1846.] Authority of the Apocalypse. 171 his composition. There is nothing in the book itself to settle the question either way. The ancients were as much in doubt about it as the moderns. The writer does not say, that he is John the Apostle. The style is so different from his, that the only way in which it can be supposed to be his, is the hypothesis, that the nature of the inspiration which is necessary to write prophecy, is so different from that which is necessary to write history, that it entirely changes the peculiarities of a man's style, and renders it no longer capable of being identified. Such being the case, it cannot be proved that the Apostle John was the author, neither can it be demonstrated that he was not. The authorship will probably remain, as it ever has been, a matter of opinion. Some will receive it as the Apostle's, and some will reject its Apostolic origin. Professor Stuart gives his suffrage to the Johannean origin of the book, to use his peculiar phraseology. In doing so, according to his own showing, he differs from almost all the eminent critics of the present day, both orthodox and heterodox, as well as the most distinguished of the last century. Semler, Eichhorn, Michaelis, Neander, and De Wette are scholars whose names, single or united, will go as far as human authority can go, to establish any point of sacred criticism. We have ourselves been accustomed to consider the Commentary of Eichhorn on the Apocalypse as one of the most masterly critical efforts which we know, and we are pained at the slighting manner in which Professor Stuart sees fit to speak of him, more especially as, if we are not deceived, he is more indebted to him, both for general principles and for details, than to any other writer whatever. We have not space to examine the process by which he gives the preponderance to the arguments, which go to show that John the Apostle was the writer of the book. Closely connected with the authorship, is the canonical authority of the Apocalypse. If it was written by John the Apostle, of course it ought to be in the canon. But on the other hand, it does not follow that it ought not to be in the canon, if he was not its author. Mark and Luke were not Apostles, yet their Gospels are in the canon. Prophetic gifts were not confined to the Apostles. Few critics now consider the Epistle to the Hebrews to be the work of an Apostle, yet no one is disposed to cast it out of the canon on that account. The Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse stand nearly on the same ground as to canonical authority. They are both in the canon of the Western churches. Neither of them contains any variations from the doctrines of the other books of the New Testament, which ought to bar its admission. Indeed, the question of their reception into the canon is no longer a matter of debate. They are there, and they cannot be excluded. Yet their uncertain authorship and want of universal reception ought to put them on a lower grade of authority than the other books, if we except some of the Catholic Epistles. No doctrine ought to be drawn from them, which is not clearly taught in the rest of the New Testament. Professor Stuart having decided in favor of the Apostolic origin of the Apocalypse, of course maintains its canonical authority. -- The question which we shall next notice, is a point of still greater difficulty and delicacy than any we have considered. It is this, what was the state of mind of the writer, whoever he might be? Was he in a state of prophetic ecstasy, when he saw those visions, so as to describe precisely what he saw, and as he saw it? Had he any choice as to what he was to record? Or were the truths made known to him in such a manner as to leave the selection of symbols to his own taste? Or is the whole a poem in prose, and the place and the visions, a part merely of the machinery and costume, which were chosen to embody and express certain predictions concerning the future fate of Christianity, which the writer had gathered from the prophecies of the Old Testament, as well as those of Christ and his Apostles? Into one of these categories must the Apocalypse obviously fall. The mind of Professor Stuart seems to have wavered among them, and scarcely to have settled clearly on any. Sometimes he speaks as if one were true, and sometimes another, and sometimes he confounds them one with another. He is not always consistent with himself. We should say that his prevailing view is, that it is a poem written under Divine illumination, or an inspiration suggesting the truth to be symbolized, and guarding the writer against all mistakes. On page 209 of the first volume he expresses himself thus. "The book, as we have seen, is a species of Epopee, 1846.] Inspiration of the Apocalypse. 173 different in this from every other prophetic book in the whole Scriptures, and resembling in part, i. e. as to the method of its structure, the book of Job, the Epopee of the Old Testament." Here we are obliged to resort to our dictionary. Johnson tells us, that Epopee means "an epic or heroic poem." The chapter on "Numerosity" seems to demonstrate this. The book bears, as he shows, the marks of consummate artistical skill. There are "episodes" in it, or "moræ," and "trichotomies," and an "epinikion," besides "parallelism" and "rhythmus." These things refer, certainly, rather to poetic than divine inspiration. And yet he says, 66 Along with matters of fact, I must also class the presence of John in the isle of Patmos, the appearance of Christ to the eye of his mind, while in a state of ecstasy; and along with these, the messages, for substance, to be conveyed to the churches, and then the succession of symbolic phenomena that follow. That he saw all these with his bodily eyes, the Apocalypse not only does not assert, but even contradicts by the declaration, that John was in a state of prophetic rapture or ecstasy. The eye of the mind has sharper sight than that of the body; and the visions of the Apocalypse are by no means the less real visions, because they were discernible only by the eye of the mind."