ACC ~ Revelation 17 v4

SHUN THE INSIGNIA OF BROTHELS. CYPRIAN: Showy adornments and clothing and the allurements of beauty are not becoming in any except prostitutes and shameless women, and of none, almost, is the dress more costly than those whose modesty is cheap. Thus in holy Scripture, by which the Lord has wished us to be instructed and admonished, a harlot city is described, beautifully attired and adorned, and with her adornments, and rather because of those very adornments, destined to perish…. Let chaste and modest virgins shun the attire of the unchaste, the clothing of the immodest, the insignia of brothels, the adornment of harlots. THE DRESS OF VIRGINS 12.

JEWELS AND GOLD SYMBOLIZE THE DECEIT OF HYPOCRISY. TYCONIUS: The purple symbolizes the pretense and deceit of her false rule, and the scarlet indicates the bloody disposition of her impiety. … [The jewels] symbolize all the allurements of that which deceitly claims to be true. … And then he discloses what is really on the inside of this beauty, saying, “She had in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and the impurities of the fornication of the whole world.” The gold symbolizes the hypocrisy, for as the Lord said, on the outside they appear to everyone as righteous, but on the inside they are full of every form of uncleanness. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 17.4.

THE CAUSE OF EVIL AND IDOLATRY. OECUMENIUS: “The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet,” purple because of her sovereignty and scarlet because she had shed the blood of many saints. She was “bedecked with gold and a precious stone and pearls.” The passage appropriately describes her as a queen in royal garb. “She held in her hand a golden cup full of abominations.” It was gold because of the rank of her sovereignty but yet full of idolatries and defilements by which she was nourished and by which she offered a libation to her own demons. “And the impurities of the fornication of the earth,” it says. It ascribes to her the idolatries also of other nations, since she was the primary cause of their own evils and of the madness of their idolatry. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 17.1-5.

NOT SATED BY HER EVILS. ANDREW OF CAESAREA: She is clothed in scarlet and purple, for these are symbols of her dominion and rule over all. Therefore, she is decorated with precious stones and pearls. The “cup” indicates the sweetness of evil deeds before they are tasted, and it is gold because such deeds seem precious, as someone said of Job, “who drinks scoffing like water.”Moreover, the cup demonstrates that she is not sated by her evil but pursues further evil with a thirst for her own destruction. Therefore, she multiplies abominations for herself, that is, [she demands] practices that are abominable to God and that she makes the multitude who love the martyrs to drink. In this way she draws, as though it were a sweet drink, the abominable stupor of sin and the pollution of fornication from God. COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE 17.4.

Rev