is of the seven [of the same spirit and power], and goes away into destruction" (ver. 11). It is not at all impossible that the widespread rumour that Nero was to appear again grew out of a misapprehension of this riddle, just as some modern interpreters still insist (see Alford on Matt. xi, 14) that the real Elijah is yet literally to come. The early Chiliasts, like their modern followers, often insisted on the literal interpretation even of riddles.

Fall of the

lon.

The fall of Babylon the great is portrayed in glowing colours in chap. xviii, 1-xix, 10, and the language and imagery mystic Baby- are appropriated almost wholly from the Old Testament prophetic pictures of the fall of ancient Babylon and Tyre.' The vision is fourfold: First (1) an angel proclaims the forms of world-power appear to the seer to culminate and unite in an empire which he calls the beast, so he sees again the particular stages of the development of this empire, the individual rulers of the same culminate in one prince, which he also describes as the beast. As the leopard, the bear, and the lion are contained in the beast, so are the seven heads of the beast contained in the one head. We may say that as he sees in an individual king the nature of a definite empire, uniting in itself all earlier empires, personified, so also he sees unfolded in this empire the nature of that individual king: this king is to him the empire in person; this empire is to him the king in the form of a kingdom. It is also evidently much easier in the one place to think of an individual king, and in the other of an empire, and it is therefore ever to be maintained that the seer so thought; the empire of which this is the king, the king whose is the empire."-The Doctrine of the Apocalypse, English translation, p. 221. Edinb., 1878.

1 How notably strange it is that learned exegetes, who can see striking fulfilments of this prophecy in comparatively unimportant events of the politics and feuds of modern Europe and the papacy, are forgetful of such events as the following, which is only one of many similar pictures of woe given us by the Jewish historian. Describing the destruction of the temple, Josephus says: "While the holy house was on fire everything was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain; nor was there a commiseration of any age, or any reverence of gravity; but children and old men, and profane persons and priests, were all slain in the same manner; so that this war went round all sorts of men, and brought them to destruction, and as well those that made supplication for their lives as those that defended themselves by fighting. The flame was also carried a long way, and made an echo together with the groans of those that were slain; and because this hill was high, and the works at the temple were very great, one would have thought the whole city had been on fire. Nor can one imagine anything either greater or more terrible than this noise; for there was at once a shout of the Roman legions, who were marching all together, and a sad clamour of the seditious, who were now surrounded with fire and sword. The people also that were left above were beaten back upon the enemy, and under a great consternation, and made sad moans at the calamity they were under; the multitude also that was in the city joined in this outcry with those that were upon the hill; and, besides, many of those that were worn away by the famine, and their mouths almost closed, when they saw the fire of the holy house, they exerted their utmost strength, and brake out into groans and outcries again: Perea did also return the echo, as well as the mountains round about [the city], and

awful ruin (xviii, 1-3). He repeats the words already used in chap. xiv, 8, but which were used of old by Isaiah (xxi, 9) and Jeremiah. (li, 8) in foretelling the ruin of the Chaldæan capital. (2) Then another heavenly voice is heard, like the words of Jesus in Matt. xxiv, 16, and like the prophetic word which long before had called the chosen people to "flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul" (Jer. li, 6; comp. 1, 8; Isa. xlviii, 20; Zech. ii, 6, 7), and this call is followed by a woeful dirge over the sudden ruin of the great city (xviii, 4-20). This oracle of doom should be closely compared with that of Isaiah and Jeremiah over ancient Babylon (Isa. xiii, 19-22; Jer. 1, li), and that of Ezekiel over the fall of Tyre (Ezek. xxvi-xxviii). (3) The violence of the catastrophe is next illustrated by the symbol of a mighty angel hurling a millstone into the sea, and the consequent cessation of all her former activity and noise (xviii, 21-24). (4) After these things there is heard a pæan of victory in the heavens-notable contrast to the voice of the harpers and minstrels of the fallen Babylon, and all the servants of God are admonished to prepare for the marriage supper of the Lamb.

