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Eureka

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

 

 

Chapter 11

Section 2-3 Subsection 14

Seven Thousand Names of Men


 
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"And in the earthquake seven thousand names of men were put to death."

In the English version this text reads, "were slain of men seven thousand." This error has probably crept in through editors not being able to conceive how names could be slain. They have therefore left onomata, names, out of the text, without any good reason. In my translation it is restored as indispensable to the right understanding of the prophecy.

We have seen how "the Tenth of the City fell" by the concussion of "the Earth." It required the shocks of three entire years to level it with the ground. It was caused to fall by the shaking of "the Earth" in a special sense. It was the fury of the populace, excited and directed by an invisible agency, dictating its will to affrighted assemblies, that overthrew the monarchy. The assemblies left to themselves would not have found the courage needful for such a work. Their sympathy was with royalty even after Aug. 10. The decree of heaven, however, could not be circumvented. "The Earth" had no love for the power that had crushed it in 1685. It hated kings, and all that constituted the pillars of their thrones. It began its work by throwing down the pillars, and having removed these, abolished the throne, and ignominiously executed its incumbent.

The aristocracies and hierarchy of a monarchy are its strongest supports. To these belong names of divers sorts. The names of aristocracy are the titled orders of nobility, such as dukes, marquises, counts, and such like, to which are attached feudal rights, privileges, and immunities, denied to the common people. Hierarchial names are representative of ecclesiastical orders and associations, which are known by their titles -- monks and priests, orders of men at once the creatures and supporters of despotism and superstition; the flatterers of princes, and the spoilers of the common people. To put these names to death would be to abolish them, both as to their associational existence, and the titles by which the classes of men, and the individuals of those classes, were distinguished.

These names are put down at seven thousand. This is the symbolical number by which the real number is expressed -- a definite totality for an undefined whole; and equivalent to all orders of monks, priests, and nobles related to the Tenth Kingdom of the Papal City. Hence, the interpretation of the text is, that "in the insurrectional agitation of the democracy all the monastic and sacerdotal orders, together with all ranks and degrees of nobility, should be utterly abolished." Such is the prophecy; and we shall find, that in the epoch of the fall of the French Monarchy, the things predicted were literally and sanguinarily fulfilled.

The destruction of the Bastile by the mob, and the excesses of the day, were a warning to the upper classes of their approaching ruin. Consternation, mingled with despair, pervaded them all. On the 4th of August, 1789, these disturbances and the means of putting an end to them, were discussed. Two of the nobility, members of the National Assembly, urged that it would be silly to employ force to quiet the people: that the right way would be to destroy the cause of their sufferings, and then the agitation which was the effect of them would instantly cease. They proposed the abolition of all feudal rights, which were frightfully oppressive. A sudden paroxysm of disinterestedness seized upon the Assembly, and everyone hurried to the tribune to renounce his privileges. A sort of intoxication seized all orders, all classes, all the possessors of prerogatives of every kind, who sought only to cast them all away. As the commons had no privileges to give up, they relinquished those of the provinces and the towns. The equality of rights was thus established between individuals and all parts of the French territory. The Assembly abolished tithes without redemption, and decreed the maintenance of the clergy by the State, which was very humiliating to their pride.

The feudal system having been abolished, the Assembly proceeded to destroy those great bodies, or "names," which were enemies in the state against the state. The clergy possessed immense property, conferred on them by princes as feudal grants, or by the pious by way of legacy. Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, proposed to them to renounce the property of the ecclesiastical benefices in favor of the nation. The clergy, however, struggled against this proposition, but without effect. The Assembly decreed that all their possessions were at the disposal of the state; by which it destroyed their formidable power, and the luxury of the high dignitaries of the order; and secured those immense financial resources which so long upheld The Revolution. It declared also, that it ceased to recognize "religious vows," and restored liberty to all the inmates of cloisters. "From this moment," says Mignet: "The hatred of the clergy to the revolution broke forth. It had been less intractable than the noblesse at the commencement of the States General, in the hope of preserving its wealth; afterwards it showed itself not less opposed to the new regime."

