Notes on the New Testament, Explanatory and Practical: Revelation

by Albert Barnes

Now it so happens that there were important events which occurred in the Roman empire, and connected with its decline and fall, of sufficient importance to be noticed in a series of calamitous events, which corresponded with the symbol here, as above explained. They were such as these: (a) The general severity of taxation, or the oppressive burdens laid on the people by the emperors. In the account which Mr. Gibbon gives of the operation of the Indictions, and Superindictions, though the specific laws on this subject pertained to a subsequent period, the general nature of the taxation of the empire and its oppressive character may be seen (Decline and Fall, i. 357–359). A general estimate of the amount of revenue to be exacted was made out, and the collecting of this was committed to the pretorian prefects, and to a great number of subordinate officers. “The lands were measured by surveyors who were sent into the provinces; their nature, whether arable, or pasture, or woods, was distinctly reported; and an estimate made of their common value, from the average produce of five years. The number of slaves and of cattle constituted an essential part of the report; an oath was administered to the proprietors, which bound them to disclose the true state of their affairs; and their attempts to prevaricate or elude the intention of the legislature were severely watched, and punished as a capital crime, which included the double guilt of treason and of sacrilege. According to the different nature of lands, their real produce in the various articles of wine or oil, corn or barley, wood or iron, was transported by the labour or at the expense of the provincials to the imperial magazines, from whence they were occasionally distributed for the use of the court or of the army, and of the two capitals, Rome and Constantinople,” i. p. 358. Comp. Lactant. de Mort. Persecut., c. 23. (b) The particular order, under this oppressive system of taxation, respecting the preservation of vineyards and oliveyards, may be referred to, also, as corresponding to the command sent forth under this rider, not to “hurt the oil and the wine.” That order was in the following words:—“If any one shall sacrilegiously cut a vine, or stint the fruit of prolific boughs, and craftily feign poverty in order to avoid a fair assessment, he shall, immediately on detection, suffer death, and his property be confiscated” (Cod. Theod. l. xiii. lib. xi. seq.; Gibbon, i. 358, note). Mr. Gibbon remarks: “Although this law is not without its studied obscurity, it is, however, clear enough to prove the minuteness of the inquisition, and the disproportion of the penalty.” (c) Under this general subject of the severity of taxation—as a fact far-spreading and oppressive, and as so important as to hasten the downfall of the empire, may be noticed a distinct edict of Caracalla as occurring more directly in the period in which the rider with the balances may be supposed to have gone forth. This is stated by Mr. Gibbon (i. 91) as one of the important causes which contributed to the downfall of the empire. “The personal characters of the emperors, their victories, laws, and fortunes,” says he, “can interest us no farther than they are connected with the general history of the decline and fall of the monarchy. Our constant attention to that object will not suffer us to overlook a most important edict of Antoninus Caracalla, which communicated to all the free inhabitants of the empire the name and privileges of Roman citizens. His unbounded liberality, however, flowed not from the sentiments of a generous mind; it was the sordid result of avarice,” &c. He then proceeds at length to state the nature and operations of that law, by which a heavy tax, under the pretence of liberality, was in fact imposed on all the citizens of the empire—a fact which, in its ultimate results, the historian of the Decline and Fall regards as so closely connected with the termination of the empire. See Gibbon, i. pp. 91–95. After noticing the laws of Augustus, Nero, and the Antonines, and the real privileges conferred by them on those who became entitled to the rank of Roman citizens—privileges which were a compensation in the honour, dignity, and offices of that rank for the measure of taxation which it involved—he proceeds to notice the fact that the title of “Roman citizen” was conferred by Caracalla on all the free citizens of the empire, involving the subjection to all the heavy taxes usually imposed on those who sustained the rank expressed by the title, but with nothing of the compensation connectedwith the title when it was confined to the inhabitants of Italy. “But the favour,” says he, “which implied a distinction, was lost in the prodigality of Caracalla, and the reluctant provincials were compelled to assume the vain title, and the real obligations, of Roman citizens. Nor was the rapacious son of Severus [Caracalla] contented with such a measure of taxation as had appeared sufficient to his moderate predecessors. Instead of a twentieth, he exacted a tenth of all legacies and inheritances; and during his reign he crushed alike every part of the empire under the weight of his iron sceptre,” i. 95. So again (Ibid.), speaking of the taxes which had