INTERPRETATION OF THE APOCALYPSE, SECTION I PRE-CONSTANTINE, OR MARTYR CHURCH STAGE

AS the direct gift of the ascended and glorified Redeemer, His message from heaven, His last message through the last of His apostles, the Apocalypse possessed from the very first for the Christian Church a special and incomparable interest. Granted in the days of Domitian towards the close of the first century while the Church was suffering from the cruel persecutions of heathen Rome, this prophecy of the sufferings and triumphs of her saints and martyrs, struck a cord which strongly vibrated in every Christian heart. To the Martyr Church of the first three centuries, this book of martyrs was at once the mirror of her experiences, and the treasury of her hopes. It illuminated the darkness, and dreariness of her lot with rays of celestial brightness. It was recognized as the golden crown of Revelation; the highest stone of its structure; the most triumphant note of its lofty music. What wonder that every sentence of the mysterious prophecy should have been studied with earnest attention by the Church of primitive times? What wonder that its visions should have arrested the gaze of men eager to read the meaning of the present, and to pierce the secrets of futurity? What wonder that the hands of humble sufferers, of lonely exiles, of holy martyrs, should have transcribed its pages with loving care, and transmitted them to their beloved companions in “the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ”?

And that they did so study this closing prophecy of Scripture is evident from the fact that the entire Apocalypse can be reproduced from its quotations in the writings of the early Fathers which remain in our hands. 1 One complete commentary on the book has come down to us from the third century, that of the martyr Victorinus a brief and simple exposition, exhibiting the views of the Church of that period on its mysterious meaning.

And now, going back in thought to those early days of purer faith, and nobler heroism, let us endeavour to realize what *ere the first faint dawnings of the comprehension of this mysterious prophecy which penetrated the mind of the primitive Church; and mark the dawn light slowly increasing, as the course of history unfolded the meaning of the prophecy, and the secrets of Providence became revealed to every eye.

¹ See index to quotations from the Apocalypse in the writings of the early Fathers at the close of this chapter

I. Title and subject of the prophecy.

On opening the Apocalypse the early saints and martyrs saw plainly written upon its forefront its descriptive title,– The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto Him to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass . . . for the time is at band.” Here then they beheld an authoritative definition of the subject of the prophecy. Not to some distant period in the future of the Church’s history, did this prophecy relate, but to events whose occurrence was even then, nineteen centuries ago, ” at hand.— This inspired declaration determined the primitive interpretation. Not a single trace is to be found in that interpretation of the “gap theory ” of modern futurism, the theory that the prophecy, overleaping the last nineteen centuries of Christian history, plunges at once into the remote future, and occupies itself with the events of a brief closing period, a mere stormy sunset hour, in the story of the world. To the Church of the first three centuries the fulfilment of the Apocalypse bad already begun, and was to continue without a break to the final consummation of all things.

II. Her study of the prophecy revealed to the primitive Church its Christian character.

It was evident that the Apocalypse was sent to Christian Churches ; that it was prefaced by letters addressed to these Churches; that its leading prophetic features had their parallels in these prefatory letters ; that the warnings and promises in the letters related to things set forth more fully in the visions of the prophecy ; that the saints of the prophetic portion of the book were those who kept “the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,” 1 and that its martyrs were ‘I the martyrs of Jesus” 2 Hence a Christian meaning was attached by the early Church to the entire book. It was regarded as the prophetic story of the trials and triumphs of the Church of Christ.

¹ Rev. 12:12 ² Rev 17:6.

III. He early Church regarded the Apocalypse as the New Testament continuation of the prophecies of Daniel.

The history of the Gentile world from the period of the Jewish captivities presented then, as now, the succession of four great Gentile Kingdoms; those of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. The last of these, the greatest of the four, was at that time in the fullness of its strength, and at the acme of its glory. Ptolemy of Alexandria, the great astronomer and chronologer of the second century, had traced and tabulated in his invaluable Canon, the order and succession of these four kingdoms; associating with a series of dates in the reigns of their kings the whole of his astronomical observations. To the early Church these four kingdoms of history were mirrored in the visions of prophecy. Daniel had doubly foretold their course in his vision of the quadripartite image, of gold, silver, brass and iron; and in his vision of the four beasts; the lion, bear, leopard, and ten-horned wild beast which trod down and crushed, with iron strength, the nations of the earth. The visions of the Apocalypse were recognized as the continuation of those of Daniel, as relating to the fourth of these Gentile kingdoms, and to that divine eternal kingdom which Daniel foretold, destined to destroy and replace the kingdoms of the world.

