What do the two visions show?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The curse against thief and false swearer precedes wickedness in the lead-covered vessel.

Chapter breakdown

The heading announces the flying volume and woman in a vessel. Zacharias sees a flying volume twenty cubits long and ten broad. The edition explains rolled parchment as the ancient book form. The curse travels over earth, judging thief and swearer according to its writing; God sends it to the thief’s and false swearer’s house, where it remains and consumes timber and stones.

The angel calls attention to a vessel going forth, described as their eye in earth. The edition preserves two explanations: what sinners fix their eye upon, or a resemblance and figure of sinners. A talent of lead is carried and a woman sits within. She is identified as wickedness and cast into the vessel, with lead placed on its mouth. Two women with wind in kite-like wings lift it between earth and heaven. Asked the destination, the angel says a house will be built in Sennaar, where it is established on its basis. The edition identifies the place of Babel or Babylon and explains Babylon’s frequent scriptural meaning as the devil’s city, the congregation of the wicked, contrasted with Jerusalem as God’s people. It does not call the vessel an amphora, introduce stork wings or interpret the eye as sins reaching full capacity.

The story inside

The volume is rolled parchment. The eye has two note explanations. The wings resemble a kite.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The volume is rolled parchment.
2
The eye has two note explanations.
3
The wings resemble a kite.

Test your recall

Where is the vessel’s house to be built?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 103345–103357
5:1. And I turned and lifted up my eyes: and I saw, and behold a volume flying. A volume.... That is, a parchment, according to the form of the ancient books, which, from being rolled up, were called volumes. 5:2. And he said to me: What seest thou? And I said: I see a volume flying: the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits. 5:3. And he said to me: This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the earth: for every thief shall be judged as is there written: and every one that sweareth in like manner shall be judged by it.
Lines 103359–103362
5:4. I will bring it forth, saith the Lord of hosts: and it shall come to the house of the thief, and to the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name: and it shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it, with the timber thereof, and the stones thereof.
Lines 103367–103377
5:6. And I said: What is it? And he said: This is a vessel going forth. And he said: This is their eye in all the earth. This is their eye.... This is what they fix their eye upon: or this is a resemblance and figure of them, viz., of sinners. 5:7. And behold a talent of lead was carried, and behold a woman sitting in the midst of the vessel. 5:8. And he said: This is wickedness. And he cast her into the midst of the vessel, and cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof.
Lines 103379–103394
5:9. And I lifted up my eyes and looked: and behold there came out two women, and wind was in their wings, and they had wings like the wings of a kite: and they lifted up the vessel between the earth and the heaven. 5:10. And I said to the angel that spoke in me: Whither do these carry the vessel? 5:11. And he said to me: That a house may be built for it in the land of Sennaar, and that it may be established, and set there upon its own basis. The land of Sennaar.... Where Babel or Babylon was built, Gen. 11., where note, that Babylon in holy writ is often taken for the city of the devil: that is, for the whole congregation of the wicked: as Jerusalem is taken for the city and people of God.