Horae Apocalypticae, Vol. 3 (Third Edition) (1847)
Download: PDF — Horae Apocalypticae, Vol. 3 (Third Edition) (1847)
/cover.jpg)
This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world's books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:
Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes.
Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe.
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at http://books.google.com/ Dubbed by Google
THIS BOOK BELONGED TO
BOB DELAISSÉ
AND WAS GIVEN TO THE LIBRARY
BY HIS FAMILY
Digitized by Google
DEPARTMENT OF
THE HISTORY OF ART
OXFORD
THIS BOOK BELONGED TO
BOB DELAISSÉ
AND WAS GIVEN TO THE LIBRARY
BY HIS FAMILY
V. A.
HORAE APOCALYPTICAE;
OR,
A COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE,
CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL;
INCLUDING ALSO AN EXAMINATION OF THE CHIEF PROPHECIES OF DANIEL.
ILLUSTRATED BY AN APOCALYPTIC CHART, AND ENGRAVINGS FROM MEDALS AND OTHER EXTANT MONUMENTS OF ANTIQUITY.
BY THE REV. E. B. ELLIOTT, A. M. LATE VICAR OF TUXFORD, AND FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
THIRD EDITION, REVISED, CORRECTED, AND IMPROVED;
WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING, BESIDES OTHER MATTER, A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF APOCALYPTIC INTERPRETATION AND INDICER.
VOL. III.
SEELEY, BURNSIDE, AND SEELEY; FLEET STREET, LONDON. MDCCCXLVII.
"Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things that are written therein : for the time is at hand." Apoc. i. 3.
"The word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn." 2 Peter i. 19.
Leonard Seeley, Thames Ditton, Surrey.
TABLE OF CONTENTS TO VOL. III.
PART IV.
INTRODUCTION.
CHAP.
RETROGRESSION OF THE VISIONS . . . . .
PART V.
INTRODUCTION: ON THE SYNCHRONISMS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SEVENTH TRUMPET . 277
I. GENERAL VIEW OF THE SEVENTH TRUMPET . 283
II. EPOCH OF THE SEVENTH TRUMPET’S SOUNDING, OR OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 291
III. THE FIRST VIAL . 301
IV. THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH VIALS . 327
V. THE FIFTH VIAL . 347
VI. VIALS INEFFECTIVE TO PRODUCE REPENTANCE 361
VII. § 1. PREDICTED TIME OF THE SIXTH VIAL . 373
§ 2. OUTPOURING OF THE SIXTH VIAL. 396
VIII. § 1. THE TRIPLE PREFIGURATIONS RESPECTING CHRIST’S TRUE CHURCH DURING THE VIALS . 410
§ 2. EVANGELICAL PROTESTANT MISSIONS, AS PREFIGURED UNDER THE SEVENTH TRUMPET. 427
APPENDIX.
ON THE EPOCH OF THE FIRST ASSUMPTION OF THE DIADEM BY THE ROMAN EMPERORS . 443
PLATES TO VOL. III.
PLATE PAGE
XVIII. ROMAN ENSIGN OF THE DRAGON 14
XIX. COIN OF THEODOSIUS 44
XX. PAPAL INDULGENCE OF THE XVIITH CENTURY 151
XXI. PAPAL MEDAL ON THE ST. BARTHOLOMEW MASSACRE 159
XXII. THE PERSIAN RAM, AND MACEDONIAN GOAT 376 PART IV.
APOC. XII, XIII, XIV.
SUPPLEMENTAL AND EXPLANATORY HISTORY OF THE RISE, CHARACTER, AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BEAST FROM THE ABYSS,
OR
POPEDOM;
WITH ITS ADJUNCTS,
AND THE CONTRASTED IMPERSONATION OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST.
INTRODUCTION.
RETROGRESSION OF THE VISIONS.
" AND there appeared a great sign in heaven ;—a woman clothed with the sun," &c.—Apoc. xii. 1.
So we enter on the Fourth and Supplemental Part of the Revelation to St. John: a Part, the peculiar characteristic of which was the exhibition of certain individual figurative impersonations on the scene, especially of the Beast from the abyss: whereby not only was an omission in the former Apocalyptic series of visions supplied; but a connecting link also established between them and Daniel's celebrated vision of the fourth Beast, an impersonation similar or identical with the Apocalyptic.
Before proceeding however to consider the vision here beginning, it will be necessary to call the Reader's atten- VOL. III. B
tion to the evidence of a retrogressive character in both it, and the two subsequent and intimately connected visions, of the Wild Beast from the Sea, and the Lamb with his 144,000 followers on Mount Zion;—evidence just hinted at, at the close of my last chapter.
Hitherto the series of Apocalyptic visions had been, in respect of their development of things future, uninterruptedly continuous and progressive:—the retrospective history of Christ's two Witnesses not forming an exception, because that is given in conversational explanatory narrative by the Angelic interlocutor. But there now appear in the new vision marks, not to be mistaken, of an interruption and breaking off from the subject next preceding. For the temple, with its ark of the Covenant, just said to have been opened in heaven, and the thunderings, lightnings, and voices, that followed thereon, are abruptly left in the sacred description, although evidently indicative of events that were to follow consecutively afterwards; and a vision begins,—the first of a new and continuous series of visions,—apparently quite unconnected and detached. Further, that this series of visions is supplemental, and explanatory of what has gone before, appears from the two following characteristic and decisive marks: first, that their grand subject is the development of the rise, establishment, and reign of that Wild Beast from the abyss, or sea, which was before spoken of as existing in the time of Christ's two Witnesses, and making war upon, and killing them:—secondly, that the same remarkable period of 42 months, or 1260 days, which was noted in the Witnesses' history as that of Paganized Christians treading down the Holy City and of the Witnesses prophesying in sackcloth, is here spoken of as inluded in the visions now commencing also; it being that of the Wild Beast from the abyss, or sea, holding investment of the seven-headed Dragon's delegated authority, and of the sun-clothed Woman's remaining a
refugee in the wilderness.1 It is surely scarce presumable, even a priori, that there should have been intended in the divine prophetic calendar two different successive periods of 42 months; during the first of which Paganized Christians should lord it, with the Beast from the abyss among them, during the second the Pagan Wild Beast from the sea: two different and successive periods of 1260 days; during the first of which the witnesses of Christ should prophesy in sackcloth, during the next the Church of Christ disappear and take refuge in the wilderness.
