The Seba library treats Scroll in 9 passages, across 5 authors (including Augustine, Frank S. Thielman, Jung, Carl Gustav).
the scroll shall be rolled together: and the grass over which it was spread, shall with the goodliness of it pass away; but Thy Word remaineth for ever
Augustine opposes the perishable scroll — figure of all temporal mediation — to the eternal divine Word, making the scroll's dissolution the condition of truth's permanence.
, Confessions, 397thesis
John sees a scroll with seven seals in the hand of God. Only Jesus is found worthy to open the seals of the scroll and reveal its contents. He is worthy to do this because he has 'conquered' by means of his suffering
Thielman reads the sealed scroll as the central soteriological mechanism of Revelation, its opening contingent upon the Lamb's redemptive suffering on behalf of every people.
, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005thesis
John had seen a scroll with seven seals in God’s right hand and a 'mighty angel' had asked aloud who was worthy to open the scroll’s seals. The slain Lamb was found to be worthy because he had suffered just as his people would be required to suffer
The scroll's unsealing in Revelation chapter 10 recapitulates the prophetic commission of Ezekiel, linking the apocalyptic scroll to an ancient tradition of divinely authorised proclamation.
, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005thesis
Hereupon follows the opening of the Book with Seven Seals by the 'Lamb.' The latter has put off the human features of the 'Ancient of Days' and now appears in purely theriomorphic but monstrous form
Jung's psychological reading of the Apocalypse treats the sealed book's opening as a transformation of the God-image, disclosing unconscious contents that press toward integration.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958supporting
it lists both scriptures that are available on earth and those that are 'not yet revealed,' giving varying numbers of scrolls, although most texts are said to consist of one scroll only
In Daoist canonical taxonomy, the scroll functions as the fundamental unit of hieratic textual authority, its enumeration marking the boundary between revealed and withheld sacred knowledge.
, Daoism Handbook, 2000supporting
The third scroll, finally, has a number of additional talismans and spells with specific explanations. They serve to protect the active adept from serpents, dragons, tigers, panthers, and other dangerous creatures of the wild.
The scroll's three-part internal structure within the Lingbao corpus organises distinct grades of esoteric content — meditation, talisman, and protective ritual — each scroll constituting a discrete stage of initiation.
, Daoism Handbook, 2000supporting
LB 9, the gran wucheng wen, in its extant version consists of two scrolls, the first of which has talismans corresponding to the five directions with a description of their efficacy and application.
Daoist scroll divisions encode cosmological structure — the five directions, efficacy, and application — so that each scroll unit is itself a microcosm of the sacred order it transmits.
, Daoism Handbook, 2000supporting
Scripture, Holy, see Bible scroll, 28
Von Franz's index places 'scroll' in direct adjacency to Holy Scripture and the Self archetype, silently encoding its function as a carrier of psychically significant revealed content.
, C.G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time, 1975aside
Ni Zan's short handscroll 'The Crane Grove' is owned by the Zhongguo Meishuguan (Chinese Art Gallery) in Beijing
The handscroll form in Daoist pictorial art carries symbolic weight as a container of sacred landscape and hermetic imagery, even when functioning ostensibly as an aesthetic object.
, Daoism Handbook, 2000aside