory, and rendering rewards to the brides. Wheresoever Thou goest, the virgins follow, and run singing praises behind Thee, and resound sweet hymns." Hence he adds: "I beseech thee, dear sister, that thou mayest perceive no sweetness except Christ, seek no love except Christ, and love no beauty except Christ." St. Jerome, vol. II, epistle 11: "Let him enjoy the crown of virtue, and on account of the daily martyrdoms of the apostolate let him follow the Lamb." From this passage virginity is depicted in emblems as a pale, slender maiden with comely eyes, wearing a crown of flowers on her head, clothed in a white linen robe, showing joy on her face, striking a cithara with her hand, following the Lamb in the midst of a meadow.
Thus St. Clement the Pontiff, kinsman of the Emperor Domitian, cultivated perpetual virginity, as St. Ignatius teaches in his epistle to the Philadelphians. He himself wonderfully extolled the same, and taught others, as is plain from his encyclical Epistles, and as Epiphanius testifies, Heresies 30. Wherefore by his example and exhortation St. Flavia Domitilla, a granddaughter likewise of Domitian, whom — betrothed to Aurelianus — St. Clement consecrated a virgin to God; Euphrosyna, Theodora, and other most noble virgins underwent illustrious martyrdom for the faith and for virginity. Wherefore Clement, banished by the Emperor Trajan to Chersonea, when he had found very many Christians likewise condemned there to the mines and suffering from a lack of water, pouring forth prayers for them, saw a lamb standing, which lifted up its right foot, as if to indicate to St. Clement the place of a spring. Therefore Clement, going to the place where the lamb stood, and with a small blow striking the place that was beneath the foot of the lamb, soon drew forth a most beautiful spring, which gushing out with great force made a river; from which all the Christians then and afterwards quenched their thirst. By which miracle the native Gentiles were converted to the faith of Christ. So has his Life, and Baronius, in the year of Christ 100; whence also in the office of the Church of St. Clement we read these antiphons: "While St. Clement was praying, the Lamb of God appeared to him." And: "I saw above the mountain the Lamb standing, from beneath whose foot a living fountain flows: the rush of the river maketh the city of God joyful." In St. Clement therefore, while still living, was fulfilled that of Apocalypse 7:17: "The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall rule them, and shall lead them to the fountains of the waters of life." For he himself was a follower of the Lamb of God, that is, a virgin, and on account of virginity a Martyr, a little after John wrote this, so that he seems here to have alluded to him: indeed under Clement as Pontiff, who was beginning these things which I have related, St. John wrote the Apocalypse and these very things. It seems then that he wished, by this vision and by these encomiums of virginity, to animate and strengthen Domitilla and other virgins then flourishing, and about to undergo martyrdom for virginity, to undergo it bravely.
Thus about the same time St. Peter roused St. Praxedes and St. Potentiana; St. Paul, St. Thecla and very many others; St. Matthew, St. Iphigenia, daughter of the king of the Ethiopians, to vow virginity to God; for which reason St. Matthew, while sacrificing at the altar, was slain by Hirtacus, the brother of the king, who was wooing Iphigenia as his wife, and was "made a victim of virginity," as Hippolytus says in his book On the Twelve Apostles; just as Paul was beheaded by Nero, because he was withdrawing Christian virgins from his lust and consecrating them to God, as I showed in the prooemium on St. Paul from St. Chrysostom.
Thus St. Agnes, after death, appeared crowned with laurel, with virgins radiant and most splendidly clothed, following the Lamb. Hear St. Ambrose, book V, epistle 34: "While the parents of Blessed Agnes were keeping continual night-vigils at her tomb (which stands near Rome on the Nomentan Way, illustrious with a marble temple and gems, which as often as I visit, I feel myself, with others, suffused with wonderful joy and devotion), they see in the midst of the silence of the night an army of virgins, all clad in cyclades woven of gold, passing by with a great light. Among them they see the Blessed Virgin shining in like garment, and at her right hand a Lamb whiter than snow, which, asking the holy virgins to halt their step for a little, standing said to her parents: See that you do not mourn me as if dead, but rejoice for me, and congratulate me, because with all these I have received bright seats; and I am joined in heaven to Him whom, while placed on earth, with all the intent of my soul I loved." Thus Blessed Catharine of Siena followed the Lamb, to whom this eulogy is given:
She passed to the Bridegroom adorned with three crowns.
And that:
Sweet sign of charity,
When the Lover of chastity
Changes hearts in a virgin.
Who therefore from this fiery heart of Christ in her Epistles hurls forth burning flames of Christ upon all, and in all things does nothing else than to inflame the Pontiffs, Cardinals, Prelates, Princes, Cities, Doctors, etc., to whom she writes, with the love of Christ, and to incite and stir them to His perfect following: whom therefore she frequently calls "little lamb," and therefore begins and concludes each of her Epistles likewise with: "In sweet Jesus, in the love of Jesus."
Morally St. Bernard, in sermon 1 on Missus est: "On both sides is wonder, on both sides a miracle: that God should obey a woman, humility without example; and that a woman should rule over God, sublimity without peer. In the praises of virgins it is sung uniquely, that they will follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes: but of what praises do you judge her (the Blessed Mary) worthy who even goes before? Learn, O man, to obey; learn, O earth, to be subject; learn, O dust, to comply; blush, O proud ashes. God humbles Himself, and you exalt yourself?" And below: "The defiled humble follows the Lamb, and the proud virgin also follows; but neither whithersoever He goes: because neither can the former ascend to the cleanness of the Lamb, who is without spot, nor does the latter deign to descend to His meekness, by which, namely, He was silent not before the shearer, but before the slayer. Yet the sinner has chosen the more wholesome part of following in humility, than the proud man in virginity; since both his uncleanness is purged by his humble satisfaction, and the chastity of the other is defiled by pride."
Finally, with these his own words our St. John summoned to Christ the Lamb in heaven St. Edward, king of the English, in the year of the Lord 1066. Concerning whom hear Alred, Abbot of Citeaux (who flourished in the year of the Lord 1164), in his Life. St. Edward "denied nothing to anyone asking in the name of St. John the Evangelist; for after the chief of the Apostles he loved him most closely. Whence it happened that a certain pilgrim, in the absence of the chamberlain, importunately asked alms of the king in the name of St. John the Evangelist. To whom the King, having nothing else at hand, gave a precious ring. After this, it happened that two Englishmen set out to Jerusalem to adore the sepulcher of the Saviour. Who one day, turning aside from the public road, followed deviating ways; and as the sun set, dark night came on. And when they did not know what to do, where to turn, there appeared to them a certain venerable old man, who led them back to the city. Being received in hospitality, a table is prepared, and being most sumptuously refreshed they give their limbs to rest. But in the morning, when they had gone out from the city, the old man said: Brethren, do not doubt that you will return to your homeland with the highest prosperity; for God will make your way prosperous, and I, for love of your king, will fix my eyes upon you on every road. For I am the Apostle of Christ John, who embrace your king on account of the merit of his chastity with the highest love. Take back therefore this ring, which he gave to me appearing in pilgrim's habit, announcing to him that the day of his death is at hand; whom within six months I will visit, that he may follow with me the Lamb whithersoever He goes. With these words he disappeared; and they, returning prosperously to their fatherland, related in order to the king what they had seen and heard."
HI EMPTI SUNT (how they were purchased I told at the end of verse 3) from among men, the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. — First, because they offered virginity as it were as firstfruits most pleasing to God. For as the first fruits, by their newness, are most savory and most pleasing, so also virginity is to God. He alludes to Jeremiah chapter 2, verse 3: "Israel is holy to the Lord, the first-fruits of His harvest: all they that devour him offend." For just as Israel before all the Gentiles was chosen and beloved by God, and offered to Him as firstfruits, so as to be the first faithful and holy people: so out of all Christians the virgins, as it were the most noble firstfruits and most acceptable to God, are set apart and offered. Second, just as through the firstfruits of crops offered to God, all the rest of the crops were reckoned offered to God and blessed by Him, as is plain in Proverbs 3:9, where it is said: "Honor God with your substance, and give Him of the firstfruits of all your fruits, and your barns shall be filled with abundance, and your presses shall run over with wine." So likewise through virgins as it were as firstfruits offered to God, God blesses and benefits all their families and the whole Church, by making them fruitful and increasing them with temporal and spiritual goods. Whence St. Ambrose, in book III On Virginity, teaches that where there are many virgins, there spouses are more fruitful.
Excellently St. Jerome, in book I Against Jovinian, who equated marriage with virginity: "If virgins are the firstfruits of God; therefore widows and the continent in matrimony will be after the firstfruits, that is in the second and third grade: nor will the lost people be able to be saved before, unless it offers such victims of chastity to God, and reconciles the immaculate Lamb with most pure sacrifices."
Verse 5: In Their Mouth Was Found No Lie
5. AND IN THEIR MOUTH THERE WAS FOUND NO LIE. — Because they were utterly far removed from heresy and idolatry (which are most pernicious lies against God and the worship of God, and which will most flourish in the time of Antichrist). For the proximate disposition to these is license of the flesh and lust, which, as it impelled Solomon to idolatry, 3 Kings 11:1, so today impels many to heresy and infidelity, and will impel more at the end of the world. Just as therefore those who indulge in flesh and Venus easily fall into heresy, so virgins who resist the vices of the flesh have been and will be far removed from it.
