Abstract
[1] The revelation of Jesus Christ, [2] which God gave unto him [3] for to show unto his servants the things which must shortly come to pass. [4] And he sent and showed by his angel unto his servant John, [5] which bore record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. [6] Happy is he that readeth and they that hear the words of the prophecy and keep those things which are written therein, [7] for the time is at hand.
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- 1.
bore] 1548; bare 1545, 1570.
- 2.
latter-time] 1545, 1570; after tyme 1548, 1550.
- 3.
premonishment = warning; forewarning (OED, citing this passage and one on the following page as the first usages; the word is quite common in the Image).
- 4.
peculiar = distinguished in nature, character, or attributes (OED adj. 1.a).
- 5.
deduce = to bring, convey, lead forth, conduct (OED v. 1, which mistakenly dates the first usage to 1578).
- 6.
Bale here evokes early Christians who denied the divinity of Jesus: Ebionites (an early Jewish Christian sect), Carpocras (2nd-century leader of a Gnostic sect), and Cerinthus (a late 1st-, early 2nd-century heretic).
- 7.
See Lk 2.25–38. Simeon and Anna were both prophets who recognized Jesus as the Messiah in the temple.
- 8.
5] 1550, 1570; om. 1545, 1548.
- 9.
Asia the less = Asia Minor.
- 10.
acceptation = favourable reception (OED 2, citing 1567 as the first usage).
- 11.
The antecedent of ‘which is’ is grammatically ‘sin’, though the sense of the phrase suggests that Bale is referring to ‘errors, lies, and sin’.
- 12.
That = That which.
- 13.
abject = one cast off; an outcast; a degraded person (OED n. 2).
- 14.
register = a book or volume in which important items of information of a particular kind are regularly and accurately recorded (OED n. 1 2a).
- 15.
who it should be that should speak] 1545, 1570; who it shulde speake 1548; who should speake 1550(W).
- 16.
side = reaching or hanging far down on the person; long (OED a. 3, which includes this passage among the definitions).
- 17.
spear = to exclude, shut out (OED v. 1 4).
- 18.
depure = to free from impurity, cleanse, purify (OED).
- 19.
man] 1545, 1550(W), 1570; manye 1548, 1550.
- 20.
besides = to be removed away from (OED 4c, citing 1551 as the first usage).
- 21.
The subject of ‘is’ is the sword.
- 22.
marked] 1545; marketh 1548.
- 23.
astonied = stunned, stupefied, deprived of sensation (OED ppl. a. 1).
- 24.
not…word = i.e., he also spoke when he relieved me.
- 25.
impassible] 1545, 1570, Christmas; impossible 1548, 1550. In the 16th-century texts this word is frequently mis-printed as ‘impossible’. impassible = incapable of suffering or pain; not subject to suffering (chiefly theological) (OED a. 1).
- 26.
interpellation = the action of appealing to or entreating; pleading, intercession (OED 1).
- 27.
conversation = the action of living or having one’s being in a place or among persons; figuratively, of one’s spiritual being (OED 1, obsolete).
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Minton, G.E. (2013). The First Chapter. In: Minton, G. (eds) John Bale’s 'The Image of Both Churches'. Studies in Early Modern Religious Tradition, Culture and Society, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7296-0_3
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