Chapter XXI: Part 21

“I admit that Luther uses too harsh expressions, where he speaks
of the epistle of St. James, though in a preface not designed
for Christians of every denomination: but his opinion of the
Apocalypse is delivered in terms of the utmost diffidence,
which are well worthy of imitation. And this is so much the more
laudable, as the Apocalypse is a book, which Luther’s opposition
to the church of Rome must have rendered highly acceptable
to him, unless he had thought impartially, and had refused to
sacrifice his own doubts to polemical considerations.”

To pretend to decide with certainty on a point, which Martin
Luther boldly denied, and which John David Michaelis modestly
doubted, implies neither superior knowledge of the truth, nor a
more holy reverence for it; but rather marks a mere presumptuous
self-confidence, and an ignorant bigotry, arising from the
prejudices of education. Yet from the deep researches of the
latter of these writers, and of other exegetical theologians
since, much may be drawn to support the view taken in the
text of this Life of John, which is accordant with the common
notion of its authorship. The quotation just given, however,
is valuable as inculcating the propriety of hesitation and
moderation in pronouncing upon results.

_The testimony of the Fathers_, on the authenticity of the
Apocalypse as a work of John, the apostle, may be very briefly
alluded to here. The full details of this important evidence
may be found by the scholar in J. D. Michaelis’s Introduction to
the New Testament (Vol. IV. c. xxxiii. § 2.) Hug’s Introduction
to the New Testament (Vol. II. § 176.) Lardner’s Credibility of
Gospel History (Supplement, chapter 22.) Fabricii Bibliotheca
Graeca. (Harles’s 4to. edition with Keil’s, Kuinoel’s, Gurlitt’s,
and Heyne’s notes, vol. IV. pp. 786‒795, corresponding to vol.
III. pp. 146‒149, of the first edition.) Lampe, Prolegomena to
a Johannine Theology.

Justin Martyr (A. D. 140,) is the first who mentions this book.
He says, “A man among us, named John, one of the apostles of
Christ, has, in a revelation which was made to him, prophesied,”
&c. Melito (A. D. 177.) is quoted by Eusebius and by Jerome, as
having written a treatise on the Revelation. He was bishop of
Sardis, one of the seven churches, and his testimony would be
therefore highly valuable, if it were certain whether he wrote
_for_ or _against_ the authenticity of the work. Probably he
was _for_ it, since he calls it “the Apocalypse of John,” in
the title of his treatise, and the silence of Eusebius about
the opinion of Melito may fairly be construed as showing that
he did not write _against_ it. Irenaeus, (A. D. 178,) who in
his younger days was acquainted with Polycarp, the disciple
and personal friend of John, often quotes this book as “the
Revelation of John, the disciple of the Lord.” And in another
place, he says, “It was seen not long ago, almost in our own age,
_at the end of the reign of Domitian_.” This is the most direct
and valuable kind of testimony which the writings of the Fathers
can furnish on any point in apostolic history; for Irenaeus here
speaks from personal knowledge, and, as will be hereafter shown,
throws great light on the darkest passage in the Apocalypse, by
what he had heard from those persons who _had seen John himself,
face to face_, and who heard these things from his own lips.
Theophilus of Antioch, (A. D. 181,)――Clemens of Alexandria,
(A. D. 194,――Tertullian of Carthage, (A. D. 200,)――Apollonius of
Ephesus, (A. D. 211,)――Hippolytus of Italy, (A. D. 220,)――Origen
of Alexandria and Caesarea, (A. D. 230,)――all received and
quoted it as a work of John the apostle, and some testify very
fully as to the character of the evidence of its authenticity,
received from their predecessors and from the contemporaries of
John.

But from about the middle of the third century, it fell under
great suspicion of being the production of some person different
from the _apostle_ John. Having been quoted by Cerinthus and
his disciples, (a set of Gnostical heretics, in the first
century,) in support of their views, it was, by some of their
opponents, pronounced to be a fabrication of Cerinthus himself.
At this later period, however, it suffered a much more general
condemnation; but though denied by some to be an _apostolic_
work, it was still almost universally granted to be inspired.
Dionysius of Alexandria, (A. D. 250,) in a book against the
Millenarians, who rested their notions upon the millenial
passages of this revelation, has endeavored to make the
Apocalypse useless to them in support of their heresy. This
he has done by referring to the authority of some of his
predecessors, who rejected it on account of its maintaining
Cerinthian doctrines. This objection however, has been ably
refuted by modern writers, especially by Michaelis and Hug, both
of whom, distinctly show that there are many passages in the
Revelation, so perfectly opposite to the doctrines of Cerinthus,
that he could never have written the book, although he may have
been willing to quote from it such passages as accorded with his
notions about a sensual millenium,――as he could in this way meet
those, who did take the book for an inspired writing.

