The Lamb's Supper

by Scott Hahn

  First beasts first: from the sea arises a hideous seven-headed, ten-horned monster, a terrifying combination of leopard, lion, and bear. The horns symbolize power; the diadems (or crowns), kingship. Both its power and its kingship it receives from the dragon. We would err, however, if we identified this beast with monarchy in general. No, the beast represents corrupt political authority of any sort.

  It's tempting, too, to identify the beast exclusively with Rome, or with the Herodian dynasty that Rome maintained in the Holy Land. Certainly the Rome of John's day typified the sort of government represented by the beast. But the beast itself does not allow for such a simple identification. It's actually a combination of all four of the beasts from a vision of the Old Testament prophet Daniel (see Dan 7). I follow the Church Fathers, who saw Daniel's beasts pointing to four gentile empires: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome—all of whom persecuted God's people before the Messiah's coming.

  Revelation's seven-headed beast, then, stands for all corrupted political power. For it's a human impulse to look upon the power of the state as the greatest power on earth and say, like the people in the Apocalypse, “Who can fight against it?” Out of fear for this power—or desire for a piece of the action—people constantly compromise themselves and worship the dragon and the beast. History's most blatant example of a human institution usurping God's prerogatives is Rome and its Caesars. They literally demanded the worship that belongs to God alone. And they made war on the saints, instigating bloody persecutions of those who would not worship the emperor.

  Again, however, I must emphasize that the beast is not only Rome, or only Rome's puppet, the Herodians. The beast refers also to any corrupt government, any state that puts itself above God's covenant order. More than that, the beast represents the corrupting spiritual force behind these institutions.

  THE SECOND BEAST

  This beast comes from the earth and has horns like a lamb. The lamb imagery is jarring, as we've come by now to associate it with sacred things. John's use of it, I believe, is intentional, for I believe that this beast is meant to suggest the corrupted priesthood in first-century Jerusalem.

  The initial clue is that this beast comes out of “the earth,” which in the original Greek could also mean “the land” or “the country,” as opposed to “the sea,” which brings forth the gentile beasts (see Dan 7). Further, John was likely bearing witness to the ultimate compromise of priestly authority, which had occurred only a few years before. In a dramatic historical moment, religious authority had given its allegiance to corrupt government authority instead of God. Jesus, the Lamb of God, High King and High Priest, stood before Pontius Pilate and the chief priests of the Jews. Pilate said to the Jews, “Here is your king!” They cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!” Pilate replied, “Shall I crucify your king?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar” (see Jn 19:15). Indeed it was the high priest himself, Caiaphas, who first spoke of Jesus' sacrifice as politically “expedient” for the people (see Jn 11:47–52).

  So they rejected Christ and elevated Caesar. They rejected the Lamb and worshiped the beast. Certainly Caesar was the government's ruler and as such deserved respect (see Lk 20:21–25). But Caesar wanted more than respect. He demanded sacrificial worship, which the chief priests gave him when they handed over the Lamb of God.

  The beast resembles a lamb in some superficial features. We see that everything he does is in mimicry and mockery of the Lamb's saving work. The Lamb stands as though it had been slain; the beast receives a mortal wound, but recovers. God enthrones the Lamb; the dragon enthrones the beast. Those who worship the Lamb receive His sign on their foreheads (Rev 7:2–4); those who worship the beast wear the mark of the beast.

  Which brings us to the difficult question: What is the mark of the beast? John tells us that it is the name of the beast, or the number of its name. What is that? John answers in a riddle: “This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six” (Rev 13:18).

  On one level, the number may represent the Roman emperor Nero, whose name transliterated into Hebrew indeed has the value 666. Yet there are many other, or additional, possibilities. Consider that 666 was the number of gold talents King Solomon required from the nations yearly (see 1 Kgs 10). Consider also that Solomon was the first priest-king since Melchizedek (see Ps 110). Moreover, John says that discerning the identity of the beast “calls for wisdom,” which some interpreters have seen as another reference to Solomon, who was renowned for his wisdom.

  Finally, 666 can be interpreted as a degradation of the number seven, which, in Israel's tradition, represented perfection, holiness, and the covenant. The seventh day, for example, was declared holy by God and set aside for rest and worship. Work was done in six days; it was sanctified, however, in the sacrificial worship represented by the seventh day. The number “666,” then, represents a man stalled in the sixth day, serving the beast who concerns himself with buying and selling (see Rev 13:17) without rest for worship. Though work is holy, it becomes evil when man refuses to offer it to God.

  Yet we must be clear about something. This interpretation should not lead any Christian to justify anti-Semitism. The Book of Revelation overwhelmingly demonstrates the dignity of Israel—its Temple, its prophets, its covenants. The Apocalypse should rather lead us to a greater appreciation for our heritage in Israel—and to a sober consideration of our own accountability before God. How well are we living according to our covenant with God? How faithful are we to our priesthood? The book stands as a warning to all of us.