Second, the glory of virgins is sincerity and truth, and virginity itself brings this candor with it, because, since they strive to please God alone, there is no reason why they should win over the favors of men by flatteries, lies, deceits, and tricks; so that of them may deservedly be said what Christ said of Nathanael, John 1:47: "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile." Just as therefore we commonly say, Show me a liar, and I will show you a thief; for lying accompanies theft; for thieves conceal and protect their thefts by lies: so likewise, if doubt about anyone's chastity arises, you may say: Show me a liar, I will show you an unchaste person: show me a truthful one, I will show you a chaste one. Hence the Arabic translates: and there is not found anything of lying in their mouth.
SINE MACULA (in Greek αμωμοι, that is, unblamable, irreprehensible) FOR THEY ARE BEFORE THE THRONE OF GOD. — The "for" gives the cause of what precedes, namely why no lie was found in their mouth, and consequently why they are chosen as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb, because they were and are pure and immaculate, because they led a virginal and angelic life without spot. Understand a more grievous spot which could be cast against them, e.g., of lying, lust, etc. For otherwise no one passes through this life without some venial fault and spot. "For if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves," says John, 1 Epistle, chapter 1, verse 6.
Note here ten epithets and eulogies of the virgins. First, in verse 1, that they stand with the Lamb upon Mount Sion. Second, that they have the name of the Lamb and the name of His Father written on their foreheads. Third, in verse 2, that they are cithara-players of God, but resounding as thunder. Fourth, in verse 3, that they alone sing the new canticle before the throne of God, the four living creatures, and the twenty-four elders. Fifth, that they are purchased from the earth. Sixth, in verse 4, that they were not defiled with women: for they are virgins. Seventh, that they follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes. Eighth, that they are firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. Ninth, in verse 5, that no lie is found in their mouth. Tenth, that they are without spot before the throne of God.
Hence we read of similar eulogies given to many virgins. Thus the Angels placed this epitaph on St. Agatha: "A holy, spontaneous mind, honor to God, and liberation of the fatherland." Thus the Nobles of Poland, in the name of the whole kingdom, established this eulogy, as it were a summary of his life, for Blessed Stanislaus Kostka: "To a youth most chaste, of noble birth most humble, of riches most poor, contemptor of human things, and most sharp conqueror of himself, etc., who as a boy, when sick, deserved to be visited by Jesus with His mother, and to be refreshed with the bread of heaven by two Angels, in the presence of St. Barbara the Martyr. Who from desire of a perfect life, neglecting his nobility of family and his most ample fortunes, gave his name to the Society of Jesus; in which most tenacious of the religious institute, in a short time becoming a model of exact discipline, was called away, beyond all hope (his death having been foretold), more quickly to the rewards promised to those who strive vigorously, in the 18th year of his age, in the year of Christ 1568, on the 14th day of August: being born in Poland, living in the Religious Order, dying in Rome, and thence seeking heaven, he illustrated by his glory. On account of the glory of his works after death which were to be admired, by Pope Clement VIII granted the appellation of Blessed; by Paul V, by public placement, and a lamp lit at his sepulcher, augmented," etc.
Finally Sostratus of Byzantium in Achilles Tatius, book II, relates that there was a grove at Byzantium, and in it an olive tree, which by a stupendous prodigy is said to have been made fruitful by a fiery shower. And Pausanias in his Attica relates that the olive tree of Minerva, when the city was burned by the Persians, was consumed in flames, and on the same day grew to the height of two cubits. The olive is the symbol of a virgin, who from harm itself seeks gain and unconquered strength, which begets eternal triumphs. Excellently Tertullian to the Martyrs: "It is a transaction to lose something, that you may gain greater." A man and virgin who is patient is therefore like the sky, which through and after the clouds is calmed and grows bright.
Verse 6: Another Angel Flying Through the Midst of Heaven
6. AND I SAW ANOTHER ANGEL FLYING. — "Another," namely from Michael, of whom in chapter 12, verse 7. Or rather, "another," in Greek αλλον, that is another and distinct, namely from the two following in verses 8 and 9. So Alcazar. For John saw here three Angels, of whom the first announces the day of judgment, the second the fall of Babylon, the third the wrath of God, fire, and brimstone of Gehenna upon those who shall have worshiped the beast.
You ask, who are these? First, Alcazar, referring all these things to the primitive Church, takes three leaders of Christ, opposed to three hostile leaders, namely the dragon, the beast of the sea, and the beast of the land, that is, the devil, the world, and the flesh: e.g., St. John, Paul, and Peter, who animated the soldiers of Christ to subdue the kingdom of the dragon and of paganism. For the voice of the first Angel is taken from St. John, of the second from St. Paul, of the third from St. Peter. The first therefore, namely St. John, flies through the midst of heaven, because, like an eagle, he gazed upon divine things, and flew up to the Most Holy Trinity Itself, saying: "In the beginning was the Word," etc. Again, he flies through the midst of heaven, that he may be seen and heard by all. He has the eternal Gospel, because he preached and wrote the Gospel, that is, the most joyful message, concerning the overthrown devil, and concerning the everlasting felicity and joys which God promised to those who fear Him, so that they may fear neither Domitian, nor torments, nor death, but God alone.
Furthermore, in that he cries out: "Because the hour of His judgment is come," he does not mean the last judgment, but that of which Christ speaks in John 12:31: "Now is the judgment of the world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out." For Christ at His first coming drove out the demon from his unjust possession, that is, from the Gentiles: and then was the judgment, in Greek κρισις, that is, the day, as it were, decisive of disease and death, that is, of the expulsion of the devil. The second Angel, namely Paul, sings the ruin of Babylon, that is, of pagan Rome and of the pagan Roman Empire, when Constantine and his Christian successors began to reign; for this Paul predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:7, saying: "For the mystery of iniquity already works; only that he who now holds, hold, until he be taken out of the way." The third Angel is St. Peter, who like an Angel here, directs the eternal fires of Gehenna at carnal and luxurious men. But I say that this Angel, like the two following ones shown to John in vision, symbolically signify three preachers, through whom these things which are here recounted by John, the Angels will proclaim to the whole world at its end. Hence they fly through the middle of heaven, as is signified by preachers who will run through the middle of the world and all its regions throughout the whole Church, which is here called heaven, as I said in chapter XII, verse 2, that these things would have to be proclaimed. We saw something similar in chapter VIII, verses 6 and 13. For the sweet providence of God uses men, not Angels, to teach and admonish men. So Ticonius, Beda, Rupertus, Ansbertus, Anselmus, Gagneius, Ribera and others. Whence also Victorinus by these three Angels understands three famous preachers, of whom the first will be Elijah, the second Elijah's companion, whom he himself thinks will be Jeremiah, but falsely, as I said in chapter XI; the third someone similar to these.
Secondly, we can, with Viegas, refer these three Angels to an imaginary vision, namely that John seemed to himself to see them, and to hear them speaking thus, only for this purpose, that he might commit to writing the things which he saw and heard: not however that these Angels would represent the preachers to come at the time of Antichrist. For something similar occurs in verse 13.
HAVING THE ETERNAL GOSPEL. — The Gospel is called eternal, because God and Christ in it announce and promise to His followers eternal goods in heaven, that men may despise temporary pleasures equally with their punishments; whence He cries out: "Fear the Lord, for the hour of His judgment comes (that is, draws near, is at hand)." Wherefore anagogically S. Jerome, in his epistle to Avitus, On what is to be avoided in Origen's books Peri Archon: "The Gospel everlasting, that is, the one to come in heaven." It is called "everlasting" in comparison, namely, with this our Gospel, which is temporal, and preached in this transitory world and age. Furthermore the Gospel which will be preached to the Blessed in heaven will be the announcement and revelation of beatitude and of all goods in God, and that these will endure unto them forever.
Aureolus by this Angel understands St. Boniface, who, sent by Pope Gregory in the year of Christ 741, preached the Gospel to the harsh Frisians, Thuringians, and Austrians, and shook them with fear of judgment and Gehenna, and impelled them to the worship, fear, and love of the one God. But this is an adaptation and application, not an explanation of this Angel, who will be at the end of the world.
Verse 7: Fear the Lord, for the Hour of His Judgment is Come
7. SAYING WITH A LOUD VOICE: FEAR THE LORD, AND GIVE HIM HONOUR, BECAUSE THE HOUR OF HIS JUDGMENT IS COME. — Again, Vincentius Justinianus in the Life of Blessed Vincent Ferrer, part I, chapter XII, asserts that a certain dead man was publicly restored to life before many by Blessed Vincent, in order that by this miracle he might confirm that he was that Angel which Apocalypse, chapter XIV, verse 6, related to have been seen by John flying through the midst of heaven and crying out: "Fear the Lord, for the hour of His judgment comes." He understands the Angel not literally, but symbolically, and similar to the literal one, namely one who was sent by God to undertake a similar embassy, and lead men to penitence and fear of God, and who likewise as this Angel would cry out: "Fear the Lord, for the hour of His judgment comes."
Morally St. Augustine in Sentences, sentence 248: "To every good work, love and fear of God lead; to every sin, love and fear of the world lead. That good may be grasped, and evil avoided, one must discern what ought to be loved, and what to be feared."
