默示錄與保羅書信註 第 20 章 第 1/3 段

I. Seven angels with as many trumpets, and another over the altar of God with a golden censer; and when the first angel sounds the trumpet, hail and fire mingled with blood are cast down. II. When the second angel sounds, a fiery mountain is cast into the sea, and part of the seas is turned into blood. III. When the third sounds, a burning star is said to fall from heaven. IV. When the angel sounds the trumpet, a third part of the sun, the moon, and the stars is said to be darkened. V. I saw another sign, as an eagle flying in the midst of heaven, saying thrice: Woe, woe, woe! VI. When the fifth sounds, a star falls from heaven, to which is given the key of the pit of the abyss, whence smoke and locusts come forth. VII. Concerning the torment of five or six months, as of scorpions. VIII.

Where a horse prepared for battle, resembling locusts, signifies the heresiarchs. IX. It declares that one woe has passed, and two follow. X. When the sixth angel sounds, the loosing of the four angels long bound over the Euphrates, and concerning the number of eighty thousand or twice ten thousand. XI. Concerning the horsemen having fiery, thorny, and sulphurous breastplates. XII. Concerning the error of the Gentiles. XIII. An angel sitting, clothed with a cloud, whose face was as the sun, and concerning the seven thunders. XIV. Concerning the days of the voice of the seventh angel, and the consummation of the divine mystery. XV. Concerning the bitterness which he is foretold to feel from the eaten book, and the measure taken of the reed. XVI. Concerning the two martyrs, who shall prophesy for a thousand two hundred and sixty [ninety] days. XVII.

It is said that the third woe has come. XVIII. When the seventh angel's trumpet sounds, he records that voices were made by the elders. XIX. The temple of God in heaven was opened, and the ark of the testament was seen. XX. Concerning the red dragon and the woman in travail. XXI. That the devil, the accuser of the brethren, is cast down from heaven to the earth. XXII. That the woman received two wings, with which, to be nourished, she might flee into the desert. And I saw seven angels standing in the sight of God, and to them were given seven trumpets. In the seven angels let us recognize that the Church is repeated according to the preceding rule, whereby, on account of its universality, it is often commended by the sevenfold number. She is said to have received the strongest trumpet of preaching, by whose prevailing we believe the whole world will believe; for we read (Isa. LVII):

As a trumpet, lift up thy voice. And another angel came and stood over the altar of God, holding a golden censer, and there were given to him many offerings, that he should offer the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar of God, which is in the sight of the throne. This kind of narration too must be noted; for often someone briefly relates otherwise than he proposes, and, having finished that which he had interposed for the sake of clarifying, returns to his proposal. For he proposed that seven angels had received trumpets, and another angel came, so that he might be thought to have come after the seven, though he saw this at one time; and when the angel came, those seven received the trumpets — that is, when Christ the Lord came, His Church received the power of preaching.

For we understand that He Himself came over the altar — that is, over the Church, which Church is received as the body of that same priest, to whom Peter says (I Pet. II): A holy nation, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood. Holding a golden censer — that is, the immaculate body conceived by the coming of the Holy Spirit, which He offered for the redemption of the whole world as an offering and victim to God for an odour of sweetness, and cleansed the conscience of all from dead works. And He is said both to have received of the prayers of the saints and to have offered them, because through Him the prayers of all can sweetly reach God. Hence the Apostle (Heb. XIII):

Through Him, he says, let us always offer to God a sacrifice of praise — that is, the fruit of lips confessing to His name. On this account He Himself is said to intercede not only for our sins, but also for those of the whole world, as also blessed John: And He, he says, entreats for our sins. And there ascended, he says, the smoke of the supplications, of the prayers of the saints, from the hand of the angel before the sight of God. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with the fire of the wrath of God, and cast it into the earth. Well does he say the censer full of fire. For not by measure, he says (John III), does God give the Spirit — which we know was fulfilled properly of the humanity of Christ, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. II).

And because He willed His Church alone to be a partaker of that same Spirit, He showed this specially here. Hence also the Lord in the Gospel says (Luke XII): I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and what do I will but that it be kindled? I think this fire is now signified. And by this fire we know that sinners are reprobated like fragile vessels cracking in the furnace: because by one fire the portion of the wicked does not obtain the same effect as the just, just as neither stubble nor gold, of which we know the one to be consumed, the other to be tested; even as under one press it is certain that oil obtains a merit different from the dregs. This fire therefore, cast into the earth, set aflame the minds of those about to preach.