  The beastly message is this: we are fighting spiritual forces: immense, depraved, malevolent forces. If we had to fight them alone, we'd be trounced. But here's good news: there is a way we can hope to overcome. The solution has to match the problem, spiritual force for spiritual force, immense beauty for immense ugliness, holiness for depravity, love for malevolence. The solution is the Mass, when heaven touches down to save an earth under siege.

  ANGELS

  In battle, we do not fight alone. In Revelation 12, we read of “Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon” (12:7).

  When God created the angels, He made them free, and so they had to undergo some sort of test—just as our life on earth is a test. No one knows what this test was, but some theologians speculate that the angels were given a vision of the Incarnation, and they were told they would have to serve the incarnate deity, Jesus, and His mother. Satan's pride revolted against the scandal of Spirit taking on the bonds of matter, and he said, “I will not serve!” According to the Church Fathers, he led one third of the angels in this rebellion (see Rev 12:4). Michael and his angels cast them out of heaven (see v. 8).

  Throughout the Apocalypse, we see that the angels populate heaven rather densely. They worship God without ceasing (Rev 4:8). And they watch over us. Chapters 2 and 3 make clear that each particular church has a guardian angel. This should reassure us, who belong to particular churches, and who can call for help from our particular church's angel.

  The “four living creatures” mentioned in chapter 4 are usually understood to be angels, though they appear to human eyes in animal form. These creatures may correspond as well to the creatures embroidered on the screen before the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem's Temple.

  Though heaven's angels present themselves to human eyes in physical form, angels do not actually have bodies. Their name means “messenger,” and the physical attributes usually symbolize some aspect of their nature or mission. Wings indicate their swiftness in moving between heaven and earth. Multiple eyes signify their knowledge and watchfulness. Many-eyed, six-winged angels might sound scary at first, but if we think of them in terms of their swiftness and vigilance, we'll be reassured. These are beings we can count on, when the dragon threatens our peace.

  In Revelation, the angels also appear as hors
emen (ch. 6) who visit God's judgment upon unfaithful people (see also Zec 1:7–17). Much of the action in these chapters may be connected to the events surrounding the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. But the passage has applications beyond the first century, as long as the earth stands in need of judgment.

  Revelation's angels control the elements, the wind and sea, to do God's will (ch. 7). Chapters 7–9 make it clear that angels are mighty warriors, and that they battle constantly on the side of God—which, if we're faithful, is our side, too.

  MARTYRS, VIRGINS, AND OTHER FOLKS

  But there's more to the Apocalypse than wicked beasts and awesome angels. In fact, most of the characters are just plain folks—hundreds of thousands, and even millions, are ordinary Christian men and women. First, we see the 144,000 from the twelve tribes of Israel (12,000 from each tribe), the remnant who received God's protection (His “sign”), fleeing to the mountains during Jerusalem's destruction. Then, John describes myriads of myriads “from every nation” (Rev 7:9). After two millennia of inclusive religion, we cannot today appreciate the seismic impact of this vision of Israelites worshiping together with gentiles, and humans with angels. To the minds of John's first readers, these were mutually exclusive categories. Moreover, in heaven, all these multitudes worship within the Holy of Holies, where none but the High Priest had previously been admitted. The New Covenant people can worship God face to face.

  Who else is there? In chapter 6, we encounter the martyrs, those who had been slain for the witness of their faith. “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne” (Rev 6:9). Why are they under the altar? What was usually under the altar of the earthly Temple? When Old Testament priests offered animal sacrifices, the victims' blood gathered under the altar. As priestly people, they (and we) offer up our lives upon the earth, the true altar, as a sacrifice to God. The true sacrifice then is not an animal; it is every saint who gives testimony (in Greek, martyria) to God's faithfulness. Our offering—the martyrs' blood—calls out to God for vindication. How revealing that, from the earliest days, the Church has placed the relics of the martyrs, their bones and ashes, within its altars. Earlier, we mentioned the elders (presbyteroi) enthroned at God's court. Indeed, in Revelation's heaven, these men appear vested exactly as Israel's priests dressed for service in Jerusalem's Temple.

  In Revelation (14:4), we also encounter a large number of men consecrated to virginity. This is another anomaly in the ancient world, found rarely in Israel or gentile cultures, as it has been unusual in the Christian West ever since the Protestant Reformation. Yet John mentions these celibates as a veritable army, which is more probably what God intends (see 1 Cor 6–7).

  ON EARTH AS IN HEAVEN

  We don't have to go very far afield in order to identify the cast of characters in the Apocalypse. In fact, the meaning God wishes us to see is often plainly told in the text, or plainly wanting in our hearts. As I look back on my own years of studying Revelation as a Protestant, I marvel that my brethren and I could sometimes see, very clearly, Soviet helicopters portrayed in the plague of mutant locusts—yet we were vehement in denying that Mary could be the woman clothed with the sun, who gave birth to the male child Who saved the world. Reading the Apocalypse, we must always fight the temptation to strain for the extravagant while denying the obvious.

  I'll say it again: Often the deepest meaning in Scripture is very near to the heart of each of us, and the widest application is very close to home.

