默示錄與保羅書信註 第 19 章 第 1/5 段

1. The dignity of the book sealed with seven seals, its reception when opened, is recorded, and the vision. 2. At the first seal, the sight of a white horse is related. 3. At the second, a red horse; and at the third, a black one is recorded. 4. At the fourth seal, a pale horse. 5. At the fifth seal, beneath the altar of God, the souls of the slain. 6. Earthquake, the darkening of the sun, its light turned to blood, and the stars about to fall. 7. Four angels are said to hold the four corners of the earth. 8. The number of the sealed out of each tribe is recorded. 9. An innumerable multitude to come from the nations is foretold. 10. The Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, shall rule them. The law of God.

can be understood in three ways, and even in manifold ways, though it is to be known only by a right exposition; this is fully taught by its own testimonies. For as we read in Solomon (Prov. 7 [22:20]): Write these things for yourself in a threefold manner; so in the book of Job (ch. 11) we remember it is written: And would that God might speak with you, and show you the secrets of wisdom, and that his law is manifold! But since things proved by one Spirit can in no way contradict one another, it is easily demonstrated by probable reasoning that both hold good. This alone must be preserved with chief care, that in expounding the sacred volumes we take heed to apply those meanings which neither recoil from the truth of the passages themselves:

but rather, penetrating the mind of the author with sober intention, may bring forth wholesome meanings, and which, being fitted to the rules of faith, always answer in harmony with the truth. For neither is this to be thought self-contradictory, that while the Spirit of God is lawfully described (Wisd. 7) as single or simple, he is presently declared also to be manifold or multiple, as the diversity of translations has it. Simple indeed by the singular property of his nature, manifold by the distributions of grace; or, likewise, the remission of sins is read to be accomplished in three ways: by baptism, by penitence, and by martyrdom, according to the psalm which we sing (Ps. 31 [32]): Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;

blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin: so that they may be believed to be remitted by baptism, covered by penitence, not imputed by martyrdom. Yet other Fathers said that they are loosed in seven ways, adding almsgiving to the acquiring of the debt's remission, a neighbour restrained from error, and the abundance of charity, through which we read that an abundance of sins is covered over (Prov. 10). But these too can remain comprised within those three ways, and, being set forth, may shine forth more broadly. To what end I have set down these things, the course of the next reading will presently show; for hastening to expound difficult passages, we would not be marked for a rash advance, nor, forgetful of the paternal tradition, be judged by anyone. Chapter 5.

And I saw in the right hand of God who sat upon the throne a book written within and without, sealed with seven seals. 'In the right hand'—he means in Christ, for he is the arm of God, he is the right hand of the Father; or in the highest blessedness. A book written within and without: both Testaments. Without, the Old, which was seen; within, the New, which lay hidden within the Old. Hence the Apostle addresses the Hebrews, saying (Heb. 12): For you are not come to a fire that may be touched, and a whirlwind, and darkness, and storm, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which they that heard excused themselves, that the word might not be spoken to them; for they could not bear that which was said, etc.

But now, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, we look not on the things which are seen, but on the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. And it is called one book for this reason, because neither is the New without the Old, nor the Old without the New. For the Old is the herald and the veil of the New, and the New is the fulfilment and revelation of the Old; because the Old also, although it was without, did not wholly appear, did not wholly lie hidden. Or, to express it more clearly, the whole dispensation of the Saviour is here often signified by the name of the book, which is read in both Testaments as either promised or accomplished. Sealed with seven seals: covered with the manifold fullness of hidden mysteries, whence it is also called a shady and dense mountain.

And although the number seven carefully embraces universality, yet I think that seven ways, as it were seven seals, ought to be openly sought in the exercises of the divine Scriptures, and are necessarily to be found for their sake—not only of the modes of speech, which even worldly authors were able to observe regularly in their diction, God revealing it, but also of the saving understanding, which alone are said to have remained laid up, to be unlocked specially for Christ. For as long as the same Lord had not turned the water in those six waterpots, as it were the six ages, into wine—that is, had not fully taught that the Old Testament is to be understood spiritually—the law could inebriate no one with the fervour of the Spirit. And those seals hitherto remained closed:

wherefore, when the sacred pages have been diligently searched, we see that seven modes of expression can readily be comprehended first, that is, the indicative, the declarative, the imperative, the optative, the subjunctive, the infinitive, and the impersonal. So that, for example, there is the indicative in that which we read (Micah 6): I will show you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: namely, to love judgment, and to do mercy, and to walk solicitously with your God. And, I am the Lord your God who teaches you profitable things, who governs you in the way in which you walk (Isa. 48). And likewise, when it is asked: Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah (Isa. 63)? it is answered by way of indicating:

