J. Weiss (die Offenbarung des Fohannes, 1904: two sources, one xiii. 11-18, xiv. 1-5, 14-20, xx. 1-15, xxi. 1-4, xxii. 3-5; one Jewish, c. A.D. 70), etc. Upon similar lines O. Holtzmann (in Stade’s Gesch. Israel, ii. 658 f.) detected two Jewish sources, one imbedded in the other, the earlier from Caligula’s period (xiii., xiv. 6 f.), the later from Nero’s. The coast of reality almost disappears from view in Volter’s latest theory (die Offenbarung Fohannis, neu untersucht u. erklért, 1904), which is a combination of (b) and (ο); it postulates an apocalypse of John Mark (ο. Α.Ρ. 65) and an apocalypse of Cerinthus (c. A.D. 70 =x. 1-11, xvii. 1-18, xi. 1-13, xii. 1-16, xv. 5, 6, 8, xvi. 1-21, xix. 11—xxii. 6), both edited under Trajan and under Hadrian. Least successful of all, perhaps, in dealing with the complex literary and traditional data, is (d) the Jewish and Christian hypothesis, which is really a simplified variant of (0); ε.σ., Vischer (Texte u. Unter- suchungen, ii. 3, 1886, 2nd ed. 1895) finds the groundwork of the apocalypse to be an Aramaic Jewish writing (mainly) from A.p. 65- 70, which was translated, re-set, and edited by a Christian (in the “Lamb ’-passages, with i.-ili., v. 9-14, vii. 9-17, xii. 11, xiii. 9-10, xiv. 1-5, 12, 13, xvi. 15, xvii. 14, xix. 9, 10, 11, 13, xx. 4-6, xxi. 50-8, xxii. 6-21, etc.). Similarly Harnack (¢bzd.), Martineau (Seat of Authority, 217-227), and independently, an anonymous writer in the Zeitschrift fiir alt. Wiss. 1887, 167-171, as well as Dr. S. Davidson (Introd. to N. Τ., ii., pp. 126-233: the Apocalypse an Aramaic Jewish work translated, with additions and interpolations). Von Soden’s theory (Early Christian Literature, pp. 338 f.), which finds in viii. 1- xxii. 5 of the Johannine Apocalypse under Domitian, a Jewish apocalypse written between May and August of a.p. 70, lies, like C. Rauch’s (Offenbarung des $ohannes, 1894: Jewish composite nucleus, worked up by Christian editor) between (d) and (0).
The unsatisfactory result of many of these hypotheses is due to the use of inadequate criteria or to the inadequate use of right criteria. The distinction of Jewish and Christian elements is parti- cularly hazardous in a book which deais with eschatology, where no Christian could work without drawing upon Jewish traditions. And these were neither stereotyped nor homogeneous. A given passage in the Apocalypse may not be couched in Christian language, but this does not necessarily prove that it was not written by a Christian; we know far too little about Jewish Christianity in the first century to be sure, apart from certain fundamental beliefs about Jesus, how far it diverged from cognate Jewish conceptions. A failure to appreciate either the poetic freedom of the Apocalyptist or the