Dionysius himself, however, does not pretend to adopt this view
of the authorship of it, but rather thinks that it was the work
of John the _presbyter_, who lived in Ephesus in the age of John
the _apostle_, and had probably been confounded with him by the
early Fathers. This John is certainly spoken of by Papias, (A. D.
120,) who knew personally both him and the apostle; but Papias
has left nothing on the Apocalypse, as the work of either of
them. (The substance of the whole argument of Dionysius is very
elaborately given and reviewed, by both Michaelis and Hug.)
After this bold attack, the apostolic character of the work
seems to have received much injury among most of the eastern
Fathers, and was generally rejected by both the Syrian and Greek
churches, having no place in their New Testament canon. Eusebius,
(A. D. 315,) who gives the first list of the writings of the New
Testament, that is known, divides all books which had ever been
offered as apostolical, into three classes,――the _universally
acknowledged_, (ὁμολογουμενα _homologoumena_,)――the _disputed_,
(αντιλεγομενα _antilegomena_,)――and the _spurious_, (νοθα
_notha_.) In the first class, he puts all now received into the
New Testament, except the epistle to the Hebrews, the epistles
of James and Jude, the second of Peter, the second and third
of John, and the Revelation. These exceptions he puts into the
second, or _disputed_ class, along with sundry writings now
universally considered apocryphal. Eusebius says also, “It is
likely that the Revelation was seen by John the presbyter, if
not by John the apostle.”――Cyril of Jerusalem, (A. D. 348,) in
his catalogue of the Scriptures, does not allow this a place.
Epiphanius of Salamis, in Cyprus, (A. D. 368,) though himself
receiving it as of apostolic origin, acknowledged that others
in his time rejected it. The council of Laodicea, (A. D. 363,)
sitting in the seat of one of the seven churches, did not give
the Revelation a place among the sacred writings of the New
Testament, though their list includes all others now received.
Gregory, of Nazianzus, in Cappadocia, (A. D. 370,) gives
a catalogue of the canonical scriptures, but excludes the
Revelation. Amphilochius, of Iconium, in Lycaonia, (A. D. 370,)
in mentioning the canonical scriptures, says, “The Revelation
of John is approved by some; but many say it is spurious.”
The scriptural canon of the Syrian churches rejects it, even
as given by Ebed Jesu, in 1285; nor was it in the ancient
Syriac version completed during the first century; but the
reason for this may be, that the Revelation was not then
promulgated.――Jerome of Rome, (A. D. 396,) receives it, as
do all the Latin Fathers; but he says, “the Greek churches
reject it.”――Chrysostom (A. D. 398,) never quotes it, and is not
supposed to have received it. Augustin, of Africa, (A. D. 395,)
receives it, but says that it was not received by all in
his time. Theodoret, (A. D. 423,) of Syria, and all the
ecclesiastics of that country, reject it also.

The result of all this evidence is, as will be observed by
glancing over the _dates_ of the Fathers quoted, that, until
the year 250, no writer can be found who scrupled to receive the
Apocalypse as the genuine work of John the _apostle_,――that the
further back the Fathers are, the more explicit and satisfactory
is their testimony in its favor,――and that the fullest of all,
is that of Irenaeus, who had his information from Polycarp,
the most intimate and beloved disciple of John himself. Now,
where the evidence is not of the ordinary cumulative character,
growing weighty, like a snowball, the farther it travels from
its original starting-place, but as here, is strongest at the
source,――it may justly be pronounced highly valuable, and an
eminent exception to the usual character of such historical
proofs, which, as has been plentifully shown already in this
book, are too apt to come “but-end first,” as the investigator
travels from the last to the first. It will be observed also,
by a glance at the _places_ where these Fathers flourished, that
all those who rejected the Apocalypse belonged to the EASTERN
section of the churches, including both the Greeks and the
Syrians, while the WESTERN churches, both the Europeans and
Latino-Africans, adopted the Apocalypse as an apostolic writing.
This is not so fortunate a concurrence as that of the _dates_,
since the _easterns_ certainly had better means of investigating
such a point than the _westerns_. A reason may be suggested
for this, in the circumstance, that the Cerinthians and other
heretics, who were the occasion of the first rejection of
the Apocalypse, annoyed only the eastern churches, and thus
originated the mischief only among them. Lampe, Michaelis and
others, indeed, quote Caius of Rome, as a solitary exception
to this geographical distribution of the difficulty, but Paulus
and Hug have shown that the passage in Caius, to which they
refer, has been misapprehended, as the scholar may see by a
reference to Hug’s Introduction to the New Testament, vol. II.
pp. 647‒650, [Wait’s translation,] pp. 593‒596, [original.]
There is something in Jerome too, which implies that some of
the Latins, _in his time_, were beginning to follow the Greek
fashion of rejecting this book, but he scouts this new notion,
and says he shall stick to the old standard canon.

_The internal evidence_ is also so minutely protracted in its
character, that only a bare allusion to it can be here permitted,
and reference to higher and deeper sources of information, on
such an exegetical point, may be made for the benefit of the
scholar. Lampe, Wolf, Michaelis, Mill, Eichhorn and others,
quoted by Fabricius, [Bibliotheca Graeca, vol. IV. p. 795, note
46.] Hug and his English translator, Dr. Wait, are also full on
this point.

This evidence consists for the most part in a comparison of
passages in this book with similar ones in the other writings of
John, more especially his gospel. Wetstein, in particular, has
brought together many such parallelisms, some of which are so
striking in the peculiar expressions of John, and yet so merely
accidental in their character, as to afford most satisfactory
evidence to the nicest critics, of the identity of authorship.
A table of these coincidences is given from Wetstein, by Wait,
Hug’s translator, (p. 636, note.) Yet on this very point,――the
style,――the most serious objection to the Apocalypse, as a work
of the author of John’s gospel, has always been founded;――the
rude, wild, thundering sublimity of the vision of Patmos,
presenting such a striking contrast with the soft, love-teaching,
and beseeching style of the gospel and the epistles of John.
But such objectors have forgotten or overlooked the immense
difference between the circumstances under which these works
were suggested and composed. Their period, their scene, their
subject, their object, were all widely removed from each other,
and a thoughtful examination will show, that writings of such
widely various scope and tendency could not well have less
striking differences, than those observable between this and the
other writings of John. In such a change of circumstances, the
structure of sentences, the choice of words, and the figures
of speech, could hardly be expected to show the slightest
similarity between works, thus different in design, though by
the same author. But in the minuter peculiarities of language,
certain favorite expressions of the author,――particular
associations of words, such as a forger could never hit upon
in that uninventive age,――certain personal views and sentiments
on trifling points, occasionally modifying the verbal forms of
ideas――these and a multitude of other characteristics, making
up that collection of abstractions which is called an author’s
_style_,――all quite beyond the reach of an imitator, but
presenting the most valuable and honest tests to the laborious
critic,――constitute a series of proofs in this case, which
none can fully appreciate but the investigators and students
themselves.

II. WITH WHAT DESIGN WAS THE APOCALYPSE WRITTEN?

There is no part of the Bible which has been the subject of so much perversion, or on which the minds of the great mass of Christian readers have been suffered to fall into such gross errors, as the Apocalypse. This is the opinion of all the great exegetical theologians of this age, who have examined the scope of the work most attentively; and from the time of Martin Luther till this moment, the opinions of the learned have for the most part been totally different from those which have made up the popular sentiment,――none or few, caring to give the world the benefit of the simple truth, which might be ill received by those who loved darkness rather than light; and those who knew the truth, have generally preferred to keep the quiet enjoyment of it to themselves. This certainly is much to be regretted; for in consequence of this culpable negligence of the duty of making religious knowledge available for the good of the whole, this particular apostolic writing has been the occasion of the most miserable and scandalous delusions among the majority even of the more intelligent order of Bible readers,――delusions, which, affecting no point whatever in creeds and confessions of faith, those bulwarks of sects, have been suffered to rage and spread their debasing error, without subjecting those who thus indulged their foolish fancies, to the terrors of ecclesiastical censure. The Revelation of John has, accordingly, for the last century or two, been made a licensed subject for the indulgence of idle fancies, and used as a grand storehouse for every “filthy dreamer” to draw upon, for the scriptural prophetical supports of his particular notions of “the signs of the times,” and for the warrant of his special denunciations of divine wrath and coming ruin, against any system that might happen to be particularly abominable in his religious eyes. Thus, a most baseless delusion has been long suffered to pervade the minds of common readers, respecting the general scope of the Apocalypse, perverting the latter parts of it into a prophecy of the rise, triumph and downfall of the Romish papal tyranny; while in respect to the minor details, every schemer has been left to satisfy himself, as his private fancy or sectarian zeal might direct him. Now, not only is all this ranting trash directly opposed to the clear, natural and simple explanations, given by those very persons among the earliest Christian writers, who had John’s own private personal testimony as to his real meaning, in the dark passages which have in modern times been made the subject of such idle, fanciful interpretations; but they are so palpably inconsistent both with the general scope and the minute details of the writing itself, that even without the support of this most incontrovertible evidence of the earliest Christian antiquity, the falsehood of the idea of any anti-papal prophecy can be most triumphantly and unanswerably settled; and this has been repeatedly done, in every variety of manner, by the learned labors of all the sagest of the _orthodox_ theologians of Germany, Holland, France and England, for the last three hundred years. A most absurd notion seems to be prevalent, that the idea of a rational historical interpretation of the Apocalypse, is one of the wicked results of that most horrible of abstract monsters, “_German neology_;” and the dreadful name of Eichhorn is straightway referred to, as the source of this common sense view. But Eichhorn and all those of the modern German schools of theology, who have taken up this notion, so far from originating the view or aspiring to claim it as their invention, were but quietly following the standard authorities which had been steadily accumulating on this point for sixteen hundred years; and instead of being the result of _neo_logy or of anything _new_, it was as old as the time of Irenaeus. The testimony of all the early writers on this point, is uniform and explicit; and they all, without a solitary exception, explain the great mass of the bold expressions in it, about coming ruin on the enemies of the pure faith of Christ, as a distinct, direct prophecy of the downfall of imperial ROME, as the great _heathen_ foe of the saints. There was among them no very minute account of the manner in which the poetical details of the prophecy was to be fulfilled; but the general meaning of the whole was considered to be so marked, dated, and individualized, that to have denied this manifest interpretation in their presence, must have seemed an absurdity not less than to have denied the authentic history of past ages. Not all, nor most of the Christian Fathers however, have noticed the design and character of the Apocalypse, even among those of the western churches; while the scepticism of the Greek and Syrian Fathers, after the third century, about the authenticity of the work, has deprived the world of the great advantage which their superior acquaintance with the original language of the writing, with its peculiarly oriental style, allusions and quotations, would have enabled them to afford in the faithful interpretation of the predictions. From the very first, however, there were difficulties among the different sects, about the allegorical and literal interpretations of the expressions which referred to the final triumph of the followers of Christ; some interpreting those passages as describing an actual personal reign of Christ on earth, and a real worldly triumph of his followers, during a _thousand years_, all which was to happen shortly;――and from this notion of a Chiliasm, or a Millennium, arose a peculiar sect of heretics, famous in early ecclesiastical history, during the two first centuries, under the name of _Chiliasts_ or ♦_Millenarians_,――the Greek or the Latin appellative being used, according as the persons thus designated or those designating them, were of eastern or western stock. Cerinthus and his followers so far improved this worldly view of the subject, as to inculcate the notion that the faithful, during that triumph, were to be further rewarded, by the full fruition of all bodily and sensual pleasures, and particularly that the whole thousand years were to be passed in nuptial enjoyments. But these foolish vagaries soon passed away, nor did they, even in the times when they prevailed, affect the standard interpretation of the general historical relations of the prophecy.