and Kingdom

After the fall of the great Babylon there follows a sevenfold vision of the coming and kingdom of the Christ (chap. The Parousia xix, 11-xxi, 8). As, in Matt. xxiv, 29, "immediately of the Son of after the tribulation of those days" the sign of the Son man. of man appears in heaven, so, immediately after the horrors of the woe-smitten city, the seer of Patmos beholds the heaven opened, and the glorious King of kings and Lord of lords comes forth to judge the nations and avenge his own elect. This great apocalyptic picture contains: (1) The parousia of the Son of man in his glory (xix, 11-16). (2) The destruction of the beast and the false prophet with all their impious forces (verses 17-21). This overthrow is portrayed in noticeable harmony with that of the lawless one in 2 Thess. ii, 8, "whom the Lord Jesus shall take off with the breath of his mouth, and bring to naught with the manifestation of his coming;" and the beastly agents of Satan, like those of Daniel's visions (Dan. vii, 11), are given to the burning flame. (3) The destruction of these beasts, to whom the dragon gave his power and

augmented the force of the entire noise. Yet was the misery itself more terrible than this disorder; for one would have thought that the hill itself, on which the temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it, that the blood was larger in quantity than the fire, and those that were slain more in number than those that slew them; for the ground did nowhere appear visible for the dead bodies that lay on it; but the soldiers went over heaps of these bodies as they ran upon such as fled from them."-Wars of the Jews, book vi, chap. v, 1.

authority (chap. xiii, 2, 11, 12), is appropriately followed by the binding and imprisonment of the old dragon himself (chap. xx, 1–3). The symbols employed to set forth all these triumphs are surely not to be understood literally of a warfare carried on with carnal weapons (comp. 2 Cor. x, 4; Eph. vi, 11-17), but they vividly express momentous facts forever to be associated with the consummation of that age, and crisis of ages, when Judaism fell, and Christianity opened upon the world. From that period onward no well-authenticated instance of demoniacal possession can be shown.' With that shutting up of Satan the millennium begins, The Millennium. a long indefinite period, as the symbolical number most naturally suggests (see above, p. 298), but a period of ample fulness for the universal diffusion and triumph of the Gospel (verses 4-6). "The first resurrection" takes place at the beginning of this period, and is chiefly conspicuous as a resurrection of martyrs; a bliss of which not all the dead appear to have been "accounted worthy" (karağıwdévтeç, Luke xx, 35), but which Paul was anxious to attain (Phil. iii, 11). For it is written, "Blessed and holy is he who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no authority," for of such Jesus said, "neither can they die any more" (Luke xx, 36). Moreover, they sit upon thrones, and judgment is given to them (comp. Dan. vii, 22; Matt. xix, 28; Luke xxii, 28-30; 1 Cor. vi, 2), and they are made "priests of God and of Christ, and reign with him the thousand years." The language of verse 4, however, intimates that others besides the martyrs may sit upon thrones and exercise judgment with the Christ (comp. chap. ii, 26, 27; iii, 21).

Of other things which may occur during the millennium no menThe Chiliastic tion is here made, and yet all manner of fancies have interpretation. been built upon this brief passage of the Apocalypse. The Chiliasts assume that this millennium is to be a visible reign of Christ and his saints upon the earth, and with this reign they associate a most literal conception of other prophecies. The following, from Justin Martyr, is one of the earliest expressions of this view: "I, and others," he says, "who are right-minded Christians on all points, are assured that there will be a resurrection of the

166 We conclude," says the author of The Parousia, "that at the end of the age a marked and decisive check was given to the power of Satan; which check is symbolically represented in the Apocalypse by the chaining and imprisoning of the dragon in the abyss. It does not follow from this that error and evil were banished from the earth. It is enough to show that this was, as Schlegel says, 'the decisive crisis between ancient and modern times,' and that the introduction of Christianity 'has changed and regenerated, not only government and science, but the whole system of human life.""-Parousia, p. 518.

...

dead, and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be built, adorned, and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and others declare. . . . And, further, there was a certain man with us whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, who prophesied, by a revelation that was made to him, that those who believed in our Christ would dwell a thousand years in Jerusalem; and that thereafter the general and, in short, the eternal resurrection and judgment of all men would likewise take place." This Ebionite conception, having gained an early prominence, has infected apocalyptic interpretation with a disturbing leaven even until now, and there is little hope of a better exegesis until all dogmatic notions are set aside and we fearlessly accept what the Scripture says, and

no more.

