Apocalypse 15:1
And I saw another sign in heaven, great and wonderful: seven angels having the seven last plagues. For in them is filled up the wrath of God.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et vidi aliud signum in cælo magnum et mirabile, angelos septem, habentes plagas septem novissimas : quoniam in illis consummata est ira Dei.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- Καὶ εἶδον ἄλλο σημεῖον ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ μέγα καὶ θαυμαστόν, ἀγγέλους ἑπτὰ ἔχοντας πληγὰς ἑπτὰ τὰς ἐσχάτας, ὅτι ἐν αὐταῖς ἐτελέσθη ὁ θυμὸς τοῦ θεοῦ.
Haydock's commentary
I saw....seven Angels, having the seven last plagues. Many by these understand chastisements that will fall upon the wicked a little before the end of the world, and so take these plagues and vials that are poured out, in the next chapter, mostly in a literal sense. Others apply them to different calamities that happened to heathen Rome; but the applications are so different, that they serve to convince us how uncertain they are. In the mean time St. John seems to repeat the same things in a different manner, and some times by way of anticipation, as here the saints are introduced rejoicing, in view of that happiness in heaven which is prepared for them. (Witham)
Here is a new vision, great and wonderful, seven Angels holding the figurative symbols of seven plagues. They are called the last, because in them is completed the wrath of God, being inflicted on mankind in the last period of the world, the period of Christianity. The first of these scourges takes place shortly after the commencement of the Christian era, and the seventh puts an end to the world. (Pastorini)
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 fifteenth chapter
1. “And I saw another great and wonderful sign, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is completed the indignation of God.”] For the wrath of God always strikes the obstinate people with seven plagues, that is, perfectly, as it is said in Leviticus; and these shall be in the last time, when the Church shall have gone out of the midst.