Horae Apocalypticae Vol.1

Ratings:

1,134 pages45 hours

Summary

Horae Apocalypticae is an eschatological study written by Edward Bishop Elliott. The book is, as its long-title sets out, "A commentary on the apocalypse, critical and historical; including also an examination of the chief prophecies of Daniel illustrated by an apocalyptic chart, and engravings from medals and other extant monuments of antiquity with appendices, containing, besides other matter, a sketch of the history of apocalyptic interpretation, the chief apocalyptic counter-schemes and indices." "Horae Apocalypticae (Hours with the Apocalypse) is doubtless the most elaborate work ever produced on the Apocalypse. Without an equal in exhaustive research in its field, it was occasioned by the futurist attack on the Historical School of interpretation. Begun in 1837, its 2,500 pages are buttressed by some 10,000 invaluable references to ancient and modern works.

Read on the Scribd mobile app

Download the free Scribd mobile app to read anytime, anywhere.

iOS Android

Publisher: Lulu.comReleased: Apr 9, 2019ISBN: 9780359577187Format: book

Book Preview

Horae Apocalypticae Vol.1 - E. B. Elliot

Horae Apocalypticae Vol. 1

Reformation Quincentennial Edition

A Commentary on the Apocalypse, Critical and Historical;

Including Also an Examination of the Chief Prophecies of Daniel.

By The Rev. E. B. Elliott

Meticulously Transcribed, Including Greek, Latin

and Footnotes with Original Exhibits by:

Nicklas Arthur,

Cross The Border Publishing

Cover, Transcription, Revision and Formatting

ISBN 978-1-312-96674-1 Paperback

ISBN 978-1-387-51633-9 Hardcover

I pledge allegiance to

THE KING OF KINGS

and to His Kingdom come

on earth as it is in Heaven

one Holy Nation under

the Heavenly Father

with Grace, Mercy

and Justice for all.

Blessed is he that read and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand. Rev 1.3

The word of prophecy; where unto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn. 2 Peter 1.19

To each one who in this fallen world has, for Christ’s sake, thus labored, and not fainted, of a part in the coming glories of the heavenly Jerusalem, in that new heaven and new earth, prefigured in its divine beauty to St John in Patmos, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

Preface To The Fifth Edition.

I have to thank God for permitting me once again to revise this work on the Apocalypse. The impression of its importance has deepened in my mind the more I have reflected on it: most especially in reference to the tendencies of religious inquiry, and belief, which characterize the present time.

When first I began to give attention to the subject, some twenty years ago,[1] it was the increasing prevalence among Christian men in our country of the futurist system of Apocalyptic interpretation,—a system which involved the abandonment of the opinion held by all the chief fathers and doctors of our Church respecting the Roman Popes and Popedom as the great intended anti-Christian power of Scripture prophecy,—that suggested to me the desirableness, and indeed necessity, of a more thoroughly careful investigation of the whole subject than had been made previously. For thereby I trusted that we might see God’s mind on the question; all engaged in that controversy being alike agreed as to the fact of its being expressed in this prophecy, rightly understood: and whether indeed in His view Popery was that monstrous evil, and the Reformation a deliverance to our Church and nation as mighty and blessed, as we had been taught from early youth to regard them.

Even yet more does the importance of the work strike me at the present time, when infidelity has become notoriously prevalent among our educated men; and even from ordained ministers in our own Church a voice has been raised somewhat pretentiously, with questionings of the truth of Christianity as a religion supernaturally revealed from Heaven, and denial of all supernatural inspiration of the Christian Scriptures.[2] For, supposing the evidence in proof of the fulfillment of the Apocalyptic prophecy in the history of Christendom since St. John’s time to be satisfactory and irrefutable, we have herein a proof similarly irrefutable not only of the possibility, but of the fact, of the divine supernatural inspiration of one book at least of Holy Scripture;—a fact annihilation of the skeptic’s doctrine as to the impossibility in the nature of things of such inspiration; and rendering more than probable, a priori the idea of divine supernatural inspiration in other of its prophetic books also.

I said, supposing the evidence in proof of the historical fulfillment of the prophecy to be satisfactory and irrefutable. And here of course arises the grand question for solution between myself and the skeptics who deny the fact of any really predictive prophecy of the future in the Christian Scriptures. And what then the criteria by which we are to decide it? I am perfectly willing to accept the criteria laid down by one who has argued out the plea for infidelity with as much ability, and as elaborately and temperately also, as any other of our modern skeptics;—I mean Mr. Greg, in his Creed of Christendom. At the beginning of his 4th chapter, on The Prophecies, he thus expresses himself. In order to establish the claim of any anticipatory statement, promise, or denunciation, to the rank and title of a Prophecy, four points must be ascertained with precision: —viz. 1st, what the event was to which the alleged prediction was intended to refer; 2nd , that the prediction was uttered, in specific not vague language, before the event; 3rd , that the event took place specifically, not loosely, as predicted; 4th , that it could not have been foreseen by human sagacity." Now, as regards the two conditions first laid down, viz as to the subject predicted, and the time of the prediction, as unquestionably preceding it,—their fulfillment in the case before us is obvious. For the things figured in the Apocalyptic prophecy were declared to be the things that were to happen (the grand and most characteristic events evidently, whether in the world or in the Church) from after the time of St. John’s seeing the vision in Patmos; and this continuously, as appeared from subsequent express statements in the Apocalyptic Book, down even to the consummation. Moreover, as regards Mr. G’s 4th condition, its fulfillment in the case before us is equally obvious; for what merely human sagacity could have seen into the events of that prolonged, and in part far distant, futurity? The only question remaining is whether the predictions were specific, not vague; and the asserted fulfillment similarly specific and definite also. Nor have I a doubt as to the true answer being here, as before, distinctly in the affirmative. In fact my own investigations were from the first conducted, and my interpretation concluded on, with the self-same views that Mr. Greg has expressed as to the definite and specific character which, in regard of this Scripture prophetic book at least, we might reasonably expect to attach to both prediction and fulfillment.

