A.D. 1190. INTERPRETATION OF SAINT JOHN'S VISION. 179 thing that is called of God.' And then shall the wicked one be revealed whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, and shall destroy by the dazzling brightness of his approach." On this, the king turned to him and said, " I thought that Antichrist was to be born in Antioch, or at Babylon, of the descendants of Dan, and was to reign in the Temple of the Lord at Jerusalem, and was to walk in that land in which Christ walked, and was to reign therein three years and a half, and was to dispute against Elias and Enoch, and was to slay them, and was afterwards to die, and after his death the Lord was to give sixty days for repentance, during which those persons might repent who had wandered away from the paths of truthfulness, and had been seduced by the preaching of Antichrist and his false prophets." " It then proceeds, " And there are ten horns." Now the ten horns of the devil are heresies and schisms, which heretics and schismatics oppose to the ten precepts of the law and the commandments of God. " And upon his head were seven crowns." By the crowns are signified the kings and princes of this world, who are to believe in Antichrist "And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven." This refers to the great number of persons who shall believe in him. "And did cast them to the earth." By the name of stars he calls the lower orders of men who are to believe in Antichrist ; and he mentions the third part of the stars of heaven by reason of the great multitude of men who shall believe on him. " And he did cast them to the earth;" that is to say, he sent all those to the bottomless pit who had perished in believing on him. " And he stood before the woman, who was about to be delivered, to devour her child as soon as it was born." The devil ever lies in wait for the Church, that he may carry off her offspring, and, after so carrying it off, devour it. He is well said " to stand ; " inasmuch as he never turns aside for evil, but always stands steadfast in wickedness and inflexible in the crafty wiles of his deceit. Or, according to another interpretation, his tail will signify the end of this world ; at which time certain wicked nations shall arise, which shall be called Gog and Magog, and shall destroy the Church of God, overthrow the Christian race, and then forthwith shall come the day of judgment. " But in the days of this Antichrist there shall be many Christians who shall live in the caverns of the earth, and in the Ν 2