12.1-2. And
there appeared a great wonder in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the
moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And she being
with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
“Certain
commentators have seen in this mystical woman the Most Holy Theotokos; but such
outstanding commentators as St. Hippolytus, St. Methodius and St. Andrew of
Caesarea find that this is ‘the Church clothed in the Word of the Father,
shining more brightly than the sun’ [St. Hippolytus]. This brilliance of the
sun likewise signifies that she possesses the true knowledge of God and His
laws and contains His revelations. The moon under her feet is a sign that she
is above everything mutable. St. Methodius considers the moon allegorically to
be ‘the faith of those cleansed of corruption by the bath, that is, baptism,
since upon the moon depends the nature of moisture’.
“On
her head is a crown of twelve stars which signifies that, being originally
gathered together from the twelve tribes of Israel, she was later guided by the
twelve apostles, who comprise her light-bearing glory.
“From
the fact that she is in pain during childbirth, it is evident that it is
incorrect to see in this woman the Most Holy Theotokos, for here giving birth
to the Son of God was without pain. These torments of birthgiving signify the
difficulties which had to be overcome by the Church of Christ when she was
being established in the world (martyrdom, the spread of heresies). At the same
time it signifies, in the explanation of St. Andrew, that ‘the Church is pained
for each one of those who is reborn by water and the Spirit until, as the
divine apostle has said, Christ shall be
formed in them (Galatians 4.19)’. St. Methodius says: ‘The Church
has pain giving rebirth from natural to spiritual men in the likeness of
Christ’.” (Archbishop Averky)
Patriarch
Nicon of Moscow: “Theologians understand by this woman the Church of God.”[1]
“These
torments are the tortures and labours of the Christian Church which she will
experience at her giving birth - the acquisition of every new member, when
those in error are converted, when the sinner repents (St. Hippolytus). They
refer in general to every period of the existence of the Christian Church.”
(Lopukhin)
However,
a more specific period may also be intended. Let us consider the image of the
travailing woman in another famous prophecy: Thou Bethlehem Ephratha, though thou be little among the thousands of
Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me Him Who is to be ruler in
Israel; Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Therefore
will He give them up, until the time that she who travaileth hath brought
forth. Then the remnant of His brethren shall return unto the children of
Israel (Micah 5.2-3).
Here
Christ’s Nativity in Bethlehem is followed by the rejection of the Jews (He will give them up) until the
travailing woman gives birth, when the Jews will return to the Church (the remnant… shall return to the children
of Israel).
So
if she who travaileth in Micah
is the same as the travailing woman of the Apocalypse, she may be interpreted
to refer both to the Church of all
ages and, more specifically, to the Church of the last times, when the remnant of the Jews will return to the true
children of Israel, the Church. And the child she travails to bring forth
is both the generation of all
Christians, of whom the Lord said: This
generation shall not pass away, till all these things be fulfilled (Matthew
24.34), and, more specifically, the last
generation of Christians.
Another
indication that the reference may be also to the Christians of the last times
comes from a vision given to a priest in 1866. In his sleep he saw “a large cave
dimly lit by a single oil-lamp. In the cave were many clergy. Behind the
oil-lamp was an icon of the Mother of God. In front of the icon there stood,
clad in vestments, the Moscow archpastor Philaret (who is still among the
living) and the reposed protopriest of Rzhev, Fr. Matthew Konstantinovsky, the
father of the aforesaid priest, outstanding during his life for his great
piety. They all stood in silence and fear. At the entrance to the cave was the
same priest and a layman, his spiritual son. They both trembled, not daring to
go in. From among those praying the words of supplication were clearly heard:
‘We are living through a terrible time: we have reached the seventh summer!’
These words produced great fear and agitation. The dream was repeated three
times - each time exactly the same, without the slightest change, clear and
terrifying… Neither the priest who had this vision, nor the spiritual son of
Fr. Matthew understood it at all, neither what it meant nor to whom it was
sent.”
St.
Ambrose of Optina interpreted this vision as follows: “The large cave dimly lit
by a single oil-lamp may mean the present situation of the Church, in which the
light of faith is almost quenched and the darkness of unbelief, of boldly
blasphemous free-thinking and the new paganism spreads and penetrates
everywhere. This truth is confirmed by the words that were heard: ‘We are
living through a terrible time’. The living hierarch and the reposed
protopriest praying together in front of the icon of the Mother of God lead us
to suppose that the other clergy in the vision were of two kinds (the heavenly
Church and the earthly Church), evidently worthy pastors, both the one who is
alive and the one departed to the Lord, who look on the wretched state of our
Church - and these and others pray to the heavenly Queen that she may spread
her all-powerful veil over our wretched Church and defend and support her, and
preserve the weak who neverthless have a pious attitude towards salvation… It
may be that those standing in the entrance to the cave represent people who
look with lively feeling and sorrow, even pain, on the sad events of our time
as regards faith and morality, but do not run to the heavenly Queen and do not
pray to her, as did those in the cave, for her veil and assistance… The words ‘We have reached the seventh
summer’ may mean the last time, close to the time of the Antichrist, when the
faithful members of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church will have to
hide in caves, and only the all-powerful prayers of the Mother of God can then
hide them from the persecution of the servants of the Antichrist.”[2]
This
mention of the Mother of God is apposite, for even if the woman clothed with
the sun is not the Mother of God, but the Church, the relationship between the
Mother of God and the Church is very close. Just as the Church is the Mother of
all Christians, so is the Mother of God. And just as the Church protects all
her children from the Antichrist, so does the Mother of God.
That
is why the identification of the woman clothed with the sun with the Mother of
God, even if not strictly correct, can hardly be called erroneous, either. Thus
St. Demetrius of Rostov writes: “As in former times St. John the Theologian saw
a great vision in the heavens of a woman clothed with the sun, so in the same
way St. Andrew in the Vlachernae church, similar to heaven, saw the Unwedded
Bride dressed in a sun-bright purple mantle. The vision as seen by St. John the
Theologian prefigured out All-merciful Protectress; in the same way this vision
appeared at the time when the impending destruction of all creatures was
revealed to the scrutiniser of hearts: and
there were lightnings and voices, and thunderings and an earthquake and great
hail. And there appeared a great wonder heaven, a woman clothed with the sun.
Why did this vision which prefigured our All-pure Virgin, not appear before
lightnings, thunderings, voices, earthquakes and hail, while all the elements
were still silent, but during the most fearful disturbance in heaven and on
earth? In order to show that our All-blessed Protectress hastens to help us in
the most difficult times, at the approach of our destruction, and protects us
from the seductive glamour which does not shine for long, from the vanity of
the world, from the voices of worldly pride and vanity, from the thunderings of
the unexpected attack of enemies, from the winds of passion, from the hail from
heaven of punishment for our sins which threatens us…”[3]
12.3. And
there appeared another wonder in heaven. And behold! a great red dragon, having
seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
“Although the dragon is a sea monster (Isaiah
51.34), it has been turned into a symbol representing earthly power, the master
of the world. Therefore the devil as the prince of this world appears in the
Apocalypse under the image of a dragon. This is confirmed in verse 9, where the
great dragon is directly called by his own name, the devil and Satan (St.
Victorinus, St. Andrew of Caesarea).” (Lopukhin)
“In
this image of the dragon one cannot but see the ancient serpent called the
devil or Satan, of whom mention will be made below (v. 9). The red colour
signifies his bloodthirsty cruelty.” (Archbishop Averky)
The
identification of the seven heads and ten horns can be deferred until the
fuller discussion of them in the commentary on chapter seventeen.
12.4. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth; and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as he was born.
“By
these stars which the devil draws after himself in his fall, commentators
understand the fallen angels or demons. By them we can also understand
representatives of the churches and teachers who are corrupted by satanic
power. As for the dragon standing before the woman, St. Andrew writes: ‘The
devil always arms himself against the Church and increasingly strives to make
those reborn by Her his food.’” (Archbishop Averky)
12.5. And she
brought forth a man child, who was to shepherd all nations with a rod of iron.
And her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne.
Thou shalt herd them with a rod of
iron; Thou shalt shatter them like a potter’s vessels (Psalm 2.9). He shall shepherd them with a rod of iron;
as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers, even as I received
of My Father (Revelation 2.27).
“This
is an image of the Lord Jesus Christ, as St. Andrew says: ‘In the person of
those who are baptized, the Church ceaselessly gives birth to Christ; just as,
according to the apostle, we come unto
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians.
4.13). St. Hippolytus says likewise: ‘The Church will not cease to give birth
from Her heart to the Word which is persecuted in the world by unbelievers.’
The Church always gives birth to Christ through men, and from the very
beginning Satan has striven to devour Christians as he did in the Person of
Christ.
“Just
as the Lord Jesus Christ was caught up to heaven on the day of His glorious
Ascension and sat upon the throne of His Father at His right hand; so also all
the saints in whom Christ is depicted are caught up unto God so as not to be
conquered by temptations which surpass their powers. Thus also are all
Christians of the last times to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air (II Thessalonians 4.17).”
(Archbishop Averky)
However,
it is contrary to tradition to describe the Mother of God as travailing in
birth to give birth to Christ; for we know that her birthgiving was
painless. Therefore it seems more fitting to see in the man-child, not
Christ, but the last generation of Christians, as indicated above. Another,
very tentative hypothesis is that just as, in 2.27, the shepherding of the
nations with a rod of iron is promised, not to Christ, but to an ordinary man,
so here the reference is to an ordinary man – specifically, one from the line
of Orthodox Christian emperors from Constantine the Great to Tsar Nicholas II.
For these shepherded the nations with a rod or iron while being at the same
time children of the Church. Or perhaps we could say that the man-child
is the Orthodox autocracy. But in
1917 the Orthodox autocracy was caught
up to heaven through martyrdom, and the Church was forced to flee into the
wilderness.
Moreover,
there is a tradition that the Orthodox autocracy will be caught up to heaven in the sense that it will be voluntarily given
up to God by the last emperor. Thus we read: “Already is the kingdom of the
Romans swept away, and the empire of the
Christians is delivered unto God and the Father and when the kingdom of the
Romans shall begin to be consumed then shall come the consummation.”[4]
However,
it is not written that the man-child actually ruled the nations, but that he was to [Gk. mellei] shepherd them - that is,
was marked out to shepherd them, but was prevented from doing so. So a perhaps
more precise variant of this line of interpretation would identify the man-child with the Tsarevich Alexis of
Russia, who, being born in 1904, when the first blast of the revolutionary
storm was about to fall on Russia, as heir to the throne was to shepherd all the nations of the far-flung empire, and
embodied the hopes for the future of the dynasty in the minds of all truly
Orthodox Christians. However, the red
dragon, the Soviet demon, tried to destroy these hopes from the beginning;
and after the failure of its first attempt, in the 1905 revolution, it achieved
greater success through the insinuation of the devouring figure of Rasputin at
the sick child’s bedside. Just as the sick Tsarevich symbolized the future of
the Orthodox Church, so Rasputin symbolized the devil trying to destroy that
future. Finally, in the assassination of the Royal Family on July 4, 1918, the
child together with his whole family was
caught up unto God, and to His throne; for he, being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long time; for his
soul pleased the Lord. Therefore hasted He to take him away from among the
wicked (Wisdom 4.13-14).
This,
it must be emphasised, is a very tentative interpretation…
12.6. And the
woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that
they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
The
woman (i.e. the Church) flees into the wilderness immediately after her
man-child (i.e. the Christian empire) is taken up to heaven. This certainly
corresponds to the course of events under the collective Antichrist in Russia
after the murder of the Tsar and his family. It corresponds also to what Church
Tradition tells us concerning the very last persecution, under the personal
Antichrist, which will take place after the removal of the last Roman (i.e.
Orthodox Christian) emperor.
Thus
Tertullian writes: “There is also a greater need for us to pray for the
emperors as also for the whole state of the empire, and for Roman affairs since
we know that by the provision of the Roman empire the mighty power impending on
the whole world and threatening the very close of the century with frightful
calamities shall be delayed; and as we are loath to suffer these things, while
we pray for their postponement we favour the stability of Rome.”[5]
And again: “The Christian is hostile to no one, least of all to the emperor, to
whom… he wishes well, with the whole Roman empire, so long as the world shall
last, for so long it shall last.”[6]
And St. Cyril of Jerusalem writes: “The predicted Antichrist comes when the
seasons of the kingdom of the Romans are fulfilled.”[7]
Schema-Monk
Epiphanius (Chernov) writes: “The True Church of Christ during the period of
the Antichrist’s rule, through Her very refusal to compromise with him as being
the enemy of God and the destroyer of man annihilating the Church, cannot exist
and operate in the open. She flees to
the mountains, to the desert. She hides Herself in caves and dens of the earth. However, all these expressions,
being of a prophetic nature, must be understood, not literally, but
allegorically, as images and symbols of the fact that the True Church of
Christ, being inspired from above, in one way or another departs into
obscurity, becomes unnoticed, absent from external life, invisible,
unapproachable, secret, hidden from the Antichrist destroyer and from his
numerous atheist and antitheist servants.”[8]
As
we read in another Catacomb Church document: “Just as the Soviet kingdom is a
prefiguration of the Antichrist, so also the ‘Catacomb’ Church is the nearest
of all prefigurations of the Church in the time of the Antichrist - the Woman clothed
with the sun who has fled into the wilderness. Her garments are woven of the
exploits of saints. Just as in the time of the Prophet Elijah, the Lord has
preserved for Himself seven thousand faithful, until the time known to Him
alone.”[9]
St.
Anatolius of Optina prophesied concerning the snares that the devil would set
for the Catacomb Church: “Heresies will spread everywhere and deceive many
people. The enemy of the human race will act with cunning in order to draw into
heresy, if possible, even the elect. He will not begin by crudely rejecting the
dogmas of the Holy Trinity, the Divinity of Jesus Christ and the virtue of the
Theotokos, but he will begin imperceptibly to distort the teachings and
statutes of the Church and their very spirit, handed down to us by the Holy
Fathers through the Holy Spirit. Few will notice these wiles of the enemy, only
those more experienced in the spiritual life. Heretics will seize power over
the Church and will place their servants everywhere; the pious will be regarded
with contempt. He (the Lord) said, ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’, and
so, by their fruits, as well as by the actions of the heretics, strive to
distinguish them from the true pastors. These are spiritual thieves, plundering
the spiritual flock, and they will enter the sheepfold (the Church), climbing
up some other way, as the Lord said: They will enter by an unlawful way, using
force and trampling upon the Divine statutes. The Lord calls them robbers (cf. John
10.1). Indeed, their first task will be the persecution of the true pastors,
their imprisonment and exile, for without this it will be impossible for them
to plunder the sheep.
“Therefore,
my son, when you see the violation of patristic tradition and the Divine order
in the Church, the order established by God, know that the heretics have
already appeared, although for the time being they may conceal their impiety.
Or they will distort the Divine Faith imperceptibly, in order to succeed better
in seducing and enticing the inexperienced into the net. The persecution will
be directed against not only pastors but against all servants of God, for all
those ruled by heresy will not endure piety. Recognize these wolves in sheep’s
clothing by their proud dispositions and love of power. They will be
slanderers, traitors, everywhere sowing enmity and malice. Therefore the Lord
said that by their fruits you will know them. True servants of God are humble,
love their neighbour and are obedient to the Church. Monastics will be greatly
oppressed by the heretics and monastic life will be scorned. Monasteries will
become scarce, the number of monastics will decline, and those who remain will
endure violence. These haters of monastic life, however, having only the
appearance of piety, will strive to attract the monks to their side, promising
them protection and worldly goods, and threatening those who oppose them with
expulsion. These threats will cause great despair among the fainthearted, but
you, my son, rejoice that you have lived until that time, for then the faithful
who have not shown any other virtues, will receive crowns merely for standing
firm in the faith, according to the word of the Lord (cf. Matthew
10.32). Fear the Lord, my son. Fear to lose the crown prepared (for you), fear
to be cast by Christ into the outer darkness and eternal torment. Stand bravely
in the faith, and if necessary, endure persecution and other sorrows, for the
Lord will be with you… and the holy martyrs and confessors, they will look upon
you and your struggle with joy. But woe to the monks in those days who will be
bound by possessions and riches, who because of love of peace will be ready to
submit to the heretics. They will lull to sleep their conscience, saying, ‘We
are preserving and saving the monastery and the Lord will forgive us.’ The
unfortunate and blind ones do not at all consider that through heresy the
demons will enter the monastery and then it will no longer be a holy monastery,
but merely walls from which grace will depart. God, however, is more mighty
than the enemy, and He will never leave His servants. True Christians will
remain until the end of this age, only they will choose to live in secluded,
deserted places. Do not fear sorrows, rather fear pernicious heresy, for it
strips us of grace and separates us from Christ. This is why the Lord commanded
us to consider the heretic as a pagan and a publican. And so, my son,
strengthen yourself in the grace of Jesus Christ. Hasten to confess the faith,
to endure suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ (cf. II Timothy
2.1-3), Who has said, ‘Be faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of
life’ (Revelation 2.10). To Him, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be
honour, glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.”[10]
Another
Optina elder, St. Barsanuphius said: “In the last days before the Coming of
Christ the Church will be completely preserved in this form: one Orthodox
bishop, one Orthodox priest and one Orthodox laymen. I am not telling you that
there will be no churches at all, perhaps there will be some, but Orthodoxy
will be preserved only in this form. You mark my words. You know, this will be
throughout the world.”[11]
St.
Hippolytus writes that this is the period “during which the Church, which flees
from city to city, and seeks concealment in the wilderness among the mountains,
possessed of no other defence than the two wings of the great eagle, that is to
say, the faith of Jesus Christ, Who, in stretching forth His holy hands on the
holy tree, unfolded two wings, the right and the left, and called to Himself
all those who believed on Him, and covered them as a hen her chickens. For by
the mouth of Malachi also He speaks thus: And
unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in
His wings (4.2).”[12]
The
first period in the history of the Church in which the faithful had to flee
into the wilderness from an antichristian persecution was the seven-year period
of Midianite oppression – seven years is the period that the Antichrist is
prophesied to reign - in the time of Gideon. Thus because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens
which are in the mountains, and caves, and strongholds (Judges 6.2).
They wandered in deserts, and in
mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth (Hebrews 11.38).
12.7-12. And
there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and
the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place
found any more in heaven. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven: Now is
come salvation, and strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the power of His
Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accused them before
our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by
the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the
inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you,
having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
I saw Satan fall like lightning from
heaven (Luke
10.18). Now is the judgement of this
world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out (John 12.31).
“Rejoice, thou through whom
peace and tranquillity made their abode in heaven!
Rejoice, thou by whom the
spirits of evil were cast down even unto hell!”[13]
The
most obvious interpretation of this passage is that it refers to “the first
expulsion of the devil from the angelic ranks because of pride and envy, and
also to his defeat by the cross of the Lord, when, as the Lord says, the prince of this world is condemned
and cast out from his former lordship (John 12.31)” (St. Andrew). Thus
St. Justin the Martyr writes: “Before the Lord’s appearance [on earth] Satan
never dared to blaspheme God, inasmuch as he did not yet know his own sentence,
because it was contained in parables and allegories. But after the Lord’s
appearance, when he had clearly ascertained from the words of Christ and His
apostles that eternal fire had been prepared for him as he had apostasised from
God of his own free-will, and likewise for all those who continue impenitently
in their apostasy, he now blasphemes”[14]
- and with great wrath, for he knows
that he hath but a short time.
However, there may also be a reference here
to Satan’s casting out by the martyrs; for these are they who overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and
by the word of their testimony.
Perhaps
the reference is to two battles in which he is defeated: “one with the
Archangel Michael and his heavenly hosts in heaven, and the other with the
martyrs of Christ on earth. Satan has still preserved some appearance of power
on earth, crawling over it like a serpent. Having come to his last days on
earth, Satan is devising a last and decisive battle with God and believing
Christians with the aid of the Antichrist and his accomplice the false
prophet.” (Archbishop Averky)
Alternatively, a single battle is being referred to, a battle on earth, but painted in the colours of the primeval, heavenly battle. This is the battle of the Orthodox Church with the revolution, in which the Lord, through the prayers of the angels and martyrs, expels the devil from “heaven” - that is, the Church, into which he has insinuated himself by force and deceit. In this battle of the last times the Archangel Michael, according to the Archangel Gabriel, will arise, the great prince who stands for the sons of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as has never been since there was a nation till now (Daniel 12.1).
12.13-16. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman who brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
Cf.
Zechariah: And the angel that
talked with me went forth, and said to me: Lift up thine eyes, and see this
that goes forth. And he said: This is their iniquity in all the earth. And
behold a talent of lead lifted up; and behold a woman sat in the midst of the
measure. And he said: This is lawlessness. And he cast it into the midst of the
measure, and cast the weight of lead on the mouth of it. And I lifted up mine
eyes, and saw, and behold, two women coming forth, and the wind was in their
wings; and they had stork’s wings; and they lifted up the measure between the
earth and the sky. And I said to the angel that spoke with me: Whither do these
carry away the measure? And he said to me: To build it a house in the land of
Babylon, and to prepare a place for it; and they shall set it there on its own
base. (5.5-11).
The
True Church is lifted by eagle’s wings into the desert of spiritual freedom.
The false church is lifted by stork’s wings into the land of spiritual
confusion - for “Babylon” means “confusion”. In chapter seventeen of the
Apocalypse we shall see the false church depicted under the image of an harlot
with the name of - Babylon…
The
True Church is like the vine of the Prophet Ezekiel’s vision, which twines
itself around the great eagle, Christ: And
there was another great eagle, with great wings and many claws. And behold,
this vine bent itself round towards him, and her roots were turned towards him,
that he might water her together with the growth of her plantation. She thrives
in a fair field by much water, to produce shoots and bear fruit, that she might
become a great vine. (17.7-8).
“The
devil does not cease to persecute the Church, but the Church, having two
eagle’s wings - the Old and the New Testaments - will hide from the devil in
the wilderness, by which we must understand both a spiritual and a sensible
wilderness, in which the true Christian ascetics hid themselves and hide
themselves now. St. Andrew of Caesarea says: ‘And so it is always, but
especially at the coming of the Antichrist, who will reign for three-and-a-half
years. At that time it may be there will escape from him those who have hidden
in the literal wilderness - the mountains, holes and caves” (Archbishop
Averky).
A time, and times, and half a time. This phrase, taken from the Prophet Daniel (Daniel
7.25, 12.7), signifies three-and-a-half years according SS. Cyril of Jerusalem,
Ephraim the Syrian, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Theodoretus of Cyr and Andrew
of Caesarea.[15] In other
places in the Apocalypse the same period is described as forty-two months or
1260 days.
Several
of the most important periods of antichristian persecution in sacred history
lasted for three and a half years. Thus the holy Prophet Elijah spent three and
a half years in the wilderness, fleeing from Jezebel. And in the time of the
Maccabees the temple was desecrated for three and a half years by Antiochus
Epiphanes. And “Jesus Himself spent three and a half years in Egypt, fleeing
from Herod.” (Patriarch Anthimus) And Christ’s public ministry lasted for three
and a half years, during the whole of which he was opposed by the Jewish
Antichrist. And the Christians fled to Pella for three and a half years during
the Romans’ siege of Jerusalem in 66-70 A.D. And the persecution of Diocletian
lasted for three and a half years, from February, 305 to July, 308 (Archbishop
Averky). And the first and most destructive period of persecution of the
Russian Church by the Soviet Antichrist lasted for about three and a half
years, from October, 1917 to March, 1921, when the last major rebellion against
Soviet rule in Kronstadt was crushed and the Tenth Party Congress set the seal
on the doctrine of “democratic centralism”, i.e. the dictatorship of Lenin.
Finally, the persecution of the personal Antichrist will last for three and a
half years. For, on the basis of several passages from Daniel and Revelation,
the holy Fathers unanimously asserted that the reign of the personal
Antichrist, the false messiah and king of the Jews, would last for seven years,
the second half of which, three-and-a-half years or forty-two months in
duration, would witness his persecution of the Church.
“By
this water St. Andrew understands ‘a
multitude either of evil spirits, or of various temptations’ and by the earth which swallowed up this water -
‘the humility in wisdom of the saints, who, saying from the heart: I am dust and ashes (Genesis
18.27), tear up all the nets of the devil; for, as was revealed by an angel to
the divine Anthony, nothing so cuts off and destroys the power of the devil as
humility.’ Some understand by this the terrible persecutions against the Church
from the pagan emperors, and the rivers of Christian blood which flowed at that
time. Like a river flowing over the earth and being swallowed up by it, all the
spiteful attempts of Satan came to nothing and disappeared without trace, when
Christianity triumphed over paganism during the time of Constantine the Great.”
(Archbishop Averky)
Tikhomirov
writes: “By the Woman interpreters
understand the Church. By the child
– the believers borne by her. By the desert
is to be understood the world which
is estranged from Christ. The sea
signifies the turbulent masses of the peoples. The earth is the peoples, but in a cultural sense [for ‘the cultural earth will probably always serve as a
hindrance to such destructive attacks of the mob’]. The flood of water is the striving of the peoples.”[16]
12.17. And the
dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her
seed, who keep the commandment of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
“This
is that unending, age-old battle which the devil has waged against all the true
sons of the Church with the establishment of Christianity on the earth, and
which he will continue to wage with ever-increasing power until the end of the
world, until his efforts will be exhausted and come to an end in the person of
the Antichrist.” (Archbishop Averky)
The
image of the first beast of Revelation chapter 13 has fascinated and
appalled generations of Bible students and interpreters. The most various
identifications have been made: that it is Nero, or the Roman Empire, or the
Roman Papacy, or Patriarch Nicon of Moscow, or Peter the Great, or Napoleon, or
Lenin, or the Soviet Union, or Hitler, or Gorbachev, or “Computer”…[17]
On one fact most Orthodox interpreters are agreed: that it is the Antichrist.
13.1. And I
stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having
seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads
the name of blasphemy.
Protopriest
Opojchenko writes: “The waters of rivers or the sea signify peoples that are
more or less numerous; which is why by the words a beast rising
up out of the sea we must understand a state composed of many
peoples – more precisely, the Roman empire.”[18]
This interpretation was much favoured by early
interpreters, and a strong argument was constructed for the case that the beast
signifies the Roman empire in the first place, and the Antichrist of the
last times secondarily. Thus Protopriest Opojchenko points out that Rome was
built on seven hills (the seven heads); that she was drunk with the blood of the martyrs (17.6) and
persecuted the Church in ten periods or under ten emperors (the ten horns);
that she was burned with fire by ten barbarian tribes (17.16). However, already
we can see certain inconsistencies in this interpretation. For if the ten horns
represent ten persecuting emperors, they cannot at the same time represent ten
barbarian tribes. Again, the ten horns are said to burn with fire, not the
beast itself, but the whore who sits on the beast…
For this reason, we will abandon the Roman interpretation
– or rather, incorporate the history of the Roman persecution of the Church
into a more complex interpretation of the beast, seeing in it, not one state,
but many – or rather, a composite image of antichristian state power throughout
history which we will call the collective Antichrist…[19]
Such an interpretation needs to be prefaced by a short
introduction on the concept of the Antichrist.
Archimandrite
Justin (Popovich) writes: “The Antichrist will be, as it were, an
incarnation of the devil, for Christ is the incarnation of God. The Antichrist
will be the personification of evil, hatred, lying, pride and unrighteousness,
for Christ is the personification of goodness, love, truth, humility and
righteousness. Such will be the chief Antichrist, who will appear before the
Second Coming of the Lord Christ, and will stand in the place of God and
proclaim himself to be God (destroy at His glorious Second Coming with the breath of His mouth (II
Thessalonians 2.4). But before him there will be forerunners, innumerable
antichrists. For an antichrist is every one who wishes to take the place of
Christ; an antichrist is every one who wishes, in place of the truth of Christ,
to place his own truth, in place of the righteousness of Christ – his own righteousness,
in place of the love of Christ – his own love, in place of the Goodness of
Christ – his own goodness, in place of the Gospel of Christ – his own gospel…
“In
what does his main lie consist? In the rejection of the God-Man Christ, in the
affirmation that Jesus is not God, not the Messiah=Christ, not the Saviour.
Therefore this is the work of the Antichrist. The main deceiver in the world is
the devil, and with him – the Antichrist. It goes without saying that a
deceiver is every one who in anyway rejects that Jesus is God, the Messiah, the
Saviour. This is the main lie in the world, and all the rest either proceeds
from it, or is on the way to it.”[20]
St.
John of Damascus writes: “Everyone who confesses not that the Son of God came
in the flesh and is perfect God, and became perfect man after being God, is
Antichrist (I John 2.18, 22; 4.3). But in a peculiar and special sense
he who comes at the consummation of the age is called Antichrist. First, then,
it is requisite that the Gospel should be preached among all nations, as the
Lord said (Matthew 24.14), and then he will come to refute the impious
Jews. For the Lord said to them: I am
come in My Father’s name and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his
own name, him ye will receive (John 5.43). And the apostle says, Because they received not the love of the
truth that they might be saved, for this cause God shall send them a strong
delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who
believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness (II
Thessalonians 2.10-12). The Jews accordingly did not receive the Lord Jesus
Christ Who was the Son of God and God, but receive the imposter who calls
himself God. For that he will assume the name of God, the angel teaches Daniel,
saying these words, Neither shall he
regard the God of his fathers (Daniel 11.37).And the apostle says: Let no man deceive you by any means: for
that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of
sin be revealed, the son of perdition: who opposeth and exalteth himself above
all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple
of God (II Thessalonians 2.3-4).”[21]
Because they received not the love of the
truth that they might be saved… This
is the real cause of the appearance of the Antichrist. If people do not wish to
know the truth about Christ, they will be deceived by the lie of the
Antichrist, because they obeyed
not the truth, a spirit of error shall speak then to this people and to
Jerusalem (Jeremiah 4.11).
This
Antichrist-beast is very closely linked with the red dragon of chapter twelve; for, like it, it has seven heads and
ten horns. Moreover, just as the seven heads of the dragon are said to be
crowned (12.3), so the ten horns of this beast are said to be crowned. Later,
we are told that both the seven heads and the ten horns are kings (17.10,12).
Tikhomirov
writes: “This [beast] is mentioned twice: once at the beginning of chapter 13,
and another time in the third verse of chapter 17. Is this one beast or different ones? I suppose that
it is one and the same beast, and precisely the Antichrist, only in the 13th
chapter it is described as appearing from the sea, that is, from the stormy waves of the peoples, while in the 17th
chapter – as emerging from the abyss
(of hell, that is). The double description of this beast, that is, the
Antichrist, points to his relationship both to Satan (the dragon and the
abyss), and to the peoples of mankind, and to states, and to the adulterous
Whore. That is why his image is both times depicted in such a complex way… In
general, this is undoubtedly the Antichrist, but portrayed in his links with a
series of powers and institutions acting at that time, but also in history in
general.”[22]
It follows
that the beast is not the dragon, who is identified with the devil and Satan in 12.9, and who is said to give power to the beast in 13.2 and
13.4, but a thing or person who is given power by Satan.
As
St. John Chrysostom writes: “Who is he? Is he Satan? By no means, but some man,
who allows him to work fully in him. For he is a man… He will not introduce
idolatry, but will be a kind of opponent to God; he will abolish all the gods,
and will order men to worship him instead of God, and he will be seated in the
temple of God, not only the one in Jerusalem, but also in every church…”[23]
St.
John of Damascus disagrees with Chrysostom in that he thinks the Antichrist
will sit only in the Jewish temple: “In the temple of God, he said; not our
temple, but the old Jewish temple. For he will come not to us but to
the Jews; not for Christ or the things of Christ.” However, as regards the
humanity of the Antichrist he is in full agreement with him: “The devil himself
does not become man in the way that the Lord was made man. God forbid! But he
becomes man as the offspring of fornication and receiveth all the energy of
Satan. For God, knowing the strangeness of the choice that he would make,
allows the devil to take up his abode in him. Born of a fornicator, he shall be
raised in secret, shall be announced to all unexpectedly, and will ascend the
throne.”[24]
Perhaps
these two interpretations can be reconciled in that the Temple as an Orthodox
church will be transformed into the Temple as the resurrection of the old
Jewish temple.
Archbishop
Averky writes: “Almost all commentators understand by this beast rising up out of the sea - the Antichrist rising out of ‘the
sea of life’, that is, from the midst of the race of men which is disturbed
like the sea. From this it is clear that the Antichrist will not be some kind
of spirit or demon, as some have thought, but a man.”
And
yet there are hints in some of the prophecies that the conception of the
Antichrist will imitate the conception of Christ in that it will be an attempted union of two natures,
angelic (demonic) and human. Thus St. Nilus the Myrrh-Gusher prophesied: “Yea,
evil will be incarnate (the Antichrist will be born) without any masculine
seed. Yea, he will be born of seed, but without man’s sowing, but will be born
through artificial insemination.”[25]
Again, St. Seraphim of Sarov says: “Jesus Christ, the true God-Man, the Son of
God the Father, was born in Israel by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and
the true Antichrist, the devil-man, will be born amidst the Russians. He will
be the son of a fornicating woman of the tribe of Dan and the son of the devil
through the artificial transfer to her of the seed of the man, with which the
spirit of darkness will settle in her womb. But one of the Russians who will
live to the time of the birth of the Antichrist (like Simeon the God-receiver,
who announced the birth of the Child Jesus to the world) will curse the newborn
babe and will announce to the world that it is the true Antichrist.”[26]
13.2. And the
beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a
bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power,
and his seat, and great authority.
St.
Hippolytus of Rome writes: “A lion is Christ, and a lion is the Antichrist;
King is Christ, and king is the Antichrist… In the circumcision came the
Redeemer into the world, and in like manner will the other come; the Lord sent
apostles unto all nations, and in the same way will the other send false
apostles; the Saviour gathered the scattered sheep, and in like manner will the
other gather the scattered people. The Lord gave a seal to those that believed
on Him, and a seal will the other likewise give; in the form of a man appeared
the Saviour, and in the form of a man will the other also come; the Lord stood
up and exhibited His holy body as a temple, and the other will also set up the
temple of stone in Jerusalem.”[27]
Now
the more detailed identity of this beast with its horns and heads can best be
understood by first examining two visions from the Prophet Daniel.
The
first is from chapter two of Daniel: You, O king, were watching; and
behold, a great image! This great image, whose splendour was excellent, stood
before you; and its form was awesome. This image’s head was of fine gold, its
chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its
feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You watched while a stone was cut out
without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke
them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze the silver, and the gold
were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors;
the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone
that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
(2.32-35).
As
the Prophet goes on to explain, the gold, the silver, the bronze and the iron
refer to four kingdoms, the last of which will destroy its predecessors, but
will then be divided. According to the holy fathers, these kingdoms are: the
Assyrian-Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Macedonian-Greek and the Roman. “The
diminishing value of metals from gold to iron represent the decreasing grandeur
of the rulers of the successive empire [for their kingdoms were inferior to
yours, said the Prophet to Nebuchadnezzar], from the absolute despotism of
Nebuchadnezzar to the democratic system of checks and balances that
characterized the Roman senates and assemblies.”[28]
And
the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in
pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will
break in pieces and crush all the others. (2.40). The Roman empire did
indeed crush and take the place of all the preceding kingdoms. Whereas you
saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom
shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw
the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of
iron and partly of clay, the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.
As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men;
but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.
(2.41-43).
Michael
Nazarov gives an interesting interpretation of this passage: “In the strong
iron we can see the positive quality of political power: it crushes the
anarchic forces of evil – this is what the calling of the state consists in.
The two knees are perhaps the eastern and western parts of the Roman empire.
However, the clay that is mixed with it is a clearly apostatic sign. This means
that at the end of its development (in the lower part of the legs and in their
toes) the Roman empire will consist of a mixed human mass of two different
qualities: an iron (restraining) quality and a clay (apostatic) quality.
Judging from the description, this concerns all ten of the toes of both legs,
which correspond to the ten apocalyptic horn-states (perhaps this figure should
not be understood in a literal sense), arising from both parts of the empire.
“The
western part of the Roman empire (in the 1st to 5th
centuries it also included England) had its succession in the form of the ‘Holy
Roman Empire’, which was then divided into Germany, Austria, France, Italy,
etc., which spread western European civilisation to new continents, and also
created the USA. The succession from the eastern part of the Empire passed
through Byzantium to Russia, which then degenerated into the USSR, and to its
splinters.
“Thus
in the last times (when he who restrains will have been taken away), the most
probable interpretation of the ten horns in both the prophecy of Daniel
and in Revelation is in terms of the various successors of both lines of
Roman statehood, which receive power with the beast as kings for one hour.
By the iron in them we can understand the faithful Christians, who no
longer have any Christian statehood, but are scattered in the apostasy world,
being mixed up with the clay.”[29]
And
in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall
never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall
break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Inasmuch as you saw that
the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in
pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold…(2.44-45).
The
stone, all interpreters are agreed, is Christ, Who comes from the mountain,
that is the Holy Virgin, and fills the whole earth with His power. And insofar
as he conquers even the clay of the last successors of the Roman kingdom, this
implies that even the contemporary successor-kingdoms of the Roman empire will
be converted to Christ.
Thus
Rome in its various successions and reincarnations will exist to the end of the
world – or at least, to the time of the Antichrist. As Nazarov writes: “Insofar
as it is precisely the fourth kingdom that will receive on itself the final
blow of the stone (at the legs of the image), it is thereby evident that the
Roman empire will exist to the end of history as the last empire. This
conviction is also often reflected in the patristic tradition (it was shared by
Saints: Hippolytus of Rome, John Chrysostom, Blessed Theodoret, Blessed Jerome,
Cyril of Jerusalem and others). On this basis [the fifteenth-century] Elder
Philotheus [of Pskov] wrote: ‘the Roman [Romejskoye] kingdom is
indestructible, for the Lord was enrolled into the Roman [Rimskuyu]
power’ (that is, he was enrolled among the inhabitants at the census in the
time of the Emperor Augustus). Here Philotheus distinguishes between the
indestructible ‘Roman [Romejskoye] kingdom’, whose successor was now
Rus’, and Roman [Rimskoj] power, which had gone into the past.”[30]
The
second vision is from the seventh chapter of Daniel: I Daniel beheld, and lo! the four winds of
heaven blew violently upon the great sea. And there came up four great beasts
out of the sea, differing from one another. The first was a lioness, and her
wings as an eagle’s. I beheld until her wings were plucked, and she was lifted
off from the earth, and she stood on human feet, and a man’s heart was given to
her. And behold, a second beast like a bear, and it supported itself on one
side, and there were three ribs in its mouth, between its teeth. And thus they
said to it: Arise, devour much flesh. And after this I looked, and behold
another wild beast as a leopard, and it had four wings of a bird upon it; and
the wild beast had four heads, and power was given to it. After this one I
looked, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and exceedingly
strong, and its teeth were of iron, devouring and crushing to atoms; and it
trampled the remainder with its feet; and it was altogether different from all
the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. And I noticed his horns,
and behold, another little horn came up in the midst of them, and before it
three of the former horns were rooted out. And behold, there were eyes as the
eyes of a man in this horn, and a mouth speaking great things… These four
beasts are four kingdoms that shall rise up on the earth, which shall be taken
away. And the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess it
unto the ages of ages. (7.2-8,17-18)
According
to the interpretation of St. Hippolytus, these four kingdoms are those of the
Babylonians (the man’s heart being given to the lioness represents sanity being
returned to King Nebuchadnezzar), the Medo-Persians (the three ribs represent
the three peoples of the Medes, the Persians and the Babylonians), the Greeks
(the four wings represent the four parts into which Alexander’s empire was
divided after his death, the kingdoms of Antipater in Macedon-Greece, Lysimachus
in Thrace-Asia Minor, Seleucus in Asia and Ptolemy in Egypt) and the Romans,
who conquered the previous kingdoms and established the strongest empire in
human history. The little horn arising out of the Roman empire as the last of
its successor-states is - the Antichrist, who “shall set up the kingdom of
Judah” (the state of Israel, in Nazarov’s very plausible interpretation[31]).
The three kings uprooted by the Antichrist will be Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia.[32]
13.3-4. And I
saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was
healed; and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the
dragon which gave power unto the beast. And they worshipped the beast, saying:
Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?
Many
ancient writers thought that the beast was the Emperor Nero, who would rise
from the dead, his deadly wound healed,
and who was called a lion by the
Apostle Paul (II Timothy 4.17).[33]
This interpretation must be rejected; but the idea that the wounded head is a
resurrection of the pagan Roman Empire cannot be dismissed so easily. According
to St. Andrew of Crete, the wounded head is “the Roman kingdom, which will have
suffered a kind of death through division. Autocracy will be re-established, as
it was under the Emperor Augustus.”
Now
the Roman empire more than once underwent a death and resurrection after its
division into East and West, a process that was not formalised until the
coronation of Charlemagne as a rival Emperor of the Romans in 800. This
division did indeed constitute “a kind of death”, for in the West, at any rate,
it was followed by the descent of the western peoples into the spiritual death
of heresy, a process that was completed by the end of the eleventh century.
Then “autocracy” was “re-established” in the form of the heretical papacy, on
the one hand, and the “Holy Roman Empire” on the other.[34]
Both powers gradually weakened, but in 1804 Napoleon, who was called “the
Antichrist” by the Russian Holy Synod, briefly re-established the Holy Roman
Empire until his overthrow. A single power over the whole territory of the
Western Roman Empire was established again towards the end of the twentieth
century in the form of the European Union, which, though formally a democratic
confederation, is moving towards a form of despotism).
In
the East, much of the Roman Empire fell to the Muslim Arabs in the seventh
century, and all of it to the Muslim Turks in 1453. it was transferred to
Russia) until 1917. According to Pantazis of Larissa, writing in 1679, the
wounded head was one of the Ottoman sultans, Bayazet: “By the beast the saint
understands the Muslim (Turkish) religion), which appeared from the south,
which is also called the sea, a religion having seven heads, that is, seven
sultans before the capture of Constantinople, namely Otman, Amurat, Khalepin,
Bayazet, Orkhan, another Amurat and Mehmet who captured Constantinople. This
religion had, besides, ten horses, that is, ten kings, after the capture of the
kingdom of the Christians who at the beginning, under the honourable King
Constantine, was one, but then, with time, divided into ten kings or ten
crowns, and it was for this reason that it was easy for the blaspheming Muslim,
Mehmed, to take it. This is the name of the blasphemer because each of the
seven kings mentioned carries the name of blasphemer Mohammed, which is why
they are called Mohammedans and blaspheme God… One of the seven Ottoman kings,
Bayazet, swift in war and therefore called lightning, marched to take
Constantinople and was defeated by the king of the Tartars and was captured,
put into a cage and executed. Thus the Muslim monarchy declined for some time,
and one of the seven heads of the beast was wounded, that is, one of the seven
Sultans was killed, and then the Muslim dynasty recovered under the succeeding
kings and above all under Sultan Mohammed who conquered Constantinople, and
thus the wound of the beast was healed, and all the men of the earth were
dazzled because of the capture of Constantinople by Mohammed, the Muslim
beast.”[35]
The
Muslim beast was wounded again in 1918, after the collapse of the Turkish
empire, but is now recovering, if not in the form of a single despotic state,
at any rate as a general revival of Muslim power…
However,
if we consider the Eastern Roman Empire to have fallen completely, not in 1453,
but in 1917, insofar as the rights of New Rome of Constantinople were
transferred to the Third Rome of Moscow, then the wounded head must be
considered to be the Soviet Union.
The
Soviet empire suffered a near-mortal wound from the White armies in 1919, but
recovered[36], and again
from the Nazi armies in 1941, but recovered. Moreover, from the 1920s and again
after 1945 the whole world wondered
after the beast of Soviet power. Some worshipped it as the pinnacle of
human progress: Who is like unto the
beast? Others, not so fooled, nevertheless bowed down before its military
might, saying: Who is able to make war
with him? Still others worshipped
the dragon which gave power unto the beast - the spirit of revolution, and
the first revolutionary, Satan himself.[37]
The
satanic, essentially antichristian nature of Soviet power was explicitly
recognized by Patriarch Tikhon and the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox
Church in January, 1918. The anathema which they imposed on the regime
and its co-workers has never been revoked by the True Church. This is as much
as to say that Bolshevism is at least part of the beast established by the
dragon, and not an authority in the apostolic sense of the word (Romans
13.1).[38]
Many believe that the Soviet Union is not really dead even now, but lives on in
its present ex-communist rulers. Certainly, its present leader, Putin, appears
to be attempting a revival of Soviet power in another form – that is, combining
the ideals of the February and October revolutions with Orthodoxy! Back has
come the red flag, the music of the Soviet national anthem and the praises of
Stalin – all in a blasphemous union with the crosses, cassocks and cupolas of
the Orthodox Church!
13.5-7. And
there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and
power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his
mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and
those that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the
saints, and to overcome them; and power was given him over all kindreds, and
tongues, and nations.
This passage echoes two from the Prophet Daniel,
one of which probably refers to the collective Antichrist, Soviet power, and
the other to the personal Antichrist.
First:
And he shall do according to his will,
and the king shall be exalted and magnify himself against every god, and shall
speak great swelling words, and shall prosper until the indignations shall be
accomplished; for it is coming to an end. And he shall not regard any gods of
his fathers, nor the desire of women, neither shall he regard any deity: for he
shall magnify himself above all. And he shall honour the god of forces [Gk.
Mavzeim]
(Daniel 11.36-38).
This
figure is called the king of the north,
and he eventually comes to grief in a war with the king of the south in the
land of Sabaeim (a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew), which is probably
Israel. In this fate he resembles Gog and Magog, whom we have identified
earlier with (neo-)Soviet Russia. This identification becomes stronger when we
consider the atheism of the king of the north, his worship of naked power, and
his blasphemy. For many powers have blasphemed against God and persecuted the
faithful at times; but none before Soviet Communism took blasphemy and the
destruction of faith in God as their aim and raison d’etre. Soviet power
was nothing if not blasphemous, being the first power in history to proclaim
atheism as its official creed. On May 1, 1932, Stalin even went so far as to
proclaim a five-year-plan whose aim was the complete elimination of the name of
God from the land. Soviet power blasphemed not only against God (the Father) and His
name (Christ), but also against His
tabernacle (the Church) and those
that dwell in heaven - the saints, whose relics were subjected to sacrilege
and destruction. It was given victory over Christian armies in the civil war,
and later acquired power over the whole world through its vast armies of spies
and fellow-travellers, and through the blackmail it exerted by the threat of
nuclear war.
“The
tabernacle of God is the dwelling of
God the Word in the flesh - that is, His incarnation and repose in the saints,
against whom - just as against the angels - the beast will direct his
blasphemy” (St. Andrew of Caesarea).
However,
the passage under consideration from the Apocalypse still more closely echoes
another word from Daniel: Behold,
there were eyes as the eyes of a man in this horn, and a mouth speaking great
things (7.8). And again: That horn,
which had eyes, and a mouth speaking great things, and his look was greater
than the rest. I beheld, and that horn made war with the saints, and prevailed
against them; until the Ancient of Days came, and He gave judgement to the
saints of the Most High; and the time came on, and the saints possessed the
Kingdom (7.20-22). This figure, the little
horn who springs up amidst the ten horns of the beast and destroys three of
them, is unanimously identified by Christian Tradition with the personal
Antichrist (see the commentary on 17.12-13 below).
We
may conclude, therefore, that from verse 5 at least the seer has stopped
talking about the collective Antichrist, and has begun to speak about the
personal Antichrist, the false king of the Jews, who incarnates in himself all
the evil qualities of his predecessors and is their personal culmination and
apotheosis. He makes war with the saints and overcomes them, and his kingdom is
universal. And he is defeated, not by any human enemy or king, but by Christ
Himself coming to judge the world as the
Ancient of Days, Who because of the
voice of the great words which that horn spoke sees that the wild beast is slain and destroyed and
his body give to be burnt with fire (Daniel 7.9,11).
13.8-10. And
all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in
the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man
have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into
captivity; he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here
is the patience and the faith of the saints.
“Only
those will bow down to the Antichrist whose names are not written in the book
of life by the Lamb. Only by patience and faith will the saints be able to
defend themselves against the Antichrist. And they are consoled by St. John with
the assurance that he that killeth with
the sword must be killed with the sword, that is, that a righteous
recompense awaits the Antichrist.” (Archbishop Averky)
We
may conclude that the first beast is political and/or military power in the
service of the devil, or the collective Antichrist. The seven heads are
probably: the five pre-Christian pagan empires, the pagan Roman Empire (in its
antichristian aspect, as opposed to its “restraining” aspect) and, probably,
the Soviet empire, which is the head that receives a near-fatal wound but
recovers. We shall return to a fuller discussion of the first beast, and in
particular of his ten horns, in the commentary on chapter 17.
The
personal Antichrist will be the
eighth head, that
one which is of the seven, and goeth
into perdition (17.11).
As
Lev Tikhomirov writes: “The Antichrist is the heir of that general historical
statehood which before him had seven great manifestations, while this beast
himself, that is, the Antichrist, is the
eighth, and is of the seven (17.11), that is, of the same character as they
(Oberlein)…
“He
will put an end to that social-political revolution which men have
accomplished, and will bring about a restoration of historical statehood. And
men, worn out by the woes engendered by this revolution, will joyfully welcome
the restoration of order brought about by the Antichrist and will say: who is like unto the beast? In this
respect the Antichrist is a conservative counter-revolutionary. But on the
other hand he will appear before the world with a completely new idea which is incomparably more
revolutionary than the one he abolished. He will lead humanity to a revolution in the bases of the world’s
existence, so as to acquire in the world divine significance and power and
satisfy his thirst for earthly goods by that limitless might which this
usurpation of God’s power gives…
“He
restores statehood and order, becomes king, and ten kings arise at the same
time as him. But his programme of action is a mystical and magical mission –
the conquest of humanity in his person as the highest authority over all the
powers of the world. However, the very highest power is the dragon (Satan), who
gave the Antichrist his power, and his
throne, and all authority. The whole earth will worship the Dragon, who gave power to the beast, but will also
worship the beast himself. It is evident that, in constructing his programme,
the Antichrist guesses the spirit of the time. Taking all factors into account,
we can see that at that time a mystical belief must reign in humanity, on the
basis of which people will begin to consider God to be a power which is harmful
for them, but will consider the devil to be a benevolent power, while with
regard to themselves they will be filled with the assurance that man can become
the highest power in the universe, can struggle with God and overthrow His
lordship. How the people of ‘the last times’ will provide weapons for
themselves in this struggle we cannot now clearly represent, but it is clear
that these will be magical weapons.
As an analogy, we can point to the cabbalistic invocations of angels, whom a
magician can force to do what he requires. We can even point to the ‘great
souls’ or ‘great adepts’ of occultism ruling all the powers of nature. In the
times of the Antichrist a complete doctrine of these magical visions will
evidently be developed, a doctrine whose foundations were probably laid by the
adulterous Whore and completed by the Antichrist.”[39]
13.11-12. And I
beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a
lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first
beast before him, and causeth the earth and those who dwell therein to worship
the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
“In these verses St. John speaks of the
helper of the Antichrist - the false prophet - and his activity. This is also a
beast, in Greek qhrion, which signifies a beast whose beastly nature is especially manifest,
as for example in wild animals - the hyena, the jackal, the tiger. But he is
depicted not as coming out of the sea like the first one, but out of the earth.
This signifies that all his feelings and conceptions are entirely earthly, of a
sensuous nature. He will have two horns
like a lamb. In the explanation of St. Andrew, this is so as to ‘cover with
lamb’s skin the murderous nature of a hidden wolf, and because in the beginning
he will strive to have an image of piety’. St. Irenaeus of Lyons says that this
is ‘the weapon-bearer of the Antichrist and the false prophet’…
“Imitating
the Lord Jesus Christ, he will use for the establishment of the authority of
the Antichrist two powers - the power of the word and the power of miracles.
But he will speak like a dragon,
that is, blasphemously; and the fruit of his speaking will be atheism and
extreme impiety. For the deception of men he will begin to perform great
wonders so that he can bring down fire from heaven.
“The
forerunner of the apostate - the false Christ - will perform everything through
sorcery and deceit for the deception of men, so that the Antichrist might be
considered as God, being the glorious performer of such miracles and worthy of
undoubted glory, like St. John the Baptist, who brought believers to the Saviour;
for he also, for the deception of men, will strive to imitate the truth.
Therefore it is not at all astonishing that for deceived eyes fire will be seen
coming down from heaven, since from the history of Job we know that, by God’s
permission, fire came down from heaven by the activity of Satan and burned his
flock.” (St. Andrew of Caesarea)
Hieromartyr
Victorinus writes: “He [the Antichrist] will lust after no women, and
acknowledge no God of his fathers. For he will be unable to beguile the people
of the circumcision unless he appears as the champion of the law. Nor will he
summon the saints to the worship of idols, but only to accept circumcision,
should he succeed in leading any astray. Lastly, he will so act that he will be
called Christ by them. The false prophet will contrive to have a golden statue
set up to him in the Temple of Jerusalem. The raising of the dead to life is
mentioned among the wonders wrought by this false prophet.”[40]
A
somewhat different, but not incompatible interpretation to the above would see
in the second beast, or false prophet - false
science. Although science represents itself as the enemy of all magic and
superstition, some of its over-arching theories, such as the theory of
evolution, are as superstitious, magical - and undemonstrable - as the most
primitive pagan theories of the universe. It is a beast coming up out of the earth because
its origin is earthly, in the striving of man to conquer the earth.
Moreover,
the effect of science and technology on the minds of modern men is quite
comparable with that of magic on the minds of the ancients. Thus in St. Nilus
the Myrrhgusher’s prophecy about the twentieth century, the Antichrist is
described as possessing the power of working miracles which we recognize to be
the “miracles” of modern science, such as that of enabling one man to talk to
another over very great distances (the telephone), that of flying in the air
like a bird (the aeroplane) and of diving into the sea like a fish (the
submarine). And St. Nilus goes on to say that the Antichrist “will so complete
science with vanity that it will go off the right path and lead people to lose
faith in the existence of God in Three Persons” - a prophecy that has been
abundantly fulfilled in our time.[41]
For
since the time of Galileo’s famous debate with the Pope on the shape of the
earth’s surface, “educated opinion” has tended to assume that where there is a
conflict between science and religion, science must be right and religion
wrong; which has naturally led to an undermining of the authority of religion
and the passing of the mantle of infallibility from the papacy to science.
Rarely, therefore, has the educated man won through to the perception of the
scientist and theologian, Professor I.M. Andreyev: “Only with a superficial
knowledge do there arise false
contradictions between faith and knowledge, between religion and science. With
a deeper knowledge these false contradictions disappear without a trace… A
broad, scientific and philosophical education not only does not hinder faith in
God, but makes it easier, because the whole arsenal of scientific-philosophical
thought is natural apologetic material for religious faith. Moreover, honest
knowledge often has a methodical opportunity to uncover corruptions of faith and
exposing superstitions, whether religious or scientific-philosophical.”[42]
However,
the legitimate study of the material creation has tended to go with an
over-emphasis on material things and a deification of human reason. This was
the case with the first scientists and technologists of the human race, who
were descendants of Cain (Genesis 5.17-22). And it was so also at the
beginning of the modern age, when “the prophet of the scientific revolution”,
Francis Bacon, declared that science was like the knowledge of the essence of
creatures which Adam had before the fall.