Verse 8: Babylon Is Fallen, Is Fallen
8. AND ANOTHER ANGEL FOLLOWED, SAYING: BABYLON THAT GREAT CITY IS FALLEN, IS FALLEN. — He alludes to Jeremiah LI, 8: "Suddenly Babylon has fallen and is broken." And to Isaiah XXI, 9: "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and all the graven images of her gods are broken to the earth." In which passages the Prophets literally describe the fall and destruction of Babylon and the kingdom of the Chaldeans about to come through Cyrus. Furthermore, what John here understands literally, I shall say at chapter XVII, verse 5, and throughout chapter XVIII; for there this destruction of Babylon is graphically depicted; wherefore these things should be referred to that place. For there is in the Apocalypse, as also in the other Prophets, frequent hysterology, as I said in the Canons prefixed to Isaiah. These things therefore pertain to chapter XVIII, verse 2; for there it is said: "Babylon is fallen, is fallen;" unless you say that "fallen" is here taken otherwise, namely so as to signify an act about to happen and as it were beginning: "it has fallen," that is, it now begins to fall, and shortly Babylon will fall in a steep collapse.
Aureolus by Babylon understands Constantinople, and thinks that here is foretold the destruction of the Empire of Constantinople, because most of its Emperors were heretics, either Arians, or Eutychians, or Monothelites, or Iconoclasts, or Schismatics.
Verse 9: The Third Angel Followed Them
9. AND THE THIRD ANGEL FOLLOWED THEM, SAYING WITH A LOUD VOICE: IF ANY MAN SHALL ADORE THE BEAST AND HIS IMAGE, AND RECEIVE HIS CHARACTER IN HIS FOREHEAD, OR IN HIS HAND. — The threat of this third Angel is treated together with the warning of verse 10, where the punishment of those who adore the beast is described. The character of Antichrist, opposed to the name of the Lamb and of the Father written on the foreheads of the virgins (verse 1), is the mark by which his followers will be distinguished; and to receive it is to consent to Antichrist's worship and dominion. See what was said in chapter XIII at the end concerning this character.
Verse 10: He Shall Drink of the Wine of the Wrath of God
10. AND HE SHALL DRINK OF THE WINE OF THE WRATH OF GOD, WHICH IS MINGLED WITH PURE WINE. — Erasmus translates, of the wine of God's wrath, which has been poured in, or proffered as pure, that is unmixed and undiluted. For the Greek κεραννυσθαι, that is to mix, also means to pour in and to proffer: for in ancient times they drank from horns, whence from κερας, that is horn, mixing-bowls were called craters, as if κερατηρες: thence κεραννυειν means to pour into a horn, or another similar vessel. So Athenaeus in the Deipnosophists, book XI, and others. Hence antiquity even attached horns to Dionysus (that is, Bacchus, who was the inventor of wine); indeed they even called him a bull.
But it is better to translate it properly here, which is mixed. For the ancients (as the Italians, Spanish, French, etc. still do, and physicians teach this to be most useful and as it were a divine invention) for the sake both of health and of sobriety, mixed and diluted wine with water, as Athenaeus teaches in the place cited, and Plutarch, book VIII of the Symposiacs, question VI. For the most ancient drank pure wine, but not without harm: whence Polyphemus in the tragedy of Aristias, entitled Cyclops, rebuked Ulysses, saying: "You have ruined the liquor of wine by pouring in water," as if wine were corrupted by water, whereas on the contrary, in the judgment of physicians, it is rendered better and more healthful: wherefore Staphylus, son of Sithenus, taught and discovered diluting wine with water, as Pliny attests, book VII, chapter LVI. Furthermore Genebrard in his Chronology: "Among the Greeks the first, Melampus the physician prescribed diluting wine with water about the year of the world 2847; at which time among the Hebrews, the judges were Deborah and Barak, forty years before Gideon; namely, from the latest times the Greeks gave themselves to pure wine: hence to Graecize." Thus Plato admonishes that we temper the drunken god Bacchus with the Nymphs (that is, with waters: for the Nymphs preside over these), with the sober goddesses. A common verse recounts the three benefits of wine mixed with water, that is, diluted with water. For he says:
Watered, it grows, it sweetens, it cannot harm.
John therefore says that this wine of God's wrath will be mixed, not with water, but with pure wine, that is with another pure wine. For such wine thus mixed with another is more potent and more intoxicating. So Andreas, Ribera, and others, as if he were saying: This wrath and punishment of God will be mitigated by no clemency, by no consolation, but rather will be increased by every desolation and pain. For thus to mix is taken elsewhere, as in Isaiah XIX, verse 14: "The Lord has mingled (Septuagint εκερασε) in the midst thereof a spirit of giddiness," that is, God has mingled in her (Egypt) various spirits of errors and giddiness. Proverbs IX, verse 5: "Drink the wine which I have mingled for you." For the ancients were temperate, and therefore diluted wine with water, as I have already said. Psalm LXXIV, 9: "In the hand of the Lord is a cup of pure wine full of mixture." If pure, how mixed? I answer, it is pure and yet mixed with another pure wine, or with the dregs of wine, from which we shrink, so that it may more quickly and more vehemently induce stupor and drunkenness in the drinker. Isaiah V, verse 22: "Woe to you that are mighty to drink wine, and stout men at mingling drunkenness!" In Hebrew, at mingling shechar, that is sicera, that is intoxicating drinks, e.g. various wines which more disturb the stomach and brain, and therefore more intoxicate. In these places for mixed and to mix, in Hebrew it is מסך masach, which properly signifies to mix (indeed, the Latin misceo seems to be derived from masach), not to pour in, for נסך nasach signifies to pour in, not masach. Since therefore the Septuagint translate the Hebrew masach as εκερασε, it follows that this likewise signifies to mix, not to pour in.
Verse 11: The Smoke of Their Torments Shall Ascend
11. AND THE SMOKE OF THEIR TORMENTS. — The Syriac and Arabic, smoke of torments, that is, the fire of Gehenna and the punishment of the reprobate. It is a metonymy: for the effect is put for the cause, namely smoke for fire. For in hell there does not seem to be smoke, or smoking fire, because nothing there is corruptible or resoluble, but all things are constant and solid, namely the same in number and always self-consistent sulphurous fire. He alludes to Isaiah chapter XXXIV, verse 10, where the Prophet speaking of the destruction and conflagration of Bozrah, which was the metropolis of Idumaea, by Nebuchadnezzar, says: "Its smoke shall rise up forever." Here therefore is "Tartarus belching forth horrible heats from its jaws," as Lucretius says, book III. Wherefore truly a certain damned man appearing to his friend, who was offering his prayers for him, answered: "Without repentance are the judgments of God in hell. While the pole turns the stars, while the sea beats the shores, I shall be punished for my crimes. If the whole world should seek out remedies for me, yet I shall suffer eternal and innumerable kinds of punishments."
DAY AND NIGHT — that is, always. For properly speaking, among the lower regions there will be no day, just as among the upper regions and the Blessed there will be no night; but for these one perennial day, for those one and perennial night.
Morally, let sinners consider these things, who by sinning have taken on the image of the beast, that is of the devil, likewise those whom the beast tempts and solicits to sin, namely what are the fruits, what are the punishments of sin. Namely first, that the sinner shall drink of the wine of wrath, that is, of the gall of God. Second, that this wine is mixed with the pure of all torments, without any water or drop of consolation. Third, that he shall be tortured with fire and sulphur. Fourth, that he shall be a reproach and mockery in the sight of the holy Angels, and before the sight of the Lamb. Fifth, that the smoke of his torments shall ascend forever and ever. Sixth, that he shall never have rest day or night, nor from the bodily fire, nor from the worm of conscience throughout all eternity. Considering these things let him be struck, and say: I will not be so foolish as to buy eternal gall for a little honey, that for the modest pleasure of sin I should summon upon myself the immense fires and sulphur of Gehenna: "For momentary is that which delights, but eternal that which tortures."
Wherefore by these words of the Apocalypse St. Cyprian, book IV, epistle 6, exhorts the faithful to resist tyrants and Antichrist even unto martyrdom. "Antichrist comes, but Christ also follows; the enemy rages and storms, but at once the Lord follows, to avenge our sufferings and wounds. The adversary is angered and threatens, but there is One who can deliver from his hands. He is to be feared, whose anger no one can escape. If anyone worships the beast and his image, etc., he shall drink of the wine of God's wrath." And shortly after: "Behold a sublime and great contest, glorious with the prize of the heavenly crown, that God may behold us contending, and upon those whom He has deigned to make His sons, opening His eyes, may enjoy the spectacle of our combat. His Angels behold, Christ also beholds. How great is the dignity of glory, how great the happiness, to engage with God presiding, and to be crowned with Christ as judge? Let honor provoke the unfallen, sorrow the fallen, to battle." And below: "O what a day and how great a one will come, brothers, when the Lord shall begin to count up His people, and by the examination of divine knowledge to recognize the merits of each one, to send into Gehenna the harmful and our persecutors, but to us indeed to pay out the reward of faith and devotion," etc.
Verse 12: Here Is the Patience of the Saints
12. HERE IS THE PATIENCE OF THE SAINTS, WHO KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD, AND THE FAITH OF JESUS. — These are the words not of the third Angel, but of John, who utters this as a kind of epiphonema, and adds it to the three voices of the three Angels, as if to say: When Babylon shall have fallen, and all the impious shall drink of the cup of God's wrath, then shall appear the fruit not of faith alone, as the heretics will have it, but of the patience and obedience of the Saints, who, fearing the Lord and the day of judgment, amid so many impious, amid so many temptations, persecutions, torments and martyrdoms, constantly even unto death have kept both the faith of Jesus and the commandments of God. For these will be immune from the plagues with which the impious will be punished on the day of judgment, and moreover will be endowed with ample rewards, namely eternal happiness.
