Such was the style of address put into the mouths of the souls underneath the altar by the Spirit -- ho Despotes ho hagios kai ho alethinos. This is the only place in the Apocalypse where the word Despotes occurs; in the twenty-two other places where the word Lord is found it is kurios, in the original. I conclude, therefore, that there must be some special reason why despotes and not kurios is adopted in the symbolography of the fifth seal.

I find that despot is used in nine other places in the New Testament. In four of these it is applied to men, and translated master; in one instance it is so rendered in regard to God; and in the remaining four it is rendered Lord, and affirmed of the Deity. In Acts iv. 24, the Holy and True Despot is declared in the address of the disciples after their return from the Chief Priests to their companions, saying to the Deity, "O Despot, thou art the Deity who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all things in them; and spake by the mouth of David." And Jude, speaking of certain false professors that had crept into the ecclesias unawares, says, that they "denied the only Despot Deity -- ton monon despoten Theon -- even the Lord Jesus Anointed." These were Nikolaitans, who were without judgment in the "great mystery of Deity manifested in Flesh" -- "the fathers" of that great apostasy which afterwards developed itself into that enormous imposture, THE KINGDOM OF THE CLERGY, which darkens and demoralizes the peoples of the earth.

The Deity, then, symbolized by "the Lamb as it had been slain, having Seven Horns and Seven Eyes," is the only Holy and True Despot Deity of the Universe. This, however, in the period of the fifth seal, was disputed by another, who denied the existence of the Holy and True One, and claimed that he was the only Despot of the habitable, whom men ought to honor and obey. He styled himself Diocletianus Jupiter or Jove, while Maximian, whom he associated with himself in the imperial offices, assumed the title of Hercules.

Now, it is a remarkable historic fact that, at the epoch of the opening of the fifth seal, a New Despotism was set up by Diocletian Jupiter, totally different from that to which the Roman peoples had been subject from the days of Augustus hitherto. Gibbon says, "Diocletian may be considered as the founder of a new empire." This arduous work, he says, he completely achieved by A.D. 303, which was the twentieth of his reign, when he celebrated that memorable era, by a Roman triumph. "He framed a new system of imperial government, which was afterwards completed by the family of Constantine." Eight years before his elevation, the Roman Senate had aspired to the restoration of republicanism. This was an offence in his sight, and he assigned to Hercules the work of reducing it to sheer abjection, while the dignity of Rome was impaired by the studied absence of Jupiter and Hercules, who made Milan and Nicomedia their palatial residences. By this policy, "the Senate of Rome, losing all connection with the imperial court and the actual constitution, was left a venerable but useless monument of antiquity on the Capitoline Hill."

The ancient modest titles of civil magistracy were laid aside, and, if these deities still distinguished their high station by the appellation of emperor, or imperator, that word was understood in a new and more dignified sense, and no longer denoted the general of the Roman armies, but the Sovereign of the Roman World. The title emperor was associated with another of a more servile kind. Dominus, or master, owner, supreme lord, was expressive of the despotic power of a master over his domestic slaves. Viewing it in this odious light, it had been rejected with abhorrence by the first Caesars. "Pliny," says Gibbon, "speaks of Dominus with execration, as synonymous with tyrant and opposite to prince." But, notwithstanding this repugnance, the name in time lost its odiousness, till at length the style of "Our Despot and Emperor" -- Dominus et Imperator noster -- was not only bestowed by flattery, but was regularly admitted into the laws and public monuments. The whole magnificence and ceremony of Asiatic state and servility was introduced under Diocletian and Maximian, who usurped the attributes of Divinity, and transmitted the titles expressive thereof to a succession of Catholic emperors. The Diocletian Jupiter ventured to assume the diadem, an ornament detested by the Romans as the odious ensign of royalty, and the use of which had been considered as the most desperate act of the madness of Caligula. It was no more than a broad white fillet set with pearls, which encircled the emperor’s head. Thus, the Sixth Head of the Dragon was diademed, whereby also, as all the five previous forms of government were all subordinately merged in the emperorship, they were diademed as well. The progress of despotism was rapid and irresistible. When a subject was admitted to the divine presence of the imperial Jupiter, he was obliged, whatever might be his rank, to fall prostrate on the ground, and to adore, according to the eastern fashion, the divinity of his Lord and Despot. The state maintained by Diocletian was theatrical, the object of which was to display the unbounded power which the emperors possessed over the Roman world.

Now, it cannot be supposed that this novel despotism should develop itself and be established without exciting great attention and discussion among the people. The immense number of professors of christianity in the empire would reject the pretensions of Diocletian to be the only true and holy despot of the world. They would affirm the claims of the Deity whom they worshipped; and would refuse to prostrate themselves in his imperial presence in recognition of his divinity and lordship upon earth. This was, doubtless, the reason why a great number of "christians" were dismissed from their official employments in the imperial household and other departments of the state. An issue was joined upon the question of -- Who is the Holy and True Despot of the world, Jupiter or the Lamb? This was the great question of the day, which, until the Lamb’s party gained the victory, absorbed all others. It was a question which, in its discussion, shook the empire to its foundation, and brought great calamity upon those who repudiated the high pretensions of "the Father of the gods and men." Like the question that abolished the constitution of the Union and brought ruin upon the republic, it had its period of discussion and its period of war. The first eighteen years of the reign of Diocletian afforded scope for "the word of the Deity and the testimony held" against his usurpation of divine attributes. Policy, however, inclined him to toleration, until, by the importunity of his associate, Galerius, who entertained the most implacable aversion for the name and religion of Christ, he was induced to proclaim war against the adherents of the Lamb. This edict inaugurated the fifth seal, of which the great and absorbing subjects of debate were the antagonistic claims of Jupiter and the Lamb to the Despot-Sovereignty of the world.

This, then, is the reason why the Spirit puts this remarkable style of address into the mouths of the souls underneath the altar. By so doing, he pronounces through them sentence in the great controversy being so sanguinarily discussed during the period of the fifth seal. In effect, he proclaims, "I, even I the Lamb, am the Despot, holy and true; the claims of the pretended Jupiter shall not stand; for the great day of my wrath is near, when I will judge and avenge the blood of my servants, and expel from the heaven their persecutor and cast him to the earth" (vi. 17; xii. 8). The introduction of the word Despot in this the only place of the Apocalypse, is a sort of chronological indication that the fifth seal belongs to the period to which it is herein assigned.

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