2. The NT Apocalypse of John as the type of apocalyptic writings. — Though in the sense of the Christian creed the whole Bible is by pre-eminence the literature of apocalypse or revelation, there is only one book in each Testament to which the name has been given. In the NT we have the Apocalypse of John and in the OT we have the Book of Daniel, which is unmistakably both in style and substance of the same literary genus. The latter is — apart from what may be called apocalyptic fragments in the older prophetical writ- ings, e.g. Is 24 — the oldest known Apocalypse, and has served as a model for subsequent writings of the class. Daniel and the Apocalypse of John mark respectively the beginning and the end of what may be called the apocalyptic period, which thus covers upwards of 260 years (say 168 B.C. to A.D. 96). t It thus appears that, while there is an apocalyptic element in practically all the books of the NT (see below), there is only one writing be- longing to the Apostolic Age which is as a whole of the apocalyptic class, and which, despite much controversy in the early centuries,! has held its place among the books of authority recognized by the Christian Church. This circumstance alone might warrant tlie almost exclusive devotion of this article to an account of this book, but such concentration offers, besides, the advantage of showing the leading features of the apocalyptic style as they appear, so to speak, synthetically, interwoven with an actual situation— a crisis — on which the mind of the apocalyptist reacts. In regard to the uncanonical apocalypses, if one may not say, after studying the Ajjocalypse, ' Ex uno disce onines,' one may remember the attention paid to the lesser apocalypses during the last half- century, and say that the creepers have not suffered from the oversliadowing of the cypress. §
• Denney, et al.
t Daniel belongs to the time of the persecution of the Jews under the Greek-Syrian kinp Antiochus Epiphanes (168-165 B.C.) ; the Apoc. of John probably to the persecution of the Christians under the Roman emperor Domitian (a.d. 81-96).
{ The canonicity of the A])ocalypse was controverted, esp. in the Kastern Church, and it was not till a.d. 215 that the Western Church, under the leadership of Ilippolytus. accepted it. The East finally yielded to the West.
§ Verg. Eel. i. 25 f., quoted by Moffatt (.BGr v. 295).
3. Non-canonical apocalypses of the Apostolic Age. — As, however, both the Apocalypse and the other books of the NT contain implicit references, and, in at least one case,* an explicit reference to other apocalypses, a list may here be given of the non-canonical apocalypses, either wholly or partly extant, and of others whose existence may be in- ferred from quotations of them found in the early Fathers. They may be classified under three heads: (A) Jewish, (B) Jewish - Christian, (C) Hellenic or Gentile.
(A) Under this head fall : (a) The cycle known as Enoch, which
includes : (a) The Ethiopia Enoch, so called because it survives chiefly in an Ethiopia Version. It includes : (1) chs. 1-36, 72-108 (c. 100 B.C.); (2) chs. 37-71 ('Book of Similitudes'), which be- longs probably to the early days of the Herodian dynasty, and is therefore close to the Christian era. In this book t occur those references to the pre-existent Messiah under the title ' Son of man,' which Hilgenfeld and others have ascribed to Christian interpolation, but whose direct debt is probably only to Daniel (see esp. Dn 7'3). (js) The Slavonic Secrets of Enoch, before a.d. 70. — (b) Assumption of Moses (Q.w.)not later than a.d. 10. — (c) Apocalypse of Ezra, usually cited as Fourth Ezra ( = 2 Esdras [q.v.] of English 'Apocrypha,' chs. 3-14), after a.d. 90.— <d) Apocalypse of Baruch (.q.v.), about the same time as U Ezra. — (e) The Testament of Abraham, perhaps the 1st cent. a.d. — (/) The Testaments of the XI J. Patriarchs (q.v.), probably the 1st cent. a.d. — (a), (6), (d), and (/) are best accessible to the English reader in the careful editions of R. H. Charles, Oxford, 1893, 1897, 1896, 1908. In regard to (c), we have, in addition to the scholarly editions of James and Bensly, G. H. Box's The Ezra-Apocalypse (London, 1912). For (e), we have the edition of M. R. James (Cambridge, 1892). 2f.B. — See now also R. H. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the OT, Oxford, 1913.
Closely related to the apocalyptical books are : (g) The Psalms of Solomon, 64-40 b.c, edited by Ryle and James (Cambridge, 1891) under the alternative title Psalm» of the Pharisees.— {h) The Book of Jubilees, probably before Christ. See Charles' translation in JQR vi. [1894] 710, vii. [1895] 297.— (i) The Ascension of Isaiah (q.v.) — Jewish part = the Martyrdom of Isaiah (21-312 and 5--1-*), Charles' edition (London, 1900). In addition to these extant books are 4, which are known to us only through citations in Origen and other Fathers : 0) The Prayer of Joseph ; (k) The Book of Eldad and Medad ; (I) The Apocalypse of Elijah ; (m) The Apocalypse of Zephaniah.
(B) Under this head would fall not so much apocalypses written independent!}' by Jews who were Christians — for, if we except the Apocalypse of John, such books are hardly known to have existed— as (a) Selections from Jewish apocalypses of matter embodying beliefs common to Jews and Christians; and (b) Christian interpolations of Jewish apocalypses. Of these (a) are by far the more frequent. The OT was the Bible of the early Christians, and such an example as that of Jude^f. (cf. En. 19), taken along with the implicit references to apoca- lyptic writings which are found in the Apocalypse and other books of the NT (see below), reveals a tendencj- among the Christians to extend the range of the Canon ; it points at the same time to the large amount of matter, both within and be- jond the Canon, that was common to Jews and Christians. It is, indeed, a fact worthy of special notice that at an early period, which we may date roughly from the fall of the Jewish State in A.D. 70, apocalyjitic literature begins to lose interest for the Synagogue in proportion as it gains it for the Christian Church. This fact invests the apocalyptic literature with a peculiar interest for the student of the Apostolic Age. There is the general question as to how that age of early Christians came to value and even to produce apocalyptic books, which we convert here into the more concrete question, How could it produce the Apocalypse of John ? There is the dogmatic question, What are the elements in this book which entitle it to the position of authority it holds to this day ? For (b), examples of Christian interpolation may be found in The Ascension of Isaiah, which is Christian in all but 21-312 and 52-14 ; and in chs. 1 and 2, and 15 and 16 of U Ezra which are sometimes quoted as 5 and 6' Ezra respectively.