'I heard,' he says, 'in the praises of God a voice of the angels resound.' 'And I heard,' he says, 'the angel of the waters saying: You are just, who are and who were.' The angel of the waters is the messenger of the peoples who, by an inward effect, cry out together in divine praises; and 'You are holy, since you have thus judged those who poured out the blood of the saints and prophets, and therefore you have given them blood to drink, for they are worthy.' Although both the Jews and the Gentiles bodily shed the blood of the saints, which the Lord recalls as to be required: 'From the blood of Abel the just,' he says (Matt. XXIII), 'unto the blood of Zacharias, the son of Barachias':
nevertheless this may also be understood of that plague of blindness, so that those too may be known to have shed the blood of the prophets who, abusing them, diverted their meaning into something else: as if he were saying that those who understood the spiritual law carnally are justly handed over, condemned to the corruption of flesh and blood, where both the sin and the punishment of sinners is recognized. Hence the Apostle says (II Thess. II): because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved, therefore God will send them the working of error, that they should believe a lie, and that all may be judged who did not believe the truth but consented to iniquity. 'And I heard another voice saying: Even so, Lord God almighty, true and just are your judgments.'
Here too there is something such as is often said in the Psalms (XL, LXXI, LXXXVIII, CV), 'So be it, so be it.' But this we ought to say by imitating, not by expounding, so as not to weave delays into a sense already plain. 'And the fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun, and it was given to it to cast heat and fire upon men. And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues.' It was not given to the sun to be strengthened, but to that angel who poured out upon the sun. Yet this fire is not to be thought the fire of Gehenna, nor is any place left there for blaspheming any longer, when to the damned there will come only a time of fruitless repentance, so that, as the law records, they will say: 'What has pride profited us? and what has the boasting of riches conferred on us' (Wisdom
V)? Wherefore I think that this fire and heat ought to be understood as the fact that the body of the devil will be irremediably tormented by the stability of the saints, and, stirred up by that very heat, they are compelled to blasphemy. For perhaps it is said 'upon the sun,' namely the Sun of justice, as though he had put 'sun' in the ablative case; just as: 'I will watch over my word to perform it' (Jer. I), and Daniel: 'Let us seek,' he says (Dan. II), 'mercy from the face of the almighty God concerning this mystery,' so that from that whence the elect receive the firmness of illumination, thence the impious are said to derive their burning. 'Neither did they do penance to give him glory.' The very death of the blasphemers is this: that they prefer to accuse not their own impiety, but God of iniquity:
and not to do penance after being smitten, but, though scourged, to hurl insults. For just as bronze vessels subjected to a great fire, boiling over from their depths, bubble out and overrun the bounds of their capacity, so also the party of the beast, resisting in the vast expanse, when they shall see the Church of Christ contend with untiring constancy, inflamed by the torches of intolerable envy, breathe out the conflagration conceived in the heart through the blasphemies of an impure mouth. Of this fire we read: 'Zeal shall lay hold of the untaught people, and now fire shall consume the adversaries.' 'And the fifth angel poured out his bowl upon the seat of the beast, and its kingdom was darkened, and they gnawed their tongues for sorrow.'
The seat of the beast, or its kingdom, as though a judicial power, is said to be darkened for this reason, because, deprived of the light of the joy of eternal blessedness, when they extol the goods of the present as though they possessed the highest blessedness, and hold the truth in unrighteousness, they gnaw their tongues. To this sense the psalm (CXLIII) accords, saying: 'Whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of iniquity,' and (Ps. LXXII), 'They have spoken iniquity on high.' For lifted up like smoke by the pride of momentary prosperity, they, darkened, rejoice in that from which they ought to have turned by repenting. For, as Job says, 'They lead their days in good things, and in a moment they go down to hell' (Job XXI).
'And the sixth angel poured out his bowl upon that great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, that the way might be prepared for the king coming from the rising of the sun'—that is, for Christ, of whom we read: 'Behold a man, the Orient is his name,' for whom, when he shall come to judge, the way is prepared. Moreover, by the name of the river Euphrates—like the sea, the deities, the springs of waters, the sun, the throne of the beast, over which the angels are said to have poured out their bowls—unclean men are signified. 'And its water was dried up,' that is, they will have nothing left in themselves of the former people that does not befit the fire of the approaching judgment.
