CHAPTER IV.
THE "REVELATION" OF JOHN.
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1. VARIOUS INTERPRETATIONS.
THE last book of the New Testament is called "Revelation" (Gk.
Apokalypsis) of Jesus Christ, but after we have pored over the
books--far more than a thousand--which have been written in the past
years to explain it, it must appear so obscure that the seven seals
which are mentioned in the book (chapters v. f.; viii. 1) as closing
over the fate of humanity and being loosened one after another, must
seem to clasp the book itself firmly together and to refuse to be
broken.
It has been supposed to prophesy the whole history of the Church and
even of the world, in each case of course down to the lifetime of the
expositor, and nearly always in a different way. In the beast described
in xiii. 1-10; xvii. 7-18, people have recognised emperor after
emperor, pope after pope, one leader after another of the Vandals,
Muhammedans, and Turks, as well as Luther, Napoleon I., Napoleon III.,
and the French General Boulanger (1891); and, besides these, even
impersonal things, such as apostasy, godlessness, the Catholic Church,
and, to mention only one other thing, Smallpox. In a revelation of
Jesus Christ men would fain expect to read nothing less than every
thing which had determined the fate of humanity since its appearance.
In proportion as people could show for certain that what had already
happened was prophesied in it, they might also rest assured that all
that it said about a time still to come would be correctly unravelled.
All this mass of ingenuity and error might of course have been seen
from the beginning to be useless, if people had only taken note,
amongst other things, of the first verse and the last verse but one in
the book. We are told in i. 1 (and xxii. 6) that the revelation of
Jesus Christ is "to shew unto his servants the things which must
shortly come to pass." And this does not mean "which must soon begin,
and then go on for thousands of years," for in xxii. 20 (as well as in
iii. 11; xxii. 7, 12) Jesus says, "I come quickly," that is to say, to
introduce the end of the world. The author of the book, accordingly,
expected the end of the world in his own lifetime; and if we wish to
understand the curious figures in which he described it, we must try to
interpret them in the light of the ideas which prevailed at the time.
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2. COMBINATION OF SEPARATE FRAGMENTS.
But first we must realise clearly that in this book we have not to do
with a single author. The visions which he is supposed to have seen in
it follow upon one another with so little regard to order that it has
already been thought that he could not have seen them all one after
another, but after each must have had time to note it down; other wise
he would not have been in a position to note them all in their right
order. No less than six times we find the "last things," which from
what has already been said we might think are to follow (viii. 1; xi.
15-19; xiv. 20; xvi. 17-21; xviii. 21-24; xix. 21), described before
the real conclusion of the book. In every case we meet with a
self-contained picture only in a particular section of the narrative,
and for the most part this never extends to a whole chapter.
It has been noticed that chap. xxiv. of Mt.'s Gospel (not so literally
in Mk. xiii., and in Lk. xxi. in a version which differs still more)
incorporates a very small publication in which events are described
which are supposed to happen immediately before or at the end of the
world. Mt. xxiv. 6-8, 15-22, 29-31, 34, that is to say, do not fit into
the sections between which they are placed, but connect together all
the better. These verses, which have been called a "little Apocalypse,"
and which now appear as the words of Jesus only by an entire
misapprehension, may very well have been a leaflet published and spread
abroad at the time of direst need in order to call the attention of the
faithful to signs by which they might recognise the near approach of
the end of the world, and to warn them. In xxiv. 15 we even read, "let
him that readeth under stand," though Jesus would have been obliged to
say, "let him that heareth."
Such leaflets may still be discovered in the Apocalypse of Jn. as well.
It is difficult to say whether the writer who put together the whole
book was the first to insert them, or whether earlier workers did so,
each of them publishing only a part of the present book; and the matter
is of subordinate importance. Particular stones in the building attract
attention and can be separated more easily than those sections of the
walls which have been constructed by one or another foreman.
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3. A LEAFLET ON THE FATE OF JERUSALEM.
