Apocalypse

APOCALYPSE

Signifies revelation, but is particularly referred to the revelations which John had in the isle of Patmos, whither he was banished by Domitian. Hence it is another name for the book of Revelation. This book belongs, in its character, to the prophetical writings, and stands in intimate relation with the prophecies of the Old Testament, and more especially with the writings of the later prophets, as Ezekiel, Zechariah, and particularly Daniel, inasmuch as it is almost entirely symbolical. This circumstance has surrounded the interpretation of this book with difficulties, which no interpreter has yet been able fully to overcome. As to the author, the weight of testimony throughout all the history of the church is in favor of John, the beloved apostle. As to the time of its composition, most commentators suppose it to have been written after the destruction of Jerusalem, about A. D. 96; while others assign it an earlier date.It is an expanded illustration of the first great promise, “The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent.” Its figures and symbols are august and impressive. It is full of prophetic grandeur, and awful in its hieroglyphics and mystic symbols: seven seals opened, seven trumpets sounded, seven vials poured out; mighty antagonists and hostile powers, full of malignity against Christianity, and for a season oppressing it, but at length defeated and annihilated; the darkened heaven, tempestuous sea, and convulsed earth fighting against them, while the issue of the long combat is the universal reign of peace and truth and righteousness-the whole scene being relieved at intervals by a choral burst of praise to God the Creator, and Christ the Redeemer and Governor. Thus its general scope is intelligible to all readers, or it could not yield either hope or comfort. It is also full of Christ. It exhibits his glory as Redeemer and Governor, and describes that deep and universal homage and praise which the “Lamb that was slain” is forever receiving before the throne. Either Christ is God, or the saints and angels are guilty of idolatry.”To explain this book perfectly,” says Bishop Newton, “is not the work of one man, or of one age; probably it never will be clearly understood till it is all fulfilled.”

Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

Apocalypse

I. Introductions

1. The word apocalypse in the NT.- (revelation) occurs some eighteen times in the NT. The general sense is instruction concerning Divine things before unknown-especially those relating to the Christian salvation-given to the soul by God or the ascended Christ, especially through the operation of the Holy Spirit (1Co 2:10) (Thayer Grimms Gr.-Eng. Lexicon of the NT, tr. Thayer ) The word was important to St. Paul when he wished to express his independence of the first apostles in reference to his knowledge of the gospel and even to the steps taken to come to an understanding with them (Eph 3:3, Gal 2:2). The object of is, therefore, a mystery (Rom 16:25). The gospel without it would remain unknown, with it it is an open secret.* [Note: Denney, et al.] The source, as also the end or object, of is God or Jesus Christ, and the mode may be vision or ecstasy (2Co 12:1). It may also be, however, events which strike the general eye, e.g. the righteous judgment of God (Rom 2:5); of the sons of God (Rom 8:19), i.e. the glory that is manifestly given to some, showing them to be sons of God; of the glory of Christ (1Pe 4:13), i.e. the glory with which He will return from heaven (Thayer Grimms Gr.-Eng. Lexicon of the NT, tr. Thayer ). The return is called the of the Lord Jesus Christ (2Th 1:7, 1Co 1:7, 1Pe 1:2; 1Pe 1:13). As a prophet is one to whom truth comes not from man but from God, what he utters may be called an , and he himself may be said to have an , or to speak (1Co 14:26; cf. 1Co 5:6). It is a fact of much suggestiveness for the subject of this article (see below) that, so far as the NT is concerned, the prophet and the apocalyptist may be considered one and the same.

2. The NT Apocalypse of John as the type of apocalyptic writings.-Though in the sense of the Christian creed the whole Bible is by pre-eminence the literature of apocalypse or revelation, there is only one book in each Testament to which the name has been given. In the NT we have the Apocalypse of John and in the OT we have the Book of Daniel, which is unmistakably both in style and substance of the same literary genus. The latter is-apart from what may be called apocalyptic fragments in the older prophetical writings, e.g. Is 24-the oldest known Apocalypse, and has served as a model for subsequent writings of the class. Daniel and the Apocalypse of John mark respectively the beginning and the end of what may be called the apocalyptic period, which thus covers upwards of 260 years (say 168 b.c. to a.d. 96). [Note: Daniel belongs to the time of the persecution of the Jews under the Greek-Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes (168-165 b.c.); the Apoc. of John probably to the persecution of the Christians under the Roman emperor Domitian (a.d. 81-96).] It thus appears that, while there is an apocalyptic element in practically all the books of the NT (see below), there is only one writing belonging to the Apostolic Age which is as a whole of the apocalyptic class, and which, despite much controversy in the early centuries, [Note: The canonicity of the Apocalypse was controverted, esp. in the Eastern Church, and it was not till a.d. 215 that the Western Church, under the leadership of Hippolytus, accepted it. The East finally yielded to the West.] has held its place among the books of authority recognized by the Christian Church. This circumstance alone might warrant the almost exclusive devotion of this article to an account of this book, but such concentration offers, besides, the advantage of showing the leading features of the apocalyptic style as they appear, so to speak, synthetically, interwoven with an actual situation-a crisis-on which the mind of the apocalyptist reacts. In regard to the uncanonical apocalypses, if one may not say, after studying the Apocalypse, Ex uno disce omnes, one may remember the attention paid to the lesser apocalypses during the last half-century, and say that the creepers have not suffered from the overshadowing of the cypress. [Note: Ecl. i. 25f., quoted by Moffatt (EGT v. 295).]

3. Non-canonical apocalypses of the Apostolic Age.-As, however, both the Apocalypse and the other books of the NT contain implicit references, and, in at least one case,* [Note: Jud 1:14 f.; cf. Eth. En. 1:9.] an explicit reference to other apocalypses, a list may here be given of the non-canonical apocalypses, either wholly or partly extant, and of others whose existence may be inferred from quotations of them found in the early Fathers. They may be classified under three heads: (A) Jewish, (B) Jewish-Christian, (C) Hellenic or Gentile.

(A) Under this head fall: (a) The cycle known as Enoch, which includes: (a) The Ethiopic Enoch, so called because it survives chiefly in an Ethiopic Version. It includes: (1) chs. 1-36, 72-108 (circa, about 100 b.c.); (2) chs. 37-71 (Book of Similitudes), which belongs probably to the early days of the Herodian dynasty, and is therefore close to the Christian era. In this book [Note: 48:2f., 62:2 etc. See L. A. Muirhead, The Times of Christ, Edinburgh, 1905, pp. 141f., 147.] occur those references to the pre-existent Messiah under the title Son of man, which Hilgenfeld and others hare ascribed to Christian interpolation, but whose direct debt is probably only to Daniel (see esp. Dan 7:13). () The Slavonic Secrets of Enoch, before a.d. 70.-(b) Assumption of Moses (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ) not later than a.d. 10.-(c) Apocalypse of Ezra, usually cited as Fourth Ezra (=2 Esdras [q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ] of English Apocrypha, chs. 3-14), after a.d. 90.-(d) Apocalypse of Baruch (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ), about the same time as 4 Ezra.-(e) The Testament of Abraham, perhaps the 1st cent. a.d.-(f) The Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ), probably the 1st cent. a.d.-(a), (b), (d), and (f) are best accessible to the English reader in the careful editions of R. H. Charles, Oxford, 1893, 1897, 1896, 1908. In regard to (c), we have, in addition to the scholarly editions of James and Bensly, G. H. Bons The Ezra-Apocalypse (London, 1912). For (e), we have the edition of M. R. James (Cambridge, 1892). N.B.-See now also R. H. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the OT, Oxford, 1913.

Closely related to the apocalyptical books are: (g) The Psalms of Solomon, 64-40 b.c., edited by Ryle and James (Cambridge, 1891) under the alternative title Psalms of the Pharisees.-(h) The Book of Jubilees, probably before Christ. See Charles translation in Jewish Quarterly Review vi. [1894] 710, vii. [1895] 297.-(i) The Ascension of Isaiah (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] )-Jewish part=the Martyrdom of Isaiah (2:1-3:12 and 5:2-14), Charles edition (London, 1900). In addition to these extant books are 4, which are known to us only through citations In Origen and other Fathers: (j) The Prayer of Joseph; (k) The Book of Eldad and Medad; (l) The Apocalypse of Elijah; (m [Note: ] ) The Apocalypse of Zephaniah.

(B) Under this head would fall not be much apocalypses written independently by Jews who were Christians-for, if we except the Apocalypse of John, such books are hardly known to have existed-as (a) Selections from Jewish apocalypses of matter embodying beliefs common to Jews and Christians; and (b) Christian interpolations of Jewish apocalypses. Of these (a) are by far the more frequent. The OT was the Bible of the early Christians, and such an example as that of Jud 1:14 f. (cf. En. 1:9), taken along with the implicit references to apocalyptic writings which are found in the Apocalypse and other books of the NT (see below), reveals a tendency among the Christians to extend the range of the Canon; it points at the same time to the large amount of matter, both within and beyond the Canon, that was common to Jews and Christians. It is, indeed, a fact worthy of special notice that at an early period, which we may date roughly from the fall of the Jewish State in a.d. 70, apocalyptic literature begins to lose interest for the Synagogue in proportion as it gains it for the Christian Church. This fact invents the apocalyptic literature with a peculiar interest for the student of the Apostolic Age. There is the general question as to how that age of early Christians came to value and even to produce apocalyptic books, which we convert here into the more concrete question, How could it produce the Apocalypse of John? There is the dogmatic question, What are the elements in this book which entitle it to the position of authority it holds to this day? For (b), examples of Christian interpolation may be found in The Ascension of Isaiah, which is Christian in all but 2:1-3:12 and 5:2-14; and in chs. 1 and 2, and 15 and 16 of 4 Ezra which are sometimes quoted as 5 and 6 Ezra respectively.