“The golden head of the image, and the lioness, denoted the Babylonians; the shoulder and arm of silver, and the bear, represented the Persians and Medes; the belly and thighs of brass, and the leopard, meant the Greeks, who held the sovereignty from Alexander’s time; the legs of iron, and the beast, dreadful and terrible, expressed the Romans, who hold the sovereignty at present; the toes of the feet, which were part of clay and part of iron, and the ten horns, were emblems of the kingdoms that are yet to rise; the other little horn that grows up among them meant the Antichrist in their midst; the stone that smites the earth and brings judgment upon the world was Christ. Speak with me, O blessed Daniel. Give me full assurance I beseech thee. Thou dost prophesy. concerning the lioness in Babylon, for thou, I wast a captive there. Thou hast tin folded the future regarding bear, for thou wast still in the world, and didst see the, things come to pass. Then thou speakest to me of whence canst thou know this, for thou art already gone to thy rest? Who instructed thee to announce these things, but He who formed thee in thy mother’s womb? That is God, thou sayest. Thou hast spoken indeed, and that not falsely. The leopard has arisen; the he-goat is come ; he bath smitten the Ram; he bath broken his horns in pieces; he bath stamped upon him with his feet. He has been exalted by his fall; (the) four horns have come up from under that one. Rejoice, blessed Daniel! thou hast not been in error! all these things have come to pass. After this again thou hast told us of the beast, dreadful and terrible. “It has iron teeth and claws of brass: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it.’ Already the iron rules; already it subdues and breaks all in pieces; already it brings all the unwilling into subjection; already we see these things ourselves. Now we glorify God, being instructed by thee.”

IV. The early Church interpreted the first vision, that of the crowned Rider seated upon a white horse, armed with a bow, going forth “conquering and to conquer,” as a representation of Christ going forth on His victorious mission.

Thus Victorinus in his commentary on the Apocalypse written in the third century says, “The first seal being opened he saw a white horse and a crowned horseman bearing a bow. For this ‘ was at first drawn by Himself. For after the Lord and opened all things, He sent the Holy Spirit, whose words the preachers sent forth as arrows, reaching to the human heart that they might overcome unbelief.

A comparison of this opening vision with that in the nineteenth chapter, of the rider on the while horse, whose name was “King of Kings and Lord of Lords,” justified in the view of the early Church the application of the first seal to Christ’s victorious mission.

The fact that Christ had founded a Kingdom whose power was greater even than that of Rome, became early apparent. The words of Origen in his answer to Celsus strikingly exhibit the conviction of the primitive Church, that its marvellous progress could only be explained by attributing it to the action of supernatural power. “Any one who examines the subject,” says Origen, “will see that Jesus attempted and successfully accomplished works beyond the reach of human power. For although from the very beginning, all things opposed the spread of His doctrine in the world,-both the princes of the time, and their chief captains and generals, and all, to speak generally, who were possessed of the smallest influence, and in addition to these the rulers of the different cities, and the soldiers, and the people,-yet it proved victorious, as being the Word of God ‘ the nature of which is such that it cannot be hindered ; and becoming more powerful than all such adversaries, it made itself master of the whole of Greece, and a considerable portion of barbarian lands, and converted a countless number of souls to his religion.” 1

“The outcry,” says Tertullian, “is that the State is filled with Christians; that they are in the fields, in the citadels, in the islands; they make lamentation as for some calamity, that both sexes, every age and condition, even high rank, are passing over to the profession of the Christian faith.”

The triumph of Christianity over Paganism described by the historian Gibbon is in striking harmony with the view of the early Church as to the destinies of Christ’s kingdom. ‘While the Roman world,” says Gibbon, “was invaded by open violence, or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble religion quietly insinuated itself into the minds of men ; grew up in silence and obscurity ; derived new vigour from opposition; and finally erected the triumphal banner of the Cross on the ruins of the Capitol. Nor was the influence of Christianity confined to the period, or to the limits of the Roman Empire. After a revolution of thirteen or fourteen centuries that religion is still professed by the nations of Europe, the most distinguished portion of humankind in arts and learning, as well as in arms. By the industry and zeal of the Europeans, it has been widely diffused to the most distant shores of Asia and Africa; and by the means of their colonies has been firmly established from Canada to Chili in a world unknown to the ancients.”