In Rev. xi. 1-13 we can recognise a leaflet which is quite similar to
the little Apocalypse in Mt. xxiv., and belongs to the last years
before August 70 A.D., when the Temple at Jerusalem was destroyed by
the Imperial Prince, Titus. We learn from xi. 1 f. that the heathen
might tread upon the outer fore-court of the Temple and the rest of the
holy city of Jerusalem, but might not touch "the temple of God, and the
altar, and them that worship therein." Often enough two, and even
three, hostile parties had struggled for months without result inside
the walls of Jerusalem. Just before Easter of the year 70 one of the
three parties was in possession of the Temple with the inner
fore-court, the other of the rest of the Temple hill, the third of the
rest of the city. The author was therefore entirely justified by the
events of the time in his expectation, even if in the end he was
baffled by the destruction of the Temple.
He cannot, of course, have been a Christian if Jesus supposed prophecy,
"there shall not be left here one stone upon another" (Mk. xiii. 2),
was well known. And Jesus may very well have uttered such a prophecy,
even if we refuse to credit him with omniscience. By simply exercising
human powers of reflection, it was not difficult to foresee the fall of
the Temple. But since this prophecy may also have been ascribed to
Jesus subsequently, it is still possible that it was a Christian who
gave expression to the contrary prophecy in his leaflet (Rev. xi.
1-13).
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4. PROPHECY CONCERNING ROME AND THE FIRST BEAST.
But the city of Rome takes an even more important place than Jerusalem
in the Apocalypse. Fear of the authorities, who might think the
prophecies about it dangerous to the State, leads the author to mention
the city not by its real name, but by that of Babylon, which, as was
well known, was in the Old Testament associated with an equal amount of
wickedness; but xvii. 5 f., 9, 18 make it clear enough to every
intelligent reader what city is meant. In chap. xviii., which, like xi.
1-13, may have been a separate leaflet, the description of its
overthrow is quite different from that given in the other parts of the
book.
In these we find connected with it the most important figure in the
whole Apocalypse, the (first) beast, that is to say, the Roman
imperium. It supports and carries the woman, as the city of Rome is
also called (xvii. 3, 7), it has a throne, kingdom, dominion over the
world (xiii. 2, 7; xvi. 10), and, in particular, seven heads, that is
to say, as we learn in xvii. 9 f., seven kings, of whom the first five
have fallen, one is now reigning, and the seventh is still to come. The
first five Roman emperors, who are here intended, were Augustus,
Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. The author of chap. xvii.
therefore writes after Nero's death, which took place on the 9th of
June in the year 68; and the same date suits chap. xiii. Nero, it is
true, had no real successors; but Galba, Otho, and Vitellius struggled
for the mastery until Vespasian seized it for himself in December of
the year 69. Yet it is by no means certain that he was numbered as the
sixth, and that the one and a half years of the dispute about the
succession are excluded. A person who lived in the second half of the
year 68 could only say, as our author does, "the sixth emperor is now
reigning," though in other parts of the extensive Roman empire his rule
was disputed.
There is something else which suggests that the time intended is that
immediately following Nero's death. By the beast we are not always
meant to understand the Roman imperium in general, but sometimes a
single emperor. There is no mistake when it is said in xiii. 7 f., "and
there was given to him (that is to say, the beast) authority over every
tribe . . . and all that dwell on the earth shall worship him" and in
xiii. 14, "to the beast who hath the stroke of the sword, and lived."
Add to this xvii. 8, 11: "the beast . . . was and (now) is not, and is
about to come up out of the abyss . . . and the beast that was, and is
not, is himself the eighth, and at the same time is one of the seven
(Roman Emperors), and he goeth into perdition."
To which Roman Emperor does this apply? When Nero saw that his rule was
at an end, he fled in the company of a few persons to an estate, and on
hearing his pursuers approaching, with the help of his secretary he cut
his throat with a sword. His corpse was solemnly burned. But his
friends, especially amongst the mob, refused to believe that he was
dead; they imagined that he had made his escape and would shortly
return and wrest back his power.
