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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 6

Section 2 Subsection 7

Fulfilment of the Prophecy


 
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Commodus, the imperial sword-bearer of the Roman empire, was not poinarded, but strangled to death. He was succeeded by Pertinax, the praefect of Rome, a senator of consular rank, and conspicuous for his merit. He was chosen emperor by the Praetorian Guards, whose praefect, Lactus, had procured the murder of Commodus, and his election by the military. The election was ratified by the Senate, A.D. 193, which at the same sitting branded the memory of Commodus with eternal infamy.

Pertinax was a "virtuous" pagan, who sought to heal the wounds inflicted by the hand of tyranny. The innocent victims who yet survived, were recalled from exile, released from prison, and restored to the full possession of their honors and fortunes. The unburied bodies of murdered senators (for the cruelties of Commodus, an individual element of the rider of the fiery red horse, endeavored to extend itself beyond death) were deposited in the sepulchres of their ancestors; their memory was justified; and every consolation was bestowed on their ruined afflicted families.

Economy and industry he considered as the pure and genuine sources of wealth. The rapacious extravagance of Commodus had left only about forty thousand dollars in the treasury. With this small sum he had to defray the expenses of the government, and to discharge the pressing demand of a liberal donative he had been obliged to promise the licentious and turbulent soldiery who had elected him. Yet under this pressure, he remitted all the oppressive taxes invented by Commodus, and cancelled all the unjust claims of the treasury; declaring, "that he was better satisfied to administer a poor republic with innocence, than to acquire riches by ways of tyranny and dishonor."

His thorough radical reform of state abominations secured to Pertinax the love and esteem of the people, who never would have acquired a fiery redness had they been ridden solely by rulers of his description. They already flattered themselves that they should long enjoy the benign influence of his administration. But his zeal to reform the corrupted state was too hasty, and proved fatal to himself and to his country. His honest indiscretion united against him the servile and swinish multitude, who found their private benefit in the public disorders, and who preferred the favor of the most vicious tyrants to the inexorable equality of the laws.

Amidst the general joy, the sullen and angry countenance of the praetorian guards betrayed their discontent. They dreaded the restoration of ancient discipline; and regretted the licence of the former reign. Three days after their election of Pertinax, they seized on a senator with the design of making him emperor. But he escaped their grasp, greatly alarmed at their purpose of thrusting upon him so dangerous a distinction. A short time after this, one Sosius Falco, a rash youth, conspired with the soldiery in the absence of Pertinax; but the conspiracy was foiled by his unexpected return to Rome. Falco was on the point of being condemned to death by the Senate, but escaped through the intercession of the emperor, who desired that the purity of his reign might not be stained by the blood even of a guilty senator.

These disappointments served only to irritate the rage of the licentious and brutal praetorians, who were the curse of the state it was their duty to defend. Only two months and twenty-six days after the death of Commodus, a general sedition broke out in their camp, which the officers wanted either the power, or inclination to suppress. They marched at noonday with arms in their hands, and fury in their looks, towards the imperial palace. Their companions on guard gave them free admission; and they were welcomed by the domestics of the old court, who had already formed a secret conspiracy against the life of the too virtuous emperor. Pertinax, disdaining either flight or concealment, advanced to meet those in whose fiery red hand was already brandished "the Great Dagger." He recalled to the minds of these assassins his own innocence, and the sanctity of their recent oath. But all in vain. A barbarian levelled the first blow, and Pertinax fell, pierced with a multitude of wounds. His head was borne on a lance in triumph to the praetorian camp in sight, of a mournful and indignant people, who lamented the unworthy fate of an excellent prince, and the transient blessings of a reign the memory of which could serve only to aggravate their approaching misfortunes.

The praetorian bands, whose licentious fury was the first symptom and proximate cause of the decline of the Roman empire, numbered about fifteen thousand. They were instituted by Augustus for the maintenance of his usurped dominion. They enjoyed double pay, and superior privileges. After fifty years of peace and servitude, Tiberius for ever riveted the fetters of his country by concentrating them at Rome, in a permanent camp without the walls, which was fortified with skill, on the broad summit of the Quirinal and Viminal hills.

