(C) Hellenic apocalypses. — The Sibylline Oracles (q.v.), 'Jewish works under a heathen mask ' (Schiirer), are the best instance under this head. They are the work ot Hellenistic Jews, and are written in Greek hexameters for Gentiles, under names which have authority for such readers. The fact that they have been subjected to considerable Christian interpolation testifies to the extent of their circulation. Much the best edition of them, based on 14 MSS, is that of Rzach (Oracula Sibyllina, Vienna, 1891). English readers may consult Schiirer's HJP ii. iii. 28S-92 ; Ediiih. lieview (July 1877) ; Deane's Pseudepigrapha (1891), 276 ff. ; Charles' Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, ii.
As an example of distinctively Christian work, produced under more decidedly Hellenic influence than is to be found in works of Jewish origin, may be mentioned the A/mcnlt/pse of Peter, a large part of which was edited for the English reader in 1892. Strong claims to canonicity were made tor it in early times, and its teaching largely influenced later Christian ideas
• Jude Hf- ; cf. Eth. En. 19.
t 4S-'f 622 etc. See L. A. Muirhead, The Timss of Christ, Edinburgh, 1905, pp. 141 f., 147.
APOCALYPSE
APOCALYPSE
73
of heaven and hell. ' It Is as strongly Greek as Revelation [the Apoc. of John] is Jewish, having a close relation to the Greek Orpliio Literature. It concerns the lot of souls after death, whereas Revelation, like the Jewish apocalypses, is more con- cerned with the course of world-history ' (Porter, from whose Messages of the Apoc. Writers, 7 ff., these lists are mainly taken).
i. Period and general characteristics of apoca- lyptic literature. — Before passing to an account of tiie Apocalypse of John we must try to form a definite idea of the characteristic features of apoca- lyptic literature — its design, form, and leading ideas. From the point of view of tlie student of the NT, apocalypse must be considered as of purely Jewisli growth.* As we have seen, the period within wliicli apocalyptic literature was produced occupied over a century and a half before the birth of Christ and about a century after. It is thus the accompaniment and interpretation of the last great struggle of the Jewish people for that political independence — with an implicit idea of supremacy — which seemed to be due to the Chosen People. Within this period fall the comparative victory (Maccabaean triumph), varying fortunes (political importance, accompanied with decline of religious fervour ; dissensions between the lax hellenizing and the puritanical patriotic party), and the ultimate seeming extinction (capture of Jerusalem by Titus A.D. 70) of this ideal. The apocalyptists are the instructors and encouragers of the people in the name of God in reference to that Kingdom which, in spite of the greatness of the world-powers that are their rivals and the enemies of Jahweh, is yet to come to them from God and to be realized in the world. In Daniel, which belongs to the period of the Maccabaean struggle, we may see the high-water mark of spiritual faith reached by this ideal ; in the fact that after the fall of the Jewish State, the kernel t of the nation, the Jews of the stricter synagogue, ceased to cherish the apocalypses and perhaps even suppressed J them, we have an index of the limitations of the ideal. The Kingdom, however loftily conceived by the seers of the nation, was still in the actual tiiought of the orthodox Jew too much of this world and of his own nation. Be- tween this How and ebb lies the history of apoca- lypse, as it is to be read within the limits of Judaism. It is a record of great hopes and fideli- ties, but also of great disappointments and of failures both in conception and fulfilment. The great apocalypses were written in periods of stress. Judging from Daniel, we may say, perhaps, the greater the stress tlie truer the inspiration of the apocalj-ptist. Tlie leading ideas are simple but great ; the tribulation is real. It will last for a measured while, and even increase. The troubling powers are fierce and violent. They rage like wild beasts and seem to be of great power ; but their power passes, and tiie Kingdom comes to the faith- ful and the patient. Death does not end every- thing eitlier for the faithful or for the lawless, and there is special bliss for those who lose life for righteousness' sake.§
As to the literary form of the apocalypses, the most salient distinguishing feature is a certain
* That is to say, questions as to the affinities of its phrase- ologj' and conceptions with those of heathen mythology belong rather to the study of the OT. Long- before ' John ' writes, the nivthological conceptions have passed through the mill of the spirit that is distinctive of the Jewish faith. What further re- finement they need is supplied by the mill of the Christian fulfilment.
t Yet what is here said is not altogether true of the Jews of the Dispersion.
t The apocal^Tises survive for the most part not in their native Hebrew or Aramaic but in Greek, and in the dialects of the districts where they were received, and where they were read more by C'liristians than by Jews.
§ Dn 122 is fairly cited as proijably the only passage in the OT that clearly teaches a bodily resurrection for individual Israel- ites. The resurrection would seem to be universal as regards Israel (though this is doubtful), but nothing is said of the heathen.