Johnâs call has its closest parallel in a text (probably Jewish-Christian) which in its original form is roughly contemporary, the Ascension of Isaiah (6:10â12; Knight 1996). Johnâs experience is linked with the Lordâs day, probably a reference to Sunday rather than the sabbath (cf. 1 Cor 16:2; Acts 20:7; Matt 28:1). This was the day when the Risen Lord had appeared to disciples in the past (Luke 24:13â35; John 20:1â29). Worship as the context for a vision recalls the Temple vision of Isaiah (Isa 6). Worship was often seen as a communion with heaven, in which the earthly saints join with the heavenly hosts in lauding God, as when Isaiah witnesses the song of the seraphim. Patmos has, at least temporarily, become sacred space, hallowed by the vision. The tension between past, present and future, which plays a great role in interpretation of the Apocalypse, may reflect a liturgical sense of time, in which different times seem inextricably mixed. What is expected in the future is experienced in the present celebration of the cult. John tells his readers that his apocalyptic experiences occurred when he was âin the spiritâ on âthe Lordâs dayâ, when in both heaven and earth the resurrection of Christ is celebrated. Paul also repeatedly designates the parousia of Christ as âthe day of the Lordâ (1 Thess 5:2; 2 Thess 2:2; 1 Cor 5:5; 2 Cor 1:14; Funk 1969b: 249â68). To celebrate the resurrection of Jesus on the Lordâs day is to experience already the day of the Lord (Flanigan in Emmerson and McGinn 1992: 340â1; cf. Wainwright 1993: 253).
The Interpretations
This opening chapter offers interpretative clues regarding the character of the Apocalypse. According to the eighteenth-century Roman Catholic commentator Robert Witham, there are three ways of expounding its visions:
The Visions are only to be fulfilled in Antichristâs time, a little before the End of the World âŚ
The visions may be applied to particular Events which happened in the first three of four Ages of the church, under the persecuting Heathens, by Constantine, and the succeeding Christian EmperorsâŚ
Finally, âby the great city of Babylon, is signified all wicked great Cities in the World, all the multitude of the wicked in all nations, their short and Vain Happiness; their Persecutions and oppressions of the good and faithful Servants of God, who live piously in this world, and who are callâd to be Citizens of the Celestial Jerusalem in the Kingdom of Godâ (Annotations, ii.510â11 in Newport 2000: 86)
It is the last of these options which Witham is inclined to accept.
For sixteenth-century writer John Bale, the Apocalypse has supreme value as a key to the nature of the Christian religion: âHe that knoweth not this book, knoweth not what the church is whereof he is a memberâ (Bale 1849: 252). Since all are citizens of either Jerusalem or Babylon (Rev 17:5; ch. 21), the true believer has to learn the nature of the two churches and take a stand with Abel rather than Cain (in Bauckham 1978: 60). Hildegard of Bingen similarly writes: âAnd whoever tastes this prophecy and fixes it in his memory will become the mountain of myrrh [cf. Rev 21:10] and of frankincense, and of all aromatical spices, and the diffusion of many blessings; he will ascend like Abraham from blessing to blessingâ (Hart and Bishop edn 536). Hildegard claims divinely given insight into the meaning of Scripture (âScivias Declarationâ, Hart and Bishop edn 59), as does the sixteenth-century visionary Ralph Durden, who was given the âgift of interpretationâ (in Bauckham 1978: 188â9). Similarly, Joachim of Fiore finds in the Apocalypse the key to the inner meaning of Scripture and the whole history of salvation (in McGinn 1979: 99). The Apocalypse, according to Joachim, was no afterthought, a book to be tolerated but ignored, but rather the culmination of the whole of Scripture. David Koresh agrees: âAll the books of the Bible meet and end there. This is what we have learned over the yearsâ (in Newport 2000: 212).
