Looking at the Apostolic and sub-Apostolic Age as a whole, St. Paul included, we may say that hope is one of its chief characteristics. ' We are accustomed to describe the Apostle Peter as the Apostle of Hope on the ground of the first letter ascribed to him, but wrongly, in so far as the strong emphasis on hope is not peculiar to him, but can be demonstrated equally in all other Avritings of this time, although indeed certain nuancefi exist' (A. Titius, Die NT Lehre von der Seligkeit, iv, 71). The special fervour of hope in the NT and the Apostolic Fathers is, of course, in part traceable to the belief in the immediate near- ness of the Parousia, which is common to the
Apostolic and sub- Apostolic Age as a whole, The hope of the Parousia brought the future vividly into connexion with the present. Hence Titius in the above-mentioned work thus describes the age in question : ' The value of the present consists (for it), though not exclusively, yet essentially, in that tlie future belongs to it. If the expectations of the future should turn out to be deceitful, therewith everything which makes the present religiously valuable would be annihilated ' [loc. cit.). Christianity, therefore, difl'ers from what has gone before it just in its ' newness of hope ' (Ign. Magn. ix. 1), its better hope (He 7'^).
We may effectively illustrate the meaning of St. Paul's contrast between the hopelessness of the heathen world a'ld the hope of the Christian Church by a reference to E. Rohde, Psyche^, ii. 393 f. Here a dark picture is given of the later Hellenic culture. There were certainly hopes of continued existence after death, scattered abroad in the Greek world. But they had no definite or dogmatically defined content. * And it is forbidden to no one to give his dissentient thoughts a hearing in his own mind and a voice upon his tombstone, though they should lead to the opposite pole from these hopes. A doubting "If" frequently inserts itself in the inscriptions on the graves before the expression of the expectation of conscious life, full sensibility of the dead, the rewarding of souls after their deeds : " if there below is still anywhere any- thing." The like is to be found often.'
Sometimes even doubt is put on one side, and it is definitely declared that there is no life after death. All that is told of Hades with its rewards and punishments is an invention of the poets. The dead become earth or ashes, pay the debt of nature, and return to the elements whence they were made. ' Savage accusations of the survivors against death, the wild, loveless one, who, without feeling, like a beast of prey has torn from them their dearest, allow us to recognize no gleam of hope of the preservation of the departed life ' (p. 394). But, again, complaints are declared to be useless, resignation alone remains. ' "Be of good cheer, my child, no one is immortal," runs the popular formula, which is written on the graves of the departed. " Once I was not yet, then I was, now I am no more, what is there further ? " says the dead on more than one tombstone to the living, who soon will share the same lot. " Live," he cries to the reader, "since to us mortals nothing sweeter is given than this life in the light"' [ib.).
Finally we meet with the thought that the dead lives on in the memory of posterity, in general form and still more in the devotion of his family ; this is the only comfort which many a one in this late Hellenism can find to enable him to bear the thought of his own transitoriness.
Over against this sombre background, then, Christianity shines out in the ancient world like a Piiaros, radiating the light of a clear and certain hope into the darkness. Nor is that hope absolutely bound up with the nearness of the expectation of the Parousia, though there is no doubt that it was that which gave to the early Christian hope its extreme keenness. The essence of the Christian hope is the hope of immortality guaranteed by God in Christ ; as the contrast with the uncertainty of the decadent Hellenic culture well shows.
Literature. — E. Reuss, Uistory of Christian Theology in the A2>ostoUc Age, 1872-74 (particularly valuable for its treat- ment of St. Paul's conception of hope ; it has been freely drawn upon in this article); R. S. Franks, Man, Sin, and Salvation, 1908, p. 95 ff.; A. Titius, Die i\T Lehre von der Seligkeit, 1895-1909, iv. 71; E. Rohde, Psyche^, 1903, ii. 393 f.; C. Buchrucker, art. ' Hoffnung,' in PRE^ viii. [1900] 232 ff.; H. M. Butler in Cambridge Theological Essaya, 1905, p. 573 ; J. R. lUing-worth, Christian Character, 1904, p. 63; W. Adams Brown, The Chriatian Ilope, 1912, p. 9 ; J. Armitage Robinson, Unity in Christ, 1901, pp. 123, 153, 265 ; Mandell
HORN
HORSE
585
Creighton, The Mind of St. Peter, 1904, p. 1 ; P. J. Maclagan, The Gospel View of Things, 1906, p. 203 ; R. G. Bury, The Value of Hope, 1897. R. S. FRANKS.
HORN (^^paj). — Except in Lk l^^ ('horns of salvation '), the only allusions to ' horns ' in the NT are in the Apocalyptic Visions (Rev 5' 9'' 12* 131. u 173.7.12.16)^ The hom as an emblem of strength and power is obviously derived from the animal world. The bull has always been recog- nized among primitive peoples as a fitting symbol for strength ; hence the horn of a bull, which is the characteristic feature of that animal and its natural weapon of offence, acquired a special significance. We thus find it used symbolically by the Babylonians and Assyrians, the horned cap being the distinguishing mark of the gods. The first occurrence of its emblematic use in the OT is in Dt 33", where Ephraim is said to have the horns of a wild ox (cnt). Other examples will be found in 1 S 2'- 10 and also in 1 K 22^1, where Zedekiah is said to have made ' horns of iron,' whereby Israel would ' push the Syrians, until they be consumed.' In the later books of the OT the horn is used as 'the symbol of a dynastic force' (cf. Zee 1^^-, Dn 7'"^- S^"^-); and it is used in the same sense in Rev 123 13'- '1 i73ff..