Commentaries on Revelation

Lois K. Fuller Dow

1. History of Writing Revelation Commentaries

Christianity inherited a belief in the end of the age from first-century Juda- ism, a belief that was confirmed by sayings of Jesus (e.g., Matt 24, 25) and the understandings of the writers that the last days had come (e.g., Acts 2:16–17; 1 Cor 10:11; 2 Tim 3:1; Heb 1:2). As Weinrich com- ments, “It is not surprising, therefore, that the Revelation of John . . . was from a very early time one of the most systematically read and used books of the New Testament.”1 The has many characteristics of the apocalyptic genre. Bernard McGinn points out that apocalyptic is an attempt to under- stand the meaning of history and especially of the present moment,2 and as such, must be related to the contemporary situation again and again. McGinn lists three great shifts of circumstances that affected apocalyptic ideas in the first fifteen centuries of Christianity. They were the conver- sion of the Roman Empire, the rise of Islam, and the exaltation of the papacy.3 The last, of course, largely contributed to the Reformation. These shifts are reflected in commentaries written on the book of Revelation.4 The earliest references we have to Revelation in Christian writing are not commentaries per se, but interpretations of certain parts of it in the writings of the . (ca. 100–165),5

1 William C. Weinrich, “Introduction to the Revelation of John,” in Revelation (ed. Wil- liam C. Weinrich; Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament 12; Down- ers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), xvii–xxxi (xvii). For a good technical history of the interpretation of Revelation, see Gerhard Maier, Die Johannesoffenbarung und die Kirche (WUNT 25; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1981). 2 Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), 29–32. 3 Ibid., 33, 41. 4 As John M. Court, Myth and History in the Book of Revelation (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1979), 1, notes, “Some methods of interpretation [of Revelation] . . . have moved in and out of fashion in a way that is not unrelated to the history and internal politics of the Christian Church.” 5 Justin Martyr, Dial. 80–81. 422 lois k. fuller dow

(ca. 130–200),6 (ca. 160–225),7 Hippolytus (ca. 170–230),8 Lactan- tius (ca. 240–320),9 Methodius of Olympus (d. 311),10 and Commodianus (third to fifth century?),11 among others, penned opinions on the book or its contents. All appear to have been chiliasts, i.e. they believed in a future literal one thousand year reign of Christ on the earth after his return. This was part of an understanding of Revelation that saw Babylon as imperial Rome12 and expected Jesus to return soon, destroy the power of Rome, and set up his capital at Jerusalem where the would reign with him over a peaceful and prosperous earth for one thousand years. After this would come the general resurrection, the last judgment and the eternal state. Victorinus of Pettau (d. 303/304) is the first writer from whom we have a full commentary on the book of Revelation.13 He is the only pre- ­Constantine writer whose commentary on the book has survived.14 He too was a chiliast, but he believed that events in Revelation are typological. Things that happened in the Old Testament would happen again in his time, and again in the future, and finally at the end of the age.15 He is the first we know of to use the redivivus legend to say that Nero was a manifestation of the .16

6 Irenaeus, Haer. 4–5. 7 Tertullian, Marc. 3:24. 8 Hippolytus, On the , now lost, is mentioned by , Vir. ill. 61. Frag- ments of the commentary have been preserved in commentaries of the seventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Hippolytus also wrote other works featuring eschatology, includ- ing On the Antichrist and On the Resurrection. 9 Lactantius, Inst. 7:15–26. 10 Jerome, Vir. ill. 83, says one of Methodius’s works was On the Resurrection. 11 Commodianus, Instructiones, 42, 44, 45. 12 E.g., Hippolytus, Antichr. 36 cf. 32. 13 Victorinus’s commentary is available in English in the Ante-Nicene Fathers series, vol. 7. 14 We have some notes by (d. 253) on Revelation, but not a full commentary. Origen apparently intended to write a Revelation commentary (Comm. Matt. 49) but prob- ably never did. Jerome says Victorinus imitated Origen and paraphrased him (Weinrich, “Introduction,” xxi). For details of publications of Origen’s notes, see Francis X. Gumerlock, “Ancient Commentaries on the Book of Revelation: A Bibliographical Guide,” (a paper presented at the Southeastern Regional meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, March 2003), p. 7. Online http://www.tren.com, and Weinrich, “Introduction,” xxi. Euse- bius (Hist. eccl. 4:26.2) says that Melito of Sardis (d. 180) wrote a Revelation commentary, but nothing of it survives. 15 Victorinus’s view is described in C. Rowland, “The Book of Revelation,” in New Inter- preter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), 12:533; and Charles Kannengiesser, Handbook of Patristic : The Bible in Ancient Christianity (2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 1:369–70. Court, Myth and History, 6, argues that Irenaeus was the real originator of this recapitula- tion theory. 16 Weinrich, “Introduction,” xxii.