Īccording to this interpretation, this period in Roman history, both at its commencement and at its close, illustrated the glory of the empire where its limits were extended, though not without occasional wars, which were always uniformly triumphant and successful on the frontiers. This group of emperors can be classed together under one and the same head and family whose origins were from Crete. The significance of the rider of the white horse holding a bow indicates the place of origin of the line of emperors ruling during this time. The Cretans were renowned for their archery skills. This interpretation points out that the bow was preeminently a weapon of the inhabitants of the island of Crete and not of the Roman Empire in general. The agents of this prosperity, personified by the rider of the white horse, are these five emperors wearing crowns, who reigned with absolute authority and power under the guidance of virtue and wisdom, the armies being restrained by their firm and gentle hands.
For the next 80 or 90 years, succeeding the banishment of the prophet John to Patmos and covering the successive reigns of the emperors Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and the two Antonines ( Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius), a golden age of prosperity, union, civil liberty and good government unstained with civil blood unfolded. As Roman Empire prosperity įour horsemen, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1860Īccording to Edward Bishop Elliott's interpretation, the Four Horsemen represent a prophecy of the subsequent history of the Roman Empire, the white color of this horse signifies triumph, prosperity and health in the political Roman body. It remains popular in evangelical circles today, for example with Pastor Billy Graham, for whom the horseman represented the Antichrist or false prophets in general.
The Antichrist interpretation later found champions in the United States, such as R. Wimpel defended the hypothesis that the first horseman was the Antichrist (and more precisely, according to him, Napoleon Bonaparte). As the Antichrist įor nearly nineteen centuries, Christians had thought that the first horseman was a positive figure representing either Christ or the Gospel, but a completely different interpretation of this character emerged in 1866, when C.F.
The appearance of the Lion in Revelation 5 shows the triumphant arrival of Jesus in Heaven, and the first Horseman may represent the sending of the Holy Spirit by Jesus and the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit was understood to have come upon the Apostles at Pentecost after Jesus' departure from Earth. īesides Christ, the Horseman could represent the Holy Spirit. The color white also tends to represent righteousness in the Bible, and Christ is in other instances portrayed as a conqueror. Furthermore, earlier in the New Testament, the Book of Mark indicates that the advance of the gospel may indeed precede and foretell the apocalypse. Various scholars have since supported this notion, citing the later appearance, in Revelation 19, of Christ mounted on a white horse, appearing as The Word of God. Irenaeus, an influential Christian theologian of the 2nd century, was among the first to interpret this Horseman as Christ himself, his white horse representing the successful spread of the gospel. Īlbrecht Dürer, Knight, Death and the Devil, 1513 "They were given authority over a quarter of the earth, to kill with sword, famine, and plague, and by means of the beasts of the earth." Ĭhristianity sometimes interprets the Four Horsemen as a vision of harbingers of the Last Judgment, setting a divine end-time upon the world. The fourth and final horse is pale, and upon it rides Death, accompanied by Hades. The third, a food- merchant riding upon a black horse, symbolizes Famine. The second carries a sword and rides a red horse and is the creator of (civil) War, conflict and strife. In John's revelation, the first horseman rides on a white horse, carries a bow, and is given a crown – he rides forward as a figure of Conquest, perhaps invoking Pestilence, Christ, or the Antichrist. The Lamb of God/ Lion of Judah opens the first four of the seven seals, which summons four beings that ride out on white, red, black, and pale horses. Revelation 6 tells of a book or scroll in God's right hand that is sealed with seven seals. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are figures in the Christian religion, first appearing in Revelation, an apocalypse written by John of Patmos.
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