Revelation: - Knights of Columbus, Supreme Council

I
WHAT IS APOCALYPSE?
Non-Catholics who read the Bible in English find the last book of the
New Testa ment entitled “Revelation.” This is, as a matter of fact, a very
accurate translation of the Greek word apoka lypsis which is kept as
“Apocalypse,” for the title of this book in many Catholic translations of the
Bible. But it is also misleading, through no fault of its own.
An example of how misleading it is we can see from the fact that we so
often hear people refer to the book as “Revelations.” That is to say, they are
thinking of it in terms of “the shape of things to come.” “Revelations” means
the unveiling of secrets, and what is more secret than a future which only God
can know? Also, there is nothing about which men have traditionally shown
more curiosity than the unknown future. By lawful and unlawful means, by
prayer and by fortune telling, by consulting spirits and signs and omens, the
quest of such “revelations” has always been eagerly pursued. And in the minds
of many people, it is just such things that we have in the Apocalypse of Saint
John. It is, to them, a collection of “revelations” of the future, made by the
Almighty Himself, need ing only to be read and inter preted by us.
Now this is an unfortunate misunderstanding of the meaning of the
word Apoca lypse or Revelation. In itself, perhaps it would not be so tragic,
but what is extremely bad is the multitude of utter ly unfounded and
absolutely errone ous interpretations to which this misunderstanding has given
rise. Now it is true that Revelation is the unveiling of something, and even of
a future something, but it is also of a very definite and precise some thing, not
a general panorama of future history. It is, as the introduc tion to the book
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