Table Of ContentJACQUES ELLUL
APOCALYPSE
The Book of Revelation
TRANSLATED BY GEORGE W. SCHREINER
A Crossroad Book
THE SEABURY PRESS· NEW YORK
APOCALYPSE
The Book of Revelation
1977
The Seabury Press
815 SJ!co1Id Avroue . .\"'W }'ork, .Y. t". 100/"7
Original edition: L 'ApMalypse: archil«ture ro 71Wuvnnml © 1975 Desclfe
English translation copyright © 1977 by The Seabury Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
No pan of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted.
in any fonn or by any means, e-Ieclrofllc. mechanIcal, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the written permission of The Seabury Press.
Printed in the Unilerl States of America
Designed by Vinoria Gomez
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Ellul, Jacques. Apocalypse.
Translation of L'Apocalypse. architecture en rnuuvemenl.
"A Crossroad book."
Inrlurles bibliographical references.
1. Bible. N.T. Revelation-Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title.
BS2H2S.2.E4413 228'.06 76-54322 ISBN 0-8164-0330-9
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 9
1 . A STUDY OF THE STRUCTURE 36
2 THE KEYSTONE (Chapters 8 to 14:1-5) 65
3 . THE IMMOLATED LAMB-
THE GLORIOUS LORD 100
4 . THE CHURCH AND HER LORD
(Chapters 2 to 4) 125
5 . THE REVELATION OF HISTORY
(Chapters 5 to 7) 144
6 THE JUDGMENT (Chapters 14:6 to 20:15) 171
7 . THE NEW CREATION (Chapters 21 to 22:1-5) 214
8· PRAISE AND DOXOLOGY 232
NOTES 257
APOCALYPSE
The Book of Revelation
INTRODUCTION
Presuming to write on the subject of the Apocalypse is ambi
tious, rash, and unacceptable. Ambitious in the presence of
thousands of existing commentaries (what could we claim to
add?) and of scientific research, which abounds during these
last years. In addition, I am not an apocalyptist, a specialist in
the study of apocalypses. Rash, above all, because of the final
warning, "to anyone who adds or takes away something from
this book of the Revelation ... "; and how write or preach on
its subject without changing this Revelation? But also because
there never has been a book provoking more delirium, foolish
ness, and irrational movements, without any relationship to
Jesus Christ, as if this book contained the possibility of a temp
tation actually demonic. Oddly, this text which has been
placed by the Church at the end of the Bible has continually
been interpreted as an introduction to a third part-that of the
Holy Spirit. It is well to recall that even balanced theologians
who have begun the study of the Apocalypse upon true foun
dations have progressively gone astray. But, moreover, in our
day a reflection upon, or proceeding from, the Apocalypse is
unacceptable-at least if it is not a work of pure exegetical,
historical, or structural analysis. And it seems to me we en
counter here three criticisms. One, certainly, is inspired by the
APOCALYPSE : The Book of Revelation . 10
memory of all those spiritual or gnostic vagaries of which I
spoke. With good reason the symbolism-the occasion for
false judgments and false hopes renewed at each epoch, and
responding to a frenzied imagination-is feared. If on the one
hand it can be said that the development of scientific thought
today must reject the symbolic and gnostic mode of thought,
on the other we must note well that there never have been so
many seers, divines, and astrologers, a reversion to that sor
cery which can reutilize the Apocalypse. It is expedient, then,
to observe great prudence. But must we for all that give up
seeking a meaning, and restrict ourselves to the so-called
scientific work of exegesis in order not to fall into delirium?