Let me be permitted on this point (I mean in regard of my a priori Apocalyptic anticipations, and subsequent researches) to re-state substantially what I stated respecting them, without any thought in my mind of Mr. Greg, towards the close of my History of Apocalyptic Interpretation.[3] Struck with the manner in which respectable previous expositors had most unsatisfactorily referred not a few of the more important figurations of the Apocalypse to quite different historic eras and events, I saw (it is there observed) that this had arisen from their, alike one and all, assigning a vague indefinite meaning to the prophetic symbols; whether on principle (mistaken principle), so as in the case of some, or from ignorance and want of discernment, so as in the case of many others: [4]—whereas, on the hypothesis of the Apocalypse being indeed a Divinely inspired prophecy of the things that were to come to pass in the histories of the Church and world, from after the time of St. John, two characteristics, as it seemed to me, might undoubtedly be expected to attach to its sacred prefiguration: the one that the eras and events selected for prefiguration would be those of greatest importance in the subsequent history of Christendom; the other that the prophetic picturing of such events and eras would in each case (more especially if expressed much in detail)[5] be so specific and definite as to be applicable perfectly and accurately to those eras and events alone. Would it not be so in the descriptions or picturing, retrospectively, of such a subject by any superior artist or historian? How much more so then in the anticipative figuring by the eternal omniscient Spirit of God! Hence, I add, a deep persuasion in my mind, as I proceeded, of the duty of noting most carefully every single point and peculiarity in each of the prophetic symbolization; and of sparing no pains in the investigation of whatever might possibly elucidate them. And then, as the result of researches so conducted, it is observed further that the evidence hence arising of fulfillment (specific historic fulfillment) of prediction after prediction was altogether beyond what I had even hoped; indeed such as often to astonish me.

The figurations of the Seals, when thus elucidated in each and every detail of their symbols,—elucidated very much on the indisputable evidence of illustrative medals of the time, never before referred to,—were found to unfold, brief as they are, a prophetic sketch of the successive fortunes and phases of the Roman Empire and Christian Church within it, during the three next centuries after St. John, most singularly accordant with the philosophic history of the same subjects drawn out at large in the two first volumes of Gibbon. Further, (passing over the briefer and less distinctive symbolization’s of the first four Trumpets, the determinate sense of which had to be argued in considerable measure from the contexts preceding and following), a similarly singular distinctiveness of the symbols, when each and every one thus particularly and in detail noted and elucidated, was found to fix the meaning of the 5th and 6th Trumpet visions, with proportionally increased strength of evidence, agreeably with the usual previous Protestant interpretation, to the Saracen and Turkish invasions of Christendom: and both that of the symbols in the vision next following of the rainbow-crowned Angel in Rev. 10, (especially through the new and extraordinary evidence illustrating it of allusive contrast,[6]) and that of those of the sackcloth-robed witnesses death and resurrection in Rev. 11, to fix their correspondence as specifically with the era and grand introductory events of the great Reformation. Yet again, as I proceed to observe, by the diadem on the Dragon’s heads, as if then the ensign of Roman sovereignty, (a point altogether unnoticed before), confirmation was added to the usual interpretation explaining the figuration of the antagonistic Woman and Dragon in Rev. 12. Of the last conflicts of Roman Heathendom with the Christian Church at the opening of the 4th century; for just at that time the Asiatic diadem was first worn as the imperial distinctive by Roman Emperors: —and, as I am now at length able to add in my fifth Edition, through the similarly singular and irrefutable evidence of their own diademed coins in the 6th and 7th centuries, as exhibited in Plate XXVII. of my third Volume, confirmation of the truth of the application of the ten-diademed horns of the Beast from the sea, in Rev. 13, to the ten Romano-Gothic kings and kingdoms just then established in Western Christendom, in spiritual subjection to the Roman Popes, or Apocalyptic Antichrist, as their common head. Scarce less specific appeared to be other prophetic characteristics of the Beast itself, or its last ruling head, when thus with more particularity than ever sought out in the Prophecy; scarce less specific their fulfillment historically in the rise, history, and character of the Roman Popedom.

Such is my summary, as given in the passage referred to, of the views a priori entertained by me when about to enter on the investigation of the Apocalyptic predictions considered as Divinely inspired prophecies; such too, in my own judgment at least, as also there stated, the satisfactory, indeed almost more than satisfactory, results. Theoretically it cannot but be acknowledged that there is an answer in all this to Mr. Greg’s criterion of a true prophecy of the future. The testing of course remains as to the accuracy of the summary so given, and reality of the asserted specific coincidences between prophecy and history. But I have no fear of the most searching investigation on this point; provided only that it be conducted in a spirit of fairness, candour, and supreme regard to truth.

I feel forced to make this proviso in the recollection of the many criticisms written on my Book in a spirit very different. Most sincerely may I say with Pascal, that, in my own researches on the subject, the one paramount desire in my mind, ever followed out, has been the discovery of the truth; not without earnest and continual prayer to the Father of lights, in the words of our great poet: — "what in me is dark Illumine: what is low raise and support That, to the height of this great argument, I may assert eternal Providence; And justify thy word, and ways, to man." And I confess to having expected originally that this spirit would have been generally recognized; and, in a measure, responded to by my critics and reviewers. But the event proved in not a few cases to be too much the contrary. Instead of a candid and careful inquiry, 1st, whether I was justified in my a priori views as to the intent of the prophetic symbols,—2nd , whether the facts of history, adduced as in accord therewith, were correctly as I stated them, and the asserted coincidences consequently established between the prophecy and the history,—instead of this, I say, and of an admission being fairly made of what could not fairly be disputed in my solution of any particular prediction, conjointly with the counter-statement of what might appear incorrect, or more open to objection,— I found that other feelings too often dictated the criticism.

