2. But Prophecy and Apocalyptic differ in the following respects : —
(1) I'rophecii still believes that this world is God's world, and that in this world His goodness and truth will yet be justified. Hence the proiilict addresses himself chielly to the present anu its concerns, and when he addresses himself to the future his prophecy springs naturally from the present, and the future which he depicts is reganied as in organic connexion with it. Thf A/ioin/i/jitic writer, on the other liand, almost wholly dfs/mirs of the present ; his main interests are su/>ra- mundane. He cherishes no hope of arousing his contemporaries to faith and duty by direct and personal ajipcals ; for though God spoke in the past, 'there is no more any prophet.' This [>cK.simism and want of faith in the present, alike in the leailcrs and the led, limited and defined the form in which the religious ardour of the former should manifest itself. They prescribed, in fact, as a necessity of the age and as a condition of successful ollort, the ado/dion of pstuidoni/mniis authorship. And thus it is that the Aiiocalyptic writer approaches his countrymen with a work which claims to bo the pioduction of some great
110 APOCALYPTIC LITERATUKE
APOCRYPHA
.^>
6jrnre in the past, such as Enoch, Moses, Isaiah, Daniel, or Baruch.
Thus far two characteristics of Apocalyptic have emerged — the transference of interest, from the present t/i the fntnre, fronTTIie mundane to the Bnpra^mundane, and the adoption of pstudonymous autliorship' '
(2y Another feature of Apocalyptic as distin- guished from Prophecy was imposed upon it by the necessities of the time, i.e. its_ijidpjinitdji_i/!i^f.r view of the worldLsJiistorii. Thus, whereasancient Prophecy had to deal with temporary reverses at the hands of some heathen power, Apocalyptic arose at a time when Israel had been subject for centuries to the sway of one or another of the great world-powers. Hence, in order to harmonise such difficulties with God's righteousness, it had to take account of the r6le of such empires in the counsels of God ; to recount the sway and down- fall of each in turn, till, finally, the lordship of the world passed into the hands of Israel, or the final judgment arrived. The chief part of these events belonged, it is true, to the past ; but the Apocalyptic \vriter represented them as still in the future, arranged under certain artificial categories of time, and as definitely determined from the beginning in the counsels of God, and revealed by Him to His servants the prophets. Determinism tkus became -a-leatliag. chajmcteristic nf Jewish Ajwca- lijptir. ; and ncrordinijly irs^oiirrjitinn of history, as distinguishrii from that oj rrophecjJL, was Tnetiu^iieal rather than ot:gjjfi^
(S^igain, Prophecy and Apocalyptic differ in the harsher treatment dealt outtathe Jieathen jjs__tlie finaJ4iuignients. Israel's repeated oppressions have at last affected the judgment and insight of its writers. The iron has entered into their soul. No virtue or goodness can belong to their heathen oppressors, and nothing but eternal destruction can await the enemies of Israel in the time to come. The ruthless crueltythey had experienced, inspired till 111 with a like nitlilefsnes.s to waxds-th« faithless natiiHi ami thu taitliluis iiiJiviiiual ; and expressions descriptive of the future lot of such, which in pro- phetic writings had been limited in their scope to the present liie, or were merely poetical exaggera- tions, were accepted by Apocalyptic writers as true of the future, and often intensified because in- sufficient to satisfy their merciless hatred. Thus it wRH in thJH pprinH ^^lat-^e doctrine of the future and eternal damnatiDiLaEItlie^QcEed. JE*s delTnitely formulated, and came to possess an un- q^uesfioned atHHionty. It is true that in later times, as we discover from the Talmud, the severity of this dogma was considerably moderated, but only in favour of Israelites. No single mitigation of the awful horrors foretold as awaiting the wicked was extended to the hapless Gentile.
The foregoing will make the object of Apoca- lyptic easy of comprehension. This J)biect,_^ shoxt^TCaatoJQlvejthe-riiffif.iiltiej. connected willi a _belief in Go<l'a di^liteousness, andthe^sulleiing vOaiiltonof His servants on eartli. The righteous- ness of God postulated the temporal prosperity of the righteous, and this postulate was accepted and enforced by the law. But the expectations of material wellbeing which had thus been authenti- cated and fostered, had in the centuries immediately preceding been falsified, and thus a grave con- tradiction had emerged between the old prophetic ideals and the actual experience of the nation, between the promises of God and the bondage and persecution tney had daily to endure at the hands of their pagan oppressors. The difficulties thus arising from this conflict between promise and experience may be shortly resolved into two, which concern respectively the position of the righteous as a community and the position of the righteous
man as an individual. The OT prophets had concerned themselves chiefly with the former, and pointed in the main to the restoration or ' resur- rection ' of Israel as a nation, and to Israel's ultimate possession of the earth as a reward of her righteousness. But, later, with the growing claims of the individual, and the acknowledgment of these in the religious and intellectual life, the latter problem pressed itself irresistibly on the notice of religious thinkers, and made it impossible for any conception of the divine rule and righteous- ness to gain acceptance which did not render adequate satisfaction to the claims of the righteous individual. Thjia^iaorder to justify the.riglilsicus- nesa oi (jQd,-tliei£-ivas piistiUatod the resurrection, not only of the rigliteoua iiation_^buiaIso of^Ee righteous individual- Apocalyptic^ nTerefSTCl strove to show that, alike in respect of the nation' and of the individual, the righteousness of God would be fully vindicated ; and, in order to justify its contention, it sketched_in.X}utlme the history of the world and of mankind, the origin~of evinmd its course, and the consummation of all things. Thus, in fact, it presented a Semitic_Ehilosophy of rejigion. The righteous as a nation sEouUTyef possess" the earth either in an eternal or in a temporary Messianic kingdom, and the destiny of the righteous individual should be finally deter- mined according to his works. For though amid the world's disorders he might perish untimely, he would not fail to attain through the resurrection the recompense that was his due, in the Messianic kingdom, or in heaven itself. The conceptions as to the risen life, its duration and character, vary i with each writer. /