Verse 13: Blessed Are the Dead Who Die in the Lord
13. AND I HEARD A VOICE FROM HEAVEN SAYING TO ME: WRITE: BLESSED ARE THE DEAD WHO DIE IN THE LORD. — Some understand these things of the Martyrs, who die "in the Lord," that is for the Lord, or on account of the Lord. So Jacob, Genesis XXIX, verse 18, in the Hebrew is said to have served ברחל Berachel, that is in Rachel, that is, for Rachel, seven years to Laban: and so elsewhere often ב, that is in, is taken for on account of. So St. Ambrose, Ansbertus, Haymo, Alcazar, who says: This voice speaks of those who have firmly resolved to die rather (for this the "they die" signifies as a decree of dying) than to admit anything criminal against God, as if to say: Those who immediately and firmly settle within themselves to gladly sacrifice life itself to Christ, and devote themselves to death when needed: from that very moment of time they will begin to enjoy great peace and tranquility of soul, and to rest from labors and hardships. For this is what He adds: "Now indeed, says the Spirit, that they may rest," as if to say: Before they actually die, as soon as they devote themselves to death for Christ, from that time they shall rest, with their labors laid aside, as though they had really fallen. See here how effective and happy is a serious and effective resolution of serving God; for it makes the faithful pass life entirely peaceful and tranquil, as soon as they have made up their mind, and have firmly resolved to embrace strenuously the cross of Christ, His labors and death; again it makes them effective in work, as I shall soon say.
But others more plainly and fully refer these things to any Saints, whether Confessors or Martyrs. For all these are blessed, because they die "in the Lord," that is in faith, charity and grace, and the friendship of God. So Primasius, Andreas, Beda, Richardus, Joachim, Pannonius and others. Whence St. Bernard: "To die for the Lord belongs to Martyrs; but to die in the Lord, to Confessors." Again, in "the Lord," that is, in the Lord's hand as it were, or rather bosom, "they die," that is, sleeping they rest, just as of St. Stephen, Acts chapter VII, it is said (which the pious still use of the death of the faithful, and say): "He fell asleep in the Lord."
BLESSED ARE THE DEAD, etc. — Excellently does St. Cyprian, exhorting his people to brave patience, in his book On Mortality, or on the plague then raging: "Let adversities not weaken nor break the faith of Christians, but rather let them show virtue in the struggle, since every injury of present evils ought to be despised, with confidence in future goods. The pilot is recognized in a storm, the soldier is proved in battle. Misfortunes do not call us away from the virtue of faith, but strengthen us in pain, etc. How great a sublimity to stand erect amid the ruins of the human race!" And shortly: "Mortality bestows on Christians what martyrdom does: we have begun to desire it gladly, since we learn not to fear death. It is not an exit, but a transit, and after the temporal journey is run, a passage to the eternal." So also St. Bernard, chapter XV On the Nature and Dignity of Divine Love, calls death a Pasch. "This transit to life the wretched unbelievers call death, but the faithful what, except Pasch? because one dies to the world, in order to live perfectly to God. He enters the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God." Again St. Cyprian, book IV, epistle 6 to the people of Thibaris: "A heavier and fiercer fight now threatens, for which the soldiers of Christ ought to prepare themselves with robust virtue (the persecution of Decius and Valerian being imminent), considering on this account that they daily drink the cup of the blood of Christ, that they too may shed their blood for Christ." The same in his Exhortation to Martyrdom teaches "the injuries and penalties of persecutions are not to be feared, because the Lord is greater to protect, than the devil to assail." Wherefore "in persecutions let no one consider what danger the devil may bring, but consider what help God supplies. Let no one think it difficult or arduous to become a Martyr, when he sees that the people of Martyrs cannot be numbered." The same (or whoever the Author may be), in the treatise On the Praise of Martyrdom, gives these titles or incentives scattered to martyrdom: First: "Fearless, it gives courage to pain." Second: "The mind grows in the fight; though struck more often, it sticks immovable, like a rock struck by waves." Third: "It condemns life by death, so as to keep life by death." Fourth: "The soldier loaded with triumphal spoils from the enemy rejoices in his wounds." Fifth: "Nor must they fear, whose hope is of eternity and heavenly life, and salvation rejoices in the promised immortality." Sixth: "Whose mind despises this world, and the face of the age is estranged, to whom this world is always in place of a prison. Nor can you love martyrdom, unless first you hate the world." Seventh: "By martyrdom you are adorned as it were with the blood of Christ as your companion." And toward the beginning: "Although the rebounding hook returns into the wound on the lasting ribs, and as the scourges go forth, the thong returning with a torn-away part of the body is drawn back, yet he stands immovable, stronger than his pains: rolling this alone within himself, that in that cruelty of the executioners, Christ Himself suffers more for whom he suffers. What then is martyrdom? the end of crimes, the limit of danger, the leader of salvation, the master of patience, the house of life: which once accomplished, those things also die which in future trial might have been reckoned torments." See the same in his book On the Good of Patience. Moreover St. Augustine in Sentences, sentence 148: "Death, even of the pious, is the penalty of sin. But for this reason it is called good for them, because they use well those things, of which it is the end of temporal evils, and the transit to eternal life. For as injustice ill uses not only evil things, but even good ones: so justice well uses not only good things, but even evil ones." This good use is chiefly accomplished by patience, as St. John here indicates, of which St. Augustine, sentence 33: "The whole salvation of the faithful, the whole strength of patience, must be referred to Him who is wonderful in His Saints; because unless the Lord were in them, human frailty would succumb to the fury of the impious."
Note: Ambrose and Alcazar by the dead here understand those who are dead not to the body, but to the world, or who are dead not physically, but mystically and spiritually; for those who are physically dead can no longer die, which however is here said of the dead. For He says: "Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord." Whence Aureolus refers these things to the restoration of Monasticism on Monte Cassino in the year of Christ 716, when also Carloman, brother of Pippin king of the Franks, became a monk there, as also Chilperic, King of the Franks, and other sons of kings and princes became monks. For monks are mystically and civilly dead, both because they have died to secular affairs, and because with St. Paul they always carry about the mortification of Jesus, in the body, and still more in the soul. Of whom the same Apostle says in Colossians III, verse 3: "You are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." Hence these rejoice in a twofold fruit. The former is, that they enjoy continual peace and joy of conscience, as experience shows, and the divine voice here promises, saying: "That they may rest from their labors." The latter is, that "their works follow them," because since with their firm resolution they have as it were swallowed up death, on this account afterwards in the work itself they do not fail in strength, but rather are found stable, and effective in their actions, constant, patient, and faithful lovers of Christ, according to that of Proverbs XII, 20: "Joy follows those who take counsels of peace."
But these are partly accommodative, partly mystical and tropological. I say therefore that literally the "dead" is taken broadly, namely for the dead both in the present and the future, and in the past, so that it signifies both those dying and about to die, and those already in fact dead, as if to say: "Blessed" are "the dead," that is, those dying, those about to die, and those dead; who die, will die, or are dead in the Lord. For thus the Hebrews often extend the tenses of their verbs, so that under the past they understand present and future; and conversely under the present, past and future, and under the future, present and past.
Furthermore, that one may die in the Lord, he must live in the Lord, that is, in the grace, law, and will of God. Balaam said in Numbers chapter XXIII, 10: "Let my soul die the death of the just, and let my last end be like theirs." But more wisely he might have said: "Let my soul live the life of the just, that it may die the death of the just." For generally a good death follows a good life, and an evil death an evil life, as St. Augustine says. As therefore one cannot die at Rome who has not lived at Rome; so he who has not lived in God will not be able to die in God: and on the contrary, he who has lived joined with God, in God also will die.
Finally note here that the blessed are not called the living, but the dead, that it may be signified that before death no one is, nor ought to be called, blessed. The Greek text more clearly signifies this, which so distinguishes, that the "now" which follows is the end of the preceding sentence, so that the sense is: "From now on," that is, hereafter, blessed will be those who shall have died in the Lord. Finally there follows: ναι λεγει το πνευμα, that is, even says the Spirit, or certainly says the Spirit; for the το ναι is of one affirming and asseverating. The Gentile Philosopher Solon saw this same thing as through a shadow, when Croesus, the wealthy king of the Lydians, displaying his wealth, asked him whether he knew anyone happier than himself; Solon answered that he knew Tellus, his fellow citizen, who having left honorable children, since nothing in life had been lacking to him, had fallen with praise, fighting bravely for his country. Then Croesus asked, after Tellus, whether he knew anyone else more blessed; Solon answered that he knew Cleobis and Biton, men of singular piety both toward each other and toward their mother, who when the oxen tarried, themselves submitted to the yoke of the wagon, and drew their mother to the temple of Juno, to the joy of the citizens who applauded: thence after the sacred rites had been performed and they had feasted, they did not rise the next day, but in such great glory had sweetly exchanged life for death. What of us? (said Croesus, now inflamed with anger) do you count us in no number among the blessed? to whom Solon: "Blessed is he whose prosperity God has confirmed by his end and death; but the happiness of one still living, and exposed to perils in life, like the announcement and crown of one still contending, is fleeting and vain." Croesus took this hard, and a little later, captured by Cyrus and condemned to the pyre, he cried out: Solon, Solon, Solon, now I find that your judgment about happiness was true. So Plutarch in his Solon. For this reason the Church calls the day of the Saints' death their birthday, because on it they are reborn into the blessed and glorious life. She therefore calls and reverences as birthdays of the Saints, not those on which they are born with sin to mortal life, but those on which through temporal death they pass to the blessed and immortal life.
