Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary: Apocalypse
Chapter 14
Ver. 1. Behold a Lamb, by which is divers times represented our Saviour Christ. (Witham)
Ver. 3. They sung as it were a new canticle. In these visions, after persecutions, are sometimes introduced rejoicings to encourage the servants of God in their sufferings from the wicked world. --- No man could say (or sing) the canticle, but those hundred and forty-four thousand: by which are signified the elect, who were not defiled with women. Some expound this literally of those who always lived virgins; others understand all those who lived or died with a pure and clean heart, exempt from the corruption of vices, and of whom it is said, (ver. 5) that in their mouth was found no lie, and that they were without spot for the throne of God. (Witham)
Ver. 4. These are they, &c. In the style of the prophets, by fornication is meant idolatry, and virginity signifies cleanness from all sacrilegious worship. These, therefore, are virgins in this sense, who have not fallen into the impurities of creature worship. But others, as St. Augustine, understand it of persons who have lived in continency. The first, however, is the more literal sense. (Calmet)
Ver. 6-7. Another Angel,...saying: Fear the Lord.[1] By this Angel are represented the preachers of the gospel, exhorting all men to the true faith and a good life. (Witham)
Ver. 8. Another Angel,...saying:...She is fallen, she is fallen, that great Babylon. By Babylon, as observed before, may very probably be signified all the wicked world in general, whom God will punish and destroy after the short time of this mortal life: or may be signified every great city, and perhaps Rome returned to idolatry in the time of antichrist, a little before the end of the world, or may be signified the idolatry of heathen Rome, in the fourth age[century], when the Christian religion, under Constantine and his successors, began to triumph over paganism, i.e. according to those interpreters followed by Alcazar, Bossuet, P. Alleman, &c. which exposition Dr. Hammond thus expresseth: "the whole impure city of heathen Rome, under the title of Babylon, that old idolatrous city that had lain so heavy upon the people of God....should speedily be destroyed, for advancing the heathen worship." (Witham) --- It is probable that here by the great Babylon is meant the city of the devil; that is, the universal society of the wicked: as Jerusalem is taken for the city and the Church of God. (Challoner)
Ver. 9-10. The third Angel followed....if any man shall adore the beast,...he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mingled with pure wine, &c. That is, he shall drink of the bitter cup of God's indignation, not mixed with water, or any thing to diminish its force, but with wine and wine; i.e. with punishments upon punishments for ever and ever. (Witham)
Ver. 12. Here is the patience of the saints. Here patience is necessary, so as not to be carried away with such pleasures and vanities as are offered in the wicked Babylon, and to remain firm under persecutions with the pious inhabitants of Jerusalem. (Witham)
Ver. 13. Blessed are the dead (all the dead) who die in the Lord, and not the martyrs only, for their works follow every one. (Witham) --- It is understood of the martyrs, who die for the Lord. (Challoner) --- For their works follow them. It is just that they rest at length from their labours, and enjoy for eternity the recompense of their fidelity. They land on the shores of their native country, enriched with the treasures of the good works they have done in this lower world. This is said in express contradiction to those who denied the necessity of good works, and maintained the indifference of actions. This seems to have been the doctrine of the Nicolaites and other heretics of those times. (Calmet) --- The Holy Ghost confirms the sentence of their happiness, not only because at the moment of their departure their hard labours and penitential works cease, but their souls are admitted to a glorious immortality, the recompense of their good works. (Pastorini)
Ver. 14-20. Like to the Son of man. That is, to our Saviour Christ, sitting on a white cloud, with a crown of gold, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another Angel, desiring of him to do justice, by putting in his sickle, because the harvest of the earth was ripe, dry, and withered; i.e. the wicked, ripe for punishment. The like is again represented by the sickle, which is said to be put to the clusters of the vineyard: and they were cast into the great wine-press, or lake of the wrath of God, into hell, where the blood is said to come out even up to the horses' bridles, for a thousand and six hundred furlongs: a metaphorical way of expressing the exceeding great torments of the wicked in hell. But to pretend from hence to give the just dimensions of hell, is a groundless conjecture; of which see Cornelius a Lapide. (Witham)
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[1] Ver. 6-7. I cannot but admire how Dr. W., after his learned modern divines, Mr. Mede and Mr. Whiston, could hook in the popish antichrist in so many places on this chapter, as ver. 7, where it is said fear God, the Christians, says he, are forewarned not to fall into any corruptions the visible Church afterwards fell into, particularly popery. According to a great many of our Protestant adversaries, the popes have been the great antichrist ever since the destruction of the heathen Roman emperors in the fourth age[century], and yet no man ever dreamt of it or suspected it. The Protestants tell the people, they need but open their Bibles and Testaments to see and find the monstrous popish antichrist, the frightful beast with seven heads and ten horns; and what is more strange than all the rest, not any one of the Latin or Greek Church for so many ages[centuries] could ever see the least appearance of what to them is visible at the first sight. The Greek Church, by an unfortunate schism, was divided from the Latin in the ninth age[century]: they wanted not learned men among them, well read in the Scriptures, who omitted nothing that could be alleged to justify their schism and separation from the pope of Rome. Is it possible that neither Photius nor any one among them should see this truth, so palpable that every Protestant presently discovers it at the opening of his New Testament? This at once would have justified their separation. This invention, which doubtless was suggested by the most subtle adversary of popery, first came, says the bishop of Meaux[Bossuet] on the Apocalypse, from the late Manicheans, a sect among the Albigenses, as infamous for their errors as for their morals, (see Nat. Alex. tom. 6. Sæc. 11. and 12. p. 490. and tom. 7. Sæc. 13. p. 66) who, among other detestable blasphemies against God, against Jesus Christ and his blessed Mother, taught the people that pope Silvester in Constantine's time was antichrist, and the Church from that time was become a den of thieves, and the harlot in the Apocalypse. I scarce think the reasons they brought will be approved by the writers of the late reformation, inasmuch, said they, as the Church and ministers of the Church were then permitted to receive ecclesiastical benefices and revenues. These heretics were followed in some points by Wycliffe and his disciples; but perhaps upon a strict examination, they only meant that the pope and bishops taught antichristian doctrine, and so were to be esteemed adversaries of Christ and precursors of antichrist. We may look upon Luther (though he denied the Apocalypse of St.