A heathen could not reconcile these two accounts of Nero's end; but a
Christian (or a Jew), believing as he did in a resurrection, could very
well do so. Accordingly, all that we read about the beast in the
Apocalypse would apply to Nero: the sword-wound, the death, the return
from the underworld, to which every one went when he died, and the
statement that this risen person who is to appear as the eighth
emperor, was one of the seven preceding emperors. We know indeed that
impostors were continually coming forward and claiming to be Nero. The
very first, who arose as early as the year in which Nero died, created
a disturbance for months along the whole of the west coast of Asia
Minor as well as in Greece. And this makes it probable that these
sections of the Apocalypse date from that time, and so from 68 or 69.
Those who, as we mentioned above, claim that the sixth place must be
assigned to the Emperor Vespasian, and that this was the reign in which
the author lived, may still discover the reason for his statements in
the appearance of this false Nero, if they suppose that they were
written in the first period of Vespasian, that is to say at the be
ginning of the year 70. On the other hand, the next false Nero of whom
we hear did not appear at the end of the reign of Vespasian, but in the
days of his successor, Titus. But a person who wrote in this reign
(79-81) could in no circumstances say that he was living in the reign
of the sixth Emperor.
It has been thought that the expectation that the resuscitated Nero
would be the eighth Emperor could only have been held when the seventh
had already ascended the throne; otherwise a seventh would not have
been prophesied. But the writer's conviction that Rome would have seven
emperors was drawn from the Old Testament book of Daniel. This
represents the matter in such a way that it might have been composed in
the sixth century B.C. (in reality it was not written until 167-164
B.C.), and prophesies in vii. 1-8 that there will appear one after
another a lion, a bear, a panther with four heads, and another terrible
beast with ten horns. According to vii. 17, what are meant are four
empires which will rule the world one after another, the Babylonian
down to 539 B.C., the Median which really ended as early as 550, the
Persian, 539-330, to which the author assigns four kings instead of
eleven, and the Greek with ten kings in Syria, to the last among whom
the Jews were subject.
Since the author of the Apocalypse does not pretend, like the book of
Daniel, to prophesy so many centuries before the time in which he
really lived, he speaks of only one world-wide empire, that of Home.
Since, however, the book of Daniel and its description of the empires
ruling the world was held to be a divine prophecy, which in the
author's lifetime still waited for fulfilment, he (or one of his
predecessors) has made its four beasts into one, which now, according
to xiii. 1 f., has at the same time the characteristics of the lion,
the bear, and the panther, and the ten horns of the fourth beast, but
the seven heads of all four which these have all together. The idea
that the end of the world is at hand is reckoned with, in spite of the
seventh emperor, by representing in xvii. 10 that he will reign for a
short time.
Here again we can note well how the Apocalypse borrows its descriptions
from an older prophecy, which it held to be sacred, and how at the same
time it adapts this prophecy to its own present. This enables us to
understand fully such a figure as that of the beast, which is really
very curious. In other cases as well, the author continually takes his
expressions and even whole sentences from the Old Testament. It may be,
however, that several remarkable descriptions in the book are derived
from other old prophecies, perhaps suggested by myths about the gods of
the Babylonians or Persians.
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5. THE NUMBER 666.
The last point which confirms us in thinking that Nero is meant by the
beast consists in the famous number (xiii. 18): "He that hath
understanding, let him count the number of the beast; for it is the
number of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty and six." The
number of a man, or as it is said in xiii. 17, the number of the name
of the beast is the number which results when all the numbers are added
which are indicated by the letters of the name. In Latin only a few
letters (I, V, X, L, C, M, D) are used for numbers, but in Greek and
Hebrew all. Now the number 666 does really result when we write N(e)ron
K(e)s(a)r (that is to say, Emperor Nero) in Hebrew letters and add up
the numbers: 50 + 200 + 6 + 50 + 100 + 60 + 200 (the letters in
brackets are not written in Hebrew). The number 666 also results from
more than a hundred other solutions which have been suggested. But,
apart from other reasons which show that the many popes, princes, and
so forth down to the present time which people have tried to find in
the beast, cannot be intended, no such calculation has been hit upon
which might at the same time give 616 as the correct number. And yet
there must be this alternative, for in many copies of the Apocalpyse
even before the time of Irenaeus, that is to say, before 185, 616 is
given as the number instead of 666, And this is the number we get if an
"n" is omitted from Neron Kesar, which represents the number 50: Nero
Kesar. This, too, would suit very well, for where Latin was spoken
people said Nero, whereas the Greek form, familiar to the author of the
Apocalypse himself, is Neron. It was natural to him to use Hebrew for
the calculation, for in any case it was his mother-tongue, and it would
make it less easy for uninitiated persons to solve the riddle. Irenaeus
himself no longer knew the solution. It was rejected because Nero
failed to return.
