Part II, Chapter 3, 2

When Eusebius had brought down his Ecclesiastical History to the reign of Dioclesian, he thus describes the state of the Church: "What greatness, and how great a glory besides, together with the freedom of the true doctrine of piety toward the supreme God, first announced to mankind by Christ, followed among all Greeks and barbarians alike before the persecution raised in our own time, we certainly cannot set forth as it deserves. A proof of it may be the kindness of the Emperors toward our people, to whom they even entrusted the government of provinces, freeing them from all fear of sacrificing because of the singular goodwill with which they were disposed toward our religion." And a little later: "But who could fully describe the countless crowd of people daily taking refuge in the faith of Christ, the number of the churches in each city, the distinguished assemblies of the people in the sacred buildings? Hence it came about that, no longer content with the older buildings, they built spacious churches from their very foundations in every city. And this growth of advancing time, growing daily both in greatness and in betterment, neither any envy could wear down, nor the malice of the demon bewitch, nor the plots of men prevent, as long as the right hand of the almighty God sheltered and guarded his people, as deserving such protection. But when we had fallen from excessive liberty into carelessness and laziness; when each had begun to envy and slander the other; when we waged civil wars among ourselves, as it were, wounding one another with words as with arms and spears; when bishop was pitted against bishop, and people against people, stirring up quarrels and tumults; and finally, when fraud and hypocrisy had grown to the highest peak of wickedness: then divine vengeance, with its light arm as is its custom, while the state of the Church was still entire and the crowds of the faithful gathered freely, began by degrees and moderately to deal with us, first starting the persecution through those who were soldiers. But when we had lost all sense, and did not even think of placating the anger of God; rather, judging as certain impious men do that human affairs are governed by no providence, we added fresh crimes daily to the old: when our Pastors, casting aside the rule of religion, contended with one another in mutual rivalry, studying nothing but how to magnify quarrels, threats, rivalry, hatred, and mutual enmity, earnestly claiming the chief rule for themselves as a kind of tyranny: then at last, according to the saying of Jeremiah, the Lord obscured his daughter Sion in his anger, and cast down from heaven the glory of Israel—by the overthrow of the Churches, etc." This was the state of the Church just before the overthrow of the Churches at the beginning of Dioclesian's persecution: and to this state of the Church agrees the first of the seven Epistles to the Angel of the seven Churches,¹ that to the Church in Ephesus. "I have something against you," said Christ to the Angel of that Church, "because you have left your first love. Remember therefore where you have fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come to you quickly and remove your candfor fear thatick out of its place, unless you repent. But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." The Nicolaitans are the Continentes described above, who placed religion in abstinence from marriage, abandoning their wives if they had any. They are here called Nicolaitans, from Nicolas, one of the seven deacons of the primitive Church of Jerusalem; who, having a beautiful wife, and being taxed with uxoriousness, abandoned her, and permitted her to marry whom she pleased, saying that we must renounce the flesh; and from then on lived a single life in continence, as did his children. The Continentes afterward embraced the doctrine of Æons and Ghosts male and female, and were avoided by the Churches until the fourth century; and the Church of Ephesus is here commended for hating their deeds.

The persecution of Dioclesian began in the year of Christ 302, and lasted ten years in the Eastern Empire and two years in the Western. To this state of the Church the second Epistle, to the Church of Smyrna, agrees. "I know your works, and tribulation, and poverty," said² Christ, "but you are rich; and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Do not fear any of the things which you are about to suffer: Look, the Devil will throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested; and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life." The tribulation of ten days can apply to no other persecution than that of Dioclesian, it being the only persecution which lasted ten years. By the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan, I understand the idolatry of the Nicolaitans, who falsely said they were Christians.

The Nicolaitans are complained of also in³ the third Epistle, as men who held the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and⁴ to commit spiritual fornication. For Balaam taught the Moabites and Midianites to tempt Israel and invite them through their women to commit fornication, and to feast with them at the sacrifices of their gods. The Dragon therefore now began to come down among the inhabitants of the earth and sea.

The Nicolaitans are also complained of in the fourth Epistle, under the name of the woman Jezabel, who calls herself a Prophetess, to teach and seduce the servants of Christ to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed to idols. The woman therefore now began to fly into the wilderness.

