the sending of the Holy Spirit by Jesus and the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As the Antichrist For nearly nineteen centuries, Christians thought that the first horseman was a positive figure representing Christ or the Gospel. Still, a completely different interpretation of this character emerged in 1866, when C.F. Zimpel defended the hypothesis that the first horseman was the Antichrist (and more precisely, according to him, Napoleon Bonaparte). The Antichrist interpretation later found champions in the United States, such as R. F. Franklin in 1898 and W. C. Stevens in 1928. It remains popular in evangelical circles today, for example with Pastor Billy Graham, for whom the horseman represented the Antichrist or false prophets in general. As Roman Empire prosperity In Edward Bishop Elliott's interpretation, the Four Horsemen represent a prophecy of the Roman Empire's subsequent history; the horse's white color signifies triumph, prosperity, and health in the Roman political body. For the next 80 or 90 years, succeeding the banishment of the prophet John to the island of Patmos and covering the successive reigns of the emperors Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines (Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius), a golden age of prosperity, union, civil liberty and good government unstained with civil blood unfolded. The agents of this prosperity, personified by the rider of the white horse, are these five emperors wearing crowns, who reigned with absolute authority and power under the guidance of virtue and wisdom, the armies being restrained by their firm and gentle hands. This interpretation points out that the bow was preeminently a weapon of the inhabitants of the island of Crete and not of the Roman Empire in general. The Cretans were renowned for their archery skills. The significance of the rider of the white horse holding a bow indicates the place of origin of the line of emperors ruling during this time. This group of emperors can be classed together under one and the same head and family whose origins were from Crete. According to this interpretation, this period in Roman history, both at its commencement and close, illustrated the empire's glory where its limits were extended, though not without occasional wars, which were always uniformly triumphant on the frontiers. The triumphs of Emperor Trajan, a Roman Alexander, added to the empire Dacia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and other provinces during the first 20 years of the period, which deepened the