(C) Hellenic apocalypses.-The Sibylline Oracles (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ), Jewish works under a heathen mask (Schrer), are the best instance under this head. They are the work or Hellenistic Jews, and are written in Greek hexameters for Gentiles, under names which have authority for such readers. The fact that they have been subjected to considerable Christian interpolation testifies to the extent of their circulation. Much the best edition of them, based on 14 Manuscripts , is that of Rzach (Oracula Sibyllina, Vienna, 1891). English readers may consult Schrers History of the Jewish People (Eng. tr. of GJV).] ii. iii. 288-92; Edinb. Review (July 1877); Deanes Pseudepigrapha (1891), 276ff.; Charles Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, ii.

As an example or distinctively Christian work, produced under more decidedly Hellenic influence than is to be found in works of Jewish origin, may be mentioned the Apocalypse of Peter, a large part of which was edited for the English reader in 1892. Strong claims to canonicity were made for it in early times, and its teaching largely influenced later Christian ideas of heaven and hell. It is as strongly Greek as Revelation [the Apoc. of John] is Jewish, having a close relation to the Greek Orphic Literature. It concerns the lot of souls after death, whereas Revelation, like the Jewish apocalypses, is more concerned with the course of world-history (Porter, from whose Messages of the Apoc. Writers, 7ff., these lists are mainly taken).

4. Period and general characteristics of apocalyptic literature.-Before passing to an account of the Apocalypse of John we must try to form a definite idea of the characteristic features of apocalyptic literature-its design, form, and leading ideas. From the point of view of the student of the NT, apocalypse must be considered as of purely Jewish growth.* [Note: That is to say, questions as to the affinities of the phraseology and conceptions with those or heathen mythology belong rather to the study of the OT. Long before John writes, the mythological conceptions have passed through the mill of the spirit that is distinctive of the Jewish faith. What further refinement they need is supplied by the mill of the Christian fulfilment.] As we have seen, the period within which apocalyptic literature was produced occupied over a century and a half before the birth of Christ and about a century after. It is thus the accompaniment and interpretation of the last great struggle of the Jewish people for that political independence-with an implicit idea of supremacy-which seemed to be due to the Chosen People. Within this period fall the comparative victory (Maccabaean triumph), varying fortunes (political importance, accompanied with decline of religious fervour; dissensions between the lax hellenizing and the puritanical patriotic party), and the ultimate seeming extinction (capture of Jerusalem by Titus a.d. 70) of this ideal. The apocalyptists are the instructors and encouragers of the people in the name of God in reference to that Kingdom which, in spite of the greatness of the world-powers that are their rivals and the enemies of Jahweh, is yet to come to them from God and to be realized in the world. In Daniel, which belongs to the period of the Maccabaean struggle, we may see the high-water mark of spiritual faith reached by this ideal; in the fact that after the fall of the Jewish State, the kernel [Note: Yet what is here said is not altogether true of the Jews of the Dispersion.] of the nation, the Jews of the stricter synagogue, ceased to cherish the apocalypses and perhaps even suppressed [Note: The apocalypses survive for the most part not in their native Hebrew or Aramaic but in Greek, and in the dialects of the districts where they were received, and where they were read more by Christians than by Jews.] them, we have an index of the limitations of the ideal. The Kingdom, however loftily conceived by the seers of the nation, was still in the actual thought of the orthodox Jew too much of this world and of his own nation. Between this flow and ebb lies the history of apocalypse, as it is to be read within the limits of Judaism. It is a record of great hopes and fidelities, but also of great disappointments and of failures both in conception and fulfilment. The great apocalypses were written in periods of stress. Judging from Daniel, we may say, perhaps, the greater the stress the truer the inspiration of the apocalyptist. The leading ideas are simple but great; the tribulation is real. It will last for a measured while, and even increase. The troubling powers are fierce and violent. They rage like wild beasts and seem to be of great power; but their power passes, and the Kingdom comes to the faithful and the patient. Death does not end everything either for the faithful or for the lawless, and there is special bliss for those who lose life for righteousness sake. [Note: Dan 12:2 is fairly cited as probably the only passage in the OT that clearly teaches a bodily resurrection for individual Israelites. The resurrection would seem to be universal as regards Israel (though this la doubtful), but nothing is said of the heathen.]

As to the literary form of the apocalypses, the most salient distinguishing feature is a certain obscurity of imagery, which sometimes takes the form of a grotesqueness, and of an incongruity in details, winch are excusable only upon The supposition that the awkward imagery was capable of the twofold task of conveying the meaning to those for whom it was intended, and of veiling it from others.

This obscurity of style is connected with the fact that apocalypses were, so far as we know, in nearly every case pseudonymous. Daniel was not written, like the prophecies of Isaiah or Jeremiah, to be spoken. It was written to be read. Probably in the case of the author of Daniel, the pseudonymity was due, not so much to the feeling* [Note: The feeling was, however, undoubtedly present. The authors appeal to books is a confession of it (Dan 9:2; cf. Jer 25:11 f.). See L. A. Muirhead, The Eschatology of Jesus, London, 1904, p. 71ff.] that he would not be accepted by his fellow-countrymen as a prophet, as to the necessity of eluding the hostility and even the suspicion of the Syrian authorities. A prophet might be arrested in the street, a living author might be traced to his desk. But what could the Syrian do with the influence of writings that were three centuries old? The example of the author of Daniel made pseudonymity a fashion. Writers who had no cause to fear arrest, but some perhaps to fear neglect, wrote in the names of prophets or saints of bygone days. It is difficult for us to conceive how any one able to handle a pen could have been deceived by such fictions. On the other hand, there is a certain impressiveness in the fact that questions regarding the real state of matters (in the literary sense) do not seem to have emerged. Readers and interpreters of the apocalypses were concerned with their message for their own time. If an interpreter had thoughts of his own regarding the literary structure of an apocalypse, he suppressed them. His instinct told him, as its equivalent tells the modern preacher, that a text does not become the word of God until it is released from bondage to its historical meaning. At the same time their artificial literary style takes from the spiritual value of the apocalyptic writings. If real history, in so far as it deals with the past, is a veil-though a transparent one-between God and the spirit of the reader, the fiction of history, behind which the apocalyptic writer found it necessary (even were it in the interest of his message) to conceal himself, becomes, at least for later readers, a veil that is opaque. Parables that are puzzles can hardly be edifying. Some of the parables of Daniel are puzzles to this day. It is a question of some moment how far such criticism applies to the canonical Apocalypse of the NT.

Besides community in general ideas and in pseudonymity, apocalypses have a certain community in imagery. There is, as it were, a sample stock of images always accessible to the apocalyptist.

On the side of good, we have (to take great examples) God and His throne, angels such as Michael and Gabriel, or angelic beings resembling men (of whom the chief, when he appears at all, is the Messiah), books written with the names of the saints, the paradise of God with its trees of healing and nourishment, the new creation with its wonders specialized in the new city and temple. On the side of evil, we have Satan, the opposer, deceiver, accuser, the monster of the deep (dragon or crocodile), wild beasts of the land, which, however, rise out of the deep, [Note: Rev 13:1 ff., Dan 7:3 ff., 4 Ezr. 13:1ff. In the last passage the figure of one like a man (the Messiah) rises from the sea, and then flies among the clouds, and the explanation is given; As none can find out what is in the depths of the sea, so none of the inhabitants of the earth can see my son and his companions save at the hour of his day (v. 5f.). The depth of the sea rather than the height of heaven seemed to Ezra the surest stronghold of secrets that should be inaccessible to men. On the representation of this idea in the Genesis narratives of creation and the relation of the latter to the Babylonian myth of Marduk and Timat, see Gunkel, Schpfung u. Chaos, 1895.] a man of lawlessness who embodies all blasphemy, a great whore who incarnates all the abominations of the heathen world. In view of this sameness of the underlying imagery, the originality of an apocalyptist is to be seen more in the use of his material than in the material itself. The forces of good and evil remain the same, the general aspect of conflict between them-the inherent strength of Gods rule and the imminent collapse of the devils-remains to the prophetic eye the same, but persons and events change. The apocalyptist of truly prophetic spirit has his eye fixed on God and his own time; and, while he uses what, abstractly considered, seems a cumbrous and partly alien literary form, he does so not to exercise a literary gift but to convey a message, the urgency of which lies on his spirit as a burden of the Lord. An obvious criterion of the rightfulness of his claim to be a prophet will be the ease and freedom with which he is able to adapt the material, imposed by his choice of the apocalyptic form, to the purpose of his message.