It is I who speak justice, and am a defender to save (ibid.). The declarative: Hear me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I call; I am the first, and I am the last, and besides me there is no God (Isa. 48). And likewise: Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel: My way is hidden from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Do you not know, or have you not heard: the Lord is the everlasting God, who created the ends of the earth; he shall not faint, nor labour, neither is there any searching out of his wisdom, who gives strength to the weary (Isa. 40). Or, Behold, the days come, says the Lord, and I will accomplish over the house of Israel and over the house of Judah a New Testament (Jer. 31). The imperative: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain;

and, You shall not have strange gods before me (Exod. 20), or the like. And, Cry aloud, cease not, lift up your voice like a trumpet (Isa. 58). The optative: Would that you had attended to my commandments, and your peace had been made as light, and your justice as the waves of the sea (Isa. 48); and, Would that my ways were directed to keep your justifications (Ps. 118 [119]); and: Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly and be at rest (Ps. 54 [55])? The subjunctive: If you will hear my voice, and keep my covenant, you shall be to me a peculiar possession above all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation (Exod. 19). Elsewhere also:

I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people (Lev. 26). Or, If they had stood in my counsel, I would surely have turned them from their evil thoughts (Jer. 23). The infinitive mode, moreover, which is also sixth in order: To know and understand the Lord, and to do judgment and justice in the midst of the earth (Jer. 9). And likewise, To refrain from evil is understanding (Micah 6). The impersonal: Who has aided the Spirit of the Lord? or with whom has he taken counsel, and who has instructed him, and taught him the path of justice, and shown him the way of prudence (Job 28)? Or in this which is written: Who is there among you that will hear this, attend and hearken to things to come (Isa. 40)?

And, Who is the man that fears the Lord? He appoints him a law in the way that he has chosen (Ps. 24 [25])? Or, To understand the law is the sense of the best; and, Who shall utter the mighty acts of the Lord (Ps. 105 [106])? and other things like these, which can be fittingly and more copiously applied to the several modes. These things, I say, we readily find in the words; but now just order demands this, that in the very realities themselves, as it were in seven seals, we fit the regular forms of understanding to congruous testimonies, or rather teach probably that these testimonies serve those same rules. For the aforesaid modes of speech, although they seem somehow congruous, yet with respect to what we seek are judged slight. For this reason indeed the book...

...is said to be a book sealed with seven seals, because another, more secret mode—which it asserts lay hidden there before, but was laid open by the very dispensation of Christ—warns that it must be pointed out. As we search the Scripture, then, the first thing to meet us is the text of historical action; the second, the manner of allegory; the third, the mode of both is recognized; the fourth, concerning the unchangeable essence of the divine Trinity, when it is properly, when figuratively, insinuated by the sacred oracles; the fifth, of parables, because it is made up as much of narration as of action, so that when one thing is said and another is found in the writing, the mind may be raised to the food of spiritual understanding;

the sixth, concerning the twofold coming of the Saviour, or the things pertaining to them, lest either the first be understood for the second, or the second for the first—where the rule of discretion must be applied with great attention. For hence the minds of the Jews were darkened at the Lord's coming, and even now they labour under the same blindness of ignorance, so far that sometimes even from the very sins of men and the transgressions of certain persons there is put forth a prophecy of works to come, or of the secret meanings of spiritual things.

That mode, moreover, that is, the seventh, whereby we are so instructed by the divine precepts that a fixed form of the life to be lived becomes regularly known, but to others a figure signifying life, must be handled with careful attention; in these it is discreetly recognized both what is written without and what is within. But now it is fitting that we teach the aforesaid modes by examples. The historical, which is the first, indicates to us that God is one, in this manner: Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God (Deut. 6), and that all things were made by him, or the like. The second, of allegory, as is that which Abraham exacts of his servant by a new and unusual oath, saying: Put your hand under my thigh, and swear to me by the Lord God of heaven (Gen.

