APPENDIX. No. I. ON THE DOMITIANIC DATE OF THE APOCALYPSE V. THE CRETAN BOW 136 VI. THE ROMAN PROPRÆTORS' AND QUESTORS' EMBLEMS OF A BALANCE, EAR OF WHEAT, AND CORN-MEASURE . 169 VII. MARTYRS' EPITAPH AND VASE OF BLOOD IN THE CATACOMBS AT ROME 201 IX. MAP OF THE TRIPARTITION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE X. THE APOCALYPTIC SCORPION-LOCUST XI. KEY OF MAHOMET ON AN ARCH IN THE ALHAMBRA XII. COIN ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE IMAGE-WORSHIP ESTABLISHED IN THE PRELIMINARY ESSAY ON THE GENUINENESS AND THE DATE OF THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN. WHEN a Book of any interest or importance is set before us, there are two questions on which we may reasonably wish and expect information, preliminary to its perusal ; -the 1st, Who is the writer? the 2nd, When written ? More especially this is the feeling, if the Work be one that claims to be of Divine inspiration; so as in the case of the APOCALYPSE, I purpose, therefore, in the present preliminary Essay, to answer these two questions concerning it. The first is one that has obviously a most important bearing on the inspiration of the Book ; the second, as will be shown, on its right interpretation. CHAP. I.-THE WRITER OF THE APOCALYPSE. Now on this point a ready and satisfactory answer seems at once to meet the eye in the very text of the prophetic Book itself. For the writer more than once enunciates his own name in it, "John." 1 And the So i. 4; "John to the seven churches which are in Asia, &c :" i. 9; " I John VOL. I. B authority which it implies to have attached to him, alike from the asserted circumstance of his being Christ's chosen medium for receiving the revelation, and communicating it to the angels or presiding bishops of the seven Asiatic Churches,-from that of his pronouncing a blessing on those several presiding bishops,'-and yet again from its speaking of the prophets as but his brethren,2-is such as could scarcely belong to any one named John of less than apostolic dignity: insomuch that the very genuineness of the Book seems involved in the fact of its writer being John the apostle. Nor will the corroborative evidence that it offers fail to strike the investigator,—an evidence acknowledged even by the superficial and the prejudiced,-in the holiness and super-human sublimity of the composition.3-Should further evidence have been deemed desirable, the wellknown accordant testimony of Irenæus will have been ready at hand to the inquirer; a testimony express and often repeated, as will presently appear, to the effect that the author of the Apocalypse was indeed that beloved disciple, the Apostle and Evangelist St. John.* who also am your brother and companion in tribulation," &c : xxi. 2; “And I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem," &c : xxii. 8 ; " And I John saw these things, and heard them." 1 Apoc. i. 4; Grace be unto you and peace," &c. Now "without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better." 2 Apoc. xxii. 9. 3 In the word prejudiced I allude to Michaelis more especially. His judgment is given, as will be presently seen, against the genuineness of the Apocalypse. Yet in the xth and concluding Section of his Critique, the subject of which is the style of the Apocalypse, he thus expresses himself: "The language of the Apocalypse is both beautiful and sublime, affecting and animating; and this not only in the original, but in every even the worst translation of it.-The Apocalypse has something in it which enchants and insensibly inspires the reader with the sublime spirit of the author.-A great part of the imagery is borrowed from the ancient prophets: but the imitation is for the most part more beautiful and more magnificent than the original." I quote from Marsh's Edition of Michaelis, (Cambridge Ed. 1801) Vol. vi. pp. 533, 534.-The instant and exceeding inferiority of the Christian Fathers that followed on the apostolic age, considered in a literary point of view, will be presently noted and illustrated, as greatly enhancing the force of this argument. 4 The testimony of Irenæus will be given afterwards. And considering Irenæus' own very early era, relation to St. John, and character,-that he was an Asiatic Greek, born nearly about the time of St. John's death,' that he was a disciple of Polycarp, which latter was a disciple of St. John,2-and that he was moreover one of the most learned, as well as most holy and devoted of the Christian bishops of that age,-his testimony will justly have been considered not only as of high authority, but as almost in itself decisive on the point in question indeed as altogether sufficient and decisive, except in the case of some strong countervailing evidence. The fact is, however, that countervailing evidence of this nature has been asserted to exist. The genuineness of the Apocalypse has been questioned by ancient writers of eminence in the Christian Church, as early at least as the third century: more especially I may name Dionysius of Alexandria. And it has been questioned too by modern biblical critics of high reputation for learning and candour; among whom Michaelis stands pre-eminent. This renders it necessary that the point in question should be more carefully looked into ; and the evidence, 1 In Grabe's Prolegom. ad Irenæum, the birth of this Father is placed about the year A. D. 107. Dodwell has placed it ten years earlier, or at the precise date of the Apocalypse. ? Let me illustrate this by the following well-known beautiful extract from a letter of Irenæus himself, preserved by Eusebius, and given in his E. H. v. 20. "I saw you (Florinus), when I was very young, in the lower Asia with Polycarp. For I better remember the affairs of that time than those which have lately happened; the things which we learn in our childhood growing up with the soul, and uniting themselves to it. Insomuch that I can tell the place in which the blessed Polycarp sate and taught; and his going out and coming in ; and the manner of his life, and the form of his person; and the discourses he made to the people; and how he related his conversation with John, and others who had seen the Lord; and how he related their sayings, and what he had heard from them concerning the Lord, both concerning his miracles and his doctrine, as he had received them from the eye-witnesses of the Word of Life, All which Polycarp related, agreeably to the Scripture. These things I then, through the mercy of God toward me, diligently heard and attended to; recording them, not on paper, but upon my heart. And through the grace of God I continually renew the remembrance of them."-I copy Lardner's translation; Vol. ii. p. 96. (Ed. 1838.) |