Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ

by David Francis Bacon

As there are three mystically named cities——Sodom, Babylon, and the New Jerusalem; so there are three metaphoric females,——the star-crowned woman in heaven, the bloody harlot on the beast in the wilderness, and the bride, the Lamb’s wife. A peculiar fate befalls each of the three pairs. The spiritual Sodom falls under a temporary ruin, trodden under foot by the Gentiles, forty-two mystic months; and the star-crowned daughter of Zion wanders desolate in the wilderness of the world, for twelve hundred and sixty days, till the hand of her God shall restore her to grace and glory. The great Babylon of the seven hills, falls under a doom of far darker, and of irrevocable desolation,——like the dashing roar of the sinking rock thrown into the sea, she is thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. And such too, is the doom of the fierce scarlet rider of the beast,——“Rejoice over her, O heaven! and ye holy apostles and prophets! for God has avenged you on her.” But beyond all this awful ruin appears a vision of contrasting, splendid beauty.

“The first two acts already past,

The third shall close the drama with the day;——

Time’s noblest offspring is the last.”

The shouts of vindictive triumph over the dreadful downfall of the bloody city, now soften and sweeten into the songs of joy and praise, while the New Jerusalem, the church of God and Christ, comes down from the heavens in a solemn, glorious mass of living splendor, to bless the earth with its holy presence. In this last great scene, also, there is a female, the third of the mystic series; not like her of the twelve stars, now wandering like a widow disconsolate, in the wilderness;——not like her of the jeweled, scarlet and purple robes, cast down from her lofty seat, like an abandoned harlot, now desolate in ashes, from which her smoke rises up forever and ever;——but it is one, all holy, happy, pure, coming down stainless from the throne of God,——a bride, crowned with the glory of God, adorned for her husband,——the One slain from the foundation of the world. He through the opening heavens, too, has come forth before her, the Word of God, the Faithful and the True,——known by his bloody vesture, stained, not in the gore of slaughtered victims, but in the pure blood poured forth by himself, for the world, from its foundation. Yet now he rode forth on his white horse, as a warrior-king, dealing judgment upon the world with the sword of wrath,——with the sceptre of iron. Behind him rode the armies of heaven,——the hallowed hosts of the chosen of God,——like their leader, on white horses, but not like him, in crimson vesture; their garments are white and clean; by a miracle of purification, they are washed and made white in blood. This mighty leader, with these bright armies, now returns from the conquests to which he rode forth from heaven so gloriously. The kings and the hosts of the earth have arrayed themselves in vain against him;——the mighty imperial monster, in all the vastness of his wide dominion,——the false prophets of heathenism, combining their vile deceptions with his power, are vanquished, crushed with all their miserable slaves, whose flesh now fills and fattens the eagles, the vultures, and the ravens. The spirit of heathenism is crushed; the dragon, the monster of idolatry, is chained, and sunk into the bottomless pit,——yet not for ever. After a course of ages,——a mystic thousand years,——he slowly rises, and winding with serpent cunning among the nations, he deceives them again; till at last, lifting his head over the world, he gathers each idolatrous and barbarous host together, from the whole breadth of the earth, encompassing and assaulting the camp of the saints; but while they hope for the ruin of the faithful, fire comes down from God, and devours them. The accusing deceiver,——the genius of idolatry and superstition,——is at last seized and bound again; but not for a mere temporary imprisonment. With the spirit of deception and imposture, he is cast into a sea of fire, where both are held in unchanging torment, day and night, forever. But one last, awful scene remains; and that is one, that in sublimity, and vastness, and overwhelming horror, as far outgoes the highest effort of any genius of human poetry, as the boundless expanse of the sky excels the mightiest work of man. “A great white throne is fixed, and One sits on it, from whose face heaven and earth flee away, and no place is found for them.” “The dead, small and great, stand before God; they are judged and doomed, as they rise from the sea and from the land,——from Hades, and from every place of death.” Over all, rises the new heaven and the new earth, to which now comes down the city of God,——the church of Christ,——into which the victorious, the redeemed, and the faithful enter. The Conqueror and his armies march into the bridal city of the twelve jewelled gates, on whose twelve foundation-stones are written the names of the mighty founders, the twelve apostles of the slain one. The glories of that last, heavenly, and truly eternal city, are told, and the mighty course of prophecy ceases. The three great series of events are announced; the endless triumphs of the faithful are achieved.

III. What is the style of the Apocalypse?

This inquiry refers to the language, spirit and rhetorical structure of the writing, to its rank as an effort of composition, and to its peculiarities as expressive of the personal character and feelings of its inspired writer. The previous inquiry has been answered in such a way as to illustrate the points involved in the present one; and a recapitulation of the simple results of that inquiry, will best present the facts necessary for a satisfactory reply to some points of this.

First, the Apocalypse is a prophecy, in the common understanding of the term; but is not limited, as in the ordinary sense of that word, to a mere declaration of futurity; it embraces in its plan the events of the past, and with a glance like that of the Eternal, sweeps over that which has been and that which is to be, as though both were now; and in its solemn course through ages, past, present, and future, it bears the record of faithful history, as well as of glorious prophecy.

Second, the Apocalypse is poetry, in the highest and justest sense of the word. All prophecy is poetry. The sublimity of such thoughts can not be expressed in the plain unbroken detail of a prose narrative; and even when the events of past history are combined in one harmonious series with wide views of the future, they too rise from the dull unpictured record of a mere narrator, and share in the elevation of the mighty whole. The spirit of the writer, replete, not with mere particulars, but with vivid images, seeks language that paints, “thoughts that breathe, and words that burn;” and thus the writing that flows forth is poetry,——the imaginative expression of deep, high feeling——swelling where the occasion moves the writer, into the energy of passion, whether dark or holy.

The character of the Apocalypse, as affected by the passionate feelings of the writer, is also a point which has been illustrated by foregoing historical statements of his situation and condition at the time of the Revelation. He was the victim of an unjust and cruel sentence, deprived of all the sweet earthly solaces of his advanced age, and left on a desert rock,——useless to the cause of Christ and beyond even the knowledge of its progress. The mournful sound of sweeping winds and dashing waves, alone broke the dreary silence of his loneliness, and awaking sensations only of a melancholy order, sent back his thoughts into the sadder remembrances of the past, and called up also many of the sterner emotions against those who had been the occasions of the past and present calamities which grieved him. The very outset is in such a tone as these circumstances would naturally inspire. A deep, holy indignation breaks forth in the solemn annunciation of himself, as their “brother and companion in tribulation.” Sadness is the prominent sentiment expressed in all the addresses to the churches; and in the prelude to the great Apocalypse, while the ceremonies of opening the book which contains it are going on, the strong predominant emotion of the writer is again betrayed in the vision of “the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they bore;” and the solemnly mournful cry which they send up to him for whom they died, expresses the deep and bitter feeling of the writer towards the murderers,——“How long, O Lord! holy and true! dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” The apostle was thinking of the martyrs of Jerusalem and Rome,——of those who fell under the persecutions of the high priests, of Agrippa, and of Nero. And when the seven seals are broken, and the true revelation, of which this ceremony was only a poetical prelude, actually begins, the first great view presents the bloody scenes of that once Holy city, which now, by its cruelties against the cause which is to him as his life,——by the remorseless murder of those who are near and dear to him,——has lost all its ancient dominion over the affections and the hopes of the last apostle and all the followers of Christ.