the two Beasts, and one only to all the rest: herein well agreeing with what Cassiodorus says of it, that it only explained the more difficult passages. I now proceed to give an abstract of it: and this somewhat at large, as due to its chronological interest.

At its opening Victorinus dwells on the particulars of Christ's first appearance to St. John:-his head and hair white marking the antiquity of the Ancient of Days, for the head of Christ is God; and perhaps with reference, in the wool that it is compared with, to the sheep his members, in the snow to the multitude of baptismal candidates, white as the snow-flakes from heaven; his face as the sun, not only in expression of its glory, but of his having risen, and set, and risen again in life on this world; his long priestly robe marking his priesthood; his breasts the two Testaments, whence his people's nourishment; and the sword from his mouth his preached word, by which men shall be judged and Antichrist slain his voice likened to many waters, not only from its power, as that of many people, but perhaps with reference to the baptismal waters of salvation issuing from him; and his feet to brass glowing from the furnace, in reference to the apostles purified in the furnace of affliction, by whom he walks as it were in his preached Gospel through the world.-Then, after a short notice of the Epistles to the Seven Churches, (which seven he explains as representatives of the Church Universal,2) he proceeds to the second series of visions, on the door being opened in heaven, and John called up thither by Christ's satisfaction heaven once shut having been opened; and in St. John's person, originally of the circumcision, but now a preacher of the New Testament, it being apparent that alike the faithful of either dispensation had been invited. In the heavenly scene now presented to view, the throne was that of Divine royalty and judgment: its jasper colour, as of water, signifying God's earlier judgment by the water of the deluge; its fiery sardine colour that to come by fire; and the sea before the throne the gift of baptism, and offer of salvation through it, previous to judgment. The

:

So Professor M. Stuart's Comment. i. 454.

Like Paul, he adds; who first taught that seven Churches represented the Church Catholic, by addressing epistles to just seven Churches. Victorinus therefore did not include that to the Hebrews among St. Paul's Epistles.

3 Such seems to me his meaning: but it is obscure. Thus early is St. John's representative character on the Apocalyptic scene hinted.

twenty-four elders he explains as the twelve patriarchs and twelve apostles, seated on thrones of judgment; agreeably to the patriarchal privilege," Dan shall judge his people," and the apostolic, “Ye shall sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel;" while the four living creatures typified the four evangelists, and their preaching of the Gospel: the eyes within signifying the insight of that preaching into man's heart; and the six wings of each (twentyfour in all) having reference to the twenty-four books of the Old Testament, because it is only by help of the previous testimonies of those books that the Gospel can fly abroad. The voices and thunderings from the throne meant God's preachings, and threats, and notices of Christ's coming to judgment; the seven torches of fire the Spirit, granted to men in virtue of Christ's crucifixion. As to the seven-sealed book, it was the book of the Old Testament: a book opened by none but Christ; who alone, as the lamb that was slain, could fulfil its types and prophecies: and the saints' new song of thanksgiving had reference to the new salvation and new blessings so imparted to believers. Besides which, its opening signified the foreshowing of things by preachers that were to be in the last times.1

Arrived thus at the opening of the Seals, Victorinus explains the four horses and their riders of the first four seals as indicating the spiritually-triumphant progress of the Gospel, commenced from after Christ's ascension, and the wars, and famines, and pestilences, which Christ himself declared would precede his coming; also the souls under the altar, as the continuous persecutions and martyrdoms of Christ's saints: the region under the brazen altar of vision figuring the place where the separate spirits rest, as the place of the golden altar typified heaven. Further, the earthquake of the sixth seal he So I suppose we are to understand him. "Resignatio sigillorum, ut diximus, apertio est Veteris Testamenti, et prædicatorum prænunciatio in novissimo tempore futurorum:" it being added; "quæ licet Scriptura prophetica per singula dicit, omnibus [tamen] simul apertis sigillis, ordinem tamen suum habet prædicatio. Nam aperto primo sigillo dicit se vidisse equum album et equitem coronatum, habentem arcum; hoc enim primo factum est. Postquam enim ascendit in cœlos Dominus, et aperuit universa, misit Spiritum suum; cujus verba prædicationis tanquam sagittæ, ad corda hominum pergentes, ut vincerent incredulitatem." Thus, though he refers at first to the last times, yet the vision is explained by Victorinus as having the beginning of its fulfilment from the time of Christ's ascension.

