The Fall and Rise of Revelation Revelation was used widely in the early church, then doubted in the East in the fourth century, but eventually accepted again. T. C. SchmidtThe book of Revelation describes many falls from grace, and its own is just as dramatic. In the late first century AD, John of Patmos received a cosmic vision while in exile for Christ. His account of this vision, our book of Revelation, was then quickly embraced by Christians all around the Mediterranean. So popular was Revelation that the number of early Christian writers who mention it rivals that of any other New Testament text. This begins with Papias (c. 115 AD) and Justin Martyr (c. 155 AD) who made use of Revelation in what is today Turkey. They are followed by authors like Theophilus of Antioch in Syria (c. 175 AD); Irenaeus in France (c. 185 AD); Clement of Alexandria in Egypt (c. 195 AD); Tertullian in Tunisia (c. 200 AD); Hippolytus in Rome (c. 200–235 AD), and many other writers besides. By the middle of the third century, it is difficult to find Christians who do not quote from Revelation. So popular was Revelation that the number of early Christian writers who mention it rivals that of any other New Testament text. A reversal of fortune But then, during the fourth century, a great reversal occurred. Several writers in the areas where Revelation had once been so beloved began voicing doubts over its legitimacy. These suspicions soon proceeded to foment and boil over in the succeeding centuries causing Revelation to be omitted from the New Testaments of many churches east of the city of Rome. There, in these Eastern locales, Revelation underwent a kind of New Testament exile from which it was only recalled after many centuries. This resulted in a great irony: Revelation, though possessing one of the strongest scriptural pedigrees, came to be known as the most disputed book in the New Testament. And all this naturally brings up several questions which this article will address: In what churches was Revelation held in suspicion? What caused such suspicions? How were they resolved? And when were they resolved? “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” one of Albrecht Dürer’s 15 engravings of Revelation. Source Doubt spreads Where Revelation was consistently held in high esteem from the very beginnings of Christianity in Western Europe, Northwest Africa, Egypt (both Greek and Coptic speaking areas), and it seems also to have been always embraced in Nubia and Ethiopia, though the evidence for these latter two areas is limited. The story is different for other regions. While Revelation was viewed highly in the Greek-speaking portions of Europe and Asia in the second and third centuries, this changed in the fourth. At that point, a precipitous decline becomes evident, so much so that many later Greek writers never quote from Revelation and even omit it from their New Testament lists. Greek manuscripts of Revelation also become rarer during this time, and those that do exist often place Revelation alongside non-New Testament texts. For more on the history of Revelation, see the author’s book. The situation in Armenian, Syriac, Georgian, and Slavonic contexts was graver still. Evidence suggests that Revelation was excluded when the first Armenian translation of the New Testament was commissioned in the 440s AD. An ancient Armenian translation of the book was eventually carried out, but it was little used. Likewise, the first Syriac translations of the New Testament (3rd–5th centuries) also appear to have omitted Revelation and it was not until the sixth and seventh centuries that Revelation was translated into Syriac. But even then, it was ignored by most Syriac writers and omitted from almost all Syriac biblical manuscripts. In Georgia, Revelation was yet again omitted when the Georgian New Testament was first translated (fifth century), and no translation of Revelation was ever made into Georgian before the tenth century. Lastly, though the first Slavonic translation of the New Testament appears to have included Revelation (ninth century), this translation was lost. Revelation was translated into Slavonic again several hundred years later, but then unhappily lost once more. Why There were multiple reasons for Revelation’s declining fortunes in the East. First and most simply is that Revelation is a difficult book to understand. While some found this difficulty to be divinely and profoundly mysterious, others found it obscure and nonsensical. Hence, these critics of Revelation voiced concerns over its alleged narrative incoherency, its supposed internal contradictions, and its seemingly ridiculous creatures and scenery. Compounding all of these issues were instances where Revelation was felt to be doctrinally suspect, as when Revelation—again allegedly—mentions seven different holy spirits (Rev. 1:4, 3:1, 4:5, 5:6), portrays the spiritual heavens in a physical or even grotesque manner (Rev. 21), describes a final thousand-year earthly reign of Jesus (Rev. 20), calls Jesus a mere creature by stating that he is the “beginning of creation” (Rev. 3:14), and other such passages. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: Another sharp thorn goading suspicion was that Revelation’s authorship was questionable. Many doubted that John the apostle and evangelist wrote Revelation because its style differed from the other writings of John and because some earlier Christians postulated that there were actually two disciples of Jesus named John. A further, though ancillary, reason contributing to the above concerns was that Revelation viciously critiqued Rome (Rev. 17 and 18). This was well and good when Christians were being persecuted by pagan Rome, but such critiques were harder to swallow when Christians came to rule Rome in the fourth century. Answering the doubts These suspicions were in large part answered by Revelation commentators. Beginning in the sixth century, writers began composing full-length, often verse-by-verse, commentaries defending Revelation from criticism. They pointed out that Revelation is a cyclical work that repeats material from different vantages and perspectives and, in this view, should not be seen as narratively incoherent. Regarding alleged internal contradictions and absurd creatures, commentators again and again highlighted that Revelation proclaims itself as an allegorical work (Rev. 1:1, 1:20, 11:8, 12:1, 17:5, 17:7), and so its imagery should not be taken literally, but instead ought to be probed for deeper, profounder meaning. This too is why one should not assume that Revelation’s earthly depictions of heaven or its thousand-year reign of Jesus pertain to physical reality; rather such things symbolically and mystically outline exalted spiritual realities that would not otherwise be comprehensible to lowly humans. Related A depiction of Rev. 12 in the Silos Apocalypse (11th c.). Add MS 11695 Revelation’s Place in the Greek BibleThe history of the Apocalypse in the Greek manuscripts reveals that its place at the end is not uniform. Clark R. Bates Areas where Revelation was doctrinally suspect were also defended. When Revelation mentions seven spirits, it only uses “seven” as a figurative number representing the perfection of the one Holy Spirit; or if not, then the seven spirits refer to seven high ranking spiritual beings such as the archangels Michael and Gabriel. In like manner, Revelation does not call Jesus the “beginning (archē) of creation” (Rev. 3:14) but rather calls him the “origin” or “ruler” of creation, which indeed are other valid interpretations of the Greek word archē. As for Revelation’s authorship, commentators argued that stylistic differences should not trouble the reader because John may have changed his style intentionally to suit an alternative audience. One or two commentators also seem to have believed that if another John wrote Revelation, then he was still nonetheless a disciple of Jesus and therefore an apostolic man, much like Luke, Mark, James, Jude, and Paul who also wrote documents in the New Testament, yet were not numbered among the original twelve apostles. A final resolution It is impossible to be absolutely precise with dates, but, in the Greek church, Revelation begins its recovery around about the tenth century, though the commentary by Andrew of Caesarea seems to have started propelling it into popularity starting in the seventh century. In the Greek church, Revelation begins its recovery around about the tenth century. In Syriac areas, several famous scholars attempted to promote Revelation, commencing with Philoxenus around 500 AD, who translated it as part of his Syriac New Testament. Revelation was translated again for the New Testament of Thomas of Harkel (c. 615 AD), and an extract of it was later translated by Jacob of Edessa (c. 708 AD). An anonymous Syriac commentary was also written on it probably in the early seventh century, but none of these attempts seem to have been effective—Revelation was still largely omitted from Syriac New Testament lists and manuscripts. However, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it began gaining prestige in West Syriac circles, though East Syriac communities seem to have taken longer to come round, and certain of their communities did not accept Revelation until the early and mid-1800s, soon after the British Foreign Bible Society distributed the first accessible printed edition of the Syriac New Testament. An 11th c. Syriac manuscript that may have once contained the whole NT, including Revelation, but today breaks off at Hebrews (New College MS 333). Photo by Peter Gurry. In Armenia, Revelation was rehabilitated largely by Nerses of Lambron (c. 1179 AD), who re-translated it and then wrote a commentary (adapted from Andrew of Caesarea’s Greek commentary) defending it. His efforts seem to have been greatly successful. In neighboring Georgia, Euthymius the Athonite (c. 978 AD) made the first known Georgian translation of Revelation while also writing a commentary on the text (once again adapted from Andrew). Yet, it is unclear when Revelation became accepted in the Georgian church, and it may have been passed over until the printing of the Georgian New Testament in the early 1700s.1T. H. Darlow and H. F. Moule, Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scripture in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society (London: The Bible House, 1903), vol. 2.1 p. 478–479. For the placement of New Testament texts within Georgian manuscripts, see D. M. Lang, “Recent Work on the Georgian New Testament,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 19, no. 1 (1957): 87. In Slavonic circles, an anonymous commentary on Revelation was written in the tenth century (once more