be published. But John, last of all, perceiving that what had reference to the body had already in the gospel been sufficiently detailed, and being encouraged by his intimate friends and moved by the Spirit, he wrote a spiritual gospel." Eusebius himself says in B. III. c. 24: "John has, therefore, with propriety passed by the genealogy of our Lord after the flesh, because it had previously been written by Matthew and Luke, but commenced with the theology (the doctrine of the divinity), which had been reserved for him by the divine Spirit as something better." Thus understood the form of the superscription before us corresponds to the others; such as: The Revelation of John the apostle and evangelist. The two have this in common, that they both alike mark the identity of John the seer and John the evangelist. The same view is farther confirmed by the fact, that the ecclesiastical writer, with whom John first bears the name of the Theologue, Eusebius (in Praep. xi. 18) applies it also to Moses, B. VII. c. 9, and to Paul, B. XI. c. 19. This fact abundantly shows, that the name must have been intended to designate John only with respect to the three other evangelists, and that it is to be referred neither to the doctrine of the divinity of the Logos, nor (with Züllig) to the prophetical inspiration. If it is asked, why should John have been designated thus only in the superscription of the Apocalypse, the answer is, because it was designed thereby to intimate that this John is no other than the evangelist.

THE PROLOGUE.

(Ch. i. 1-3.)

The original title, which at the same time serves as an intro

1 Comp. Basilius in the Catena in John 1: Τοῦ εὐαγγελικοῦ κηρύγματος ὁ μεγαλοφωνότατος, καὶ πάσης μὲν ἀκοῆς μείζονα, πάσης δὲ διανοίας σεμνότερα φθεγξάμετ νος ὁ Ἰωάννης ἐστὶν, οὕτως παροιμιάζων.

2 There is no proof that the church fathers named John the Theologue with special reference to the Apocalypse. The epithet everywhere refers to the Gospel; comp., besides Eusebius, the passages quoted by Lampe in his Proleg. in Joh. B. I. c. 7, § 22. With the supposition that the surname of Theologue refers to the prophetical inspiration, it ill accords what the presbyter Gregory says in his life of Gregory of Nazianzen, μóvov τοῦτον μετὰ τὸν εὐαγγελιστὴν Ἰωάννην θεολόγον ἀναφανῆναι. But Gregory of Na zianzen was certainly no prophet.

duction, and the special object of which is to indicate the great importance of the book, runs thus: The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to shew to his servants, what must shortly come to pass; and he signified it by his angel, whom he sent, to his servant John. 2. Who has testified of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, what he saw. 3. Blessed is he who reads, and they that hear the words of the prophecy, and keep what is written therein; for the time is near.-The book is called in ver. 1, The Revelation of Jesus Christ. The word revelation, or disclosing, apocalypsis, which in the New Testament is chiefly used by Paul, stands in a near relation to the word mystery or secret. Mysteries are the object of revelation, and the territory of the latter extends as far as the territory of mysteries. See Dan. ii. 19, Ephes. iii. 3, "By revelation he has made known to me the secret," ver. 5, 9, Rom. xvi. 25. The condition of the revelation, accordingly, is the inaccessibility of a matter to the ordinary faculties of the mind. For, this is the common idea of a mystery. Hence, the sphere of revelation comprehends also that, which has already been made objectively manifest, and has become the church's own, in so far as it may be communicated to a particular individual. For, the Christian doctrine as such is super-rational; and of the faith in Christ it constantly holds, that flesh and blood cannot themselves produce and exercise it, Matth. xi. 25, ss., xvi. 17, John vi. 44. So we read of a revelation in Eph. i. 17, where Paul designated as a product of it the Christian wisdom, which he sought for the Ephesians. But commonly the word is used to denote the new disclosure of truths, which hitherto had lain beyond the reach of the mind. Such can only be found in moments of holy consecration, when the soul, as the chosen instrument of God, is raised above itself and is brought into closest fellowship with God, the source of truth. Hence, the revelations in 2 Cor. xii. 1 appear in immediate connection with the visions; and the state in which Paul received the revelations is represented as that of ecstacy, during which he was raised to the third heavens, and heard unutterable words. So too in Acts x., it was in a state of ecstacy, and by vision, that St Peter received the revelation concerning the reception of the heathen to the blessings of salvation (ver. 10 and 17, comp. also Eph. iii. 5).

