The closing and sealing of the
little scroll, which contains the names of the people written in it, signifies that
it is unalterable and that their mouths are shut from any justification before
God, according to what has been previously stated (Rev. 5:1). Therefore, the
gradual removal of the seals signifies the gradual repetition of the boldness
and intimacy toward God, which the only begotten One, having become incarnate,
has made possible for us by correcting our shortcomings through His own deeds.
It must be understood that the breaking of each seal signifies one of
the acts performed by the Lord for our salvation, and also those carried out by
Him against the spiritual enemies of our souls. For the Lord’s providence
toward us involves the overthrow of those powers.
Let no one be amazed at those
things that will happen, that the Only Begotten existed before becoming
incarnate; for the works and deeds before His coming to us are shown to the
divine evangelist through vision. Yet, He appears as a Lamb in the revelation,
as if slain.
For it is customary that what is
seen by the prophets serves as a pre-announcement of things to come. Therefore,
a man long ago contended with Jacob (Gen. 32:24), a type of Christ; thus Isaiah
saw the prophetess conceiving in her womb and bearing a son, whose name is also
called, “Despoil Quickly, Plunder Rapidly.” (Isa. 8:3) Thus Daniel saw the Son
of Man, still without flesh, God, the Word coming to the Ancient of Days. (Dan.
7:13)
Therefore, the first blessing,
which pertains to our race through our Savior Christ, is the one that opened
the first seal of the little scroll and established the beginning of
leading us back to where we came from, out of the transgression in Adam, and to
recover for us the lost relationship with God and to transfer our previously
forbidden access into boldness. This is the bodily birth established by the
Lord, which sanctified our birth so that we are no longer conceived in
lawlessness and carried in sins by our mothers, but we have a holy birth of
Christ through our own birth, by which the human birth is blessed. And a
witness to such a mobile ambition toward humanity is the divine apostle, who
writes: “since your children are unclean, but now they are holy.” (1 Cor. 7:14)
(Commentary on Revelation by Oecumenius [trans. John Litteral; 2026], 76-77)
