The Greek Church yielded only slowly to the decision of the Western, and adiiiitied tlie book into it« Canon. In Egypt, wlu-re the opposition lirst developi'd in orthodox circles, it was sooner overcome. Athanasius, and others after him, re- cognized the book. Tlie first Eastern commentary, that of Andreas, belongs to the 5lh cent., and the next, that of Arethaa, to the 9th. Each begins with a defence against doubts as to the canonicity of the book.
In the West, after the elaborate defence of Hijipolytus, Jerome alone shows the influence of Eastern doubts. The Eastern Church, he says, receives Hebrews ; tlie Western, Revelation. He inclined to accept it {£/>. ad Dardanum, 129), but elsewhere (in Psalm. 149) he puts it in a middle cla-ss between canonical and apocryphal. This suggestion did not bear fruit until Carlstadt (132U), at the beginning of the Reformation, made a threefold division of NT books, corresponding to that of the OT in Hebrew, and put in the third, least authoritative, class (with the UT ' Hnriiogruplia'), 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude, Jnnies, Hebrews, Revelation. Of these seven, wiiich are ' of third and lowest authority,' Rev. ■tands last, on the verge of being apuciyphal.
Luther at first (Preface in Trannlation of NT, ir)22)cxpre««cd a ■trong aversion to the book, declaring that to him it liad every mark of ln'ing neither ajiostolic nor prophetic. Ai'owtles s)>ok'e clearly, wuliout figure or vision, of Chrisl and His deeds ; and no prophet in the' IT. tosay nothing of the NT. deals so entirely with visions and llgures. It is comparable onlv with 4 IC/.ra t'l Kj^dras), »nd he cannot see that it was the work of' the llnly .'■piril. .More- over, be does not like tlio comnuuida and IhreaU which the writer VOL. IV.— 16
makes about his book (22'8 19), and the promise of blessedness to those who keep what is written in it (is 227), when no one knows what that is, to say nothing of keeping it, and there are many nobler books to be kept. .Moreover, many Fathers re- jected the book ; and though Jerome says it is aliove all praise, and has as many mysteries in it as it has words, yet he cannot prove this. 'Finally, every one thinks of it whatever his spirit imparts. My spirit cannot adapt itself to the book, and a sufficient reason why I do not esteem it highly is that Christ is neither taught nor recognized in it, which is what an apostle ought before all things to do." Later(1634), Luther tindsapossi- bility of Christian usefulness in it, and gives its message in words well worth quoting: 'Briefly IKev. teaches that) our holiness is in heaven where Clirist is, and not in the world before our eyes, as some paltry ware in the market. Therefore let offence, factions, lieresy, and wickedness be and do what they may ; if only the Word of God remains pure with us, and we hold it dear and precious, we need not doubt that Christ is near and with us, even if m.atters go hardest: as we see in this Book tiiat through and above all plagues, beasts, evil angels, Christ is still near and with His saints, and at last overthrows tlicm (translation of Westcott, Lanon, ISn'J, p. 1S3). He still thought it a hidden, dumb projihec.v, unless interiireted, and upon tht interpretation no ceitainty bad been reached after many efforts. His own interpretation of the book as anti-Papist niay have led him to a more favourable opinion of it. But he remained doubtful about its apostolicity (l*reface to Revelation in the edition of 1546). and printe<i it, with Hebrews, James, Jude, as nil njipendix to his New Teytament, not numbered in the index. The other three doubtful books, 2 and 3 John and 2 Peter, it w;ia not so natural to sejtarate from 1 John and 1 Peter. In this way these four books were printed in Luther's Bible as late as the 17th cent. So also in Tindale's New Testament. ' In general the standpoint of the Reformation is marked by a return to the Canon of Eusebius, and consequently by a lower valuation of Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, James, Jude, and Revelation ' (lioltzniann, Einleittiiuj.xt. \Wt).
Zwingli regarded Rev. as ' not a BibUcal book ' ; and even Calvin, with his high view of inspiration, does not comment on 2 and 3 John and Revelation. Only gradually was the effort to maintain such a deutero-canonical class of boohs in the NT given up, as Che dogmatic displaced the freer and more his- torical attitude toward the Bible.
In f'eneral it may be said that Rev. has main- tained its pl.ace in the Canon, in spite of doubts and a.s.siUiUs, not because of its extravagant claims to inspiration and authority, not because of its visionary form, and not because of its eschat- ology, but rather in sjjite of all these, which were marks also of the many apocalypses, Jewish and Cliiistian, that the Church rejected.* Nor can it be s.aid that belief in its apostolic authorship kept tlie book in the NT, lor this was very early denied, and could as easily be set aside, as, for example, that of tlio Apocalypse of Peter, which the Church rejected. The real reason, for the sake of which apostolic authorship was maintained, was the consciousness that, on the wliole, the religious faith and feeling of the book predominate over its apocalyptical form, and give to ajiocalyptical language, which the majority cannot understand or accept in its literal sense, practically the value of figure for the emotional exjiression of Christian faith and hope. It is really as Christian poetry, rather than as the disclosure of mysteries of the unseen world and of the future, that the book has been valued, and, because valued, preserved and canonized by the Christian Church.