Revelation. BOOK OF, the last book of the New Testament canon. Tradition.—In the oldest extant MSS. the title is simply 'Apocalypse [i.e. Revelation] of John' (Apokalypsis Ioannou), and thus does not go beyond what the book itself declares. The further designation of the author in the textus receptus (followed by the Authorised Version) as John 'the divine' has no good MS. authority, but is an echo of the undoubtedly early tradition which identifies him with the author of the fourth gospel (who was called theologos, translated 'the divine,' first by Eusebius, because he begins his gospel not with the earthly genealogy of Jesus but with the doctrine of the divinity of the Logos), and of the tradition which identifies the author of both works with John, the son of Zebedee, one of the twelve apostles. Other comparatively ancient forms of the title, still more explicit in this sense, are 'The Revelation of John the Divine and Evangelist,' and 'The Revelation of the Apostle and Evangelist John.'
The 'Apocalypse of John' is included in the Muratorian canon; it was also reckoned by Origen among the 'homologoumena' or 'acknowledged' books of New Testament Scripture. It was held in high esteem by Irenæus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian. Justin Martyr (circa 147) makes reference to it as the work of the apostle John, and it was used by Theophilus of Antioch (circa 180) and Apollonius, and commented on by Melito of Sardis (circa 170). Outside the Catholic Church it was accepted by the Montanists. On the other hand, it was rejected by those whom Epiphanius calls Alogi and by the Marcionites, while within the Roman church its claims were disputed by an ecclesiastical named Gaius or Caius; his arguments in turn were controverted in an apologetic writing by his contemporary, Hippolytus. It is mentioned as one of the 'antilegomena' or 'disputed' works by Eusebius; it is absent from the Syriac, and from the Memphitic and Thebaic (Egyptian) versions of the Scripture, and from the lists of Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen, and Chrysostom, as well as from the canon of the Council of Laodicea, and from the so-called 'apostolic canons.' There is no trustworthy evidence that Papias knew it.
As regards authorship, the book itself claims to be written by 'John, the servant of Jesus Christ,' 'who bare witness of all things that he saw;' and it is to be observed that many of the incidental references to it in early writers are evidently mere repetitions of this statement. But the reception of the Apocalypse into the canon was no doubt partly determined by the belief that this John was the son of Zebedee. This belief is implied in the Muratorian canon, and that he was the apostle is categorically stated by Justin Martyr and Irenæus. Dionysius of Alexandria (circa 250), however, while not disputing the canonicity of the book, found himself unable to overcome the arguments of certain who had preceded him against its apostolic authorship, and he accordingly assigned it to 'some other' John—perhaps (he thought) John the Presbyter. Eusebius with some definiteness assigned it to the last named.
As to the time of its composition tradition is far from consistent. The author of the Muratorian fragment, for example, incidentally places it earlier than the Pauline epistles; but Irenæus expressly states that it 'was seen towards the close of the reign of Domitian.' This statement of Irenæus is sometimes interpreted as implying that the book was also written then; but more probably he intended his readers to understand that it was written after Domitian's death—under Nerva, or perhaps even in the reign of Trajan, to which period, according to Irenæus, the apostle survived. But Tertullian seems to suggest the time of Nero as the date. Jerome dates the supposed banishment of John certainly, and the writing probably, in the 14th year of Domitian; but in this, perhaps, he is only repeating Irenæus. There is some reason to think that this date is partly derived from an interpretation of Rev. i. 9 which is not now usually accepted. Epiphanius mentions the time of Claudius. The place where the revelation was received is professedly Patmos, and ancient writers usually assumed that it was also committed to writing there.
