We have already found reasons for regarding 11'"'" as a Jewish oracle (or two fragments of a Jewish apocalypse), used by our author in a sense wliolly ditierent from its original literal meaning. It is a most convincing illustration of our author's union of dependence on traditional forms of ex- pression, and independence of the traditional use and meaning of such forms.
The great sign in heaven which ch. 12 presents can be accounted for only in a \ery sliglit degree on the basis of the Ol. Yet nowhere is the writer's dependence upon traditional material more certain. Assuming that he did not invent these ligures, it is not difficult to understand what he meant to saj- by the use of them. The chapter contains a picture, in some sense an explanation, of Satan's present ])ower in the world, and his fierce hostility to the Christian Church ; and at the same time the a.ssurance that his power is soon to end. Christ escaped his hands, and is with God. Satan has already been cast ilown from his old place in heaven, and no longer brings accusations against the saints before God ; and, tliough he is now all the more determined in his assaults upon Christ's brethren on earth, his reign is doomed to a speedy end. This application of tlie ligure, however, uy no means explains its origin. Many of its details can be fitted to this use only by violence, if at all, and could not have been devised for the purpose. What tlien was the source, and of what sort was the wTiter's use of this material ?
Gunkel's book must be regarded as little short of epoch-making in its significance for the inter- pretation of this chapter, even though serious doubt be felt regarding certain of his conclusions, lie offers convincing proof of the long and wide- spread influence in Hebrew literature of the IJaby- hmian myth of creation— the victory of Marduk, i.ne god of lijrht (the sun), over the chaos-beast Ti.lmat, the dragon of the deep He traces the transition from a cosmological to an eschatological use of the conception, on the principle, which ex- plains many features of the Jewish hope, that God will make tlie last thin^rs as tlie first (Barn. 6"*) ; and the interpretation of the dragon as a historical
instead of a natural power. In this way the myth becomes a poetic expression of the expectation that the hostility ot tlie world -ruling nation against Israel will come to a supreme manifesta- tion ; tliat then J" will intervene directly, or through the angel Michael, and again, as at the beginning, the dragon will be bound or slain (cf. Is 51"- '" 27'). ' The beast that conies up out of the abyss' (Kev 11') is this well-known figure in Jewish eschatology. It could be regarded as a symbol, or representative of the hated nation, as in Dn 7 it becomes four beasts, to describe the four successive masters and enemies of the Jewish nation, and as in Rev 13 it is the Roman empire ; or it could be more distinctly and personally con- ceived, as in Rev 12, as the Satan who <;ives the hostile kingdom its evil power. It could also be conceived of as a man in whom evil reaches its height (Antichrist, perhaps Rev II').
Gunkel is not contented, however, with this general and probable identification of the draj^on of ch. 12, tie proceeds to delend two much more dubious positions. First, that our ciiapter rests ultiuiiitely upon, and loUou-s closely, a part of tiie Babylonian myth of which we have no oliier remaining record — the account of the birth of Marduk, his escape from the dragon wtio knows him to be his destined destroyer, and the dra^ou'a fierce persecution ot his ^'oddess-mother "during the period of the boy's growth to maturity, ' the three and a lialf times,' from the winter solstice to the spring equinox [?J. Second, that in contrast to the free poetic use of such material in the earlier prophetic and poetic books of the OT, we find in the apoca- Ij-pses an increasing tendency to look upon these ancient and mysterious figures with awe, and to believe that tliey really contained, and could reveal to one who had wisdom, the ex- planation of present evil and the secrets of ita comin<r end. This reverence for apocalj'ptical traditions explains, Gunkel contended, what nothing else but literal vision could exjtlain, tlie confident belief of these writers in their own predictions. He finds, therefore, in such sources as these not only an illus- tration of the literary method of the seer, but an explanation of his self-consciousness, a psychological account of apocalyptical writings. Both of these positions of Gunkel are insecure, and from the second one he lias himself in part withdrawn. The freedom with which we have found our author combining and modifying OT materials renders it hazardous to attempt to reconstruct his sources when they are unknown, and also jire- vent3 the assumption that he looked upon such materials with awe and derived from them his revelation.
It is not probable that the material in Rev 12 stands in its original form and order. Gunkel himself recognized that v." and vv.'-'* offer two variants. \A ellhausen (Hkizzen unci Vorarbeiten, 6 Heft, p. 21511'.) regards »"« and '•'■■ as doub- lets, and would distinguish two actions in the original story wliich are here confused. 1. In heaven, the dragon wars with the angels, or with the sun, moon, and zodiac (vv."-'-'), is conquered and cast down to earth witli his angel host (vv.'-*- *'■). 2. On earth, he makes war with tlie woman who bears the son (■"' is already an earthly scene), the son is snatched up to heaven ('), the woman flees into the wilderness, the dragon pursues her there, but must leave her (fi=ii-i»), and turns against those of her seed who did not escape with her. There must then have followed an account of the overthrow of the dragon by the rescued Messiah after His growth to maturity. Something like this, Wellhausen thinks, was a Jewish apoca- lypse of the siege of Jerusalem. It described how the remnant (the woman) had escaped out of tha city and been rescued through great dangers ; how the Romans (dragon) had turned against those who remained in Jerusalem, who are to be destroyed (Rev 11'-^ is, however, a fragment of the same time which anticipates the rescue of those, the Zealots, who occupied the temple itself during the sie''e). The fall of the Roman power itself must follow at the hand of the Messiah, who has been born, according to prophecy, in Palestine, but was translated at once to heaven, so that He will come as a heavenly being, according to the more trans- cendental Messianic hojie of late Judaism. So Wellh. offers a literary-critical and contemporary-