reference to the recent death of the

emperor Niger.

"Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burnt with fire." The siege of Byzantium by the forces of Severus, is one of the most memorable in history, for the perseverance, valor, and skill of the besieged. At the end of three years, famine compelled them to open their gates; the magistrates and soldiers were put to the sword; the estates of the inhabitants were confiscated, and they themselves were sold for slaves; the city, with its stately theatres, baths, and public buildings, was laid in ashes; the walls were levelled with the ground; and thus the chief bulwark of the empire, against the northern Barbarians was destroyed.

"And every one sailing to the place," both mariners and traffickers by sea, stood afar off, and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, "What city was like this great city?” This proves that the city mystically called Babylon, was a maritime eity.

""And a mighty angel took up a stone, like a great mill-stone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall Babylon, that great city, be dashed down, and shall be found no more." Byzantium was so completely destroyed, that it lay in ruins many years after the death of Severus. The city was indeed "dashed down with violence;" yet the writer proved a false prophet. The

*I here follow Thompson, who says that he followed the Alexandrian, and other ancient manuscripts.

city was "found" again, and became, in the reign of Constantine, the capitol of the Roman empire.

The fall of the mystical Babylon, is, UNQUESTIONABLY, the destruction of Byzantium by the forces of Severus, in the year 195; and this event is the beacon which we must keep in view, while searching for the other events, enigmatically related in this book.

CHAP. 19. "And I saw Heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he that sat on him was called A believer To70s, and Sincere Aands." This is Caracalla; and the time of this. appearance is, the last of the year 196, or the beginning of 197, after he was declared Cæsar by the army on the Danube.

And he had a name written that no man knew but he himself." This name of Caracalla is, Christian. Spartian

says of him, that at seven years of age, when he heard that a boy, his playfellow, had been severely beaten, because he was of Jewish religion, he would not, for some while after, look upon his own father, nor the father of the boy, nor those who had beaten him. Lardner says that, by the Jewish religion, very probably is here meant the Christian. As his preceptor had procured for him a Christian nurse, he was no doubt instructed in the Christian belief.

"And his name is called the Logos of God." The writer seems to have intended to represent Caracalla as the Messiah, the Lamb, and the Lion of the tribe of Judah.(h)

(h) Rev. 5, 5. and chap. 1, 7. "Behold he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see

1

"And he hath on his cloak and on his thigh, a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords." Saint Jerom says that the Jewish ephod was made in the form of a caracalla, or monkish dress; then the caracalla was in the form of the Jewish ephod, and was a monkish dress; and from such a dress the son of Severus took the name of Caracalla.* He is

him; even they which pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth shall wail because of him.” This is Caracalla, who had the title of commander in the trifling war against the Jews. in 198.

* But at what age did Caracalla assume this dress? In the figure of a medal of Caracalla, when a boy, in one of Crevier's plates, we read M. AVR. ANT. CARACALLA CAES. PONT. that is, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Caracalla Cæsar Pontifex. This medal, if genuine, must have been struck after he was ceclared Cæsar, in 196, and before he was de