24). This is recognized as figurative for the reason that it is not commonly practised by all in general, save only by Abraham and Jacob, the specially prophetic patriarchs, from whose loins Christ was hoped to be born bodily. For as to the fact that from among all the faithful of Israel a maiden is sought for king David, and one is found so warm that, cherishing with fitting heat the limbs of the aged, cold man, she soothed them (III [I] Kings 1), yet so chaste that she did not provoke him warmed to lust; or that the people, scourged in the desert by fiery serpents, was delivered from the serpents' bite by the sight of a bronze serpent (Num. 21): typically David changed his countenance before Abimelech, and he sent him away, and he departed; whereas in the book of Kings (I, ch.

21) it is read that David changed his countenance before Achish the king, when, drumming at the gates of the city, and bearing his own body in his own hands, and letting his spittle run down upon his beard, or performing the rest after the manner of a madman, he expressed a type of the Lord's Passion. Since therefore he is changed in name, Abimelech for Achish, it admonished the reader, from the very interpretations of the names, to penetrate the mystery lying more deeply hidden. For Abimelech, being interpreted, is said to mean 'my father's kingdom.' Then therefore the Son of God, Jesus Christ, changed his countenance before the kingdom of his Father, that is, before the Jews, when, coming in the humble form of a servant, and being made obedient even to the death of the cross (Phil.

2)—which is properly figured in the drumming—he willed, the unbelief of the Jews being despised, to preach the Gospel to the nations, from whom he gained for himself a Church. For this is: He sent him away and he departed—which the Apostle Paul openly declares (Acts 13): To you indeed was this word sent, but since you have rejected it and judged yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the nations; or that in the parable of the vineyard (Matt. 21): He will miserably destroy the wicked men, and will let out his vineyard to other husbandmen. From nearly this same rule I think descends the pattern of that expression also, whereby we read: The mountains skipped like rams, and the hills like the lambs of the flock (Ps. 113 [114]); and, The rivers shall clap their hands (Ps. 97 [98]);

and likewise, The trees went forth to anoint a king over them (Judges [9]). But by these modes it is not intimated that what happened actually took place, since natural impossibility altogether denies it to them, but something is described metaphorically by a fitting signification. By these modes too I think parables of things are distinguished from parables of words. The sixth mode indeed, whereby the coming of Christ is discerned—that is, which things are to be referred to the first coming, which locally to the second—it is one thing to discern; that is, the first claims for itself the places of humiliation, such as that which Moses says (Deut. 18): God will raise up for you a Prophet from among your brethren; him you shall hear, as me; and likewise, Afterward he was seen upon earth, and conversed with men (Baruch [3:38]).

And again, There is no beauty in him nor comeliness; and we saw him, and there was no sightliness in him; despised and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows (Isa. 53). And a little after, He himself bore our infirmities (ibid.), etc. And again, He shall be led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before the shearer he was dumb, so he opened not his mouth (ibid.). But of the second coming we read: God shall come manifestly, our God, and shall not keep silence (Ps. 49 [50]). And, They shall look upon me whom they have pierced (Zech. 12). Malachi also says: I will come near to you in judgment, and I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, and those who wrong the hire of the hireling (Mal. 3), etc.

But as to what we said, that the sins of certain men often figure something prophetic, there most of all do the indications of the signs seem to flash forth within and without. For the public sin of David (II [Sam.] 11, 12) concerning the wife of Uriah the Hittite was open, yet from that very evil deed the prophecy figured for us something good. For Bathsheba is interpreted 'the well of satiety,' or 'the seventh well,' by which the Church is properly signified. Whom Christ, having separated the devil from her and slain him—by whose unlawful consort she was held—joined to himself out of the nations. Of her also we read in the Canticle of Canticles (Cant. 4): A well of living water; to which number this one is joined, on account of the sevenfold operation of the Holy Spirit.

For in the name of Uriah the Hittite also, the person of the devil is evidently shown to be signified. For Uriah, being interpreted, is said to mean 'my light is of God'; and the Hittite, 'cut off,' either because he did not stand in the truth, but was deservedly cut off by his pride from his own supernal light which he had from God; or because, falling and losing his true powers, he transfigures himself as an angel of light (II Cor. 11), daring still to say: My light is of God. So David the king, mighty of hand, saw with a wanton eye the woman washing herself upon the roof of the house, and coveted and took her away (II [Sam.] 11).

Christ indeed, the King of kings, foreseeing the Church cleansed by the laver and in the word, treading upon earthly things, gaping after heavenly things, predestined and beheld her; the provident bridegroom loved her when called, that as a lawful husband he might join her, justified, to himself in spiritual wedlock—just as Moses too (Exod. 2), in the person of Christ, taken up from the water, laid low with a blow of his heel the Egyptian who lay in wait for the Hebrew, that is, the devil hostile to the Israelites, and hid the slain man under the sand. For all of you, says the Apostle (Gal. 3), who have been baptized, have put on Christ. In whom we shall do valiantly, so that we may confidently say: Into Idumaea I will stretch out my shoe; the strangers are made subject to me (Ps. 59 [60]).