Judged in this way, the Apocalypse of John shines in a light which no student of early Christian literature can call other than brilliant. Whatever difficulties were felt by the early Fathers in giving it a place in the Canon, there is no book of the NT whose claim, once admitted, has been less a matter of subsequent doubt. Until less than a century ago, the Apocalypse was supposed to contain a forecast* [Note: In an obvious sense, of course, the book did contain such a forecast. As with every prophet, the end is within the vision of the writer. In his case it is to come shortly-i.e., most likely within his own generation.] of the entire career of the Church in time, but the modification, of this view through the clear perception that both prophets and apocalyptists wrote for their own time, attaching to its needs and prospects a certain finality, has not altered the belief of Christians in the permanent spiritual value of this unique book.

II. The Apocalypse of John

1. Scheme of the book.-It is not possible to supply in this article anything like a Commentary or even an adequate introduction to the Apocalypse. Yet it may be useful to precede a discussion of some of its salient features with the following scheme of its contents, which is an abbreviated version of that given by F. C. Porter in his invaluable manual (op. cit. 179f.).

Superscription, Rev 1:1-3.

A. The messages of Christ to His Churches represented by the Seven Churches of Asia, Rev 1:4 to Rev 3:22.

(a)Introduction, including salutation, theme, attestation, Rev 1:4-8.

(b)The Seers Call, Rev 1:9-20.

(c)The Seven Messages, chs. 2 and 3.

B. Visions of Judgment, composing the body of the book (chs. 4-20) intersected at chs. 7, 11, 14, and 19, with visions of the victory and bliss of the faithful.

(a)Visions of God and Christ respectively performing and revealing, chs. 4 and 5.

(b)First stages of the Judgment, including the opening of six seals, [Note: There are pauses after the 6th seal and the 6th trumpet. The 7th seal contains, as it were, the 7 trumpets, and the 7th trumpet contains the 7 bowls.] the salvation of the faithful, and the destruction of one-third of mankind at the sounding of six trumpets, chs. 6-9.

(c)Last stages of the, Judgment, issuing in the final overthrow of Satan and Rome, especially the imperial cultus (the Beast), and in the General Resurrection and Judgment. The Seer receives a new commission. He describes the conflict between the worshippers or the Beast and the followers of the Lamb, and his vision of the wrath of God in seven bowls, chs. 10-20. Note that a large portion of this section consists of assurances to the faithful and of songs of triumph, and much the greater part of the judgment portion (chs. 12, 17, 18, and 19) describes the fall of Rome.

C. The Blessed Consummation, including the coming of God to dwell with men and the descent of the Heavenly Jerusalem, chs. 21 and 22. Note that both the Epilogue and the Prologue of the book solemnly emphasize the claim to be considered prophecy (Rev 22:18 f; cf. Rev 1:3).

2. Examples of the problems.-A few specimens may be given of the many fascinating problems which emerge for the student regarding: (1) the literary structure of the Apocalypse; (2) the significance of some of its more prominent details.

(1) In spite of its being, more than almost any other book of the NT (see below), saturated with reminiscences of books of the OT (esp. Dan., Ezek., Is., Jer., Joel, and generally all the portions of the OT which describe visions of God or offer pictures of bliss or woe), the book leaves the reader with a strong impression of its spiritual unity. The writer is a Christian and a prophet. His central positive theme is Christ Crucified, Risen, and Ascended (Rev 1:17 f, Rev 5:6; Rev 5:12 ff.). The warrant, substance, and spirit of his prophecy are the testimony of Jesus, a phrase in which the of seems to include both a subjective and an objective meaning* [Note: The words the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy are a gloss (see the Commentaries), but they are entirely true to the writers thought (rev 1:1), and from with 1Co 12:3 an interesting witness to the test applied to prophets in the early Church.] (Rev 19:10; cf. Rev 1:1 ff.). The world to come is imminent, and its inheritors are the worshippers of God and the Lamb (Rev 1:5 f, Rev 7:9 ff. etc.).

It is evident, however, as a few examples will be sufficient to show, that this general unity goes along with great looseness in the assimilation of borrowed material.

Examples: (a) Ch. 11 is made up of portions of two apocalypses, one or which (represented by Rev 11:1-2) belongs to the time of the siege of Jerusalem (circa, about a.d. 70), and the other embodies a portion of the Antichrist legend, which related how Antichrist would slay Enoch and Elijah, returned from heaven, who would, however, be raised up by God or His angels Gabriel and Michael (see Boussets Antichrist; and Tert. de Anima). In thy Apocalypse, Enoch becomes Moses, and what was previously described (Rev 11:2) as the holy city becomes spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where the Lord was crucified (Rev 11:8). The general purpose-to teach that the worshippers or the true God are safe (Rev 11:1-2), and that the powers of wicked men will not prevail against the testimony or law and prophecy to the true God (Rev 11:3-12)-is evident. But it is equally evident that the author is hampered in the expression of this message by a superabundance of borrowed and not quite congruous material. Though the time of the testimony of the two witness in Rev 11:3 corresponds with that during which the holy city is to be trodden under foot by the Gentiles (cf. Rev 11:2-3), the situation of the city at Rev 11:13 does not correspond with that indicated at Rev 11:2 any more than the holy city of the latter verse corresponds with Sodom and Egypt of Rev 11:8.

(b) An example or Composite structure, better known to modern students of the Apocalypse (through Gunkels Schpf. u. Chaos), but more difficult to exhibit with precision, is the vision in ch. 12 of the Messiah-mother and the Dragon seeking to devour her child. The teaching of John is, again, evident enough. Satan has been overthrown by the birth and ascension of the Messiah. He has been cast down from heaven, but he is still permitted to persecute the Messianic community on earth. If his wrath is fierce, it is because his time is short. Let the persecuted lend their ear to the loud voice saying in heaven: Now is come salvation-and the Kingdom of our God (Rev 12:17; Rev 12:12; Rev 12:10). It is clear, however, that, apart from a desire to use materials which lay to his hand in fragments of Jewish apocalypses, which borrowed and combined Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greek myths, he would not have expressed his meaning in the way we find in this chapter. The scene begins in heaven, and the woman is described (Rev 12:1) in language appropriate to a goddess. Then she appears (Rev 12:6), without explanation, on the earth, where she finds refuge and nourishment in the wilderness. The Dragon then cast out of heaven to the earth (Rev 12:9), although this ejection seems already to be assumed at Rev 12:4, and on the earth he pursues the woman to her retreat in the wilderness. A Christian meaning can doubtless be put into it all, but no one narrator could ever spontaneously have told the story in this way. For a brief and lucid attempt to conceive the possible process through which the immediate and remote materials passed in the hands of John, see Porter, op. cit. 236ff.

(2) Of problems turning on more special points we have good instances in ch. 13. We may feel satisfied that the first Beast is, in general, the Roman Empire embodied in the person of the Emperor, while the second (the lamb that spake as a dragon, Rev 13:11) is the priesthood of the Imperial cultus exercising a lamb-like office with all the ferocity of dragon-like tyrants. We may be satisfied also that under the imagery of the first Beast the author must have thought both of Nero and Domitian. Still the questions remain: (a) What is the deadly wound that was healed (Rev 13:12)? (b) Who is the man whose number is the number of the Beast (Rev 13:18)? (c) Is the number 666, or, as in some Manuscripts , 616? These three questions are closely interdependent. It has been argued that, as the Beast is rather the Empire than an individual Emperor, the wound should refer to some event of public rather than of personal import. To the objection that Rev 13:18 speaks expressly of the number of a man, it is replied that, on the analogy of Rev 21:17, this may simply mean that the number is to be reckoned in a human and not in a heavenly or angelic way. It is found that the Greek letters* [Note: The letters of both the Greek and the Hebrew alphabets have each a numerical value.] of the phrase meaning the Latin Kingdom give the number 666, while the value of the letters in the Italian Kingdom is 616. Against the identification of the Beast with Nero it is further argued that the Hebrew equivalent of Nero Caesar, rightly spelt (i.e. with the yod [] in Caesar), [Note: not ; cf. art. Antichrist.] gives not 666 but 676. Accepting this point of view, we should still have to ask, What were the events that were respectively the inflicting and the healing of a deadly wound, and we are presented with the alternative theories: assassination of Julius Caesar (wound), accession of Augustus (healing); end of the Julian dynasty in Nero (wound), rise of the Flavian dynasty (healing). On the other hand, it is contended that, apart even from Rev 21:18, the whole passage is too intense and too definite in its reference to exclude particular Emperors from the view of the author or his readers. He must have thought of Nero. Almost as certainly he must have thought of Domitian, whom he conceived as Nero Redivivus (Rev 17:11), and, not improbably, he also thought of Caligula, to whose attempt to set up his own statue in Jerusalem the Apocalypse of the blasphemous beast (considered as material borrowed by John) might be supposed to have originally referred. [Note: v. 5 with the description of Antiochus Epiphanes in Dan 11:36 ff. It seems to the present writer that John may have thought of Domitian as combining Caligula and Nero in himself in much the same way as the Beast, which in Rome (Rev 13:3), combines in itself alt the ferocities of Daniels first three beast (lion, bear leopard, Dan 7:4 ff.). Like 4 Ezr. 12:10ff. he would consider Daniels fourth beast to be Rome.] . This might explain the variant 616, which is the number of Caligulas name. The omission of the yod in writing the Hebrew form of Caesar is not a serious difficultly (see Moffatt, op. cit.). Finally, Gunkel, finding the Bab. [Note: Babylonian.] original of the Beast in the chaos-monster Timat overcome (in the creation myth) by Marduk, has shown that the Heb. words (Tehm kadhmnyah = the primitive monster) give the number 666. It might be supposed, therefore, that what struck John was that the number of this primaeval beast, traditionally familiar to him, was also the number of a man, viz. Nero. There are serious linguistic Objections to this view (see Moffatt), but it may suggest to us that the number containing three sixes had a traditional meaning. It may have meant the constant effort and failure of what is human to attain the Divine perfection, of which the number 7 was the symbol: so near yet so far off, O the little more, and how much it is.

All these varying views of Johns meaning cannot be true in every particular. Yet we are, perhaps, nearer the truth in saying that portions of all of them must have passed through his mind than in deciding dogmatically in favour of one of them. It seems to the present writer that the loose way in which the prophet and pastor who wrote the Apocalypse dealt with the traditional material that lay to his hand was probably as intentional as the frequent grammatical anomalies and harsh Hebraisms of his text, which no Greek scholar supposes to be due to inadvertence. The man who had the literary genius and the prophetic inspiration to write the songs of triumph and the hortatory portions of the Apocalypse may be believed to have had a method in his carelessness. He was certainly capable of adopting a fixed style of writing and carrying it through in the way that style on the whole required. If he left some strings flying for his readers to cut or fasten up as the spirit might lead them, may it not be a sign that he considered himself and his companions in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ to occupy a sphere which, just because it was supreme and Divine, was not hermetically sealed to the rest of the world, but was open, like the New Jerusalem, to receive testimony and tribute from every quarter?

3. The Apocalypse of John as a product of the Apostolic Age, and a testimony to Jesus as the Christ.-Enough has perhaps been said to show that questions regarding the importance and function of apocalyptic literature in the faith and life of the Apostolic Age are best answered in connexion with a study of the Apocalypse of John. No known apocalyptic writing of the same or greater bulk is comparable with it in vitality of connexion with primitive Christianity; and there is no likelihood that any such writing existed. Attention may be fastened on three matters: (a) the historical situation, (b) the relation of apocalypse to prophecy, (c) the hortatory and dogmatic teaching of the Apocalypse.

(a) The historical situation.-We have seen that the period of apocalyptic literature is roughly the 250 years of the last struggles of the Jewish people for political and religious independence. The first apocalypse of the OT is contemporaneous with the great sacrifices made by the lite of the Jewish people to maintain the national testimony to Jahweh. The sacrificial spirit passed into the community that confessed Jesus of Nazareth, crucified, risen, and ascended, as Lord and Messiah. Very early the sacrificial spirit was called forth. But the first persecutors were not heathen in name. They were the representatives of the city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also the Lord was crucified (Rev 11:8; cf. 1Th 2:14 ff., 2Th 2:1-12). To St. Paul the power of Antichrist lay in the jealousy of the Jewish synagogue, and it would seem from the passage in 2 Thessalonians 2 that the power that restrains ( , ) is the Roman Empire. Certainly the representation in the Acts of the Apostles favours this view (Act 16:37; Act 21:32; Act 22:25ff; Act 25:10 f.). Between the ministry of St. Paul and the time of the Apocalypse a change had taken place. In the Apocalypse the Roman Empire is clearly the instrument of Antichrist. The Dragon gives power to the Beast (Rev 13:4), and it is obvious that in Johns time, and especially in the province of Asia, Christians were persecuted under Imperial authority simply because of their Christian profession. Christianity was a crime punishable with death, in so far as it was inconsistent with the worship of the Emperor (Rev 1:9; Rev 13:16 f.). Doubtless there were differences in the administration of the law, but the tone of the Letters to the Seven Churches (chs. 2 and 3) and of the whole Apocalypse indicates a time when the worst might be apprehended. The beginning of this Imperial attitude to the Christians may perhaps be found in the summer of a.d. 64, when, as Tacitus informs us (Ann. xv. 44), Nero sought to fasten on the Christians the odious charge of incendiarism, and it has been held that the Apocalypse belongs to the time of the Neronic persecution. This view may now be regarded as superseded. Nero is certainly a figure in the Apocalypse (see above), but he is a figure of the past. The Beast is alive in his bestial successor Domitian, whom John considers Nero Redivivus* [Note: The seven kings of Rev 17:10 ff. are the seven emperors-exclusive of the usurpers Galba, Otho, and Vitellius-from Augustus to Nero. The eighth that if of the seven (Rev 17:11) is Domitian, considered as Nero Redivivus.] (cf. Rev 13:3 with Rev 17:11).

It was under Domitian that persecution of the Christians first became a part of the Imperial policy. It is this legalized persecution and the that the centre of the storm lies among the Churches of Asia that rouse the spirit of prophecy in the author of chs. 2 and 3, and, as we venture to think, of the whole Apocalypse. And, assuredly, it was the spirit of prophecy, and not of delusion, that gave him the certainty that the Lord Jesus would come quickly to deliver His people from a situation in which the choice lay between death and unfaithfulness to Him. Every prophet is an eschatologist. He sees the end of what is opposed to the will of holiness and love. It is only for a moment-though the moments of God and history may be long-that cruelty and violence can reign or the meek and righteous be oppressed.

Rev 13:17 seems to indicate an edict actually in force or about to be issued, under which ordinary contracts of exchange should not be legal apart from vows of allegiance to the Emperor as a Divine person. This meant that Christians were excluded from the business of the world, and so from the world itself, and to John it seemed justly a challenge of Gods supremacy, which God and His Christ could not delay to take up. Quite apart from the peculiar genius of its author, the Apocalypse must have been to its first readers a message of comfort and power. Its appeal lay in its inevitableness. In the situation as described, no message short of that contained in the Apocalypse could have seemed worthy of God or a testimony of Jesus Christ. Prophecy is never in vacuo. Gods word is in the mouth of His prophet because it is first in the events which His providence ordains or permits. It would be difficult to rate too highly the literary and spiritual genius of John, yet the authoritativeness of his message for his own time and ours lies not in this but in its correspondence with a situation of crisis for the Kingdom of God. So long as it is possible for a situation to emerge in which we cannot obey mans law without dishonouring Gods, the Apocalypse will be an authority ready for use in the hands of the godly.

(b) Apocalyptic and prophecy.-If this view is just, it contains the answer to two closely related questions: (1) Is the writer, as he represents himself, a companion in tribulation of those to whom he writes (Rev 1:9), or does he, like other apocalyptists, including Daniel, write under the name of some great personage of the past? (2) Is he really a prophet as well as an apocalyptist?

(1) The former question should be kept apart from the question whether the writer can reasonably be identified with the Apostle John. There is nowhere in the book the slightest hint of a claim to apostleship; Rev 21:14 and Rev 18:20 suggest rather that the author distinguished himself from the holy apostles and prophets and from the 12 apostles. We do not know enough regarding the Churches of Asia in the 1st cent. to say with confidence that only one who was as highly esteemed as John the Apostle (Ramsay) or John the Presbyter (Bousset) could be confident that his message would come with authority to those to whom it was addressed. On the other hand, it is more than possible, in view both of the literary apocalyptic convention of pseudepigraphy and of the probability that concealment of the authors name was an act of warrantable prudence, that John was not the authors real name, and that (almost by consequence) the banishment in Patmos was, so far as he was concerned, fictitious. But the matter of real importance is not the question whether the names of person and place are fictitious; it is the fact that-supposing them to have been fictitious-here the fiction ends. The writer is a Christian. He is in the same situation with these he addresses. He neither desires nor attempts to place himself in the distant past. The Christian Church has its own prophets. Our author solemnly claims to be one of them, and the Church since the beginning of the 3rd cent. has taken him at his own estimate.* [Note: Porter (op. cit. 183) asks whether the Apocalypse is a direct or a secondary product of that new inspiration [Christian prophecy], and he replies, rather disconcertingly: Our impression is that it is secondary. No one has a better right to speak with authority than Porter. But it the inspiration of the Apocalypse is secondary, what measure have we by which to judge of that which is primary?]

(2) But is not an apocalyptist, ipso facto, only a pale shadow of a prophet? Must not John be conceived, as regards inspiration, to stand to a speaking prophet, say of Ephesus, as Daniel stands to the real Daniel or to some prophet of the time of Nebuchadrezzar? It seems to the present writer that the entire absence from the Apocalypse of such a fiction as that in Daniel, in which the past is in one part (the alleged writers time) adorned with legendary features, and in a much greater part (the centuries between the Exile and the Syrian Persecution) is treated fictitiously as future, separates it longo intervallo from apocalyptic writings of the purely Jewish type, or even from Christian apocalypses like the Apoc. of Peter, which resemble the Jewish type in the feature of impersonation. It may be probable, though it is far from certain, that John conceals his real name, but the suggestion that he tried to personate any one, or sought any authority for his message other than what belonged to it as the testimony of Jesus given to himself, seems to be as destitute of probability as of proof.