been lightened somewhat by Alexander, Mr. Gibbon remarks: “It is impossible to conjecture the motive that engaged him to spare so trifling a remnant of the evil; but the noxious weed, which had not been totally eradicated, again sprung up with the most luxuriant growth, and in the succeeding age darkened the Roman world with its deadly shade. In the course of this history we shall be too often summoned to explain the land-tax, the capitation, and the heavy contributions of corn, wine, oil, and meat, which were exacted from the provinces for the use of the court, the army, and the capital.” In reference to this whole matter of taxation as being one of the things which contributed to the downfall of the empire, and which spread woe through the falling empire—a woe worthy to be illustrated by one of the seals—a confirmation may be derived from the reign of Galerius, who, as Cæsar, acted under the authority of Diocletian; who excited Diocletian to the work of persecution (Decline and Fall, i. 317, 318); and who, on the abdication of Diocletian, assumed the title of Augustus (Decline and Fall, i. 222). Of his administration in general Mr. Gibbon (i. 226) remarks: “About that time the avarice of Galerius, or perhaps the exigencies of the state, had induced him to make a very strict and rigorous inquisition into the property of his subjects for the purpose of a general taxation, both on their lands and on their persons. A very minute survey appears to have been taken of their real estates; and wherever there was the slightest suspicion of concealment, torture was very freely employed to obtain a sincere declaration of their personal wealth.” Of the nature of this exaction under Galerius; of the cruelty with which the measure was prosecuted—particularly in its bearing on Christians, towards whom Galerius cherished a mortal enmity (Decline and Fall, i. 317); and of the extent and severity of the suffering among Christians and others, caused by it—the following account of Lactantius (De Mort. Persecut., c. 23) will furnish a painful but most appropriate illustration:—“Swarms of exactors sent into the provinces and cities filled them with agitation and terror, as though a conquering enemy were leading them into captivity. The fields were separately measured, the trees and vines, the flocks and herds numbered, and an examination made of the men. In the cities the cultivated and rude were united as of the same rank. The streets were crowded with groups of families, and every one required to appear with his children and slaves. Tortures and lashes resounded on every side. Sons were gibbeted in the presence of their parents, and the most confidential servants harassed that they might make disclosures against their masters, and wives that they might testify unfavourably of their husbands. If there were a total destitution of property, they were still tortured to make acknowledgments against themselves, and, when overcome by pain, inscribed for what they did not possess. Neither age nor ill-health was admitted as an excuse for not appearing. The sick and weak were borne to the place of inscription, a reckoning made of the age of each, and years added to the young and deducted from the old, in order to subject them to a higher taxation than the law imposed. The whole scene was filled with wailing and sadness. In the meantime individuals died, and the herds and the flocks diminished, yet tribute was none the less required to be paid for the dead, so that it was no longer allowed either to live or die without a tax. Mendicants alone escaped, where nothing could be wrenched, and whom misfortune and misery had made incapable of farther oppression. These the impious wretch affecting to pity, that they might not suffer want, ordered to be assembled, borne off in vessels, and plunged into the sea.” See Lord on the Apoc., pp. 128, 129. These facts in regard to the severity of taxation, and the rigid nature of the law enforcing it; to the sources of the révenue exacted in the provinces, and to the care that noneof those sources should be diminished; and to the actual and undoubted bearing of all this on the decline and fall of the empire, are so strikingly applicable to the symbol here employed, that if it be supposed that it was intended to refer to them, no more natural or expressive symbol could have been used; if it were supposed that the historian meant to make a record of the fulfilment, he could not well have made a search which would more strikingly accord with the symbol. Were we now to represent these things by a symbol, we could scarcely find one that would be more expressive than that of a rider on a black horse with a pair of scales, sent forth under a proclamation which indicated that there would be a most rigid and exact administration of severe and oppressive laws, and with a special command, addressed to the people, not for the purposes of concealment, or from opposition to the government, to injure the sources of revenue. It may serve further to illustrate this, to copy one of the usual emblems of a Roman procurator or questor. It is taken from Spanheim, De Usu Num. Diss., vi. 545. See Elliott, i. 169. It has a balance as a symbol of exactness or justice, and an ear of grain as a symbol employed with reference to procuring or exacting grain from the provinces.

