However, and this cannot be emphasized with sufficient force, the Church, rejecting the apocalypses as a special form of national Jewish self-consciousness, chose and proclaimed as divinely inspired one of the apocalypses, unique in its kind, she preserved and glorified it, including it in the canon of the holy books. In this way the Church at the same time abolished, as if it were unnecessary, but at the same time confirmed in its abiding meaning, as a kind of vetus testamenium in novo, [**1] our "Christian" Apocalypse. In all the sacred books, not only of the Old Testament, but even of the New Testament (although in the Greek text), the word of God sounds in the Hebrew voice, speaks, in a certain sense, in the Hebrew language, so that it needs to be translated into a universal dialect accessible to "all languages." That is why in the New Testament we hear the living speech of St. Paul. Paul, as well as the other apostles, which, without losing its personal and national-Jewish character, already becomes a universal preaching. And the same must be said about the Apocalypse, which betrayed its Jewish style, imagery, and temperament and preserved it as universal, all-human, and generalized this peculiar text of the local and the particular into a national one.

But this generalization is not exhausted by this spiritual translation alone. It also has another, broader and deeper meaning. The fact is that the language and thought of the apocalypses included elements of, one might say, universal paganism, they are characterized by a syncretic character, the study of which is so successfully and persistently engaged in religious-historical science. Through its analyses and inspirations, the Jewish images and teachings of the apocalypses are revealed as containing the heritage of ancient times from various religions and peoples. It can be said that they, and in particular our Apocalypse, were written in the thick syncretic ink of the religious history of the world. They can be identified, and these images can be deciphered, leading them back to the original sources. In them one can find a variety of influences, traditions and borrowings, which are now being revealed in religious-historical science more and more fully and widely. If even the sacred text of the Bible as the religious tradition of the chosen people is not closed to these influences of the surrounding pagan peoples, then for apocalyptic writing it is a general rule. And through it syncretic images penetrate into our Christian Apocalypse, which through this preserves and carries them, assimilating to them a universal character. "Religious-historical" science, triumphantly revealing these features of syncretism, often uses this to profane the holy book, to secularize and destroy its content. However, this kind of application is not at all necessary and not indisputable. There is no need to reject or question the historical correctness of these scientific observations in order to weaken their application and meaning. The content of the sacred books, in particular of the Apocalypse, is not thereby dissolved or abolished in its own power, it includes these alien elements as material, colours and images. Through this, the power and richness of his images only multiply, without losing their own significance. The language and images of the Apocalyptic, as well as of our Apocalypse, thus open the door to world history to the last book of the New Testament.

Thus, the Apocalypse, both in its style and in its character, is an alien book in the Bible, belonging to a certain literary genre of a certain era. However, it is included in the Bible as its organic part, which is essential. And this inclusion, as a well-known biblical dogma, has become so organic that it makes us forget the historical and specific features of the Apocalypse. It stands before us in all its originality, like a kind of monolith. Its literary and historical features did not prevent its acceptance as a Christian revelation of a certain character. This Judaistic book of a syncretic nature took on the features of Christian revelation and became a Christian book, organically entering the New Testament as a revelation about Christ and His Church. Its language and images were assimilated and transformed here to the point of complete rebirth, and we, reading this book as part of the Christian revelation of the New Testament, forget about its origin and special properties. It is given to us as Holy Scripture, as a book written by the great Christian Apostle. It is perceived by us in a general biblical context as part of the Bible, a New Testament book, in connection with the entire New Testament revelation. It belongs to the number of prophetic books and as such is the only prophetic book in the New Testament. Although all the prophetic books in the Bible, specifically in the Old Testament, have the character of revelation, since they also contain Christian prophecies, the Apocalypse has an exceptional place in this respect as a Christian, New Testament prophecy: "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him, to show His servants what must soon come to pass... Blessed is he who reads and hears the words of this prophecy" (Rev. 2:10). I, 1, 3). John, the apostle and evangelist who wrote the fourth Gospel and the three conciliar epistles, is also a prophet in Revelation.

There is a difference between prophets, apocalyptics, and apostles, although there are common features between them, on the basis of which they draw closer to each other. The prophets teach, rebuke, but also foretell what is to come, sometimes in general and abstract terms, sometimes symbolically and figuratively, and then they draw closer to the apocalyptics: such is the book of the prophet Daniel and some others. Insights and prophecies concerning the future are also found in the Gospels, as well as in the Apostolic Epistles. However, Revelation has a special character, which combines the literary features and images characteristic of the apocalypse with the prophecies characteristic of the prophets. It can be said that in it the apocalypse ceases to be itself, for it becomes a prophecy, albeit set forth in a special, apocalyptic language. The apocalypse ceases to belong to the apocalyptic, but becomes a prophecy. This is the whole uniqueness of the character of the Christian apocalypse. This is also expressed in his self-determination.

Open. I, 1-2-3: "And He shewed (it) by His angel unto His servant John, who testified to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, and what he saw. Blessed is he who reads and hears the words of this prophecy."