With the vision of Christ going forth on His world-conquering mission, the Apocalypse most naturally begins. At the outset of the drama, the glorious Conqueror goes forth to whose head at the close are transferred the “many crowns ” of universal dominion.

And in the vision thus interpreted is found a key to the entire prophecy; for this is the starting point of the whole. Seals, trumpets, and vials set forth a continuous course of history stretching to the consummation, having as its commencement the going forth of the Gospel of Christ to accomplish its world-subduing work. The inference is unavoidable that the Apocalypse presents a prophetic foreview of the entire course of Christian history, from the foundation of the Church to the end of the world. Nor was any other interpretation ever known in the Christian Church till the rise of modern futurism.

V. The red, black, and livid horses, and their riders, of the second, third, and fourth seals, were explained by primitive interpreters as signifying the wars) famines and pestilences which our Lord had predicted in the twenty fourth of Matthew, as salient events which would occur in the interval between His departure and His return. Thus in the commentary of Victorinus, who died as a martyr under the persecution of Diocletian, after the application of the going forth of the rider on the white horse of the first seal to the victorious Kingdom of Christ, he adds, “The other three horses very plainly signify the wars, famines, and pestilences announced by our Lord in the gospel.

“VI. The vision under the fifth seal of the souls of the martyrs beneath the altar, was interpreted by the Church of the first three centuries as representing the continuous persecutions and martyrdoms of Christ’s saints; while the sixth seal was regarded as a vision of the judgments attending the consummation, or close of the age. No other view of the meaning of the seals was possible to the early Church. Their scope seemed to reach to the consummation) and it was most natural that their mysterious symbols should be interpreted in the light of our Lord’s plain unmetaphorical predictions concerning the events whose occurrence should extend to His Second Advent. Both prophecies were by the same divine Revealer; and both seemed to predict the same course of events; wars, famines, pestilences, earth quakes, persecutions; a universal proclamation of the gospel, a great tribulation; and then the darkening of the sun and moon; the falling of the stars; the shaking of the powers of heaven; and the advent of the Son of Man in the power and glory of His kingdom.

Holding this view as regards the six first seals, the early Church, unable to anticipate the long course of history which lay concealed in the future, considered that in the remaining visions of the book the revealing Spirit retraced the steps leading up to the consummation, in order to fill in, the features omitted in the introductory sketch. Thus Victorinus says with reference to the trumpets and vials, which succeeded the seals, “we must not regard the order of what is said, because frequently the Holy Spirit, when He has traversed even to the end of the last times, returns again to the same times, and fills up what He had (before) failed to say.” To this interpreter the brief “silence” under the seventh seal was “the beginning of everlasting rest ” ; while the judgments of the trumpets represented events connected with the coming of Anti-Christ.

VII. According to Victorinus the mighty cloud-clothed angel of the covenant of Revelations 10, “is our Lord.” His position as standing on sea and land signifies that all things are placed under His feet.” The command to measure the temple,” he regarded as relating, not to the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple, but to the right ordering of the Christian Church. By the assembly of its bishops its faith was to be brought into agreement with the teachings of the Word of God. The slaughter of the witnesses he explains as representing the slaying of holy prophets by Antichrist in the last times. The 1,260 days of their prophesying he interprets literally, as the period of three years and six months, during which the witnesses should prophesy in their sackcloth clothed character, as despised and persecuted by the world. To have interpreted the 1,260 days as symbolically representing 1,260 years of a suffering and subjected condition of witnesses to gospel truth, was of course impossible at that early period of the Church’s history. The latter view only dawned upon the minds of Apocalyptic interpreters during the actual fulfilment of the prophecy in the middle ages.

VIII. The woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars, of Ch. 12, is, according to Victorinus, and all the early interpreters, “the ancient Church of fathers, and prophets, and saints, and apostles.— In his treatise on Christ and Antichrist, Hippolytus says, “ By the ‘woman clothed with the sun’ he meant most manifestly the Church, endued with the Father’s word, whose brightness is above the sun . . the words ‘upon her head a crown of twelve stars,’ refer to the twelve apostles by whom the Church was founded.” The “three and a half times” of her seclusion in the wilderness is the period of 1,260 days, or three and a half years, during which the Church “seeks concealment in the wilderness,” from the persecutions of Antichrist; finding no safety but in flight.

