A.D. 1190. INTERPRETATION OP SAINT JOHN'S VISION. what was evil and did what was good. Ο happy the man whoso falls as to rise with greater strength still ! Ο happy the\ man who after repentance does not relapse into faultiness ancV a course of ruin ! / In the same year, Eichard, king of England, hearing, by common report and the relation of many persons, that there was a certain religious man in Calabria, of the Cistercian order, called Joachim, abbat of Curazzo, who had a spirit of prophecy ' and foretold to the people things to come, sent for him and willingly listened to the words of his prophecy, and his wisdom and learning. Eor he was a man learned in the Holy Scriptures, and interpreted the visions of Saint John the Evangelist, which Saint John has related in the Book of Eevelation, which he wrote with his own hands ; in hearing which, the king of England and his people took great deBght. The following was one of the visions of Saint John the EvangeBst : " The Mugs are seven in number ; five are faBen, and one is, and the other is not yet come."9 6 And elsewhere in the Eevelation there is another vision of the same EvangeBst. " A woman clothed with the sun,96 and the moon beneath her feet ;" which signifies the Holy Church, the sun of justice. Also, " the woman was clothed with the sun, and the moon was under her feet, and upon her head was a crown of twelve stars, and, being with chBd, she was in pain to be delivered ; and, behold ! a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his head : and' his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth ; and he stood before the woman who was about to be deBvered, to devour her child as soon as it was born. And the woman brought forth a man child, who was to rule aB nations with a rod of iron, and her chiïd was caught up unto the Lord, and to His throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness of Egypt, where she had a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days."9' Now of this vision the foBowing is the interpretation, according to Joachim, abbat of Curazzo. " The woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet," signifies the Holy Church, the sun of justice, who is Christ our God, shadowed forth and typified under that name; under his feet is the world, always to be trodden under foot with its vices and lusts. And " upon her head was a crown of twelve stars." Now 95 96 Rev. xvii. 10. Rev. xii. 1. »' Rev. xii. 1, 6. VOL. II. Ν