The discussions of the Apocalypse by Melito and others have not been preserved; but from the earliest extant commentary—that of Victorinus (circa 300)—it may be inferred that no systematic attempt at a consistent interpretation of the work as a whole was undertaken by any ancient writer. Attention was for the most part confined to two or three isolated points. It need hardly be said that, as regarded the millennium, the ancient church was entirely of the 'futurist' school, and that in those quarters where the Apocalypse was most prized as an authentic vision of the future the interpretation always tended to be literalist and 'chiliastic.' As for another conspicuous feature—the beast and the number of the beast (see APOCALYPTIC NUMBER)—it is surprising how early the key to this enigma seems to have been lost. Irenæus confesses ignorance, and can only resort to timid and tentative conjecture. Victorinus, however, explained Rev. xiii. 3 as having reference to Nero; and so also did Sulpicius Severus. To Origen and the Alexandrians, with their allegorising methods of interpretation, the problems of the Apocalypse were of comparatively little interest. Later, after the time of Constantine, the 'beast' was identified with pagan Rome, or the seven heads of the beast with seven world-empires, and Augustine was one of the first to give currency to a form of 'preterism,' holding that the millennium began with the Christian era—a belief which again became active in the 11th century. With the lapse of time came almost inevitable modifications, both of the preterist and of the futurist view, alike among those who held that the threefold series of visions (seals, trumpets, vials) in the book related to chronologically successive events, and to those who, with Augustine, viewed them as parallel (theory of 'recapitulation'). Mediæval sects recognised the papacy in the woman on the scarlet beast, an interpretation which afterwards in one form or another became widely current throughout the Protestant domain, and still holds its ground in many quarters.
Modern Criticism.—The modern criticism of the Apocalypse may in a sense be said to have begun with Luther, who in the preface to the first edition of his New Testament (1522) declared that for many reasons he was unable to accept this book as either apostolic or prophetic—'My spirit cannot adapt itself to the book.' The chief reasons he alleged were the little prominence it gave to Christ, and the peculiar manner of its teaching, so unlike the rest of the apostolic teaching or that of Christ himself. In 1530 he somewhat modified the language he had used, but he never withdrew his unfavourable opinion. The prevailing view of the Lutheran divines of the 16th and 17th centuries (Carlstadt, Flacius, and others) was that the Apocalypse can claim at best only the third and lowest degree of canonical authority. Zwingli in 1528 refused to regard it as Scripture or to admit the validity of doctrinal proofs derived from it. Calvin abstained from commenting on it. Its 'deutero-canonical' character, however, was never made prominent in Britain, and was gradually lost sight of even in Germany. Mention may perhaps be made of the English work of Abauzit on the Revelation (1730), which called forth some controversy at the time of its appearance; but, strictly speaking, the discussion of the critical problems of the book did not enter upon its modern phase until the time of Semler, 'the father of modern biblical criticism,' who in 1769 and following years, from a comparison of the fourth gospel with the Apocalypse, argued that an apostolic authorship could not possibly be claimed for both, and, starting from this canon, denied it to the latter. The same view was taken up by Schleiermacher and his immediate disciples, the most brilliant of whom—De Wette—ultimately gave out this 'disjunctive canon' as one of the most firmly established conclusions of modern criticism (1826); so also Ewald (1828). To obviate the force of some at least of Semler's arguments, those who wished to maintain the apostolic origin of both works found it important to make out an earlier date for the Apocalypse than the currently accepted tradition, following Irenæus, had assigned to it. In their efforts to do so they were powerfully supported from 1845 onwards by the Tübingen school, which had also accepted the 'disjunctive canon,' though choosing the opposite alternative to that adopted by Schleiermacher, and maintained the apostolic character of the Apocalypse, ranking it indeed as one of the five undoubtedly genuine remains of the apostolic age (Baur, followed by Schwegler, Zeller, S. Davidson, &c.). Various opponents of the Tübingen school followed Semler and De Wette in arguing for the non-apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse at least. Thus, Lücke and Neander attributed it to some unknown John; Ewald, Bleek, Dürsterdieck to the presbyter John; Hitzig to John Mark. Meanwhile all sections of the historical school of exegesis were at one in the effort to see and if possible understand the book in the light of the actual circumstances of its writer. Among the details that came into greater clearness were the historical references in the beginning of chapter vi., the indication of date supplied by xi. 1, 2, and a very probable explanation of the number of the beast ('Nero Cæsar') which was first given by Fritzsche in 1831 and afterwards rediscovered, independently it is said, by Benary, Hitzig, and Reuss in 1837. Much of the evidence pointing to an early date for the book was, as already indicated, specially welcome to those who still maintained the apostolic authorship alike of the Gospel and of the Revelation, for it was becoming increasingly plain that the differences of language and conception between the two works were peculiarly inexplicable if both were assumed to belong practically to the same period in the life of their common author.
