IX. The Apocalypse of St. John

The meaning of the four beasts thus becomes plain. They are the four chief universal powers, to which Christianity gives a new direction: War (the lion); Peaceful Work (the bull); Justice (the being with the human face); and Religious Ardor (the eagle). The Meaning of the third being becomes clear when it is said at the opening of the third seal: “A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny,” and that the rider holds “a pair of balances”. And at the opening of the fourth seal a rider becomes visible whose name “was Death, and Hell followed with him”. This rider is Religious Justice (VI, 6, 8). When the fifth seal is opened there appear the souls of those who have already acted in the spirit of Christianity. Creative thought itself, embodied in Christianity, shows itself here; but by this Christianity is meant at first only the first Christian community which was transitory like other forms of creation. The sixth seal is opened (VI); it is made evident that the spiritual world of Christianity is an eternal world. The people at large appear permeated by that spiritual world out of which Christianity itself proceeded. What it has itself created becomes sanctified. “And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel” (VIL, 4) . They are those who prepared for the Eternal before the coming of Christianity, and who were transformed by the Christ-Impulse.