And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
Martyrs - witnesses.
I wondered with great admiration - wonder. John did not admire her. Elsewhere (Revelation 13:3; Revelation 17:8), all the earthly-minded wonder in admiration of the beast. Here only is John's wonder called forth: not the beast, but the woman sunken into the harlot, the Church become a world-loving apostate, moves his astonishment at so awful a change. That the world should be beastly is natural; but that the faithful bride should become the whore is monstrous, and excites the same amazement in him as Israel's like transformation excited in Isaiah and Jeremiah. "Horrible thing" (Jeremiah 2:20-21; Jeremiah 23:14) answers to "abominations" here. 'Corruptio optimi pessima:' when the Church falls, she sinks lower than the godless world, in proportion as her right place is higher than the world. In Revelation 17:3, "woman" has not the article, 'the woman,' as if before mentioned: for though identical in one sense with the woman (Revelation 12:1-17), in another she is not. The elect never become apostates, but remain as the true woman invisibly in the harlot; yet Christendom, regarded as woman, has apostatized from its first faith.