Revelation 6, Verses 1 to 8, and The Gathas
Evil gallops in the form of horses and riders. The Creation Story as told by Zarathustra adds dimension.
Today, I start with a digression into The Gathas, but is it a digression? More like a connection to ponder.
Revelation is about the new Earth and new Heaven to come. Zarathustra, the prophet who founded Zoroastrianism, wrote about the Frashokéréti or the Renewal of Existence in The Gathas: hymns in praise of wisdom. The word “Frashokéréti,” to me, sounds like a name, similar to my idea I manifested in The Soul’s Awakening: of something being both a name (a being) and a place or a name and a time. The Distortans in The Soul’s Awakening. Perhaps this combining arose from hidden memories of when I visited the Yukon.
I stepped off the plane at Whitehorse airport and, for the first time, understood how the Earth can be seen to have a spirit. I sensed the Spirit of the North, as if it were welcoming and seeing me — and I could see it.
The Frashokéréti: The Renewal of Existence
The Frashokéréti reminds me of that. A time that is a being, that exists as a living and immortal entity whose time has and has not yet arrived. But when I think of the Resurrection, I think only of an event happening at some point in future linear time yet can exist outside of time. I suppose that’s similar to immortality.
Piloo Nanavutty writes in her book, The Gathas, Hymns in Praise of Wisdom (Zarathustra’s writings), which includes translations:
“Later tradition, however, asserts that both the just and the unjust will have to be purified by passing through rivers of red-hot molten metal before the Frashokéréti, the Renewal of Existence, can be established.” The Gathas, page 42.
The hymns were written in a time when metaphorical language described reality. Like with Revelation, one must dive into the imagery to understand their meaning, not read them literally.
Note: I’m following N.T. Wright’s Revelation: 22 Studies for Individuals and Groups and his newest book 20th Anniversary Edition with Study Guide, Revelation for Everyone. See my post Prepare for Revelation for suggested materials.
The Four Horses Ride In
Chapter 6 of Revelation introduces the famous four horsemen of the Apocalypse. They’re metaphors, not literal horses and riders. As N.T. Wright says, “John does not expect that his readers will…see these sinister characters riding by.”
Each horse and rider appears in sequence. Every time Jesus, the lion-lamb, opens a seal on the scroll that the one on the throne gave him, a horse and rider appears. White. Red. Black. Pale.
White victory with a crown.
Red with a sword.
Black with weighing scales.
Pale with Hades following.
Wright:
“This is a good moment at which to think about how the symbolism of chapters like this works. Obviously the four horsemen, and their riders, are symbols…the sequence, too, is symbolic….This is one of the differences between writing something with words and writing it with music. In music, you can have several lines which all happen at the same time; but with words you have to say everything in sequence.”
Metaphorical language allows us to see words like we read music. We can choose to read them as sequential events or perceive them as happening all at once after we build up the big picture when reading.
“This sevenfold sequence (four down, three to go, so far) is not chronological. It is an exposition of a sevenfold reality.” Wright continues to explain the sequence of trumpets in chapters eight to 11 and the bowls of wrath in chapter 16, take place at the same time as the lion-lamb opens the seven seals. The seals, the trumpets, and the bowls hold different perspectives on the same “complex reality.”
I think Wright’s use of the word “complex” is a bit of an understatement. He writes in a time dimension, but God exists outside of time, and so I doubt his plan exists within time only.
The Four Aspects of Reality
“[The white horse’s] rider was holding a bow. He was given a crown, and he went off winning victories, and to win more of them.”
This horse and rider represents conquest; for example, the British conquering lands around the globe and establishing colonies. Or the Spanish Conquistadors. The white seems to connote good — and from the conquerors’ perspective, it would be. But not from the conquered. To see the complex reality, we need more than one perspective.
“[The fiery red horse’s] rider was given permission to take peace away from the earth, so that people would kill one another. He was given a great sword.”
Well…people have been killing each other for millennia, with no sign of them stopping. World War II engulfed the world in war, yet people remembered the horrors and what created them, changing their ways to ensure “never again,” before forgetting only three or four decades later. Forty years after millions killed millions, people gleefully extolled bling and the me-generation. Once again we’ve entered the horror, enduring warmongers, hatred, division, and the lust for power, money, and influence, no matter the cost. From the perspective of the power-hungry, the vengeful, the victims of injustice who see violence as justice, this is good. The rest of us yearn to dream and work in peace.
“[The black horse’s] rider held a pair of scales in his hand. I heard something like a voice coming from the midst of the four living creatures. ‘A quart of wheat for a dinar!’ said the voice. ‘And three quarts of barley for a dinar! But don’t ruin the oil and the wine!’”
Wright notes that this horse and rider represents oppression, where essentials the poor require increase in price while luxury goods only the rich can pay for remain the same price, allowing the rich to pocket more money from the poor. Poverty turns people into oppressed prey to the greedy and powerful.
“[The pale horse’s] rider’s name was Death. Hades followed along behind him. They were given authority over a quarter of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with famine, and with death, and by means of the earth’s wild animals.”