♦ “Millennarians” replaced with “Millenarians”

It was not until a late age of modern times, that any one pretended to apply the denunciations of ruin, with which the Apocalypse abounds, to any object but _heathen_, IMPERIAL Rome, or to the pagan system generally, as personified or concentrated in the existence of that city. During the middle ages, the Franciscans, an order of monks, fell under the displeasure of the papal power; and being visited with the censures of the head of the Romish church, retorted, by denouncing him as an Anti-Christ, and directly set all their wits to work to annoy him in various ways, by tongue and pen. In the course of this furious controversy, some of them turned their attention to the prophecies respecting Rome, which were found in the Apocalypse, then received as an inspired book by all the adherents of the church of Rome; and searching into the denunciations of ruin on the Babylon of the seven hills, immediately saw by what a slight perversion of expressions, they could apply all this dreadful language to their great foe. This they did accordingly, with all the spite which had suggested it; and in consequence of this beginning, the Apocalypse thenceforward became the great storehouse of scriptural abuse of the Pope, to all who happened to quarrel with him. This continued the fashion, down to the time of the Reformation; but the bold Luther and his coadjutors, scorned the thought of a scurrilous aid, drawn from such a source, and with a noble honesty not only refused to adopt this construction, but even did much to throw suspicion on the character of the book itself. Luther however, had not the genius suited to minute historical and critical observations; and his condemnation of it therefore, though showing his own honest confidence in his mighty cause, to be too high to allow him to use a dishonest aid, yet does not affect the results to which a more deliberate examination has led those who were as honest as he, and much better critics. This however, was the state in which the early reformers left the interpretation of the Apocalypse. But in later times, a set of spitefully zealous Protestants, headed by Napier, Mede, and bishop Newton, took up the Revelation of John, as a complete anticipative history of the triumphs, the cruelties and the coming ruin of the Papal tyranny. These were followed by a servile herd of commentators and sermonizers, who went on with all the elaborate details of this interpretation, even to the precise meaning of the teeth and tails of the prophetical locusts. These views were occasionally varied by others tracing the whole history of the world in these few chapters, and finding the conquests of the Huns, the Saracens, the Turks, &c. all delineated with most amazing particularity.

But while these idle fancies were amusing the heads of men, who showed more sense in other things, the great current of Biblical knowledge had been flowing on very uniformly in the old course of rational interpretation, and the genius of modern criticism had already been doing much to perfect the explanation of passages on which the wisdom of the Fathers had never pretended to throw light. Of all critics who ever took up the Apocalypse in a rational way, none ever saw so clearly its real force and application as HUGO GROTIUS; and to him belongs the praise of having been the first of the moderns to apprehend and expose the truth of this sublimest of apostolic records. This mighty champion of Protestant evangelical theology, with that genius which was so resplendent in all his illustrations of Divine things as well as of human law, distinctly pointed out the _three_ grand divisions of the prophetical plan of the work. “The visions as far as to the end of the eleventh chapter, describe the affairs of the Jews; then, as far as to the end of the twentieth chapter, the affairs of the Romans; and thence to the end, the most flourishing state of the Christian church.” Later theologians, following the great plan of explanation thus marked out, have still farther perfected it, and penetrated still deeper into the mysteries of the whole. They have shown that the two cities, Rome and Jerusalem, whose fate constitutes the most considerable portions of the Apocalypse, are mentioned only as the seats of two religions whose fall is foretold; and that the third city, the New Jerusalem, whose triumphant heavenly building is described in the end, after the downfall of the former two, is the religion of Christ. Of these three cities, the first is called Sodom; but it is easy to see that this name of sin and ruin is only used to designate another devoted by the wrath of God to a similar destruction. Indeed, the sacred writer himself explains that this is only a metaphorical or spiritual use of the term,――“which is _spiritually_ called Sodom and Egypt;”――and to set its locality beyond all possibility of doubt, it is furthermore described as the city “where also our Lord was crucified.” It is also called the “Holy city,” and in it was the temple. Within, have been slain two faithful witnesses of Jesus Christ; these are the two Jameses,――the great apostolic proto-martyrs; James the son of Zebedee, killed by Herod Agrippa, and James the brother of our Lord, the son of Alpheus, killed by order of the high priest, in the reign of Nero, as described in the lives of those apostles. The ruin of the city is therefore sealed. The second described, is called Babylon; but that Chaldean city had fallen to the dust of its plain, centuries before; and this city, on the other hand, stood on _seven hills_, and it was, at the moment when the apostle wrote, the seat of “the kingdom of the kingdoms of the earth,” the capital of the nations of the world,――expressions which distinctly mark it to be IMPERIAL ROME. The seven angels pour out the seven vials of wrath on this Babylon, and the awful ruin of this mighty city is completed.