just as above he says the harvest dried up in its ripeness, and the vintage came upon it, so here too he says figuratively that the water of the deity was dried up, that nothing green at all remained, but the whole was to be tested by the divine fire of judgment, by which either the impious are consumed like hay, or the saints are proved like gold. 'And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet three unclean spirits like frogs.' Although, on account of the various sufferings of afflictions and of all the vices, the malignant spirits are said to have diverse qualities—and not without reason (for in the Gospel elsewhere [Mark IX] he said: 'You deaf and dumb spirit'; elsewhere [Ibid.] 'unclean spirit'; and elsewhere the prophet [Hosea IV]:
'The spirit of fornication has destroyed them,' for no other reason than that one is hurled headlong to the perpetrating of the uncleannesses of disgraceful deeds)—yet here he set down all three as unclean because he designated the one body of the devil, compacted of its usual distinctions, mentioning that greater power which it holds: introducing the dragon as the devil, the beast as Antichrist with the teachers of his doctrines. Therefore he saw one spirit, and, according to the number of the parts of one body, he says three, so that the whole number of the lost might be shown to be driven by one malignant spirit. For perhaps for this reason too, comparing the frogs' so horrid foulness to their rashness, he added:
For it befits these false prophets, as though they were living creatures accused together with frogs, damnably to make a din in the night with the barking of error. For frogs, both by their place and by their sight and their troublesome noise, are held so hateful, just as the devil with his own is recognized as abominable to the truth, and deservedly to be justly damned by eternal fire. Although under an open comparison, yet the blessed Apostle speaks in a similar discourse when he premises, saying (II Cor. VI): 'Do not bear the yoke with unbelievers. For what fellowship has justice with iniquity, or what society has light with darkness? And what agreement has Christ with Belial? or what part has the faithful with the unbeliever? And what consent has the temple of God with idols?'
So also here, when he says that an unclean spirit comes forth from their mouth in the manner of frogs, it is as if he said: What do you compare filth to heaven, which is fit for the habitation of frogs, as to the horrid blasphemies of the false prophet? Asserting that the teachers of truth differ as much as frogs from holy men, so that even those who are not able to recognize his frauds by the power of discernment to be repelled, at least being struck with horror of frogs, may strive to avoid such men, who like frogs impede the ignorant, lest by a quiet worship of devotion they should receive the truth. 'For they are the spirits of demons,' he says, 'working signs.' For they, just like the magicians of Pharaoh (Exod. VII), are to be believed to be about to work signs.
And not without reason does he mention them, having made mention of frogs, unless he were foretelling that the ministers of Satan would then also work similar signs; for even up to the sign of the frogs the magicians were permitted to prevail by their incantations. 'And they go out to the kings of the whole earth to gather them for battle'—not that they gather them from the whole world into one place, but that they wish to enlist each nation, captured in the place of its own dwelling, for their own superstitions. 'Unto that great day of almighty God.' The day of the Lord ought to be understood according to the diversity of places. For sometimes, for the whole time from the Lord's Passion, those who are to be condemned at the last judgment are now said to be gathered, as if he said 'prepared.' Sometimes the day of the Lord ought to be understood as the day of judgment;
sometimes the time of persecution: whence it is manifest that throughout the whole time of the present life men of this kind are being gathered. 'Behold, I come suddenly as a thief.' Hence the Apostle (I Thess. V): 'As a thief in the night,' he says, 'so shall it come.' 'Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.' 'As many of you,' he says (Gal. III), 'as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ.' These, I think, are the immaculate garments here commended to be preserved, so that they may neither be rescinded by a repeated baptism, nor be defiled, sprinkled with the stains of the reprobate. For in both cases the shame of transgressors is uncovered, which a more vigilant, persevering intention avoids. 'And he gathered them into a place which is called in Hebrew Armageddon.'
In another recapitulation he has interpreted the place, saying (below, XX): 'He gathered them for battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea.' 'And the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and there came a great voice out of the temple from the throne, saying: It is done: It is finished. And there were lightnings and voices and thunders, and an earthquake, and great signs.' The same persecution being recapitulated, he records an incomparable commotion, in which he says there are indeed miracles and preachings;
but whether those signs which he records persevere on the part of the good who contradict falsehood, or on the part of the evil, to exercise the good and to harden the evil, or whether on both sides signs summon signs from each other, is not sufficiently clear here—as it was done by Moses and by the magicians of Pharaoh (Exod. VII). If, however, any of these be the case, even signs, such as an earthquake, are to be foreknown, with doubt pressing, to flash forth far more incomparably. 'And that great city was divided into three parts.' The great city, so called for the multitude of the peoples and the pride grown up, which was carried by immoderate audacities, which shall become three parts:
one of the Gentiles, another among heretics and among the Jews, and one third which is reproved by these false brethren, who confess that they know God, but in works deny him, being abominable and incredulous, and reprobate to every good work (Titus I). For it follows: 'And the cities of the nations fell.' That is, all the strength and confidence of the Gentiles; 'and that great Babylon came into remembrance before the sight of God.' He designates the confused multitude of all the lost. 'That he might give it,' he says, 'of the wine of the wrath of his indignation.' The retribution of due vengeance is prescribed to be rendered to the evil. 'And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.'
