"Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, "Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters." The angel carries John away into a desert and there he sees "a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns"--manifestly the Beast of chapter 13. And the woman is clothed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held in her hand a golden cup filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. Upon her forehead she has a name written: "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." The woman was "drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus." At this vision John was greatly perplexed, and the angel offers to explain to him "the mystery of the woman and the beast that carried her."

      That the Beast upon which the Prostitute rides is identical with the great Beast of Revelation 13 is quite obvious. Here, however, we learn several facts additional concerning the Beast. In the first, there is his career in brief summary: "The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction."

      These are his four stages:

1. a period of existence;
2. a period of abeyance;
3. a return out of the abyss;
4. his final doom.¹

      This Beast, seen here shortly before its own final doom, supports the Harlot and is dominated by her for a season. But only up to a limit; then the Beast and his federated kings shall turn against that harlot-mistress and make her desolate and naked and "burn her up with fire." Such is the end of Mystery Babylon the Great.

      In answer to the question who or what this harlot is I can find no expression so good as the following masterful sum-up of the matter by Prof. W. G. Moorehead. (The emphasizing mine.)

      "The harlot is Christendom estranged from God and become thoroughly secularized and degenerate. This is our most solemn conviction. Romanism, we believe, is the chief subject of this frightful prophecy. But the Greek Catholic organization, mainly as existing in Russia and Eastern Europe, as also worldly and unfaithful Protestantism, are involved and included therein. We begin with the identification of Romanism with this symbol. It is official and hierarchical Romanism we are dealing with, not the body of adherents to that system. . . . The historical reality and the prophetic portrait drawn are too much alike, match too exactly, to mistake the meaning. [37]

      Papal Rome claims to be a mother, calls herself "the mother of all churches," the mistress and teacher of all Christians. The Pope asserts his authority over all of them, and indeed over all nations as well. In 1825 Leo XII struck a medal bearing on one side his own image, and on the other that of the church of Rome symbolized as a woman, holding in her left hand a cross and in her right hand a cup, with the legend, "Sedet super universum," "The whole world is her seat" (Hyslop, Two Babylons). She would dominate all mankind, Revelation 17:15.

      The woman has her seat in a city of seven hills, Revelation 17:9-18. For more than a thousand years the Papacy, and Rome the city, have been regarded practically as one and the same. Rome is the Papacy to this day. No other city is called "the city of the seven hills"; no other has ever ruled over the earth as Rome has. Pagan Rome governed the world for centuries; Papal Rome has for ages held sway in our planet as no other city has. It is Rome where the Woman "sitteth." The city and the system coalesce, they are convertible terms.

      The name inscribed on the Harlot's forehead points unmistakably to an apostate religious system, and preeminently to Romanism. Everything in the worship of that enormous organization is shrouded in mystery, is designed to impress men with its hidden, secret and supernatural authority and power. Its persistent use of a dead language, its celebration of the Mass, its confessional and priestly absolution, its claim to fix the destinies of men in the unseen world, its mystic ceremonies and rites, the dress of its officiating priests and their postures and actions when observing "the mysteries" of the cult, all combine to invest the system with an impressiveness and mysticism nowhere else found save in some of the ancient pagan rites. The Greek Church is characterized by the like heathen features, though somewhat less flagrant.

      The Harlot's connection with the World-power--riding upon it--is realized in the universal domination which the Papacy claims to assert. The Pope arrogates for the Roman See supremacy over peoples and states and rulers. Not always has he been able to enforce the proud claim, but when he can he does to the fullest extent. . . . To this day the Roman See exalts its absolute supremacy over all nations, sovereigns, and peoples. It is not union with State that is asserted but dominion over the State. Subjection to the civil authorities is the position of those ecclesiastical bodies named "State-Churches," whether Protestant or Greek Catholic. Rome exalts her authority over all states and churches alike. She rides, or seeks to ride, upon the World-power, to subject to herself all authority and all rule.

      The Scarlet Woman is intolerant, persecuting: she is seen to be drunken with the blood of the saints, Here, again, the parallelism between the symbol and the apostate religious system is startlingly close. Count, if you can, the victims of Rome's bloody work in the world, her murderous cruelties. It is even doubted whether pagan Rome ever slew as many human beings as has Papal Rome. Nor is Rome the only guilty one in this respect. The Greek Catholic and some of the Protestant bodies likewise have stained their hands in the blood of some of the noblest and purest of God's children. Not without a dreadful meaning is this harlot arrayed in scarlet and crimson: bloody-minded she is, and blood-stained also.