On the other hand it was felt to be difficult wholly to set aside the traditions which pointed to a later date, especially as these best explained some of the doctrinal peculiarities of the book, and many of the phenomena presented by the condition of the 'seven churches' to whom the book is primarily addressed. The two-sided character of the evidence, both external and internal, as to date is indeed obvious when one looks at it with any care; and as early as the middle of the 17th century it had occurred to Grotius (1644) that the problem raised by it might perhaps be solved by the assumption that the book was written by its one author at different times, partly in Patmos and partly at Ephesus. Vogel in the beginning of the 19th century (1811-16) offered a different solution—that it was written partly by the apostle John and partly by the presbyter John, a theory which seems to have had some attraction for Schleiermacher, and, temporarily at least, for Bleek. The theory of a composite origin of the work has in a variety of forms come into very great prominence quite recently. Thus, according to the acute analysis of Völter in his singularly able and instructive work On the Origin of the Apocalypse (1882; new ed. 1885; compare the appendix to Simcox's Commentary), the original Apocalypse as written by the apostle in 65-66 A.D. consists of i. 4-6; iv. 1-v. 10; vi. 1-vii. 8; viii.; ix.; xi. 14-19; xiv. 1-7; xviii. 1-xix. 14; xiv. 14-20; xix. 5-10. To this the apostle himself three years later (68-69 A.D.) added x. 1-xi. 13; xiv. 8; xvii. It received subsequent additions by other hands in the time of Trajan (xi. 15, 18; xii.; xix. 11, 12; xx.; xxi. 1-8), of Hadrian (v. 11-14; vii. 9-17; xiii.; xiv. 4, 5, 9-12; xv. 1-xvii. 1), and of Antoninus Pius (prologue, the epistles to the churches, &c.). A new line of investigation in the same direction was opened by Vischer, who (The Revelation of John a Jewish Apocalypse, 1886) sought to show that the groundwork of the composite book was primarily not Christian but Jewish, written in Hebrew, but translated and freely adapted by a Christian redactor. This view was accepted by Harnack (1886), and substantially, though with large modifications, by Pfeiderer (1887) and Weyland (1888). Schön also (1887) and Sabatier (1888) maintained the composite character of the work, holding it, however, to be essentially of Christian origin (end of 1st century), but with incorporation of Jewish fragments. The most powerful and suggestive of recent works based on the theory of composite origin is that of Spitta (The Revelation of John, 1889), who distinguishes a Christian Apocalypse, dating from about 60 A.D., which he attributes to John Mark (i. 4-6, 9-19; ii. 1-6, 8-10, 12-16, 18-25; iii. 1-4, 7-11, 14-20; iv. 1-4, 5a, 6a, 7-14; v.; vi.; viii. 1; vii. 9-17; xix. 9b, 10a; xxii. 8, 10-13, 16-18a, 20a, 21) and two Jewish Apocalypses dating respectively from Pompey's capture of Jerusalem in 63 B.C. (x. 1b, 2a, 8-11; xi. 1-13; xiv. 14-20; xv. 2-4, 6, 8; xvi. 1-12, 17, 21; xvii. 1-6; xviii. 1-xix. 8; xxi. 9-27; xx. 1, 2, 3a, 15) and from Caligula's time, about 40 A.D. (vii. 1-8; viii. 2-13; ix.; x. 1a, 2b-7; xi. 15, 19; xii. 1-14; xiii.; xvi. 13-16, 17b-20; xix. 12-21; xx. 1-15; xxi. 1, 5, 6). These three sections of the work correspond roughly, it will be seen, to the visions of the seals, the trumpets, and the vials. The work of redaction, Spitta holds, was done towards the end of the 1st century. He finds the original number of the beast (616) in the name of Caligula (Gaius Cæsar), and considers that it was only afterwards adapted to that of Nero (666). The treatises on the Revelation by Erbes (1891) and Schmidt (1891) are in tendency similar to that of Spitta. The subject they deal with is still under active discussion; but it is already felt by all competent judges that the investigation thus inaugurated is likely to lead to valuable results, and ultimately perhaps may be found to afford an approximate solution of most of the still unsolved problems connected with the Apocalypse, and so make it, instead of being the obscurest, one of the clearest documents relating to the development of thought and feeling in primitive Christian times.
