"And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it upon the earth : and there were thunderings, and lightnings and voices, and an earthquake.
And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.
"And the first sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth; and the third part of the earth was burnt up, and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. And the second angel sounded: and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood ; and the third part of the creatures that were in the sea which bad life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
And the third angel sounded: and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp; and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of water; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. And the fourth angel sounded: and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so that the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise." Apoc. 5:5 12. 1
The four first Trumpet-visions, like those of the four first Seals, are connected together by certain strongly marked features of resemblance; and which are here of such a nature as to make it desirable to consider the four visions together. They depict the destructive action of a series of tempests, successively affecting the third part of the Roman earth, third part of the sea, third part of the rivers, and third part of the firmamental luminaries. By English Protestant interpreters they have been generally explained, and I doubt not truly, of those successive invasions and ravages of the GOTHS, chiefly in the fifth century, which ended in the subversion of the Western empire.
At the same time there has been as to the details, and the apportionment of its part in the Gothic ravages to each one of the four Trumpet-visions distinctively, such a remarkable difference of opinion, scarcely two commentators, I believe, explaining them alike, as to have thrown discredit, in the opinion of not a few, on the Gothic application altogether; and to have shown that the principles, on which we are to form a distinctive and particular application of the several figurations, need still to be established. To this point, then, let us first direct our attention.
I.-ON THE PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION APPLICABLE TO THE FOUR FIRST TRUMPET-VISIONS.
Now on the preliminary question whether these four Trumpet-visions were intended, or not, to prefigure the Gothic irruptions, the reader, whosoever has thus far followed and agreed with me, will soon see reason not to hesitate. Considering that we were brought by the visions of the six first Seals to that period of the Roman history when Paganism fell, and Christianity was established under Constantine and his successors, and that the sixth Seal's closing figurations of the four threatening but temporarily arrested tempest angels, and the sealing and palm-bearers, fixed our position at Theodosius' arrest of the Gothic insurrection under Valens, and the cotemporary Augustinian revelation, an arrest of which the instant ending at Theodosius' death might seem to mark a new and fateful epoch, just such as to answer to the seventh Sears opening, considering, I say, that in comparing the parallel course of the prophecy and the history, we were thus brought by the apocalyptic visions to the precise epoch of the commencement of the great Gothic irruptions into the Roman empire, and that then (after a preliminary figuration that seemed not obscurely indicative of that era's crowning sin of saint and martyr- worship,) the symbols in vision next following were such as well to suit those Gothic devastations, being the symbols of trumpet sounding from on high, and an earthquake with thundering and lightning; then of tempests, volcanoes, and meteors, successively cast upon the Roman earth, it seems to me almost impossible to doubt but that the latter were intended as a prefiguration of the former. There are two further coincidences that must not be omitted, as furnishing corroborative evidence of the truth of this conclusion.
The one is, that as the Gothic ravages terminated in the extinction of the Western emperors and empire, so the fourth Trumpet vision, the last of the series, depicted the partial darkening of what were the well-known symbols of rulers, the sun and the heavenly luminaries. The other, that as the Gothic desolations were succeeded, after a half century's interval, or rather more, by the Saracen invasions, so the fourth Trumpet vision was succeeded, after a forewarning notice which might well correspond with that interval, by the fifth Trumpet vision; a vision almost demonstrably prefigurative, as I hope to prove, of that very Saracen woe.
The which preliminary point being settled to our satisfaction, we come next to the question of the right particular application of each one of the four visions to the one particular irruption of the Goths really corresponding. For that some such particular application is intended, and that distinctive marks are given in the visions to fix it, we cannot doubt.
The divine selection of the symbols, being the best possible, must needs, as we might feel assured a priori, be precise and distinct: and their precision and appropriateness in every one of the apocalyptic visions that we have hitherto considered, has very strikingly illustrated and confirmed the fact. The only doubtful question is as to the distinctive mark intended. The question is narrowed by the important fact, to which notice has been called already, of the fourth vision of the series almost obviously prefiguring (if the general reference be admitted) the extinction of the Western Caesars.
So that it is only in the cases of the former three, that we have need to seek out the distinctive characteristics. And now then, as with this view the reader considers the three Trumpet-visions in question, this will, I think, very soon strike him; that though there may be, and probably is, something partially characteristic of each particular invasion in those of the symbols, respectively, that pre figure the powers invading, I mean the hailstorm, the volcano, and the blazing meteor, yet that the measure of similarity of character between them, as being all alike figures of hostile and desolating armies, is such as to preclude them from furnishing any decisive distinction.2
And thus he finds himself forced to look to other stated particulars in the several visions, for the marks he is in search of; specially to their designations of the locality or geographical division in each case invaded: the which indeed, from the singular and marked character of the phraseology that defines them, appear expressly intended to fix the attention of the reader; "the third part of the land, and of the trees," " the third Part of the sea," "the third part of the rivers." 3
But behold Commentators of high name interpose; and tell us that there is nothing of local or geographical meaning in these expressions; that they are all mere figures. "The Roman universe," says Mede, (and he is followed in the spirit of his exposition by many, perhaps by most subsequent expositors of note,) 4 is compared to the mundane system, which consists of earth, sea, rivers, heaven, stars; the system or constitution of the empire having as its earth that which is the base and foundation, as it were, of the whole polity; as its sea, that amplitude of rule which circumscribes its earth, as the natural land is circumscribed by the natural sea; its political rivers also which flow from and into the sea, viz. the provincial magistrates?" &c. And then, as to the third part, whether' of land, soil, or rivers, he expounds it to mean the whole Roman earth; as constituting, he says, about one-third of the known world, at the time of the Evangelist.5
Who can wonder that by interpreters who have adopted any such principle of interpretation, the visions of the three first Trumpets should be applied with equal facility and plausibility to one as to another of the Goths invasions? For the very distinctiveness of these symbols in the sacred text is annihilated by their interpretation: and a meaning so nearly common attached to them, that whosoever or when so ever the invader, in so far as any one of the three designated objects might be disturbed by the invasion, whether the figurative earth, figurative sea, or figurative rivers, it must needs be that the two others would be thereby disturbed also.
