Breaking the Sixth Seal
Posted on Thursday 6 May 2004
The Apocalypse: Breaking of the Sixth Seal by Albrecht Durer, 1496 / 98
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake;
and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together;
and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains,
and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man,
hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne,
and from the wrath of the Lamb:
for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
--- Revelation 6: 12-17
...there was a general Apocalyptic fervor as the year 1500
approached and many were literally looking for signs to appear in the skies to
inaugurate the end of the present era.
These apocalyptic strains of belief ... truly demonstrate the extent to which
apocalypticism was ingrained within the unconscious of Christendom.
--- Albrecht Durer’s Apocalypse Series: A Study in the Reinterpretation of Revelation
What did he mean by "was"?
