In the final fragment 56, no new vision is presented. The Apocalypse is closed with a final text in which several voices sound, such as: the Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Bride and John himself.
And he said to me: These words are faithful and true; and God, the Lord over the spirits of the holy prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants things which must shortly come to pass. Behold, I come quickly; blessed is who keeps the words of this prophecy of this book.
This beatification mirrors the first beatification of Revelation 1:3: Blessed is who reads them and they that hear them, the words of this prophecy, and keeps which is written therein. For the time is near.
Three times, at the beginning, in the middle part and at the end, Christ says in this fragment Truly, I come quickly! Schult (p.354) remarks that often this text is unjustly interpreted as meaning that the end of the world is near. In his opinion it means that time is becoming transparent for eternity. Everything that happens in the future is already now prepared. In God’s eternity the evolution of man is just the blink of a moment. Origenes describes the kingdom of God as the simultaneous panorama of all past and future aeons. The Apocalypse wants to be understood from the point of view of the eternal now. The large and small time cycles of the Apocalypse can be applied on each period.
In the middle part of this last fragment Christ, Sophia and John speak. Christ as the divine I in cosmos and men. Sophia as the pure spiritual soul of all that is created and man. And John as the physically incarnated man. Christ, Sophia and John symbolize the spirit, soul and body, the image of man who penetrates all spheres (Schult, p.355).
Understanding the revolution of the publication of the Apocalypse
The call of Christ to not seal this book, as was prescribed in all old mystery schools, is quite revolutionary. What was hidden till that moment has now to be made public! This is the great change which is taking place because the time of decision has come. Christ does not force a change. Everybody can continue with what he or she is doing, the call is for a free choice to turn around and go the path to the light. But with the Revelation of this knowledge the separation between light and darkness has begun.
And finally the usual spells are given to protect the book and frighten any person who would want to change something of its content.
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