Literature.—For the text of the Apocalypse, which is more unsettled than that of any other New Testament book (the five uncial MSS. present the unusually large proportion of 1650 various readings in somewhat over 400 verses), B. Weiss's edition, with critical notes (Leip. 1891), ought to be consulted. On the modern critical questions, besides the recent works of Völter, Spitta, and others already named, the best introductions are those of Reuss (6th ed. 1887), Weiss (2d ed. 1889; Eng. trans.), and Holtzmann (Evl. 2d ed. 1886; also special introduction to his Hand-Commentar on Revelation, 1891). Of older works see also Bleek's Lectures on the Apocalypse (1862; Eng. trans. 1875). Much useful information is given in Glog's Introduction to the Johannine Writings (1891); also in Farrar's Early Days of Christianity (1882), Renan's Antechrist (1873; Eng. trans.), and Chauffard's L'Apocalypse et son Interprétation historique (1888). Of commentaries the most important or useful are those of Ewald (Latin, 1828), Lücke (1832), De Wette (1848), Ewald (German, 1862; Eng. trans.), Reuss (1878), Holtzmann (1891), and Spitta (1889; this work being specially useful for the account it takes of the mass of current apocalyptic material which presumably was at the disposal of authors and editor). The number of authors on the fulfilled and unfulfilled prophecies of the Apocalypse has been very great; most of them until very recently wrote on the assumption that every one of these either has received or is destined to receive a fulfilment recognisable as exact, and they can be classified according to their views of the manner of this realisation. Those, for example, who, following the indication of Augustine, think that the millennium has already come or even is already past, may fairly be called preterists. Of those we may mention Grotius, who identified Gog and Magog with the Turks in Europe, and Hengstenberg, who judged the millennium to have ended in 1848. All those, on the other hand, who think that the millennium, in any definite sense that can have been intended by the author, is yet to come, may equally justly be called 'futurists,' but they are of very various degrees, some holding that none of the special preliminary events which are described as leading up to the millennium have as yet taken place; while others, sometimes referred to as the 'continuous historical' school (of which Beugel is perhaps the most brilliant example), read into the book (with very wide divergences as to detail) what they consider to have been the leading incidents in the political or ecclesiastical history of Europe for the last eighteen centuries. Of the first description are most of the so-called 'millennarian' writers; to the second belong the followers of Mede (1627). Apart from these definite schools ought to be classed those interpreters of the spiritualising or idealising order who were represented in ancient times by the Alexandrians, and whose method has often been found in modern times a convenient refuge for exegetical timidity or helplessness. Recent commentators with any character for sobriety to lose have, as a rule, been exceedingly cautious in dealing with the predictive element in the Apocalypse, some maintaining that its prophecies admit of a variety of fulfilments, but without attempting concrete interpretations of the past, and still less definite forecasts of the future, by their light; while others go so far as to deny that the book is predictive in the strict sense at all, and hold that it was from the very first intended to be read as a more or less imaginary picture of the kind of vicissitudes through which the church militant has passed and may be expected to pass before it reaches its final triumph. See Dürsterdieck (in Meyer's Commentary, 1859; new ed. 1887), Lee (in Speaker's Commentary, 1881), Boyd Carpenter (in New Testament Commentary for English Readers, 1883), Milligan (in Schaff's Commentary, 1883, and in Expositors' Bible, 1889), and Simcox (in Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, 1890).