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 chapter 26.)

The use of colour here as symbolical is illustrated by the custom of Tamerlane. When he laid siege to a city,

he put up white tents, indicating clemency to the enemy. If resistance was prolonged forty days, he changed

the tents, and put up red ones, portending a bloody capture. If obstinate resistance was persisted in for

other forty days, black tents were substituted: the city was to be sacked with a general massacre. The

meaning of the colours differs; there was no universal principle of interpretation; significance depended to

some extent on circumstances and individual preference.

Figure 1: The ideal Parthian king, as he appears on Parthian coins, 150 B.C.--A.D. 200

It is not to be supposed that St. John consciously modelled his descriptions on works of art. He saw the

figures march across the heavens. But such ideas and symbolic forms were in the atmosphere and in the

minds of men at the time; and the ideas with which he was familiar moulded the imagery of his visions,

unconsciously to himself. It is quite in the style of Greek art that one monster in 13 should rise from the sea

and the other appear out of the earth (as we shall see in chapter 7); b ut those ideas are used with freedom.

The shapes of the monsters are not of Greek art; they are modifications of traditional apocalyptic devices;