Revelation of John
Apocalypsis B. Joannis · 22 chapters · 317 glosses
THE PROLOGUE OF JEROME
John the apostle and evangelist, chosen and beloved by Christ, was held the more abundantly in so great a love of affection that at the supper he reclined upon his breast, and that to him alone, standing by at the cross, he entrusted his own mother, so that to him whom, when he wished to marry, he had called to the embrace of virginity, he might also hand over the Virgin to be kept. And so, when for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ he obtained by lot his exile upon the island of Pathmos, there the Apocalypse, shown beforehand by the same one, is described, so that, as at the beginning of the canon, that is, of the book of Genesis, an incorruptible beginning is noted beforehand, so also an incorruptible end might be rendered through a virgin in the Apocalypse, saying: I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. This is John, who, knowing that the day of his going forth from the body had come upon him, having called his disciples together at Ephesus, went down into the dug-out place of his burial, and, his prayer completed, gave up his spirit, made as much a stranger to the pain of death as he is known to be alien from the corruption of the flesh. Yet the disposition of this Scripture, or the ordering of the book, is for this reason not expounded by us thing by thing, that to those who do not know there may be laid up a desire of inquiring, and to those who seek the fruit of labour, and to God the teaching of mastery may be preserved.
THE ARGUMENT
The Apocalypse of John has as many mysteries as it has words. I have said too little, and all praise is beneath the merit of the volume. In the single words manifold understandings lie hidden.