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A review of Joseph Mede
From Horae Apocalypticae Vol IV
Fifth Edition
History of Apocalyptic Interpretation
AD 1610 to French Revolution
Pages 487-495
by EB Elloit
Read Rev. Elloit's Commentary's
It was in 1627 that Mede first published his Clavis Apocalyptica, in 1632 his Commentary; the former laying down from internal evidence (independent of any particular historic system of explanation) the synchronisms and mutual relationships of the several parts of the prophecy; the latter his historical explanation, conformably with those synchronisms. The reputation of these works, especially in England, is well known. He was looked on, and written of, as a man almost inspired for the solution of the Apocalyptic mysteries. And certainly of his general discernment and theological learning, as well as of that which he brought to bear on prophecy, there might well be entertained a high opinion. Yet, if it be permitted to express freely my judgment on so great a man, I must say that I think his success was at first over-estimated as an Apocalyptic Expositor. For if on various points he much advanced the science, especially as regards his principle of inferring the structure of the prophecy from its own internal evidence, prior to any historical application, and thence laying down of its synchronisms and the mutual relationship of its several parts, (the place of the millennium of Satans binding inclusive,) and last (scarce least) his appending of a Tabular Scheme of the Prophecy, according to his view of arrangement and connection of its parts, - an appendage attached by him to his Commentary first I believe of Apocalyptic Expositors, and without which, in my opinion, no Apocalyptic Commentary can be complete, - while, I say, on these points, and certain historical illustrations also of the prophecy, he advanced the science of Apocalyptic interpretation, on others I conceive him to have caused it very materially to retrograde. So, above all, in regard of his idea, prominently marked in the Tabular Scheme, of the Apocalypse having been divided into two separate Parts, written respectively in two separate Books; viz. 1st, the seven-sealed Book given into the hand of the Lamb to open, (Apoc. v. 7, And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne); 2ndly, the Little Book given opened into the hand of St. John by the Covenant Angel, (Apoc. x. 9-11, And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. 10: And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter. 11: And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.), each having a general parallelism of chronology with the other, and each its own proper synchronisms.*>On this more as I proceed.
*It may be well to append a list of these his Apocalyptic synchronisms; a notice being added where Mede seems to me to have been in error: -
1. The 3 1/2 times, 42 months, or 1260 days, of the womens being in the wilderness, the ten-horned resuscitated Beasts reigning, the outer court of the temple being trod by Gentiles, and Christs two witnesses witnessing in sackcloth.
2.The coincident duration of the ten-horned Beast and the two-horned of Apoc. xiii. (Qu. in Medes sense ?)
3.Ditto of the ten-horned Beast and mystic Babylon.
4.Ditto of the 144,000 of Apoc. vii and xiv. with the above.
5.Of the time of the inner temple-courts measuring, Apoc. xi., and of the Dragons War with the travailing woman, Apoc. xii. (Qu. ?)
6.Of the Seven Vials, and Babylons and the Beasts verging to destruction.
7.Of the 7th Seal, and 7 Trumpets evolving it, with the ten-horned and two horned Beasts of Apoc. xiii. (Qu. ?) Mede dates the rise of the ten-horned Beast too early, I conceive, viz. from the time of Alarics capture of Rome, figured in Trumpet 1.
8.Of the measuring of the inner temple Court, (as also, according to synchronism 5, of the Dragons war with the travailing Woman,) with the six first Seals. In order to this the Dragons war with Michael and the woman must be regarded as extending to the whole two centuries of the war of Christianity and Heathenism in the Roman empire, between St. Johns time and Constantine: not as that of the last crisis of the war.
9.Of the seven vials with Trumpet 6. - A manifest error, I conceive; and in marked inconsistency with Medes own view of the 7th Seal as unfolded in the 7 Trumpets; a view which suggests the similar evolution of the 7th Trumpet in the 7 Vials.
10.Of the millennium of Satans binding, Christs reign, and also the New Jerusalem, and Palmbearers ovation, with the 7th Trumpet, after the Beasts destruction: (Rather with the concluding �ra of the 7th Trumpet.)
11.The speedy sequence of the things figured in the first Seal on, or after, the time of the revelation of the visions to St. John in Patmos. I will show thee the things which must shortly come to pass.
