Thumbnail image

Last Updated on : Saturday, November 22, 2014

 


sp

DOWNLOAD EUREKA volumes in PDF: Eureka downloads page

Eureka vol. 1 TOC | Eureka vol. 2 TOC | Eureka vol 3 TOC

Previous section | Next section

 

Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 13

Section1 Subsection 15

The Healing of the Deadly Wound


 
spacer

 

"And the plague of his death was healed" - Verse 3

 

"His deadly wound," as it reads in the English version, is he plege tou thanatou autou, in the original, which I have rendered, the plague of his death. The word plege, rendered wound, occurs fifteen times in the apocalypse . In five other places it is very properly rendered stripes; and sixth, Luke 10:30, it would have been better translated, laid on stripes, than "wounded" -plegas epithentes. The judgments of the fifth and sixth trumpets, in the aggregate, are styled "plagues" Ch. 9:20; and the judgments the two prophets were able to inflict, are also styled "plagues" (Ch. 11:6). The judgments of the Seven Vials are thrice termed the seven plagues in Ch. 15; and the hail-storm that descends out of the heaven upon men, under the last vial is called a plague in Ch. 16:21. The plague of death that afflicted the Sixth Head, was a smiting plague; for, as the result of it, the sun, moon, and stars of the Roman heaven are said to have been "smitten". Hence, also, in Ch. 13:13, it is referred to as he plege tes machairas, the plague of the sword. The war-like operations of Odoacer, king of the Heruli, against Romulus Angustulus; and those of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, against Odoacer, who, on the deposition of Augustulus, had become, by the title conferred upon him by Zeno, emperor of the Eastern Third, the Patrician Representative of the Sixth Head. These judgments by the sword, ultimating in the establishing of Theodoric in Rome as king of Italy, A.D. 493, made up the plague of the seeming death of the Sixth Head.

And, in this place, it will be right to state the reason why I have not reckoned the Heruli and the Ostrogoths as two of the ten horns. No barbarians, the throne of whose dominion was on the seven mountains, could be horns. Rome is the throne of the Heads, not of the Horns. Hence, there must be reckoned ten horns and one head contemporary with the continuance of the "short space" of Seventh Head Ascendancy in Rome. Neither can the Exarchate of Ravenna nor the Dukedom of Rome, as Sir Isaac Newton and others suppose, be horns; for the former was the representative of the Sixth Head in Italy, and the latter, together with the Exarchate, are defective in this material attribute, that they were destitute of diadems; all the horns have diadems, but they had none.

"It was healed," says John. The plague of the death by the sword was healed. To heal a death plague is to cause to live that which was smitten. This is the interpretation put upon the phrase in the fourteenth verse in the words, "the beast which had the plague of the sword, and did live." To heal is to institute a process of recovery. Healing is often a slow process, and always requires time; and the severer the injury to the constitution of the patient, the longer the time required for the recovery of health and strength. It is the same whether the patient be a sick man, or an enfeebled power. Time is demanded for a cure. It was so in the matter of restoring imperial dominion to Rome. There could, however, be no healing of "the plague of the sword," that IMPERIALISM might live and flourish again in the Seven-Hilled City, so long as the REGAL Seventh Head exercised sovereignty therein. While this reigned in conjunction with the Ten Horns, Rome's wounded imperialism was un-healed. The worship of "the peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues," or "many waters" of the Roman Habitable, upon which the woman sits, was an epluribus unum. It was no longer a worship, or political homage and allegiance, rendered to a Sole Emperor reigning in Constantinople; but it was a worship in which "they wondered after the beast in all the earth," or empire; so that "they worshipped the Dragon which yielded authority to the Beast;" for the Seventh Head belonged both to the Dragon and the Beast; and the Ten horns, as we have seen by their coinage, acknowledged the supremacy of the Emperor in Constantinople, whose Vice-Kings they claimed to be: while, at the same time, they recognized the Seventh Head as a legitimate sovereignty. The constitution of things was analogous to the United States system of powers, in which citizens owe a divided allegiance to their native state and to the general government - they worship the American Eagle, which gives authority to the State-Feathers of its wings and they worship the Feathers. This is well understood. There is, however, this difference in the similitude, that where as a Visigoth and a Frank, first worshipped their respective Horn-States; and secondly, the general government in Constantinople. Now, a Marylander or a Virginian first worships at Washington, and afterwards subordinately at Richmond or Annapolis. The comparison, however, is sufficiently close for illustration of the saying "they worshipped the Dragon which yielded authority to the Beast; and they worshipped the Beast, saying, Who is like to the Beast? Who is able to make war with him?" - Ver. 4. None. No beast-dominion can stand before him; for, as Daniel says of the SYSTEM OF Powers represented by the Dragon and the Beast, it is "dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the brazen clawed feet of it" (Ch. 7:7,19). The history of Modern Europe amply shows the truth of the Beast's invincibility. It is the predominant dominion upon the earth; and rules the so-called civilized nations of Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australia.

But oceans of blood have been shed in the past 1,335 years of its existence, in attaining to a dominion so extended. This sanguinary and all-conquering career commenced with war between the imperial and regal potentates of Rome and Constantinople, which, after twenty years' continuance with various fortune to the combatants, ultimated in the removal and final death of the Seventh Head, which marked the termination of the "short space" of its reign. As, then, the removal of the Seventh Head was an indispensable prerequisite to the healing, or causing imperialism to live again in Rome, I shall now proceed to an historical sketch of its suppression, and then return to the exhibition of the heal- ing of "the plague of the death," which had been inflicted upon its predecessor by the sword; which will afford scope, also, for accompanying the Name of Blasphemy in further development, until we find it seated imperially upon the seven heads.

 

 


spacer
spacer
spacer

Eureka Diary -- reading plan for Eureka

spacer