The Revelation of John the Divine opens with a moving and splendid view
of these circumstances. Being, as it is recorded, in the isle that is
called Patmos, for preaching the word of God, and for bearing witness
of Jesus Christ, he was in his lonely banishment, one Lord’s day,
sitting wrapped in a holy spiritual contemplation, when he heard behind
him a great voice, as of a trumpet, which broke upon his startled ear
with a most solemnly grand annunciation of the presence of one whose
being was the source and end of all things. As the amazed apostle
turned to see the person from whom came such portentous words, there
met his eye a vision so dazzling, yet appalling in its beauty and
splendor, amid the bare, dark rocks around, that he fell to the earth
without life, and lay motionless until the heavenly being, whose awful
glories had so overwhelmed him, recalled him to his most vivid energies,
by the touch of his life-giving hand. In the lightning-splendors of
that countenance, far outshining the glories of Sinai, reflected from
the face of Moses, the trembling eye of the apostolic seer recognized
the lineaments of one whom he had known in other days, and upon whose
bosom he had hung in the warm affection of youth. Even the eye which
now flashed such rays, he knew to be that which had once been turned
on him in the aspect of familiar love; nor did its glance now bear a
strange or forbidding expression. The trumpet-tones of the voice, which
of old, on Hermon, roused him from the stupor into which he fell at
the sight of the foretaste of these very glories, now recalled him to
life in the same encouraging words, “Be not afraid.” The crucified
and ascended Jesus, living, though once dead, now called on his
beloved apostle to record the revelations which should soon burst
upon his eyes and ears; that the churches that had lately been under
his immediate attention, might learn the approach of events which
most nearly concerned the advance of their faith. First, therefore,
addressing an epistolary charge to each of the seven churches, he
called them to a severe account for their various errors, and gave
to each such consolations and promises as were suited to its peculiar
circumstances. Then dropping these individualizing exhortations, he
leaves all the details of the past, and the minutiae of the state
of the seven churches, for a glance over the events of coming ages,
and the revolutions of empires and of worlds. The full explanation of
the scenes which follow, is altogether beyond the range of a mere
apostolic historian, and would require such ability and learning
in the writer,――such a length of time for their application to this
matter, and such an expanse of paper for their full expression, as
are altogether out of the question in this case. Some few points in
this remarkable writing, however, fall within the proper notice of the
apostle’s biographer, and some questions on the scope of the Apocalypse
itself, as well as on the history of it, as a part of the sacred canon,
will therefore be here discussed.
The minute history of the apostolic writings,――the discussion of their
particular scope and tenor,――and the evidences of their inspiration
and authenticity,――are topics, which fall for the most part under a
distinct and independent department of Christian theology, the common
details of which are alone sufficient to fill many volumes; and are of
course altogether beyond the compass of a work, whose main object is
limited to a merely historical branch of religious knowledge. Still,
such inquiries into these deeper points, as truly concern the personal
history of the apostles, are proper subjects of attention, even here.
The life of no literary or scientific man is complete, which does
not give such an account of his writings as will show under what
circumstances,――with what design,――for what persons,――and at what
time, they were written. But a minute criticism of their style, or
illustrations of their meaning, or a detail of all the objections which
have been made to them, might fairly be pronounced improper intrusions
upon the course of the narrative. With the danger of such an extension
of these investigations, in view, this work here takes up those points
in the history of John’s writings, that seem to fall under the general
rule in making up a personal and literary biography.
In the case of this particular writing, moreover, the difficulties of
an enlarged discussion are so numerous and complicated, as to offer
an especial reason to the apostolic historian, for avoiding the almost
endless details of questions that have agitated the greatest minds in
Christendom, for the last four hundred years. And the decision of the
most learned and sagacious of modern critics, pronounces the Apocalypse
of John to be “the most difficult and doubtful book of the New
Testament.”
The points proper for inquiry in connection with a history of the
life of John, may be best arranged in the form of questions with their
answers severally following.