But it is said to have burned a third part of the earth, of the trees, and of the hay and greenness, as if he should say: He reprobated and destroyed a part of the useless vessels, whether placed outside or within the Church. For if anyone build upon the foundation wood, hay, stubble, all perish by fire (I Cor. III). Otherwise: And the angel took the censer, and filled it from the fire of the altar of God, and cast it into the earth. And the Lord took His body — that is, the Church; and by fulfilling the will of the Father, He filled it from the fire of the altar — that is, from the power of loosing and binding, which consists in sacrifices and the propitiation of God. Hence it is also said (Ps. CIII): Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a burning fire.

For in these things the Church received all power in heaven and on earth, when she perfected the sacrifice of God, the Lord offering Himself principally, and the saints presenting their bodies as a living, holy victim (Rom. XII). And He cast it into the earth. Since through the preaching of the Church the knowledge of the future indignation shall come to the world, as Zechariah says (Zech. XII): I will make the leaders of Judah as a torrent of fire, etc. And to both senses can be fitted that which follows: and there were thunders and voices and lightnings and an earthquake. All these are spiritual, they belong to the Church — that is, the voices of those rebuking in fire: Ye offspring of vipers (Matt. III), etc.; or, Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven shall draw near.

The thunders are the preachings of the Christian faith; the lightnings are the powers of healings; the earthquakes are the persecutions, which he both foretold would come, and which she suffers coming at various times. But he repeats what he had proposed, being accustomed to dictate the same things in parts. And the seven angels having, he says, the seven trumpets, prepared themselves to sound the trumpet. The Church, commended by the sevenfold number, confidently prepared herself to preach. And the first angel sounded the trumpet, and there was hail, and fire mingled with blood, and it was cast upon the earth, and a third part of the earth was burned up, and a third part of the trees was burned up, and all green hay was burned up.

What the earth is, that also are the trees; but of these he says a third part, while of the hay he says the whole was burned. For here the earth figures the earthly-minded, but the trees figure men wavering in unbelief, as though moved by every wind of doctrine (Eph. IV), of whom the apostle Jude says (Chap. I): autumn trees, without fruit, uprooted, twice dead; but the hay and the green thing, he says, is flesh fattened for lusts; for all flesh is hay (Isa. XL). But although he set three quarters against the one, which is the Church, yet he now confined the part opposed to the Church to two thirds, namely a third...

...one mingled with the good within the Church among false brethren, and the other separated by open schism into the depravity of the errors of Gentilism and heresy, so that the Church (that is, one third) may contend against a twofold evil, like simplicity resisting duplicity. Thus in the Gospel the king is said to have gone forth to fight with ten thousand against one having twenty thousand (Luke XIV); thus God promises through Zechariah, saying (Zech. XIII): And it shall be in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be scattered and shall fail, and a third part shall be left in it; and I will lead the third part through the fire, and will burn them as silver is burned, and will test them as gold is tested; he shall call upon My name, and I will hear him;

and I will say, Thou art My people; and they shall say, Thou art the Lord my God. Scripture very often mentions the aforesaid part of the evil, consisting in the two thirds, as one person on account of the form of one body, at other times introducing it in the singular. And the second angel sounded the trumpet, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea; and a third part of the sea became blood, and a third part of the fishes died, and a third part of the ships perished. The mountain burning in the sea is the devil, cast into the peoples; the third part of the sea into blood — by blood he sets down the wisdom of the flesh, which is at enmity with God. Therefore it is said that through it the human soul is destroyed. Hence the Apostle (Rom.

VIII), To be wise, he says, according to the flesh is death, because flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God. But by the name of the sea and of the trees, the ships and the fishes, he embraces the world with its inhabitants after its own manner. Finally, when he had said one third turned into blood, signifying it consumed by the death of souls, he afterward divides the same into two thirds, saying: And a third part of the fishes died, and a third part of the ships perished. In the one he shows the kind of death, in these he assigns the number. Another edition, by saying 'having souls,' evidently shows that they were slain by spiritual death, as the Apostle says of the widow (I Tim. V): She that liveth in pleasures is dead while living.

