work to infer much from supposed correspondences.1 The other point of dubiety is the authorship. It is impossible to name the writer with any certainty. Either the book is like most apocalypses, pseudonymous— "in Saturn's reign, such mixture was not held a stain "—; or, if the “John " of 14. 9 be the author, it was written by some otherwise unknown Christian prophet (229) of that name, quite possibly (as Eusebius suggested) the Presbyter. Modern criticism has hardly got beyond the disjunctive canon adopted in the third century by Dionysius of Alexandria, in the striking and sensible criticism which Eusebius has preserved (HE, vii. 25. 15, concluding τεκμαίρομαι γὰρ ἔκ τε τοῦ ἤθους ἑκατέρων καὶ τοῦ τῶν λόγων εἴδους καὶ τῆς τοῦ βιβλίου διεξαγωγῆς λεγομένης, μὴ τὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι), namely, that the differences in diction and style between the fourth gospel and the apocalypse prove that the John of 14. 9 is not identical with John the Apostle. The identification is suggested by nothing in the book itself, and is contradicted indeed by the distant look of the writer's relation to Jesus. The book originated in Asia Minor, probably in the Ephesian community: it is also by a different author from the writer of the fourth gospel, although both shared a common atmosphere of thought and language. The hypothesis that the final editor of the Apocalypse was the author of the fourth gospel, seems to lack either evidence or probability.

Judged from the historical standpoint, then, the Apocalypse is an invaluable piece of literature, not merely for illustrating the methods by which Jewish Christianity originally developed, or for its light upon the political and social situation of Christianity at the close of the first century, but also for showing the amazing vitality of the Christian spirit. If apocalyptic fantasy has always been felt to appear somewhat foreign and strange beside the genuine religion of Israel which appropriated itmiraturque novas frondes, et non sua poma-how much more, beside the faith of Jesus? Yet most of the NT writings have their apocalyptic element, even Paul's letters and the gospels. This writer had more stubborn and apparently incongruous materials to work with, however, and his task was immensely harder than theirs. That he succeeded in mastering them, in reducing them to shape, and in partially transforming their uncouth and fantastic contents, is a proof not merely of his own mental grasp, but of the assimilating vigour and energy that possessed men who were still in touch with the simplicity and sanity of Jesus. Compare it even with 4th Esdras, the queen of Jewish apocalypses in that age, and its superiority is evident. The book naturally bears the rough signature of its age. Its religious nobility consists not in the entire absence of such bizarre and weird elements, but in the fact that these are dwarfed by the writer's moral force and controlling piety. He is the sole instance, within the NT literature, of the prophet's strange and honourable rôle including the charism of writing. Hitherto, for the most part, the OT had served as the handbook and textbook of prophecy, although there are passages (Is 491 Gal 115) in Paul's writings (e.g. 1 Th 413 f., 2 Th 21 f., 1 Co 13, 2 Co 41, Ro 9-11, Eph 610 f., Philipp 321) which could only have been composed by one who was himself "among the prophets." To these, it is true, may be added pieces expressed in the spirit and language of prophecy, like parts of Hebrews, some early speeches in "Acts," possibly-as Dr. Hatch suggested the later epistles of Judas and 2 Peter. Yet the Apocalypse is really the first definite

=

1 But Gunkel's remarks (Schöpf. und Chaos, p. 230 f.) on the bankruptcy of the historical method are surely too pessimistic and severe (cp. also KAP, ii. p. 343).

composition of that class. It marks a stage at which the older spontaneous, passionately impulsive, utterances were yielding to less irregular visions transcribed by their authors in artistic shape. The Apocalypse is written by a prophet (229), and like Ephesians (220 34) singles out prophets for honour, ranking them with the saints (166 1820); it is the prophetic impulse set to the further task of recording its own utterances for the sake of edification (1 Co 144, ὁ δὲ προφητεύων τὴν ἐκκλησίαν oikodoμeî), and claiming for this fresh method the old authority (227. 9. 18 £). The seer writes to quiet and fortify the church in a crisis. But he is more than a teacher. His aim is to produce a permanent and effective impression, and for this purpose he has collected and composed pieces of literature saturated with the spirit of genuine prophecy, which are comparable only to the book of Daniel, that prototype and Magna Charta (Baldensperger) of the apocalyptic school in Judaism.

The occasion demanded such an effort. Apart from the political situation, the condition of the Christian communities (Clem. Rom. i., and the retrospective evidence of Pliny's letters), especially in Proconsular Asia Minor, during the closing years of the century, was one of moral laxity and general exposure to the deteriorating influences of heresy. Censure and comfort are intermixed in chaps. 2 and 3, to meet the dual situation. In striking contrast to Corinth, where at that period (Clem. Rom. iii.) partisanship, dissension, and restlessness under churchauthority seem to have been rife, the main mischief in these Asian churches comes from the Jews. They stir up trouble from the outside at Smyrna and Philadelphia, and are denounced as a devilish association (= Jo 844, 1 Jn 38-10). To the author the unbelieving Jews are no Jews at all. The genuine Jew is the Christian. At Thyatira, a party, or an individual pagan prophetess, is at work seducing even the Christians. Under the rather appropriate sobriquet of Jezebel, she is denounced with passionate vehemence, quite in the spirit and speech of the OT prophets. A discreditable 2 libertine party is disowned at Ephesus, but partly tolerated at Pergamos, where the pagan cultus of Asklepios was influential and popular. The Balaamites may be similar to those Nikolaitans, whom Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. III. 11. 1) stamps as precursors of Cerinthus. But the heresies at any rate are as a whole practical (yet cp. 214. 15. 22 for their didaxn) in character and issues. Throughout the book the demand is for loyalty and perseverance. The author's 3 iterated, unswerving encouragement is a promise of the second advent of Jesus with reward and relief; but the circumstances of his readers in the churches vary from lukewarmness to zeal, from comparative insigni

re

1 Cp. Schürer's essay, ThA, pp. 37-58, on "the prophetess Jezebel in Thyatira," whom he identifies with the Chaldean Sibyll, Sambathê.

2 Seesemann still traces back the Nikolaitans to Nikolaos (Ac 65) the deacon (SK, 1895, pp. 47-82).

3 Renan aptly describes him as, in all respects-apart from serenity and harmony -a brother of Deutero-Isaiah, that marvellous poet, "whose luminous soul seems as it were impregnated, six hundred years in advance, with all the dew and all the perfumes of the future.' The moral grandeur of his aim overwhelms the cryptography and fantasy in his materials and even in his methods. We forget the frog-faced imps and weird beasts of the drama, when the light falls on One who wipes the tears from every eye.

4"All of them either in Lydia itself, or on the frontier of it: in nature Lydian all-richest in gold, delicatest in luxury, softest in music, tenderest in art of the then world" (Ruskin, Fors Clavigera (Letter lxxxiv.)). On their Imperial status, cp. Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, 1. pp. 340-342; and on Laodiceia, Hierapolis, and Colossai, see Ramsay's Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, I., pp. 32 f., 84 f., 208 f.

ficance to prominence, from religious decline to progress, from stagnation to endurance and even aggressive propaganda.

No form of early Christian literature answers so well as the Apocalypse to the Baconian definition of the service rendered by genuine poetry in raising and erecting the mind above the tyranny of mere appearances. Emphatically the Apocalypse aims at submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind." It reads history under the light of faith and hope; it floods the evil present with transcendent anticipations; it reasserts the supremacy of the ideal and of the Spirit, against depressing memory and forebodings. It is a pictorial expansion of the Christian principle (2 Co 416_510) : διὰ πίστεως περιπατοῦμεν, οὐ διὰ εἴδους.

From Pliny's account of the Imperial policy in Bithynia some years later (Epp. x. 98, 99), we may infer what it was earlier and elsewhere in Asia. To clear oneself of the charge of Christianity, it was necessary to (a) worship and sacrifice to the statue of the Emperor, and (b) curse Jesus. Although in Pliny's day and earlier, some of the Bithynian Christians had recanted, the outstanding feature of the "superstition' was the obstinate tenacity with which most of its members clung to it (pertinaciam et inflexibilem obstinationem). He incidentally confirms the evidence of the Apocalypse upon the gradual revival of Paganism in Asia Minor, especially as the local cults were associated with the Imperial worship.

THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN

The Apocalypse constitutes the classic example of that bitter enmity for the empire with which many disciples returned the latter's hostility, and it constitutes at the same time the classic example of the way in which persecution led the church to lay emphasis upon the approaching consummation and upon the blessedness and glory to be enjoyed by Christ's followers in his kingdom. This, in fact, was the second marked effect of persecution. The original expectation that Christ would speedily return to establish his kingdom, could not fail to be enhanced by the terrible experiences of the latter part of the first century. . . . But the hostility of the State had the effect also of compacting the church and broadening the line which separated it from the world at large. One of the notable facts to which the literature of the late first and early second centuries bears testimony, is the increasing realisation of the ideal of Christian unity and the growing effort to give that ideal practical expression and visible embodiment.-McGiffert.

...

11-8

Prologue: John in Patmos-a vision of Jesus. 19-322 Seven letters to Asiatic churches:

(i) Ephesus.

(ii) Smyrna.

(iii) Pergamos.

(iv) Thyatira.

(v) Sardis.

(vi) Philadelphia. (vii) Laodicea.

41-617 Seven seals: a vision of heaven: the throne, the Lamb, the sealed

82-921 Seven trumpets: a vision of an angel and censer, of seven angels and trumpets for (i) the earth.

151-1621 Seven vials: a vision of seven angels and of their plagues upon

(i) the earth.

(ii) the sea.

(iii) the waters.

(iv) the sun.

(v) the beast's kingdom.

(vi) the Euphrates.

(vii) the air.

171-2010

1918-21

Vision of Doom: on (i) Babylon the great, her fate and fall:

the song of wailing on earth.

the song of triumph in heaven.

(ii) the Beast: procession of forces in heaven. doom of beast and his followers

in lake of fire.

(iii) the Dragon, Satan: his final defeat.

(i) the great white throne: the world's judgment.

Epilogue: the seer and the angel.

(ii) the new sky and earth: God's consolation.

(iii) the new Jerusalem.