The Tabular Scheme of his views copied from his own Book on my next page, (itself, as I said, the first of its kind, and so of the more especial value,) combined and compared with the observations on them scattered through the Hor�, will do away with the necessity of entering into them so much in detail as might otherwise have been desirable. In general he considered the 6 first Seals to be a figuration of the successive fortunes of heathen Rome, after St. John down to the overthrow of heathenism in it by Constantine; then the Trumpets to be the unfolding of the 7th Seal, and figuring of the subsequent history of the Roman world and Christian Church to the consummation: a most important, and I doubt not true, view of the structure of that part of the prophecy. More particularly the 1st Seal is supposed by him to depict the early gospel victories; the 2nd, the wars of Trajan and Hadrian; the 3rd, the severe justice, and procurations of corn, notable in the reigns of the two Severi; the 4th, the famine pestilence and murderous wars of the �ra of Gallienus; the 5th, Diocletians persecution; the 6th, the overthrow of Paganism and its empire by Constantine. - Again of the Trumpets, the 1st is explained of Alaric; the 2nd of the Gothic and Vandal desolations of the Empire, that followed, down to Genseric; the 3rd of the extinction of the Hesperus, or Western Empire, by Odoacer; the 4th, of the ravages of Totilas, whereby imperial Rome received its last desolations; the 5th, of the Saracens; the 6th, of the Turks. In most of which particulars I conceive Mede to have made advances to the true interpretation: adjusting the 5th and 6th Seals, as he did, to the times respectively of Diocletian and Constantine, not of Claudius and Diocletian like Brightman; while following Brightman mainly in the exposition (the heathen Rome-referring exposition ) of the four Seals previous:1 also in the four earlier Trumpets, instead of Brightmans contention, ambition, heresy, and war, his applying the emblems to prefigure the successive epochs in the Goths desolations and overthrow of the Western Empire. In the evolution, however, of the particular details he seems to me unsuccessful: the one third of the four first Trumpets having no definite explanation; and the land, sea, and rivers being expounded loosely and figuratively, so as I have stated in my Vol. i. pp. 354, 355. The two prophetic periods in the fifth and sixth Trumpets are explained by him, as are all the other prophetic periods, consistently on the year-day principle: the locusts 150 days of the ravages of the Saracens on the Italian coast from A.D. 830-980: (a solution certainly anything but happy; forasmuch as all the main strength of the Saracens had in 830 past away:2) the Euphratean horsemens hour day month and year, more happily, of the 396 years interval, from the Turkmans investiture with the sword by the Caliph at Bagdad, A.D. 1057, to the destruction of Constantinople, A.D. 1453.3In his reference of the smoke and sulphur of the sixth Trumpet to the Turkish cannon, he well, in my judgment, follows Brightman: explaining the figures definitely, and according to the analogy of Scripture prophecies, from visible appearances: and he adds too, as confirmative of the meaning of the emblem in the fifth Trumpet, a notice from Pliny of the flowing hair of the Saracens, on the same interpretative principle;4 a principle often greatly helpful towards the discovery and confirmation of the truth.
But now comes what seems to me, as before observed, to have been a most unfortunate step of retrogradation in Medes Commentary;5viz. his explanation of the little book in Apoc. x., not as the gospel book opened to the world, in the times, when somewhat advanced, of the Euphratean or Turkish Woe, so as, according to the earlier reforming Fathers, at the Reformation, but as a book of (somewhat as by Brightman before him) new and distinct prophecy from that of the seven-sealed book: the Covenant-Angels descent and lion-like cry, the seven answering thunders, the Angels oath, and the giving John the book to eat, being acts merely introductory to, and the ushering in of, this new prophecy. The former prophecy, says Mede, was of the fates of the Roman Empire; this, by far nobler, of the fates of religion and the Church. Hence, besides a departure from all simplicity of Apocalyptic arrangement,6 the setting aside of that which had been the most striking as well as most true feature in the Protestant Commentaries of the preceding �ra; viz. the application of the vision of the Covenant-Angels descent, with Johns prophesying again, and his measuring of the temple, more or less to the great Protestant Reformation. Reasons Mede gives none; except that the charge, Thou must prophesy again, indicated a new prophecy: that which assuredly the word prophesy need not indicate:7 and which involves too the setting aside of the representative character of St. John; a view so early taken, so long cherished, and so excellently applied by the Reformers on this particular passage, though never indeed fully carried out. Unfounded, however, as was Medes view of this vision, and of the little book, it has been repeated and perpetuated by Apocalyptic Expositors, to the great obscuration of the Apocalypse, even to the present day.8 The fact was, I little doubt, that Mede saw the need of some Book or Chart, separate from that on which the series of Seals and Trumpets were outstretched, on which to have visibly written the evidently chronological parallel term (in his view) of the 1260 years visions; and, seeing nothing else in the prophecy that could by any possibility be turned to his purpose, seized on the Little Book of Apoc. x. for it. How was it that he did not see that the very fact of its being given to St. John opened, not to open, precluded the idea of its being a prophecy to be unfolded in the chapters subsequent; and that to the Lamb alone belonged the honor of unfolding the events of the coming future? - I might add, how was it that he overlooked the simple obvious fact of the Apocalyptic prophecy being said to be written without, as well as within; so offering the exact thing that he wanted. See my own Apocalyptic Chart of the writing within and without prefixt to this Commentary. But, very strangely, the thought of this seems never to have occurred to any one but myself. The prophecy of the little Book thus introduced, Mede begins its development by the very singular interpretations, first of Johns measuring of the inner court and temple, then of his casting out of the outer-court and not measuring it, as indicating two chronologically successive states of the Church of lengths proportional,9 the first the more primitive Church of the first three or four centuries, (answering chronologically to the period of the six first seals,) which was conformed to the rule of Gods word; the second that which succeeded, and was in character gentilized and apostate. With which latter coincide, according to him the 1260 days, or years, of Christs two Witnesses prophesying in sackcloth; the two signifying many, or sufficient at least to keep up a valid testimony.- So Mede comes to the clause, Apoc. xi. 7, When they shall have completed, or, as he renders it, when they shall be about finishing, their testimony, the Beast shall kill them, &c.: a passage which he construes as predicting what was still in his time future; and that which would immediately precede the fall of Papal Rome. For the tenth part of the city, whose fall is mentioned immediately after the Witnesses resurrection and ascension, (ascent to political eminence, says Mede,) is made by him to mean the whole city of modern Rome, as being in size but the tenth part of ancient Rome. A curious notion; and which he illustrates by an ichnographical plate, exhibiting the comparative local extent of the two cities.
