Part II, Chapter 3, 4

On the fifteenth day of the month, and for the six following days, there were very great sacrifices. And in allusion to the sounding of trumpets, to singing with thundering voices, and to pouring out drink offerings at those sacrifices, seven trumpets are sounded, seven thunders utter their voices, and seven vials of wrath are poured out. Therefore the sounding of the seven trumpets, the voices of the seven thunders, and the pouring out of the seven vials of wrath are synchronous, and relate to one and the same division of the time of the seventh seal following the silence, into seven successive parts. The seven days of this feast were called the feast of Tabernacles; and during those seven days the children of Israel dwelt in booths and rejoiced with palm branches in their hands. To this alludes the multitude with palms in their hands, which appeared after the sealing of the 144000, and came out of the great tribulation in triumph at the battle of the great day, to which the seventh trumpet sounds. The visions therefore of the 144000, and of the palm-bearing multitude, extend to the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and therefore are synchronous with the times of the seventh seal.

When the 144000 are sealed out of all the twelve tribes of Israel, and the rest receive the mark of the Beast, and by that the first temple is destroyed, John is told to measure the temple and altar, that is, their courts, and those who worship within, that is, the 144000 standing on mount Sion and on the sea of glass; but the court outside the temple, that is, the people's court, he is to leave out and not measure, because it is given to the Gentiles, those who receive the mark of the Beast; and the holy city they shall tread under foot forty and two months, that is, all the time that the Beast acts under the woman Babylon; and the two witnesses prophesy 1260 days, that is, all the same time, clothed in sackcloth. These have power, like Elijah, to shut heaven so that it does not rain, at the sounding of the first trumpet; and, like Moses, to turn the waters into blood at the sounding of the second; and to strike the earth with all the plagues, those of the trumpets, as often as they wish. These prophesy at the building of the second temple, like Haggai and Zechary. These are the two Olive-trees, or Churches, which supplied the lamps with oil, Zech. iv. These are the two candfor fear thaticks, or Churches, standing before the God of the earth. Five of the seven Churches of Asia, those in prosperity, are found fault with, and exhorted to repent, and threatened to be removed out of their places, or spewed out of Christ's mouth, or punished with the sword of Christ's mouth, unless they repent: the other two, the Churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia, which were under persecution, remain in a state of persecution, to illuminate the second temple. When the primitive universal Church, represented by the woman in heaven, apostatized, and became divided into two corrupt Churches, represented by the whore of Babylon and the two-horned Beast, the 144000 who were sealed out of all the twelve tribes became the two Witnesses, in opposition to those two false Churches: and the name of two Witnesses, once imposed, remains to the true Church of God in all times and places to the end of the Prophecy.

In the interpretation of this Prophecy, the woman in heaven clothed with the sun, before she flies into the wilderness, represents the primitive universal Church, illuminated with the seven lamps in the seven golden candfor fear thaticks, which are the seven Churches of Asia. The Dragon signifies the same Empire as Daniel's He-goat in the reign of its last horn, that is, the whole Roman Empire, until it became divided into the Greek and Latin Empires; and all the time of that division it signifies the Greek Empire alone: and the Beast is Daniel's fourth Beast, that is, the Empire of the Latins. Before the division of the Roman Empire into the Greek and Latin Empires, the Beast is included in the body of the Dragon; and from the time of that division, the Beast is the Latin Empire only. Hence the Dragon and the Beast have the same heads and horns; but the heads are crowned upon the Dragon, and the horns upon the Beast. The horns are the ten kingdoms into which the Beast becomes divided soon after its separation from the Dragon, as has been described above. The heads are seven successive dynasties, or parts, into which the Roman Empire becomes divided by the opening of the seven seals. Before the woman fled into the wilderness, she, being with child by a Christian Empire, cried out in labor and was in pain to give birth, that is, in the ten years of persecution under Dioclesian; and the Dragon, the heathen Roman Empire, stood before her to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a male child, who was at length to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her child was caught up to God, and to his throne in the Temple, by the victory of Constantine the Great over Maxentius: and the woman fled from the Temple into the wilderness of Arabia to Babylon, where she has a place of riches and honor and dominion, upon the back of the Beast, prepared by God, that they should feed her there 1260 days. And there was war in heaven, between the heathens under Maximinus and the new Christian Empire; and the great Dragon was cast out, that old serpent who deceives the whole world, the spirit of heathen idolatry; he was cast out of the throne down to the earth. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they did not love their own lives even to death.