adapted from Andrew) and became quite popular. In 1499, the Archbishop of Novgorod included Revelation in his edition of the New Testament. However, as Revelation was regaining (or gaining, as the case may be) its standing in the East, it underwent its first real trial in the West when some of the Protestant reformers questioned its authority. Martin Luther, for example, claimed that Revelation was neither apostolic nor prophetic in his first edition of the German Bible, though in a subsequent edition he mostly reversed course, but still held doubts.2Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut Lehmann, eds., Luther’s Works, American edition (St. Louis & Philadelphia: Concordia & Muhlenberg, 1955-1986), vol. 35 pp. 398–399 (first preface), 399–411 (second preface). Conclusion Such as that may be, I quite agree with the arguments of Revelation’s ancient and medieval commentators. There are sound, reliable reasons for considering John of Patmos to have been a disciple of Jesus, whether John the apostle or another John. The text of Revelation, albeit challenging and at times bewildering, is full of mystery and profound insight. If you read with a mind awake to Revelation’s cyclical narrative; if you train a patient eye towards Revelation’s own instruction to understand it “spiritually,” then the stumbling blocks fall away. And in due time, you too will be able to exclaim along with Jerome (c. 420 AD) that The Apocalypse of John has as many mysteries as words. In saying this I have said less than the book deserves. All praise of it is inadequate; manifold meanings lie hidden in its every word.3Letter 53.9; translation modified. Notes1T. H. Darlow and H. F. Moule, Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scripture in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society (London: The Bible House, 1903), vol. 2.1 p. 478–479. For the placement of New Testament texts within Georgian manuscripts, see D. M. Lang, “Recent Work on the Georgian New Testament,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 19, no. 1 (1957): 87.2Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut Lehmann, eds., Luther’s Works, American edition (St. Louis & Philadelphia: Concordia & Muhlenberg, 1955-1986), vol. 35 pp. 398–399 (first preface), 399–411 (second preface).3Letter 53.9; translation modified.
Revelation’s Place in the Greek Bible The history of the Apocalypse in the Greek manuscripts reveals that its place at the end is not uniform. Clark R. BatesHardly any book of the New Testament has puzzled Christian readers more than the book of Revelation. It begins as an epistle to seven churches, then shifts to depicting a series of visions of heavenly judgment cast upon the earth, and ends with the glorious restoration of the created order. The reader finds himself lost in a world of falling stars, biblical plagues, monstrous horses, dragons, war, and heavenly cities with startling physical features. Is what the book portrays real or figurative? Is it a prophecy that is to come or something that has already happened? For some Christians, its contents are read as their window into the future, while others would prefer never to read the book at all. It might surprise you to know that the modern confusion around the book of Revelation is not entirely new. This text has challenged Christian readers almost from its inception, and this is most evident in its Greek manuscript tradition. Revelation has challenged Christian readers almost from its inception, and this is most evident in its Greek manuscript tradition. As a book, Revelation (also called the Apocalypse) sometimes rested uneasily alongside the rest of the New Testament, often as an insertion centuries after the copying of the larger canonical corpus. Many of these manuscripts surface after the twelfth century, some containing Revelation from a fourteenth century addition, suggesting a later desire to “close” the collection of books. Additionally, Revelation stands out among other Greek New Testament texts by its inclusion in groupings of non-biblical material. Its insertion alongside a variety of hagiographic texts, patristic writings, and homilies, without additional New Testament content, also suggests a liminal status within the Greek-speaking church—particularly after the fourth century. This is reinforced by the absence of Revelation in the Greek liturgical tradition, which means it was not read regularly within the gathering of believers. The canonical impact of the material reality surrounding a still-contentious text like Revelation raises questions for modern Bible readers, and, for this reason, deserves our attention. The Material Data The latest survey of the manuscript evidence records a total of 314 manuscripts containing all or part of the text of Revelation.1Garrick Allen divides the manuscripts of the Apocalypse into two strands: the canonical and the eclectic. The canonical strand consists of those manuscripts that combine the Apocalypse with other “canonical” books of the New Testament, whereas the eclectic strand is made up of manuscripts which combine the Apocalypse with other, non-canonical material. Allen also acknowledges that these categories cannot account for every manuscript, especially those that are fragmentary, but his classification is immensely helpful for the present and future discussions. See Garrick Allen, Manuscripts