CHAPTER II: ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE AND PROPHET.

ST. JOHN THE APOSTLE AND PROPHET. __________________________________________________________________

§ I. Life of St. John. [516]

AS in the first period of the apostolic age the principal part is enacted by St. Peter, and in the second by St. Paul, so in the third period the paramount influence is that of St. John. His natural disposition and peculiar gifts account for this delay in the exercise of his apostleship. With a soul meditative and mystical, he had neither the impetuous zeal of Peter nor the indefatigable activity of Paul. On him Christianity had wrought most intensively; he had penetrated int6 the deepest meaning of the teaching of Christ; or rather, he had read the very heart of the Master. It was his vocation to preserve the most precious jewels in the treasury of Christ's revelations, and to bring to light the most sacred and sublime mysteries of the Gospel. In order to fulfill this mission, he must needs wait until the Church was ready for such exalted teaching. The first storms of division must subside. Just as the prophet heard the still small voice, which was the voice of God, only after the sound of the tempest and the roaring of the thunder, so the Apostle of supreme love could not speak till a calm had succeeded to the storm stirred up by the polemics of St. Paul. His work was not more important, nor attested with a diviner seal, than that of the great controversialist of the apostolic age; the two are closely connected, and the latter is the natural sequence to the earlier. The revelation of love could not be complete till Judæo-Christianity had finally succumbed, and had carried with it in its fall all the barriers within which it had sought to limit the grace of God. So true is this, that we find St. Paul himself sounding the first notes of the hymn of love, and thus inaugurating the work of St. John. The former sowed in tears, the latter reaped in joy. The one resisted to blood; the other received for the Church the prize of the well-fought fight. This diversity in the missions of the two Apostles is manifested in the diversity of the methods employed by them, in order to establish the truth, of which they are the organs. While St. Paul wields the weapons of warfare in his irresistible and impassioned dialectics, St. John is satisfied with expounding doctrine. He does not dispute; he affirms. It is clear that he has been led into the possession of the truth by a path widely divergent from that of St. Paul--by the path of intuition, of direct vision. His language has the calmness of contemplation. He speaks in short sentences, strikingly simple in form; but that simplicity, like a quiet lake, holds in its depths the reflection of the highest heaven. "He has filled the whole earth with his voice," says St. John Chrysostom, "not by its mighty reverberations, but by the divine grace, which dwelt upon his lips. That which is most admirable is, that this great voice is neither harsh nor violent, but soft and melting as harmonious music." [517]

It is very far from the truth, however, to regard St. John as the type of feminine gentleness, as he is represented in legend and in painting, which is only another form of legend. The ancient Church had a far worthier conception of him when it gave to John the Evangelist, the symbol of the eagle soaring to the sun, as though to signify that the mightiest and most royal impulse--that which carries farthest and highest--is love. The soul of the Apostle of Ephesus was as vigorous as that of Paul. He was called the Son of Thunder before grace had subdued his natural vehemence; and something of this early ardor always remained with him. In proportion to his love of truth was his hatred of error and heresy. Such love is a consuming fire, and when it sees its object despised or wronged, it is as ardent in its indignation as in its adoration. The truth which St. John loved and served was no mere abstract doctrine; it was to him incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. He was ever the beloved disciple of the Master, the disciple admitted to his most tender and intimate friendship; and the Church has ever pictured him in the attitude in which he is represented in the gospels at the Last Supper, leaning on the bosom of the Lord. It was by the power of love so strong and deep that he was enabled to fulfill his mission of conciliation, and to harmonize all the apparent contradictions of the apostolic age in the rich synthesis of his doctrine. Let us now inquire how he was prepared for this glorious vocation.

John was the son of Zebedee, a fisherman of the Lake of Gennesaret, who dwelt at Bethsaida. Matt. iv, 21; Mark i, 19; Matt. x, 2. It is not proved that he was actually poor, as Chrysostom maintained, for his father had "hired servants;" (Mark i, 20;) his mother was among the women who ministered to Jesus of their substance, (Luke viii, 3,) and John himself had a house of his own. John xix, 27. Be this as it may, however, he was of obscure and humble origin. Possibly, as some commentators have thought, he may have owed his first religious impressions to his mother, who was among the earliest followers of the Saviour. John, as well as Peter, was a disciple of the Forerunner; the preaching of John the Baptist answered to the needs of his heart, which was eagerly waiting for the hope of Israel. We have already narrated, on the occasion of the calling of Peter, the circumstances under which this Apostle and John were led to follow Christ. John i, 37. They did not at once leave all to be his disciples. The Master gave time for their first impressions to deepen before he called them to forsake family and fishing-nets, and to come after him. Matt. iv, 18-22; Mark i, 19, 20; Luke v, 1-11. John appears to have been very young at this time; his grave and thoughtful nature peculiarly fitted him to receive the education which Jesus Christ imparted to his disciples, and which consisted in impressing on them the features of his own likeness.

