The Second Seal of Revelation
Revelation 6:3-4
3 And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.
4 And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.
The second horseman John saw was riding on a red horse. This rider was empowered to “take peace from the earth.” In contrast to the external wars of expansion fought by the conquering horseman of the first seal, the phrase “that they should kill one another” implies internal struggle.
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Trajan, his predecessor, Nerva, and successors Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius are known collectively as the “Five Good Emperors,” as the empire remained relatively stable during their reigns. After the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 AD, his debauched son Commodus became the sole emperor. Modern historians consider the chaos of his reign to be the conclusion of the era now known as “Pax Romana”—or “Roman Peace”—a prolonged, 206-year age of imperial stability that began in 27 BC with the ascension of the first emperor, Caesar Augustus.
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After the end of Pax Romana, the unrest that followed “took peace from the earth”—precisely as God warned it would in the second seal. Commodus’ assassination in 193 AD brought about a power struggle among political and military rivals known as the “Year of the Five Emperors.”[i] This environment of bloody civil wars, usurpations, and assassinations lasted nearly a century until the conclusion of the “Crisis of the Third Century” in 285 AD.[ii]
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While an argument could be made that the first seal is vague enough to apply to any ancient conquering army, the added context John provides in Revelation 1:1 that these signs “must shortly come to pass” made it clear that the rider on the white horse represents Rome. However, the second seal is less ambiguous, with strong allusions to the civil wars, chaos, and instability that characterized the period following the end of Pax Romana.
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[i] The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1998. Pax Romana. July 20. Accessed August 11, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/event/Pax-Romana.
[ii] Alföldy, Géza. 1974. The Crisis of the Third Century as Seen by Contemporaries. Durham, NC: Duke University.