What, we may ask, is a Christian prophet but one who has an (revelation) from God through Jesus Christ concerning matters pertaining to His Kingdom (1Co 14:24 ff., esp. 1Co 14:26; cf. Rev 19:10)? If a Christian could speak so as to bring home to his brethren the reality of the promised Kingdom, or so as to flash the light of the Divine judgment on the darkened conscience of an unbeliever, he had the or gift of prophecy (1Co 14:22; 1Co 14:24 f.). St. Paul himself must have possessed the gift in an eminent degree. We judge so not simply from what is told in the Acts or from what he himself tells regarding the source from which he derived the contents and manner of his preaching or the directions necessary for his missionary journeys. We judge so rather from the correspondence existing between his claim to direct access to this source and the still operating influence of his personality upon the conscience and conduct of mankind. If it be said that St. Paul was a preacher, and John was, so far as we know, only a writer, it may be asked in reply: What do we know of Paul the preacher that we do not learn best from his own writings? No companion of John has told us (as Luke did of Paul) how he preached, but surely we may say that no one could write as John does without being, under favourable conditions, a preacher, and that probably as much in proportion of Johns Apocalypse as of St. Pauls Epistles might have been preached as it stands to his own contemporaries. When it is remembered how apocalypses incomparably inferior in spiritual quality to the Apocalypse were cherished by the early Church and even quoted as Scripture, it will not seem hazardous to assert that in the Apostolic Age the distinction between apocalypse and prophecy, which is marked in the pre-Christian period by the separation of Daniel in the Hebrew Canon from the Prophets, has ceased to exist. Two things, unnaturally separated (through the spirit of artifice), have come together again. The prophet is the man who has a revelation, and the man who has a revelation, whether he speak it or write it, is a prophet. If our argument is sound, we may venture to say that once at least this ideal unity of apocalypse and prophecy has been realized. It is realized in the Apocalypse of John.

(c) The hortatory and dogmatic teaching of the Apocalypse.-The best proof of the soundness of the above argument lies in the abundance of hortatory and dogmatic material of permanent value to be found in the Apocalypse. John is, in a sense, the Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel of the NT. This is eminently true of the messages to the Seven Churches (chs. 2 and 3). Ramsays Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia (Lond. 1904) probably exaggerates the extent to which the writer may have had in his mind facts of geography and history relating to the places mentioned; but such a book-from the pen of an unrivalled authority on the antiquities of Asia Minor-could not have been written of the messages in chs. 2 and 3 of the Apocalypse did they not proceed from one who was thoroughly conversant with everything in the environment of the Churches of Asia which had a bearing on their spiritual condition. A writer who closes each message with the formula, he that hath ears, etc. (Rev 2:7; Rev 2:11; Rev 2:17; Rev 2:29; Rev 3:6; Rev 3:13; Rev 3:22; cf. Mat 13:9; Mat 13:43, etc.), claims to stand to those whom he addresses in the relation of a speaking prophet to his hearers. Those who remember the function these chapters still serve in that best type of Christian oratory in which preaching is prophesying, may justly feel that the onus probandi rests with those who deny the claim. But the immediately edifying elements of the Apocalypse are not confined to these chapter. The book is written, as it claims to be, in an atmosphere of worship.* [Note: Rev 1:10. The opinion of scholars is against the rendering: I was, through the Spirit, in the Day of the Lord (or the Day of Judgment), though this rendering: cannot be said to be grammatically impossible; and though it has the advantage of attaching a good traditional meaning to Day of the Lord, which would thus retain its OT sense (Isa 2:12, Amo 5:20, etc.), yet it is hardly likely that would be used both in the instrumental and the local sense in one short sentence; and the analogy of Rev 17:3 f., Rev 21:10 suggests that, had the author intended this, meaning, he would have used a verb of transference (I was carried by the Spirit to, etc.). The Day of the Lord is, therefore, the Christian Sabbath, the day of worship.]

The inspiration came to John on the day in which Christians remembered the Resurrection of the Lord. The book is a message from the Lord in heaven. Those who read and obey are blessed because the time of their deliverance is at hand. The sense of holy omnipotent power, not dominated by but manifested through suffering-fox the power is redemptive-pervades the book. Its refrain is Glory to God and to the Lamb (Rev 1:5 f.), and the note of the triumphant thanksgiving of the faithful sounds, throughout, loudly behind the curtain of judgment that shrouds the wicked world (Rev 5:4-14; Rev 6:9 ff.; Rev 7:3-7; Rev 8:3 f.; Rev 11:15 ff.; Rev 12:10-12; Rev 13:9 f.; Rev 14:1-7; Rev 14:12 f.; Rev 15:1-4, Rev 19:1-9; Rev 19:11-16; Rev 20:4-6; Revelation 21, 22). The worship-element in the book is exquisitely beautiful as literature, but it was too vital to the spiritual situation to be intended as ornamental. The crucial element in the situation is the liberty of worship. History has proved that the day of martyrs is eminently the day when this liberty is denied or ignored.

The ethical teaching of the book is perhaps best seen in such passages as Rev 6:9-11; Rev 13:8-10; Rev 14:11-13; Rev 20:7 f. The essential virtues of the saints are patience and courage. The weapon of force is not permitted to them (Rev 13:10; cf. Mat 26:52), but patience and faith prevail. On the other hand, patience is not mere passivity. The command to worship the Beast must be courageously disobeyed. Compliance is fatal. First among those who have their part in the second death are the fearful (Rev 21:8). The vital connexion of this teaching with the situation is obvious. Not less but even more obvious is its connexion with the dogmatic teaching of the book. As we have seen, the Apocalypse must be considered, so far as the Apostolic Age is concerned, a thing of Jewish origin and growth.* [Note: That is to say, its affinities with pagan mythology may be ignored, as belonging to the sphere of OT research.] There are, indeed, few direct quotations from the OT in the Apocalypse; but there are more OT reminiscences in it than in almost any other book of the NT. [Note: According to Hhn, Matthew has 37 direct quotations from the OT against 3 in the Apocalypse. But the latter has 453 reminiscences against 437 in Matthew. Thus Matthew comes near the Apocalypse in this respect; Luke, with 474 reminiscences, goes beyond it. All the other books are much behind it (Alttest. Citate u. Reminiscenzen im NT, 1900, p. 269ff.).] This, no doubt, is due largely to the comparatively stereotyped character of the apocalyptic imagery. But, in view of the emphasis-in some cases excessive-which many scholars have laid on the Jewish character of the Apocalypse, a word seems necessary on the question of how far the distinctive Christian belief that Jesus is the Messiah has modified the type of teaching peculiar to a Jewish apocalyptic book.

At first sight the change seems more formal than real. The Apocalypse comes from Jesus Christ (Rev 1:1), but, beyond the features of His death and resurrection, there is nothing in the description of the sublime Personage who overwhelms John with His manifestations (Rev 1:17) suggestive of any feature distinctive of the human Jesus of the Gospels. The description of the Figure in Rev 1:7; Rev 1:13 ff. and in Rev 19:11 ff. owes more to Daniel, [Note: Dan 7:3; Dan 10:5 ff.] Zechariah, [Note: Zec 12:10.] and Isaiah|| [Note: | Isa 11:4; Isa 63:1 ff.] than to anything that is original in the Gospels. Such a fact gives a certain colour to the view, propounded by Vischer in 1886, that the book is a Jewish Apocalypse set in a Christian framework (chs. 1-3, and Rev 22:6-21), and slightly interpolated. This extreme view has, however, yielded to the strong impression of its unity and Christian character, which, in spite of its eclectic form, the book produces on the mind of the critical no less than of the ordinary reader. As to the alleged absence of the features of the Christ of the Gospels, two considerations seem specially relevant. The one is that the absence of the human features of Jesus is scarcely more marked in the Apocalypse than it is in every other book of the NT outside the Gospels. Are references to the human Jesus frequent or marked in the Acts of the Apostles, though that book was written by a man who also wrote a Gospel? Are they marked-or even, in the latter case, at all present-in the Epistles which bear the names of Peter and John? Notoriously they are so little marked in the known writings of the greatest figure of the Apostolic Age that their absence has supplied its one position of apparent strength to the modern Gnosticism associated with the names of Jensen and Drews, and has made the effort to exhibit real points of contact between St. Paul and Jesus of Nazareth a main task of modern Apologetics. Yet one of St. Pauls companions was Mark, and another was Luke. We do not know all that St. Paul either spoke or wrote, but we do know that, contemporaneously with the accomplishment of his mission to the Gentiles, or, at least, well within the Apostolic Age, a demand for written reminiscences of Jesus arose both in the Jewish and in the Gentile portion of the Church. Men possess reminiscences of personalities who have exercised a determining influence upon them long before they think of committing them to writing, and often, if not usually-as witness the cases of Matthew and Mark-the task of writing is undertaken only by request ( Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.)iii. 39). If, then, the silences of St. Paul, the contemporary of Jesus (who yet possibly never saw Him in the flesh), do not, on fair consideration, surprise us, why should those of a man some thirty years younger, a Christian prophet of the time of Domitian, offend us?

