Bookshelf/ Vol.I / Vol. IV. Part VI. Contents. Chapter I. 1. 2. 3. II. 1. 2. 3. III. 1. 2. 3. IV. 1. 2. V. 1. 2. Appendix I. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. II. 1a. 1b. 2a. 2b. 2c. 3. 4. III 1. 2a. 2b.
PERIOD 2 FROM CONSTANTINE TO THE COMPLETION OF THE FALL
OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, A.D. 476.
The great Constantinian revolution, accomplished (as I before observed) just after Lactantius’ publication of his ‘Institutions,’ could hardly fail of exercising a considerable influence on Apocalyptic interpretation. A revolution by which Christianity should be established in the prophetically-denounced Roman Empire, was an event the contingency of which had never occurred apparently to the previous exponents of Christian prophecy; and suggested the idea of a mode, time, and scene of the fulfillment of the promises of the latter-day blessedness, that could scarcely have arisen before: - viz. that its scene might be the earth in its present state, not the renovated earth after Christ’s coming and the conflagration; its time that of the present dispensation; its mode by the earthly establishment of the earthly Church visible. For it does not seem to have occurred at the time, that this might in fact be one of the preparatives, through Satan’s craft, for the establishment after a while of the great predicted antichristian ecclesiastical empire, on the platform of the same Roman world, and in a professing but apostatized Church.
1. Eusebius (my first author of this æra) [1] seems in earlier life to have received the Apocalypse as inspired Scripture; and interpreted its Seals, somewhat like Victorinus, of the difficulties of Old Testament prophecy opened by Christ. [2] When the extraordinary Constantinian revolution established itself, though now commenced as to its apostolic authorship, yet he still continued to refer to its prophecies; with an application changed however, accordantly with the change in the times. Thus he applied to this great event both Isaiah’s promises of the latter day, and also (as his language indicates) the Apocalyptic prophecy of the New Jerusalem; [3] at the same time that the symbolic vision of the seven-headed dragon of Apoc. xii., cast down from heaven, was with real exegetic correctness (as I conceive) applied to the dejection of Paganism, and the Pagan emperors, from their former supremacy in the Roman world. [4] - As regards Daniel’s hebdomads, let me add, Eusebius, like most of the expositors before him, explained them continuously; and as long before altogether fulfilled. [5]
But to carry out such views of the New Jerusalem must soon have been felt most difficult: the Arian and other troubles, which quickly supervened, powerfully contributing to that conviction. It resulted, perhaps not a little from this cause, that the Apocalypse itself became for a while much neglected; especially in the Eastern empire, where the imperial seat was now chiefly fixed. There occur however passing notices, directly or indirectly bearing on Apocalyptic interpretation, in the writings of the two chief champions of the orthodox Trinitarian faith in the East and the West, I mean of course Athanasius and Hilary, which must not be past over in silence.
2. In Athanasius the main point to be marked is his strongly pronounced opinion respecting the Antichrist of prophecy, that an heretical anti-Trinitarian ruler of the Roman empire, like Constatantius, would well answer to him; albeit making a Christian profession, and professedly in the Christian Church. Thus, in a general way, with reference to heretical leaders, he spoke of Antichrist coming with the profession, “I am Christ;” assuming Christ’s place and character, like Satan transformed into an angel of light: [6] then elsewhere, in particular, spoke of Constantius as the precursor of Antichrist, [7] the image of Antichrist, [8] nay as every way answering to Antichrist. For what mark, said he, does Constantius lack of the Antichrist of prophecy? [9] - I may add that he too seems to have construed the 70 hebdomads of Daniel, like the majority of his predecessors in the ante-Constantinian age, as wholly fulfilled on the first coming of Jesus, the Holy One of Holies. For then, says he, the prophecy and the vision was sealed up, and the city and the temple taken. [10]
3. In Hilary, Bishop of Poietiers in France, the contemporary and friend of Athanasius, the following particulars of Apocalyptic exposition may be worth our notice. [11] - 1. Somewhat like Victorinus and Eusebius he suggests the idea of the Apocalyptic seven-sealed Book, written within and without, signifying the various things predicted in Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophets, concerning Christ, and which were opened and revealed by Jesus; some already fulfilled when St. John was in Patmos, others yet unfulfilled and future. Moreover he thus somewhat originally divides and classifies them; viz. as Christ’s incarnation, passion, death resurrection, glory on ascension to heaven, reign, and final judgment: of which septenary, he says, the first five had been opened to the world on Jesus Christ’s first coming; the rest would be opened on his second coming. [12] - 2. To the Jewish symbols in Scripture prophecy he supposed generally that a Christian sense attached. So, more particularly, with regard to the New Jerusalem of Apoc. xxi., xxii.; [13] as also to the Zion, Jerusalem, Israel, and temple of the prophecies of the Old Testament. [14] - 3. On the subject of Antichrist he stated in a Treatise written before the year 356, [15] and when the West had been comparatively undisturbed by the violent aggressions of Arianism, that the predicted abomination of desolation was meant of a future Antichrist: the term abomination having reference to Antichrist’s appropriating to himself the honor due to God, as (after reception by the Jews) he sate in the Jewish holy place or temple; [16] that of desolation to his foreseen desolations of the once holy land and place by war and slaughter. Moreover he expressed his opinion that Moses and Elias, the same that appeared to Christ “ad sponsionem fidei” in the transfiguration, would be the two witnesses figured in the Apocalyptic prophecy as slain by Antichrist. [17] - A little later, after the flood of Arianism had swept with violence into the Western part of the Roman empire, the idea of Antichrist within the professing Christian Church forced itself on his mind, just as on that of Athanasius. Writing in 364 against Auxentius, the Arian Archbishop of Milan, he exclaims, “Is it a thing doubtful that Antichrist will sit in Christian Churches?” [18] And both there, and in his Treatise “De Trinitate,” written a little before 360, during his exile, he both denounces the Emperor Constantius as a precursor of Antichrist, [19] and directly designates the Bishop Arius, and the Bishop Auxentius, as Antichrists. [20] - 4. While commenting on the transfiguration, (“After six days Jesus taketh Peter and John, &c.,”) Hilary refers to the old idea of a seventh sabbatical millennary: saying that as Christ was transfigured in glory after the six days, so after the world’s 6000 years there would be manifested the glory of Christ’s eternal kingdom. [21] His great subject led him often to speak of the day and hour of the consummation being known to no man. [22] But this fact (considering the measure of doubtfulness attaching to our world’s chronology) [23] he did not regard as militating against the idea.
4. Turning to the East again, a very passing notice will suffice, of the Eastern Church’s three later patristic expositors of the 4th century, Cyril, Ephrem Syrus, Chrysostom: since, though acknowledging the Apocalypse as inspired, they yet made but little use of it. [24] - As regards Cyril of Jerusalem I may observe, that with reference to the expected Antichrist, he distinctly coupled together the two ideas of his being a ruler of the Roman Empire; (in fact the 8th head of the Apocalyptic Beast;) and his assuming to himself the title of Christ: - “This man will usurp the government of the Roman Empire, and will falsely call himself the Christ.” [25] But in what temple would he sit; the Jewish rebuilt temple, or Christian professing Churches? “That of the Jews.” But why? “Because God forbid that the temple meant should be that in which we now are.” Such was Cyril’s only reason against the latter view of the temple meant by St. Paul in his prophecy to the Thessalonians. This Antichrist, Cyril judged, was to be Daniel’s abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. - With regard to his contemporary Ephrem Syrus we may remark that he, like Hilary, noted how the wicked one, Antichrist, when come, would not cease to make inquisition for the saints by land and by sea; they seeking safety meanwhile in monasteries and deserts; the two witnesses Elijah and Enoch preceding him; and, on the Roman empire’s fall, Antichrist, and the consummation. [26] - As to Chrysostom, he judged that the temple of Antichrist’s enthronement would be not that which is in Jerusalem, but the Christian Church. “He will not invite men to worship idols, but will be himself an anti-theos. He will put down all gods; and will command men to worship him, as the very God. And he will sit in the temple of God: not that which is in Jerusalem, but in the Churches everywhere.” [27]
But it is time to turn Westward to Jerome and Augustine, those eminent expositors of the Latin Church, who, unlike the Greek fathers of the age, not only recognized the Apocalypse as a divine book, but continually referred to it: and in their passing notices on Apocalyptic interpretation threw out hints of much importance; and, on more than one point, with great and lasting influence.
5. Jerome. [28]
1 According to this father of the Church the Apocalypse was a book that had in it as many mysteries as words, while sundry particular words had each in them a multifold meaning: [29] and that the Apocalypse was to be all spiritually understood; because otherwise Judaic fables must be acquiesced, in such as those that the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and revival of its temple of carnal rites and ordinances. [30] In regard however of which his spiritual or figurative understanding of the Apocalypse, we should remember the check urged by Jerome himself against any undue license of fancy, at least in explaining the Old Testament; so as by those who with “anagoge veritatem historiæ auferant.” [31] - 2. The Apocalyptic 144,000 seen by St. John with Christ on Mount Zion, or sealed ones out of each and all of the tribes of the Apocalyptic Israel, are sometimes expounded by Jerome of the Christian apostles, martyrs, and saints generally, sometimes of Christian virgins or celibates more especially; [32] never of an election distinctively out of the Jews, or natural Israel. - 3. As regards the two Apocalyptic witnesses, though he has not given us his own opinion as to who or what made up his opinion about them, yet negatively he has pretty clearly intimated that in his judgment they were not Enoch and Elias; [33] cautioning his questionist on the point, the noble Roman lady Marcella, in a passage already referred to by me against expounding the Apocalypse otherwise than as a book which is to be understood spiritually or figuratively. [34] - 4. On the local scene of the two witnesses’ death, “the great city spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, and where also their Lord had been crucified,” we find expressed in Jerome’s works two different opinions. On the one hand, in the earliest written of his prophetic comments on Zeph. ii. 9, “Surely Moab shall be as Sodom and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah,” Jerome, in applying that designation and denunciation to heretical teachers within the Christian Church, fortifies that view of the passage by reference both to Isaiah’s designation of the false-teaching “viri ecclesiastici” of the Jews in his time as men of Sodom and Gomorrah, and also the Apocalyptic designation of the Christ-crucifying Jerusalem as Sodom and Egypt. [35] Again, in a Letter to Hebidia, written in his latter years, in explaining Matt. xxvii. 53, “Many saints which slept arose, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many,” he says that it was not until its rejection of the gospel-message preached by the apostles, and consequent ending of its day of grace, and abandonment to “the two destroying bears from the wood,” Vespasian and Titus, that the literal Jerusalem lost its title of the holy city: [36] it being the case thenceforward indeed, but not till then, that, instead of designation as the holy city, it was spiritually called Sodom and Egypt. On the other hand, in an elaborate argument on the whole Apocalyptic passage written by Jerome’s disciples Paula and Eustochium from Bethlehem, shortly before Alaric’s taking Rome, and which we cannot but suppose had the master’s revision and sanction before its dispatch, [37] a different view is argued for of the local scene of the Apocalyptic witnesses’ death. With reference to their urgent invitation to Marcella that she should quit the Romish Babylon and join them in their retreat at Jerusalem and Bethlehem, they anticipate her objecting that Jerusalem is branded in the Apocalypse as Sodom and Egypt; and urge against this the necessity of explaining the passage quite otherwise than of the literal Jerusalem. And this on two different grounds: - 1st, because in the immediate Apocalypse context, in contrast to, not identification with, the great city of the witnesses’ death, the Apocalyptic Jerusalem is designated as the holy city; (“the Gentiles shall tread down the holy city;”) and that cannot consistently be called Sodom and Egypt, which is almost in the same breath called the holy city: 2ndly, because in Scripture Egypt is never used figuratively for Jerusalem, but perpetually for the world. Hence, on the whole, they conclude that the great city of the witnesses’ death means the world. [38] Any one who consults Jerome’s comments on the (Old Testament) prophets may see how exactly the view of the figurative sense of Egypt in them corresponds with this exposition of the Apocalyptic phrase. [39]
On the great subject of Antichrist, 5thly, we meet in Jerome the same inconsistency, puzzling, and confusion, from his conjunction of some supposed Jewish as well as pseudo-Christian element in the expected Antichrist, as in certain early expositors. In regard of Antichrist’s political origin, he is marked by Jerome as the little horn springing from out of the midst of the ten horns, or kings, of the 4th or Roman Beast, that divide among themselves the Roman empire. [40] And his great city Babylon Jerome construes as distinctly Rome. [41] Moreover it is because of its ruler Antichrist’s blasphemies, he says, that the Roman empire is to be destroyed. [42] Again the professedly Christian (pseudo-Christian) religious character of Antichrist is remarked on also by Jerome repeatedly. Antichrist, says he, when interpreting St. Paul’s prophecy of the Man of Sin, “is to sit in the temple, that is in the Church:” [43] “I think all the heresiarchs Antichrists:” [44] : “It is only by assuming Christ’s name that the simpler ones of believers can be seduced to go to Antichrist; for then they will go to Antichrist, while thinking to find Christ” [45] Yet Jerome also supposes Antichrist so to profess himself Messiah, or Christ, as that the Jews will believe on him as Christ: [46] consequently as in profession a Jew. [47] - The same partially confused view as that of sundry earlier expositors about Daniel’s abomination of desolation had no doubt its influence to this effect. Yet Jerome distinctly recognizes the alternative interpretations of this abomination of desolation. It may mean, says he, on Matt. xxiv., 15, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)” --- that is, either Cæsar’s image placed by Pilate in the Jewish temple, Or Hadrian’s in the ruined temple’s holy place, “which has stood there to the present day:” [48] or it may mean simply Antichrist; or “every perverse dogma which may stand in the holy place, that is in the Church, and show itself as God.” [49] As to the prophecy of the 70 weeks, connected in the one passage of Daniel ix. 27 with the abomination of desolation, Jerome only gives the opinions of others, (the same that I have a little previously abstracted principally from him,) [50] but shuns giving any of his own. [51] - Antichrist’s time of duration he of course expected to be 3 1/2 years, literally. But I must beg attention to the manner in which, in his exposition of Ezekiel’s symbolic bearing of the iniquity of Israel 390 days, and that of Judah 40 days, “a day for a year,” Jerome incidentally supports the old Protestant view of its furnishing a Scriptural precedent for the year-day theory. For, like Venema, he supposes Ezekiel’s lying prostate for so many days to be typical of the penal prostration of Israel and Judah for so many years; [52] not, like many late expositors, as typical of the previous prolonged duration of those nations’ sins.
6. Jerome’s view of the Apocalyptic millennium was much the same figurative view as Augustine’s: his opposition to the literal view of the first resurrection being in his remarks on Victorinus’ comment strongly expressed. [53] - At the same time he held the idea which the ancient premillennarians so much insisted on, that the world’s destined duration, after the type of the six days of Creation, was to be only 6000 years, and then the saints’ sabbatism to begin. [54]
Ere passing from Jerome let me remind the reader of his famous Latin translation of the New Testament, the Apocalypse inclusive; - that same which has ever since been so well known as the Vulgate: and let him mark in my biographical sketch of Jerome the favorable circumstances under which he made it; viz. while at Rome, in intimacy with Pope Damasus , with all Rome’s manuscript stores at his command; also his indefatigable care in collecting books bearing on Biblical literature, as well as indefatigable labor in studying them. Hence the evidently high value and authority of the readings that we find in his translations, even when varying from our best present Greek manuscripts. Of these I will here notice three, which I wish my readers specially to remember: - 1. the rendering of bilibris and tres bilibres in the 3rd Seal for one choenix of wheat and three of barley; this marking very strikingly to any one who reflects on the so defined weight of barley that was to cost but a denarius, the absurdly of all idea of such a symbolization signifying famine: - 2. that of quatuor partes terræ in the 4th Seal; four parts of the earth: not one forth part, quartam partem: - 3. the reading in Apoc. xvii. 16, “And the ten horns which thou sawest 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.” - either of cornua quæ vidisti in bestiâ; so in most MSS. and Copies; or, as in the Laurentian Copy, cornua quæ vidisti, et Bestiam; (not Bestia;) hi odient Fornicariam, &c. [55] - On two of these I have remarked already, in the progress of my Apocalyptic comment. [56]
Yet once more let me advent a second time to the exceeding interest that attaches to Jerome’s lively depicting of the grand event of the Roman empire’s predicted desolation by barbarian invaders, and incipient breaking up into the ten kingdoms, as in the course of fulfillment in his own time, and before his own eyes. “In our time the clay has become mixed with iron. Once nothing was stronger than the Roman empire, now nothing weaker; mixed up as it is with, and needing the helping of, barbarous nations.” [57] “He who withheld is removed, and we think not that Antichrist is at the door.” [58] Again, among the invading Goths that desolated the empire, and afterwards partitioned it between them, he significantly reckons ten nations. [59] Jerome had no idea of any such mighty chronological gap, as some modern expositors would advocate between the removal of the “let” and the rise of Antichrist.
The reader will not, I think, regret my having dwelt thus long on Jerome: considering that he was the most learned of all the ancient Fathers; and lived at an epoch so transcendently interesting, especially to the students of Daniel’s and the Apocalyptic prophecies.
6. Augustine.
My copious abstracts in the 1st Volume from this eminent and holy Father of the Christian Church make it unnecessary for me to do more than call attention here very briefly to three or four points in his detached Apocalyptic interpretations.
1. That the Apocalypse embraced for its subject of prefiguration the whole period from Christ’s first coming to the end of the world. [60]
2. That the 144,000 of the sealing vision (as also of Apoc. xiv.) depicted distinctively (not the earthly professing visible Church, but) the Church of the saints, or elect, [61] the constituency of what he calls the City of God, ultimately united into the heavenly Jerusalem: [62] while the appended palm-bearing vision figured the blessed and heavenly issue assured to them of their earthly trials and pilgrimage. [63]
3. That the millennium of Satan’s binding, and the saints reigning, dated from Christ’s ministry, when he beheld Satan fall like lightning from heaven; it being meant to signify the triumph over Satan in the hearts of true believers: and that the subsequent figuration of Gog and Magog indicated the coming of Antichrist at the end of the world; the 1000 years being a figurative numeral , expressive of the whole period intervening. [64]
I may add that he expounded the woman clothed with the sun, in Apoc. xii., of the true Church, or Civatas Dei; clothed with the sun of righteousness; trampling on those growing and waning things of mortality which the moon might figure; and travailing both with Christ personally, and Christ in his members. [65] - Further the complemental set of martyrs, told of to the souls under the altar, he viewed as martyrs to be slain under Antichrist. [66] - As to Antichrist himself, like other Fathers, he viewed him as one that would arise, and reign 3 1/2 years, at the end of the world; though meanwhile Antichrist’s body, and his great city Babylon, might be considered realized in the world and its members. So, on this important point, Augustine endorsed in a manner with his great name the spiritualistic generalizing system of Tichonius. [67]
7. To which expositor, Tichonius, last of this æra, now proceed we.
We know both from Augustine, [68] and from the later expositors Primasius and Bede, [69] that a Donatist of that name wrote on the Apocalypse; whose time of flourishing, according to Gennadius, was about A.D. 380; [70] as was at any rate partially included within the 30 years of the Donatist Parmenianus’ Episcopate from A.D. 361 to A.D. 391; [71] as the latter took umbrage at certain anti-Donatistic sentiments expressed by Tichonius, though a Donatist, and wrote against them. [72] Perhaps we might prefer to fix the date a little later than 380; as Tichonius had communication with Augustine, and indeed is by some said to have been reclaimed by him from Donatism: and we know that it was only in 391 that Augustine, was ordained Presbyter, in 395 Bishop. - Now there is still extant an Apocalyptic Commentary bearing Tichonius’ name, drawn up in the form of Homilies, in number nineteen; appended to the fourth volume of the Paris Benedictine Edition of Augustine. And the question has arisen respecting these, whether they are the real work of this aforesaid Tichonius, or not. The arguments against (as the Benedictine Editor observes) are 1. that, whereas Primasius says there were decided Donatistic statements in Tichonius’ work, [73] in this such are wanting, and anti-Donastistic inserted against re-baptizing. 2. that certain passages cited by Bede and Tichonius are here wanting; 3. that on a point in which Tichonius’ opinion is said by Augustine to have been illustrated with a copious argument, the opinion is here indeed given, but without any such copious argument in connection. To which I may add that there occur here and there brief quotations (unless indeed Tichonius be the original) from Augustine. [74] - On the other hand there are the arguments following in favor of the substantial identity of the extant Treatise with that of Tichonius: (arguments omitted by the Benedictine Editor:) - 1st, that the expository principles followed in the Treatise agree well with Tichonius’ expository rules, as recorded by Augustine: [75] - 2. that one of the anti-Donatistic sentiments, which more than once occurs in these Homilies, is precisely such a recognition of the Catholic Church as was objected to the real Tichonius, as an inconsistency, by his Bishop Parmenianus: [76] - 3. that a particular clause on the horsemen of the second Woe, quoted by Primasius from Tichonius, appears in the precise words in these Homilies: [77] and also, substantially, three explanations taken by Bede from Tichonius. [78] - There remains to be noted a very important chronological indication in the tenth Homily, which speaks of Arianism as then dominant; “Sicut videmus modo hæreticos esse in hoc sæculo potentes, qui habent virtutem Diaboli: sicut quondam Pagani, ita nune illi vastant ecclesiam:” and again, on the clause about all the earth worshipping the Beast, “Utique habent potestatem hæreticos; sed præcipuè Ariani:” - statements possibly referable to the Arian Emperor Valens’ oppression of the Trinitarians in the Eastern Empire, which occurred during the life of the real Tichonius; yet not probably so: as Valens’ power extended only to the Eastern or Greek Empire; not to the Western Empire, in which evidently [79] (and most likely in Africa) the writer of the extant Homilies resided. Hence more probably this indication points to the succeeding century; when the Arian Vandal kings Genseric and Hunneric [80] did really desolate the orthodox African Church. - On the whole, and adding to the other evidence in favor of this authorship the important fact of the manuscript’s bearing his name, I feel little doubt in my own mind that the main substance of the extant Treatise is from Tichonius: though with certain alterations introduced, and an abbreviation into Homiletic form, by some Presbyter of the Latin Catholic Church after the first quarter of the fifth century, probably an African. Thus we may fitly note its scheme of Apocalyptic interpretation as one appertaining to the æra under review: albeit, in its present form, as rather post-Augustinian than pre-Augustinian.
To begin, there are in two different manuscripts two different introductions. In the one MS. (probably the original) the writer states at once the opening of his 1st Homily, the Origenistic interpretative principle of anagwgh, as that adopted in the commentary. “In lectione Revelationis beati Johannis Apostoli, fratres charissimi, secundùm anagogen . . explanare curabimus.” The other thus speaks: “Respecting the things seen by St. John in the Apocalypse, it seemed to some of the ancient Fathers that either all, or at least the greater part, presignified the coming of Antichrist, or day of judgment. But they who have more diligently handled it, judge that the things contained in it began to have fulfillment immediately after Christ’s passion; and are to go on fulfilling up to the day of judgment: so as that but a small portion may seem to remain for the times of Antichrist.” [81] - Which two beginnings are quite consistent. For the writer’s evident meaning in those words, “consummanda usque ad diem judicii,” is not that the Apocalypse was like a dramatic prefiguration of the great events of the coming future, to be fulfilled in succession and order until the consummation: but rather a representation (for the most part) of general truths, detached and unconnected, concerning the Church; all and ever in course of realization, and that will be so even to the end.
Thus, passing over his explanation of the primary Apocalyptic symbolization of Christ, the details of which he takes very much from Victorinus, and that of the Epistles to the seven Churches, which Churches he regards as representative of the Church universal, [82] - in the Seals, the rider and horse are expounded of Christ riding to victory on his apostles and prophets, the arrows the gospel-word preached, as pointed by the Spirit, in date from after the time of Christ’s ascension: the three next riders as the Devil, riding on bloody-minded, hypocritical, [83] and wicked persecuting men, in antagonism to Christ’s Church; the oil and the wine of the 3rd Seal signifying the righteous whom none can really hurt: [84] the souls under the altar as the cry of the martyred and persecuted against their persecutors. - So far with reference to the times of the Christian dispensation generally. In the sixth Seal, however, the earthquake is explained specially of the last persecution; and the falling of bad men from heaven, i.e. from the Church, [85] under it.
So arrived at the sealing and palm-bearing visions he expounds the one of the Church’s ingathering of its mystical number, the 144,000; [86] the other of Church privileges enjoyed by them under the present dispensation: [87] for he regarded the 144,000, and palm-bearing company, as one and the same body, [88] constituted of the elect out of both Jews and Gentiles. The half-hour’s silence he interprets, like Victorinus, as the beginning of eternal rest; the incense-Angel as Christ: then thus proceeds to expound the Trumpets, or Church-preachments acted out: [89] - viz. the first, of luxurious men of the earth, burnt up grass-like by the fire of concupiscence: [90] the second, of the Devil falling like a burning mountain on the world: the third, or star falling from heaven, of the falling from the Church of proud and impious men; and its making the waters bitter, of the heretical doctrine of re-baptism: the fourth, of evil and hypocritical men in the Church struck with darkness by the Devil, through being given up to their pleasures: [91] - then the fifth, of evil men and heretics, fallen from the Church, [92] and with the heart’s abyss of wickedness fully opened, so as to obscure the Church’s light by their evil deeds and doctrine; the men disguised with crowns, like those of the 24 church-representing elders, and with scorpion-like stings in the tail, (for the false prophet he is the tail,) striking both good, under devilish guidance, though only to quicken them to humility and repentance, and bad, so as to infuse the poison of their doctrine: - also the sixth Trumpet, [93] and its horse-borne myriads from the Euphrates, (the river of the mystic Babylon,) of the last persecution: (that I presume, by Antichrist:) the Angel’s cry from the golden altar signifying that of the faithful who dare to resist the mandate of the cruel persecuting king; the smoke, fire, and sulphur from the horses’ mouths symbolizing the chief’s antichristian blasphemies; the serpent-like tail, with head, the false teachers and their heretical poison; and the chronological tetrad of an hour, day, month, and year answering to the tetrad of a time, two times, and half a time, or the 3 1/2 years of Antichrist’s continuance. [94]
On the descent of the Covenant-Angel, i.e. Christ, Tichonius explains his opened Book as the Bible; his lion-like cry, after planting his feet on land and sea, as that of the universal gospel-preaching by the Church over the whole world; and the seven answering thunders as the same with the seven Trumpet voices, or Church-preachments, sealed to the bad, though understood by the good. - Then the introductory charge, prior to the witness-narrative, “Measure the temple,” &c., is well and rather remarkably explained of a recension and preparation of the true Church “ad ultimum;” all other professors of religion except the true, whether heretics or badly-living Catholics, like the Gentile outer Court, being shut out; - and the sackcloth-robed witnesses themselves as either the two Testaments, or the light-giving Church fed by the oil of those two Testaments: [95] their appointed time of prophesying being the whole time from Christ’s death. For the phrase “these have power,” not, shall have, marks the whole of time current till the last persecution: and the chronological term 1260 days, is one inexplicable as the numeral, not only “of the last persecution, and of the future peace, but also of the whole time from the Lord’s passion; either period having that number of days.” [96] Thus we have here a view of the witnessing large and connected. And, during this prolonged time of the Church’s testimony, the killing their injurers with fire out of their mouths is well explained of the destroying effect of the Witnesses’ prayers; and the heaven’s not raining, of the absence of blessing on the barren earth. - After which, and on their finishing their testimony, (a testimony carried on to the very eve of Christ’s revelation,) the Beast from the abyss, or “wicked ones making up the Devil’s body,” [97] especially under Antichrist, [98] shall conquer them that yield, says Tichonius, and slay the stedfast, in the plateia or “midst of the Church:” till after 3 1/2 days, meaning 3 1/2 years, [99] their dead bodies shall rise, and ascend to meet Christ at his coming.
Next let me sketch, in illustration of his Commentary, Tichonius’ exposition of the connected visions of the Dragon, Beast, and Beast-riding Harlot; given in Apoc. xii., xiii., xvii. [100]
The travailing Woman then, he says, is the Church, ever bringing forth Christ in his members: the Dragon, the Devil seeking to devour them; his seven heads and ten horns indicating all the world’s kingdoms ruled by him; [101] his dejection from heaven to earth by Michael, i.e. Christ, his being cast out of the Church, or hearts of saints, into the hearts of earthly men: - the floods cast from the Dragon’s mouth against the woman, the multitude of persecutors: the two-eagle-wings given to aid her flight from him, the two testaments, or perhaps the two witnessing prophets Elias and his companion: the woman’s wilderness-dwelling, the Church’s desolate state in this world; the time, times, and half a time measuring it, a period on the scale perhaps of a year, perhaps of a hundred years to a time: [102] (on the smaller scale, I presume, the term of special suffering under Antichrist, on the larger that of the Church’s whole tribulation, from Christ’s first to his second coming:) [103] the Dragon’s rage and planning against the woman’s seed, after the absorption of the floods from his mouth, the Devil’s plan to raise up heresies against it, after the failure of the Roman Pagan persecutions: - floods absorbed “ore sanctæ terræ;” i.e. through the prayers of the saints.