Morally St. John here intimates that the death of those is blessed and perfect, who breathe out their soul "in the Lord," that is, in the commemoration, invocation, and love of the Lord God, and therefore in an act of charity; which therefore must be desired by all and actually done. Thus St. Augustine died reciting with tears the penitential Psalms in an act of contrition, which is an act of the love of God, as Possidius attests in his Life. St. Jerome died exhorting his people to the love of God and neighbor. St. Ambrose, suddenly after the holy Eucharist was caught up, expired conversing with Christ the Savior. St. Anthony of Padua rendered his soul to God, having recited a hymn to the Blessed Virgin, rejoicing in Christ. St. Thomas Aquinas, with eyes and hands lifted to heaven, in a loud voice pronouncing those words of Canticles chapter VII, verse 11, last expounded by him: "Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field," dying flew up to heaven. St. Louis with eyes fixed on heaven, sighing with ardent hope and love: "I will enter into Thy house, O Lord, I will adore at Thy holy temple, and confess to Thy name," rendered his spirit to God and heaven. Blessed Peter Celestine, who renouncing the pontificate returned to the desert, decrepit after great labors and crosses, singing the one-hundred-fiftieth psalm like a swan, at its last words: "Let every spirit praise the Lord," died. John Gerson, Chancellor of Paris, in whom sanctity contended with doctrine in excellence, having explained fifty properties of divine love from the Canticle of Canticles, with living face, mouth, and heart, repeatedly saying and sighing: "O Lord, Thy love is strong as death," rendered his loving soul to the beloved God. St. Francis Xavier, apostle of the Indies, holding in his hand and frequently kissing Christ crucified, and reiterating: "O Jesus, God of my heart," deposited his spirit into His heart.
More blessed are those who die not only in an act, but from an act and force of the love of God. Thus did the Blessed Virgin die, from languor and desire of seeing her Christ Son. For she said that of the Spouse in the Canticles: "Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples, because I languish with love." Thus from love died St. Mary Magdalene, who daily by the force of love was lifted by the Angels seven times into the air. For one Sunday being caught up into the church, and there given to contemplation, drenched with tears, with arms lifted up, receiving the Holy Eucharist from St. Maximinus, she flew away to Christ her beloved. St. Francis from the vehemence of love often suffered ecstasies and faintings, and at last having received the sacred stigmata, was as it were transformed into Christ crucified; with his natural strength and spirits consumed, by the force of divine love he wasted away, and growing faint, pronouncing that of the one-hundred-forty-first Psalm: "Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Thy name; the just wait for me, until Thou render reward unto me," he expired in the forty-fifth year of his age. Thus through the vehemence of love St. Catherine of Siena shortened her life and hastened her death, dying in flowering age, in her thirty-third year; St. Charles Borromeo, dying in the 46th year of his age; our Stanislaus Kostka, whose heart so burned with love that it had to be frequently cooled by water poured on it, whence he did not reach the twentieth year of his age.
FROM HENCEFORTH NOW SAYS THE SPIRIT, THAT THEY MAY REST (wrongly Beza, "because they rest") FROM THEIR LABORS. — "From now on," that is, from now on and henceforth forever, namely from the moment of death they at once rest, and shall rest forever. So Ambrose, Haymo, Beda, as if to say: Until death we must labor, contend, suffer; after death it is said: "When He shall give sleep to His beloved, behold the inheritance of the Lord." So, says St. Bernard, sermon On Virgins, "St. Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, on his way to Rome, when he had come to Autun, turned aside to the tomb of St. Cassianus; whom calling by his own name: What, are you doing, dearest brother? And he from the tomb: Sweetly, in peace I rest, and await the coming of the Redeemer." For "now" in Greek there is ναι, that is, indeed, certainly, just so, yea truly, deservedly so.
The heretics object: If all the just immediately after death rest from their labors; therefore none go to Purgatory and its torments. I answer denying the consequence. For first, what is said here that the just rest from labors, understand those of this life, namely which they have endured in the mortification of passions, in the observance of the divine law, and in the toleration of persecutions. For these immediately after death shall rest from these; but if they still have any taint, that must be wiped away in Purgatory. Add that they rest in Purgatory in certain hope of salvation and glory soon to come, which, when it shall arrive, they shall actually enter into eternal rest.
Second, Turrianus, and from him Francisco Suarez, part III, treatise On Penance, disp. XLV, sect. 1, judge that St. John here speaks only of the perfectly just, who are bound by no taint of fault, even venial, by no debt of penalty to be paid for fault, but are wholly pure and free. For these, since they have no debt, immediately pass into eternal rest.
Third, Gregory of Valencia, part III, treatise On the Places of Souls after Death, disp. XI, Quest. I, point 1, answers that the word "now" is not referred to the determinate time of the death of any just person, but to that whole time of the militant Church. For God willed here to signify that at this very time in which the Church now contends on earth and suffers persecutions, she also has her place in the heavenly kingdom, and there is some triumphant Church, where the Blessed rest when they have been fully purged: nor does she await the time of the last judgment and the resurrection of bodies, that the souls of the pious may be received into beatitude, and this in order by this reason to encourage them to constancy in persecution. Whence preceded: "Here," that is, in this time, "is the patience of the Saints, who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus;" and immediately He adds: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, henceforth," etc. So also St. Augustine, book XX of The City of God, chapter IX.
SPIRIT, — το πνευμα, namely the Holy Spirit. Second, Haymo, Richard, and Ansbertus: "Spirit, that is, the Most Holy Trinity." Third, Pannonius: "Spirit, that is, the Angel who was speaking to John."
FOR THEIR WORKS (for δε, that is but, is taken for γαρ, that is for: so notes Maldonatus and Beza confesses) FOLLOW THEM. — In Greek μετ αυτων, that is with them, as if to say: They accompany them closely and inseparably (as servants accompany their master, especially a prince, says Hugo), so that they may appear before the king of glory with a most beautiful retinue of works. "To what end," says St. Bernard, "do works follow the Saints, unless that their works may praise them in the gates?"
Second, works, that is, the rewards of works. So Anselm, Richard, Haymo. Works therefore precede in merit, but will follow in reward. In death friends, riches, honors will desert us; only works will follow us, as Barlaam declares to king Josaphat with beautiful similitudes, in Damascene's History, chapter XIII. Death therefore strips man of riches, not of works. Note: As good works follow a man, so also do evil ones. Whence St. Augustine, homily 42, among the 50, chapter VIII: "This is the unhappiness of men: those things for which they sin (namely riches, delights, honors), they leave behind here when they die, and they carry their sins with themselves." On the contrary, the Saints leave behind here their labors and pains, by which they have merited, and carry the very virtues and merits with themselves to the reward soon to be obtained. Beautifully St. Bernard, sermon 2 on the Feast of All Saints: "How great is the happiness of those, how immense the joy, who indeed exult with a threefold joy: from the remembrance of past virtue, from the experience of present quiet, from the certain expectation of future consummation! For each of the souls to whom it has now been granted to attain to this rest say: In peace in the selfsame I will sleep, and I will rest, for Thou, Lord, singularly hast settled me in hope. And: Turn, O my soul, into thy rest, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. For He hath delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling. This is the most sweet bed of the soul, which is now washed or moistened with no tears, when God shall wipe away every tear from her eyes." And shortly: "Let therefore the blessed soul's mattress be the purity of her conscience; let her pillow be tranquility; let her covering be security: that in this couch meanwhile she may sleep delightfully, happily rest," etc. And above: "Let no one suspect any small rest or joy of those, who freed from every annoyance whatsoever, recall their years in the sweetness of their soul; rejoice for the days in which they were humbled, the years in which they saw evils; with pleasant admiration and wonderful joy consider the perils which they escaped, the labors which they bore, the contests which they won; and for all these things with certain and undoubting faith await the blessed hope, and the coming of the glory of the great God and their Savior, who shall raise up their bodies configured to the brightness of His own body." The same St. Bernard, epistle 103 to Romanus: "O how blessed the dead, who die in the Lord, hearing from the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors! Not only this, but joy succeeds from novelty, and security from eternity. Good therefore is the death of the just because of rest, better because of novelty, best because of security. On the contrary the death of sinners is worst. And hear from what it is worst. It is evil indeed in the loss of the world, worse in the separation of flesh, worst in the double bruising of worm and fire."
Verse 14: One Like to the Son of Man Upon the White Cloud
14. AND I SAW, AND BEHOLD A WHITE CLOUD, AND UPON THE CLOUD ONE SITTING LIKE TO THE SON OF MAN. — Namely Christ the king and judge, who shall sit in judgment on a white cloud, that He may indicate His brightness, and that in the judgment there will be no place for disguises and pretexts, but all things will be manifest and sincere. He has a sharp sickle, because He comes to reap the whole world and to place an end to it: so Andreas. Whence in Matthew chapter XIII, verse 39, it is said, "the harvest," that is, the reaping, "is the end of the age." Aureolus by the Son of Man understands Pippin, son of Charles Martel, who, having been made king of the Franks in place of Chilperic, that kingdom propagated, conquered the Lombards, and aided the Roman Pontiff. But this is an accommodation, not a genuine interpretation.
