The Four Horsemen

White Horse

See also: White horse (mythology)

The first horseman as depicted in the Bamberg Apocalypse (1000-1020)

I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.

The white horse of the apocalyptic four has been argued to represent either evil or righteousness

 As evil

The other three horsemen represent evil, destructive forces, and given the unified way in which all four are introduced and described, it may be most likely that the first horseman is correspondingly evil. The German Stuttgarter Erklärungsbibel casts him as civil war and internal strife. One interpretation—which was held by evangelist Billy Graham—casts the rider of the white horse as the Antichrist, or a representation of false prophets, citing differences between the white horse in Revelation 6 and Jesus on the white Horse in Revelation 19. In Revelation 19 Jesus has many crowns, but in Revelation 6 the rider has just one.


Irenaeus, an influential Christian theologian of the second century, was among the first to interpret this horseman as Christ himself, his white horse representing the successful spread of the gospel. Various scholars have since supported this theory, citing the later appearance, in Revelation 19, of Christ mounted on a white horse, appearing as The Word of God. Furthermore, earlier in the New Testament, the Book of Mark indicates that the advance of the gospel may indeed precede and foretell the apocalypse. The color white also tends to represent righteousness in the Bible, and Christ is in other instances portrayed as a conqueror. However, opposing interpretations argue that the first of the four horsemen is probably not the horseman of Revelation 19. They are described in significantly different ways, and Christ's role as the Lamb who opens the seven seals makes it unlikely that he would also be one of the forces released by the seals.
Besides Christ, the horseman could represent the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was understood to have come upon the Apostles at Pentecost after Jesus' departure from earth. The appearance of the Lamb in Revelation 5 shows the triumphant arrival of Jesus in heaven, and the white horseman could represent the sending of the Holy Spirit by Jesus and the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[edit] Red Horse

The second horseman as depicted in a thirteenth-century Apocalypse manuscript

When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, "Come!" Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.

The rider of the second horse is often taken to represent War. His horse's color is red. In some translations, the color is specifically a "fiery" red. This color, as well as the rider's possession of a large sword, suggests blood that is to be spilled on the battlefield. The second horseman may represent the war of conquest as opposed to civil war that the first horseman brings. The red horse could also be spiritual war brought by Christ. In Matthew 10:34 Jesus states "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." Also, God is referred to as a "consuming fire" twice in Deuteronomy and once in Hebrews; hence a fiery red sword.

[edit] Black Horse

The third horseman as depicted in the Angers Apocalypse Tapestry (1372-82)

When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, "A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!"

The third horseman rides a black horse and is generally understood as Famine. The horseman carries a pair of balances or weighing scales, indicating the way that bread would have been weighed during a famine.
Of the four horsemen, the black horse and its rider are the only ones whose appearance is accompanied by a vocal pronunciation. John hears a voice, unidentified but coming from among the four living creatures, that speaks of the prices of wheat and barley, also saying "and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." This suggests that the black horse's famine is to drive up the price of grain but leave oil and wine supplies unaffected. One explanation for this is that grain crops would have been more naturally susceptible to famine years than olive trees and grapevines, which root more deeply; the statement might also suggest a continuing abundance of luxuries for the wealthy while staples such as bread are scarce, though not totally depleted. Alternatively, the preservation of oil and wine could symbolize the preservation of the Christian faithful, who used oil and wine in their sacraments. Another interpretation based on Ezekiel 45:13 is that wheat and barley represent the people's contribution to sacrifice to the Temple in the old Jewish traditions when Solomon's temple stood. The scale represents the balance and measure of the people's contribution, in order to equally distribute it among the 12 tribes. But, one of the four living creatures says it will cost a day's wage to get the barley and wheat. Therefore, the horseman will use his scale to equally distribute a days wage among nations, resulting with a 3rd Temple, but he is not to harm God's anointed and their wealth.
The third horseman may also reference Daniel 11:38-39 "But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things. Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain." The scales would represent the worshipping of forces and grain is a focus of both passages.

Pale Horse

The fourth horseman as depicted in the Bamberg Apocalypse (1000-1020)

When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hell was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

