He didn't get power and glory until He went up there, He made Himself small, and so He couldn't stand out of time. This means that the angels also depend on time in their own way, they may be freer from it than we are, but they obviously cannot really get out of it completely. And while everyone is in time, and souls too, it is not for nothing that we celebrate forty days after death.

6

1 And I saw that the Lamb had opened the first of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four beasts saying as with a voice of thunder, 'Come and see.' 2 And I looked, and behold, a white horse, and a rider having a bow on it, and a crown was given to him; And he went forth as victorious, and to overcome.

3 And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast saying, 'Come and see.' 4 And another horse came out, a red one; and it is given to him who sits on it to take peace from the earth, and to kill one another; and he was given a great sword.

E-5 And when He had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast saying, 'Come and see.' I looked, and behold, a black horse, and on it a rider having measure in his hand. 6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts, saying, A hinix of wheat for a denarius, and three quinixes of barley for a denarius; but thou shalt not damage the oil or the wine.

7 And when He had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast saying, "Come and see." 8 And I looked, and behold, a pale horse, and on it a rider, whose name is death; and hell followed him; and he was given power over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, and with the beasts of the earth.

9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they had. 10 And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Holy and True Lord, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 11 And white robes were given to each of them, and it was said to them that they should rest a little while, until both their fellow-workers and their brethren, who would be slain like them, should add to the number.

12 And when He had opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became dark as sackcloth, and the moon became like blood. 13 And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree, shaken by a strong wind, drops its unripe figs. 14 And the heavens were hidden, rolled up like a scroll; and every mountain and island moved out of their places. 15 And the kings of the earth, and the nobles, and the rich, and the captains of thousands, and the mighty, and every slave, and every freeman, hid themselves in caves and in the ravines of the mountains, 16 and said to the mountains and to the stones, 'Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.' 17 For the great day of his wrath is come, and who can stand?

Comment

Open. 6. The Lamb of God, who appears before the throne of heaven, opens the seals of the book of the sacraments, the book in which the future destinies of the Church of Peace are recorded, full of struggles, catastrophes, trials and sufferings, depicted in the vision of the opening of the seven seals. It must be said that the Apostle John uses the number seven in the text of the entire Apocalypse. We have already seen epistles to the seven churches, followed by seven seals, seven trumpet sounds, seven voices from heaven, seven visions. The Apocalypse can be divided into seven big sevens, because it speaks of the fulfillment of times, of completeness, of what will happen when the history of the world ends.

Open. 6, 1–8. The first four seals, four horsemen. Already in the book of the prophet Isaiah we see images of horsemen – bearers of the scourge of God, the thunderstorm of God. Horsemen-messengers of God's destinies were also depicted in the book of the prophet Zechariah. Who are these four horsemen in the Apocalypse? This is a depiction of the catastrophes that will befall the world, the most difficult, transitional, critical epochs.

The first horse is the Empire. In this case, it is the Roman Empire, because it is a white horse, triumphant, a victorious rider, with a bow; He is ahead. In the time of the Apostle John, the Roman Empire united the world. And every time empires appeared, a difficult and difficult time came for the church. The second rider - a red horse - is war. An attempt to forcibly unite people together leads to endless wars and mutual killings.

The third seal, the third horseman, is hunger. A black horse, a rider who has a measure, that is, scales. "And I heard a voice... — a hinix of wheat for a denarius." At the time when the Apostle John lived, mass starvation began everywhere, moreover, for a denarius you could buy only a handful of wheat or barley. Meanwhile, the grapes yielded a huge harvest, the storerooms were full of vessels of wine, and widespread drunkenness was rampant in countries where hunger tormented people. And in the nineties, at the time when the Apocalypse is believed to have been written, the emperor even issued a decree to cut down vineyards, because people, instead of sowing wheat, planted grapes. Wine and oil, that is, that which is not necessary, which people can do without—this was enough, as it sometimes happens with us—there is wine on the shelves, but there is no necessary thing. And here it is exactly the same – there is no most important thing – bread, barley and wheat, but there is wine and oil.

Finally, the last and final ones in this terrible procession are the two demons. In the Canaanite pantheon there were two terrible deities, whose names in Russian mean Hell and Death. Later, in Old Testament terminology, the demons of death were called this way, and here the Apostle again returns us to these images: a rider on a pale horse, pale, like a dead man. His name is Mot, in Greek death, and hell followed him; Siobhan followed him, and they came to have dominion over a quarter of the earth. In all such periods, we see the catastrophic consequences of violence, war, and man's turning away from God.