Of the meaning of the third part I shall speak presently. But let me first ask, what can be the reason for thus setting aside the natural geographical and topographical sense of these expressions, land, sea, rivers? It has arisen, I believe, from an opinion that whenever any one prominent part of a prophecy is clearly symbolic in its language, the rest ought to be interpreted in a symbolical or figurative sense so; at any rate in such an example as that now be fore us. So that in the present case the land, sea, and rivers mentioned ought to be construed symbolically, because the burning mountain, tempest, and meteor are so. This opinion, which seems to have prevailed widely among commentators, is evidently of too great importance, and if true, of too extensive application, not to demand an immediate inquiry into its correctness.6
I have put the question restrictedly, viz. as applicable to an example involving local terms, like that before us, be. cause really as regards the general question, the mixture of the literal and the symbolic is so palpable and so frequent in prophetic scripture, that it seems quite needless to detain the reader by citations to prove it. He can scarce open a page in the prophecies without seeing examples.
Would any man in his senses suppose that because in Psalms 22 the predictive words "All my bones are oat of joint," and those, "They parted my garments among them, &c," are to be taken literally, therefore the "fat bulls of Basan," mentioned in connection, are to be construed literally also? Or vice versa? I believe not an Apocalyptic Commentator can be found, whatever his predilections in favor of taking all literally or all symbolically, that has been able fully to carry out the rule into practice. It is indeed in my opinion, almost, an impossibility.-Thus it is the limited question of the admissibility of literal localities, and a literal geography, into prophecies generally symbolical, that seems alone to need proof or illustration. Nor will it detain us long to furnish it.
The best proof seems to be that of examples from other prophecies, where the mixture spoken of is unequivocal. Let me then cite a few. My first shall be from Ezek. 27:26 "The east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas." In this passage, Tyre is symbolized as a ship, and Nebuchadnezzar as the destroying wind that shipwrecked it: yet, symbolical as is the general phraseology, the chorographic phrase, "in the midst of the seas," designates the literal locality of the situation of Tyre; and "the East" that of the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar with respect to it.
I would rather select this as a first example, because it illustrates the manner in which the locality from whence a threatened evil is to issue, is often, by the peculiar appropriateness of the emblem, intimated in scripture metaphors; as well as that on which the evil is to fall. That the meaning I have attached to the emblem, as thus significant, is not undesigned or fortuitous, will appear from its frequent and distinctive use elsewhere to the same effect.7 A second example that I shall cite is from chap. 32 of the same prophecy.
Here Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and his people and power, are figured under the symbol of a crocodile. After which comes the clause following: "I will water with thy blood the land wherein thou swimmest, even to the mountains; and the rivers shall be full of thee." Of which the meaning is plain. The waters of the Nile being wont to overflow from mountain-chain to mountain, which form the Egyptian valley, and, except at flood-time, to separate at the Delta into many different streams, the prediction made was that these literal rivers, this literal land, should be tinged with the blood of Pharaoh and his people. In which example observe that, though the land previously spoken of means the literal land of Egypt, and the rivers its literal rivers, yet the sun, moon and stars are in the very next verse used figuratively of its governing authorities; just as is the case in the symbols of the fourth trumpet, as compared with those of the three former. For these are the words of verse 7; "And when I shall have put thee out," (I. e. out of the water,) "I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; and I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light."
All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord." Take a third example from Ps. 80: 8, 11 Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: it sent out its boughs into the sea, and its branches unto the river: "where, though the vine is symbolic, yet the Egypt, sea, and river, (Euphrates), are all notoriously literal. Once more, for a case of minuter locality, we may refer to Jeremiah 3:6. Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? She is gone up upon every high mountain, and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot." Here the harlotry of Judah is figurative; but the high mountains, and the green trees, indicated the literal localities, where that figurative harlotry was committed against God.
Thus much on the admixture of the geographically or locally literal with the figurative, in the phraseology of other Scripture prophecies. To which let me add, that in the Apocalyptic prophecy itself there are localities specified, as we shall see, both general and particular, which must necessarily be interpreted literally as localities. So, for example, in passages like that of Rev. 12:12, where it is said, "Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea!" For unless the land were the literal land, and the sea the literal island-studded sea, how could they have inhabitants? And so again in Rev. 2:14, where the Euphrates spoken of must needs mean the literal Assyrian river; supposing only that proof can be given satisfactory, (of which I do not doubt,) that the judgments figured under the sixth trumpet were those of the Turkish woe.
It remains that we investigate the meaning of "the third part;" a question certainly more difficult. It has been mentioned that many commentators interpret the Phrase as one designative of the whole Roman world, or perhaps of some large but indefinite portion of it. The dissatisfaction, however, of all such indefinite explanation is evident. To say, nothing of other inconsistencies in it, it makes one of the most strongly-marked phrases of designation in the whole apocalyptic prophecy, one used seven times here, and twice elsewhere, it makes this, I say? altogether unmeaning.
No wonder therefore that they who thus interpret should be themselves dissatisfied with their interpretation; and shew, like Mr. Cuninghame, that they have only given it, because of not perceiving any threefold division of the Roman world, such as in their opinion to answer to the conditions of the prophetic clauses. hat the earth or world spoken of in the Apocalypse means the Roman earth or world, cannot, I think, be doubted; it being a use of the term frequent in other scriptures,' (not to say in the best profane writers also,) and already proved I believe elsewhere to be the true Apocalyptic sense.