âwhat must soon take place ⌠what is, and what is to take place after thisâ: interpretative clues (1:1, 19)
Victorinus, living at a time when Christians were persecuted (he himself died a martyr), seems to have understood âwhat must soon take placeâ (1:1) as a reference to his own time and to have taken the warnings and promises of the Apocalypse as addressed to his own church (Matter in Emmerson and McGinn 1992: 39; ANF vii.344). That sense of immediacy has presented problems for interpreters, nowhere more so than for those like the Millerites who had a detailed apocalyptic timetable for the end of the world and the consummation of scriptural promises. When Christ failed to return in 1843â4 as they had predicted, they searched the Scriptures and concluded that the error was not in the word of the Lord but in their own understanding of it (in Foster in Numbers and Butler 1987: 173â88). Such interpretation of experience through expectations based on authoritative texts has been a feature of prophetic and apocalyptic interpretation down the centuries. Failure of hopes to materialize often, as in this case, does not lead to abandonment of the hope but to questioning of human interpretative capacity and a channelling of eschatological enthusiasm into practical action (Foster in Numbers and Butler 1987).
âto the seven churchesâ (1:4)
The universal character of the vision is often noted. According to Victorinus, the seven stars (1:16) are the seven churches that John addresses (1916: 26.17, ANF vii.344), and together they represent the one church, as Paul also teaches by writing to exactly seven churches (Victorinus 1916: 26. 4â11). In the Geneva Bible likewise, the seven churches mean the church universal. According to Bede, âthe Apocalypse speaks of the seven churches of Asia which are really the one Church of Christâ (in Matter in Emmerson and McGinn 1992: 47). The Scofield Reference Bible says the message to the seven churches has a fourfold application: to the churches actually addressed; to all churches in all time (âso that they may discern their true spiritual state in the sight of Godâ); as exhortation to individuals; and, as a prophetic disclosure, to the seven phases of the spiritual history of the church (Scofield 1917: 1331â2).
âI, John, your brother, who share with you in Jesus the persecution⌠was on the island called Patmosâ (1:9)
The location of Johnâs vision and the reasons for John being on Patmos have been a matter for discussion, not least because of the long tradition that he was imprisoned there and subsequently released. Johnâs situation and the nature of his vision are portrayed in the various artistic depictions. The christological significance of the attributes of the âone like the Son of Manâ has also received extensive attention, and Johnâs vision prompted visionaries in succeeding centuries to look to him as their apocalyptic mentor, just as he followed in the footsteps of his visionary predecessors.
Patmos is an island off the west coast of Turkey, and the seven letters are addressed to communities in cities on the mainland. John writes little about himself. He mentions tribulation in 1:9, possibly suggesting persecution (cf. 7:14). Elsewhere this word is used in a general way for upheavals expected in the last days (Rom 8:35; Mark 13:18), so it does not necessarily imply systematic persecution, of which there is little evidence in this particular area in Domitianâs time (L. Thompson 1990). Early Christian tradition had John in Ephesus confronting false teachers (Irenaeus AH ii.22.5). In the Johannine apocalyptic tradition, The Second Apocalypse of John (probably fourth century ce) has a revelation to John set on Mount Tabor, the mount of the Transfiguration, which is in some ways explanatory of eschatological features of the original Apocalypse (in Court 2000: 33). There is, however, a long tradition that John was persecuted; for example, Albrecht DĂźrerâs sequence depicts an apocryphal story in which John is seated in a cauldron of boiling oil in front of the Roman emperor. According to second-century Christian tradition, after Domitianâs death John returned from exile and lived until the age of Trajan (well into the second century ce; Irenaeus AH ii.22.5; iii.3.4).
Irenaeus dates the text to Domitianâs reign and is the first to propound a view that continues to have wide currency, that the bookâs genre was chosen to conceal its real message, for fear of imperial retribution (AH v.30.3). In the middle of the second century Justin appeals to John and his vision to support belief in Godâs future reign on earth (Dial. lxxxi.4).
Robert Browningâs poem âDeath in the Desertâ (1864) explores the relationship among different writings attributed to John in the light of the challenges of higher criticism of the Bible pioneered by Renan and Strauss (Browning had recently read George Eliotâs translation of Straussâs Das Leben ...