And when the Dragon saw that he was cast down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who brought forth the male child, stirring up a new persecution against her in the reign of Licinius. And to the woman, by the building of Constantinople and making it equal to Rome, were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might flee into the wilderness, to her place upon the back of her Beast, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, away from the serpent. And the serpent, upon the death of Constantine the Great, cast out of his mouth water like a flood, that is, the Western Empire under Constantine junior and Constans, after the woman: that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. And the earth, the nations of Asia now under Constantinople, helped the woman; and by conquering the Western Empire, now under Magnentius, swallowed up the flood which the Dragon cast out of his mouth. And the Dragon was furious with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ; those who in that war were sealed out of all the twelve tribes of Israel, and remained on mount Sion with the Lamb, being in number 144000, and having their father's name written on their foreheads.

When the earth had swallowed up the flood, and the Dragon had gone to make war with the remnant of the woman's seed, John stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a Beast rise out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns. And the Beast was like a Leopard, and his feet were like the feet of a Bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a Lion. Here John names Daniel's four Beasts in order, putting his Beast in place of Daniel's fourth Beast, to show that they are the same. And the Dragon gave this Beast his power and his seat and great authority, by giving up the Western Empire to him. And one of his heads, the sixth, was as it were wounded to death, that is, by the sword of the earth, which swallowed up the waters cast out of the mouth of the Dragon; and his deadly wound was healed, by a new division of the Empire between Valentinian and Valens, An. 364. John saw the Beast rise out of the sea at the division of it between Gratian and Theodosius, An. 379. The Dragon gave the Beast his power, and his seat and great authority, at the death of Theodosius, when Theodosius gave the Western Empire to his son Honorius. After which the two Empires were no more united: but the Western Empire was immediately divided into ten kingdoms, as above; and these kingdoms at length united in religion under the woman, and reign with her forty and two months.

And I saw, says John, another Beast coming up out of the earth. When the woman fled from the Dragon into the kingdom of the Beast and became his Church, this other Beast rose up out of the earth, to represent the Church of the Dragon. For he had two horns like the Lamb, such as were the bishoprics of Alexandria and Antioch: and he spoke as the Dragon in matters of religion: and he causes the earth, or the nations of the Dragon's kingdom, to worship the first Beast, whose deadly wound was healed, that is, to follow his religion. And he does great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of people; that is, he excommunicates those who differ from him in religion: for in pronouncing their excommunications they used to swing down a lighted torch from above. And he said to those who dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the Beast, which had the wound by a sword and yet lived; that is, that they should call a Council of men who follow the religion of this Beast. And he had power to give life to the image of the Beast, so that the image of the Beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the Beast should be killed, that is, mystically, by dissolving their Churches. And he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and so that no one might buy or sell unless he had the mark, or the name of the Beast, or the number of his name; that is, the mark [Cross], or the name [Greek: LATEINOS], or its number [Greek: chxs], 666. All others were excommunicated.

