Chapter 6: In attempting to get some clear idea with regard to the symbolism

In attempting to get some clear idea with regard to the symbolism involved in the Seven Letters, it is not proposed to discuss the symbolism of the Apocalypse as a whole, still less the religious or theological intention of its author. The purpose of this chapter is much more modest--merely to try to determine what was the meaning which ordinary people in the cities of Asia would gather from the symbolism: especially how would they understand the Seven Stars, the Lamps and the Angels. That is a necessary preliminary, if we are to appreciate the way in which Asian readers would understand the book and the letters addressed to them.

In the Seven Letters symbolism is less obtrusive and more liable to be unnoticed than in the visions that follow; and it will best show their point of view to take first a simple example of the figures which march across the stage of the Apocalypse itself in the later chapters. Those figures are to be interpreted according to the symbols which they bear and the accompaniments of their progress before the eyes of the seer. It is the same process of interpretation as is applied in the study of Greek art: for example a horseman almost identical in type and action appears on the two coins represented in chapter 23, figures 26 and 27. In one this horseman is marked by the battle-axe which he carries as the warlike hero of the military colony Thyatira. The other shows a more peaceful figure, the Emperor Caracalla visiting Thyatira.

Similarly, in 6:2 the bowman sitting on a white horse, to whom a crown was given, is the Parthian king. The bow was not a Roman weapon: it was not used in Roman armies except by a few auxiliaries levied among outlying tribes, who carried their national weapon. The Parthian weapon was the bow; the warriors were all horsemen; and they could use the bow as well when they were fleeing as when they were charging. The writers of that period often mention the Parthian terror on the East, and their devastating incursions were so much dreaded at that time that Trajan undertook a Parthian war in 115. Virgil foretells a Roman victory: the bow and the horse have been useless:--

With backward bows the Parthians shall be there,
And, spurring from the fight, confess their fear.

Colour was also an important and significant detail. The Parthian king in 6:2 rides on a white horse. White had been the sacred colour among the old Persians, for whom the Parthians stood in later times; and sacred white horses accompanied every Persian army. The commentators who try to force a Roman meaning on this figure say that the Roman general, when celebrating a Triumph, rode on a white horse. This is a mistake; the general in a Triumph wore the purple and gold-embroidered robes of Jupiter, and was borne like the god in a four-horse car. (See