Ood descends to be with men (213- 22r.). VTe note also that there are still 'the kings of the earth' who can bnng their treasures to the new Jerusalem (21'i'-'':''); and though there sha.U not enter into it anything unclean (212' = Is 621 etc.), yet outside of the city gates are the wicked (2214), whose part, however, according to 21", is in the lake of fire, the second death.
The earthly features of the new Jerusalem in the new earth are especially strange in a chiliastic eschatology. We shpl^d expect the 1000-years' reign of Christ and the martyrs to fulfil the earthly .Messianic hopes of prophecy, and the final consiiiunia- tion should be heavenly. Zahn actually holds, accorihiigly,
that 21s'-225 (16) is a description not of the final blessedness, hut of the condition of the world during the lOUO-years' reign. There is, in fact, no escape from this violent conclusion, no way of harmonizing this picture with that of 79^", and with the condition of things implied in 1913-21 20ll-ii> 21i, except by taking it throughout as poetry. It is in form an almost purely Jewish description of what is to our author a Christian and heavenly consummation. It has always been used as poetry by (Christians, and, so used, has proved inspiring.
The hope of this writer has often been declared to be narrowly Jewish-Christian, and Vischer and others have felt that the only wav in which justice can be done to the evident univer- sality and spirituaUty of some parts of the book is by separat- ing 'it into independent parU. Undoubtedly, the Jewish lan- guage is due to Je»-ish writers. £.17. 7i-» suggests that Jewisn Christians form the nucleus of the new community, and retain a sort of separateness and primacv, while the multitudes from other nations are added to them. So in 111-13 Judaism appears to be only chastened for its sins ; but the great majority repent and are saved. And, finally, the new Jerusalem remains Jcwisn ("112) Its gates are for the tribes of Israel who enter into the citv, while believing nations walk by its Ught, bring gifts to it, "but do not dwell within its walls; are healed by the leave* of its trees of life, but do not eat their fruit (2l24-22'i).* ^ _ But in spite of the writer's high valuation of the name Jew (2* 30). and in spite of a certain parallel for such a doctrine of the eschatological primacy of Je%vs in the expectations of St. Paul (Ko 11), it appears quite certain to the present writer that Rev. knows no such distinction ; that in 7i-» and 111-13 it is no longer Judaism, but Christianity, the true ' Jews ' and heirs to Israel's promises, to whom the writer applies undoubtedly Jewish oracles, and that the Jewish language in chs. 21. 22, wholly borrowed, as it is, from the OT, is used as poetry to picture the heavenlv blessedness of Christians.
(3) The fall of Satan.— In chs. l'2-20 the distinction be- tween fact and figure in our writer's predictions is involved especially in the question how he conceived of the angelic and demonic beings whose deeds and fortunes form the background of the action. Here we re.ad of the birth and ascension of Christ ; Satan and his angels cast out of heaven by Michael and his hosts ; the persecution of Christians by Satan through the beasts who represent Rome's empire and cultus ; the fall of Rome introduced by last plagues (15. 16), described in symbol (17), and in prophetic language (18) ; the overthrow of the tvvo beasts and their followers by Christ; the binding of Satan ; the 1000-years' reign of Christ and risen martyrs ; the loosing of Satan, who with a great army (Gog and Magog) assails the holy city and is destroved ; the general resurrection and judgment, when Death and Hades, with condemned men, are cast into the lake of fire, where the beasts and Satan are.
In this outlook one thing which must be taken literally is the fall of Rome. Even if Jews in large part shaped the variom oracles against the godless city, our writer could not have put chs 17. 18 into his book if he had not meant to say what is there so unmistakably said, nor can 13. 14» 1619 have any other meaning. But the Judgment upon Rome, which forms the concrete historical contents of chs. 12-20, is set in a frame, or double frame, of deeds in the angelic world. Chs. 12 and 20 form the outside setting, or, shall we say, the underiying stratum, the real cause and end of evil. The fall of Satan from heaven, his last assaults upon men (Christians), his imprison- ment in the abyss, his release and last onslaught and final over- throw, are the events that ultimately explain the evil of the present, and bring evil to its absolute end. Chs. 13 and 19'1-21 fonn the inner framework about the historical reality or the upper stratum, just below the surface of observed facts. The two beasts are not identical with the Roman empire and emperor-worship, but are the representatives of these in the spirit-world ; they are not an abstract symbol of Rome, but a concrete (personal) embodiment of Rome. They are dcmonio beings, pictures of the evil spirit-power of Rome. This is probably the correct view of the beasts in Dn 7 also, since Professor N. Schmidt ^JBL. 1900, part i.) has maile probable the identification of the 'one like a man ' with the angel prince of Israel, the Michael, who is described as gaining Israel's victory over the angel representatives of the nations (chs. 10-12). That the beasts are angelic beings is suggested by the demons that come out of their mouths (1613- "), and by the difference between their punishment and that of the armies that fight for them (1920. 21). But though distinct from Rome the beasts arc not apart from it. We mistake the Jcvvish idea of the angelio counterpart if we give it independent significance. The beast's power is Rome's power, and Rome's fall is the fall of the beast. Yet the two are not one, and it is possible th.at the writer used the figure of ch. 17 to express his behef that Rome was to fall at the hand of ito own evil genius, by the fruits of its own sin. It was the woman sitting on the beast, against whom ths