"This is a stimulating work, engaging with those 'uncomfortable' violent
texts in the Apocalypse, and detailing the reception of the work in
later commentaries and in liturgy and art. The later reflections, from
both East and West, are insightful, and the authors combine exegetical
analysis with the critical importance of locating works within their
social and political contexts...Highly recommended. -- Mark
Finney, Journal for the Study of the New Testament The Apocalypse of
John belongs to the most puzzling texts of the New Testament.
Historical-critical exegesis has been stressing that the book above all
wishes to give a message of hope and comfort for a community under
threat. Yet readers have also always been impressed and terrified by the
many images of violence, including war, destruction, persecution and
martyrdom, and the appearance of the devil and his demons. This book
does not allow its readers to remain neutral. The present volume offers
the proceedings of a conference that was held in Leuven, Belgium, in
September 2009 and was organised by the general editors of the Novum
Testamentum Patristicum. The conference focused on how early Christian
and Patristic authors have coped with all these many passages that deal
with various sorts of violence. The volume contains essays on most of
the important commentators, Origen, Tyconius, Lactance, Victorin of
Pettau, and those of a somewhat later age, Andreas of Caesarea,
Oecumenius, and Bede, but also looks at the reception history on a
larger scale. It also deals with issues of method in reading the Book of
Revelation, with important themes (the 1000-year reign), the Jewish
background of some of these motifs, and the reception of Patristic
thought in the most important medieval commentator of the book, Joachim
of Fiore.
