It was at this unique juncture in the history of mankind that St. John, with the consuming
fire in Rome and the infernal spectacle of the Neronian persecution behind him, the terrors of the
Jewish war and the Roman interregnum around him, and the catastrophe of Jerusalem and the
Jewish theocracy before him, received those wonderful visions of the impending conflicts and final
triumphs of the Christian church. His was truly a book of the times and for the times, and
administered to the persecuted brethren the one but all-sufficient consolation: Maran atha! Maran
atha!
Interpretation.
The different interpretations are reduced by English writers to three systems according as
the fulfilment of the prophecy is found in the past, present, or future.^1262- The Preterist system applies the Revelation to the destruction of Jerusalem and heathen
Rome. So among Roman Catholics: Alcasar (1614), Bossuet (1690). Among Protestants: Hugo
Grotius (1644), Hammond (1653), Clericus (1698), Wetstein (1752), Abauzit, Herder, Eichhorn,
Ewald, Lücke, Bleek, DeWette, Reuss, Renan, F. D. Maurice, Samuel Davidson, Moses Stuart
Cowles, Desprez, etc. Some^1263 refer it chiefly to the overthrow of the Jewish theocracy, others
chiefly to the conflict with the Roman empire, still others to both.
But there is a radical difference between those Preterists who acknowledge a real prophecy
and permanent truth in the book, and the rationalistic Preterists who regard it as a dream of a
visionary which was falsified by events, inasmuch as Jerusalem, instead of becoming the habitation
of saints, remained a heap of ruins, while Rome, after the overthrow of heathenism, became the
metropolis of Latin Christendom. This view rests on a literal misunderstanding of Jerusalem. - The Continuous (or Historical) system: The Apocalypse is a prophetic compend of church
history and covers all Christian centuries to the final consummation. It speaks of things past, present,
and future; some of its prophecies are fulfilled, some are now being fulfilled, and others await
fulfillment in the yet unknown future. Here belong the great majority of orthodox Protestant
commentators and polemics who apply the beast and the mystic Babylon and the mother of harlots
drunken with the blood of saints to the church of Rome, either exclusively or chiefly. But they
differ widely among themselves in chronology and the application of details. Luther, Bullinger,
Collado, Pareus, Brightman, Mede, Robert Fleming, Whiston, Vitringa, Bengel, Isaac Newton,
Bishop Newton, Faber, Woodhouse, Elliott, Birks, Gaussen, Auberlen, Hengstenberg, Alford,
Wordsworth, Lee. - The Futurist system: The events of the Apocalypse from Rev. 4 to the close lie beyond
the second advent of Christ. This scheme usually adopts a literal interpretation of Israel, the Temple,
and the numbers (the 31 times, 42 months, 1260 days, 3 1/2 years). So Ribera (a Jesuit, 1592),
Lacunza (another Jesuit, who wrote under the name of Ben-Ezra "On the coming of Messiah in
(^1262) See Alford, Com. iv., 245 sqq.; Elliott, 4th vol.; Sam. Davidson, Introd. to the N. T., first ed. III. 619, revised ed., vol. II.
297, and Lee, Com. p. 488. Davidson adds a fourth class of "extreme," as distinguished from simple "Futurists," who refer the
entire book, including Rev. 2 and 3, to the last times. Lee substitutes with Lücke the term "Historical" for "Continuous," but
Historical applies better to the first class called "Preterists." Lee adds (491), as a fourth system, the "Spiritual system," and names
Augustin (his "City of God," as the first philosophy of history), J. C. K. von Hofmann, Hengstenberg, Auberlen, Ebrard as its
chief defenders. It is the same with what Auberlen calls the reichsgeschichtliche Auslegung.
(^1263) So Herder, in his suggestive bookΜΑΡΑΝ ΑΘΑ, das Buch von der Zukunft des Herrn, des N. Testaments Siegel, Riga, 1779.
He was preceded in the anti-Jewish explication by Abauzit of Geneva (1730), who assigned the book to the reign of Nero, and
Wetstein (1752), and followed by Hartwig (1780) and Züllig. The last, in a learned work on the Apocalypse (Stuttgart, 1834, 2
vols., 1840), refers it exclusively to the Jewish state.
A.D. 1-100.