      The Harlot is the "mother of abominations," i. e., idolatrous. Images, shrines, relics, human beings ("the saints") and angels are objects of devotion in all apostate Christendom. The Virgin Mary with vast multitudes holds a higher place of veneration than ever did Minerva in Greece, or Ceres in Rome, or Diana in Ephesus. Her worship exceeds that even of the Son of God Himself. Nothing will sooner arouse the fanatical rage of her devotees than the teaching that Mary, blessed as she was in being chosen to give birth to the Son of man, has no part in our salvation, can do nothing to deliver us from sin and to reconcile us with God. Ever since Pius IX officially proclaimed the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, Mary has been lifted into a place of eminence and authority never before held by her. Add to this the Dogma of Infallibility with which the Pope was crowned in 1870 by the Vatican Council, and one will perceive to what heights of arrogance and blasphemy this Roman system is now exalted." (end quote)

      But as the Beast--the great, final, consolidated world-power, headed up by Satan's great king, has not yet come, so does the Harlot await her full and final manifestation. As the writer above quoted points out, the Roman church answers amazingly to the Harlot's description, and she has more nearly than any other realized that pattern. But federated with her and around her will be all apostate Christendom. The betrothed Bride (compare 2 Corinthians 11:2) maintains her purity toward Christ under every test, in poverty, in suffering, in privation and persecution (for as He is so are we in the world); but the apostate ecclesiastical system has usurped the throne, the world's wealth and power, its honor and its sword, and exalted herself in the earth. This is the Harlot. The Dragon, the Beast, and the Harlot are all three of the same hue--scarlet, the color of sin. [38]

      The chapter which follows (chapter 18) seems to cover in yet fuller detail the doom of the Harlot Babylon. There are, however, several peculiar features in the fall of Babylon which are not applicable to the doom of the Harlot, and have therefore led to distinctions (whether justified or not, let the reader judge). Some careful students of the Apocalypse regard that the event of chapter 18, though closely related to and connected with the matter of chapter 17, is a distinct and different catastrophe--resulting from the judgment of the Harlot, no doubt, but not the same judgment upon the same thing. The Harlot Babylon, and the City Babylon, are very closely related, just as the Bride and the city of the New Jerusalem. But Babylon, the city, is the home and center, the metropolis, visible symbol and embodiment of the Harlot's dominant spirit (just as Jerusalem of Paul's day was the emblem and product of the spirit of Judaism, Galatians 4:25). Thus the Harlot, as well as the Bride, has her city; and this city, her home and center, the embodiment of her ideal, is Babylon.²

      The student of the old prophecies concerning Babylon may have been impressed by the actual nonfulfillment of some of the predictions concerning Babylon's sudden, utter, and eternal overthrow; and by the peculiar fact that in every case the prophecy of Babylon's final destruction is directly connected with the final and everlasting restoration of Israel--a restoration of which the return in Ezra and Nehemiah was but a faint type. (See, for example, Isaiah 14:1-20; Jeremiah 50, 51.) This has led many, and not without some grounds, to expect the rebuilding of Babylon as the actual world-city and center of the civil and ecclesiastical government of the world in the period of the last fearful rebellion against God. Others maintain that this Babylon is Rome symbolically designated. The question is a very interesting one, but not one of vital importance to the interpretation of the book of Revelation. It is certain, however, that whether it be old Babylon rebuilt or the equivalent of it that figures here, this is a city. In her live some of God's people, who, however, must come out, lest they share her judgments. She is wealthy, proud, a great commercial center: a market for all wares. Not only the merchants but apparently the very kings³ who themselves destroyed the "Mystery Babylon" (17:12, 16), perhaps not having anticipated the grave consequences that would follow, stand weeping at the awful downfall of the city. (18:9.)

      Thus passes Babylon; even thus the glory of the world, the world itself, with all its works and all its religion, and with all that is in it--"the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does" (1 John 2:16). These certainly find their full expression in this great Babylon, built in the proud might of man. (Compare Daniel 4:30.) A strong angel takes up a stone, the size of a large millstone, and "threw it into the sea, and said, With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again." (Isaiah 21:9; Jeremiah 51:63, 64; Revelation 14:8; 16:29.) And he sings her dirge with the mournful refrain. "No more at all," (AV) six times repeated.

      But in heaven breaks forth a hallelujah of rejoicing: "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God; BECAUSE HIS JUDGMENTS ARE TRUE AND RIGHTEOUS; for He has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with her immorality, and HE HAS AVENGED THE BLOOD OF HIS BOND-SERVANTS ON HER." (19:1-5.)

      And then a great voice--like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder--announced the celestial wedding--the Marriage of the Lamb. (19:6-10.)

      So wondrous was the vision, so glorious the prospect, that John, overwhelmed, fell down at the feet of the angel that showed him these things. But he said, "Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; WORSHIP GOD. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

      Yes; for in Him all God's purposes and promises are fulfilled: He is the Amen, the First and the Last. [39]

[TR4R 37-39]