Now
it is true that before the fall, as St. Ambrose of Milan writes, “God granted
[us] the power of being able to discern by the application of sober logic the
species of each and every object, in order that [we] may be induced to form a
judgement on all of them”.[43]
But the fall has changed everything; and science, however “pure”, objective and disinterested it may appear to be (we remember that the second beast looks like an innocent lamb), is still a product of fallen men with fallen minds having an innate tendency towards error and deception.
For,
as the wise Solomon says, Hardly do we
divine the things that are on earth, and the things that are close at hand we
find with labour; but the things that are in heaven who ever yet traced out?
and who ever gained knowledge of Thy counsel, except Thou gavest wisdom and
sentest Thy Holy Spirit from on high? (Wisdom 9.16).
Moreover,
there are certain things which must forever remain beyond the range of
empirical knowledge and verification - the beginning and end of the material
creation, for example. For, as the Lord said to Job: Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? (Job
38.4). Science, however, - or
rather, false science - denies any such limits to its competence; and so, by
the just judgement of God, it proceeds further and further away from the
knowledge of the greater mysteries of the universe - of God, of the soul, of
the origins and destiny of creation, - while puffing itself up by its knowledge
of the lesser mysteries, and paying no heed to the fact that its discoveries
are bringing, not good, but evil to the human race.
Now
the scientific revolution began in Protestant countries, where “the scientific spirit”
applied to matters of the Faith was taken to justify the rejection of all
traditions and doctrines that could not be clearly established on the basis of
the Holy Scriptures alone. No heed was paid to the fact that Scripture itself
points to the Church as the pillar and ground of the truth (I
Timothy 3.15) and to Holy Tradition
as the essential complement of Scripture (II Thessalonians 2.15, 3.6).
Instead, even the most ignorant Christian was deemed capable of unlocking the mysteries
of the Holy Spirit unaided.
During
the eighteenth century, the rationalist attack on faith took a further massive
stride with the philosophical doctrine of Deism, according to which God was
granted the function of First Cause of the universe, but was excluded from the
everyday working of nature, which was to be explained exclusively in terms of
the mechanical laws discovered by science. With God banished to the heavens,
and human empirical reason reigning supreme on earth, it was not long before
reason itself was deified. This took place in a literal fashion during the
French revolution.
But
a vital stone was missing from this latter-day Tower of Babel: a doctrine of
origins. This was supplied by Darwin’s theory of evolution. Man, according to this
theory, is the product of the fortuitous evolution of inanimate matter into
higher and higher forms of life. When combined with other materialist
pseudo-sciences, such as Freudian psychoanalysis, Marxist economics and “big
bang physics”, the theory of evolution expands into a universal theory of
origins, universal evolutionism. Thus “by universal evolutionism,” wrote C.S.
Lewis, “I mean the belief that the very formula of universal process is from
imperfect to perfect, from small beginnings to great endings, from the
rudimentary to the elaborate, the belief which makes people find it natural to
thing that morality springs from savage taboos, adult sentiment from infantile
sexual maladjustments, thought from instinct, mind from matter, organic from
inorganic, cosmos from chaos. This is perhaps the deepest habit of mind in the
contemporary world. It seems to me immensely implausible…”[44]
Thus
science, in striving to progress beyond the bounds of any possible scientific
verification, has retrogressed to the state of pre-scientific, magical
superstition, when the sun-god and earth-goddess were seen to be the causes of
creation. And man, in striving to make his mind, made in the image of God, the
measure of all things, including God, has reduced it to the image of the beast:
Man, being in honour, did not
understand; he is compared to the mindless cattle, and is become like unto them
(Psalm 48.21). Thus St. Basil the Great’s estimate seems not far from
the mark: “Have not those who give themselves up to vain science the eyes of
owls? The sight of the owl, piercing during the night-time, is dazzled by the
splendour of the sun. Thus the intelligence of these men, so keen to
contemplate vanities, is blind in the presence of the true light.”[45]
And
yet we must remember that it is not true science that we are talking about
here, which simply means knowledge acquired through observation and logical
reasoning. Rather, we are talking about false
science, science falsely so-called,
in St. Paul’s phrase (I Timothy 6.20), or what Dostoyevsky’s Shatov
calls “half-science, that most
terrible scourge of mankind, worse than pestilence, famine, or war, and quite
unknown until our present century. Half-science is a despot such as has never
been known before. A despot that has its own priests and slaves, a despot
before whom everyone prostrates himself with love and superstitious dread, such
as has been quite inconceivable until now, before whom science itself trembles
and surrenders in a shameful way.”[46]
Such
a false prophet as science, with its extraordinary hold over the minds of
contemporary men, could not fail to be used by the Antichrist, that fool who hath said in his heart: There is no God (Psalm 13,1, 52.1) -
or, at any rate, no God but me. And so it was that the world’s first officially
atheist state, the Soviet Union, proclaimed itself to be the first state to be
founded on purely scientific principles - the principles of dialectical
materialism (i.e. universal evolutionism).
Indeed,
it is this second beast who exerciseth
all the power of the first beast before him; for, as Shatov says,
“Socialism is bound to be atheistic because it has proclaimed from the very
first that it intends to organise itself exclusively on the principles of
science and reason.”[47]
Nor,
as we said before, is this emphasis on science and reason incompatible with the
false prophet’s use of magic; for rationalism and magic are closely
related in that both are attempts by man to master nature for his own selfish
ends, without reference to the true Master of nature, God. Science is the
modern intellectual’s magic, performing much the same functions, and evoking
much the same superstitious credulity. Thus what is the belief that all things
came into existence by evolution from a tiny speck of super-hot matter if not
an extreme form of irrational superstition?
13.13. And he
doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven in the sight
of men.
Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov writes: “It is
not to be wondered at that the wonders of the Antichrist will be received
unquestioningly and with enthusiasm by the apostates from Christianity, the
enemies of the truth, the enemies of God: they have prepared themselves to
accept, openly and actively, the messenger and weapon of Satan, his teaching, all
his actions, having in a timely manner entered into communion with Satan in
spirit… The signs of the Antichrist will appear especially in the air: it is in
this area that Satan is especially dominant. The signs will act mainly on the sense of sight, enchanting and
deceiving it. St. John the Theologian contemplated in a revelation the events
that are to precede his death, and said that the Antichrist would do great
works, and maketh fire come down from
heaven in the sight of men. Scripture indicates this sign as the highest of
the signs of the Antichrist, and the place of this sign is the air: it will be
a majestic and terrible spectacle. The signs of the Antichrist will supplement
his crafty behaviour: they will persuade the majority of men to follow him. The
opponents of the Antichrist will be considered to be disturbers of the peace,
enemies of the common good and order, and will be subjected to open and hidden
persecution. Cunning spirits will be sent throughout the world and will elicit
a generally exalted opinion of the Antichrist among men, a general enthusiasm,
an irresistible attraction for him. Scripture has portrayed in many ways the
weight of the final persecution of Christianity and the cruelty of the
persecutor. A decisive and definite feature is the name that Scripture gives to
this terrible man: he is called the beast, since the fallen angel is called
the serpent. Both names faithfully depict the character of both enemies of God.
One acts more secretly, the other - more openly; but to the beast, who is
similar to all beasts, and combines in himself their various kinds of savagery,
the serpent [dragon] gave his power, and
his seat, and great authority. The saints of God will suffer a terrible
temptation: the cunning, hypocrisy and wonders of the persecutor will increase,
so as to deceive and seduce them; subtle persecutions and restrictions thought
up and covered over with crafty inventiveness, and the unlimited power of the
torturer, will place them in the most difficult position: their small number
will seem insignificant in the face of the whole of humanity and will give
their opinion the appearance of particular feebleness; general derision,
hatred, slanders, restrictions and violent death will become their lot. Only
with the special cooperation of Divine grace, and under its guidance, will the
elect of God be able to withstand the enemy of God, confessing the Lord Jesus
before him and before men.”[48]
Among
the beast’s miracles, according to St. Ephraim the Syrian will be the moving of
mountains and the transfer of mountainous island from the sea onto dry land in
the sight of all. But “everyone who has the fear of God in himself, and the
eyes of whose heart are filled with light, will know exactly that neither did
the mountain move from its place nor did the island move from the sea onto dry
land.”[49]
13.14-15. And
deceiveth those that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he
had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to those that dwell on the
earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by the
sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast,
that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would
not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
“He will deceive those whose hearts have their constant dwellings upon earth; but he will not deceive the senses of those who have acquired a dwelling in the heavens - they will be made perfectly firm by the prophecy of his coming… There are accounts of how the demons, by sorcery, have often spoken by means of images, statues, water, etc., and even perhaps through dead bodies… Therefore there is nothing unfitting in the fact that the arm-bearer or forerunner of the Antichrist, acting with the help of demons, should make an image of the beast and falsely show it to be speaking.” (St. Andrew of Caesarea)
But
again, science can imitate these miracles. St. Cosmas wrote in the eighteenth
century: “There shall appear a box of the devil which will stupefy the world
and whose horns shall be on the roof.” He was clearly referring to television,
which can make an image of the beast and of almost anything else - an image,
moreover, which speaks. With the advent of computer and laser and robot
technology, the situation portrayed in these verses seems still closer to
realization. Some computer experts are even referring to the most complex
computers of the near future as “living creatures” with capacities far
exceeding those of men. Computers are now able to create “virtual reality”, the
appearance of real men and real situations. And there are some indications that
children brought up in the computer age sometimes to regard take the creations
of computer technologists for living beings. Some scientists are even talking
about a time when computers will be talking to each other without the
intervention of man…
These
signs in the sky may not be unrelated to the UFO phenomenon. As Fr. Seraphim
Rose writes: “the ‘message’ of the UFOs is: prepare for Antichrist; the ‘saviour’
of the apostate world is coming to rule it. Perhaps he himself will come in the
air, in order to complete his impersonation of Christ (Matthew 24.30; Acts
1.11); perhaps only the ‘visitors from outer space’ will land publicly in order
to offer ‘cosmic’ worship of their master; perhaps the fire from heaven (Revelation 13.13) will be only a part of
the great demonic spectacles of the last times.”[50]
Still
more frightening is the spectre of genetically engineered supermen, or the
formation of hybrid demon-men like the giants of Noah’s time, which some claim
is taking place through the abductions of human beings by demonic aliens
appearing to them from UFOs. The Antichrist himself, as indicated above, may be
born through a kind of demonic genetic engineering.[51]
Thus we may suppose that the false prophet will use both science and magic; for
as science emerged out of magic at the beginning of the modern period, so they
will tend to unite again for the glorification of the Antichrist at the end of
time.
13.16-17. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads; and that no man might buy or sell, except he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
St. Hippolytus
writes: “Through his evil stratagems and extolling of himself over the servants
of God [the beast] wishes to root out and drive them out of the world. And
above all because they will not give him glory, he orders everyone everywhere
to set up temples, so that none of the saints can buy or sell unless they first
offer sacrifices on them. This is the meaning of the seal placed on the right
hand. As regards the seal on the forehead, this will be in order that they
should all be crowned, and should bear on themselves the fiery crown, not of
life, but of death. For that is how Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king, acted
against the Jews, being one of the successors of Alexander of Macedon. In those
days he, being uplifted in heart, issued an order that everyone should place
altars in front of their gates and offer sacrifices, and, having wound ivy
round their heads, should celebrate in honour of Bacchus: but those who refused
to obey he tortured and wore out before ordering that they be given over to
death (I Maccabees 1.9,11). For this he himself received a fitting
punishment from the Lord, the righteous Judge and Providential God, for he died
after being eaten up by worms. He who wishes to read a detailed account of this
can find it in the book of the Maccabees.”[52]
In
his vision of 1908, St. John of Kronstadt saw the seal of the Antichrist to be
the red star of Communism.[53]
Similarly, the famous Confessor Sergius Nilus quoted Izvestia, which
said that Metropolitan Sergius’ declaration of July 16/29, 1927, whereby the
official church entered into submission to the communists, was an attempt “to
construct a cross in such a way that it would look like a hammer to a worker,
and like a sickle to a peasant”. “In other words,” said Nilus, “to exchange the
cross for the Soviet seal, the seal of
the beast (Rev. 13.16).”[54]
Again,
one of the victims of Communism, Hieromartyr Bishop Damascene of Glukhov,
writes: “Why is it that the seal of the Antichrist, as St. John the Theologian affirms,
will be placed not upon the forehead and the hand simultaneously, but upon the
forehead or the hand? Likewise, St.
Andrew, archbishop of Caesarea, writes: ‘He will strive so that the mark might
be place upon everyone… In some it will be on the right hand, so as to instruct
those who have been deceived to be bold in their deception and darkness.’ This
will occur because at that time there will be people who will affirm that it is
possible and permissible to recognize the God-fighting authority of the
Antichrist if only one remains a Christian in one’s soul. From such ones the
Antichrist will not demand that they share his way of thinking; in other words,
upon all such ones he will not place the seal on their forehead, but will
demand of them only the recognition of his authority, which is, according to
St. Hippolytus, the seal on the hand, since through the recognition of the
human authority which will be God-fighting and against God, lawless and filled
with every impiety, a Christian by this very fact will cut off from himself
every possibility of doing good and righteous deeds, for in his faith there
will be missing the chief sign of uprightness - the confession of God as God
and the recognition of Him as the Being Who stand above all. All such ones,
even though they might bear the name of Christian, in very deed will be,
according to the works of their hands, true servants of the Antichrist, who has
deceived them by the worship of his image, which is the mark of the beast.
Repentance is impossible for such ones, according to the teaching of the Holy
Church; and it is impossible only because the seal of Christ and the seal of
the Antichrist are incompatible with each other, and the acceptance of the one
drives out the presence of the other. The banishing of the Grace of the Holy
Spirit through the mark of the beast fills the heart of all such ones with the
first sign - fearfulness - which will bring them to an easy destruction. St.
Hippolytus writes: ‘On the contrary, if anyone is deprived of the Holy Spirit,
that is, if he does not have upon himself or has lost the seal of the gift of
the Holy Spirit which was given in Holy Chrismation, he will fight with fear in
a cowardly manner, will hide, will be afraid of the present temporal death,
will conceal himself from the sword, will not endure chastisement, since he is
constantly thinking about this,’ etc.
“This
is the essence of the matter, we emphasize it: ‘Through the acceptance of a
human authority that is against God and God-fighting, lawless and filled with
all manner of impiety, - in other words, in our time of Soviet power, - ‘the
Christian will thereby cut off in himself every possibility of doing good and
righteous deeds, for in his faith there will be missing the chief sign of
righteousness - the confession of God as God and the recognition of Him as the
Being Who stand above all. All such ones, even though they might bear the name
of Christian, in very deed will be, according to the works of their hands, true
servants of the Antichrist, who has deceived them by the worship of his image,
which is the mark of the beast.’ ‘The seal of Christ and the seal of the
Antichrist are incompatible with each other, and the acceptance of the one
drives out the presence of the other’ - in other words, Orthodoxy, Communism
and every religion are incompatible, because the one excludes the other.”[55]
Such
was the mark of the beast in the time of the collective Antichrist. In the time
of the personal Antichrist it is bound to be more subtle, and at the same time,
perhaps, more literal. Thus the technology now exists whereby all payments for
food, etc. can be made by electronic machines reading numbers, laser-printed
identity cards or bar-codes, imprinted invisibly on the forehead or the right
hand. Perhaps the forehead and the right hand will be chosen because it is by
raising the right hand to the forehead that the sign of the Cross is made. So
the seal of the Antichrist will be directly opposed to the seal of Christ, the
sign of the Cross.
St.
Nilus the Myrrh-gusher prophesied: “The Antichrist will begin to seal people
with his seal as if in order by this sign to save them from woes (for only he
who has the seal, according to the Apocalypse, will be sold bread). Many will
die on the roads. People will become like birds of prey hurling themselves on
rotting matter. They will devour the bodies of the dead [which happened already
in Soviet times]. But of what kind will be the people who will devour the dead?
Those who are sealed with the seal of the Antichrist; Christians, even though
they will not be given or sold bread because they do not have the seal on
themselves, will not eat corpses; but those who have been sealed, in spite of
the availability of bread for them, will begin to devour them. Finally, he who
is sealed will himself be killed by the antitype: on the seal will be written
the following: ‘I am yours.’ ‘Yes, you are mine.’ ‘I go willingly, not by
force.’ ‘And I accept you in accordance with your will, and not by force.’
These are four utterances, or inscriptions, which will be written in the middle
of this accursed seal…
“But
when the accursed glory will see Enoch and Elijah preaching and telling the
people that they should not receive the seal of the Antichrist, he will order
them to be seized. But they will continue to persuade people not to receive the
seal of the Antichrist; they will say that he who shows patience and is not
sealed with the seal of the Antichrist will be saved, and God will unfailingly
receive him into Paradise for the sake of the single fact that he did not
receive the seal. And let everyone sign himself with the honourable cross,
making the sign at every hour, for the sign of the cross frees man from the
torments of hell; but the seal of the Antichrist leads man to the torments of hell.
If you are hungry and want to eat, be patient for a little while and God,
seeing your patience, will send you help from on high; you will be filled with
life through the help of God the Most High. But if you are not patient, you
will be sealed with the seal of this impure king, and will then repent of this.
“People
will say to Enoch and Elijah, ‘Why then are those who received the seal
thankful to Antichrist?’ Enoch and Elijah will say: ‘They are thankful, but who
is really thankful? It is not the people who give thanks, but only the seal
itself.’ What is their thankfulness? It is that Satan has entered into them, is
conceived in man’s feeling, and man does not know what has happened to him. The
one who is sealed with the imprint of Antichrist becomes a demon; even thought
he asserts that he feels neither hunger nor thirst, he craves food and drink
even more, and not only more, but seven times more than you. Be patient for
only a little while. do you not see rather that he who receives the seal of
Antichrist will not live (he is dead in spirit, and eternal suffering awaits
him)? Is it possible you too desire to perish with the seal in eternal
suffering, there to be with those, who were sealed with it? - where there is
weeping and gnashing of teeth?’”[56]
13.18. Here is
wisdom. Let him who hath understanding calculate the number of the beast; for
it is the number of a man; and his number is (666) six hundred three score and
six.
“It
is the number of a man, that we may not suppose him, according to the opinion
of some, to be either devil or demon, but one from among men, in whom Satan is
to dwell altogether bodily.” (the Venerable Bede).
“Many
attempts have been made, even from ancient times, to guess the meaning and
sense of these words, but they have produced no definite conclusion. Most often
they have attempted to discover the name of the Antichrist by putting together
the letters which are equivalent to the number. For example, according to St.
Irenaeus’ surmise, the beast’s number 666 is produced by putting together the
numerical equivalents of the letters of the name ‘Latinos’ or ‘Titan’. Certain
have found the number of the beast in the name of Julian the Apostate; later
interpreters - in the title of the Pope of Rome - Vicarius Filii Dei,
Vicar of the Son of God; in the name Napoleon, etc. Our schismatics tried to
extract the number 666 from the name of Patriarch Nicon. Reflecting on the name
of the Antichrist, St. Andrew says: ‘If it were necessary to know his name, the
seer would have revealed it; but it was not pleasing to the grace of God that
this baneful name should be written in the Divine Book.’ If one pursues the
words, then, according to the opinion of St. Hippolytus, one can find many
names, both proper and common, that correspond to this number.” (Archbishop
Averky)
St.
Irenaeus writes: “That is, six times a hundred, six times ten, and six units.
[He gives this] as a summing up of the whole of that apostasy which has taken place
during six thousand years… We will not, however, incur the risk of pronouncing
positively as to the name of the Antichrist; for if it were necessary that his
name should be distinctly revealed at this present time, it would have been
announced by him who beheld the apocalyptic vision.. But he indicates the
number of the name, that when this man comes we may avoid him, being aware who
he is: the name, however, is suppressed, because it is not worthy of being
proclaimed by the Holy Spirit”[57]
St.
Jerome writes: “When this beast comes, in him will be collected to the maximum
degree all lawlessness, all falsehood and all deception, in order that the
whole force of apostasy, concentrated in him, can be cast into the furnace and
burned.
“It is precisely for that reason that his name will be 666, that is, six hundreds, six tens and six units. For him alone will be concentrated all the abomination that existed until the flood because of the apostasy of the angels. You know, Noah was exactly 600 years old when the flood came and swept away the whole world that had rebelled against God - because of the unbelievably shameless and depraved tribe that lived in Noah’s time.
“In
the same way the Antichrist will sum up in himself all the diabolical power and
all the cunning of all the idols that have existed from the flood to our days;
and he will kill the prophets and destroy every trace of right judgement and
justice.
“Furthermore,
the statue erected by Nebuchadnezzar was sixty cubits high and six cubits wide.
And since Ananias, Azariah and Misael did not want to worship this statue they
were cast into the fiery furnace, which prophetically symbolizes the time of
the last persecutions. For this statue symbolized the coming Antichrist
himself, who will want everybody to worship him alone.
“And
so, the 600 years of Noah’s age at the moment of the onset of the flood sent as
a punishment for apostasy, and the number of cubits of the statue, because of
which those faithful to God were cast into the fiery furnace, make up the
figure of the name of the Antichrist, in whom will be collected all the
apostasy of 6000 years and all the iniquities, all the injustice, all the
trickery and all the false prophecy and deception, for the destruction of which
the fiery flood will be sent upon the earth.”[58]
The
number six is associated with the idea of completion, since the world was
created in six days, and with man, since man himself was created on the sixth
day. However, man also fell on the sixth day and hour, so it also signifies
apostasy - the apostasy of mankind before the flood reached its culmination in
the 600th year of Noah. Thus “600 signifies the fervent pursuit of sin through
the misuse of creation which was made in six days, and also that in the 600th
year of Noah the earth was inundated.” (St. Andrew of Caesarea).
Again,
if one gives to the letters of the Latin alphabet numerical values of multiples
of six (A=6, B=12, etc.), one obtains the following words as equivalent to 666:
“Computer”, “Mark of Beast”, “Diluvium” (the Latin word for “flood”) and “New
York”.
After
the flood, man again apostasised, and this apostasy reached its completion when
Christ was crucified on the sixth day and hour, which is why there was darkness
over the earth from the sixth hour to the ninth hour (Mark 15.33). But
the apostasy of man in general, and of the Jewish race in particular, will
reach a still higher degree of apostasy during the reign of the Antichrist.
Therefore the number 666 may be said to signify the three stages of man’s apostasy,
from the fall of Adam to the Crucifixion of Christ to the tyranny of the
Antichrist.
Archimandrite
Justin Popovich also identified three stages in man’s apostasy: “Human history
has three main falls: of Adam, of Judas, and of the Pope… The fall of the Pope
consists in seeking to replace the God-man with man.”[59]
However,
the number seven signifies the rest from the works of fallen nature and the
reversal of apostasy; for Christ by His resting in the tomb and descent into
hell on the seventh day destroyed the works of the devil.[60]
Finally, the eighth day represents the coming of eternity and the final
salvation, sanctification and transfiguration of nature. For Christ rose from
the dead on the eighth day, and the numerical equivalent of the name “Jesus”,
meaning “Saviour”, is 888.[61]
Recently,
attention has focussed on the fact that the technology exists in several
countries to imprint information in the form of the number 666 on the right
hand or forehead of every individual citizen. Thus P. Budzilovich writes: “In
the U.S.A., which is the leader of the builders of the ‘New World Order’, all
technical preparations have now been made for the attainment of global control.
The National Security Agency already has a super-powerful computer created specially
for this aim (Texe Marr ‘Project LUCID - the Beast Universal Human Control
System’, Austin, TX, 1996). Work on the creation of this computer and the
required mathematical software has been conducted as part of a project with the
code-name ‘Project LUCID’ (the abbreviation LUCID means bright, radiant; whence
‘Lucifer’, Satan - light-bearing). They have also worked out means of ‘placing
the seal’ of the beast - biological microcircuits, which are planned to be
incorporated into the right hand or the head (at the moment, as reported in
‘Phoenix Letter’ for March, 1997, the governments of Denmark, the Philippines
and Trinidad are taking steps to introduce such microcircuits to check the
identities of their citizens, referring to the success of this programme in the
U.S.A. Although this work is being carried out in secret in the U.S.A.). The microcircuits will contain all-encompassing
information about their bearers, including photographs, fingerprints, feet,
snaps of the irises, information about their financial situation, health, etc.
It goes without saying that every individual in the whole world will be given a
unique registration number. At the moment it is suggested that such a number
should consist of 18 digits, in three groups, which means… six digits in each
group, forming the image of the number 666.”[62]
Now
a number or equivalent mark imprinted in some such way into the body (and
scanned, perhaps, by satellites in space) could indeed be interpreted as a mark
given by the second beast, false science.
In
this context, the following observation is important: “Usually, when you want
to contact someone on the internet, you type the three letters ‘www’ [for
‘worldwide web’]… It is fascinating that in the international alphabet, ‘w’..
is used to translate the Hebrew letter vav into the standard Roman alphabet.
Vav, the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, represents the number 6. So, in a
sense, when you type the three letters ‘www’, you are entering the Hebrew
equivalent of ‘666’. We have all known for a long time that the Antichrist will
need a global communications system to carry out his evil schemes. Now, we have
one with his initials on it.”[63]
However,
it must be emphasized, as St. Gregory Palamas reminds us,[64]
that no number of itself is evil, for
the whole creation, and therefore all numbers, were created good by God. A
number only becomes evil when its reception is bound up with apostasy from
Christ. In other words, it is not the number 666 as such which destroys the soul, but the apostasy from Christ which
is the condition of receiving the seal of that number and the material benefits
that go with it.
So
even if we accept that the number 666 is bound up with certain computer or
laser technology, we still need to know what the number means in order to understand why
it destroys the soul and therefore why it must be avoided at all cost.
In
the present writer’s opinion, the best answer to this question was put forward
on the eve of the revolution by the Catacomb Church confessor and first
publisher of The Protocols of the Elders of Sion, Sergius Nilus. Nilus
points out that the number 6 precedes the number 7, so it can logically signify
the time before the beginning of this world, which is represented by the number
7. Therefore the age of Satan, who rebelled against God before the foundation
of the world, is logically represented by the number 6.
Now
“the symbol or seal of the mystery of
godliness - of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ - is the honourable
Cross of the Lord. The significance and power of this seal is known to every
Christian - to the whole Christian race.
“The
symbol or seal of the mystery of
iniquity - of the God-fighting devil, as well as its significance and power
(albeit illusory), must be known to every Jew - to the whole of the Jewish
people and through it to Masonry, as the ally of Jewry. Their seal will also be
the seal of their king and antichrist-god, who is not yet, but who will be
in the nearest future.
“But
does such a symbol, such a seal, really exist among the Jews and Masons?…
“The six-pointed star, composed of two
interlocking, equal-sided similar triangles… Each of the triangles has three
sides, three corners and three apexes. Consequently, in the two triangles there
will be 6 sides, 6 corners and 6 apexes…
“In
the seal of the Antichrist, therefore, the number 6 is repeated three times,
that is: 666, which for fear of the Jews
(John 19.38), for the reader who
understands (Matthew 24.15) the symbolism of the mystery, could also
be represented by the seer of mysteries in writing, as six hundred and sixty-six…
“…
This star is truly just as sacred a symbol for the Jew (and therefore for the
Mason) as the sign of the life-giving Cross is for the Christian.
“This
seal which is sacred for Jewry bears the name in the ritual of the Jewish
services of ‘Mochin-Dovid’, which means ‘Shield of David’. They put it into the
grave of every right-believing Jews, as an earnest of his communion with his
‘god’ beyond the grave…
“The
Masons and the offshoots of the Masonic tree - the theosophists, the
occultists, the spiritualists, the gnostic, etc. - attach just as sacred a
significance to this seal, but it has another name. It is called: “The Seal of
Solomon” or the Cabbalistic “Tetragramma”.
“And
so the symbol or seal of Judaeo-Masonry, the “synagogue of Satan” of the
apostates from Christ and Jewish kahal is the “tetragramma” of the Cabbala.
“If
the seal of those who.. are preparing a kingdom for the antichrist is the
“tetragramma of Solomon” or “Mochin Dovid”, then is it not clear that it will
also be the seal of the Antichrist himself?
“Will
any of those who believe in Christ renounce the Cross of the Lord? Will he
agree to replace it with another symbol?
“No
way.
“Nor
will the Jews and the Masons renounce their seal, until Israel is converted and
they shall look on Him Whom they have
pierced…”[65]
What
is the relationship between the six-pointed star and the five-pointed star?
First, the former is drawn as the latter for convenience in writing. But, more
important, the five-pointed star was from early times a symbol of Zionism, and
more recently - of Communism, whose relationship with each other and with the
Antichrist is clear.[66]
Thus
those who accept the seal of the Antichrist, the six-pointed star or “shield of
David”, will be, in a very direct way, proclaiming the false Messiah of the
Jews, “the son of David”, to be their king, and renouncing the true Messiah and
Son of David, Jesus Christ.[67]
St. Nilus says: “When Antichrist places his seal on people their hearts will become as if dead. At the time of the prophesied calamity, Antichrist will begin to seal people with his imprint, as though by this seal to save them from misfortune, for those having this seal, according to Revelation, will be able to buy bread. Many will be dying on the roads. People will become like predatory birds attacking carrion, and will devour dead bodies. But which people will devour the dead? Those who are marked with the seal of Antichrist. Since Christians will not have the seal they will not be able to receive or buy bread and will not devour the dead; but those who are sealed, though they can buy bread, will devour the dead. For, when a man is imprinted with the seal, his heart will become insensitive; not being able to bear hunger, people will carry off corpses, and sitting at the side of any road devour them.
“Finally,
the one sealed by the Antichrist will himself be put to death; and on the seal
the following will be written: ‘I am yours.’ - ‘Yes, you are mine.’ - ‘I go of
my own free will, not by coercion.’ - ‘And I receive you by your own will, not
by coercion.’ These four sayings or inscription will be shown in the center of
that accursed seal.”[68]
14.1-5. And I
looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on Mount Sion, and with Him an hundred and forty
and four thousand, having His Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as
the voice of a great thunder; and I heard the voice of harpers harping with
their harps; and they sang as it were a new song before the throne, and before
the four living creatures, and the elders: and no man could learn that song by
the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.
These are they which were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These
are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were redeemed from
among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was
found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.
As
in chapter seven, the seer’s gaze is turned from the calamitous miseries on
earth to the blessed mysteries of heaven. This alternation, which is a marked
feature of the structure of the Apocalypse, corresponds to the spiritual
situation of Christians during the last times. For then they will turn their
gaze to God, and to the saints of God, as to their only support. I have lifted up mine eyes to the mountains
[the saints of God], from whence
cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, Who hath made heaven and the
earth (Psalm 120.1-2).
The
144,000 represent, as in chapter seven, the children of the twelve tribes of Israel,
who confess Christ during the reign of the Antichrist. They, like Nathaniel,
are Israelites indeed, in whom is no
guile (John 1.47). They are called the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb because the Jews, in the
persons of the apostles and the first generation of Christians in Jerusalem,
were the first nation to enter the new Israel, the Church of Christ, being the
redeemed remnant of the old.
“Certain
interpreters understand by the virgins not virgins in the literal sense of the
word, but those who were saved from the mire of paganism and idol-worship,
insofar as the Sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament not infrequently call
idol-worship adultery.” (Archbishop Averky)
14.6-7. And I
saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to
preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and
tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and given glory to Him;
for the hour of His judgement is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth,
and the sea, and the foundations of waters.
From
the redeemed Jews, attention is returned to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. For the everlasting Gospel must be preached
to all nations before the end. As
David said: All the ends of the earth
shall remember and shall turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the
nations shall worship Him (Psalm 21.27). And again: All the nations whom Thou has made shall
come and shall worship before Thee, O Lord (Psalm 85.8). And as the
Lord Himself said, this Gospel of the
Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and
then shall the end come (Matthew 24.14).
And
the first commandment of the Gospel is: Fear
God, Who created all things, both heaven,
and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. For this is the
doctrine that the false prophet of pseudo-science has banished from the
consciousness of men, making the other Christian doctrines incomprehensible and
without foundation. In particular, Noah’s flood, which was produced by the
opening of the heavens above and the
fountains of water below, is rejected as a myth in favour of the far more
mythical idea of evolution. This enables the followers of pseudo-science to
bask in a false sense of security, thinking that as there was no universal
catastrophe such as the flood at the beginning of history, so there will be no
such catastrophe at the end. For there
will come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying,
Where is the promise of His Coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all
things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they
are willingly ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and
the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that
then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth,
which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against
the day of judgement and perdition of ungodly men… [For] the day of the Lord will come as a thief
in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and
the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that
are therein shall be burned up (II Peter 3.3-7, 10).
“The
Angel says, as it were: ‘Fear God, do not be terrified of the Antichrist, who
is not able to destroy the soul with the body, and with boldness - for the
judgement and the recompense is near - resist him, for he has received power
only for a short time.” (St. Andrew of Caesarea)
14.8. And
there followed another angel saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great
city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her
fornication.
Babylon hath been a golden cup in
the Lord’s hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of
her wine; therefore the nations are mad (Jeremiah 51.7).
“A
second angel announced the fall of Babylon, by which is usually understood the
kingdom of evil and sin in the world. Some interpreters have understood by this
Babylon ancient pagan Rome, which made all nations drink of the wine of fornication, or idol-worship. Others see in this a
symbol of a falsely Christian empire, and in the wine of fornication - false religious teaching.” (Archbishop Averky)
In
his interpretation of the Apocalypse, Professor Nicholas Orlov writes that the
whore of Babylon will be “a city of an antichristian kingdom”, and will “spread
atheist and immoral culture amidst the peoples surrounding and subject to it”,
and that “by the wine of fornication
should be understood the spreading of immoral practices and enmity towards God
through hypocritical politics and depraved religion and culture - general
debauchery.”
The
present interpretation, which is developed in the next section, sees in Babylon
the false Christian civilization of the West, and in the wine of fornication - the false religious teaching of
ecumenism.
14.9-12. And
the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the
beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the
same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without
mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire
and brimstone in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment
ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who
worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of
God, and the Faith of Jesus.
Intoxication
with ecumenism, which destroys all discrimation between objective truth and
falsehood in religion, prepares the way directly for the acceptance of the most
evil of all religions, the religion of the Antichrist.
“The
third angel threatened with eternal torments all those who serve the beast and
bow down before him and his image, and receive his mark on their forehead or
hand. By the wine of the wrath of God
one must understand the terrible judgements of God, which disturb the spirit as
when one is drunk. In Palestine wine was never drunk undiluted, unmixed with
water. Thus the wrath of God, because of its strong action, is here compared to
unmixed wine. The impious will be subjected to eternal torments, but the saints
will be saved by their patience.” (Archbishop Averky)
14.13. And I
heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, blessed are the dead which die
in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from
their labours; and their works do follow them.
“The heavenly voice does not bless all, but
only those who, mortifying themselves to the world, die in the Lord, bearing in
their bodies the mortification of Jesus and suffering together with Christ. For
them their departure from the body is, in truth, a resting from their labours.”
(St. Andrew of Caesarea)
“Here
we find yet another witness to the
significance of good works for salvation, which is denied by the
Protestants.” (Archbishop Averky)
14.14-16. And
I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud One sat like unto the
Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle.
And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that
sat upon the cloud, Thrust in Thy sickle, and reap; for the time is come for
Thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And He that sat on the
cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.
“The
One sitting on the cloud and like unto the Son of Man is Christ.” (St. Andrew
of Caesarea)
Put ye in the sickle, for the
harvest is ripe, says the Prophet Joel (Joel 3.13). The harvest may represent
the end of the world, as in the parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew
13.39). But it may also represent the final in-gathering of souls into the
granary of the Church just before the end of the world, as in the words of the
Lord: The harvest truly is plenteous,
but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He
will send forth labourers into His harvest (Matthew 9.37-38; cf. John
4.35-38).
“That
the harvest is ripe indicates that the final time has come when the seed of
piety, which has matured like ripe wheat and has offered to the husbandman fruit
thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold will be vouchsafed the heavenly
granaries.” (St. Andrew of Caesarea)
14.17-18. And
another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp
sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire;
and cried with a loud voice to Him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in
Thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her
grapes are fully ripe.
“From this we learn that some of the angelic
powers which are place over creatures are in charge of waters, others of fire,
and others of some other part of creation, and that this one was placed over
fire indicates that he is one of the highest angels and his duty is to punish,
for with a loud voice he beseeches the One having a sickle to cut off the
clusters of the vine of the earth.” (St. Andrew of Caesarea)
Come, get you down; for the press is full,
the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great, says the Prophet Joel (Joel
3.13; cf. Isaiah 63.1-6).
“By
clusters of grapes is to be
understood the enemies of the Church whose iniquity has reached an extreme (are fully ripe), so that the measure of
their crimes overflows.” (Archbishop Averky) For the Lord does not immediately
punish the impious, but waits until their wickedness is beyond measure. In the
same way He did not punish the Amorites in the time of Abraham, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet
full (Genesis 15.16), but waited until the time of Moses before
executing His wrath upon them (Numbers 21.21-30).
14.19-20. And
the angel thrust in the sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the
earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the
winepress was trodden without the city, and the blood came out of the
winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand six hundred
furlongs.
“Here
there is a reference to the city of Jerusalem, outside of which on the Mount of
Olives there are many winepresses in which are pressed olives and grapes (cf. Joel
3.13). The abundance of the harvest of grapes is described in this way, that
the wine is poured out on the earth in such abundance that it reached the horse
bridles. The hyperbolic expression used here by the holy seer of mysteries indicates
that the defeat of the enemies of God will be so terrible that the blood flow
as if in rivers.” (Archbishop Averky)
St.
Cosmas of Aitolia prophesied: “In the city [Constantinople] so much blood will
flow that a three-year-old calf will float on it.”[69]
St. John of Kronstadt likewise saw the Soviet Antichrist - and Sovietism still
rules under a democratic mask in Russia today - being destroyed in the midst of
unprecedented bloodshed, and specifically recalled this verse from the
Apocalypse.[70] Again,
Archbishop Theophanes of Poltava said: “This terrible war, say the saints, will
begin in the East and will end in the West… More than half of mankind will
perish… All the great cities will be annihilated… Indescribable sufferings
await the inhabitants of the earth…”[71]
Taking
all these prophecies together, then, with the closely related prophecies of Ezekiel
38-39 and Joel 2-3, we may conclude that the passage is referring to the
destruction of the Russian armies, Gog
and Magog, during their invasion of the Middle East and Israel, and in
general to the unprecedented carnage of the Third World War.
“Inasmuch as those who gave themselves over
to pleasures became ferocious horses, they will be taken by tortures up to the
bridles - that is, they will be restrained by torments, for they allow no
bridling in their pleasures. 1000 signifies the multitude of evil, and 600 -
the fervent pursuit of sin through the misuse of creation which was made in six
days, and also that in the 600th year of Noah the earth was inundated.” (St.
Andrew of Caesarea).
15.1. And I
saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven
last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.
The
judgement summarized in the images of the winepress and harvest of chapter 14
is now summarized in more detail. The seven angels with the seven plagues
correspond to the seven trumpets of chapters 8 and 9. The closest parallel is
between the sixth plague and the sixth trumpet, which clearly describe the same
event.
15.2. And I
saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten
victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the
number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.
“The sea
of glass signifies the multitude of those who are saved, the purity of the
future rest and the radiance of the saints, by the rays of whose virtues they shine forth as the sun (Matthew
13.43). As for the fire mixed with it, this can be understood from the
Scripture of the apostle: every man’s
work, of what sort it is, shall be revealed by fire (I Corinthians
3.13). It will not harm the pure and undefiled in any way, for, according to
the psalmist’s word (Psalm 28.7), it has two properties: one - that of burning sinners, and the
other, as St. Basil understood, that of enlightening the righteous. One should
probably also understand by the fire Divine vision and the grace of the
life-creating Spirit, for God was
revealed to Moses in fire, and the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles in
the form of fiery tongues.” (St. Andrew of Caesarea)
“The
harps signify the harmony of virtues in the well-ordered spiritual life of the
righteous or the harmony which is to be observed in them between the word of truth
and the deed of righteousness.” (Archbishop Averky)
St.
Cyprian of Carthage quotes a slightly different text here: And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire; and the beasts
were feeding with His lambs; and the number of His name a hundred and forty and
four standing upon the sea of glass, having the harps of God.[72]
15.3-4. And
they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the son of the Lamb,
saying, Great and marvellous ar Thy works, Lord God Almighty: just and true are
Thy ways, Thou King of saints. Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy
name? for Thou only art holy; for all nations shall come and worship before
Thee; for Thy judgements are manifest.
“The
fact that the righteous sing the song of
Moses and the song of the Lamb
evidently indicates that they are ‘those justified before grace under the law’
and ‘those who lived righteously after the Coming of Christ’. The song of Moses
is sung as a song of victory: ‘It is
fitting for those who triumph in the last, most important victory over the
enemy to recall the first successes of their struggle, such as was the victory
of Moses over Pharaoh in the history of the chosen people of God. His song is
also sung now by the Christian conquerors’ (St. Andrew of Caesarea). This song
sounds exceptionally triumphant: Let us
sing to the Lord, for He has been greatly glorified - and in the
circumstances it is completely appropriate.” (Archbishop Averky)
The last part of this song, all nations shall come and worship before
Thee, is not to be found in Moses, but in David (Psalm 21.27), in
the same psalm which begins with the words: My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? This indicates the close
relationship between the Cross and the Resurrection, the moment of near-despair
and the moment of victory. Time and again, the Lord chooses the moment when
human resources are at an end to show that He alone is the Head and Saviour of
the Church, and not only saves the Church from being overcome by the gates of
hell but even brings a vast harvest of souls into her granary.
This
will pre-eminently be the case after the Third World War, when, according to
Elder Aristocles, “believers will come out of Russia and turn away many from
the nations to God”, and when, according to the anonymous prophet of Mount
Athos, “the Orthodox faith shall be uplifted and shall spring from East to
West”.[73]
Yea, at that time I will change the
speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call on the name
of the Lord and serve Him with one accord (Zephaniah 3.9).
15.5-6. And
after that I looked, and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony
in heaven was opened: and the seven angels came out of the temple, having the
seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded
with golden girdles.
“After
this the temple of the tabernacle of the
testimony in heaven was opened, according to the image of which God had
commanded Moses in the Old Testament to construct the earthly tabernacle, and the seven angels came out of the temple,
having the seven plagues. The seer says that they were clothed in pure and
shining linen garments, and their breasts were girded with golden girdles, as a
sign of their power, the purity of their nature, and the absolute integrity of
their service.” (St. Andrew of Caesarea)
15.7. And one
of the four living creatures gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full
of the wrath of God, Who liveth for ever and ever.
“From
one of the four living creatures,
that is, senior angels, they received seven
golden vials, or seven golden cups, full
of the wrath (anger) of God, Who
liveth for ever and ever. These living
creatures were Cherubim or Seraphim - supreme zealots of the glory
of God, filled with the deepest vision of the judgements of God, both past and
future, which is shown by the very appearance of these blessed beings, filled
with eyes in front and behind. They receive the command of God to authorize the
other seven angels to pour out upon the earth the seven cups of the wrath of
God before the end of the world and the last judgement on the living and the
dead.” (Archbishop Averky)
15.8. And the
temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from His power; and no
man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the angels
were fulfilled.
Around Him stood the Seraphim; each
had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet,
and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: Holy, Holy, Holy is
the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. And the foundations of
the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled
with smoke
(Isaiah 6.2-4).
“Through
this smoke we recognize how terrible, frightening and tormenting is the wrath of
God, which, filling the temple, on the day of judgement will visit those worthy
of it and first of all those who have submitted to the Antichrist and have
accomplished the works of apostasy.” (Archbishop Averky)
16.1-4. And I
heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, God your
ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. And the first
went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and
grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them that
worshipped his image. And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea;
and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the
sea. And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of
waters; and they became blood.
Sores
on the body and pollution of the seas and rivers: it is easy to see how this
might take place in the conditions of thermo-nuclear or bio-chemical war. Or they
may be the result of epidemics like AIDS. For it is precisely of homosexuals
that the apostle says that they receive
in themselves the fitting reward for their error (Romans 1.27).
16.5-7. And I
heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and
wast, and shalt be, because Thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood
of saints and prophets, and Thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are
worthy. And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty,
true and righteous are Thy judgements.
“Thus
he says that from this altar was heard a voice praising the righteousness of
God’s judgement, which surpasses every mind in word. From the Gospels we know
that the noetic powers are glad and rejoice over the salvation of those who are
converted through repentance, while they grieve over the seduction from the
true path and give thanks to God for the punishment of those who have
transgressed the Divine commandments, so that at least in part they may receive
the forgiveness of sins.” (St. Andrew of Caesarea)
16.8-16. And
the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him
to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed
the name of God, which hath power over these plagues; an they repented not to
give Him glory. And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the
beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for
pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and sores, and
repented not of their deeds. And the sixth angel poured his vial upon the great
river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings
of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come
out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For
they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings
of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great
day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth,
and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he
gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
The
events described here, which are so reminiscent of the ten plagues of Egypt in
the time of Moses (Exodus 10), may correspond to the following awesome
prophecy of Hieromartyr Constantine the Russian: “There will be destruction on
land and sea. On March 18th there will be an increase in bloody wars and
victories. On July 8th two unheard-of wars will coincide. On August 12th there
will be an unbearable heatwave. On December 18th half mankind will perish…”[74]
The
further interpretation of these verses depends on our identification of the
terms: the seat of the beast, the great
river Euphrates and Armageddon. In
2.13, Satan’s seat is clearly a
geographical place - according to the literal interpretation, Pergamum, where a
temple dedicated to the worship of the Emperor had been erected. The seat of the beast is therefore also
probably a geographical place - perhaps Lenin’s mausoleum, which was built on
the model of the temple in Pergamum.
But
this raises a problem with regard to the
great river Euphrates; for today the river Euphrates is of little strategic
importance in relation to Russia or any other great power with the possible
exception of Iran. In antiquity, however, it was of vital importance: first, as
being the river on which Babylon was situated, and secondly, as marking the
eastern frontier of the Roman empire in the period of its greatest extent. It
was across the Euphrates that many great kings of the east launched themselves
against the empire, notably in the reign of one of the clearest forerunners of
the Antichrist, Julian the Apostate, and again in the seventh century, when the
Persians crossed it on their way to capturing Jerusalem, and again in the
thirteenth century, when the Mongols destroyed Babylon and laid waste the
irrigation system on which the civilizations of Mesopotamia had depended.
Now
we have seen that in the Apocalypse geographical names are sometimes given
symbolical names referring to other places, as Jerusalem is called Sodom or
Egypt (11.8). If we apply the same principle here, then we may suppose that the
Euphrates is the spiritual name of another river which has the same strategic
significance today as the Euphrates had in the past. What river, then, marks
the eastern boundary of the greatest empire of modern times? A glance at the
map shows that a good candidate is the river Amur in Siberia, which marks the
eastern frontier of Russia with China.
Our
supposition gains greater credibility from the increasing power of China in the
military and economic spheres, from the fact that China has always made claims
on those parts of Siberia bordering on the Amur, and, above all, from the
prophecies concerning an invasion of Russia from China made by St. John of
Kronstadt and Elder Aristocles of Moscow (see commentary on 10.1-2). Moreover,
the river Amur is frozen for much of the year, which may explain the meaning of
the phrase: the water thereof was dried
up - dried up, not from the heat of the sun, we may suppose, but from the
petrifying effect of the Siberian cold. If the
empire of the beast is Russia, and the
kings of the east are the Chinese, and the
great river Euphrates is the Amur, then the invasion of the empire of the
beast by the kings of the east over the dried up river Euphrates may refer to
an invasion of Russia by the Chinese across the frozen waters of the river
Amur.[75]
With
regard to Armageddon, however, we
are not as free to resort to a symbolical interpretation. For Armageddon is
specifically called such in the Hebrew
tongue, which implies a specific link with the land of Israel and the
Jewish people. It may be significant that the other name in the Apocalypse
which is given in the Hebrew tongue
is Abaddon, the demon-king of the
army of locust invaders (9.11), whom we have identified with Gog and Magog, the Russian invaders of
Israel. Some interpreters identify Armageddon with Megiddo on the plain of
Jezreel in Northern Israel, the scene of King Josiah’s death in battle with the
Egyptian Pharaoh (IV Kings 24.29; II Chronicles 35.22). If this
is accepted, then it is here that the Russian armies, gathered, according to
the Old Testament prophecies, between two seas (the Mediterranean Sea and the
Sea of Tiberias or the Dead Sea), will meet their doom.
According
to the fourteenth chapter of Zechariah, which a Jewish tradition
recounted by St. Jerome says will be fulfilled “under Gog”[76],
the invaders will perish in a manner reminiscent of the effects of a nuclear
explosion: their flesh shall consume
away while they are standing upon their feet, and their eyes shall melt out of
their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth (14.12).
The
three unclean spirits have been
interpreted to mean the three false prophets of the communist revolution, Marx,
Engels and Lenin.[77]
16.17-19. And
the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great
voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And
there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great
earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an
earthquake, and so great. And the great city was divided into three parts, and
the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before
God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.
“With the pouring out of the seventh vial the
kingdom of the beast will be finally crushed.” (Archbishop Averky)
From
the Far Eastern and Middle Eastern theatres of war, the vision of the seer now
encompasses the world as a whole; both the
great city (Jerusalem?) and the
cities of the nations and Babylon.
We may suppose that Moscow and New York, Peking and Paris, Petersburg and
London will all perish or be very severely affected in the great earthquake, the nuclear cataclysm. (Cf. 11.19: And there were lightning, and voices, and
thunderings, and an earthquake.) Thus Elder Aristocles prophesied:
“America.. will collapse. France will be just nothing. Britain will lose all
her colonies, and come to almost complete ruin, but will be saved by praying
enthroned women. Russia and China will destroy each other..”[78]
The
division of the great city into three
parts may indicate three different kinds of destiny for its inhabitants.
Thus St. Cosmas of Aitolia prophesied that a third of the Muslims will die in
the world war, a third will go into captivity, and a third will become
Christians.[79] And the
Prophet Zechariah says: It shall come to
pass that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts thereof shall be cut off
and perish; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third
part through the fire, and I will try them as silver is tried, and I will prove
them as gold is proved; they shall call upon My name, and I will hear them, and
say, This is My people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God ((Zechariah
12.8-9).
Just
before his execution by a Soviet firing squad, a priest of the Russian Catacomb
Church named Alexander turned to his fellow-prisoners and said: “Please wake up
and listen to what I am going to tell you. You know that I was sleeping just
now. In my sleep I saw my father, a priest who was killed by the Bolsheviks. He
appeared to me with a beautiful shining cross on his breast and said to me the
very important words: ‘Today you will be with me!’” Then the prison commandant
came to take Fr. Alexander away to his martyric death. And as he was leaving
the cell, he turned and said: “Yes, and my father said something more: ‘Moscow will be swallowed up!’”[80]
It
is known to geologists that Moscow is situated above an underground lake. If an
earthquake were to take place, either through natural causes or through a
nuclear bomb, Moscow might well be swallowed up in the waters…
Alternatively,
the three parts into which the great
city is divided could refer to the three administrative centres of the
future world government - the European, the American and the Pacific - which
are already being discussed by the builders of the New World Order. Moreover,
three organs of the visible leaders of the New World Order are planned - the
Bilderberg society, the Trilateral Commission and the Council of International
Relations.[81] Perhaps
these will fall out with each other.
16.20. And
every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
This
may mean a radical change in the geography of the world following on the nuclear
cataclysm. Or, alternatively, it may indicate the fleeing of Christian
communities (islands) and their
leaders (mountains) into specially
prepared places of refuge. For “from the Divine Scriptures,” says St. Andrew of
Caesarea, “we are instructed to understand by islands the holy churches, and by mountains - those who have the rule in them.”
“For
the islands are made new for God, as saith Isaiah, by which we should
understand the churches now built by the nations, which receive a firm
foundation from God.”[82]
16.21. And
there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of
a talent; and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail: for the
plague thereof was exceeding great.
And there was… great hail (11.19). The plague of hail may be some terrible
physical after-effect of the cataclysm - further bombs, according to Archbishop
Averky, nuclear fall-out, according to another interpretation. “By the hail coming down from heaven we
understand God’s wrath sent by Him and coming down from above. And that this
hail is the size of a talent indicates the fullness of wrath by reason of the
full weight and extremity of sin. An indication of this is the talent which
Zechariah saw (Zechariah 5.7).” (St. Andrew of Caesarea)
The
seer now breaks off his narrative to focus attention on a figure that has
already appeared in the vision, but whose inner nature has not yet been
described - Babylon.
17.1-6. And
there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with
me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgement of the
great whore that sitteth upon many waters: with whom the kings of the earth
have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made
drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the Spirit
into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full
of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was
arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones
and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness
of her fornication: and upon her head was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the
Great, the Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman
drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of
Jesus: and when I saw her I wondered with great admiration.
Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow writes: “Babylon. The origin of this is not as
clear in the Hebrew language – Babel
from balal, as it is in the Chaldean
– Babel from bilbel. However, in both the one and the other its single root is
evident, and the meaning of ‘mixing’. The name Babylon is mystical and typical (17.5). In the Revelation of John
the Theologian Babylon is set against Jerusalem: just as the latter signifies the Bride of the Lamb, so, on the
contrary, the former signifies the
Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth (21.9,10; 17.5). From this
it is evident that Babylon refers to
the church of the Antichrist, just as
Jerusalem refers to the Church of Christ. When Babylon is
called great and mother, the reference is to the church
of the Antichrist throughout space and time. This spiritual Babylon, finally,
is revealed sensibly in a certain visible society or city whose vivid features
are described by John (chs. 17, 18). The desire to make a name for themselves (Genesis 11.4) that is more than
human, so as to place it instead of the name of God; the striving for universal
dominion through a general consorting with passions, vices, superstition and
lack of faith – are signs of the builders and the building, which will end with
an extreme mixing and punishments from God.”[83]
Archbishop Averky writes: “Babylon… is usually understood to be
the kingdom of evil and sin in the world. Some interpreters have understood
this Babylon to be ancient pagan
Rome, who has filled all the peoples with the
wine of her fornication, or idol-worship. Others see in this symbol an antichristian
Empire, and in the wine of her
fornication - the false teaching of religion…
The problem with interpreting Babylon as a
state is that it then becomes difficult to distinguish clearly between the
whore and the beast on whom she sits. Therefore preferable is Averky’s
alternative definition, which is the same as Metropolitan Philaret’s, of the
whore as “a church that is unfaithful to
Christ, which has worshipped the Antichrist, or a society that has apostasized from God.” This is the definition
adopted by an anonymous author of the Catacomb Church: “The great Whore is
undoubtedly a people believing in God that has betrayed the Christian Orthodox
Church and has joined the new church of the Antichrist.”[84]
False
religion, or the nation which has fallen away from the true faith, is often
portrayed in Holy Scripture under the image of a harlot (cf. Isaiah
1.21; Jeremiah 2.20; Ezekiel 16.28, ch. 25; Hosea ch. 2; Zechariah
5.5-11). True religion and the faithful people of God, by contrast, are compared
to a chaste virgin betrothed to Christ (cf. The Song of Songs 6.9; II
Corinthians 11.2).
Thus
just as the woman clothed with the sun represents the true Church of all times
and especially of the last times, so the Babylonian whore represents the false
church of all times and especially of the last times, in accordance with the
word: Wickedness came from Babylon, from
the elders of the judges, who seemed to rule the people (Daniel (History
of Susanna) 13.5). And just as the true Church is persecuted by the red
dragon with seven heads and ten horns, i.e. the devil, so the false church, and
false religion generally, is borne by, i.e. is supported by, that same devil.
For all the gods of the pagans are
demons, as David says (Psalm 95.5); and no lie is of the truth, as St. John says (I John 2.21), but
is of the father of lies, the devil
(John 8.44).
An
anonymous author of the Catacomb Church writes: “In a new vision John gives
explanations of the preceding visions. An angel appears before John, one of the
seven in whose hands were the vials of the wrath of God. In the expression Come hither one can see an indication
of a change in direction in John’s thoughts
and attentiveness. Now he had to direct his prophetic vision on the
judgement on the great Whore sitting on many waters. By the Whore we must understand the same
people in Babylon as was mentioned in 14.8; there it is called a great city and
is characterized as a whore. Judgement must be carried out on it in accordance
with the words in 16.19. The great Whore is undoubtedly a people believing in
God that has betrayed the Christian Orthodox Church and has joined the new
church of the Antichrist…
“The
wilderness here should be taken in a
moral-religious sense, the sense of abandonment, rejection. The great Whore is
in the wilderness in no other sense than that she has been completely abandoned
by God and doomed to spiritual destruction because of her evil-doing. She has
completely merited this abandonment because, in the expression of the Apocalypse,
she had renounced God and the Christian religion, and has taken her seat on the
beast; the adulterous woman places all her hopes on him and on his strength,
and not on God and His help.”[85]
The language used to describe this New
Testament Babylon is reminiscent of the denunciations of the Old Testament
Babylon in Isaiah (13 and 14) and Jeremiah (50 and 51). Since the
Tower of Babel, Babylon has represented the source and fountain-head of all
pagan religions and abominations. Thus the birth of the Hebrew race was marked
by God’s call to Abraham to come out of the Babylonian city of Ur. In the prophets’ time Babylon again became a great
kingdom, and Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Temple and exiled the Jews to
Babylonia. From there Zerubbabel, whose name means “alien to Babylon, or
confusion”, led them back to Jerusalem.
The
first king of Babylon was Nimrod, of whom Josephus writes: “It was Nimrod who
excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of
Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded
them not to ascribe it to God, as if it were through his means that they were
happy, but to believe that it was their own courage that procured their
happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no
other method of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a
constant dependence on his own power.”[86]
Two
Catacomb Church nuns explain this: “If, before the flood, the impious apostates
were the Cainites, the descendants of the brother-murderer, then after the
flood they became the sons of the lawless Ham. The Hamites founded Babylon, one
of the five cities of the powerful hunter Nimrod (Genesis 10.8).
‘Nimrod, imitating his forefather, chose another form of slavery…’ (St. John Chrysostom,
Word 29 on Genesis). Nimrod invented a form of slavery in which ‘those
who boast of freedom in fact cringe’ (ibid.). He rebelled against God,
against the Divine patriarchal order of governing families and governing
peoples. The times of Nimrod were characterized by the appearance of the
beginnings of godless monarchism and future imperialism. Having rejected God,
this eastern usurper created a kingdom based on his own power.[87]
“Later, the lands of Assur and Babylon were
called the Assyro-Babylonian kingdom (Micah 5.1). Among the cities of
Nimrod was Erech (in the local dialect - Irka, later Iraq.. The city of Kalach
was called Nimrud by the Arabs in honour of King Nimrod.. Later the kingdom
expanded from the small four-citied area far beyond Mesopotamia to the slopes
of the Armenian mountains. Nimrod’s very idea of founding a universal monarchy
was a protest against Noah’s curse of Canaan. A sign of protest and at the same
time of power was the huge tower which the Hamites attempted to raise. God punished
them, confusing the language of the proud builders, so that they no longer
understood each other. During an excavation in Iran there was found a huge
foundation remaining from the majestic tower of Nimrod… Herodotus writes in his
History that they built small ziggurats in Babylon (evidently in memory
of the first failure) consisting of towers placed on top of each other. On the
top of the small ziggurat E-temen-anki was raised a statue of the idol Marduk
weighing 23.5 tons. Many centuries later the notable tyrant Nebuchadnezzar
said: ‘I laid my hand to finishing the construction of the tope of
E-temen-anki, so that it might quarrel with heaven’.[88]
“From
the beginning Babylon was a weapon of Satan, created and built with the aim of
hindering the accomplishment on earth of the work of God. ‘The first union was
the union of Shinar, formed with an aim which even our enlightened aim would
not have been ashamed of. Its aim was to further the interests of men on earth
and glorify man’ (Interpretation of Genesis, St. Petersburg, 1909, p.
87). The building of the tower of Babel was not the end of Chaldean history. In
the 20th century before Christ the will of God raised righteous Abraham to
leave corrupted Ur, a city with a ziggurat constructed by Ur-Nammu for the
edification of his proud descendants. In the promised land the Lord granted
victory to St. Abraham and the 318 members of his family over a union of
eastern kings led by a Babylonian (Genesis 14.5).
“The
symbolical beginning of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom is attributed by the
chroniclers to Nabonassar (747 B.C.). But the true founder of the dynasty was
Nabopalassar.. In November, 626 (all dates before the Birth of Christ), he led
the ‘liberation’ movement in Assyria. A year later Nabopalassar and the Mede
Kiaksar became allies. In 613 the cunning Chaldean succeeded in annihilating
the opposition and became the single ruler, while a year after that, with the
support of Media, he became king of the state. The fall of Nineveh became the
day of the foundation of the New Babylon. The most important points in the rule
of Nabopalassar were: 611 - a sudden advance to the south, successes in the
civil war, 610 - triumphant progress through Assyria, 607 - illness, 605 -
death. His successor Nebuchadnezzar.. was chosen by God for the punishment of
the Jews for their idol-worship. Jerusalem fell. The Jewish King Jeconiah was
led in shackles to Babylon. Instead of him the tyrant raised Zedekiah to the
throne, but he was later blinded and was also led away to Babylon in chains.
During the reign of Nebuchadnezzar there were three captivities of the Jews -
in 598/597, 585 and 582 (Jeremiah 52.28-30; cf. IV Kings 24.8-12;
25.1-2,4).
“The
archaeologists have confirmed that there were many captives with Hebrew names
in Babylon.. Having conquered Egypt, the Babylonian monarch became a great
ruler who was honoured and exalted in every way. He died at the age of 70 in
562, having left the throne to Evilmerodakh (Abelmarduk). Having retired from
active government, in 560 Evilmerodakh was removed by Neriglissar (in the Bible
Nergal-Sharetser). The latter had been Nebuchadnezzar’s military chief of
staff. His successor Labashi-Marduk was in no way able to govern. This cruel
and corrupted ruler died as a result of a palace coup. His murderers
placed Nabonidus on the throne in 555.. The son of a magus, the head of the
Babylonian priesthood, Nabonidus occupied himself in theoretical researches and
left the government in order to be treated at Teimu. His son Baltasar lived in
luxury and corruption in the capital city. In 539 Cyrus the Persian crossed the
Tigris and arrived in Akkad from Elam. Nabonidus was seized, and King Baltasar
was killed in the night that the city was taken. In 535 the Jewish captives
were allowed to return to Palestine…”[89]
At
the time of writing of the Apocalypse, the role of ancient Babylon had been
taken by the pagan Rome Empire, in which all the mystery religions of the East
found a haven and from which they radiated out again in all directions. Thus
“several people have taken this whore for ancient Rome, since she is situated
on seven hills. They have considered the seven heads of the beast that bears
her to be seven of the most impious of the emperors from Domitian to Diocletian
who persecuted the Church” (Archbishop Averky).
Some
have identified Babylon with pagan Rome
on the basis of St. Peter words: She
that is the elect in Babylon greets you, as does also my son Mark (I
Peter 5.13). This was the opinion of the Church historian Eusebius, who wrote
that this epistle was composed in Rome, and “Babylon” referred figuratively to
Rome.”[90]
However, St. Andrew of Caesarea disagrees with this view; and Archbishop Averky
considers that St. Peter was referring to Babylon in Egypt, present-day Cairo.
In
any case, pagan Rome was never as unambiguously evil in the minds of the
fathers as the great whore appears to be in the pages of the Apocalypse. Rome
represented law, order and stability no less than persecuting zeal against
Christians (which was in any case intermittent). For according to a very firm
tradition preserved among the Jews even before the Coming of Christ, Rome, even
in her pagan incarnation, was that which
restraineth the coming of the Antichrist (II Thessalonians 2.6,7).[91]
Now
the most popular candidate for the role of the whore among almost all
Protestant writers, and some Orthodox, has been the Roman papacy. For the papacy conforms to the description of the
whore of Babylon in many details. Thus like the whore, she is situated on seven
hills or mountains (17.9); she is fabulously wealthy (17.4); the popes until
the year 1513 had the word “mystery” inscribed on their tiaras (17.5)[92];
she has killed many martyrs of Christ (17.6), and she supposes herself
infallible and indestructible (18.7).
The
papacy remains a strong candidate for the role of the whore; but in the
twentieth century some powerful new contenders have emerged. Thus many
contemporary interpreters, especially from Russia, have identified the whore
with the apostate Moscow Patriarchate.
For, like the whore, the Soviet church sits
on the beast, that is, relies on antichristian political power to keep her
in existence, and the scarlet colour shared by the beast and the whore witness
to their cooperation in the world antichristian movement of Communism.
Archbishop
Hilarion (Troitsky) favours this interpretation because the whore is evidently
“not a self-appointed schismatic, but a faithful wife who has the image of
genuine piety which has evidently not been defiled by any previous apostasy…
“Are
there not taking place before our very eyes events that involuntarily bring to
mind the spiritual visions of the New Testament seer of mysteries? Compare the
above-cited words of the Apocalypse [from chapters 17 and 18] with the deeds and
actions of our living churchmen and renovationists. Do they not apply to them
to the smallest detail? Still more significant in the indicated apocalyptic
image are the events of recent days connected with the name of Metropolitan
Sergius [founder of the Soviet Moscow Patriarchate].”[93]
“This
false so-called ‘church’, created by the enemy of Christ with the purpose of
deceiving the whole world, bears a similarity to the true Church in name and
externals. But we are fully entitled to consider that, as it is said in the
Apocalypse, she spiritually sits on the
scarlet beast (Rev. 17.3). For the red false-church is not only an
obedient, but also a powerful instrument of falsehood in the hands of the
Antichrist. With her help he wages a broad struggle both within and without.
Within the country the false church struggles first of all against the true
Church, which refused to be reconciled with the Antichrist and is
systematically annihilated by him. Agents of the enemy of Christ in the red
false-church ostentatiously wear panagias and crosses, sakkoses and phelonia,
ancient cowls and golden mitres and all the rest, using their ‘plumage’
(exterior) and deceiving the people by all means to accept as ‘lawful’,
‘God-given’ and ‘blessed from on high’ the power of the Antichrist that is
hateful to God, and to render it complete obedience in everything. These
spiritual wolves call on their blinded flock directly from the ambon to
seek out and hand over all the Orthodox Christians who are obedient to the
voice of the true Church, which has not fallen on her knees before the new Baal
- the enemy of God, as the red false-church has done.”[94]
Moscow,
like Rome, is said to be situated on seven hills; and Moscow, like Rome, is
drenched, by association with, and denunciation to, the Soviet persecutors, in the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
And if the Moscow Patriarchate is not as fabulously wealthy as the Roman
Papacy, she is rapidly becoming so through her association with the the Russian
mafia, as is witnessed by the no-expense-spared reconstruction of the Cathedral
of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. This rapid transformation of the once-pious
Church of Russia into the active partner of the Antichrist would not
unnaturally elicit the amazement of the God-seer: when I saw her I wondered with great admiration. It is as if he
asked himself: “How can such an inner transformation of the Bride of Christ
into the Whore of the Antichrist take place?”
A
further argument in favour of this identification is the interpretation given
to a prophecy from Daniel by the two Catacomb Church nuns: “In the
fourth chapter of the book of the holy Prophet Daniel the key to the
interpretation of the mystery of the
whore of Babylon was given. The tree signifying Nebuchadnezzar and his
kingdom (i.e. Babylon) was cut down, but the
root was left in iron fetters, over which seven times will pass. According to the Jewish understanding, a
time is equivalent to 360 years, so seven times is 2520 years. Daniel
interpreted the dream of the king in 603 B.C. We learn the year of the
beginning of the apocalyptic Babylon from the expiry of the seven times -
1917!”[95]
However,
both the Roman papacy and the Moscow Patriarchate have recently given up their
power to a third, still more fitting candidate for the role of the whore: the ecumenical movement, and the coming
new ecumenical “church” of all (false) religions - which also began to come
into being around 1917. By the early 1980s the ecumenical movement had already
united in itself all the Christian heresies, after which it embarked upon the
“super-ecumenism”, the uniting of Christianity with all the non-Christian
religions. It is therefore fittingly called the Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. There are
signs that the Pope, following his “prayer for peace” with the leaders of all
the world’s religions in Assisi in 1986, may be called on to lead this false
ecumenical church of all religions.[96]
The
Old Calendarist Bulgarian theologian Ivan Marchevsky has argued persuasively
that the whore of Babylon is Freemasonry.[97]
But this is in no way inconsistent with the present argument. For, as is well
known, the Freemasons have been both the main inspiration behind the ecumenical
movement, and are the secret rulers of contemporary western civilization.
Alternatively,
we may identify the whore with the
civilization of the West which nurtures and is thoroughly imbued with
ecumenism, and to which all the nations of the world, with the partial
exceptions of China, North Korea and the Islamic world, may be said to belong.
Truly, all the kings of the earth have
committed fornication with this whore,
and all the inhabitants of the earth
have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication - the doctrine of
indifference to the truth and tolerance for all beliefs and all life-styles
that do not interfere with the hedonistic goals of modern man. Following this
line of argument, the city that most closely symbolizes Babylon today is
neither Rome nor Moscow but New York. For,
as Denis Geoffroy points out, New York “so resembles the description of Babylon
in the Apocalypse of St. John that it is hard to believe that this is a simple
coincidence.”[98]
Again,
Archpriest Lev Lebedev, after comparing the skyscrapers of New York to the
ziggurats of ancient Babylon and to the ancient tower of Babel, and pointing
out that the apocalyptic number “666” is inscribed on one of the skyscrapers in
the centre of Manhattan, writes: “The concept of the ‘New Babylon’ is not a
figurative comparison, not a metaphor. New York, like other large cities, like
the whole of America, is a true confusion of all the races of the world…”[99]
We
shall return to Archpriest Lev’s interpretation in more detail later…
17.7-8. And the angel said to me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition.
Speaking generally, if the dragon is Satan, and if the beast may be provisionally identified
as satanic, antichristian political power (whether in personal or collective
form), then the whore of Babylon may
be seen as antichristian religion or culture.
The
beast carries the whore, i.e.
supports her, in the same way that Nimrod’s Babylon “carried” the religion that
deified him and the culture that built the tower of Babel, and imperial Rome
“carried” the cult of emperor-worship that was later reincarnated in the worship
of the Pope. In modern times, Hitler’s Germany “carried” the religion of
nation-worship that we call Fascism, and Stalin’s Russia “carried” the worship
of History that we call Communism, or Dialectical Materialism. And, most
recently, the all-conquering power of western-style Democracy has “carried”
Ecumenism, which is its cognate in the religious sphere. Each of these
relationships can be described as different phases in the adulterous union
between the beast and the whore. This union between antichristian politics and
false religion and culture is inevitable; for when our conversation ceases to
be in heaven, and our desires return towards the earth, then we become
vulnerable to the lure of schemes that satisfy the natural man in his fallen,
this-worldly condition - in other words, to politics. But politics divorced
from true religion is the domain of the
prince of this world (John 12.31), Satan, of him who once offered
the true King all the kingdoms of the
world, and the glory of them, if He would only fall down and worship him (Matthew
4.8). Membership of the whore must therefore inevitably lead to slavery to the
beast; and it is to the closer examination of the beast that the seer’s
attention is now directed.
The
union between false religion and politics is nothing to be wondered at, says
the angel; for it goes back to earliest antiquity. Thus when Cain’s religious
offering was not accepted by God as being polluted, while that of his brother
Abel was, he murdered him; and, having murdered him, he proceeded to become the
first builder of cities - in other words, the first politician (for the Greek
word for “city” is polis) (Genesis 4.17). Since then false
religion has taken its seat in the major urban civilizations; while true
religion has been forced to flee from them into the wilderness, as Abraham fled
from Ur and Lot from Sodom. Each of the major civilizations of the
Mediterranean basin and the Middle East - Babylon-Assyria, Egypt, Persia and
pre-Christian Greece and Rome - warred against the people of God. And in other
parts of the world - the Indus valley, Mexico, Peru and China - the major
civilizations became at the same time the major nesting-grounds of the most
evil paganism.
But
if the beast was in antiquity, it
already is not in the first century,
when the Apocalypse was written, in the sense that the then-dominant power,
Rome, although sometimes persecuting the people of God, was recognized by the
apostles as being more essentially that
which restraineth the spread of evil and the coming of the Antichrist (II
Thessalonians 2.4). For the Pax Romana helped the spread of
Christianity and protected the Christians from their chief enemies, the Jews
(cf. the story of Paul’s deliverance from the Jews in Acts 21-28).
The
transformation of the beast of antichristian political power into the protector
of God’s people had been anticipated even in the Old Testament, when Cyrus was
given the title of the Lord’s anointed
by God Himself (Isaiah 45.1) because of his role in allowing the Jews
under Zerubbabel to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple, and Persian
power saved the people of God under Mordechai and Esther from being
exterminated.
But
then, in the first century, a double transformation took place: the pagan Roman
Empire, following the example of the Persian, was transformed into the minister of God (Romans
13.4) through the conversion of the Emperor St. Constantine to Christianity,
while the Jews who killed Christ and persecuted the Christians were transformed
into dogs and evil-workers, as St. Paul put it (Philippians 3.2), becoming
the main agents of the mystery of iniquity (II Thessalonians 2.7)
in world history.
Of
course, the Roman Empire was not always the minister of God, and sometimes
reverted to the image of the beast. But the prophetic conscience of the Church
could see the future transformation of the empire under St. Constantine, as
Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow writes: “The Spirit of God in him foresaw and
more or less showed [St. Paul] the future light of Christian kingdoms. His
God-inspired vision, piercing through future centuries, encounters Constantine,
who brings peace to the Church and sanctifies the kingdom by faith; and
Theodosius and Justinian, who defend the Church from the impudence of heresies.
Of course, he also goes on to see Vladimir and Alexander Nevsky and many
spreaders of the faith, defenders of the Church and guardians of Orthodoxy.
After this it is not surprising that St. Paul should write: I beseech you not
only to pray, but also to give thanks for the king and all those in authority;
because there will be not only such kings and authorities for whom it is
necessary to pray with sorrow…, but also those for whom we must thank God with
joy for His precious gift.”[100]
It
is in this sense that, during the whole period of the existence of the Roman
Empire in its successive reincarnations as the New Rome of Constantinople and
the Third Rome of Moscow, the beast of antichristian political power was not. In 1917, however, another
transformation took place: the Christian Empire of the Third Rome, Moscow, was
overthrown, and political power over the Christian people was captured by the
internationalist Jews.[101]
Thus the beast… ascended out of the
bottomless pit, where it had been confined by the victory of the Christian
Empire. For Soviet power represents the re-emergence of the beast; like Nimrod
and Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar and Antiochus Epiphanes, Nero and Diocletian, it
unites in itself the role of divine king and high priest in rebellion against
the living God and persecution of His people. Only now the rulers do not even
believe in God, and rise up not only against the Lord and His Christ, but also
against the very concept of His existence.
The
Church Fathers prophesied that the Antichrist would come when the Roman Empire
would be destroyed. Thus St. Irenaeus writes: “John and Daniel prophesied the
destruction of the Roman empire, which will precede the end of the world and
the eternal Kingdom of Christ.”[102]
Again, St. Cyril of Jerusalem writes: “The Antichrist is to come when the times
of the Roman empire shall have been fulfilled, and the end of the world is now
drawing near. There shall rise up together ten kings of the Romans, reigning in
different parts perhaps, but all about the same time. And after these an
eleventh, the Antichrist, who by his magical craft shall seize upon the Roman
power; and of the kings who reigned before him, three he shall humble (Daniel 7.24), and the remaining seven
he shall keep in subjection to himself.”[103]
Again, St. John Chrysostom writes: “When the Roman Empire is taken out of the
way he [the Antichrist] will come. And naturally. For as long as the fear of
this empire lasts, no one will willingly exalt himself; but when that is
dissolved, he will attack the anarchy, and endeavour to seize power, both human
and Divine.”[104] Again, St.
Narses of Armenia prophesied on his deathbed: “After this the liberation of all
the lands of Christendom from the Aryan hosts shall be wrought by the Romans.
And then the earth shall repose in goodly paths for long epochs, and shall
become like a garden full of all things. The lawless shall be repulsed, and
shall fall under the yoke of slavery to the Romans. And men will lament the
past, and the goods which then failed them. After that shall be manifested the
son of perdition, the Antichrist.”[105]
The beast… shall ascend out of the
bottomless pit, and go into perdition. “The word translated ‘perdition’ has the same root as ‘Apollyon’, the name of the angel from
the bottomless pit (9.11). And so the final destiny of the destroyer is,
ironically, destruction.”[106]
17.8. And they
that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names are not written in the book
of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was,
and is, and yet is.
These
transformations are a wonder to those who have not been enlightened by God the
Father, Who chose us in Him [the
Lord Jesus Christ] before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him (Ephesians
1.4). But those who have been enlightened by faith can understand in what sense
the beast was, and is not, and yet is.
For while the beast of antichristian political power was destroyed at the
coming of St. Constantine, in another form it continued to exist - in the form
of the secret government of the antichristian Jewish rabbinate that continued
to exist, first in Palestine, and then (until 1040) in - Babylon! And this fact
gives us a further important clue to identifying both the beast and the whore…
The
beginning of the fall of the Jews from the chosen people of God into the chief
enemies of God may be traced to their exile in Babylon. It was here that the
seeds of Talmudism were sown by the new sect of the Pharisees. Thus the
teaching that the Jews were the super-race who were destined to rule all other
races was also born here. It was largely because Christ refused to subscribe to
this teaching that the Jews crucified Him.[107]
Again, the subject condition of the Jews in Babylon provided fertile ground for
the development of the conspiratorial organization, replete with passwords and
coded signals, of Rabbinic Judaism and its Gentile complement, Freemasonry.
However,
it was only after the Crucifixion of Christ and the destruction of the Temple
in 70 A.D. that this heretical trend came to dominate the hearts and minds of
the apostate Jews. And when the leaders of the Sanhedrin chose Babylon as the
centre of their underground government, it was there that the most influential
expression of Jewish Antichristianity, the Babylonian Talmud, was composed. The
Talmud originated in those circles which Christ so excoriated and which
eventually killed Him. It represents a codification of the false traditions of
the Pharisees, of which the Lord said: Ye
have made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition,.. teaching
for doctrines the commandments of men (Matthew 15.6,9). Although
supposedly based on the Old Testament, the Talmud in fact undermines the
teaching of the Old Testament at almost every point; for its driving force is
hatred of Christ, Whom it reviles as a bastard and sorcerer, and of all
non-Jews, the goyim, whose status is deemed no higher than that of
animals, and whom the Talmud permits Jews to cheat, exploit and kill at will.[108]
Even the worship that the Talmud and its closely related companion, the Cabala,
enjoins is not pure monotheism, but a mixture of pantheism, superstition, magic
and paganism which the Jews adopted from their first Babylonian exile in the
time of Nebuchadnezzar.[109]
Although
the Jews were expelled from Babylon in 1040, Babylon has remained their
spiritual homeland ever since. Thus the Talmud declares: “All countries are
like dough to the land of Israel, and the land of Israel is like dough towards
Babylon.” And: “Whoever lives in Babylon is accounted as though he lived in the
land of Israel.” And again: “We have a tradition that Babel will not witness
the sufferings that will precede the coming of the Messiah.”[110]
Having
left Babylon, the Sanhedrin re-established itself in Spain, and then, after the
expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, in Poland. The Jewish inhabitants of
Lithuania, Poland and Western Russia were mainly the descendants of a
non-Semitic race of Jewish faith, the Khazars, who had emigrated there from the
East after the destruction of Khazaria by the Mongols. They nurtured the
antichristian and antigentile traditions of the Talmud with especial ferocity.
The Judaizing heresy of the early fifteenth century - the most serious heresy
to afflict Russia before the Jewish revolution of 1917 - was the result of
their infiltration of the highest levels of Church and State. Even after the
West European Jews began to be assimilated into West European society after the
French revolution, the Khazars resisted all attempts at assimilation; and when
the conquests of Catherine the Great included a large part of this area within
the Russian Empire, the serpent began to gnaw at the vitals of the empire from
within.
The
situation became critical after 1861, when Tsar Alexander II, as part of his
emancipatory programme, threw open Russia’s centres of higher education to the
Jews for the first time. Now the doctrines of educated West European Jews, such
as Marx, became the property of their East European brethren, such as Trotsky.
And so by 1917 the empire’s seven million fiercely anti-Russian and
anti-Christian Jews were set to take their revenge on the Third Rome for the
catastrophe they had suffered at the hands of the First, Old Rome over eighteen
centuries earlier…
However,
the destruction of the Third Rome, Russia, by the Bolsheviks was only one
branch of the Jewish revolution that began to emerge in 1917: the other was the
foothold gained by the Zionists in Palestine. For by an extraordinary
“coincidence”, the October revolution in Petrograd and the promise of a
homeland to the Jews in Palestine by the British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour
took place at exactly the same time,
being reported on the very same column of
newsprint in the London Times of November 9, 1917. It was as if the
beast suddenly emerged out of the sea of the Gentile peoples, being visible
simultaneously in two of its heads - one in Bolshevik Moscow, on the ruins of
the last Orthodox empire, and the other in Zionist Jerusalem.
17.9. And here
is the mind that hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the
woman sitteth.
Many
have seen in this a reference to Rome, which is situated on seven hills.
However, two other important cities are also situated on seven hills:
Constantinople and Moscow. Thus the fact of being situated on seven hills
mystically links Old Rome in Italy, the New Rome of Constantinople and the
Third Rome of Moscow.
But
from 1917 the whore of false religion was seen sitting on each of these former
champions of Christian Truth - Papism in Rome, Islam in Constantinople and
Militant Atheism in Moscow, in fulfilment of the prophecy: O how has the faithful city, Zion, once full of judgement, become an
harlot! (Isaiah 1.21). However, “mountain” in Holy Scripture can
have the meaning of “kingdom”, as in Daniel 2.35 and Jeremiah
51.25. Thus in saying that the seven heads are seven mountains, the Holy Spirit
may be alluding to the interpretation that the heads are kingdoms, which interpretation
follows explicitly in the next verse:
17.10. And
they are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet
come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short time.
As
indicated above, of these seven kings or kingdoms, the sixth, which still is at the time of the writing of the
Apocalypse, is clearly pagan Rome. Of the five earlier ones which are fallen,
the third, fourth and fifth are probably the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian and
the Seleucid Greek, if we follow St. Hippolytus’ interpretation of the closely
related vision of the four beasts in Daniel 2.32-33 and 7.4-7 - which
vision is in turn related, as we have seen, to the first beast of Revelation
13. This leaves the first and second, which are, possibly, the Egyptian and the
Assyrian, or, more probably, the proto-Babylonian (that is, Babylon in its
first period under Nimrod and his successors).
[111]
What,
then, is the seventh horn of the beast? In our interpretation of chapter 13, we
came to the conclusion that this seventh head could be one of three successor
empires to the Roman empire: the European Union in the West, and the Muslim
Ottoman Empire and the Soviet Union in the East. The fact that this seventh head
or kingdom is said to last only a
short time would seem to eliminate
the candidature of the Muslims, because, even in the very wide time-span
of the Apocalypse, the comparatively long-lived Ottoman Empire cannot be said
to have lasted only a short time. The Soviet empire, on the other hand,
has lasted only a short time, relatively speaking, having lasted not more than
84 years until its demise, at least temporarily, in 1991. Moreover, in all
other respects it is the closest forerunner of the Antichrist yet encountered
in world history. Like the beast of Revelation 13, it has now been
wounded and hides its beastly ferocity under a mask of tolerant democracy. But
there is little doubt that, at the appointed time, the beast that still has its
lair in it can cast off its mask and again become a persecutor.
Just
as the Soviet empire is the closest forerunner of the Antichrist-beast yet
encountered, so the Moscow Patriarchate which it carries is perhaps the most
scarlet of all the whores that the whore of Babylon has given birth to. In the
Soviet period, this “church” was the foremost helper of Soviet power in its
persecution of the True Church. Even now, during the “eirenic” era of democracy
and ecumenism, the Moscow Patriarchate continues by all means to persecute the
True Church in Russia.
17.11. And the
beast that was, and is not, and yet is, even he is the eighth, and is of the
seven, and goeth into perdition.
The
beast of antichristian political power, which has found partial incarnations in
the seven kingdoms referred to above, will find its complete and perfect
incarnation in an eighth king, who is the
beast himself (as opposed to one of his heads or horns), and whose end will
be brought about, not by his death at the hands of another human ruler, but by perdition at the terrible Second Coming
of Christ.
This
eighth king is clearly the personal Antichrist. According to Church Tradition,
he will be a Jew of the tribe of Dan whom the Jews will hail as their messiah,
king and god, in accordance with the words of the Lord: I am come in My Father’s name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall
come in his own name, him ye will receive (John 5.43). For since the
Jews rejected the true God, Jesus Christ, and said, We have no other king but Caesar (John 19.15), God in His
justice has given them into the hands of Caesar, and will give them, at the end
of time, into the hands of one much worse than all the Caesars, a king
unequalled in antitheist and totalitarian cruelty, combining in himself all the
evil qualities of all the Pharaohs, Caesars and Commissars that preceded him;
which is why he is said to be of the
seven.
Or:
“he is of the seven because he has
made his appearance from one of these kingdoms” (Archbishop Averky). If the
kingdom in question is Russia, the seventh head of the beast, then this accords
with the prophecy of St. Seraphim that the Antichrist will be born in Russia.
In other words, the Antichrist will be a Jew of the tribe of Dan, but born in
Russia.[112]
17.12-18. And the ten horns which thou
sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power
as kings one hour with the beast. They shall have one mind, and shall give
their power and strength unto the beast. They will wage war on the Lamb, and
the Lamb will conquer them, for He is the Lord of lords and King of kings, and
those with Him are called and chosen and faithful. And he said to me, The
waters that you saw, where the harlot is seated, are peoples and multitudes and
nations and tongues. And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will
hate the harlot; they will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh
and burn her up with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to carry out
His purpose by being of one mind and giving over their royal power to the
beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman that you saw is
the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth.
Clearly
related to this is the following from Daniel: I looked, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible and
exceeding strong, and its teeth were of iron; and it was altogether different
from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I noticed his
horns, and, behold, another little horn came up in the midst of them, and before
it three of the former horns were rooted out: and behold, there were eyes as
the eyes of a man in this horn, and a mouth speaking great things… As I looked,
this horn made war with the saints, and prevailed over them, until the Ancient
of Days came, and judgement was given for the saints of the Most High, and the
time came when the saints received the kingdom. (7.7-8,
21-22).
This
fourth beast, according to the interpretation of St. Hippolytus, is the Roman
empire (the first three beasts are the Babylonian, Medo-Persian and Greek
empires, respectively). So the ten horns are offshoots of the Roman empire,
perhaps ten states that come into being on its territory or from its peoples.
Hippolytus goes on to identify these ten horns of Daniel 7 with the ten
toes of the image in Daniel 2 (33,41-43), and says that they are “the same number of democracies, kingdoms
which are still to come”. The eleventh, or little
horn, which is also the eighth head, is the Antichrist, or the Jewish state
that he will rule.[113]
Further
insight into these passages is provided by St. Cyril of Jerusalem, who writes:
“The Antichrist is to come when the times of the Roman empire shall have been
fulfilled, and the end of the world is drawing near. There shall rise up
together ten kings of the Romans, reigning in different parts perhaps, but all
about the same time. And after these an eleventh, the Antichrist, who by his
magical craft shall seize upon the Roman power; and of the kings who reigned
before him three shall he subdue (Daniel
7.24), and the remaining seven he shall keep in subjection to himself… It is
plain that by subduing three of these ten, he will become the eighth king; and he shall speak words against the Most
High (Daniel 7.25). A blasphemer the man is and lawless, not having
received the kingdom from his fathers, but having usurped the power by means of
sorcery.”[114]
Again,
St. John Chrysostom writes: “What does the little horn signify? I affirm that
the Antichrist will emerge from between several kings… Why is it small and does
not appear great from the beginning? Because it will grow later and will
conquer several kings.”[115]
Again,
Blessed Jerome writes: “We must say what all the church writers have handed
down, that at the end of the world, when the Roman kingdom will have been
destroyed, there will be ten kings who will divide the Roman world between
them. The only king who is not great will rebel and conquer three of the
kings.”[116]
Again,
Blessed Theodoretus of Cyrus writes: “At the end of the Roman kingdom at one
and the same time ten kings shall be established, who will cause each other
much harm and will wage war against each other… And when this happens, the man
of iniquity, the son of perdition, that is, the Antichrist, will arise… The
last events of the Roman kingdom will be similar to the division of the
Macedonian kingdom… The ten horns on the fourth beast, which appear at the same
time, signify ten kings who will rule at one and the same time on the territory
of the Roman empire. However, one of them, the southern king, will again enter
into war with those who are called the northern kings. For it is said: Out of the north evil shall break forth
upon all the inhabitants of the land (Jeremiah 1.14).”[117]
Lopukhin
writes: “The kings symbolized by horns represent kingdoms that are not
independent. If they receive royal power, that is, the right to rule, this is
only together with the beast as their false-pastor, and that only for a short
time, for one hour. These are
therefore representatives of the peoples and kingdoms of the last time. They
are distinct from the kings, the representatives of the world states which are
called the heads of the beast (St. Irenaeus, St. Ephraim the Syrian). The
Antichrist will in a masterly way exploit these representatives (horns) of the
peoples and kingdoms, their moods and way of thinking; and will unite them
together in one earthly state for the struggle with the Lamb and against
Christianity.”[118]
What,
then, are these ten kingdoms? John Brown argued that they were the “ten or
several kingdoms into which the western empire of Rome was divided when the
papal power was established, all of which submitted to the popish
abominations.”[119]
However, the Catholic states of Europe were absolutist, whereas St. Hippolytus
says that the ten kingdoms will be democracies. So some more recent
Protestant interpreters have proposed that they are to be identified with the
States of the European Union, which are indeed the successors of the western
empire. But there are now many more than ten States in the European Union; in
fact, by 2004 there will be over twenty…
Perhaps
the ten kingdoms are not confined to the territory of Western Europe, but cover
the whole territory over which Western Europe has spread its civilization –
which is now, more or less, the whole world. Therefore perhaps we should see in
the ten kingdoms ten provinces of the
future world government,
“the New World Order”, which is to be ruled by the Antichrist. “In 1959 the
organization of the World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA) was
founded. Its members in their turn are representatives of such organizations
as, for example: the United Nations, the World Council of Churches, Green
Peace, the World Muslim Congress, the Council on Foreign Relations, the World
Court, and the ambassadors and ministers of many countries. This organization
has already arranged several meetings of a Provisional World Parliament and
passed eleven laws of a World Codex of laws. It is interesting that the WCPA
has divided the whole world into ten
kingdoms, employing precisely that term in English: ‘kingdoms’. It is
proposed that a new world financial system will be introduced immediately the
first ten countries confirm a World
Constitution, since the remaining countries will then be forced to accept this
constitution for economic reasons. At the present time the WCPA is trying to
convene a Constitutional Assembly so as to substitute the constitution of the
USA for the World Constitution. In 1990 the WCPA sent a letter to all heads of
government in which it declared the formation of a World Government, and after
this many leaders of states openly began to speak about the New World Order.”[120]
Against
this hypothesis, however, is the fact that the
ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the harlot; they will make
her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire. Is it likely that the future world government
will destroy the harlot, that is, the antichristian civilization of the West,
when it will itself be a product and incarnation of that civilization? Hardly…
Clearly a convincing interpretation has to take into
account the existence of a conflict between two antagonistic antichristian
forces: the beast and his allies, the ten kingdoms, on the one hand, and
the harlot of western civilization, on the other. Now we have already
identified the Soviet Union or its successor-state as the most likely
candidate for the role of the seventh head of the beast. Is it possible,
therefore, that the ten horns are ten satellites of this state – say: Belarus,
Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Tadjikstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia,
Armenia and Azerbaidjan, or, instead of the last three, Iran, Libya and Ethiopia, the
three States that are mentioned as being in alliance with Gog and Magog according
to the Prophet Ezekiel (38.5), - which
together with it go to war with western civilization and succeed in destroying
it?[121]
This idea will be rejected by those who believe that the Cold
War stand-off is irrevocably a thing of the past, and that Russia has now
become a “democratic” state that is well on the way to being fully integrated
into the global civilization of the West, especially after the disaster of
September 11, 2001, which brought Russia in as an ally of the West in the war
against terrorism. However, the stand-off between Russian and America in Kosovo
in 1999, and again in Iraq in 2003, show that disagreements and rivalries still
simmer beneath the surface. Moreover, the formerly communist peoples of Eastern
Europe and Russia are almost as passionately opposed to the globalistic project
of western civilization as the Muslim peoples to the south of them. And while
it is highly unlikely that present-day Russia will revert to old-style
communism, under Putin it increasingly sees itself as the successor-state of
the Soviet Union rather than its antithesis. Therefore a revival of Russian
power under a charismatic leader could well lead to a resumption of hostilities
with the West.
St. Irenaeus of Lyons writes of the allies of
the beast: “They shall lay Babylon waste, and burn her with fire, and shall
give their kingdom to the beast, and put the Church to flight.”[122]
So clearly the Church will suffer together with Babylon. This is consistent
with the witness of the Catacomb Church Eldress Seraphima of Michurinsk
(+1955), who prophesied that there would be a final persecution of all the
Russian Christians, who would be imprisoned on the Arctic island of Novaya
Zemlya. This
prophecy goes on to say that the Christians will be saved by a sudden change of
temperature for the warmer on the island.[123]
They will wage war on the Lamb, and
the Lamb will conquer them, for He is the Lord of lords and King of kings, and
those with Him are called and chosen and faithful.
The victors, together
with the Lord Himself, will be the new martyrs and confessors of Russia and
Eastern Europe – not only those from the Soviet period that is past, but also
those from the period of the revival of the beast which we are discussing. They
confess that Christ is the Lord of lords
and King of kings - that is, that no earthly power has the right to force
people to break the law of God, which is above all laws and rulers. Those who
obey the law of God, in spite of all the threats of earthly lords and kings,
are called and chosen and faithful.
There
is strong evidence from the prophecies that the destruction of the whore by the
beast represents the destruction of western civilization as a whole during a
third world war at the hands of a revived Soviet or Russian State together with
its allies - although the destruction of the West will be swiftly followed by
the destruction of its destroyer.
Let
us consider two of these prophecies.
First,
in 1053 an anonymous Athonite prophet predicted the main events of
twentieth-century history, culminating in the following: “Battle of seven
states for Constantinople and slaughter for three days. Victory of the largest
state over the six. Union of the six states against the seventh, Russia, and
slaughter for three days. Cessation of
the war by an Angel of Christ God, and handing over of the city to the
Greeks. Submission of the Latins to the unerring faith of the Orthodox.
Exaltation of the Orthodox faith from the East to the West. Cessation of the Roman papacy.
Declaration of one patriarch for the whole of Europe for five or fifty years.
In the seventh is no wretched man; no one is banished. Returning to the arms of
Mother Church rejoicing. Thus shall it be. Thus shall it be. Amen.”[124]
Secondly,
St. Nilus the Myrrh-gusher says: “All the nations of Europe will be armed
against Russia. The Tsar [i.e. the Russian leader] will summon all his European
and Asiatic peoples. The belligerents will meet in an immensely wide plain
where a terrific battle will be fought and will last for eight days. The result
will be a victory of the West over the Russians.”[125]
The
time-scale of the two prophecies is remarkably similar: two three-day battles
in the first, and one eight-day battle in the second. Perhaps there will be a
two-day pause between the two three-day battles, making the whole period of
hostilities last for eight days. In any case, the final victory will be with
the West - but only after suffering devastation in the first part of the conflict.
If
this interpretation is correct, then the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse
would represent the rejoicing of the Heavenly Church over the destruction of
the antichristian civilization of the West by the beast of a renewed (but still
not genuinely Christian) Russia, while the nineteenth chapter represents the
rejoicing of the Church over the destruction of this similarly antichristian
power in the East.[126]
Although
the above is the hypothesis that we prefer, we may pose the question: supposing
that the beast which destroys Babylon is not the collective Antichrist in his
seventh major incarnation (i.e. Soviet power or its revival in a new form in
the near future), but the personal Antichrist, what is the whore that he could destroy?
In
answer to this question, Ivan Marchevsky points to the famous Protocols of
the Elders of Zion, the most reliable source we have, from the Jewish side,
for the plans of the Jewish Antichrist: “When we at last definitely come into
our kingdom by the aid of coups d’etat prepared everywhere for one and
the same day, after the worthlessness of all existing forms of government has
been definitely acknowledged (and not a little time will pass before that comes
about, perhaps even a whole century), we shall make it our task to see that
against us such things as plots shall no longer exist. With this purpose we
shall slay without mercy all who take arms (in hand) to oppose our coming into
our kingdom. Every kind of new institution of anything like a secret society
will also be punished with death; those of them which are now in existence, are
known to us, serve us and have served us, we shall disband and send into exile
to continents far removed from Europe. In
this way we shall proceed with these GOY masons who know too much; such of these as we may for some reason
spare will be kept in constant fear of exile. We shall promulgate a law making
all former members of secret societies liable to exile from Europe as the
centre of our rule.”[127]
1917
again! Just as the masons, who prepared the February, 1917 revolution in Russia
in the name of the revolution, were swept away in October by the real revolutionaries, so, at the end of
the world, the masons, whose whole activity and religious ritual exists for the
sake of the enthronement of the Antichrist, will again be swept away by the
Antichrist himself, for whom no bonds of loyalty or gratitude are sacred. For
while no man ever hates his own flesh,
but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church (Ephesians
5.29), the Antichrist has quite the opposite kind of relationship to his “Church”, International Freemasonry:
he will make her desolate and naked, and
devour her flesh and burn her up with fire. Thus will Christ God work His
unfathomable justice on His enemies, by turning them against each other; and
only the last of them, the Antichrist himself, will He Himself kill, slaying
him with the breath of His mouth at
His Second and Glorious Coming…
Chapter
18 portrays the rejoicing of the Church, and the lamentation of the world, over
the destruction of the whore - western civilisation and religion as the
culmination and consummation of all the religious evil since Nimrod’s Babylon.
18.1-2. And after
these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and
the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong
voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, and is become the habitation of
devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and
hateful bird.
This angel having great power may be the same as the mighty angel of Revelation 10.1, which in turn may be
identified with the Archangel Michael in Daniel 12.1. As we have seen,
the anonymous prophet of 1053 says that the Third World War will be brought to
an end by “an angel of Christ God”. And the Archangel Michael’s role in
destroying Gog and Magog’s forces in Israel is described in Ezekiel 39
and by St. Ephraim the Syrian.
The
description of the modern Babylon’s desolation recalls Isaiah’s of the ancient
Babylon: Wild beasts of the desert shall
lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; an owl shall
dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there (13.21).
And
of Zephaniah’s: This is the exultant
city that dwelt secure, that said to herself, ‘I am and there is none else.’
What a desolation she has become, a lair for wild beast! Every one who passes
by her hisses and shakes his fist (Zephaniah 2.15).
18.3-4. For all
nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings
of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the
earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard
another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, My people, that ye be not
partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
If the
wine of her fornication is the pan-heresy of ecumenism, then the call to
God’s people to come out of Babylon is the call to come out, not geographically
from the countries of the West, but spiritually from the religion of the West -
ecumenism. Come out from among them, and
be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will
receive you (II Corinthians 6.17). For it is not enough to disown a
heresy in one’s heart while communing with it in public - with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Romans
10.10). Whosoever therefore shall
confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father which is in heaven.
But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father
which is in heaven (Matthew 10.32-33).
“Come out of her, My people. As it was
spoken to Lot in Sodom, Escape for thy
life (Genesis 19.17), and in Isaiah (52.11), so it is said here; for
one should avoid contact and cohabitation with those who offend God” (St.
Andrew of Caesarea).
The
Prophet Jeremiah writes: Flee out of the
midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her
iniquity; for this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance; He will render unto her
a recompense. Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, that made all
the earth drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad. Babylon is
suddenly fallen and destroyed; howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be
she may be healed. We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed; forsake
her, and depart every one to his country: for her judgement has reached to
heaven, it has mounted up to the stars (28.6-9).
Developing
the hypothesis that Babylon is Judaeo-masonry, Marchevsky writes: “The
Babylonian captivity (6th century B.C.) cleansed the people from superstition
and returned it to the faith of the forefathers, but the Pharisees considered
it wiser to develop the pagan teaching of God, which drives the concept of the
Creator. This was Chaldean pantheism combined with tribal racism. Thus through
demonic inspiration and human pride one part of the captivity in Babylon fell
away into idol-worship (cf. Ezekiel 14.3 et sq., 20.32; Jeremiah
10.1 et sq.; Isaiah 65.1 et sq.). This religion of the worship of man
was led by the Pharisees, who hid behind the hypocritical performance of
fabricated and unnecessary rites. They developed their new teaching in their
closed meetings, true secret communities, which during the Babylonian captivity
had many adherents, but in the time of Josephus Flavius (38-100 A.D.) numbered
no more than six thousand.
“They
distorted the meaning of the Law and the Prophets, applying ‘allegorism’ which
kills the meaning of the Scripture. This was placed at the foundation of the
Talmud and Cabala. As a rule, the same system is always adopted by all
heresies, beginning with the Judaistic Gnostics, Bogomils and Cathars, up to
the contemporary Satanists. The Pharisaic idea of the Messiah as a temporal
king and destroyer of the non-Jews replaced the God-oriented faith Emmanuel,
Whose Divine origin and untarnished glory was glorified by the holy King David,
while His extreme humiliation in the work of redemption was proclaimed by the
Prophets. They replaced the Orthodox faith in paradise and hell by the false
teaching about the migration of the soul, which was taken from the Chaldeans.
“Our
Saviour exposed the godlessness of the Pharisees (Matthew 15.1-9,
23.1-39), and so they spitefully crucified the Redeemer Who gave a helping hand
to every sinner. They mockingly said…: His
blood be upon us and upon our children (Matthew 27.25).
“In
the Talmudic writings the idea of the superiority of the works of the Rabbis
over the God-inspired Bible is constantly repeated:
“‘The
words of the Talmud are sweeter than the words of the Testament.’ Consequently:
“‘Sins
against the Talmud are more serious than sins against the Bible.’
“This
false teaching gives a papal-like infallibility to the Rabbis of all times and
on all occasions, even when they contradict each other.
“In
order to ridicule God and the Bible, the Pharisees tried to fill the Talmud
with stories (the Haggada) of a fabulous nature. For example: as a consequence
of God’s allowing the Temple to be destroyed, it has become smaller and is now
no more than four cubits above the earth! The eclipse of the Word of God by the
false teaching of the Talmud was prophesied by the Prophet Isaiah: The vision of all this has become to you
like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read,
saying, Read this, he says, I cannot, for it is sealed. And when they give the
book to one who cannot read, saying, Read this, he says, I cannot read. And the
Lord said: Because this people draws near with their mouth, and honour Me with
their lips, while their hearts are far from Me, and their fear of Me is a
commandment of men learned by rote; therefore, behold, I will again do
marvellous things with this people, wonderful and marvellous; and the wisdom of
their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall
be hid (29.11-14).
“The
same is witnessed by a former Pharisaic scholar - the holy Apostle Paul. He writes about the veil which covers the
Jews when they read the Law and the Prophets (cf. II Corinthians
3.14-16).
“The
Rabbis explain the unnatural inclinations of a man as the rebirth of women into
men, and so they are lenient to this sin.
“The
ancient enemies of the Christians offer up their blood in sacrifice with a
ritual aim. They consider that if they rejected the true Messiah, this will
save them. This is the way they support their extraordinary superstition.
“In
the treatise ‘Sukhan-arukh’ it is said: ‘You must not use the blood of a swine
or a beast, but you may use human blood for our benefit.’
“This
is morally permissible for the Jews. In the treatise ‘Avoda Zara’ we read:
‘This is how to understand the phrases concerning bloodshed. If a pagan kills a
pagan or a Jew, he will be responsible for this. But if a Jew has killed a
pagan, he is not responsible’..
“This
is their ethics, which we must become familiar with… God prophesied of the
apostles: They will cast you out of the
synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is
offering service to God (John 16.2).”[128]
18.5-13. For
her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
Reward her even as she rewarded you, and give unto her double according to her
works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath
glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her:
for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no
sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and
famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord that
judgeth her. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and
lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they
shall see the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the fear of her
torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in
one hour is thy judgement come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and
mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more; the merchandise
of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and
purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyme wood, and all manner of vessels of
most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and
odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and
wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls
of men.
The
antichristian civilization of the West is fabulously wealthy, far wealthier and
more luxurious than any civilization that has preceded it. Its wealth has
increased fairly steadily over nine hundred years, and exponentially in period
since the end of the Second World War - that is, in exactly inverse ratio to
its spiritual decline. Nor is this surprising; for as the Lord said, hardly will a rich men enter the Kingdom of
the heavens (Matthew 19.23). Some rich men have, with God’s help,
entered the Kingdom, and many poor men, led astray by envy and other passions,
have fallen short of it. But no nation distinguished for its piety has had a
generally high level of material prosperity.
And
no nation distinguished for its impiety has not suffered the just vengeance of
God. We think of Sodom and Gomorrah, whose sins the West has imitated on a huge
scale. But these verses indicate that the West will suffer the same fate as
Sodom, thereby proving in one hour
the bankruptcy of nine hundred years of her civilization, and especially in its
modern, most arrogant phase, when she sits
as a queen, and thinks that through her science and material resources she will see no sorrow. Alas for Babylon! -
all her fabulous wealth will be destroyed, and, much worse, the souls of the men that delight in her will go to perdition.
And you said,
I shall be a lady forever, so that you did not take these things to heart, nor
remember the latter end of them. Therefore hear this now, you who are given to
pleasures, who dwell securely, who say in your heart, I am, and there is no one
else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, nor shall I know the loss of
children; but these two things shall come to you in a moment, in one day: the
loss of children, and widowhood. (Isaiah 47.7-9).
“The
Freemasons often call themselves ‘sons of the widow’ because the builder of
Solomon’s temple, Hiram, was the son of
a widow from the tribe of Nephthalim (cf. III Kings 7.13-14). So
through their apostasy they have fulfilled the words of the psalm: Let his children be fatherless, and his
wife a widow (108.8).”[129]
18.14-19. And
the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things
which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no
more at all. The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall
stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying,
Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and
scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! For in one hour
so great riches are come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company
in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea stood afar off, and cried
when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this
great city! And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing,
saying, What city is like unto this great city! And they cast dust on their
heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city,
wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her
costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.
Here
again the enormous wealth, in material terms, of Western culture and civilization
is emphasized, and the consequent sorrow which its collapse will cause for its
lovers. The merchants may be understood literally as businessmen and
financiers, or as the purveyors of ideas - the scientific, aesthetic and
religious ideas of modern Europe and America. And again the suddenness of her
collapse, compared with her long historical development, is stressed. Similarly
sudden was the collapse of the Western Roman empire in the fifth century, which
prompted St. Augustine to write The City of God. The city of man is
bound to collapse, because it is built on human, worldly principles: only the
City of God, the Church of Christ, will survive the conflagration of the world,
for her foundations are sure, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone
(Ephesians 2.20).
18.20. Rejoice
over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged
you on her.
Ecumenism,
the religion of the West, embraces all the heresies and abominations of past
ages; it is truly “the heresy of heresies”. Therefore not only the true
Christians of the last times, but also the holy apostles and prophets who
combatted these heresies in the past, can be said to be revenged on Babylon.
And their rejoicing over her fall is righteous; for, as the Venerable Bede
says, “the souls of the righteous cry out these things, not from hatred of
enemies, but from love of justice.”[130]
18.21-24. And
a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the
sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down,
and shall be found no more at all. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and
of pipers, and trumpeters shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no
craftsman, of whatever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the
sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; and the voice of
the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee; for thy
merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all
nations deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints,
and of all that were slain upon the earth.
The image of the millstone recalls the
frightening words of the Lord: Whoso
shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for
him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in
the depth of the sea (Matthew 18.6-7). Crimes against children -
abortion, pederasty, sexual abuse, torture - are common in the so-called
“civilized” society of the modern Babylon. There may be a hint that such crimes are one of the
reasons for the destruction of Babylon.
“In
the last verses of this chapter (21-23) the sudden wrath of God, which will
strike this city, is indicated. Its destruction will take place as quickly as when
a millstone is cast into the sea, and will be so striking, that not the
slightest trace of the city will be left, as is indicated by the words: and the voice of the harpers, and
musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more, etc. In
the last, 24th verse, the reason for Babylon’s destruction is indicated, that in her was found the blood of prophets, and
of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.” (Archbishop Averky).