The reign of Constantine the great, from the time he conquered Licinius, was monarchical over the whole Roman Empire. Then the Empire became divided between the sons of Constantine; and afterward it was again united under Constantius, by his victory over Magnentius. To the affairs of the Church in these three successive periods of time relate the third, fourth, and fifth Epistles, that is, those to the Angels of the Churches in Pergamus, Thyatira, and Sardis. The next Emperor was Julian the Apostate.

In the sixth Epistle,⁵ to the Angel of the Church in Philadelphia, Christ said: "Because in the reign of the heathen Emperor Julian you have kept the word of my patience, I also will keep you from the hour of temptation, which by the woman's flying into the wilderness, and the Dragon's making war with the remnant of her seed, and the killing of all who will not worship the Image of the Beast, shall come upon all the world, to test those who live on the earth, and to distinguish them by sealing the one with the name of God on their foreheads, and marking the other with the mark of the Beast. The one who overcomes, I will make a pillar in the Temple of my God, and he will never go out of it. And I will write on him the name of my God on his forehead." So the Christians of the Church of Philadelphia, as many of them as overcome, are sealed with the seal of God, and placed in the second Temple, and go no more out. The same is to be understood of the Church in Smyrna, which also kept the word of God's patience, and was without fault. These two Churches, with their posterity, are therefore the two Pillars, and the two Candfor fear thaticks, and the two Witnesses in the second Temple.

After the reign of the Emperor Julian, and his successor Jovian, who reigned but five months, the Empire became again divided between Valentinian and Valens. Then the Church Catholic, in the Epistle to the Angel of the Church of Laodicea, is reprehended as lukewarm, and⁶ threatened to be spewed out of Christ's mouth. She said that she was rich, and increased with goods, and had need of nothing, being in outward prosperity; and did not know that she was inwardly wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. She is therefore spewed out of Christ's mouth at the opening of the seventh seal: and this brings the times of the first Temple to an end.

About one half of the Roman Empire turned Christian in the time of Constantine the great and his sons. After Julian had opened the Temples, and restored the worship of the heathens, the Emperors Valentinian and Valens tolerated it all their reign; and therefore the Prophecy of the sixth seal was not fully accomplished before the reign of their successor Gratian. It was the custom of the heathen Priests, in the beginning of the reign of every sovereign Emperor, to offer him the dignity and habit of the Pontifex Maximus. This dignity all Emperors had accepted until then; but Gratian rejected it, threw down the idols, interdicted the sacrifices, and took away their revenues, together with the salaries and authority of the Priests. Theodosius the great followed his example; and heathenism afterward recovered itself no more, but decreased so fast that Prudentius, about ten years after the death of Theodosius, called the heathens "scarcely a few minds, and a very rare portion of mankind." So the affairs of the sixth seal ended with the reign of Valens, or rather with the beginning of the reign of Theodosius, when he, like his predecessor Gratian, rejected the dignity of Pontifex Maximus. For the Romans were much infested by the invasions of foreign nations in the reign of Valentinian and Valens: "At this time," says Ammianus, "as if war trumpets were sounding throughout the whole Roman world, the most savage nations, roused, swarmed across their nearest frontiers: the Alemanni ravaged Gaul and Rhætia together; the Sarmatians and the Quadi Pannonia; the Picts, Saxons, Scots and Attacotti harassed Britain with unending misery; the Austoriani and other Moorish peoples raided Africa more fiercely than usual; predatory bands of Goths plundered Thrace; and the King of the Persians laid hands upon the Armenians." And while the Emperors were busy repelling these enemies, the Hunns and Alans and Goths came over the Danube in two bodies, overcame and killed Valens, and made so great a slaughter of the Roman army that Ammianus says: "Nor is any matter read of in the Annals, apart from the one at Cannae, that was so carried through to complete extermination." These wars were not fully stopped on all sides until the beginning of the reign of Theodosius, A.C. 379 & 380; but from then on the Empire remained quiet from foreign armies, until his death, A.C. 395. So long the four winds were held; and so long there was silence in heaven. And the seventh seal was opened when this silence began.

Mr. Mede has explained the Prophecy of the first six trumpets not much amiss; but if he had observed that the Prophecy of pouring out the vials of wrath is synchronal with that of sounding the trumpets, his explanation would have been even more complete.

