The End: Reading Revelation Theologically

The four horsemen of the apocalypse are characters from the sixth chapter of the Revelation of Saint John the Divine. As personifications of violent conquest, bloodshed, famine, and death – with Hades thrown in for good measure – their appearance is the result of the first four seals of the scroll being broken by the Lamb. (As usual Albrecht Durer’s depiction spares no gory detail.) We discuss chapter six

“My wrestling with the Apocalypse has convinced me of this: it is the one great poem which the first Christian age produced, it is a single and living unity from end to end, and it contains a whole world of spiritual imagery to be entered into and possessed.” – Austin Farrer (Oxford, 1948)

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