Moreover Daniel's mention of but one such period, ere the Saints' assumption of the kingdom,2 puts the supposition out of the question.—Hence the periods must be considered coincident: the vision of the Wild Beast from the sea, described in Apoc. xiii, running on in chronological parallel with that of the Witnesses' sackcloth-prophesying, and those of the cotemporary external judgments of the Saracens and the Turks; that of the Woman and seven-headed Dragon, the subject of the preceding or xiith Apocalyptic Chapter, in parallel with visions yet earlier.
A reason quite sufficient for the retrogression at once suggests itself, in the necessity of further information respecting the persecuting Wild Beast, just referred to as the slayer of the witnesses, in order to its clear elucidation. For (as I intimated at the close of the last chapter) must not St. John, on hearing of their being slain by the Beast from the abyss, have necessarily felt the questions rising in his mind, Who? How? Whence?—Retrogression for explanations like this is a method practised by the best writers, (I might instance Gibbon or Hallam,) on modern European history. Having in the first instance described the events of some long period of time with reference chiefly to secular matters, or foreign politics, they return on their steps, in a new chapter or section of their book, to trace the ecclesiastical history through the same interval, and bring it up to the same point of time as the secular.—And let me add that the opisthographism, or writing without, as well as within,1 of that seven-sealed scroll in the Lamb's hand, which contained, as we may presume, all the Apocalyptic prophecy, furnished peculiar facility for the exhibition of these retrogressive visions in their chronological parallelism with the visions preceding.
On the full, or nearly full unrolling of the scroll, after the seventh trumpet's sounding, the length without might be exhibited to the Evangelist's sight similarly divided as the length within; and with many marks of parallelism and running correspondence connecting the one and the other. I say many, because in effect between the new visions and the old, there are traceable many and striking correspondences; more, if I mistake not, than have hitherto been thought of: and all in continuous succession; just like the taches and loops, to borrow an old comparison, of the hangings of the Jewish Tabernacle.2 Now supposing the one series to have been written without, as the other within, and the parallelism marked by corresponding lines in the Apocalyptic scroll, an evident fitness will appear in the opisthographic form of the scroll: a fitness worthy, as it seems to me, of its divine authorship, and such as no other explanation of it can suggest.3
Of course no such reason could exist for the opisthographism of an inspired Book. And though in Ezekiel's prophetic scroll, which was a collection of unconnected prophecies, it might simply indicate fulness, and in the Flying Roll of Zech. v. 1-3 simply a twofold division of subject,* yet something of more exact paralTo trace these marks of parallelism, as they occur, will be an object with me in what follows: the correspondences, I mean, between the prophecies of chapters vi, vii, viii, ix, x, xi, on the one hand, and those of chapters xii, xiii, xiv, on the other.
So far as they have been fulfilled,—in other words up to the times now present,—to trace them will not be difficult: the subject-matter of the one series being chiefly but not wholly secular, of the other chiefly but not wholly ecclesiastical; and the intermingling of subject in either case just sufficient to mark the parallelism and correspondecy.—But of this enough. A sketch of the Scroll itself, thus divided, given near the beginning of my first Volume, best exhibits the whole to the reader's eye. It is time to proceed onward to the first vision of the new series itself.—Let me only, ere doing so, premise one observation. It is probable that the subject may prove one not admitting of so much dramatic interest in the development, as much of what has gone before: the chronological ground having been already once gone over, and the work now required that chiefly of decyphering the particulars of certain complicated hieroglyphics or enigmas. But, even admitting this, I pray the reader to believe that its importance is second to none, in the whole compass of the Apocalyptic prophecy. Especially at the present time there can be no over-estimating of it. Herein will be found wisdom, to understand the Beast's mystery. Blessed is he that readeth, and he that both with mind and heart comprehendeth, this part of the prophecy.
CHAPTER I.
THE SUN-CLOTHED WOMAN TRAVAILING, AND SEVENHEADED DRAGON CAST DOWN.
"And there appeared a great sign in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And she, being with child, cried travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.—And there appeared another sign in heaven: and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns; and on his heads seven diadems. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the ground. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.—And she brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all the nations (εθνη, gentiles or pagans,) with a rod of iron. And the child was caught up to God, and to his throne. (And the woman fled towards the wilderness; where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.)—And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels; and prevailed not, neither was their place any more found in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out; that old serpent called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast down upon the ground, and his angels were cast out with him.
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven; 'Now hath come the salvation, and strength, and kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them! " Apoc. xii. 1-12.
Thus, as the best and necessary introduction to the history of the WILD BEAST FROM THE ABYSS, the Witnesses' persecutor and murderer, there was first sketched to St. John in vision something of that of an earlier and cognate enemy of the Church, the SEVEN- HEADED DRAGON.
In order to the decyphering of the whole hieroglyphic, we have to consider in the above, 1. the persons and state of things indicated by the two associated symbols of the woman travailing, and the seven-headed dragon watching to devour her child at birth; 2. the historical solution both of the crisis itself, and of what is said of the result of.the crisis, in the woman's parturition and the dragon's dejection from heaven; 3. the song of triumph celebrating it.
I. THE PERSONS, AND COTEMPORARY STATE OF THINGS, INDICATED BY THE TWO ASSOCIATED SYMBOLS OF THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON.
