Page:Bede's Explanation of the Apocalypse, translated by E. Marshall.djvu/7



HE Explanation of the Apocalypse by Ven. Beda is the earliest of the many works of our own writers on that Book, and, as such, may well deserve to appear in a form accessible to English readers. But independ- ently of this, it is a commentary of much value and interest in itself, as is shewn by the constant use of it by Isaac Williams in his volume on the Apocalypse (The Apocalypse, with Notes and Reflections, Lond. 1852), and the notices of it in two recently-published Lectures of the Bishop of Lincoln (On the Millennium, Lond. 1875), who also, in his "Introduction to the Book of Revelation," terms it, "A valuable and interesting exposition" (Greek Testament, Gen. Ep. and Rev., p. 152, 1872).

The chief characteristics of Beda's method of exposition may be thus stated. The several visions are considered not to be successive, but contemporaneous, with occasional recapitulations,