By the name of the islands together with the mountains, the assembly of the Church is figured, on account of the eminence of its stability, to which it is said through Isaiah (Ch. XXIV): 'In the teachings glorify the Lord, in the islands of the sea the name of the Lord God of Israel.' And likewise (Isa. II): 'And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared upon the tops of the mountains.' This flight is when the fellowship of the evil shall at last be so fled that thereafter no confused mixture of the Church with the evil shall be found. Hence the Prophet (Jer. LI): 'Flee,' he says, 'out of the midst of Babylon, and save every one his own soul.' But then Babylon falls, when at the very last it shall have received the power of persecuting the saints.
Therefore 'before ruin the heart is exalted,' he says, 'and before glory the spirit is humbled.' 'And a great hail of the weight of a talent fell from heaven upon men, and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, for the plague thereof was exceeding great.' He places the wrath of vengeance in the hail, of which we read elsewhere: 'The wrath of the Lord is like descending hail.' From this the Lord promises to protect his own, saying through the Apostle (I Thess. I): 'Who has delivered us from the wrath to come.' And not without reason does he mention the weight of a talent, but because by the equity of the divine judgment it is inflicted on individuals according to the diversity of their faults. For a talent is reckoned of one quantity among the Greeks, of another among the Romans, by estimation.
But since some things are sins, others scourges, others both—of which to dispute now would be too long—here to blaspheme the Lord because of the hail is recognized both as a sin and as the plague of sin, by which the impious are so cut that they neither, being corrected, come to their senses, and, more worsened by the very scourges, rave. Finally Isaiah says: 'Lord, you were angry, and behold, we have sinned' (Isa. LXIV). CH. XVII. 'And there came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls, and he spoke with me, saying: Come, I will show you the damnation of the great harlot, who sits upon many waters.' Isaiah too puts down something similar concerning the devil, when under a figured person he foretells that the prince of Babylon shall fall (Isa. XIV):
'How have you fallen from heaven, Lucifer, you who rose in the morning?' etc. The Holy Spirit, considering the body of all the lost—which he calls by diverse but fitting names—as long since advancing with various excesses of pride, corrupted by disgraceful deeds, snatched away by errors, and raging with such great impiety that it opposes even the meek, depicts it as about to be circumscribed by a fitting description, calling it a harlot, because, having abandoned the Creator, it prostituted itself to be defiled by demons. 'Great,' on account of the enormity of the transgression by which it long insulted the saints. 'Upon many waters,' namely many peoples, 'with whom,' he says, 'the kings of the earth have committed fornication'—that is, proudly seeking earthly kingdoms.
But he thus divides it into kings and earth-born ones, so that we may know it to exist out of them. 'Of the wine of her fornication.' The vices previously mentioned insinuate corruption; for just as wine exalts the mind, so the lust of vices blinds the wavering. 'And he led me,' he says, 'into the desert in spirit.' He places the desert as the absence of the Godhead, whose presence is paradise. 'In spirit,' because by the spirit these things can be discerned. 'And I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet beast.' Under what species would the divine word most fittingly array it, if not that of a woman, from whom is the beginning of sin, and on account of whom, as it is written (Ecclus. XXV), 'we all die?' It is said to sit upon the beast, inasmuch as it is exalted with the pride of presumption from it.
'Scarlet,' the bloody beast, as has been said, the body contrary to the Lamb, in which now the devil, now the head as though slain, now his people, is to be understood, all of which is Babylon, that is, confusion. 'Scarlet' therefore, bloody with impiety, and inebriated with corruptions as though with blood, 'full of names of blasphemy.' Since it is more to accomplish blasphemy by deed than to be called a blasphemer, here nevertheless he says that it abounds fully in names too, so that it may in no way be thought to lack for its excesses. And because it is one thing to sin against God, another to sin into God, he who blasphemes offends against God with a greater guilt. 'Having seven heads and ten horns.'
