|  HAYDOCK CATHOLIC BIBLE COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTAMENT
APOCALYPSE 14
CHAPTER XIV.
Ver. 1. Behold a Lamb,
by which is divers times represented our Saviour Christ. Wi.
Ver. 3. They sung as
it were a new canticle. In these visions, after persecutions,
are sometimes introduced rejoicings to encourage the servants of God
in their sufferings from the wicked world. — No man could
say (or sing) the canticle, but those hundred and forty-four
thousand: by which are signified the elect, who were not
defiled with women. Some expound this literally of those who
always lived virgins; others understand all those who lived or died
with a pure and clean heart, exempt from the corruption of vices, and
of whom it is said, (v. 5) that in their mouth was found no lie,
and that they were without spot for the throne of God. Wi.
Ver. 4. These are
they, &c. In the style of the prophets, by fornication is
meant idolatry, and virginity signifies cleanness from all
sacrilegious worship. These, therefore, are virgins in this sense,
who have not fallen into the impurities of creature worship. But
others, as S. Augustine, understand it of persons who have lived in
continency. The first, however, is the more literal sense. Calmet.
Ver. 6-7. Another
Angel, . . saying: . . Fear the Lord.[1] By this Angel are
represented the preachers of the gospel, exhorting all men to the
true faith and a good life. Wi.
Ver. 8. Another Angel,
. . saying: . . She is fallen, she is fallen, that great Babylon.
By Babylon, as observed before, may very probably be signified all
the wicked world in general, whom God will punish and destroy after
the short time of this mortal life: or may be signified every great
city, and perhaps Rome returned to idolatry in the time of
antichrist, a little before the end of the world, or may be signified
the idolatry of heathen Rome, in the fourth age, when the Christian
religion, under Constantine and his successors, began to triumph over
paganism, i.e. according to those interpreters followed by Alcazar,
Bossuet, P. Alleman, &c. which exposition Dr. Hammond thus
expresseth: "the whole impure city of heathen Rome, under the
title of Babylon, that old idolatrous city that had lain so heavy
upon the people of God . . . should speedily be destroyed, for
advancing the heathen worship." Wi. — It is probable that
here by the great Babylon is meant the city of the devil; that is,
the universal society of the wicked: as Jerusalem is taken for the
city and the Church of God. Ch.
Ver. 9-10. The third
Angel followed . . . if any man shall adore the beast, . . he also
shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mingled with
pure wine, &c. That is, he shall drink of the bitter cup of
God's indignation, not mixed with water, or any thing to diminish its
force, but with wine and wine; i.e. with punishments upon punishments
for ever and ever. Wi.
Ver. 12. Here is the
patience of the saints. Here patience is necessary, so as not to
be carried away with such pleasures and vanities as are offered in
the wicked Babylon, and to remain firm under persecutions with the
pious inhabitants of Jerusalem. Wi.
Ver. 13. Blessed are
the dead (all the dead) who die in the Lord, and not the
martyrs only, for their works follow every one. Wi. — It is
understood of the martyrs, who die for the Lord. Ch. — For
their works follow them. It is just that they rest at length
from their labours, and enjoy for eternity the recompense of their
fidelity. They land on the shores of their native country, enriched
with the treasures of the good works they have done in this lower
world. This is said in express contradiction to those who denied the
necessity of good works, and maintained the indifference of actions.
This seems to have been the doctrine of the Nicolaites and other
heretics of those times. Calmet. — The Holy Ghost confirms the
sentence of their happiness, not only because at the moment of their
departure their hard labours and penitential works cease, but their
souls are admitted to a glorious immortality, the recompense of their
good works. Past.
Ver. 14-20. Like to
the Son of man. That is, to our Saviour Christ, sitting on a
white cloud, with a crown of gold, and in his hand a sharp sickle.
And another Angel, desiring of him to do justice, by putting in his
sickle, because the harvest of the earth was ripe, dry, and withered;
i.e. the wicked, ripe for punishment. The like is again represented
by the sickle, which is said to be put to the clusters of the
vineyard: and they were cast into the great wine-press, or lake of
the wrath of God, into hell, where the blood is said to come out even
up to the horses' bridles, for a thousand and six hundred furlongs:
a metaphorical way of expressing the exceeding great torments of the
wicked in hell. But to pretend from hence to give the just
dimensions of hell, is a groundless conjecture; of which see Corn. a
Lapide. Wi.
_____________________
- [1] V. 6-7. I cannot
but admire how Dr. W. after his learned modern divines, Mr.
