To our God and to the Lamb who sits upon the throne, salvation—just as in the Gospel we read in a like manner of speaking (John 17): That they may know thee the one and true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent; as if he said, That they may know thee and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent to be the one and true God. But by the one throne is designated the power of one nature; by the name of the Lamb, the personal property in the Father and the Son—just as also, when the Holy Spirit alone is named, there both the Father and the Son are to be understood; for even when we read it said in the book of the Acts of the Apostles: Take heed to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has appointed you bishops, he at once added, to rule the Church of God, which he acquired with his own blood.
Now that he shed his blood for us, we know befits none but the person of Christ; whence it is sufficiently clear that, even when one is named, the whole Trinity must be understood. And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and about the four living creatures. What that multitude itself was, he here declared by expounding these names; for he distinguished the whole Church. All, he says, who are round about him shall offer gifts, and presently they fell upon their faces before the sight of the throne, and adored God, saying: Amen.
In order to show that the same innumerable multitude which he saw standing in the sight of the throne — as though it were plainly known to him — is the very angels who fell upon their faces and adored, he records in this place that neither that multitude, nor the living creatures, nor the elders adored, but the angels alone. For they themselves are the multitude, they the elders and the living creatures; they fell down and adored God, saying: Amen. For this reason we also read it written (Rom. XV): Rejoice, ye Gentiles, together with His people, and let all the angels of God adore Him. Therefore also blessing and brightness and wisdom and grace and honour and power and might be to our God unto the ages of ages.
Now that a sevenfold number of virtues has been enumerated, we are for this very reason especially prompted to inquire why He named these here, of which God willed His Church to be a partaker, so that when these are rendered to God in praises, each one may confess that he received them from Him. For it must be considered that there are not named here those things which belong to God alone, but those which He deigns to grant even to the faithful. Blessing and brightness and wisdom and grace and honour and power and might — in the participation of all of which good things we rejoice that Christ's Church has a share.
It is not omnipotence that is sounded forth here, nor majesty, nor everlastingness, which God alone has always possessed by right, but those seven, in which may be understood the virtues granted also to all the faithful by Him who gave them power to become the sons of God, so that if we acquire any good things, we may truly know that we have them by the bounty of God. And indeed I see from what abounds that it can be proved concerning the rest. For blessing too befits the Church especially, as we read (Ps. III): Thy blessing is upon Thy people. For to those He will give blessing, to whom also He gave the law; and brightness, concerning which we sing (Ps. LXXXIX):
Let the splendour of the Lord our God be upon us, so that with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, we may be transformed into the same image in brightness, in glory (II Cor. III), and be reckoned by the name of light; and wisdom — not that begotten wisdom, coeternal with God the Father, but that created in us and in the angels, which, that the law might distinguish the one from the other, it says (Ecclus. I): Wisdom is from God, and has been with Him always, and is before the age; and it adds concerning the created wisdom (Ibid.): Wisdom was created before all things, and the understanding of prudence from the age. And grace, of which it is said, By grace ye are saved through faith (Eph. II); and honour, of which we read: But glory and honour and peace to everyone that doeth good (Rom. II), and might, of which Isaiah makes mention (Isa.
XL): Who giveth strength to the weary, and to them that are not He multiplieth fortitude and vigour. And one of the elders answered, saying to me: These who are clothed in white robes, who are they and whence came they? And I said to him: Thou knowest, Lord. And he said to me: These are they who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. By one of the elders he sets forth either the body of the prophets or the Church, as those set over the lower members, teaching them what is the recompense of the future reward to be hoped for by those who labour; just as the Apostle says of the Gospel (Rom. I): The righteousness of God, he says, is revealed in it from faith to faith — that is, from the faith of those who preach, to the faith of those who hear.
