CHAPTER XVI.

THE APOCALYPSE.

After the message to the seven churches, the course of the vision unrolls itself. A door is opened in heaven; the Seer is wrapped in spirit, and through this opening his look penetrates to the very heart of the heavenly court. All the heaven of the Jewish cabala reveals itself to him. A single throne exists, and upon that throne, around which is the rainbow, is seated God himself, like a colossal ruby, darting forth its fires. Around the throne are twenty-four secondary seats, upon which are seated four-and-twenty elders clothed in white, having upon their heads crowns of gold. It is humanity represented by a senate of its élite, who form the permanent court of the Eternal; in front burn seven lamps, which are the seven spirits of God (the seven gifts of the divine wisdom). Behind are four monsters, composed of features borrowed from the cherubs of Ezekiel, and seraphs of Isaiah. These are: the first in the form of a lion, the second in the form of a calf, the third in the form of a man, the fourth in the form of an eagle with outspread wings These four monsters in Ezekiel formerly represented the attributes of the divine being: wisdom, power, omniscience, and creation. They have six wings and are covered with eyes over their whole bodies. The angels, creatures inferior to the great supernatural personifications which had been spoken of, a sort of winged servants, surround the throne in thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads. An eternal rolling of thunder comes forth from the throne. In the foreground there stretches an immense azure surface, like crystal (the firmament). A 194sort of divine liturgy proceeds without end. The four monsters, organs of universal life (nature), never sleep, and sing night and day the heavenly trisagion, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and shall be.” The four-and-twenty elders (humanity) unite in this canticle by prostrating themselves and casting their crowns at the feet of the throne of the creator.

Christ has not figured up till now in the court of heaven; the Seer makes us assist at the ceremony of his enthronement. At the right of him who is seated on the throne there is seen a book in the form of a roll, written on both sides and sealed with seven seals. It is the hook of the divine secrets, the great Revelation. No one either in earth or heaven has been found worthy to open it or even to look upon it. John then begins to weep; the future, the only consolation of the Christian, is not there to be revealed to him. One of the elders encourages him. In fact he who should open the book is soon found. It may be divined without difficulty that it is Jesus, for in the very centre of the great assembly at the foot of the throne in the midst of the animals and elders upon the crystalline altar appears a slain lamb. It was the favourite image under which the Christian imagination loved to picture Jesus to itself; a Iamb slain became a Paschal victim and always with God. He has seven horns and seven eyes, symbols of the seven spirits of God, whose fulness Jesus has received, and who are through him about to be spread over the whole world. The Lamb rises, goes right up to the throne of the Eternal, and takes the Book. A wondrous emotion then fills heaven. The four animals, the four-and-twenty elders fall on their knees before the Lamb. They hold in their hands harps and vials of gold full of incense (the prayers of saints) and sing a new song: “Thou, thou alone art worthy to take the book and to open its seals; for thou hast been slain and with thy blood hast thou gained unto God a company of elect out 195of every tribe and tongue and people and race, and thou hast made of them a kingdom of priests, and they shall reign on the earth. The myriads of angels join in this canticle and discern in the Lamb the seven great prerogatives (power, riches, wisdom, strength, honour, glory, and blessing); all the creatures who are in heaven, on the earth, or under the earth, and in the sea, join in this heavenly ceremony and cry: “To him who is seated upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing, and honour, and glory, and strength through the ages of ages.” The four animals representing nature, with their deep voice say Amen; the elders fall down and worship.

Thus is Jesus introduced in the highest rank of the celestial hierarchy. Not only the angels, but also the four-and-twenty elders, and the four animals who are superior to the angels, prostrate themselves before him. He has mounted the steps of the throne of God and has taken the book placed at the right hand of God, which no one could even look upon. He opens the seven seals of the book and the grand drama begins. The début is brilliant. According to a conception of the most righteous people, the author places the origin of the Messianic agitation at the moment in which Rome extends its empire to Judea. At the opening of the first seal a white horse comes forth. The rider who is mounted on him carries a bow in his hand, a crown surrounds his head, he gains victory everywhere. This is the Roman Empire, which up till the time of the Seer none could resist, but this triumphal prologue is of short duration; the signs coming before the brilliant appearance of Messiah shall be unheard-of plagues, and it is by the most terrific images that the celestial tragedy is carried out. We are at the beginning of what is called “the period of the sorrows of the Messiah.” Each seal which is opened henceforth brings upon humanity some horrible misfortunes.

At the opening of the second seal a red horse comes forth. To him who rides upon it is given power to take 196away peace from the earth and to make men slay each other; there is put into his hand a great sword. It is War. Since the revolt of Judea, and especially since the insurrection of Vindex, the world was in fact nothing but a field of carnage, and peaceable men knew not where to flee.

At the opening of the third seal a black horse leaps forth. His rider holds a balance. In the midst of the four animals the voice which tariffs in heaven the prices of commodities for poor mortals, says to the horseman, “A bushel of wheat for a penny, three bushels of barley for a penny, and touch not the oil or the wine.” That is famine, not to speak of the great dearth which took place under Claudius; the scarcity in the year 68 was extreme.

At the opening of the fourth seal a yellow horse comes forth. His rider was called Death. Sheol followed him, and there was power given to him to kill the quarter of the world by the sword, pestilence, and wild beasts.

Such are the great plagues which announce the approaching advent of the Messiah. Justice wills it that immediately the divine wrath shall be lit against the world. In fact at the opening of the fifth seal the Seer is witness of a touching spectacle. He recognises under the altar the souls of those who have been slain for their faith, and for the witness they have rendered to Christ (certainly the victims of the year 64). These holy souls cry out to God, and say to Him, “How long, O Lord, holy and true. Wilt Thou not do justice and demand our blood from those that dwell upon the earth?” But the time is not yet come, the number of the martyrs who should fill up the overflowing of wrath has not yet been reached. To each one of the victims who are under the altar, is given a white robe, a pledge of future justification and triumph, and they are told to wait a little while until their fellow-servants and brethren who should be slain like them should bear witness in their turn.

After this fine interlude, we do not return to the period of precursory plagues, but the phenomena of the last judgment. At the opening of the sixth seal a great shaking of the universe takes place. The heaven becomes black like sackcloth of hair, the moon takes the colour of blood, the stars fall from heaven to earth like the fruit of a fig tree shaken with the wind. The sky draws itself back like a book that is rolled up, the mountains and hills are hurled from their places. The kings and the great men of the earth, the military tribunes, and the rich and the strong, slaves and free men, hide themselves in the caves and among the rocks saying to the mountains, “Fall upon us, and save us from the glance of Him who sits upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!”

