author of the 50th Psalm, he tries to rouse God’s people to the seriousness of their own position, before he enters into any predic- tions regarding the course of the outside world. The scene then changes to the celestial court (iv.-v.), where God appears enthroned in his presence-chamber over the universe, with Jesus installed as the divine revealer of providence in the immediate future. The description of the heavenly penetralia forms a series of weird Oriental arabesques, but the nucleus is drawn from the tradition of the later post-exilic prophets (especially Ezekiel). According to one phase of this tradition, the climax of things was to be heralded by physical and political disturbances; a regular crescendo of disasters was im- minent on the edge and eve of the world’s annihilation. Hence the next series of visions is full of material and military troubles, delineated partly in supernatural colours which are borrowed from the fanciful astro-theology of eschatological tradition. From this point onwards. the sword of the Lord is either an inch or two out of its scabbard, or showering blows upon his adversaries. In the prophet’s own metaphor, before the contents of the Book of Doom (in the hands. of Jesus Christ) can be read, its seven seals must be broken, and at the opening of each (vi.-vii.) some fresh woe is chronicled.1 The woe heralded by the seventh seal drifts over, however, into another series of fearful catastrophes which are introduced by seven trumpet blasts (viii.-ix.), and it is only on their completion that the way is. now clear for the introduction of the protagonists in the last conflict upon earth. These protagonists are the messiah of God, 1.6., Jesus.
had any vivid civic consciousness, or were keenly sensitive to the historical and. geographical features of their cities. The analogies sometimes drawn from the latter are interesting but for the most part specious and irrelevant coincidences. It is modern fancy which discovers in such directions any vital elements present to the mind of the prophet or his readers. Why these particular churches were selected, remains a mystery. The cities in question were not all conspicuous for a special enforcement of the imperial cultus, and the churches themselves can hardly be sup- posed to be in every case representative or particularly important. Even the plaus- ible theory that they were the most convenient centres for district-groups of churches. (Ramsay, Seven Letters, pp. 180 f.) does not work out well in detail.
1 The longing of the martyred souls in vi. g-11 (‘‘lignes toutes divines, qui suf- front éternellement a la consolation de l’4me qui souffre pour sa foi ou sa vertu,” Renan, 463), recalls the function of the Erinnys in Greek religion, the Erinnys being primarily “ the outraged soul of the dead man crying for vengeance” (cf. J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to Study of Greek Religion, p. 214). Only, the souls in the Apocalypse are passive ; they do not actively pursue their revenge upon the living. The point of the vision is in part to reiterate the deterministic conviction that God has his own way and time; he is neither to be hurried by the importunity of his own people nor thwarted by the apparent triumph of his enemies.