Such formidable servants are always necessary, but often fatal, to the throne of despotism. By thus introducing the praetorian guards as it were into the palace and the senate, the emperors taught them to perceive their own strength, and the weakness of the civil government; to view the vices of their masters with familiar contempt, and to lay aside that reverential awe, which distance only and mystery, can preserve towards an imaginary power. In the luxurious idleness of an opulent city, their pride was nourished by the sense of their irresistible weight; nor was it possible to conceal from them that the person of the sovereign, the authority of the senate, the public treasure, and the seat of empire, were all in their hands.

The advocates of the guards endeavored to justify by arguments the power which they asserted by arms; and to maintain that their consent was essentially necessary in the appointment of an emperor. "Where," said they, "was the Roman people to be found? Not surely amongst the mixed multitude of slaves and strangers that filled the streets of Rome; a servile populace as devoid of spirit as destitute of property. The defenders of the state were the genuine representatives of the people, and the best entitled to elect the military chief of the republic." These assertions became unanswerable when the fierce praetorians increased their weight by throwing their swords into the scale.

We have seen in the exposition of the first seal, how a bow may symbolize a multitude; it will not therefore be difficult for us to comprehend, how that the "great dagger," or small sword, of the second, may symbolize a multitude of bloodshedding assassins in the hand of the power that rides the people, or rules the state. The scripture in various places uses the sword as emblematic of a multitude in arms. The wicked are the sword of Yahweh (Psa. xvii. 13); the sons of Zion are compared to a sword (Zech. ix. 13); all the tribes of Israel are styled Yah Elohim’s battle axe and weapons of war, with which He will break in pieces the nations, and destroy kingdoms (Jer. li. 20). Hence, they are symbolized in the apocalypse by a sword proceeding out of His mouth with which he will smite the nations (xix. 15). These praetorian assassins, who claimed to be the representatives of the Roman people, were the sword in the hand of power; and became signally "great" when their numbers were increased by Severus, "the military chief of the republic," to fifty thousand.

Having violated the sanctity of the throne by their atrocious assassination of Pertinax, the praetorians at once proceeded to dishonor its majesty by proclaiming, with a loud voice from the ramparts of their camp, that the Roman world was to be disposed of by public auction to the highest bidder. This infamous excess of military licence diffused grief, shame and indignation throughout the city. Two bidders presented themselves, Sulpicianus, father-in-law to Pertinax, and governor of the city, and Didius Julianus, a wealthy senator. The former offered £160 to each soldier; when the vain old Julian, eager for the prize, offered upwards of two hundred pounds sterling to each. This was irresistible; the gates of the camp were instantly thrown open to the purchaser. He was declared emperor; received their oath of allegiance, which would be regarded so long as convenient; and was conducted, in close order of battle, through the deserted streets to the senate-house where he received the imperial symbols from the obsequious and false-hearted council of the nation.

On the throne of the world, Julian now found himself without either friend or adherent. The praetorians even were ashamed of him, nor was there a citizen who did not regard his elevation with horror as the last insult on the Roman name. The streets and public places of Rome resounded with clamors and imprecations. The enraged multitude insulted the person of Julian, rejected his liberality, and called aloud upon the legions of the frontiers to assert the violated majesty of the Roman empire.

"It was given to him to take the peace from the earth." The public discontent was soon diffused from the centre to the frontiers of the empire. The armies in Britain, in Syria, and in Illyricum, lamented the death of Pertinax, as an old and favorite commander, and sternly refused to ratify the ignominious sale. "Their immediate and unanimous revolt was fatal to Julian, but it was fatal at the same time to the public peace; as the generals of the respective armies, Albinus, Niger, and Septimus Severus, were still more anxious to succeed, than to revenge the murdered Pertinax. Of these rivals, S. Severus was the most fortunate; and as the time of the seal-period had arrived, "that they should slay one another," they all prepared for the arbitrament of the sword. Severus being a man of energy as well as a soldier of experience and capacity, and having the best troops of the service; and being also nearer to the capital had much the advantage over Niger of Syria, and Albinus of Britain. He speedily assembled his Pannonian legions; painted in the most lively colors the crime, the insolence, and the weakness of the praetorians, and animated his soldiers to arms and revenge. He concluded with the persuasive of about nineteen hundred and fifty dollars to every man; a donative double in value to the bribe with which Julian had purchased the world. The acclamations of the army immediately saluted Severus as emperor, who without delay marched them into Italy on the way to Rome.