The other consideration is more positive in character. It is that of what may be called the eschatological outlook of the Apostolic Age. It was believed by all the NT writers of the first generation that the return of Christ to His own in glory and power would be witnessed by some in their own time while they were yet in the flesh. The expectation appears in the Gospels (Mar 9:1; Mark 13||), and it is a matter much discussed how far it is due to convictions definitely entertained and expressed by our Lord Himself. It was certainly entertained by St. Paul (1Co 15:51, 1Th 5:13 ff.); and, though on the whole it hardly affected, and never unwholesomely,* [Note: 1Co 7:29 ff. seems to the present writer an illustration rather than an exception.] his ethical teaching, it surely explains why letters to fellow-Christians, who had been for the most part his own converts and catechumens, in so far as they were not occupied with matters of immediate perplexity and duty, should be concerned rather with prospects of the Lords coming and glory than with reminiscences of the days of His flesh. If St. Paul had been asked to state his essential creed as briefly as possible, he might fairly be conceived to reply: For the past, Christ died in the flesh for our sins; for the present, Christ rose and lives for our justification; for the future, Christ will come to confirm and receive His own to Himself in the glory of God. Would the modern religions man, whose creed has any title to be associated with the NT, say anything, even in regard to the future, that is really different from this?

Whatever worth may belong to these considerations in reference to St. Paul belongs to them a fortiori in reference to a writer whose express aim is to show to the servants of God the things that must shortly come to pass (Rev 1:1). Even if we put out of account the limitations of apocalyptic literary method, the last thing we shall expect such a writer expressly to deal with will be reminiscences of the historic Jesus. If we assume that the Apostolic Age, whatever may be its defects, supplies the norm of the religion which is final, we shall require of the Christian prophet John only that he accomplish his declared purpose in a manner conformable both to the situation he has in view and to the spirit and teaching of the apostolic faith. No critic contends that chs. 2 and 3 do not indicate a writer who is in the matters of main account in close touch with the communities he addresses, and who writes to them in prophetic vein, on the whole just as he might be conceived to speak. In the rest of his book, he drops special reference to the Asiatic Churches, devotes himself to the recounting of visions, mainly of final judgment, which are of account for the whole Church and world of his time, and makes, as the nature of his theme requires, larger use of material that is more or less common to all imaginative religious speech or literature.* [Note: A good instance of the authors eclecticism, acting under control of spiritual insight, is his combination of an earthly and a heavenly view of the Consummation. The binding of Satan and the thousand years reign of the martyred saints precedes the final destruction of the Antichristian power and the descent of the Heavenly City (ch. 20; cf. with chs. 21 and 22). Why does the prophet not close his book at Rev 19:10? It is the poorest conceivable answer to say that he continues his text for literary reasons, having a desire to utilize traditional material that was too good to be neglected. But the reason may well be that, while the destruction of the colossal imposture of the Roman Imperial cult is the last preliminary to the Consummation that comes within his definite conviction, a complex instinct, which we may consider part of his prophetic equipment, warns him against the danger of confounding definiteness of result with definiteness of time and manner. The large doings of God permit of fluctuation in detail, and the prophet is practical as well as inspired. One matter that genuinely concerned him as a prophet, and had concerned brother-prophets before him (cf. Dan 12:1 ff.; En. 91:12ff., Bar 40:3, and, for a Christian example, 1Co 15:20 ff.), was the question what special reward would be granted to those who had maintained their faithfulness to God at the cost of their lives. And here the traditional idea of a reign of the saints preliminary to the final Consummation came to his aid. In En. 91:12f. (cf. Bar 40:3) we find a scheme according to which all human history, including the reign of the Messiah, is divided into heavenly weeks. In 4 Ezr 7:28 the period of the reign of the Messiah is 400 years-a number which, as the Talmud (Sanh. 99) explains, is obtained by combining Gen 15:3 with Psa 90:15. The 1000 years of our prophet would be obtained in a somewhat similar fashion by combining Gen 1:1 ff. (the day of the Creation-narrative) with Psa 90:4. The day (= 1000 years) is the rest-day of Gods saints, who are in particular the martyrs. In the Jewish tradition (cf. Jub. 4:30 and Secrets of Enoch 33:1f.) the seventh day was the reign of the Messiah. With John it is the reign of the Messiah with His faithful martyrs, and of course neither they nor He die at the end of it, as in 4 Ezr 7:28. Satan, however, is unbound and leads the powers of evil in a final assault upon the saints of the earth. He is overthrown and cast into the lake of fire with the Beast and the False Prophet. Then follows the General Judgment, in which those whose names are not found in the book of life are cast into the lake of fire, and the rest who are faithful join the saints of the Millennium in the final bliss. It is obvious that these details are not strictly reconcilable with these of the Apocalypse that ends at Rev 19:10, and again at Rev 19:21. But surely we may credit the prophet with being aware of the inconsistency. He handles his manifold material freely. What is important to him is not to reconcile discrepant details, but to express through them ideas of destiny that are worthy of God and His Messiah. And it was manifestly important to him, as it was also, in part, to St. Paul, to express the ideas: (1) that believers who died before the Advent suffered no disadvantage above others (1Th 4:13 ff.; cf. Rev 6:9 ff.); (2) that the earth needed to be prepared for the final glory by the prevailing presence in it of the saints (1Co 15:23 f.; 1Co 6:2 f.; cf. Rev 20:4-10); (3) that there were special rewards for those who made special sacrifices, in particular the sacrifice of life, for the sake of the Kingdom (2Ti 2:11 f.; cf. Mar 10:28 ff.||, and passages in Rev. above cited).] He has the definite belief that the last instrument of Antichrist is the Roman Imperial system, and that with the removal of the Great Whore (Rev 19:2)-the Babylon which is Rome-especially the cult of the Emperor, the last obstacle to the glorious advent of the Kingdom will be taken away. It is true there is nothing in his general estimate of the situation of the worshippers of the true God, suffering from the Roman persecution, that might not have been conceived by Daniel or any other OT prophet. There is scarcely a detail in the wonderful lament of triumph over the fall of the Roman Babylon (ch. 18) that has not its close parallel in Isaiah and Jeremiah (for the details see Porter, op. cit. 267).

But what significance has such a fact other than that of illustrating, in general, the claim of Christianity to fulfil OT prophecy, and, in particular, the claim of this Christian seer to be in the succession of the prophets (Rev 1:3; Rev 10:7 ff.; Rev 19:10; Rev 22:18 ff.)? Once it is seen that it is the work of a Christian, and that every detail in it has to the authors own mind a significance, determined by his own attitude and that of his readers to the Messiah who was crucified (Rev 1:5 f.; Rev 11:8; Rev 12:11), the book must be allowed to possess a unique value for edification both in itself and in reference to the place assigned it by Christian authority-that of closing the canonical record of revelation contained in the Bible.

The following examples may he given of the teaching of the Apocalypse on definite articles of the Christian creed. (1) The Messiah is the historical Person of the seed of David, who was crucified at Jerusalem (Rev 5:5; Rev 11:8).-(2) Grace and peace come from Him equally with Him who is and was and is to come and with the seven spirits which are before the throne (manifest apocalyptic equivalents for the Father and the Spirit). He is the faithful witness, the First-begotten of the dead, the Prince of the kings of the earth (Rev 1:4 f; Rev 7:10).-(3) The revelation contained in the book is not only mediated by Jesus Christ, it is the revelation of Him (Rev 1:1). The prophets are those who have the testimony of Jesus, and the latter is the spirit of prophecy (Rev 19:10). The prophet is a fellow-servant and companion of all faithful believers in Jesus. For they also have the testimony. They are made prophets as well as priests and kings (Rev 1:6; Rev 1:9).-(4) The fundamental work of the Messiah is the redemptive self-sacrifice. No doubt the Lamb is a leader and a warrior, whom His servants follow. His wrath is the destruction of His enemies. Yet even in the glory of His power in the midst of the throne He remains for the Christian seer a Lamb as it had been slain, and the innumerable multitude of the glorified faithful in heaven are those whose robes have been made white in the blood of the Lamb. The motive of service even in heaven is the gratitude of those who have been forgiven and cleansed (Rev 14:1-4; Rev 19:11 ff.; Rev 7:9 ff.). Agreeably with this, the fundamental virtues of the saints are patience and faith; though, as there is a wrath of the Lamb, so there is a certain fierceness in the conflicts and triumphs of the saints. Those who find fault with the vindictiveness of the Apocalypse should make allowance for the dramatic style of the book and should not forget that at bottom the battle between the saints and their oppressors is a battle between patience and violence (Rev 18:20; Rev 13:9 f.; Rev 14:12).

(5) The conception of Christian duty and bliss, similarly, is profoundly ethical and spiritual. The saints must show no half-hearted timidity in resisting the order that is supreme in the world. The resistance is to be maintained in the sense in which maintenance is victory. The promise is to him that overcometh, and no sacrifice is too great (Rev 2:10; Rev 21:7 f.). The reward of this holy sacrificial attitude of the will is complete union with Christ, and participation in all the privileges of sonship. The sun that lightens the city of pearls and makes its splendours real is none other than God Himself and the Lamb. Its bliss is the life of its citizens (Rev 7:15 ff.; Rev 19:7 ff.; Rev 22:3 ff.). The guests at the marriage-supper of the Lamb do not wear jewellery. They wear the crown of life, and the fine linen of the righteousness of the saints (Rev 2:10; Rev 19:8). In reference to the fidelity of the servants of God, the emphasis laid on worship is noticeable. It is not accidental. It is due to the twofold fact that the book reflects a situation in which liberty of worship was denied, and that worship in spirit and in truth is the loftiest expression of the souls loyalty. The emphasis is negative as well as positive. Twice over, the seer is warned not to worship him that showed him these things. The worship of angels was a heresy not unknown in the Asiatic Churches. Perhaps John felt that the elaboration of the conception of angelic agency and mediation, however inevitable in apocalyptic literature or even in the thoughts proper to true religion, had its dangers (Rev 19:10; Rev 22:9; cf. Col 2:18 ff.).

