Explanation of the Apocalypse

The earliest surviving English commentary on the Book of Revelation, written by the Venerable Bede in the early eighth century. Bede was among the most learned men of his age, and his Explanation of the Apocalypse shaped how Western Christianity read the prophetic visions for centuries. Rather than treating John's visions as a timeline of future events, Bede followed the method of the African theologian Tichonius, interpreting the visions as simultaneous representations of the Church's struggle across all ages. He reads the thousand years of Revelation 20 not as a future millennium but as the present era of Christian history, drawing on Augustine's City of God. Bede's commentary stays close to the text, weaving together parallel passages from Scripture to decode the symbolic language of beasts, trumpets, and cosmic judgment. For readers curious about how medieval Christians understood the end times, or how one of the greatest minds in Western intellectual history wrestled with apocalyptic vision, this translation makes Bede's essential work accessible for the first time in modern English.