The Apocalypse or Book of Revelation is one of the most frequently discussed books of the biblical canon and arguably one of the most difficult to interpret. This volume contains three texts as examples of late ancient Christian interpretation of its intriguing visions. It also includes a comprehensive introduction to each text by its respective translator. Brief Explanations of the Apocalypse by Cassiodorus (c. 580), translated by Francis X. Gumerlock from Latin and published in English for the first time in this volume, served as an introduction to the Book of Revelation for Cassiodorus's students at the Vivarium, a monastery in southern Italy. Cassiodorus divided the Apocalypse into 33 sections, corresponding to the age of Jesus at his Passion, and expressed his belief that John's visions were revelations of the end of the world, including the Second Coming of Christ for judgment, the defeat of the Antichrist, the general resurrection, and the arrival of the heavenly Kingdom. Testimonies of Gregory the Great on the Apocalypse, translated from Latin by Mark DelCogliano and also published here for the first time in English, is a collection of 55 excerpts on the Apocalypse from the writings of St. Gregory the Great (d. 604) compiled by an anonymous author. Drawn mainly from Gregory's Moralia, but also from his Book on Pastoral Care and homilies, the excerpts, which are arranged from Revelation 1.4 to 22.17, illustrate Gregory's grammatical exegesis of the Apocalypse, his interpretation of various figures in the Apocalypse, and his attempt to reconcile certain passages in the Apocalypse with seemingly contradictory texts from other parts of Scripture. The anonymous Greek Scholia on the Apocalypse contains 39 exegetical notes on chapters 1-14 of the Apocalypse, which reveal influences of Origen and Didymus the Blind, among others. The notes provide "spiritual" interpretations of the various passages and give attention to the interpretation of certain words that appear in the Book of Revelation. This new translation from the Greek by T. C. Schmidt utilizes all the Greek editions. Furthermore, its introductory matter contains updates on the Scholia from the latest scholarship and compares each scholion with interpretations found in various patristic authors, mainly of Alexandrian heritage.

The Exposition of the Apocalypse by Tyconius of Carthage (fl. 380) was pivotal in the history of interpretation of the Book of Revelation. While expositors of the second and third centuries viewed the Apocalypse of John, or Book of Revelation, as mainly about the time of Antichrist and the end of the world, in the late fourth century Tyconius interpreted John's visions as figurative of the struggles facing the Church throughout the entire period between the Incarnation and the Second Coming of Christ. Tyconius's "ecclesiastical" reading of the Apocalypse was highly regarded by early medieval commentators like Caesarius of Arles, Primasius of Hadrumetum, Bede, and Beatus of Liebana, who often quoted from Tyconius's Exposition in their own Apocalypse commentaries. Unfortunately no complete manuscript of the Exposition by Tyconius has survived. A number of recent scholars, however, believed that a large portion of his Exposition could be reconstructed from citations of it in the aforementioned early medieval writers; and this task was undertaken by Monsignor Roger Gryson. Gryson's edition, a reconstruction of the Expositio Apocalypseos of Tyconius, was published in 2011 in Corpus Christianorum Series Latina. The present translation of that reconstructed text, with introduction and notes, exhibits Tyconius's unique non-apocalyptic approach to the Book of Revelation. It also shows that throughout the Exposition Tyconius made use of interpretive rules that he had laid out in an earlier work on hermeneutics, the Book of Rules, strongly suggesting that Tyconius wrote his Exposition as a companion to his Book of Rules. Thus, the Exposition served as an exemplar of how those rules would apply to interpretation of even the most intriguing of biblical texts, the Apocalypse.

In the early ninth century Theodulf of Orleans and Smaragdus of Saint Mihiel served as advisers to Charlemagne. This book provides English translations of a Latin commentary on the Apocalypse written by Theodulf and three homilies on the Apocalypse by Smaragdus. A comprehensive essay introduces these texts, their authors, sources and place in ninth-century biblical exegesis.

The question of predestination and its nature, which drew strong protests from the monks of Provence in the early fifth century against the teaching of Augustine of Hippo, was initially settled by the Council of Orange in 529. But in the Carolingian renaissance in the ninth century, the Benedictine monk, Gottschalk of Orbais, brought the teachings of the late Augustine to the forefront of theological debate and greatly disturbed the clergy and faithful with his doctrine of double predestination of some to the joy of heaven and of others to the eternal punishment of hell a doctrine that he claimed was that of Augustine and the Catholic faith. The present volume provides for the first time an English translation of Gottschalks key writings on predestination and various reactions and comments from leading theologians of the ninth century, as well as a learned introduction to Gottschalks life and controversies.