The name of Woes is given to the wars to which the three last trumpets sound, to distinguish them from the wars of the first four. The sacrifices on the first four days of the feast of Tabernacles, at which the first four trumpets sound, and the first four vials of wrath are poured out, are slaughters in four great wars; and these wars are represented by four winds from the four corners of the earth. The first was an east wind, the second a west wind, the third a south wind, and the fourth a north wind, with respect to the city of Rome, the metropolis of the old Roman Empire. These four plagues fell upon the third part of the Earth, Sea, Rivers, Sun, Moon and Stars; that is, upon the Earth, Sea, Rivers, Sun, Moon and Stars of the third part of the whole scene of these Prophecies of Daniel and John.

The plague of the eastern wind⁷ at the sounding of the first trumpet was to fall upon the Earth, that is, upon the nations of the Greek Empire. Accordingly, after the death of Theodosius the great, the Goths, Sarmatians, Hunns, Isaurians, and Austorian Moors invaded and miserably wasted Greece, Thrace, Asia minor, Armenia, Syria, Egypt, Lybia, and Illyricum, for ten or twelve years together.

The plague of the western wind at the sounding of the second trumpet was to fall upon the Sea, or Western Empire, by means of a great mountain burning with fire cast into it, and turning it to blood. Accordingly in the year 407 that Empire began to be invaded by the Visigoths, Vandals, Alans, Sueves, Burgundians, Ostrogoths, Heruli, Quadi, Gepides; and by these wars it was broken into ten kingdoms, and miserably wasted; and Rome itself, the burning mountain, was besieged and taken by the Ostrogoths at the beginning of these miseries.

The plague of the southern wind at the sounding of the third trumpet was to cause a great star, burning as it were a lamp, to fall from heaven upon the rivers and fountains of waters, the Western Empire now divided into many kingdoms, and to turn them to wormwood and blood, and make them bitter. Accordingly Genseric, the King of the Vandals and Alans in Spain, A.C. 427, entered Africa with an army of eighty thousand men; where he invaded the Moors, and made war upon the Romans, both there and on the sea coasts of Europe, for fifty years together, almost without intermission, taking Hippo A.C. 431, and Carthage the capital of Africa A.C. 439. In A.C. 455, with a numerous fleet and an army of three hundred thousand Vandals and Moors, he invaded Italy, took and plundered Rome, Naples, Capua, and many other cities; carrying their wealth from there, with the flower of the people, into Africa: and the next year, A.C. 456, he rent all Africa from the Empire, totally expelling the Romans. Then the Vandals invaded and took the Islands of the Mediterranean, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Ebusus, Majorca, Minorca, etc.; and Ricimer besieged the Emperor Anthemius in Rome, took the city, and gave his soldiers the plunder, A.C. 472. The Visigoths about the same time drove the Romans out of Spain: and now the Western Emperor, the great star which fell from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, having by all these wars gradually lost almost all his dominions, was invaded, and conquered in one year by Odoacer King of the Heruli, A.C. 476. After this the Moors revolted A.C. 477, and weakened the Vandals by several wars, and took Mauritania from them. These wars continued until the Vandals were conquered by Belisarius, A.C. 534; and by all these wars Africa was almost depopulated, according to Procopius, who reckons that above five million men perished in them. When the Vandals first invaded Africa, that country was very populous, consisting of about 700 bishoprics, more than were in all France, Spain and Italy together: but by the wars between the Vandals, Romans and Moors, it was depopulated to such a degree that Procopius tells us it was next to a miracle for a traveler to see a man.

In pouring out the third vial it is⁸ said: "You are righteous, O Lord—because you have judged thus: for they have shed the blood of your Saints and Prophets, and you have given them blood to drink, for they are worthy." How they shed the blood of the Saints may be understood from the following Edict of the Emperor Honorius, procured by four Bishops sent to him by a Council of African Bishops, who met at Carthage 14 June, A.C. 410.

The Emperors Honorius and Theodosius, Augusti, to Heraclianus, Count of Africa.

"With the oracle wholly removed by which they had crept into the rites of heretical superstition, let all enemies of the holy law know that they will be punished with the penalty of proscription and of blood, if they should any longer dare to assemble in public with the execrable daring of their crime. Given on the eighth day before the Kalends of September, in the consulship of Varano, A.C. 410."

This Edict was fortified five years later by the following one.

The Emperors Honorius and Theodosius, Augusti, to Heraclianus, Count of Africa.