With the last persecution hastening on, that ten kings are to come the prophecy of holy Daniel also testifies (Dan. VII). These now this book often designates in the seven heads and ten horns of the beast, over which for this reason it says above there are also diadems, because, all kingdoms being destroyed, they alone will be able to reign in the whole world. For it says that the diadems, as signs of conquered kingdoms, are borne like trophies before the proud heads. Moreover, that the seven heads are seven mountains, it advises should consequently be understood through the sense of wisdom, so that, signifying Rome which presides over seven mountains, having by dominion ruled the whole monarchy of the world, it had brought it into the likeness of the kingdom of these, and in the name of Rome figured the power of the whole kingdom.
For by the number seven he wished to show the universality of that very domination, in that, being composed of the ternary and the quaternary, that is, of the odd and the even, as though of things diverse, it insinuates universality—just as has already been said more than sufficiently, that we set forth beforehand the figure of the seven Churches in a good sense, when the one Church of Christ is foretold as about to possess the whole world of the lands, while now the same number is seen to be applied on the opposite side in these seven heads which he mentions, in which, universality of power being signified, it is said that it will hold rule; for both in a good sense and in an evil sense holy Scripture testifies that the number seven is frequently placed. For since the Holy Spirit, on account of his sevenfold operation, as the prophet Isaiah testifies (Isa.
XI)—is believed to be sevenfold in a good sense, so also the wicked spirit is quite often designated as sevenfold. And since to this monarchy and kingdom of theirs the Church of Christ is frequently set as contrary, it assails the faithful not only by the open oppression of power, but also desires to ensnare them under a counterfeit appearance of truth; its manifest power he has designated in the ten horns, its plausible fraud in the seven heads. Therefore that same persecution is foretold as about to be vehement, in which the art of deceiving also lends support to power; and what is lacking to simulation is supplied by power. The illusions of this fraud he mentions above, saying:
'And one of the heads of the seven was as it were slain to death, and the wound of its death was healed'—that is, out of the whole power of the secular kingdom that is contrary to the Church there is one head, that is, Antichrist, who wishes to be received in place of Christ, asserting that he, as though dead, has come to life again, when he seeks impiously to separate the incautious from Christ, who truly died and rose again. Concerning this too he had premised that the dragon, that is, the devil, gave him both his power and throne and great authority:
therefore too he says it is full of names of blasphemy. But no worse blasphemy can be found than that one contrary to Christ—as his very name Antichrist indicates—should wish to be held for Christ, so that those whom he cannot violently break by terrors, he may strive to seduce by a shadowed-over truth; and those declining open error he may condemn to run into plausible falsehood. This plague the Lord taught in the Gospel to be guarded against, saying these things (Matt. XII; Luke XI): 'When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he walks through waterless places seeking rest, and finds none, and he says: I will return to my house whence I came out;'
'and then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there, and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.' Was he not speaking above of one unclean spirit? Why did he say seven others more wicked than itself, unless because the unclean spirit is recognized as sevenfold, so that even by hidden evils it is found sevenfold more wicked? And that what we say may shine forth more fully, the reader ought to be attentive. There is a good spirit, the spirit of wisdom, to which as contrary is opposed the evil spirit of unwisdom; another worse: the simulation of wisdom. There is a good spirit, the spirit of understanding, but the evil spirit of foolishness; another worse: the simulation of instruction.
There is a good spirit, the spirit of counsel, but the evil spirit of imprudence; another worse: the simulation of prudence. There is a good spirit, the spirit of fortitude, to which is opposed the evil spirit of open cowardice; another worse: weakness deceiving by the overshadowing of virtue. There is a good spirit, the spirit of knowledge, to which as contrary is the evil spirit of ignorance, but worse is the usurpation of knowledge. There is a good spirit, the spirit of piety, but the evil spirit of impiety; another worse: the pretext of false piety. There is a good spirit, the spirit of the fear of God, to which is contrary the spirit of rashness; another worse: the guile of feigned religion.
Therefore, to show forth the simulation of the adverse party, here he wished to tarry a little more broadly, so that this exposition might profit us toward the understanding of many passages. This all-encompassing persecution, to come in power or in fraud, the Apostle also announces, saying (II Thess. II): 'Then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming him whose coming is according to the working of Satan in all power and signs and lying wonders, and in all seduction of iniquity, in them that perish.' By 'power' he signifies might, by 'seduction' the hypocrisy of the lying sign. 'Clothed round about with purple and scarlet.'
