becomes still more lurid and ornate. The world of men and nature is drenched by a fresh series of chastisements (xv.-xvi.), which prove unavailing ; no repentance follows (xvi. 11, 21), and the climax of history is eventually reached through a succession of mortal penalties inflicted upon the city and empire of Rome (the vices of the empire being ascribed to the city, on the O.T. view which identified capital and kingdom, cf. Nah. iii. 1 f.), the votaries of the imperial cultus, and the devil himself (xvii.-xx). To the mind of an early Christian (cf. Tert., Scap., 2)! it was inconceivable that the world could long survive the downfall of the Roman empire. ‘And when Rome falls, the world.” All that the prophet sees beyond that ruin is the destruction of the rebels employed by God to crush the capital ; then—thanks to the survival of an O.T. idea, quickened by later tradition—a desperate recrudescence (xx. 7 f.) of the devil. His defeat ushers in the general resurrection and the judgment. Earth and sky flee from the face of God, but men cannot fly. They must stand their trial. Then follows the advent of a new heaven and earth (xxi.-xxii.) for the acquitted and innocent, with the descent of the new Jerusalem and the final bliss of God and of his loyal people. formed the nucleus of the book, as the author conceived it, the seals representing the certainty, the trumpets the promulgation, and the bowls the actual execution of the doom. They may have been com- posed at different times and re-arranged in their present order, like the books of the Aeneid, but, as they stand, they are closely welded together. The introductory Christophany leads up to ii.-iii., while these chapters again anticipate the visions of iv.-v., which are inde- pendently linked to i, (cf. i. 4=iv. 5, v.6; i. 5, 6=v. 9). Chapters vi.- ix. are interwoven, and, although the last cycle of seven (xv.-xvi.) seems abruptly introduced, it is really prepared for by x. (see notes), Like the Fourth Gospel, the Apocalypse has been edited, possibly after the author’s death, by the local Johannine circle in Asia Minor (e.g., i. 1-3, xxii, 18 f.); one or two cases of transposition by copyists also occur (cf. notes on xvi. 15, xviii. 14, xix. 9, xx. 14- xxii. 6 Ε), and glosses may be suspected occasionally (¢.g., i. 18, ΠΠ. 8, ix. 9, xvii. 5; see § 8). But substantially it bears the marks of com- position by a single pen; the blend of original writing and editorial re-setting does not impair the impression of a literary unity. This may be seen from the following analysis or outline :—
1 The author of the Daniel-Apocalypse similarly believed that the resurrection of loyal Jews would follow the downfall of Antiochus Epiphanes (xii. 2, 13).