Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse: Geneva, Zurich, and Wittenberg (review)

Reformation Readings of the Apocalypse: Geneva, Zurich, and Wittenberg. By Irena Backus. [Oxford Studies in Historical Theology.] (New York: Oxford University Press. 2000. Pp. xx, 182. $45.00.)

This brief, narrowly-focused work studies commentaries on the Book of Revelation published between the 1520's and the 1580's by writers representing the three main centers of continental Protestantism. Backus undertakes to analyze various views about the status of the Apocalypse, along with the contrasting methods of the commentators, in order to clarify the place of this prophetic text "in the religious and cultural context of the Reformation" (p. xix). Her other stated goal is "to examine whether there was a single Protestant approach to the Apocalypse or whether varying social, linguistic and political conditions determined the way that different writers read the text" (ibid). Backus actually devotes minimal attention to matters of religious and cultural context or to sixteenth-century conditions, but she does effectively fulfill her more limited purposes.

After an introduction outlining patristic and medieval interpretations of the Apocalypse, Chapter I deals with the early Reformation debate over the book's canonicity. The issue was sparked by Erasmus, whose scholarly doubts ironically complemented the general wariness of conservative Roman theologians. Backus tends to make too much of Martin Luther's early hesitancy toward Revelation; here her narrow focus on formal exegesis obscures the enormous influence of Luther's apocalyptic vision in the Protestant tradition generally. Yet the larger picture emerges clearly: Catholics typically acknowledged the book's canonicity but distrusted it, whereas Protestants tended to employ it as a source of historical and prophetic truth. By 1560 the doubts stirred up by Erasmus were no longer an issue.

Turning to a close analysis of selected commentaries, Backus shows a range of attitudes about the value of the Apocalypse, and a variety of methods in approaching the text. More specifically, she demonstrates distinct confessional orientations among representatives of the three main forms of continental Protestantism. The Genevan commentators (Antoine du Pinet, Augustin Marlorat, and Nicholas Colladon) combined a traditional, relatively restrained exegesis with polemics against the papal Antichrist; Backus proposes that the main concern underlying their writings was the battle for converts in France. The Zurich writers (Leo Jud, Theodor Bibliander, and Heinrich Bullinger) took a far more historical, less spiritualized, approach. Yet their orientation was not truly apocalyptic; their uses of the text revealed mainly ethical and pastoral concerns. Except in regard to the revelation of the Roman Antichrist, none of the Genevan or Zurich commentators assumed that the Apocalypse spoke specifically to their own historical era.

For the Lutherans, however (David Chytraeus and Nicholas Selnecker), the book was above all a prophetic mirror for their own times, the last times. Like Luther, they saw the Reformation itself as a final burst of the gospel truth preceding the Last Judgment. But they shared none of the early Luther's reservations about the value or clarity of the Apocalypse; they followed the later Luther, who had come to see the book as a summary of God's plan for the world. Backus concludes that the Lutheran commentaries reflected a "sense of triumph" not shared by Reformed writers (p. 137). She demonstrates that Lutherans brought a more strongly apocalyptic orientation to their readings of Revelation than did other mainline Protestants; their readings clearly reflected the sense of the present age as one of universal crisis.

These conclusions complement and strengthen the findings of other recent studies of prophetic and apocalyptic outlooks in the Reformation-era. Backus' discoveries are relevant to the ongoing debates over the significance of varying confessional cultures to the broad social process known as "confessionalization." While the results of this work cry out for further historical contextualization, Backus has illustrated nicely the ongoing usefulness of highly specialized study in the history of biblical exegesis.