passing æra that particular place in the Apocalyptic prefigurative drama. The palm-bearers of the latter vision, that had to come out of the great tribulation, he identifies as that same second set of martyrs that had been predicted to the souls under the altar ;-those that were to make up the martyr-complement by suffering under Antichrist, and so suffering to become triumphant, and attain Paradise. And hence chiefly he formed to himself an Apocalyptic plan, and" ordo temporum" in the prophecy :-how that before the judgment and vindication promised to the souls under the altar, the harlotcity Rome was to be destroyed by the ten kings, after the vial-plagues had first been poured out on its empire: then the Beast Antichrist to rise, make war conjunctively with his False Prophet on the Church, and add an innumerable multitude of sufferers, during the tribulation of his tyranny, to the martyrs previously slain under Pagan Rome, Christ's two Witnesses, Enoch and Elijah, specially inclusive: then, Antichrist having been thereupon destroyed from heaven, and the Devil shut up in the abyss, the privilege of the first resurrection, and millennial reign with Christ, to be allotted to its chosen participants; and afterwards the conflagration to follow, and the general resurrection and judgment.-Altogether the view is an eminently commonsense view of the prophecy; as a prefigurative drama, in orderly succession, of the chief æras and events in the history of the church and of the world, from Christ's first coming, or near it, to his second: indeed, excepting his apparent restriction of Rome's fated burning (if such it be ') to that by the ten kings, and dating of that event previously (if I rightly understand Tertullian) to Antichrist's rise and manifestation, there is little in it on which we might not even now join hands in concord with the venerable and sagacious expositor.

Fourthly comes into review on this head Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto, a Roman port of doubtful locality: 2 one that was an immediate successor of Irenæus and Tertullian; indeed it is said Irenæus' disciple: 3 1 Elsewhere indeed he dwells on the eternal fires in which the persecuting Roman Emperors and Magistrates would suffer. See my Vol. i. p. 200, Note '.

2 Some say that it was the Portus Romanus, or Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber; some Aden, the ancient Portus Romanus near the entrance of the Red Sea. See Lardner, ii. 421.

So Photius, apparently on the authority of Hippolytus himself. Manns Eipnναις ὁ Ἱππολυτος. . . Ταύτας δε φησιν ελεγχοις ὑποβληθηναι ὁμιλοῦντος Ειρηναιον. Quoted by Lardner, p. 424.

and who suffered martyrdom, probably about A.D. 240 or 250, under the Emperor Maximin or Decius.1 Jerome reports that he wrote a Treatise specifically on the Apocalypse, as well as one on Antichrist.2 If so, the former has perished. But there is still extant a short Treatise purporting to be that by him on Antichrist, and with every mark of genuineness. This includes in it sundry Apocalyptic notices of much interest; and I therefore give the following brief abstract.

3

After observing on God's will that the mysteries of the future, foreshown by the ancient Prophets or seers, should be concealed from none of his servants, he opens his subject by laying down strongly respecting the coming Antichrist, even as if his grand characteristic, (a view derived evidently in part at least from the Apocalypse,4) that he would in every thing affect resemblance to Christ. "The seducer will seek to appear in all things like the Son of God. As Christ a Lion, so he a lion; as Christ a King, so he a king; as Christ a Saviour, so he a saviour; as Christ a Lamb, so he as a lamb, though inwardly a wolf: as Christ sent out apostles to all nations, so will he similarly send out false apostles: it being added that there would be also a similar connexion with the Jewish people. Then, after extracts from other Scriptures, and especially from Daniel's two great symbolic prophecies of the quadripartite Image and the four wild Beasts, which he explains, just like the other fathers, of the Babylonish, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman empires, and the little horn of the fourth Beast as Antichrist, he thus turns to the Apocalypse for information as to the fated end of both Antichrist himself,

1 Lardner, p. 428.

2 Ib. 422.

a I may specify particularly the clause following; which shows the Treatise to have been written in the times of Pagan persecution, and so before Constantine's establishment of Christianity. "Nos qui in Filium Dei speramus, ab infidelibus à quibus conculcamur persecutionem patimur." I quote from Combefis' Latin translation given in the B. P. M. xxvii. 7. Moreover every such notice of monasticism, and of the Virgo Deipara, as are found in the spurious Treatise De Consummatione Mundi ac de Antichristo, bearing Hippolytus' name, and with much of his real Treatise incorporated, are here wanting: notices which tell of the latter half of the 4th century, or a period yet later.