I’m not sure what the difference is between the named forms of death and “death,” but perhaps it’s because the first two types humans create and the last are wild animals. “Death,” then, is disease or accident? Hades is a place; the horse and rider are beings. They represent death as a being and a place that impose various forms on the living. The dead don’t vanish; they inhabit another realm. We receive hints through ancient writings like Revelation and The Gathas, but we don’t really know about death, do we?
The Hostile Spirit
“All at once, from the bowels of the Earth, there burst forth Angra Mainyu, the Hostile Spirit. He poured forth an avalanche of evils on Gayomard, the Man and on Gayodad, the Bull, evils of greed, gluttony, pain, disease, lust and sloth.” The Gathas, page 65.
Angra Mainyu (and doesn’t its name connote anger?) is Satan or Lucifer.
Whether horses and riders or an angry spirit, these create the kind of anger Jesus warned against harbouring in Matthew 5.
“But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” NIV.
Raca is an Aramaic term meaning empty-headed or good-for-nothing. Since Jesus turned the tables over in the Jerusalem courts in anger, we know he’s not referring to all anger here, but a particular kind of anger, the kind that diminishes people, dehumanizes and dismisses them as having no value, having no worth to listen to. Haven’t we all felt the pain of that? The black horse and rider devalue the poor. Angra Mainyu pours on pain.
Different Perspectives, Same Reality
Different perspectives at different times in human history told the same story. God’s plan requires humans to face and learn to deal with division, strife, pain, disease, oppression, lust, greed, and death so as to purify them. Purify meaning only by going through this can humans with free will understand the payment of giving in to the horses and riders, of wading through the rivers of molten metal with an unjust heart.
According to Zarathustra, for the just, walking through the rivers will seem like walking through warm milk. The Resurrection cannot arrive while even one human — with free will — cocks an ear to the rider, turns towards Angra Mainyu.
Some people find it easy to see an unjust situation and know how to act with integrity — to not choose conquest, to not devalue a person, to reject benefitting monetarily through causing poverty even indirectly, to not allow disease to fester, to not covet and lust, and so on.
For others, acting with integrity is a non-starter when it requires changing their lifestyle, losing a job, or walking alongside a person enduring a long, tough recovery. They may agonize, but they will find a publicly acceptable way to listen to Angra Mainyu or follow one of the horses and their rider.
How can God renew existence when even one human remains who chooses to follow even one horse and rider, who chooses the kind of anger Jesus taught against, who chooses to listen to Angra Mainyu’s siren?
Since humans have free will, God cannot force them to choose justice.
They must go through these trials to see for themselves what kind of people they are, face the consequences, and decide for themselves.
This is what people don’t understand when they assert there can’t be a God because of all the suffering in the world. You can’t have both free will and a God who imposes one type of thinking on every human’s mind. I say one type because usually those who scoff at God existing see only their way to end suffering as the right one. Only one way to think and speak and act, rejecting all other ways to think and alleviate suffering. Rigid minds do weary a person. What do you think? Would you do away with your free will for eternal peace?
Question 5
In his Revelation for Everyone study guide, Wright asks:
“For too long, over the last century at least, mainline Western churches have healed the wounds of the human race lightly, declaring ‘peace peace’ when there is no peace, except at the superficial level. How might we begin to look below the surface and help each other find deeper healing?”
I despise the sharing of the peace during church services. For a moment, everyone shakes others’ hands (spreading germs because we all know what hand hygiene really is, now don’t we?). Then afterwards, they turn their backs on those who don’t belong in their cliques; don’t sit next to the person sitting by themself; maintain superficial relationships in bible groups; don’t try to understand why a person may have ideas but can’t carry them out and help them; don’t come alongside to make a person feel a part of the community that disease and injury has tossed them out of. Peace at the superficial level.
Services have moved from morning prayer during the Jesus Movement 1970s’ era to the weekly ritual of communion. It’s easy to follow the prescribed order; harder to pray. Praying requires thinking about others. Communion only demands you look like you’re thankful to God. I know, I know, my cynicism is showing. But is it? Or am I speaking reality?
A couple of ideas to begin looking below the surface:
Question the consequences of every horse and rider. Shift perspectives to see the whole of what they wrought. Wouldn’t it be great if we discussed these sorts of things instead of gossiping about our politicians and celebrities, casting them as evil or good, depending on our own rigid perspective?
Tie Angra Mainyu to the Ten Commandments to Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount and question your thoughts. Jesus said in his Sermon that anger begins in the heart, meaning one’s thoughts. Zarathustra taught that thoughts, words, and deeds are one. They flow into each other from thought to deed. You can only stop the flow by questioning the thought, which is what Jesus requires. Too many of us assume that since we’re good people, our thoughts must be good; thus, we don’t need to question them before we open our mouths or act. Some take it a step further and see apology as a sign of weakness. Why must one say sorry and put oneself at the mercy of another? Doesn’t that assume that all people are bad, confirming the Christian theology that we are all sinners, while lying to oneself in assuming that one is good?
God gave us free will. We don’t seem to be doing much good with it, which is why the four horses and their riders, why Satan/Angra Mainyu/Lucifer can romp around the world. How can God bring about the Renewal of Existence while free will remains? Yet God has no intention of eliminating free will. A conundrum, eh? How can God change humans so that the Resurrection benefits all? What I’m thinking about for novel two in The Q’Zam’Ta Trilogy.