He who, crushing Satan beneath our feet, permits his carrion to lie hidden only in those whom, knowing them not to be steadfast, he has truly compared to the instability of sand. This too we know was accomplished in Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah (Gen. 38), and in very many others, so that, while those persons fell into guilt before God—who knows well how to use even our evils—something else was wrought concerning them by way of mystery. For the Apostle teaches that all the deeds of that time among that same people are a prophecy of things to come, saying (I Cor. 10): For all these things happened to them in figure. And although those persons either paid purgatorial penalties for what they had committed, or obtained pardon by the remedies of penitence, yet for us the divine clemency prepared the effect of the dispensation of Christ.

Outwardly, then, the sins appeared, but inwardly the mysteries lay hidden. These things concerning the daughter-in-law of Judah I chose rather to pass over, lest I should draw out this work at greater length with a much more copious discourse. Finally, concerning the deed of one man, that is, of Lot and his wife (Gen. 19), what blessed Augustine said in his discourse against Faustus the Manichaean, I have thought fit to insert into this work, for the general understanding of similar passages. For he says: But just as another kind of men was figured in his wife, namely of those who, called by the grace of God, look back—not like Paul, who forgets the things that are behind, and stretches forth to the things that are before (Phil. 3). Whence the Lord himself:

No man, he says, putting his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven (Luke 9). Nor did he pass over that example, whereby he might season us as with salt, that we should not, as fools, neglect, but, as prudent, beware of this evil (Luke 17). Whence she too, that I might be admonished of this, was turned into a pillar of salt (Gen. 19). So too in Lot himself, when his daughters lay with him, not that which happened when he was delivered from Sodom, but something else was figured; for then Lot himself is seen to have borne the person of the future law: which certain ones begotten of it and placed under the law, by understanding it ill—as it were by the intoxicating water, using it unlawfully—bring forth the works of unbelief; for the law is good, says the Apostle (I Tim. 1),

if one use it lawfully. Nor yet do we for this reason justify this deed either of Lot himself or of his daughters, because it signified something else which foretold the future perversity of certain persons; for the women intended one thing in doing this, and God, who permitted this to be done that he might thereby demonstrate something, intended another—while his upright judgment remained upon the sins of the men then present, and his providence kept watch for the signification of things to come. Accordingly, one deed, when it is narrated in holy Scripture, is prophecy; but when it is considered in the life of those who committed it, it is a disgrace. And these things indeed St. Augustine set forth as thus to be understood, so that he teaches this is to be thought concerning the daughter-in-law of Judah or the like.

The seventh mode, therefore, which retains a twofold quality of precepts, is that of the life to be lived, as, for example: You shall love your neighbour as yourself (Lev. 19); for he who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the law, as the Apostle more fully argues (Rom. 13); and of the life figuring circumcision and the sabbath, or the carnal victims. And although this mode seems to be similar to the second, yet it is distinguished by this consideration, that this is to be reduced only to morals, but that also to faith. Therefore the Apostle James too distinguishes both from each other, saying (James 2): Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself;

for by circumcision is understood the cutting off of vices, but by the sabbath that rest of souls, of which it is said (Ps. 45 [46]): Be still, and see that I am the Lord; and by the victims, that we should present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God (Rom. 12). And there were other precepts which were in the Old Testament, some to be fulfilled by the acts of life, others foreshadowed by significations of life. For the fulfilling of the former Christ willed his grace to be extended; for the removal of the latter he willed himself, foretold, to be presented in his own time. For the law was given by Moses (John 1), as it were outwardly, in part without, that is, You shall not covet (Exod. 20), or rather that: You shall not go after your concupiscences (Ecclus. 18).

But grace and truth came by Jesus Christ (John 1), as it were in the part within, hidden, revealed at the coming of the fullness of the times. For in those things which were more openly commanded for the love of God and neighbour, although the plain and changeable form of the precept thence remained, yet the weak people needed grace, groaning as they laboured under the weight of the law; but in those figurative victims of beasts to be offered, that Lamb to come was awaited, for whom they were foretold to have been truly laid up in store—so that when he came, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2), the precepts of the life to be lived might be fulfilled by the grace given, while the figures, as it were shadows (Heb. 8), the truth being made manifest, should straightway be put to flight.

