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Eureka

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

 

 

Chapter 6

Section 4 Subsection 3

"The Fourth of the Earth"


 
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When John beheld these two symbolical powers, Death and Hades, he saw that "exousia, authority was given to them to kill upon the fourth part of the earth, with sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, and under the beasts of the earth." The phrase "the fourth part of the earth," implies other three fourths. Did such a division of the empire obtain, as seems to be indicated here? There can, I think, be little doubt of such a division. The whole empire was one Roman Sovereignty or Majesty, but, at a certain epoch of its history, for convenience of administration, there was a practical distribution of the imperial territory into Four Praefectures. Gibbon says: "According to the plan of government instituted by Diocletian (A.D. 292), the four princes had each their praetorian praefect; and after the monarchy was once more united in the person of Constantine, he still continued to create the same number of four praefects, and trusted to their care the same provinces which they already administered."

1. The Praefect of the East stretched his ample jurisdiction into the three parts of the globe which were subject to the Romans, from the cataracts of the Nile to the banks of the Phasis, and from the mountains of Thrace to the frontiers of Persia.

2. The important provinces of Pannonia, Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece, acknowledged the authority of the Praefect of Illyricum.

3. The power of the Praefect of Italy was not confined to the country whence he derived his title; it extended over the additional territory of Rhaetia as far as the banks of the Danube, over the dependent islands of the Mediterranean, and over that part of the continent of Africa which lies between the confines of Cyrene and those of Tingitania.

4. The Praefect of the Gauls comprehended under that plural denomination the kindred provinces of Britain and Spain, and his authority was obeyed "from the wall of Antoninus to the foot of Mount Atlas."

But previous to Diocletian, and in course partly of the fourth seal-period, the empire was subjected to four sovereignties; first, Syria and the East under Odenathus and Zenobia; second, Illyricum under Aureolus; third, Gaul, Spain and Britain, under Posthumus and then Tetricus; and fourth, Rome and Italy under Gallienus. The last was constitutionally emperor of the whole; but usurpations which he could not suppress, left the reigning power in actual possession of only the fourth division of the Roman earth, for nearly ten years previous to the death of Gallienus, A.D. 268.

Now, certain writers who have attempted an interpretation of the fourth seal, have doubted the correctness of the reading in the text. Those who perceive the time of the seal to be that interval between the death of Alexander Severus and the death of Gallienus, find the words, "there was given to them authority to kill upon the fourth of the earth," a difficulty in the way of satisfactory exposition. "The devastations," say they, "extended over all the Roman earth; how then are the history and the text to be reconciled? And how is the text to be reconciled with itself? For not a fourth part of the horse, but the whole horse was sickly pale." Not being able to solve this enigma, they have fallen back upon the suggestions that to tetarton tes ges, is a spurious reading; and that the true reading conjectured by Mede is, to tetradion tes ges, the quaternion (or all four parts) of the earth. They strengthen themselves in this conjecture by the reading of the passage in Jerome’s Latin Version, who has it, super quatuor partes terroe, "over the four parts of the earth." In commenting upon this, Mr. Elliott says: "The genuineness of this, as Jerome’s own version, and not any mistake of a later copyist, is indubitable; and since his faithfulness to the Greek text is as unquestioned as his critical judgment in choosing between various readings in it, it follows that he must have had before him some correspondent reading in a Greek manuscript, or manuscripts, of authority, though our extant Greek manuscripts do not exhibit it; and which he deliberately preferred, as of all the best. Admitted, this reading makes the prophecy at once consistent with itself."

What Mr. Elliott says of Jerome is no doubt correct. He saw Greek copies, one or more, with such a reading; yet there is now no such reading extant. This is Greek against Greek; what then shall we do? I know of only one course -- make it harmonize with history as it stands in our Greek text; and if this cannot be done, then adopt Jerome’s testimony, and reject it for his emendation. Can this be done? Let us "see."

The prophecy of the fourth seal does not import that the devastations of Death and Hades were to be confined or restricted to the fourth of the earth; on the contrary, as the history shows, they would be coextensive with "the earth." What then the speciality in the premises? Why this; that, whereas in the second and third seals, the judgments peculiar to them did not notably affect "the fourth of the earth," or praefecture of Italy, as defined by our quotation from Gibbon: inasmuch as, that the riders on the red and black horses, had not received authority specially to distress that region; but that, in this fourth seal, the time had come in the wise providence of the Deity, to bring judgment home to the very heart and soul of the Italian body politic. "Authority was," therefore, "given to Death and Hades, to kill upon the territory of the Italian Fourth with sword, with famine, with pestilence, and by beasts of the earth," as well as upon the other three praefectures. But, if the authority had not been given with reference to "the fourth of the earth," the praefecture of Italy would still have remained exempt from the combined operation of the four plagues. Thus, then, there is no need of any learned emendation of the text; for rightly understood, there is no real difference in Jerome’s Greek copies and ours. The reading, however, as it stands in our version is preferable to his. In ours we have the enigma, which has so puzzled the learned Laodiceans of "christendom," that they have given it up; but in Jerome’s reading the enigma is lost, and the prophecy, consequently, deprived of much of its ingenuity and force. The Fourth Beast empire originated with the city of Romulus and its Italian territory as the brain and heart of the future dominion; in order then to affect the body politic with a mortal languor, as represented by the deadly pallor of the horse ridden by Death, it was necessary morbidly to affect the vital organs of the state located in the original "fourth of the earth," or Italian Praefecture; for so long as this retained its vigor dissolution would be deferred -- men do not die till the brain and heart have been stricken fatally by disease. Hence, the reason of the authority given. Death and Hades might have continued their work indefinitely upon the praefectures of the East, Illyricum, and the Gauls, the other threefourths of the earth, and by so doing have invigorated the Italian Fourth, seeing that a cause of the weakness of the Roman Body was its extreme magnitude. But this was not the purpose of the Deity. His purpose was to take political paganism out of the way, that the Man of Sin-Power, which the Lamb and his followers are to have the honor of destroying, might be revealed. The time had come, therefore, after the death of Alexander Severus, to begin the work of exhausting the seat of the pagan power of its vitality, that it might be paralyzed in all its members, and be prepared for the consummating events of the sixth seal, in the development of which it should be dethroned, or "cast out of the heaven." The authority was therefore given to Death and Hades to extend their operations into the "fourth of the earth," and to kill there with all the agencies at work in the other three fourths of the dominion.

 

 

 

 


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