Apocalypse I. 1.

true Apocalypse from the many apocryphal books. Apocryphal gospels and epistles presuppose others that are canonical, and so apocryphal apocalypses presuppose a genuine Apocalypse. Arte- mon. de Init. Evang. Joh., p. 88, 140, and following, affirms, and not without reason, that no one ever rejected the Apocalypse before Cams, a Roman presbyter, and the Alogi , hut that it was received by all. The Lord taught the apostles many things before His departure ; but those which were unsuitable for present narra- tion He brought together into the Apocalypse. On which account, in the ^Ethiopic New Testament, the Apocalypse is not inappro- priately placed immediately after the four Evangelists. — hit^a /, to show) This verb again occurs, ch. xxii. 6. And thus the parts of this book everywhere have reference to one another. Altogether, the structure of this book throughout breathes a Divine art. And it is in a certain measure its peculiarity, that it comprises in a perfect compendium future things in great number, and in this number things widely differing ; things close at hand, far distant, and inter- mediate ; very great and very little ; dreadful and salutary ; things repeated from old prophecies and new ; long and short ; and those interwoven with each other, opposed to one another and in agree- ment, mutually involving and evolving one another ; having refer- ence to each other from a little or a great interval, and so at times as it were disappearing, broken off, suspended, and afterwards un- expectedly and most seasonably returning into sight ; and to these things, which are the subject of the book, the structure of the book itself accurately corresponds. Therefore, in all its parts, it presents an admirable variety, and most beautiful involutions, and at the same time the greatest harmony, which is strikingly illustrated by the very irregularities, which appear to interrupt its course. And all this is done with such an amount of exactness, that in no book more than in this would the addition, or taking away, of even a single word or clause (ch. xxii. 18, 19), have the effect of marring the sense of the context and the comparison of passages together, and of turning aside the most sacred boundary lines of the book. And this is especially remarkable, that when it gives but a slight indication of the greatest things out of the ancient prophets, whereas it more copiously explains those that are new, it still keeps the most exact proportion. And since these things are so, a true and full analysis, whatever it is, will not fail to appear too ingenious, and therefore to incur the suspicion of those who love simplicity, and especially deserve to attain to the knowledge of the truth. But