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Church was high treason, punishable with death. For this Blessed John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Blessed Sir Thomas More, sometime Lord Chancellor of England, died. A series of appalling executions followed (see Gardner, "Letters and Papers v., viii. pref.). Persecution continued more or less for about two centuries in England, Ireland and Scotland. Penal laws were enacted against the Church, which went beyond the severities of paganism. Priests of the Church were hunted down and executed for the offence alone of being priests. On shelf, P. 4, of the Bodleian Library is the record of the trial at the Old Bailey Sessions, before all the judges of England, including the Lord Chief Justice, of six English priests, for the sole crime of being in England. The sentence runs, "That you be then severally hanged by the neck, that you be cut down alive, that your privy member be cut off, that your bowels be taken out and burnt in your view, that your heads be severed from your bodies, that your bodies be divided into quarters, to be at the King's disposal" (italics ours).

Satan's persecuting day in England, μxpòv Xpóvov, is over; and we would gladly forget the past. But the exegesis of Revelation requires the mention of these things. The ruined abbey churches of Great Britain are the historic monuments of this persecution.

Gog and Magog are symbols of world powers, gathered together to battle by Satan. This is the conclusion of the post Roman theme, and it is on the same lines as the conclusion of the Roman theme. Συναγαγεῖν αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸν πόλεμον is the phraseology of R. xvi. 14. We have the climax of a great battle in which the enemies of the Church are defeated, and the devil is cast into the pool of fire to join the Beast and the false prophet (R. xx. 9, 10).

The prophet Ezechiel foretells the coming of Gog upon the land of Israel, as it were, in the last days, "And I will rain fire and brimstone on him and on his army and upon the many nations that are with him. And I will be magnified and I will be sanctified. And I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord " (Ezech. xxxviii. 22, 23). This picture is followed in Ezechiel by a lengthy description of the heavenly Jerusalem, in which God dwells with His people for ever. In like manner the Seer follows these passages with a picture of the heavenly Jerusalem.

Gog, Prince of Magog, with his allies, Mesach and Tubal, lived in the land between the Euxine and Caspian Seas, and to the north, in the Caucasian mountains. They were a terror to middle Asia, and have often been called the Scythians of the

East. S. Augustine holds that they typify the wicked nations, who shall assail the Church in the last days. Gog and Magog were scriptural characters, known to the "servants of God" as concerned in the last great fight with the hosts of the Lord, in which they are destroyed, and peace reigns for ever. See Ezech. xxxviii.

"Whose number is as the sand of the sea," shows that the attack on the Church in the last days will be made by antiChristian forces, not confined to one sect, religion, nation, or people. The four quarters of the earth will combine against the Church. But not necessarily all at one time. That is not indicated.

9. Καὶ ἀνέβησαν ἐπὶ τὸ πλάτος τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἐκύκλωσαν τὴν παρεμβολὴν τῶν ἁγίων καὶ τὴν πόλιν τὴν ἠγαπημένην, καὶ κατέβη πῦρ ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ κατέφαγεν αὐτούς.

9. And they ascend upon the breadth of the earth and surround the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.

(S. = ἐκύκλευσαν. He omits ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ.)

The Vulgate splits this verse into two, and begins the 9th verse with "And fire came down." The Douay Bible follows the Vulgate. Owing to the joining together of verses 7 and 8 in the Vulgate, the above verse is numbered 8.

In Scriptural language one ascends or goes up to Jerusalem from any part of the world, as one goes up to London from any part of England. It is a common figure of speech denoting the approach to an important capital city. "The beloved city" is the Church, the "Civitas Dei" of S. Augustine. The Church is the bride. In the Canticle of Canticles, the expression" beloved" as applied to the Church occurs frequently (i. 12, ii. 8, 9, 10, 16, 17, v. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 16, 17, vi. I, 2, vii. 10, 11, viii. 14). And the city of the beloved is indicated at Canticles iii. 2, 3, 4.

The Gentiles surround "the camp of the saints," the headquarters of the Church Militant. This we take to be Rome of the Popes. "The primacy of S. Peter and the perpetuity of that primacy in the Roman See are dogmatically defined in the canons attached to the first two chapters of the Constitution 'Pastor Eternus.' . . . The Pope becomes the chief pastor because he is Bishop of Rome; he does not become Bishop of Rome because he has been chosen to be head of the universal Church" (G. H. Joyce, S.J.M.A., The Cath. Encyc. “Pope ").