To give repetition and variety to this grand view of the downfall of these two dominant religions, and to present these grand objects of the Apocalypse in new relations to futurity, which could not be fully expressed under the original figures of the cities which were the capital seats of each, they are each again presented under the poetical image of a female, whose actions and features describe the fate of these two systems, and their upholders. First, immediately after the account of the city which is called Sodom, a female is described as appearing in the heavens, in a most peculiar array of glory, clothed in the sun’s rays, with the moon beneath her feet, and upon her head a crown of _twelve_ stars. This woman, thus splendidly arrayed, and exalted to the skies, represents the ancient covenant, crowned with all the old and holy honors of the twelve tribes of Israel. A huge red dragon (the image under which Daniel anciently represented idolatry) rises in the heavens, sweeping away the third part of the stars, and characterized by seven heads and ten horns, (thus identified with a subsequent metaphor representing imperial Rome;)――he rages to devour the offspring to which the woman is about to give existence. The child is born destined to rule all nations with a rod of iron,――and is caught up to the throne of God, while the mother flees from the rage of the dragon into the wilderness, where she is to wander for ages, till the time decreed by God for her return. Thus, when from the ancient covenant had sprung forth the new revelation of truth in Jesus, it was driven by the rage of heathenism from its seat of glory, to wander in loneliness, unheeded save by God, till the far distant day of its blissful re-union with its heavenly offspring, which is, under the favor of God, advancing to a firm and lasting dominion over the nations. Even in her retirement, she is followed by the persecutions of the dragon, now cast down from higher glories; but his fury is lost,――she is protected by the earth, (sheltered by the Parthian empire;) yet the dragon still persecutes those of her children who believe in Christ, and are yet within his power; (Jews and Christians persecuted in Rome, by Nero and Domitian.)

Again, after the punishment and destruction of imperial Babylon have been described, a second female appears, not in heaven, like the first, but in an earthly wilderness, splendidly attired, but not with the heavenly glories of the sun, moon and stars. Purple and scarlet robes are her covering, marking an imperial honor; and gold, silver, and all _earthly_ gems, adorn her,――showing only _worldly_ greatness. In her hand is the golden cup of sins and abominations, and she is designated beyond all possibility of mistake, by the words, “_Mystery, Babylon the Great_.” This refers to the fact, that Rome had another name which was kept a profound secret, known only to the priests, and on the preservation of which religious “mystery,” the fortunes of the empire were supposed to depend. The second name also identifies her with the city before described as “Babylon.” She sits on a scarlet beast, with seven heads and ten horns. The former are afterwards minutely explained, by the apostle himself, in the same chapter, as the seven hills on which she sits; they are also seven kings, that is, it would seem, seven periods of empire, of which five are past, one now is, and one brief one is yet to come, and the bloody beast itself――the religion of heathenism――is another. The ten horns are the ten kings or sovrans who never received any lasting dominion, but merely held the sway one after another, a brief hour, with the beast, or spirit of heathenism. These, in short, are the ten emperors of Rome before the days of the Apocalypse;――Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian and Titus. These had all reigned, each his hour, giving his power to the support of heathenism, and thus warring against the faith of the true believers. Still, though reigning over the imperial city, they shall hate her, and make her desolate; strip her of her costly attire, and burn her with fire. How well expressed here the tyranny, of the worst of the Caesars, plundering the state, banishing the citizens, and, in the case of Nero, “burning her with fire!”

Who can mistake the gorgeously awful picture? It is heathen, imperial Rome, desolating and desolated, at that moment suffering under the tyrannic sway of him whom the apostle cannot yet number with the gloomy TEN, that have passed away to the tomb of ages gone. It is the mystic Babylon, drunk with the blood of the faithful witnesses of Christ, and triumphing in the agonies of his saints, “butchered to make a Roman holiday!” No wonder that the amazement of the apostolic seer should deepen into horror, and highten to indignation. Through her tyranny his brethren had been slaughtered, or driven out from among men, like beasts; and by that same tyranny he himself was now doomed to a lonely exile from friends and apostolic duties, on that wild heap of barren rocks. Well might he burst out in prophetic denunciation of her ruin, and rejoice in the awful doom, which the angels of God sung over her; and listen exultingly to the final wail over her distant fall, rolling up from futurity, in the coming day of the Gothic and Hunnish ravagers, when she should be “the desolator desolate, the victor overthrown.”

