(5) the realm of the Beast. (6) the Euphrates : an Eastern inva- sion. (7) the air: a storm, introducing A vision of Doom upon
xvii. (a) The realm of the Beast, or Rome, at the hands of the Beast and his allies. . xviii. a song of doom on earth: xix. I-10, >», triumph in heaven. xix. ΤΙ-21. (b) The Beast and his allies, and the false prophet. πχ. το. (ο The Dragon or Satan himself,
with his adherents. A vision of the new heaven and earth :
including XX. II-xxi. 8. The judgment of the dead. XXi. Q-XXIl. 5. The descent of the new Jerusalem.
xxii. 6-21. Epilogue.
§ 3. Literary Structure.—This general unity of conception as well as of style is a unity of purpose, however, rather than of design.! Once we descend into details another series of features emerges into view. Even upon the hypothesis that it was written by one author, it cannot have been the product of a single vision, much less composed or dictated under one impulse. Furthermore, inconsequence of a certain kind is one of the psychological phenomena of visions; a change comes over the spirit even of religious dreams, as they drift through the mind of the seer. But more than this is required to account for incongruities and differences of climate, as e.g., in xi. 1, 2, 19 and xxi. 22, xi. 8 and xviii. 24, the various descriptions of the second advent (i. 7, xiv. 14 f., xix. 11 f.), of the judgment (xx. 11 f., xxii. 12), or of heaven (vii. 11 f., xv. 2, xix. 7 f., xxi. 1 {., xxii. 1-5, etc.), the isolated allusions to Michael, Gog and Magog, the four angels of vii. 1-4, the carnage of xiv. 20, etc., the unrelated predictions which are left side by side, the amount of repetition, the episodical and con- flicting passages of vii. 1-8, 9-17, x., xi. 1-13, xiv. 1-5, 6-13, 14-20, xix. 11 f., etc. Such phenomena are too vital and numerous to be ex- plained upon the same principle as the contradictions and discre- pancies which are to be found in many great works of ancient
1 «Tt is of the nature of an epic poem describing what a Christian Homer might describe as ‘the good news of the accomplishment of the righteousness and wrath of God’’’ (Abbott, p. 75). Cf. Rom. i. 16-18, Apoc. vi. 17, x. 7, xi. 17,18. The dramatic hypothesis, favoured by a series of students from Milton to Archbishop Benson, is worked out elaborately by Palmer and Eichhorn. The latter, after the prelude (iv. 1.-viii. 5), finds the first act in viii. 6-xii. 17 (overthrow of Jerusalem in three scenes), the second in xii. 18-xx. ro (downfall of paganism), and the third in xx, I1-xxii. 5 (the new Jerusalem). But all such schemes are artificial.