EARLY COMMENTARIES ON REVELATION: Victorinus, Jerome’s Recension, Oecumenius, Caesarius of Arles, and Alcuin York

This volume contains five early commentaries on the book of Revelation ranging from the 3rd century to the 8th century. Among these commentaries is the very first existent commentary on Revelation, that is by Victorinus of Pettau, written in Latin in the 3rd century. Also, this volume contains the very first existent Greek commentary on Revelation, that is by Oecumenius from the 6th century. Among the other commentators in this volume is the revision by Jerome of Stridon from the 4th century, who revised the commentary written by Victorinus, which has some significant changes to the text. In addition to this volume is the commentary by Caesarius of Arles from the 6th century. And lastly is the Questions and Answers Manual by Alcuin of York from the 8th century. One of the main goals of this volume is to provide these early commentaries on Revelation in an easy-to-use format, where the reader can easily find specific passages in each of these commentaries. I put the Scripture text in bold and italics so that it can be easily distinguished from the comments. I also arranged all the Scripture quotes in the order of the arrangement found in the Bible. This means that I had make some modifications in certain parts of the commentaries because not all parts in some of these commentaries follow the exact ordering of the Scripture text. This is especially true in the commentary of Victorinus and Jerome's recension, and definitely the case with the commentary by Caesarius of Arles. I did this because Bible commentaries are in many ways reference tools for studying Scripture. A lot of people use Bible commentaries when they run onto specific passages of Scripture that they want to find insights that help interpret the meaning. Not often do people use commentaries as a book to read from cover-to-cover like a novel or treatise. I want these commentaries to serve Christians in a practical sense so that they can consult the ancient Christians and the true spiritual genius that they bring to understanding the Bible.