The meaning of the travailing woman, first exhibited in vision, can scarce be mistaken. She is spoken of in the last verse of this chapter as the mother of " those that keep the commandments of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ." 1 She was evidently therefore Christ's true Church on earth: the Church of the 144,000, or first born, whose names were written in heaven: one ever faithful in heart and all essential doctrine; though not without the tarnish, more or less, of some earthly admixture.
In respect of profest faith and worship, the temple and its inner court had been before used to represent it; in respect of polity, the figure of the Holy City. But there was yet another character in which the Lord would exhibit its relation to Him; a relation the closest and most endeared, and which was mysteriously shadowed forth in the marriage-union, instituted for the children of men in Paradise;—I mean that of the Bride, the Lamb's wife. The investiture of the woman with the sun as her robe of light, the moon (the crescent-moon, I conceive) as the sandal to her feet, and the twelve stars as her coronal or diadem, must needs have appeared on the scene of vision very beautiful: and it might perhaps recal to St. John that description of the Church in the Song of Songs; "Fair as the moon, bright as the sun, and terrible as an host (the starry host, surely) with its banners." But what the things prefigured hereby?
This is the question. And first there can scarce be meant by the solar emblem, I think, what so many commentators have suggested in explanation,1—the church's investiture with Christ as the sun of righteousness. The sun is no where in the Apocalyptic imagery made the representative of Christ. His countenance with its own intrinsic light is described as like the sun,2 not as borrowing the sun to enlighten it: and, when fully revealed in the heavenly City, as altogether superseding it to the favoured inhabitants.3 Nor, again, by her having the moon subjacent can there be meant a trampling on things sublunary. Can the moon signify things under the moon?4 Consistency requires that we explain these greater luminaries to signify the chief rulers of the state, according to the general prophetic use of the symbols;5 and in the same way the stars noted to signify lesser rulers in it. As to the precisely defined number of twelve stars,—considering that the professing Church on the Apocalyptic scene, including the true, was in an earlier vision numerically symbolized as the twelve tribes of Israel, we cannot well err, I think, in explaining them to signify the heads, or ecclesiastical rulers, of those twelve tribes. Especially since this interpretation agrees with that which is given by inspiration itself of almost precisely the same symbol, in the earliest of all emblematic visions, the dream of the Patriarch Joseph ; 1 and indeed with that explanatory note given at the very commencement of the Apocalyptic visions by the revealing Angel himself; "The stars are the angels, (or chief and presiding ministers,) of the churches."
And thus we are led to see that the representation here given of Christ's Church was not one universally or generally true; but designative of it at some remarkable and particular time and conjuncture: viz. when the ruling powers in the Apocalyptic world would be associated with it as its decoration and support; and its ecclesiastical rulers, or bishops, would be recognized as dignified authorities before the world.—And indeed much the same thing is indicated by the very representation of the woman as in heaven. For the heaven meant is evidently that of political elevation; just as in the vision, a little while since discussed by us, of the ascent of the Witnesses: it being one in which the dragon might occupy a place, as well as the woman: and one, the position in which is contrasted with dejection to the earth, as of a change from political power to political degradation.3 As to the description of her travailing, like a woman at her full time, to bring forth a male child, the meaning of this will best appear from the very similar prophetic imagery in a vision descriptive of the yet future restoration of the Jews. For, after the words, "Before she travailed she brought forth, before her pain came she was delivered of a man-child," the explanation is thus given by himself the inspired Prophet: "Shall the land be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion travailed she brought forth children."4 Thus the male child of which the literal Zion is to be delivered, is declared to mean her children united and multiplied into a nation or dominant body politic; with triumph, glory, and general blessedness accompanying.
In like manner we may interpret the man-child of whom the spiritual Zion, or Church of Christ, appeared travailing to be delivered,—not as the child Jesus, born at Bethlehem, an explanation on no account admissible,1—but as its children united into a body politic, and raised to dominant power; with the accompaniments of deliverance, triumph, and glory attending their nationalization and elevation.2—The question remains, however, whether by the woman's bringing forth this man-child, and his being caught up (as afterwards mentioned) to God's throne, there was intended that ultimate, perfect, and most glorious nationalization of the children of God, and assumption to a seat on Christ's throne, which is to take place at the Lord's second coming;—the same that St. Paul writes of in such glowing language, "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together, waiting for the adoption," or, as in a former verse, "manifestation of the sons of God."3—whether, I say, this ultimate, perfect, and most glorious nationalization and elevation of her children, was the consummation for which the Church was in the vision before us represented as travailing; or rather one imperfect, and to be fulfilled in a subordinate and earthly triumph; the latter however and lesser typical of the greater. What is said of the man-child after birth being "caught up to God and to his throne," and again of his lot being "to rule the Gentiles with a rod of iron,"—phrases the same very nearly that are applied by Christ, in the way of promise, to all the perseveringly faithful of the servants of God, 1 —these coincidences might perhaps at first incline us to attach the more glorious meaning to the symbols of the vision.
But the next figuration of the fortunes of the woman, or church, shewing that she was immediately afterwards to be persecuted by the Dragon, and then to spend 1260 days, or years, in the wilderness, decisively negatives the supposition. It seems clear, that whatever the woman's hope in her travail,2 the lesser consummation was the one figured in the man-child's birth and assumption; viz. the elevation of the christians first to recognition as a body politic, then very quickly to the supremacy of the throne in the Apocalyptic world, i.e. the Roman Empire:—a throne which, as thenceforth Christian, might consequently thenceforth, just like Solomon's,3 be designated as the throne of God. Seated on this, it appeared, the christian body would, after a little while, coerce the heathens of the empire; and rule them even as with a rod of iron.