— Vol. I. p. 172. "If What room is there, we ask, for poetry, or artistic skill, in relating a vision which comes and goes without the voluntary agency of the mind, and in which nothing can be chosen and nothing rejected? And yet, on page 183 of the same volume, our author speaks on this wise : there be any part of the Apocalypse, where the writer is exposed to the charge of carrying his imagery to excess, it is certainly in the one before us. The locusts and horses are both objects of imagination merely, not actual existences." How can the writer be said to "carry his imagery to excess," if "the succession of symbolic phenomena" is supernaturally presented to "the eye of his mind," and his office is merely to describe them? Here is certainly some inconsistency, to say the least, a vacillation, palpably, from one hypothesis as to the composition of the Apocalypse to another. Farther on he says: "And if John be allowed to go beyond the bounds of real existences, in order to adorn and render impressive his composition, why may he not follow his imagination out, and present VOL. XL. - 4TH. S. VOL. V. NO. II. 16 all the glowing pictures which it portrays? It is plain and well known, that locusts and cavalry were the two greatest and most terrible scourges known in all the East, at the time when John wrote. Why may he not present them here, in accordance with the genius of Oriental poetry, endowed with preternatural forms and armed with extraordinary powers? To do so, is no more than all epic poets have done." - Vol. I. p. 183. But what had John to do with this selection, upon the supposition that the "phenomena" were those of a vision presented by God to his imagination, and not chosen by his own will? Having ascertained to his own satisfaction that John is the author, that the book is canonical, and was written under the influence of Divine inspiration, what does Mr. Stuart consider it as teaching? This brings us to the second volume, containing his interpretation, or exegesis, as he chooses to term it, of the Apocalypse. We have not space to follow him in his exposition of the several parts, and our general view of the character of the book has been sufficiently indicated in what we have already said. Instead, therefore, of attempting to establish or refute any interpretation which may be given of its symbolic or prophetic language, we shall in the remainder of this article examine a single point, which Professor Stuart treats in a manner that surprises us in a scholar of his critical attainments. One of the most prominent doctrines of the Apocalypse, according to him, is the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ. This result, we confess, has filled us with unfeigned astonishment; for if there be any book of the Bible, in which the simple unity of God is taught, and the subordinate and derived nature of Christ, with more explicitness than the rest, this is it. We are sincerely grieved, that so false an impression should go forth afresh from the high authority of the Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological Seminary at Andover. We deem this subject important enough, to occupy a few pages in examining the grounds on which such a doctrine is drawn from the language of the Apocalypse, and in some remarks on those passages which have a bearing upon this subject. We begin with the first sentence: "The revelation of 1846.] The Apocalypse not Trinitarian. 175 Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him." Further than this we need not go. This opening sentence speaks of Jesus Christ as a being separate from God, and denies to him the highest Divine attribute, an attribute without which no being can possibly be God in any sense, that of omniscience. He who affirms that God gave or could give a revelation to Jesus Christ, denies both that he is God, and that he is omniscient. If Jesus Christ is God, or a second equal person of a Trinity, then he is all that the first person is, with the addition of the human nature. The first person cannot make a revelation to the second. Besides, it is "God," the whole Trinity, who makes a revelation to Jesus Christ. This, too, is said of him in his state of exaltation to heaven, when he had resumed everything Divine, which he ever had possessed, or ever was to possess. Professor Stuart perceived the bearing of this introductory sentence, for he says: "With the particular meaning of this verb (gave) there is no difficulty but the sentiment of the whole passage is a question of difficulty, if there be any; for this appears to represent the Redeemer, even in his glorified state (for such it was when the Apocalypse was written,) as dependent on the Father for a revelation of such a nature." - Vol. II. p. 3. And how does he propose to get over it? A part of it he gets over by the dexterous fallacy of shifting terms in stating the difficulty, involving another fallacy, called by logicians petitio principii, a begging of the question : "this appears to represent the Redeemer, even in his glorified state, as dependent on the Father for a revelation of such a nature." The text of the Apocalypse says no such thing. The words of the text are: "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him." By substituting the term, Father, in the place of the term, God, he has taken for granted that the word, God, in that passage, means the first person of a Trinity, instead of the whole Deity, and by that substitution assumes the very thing in dispute, the truth of the Trinitarian hypothesis. Had he kept to the terms of the passage on which he was commenting, and said that "it represented the Redeemer as dependent on God for the revelation," he would have truly stated the whole difficulty, and in such a manner as to |