1. Mercc ravra, after these things ) In this passage there is a great division of interpretations into two paths. For the question arises, Whether the event of the seals began immediately after the writing of the book, or whether it is still altogether future ? The celebrated
1 AC Vulg. retain on before nKovoiog. BA Cypr. 241, omit it — E.
2 See footnote, John xxi. 15.
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D. Lange, besides others, maintains the latter opinion ; the former is plainly shown even by the particle, after these things , repeated in this verse. The former expression ( after these things ) connects the vision [with what has preceded], the other connects with the same the result itself. After these things , that is, after those things, which are, which relate to the seven churches and their angels, must come to pass the things, which the Lord will now show. The past and the present and the future, ch. i. 19 (from which verse the expression, after these things , is here repeated), comprise the ivhole of the book which follows : and, as the past and the present are so joined to- gether, that the present, in ver. 11, what thou seest , passes into the past, which thou sawest , ver. 20 ; and again the past, which thou sawest , passes into the present, are , are , in the same verse ; so the present and the future immediately cohere, without any hiatus, and the connection between the past and the present is only subservient to the connection between the present and the future. Not only is there no trace of delay from the age of John until the last times, but delay is even openly excluded. Future things, the quick approach of which is evidently declared, ch. i. 1, xxii. 6, are closely connected with the present by the expression, after these things.
D. Lange so explains the particle, after these things , that, accord- ing to the prophetical meaning of the seven epistles, after the lapse of the same number of periods of the Church, the seals are com- pleted, etc. Comm. Apoc. f. 62, 73. I reply: I. We have refuted such a prophetical meaning of the seven epistles, in ch. ii. 1. II. If the historical meaning of the epistles is preserved, the particle, after these things , has its limits within the events of the churches in Asia; and this w’ould be the case, even if these churches had a prophetical meaning affixed to them. III. If they were periods, they would not be interrupted by the destruction of the Whore and the Beast, as D. Lange imagines, but they wrould rather extend beyond the millennium and the short time of the loosing of Satan to the end of the world, together wdth the time of the Church itself being a wrayfarer, the change in the condition of which he also makes too great in the millennium (see below, on ch. xix. 11, xxi. 2), and thus they would run out beyond the seals, and trumpets, and vials. lie says, that the chief subject of the Apocalypse is the mystery of the last times, ch. x. 7, xi. 1 5, and following verses. See Comm. Apoc., fob 5 ; Hermen. JEinl ., p. 27. It easily happens , that when any truth is gladly received , it is too eagerly declared , and carried beyond its
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