When Eusebius had brought his Ecclesiastical History down to the reign of Dioclesian, he thus describes the state of the Church: Qualem quantamque gloriam simul ac libertatem doctrina veræ erga supremum Deum pietatis à Christo primùm hominibus annunciata, apud omnes Græcos pariter & barbaros ante persecutionem nostrâ memoriâ excitatam, consecuta sit, nos certè pro merito explicare non possumus. Argumento esse possit Imperatorum benignitas erga nostros: quibus regendas etiam provincias committebant, omni sacrificandi metu eos liberantes ob singularem, qua in religionem nostram affecti erant, benevolentiam. And a little after: Jam vero quis innumerabilem hominum quotidiè ad fidem Christi confugientium turbam, quis numerum ecclesiarum in singulis urbibus, quis illustres populorum concursus in ædibus sacris, cumulatè possit describere? Quo factum est, ut priscis ædificiis jam non contenti, in singulis urbibus spatiosas ab ipsis fundamentis exstruerent ecclesias. Atque hæc progressii temporis increscentia, & quotidiè in majus & melius proficiscentia, nec livor ullus atterere, nec malignitas dæmonis fascinare, nec hominum insidiæ prohibere unquam potuerunt, quamdiu omnipotentis Dei dextra populum suum, utpote tali dignum præsidio, texit atque custodiit. Sed cum ex nimia libertate in negligentiam ac desidiam prolapsi essemus; cum alter alteri invidere atque obtrectare cæpisset; cum inter nos quasi bella intestina gereremus, verbis, tanquam armis quibusdam hastisque, nos mutuò vulnerantes; cum Antistites adversus Antistites, populi in populos collisi, jurgia ac tumultus agitarent; denique cum fraus & simulatio ad summum malitiæ culmen adolevisset: tum divina ultio, levi brachio ut solet, integro adhuc ecclesiæ statu, & fidelium turbis liberè convenientibus, sensim ac moderatè in nos cæpit animadvertere; orsà primùm persecutione ab iis qui militabant. Cum verò sensu omni destituti de placando Dei numine ne cogitaremus quidem; quin potius instar impiorum quorundam res humanas nullâ providentiâ gubernari rati, alia quotidiè crimina aliis adjiceremus: cum Pastores nostri spretâ religionis regulâ, mutuis inter se contentionibus decertarent, nihil aliud quam jurgia, minas, æmulationem, odia, ac mutuas inimicitias amplificare studentes; principatum quasi tyrannidem quandam contentissimè sibi vindicantes: tunc demùm juxta dictum Hieremiæ, obscuravit Dominus in ira sua filiam Sion, & dejecit de cælo gloriam Israel,--per Ecclesiarum scilicet subversionem, &c. This was the state of the Church just before the Churches were overthrown at the start of Dioclesian's persecution, and the first of the seven Epistles to the Angel of the seven Churches,¹ the one to the Church in Ephesus, agrees with it. "I have something against you," says Christ to the Angel of that Church, "because you have left your first love. Remember where you have fallen, and repent, and do the things you did at first; or else I will come to you quickly and take your candfor fear thatick out of its place, unless you repent. But this you have: you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." The Nicolaitans are the Continentes described above, who made religion consist in abstaining from marriage and left their wives if they had any. They are called Nicolaitans here after Nicolas, one of the seven deacons of the early Church at Jerusalem. He had a beautiful wife and was charged with loving her too much, so he left her and let her marry whoever she wanted, saying that people must turn away from the flesh. From then on he lived alone and kept from sex, and so did his children. Later the Continentes took up the doctrine of Æons and of male and female spirits, and the Churches kept away from them until the fourth century. The Church of Ephesus is praised here for hating their deeds.

The persecution of Dioclesian began in the year of Christ 302 and lasted ten years in the Eastern Empire and two years in the Western. The second Epistle, to the Church of Smyrna, agrees with this state of the Church. "I know,"² says Christ, "your works, your trouble, and your poverty, yet you are rich. And I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Do not fear any of the things you are about to suffer. Look, the Devil will throw some of you into prison so that you may be tested, and you will have trouble for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life." The trouble of ten days fits no persecution but that of Dioclesian, because it was the only persecution that lasted ten years. By the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan, I mean the idolatry of the Nicolaitans, who falsely said they were Christians.

The Nicolaitans are also complained of in³ the third Epistle as men who held the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to put a stumbling block in front of the children of Israel, to eat food sacrificed to idols, and⁴ to commit spiritual fornication. Balaam taught the Moabites and Midianites to tempt and invite Israel through their women to commit fornication, and to feast with them at the sacrifices of their gods. So the Dragon now began to come down among the people of the earth and sea.