In Apoc. xii. the vision of the Woman and Dragon is explained (I doubt not truly explained retrogressively) of Constantines war with, and overthrow of, the Roman Pagan Emperors and Paganism. - In Apoc. xiii. and xvii. the first Beast is the Papal Secular Empire, or Decem-regal Body of Western Christendom,10 under the Pope, as the Beasts last ruling head:11 the five heads of the old Roman Empire, that had fallen in St. Johns time, being Kings, Consuls, Dictators, Decembirs, and military Tribunes, so as they had been interpreted by Fulke, Foxe, and others; the 6th, or head reigning when St. John saw the vision, the Imperial C�sars; (Caesars then Pagan, but destined in time to be changed into Christian C�sars, which last might be reckoned a new head to the Beast, says Mede, or might not;12 ) the seventh the Popes; the Beasts deadly wound having remained unhealed in passing from the sixth to the seventh or last head.13 As to the Beasts destined duration, it was that of 1260 days, or 1260 years, measured from the Gothic desolations of ancient Rome. The second Beast was the Pope patriarchally viewed, and Papal clergy:14 the image of the Beast the first Beast itself, or secular decem-regal Empire; as being (if I rightly understand Mede) but the shadow and revived ghost of the old imperial Roman Empire, or Beast under its sixth head.15 The Beasts name and number is .- In Apoc. xiv. the first flying Angel Mede makes to be Vigilantius and the early iconoclastic Emperors; the second, the Waldenses; the third, Luther. - In Apoc. xvi. the Vials, which he considers to figure the destruction of Antichrist, are, 1st, the wound given to the Popedom by the Waldenses, Wicliffites, and Hussites; 2nd, Luthers secession and protest; 3rd, Queen Elizabeths secession and protest; these three Vials being past, the rest future. Of which last the fourth, on the sun, would be on the German Emperor, as chief luminary in the Papal Imperial system; and, while I write, says Mede, news is brought of a Prince from the north (meaning Gustavus Adolphus) gaining victories over the Emperor, in defense of the afflicted German Protestants: the 5th Vial, that on the seat of the Beast, meaning one on Rome; the 6th, that of the drying up of the Euphratean flood, the exhaustion of the Turkish Empire;16 by the which the way of the Jews from the East would be prepared: the 7th and last, on the air, being one on Satans power, as the Prince of the power of the air.
Finally, as all know, the millennium is construed by Mede, like as by the oldest patristic expositors, Iren�us, Justin Martyr, &c., as a binding of Satan on Christs second coming: - a mighty step of change this from the long long-continued explanation of the symbol as meant of his 1000 years binding from Christs time, or Constantines:17 the first resurrection being the literal resurrection of the saints, fulfilled also on Christs coming and Antichrists destruction before it. As to the New Jerusalem, Mede regards it as of millennial chronology; at least in its commencement.18
1 On the third Seal, I should observe, Mede, though explaining it to refer to the times of Severus, yet makes it signify, not as Brightman, a scarcity then occurring, but the justice and procurations of corn by the Emperor.
2 So I have shown in my Chapter on the subject.
3 See my Vol. i. p. 528, Note 2.
4 A principle which I have expanded, and copiously illustrated, in justification of my application of the fifth Trumpet to the Saracens.
5 By the old expositors Victorinus and Andreas, &c., the symbol was explained to indicate St. Johns personal prophesying again, after his temporary exile in Patmos, by the publications of his Gospel and Book of Revelation on returning to Ephesus.