But when the number of the faithful is said to have come out of great tribulation, what else is shown but that which we read elsewhere (Acts XIV): We must through many tribulations enter into the kingdom of God? Therefore the Apostle also (Gal. VI): Brethren, he says, let us not faint, for in due season we shall reap. For thus, through the exercises of pressures, the number of the faithful is refined, just as, by applying the weight of the presses, oil is prepared with diligent care; and by the threshing of the flail the threshed grain is gathered to be stored in the barn. And that they are said to have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, the fruit of the reward is shown, so that the labour of the aforesaid contest may be borne with an even mind. And well did he add: And they made them white in the blood of the Lamb. As if he should say:
The robes which others have defiled, whether by negligence, or by ignorance, or by contempt after the grace of baptism, these have made white in the blood of the Lamb — that is, in the grace of Christ, or even in the undertaking of martyrdom. This merit ought to be specially assigned in the Church to those whom it befalls to shed their blood for Christ, and to render the robe of baptism brighter with a better dye by the blood of the Lamb. But if this grace is to be extended generally to all the faithful, we must regard it in sum: that even if anyone is cleansed at the fountain of his Lord, is fed with the flesh of the Lamb, is kindled with the spiritual fire, he is thus helped. For there are those who, even if they are not seen to have martyrdom in outward act, are yet proved before God to have it in disposition.
For this reason they are in the sight of the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple; and in the sight of the throne of God is the Church, in whose heart He has set ascents (Ps. LXXXIII), in the valley of weeping, in the place which He has appointed, serving Him day and night — that is, both in prosperity and in adversity. But she is understood to be the temple, because she is recorded to serve in the temple, as also the throne. There follows finally: And He who sat on the throne dwelt in them. For the soul of the just is the seat of wisdom. But Wisdom is Christ, and Christ is God. There follows: They shall neither hunger nor thirst any more, neither shall the sun fall upon them, nor shall they suffer any heat. They shall not hunger, because they feed upon the living bread.
I am, He says, the living bread which came down from heaven. Nor shall they thirst, because they are made drunk with so glorious a cup, so that to them applies what the Truth said (John VI): And he that believeth in Me shall never thirst; and likewise (John IV): Whosoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him, it shall become in him a fountain of water springing up unto eternal life. Neither shall the sun fall upon them, nor are they burned by the deadly incitements of heats. Something similar God promises to His Church through Isaiah, saying (Isa. XXV): A hope from the whirlwind, a shade from the heat, where He declares that the integrity of His sacraments flourishes in His own, and that it cannot be vexed by any scorching of temptation. Because the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall rule them.
Above he had said that the Lamb received the book from the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. But now he says that the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall rule them, in order to teach that the throne of the Father and of the Son is one: because the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father — that is, in the midst of the Church, in which the whole Trinity, the one God, dwells through faith. And He shall lead them to the fountain of the waters of life, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. Here is signified that fountain of which we read (Ps. XXXV): With Thee is the fountain of life, and in Thy light we shall see light — to which Christ leads His own by ruling, presenting Himself as the way, by leading them home He makes it manifest, so that He may fulfil what He promised beforehand by the oracles of life; for He set down the waters as it were as heralds.
Solomon, designating this fountain, says (Prov. XVIII): An overflowing torrent, the fountain of wisdom. And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, while they say: My tears have been my bread day and night (Ps. XLI). They are said to be taken away in the time of consolation, when, the fullness of immortal joys being attained, all mourning can be consigned to oblivion. For behold, says Isaiah (Chap. LXV), I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and its people a joy, and there shall not be there the voice of crying nor the voice of weeping. CHAP. VIII. And when He had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
In heaven — that is, in the Church — the silence of half an hour shows the beginning of eternal rest, and he saw a part of the silence, because he was still to see the same things. For at the seventh seal he did not see how great the future thing would be, so that many things might be shown to him more openly. And the silence was interrupted, which, if it were perpetual, this would have been the end of the narrative. But it was still to be repeated; therefore the sequence of the narrative, fittingly to be begun after the silence and likewise after my own, being resumed in the following book, shall obtain its beginning.