Emblem of a Roman Procurator.

7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.

7. And when he had opened the fourth seal. See Notes, [ch. v. 1]. ¶ I heard the voice of the fourth beast say. The flying eagle. Notes, [ch. iv. 7]. As in the other cases, there does not appear to have been any particular reason why the fourth of the living creatures should have made this proclamation rather than either of the others. It was poetic and appropriate to represent each one in his turn as making proclamation. ¶ Come and see. See Notes, [ver. 1].

8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given [219]unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill [220]with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

8. And I looked, and behold a pale horse—ἵππος χλωρὸς. On the horse, as an emblem, see Notes on [ver. 2]. The peculiarity of this emblem consists in the colour of the horse, the rider, and the power that was given unto him. In these there is entire harmony, and there can be comparatively little difficulty in the explanation and application. The colour of the horse was pale—χλωρὸς. This word properly means pale-green, yellowish-green, like the colour of the first shoots of grass and herbage; then green, verdant, like young herbage, Mar. vi. 39; Re. viii. 7; ix. 4; and then pale yellowish (Rob. Lex.). The colour here would be an appropriate one to denote the reign of death—as one of the most striking effects of death is paleness—and, of course, of death produced by any cause, famine, pestilence, or the sword. From this portion of the symbol, if it stood with nothing to limit and define it, we should naturally look for some condition of things in which death would prevail in a remarkable manner, or in which multitudes of human beings would be swept away. And yet, perhaps, from the very nature of this part of the symbol, we should look for the prevalence of death in some such peaceful manner as by famine or disease. The red colour would more naturally denote the ravages of death in war; the black, the ravages of death by sudden calamity; the pale would more obviously suggest famine or wasting disease. ¶ And his name that sat on him was Death. No description is given of his aspect; nor does he appear with any emblem—as sword, or spear,or bow. There is evident scope for the fancy to picture to itself the form of the destroyer; and there is just that kind of obscurity about it which contributes to sublimity. Accordingly, there has been ample room for the exercise of the imagination in the attempts to paint “Death on the pale horse,” and the opening of this seal has furnished occasion for some of the greatest triumphs of the pencil. The simple idea in this portion of the symbol is, that death would reign or prevail under the opening of this seal—whether by sword, by famine, or by pestilence, is to be determined by other descriptions in the symbol. ¶ And Hell followed with him. Attended him as he went forth. On the meaning of the word here rendered hell—ᾅδης, hades—see Notes on Lu. xvi. 23, comp. Notes on Job x. 21, 22; Is. xiv. 9. It is here used to denote the abode of the dead, considered as a place where they dwell, and not in the more restricted sense in which the word is now commonly used as a place of punishment. The idea is, that the dead would be so numerous at the going forth of this horseman, that it would seem as if the pale nations of the dead had come again upon the earth. A vast retinue of the dead would accompany him; that is, it would be a time when death would prevail on the earth, or when multitudes would die. ¶ And power was given unto them. Marg., to him. The common Greek text is αὐτοῖς—to them. There are many MSS., however, which read αὐτῷ—to him. So Professor Stuart reads it. The authority, however, is in favour of them as the reading; and according to this, death and his train are regarded as grouped together, and the power is considered as given to them collectively. The sense is not materially varied. ¶ Over the fourth part of the earth. That is, of the Roman world. It is not absolutely necessary to understand this as extending over precisely a fourth part of the world. Comp. Re. viii. 7–10, 12; ix. 15, et al. Undoubtedly we are to look in the fulfilment of this to some far-spread calamity; to some severe visitations which would sweep off great multitudes of men. The nature of that visitation is designated in the following specifications. ¶ To kill with sword. In war and discord—and we are, therefore, to look to a period of war. ¶ And with hunger. With famine—one of the accompaniments of war—where armies ravage a nation, trampling down the crops of grain; consuming the provisions laid up; employing in war, or cutting off, the men who would be occupied in cultivating the ground; making it necessary that they should take the field at a time when the grain should be sown or the harvest collected; and shutting up the people in besieged cities to perish by hunger. Famine has been not an unfrequent accompaniment of war; and we are to look for the fulfilment of this in its extensive prevalence. ¶ And with death. Each of the other forms—“with the sword and with hunger”—imply that death would reign; for it is said that “power was given to kill with sword and with hunger.” This word, then, must refer to death in some other form—to death that seemed to reign without any such visible cause as the “sword” and “hunger.” This would well denote the pestilence—not an unfrequent accompaniment of war. For nothing is better fitted to produce this than the unburied bodies of the slain; the filth of a camp; the want of food; and the crowding together of multitudes in a besieged city; and, accordingly, the pestilence, especially in Oriental countries, has been often closely connected with war. That the pestilence is referred to here is rendered more certain by the fact that the Hebrew word דֶּבֶר, pestilence, which occurs about fifty times in the Old Testament, is rendered θάνατος, death, more than thirty times in the Septuagint. ¶ And with the beasts of the earth. With wild beasts. This, too, would be one of the consequences of war, famine, and pestilence. Lands would be depopulated, and wild beasts would be multiplied. Nothing more is necessary to make them formidable than a prevalence of these things; and nothing, in the early stages of society, or in countries ravaged by war, famine, and the pestilence, is more formidable. Homer, at the very beginning of his Iliad, presents us with a representation similar to this. Comp. Eze. xiv. 21: “I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence,” דֶבֶר—Sept., as here, θάνατον. See also 2 Ki. xvii. 26.