The exasperated clergy continued to excite disturbances throughout France. They deemed themselves sacrificed to the creditors of the state. Their property was ordered to be sold. Rendered desperate by the loss of the "filthy lucre" they adored, they circulated writings among the people, declaring that the plan of the revolutionists or John’s resurrected and ascended witnesses, was to attack the catholic religion -- that great name by which they had their wealth; and whose functionaries had put them to death. They neglected no means to awaken the ancient fanaticism of Provence and Languedoc. The protestants of these parts excited the envy of the catholics, whose priests took advantage of the dissensions to widen the breach. In this spirit it was proposed in the Assembly to declare, that the catholic religion was the only religion of the State. An ecclesiastic threatened them with malediction for intending to abolish the catholic religion. This was denied. In the course of the debate Louis XIV was mentioned. "I am not surprised," exclaimed Mirabeau, "that reference should be made to the reign in which the Edict of Nantes was revoked; but consider that, from this tribune whence I address you, I see that fatal window, where a king (Charles IX), the murderer of his subjects, mingling worldly interests with those of religion, gave the signal for the massacre of St. Bartholomew!" The Assembly refused to make the declaration. The catholics and protestants had come to blows on the subject in the south; and the former were repulsed.

But, while the clergy were filling up the measure of their fathers, the nobles were not forgotten. On June 19, 1790, it was proposed to abolish the titles of count, marquis, baron, etc.; to prohibit liveries; in short, to suppress all hereditary titles. A noble asked what they would substitute for the words, "Such an one was created count for service rendered to the state?" "Let it merely be said," replied Lafayette, "that on such a day such a person saved the State. "The motion was carried, notwithstanding the extraordinary irritation of the nobility, which was more galled by the abolition of its titles than by the more substantial losses which it had sustained since the commencement of the revolution. The more moderate portion of the Assembly had proposed that, in abolishing titles, those who chose to retain them, should be at liberty to do so. Lafayette tried to procure its return for amendment; but the king instantly gave his sanction, with the disingenuous intention, as some supposed, of driving things to extremities.

On July 30, 1791, decorations and orders of knighthood were suppressed; and to consummate the whole, the titles of Sire and Your Majesty were taken from the king. The Duke of Orleans assumed the name of Egalite, in English, Equality. Thus, all were reduced to an undistinguished multitude, having no pre-eminence to title one above another. Citizen and citizeness, was the designation common to all the French.

"The clergy," says Thiers, "stripped of the immense possessions which had formerly been given to it, on condition of relieving the poor, whom it did not relieve, and of performing that worship which it left to be performed by poor curates, was no longer a political order. But its ecclesiastical dignities were preserved, its dogmas respected, its scandalous wealth changed into a sufficient, nay, we may say, an abundant revenue, for it still possessed considerable episcopal luxury."

But the time had arrived in Nov. 1793, to substitute for the clerical system of blasphemy, another equally profane. The National Assembly had made the dioceses and the departments the same, and caused the bishops to be elective like all other functionaries. This was the civil constitution of the clergy to which they were obliged to bind themselves by oath. From that day a schism had taken place. Those who took the oath, were called constitutional priests; and those who refused so to do, refractory priests. These were condemned by the Convention to exile.

At length people began to ask, why, when all the old monarchical superstitions were abolished, there should yet remain this clerical phantom, in which scarcely any one continued to believe? With the exception of reducing the pay of the bishops to the maximum of six thousand francs, the Convention kept silence upon the subject, leaving France to take the initiative in the abolition of this GREAT NAME OF SUPERSTITION by which it had been cursed for so many centuries. What the Convention feared to do, the Commune of Paris, less reserved, zealously undertook, and set the first example for the abjuration of the catholic worship of daemonials and idols.

The dogma of the Commune was, that a nation ought to be governed by reason alone, and to allow no other worship, but that of reason. If they had gone a little further, and had said by reason enlightened by scripture truth, there could be no objection to the proposition, except from those who knew that the scriptures of truth and their systems are at variance. In the name of reason, then, the leaders of the municipality, Hebert and Chaumette, launched out against the publicity of the Romish mummery. A resolution was therefore obtained that the ministers of no religion should be allowed to exercise their worship out of the temples appropriated to it. Chaumette caused to be instituted new funeral ceremonies. The friends and relations alone were to accompany the coffin. All the religious emblems were to be suppressed in the cemeteries, and to be replaced by a statue of Sleep. Instead of cypress and doleful shrubs, the burial-grounds were to be planted with such as were more cheerful and more fragrant. All the outward signs of the superstition were entirely abolished. It was also decided that there should not be sold in the streets "any kind of jugglery, such as holy napkins, St. Veronica’s handkerchiefs, Ecce Homos, crosses, Agnus Deis, virgins, bodies and rings of St. Hubert, or any powders, medicinal waters, or other adulterated drugs." The image of the Virgin was everywhere suppressed, and all the Madonnas in niches at the corners of streets were removed to make room for busts of Marat and Lepelletier.