Verse 15: Thrust In Thy Sickle, for the Harvest is Ripe
15. AND ANOTHER ANGEL CAME OUT OF THE TEMPLE, — that is, from the heavenly inner sanctuary of God, namely from the place of the Blessed in heaven, bearing to Christ the desire of all the Saints and heavenly ones concerning the consummation of the world, the punishment of the wicked, and the glory of the just: of which He spoke in chapter VI, verse 10: "How long, O Lord, dost Thou not avenge our blood?" He therefore says to Christ:
SEND THY SICKLE (that is, reap), FOR THE HARVEST OF THE EARTH IS DRY. — Alcazar takes the harvest as the abundant crop of souls, and the copious conversion of the Gentiles, which the Apostles, sent by Christ for this very purpose, gathered through their preaching; of which it is said in Luke X, 2: "The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few." But here the harvest of the world on the day of judgment is meant. For it alludes to Joel III, 13: "Send forth the sickles, for the harvest is ripe:" where it is plain that the day of judgment is meant from what preceded in verse 12: "Let them arise, and let the nations come up into the valley of Josaphat, for there I will sit to judge all nations round about." The sense therefore is, as if the Angel said: O Christ, reap, that is, mow down men, animals, and every living thing. For this is what the souls of the Martyrs and all the Saints desire, who sent me as their envoy to Thee for this cause, because the harvest is fully ripe, that is, because the number of the elect is complete, and likewise the course of the world and the ages appointed by God have now run their course. But properly He here means to say that the number of the Elect is complete; for these God especially loves and aims at, and for their sake He arranged the whole world, and either shortened it or prolonged it. And this is the sickle and harvest of wheat. For concerning the sickle of the reprobate there follows next, and the following Angel introduces it. So St. Gregory, book XXXIII Moralia, chapter X, Bede, Ansbertus, Haymo, Pannonius, Viegas, Ribera and others. Why God's judgment is compared to a sickle, St. Gregory gives the reason: "The power of divine judgment, because it embraces all things by cutting them within itself, is signified by the name of a sickle; for in a sickle whatever is cut, in whatever direction it is turned, falls inward. And because the power of supernal judgment is in no way avoided (we are within it, wherever we may try to flee), rightly, when the coming Judge is shown, He is portrayed as holding a sickle: because, while He powerfully meets all things, He cuttingly surrounds them."
Verse 16: The Earth Was Reaped
16. AND HE THAT SAT ON THE CLOUD, THRUST HIS SICKLE INTO THE EARTH, AND THE EARTH WAS REAPED. — Furthermore, Christ complies with the petition of this Angel, and of the Martyrs and the Blessed, and reaps the pious and the elect, and puts an end to the world. For this is what He adds: "And He that sat on the cloud thrust His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped."
Aureolus, following the thread of his chronology, takes this angel as Pope Stephen, who went out from the temple, that is from Rome, in the year of Christ 753, on account of the persecutions of Astulphus, king of the Lombards, and proceeded into France to Pepin, imploring his aid. Pepin therefore, having gathered his forces, as it were with his sickle mowed down the army of Astulphus.
Verse 17: Another Angel Having a Sharp Sickle
17. AND ANOTHER ANGEL CAME OUT OF THE TEMPLE (the heavenly one, as I said in verse 15) HAVING ALSO HIMSELF A SICKLE, — not a reaping one, but a vintaging or pruning one. This sickle then is the curved knife which vintners use in many places, and with which they prune the vines and gather the vintage, and cut off the grapes. This sickle signifies the punishment and destruction of the wicked: for these He will vintage in the following verse.
Thou wilt ask, who is this Angel? Primasius, Ansbertus, Bede, Pannonius, Viegas and others answer that this Angel, like the preceding one, is Christ: for Christ holds both sickles, namely both the reaping sickle of wheat, that is, of the elect, and the vintaging sickle of grapes, that is, of the wicked.
Better, Ribera holds that this is properly an Angel, and one distinct from the preceding ones. For Christ is not called an Angel here, but the Son of man. This Angel therefore comes forth to cooperate with Christ, and at His nod and command to mow down the wicked, while Christ mows down the pious and the saints, as I said in the preceding verse. For fittingly is the rewarding ascribed to Christ, and the punishment to the Angel. For kings, as men whom clemency and liberality befit and adorn, are wont to bestow rewards in person, but to inflict punishments through others: for this royal majesty requires.
Verse 18: Gather the Clusters of the Vineyard of the Earth
18. AND ANOTHER ANGEL CAME OUT FROM THE ALTAR, WHO HAD POWER OVER FIRE: AND HE CRIED WITH A LOUD VOICE TO HIM THAT HAD THE SHARP SICKLE, SAYING: SEND THY SHARP SICKLE, AND GATHER THE CLUSTERS OF THE VINEYARD OF THE EARTH. — Three Angels are distinguished here in verses 15, 17, 18: The first, verse 15, says to the Son of man: "Send Thy sickle, and reap." The second, verse 17, is a vintager about to vintage the clusters of the earth. The third is the one who admonishes the second to vintage the clusters.
Thou wilt ask, who are these? Alcazar answers that these words are taken from Joel chapter III, verse 13: the first Angel therefore is Joel, the second is Moses, the third is Elijah. Moses is a type of wisdom, Elijah of zeal. Therefore mystical Moses, that is wisdom, is here introduced by prosopopoeia, crying out to mystical Elijah, that is to zeal, that he should send forth the sickle and vintage the Confessors of Christ, namely the Martyrs. For zeal it is that impels the Saints to shed their blood for Christ: which Joel foretold would come to pass in the new law under Christ, and Moses and Elijah prefigured. For he himself, like some others, holds that this angel was sent for this purpose, that he might help and confirm the Martyrs in their contest, and therefore he has power over fire, that is, over charity, that he may stir it up in the Martyrs. Therefore mystical Elijah, that is zeal, says to mystical Moses, that is to wisdom: "Send the sickle, and gather the clusters of the earth," because the cutting of these grapes and their being sent into the winepress, that there they may be crushed, that is, passions and martyrdoms, are things which directly attain heavenly wisdom, which God liberally bestows on His martyrs. Furthermore the clusters are cast into the great winepress of the wrath of God, because very great was the number of Martyrs, who by their blood quenched the wrath of God against His enemies, and reconciled Him to men.
Pannonius also takes this Angel as Elijah. For Elijah seems to be indicated, when this angel is said to have power over fire: for this Elijah had, who thrice called fire down from heaven, as I said in chapter XI, verse 5. He however gives another sense, as if to say: Elijah cries to Christ, that He may exercise judiciary power and vengeance on the wicked and the Antichristians at the end of the world.
To this point pertains the exposition and prophecy of Abbot Joachim, who through this angel understood and foretold the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, to be instituted shortly after his time. For of it he speaks thus, expounding this angel: "There shall arise an Order which seems new, and is not. Clothed in black garments, and girded above with a leather belt. These shall grow, and their fame shall be spread abroad: and they shall preach the faith, which they shall also defend unto the consummation of the world in the spirit and power of Elijah. This shall be an Order of Hermits emulating the life of the angels. Whose life shall be as a burning fire in the love and zeal of God, to burn up thorns and briars, that is, to consume and extinguish the pernicious life of the wicked, lest the wicked any longer abuse the patience of God." This oracle of Joachim being cited by St. Antoninus, last title, III part of his Historia, from it he proves that he had the prophetic spirit. For Joachim said and foretold this around the year of the Lord 1200. The Order of Hermits of St. Augustine was instituted, or rather restored, by Pope Innocent IV, in the year of the Lord 1243, as the same St. Antoninus teaches, III part, title XXIV, chapter XIV, and from him Father Hieronymus Platus, book II De Bono status Religiosi, chapter XXII.
Thirdly, Ansbertus and Haymo will have this angel, like the preceding one, to be Christ, who has power over fire, because He can send the Holy Spirit into the hearts of the faithful. For, as He Himself says in Luke XII, 49: "I am come to cast fire on the earth, and what will I but that it be kindled?" He comes forth from the altar, because He is High Priest.
But here it is not a question of martyrdom nor of the sending of the Holy Spirit, but of the day of judgment and vengeance, and consequently this fire is not of charity, but of the conflagration of the world or of hell.
Fourthly, Aureolus and Lyranus understand by this angel holding the sickle Charlemagne, who reaped the infidels; and by the other angel coming out from the altar they understand Pope Adrian, who implored the help of Charles against Desiderius, king of the Lombards: whom therefore Charles took alive, and extinguished the kingdom of the Lombards. But these interpretations are accommodative, not genuine.
