CHAPTER 17
Re 17:1-18.
THE
HARLOT
BABYLON'S
GAUD:
THE
BEAST ON
WHICH
SHE
RIDES,
HAVING
SEVEN
HEADS AND
TEN
HORNS,
SHALL
BE THE
INSTRUMENT OF
JUDGMENT ON
HER.
As
Re 16:12
stated generally the vial judgment about to be poured on the
harlot, Babylon's power, as the seventeenth and eighteen chapters
give the same in detail, so the nineteenth chapter gives in detail the
judgment on the beast and the false prophet, summarily
alluded to in
Re 16:13-15,
in connection with the Lord's coming.
1. unto me--A, B, Vulgate, Syriac, and Coptic
omit.
-
many--So A. But B, "the many waters"
(Jer 51:13);
Re 17:15,
below, explains the sense. The whore is the apostate Church, just as
"the woman"
(Re 12:1-6)
is the Church while faithful. Satan having failed by violence,
tries too successfully to seduce her by the allurements of the world;
unlike her Lord, she was overcome by this temptation; hence she is seen
sitting on the scarlet-colored beast, no longer the wife, but
the harlot; no longer Jerusalem, but spiritually Sodom
(Re 11:8).
2. drunk with--Greek, "owing to." It cannot be pagan
Rome, but papal Rome, if a particular seat of error be meant, but I
incline to think that the judgment
(Re 18:2)
and the spiritual fornication
(Re 18:3),
though finding their culmination in Rome, are not restricted to it, but
comprise the whole apostate Church, Roman, Greek, and even Protestant,
so far as it has been seduced from its "first love"
(Re 2:4)
to Christ, the heavenly Bridegroom, and given its affections to worldly
pomps and idols. The woman
(Re 12:1)
is the congregation of God in its purity under the Old and New
Testament, and appears again as the Bride of the Lamb, the transfigured
Church prepared for the marriage feast. The woman, the invisible
Church, is latent in the apostate Church, and is the Church militant;
the Bride is the Church triumphant.
3. the wilderness--Contrast her in
Re 12:6, 14,
having a place in the wilderness-world, but not a home; a
sojourner here, looking for the city to come. Now, on the contrary, she
is contented to have her portion in this moral wilderness.
-
upon a scarlet . . . beast--The same as in
Re 13:1,
who there is described as here, "having seven heads and ten horns
(therein betraying that he is representative of the dragon,
Re 12:3),
and upon his heads names (so the oldest manuscripts read) of
blasphemy"; compare also
Re 17:12-14,
below, with
Re 19:19, 20,
and Re 17:13, 14, 16.
Rome, resting on the world power and ruling it by the claim of
supremacy, is the chief, though not the exclusive, representative of
this symbol. As the dragon is fiery-red, so the beast is
blood-red in color; implying its blood-guiltiness, and also
deep-dyed sin. The scarlet is also the symbol of kingly
authority.
-
full--all over; not merely "on his heads," as in
Re 13:1,
for its opposition to God is now about to develop itself in all its
intensity. Under the harlot's superintendence, the world power puts
forth blasphemous pretensions worse than in pagan days. So the Pope is
placed by the cardinals in God's temple on the altar to sit
there, and the cardinals kiss the feet of the Pope. This
ceremony is called in Romish writers "the adoration." [Historie de
Clerge, Amsterd., 1716; and LETTENBURGH'S
Notitia Curiæ Romanæ, 1683, p. 125; HEIDEGGER, Myst. Bab., 1, 511, 514, 537]; a papal
coin [Numismata Pontificum, Paris, 1679, p. 5] has the
blasphemous legend, "Quem creant, adorant."
Kneeling and kissing are the worship meant by John's word
nine times used in respect to the rival of God (Greek,
"proskunein"). Abomination, too, is the scriptural term
for an idol, or any creature worshipped with the homage due to the
Creator. Still, there is some check on the God-opposed world power
while ridden by the harlot; the consummated Antichrist will be when,
having destroyed her, the beast shall be revealed as the concentration
and incarnation of all the self-deifying God-opposed principles which
have appeared in various forms and degrees heretofore. "The Church has
gained outward recognition by leaning on the world power which in its
turn uses the Church for its own objects; such is the picture here of
Christendom ripe for judgment" [AUBERLEN]. The
seven heads in the view of many are the seven successive forms of
government of Rome: kings, consuls, dictators, decemvirs, military
tribunes, emperors, the German emperors
[WORDSWORTH], of whom Napoleon is the successor
(Re 17:11).
But see the view given, see on
Re 17:9, 10,
which I prefer. The crowns formerly on the ten horns
(Re 13:1)
have now disappeared, perhaps an indication that the ten kingdoms into
which the Germanic-Slavonic world [the old Roman empire,
including the East as well as the West, the two legs of the image with
five toes on each, that is, ten in all] is to be divided, will lose
their monarchical form in the end [AUBERLEN]; but
see
Re 17:12,
which seems to imply crowned kings.
4. The color scarlet, it is remarkable, is that reserved for
popes and cardinals. Paul II made it penal for anyone but cardinals to
wear hats of scarlet; compare Roman Ceremonial [3.5.5]. This
book was compiled several centuries ago by
MARCELLUS, a Romish archbishop, and dedicated to
Leo X. In it are enumerated five different articles of dress of
scarlet color. A vest is mentioned studded with pearls.
