tain considerations of the age of the world, as if not far from 6000 years, began now to enter into their reasonings, and confirmed them in the idea that the end was near.

Thus did the voice of divine prophecy, as their

tionum pondus incumbit, et in fine atque in consummatione mundi Antichristi tempus infestum appropinquare jam cœpit." Again Ep. 59; "Antichristi propinquantis; Ep. 61, Imminente Antichristo; Ep. 67, "Deficiente jam mundo, atque appropinquante Antichristo;" Ep. 58, "Scire debetis, et pro certo tenere, occasum seculi, atque Antichristi tempus, appropinquare:" De Unit. Eccl. i," Appropinquante jam fine seculi." Yet again, De Mortal. i. 157, "Regnum Dei cæpit esse in proximo;" and once more, Ep. 58; "Venit Antichristus, sed et supervenit Christus: grassatur et sævit immicus, sed statim sequitur Dominus, passiones nostras et vulnera vindicaturus."-The end of the last citation, has been already quoted, p. 196, as illustrative of the voice that seemed to issue from the souls of the martyrs in the Apocalyptic vision.

Besides the above more eminent Fathers, I must observe that Judas Syrus, a cotemporary of Tertullian's, spake also of Antichrist's manifestation as near; (so Euseb. H. E. vi. 7, and Jerom. V. I. 52 :)-moreover that the Christian pseudo-Sybil, at a time yet earlier, predicted (B. viii.) that the third Emperor after Adrian would be the last Roman Emperor, and the 948th year of Rome, or A.D. 196, be the fated year of Rome's destruction, and the consummation. Τον μετα τρεις αρξουσι, πανύστατον ἡμαρ εχοντες. Τρις δε τριακοσίους και τεσσαρακοντα και οκτώ Πληρώσεις λυκαβαντας, όταν σοι δυσμορος ήξῃ Μοιρα βιαζόμενη τεον ούνομα πληρώσασα.

1.

2.

1 Hippolytus is said by Photius to have thus reasoned, and so to have fixed Antichrist's coming and the world's end at about the year A.D. 500. (See Lardner ii. 425.) But some doubt has been thrown on this fact by more modern critics. See the Preface to Hippolytus' Treatise on the Bibl. Patr. Max.

In the Preface to his De Exhort. Mart. Cyprian also thus writes, "Jam sex millia annorum pæne complentur." But this notice of the 6000 years is in reference to Satan's long experience as man's tempter.

In the curious Tract however De Pascha Computus, attributed to Cyprian, and appended to the Oxford Edition of his Works (1682),—a Tract which, whether his or not, is fixed by the notice of Arrian and Papus as Consuls at the time at which his computation ends, and other evidence, to about A.D. 243,—an expectation is expressed of the consummation, and its judgments on the wicked, occurring at the end of the 6000 years then, according to Cyprian, near expiring. "Ecce, Dei gratiâ, quàm præclara et admirabilia nobis ostensa sunt per annos xlviiii. Qui anni à contraria infidelibus, et persecutionem servis Dei facientibus, magnam demonstrant superventuram calamitatem. Quâ autem ratione videamus. Hic enim mundus, in quo justi et injusti ab initio seculi conversantur, sex diebus est consummatus; quibus suppletis benedictus est dies septimus; ille scilicet superventurus sabbati æterni. In his itaque diebus ab initio non tantùm Diabolo et angelis ejus, sed et omnibus peccatoribus à Deo ignis est præparatus." The 49 years mentioned refer to some supposed mystical intimation in the seven Hebdomads of Daniel.

These are the earliest applications, I believe of the world's supposed nearness to its seventh millennary, in proof of the nearness of the consummation: an argument which, in the course of our Apocalyptic exposition, we shall more than once have again to recur to.-They were all based on the Septuagint's mundane chronology. Of which however there were different versions; Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. i. 21) making Christ's birth A.M. 5626, others earlier; and the expectation prevailing (so the Computus) that God would shorten the days.