A second criticism expresses a true theological reservation:
too often the Apocalypse shunts us off toward the examination
of detail. What is the meaning of the Beasts, of the number
666, of the delay of three and one-half years, etc., which has
only a very secondary importance but excites our curiosity,
unbridles our imagination, arouses our appetite for mystery,
and finally hides from us the central truth which ought to be
revealed. But one is then tempted to say that, after all, this
truth reduces to that of the Gospels-and then prudently turn
away from the Apocalypse and its image-making. Finally, a
third criticism issues from the apparent pessimism of this reve
lation. We generally attempt in modern Christian milieus to
validate history and the efforts of man, to diminish the decisive
character of sin, to show the positive aspect of human achieve
ments in politics, technique, work (fulfillment of the creation);
we seek to attenuate the rigor of Christian morality and the
presence of the Judgment; we yield to the optimistic logic of
progress, and we live with the assurance of a progressive ap
proximation of the Kingdom in history, not an end given by
God, but work accomplished by humankind. After a theology
of the total No upon the work of humankind (puritanism), we
have entered into a theology of the Yes of God upon the world
and humanity. In this perspective the Apocalypse, with its
plagues, its judgments, its lake of fire, and its catastrophes, is
unacceptable. One can easily extricate oneself by ascribing it
to a localized, historical current, the result of a stereotyped
Introduction . 1 1
procedure, of ready-made images, which are to be found
everywhere in the apocalyptic writings for at least two centu
ries before the redaction of the text under consideration. In
these conditions one can consider it a cultural product, en
lightening us concerning the mentality and ideology of certain
Christian groups at the end of the first century and upon their
reactions confronted by political problems. But no more. Cer
tainly, no more! No question of finding here an actual mean
ing. . an eternal message. And one can, in order to fortify this
reservation, this skeptical attitude, recall that the Apocalypse
was from the beginning in the Church a marginal book. It had
not been easily integrated into the canon and had not been
accepted by all the churches. With the Epistle ofJ ames it is a
suspect book. It is receiving a strictly relative rehabilitation
during these last years because of the perception that it was a
political book. The political reading of the Apocalypse enters
well into our presuppositions: on this condition it can be toler
ated. But we go no further.
The Question of Method
It is then necessary for me to attempt to delimit my undertak
ing. I do not seek here to make an exhaustive commentary.
Given just this immense literature (including the modern) to
which I have made allusion, twenty volumes would be re
quired. And not even a readable commentary for the use of the
faithful: there are some very good ones, those of Feret, of Allo,
or of Brlitsch, for example, which do not appear to me obso
lete, and which there is no point in replacing. I do not seek
either to produce a scientific work enumerating the multiple
interpretations of each passage, confronting the arguments, or
again working on a purely historical or structural reading. I do
not abandon the search for a meaning. But, of course, I will
not engage in the deciphering of symbols, in cryptography, in
a study of conundrums and puzzles. This is not very useful. I
will attempt to discern the specificity of the Apocalypse, avoid
ing as much as possible what has been said. I will not make,
for each text, an inventory of sustained or possible interpreta-
APOCALYPSE : The Book of Revelation . 12
tions: this so common method can again only involve us in
detail. Now, and I will attempt to demonstrate it, I maintain
that the Apocalypse must be read as a whole, of which each
part takes its import by relation to the whole: in other
words, the Apocalypse cannot be understood verse by
verse. It matters little whether the symbolism of the two
prophets or the dragon is deciphered, in itself, or even in a
short sequence: each has its role in its relation to the total
ity. And it is that, moreover, which makes possible the
avoidance of the detail of figures that hide the forest. Each
of the symbols is a tree of the forest, but it is a matter of
grasping the forest as such. And this whole is characterized
by a movement. The problem is less that of comprehending
a section of the book than the movement which effects pas
sage from one section to another (and which is visible in
the transitions). It is necessary to attempt to restore this
movement: the Apocalypse is not an immobile and defini
tive architectural whole, but it is in itself movement, which
goes from a beginning to an end.
Its title also evokes this: a revelation is not a once-for-all
established fact. It is not something inscribed, a thing, an
object: revelation is an act, and it is only revelation as act.! It
is not the effects, the consequences that are important, it is the
act itself. The error is expressed by Peguy: "When the effect
has passed you seek the cause." If the Apocalypse is revelation,
that means an act of God who intervenes in the course of
history, and the book is not the description of this interven
tion, contrary to what it has too often been considered, nor is
it a potential revelation that the Holy Spirit could come to
animate (as all the rest of Scripture). As revelation, the book
is propelled by an internal movement and the attempt must be
made to recover this movement. I am going to proceed then
outside the scientific, exegetical method. I will make a "naive
reading," but not completely naive: the naivete of the one
who, having known the interpretations fairly well, takes up
everything again with an eye he wishes were new. That which
I will try to guard against is redundance. In these conditions
I must situate myself between the total message and the analy-