I say therefore with Ribera, Viega and others, that the three angels who, besides Christ, of whom verse 14, are here recounted in verses 15, 17 and 18, are these: The first is in verse 15, the envoy of the Martyrs, who in their name beseeches Christ to reap with His sickle the wheat, that is, the Saints and the elect, and to gather and collect them to Himself through angels from the four corners of the world, that they may rise to glory, and ascend with Him to heaven. The second, verse 17, is the angel who at the end of the world shall reap the wicked: hence he has a sharp sickle. The third in this verse is likewise an angel, who commands the second to draw forth the sickle and reap the wicked. This therefore is an angel properly so called, like the second, who shall preside over the wicked both in their death through the second angel, and in the punishments of hell, not through himself, but through demons who shall inflict them. He comes out from the altar, because in chapter VI it is said that under the altar rest the souls of the Martyrs demanding vengeance: thence therefore he comes out as an envoy of the Martyrs, like the first, asking vengeance from God, that He may thrust the murderers of the Martyrs and all the wicked into hell; and having obtained it, he commands the second angel, the executor of divine vengeance, to vintage with his sickle the clusters, that is, the wicked. Hence he has power over fire, that is, that he may bring upon the world the fire of conflagration, says Andrew; or that he may cast the reprobate into the fire of hell, as Aretas and Bede hold, namely by handing them over to demons, who drag them into hell.
Note: Just as by harvest and wheat, both here, and in Matthew III, 12, and chapter XIII, verse 29, the elect are signified: so by vintage and clusters the reprobate are signified, because they shall fill up the cup of divine wrath, to be trodden by it outside the city, that is, outside the Church, or outside heaven, in the infernal winepress, as follows. He alludes again to Joel III, 13, where after the Prophet had said of wheat and harvest: "Send forth the sickles, for the harvest is ripe;" he adds of clusters and vintage: "Come and go down, for the press is full, the fats overflow: because their wickedness is multiplied." So everywhere in Scripture vintage is taken for punishment, as Psalm LXXIX, 13: "Why hast Thou broken down the hedge thereof, and all that pass by the way pluck off her grapes?" Lamentations I, 12, Jerusalem is introduced lamenting in her devastation and saying: "He hath made vintage of me, as the Lord spoke in the day of His fierce anger." And verse 22: "Make vintage of them, as Thou hast made vintage of me." Isaiah also in chapter XVI, verse 9, treating of the destruction of Idumea, says: "Upon thy vintage, and upon thy harvest the voice of the treaders hath rushed in." He alludes also to Zechariah V, 1, where he himself saw a flying sickle according to the Septuagint. So Cyril on that passage.
Verse 19: The Great Press of the Wrath of God
19. AND THE ANGEL THRUST IN HIS SHARP SICKLE INTO THE EARTH, AND GATHERED THE VINEYARD OF THE EARTH, AND CAST IT INTO THE GREAT PRESS OF THE WRATH OF GOD. — Otherwise Viegas: "The reaping sickle of wheat," he says, "pertains to the old: for as the harvest is dry and gray, so also is old age; but the pruning sickle of grapes pertains to the young, who are as it were beautiful and flourishing clusters, full of juice and blood: for death reaps and prunes both." But the former sense is more apt, as is plain from the text and from what has been said. Whence also there follows: "into the lake of the wrath of God," in Greek εις ληνον, that is into the vat into which the juice of the grapes is pressed and received.
Verse 20: Blood Came Out of the Press for a Thousand Six Hundred Stadia
20. AND BLOOD CAME OUT OF THE LAKE EVEN UNTO THE HORSES' BRIDLES, FOR ONE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED FURLONGS. — The Arabic translates, and blood came out of the winepress to the horses' bridles, one thousand six hundred miles. But it wrongly puts miles for stadia, which are eight times greater than stadia; unless perhaps in Arabia, Syria, or elsewhere, the miles are so short that they equal stadia. Alcazar, who takes this of the blood of the Martyrs, says that it came forth to the bridles of the four horses of Christ's chariot: These four horses, he says, are those of which chapter VI, verse 2 and following; namely the first white, which signifies the meekness of Christ and the Martyrs; the second red, which signifies their zeal; the third black, which signifies their modesty; the fourth pale, which represents their mortification. Furthermore in the 1600 furlongs there is allusion to the length of the Promised Land, which was 160 miles, as St. Jerome says, epistle 129 (who also intimates that these 160 miles of Palestine, or 1600 stadia, make 200 Roman miles; which Alcazar also affirms), which precisely make 1600 stadia. But he calls them stadia because he alludes to the contests of the Martyrs, which used to be held in a stadium. The Promised Land moreover signifies the Church. The sense therefore is, as if to say: The whole Church, and the whole world is as it were irrigated and adorned by the abundance and richness of the blood which the newly converted poured out for Christ.
Furthermore, that 160 miles make 1600 stadia is plain. For a mile contains eight stadia; the Romans give five feet to each pace, and 125 paces to each stadium, which make 625 Roman feet. But in the Greek measure ten stadia exactly make one mile, or one thousand paces. For among the Greeks one pace contains six feet (which measure equals a human stature), and one stadium consists of one hundred paces, or human statures, that is six hundred feet, and therefore 160 miles are precisely 1600 stadia. As to why the Romans add 25 feet to the measure of a stadium, this is because, of the more common Greek feet, 24 feet equaled the length of 25 Roman feet. Wherefore, in order that the Romans should agree with the Greeks in the measure of a stadium, they assigned to the stadium 625 Roman feet, or (which is the same) 125 Roman paces. But St. John here, because he wrote in Greek and in Greece, uses the Greek stadium, not the Roman, and takes a stadium for 100 paces; whence it follows that 160 miles contain 1600 stadia, as I have already said.
These things are true and learned, but not to the purpose. For these stadia pertain to the dimensions, not of the Promised Land, nor of the Church, but of the place of the reprobate (for this is the lake of God's wrath, unless thou sayest that this lake is measured and equated with the Holy Land) and of the damned, namely Gehenna and hell. The blood therefore here must be taken not of the Martyrs, but of the reprobate. The sense therefore is, as if to say: So great will be the slaughter of the wicked and the reprobate, who at the end of the world will be slain and damned, that, if that place which they shall occupy in hell were a winepress in which their blood were pressed out, this blood would flow along the highway for 1600 stadia, up to the height of the bridles of the "horses." Understand by horses Christ and His saints. For these here and in chapter XIX, by prosopopoeia are introduced as victorious horsemen, who shall come forth on foot, not of body, but of mind, outside the heavenly city, to contemplate the victory of Christ over the wicked, and their slaughter. So Andreas, Ambrose, Bede and others. It is a catachresis and hyperbole.
Scripture has similar catachreses and phrases elsewhere, as Psalm CIX, 7: "He shall drink of the brook in the way." Numbers XXIII, 24: "Until he devour the prey, and drink the blood of the slain." Psalm LVII, 11: "He shall wash his hands in the blood of the sinner." By which only a full victory and vengeance over enemies is signified.
With a similar figure L. Florus says in the Cimbric war: "They fought with such ardor, and the slaughter of the enemy was such, that the victorious Roman drank no more water than barbarian blood from the bloody river." The same Florus, book II De Bello Punico: "Records of the slaughter, the once-bloody Aufidus."
Secondly, this passage may be taken properly of the capacity of all hell, as if to say: The blood and corpses of the wicked at the end of the world shall flow down, and shall be spread through the whole capacity and length of hell. For hell is extended in length (as also in breadth, and in depth in every direction) to 1600 stadia, that is 50 Spanish leagues. So Ribera, who holds that here the space and quantity of hell is precisely described, namely that it extends to 1600 stadia, both in length and in breadth and in depth: although this does not please Viegas and Alcazar, because nothing such is expressed elsewhere in Scripture. But this argument does not conclude: for from it only follows that nothing certain can be brought forward about this quantity of hell, but it does not follow that nothing can be probably conjectured. It is therefore probable that this space of 1600 stadia is the measure of hell, both because this is seemingly hinted at here, and because this place is large enough to contain all the reprobate and the damned of all times. For this space of 1600 stadia is about as much as it is from Rome to Bologna, or from Brussels to Paris: which could embrace very many and almost innumerable millions of men, especially with the addition of a just and proportionate breadth and depth, such as is in hell. For, as Isaiah XXX, 33 says: "Topheth is prepared of yesterday (that is, Gehenna from eternity), prepared by the King, deep and wide." For 1600 stadia make 200 Italian miles; for a mile contains a thousand paces, whence it is called milliare. A pace contains five feet, a foot four palms, a palm four transverse fingers. A stadium moreover is the eighth part of a mile, and contains 125 paces. Therefore 1600 stadia make 200 miles: for these are the eighth part of one thousand six hundred.
This opinion is confirmed, first, because St. John here calls hell the great lake of God's wrath; it is therefore exceedingly vast and great, that it may in some measure correspond to and be commensurate with God and the wrath of God. Again, he expressly assigns to it 1600 stadia, which since we can take properly, why should we wrest them to other meanings? For that some learned men hold these stadia to be of the place which the damned shall occupy on the day of judgment around the valley of Josaphat, does not seem to be in accord with the mind of St. John, who assigns these stadia to the lake of God's wrath. For this lake in which the damned are trodden, is without doubt hell.
Secondly, because for this reason hell is called in Scripture and by the Fathers an abyss, because it is most deep and greatest, so that it may appear to be αβυσσος, that is, without bottom. Thirdly, because the fire of the world's conflagration shall occupy the whole world, namely the whole earth, the whole water, the whole air up to heaven. But this fire shall all go into hell, and shall there enwrap the damned with it: but a fire so great and so vast, even though condensed, requires a most vast place. Fourthly, the conflagration of Sodom and Pentapolis extended to seventy-two miles in length, and nineteen in breadth, as Josephus and others testify; for it embraced four cities very distant from each other: and this was a type of the infernal conflagration. Fifthly, Etna once belched out and shot flames and ashes to thirty miles: Pliny writes similar things of Vesuvius. But Etna and Vesuvius are only a shadow, and, as some call them, the mouth of hell. Sixthly, because from visions it is clear that the flames of Gehenna are most ample. For such and so great did St. Fursey see, and St. Diethelm in the Venerable Bede, book V of the History of England, chapter XIII. Seventhly, because it is very probable that in hell the demons shall have fiery bodies, both that they themselves may be the more punished, and that by their horrible appearance, by blows and by bodily torments, they may the more punish the damned: of which matter I have said more on Isaiah XXXIV, near the end of the chapter. Hell therefore must be most great, as it shall contain so many thousand millions, not only of damned men, but also of embodied demons.
