THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN

INTRODUCTION AND NOTESBY

HENRY BARCLAY SWETE, D.D.HON, LITT. D. DUBLIN HON. D.D. GLASGOW

REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITYAND FELLOW OF GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMYECCLESIAM TUAM, QUAESUMUS, DOMINE, BENIGNUS ILLUSTRA, UT BEATI IOHANNIS … ILLUMINATA DOCTRINIS AD DONA PERUENIAT SEMPITERNA. PER DOMINUM.CONCEDE, QUAESUMUS, OMNIPOTENS DEUS, UT QUI … UNIGENITUM TUUM REDEMPTOREM NOSTRUM AD CAELOS ASCENDISSE CREDIMUS, IPSI QUOQUE MENTE IN CAELESTIBUS HABITEMUS. PER EUNDEM.EXCITA, QUAESUMUS, DOMINE, POTENTIAM TUAM ET UENI, ET MAGNA NOBIS UIRTUTE SUCCURRE, UT AUXILIUM GRATIAE TUAE QUOD NOSTRA PECCATA PRAEPEDIUNT INDULGENTIA TUAE PROPITIATIONIS ACCELERET. QUI UIUIS.

VIRO ∙ ADMODVM ∙ REVERENDO ∙FREDERICO ∙ HENRICO ∙ CHASE ∙ S.T.P.

EPISCOPO ∙ ELIENSI ∙APVD ∙ CANTABRIGIENSES ∙ NVPER ∙ PROFESSORI ∙ NORRISIANO ∙

OBSERVANTIAE ∙ ERGO ∙ AMICITIAEQVE ∙STVDIA ∙ HAEC ∙ APOCALYPTICA ∙ QVALIACVMQVE ∙

DEDICO

PREFACEEIGHT years ago I was permitted to finish a commentary on the earliest of the four

Gospels. As a sequel to it, I now offer a commentary on the Revelation of St John.The Apocalypse discloses the heavenly life of our Lord, as the Gospels paint His life

in Galilee and Jerusalem. In the Gospels, He is seen teaching and working in His mortal flesh; in the Apocalypse, He belongs to another and a higher order. But the ascended life is a continuation of the life in the flesh; the Person is the same yesterday and to-day, in Palestine and in Heaven.

Thus the Apocalypse carries forward the revelation of the Gospels. It carries it, however, into a region where the methods of the biographer and historian avail nothing. We are in the hands of a prophet, who sees and hears things that elude the eyes and ears of other men; the simple narrative of the Evangelist has given place to a symbolism which represents the struggle of the Apocalyptist to express ideas that lie in great part beyond the range of human thought. Yet the life which St John reveals is not less real than that which is depicted by St Mark, nor are its activities less amazing. No miracles meet us here, but we are in the presence of spiritual processes which are more wonderful than the hearing of the sick or the raising of the dead: a supervision of all the

Churches, which surpasses the powers of any earthly pastor; an ordering of nature and life, which bears witness to the investment of the risen Lord with all authority in heaven and on earth; a perfect knowledge of men, and a prescience which reads the issues of history. The revelation of the Lord’s heavenly life becomes, as we proceed, a revelation of the things which are and the things which shall come to pass hereafter; we see the glorified life in its bearing upon the course of events, until the end has been attained and the whole creation has felt its renovating power.

To comment on this great prophecy is a harder task than to comment on a Gospel, and he who undertakes it exposes himself to the charge of presumption. I have been led to venture upon what I know to be dangerous ground by the conviction that the English student needs an edition of this book which shall endeavour to take account of the large accessions to knowledge made in recent years, and shall be drawn upon a scale commensurate with that of the larger commentaries on other books of the New Testament. More especially I have had in view the wants of the English clergy, who, scholars at heart by early education or by the instincts of a great tradition, are too often precluded from reaping the fruits of research through inability to procure or want of leisure to read a multitude of books. It is my belief, and the belief has grown in strength as my task has proceeded, that the Apocalypse offers to the pastors of the Church an unrivalled store of materials for Christian teaching, if only the book is approached with an assurance of its prophetic character, chastened by a frank acceptance of the light which the growth of knowledge has cast and will continue to cast upon it.

The Apocalypse is well-worked ground. It would not be difficult to construct a commentary which should be simply a catena of patristic and mediaeval expositions, or an attempt to compare and group the views of later writers. Such an undertaking would not be without interest or value, but it lies outside the scope of the present work. In this commentary, as in the commentary on St Mark, it has been my endeavour, in the first instance, to make an independent study of the text, turning to the commentaries afterwards for the purpose of correcting or supplementing my own conclusions. As a rule, the interpretations which are offered here are those which seemed to arise out of the writer’s own words, viewed in connexion with the circumstances under which he wrote, and the general purpose of his work, without reference to the various schools of Apocalyptic exegesis. There are those to whom the results will appear bizarre, and a medley of heterogeneous elements; but the syncretism, if it be such, has been reached, not by the blending of divergent views, but through the guidance of definite principles, which are stated in the introduction. Here it may be briefly explained that I have sought to place each passage in the light of the conditions under which the book was composed, and to interpret accordingly; not forgetting, however, the power inherent in all true prophecy of fullfilling itself in circumstances remote from those which called it forth.

But, with this reservation, I have gladly used the labours of predecessors in the field, especially the pregnant remarks of the patristic writers. Of modern commentators, Bousset has helped me most, and though I differ profoundly from his general attitude towards the book, and from not a few of his interpretations, I gladly acknowledge that I have greatly benefited by the stores of knowledge with which his book abounds. The

Jewish Apocalypses edited by Professor Charles, and other apocalyptic writings, Jewish and Christian, have been always at my side. For geographical and archaeological details I am deeply indebted to the works of Professor W. M. Ramsay, the article on Asia Minor by Dr Johannes Weiss in Hauck’s recast of Herzog’s Realencyklopädie, and the admirable monograph on Proconsular Asia contributed by Monsieur Victor Chapot to the Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études.

During my preparations for the press, I have been unable to make a personal use of the University Library; and though my difficulty has been partly overcome in the past year through the kindness of the Syndics of the Library, the loss has been serious, and I fear that it will be felt by readers who look for fulness of detail and the use of the latest editions. From gross inaccuracies my work has been saved, as I trust, by the ready help of many friends. My warm thanks are due to the Rev. J. H. Srawley, of Gonville and Caius and Selwyn Colleges, and to the Rev. H. C. O. Lanchester, Fellow of Pembroke College, who have read the proofs of the introduction, text, and notes. Mr Srawley has verified nearly all the references in the notes; the indices and the Biblical references in the introduction have been corrected by the care of a relative. My colleagues, Professor Reid and Professor Ridgeway, have allowed me to submit to them the proofs of portions of my book in which I had occasion to enter upon ground which they have severally made their own. To the Rev. A. S. Walpole, editor of a volume of Latin Hymns which is shortly to appear in Cambridge Patristic Texts, I owe my knowledge of the splendid stanzas which precede the introduction.

Other debts of various kinds call for acknowledgement here. Messrs T. and T. Clark, of Edinburgh, with the ready consent of Professor Ramsay, have permitted me to adapt to my own use the map of Asia Minor which accompanies the article on Roads and Travel (in the New Testament) in the supplementary volume of Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible. The Rev. T. C. Fitzpatrick, President of Queens’ College, supplied the negative from which the engraving of Patmos has been produced; and the specimen of MS. 186 came from a photograph of the entire MS. kindly taken for me by Professor Lake, of Oxford and Leyden. For the page of coins illustrating the life and worship of pagan Asia in the age of the Apocalypse I have to thank Dr M. R. James, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, who helped me to select them from Colonel Leake’s famous collection, and his assistant, Mr H. A. Chapman, to whose skill the casts were due. Lastly, it is a pleasure once again to say how much I owe to the unfailing attention of the workmen and readers and the ready assistance of the officials of the University Press.

I part with the work which has occupied the leisure of some years under a keen sense of the shortcomings that are apparent even when it is judged by the standard of my own expectations, yet not without an assured hope that it may help some of my fellow-students to value and understand a book which is in some respects the crown of the New Testament canon. In letting it go from me, I can only repeat Augustine’s prayer, which stood at the end of the preface to St Mark, and is even more necessary here. Domine Deus … quaecumque dixi in hoc libro de tuo, agnoscant et tui; si qua de meo, et Tu ignosce et tui.

H. B. S.CAMBRIDGE,F. of the Transfiguration, 1906.

CONTENTSINTRODUCTION:

1. Prophecy in the Apostolic Church2. Apocalypses, Jewish and Christian3. Contents and plan of the Apocalypse of John4. Unity of the Apocalypse5. Destination6. Christianity in the Province of Asia7. Antichrist in the Province of Asia8. Purpose of the Apocalypse9. Date10. Circulation and reception11. Vocabulary, Grammar, and Style12. Symbolism13. Use of the Old Testament and of other literature14. Doctrine15. Authorship16. Text17. Commentaries18. History and methods of Interpretation

NOTESMap of Asia Minor in the time of DomitianCoins of the Apocalyptic citiesBust of NeroStatue of DomitianPatmosCod. Apoc. 186 (Athos, Pantocrator 44)

INDEX TO THE INTRODUCTION AND NOTES