Severus and his Pannonian legions were a "great machaira" in every sense of the phrase. His approach to the city made both Julian and the praetorians to tremble. They quitted, with a sigh, the pleasures of the baths and theatres, to put on arms, whose use they had almost forgotten, and beneath the weight of which they were oppressed. Every motion of Julian betrayed his trembling perplexity, which, with secret pleasure, was greatly enjoyed by the Senate. He insisted that Severus should be declared a public enemy; anon he entreated that he might be associated with him in the empire. He sent public ambassadors to negotiate, while he dispatched private assassins to slay him. He designed a solemn procession of vestals, and all the colleges of priests in their canonicals, and bearing before them the symbols of Roman superstition, to meet the Pannonian legions; and at the same time he vainly tried to interrogate, or to appease, not "the Lamb," but "the Fates," by magic ceremonies, and unlawful sacrifices. But Severus dreaded neither his arms, nor his enchantments, but took wise precaution against assassination. His emissaries, dispersed in the capital, assured the guards, that provided they would abandon Julian, and the assassins of Pertinax, to the justice of the conqueror, he would no longer consider that murder as the act of the whole body. The faithless praetorians complied with these easy terms, seized the greater part of the assassins, and signified to the senate that they no longer defended the cause of Julian. That assembly forthwith, unanimously acknowledged Severus as lawful emperor; and pronounced sentence of deposition and death against the unfortunate Julian, who was beheaded as a common criminal in a private apartment of the baths of the palace, after an anxious and precarious reign of sixty-six days.

Having settled affairs in Rome upon the new basis, he left the city at the end of thirty days, and led his legions to the slaughter decreed for them and their compatriots under Niger and Albinus, in the second seal -- "it was given to him to take the peace from the earth, and that they should slay one another." In less than four years Severus subdued the legions of the east under Niger and the valour of the west under Albinus. He vanquished these two competitors of reputation and ability, and defeated numerous armies provided with weapons and discipline equal to his own. He was, as a legitimate imperial power, truly a "great machaira;" whose uncommon abilities and fortune had induced an elegant historian of that age to compare him with the first and greatest of the Caesars. He was a man of great craft and dissimulation. He promised only to betray, and flattered only to ruin. By these arts as well as by arms, his rivals fell singly and successively, an easy prey to their subtle foe. The sons of Niger had fallen into his hands at Rome. As long as the power of their father inspired terror, or even respect, they were educated with most tender care with his own children; but they were soon involved in Niger’s ruin, and removed -- first by exile and afterwards by death -- from the eye of public compassion.

As for Albinus, he was induced to accept from Severus the precarious rank of Caesar, as a reward for his neutrality in his conflict with Niger. Till this civil war was decided, he treated Albinus, whom he had doomed to destruction, with every mark of esteem and regard. Even in the letter in which he announced his victory over Niger, he styles Albinus the brother of his soul and empire. The messengers charged with the delivery of this were instructed to accost the Caesar with respect -- to desire a private audience, and to plunge their daggers into his heart. The conspiracy was discovered, and the too credulous Albinus crossed over to the continent to meet Severus in arms for the work of mutual slaughter, according to the terms of the second seal. The battle of Lyons in France, where one hundred and fifty thousand Romans were engaged, was fatal to Albinus; and this second civil war was finished by that memorable day, A.D. 197.

Both Niger and Albinus were discovered and put to death in their flight from the field of battle. Severus’ unforgiving temper stimulated by avarice, indulged a spirit of revenge, where there was no room for apprehension. The most considerable of the provincials who had obeyed the vanquished governor under whose authority they were accidentally placed, were reddened with their own blood, sent into exile, and lost their estates by confiscation. He sent the head of Albinus, with a threatening letter, to Rome, in which he announced that he was resolved to spare none of the adherents of the Caesar. He condemned forty-one senators to the fiery redness of the seal. Their wives, children, and clients attended them in death; and the noblest provincials of Spain and Gaul were involved in the same fiery red ruin. Such rigid justice -- for so he termed it -- was, in the opinion of Severus, the only conduct capable of ensuring peace to the people, or stability to the prince; and he condescended slightly to lament, that to be mild it was necessary that he should first be cruel.