Further, as before, the Beast he expounds as the impious of the Devil’s body; [104] its leopard spots signifying the variety of the nations under his rule in the time of Antichrist, its seven heads and ten horns the same with those on the Dragon figured previously: the head wounded to death, and reviving, being the revival of heresies and heretics in power through Satanic influence, after demolition by Scripture testimonies: and the Dragon’s giving the Beast his authority,” what now we see;” viz. heretics, especially Arians, vexing the Church, (the Devil’s influence aiding them,) so as formerly did the Pagans. A partial adoption this (as also on Apoc. xii.) contrary to his usual generalizing system, of the Constantinian explanation of the Dragon’s dejection and discomfiture in the fall of Paganism. [105] - Further, the second Beast he interprets to be an heretical church, [106] “feigning Christianity, in order thereby the better to deceive:” and setting up for adoration the Beast’s Image; i.e. a system of Satan masked or disguised under a Christian profession. [107] - The Beast’s mark and number is stated as civ¢, = 616 numerally; [108] and which also indicated an affection of likeness to Christ: (whose monogram, Tichonius seems to hint, was crv: [109] ) the heretics designated by the Beast boasting to be of Christ, when persecuting him. [110]
As to the Woman on the Beast, it is explained thus. Corruptelam dici tsedere super populos in eremo. Meretrix, bestia, eremus, unum sunt; . . . quod totum Babylon est:” [111] and Babylonia, the great City, is expounded as the world and its evil population. (of the seven hills nothing is said.) The Beast that was, and is not, and shall be, [112] is explained in the sense that bad people rise from bad, in perpetual succession. The ten horns hating the woman, [113] means that the wicked will hate and tear themselves; and, under God’s permissive anger, make the world desolate. - Further, the cry “Come out of her, my people,” is one daily fulfilled in the passage of some from out of the mystic Babylon to the mystic Jerusalem; (while others pass from out of Jerusalem to Babylon;) [114] and again, the cry to the birds to congregate to the supper of the great God, figures out the conversion of nations; seeing that when they are incorporated into the Church they are spiritually eaten by it. [115] And so, as to the Beast’s destruction, Tichonius makes it (agreeably with his system) that of the wicked who, from being constituents of the Devil’s body, became members of Christ’s body. [116]
So we advance towards the conclusion. - Omitting lesser points, [117] I may observe that in Apoc. xx. the millennium is explained, on the Augustinian principle, as begun at Christ’s first coming and ministry: the strong man armed being ejected out of the hearts of his people by one stronger, and bound from ruling over them: the first resurrection meaning that on remission of sin at baptism; [118] the 1000 years, all yet remaining of the world’s sixth chiliad; (the whole for the part;) [119] and the “little while,” of Satan’s loosing, the 3 1/2 years of Antichrist.
As to the New Jerusalem, alike in Apoc. xxi. and Apoc. iii, it is similarly explained of the Church in its present state; commencing from Christ’s death: [120] (though not without a passing counter-view, given apparently by another hand, which applies it to the glorified Church after the resurrection: [121] ) its four gates towards the four winds marking its diffusion over the world; the tree of life meaning the cross, and the river of life the waters of baptism. [122] - Agreeably with which view the palm-bearers’ blessedness in Apoc. vii. was also explained, as we saw, of the Church in the present life; when Christians rise to new life at baptism, put on Christ, and are filled with the joy of the Holy Ghost. [123]
To this last expository view I must direct particular attention; as being now for the first time put forth in an Apocalyptic commentary; though not without a partial precedent, as we saw in Eusebius. [124] At the same time it is to be observed that by the Church Tichonius meant Christ’s true Church; perpetually distinguishing between it and the ficti et mali within, as well as heretics and Pagans without it. - In his explaining away of Babylon the seven-hilled city, as merely meaning the world, though expressly defined by the Angel to mean Rome, he was supported, as we saw, by Augustine. This, with his correspondent generalizing view of the Beast, is another of the characteristic and notable points of Tichonius’ commentary. With what misleading effect it past downward into the middle age, as the received system of interpretation, will appear in my next Section. [125]
[1] The dates of Eusebius’ life are as follows. Born in Palestine in the reign of Gallienus, about A.D. 267: after ordination to the Christian ministry studied with and assisted Pamphilus in his school at Cæsarea, whence his cognomen of Pamphili: in the Diocletianic persecution witnessed the martyrdoms in Palestine which he describes, and ministered to Pamphilus, who was for two years in prison: at the end of that persecution, about 314, was made Bishop of Cæsarea: soon after published his “De Demonstrat. et de Preparat. Evangelicà: in 325 assisted at, and was appointed to address Constantine in, the Nicene Council: in 326 published his Chronicon, and then his Ecclesiastical History, both of which he brought down to that year. In the year 335 he assisted in the Council of Tyre, convened by Constantine to consider charges made by Arius against Athanasius; and thence went to the consecration of Constantine’s new church at Jerusalem. Afterwards he visited Constantinople, to make report to Constantine about the Council; and then pronounced before him the tricennalian oration; about which time Constantine told him of his vision of the cross, and showed him the labarum made accordantly with it. After this he wrote his Book on the Eastern Festival, 5 Books against Marcellus, and last of all his Life of Constantine: then about the end of 339 died.
[2] Demonstr. Evang. B. vii.
[3] See my Vol. i. p. 256, Note 4.
[4] See Vol. iii. pp. 30, 31, 34, 35, with the Notes. This his view of the vision we may compare with that of the expositor Andreas afterwards. Eusebius intimates that Constantine may have alluded possibly to Isa. xxvii. 1, “The Lord shall punish Laviathan, that crooked serpent.” But the casting down of the Dragon, which Constantine notes prominently, is not in Isaiah’s prophecy, but that of the Apocalypse.
In speaking of the dejection of Pagan emperors I mean of course that Eusebius, like myself, intended the Devil acting in them.
[5] But this is a point of view somewhat strange and peculiar.
By the holy one to be anointed Eusebius understood the anointed high priests and rulers of the Jews, after their return from the Babylonish captivity. This is the point on which his explanation turns. And so he makes his chronological calculations in the form of the series of high priests and rulers afterwards succeeding: - first Joshua and Zerubbabel, then Ezra and Nehemiah, Joachim, Eliasub, Hehoiada, John, Jaddus; (the same that showed Daniel’s prophecy to Alexander the Great:) then Onias, Eleazar, (in which time the Septuagint version was begun;) a 2nd Onias, Simon, (contemporary with the writing of the Book of Sirach,) a 3rd Onias, (the same that was high priest when Antiochus Epiphanes desolated the temple,) Judas Maccabeus, and his two brothers successively Jonathan and Simon, with whose death ends the 1st Book of Maccabees; then John, then Aristobulus, the first who assumed the royal together with the priestly diadem, and his successor Alexander. - Now from the 1st of Cyrus to the death of Alexander the Great is 236 years; and of the Seleucidian kingdom down to Simon’s death 277 [lege 177] years; in all, from Cyrus to the epoch with which the 1st of Maccabees ends, 425 years. Add 57 more for the high priests John, Aristobulus, and Alexander; and we have in all for the reign of Jewish anointed priests 483 years = 69 hebdomads. - Also in the first 49 years, or 7 hebdomads of this period, from the 1st of Cyrus to the 6th of Darius, the temple and the street was built in troublous times; it being interrupted by the hostility of the Samaritans. So the Jews themselves said, “Forty-six years was this temple building;” to which Josephus adds three for the temple enclosure; making altogether 49 years. - After the high priest Alexander’s death, when the Jews were distracted with dissensions, Pompey came in the 10th year of the 2nd Aristobulus, entered and defiled the temple, and sent Aristobulus bound to Rome. Then first the Jews became subject to Rome; and, soon after, Herod was made King of the Jews by a Decree of the Roman Senate.
As an alternative explanation Eusebius adds that the computation may be made to begin from the 6th of Darius, instead of the 1st of Cyrus. Thence to Herod and Cæsar Augustus in 483 years, or 69 hebdomads. Then Hyrcanus, the last pontiff of Maccabean race, was killed. Then the legal succession of priests ceased; the city and sanctuary was desolated by Herod; and also the covenant confirmed to many for a half hebdomad by Christ’s preaching the gospel. After which 3 1/2 years Christ was crucified; and the sacrifice ceased to the Jews: their temple sacrifices being thenceforward nothing better than sacrifices to the devil.
So Eusebius in his Demonstratio Evangelica, cited by Jerome. In his H. E. iii. 5, Eusebius speaks of the abomination of desolation “prophesied of by the prophets,” (specially of course by Daniel,) as set up by the Romans on their taking of Jerusalem, and its consequent desolation.
[6] Vol. i. p. 500. (Ed Colon. 1686.) Cantra Arian. Orat. 4.
[7] Epist. ad Solitar. Ib. i. 842, 862.
[8] Ib. 860.
