When the Lamb opened the first seal, John’s attention was called to the fact by a voice “as of a voice of thunder;” but in the opening of the second, he hears a voice of the same import, only without the thunder. There was no hurling of the tyrant Marcus Aurelius Antoninus into the shades of death by the hands of an assassin, and the revocation of his edicts, and declaring his memory infamous, by the decrees of an indignant Senate, as in the case of Domitian. Though this imperial Stoic had shed so much Christian blood, or permitted it to be shed when he could easily have prevented it, which is equally criminal with the Deity, the Lamb allowed him to depart to his own place without any signal personal vengeance being inflicted upon him. He died without violence, aged about fifty-seven, having reigned conjointly with Antoninus Pius twenty-three years, at the expiration of which he became sole emperor for thirteen, when he associated his son Commodus with him in the government. Four years after this he died, leaving Commodus, at the inexperienced age of about nineteen, the uncontrolled and irresponsible despot of the so-called “civilized world.”
Commodus ascended the throne as sole ruler A.D. 180. “The
beloved son of Marcus,” says Gibbon, “succeeded to his father amidst the acclamations of the Senate and armies, and when he ascended the throne, the happy youth saw round him neither competitor to remove, nor enemies to punish. In this calm, elevated station, it was surely natural that he should prefer the love of mankind to their detestation, the mild glories of his five predecessors to the ignominious fate of Nero and Domitian.”
During the first three years of his reign, he reluctantly surrendered himself to the direction of those experienced counsellors whom his father had delighted to honor. By their influence his profligacy was confined to his private revels; and as his hands were yet unstained with blood, there was hope that he might become, if not the most virtuous, at least not the most “dreadful and terrible” of his kind. A fatal incident, however, dashed all hopes, and decided his weak and timid character for the worse, until cruelty degenerated into habit, and at length become the ruling passion of his soul.
One evening as Commodus was returning to the palace through a dark and narrow portico in the amphitheatre, an assassin, who waited his passage, rushed upon him with a drawn sword, loudly exclaiming, “The Senate sends you this.” The menace prevented the deed; the assassin was seized by the guards, and immediately revealed the authors of the conspiracy. The conspirators, who, with the assassin himself, were senators, were all executed. But though relieved of their presence, the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of Commodus, and left an indelible impression of fear and hatred against the whole body of the Senate. Those whom he had dreaded as importunate ministers he now suspected as secret enemies. The Delators, a race of men discouraged and almost extinguished in the former reigns, again became formidable, as soon as they discovered that the emperor was desirous of finding disaffection or treason in the Senate. This great council of the nation was composed of the most distinguished of the Romans, and distinction of every kind soon became criminal. “The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the vices of Commodus; important services argued a dangerous superiority of merit; and the friendship of Marcus Aurelius always ensured the aversion of his son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof, trial to condemnation. The execution of a senator of consideration was attended with the death of all who might lament or avenge his fate; and when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse.”
Such was the opening of the Second Seal, A.D. 183. It was a sign in “the heaven,” and the color of the sign was fiery red. The spirit that ruled the situation there was that of retributive vengeance, through a class of agents who were the blind executioners of a purpose which they knew not. Bloodshedding was the order of the day. The son-inlaw of the late emperor was among the victims; and Arius Antoninus, the last representative of the Antonines, also fell by the axe of the executioner. Every sentiment of decency and humanity was extinct in the mind of Commodus. He abandoned the reins of empire to the most unworthy favorites, and valued nothing in sovereign power except the unbounded license of indulging his sensual appetites. He is said to have been the first of the Roman emperors totally devoid of taste for the pleasures of the understanding. From his earliest infancy he discovered an aversion to whatever was rational or liberal, and a fond attachment to the amusements of the populace, the sports of the circus and amphitheatre, the combats of gladiators, and the hunting of wild beasts. He entered the lists as a gladiator, and gloried in a profession which the laws and manners of the Romans had branded with the justest note of infamy.
He had now attained the summit of vice and infamy. Amidst the acclamations of a flattering court, he was unable to disguise from himself that he had deserved the contempt and hatred of every man of sense and virtue in his empire. History has preserved a long list of consular senators sacrificed to his wanton suspicion, which sought out with peculiar anxiety those unfortunate persons connected, however remotely, with the family of the Antonines, without sparing even the ministers of his crimes or his pleasures. His cruelty proved at last fatal to himself. He had shed with impunity the noblest blood of Rome; he perished as soon as he was dreaded by his own domestics. He was strangled while laboring with the effects of poison and drunkenness, A.D. 192, after a sanguinary reign of thirteen years.
This reign may be regarded as the opening period of the Second Seal. In its course divine vengeance executed through the wicked, as the sword of Deity, retributive justice upon the authorities, and upon the imperial family, who had shed the blood of the saints in the former reigns; and, when the work was consummated in their case, the imperial executioner was punished for his crimes by death at the hands of the infamous.
But, though Commodus had destroyed the peace and happiness of the Senate and patricians of Rome, his reign was remarkable for the peace granted to the Ecclesia of Christ in all the habitable. In this one particular point only, namely, in his conduct towards the Christians, Commodus was more just and equitable than his philosophical father.
In this the change of emperors was propitious. The power, goodness, and justice of the Deity were evinced in making so vile a character at once his sword upon the persecutor and a check upon persecution, by which a breathing time was afforded after eighteen years of sufferings exceedingly cruel. The gospel, or what was called the gospel, is said to have “flourished abundantly, and many of the nobility of Rome, with their whole families, embraced it.” At all events, they abandoned paganism; but whether or not they embraced “the truth as it is in Jesus," is beyond the competency of historians to testify.
THE OPENING OF THE SECOND SEAL
Seldom in history has so speedy and tragic a reversal taken place as that which followed the death of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the emperors of the first seal. At his death (A.D. 180), the empire
stood at the zenith of stability; but in the hands of his successor, the gross and dull-witted Commodus, it entered into a sharp decline that approached disruption. He instituted a regime of terror, one so unjust and savage that many leading citizens looked to the armies for relief, and so laid the foundation of further bloodshed.
Commodus (see left) considered himself the incarnation of Hercules and had himself portrayed with the attributes of that god: a club and a lion’s skin. He degraded himself by appearing in the arena as a gladiator, there to slay unarmed opponents. He slaughtered senators at will, and permitted his pampered favorites in the Praetorian Guard to run the affairs of state as they pleased. He sought out every form of perversion, his excesses causing disgust among the people over whom he ruled, until, finally a hired assassin put him to death by strangling. His reign commenced the epoch of bloodshed and evil that finally brought the empire to an end.