The fourth and final horseman is named Death. Of all the riders, he is the only one to whom the text itself explicitly gives a name. Still others apply the names "Pestilence"or "Plague" to this horseman, based on alternative translations of the Bible (such as the Jerusalem Bible). Unlike the other three, he is not described carrying a weapon/object, instead he is followed by Hades. However, illustrations—like those above—commonly depict him carrying a scythe (like the Grim Reaper) or a sword.
The color of Death's horse is written as khlôros (χλωρóς) in the original Koine Greek, which is often translated as "pale", though "ashen", "pale green", and "yellowish green" are other possible interpretations. The color suggests the sickly pallor of a corpse. The natural colors of horse coats that could be indicated include dun, palomino, buckskin, or one of several color variants with dilution genes. The verse beginning "they were given power over a fourth of the earth" may refer solely to Death and Hades, or it may summarize the roles of all four horsemen; scholars disagree on this point.The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are described in the last book of the New Testament of the Bible, called the Book of Revelation of Saint John the Evangelist at 6:1-8. The chapter tells of a scroll in God's right hand that is sealed with seven seals. Jesus Christ opens the first four of the seven seals, which summons forth the four beasts that ride on white, red, black, and pale horses which each symbolize Conquest, War, Famine, and Death, respectively. The Christian apocalyptic vision is that the four horsemen are to set a divine apocalypse upon the world as harbingers of the Last Judgment.

Demon Apocolypse

In the Old and New Testaments, a particular individual is singled out as the particular focus of God's wrath. This individual is known in biblical scripture by many titles such as the "beast", the "little horn", the "prince that will come" and other titles. One ancient prince was singled out in scripture, the Prince of Tyre, who may be considered a 'type' of antichrist.

After the judgment of the Prince of Tyre, God directs the prophet Ezekiel to write a judgment about the King of Tyre, and from the scripture some say it is learned that this individual is not a human being, but "the anointed cherub that covereth". From further reading of the text it is learned that the cherub being addressed here may be Satan, as this was his former position before the throne of God before his fall. Satan is also viewed as a 'prince that will eventually be judged. The straightforward view of this passage, however, is that the individual is the human Prince of Tyre. An alternative translation is that the cherub refers to one who acts on the Prince, rather than the Prince himself.

Picking up where Blood Beast left off, Grubbs on a plane in a dire situation face-to-face with Lord Loss and Juni Swan who has just been revealed to be one of his higher ranked familiars. Just when it seems like Grubbs will be killed, Beranabus (the homeless man from the previous book that had been following him around Carcery Vale, and a powerful magician who the Disciples follow) appears, and the two jump from the plane, and fly to his cave. Once there, Beranabus and Kernel take Grubbs with them to fight a demon in one of the Demonata worlds. Grubbs chickens out and is stuck in Beranabus' home for seven weeks. Once Beranabus and Kernel return from demon hunting, they all discover that the tunnel that Bec had sealed 1600 years ago has been opened, and hell has been brought to Earth. Enlisting the help of the Disciples, Grubbs, Kernel, and Beranabus set out to reseal the tunnel and remove the Demonata from Earth at the same time.

After arriving at the tunnel, Kernel gets his eyes gouged out by Spine (one of Lord Loss's familiars) and Grubbs sees all his friend's and Dervish's heads carried by demons (Not Bill-E's). The spirit of Bec appears again and tells Beranabus that sealing the tunnel will not remove the demons like it did last time. In the chaos, the Kah-Gash (the weapon powerful enough to destroy universes) awakes in Grubbs, Kernel and Bec and turns back time to a point just before the tunnel was opened, providing Grubbs, Kernel, and Beranabus a way to prevent mankind's extinction. During the cave battle between Beranabus' group and Lord Loss', it is revealed that Bill-E must be killed to prevent the opening of the tunnel, since he unwittingly sacrificed Loch to open the tunnel. Because Dervish is unable to kill his nephew, Grubbs is forced to painlessly kill Bill-E. This seals the tunnel, and also forces the retreat of a shadowy creature unlike any demon Grubbs has seen before. Bec, her essence trapped within Grubbs, fills Bill-E's body and changes the body to resemble hers. It is revealed that Bec's spirit has been trapped inside the cave for the past 1600 years, believed by Beranabus to be because she is part of the Kah-Gash, along with Grubbs and Kernel. Now knowing what is at stake, Grubbs leaves Dervish in the care of Bec and joins Beranabus and Kernel on their never ending quest to prevent more tunnels from opening and to learn more about the creature known as the Shadow.

A zombie apocalypse is a particular scenario of apocalyptic fiction that customarily has a science fiction/horror rationale. In a zombie apocalypse, a widespread rise of zombies hostile to human life engages in a general assault on civilization. In some mythologies, victims of zombies may become zombies themselves if they are bitten by zombies; in others, everyone who dies, whatever the cause, becomes one of the undead. In either scenario, this causes the outbreak to become an exponentially growing crisis: the spreading "zombie plague" swamps normal military and law enforcement organizations, leading to the panicked collapse of civilian society until only isolated pockets of survivors remain, scavenging for food and supplies in a world reduced to a pre-industrial hostile wilderness.

The day that the zombie apocalypse begins is sometimes known, by analogy with military operations such as D-Day, as Z-Day.