In regard to the fulfilment of this there can be little difficulty, if the principles adopted in the interpretation of the first three seals are correct. Wemay turn to Gibbon, and, as in the other cases, we shall find that he has been an unconscious witness of the fidelity of the representation in this seal. Two general remarks may be made before there is an attempt to illustrate the particular things in the symbol. (a) The first relates to the place in the order of time, or in history, which this seal occupies. If the three former seals have been located with any degree of accuracy, we should expect that this would follow, not very remotely, the severe laws pertaining to taxation, which, according to Mr. Gibbon, contributed so essentially to the downfall of the empire. And if it be admitted to be probable that the fifth seal refers to a time of persecution, it would be most natural to fix this period between those times and the times of Diocletian, when the persecution ceased. I may be permitted to say, that I was led to fix on this period without having any definite view beforehand of what occurred in it, and was surprised to find in Mr. Gibbon what seems to be so accurate a correspondence with the symbol. (b) The second remark is, that the general characteristics of this period, as stated by Mr. Gibbon, agree remarkably with what we should expect of the period from the symbol. Thus speaking of this whole period (A.D. 248–268), embracing the reigns of Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian, and Gallienus, he says, “From the great secular games celebrated by Philip to the death of the emperor Gallienus, there elapsed twenty years of shame and misfortune. During this calamitous period every instant of time was marked, every province of the Roman world was afflicted by barbarous invaders and military tyrants, and the ruined empire seemed to approach the last and fatal moment of its dissolution,” i. 135.

