Joseph Mede · 52 of 69

The Mystery Of the Woman dwelling in the Wilderness. · Part 3

A mode of speaking by synecdoche, by which, from the interdiction of commerce with others, the censure of ecclesiastical anathema is intimated. Nor is that assimilated improperly to celestial fire or lightning; for what, I beseech you, is to devote any one to the eternal fire in the name of God, but to call down fire from heaven? especially since the punishment to proceed from God in the lake of fire and sulphur, or Asphaltites, in which Sodom and Gomorrha were burned by fire rained down, is more than once represented in this book. Nay, the apostle Peter speaks of that conflagration, 2 Pet. c. ii. v. 6, that “God had set it forth as an ensample to those who should hereafter live ungodly; that is, by an ellipsis of the former substantive, common in the Hebrew, an ensample of the punishment of those who should be ungodly hereafter. And Jude, here expressing more clearly the intention of Peter, says, “πυρὸς αἰωνίου δίκην ὑπέχειν;” that is, “to bear the similitude or type of eternal fire.” For so, in a sense similar to this, the collation of the words of the two apostles with each other, and the nature of the thing itself, will persuade an attentive reader, that the words of Jude ought to be interpreted. And on this occasion likewise, permit me to add, that it was a memorable and melancholy omen to the Jews, then rejected by God, which Josephus relates to have befallen them in the very beginning of that fatal war, the defeat sustained by them at the passage of Jordan from the country of Jericho; namely, while some were thrown into the river by the enemy, others not being able to bear up against their force, voluntarily leaped into it; so that the lake Asphaltites was filled with carcases rolled down by the descending flood; in which case, says he, the plague, though very great in itself, yet appeared still greater in its nature to the Jews.

But to proceed to the event of the prophecy. As to the wonders, it is a notorious circumstance, that a universal idolatry has prevailed in the kingdom of the beast for about twelve ages, to the present time, as well as the primary species, consisting in the worship of dead saints, of relics, and angels, as the next in order, the worship of images, and afterwards that latest blasphemy of a god in bread, by a great assemblage of wonders, by supposed cures, and miraculous visions, by the coercion of demons in appearance only, and by other surprising effects of different kinds, was first recommended, as it were, to unhappy Christians, and afterwards enforced and confirmed. All which things, indeed, the two-horned beast, or Roman pontiff, with his pseudo-prophetic attendant, is said to have done; inasmuch as they either contrived them or approved them by their authority when contrived by others; or they obtruded what were really the operations and tricks of evil demons, for true and divine miracles, in order to seduce the Christian world. For this is the very thing which the apostle Paul predicted to the Thessalonians, “that the appearance of the man of sin should be according to the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness.”

