long been suffered to overcloud and perplex for those who need the guidance of the learned in the interpretation of the "many things hard to be understood" in the volume of truth. The first book of a popular character, ever issued from the American press, explaining the Apocalypse according to the standard mode, is a treatise on the Millennium, by the learned Professor Bush, of the New York University, in which he adopts the grand outlines of the plan above detailed, though I have not had the opportunity of ascertaining how it is, in the minor details.
In reference to the tone assumed in some passages of the statement in the text, perhaps it may be thought that more freedom has been used in characterizing opposite views, than is accordant with the principles of "moderation and hesitation," proposed in comment upon Luther and Michaelis. But where, in the denunciation of popular error, a reference to the motive of the inculcators of it would serve to expose most readily its nature, such a freedom of pen has been fearlessly adopted; and severity of language on these occasions is justified by the consideration of the character of the delusion which is to be overthrown. The statements too, which are the occasion and the support of these condemnations of vulgar notions, are drawn not from the mere conceptions of the writer of this book, but from the unanswerable authorities of the great standards of Biblical interpretation. The opportunity of research on this point has been too limited to allow anything like an enumeration of all the great names who support this view; but references enough have already been made, to show that an irresistible weight of orthodox sentiment has decided in favor of these views as above given.
Some of the minute details, particularly those not authorized by learned men, who have already so nearly perfected the standard view, may fall under the censure of the critical, as fanciful, like those so freely condemned before; but they were written down because it seemed that there was, in those cases, a wonderfully minute correspondence between these passages and events in the life of John, not commonly noticed. The greater part of this view, however, may be found almost verbatim in Wait's translation of Hug's Introduction.
The most satisfactory evidence of the meaning of the great mystery of the Apocalypse, is in the true interpretation of "the number of the beast," the mystic 666. In the Greek and oriental languages, the letters are used to represent numbers, and thence arose in mystic writings a mode of representing a name by any number, which would be made up by adding together the numbers for which its letters stood; and so any number thus mystically given may be resolved into a name, by taking any word whose letters when added together will make up that sum. Now the word Latinus, ([Greek: Lateinos],) meaning the Latin or Roman empire, (for the names are synonymous,) is made up of Greek letters representing the numbers whose sum is 666. Thus [Greek: L]-30, [Greek: a]-1, [Greek: t]-300, [Greek: e]-5, [Greek: i]-10, [Greek: n]-50, [Greek: o]-70, [Greek: s]-200—all which, added up, make just 666. What confirms this view is, that Irenaeus says, "John himself told those who saw him face to face, that this was what he meant by the number;" and Irenaeus assures us that he himself heard this from the personal acquaintances of John. (See Wait's note. Trans. of Hug's Introd. II. 626—629, note.)
HIS LAST RESIDENCE IN EPHESUS.
The date of John's return from Patmos is capable of more exact proof than any other point in the chronology of his later years. The death of Domitian, who fell at last under the daggers of his own previous friends, now driven to this measure by their danger from his murderous tyranny, happened in the sixteenth of his own reign, (A. D. 96.) On the happy consumma-*mation of this desirable revolution, Cocceius Nerva, who had himself suffered banishment under the suspicious tyranny of Domitian, was now recalled from his exile, to the throne of the Caesars; and mindful of his own late calamity, he commenced his just and blameless reign by an auspicious act of clemency, restoring to their country and home all who had been banished by the
