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CONSTANTINE THE GREAT.. PRETERIST "This remarkable event (the Edict of Milan) was regarded by Christians of that time, and by Constantine himself, as the fulfillment of the very prophecy before us. (Revelation 20:2)"
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Heinrich Ewald Commentary on the Prophets of the Old Testament | Ewald's Introductory Hebrew Grammar | Commentary on the Book of Job with Translation | The history of Israel | The prophet Isaiah | Abhandlung über die phönikischen Ansichten von der Weltschöpfung und der geschichtlichen Werth | Die Sendschreiben des Apostels Paulus | Commentarius in Apocalypsin Johannis exegeticus et criticus "On this point, however, as well as on the general character of this period of the Christian Church, we have in the book of Revelation evidence which, when properly understood, could not be truer or more vivid. The book, it is true, was written somewhat later in the course of the war, towards the end of 68 or beginning of 69, neither was it written by the Apostle John, but by another John, who was at the time very active in the churches of Ephesus and the neighbourhood, and therefore at a distance from Palestine. Nevertheless, it describes the feelings of Christians which might prevail at the beginning and then during the course of the great Judean and Roman war, with the greatest vividness and clearness, as well as with no small degree of art in the use of prophetic style.2 If any of these later periods could once more call forth the ancient prophetic power of Israel, as by a higher necessity, in the two existing divisions of the ancient Community, it was the period before us; but while not a single prophetic piece of that period has been preserved from the Judean division, which was then intoxicated with its victories, there was produced in the Christian section, though it was then exposed to almost intolerable persecution from all sides, a prophetic book which for the first time revived all that was best in the ancient prophets, saturated with the Christian spirit, and artistically perfect. It was not, as had latterly been the custom, written in the name of an ancient hero, but in that of the author himself; and as the Christian book of prophecy, it won for itself an imperishable existence. Though designed for the entire Christian
Church, it is still addressed, according to the true Christian custom of
that time, primarily only, as in a prophetic epistle, to the churches of
Roman Asia ; 3 and, though written far from the parent church, it still pays
due attention to its fortunes. It lay in the nature of the time itself that
the prophecy of the book should be mainly directed against Rome only; and
for the first time the just expectation of early Christianity finds
expression that it is really only in heathenism, as concentrated in its full
power in Rome, that its truly terrible enemy is to be found. With regard to
the Holy Land and Jerusalem, the found. With regard to the Holy Land and
Jerusalem, the ancient Messianic hopes, that were unshaken even in Paul's
case, still remain in force; but on that account the Jerusalem which then
existed is no less regarded by the Christian prophet as rejected by God and
awaiting severest punishment, and the Judeans as they then were he no less
than Paul considers wholly unworthy of the name. But we must especially
admire the absolute truth and zeal with which the prophet castigates the
sins and errors which at the time threatened to ruin the Christian churches,
and the strictness with which he separates the true Christians from the
false, particularly in view of the trying future. " J. Murray (1863) Benjamin Warfield
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