The examples of thunder, or the pontifical anathema, by which he maintained his authority in decreeing and commanding, are in truth so obvious to every one, that I may be wholly spared the labour of introducing them here from the annals of the Church. One I wish to notice as very remarkable, and which so nearly relates to the image of the fabrication of which we are treating, that it may alone be sufficient to establish the truth of this prophecy. In that controversy or war about images, which arose among the Greeks about the year 720, and which was agitated for 120 years with great fervour, and persecution of idolatry, it can hardly be described into what peril that image of the slain dragon, then rude and imperfect, and not having received the finishing hand of the artificer, was brought. Nor in that controversy, as is commonly supposed, was the worship of images alone, but also that of dead saints and relics strenuously opposed. Leo Isaurius (says Theophanes, Hist. Miscell. Lib. xxi. ch. 23) not only erred with the impious concerning the affectionate adoration of venerable images, but also concerning intercessions of the most chaste mother of God, and of all the saints, whose relics, likewise, that most wicked man abominated, like his teachers the Arabians, (that is, the Mahometans.) The same writer says of Constantine, whom, as a term of reproach, the patrons of idols called Copronymus, (same chapter,) “This most mischievous, unmannerly, savage man, &c. first departed from God, and his undefiled mother, and all the saints.” So this paltry Greek idolater blasphemes the pious emperor. Again, Lib. xxii. c. 42, “He every where opposed the intercession of the holy virgin, and mother of God, and of all the saints, as useless, both in his writings, and unwritten declarations, through whom every favour flows down upon us, rejecting their holy relics, and rendering them hateful. If at any time he was told of any extraordinary thing to be applied to the health of souls and bodies, or according to custom to be honoured by those who live piously, he immediately threatened death against those who did thus, as acting impiously; or, at all events, proscription, exile, torments. And that scrap most acceptable to God, as it was accounted a kind of treasure to the possessors, was taken away to he rendered hateful from thenceforth.” Let the reader see likewise, c. 54. So also in c. 48, “As often as any one who fell down, or was sick, uttered the usual outcry of Christians,—Help, mother of God or was apprehended keeping vigils, &c. he was condemned as an enemy to the emperor, and was denominated immemorable.” Nay, still under Theophilus, the last of five emperors who contended against images, it appears that the worship of saints was opposed by that hymn of Theodorus, in which the Constantinopolitan Church was accustomed every year, (O sin and sorrow,) to cherish again the memory of idolatry, at length victorious. For there the eighth ode says, “The sacred relics of the saints, and their images, that savage Lezius, together with John, (who was patriarch of Constantinople under Theophilus,) those deserters of piety nu-piously asserted were on no account to be venerated.” What, then, did the Roman pontiff do in this case? He succours the image of the beast, in the greatest danger of being broken, and when he cannot succeed by letters and threats, he has recourse to fulminating arts. He strikes Leo the Isaurian, the leader of the Iconoclastes, with an anathema; he absolves his subjects in Italy from the oath of obedience, and deprives him of the Exarchate of Ravenna, and the rest of his dominion, as far as he is able. By which act, as he gave courage to the idolatrous faction in the east, so he opportunely terrified the kings of the west, from attempting any thing of a similar kind. By the same thunder, the Lateran Synod of 280 bishops, under Alexander the Third, ordained that the Albigenses, and their defenders, and supporters, should be blasted, and actually did blast them. The same thunder likewise, the great Lateran Council decreed, should be called down on the temporal lords, who, when required and admonished by the Church to purge their territories of them, neglected to do it; that is, that they should be bound by their metropolitans, and other provincial bishops, under the bond of excommunication, and if they contemptuously neglected to discharge this duty, their vassals should be denounced by the Roman pontiff, absolved from their allegiance, and their lands given up to be occupied by Catholics.”

“And it was permitted him to give life to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast might both speak, and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.”

If the image had not been endued with a vital power, the slain beast would not have revived by its fabrication. For the dragon-worshipping beast, which it was to resemble, was not an inactive beast, but was accustomed to exert himself very strenuously, and to attack those who opposed his inclination. Of the same kind, therefore, must that image be, in which he afterwards revived. Hence it is said to be given to the false prophet, not only that he should entice the Christian people to make an image of the beast, but that he should bestow life on it, by which, and by edicts of a similar nature, he might order what was necessary for the maintenance of his dignity, and might punish those who were disobedient, and who refused to submit to his religious constitution, by the sword, or by a secular death. And indeed the whole power which the image has, as a secular idolatrous beast, of warring with the saints, he exercises only as delivered to him by the pseudo-prophetic beast. For the matter is so managed, that those whom the pseudo-prophetic beast has condemned for heresy, (as they call it) or for dishonouring the image, he gives at last to the secular beast the power of killing; of which he possesses none himself, but that dependent upon ecclesiastical judgment. And this is what they call delivering over to the secular power, every where to be met with in the histories of the bestial executions. The pseudo-prophetic beast, indeed, as he would wish it to appear, does not himself kill, but yet he delivers those condemned by his sentence to the secular power, as to an executioner, to be killed.

