Looking at the book itself, the most obvious nn- likeness to the Jewish apocalypse, after the identi- fications just named, is the letters to the seven Churches. To be sure, they are introduced by a highly coloured Christophany, based on Zech. and Daniel, and are given in the form of a direct communication of the exalted Christ through the Spirit. Yet they have to do with actual, concrete conditions; they praise and blame, encourage and warn, with close discrimination and intense moral earnestness, so that we feel the prophetic si'irit behind the partly apocalyptical form. Their warnings are aimed, not at foreign powers, but at the Christian communities ; and the judgment they predict, though not itself conditional, is nevertheless the basis of a teaching of repentance. These are not like the letters of St. Paul, but they are far les,s' like the Epistle of Baruch to the nine and a half tribes (Apoc. Bar 78-87).*
(c) Eemaining rjucstions as to the relation of Reo. to the apocalypses. — Certain points remain at which the question of likeness or unlikencss be- tween Rev. and Jewish apocalypses cannot be answered by a general view, but only, if at all, by closer study.
(1) Pseudunymity. — The Jewish apocalypses are all pseudonymous, and contain accounts, in direct or figurative form, of the past course of history, In the form of predictions by the assumed author.
'Who can compare the name John (l'- »■ » 228) with Enoch or Moeis, or even with Daniel, liaruch, and Ezra? The authors of tlioae hooka dated themaelves centuries bock, veiled ttiem- ■elvos in tlie sjwred names of the remote past, and turned to a credulous public of their time without even pretending any personal reliUiun to it whatever. Here, on tne contrarv, a inan si>eaks to seven Churches of the province of Asia and pves them his book, who is most accurately acquainted with their
S resent conditions ; and he speaks to them under the name, ohn, which was borne there about a.d. 70-100 by the most eonsiiicuouB ecclesinjitical personalitv ; and this he does accord- ing to tradition about a.i>. 96, so in the lifetime of the famous
• Of. the possible companioD letter to the two and a half feribM In Bar li-t SM«.
John of Ephesus, or according to any conceivable hypothesis in the lifetime of the personal pupils of this John' (Zabn. ExtUat. ii. p. 684 f.X \— ™>
This is Zahn's chief objection to classing Rev. with the apocalypses, to the very essence of which, he says, belongs pseudonymity. ' The representation of the development of world-history under the form of an ante-dated prediction, if it is present at all in Rev., is a wholly subordinate element in it.' With this sentence Zahn makes his position in- secure. A certain amount of antedated prediction, or at least of history in the form of vision, can hardly be excluded from the picture of the Roman empire in Rev 13 and 17 ; but pseudonymity has such visions for its most characteristic product and one of its reasons for being. Even as a subordi- nate element in the book, comparable to the place of chs. 11. 12 in the Apoc. of Ezra, such visions suggest the possibility of pseudonymous author- ship, which in the case of a Christian apocalypse might well choose an apostolic name. Weizsacker tlierefore thinks we should start from the fact 'that among all similar writings of Jewish and ancient Christian origin, we know not a single one which bears the name of its own author.' Even Hernias is hardly a unity, and professes a greater than its actual age. This does not make it impossible that John wrote under his own name. ' But a strong presupposition always re- mains that the general practice of this art-form is followed in this case also' (Apostolic Acre, ii. p. 174). » i-
The question of pseudonymity, and the connected question whether and how far Rev. contains history in the form of vision, remains open at this pre- liminary stage of our discussion.
(2) Composite cknrnrter.—Ho also must the ques- tion of composite chfiracter be regarded as opened, and not closed, by a general comparison of Rev. with the Jewish apocalypses.
Boes Rev. share this common characteristic of the apocalypse ? The book has often been praised for its architectural construction, but there are various indications of seams or breaks in its struc- ture, and neither in the historical situation which it reflects (before or after 70; soon after Nero or under Domitian) nor in the type of religious thought which it repiesents (Jewish or Pauline [universalistic] Christianity ; primitive Jewish, or developed [HellenisticJ Christology) is unity of impression easily gained. The course of recent investigation abundantly vindicates the proposi- tion that the question of likeness or unlikencss between Rev. aud the apocalypses in the matter of unity and sources is at present an o|)en one.
(3) Mature of vltion. — A third uncertainty con- cerns the question of the nature of the visions, the narrative of which makes up the book. All apocalypses arc coiii]iosed largely of accounts of visions and tlnur interpretation by angels. The question, how far this is a literary (artistic) form, and how far really ecstatic experiences were con- nected with their authorship, is one that should not be answered too confidently and sweepingly even with reference to the .Jewish apocalypses. Zahn accepts the visions of Rev. as actual ex- periences literally described, while he regards the visions of other apocalypses as artistic fictions. The diflerence is to him that between true and false prophecy. Others, the majority, judge the vision to he everywhere, at least in this age, a literary form, anil point for evidence especially to tlie many repetitions or imitations of OT and other traditional materials which they contain, ami to the many visions which simply embody history in allegorical form, to account for which real vision is a wholly unnecessary supposition.