1. ,AtfoxaXu'4//s) The Latin Fathers term it the Revelation , and they do so with propriety : for matters before covered are revealed in this book. No prophecy in the Old Testament has this title : it was reserved for the Revelation of Jesus Christ in the New Testa- ment, [and for it] alone. It is a Manifesto, as the term is, and that of the kingdom of Christ. — ’i jjtrou Xpnfrov, of Jesus Christ) The title is prefixed by [uninspired] men, ’ T codmv rob QeoXoyov. This title is ancient indeed,1 but it presupposes doubts respecting the writer of the Apocalypse, which arose a long time after the age of the apostles ; it also presupposes the introduction into the Church of the surname, u the Divine,” and its being assigned to John; and it implies that there were other Apocalypses, from which this true one was to be distinguished. The surname, Divine [as attributed to John], almost supersedes that of Apostle. It is indeed John, the apostle, who wrote this book ; but the Author2 is Jesus Christ. By prefixing the name John, the ancients wished to distinguish the
1 And therefore also not rejected in the title of Yers. Beng. — E. B.
2 See Erkl. Offenb. Ed. II. p. 154, and the next, and comp., if you think ft, my Beleuchtung, etc., § 2, pp. 4—8, § 33, n. 4, p. 149, and the next. Nor is it so insane a thing to attribute special weight to this book, as indeed the celebrated Ernesti deems it, for instance, Bill. th. Noviss. T. T. p. 689. For more easily, for example, could either Matthew compensate for the loss of Mark, or one of the Pauline Epistles for the loss of another, than any book of the New Testament could supply the place of those things which were revealed at a later time in the Apocalypse. — E. B.
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