Lactantius, who belonged as much to the time of the sixth Seal, as to that of the fifth, or more, will be quoted p. 209 Note1 infra.

minds apprehended it in those times of fiery trial, correspond most exactly with the voice which fell on St. John's ears in the fifth Seal's vision, as if addressed to the martyred souls under the altar. "It was said to them that they should rest (waiting their avenging and reward) yet for a little season, until their brethren, which should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled." Indeed this very passage of the Apocalypse was cited and commented on by them; as in part, and conjunctively with the other prophecies, an authority for this their expectation and hope.2

It of course needs not to say that in regard to this last point, I mean the time to which they looked for their final avenging and reward, History, the great interpreter, has proved them wrong. In fact the phrase "yet a little season," just like the word "quickly" elsewhere used by our Lord respecting the time of his coming,3 was one of larger or less duration according to the standard by which it might be measured. And I And I may remark here, what I shall have occasion to remark perhaps more than once again, that the phrases used in prophetic scripture respecting the time of the consummation, were purposely so framed as to allow of a duration shorter or longer being attached to them, and so of the Church in each age looking for its Lord's advent as not far distant. Admitting (what was generally under

1 So Cyprian, De Lapsis p. 129, explains the phrase; saying that the souls under the altar are bade in it "requiescere ac patientiam tenere.”—Compare Daniel xii. 13, "Thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days."

2 So Tertullian, De Res. Carn. ch. 25: "Etiam in Apocalypsi Johannis ordo temporum sternitur, quem martyrum quoque animæ sub altari, ultionem et judicium flagitantes, sustinere didicerunt: ut priùs et orbis de pateris angelorum plagas suas ebibat, et prostituta illa civitas à decem regibus dignos exitus referat, et bestia Antichristus, cùm suo pseudo-prophetâ, certamen ecclesiæ Dei inferat, atque ita, Diabolo in abyssum interim relegato, primæ resurrectionis prærogativa de soliis ordinetur dehinc, et igni dato universalis resurrectionis censura de libris judicetur."

And again, in his Scorp. adv. Gnostic. ch. 12: "Quinam isti tam beati victores, Apoc. ii. 7,) nisi propriè martyres? Illorum etenim victoriæ quorum et pugnæ; eorum vero pugnæ quorum et sanguis. Sed et interim sub altari martyrum animæ placidè quiescunt, et fiduciâ ultionis candidam claritatis usurpant, donec et alii consortium illarum gloriæ impleant. Nam et rursus innumera multitudo, albati, et palmis victoriæ insignes, revelantur, (Apoc. vii. 9, &c.) scilicet de Antichristo triumphales." 3 Apoc. xxii. 12, &c.

stood to be the fact) that the great destroying vengeance on persecuting Rome was not to take place at the breaking up of its empire into ten kingdoms, but after their rise and Antichrist's cotemporary rise and reign over them, there was needed, in order to decide the length of the time still to intervene before that catastrophe, (so as indeed I have already hinted,)' the decision of the two preliminary points following; 1st, what the interval before the empire's breaking up into its last decemregal form, and Antichrist's cotemporary or immediately subsequent manifestation; 2ndly, what the length of the three and a half predicted years of his persecuting reign, and whether to be understood literally, or of a much longer period. But on these questions it is not my present business to enter. Suffice it to have shown that the Christian Church and Fathers passed through and out of the period of the fifth Seal, and of the persecutions referred to in it, with the distinct conviction impressed on their minds, even as by a voice from heaven, that there only needed to be completed another and different series of martyrs, viz. those to be slain under Antichrist; and that then, without further delay, their Redeemer would surely manifest himself, and execute final vengeance on their enemies.

5. In the meanwhile there was to be fulfilled, in regard to the souls of martyrs already under the altar, the fact symbolized by their investiture with white robes, just when the voice under this Seal ended speaking. A symbol certainly very remarkable! Explained forensically, or with reference to persons condemned or arraigned as criminals, it signified their justification. So elsewhere, "The white robes are the justification of the saints."2 In case of this investiture occurring in the inner sanctuary, or before God, so as in the passage just cited, or again in the case of the High Priest Joshua described in Zechariah,3 it would imply justification in

1

p. 70 suprà.