of the Book of Revelation: New Philology, Paratexts, Reception (Oxford: Oxford University, 2020), 156–92. This is comprised of seven papyri, twelve majuscules (written on parchment or animal skin in capital letters), and 295 minuscules (written in a form of “lowercase” letters). Some of these manuscripts contain commentary text, others insert the book into collections of New Testament books. Some manuscripts contain only Revelation, while others include it among collections of nonbiblical material. Because the papyri are fragmentary, the earliest, complete witnesses to the book are the large, complete New Testament manuscripts such as Codex Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Ephraemi Rescriptus, which date to the fourth and fifth centuries.2While Codex Vaticanus contains the text of Revelation on ff. 1523–1536, it is a fifteenth century supplement and therefore of nominal value for early attestation of the book’s canonical reception. RelatedThe Fall and Rise of RevelationT. C. SchmidtHow the Two Testaments Became One BibleMichael DormandyWhy Are Protestant and Catholic Bibles Different?John D. Meade Perhaps the most glaring feature of the data is the number of New Testament manuscripts that lack the book of Revelation. Textual scholar Josef Schmid felt that the book’s absence in the commentaries of the great Greek exegetes and its exclusion from the liturgy, as seen in the manuscript tradition, reflected the peculiar fate of Revelation. He observed that “the number of manuscripts that preserve Revelation lags behind that of the rest of the New Testament significantly.”3Josef Schmid, Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse: The Ancient Stems, Juan Hernández Jr., Garrick V. Allen, and Darius Müller, eds. and trans. (Atlanta: SBL, 2018), 32. Six ancient majuscules between the fourth and fifth centuries contain Revelation alongside the early papyri. Among these are, MS 9351 (GA 0163), a fifth-century fragment containing only twelve lines of text from Rev. 16:17–20, P.Oxy 180 (GA 0169), a fourth-century fragment containing thirty lines of text—with many holes—from Rev. 3:19–4:3, and PSI 1166 (GA 0207), a fourth-century page containing Rev. 9:2–15 on twenty-nine lines in two columns covering both sides. The Greek manuscript tradition is silent from the seventh century until the ninth century. By the ninth century, we have a full copy of Revelation in GA 1424, which is the first, complete New Testament in minuscule handwriting. From the tenth century, three majuscules and thirteen minuscules remain extant, containing larger portions—and in some cases the whole—of Revelation. By the eleventh century the use of majuscule script fades into memory with the wholesale implementation of the minuscule, and the manuscript count increases to thirty-eight minuscules containing most, or all, of the text. In the twelfth century, thirty-six minuscules are extant—most containing the entire book. The manuscripts increase from thirty-eight minuscules in the thirteenth century to sixty-nine in the fourteenth, sixty in the fifteenth, and forty-three in the sixteenth. The number of Revelation manuscripts increases exponentially after the eleventh century. Even then, the number of manuscripts containing either the New Testament or part of it without Revelation is still greater leading up to the sixteenth century. Dissecting the Data In both Codex Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, Revelation is combined with the remaining twenty-six books of the New Testament. But there are no extant, complete Greek manuscripts from the following four centuries. When Revelation does reappear, joined with New Testament works, it is found in less than one-third of complete, New Testament collections and less than one-fifth of collections containing Acts, the Pauline Epistles, and the Catholic Epistles (known as Apostolos manuscripts)—or other New Testament texts. Of those manuscripts that contain only the Gospels alongside Revelation, several appear to have had the book of Revelation inserted at a later date. Other combinations include Acts plus Revelation; the Gospels and Catholic Epistles plus Revelation; or Hebrews plus Revelation. When Revelation appears alone it is often accompanied by the commentary of either Oecumenius, Andrew of Caesarea, or Arethas of Caesarea. While it is not unusual to find New Testament texts accompanied by commentary, the frequency with which Revelation is found with commentary raises the question of how it was being read within these contexts. Some scholars think this format shows that the book was read more often as a kind of study book than a devotional or canonical text. However, what is perhaps the most intriguing of all appearances of Revelation within the extant, textual material is its presence alongside other, nonbiblical texts. The last peculiarity related to the transmission of Revelation is its textual character. Its increase in circulation during the late-medieval era might lead us to think that the book would, like other contemporaneous New Testament manuscripts, conform to the Byzantine textual family that was dominant in this later period. But this is not the case. Later Revelation manuscripts tend to split into two, well-attested text forms, which then further divide into four major stems. A scene from the Silos Apocalypse (11th c.). Add MS 11695 