The great execution is then to be accomplished. The four angels of the winds are placed at the four corners of the earth; they have only to give bridle to the elements which are entrusted to them, that these, following their natural fury, should destroy the world. All power is given to these four actors. They are at their posts; but the fundamental idea of the poem is to show the great judgment adjourned without ceasing till the moment it appears it must take place. An angel bearing in his hand the seal of God (a seal which has for a legend, like all royal seals, the name of him to whom it belongs, ליהוה), comes forth from the east. He cries to the four angels of the destroying winds to keep back for some time yet the forces which they wield, until the elect, who presently live, are marked in the forehead, by the stamp, by which, as was done by the blood of the Paschal Lamb in Egypt, they should be preserved from these plagues. The angel impresses then the divine signet upon a hundred and forty-four thousand persons belonging to the twelve tribes of Israel. It is not really said that these hundred and forty-four thousand elect are only Jews. Israel is here certainly the true spiritual Israel, “the Israel of God,” as St. Paul 198calls it, the elect family, embracing all those who are connected with the race of Abraham through faith in Jesus and by the practice of the necessary rites. But there is here a category of the faithful which is already introduced in the time of peace, they are those who have suffered death for Jesus. The prophet sees them under the figure of a numberless crowd, of every race, tribe, people, and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb clothed in white robes and carrying palms in their hands, and singing to the glory of God and the Lamb. One of the elders explains to him what this crowd is: These are the people who have come out of great persecution and they have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and they adore him night and day in his temple, and he who is seated on the throne shall dwell eternally among them. They shall hunger no more, they shall thirst no more, nor shall they suffer any more from the heat. The Lamb shall lead them to pastures and shall guide them to the waters of life, and God himself shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

The seventh seal is opened. They are waiting for the grand spectacle of the consummation of time. But, in the poem, as in reality, this catastrophe always recedes; we believed it was coming, but it has not. In place of the final dénoûement which ought to be the effect of the opening of the seventh seal, there is silence in heaven for half-an-hour, indicating that the first act of the mystery has ended, and that another is about to begin.

After the sacramental silence the seven archangels which are before the throne of God, and of whom mention has just been made, enter on the scene. To them are given seven trumpets, which each uses as a signal of other prognostics. John’s gloomy fancy was not satisfied; this time it is in the plagues of Egypt that his anger against the world seeks types for punishments. Some natural phenomena occurring about the year 68, 199and with which popular opinion is preoccupied, affords him apparent justification for such comparisons.

Before the blast of the seven trumpets begins, a silent scene of great effect comes in. An angel advances toward the golden altar which is before the throne, having in his hand a golden censer. Some lumps of incense are turned over the coals of the altar and send up perfumes before the Eternal. The angel then refills his censer with coals from the altar and throws them on the ground. These coals, in striking the surface of the earth, produce thunders and lightnings, voices and earthquakes. The incense, the author himself tells us, are the prayers of saints. The sighs of these pious persons, rising before God, and calling for the destruction of the Roman empire, become burning coals to the profane world, which strikes it, rends it, and consumes it, without it knowing whence the attack comes.

The seven angels then prepare to place their trumpets to their lips.

At the sound of the first angel’s trumpet a hail mingled with fire and blood falls on the earth. The third of the earth is burned, the third of the trees is burned; all green herbage is burned. In 63 and 68 and 69, there was, in fact, a great terror caused by storms in which men saw something supernatural

At the sound of the second angel’s trumpet, a great mountain, incandescent, is thrown into the sea; the third of the sea is turned into blood, the third of all fishes die, the third of ships is destroyed. There is here an allusion to the aspects of the isle of Thera, which the prophet could almost see on the horizon of Patmos, and which resembles an extinct volcano. A new island had appeared in the midst of its crater in the year 46 or 47. In its moments of activity one can see in the neighbourhood of Thera flames on the surface of the sea.

At the blast of the third angel’s trumpet, a great star falls from heaven, burning like a faggot; it extinguishes 200the third of rivers and streams. Its name is “Wormwood;” the third of the waters are turned into wormwood (that is to say, they become bitter and poisonous), and many men die from this. One is led to suppose that there is here an allusion to a certain borealis whose fall was placed in connection with an infection which might be produced in some reservoir of water by altering its quality. We must recollect that our prophet sees nature through the artless stories and popular conversations of Asia, the most credulous country in the world. Phlegon, of Tralles, half a century later, was to pass his life in compiling some absurdities of this kind. Tacitus, on every page, is prepossessed by them.

At the blast of the fourth angel’s trumpet the third of the sun, the third of the moon, and the third of the stars are extinguished, so that the third of the world’s light is darkened. This may be connected with eclipses which terrified people during those years, or the terrible storm of 10th January, 69.

These plagues are not over yet. An eagle flying in the zenith uttered three cries of misfortune, and announced to men some unheard-of calamities for the three trumpet blasts which remain.

At the sound of the fifth trumpet a star (that is to say, an angel) falls from heaven; the key of the bottomless pit (hell) is given to him. The angel opens the bottomless pit; then comes up from it a smoke like that of a great furnace; the sun and the heavens are darkened. From this smoke come forth locusts, who cover the earth like squadrons of cavalry. These locusts, led by their king, the angel of the abyss, who is called in Hebrew Abaddon, and in Greek Apollyon, torment men during five months (a whole summer). It is possible that the plague of the locusts may about this time have been very intense in some provinces; in any case the imitation of the plagues of Egypt is evident here. The bottomless pit is probably the Solfatara of Pouzzuoli (what is termed the Forum of 201Vulcan) or the ancient crater of the Somma conceived of as mouths of hell. We have said that the crisis in the suburbs of Naples was then very violent. The author of the Apocalypse, who may be allowed to claim a voyage to Rome, and consequently to Pouzzuoli, may have witnessed such phenomena. He connects the clouds of locusts with volcanic exhalations! for the origin of these clouds being obscure, the people would be led to see there the outcome of hell. At this day, moreover, an analogous phenomena is seen yet at Solfatara. After a heavy rain the water pools which are in the warm portions cause some rapid and abundant spawning of locusts and frogs. That this generation, apparently spontaneous, would be considered by the vulgar as emanations from the infernal mouth itself, was much more natural than that the eruptions, being ordinarily the result of heavy rains which covered the country with marshes, should appear to be the immediate cause of the clouds of insects which came forth from these marshes.

The sound of the sixth trumpet brings another plague: it is the invasion of the Parthians, which everybody believed imminent. A voice comes from the four horns of the altar, which is before God, and orders the release of four angels who are chained on the banks of the Euphrates. The four angels (perhaps the Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians), who were ready for the day, the hour, the month, and the year, were placing themselves at the head of terrible cavalry amounting to two hundred millions of men. The description of the horses and horsemen is quite fantastical. The horses, which kill with the tail, are probably an allusion to the Parthian cavalry, who shot arrows while flying. A third of humanity is exterminated. Nevertheless those who survive do not repent. They continue to worship devils, idols of gold and silver, who can neither see, nor hear, or walk. They are obstinate in their homicides, their evil deeds, their fornications, their robberies.