Again that some actual threefold division of the empire is intended by the phrase "third part," seems to me also indubitable; just as by that of "the four parts of the earth," in Seal 4, taking Jerome's reading. The only question is, what? And though it be a question confessedly difficult, yet, let it be remembered, that it is one on which we do not enter without a hint to aid us. For from the fourth trumpet-vision's exhibiting the third of the sun as eclipsed, in symbolization of an event which we saw reason anticipatively to regard as the extinction of the Western emperors, the inference follows that, whatever were the other two of the apocalyptic thirds, the Western empire must needs have been one; indeed the one intended all through the present four visions.
And this seems of itself sufficient reason why the natural tripartite division of the Roman world into European, African, and Asiatic, the same that has been suggested as an alternative by Vitringa, and subsequently adopted by Mr. Faber and others, should be set aside. For, at the time we speak of, the Western empire, that over which the Gothic and Vandal invaders extinguished the Roman Government, instead of embracing the whole of the European provinces, agreeably with this natural division, and no more, comprehended in itself only four European provinces, I mean Britain, Gaul, Spain, Italy, (the addition of Noricum and Pannonia being, as I shall presently observe, doubtful,) and at the same time comprehended the province of Africa. The same objection seems decisive against that political trisection of the empire which was made, on the death of Constantine, between his three sons, Constans, Constantine, and Constantius; and which other expositors, as Messrs. Frere and Irving, have imagined to be here referred to.
For the western third then included the provinces of Britain, Gaul, and Spain only; both Italy and the African province being detached from it. Supposing my presumption respecting the fourth trumpet-visions meaning to be correct, it must be regarded as the first essential characteristic of the true trisection intended, that its Western third, like the Western empire overwhelmed by the Goths, should comprehend at once the African province, and the four provinces also that have been specified in Europe.
And thus we find ourselves forced on another and different trisection of the Roman world: I one which we shall find to have existed de facto at the precise time to which I refer the first Trumpet-sounding; and which had been indeed regularly marked out, some 80 or 90 years before, as a de jure trisection, on an occasion passing, but most notable, alike in history and in the Apocalyptic drama.
The epoch I allude to was that memorable one when, Galerius having died, and Maxentius been drowned in the Tiber, the Roman world found itself under the dominion of the three emperors Constantine, Licinius, and Maximin. At which time what the partition of the provinces, that then fell to the three respectively? To Constantine, we read, there attached Gaul, Spain, Britain, Italy, Africa; to Licinius the vast Illyrian Praefectare, which coincided with, and embraced, the rest of Roman Europe; to Maximin the Asiatic provinces and Egypt: a trisection this which, in so far as regards the Western third at least, precisely answers to that indicated by the 4th Trumpet vision of the Apocalypse. And there is a direct and striking reference to it at its first forming, (as I think will appear,) in a vision chronologically anterior to the four Trumpets, though in the Apocalyptic arrangement placed after them; I mean that of the travailing woman and the dragon in the 12th chapter: where it is said of the dragon, that "he drew with his tail the third part of the stars of heaven;" in reference, if I mistake not, to the then sole representative and head of the Roman Pagan power, Maximin. Hence altogether a presumption in favor of this, as the very trisection here intended.
No doubt it may be objected that other temporary divisions of the empire followed afterwards; and, more especially, that, just before the irruption of the Goths, there was made one too memorable on many accounts in history, and too permanent, to be overlooked in the prophecy: I mean, of course, the twofold division into Eastern and Western, first made under Valentinian and Valens, then finally under Theodosius' two sons Arcadius and Honorius. but the truth is that, considering the matter merely on the dejure principle, the original intermediate Illyrian Praefecture will be found to have been so shifted from time to time, now to the Eastern, now to the Western empire, that it might seem almost needful for clearness' sake, even on that account, to preserve a notice of the old tripartite division, in which Illyricum held a separate place.
And yet more, considering the matter de facto, it will a appear that at the era to which the 1st Trumpet is supposed by me to refer, (I mean the era after Theodosius' death,) Illyricum, was so detached by Gothic occupation from the rule of both Eastern and Western empire, that its fortunes could not be considered as involved in those either of the Western or Eastern empire; but, for distinctness Sake, needed (I may say absolutely needed) to be considered separately. Already Illyricum, had been the scene of the earliest occupation and devastations of the Goths, after the battle of Adrianople. Nor did the peace that they made shortly after with Theodosius, cause any effectual alteration in their occupancy of it. " The vast regions they had ravaged," says Sismondi, "were abandoned to them, if not in absolute sovereignty, yet in terms little at variance with their independence." Thus they already constituted, as it were, a living wall of separation between the two divisions of the empire which were most properly Roman in their population. More especially such was the case after Alaric's and the Goths first revolt on Theodosius death, and overrunning of the southern part of this same Praefecture; Alaric being thereupon constituted, (as I shall afterwards again have to mention,) Master General, or in fact independent Prince, of Illyricum. And it was precisely at this epoch, as I conceive, not before, that the first Trumpet sounded.
Nor indeed was it at this time only that the Illyrian, or intermediate third, was thus separated in its history and fortunes from the other two-thirds. The same continued the case afterwards. In the 6th and 7th centuries the Bulgarian power was formed; and the result was that Avar, and then the Bulgarian dominion intruded into it: and "Maesia, during the middle ages, was broken into the barbarian kingdoms of Servia and Bulgaria." In the 9th century, Macedonia and the eastern Illyricum were inundated by Slavonic hordes, by whom the whole region is said to have been Slavonized; and which were thus not in language only, but also in government, very much separated from the Greek Empire. Finally, and much later, the Franks in their crusading expeditions severed the southernmost of the Illyrian provinces from the Greeks, and long occupied them. I the rather mention this last act, in tracing the distinct and separate history of the Illyrian Praefecture, because it carries us down to the times of the Turks and shows how properly the self-same tripartite division of which we have spore n, was used even under the 6th Trumpet in the prophecy; seeing that it was but "the third of men, "the eastern third, against whom the slaying commission of the Euphratean horsemen could be properly said to be given.
Thus the result of our investigation has been to show that on general grounds, and with reference to the general tenor of Roman history, at and subsequent to the time of the Gothic invasions, instead of the tripartite division that I speak of being a division inappropriate to make use of, in the prophetic prefiguration of those events and times, because of the notable bipartition of the empire into Eastern and Western that had taken place a little previously, it was precisely the most appropriate that course be chosen. It only remains to see whether it will suit the details of the three first trumpet visions, as we have already by anticipation seen that it does those of the fourth. And when we shall have completed the comparison of these details, with the details of the history corresponding, I trust that on this point also the reader will find himself equally satisfied.
2. HISTORICAL EXPOSITION OF THE FOUR FIRST TRUMPET-VISIONS.
In order to enter in this part on our comparison of the prophecy and the history to the best advantage, it will be peculiarly desirable that we should endeavor to place ourselves, as it were, in the situation of the Evangelist; and to see the varied images of the successive visions, as far as possible, so as he saw them: more particularly, I mean, as each locally affecting, and locally associated with, its assigned portion of the Roman world; that same Roman world that seems to have been extended in living through miniature landscape, beneath and around him, with its triple divisions of territory marked therein, and their respective boundary lines, whether of river, sea, mountain, or desert. All this, though the unassisted human eye could not comprehend it, the prophetic eye might, as usual with the prophets, or indeed the natural eve, is with Christ in his temptation, be strengthened to discern. And need I suggest what an advantage it must have afforded to St. John all through, towards the right understanding of the visions? Much of that to which a laborious train of reasoning has already thus far conducted us, would have been manifest to him, as I conceive, at a glance.
And as in regard to what has preceded, so in regard to what is to follow also: above all in figurations such as we are now entering on; where distinctive symbolic details are comparatively scanty, and the most distinctive part of the symbol is its local origin, course, or destination. Hence the importance to those who have not had it given them to be eye-witnesses, of calling the imagination in aid, in the manner I suggested. To facilitate this a Map has been appended; with the three great divisions, which we have seen reason to suppose alluded to, distinguished upon it by different colors: and in regard to which several territorial divisions it may be well to remind the reader, that each one included its third of the Mediterranean or Roman sea,10 as well as its third of the land: and each one also its own characteristic stream of the three eat frontier rivers, the Rhine, Danube,11 and Euphrates. In order yet more to aid the imagination, I shall make the attempt, before entering on historical events and fulfillment, to describe the imagery of the successive visions, so as I conceive it to have passed over the landscape of the Roman world before the eye of the Evangelist: always taking care that there shall be in this no unlicensed play of the fancy; and nothing inconsistent with that faithful adherence to the written descriptions which is due to every word of God's Holy Book. I have already hinted that it is one and the same Western third of the Empire to which I apply alike all the four first Trumpet visions; its land territory, its maritime dependencies, its frontier river-valleys and fountains, its sun and stars. This the unity of these four visions seems to me to require.
I. THE IMAGERY OF THE PRELUMINARY ALTAR-SCENE
IN THE APOCALYPTIC TEMPLE, AND OF THE FOUR FIRST TRUMPET-VISIONS CONSEQUENT.
Behold, then, the Angel-priest has come forth from offering the incense of his faithful ones in the inner temple: his censer still in hand; but emptied of the sacred embers of fire, with which that incense bad been kindled by him before the Holy One: and see! he moves straight back again to the great altar in the altar-court, and takes again of the same burning embers, and fills the same censer with them; -only now not to bless, but to destroy.
For having filled it, he scatters the fiery ashes from the temple-height, that they may fall on the despisers of his offered mediation and atonement in the world below;" the world professing but apostate. Not an instant passes without signs of recognition in heaven and on earth, alike by the animate and the inanimate creation, of this devoting of the land to a curse. Forthwith from the cloud of glory there issue thundenings and lightnings: and see, they are responded to by the bursting of tempests (the four angel-forms seen darkly careering therein) over the central provinces of Illyricum, Greece, and Epirus; the first that same district which !hey had sometime before overhung, murky and threatening.
The Roman earth quakes simultaneously through its vast extent; and the faces of men gather blackness: some from present suffering, all from forebodings of greater evil to come. But look to the temple again. See! the trumpet-angels are preparing themselves to sound; and therewith the more definite evolution of the divine judgments to be defined, and to proceed. Which is the first grand destined scene of suffering?
1st Trumpet.-The first Angel sounds his trumpet: and lo the same tremendous tempest as before, black with other clouds from the cold hail-generating countries beyond the Danube,12 and charged with lightning and hail, appears driving westward. " The third of the land," or continental provinces of the Western division of the Roman empire, is declared the fated scene of ravage.
The Asiatic continent and maritime province of Africa are to remain unharmed by the storm: and the European provinces, too, of the Eastern Empire mostly to escape. The skirts of the storm discharge themselves, as it passes forward, on the Rhaetian hill-country. Then quickly its course is towards Italy. As it sweeps across the Italian frontier, other terrific thunder-clouds from the distant north-west quarter of the heaven succeed, and intermingle with the first. Once and again the almost united tempests spread in devastating fury over Italy, beyond the Alps and Apennines. Then dividing, a part, impelled yet further south, bursts with terrific lightnings directly over the seven-hilled imperial city, and passes thence to the southernmost coast of Bruttium beyond.
A part, driven backward, takes a westerly course over the Rhine into Gaul, and far and wide devastates it; then, crossing over the Pyrenean chain, pours its fury on the Spanish provinces: nor spends itself till it has reached the far shores, west and south, of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Thus has the entire continental division of the western empire been involved in its ravages. Throughout the whole the lightning-fire runs along the ground, even as in the plagues of ancient Egypt; burning in wide-spreading conflagration country and town, trees and pasture. And there are signs too, not to be mistaken, of the destruction of life, as well as of vegetation: for blood appears mixed with the fire and hail. Slowly at length the storm subsides; destroying, however, even in its subsidence. The desolation that it leaves is frightful. The land was as the garden of Eden before it. It remains a wasted wilderness.
2nd Trumpet. A pause ensues. Then presently there is heard another trumpet-blast of judgment. Now is the visitation of the Western third of the Mediterranean sea, and the islands and trans-marine province included in it;13 a part hitherto unscathed and safe. Behold yon giant mountain-rock, blazing with volcanic fires, that up heaved from the southernmost point of Spain near Gibraltar, and cast into the sea, looks like Etna in its raging! Mark how the waters of the midland sea are agitated by it! The lava pours down the mountain-sides. The igneous stones and ashes of the volcano are scattered for hundreds of miles all round, on sea and mainland, coasts and islands;14 first on the coast of Africa, then on that of the opposite continent, from the Atlantic straits, all along up to the head of the Adriatic, Ships appear set on fire by them, at sea and in the harbors, and light the water with their conflagrations.
Blood marks the loss of life accompanying; the same as in the former vision. Over the whole maritime scene of its devastations whatever is habitable appears desolated; whatever had life, destroyed. " The third part of the sea became blood; and the third part of living creatures in the sea [i. e. those that were in the third part of the sea] died ; and the third part of ships was destroyed."
3rd Trumpet. The volcano has not yet fully spent itself, when another of the angels sounds his trumpet-clang. Which the new scene of judgment? "The (Western) third of the rivers," it is said " and the fountains of waters." It begins where yon mighty river to the North forms the ancient limit between barbarian Germany, and the Illyrian or middle Praefecture of the Roman empire. Mark the portentous meteor that glares over it; like a blazing torch trailing its red line of light15 behind it. in the Northern sky!
And see! where the Teiss, pouring itself into the Danube, marks the central point of the base of the great Illyrian Praefecture; there suddenly it descends, and blazes, and taints with its sulphureous exhalations the downward course of that ancient river. But it was the same Western third of the Empire, as before, that was in this case too to taste specially of the bitterness of the woe. And mark how, in fulfillment of its mission, the meteor tracks the course of the upper Danube, and then reaches and moves along the Rhine frontier river of the Western Empire; blazing over and poisoning its waters, down even to the Bulgarian lowlands. Thence again unquenched it rises; shoots in rapid course westward; is repelled, as if by some counter electric force, and as from a region on which it behooved not that it should permanently shed its malignant influences; then in southerly direction falls on the fountains of the European waters, there where the Alpine snows are dissolving from their eternal glaciers. Whosesoever it has fallen, the rivers and their tributaries have been poisoned by it; and the dead and dying, of those that drink them, appear lying on the banks. "For the name of that star is Wormwood;16 and many died of the waters because they were made bitter." Having thus done its part, it shoots back towards the Danube; there blazes for a moment longer, and is extinct.
4th Trumpet. The vision has past; the fourth angel sounds. Hitherto, though its land, its sea, and its frontier river and fountains of waters have been desolated, yet the sun has still continued shining on the Western empire, as before. But now at length this too is affected. To the extent of a third part of its orb, it suffers eclipse. The shadow falls over the Western empire. Then the night supervenes. And see the eclipsing influences act on the luminaries of the night also. Presently the Western third of the moon becomes eclipsed; and of the stars scattered over the symbolic firmament, all that are in the third of the Roman sky, are darkened also.
So closes this fourth vision. And then another angel, diverse from the seven trumpet-angels, breaks upon the continuity of their succession. By his solemn and loud cry in mid-heaven of, "Woe, Woe, Woe, to the inhabitants of the earth, from the voices of the trumpet-angels that have yet to sound," he occupies the seer's attention for a while, with a warning voice of judgments yet to come; and seems to intimate also a certain break, and perhaps a change of character, between the judgments gone before, and those that were to follow.
Such, I conceive, may have been the manner in which the phenomena of the successive visions passed before the Evangelist: for I have stated nothing but what is consistent with, and, if we suppose the same to have been geographically represented before him,-in no little measure implied in, the brief descriptions of the vision's in the text. And what, let me ask, would be the natural, the almost necessary interpretation he would attach to them? Surely, considering the character of the symbolic figures, both in themselves, and as illustrated by their use in other prophetic Scriptures,16 he would construe them as prefiguring the ravages of some terrible invaders from Northern Germany: invaders who would desolate first the European continental provinces of the Western empire, then its maritime provinces, islands, and fleets in the Mediterranean: a fresh and dreadful scourge being super. added, commencing on the Illyrian Praefecture, but soon to ravage the Western provinces watered by the Rhine also, and the Alpine regions, the local source of the European waters; followed, finally, by the extinction of the imperial dynasty of the West, and soon after of its subordinate rulers also. Such, I conceive, must have been his interpretation. It remains to see how the figurations were fulfilled in the progress of the Gothic, Vandal, Hunnish, and Ostrogoths desolations. This was to be my second Head.
II. THE HISTORICAL FULFILLMENT.
And, in demonstrating this, need I detail at any length the history of the five great destroyers of the Western empire,-the two earliest associated nearly as one, in the time and scene of their devastations under the first Trumpet: I mean Of ALARIC and RHADAGAISUS, in the first instance; then Of GENSERIC, ATTILA, and ODOACER? The tale has been often repeated by expositors, as well as historians. A brief sketch will suffice. We have first to trace in their history that may answer to the introductory earthquake thunderings and lightnings, that followed on the malediction signified by the altar-fire cast on the Roman world;-then the fulfillment of the four Trumpet-visions themselves.
