Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video,
we’re going to discuss the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,
the four of them sent forth by God to unleash conquest, war, famine, and death upon the world.
Alright, let’s get into it.
The Four Horsemen make their appearance in the Book of Revelation, the final book of the New
Testament, a book that gives an account of the cataclysmic events that will transpire during
the apocalypse, a word derived from the Greek word 'apokalypsis', meaning to ‘reveal’ or uncover’.
Scholars generally agree that the Book of Revelation was written towards the
end of the first century AD, a time fraught with persecution for Christians under the
hegemony of the Roman Empire. At this time, John, a Christian and thus a victim of said persecution,
was living in exile in the Aegean Sea on the island of Patmos, and here, on this island,
is where God reached out and imparted to him the revelation of the events that were to come.
To John, God revealed the future, all the death and destruction prophesied
to afflict the world leading up to the final judgement, which will more or less
be a divine sifting event in which the wheat will be winnowed from the chaff,
basically an event where all the people of the world and all the spirits of the dead
will be judged, the good forever living in God’s light and the bad consigned to the lake of fire.
John was commanded to write down what he’s shown and then to send what he’s
written to seven churches located in Asia Minor, a land we know today as Turkey.
Jesus imparted a bespoke message for each church, which, without going into specifics, can be summed
up as messages that caution against falling into moral pitfalls and encourage the mustering of
fortitude and resilience to endure the adverse circumstances pervading that time. Afterwards,
John continues by recounting what he bears witness to in the vision revealed to him by God.
He sees God holding a scroll sealed by seven seals. Though these seals wouldn’t have proved
an obstacle was this scroll of the mortal world, the scroll was prophetic and of the divine,
so the seals could only be broken by someone worthy. At first, no one worthy could be found,
even the angels and the elders of Heaven were not considered so,
but then a slain lamb comes forward, this slain lamb symbolizing Jesus and the sacrifice of his
death on the cross for the sins of humanity; and he, Jesus, begins the process of opening
the scroll, breaking the seals one at a time. Here is where the Four Horsemen are released
into the world, the breaking of each of the first four seals corresponding to the release,
one at a time, of each of the four horsemen: first a rider on a white horse, then a rider
on a red horse, then a rider on a black horse, and finally, a rider on a pale green horse.
Here’s the passage:
“And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto
him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer… 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… And I beheld,
and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand… And I looked,
and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death,
and hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth,
to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”
The first horseman, the rider astride a white horse, is often thought to symbolise war,
conquest, or both of these, depending on the interpretation. Irenaeus, a Greek bishop of
the second century, identified this person as an incarnation of Jesus Christ, an interpretation
supported by a multitude of details, such as: white being the color of righteousness, Christ
being depicted as a conqueror on other occasions, and the appearance of a white rider, generally
thought to be Christ, later on in the Book of Revelation, in chapter 19, who is described as
the “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS”. In direct opposition to this, there is also the view that
this first rider is in fact the antichrist, who would work his wickedness under the cloak of a
fair guise, keeping hidden his malevolence under the varnish of false righteousness.
It seems as though some of the more modern interpretations of the Four Horsemen have
moved away from identifying the first rider with Jesus, a general reason being that the
four horsemen form a coherent group and that, in the context of this group identity, Jesus as
an inclusion is fundamentally incongruent, not really fitting in with the other three riders.
In symbolizing conquest, this is generally held to be either military or religious conquest,
so we’ll look at an interpretation that addresses each. Firstly, the white rider is described with
a bow, a weapon that has no symbolic connection to Jesus. It has been postulated that the bow
was chosen to evoke an image reminiscent of Apollo, symbolizing paganism, which could be
interpreted to represent the pagan conquest of Christianity. Another explanation put forward is
that this first rider is meant to convey the image of a Parthian warrior, who were renowned for their
prowess with bows and always included sacred white horses among their ranks of cavalry. This second
view paints the rider astride a white horse in a light that symbolizes military conquest,
especially because the Parthians were a perennial threat to the Eastern front of the Roman empire.
The second horseman, the rider astride a red horse, is often thought to symbolize war,
embodying its charnel aspects, its death and destruction - the red color of the horse evoking
the bloodshed for which it is harbinger, the sword wielded by the rider, usually depicted as being
held in an upright position, representing the beginning of battle, impending war.
