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ought to be declared by me again and again on this account, that I might contend with one who is dead, not more in arguments than in kindness. I do not now repeat, in one place, the explanations which I have given on that ground-work; they who have any interest in the matter may read them in my Apparatus. At each place separately, I have given such admonitions as were befitting : from which the attentive reader would not, as I hope, depart without profit. For respecting those passages, in which the controversy turns on the expression, I have not said much, but I have more carefully vindicated some most important readings.1
5) Nor however does this gleaning of criticisms overwhelm, much less exclude, Exegesis , which is the object at which I chiefly aim in this book. You may say that the treatise is composed of two threads. For I have made it my aim, that this part should not turn out too meagre, and that it might not be out of character with the weighty consideration of the other books of the New Testament in this Gnomon , the exegetical part of which has frequently been quoted in the critical Apparatus even on the Apocalypse. I have indicated by their titles only, forcibly and concisely, the principal subjects comprised in any portion of the prophecy. I have made my own treatise more clear, by examining in many places the opinions of a distinguished commentator, D. Joachim Lange. But you will remember that a fuller explanation of the arguments and emblems is to be sought for from my German commentary.
6) I introduce here, at the very threshold, a Synopsis of the whole Apocalypse, which is natural, as I hope, and serviceable.
The Apocalypse contains I. The Introduction :
1. The title of the Book,
. Ch. i. 1-3
2. The inscription,
4-6
3. The sum and substance,
7,8
4. A glorious vision, in which
the Lord Jesus
a. instructs John to write, .
9-20
h. stirs up THE ANGELS OF THE seven churches, at Ephesus and
1 Which readings are to be sought in the 2d Edition of this very App. Crit., as I have said. — E. B.