Priest of Nature by Rob Iliffe

Author:Rob Iliffe
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780199995370
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2017-05-10T04:00:00+00:00

2. Mede’s World

In applying his synchronisms to history, Joseph Mede drew on the work of these writers though he also proclaimed that the interpretations he offered were the fruits of his own labours. In his Commentary he argued that the Great Apostasy was set up by the battle in heaven between Michael and the dragon, the latter’s defeat, and his subsequent fall to Earth. Immediately after this, the pregnant woman, though menaced by the dragon, at last gave birth to a man-child who was to rule the earth with a rod of iron. Mede understood Michael, who safeguarded the woman during her birth, to be an archangel and not Christ. The man-child was the mystical Christ, whose renewed presence in the secular sphere was represented by means of the victories of Constantine and others over pagans. When the woman fled into the wilderness at the end of this prophetic period, the waters spewed out by the dragon were the pestilent doctrines of the Arian heretics. Orthodox Christians protected her from their filthy beliefs by maintaining the true religion, thus swallowing up (Rev. 12:16) the toxic liquid. In his own “Observations Concerning the Millennium,” Mede’s editor John Worthington elaborated on this and compared the atrocious behaviour of the Arians against the “faithful Christians” to those of the pagan Roman persecutors. Like Mede and most others, Worthington contrasted the institution of Trinitarianism as the state religion with the baneful actions of the (anti-Trinitarian) barbarians though he also noted Salvian’s observations concerning the distinctly ungodly behaviour of many orthodox Christians, which had caused the barbarians to be offended and shamed by their vile lives.7

Having fallen to Earth, the dragon now had a short time to do his dirty work, and he passed on various tasks to the ten-horned beast. Mede’s analysis of the nature and extent of the latter was rich and extensive. This beast ordered the populace to worship him and was given immense power by the dragon to make war on and to conquer the saints. Mede interpreted the image of the beast as a reference to refer to the secular power of the Roman Empire, which had forced its people to worship images, participate in transubstantiation, and blaspheme saints and angels. The persecution of the saints accelerated in the time of the medieval Waldenses and Albigensians and intensified still further with the brutal suppression of Protestants. This was accomplished with the help of the second beast who had arisen from the earth. This two-horned or “pseudo-prophetical” beast exercised the power of the first, performing miracles and giving life to an image of the ten-horned beast that the population was compelled to worship on pain of death. Mede offered numerous demonstrations that this beast was the pope and his clergy, who presided over Antichristian sacrifices and undertook the spiritual degradation of the faithful. They were the chief performers of those lying wonders that Paul told the Thessalonians would be performed by the Man of Sin.8

The sixth seal told of a great earthquake, which was followed by the sun turning black and the moon turning to blood.

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