1. The introductory thunderings, lightnings, and earthquake. The epoch of the seventh Seal's opening answered (in my view), as before said, to that of the death of Theodosius. And how long did the silence in the firmamental heaven, the stillness from the long-threatened tempests, last after it? He died Jan. 17, A.D. 395; and before the winter had ended, says Gibbon, the Gothic nation was in arms. So that it was an interval rather of days than weeks. For it needed but the circulation of the news to rouse the Goths, among the farms occupied by them in the Illyrian and Maesian Provinces.
And then, according to the prophecy, "to the seven (war-denouncing) angels there were given seven trumpets: "and according to history, the Goths armed themselves forthwith, with threat of war against the Roman empire. But not before there had been enacted in the empire, like what might answer to the saints' incense offering figured. in the Apocalyptic temple, and to the implied Christ-renouncing counter-worship of the men of the earth. For then was precisely the era to which our ecclesiastical sketch of the preceding chapter relates, the era of 395, 396: when Augustine, just about entering on the Episcopate, was in doctrine and life setting forth Jesus as the propitiation and mediator, as well as life and light, of sinful men; and Vigilantius too (not to speak of other faithful ones) was preparing for his protestant stand against the inrushing superstitions of the apostasy; while Sulpitius, Paulinus, Jerome, Gregory Nyssen, Martin of Tours, and other such, were all too prominently countenancing and helping forward those superstitions, to the neglect and forsaking of Jesus.
And so then in 396 the first fearful tempest burst (a tempest characteristic as well as introductory of all that followed) on the central and hitherto unravaged provinces of Thessaly, Greece, Epirus, and the Peloponnese, under the devastation of Alaric and the Goths. The land trembled before them in terror. "The deep and bloody traces of their march could be traced," we are told, "by the traveler, many years afterwards." Well had the pious emperor Theodosius been taken, like another Josiah, from the evil to come. And well had there been strange convulsions of nature, and earthquakes, and elemental storms, and tempests, just before his death, (portents renewed this very year,) such as to cause general forebodings of evil being at hand. For so Ambrose and Jerome tell us; and the Chronicles of the time confirm their statements. It was like nature's own alarm, with men's voices of alarm responding; as well as the furnishing by nature of the very portents used symbolically of the events, and epoch, in the Apocalyptic vision.
2. Then was a pause. The Trumpets were to be sounded specially, not against the already detached Illyrian Praefecture, but against the Western Empire, against Italy, and Rome. It was a pause in which Alaric had to prepare himself for the mighty task. "The trumpet angels prepared themselves to sound." And see the wonderful manner in which this was facilitated. By the infatuation of the emperor Arcadius, he was made Master-General of the Eastern Illyricum; and so famished with arms for their destruction from the Romans' own armories. Thus he occupied himself four years in preparation for his great enterprise. Seated in authority in the center of that vast Praefecture, which since the days of Valens had been very much occupied by the Goths and other barbaric tribes there, "on the verge, as it were, of the two empires;" he had but to meditate, like an eagle of prey, on which of the separated halves he should fall of the devoted carcass; then to seize, and to devour. The Gothic chieftains elevated him on a shield and solemnly proclaimed him King of the Visigoths. On their part, as well as otherwise, his preparation was complete.
And then the first Trumpet sounded. His course was to Italy. As he told an Italian hermit afterwards," he felt a secret and praeternatural impulse, which directed, and even compelled his march to the gates of Rome." As his trumpet sounded, and his march advanced, terrible omens and prognostications, we read, preceded him. "The Christians," says Gibbon, "derived comfort from the powerful intercession of the saints and martyrs." So does he note again the very cause that had been hinted in the Apocalypse of the coming judgments.
Thrice, in fulfillment of his destiny, Alaric descended from the Alps on the Italian plains; marking his course each step, as the awe-struck historians of the times tell us, in country and in town, with ravage, conflagration, and blood; till the gates of Rome itself were opened to the conqueror, and the Gothic fires blazed around the capital.18 In the mean time other destroyers, of a kindred race and origin, had extended their ravages to the transrhenane provinces. Between Alaric's first and second invasions of Italy, RHADAGAISUS, from the far north of Germany, with a host of Vandals, Suevi, and Burgundians, burst, like a dark thundercloud from the Baltic, as Gibbon graphically describes it,19 on the Rhaetian and Italian vallies. With slaughter and difficulty they were repulsed by the Roman general from near Florence. But it was only to bend the course of the vast remnant westward; and overwhelm the provinces, till then flourishing and fertile, of Gaul and Spain.
Blood and conflagration here marked each step of their track; just as that of Alaric in Greece and Italy. The burning of trees and. herbage, as well as of cities, is pathetically particularized by the chronicles of the times. "The consuming flames of war," says Gibbon,' " spread from the banks of the Rhine over the greatest part Of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. The scene of peace and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert; and the prospect of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the desolation of man." A similar description is given of the desolation of Spain. And the desolators entered, never to retire. "This passage" of the Rhine, he adds, "by the Suevi, Vandals, and Burgundians, who never afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman empire in the countries beyond the Alps. The barriers which had so long separated the savage and the civilized nations of the earth, were, from that fatal moment, leveled with the ground." 20
The era of Alaric and Rhadagaisus, that is, of the first Trumpet,-is to be considered as chiefly embracing some ten or twelve years, from A.D. 400 to about A.D. 410; though, as the ravages of the provinces were not then discontinued, we may perhaps consider the vision before us to embrace a period somewhat longer. In that latter year the Vandals had extended their conquests to the straits of Gades: and Alaric, who had accomplished his destiny, and reached in his desolating course the southernmost coast of Italy, while meditating still further conquests, which were intended however for another hand and another Trumpet,-was arrested suddenly by the hand of death. His royal sepulcher, we are told, adorned with the spoils and trophies of Rome, was built in the midst of the bed of the river Consentia in Bruttium; and the secret for ever concealed by the massacre of the prisoners employed in constructing it: the last Italian blood that mingled with the fire and the hail, under the judgments of the first Trumpet.