John, Peter, and James were, as we know, admitted to special intimacy with the Saviour. [518] There is no reason to suppose that John had a much clearer comprehension than the other disciples of the doctrine of Christ. He shared their carnal conceptions of the earthly kingdom of Messiah, (Matt. xv, 20-28,) and exhibited sometimes the narrow spirit of the sectary. Luke ix, 49, 50. His invocation of wrath upon the Samaritans displays an alloy of human passion, blended with his affection for the Saviour. Luke ix, 54. But this affection was so real and true, that it was sure to lead to all the developments of the religious life. He proved his love in a way not to be mistaken at the time of Christ's passion. [519] He followed him into the court of the high priest, and even to the foot of the cross. John xix, 26. He is the only one of the Apostles who witnessed the last sufferings of Christ; and possibly for this reason, he was chosen to render the most emphatic testimony to his eternal glory in the bosom of the Father.

We can well imagine what an ineffaceable image of unparalleled love and sorrow would be left on the soul of John by this scene. Who can tell with what feelings he caught those last words of the God-man, spoken almost in his parting agony, which committed to him the mother of his Lord as a sacred legacy. John xix, 27. He was also one of the first to see the risen Christ. John xx, 8. All these memories, and many more connected with them, were to be successively illuminated by the Holy Spirit till they should form in the mind of John a perfect whole. But he was not himself capable, immediately after the Pentecostal effusion of the Spirit, of receiving, in all its fullness, this divine revelation.

During the earlier period of the apostolic age we see John by Peter's side lending him efficient help, but leaving to him the initiative in speech and action. Acts iii, 1; viii, 14, 25. He enjoyed much consideration, but did not exert a preponderating influence; nothing is recorded of his share in the Council at Jerusalem, though he appears to have been present. Gal. ii, 9. At this time he still adhered to the Mosaic law, as did Peter and James--a course of conduct confirmed by the decisions of the conference at Jerusalem. [520] There are no means of ascertaining in what year he left that city; but he was no longer there in the year 60, when Paul made his last visit. Acts xxi, 17, 18. Nicephorus asserts that he remained at Jerusalem until the death of Mary; but this gives us no exact information, inasmuch as the date of that event is entirely unknown. [521] There is one whole period of the life of the Apostle of which we possess no details. His supposed journeys to Rome, and into the country of the Parthians, are wholly legendary. [522] But if we have no precise records of his life during these years, his writings give evidence that the time was not lost in reference to his own development. He learned to contemplate one aspect of the person and doctrine of his Master, which had not presented itself to any of the other Apostles with equal distinctness; this was the profound mysterious fact of His eternal divinity, his pre-existence, and incarnation. If we wonder at these differences in the manner of apprehending Christ among his immediate disciples--differences, however, which are never contradictions, but are distinguished by the predominance of one or another element, in conceptions substantially identical--we must bear in mind the important influence of moral affinity in connection with religious truth. The eye of the soul, like the eye of the body, has a wider or narrower range. "There are," says Origen, "various forms under which the Word reveals himself to his disciples according to the degree of light in each, which is proportioned to the measure of their progress in holiness. If he manifested himself on the Mount of Transfiguration in a form much more sublime than that in which he appeared to those who had remained at the foot of the mountain and could not reach its summit, the reason was, that those who were below had not eyes able to behold the glory and divinity of the transfigured Word." [523] St. John was carried by the Spirit of God up to these blessed heights; thus he saw and heard that which others around him saw not nor heard. The higher he rose in faith and love, the more he beheld of the glory and the Godhead of the transfigured Word, and penetrated deeper and deeper into the meaning of the sayings which he had received from the Master's lips, as one by one they became illuminated with heavenly light.

We are free to suppose that the period of his life about which we have no information, was devoted to climbing that spiritual Tabor on the summit of which the only and eternal Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, was to appear to him in all the glory of his divinity. The Apostle, like Mary, pondered in his heart all that he knew of his Master; in the silence of devotion he listened to his living voice, and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, discerned more and more of the mystery of his being. St. Augustine says: "While the three other evangelists remained below with the man Jesus, and spoke little of his divinity, John, as though impatient of treading the earth, rose from the very first words of His gospel, not only above the bounds of earth, air, and sky, but above the angels and celestial powers, into the very presence of Him by whom all things were made. Not in vain do the gospels tell us that he leaned on the bosom of the Saviour at the Passover feast. He drank in secret at that divine spring: "De illo pectore in secreto bibebat." [524] All the life of St. John, during the period when scarcely a trace of him is to be found in the apostolic Church, is summed up in these words.