For there was one thing in the Old Testament which was so commanded by the killing letter that by the quickening Spirit one could fulfil it, such as: You shall not go after your concupiscences (Ecclus. 18). Whence Paul says (Rom. 4): For the law works wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there transgression. Which, although it shone clear without covering to the hearer, yet human weakness could not fulfil it by its own powers. There was another thing which, covered within by a mystical veil, demanded the coming of the Lord, for which the shadows served as copies (Heb. 8). For in that consists for us the form of the heavenly life, by whose faith the just man lives (Heb. 2 [Rom. 1]). By the plain precepts the law convicted the guilty (Rom. 1), betrayed the weak, that salvation might be sought.

But by those signifying things, as it were within the veil, they travailed that Christ was to come; and when he came, the observance of the figures, which had been a shadow of things to come, ceased and was removed. Nor is it any longer to be sought, from the moment that the truth of his own living body shone forth manifest (Heb. 8). For Christ is the end of the law unto justice to everyone that believes (Rom. 10). To this I think pertains that twofold distribution of the precepts, of which the Apostle, treating and duly enumerating, says (I Tim. 1): The law is good, if one use it lawfully. For he had said (ibid.): The end of the commandment is charity, from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned.

By which saying, evidently insinuating the law of faith, he presently followed it up by expressing also the law of deeds, saying: The law is not made for the just, but for the unjust, the impious and sinners, and the rest that are contrary to sound doctrine. Whence it may be asked, since the law is not set for the just man, how the just man is said to use it lawfully—since we do not need to be terrified by the penalty of penalizing precepts, we who through grace now freely enjoy the perfection of the virtues. For faith has already obtained for him that which, lest anyone should ascribe it to his own powers, the Apostle says (Rom. 3): For all have sinned, and need the glory of God. For there is shown in us first a firm will through the law, but grace healed the will, and the will fulfilled the law.

Therefore the law is imposed upon the impious who are unwilling to fear, so that it may not be permitted them to sin with impunity. But it is not imposed upon the just, because, being commanded by the charity of the Holy Spirit, they are no longer permitted to sin further. But the just use the law either for instructing others by the admonitions of the precepts, or for forming them by the pattern of imitable virtues. Thus the Apostle distinguishes both, when he says (Rom. 8): For you have received the spirit of the adoption of sons, in whom we cry, Abba, Father. Delighting in this counsel of the praying Apostle, he also says, setting those things after, we have loved the better things. Whence the same (I Cor. 7):

'Concerning virgins,' he says, 'I have no commandment of the Lord, but I give counsel' (1 Cor. 7), doing this by exhortation, not compelling by precept, following the teaching of the Lord who admonishes, when he said (Matt. 19): 'He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.' Hence, because he is now a laborer, the intent of the work undertaken does not permit him to treat of it. Let it suffice that we have said this species is enclosed within this measure as under its own genus, being written within and without. Rightly, moreover, it is asked concerning these seven modes which we set forth above, which ought to be reckoned within, and which without. The first is the historical, without. The second is the allegorical, wholly within.

The third retains in itself a twofold form of both, so as both to supply the fitting office of the then present time and to convey something figuratively of things to come. The fourth concerns God, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of the vicissitude of a moment (cf. James 1). Both senses ought to be received within, for it cannot be comprehended by the understanding. 'For the peace of God,' says the Apostle (Phil. 4), 'surpasses all understanding,' because both his essence exceeds the bounds of our capacity, and no one adequately attains his clemency, of which he has related many things figuratively concerning himself. The fifth indeed, where something other than what is read is found, or is often diffused in parables, is so suspect through a certain hidden ambiguity that it must by all means be reckoned within.

The sixth, concerning the twofold coming of Christ, shines forth with sure testimonies, set plainly without, yet lies hidden within in sure secrets, so that by things made open it may take away doubt, and by things concealed may exercise the faithful and wipe away weariness. The seventh, in the precepts of the life to be lived, as we have already premised, appears without, but in the precepts of the life to be figured it lies hidden within. Hence we read that it was said also to Daniel (Dan. 12): 'Shut up the words and seal the book until the appointed time. Many shall pass over, and knowledge shall be manifold': sealed with seven seals. Our fathers also perceived seven ages of the interior man, by which through the grace of God we are wholesomely renewed in the spirit of the mind. Concerning these blessed Augustine speaks thus in the book On True Religion: