The destruction of life brought about by this rider of the red horse doubtless signifies the great slaughter of the Christians at the hands of the Pagans.  During ten seasons of severe persecution, which occurred under the reigns of the emperors Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Septimus Severus, Maximus, Decius, Gallus, Valerian, and Diocletian, the Christians suffered every indignity that their relentless persecutors could heap upon them.  They had their eyes burned out with red-hot irons; they were dragged about with ropes until life was extinct; they were beheaded, stoned to death, crucified, thrown to wild beasts, burned at the stake; yet “they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”  Chap. 12:11.

It may appear at first that taking the rider of the horse as a symbolic agent but the killing which he effected as literal, is an inconsistency and a variation from the laws of symbolic language; but such is not necessarily the case.  One principle laid down in the beginning was, that the description of an object or event must necessarily be literal when no symbolic object could be found to analagously represent it.  The destruction of human life could not well be represented symbolically, there being no destruction analagous to it whose meaning would be obvious; hence it must appear as a literal description.  This is proved by many texts in the Revelation that will admit of no other application; such as verses 9-11 of this chapter; chapter 13:10; 17:6; etc.

But the literal destruction of life may be chosen as a symbol to represent a destruction to which it is plainly analagous; such as the destruction of spiritual life, the overthrow of the civil or ecclesiastical institutions of society, etc.  That it is sometimes employed thus as a symbol will be shown clearly in subsequent chapters.  Hence, in every instance where killing men is the work of a symbolic agent, the context, or general series of events with which it is connected, must determine whether the literal or symbolical signification is intended.  In the present prophecy under consideration it is much more consistent to give it the literal application; for the devotees of Paganism did not destroy the spiritual life of the church, which would be an analagous killing; neither did they succeed in overthrowing the structure of Christianity.

    5.  And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third
    beast say, Come and see.  And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and
    he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

    6.  And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A
    measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a
    penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.