See pp. 143, 144, 166 supr�. This was quite a different thing.
6 E.g. mark how the 6th Trumpet, which belongs to the seven-sealed book, and occupies from Apoc. ix. 13 to xi. 14, is, on this system, cut in two by the prophecies of the little book. See the Tabular Scheme on p. 237.
7 See my Vol. ii. p. 149, &c.
8 Alike Jurieu, Vitringa, Bishop Newton, and in our own days Faber, Frere, &c., have more or less followed Mede in this view of the little book.
9 See the Tubular Scheme p. 237.
10 Bestia decem-cornupeta, scu Secularis, est Universitas Illa decem plus minus regnorum in unam denuo Rempublicam Romanam, redintegrat� Draconis impletate, coalescentium. He adds that all the horns were on the 7th or last head, Pp. 498, 499.
11 Decem illa regna, Pseudoprophet� capitis sui auspiciis, cum Agno pugnabunt. So on Apoc. xvii. 16, And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire..
12 See my Vol. iii. p. 120.
13 In transitu � sexte capite ad novissimum Bestia lethali vulnere occubuit. P. 501.
14 Bestia Bicornis, seu Pseudo-Propheta, Pontifex Romanus c�m suo Clero. P. 505
15 Bestia Romana capitia novissimi est image Besti� sexto capite mactat� P. 560. And again, p. 505; Qui (viz. the Pseudo-Propheta, or Second Beast) co sensim reges, ex dissipato C�sarum Imperio numper in orbe Romano natos, induxit, ut sibi, cass�que jam alioquin imperio Rom�, colla unanimiter submittentes, pristini jamque demoliti Imperii ethici emaginem induereut. - See my Vol. iii. p. 220.
16 In the local application of the 4th, 5th, and 6th Vials, Mede seems to me to have been correct; though antedating the times of their historical fulfillment.
17 When first Mede applied himself to the study of the Apocalypse he came, as he told a friend of his, with a mind rather prejudiced against it: (i.e. the old Chiliastic view of the 1000 years:) and tried all ways imaginable to place the millennium elsewhere; and, if it were possible, to begin the 1000 years, like Brightman and others, (as a period of the past,) at the reign of Constantine. But after all his strivings he was forced, as he confessed, to yield to the light and evidence of this (the Chilliastic) hypothesis. He was forced to it by the irresistible law of synchronisms, according to which the millennium could not possibly be placed otherwise than it is by him . . . Besides that the great deceiving of the world by Mahommedism (a most vile and yet prevailing imposture) began before less than half of the millennium from Constantine was run out, and strangely prospered in the world for 600 years within the millennium: and not this only, but Antichristian idolatry and cruelty against the faithful servants of Christ fell out within the same millennium: wherein the Devil was so far from being chained and shut up, that he never deceived the world more grossly nor raged more furiously; and consequently was never more loose, and at liberty to do mischief. - So the Life prefixed to his Works by Dr. Worthington, p. 10.
18 In reference to the New Jerusalem Mede notices with approbation Potters argument, showing the equal circuit of the Apocalyptic city with Ezekiels city, described by Ezekiel: (Ezek. xlviii. 16, And these shall be the measures thereof; the north side four thousand and five hundred, and the south side four thousand and five hundred, and on the east side four thousand and five hundred, and the west side four thousand and five hundred..) Of the latter the north side, we read, was 4500 measures, the south 4500, the east 4500, and the west 4500, in all 18,000. And these measures appear to be cubits from (Ezek, xliii. 13, And these are the measures of the altar after the cubits: The cubit is a cubit and an hand breadth; even the bottom shall be a cubit, and the breadth a cubit, and the border thereof by the edge thereof round about shall be a span: and this shall be the higher place of the altar.); where the cubit is also described as one larger than the common cubit, it being a cubit and a hand-breadth: which common cubit Potter, and Villalpandus, makes to be 2 1/2. feet. This admitted, and that the proportion of the large cubit to the common is as5 to 4, then the length of each side of Ezekiels city will be
4500 x 5 x 2 1/2 feet = 112 x 5 x 5, or 14,012 feet.
On the other hand, as St. Johns 12,000 furlongs are considered as giving the cubit dimensions of the Apocalyptic New Jerusalem, its length and breadth and height being equal, therefore the cubic root of 12,000, which is 23 nearly, (for 23 x 23 x 23 = 12,167,) gives the length of one of the sides: which 23 furlongs being 23 x 625 = 14,375 feet, this measure will only by a very little exceed the length of one of the sides of the Apocalypitc City.
The coincidence, as thus drawn out, is remarkable. It is noted by Dabubuz, p. 990. But there is this objection, that the assumed size of the Jewish common cubit is by no means certain; it being generally deemed of much smaller dimensions. So Calmet; who computes it at 1 1/2 feet intead of 2 1/2.