(6) Finally, the spirit of gracious evangelism that finds expression in Rev 22:17 deserves acknowledgment. Evangelism is scarcely to be expected in a book announcing finalities, and concerned so largely with the Judgment. John does not believe that there is much more chance of repentance for the rank and file of those who have yielded to the apostasy of his time than for the Beast and the False Prophet who have led it. There is not much chance, for there is not much time (Rev 1:7; Rev 22:10 f.). Yet the last word of the book-as from the Spirit (in, say, the prophet himself), as from the Church, already the Bride, as from the chance hearer, and as from the Nameless who is above every name-is Come; whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. On all these points-and others might be named-the close touch of the Apocalypse with the teaching of the other books of the NT is obvious.

III. The apocalyptic element in other books of the NT and in Christianity.-Though it is impossible to treat the subject here in detail, a word may be said in conclusion regarding what is commonly called the apocalyptic element: (1) in the other books of the NT; (2) in Christianity itself. We use the phrase apocalyptic element with reserve, because it may well appear from our study of the Apocalypse that the whole of Christianity is an apocalypse or revelation whose containing sphere is the Person of Jesus Christ (Col 2:3; Col 2:9). The view of the NT and of the early Fathers (see Didache, 11) regarding the Christian prophets is that expressed by St. Paul (1Co 12:28, Eph 4:11), viz. that they are next in rank to the apostles. Yet what distinguished the apostles from the prophets was accidental. The apostles were received as witnesses of Jesus at first hand, men who had seen the Lord (1Co 9:1). They moved from place to place, and founded churches. In the sub-apostolic Church these functions probably passed over largely to the prophets, who in any case were one with the apostles in the essential qualification of having received their commission not from man but from God and who spoke and acted by (Act 4:19; Act 20:22 f.; Act 21:10 f.; Gal 1:1; Gal 2:2). The expression apocalyptic element indicates phrases, sentences, or longer passages in the apocalyptic style occurring in writings that do not on the whole bear the literary character of apocalypses. It is obvious even at a superficial glance that, so understood, the apocalyptic element in the NT is considerable; and when we remember that it includes phrases directly relating to the order that already exists in heaven or to the processes through which it will come to earth, we shall, perhaps, feel that apocalypse is a leaven rather than an ingredient in the NT. The life reflected in the NT is saturated with the supernatural.

1. The Gospels.-Besides words and phrases, the Synoptic Gospels contain long passages of alleged discourses of Jesus-notably, e.g., Mark 13||-which are entirely in the apocalyptic style. In view of the fact that Jesus, when before Caiaphas, declared Himself the Messiah in words that were virtually a quotation of Dan 7:13 (Mar 14:62||), it cannot be said to be impossible that He spoke the contents of Mark 13|| substantially as they are reported. On the whole, however, it is probable that the Evangelists incorporated in their texts a Jewish-Christian apocalypse which gave the substance of our Lords utterance in a form adapted to the case of the Christians in Jerusalem at the time of the Jewish-Roman war (a.d. 66-70). It may surely be said with truth and reverence that our Lord Himself was the beat example of a speaking apocalyptist, or of the union between apocalypse and prophecy. The saying recorded in Luk 10:18 would alone be sufficient to prove the point.

In the Gospel of John matters lie in a different perspective. The heavenly has come rather than is coming. That does not mean, however, that there is no room for apocalypse. It means that all is apocalypse. The Gospel is an account of the manifestation in the flesh of the Word that was God (joh 1:1, 14).

2. The Acts of the Apostles.-Just as to John (the Evangelist) the appearance and action of Jesus in the world are themselves an apocalypse, so to Luke in the Acts the events that mark the progress of the gospel are largely sensible apocalypses of the Divine favour or power. Acts 2 (wind, and tongues of fire), Acts 3 (healing), Acts 4 (earthquake),Acts 5 (strokes of judgment, death by a word), Acts 7 (transfiguration, Act 6:15; cf. Act 7:55), Acts 10 (coincident, visions), Acts 12 (deliverance through an angel) are conspicuous instances.

3. The Epistles.-(a) In general, the expectation of the Lords coming, and coming soon, is dominant in all these writings, except (for wholly accidental reasons) Phm 1:2 and 3 John. Even in the later writings, where the colour of the expectation may be supposed to be more sober, the sense of the imminence of the coining glory is not lost. Even John is confident that it is the last time (1Jn 2:18). The difference between earlier and later appears chiefly in the choice in the later writings of phrases indicating the manifestation of a Divine reality already existing rather than the coming from heaven of something new (Col 3:1 ff.; cf. Eph 5:8; Eph 5:14, 1Jn 3:1 ff.). The apocalyptic element, even in the literary sense, in 2 Peter-perhaps the latest writing in the NT-is sufficiently obvious (2Pe 3:3-13).

(b) Of special interest are the earlier Epistles of St. Paul, 1 and 2 Cor., Galatians , , 1 and 2 Thessalonians. The passages 1Co 7:29 ff; 1Co 15:21 ff. have already been referred to. Those in 1Co 12:1 ff; 1Co 14:28 ff. on the tests of prophecy (cf. Did. 11) and on its value for edification and conversion are of peculiar interest to the student of Christian prophecy as manifested in the Apostolic Age (1Co 14:22; 1Co 14:24 f., 1Co 14:31 ff.). In the enumeration in 1Co 14:26, the prophet is clearly the person who has an . Prophecy and tongues might be alike in respect of impermanence (1Co 13:8), but prophecy, while it lasted, was by far the more valuable gift (1Co 14:39). St. Paul probably believed that prophecy, exercised under proper self-control, would last until the Advent, whereas the rationalistic spirit, however little it deserved to be encouraged, would quench the inspiration of the tongues (cf. 1Co 14:29 ff. with 1Co 13:9 f. and 1Th 5:19 f.). In our study of the Apocalypse we have seen something of the difficulty or even impossibility of finding an eschatological scheme of perfect consistency in detail even in so purely apocalyptical a writer as John. The eschatology of St. Paul is beyond the range of this article. Yet it is pertinent to make two remarks. The one is that St. Paul is as certain of the need and value of prophesying and of the reality of the supernatural happenings with which prophecy is concerned as any apocalyptical writer could be. We prophesy, indeed, in part; still we must prophecy so long as we believe. The other is that, where St. Paul enters, so to speak, upon the sphere of the apocalyptist, as he does so markedly in the Corinthian and Thessalonian Epistles,* [Note: citt. in 1 Cor., also 2Co 5:1 ff; 2Co 12:1 ff., 1Th 4:13 ff., 2Th 2:1 ff.] his practical motives are clear and cogent. They are the same as the motives of John, viz. to encourage believers to continue in patience and hope. The proposition will bear examination that in practically every case where believers are addressed in the NT regarding the final glory that is to come soon-presumably within their own life-time-a leading motive of the utterance is to insist that other important things must happen first.* [Note: This point is clearly and admirably brought out in reference to our Lord in C. W. Emmets article (Expositor, 8th ser. xxiii. [1912] 423) entitled, Is the Teaching of Jesus an Interimsethik?] This is a paradox, but it is true-as true as the more comprehensive paradox that the Bible is the most eschatological book in the world and, at the same time, the most ethical.

4. In Christianity.-May we extend the paradox to Christianity itself as the spirit and power of the religion of the 20th century? Or are those modernists right who say that the Christianity of the future must be stripped of eschatological delusions? The question, perhaps, cannot be answered with perfect satisfaction to the mind without the aid of psychology and metaphysics; and possibly the new intuitionalism of our day, associated with the name of Bergson, may help some religious men, whom mental training has fitted to desire and receive such aid. We could hardly be satisfied with the impossibility of searching out God to perfection unless it were permissible, or, for some, even necessary, to attempt the task. Yet, on the whole, the moral and spiritual life of mankind goes its own way independently of philosophy. But it does not proceed independently of God. He is and was and is to come, and He reveals Himself to those who trust and obey Him. Our situation in reference to Him is paradoxical. We rest in Him, yet cannot rest, for His promise leads, us forward to horizons that vanish and enlarge as we approach. We suffer, yet we hope. We are disappointed, yet we are comforted; for the fulfilment is greater than the hope. Life is an experiment, not a theory, and the object of the experiment is God. Those who thus think will look rather to history and to personal and social religious experience than to philosophy for a solution of the eschatological question.

Could Jesus be the Revealer of God and of Sonship with God and yet be under illusion as to the end of the world? Yes, because human life involves this ignorance, and the Son of God was made flesh. And yea, again, because the illusion was to Him the transparent veil of the certainty that the Righteous Father lived and reigned.

