The Second Trumpet of Revelation
Revelation 8:8-9
8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
The central detail revealed in the verses covering the second trumpet is the presence of the sea. Just as the bloody, burning hailstorm was “cast upon the earth,” this trumpet’s burning mountain was “cast into the sea,” turning it into blood. Alaric’s Gothic army attacked the Romans on land, spreading bloodshed wherever the hail of war fell. In contrast, the military threat in the second trumpet was nautical.
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The Vandals were a Germanic people who had gradually migrated from eastern Europe to Spain. In 429 AD, they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into present-day Morocco. From there, the Vandal army pushed eastward through North Africa, defeating the Romans in every engagement.[i]
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The Vandals’ military victories forced the Romans to negotiate a peace treaty in 435, resulting in the cession of Rome’s North African territories of Mauretania and western Numidia. The fragile treaty lasted four years until the Vandal king Genseric successfully invaded the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis and took the port city of Carthage on October 19, 439.[ii]
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Carthage offered the Vandals a valuable strategic port and the ability to launch naval attacks against Roman coastal cities across the Mediterranean.[iii] In 441 AD, the Vandals utilized their new navy to invade Sicily. Valentinian agreed to another peace in 442,[iv] relinquishing more territory in North Africa to the Vandals[v] and officially recognizing them as a sovereign, independent kingdom. The 442 treaty marked the first time a barbarian tribe received this status in the history of the Roman Empire.[vi]
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The Vandal Kingdom quickly became the dominant naval power in the Mediterranean Sea. Its fleet was so active in looting the coastal cities of the Roman Empire that the Old English name for the Mediterranean Sea was Wendelsæ, which translates to Vandal Sea.[vii]
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As a condition of the 442 treaty, Valentinian agreed to marry his daughter Eudocia to Genseric’s son Huneric, but the wedding was postponed due to Eudocia’s young age. In 455, Valentinian was assassinated, and the affluent senator Petronius Maximus ascended to the throne by bribing the Praetorian Guards for their support. To legitimize himself, Maximus married Eudocia to his own son, Palladius.
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King Genseric—whose son had been promised Eudocia’s betrothal as a condition of the 442 AD peace agreement—used this marriage as an excuse to sail to Rome. With the Vandal navy fast approaching, Maximus’ support evaporated, and he prepared to flee the city. As the frightened emperor rode through the city’s gates without his guards, he was spotted by an angry mob that stoned him to death. Three days later, on June 2, 455, the Vandal army entered Rome and plundered the city.[viii]
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The English word “vandalism” comes from the Vandals’ fourteen-day sack of Rome. However, some modern historians disagree with the ancient historians who claimed the Vandals engaged in the willful and indiscriminate destruction of the city. It is more likely that the Catholic chroniclers of the day embellished the widespread devastation of Rome. Genseric and Huneric were followers of Arius’ Christian teachings, which contradicted the Nicene Creed adopted by Catholicism. There was a major schism between Nicene Catholicism and Arian Christianity at the time, and the Catholic writers may have resented Genseric, as the Vandal king insisted that all his religious and political advisors follow Arian Christianity.[ix] The Nicene Catholic bishop of Carthage, Quodvultdeus, refused to adopt Arianism and was exiled to Naples shortly after the Vandal conquest of his city. In Naples, his sermons painted a dark picture of the Vandal army as violent plunderers, contributing to their barbaric reputation.[x]
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Nicene Catholicism—the doctrine created and adopted by the Vatican—held the belief that God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are all uncreated Gods—three equal deities. Jesus did not teach the concept of the Trinity, nor did his apostles. The Jews were fervently monotheistic, and a polytheistic religion would have been far less successful in reaching them. However, the trinitarian view of three equal divinities mirrors the triune gods of many ancient pagan religions, including the Babylonians.[xi]
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The original Nicene Creed denounced the Arians’ views on Jesus, stating, “But those who say: ‘There was a time when he was not;’ and ‘He was not before he was made;’ and ‘He was made out of nothing,’ or ‘He is of another substance’ or ‘essence,’ or ‘The Son of God is created,’ or ‘changeable,’ or ‘alterable’—they are condemned by the holy Catholic and apostolic Church.” The Catholic Church adopted this philosophy as official doctrine at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.[xii]
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Contrarily, Arianism taught that God the Father was a supreme deity—God Almighty—and Jesus was his only begotten son. The Arians theorized that God the Father made Jesus sometime before the creation story in the book of Genesis, and was superior to him. Jesus himself said there were things that God the Father knew, but he did not. In Matthew 24:35-36, Jesus tells his disciples that only God knows the day he will return to earth. The first verse of Revelation calls the book “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him.” The Arians believed the only sensible explanation was that Jesus was subservient to God the Father. The Trinity is only one example of a doctrinal deviation pitting Arians like Genseric against Nicene Catholics.
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The metaphor of a burning mountain thrown into the sea alludes to the mountainous region where the Vandals lived when Revelation was written, as they are believed to have resided around the Carpathian Mountains in the late first century. The symbolism of fire and blood in these verses predicted how these invading soldiers would bring war, violence, and death from the mountains to the sea.
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Vandal migration from the Carpathian Mountains to Spain, then to Carthage in 439 AD.
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[i] Collins, Roger. 2000. “Vandal Africa, 429-533.” In The Cambridge Ancient History. Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425-600. Vol. XIV, 124-126. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[ii] Collins, Roger. 2000. “Vandal Africa, 429-533.” In The Cambridge Ancient History. Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425-600. Vol. XIV, 124-126. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[iii] Brown, Thomas, and George Holmes. 1988. The Oxford History of Medieval Europe, 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[iv] Collins, Roger. 2000. “Vandal Africa, 429-533.” In The Cambridge Ancient History. Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425-600. Vol. XIV, 124-126. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[v] Cameron, Averil. 2000. “The Vandal Conquest and Vandal Rule (A.D. 429-534).” In The Cambridge Ancient History. Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425-600. Vol. XIV, 553-559. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[vi] Patout Burns, J., and Robin M. Jensen. 2014. Christianity in Roman Africa: The Development of Its Practices and Beliefs, 64. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.
[vii] Online Etymology Dictionary. 2023. Mediterranean. August 29. Accessed October 21, 2023. https://www.etymonline.com/word/Mediterranean#etymonline_v_12521.
[viii] Bury, John Bagnell. 1889. “Chapter II: Ricimer the Patrician.” In A History of the Later Roman Empire: From Arcadius to Irene (395 A.D. to 800 A.D.), 234-235. London and New York: Macmillan and Co.
[ix] Online Etymology Dictionary. 2023. Vandal. August 29. Accessed October 21, 2023. https://www.etymonline.com/word/vandal#etymonline_v_4628.
[x] Pohl, Walter. 2004. “The Vandals: Fragments of a Narrative.” In Vandals, Romans and Berbers: New Perspectives on Late Antique North Africa, edited by A.H. Merrills, 40. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing.
[xi] Rock, Thomas Dennis. 1867. “The Mystical Woman.” In The Mystical Woman and the Cities of the Nations, 22-23. London: William MacIntosh.
[xii] Schaff, Philip. 1877. “The Nicene Creed.” In The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes, Vol. I, 28-29. New York: Harper & Brothers.
