Revelation 6:8Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

A pale horse, and he who sat on it had the name Death. The Lord also foretold this among the other calamities: a time of misfortunes and deaths will come. When John says, and Hades followed after him, this means that he is speaking of the devouring of a multitude of impious souls. This is the pale horse.

What is said here can also be applied to the present. Thus Eusebius, in the eighth chapter of the tenth book of his Ecclesiastical History, says that under Maximian of Nicomedia in Rome, during a terrible and intense persecution, so many people perished from hunger, deadly plague, and diseases that they could not be buried. This was so despite all the Christians' zeal to bury the corpses and bring the survivors to the knowledge of the truth. Likewise, during the Armenian uprising against the Romans, an enormous number of people perished by the sword. Dogs devoured the bodies of the dead, and the living began to kill them, because they feared that after death they would find in them a living tomb. It is also credible that the dogs shared their food with wild beasts because of its abundance. Similar things, as we know, happen even now.

By the pale horse are understood evil men who do not cease carrying out persecutions. These three horses are one. They came forth after the white horse and against the white horse, and they have the devil as their rider, who is death. Therefore by the three horses are understood famine, wars, and plague. The Lord also foretold them in His Gospel. What is now happening will inevitably happen in still greater measure on the day of judgment.

The pale horse is a sign of wrath, for the symbol of earth, bile, is precisely this color, and physicians call it so. Death and Hades were sent in order to defeat the impious demons spiritually and exact what was due for the destruction of men. Yet because, according to the meaning of the vision, the saving Passion of Christ had not yet taken place, by which our sins were redeemed, the complete overthrow of the demons had not yet come. It was only a fourth. This destruction he figuratively calls the killing by sword and famine of those who had formerly worshipped them. He also speaks of pestilence, indicating through pestilence the end of their tyranny and their defeat by the beasts of the earth.

This is a symbol of heretics who present themselves as catholic, but deserve to become vessels of death and drag after themselves an innumerable army of the lost. The devil and his ministers are called death and Hades by metonymy, because for many they have become the cause of death and Hades. This passage can also be understood quite simply, as referring to the spiritually dead, whom eternal punishment follows. "And authority was given to him over a fourth part of the earth." Behold the mad Arius. Rising up in Alexandria, he reached even to the Gallic sea, persecuting the pious not only by famine of the word of God, but also by bodily sword and by beasts. Metonymy is the replacement of one word by another when their meanings have a definite connection that serves as the basis for such replacement. Thus, for example, one can say "the theater applauded" instead of "the audience applauded."

To kill spiritually means to destroy the life of a man’s soul by false teaching, bad examples of life, love of self, and lusts, these savage beasts for the soul.

His name was Death. The fourth rider bore the name of death. This is a devastating plague, or pestilence, as the Savior also foretold (Mt 24:7).

The opening of the fourth seal is the manifestation of God’s wrath, in vengeance for the pious and as punishment for sinners.