Not to speak of authors who had previously written on the same subject, with views different from my own, and who could scarce be expected to regard a new interpretation without prejudice, I had to learn that prejudice was paramount in other quarters also. In certain Reviews, advocating Church principles varying from mine, I saw burlesque sometimes substituted for fair criticism; or else a few incorrectness’s, real or imagined, held up as a sufficient sample of the whole Commentary, without notice of the mass of more important matter which the Reviewer might feel it difficult to deal with; and even actual falsifications made here and there of my Exposition, in order the better to justify his adverse judgment. In other cases, while dogmatically condemning it, the writers seemed to be altogether unacquainted with the evidence on which that exposition was based, or at least thought proper to ignore it. It was deemed enough to denounce Protestant prophetic views like my own, though held by Hooker, Butler, and all the chief fathers of our own Church,[7] as wild, and what had now become antiquated and effect.[8] And others, again, contented themselves (a very favorite mode this of proceeding) with an numeration of the many varying and contradictory opinions propounded by various Expositors, as a sufficient reason of itself for rejecting alike one and all.[9](Would our critics in similar manner, on the ground of the many different physical theories of the Universe, advanced in different ages, reject all alike;—the Newtonian, as well as those of Epicurus, Ptolemy, or Des Carts?) —It is the evidence of coincidences between prophecy and history, (as Mr. Greg justly states the case), of real, peculiar, irrefutable coincidences, especially if proved to exist in a continuous chain, (even though here and there a link of the chain may seem wanting or doubtful),[10] which, on the solid ground of common sense, must ever constitute the true test and proof, 1st, of the supernatural inspiration, 2nd, of the right interpretation, of the Apocalypse.

But I do not wish here further to particularize, or to recall past controversies. Rather I would wish to express my sense of the advantage derived from some of the earlier criticisms of my Book, alike in the correction of sometimes not unimportant incorrectness’s, and in the indication where my argument needled clearer or fuller elucidation: for certainly, on all main points, not only was my theory loft unbroken by these criticisms, but, by the controversies to which they gave rise, and the corrections and improvements which they suggested, made stronger than before. Such, for example, was the result of my long controversies with the late Rev. Kirchever Arnold, of which a fuller notice will be found in the Preface to my 4th Edition: [11] such the result of that with Dr. Keith, on his labored and virulent assault upon my Historic Exposition of the Seals, and of the death and resurrection of the Witnesses.

An assault this, let me observe, answered by me yet more fully and elaborately in my Vindicate: [12] of which a Refutation was forthwith advertised by Dr. K.; which however, in the course of the 12 or 13 years subsequently elapsed, has never yet appeared.—The failure of these former attacks on my Book may perhaps be deemed by admirers of the present Anglo-German literary school indecisive of the grand question on which I have been hitherto speaking; and that the result may be very different when the assault is made with the keener weapons of modern criticism. Most heartily do I rejoice, were it only for the satisfaction of such persons, that Dean Alford, by his pronounced judgment against sundry of my more important solutions in the last Volume of his Commentary on the New Testament, has furnished occasion for my calling him into the arena to test, with whatever advantage this modern criticism may afford, the accuracy of the coincidences asserted by me, and so of the truth or untruth of my Exposition. I or hereby not only will the issue be more decisively settled; but the necessary, the absolutely necessary, steps towards such a decision, will be set forth before my readers more clearly than may have occurred to them before. And, after Dean Alford, have I not a right on somewhat similar grounds to call on Dr. Arthur Stanley for a justification of his almost contemptuous allusion to my Book, and rejection of its claims on men belief from any peculiar evidence of truth?

While such have been the adverse criticisms on the Horae during the 18 or 20 years that it has been before the public, it is due to the cause I advocate to add that, on the other side, many, very many, have been the strong opinions expressed in its favor, more especially with reference to the point which I am now urging, I mean the sufficiency of its evidence of truth, by men whose judgment could not but be regarded as of weight. From the Preface to my 4th Edition let me be permitted to repeat the names of Dr. Chalmers,[13] and the late Vice-Chancellor of England Sir Lancelot Shadwell.[14] To which I have peculiar satisfaction in adding the opinion subsequently expressed by the late eminent and able Sir James Stephen; who, after most kindly reading through the greater part of that 4th Edition of the Horae, with the express object, agreeably with a request I had made to him, of judging as to the sufficiency of its evidence, wrote me that in his judgment, if the proof of design arising out of the coincidences there traced out between the prophecy and history were deemed insufficient, all idea of proof from circumstantial evidence must be set aside.—Nor let me here omit to notice the corroboration of the truth of my Exposition from the more or less partial admissions in its favor by one or another advocate of each of the three chief counter-Apocalyptic theories within the last few years. 1st, Dr. S. Davidson[15] sometime Theological Professor on Anglo-Germanic principles in the Independent College at Manchester, and who, both in Kitto’s Cyclopedia, in the Eclectic Review, and elsewhere, had dogmatically pronounced against my view of the prophecy as fundamentally wrong, because of its being on the historic system, and non-accordant with the hypothesis generally received in Germany of a Neronic date, and wholly preterist interpretation, has himself since then formally abandoned the Neronic date and preterist explication; confessing his final adhesion, both in respect of date and interpretation, to Hengstenberg’s curious Commentary, described in the Appendix to Volume IV.[16] 2nd , Mr. W. Kelly, the most recent Expositor, I believe, on the futurist side, himself an intelligent man, and the representative, it would seem, of the present Apocalyptic views of a considerable section of the Brethren (formerly called Plymouth Brethren), has in his Commentary distinctly renounced many of the chief dogmas of the original Futurist school; and declared his admission both of the year-day principle, and of the truth of a large part of my own historical Exposition of the Apocalypse, as a partial though (he considers) imperfect view of the prophecy.[17] 3rd Mr. Birks, the ablest and most eminent advocate of an historic exposition founded on a different view of the structure of the Apocalyptic Prophecy from my own, and which involves a quite different interpretation of the Seals, has renounced that counter-view; and, both as regards structure, and other points too of minor but not unimportant difference between us, has acknowledged, in fine, his substantial agreement with me.

