EEVELATION, BOOK OF
REVELATIOX, BOOK OF 247
the materials of his book. Not only traditions, bat writings form his sources. Tliese materials may already have connected themselves with Enoch, or Mose.-, or some other great name. So that one may venture to say that the pseudonymity of these books has some basis in actuality. The hiding or sealing of the book until the end (Dn 12^' 8'^ (10"), Assump. Mos. l"->8) belongs to the pseudepi- graphic form, accounting for tlie appearance of tlie book so long after the time of its assumed origin. Yet this may also express the actual fact of the ancient character of the writer's sources. Tlie writers could not have put forth this material altogether in their own names, for it is not as a whole their invention. They are largely compilers and commentators, and have a deep reverence for tlicir sources. Yet this observation, which we owe to Gunkel, must be modilied in view of those figures which are unmistakably and even e.xplicitly con- structed for the purpose of setting forth in alle- gorical form the nistory of the past, especially of the recent past, as foreseen by the supposed ancient author. Dn 7 contains, no doubt, traditional material of the sort just described, but it has been freely re-shaped so as to contain the history of four successive world-empires. If the original form of the tradition contained only one dra^'ou of the deep, how can we be sure that the description of the one like a man was not part of the writer's elaboration of his material, rather than, as Gunkel affirms, part of the tradition itself? And if so, his belief in the forecast it contains preceded his use of the tradition and determined his use of it.
(e) Literary material and form. — The apoca- lypse is characterized by the use of striking bgures, not only strange and unnatural, but evidently mysterious in character, seen in dreams and visions, interpreted by angels, and yielding secrets of the future course of history. Although prophecy is full of figurative forms of speecL, Ireely fashioned, or poetically and rhetorically applied, j-et these figures liave neither the strange unearthly character nor the mysterious value of the distinctively apocalyptical symbols. Those latter, at least in part, go back to primitive mythological formations. This connexion is quite unmistakable in Zecli. , where a mass of this material suddenly meets us. The four winds, messengers and agents of God, and the seven planets. His eyes, which run to and fro through the whole earth, are still clearly to be perceived as the underlying foundation of figures wliich the pro- phet applies to the historical situation, and to the two men, Joshua and Zerubltabd, on whom he fixes his high hopes (2»-" 6'-» 4="'^ ""■"). Yet Zech. uses such material aa poetry, while in Daniel it has value as mystery, containing, for one who could interpret it, the secrets of tlie future. The vision and its interjiretation by an angel comes therefore to be of supreme value, and revelation is conceived of in this half-sensible and wholly eupernaturalistic way. Ezekiel here also leads the way. Ilia vision of God is more sensible than Isaiah's, and his inspiration more external and eupernaturalistic than Jeremiah's (cf. Ezk 1 with Is G, and Ezk 2. 3 with Jcr I).
(/) Literary composilivn and history. — After Daniel, the Jewish apocalypses appear to be in no case proper unities. ^lost of tliera have been ailapted by revision to use in later and changed con- ditions, and all of them, including Daniel, appear to l>e based in their first writing on older materials wliich they embody, without serious ellort to build them into a harmonious structure. The Bk. of Enoch is a compilation of Enoch literature, having indeed a certain rough plan as it now stiiiids, but without real unity. Even chs. 1-36 contain three distinct descriptions of the Messianic
consummation (chs. 5. 10. 25), which, in connexion with the description of Slieol (cli. 22), form any- thing but a continuous and consistent picture. Almost all forms of the Jewish hope are contained in this book : that in which the Messiah occupies the central place, that in which he is subordinate, and that in which he is wholly absent ; that in which the scene and character are purely earthly, that in which they are properly heavenly (angelic) ; that in which the heavenly precedes the earthly and finally descends to earth (37-70), and that in which the heavenly follows after the earthly in chronological succession (91'-'") — the chiliastic scheme. In general the apocalypses are not char- acterized by a thoroughgoing unity of scheme, nor even by a consistent unity of teaching, and cannot be undsrstood except by the recognition of inde- pendent sources, and also, in some cases, editorial revision. Here we have especially to do with the additions of Christian hands, since througli them alone these books, after Daniel, have reached us. In some cases this Christian revision has gone but a little way (Enoch, Assump. Mos., Apoc. Bar) ; while in some cases the Jewish apocalypse is found in a radical Christian revision (Asc. of Isaiah, Test. XII. Patriarchs). The questions as to literary analysis and the presence of a considerable Christian element are still very variously answered, especially in the case of Enoch 37-70 (71) and 4 Ezra.
{(/) Apocalyptical dogmas. — The religious teach- ings of the prophets, individual and distinct as they are, can be summarized only in some such statement of their moral and religious principles as Mic 6' ('to do justly, and to love mere}', and to walk humbly with thy God '), in con- nexion with such a formulation of their preach- ing of repentance in view of tlie threatened judgment as Zech. gives (I* 1'^- connecting v." with v.'). But in the apocalj'pses not jjrinciples so much as details become fixed in dogmas. Daniel's general scheme for the future is unchanged : a coming Day of J", which is near at hand, and comes when evil is at its height ; the overthrow of the world-kingdom, the siltin" of the Jewish people, and the possession by the righteous of kingship over the nations and lasting blessedness. To this were added, from Ezekiel, a final assault of the outstanding heathen upon Zion, in which they are gloriously and finally vanquished ; from various prophecies, the expectation of the return of the ten tribes and the gathering of the dis-