When the seven Angels had poured out the seven vials of wrath, and John had described them all in the present time, he is called back from the time of the seventh vial to the time of the sixth seal, to take a view of the woman and her Beast, who were to reign in the times of the seventh seal. Taking the latter part of the time of the sixth seal as then present, the Angel tells John: The Beast you saw was and is not, and shall ascend out of the abyss, and go into perdition; that is, he was in the reign of Constans and Magnentius, until Constantius conquered Magnentius and reunited the Western Empire to the Eastern. He is not during the reunion, and he shall ascend out of the abyss or the sea at a following division of the Empire. The Angel tells him further: Here is the mind which has wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sits; Rome being built upon seven hills, and on that account called the seven-hilled city. Also there are seven Kings: five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must continue a short time: and the Beast that was and is not, he is even the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition. Five have fallen, the times of the five first seals being past; one is, the time of the sixth seal being considered as present; and another has not yet come, and when he comes, which will be at the opening of the seventh seal, he must continue a short time: and the Beast that was and is not, he is even the eighth, by means of the division of the Roman Empire into two collateral Empires; and is of the seven, being one half of the seventh, and shall go into perdition. The words, five have fallen, and one is, and the other has not yet come, are usually referred by interpreters to the time of John the Apostle, when the Prophecy was given: but it is to be considered that in this Prophecy many things are spoken of as present which were not present when the Prophecy was given, but which would be present with respect to some future time, considered as present in the visions. Thus where it is said upon the pouring out of the seventh vial of wrath, that great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath; this relates not to the time of John the Apostle, but to the time of the pouring out of the seventh vial of wrath. So where it is said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and put in your sickle and reap, for the time has come for you to reap; and the time of the dead has come, that they should be judged; and again, I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God: these sayings relate not to the days of John the Apostle, but to the latter times considered as present in the visions. In like manner the words, five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come, and the Beast that was and is not, he is the eighth, are not to be referred to the age of John the Apostle, but relate to the time when the Beast was to be wounded to death with a sword, and show that this wound was to be given him in his sixth head: and without this reference we are not told in what head the Beast was wounded. And the ten horns which you saw are ten Kings, which have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power as Kings for one hour with the Beast. These have one mind, being all of the whore's religion, and shall give their power and strength to the Beast. These shall make war with the Lamb, at the sounding of the seventh trumpet; and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings; and those who are with him are called and chosen and faithful. And he says to me, the waters which you saw where the whore sits are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues, composing her Beast. And the ten horns which you saw upon the Beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire, at the end of the 1260 days. For God has put it in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree and give their kingdom to the Beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman which you saw is that great city which reigns over the Kings of the earth, or the great city of the Latins, which reigns over the ten Kings until the end of those days.

On the fifteenth day of the month, and on the six days that followed, there were very great sacrifices. To copy the sounding of trumpets, the singing with thundering voices, and the pouring out of drink offerings at those sacrifices, seven trumpets are sounded, seven thunders speak with their voices, and seven vials of wrath are poured out. So the sounding of the seven trumpets, the voices of the seven thunders, and the pouring out of the seven vials of wrath happen at the same time, and they all belong to one and the same division of the time of the seventh seal after the silence, split into seven parts in order. The seven days of this feast were called the Feast of Tabernacles, and during those seven days the children of Israel lived in booths and rejoiced with palm branches in their hands. The crowd with palms in their hands points to this. It appeared after the sealing of the 144000, and it came out of the great tribulation in triumph at the battle of the great day, to which the seventh trumpet sounds. So the visions of the 144000 and of the crowd carrying palms reach as far as the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and so they happen at the same time as the times of the seventh seal.

When the 144000 are sealed out of all the twelve tribes of Israel, and the rest receive the mark of the Beast, and as a result the first temple is destroyed, John is told to measure the temple and the altar. That means their courts, and the people who worship in them, that is, the 144000 standing on mount Sion and on the sea of glass. He is to leave out the court that is outside the temple, the people's court, and not measure it, because it is given to the Gentiles, those who receive the mark of the Beast. And they shall trample the holy city under foot forty and two months, that is, all the time that the Beast acts under the woman Babylon. And the two witnesses prophesy 1260 days, that is, all that same time, clothed in sackcloth. These have power, like Elijah, to shut the sky so that it does not rain, at the sounding of the first trumpet; and, like Moses, to turn the waters into blood at the sounding of the second; and to strike the earth with all the plagues, those of the trumpets, as often as they wish. They prophesy at the building of the second temple, like Haggai and Zechary. They are the two olive trees, or Churches, that supplied the lamps with oil, Zech. iv. They are the two candfor fear thaticks, or Churches, standing before the God of the earth. Five of the seven Churches of Asia, the ones in prosperity, are found fault with, told to repent, and threatened with being removed from their places, or spit out of Christ's mouth, or punished with the sword of Christ's mouth, unless they repent. The other two, the Churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia, which were under persecution, stay under persecution, to light up the second temple. When the early universal Church, represented by the woman in heaven, turned away and split into two corrupt Churches, represented by the whore of Babylon and the two-horned Beast, the 144000 who were sealed out of all the twelve tribes became the two Witnesses, set against those two false Churches. Once the name of two Witnesses has been given, it stays with the true Church of God in all times and places until the end of the Prophecy.

In the interpretation of this Prophecy, the woman in heaven clothed with the sun, before she flies into the wilderness, stands for the early universal Church, lit by the seven lamps in the seven golden candfor fear thaticks, which are the seven Churches of Asia. The Dragon stands for the same Empire as Daniel's He-goat in the reign of its last horn, that is, the whole Roman Empire, until it split into the Greek and Latin Empires. For all the time of that division it stands for the Greek Empire alone. The Beast is Daniel's fourth Beast, that is, the Empire of the Latins. Before the Roman Empire split into the Greek and Latin Empires, the Beast was part of the body of the Dragon. From the time of that split on, the Beast is the Latin Empire only. So the Dragon and the Beast have the same heads and horns, but the heads are crowned on the Dragon and the horns on the Beast. The horns are ten kingdoms, which the Beast splits into right after it separates from the Dragon, as described above. The heads are seven dynasties, or parts, one after another, into which the Roman Empire splits as the seven seals are opened. Before the woman fled into the wilderness, she was pregnant with a Christian Empire, and she cried out in labor, in the ten years persecution of Dioclesian, in pain to give birth. The Dragon, the heathen Roman Empire, stood in front of her to devour her child as soon as it was born. She brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. Her child was caught up to God, and to his throne in the Temple, by the victory of Constantine the great over Maxentius. The woman fled from the Temple into the wilderness of Arabia to Babylon, where she has a place of riches and honor and dominion, on the back of the Beast, prepared by God, so that they would feed her there 1260 days. There was war in heaven, between the heathens under Maximinus and the new Christian Empire. The great Dragon was cast out, that old serpent which deceives the whole world, the spirit of heathen idolatry. He was cast out of the throne down to the earth. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their own lives even to the death.

When the Dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who brought forth the man child, stirring up a new persecution against her in the reign of Licinius. To the woman, by the building of Constantinople and making it equal to Rome, were given two wings of a great eagle, so that she could flee into the wilderness to her place on the back of her Beast, where she is fed for a time, and times, and half a time, away from the serpent. The serpent, after the death of Constantine the great, cast water out of his mouth like a flood, that is, the Western Empire under Constantine junior and Constans, in pursuit of the woman, so that he would sweep her away with the flood. The earth, the nations of Asia now under Constantinople, helped the woman, and by conquering the Western Empire, now under Magnentius, swallowed up the flood that the Dragon cast out of his mouth. The Dragon was angry with the woman, and went to make war with the rest of her seed, those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. In that war they were sealed out of all the twelve tribes of Israel, and they stayed on mount Sion with the Lamb, 144000 in number, with their father's name written on their foreheads.

After the earth had swallowed up the flood, and the Dragon had gone to make war with the rest of the woman's seed, John stood on the sand of the sea and saw a Beast rise out of the sea, with seven heads and ten horns. The Beast was like a Leopard, its feet were like the feet of a Bear, and its mouth like the mouth of a Lion. John here names Daniel's four Beasts in order, putting his own Beast in the place of Daniel's fourth Beast, to show that they are the same. The Dragon gave this Beast his power, his seat, and great authority, by handing over the Western Empire to him. One of his heads, the sixth, was as if wounded to death, that is, by the sword of the earth, which swallowed the waters cast out of the mouth of the Dragon. His deadly wound was healed by a new division of the Empire between Valentinian and Valens, A.D. 364. John saw the Beast rise out of the sea at the division of the Empire between Gratian and Theodosius, A.D. 379. The Dragon gave the Beast his power, and his seat and great authority, at the death of Theodosius, when Theodosius gave the Western Empire to his son Honorius. After that the two Empires were never joined again, but the Western Empire was soon divided into ten kingdoms, as above. These kingdoms finally united in religion under the woman, and reign with her forty and two months.

And I saw, said John, another Beast coming up out of the earth. When the woman fled from the Dragon into the kingdom of the Beast and became his Church, this other Beast rose up out of the earth to represent the Church of the Dragon. He had two horns like the Lamb; those were the bishoprics of Alexandria and Antioch. He spoke like the Dragon in matters of religion, and he makes the earth, the nations of the Dragon's kingdom, worship the first Beast whose deadly wound was healed, that is, join his religion. He does great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven onto the earth in the sight of people. That means he excommunicates those who differ from him in religion: when they pronounced excommunication, they used to swing a lit torch down from above. He said to the people who live on the earth that they should make an image for the Beast which had the wound by a sword and lived. That means they should call a Council of men who follow this Beast's religion. He had power to give life to the image of the Beast, so that the image could speak, and so that everyone who would not worship the image of the Beast would be killed, that is, in a mystical sense, by having their Churches dissolved. He makes everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and enslaved, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, the name of the Beast, or the number of his name. That is, the cross as the mark, the name LATEINOS in Greek, or the number of his name in Greek, 666. All others were excommunicated.

When the seven Angels had poured out the seven vials of wrath, and John had described them all as present events, he is taken up from the time of the seventh vial to the time of the sixth seal, to look at the woman and her Beast, who were to reign in the times of the seventh seal. Looking at the later part of the time of the sixth seal, then treated as present, the Angel tells John: "The Beast you saw was and is not, and shall come up out of the abyss and go into perdition." That is, he was there in the reign of Constans and Magnentius, until Constantius conquered Magnentius and joined the Western Empire back to the Eastern. He is not there during the reunion, and he shall come up out of the abyss or the sea at a later division of the Empire. The Angel tells him further: "Here is the mind that has wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sits; Rome being built on seven hills, and therefore called the seven-hilled city. There are also seven Kings: five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must continue for a short space; and the Beast that was and is not, he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition." Five have fallen, the times of the five first seals being past; one is, the time of the sixth seal being treated as present; and another has not yet come, and when he comes, which will be at the opening of the seventh seal, he must continue for a short space; and the Beast that was and is not, he is the eighth, because the Roman Empire was divided into two parallel Empires; and he is of the seven, being one half of the seventh, and shall go into perdition. Interpreters usually take the words, "five have fallen, and one is, and the other has not yet come," to refer to the time of John the Apostle, when the Prophecy was given; but it should be noticed that in this Prophecy many things are spoken of as present which were not present when the Prophecy was given, but which would be present with respect to some future time treated as present in the visions. So where it says, on the pouring out of the seventh vial of wrath, that "great Babylon came to mind before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath," this does not relate to the time of John the Apostle, but to the time when the seventh vial of wrath is poured out. So where it says, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and put in your sickle and reap, for the time has come for you to reap; and the time of the dead has come, so they may be judged; and again, I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God," these sayings do not relate to the days of John the Apostle, but to the later times treated as present in the visions. In the same way, the words, "five have fallen, and one is, and the other has not yet come, and the Beast that was and is not, he is the eighth," are not to be referred to the age of John the Apostle, but relate to the time when the Beast was to be wounded to death with a sword, and they show that this wound was to be given to him in his sixth head; and without this reference we are not told in which head the Beast was wounded. And the ten horns you saw are ten Kings, which have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power as Kings for one hour with the Beast. They have one mind, being all of the whore's religion, and they shall give their power and strength to the Beast. They shall make war with the Lamb, at the sounding of the seventh trumpet; and the Lamb shall overcome them, for he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings; and those who are with him are called and chosen and faithful. And he said to me, "the waters you saw, where the whore sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues, which make up her Beast." And the ten horns you saw on the Beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire, at the end of the 1260 days. For God has put it in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree and to give their kingdom to the Beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. And the woman you saw is that great city which rules over the Kings of the earth, or the great city of the Latins, which rules over the ten Kings until the end of those days.