Apocalypse 17:10
Five are fallen, one is, and the other is not yet come: and when he is come, he must remain a short time.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quinque ceciderunt, unus est, et alius nondum venit : et cum venerit, oportet illum breve tempus manere.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- οἱ πέντε ἔπεσαν, ὁ εἷς ἔστιν, ὁ ἄλλος οὔπω ἦλθεν, καὶ ὅταν ἔλθῃ ὀλίγον αὐτὸν δεῖ μεῖναι,
Haydock's commentary
Five are fallen, one is, and the other is not yet. The meaning of this is obscure. And perhaps it were better to own with St. Augustine that we do not know the meaning, than to advance suspicions and conjectures. But it is not improbable that by these seven kings may be understood the collection of kings, in what are called the seven ages of the world, from its creations to its consummation. The first age, is reckoned from Adam to Noe[Noah], and the deluge: the second age, from Noe to Abraham; the third, from Abraham to Moses; the fourth, from Moses to David; the fifth, from David to Christ. These five were past, and fallen, when St. John wrote. The sixth is, and is to last from Christ to antichrist. And another, the seventh, is not, being the time of antichrist, and only a short time. See Cornelius a Lapide on this verse. (Witham)
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 Hippolytus On Daniel, Section II
4. But that we may not leave our subject at this point undemonstrated, we are obliged to discuss the matter of the times, of which a man should not speak hastily, because they are a light to him. For as the times are noted from the foundation of the world, and reckoned from Adam, they set clearly before us the matter with which our inquiry deals. For the first appearance of our Lord in the flesh took place in Bethlehem, under Augustus, in the year 5500; and He suffered in the thirty-third year. …
St Victorinus of Pettau Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John, From the seventeenth chapter
10. “And there are seven kings: five have fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he is come, he will be for a short time.”] The time must be understood in which the written Apocalypse was published, since then reigned Cæsar Domitian ; but before him had been Titus his brother, and Vespasian , Otho , Vitellius , and Galba . These are the five who have fallen. One remains, under whom the Apocalypse was written, Domitian , to wit. “The other has not yet come,” speaks of Nerva ; “and when he is come, he will be for a short time,” for he did not complete the period of two years.