APOCALYPSE (Greek, apokalypsis, from apokalypto, I reveal), the name frequently given to the last book of the New Testament. It is generally believed that the Apocalypse was writ ten by John in his old age, at the end of the 1st century (95-97 A.D.), in the Isle of Patmos, whither he had been banished by the Roman Emperor Domitian. Though commonly re garded as genuine in the first centuries of Christianity, critics have not been wanting who have doubted the evidence of its being the work of Saint John. Its genuineness was main tained by Justin Martyr 150), Irenmus (195), Clement of Alexandria (200), Tertullian (207), and many others.; and doubted by Dio nysius of Alexandria (2' 0), Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, and nearer our own times, by Luther and a majority of eminent German commentators. In recent times a composite authorship has been suggested and some have regarded it as a Jewish work adapted by a Christian writer. The Apocalypse, on account of its metaphorical language, has been ex plained differently by almost every interpreter, and for the same reason it has furnished all sorts of sects and fanatics with quotations to support their creeds or pretensions. There can be no doubt that the hopes of the early Chris tians and the severe persecution they endured led them to regard the Roman empire as the object of prophetic denunciation, and the com ing of Christ and the millennium as near at hand. When, under Constantine, however, the Christians became dominant and prosperous, the empire was considered as the scene of a millennial development, and in course of time the barbarous hordes who were closing round Rome were regarded as fulfilling the woes pre dicted in the Apocalypse. At the Reformation the Protestants identified Babylon with papal Rome, and the second beast of Antichrist with a universal pontiff. The modern interpreters may be divided into three schools: namely, the historical school, who hold that the prophecy embraces the whole history of the Church and its foes from the time of its writing to the end of the world; the Prxterists, who hold that the whole, or nearly the whole, of the prophecy has been already fulfilled, and that it refers chiefly to the triumph of Christianity over Pa ganism and Judaism; and the Futurists, who throw the whole prophecy, except the first three chapters, forward upon a time not yet reached by the Church — a period of no very long duration, which is immediately to precede Christ's second coming. The Apocalypse con
tains 22 chapters, which may be divided into two principal parts. The first comprises "the things which are— that is, the then present state of the Christian Church, including the epistolary instructions and admonitions to the angels or bishops of the seven churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea, situated in Asia Minor. The second part comprehends a predic tion of "the things which shall be referring either to the future state of the Church through succeeding ages, from the time of the apostle to the grand consummation of all things, or to the state of the souls of men after the general resurrection. SEE APOCA LYPTIC LITERATURE.
Bousset, W., (Kommentar) (Gottingen 1906) ; id.,
Antichrist Legend) (London 1896) ; Charles, R. H.,