[18]

The fundamental point of sufficiency of evidence having been once established, the Prophecy proved in the strictest sense of the word to be a real prophecy, dictated supernaturally by none other than the omniscient Spirit of God, and the truth of my own Apocalyptic Interpretation on main points also established, need I suggest its surpassing importance in other points of view, besides that of proving the possibility, and indeed fact, of Divine supernatural inspiration?

1st, and as regards the past and present, we must in such case have herein nothing less than God’s own philosophy of the history of Christendom. For, as there is always a moral element in Old Testament Prophecy (which should never to be overlooked), so also, quite as markedly, in this.

In part by the direct expression of the Divine judgment respecting what might be prefigured at the time as passing in the Church or in the world,—whether by a voice from the Holy Place, or out of Heaven, recorded as audibly heard by the Evangelist, or perhaps by the Evangelist’s own statements inaudibly dictated to him by the Divine Spirit,—whether, I say, in this way, or through intimations implied in what might visibly pass at the time on that standing symbol throughout these visions of the professing Church, the Apocalyptic Tabernacle, God’s judgment was here ever clearly shown, indeed inseparably intermixed with the whole of the sacred prefigurations. Many are our Church histories, some of ancient, more of modern authorship; the histories, e. g., by Eusebius and Theodoret of old, and those more modern of Fleury and Dupin, of Mosheim, Gieseler, and Neander, Milner and Waddington; not to add particular Church histories, such as those of the Anglican Church by Hook, and of the Greek and Latin Churches by Stanley and Milman: and, in each, the judgment of the Historian on what he describes is necessarily more or less delineated in his historic page. But all this is at best but the judgment of fallible men. How superior, how inestimably precious, whether in the way of correction or of confirmation, the Divine judgment, as here indicated, on most of the important questions so discussed!—For example how different, and, let me add, how much grander as well as truer, the view here given of God’s education of the world, from what erring man has of late essayed to palm upon us: —in the one its lessons, and the world’s consequent advance towards perfection (though still, alas, too evidently for the most part lying in wickedness), being set forth as evidenced in the progress of human art, literature, and science of government, derived from the teachings of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman Heathendom, quite as much as in the higher standard of morals, and knowledge of the divine unity, derived from Jewish and Christian teaching;—in the other (the Apocalyptic prophecy) the two chief lessons of the world’s history, as there prefigured, being: 1st, that of the essential and constant working of sin for evil; under every variety of age, nation, civilization, and circumstance; 2nd, that of the effectual working for man’s recovery from evil, under every variety of age, nation, civilization, and circumstance, of God’s own gospel grace: —lessons these of the divine education of our world intended not for time only, but for eternity; and not for men only, but for angels: that so in the ages to come might be made known to them too, through the Church, the riches of God’s grace in Christ Jesus.

Further, there is to be considered the light shed by the demonstrated past in the Prophecy on its most deeply interesting, but mysteriously shadowed forth, predictions of the yet coming[19] future.

For, first, how can we hope satisfactorily to ascertain our present place in the world’s calendar, except by marking the several onward stages of its progress, as defined and established by a demonstrated parallelism in their evolution of the successive pages of prophecy and history? Not certainly by the signs of the times, considered simply and alone, on which one prophetic school (that of the Futurists) is wont altogether to base its conclusions as to the nearness of the coming consummation; nor again on the ground, considered simply and alone, of the measure of the evolution of the great prophetic period of the 1260 years, on which certain other prophetic students appear to me to have too exclusively insisted in their calculations: but on the strength of all the three kinds of evidence considered conjointly, and when shown all to converge to the same result. How again, with reference to the as yet undeveloped future, can we hope to explain the prophetic figurative language concerning it in any way so satisfactory as by comparing those figures with the previous Apocalyptic figurations, the meaning of which has already been unfolded to us in the history of the past? Thus the great Lord Bacon advises the use of the part fulfilled of sacred prophecy in explication of the part unfulfilled; for he was not one, like so many of his modern professed disciples, to despise the prophesying of Holy Scripture. The method of this study, says he, "ought to be such that the truth of the events predicted, concerning every age of the world, may be conjoined with each respective prophecy of the Scripture; to the end that it may tend as well to the confirmation of the faith, as to the establishment of a certain rule and skillfulness in the interpretation of the prophecies which remain yet to he fulfilled."

[20]

Let me here take the opportunity of mentioning that there is in the present Edition the correction of an inadvertence in my former Editions of no inconsiderable importance, concerning the relation of the 75 years, set forth in Dan. 12. As the time of the end, to the great prophetic period of the 1260 years. Of that period I have from the first, on the strength of the precedent of the 70 years of the Babylon Captivity, insisted on two epochs of commencement, in association with two correspondent epochs of termination: the incipient and imperfect beginning, as about the year AD 530, with an ending in the epoch of the great French Revolution in AD 1790; the other, or complete and more perfect epoch of commencement, dated about AD 606, being connected with a complete and more perfect ending about the year AD 1866. To which view of the 1260 years I still fully adhere. But, in regard of Daniel’s supplemental 75 years of the time of the end, quite inconsistently with this double theory of the great 1260 year epochs, I inadvertently connected it only with my primary and imperfect ending epoch in AD 1790; without suggesting the other possible, and indeed equally probable alternative, of its being a supplemental period to be connected with, and measured from, the second and complete ending of the 1260 years, about AD 1866. It is now some years since this inadvertence in former Editions of the Horae was publicly, as it has been often privately, noticed by me. It will be found rectified now in my Commentary;[21] and also, as the Reader will see, in my Apocalyptic Chart.[22] Yet one word in conclusion, on the great millennial question. As was my duty, I have very carefully considered the arguments in the Hampton Lectures of the present highly esteemed Bishop of Carlisle, Dr. Waldegrave, as also those of Professor Fairbairn, and other recent writers on the subject, against the hypothesis of Christ’s pre-millennial Advent advocated by me in my former Editions. And I am bound to say that the result of the examination has been to confirm me in the truth of that hypothesis. I trust that the brief review of those publications, given in the Appendix to the 4th Volume of the present Edition, will show that my conclusion in regard to the arguments of these authors has not been formed without due consideration and reason.

