The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are figures in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Bible, a piece of apocalypse literature attributed to John of Patmos, and generally regarded as dating from about AD 95. Similar allusions are contained in the Old Testament books of Ezekiel and Zechariah, written centuries prior. Though the text only provides a name for the fourth horseman, subsequent commentary often identifies them as personifications of Conquest, War, Famine, and Death.
Revelation 6 tells of a book or scroll in God's right hand that is sealed with seven seals. The Lamb of God/Lion of Judah opens the first four of the seven seals, which summons four beings that ride out on white, red, black, and pale horses. All of the horsemen save for Death are portrayed as being human in appearance.
In John's revelation the first horseman rides a white horse, carries a bow, and is given a crown as a figure of conquest, perhaps invoking the Antichrist. The second carries a sword and rides a red horse as the creator of war, conflict, and strife. The third, a food merchant, rides a black horse symbolizing famine and carries a pair of scales. The fourth and final horse is pale, upon it rides Death, accompanied by Hades. "They were given authority over a quarter of the Earth, to kill with sword, famine and plague, and by means of the beasts of the Earth."
Christianity typically interprets the Four Horsemen as a vision of harbingers of the Last Judgment, setting a divine end-time upon the world.Compare:
White Horse
The above passage is a common English translation of the rider of the White Horse (sometimes referred to as the White Rider). He is thought to carry a bow (Greek τόξον, tóxon) and wear a victor's crown (Greek στέφανος, stéphanos).
As Christ, the Gospel, or the Holy Spirit For the broad historical interpretation of Christ as the rider of the white horse, it is to be understood that the Antichrist does not appear until the opening of the sixth seal. Events in world history since the founding of Christianity were interpreted as "horses" up to the sixth seal event. Therefore, this interpretation can be seen as either partially preterist, or an instance of dual fulfillment.
In the New Testament, the Book of Mark indicates that the advance of the gospel may precede and foretell the apocalypse. The colour white also tends to represent righteousness in the Bible, and Christ is portrayed as a conqueror in other instances.
Besides Christ, the Horseman could represent the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was understood to have come upon the Apostles at Pentecost after Jesus departed Earth. The appearance of the Lion in Revelation 5 shows the triumphant arrival of Jesus in Heaven, and the first Horseman may represent the sending of the Holy Spirit by Jesus and the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
As the Antichrist In 1866,References given by B. Gineste, Les Quatre Chevaux du Messie, Paris, 2d ed., 2019, pp. 53–54. C. F. Zimpel defended the hypothesis that the first horseman was the Antichrist (and more precisely, according to him, Napoleon Bonaparte).Ch. Fr. Zimpel, Le Millénaire, Franckfort-sur-le-Main, 1866, p. 43. The Antichrist interpretation later found champions in the United States, such as R. F. Franklin in 1898Annotations on the Revelation, New York, 1898, p. 85. and W. C. Stevens in 1928.W. C. Stevens, Revelation, Harrisburg, 1928, vol. 2, p. 129. It remains popular in evangelical circles today, for example with Pastor Billy Graham, for whom the horseman represented the Antichrist or false prophets in general.
As Roman Empire prosperity
In Edward Bishop Elliott's interpretation, the Four Horsemen represent a prophecy of the Roman Empire's subsequent history; the horse's white colour signifies triumph, prosperity, and health in the Roman political body. For the next 80 or 90 years, succeeding the banishment of the prophet John to the island of Patmos and covering the successive reigns of the emperors Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines (Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius), a golden age of prosperity, union, civil liberty and good government unstained with civil blood unfolded. The agents of this prosperity, personified by the rider of the white horse, are these five emperors wearing crowns, who reigned with absolute authority and power under the guidance of virtue and wisdom, the armies being restrained by their firm and gentle hands.
According to this interpretation, this period in Roman history, both at its commencement and close, illustrated the empire's glory where its limits were extended, though not without occasional wars, which were always uniformly triumphant on the frontiers. The triumphs of Emperor Trajan, a Roman Alexander, added to the empire Dacia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and other provinces during the first 20 years of the period, which deepened the impression on the minds of the barbarians of the invincibility of the Roman Empire. The Roman war progressed triumphantly into the invader's territory, and the total overthrow of those people successfully ended the Parthian war. Roman conquest is demonstrated even in the most mighty of these wars: the Marcomannic Wars, a succession of victories under the second Antonine, unleashed on the German barbarians, who were driven into their forests and reduced to Roman submission.
As war In some commentaries, the white Horseman symbolizes war, which may be decently exercised on moral grounds, hence the white colour. The red Horseman (see below) specifically symbolizes civil war.Herder German Bible, Freiburg im Breisgau 2007, p. 1348, annotation to Apc 6,7: "The four Horsemen of the Apocalypse symbolize various plagues: [1.] War, [2.] Civil War, [3.] famine and inflation, [4.] pestilence and death." (translated from German)
As infectious disease Under another interpretation, the first Horseman is called Pestilence and is associated with infectious disease and plague. It appears at least as early as 1906 in the Jewish Encyclopedia. This particular interpretation is common in popular culture references to the Four Horsemen.
