註釋集 第 1 章 第 4/6 段

so neither is it enough to be called a Christian and to confess it oneself, and yet not to have Christ in one's work, that is, not to do his precepts. The sixth company. That is, the manner of life of the best gathering, the custom of the saints, is declared. Namely of those who are humble in the world and rustic in the Scriptures and hold the faith immovably, and are by no means drawn back from the faith, terrified by any misfortune. Therefore he says to them: 'I have set before you an open door,' and he says: 'because you have kept the word of my patience' — with so little strength — 'I also will keep you from the hour of temptation': so that men of this sort may know their own glory, nor does he permit them to be delivered into temptation. 'He who overcomes,' he says, 'shall be made a pillar in the temple of God':

a pillar is the adornment of a building, that is, 'he who shall have persevered will attain so great a nobility in the Church.' This gathering also, the seventh company, declares men who are wealthy, believers placed in dignities, but believing as the wealthy do, among whom the Scriptures are indeed handled in private, but whether they are faithful is understood by no one outwardly — that is, boastful and saying that they know everything, endowed with confidence in learning, but empty of works. And therefore he says to them that they are neither cold nor fervent, that is, 'neither unbelievers nor faithful'; for to all men they are all things. And since he who is neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm, causes nausea: 'I will spew you,' he says, 'out of my mouth.'

Although nausea is hateful, it is hidden from no one: so too men of this sort, when they shall have been cast out. But because it is the time of penance, he says: 'I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire,' that is, 'if in any way you can suffer something for the name of the Lord.' 'And with eye-salve,' he says, 'anoint your eyes' — 'so that what you gladly learn through Scripture, of this too you may try to do the work.' And since, if men of this sort should return from great ruin to great penance, they can be useful not only to themselves but profitable to many, he promised them no slight reward, that is: to sit upon the throne of judgment. CHAPTER IV.

[After these things, he says, I saw, and behold a door opened in heaven (4,1).] John, the preacher of the New Testament, saw the door opened in heaven, and it is said to him: 'Come up hither.' [And the first voice which I heard, as of a trumpet speaking with me, spoke saying: Come up hither.] When it is shown opened, it is manifest that it had before been closed to men. And it was sufficiently and fully thrown open when Christ ascended bodily into the heavens to the Father. But the former voice which he had heard: since he says that this same one had spoken with him, those are refuted without contradiction who say that it was one who spoke in the prophets and another in the Gospel, since rather the very one who came is himself the one who spoke in the prophets.

For John was of the circumcision, and all that people of the Old Testament had heard the preaching, and was edified by that voice. 'That same voice,' he says, 'which I had heard, that one said to me: Come up hither': that is, Christ, whom a little before he confessed he had seen as a Son of Man walking among the golden candlesticks, and now from that point he recalls the things which had been foretold through the Law in similitudes, and through this Scripture he joins together all the former prophets and opens the Scriptures. And because, after our Lord had invited into heaven all who believe in his name, he immediately poured forth the Holy Spirit, who was to bear him to heaven, he says: 'Immediately I was in the Spirit.'

And since the mind of the faithful is opened through the Holy Spirit, and that is made manifest to them which had been preached even to the former ones, he significantly [says: and behold, a throne was set in heaven.] A throne set, which is the seat of judgment and of the king, which throne he says he saw to be like jasper and sardius. Jasper is the color of water, sardius of fire. These two judgments are shown thereby to be set upon the tribunal of God until the consummation of the world; of which two judgments one has already been consummated in the flood by water, but the other shall be consummated by fire. [And there was a rainbow round about the throne.] But the rainbow about the throne: the rainbow and the bow have the same colors, of which the Lord also spoke to Noah and his sons.

that they might not fear the inundation of God. 'I will now set,' he said, 'my bow in the clouds, that you may no longer fear water but fire.' 'And before the throne, as it were a sea of glass like unto crystal': the gift of baptism, which he pours forth through his Son in the time of penance, before he renders judgment; therefore 'before the throne,' that is, 'before the judgment.' And when he says 'a sea of glass like unto crystal,' he shows water clean, stable, not stirred by wind, not flowing down a slope, but, as the gift of God, handed over immovable. [And around about the throne] four living creatures: the four living creatures are the four Gospels.