“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, and free and bond (that is, of whatever rank, state, and condition) to receive from hima mark upon their right hand, or upon their foreheads. And that no one might buy or sell, but he that had the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” What is meant by the interdiction of buying and selling, (to begin with the last in order,) I have just now shown, namely, to denote the papal excommunication, under which those who fall are excluded from the custom and commerce of citizens. So the canon of the Lateran Council under Alexander, of which mention was made a little above, issued against the Waldenses and Albigenses, prohibits expressly under an anathema, “That any one should presume to receive, or maintain them in their houses, or to carry on any business with them.” And the Synod of Tours, in France, prohibits under a similar denunciation, “Where the followers of that heresy, (as they call it) were known, that any one should presume to grant them a place of refuge in their territory, or to afford them protection; but prescribes that no communication should be held with them in buying and selling.”

And what? Does not the false prophet here likewise speak like a dragon? For the dragon Diocletian published a similar edict. That no one should sell or supply any thing to the Christians, unless they had first offered incense to the gods, of which Beda thus sings in the Hymn of Justin Martyr:

Non illis emendi quidquam Aut vendendi copia; Nec ipsam haurire aquam Dabatur licentia, Antequam thuriticarent Detestandis idolis.

No power to buy or sell, Not even water from the well, Could wretched Christians have; Unless to idols dire, With frankincense and fire, They hateful glory gave.

This synechdochical mode of speaking perhaps the Holy Spirit used, to intimate that the papal anathema, though it boast of an abscission from the internal and invisible communion of Christ, has not really any power beyond that of excluding the person from the internal and visible commerce with other citizens.

Now, as to what is said of the mark or character. The mark of the beast is not properly any thing but the name; therefore it is called the mark or name of the beast, and in the following chapter, the mark of his name. Now there is an allusion here to the ancient custom, by which slaves were wont to be marked with the names of their masters, and soldiers with that of their general; (the former chiefly on the forehead, the latter on the hand;) therefore, in a like manner, the followers of the Lamb, in a subsequent chapter, who form a contrast to the attendants on the beast, are inscribed on the forehead with the names of the Lamb and the Father. In the same sense, .in both examples, to indicate to what lord each assembly belonged, and for whom it fought; that the former professed themselves the servants of the beast and his image, the latter of Christ and his Father.

What relates to number, is to be understood rather as an appendix of the name or mark of the beast, than the mark itself; and, indeed, it is the number, not so strictly of the name of the beast, as of the beast itself, as it is also immediately after called. But it is only called the number of the name on this account, because it would be contained in the letters of the name of the beast, referring to numbers, God so disposing it. And yet it does not follow, because the number agrees so intimately with the name, that therefore the number of the beast is to be confounded with the name. For the method of opposition (or contrast) requires, that, as in the assembly of the Lamb, the character of the name is distinguished from the number of the assembly, so likewise it should be in the bestial assembly. Add, that the character of the name and the number are altogether of a different kind, I say, as to signification, if we direct our interpretation according to the analogy of other places. For the character of the name is one thing as to the Lord, to whom those who bear it devote themselves, and the number is another, which points out from what ancestry or origin those who are celebrated by it derive their race. As the number twelve, and that formed from the multiplication of twelve, exhibited as well in the virgin assembly as in the structure and dimensions of the New Jerusalem, is a symbol of its apostolical origin and character.

But not to dwell longer on these generalities, let us see at length what is that name of the beast in which his number, also marked by the Holy Spirit, is contained. It is, in truth, what some suspected, while the Apocalypse had been recently written, that word so often repeated, Λατεῖνος. For it was by this name, after the division of the empire, and the ten kings had arisen in its provinces, and not before, that the Roman false prophet, with the rest of the inhabitants of the West, was called by way of distinction, and that by those to whom the Apocalypse was addressed,—the seven Churches of Asia. For the Greeks, and the rest of the Orientals, with whom, in the dilaceration of the empire, the name had remained, wished themselves only to be called Romans; but us, with our pontiff, and under him, his bishops, kings, and dynasties, by a kind of fatal instinct they called Latins. And this very name, with its letters cast up in the manner of the Greeks and Hebrews, completes the number noted by the Holy Spirit; but it is a mystical number;—by which is indicated of what lineage the beast is, and how falsely he boasts himself the successor of the apostolic choir, when he is really that of the dragon.

