Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation Read Free Page A

show them to no one but “the wise,” for “in them are the springs of understanding, the fountains of wisdom, and the river of knowledge.” 27 Through this vision, Ezra boldly suggests that the whole Hebrew Bible, including the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel that shaped John’s Book of Revelation, and much of his own, amount to only a
small part
ofall inspired sacred writings. Furthermore, he implies that such secret writings, although written long after the biblical ones, contain even more insightful revelations, among which he tacitly—and cleverly—includes the one he is now writing, the Revelation of Ezra itself.
    Around 90 C.E. , when Ezra was writing about two kinds of sacred books—open books and secret ones—many followers of Jesus, like John of Patmos, understood “the Scriptures” to mean, quite simply, the Hebrew Bible. Yet as more of Jesus’ followers began to write books, their sacred collections, like Ezra’s, came to include
both
kinds of writing—some open to everyone, like the New Testament gospels, and other books written and treated as secret writings (in Greek,
apocrypha
). Like Jews today who are familiar with the mystical teachings of kabbalah, Muslims who embrace Sufism, or Hindus or Buddhists who know Tantra, many Christians during those early centuries had heard not only of Jesus’
public
teaching from books like the gospels of Matthew and Luke but also of a wide range of
secret
gospels and revelations, like the Revelation of Peter, with which we began, and the Secret Revelation of John, which, like the Revelation of Ezra, was widely read in early Christian groups. 28 This Secret Revelation, attributed to Jesus’ disciple John, whom many identified with John of Patmos, apparently was written to supplement what John of Patmos wrote.
    The Secret Revelation of John opens in crisis as the disciple John, grieving Jesus’ death, is walking toward the temple to worship when he meets a Pharisee who mocks him for having been deceived by a false messiah, these taunts echoing John’s own fear and doubt. Devastated, John turns away from the temple andheads toward the desert, where, he says, “I grieved greatly in my heart.” Suddenly, like John of Patmos before him, he says he saw brilliant light as the heavens opened, and the earth shook beneath his feet: “I was afraid, and then in the light I saw a child standing by me.” Terrified, John says he saw there a luminous presence that kept changing form, and then heard Jesus’ voice speaking from the light: “John, John, why do you doubt, and why are you afraid? … I am the one who is with you always. I am the Father; I am the Mother; I am the Son.” 29
    The Jesus who appears in the Secret Revelation does not look as he does in John of Patmos’ visions. Instead of a divine warrior leading heavenly armies to “strike down the nations,” he appears here as the apostle Paul says he saw him—in blazing light and a heavenly voice, and then in changing forms, first as a child, then as an old man, then—and here scholars disagree—either as a servant or as a woman. 30 And while John of Patmos says that Jesus showed him “the things that are about to take place,” the Jesus who appears in the Secret Revelation reveals not only future events but “what is visible and invisible”—what is already, and always, present.
    Much of the Secret Revelation of John apparently draws upon esoteric—or, as some would say, mystical—Jewish tradition. As John continues to question “the Lord,” he hears that God transcends anything we can understand: “it is infinite light.” When John keeps asking “What can we know?” the divine voice explains that although God’s transcendent being, characterized as masculine (“primordial Father”), is beyond human comprehension, what we
can
know of God is a genuine, but lesser, form of divine being, often characterized in feminine form, here called by variousnames—Protennoia (a Greek term