By Neil Earle
Revelation sometimes scares people!
The Trumpet Plagues in Rev. 8 and 9 and the Seven last Plagues in Rev. 14-16 are God’s anger and justice poured out on the Beast, the persecuting power described in Rev. 17:10 as drunk with the blood of the martyrs.
“God’s wrath is not the wrath of the gods,” wrote Shirley C. Guthrie in “Christian Doctrine.” His punishment is either corrective to lead to better behavior, or motivated by a longsuffering sense of justice. “Here is the patience of the saints” says John in Revelation.
Rev. 18 is John’s pen portrait of the destruction of the greatest trading system the world had yet seen. “Drawing heavily upon prophetic oracles and taunt songs of Jewish scripture (Ezekiel 26, Nahum 3), John…lays before us a detailed account of that center of power, luxury, and fierce antagonism against the Christian faith.” (Mounce, The Book of Revelation, page 321).
Rome’s extravagance is legendary. Barclay tells us that “in one day Caligula (37-41) squandered the revenues of three provinces ($250,000) and in a single year scattered $35,000,000…Nero (54-68) squandered $36,000,000. At one banquet of his the Egyptian roses alone cost $70,000.” Nero played dice for $5000 a point and shod his mules with silver. Vitellius in 69 AD spent $15,000,000 mainly on food (Barclay, Revelation: Volume Two, pages 156-157).
Rome was supremely powerful but unstable. On Nero’s death came the Year of the Three Emperors (68-69) when Vespasian rushed from the Jewish Revolt (66-73) to become emperor. Domitian (81-96) and Trajan (98-117) began beheading Christians. The persecuting empire reached its greatest heights until four periods of wars, famines, plagues and earthquakes sealed its fate. Many see in this the fulfillment of the Seven Seals and Trumpet Plagues.
From 167-185 one quarter of the Empire’s people perished. In 167 plague raged from Persia to the Rhine. By 185 AD, 10,000 people were dying each day in Rome. War erupted in the East, in the Adriatic, Italy and Gaul. One writer said: “Every calamity that can be conceived to afflict and torment man scourged the human race during his [Marcus Aurelius, 161-180] administration.” Marcus on dying said, “Why weep for me when you think of the pestilence and death which is the common lot of us all?”
The period from 250-265 was ushered in by a comet. The Thames froze for nine weeks. Plague reappeared. By 266 “Scotland had scarcely living people to bury the dead.” Trebellius Pollio wrote of frightful earthquakes in Italy, Asia, and Africa, “many men died of fright…pestilence devastated the Romans world.” Gibbon stated that “we might suspect that war, pestilence, and famine had consumed half the human race.”
From 395 to 410 there were “dreadful earthquakes, storms, rain and unusual darkness…the sky appearing all in a flame over the city of Constantinople” shaken by earthquakes and tidal wave in 397 (Nicephorus). In 400 the Black Sea was covered with ice for 20 days. The Visigoths sacked Rome in 410 and Nicephorus says almost all Europe perished “and no small part of Asia and Africa” as transportation and road networks collapsed.
The period from 525-610 AD saw Rome plundered in 476, Corinth and Antioch leveled by earthquakes in 525 – 300,000 died in minutes in Antioch. By 594 plague had raged 52 years. Barbarians roamed at will, Procopius claims 200,000 Romans died each year. “For some were destroyed by war, some by disease and famine, the natural concomitants of war” (Anecdota, xviii, 15). No wonder the Muslims in the 600s found little resistance in their spread across Africa (Plain Truth, 1965).
Why this devastation? This is tied to the Romans Empire’s savage persecution and martyrdoms of the saints. These we discuss next time.