Therefore, as it sounds, it is as though a third slew another third, by noxious tradition and by useless imitation of teaching. And the third angel sounded the trumpet, and there fell from heaven a great star, burning like a torch, upon a third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is said to be Wormwood, or, as it is said elsewhere, of the absent ones; and a third part of the waters became as wormwood, and many men died from the bitterness of the waters. He designates that from heaven — as though from the Church — men fell, namely such as men supposed to shine forth by good merits. Therefore they are compared to stars and torches, whom the apostle Jude reproves, saying (Jude I): wandering stars of seduction. For they seduce by the very surface of their brightness.

These the Lord (Matt. XXIII) compares even to whitewashed walls and sepulchres. And because the ruin of the greater ones is wont to vex very many, therefore he records that the star fell upon a part of the rivers and fountains, whose name he sets down as Wormwood, on account of the great bitterness. For when such fall, we know that many are weakened, and are corrupted by the most wicked imitation of the teaching. But he rightly compared these to wormwood, whose bitterness, if a little of it be mixed with a sweet draught, turns the whole into bitterness. Signifying this elsewhere too, Scripture says to such (Jer. II): I planted thee as a choice vine; how art thou turned into the bitterness of a strange vine?

But he sets this as the third part of the evil ones, since others, who ought to have been rendered more cautious by the example of those falling, incur the same defect by their imitation. And the fourth angel sounded the trumpet, and a third part of the sun was struck, and a third part of the moon, and a third part of the stars, so that they might shine less, and the day might lose the same part, and the night likewise. The sun, the moon, the stars — the Church is set forth.

Quite fittingly, having mentioned the fourth angel, he willed to make mention of those things which are related to have been made on the fourth day in the creation of the world, that they might rule over the day and the night, and divide the light and the darkness; so that when these evil ones — of whom the body is one, outwardly open and inwardly hidden — are separated from the Church, and by their transgressions cause the dignity of the Church to shine less, taking away as it were a third part of the sun, and a third part of the moon, and a third part of the stars by their obscurities, they may be convicted of acting against the ordinance of the Creator:

for as He willed the sun, the moon, and the stars visibly to excel the other created things in place or in kind, so they are noted to wish to obscure His Church, which He commanded to have dominion throughout the whole world in dignity and glory: For the name of God, says the Apostle (Rom. II), is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. For through those by whom our good is blasphemed, they seem to obscure the native light. But lest it should be thought by men that this could be done at will and without measure, He fixes in a certain way the limit of a measure, signifying that same part of the evil ones by a different narration. For that which in the third angel he had recorded as one third, here in a threefold manner he records, saying a third part of the sun, a third of the moon.

and a third of the stars were diminished, so that clearly, in these luminaries, two parts remained whole in their state, nor did that perdition or obscurity befall anyone of the number of the elect. For none perished, he says (John XVII), but the son of perdition. And (II Tim. II), The Lord knoweth who are His. Otherwise: The perfection of every reign consists in the sum of twelve ounces; therefore he says a third of the sun, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars were darkened — that is, four ounces, out of which is composed the body of all the evil, designated rather in many various ways.

But in the good it is given to understand that eight ounces remained in each, three times eight being twenty-four, as it were the perfection which stands in those set over and in the peoples. 'A third' here is the name of the part of the evil ones — that is, two parts, the one being called the day, the other the harmful night, to which Jeremiah says: I have likened your mother to the night. For this reason therefore was it struck, that there might appear a third of the day and a third of the night, which is Christ's and which is the devil's. But he did not say, 'A third of them was struck and darkened, and there appeared a third of the day and of the night,' but 'that it might be darkened and appear,' because it did not appear as it was struck, but for this it was struck — that is, delivered over to its own pleasures — that, with sins abounding, it might be revealed in its own time.

The power in their tails was to hurt men for five months. We remember that it is written in Isaiah (Chap. IX): The elder and the honourable, he is the head; and the prophet teaching a lie, he is the tail. And there shall be those who bless my people, seducing them; and those who are blessed, cast down headlong. Whence it is clear that these wish to have dominion in that part which all the saints and teachers of the truth strive greatly to avoid — that is, worldly glory and the error of harmful preaching. Therefore, the power in their tails for five months again intimates this life, where a lie can prevail, either to capture the useless, or to torment temporarily the spiritual; hence we read (Ps. CXVIII):

I saw the foolish, and I pined away, and weariness held me because of the sinners. And they had over them a king, the angel of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue Apollyon, and in the Latin tongue having the name Exterminating. God, supremely good, though by hidden yet just judgments, permitted a fitting angel to be set over such. For by whom a man is overcome, to him also he is added as a slave; therefore the apostle says (II Pet. II) that they are delivered over into every seduction of iniquity, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And therefore God sends them into the working of error (II Thess. II), that they may believe a lie, and that all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but consent to iniquity.

But there agrees in him both the quality of the action and the expressed propriety of the name — that is, exterminating. One woe has departed, and behold two other woes follow. And the sixth angel sounded the trumpet. He says the first woe departed, and the trumpet of the sixth angel sounded; here the last preaching of the sixth age is announced. And I heard one from the four horns of the altar of God — of the altar which is under the eyes of God — saying to the sixth angel who held the trumpet: Loose the four angels who are bound over that great river Euphrates. Here he shows that the same are signified as winds which he had called angels; for he had said above that the winds were held by angels; now he says the angels are loosed by an angel, which is the Church, which retains the received power of loosing and binding (Matt. XVI, XVIII;

John XX). Therefore she has, he says, the trumpet — that is, the power of preaching. Hence it is said: Lift up thy voice like a trumpet (Isa. LVIII). Loose the four angels who are bound over the river Euphrates, whom he had said to be in the four corners of the earth, in order to show that by the name of the Euphrates is designated the power of the worldly kingdom and the multitude of the persecutors, in which the harmful will of the devil is therefore said to be bound, because he is not permitted to harm as much as he wishes. For the Euphrates is a river of Babylon, which we know is frequently set in a bad sense in the divine Scriptures. Jeremiah too says (Chap. XLVI):

That day is to the Lord our God a day of vengeance, that He may avenge Himself of His enemies, and the sword shall devour them, and shall be filled with their blood; for there is a sacrifice of the Lord of hosts in the land of the north, by the river Euphrates. Here he announces a sacrifice not of appeasement, but of slaughter: for the last persecution is therefore foretold as about to be more vehemently glowing, because then, the devil being loosed with his ministers, he is permitted more to harm or to exercise. There follows finally: And those four angels were loosed — this signifies the beginning of the persecution — who were prepared for the hour and the day and the month and the year, that they might slay a third part of men.

Here he foretells the four times in which that persecution shall rage, with a fitting signification of the senses — that is, three years and six months. But he said 'for the hour and the day and the month and the year,' because it is certain that days are fulfilled gradually by hours, and months by days, and years by months. And by saying 'prepared,' he expressed the property of the devil and his angels, who, waging inextricable enmities against the Church of Christ, have a perpetual will to harm, but are restrained by the divine power lest they harm as much as they wish; and rightly did he say beforehand of the locusts that they are like horses prepared for war. For when he says the angels were loosed, he says that he saw horses.

And the number, he says, of the mounted warriors of that army was eighty thousand; I heard the number of them, that they might slay a third part of men. Again he intimates in many ways that whole body of the evil. Now eighty thousand — just as from the perfection of the number six, sixty prefigures for us a specimen of the good, whence we read it written (Cant. VI), There are sixty queens — so eighty is sometimes wont to be set in a bad sense. For it rises from the number four, on account of the four well-known qualities of the body, cold and hot, moist and dry; or on account of the four perturbations by which life is often dreadfully vexed — fear, desire, grief, and joy: which, being doubled on account of the twofold sex, make eight.

This number, likewise rising by tens, makes up eighty, in which it shows in a certain manner the part of the evil among the warring horsemen against the body of Christ, which is the Church; and therefore there follows in that place: 'And there are eighty concubines,' as those joined not by a lawful marriage but rather by a fraudulent one. This properly agrees with all heretics, for they handle the sacraments of the faith in a merely temporal way, cloaked under the name of Christ, so that, just as concubines are not always destined to remain in the house, so these too desire to hold from the name of Christ some momentary thing, whether pre-eminence or the applause of human praise.

Nor is it a labour, by right reasoning, to distinguish between the merits of the queens and of the concubines, since even by their very names the dignity of the queens shines forth and the deformity of the concubines lies open. Moreover, another translation, which Tyconius expounded, has: 'And the number of the equestrian army was twice ten thousand times ten thousand.' There, passing over the exposition, he added only this much, and did not say how many ten thousands. But it seems to us that even in this translation it not unfittingly figured the whole part of lost men. For twice ten thousand makes twenty thousand. And this number the Lord sets down in the Gospel concerning a king who had twenty thousand, as though the duplicity of the evil resists the simplicity of the Christian.

