The Holy Scripture - english version B.indd - Sabbat

324Pre-Reformation Interpreters.Scriptures some exhortations for preparing and strengthening the minds ofthe brethren, whereby I might animate the soldiers of Christ for the heavenlyand spiritual contest.“ (Treatise xi.)7. The Fathers held that the „man of sin,“ or antichrist, would be aruler of head of the Roman empire. A striking illustration of this isthe interpretation by Irenaeus and Hippolytus of the mysterious number 666,the number of the revived head of the beast, or antichrist. Irenaeus gives as itsinterpretation the word Latinos. He says: „Latinos is the number 666, and itis a very probable (solution), this being the name of the last kingdom, for theLATINS are they who at present bear rule.“ (IRENÆUS: „Against Heresies,“ book v.,chap. xxx.)Hippolytus gives the same solution in his treatise on „Christ and Antichrist.“8. The Fathers held that the Babylon of the Apocalypse means Rome. Onthis point they were all agreed, and their unanimity is an important seal on thecorrectness of this interpretation. Tertullian, for example, in his answer to theJews, says: „Babylon, in our own John, is a figure of the city Rome,as being equally great and proud of her sway, and trriumphant over the saints“(chap. ix.). Victorinus, who wrote the earliest commentary on the Apocalypseextant, says, on Revelation xvii.: „The seven heAds are the sevenhills on which the woman sits - that is, the city of Rome.“Hippolytus says: „Tell me, blessed John, apostle and disciple of the Lord, whatdid you see and hear concerning Babylon? Arise and speak, to it sent you alsointo banishment.“ (Treatise „On Christ and Antichrist,“ §36.) You notice hear the viewthat Rome which banished the Apostle John is the Babylon of the Apocalypse.Augustine says, „Rome, the second Babylon, and the daughter ofthe first, to which is pleased God to subject the whole world, and bring it allunder one sovereignty, was now founded.“ („City of God,“ book xviii., chap. xxii.)In chap. xxviii. he calls Rome „the western Babylon.“ In chap. xli. he says:„It has not been in vain this city has received the mysteriousname of Babylon; for Babylon is interpreted confusion, as we have saidelsewhere.“It is clear from these quotation that the Fathers did not interpret the Babylonof the Apocalypse as meaning either the literal Babylon on the Euphrates, or somegreat city in France or England, but as meaning Rome. And this is still theinterpretation of the historic school, though for the last 800 years events haveproved Babylon to represent Rome, not in its pagan, but in its Papal foRm.It should be noted that none of the Fathers held the futurist gap theory, thetheory that the book of Revelation overleaps nearly eighteen centuries of Christianhistory, plunging at once into the distant future, and devoting itself entirely topredicting the events of the last few years of this dispensation. As to the subjectof antichrist, there was a universal agreement among them concerning the generalidea of the prophecy, while there were differences as to details, these differencesarising chiefly from the notion that the antichrist would be in some way Jewishas well as Roman. It is true they thought that the antichrist would be anindividual man. Their early position sufficiently accounts for this. Theyhad no conception and could have no conception of the truth nature and length