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6. TIME OF COMPOSITION.
The most important sections of the book, that concerning Jerusalem, and
those about the return of Nero from the underworld, date therefore in
all probability from the years 68-70. None of the others indicates so
clearly the date at which it came into existence. We ask therefore at
once when the whole book may be supposed to have been put together. And
here Irenaeus tells us that the Apocalypse was revealed and written
down at the end of the reign of the Emperor Domitian, that is to say,
in the year 95 or 96. We have already seen (p. 194 f.) how little we
can rely on Irenaeus in such matters. But in this case we have no
definite reason to dispute that the date he fixes for the composition
of the Apocalypse is appropriate enough for the putting together of the
whole book.
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7. THE AUTHOR NOT THE AUTHOR OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
But who is the author (or compiler) of the whole Apocalypse? In any
case, it is not the same person who wrote the Fourth Gospel. The two
works are fundamentally different.
If the Gospel is not written in good Greek style, the style is at any
rate smooth; the Apocalypse has very serious linguistic mistakes.
Moreover, in both works Jesus is called the Lamb, but in each case a
different Greek word is used. The Evangelist knows nothing about the
things which are most important to the author of the Apocalypse, about
the terrible events before the end of the world, about the descent of
Christ and his army from the sky on white horses for the great battle
with the kings of the earth, about the peaceful millennial rule of the
faithful after their resurrection, about the Jerusalem which is to come
down from heaven and is 12,000 stadia--say, a third of the radius of
the earth--in length, breadth, and height, and consists of gold
transparent like glass (xix. 11-21; xx. 1-6; xxi. 9-xxii. 5), &c.; and
he cannot have wished to know anything about these things, since his
style of thought was averse to all such expectations. Nor may we go so
far as to assume that both men belonged to one and the same circle of
kindred spirits. The most we can say is that the Apocalypse may have
still been held in honour by those who held the same views as the
Evangelist; he himself was far superior to its style of thought, and
shows only in isolated cases that he was familiar with it but not, for
in stance, where it is said that Jesus "is the Logos of God." In Rev.
xix. 13 this is a later addition, for his name "no one knoweth, but he
himself" (verse 12).
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8. THE AUTHOR NOT THE APOSTLE JOHN.
As we cannot ascribe the Gospel to the Apostle John, it is still
possible that he may have written the Apocalypse (in i. 1, 4 the author
calls himself John and a servant of Christ; in xxii. 9 a prophet). But,
in that case we may be sure he would not call Jesus, exactly as if he
were God, the Alpha and Omega, that is to say, as is expressly
explained, the first and the last (literally the first and last letter
of the Greek Alphabet; see xxii. 13; i. 17; ii. 8, just as in i. 8;
xxi. 6), nor describe him as the first link of God's creation, if not
as the author of God's creation (iii. 14). We found such expressions in
the Fourth Gospel, but not in the Synoptics. And how can a personal
disciple of Jesus imagine him in heaven as a lamb with seven horns and
seven eyes, "standing as though it had been slain," and then taking a
book from the hand of God and breaking its seals (v. 6-9; vi. 1), or
conceive of him as he is described in i. 13-16? But even if he took
such sections as these from another book and incorporated them in his
own, we might expect that expression would be given at the same time to
his own recollection of the life of Jesus. And yet almost the only case
in which this is done is in the statement that Jesus is "the true
witness" (i. 5; iii. 14), and we cannot be sure that this does not mean
that Jesus is now testifying in heaven that what is prophesied in the
Apocalypse is true (such is the idea in i. 2). We need only add that
according to xxi. 14 the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb, that
is to say, of Christ, are written on the twelve foundation-stones of
the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem. Had one of these same apostles
written this or even merely incorporated it in his book, we should be
obliged to regard it in the same way as the title, "the disciple whom
Jesus loved," if by this the Fourth Evangelist meant himself (pp.
