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Concept
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Summary
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 written by John of Patmos. They are not specifically identified there but subsequent commentary often identifies them as personifications of Death, Famine, War, and Conquest.
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 green horses.
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 pestilence, Christ, or the Antichrist. The second carries a sword and rides a red horse as the creator of (civil) war, conflict, and strife. The third, a food merchant, rides a black horse symbolizing famine and carries the scales. The fourth and final horse is green, 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 sometimes interprets the Four Horsemen as a vision of harbingers of the Last Judgment, setting a divine end-time upon the world.
White horse (mythology)
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 τόξο, toxo) and wear a victor's crown (Greek στέφανος, stephanos).
Irenaeus, an influential Christian theologian of the 2nd century, was among the first to interpret this Horseman as Christ himself, his white horse representing the successful spread of the gospel. Various scholars have since supported this notion, citing the later appearance, in Revelation 19, of Christ mounted on a white horse, appearing as The Word of God. Furthermore, earlier in the New Testament, the Book of Mark indicates that the advance of the gospel may precede and foretell the apocalypse.
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