And let me add that, while feeling strengthened in my belief in the pre-millennial view by the very arguments most recently urged against it, it approves itself more and more to my mind by what seems to me to be its intrinsic grandeur. From the very nature of Jehovah the manifestation of the glory of His own attributes must necessarily be the great end, and object, of all his dispensations. My glory will I not give to another.[23] Nor can I conceive any issue of the destinies of this our world whereby the glory of his attributes as the Redeemer will be so exalted, as by that of our earth’s final regeneration and jubilee following on the gathering round Him, and visible manifestation before the world, of all that have faithfully served and followed the Lamb during the past and still present era of spiritual trial and temptation;—a multitude that no man can number, out of every people and nation and tongue and age;— arrayed in the likeness and glory, as well as admitted to the presence and the joy, of Himself, their SAVIOR GOD.

.

[1]In the Prefaces to former Editions a full and detailed account was given of the circumstances connected with the origin and progress of the Work; circumstances at that time interesting to others besides myself, but of which it now appears to me needless to speak. Suffice it to observe that the Work was primarily undertaken in the autumn of 1837; and that its four first editions,— each one an improvement and enlargement of its predecessor,—were published respectively in the years 1844, 1846, 1847, and 1851.

[2]Not, 1 think, without premonitory warning in this very prophecy that there would be a remarkable outgoing about the present time of the spirit of heathen-like infidelity, as well as of other spirits of deception. See Apoc. Xvi. 13, 14; and my comments on the passage, Vol. Iii.

[3]Vol. iv. sup.

[4]Eg. Cunningham, Frere, Fairbairn, &c. &c.; from whom I exemplify in the passage referred to, and the same 4th Volume. But the names might be largely multiplied. Dean Alford's Apocalyptic Exposition furnishes a recent and notable exemplification.

[5]Of course, in the very nature of things, as observable in the best human historic writings, as well as in prophetic writings of a higher origin, some descriptions must needs be shorter and less precise than others; alike from the greater peculiarity or importance of the subject described in the one case than in the other, and also with a view to the more effective throwing out into high relief of that which is most peculiar and most important. And, in the testing of the descriptive power and accuracy of the writer, it is evidently the fuller and more detailed descriptions that will be chiefly referred to. In the Preface to my earlier Editions I remarked thankfully on the fact of the commencing visions of the Apocalyptic prophecy being of this character, with figurations singularly characteristic and of many details; and of the immense advantage of this towards a right interpretation of the Apocalypse. Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute, is a proverbial truth in no little measure applicable here. In consequence of the order and marked connection of the various parts of the prophecy, the meaning of its fuller and more characteristic figurations having been fixed, there hence arise data, very generally, for fixing the meaning of other less definite figurations connected with the former.

[6]A kind of evidence this first applied by myself, I believe, in elucidation of the Apocalypse; but which has often been applied by historians, and with great advantage, in elucidation of past history. Its nature and value is sufficiently illustrated by me in the body of my work, before using it.

[7]See the extracts given by me in the Paper No. IV. of the Appendix to my 4th Volume.

[8]he wild notion that the chief Bishop of Western Christendom was Antichrist. So one Reviewer, a clergyman of the Church of England.

[9]So not long since Professor Jowett, in his Commentary on 2 Thessalonians ; following here in the wake of multitudinous other anti-Protestant critics.

[10] Said Mr. K. Arnold: A proof of failure on one point is a proof of absolute failure. What, let me ask, would ray readers think if any one, with a dissected map before him, were, on account of failure in one of the joinings, from breakage or other accident, to argue that the failure was decisive, as negativing the idea of design in the fittings generally?How much more wisely By. Butler: —Objectors may say that the conformity between the prophecies and the event is by accident; but there are many instances in which such conformity cannot be denied. His whole statement on the subject, and especially those, says an Edinburgh Reviewer, Mr. Rogers, on the impression to be derived from the multitude of apparent coincidences in a long series of prophecies, some vast, some minute, and the improbability Of their all being accidental, are worthy of his comprehensive genius. It is on the effect of the whole, and not on single coincidences, that the argument depends.

[11]Hence a more full and exact inquiry than over previously made, I believe, into the tenets and history of the Paulikians; and vindication of them as true witnesses for Christ, not only against their Romish impugners, and others who have followed these Romanists in England; hut also against Dr. Gieseler, and his hostile Marcionitic anti-Paulikian theory. All which is now incorporated in the body of my work. And let me here add, though not so immediately connected with my Arnoldian controversies, that there will be found in my Rook, if I mistake not, a more accurate inquiry than by previous writers into the Waldensian history; especially on certain important and much controverted points, on which both Romish and Protestant writers in the controversy seem alike to have been in error.

[12]Including a very careful and accurate investigation of the history of the broken remnants of anti-Papal protesting Churches at the crisis just before the Reformation.

[13]So in a long letter written to me in 1847, very shortly before his death, on occasion of my friendly controversy with Dr. Candlish..

[14]In a letter to me dated Jan. 1, 1849, after some strong expressions of the interest he had felt in the perusal of the Hora;, he thus proceeded. Every word of it, down to p. 524 of the 4th Volume (3rd Ed.), I have read with deliberate attention; many parts twice, some thrice. And I beg leave to express my entire approbation of the principle of construction upon which you have proceeded: viz. that of giving one uniform continuous meaning to the whole of the Apocalypse, while making each word bear its own appropriate sense; and thereby producing one consistent symbolic picture, consisting it is true of many parts, but all held in agreement together. You have in effect adopted the only rule that can safely be applied either in courts of law, or elsewhere, to the interpretation of written instruments: a rule which I am myself in the constant habit of adopting, and have learn by experience to be most satisfactory. He then notices his satisfaction at the manner in which out of so prodigious a mass of materials, collected, sifted, and arranged for the purpose, there had been shown the fulfillment of this symbolic prophecy, alike in vast general circumstances and in minute particulars: states that my view of the Seals and of the Trumpet. carried conviction to his mind; and especially expresses his delight in my exposition of the 3½ days' death of the Witnesses and their revival, that of the seven chiliada" included. I feel it the rather a duty to cite thus much from the Vice-Chancellor's letter, because it was his own expressed wish that I should make any use of it that might seem to me desirable.