They wait for the seventh trumpet to sound; out here, as in the act of the opening of the seals, the Seer appears to hesitate, or rather to place himself in a position to wait the result. He stops himself at the solemn moment. The terrible secret cannot yet be entirely made known. A gigantic angel, his head girt with a rainbow, one foot on the earth, another on the sea, whose voice seven thunders repeat, says certain mysterious words, which a voice from heaven forbids John to write. The gigantic angel then lifts his hands towards heaven and swears by the Eternal that there shall be no more delay, and that at the sound of the seventh trumpet will be accomplished the mystery of God announced by the prophets.

The apocalyptic drama therefore is about to finish. To prolong his book, the author gives himself a new prophetic mission. Rejecting an energetic symbol employed before by Ezekiel, John receives a fatidic book from the gigantic angel, and eats it. A voice says to him: “It is necessary that thou shouldst prophecy still before many races, and peoples, and tongues, and kings.” The framework of the vision, which is to be closed by the seventh trumpet, enlarges itself thus, and the author begins a second part, when he will unveil his views on the destinies of the kings and peoples of his time. The first six trumpets, in fact, like the opening of the first six seals, are connected with the facts which had taken place when the author wrote. What follows, on the contrary, is connected for the most part with the future.

It is upon Jerusalem first that the looks of the Seer are cast. By a plain symbolism, he gives it to be understood that the city should be delivered to the Gentiles; to see that in the opening months of 69, needed no great prophetic effort. The portico and the court of the Gentiles shall even be polluted by the feet of the profane; but the imagination of a Jew so fervent cannot conceive of the temple destroyed, the temple being the only place in the world where God can receive a worship 203(a worship of which that of heaven is but the reproduction). John cannot imagine the earth without the temple. The temple shall therefore be preserved, and the faithful, marked in the forehead by the sign of Jehovah, can continue to adore him there. The temple shall thus be like a sacred space, a spiritual residence of the whole Church; this will last forty-two months, that is to say, three years and a half (a half-schemitta or week of years). This mystic cipher, borrowed from the book of Daniel, will often recur in the sequel. It is the space of time which yet remains for the world to live.

Jerusalem, during this time, shall be a theatre of a partly religious battle analogous to the struggles which have filled history in all times. God will give a mission to “his two witnesses” who shall prophecy during two hundred and sixty days (that is, three years and a half) clothed in sackcloth. These two prophets are compared to two olive trees and to two candles before the Lord. They shall have the powers of a Moses and an Elias; they will be able to shut heaven and keep back the rain, to turn water into blood, and to smite the earth with whatever plague they will. If any one tries to do them harm, a fire shall come out of their mouths and devour their adversaries. When they shall have finished giving their witness, the beast who comes up from the abyss, the Roman power, (or rather Nero reappearing as Antichrist) shall slay them. Their bodies will remain three days and a half stretched out without burial in the streets of the great city which is symbolically called “Sodom” and “Egypt,” and where their master was crucified. The worldly shall rejoice, and shall felicitate each other, and send each other presents; for these two prophets had become insupportable by their austere preaching and by their temple miracles. But at the end of three days and a half, behold, the spirit of life shall re-enter the two saints: they shall rise to their feet, and a great terror shall seize all those who see them. Soon they mount heavenwards 204on the clouds, in the sight of their enemies. A fearful earthquake takes place at this moment; the tenth of the city falls; 7,000 men are killed; the others, terrified, are converted.

We have already often met this idea that the solemn hour shall be preceded by the appearance of the two witnesses, who are most often believed to be Enoch and Elias in prison. These two friends of God passed, indeed, for not being dead. The first was reported to have uselessly predicted the deluge to his contemporaries, who would not listen to him. He was the type of a Jew preaching repentance among the heathen. Sometimes also, the witnesses seem to resemble Moses, whose death was equally uncertain, and Jeremiah. Our author appears, moreover, to consider the two witnesses two important personages in the church of Jerusalem, two apostles of a great holiness, who shall be slain, then raised again, and shall ascend to heaven like Elias and Jesus. It is not impossible that the vision had for its first portion a retrospective value and is connected with the murder of the two Jameses, especially with the death of James, the Lord’s brother which was considered by many at Jerusalem as a public misfortune, a fatal event and a sign of the times. Perhaps also one of these preachers of repentance is John the Baptist, the other Jesus. As to the persuasion that the end shall not take place till the Jews shall be converted, it was general among the Christians; we find it likewise in St. Paul.

The remainder of Israel having come to the true faith, the world has only to end. The seventh angel places his trumpet to his lips. At the sound of that last trumpet great voices cry out: “Behold! the hour has come when our Lord with his Christ shall reign over the world to all eternity.” The four-and-twenty elders fall on their faces and worship. They thank God for having inaugurated his kingdom, in spite of the powerless rage of the Gentiles, and proclaim the hour of 205recompense for the saints, and of extermination for those who pollute the earth. Then the gates of the heavenly temple open: there is perceived in the centre of the temple the bow of the new covenant. This scene is accompanied by earthquakes, thunders and lightnings.

All is finished; the believers have received the great revelation which should comfort them. The judgment is at hand; it shall be held in a sacred half-year, equivalent to three years and a half. But we have already seen the author, little careful as to the unity of his work, reserving to himself the means of continuing it, when it should be finished. The book, in fact, is only half of the course; a new series of visions is about to he unrolled before us.

The first is one of the finest. In the midst of heaven appears a woman (the Church of Israel) clothed with the sun, having the moon under her feet, and around her head a crown of twelve stars (the twelve tribes of Israel). She cries as if she was in the throes of labour, pregnant as she is with the ideal Messiah. Before her is set an enormous red dragon, with seven crowned heads and ten horns, and whose tail, sweeping the sky, draws down a third of the stars and casts them on the earth. It is Satan, in the features of the most powerful of his incarnations, the Roman empire, the red pictures the imperial purple. The seven crowned heads are the seven Cæsars who have reigned up till the time the author writes: Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero and Galba; the ten horns are the ten pro-consuls who govern the provinces. The dragon waits for the birth of the child to devour it. The woman brings into the world a son, destined “to rule the nations with a rod of iron”—a feature characteristic of the Messiah. The child (Jesus) is raised to heaven by God. God places him at his side upon his throne. The woman flees into the desert, where God has prepared a retreat for her for 1,260 days. There is here an evident allusion either to the flight of 206the Church from Jerusalem and to the peace which it should enjoy within the walls of Pella during the three years and a half which remain until the end of the world, or to the residence which the Judaizing Christians and some Apostles had in the province of Asia. The image of the “desert” agrees better with the former explanation than with the latter. Pella, beyond Jordan, was a peaceable country, bordering upon the deserts of Arabia, and where the sound of war scarcely ever came.