Revelation here and prophecy, πро¶ητеíα, in ver. 3 (comp. xxii. 18, 19) correspond with each other, just as revelation and prophecy in 1 Cor. xiv. 6. The book is the revelation of Jesus Christ and the prophecy of John. The object of the revelation. are the mysteries; its product is the prophecy. No revelation without prophecy and inversely. What viewed in respect to the manner of receiving it is revelation, the same, when viewed in respect to the manner of its delivery, is prophecy. Paul says in the passage referred to above, “Now, brethren, if I come to you and speak with tongues, what shall I profit you except I shall speak to you either by revelation or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine?" Here we have a double pair of corresponding parts; revelation and prophecy constitute the one, knowledge and doctrine the other. "The speaker attains to his knowing either by revelation, by a supernatural communication imparted by the Spirit of God, and when he gives utterance to this, he is a prophet. Or it may be by learning, meditation, inquiry in a merely human manner, and with the common help of the Holy Spirit; and then his knowing is a gnosis, a knowledge, and the utterance of it, in a manner that should now be naturally adapted to the mode of receiving it, will be a purely intelligent one, working on the understanding." As the condition, in which the revelation is received, differs from that in which the knowledge is matured, so the mode of deliverance in the prophet differs from that of common teaching. That which has been received in ecstacy can only be delivered in an elevated state of mind; that is, in so far as the delivery stands immediately connected with the receiving, and the receiving has not, as was usually the case with Paul, been already wrought into a sort of knowledge. All prophecy, just because it has revelation for its basis, is closely allied to poetry, though it does not properly resolve itself into this: its respect to the church, and the understanding of her members, prevents it from doing so. It must not wing its flight higher than where these can follow. The speech of the tongue may be designated the embryo of revelation and of prophecy.

Secrets are

1 In respect to the internal connection of revelation and prophecy, and the limitation of the former by the latter, the passage 1 Cor. xiv. 29, 30, should also be compared, “Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the others judge; if any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace."

the common object of both, but the speech of the tongue does not rise above a general connection with them, it does not reach even to the clear knowledge of them, and is hence incapable of coming forth to fulfil the office of teaching in the church.

No solid reason exists for the assertion of Lücke, that the word revelation, besides its general import, has also the special meaning of eschatological apocalypsis, or revelation in respect to the final development of the kingdom of God and the coming of the Lord Jesus. By the word itself nothing is indicated here as to the special object of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. But the thing to be supplied is furnished by the circumstances which occasioned the revelation. These determine the character of every revelation and prophecy. None swims in the air, none is entirely general. The object of the revelation given to the prophets is uniformly such, as in the given circumstances was adapted for counsel, for warning, or consolation. And if it is certain, that the starting-point here was the oppression of the church by the world-power, the object of the Revelation of Christ to the apostle can only be, what was fitted for the edification of the church under such circumstances, the preservation of the church amid the persecutions of the adversary, the destruction of the latter, and the final complete triumph of the church. It is a fundamental error in the older expositors, that they did not perceive how the object of the Revelation was more exactly determined by the relations of the time, and that we have here to do with a discovery of Jesus Christ, disclosing that after which every one then inquired, and the darkness of which lay like an oppressive night-mare upon all bosoms. They proceeded on the ground, that the Apocalypse must spread itself over the entire range of church history, and converted it into a simple compend of this.

Revelation, and the prophecy which springs out of it, are under the New Testament closely joined with the apostleship, and belong to its prerogatives. Acts x. relates an important revelation granted to the apostle Peter. In regard to the revelations and prophetical states of Paul, see 2 Cor. xii., Eph. iii. 3, Gal. i. 12, ii. 2. In Eph. iii. 5, 6, Which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it is now revealed into the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by

the gospel," the prophets are personally identical with the apostles. For it is a historical verity, that by no other than the apostles, namely, Peter and Paul, was the truth in question conveyed to the minds of Christians in the way of supernatural revelation. Paul says immediately before, "Through revelation did he make known to me this mystery." Also in Rev. xviii. 20, which points back to Eph. iii. 5, the apostles are not personally separate from the prophets, "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath avenged you on her." This is manifest from the circumstance, that history knows nothing of persecutions by the Roman world-power against prophets, except against the three among the apostles, Peter, Paul, and John. Instead of the apostles and prophets in ch. xviii. 20, we have in ch. xi. 18, merely prophets along with the saints; so that the apostles are comprehended under them. Were it otherwise, had not prophecy culminated in them in like manner as the apostleship, the names of the twelve apostles could not with propriety have stood alone on the foundations of the New Jerusalem, ch. xxi. 14; elsewhere the prophets are coupled with them as occupying this position. The gift of prophecy is of all the highest. New truths could only be communicated through it, so as to obtain a place in the conscience of believers, and become thereby more widely diffused as knowledge and doctrine. The whole position of the apostles must have been changed, if this gift had not been concentrated in them. According to the measure of prophetic gifts was the place that the apostles respectively occupied; so that it was not accidental, that precisely the three, Peter, Paul, and John, who otherwise were so pre-eminent above the rest, were also the most highly distinguished by these gifts. Such as possessed no prophetical gifts might indeed have been faithful witnesses of Christ, but they could not fulfil the other design of the apostleship, that of receiving the much that the Lord had still to say to them, but which they were not able to bear during his personal sojourn on earth, John xvi. 12. For, there is no other organ for the recipiency of new truths, but the prophetical. "The comfroter" was also, according to John xvi. 13, etc., to make known the future to the apostles. But instruction respecting the future is only received by revelation, and communicated to others by prophecy. What is written in the Acts of the mani