Antichrist's affected likeness to a lamb, which is one of the points here specified, is in a later part of the Treatise expressly inferred by Hippolytus from the Apocalyptic figuration of Antichrist and False Prophet as a two-horned lamb-like Beast: Quòd autem ejus cornua Agni similia dicit, hoc significat fore ut ille se similem Dei Filio præferat."-p. 6.

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5 P. 2. I have already referred to this, Vol. ii. p. 85, Note 5.

and his city Rome. "Tell me, blessed John, thou apostle and disciple of the Lord, what thou hast heard and seen respecting Babylon : -wake up, and speak; for it was she that exiled thee to Patmos." 1 And then he gives large extracts from Apoc. xvii and xviii. containing the Angel's explanation of the beast-riding Harlot, and the consequent vision of her destruction: and, adding and interweaving other explanatory notices both from the Apocalypse and Daniel, he expounds the whole subject to the effect following:-that the last of Daniel's seventy weeks,2 (for he insulates this last from the rest, and says nothing of the others,) that in which the Lord would confirm the covenant with many, and in the half of which would occur the taking away of the daily sacrifice and oblation, would fall at the end of the world :—that in the former half of it, or first three and a half years, Enoch and Elias would preach as Christ's two sackclothrobed witnesses, the precursors of Christ's second advent, as John the Baptist was of the first;3 and its latter half, or next three and a half years, include the rise and reign of Antichrist, his slaying of the Witnesses marking its commencement;-that of the two Apocalyptic Beasts the former, or seven-headed ten-horned Beast,4 meant the Roman empire, wounded to death by a sword; the other, or twohorned lamb-like Beast, Antichrist, inclusive of his False Prophet; who would revive as it were the image or ghost, of the old empire, (such is his singular and ingenious interpretation of the giving life to the image of the Beast, and making it speak,) just as Augustus once did by his new laws and constitution; 5 and would on this account, probably have Aarewos, the Latin Man, as his designative title, a name 2 Ib. p. 5.

1

1 P. 5.

3 His precursor, says Hippolytus, in Hades, (Lat. in inferno,) as well as on earth. p. 6.

✦ With regard to this first, or seven-headed ten-horned Beast, it appears from Andreas, B. P. M. v. 621, that Hippolytus explained its seven heads of the seven ages or millennaries of the world; five of which had past (according to the Septuagint chronology) when St. John received the revelation in Patmos, the sixth was then current, and the seventh when it came must continue, he thought, but a little space. How so, he does not explain.-I presume this is taken by Andreas from his Treatise on the Apocalypse; as it is not to be found either in the true or the spurious Treatise of Hippolytus on Antichrist.

5

Bestiam ascendentem de terrâ futurum vocat Antichristi regnum. Duo autem cornua ipsum ac qui illi comes pseudoprophetam. Quòd autem potestatem prioris bestiæ faciebat, facitque ut terra et qui in eâ habitant adorent primam bestiam cujus plaga mortis curata est, hoc significat ex Augusti legum rationibus, per quem Roma

containing the fated number 666: '—that meanwhile the Church, figured in Apoc. xii as a travailing woman, because by her preaching daily bringing forth Christ (or Christ's members) in the word,2 would, while the Antichrist established his abomination in the holy place of Jerusalem, flee to the mountains, pursued from city to city by him, and sustained only by faith in Christ crucified; his arms, extended on the cross, being like the sustaining wings of the great eagle in the Apocalyptic vision:-and that then, and thereupon, should take place Christ's coming: Antichrist be destroyed by its brightness; the first resurrection of the saints follow; the just, welcomed by Christ, take the kingdom prepared for them (Matt. xxv) from the world's beginning, and, as Daniel says, shine forth in it as the sun and the stars; the judgment of the conflagration being meanwhile executed on unbelievers; and so Isaiah's word fulfilled, “They shall go forth and look on the carcases of the men that have sinned against me: for their worm dieth not, nor is their fire quenched; and they shall be for a spectacle to all flesh." 3