  Now, where on earth can we find a universal Church that worships in a manner that is true to John's vision? Where can we find priests in vestments standing before an altar? Where do we encounter men consecrated to celibacy? Where do we hear the angels invoked? Where do we find a Church that keeps the relics of the saints within its altars? Where does art extol the woman crowned with the stars, with the moon at her feet, who crushes the head of the serpent? Where do the faithful pray for the protection of St. Michael the archangel?

  Where else but in the Catholic Church, and most particularly in the Mass?

  THREE

  Apocalypse Then!

  THE BATTLES OF REVELATION AND THE ULTIMATE WEAPON

  THE FINAL CONFLAGRATION. The Battle of Armageddon. Revelation's most sensational publicity, over the last generations, has come from its images of combat. For its war is not just any war, but the ultimate war, and it is terrible indeed: “demonic spirits . . . go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle” (Rev 16:14). John describes a world war that is simultaneously an otherworldly war: “Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon” (12:7). Angels pour out the chalices of God's wrath, and strong armies retreat in fear. Casualty counts run high, and the tribulations extend even to God's people. Darkness seems to have its day.

  Futurists such as Hal Lindsey have claimed that these details correspond literally to a battle that the world is fast approaching at the turn of the millennium. In a similar vein, some Catholic futurists discern a unity of witness in the vision of John, the predictions of Fatima, and events in the news today.

  I do not rule out the futurist interpretations of Revelation's battles. Perhaps all of the apocalyptic details will play themselves out, in one way or another, when God brings on the close of this age. Yet I do not believe that the futurist reading should be our primary focus when we read the Book of Revelation. The predictions, after all, may be of urgent concern to those who are living at the time of the final battle. But this we can never know for sure. Generations of futurists have gone before us, and died, wasting precious years on obsessive worries that Napoleon, Hitler, or Stalin was, at last, the beast foretold.

  Beastly rulers come and go; futurist scenarios arise and dissipate like smoke rings, as last year's future fades into history. Revelation's other “senses,” however, remain with us, with a constant urgency, a personal call.

  CRASHING SYMBOLS

  What do we mean by the senses of Scripture? From the earliest times, Christian teachers have spoken of the Bible as having a literal sense and a spiritual sense. The literal sense may describe a historical person, place, or event. The spiritual sense speaks—through that same person, place, or event—to reveal a truth about Jesus Christ, or the moral life, or the destiny of our souls, or all three.

  Tradition teaches us, however, that the literal sense is foundational. Yet identifying the literal sense of the Book of Revelation is a most difficult enterprise, and it's bound to be controversial. After all, interpreters are sharply divided over whether the book is literally describing past events or future events—or past and future events, for the Apocalypse may apply quite concretely to both. St. Augustine spoke of these difficulties in his book The City of God, and St. Thomas Aquinas echoed his perplexity in the Summa Theologica: “But it is not easy to know what these signs may be: for the signs of which we read . . . refer not only to Christ's coming to judgment, but also to the time of the sack of Jerusalem, and to the coming of Christ in ceaselessly visiting His Church.”

  Interpreting the Book of Revelation is further complicated because the literal and spiritual senses seem to merge in John's vision. While John's Gospel is a work of subtle art, his Apocalypse applies symbols with a heavy hand. John speaks of a city, for example, and tells you that its names (“Egypt” and “Sodom”) are figurative; then, with no further ado, he tells you which city it really is (see Rev 11:8). Even when he makes a riddle of a beast's name, he tells you clearly that he's making a riddle.

  Now is no time to be overly subtle, John seems to say. And why is that? Because he was living in a time of war.

  HOW SOON IS “SOON”?

  In the Apocalypse, John alludes to the severe trials Christians faced in his day. Since he rarely names names—and he never tells you the date, except to say it was “the Lord's day”—interpreters offer a long list of candidates for Revelation's tribulations: the fal
l of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple (A.D. 70); the emperor Nero's bloody persecution (A.D. 64); the later persecution by the emperor Domitian (A.D. 96); the earlier persecution of Christians by Jews (50s and 60s A.D.).

  In a sense, of course—a spiritual sense—all of these interpretations are true, because Revelation does offer encouragement to all Christians who undergo trials or persecution, to any degree. But in a literal sense, Revelation is, I believe, primarily about the fall of Jerusalem.

  From the very beginning, Revelation has an imminent tone: “The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show to his servants what must soon take place” (Rev 1:1). The message recurs throughout the book: “I am coming soon” (see 1:1, 3; 3:11; 22:6–7, 10, 12, 20). Jesus Himself indicated that He would return soon, even before a generation had passed since His resurrection. “There are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” (Mt 16:28). “This generation will not pass away till all these things take place” (Mt 24:34).

  Today, most of us associate the “soon” with the Second Coming of Jesus at the end of the world. And this is surely true; both John and Jesus were speaking about the end of history. I think, however, that they were also—and primarily—speaking about the end of a world: the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, and with it the end of the world of the Old Covenant, with its sacrifices and rituals, its barriers to gentiles, and its barriers between heaven and earth. Yet the Parousia (or “coming”) of Jesus was to be more than an ending; it was a beginning, a new Jerusalem, a New Covenant, a new heaven and earth.