And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
Ver. 4. In purple and scarlet] Clothing for kings and nobles, over whom this whore domineers much more than the concubines did over the kings of Persia.
And decked with gold] Gr. κεχρυσωμενη, gilded with gold, to note her hypocrisy and outsideness, gold without, copper within. The pope styles himself the servant of God's servants, but yet stamps in his coin, "The nation and country that will not serve thee shall be rooted out." At the absolution of King John of England, 8000 marks of silver were presently delivered to Pandoffus the pope's envoy, who trampled it under his feet as condemning that base matter, but yet received it and sent it away to Rome. (Daniel's Hist.)
And precious stones and pearls] Besides the rich stones that are in the pope's triple crown of inestimable price and value, he carries in his pantofle a (which he holds out to be kissed) the picture of the cross, set in pearls and precious stones, Ut plenis faucibus crucem Christi derideat, saith Hiedfeld. Pope Sixtus quintus five was wont to give to Tiresa, his harlot, pantofles covered with pearls. He spent two hundred and threescore thousand crowns upon a conduit, which he built for his pleasure; and yet he brought in fifty hundred thousand crowns into the new treasury built by himself in the castle of St Angelo. At the coronation of Pope Leo X, a million crowns are said to have been spent in one day. Pope Paul II was wont to sleep all day, and spend whole nights in weighing monies and beholding jewels and precious pictures, uno eo die 1,000,000 aureorum expendit. (Jac. Rev 261.)
A golden cup full of abominations] Gold, if it be right, they say discovers and expels poison. Put poison into a cup of gold, and it will hiss and send up certain circles like rainbows. Hereby is signified (saith an author) that God threateneth judgment and fire to those that pour poison into divine doctrine, as the pope doth with his mad mixtures. He that argued from the letters of Papa, P. Poculum, A. Aureum, P. Plenum, A. Abominationum, argued no less wittily than that other, who of Roma made Radix omnium malorum, the base of all evils.
a A slipper; formerly applied very variously, app., at one time or another, to every sort of in-door slippers or loose shoes; esp. to the high-heeled cork-soled chopins; also to out-door overshoes or goloshes; and to all manner of Oriental and non-European slippers, sandals, and the like. (In Scottish use from 15th c.; in common Eng. use from c 1570 to c 1650\-60; after that chiefly an alien or historical word.) ŒD