According to this rule of understanding, then, by which against the simple ten is set the double twenty, he added, saying, 'of ten thousands'; and by keeping silent as to how many, he figured that they are counted in excess unavenged, as it were gathered together and yet not reckoned, concerning whom the prophet says (Psalm 39): 'I have declared and I have spoken; they are multiplied above number.' The undistinguished confusion of this multitude was signified also in the first catch of the disciples (Luke 5) before the Lord's passion, by which both the boats were weighed down and the nets were being broken, so that it properly agrees with heretics and false Christians who are given only to contentions, for by internal contentions the Church too is very often burdened.

and is exercised by the assaults of heretics, so that from the torn nets the schisms may be recognized to have been committed. In this catch the number is likewise passed over in silence, just as here 'twice ten thousand times ten thousand.' As if he were to say, 'Called indeed, yet not to be reckoned among the fullness of the elect.' For 'Many are called,' he says, 'but few are chosen.' In another catch, at length (Matthew and John 21), after the Lord's resurrection, both the number is stated and the great size of the fish is proclaimed, and the net is reported unbroken.

Wherefore, just as 'twice ten thousand times ten thousand' is fittingly to be applied to heretics and false Christians, so the remainder of the evil, whom the exposition above holds to be also among the Gentiles, and which is now enumerated in the sequel of the order, so that from all these persons the whole body of the devil may consist—nay rather, is shown to consist—that is, of Jews and heretics, false Christians and pagans. After a little while, at length, there follows, intimating their very error of gentility:

'And the rest of men,' saying, 'who were not slain by these plagues, neither did penance for the works of their evil deeds, that they should not adore demons and idols of gold and of silver, and of brass and of stone and of wood,' and the rest, by which it is shown that here he intimates the whole body of the evil comprised in its fullness. 'And I saw the horses in the vision, and they that sat upon them having breastplates of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone, and the heads of them were as the heads of lions.' The horses are men here in evil, riders, the wicked spirits. For just as, in a good sense, we set forth above, 'Thou who ridest upon thy horses,' that is, preachers, 'and thy riding is salvation,' so here, on the contrary, a riding is joined to the evil spirits.

Concerning the heads of lions enough and more than enough has already been said; but what ought not to be passed over is that, although some likeness of the locusts is found in the horses, and that of the horses is not found in the locusts, as also in the lions, yet both, being brought forward, agree by their signification with the persons of the heretics. For the breadth of the divine utterance distinguished one thing in unlike ways. But in the description or qualities of the breastplates, the punishments of the ungodly are signified, as we read is promised to those who adore the beast: 'The fire and the brimstone and the smoke of their torments shall ascend up for ever and ever.' And because this translation added 'of thorns,' the preceding showed the desert of the torments, signifying the vices by thorns, the order of which understanding the Apostle also expresses (Hebrews 6),

saying concerning similar land, in that, bringing forth thorns and thistles, it is cursed, whose end is unto burning. Whence it is said also in that original punishment of sin: 'Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee' (Genesis 3). And Solomon (Proverbs 26): 'Thorns,' he says, 'grow up in the hand of the drunkard.' 'And out of their mouths came fire and smoke and brimstone.' Well is here signified that which is procured for him who procures it. For those are brought in to have these things and to bring them forth from the mouth, by whose harmful preaching they perish, being led astray, to be tormented by fire, smoke and brimstone, which came forth from their mouth. By the words, therefore, of their heads, that is, by the teachings of their leaders, they are declared to incur these plagues.

'For the power of the horses is in their mouth and in their tails,' that is, in the office of speech. For he sets down the reprobate preachers as tails. 'For their tails were like to serpents, having heads, and with them they did harm.' Well here, in the likeness of the ancient prevarication, he makes mention of serpents, by whose hissing the woman, being seduced, boldly did what was forbidden, and justly lost what she had received, just as these have 'the heads of dragons,' that is, the princes of the world; for dragons are earthly animals, often dwelling in the waters, larger than almost all beasts. Therefore those who preach harmful things under the patronage of princes do more harm than if they persuaded by speech alone. Therefore 'the heads of dragons, with which they do harm.' Now at length he speaks concerning the Gentiles:

'And the rest of men, who were not slain by these plagues, neither did penance for the works of their evil deeds, that they should not adore demons and idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; and they did not penance from their murders nor from their sorceries.' These things, anticipating, he set down beforehand, that by his encompassing he might conclude all who are to be on the left. He here mentions 'sorceries' in an evil sense, for we often call sorcerers 'evildoers.'