2 Hurt not the wine and oil he explains, "Spiritualem hominem ne læseris."

makes the last persecution: that wherein the doctrine obscured would answer to the eclipsed sun in the vision; the bleeding saints to the moon as blood; the separation of professors by force of persecution to the falling stars; and the removal of the Church from public sight to the rolling away of the figured firmament.-In the sealing vision, Apoc. vii, next following, the four angels of the winds (the same as the four winds of Apoc. ix. 14, beyond the Euphrates 2) signified four nations, (nations being ruled over by angels,) who were not to transgress their limits till they should come in the last æra with the Antichrist. The Angel from the East meant Elias; who would anticipate the times of Antichrist, turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, i. e. of the Jews to the Gentile believers, and convert to the faith both many of Israel, and a great multitude of Gentiles: viz. those whose white robes signified their washing in the blood of the Lamb by baptism.3 In Apoc. viii, ix, the half-hour's silence figured the beginning of eternal rest; one halfhour only being mentioned, to signify the subject's then breaking off. For chronological order is not followed in the Apocalypse; but the Holy Spirit, when he has come to the chronological end, returns often, and repeats, by way of supplement.4

Next comes the vision of the incense-offering Angel. Victorinus supposes this incense-offering to depict the prayers of saints; these saints, on Antichrist's reign approaching, praying that they may not enter into temptation: and the Angel being figured, because Angels offer the prayers of the Church, as well as pour out wrath on Antichrist's kingdom; which wrath was signified alike in the seven trumpets and seven vials, the one description supplying what was omitted in the other. As to the particular subjects of these Trumpets and

He does not say the persecution by Antichrist; and one might almost suppose he meant one before his coming; as Elias' coming is next notified, who (according to Victorinus) was to precede Antichrist.

2 So Victorinus; agreeably with the Gloss in Griesbach, which on Apoc. ix. 14 reads τεσσερας ανέμους, for τεσσερας αγγέλους.

3 The white robes given in the fifth seal he explains as the gift of the Holy Spirit. He here, and elsewhere, strongly insists on the retrogressive character of the visions. "Licet repetat per phialas; non quasi bis factum dicit; sed, quoniam semel futurum est quod est decretum à Deo, ideo bis dicitur. Quidquid igitur in tubis minus dixit hinc in phialis est. Nec aspiciendus esto ordo dictorum ; quoniam sæpe Spiritus sanctus, ubi ad novissimi temporis finem percurrerit, rursus ad eadem tempora redit, et supplet ea quæ minus dixit."

Vials, he does not unfold it in detail. He only generally says of them, that they depict "either the slaughters of plagues sent on the world, or the madness of Antichrist, or a diminishing of the peoples, or a delaying of the plagues,' or the hope in the saints' kingdom, or the ruin of states, or the destruction of the great city, Babylon-i. e. Rome." And just expounding, as he passes, the warning cry of the eagle flying in mid-heaven after the fourth trumpet-woe, to mean the Holy Spirit's warning voice by the mouth of the two prophets, against the wrath to come in the impending plagues, he so proceeds to the Angel vision of Apoc. x.

The first part of which vision he expounds as a parenthesis, of St. John personally. The Angel is explained to be Christ; the open book in his hand the Apocalypse revealed to John; his lion-like voice, that declaring that now only is the time of repentance and hope; the seven thunders the mysteries of the future spoken by the septiform Spirit; which voices John was not to write, because an apostle of higher functions than that of interpreting Scripture mysteries; an office this latter belonging rather to later Church subordinates.2 Further, the charge to eat the book, and preach again to peoples and tongues, Victorinus explains of St. John's returning personally on Domitian's death to Ephesus, and publishing the Apocalypse; 3 also his taking the measuring reed with which to measure the Apocalyptic temple and altar, of St. John's further publishing his Gospel; 4 whereby, and by the creed laid down in it," the orthodox and faithful were 1 66 Differentia plagarum." I suppose this is his meaning.

2 "Apostoli virtutibus, signis, portentis, magnalibus factis, vixerunt incredulitatem: post illos ecclesiis datum est solatium propheticarum scripturarum interpretendarum." 3 I have quoted this, Vol. i. p. 38.