So we come to Victorinus; the author, as before observed, of the earliest profest and continuous Apocalyptic Commentary now extant; and who died by martyrdom under the persecution of Diocletian. His Commentary is noted by Jerome, who speaks of it as one of millennarian views. And hence has arisen a doubt as to the

num conditum Imperium est, ipsum quoque imperaturum esse, legesque sanciturum. Hæc enim quarta Bestia est, cujus capiti illatum vulnus et rursus curatum est. Quôd scilicet prope conciderit imperium; tunc vero Antichristus, sagacis homo ingenii ac versutus, velut ipsum curaturus ac renovaturus est. Hoc enim est quod dictum est, daturum eum spiritum flatumque imagini, ac locuturam esse bestiæ imaginem. Vigebit enim et invalescet rursus ob sancitas ab eo leges." So p. 6; and again, a little after; "Bestiæ plagam curatam esse, ac loqui imaginem fecisse, est robur illi viresque tribuisse."

A passage quoted by me Vol. iii. p. 210, in my Chapter on the Name and Number of the Beast.

2 "Et habens in utero clamat parturiens, et cruciabatur ut pareret, quià non cessat ecclesia ex corde verbum gignere, quod in mundo ab infidelibus persecutionem patitur." Again; "Christum Dei masculam ac perfectam prolem semper parit, docet (qu. docens?) omnes gentes."-p. 8. (So too Methodius, in his Symposium, a little later: "Mulier sole induta est ecclesia," &c.) And on the caught up to God; "Cœlestem regnum non terrenum esse significat, qui ex illâ semper nascitur." The meaning is rather obscure. 3 Ad fin. p. 8.

"Et Papias et Nepos de mille annorum regno ita ut Victorinus senserunt."-De Vir. Ill.

genuineness of the Treatise still extant, that goes under the name of Victorinus' Treatise on the Apocalypse; containing as it does, at its conclusion, a distinct anti-millennarian declaration.' But the objection vanishes on examination; for various indubitable millennarian intimations occur in the body of the Commentary: 2 and the anti-millennarian passage is an evident interpolation by another hand, perhaps Jerome's own; as well as one or two shorter passages elsewhere.1 Moreover in Ambrose Ansbert I have observed a reference to the true Victorinus' statement on a rather singular point; which precise statement we find in the extant Commentary.5 In the edition given in the Bibliotheca Patrum Maxima, now before me, there is the farther disadvantage of transposition of various parts of the Comment from their right places. But the Apocalypse itself makes the rectification of this easy, as Victorinus' is evidently an orderly Comment on it. I have only further to premise, that the work is very short, occupying but seven folio pages, or fourteen columns in the Bibliotheca, Vol. iii. pp. 414-421. Of these fourteen columns, three and a half are devoted to the Apocalyptic introductory Vision and Epistles to the Seven Churches, three more to the Apocalyptic scenery, four to the Seals, Trumpets, and Witnesses, two to the Vision of the Dragon and

"Audiendi non sunt qui mille annorum regnum terrenum esse confirmant."—Ad fin. B. P. M. iii. 421.

2 1. On the Epistle to the Church of Thyatira, "I will give him the morning star,” the explanation is given, "Primam resurrectionem scilicet promisit:" and again, on "I will give him power over nations," 'id est, judicem illum constituet inter cæteros sanctos."-p. 416.

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2. Speaking of the nations to be destroyed at Christ's coming, (" gentibus perituris in adventu Domini,") signified by various figurations, such as the harvest and the vintage; the writer adds, Sed semel in adventu Domini, et consummationis, et regni Christi, et apertione regni sanctorum futurum est."-p. 420.

3. "In Judæâ ubi omnes sancti conventuri sunt, et Dominum suum adoraturi." p. 415.

3 For Jerome, in returning the copy of Victorinus sent him, says that he had not only corrected the transcriber's errors, but himself made additions: "A principio libri ad signum crucis quæ ab imperitis erant vitiata scriptoribus conneximus; exinde usque ad finem voluminis additum esse cognosce." The anti-millennarian addition, of which I gave in Note the concluding sentence, occupies near a column at the end of the Treatise as now printed.

Especially at p. 417; where, Victorinus having mentioned twenty-four Books of the Old Testament, the gloss occurs; "Sunt autem libri veteris Testamenti qui accipiuntur viginti quatuor, quos in Epitomis Theodori invenies:" in which the reference is to Theodors, a writer of the sixth century.

5 See the Note at p. 319 infrà.