Imagining the End: Visions of

Commentaria in Apocalypsin

 in Valladolid in 



.

73

 Melo knew Greek

and some Hebrew and had a wide acquaintance with patristic and medieval

commentaries, including Joachim of  Fiore.

74

 He occasionally attacks Luther

and Protestant positions (e.g. 

Commentaria

, pp. 



, 



 ff.), but his main

interest is in summarizing and harmonizing the patristic and medieval past to

give a consistent moral reading of  a basically Tyconian–Augustinian variety.

75

The Augustinian friar generally resists any historicizing of  the symbols of  the

Apocalypse that would link them to events of  the past or present,

76

 though,

of  course, he recognizes that much of  the book also tells of  what will happen

at the end of  time, such as the persecution of  Antichrist.

77

Melo’s attitude towards millenarian hopes, however, displays ambivalence.

Given the disagreements among earlier expositors about so much that pertains

to the Apocalypse, he often cites a number of  positions, sometimes leaving

the reader to make a decision, at other times arguing for his own preference.

A good example of  this procedure can be found in his comments on Apoca-

lypse 



: 



: ‘When the seventh seal had been opened there was silence in

heaven for about a half  hour.’ Bede was the first exegete to identify this half-

---

162

Medieval and Early Modern Periods

hour with the forty-five-day mini-millennium of  the time after Antichrist,

78

and we have seen other exegetes follow suit. Melo presents this view (mention-

ing Bede, Rupert and ‘some of  the minor commentators’), but then argues

against it, saying: ‘This exposition which says that the half-hour silence

signifies the time from Antichrist’s death until judgment does not please me’

(

Collectanea

, pp. 



–



). He interprets the silence in heaven as that of  the

angels and saints over the magnitude of  the sufferings to be revealed at the

opening of  the seventh seal. Thus, the Spanish Augustinian was clearly

opposed to one well-established form of  millennialism, the tradition of  the

refrigerium sanctorum

 of  the forty-five days after Antichrist’s destruction.

When we turn to Melo’s comments on Apocalypse 



: 



–



, however, the

picture becomes more complex. Melo gives two explanations of  the descent

of  the strong angel who binds Satan for 



,



 years (

Collectanea

, pp. 



–



).

The first is the traditional view of  Augustine and Gregory that the angel is

Christ who at his incarnation binds Satan, so that the 



,



 years signifies

‘the whole time of  the evangelical law until the time of  Antichrist’ (p. 



).

However, he then goes on to give a second meaning which relates the whole

‘to the peace of  the church after the death and destruction of  Antichrist, as

Coelius expounds’.

79

 Melo discusses errors regarding the 



,



 years of  the

regnum electorum

, beginning with the traditional carnal understanding of

Cerinthus and others, which he says conflicts with the spiritual view of

Christianity set forth especially by Paul (p. 



). Subsequently, in commenting

on the first resurrection (Apocalypse 



: 



b–



, on pp. 



–



), he attacks

another error, namely, the view that the martyrs will physically come back to

life before Judgment Day. No, he insists, the