John the Theologian, the Evangelist, is also a seer of the mystery. On the one hand, he is a witness as a confessor and preacher, an apostle, whose words are "prophecy" in their content and dignity, so to speak, in their meaning and value. This presupposes that he is worthy to accept the prophecy, to become its preacher in the world. In this sense, too, he is a prophet. However, his spiritual image is also different from that of a prophet in his own ministry. It is not characteristic of the prophetic search, questioning and inspiration, in response to which prophecy is given by the Holy Spirit as "the word of God", as "the hand of God" on the prophet. Prophecy is not only an illumination from above, but also a question answer, a divine-human matter. But the seer has visions as revelations. He is shown what he did not ask and could not even ask, because what is revealed exceeds the human horizon, extends beyond him, into the realm transcendent to him. If prophecy is a divine-human illumination, in which creative inspiration meets divine inspiration, then "vision" is, as it were, a one-sided act of God in man or over man. The image of such divine influence is expressed as a state of "being in the spirit", in a trance that leads to transcendence. On the human side, this obviously presupposes chosenness, a corresponding special dignity, but the seer does not ask, but sees whether it is shown or spoken to him through an angel. He is required to be able to see what is shown, to perceive it, to tell people, but at the same time to resist himself, to bear the prophecy, not to be spiritually corrupted by it. Such is precisely the property of the "apocalypse," of revelation, in contrast to prophecy. If it is possible to look for a question answer here, it is only in the most general form of a certain bewilderment, confusion, confusion, nothing more. For all the grandeur of the revelations of the Apocalypse, the visions here simply alternate, follow one another, and then fit into the narration of them according to a certain plan, and the attitude of the contemplator to them remains passive, receptive. This spiritual comparative passivity distinguishes apocalypses from prophecy. In certain cases, what has the character of an apocalypse in its content and style can also become a prophecy, including elements of a question answer. Such, for example, are the apocalyptic chapters of the Book of Daniel (cf., e.g., Dan. VIII, 27: "And I, Daniel, was faint and sick for several days; then he got up and began to attend to the king's affairs; I was amazed at this vision, and did not understand it." Wed. Jn., I, 3). Here, although in general outlines, the personality of the contemplator of the visions himself appears. But we would look in vain for this person in John's revelation, with all its tremendous power: here we find only visions of mysteries, but not of the seer himself, who remains hidden, not revealed in his personality, although such a person exists. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for all the difficulty and even lack of answers to questions about the relationship between the two sacred writers, the compilers of the fourth Gospel and the Epistles, on the one hand, and the seer, on the other.

This kind of impersonality, the absence of individual features in apocalyptic writing, also explains the pseudonymous character inherent in it. A pseudonym is not only a symptom of a spiritual illness characteristic of the state of the diaspora to this day (a disease that is contagious, both corresponding to a certain spiritual state and to professions: the stage, literature, etc.), but also corresponds to the absence of an individual person and the state of the apocalyptic, the passivity of his contemplation, of which we spoke above. In any case, it should be stated that pseudonymis is a feature inherent in apocalyptic writing, which therefore bears the name of apocrypha (except, of course, the Apocalypse of John).

A few words should also be said about the place of Revelation in the New Testament. Revelation occupies the last place in the Bible, and this follows from its entire content, as well as from its special significance. Its content is devoted to what can be called the Christian philosophy of history, and this historiosophy borders on eschatology, passes into it. It reveals the fate of the Christian Church in the world, precisely from a special point of view, as if the struggle between Christianity and anti-Christianity. World history is depicted here as the greatest world tragedy, in which the heavenly hosts, together with the earthly church, fight with the dragon and his angels, the beast and the harlot fight with the saints, Christ wages war and defeats the dragon, and all this ends with a picture of the chiliastic, and then eschatological (which will be discussed below) transfiguration of the world. Thus, the entire Revelation is devoted to one theme, one question and answer – it speaks of the fate of the Church of Christ in the world within the limits of history. Moreover, these destinies are not considered only in the light of earthly, human history, but the heavenly forces also participate in them, so that an exhaustive revelation of the fate of the Christian Church, of the truly "apocalypse," is obtained in depth and force. Such a question and to such an extent has not been raised in the entire New (as well as Old) Testament. With the exception of individual episodic texts, Christian teaching was not revealed at all from this perspective. Revelation has a very special place in this respect, peculiar to it alone. In this sense, it can be said that if "Revelation" were absent from the Bible, then there would be no such teaching about the Church Militant in it at all. In this place there would be a gaping void, and the burning question of the fate of Christianity in history would be marked... Silence. (Of course, except for the brief instructions in the Synoptics and in the Apostolic Epistles). But such a question is not the product of curiosity and idleness, without which it would be possible and even necessary to do with humility or laziness of thought. No, this is an urgent and burning question that cannot be avoided in the Christian consciousness.

The theme of "Revelation" is necessary in the composition of the Bible, the latter cannot avoid it. About the future, or about what is "coming soon," neither the early Christian church nor all subsequent centuries could not help asking, each in its own way, with growing anguish, anxiety and tension. Humanity is immersed in history and cannot help thinking about it. The Church has its own historical destinies, the revelation of which it cannot but seek. Christ reigns in His Church in the struggle with the beast and the Antichrist, and we, being present and participating in this struggle, cannot but ask about it. And such an answer to these questions, a teaching about the fate of the Christian world in connection with the Church, is Revelation. In its presence, it is organically connected with all the revelation that we have in the word of God.

The above sufficiently explains the special place that "Revelation" is characteristic of in the Bible, namely, this is the last place, the end and the conclusion. And by this it naturally begs for comparison with the book in the Bible to which the first place belongs, namely, the book of Genesis. It contains a revelation about the creation of the world and man, about the origin of created being, the beginning of the earthly world and its history. Naturally, the Bible could not have begun otherwise as a divine revelation about the world: God Himself told us about it. Without such a revelation, humanity could not remain, its absence would mean a tremendous emptiness with which the human spirit could not be reconciled and rested. But the world not only begins, but also ends in history: the beginning seeks an end for itself and looks into it. [4] Therefore the place occupied in the Bible is correlative, both for Genesis and for Revelation, the beginning and the end; "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord, who is, and was, and is to come, the Almighty" (Rev. 2:10). I, 8). "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last" (10).

Of course, if we consider Being and Revelation exegetically, religiously, historically, scientifically, philologically, then between them there will be such features of difference and originality that seem to exclude this convergence in advance as a beginning and an end. However, it can be said, without fear of paradox, that all the difference between them from the point of view of their historical appearance or transcription is insignificant and even seemingly accidental in relation to their common theme and its significance. Both of them express in human language one and the same general idea, namely, about the history of the created, emerging world as having a beginning and an end. Such is this special specific weight of Revelation in the composition of the Bible, in its general plan.

Speaking in particular about Revelation, it must be said that it is characteristic of it to be the end of the Bible, which contains the completion of the historical world. Therefore, it is a book about things to come, about "what must soon be" (I, 1; XXII, 6). It is a book about the end of history, about what will be, and how it will be. It is a book about the entire history of the world in its content and accomplishment. It is the history of the world, set forth in symbols and images, in its most essential content. It is by no means a history of terrestrial events, as it is written and studied, it does not describe any external events or facts that can be precisely confined to space and time. It is the symbolism of these events, their internal synopsis, ontology, or, in this sense, the philosophy of history. It has its own specific task, a special content, which is equally not characteristic of both the Bible and general history. The Bible knows its historical books, and they are really devoted to the history of the chosen people, their destinies. This is the "sacred history" dedicated to the construction of salvation. However, their content is limited, it does not include the ontological completeness of history, as well as its end. Revelation, on the other hand, is universal, it contains, if not a beginning, then at least an end, it is a philosophy of the end, or rather, a prophecy of it. Of course, it cannot be denied that it also touches upon apocalyptic themes and contains apocalyptic and eschatological prophecies — their complete absence would be simply inconceivable and impossible, as they are found in the Old Testament, especially in its prophetic books. However, it is not even possible to compare and contrast their presence in Revelation with the rest of the Bible. It can be said frankly that the revelation relating to the fate of the whole world and the Church in their coherent history does not exist in the other books of the New Testament, and it is the exclusive property of his last book in terms of its general plan and main task (although we will have to make comparisons with the corresponding biblical texts, in particular the Gospel and Apostolic texts related to this).

This character of the Revelation is connected with its special significance, the internal and external necessity of having such content in the canon. Its absence would give rise to a feeling of insurmountable emptiness and insufficiency, which would seek satisfaction for itself in its non-canonical or "apocryphal" fulfillment, as was the case along with the canonical "Revelation" before and after its compilation. Its special problems relate to the frank teaching about the end and outcome of history. Could revelation be devoid of a "revelation" about the fate of the world and the Church in it, containing, so to speak, the dynamics of ecclesiology, the symbolism of the world's war with Christ and His victory over him? Of course, all this is already contained in the Gospel, but here it is not the subject of special prophecy, of deliberate revelation.

However, Revelation obviously already presupposes and includes the Gospel teaching about Christ. Outside of it and apart from it, it is inconceivable and incomprehensible, although it is not exhausted by it and does not fully coincide with it. It is characterized by its own features, a special dogmatic and historical perspective, its own image of Christ, together with its own special apocalyptic and eschatology. Therefore, it should also be said that all New Testament, Gospel and apostolic dogmatics is incomplete without Revelation, in it it finds its fulfillment, or at least its special aspect. It can be said that Christ is not in the Gospel, as well as vice versa: the latter does not contain the features characteristic of the former. "Revelation" is, in a way, a kind of fifth Gospel, or, if we consider it to belong to the fourth Gospel, it is his second Gospel, although written in a completely different way and according to a different plan. Although each of the four Gospels contains its own end as the end of the earthly life of the Savior and His earthly ministry, none of them is characterized by the teaching about the end of the world and of all earthly human history in connection with the power of the Second Coming of Christ, which is the completion of the entire path of the history of the world and the Church. But it is precisely this, and only this, that represents the content of Revelation as a book about the end of earthly history in connection with its entire accomplishment.