879J : (Gühler,Martin.).
Apocalypsis reserata das ist, geöffnete Offenbarung Johannis darinnen Nach gemachter einteilung der Zeiten deß Newen Testaments in Das Reich des Drachens, Die Statthalterey des Antichrists, Der Ruhige Zustand der Kirchen im Reiche Christi, durch erklärung des XI. und XVI. Cap. gezeiget wird. [with] Clavis Apocalyptica, das ist: Prophetischer Schlüssel, durch welchen die grossen Geheimnüsse in der Offenbarung Johannis und dem Propheten Daniel eröffnet werden 1655
Christianstadt [Place fictitious. i.e. Elbląg or Copenhagen] : Cassube [i.e. Weisse], 1653 Price $ 1,400
Small Octavo 15 x 9.5 cm. Signature: A⁸-G⁸. 56 leavres First edition. Bound in speckled thin pressed paper boards. The imprint Christianstadt is fictitious, almost certainly masking a Protestant press in Elbląg or Copenhagen, a strategy for the discreet circulation of chronologically explicit apocalyptic works in the post-Westphalian period. The book is rare, with no copies recorded in U.S. institutional holdings and only a small number of European exemples known.
The Apocalypsis reserata with the appended Clavis Apocalyptica was conceived as a two-part apocalyptic argument rather than a single undifferentiated commentary. The Clavis functions as the methodological and chronological foundation: a “prophetic key” that synchronizes the numerical schemes of the books of Daniel and Revelation and asserts that these prophetic numbers reach their terminus in the year 1655. Framed as learned exegesis, it nevertheless operates as a restrained prognostication, situating the present generation at the threshold of the final phase of sacred history.
The longer Apocalypsis reserata applies this key to a historical reading of Revelation, especially chapters XI and XVI, dividing the era of the New Testament into three successive regimes: the reign of the Dragon, the rule of the Antichrist, and the anticipated peaceful state of the Church under the Kingdom of Christ. This structure reflects the classic Lutheran historicist tradition, in which apocalyptic prophecy is read not allegorically but as a providential sequence unfolding across church history. The text’s polemical targets—most notably the Antichrist—are implicit rather than named, allowing the work to function as both commentary and confessional critique.
Read together, the two parts form a closed system: the Clavis establishes the authority, method, and temporal urgency, while the Apocalypsis reserata supplies the narrative application and theological interpretation. The decision to circulate the parts both jointly and separately was strategic. Issued alone, the Apocalypsis reserata could pass as historical exegesis; issued with the Clavis, the work becomes unmistakably time-bound, confronting readers with the claim that divine judgment was imminent and historically intelligible.
Politically, the combined work occupies a strained middle ground characteristic of post-Thirty Years’ War Lutheran apocalypticism. It speaks in threatening tones about judgment upon “rulers” and worldly authorities, yet it rigorously excludes any call to human action or reform. Authority is not overthrown but placed under eschatological scrutiny; reform is deferred from institutions to history itself, which is presented as the instrument of God’s final reckoning. This tension—urgency without agency—reflects a confessional culture exhausted by war and deeply suspicious of both radical enthusiasm and political rebellion.
Taken as a whole, Apocalypsis reserata with its Clavis Apocalyptica exemplifies the afterlife of Lutheran prophetic historicism after 1648: chronologically precise, morally confrontational, and theologically restrained. Its internal contradictions are not failures of coherence but evidence of a tradition struggling to preserve apocalyptic meaning in a world that had survived catastrophe without redemption. As such, the work stands as a revealing document of post-Westphalian Protestant political theology, poised uneasily between prophecy, history, and resignation.
In line with Protestant tradition, he identifies the Antichrist strongly with Rome and Catholic power, but he frames this within a broader cosmic battle narrative.
vd17ppn001060554;. VD17 12:114581S. No US copies OCLC: 46246244
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