2 δικαιώματα, Apoc. xix. 8.

3 Zech. iii. 4, 5.

the sight of God. But where the scene was the open altar-court, just as their dejection there under the altar indicated the condemnation and execution of the Christian saints as criminals before the world,-so their investiture with white on the same public scene must be construed to imply their as public justification before the world, and in the view of their fellow-men.-But how so? How could there be a public recognition of these martyrs' righteousness, begun even before the opening of the sixth Seal, and that great revolution which it was to signify?-Yet the fact was even so. Before Lactantius had yet finished that famous treatise De Div. Inst. wherein he repeated, as its latest echo by the Church under Rome Pagan, that same prophetic voice that we have noted in the writings of the Fathers of the third century that preceded him,' an edict of the persecutor Galerius was issued, (an edict agreed to by two of the other Emperors,) confessing, by implication at least, to the wrong he had done the Christians, putting an end to the persecution, and entreating the Christians to pray for him. It was surely very remarkable as an exact

Lardner shows satisfactorily that the publication of Lactantius' Institutes must have been between A.D. 306 and 311; probably about the latter epoch. In his Book vii. ch. 16, he speaks of the predicted destruction of Rome as near: "Romanum nomen quo nunc regitur orbis (horret animus dicere, sed dicam quia futurum est) tolletur de terrâ; et id futurum brevi conciones prophetarum denunciant." And so again in the same Book: "The thing itself declares the fall and ruin of the world to be at hand: except that while the city of Rome is in safety, nothing of the kind need be feared... For it is that state which as yet upholds all things. We should beseech the God of heaven if at least his decrees may be delayed; lest more speedily than we suppose that hateful tyrant come: (sc. Antichrist.)

Afterwards, and as I think, after the victory of Constantine, to whom he dedicates his Book, and the establishment of Christianity, he suggested that the interval of 200 years might still intervene between the consummation; the 6000 years of the world (of which I have spoken as noticed by Hippolytus and Cyprian) having then, according to the Septuagint chronology, their termination. But on this I must not now dwell: as it rather belongs to the æra of a later Seal.

2 Galerius' celebrated Edict of Toleration was issued by him in his last illness, A.D. 311. It is given in full by Gibbon, ii. 485, and will be noticed by me in my next Chapter. "In consequence of it," says Gibbon, "great numbers of the Christians were released from prison, or delivered from the mines. The confessors, singing hymns of triumph, returned to their own countries."

The subject of the justification of the martyred Christians, symbolized by the white robes given them on the apocalyptic scene, may be illustrated by a somewhat parallel case in an earlier æra of the Imperial history, that of Pertinax's accession. It is thus related by Gibbon, i. 162. "The unburied bodies of mur

fulfilment of this clause of the Apocalyptic vision.Nor was it less notable at the period itself as a sign of the times. For it was a confession of the moral triumph of Christianity over Paganism, while the latter was in all its imperial power and supremacy; and thus might almost seem to portend, sooner or later, even a political triumph following. And hence indeed it appeared, with regard to the slaughter of Christian saints by the Roman Pagan emperors, that whereas the varied calamities depicted under the three preceding Seals, were causes and symptoms of the decline of their empire, this too, which was prefigured under the fifth Seal,-although altogether overlooked in that character by the infidel historian, -was, in perfect consistency with the dramatic unity of the Seals, another cause and symptom of it, even yet more remarkable and influential than the others; -indeed that it was the immediate cause, as well as precursor of its fall.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SIXTH SEAL.

"AND I beheld when he had opened the sixth Seal, and lo! there was a great earthquake. And the sun became black as sackcloth of hair; and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth forth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said

dered senators (for the cruelty of Commodus endeavoured to extend itself beyond death) were deposited in the sepulchres of their ancestors: their memory was justified; and every consolation bestowed on their ruined and afflicted families."