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.)