“The number of the name of the beast is 666;” which, if you endeavour to deduce from the compounds of 12, the symbol of the apostolic race, you will labour in vain, for you will never from thence be enabled to make 666, by whatever mode you may multiply: But on the contrary, from the power of 6, which is the number of the red dragon, that is, the beast of the sixth head, you will do it very easily, since the whole may be made up from sixes, how great soever it may be of units, tens, and hundreds; as if the seed of the dragon had pervaded the whole body of this last beast, and all its limbs. “Here is wisdom,” says the Spirit. “He who bath understanding, let him compute the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”

That this ought to be computed according to the mode which I have described, I seem to myself to collect from the analogy of the virgin company, whose number 144, in contradiction to that of the beast, is wholly apostolical, arising from 12 multiplied into itself. The rule of contraries is contrary. And there, indeed, the Holy Spirit has expressed both, as well as the name inscribed, as the number of the company inscribed, but here he has left the name to be conjectured from the number. To settle the matter in few words. To receive the mark of the name of the beast then, is to devote oneself to his power, and to confess his dominion; but to be of his number, is to embrace his impiety, derived from the dragon, namely, the Latin idolatry. Whence it will not perhaps be unworthy consideration, that though no one can receive the mark of the beast’s name, or be subject to his power, but he must of necessity receive his number also, at the same time, that is, partake of his impiety; it is possible that a person may admit the number or impiety of the beast, but may reject his mark or name.

This is what has taken place among the Greeks for a long time past, who, although they embrace the same form of impiety, engrafted from the dragon, or the Latin idolatry, and that originally confirmed among themselves, under the auspices of the Latin pontiff, in the second Council of Nice, who was labouring there likewise to erect the image of the slain dragon, yet they have refused now for 700 years to be subject to the Latin pontiff, or to bear his name, as before they seceded in consequence of a schism, they had been accustomed to do.

Of the Virgin Assembly, or one hundred and forty-four thousand of the Sealed of the Lamb.

The virgin assembly of the followers of the Lamb of Sion, and the same selected company of Israel, adopted from the Gentiles, of which mention was made at the beginning of the seventh seal, (for it is described by a double vision, as we there observed, in order to connect the prophecy of the seals with that of the little book) signifies the Church faithful to the Lamb, a virgin under Babylon, in the midst of a world of nominal Christians, who followed the beast; the kindred and undegenerate progeny of the twelve apostles, apostolically multiplied; as alone according to the example of the heavenly choir, instructed to celebrate the Lamb and the Father with an evangelical song, in a chaste and holy manner; which by a sad fatality, not one of the beast’s party was able to learn. Yet a people not addicted to any one seat, as the people of the beast, but accompanying the Lamb wherever he went, warning finally the worshippers of the beast frequently and sharply of the duty of evangelical worship, and of the manifest severity of God against idolaters; and at length denouncing to all, if they would not perish eternally, to withdraw themselves as quickly as possible from all connexion with it. This is a summary of the vision. Let us now elucidate the text according to this rule.

“And I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood upon mount Sion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand.” From the number 144, or twelve times twelve thousand, it appears that the same assembly is here described as was sealed at the introduction of the seventh seal; viz. that legitimate and undegenerate offspring of the apostles, bearing this number twelve as a mark of its origin. Let the reader reconsider what we there remarked.

Now, mount Sion was the throne of the kingdom of David, and the same as what is called the city of David, because he built it, when taken from the Jebusites, externally with new walls, and internally with a royal citadel, streets, and squares. Therefore here it is parabolically applied, and it will designate that place on the earth which Christ, having conquered the dragon, made the dwelling-place of his kingdom, or his Church, that is, the world denominated Christian. In this world the virgin Church has its mansion, and therein still preserves its faith and chastity undefiled, when the beast appeared to have contaminated, and trodden down all things, with his adulteries and slaughters, and to have left nothing sound and uninjured.