In the purple is shown the sap of simulated rule, in the scarlet the bloody garb of impiety; 'and adorned with gold and precious stone and pearls,' that is, with all the allurements of simulated truth, which we have expressed sufficiently before in those spirits. What, finally, is within this beauty he expounds, saying: 'And she had a golden cup in her hand full of the abominations and uncleanness of the fornication of the whole earth.' The gold, therefore, is hypocrisy, because, as the Lord says: 'Outwardly indeed they appear to men as just, but inwardly they are full of all uncleanness.' 'And on her forehead a name written of the mystery: Babylon the mother of the fornications and abominations of the whole earth.'
Lest the superstition of error should openly deceive those incautious of the truth, let him know from the inscription on the forehead to be watchful. 'And I saw that woman made drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus Christ.' Fittingly the bounty of the divine discourse shows her sounding within. 'And I wondered, when I had seen her, with great wonder. And the angel said to me: Why do you wonder? I will show you the mystery of this woman, and of the beast that carries her, which has seven heads and ten horns: The beast which you saw was, and is not, but is about to ascend from the abyss, and goes into perdition.' From the world's beginning the origin and series of two cities running down to this present time is taught in the sacred writings, of which one is God's, the other the devil's:
which is here designated by the beast: as though the whole body altogether of the evil. And therefore he says, 'was, and is not'; because it is built up, to be supplied by the order of generations decreasing and succeeding one another. Therefore it follows: 'And it is about to ascend from the abyss, and goes into destruction.' For by the divine judgment, hidden indeed but just, it is carried through. Hence the psalm (XXXV): 'Your judgments are a great deep.' Or because it is to issue forth from the hearts of the impious. Whence the psalm (XLI): 'Deep calls unto deep.' 'And all who dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain from the origin of the world, seeing the beast that was and is not, and is to come.'
He sets down these very same ones out of whose members the body to be damned is built up—but the names create ambiguity. For the same John in his epistle, when he had said in the singular number, 'As you have heard that Antichrist comes, now there are many Antichrists.' And a little after, 'They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us.' Therefore their names are not written in the book of life; these therefore, whom the end of the world shall find living, experiencing the destruction of their own damnation, marvel with a too-late thought that it was not Christ himself whom they supposed, deceived by the overshadowed seduction of the beast: but our Christ, whom, most justly condemned, they will assuredly feel to be their judge. It follows:
'From the foundation of the world.' Just as the Lord knows who are his, to whom also he promised he would say: 'Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which was prepared for you from the foundation of the world' (Matt. XXV); so also those who are not his, he does not have written in the book of life from the foundation of the world; unknown to him and foreknown from afar, he will condemn to the punishment of eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels. 'For the Lord is high and looks upon the lowly, and knows the lofty from afar' (Ps. CXXXVII). Hence he says (Matt. VII): 'And I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of iniquity.' 'Seeing the beast that was and is not.' And this is the sense, which has wisdom.
'Those seven heads are seven mountains upon which the woman sits, and there are seven kings.' Otherwise we have frequently said that in each species the genus is shown. For what the whole beast is, this the seven heads are. Finally he says that the heads are both seven mountains and seven kings, that is, the whole party of the evil, which consists of rulers as though in kings, and of subjects. Which is called by various names on account of the diversity of actions, which oppresses by force and deceives by fraud, when it creeps into slippery minds, the delights of sensible things being intercepted; as we read written (Jer. IX):
'Death has entered through your windows'—which I think ought properly to be reduced to the sense of the five parts: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch; whence the Lord says to that Samaritan woman (John IV): 'For you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband.' What there is 'husbands,' here understand 'kings,' by whose governance, as it were, we recognize the beginnings of human power to be ruled and administered, which seem to have things in common with us of the beast. To which there follows there: 'and he whom you now have is not your husband,' designating that she does not use a lawful husband, that is, error; this he has said here afterward: 'Five have fallen, and one remains.'
But that he says, 'and the other has not yet come,' he designates that the remaining part of the same evil body, about to succeed to a declining generation, is likewise to be possessed by the same malignant spirit, which we have premised consists as sevenfold. But the five which he says have fallen, and the one which he says remains, and the other which he announces as about to come, make seven; 'and when he shall come,' he says, 'it behooves him to remain a short time. And the beast which was and is not, it too is in the eighth place, since it is of the seven, and goes into perdition.' This one whom he calls the eighth, lest you should suppose him of another kind, he subjoins: