Revelation 17:15Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Christ, teaching and showing that the Gentile people enters the place which the Jews lost, while we later acquire it by the merit of faith, changed water into wine.

That is, He indicates that the peoples should be more fully mingled and come to the wedding of Christ and the Church at the time when the Jews are absent.

For divine Scripture explains in the Apocalypse that water signifies peoples, saying: "The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues."

We clearly understand that this very thing is contained in the Mystery of Communion. Since Christ bore us all, and also bore our sins, we see that the peoples are understood by the water, while the Blood of Christ is certainly signified by the wine.

The harlot is a luxurious life made up of robberies and pleasures. Therefore he said that they would hate the harlot, because pleasure-loving and proud men, greedy and arrogant, not only persecute the saints but also abide in hatred themselves.

They hate in another way too, those in whom what is written is fulfilled: "He who loves violence hates his own soul." And further: "They will make her desolate and naked."

For these men, through the wrath of God and the just judgment by which they are abandoned by Him, lay waste the world while they are subject to it and use it unjustly.

"And they will eat her flesh," because, according to the Apostle, they bite and devour one another (cf. Gal 5:15).

The people are signified by waters because, in life, they have a voice from the disturbance of the flesh and daily flow toward mortality.

It is said: "The waters on which the harlot sits are peoples and multitudes," obviously those over whom the city exercises dominion. How, then, will Rome be made desolate by the kings? For this, as we have understood, is described in the book of Revelation.

Perhaps they will contend for it in battle as for a queen ruling over a strong and populous land that pays tribute. Therefore, in the war for Rome, it must happen that, lying out as the prize of victory, it will suffer from all.

It will be subjected to burning and desolation. It is said: "For God has put into their hearts to do their will." By God's permission this will be accomplished by those who oppose it and desire to seize it.

Unrestrained and luxurious life bore the fruits that became the cause of Babylon's fall.

The word of God sometimes presents water as an image of human society, as it is written in the Seer: "the waters are peoples and multitudes" (Rev 17:15). Let us use this image to draw truth from it.

Water, though there is silt in it, appears clean when the silt lies at the bottom. But when some irregular movement raises the silt upward, all the water, clean until then, loses the appearance of purity and becomes turbid.

So also human society, though it contains a portion of bad people, appears clean, comely, and prosperous when this unhappy element lies at the bottom.

This is when bad people, rightly brought low in common opinion, do not attain power, honor, or influence over others.