[9] Ib. p. 860. Tiv eti tolma legein Kwnstantion Cristianon, kai ou mallon Avticristou thn eikova; Te gar twn toutou gnwrismatwn paraleloipen; h pwv ou pantacoqin outuv ekeinov einai nomisqhsetai; ka keinov toioutuv an ukonohqeih, oiuv estin outov; oute en th megalh ekklhsia th en tw Kaisareiw ginomenav qusiav, kai kata Cristou Blasfhmiav, wv ex entolhv autou pepoihkasin Areianoi te kai Ellhev; Ouc h orasiv tou Danihl outwv shmainei ton Anticriston; dti poihsei polemon meta twn agiwn, kai is escusei prov antouv, kai uperoiei en kakoiv pantav touv emprosqen, kai treiv basileiv tapeinwsei, [With reference to Vetranio, Magnentius, and Gallus, overthrown A.D. 350 - 353. So Constantius was now sole emperor; and the seven-hilled Rome one of his capitals.] kai logouv prov ton Uyiston lalhsei, kai uponohsei tou allotriwsai kairun; So too p. 855; authn [awebeian] wn Cristomacon hlemona thv asebeian epigraqomenhn Kwnstantion, wv auton ton Anticriston.
I the rather give these citations, because Mr. C. Maitland represents the professedly Jewish view of the predicted Antichrist as still distinctively maintained by the Athanasian chiefs.” This denial of the Father and the Son was styled by Athanasius Christ’s enemy, Antichrist forerunner: but it does not appear that any one mistook Araniasm for actual Antichristianity.” p. 211. And then, by way of confirmation, he gives an extract from “The Catechism written for Prince Antiochus,“ as one “which once bore the honored name of Athanasius’ and, though not his, “is yet now attributed to some unknown writer of Athanasius’ time;“ stating that “Antichrist will come out of Galilee; as the Scripture says, Dan is a lion’s whelp.“ ib. 215.
Now in answer to Question 76 of this Catechism, “Why do the Gentiles (eqnh) rage?” the writer says that “by eqnh are meant the Romans, that is, the race of the Franks:” eqnh legei twn 'Rwmaiwn, hgoun twn Fraggwn to genovl. This could not have been till the time of Charlemagne. The date of the Catechism therefore, instead of the 4th, can scarcely have been earlier than the 8th or 9th century. “Post ævum Monotheletieum,” says Cave, in his notice of Athanasius; i.e. after A.D. 700.
[10] De Incarn. Verb. Vol. i. p. 93: IIarontov tou 'Agiou twn agewn esFragisqh kai orasiv kai profhteia kai h thv Ierousalhm basileia pepautai, . . . kai h poliv kai o uaov ealw.
[11] I have just mentioned Hilary’s name, Vol. i. p. 30, in my preliminary chapter, as witnessing to the authenticity of the Apocalypse. He testifies to St. John the apostle as its author in various places: e.g. in his Comments on Ps. ii. and cxviii., Vol. i. pp. 20, 292 At p. 292 he says; “Scripturâ in Apocalypsi calumniatorem eum esse testante:” and at p. 20; “Quod autem folia ligni hujus. . salutaria sint gentibus sanctus Joannes in Apocalypsi testatur.” So also ii. 132. (My Edition is the Benedictine, Venice, 1750.)
[12] Prologue on Ps. i. p. 4.
[13] i. 21.
[14] So of Zion, as the Church, on Ps. lxix. 35, “The Lord shall build up Zion;” Vol. i. pp. 199, 200; also ibid. pp. 347, 358, 373, 392: - of Israel as the Israel of God, or Gentile Church, (“plebs gentium, populus ecclesiæ,”) i. 329: and of the tribes of Israel spoken of in Ps. cxxii., (“thither the tribes go up,”) as not those of the literal Israel, but the spiritual, i. 334: - of the temple, as meaning all the saints, i. 429, &c.
[15] So the Editor in his Preface to the Treatise.
[16] i. 617.
[17] i. 600.
[18] See the extracts Note 20 infrà.
[19] Contrâ Constant. Imperat. 7.
[20] “An cum Creatorem et creaturam Patrem et Fiiium prædicabis, per assimulatas nominum voces excludere posse te credis, ne esse Antichristus intelligaris?” So in his De Trinit. vi. 42 of Arius; on which passage see the Benedictine Notes.- “Necesse est in ipsam nos ætatem Antichristi incidisse: cujus, secundùm Apostolum, ministris in lucis se angelum transformantibus, . . is qui est Christus aboletur.” Contrà Auxent. 5. And so again, ib. 12, in a striking passage just a little after: “Unum moneo, cavete Antichristum! Male enim vos parietum amor cepit: male Ecclesiam Dei in tectis ædificiisque veneramini: maie sub sub his pacis nomen ingeritis. Anne ambiguum est in his Antichristum esse sessurum? Montes mihi, et silvæ, et lacus, et carceres, et voragines, sunt tutiores: in his enim prophetæ, aut manentes, aut demersi, Dei Spiritu prophetabunt. . . Congreget Auxentius quas voiet in me synodos; et hæreticum me, ut sæpe jam feeit, publico titulo proscribat, &c.” A passage well deserving attention from all who with Mr. C. Maitland (p. 63) are inclined to denounce anti-papal middle-age confessors, like the Waldenses, as “an Antichristian rabble.”
[21] On Matt. xvii. 1, “And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,”
[22] In Matt. &c.
[23] See my Vol. i. pp. 395-397, and Vol. iv. p. 230, et seq.
[24] See my Vol. i. p. 30.
[25] Catech. 15. - Cyril’s exposition of the eighth head of the Apocalyptic Beast must not be overlooked; - that Antichrist, after subduing three out of the ten kings of the Roman Empire in its later form, would, as the head and chief of the remaining seven, be the Beast’s eighth head.
[26] I abstract from Mr. C. Maitland’s citations p. 217; not having myself the opportunity of referring to Ephrem Syrus. See too Malvenda, 424.
[27] On 2 Thess. ii.
[28] The chief epochs and events of Jerome’s life are as follows. - Born at Strato on the Pannonian and Dalmatian confines, about A.D. 348; went to Rome while yet a youth to complete his education; was there baptized; and there exhibited his tastes, and prepared himself for his subsequent studies, in the collecting of a library, and visiting of the martyr’s crypts and catacombs: - hence toured into Northern and Southern Gaul; and on return to Rome determined to become a monk: then, after a while removed to Jerusalem, taking his library with him, and accompanied by Rufinus, Heliodorus, Evangrius, and others, of whom we hear often in Jerome’s after life. This was when about 25. - In Jerusalem and the neighboring desert he stayed 4 years; suffering perpetually alike from illnesses and temptations: a time this to which the famous painting of Jerome under temptation in the desert refer. He was then too assailed by Arian teachers; and, though professing the omoousion, was accused by some as an Arian heretic, and ejected from his cell. Hence a visit to Antioch, where he heard Apollinarius of Laodicea, and was ordained by Paulinus, being about 30 years old; at which time he began his earliest prophetic Comment, that on Obadiah. The Arian dissensions continuing, he determined on going to Rome. This was by way of Constantinople; where he stopped a while, and received instructions from Gregory Nazianzen, shortly before the Constantinopolitan General Council, A.D. 381. - At Rome Damasus was then Pope: and Jerome stayed their till Damasus’ death in 384; admired and courted both by him and all the Christian body, from the fame of his austerities and sanctity in the desert; many noble ladies of whom we read afterwards, especially Paula (mother to Eustochium), coming under his influence, and being induced by him to renounce the world. Hence an uprising of calumny against him excited by both laics and clerics; though the general voice had pronounced him a fit successor to Damasus in the Pontificate: and he quitted Rome in disgust, to resume the monastic life near Jerusalem, followed by Paulla, Melania, and other Roman ladics; the former of whom, after 3 years, built a monastery at Bethlehem for the men, and four for female virgins; and also begun Comments on Ecclesiastes, Numbers, &c. He now completed these: having got a Jew to come to him by night to teach him Hebrew; and in a tour through Palestine visited all the sacred places mentioned in the Old Testament, as he had before visited the scenes of St. Paul’s travels in Asia Minor. In the course of his first five years at Bethlehem he visited Egypt also, there receiving instructions from Didymus or Alexandria. On his return from Alexandria he wrote his Comments on Ephesians, Philemon, Galatians, Titus; all which he dedicated to Paula and Eustochium. Then next he composed Comments on the four minor Prophets, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Haggai; and then on Habakkuk: those on Hosea, Joel, Jonah, Amos, Zechariah, Malachi being not written till some 20 years later; and those on the four greater prophets not till his old age. So Jerome states in a letter to Pammachius long afterwards. Meanwhile, his fame increasing more and more, the multitude of pilgrims to the Holy Land, and of visitors to himself, increased so as to be a burden; (among them Sulpicius Severus and Orosius are to be noted:) and Jerome sent his younger brother Paulinianus to sell the wreck of his parental property, saved from the Gothic desolations of Pannonia, to help towards the expenses. - About this time occurred his accusation as a supposed favorer of Rufinus and Origenism; and, in consequence, a sharp controversy ensued with Rufinus: also a new and friendly controversy, on a different subject, with Augustine, now famous as the Bishop of Hippo. Then followed the troubles of the Gothic invasion of Italy. In 407 Paulla died: in 410 Alaric took Rome; and Marcella died of injuries received from the Goths. He was stunned with the news; and he states alike in his Preface to Ezekiel and Epitaph on Marcella. The crowing to his retreat of multitudes of fugitive and beggared Romans added fresh calamity; and on this supervened that of an inroad of Huns into Syria. Notwithstanding, and though now “ætatis altimæ ac pene decrepidus,” as he writes of himself to Augustine, he preserved all his mental energy, and continued his labors. So Ezekiel was finished. At length wearied and worn out in body, a slight fever carried him off; the brethren and sisters of the neighboring monasteries attending his last hours. This was about the year 420. He was first buried at Bethlehem. But afterwards his remains were translated to the Church now celebrated as that of S. Maria Maggiore at Rome. (My Edition is that of Antwerp. 1579.)