It is certain that in this interval the Apostle must have come in contact with the philosophic culture so widely diffused at the time among the Jewish synagogues. The comparative correctness of his language is itself a proof that this was the case; it is also beyond question that he borrowed from the modified and infinitely diversified Platonism of his age the expression "the Word," which is evidently of Greek origin. Divine truth can speak in all tongues--in the polished tongue of the learned as well as in the simple and rude idiom of the common people; but through whatever medium conveyed, its substance is still "the things which it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive."

The time was to come when the Apostle would emerge from his obscurity, and would in his turn exert a wide and deep influence over the Churches of the first century. According to the testimony of Clement of Alexandria and of Irenæus, St. John, after the death of St. Peter and St. Paul, took up his abode at Ephesus. [525] No city could have been better chosen as a center from which to watch over the Churches, and follow closely the progress of heresy. At Ephesus the Apostle was in the center of Paul's mission-field in Asia Minor, and not far from Greece. Christianity had achieved splendid conquests in the flourishing cities of that country; but it had also encountered dangerous enemies. It was there that false Gnosticism first of all showed itself, and perpetually sought new adherents. The Apostle Paul had spoken before his death of its rapid progress. In his Second Epistle to Timothy he seems himself to point out Ephesus as the city most threatened with heresy, where, consequently, the presence of an apostle would be especially needed. St. John made this city his settled abode, without, however, devoting himself exclusively to the important Church there founded. Ephesus was the center of his apostolic activity, but that activity extended over a wide area. Clement of Alexandria tells us how the Apostle visited the Churches, presiding at the election of the bishops, and restoring order where it had been disturbed. To one of these journeys of apostolic visitation belongs the striking incident recounted by the same author, This incident helps us more than many explanations to understand why John was the disciple whom Jesus loved.

"Arrived in a town not far from Ephesus, after having comforted and exhorted the brethren, he observed a young man, tall of stature, of a noble countenance and ardent spirit. Addressing himself to the Bishop, John said: "I commit that young man to thy charge, and call the Church and Jesus Christ to witness that I do so." The Elder at first conscientiously fulfilled his task; he received the young man into his house, instructed him, and at length administered baptism to him. The young man allowed himself to be drawn away into immorality, then into theft. He was obliged to flee from the town, and became the chief of a band of brigands. A short time after," adds Clement, "John had again occasion to visit that Church. After fulfilling his mission, he turned to the Bishop, and said, 'Restore to me the trust which I and the Lord committed to thee before the Church over which thou art overseer.' The Bishop did not at once understand to what the Apostle referred. 'I ask,' said John, 'for the young man whose soul I intrusted to thee.'
[526] 'He is dead,' exclaimed the Elder, with many sighs and tears.' How dead?' asked the Apostle. 'Dead to God; he fell away and was forced to flee for his crimes; he is now a brigand among our mountains, instead of a member of our Church.' Hearing these words, the Apostle rent his clothes and smote on his head, crying: 'What a guardian have I left over the soul of my brother!' He quitted the Church, made his way to the mountains, and gave himself up to the robbers.

"The young man recognized the Apostle, and was about to make his escape. John, forgetting his old age, ran after him, exclaiming: 'My son, why dost thou flee from thy father? I am feeble and far advanced in years; have pity on me, my son; fear not. There is yet hope of salvation for thee. I will stand for thee before the Lord Christ. If need be, I will gladly die for thee, as he died for us. Stop, stop, believe, it is Christ who has sent me.' [527] The young man listened, with his eyes cast down to the earth; then flung away his weapons and burst into tears. Throwing his arms around the aged saint, he implored his pardon with a flood of tears which were to him as a second baptism. The Apostle raised him up; he prayed and fasted with him; he completely subdued him by his words, and did not leave him till he had restored him to the Church, a great example of penitence, and a living trophy of Christian love." Never since the time of Christ has the parable of the lost sheep received so perfect an application. [528]

It has been asserted that by his example and practice at Ephesus, John confirmed the principles of Judæo-Christianity, and adopted them in the government of the Churches. [529] Such a supposition is altogether inadmissible, if we accept his gospel and epistles as authentic. Importance has been attached to the singular assertion of Polycrates that John was invested with pontifical attributes; the error here is in giving a severely literal sense to a figurative expression. [530] It is evident from his writings, and also from his immediate disciples, that John continued to guide the Church along the way opened by Paul, and raised it even to a greater height above the specialties of Judaism. We shall also observe, in speaking of the ecclesiastical constitution at the close of the first century, that there is no foundation for ascribing to him the episcopal organization, properly so called.

It is not possible to determine accurately at what date St. John suffered for the Gospel. The "Fathers" differ as to the time of his banishment to Patmos We are inclined to place it shortly after the death of St. Peter and St. Paul. [531] His exile may have been protracted during some years. The Revelation appears to us to have been written long before the gospel. It carries us into a period very little removed from the fearful persecution under Nero, which was the great typal war of Antichrist against Christ. The mode of thought, the form of language, the prominent ideas, the historical allusions, all suggest this date; and, in the absence of any decisive external evidence, we are free to give full weight to the internal. [532]

With reference to the gospel and epistles, tradition is agreed in the date affixed to them. These writings are the slowly-ripened fruit of all the labors of the apostolic age; but, at the same time, like every other good gift, they come down from heaven, and bear the undeniable seal of inspiration. They clearly belong to a period when heresy was rife, and especially those forms of heresy which, denying the corporeal reality of the Saviour's sufferings, contained the first germ of Docetism. John did not, indeed, design his gospel to be a systematic refutation of the errors of Cerinthus, or of any other heretic. He was satisfied with setting forth true Christian Gnosticism in opposition to false oriental or Judaizing Gnosticism; and his gospel is beautifully characterized by Clement of Alexandria as pre-eminently the gospel of the Spirit. [533] We should do injustice to the fourth gospel were we to regard it as a merely polemical writing, or as only the complement of the synoptics. The latter supposition cannot be reconciled with the admirable unity of composition to be observed in the Gospel of John. It is full of a creative inspiration. The style is altogether unlike that of a mere commentator, who is completing by a gloss a text already given. John epitomises in his gospel the substance of his preaching at Ephesus, and in the other Churches of Asia Minor. [534] According to Jerome, he had no intention at first of preserving his discourses in writing, but agreed to do so at the express request of the Churches.
[535]

We have no detailed information of the last years of the Apostle. Two incidents have come down to us which agree perfectly with what we know of him. Irenæus relates, that going one day into the public baths at Ephesus, and hearing that Cerinthus was also there, he immediately went out, exclaiming, that he feared the house might fall, because of the presence of so great an enemy of the truth. [536] St. Jerome tells us how the aged Apostle, no longer able to preach at any length, would be carried into the assemblies of the Christians to speak the simple words, "Little children, love one another." To his brethren and disciples, who asked him why he thus repeated himself, he replied, "It is the Lord's commandment, and when it is fulfilled nothing is wanting." [537] This hatred of error, and this holy love, give us the perfect portraiture of John. It does not appear that he died a violent death. He fell asleep in Christ at a very advanced age, at the commencement of the reign of Trajan.

St. Augustine tells us, that in his time there was a very current belief that the Apostle was not dead, but was only sleeping in his grave. [538] Evidently, this impression arose from a wrong interpretation of the words of Christ, spoken to Peter with reference to John: " If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" John xxi, 22. Perhaps, also, the Christians may have found it hard to believe that the Apostle whose influence was still so great, had really passed from the world. They were not altogether wrong. As Lücke has said, he lives, and will ever live, by his writings, [539] and the future belongs to him even more than the past. __________________________________________________________________

[516] See Lucke's excellent Introduction to his "Commentary on the Fourth Gospel." Bonn, 1840. See also the Introduction to Tholuck's "Commentary on the same Gospel," and the passages referring to St. John in the works already quoted. We cite also an admirable sketch of St. John in Adolphe Monod's Sermon on "La Parole Vivante." Paris, I858.

[517] To de thaumaston hoti outo megale susa he boe, ouk esti tracheia tis oude aedes, alla pases mousikes armonias hedion. Chrysost., "Prooem. in Homel. in Joh."

[518] Matt. xvii, 1; xxvi, 37. Lenain de Tillemont ascribes Christ's preference for John to the fact that he had remained unmarried. ("Mémoires," i, p. 330.) Arbitrary criticism can go no further than this.

[519] It has been justly remarked that while Peter was rather philochristos or, John was pre-eminently philoIesous

[520] "Apostoli Petrus et Jacobus et Johannes religiose agebant circa dispositionem legis quæ est secundum Moysem." Irenæus, "C. Hæres.," iii, 12, edit. Feuardentius.

[521] Nicephorus, "Histor. Eccles.," ii, 42.

[522] This is the opinion of Lenain de Tillemont, i, 355. The legend of the preaching of St. John to the Parthians originated in a false reading of the title of the second Epistle, as "Ad Parthos." (August., "Quæst. Evangel.," ii, 37.) See Lücke's "Commentary on the Epistles of John," p. 28.

[523] Eisi gar diaphoroi hoionei tou logou morphai kathos hekasto ton eis epistemen agomenon phainetai ho lagos analogon te exei tou eisagomenou. Origen, "Contra Cels.," iv, I6, edit. Delarue, i, p. 511.

[524] August., "Tractat. 36 in Johann."