IX. The 144.000 sealed out of the twelve tribes of Israel, of Chs. 7 and 14, are interpreted by Tertullian as not Jews but Christians. ‘With the same anti-Judaic view he markedly speaks of the Apocalyptic New Jerusalem (though with the names of the twelve. tribes of Israel written on its gates) as Christian, not Jewish; the Jerusalem spoken of by St. Paul to the Galatians, as the Mother of all Christians.” 1

The same view was clearly and powerfully advocated by the celebrated Origen ; and was held by Methodius, and Lactantius ; in fact was a leading feature of primitive exposition.

X. On the important subject of Antichrist, “while there was a universal concurrence in the general idea of the prophecy, there was in respect of the details of application, a considerable measure of difference; these differences, arising mainly out of certain current notions of the coming of Antichrist as in some way Jewish as well as Roman, and the difficulty of combining and adjusting the two characteristics.” 2 The Roman view was derived from the Antichrist being represented in the prophecy as the eighth head of the Roman beast, arising after the healing of his deadly wound. 1 His Jewish character, where held, seems to have arisen from his being regarded as in some sense a false Christ, such as our Lord predicted in Matt. 24. Hence lrenaeus and Hippolytus imagined that the place of his manifestation would be the Jewish sanctuary, and that its time would synchronize with the last half week of the “seventy weeks” of Daniel 9. The whole subject was necessarily involved in great perplexity to these early expositors. No correct anticipation of the fulfilment of the predictions relating to Antichrist, viewed as a whole, was possible in the opening centuries of the Church’s history. Certain points, however, were clearly and correctly seen. Justin Martyr, one of the earliest of the Fathers, considered the Apocalyptic ten-horned beast, or rather its ruling head, to be identical with St. Paul’s Man of Sin, and St. John’s Antichrist: and Irenaeus directed his readers to look out for the division of the Roman Empire into ten kingdoms, as that which was immediately to be followed by Antichrist’s manifestation. He also remarkably explained the number of Antichrist’s name, 666, as symbolizing Latteinos, the Latin man, “seeing that they who thus held the world’s empire were Latins.” 2

XI. To the early Fathers the Babylon of the Apocalypse represented Rome.

This is an important point owing to the magnitude of the position occupied by “Babylon the Great” in Apocalyptic prophecy; and also to the fact that the angelic interpretation of the vision relating to Babylon makes it the key to the whole prophecy.

“Tell me, blessed John,” says Hippolytus, “thou apostle and disciple of the Lord, what thou hast heard and seen respecting Babylon: wake up, and speak; for it was she that exiled thee to Patmos.” “Babylon, in our own John,” says Tertullian, “is a figure of the city of Rome, as being equally great and proud of her sway, and triumphant over the saints.— On Revelations 17:9, Victorinus says, “The seven heads are the seven hills on which the woman sitteth -that is the city of Rome.” “On the Apocalyptic BabyIon’s meaning Rome, all agreed.”

XII. The continued existence of the Roman Empire was commonly regarded by the early Fathers as the “let” or hindrance to the manifestation of “the Man of Sin,” or Antichrist. In his magnificent apology addressed to the rulers of the Roman Empire, Tertullian says that the Christian Church prayed for the stability of the empire, because they knew “that a mighty shock impending over the whole earth-in fact the very end of all things, threatening dreadful woes-was only retarded by the continued existence of the Roman Empire. We have no desire to be overtaken by these dire events; and in praying that their coming may be delayed we are lending our aid to Rome’s duration.” As to the ‘I let ” or hindrance to the manifestation of the “Man of Sin,” “we have the consenting testimony of the early Fathers,” says Elliott, ” from Irenaeus, the disciple of the disciple of St. John, down to Chrysostom and Jerome, to the effect that it was understood to be the imperial power ruling and residing at Rome.”

XIII. The Martyr Church of the first three centuries interpreted the first resurrection foretold in the twentieth chapter of the Apocalypse as a resurrection of the literal dead. Hence they believed in the pre-millennial Advent of Christ. On no point of interpretation was their agreement more remarkable. “On the millenary question, all primitive expositors except Origen, and the few who rejected the Apocalypse as unapostolical, were pre-millenarians; and construed the first resurrection of the saints literally.” 2 They looked for the appearance of Christ to destroy Anti-Christ. They believed that the Roman Empire would fall into ten kingdoms, then Antichrist would appear, and then Christ would come in the glory of His kingdom. Thus Lactantius held that after the destruction of Antichrist “the saints raised from the grave would reign with Christ through the world’s seventh Chiliad, a period to commence, Lactantius judged, in about two hundred years at furthest: the Lord alone being thenceforth worshipped in a renovated world; its still living inhabitants multiplying incalculably in a state of terrestrial felicity; and the resurrection saints, during this commencement of an eternal kingdom in a nature like the angelic, reigning over them.” 3