If the first horseman, the white rider, is interpreted as conquest, then the second horseman
can be taken to symbolize the means by which this conquest will happen, widespread death brought
about through war and slaughter. In the Book of Revelation it is said about the second rider that
“power was given to him… to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another”.
These words serve as the basis for some interesting commentary that pertains to the
unmasking of false peace and the strife of civil war. Though genuine peace was something lauded by
the church, it was also thought wise to be wary of false peace, insidious periods that lull the
vigilant, deliver empty promises, and belie peril through false security, a sentiment supported by
several biblical passages, as well by criticism of the Pax Romana, a time of prolonged peace
that lasted for roughly 200 years, which was denounced by some, such as Tacitus,
a Roman historian, who wrote: “To rob, to butcher, to plunder, they call empire, and where they make
a desert they call it “peace””. Through this lens, it could mean that this second rider will
break the tenuous peace holding the Roman empire together, serving as the impetus for civil war
within constituent states or even as the catalyst for various states going to war with each other.
The third horseman, the rider astride a black horse, is generally thought to represent famine,
this in part engendered by the pair of weighing scales,
commonly used to measure and dispense subsistence staples, held by this rider.
Associated with him is this passage: “A measure of wheat for a denarius,
and three measures of barley for a denarius; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine”.
We’re going to unpack this in two steps, first addressing the price of wheat,
then addressing why the preservation of oil and wine is stipulated.
In Matthew 20:2 it says that laborers would be paid one denarius a day for working in the
vineyard. Extrapolating from this, a denarius for a day’s labor, in the biblical context,
is viewed as the standard wage. Applying this standard wage to the phrase, “a measure of
wheat for a denarius,” it has been commented that this price would have been exorbitant,
estimates ranging from 10 to 16 times the normal price, a strong indication of food scarcity,
which, of course, gives credence to the third horseman being the personification of famine.
Here’s a passage from Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary that expounds on what the words,
“thou hurt not the oil and the wine”, likely mean:
“The command not to harm the oil and the wine has been understood in a variety of ways. If oil and
wine were luxury items, this might suggest a famine which harmed the poor and not the
wealthy - but in fact both items were consumed by all sectors in society. It was an accepted
practice for invading armies, even if they devastated annual crops such as wheat and barley,
to leave vines and olive trees unharmed, since they take much longer to regrow and
their destruction would devalue the land that had been captured… So the command ‘not to harm’ allows
the economic imbalance that exists to have its full effect in creating uncertainty about food
supply and a greater vulnerability to the effects of war and conflict.”
The fourth Horseman, the rider astride the pale green horse,
is the least ambiguous of his cohort. Unlike the other three riders, all three of them unnamed,
this fourth rider is actually called death, making him, in this context, singularly unequivocal.
Also unlike the previous three riders, death isn’t described as carrying anything, but despite this,
the same is not true for his depiction in art, which sometimes shows him wielding a weapon, often
a scythe, the implement used to harvest wheat used to connote the reaping of life. Death, personified
as a rider astride a pale horse, is described as being followed by the domain of death, which,
depending on the translation, is either Hell, Hades, the Grave, or a combination of the three.
“With sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth”, one fourth of the
world will be claimed, the domain of death in the wake of this functioning like the very jaws of
death that will consume this quarter. Although one quarter of the world being consumed is
catastrophic, the subtext here is an affirmation of God’s sovereignty, for the allotment of one
quarter is precise, not one death more or less than the sanctioned quantity, signifying that a
power greater even than death, the power of God, is still in control. As well, looked at one way,
this fourth rider is the cumulative manifestation of the phenomena unleashed into the world by
the previous three riders: the first horseman, conquest, manifests through the second horsemen,
war, precipitating the third horseman, famine, with the three of these, conquest,
war, and famine, combining into death, the fourth horseman, who claims exactly 25 percent of life
on earth, not a hair more or less - all of this unfolding in accordance with God’s grand design,
an underlying aspect of the narrative communicated through death being subordinate to God’s power.
And that’s it for this video. If you enjoy the content,
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