Bible Study - Revelation Session 2

Revelation, Session Two
Christ the Savior, Anderson SC
Fr. Anthony Perkins

Sources:

• The translation of the Apocalypse is from the Orthodox Study Bible.

• Lawrence R. Farley, The Apocalypse of St. John: A Revelation of Love and Power, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion (Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2011),

• Bishop Averky, The Epistles and the Apocalypse (Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, Volume III. (Holy Trinity Seminary Press, 2018).

• Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011).

• Venerable Bede, The Explanation of the Apocalypse, trans. Edward Marshall (Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1878).

• William C. Weinrich, ed., Revelation, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

Correction from Last Week

• Revelation was removed from active use because it was being used to support the Marcionists, not the Gnostics [or Montanism as I said in the class!].

• The Orthodox Study Bible; “[I]n the second and third centuries Revelation was widely twisted and sensationally misinterpreted, and the erroneous teachings brought troublesome confusion to Christians – a trend that continues to this day.”

Review of Last Week

• The Church wants us to be aware of the Last Judgement but from WITHIN the sacraments and the “good defense” God gives us through them. 

Authorship and Dating of the Work

• The author was St. John the Theologian

• St. John’s disciple Papias of Hierapolis, St. Justin the Martyr (lived in Ephesus), St. Irenaeus (disciple of Polycarp of Smyrna who was a disciple of St. John), St. Hippolytus (disciple of St. Irenaeus), St. Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and Origen were early leaders of the Church who knew and witnessed to this.

• The work itself (see 1:2; also exile on Patmos).

• The date of the work is AD 95/96

• St. Irenaeus; Against Heresies (5.30.3)

Purpose of the Work

• To show things that must shortly come to pass (1:1).

• Pastoral protection and encouragement to the early Church against state persecution and (internal) heresy.

• Apokalypsis means uncovering of something that has been hidden.

Style and Interpretation of the Work

• Apocalyptic Literature.  A “visceral” (Fr. Lawrence) and heavily symbolic genre.  It is meant to be prophetic in every sense of the word.

• “It is a human work.  But it is also an apostolic work, and as an apostle, John tells the truth, striving to convey to us the substance and power of what the Lord revealed to him for our sake.” (Fr. Lawrence)

• What are we to make of the diverse interpretations offered by saints?

• Not to be taken literally in the modern sense; “Thus, for example, a literalistic understanding of the images of this book has given occasion, and even now continues to give occasion, for the false teaching of “Chiliasm” – the thousand-year reign of Christ on earth.” (Bishop Averky)

• Bishop Averky says four main categories of interpretation (and calls for a combination):

• Visions and symbols of the “last times” (end of the world, the anti-christ, second coming)

• Description of the historical pagan Roman persecutions against the Church in the first century.

• Look for realization of the prophecies in recent history.

• Allegorical and moral meaning.

• The Orthodox Study Bible: “Faithfulness in tribulation” is the main theme, with subthemes of

• Divine Judgment of human wickedness and

• The symbolic presentation of most major New Testament teachings concerning eschatology, the study of the last things.

1:1. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants – things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John.

• Andrew of Caesarea. “An apocalypse is the manifestation of hidden mysteries when the intellect is illuminated either through divine dreams or according to waking visions from divine enlightenment. To be given to Christ, it says, making this statement about him especially with respect to his human <nature>, since in the Gospel he <John> above all others dwelt on the sublime and things that befit God. And here, the magnitude of the divinity of Christ is shown through the attending angel, and through the name of the teaching servants, for “all things are his servants.” The must come to pass soon means that some of the predictions concerning them are to come to pass immediately thereafter and the things regarding the end are not to be delayed, because “one thousand years” to God is “like yesterday’s day, which is reckoned as having <already> elapsed.”

• St. Bede. The revelation of Jesus Christ.

•  The progress with which the Church that had been founded by the Apostles was to be extended, or the end with which it was to be perfected, had need to be revealed, in order to strengthen the preachers of the faith against the opposition of the world. And John, in his own manner, refers the glory of the Son to the Father, and testifies that Jesus Christ has received from God.

• shortly. That is, which are to happen to the Church in the present time.

• signified. He wrapped up this revelation in mystical words, that it might not be manifested to all, and become lightly esteemed.

• angel. For an angel appeared to John in the form of Christ, as will be seen more clearly in that which follows.

• John. That through John He might lay open to all His servants the things which he, by the privilege of a peculiar chastity, obtained above all others to behold.

• Oecumenius: When it is said to him, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him,” it is as though he said, “This revelation is given from the Father to the Son, and then from the Son to us,” his servants. By calling the saints the “servants” of Christ, he safeguards what is proper to his deity. For, to whom would men belong, unless to him who is the Maker and Creator of humankind? And who is the Creator of human-kind and of all creation? No one other than the only begotten Word and Son of God! For, the present author says in the Gospel, “All things were made through him.” And why does he wish to add “what must soon take place,” although those events which will take place have not yet occurred, even though a considerable span of time has passed, more than five hundred years, since these words were spoken? Because to the eyes of the eternal and endless God all ages are regarded as nothing, for, as the prophet says, “A thousand years in your sight, O Lord, are as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.”3 For this reason, therefore, he added “soon,” not to indicate a measure of time which must pass before the fulfillment of what must happen, but to indicate the power and eternality of God. For to him who is, any passage of time, even should it be great and considerable, is something small when compared with that which is unending

 

1:2. Who bore witness to the Word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw.  

• OSB: Testimony of Jesus refers to a witness concerning Jesus; not the testimony of Christ Himself.

• Andrew of Caesarea.  “Christ,” he says, “declared these things to me through an angel, as a master to a household servant, as I had borne witness to my confession to him,” of which, on the basis of the visions <he is> to bear witness and, in view of the return <to God> of those who hear, to preach both the things which are and which escape human understanding and the things which will occur in the future, for, prophetically, he had seen them both. And <this is> clear from what he says: those things which are and those which must come to pass. These are descriptions both of the present time and of the future.

• St. Bede; testimony. That thou mayest not doubt of the person of John, he is the same who gave testimony to the eternal Word of God incarnate, according as he saw, saying, “Whose glory we saw, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father.”

 

1:3.  Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.

• Andrew of Caesarea.  He blesses those who read and hear through the actions, for the present time is near, through which it is possible to acquire the blessing, and to all the work is laid open. As the Lord says, “Work [13] while it is day.” And elsewhere, the time is near, the time of the distribution of prizes, on account of the brevity of the present life in comparison to the future.

• St. Bede. Blessed. Teachers and hearers are therefore blessed, because they who keep the Word of God find that a short time of labour is followed by everlasting joys.

• Averky; “The book of the Apocalypse has, consequently, not only a prophetic but also a moral significance.  The meaning of these words is as follows: blessed is he who, reading this book, will prepare himself by his life and deeds of piety for eternity, for the translation to eternity is near for each of us.

• Fr. Lawrence.  Seven beatitudes (blessings) are pronounced upon (Fr. Lawrence):

• 1:3 “the one who reads and the ones who hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things which are written in it”

• 14:13 the martyrs “who die in the Lord from now on”

• 16:15 “the one who keeps alert,” faithfully awaiting the Lord’s Coming

• 19:9 “those who are called to the wedding supper of the Lamb”

• 20:6 the martyrs who have “a part in the first resurrection”

• 22:7 all who “keep the words of the prophecy of this book”

• 22:14 all those in the martyric Church, “those who wash their robes, so that they may have their right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.”