After the reign of the Emperor Julian, and his successor Jovian who reigned but five months, the Empire became again divided between Valentinian and Valens. Then the Church Catholic, in the Epistle to the Angel of the Church of Laodicea, is reprehended as lukewarm, and threatened to be spewed out of Christ’s mouth. She said, that she was rich and increased with goods, and had need of nothing, being in outward prosperity; and knew not that she was inwardly wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. She is therefore spewed out of Christ’s mouth at the opening of the seventh seal: and this puts an end to the times of the first Temple.
About one half of the Roman Empire turned Christians in the time of Constantine the great and his sons. After Julian had opened the Temples, and restored the worship of the heathens, the Emperors Valentinian and Valens tolerated it all their reign; and therefore the Prophecy of the sixth seal was not fully accomplished before the reign of their successor Gratian.
It was the custom of the heathen Priests, in the beginning of the reign of every sovereign Emperor, to offer him the dignity and habit of the Pontifex Maximus. This dignity all Emperors had hitherto accepted: but Gratian rejected it, threw down the idols, interdicted the sacrifices, and took away their revenues with the salaries and authority of the Priests. Theodosius the great followed his example; and heathenism afterwards recovered itself no more, but decreased so fast, that Prudentius, about ten years after the death of Theodosius, called the heathens, vix pauca ingenia & pars hominum rarissima. Whence the affairs of the sixth seal ended with the reign of Valens, or rather with the beginning of the reign of Theodosius, when he, like his predecessor Gratian, rejected the dignity of Pontifex Maximus. For the Romans were very much infested by the invasions of foreign nations in the reign of Valentinian and Valens: Hoc tempore, saith Ammianus, velut per universum orbem Romanum bellicum canentibus buccinis, excitae gentes saevissimae limites sibi proximos persultabant: Gallias Rhaetiasque simul Alemanni populabantur: Sarmatae Pannonias & Quadi: Picti, Saxones, & Scoti & Attacotti Britannos aerumnis vexavere continuis: Austoriani, Mauricaeque aliae gentes Africam solito acrius incursabant: Thracias diripiebant praedatorii globii Gotthorum: Persarum Rex manus Armeniis injectabat. And whilst the Emperors were busy in repelling these enemies, the Hunns and Alans and Goths came over the Danube in two bodies, overcame and slew Valens, and made so great a slaughter of the Roman army, that Ammianus saith: Nec ulla Annalibus praeter Cannensem ita ad internecionem res legitur gesta. These wars were not fully stopped on all sides till the beginning of the reign of Theodosius, A.C. 379 & 380: but thenceforward the Empire remained quiet from foreign armies, till his death, A.C. 395. So long the four winds were held: and so long there was silence in heaven. And the seventh seal was opened when this silence began.
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