Apocalypse 14:8
And another angel followed, saying: That great Babylon is fallen, is fallen; which made all nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et alius angelus secutus est dicens : Cecidit, cecidit Babylon illa magna : quæ a vino iræ fornicationis suæ potavit omnes gentes.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- Καὶ ἄλλος δεύτερος ἄγγελος ἠκολούθησεν λέγων· Ἔπεσεν, ἔπεσεν Βαβυλὼν ἡ μεγάλη, ἣ ἐκ τοῦ οἴνου τοῦ θυμοῦ τῆς πορνείας αὐτῆς πεπότικεν πάντα τὰ ἔθνη.
Haydock's commentary
Another Angel,...saying:...She is fallen, she is fallen, that great Babylon. By Babylon, as observed before, may very probably be signified all the wicked world in general, whom God will punish and destroy after the short time of this mortal life: or may be signified every great city, and perhaps Rome returned to idolatry in the time of antichrist, a little before the end of the world, or may be signified the idolatry of heathen Rome, in the fourth age[century], when the Christian religion, under Constantine and his successors, began to triumph over paganism, i.e. according to those interpreters followed by Alcazar, Bossuet, P. Alleman, &c. which exposition Dr. Hammond thus expresseth: "the whole impure city of heathen Rome, under the title of Babylon, that old idolatrous city that had lain so heavy upon the people of God....should speedily be destroyed, for advancing the heathen worship." (Witham)
It is probable that here by the great Babylon is meant the city of the devil; that is, the universal society of the wicked: as Jerusalem is taken for the city and the Church of God. (Challoner)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Victorinus of Pettau Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John, From the fourteenth chapter
8. “And another angel following him.”] The other angel following, he speaks of as the same prophet who is the associate of his prophesying. But that he says,