Then a great battle takes place in heaven. Up till then Satan, the Katigor, the malevolent critic of the creation, had his entrées into the divine court. He profits by them, according to an old habit which he had not lost since the age of the patriarch Job, to hurt pious men and especially the Christians, and to bring upon them frightful troubles. The persecutions of Rome and Ephesus have been his work. Now he will lose this privilege. The archangel Michael (the guardian angel of Israel) with his angels, gives battle to him. Satan is defeated, chased from heaven, cast to the earth as well as his supporters; a song of victory arises, when the celestial beings see precipitated from height to depth the caluminator, the detractor of all good, who does not cease day and night to accuse and to blacken their brethren dwelling on the earth. The church of heaven and that below fraternize over the defeat of Satan. That defeat is due to the blood of the Lamb and also to the courage of the martyrs who have carried their sacrifice even up to death. But woe to the profane world The Dragon has descended to his own place, and they can all wait for his despair; for he knows that his days are numbered.

The first object against which the Dragon cast on the earth turns his rage, is the woman (the church of Israel) who has brought into the world this divine fruit whom God has made to sit at his right hand. But protection from on high covers the woman; there are given to her 207the two great wings of an eagle, bearing herself on which she goes to the place prepared for her, that is Pella. She is nourished there three years and a half, far from the sight of the Dragon. His fury is now at its height. He vomits out of his mouth after the woman a river to hurt her and stop her, but the earth comes to the help of the woman; it opens and absorbs the river (an allusion to some circumstance of the flight to Pella which is unknown to us). The Dragon, seeing his powerlessness against the woman (the mother-church of Israel) turns his anger against “the rest of her race,” that is, against the churches of the Dispersion who keep the precepts of God and are faithful to the testimony of Jesus. There is here an evident allusion to the persecutions of the last days, and especially to that of the year 64.

Then the prophet sees coming up from the sea a beast which in many points resembles the Dragon. It has ten horns, and seven heads and diadems on its ten horns, and on each of its heads a blasphemous name. Its general aspect is that of the leopard; his feet are those of a bear, his mouth that of a lion. The Dragon (Satan) gives him his strength, his throne and his power. One of his heads has received a mortal blow; but the wound has been healed. The whole earth falls in wonder before this powerful animal, and all men begin to worship the Dragon because he has given power to the beast; they also worship the beast, saying: “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against him?” And there is given to him a mouth speaking words full of blasphemy and pride, and the duration of his omnipotence is fixed at forty-two months (three years and a half). Then the beast begins to vomit forth blasphemies against God, against his name and the tabernacle, and against those who dwell in heaven. And it was given to him to make war on the saints and to conquer them, and power was ceded to him over every tribe and tongue and race. And all men worshipped him except those whose 208name is written from the beginning of the world in the book of life of the Iamb who has been slain: “Let him hear who hath ears, he who makes captive shall be made captive in his turn, he who takes the sword shall perish by the sword. This is the secret of the patience and the faith of the saints.”

This symbolism is very clear. Already in the Sibylline poem, composed in the second century B.C., the Roman power is qualified by having “numerous heads.” The allegories drawn from polycephalous beasts were very much in vogue; the principal interpretation of these emblems was to consider each head as signifying a sovereign. The monster of the Apocalypse, is besides, composed by the reunion of the attributes of the four empires of Daniel, and that alone shows it concerns a new empire, absorbing in itself the former empires. The beast which comes forth from the sea is therefore the Roman empire, which, to the people of Palestine, appeared to come from beyond the seas. This empire is only a form of Satan (the dragon) or rather, it is Satan himself with all his attributes; he holds his power to cause Satan to be adored, that is, to maintain idolatry, which, to the authors mind, is nothing but the worship of demons. The ten crowned are the ten provinces, whose pro-consuls are real kings; the seven heads are the seven emperors who have succeeded each other from Julius Cæsar to Galba; the blasphemous name written on each head is the title of Σεβαστός, or Augustus, which appeared to the seven Jews to imply an injury to God. The whole world is given up by Satan to this empire, in return for the homage which the said empire procures Satan; the greatness and the pride of Rome, the imperium which it has decreed, its divinity, an object of a special and public worship, are a perpetual blasphemy against God, sole real sovereign of the world. The empire in question is naturally the enemy of the Jews and Jerusalem. He made a fierce war with the saints (the author appears on the whole favourably to 209the Jewish revolt): he will conquer them; but he has only three and a-half years to last. He with the head wounded to death, but whose wound has been healed, is Nero, lately overthrown, saved miraculously from death, and who was believed to have taken refuge with the Parthians. The adoration of the beast is the worship of “Rome and Augustus,” so much spread over all the province of Asia, and which was made the basis of the religion of the country.

The symbol which follows is far from being as transparent to us. Another beast goes forth from the earth; it has two horns like those of a lamb, but it speaks like the Dragon (Satan). It exercises all the power of the first beast in its presence and under its eyes; it fills in its turn the rôle of delegate, and employs all its authority to cause the inhabitants of the earth to worship the first beast, “whose mortal hurt has been cured.” This second beast works great miracles; it goes so far as to bring the fire of heaven upon the earth in presence of numerous spectators; it seduces the world by the prodigies which it executes in the name and for the service of the first beast (of that beast, adds the author, which has received a stroke of the sword and nevertheless lives). And there was given (to the second beast) to put the breath of life into the image of the first beast, so that that image spoke. And it had the power to cause after this that all those who refused to adore the first beast should be put to death. And it established as a law that all, small and great, rich and poor, free and slaves, should bear a mark on their right hand or on their forehead. And it commanded besides that no one should be able to buy or sell if he did not bear the sign of the beast, or his name in all its letters, that is, the number made up by the letters of his name added together like figures. “Here is wisdom!” cries the author. “Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast. It is the number of a man This number is 666.”

In reality, if we add together the letters of the name of Nero, transcribed in Hebrew נררן קסו (Νέρων Καῖσαρ) according to their numerical value we obtain the number 666. Neron Kesar was indeed the name by which the Christians of Asia designated the monster; the coins of Asia bore as a legend: ΝΕΡΟΝ, ΚΑΙΣΑΡ. Those kinds of reckonings were familiar to the Jews, and made a cabbalistic puzzle which they called ghematria; the Greeks of Asia even were no longer strangers to it; in the second century the Gnostics affected it.

