Chrestomathy

Imagery in the Book of Revelation

St John's images do not mean anything you like; their sense can be determined.  But they still have an astonishing multiplicity of reference.  Otherwise, why write in images rather than in cold, factual prose.  It has been said that the purpose of scientific statement is the elimination of ambiguity, and the purpose of symbol the inclusion of it. . . . There is a current and exceedingly stupid doctrine that symbol evokes emotion, and exact prose states reality.  Nothing could be further from the truth: exact prose abstracts from reality, symbol presents it.  And for that reason, symbols have some of the many-sidedness of wild nature. Austin Farrar, A Rebirth of Images: The Making of St. John's Apocalypse (Gloucester MA: Peter Smith [1949] 1970) pp.19f