And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
All Commentaries on Revelation 20:4 Go To Revelation 20
Oecumenius
AD 990
By ‘those who had been beheaded’ he means those who had been killed with an axe. He is speaking figuratively about those who had been put to death their own bodies because of their faith in Christ, and who endured very much because of it. For they expelled them from the synagogues, assaulted them with countless abuses, and plundered their personal possessions, when they put their faith entirely in Christ, as the wise apostle testifies.(Heb. 10:34) The Lord also spoke of them, “blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.(Matt. 5:11)” If you follow the sequence of the argument and subject every thought in obedience to Holy Scripture, you will understand that those who did not worship ‘the beast’ and did not receive ‘its mark or it image’ are those who did not agree with the rest of the Jews in their plots against the Lord, and who refused to obey the propositions of the abominable and blasphemous Devil. For this is to worship him and ‘his image.’ For by the word ‘image’ he means the imprint of the Devil’s will in the hearts of the Jews. He also means that this ‘mark’ includes both control and action. For the head, of which the forehead is a part, stands for control and the hand stands for action.