The meaning of the other sign or symbol in the vision, I mean the great red dragon, seems also clear. In itself, and without the adjunct of some further and distinctive peculiarities, a dragon might be considered as the fit representative of any heathen persecutor: a persecutor in character resembling Pharaoh and Egypt; 4 and animated by Him who is here set forth as the actor and ruler in all the great heathen powers of this world,—the malignant Spirit that first tempted Eve in Paradise, the old Serpent, the Devil.1 But what is added of the dragon now seen by St. John having seven heads and ten horns, marked it (though bearing indeed in the diadem the strange badge of Asiatic royalty) as distinctively the persecuting power of Pagan Rome.
For these heads could scarce be different from the first seven of the Beast, the Dragon's successor. And the latter were elsewhere thus primarily explained by an Angel interpreter; "The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman (i.e. Rome) sitteth:"2—a secondary and figurative meaning being also assigned to them; of which (as well as of the ten horns, here budding, I conceive, from the root of the dragon's seventh head, and as yet undiademed) I shall speak with more advantage in a subsequent chapter; only now observing that it too was characteristic of the Roman empire.—The suitableness of this symbol to designate the Roman Emperors and Empire as a persecuting antichristian power,3 bent as it was, like Pharaoh, on destroying the Christian Israel just on the eve of its political establishment, is evident.4—Besides which its national appropriateness has been noted by commentators; inasmuch as the dragon was one of the military ensigns of imperial Rome. In fact, in respect of both colour and attitude, the dragon of the Roman ensign did not inaptly resemble that of the vision before us.5
But now let us look to the chronological indications in the imagery of this part of the vision.—And first there seems to me to have been to a certain extent a chronological indication in the very use of the symbol of a dragon.
For the Apocalypse, I think, makes use of no self-adopted symbols of a country, in reference to times earlier than their actual adoption in that country. And since it was not till near the close of the 2nd century that the dragon was first used as a Roman ensign, nor
till the 3rd that its use had become common, 2 we might thence probably infer that the time represented in the vision was scarce earlier, if so early as the third century. A chronological indication of the same kind, but yet more restrictive, appears in the use of diadems, not crowns, on the heads of the dragon, in signification of royal or ruling power. For, as observed in an early chapter of this Commentary, it was not till about the time of Diocletian, towards the close of the third century, that the diadem was adopted as one of the imperial insignia : 3 an innovation accompanied with others so important as to constitute, we shall hereafter see, 4 an epoch in the Roman imperial history. Yet again, it is to be observed, as in-
dicative of the precise time referred to, that though the dragon, or Pagan power of Rome, was still in the political heaven, yet it was only as drawing with his tail one third part of the stars of heaven. So that the intended period would seem to have been some little before the total dejection of Paganism from its supremacy in the Roman empire, at the commencement of the fourth cencious stones. It opened its wide throat, and the wind blew through it : and it hissed, as if in a rage, with its tail floating in several folds through the air." He elsewhere often gives it the epithet of purpureus, purple-red : "purpureum signum draconis," &c.—With which Claudian's description well agrees :
Hi volucres tollunt aquilas; hi picta draconum
Colla levant : multumque tumet per nubila serpens,
Iratus stimulante noto, vivitque receptis
Flatibus, et vario mentitur sibila flatu.
1 So in regard of the horse, the crown, the sword, and the balance in the three
first Seals; also of the diadem, as here used, and in ch. xiii. 1.—Compare too Part ii. ch. iv. § 1, in my lst Volume.
2 In Trajan's time it was a Dacian ensign, not a Roman; as appears from the bas-reliefs on Trajan's arch. Arrian, who wrote under the Antonines, is, I believe the first Author who assigns it to Roman armies. After which it was as a Roman ensign sculptured on Severus' Arch of triumph.—Later in the third century it had become almost as notorious among Roman ensigns as the eagle itself: and is in the fourth century noted by Prudentius, Vegetius, Chrysostom, Ammianus, &c; in the fifth by Claudian and others.
3 See Vol. i. p. 131, and my Article on the subject in the Appendix to the present Volume. 4 Viz in Chap. iv. of this Part iv.
PL XVIII.
THE ROMAN IMPERIAL ENSIGN OF THE DRAGON.
MAXIMIAN.
As the destroyer of the Seven-headed Hydra of Christianity.
From a Medal m the Paris Collection.
Digitized by Google
tury :—in short that of the same crisis of transition from the Pagan supremacy to the Christian that the previous figuration of the woman indicated.—To this crisis every indication converges. And it is precisely such an one as prophecy delights in depicting.
For the verification both of what was figured of the crisis itself, and of its result in the woman's parturition of her male child and the dragon's dejection from heaven, we must next look, as proposed, into history. It is easily seen, notwithstanding Mr. Faber's impression of their incompatibility, how at such a crisis the woman's and dragon's elevation might well have existed cotemporarily in the same political heaven. But it is something much more precise and definite respecting their relative positions that we have now to verify in history:—viz. a crisis when not only both the one and the other were elevated in political power, but when the proportion of power was such, that the Pagan Dragon held ascendancy in but one third of the Roman political heaven, the Christian Church in the other two. This point is one never yet, I believe, explained by expositors. Yet on a careful investigation of the history of the times referred to, it will soon appear.
II. THE HISTORICAL SOLUTION OF THE CRISIS.
It is to be remembered then that in A. D. 303, when Diocletian and Galerius published their terrible edicts of persecution against the Christians, the Roman empire was divided into four Tetrarchies, governed respectively by Diocletian and Maximian in the character of the two Augusti, or senior Emperors, and Galerius and Constantius as the two Caesars, or junior Emperors: the empire however being considered as still politically united and one. Soon after this, Diocletian and Maximian abdicated. And, a few other changes having occurred in the years next following, the Empire was at the commencement of the year 311 thus partitioned: Britain, Gaul, and Spain under Constantine, the son and successor to Constantius; Italy, together with the African Province, under Maxentius;—Illyricum under Licinius;—the East of Europe with Asia under Galerius, now the first in dignity of the Augusti;—and Syria and Egypt under Maximin: which last of the list had just previously been appointed, with the Syrian and Egyptian Government as his appanage, a fifth Emperor.—During this period what the Church suffered it is needless to recount.