As there are three mystically named cities――Sodom, Babylon, and the New Jerusalem; so there are three metaphoric females,――the star-crowned woman in heaven, the bloody harlot on the beast in the wilderness, and the bride, the Lamb’s wife. A peculiar fate befalls each of the three pairs. The SPIRITUAL SODOM falls under a temporary ruin, trodden under foot by the Gentiles, forty-two mystic months; and the star-crowned daughter of Zion wanders desolate in the wilderness of the world, for twelve hundred and sixty days, till the hand of her God shall restore her to grace and glory. The GREAT BABYLON of the seven hills, falls under a doom of far darker, and of irrevocable desolation,――like the dashing roar of the sinking rock thrown into the sea, she is thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. And such too, is the doom of the fierce scarlet rider of the beast,――“Rejoice over her, O heaven! and ye holy apostles and prophets! for God has avenged you on her.” But beyond all this awful ruin appears a vision of contrasting, splendid beauty.

“The first _two_ acts already past,
The _third_ shall close the drama with the day;――
Time’s noblest offspring is the last.”

The shouts of vindictive triumph over the dreadful downfall of the bloody city, now soften and sweeten into the songs of joy and praise, while the NEW JERUSALEM, the church of God and Christ, comes down from the heavens in a solemn, glorious mass of living splendor, to bless the earth with its holy presence. In this last great scene, also, there is a female, the third of the mystic series; not like her of the twelve stars, now wandering like a _widow_ disconsolate, in the wilderness;――not like her of the jeweled, scarlet and purple robes, cast down from her lofty seat, like an abandoned _harlot_, now desolate in ashes, from which her smoke rises up forever and ever;――but it is one, all holy, happy, pure, coming down stainless from the throne of God,――a _bride_, crowned with the glory of God, adorned for her husband,――the One slain from the foundation of the world. He through the opening heavens, too, has come forth before her, the Word of God, the Faithful and the True,――known by his bloody vesture, stained, not in the gore of slaughtered victims, but in the pure blood poured forth by himself, for the world, from its foundation. Yet now he rode forth on his white horse, as a warrior-king, dealing judgment upon the world with the sword of wrath,――with the sceptre of iron. Behind him rode the armies of heaven,――the hallowed hosts of the chosen of God,――like their leader, on white horses, but not like him, in crimson vesture; their garments are white and clean; by a miracle of purification, they are washed and made white in blood. This mighty leader, with these bright armies, now returns from the conquests to which he rode forth from heaven so gloriously. The kings and the hosts of the earth have arrayed themselves in vain against him;――the mighty imperial monster, in all the vastness of his wide dominion,――the false prophets of heathenism, combining their vile deceptions with his power, are vanquished, crushed with all their miserable slaves, whose flesh now fills and fattens the eagles, the vultures, and the ravens. The spirit of heathenism is crushed; the dragon, the monster of idolatry, is chained, and sunk into the bottomless pit,――yet not for ever. After a course of ages,――a mystic thousand years,――he slowly rises, and winding with serpent cunning among the nations, he deceives them again; till at last, lifting his head over the world, he gathers each idolatrous and barbarous host together, from the whole breadth of the earth, encompassing and assaulting the camp of the saints; but while they hope for the ruin of the faithful, fire comes down from God, and devours them. The accusing deceiver,――the genius of idolatry and superstition,――is at last seized and bound again; but not for a mere temporary imprisonment. With the spirit of deception and imposture, he is cast into a sea of fire, where both are held in unchanging torment, day and night, forever. But one last, awful scene remains; and that is one, that in sublimity, and vastness, and overwhelming horror, as far outgoes the highest effort of any genius of human poetry, as the boundless expanse of the sky excels the mightiest work of man. “A great white throne is fixed, and One sits on it, from whose face heaven and earth flee away, and no place is found for them.” “The dead, small and great, stand before God; they are judged and doomed, as they rise from the sea and from the land,――from Hades, and from every place of death.” Over all, rises the new heaven and the new earth, to which now comes down the city of God,――the church of Christ,――into which the victorious, the redeemed, and the faithful enter. The Conqueror and his armies march into the bridal city of the twelve jewelled gates, on whose twelve foundation-stones are written the names of the mighty founders, the twelve apostles of the slain one. The glories of that last, heavenly, and truly eternal city, are told, and the mighty course of prophecy ceases. The three great series of events are announced; the endless triumphs of the faithful are achieved.

III. WHAT IS THE STYLE OF THE APOCALYPSE?

This inquiry refers to the language, spirit and rhetorical structure of the writing, to its rank as an effort of composition, and to its peculiarities as expressive of the personal character and feelings of its inspired writer. The previous inquiry has been answered in such a way as to illustrate the points involved in the present one; and a recapitulation of the simple results of that inquiry, will best present the facts necessary for a satisfactory reply to some points of this.

First, the Apocalypse is a _prophecy_, in the common understanding of the term; but is not limited, as in the ordinary sense of that word, to a mere declaration of futurity; it embraces in its plan the events of the past, and with a glance like that of the Eternal, sweeps over that which has been and that which is to be, as though both were _now_; and in its solemn course through ages, past, present, and future, it bears the record of faithful _history_, as well as of glorious prophecy.

Second, the Apocalypse is _poetry_, in the highest and justest sense of the word. All prophecy is poetry. The sublimity of such thoughts can not be expressed in the plain unbroken detail of a prose narrative; and even when the events of past history are combined in one harmonious series with wide views of the future, they too rise from the dull unpictured record of a mere narrator, and share in the elevation of the mighty whole. The spirit of the writer, replete, not with mere particulars, but with vivid images, seeks language that paints, “thoughts that breathe, and words that burn;” and thus the writing that flows forth is poetry,――the imaginative expression of deep, high feeling――swelling where the occasion moves the writer, into the energy of passion, whether dark or holy.