[15]See my 4th Volume; also my notice of Dr. D. in the Appendix to my Warburton Lectures.

[16]See my Vol. iv.

[17]See the Review of Mr. W. K.'s Commentary in my 4th Volume.

[18]See Appendix to my Vol. i.; also the Note of Vol. Iii. I may here mention further the encouraging fact of the many Abridgments made of my book, as additional testimonies to the soundness and sufficiency of its evidence of truth. Of these there are three or four in English that I am acquainted with, besides Dr. Cummings, and that of the American Dr. A. Banies; (for such Dr. A. B.'s Apocalyptic Commentary mainly is, notwithstanding the total want of due acknowledgment on the part of the plagiarist;) also one Abridgment in French, and a partial one in Italian.

[19]The point is one the importance of which has much impressed itself on my mind; and I have thought it well accordingly to press and to illustrate it in my present Edition, even yet more fully than in those before. So especially in the concluding Paper of the Appendix to Vol. iv., now first included in the Horae.

[20]Seciinda pars (historiee ecclesiastics) qune est historia ad Frophetias, ex duobus relativis constat, Frophetia ipsa, et ejus adimpletmie. Quapropter tale esse debet hujus operis institutiim, ut cum singulis ex scripturis propbetiis eventuum Veritas conjungatur; idque per omnesmundi atates: turn ad confirmationem Fidei; turn ad instituendara disciplinam quandam, ct peritiam, in interpretatione Prophetianim, qua adliuc rcstant complendoe. Dc Augra. Scientiaruni, Lib. ii. cap. xi.

[21]In my Vol. iv. Besides this (which is indeed an addition rather than change) there is no change of interpretation that I remember in my present Edition: save only in regard of the fallen star of Apoc. ix. 1; to which, on reconsideration, I have concluded on giving what in my former Editions I spoke of as in my opinion the only admissible alternative explanation of the symbol, instead of the one previously preferred.

[22]Let me here take the opportunity of observing on the peculiar importance and value of a Tabular Chart, or Schedule, of the interpretation in every Apocalyptic Commentary)-. For there is such a connection of one part of this Prophecy with other parts, and order so singularly marked in its structure, that the simple tabular arrangement will of itself be to a certain extent a testing of the interpretation offered, and detector (if such there be) of its structural inconsistencies and flaws. Indeed without this no man, in my judgment, is in a position to publish his scheme of interpretation. There seems to me a want of proper respect in an Author to his readers, when, on a subject so immensely important, he shrinks from the trouble of thus preciously testing the truth of what he offers thorn.

[23]Is. xlii. 8. I have enlarged very fully on this most interesting passage, and especially the governing principle which it announces in the Divine proceedings, in the first Triad of my Warburton Lectures.

Preliminary Essays

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 Essays, to answer these two questions concerning it. The first is one that has obviously a most important bearing on the Book’s inspiration, and consequently on its claim to any true prophetic character; the second, as will here after appear, on its right interpretation.

Essay I —The Writer of the Apocalypse.

Now on this point a ready 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.[24] And the authority which the several contexts imply to have attached to this John,—in one place from the asserted fact 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,—in another from that of his pronouncing a blessing on those several presiding bishops,[25]—in another from the prophets being spoken pointedly of as his brethren,[26]—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 almost involved in the fact of its writer being John the apostle. Nor will the corroborative evidence that the Apocalypse itself offers fail to strike the inquirer, (an evidence acknowledged even by the superficial and the prejudiced), in the holiness and super-human sublimity of the composition,[27]—Should direct testimony further be sought for, as desirable, the well-known corroborative testimony of Irenaeus will be found ready at hand to the inquirer,—a testimony express and various times repeated, as will presently appear,—to the effect that the author of The Revelation was indeed that beloved disciple, the Apostle and Evangelist St. John.[28] And considering Irenaeus’ 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,—and that he was moreover one of the most learned, as well as most 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 conclusive on the point in question: indeed as altogether sufficient and conclusive, except in case of the existence 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 also by modern biblical critics of high reputation for learning and candor; among whom Michaelis stands pre-eminent. This renders it necessary that the point in question should be more carefully looked into; and the evidence, as well (against as for, examined in detail. At least it must be done by him who would wish thoroughly to satisfy himself on the grounds of our belief in the genuineness and divine inspiration of The Revelation.—I purpose therefore drawing out the evidence somewhat fully; and shall first, and with a view to the fairer conducting of the inquiry, set before the reader the strength and substance of the objections of these two writers, the most eminent perhaps respectively of ancient and modern objectors.