1

pretation with

The old Chiliastic ideas of a restoration of all Israel at Jerusalem, and of Christ and his glorified saints literally sitting Chiliastic interon thrones and reigning in visible material glory on out sufficient the earth, are without warrant in this Scripture. Noth- warrant. ing is here said about Jerusalem, or the Jews, or the Gentiles. An indefinite number sit upon thrones and receive judgment. Among them those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus have a most conspicuous place, and thus they receive the reward promised in chap. vi, 9-11. These now live and reign with Christ, not on the earth, but where the throne of his kingdom is, namely, in the heavens. This accords with Paul's words in 2 Tim. ii, 11: “If we died with him (i. e., by martyrdom; comp. Phil. iii, 10) we shall also live with him; if we endure suffering we shall also reign with him." A resurrection of martyrs, to take place at the beginning of the millennial era appears to be the most natural and obvious import of Rev. xx, 4-6, and nothing is gained by reading into the language another meaning. "I do not see," says Stuart, "how we can, on the ground of exegesis, fairly avoid the conclusion that John has taught in the passage before us that there will be a resurrection of the martyr-saints at the commencement of the period after Satan shall have been shut up in the dungeon of the great abyss.'

99 2

Dialogue with Trypho, lxxx, lxxxi. "The Book of Revelation," says Hagenbach, "in its twentieth chapter, gave currency to the idea of a millennial kingdom, together with that of a second resurrection; and the imagination of those who dwelt fondly upon sensuous impressions delineated these millennial hopes in the most glowing terms. This was the case, not only with the Judaizing Ebionites and Cerinthus, but also with several orthodox fathers, such as Papias, Justin, Irenæus, and Tertullian.”History of Doctrines, Translated by Smith, vol. i, p. 213. New York, 1861.

2 Commentary on the Apocalypse, vol. ii, p. 476. Similarly Alford: "No legitimate treatment of this text will extort from it what is known as the spiritual interpretation now in fashion. If, in a passage where two resurrections are mentioned, where

ment.

(5) At the end of the millennial period there is to be a loosing of The last defeat Satan, a rising of hostile forces, symbolized by Gog and of Satan, and Magog (comp. Ezek. xxxviii, xxxix), and a fearful catastrophe, resulting in the final and everlasting overthrow of the devil—the culmination of the prophecy of Gen. iii, 15. This last conflict, belonging to a distant future, is rapidly passed over by the seer, and its details are not made known (verses 7-10). (6) The last great judgment is next portrayed (verses 11-15), and may well be regarded as the culmination and completion of that continual judgment (depicted in Matt. xxv, 31-46) which began with the parousia and continues until the Son of man delivers over the kingdom to the Father (1 Cor. xv, 24). (7) The last picture in this wonderful apocalyptical series is that of the new heavens and new land, and the descent of the heavenly Jerusalem (xxi, 1-8). It corresponds with Matt. xxv, 34, where the king says to those on his right hand: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." As there the glory of the righteous is put in striking contrast with the curse and doom of the wicked, and, it is finally said, "These shall go away into eternal punishment" (Matt. xxv, 46), so here, after the glory of the redeemed is outlined, it is added, as the issue of an eternal judgment: "But as for the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone (comp. 'the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,' Matt. xxv, 41), which is the second death.”

It should be noticed how this last sevenfold apocalyptic vision

certain souls lived at the first, and the rest of the dead lived only at the end of a specified period after the first—if in such a passage the first resurrection may be understood to mean spiritual rising with Christ, while the second means literal rising from the grave; then there is an end of all significance in language, and Scripture is wiped out as a definite testimony to any thing.”—Greek Testament, in loco. This argument holds equally good against all theories of the "first resurrection," which allow that the first is figurative and the other literal. Brown's nine famous arguments against the literal, and in favour of a figurative explanation of the first resurrection (Christ's Second Coming, pp. 231–258, New York, 1866), are all aimed against the sensuous Chiliastic notion that it is the simultaneous resurrection of all the righteous dead- -a view which we repudiate as unscriptural. But Brown himself fairly overthrows the notion of Scott and others that John saw a resurrection of souls, and not of bodies. "This is to mistake what the apostle saw in the vision. He did not see a resurrection of souls. He saw 'the souls of them that were slain;' that is, he had a vision of the martyrs themselves in the state of the dead-after they were dead, and just before their resurrection. Then he saw them rise: 'They lived'-not their souls, but themselves. All figurative resurrections in Scripture are couched in the language of literal ones; and why should this be any exception?"-Christ's Second Coming, p. 229.