At the conclusion of his treatise on Christ and Antichrist, Hippolytus expresses himself as follows-,, Moreover, concerning the resurrection, and the kingdom of the saints, Daniel says, And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall arise, some to everlasting life.’ Esaias says, “The dead men shall arise, and they that are in their tombs shall awake; for the dew from thee is healing to them.” The Lord says, ‘ Many in that day shall hear’ the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.’ And the prophet says, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.’ And John says, ‘Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power.’ Concerning the resurrection of the righteous, Paul also speaks thus in writing to the Thessalonians ‘ The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice and trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. These things then, I have set shortly before thee, O Theophilus, drawing them (from Scripture itself) in order that maintaining in faith what is written, and anticipating the things that are to be, thou mayest keep thyself void of offense both towards God and towards men, ” looking for that blessed hope and appearing of our God and Saviour,” when having raised the saints among us, He will rejoice with them, glorifying the Father. To Him be the glory unto the endless ages of the ages. Amen.’ ”

Such were the leading features of the interpretation of the Apocalypse by the Martyr Church of the first three centuries. In the Catacombs of Rome, there remains a profoundly interesting and touching reference to one of the opening and closing symbols of the Apocalypse in the oft recurring Monogram of the Name of Christ, in which the Greek letters Alpha and Omega., the first and the last of the Alphabet, are inserted on either side of the brief sign standing for Xpiorus or Christ; the whole being enclosed in a circle, the symbol of eternity.

The following are the passages in the Apocalypse forming the foundation of the monogram. ” I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”

” / am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, and what thou seest write in a book.” ” / am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last … I Jesus.” ” The two letters of Greece, the first and the last,” says Tertullian, ” the Lord assumes to Himself, as figures of the beginning and end which concur in Himself: so that, just as Alpha rolls on till it reaches Omega, and again Omega rolls back till it reaches Alpha, in the same way He might show that in Himself is both the downward course of the beginning on to the end, and the backward course of the end up to the beginning; so that every economy, ending in Him through whom it began,—through the Word of God, that is, who was made flesh,—may have an end corresponding to its beginning.” 1

Such was the faith that overcame the world !

The place and power of the Apocalyptic prophecy as sustaining in the Martyr Church, the hope of the speedy advent of Christ, and thus strengthening that Church for its warfare and victory over the persecuting pagan Empire of Rome, were of the highest practical importance. The historian Gibbon recognizes the immense influence of the hope of Christ’s speedy coming on the early Church. “The ancient Christians,” he says, ” were animated by a contempt for their present existence, and by a just confidence of immortality, of which the doubtful and imperfect faith of modern ages cannot give us any adequate notion. It was universally believed that the end of the world and the kingdom of heaven were at hand. The near approach of this wonderful event had been predicted by the apostles; ” a view ” productive of the most salutary effects on the faith and practice of Christians, who lived in the awful expectation of that moment when the globe itself, and all the various races of mankind, should tremble at the appearance of their divine Judge. The ancient and popular doctrine of the millennium was intimately connected with the Second Coming of Christ. As the works of creation had been finished in six days, their duration in their present state, according to a tradition which was attributed to the prophet Elijah, was fixed to six thousand years. By the same analogy it was inferred that this long period of labour and contention, which was now almost elapsed, would be succeeded by a joyful Sabbath of a thousand years; and that Christ, with the triumphant band of the saints and the elect who had escaped death, or who had been miraculously revived, would reign upon earth till the time appointed for the last and general resurrection.”

While correct in its historical principle and leading features, the interpretation of the Apocalypse by the early Church was necessarily deficient in scope. It foreshortened the prospect to a narrow margin. It knew nothing of the long centuries which were destined to elapse before the dispensation had run its course. It knew nothing of the great Apostasy which was to darken the earth by its long and terrible eclipse ; and nothing of the glorious reformation which was to follow, although all these were foretold in the far-seeing prophecy. Rome Pagan, in her declining dominion, and proximate doom, filled the scene on which the early Christians gazed. One bright star shone in their sky, burning with intense and pristine splendour, the hope of the speedy coming of Christ. For that great event they watched and waited. They believed that to suffer with Christ was the prelude to reigning with Him, and that His kingdom was at hand. And this conviction nerved them to endure the utmost torments which heathen Rome had power to inflict. In this conviction they lived and died, ” more than conquerors.”

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