The blood of prophets and of saints has
indeed been shed by the West in the course of the 900 years since her apostasy
from the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Beginning with the bloody,
papist-inspired conquest of England in 1066, through the sacrileges of the
Crusades and the conquest of Constantinople in 1204, continuing with the
Teutonic knights’ invasion of Novgorod in 1242, the Unia imposed at the edge of
the sword in western Russian and the Ukraine (16th-17th centuries), the Swedish
invasion of Russia (early 18th century), the Napoleonic invasion of Russia
(1812), the Crimean War (essentially an Anglo-French invasion of Russia and
defence of the anti-Christian Turkish empire) and the First World War (caused
by Austria-Hungary’s desire to conquer Orthodox Serbia, and fuelled by
Germany’s desire to conquer Orthodox Russia), and coming to a climax with the
slaughter of 700,000 Orthodox Serbs in 1941 for their refusal to become papists
- all this blood is on the conscience of the West. Even the Orthodox of the New
World have not escaped this scourge. Thus in 1815 the Franciscans of San
Francisco tortured to death the Orthodox Aleut Indian Peter for his refusal to
renounce Orthodoxy.
But
all this pales into insignificance by comparison with the blood of the millions
of Orthodox Christians who died for rejecting that quintessentially western
doctrine - Communism, the deadly bacillus which was nurtured in the English and
French revolutions and then injected into the blood of Holy Russia by the Marx,
Lenin and the Kaiser. From that time Russia became an outpost of Western
civilisation, and the Babylon of the West acquired an eastern capital in
Moscow. And in recognition of this, the West never waged war on Communism, but
greeted the overthrow of the Tsar with joy, entered into diplomatic and
commercial relations with Stalin, hailed his victory in World War Two, and
legitimised all his conquests in the Helsinki Treaty of 1975. Since the “fall”
of Communism, the westernization of Russia has speeded up, and all the
“freedoms” of western civilisation which the Russians were denied in the Soviet
period were afforded them, from hamburgers and rock music to drugs,
prostitution, and the systematic corruption of the young. Freemasonry has now
replaced Communism[131],
while the sins of Communism remain unrepented of.
“It
is beyond doubt,” wrote Archimandrite Justin Popovich: “Europe is not afflicted
with atheism, but with polytheism; it suffers not from a lack, but from an
excess of gods. Having lost the genuine God, it sought to tame its hunger for
Him by creating a multitude of false gods, of idols. It has made idols of
science and its hypotheses; of technology and its inventions; of politics and
its parties; of fashion and its mannequins. And in the midst of all these
idols, it has seated upon the cosmic throne of egoism the European man, the
European ‘Dalai Lama’…
“The
structure of European culture, erected without Christ, must collapse, and soon,
as the clairvoyant Dostoyevsky and the melancholy Gogol foresaw over a century
ago… The prophecies of the Slavic seers are being fulfilled in our times. The
European tower of Babel has been under construction for ten centuries, and, lo,
it is ours to behold the tragic vision: the building is but a vast nullity! In
the ensuing commotion, man has struck out against man, state against state,
nation against nation, and even continent against continent.
“European
man is afflicted with vertigo. At the apex of his tower of Babel he has set his
superman as the completion of the structure, but the superman went made and
plunged from the tower, which is now tumbling in his wake through wars and
revolutions. Homo Europaicus had of necessity to turn mad in the
terminal phase of his culture: the deicide had necessarily to become a suicide.
Wille zur Macht has turned into Wille zur Nacht. A night, an
obscure night, has fallen over Europe. The idols of Europe are collapsing and
the day is rapidly approaching when not a trace will remain of that European
culture which has built cities and destroyed souls and which adored the
creation while rejecting the Creator…”[132]
But
it is not in the old world of Europe so much as in the new world of America
that the true scale and significance of the contemporary Babylon can be
appreciated. As Archpriest Lev Lebedev writes: “The concept of ‘the new Babylon’
is not a figurative comparison or metaphor. New York, like the whole of
America, is a true confusion of all
the languages of the world. What can’t you find here! We have already spoken
about the negroes. Now it is necessary to say that here there are amazingly
many Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, other Asiatic nationalities, Arabs,
representatives of all the European
peoples (very many Italians), there are probably more Armenians in New York
alone than in Yerevan, and more Jews, of course, than in Tel-Aviv and
Jerusalem; and if you take the whole of the USA, then there are far more Jews
here than in the whole state of Israel. There are Russians, Ukrainians,
Belorussians – in short, representatives of all the peoples of the planet! The
international language is English, since the Anglo-Saxons have a certain
numerical preponderance, but now not so significant. In the same way all the
religions of the world are represented: Christianity in every possible and
impossible confession, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism, paganism,
innumerable ‘occult’ currents, and finally, open Satanism (‘the church of
satan’!) and Masonry in all its rituals (rites). If we are talking about formal
belonging, then in the USA the largest group is that of the Protestants of the
most varied tendencies, although there are also quite a few Catholics, Orthodox
and Monophysites. And we are talking about influence on the public life of the
country, then the strongest and most noticeable of all is the influence of
Judaism and Masonry…
“It
is known that about 80% (if it is not more than that now) of the world’s gold
in the hands or under the control of people of Jewish nationality. It is also
known that there are not more than 4 to 6 major bank-industrial corporations,
which have concentrated into their hands the threads of the administration of
the economy of the whole planet. About 90% of the mass media are also under the
control of Jews and Masons. A majority of the visible, or more often –
invisible, mechanisms and levers of the life of the whole of humanity are
controlled by Judaeo-Masonry, which is particularly evident in the USA. The
centre of this invisible or secret world government consists of the more
authoritative and influential rabbis. It moved to various countries, and is now
in the USA. The Jews are expecting any day the appearance of their ‘Messiah’,
while the Masons are expecting the appearance of ‘the Great Jewish King’. The
number of his name is well known to us and to everyone. This number is six
hundred and sixty six… the breath of the approaching antichrist is very much
felt in the USA and Western Europe, especially in France. Just one example: the
entrance to the Louvre in Paris is constructed, according to an idea of F.
Mitterand, in the form of a glass pyramid with 666 panes of glass.
“To
the coming one whose the number of whose name is 666 will be entrusted the
above-mentioned threads, mechanisms and levers of the government of the
external life of humanity. The material-technical preparation for his
enthronement, as we see, is complete. Fulfilled also before our eyes are the
signs of the Second Glorious Coming of Christ, as they are give in the Gospel
according to Matthew (24.4-39) by the Saviour Himself, right up to the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom
throughout the whole universe as a witness to all peoples (Matthew
24.14).[133] It is not for (us) to know the times and
periods (Acts 1.7), not even the angels know them. But these times
and periods are being more and more often pointed to – and by the Jews
themselves – in proportion as the beast
and the Second Coming come closer. Thus in 1968 the Israelite press reported
that ‘the Messiah has already been born and is being brought up in secret from
outsiders’ eyes’. This report without any commentary was repeated by the Soviet
journal Science and Religion. It can be understood in two ways: the
‘Messiah’ (antichrist) was born in 1968 or he was born a little earlier, but
this was proclaimed in 1968. According to Jewish laws, he must appear in the
public sphere, as did Christ, at the age of 30 (spiritual maturity). Then we
may see him in 1998 or even earlier (some of the Jews give the date 1993 or
1992). In one way or another, the appearance of this truly universal ‘leader and teacher’ onto the arena of world politics may
take place in this 90s decade of the 20th century. ‘Rehearsals’ were
carried out in the purely western Germany (Hitler), in the semi-Asiatic Russia
(Stalin), in the purely Asiatic China (Mao) and were everywhere exceptionally
successful in the sense that the population of these countries in its basic
mass was completely receptive to the man-god. None of the three above-mentioned
‘leaders’ became universal because they were only foreshadowings of the real
Antichrist, who must be ‘the Great Jewish
King’.
“There
have already been appearances or rehearsals of the well-known mark (or seal) of the beast - or his name, or the number of his name, laid on their right hand or on their foreheads on all, both small and great, rich and poor,
free and slave, so that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark
(Revelation 13.16-18). In Switzerland a gigantic computer is being
built, into which the numeric figures of every dweller upon the earth must be
put, in accordance with which it will be possible to known from any point on
the earth what a man represents – whether he is the possessor of a definite
individual number, and what his creditworthiness is, so that without any money
or cheques he can carry out financial-commercial operations. They say that it
is being planned that these numerical figures will be impressed in an invisible
manner for the naked eye on the forehead
or on the right hand of their possessors. This is being done supposedly in order
to simplify financial operations and pass systems, to economise on time and
paper.
“In
the USA there already exist computerised cards with the numerical figures of
their owners, so that he who has such a card can get by in any shop or
restaurant without money or cheques. He gives his card to the shop assistant,
and the latter puts into a computerised system and the bank account of the
owner of the card is automatically debited that sum of money which he spent or
consumed. They have told me (I don’t know
whether it’s true in fact) that in one American town it has been suggested to
all the inhabitants that they reject these cards and have a computerised number
placed on their forehead or right hand,
which only a special apparatus can ‘read’; this apparatus is put in every
commercial, post and banking point, for the mark is invisible to the eye. And
everyone agreed…
“There
is an interesting symbol of the Kheops pyramid on USA dollar notes. It has been
as it were cut off and instead of the top there is a shining triangle with a
mysterious eye inside. That this is by no means ‘the all-seeing eye of God’ but
the eye of the antichrist, is witnessed by the inscriptions below, in Latin:
‘the new order of the initiated (elect)’[134]
and in English: ‘The Great Seal’. Truly it
is near, at the doors (Matthew 24.33)… And how did it all beginning,
where did it all come from? The very first source, of course, is the fall into
sin of the forefathers. Then followed Cain, who killed Abel, and then the
apostate humanity before the flood. Then, after the flood – the tower of Babel,
that is, the attempt to construct a city
and a tower whose top is in the heavens, so as to create a name for themselves, before scattering across the earth
[Genesis 11.4]. A most interesting enterprise! People… and Nimrod did
not like the name given them by God. They wanted to create a name for
themselves. But the only true creator (who can create in the proper sense of
the word) is God. That means that what was laid down here was the same as in
the first temptation from the devil-serpent: You shall be as gods… (Genesis 3.4). But divinity is
omnipotence and blessedness. Therefore attaining ‘omnipotence’ and constructing
for oneself here, in earthly existence, a likeness of the paradisiac
‘all-blessedness’– is the idea of the
city and tower whose top is in the heavens. The people of antiquity (by
contrast with contemporary people) well knew that the material tower could not attain the immaterial
sphere of the spiritual Heaven. So they did not construct it in order that they
might thereby ascend to Paradise. (After all, they had already decided to
scatter over the face of the earth.) They constructed it, as we already said at
the beginning, in order to receive the power
(energy) of the aerial demons and through these energies acquire for themselves
both ‘might’ and ‘the life of paradise’ in spite of God’s decree concerning
fallen mankind damaged by sin. In other words, they decided to resort to the
help of the devil and his angels in this apostasy and resistance to God of
theirs. In the given circumstance what is interesting is the conscious
organisation of a huge number of people into a single community, into a common work (in Latin – respublica)
penetrated by one idea perceived by the ‘masses’.
“It
is not difficult to imagine how much knowledge was put into the grandiose
construction: mathematical, engineering, architectural, astronomical,
demonological knowledge, etc., and finally, social knowledge. For it was
necessary to organise a huge community of men according to specialisms, sectors
and teams; to found a hierarchy of leaders, master craftsmen, craftsmen,
apprentices; a system of rewards and punishments, etc. The city and tower was a synthesis of the most varied sciences and
knowledge. The latter, moreover, had to be ‘pure’ knowledge, that is,
‘purified’ from every idea of the Divine presence…, but based exclusively on
the properties and regularities of things and their inter-relations, their
causal links taken in isolation from God, cut off from Him… The source of this
knowledge is well-known – it is the cold and graceless reason of the devil.
Then at the base of all this it there had to be laid devil-worship and
demon-worship in a clear or hidden form, which later manifested itself vividly
in paganism. And not only in paganism!
“However,
not all of humanity agreed to take part in the building of the tower. Our
Russian Tale of burning years (The Chronicle of Nestor), relying on the
chronicle of George Armatoll, says that righteous Heber (‘from him came the
Hebrews’) refused to take part in the made undertaking. And the Armenian and
some other chronicles add that certain Japhethites also refused, because of
which a war took place between them and Nimrod.
“Nevertheless,
God’s righteousness and truth had to be borne witness to in humanity through
some tongue or people. The
descendants of Heber were chosen to be that people (and now we understand why).
In them God created the Old Testament Church based on the Law given by Moses,
and on the words of the prophets.
“However,
the very idea of building a city and tower with the aim of attaining, in
earthly conditions, blessedness and omnipotence and that knowledge which is
needed for its supposed realisation, did not perish, but was preserved in the
memory of the tongues. After the
terrible crash of the tower it was
dangerous to preach them openly. Therefore this knowledge was carefully
encapsulated and encoded in symbols and rituals as a hidden (occult) treasure,
and was preserved and handed down through the systems of various ‘initiations’
in the Egyptian and Ancient Babylonian priestly castes, in some of the castes
of India, the Far East and America, in the Pythagorean schools of Greece, in
the secret societies of Constantinople, in ‘Christian’ Gnosticism, in
Templarism, in the midst of the Troubadors, in secret courts, in heretical
sects, in huge builders’ organisations of free stone-masons of Gothic Europe.
And everywhere that these societies acquired significant influence a striving
for monumentalism in building made
itself vividly felt. Therefore it would not be a mistake to consider the
pyramids of Egypt and America, the ziggurats of Babylon, some of the temples
and pagodas of India and Asia and the Gothic cathedrals and castles as kinds of
‘replays’, experiments, reminiscences or models of the Biblical Babylon (tower to the top of the heavens). I
remember that I was very struck by the inner structure of the burial chamber of
the royal kurgan in Kerch (in the Crimea). The rectangular base of the chamber (the
floor and the lower level of the walls) was gradually ‘converted’ into a
circle, and then into a system of gradually diminishing circles. This is both
reminiscent of the ziggurats and a graphic solution of the mathematical problem
of the squaring of the circle – a
favourite problem of the occultists of antiquity. Such chambers still exist in
the Crimea, and also in many other places in the Hellenic world. What is the
spiritual essence of this problem? The circle is the symbol of infinity and
eternity, and in this sense it is one of the symbols of God. The square (and
the polygon in general) is an image of the limit and the finite. The finite and
the limited (man) is ‘converted (must be converted) into the infinite and the
eternal, become like god! The mathematical
solution of this problem is in principle impossible: the square can never
become a circle, the polygon can be infinitely approximated to the
corresponding circle, but it can never become it. And nevertheless they
stubbornly tried (and try) to solve this problem. This is very similar to the
situation with ‘the philosopher’s stone’. The latter is linked not only (and
even not so much) with chemical alchemy (the attempt to get gold by means of
the analysis and then synthesis of element of various materials). There is a
more important and more profound philosophical
alchemy. The essence of its teaching is that it is necessary first to
analytically reduce everything that exists (material objects, society,
morality, the personality of man in general) into its constituent elements, and
turn everything into chaos, for God began the creation of the world from chaos.
Then it will be possible ‘by a revolutionary path’ to seize that point which is God in the act of creating the world
(this is the ‘philosopher’s stone’) and man will receive the possibility – in
the place of God and in spite of Him, as
god – to create a new world by
the power of his own imagination, synthesising in an arbitrary manner the
elements of dissolved being. The alchemists were right in thinking that this
‘point’ exists. Moreover, it is not outside man, but in man himself, insofar as
man is created according to the image
and likeness of God and has in himself His mysterious presence. But it is
in principle impossible to seize this point ‘in a revolutionary manner’ and in
spite of God! It will become the
heritage of man only in the Kingdom of Heaven, in the new earth under the new
heaven (Revelation21.1), the path into which lies in Christ and not
through pride (the condition of the devil), but through extreme humility and
love for God and people (the condition of the Lord Jesus Christ).
“All
these occult ‘wisdoms’ (we shall call them Babylonian secret knowledge) were
received by a certain élite of the Jewish rabbinate not anywhere, but precisely
in the ancient Babylonian kingdom,
where the Jewish people had been almost completely resettled long before the
First Coming of Christ. Thus by the time of this Coming the Babylonian secret
knowledge and, naturally, the devil-worship linked with it had succeeded in
becoming widespread and strong amidst the Jews, which led in the end to the
rejection of the true Messiah – Jesus Christ in the descendants of Heber in the
flesh (but not in the spirit) and to the crucifixion of Christ. That is why to the
Jews who did not want to believe in Him and who said that our father is God, Christ objected, saying: Your father is the devil and want to fulfil the desires of your father
(John 8.44). On the lips of the Saviour this was not ‘a figurative
expression’ whose aim was to offend those quarrelling with him; it was a
threatening exposure of their hidden worship of the devil as god in the
spiritual secrets of their society. The fact of the matter was that in the
Babylonian (Chaldean), and then in the Hebrew Cabbala there is present not only
pantheism, but also, at a deeper level, religio-philosophical dualism – faith
in TWO gods. One god is the God of Scripture, the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, while the other is he whom Scripture calls the devil, the morning star,
the fallen archangel, satan, the ancient serpent (in later literature sometimes
– Lucifer, that is, ‘light-bearer’). Between these two gods a struggle is being
waged. In the first period of history the God of Scripture prevailed, but in
the second period the second ‘god’ – Lucifer – must conquer. This is symbolised
by the six-pointed star from two equal triangles and constitutes the secret of
the Talmud and the other secret teachings. The victory of the second god
Lucifer must be accomplished through a special person (super-person) endowed by
the devil with exceptional powers and abilities. This person is the Great
Jewish King, that ‘messiah’ whom the Jews are still waiting for (not having
received the true Messiah, Jesus Christ) and who is also called the Antichrist.
The number of the man’s name is six hundred and sixty six. In order that this
person may acquire real power over the whole world, this world must be united into a certain single structure
ruled from the centre, which is in the hands of the Jews. But how to attract to
such a work the non-Jews, non-Hebrews (the goyim, as the Jews call
people of other nationalities)? With this aim a purely spiritual and political
(no longer constructional) movement of ‘free stonemasons’ or ‘masons’.. was
created. Here, in the Masonic lodges, the Jews, or more exactly the Talmudic
Judaists, attained freedom, equality and ‘brotherhood’ with representatives of
other (any other) nationalities, and also attracted the latter to their work,
which became a ‘common work’ (in Latin, literally res-publica).
“From
this one can understand why all revolutions without exception have led to the
destruction of lawful authorities and orders and to the victory of republican
systems, having as their detonator and main driving force Jewry and Masonry.
Moreover, these revolutions were also the first social experiments in the
destruction of life, and its conversion into chaos so as ‘to build a new world’
where ‘he who was nothing will become everything’. Besides, the envy of nobodies
who have become, as it seems to them, ‘everything’, has been used in all
revolutions for the mass destruction of dissidents, who are incapable of
thinking ‘as is necessary’, or are capable of thinking. Thus they have striven
to convert the remaining ‘masses’ into obedient. ‘conscious’ slaves of the
revolutionary leaders.
“Since
the end of the 18th century Masonry has focussed in itself the
Babylonian secret knowledge of the preceding ages and gradually spread its
influence over the whole of the social-political and economic life of
contemporary mankind, insofar as in almost all (although not in all) peoples
the indicated secret knowledge and system initiation has been preserved, as we
have seen, since the times of the Babylonian tower to the top of the heavens. It is not surprising, therefore,
that in their purely architectural-constructional and other works the
contemporary Babylonians have constantly been drawn towards monumentalism, towards
height (the skyscrapers, the Eiffel tower, other tall buildings, flights every
higher and higher, right into space…). Once in the 1970s a Soviet astronaut and
a scientific academic were speaking on television. With one voice they said
that the significance of flights into space did not consist in their being able
to bring benefit to people on earth, but in the fact that they were ‘the self-affirmation of mankind’; ‘man
as the master of the earth is now entering into possession of the whole
universe’ (I remember these expressions verbatim). There they are in an open
form – pride and the desire to become as
gods…
“In
this way that there appeared in history a kind of Antichurch, or church of the
evil-doers, as the king and prophet David calls it. It is interesting that
the descendants of righteous Heber attached themselves to it and entered it!
And not simply entered, but became its main core, the basis of the power of the
antichurch. If Heber received grace from God for his refusal to take part in the
construction of the city and tower to
the top of the heavens and for this was counted worthy of the fact that it
was in his posterity that the coming of the true Messiah, the Saviour of the
world, was prepared, then after His rejection in this same posterity, none
other than the Jews became the most important master-builders of the new,
contemporary tower of Babel, on the spiritual-historical peak of which is
expected the coming and temporary enthronement of the false messiah, the
destroyer of the world – the Antichrist.
“Now
it is completely understandable why in the Revelation of John the Theologian it
should be called Babylon the Great, mother of harlots and abominations of the earth,
and appears in the form of a woman
sitting on a scarlet beast which was
full of names of blasphemy (Revelation 17.3-6). This is the
universal church of the evil-doers,
the base of which is the former Old Testament Church of ancient Israel, which
was betrothed to God but which betrayed Him in adultery with the devil.
“This
adultery is displayed, in essence, in the same features as at the construction
of the ancient tower of Babel. Artificially and deliberately cut off from any,
even hypothetical ideas of the Divine presence, cold knowing, whose methods are
analysis, which cuts up the living and integral into its constituent elements
and thereby kills it, and synthesis,
which is unable to construct out of dead elements anything other than a corpse
– a soulless and harmful syntheticism
and, finally, rationalism (maximum
profit for minimum outlay). The latter inevitably presupposes this very profit
as being crystallised in GOLD, the most important aim of production, the sole
‘god’ of every entrepreneurship and economics. There has always existed in
mankind, as a psychological phenomenon, the desire for enrichment, there has
always been trade and exchange, wars and looting, but there has not been a
thousand years of capitalism and scientific-technical progress! Were people so
stupid, so undeveloped? No! Beautiful palaces and temples, pyramids and Chinese
walls have been constructed, Pythagoras and Archimedes have worked, arts and
crafts have attained unheard-of subtlety, while there was no capitalism or
‘progress’. The unique perfections that arose in one or another sphere of labour
can in no way be called ‘progress’ in the contemporary understanding. What are
we talking about? We are talking about the fact that in all peoples there
existed a sacral perception of labour
and its technology. Labour was a divine action, technological methods and
processes were almost sacred rituals; they corresponded to the mode of action
of the higher powers and served them. Therefore every substantive change in
technology with the aim of gaining greater profit was evaluated as a crime of a
religious-moral nature. Only a religion
which would have the amassment of gold and riches as one of its commandments,
or religious virtues, could break this perception. Talmudic Judaism became this
religion. Not in vain did the usury of antiquity become the most typical
occupation of the Jewish diaspora. Having amassed much gold, the Israelites
were nevertheless unable to ‘spread their wings’ with it, since in practically
all countries and peoples they were an element that was foreign and severely
restricted in its rights. The European revolutions, beginning with the Dutch
and English revolutions in the 17th century and ending with the
French and Russian revolutions, broke this blockade, guaranteeing the Jews
‘freedom, equality and brotherhood’ with the non-Jews not only within the
limits of the Masonic movement, but also in society in general. With their help
they became the driving mechanism for the lust for gold and its worship in all
the European peoples, who by that time had also populated the New World. Thus
began accursed capitalism and scientific-technical progress. At its basis was
the usurers’ rate of interest. And what is that in essence? I give you 100
units of something, and you are obliged to return, for example, 120 or 130.
This is legalised theft, legal robbery. However, everything is based on this
rate of interest: production with its ‘surplus value’, banking, credit
operations. The all-powerful bank with its all-powerful Rate of Interest stands
at the centre of the whole civilisation of the universe, which we may therefore
call, without any exaggeration or strain, the
robber civilisation.
“All
this is particularly clearly evident if we rise in thought as it were to the
tope of the Empire State Building of the contemporary Tower of Babel. From
there we can also see that gold is the “god” not only for the profane. For the
‘brothers’-stonemasons initiated into the higher steps (degrees) it is only a
means of gaining control of the external life of the world so as to hand it
into the possession of ‘the Great Architect of the Universe’ – Lucifer. It is
precisely in this direction that everything that makes people ‘whirl’ in
today’s Babylon moves. In the USA it is simply more evident that in other
countries, but the very same is taking place in them, too.
“Into
this mad ziggurat of the tower to the
top of the heavens ‘Christianity’ is also being drawn – Christianity that
has apostasised or is apostasising from the faithful, Orthodox way, from the Way, the Truth and the Life, which
is Jesus Christ. The churches in the ‘ecumenical’ movement which used to be
Orthodox only recently are merging and fraternising with heresy and even with
non-Christian religions. The idea is to synthesise the analytically disjoined
elements of various faiths into a single (synthetic) religion and church, into
‘the religion of the future’… Willingly and with firm strides the Moscow
Patriarchate is also walking in this movement and is trying to draw the Russian
flock with it, cunningly pointing to the example of other local churches, such
as Constantinople or the American Autocephaly. The National Council of Churches
of the USA was recently for the first time headed by an ‘Orthodox’ priest from
this Autocephalous church, at the same time that one significant Greek
community left this council because
it had decided to receive into its membership a ‘church’ of homosexuals and
allow the ordination in certain Protestant ‘churches’ of women, and also
sodomites and lesbians to the priesthood (and even now to the episcopate)… A
case that tells us much about ‘the religion of the future’. The rapid
multiplication of all kinds of sexual perversions in the contemporary Babylon
is not coincidental: this is a return to Sodom, which was destroyed by fire.
But the present Babylon will be destroyed by
fire, as the Apostolic Scriptures say. However, it has already begun to
burn, as it were. As always and in everything, the devil, Lucifer, is deceiving
the unfortunate Babylonians and the no less unfortunate Jews, of whom it is
said that they say that they are Jews,
and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2.9). He is
not god, but a creation of God, a fallen archangel, and nothing inspired by him
will stand, but will be destroyed at the Second Glorious Coming of Christ. And
he is already beginning to be destroyed. Contemporary industry is doomed to
suffer a universal ecological catastrophe. The Masons themselves are already
frightened, they fear suffocation. There have appeared the ‘Growth Limits’ of
the club of Rome, a club of energy-producers is planning a similar book. But
late. Too late. Babylon has begun to devour itself with unstoppable rapidity.”[135]
In
chapter 19, the celebration over the destruction of Babylon, the pseudo-religion
and corrupt culture of the apostate West, merges into the celebration of the
triumph of the Church, the true faith and spiritual culture of the Orthodox
East.
19.1-10. And
after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying,
Alleluia; salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God:
for true and righteous are His judgements: for He hath judged the great whore,
which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of
His servants at her hand. And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up
for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders and the four living creatures
fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia.
And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye His
servants, and ye that fear Him, both small and great. And I heard as it were
the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the
voice of many thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent
reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him: for the marriage
of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. And to her was
granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine
linen is the righteousness of the saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed
are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith
unto me, These are the true sayings of God. And I fell at his feet to worship
him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow-servant, and of
thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony
of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
“Alleluia, according to the explanation
of St. Andrew of Caesarea, signifies Divine glorification; Amen - truly, may it be so. This, he says, is sung to God by the
angelic powers together with the men who are equal to the angels ‘three times’,
because of the Three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, of the one God, Who
has avenged the blood of His servants at the hands of Babylon, doing good by
the punishment of her inhabitants and cutting off sin. Alleluia, from the Hebrew ‘Hallemu Jah’, means literally: ‘Praise
God’. And her smoke rose up unto the
ages of ages. This means that the wrath of God that strikes Babylon the
harlot will continue for ever. Let us be
glad and rejoice and give honour to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come.
