And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
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A Treatise Against the Heretic Novatian
AD 255
And the kings of the earth, and all the great men, and the tribunes, and the rich men, and the strong men, and every slave, and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the caverns of the mountains; saying to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall upon us, and hide us from the sight of the Father that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: because the day of destruction cometh; and who shall be able to stand? "
moon: The Church, more than is wont, will shed her blood for Christ. And he said "the whole," because the last earthquake will be in the whole world. But before that, as it is written, "there will be earthquakes through divers places." <a
sixth: By the opening of the sixth seal the last persecution is announced, and that the world is shaken with darkness and fear, as when the Lord was crucified on the sixth day of the week.
sun: This is, as if the power of Christ were hidden, or His doctrine temporarily obscured, or covered by a veil, when the servants of Antichrist are brought to attack the servants of Christ.
At the opening of the sixth seal. A great earthquake Many think that these dreadful signs, of the sun turning black are not to happen till the time of antichrist, a little before the end of the world. See Matthew xiv.; Luke xxi.; Isaias xiii. and xxxiv.; Ezechiel xxxiii.; Daniel xii.; Others apply these prodigies to God's visible chastisements, on the heathen emperors and persecutors of the Christians, before the first Christian emperor Constantine. (Witham)
And I saw. The sixth seal being opened, St. John sees painted before him the severe and terrible manner in which the Almighty would revenge himself on his enemies. It may refer either to the time of Constantine, when we behold the Christian religion triumphing on the ruins of paganism, and after his death, and that of his sons, the empire of Rome given up a prey to barbarians, Rome itself taken and pillaged, and all the provinces thrown into dreadful disorder and consternation; or it may likewise refer to the day of general judgme...