“Having (the name of the Lamb and) his Father’s name written on their foreheads.”

The name of the Lamb is improperly omitted from some copies, as the Vulgate, Primasius, Andrew, Aretas, the Complutensian edition, and the Syriac translator allow. That it was the true reading is not to be doubted, but that the subject itself requires it to be so read, will clearly appear in the progress of the interpretation. For here is an allusion (as we also noticed in the history of the beast) to the ancient custom, by which both the slaves of masters, and the soldiers of the emperor, were distinguished, being anciently inscribed with their name or mark; and the slaves, indeed, principally on their foreheads, (witness Rhodigian’s Book, v. 33.) but the soldiers on their hands. Vegetius, lib. ii. 5, says, “The soldiers, inscribed with permanent marks on the skin, and inserted in the rolls, were accustomed to take an oath.” But Ætius says, lib. viii. 12, “They call them brands, which are inscribed on the face, or some part of the body, as those of soldiers are on the hands. But of the inscription of soldiers, Lypsius will give us more ample information, lib. i. de Mil. Rom. dial. 9. “Under the princes,” says he, “they punctured with a sharp instrument youths just taken, and branded them on the skin.” These were real stigmas, and impressed on the hands of soldiers. They were inscribed with the name of the emperor. Hence Augustin calls it the royal mark, and Chrysostom σφραγῖδα, the seal. This is to be derived from the circumstance, that anciently the name of the emperor used to be inscribed on the shields, spears, and standards, and in imitation of that on the skin; or else from sacred rites, for those whom they consecrated to God, or initiated, they branded with marks or stigmas.”

Now then to the point. They bear the name of the Lamb, and his Father, on their foreheads, who do not break the faith by which they gave themselves up to the Lamb, as their emperor and Lord, and to his Father in baptism, and who do not relapse to the worship and pomps of Satan, and his angels, which they had once abjured. For thus in ancient times, (in order to throw a greater light on what has been here said) was the form of renunciation in baptism couched in most Churches. “I renounce Satan and all his works, and his pomps, and all his worship.” In many, and those, the most ancient liturgies, was added, “and his angels.” In others, “and all his inventions, and all who are under him.” In others, in the same sense, “and his world.” All which things may be expressed readily in the apocalyptical sense,—“I renounce the dragon, and all his forces;” that is, as Cyril of Alexandria explains the form of baptism, “I bid farewell to the multitude of demons, and I reject all their pomp and worship.”

The Roman Church was here a little more terse than others: for in it there is mention made only of Satan, his pomps, and his works; where, under the name of Satan as chief, it understands his angels also; of pomps and works, the idolatrous worship, and all its apparatus.

That the sacrament of baptism, by which we solemnly profess faith to the Lamb, and the Father, and by which we receive their name, and are called Christians, is the Lord’s seal, the fathers every where declare, and that from the highest antiquity of the Church. Hence that of Origen, “We bear the immortal laver on our foreheads; when the demons see it they tremble.” Augustine also calls it, “the royal mark, the mark of the Emperor, the mark of the Redeemer.” They also maintain that this seal may be cancelled, and as it were, obliterated by idolatry and superstition. Tertullian on Spectacles, c. 4, treating of baptism under the name of a seal, says, “When, upon our entering into the water, we profess the Christian faith in the words of his law, we call God to witness by our declaration, that we have renounced the devil, and his pomps, and his angels. What will be the chief and principal instance in which the devil, and his pomps, and his angels, arc to be understood, but idolatry?” and c. 24, “Do we not abjure and break the seal in breaking his testimony?” Of the same kind also is that in the Book of Idolatry, c. 19, “There is no agreement between the sign of Christ, and the sign of the Devil.” In like manner Augustine Tract. 7 on John, “He has lost the sign of Christ, he assumes the sign of the devil.” Christ will not have such a communion. He will possess solely what he has purchased. With these Isidore agrees, Origin b. 18. c. 59. On the execration of spectacles, “He denies God, who undertakes such things, and has become a prevaricator to the Christian faith, who desires that afterwards, which he renounced long ago, at his baptism, that is, the devil, his pomps, and his works. All therefore who have received the mark of the beast, have denied, abjured, rendered of no avail, and accounted, as if they had never received, the mark of Christ, and of the Father. Only those, a hundred and forty-four thousand, who had not gone over to the camp of the beast, but adhered firmly to the Lamb, show the Lord’s mark on their foreheads.

