characteristic phenomena of apocalyptic writing in general has also turned some literary analysts into theorists of the narrowest parti pris. But such extravagances do not invalidate the legitimacy of the method in question; without some application of it, the phenomena of the book present a hopeless literary and psychological enigma, and it may fairly be concluded as well as argued that this apocalypse, like most others of its class, is composite to some degree.
§ 4. Characteristic Features.—In spirit as well as in form the Apocalypse of John has affinities to the apocalyptic literature of the later Judaism.!_ An apocalypse was the word for a crisis, and for a crisis which bordered on the end. Whenever such epochs of dire emergency recurred, the faith of Israel rose in poignant hope that by breasting this wave of suffering they would soon be past the worst, and lie safe out of the swing of the sea. Since the exile, Israel’s foe had been some foreign power, whose policy threatened the religious conscience and whose annihilation was eagerly awaited by the faithful. Apocalypses frankly doomed the State and the world alike; they maintained an irreconcilable and pessimistic attitude towards both. Hence their speculation upon empires and emperors. Hence their constant appeal for courage, based on a conviction that God would intervene ere long in the political sphere to inaugurate a reign of the saints on earth. For the apocalypse was a programme of the immediate future on earth, or of a new earth, as well asa brilliant panorama of celestial mysteries vouchsafed to men in dreams or visions. Its subject was invariably ἃ δεῖ γενέσθαι ἐν τάχει. Apo- calyptic always spread its gorgeous pinions in the dusk of the national fortunes, but it strained to the near dawn of relief.
Our concern, however, is with the genius rather than with the genus of John’s Apocalypse. It rises above its class quantum lenta solent inter uiburna cupressi. The uiburna are not to be ignored, indeed. Their order is the general order of the Apocalypse, and when the latter is approached from the side of the early Christian literature, it seems often to include material of little or no specific Christian value. There is a certain foreign air and shape about its foliage. But when it is approached through the tangled underwoods of apocalyptic writings in general, with their frigid speculations upon cosmic details, their
1 For the characteristics of apocalyptic literature, and for the relation of apoca- lypse to prophecy, cf. 88 6-19 of Liicke’s epoch-making Versuch einer vollstdndigen Einleitung in die Offenbarung ¥oh. und in die gesammte apok. Literatur (sec. ed- 1822); English summaries and surveys by Dr. Torrey (Ε. ¥. i. 669-675); L. Hassé in Inaugural Lectures (Manchester, 1905, 126-159); Dr. Driver (‘‘ Daniel,’’ τοοο, pp. Ixxxvi. f.); Dr. A. C. Zenos in Dict. of Christ and Gospels, i. 79-94: and Dr, R. Η. Charles (EZ. Bi. 213-250, also 1338-1392 on Eschatology).