The vision of the 5th Seal has depicted it.1 The sorrows of a woman in travail had indeed come upon her. Her children were to be crushed, as one of the hydra-like enemies of the state, by the heaven-sent champions of Roman Paganism and the Roman Empire.2 In the May following, however, light dawned on the Christians. From his sick and dying bed the conscience-stricken Galerius issued an Edict of Toleration in their favor:—an Edict which was published in the names of Constantine and Licinius, as consentient parties, as well as in his own: though not in those of Maxenius or Maximin. And when, in the course of the two next eventful years, the following further changes had occurred,—viz. the European Provinces of Galerius been appropriated, on his death, by Licinius, the Asiatic by Maximin,3 and those of the Emperor Maxentius, on his defeat and death, by Constantine,—when, in this manner, the Roman empire had for the first time become tripartited between three Emperors, 1 —the precedency among whom, I may just observe in passing, was adjudged by the Senate to Constantine, 2 —the Christians emerged from these political revolutions thus variously circumstanced.
In two thirds of the Empire, embracing its whole European and African territory, they enjoyed toleration; and presently after, by virtue of the celebrated Milan Decree of Constantine and Licinius, issued March 313 in their favor, the imperial kindly recognition and support: in the other or Asiatic third they were still, after but a brief and uncertain respite, exposed to persecution, in all its bitterness and cruelty, as before.
And now then was not the state of things in the Roman empire one that precisely answered to the crisis depicted in the vision?—First the christian Church, united as one, and morally bright and beautiful, abundantly the more so from the purifying effect of the late persecution,—appeared before the world ascendant, for the first time, in the political heaven; with the sunshine embracing it of the highest of the three Imperial dignities, and the light and favor of the second also beaming on it: moreover with the chief bishops resplendent at its head, as a starry coronal; they being recognized generally as ecclesiastical dignitaries, and soon twelve of the number distinguished from among the rest, as the heads of the ἀνδέκαφυλον of the Christian Israel.1 The time at which she thus appeared is observable as the expiration of her 40th week of gestation, calculated on the year-day prophetic chronological scale from the Lord's ascension.2 Her travail had begun, above a prophetic week before, in the Diocletian persecution; and long, and painful, and ineffective hitherto, had been her sufferings.
She had been with child: she had been in pain: she had brought forth but wind: she had wrought no deliverance on the earth.3 But now the moment for her deliverance had come. The throes immediately preceding childbirth were upon her, and under the best auspices. The imperial edict of favor to the Christians was but the precursor evidently to the establishment of Christianity, and by consequence its supremacy in the empire; i.e. to the birth of the man-child, and his assumption to God's throne. And what next but the ruling of the Pagans with a rod of iron? For it had long been evident that Christianity and Paganism could not consist together in power; and that on the elevation of the former there must needs follow the oppression, and finally destruction of the latter.
On the other hand,—to turn to the second symbol represented,—the old Roman Pagan power, concentrated for the time in Maximin, the third Ruler of the Roman world, and Emperor from the Nile to the Bosphorus, with a Satanic enmity animating it against the gospel and the Church, appeared like the great red dragon in the vision. Infuriate at the now imminent prospect of the Christian body attaining establishment in the Empire, Maximin renewed the persecution against Christians within the limits of his own dominion; prohibiting their assemblies, and degrading, and even killing their bishops. "He drew with his tail the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the ground." And as the vital blow against the Christian cause and Church needed to be struck, as he thought, at those Emperors who had adopted and patronized it, he made war against them, and rushed furiously to the conflict. The Dragon that had stood before the woman, when ready to be delivered, hasted to devour her child in the very act of birth.
Such seems to have been the exact crisis figured in the vision before us. It was the crisis of the last struggle of ascendant Paganism to retain supremacy, and crush Christianity, in the empire. "Before the decisive battle," says Milner, "Maximin vowed to Jupiter that, if victorious, he would abolish the christian name. The contest between Jehovah and Jupiter was now at its height, and drawing to a crisis."1—And what the result?
His fury, as we know, was in vain. On the 30th of April 313 he was defeated by Licinius; and three or four months after died, like Galerius, in agonies, confessing himself vanquished.2 "His death," says Gibbon, "delivered the Church from the last and most implacable of her enemies."3—It remained to the Dragon, and whatever of Pagan power survived though broken in the empire, to behold the birth of the man-child completed,4 and then the man-child wonderfully caught up to God's throne: in other words to see the Christian body, now headed and represented by Constantine, elevated with marvellous rapidity to a Christian, an avowedly Christian throne. So Gibbon; "The gratitude of the Church has exalted the virtues of the generous patron who seated Christianity on the throne of the Roman world."5 And Eusebius cotemporarily: "Our emperor, dear to God, sustains an empire which is the image of the heavenly empire; and rules it in imitation of Him who is greater than all, the supreme Lord of the world."6—The result, not immediately indeed, but after a while, just according to the singularly precise language of the presfigurative prophecy,7 proved to be this to the Pagans of the empire,—their being ruled as with a rod of iron. At first indeed an equal toleration was accorded by Constantine to Pagans as to Christians. But "the exact balance of the two religions continued but a moment."8 As he grew older his discountenance of them became more marked.
By his successors disfavour was increased into intolerance. At length under Theodosius, all toleration of Paganism was put an end to; and its worship and rites interdicted, under pain of the severest penalties.