The Nicolaitans are also complained of in the fourth Epistle under the name of the woman Jezabel, who calls herself a Prophetess, to teach and seduce the servants of Christ into fornication and into eating food sacrificed to idols. So the woman now began to fly into the wilderness.

From the time he conquered Licinius, Constantine the great ruled the whole Roman Empire as one monarch. Then the Empire was divided between the sons of Constantine, and later it was joined together again under Constantius through his victory over Magnentius. The third, fourth and fifth Epistles, that is, the ones to the Angels of the Churches in Pergamus, Thyatira and Sardis, seem to fit the affairs of the Church in these three periods of time in a row. The next Emperor was Julian the Apostate.

In the sixth Epistle,⁵ to the Angel of the Church in Philadelphia, Christ says: "Because in the reign of the heathen Emperor Julian you kept the word of my patience, I will also keep you from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world by the woman's flying into the wilderness, the Dragon's making war with the rest of her seed, and the killing of all who will not worship the Image of the Beast, to test those who live on the earth and to tell them apart: by sealing the one with the name of God on their foreheads, and marking the other with the mark of the Beast. The one who overcomes I will make a pillar in the Temple of my God, and he will never go out of it again. And I will write on him the name of my God and his forehead." So the Christians of the Church in Philadelphia, as many of them as overcome, are sealed with the seal of God, placed in the second Temple, and never go out again. The same is to be understood of the Church in Smyrna, which also kept the word of God's patience and was without fault. So these two Churches, along with their children, are the two Pillars, the two Candfor fear thaticks and the two Witnesses in the second Temple.

After the Emperor Julian reigned, and his successor Jovian reigned for only five months, the Empire was again divided between Valentinian and Valens. Then the Catholic Church, in the Epistle to the Angel of the Church of Laodicea, is criticized as lukewarm and⁶ threatened with being spit out of Christ's mouth. She said that she was rich, had grown wealthy, and did not need anything, because she was doing well on the outside, and she did not know that inside she was wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked. So she is spit out of Christ's mouth when the seventh seal is opened, and this brings the times of the first Temple to an end.

About half of the Roman Empire turned Christian in the time of Constantine the great and his sons. After Julian opened the Temples and restored the worship of the heathens, the Emperors Valentinian and Valens allowed it for their whole reigns, and so the Prophecy of the sixth seal was not fully carried out before the reign of their successor Gratian. It was the custom of the heathen Priests, at the start of the reign of every sovereign Emperor, to offer him the dignity and the robes of the Pontifex Maximus. Every Emperor had accepted this honor until then, but Gratian turned it down, threw down the idols, banned the sacrifices, and took away their revenues along with the salaries and authority of the Priests. Theodosius the great followed his example, and after that heathenism never recovered. It declined so fast that Prudentius, about ten years after the death of Theodosius, called the heathens vix pauca ingenia & pars hominum rarissima. So the affairs of the sixth seal ended with the reign of Valens, or rather with the beginning of the reign of Theodosius, when he, like Gratian before him, refused the dignity of Pontifex Maximus. For the Romans were much troubled by the invasions of foreign nations in the reign of Valentinian and Valens: Hoc tempore, says Ammianus, velut per universum orbem Romanum bellicum canentibus buccinis, excitæ gentes sævissimæ limites sibi proximos persultabant: Gallias Rhætiasque simul Alemanni populabantur: Sarmatæ Pannonias & Quadi: Picti, Saxones, & Scoti & Attacotti Britannos ærumnis vexavere continuis: Austoriani, Mauricæque aliæ gentes Africam solito acriùs incursabant: Thracias diripiebant prædatorii globi Gotthorum: Persarum Rex manus Armeniis injectabat. And while the Emperors were busy driving these enemies off, the Hunns and Alans and Goths crossed the Danube in two bodies, defeated and killed Valens, and slaughtered the Roman army so badly that Ammianus says: Nec ulla Annalibus præter Cannensem ita ad internecionem res legitur gesta. These wars were not fully stopped on every side until the beginning of the reign of Theodosius, A.C. 379 & 380. After that the Empire stayed quiet and free from foreign armies until his death, A.C. 395. For that long the four winds were held back, and for that long there was silence in heaven. And the seventh seal was opened when this silence began.

Mr. Mede has explained the Prophecy of the first six trumpets fairly well. But if he had noticed that the Prophecy of pouring out the vials of wrath happens at the same time as the Prophecy of sounding the trumpets, his explanation would have been more complete.