The character of the Apocalypse, as affected by the passionate feelings of the writer, is also a point which has been illustrated by foregoing historical statements of his situation and condition at the time of the Revelation. He was the victim of an unjust and cruel sentence, deprived of all the sweet earthly solaces of his advanced age, and left on a desert rock,――useless to the cause of Christ and beyond even the knowledge of its progress. The mournful sound of sweeping winds and dashing waves, alone broke the dreary silence of his loneliness, and awaking sensations only of a melancholy order, sent back his thoughts into the sadder remembrances of the past, and called up also many of the sterner emotions against those who had been the occasions of the past and present calamities which grieved him. The very outset is in such a tone as these circumstances would naturally inspire. A deep, holy indignation breaks forth in the solemn annunciation of himself, as their “brother and companion in tribulation.” Sadness is the prominent sentiment expressed in all the addresses to the churches; and in the prelude to the great Apocalypse, while the ceremonies of opening the book which contains it are going on, the strong predominant emotion of the writer is again betrayed in the vision of “the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they bore;” and the solemnly mournful cry which they send up to him for whom they died, expresses the deep and bitter feeling of the writer towards the murderers,――“How long, O Lord! holy and true! dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” The apostle was thinking of the martyrs of Jerusalem and Rome,――of those who fell under the persecutions of the high priests, of Agrippa, and of Nero. And when the seven seals are broken, and the true revelation, of which this ceremony was only a poetical prelude, actually begins, the first great view presents the bloody scenes of that once Holy city, which now, by its cruelties against the cause which is to him as his life,――by the remorseless murder of those who are near and dear to him,――has lost all its ancient dominion over the affections and the hopes of the last apostle and all the followers of Christ.

Again the mournful tragedies of earlier apostolic days pass before him. Again he sees his noble brother bearing his bold witness of Jesus; and with him that other apostle, who in works and fate as much resembled the first, as in name. Their blood pouring out on the earth, rises to heaven, but not sooner than their spirits,――whence their loud witness calls down woful ruin on the blood-defiled city of the temple. And when that ruin falls, no regret checks the exulting tone of the thanksgiving. All that made those places holy and dear, is gone;――God dwells there no more; “the temple of God is opened in heaven, and there is seen in his temple the ark of his covenant,” and all heaven swells the jubilee over the destruction of Jerusalem. And after this, when the apostle’s view moved forward from the past to the future, and his eye rested on the crimes and the destiny of heathen Rome, the bitter remembrance of her cruelties towards his brethren, lifted his soul to high indignation, and he burst forth on her in the inspired wrath of a Son of Thunder;――

“Every burning word he spoke,
Full of rage, and full of grief.

“Rome shall perish; write that word
In the blood that she has spilt.
Rome shall perish,――fall abhorred,――
Deep in ruin as in guilt.”

In respect to the _learning_ displayed in the Apocalypse, some most remarkable facts are observable. Apart from the very copious matters borrowed from the canonical writings of the Old Testament, from Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and other prophets, from which, as any reader can see, some of the most splendid imagery has been taken almost verbatim,――it is undeniable, that John has drawn very largely from a famous apocryphal Hebrew writing, called the BOOK OF ENOCH, which Jude has also quoted in his epistle; and in his life it will be more fully described. The vision of seven stars, explained to be angels,――of the pair of balances in the hand of the horseman, after the opening of the third seal,――the river and tree of life,――the souls under the altar, crying for vengeance,――the angel measuring the city,――the thousand years of peace and holiness,――are all found vividly expressed in that ancient book, and had manifestly been made familiar to John by reading. In other ancient apocryphal books, are noticed some other striking and literal coincidences with the Apocalypse. The early Rabbinical writings are also rich in such parallel passages. The name of the Conqueror, “which no one knows but himself,”――the rainbow stretched around the throne of God,――the fiery scepter,――the seven angels,――the sapphire throne,――the cherubic four beasts, six-winged, and crying Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts,――the crowns of gold on the heads of the saints, which they cast before the throne,――the book with seven seals,――the souls under the altar,――the silence in heaven,――the Abaddon,――the child caught up to God,――Satan, as the accuser of the saints, day and night before God,――the angel of the waters,――the hail of great weight,――the second death,――the new heaven and earth,――the twelve-gated city of precious stones,――and Rome, under the name of “Great Babylon,”――are all found in the old Jewish writings, in such distinctness as to make it palpable that John was deeply learned in Hebrew literature, both sacred and traditional.

