THE FIFTH OR FIRST WOE TRUMPET

And the fifth angel sounded: and I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit: and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace: and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth. And unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree but only those men which have not the seal of God on their foreheads. And unto them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion when he striketh a man.

And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. And the likeness I of the locusts were like unto horses prepared for war : and on their heads were, as it were, crowns like gold And their faces were as the faces of men: and they had hair as the hair of women; and their teeth were as & teeth of lions. And they had breast-plates, as it were breast-plates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they have tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

And they have a king over them, the angel of the bottomless pit: whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon; and in the Greek tongue he hath his name Apollyon." Rev. 9:1-11.

The interval of forewarning depicted in the last vision had passed a and the trumpet sounding again in the apocalyptic temple gave sign a apostle judgment as afresh in action, and of the first of the three threatened woes as about to begin. We do not find any particular division of the Roman earth and its inhabitants marked out expressly in this vision, either for infliction or exemption. But, from the comparison of a statement made in it with an apparently contrasted statement in the vision following the former verse in verse 5 of the chapter before us, the latter in verse 15 ¹ it might have been probably inferred, perhaps, that the same third that was to be destroyed under the sixth Trumpet, i. e. the Eastern third, was under this to be a principal sufferer. Hitherto this division had nearly escaped. Under the first and third trumpet, though the European provinces of the Greek empire had suffered, yet neither by Alaric nor Attila had Constantinople been violated,² or the war carried across the Hellespont. Again, though all open and exposed by sea to Genseric, when master of the Mediterranean under the second Trumpet, yet the Eastern coasts had scarcely been visited by him.

The fury of the Vandals was confined to the limits of the Western empire." The same exemption continued afterwards. The extinction of the imperial sun in Italy and the West, was an event by which the tranquility of Constantinople and the East was little affected. Through the 50 years that succeeded, including the reigns of Zeno Anastasius, and Justin, the silence of its annals evinces the general freedom of the Greek empire from external war and suffering. Under Justinian it even put on the aggressive; and, both in Africa and in Italy, was crowned with success specious and surprising.

It is true that the desolating irruptions made into the Illyrian provinces by the Bulgarians about the middle of the sixth century, and by the Avers at its close, were ominous of the reverses that might be. But into the Asiatic third proper, comprehending Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, they reached not. The Hellesport was still to that division its guarantee Northward; and, towards the East and the Euphrates, the 100 years peace with Persia, which had been concluded in 444 A.D. by the second Theodosius, and renewed after a year or two of war,³ A. D. 551, by Justinian.

But now at length its hour was come to be judged. For of its time of reprieve it had made no profit. Throughout the two centuries reviewed in the last chapter, its religion had been sinking deeper and deeper into superstition. In the history of its theological controversies and synods, ⁴ which constitute perhaps the most characteristic feature in the Greek ecclesiastical annals of the period thus retrospectively glanced at, we seek in vain for the Christian spirit. Rather, even when most zealous and agitated for the letter of orthodoxy, the spirit of the apostasy may be discerned as that which most deeply moved the peoples.⁵ And therefore judgment must visit them. The first bitterness of the first woe must fall on the Eastern third of the Roman world.

But what the scourge, and whence? Was it from the Avars, now established, as we have seen, on the lower Danube ? Or, from the Persians, ready at any time apparently to break in from the Euphrates upon the Eastern provinces? There were, in fact, irruptions as the new century opened, by the Avers. And there was a succession of invasions, from 611 to 621 A.D. ⁶ very desolating and terrible, by the Persians under Chosroes. But the former were transient; and confined, as before, to the European limits. And on Chosroes the tide of war and victory was, after that ten years, fearfully rolled back by Heraclius: indeed, ere a very few more suns had accomplished their annual revolution, the Persian empire was swept away from the earth.⁷ But this was by another instrumentality; the same that was destined, as here foreshewn, to scourge the Greek empire also. And what and whence then, I repeat that avenging scourge? The annals of the seventh century declare it to us in characters so glaring and terrific that he who runs may read them. And, if I mistake not, it was indicated to the Evangelist also, in a manner scarcely less intelligible, by means of the symbols, the focally characteristic symbols, of the prefigurative vision. But this is a species of evidence, and involves a principle of interpretation, which it may be well to set forth in a distinct preliminary Section.

1 Verse 5 And to them (the locusts) it was given that they should not kilt them, but that they should be tormented five months." Verse 13: 'The four angels were loosed, which were prepared.. to kill the third part of men."

2 It will be remembered that Constantinople and the Thracian district adjoining were parts of the Eastern third. See pp. 337, 339 supra

3 A war of longer continuance branched off into Colchis and Armenia; but with this the Greek provinces in Asia had no concern.

4 The chief Councils in this period were that of Ephesus, A.D. 431, against Nestorius, in which it was concluded that there attached to Jesus Christ but one person; and that of Chalcedon, A.D. 451, against Eutyches, in which it was concluded that there attached to Christ two natures. These were the third and fourth General Council. So the Athanasian Creed. "The right faith is that our Lord Jesus Christ is God and man; perfect God and perfect man:.. equal to the Father of touching His Godhead:..who, although he be God and man. yet he is not two, but one Christ: one altogether; not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person." Hence the proof of the Creed being one of at least a century later than Athanasius: is I have stated in the foot-note on p. 257 supra.

5 It was Nestorius' assertion that the Virgin Mary ought not to he entitled, Mother of God. but rather, Mother of Christ. which first inflamed the passions of the priests and populace at Constantinople and throughout Egypt and Asia Minor --i.e. zeal for the Virgin who was already the object of their worship, not for Christ. Of the feeling at Ephesus, where the Council was held, Dean Waddington says: " Popular tradition had buried her in that city; [sc. Ephesus;] and the imperfect Christianity of its inhabitants had readily transferred to her the worship which their ancestors offered to Diana." Eccl. Hist. i. 349.

6 In the four or five years preceding, which included the reign of Phocas, the Persians had been engaged chiefly in reducing the Roman fortresses on the other side he Euphrates; and so, thus far, had not carried their invasions within the more )toper limits of the empire.

7 It was about the year 616 A.D. that Chosroes, like a second Sennacherib. when Heraclius earnestly supplicated for peace, returned the blasphemous answer: "I will never give peace to the Roman emperor, till he has abjured his crucified God, and embraced the worship of the sun." Gibbon viii. 230., It was in 621 that the idea of success was for ever turned against him: and in 636, after he had himself miserably perished, that the Persian monarchy was annihilated by the Saracens.