* Victorinus' testimony on this point of the publication of St. John's Gospel subsequent to his return from Patmos, and apparently too after the Apocalypse, should be noted. "Nam et evangelium postea scripsit:" his writing it being, it is said, at the request of the assembled Christians of the whole neighbourhood of Ephesus, in consequence of the Gnostic heresies referred to.

5 This is a curious early specimen of something like a creed; and one, not, I think, as yet noted by those who have written on creeds." Mensura autem Filii Dei, mandatum Domini, (1.) Patrem confiteri omnipotentem. (2.) Dicimus et hujus filium Christum, ante originem seculi spiritualem apud Patrem genitum, hominem factum; et morte devictâ in cœlos cùm corpore à Patre receptum, effudisse Spiritum sanctum, donum et pignus immortalitatis :-hunc per Prophetas prædicatum, hunc per legem conscriptum, hunc esse mandatum Dei, et Verbum Patris, et conditorem orbis.-Hæc est arundo et mensura fidei. Et nemo adorat [ad] aram sanctam, nisi qui hanc fidem confitetur."-p. 418.

marked out and defined as true Church-worshippers; and heretics, such as Valentinus, Ebion, and Cerinthus, excluded.

On the two Witnesses he supposes (like Hippolytus) a passing, in the resumed figurations of the future, into the last hebdomad of the last times during the former three and a half years of which, Christ's two witnesses, Elijah and Jeremiah, would prophesy :-these witnesses to be killed in Jerusalem by the Beast from the abyss, Antichrist, at the commencement of his three and a half years reign succeeding, after many plagues first inflicted on the world, answering to the fire out of their mouths in the symbol: but to rise again on the fourth day after; the fourth, not the third, so as not to equal Christ.

So he comes to the vision of the Dragon and Woman, Apoc. xii ; or rather to the concluding verse of Apoc. xi, about the temple appearing opened, and the ark appearing, which he connects with it : to the chronological retrogression in which, from the last times previously depicted, he calls especial notice.2 For he construes the woman to signify the ancient Jewish Church, the Church of the twelve

For, says Victorinus, Jeremiah had the original commission, "Before that I formed thee in the womb I knew thee; and sanctified thee to be a prophet among the nations." Now, argues Victorinus, during his recorded life Jeremiah was not a prophet among the nations; and also that there is no record of Jeremiah's death. He adds that his opinion is that of "all the ancients." A mistake, doubtless; as Enoch and Elijah were generally supposed the two prophets.

The Apocalyptic Expositor Ambrose Ansbert, at B. P. M. xiii. 522, notices this opinion and reasoning as that of the Martyr Victorinus; a fact furnishing conclusive evidence of the Treatise under consideration being indeed that of Victorinus, inasmuch as the opinion appears to have been a singular one. As the point has not, I believe, been observed on before, and the question is so interesting a one, I subjoin the passage. "Victorinus hoc in loco duos testes Eliam vult intelligi et Jeremiam. Dicit enim præfatus vir, et (ut debitam ei venerationem exhibeamus) martyr Dei, quia mors Jeremiæ in Scripturâ sacrâ non reperiatur, et quia Prophetam cùm Dominus in gentibus posuerit, ille autem nondum ad gentes missus fuerit, idcirco ipsum cùm Elia venturum credi debere, ut ecclesiam gentium contrà Antichristi perfidiam roboraret." "Diligenter et cùm summâ solicitudine sequi oportet propheticam prædicationem; et intelligere quoniam Spiritus ex parte prædicit, et præposterat, et cùm præcurrerit usque ad novissimum rursus tempora superiora repetit."-So in the passage quoted p. 315.-I call attention to this, because Professor M. Stuart not only says (Vol. i. p. 455) of Victorinus, that "no plan of the whole work is sought after," but that Ambrose Ansbert " seems first to have noted that the Apocalypse is occasionally retrogressive." (Ib. p. 458.)- Victorinus notes three retrogressions prominently: the first, after the sounding of the seventh Trumpet and half hour's silence in heaven; the second, on the transition at the end of Apoc. xi. to the visions of the Dragon and Beast: the third, with reference to the Vial-outpourings, which he identifies with the Trumpets.

2