Having thus become the "great machaira" of his age, Severus considered the Roman empire as his property, and proceeded to improve and cultivate so valuable an acquisition. In the administration of justice, his judgments were characterized by attention, discernment and impartiality; and whenever he deviated from the strict line of equity, it was generally in favor of the poor and oppressed. The misfortunes of civil discord were obliterated. The wrath of the Lamb was temporarily assuaged; and the judgments of the second seal were complete. The calm of peace and prosperity was once more experienced in the provinces. The fame of the Roman arms was revived by that warlike and successful imperial sword-bearer: and he boasted, with no little pride, that having received the empire oppressed with foreign and domestic wars -- "slaying one another" -- he left it established in profound, universal and honorable peace.

But, while "the peace" was taken "from the earth," and the armies of the empire were engaged in "slaying one another," what was the condition of those anti-pagan professors of christianity who had let go their hold upon the Spirit’s name, had denied his faith, and had embraced the dogmas of Nikolaitanism? And amid all the trouble of the times, was the Bowman of the first seal "conquering," while the Imperial Machaira of the second was blindly executing rigid justice upon the pagan senate and public at large?

In the beginning of the third century, at which we have arrived, we find an unhappy mixture of metaphysical self-righteousness and superstition, now amply developed in "the names and denominations" of blasphemy, overshadowing and darkening the world, and greatly clouding and depraving the pure light of the gospel. This perverting the gospel of Christ, and preaching another gospel than Paul’s, had been progressing from his time; but recently it had been greatly promoted by Ammonius, Pantaenus, Clement, Origen, of the Divinity School at Alexandria, the capital of Egypt; who were all eminent in the unhallowed work of making christianity palatable to heathen philosophers and admirers of the world’s wisdom -- a work that could only be successful by corrupting it. Would the Deity look with complacency upon this? Though they had renounced the gods of Greece and Rome, and contended against their existence and worship, as protestants now protest against the saints of the Romish calendar, and the worshipful honor paid to them, still this was only the negation of a particular superstition. The denial of this was not affirming "the truth as it is in Jesus." Hence, Alexandrian divinity was no more the doctrine of Christ, by which alone men can be saved, than modern protestantism. It was a protest against vulgar paganism without being also an earnest contest for the faith. It was protestantism, only with a different form of superstition for its adversary. Did the Deity esteem the overthrow of heathenism more highly than holding fast his name and affirming his faith. We know he did not; for he threatened this class of professors that he would "fight with them by the sword of his mouth," as he now fights against both papists and protestants by setting them to "slay one another" for their blasphemies and abominations. Zeal against an error or superstition does not sanctify the ignorance and unbelief of the zealots. They were vessels to dishonor in the master’s house. I say in the master’s house, for he had not yet "spued them out of his mouth," as he did afterwards. They had not yet arrived at "the mystery of iniquity" in its seventh, or Laodicean degree. Christ loved them still, and therefore he chastised them to bring them back "to the faith once delivered to the saints."

