jiterature, or even as the free play of a poetic mind; they denote in several cases planes of religious feeling and atmospheres of histori- cal outlook which differ not simply from their context but from one another. This feature of the book’s structure, together with the absence or comparative absence of distinctively Christian traits from certain sections, the iteration of ideas, the differences of Christological climate, the repetitions and interruptions, and the awkward transitions at one point after another, has given rise to the whole analytic movement of literary criticism upon the Apocalypse. The earlier phases are surveyed by A. Hirscht (Die Apocalypse u. ihre neueste Kritik, 1895), Dr. Barton (Amer. Fourn, Theol., 1898, 776-801), and the present writer (Hist. New Testament, 1901, 677- 689); for the later literature, see Dr. A. Meyer’s articles in the Theologische Rundschau (1907, 126 f., 182 f.), and an article by the present writer in the Expositor for March, 1909. The legitimacy of this method is denied by Dr. William Milligan (Discussions on the A po- calypse, 1893, pp. 27-74), Zahn in his Einleitung in das Ν.Τ. (§§ 72-75), and Dr. Μ. Kohlhofer (Die Einheit der Apocalypse, 1902), amongst others, but, although both attack and defence have too often proceeded upon the false assumption that the Apocalypse contains a balanced series of historical and theological propositions, or that it can be treated with the ingenuity of a Dante critic, the storm of hypotheses has at least succeeded in laying bare certain strata in the book, as well as a teleological arrangement of them in their present position. The Apocalypse is neither a literary conglomerate nor a mechanical compilation of earlier shreds and patches. There is sufficient evi- dence of homogeneity in style and uniformity in treatment to indicate that one mind has been at the shaping of its oracles in their extant guise (cf. G. H. Gilbert in Biblical World, 1895, 29-35, 114-123, and Gallois in Revue Biblique, 1894, 957-974). But the prophet has worked occasionally as an editor of earlier sources or traditions, as well as an original composer. These leaflets or traditions are stones quarried from foreign soils; it is no longer possible! to ascertain with any great certainty when or how or even why they were gathered. The main point is to determine approximately the object of the watch-tower which the apocalyptist built by means of them, and the direction of his outlook. In some cases it is probable that, alike as a poet and a practical religious seer, he was indifferent to
1 The state of the extant literature leaves our knowledge of early eschatological tradition full of gaps. It is less exhilarating but more critical to mark the extent of the gaps than to attempt to fill them up or to bridge them with more or less airy guesswork.
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