revelation

revelation, vision, apocalypse, prophecy are comparable when they mean disclosure or something disclosed by or as if by divine or preternatural means.

Revelation is often specifically applied to the religious ideas transmitted by writers of books regarded as sacred or divinely inspired, especially the Bible; by extension it has come to mean a body of knowledge distinguishable from that attained by the ordinary human processes of observation, experiment, and reason

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'tis revelation satisfies all doubts, explains all mysteries, except her own— Cowper

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revelation differs from natural knowledge, he says, not by being more divine or more certain than natural knowledge, but by being conveyed in a different way— Arnold

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Vision implies, as revelation does not, a seeing of something not corporeally present; often, especially in mystical and poetic language, it suggests a profound intuition of something not comprehensible to the ordinary or unaided reason and often implies the operation of some agent (as the Holy Spirit) or the gift or accession of some inexplicable power (as genius or poetic rapture) not attributable to all men. Vision, however, unlike revelation, does not necessarily imply that what is seen or realized is true or of value to oneself or others

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and some had visions, as they stood on chairs, and sang of Jacob, and the golden stairs— Lindsay

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the ecstasy of imaginative vision, the sudden insight into the nature of things, are also ex-periences not confined to the religious— Edmund Wilson

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an age in which men still saw visions . . . seeing visions . . . was once a more significant, interesting, and disciplined kind of dreaming— T. S. Eliot

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Apocalypse in religious use denotes a type of sacred book (of which the Book of Revelation is an example) which presents a vision of the future in which the enemies of Israel or of Christianity are defeated and God's justice and righteousness prevail. In its general application apocalypse usually denotes a vision of the future, when all the mysteries of life shall be explained and good shall magnificently triumph over evil. The noun and still more its adjective apocalyptic often carry one or more connotations as various as those of a spectacular splendor or magnitude suggestive of the Book of Revelation or of wild and extravagant dreams of the visionary or passionate reformer

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the apocalyptic imagination of Michelangelo— N. Y. Times

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this allegedly universal religion is challenged today by another secular religion with an alternative apocalypse of history— Niebuhr

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the writers of political apocalypse and other forms of science fiction . . . have dealt in absolutes— Davis

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Prophecy has become rare in its original meaning except in learned use and in some religious use. Its occasional connotation of the prediction of future events has been emphasized to such an extent that its historical implications have almost been lost, with the result that the word in older writings is often misinterpreted. Prophecy in this narrow sense implies a commission to speak for another, especially and commonly for God or a god. It therefore further implies that the prophet has been the recipient of divine communications or revelations or *hat he has been granted a vision or visions

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though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge . . . and have not charity, I am nothing— 1 Cor 13:2

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prophecy is not prediction, it is not a fore-casting of events. Rather, it is the vision which apprehends things present in the light of their eternal issues— Seaver

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Antonyms: adumbration