Abstract
Father Francis Moloney dedicates his theologically and pastorally oriented book to the Salesians of Don Bosco, East Asia, Oceania region. His primary inspiration is the commentary by Eugenio Corsini, Apocalisse prima e doppo (1980), of which he authored an English translation, The Perennial Revelation of Jesus Christ (1983).
The book is divided into twelve sections, each covering one or two chapters of the Apocalypse. It is preceded by a preface and introduction, as well as a foreword dictated by Eugenio Corsini himself shortly before his death on March 22, 2018. In the preface, M. expresses his fascination with Corsini’s hermeneutical key of the perennial impact of the saving effects of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He also insists on the need for his commentary to make sense to Christians. The book also includes two short excursuses that condense the strengths and the paradox of his approach. The first, entitled “Witnesses to the Law and the Messianic Promises of the Prophets” (53–55), places the Apocalypse within the prophetic tradition associated with the capture of Jerusalem and the ruin of the temple, and historically in the context of the reactions of the Judaism of its time to the events of 70 CE. The second, “The Lamb that was Slaughtered from the Foundation of the World” (199–204), emphasizes its profound Christian theological inspiration and the perenniality of the salvation brought by the death of Jesus.
M. approaches the Apocalypse as a unified literary whole composed by an author who added his own contribution to earlier Jewish traditions to address Christian audiences for theological and pastoral purposes. In terms of structure, he considers the book to be organized around four septenaries. Accordingly, he divides the text as follows: I. Prologue (1:1–8); II. The Seven Churches (1:9–3:22); III. The Seven Bowls (4:1–8:1); IV. The Seven Trumpets (8:2–11:19); V. The Seven Bowls (12:1–22:5); VI. The Epilogue (22:6–21). According to him, John executes a bending of an apocalyptic literary genre, replacing the eschatological salvation of Jewish apocalypticism by a realized eschatology that he shares with the Fourth Gospel.
In line with contemporary critical historical research, M. challenges some ideas that belong to the paradigm that has long dominated research on the Apocalypse of John. He questions the existence of a systematic persecution of Christians under Domitian, as well as Patmos as a place of banishment. Consequently, he interprets the sufferings of the saints not in relation to the sufferings of the first Christians, but in relation to those of the saints of Israel. He also distances himself from a tendency to see in the Apocalypse a text whose focus would be political and not religious, while recognizing that these two aspects are necessarily linked in the Greco-Roman society of the time. He also distances himself from an important trend of research in recent decades by questioning the necessity of understanding the practical issues facing the seven assemblies in Asia Minor, preferring to see them simply as a symbol of the whole Christian church. Nevertheless, his reading of these chapters in the light of the entirety of Scripture is of the greatest interest, especially the link he establishes between the message to the assembly of Thyatira and the Book of Kings. Finally, together with Corsini and a too-neglected current of research of recent decades, he questions the identification of Babylon with Rome, and sees in the prostitute a designation of the destroyed earthly Jerusalem and the unfaithful Israel, in line with the prophetic tradition. According to this view, the woman who flees into the desert in chap. 12 represents Israel at the time of the Exodus, protected by God and pursued by Satan. When, in chap. 17 (Rev. 17:3), John is transported to the desert and finds the prostitute there, it can only be the same woman: the one who fled to the desert, the Israel of the Exodus.
One can rightly speak of M.’s work as a theological commentary that brings about a paradigm shift, in that it leaves aside the reading of Revelation as a book reacting to a persecution—real or apprehended—of Christians by the Roman Empire, and as an expression of anti-imperial resistance. It is also important in that it situates John’s message within the Jewish prophetic tradition reacting to the fall of Jerusalem. On the other hand, it remains dominated by a traditional paradigm that sees the Judaism and Christianity of that time as having distinct, clear cut identities, John as a prophet who “considers himself a Christian,” and the new Jerusalem as a representation of the earthly Christian church. We are still awaiting a theologically and pastorally oriented commentary that would make sense for Christians of a book written by a Jewish prophet-disciple of the messiah Jesus of Nazareth, reading the destruction of Jerusalem and the death of Jesus in the light of his faith in the resurrection and in the advent of a new Jerusalem. This being said, any reader interested in the Apocalypse of John will find great benefit in reading this well-written, deeply original, and challenging commentary.