It was observable, however, that the struggle did not end in the figurative heaven, with the Dragon's failure to prevent the man-child's birth. After a passing notice of the woman, (presently to be resumed,) as fleeing towards, and destined to a long long sojourn in, the wilderness, (for short-lived indeed is the association of Christ's true church with the splendors and honors of this world,) after this a notice occurs in the prophecy of war in heaven. "And there was war in heaven;" the same heaven of course as before spoken of. "Michael fought and his angels; and the dragon fought and his angels." The antagonist principles intended were evidently Christianity and Paganism: and powers invisible, as well as visible,—the one headed by Michael, captain of the Lord's host, the other by Satan,—appeared to mingle in the conflict. The fulfilment was seen in the seduction of Licinius, through ambitious motives, to head afresh the Dragon's cause against Christianity and Constantine: and then in his two successive defeats and death, and the consequent and (except for its momentary re-elevation under Julian) final dejection of Paganism, A.D. 324, from its high places in the empire, that of the figuration next following; "The Dragon was cast out of heaven, and his angels; and his place no more found therein."—The exactness of the imagery seems indeed very striking: nor was its meaning, even at the time of the fulfilment, unrecognized.
Who a better commentator on it than Constantine himself? In a letter to Eusebius he writes of "that dragon having been deposed from the governance of affairs, by God's providence." And Eusebius further relates, that in a picture elevated by Constantine over his palace-gate, there was represented the cross, the ensign of salvation, placed above his head; and, beneath, his enemy and that of the human race (viz. Licinius, or rather Satan that had animated him) under the semblance of a dragon precipitated into the abyss.1
There follows,
III. THE EINIKION, OR SONG OF VICTORY.
"And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven; 'Now there hath come the salvation and power and kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren hath been cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives, even unto death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that tabernacle in them.'"—Such was the song. But from whom, and where? It is said to have been a loud voice in heaven. And, adopting the meaning attached to the word heaven in the unsymbolic parts of Scripture, it has been explained by some interpreters as proceeding from the departed spirits of the just,2 by others as from the angels of heaven. It seems however more natural to construe the term of the same symbolic heaven of political authority and power so frequently referred to in the Apocalyptic figurations; more especially from its having been spoken of just but a little before, as the seat coincidently of the woman and the dragon, and scene of the war that had ended in the dragon's dejection.
In which case the song of triumph would represent that of the christian body then living, and elevated by the recent events to supremacy in the Roman empire.—The expression "our brethren," used in it, in reference to the saints that had previously suffered martyrdom for Christ, confirms this view of the matter. For had Angels been the chanters of it, they would scarcely have called the saints brethren,1 seeing that they are not united with them by the brotherhood of the same flesh and blood;2 but rather fellow-servants of Christ, as elsewhere in the Apocalypse.3 Again, had it been the song of the departed Spirits of the Just, they would rather have spoken in the first person, not the third: and said, "our accuser;" not "the accuser of our brethren:" "we overcame him," not "they;" seeing that the martyr-victors spoken of had already become constituents of their happy number.—Thus, on the whole, we may, I think, unhesitatingly conclude on this song in heaven presfiguring some similar song of the Christians of the Roman world, on occasion of their triumph and exaltation under Constantine over Paganism and the Pagans.4 It only remains to show its fulfilment in the records of history.
And this indeed presents itself, almost ready drawn out to our hands, in the graphic descriptions of the cotemporary historian Eusebius:—the same to which I have already had occasion to refer in the synchronical part of the former series, or that within-written, of the Apocalyptic visions.
1 He tells us how in hymns and choruses the Christians, before cast down, but now with countenances bright and happy, every where congratulated each other ; 2 and especially in the services of their re-opened churches poured forth their gratitude and joy. 3 He relates how by Emperor, as well as by Christian ministers and people, their deliverance and victory over the Heathen potentates was recognized as the result of the divine interposition, and manifestation of the divine power : 4 how Constantine professed himself to be in his imperial office only the imitator and servant of the King of Kings, 5 and so the kingdom administered by him, with Christianity dominant in it, seemed to image the very kingdom of God and his Christ foretold in prophecy. 6 Was not all this the exact echo of the prefigurative voice heard in vision, saying, "Now hath come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ?"—He tells us further, how, in
1 Vol. i. p. 231, &c.
the retrospect of the past persecution, though conducted by earthly Pagan Princes, and on the accusations of earthly adversaries, they recognized the instigation and secret acting of their invisible enemy, the accuser of the brethren, the old Serpent, the Devil; 1 and again in the casting down of these Pagans the casting down of the Devil: 2 just according to the next Apocalyptic clause, "The accuser of our brethren hath been cast down, which accused them before our God day and night." He narrates very fully how, at the same time, there was solemn remembrance of the martyrs and confessors that had illustrated the past persecution, and praise and honour rendered them: 3—how of those that had suffered unto death public notice was taken, as of heroes that had conquered, specially by the doctrine of the cross, in the most excellent combat of witnessing and of martyrdom; 4 ("They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their witnessing (μαρτυρια); and they loved not their lives," i.
e. were prodigal of them, " even unto death : ") and how, as a further tribute to their innocence and worth, the property confiscated from them was reclaimed and restored to their surviving relatives, or to the Church:1—how, again, to the confessors still living a similar meed of praise was awarded, the imperial voice still precenting in the song; (just, I may observe, as in the fulfilment of another great voice from the Apocalyptic heaven, heard earlier by St. John in vision:2) and Imperial orders issued for their liberation from prison, exile, or the mines, for the restoration of their goods, and their re-admission to every civic honor and privilege.3 It was indeed acknowledged in the Decree that, their ambition and pursuit being a heavenly one, and their affections set in heavenly places, they needed not the solace of human approbation; but with the added declaration that this was no reason why they should not be elevated to higher honor and dignity in (the heaven of) this world.4 And therefore they were bidden to return rejoicingly from their places of suffering, amidst the public congratulations and applause.5 It was just the fulfilment of the call to joy prefigured in the last clause, " Rejoice, heavens, and ye that dwell in them : " or as the phrase simply means, " Rejoice, ye that dwell in the heavens."