179-181).
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9. THE AUTHOR JOHN THE ELDER?
It is different if we think of John the Elder (p. 172 f.) as the final
editor of the Apocalypse. This would explain the fact (which would also
be appropriate if the author were the Apostle John) that the Jews are
always represented as the chosen people of God (vii. 1-8), and that it
is forbidden to eat flesh taken from a victim offered to a heathen idol
(ii. 14, 20), though Paul declared it to have been allowed in principle
(1 Cor. x. 25-27, 29b, 30) and only forbids it when a sensitive
Christian who thought it for bidden might be offended by it (1 Cor.
viii. 7-13; x. 28, 29 a), or when people, by sharing in the
festivities, recognised the idol as a real god (1 Cor. x. 20 f .) In
this matter a strongly Jewish sentiment in favour of the Law of the Old
Testament still pervades the Apocalypse.
We know further, as regards John the Elder (but not also as regards the
Apostle), that he was very much interested in prophecies of the end of
the world, and imagined, for example, that after the resurrection of
the dead there would be on earth a millennial kingdom full of peace and
happiness and ruled by Christ, exactly as it is described in Rev. xx.
1-6.
When we remember, finally, that John the Elder of Ephesus was leader of
the Church of Western Asia Minor, we can easily see how well his
position suits the tone in which the seven Epistles to the seven
Communities in that region are composed in Rev. ii. f. They were
certainly not sent separately to each one of those communities, and
grouped together only at a later date. The way in which they are all
written round the same circle of ideas, and almost modelled on one
pattern, indicates far rather that from the very first they were only
intended for publication in the book of Revelation. They make a weighty
impression precisely because the same turns of expression recur so
continually. They must, therefore, in any case, have been composed by
the last contributor to the book, with the idea of recommending a
definite circle of readers to take due note of the prophecies which
follow in iv. 1-xxii. 5.
We must not persist, however, in thinking that it was John the Elder
who wrote the seven letters, and in this way, as well as by other
embellishments which we can no longer specify exactly, brought the
Apocalypse to a close. The description of Jesus tells against this,
even if John him self only heard him for a short time. The work may
also have been composed by another person in his name, just as well as
the Second and Third Epistles of John.
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10. SPIRIT OF THE BOOK.
The seven Epistles in the Apocalypse contain severe words about evil
conditions and the opponents of the author in some of the seven
communities; but they also contain beautiful and truly religious
utterances which are sufficient to compensate for the spirit of the
whole book, which is sometimes narrow and vindictive (xvi. 6; xviii. 6
f.), and concentrated upon such external and materialistic matters as
eating, ruling, and white garments (ii. 7, 17; iii. 20 f.; xix. 8,
&c.): "I stand at the door and knock" (iii. 20); "Be thou faithful unto
death, and I will give thee the crown of life" (ii. 10); "hold fast
that which thou hast, that no one take thy crown" (iii. 11). Not a
single prophecy in the book has been fulfilled, and none remains to be
fulfilled, since they are all framed in such a way that they ought to
have been fulfilled within a few years. The main idea, that people
should no longer attempt to improve upon the world, but should withdraw
from it entirely, and simply wait and hope for a speedy end to it
(especially xxii. 11), is certainly quite out of harmony with the most
precious truths which Christianity has brought home to us in the course
of centuries, and the fully developed seeds of which were already
present in the ideas of Jesus; still, one of the most beautiful
products of Christianity, and one which in the end concerns absolutely
every individual, consists in that constancy and faithfulness which all
the prophecies and admonitions of this book insist upon so forcibly.
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