With regard then to Dionysius, who was Bishop of Alexandria about the middle of’ the third century,[29] and the earliest impugner (at least earliest of any note)[30] of the apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse, this is most observable, that he did not impugn its ascription to the Apostle John on historical grounds. He did not allege the testimony of any more ancient writer against it. He did not thus argue (I borrow the language of Michael) It is not preserved in the archives of the seven Asiatic Churches: the oldest persons in those cities have no knowledge of its having been sent thither: no one ever saw it during the life of St. John: it was introduced in such and such a year, and contradicted as soon as it appeared. It was simply on critical grounds, and internal evidence, that he rested his objection; reasoning from certain marked differences of style and diction between the Apostle John’s Gospel and Epistles on the one hand, and the Apocalypse of John on the other.—Now the circumstance of an objector so learned as Dionysius having thus failed to appeal to historical evidence, and of certain previous but evidently rash and intemperate objectors, to whom he alludes, having equally failed to do so, (nor, let me add, is the case different with any other patriotic questioners of the apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse in the two next centuries) constitutes, as Michael allows, a considerable,—I should say an exceedingly strong argument, in favor of the high origin in question. For had such counter-evidence existed at the time, I cannot but believe that he would have alleged it. —As to Dionysius’ grand critical argument, just before stated, he who has marked the difference of style in the case of other sacred writers, when simply writing history, and when rapt by the Spirit into the enunciation of prophecy, (I might exemplify this in the cases of Moses, Isaiah, and St. Peter), will easily perceive the danger of deciding a question of identity of authorship simply on such grounds, and without the corroboration of external evidence: —not to add that there are observable certain remarkable points of similarity’ (as well as of dissimilarity). Between the writings thus brought into comparison; indeed such as to make Michael's suggest in explanation the idea of the Apocalyptic phraseology being in these points a forged imitation of that of St. John’s Gospel.[31] —In similar manner the Evangelist's Apocalyptic Hebraisms may be accounted for by reference to his very natural adoption of much of the language and style, as well as figures, of the old Hebrew prophets, when under the prophetic afflatus: besides that the hypothesis is at least possible, in the absence of direct contradicting testimony, of his domestication in Greek Asia having occurred late in life; and his publication of the Apocalypse been made first, of the Epistles and Gospel after wards.[32] —Nor let me here omit to observe that Dionysius himself, though incredulous as to the Apostle John being the author of the Apocalypse, had yet the conviction,—in part derived from the holy character of the book itself, in part from its general reception in the Christian Church,—that it was the writing of a holy man of that name, indeed of one inspired by God.

[33]

It is Michaelis' judgment, however, that there exists, over and above the internal evidence alleged by Dionysius, direct historic evidence also against the fact of the beloved disciple having been the writer of the Apocalypse; and indeed against its divine inspiration. Referring to the two earliest of the Fathers, Ignatius and Papias,—authors contemporary with St. John in his old age, and whose writings must be dated very soon after his death,—he alleges, that the former in his Epistles still extant, though addressing in them three out of the seven Apocalyptic Churches, viz. Those of Smyrna, Ephesus, and Philadelphia, does yet take no notice of anything written to those Churches in the Apocalypse and that the latter, notwithstanding his well-known and strong advocacy of the doctrine of a millennium, does yet, according to Eusebius, ground it only on unwritten tradition from the Apostles, and (as if he were either ignorant of it, or disbelieved the book’s divine authority) not on the Apocalypse of St. John.[34] —Thus, on the whole, Michael schemes to conclude that this book is a spurious production; introduced into the world after St. John’s death, about the year 120, and between the times of Papias’ and Justin Martyr’s writings.

[35]

Such is the substance of the chief objections of these two critics, who may fairly be supposed to represent the strength of the anti-Johannic arguments of the ancient objectors and the modern. And I cannot but at once remark, with reference to them, that it is plain that both Dionysius (with his followers) in his time, and also Michael in his, conducted their inquiries not without a very considerable though perhaps unconscious bias a priori against the point at issue,—I mean the genuineness and apostolic origin of the Apocalypse.[36] Its millennium doctrine could not but prejudice the Alexandrian Bishop against it; considering that he was not only himself a strong anti-millennial in sentiment, but that it was in the act of writing against millenarians that he pronounced judgment against the genuineness of the Apocalypse.[37] Again, the failure of expositors., in Michaelis judgment, to show anything like a clear fulfillment of the Apocalyptic prophecies,—which yet, if the book were genuine and therefore inspired, ought, he was persuaded, to have been long ere this in great part fulfilled[38],—operated, it seems evident, quite as powerfully to prejudice the German critic[39]—Now the unsoundness of these presumptions will, I hope, be made soon apparent. I trust in the ensuing historical Exposition of The Revelation to prove, on such evidence as may satisfy even the cautious and severe examiner, that its predictions have indeed been fulfilled, and that with exactitude very remarkable. Moreover I may perhaps, ere its conclusion, be enabled to show that much of the objection felt by Dionysius and others, alike in ancient and modern times, against the millenarian doctrine, has been founded in misconception. For the present it may suffice to repeat that what has been stated shows the importance, as was before said, of our looking more accurately and particularly into the actual historical evidence,—whether against or for,— on the point in question: especially into such evidence as those three half-centuries may furnish that elapsed next after the publication of the Apocalypse: that is, in the interval from near the end of the first century, (such will be proved to be the Apocalyptic commencing date in the second of these Preliminary Essays), to the time of Dionysius, about the middle of the third.

The which division of the interval into three half-centuries offers, I think, a very convenient chronological classification of the Christian Fathers and authors, whose testimonies to the Apocalypse of John we have to investigate. Nor will any but the first cause the least difficulty, or detain us long.

I. As to the primary half-century ranging from AD. 96 to about AD. 150, it comprehends the last of those apostolic men , or might probably have conversed, with the apostles, viz. Ignatius, Poly carp, Papias; as well as one of very different and inferior authority, whom it may be well at once to examine and dispatch, I mean Hermas.

1. I speak of the work of Hermas in this manner, under a full conviction of the correctness of Dr. Binton’s judgment[40] both to its age and character —its age, as not long before the middle of the second century; its character, as most probably a spurious publication, palmed on the Christian Church, agreeably with a custom already at that time too prevalent, under the name of Hermas, a companion of St. Paul.[41] Hence, even though the evidence of the writer’s acquaintance with the Apocalypse of St. John be, as I think it is, conclusive, and indeed of his borrowing from it just in the same manner that he does from the older and undoubted canonical scriptures of the New Testament,[42] yet this will little help us in our present inquiry; Michael’ theory, which we have to refute, being that the Apocalypse was a forgery published after St. John’s death, somewhere between the time of Papias and that of Justin Martyr, (perhaps about AD. 120), and consequently early enough for the soi-disant Hermas to have become acquainted with it: while the mere judgment of this writer as to what was truly inspired scripture, and what was not, is of very little weight.—But in another point of view I deem the work eminently to our purpose, and on that account indeed have made this mention of it: viz. As showing us what kind of forgery of a sacred Book of Visions and Revelations the Christian writers of that age were capable of, almost at their best; this being one very highly esteemed by the early Church. To a candid and sensible man, wanting time or opportunity for examining into the direct historic evidence of the genuineness and divine inspiration of John’s Apocalypse, I scarce could advise anything, I think, more calculated to produce presumptive belief in its favor, than simply that he should read one after the other, even if it were but for the space of one brief half-hour, the Revelations of Hermas and The Revelation of St. John.