The great imperial machaira was the power employed in inflicting judgment upon "the house of the Deity" (1 Pet. iv. 17). In his younger days Severus had been a bitter persecutor of the christians at Lyons, where he afterwards fought his great battle with Albinus. But through the influence and kindness which he had received from Proculus, a christian physician, he became favorably disposed towards them for a time. It was not till about the tenth year of his reign, or A.D. 202, that his native ferocity of temper broke out afresh, and kindled a very severe persecution against them. He may have been provoked to this by some political demonstration against his administration on the part of heretical professors; who, taking advantage of the trouble of the times, may have given aid and comfort to Niger or Albinus, preferring them as rulers rather than Severus. Be this as it may, he visited Alexandria, formerly under Niger, with great severity. From various parts of Egypt professors were brought to that capital to suffer; and they expired in torments. The Justice of the Deity was very retributive in that city. It was the Oxford and Cambridge -- the Andover and Princeton of spurious christianity; and there, consequently, the providential visitation was the most intense. From all I can see in the history of those times, the executions seem to have been chiefly of professors who coveted martyrdom, which was contrary to the teachings of Christ who told them that "when persecuted in one city they should flee to another." But, the reverse of this, they rushed into the mouth of the dragon, and provoked him to devour them with his "great iron teeth," and to rend them with his "brazen claws." After the death of John this practice soon began to prevail. Multitudes in Asia presented themselves to Arrius Antoninus for execution in Trojan’s reign. He ordered a few of them to execution, and said to the rest, "Miserable people, if you choose death, you may find precipices and halters." As time rolled on, this folly increased to mania; and in A.D. 167, we find the ecclesia in Smyrna saying, in its letter about the execution of Polycarp, "we do not approve of those who offer themselves for martyrdom, for we have not so learned Christ." Among the Alexandrians, several were burned and destroyed in various ways. Of these Heraclides is mentioned, who had not been baptized, and was therefore certainly not a christian. Basilides, a soldier who had assisted at the execution of a professor, was converted by her appearing to him three days after her death; and on declaring that he was christian, he also was put to death. Such spurious conversions as these abounded; and christians (!) of this sort had an idea that "by one hour’s torment they redeemed themselves from eternal punishment." Such "miserable sinners," styling themselves "christians," abound in our time; multitudes of whom, tired of the troubles of life, would joyfully suffer death under the delusion that by giving their worthless bodies to be burned, they would by a brief torment acquire posthumous notoriety, and hide a multitude of sins. All this voluntary martyrdom was the result of ignorance and misdirected zeal. It was no proof of the sufferers being Christ’s Brethren. We may admit the piety and sincerity of many of them; but Paul has taught us that giving the body to be burned is no equivalent for the want of that "love," which he, after the teaching of the Christ, says is "the fulfilling of the law" -- hoping and believing all the things testified in the truth (1 Cor. 13). Martyrdom, then, is no proof of a man’s being in Christ; and without being in him, he cannot be a christadelphian. The most it proves is the sincerity and devotion of the martyr to his profession, whatever that may be. Hence, the martyrdom of Huss, Jerome, Cranmer, Servetus, and such like, proved the sincerity of their anti-romish and anti-calvinistic opinions; it did not alter the fact of their being eminently pious members of the Apostasy; the stain of which cannot be obliterated by body-burning, but only by an intelligent belief and obedience of the truth.

There were many such "fellowservants," who were tormented to death by order of Severus -- fellowservants with the "brethren" (see the distinction made in the fifth seal), in the sense in which the Spirit spoke to Jeremiah of his "servant Nebuchadnezzar" -- fellowservants in the work of "conquering the ruling superstition of their times." Whether any of "the brethren" fell in his exercise of "Justice," as he called it, we can only conjecture. It is probable from the wording of the fifth seal that there were some. Ecclesiastical writers, being ignorant of the truth, are unable to discern between the two classes. They have not been able to "come" to the subject, "and to see." Having no scriptural waymarks, they are lost in the sectarian wilderness of the early centuries; and find it, therefore, impossible to enlighten their readers in the premises. They tell us that heretics abounded in these times, all of them claiming the name of christian. Of these they judge them to be heretics, whom they in our times would decree to be such, according to their own creeds and articles: but they are more likely to have been the true brethren of Christ, or Christadelphians, than heretics. Little has been handed down to us that is reliable upon this point. The writers contemporary with the seals were chiefly of the heretical classes. Modern "divines" style them "the Fathers." And so they were. They were the fathers of the Laodicean Apostasy, taught by that woman Jezebel to commit spiritual lewdness; and to speak according to the depths of the Satan (Apoc. ii. 20-24). They denounced all for heretics who rejected their teaching. But the Deity knows his own, if they do not. The real heretics of the leading factions of Satan’s synagogue, doubtless, served for an earthwork upon which the dragon power expended much of his rage, before he reached the citadel of the four living ones’ encampment. While therefore many fell under the severe justice of this reign, few of the truly faithful may have suffered; for it was not against them, but chiefly against those who repented not, that the Spirit declared he would fight with the sword of his mouth.

Though troubled with fears within, and fightings without, the Archer with his bow, still went on "conquering." Niger and Albinus had been conquered, and their rival parties torn up by the roots. The same imperial conqueror, or "great machaira," had made war upon him. The flood, however, though it dashed against him with roaring impetuosity, had not swept him away. Many had fallen around him, but he had not only not been conquered, but still was "conquering;" and his ranks were swelled with more deserters from the enemy than he had lost by fire and sword.

But, after nine years of sanguinary conflict, "the Lamb" sent relief to his suffering people. After a reign of eighteen years, Septimus Severus died, A.D. 211. From this time, "the brethren and fellowservants" found peace and tranquillity for the space of thirty-eight years. During this long period, a short turbulent interval under Maximin excepted, they enjoyed a continued calm. In this period, their sufferings were those of the third and fourth seals, of which they were partakers with the general public. What these were, we shall "see" in our further exposition of the prophecy.

 

 


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