anpels perform might almost he regarded as pictorial, since the wnter reduces the significance of these beings, who are the uniform at^tors and speakers in the Jewish apocal>-pses, to thai of messengers of Christ. He is the primary and final actor la the book (.opens the seals, ch. 6 f., and executes the judgment^ igiiff), and He is the real speaker.
Here also, as in the case of the place and move- ments of the seer and the heavenly scennry, a variety of sources nu*;ht explain the diversity of the representation, but we must also suppose the author to be relatively inditlerent to formal con- sistency. He must, one is forced to think, have taken the external language of apocalypses in a figurative or poetic way. The only other hypothesis would seem to be that of composite origin (as held by Volter, Spitta, etc.) ; but the etibrt to bring con- sistency out of the book by analysis and the recon- struction of sources out 01 which it was gradually and unskilfully put together, fails to do justice to the unity of style and even of plan which the book has been found to exhibit. Moreover, this etiort has been made by many able men, and, according to the prevailing opinion of scholars, has failed.
In order, however, to test the possibility of a free, more or less poetic, use of traditional apoca- lyptical material, we must examine our autlior'a use of tradition at various points more closely.
3. Sources. — (a) Old Testament. — Although Rev, contains no direct citations from the OT, it is full of OT language from the beginning to the end. An impression of its dependence on OT phrase- ology may be gained from the text of W estcott and Hort, or from that of Nestle, in which such allusions or remini.scences are printed in a distinct type. In the corresponding list of references in WH*s Appendix, pp. 184-188, out of the total number of 404 verses in the book about 265 verses contain OT language, and about 550 references are made to OT pas.^ages.* The material is still more fully gathered by Hiihn [Die alttest. Citate und Rcminlscenzen iin NT, 1900).
Nothing is more hnportant for the understanding of our author's mental and literary processes than a close study of his use of OT language.
The bearmg of such study upon the interpreta- tion of our book can here only be suggested by illustrations. One of the simplest cases is the prophetic denunciation of the fall of Babylon (Rome) in ch. 18. It is composed almost wholly of material taken from the prophetic woes over Babylon (Is 13. 14, Jer 50. 51), Tyre (Is 23, Ezk 26-28), and, in a slight degree, Edom (Is 34). Even the admonition that mi^ht seem to have direct reference to the historical situation, * Come forth, my people, out of her,' etc. (18-*), is directly borrowed from prophetic utterances (Jer 51^-'-** 50^, Is 48^ 52"), and lias there rather than here its historical explanation. Yet the chapter does not make the impression of being a laborious piece of patchwork. It has a unity of its oven and a high degree of impressiveness, and seems to be the work of one who?^e mind is tilled with the language of prophecy, and who draws abundantly, and of course consciously', from his storehouse, and yet ^^'rites with freedom and from a strong inner im- pulse of his o^\'n, and elaborates with his omu con- ceptions the themes which the prophetic words contain. So he makes out of the old a product in a real sen.se new, a poetical whole. But what shall we say of hia putting this product into the
• The allusions agree in part with the Heb., in part with the LXX. WH mark 33 references as distinctly from IK-b. (and Chald.), 15 as from LXX; 5 are marked Ileb. and LXX, viz. 4 references to Ex 19I6 (4^*8^ 11 !'-> 1618) and one to Zee 3'^ (12i'). Schurer(3 iii. 323) cites 9-^ 1(P 13' 20^ as citations from Daniel, which follow Theodotion more closely than LXX. See Bludau, ' Die Apokalvpse und Thcodotions Daniel-Uebersetzung,' in Theol. QuarthLchri/t, 1897, pp. 1-26. Salmon (Introd. to tht yT, p. (i«2f.) argue* that the citations in Rev. show a nearer relationship to Theod. than to LXX. referring to »20 io5 12? W 196 20*^ 11 ; on the other side, 1" X916. Cf. Swete, Introd. p. 48 L
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moutli of angels? It ia easier to attribute such a literary tomi«Jsition to a poet than to a voice from lieaven. Kven the action of tlie an<;el in 18-' rests on the s)-mliolic act of Jeremiah (51'^"). And if our writer says that lie hears and sees tliese things, must we not judge the nature of his vision by its contents? A literal voice from heaven this certainly cannot be, and we seem shut up to two possibilities regarding it : either the angels and the voice from heaven belong wholly to the poetry of the piece, its literary form, or they express the writer's own interpretation of the strong impulse, as if from without, under which he wrote.
Another instructive illustration of the author's use of the OT is to be found in his description of the new Jerusalem, 2I'-22'. This is largely taken from the anticipations of the prophets of the Exile, Ezekiel and Deutero- Isaiah, with reference to the return and the reb\uldiiig of Jerusalem. Features are added from other sources. Here, as in ch. 18, the impression i.s not that of mere clipping and piecing, but rather that of the work of a mind full of the Messianic language of the prophets, WTiting out of a genuine and deep religious and poetic emotion, with a dependence on the OT which is free, not slavish, and yet with very little real inventive- ness. Yet this also is shown to the seer by an angel, who seems to be in general the speaker (see 21" 4 \a\uy, 22"); and an action of his is described 21""" which is taken from Ezekiel (40"^-). In this case, more clearly than in ch. 18, we may suspect a cer- tain limitation of the author's imagination by bis sources, which is not inconsistent with a large measure of freedom in the use of them. He has mastered the OT material of this sort, and can use it etlectively, b\it cannot go much beyond it. How otherwise can \i'e explain the emphatically Jewish picture of a future which was certainly to this writer universal in scope ; the presence still of thoroughly earthl}' features in a consummation which must surely, in t he writer's view, be heavenly; the appearance still of nations and kings and their wealth after heaven .and earth have passed away? He has little but the old familiar national and earthly language at command for the description of that which heaven contains for Christian hope. He can describe the Christian heaven only in Jewish language. Hut though bound in language he is not bound in thought. He knows no more impressive and expressive language (nor do we) ; but the language is poetry to him, it is figurative, not literal, chosen for its poetic worth and emotional ellect, which belonged to it, indeed, partly because it was old and familiar. It must of course be re- cognized that the most powerful imagination comes guickly to an end if it attempts to leave the earth in its descriptions of heaven. Religious faith and hope cannot do better than take the language which tlie greater souls have created, which genera- tions have shaped, which age has hallowed, and use it not for its literal but for its emotional and poetic worth, to symbolize and suggest inexpressible realities.