[525] En Epheso tes Asias diatribon. (Irenæus, "Adv. Hæres.," iii, I, 3.) The existence of another John at Ephesus, called John the Presbyter, has been called in question, though he appears to have played an important part in primitive tradition. This doubt has arisen from the silence of Polycrates (Eusebius, "Hist. Eccles.," iii, 31) and of Irenæus, (" Adv. Hæres.," v, 33,) who make no mention of him. The testimony of Jerome is also appealed to, who asserts that the two tombs, which, according to tradition, were sacred to the memory of John the Apostle and John the Presbyter, were both really consecrated to the Apostle John. "Nonnulli putant duas memorias ejusdem Johannis evangelistæ esse." St. Jerome, "Catal. Script. Eccl.," 9. The evidence of Papias, however, seems to us conclusive in favor of the existence of John the Elder. "I inquired," he says, "what had been said by the Elders--Thomas, James, Peter, or John--and what say the other disciples of the Lord, (e tis heteros ton tou Kuriou matheton,) as Ariston and John the Presbyter." Eusebius, iii, 39. Clearly Papias distinguishes John the Apostle from John the Presbyter. Nothing can be ascertained about the latter beyond the fact that he lived. See Lücke, "Comment. in Johann.," i, 25-31.

[526] Age de ten parakatatheken apodos hemin, en ego te kai ho soter soi parakatethemetha epi tes ekklesias es prokatheze marturos.

[527] Ti me pheugeis, teknon, ton sautou patera, ton gumnon, ton geronta; eleeson me, teknon, me phobou; echeis eti zoes elpida, ego Christo doso logon huper sou; an dee, ton son thanaton ekon hupomeno, os, ho Kurios ton huper hemon; huper sou ten psuchen, antidoso ten hemen. Stethi pisteuon. Christos me apesteilen.

[528] Clement of Alexandria: Tis ho sozomenos plousios, 39; Eusebius, "Hist. Eccles.," iii, 42.

[529] Schwegler, "Nachapost. Zeit.," i, 145; ii, 249.

[530] Eti de kai Ioannes ho epi to stethos tou Kuriou anapeson hos egenethe hiereus to petalon pephorekos kai martus kai didaskalos. Eusebius, "Hist. Eccles.," iii, 31. A very little reflection removes all dubiousness from this passage. If John had been a Judaizing Christian, how could he have assumed the insignia of the high priest's office in opposition to the most positive prescriptions of the law. It is evident that this expression, which is certainly singular, cannot be taken in a literal sense, but that it relates to the government of the Churches by St. John during this entire period. St. Jerome, who falls into the error of taking literally the expression of Polycrates, sets aside the idea of a Jewish priesthood: "Qui supra pectus Domini recubuit et pontifex ejus fuit." "De Script. Eccles.," 45.

[531] Lücke even asserts that it is not proved that John was directly the subject of persecution. The passage, Rev. i, 9, "I was in the isle which is called Patmos for the word of God " (dia` to`u lo'gou tou Theou) may, he says, refer-to a simple mission for preaching. Lücke, "Offenb. Johannes," p. 815. John, however, declares in the same passage that he had a share in the sufferings of those to whom he writes, (sunkoinono`s en te thli'psei.) We regard as wholly legendary Tertullian's assertion that under Nero John was thrown into a bath of boiling oil. Tertullian, "De Præscript.," 36.

[532] See Note L, at the end of the volume.

[533] Eusebius, "Hist. Eccles.," vi, 14.

[534] "Ibid.," iii, 24.

[535] Coactus est ab omnibus pene tune Asiæ episcopis et multarum ecclesiarum legationibus de divinitate Salvatoris altius scribere." St. Jerome, "Prooemium in Matt." See Note M, at the end of the volume, on the authenticity of the gospel and epistles.

[536] Eusebius, "Hist. Eccles.," iv, 14. Epiphanius substitutes Ebion for Cerinthus without giving any reason. "Hæres.," 30.

[537] Hieronym., "Comment. in Galatos," c. vi.

[538] Augustini, "Tractatus 124 in Johann.;" Lemain de Tillemont, i, 37I.

[539] Lücke, work quoted, p. 40. In the "Acta Apocrypha" (Tischendorf edit., p. 276) it is said that a spring of living water gushed from the tomb of John. __________________________________________________________________

§ II. The Revelation.

Before entering on the exposition of the doctrine of St. John in its most complete form, as we find it in the gospel and epistles, it will be needful, in order to trace the gradual development of the revelations of the New Testament, that we show what is the fundamental idea of the Apocalypse.

We may observe first, that so far from being in opposition to the other writings of St. John, this book comprehends all the essential points of his theology, but in the condition of germs not yet fully developed. There is no stronger evidence of this agreement than the place given in the Revelation to the person of Jesus Christ. Every thing centers in the Saviour. He is called the "Lion of the tribe of Judah," and the "Root of David "--expressions which point to his humanity. Rev. v, 5; xxii, 16. His divinity is no less distinctly recognized. He is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Rev. i, 17; ii, 8; xxii, 13. Clothed in a vesture dipped in blood, he is called the Word, or the Word of God, and he is followed by the armies of heaven. [540] The Revelation is full of the idea of redemption. It delights in representing the Saviour under the image of the Lamb slain, whose blood cleanses from all sin. Rev. v, 9. The heavenly hosts adore him. The King of humanity, as he was once its victim, he holds the keys of hell and of death. Rev. i, 18; iii, 21. He is the divine Head of the Church, its guide and defense. Rev. iii, 19. The Church, in spite of a Jewish symbolism, which is easy of interpretation, is clearly distinguished from the synagogue. It comprehends a "multitude of every nation and kindred and people and tongue." Rev. v, 9. It is composed of those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, and who are walking in the way of holiness. Rev. vii, 14, 15; xiv, 3, 4. The Apocalypse rests, therefore, on the same doctrinal basis as the fourth gospel; [541] and, if it is true that it was written nearly thirty years previously, we may fairly conclude that what is called the system of St. John was not the product of speculation, or of the combination of Jewish and Hellenic elements, but that it was formed in substance before these elements, borrowed from pagan philosophy, could by possibility have entered into the current beliefs of the Church. We must seek, then, some other source than Alexandrian philosophy for the theology of John; and what other source can, at this early period, have been open to him but the teaching of the Master?

The Revelation is not a recital of doctrine--it is primarily a book of prophecy; it opens a wide and glorious horizon to Christian hope, and paints it with glowing colors. It bears the impress of the age in which it was written. It raises the events of that time to the height of solemn symbols; thus, it is at the same time the book of revelations and an important historical record. In it, as has been well said, we breathe the very atmosphere of martyrdom. Written immediately after the first, and, perhaps, the most cruel of all the persecutions--that in which the brutal hatred of Roman paganism spent its first fury--the book of Revelation catches, as it were, the lurid reflection of the flames which consumed the Christians in the gardens of Nero; while, at the same time, it is illuminated throughout with the certainty of triumph. Contrasting the glory of the Church above with the indignities heaped on the Church below, the Revelation seems to drown the cries and the blasphemies of earth in the songs of the blessed and of the angels. After depicting the conflict and sufferings of the saints, and the terrible judgments of God upon their persecutors, it opens a vista of the heavenly places. It is one of the grandest conceptions of the sacred writer, perpetually to link together earth and heaven, and to show in the events of religious history the counterpart of other events, of which the abode of the blessed is the scene. The sealed book which contains the mystery of the destinies of humanity is at the foot of the throne of God. From thence resound the seven trumpets which declare the doom of the wicked; from thence do the angels pour forth their vials of wrath. While, for the visible Church, all is humiliation and suffering or weary waiting, all is glory for the Church invisible; yet never was the mysterious link uniting the two more plainly manifested. The Church triumphant watches the struggle of the Church militant with a tender, unceasing solicitude, and all heaven is attentive to the obscure drama enacted in one corner of the universe. No stronger consolation than this could have been given to the Christians, who were treated by their adversaries as the offscouring of all things. Nor has the assured blessedness of the faithful ever been depicted in a manner more beautiful and touching. If the sacred writer employs for this description the rich coloring of oriental symbolism, we are yet fully conscious that the blessedness he describes is essentially spiritual. "These which are arrayed in white robes, whence came they?" "These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." Rev. vii, 13-17.

But the sacred writer is not content with proclaiming in a general manner the suffering and triumph of the Church. The further he proceeds in his delineation of the struggle between Christianity and Antichrist, the more definite does he become in detail, though he makes use of a stately symbolism, sometimes strange, and always full of variety. Just as ancient prophecy was subject to rhythmical conditions, and uttered its most passionate inspirations in conformity with the rules of Hebrew poetry, so the prophet of the New Testament arranged his abundant materials in harmonious order. The Apocalypse has a rhythm of its own, taking the word in its wide acceptation. The seven trumpets follow the seven seals, and these again are succeeded by the seven vials. In the three cycles of revelations there is always a pause after the sixth link of the series to prepare for the last link, which is itself destined to bring in a new series. [542] This series is not immediately introduced. The prophet seems to be lost for awhile in meditation on the history of the world and of the Church. [543] After the three series, intended to be all prophetic of the same visitations, we have the descriptions of the great conflict, which is itself divided into three acts: 1st. The fall of Babylon. Rev. xviiii, xix. 2d. 2d. The combat between Antichrist and Satan, terminated by the reign of Christ over his own. Rev. xx, 1-6. 3d. The last struggle and the last victory, the new heaven and the new earth. Rev. xx, 11; xxii. Such is the plan of the Apocalypse. We find in it the same gradation as in the prophecy of Christ referring to the last times. Matt. xxiv, 5. Thus the agonies and convulsions of nature which are to precede the final judgment, the wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, the darkening of the sun, the falling of the stars, the universal terror--all these signs given in brief touches by the Master, are dwelt upon by the inspired disciple in bold symbolism. The terrible rider on the red horse, who comes forth at the opening of the second seal to take peace from the earth, is the personification of war; as the man mounted upon the black horse, and with the pair of balances in his hand, represents famine. The earthquakes and the darkening of the sky are heralded by the opening of the sixth seal.

The first trumpets and the first vials announce the same order of judgments, and both have reference to the commencement of the prophecy of the first gospel. Jesus Christ, after predicting the chastisements and judgments of God in nature, declared his judgments in history, and first of all, the destruction of Jerusalem. St. John, who wrote after the overthrow of the Temple, proclaims another judgment of God. Sentence is to be passed now, not upon Jerusalem, but upon Rome, the impure and bloody Babylon, the incarnation at that time of the genius of evil. What a grand delineation does the evangelical Prophet give of this diabolical paganism--now as the beast with seven heads and ten horns, opening its mouth to pour out blasphemy against God; now as the great whore, robed in purple and scarlet, making the inhabitants of the earth drunk with the wine of her fornications, herself drunk with blood of the martyrs of Christ, having ascended out of the bottomless pit and going into perdition! What an impression was such a prophetic cry calculated to produce, uttered as it was in the presence of the Roman Colossus still standing in all the pride of its great power! "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city!" Rev. xiv, 8. "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; and the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth." Rev. xviii, 20-24.

But the Church has not only to fight against Antichrist without; it has also to resist Antichrist within: to do battle, that is, with heresy and false prophecy. "Many false prophets shall arise and shall deceive many," said Jesus Christ. Matt. xxiv, 11. St. John represents false prophecy under the image of a beast coming up out of the earth, in appearance like a lamb, but speaking as a beast, doing great wonders, and deceiving them that dwell on the earth by his miracles. Rev. xiii, 1-14. Behind this visible opponent the Apostle shows us the invisible enemy, the dragon, the old serpent, which gave power to the beast. Rev. xiii, 4. The conflict is unto blood, alike in the prediction of the Saviour and in the Apocalypse. The two witnesses, who are Moses and Elias--types of all the confessors of Christ--are put to death; but the Spirit of life from God enters into them again and they are victorious. Rev. xi, 9-11. The holy of holies of the spiritual temple is never profaned. The Church keeps an inviolable sanctuary. Rev. xi, 1, 2. She herself, in spite of the rage of her adversaries, who are gathered together like wild beasts around a travailing woman, is delivered by God from their violence; her child, the divine fruit of this sore travail, is caught up into heaven. Rev. xii, 5. St. John unites in this beautiful image the old economy and the new; both are set forth in this woman, who, in peril and pain, brings forth a glorious offspring. Of the ancient economy the Christ was born, who now rules in heaven with a rod of iron; while by him the Church, in the midst of her anguish, and encompassed with bitter foes, bears many sons unto glory. Ever persecuted, she is ever by God delivered, and the fruit of her labor is received up into heaven.

Thus, in the Revelation as in the prophecy of Jesus Christ, are unfolded the judgments of God as manifested in nature and in history, and the sanguinary and victorious struggles of the Church with her many adversaries. The inspired writer has added in his picture new features drawn from the historical events of the time and interpreted by the spirit of prophecy, but the words of St. John have not, any more than the words of Christ, an application restricted to his own age. The immediate events which he foretells have all a typical value. Just as with the Master, the destruction of Jerusalem was the symbol of the end of the world, so with the disciple, the destruction of Rome symbolizes and precedes the final judgment of God. Prophecy has thus advanced a step and enlarged its horizon as the conflict itself has become wider. St. John gives us clearly to understand that the drama is far from being finished after the overthrow of the Western Babylon, and that it is to be recommenced on the smoking ruins of Rome. In fact, after the Roman power shall have been broken, ten kings are to rise up against Christ, and to give to the conflict a new character of violence. Rev. xvii, 12-15. These ten kings (strange to say) shall be led forth to the battle by the Roman beast, which appears again to make war upon the mystic Lamb. Rev. xix, 20. We recognize here the depth of prophetic insight in the Revelation. We might have thought that the beast, which represented the savage spirit of Antichrist, was dead with imperial Rome, in which it found its most perfect embodiment. Far otherwise; that spirit is deathless upon earth; it has been; it will still be. The wound of the beast shall be healed. Rev. xiii, 3. In one man--Nero, the fifth Emperor--the spirit of Antichrist was absolutely incarnate; and the Antichrist of the last times [544] shall so closely resemble him that Nero may be said to reappear in him. The name of Nero fills, in the prophetic picture of Antichrist, the same prominent position as the name of Cyrus or of David in the prophetic delineations of Messiah in the oracles of the Old Testament. [545] The triumph of the Church is connected in the Apocalypse, as in the first gospel, with the return of Christ. To proclaim that triumphant return, and to describe its glorious results, is the great object of the book of the Revelation, as to wait for it is the highest consolation left by the Master to his disciples.

