Note 319 — Chapter XV · THE BORGO AND ST. PETER'S.
Reading edition
It is interesting to observe that the same vision was seen under the same circumstances in other periods of history.
"So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel, and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it ... and David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem."—1 Chron. xxi. 14—16.
"Before the plague of London had begun (otherwise than in St. Giles's), seeing a crowd of people in the street, I joined them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them all staring up into the air, to see what a woman told them appeared plain to her. This was an angel clothed in white, with a fiery sword in his hand, waving it, or brandishing it over his head: she described every part of the figure to the life, and showed them the motion and the form."—Defoe, Hist. of the Plague.