Mede and Mr. Whiston, could hook in the popish antichrist in so many
places on this chapter, as v. 7, where it is said fear God,
the Christians, says he, are forewarned not to fall into any
corruptions the visible Church afterwards fell into, particularly
popery. According to a great many of our Prot. adversaries, the
popes have been the great antichrist ever since the destruction of
the heathen Roman emperors in the fourth age, and yet no man ever
dreamt of it or suspected it. The Protestants tell the people, they
need but open their Bibles and Testaments to see and find the
monstrous popish antichrist, the frightful beast with seven heads
and ten horns; and what is more strange than all the rest, not any
one of the Latin or Greek Church for so many ages could ever see the
least appearance of what to them is visible at the first sight. The
Greek Church, by an unfortunate schism, was divided from the Latin
in the ninth age: they wanted not learned men among them, well read
in the Scriptures, who omitted nothing that could be alleged to
justify their schism and separation from the pope of Rome. Is it
possible that neither Photius nor any one among them should see this
truth, so palpable that every Protestant presently discovers it at
the opening of his New Testament? This at once would have justified
their separation. This invention, which doubtless was suggested by
the most subtle adversary of popery, first came, says the bishop of
Meaux on the Apocalypse, from the late Manicheans, a sect among the
Albigenses, as infamous for their errors as for their morals, (see
Nat. Alex. tom. 6. Sæc. 11. et 12. p. 490. et tom. 7. Sæc.
13. p. 66) who, among other detestable blasphemies against God,
against Jesus Christ and his blessed Mother, taught the people that
pope Silvester in Constantine's time was antichrist, and the Church
from that time was become a den of thieves, and the harlot in the
Apocalypse. I scarce think the reasons they brought will be
approved by the writers of the late reformation, inasmuch, said
they, as the Church and ministers of the Church were then permitted
to receive ecclesiastical benefices and revenues. These heretics
were followed in some points by Wycliffe and his disciples; but
perhaps upon a strict examination, they only meant that the pope and
bishops taught antichristian doctrine, and so were to be esteemed
adversaries of Christ and precursors of antichrist. We may look
upon Luther (though he denied the Apocalypse of S. John to be
canonical Scripture) and the Lutherans and Calvinists, to be the
true inventors of this empty and incoherent fable of the popish
antichrist, twelve hundred years after the popes had successively
one after another been the one, great, and famous antichrist. These
lovers of novelty, liberty, and Church lands found the obscure
revelations in the Apocalypse very convenient for their arbitrary
fancies, where they could make the wicked Babylon not signify the
heathen Roman empire, with S. Irenæus and the primitive
fathers, but to be the Christian popish Rome; and the scarlet
whore must be the popes and cardinals who wear scarlet and
purple. An argument not inferior to that Mr. Andrew Willet, who
found out the pope to be the angel that opened with a key the
bottomless pit, because, said he, who gives the cross keys for
this arms but the pope? The last reformers of the faith found
their ingenious expositions on the Apocalypse a fit means to stir up
kings and princes, as well as the ignorant populace and unthinking
mob against the tyranny of this Babylon: it is not my remark, nor
that of the bishop of Meaux only, but of their learned Dr. Hammond,
who, after he hath given us the extravagant and trifling ravings of
Mr. Brightman, says, "that what such writers aim at, is to put
the people in mind that they are to pull down antichrist. Nothing
(says Dr. Hammond) can be more effectual towards the raising and
fomenting of commotions." It is evident the country parson can
never be at a loss, or want matter, to excite his parishioners (as
occasion offers itself) to a detestation of popery and all papists,
if he has but Mr. Brightman's revelations on the seven epistles in
the second and third chapters of S. John's Apocalypse, written to
the Protestant churches by name. See what we have cited on
those chapters. If he keep by him Mr. Willet's expositions of the
number of the name of antichrist, whereby he may prove that the
three letters are each of them crosses, and that the sign of the
cross, still retained by papists, is in very deed the cognizance of
antichrist. He may confirm the same by Mr. Willet's evident
demonstration, as he himself calls it. Take it in his own
words, in his Synop. Papismi. Controv. 4. q. 16. "Antichrist,
says he, is the great whore of Babylon, i.e. of Rome: and here,
saith Willet devoutly, we are to note the singular providence of
God, who suffereth not a jot of his word to fall to the
ground: for even so verily, an. 853, next after Leo. IV. there was a
right whore elected pope, called John, or if you will, Joan VIII.
who fell in labour in the midst of a solemn procession: thus then by
evident demonstration it appeareth that the pope is the whore of
Babylon, and consequently antichrist." Is not this witty? No
matter if by the same logic every whore that ever lived in Rome may
be proved antichrist. But as for the story of pope Joan, David
Blondel, a French hugonot, has shewn it to be a fable; for it
neither was pope John, nor Joan, that succeeded Leo IV. an. 853.
Leo IV. died in July 853, to whom succeeded, in August or September
of the same year, Benedict III. so that no place is found for pope
John or Joan, to reign after Leo two years and five months, as the
authors of that story pretend. The parson, if need be, may add the
expositions on the seven vials of the learned and pious divine, Mr.