The Pope's miter is of gold and precious stones. These
are the very characteristics outwardly which Revelation thrice assigns
to the harlot or Babylon. So Joachim an abbot from Calabria, about
A.D. 1200, when asked by Richard of England, who
had summoned him to Palestine, concerning Antichrist, replied that "he
was born long ago at Rome, and is now exalting himself above all that
is called God." ROGER HOVEDEN
[Annals, 1.2], and elsewhere, wrote, "The harlot arrayed in gold
is the Church of Rome." Whenever and wherever (not in Rome alone) the
Church, instead of being "clothed (as at first,
Re 12:1)
with the sun" of heaven, is arrayed in earthly meretricious gauds,
compromising the truth of God through fear, or flattery, of the world's
power, science, or wealth, she becomes the harlot seated on the beast,
and doomed in righteous retribution to be judged by the beast
(Re 17:16).
Soon, like Rome, and like the Jews of Christ's and the apostles' time
leagued with the heathen Rome, she will then become the persecutor of
the saints
(Re 17:6).
Instead of drinking her Lord's "cup" of suffering, she has "a cup full
of abominations and filthinesses." Rome, in her medals, represents
herself holding a cup with the self-condemning inscription, "Sedet
super universum." Meanwhile the world power gives up its hostility
and accepts Christianity externally; the beast gives up its God-opposed
character, the woman gives up her divine one. They meet halfway by
mutual concessions; Christianity becomes worldly, the world becomes
Christianized. The gainer is the world; the loser is the Church. The
beast for a time receives a deadly wound
(Re 13:3),
but is not really transfigured; he will return worse than ever
(Re 17:11-14).
The Lord alone by His coming can make the kingdoms of this world become
the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ. The "purple" is the badge of
empire; even as in mockery it was put on our Lord.
-
decked--literally, "gilded."
-
stones--Greek, "stone."
-
filthiness--A, B, and ANDREAS read, "the
filthy (impure) things."
5. upon . . . forehead . . . name--as
harlots usually had. What a contrast to "HOLINESS TO
THE LORD," inscribed on the miter on
the high priest's forehead!
-
mystery--implying a spiritual fact heretofore hidden, and
incapable of discovery by mere reason, but now revealed. As the union
of Christ and the Church is a "great mystery" (a spiritual truth of
momentous interest, once hidden, now revealed,
Eph 5:31, 32),
so the Church conforming to the world and thereby becoming a harlot is
a counter "mystery" (or spiritual truth, symbolically now revealed). As
iniquity in the harlot is a leaven working in "mystery," and
therefore called "the mystery of iniquity," so when she is
destroyed, the iniquity heretofore working (comparatively) latently in
her, shall be revealed in the man of iniquity, the open
embodiment of all previous evil. Contrast the "mystery of God" and
"godliness,"
Re 10:7;
1Ti 3:16.
It was Rome that crucified Christ; that destroyed Jerusalem and
scattered the Jews; that persecuted the early Christians in pagan
times, and Protestant Christians in papal times; and probably shall be
again restored to its pristine grandeur, such as it had under the
Cæsars, just before the burning of the harlot and of itself with
her. So HIPPOLYTUS [On Antichrist] (who
lived in the second century), thought. Popery cannot be at one and the
same time the "mystery of iniquity," and the manifested
or revealed Antichrist. Probably it will compromise for
political power
(Re 17:3)
the portion of Christianity still in its creed, and thus shall prepare
the way for Antichrist's manifestation. The name Babylon, which in the
image,
Da 2:32, 38,
is given to the head, is here given to the harlot, which marks
her as being connected with the fourth kingdom, Rome, the last part of
the image. Benedict XIII, in his indiction for a jubilee, A.D. 1725, called Rome "the mother of all
believers, and the mistress of all churches" (harlots like herself).
The correspondence of syllables and accents in Greek is
striking; "He porne kai to therion; He numphe kai to arnion."
"The whore and the beast; the Bride and the Lamb."
-
of harlots--Greek, "of the harlots and of
the abominations." Not merely Rome, but Christendom as a whole,
even as formerly Israel as a whole, has become a harlot. The invisible
Church of true believers is hidden and dispersed in the visible Church.
The boundary lines which separate harlot and woman are not
denominational nor drawn externally, but can only be spiritually
discerned. If Rome were the only seat of Babylon, much of the
spiritual profit of Revelation would be lost to us; but the harlot
"sitteth upon many waters"
(Re 17:1),
and "ALL nations have drunk of the wine of her
fornication"
(Re 17:2;
Re 18:3;
"the earth,"
Re 19:2).
External extensiveness over the whole world and internal conformity to
the world--worldliness in extent and contents--is symbolized by the
name of the world city, "Babylon." As the sun shines on all the earth,
thus the woman clothed with the sun is to let her light penetrate to
the uttermost parts of the earth. But she, in externally Christianizing
the world, permits herself to be seduced by the world; thus her
universality or catholicity is not that of the Jerusalem which
we look for ("the MOTHER of us all,"
Re 21: