Nero's reign as the time referred to; and accordingly we find Jerome (about the end of the fourth century) making an explicit statement to that effect. It is quite possible Irenæus may have made a mistake, occasioned perhaps by the frequency of banishment in the reign of Domitian; and this is the view taken by some critics at the present day, who can only account for the style and character of the book on the supposition that it was written a considerable time before the Gospel. The key to the interpretation of the book, they conceive, is to be found in the identification of the reigning king in the seventeenth chapter with the Emperor Galba, the successor of Nero.1 The latter is regarded as the head of the beast referred to in the thirteenth chapter,2 the healing of its wound symbolising the restoration of Nero, who was then supposed to be still alive and in hiding in the East. Confirmation of this is found in other passages 3 and in the symbolical "number of the beast" ("the number of a man . . . Six hundred and sixty and six "), which answers in Hebrew letters to the name Neron Cæsar." 4 But it would be more natural to reckon the number in Greek letters (as Irenæus did); and in either case a correspondence to it can be made out in the case of a great many other prominent names. This weakens very much the force of the argument, for we cannot infer much from the fact that a key fits the lock, if it is a lock in which almost any key will turn.” Whatever interpretation we may give to the "number of the beast," there is now a growing conviction that the theory which dates the composition of the book before the 1 xvii. 10: "and they are seven kings; the five are fallen, the one is, the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a little while." 2 xiii. 3: And I saw one of his heads as though it had been smitten unto death; and his death-stroke was healed and the whole earth wondered after the beast." 3 xvii. 8, II: "The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and is about to come up out of the abyss, and to go destruction of Jerusalem must be abandoned,1 and that the persecution referred to is not that which took place at Rome in the reign of Nero, but the sufferings inflicted on Christians at a later date, in the provinces, especially in Asia Minor, when they refused to worship the Emperor and Roma.2 In support of this conclusion the following considerations may be adduced. (1) "The absolute and irreconcilable opposition between the Church and the Empire" which distinguishes this book from all the other writings of the New Testament, even the latest of them.3 (2) The description of Rome as "the great harlot that sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, . . . the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus," which finds its explanation in the fact that the worship of Roma had spread over the Empire, and was now the most formidable rival that Christianity had to contend with. (3) The reference to Pergamum as the place "where Satan's throne is, . . . where Satan dwelleth" 1 44 The foundation of the Apocalypse is indisputably the destruction of the earthly Jerusalem, and the prospect thereby for the first time opened up of its future ideal restoration." Mommsen, The Provinces of the Roman Empire, Vol. ii. p. 197. 2 "It is more important, however, to oppose the current conception, according to which the polemic is directed against the Neronian persecution of the Christians and the siege or the destruction of Jerusalem, whereas it is pointed against the Roman provincial government generally, and in particular against the worship of the emperors." -Mommsen, ibid. p. 198. 3 ་ There is no wish for reconciliation with the persecuting power, only for vengeance on it (vi. 9-11; ix. 4); there is no thought of the possibility of bringing the State to a milder policy, by convincing it of the harmlessness of Christianity."-Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, p. 297. 4 xvii. 1-6. "The worship thus introduced became a real Antichrist, that is to say, a world-religion entering into real rivalry with the Christian religion. It had not been possible to get heathen nations to unite in the worship of any that city having been the first place in Asia to possess a temple in honour of the Emperor (Augusteum), and having been the scene of a Christian martyrdom, apparently many years before the Apocalypse was written, "even in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you."1 (4) The nature of the death suffered by the martyrs: "and I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and such as worshipped not the beast, neither his image, and received not the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand "2—as beheading was a common form of punishment with proconsuls, but not in use at Rome during the Neronic persecution. As to the precise date which, according to this view, is to be assigned to the composition of the book, there is room for difference of opinion. Mommsen argues for the later years of Vespasian (75-80 A.D.) chiefly on account of the interpretation which he gives to certain passages, as referring to the expectation of the later pseudo-Nero's return with the help of the Parthians. Apart from this there seems to be no good reason why we should not accept the statement of Irenæus, already referred to, that the Revelation came to John in the closing years of Domitian, whose name is traditionally associated with persecution of the Christians (of which we have some traces in the writings of Dion Cassius and Suetonius), and 1 ii. 13. 2 xx. 4. 3 xvi. 12: "And the sixth poured out his bowl upon the great river, the river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way might be made ready for the kings that come from the sunrising"; xvii. 10: "and they are seven kings; the five are fallen, the one is, the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a little while." In the interpretation of the latter verse Mommsen sets aside Galba as well as Otho and Vitellius, and makes Vespasian to be the sixth king, leaving the seventh undefined. The conception that the Roman and the Parthian empires were two great states standing side by side, and indeed the only ones in existence, dominated the whole Roman East, particularly the frontier provinces. It meets us palpably in the Apocalypse of John, in which there is a juxtaposition as well of the rider on the white horse with the bow, and of the rider on the red horse with the sword (vi. 2, 3) as of the Megistanes and the Chiliarchs (vi. 15, cf. xviii. 23, xix. 18). The closing catastrophe, too, is conceived as a subduing of the Romans by the Parthians bringing back the emperor Nero (ix. 14, xvi. 12) and Armageddon, whatever may be meant by it, as the rendezvous of the Orientals for the collective attack on the West."-Mommsen, ibid. p. I. who took delight in the homage paid to him as emperor, and in the title of dominus et deus which had already been claimed by his predecessor Caligula.1 4. Character and Contents. The Revelation or Apocalypse 2 has many of the characteristics of the Book of Daniel. Both books consist largely of prophecy couched in the language of symbolism. This was a mode of expression frequently adopted by Jewish writers towards the close of the Old Testament dispensation, when, owing to foreign oppression, it would have been dangerous to speak plainly in matters affecting the national interests.3 The central theme is the second coming of Christ, in a magnificent setting of imagery-designed to represent the great struggles and events that are to precede the final consummation. "After the Prologue, which occupies the first eight verses, there follow seven sections I. The letters to the Seven (i.9—iii.22). Seven Churches of Asia 2. The Seven Seals (iv.—vii.). 3. The Seven Trumpets (viii.—xi.). 4. The Seven Mystic Figures-The Sun-clothed Woman; the Red Dragon; the Man-child; the Wild Beast from the Sea; the Wild Beast from the Land; the Lamb on Mount Sion; the Son of Man on the Cloud (xii.—xiv.). 5. The Seven Vials (xv.-xvi.). 6. The Doom of the Foes of Christ (xvii.—xx.). 7. The Blessed Consummation (xxi.-xxii. 7). The Epilogue (xxii. 8-21).”4 1 Professor Ramsay concludes that the book cannot have been written before 90 A.D., but Dr Salmon dates it a few years earlier. 2 'Aπоkáλvis=Revelation (literally "uncovering"). 3 "It is the work of a Christian writer who was familiar with Jewish Apocalypses, and adapted to his own purposes much that was contained in some one or more of them; but this writer treated the material with a mastery and freedom that made his work in its entirety a Christian document, however strong are the traces of the older form in parts of it."-Ramsay, ibid. p. 299. 4 The above summary is taken from Farrar's Messages of the Books, p. 520. The unity of the book is one of its most striking features ; and the attempts which have recently been made by some critics to assign it to several different authors have not been attended with success.1 It must be acknowledged that the interpretation of the Revelation in detail is still, to a great extent, shrouded in mystery. Even those who feel assured that Nero is the man represented by the number of "the beast," and that the prophecy was delivered before the complete destruction of Jerusalem, find themselves beset with insuperable difficulties when they come to deal with certain portions of the book; while in other passages their theory would seem to imply that some of the predictions of the Seer were very soon falsified by events. This is a supposition which it is almost as difficult to reconcile with the high estimation in which the Apocalypse continued to be held by the early Church, as with its divine inspiration. The safest and probably the truest interpretation of the book is to regard it as a symbolic representation of great principles rather than as a collection of definite predictions. In other words, it is intended for the edification and comfort of Christ's people, not to give detailed information regarding the future to those who are clever enough to solve its enigmas. "Here, if anywhere, faith and love are the key to knowledge, not knowledge the key to faith and love. It is in the very spirit of the book, not in a spirit hard or narrow or unsympathetic, that it closes with the words 'the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with the saints.'" 2 1 Vischer has attempted to show that it was originally a Jewish Aramaic work composed about, A.D. 69, and that it received its present form-by the addition of an introduction, a conclusion, and occasional interpolations—from a Christian writer about A. D. 95. The same view has been taken, with some modifications, by Sabatier; but, still more recently, Spitta has propounded a theory very much the reverse of Vischer's, holding that the book was originally a Christian document composed about A.D. 60, and that it was enlarged by a later redactor with the help of two Jewish Apocalypses, dating about 65 B.C. and 40 A. D. 2 Dr Milligan on the Book of Revelation. |