Thus the Emperor, who was represented by the head wounded to death, but not killed (the author himself tells us), is Nero—Nero who, according to a popular opinion widespread in Asia, still lived. But who is this second beast, this agent of Nero, who has the manners of a pious Jew, and the language of Satan, who is the alter ego of Nero, toils for his profit, and even causes a statue of Nero to speak, persecutes the believing Jews who do not wish to render Nero the same honour as the heathen, nor to bear the mark of affiliation to his party, renders life impossible, and forbids them to do the most necessary things, to buy and sell? Certain peculiarities would apply to a Jewish functionary, such as Tiberius Alexander, devoted to the Romans and held by his compatriots as an apostate. The mere fact of paying the impost to the empire might be called “an adoration of the beast,” tribute in the eyes of the Jews having the character of a religious offering, and implying a worship of the sovereign. The sign or mark of the beast (Νέρων Καῖσαρ) that it would be needful for him to enjoy the common law, must have been either the brevet of a Roman citizenship, without which in some countries life was difficult, and which for the enthusiastic Jews constituted the crime of association with a work of Satan; or the coin with the effigies of Nero, a coin held by the revolted Jews as execrable because of the images and blasphemous inscriptions they found there, so that they hastened, when they were free at Jerusalem, to 211Substitute an orthodox coin for it. The partisan of the Romans who is in question, by maintaining the money with Nero’s stamp as having a forced course in transactions, would appear to have been held to be wicked. Money with Nero’s stamp alone passed in the market, and those who by religious scruple refused to touch it were put outside the law.

The pro-consul of Asia at this time was Fonteius Agrippa, a grave functionary, to whom we cannot look to take us out of our embarrassment. A high priest of Asia, zealous for the worship of Rome and Augustus, and accustomed to vex the Jews and the Christians by the delegation of civil power which was granted him, meets some of the exigencies of the problem. But the features which the second beast presents as a seducer and a wonder-worker do not agree with such a personage. These features lead us to think of a false prophet, an enchanter, notably Simon the Magician, imitator of Christ, become in the legend the flatterer, the parasite and the wizard of Nero, or to Balbillus of Ephesus, or to the Antichrist, of whom Paul speaks obscurely in the second epistle to the Thessalonians It is probable that the personage seen here by the author of the Apocalypse is some impostor of Ephesus, a partisan of Nero, probably an agent of the false Nero or the false Nero himself. The same personage, in fact, is later on called “the False Prophet” in the sense that he is the proclaimer of a false god who is Nero. It is necessary to take account of the importance held at this time by the Magi, the Chaldean and “Mathematicians,” pests of whom Ephesus was the principal home. We recall also that Nero dreamed once of “the kingdom of Jerusalem,” that he was much mixed up with the astrological movements of his age, and that, nearly alone of all the emperors, he was worshipped while he lived, which was the sign of the Antichrist. During his travels in Greece, especially, the adulation of Achaia and Asia went beyond all conceivable bounds. Lastly, we cannot 212forget the seriousness which in Asia and the islands of the Archipelago attached to the movement of the false Nero. The circumstance that the second beast came from the earth, and not like the first from the sea, shows that the incident spoken of took place in Asia or Judea, not at Rome. All this is not sufficient to remove the obscurities of this vision, which no doubt would have in the mind of the author the same material precision as the others, but which, connecting itself with a provincial fact which the historians have not mentioned, and which has only an importance in the personal impression of the Seer, remains a puzzle to us.

In the midst of the waves of wraths there now appears a grassy islet. In the most violent of the frightful struggles of the last days, it shall be a place of refreshment: it is the church—the little family of Jesus. The prophet sees, resting on Mount Sion, the 144,000 sealed out of the whole world, bearing the name of God written on their foreheads. The Lamb dwells peacefully in the midst of them. Some celestial chords of harps descend on the assembly; the musicians sing a new song, which no ether than the 144,000 elect can repeat. Chastity is the sign of those blessed ones; all are virgin, without stain; their mouth has never uttered a lie: they also follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes, as firstfruits of the earth and the nucleus of the future world.

After this brief glance at a residence of innocence and peace, the author returns to his terrible visions. Three angels rapidly cross the sky. The first flies in the zenith holding the everlasting Gospel. He proclaims in the face of all nations the new doctrine, and announces the day of judgment. The second angel celebrates in advance the destruction of Rome. “She has fallen, she has fallen, the great Babylon which has made all nations drunk with the wine of her fornication.” The third angel forbids the adoration of the beast and the images of the beast borne by the 213false prophet. “Those who shall worship the beast or his image, who shall receive the mark of the beast on their forehead or hand, shall drink of the burning wine of God, of the pure wine pressed within the cup of his anger; and they shall be tormented in the fire and brimstone before the angels and before the Lamb; and the smoke of their torments shall mount through the ages of ages, and they shall have no rest day nor night, those who adore the beast or his image, and who receive on them the sign of his name.” It is here that the patience of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, shines forth. To reassure the faithful as to a doubt which sometimes relatively torments them as to the lot of the brethren who die every day, a voice orders the prophet to write: “Blessed from henceforth are the dead who die in the Lord, yea, saith the Spirit, they rest from their labours and their works follow them.”

Pictures of the great judgment present themselves to the imagination of the Seer. A white cloud comes from the sky: on this cloud is seated like a Son of Man an angel like the Messiah having on his bead a golden crown and in his hand a sharp sickle. The harvest of the earth is ripe. The Son of Man puts forth his sickle and the earth is reaped. Another angel comes to the vintage; he throws it all into the great winepress of the wrath of God. The winepress is trodden under-foot outside the city; the blood which comes forth from it rises up to the horse bridles, over a space of six hundred stadii.

After these different episodes, a celestial ceremony, analogous to the two mysteries of the opening of the seals and the trumpet unrolls itself before the Seer. Seven angels are charged to quiet the earth with seven different hurts, by which the wrath of God may be exhausted. But first we are reassured as to what concerns the fate of the elect. Upon a vast crystalline sea, mingled with fire, are seen the conquerors 214of the beast, that is, those who have refused to adore his image and the number of his name, holding in their hands the harps of God, singing the song of Moses after the passage of the Red Sea and the song of the Lamb. The door of the heavenly tabernacle is opened and seven angels are seen coming out of it clothed in linen and their bosoms girt with girdles of gold. One of the four living creatures gives them seven cups of gold full to the brim of the wrath of God. The temple is then filled with the smoke of a divine majesty, and no one can enter till the seven cups are emptied.

The first angel empties his cup on the earth and a pernicious ulcer strikes all men who bear the mark of the beast and who adore his image.

The second empties his cup upon the sea and it is changed into blood, and all the animals living in its bosom die.

The third angel empties his cup upon the rivers and streams and they are changed into blood. The angel of the waters does not complain of the loss of his element. He says: “Thou art just, oh Lord, and art holy, who art and who west, thou shalt do whatsoever is right. They have shed the blood of the saints and the prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; they are worthy of it.” The altar says from its side: “Yea, Lord God Almighty, thy judgments are true and just.” The fourth angel empties his cup upon the sun and the sun burns men like a fire. Men, far from being penitent, blaspheme God, who has power to smite them with such plagues.

The fifth angel empties his cup upon the throne of the beast (the city of Rome) and all the kingdom of the beast (the Roman empire) is plunged into darkness. Men gnaw their tongues in pain; in place of repenting they insult the God of heaven.

