Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/93

* REVEILLE. ultimately connected with Eiig. ivake) . 77 REVELATION OF SAINT JOHN. A mili- the disclosure of the Divine iu rcveliitiou aen- tarv triunpot, bugle or drum call sounded at orally was but ,mrtial, and therefore preparatory brealc of day, or such time afterwards as may to a specilic revelation. Man in his intelleetunl- be ordered, to rouse the men Irom sleep. OHi- ity was painfullv sensible of (he soul-sickness of cially, itis the commencement of the day's the world, but lie had no cure To br.'ak'the routine. The militai-y day is from reveille to "re treat (q.v.) ; and the night from retreat to reveille. Sec IUgle and Trumpet Calls. REVELATION (Lat. rcvelatio, from rcve- hiie, to reveal, unveil, from re-, back again, anew + velare, to veil, from velum, veil, cloth, sail, from vcherc, to carry along). In theologj', a term used in both a general and a specific sense. In its broadest signification it expresses the un- veiling or manifestation of the Divine to the human. In the narrower sense it is applied to one form of this manifestation, viz. the written word of God. Using the term in the first or general sense. power of sin and fpiieken the higher anil spir- itual life lie needed a revelaliiju of falherly lovf. The deepest discoveries and loftiest achiivi'iiu'iils of the human intellect needed to be suppleineiiled by a special revelation. -The world bv wisiloni knew not God." The specific rcvela'tion was given in the written word. It may be divided into three e|iochs, the primitive revelation or protevaiigelium, the covenant revelation to Israel, and the revelation in the appearance of Jesus Christ. The Incarnation (q.v.) is held to be the culmination of every Divine manifesta- tion, the central point of all" history, saered and profane (Ileb. i. 1 and 2). The Old Testament God manifests Himself in nature, in history, in represented a gradual process of education, a.s the moral government of the world, in reason, f^i'iced, for instance, iu the voice in the garden, and in the old ethnic religions and certain of *''« theophanies, the burning bush, and dreams the pagan philosophers. It seems impossible to ""'^ visions. God gave to men as they were believe in man and in a personal God without "'^'*'^ to receive. But the message became more believing in a Revelation. The aspirations of ^""^ .'"°re explicit as the history of the ancient the soul demand it. Man himself, as rellecting the Divine image, warrants it. Nature is the speaking and acting of God. It is Divine lan- guage in cipher. The universe is a manifesta- tion of God's glory, a disclosure of His power. Specific revelation does not contradict these in- dications of Divine truth in nature. It gives them articulate expression. History and revela- tion are inseparable. The march of events and the develo])ment of ideas are liut parts of a mov- ing panorama of Divine creation and guidance. History is a chapter in the book of man's evolu- tion. Behind the veil of external contingency there are the moral order of the life of nations, the rise and fall of dynasties, the progressive history of the human race, the development of man's religious consciousness in thought and in civilization. Reason and revelation are not an- tagonistic. Reason grasps and discerns and even defines the supersensuous. It is part of the Divine image in man, and so is naturally pi'c- people was developed, until it culminated in Jesus Christ, in whom men saw "God manifesl in the flesh" (Jolm i. 18). The Old Testament is meaningless without the New. The Bible mes- sage is incomplete without the storv of the Christ. In discussing the specific revelation of the Scriptures it should be borne in mind that revelation and inspiration arc not synonymous terms. Scientific theology distinguishes between them as to both authorship and function. The author of revelation, in the Old Testament ami the New. is held to be the Divine Word, the Logos (John i. 1 et seq.). The author of inspira- tion is the Holy Spirit (II. Peter i. 21). Rere- latio7i has been limited to the direct communica- tion from God to man of ( 1 ) such knowledge as man could not attain to in and of liimself. and (2) information which, though attainable in the ordinary way, was not. in point of fact, known to the person who received the revelation, /n- disposed to^the reception of the revealed. 'Many xpir^t'o'l "s e_xplained as the actuating energy of truths sometimes held not to be discoverable by ^he Divine Spirit, under whose gmdance the reason are perfectly agreeable to it when dis- covered. The ethnic reliijions were clearly media of Divine revelation. They were partial dis- closures of God to man — a feature in His grad- ual unveiling of Himself. They were prepara- tory to Christianity. Pagan phiJosophy, in the persons of some of its brightest lights, was a forerunner of the written word. Men like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle among the Greeks, and Cicero, Epictetus. and ]Marcus Aurelius among the Romans, had wonderful glimpses of truth, and formulated admirable moral codes. They have been described as Christians without knowledge of the Christ. In fact, natural and revealed religion are now widely viewed as parts of a great whole, and not as distinct and separate manifestations of the Divine. Much of the teaching of revelation, technicallv so called. human agents chosen by Ciod have otlicially pro- claimed His will either by ( 1 ) word of mouth, or (2) the committal to writing of the several parts of the Bible. Bibliography. Christlieb, Modern Doubt and Christian Belief (Eng. trans.. New York. 1875) : Flint, Theism (Edinburgh, 187G) ; Wordsworth, The One Religion (Bampton I-ecturos. London. 1881) ; Harris", The Self-Rerelation of God (New York, 1887) ; the articles "God" and "The Holy Spirit and Inspiration." in />»x Miindi (London, 1890) ; Westcott, Introduction to the l^tudy of the (,'ospcls (New York, 18!)) ; Illingwortli, Reason and Revelation (New York, 1!)02) ; and the works mentioned under Tn.spiration. REVELATION OF SAINT JOHN. TiiK. The name given in the English Bible td the last book in the New Testament. In early lists and consists in the unveilimr to us of nature and of manuscripts it is called the .Apocalypse of John, life. Revelation does not merely superadd to the current English title. Revelation, being from the achievements of human knowledge. It pene- the Latin equivalent of the Greek word Apoca- trates to the moral and spiritual meaning of the lypsis, the first word of the book. world in which we live. " I. The Nature op Apocaltptical Litera- The advocates of a special revelation main- ture. The Book of Revelation belongs to a dis- tain that, despite all this, the fact remains that tinct class of literature, which has been called,