One thing still remains to be noticed; viz. that though the sealed in both instances, namely, here as well as in c. vii. are the. same, yet the reason for the sealing is not the same in both; and that in consequence of the different intent of the sealing. For there the subject of protection is treated of; here, of service and fidelity. But there is no necessity on that account to seek any other sign absolutely different from that of baptism; for baptism answers to both, since, over and above that which is the sign of our profession, God superadds another, namely, that of his grace, by which he acknowledges those who are washed, as his own, and receives them into his protection.

The latter, then, is treated of in the first vision of the sealed ones, the former in the present, if I am not deceived. And it favours this construction, that Clemens Alexandrinus, according to Eusebius, lib. iii. c. 17, calls baptism τέλειον φυλακτήριον, perfect guardianship. Also that Nazianzen, Orat. on Holy Baptism, affirms, that it is called a seal, as συντήρησιν, because it is conservation. Lastly, that of Basil, Exhort. to Baptism, “Unless the face of the Lord be sealed upon thee, unless the angel acknowledges the mark upon thee, how shall he fight for thee, or defend thee from thine enemies?” Now let us proceed to what follows.

“And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunder, and I heard the voice of harpers harping on their harps. And they were singing as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures, and the elders,” &c. This indicates the voice and song of the heavenly angels, glorifying the Father, and the Lamb, as they are reported to have done, when first the Lamb took the book of fates to be unclosed. With regard to these angels, therefore, he says by and by in the 5th verse, “And I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven;” that is, a different one from those precentors. For there is no mention made of an angel before this, unless we call those who sung together a chorus of angels. Now the voice like the sound of many waters, and of thunder, signifies nothing but the voice of a numerous and crowded multitude, of which kind was that frequently heard in the temple, while it was still flourishing, of the Levite choristers, sounding forth the praises of God with the voice, and with musical instruments, on account of the multitude of whom, and of the people joining with them, a sound was produced resembling the waves of the sea, and the noise of thunder. This is not conjecture, but a plain matter of fact, as is directly expressed in the Song of Victory, c. xix. where the metaphor is the same. “I heard, as it were, the voice of a vast multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunders, saying, Hallelujah!” Hence, in Ezek. c. xliii. v. 2, where it is simply in the Hebrew, “His voice, (that is, the voice of the glory of the God of Israel) was like the voice of many waters;” the Septuagint render it by a paraphrase, Φωνὴ τῆς παρεμβολῆς, ὡς φωνὴ διπλάιον τῶν πολλῶν, “The voice of his camp, as the voice of many redoubling the sound.” The Chaldee has it in like manner, “The voice of those who bless his name, as the voice of many waters.” And that passage from the same prophet, respecting the cherubim, c. i. v. 24, “I heard,” says he, “the noise of their wings, like the noise of many waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech as the voice of a host.” Lastly, in this acceptation is what is said in the description of the person of the Son of God in the beginning of the Apocalypse, taken from Daniel; for what, according to Daniel, is “the voice of a multitude,” is substituted by St. John “the voice of many waters;” what Daniel has, “His feet were like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words as the voice of a multitude,” John expresses, “His feet were like fine brass, as if glowing in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters.”