Mede, as Dr. W. calls him: (though the bishop of Meaux looks upon
him as a mere enthusiast) the effusion of the first vial, says Mede,
was when the Waldenses and Albigenses, and the followers of
Wycliffe, and Hus began to renounce popery. The second vial was
completed by what is more eminently styled the reformation, begun by
Luther, and carried on afterwards by many others. The third vial
was completed partly by the laws made here in England in the reign
of queen Elizabeth against popish priests, partly by the great
overthrow given to the Spanish armada, an. 1588, and also to the
Spanish forces in the Netherlands. See the rest in Dr. W. p. 127.
But Dr. W. with Mr. Whiston, looks upon the vials to be all still
future. I cannot think that the learned men among the
Protestants believe the popes to be antichrist, especially since
time, that discovers what is true as to matters of fact, that are
pretended to be foretold, has confuted the conjectures of de Moulin,
Jurieu, Mede, Whiston, &c. I must here do justice to divers
learned men of the Protestant communion. Grotius, in a letter
(epist. 557.) to the Protestant John Gerard Vossius, tells him,
"that they who did not believe the popes to be antichrist,
nevertheless judged it necessary to give such interpretations, for
the public good of the Protestant religion." See Mons. de
Meaux in his advertisement, num. 1. The same Vossius answers, (ep.
571.) "that he himself having told a certain minister of Dort,
whom he calls thickscull, (lourde tete) that he should not impose on
the people, even against popery, that minister presently asked him
if he was for taking the papists' part, whom, said he, we cannot run
down too much, that the people may the more detest their Church.
This, adds Vossius, is much the same as some others said to me at
Amsterdam: why should not we say the pope is antichrist? must we
leave off saying so? and make the people leave our communion more
and more, as if too many did not leave it already?" This was a
secret that was not to be divulged. Of our English Protestants, I
have read Dr. Hammond's paraphrase and notes, on the second chapter
of Thessalonians; and on the Revelation or Apocalypse, he never
pretends that the popes are antichrist. The predictions in S. John,
of the beasts, of the fall of Babylon, of the great
harlot, he expounds, as fulfilled already, by the destruction of
pagan Rome, and of its idolatry, superstitions, auguries, under the
heathen emperors, much after the same manner as Alcazar, and as the
bishop of Meaux and other Catholic writers. Mr. Richard Montague,
in his Gag. p. 74, writes thus: "Whether the pope be that
antichrist, or not, the Church (of England) resolveth not, tendereth
it not to be believed any way. Some, I grant, are very peremptory
indeed that he is. He, for instance, who wrote and printed it, I am
as sure the pope is antichrist, that antichrist spoken of in the
Scripture, as that Jesus Christ is God: but they that are so
resolute, peremptory, and certain, let them answer for themselves.
The Church is not tied, nor any one that I know of, to make good
their private imaginations. For myself, I profess ingenuously I am
not of opinion that the bishops of Rome personally are that
antichrist . . . . nor yet that the bishops of Rome successively are
that antichrist," &c. He only holds the pope and papists
to be antichrists improperly in the sense that S. John says, there
are many antichrists. He cites for the same opinion Melancthon
and others. Mr. Thorndike, in his just weights and measures, (c.
ii.) speaking to these two points, that the pope is antichrist,
and papists idolaters. "The truth, says he, is they of
the Church of Rome have overcharged us, in calling us heretics . . .
but they that would have the pope antichrist, and the papists
idolaters, have revived it upon them, and taken their revenge
beyond the bounds of blameless defence . . . Let them not lead
the people by the nose, to believe that they can prove the
supposition, which they cannot," &c. The same Mr.
Thorndike, in chap. 19, p. 125, &c. shews more at large that
their reverencing images in churches is no idolatry. And
again, (p. 149) "having shewed, says he, why the Church of
Rome cannot be charged with idolatry, I may from hence infer that
the pope cannot be antichrist." Yet Dr. W. on the
Apocalypse, has another argument to prove that the pope is
antichrist, that is, by a new invention, the mystical antichrist,
foretold by S. John, and his reign to be twelve hundred and sixty
years, only because he supposeth that the pope and papists give
divine honour, the honour that is due to God alone, to images,
saints, and Angels. This he continually repeats, and takes it for a
thing granted. It seems very strange, that so learned a doctor,
after such mistakes have been canvassed and cleared, as appears by
what hath been written by Mr. Thorndike on this subject, should
still run on in this groundless supposition, contrary to all the
protestations which the Catholics have constantly made. Every
little papist boy or girl can assure the doctor, that they have been
always taught to give divine honour and worship to God alone: they
will recite to him the words of their catechism, that they pray
indeed before images, to put them in mind of things thereby
represented, but they do not pray to them, because they know they
can neither see, nor hear, nor help them: they will tell him
that the Angels and saints, even the blessed Virgin Mother of
Christ, and the true mother of God made man, is no more than a
creature below God, at an infinite distance; and so that the
inferior honour that we pay to them, is nothing like to that supreme
and divine honour, which we pay to God alone. In a word we know,
and have always professed that images, Angels, and saints are but
creatures; and as we are not such fools as to think them Gods, so
neither are we so senseless as to pay them divine honour.
====================
|