The origin of this interpretation is unclear. Some translations of the Bible mention "plague" (e.g. the New International Version) or "pestilence" (e.g. the Revised Standard Version) in connection with the riders in the passage following the introduction of the fourth rider; cf. "They were given power over a fourth of the Earth to kill by sword, famine, plague, and by the wild beasts of the Earth." in the NASB. However, the original Greek does not use the word for "plague" or "pestilence" here, simply "death" (θᾰ́νᾰτος, thánatos). The use of "pestilence" was likely drawn from other parts of the Book of Revelation and included here as another form of death. Also, whether this passage refers to the fourth rider only or the four riders as a whole is a matter of debate.
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, in his 1916 novel The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (filmed in 1921 and in 1962), provides an early example of this interpretation, writing, "The horseman on the white horse was clad in a showy and barbarous attire. . . . While his horse continued galloping, he was bending his bow in order to spread pestilence abroad. At his back swung the brass quiver filled with poisoned arrows, containing the germs of all diseases".
Red Horse
The rider of the second horse is often taken to represent War (he is often pictured holding a sword upwards as though ready for battle) or mass slaughter. His horse's colour is red (πυρρός, purrhós from πῦρ, fire), and in some translations, the colour is specifically a "fiery" red. The colour red, as well as the rider's possession of a great sword (μάχαιρα, mákhaira), suggests blood that is to be spilled. As seen in heraldry, the sword held upward by the second Horseman may represent war or a declaration of war. In military symbolism, swords held upward, especially crossed swords held upward, signify war and entering into battle (see, for example, the historical and modern images and the coat of arms of Joan of Arc).
The second Horseman represents civil war as opposed to the war of conquest that the first Horseman is said to bring. Other commentators have suggested that it might also represent the persecution of Christians.Peters, Alan R., Bible Prophecies fulfilled by 2012, chapter 2.
As empire division
According to Edward Bishop Elliott's interpretation of the Four Horsemen as symbolic prophecy of the history of the Roman Empire, the second seal is opened and the Roman nation that experienced joy, prosperity, and triumph is made subject to the red horse which depicts war and bloodshed—civil war. Peace left the Roman Earth, resulting in the killing of one another as insurrection crept into and permeated the Empire, beginning shortly into the reign of Emperor Commodus.
Elliott points out that Commodus, who had nothing to wish for and everything to enjoy, that beloved son of Marcus Aurelius who ascended the throne with neither competitor to remove nor enemies to punish, became the slave of his attendants who gradually corrupted his mind.
Elliott further recites that, after the death of Commodus, a most turbulent period lasting 92 years unfolded, during which time 32 emperors and 27 pretenders to the Empire hurled each other from the throne by incessant civil warfare. The sword was a natural universal badge, among the Romans, of the military profession. The apocalyptic figure armed with a great sword indicated an undue authority and unnatural use of it. Military men in power, whose vocation was war and weapon the sword, rose by it and also fell. The unrestrained military, no longer subject to the Senate, transformed the Empire into a system of pure military despotism.
Black Horse
The third Horseman rides a black horse and is popularly understood to be Famine, as the Horseman carries a pair of balances or weighing scales (Greek ζυγόν, zugón), indicating the way that bread would have been weighed during a famine. The rider is typically portrayed as an emaciated man. Other authors interpret the third Horseman as the "Lord as a Law-Giver", holding Scales of Justice. In the passage, it is read that the indicated price of grain is about ten times normal (thus the famine interpretation popularity), with an entire day's wages (a denarius) buying enough wheat for only one person (one choenix, about 1.1 litres), or enough of the less nutritious barley for three, so that workers would struggle to feed their families. In the Gospels, the denarius is repeatedly mentioned as a monetary unit; for example, the denarius was the pay of a soldier for one day, and the day labor of a seasonal worker in the harvesting of grapes is also valued at one denarius (). Thus, it is possibly meant that with the approach of the Apocalypse, the most necessary food will rise in price greatly, and the wages earned per day will be enough only for the minimum subsistence for the same day and nothing more.
Of the Four Horsemen, the black horse and its rider are the only ones whose appearance is accompanied by vocalization. John hears a voice, unidentified but coming from among the four living creatures, that speaks of the prices of wheat and barley, saying, "and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine". This suggests that the black horse's famine is to drive up the price of grain but leave oil and wine supplies unaffected (though out of reach of the ordinary worker). One explanation is that grain crops would have been more naturally susceptible to famine years or locust plagues than olive trees and grapevines, which root more deeply.