'The first living creature,' he says, [was] like a lion, and 'the second like a calf, and the third [having a face] like a man, and the fourth like a flying eagle: having six wings round about and eyes within and without: and they ceased not to say,' he says, '"hagios hagios hagios, holy holy holy, the Lord God."' Of the flying eagle: having six wings round about and within full of eyes: and they had no rest, saying: 'Holy holy holy, the Lord God Almighty': and the twenty-four elders falling down before the throne worshipped God. The twenty-four elders seated, having twenty-four thrones: they are the books of the prophets and of the Law, bearing the testimonies of judgment.

Now the twenty-four are the twelve apostles and the twelve patriarchs. The living creatures, then, in that they differ in countenance, have this reason. The living creature like a lion is the Gospel according to Mark, in which is heard the voice of a lion roaring in the wilderness: 'a voice crying in the desert: prepare the way of the Lord.' But Matthew strives to set forth to us under the figure of a man the lineage of Mary, from whom Christ took flesh. Therefore, while he enumerates from Abraham unto David and from David unto Joseph, he has spoken as of a man; and so his preaching shows the figure of a man. Luke, while he narrates from the priesthood of Zachariah offering the sacrifice for the people and from the angel appearing to him, on account of the priesthood and the sacrifice bore in that very writing the image of the calf.

John the evangelist, like the eagle, taking up his wings and hastening to higher things, discourses upon the Word of God. Mark the evangelist begins thus: 'The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: a voice crying in the wilderness' — he has the figure of the lion —; Matthew, however: 'The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham' — this is the face of a man —; Luke, on the other hand, said: 'There was a priest named Zachariah, of the course of Abia, and his wife of the daughters of Aaron' — this is the image of the calf —; John, however, begins thus: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God'; this is the likeness of the flying eagle.

But not only these four; the very Word of God the Father Almighty, who is his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, bears these same images in the time of his coming to us. And when he was preached as a lion and the whelp of a lion, for the salvation of man he was made man to vanquish death and to free all; and because he offered himself a sacrifice to the Father for us, he was called a calf; and since he conquered death and ascended into the heavens and, stretching out his wings and protecting his people, he was named a flying eagle. These preachings, therefore, though they are four, are yet one, because they proceeded from one mouth, just as the river in paradise, though it is one, is divided into four parts.

But that these living creatures have eyes within and without, that is, 'the preaching of the New Testament,' shows spiritual providence, which both inspects the secrets of the heart and sees the things that are coming upon us, which are within and without. The six wings: they are the testimonies of the books of the Old Testament, and therefore they make twenty-four; they are as many in number as the elders upon the thrones. But just as a living creature cannot fly unless it has wings, so neither has the preaching of the New Testament faith unless it has the foretold testimonies of the Old Testament. By these it is lifted from the earth and flies. For always, what has been foretold and is afterward found to have been done, that makes faith indubitable.

Yet again, the wings too, if they do not cleave to the living creatures, have nowhere to draw life from. For unless what the prophets foretold had been consummated in Christ, their preaching would have been empty. This the Catholic Church holds, and, both foretold beforehand and afterward consummated, it flies and is rightly lifted from the earth, a living creature. But the heretics, who do not make use of the prophetic testimony, the living creatures are present to them, but they do not fly, because they are earthly. The Jews, however, who do not receive the preaching of the New Testament, the wings are present to them but they do not live; that is, they bring an empty prophesying to men, not comparing the deeds with the words. Now the books of the Old Testament which are received are twenty-four, which you will find in the epitomes of Theodore.

But the twenty-four, as we have said, the fathers and apostles: they must judge their people. For when the apostles asked, saying: 'We have left all that was ours and followed you: what shall we have?' our Lord answered: 'When the Son of Man shall sit upon the throne of his glory, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' But also concerning the fathers, that they shall judge, the patriarch Jacob said: 'Dan shall judge, and he himself shall judge his people among his brethren, as one tribe of Israel.' [And from the throne proceeded lightnings and voices and thunders, and seven lamps of fire burning.] Now that lightnings and voices and thunders go forth from the throne of God, and seven torches of burning fire:

this signifies the preachings and promises from God, and the threats. For the lightnings signify the coming of the Lord, the voices the preachings of the New Testament, the thunders that the words are heavenly, the torches of burning fire the gift of the Holy Spirit, which, when the first man had lost it by the tree, was restored through the tree of the passion. And when these things were done, he says that all the elders fell down and worshipped the Lord, when the living creatures gave glory and honor: that is, the Gospels, namely the act and doctrine of the Lord, when he had fulfilled the word foretold beforehand through them. Worthily and deservedly they exult, knowing that they have duly ministered the word of the Lord.