It looks as if the fulfilment of this prophecy took place at the time of the Italian occupation of Rome in the year 1870.

The history of the Church and the world, from the end of the thousand years until the day of judgment, is compressed into this one symbol of the Gentiles coming up against the Church from every quarter of the world. It is the old secular contest of the Church and the world with the renewal of persecution added. It means that nearly all nations will harass the Church from time to time, but not all together. The centuries that have already elapsed since the sixteenth have seen the Reformation attack, the Russian persecution, the French Revolution, the French Republic attack, the Italian "occupation," and the Portuguese Republic persecution. Other attacks will follow, for so it is written. In every case of revolution the dragon "stood before the woman," the Church, that "he might devour her son" (R. xii. 4).

"And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them." We have had many opportunities of studying the symbolism of fire in this Book. The manifold woes of Jerusalem in its last days are covered by the symbolism of fire, "And the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar and cast it on the earth" (R. viii. 5, 7, 8, 10, ix. 17, 18, xi. 5). So also in the Roman theme, " And another angel came out from the altar who had power over fire" (R. xiv. 18), and he ordered the gathering of the vineyard of the earth, and the treading of the winepress with its enormous outflow of bloodof Roman blood, shed in various wars. See also R. xvi. 8, xvii. 16, xviii. 8. The fire indicated here is the fire of God's wrath, which is a symbol of many forms of punishment. We gather that the nations which go up against the Church will suffer for it in the end, as the Jews and pagan Rome suffered. God will protect His Church.

10. Καὶ ὁ διάβολος ὁ πλανῶν αὐτοὺς ἐβλήθη εἰς τὴν λίμνην τοῦ πυρὸς καὶ θείου, ὅπου καὶ τὸ θηρίον καὶ ὁ ψευδοπροφήτης, καὶ βασανισθήσονται ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων.

10. And the devil who seduced them was cast into the pool of fire and brimstone, where both the beast and the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

The Vulgate ends its 9th verse with "where both the beast," and makes a short 10th verse of the remainder of the sentence, and so gets level with the Greek. Having elected to follow

the Greek text of Brandscheid, we have no choice in the matter.

As a sign that we have reached the end of the contest, the devil is cast into hell. The Beast and the false prophet were cast into the pool of fire at R. xix. 20; and we are presently told that this is "the second death" (R. xx. 14). The Beast and the false prophet, i.e., paganism, cannot again dominate the world. They remain in the hell of the damned, where the dragon will join them at the last day.

PART VI

THE GENERAL JUDGMENT

11. Καὶ εἶδον θρόνον μέγαν λευκὸν καὶ τὸν καθήμενον ἐπ' αὐτοῦ, οὗ ἀπὸ τοῦ προσώπου ἔφυγεν ἡ γῆ καὶ ὁ οὐρανός, καὶ τόπος οὐχ εὑρέθη αὐτοῖς.

11. And I saw a great white throne and him that sat upon it, from whose presence the earth and heaven fled away, and there was no place found for them.

Και, “ and,” again introduces a new theme. The Seer follows the Hebrew Scriptures, where still greater transitions are made by = καὶ, viz., the passing from one book to another. Even independent books sometimes commence with 7, e.g., Lev. i. I and Num. i. I.

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The vision of the "throne in heaven and one sitting upon the throne" (R. iv. 2) is again in evidence. The occasion is the "Heaven and earth shall pass away' final judgment. (Matt. xxiv. 35). "But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away . . . and the earth... shall be burnt up" (2 Pet. iii. 10). To show that this symbolism refers to the end of the world, the dead are immediately marshalled to judgment (see R. vi. 14, notes). There can be no mistake about it, that this vision refers to the day of judgment. It is the only convincing picture of the last days in the Book.

12. Καὶ εἶδον τοὺς νεκρούς τοὺς μεγάλους καὶ τοὺς μικροὺς, ἑστῶτας ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου, καὶ βιβλία ἠνοίχ θησαν, καὶ ἄλλο βιβλίον ἠνοίχθη, ὅ ἐστιν τῆς ζωῆς, καὶ ἐκρίθησαν οἱ νεκροὶ ἐκ τῶν γεγραμμένων ἐν τοῖς βιβλίοις κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν.

12. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged by those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

The dead of every degree, high and low, rich and poor, stand before the throne to be judged according to their works. And

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