In regard to the particular things referred to in the symbol, the following specifications may furnish a sufficient confirmation and illustration: (a) The killing with the sword. A fulfilment of this, so far as the words are concerned, might be found indeed in many portions of Roman history, but no one can doubt that it was eminently true of this period. It was the period of the first Gothic invasion of the Roman empire; the period when those vast hordes, having gradually come down from the regions of Scandinavia, and having moved along the Danube towards the Ukraine and the countries bordering on the Borysthenes, invaded the Roman territories from the East, passed over Greece, and made their appearance almost, as Mr. Gibbon says, within sight of Rome. Of this invasion Mr. Gibbon says, “This is the first considerable occasion [the fact that the emperor Decius was summoned to the banks of the Danube, A.D. 250, by the invasion of the Goths] in which history mentions that great people, who afterwards broke the Roman power, sacked the Capitol, and reigned in Gaul, Spain, and Italy. So memorable was the part which they acted in the subversion of the Western empire, that the name of Goths is frequently, but improperly, used as a general appellation of rude and warlike barbarism,” i. p. 136. As one of the illustrations that the “sword” would be used by “Death” in this period, we may refer to the siege and capture of Philippolis. “A hundred thousand persons are reported to have been massacred in the sack of that great city” (Dec. and Fall, i. 140). “The whole period,” says Mr. Gibbon, speaking of the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, “was one uninterrupted series of confusion and calamity. The Roman empire was, at the same time, and on every side, attacked by the blind fury of foreign invaders, and the wild ambition of domestic usurpers,” i. 144. “Such were the barbarians,” says Mr. Gibbon in the close of his description of the Goths at this period, and of the tyrants that reigned, “and such the tyrants, who, under the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, dismembered the provinces, and reduced the empire to the lowest pitch of disgrace and ruin, from whence it seemed impossible that it should ever emerge,” i. 158. (b) Famine: “Shall kill with hunger.” This would naturally be the consequence of long-continued wars, and of such invasions as those of the Goths. Mr. Gibbon says of this period: “Our habits of thinking so fondly connect the order of the universe with the fate of man, that this gloomy period of history has been decorated with inundations, earthquakes, uncommon meteors, preternatural darkness, and a crowd of prodigies, fictitious or exaggerated. But a long and general famine was a calamity of a more serious kind. It was the inevitable consequence of rapine and oppression, which extirpated the produce of the present, and the hope of future harvests,” i. p. 159. Prodigies, and preternaturaldarkness, and earthquakes, were not seen in the vision of the opening of the seal—but war and famine were; and the facts stated by Mr. Gibbon are such as would be now appropriately symbolized by Death on the pale horse. (c) Pestilence: “And shall kill with death.” Of the pestilence which raged in this period Mr. Gibbon makes the following remarkable statement, in immediate connection with what he says of the famine:—“Famine is almost always followed by epidemical diseases, the effect of scanty and unwholesome food. Other causes must, however, have contributed to the furious plague, which, from the year 250 to the year 265, raged without interruption in every province, every city, and almost every family of the Roman empire. During some time five thousand persons died daily at Rome; and many towns that had escaped the hands of the barbarians were entirely depopulated,” i. 159. (d) Wild beasts: “And shall kill with the beasts of the earth.” As already remarked, these are formidable enemies in the early stages of society, and when a country becomes, from any cause, depopulated. They are not mentioned by Mr. Gibbon as contributing to the decline and fall of the empire, or as connected with the calamities that came upon the world at that period. But no one can doubt that in such circumstances they would be likely to abound, especially if the estimate of Mr. Gibbon be correct (i. 159), when speaking of these times, and making an estimate of the proportion of the inhabitants of Alexandria that had perished—which he says was more than one-half—he adds, “Could we venture to extend the analogy to the other provinces, we might suspect that war, pestilence, and famine had consumed in a few years the moiety of the human species.” Yet, though not adverted to by Mr. Gibbon, there is a record pertaining to this very period, which shows that this was one of the calamities with which the world was then afflicted. It occurs in Arnobius, Adv. Gentes, lib. i. p. 5. Within a few years after the death of Gallienus (about A.D. 300) he speaks of wild beasts in such a manner as to show that they were regarded as a sore calamity. The public peril and suffering on this account were so great, that in common with other evils this was charged on Christians as one of the judgments of heaven which they brought upon the world. In defending Christians against the general charge that these judgments were sent from heaven on their account, he adverts to the prevalence of wild beasts, and shows that they could not have been sent as a judgment on account of the existence of Christianity, by the fact that they had prevailed also in the times of heathenism, long before Christianity was introduced into the empire. “Quando cum feris bella, et proelia cum leonibus gesta sunt? Non ante nos? Quando pernicies populis venenatis ab anguibus data est? Non ante nos?” “When were wars waged with wild beasts, and contests with lions? Was it not before our times? When did a plague come upon men poisoned by serpents? Was it not before our times?” In regard to the extent of the destruction which these causes would bring upon the world, there is a remarkable confirmation in Gibbon. To say, as is said in the account of the seal, that “a fourth part of the earth” would be subjected to the reign of death by the sword, by famine, by pestilence, and by wild beasts, may seem to many to be an improbable statement—a statement for the fulfilment of which we should look in vain to any historical records. Yet Mr. Gibbon, without expressly mentioning the plague of wild beasts, but referring to the three others—“war, pestilence, and famine”—goes into a calculation, in a passage already referred to, by which he shows that it is probable that from these causes half the human race was destroyed. The following is his estimate:—“We have the knowledge of a very curious circumstance, of some use perhaps in the melancholy calculation of human calamities. An exact register was kept at Alexandria of all the citizens entitled to receive the distribution of corn. It was found that the ancient number of those comprised between the ages of forty and seventy had been equal to the whole sum of claimants, from fourteen to fourscore years of age, who remained alive after the reign of Gallienus. Applying this authentic fact to the most correct tables of mortality, it evidently proves that above half the people of Alexandria had perished; and could we venture to extend the analogy to the other provinces, we might suspect that war, pestilence, and famine had consumed in a few years the moiety of the human species,” i. 159. The historian says that it might be “suspected ” from these data that one-half of thehuman race had been cut off in a few years, from these causes; in the Apocalyptic vision it is said that power was given over one “fourth” of the earth. We may remark, (a) that the description in the symbol is as likely to be correct as the “suspicion” of the historian; and (b) that his statement that in this period “a moiety of the race,” or one-half of the race, perished, takes away all improbability from the prediction, and gives a most graphic confirmation of the symbol of Death on the pale horse. If such a desolation in fact occurred, there is no improbability in the supposition that it might have been prefigured by the opening of a prophetic seal. Such a wide-spread desolation would be likely to be referred to in a series of symbols that were designed to represent the downfall of the Roman power, and the great changes in human affairs that would affect the welfare of the church.

9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the [221]altar the [222]souls of them that were slain for [223]the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: