of locusts. Unlike ordinary locusts they attack men in stead of growing plants. In this respect they have the power or nature of scorpions. These locusts are a fitting image of demons, heretics, and apostates who swarm over the earth spreading spiritual destruction far and wide.
4, 5. These verses make it clear that there is no question of real locusts such as those that ravaged Egypt in the days of Moses. They are purely symbolic, and their ravages chiefly spiritual. Their sting burns and poisons the soul with false doctrines, but has no power to injure those who remain faithful to the graces received in Baptism and Confirmation. For a short time these locusts are permitted to harass and persecute with out killing, but they cannot destroy the Church.
6. In those days men seek death and find it not. The good would welcome death as an escape from the evils and miseries that surround them. Many who have been led astray by false doctrines would likewise welcome death as a relief from their doubts and remorse of conscience.
7. The locusts resemble horses accoutred for war. Heresy and schism are ever fruitful sources of religious wars and persecutions. The crowns indicate that rulers, emperors, kings, and princes will be arrayed against the Church as actually happened at the Reformation in the sixteenth century. The crowns merely resembled gold, because there was but a mere semblance of real Christian charity in those days. The human faces prove that these locusts symbolize real persons.