The sixth angel empties his cup into the Euphrates, which dries up at once to prepare the way for the king’s coming from the East. Then, from the mouth of the 215dragon (Satan), from the mouth of the beast (Nero), and from the mouth of the False Prophet (?) proceed three unclean spirits like frogs. These are the spirits of devils, working miracles. These three spirits would find the kings of the whole earth, and assemble them for the battle of the great day of God. (“I come as a thief,” cries the voice of Jesus in the midst of all this. “Blessed is the man who watches and keeps his garments lest he should need to go naked and men should see his shame.”) They gather together, and say, in the place which is called in Hebrew, Armageddon. The general thought of all this symbolism is clear enough. We have already formed with the Seer the opinion universally adopted in the province of Asia that Nero, after having escaped from Phaon’s villa, had taken refuge among the Parthians, and that from thence he would return to crush his enemies. It is believed, not without apparent grounds, that the Parthian princes, friends of Nero during his reign, maintained him yet, and it is the fact that the court of the Arsacides was for more than twenty years the refuge of the false Neros. All this seems to the author of the Apocalypse an infernal plan, conceived between Satan, Nero, and this counsellor of Nero, who has already figured under the form of the second beast. These condemned creatures are occupied in forming in the East a league, whose army shall soon pass the Euphrates and crush the Roman empire. As to the special puzzle in the name Armageddon, it is to us undecipherable.

The seventh angel empties his vial into the air; a cry comes forth from the altar, “It is done'” And there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake such as has never been seen, while the great city (Jerusalem) is broken into three parts; and the cities of the Decapolis are destroyed, and the great Babylon (Rome) comes up in remembrance before God, who is prepared at length to make her drink of the cup of His wrath. The islands fled, and the mountains 216disappeared: hail of the weight of a talent fell on men, and men blasphemed because of this plague.

The cycle of the preludes is completed, and there remains nothing more but to see the judgment of God unroll itself. The Seer makes us first look on at the judgment of the greatest of all the culprits, the city of Rome. One of the seven angels who has emptied the vials approaches God and says to him: “Come, and I will show thee the judgment of the great whore who sits on the great waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication.” John then saw a woman seated on a beast like that which, coming forth from the sea, figured in its entirety the Roman empire, by one of its heads, Nero. The beast is scarlet, covered with names of blasphemy, it has seven heads and ten horns. The prostitute wears the dress of her profession; clothed in purple, covered with gold, pearls, and precious stones, she holds in her hand a cup full of the abomination and impurities of her fornication. And upon her forehead is written a name, a mystery, “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots, and the abomination of the earth.”

And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered with a great wonder, and the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou wonder? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and the ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not, and is about to come out of the abyss, and to go into perdition. And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, they whose name hath not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast, how that he was, and is not and shall come. Here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the Roman sitteth: and they are seven kings, the five are fallen, the one is, the other is not yet come; and when he cometh he must continue a little while. And the beast that was, and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven; and he goeth into perdition. And the ten horns that thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as 217yet; but they receive authority as kings, with the beast for one hour. These have one mind, and they give their power and authority unto the beast. These shall war against the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings; and they also shall overcome that are with him, called and chosen and faithful. And he saith unto me, the waters which thou sawest where the harlot sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which thou sawest, and the beast, these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate, and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her bitterly with fire. For God did put in their hearts to do his mind, and to come to one mind, and to give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God should be accomplished; and the woman whom thou sawest is the great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

This is quite clear. The harlot is Rome, who has corrupted the world, who has employed her power to propagate and to uphold idolatry, who has persecuted the saints, and who has made the blood of the martyrs to flow in streams. The beast is Nero, who was believed to be dead; who shall return, whose second reign shall be ephemeral and be followed by complete destruction. The seven heads have two meanings; they are the seven hills on which Rome is set; but they are especially the seven emperors: Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero and Galba. The first five are dead. Galba reigns for the moment; but he is old and feeble; he soon falls. The sixth, Nero, who is at once the beast and one of the seven kings, is not really dead; he will reign still, but for a short time; he will be thus the eighth king, and then perish. As to the ten horns; these are the pro-consuls and the imperial legates of the ten principal provinces who are not real kings, but who receive power from the emperor for a limited time, ruling agreeably to one thought, that which is conveyed to them from Rome, and are perfectly submissive to the empire, from whom they derive their power. These partial kings are all as malevolent against the Christians as Nero himself. Representing 218provincial interests, they will humble Rome, and take from her the right of conducting the empire, which she has enjoyed till then, maltreating her, setting her on fire, and sharing in her ruins. Yet God will not allow the dismemberment of the empire yet; he inspires the generals, commandants of the provincial armies, and all those who should have one by one the fate of the empire in their hands (Vindex, Virginius, Nymphidius, Sabinus, Galba, Macer, Capito, Otho, Vitellius, Mucian, and Vespasian), to act in harmony for the reconstitution of the empire, and instead of establishing it under independent sovereigns, which appears to the Jewish author the most natural position, to do homage for their kingdom to the beast.

We see at what point the pamphlet by the head of the churches of Asia enters into the life of a position which, for an imagination so easily struck as that of the Jews, would appear strange; in fact, Nero by his wickedness and folly of a special kind, had thrown reason out of doors. The empire at his death was as if escheat. After the assassination of Caligula, there was still a republican party; besides, the adopted family of Augustus had all his prestige; after Nero ’s assassination, there was no longer a republican party, and the family of Augustus was extinct. The empire fell into the hands of eight or ten generals who held high commands. The author of the Apocalypse, not understanding anything as to the Roman matters, is astonished that ten leaders, who appeared to him as kings, should not be declared independent and form a concert, and has attributed this result to an act of the divine will. It is clear that the Jews of the east, oppressed by the Romans for two years back, and who feel themselves feebly compact since July 68, because Mucian and Vespasian were absorbed by general affairs, believed that the empire was about to be dissolved, and triumphed for a while. There was in this not such a superficial view as we might believe. Tacitus, 219beginning the recital of the events of the year on the threshold of which the Apocalypse was written, calls it annum reipublicæ prope supremum. It was to the Jews a great astonishment when they saw the “ten kings” come before the “beast” and put their kingdoms at his feet. They had hoped that the result of the independence of the “ten kings” would be the ruin of Rome; antagonistic to a great central State organisation they thought the pro-consuls and the legates would hate Rome, and judging them according to themselves, they supposed that these powerful leaders might act like the satraps, or indeed like the Hyrcani kings exterminating their enemies. They had relished at least like spiteful provincials the great humiliation which the city had endured, when the right of making the sovereigns passed to the provinces, and Rome received within her walls masters whom she had not first called to power.

