Commentary on Revelation
By: Bede ; translated with an introduction and notes by Faith Wallis
Contributors: Wallis, Faith
Series: Translated texts for historians -- volume 58; Translated texts for historians -- v. 58.
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Liverpool
Language: eng
Number of pages: 343
ISBN-13: 9781846318443; 9781846318450
Subjects: Johannes-Apokalypse; Early works to 1800; Commentaries; Bible
Other titles: Bede, Commentary on Revelation
Work titles: Expositio Apocalypseos
Description: The Commentary on Revelation is Bede's first venture into Biblical exegesis - an ambitious choice for a young monastic scholar in a newly Christianized land. Its subject matter - the climax of the great story of creation and redemption, of history and of time itself - adds to the Commentary's intrinsic importance, for these themes lie at the heart of Bede's concerns and of his achievement as a historian, exegete, scholar, and preacher. But Bede was also a man of his age. When he penned the Commentary around 703, speculation and anxiety about the end of the world was in the air. According to conventional chronology, almost 6,000 years had passed since creation. If for God 'one day ... is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day' (2 Peter 3:8), the world was destined to last six millennia, corresponding to the six days of creation. The end, then, was close. Bede vigorously opposed the temptation to calculate the time of the end. The Commentary argues that Revelation is not a literal prophecy, but a symbolic reflection on the perennial struggle of the Church in this world. At the same time, the young Bede is starting to shape his own account of how the end-times would unfold. This translation, prefaced by a substantial Introduction, will be of interest to students of medieval religious and cultural history, of Anglo-Saxon England, and of the history of Biblical exegesis in the Middle Ages."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 292-308) and indexes.

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