I was afterwards confirmed by Neander in the belief that the Apocalypse is a false prophecy.

The only chapter of it which is interpreted,--the 17th,--appears to be a political speculation suggested by the civil war of Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian; and erroneously opines that the eighth emperor of Rome is to be the last, and is to be one of the preceding emperors restored,--probably Nero, who was believed to have escaped to the kings of the East .-- As for the Epistle to the Hebrews, (which I was disposed to believe Luther had well guessed to be the production of Apollos,) I now saw quite a different genius in it from that of Paul, as more artificial and savouring of rhetorical culture.
As to this, the learned Germans are probably unanimous.
Next to these, the Song of Solomon fell away.

I had been accustomed to receive this as a sacred representation of the loves of Christ and the Church: but after I was experimentally acquainted with the playful and extravagant genius of man's love for woman, I saw the Song of Solomon with new eyes, and became entirely convinced that it consists of fragments of love-songs, some of them rather voluptuous.
After this, it followed that the so-called _Canon_ of the Jews could not guarantee to us the value of the writings.

Consequently, such books as Ruth and Esther, (the latter indeed not containing one religious sentiment,) stood forth at once in their natural insignificance.

Ecclesiastes also seemed to me a meagre and shallow production.