fiersed Jews ; and details regarding the renewed and and city, such as Deutero-Isaiah, Ezekiel, Haggai, and others suggested.
within this general Bcheme Bome important differences were possible. Tile Messiah is sometimes conceived of as God't agent in establiiihing his ItiiiK'iiom on eartli (e.</. Ps-£iol 17, Enoch 37-70), sometimes as king after the kingdom hoa been set up by Ood, e.g. Enoi^h 90, 4 Ezr 7'^, Apoc. Bar 29 ; and sometimes all is done by God alone, and there is no king beside him (e.g. I>aniel, Enoch 1-3<J, Assump. Mos. lU).
Tile place of the individual in this eschatulogicol scheme Is differently estimated. Sometimes, and in ^'encral one may say in earlier times, nations are the chief actors, and it is the problem of Israel that events are to solve. Increasingly the individual claimed consideration, and the sug^'estions of Dn 1'^ 3. 13 were followed and elaborated. An oscbatology of the individual was developed in connexion with the national, and gradually threatened to subordinate the national to itself. At first it was enough that the righteous dead should arise to have the part they deserved in the glory of the nation. Ijut at *tome time the effort to claim for the individual a more than earthly and temporary future, and perhaps also the effort to ascribe to the comuig age a more than earthlv glory, produced a strain and at lajit a break in the traditional nope. There came to be two consummations, the earthly, the world-rule of Israel, the Messianic king<iom, which would come to an end and be fol- lowed by the heavenly and eternal. Of this break of the one hope into two our earliest rCLOnl is in the AiiocalviMe of Tea Weeks in Enoch 93110 91ia-l'. Ct. 4 Ezr 7*', Apoc. Uar 40», Secrete of Enoch 33, and see Millrvnm'm. In connexion with this scheme, the lot of the soul after death became a subject of apocah-ptical research and vision by the side of the lot ol Isruel and Zion <4 Ezra).
248 REVELATION, BOOK OF
REVELATION, BOOK OF
The Idea that the visible and human world waa to be under- stood by the invisible and angelic that lay about and beneath and above it, led the apocali-pticul writers not only to a de- veloped an^elology, in part Persian in orisfin, but also to researches in the mysteries of nature, especially in refcrenfie to the movements of the planets, most of all those of the moon, •uch as are elaborated in Enoch 72-79. 82. iV^^ 43. 44. 69. (J9. But while some apocalypses are concerned with such specula- tions, others move back in the oiiposite direction to an almost prophetic earnestness of moral denunciation and exhortation le.g. Enoch 91-104),
(3) Inferences as to Methods of Interpretation. — From this brief study of the nature of the apoca- lypse certain inferences follow as to the method of interpretation.
(a) Not 'futurist.' — The apocalj'pse has to do witli the present and the uiimcuiate, not the remote future. Its predictions are to be under- stood as referring to actual or imminent historical factors and events.
(b) Conteynporary-historical. — Some of the figures of the apocalypse are invented or freely adapted in order to reiiresent historical persons, nations, and events. These are to be explained in accord- ance vnth their origin by the events which they describe. From them we may hope to get tlie clearest light upon the date of the writing.
(c) TradUion-kistorkal. — Some of the ligures are borrowed from the OT or from older apocalypses or traditions. In such cases the interpreter must distinguish between the original meaning of the figure and the present author's purpose in using it. He may have used it because in the main it lent itself to his application, but he may have preferred not to change it, either from artistic instinct or from reverence. It is a mistake, then, to assume that every detail had a meaning to him, and to insist on finding it. Perhaps some features of the picture were as much a mystery to the writer of our book as they are to us. Some- times we can guess quite plausibly what tlie original meaning was, although we cannot tell whether the writer of our book gave it a meaning or not.
((f) Literary-critical. — The unity of an apoca- lypse cannot be assumed. The ancient material just alluded to may be introduced almost entire from some unknown source. Later readers might weave together distinct oracles, especially if they passed under the same name ; and editorial com- ments or changes are always possible in tlie etlort to adapt an apocalypse to the changed conditions or the changed beliefs of a later time. Literary criticism must, however, be held in check by the fact that a writer often himself used ancient tra- ditional materials only partly harmonious with his own time and teaching, and fitted them but im- perfectly into his plan.
(e) Poeitea/.— The underlying religious faith and the immediate practical aim of an apocalyptical writer (to encourage faith amid trial, to recall apostates, to guard readers against the influence of foreign thought and life, etc.), must not be lost sight of in the study of the mysteries of the unseen or future world which he woulil unveil. The ques- tion is always to be asked how far the strange accounts of the unseen world and of coming events were of literal, and how far of figurative or poetic value to the writer himself. There was something of the poet in the apocalyptical seer. He was seldom simply a scribe and a literalist. The greater the variety and the less the outward consistency of his Wsions, the less probably were they regarded by him as literally true. In con- nexion with this the question must arise as to the psychical experience of the ajioialyptical writer, the possibility of some actual visionary experi- ences among the many which must be regarded as fictitious, a mere literary form. Thus Gunkel believes that such genuine experiences lie behind