I have given this biographical sketch more fully than I should otherwise have been warranted in doing; partly because of the peculiar and almost romantic interest of the biography; more because of there being so much of reference to the remarkable events and persons of the period of Jerome’s writings.
[29] Letter 103 to Paulinus, 7.
[30] So in the Letter 148 to Marcella; “Omnis ille liber aut spiritualiter intelligendus sit, ut nos existimamus; aut, si carnalem interpretationem sequimur, Judaicis fabulis acquiescendum sit; &c.” And so in his almost latest Scriptural comment on Ezek. xxxviii.
[31] Epist. 126, Ad Evagrium.
[32] Of Christian apostles and saints, generally, in his Letter against Vigilantius: “Tu apostolis vincula injicies, ut usque ad diem judicii teneantur custodià, nee sint cùm Domine sueo de quibus scriptum est, Sequuntur Agnum quocumque vadit?” For, though apostles only are here specified, the argument is directed against Vigilantius’ general affirmation about the souls of departed saints and martyrs being unconscious of the prayers of men. - Also on Is. lxv. ad fin. “Agni credendi sunt omnes qui in vestibus candidis sequuntur Agaum quocumque vadit; vadit; quos Dominus Petro tradidit ad pascendum, dicens, Pasce agnos meos.”
Of Christian virgins, specially, in his Adv. Jovianian. i. 25: - “Legamus Apocalypsin Josanis, et ibi reperiemus Agnum super montem Sion, et cum eo 144,000 . . . De singulis tribubus, exceptà tribu Dan., pro quà reponitur tribes Levi, 12 millia virginum signatorum creditura dicuntur. . . IIi Virgines primitæ Dei sunt: ergo viduæ, et in matrimonio continentes, erunt post primitias.” So too in his Apology for the Anti-Jovinian Book, addrest to Pammachius, Ep. 50, ch. 3; and in the Treatise against Helvidius, ad fin.
[33] “De Enoch et Elià, quos venturos Apocalypsis refert (i.e. as Marcella represented the thing in her question,) et esse morituros, non est istius temporis disputatio; (viz. of the time of the saints’ general resurrection;) cum omnis liber aut spiritualiter intelligendus est, ut, &c.” See Note 1235 p.155.
[34] Elsewhere, viz. on Matt. xi. 14, “And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.”, he says; “Sunt qui proptereà Joannem Eliam vocari putant quod, quomodo in secundo Salvatoria adventu juxta Malachiam præcessurus est Elias, . . sic Joannes in primo adventu fecerit.” In regard of which Mr. C. M. remarks: “At some later time Jerome maintained the second coming of Elias; as when expounding Matt. xi.” But this is incorrect. Jerome there speaks of others, not of himself. Mr. C. M. also refers to Jerome’s comment on Matt. xvii. 11, “And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things.” where he writes: “Ipse qui venturus est in secundo Salvatoris adventu juxtà corporis fidem, nune per Joanuem venit in virtute et spiritu.” This at first sight is like the expression of his own opinion to that effect. But comparing it with our other citations, it too seems to be the mere expression in that form of the opinion of others. On Malachi iv. 5 itself Jerome wrote: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:” -- thus strongly expresses himself against it. “Judæi, et Judaizantes hæretici, ante hleihmenon suum Eliam putant esse venturum, et restiturum omnia.” To some such Christ himself, he adds, answered; “Elias quidem veniet; et, si creditis, jam venit: in Elià Joannem intelligens.”
[35] The reader ha sin this a characteristic specimen of Jerome’s application of such passages and figures in Old Testament prophecy, to persons and matters connected, whether as true members or enemies, with the Christian Church.
[36] Let the reader mark here Jerome’s decidedly expressed opinion that after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans the appellative of the holy city attached no more to that literal Jerusalem. In order to the support of the futurist or semi-futurist Judaic theory of the Apocalypse two points are needed in a patristic comment; 1st, that the literal Jerusalem be construed as the place of the two witnesses’ death: 2ndly, that the same literal Jerusalem, and its supposed to be restored temple, he construed as the holy city and temple of Apoc. xi. 2, trodden and defiled by the Gentiles. Thus Mr. C. Maitland himself, in his abstract of Jerome, contends at p. 238 for the identity of the literal Jerusalem with the holy city of Apoc. xi. 2; quite forgetful of Jerome’s chronological limitations of the application t it of that latter appellative.
Jerome’s idea was that the local Jerusalem would never be rebuilt, though the Jews would be converted; but remain in ruins to the end of the world. “Obsessi sunt à Vespasiano et Tito; et civitas corum, Hadriani temporibus, in æternos cineres collapsa est.” So on Jer. xix. 7, “And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.”.
[37] “in this little world [viz. that of which Jerome was the center, including specially the ladies of Bethlehem, Paula and Eustochium, &c.] whatever subject was discussed, . . . every difficulty, was alike referred to this great man of his age.” So Mr. C. M. most correctly, at p. 236. Yet at p. 238 he supposes that Paula’s elaborate letter to her and Jerome’s common friend Marcella, written with the view of inducing her to join Paula herself and Jerome, was written and dispatched without his seeing it!
[38] I beg to refer to my notice in Vol. ii. p. 435 of Mr. C. Maitland’s attempted answer to this argument of Paula and Eustochium, and justification of the application of all the terms of the prophetic verse to the literal restored Jerusalem.
[39] So e.g. of Egypt in his comment on Ps. lxxviii. 12, “Marvellous things did he in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.” Jerome writes: “Nos omnes cramus in Ægypto, et à Domino liberati sumus, . .. in tenebris istius seculi:” also on Ezek. xx. 44, “And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have wrought with you for my name's sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD”; xi. 1, “Moreover the spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east gate of the LORD's house, which looketh eastward: and behold at the door of the gate five and twenty men; among whom I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, the princes of the people.” & xxiii. 19, “Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. ”-- Jerome writes: “Ægypto seculi hujus:” “ad tantam venimus rebiem ut post multa tempora Dominicæ servitutis revertamur ad Ægyuptum, et ea faciamus quæ in seculo fecimus, anteaquam nomen fidei acceperimus:” &c. So of Sodom in his Comment on Zephan. ii. 9, “Therefore as I live, saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, even the breeding of nettles, and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation: the residue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of my people shall possess them.”, which we already referred to Jerome writes: Hoe de hæretics intelligamus, quòd reputentur quasi Sodoma et Gomarrha.” &c.
[40] “Dicamus quod omnes scriptores ecclesiastici tradiderunt, in consummatione mundi, quando regnum destruendum est Romanorum, decem futaros roges qui orbem Romanum inter se dividant:” out of whom Antichrist, “surrecturus de medio corum,” having subdued three, “septem alii reges victori colla submittent.” And so he becomes a head to the revived Roman empire in this divided form. So the well known passage from Jerome, already cited in my Vol. i. p. 390, on Dan. vii.
[41] “Filia Babylonis, - non ipsam Babylonem quidem, [i.e. not the Euphratean Babylon,] sed Romanam urbem interpretantur: quæ in Apocalypsi Joannis, et in Epistolà Petri, Babylon specialiter appellatur.” So on Isa. xlvii. 1, “Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.”. And so again in his Script. Eccl. on the Evangelist Mark.
[42] He notices elsewhere the old idea, as if still current with some, that Nero revived would be the Antichrist: “Multi nostrorum putant ob sævitiæ et turpitudinis magnitudinem, Domitianum Neronem Antichristum fore.” On Dan. xi 30, “For the ships of Chittim shall come against him: therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant: so shall he do; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant. ”.
[43] “In templo Dei; - “vel Hierosolymis ut quidam putant, vei in ecclesiá, ut verius arbitramur, sederit.” So in reply to the 11th question of Algasia.
[44] Thus on Matt. xxiv. 5, “Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, &c.” Jerome comments as follows: “Quorum unus est Simon Samaritanus . . Ego reor omnes hæresiarchas antichristos case; et, sub nomine Christi, ea docere quæ contraria sunt Christo.”
[45] Ib.
[46] Quando pro Christo Judæi recipient Antichristum, impletà prophetià Domini Salvatoria, . . . ‘Si alius venerit in nomine suo illum recipietis’” On Obad. 17, “But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions”.
[47] So on Dan. xi. 21, “”; and in Latin: “Nostri melius interpretatur et rectius, quòd in fine mundi hæc sit facturus Antiochristus; qui consurgere habet [qu. debet?] de modicà gente, id est de populo Judæorum. . . Et simulabit se ducem esse fæderis, hoc eat legis et testamenti Dei. Et ingredietur urbes ditissimas, et faciet quæ non fecerunt patres ejus. Nullus enim Judæarum absque Antichristo in toto unquam orbe regnavit.”
[48] “Aut de Hadriani equestri statuà, quæ in ipso sancto sanctorum loco usque in præsentem diem stetit.”
[49] “Abominatio desolationis intelligi potest et omne dogma perversum; quod cum viderimus stare in loco sancto, id est in ecclesià, et se ostendere Deum, debemus fugere de Judæà in montes: id est,” as he adds with characteristic anagoge,” dimissà occidente literà, et Judaicà pravitate, appropinquare montibus æternis.” Ibid.
[50] See the Notes, pp 148 - 150 suprà
[51] Jerome adds that the Jews of his time reckoned the 70 hebdomads, or 490 years, as fulfilled first in the restoration of the city and temple, as under Ezra and Nehemiah; then the destruction of the temple, and cessation of the sacrifice, on occasion of the desolations of their people and city 62 hebdomads after by Titus, and again, yet 7 hebdomads later, by Hadrian. They are not very careful, he says, about the fact that, instead of 490 years from the 1st of Cyrus to Hadrian’s war against the Jews, the real chronological interval is 696 years. Before the desolation Jerome makes them say that Christ will come and Christ be slain. But in what sense, as compared with Jewish notions, I cannot understand.
