1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Apocalypse

APOCALYPSE (Gr. ἀποκάλυψις, disclosure), a term applied to the disclosure to certain privileged persons of something hidden from the mass of men. The Greek root corresponds in the Septuagint to the Heb. gālāh, to reveal. The last book of the New Testament bears in Greek the title Άποκάλυψις Ίωάννου, and is frequently referred to as the Apocalypse of John, but in the English Bible it appears as the Revelation of St John the Divine (see Revelation). Earlier among the hellenistic Jews the term was used of a number of writings which depicted in a prophetic and parabolic way the end or future state of the world (e.g. Apocalypse of Baruch), the whole class is now commonly known as Apocalyptic Literature (q.v.).