Such was the relation of the Apocalypse with the singular episode of the false Nero, who just at the moment when the Seer of Patmos wrote filled Asia and the islands of the Archipelago with emotion. Such a coincidence is assured by the most singular facts. Cythnos and Patmos are only forty leagues from each other, and news circulates quickly in the Archipelago. The days of the Christian prophet were those when most was spoken of the impostor, hailed by some with enthusiasm, looked upon with terror by others. We have shown that he established himself at Cythnos in 69, or perhaps in December 68. The centurion Sisenna who touched at Cythnos in the first days of February, coming from the East and bringing to the Pretorians of Rome some pledges of agreement on the part of the army of Syria, had much difficulty in escaping from them. A few days after, Calpurnius Asprenas, who had received from Galba the government of Galatia and Pamphylia, and who was accompanied by two galleys of the fleet of Misena, arrived at Cythnos. Some emissaries of the pretender tried the magical effect of the name of Nero 220on the commanders of the ships; the knave, affecting a sorrowful air, appealed to those who were formerly “his soldiers.” He begged them at least to conduct him to Syria or Egypt, countries on which he founded his hopes The commanders, whether from cunning or whether they were moved by this, asked for time. Asprenas, having heard of everything, took the impostor by surprise and caused him to be killed. His body was taken to Asia, then brought to Rome, so as to refute those of his partisans who would have wished to raise doubts as to his death. Would it be to this wretch that allusion is made in these words: “The beast thou sawest was and is no more, and it is coming forth from the abyss, and it hastens to its destruction . . . the other being is not yet, and when he shall come, he will remain a little?” It is possible. The monster rising from the abyss would be a lively image of ephemeral power which the sagacious writer saw coming forth from the sea in the horizon of Patmos. One cannot pronounce on this with certainty, for the opinion that Nero was among the Parthians was sufficient to explain everything; but this opinion did not exclude belief in the false Nero of Cythnos, since it could be supposed that his reappearance might be the return of the monster, coinciding with the passage of the Euphrates of his Eastern allies. In any case, it appears to us impossible that these lines had been written after the murder of the false Nero by Asprenas. The sight of the impostor’s corpse carried from city to city, the contemplation of his features marked by death, would have spoken very plainly against the apprehensions of the beast’s return, by which the author is possessed. We admit therefore willingly that John, in the isle of Patmos, had cognisance of the events in the isle of Cythnos, and that the effect produced upon him by some strange rumours was the principal cause of the letter he wrote to the Churches of Asia, to convey to them the great news of Nero risen again.

Interpreting the political events to the taste of his hatred, as a fanatic Jew, he predicted that the commandants of the provinces, whom he believed full of rancour against Rome, and up to a certain accord with Nero, should ravage the city and burn it Taking the fact now as accomplished, he sings of the ruin of his enemy. He has for that only to copy the declamations of the ancient prophets against Babylon and Tyre. Israel has marked the history of its curses. To all the great profane States he said: “Blessed is he who shall render thee for the evil which thou hest done us!” A bright angel descends from heaven, and with a strong voice: “Fallen, fallen,” said he, “is the great Babylon, and it is no longer anything but a dwelling for devils, a place for unclean spirits, a refuge for abominable birds, because that all the nations have drunk of the wine of her fornication, with whom the kings of the earth have polluted themselves, and by whom the merchants of the earth have been enriched by her wealth.” Another voice was heard from heaven saying:

Come out of her, my people, lest be ye partakers of her crimes and be struck by the plagues which will fall on her. Her abominations have come up even to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Render her what she has done to others; pay her back double for her works; return her the double of the cup she has poured out to others. For as much glory and wealth as she had, so give her as much torment and affliction. I sit as a queen, said she in her heart; and shall never know sorrow. Behold why her chastisements shall come all in the same day: death, desolation, famine and fire; for powerful is the God who judges her. And there shall be seen weeping over her the kings of the earth who have partaken of her uncleanness and her debaucheries. At the sight of the smoke of her burning; “Woe woe!” shall her companions in debauchery exclaim, keeping at a distance, struck with terror. “What! the great, the powerful Babylon! In one hour her judgment has come!” And the merchants of the earth shall bewail her, for no one longer buys their merchandise. Vessels of gold and silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, purple, silk, scarlet, thyinewood, ivory, brass, iron, marble, incense, wine, oil, flour of wheat, corn, beasts, 222sheep, horses, chariots, bodies and souls of men; . . . the merchants of all these things, who were enriched by her, standing at a distance in fear of her torments: “Woe! Woe!” they will say, “What! is that great city which was clothed in scarlet, purple, and fine linen, and adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls destroyed? In one hour have so much riches perished?” And the sailors who came to her and all those who traffic at sea, standing at a distance, at sight of the smoke of her burning, throwing ashes on their heads, give forth cries, weeping and lamentations. “Woe Woe!” they say, “The great city which enriched with its treasures all those who had vessels on the sea, behold in an hour has been changed into a desert.”

Rejoice over her ruin, O heaven; rejoice, ye saints, apostles and prophets; for God has judged your cause and has avenged you of her.”

Then an angel of strong power seized a great stone, like n millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying:

Then shall Babylon be thrown down, and there shall be found no longer a trace of her; and the voice of the harp players and the musicians, the sound of the flute and the trumpet shall be heard no more at all in thee, and the light of a lamp shall shine no more at all in thee, and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee, for thy merchants were the princes of the earth, for with thy sorcery were all the nations deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that have been slain upon the earth.

The ruin of this chief enemy of the people of God is the object of great festival in heaven. A voice like that of an innumerable multitude makes itself heard and cries “Alleluia! salvation, and glory and power to our God; for his judgments are righteous, and he has judged the great whore who has polluted the earth by her whoredom, and he has revenged the blood of his servants shed by her.” And another chorus replies: “Alleluia! the smoke of her burning shall ascend in the ages of ages.” Then the four-and-twenty elders and the four beasts prostrate themselves and adore God, seated on the throne, saying: “Amen! Alleluia!” A voice comes forth from the throne chanting the inaudible song of 223the new kingdom, “Praise our God all ye who are his servants and who fear him small and great;” a voice like that of a crowd or like that of great waters, or like the sound of a mighty thunder replied, “Alleluia, it is now that the Lord God Almighty reigns; let us rejoice and free ourselves quickly and render him the glory, for behold the hour of the Lamb’s marriage is come, and the garments of his bride are ready; and it has been given her to be clothed in a robe of fine linen of brightness sweet and pure. “The fine linen,” adds the author, “is the virtuous acts of the saints.” Delivered in fact from the presence of the great whore (Rome) the earth is ripe for the heavenly marriage, for the reign of Messiah. The angel says to the Seer, write: “Blessed are those invited to the festival of the marriage of the Lamb.” Then the heaven opens, and Christ, called there for the first time by his mystic name “The Word of God,” appears as a conqueror, mounted upon a white horse. He comes to trample with pressure the grapes of the wrath of God, to inaugurate for the heathen the reign of the sceptre of iron. His eyes sparkle. His garments are tinged with blood; he wears upon his head many crowns with an inscription in mysterious characters. From his mouth goes forth a sharp sword to strike the Gentiles; upon his thigh is written his title, King of Kings, Lord of Lords. The whole army of heaven follows him on white horses and clothed in white linen. They look for his peaceful triumph, but it is not yet time. Although Rome may be destroyed, the Roman world, represented by Nero the Antichrist, is not annihilated. An angel above the sun cries with a strong voice to all the birds which fly in the zenith: “Come, assemble yourselves for the great festival of God, come and eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of tribunes, and the flesh of the strong, and the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of free men and slaves, of great and small.” The prophet then sees the beast (Nero) and the kings of the earth (the provincial generals, almost independent) and their 224armies banded together to make war upon him who is seated upon the horse. And the beast (Nero) is seized and with him the false prophet who works miracles before him; both are thrown alive into the brimstone pit, which burns eternally. Their armies are exterminated by the sword which comes forth from the mouth of him who is seated on the horse, and the birds are satiated with the flesh of the dead.