2. I proceed to Ignatius, the venerable Bishop of Antioch, ordained, it has been thought, to that See by the hands of apostles, somewhere about AD. 70, or a little before the destruction of Jerusalem;[43] and who, after some thirty or forty years’ faithful labor in the Church, suffered martyrdom, AD 107, or, as some prefer to fix the date, AD 115 or 116, under Trajan.[44]—It was in the course of a forced and hurried journey from Antioch to Rome, the scene of his martyrdom by wild beasts, that he wrote Epistles; and, as it has been generally supposed, the same substantially that are still extant, to the Ephesian Christians, the Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, Smyrneans, and Polycarp[45] And Michaelis makes this, as we have seen, one of the two strong grounds of his disbelief of the genuineness of the Apocalypse, that Ignatius, in these Epistles of the probable date (say) of AD. 107, makes no mention of the book; and consequently seems either not to have known it, or at least not to have recognized it as holy Scripture: his non-reference to it being the more remarkable, for as much as it had been published, according to ecclesiastical tradition, in the very locality of those churches which he was addressing; and this only some ten years, or a little more, according to the same tradition, before the time when he wrote.

[46]

Now it is not without reason that Dean Woodhouse[47] calls attention to the circumstances under which Ignatius wrote these Epistles, a prisoner, guarded by soldiers, whom from their ferocity he compares to leopards, and by them hurried forward in his passage to Rome. In such circumstances it is to be expected, the Dean adds, that he would write with perpetual interruptions, and his quotations depend for the most part on memory. Besides which we have to bear in mind Lardner’s remark[48] on Ignatius’ usual mode of reference to the Books of the New Testament; as made almost always by allusion only, or unacknowledged adoption of their language: St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians being the one and only Book expressly named by him. —This premised, the Dean suggests the following two passages- from Ignatius, as passages in which he judges the language to have been borrowed from the Apocalyptic extracts that I have placed in the parallel column; and so borrowed as from one of the sacred Books.

Besides these, Mr. J. C. Knight, in a late little Publication,[49] has suggested a third case of parallelism.

Of which examples it seems to me that the first may be regarded as a case of language borrowed very probably from the Apocalypse, For the parallelism is exact; and this in respect of a phrase not usual, and which does not occur in that precise form any where else in the New Testament.[50]—The other two seem to me more doubtful In the second the reference suggests itself more readily to 1 Peter 2: 5, "Ye also, as living stones, λιθοι ζωντεσρ are built up a spiritual house;" or to a similar passage in Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians.[51]—As to the third, Mr. Knight urges it as a case of antithetical parallelism; and one the more observable, because occurring in Ignatius’ Epistle to the same Philadelphian Church to which the Apocalyptic passage had been addressed. It had been a promise in the Apocalyptic Epistle, "Him that overcometh I will make a pillar in the temple of God; and upon him (or it, στυλον) shall be written the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God: "—a promise partially indicative of even the present state and character of those that might rightfully appropriate it among the Philadelphia Christians; their reward being its glorious and everlasting completeness and perfection. But what of false professors and teachers in the Church, such as Ignatius was referring to? They were not, nor would be, living pillars in the living temple of God: and on them there was not, and would not be, written the name of God. Rather they were the very antithesis and contrast of the Apocalyptic figure; which consequently Mr. K. supposes to have been in Ignatius’ mind when writing. They were but "sepulchral pillars, and on them were written only the names of men." — Such is Mr. Knight’s argument; and, notwithstanding the existence in the Epistle of the words ϰαι ταφοι which he omits, it is perhaps sustainable: the word only, prefixed to "the names of men being in such case an antithetic allusion by the writer to the Apocalyptic figure of pillars written with the name of God.—The word ταφοι, however, suggests a reference to Matthew 23: 27 as also possible: the antithesis, if so, intended by him in the word only being that the heretical teachers spoken of, though professedly Christians, were regarded by Ignatius as having only the name to live, not the reality of life.

[52]

Let me add two other passages that have struck me in my own perusal of the generally received Epistles of Ignatius, as containing in them certain probable references to the Apocalypse; especially the latter.—The first is from his Epistle to the Trallians, § 3;where he charges them to reverence the Bishops like Jesus Christ the Son of the Father, (so I read the clause with Bishop Pearson),[53] and the presbyters as the sanhedrim of God: ῶοες βυτεζους ὡζ συνεδζιον Θεου an expression certainly remarkable, and which we may not unnaturally conceive to have had allusion to the Apocalyptic imagery of the twenty four presbyters, that appeared in vision seated, εν συνεδριω round the throne of God and of the Lamb[54]—Secondly, in the same Epistle to the Trallians, he speaks of a true member of the Church of Christ under the figure of being one "within the altar’’ εντος του θυσια στηριου and of him that did not really belong to it as "without the altar," εϰτοσ.[55] Now this is the characteristic figure of true Christian worshipers (as we shall see strikingly illustrated in the course of the ensuing Commentary) in the Book of the Apocalypse. So especially Rev. 11: 2; "Rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship in it: but the court that is without the temple, cast out; for it is given to the Gentiles." In either passage,—both that of Ignatius and that of the Apocalypse,— the word altar seems used to include the altar-court;[56] in either the figure of worshiping within the altar-court to signify true church-membership, The figure here too is certainly remarkable; nor do I think of any other passage in the New Testament that could so well have suggested it to Ignatius.

[57]

Such are the parallelisms that suggest themselves, (and others might perhaps be added,[58]) as fit to be taken into consideration, on the supposition long and generally entertained of the genuineness of the

You've reached the end of this preview. Sign up to read more!

Start your free 30 days

Page 1 of 1