Anacharsis Clootz, a Prussian baron, and deputy to the National Convention, and who announced himself as the Orator of the Human Race, co-operated with Chaumette in incessantly preaching upon the worship of reason. To him deism appeared as culpable as catholicism itself. He never ceased to propose the destruction of tyrants, and of all sorts of gods, declaring that there is no other God but Nature, no other sovereign but the human race, the people-god; and that it was now high time to destroy religion, the only obstacle to the happiness of mankind.

The hopes of Clootz were all revived by the requisitions of Chaumette. He called upon Gobel, the constitutional Bishop of Paris. He persuaded him that the moment had arrived for abjuring, in the face of France, the Catholic Name, of which he was the Chief Pontiff. Gobel consented to go and abdicate the episcopacy, and prevailed upon the majority of his vicars to follow his example.

Accordingly, on November 7, 1793, all the constituted authorities of Paris accompanied Gobel and all his vicars to the Convention. Chaumette informed it that the Clergy of Paris had come to pay a signal and sincere homage to reason. Gobel was then introduced, with a red cap on his head, and holding in his hand his mitre, his crosier, his cross, and his ring. Addressing the Assembly, he said: "Born a plebeian curate of Porentruy, sent by my clergy to the first assembly, then raised to the archbishopric of Paris, I have never ceased to obey the people. I accepted the functions which that people formerly bestowed on me, and now, in obedience to it, I am come to resign them. I suffered myself to be made a bishop when the people wanted bishops. I cease to be so now when the people no longer desire to have any." He spoke for himself and all his clergy, who ratified his declaration. Having laid down his insignia of office, the president replied that the Convention had decreed freedom of religion; that it had left it unshackled to each sect; that it had never interfered in their creeds, but it applauded those who, enlightened by reason, came to renounce their superstitions and their errors.

Several bishops and curates, members of the Convention, abjured catholicism. These abdications were nailed with tumultuous applause by the Assembly and the tribunes. The deputation then retired, and, attended by an immense concourse, proceeded to the Hotel de Ville to receive the congratulations of the Commune.

The example once given, it was not difficult to excite all the sections of Paris, and all the communes of the Republic to follow it. The sections all declared that they renounced the errors of superstition, and acknowledged no other worship than that of reason. The section of L’Homme-Arme declared that it acknowledged no other worship than that of truth and reason; no other fanaticism than that of liberty and equality; no other doctrine than that of fraternity and of the republican laws decreed since May 31, 1793. The section of La Reunion intimated that it would make a bonfire of all the confessionals and of an the books used by the catholics; and that it would shut up the church of St. Mary. The section William Tell renounced forever the worship of error and imposture. That of Mutius Scoevola abjured the catholic superstition. That of Les Piques that it would adore no other god than the God of liberty and equality. And that of the Arsenal also renounced the catholic religion.

"Thus the sections taking the initiation, abjured the Catholic Name as the established superstition, and seized its edifices and treasures, as pertaining to the communal domains. A great number of the departmental communes seized the movable property of the churches, which they said was not necessary for religion. All the churches were stripped, and deputations were sent to the Convention with the gold and silver accumulated in the shrines of saints, or places appropriated to devotion. They went in procession, and the rabble, indulging in their fondness for burlesque, caricatured in the most ludicrous manner the ceremonies of catholicism, which they took as much delight in profaning as they had formerly done in celebrating them. Men wearing surplices and copes, came singing hallelujahs, and dancing the Carmagnole, to the bar of the Convention. There they deposited the host or Wafer-god, the boxes in which it was kept, and the idols of gold and silver. They made burlesque speeches, and sometimes addressed the most singular apostrophes to the saint-daemonials themselves. ‘O you,’ exclaimed a deputation from St. Denis, ‘O, you instruments of fanaticism; blessed saints of all kinds; be at length patriots. Rise in mass. Serve the country by going to the mint to be melted, and give us in this world that felicity which you wanted to obtain for us in the other.’ Having thus trampled on the saints of Romanism, they unveiled the busts of Marat and Lepelletier, and pointing to them, said: ‘These are not gods made by men, but the images of worthy citizens assassinated by the slaves of kings.’ They then filed off before the Convention, again singing hallelujahs and dancing the Carmagnole, carried the rich spoils of the altars to the mint, and placed the busts of the revered Marat and Lepelletier in the churches, which thenceforth became the temples of a new worship."

Such was the putting to death among the "seven thousand Names of men," of the beast’s "Name of Blasphemy," in all the territory of the Tenth of the Great City (Apoc. xiii. 1). It was a conflict between reason based upon the "vain philosophy" of Voltaire, and idolatry sustained by the power of the State. The power had first to be destroyed, and then the idolatry fall. Unenlightened reason and vain philosophy were too strong for catholic ghost and relic worship, and therefore it was destroyed. Thus one abomination was played off against another, and the most guilty before God was treated by a base rabble even as contemptible and vile. How admirably the Deity avenges his own. He cast down the bloody throne of the Bourbons; caused the royal representatives of the murderers of his saints and witnesses first to be humbled in the dust and impoverished, then tried for their crimes by "vile plebeians," and insultingly condemned, and finally ignominiously guillotined before the mob; and as the crowning expression of his indignation, exhibited the symbols, superstition and imposture of his enemies to the contempt of an awakened world. These were wonderful events, all consequent upon the ascent of the political witnesses of Jesus "in the cloud;" and an earnest of that grander and universal judgment of the Great City, when the Lord God, YAHWEH ELOHIM, Shall arise to exterminate its temporal and spiritual power, and to bless all nations in their deliverance.

As I have said, the spiritual bazaars, dedicated to the guardian ghosts of fictitious saints, called "churches," were turned into temples for the worship of Deified Reason! The bazaar, where the archbishops of Paris used to exhibit their spiritual wares, and dedicated to the ghost the Laodiceans style "Our Lady," was converted into a republican edifice called The Temple of Reason. A festival was instituted to be celebrated there every tenth day as a substitute for the catholic mummery of Sundays. To this Temple of Reason the mayor, municipal officers and public functionaries repaired. Here they read the declaration of the rights of man and the constitutional act, analyzed the from the army, and related the brilliant actions which had been performed during the Decade or past ten days. A mouth of truth was placed in this temple to receive opinions, censures, advice, that might be useful to the public. These letters were examined and read every Decade or tenth day; a discourse on morals was delivered, after which pieces of music were performed, and the ceremonies concluded with the singing of republican hymns.

"The first festival of Reason was held with pomp, on Nov. 10, 1793. It was attended by all the sections and constituted authorities. A young woman, the wife of a printer, personated the Goddess of Reason. She was draped in white, and a mantle of azure blue hung from her shoulders, and her flowing hair was covered with the cap of liberty. She sat upon an antique seat, entwined with ivy, and borne by four citizens. Young girls, robed in white and crowned with roses, preceded and followed the deified rival of the catholic Queen of Heaven. Then came the busts of the sanguinary Marat and the regicide Lepelletier (assassinated by a soldier because he had voted the death of Louis XVI), with musicians, troops, and all the armed sections. Speeches were delivered, and hymns sung, upon which they left the Temple of Reason and presented themselves before the Convention.

"Legislators!" said Chaumette "Fanaticism has given way to reason. Its bleared eyes could not endure the brilliancy of the light. This day an immense concourse has assembled beneath the Gothic vaults, which, for the first time, re-echoed the truth. There the French have celebrated the only true worship -- that of liberty, that of reason. There we have formed wishes for the prosperity of the arms of the republic. There we have abandoned inanimate idols (the images of saints) for reason, for that animated image, the masterpiece of nature," -- pointing to the printer’s wife, the new-made goddess of reason. This young and brazen beauty then descended from her seat, and went up to the presiding Jupiter of the Convention, who gave her the fraternal kiss amidst universal bravos and shouts of the Republic forever! Reason forever! Down with fanaticism! This farce being over, the procession, accompanied by the reluctant Convention, returned to the Temple of Reason, sang a patriotic song, and dismissed.
 

 

 

 

 


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