[52] “quæramus qui sint anni 390 qui pro diebus totidem supputentur; quibus in sinistro latere propheta dormicrit vinctus atque constrictus, . . . captivitatem et miserias decem tribuum, id est Israelis, ostendens.” So he calculates from the time of Hosea’s captivity to the time of the Jews’ deliverance from their afflictions in the last years of Ahasurerus, (Or Artaxerxes Mnemon,) as related to the book of Esther, and makes the amount 389 years 4 months: during all which time Israel “fuit in angustià, et jugo pressus captivitatis.
[53] See my pp. 141 - 142 suprà
And yet in his Preface to Isaiah lxv., referring to different views of the Apocalyptic millennium, &c., Jerome says; “Which if I take figuratively I fear to contradict the ancients.” - On Ezekiel’s xl. 5, “And behold a wall on the outside of the house round about, and in the man's hand a measuring reed of six cubits long by the cubit and an hand breadth: so he measured the breadth of the building, one reed; and the height, one reed.” , I may observe, he says in Latin; “Quod templum Judæi secundùm literam in adventum Christi sui, quem nos esse Antichristum comprobamus, putant ædificandum: et nos ad Christi referimus ecclesiam; et quotidie in sanctis ejus ædificari cernmus.” Where the words “in sanctis ejus“ are to be remarked; and suggest an idea of Jerome‘s perhaps regarding the Church of the promises, like Augustine, as that made up only of true Christians. I say perhaps; because he sometimes used santi in the lower and merely ecclesiastical sense.”
[54] So in his Letter 139 to Cyprian, on the Psalm xc. 4, “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.”, - after noticing St. Peter’s saying that with the Lord one thousand years is as one day, he adds: “Ege artitror. . . ut scilicet, quià mundus in sex dicbus fabricatus est, sex millibus annorum tantùm credatur subsistere; et postea venire septenarium numcrum et octonarium,* in quo verus exercetur sabbatismus.” With which compare Jerome’s notice of the twelve hours of the labourers in the vineyard, in the comment on Micah iv., cited by me Vol. i., p. 396.
* Compare the pseudo-Barnabas’ octad.”
[55] The accusative in the Laurentian MS. excludes the Beast from participation with the ten horns in the hating, &c. of the Harlot, just as much as the reading in Bestià. So translating Jerome must have regarded the to qhrion as an accusative. And so possibly also Hippolytus. See See p 151 suprà.
[56] On the extremely important reading of the 4th Seal, in my Vol. i. pp. 201, 202; - on the reading in Apoc. xvii. 16, “And the ten horns which thou sawest 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.”, in my Vol. iv. p. 16.
[57] On Dan. ii. See my Vol. i. p. 390.
[58] Epist. to Ageruchia. See my Vol. i. p. 303.
[59] See the citation ibid.
[60] “Per totum hoc tempus quod liber iste (sc. Apocalypsis) complectitur, à prime seilieet adventu Christi usque in sæculi finem.” - C. D. xx. 8. 1.
Elsewhere he notes the obscurity of the Apocalypse; very specially from its repeating the same objects under different figures.” - C. D. xx. 17.
[61] So in his Doctr. Christ. iii. 51; “Centum quadraginta quatuor (mille), quo numere significatur universitias sanctorum in Apocalypsi.”
[62] “Civitatem sanctam Jerusalem, quæ nunc in sanctis fidelibus est diffusa per terrus.” C. D. xx. 21. In which city he says, on Psalm cxxi. 2 that the angels will be fellow-citizens.
[63] See my Vol. i. pp. 309-313, with the extracts from Augustine in the Notes.
[64] See pp. 72, 73 suprà. So the Greek Andreas afterwards: as also Primasius of the Latin Church, before Andreas. It continued in fact the current opinion through the Middle Ages. - That M. Stuart should have ascribed the origin of this opinion (as he seems to do in his Vol. i. p. 459) to Andreas, not Augustine, appears surprising.
[65] So on Psalm cxliii. 3. - On Psalm xliii. 25, I observe, he explains the opened Book in Apocalypse x., given to St. John to eat, not of the Apocalypse, but the Bible.
[66] On the Donatists claiming to be the complemental set of martyrs spoken of to the souls under the altar, Augustine observes: “Quid est stultius quàm quòd putatis prophetiàm istam de martribus, qui futuri prædicti sunt, non nisi in Donatistis esse completam? Quòd si a Joanne usque ad istos nulli occisi essent martyres veri, ut nihil aliud, vel temporibus Antichristi diceremus futuros in quibus ille martyrum numerus compleretur.” Contra Gaudent. i. 31. In this he coincides with Tertullian. See p. 138. suprà..
[67] Daniel’s hebdomads, let me here add, Augustine explained as fulfilled at the time, of Christ’s first coming. So in his Letter to Hesychius.
[68] So Augustine, Vol. iii. p. 99, in his statement of Tichonius’ seven Rules of interpretation given overleaf.
[69] Who both refer to him in their Apocalyptic Commentaries.
[70] So the Benedictine Editor of Augustine, Vol. ii. col. 371. Note.
[71] So the same Editor.
[72] He wrote a letter of reprehension to Tichonius. See my Note 1281 p. 160
[73] In the Prologue to his Apocalyptic Commentary, B. P. M. x. 287.
[74] Especially the two cited as from Tichonian Treatise in my Vol. iii. pp. 277, 221, respecting the Beast and the Beast’s image; - 1. “Non abhorret à fide [rectà] ut Beastia ista impia civitas intelligatur . . populus infidelium contrarius populo fideli et civitati Dei.” 2. “Image vero ejus simulatio cst, in cis videlicet hominibus qui velut fidem Catholicam prolitentur, et infideliter vivunt.” Which same explanations, almost totidem verbis, will be found in Augustine’s C. D. xx. 9. 3.
[75] They are thus enumerated by Augustine, Vol. iii. 99; and as rules intended by Tichonius to solve the difficulties of Scripture.
1 De Domino et ejus corpore; there being sometimes a transition in the sacred writers from Christ the head to the Church his body, and inclusion of both under the same phrase or figure. - A rule rightly applicable sometimes, says Augustine.
2. De Domini corpore bipartito; the true members of Christ’s body and the false. - A view of things right, says Augustine, but wrongly expressed; because hypocrites and false professors do not really belong to Christ’s body at all.
3. De promissis et lege; otherwise expressed, like as by Augustine himself, De spiritus et literà; a reference to cases where figures are used; and one thing said, another meant.
4. De specie et genere: - where a species is spoken of, e.g. Egypt, Judæa, &c.; but the whole world, of similar gentilism, shown by the strength of the expressions to be meant.
5. De temporibus: - where, especially in chronological statements, a whole is said for a part, or part for a whole; as Christ’s three days in the grave, when the actual time was only one full day, with part of the day preceding, and part of the following; and Jeremiah’s seventy years of Israel’s captivity, though applicable to the Church’s whole time of earthly pilgrimage. Tichonius applied this Rule to other numerals also; e. g. to the Apocalyptic 144,000; which designated, as he says, the whole body of the saints.
6. Recapitulation.
7. De Diabole et corpore ejus: - things being said of the Devil when meant to the wicked that constitute his body, and vice versà. (Just the converse to Rule 1.)
The agreement of the extant Homilies with the above will be noted from time to time in my abstract.
[76] Tichonius, says Augustine, Vol. xii. 66, “vidit ecelesiam toto orbe diffusam;” and that for this (ib. 63) he was reproved by Parmenianus. So in Hom. xix: “Civitas ista [sc. the New Jerusalem] ecclesia est toto orbe diffusa;” and elsewhere.
[77] “Et numerus, inquit, exercituum bis myriades myriadum; audivi numerum eorum: sed non dixit quot myriadum.” So the Tichonian Homily vii. Primasius, after commenting on the clause as read in his copy,” numerus octaginta millia,” thus adds; “Alia porro translatio, quam Tichonius exposuit, habet, ‘Et numerus equestris exercitûs bis myriades myriadum. Ubi, expositionem præterieus, hoe tantum adjecit, Non dixit quot myriadum.” B. P. M. x. 312.
[78] Says Bede on Apoc. xiv. 20, “And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.”; “Tychonius messorem et vindemiatorem ecclesiam interpretatur.” Says our Tichonius; “Si putandum est quôd ipse Christus visus est in nube albà messor, quis est vindemistor nisi idem; sed in suo corpore, quod est ecclesia.” 2 Says Bede on Apoc. xvii. 7, “ And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.”; “Tychonius bestiam ad omne corpus Diaboli refert, quod decedentium et succedentium sibi generationum pro cursa suppleatur.” Says our Tichonius, Hom. xiv., on the verse, “The beast was, and is not, and is to be;” “Hoc fit . . . dum filii mali parentes pessimo imitantur; et, aliis morientibus, alii succedunt eis.“ (Copied by Primasius and Ambrose Ansbert.) 3 Says Bede on Apoc. xix. 21; “Hanc coenam Tychonius sic exponit; Omni tempore comedit ecclesia carnes immicorum suorum.” Says our Tichonius, Hom. xvii.; “Omnes enim gentes, quando in Christo credentes ecclesiæ incorporantur, spiritualiter ab ecclesià comeduntur.”