Father Lessius however holds the contrary, in book XIII De Perfectionibus divinis, chapter XXIV. Where first, he teaches that hell is nothing else than a pool of fire and brimstone, Apocalypse XX, 15; secondly, that this pool is in the middle of the earth, so that the center of the pool, the center of hell, and the center of the earth are one and the same, that sulphurous pool gathering itself in an orb around the center: wherefore this pool has a most thick and impermeable wall, which takes away from the damned every hope of escape; for it is surrounded by the thickness of the earth, which from center to surface contains more than a thousand leagues. Who shall pierce or penetrate such a wall? Thirdly, that the cavity of hell is about one league, or four Italian miles. The reason is that the damned in hell shall not stand on their feet, nor run hither and thither, but shall be gathered in a heap like coals or burning logs, as Scripture indicates. Now even if we give to each body of the damned six square feet (which abundantly suffice), yet one league (that is, a measure of twenty thousand feet) cubed, or multiplied cubically, can hold more than eight hundred thousand million bodies, although it seems certain, the calculation being made, that there will not be a hundred thousand millions. Then he adds: But, he says, since there will also be there a vast pool of fire and brimstone, and all the demons will be enclosed in fiery bodies, perhaps it will be larger. Let then the diameter be of two leagues, or eight Italian miles, then the concave surface of the earth surrounding hell will be of six leagues. Whence the cavity of hell can easily contain in the midst of itself a pool whose depth is everywhere of half a league, which is scarcely anywhere the depth of the sea, and there will yet remain half a league empty between the concave surface of the earth and the surface of the pool. So he, probably and learnedly. Others however reckon differently, and judge that the millions of the damned will be more.
Moreover, granted that this place would suffice for containing the bodies of the damned packed together, yet they hold it shall be much larger than they need. First, that the magnitude of an immense and as it were measureless conflagration, by its horrible aspect alone, should strike the damned with terror; for the greater the conflagration, the greater the horror with which we feel ourselves shaken in this life. Secondly, because in these conflagrations the packed bodies of the damned shall be tossed about, so that now they seem to ascend on high, now to be plunged into the abyss, now to be whirled and snatched to the sides on every part most widely, as in the same place St. Diethelm, just cited, saw the souls ascending and descending. This St. John intimates, saying: "And the smoke of their torments shall ascend up for ever and ever." For thus the horror and torment of the reprobate shall be not a little increased. Thirdly, because in hell there are various punishments for various crimes, various tortures, various kinds of torments, instruments and places, as is plain from the visions of the Venerable Bede already cited, and from many testimonies of those possessed, who under adjuration confessed the same thing. Among other things our Spanish fathers, eye witnesses, wrote to Rome these things, which were related in the Annual Letters of the year 1604 of the College of Huete, in the province of Toledo, namely that a demon, through one possessed, had a discourse imposed on him by God to be delivered to the surrounding multitude, in which he reproached his own sins, and among other things said: "Sin cast me down from the height of heaven into the abyss, and shall you think any place on earth safe? You shall therefore have to go, unless you take heed, with the infernal Satans to brimstone, to fire, to the bridge, to the castle, to the river, to the round house," by which words he certainly signified the various places and kinds of torments in Gehenna. Whence it is clear that the bodies of the damned are not so packed together that they are all bound up as it were into one bundle, but rather so that they form various little bundles, disposed in various places, on scaffolds and racks, which by the will of the demons and the vengeance of God are from time to time loosed, so that the reprobate are snatched from one rack to another, then again gathered, and plunged into the Vulcan pot. For there is there a very great variety and multitude of all kinds of punishments, and from one to another the damned are forced to go as it were in an orb, that ever new tortures may seem to be inflicted upon them, and others and new ones to be set up. In order therefore that their bodies may be disposed and tormented separately, a vast space is needed, as Father Lessius confesses, in the place already cited, where for this he requires a hundred leagues and more.
Symbolically Peter Bongus, in his book De Numerorum mysteriis: "The number 1600," he says, "is a tetragon from forty. For forty times forty make 1600. Four hundreds also compose it. In sacred Scripture it intimates the whole world, whose parts are known to be four. In Apocalypse XIV it is written that blood flowed up to the bridles of the horses for 1600 stadia, as if to say: through the four parts of the world, the East, West, North, and South. Whence also the Lamentations of Jeremiah are four, and distinguished by a fourfold alphabet; because in them Jeremiah deplores not only the wickedness of the Jews, but also of the whole world, and invites all to deplore." So Bongus.
Remember, as I have often warned, that in these visions of John there are several hyperbata, and leaps from one thing to another and back, as there are in other Prophets. For from the signs that go before judgment, of which he treated in verses 6 and following, he leaps in verses 16 and following to the rewards of the elect and the punishments of the reprobate: thence again he springs back to the signs that go before judgment. For in chapters XV and XVI following, he recounts the seven last plagues of the world; thence in chapters XVII and XVIII, he describes the destruction of Babylon: for all these shall precede the day of judgment.
Morally, learn here how horrible is hell, and in it the punishment of the reprobate. First, because they are clusters of the wrath of God, which are trodden by Him as it were raging in the winepress of Gehenna. Secondly, because the smoke of their torments ascends for ever and ever, as I said in verse 11. Thirdly, because they are tossed in the lake of fire in every direction for 1600 stadia. Cogitate a fiery furnace heaping up and shooting forth flames in every direction (that is, both in length, and in breadth, and in depth) for two hundred miles, and in it the bodies of the damned tossed about, now ascending, now descending, now whirled in every direction, and that continually night and day for all ages, for all eternity. Behold, this is hell.
"A soul," says St. Gregory, book IV Dialogues, XLV, "placed there (in hell) loses well-being, and yet does not lose being: by which it is always forced to suffer not death without death, and failing without failing, and end without end: insofar as for it both death is immortal, failing is unfailing, and end is infinite." The same, book IX Moralia, XXXIX: "In a horrible manner there shall then be for the reprobate sorrow with terror, flame with darkness." And shortly after: "Thus there is for the wretched death without death, end without end, failing without failing: because both death always lives, and end always begins, and failing knows not how to fail. Death slays, but does not extinguish; sorrow torments, but in no way drives away fear; flame burns, but by no means scatters the darkness." And below: "Then the devouring flame burns those whom now carnal delight defiles. Then the infinite open abyss of hell devours those whom vain pride now exalts." The same on that of Matthew: "They shall be cast into the outer darkness: In hell there shall be intolerable cold, inextinguishable fire, immortal worm, intolerable stench, palpable darkness, scourges of those striking, horrid vision of demons, confusion of sinners, despair of all good." Hugh, book IV De Anima: "Hell is a place without measure, deep without bottom, full of incomparable burning, full of intolerable stench, full of innumerable sorrow: there is darkness, there is no order, there is eternal horror, there is no hope of good, no despair of evil." Here the demons put on horrible masks, with which they strike the damned, of which Virgil, Aeneid VI:
Centaurs stable in the gates, and twy-formed Scyllas,
And hundred-handed Briareus, and the beast of Lerna
Hissing horribly, and Chimaera armed with flames,
Gorgons, and Harpies, and the shape of the three-bodied shade.
Climacus, in step 4, relates that he saw in a monastery a certain brother, a cook, who had obtained from God the gift of weeping continually; who when asked how he had obtained this, answered: "From the sight of the kitchen fire, which I continually behold, I turn my mind to the vast conflagrations of the fire of hell: which consideration draws abundant tears from my eyes." Examples and horrifying visions on this matter St. Gregory recounts, book IV Dialogues, chapter XXX, where he recounts the casting of King Theodoric into a Vulcan pot, and chapter XXXVI and XLIII, and Damasus, Histor. chapter XXX, where he narrates the vision of King Jehoshaphat about hell. Well known is the story of the deceased Doctor of Paris, who at the funeral rising from the bier said: "By the just judgment of God I have been accused, judged and condemned," by which voice St. Bruno and others being moved instituted the Carthusians, as Franciscus Puteus narrates in the Life of St. Bruno, and from him our Petrus Thyraeus, in his book On Particular Judgment, chapter VI. Well known also is the heavenly admonition of Bishop Udo: "Udo, Udo, cease from play, enough has Udo played;" and when he did not cease, the same one's judgment, beheading and damnation, which Fulgosius narrates, book IX, chapter XII; Nauclerus, vol. II, gener. 37; St. Antoninus and others. Gregory of Tours relates, book VIII Hist. Franc., chapter V, that Chilperic, the worst of kings, the tyrant of the Franks, after his death was seen by King Guntramnus to be cast with his members broken into a bronze pot, and immediately by the vapors of the waves to be so dissolved and liquefied, that no trace of him at all remained. I have said more on this in Deuteronomy XXXII, 22.