THEOSISVictorinus of Poetovio
Thus He sends these seven great archangels to strike the kingdom of antichrist. For the Lord Himself said in the Gospel: then the Son of Man sends His messengers, and they gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (Mt 24:31). And earlier He says: then there will be peace on earth, when seven shepherds and eight plagues from men arise and place Assur, that is, antichrist, in the pit of Nimrod (Mic 5:5). This means in the curse of the devil. Ecclesiastes spoke similarly: "when those who guard the house tremble" (Eccl 12:3). The Lord Himself says this: "The servants of the householder came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field?
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How then does it have tares?' He said to them, 'An enemy of man has done this.' The servants said to him, 'Do you want us to go and gather them?' But he said, 'No, ... let both grow together until the harvest. At harvest time I will say to the reapers: gather the tares first and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn'" (Mt 13:27-30). The Apocalypse indicates here that the reapers and servants are the archangels. The trumpet is the word of authority. Although John again returns to the image of the seven angels in the account of the bowls (cf. Rev 15:7-16:20), he does not say that this has already occurred. But since what is to happen to them was once established for them by God, so that it would come to pass, it is therefore spoken of twice. Thus everything he expressed briefly in the example of the trumpets, he expressed more fully in the example of the bowls. One should not attend to the order of what is said, but to the meaning. For the sevenfold Holy Spirit, once He had turned toward the outcome of the world and the end of the times, returned again to the same time. He completed what He had not said sufficiently. One must not seek order in the Apocalypse, but meaning, for there is also false prophecy. Thus what is written about the trumpets and bowls concerns either the calamities of wounds sent upon the world, or the madness of antichrist himself. It concerns the destruction of nations, the diversity of misfortunes, the hope of the kingdom of the saints, the ruins of cities, or the ruins of Babylon, that is, the city of Rome. Assur and Nimrod were traditional images of antichrist.