The name of Woes is given to the wars that come with the last three trumpets, to tell them apart from the wars of the first four. The sacrifices on the first four days of the feast of Tabernacles, at which the first four trumpets sound and the first four vials of wrath are poured out, are slaughters in four great wars, and these wars are shown as four winds from the four corners of the earth. The first was an east wind, the second a west wind, the third a south wind, and the fourth a north wind, measured from the city of Rome, the capital of the old Roman Empire. These four plagues fell on the third part of the Earth, Sea, Rivers, Sun, Moon and Stars. That is, on the Earth, Sea, Rivers, Sun, Moon and Stars of the third part of the whole scene of these Prophecies of Daniel and John.

The plague of the eastern wind⁷ at the sounding of the first trumpet was to fall on the Earth, that is, on the nations of the Greek Empire. So after the death of Theodosius the great, the Goths, Sarmatians, Hunns, Isaurians and Austorian Moors invaded Greece, Thrace, Asia minor, Armenia, Syria, Egypt, Lybia and Illyricum and ruined them miserably, ten or twelve years in a row.

The plague of the western wind at the sounding of the second trumpet was to fall on the Sea, or Western Empire, by means of a great mountain burning with fire thrown into it, turning it to blood. So in the year 407 that Empire began to be invaded by the Visigoths, Vandals, Alans, Sueves, Burgundians, Ostrogoths, Heruli, Quadi and Gepides, and these wars broke it into ten kingdoms and ruined it. Rome itself, the burning mountain, was besieged and taken by the Ostrogoths at the start of these disasters.

The plague of the southern wind at the sounding of the third trumpet was to make a great star, burning like a lamp, fall from heaven onto the rivers and fountains of waters, the Western Empire by then divided into many kingdoms, and to turn them to wormwood and blood and make them bitter. So Genseric, the King of the Vandals and Alans in Spain, A.C. 427, entered Africa with an army of eighty thousand men. There he invaded the Moors and made war on the Romans, both there and on the sea coasts of Europe, fifty years in a row, almost without a break, taking Hippo A.C. 431 and Carthage, the capital of Africa, A.C. 439. In A.C. 455, with a large fleet and an army of three hundred thousand Vandals and Moors, he invaded Italy, took and plundered Rome, Naples, Capua and many other cities, carrying off their wealth and the best of their people to Africa. The next year, A.C. 456, he tore all Africa away from the Empire and drove the Romans out completely. Then the Vandals invaded and took the islands of the Mediterranean: Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Ebusus, Majorca, Minorca, etc. Ricimer besieged the Emperor Anthemius in Rome, took the city and gave the plunder to his soldiers, A.C. 472. The Visigoths at about the same time drove the Romans out of Spain. By now the Western Emperor, the great star that fell from heaven burning like a lamp, had gradually lost almost all his dominions through these wars. He was invaded and conquered in one year by Odoacer King of the Heruli, A.C. 476. After that the Moors revolted A.C. 477, weakened the Vandals through several wars, and took Mauritania from them. These wars went on until the Vandals were conquered by Belisarius, A.C. 534. Through all these wars Africa was almost emptied of people, according to Procopius, who reckons that more than five million men died in them. When the Vandals first invaded Africa, that country was very crowded, with about 700 bishoprics, more than all France, Spain and Italy had together. But the wars between the Vandals, Romans and Moors emptied it so completely that Procopius tells us it was almost a miracle for a traveler to see a man.

In pouring out the third vial it is⁸ said: "You are righteous, O Lord, because you have judged this way: they have shed the blood of your Saints and Prophets, and you have given them blood to drink, for they are worthy." How they shed the blood of Saints can be seen from the following Edict of the Emperor Honorius, obtained by four Bishops who were sent to him by a Council of African Bishops, who met at Carthage 14 June, A.C. 410.

Impp. Honor. &. Theod. AA. Heracliano Com. Afric.

Oraculo penitus remoto, quo ad ritus suos hæreticæ superstitionis abrepserant, sciant omnes sanctæ legis inimici, plectendos se poena & proscriptionis & sanguinis, si ultra convenire per publicum, execrandâ sceleris sui temeritate temptaverint. Dat. viii. Kal. Sept. Varano V.C. Cons. A.C. 410.

Five years later this Edict was reinforced by the following one.

Impp. Honor. & Theod. AA. Heracliano Com. Afric.