But what of the religion of the future? Must we not leave eschatology and put evolution in its place? No, because these are not alternatives. Evolution no more excludes eschatology than science excludes religion. No, again, because one cannot have religion without eschatology. To the religious man human history is not a mere spectacle. It is a work in which he is involved as a partner with God. It is the working out of Gods purpose. And it must have an end, because God must fulfil Himself. Only, let our eschatology be a thing of dignity and freedom. Let it be reserved even when it speaks with effusion. Let it never be separated from the spirit of moral discipline and religious worship. Let it be in the spirit on the Lords Day, and go with Him to a height where we see more than all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them because we see Him. Let it be a companion in tribulation with the humblest of men and women, who are the servants of God and the redeemed of Jesus Christ. Fulfilling these conditions, it will recover (should it have lost it) the note of authority that is struck in the NT and attains such lofty expression in the Apocalypse of John. If we do not call this note science, it is because we most use a greater word and call it prophecy. The heart of Christian prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. It is the confidence gained not from man but from God, that history has no other end than the reconciliation of sinful man to God through Jesus Christ, and the reign of holiness and love in their hearts. The Lamb is also the Lion of the tribe of Judah who has prevailed to open the book of human destiny. John used largely the language of primitive religions imagination to convey his prophecy, and who will say that in his hands the language has not shown itself fit? If the modern Christian prophet thinks he can do better with the language of evolution, let him put his belief to the test of experiment.

In its passage seawards, the river of life is joined by innumerable tributaries. But there is only one force of gravity, and only one main stream. The tributaries reach the ocean only by first reaching the main stream. There is something in God that is akin to everything that is human, yet it may well be that nothing human reaches the end or fulfilment of God-nothing, as John might say, receives the crown of life or finds its name written in the Lambs book of life-save through the channel of the sacrificial will and the heart of faith. These do not come by evolution or any involuntary process. They come through the travail of self-discipline and prayer and sympathy with our fellows. And, when they come, it is by vision and revelation. It may surely be claimed that the abiding and the loftiest witness to this in literature is the Apocalypse of John.

Literature.-The handbooks, C. A. Scotts Revelation, in the Century Bible, London, 1905, and F. C. Porters The Messages of the Apocalyptical Writers, do. 1905, will be found (esp. the latter) extremely helpful. Of the larger commentaries may be mentioned: J, Moffatt (Expositors Greek Testament ; see esp. Literature in the Introduction); Lcke-de Wette, Bonn, 1852 (epoch-making for the modern method of interpretation); W. Bousset, Gttingen, 1906 (Excursuses and history of the interpretation of the Apocalypse specially valuable); J. Weiss, in Schriften d. NT neu bersetzt u. fr d. Gegenwart erklrt, do. 1908. For Biblical Eschatology may be noted: A. Titius, Die neutest. Lehre von der Seligkeit, Tbingen, 1895-1900; E. Haupt, Die eschat. Aussagen Jesu in den syn. Evang., Berlin, 1895; and L. A. Muirhead, Eschatol. of Jesus, London, 1904 (the two last For the Gospels). For the Epistles of St. Paul: H. A. A. Kennedy, St. Pauls Conceptions of the Last Things, do. 1904; R. Kabisch, Esch. d. Paulus, Gttingen, 1893. On Jewish Eschatology in general, see the great relative works or W. Bousset and P. Volz, and the still valuable work of A. Hilgenfeld, Die. jd. Apokalyptik, Jena, 1857. On the mythical groundwork of eschatology: H. Gunkel, Schpfung u, Chaos, Gttingen, 1895; H. Gressmann, Der Ursprung der israel.-jd. Eschatologie, do. 1905.

Readers of German will find readiest and fullest access to the texts of most of the extra-canonical apocalypses in the invaluable work, representing many scholars, Die Apokryphen u. Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments, 2 vols., ed. E. Kantzsch, Tbingen, 1900. The texts are given in German translations. There are Critical introductions and notes.

Lewis A. Muirhead.

Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church

Apocalypse

The book placed last in the Bible. The author, named John in 1:1, and 22:8, tradition has generally identified with the Apostle. It was written either during the persecution of Nero (54 -68 ) or of Domitian (90-94), during Saint John’s exile at Patmos, to encourage the persecuted Christians by foretelling the fall of Rome as an anti-Christian power and the trials but complete victory of the Church. The work is prophetical, dealing with the future rather than with the present, yet not without many references to events of Saint John’s own time. He pictures various phases of the Church’s conflict with the world by means of different symbolical visions. The book is very difficult of interpretation; at each new crisis its prophecies seem fulfilled, the end seems at hand and yet it does not come. Its message seems to be: “Watch, for ye know not the day nor the hour.”

The introduction (1:1 to 3:22) gives the title and description of the book and, after a prefatory salutation, seven Epistles to various Churches of Asia Minor, commending those who are faithful, reproving and warning the lukewarm and the sinful.

Chapters 4:1 to 11:19, contain a description of the judgment and destruction of Jerusalem .

Chapters 12:1 to 19:10, describe the struggle between the Church and the world, ending in the destruction of Babylon.

In chapters 19:11 to 22:5, are related the final triumph of the Word of God and the glory of the New Jerusalem.

The epilogue (22:6-21) insists on the credibility of the Apocalypse and the quick fulfillment of its prophecies.

The Apocalypse takes us to the very court of heaven picturing for us God in all His Majesty, surrounded by angels who do His bidding in heaven and on earth, and Christ, the Lamb of God, slain for man’s Redemption but now surrounded by the elect who have kept His word. Satan, too, the great dragon , appears as the Church’s chief enemy, but is finally conquered, bound, and cast into a pool of fire.

Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary

Apocalypse

the Greek name of the Book of REVELATION SEE REVELATION (q.v.).

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Apocalypse

the Greek name of the Book of Revelation (q.v.).

Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Apocalypse

APOCALYPSE.See Revelation [Book of].

Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible

Apocalypse

a-poka-lips. See APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE; REVELATION OF JOHN.

Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Apocalypse

[Apoc’alypse]

Another name for the REVELATION, q.v., being its Greek title .

Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary

Apocalypse

Apoc’alypse. A Greek word meaning revelation, applied chiefly to the book of Revelation by John. See Revelation of St. John.

Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary

Apocalypse

, signifies revelation. It is, however, particularly applied to the Revelations which St. John had in the isle of Patmos, whither he had been banished. The testimonies in favour of the book of the Revelation being a genuine work of St. John the Evangelist are very full and satisfactory. Andrew, bishop of Caesarea in Capadocia, in the fifth century, assures us that Papias acknowledged the Revelation to be inspired. But the earliest author now extant who mentions this book is Justin Martyr, who lived about sixty years after it was written, and he ascribes it to St. John. So does Iraeneus, whose evidence is alone sufficient upon this point; for he was the disciple of Polycarp, who was the disciple of John himself; and he expressly tells us that he had the explanation of a certain passage in this book from those who had conversed with St. John the author. These two fathers are followed by Clement of Alexandria, Theophilus of Antioch, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, Lactantius, Jerome, Athanasius, and many other ecclesiastical writers, all of whom concur in considering the Apostle John as the author of the Revelation. Some few persons, however, doubted the genuineness of this book in the third and fourth centuries; but since that time it has been very generally acknowledged to be canonical; and, indeed, as Mr. Lowman observes, hardly any one book has received more early, more authentic, and more satisfactory attestations. The omission of this book in some of the early catalogues of the Scriptures, was probably not owing to any suspicion concerning its authenticity or genuineness, but because its obscurity and mysteriousness were thought to render it less fit to be read publicly and generally. It is called the Revelation of John the Divine; and this appellation was first given to St. John by Eusebius, not to distinguish him from any other person of the same name, but as an honourable title, intimating that to him was more fully revealed the system of divine counsels than to any other prophet of the Christian dispensation.

St. John was banished to Patmos in the latter part of the reign of Domitian, and he returned to Ephesus immediately after the death of that emperor, which happened in the year 96; and as the Apostle states, that these visions appeared to him while he was in that island, we may consider this book as written in the year 95 or 96.

In the first chapter, St. John asserts the divine authority of the predictions which he is about to deliver; addresses himself to the churches of the Proconsular Asia; and describes the first vision, in which he is commanded to write the things then revealed to him. The second and third chapters contain seven epistles to the seven churches in Asia; namely, of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamus, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, which relate chiefly to their then respective circumstances and situation. At the fourth chapter the prophetic visions begin, and reach to the end of the book. They contain a prediction of all the most remarkable revolutions and events in the Christian church from the time of the Apostle to the final consummation of all things. An attempt to explain these prophecies does not fall within the design of this work; and therefore those who are disposed to study this sublime and mysterious book are referred to Mede, Daubuz, Sir Isaac Newton, Lowman, Bishop Newton, Bishop Hurd, and many other excellent commentators. These learned men agree in their general principles concerning the interpretation of this book, although they differ in some particular points; and it is not to be expected that there should be a perfect coincidence of opinion in the explanation of those predictions which relate to still future times; for, as the incomparable Sir Isaac Newton observes, God gave these and the prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify men’s curiosity, by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own prescience, not that of the interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world. To explain this book perfectly, says Bishop Newton, is not the work of one man, or of one age; but probably it never will be clearly understood, till it is all fulfilled. It is graciously designed, that the gradual accomplishment of these predictions should afford, in every succeeding period of time, additional testimony to the divine origin of our holy religion.

Fuente: Biblical and Theological Dictionary