To the Vandal GENSERIC was allotted the conquest of the maritime provinces of Africa, and the islands: all in short that belonged to the western empire in the Mediterranean; and which Alaric (as just alluded to) was prevented attempting by death. It belonged, I say, to Genseric; "a name, observes Gibbon, " which, in the destruction of the Roman Empire, has deserved an equal rank with the names of Alaric and Attila."' It was in the year 429 that he entered on it. In the course of the 18 years preceding, no new invasion had broken on the Western empire. The desolation of Gaul and Spain and other districts, was indeed, as observed just before, not discontinued: but it was rather by the wars of Goths against Goths, than of Goths against Romans.
Italy, meanwhile, having been evacuated: soon after Alaric's death by the Goths under Astolphus, had partially recovered from its ravages: and Africa, the granary of Rome and Italy, had continued to flourish intact, as before. Bat now its time was come. Invited b Count Boniface, governor of the province, under the influence of temporary infatuation, Genseric, in the year above-mentioned, transported thither his Vandals from Spain across the Afric sea: all fit and ready, like that burning volcano which, ere his course was run, convulsed Auvergne,21 for the work of destruction.
Then, as under the former Trumpet, fire did indeed mingle with blood in the desolation of the unhappy province of Africa.22 In the second year of the invasion, A.D. 430, the siege of Hippo was formed: and while it was advancing, (how can I omit noticing the event ?) Augustine, its sainted Bishop, was, gently released by death and joined to the white-robed company before the throne. This was on the 28th of August, A.D. 430. Then was Hippo taken, and burnt; and then in 439 Carthage. With the capture of which city resistance ended. The whole province was subjected to the Vandals, and finally several from the Western empire.
Thus a part of the prefigurations of the second Trumpet had been fulfilled. But its ships, and the insular provinces of Sicily and Sardinia, still remained to the Western empire of the destruction of which the prophecy seemed to speak also. For it said, "The third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of ships was destroyed." Was this too fulfilled by Genseric? Mark what followed after the capture of Carthage. Finding himself shut in to the south by the desert, Genseric, we are told, cast his eyes to the sea, and determined to create a naval power.
And then "the fleets (the Vandal fleets) that issued from the port of Carthage again claimed the empire of the Mediterranean." Sicily was conquered by them, and Sardinia, and the other Western isles;23 all that was in the third part of the sea: a division of it comprehending both that vast basin of the western Mediterranean included between the straits of Gibraltar and Sicily, and the part which, expanding beyond, sweeps round the south-east of Italy to form the deep gulf of the Adriatic; the sea-third answering to the land-third of the Western empire. The coasts, moreover, of Spain, and Gaul, and Italy, the latter as far up as the head of the Adriatic, were mercilessly ravaged by Genseric.
When asked by his pilot what course to steer, "Leave the determination to the winds," was his reply: " they will transport us to the guilty coast, whose inhabitants have provoked the divine justice." Twice, on occasions alike memorable, the Roman navies, with vast preparations, were collected to destroy the Vandal power. But suddenly and most disastrously, in the harbors of Carthagena and Bona, when the eyes of the Romans were fixed on them with hopes raised to the highest, they were utterly destroyed; in the latter case by fire-ships driven among them in the obscurity of night. So that the remainder of the prediction was fulfilled also. The fire of the Vandal volcano might not exhaust itself, until not only what was habitable in the Western sea was destroyed, but "the third part of the ships" also; those that navigated the sea-third of the Western empire.
In the mean time, and long ere the extinction of the volcano, and death of the tyrant of the sea, Genseric, (which was not indeed till the year 477,) yet another plague was commissioned against the devoted empire; I mean "the scourge of God," the king of the Huns, ATTILA. Alone of conquerors, ancient or modern, he united at this time under his sway, the two mighty kingdoms of Germany and Scythia. For the Huns had advanced their course and their conquests, since the time when the Goths fled before them in the days of Valens, to the furthest limits, West and North, of Germany.
The kings of the Ostrogoths and Gepidae were among Attila's subject princes; and a crowd of vulgar kings watched his nod. Superstitious awe concerning him added to his power. He was deemed something greater than human. "The barbaric princes could not presume to gaze with steady eye on [what they deemed] his divine majesty." How much less his enemies! He was in their eyes like the baleful meteor that even then blazed in the heavens, boding ruin and war. For the first eight years from his accession (which was in A.D. 433) he had been occupied with other wars in Germany, Persia, Scythia. Then, descending on the Danube, he fixed the royal village near where it takes its great bend to the southward, not far from the modern Buda: crossed it to attack the Eastern empire; and, tracing its course downwards in blood, as far as Marcianopolis, retired not until the Eastern empire (A.D. 446) had acknowledged him lord of the lower Danube.
"The Huns," says Gibbon, "were masters of the great river." But it is specially the river-frontier of the same Western third of the empire to which the other Trumpets refer, that I suppose chiefly intended in the present. Accordingly, about A.D. 450, in fulfillment of a treaty with Genseric, he moved against the Western provinces along the upper Danube: reached and crossed the Rhine at Basle, and thence tracing the same great frontier stream of the West down to Belgium, made its valley one scene of desolation and woe; burning the cities, (of which Strasburg, Spires, Worms, Mentz, Andernach, Treves, Tongres, Maestricht are specially particularized,) massacring the inhabitants, and laying the country waste: until, at length, having left that valley, which had been marked out as one destined scene of his ravaging, and advanced farther into the interior, his course was arrested, and he was repulsed in the tremendous Battle of Chalons. And whither then, when thus forced to retrace his steps, did he direct them?
Whither but to fall on another destined scene of ravage, the European fountains of waters," in the Alpine heights and Alpine valleys of Italy. Then Aquileia, Pavia, Verona, Mantua, Milan, Turin, felt his vengeance. "From the Alps to the Apennines," says Sigonius, "all was flight, depopulation, slaughter, slavery, and despair."
Many fled to the low and marshy islands at the mouth of the Adige, Po, and Brenta, as their only safe refuge. And he who has seen the fair Venice, may do well to remember that he has seen in it a memorial of the terrors and ravages of that scourge of God, the Hun Attila. But what further of his course of devastation? Surely, with Italy all defenseless before him, one might have expected that, like his predecessor Alaric, it would have continued on to Rome and the far coast of Bruttium. Instead of this, behold, an embassy from the Western emperor Valentinian, accompanied by the venerable Romish bishop Leo the First, was successful at this point in deprecating his wrath: and having granted them peace, and leaving bands only of Heruli and Ostrogoths in the Tyrolese country intermediate, he repassed the Alps, and retired.
Wherefore a result, humanly speaking, so unlikely? Methinks we may see the reason. The prediction had expressly marked the term of Attila desolating progress;" the third of the rivers, and the fountains of waters." Already Attila had made bitter, besides the surplusage of more Eastern scenes, the river line of the upper Danube and Rhine, and the Alpine fountains of waters. Many had died, and still continued to die, that drank of the waters, through famine, disease, and pestilence. This being done, his course was to end. "Thus far thou shalt go, and no further." Returned from Italy, he recrossed the Danube; reached the royal village between it and the Teiss; and there, the very next year, was suddenly cut off by apoplexy. This occurred A.D. 453. So the meteor was extinct; the empire and power of the Huns broken. The woe of the third Trumpet had past away.
4. Thus was the final catastrophe preparing, by which the western emperors and empire were to become extinct. The glory of Rome had long departed; its provinces one after another been rent from it; the territory still attached to it become like a desert; and its maritime possessions, and its fleets and commerce, been annihilated. Little remained to it but the vain titles and insignia of sovereignty. And now the time was come when these too were to be withdrawn. Some twenty years or more from the death of Attila, and much less from that of Genseric, (who, ere his death, had indeed visited and ravaged the eternal city, in one of his maritime marauding expeditions, and thus yet more prepared the coming consummation,) about this time, I say, ODOACER, chief of the Heruli, a barbarian remnant of the host of Attila, left on the Alpine frontiers of Italy, interposed with his command that the name and the office of Roman emperor of the West should be abolished.
The authorities bowed in submission to him. The last phantom of an emperor,---one whose name Romulus Augustus was singularly calculated to bring in contrast before the reflective mind the past glories of Rome and its present degradation, abdicated: and the Senate sent away the imperial insignia to Constantinople; professing to the Emperor of the East that one Emperor was sufficient for the whole of the empire. Thus of the Roman imperial sun 24 that third which appertained to the western empire was eclipsed, and shone no more. I say that third o its orb which appertained to the western empire: for the apocalyptic fraction is literally accurate. In the last arrangement between the two courts, the whole of the Illyrian third had been made over to the eastern division. Thus in the west "the extinction of the empire" had taken place; the night had fallen. Notwithstanding this, however, it must be borne in mind that the authority of the Roman name had not yet entirely ceased. The Senate of Rome continued to assemble, as usual. 25 The Consuls were appointed yearly, one by the eastern Emperor, one by Italy and Rome. Odoacer himself governed Italy under a title (that of Patrician) conferred on him by the eastern Emperor.
And as regarded the more distant western provinces, or at least considerable districts in them, the tie which had united them to the Roman empire was not altogether severed. There was still a certain, though often faint, recognition of the supreme Imperial authority. The moon and the stars might seem still to shine on the west, with a dim reflected light. In the course of the events, however, which rapidly followed one on the other in the next half century, these too were extinguished. Theodoric the Ostrogoth, on destroying the Heruli and their kingdom at Rome and Ravenna, ruled in Italy from A.D. 493 to 526, as an independent sovereign: and on Belisarius' and Narses' conquest of Italy from the Ostrogoths, (a conquest preceded by wars and desolations in which Italy and above all its seven-hilled city, were for a time almost made desert,26 ) the Roman senate was dissolved, the consulship abrogated. Moreover, as regards the Barbaric princes of the western provinces, their independence of the Roman imperial power became now more distinctly averred and understood.
After above a century and half of calamities unexampled almost, as Dr. Robertson most truly represents it,27 in the history of nations, the statement of Jerome, a statement couched under the very apocalyptic figure of the text, but prematurely pronounced on the taking of Rome by Alaric, might be considered as at accomplished; " Clarissimum terrarum lumen extinctum est," "The world's glorious sun has been extinguished;" and that too which our own Poet has exprest, still under the same beautifully appropriate Apocalyptic imagery,
She saw her glories star by star expire:
till not even a single star remained, to glimmer on the vacant and dark night.
So ended the history of the Gothic period. So did every point noted in the first four Trumpet-visions appear fulfilled in it.28 And with it ends this division of our subject.
For a while the prophetic scene shifts: and we shall be called presently to look Eastward, to see the judgments of God there fulfilling. On returning West again afterwards, it will be to contemplate the Roman empire revived in its old capital under a new aspect, and as it were a new head.
And then a history and a fate will, be found attaching to it, according to the sure word of prophecy, (in part fulfilled, in part still unfulfilled,) the one more remarkable, the other more awful, than even that which we have just been tracing of the ancient Goth-subverted Rome.