The Roman armies, the grand instrument of the power of Satan, are conquered; Nero, the Antichrist, their last head, is shut up in hell; but the dragon, the old serpent, Satan, exists still. We have seen how he was cast from heaven to the earth; the earth must now in turn be delivered from him. An angel descends from heaven holding the key of the abyss and having in his hand a great chain. He seizes the dragon, binds him for a thousand years, precipitates him into the abyss, closes with his key the opening of the gulf and seals it with a seal. For a thousand years the devil remains chained; moral and physical evil, which are his productions, are suspended, not destroyed. Satan cannot any longer seduce the peoples, but he is not destroyed for all eternity.

A tribunal is established to proclaim those who should take part in the reign of a thousand years. This reign is reserved for the martyrs. The first place there belongs to the souls which have been smitten by the axe to render testimony to Jesus and to the word of God (the Roman martyrs of 64); then come those who have refused to worship the beast and his image, and who have not received his mark upon their foreheads nor in their hands (the confessors of Ephesus, of whom the Seer was one). The elect of this first kingdom are raised from the dead and reign upon the earth with Christ for a thousand years. It is not that the rest of humanity had disappeared, nor even the whole world had become Christian; the millenium is in the centre of the earth like a little paradise. Rome no 225longer exists; Jerusalem has replaced it in its position as the capital of the world, the faithful constitute there a kingdom of priests; they serve God and Christ, there is no longer a great profane empire of civil power hostile to the church; the nations come to Jerusalem to render homage to the Messiah who maintains them by terror. During these thousand years the dead who have not had part in the first resurrection do not live, they wait. The participants in the first kingdom are therefore the privileged; beyond eternity, in the infinite, they shall have the millenium on the earth with Jesus. No death shall touch them.

When the thousand years shall have been accomplished, Satan shall be loosed from his prison for some time; evil shall begin again upon the earth. Satan unchained shall wander anew among the nations, shall drive them from one end of the world to the other by frightful wars; Gog and Magog, mythical personages of the barbarian invasions, lead to battle armies as numerous as the sand of the seashore. The church shall be as if drowned in this deluge. The barbarians shall besiege the camp of the saints, the beloved city, that is to say this Jerusalem, terrestrial still, but entirely holy, where the faithful friends of Jesus are; the fire of heaven shall fall upon them and devour them. Then Satan, who has seduced them, shall be cast into the flaming brimstone furnace, where are already the beast (Nero) and the false prophets (?) and where all the cursed go thenceforth to be tormented night and day through the ages of ages.

Creation has now accomplished its task. There remains nothing more but to proceed to the last judgment. A throne shining with light appears, and upon this throne the supreme judge. At sight of him the heaven and the earth fled away, there was no more place found for them. The dead, great and small, are raised again. Death and Sheol give up their prey; the sea on its side gives up the drowned, which, devoured by it, had not 226regularly descended into Sheol. All appear before the throne. The great books are opened, and in them there is a rigorous account kept of the actions of every man. They open also another book, “the Book of Life,” wherein are written the names of those fore-ordained. Then all are judged according to their works. Those whose names are not found written in the Book of Life are cast into the furnace of fire. Death and hell are likewise cast into it.

Evil being destroyed without recovery, the reign of absolute good begins. The old earth and the old heaven have disappeared; a new earth and a new heaven succeed them, and “there was no more sea.” That earth and that heaven are nothing, nevertheless, but a regeneration of the present earth and heaven, and even Jerusalem, which was the pearl, the gem of the whole earth, this same Jerusalem shall still be the radiant centre of the new. The apostle saw this new Jerusalem ascending out of heaven from God, clothed like a bride prepared for her husband. A great voice comes forth from the throne, “Behold the tabernacle of God will dwell with men.” Men shall be still henceforth his people and he shall be present always in the midst of them, and he shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be any more grief, nor cries, nor sorrows, for all that has passed away. Jehovah himself takes the word to promulgate the law of this eternal world. “It is done, behold, I make all things new, I am the Α and Ω, I am the beginning and the end. To him who is athirst I will give to drink freely of the water of life. The conqueror shall possess all these good things and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. As to the fearful, the unbelieving, the abominable, murderers, fornicators, authors of wicked deeds, idolaters, and liars, their part shall be in the lake of brimstone and fire.” An angel approached the Seer and said to him, “Come I will shew thee the bride of the Lamb,” and he led him in spirit to 227a high mountain from which he shewed him in detail the ideal Jerusalem, permeated and clothed with the glory of God. His appearance was that of a crystalline jasper Its form is that of a perfect square, of three thousand stadia each side, orientated according to the four winds of heaven, and surrounded by a wall forty-four cubits high, pierced by twelve gates. At each gate watches an angel, and above is written the name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The foundation of the wall has twelve settings of stones; upon each of the foundations shines the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Each of these foundations is ornamented with precious stones, the first of jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth cornelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth aquamarine, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprasus, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth an amethyst. The wall itself is of jasper, the city is of pure gold like transparent glass, the gates are composed of a single large pearl. There was no temple in the city; for God himself and the Lamb serve as a temple. The throne which the prophet at the opening of his revelation has seen in heaven is now in the midst of the city: that is to say, in the centre of a regenerated and harmoniously organized humanity. Upon this throne are seated God and the Lamb. From the base of the throne flows the river of life, brilliant and transparent as crystal. On its banks grows the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, a kind for each month; these fruits appear reserved for the Israelites; the leaves have medicinal virtues for the healing of the Gentiles. The city has no need of either the sun or the moon to shine on it; for the glory of God lightens it, and its light is the Lamb. The nations walk in its light; the kings of the earth do homage to him with their glory, and its gates are not shut either day or night, so great shall be the wealth of those who shall come to bring their tribute there. Nothing impure, 228nothing that defiles shall enter there; all those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life shall find a place there. There shall exist no longer any religious division or curse; the pure worship of God and the Lamb shall gather together the whole world. At every moment its servants shall enjoy his presence and his name shall be written in their foreheads. This reign of good shall last through the ages of ages.