We will now make a few notes on some of the most remarkable features of Swedenborg’s exposition of that strange and mysterious book, the Apocalypse.
CHAPTER XX.
The Apocalypse Revealed.
Every one who is acquainted with theological literature, knows that innumerable volumes of speculation have been written in attempted explanation of the Apocalypse. He is aware that expositors have differed about it from the earliest times; that Protestants have found Catholicism the subject of all its denunciations, and that Catholics have discovered that Paganism and Protestant heresy were in reality the matters alluded to; that sceptics have proved that it refers to none of these creeds, but is a worthless astrological treatise; and that many good Christians, vexed and wearied with this endless contest of opinion, have wished the book expunged from the canon of Scripture, as altogether incomprehensible, and a mere breeder of strife. And still the controversy goes on. The press swarms with volumes and pamphlets, all professing to have found the key to the mystery, informing the world of the future destiny of Europe, of the result of its wars and battles, the precise month of the fall of the Papacy, and the time of the descent of the New Jerusalem, the Second Advent, and the restoration of the Jews to Canaan, and, so far as the political arrangement of the kingdoms of the earth is concerned, almost superseding the necessity of newspapers to the credulous believer. Wise men generally now turn a deaf ear to these soothsayings, convinced by long and repeated experience of their utter futility, and thinking shrewdly enough that had the Divine Providence intended that man should know the future, the foreknowledge would have been communicated intelligibly and not through the medium of mysteries interpreted by men more conspicuous for temerity than for any endowment of wisdom or common sense above their fellows. “It is a part of this prophecy,” as Sir Isaac Newton remarks,—and the same principle is applicable to all prophecies,—“that it should not be understood before the last age of the world; and therefore it makes for the credit of the prophecy that it is not yet [about 1710] understood. The folly of interpreters has been, to foretell times and things by this prophecy, as if God designed to make them prophets. By this rashness, they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the prophecy also into contempt. The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this, and other prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify men’s curiosity by enabling them to foreknow things, but that, after they were fulfilled, they might be interpreted by the events; and his own Providence, not the interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world. For the event of things, predicted many ages before, will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by Providence. For, as the few and obscure prophecies concerning Christ’s first coming, were for setting up the Christian religion, which all nations have since corrupted; so the many and clear prophecies concerning the things to be done at Christ’s second coming, are not only for predicting but also for effecting a recovery and re-establishment of the long-lost truth, and setting up a kingdom wherein dwells righteousness. The event will prove the Apocalypse; and this prophecy, thus proved and understood, will open the old prophets; and all together will make known the true religion, and establish it.”
With no claim to superior understanding or acuteness did Swedenborg present his exposition of this mysterious book to the world. He humbly declares that the mysteries of the Apocalypse are totally beyond the power of human intellect to unravel, and that whatever of truth is to be found in his work, owed its existence to the immediate illustration of his mind by the Lord. We shall presently show what powerful reason there was for this protestation on his part.
The Apocalypse, we are taught, is a portion of the Divine Word. It was dictated directly by the Lord,—John, in Patmos, being simply an amanuensis.
The Apocalypse is a prophetic book, descriptive of the decline and consummation of the Christian Church, and the establishment of the new and spiritual dispensation signified by “the New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven.” Being a prophetic book, it would have been at variance with the laws of the Divine Providence for man to have understood its prophecies until after the events it described were past; for, as we have seen, a knowledge of the future would take from man all freedom of action, all inclination to labor, and the whole hope and pleasure of life. Therefore it was that the Apocalypse remained a sealed book until the Christian Church had reached its consummation, and the Last Judgment was effected, in 1757, when the Lord graciously opened the eyes of Swedenborg and manifested to him, in clear light, the deep mysteries of this prophecy.
Wilkinson, in his admirable Biography, well says: “A volume, unless it were a reprint, would not give an analysis of the Apocalypse Revealed. When we say that the commentary takes the text word by word, and translates it into spirit, we still convey but a slender idea of what is done. Our own first impressions on reading the work will not soon be forgotten. Following the writer through the long breadths and flights of this vast empyrean, we were momently in anxious fear that to sustain a context of such was impossible. Each fresh chapter seemed like a space that mortal wing must not attempt; and yet the fear was groundless, for our guide sailed onward with a tranquil motion as if he knew the stars. History and common sense, panting and grasping science, philosophy in its better part, above all, the confidence in a Divine support and a supernal mission, appeared to be covertly and unexpectedly present, to annihilate difficulties, and pave the skyey way of this humble voyager. And when we had again alighted from that perusal which strained every faculty to the utmost, it was as though we had been there before, so entire was the impression of self-evidence that was left upon the mind. Genesis and the Revelation were closely at one in this marvellous Apocalypse—thenceforth the most open of the Bible pages: the two ends of the Scripture called to each other; an arch of Divine light spanned the river of the Word, and the original Eden blossomed anew in the midst of the street of the holy city.”
The Rev. O. P. Hiller, in his Memoir of Swedenborg, writes: “In the Apocalypse Revealed, the mysterious book is taken up and examined chapter by chapter, verse by verse, word by word, in the same manner as was done with the books of Genesis and Exodus in the Arcana Cœlestia; and the interior meaning, the spiritual sense, of every part, set forth in such a manner as to present a clear, connected, and rational meaning throughout the whole book, from the first chapter to the last. And what is especially to be remarked, the spiritual sense of this book, the last of the New Testament, is shown to be founded on the same principles, and discovered by the same rules of interpretation, as the spiritual sense of the books of Genesis and Exodus, the first of the Old Testament, written, as they were, by other hands, and more than fifteen hundred years before; a strong proof, certainly, that however varied the human instruments there was One Divine Author of the whole. Thus, with any particular word, for instance, occurring in the book of Genesis, and declared to have a certain spiritual signification,—when that word occurs in the book of Revelation, it is shown to have the same signification; and this holds good in all cases. And, moreover, while all these various significations, taken together, make in the book of Genesis a complete spiritual sense, so in the book of Revelation they make their own complete spiritual sense. Now it will be readily seen, that such a coincidence would be altogether unaccountable, nay, impossible, unless there really existed such a spiritual sense in the Word of God: and it is, indeed, this uniform spiritual sense, full of high and heavenly truth, that raises the holy volume infinitely above all other works of history or morals; and the existence of such a sense is the strongest proof of the Divine character of those writings which we call the Sacred Scriptures. And truly, had Swedenborg done only this, he would have deserved the gratitude of all who seriously revere the Word of God, for thus bringing a new and most powerful argument from internal evidence, in favor of the inspiration and divinity of the sacred volume.”