1 —In which phrase, as reminded by Mr. Daubuz, 2 I have not overlooked the use of the uncommon plural form heavens, instead of heaven. For indicating, as it seems to do, the rare conjunction, for just the then prosperous crisis, of elevation in heart to the spiritual heaven, and elevation in dignity to the heaven of worldly rank, it makes the agreement between the prophecy and the history yet more striking. To the which I may add that the very word evgpaiveoθε, used in the Apocalyptic prophecy to bid the Christian confessors joy, was the identical one addressed more than once to them in the Imperial Edict of Constantine. 3
On the whole, after thus carefully considering and comparing with history the several clauses of this Apocalyptic prefigurative song of triumph, I may be bold to say that it does indeed most accurately represent the characteristic feeling and spirit of that ever-memorable era of Christian joy and triumph, which followed on Constantine's establishment of Christianity. And I may, I think, say with equal confidence, that it can be shown to correspond with those of no other era in the history of the church whatsoever.
CHAPTER II.
HISTORY OF THE WOMAN (THE CHURCH) AFTER THE DRAGON'S DEJECTION.
"Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! For the Devil is come down to you having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
"And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman that had brought forth the man-child.—And to the woman were given two wings of the great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness into her place from the face of the serpent; where she is nourished for a time, times, and half a time.—And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman: and the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.—And the dragon was wroth with the woman: and went to make war with that remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and hold the testimony of Jesus Christ." Apoc. xii. 12-17.
"Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! For the Devil is come down to you in great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time."—It surprizes me that so many Commentators should have regarded this denunciation as the concluding part of the επιvikιον, or song of triumph, just preceding.1 It is not merely that no such ill-omened anticipations were mixed up with those christian rejoicings, to which, on I think abundant evidence, I have referred it, of the time of Constantine.
It would surely be a strange appendage to any exinckiov. On the other hand its similarity of expression and form to the several denunciations of coming Woes under the Trumpets,1 suggests the presumption, (a presumption to which no objection seems to offer,) that this, like them, is to be regarded as a detached and solemn notification by the dictating prophetic Spirit of some woe on the Roman Empire, soon about to follow. —Is it asked, What woe? The answer is ready. Either the Arian heresy raised up within the empire to be the disturber and persecutor of the Church: or else the Gothic scourge, which first of all external judgments, as we know, fell on the christianized Roman world.2 In either case the woe was denounced distinctively against the earth and the sea, or those that dwelt in them;3 a phrase specially significant of the earthly-minded, as long since observed;4 whereas it seemed implied that they who in heart dwelt in heaven,5—a class marked out as separate from the former, just like the sealed ones of a former vision,—had a charter of exemption from real evil.6—But how different the character of the coming future here, as in the parallel previous prophecy foreshown, from what was expected by the Christians at this epoch of their triumph! I have made the observation before, and cannot but now repeat it. They spoke as if the times of promised happiness and glory to the church were just commencing.7 The prophetic vision, on the other hand, spoke of coming woe and persecution, of floods of impious invading enemies, and times impending on Christ's true church of famine, distress, and desolation.
At the same time it revealed too the original author of all the evil; viz. the Devil, the Prince of this world, now for the first time fallen from the mundane heaven, and cast out from his throne of this world, agreeably with the Lord's far-seeing prophecy.1 Wretched Spirit! incapable of repentance: and only gathering fresh malice against Christ Himself, and Christ's cause and Church, from each partial victory they might have gained over him; and the terrible consciousness of the ceaseless shortening of his respite from the sentence of final judgment!2
But to proceed.—We have here,
I. THE DEJECTED DRAGON'S PERSECUTION OF THE WOMAN. "And when the Dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man-child."
It is of course implied in what follows that the woman no more appeared in heaven, but on earth. But how such a change? And how might the Dragon find means to persecute her, when himself cast down to the ground: especially after her children had just been made the subject of an cexivikov, and called on to rejoice and triumph? The fact however proved as prefigured. The Church soon found herself not only a wanderer again on earth, but persecuted and suffering. The very next point which Eusebius describes,—next, I mean, after the Christians' congratulatory songs and rejoicings, consequent on Licinius' overthrow and the establishment of Christianity throughout the Roman empire,—is a tale of her distress and persecution.
1 John xii. 31; Luke x. 18.
2 "Knowing that his time is short." The knowing may here mean simply persuaded; just as in the case of the unprofitable servant, "Thou knewest that I was a hard man;" Matt. xxv. 26. It is reasonable to suppose that the Devil knows not, any more than the angels in heaven, the exact time of the last judgment: and might thus anticipate, as the early Christians did, that it would follow speedily on the breaking up of the Pagan Roman empire. (Compare Matt. viii. 29, and xxiv. 36.)—Or perhaps the expression may refer to the brief remaining time in which profest Paganism would be tolerated.
DEPT. HISTORY
CXFC
Digitized by Google CH. II.] THE WOMAN PERSECUTED BY THE DRAGON.
In order however to the right understanding of the gist and point of the prophecy, it is essential to mark how in singularly distinctive phrase it characterises the woman meant as her which brought forth the man-child.1 It was evidently the true, primitive, orthodox Church, which was the object of this persecution: the same that had accomplished the victory over Paganism; especially as holding even unto death the testimony, referred to in the Apocalyptic song of victory, of a divine atoning Saviour, the Lamb that took away the sins of the world. Indeed there might almost seem in the words an allusive contrast to some anti-primitive Church or Churches then risen or to arise. If so, they would not be the subjects of the Dragon's persecution; though indeed the very sufferers from his deceit and guile. Rather they might be in it his instruments and co-operators.—I observe this because, though there may be a partial allusion, in what is said of the Dragon's persecuting the woman, to the bitter mockings of Christians by the Pagans remaining in the Roman empire,—mockings like as of Isaac by Ishmael,2—and, where opportunity might offer, their opposition and even violence,3—also to the savage persecutions of Christians by heathen princes without the empire,4—yet I conceive, in common with other commentators, that first his direct assault on the very vitals of Christianity, and persecution of orthodox and true Christians by Arianism and the Arians, next and connectedly, his indirect but not less hostile attack on them through temptations to superstition,5 are the things here mainly prefigured.6 Of the latter, having to speak elsewhere, it needs not that I speak now.