Finally, because he had come who was to vanquish death and alone was worthy to take the crown of immortality, all, as many as had crowns for some glory of their own best deeds, cast them down beneath his feet: that is, on account of the eminent victory of Christ, they cast all their victories beneath his feet.

This too the Holy Spirit supplied in the Gospel by showing it — for when our Lord was coming the last time to Jerusalem, about to suffer, and the people went out to meet him, some cutting down branches of palms strewed the way, others spread their own garments beneath him —, showing namely two peoples, one of the fathers and the other of the prophets, great men, who, whatever palms of their victories against sin they had, cast them beneath the feet of Christ, the victor of all. Now the palm and the crown signify the same thing, since it is given to none but the victor. CHAPTER V.

[And I saw in the right hand of him who sat upon the throne a book written within and without, sealed with seven seals.] Now the book written within and without, sealed with seven seals, in the right hand of him who sat upon the tribunal: it signifies the Old Testament, which has been given into the hands of our Lord, who received judgment from the Father. A herald, he says, proclaimed whether anyone was worthy to open the book and to loose its seals. And I saw an angel full of strength proclaiming with a great voice: 'Who is worthy to open the book and to loose its seals?' And no one was found worthy, neither in heaven nor on earth nor under the earth, to open the book. But to open the seals is to vanquish death on man's behalf.

No one was found worthy to do this, neither among the angels in heaven, nor among men on earth, nor among the souls of the saints at rest, except Christ alone, the Son of God, whom he says he saw as a Lamb that had been slain, having seven horns. For it was fitting that he himself should fulfil what had then been foretold, and whatever the Law, through its various offerings and sacrifices, had contemplated concerning him. And because he himself was the testator and had conquered death, it was just that he himself should be appointed heir by God, that he might possess the estate of the dying, that is, the members of mankind. He says that this Lion of the tribe of Judah, who is the root of David, has prevailed. 'Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed.' We read of the Lion of the tribe of Judah in Genesis, where the patriarch Jacob says:

'Judah, your brothers shall praise you: you have lain down and slept and risen again like a lion and like a lion's cub.' For he was called a lion as to conquering death; as to suffering for mankind, he was led like a lamb to the slaughter. But because he conquered death and forestalled the office of the executioner, he was called as one slain. He therefore opens and unseals the testament which he himself had sealed. With this same purpose Moses the lawgiver also, since what had to be sealed and concealed until the coming of his passion, veiled his face and so spoke to the people, showing that the words of his proclamation were veiled until the coming of the appointed time.

For he too, when he had read the Law to the people, took scarlet wool and the blood of a calf and water, and sprinkled all the people, saying: 'This is the blood of his testament which has cleansed you.' One ought therefore to give heed to preaching the man diligently, and to making all things cohere into one. For it is not enough that it be called the Law; rather it was also named a testament. No law is called a testament, nor is anything else called a testament except what dying men make; and whatever is within a testament is sealed until the day of the testator's death. Therefore now it is rightly unsealed by the slain Lamb, who like a lion shattered death, and fulfilled the things that had been declared concerning him, and set man free, that is, the flesh from death.

And he received possession of the estate of the dying, that is, of the members of mankind, so that, just as through one body all men had fallen under the debt of death, through one body all believers, born again, might rise up into life. Now therefore the face of Moses is uncovered and revealed, and for this reason the Apocalypse is called a revelation; now his book is unsealed; now the sacrificial victims are understood; now the priesthood, the anointings, the building of the temple, and the testimonies are openly understood. The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures, holding harps and bowls, sing a new song: the proclamation of the Old Testament joined with the New shows the Christian people singing a new song, that is, their confession which they publicly declare.

It is new that the Son of God should become man; new too that the same one should be delivered up to death by men; new that he should rise on the third day; new that he should ascend into heaven with his body. It is new that remission of sins should be granted to men; new that men should be sealed with the Holy Spirit; new that they should receive a priesthood of sacred observance and await the kingdom of an immeasurable promise. For the harp, a string stretched upon wood, signifies the flesh of Christ joined to the wood of the passion; the bowl signifies confession and the offshoot of the new priesthood. Of many angels: indeed of all, who render to our Lord salvation and witness, and the thanksgiving of all creation for the deliverance of men from the disaster of death.

The unsealing of the seals, as we have said, is the opening of the Old Testament and the foretelling of things proclaimed to come at the last time; and although the prophetic scripture speaks through the individual seals, nevertheless, when all the seals are opened at once, the proclamation still keeps its own order. 'And I saw, when the Lamb had opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying: Come and see. And behold, a white horse, and he who sat upon it having a bow.' For when the first seal is opened, he says he saw a white horse and a crowned rider holding a bow; for this took place at the first.

For after the Lord ascended into heaven and opened all things, he sent the Holy Spirit, whose words go forth through the preachers like arrows reaching the human heart, so as to overcome unbelief. The crown, moreover, was promised to the preachers upon their head through the Holy Spirit. The other three horses: wars, famines and pestilences signify more plainly what was foretold in the Gospel by our Lord; and therefore he says that one of the living creatures spoke, because all four are one. 'Come and see': 'come' is said to him who is invited to faith, 'see' is said to him who did not see. Therefore the white horse is the word of preaching sent into the world with the Holy Spirit; for the Lord says:

'This Gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the end come.' 'And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying: Come and see. And another horse went forth, a red one, and to him who sat upon it was given a great sword.' The red horse and he who sat upon it holding a sword: wars to come are signified, as we read in the Gospel: 'for nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be great earthquakes.' This is the red horse. 'And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying: Come and see. And behold, a black horse, and he who sat upon it having a balance in his hand.' The black horse signifies famine;

for the Lord says: 'there shall be famines in various places.' But strictly the word extends right up to the times of Antichrist, when there will be a great famine, when all shall be afflicted. A balance in his hand: the scale of testing, in which he would show the merits of each. The leader says: 'Hurt not the wine and the oil,' that is, do not strike the spiritual man with blows. This is the black horse. (Jerome drew this passage from the commentaries of Tyconius, whose longer exposition Beatus preserved on pp. 294 and 295 in this manner: The black horse signifies famine within the spiritual Church.) 'And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the fourth living creature saying: Come and see.'

'And behold, a pale horse, and the name of him who sat upon it was Death.' The pale horse, and he who sat upon it had the name Death. These same things too the Lord had foretold among the other disasters: that great pestilences and mortalities would come. For when he says: 'and hell follows him,' that is, it awaits the devouring of the many souls of the ungodly. This is the pale horse. 'And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw beneath the altar the souls of the slain.' To have seen the souls of those killed beneath the altar, that is, beneath the earth. For the altar is called both heaven and earth, as the Law, being a figure, says, while meditating the face of the truth, that the one who had made two altars, the golden one within and the bronze one without.

But we understand that the altar is so called with reference to our Lord, and that through evil overseers the word of preaching is by no means offered to the little ones ...... But strictly the word extends right up to the time of Antichrist, when there will be a great famine, when all too shall be afflicted. The balance in the hand is the scale of testing; in which he will show the merits of each, that is, the pretense of righteousness, when one displays outwardly what he does not have within; for he says: 'Hurt not the wine and the oil.' But since it is said in the midst of the living creatures: 'do not hurt,' it is shown that there within the Church there is a pretense of holiness which harms the Church spiritually, because it leads weak minds into its own sect; yet to it he says: 'do not hurt,' as if to say:

do not strike the spiritual man with blows, etc., with the testimony bearing witness; for he says: 'When you offer your gift at the altar' — surely our gifts are the prayers which we offer — 'and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave there your gift before the altar': surely our prayers ascend to heaven. If therefore heaven is understood as the golden altar which was the inner one — for the priests too, who had the anointing, entered once a year to the golden altar.

