A Touchstone Partner Feature

released 12/19/2025

Advent is a season marking Christ’s first coming, but it should also bring to mind his second, which will be announced by the last trumpet. In this essay, Alan Jacobs examines several literary imaginings of “the last days” and argues that such narration is profoundly inadequate and perhaps even presumptuous. His point is that “the Apocalypse cannot be narrated” because “the end of history is . . . beyond story itself.” Jacobs discusses the two traditions of the early Church Fathers regarding the interpretation of the Book of Revelation: one historical and futurist, and one allegorical and ahistorical. These theological perspectives necessarily result in different fictional narratives about the Apocalypse, but Jacobs questions the novel’s appropriateness for conveying an eschatological vision at all. He concludes that perhaps Dante is “our best guide to these vexing matters: He knows when to shut up.”

This essay is provided courtesy of Touchstone magazine. It was published in the September 2004 volume and is read by Ken Myers.

51 minutes

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