On the more passing history of the Arian heresy and persecution it may be well to pause a moment. It was in Alexandria that the spark was kindled, which was to spread into so wide a conflagration. The presbyter Arius threw out insinuations against the divinity of the Lord Jesus:—a view which, like all that has since been called Socinianism, at once impeached his omnipotence to save, and the perfectness of his propitiatory sacrifice as the spotless all-atoning Lamb of God. Was not the prompting Spirit that spirit of philosophy and vain deceit against which St. Paul had lifted his forewarning voice?1 and that too which yet earlier made the Jews cry "blasphemy" against Jesus, when calling Himself the Son of God?—Excommunicated by his bishop, Arius'heresy became one forthwith of discussion and strife in every part of Roman Christendom. Constantine assembled the Council of Nice to decide the question;—the first General Council of the christian Church. By it Arianism was condemned, the true Deity of Jesus asserted, and orthodoxy and truth retained thus far in the ascendant. But, after a few years, Constantius succeeded to Constantine in the empire;—an avowed, devoted Arian. Then was Athanasius, the champion of the true faith, chased from his see of Alexandria; and persecutions began against those who, like him, maintained the primitive orthodox faith, almost throughout the empire. For 40 years, or more, the persecution more or less prevailed: through the reign of Valens, as well as of Constantius.2 And did not the Spirit of Paganism manifest his participation in it? "The Pagans took courage," says Milner,3 "and assisted the heretics in the persecution; saying, The Arians have embraced our religion."
Again he adds, on another occasion; " Zealous heretics were by force of arms intruded into the places of the exiled Trinitarians: and Arianism seemed well nigh to have avenged the cause of fallen idolatry." The real though invisible originator of the heresy and the persecution, noted in this vision, was early recognized by the Christians. "It was some evil Dæmon," says Eusebius, "that wrought the mischief; envious of the prosperity and happiness of the Church."
We are next told of
II. THE WOMAN'S PROGRESSING FLIGHT TO THE WILDERNESS, AND THE HELP GIVEN HER TOWARDS IT. "And to the woman were given two wings of the great eagle, that she might flee into the wilderness into her place, from the face of the Serpent :" where she is nourished for a time, times, and half a time."
The woman's flight towards the wilderness.
It has been a question among Commentators whether by the woman's flight into the wilderness there be meant a change of state, or a change of place. Vitringa argues against Mede for the latter signification; as that which is necessarily required by the attribution of movement to the woman, in the very terms of the figure: 5—but, as it seems to me, quite in vain.
There is implied movement from one local point to another, in the representation just previously given of the Dragon's dejection from the heaven to the earth: yet Vitringa, in common with most other Apocalyptic expositors, explains this of a change of state in the same Roman empire; viz. from political supremacy and establishment to political degradation. The same, we may presume, is the case here. And what then is the state indicated by the figure of the woman, or church, i.e. Christ's true Church (for we must never lose sight of the distinction) being in the wilderness? Both the figure itself, and the type also that is evidently referred to of the sojourn of the ancient Israel in the wilderness, imply insulation from the rest of the world, invisibility in respect of its public worship, and destitution of all ordinary means of spiritual sustenance, (I say spiritual because the thing symbolized is the Church,)—a destitution such as to need God's special interposition to support life. Such are the conditions of the completed wilderness-state. Of course in proportion as the Church might approximate to it, they must be supposed to have had a partial and approximate fulfilment. And as, in the Chapter before us, the woman is described as transferred into the wilderness not suddenly but gradually,—her first movement thitherwards being represented as begun soon after the birth of the man-child, for it is then that the first mention is made of her fleeing a wanderer towards the wilderness,1—and her settlement therein as not completed until after the dragon's dejection, his subsequent persecution of the woman, the two wings of the great eagle being given her, the dragon's casting water out of his mouth to overwhelm her, and the earth absorbing, or at least beginning to absorb, the flood of waters,—such I say being the representation of her long and as yet not completed flight into the wilderness-state, it is her earlier movement and progress thitherwards that must first and for the present claim our attention.
In proof then that Christ's spiritual Church, "the blessed company of all faithful people," 2 once discernible almost as a body corporate before the world in the generally holy evangelical character of the members, doctrine, and worship of the professing Church, 3 began from soon after the establishment of Christianity in the Roman empire, and through all the half century following, to flee towards the wilderness,—in other words to vanish rapidly in its distinctive features from public view, become more insulated and desolate, and more and more straightened for spiritual sustenance in the then public means of grace,—I have only to make appeal to the testimony of the most respectable ecclesiastical historians. The period in question is the same, it will be observed, that was before depicted in the two parallel visions of the segregation of the sealed from the unsealed, and of those that adhered to Christ as their Mediator and Atoner, from the apostatized multitudes of the professing Israel.
And the general view given from history, in my illustrative comments on those visions,1 of the then state of religion in the Roman empire, I mean after Constantine's establishment of Christianity, might almost be referred to as sufficient to prove the question now in hand. It will doubtless, however, better satisfy the reader to see a few further testimonies more direct and explicit to the point. I therefore subjoin them from both Milner and Mosheim; omitting for the most part such as refer to Arianism, both because it has been already considered, and because it is obvious that wherever Arianism was dominant Christ's true church must needs have been hidden from view and desolate; but begging the Reader not to forget the operation of this cause, as well as others; and its aggravation of all the rest, through the bitter and contentious spirit, as well as the direct heresies, thereby engendered.
…