372 The mystic Babylon, Rome; [LECT. designs of pride and tyranny. And in like manner here again we have the description of the wild beast with ten horns; but it is ruled and controuled by another power, the woman who is its rider, connected thus, as it would seem, with the little horn in Daniel's vision, and with the second wild beast out of the land in the vision of the thirteenth chapter; in both of which visions we have already seen reason to think we may trace, under the symbolic imagery, the spiritual power of the Papal see, co-operating with, and wielding to its own purposes, the powers of secular dominion. But the identity between the woman described in the vision before us, and the capital of the ancient Roman empire, revived again to become once more the dominant city and mistress-(for so she would fain be accounted)-of the Christian world, is yet more distinctly marked in the next particular in the angel's interpretation of the vision. And more than ordinary attention, be it observed, is called by the voice of Inspiration to this particular. It is said emphatically, "Here is the mind that hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth 5." This description, taken in connexion with the words which expressly declare concerning her, that she is "that great city which reigneth,"-that is evidently the city which, at the time when the vision was revealed, was reigning,-holding royal dominion" over the kings of the earth," seems to determine the application of the vision beyond the reach of dispute. "There is no possibility," says Bp. Hurd, in his Lectures preached on this foundation, "of evading the force of these terms. It hath 5 Ver. 9. 6 * ἡ ἔχουσα βασιλείαν. XII.] the City on seven Hills. 373 been said," he observes, "that Constantinople too was situated on seven hills." "But Constantinople did not, in the time of this vision, 'reign over the kings of the earth.' Besides, if its dominion had not been mentioned, 'the city on seven hills,"" he continues, "is so characteristic of Rome, that the name itself could not have pointed it out more plainly." He refers, in proof of this, to the "septem domini montes" of one Roman poet', and the "still more famous line, in another "," in which is described the "Septem urbs alta jugis, toto quæ præsidet orbi ;" a description "to which," as the Bishop observes, "St. John's image of a 'woman seated on seven hills, and reigning over the kings of the earth,' so exactly corresponds, that one sees no difference between the poet and the prophet; except that the latter personifies his idea, as the genius of the prophetic style required." And in another well-known passage of the prince of Latin poets, we may trace, with Bp. Hurd, how "to an ancient Roman, the circumstance of its situation,"-its enclosing within its walls seven fortresses of its strength,-" was, of all others, the most august and characteristic" in the description of the imperial city, so that "Rome itself was not Rome, till it was contemplated under 8 ' Martial, l. iv. ep. 64. Propert. l. iii. ix. 57. Compare Wordsworth, p. 337. "There is scarcely a Latin Poet of any note who has not spoken of Rome as the city seated on Seven Mountains. Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid, Silius Italicus, Statius, Martial, Claudian, Pru dentius—in short, the unanimous Voice of Roman Poetry during more than five hundred years, beginning with the age of St. John, proclaimed Rome as 'the Seven-Hilled City.'" He refers, for the original passages, to his Sequel to Letters on the Church of Rome, Let ter XI. 374 this idea. The seven Mountains. [LECT. "There was ground enough, then," says Bp. Hurd, " for saying that the name of Rome could not have pointed out the city more plainly. But," he continues, "I go further, and take upon me to assert, that the periphrasis is even more precise, and less equivocal, than the proper name would have been, if inserted in the prophecy. For Rome, so called, might have stood, like Sodom, or Babylon, simply for an idolatrous city. But the city 'seated on seven hills,' and 'reigning over the earth,' is the city of Rome itself, and excludes, by the peculiarity of these attributes, any other application 1." Nor can this part of the description,-the sitting upon seven hills,-be interpreted otherwise than literally it cannot be paralleled with what is said, in the first verse, of the harlot's sitting "upon many waters." For these, we are expressly told by the angel, are not literal but figurative, denoting "peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues 2;" whereas in regard to the seven mountains, not only is no such interpretation given, but the sitting on seven mountains is itself the interpretation of the symbolic imagery in the vision, the seven heads of the wild beast. "The seven heads," saith the angel, explaining their import, "are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth "." But the seven heads have a further meaning. The angel proceeds-" And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not 9 "Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma, 1 Hurd's Introd. to the Pro phecies, Sermon xi. 2 Ver. 15. 3 Ver. 9. XII.] The seven Kings. 375 yet come;" or more literally still, to give the force of the definite article-" the five are fallen, and the one is, the other is not yet come; and when he is come, he must continue a short space. And the wild beast that was and is not, even he is an eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth unto perdition 5." This part of the description has given rise to much discussion among interpreters. The generality, however, of Protestant expositors, since the time of Mede, have understood it as representing, by the five fallen, the successive forms of government under which Rome had existed, as enumerated by her two principal historians, viz. kings, consuls, dictators, decemvirs, and military tribunes; these five having already passed away when the vision was seen by St. John; the empire of the Cæsars being the sixth, which was then in possession; while that other which was to follow, and to last but a short time, has been variously interpreted of the government of Rome under the Eastern or the Western Emperor, or the Christian empire generally, prior to the establishment of the papal sovereignty. On comparing, however, the vision before us with that of the twelfth and thirteenth chapters, there will appear, I think, some reason for doubt whether we must not adopt a somewhat wider and more comprehensive interpretation, especially in regard to the five heads which are described as fallen. The seven heads of the dragon, and of the wild beast from the sea, must be taken, as we there saw, to represent collectively the various forms of earthly dominion 7; and the wild beast having the seven heads in the 4 οἱ πέντε ἔπεσαν, καὶ ὁ εἷς ἐστιν. 5 Vv. 10, 11. 6 Liv. Hist. lib. vi. cap. 1. Taciti Ann. lib. i. cap. i. 7 Vid. sup. pp. 328. 344. 376 The seven Heads [LECT. vision of the thirteenth chapter, bore upon it the characteristic marks of all the four beasts in Daniel's vision, the Babylonian, the Persian, and the Macedonian, as well as the Roman. And if to these we add those two yet more ancient monarchies which held the chief place, in the earliest times of the world's history, and which were represented, (if we interpreted the symbols rightly,) by the first two of the four "living creatures"," we shall have five "kings," or kingdoms, which had already fallen when imperial Rome was in the zenith of her power -Assyria and Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and Macedon. And the heads of the wild beast on which the woman was seated, representing primarily, as we have seen, the seven mountains of the great city, would with more evident fitness correspond with the several kingdoms which were swallowed up in the universal empire of Rome, than with the successive forms which her government assumed, even were those several forms of government better entitled than they seem to be, to be counted as so many distinct "kings," or kingdoms'. For as, in the interpretation of the ten horns, we find ten distinct kingdoms which arose out of the ruins of the Roman Empire, so by the seven kings, answering to the seven heads, we should naturally suppose to be symbolized, and that on a larger and wider scale than in the case of the ten horns on the one head, seven distinct kingdoms. And the imagery would have in it a peculiar propriety, if these were kingdoms embracing within their collective limits the whole earth, and swallowed up successively by Rome, continually extend 8 Cf. sup. pp. 212-215. Vid. Note, Appendix. 'See Dr. Maitland's Second Enquiry, pp. 153-171. |