Yet all these are but the forms of expression, not of thought. The apostle used them, because long, constant familiarity with the writings in which such imagery abounded, made these sentences the most natural and ready vehicles of inspired emotions. The tame and often tedious details of those old human inventions, had no influence in moulding the grand conceptions of the glorious revelation. This had a deeper, a higher, a holier source, in the spirit of eternal truth,――the mighty suggestions of the time-over-sweeping spirit of prophecy,――the same that moved the fiery lips of those denouncers of the ancient Babylon, whose writings also had been deeply known to him by years of study, and had furnished also a share of consecrated expressions. That spirit he had caught during his long eastern residence in the very scene of their prophecy and its awful fulfilment. If this notion of his dwelling for a time with Peter in Babylon is well founded, as it has been above narrated, it is at once suggested also, that in that Chaldean city,――then the capital seat of all Hebrew learning, and for ages the fount of light to the votaries of Judaism,――he had, during the years of his stay, been led to the deep study and the vast knowledge of that amazing range of Talmudical and Cabbalistical learning, which is displayed in every part of the Apocalypse. But how different all these resources in knowledge, from the mighty production that seemed to flow from them! How far are even the sublimest conceptions of the ancient prophets, in their unconnected bursts and fragments of inspiration, from the harmonious plan, the comprehensive range, and the faultless dramatic unity, or rather tri-unity, of this most perfect of historical views, and of poetical conceptions!

All these coincidences, with a vast number of other learned
references, highly illustrative of the character of the
Apocalypse, as enriched with Oriental imagery, may be found
in Wait’s very copious notes on Hug’s Introduction.

There are many things in this view of the Apocalypse which
will occasion surprise to many readers, but to none who are
familiar with the views of the standard orthodox writers on
this department of Biblical literature. The view taken in the
text of this work, corresponds in its grand outlines, to the
high authorities there named; though in the minute details,
it follows none exactly. Some interpretations of particular
passages are found no where else; but these occasional
peculiarities cannot affect the general character of the view;
and it will certainly be found accordant with that universally
received among the Biblical scholars of Germany and England,
belonging to the Romish, the Lutheran, the Anglican, and
Wesleyan churches. The authority most closely followed, is
Dr. Hug, Roman Catholic professor of theology in an Austrian
university, further explained by his translator, Dr. D. G. Wait,
of the church of England, more distinguished in Biblical and
oriental literature, probably, than any other of the numerous
learned living divines of that church. These views are also
found in the commentary of that splendid orientalist, Dr. Adam
Clarke, a work which, fortunately for the world, is fast taking
the place of the numerous lumbering, prosing quartos that have
too long met the mind of the common Bible reader with mere
masses of dogmatic theology, where he needs the help of simple,
clear interpretation and illustration, which has been drawn by
the truly learned, from a minute knowledge of the language and
critical history of the sacred writings. This noble work, as
far as I know, is the first which took the honest ground of the
ancient interpretation of the Apocalypse, with common readers,
and constitutes a noble monument to the praise of the good and
learned man, who first threw light for such readers on the most
sublime book in the sacred canon, and among all the writings
ever penned by man,――a book which ignorant visionaries had too
long been suffered to overcloud and perplex for those who need
the guidance of the learned in the interpretation of the “many
things hard to be understood” in the volume of truth. The first
book of a popular character, ever issued from the American
press, explaining the Apocalypse according to the standard
mode, is a treatise on the Millennium, by the learned Professor
Bush, of the New York University, in which he adopts the grand
outlines of the plan above detailed, though I have not had the
opportunity of ascertaining how it is, in the minor details.

In reference to the tone assumed in some passages of the
statement in the text, perhaps it may be thought that more
freedom has been used in characterizing opposite views, than is
accordant with the principles of “moderation and hesitation,”
proposed in comment upon Luther and Michaelis. But where, in the
denunciation of popular error, a reference to the motive of the
inculcators of it would serve to expose most readily its nature,
such a freedom of pen has been fearlessly adopted; and severity
of language on these occasions is justified by the consideration
of the character of the delusion which is to be overthrown.
The statements too, which are the occasion and the support
of these condemnations of vulgar notions, are drawn not from
the mere conceptions of the writer of this book, but from the
unanswerable authorities of the great standards of Biblical
interpretation. The opportunity of research on this point has
been too limited to allow anything like an enumeration of all
the great names who support this view; but references enough
have already been made, to show that an irresistible weight of
orthodox sentiment has decided in favor of these views as above
given.

Some of the minute details, particularly those not authorized by
learned men, who have already so nearly perfected the standard
view, may fall under the censure of the critical, as fanciful,
like those so freely condemned before; but they were written
down because it seemed that there was, in those cases, a
wonderfully minute correspondence between these passages and
events in the life of John, not commonly noticed. The greater
part of this view, however, may be found almost verbatim in
Wait’s translation of Hug’s Introduction.

The most satisfactory evidence of the meaning of the great
mystery of the Apocalypse, is in the true interpretation of “the
number of the beast,” the mystic 666. In the Greek and oriental
languages, the letters are used to represent numbers, and thence
arose in mystic writings a mode of representing a name by any
number, which would be made up by adding together the numbers
for which its letters stood; and so any number thus mystically
given may be resolved into a name, by taking any word whose
letters when added together will make up that sum. Now the word
LATINUS, (Λατεινος,) meaning the Latin or Roman empire, (for the
names are synonymous,) is made up of Greek letters representing
the numbers whose sum is 666. Thus Λ-30, α-1, τ-300, ε-5, ι-10,
ν-50, ο-70, ς-200――all which, added up, make just 666. What
confirms this view is, that Irenaeus says, “John himself told
those who saw him face to face, that this was what he meant
by the number;” and Irenaeus assures us that he himself heard
this from the personal acquaintances of John. (See Wait’s note.
Translation of Hug’s Introduction II. 626‒629, note.)

HIS LAST RESIDENCE IN EPHESUS.