Consequently, in those manuscripts containing Revelation alongside the combination of Acts and the Catholic Epistles, the book of Revelation does not fit neatly into the same textual family as the rest of the manuscript. The sister manuscripts in the text of Revelation are rarely ever sisters in the Apostolos, and the sister manuscripts in the Apostolos are almost never immediate sisters in Revelation. This indicates that, when copied, these manuscripts copied the text of Revelation from a different manuscript than what was used for the other books. From Text to Canon The peculiarities in the Greek manuscript tradition of Revelation’s reception in the Eastern Church naturally raise questions about the book’s canonical status. To that question, we can make several observations. First, though the transmission of the text of Revelation is more sporadic and far different than others in the New Testament canon, its use is widely attested in the Latin-speaking, Western Church without the inconsistency in the manuscript tradition seen in the Greek Church.4The earliest Latin commentary on the Apocalypse comes from Victorinus of Pettau in AD 260, with commentaries continuing for subsequent centuries into the medieval era. Second, while Revelation faced challenges to its level of authority in the East after the fourth century, prior to this time, it was generally received as canonical by the most vocal in the Church. Related A scene from Albrecht Dürer’s “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” (1498). Source The Fall and Rise of RevelationRevelation was used widely in the early church, then doubted in the East in the fourth century, but eventually accepted again. T. C. Schmidt Third, it must be remembered that the Church Fathers did not only think of Christian texts in strict binary terms of “canonical” and “non-canonical.” They also thought of them in levels of value. The clearest example of this is found in the writings of the fourth-century historian Eusebius, who identified four categories of books circulating in the Church: “received,” “disputed,” “rejected,” or “heretical.” A good example of how these categories were applied can be seen in the case of 2 Peter. Many outlying New Testament books that are considered canonical today, were challenged in ways similar to Revelation, and this can actually be encouraging to modern Christians because it testifies to the sobriety with which these sacred texts were debated. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: Revelation’s lack of use in the worship of the Eastern Church is also not so dissimilar to modern times. The current lectionary cycle for the Western Church reveals that only ten passages of Revelation have been read in the church over a period of ten years, and even these avoid any sections portraying the bowl and vial judgments, the heavenly visions, or other passages that seem “strange” to most modern readers (e.g., Rev. 12:1–4 where a woman gives birth in Heaven and a dragon waits to eat the child). Conclusion What modern Christians should take away from the material data of Revelation is an awareness that it must be handled with care. We should be cautious about minimizing its unique content and should probably avoid sweeping theological inferences related to its placement as the final book of the Bible. After all, the reason it is so often found at the end of Greek manuscripts is actually because it was added later, and the end of a manuscript is the easiest place to add more text. In conclusion, we might well approach the text of Revelation with the temperance of one of its earliest commentators who wrote, Having been asked many times by many people—who out of love have a greater opinion of my abilities—to elucidate the Apocalypse of John the Theologian and to adapt the prophecies to the time after this vision, I was putting off this undertaking, knowing that to explain the things which are secretly and mysteriously seen by the saints which will happen in the future times befits a great mind and one enlightened by the Divine Spirit. Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on RevelationNotes1Garrick Allen divides the manuscripts of the Apocalypse into two strands: the canonical and the eclectic. The canonical strand consists of those manuscripts that combine the Apocalypse with other “canonical” books of the New Testament, whereas the eclectic strand is made up of manuscripts which combine the Apocalypse with other, non-canonical material. Allen also acknowledges that these categories cannot account for every manuscript, especially those that are fragmentary, but his classification is immensely helpful for the present and future discussions. See Garrick Allen, Manuscripts of the Book of Revelation: New Philology, Paratexts, Reception (Oxford: Oxford University, 2020), 156–92.2While Codex Vaticanus contains the text of Revelation on ff. 1523–1536, it is a fifteenth century supplement and therefore of nominal value for early attestation of the book’s canonical reception.3Josef Schmid, Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse: The Ancient Stems, Juan Hernández Jr., Garrick V. Allen, and Darius Müller, eds. and trans. (Atlanta: SBL, 2018), 32.4The earliest Latin commentary on the Apocalypse comes from Victorinus of Pettau in AD 260, with commentaries continuing for subsequent centuries into the medieval era.