The reason for rejoicing lies in the fact that the time for the celebration of
the marriage of the Lamb has come. By ‘marriage’ or ‘marriage feast’ is meant
in a general sense the rejoicing of the Church. By the Bridegroom of the Church
is meant the Lamb - the Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of His mystical Body; by
the Bride and Wife of the Lamb is meant the Church (cf. Ephesians 5.25).
The marriage itself signifies the close union of the Lord Jesus Christ with the
Church, sealed by faithfulness on both sides to an established covenant, as by
mutual agreement (cf. Hosea 2.18-20). The marriage feast signifies the
enjoyment of the fullness of the grace of God, which by the power of the
redeeming merits of Christ will be given in abundance to all true members of
the Church of Christ, to rejoice and make glad in all their ineffable good
things. And His wife made herself ready.
And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and
white. ‘That the Church is arrayed in linen signifies her radiance in good
works, her subtlety of understanding and her loftiness in meditation and
contemplation, for in these consists Divine righteousness.’ (St. Andrew of
Caesarea). Blessed are they which are
called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. ‘The supper of Christ,’ explains
St. Andrew, ‘is the triumph of the saved, and the corresponding joy which the
blessed receive when they enter into the eternal bridal chamber with the Holy
Bridegroom of pure souls: Unlying is He
Who promised. Just as many are the good things of the age to come,
surpassing all thought, so various are the names by which they are called. They
are sometimes called the Heavenly Kingdom
because of its glory and honour, sometimes Paradise
because of the abundance of delights at its table, sometimes the Bridal Chamber and Marriage, not only by reason of its unending joy, but also because
of the pure, true and ineffable union of God with His servants - a union as far
surpassing the bodily union of one with another as light is distinguished from
darkness and myrrh from stench.’ The angel before whom St. John wished to bow
down forbade him to do this, saying: I
am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus:
worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. The
meaning of these words is this: Do not bow down before me, for I am only your
fellow-servant. The same Holy Spirit Who speaks and acts through the apostles,
in particular St. John, who preaches and witnesses about Jesus, also speaks
through the angels, as through those who are similarly messengers of God. It is
as if the angel says: ‘Your dignity is the same as mine; you, being endowed
with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, witness concerning the words and death of
Jesus Christ, while I, having received from the same Holy Spirit the revelation
of future events, inform you and the Church about it. In other words, the spirit
of witness for Christ is also the spirit of prophecy, that is, they have the
same dignity and the same aim.’ St. Andrew of Caesarea here remarks on the
humility of the angels, who do not assume the Divine Glory for themselves, as
do the evil demons, but ascribe it to the Master.” (Archbishop Averky)
19.11-12. And
I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon him was
called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. His
eyes were as flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He had a name
written, that no man knew, but He Himself.
In this chapter, as the Triumph of the Church
approaches, images from previous visions are recalled: the secret names from
the first vision, the twenty-four elders and four living creatures from the
second vision, and the rider on the white horse from the second vision.
The
rider on the white horse in the second vision (the first seal) symbolised,
according to the present interpretation, the triumphs of the Orthodox armies in
the First World War. But these triumphs turned to defeat and then the fall of
Orthodoxy itself during the Russian revolution. Now, however, as the revolution
is in turn defeated, the figure on the white horse returns, signifying the
revival of the Orthodox empire.
“The
white horse signifies the radiance of the saints, sitting on whom He will judge
the peoples, emitting from His flaming, fiery eyes, that is, from His
all-seeing power, a fiery flame, which, however, does not burn the righteous
but enlightens them, while, on the contrary, it burns the sinners without
enlightening them.” (St. Andrew of Caesarea).
Christ
is called Faithful and True because
He is here coming to rescue His Church in accordance with His promise: The gates of hell shall not prevail against
her (Matthew 16.18). He makes war, because He is not only the
all-merciful Lover of mankind but also the all righteous Judge of Whom it is
written: It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10.31). For I form the light, and I create darkness: I
make peace, and I create evil: I the Lord do all these things (Isaiah
45.7). Not that God is in any way the author of moral and spiritual evil: all
real evil is the responsibility of men and demons only. But He creates, or
permits to take place, wars, earthquakes, epidemics and other catastrophes
which are deemed evil in men’s eyes, but which are in fact the instrument of an
all-holy purpose, either the glorification of the righteous (Job, the martyrs,
Christ Himself), or the chastisement and correction of those who are in error
but who have the will to be saved (Jonah in the belly of the whale, the
paralytic in John 5), or the just recompense and punishment of those who
are incorrigibly impenitent (Ahab, Herod, the sinners at the Last Judgement).
For all things work together for good
for those who love God (Romans 8.28). But for those who do not love
God, they are for evil - not through the fault of God, but because of their own
iniquity.
In righteousness He doth judge and
make war.
For righteous art Thou, O Lord, and
upright are Thy judgements (Ps. 118.137). And who shall say, What hast Thou done? Or who shall withstand His
judgement? Or who shall accuse Thee for the nations that perish, whom Thou hast
made? Or who shall come to stand against Thee, to be revenged for the
unrighteous men? (Wisdom of Solomon 12.12).
“And He had a name written, that no man
knew, but He Himself. The fact that His name is unknown points to the
unattainability of His Divine essence. Further on, in verse 13, He is called the Word of God. This name is actually
unattainable for men, for it refers to the essence and origin of the Divine
nature of Jesus Christ, which no mortal can attain. That is why in the Old
Testament it is called wonderful (Judges 13.18; Isaiah 9.6; Proverbs
30.4).” (Archbishop Averky)
19.13. And He
was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and His name is called the Word of
God.
“The
vesture of God the Word was His all-pure and incorruptible Flesh, dyed in His
Blood at the time of His voluntary sufferings.” (St. Andrew of Caesarea)
“This
name is truly unattainable for men, for it refers to the essence and origin of
the Divine nature of Jesus Christ, which no mortal can attain. For that reason in
the Scriptures of the Old Testament it is called wonderful (Judges
13.18; Isaiah 9.6; Proverbs 30.4).” (Archbishop Averky)
That
it is not man, but God Himself that will bring the war to an end in a
miraculous manner is indicated in other prophecies. Thus the anonymous Greek
prophet of 1053 says that the war will be brought to an end “by an Angel of
Christ God”.
19.14. And the
armies which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine
linen, white and clean.
“These
are the heavenly powers distinguished by the subtlety of their nature, the
loftiness of their understanding and the radiance of their good deeds and
honoured with an indissolubly close union with Christ.” (St. Andrew of
Caesarea)
19.15. And out
of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations: and
He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He treadeth the winepress of the
fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
“This
sword of Christ is in this case not so much that of a teacher (cf. 1.16) as
that of a king, accomplishing His judgements with an iron rod - this expression
is taken from Psalm 2.9, Isaiah 63.4-5, and is explained in Revelation
2.27, 12.5.” (Archbishop Averky)
19.16. And He
hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of
lords.
“This
name, witnessing to the Divine dignity of its bearer, was written on the thigh,
that is, on the royal cloak near that part of the body from which, according to
the custom of eastern peoples, hung a sword on a belt.” (Archbishop Averky)
19.17-21. And
I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to
all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves
together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings,
and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all
men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast, and the
kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him
that sat on the horse, and against His army. And the beast was taken, and with
him the false prophet that wrought miracles, with which he deceived them that
had received the mark of the beast, and them that had worshipped his image.
These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the
remnant were slain with the sword of Him that sat upon the horse, which sword
proceeded out of His mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.
The
Prophet Isaiah says: And they shall go
forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against
Me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and
they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh. (66.24).
And
the Prophet Ezekiel says: Thou [Gog] shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel,
thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee
unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be
devoured. (39.4).
St.
Ephraim the Syrian comments on this passage from Ezekiel: “Then Divine Justice
will call upon Michael, the leader of the hosts, and send him to destroy their
camps; as the camps of Sennacherib. At the command, and with his mighty and
terrible sword, the angel shall go forth and destroy their armies in the
twinkling of an eye, and in the same moment the Divine Justice, thundering from
on high, shall destroy their camps with rocks of fire. Their slain shall lie
upon the ground, innumerable as the sands. Beasts and men shall die, and the
whole camp shall perish, and flame shall be let loose against the sea and
against the islands. The bow of Gog, the evil king, shall fall from his left
hand, and the arrows from his right hand (Ezekiel 39.3); and his camp
shall be wholly destroyed. Then the Lord from His glorious heaven shall set up
His peace. And the kingdom of the Romans [the Orthodox Christian Empire] shall
rise in place of this latter people, and establish its dominion upon the earth,
even to the ends, and there shall be no one who will resist it…”[136]
Thus
will perish both the beast in his seventh incarnation, Soviet Russia (of which
the present “Russian democracy”, ruled as it is by ex-communists, is simply the
continuation in another form), and its false prophet, atheist, materialist
pseudo-science. And the demons will gather a rich harvest of souls. As St. John
of Kronstadt saw at the end of his vision of the collective Antichrist: “He
waved his hands and fell, his crown fell from his head and rolled in the dust,
and millions of birds flew and pecked at the bodies of the Antichrist.”[137]
The
sword may be understood in a physical sense, but also in a spiritual sense, as
the word of God, which is quick, and
powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of
the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4.12). And this is
much more frightening. For the physical sword can only separate the soul from
the body without harming the soul in its relationship to the Spirit of God. But
the word of God, delivered in righteous judgement upon sinners, cuts off the
soul from communion with God and delivers the whole man to eternal punishment.
As the Lord said: Fear not them which
kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is
able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10.28).
“There
are two deaths. One is the separation of the soul from the body, and the other
- being thrust into gehenna. Applying this to those on the side of the
Antichrist, we have good reason to believe that by the sword or the command of
God the first, physical death will be administered, after which will follow the
second.. they will be participants in the second death - eternal torments.”
(St. Andrew of Caesarea)
The
twentieth chapter of the Apocalypse presents one of the most difficult problems
of Biblical exegesis. In the early centuries of Christianity certain heretics,
such as Cerinthus, interpreted the thousand-year reign of Christ referred to in
verses 2 to 7 in an over-literal, sensual, Judaizing sense. They argued,
linking this chapter with certain Messianic passages from the Old Testament,
that after the defeat of the Antichrist Christ would come in a visible form to
earth and reign with His saints from Jerusalem; that this period would last for
literally a thousand years until the Last Judgement; that the bodies of the
saints would be resurrected to enjoy all the pleasures of this earthly life;
and that the Jews and their Mosaic law, with its sabbaths and circumcisions,
would have dominion over all the nations of the earth.
Variations
of this error, called “chiliasm” or “millenarianism”, are to be found in almost
every historical epoch. In modern times the creation of the State of Israel has
stimulated its reappearance in many Protestant sects, notably the Jehovah’s
Witnesses. Some decades ago Fr. Seraphim Rose wrote: “The careful observer of
the contemporary religious scene - especially in America, where the most
popular religious currents have originated for over a century - cannot fail to
notice a very decided air of chiliastic expectation. And this is not only true
of ‘charismatic’ circles, but even of the traditionalist or fundamentalist
circles that have rejected the ‘charismatic revival’. Thus, many traditionalist
Roman Catholics believe in the coming of a chiliastic ‘Age of Mary’ before the
end of the world, and this is only one variant on the more widespread Latin
error of trying to ‘sanctify the world’, or, as Archbishop Thomas Connolly of
Seattle expressed it fifteen years ago, ‘transforming the modern world into the
Kingdom of God in preparation for His return.’ Protestant evangelists such as
Billy Graham, in their mistaken private interpretation of the Apocalypse, await
the ‘millenium’ when ‘Christ’ will reign on earth. Other evangelists in Israel
find that their millenarian interpretation of the ‘Messiah’ is just what is
need to ‘prepare’ the Jews for his coming…”[138]
Now
there were some Orthodox fathers and saints who, while avoiding the errors of
the extreme Judaizers, interpreted the millenium in a fairly literal way.
Thus
St. Justin the Martyr writes: “There was a certain man with us, whose name was
John, one of the apostles of Christ, who prophesied, by a revelation that was
made to him, that those who believed in our Christ would dwell a thousand years
in Jerusalem; and that thereafter the general, and, in short, the eternal
resurrection and judgement of all men would likewise take place.”[139]
While admitting that “many who belong to the pure and pious faith, and are true
Christians, think otherwise,” he declared that he and others “who are
right-minded Christians on all points are assured that there will be a
resurrection of the dead, and 1000 years in Jerusalem, which will then be
built, adorned and enlarged as the Prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah and others
declare.”[140]
Several
other fathers of the second and third centuries, such as Irenaeus, Hippolytus and
Methodius of Olympus, are also classified as chiliasts, although they usually
interpreted the figure of “1000 years” in a symbolical sense. These teachers
were fighting especially against the heresy of Gnosticism, which rejected the
flesh as evil and tended to interpret the resurrection of the dead in a purely
spiritual sense. Irenaeus, in particular, inveighed against the
over-allegorical interpretation of the prophecies. Lactantius, the tutor to the
Emperor Constantine’s son, was also a chiliast. Thereafter, however, a strong
reaction set in against the teaching, led by the Church historian Eusebius. So
strongly opposed to it was he that he described one of the early chiliast
writers, St. Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, whom Irenaeus accepted as having heard
the Apostle John himself, as “a man of very little intelligence”.[141]
At
the Second Ecumenical Council in 381, the Church introduced the phrase: “Whose
Kingdom shall have no end” into the Symbol of the Faith, without, however,
formally anathematising chiliasm. In fact, according to some writers, the
introduction of this phrase into the Symbol may not have been directed against
chiliasm at all, or only against its cruder, Jewish variants.[142]
So it is possible that the less extreme, more spiritual forms of the teaching
were permitted. For even Blessed Jerome, who, with Blessed Augustine, was the
foremost enemy of the teaching, while mocking the chiliasts as “our half-Jews”[143],
in other places speaks of them with more respect, as holding views “which,
although we may not hold, we cannot condemn, because many ecclesiastical men
and martyrs have taught the same”.[144]
It is unlikely that he would have said this if the views of Saints Irenaeus,
Hippolytus and others had been formally anathematized. Even Blessed Augustine
admits that there are “tolerable” kinds of chiliasm – that is, those kinds in
which the delights of the millennium are “of a spiritual kind”: “Those who,
because of the passage in this book, have suspected that the first resurrection
is future and bodily, have been influenced, especially, among other things, by
the number of a thousand years, to suppose that it were fitting that among the
saints there should be during that time a kind of sabbatism, a holy vacation as
it were after the labours of the six thousand years since man was created… This
opinion would be somewhat tolerable, if the delights of that sabbath to be
enjoyed by the saints were, through the presence of the Lord, of a spiritual
kind. For we too were at one time of this opinion.”[145]
From
the fifth century, under the influence of Jerome and Augustine, a purely
spiritual conception of the millenium becomes prevalent, according to which the
thousand-year reign of Christ represents the whole of Christian history between
the First and Second Comings of Christ but excluding the reign of the
Antichrist.
Thus
St. Andrew of Caesarea writes: “The thousand
years is the time in the course of which the Gospel will be preached. There
is no need to understand the thousand years literally. Neither does the number
have a literal meaning in the Song of Songs: Each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. My
vineyard, my very own, is for myself; you, O Solomon, may have the thousand,
and the keepers of the fruit - two hundred (8.11-12)… The full number
depicts abundance and perfection in the bringing forth of fruits. In the same
way here the thousand years depicts
the completed bringing forth of the fruits of faith.” As Fr. Seraphim Rose put
it, “the ‘millenium’ of the Apocalypse (20.6) is now; the life of grace in the Orthodox Church for the whole
‘thousand years’ between the First Coming of Christ and the time of
Antichrist.”[146]
However,
this interpretation is open to certain powerful objections; and below a third
view is expounded, which takes a middle course between the more literal views
of the second and third century Fathers, and the purely allegorical views of
Jerome and Augustine. This view is presented very tentatively (as is the whole
of the present interpretation of the Apocalypse); but it has the advantage of
escaping the extremes of over-literalism and Judaism, on the one hand, and excessive allegorism, on the other.
20.1-3. And I
saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a
great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent,
which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him
into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he
should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be
fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
This image is immediately reminiscent of Revelation
9.1-3, where demons are released from the abyss to let loose (according to our
interpretation) the Third World War, and Revelation 10.1, where an angel
descends from heaven to restore peace to the world. In view of the similarity
of the imagery, it would be reasonable to suppose that the seer is here
witnessing the same events as in the earlier vision. If so, then there is a
chronologically continuous transition between Revelation 19 and 20, just
as there was between chapters 9 and 10, and not the abrupt break in the
narrative that is postulated by the Augustinian interpretation. This transition
is that between the terrible carnage of the Third World War, which was incited
by the devil but in which Christ emerges as the Victor, and the period of peace
afterwards, in which demonic activity is suppressed, at least temporarily. The
nations are undeceived and come to the Faith of Christ for a period denoted
symbolically as a thousand years, at
the end of which the demons are again let loose to prepare the way for the
Antichrist in his final form.
It
should be noted, too, that whereas the beast and the false prophet are cast
into the fire at the end of chapter 19, it is not until a chapter later, after
the millenium, that we read that the Devil was cast into the lake of fire
and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are (20.10). This
suggests that the punishment of the beast and the false prophet does not
represent a full close or last
judgement, but a penultimate
judgement preceding that of the devil himself at the end of time.
Our
hypothesis is that chapter 19 describes the defeat of the beast in his penultimate
incarnation, as the seventh head, or collective
Antichrist, while the end of chapter 20 represents the destruction of the personal Antichrist (here we agree with
the Augustinians), followed by that of the devil at the very end of time.[147]
According
to the Augustinian interpretation, Satan’s binding
for a thousand years represents his defeat by the Lord on the Cross, while
his deceiving the nations no more
signifies the whole history of the Church before the reign of the Antichrist.
But is it reasonable to suppose that Satan has had so little success since the
Coming of Christ that the nations were
deceived no more? Is it not rather the case that most of the nations have
been deceived for most of the time, and especially in the twentieth century?
Christ bound the devil in hades in the sense that He made a way for those who
believe in Him to escape the devil’s snares and ascend without hindrance
through the demonic toll-houses and into the Kingdom of Heaven after death. But
at no time has the majority of mankind accepted His redemption; the nations
have remained deceived.
Somewhat
more reasonable is Archbishop Averky’s hypothesis that the thousand years
represents “the victory of the Church over paganism and the establishment of
the Church on earth”. This would suggest that the period from Constantine the
Great to Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II is meant, from about 312 to 1917. And yet even
in this period, and even confining the discussion to Europe and the Middle East
alone, heresies such as Islam, Monophysitism, Papism and Protestantism have
held sway over very large areas for long periods of time. Constantine’s victory
in the fourth century opened the way for the Christianization of the
Mediterranean basin only; it may be said to foreshadow the enlightening of the
nations worldwide, but cannot be said to be its realisation.
It
would be most natural to interpret the phrase: he should deceive the nations no more to mean a more universal
defeat of paganism than Constantine’s, a triumph of good over evil such as
cannot be said to have taken place yet. This is the victory which, as so many
prophets have foretold, will take place at the end of the Third World War, and
which will be followed by the enlightenment of most of the nations with the light
of the Orthodox Faith. It is the victory which the Lord Himself prophesied when
He said: This Gospel of the Kingdom will
be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then
the end will come (Matthew 24.14).
And
why is this triumph said to last for a thousand years? We may suggest - very
tentatively, as always - the following explanation. Approximately 1000 years
passed between the building of Solomon’s temple in the Old Testament and the
First Coming of Christ. The Zionist Jews and Freemasons wish to rebuild the
temple of Solomon and enthrone their “son of David”, the Antichrist, within it.
Therefore symbolically speaking the period between the coming of Christ (as
described in chapter 19) and the enthronement of the Antichrist could also be
said to be 1000 years. So the thousand years may indeed represent “the victory
of the Church over paganism and the establishment of the Church on earth”, as
Archbishop Averky says - only the victory is not Constantine’s in the 4th
century, but Christ’s at the end of the 20th.
Bishop
Peter of Tomsk writes: “Some understand by the beast the pagan Roman Empire,
and count the thousand years as beginning from the time of Constantine the
Great and until the end of the 13th century, when the Turkish empire
was founded, and consider the Turks to be Gog and Magog. But others, while
understanding by the beast the mysterious, antichristian Roman Empire, refer
the thousand years to a time of the peaceful flourishing of the Church, which
God has ordained for her on earth after the destruction of this empire hostile
to her, and which had not yet come into being. This prophecy is closely linked
with the previous one, which speaks of the destruction of the beast. This
opinion is confirmed by: (1) the connection of speech. In the previous prophecy
(ch. 19) it is said that after the destruction of the kingdom of the beast,
hosts of saints and martyrs in their doxologies offered to God for His great
goodness given to the Church, express the reason for their joy as (a) the fact
that God has entered into His kingdom, that is, the kingdom of Christ (v. 6);
and (b) the fact that the time for the celebration of the wedding of the Lamb
has come and the bride has prepared herself (v. 7). Since this is said only
briefly there, the Holy Spirit wanted in this same order to explain it in more
detail in the following prophecy, so that people should clearly know what
happiness there will be for the Church after the destruction of the beast. The
first happiness, that is, reign of Christ God, is revealed in the 20th
chapter, in which it is said that after the destruction of the kingdom of the
beast Jesus Christ will reign with the saints and martyrs sitting on thrones
(v. 3). The last, that is, the celebration of the wedding of the Lamb is
depicted in chapters 21 and 22. This is the connection of this prophecy with
the preceding one. But if this prophecy about the thousand years refers to a
previous time and is to be considered as inserted here, then the connection and
order of the prophecies contained in chapters 19, 20, 21 and 22 is destroyed.
(2) In this same prophecy it is clearly presupposed that the empire of the
beast has already appeared in the world and has been destroyed. Thus in verse 4
it is said that the thrones were set, and on them sat to whom judgement was
given, and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. In verse 10 it is
said that Satan, who had deceived Gog and Magog, was cast into the fiery lake
where the beast and the false prophet had already been finally cast, and in
which they already were during the time when God determined that Gog and Magog
should be judged and punished. But Gog and Magog will appear immediately after
the passing of the thousand years and will perish. Besides, the kingdom of the
beast and the glorious kingdom of Christ – which must spread throughout the
world among all peoples, Satan being no longer able to deceive them with a
false religion or persecute the confessors of the truth, - cannot coexist at
the same time. Consequently, the thousand-year reign of Christ with the saints
will be in the last times, after the destruction of the kingdom of the beast or
antichristianity, when all the Jews and Gentiles will be united to the Church
of Christ, which at that time will be cleansed from all errors, superstitions,
deceptions and the crude vices of carnal people, which before that had never
been seen. For Christ does not reign everywhere when there sit on the thrones
not only those who confess His name only outwardly, but also pagans. The
Kingdom of Christ is the kingdom of righteousness, truth, piety, love and peace
with an abundance of spiritual goods and gifts, triumph over satan, over the
spirit of the proud, luxurious, corrupt world, and over all the enemies that
oppose this kingdom. Where this is, there Christ reigns. But when little of
this is revealed in the Church, then Christ does not reign in complete glory.
When in the rulers of the Church we note: pride, worldly splendour,
luxuriousness, a worldly spirit, the love of power, a passion for predominance,
the love of glory, avarice, envy, jealousy, and, proceeding from these,
quarrels, arguments, temptations, impurity of life and pandering to the vices
of worldly people; when the Church groans under the tyranny of impious tsars who
do not respect religion: then Christ does not reign in such an evident and
glorious way. On the contrary, when the pastors and teachers of the Church are
humble, righteous, non-possessive, abstinent, prudent, zealous for piety and
the glory of God, far from the spirit of the world and luxuriousness, under the
protection of pious governments that are reverent before God, who teach the
knowledge of God, piety and righteousness to the flocks entrusted to them, who
lead them to salvation in accordance with the teaching and good order of the
Apostles and Holy Fathers, who care about peace and the decency of the morals
and customs of their flock; who destroy temptations; who shine to their flock
in the purity of morals and holiness of life; who serve as objects of fear for
the impious and vicious, but as consolation for the good: then Christ reigns in
glory.
“But
the Kingdom of Christ will be spiritual, and not sensual, as the so-called
chiliasts of antiquity imagined it, thinking that Jesus Christ would in a visible
manner come down from heaven to earth in Jerusalem, and would rule whole
peoples like earthly, civil tsars. For the Kingdom of Christ is spiritual (John
18.36), and His glory is spiritual; it does not come in a noticeable manner (Luke
17.20,21), so that one could see it externally, it does not consist in external
civil institutions and administration, it is not united with external pomp and
splendour; according to the words of the Apostle Paul (Romans 14.17),
the Kingdom of God consists not in the enjoyment of food and drink, in material
goods, but in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The glorious
Kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth will consist in the fact that, after the
destruction of all the enemies of Christianity – paganism and antichristianity,
there will come a peaceful, calm period in which the Church, after receiving
into her bosom all the Jews and Gentiles, well constructed and ruled in
accordance with the teaching and good order of the Apostles and Holy Fathers,
enlightened by the Evangelical light of the knowledge of the truth and
holiness, and enjoying the gifts of grace, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, will
flourish in piety and good works under the care of prudent, righteous pastors,
and under the protection of pious governments, and will widely spread the light
of Evangelical truth, piety and glory.”[148]
20.4. And I
saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgement was given to them.
The
Lord said that the apostles would sit
upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matthew
19.28). But judgement over the
unbelievers, according to David, shall
be to all His saints (Psalm 149.9).
Again,
as Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov writes: “The thrones of the saints are their
dominion over the passions, over the demons themselves, over human weaknesses,
over the elements, over beasts - the abundance of their spiritual gifts… They
are given judgement, that is, spiritual discernment, by which they expose sin,
with whatever fair appearance it may be covered, and reject it; they are given
judgement, by which they judge the angels of darkness who take on the form of
angels, and do not allow them to deceive them. They bowed down neither to the
beast, nor to his image, neither to the Antichrist, nor to his forerunners, the
persecutors of Christianity, who demanded from Christians that they renounce
Christ and renounce His all-holy commandments. They received the seal of the
enemy of God neither on their foreheads nor on their right hands, but acquired
the mind of Christ, constantly expressing it in their thoughts and actions, not
sparing even their blood in order to receive the seal of faithfulness of
Christ. And for that reason they reigned with Christ. For them there is no
death! For them the separation of the soul from the body - we repeat the
thought of Basil the Great - is not death, but a passage from sorrowful
wandering on earth to eternal joy and repose.”[149]
It
is also possible that the Eighth Ecumenical Council is being referred to,
insofar as in the Ecumenical Councils the holy fathers triumphed over heresies
and judged heretics. For as St. Nilus the Myrrh-Gusher prophesied: “A last and
Eighth Ecumenical Council [will be convened] to deal with the disputes of
heretics and separate the wheat from the tares”.[150]
And St. Seraphim also prophesied the convening of a last and Eighth Council
that would defeat the western heresies and prepare the world for the final
contest with the Antichrist” [151]
– which is not to say, however, that there may not be a false eighth council of
the ecumenists before the true one of the True Orthodox.[152]
20.4. And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived with Christ a thousand years.
These
souls are clearly those whom the seer saw under the heavenly altar after the
breaking of the fifth seal (6.11) - that is, the holy new martyrs of Russia.
Evidently their petition is about to be answered, God’s vengeance on His and
their enemies is about to be accomplished. But this can only come about when
the veneration of the martyrs is alive in the hearts of the people. Hence the
significance of the canonization of the new martyrs by the Russian Church
Abroad in 1981 - which led very quickly to the fall of Soviet power. However,
the veneration of the new martyrs will have to become much more widespread -
and its distortion by the false patriarchate of Moscow rejected - before the
scourge of the revolution can be finally swept away.