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It seems surprizing that the whole train of expositors should consider this good man as imprecating evil on himself for the good of others, when it is obvious that others could not have been benefited by it. For though expositors differ respecting the magnitude of the evil, they seem to agree that he did wish evil to himself, and pray that he might suffer for his people!
Therefore the question put to Simon, agreeably to these prior definitions of that love to Christ which is necessary to constitute a person his disciple, marked particularly by the last clause of it, "more than these?" Expositors have generally put another sense on this question, and in our apprehension, a mistaken sense.
Such artificial divisions are as unfounded, in the apprehension of sober expositors, as the attempts of impious Arians and others, to turn the historical narrative of the creation and fall of man into an allegory! The meaning of the "seven stars and seven candlesticks" is then explained to John. The word, "are," is used in a figurative sense, and not to be taken literally.
And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. John "beheld another beast," therefore not the same, as many expositors strangely suppose. No one can have an intelligent understanding of this chapter unless he views the beast of the sea and the beast of the earth as perfectly distinct.
But this interpretation confounds this beast of the sea with the apostate church of Rome; and indeed this confounding of symbols and consequent mistaking of objects in actual history, are the primary errors of expositors in nearly all their attempts at expounding the Apocalypse.
This doctrine is abstruse, and though the images of "garment," "scoriae," "mirror," &c., may stimulate the fancy, we must summon the aid of subtler and more vital expositors to make it plain. "Every scripture is to be interpreted by the same spirit which gave it forth," is the fundamental law of criticism.
By the airs he gives himself? Many might assume airs, if thereby they could give themselves such importance as to be esteemed authentic expositors of the executive will.
If we are to listen to many expositors of no mean authority, we must believe that what seems so clearly defined in Genesis as if very great pains had been taken that there should be no possibility of mistake is not the meaning of the text at all. The account is divided into periods that we may make just as long or short as convenience requires.
It is a series of superficial conclusions, such as expositors and theorists have been guilty of for more than a century. I care to say nothing more in public about this; but write it I will. Some truthful mind will one day grasp it. Weimar, April 18, 1827. Madame Catalini has scented out a few of our extra groschen, and I begrudge her them. Too much is too much!
The three last named interpreters did certainly improve upon the expositions of all who went before them in this field of investigation; and in most cases of disagreement the Doctor excelled in accuracy the other two, as will readily appear on careful examination. In attempting to ascertain the import of the mystic "witnesses," as of the Antichrist, expositors widely differ.
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