[79] There occurs a curious notice on Apoc. iv. 3, “And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.”; in the second of the extant Homilies, on the resemblance of the word iris, or its accusative irin, to the Greek word eirhnh; as by a writer, and for readers, to whom alike the Greek was a foreign language. “Cui nomini si una in fine aditur littera, et irini dicatur, utique hoc imsum interpretatio sonare videtur: nam Græco vocabulo eirhnh rac appeliatur.” - Moreover it would seem that these Homilies on the Apocalypse were for reading in the Churches. (See e.g. the end of Hom. 1.) But the Apocalypse was a book, I believe, little read at that time in the Greek Churches.
[80] See my Vol. ii. p. 223, and Vol. iii. pp. 61-63.
[81] “Aliquibus ex antiquis Patribus hoc visum est, quòd aut tota, aut certè maxima pars, ex ipsà lectione, diem judicii, vei adventum Antichristi, significare videatur Illi autem qui dilegentius tractaverunt, quòd ea quæ in ipsà revelatione cotinentur statim post passionem Domini Salvatoria nostri fuerunt inchoata, et ita sunt usque ad diem judicii consummanda; ut parva portio temporibus Antichristi remanere videatur.” Cited by the Benedictine Editor, in his Introductory Notice to the Comment, from a very old MS. in the Abbey of St. Peter at Chartres.
[82] Hom. i.
[83] Hypocritical in the third Seal, because of the rider’s carrying in false pretense the balance of justice. “Stateram habebat in manu, quia dum se fingunt mali justitiæ libram tenere, sic plerumque decipiunt.” Of the wine and oil not to be hurt, he says, “In vine sanguis Christi, in oleo unctio chrismatis intelligitur.”
[84] Victorinus’ explanation of the three last horses as “bella, fames, et pestis,” is also given as an alternative; Victorinus being however nowhere mentioned by name. “Super quartam partem terræ,” is Tichonius’ reading of Apoc. vi.
[85] This is an explanation applied in various similar figurations afterwards.
[86] “144,000 omnis omnino ecclesia est.” A Tichoniasm. See Tichonius’ Rule 5, in my Note p.160 suprà. - The 144,000 of Apoc. xiv are similarly explained by him not, as by Methodius, and sometimes by Jerome, of literal monks and virgins.
[87] On the verse, “I saw and behold a great company, &c.,” he says, Hom. vi.; “Non dixit, ‘Post hæc vidi alium populum; sed, Vidi populum; id est eundem quem viderat in mysterio 144 millium:’” including alike, he adds, both Jews and Gentiles.
[88] A singular explanation; but agreeabe with that of the privileges of the New Jerusalem, noted p. 335 afterwards. Tichonius’ remark on, “He shall lead them to living fountains of waters,” stands thus: “Omnia hæc etiam in præsenti vità spiritualiter ecclesæ eveniunt: eùm, dimissis pecatis, resurgimus; et vitæ prioris lugubris ac veteris hominis exspoliati, in baptismo Christum induimur, et gaudio Sancti Spiritús implemur.”
[89] “Septem angelos ecclesiam dixit; qui acceperunt septem tubas, id est, perfectam prædicationem: sicut scriptum est, Exalta sicut tuba vocem tuam.”
[90] So Isaiah xl. 6, “The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:”, says Tichonius; “All flesh is grass.” - “Quos Deus justo judicio permittit incendio luxuriæ vei cupiditatis exuri.”
There is erroneous transposition of part of the Exposition concerning the Seals, and part concerning the Trumpets, in the MS. of this 6th Homily, which should be noted by the reader. So too afterwards in the 7th Homily.
[91] The eagle crying Woe, that follows the 4th Trumpet, he explains of each and every minister’s announcing of the plagues of the last days, and the coming day of judgment.
[92] “una stella corpus est multorum cadentium de ecclesià per peccata.”
[93] “Sed non dixit quot myriadum:” The Tichoniasm noted above, p. 160, Note 1285.
[94] So I think he means: “Hæc sunt quatuor tempora triennii et pars [qu partis? temporis.” - Compare the Tichonian Rule 5.
[95] First the expositor says, “Duobus testibus meis, id est duobus Testamentis:” then, presently after; “Nam Zacharias unum candelabrum vidit septiforme; et has due olives, id est Testaments, infundere oleum candelabro, id est ecclesiæ.”
[96] “Prophetabunt diebus 1260 : numerum novissimæ persecutionis dixit, et future pacis, et totius temporis à Domini passione; quoniam utrumque tempus totidem dies habet, quod suo in loco dicetur.” - How this time, times, and half a time might come to be viewed as a fit designative of the whole Christian aera was explained by Ambrose Anabert. See my sketch p. (?) infrà. How Tichonius might have inferred from it a nearness of the consummation to his own age will appear from a certain particular value put by him on a prophetic time, stated in my next page. How it meant the time of the future peace, I know not.
[97] “Bestiam. . impios dicit, aui suut corpus Diaboli.” Hom. 10. So the 7th Tichonian Rule.
[98] It seems plain that Tichonius refers the death of the Witnesses to this period.
[99] This early testimony for the year-day principle, and the reasoning added in its support, is noted by me in my Chapter on the year-day, Vol. iii. pp. 279, 280. - Prosper, Leo the Great’s secretary, about A.D. 440, concurred, we there saw, in the explanation.
[100] Part in Hom. ix., part in Hom. x.
[101] “Capita reges sunt, cornua vero regna: - in septem capitibus omnes reges; in decem cornibus omnia regna mundi dicit.”
[102] “Tempus et annus intelligitur, et centum anni.” A statement this last peculiar to Tichonius, among the Christian Fathers; and borrowed probably from the Jews. (See my Vol. iii. p. 275, Note 5.) There is no Scripture authority for it, as for the year-day.
[103] On the one hundred years scale the end of the Church’s 3 1/2 times, just as that of the Witnesses, (see p. 162, Note 1305,) would occur not very long after Tichonius’ own time; about the end (as was then thought) of the sixth millennary
[104] Compare, as before, Tichonius’ seventh Rule, p.160.
[105] See the Notes in my Vol. iii. pp. 30-33; also p. 152, Note 1212, suprà
[106] “Habebat duo cornua similia agni, id est duo Testamenta ad similitudinem agni, quod est Ecclesia.” “Sub nomine Christiane agnum præfert, ut draconis venena latenter infundat: hæc est heretica Ecclesia.”
[107] Such, I think, is the meaning.
[108] A reading observable; though unquestionably not the true one. See my extract from Irenæus, Vol. iii. p. 246, Note 1. Tichonius does not notice the other and truer reading, Cxv¢, 666. Nor does he propose any name, containing the number.
[109] See my notice of the monogram on Constantine’s labarum, Vol. i. p. 239, 240.
[110] “616 Græcis literis¢ flunt civ¢: quæ notæ solutæ numerus est: redatæ autem in monogrammum, et notam faciunt, et numerum, et nomen. Hoe signum Christi intelligitur: et ipsius ostenditur similitudo, quam in veritate colit ecclesia: cui se similem facit hæreticorum adversitas: qui cùm Christum spirituliter persequantur, tamen de signo crucis Christi gloriari videntur.
[111] Hom. 13, a statement twice made.
[112] So Tichonius reads, kai parestai. Hom. 14.
[113] “Et decem cornua quæ vidisti hi odio habent meretricem.” Hom. 15. I presume therefore Tichonius’ copy read epi, not kai, to qhrion, in Apoc. xvii. 16, “And the ten horns which thou sawest 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”; or perhaps et Bestiam. See p. 158 supra.
[114] Hom 16.
[115] “Omnes gentes, quando in Christo credentes ecclesiæ incorporantur, spiritualiter ab Ecclesiâ comeduntur.” Hom. 17.
[116] Ibid.
[117] Let me notice one. On Apoc. xvi. 14, “ For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.”; speaking of the kings of the world as gathered to the war of the great day of the Lord, a primary explanation is given of the Lord’s great day, as meaning “the whole time from Christ’s death to the end of the world.” Then, as an alternative, there is added a reference to the day of Jerusalem’s destruction; which however I take to be an interpolation. “Potest hoc loco dies magnus intelligi illa desolatio, quando â Tito et Vespasiano obsessa est Hierosolyma; ubi exceptis his qui in captivitatem ducti sunt, quindecies centena millia mortua referuntur.” Hom. 13.
[118] Hom. 16, 17, 18. On Augustine, see p. 159 suprà
[119] So the Tichonian Rule 5.
[120] Hom. 3 and 19.
[121] This occurs in Hom. 18, after a quotation from Apoc. xxi. 1, “I saw the New Jerusalem descending as a bride,” &c.: the brief comment being thus added, “Hoc totum de glorià ecclesiae dixit, qualem habebit post resurrectionem.” But this is an insulated sentence: and in three other different places the prophecy is distinctly referred to the Church on earth. See for example the next Note.
[122] So in the Homily 19, where all the particular figures are gone into. - Similarly in Homily 3, on Apoc. iii. 12, “I will write on him the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, which descendeth from heaven from my God,” the comment is; “Novam Jerusalem eælestem ecclesiam dicit quæ à Domino nascitur. Novam autem dixit propter noviatem nominis Christiani; et quia ex veteribus novi efficimur.”
[123] Homily 6: - “Omnia hæc [viz. what is said of the living fountains of water] etiam in præsenti sæculo, et his diebus, spiritualiter ecclesiæ eveniunt: &c.”
[124] See p. 152.
[125] Tichonius Latin version, let me here observe, was not Jerome’s, called the Vulgate. Differences appear throughout. For notable particular exemplifications I may refer to Apoc. xiii. 18, “ Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”; where Tichonius, as already stated, reads “sexcenti sexdecian,” the Vulgate sexcenti sexaginta sex:” and Apoc. xxii. 14, “”: where Tichonius reads, “Beati qui servant mandata hæc,” the Vulgate, “Beati qui lavant stolas suas in sanguine Agni.”