In the Apocalypse two distinct periods are marked in this final triumph of Christianity over Antichrist. The first victory is brought about by the direct and visible intervention of the Saviour, taking up the cause of his people and gloriously establishing the reign of his Church upon earth. [546] After this period the old adversary of God will once again prevail to deceive the nations; but this will be his last effort. The drama of history concludes with his condemnation and with the solemn judgment of the children of men, conducted by Him whom once they crucified and who now reappears in all the glory of his power. Then comes the end, and then commences that eternal blessedness of the elect celebrated by St. John in the language of heaven. [547]

"And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him. And they shall see his face, and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there: and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever."

Such is this marvelous book--one of the most sublime gifts of the Spirit of God to the Church; one which would have been its best consolation in all ages, as it was that of the martyrs of Lyons and of Asia Minor, if it had not been too often transformed into an unintelligible cipher, through a misconception of its historical basis. One important truth we learn from it, namely, that history interpreted by God is a great oracle, which, in each of its periods, repeats, with a living comment, the prophecy of Jesus Christ concerning the last times. The struggle which is renewed from age to age between Christ and Antichrist, the partial triumph of the former, and the more and more decisive defeats of the latter, bring us to the final conflict and crowning victory, which will be coincident with the return of Christ in glory. The Church, in the certainty of victory, has a right to cry in presence of any power, however great and glorious, which has lent itself to the service of sin: "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen!" Its fall will be the reiterated prophecy of that of the Satanic power, which for so many ages has set itself against God. The day is coming when that power shall be forever broken, and the disciples of Christ shall see the end of their day of shame, and shall reign in glory with him after whom they have borne the cross.

How greatly were such consolations needed in the year 71, on the eve of so much suffering and ignominy, when the few disciples gathered around St. John saw all the brutal violence of imperial Rome, and all the seductions of heresy arising out of the pit to fight against them.
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[540] Kaleitai to` o'noma autou, o Lo'gos tou Theou. Rev. xix, 13.

[541] For the discussion of this assertion see the note on the Apocalypse at the end of the volume. Compare Lechler, "Apost. und Nachapost. Zeit.," 199-201.

[542] Thus, after the sixth seal, there is an interval during which we are shown the elect around the throne of God. Rev. vii. After the sixth trumpet we have the episode of the book bitter and sweet, and of the measurement of the temple. Rev. xxi. Lastly, after the sixth vial, we hear the solemn warning, "Behold, I come as a thief." Chap. xvi, 15. See Lücke, "Offenbarung," 409-411.

[543] See Rev. viii, 1; see also chap. xii. From chap. xii to chap. xvi, after the seven trumpets and before the seven vials, the sacred writer describes in detail the enemies of the Church.

[544] It is not possible to determine with certainty whether Antichrist will be simply a diabolical power, or a personality. We incline, however, to the latter interpretation.

[545] See, in reference to this whole subject, Note L at the end of the volume. We know how frequently the prophets proclaim the return of a well-known person, when they intend to signify that a man in all points like him is to appear. We need only to refer to the prophecies concerning Elijah, and to the passage in the Revelation, in which the two witnesses are designated as Moses and Elias.

[546] The idea of a millennium preceded by a first resurrection is suggested by Rev. xx; but we must not forget the symbolical character of the book. The glorious triumph of the Church is in itself a judgment of the world. The world is judged by the saints whom it had made its victims; their victory is its condemnation. The writer of the Revelation, when he shows us the saints raised from the dead and sitting upon thrones, employs an image analogous to that used by him to describe the triumph of the two faithful witnesses in the Church. Rev. xi, 11. We may observe, that at the close of chap. xx, 12-15, mention is made of a general resurrection of the dead in which all are judged according to their works. The judgment had then yet to take place, and the Christians appointed to salvation were not yet raised.

[547] See chapters xxi and xxii of the Revelation.

[548] It is not possible to attempt to give even an outline of the history of the interpretation of the Apocalypse. Its commentators may be divided into two classes: 1st. Those who see the fulfillment of the greater part of its revelations in the past. The Apocalypse is to these an inspired manual of the universal history of the last eighteen centuries. 2d. Those who hold that this book relates exclusively to the last times. This interpretation, which is combined with an unintelligent literalism, is wholly inadmissible. In both theories, however, there is an element of truth. It is true that the great phases of history may be discovered in the Apocalypse, because the key to the whole history of mankind is found in the conflict of Christ and Antichrist. It is also true that a final accomplishment of the prophecies is to be looked for in the last times, and especially the personal return of Jesus Christ. Our interpretation appears to us to combine these two systems in their elements of truth, while setting aside what is false and extravagant in both. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________