the Holy Spirit signifying that Christ would do this once — just as the golden altar is recognized as heaven, so the bronze altar is understood as the earth, beneath which is hell, a region removed from punishments and fires, and the rest of the saints, in which the righteous are indeed seen and heard by the ungodly, but cannot be carried across to that place. He therefore willed us to know, he who sees all things, that these, so many, that is, the souls of the slain, seek vengeance for their blood, that is, of their body, from those who dwell upon the earth. But since at the last time both the everlasting reward of the saints and the coming damnation of the ungodly are to be, it was said to them to wait; and for the comfort of their body 'and white robes were given to them, each one' — they received, he says, white robes.

that is, the gift of the Holy Spirit. 'And I saw, when he had opened the sixth seal: there was a great earthquake.' The sixth seal: a great earthquake occurred: this is the last persecution. 'And the sun became black as sackcloth.' The sun becomes like sackcloth: to the unbelieving the splendor of doctrine will be darkened. 'And the whole moon became as blood.' The bloody moon: the Church of the saints is shown to shed its blood for Christ. 'And the stars fell to the earth.' The stars falling: the faithful being troubled. 'As a fig tree casts its unripe figs.' The shaken fig tree loses its unripe figs: through persecution men are separated from the Church. 'And the heaven departed as a book that is rolled up.' The heaven being rolled up: the Church is taken out of the midst.

'And every mountain and island were moved out of their places.' And the mountain and islands moved out of their places: in the last persecution all departed from their places: that is, the good shall be moved, fleeing the persecution. 'After these things I heard one of the four horns of the golden altar which is in the sight of God, saying to the angel who had the trumpet: Loose the four angels who stand at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds which are bound at the great river Euphrates.' The four angels at the four corners of the earth, or the four winds beyond the river Euphrates: there are four nations, because to every nation an angel has been appointed by God, as the Law says: 'he set them according to the number of the angels of God.'

Until the number of the saints is fulfilled, they do not go beyond their boundaries, because at the last they will come with Antichrist. 'After these things I saw: and behold, a great multitude, which no one could number, out of every nation and tribe and peoples and tongues, clothed in white robes.' But in that he says: a great multitude out of every tribe, he shows out of all believers the number of the elect, who through the blood of the Lamb — cleansed by baptism — made their robes white, keeping the grace which they had received. 'And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.' When the seventh seal is opened, silence occurs in heaven for half an hour: this is the beginning of eternal rest;

but he understood only a part, because, the silence being interrupted, he repeats the same things in order. For if the silence were perpetual, here would be the end of the narration. 'And I saw an angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God.' The angel ascending from the east: he means Elijah the prophet, who is to anticipate the times of Antichrist, to restore the churches and to establish them against the great and intolerable persecution. We read these things proclaimed in the opening of the book both of the Old and the New Testament; for the Lord says through Malachi: 'Behold, I will send you Elijah the Tishbite, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons and the heart of man to his neighbor,' that is, to Christ through repentance; ('to turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons':

according to the time of the calling, to recall the Jews to the faith of the people that follows. And therefore he also shows, as we have said, the number out of the Jews that is to believe, and out of the nations a great multitude. We read in the Gospel that the prayers of the Church are also sent from heaven by an angel, and that they are received, and poured out against wrath, and that the kingdom of Antichrist is darkened through the holy angels; for he says: 'Pray, lest you fall into temptation. For there will be great distress, such as has not been from the beginning of the world; and unless the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh would be saved.' These therefore, the seven great archangels, he will send to strike the kingdom of Antichrist. For he himself also said thus:

'Then the Son of Man shall send his messengers, and they shall gather his elect from the four corners of the wind, from the ends of heaven to the ends thereof.' And before, he says through the prophet: 'Then there shall be peace in our land, when seven shepherds and eight bites of men shall have risen up in it, and they shall hunt down Assur' — that is, Antichrist — 'in the pit of Nebroth': in the damnation of the devil. Ecclesiastes likewise: 'when the keepers of the house shall be moved.' But the Lord himself in a parable says thus to the apostles: 'When the laborers had come to him and said: Lord, did you not sow good seed in the field? Whence then is there tares? He answered them: An enemy has done this. They said to him: Will we go and root it up? He said: No, but let both grow together until the harvest.'