At first sight the change seems more formal than real. The Apocalyjjse comes from Jesus Christ (P), but, beyond the features of His death and resurrection, tiiere is nothing in the descrip- tion of the sublime Personage who overwhelms 'John' with His manifestations (l^'') suggestive of any feature distinctive of the human Jesus of the Gospels. The description of the Figure in V- '^'^^• and in IQ""'- owes more to Daniel, J Zechariah,§ and Isaiah || than to anything that is original in the Gospels. Such a fact gives a certain colour to the view, propounded by Vischer in 1886, that the book is a Jewish Apocalypse set in a Christian framework (chs. 1-3, and 22"--'), and slightly inter- polated. This extreme view has, however, yielded to the strong impression of its unity and Christian character, which, in spite of its eclectic form, the book produces on the mind of the critical no less than of the ordinary reader. As to the alleged absence of the features of the Christ of the Gospels, two considei-ations seem specially relevant. The one is that the absence of the human features of Jesus is scarcely more marked in the Apocalypse than it is in every other book of the NT outside the Gospels. Are references to the human Jesus frequent or marked in the Acts of the Apostles, though that book was written by a man wiio also wrote a Gospel ? Are they marked — or even, in the latter case, at all present — in the Epistles which bear the names of Peter and John ? Notoriously they are so little marked in the known writings of the greatest hgure of the Apostolic Age that their absence has suj^jjlied its one position of apparent strength to the 'modern Gnosticism' associated with the names of Jensen and Drews, and has made the effort to exhibit real points of contact between St. Paul and Jesus of Nazareth a main task of modern A])ologetics. Yet one of St. Paul's companions was Mark, and another was Luke. We do not know all that St. Paul either
• That is to saj', its affinities with pagan mythology may be ig-nort-d, as belonging to the sphere of OT research.
t According to Huhn, Matthew has 37 direct quotations from the OT against 3 in the Apocalypse. But the latter has 453 reminiscences against 437 in Matthew. Thus Matthew conies near the Apocalypse in this respect ; Luke, with 474 reminiscences, goes beyond it. All the other books are much behind Si (Alttest. Citate u. Reminiscemen im jNT, 1900, p. 269 ff.).
: Dn 73 105ff-. § Zee 1210. || la ]14 63iff-.
APOCALYPSE
APOCALYPSE
spoke or ^vrote, but we do know that, contempo- raneously with the accomplishment of his mission to the Gentiles, or, at least, well within the Apos- tolic Age, a demand for written reminiscences of Jesus arose both in the Jewish and in the Gentile portion of the Church. Men possess reminiscences of personalities who have exercised a determining influence upon tliem long before they think of committing them to writing, and often, if not usually — as witness the cases of Matthew and ^Nlark — the task of writing is undertaken only by request (Euseb. HE iii. 39). If, then, the silences of St. Paul, the contemporary of Jesus (who yet possibly never saw Him in the flesh), do not, on fair consideration, surprise us, why should those of a man some thirty years younger, a Chris- tian prophet of the time of Domitian, oflend us?
The other consideration is more positive in char- acter. It is that of what may be called the eschatological outlook of the Apostolic Age. It was believed by all the NT writers of the first generation that the return of Christ to His own in glory and power would be witnessed by some in tiieir OAvn time while they were yet in the flesh. Tlie expectation appears in the Gospels (Mk 9^ 13||), and it is a matter much discussed how far it is due to convictions definitely entertained and expressed by our Lord Himself. It was certainly entertained by St. Paul (1 Co 15", 1 Th S^^ff-) ; and, though on the wiiole it hardly afl'ected, and never un wholesomely,* his ethical teaching, it surely explains why letters to fellow-Christians, who had been for the most part his own converts and catechumens, in so far as they were not occupied with matters of immediate perplexity and duty, should be concerned rather with prospects of the Lord's coming and glory than with reminiscences of the days of His flesh. If St. Paul had been asked to state his essential creed as briefly as possible, he might fairly be conceived to reply : For the past, Christ died in the flesh for our sins ; for the present, Christ rose and lives for our justification ; for the future, Christ will come to confirm and receive His own to Himself in the glory of God. Would the modern religious man, whose creed has any title to be associated with the NT, say anything, even in regard to the future, that is really difl'erent from this ?
Whatever worth may belong to these considera- tions in reference to St. Paul belongs to them a fortiori in reference to a writer whose express aim is to show to the servants of God the ' things that must shortly come to pass' (P). Even if we put out of account the limitations of apocalyptic literary method, the last thing we shall expect such a writer expressly to deal with will be reminiscences of the historic Jesus. If we assume that the Apostolic Age, whatever may be its defects, supplies the norm of the religion which is final, we shall require of the Christian prophet ' John ' only that he accomplish his declared purpose in a manner conformable both to the situation he has in view and to the spirit and teaching of the apostolic faith. No critic con- tends that chs. 2 and 3 do not indicate a writer who is in the matters of main account in close touch with the communities he addresses, and who writes to them in prophetic vein, on the whole just as he might be conceived to speak. In the rest of his book, he drops special reference to the Asiatic Churches, devotes himself to the recounting of visions, mainly of final judgment, which are of account for the whole Church and world of his time, and makes, as the nature of his theme requires, larger use of material that is more or less common to all imaginative religious speech