literature! An author in this province could not start de novo ; not merely had conventional designs or traditions to be followed, but earlier products were commonly treasured and reset. John followed this method, but his regulative principle was unique, and one fascina- tion of his Apocalypse lies in the fact that we have here a Christian prophet half-mastering and half-mastered by the literary exigencies? of apocalyptic, uttering his convictions in strange and hardly re- levant terms which had hitherto been appropriated to alien ends. His vision of Jesus came to him through an atmosphere of trucu- lent and fantastic messianism, which was scarcely lucid at all points and which tended to refract if not to blur the newer light; yet the Christian messianic belief generally managed to overpower the inadequate, archaic, and incongruous categories of tradition, through which it had often to pass. It is this juxtaposition which helps to explain the occasional awkwardness and artificiality in the symbolism _ of the Apocalypse. No doubt the author himself, whether as editor or composer, is partly responsible for this. A certain stiffness of structure pervades the book. There is a lack of sustained interest, and at several points the dove-tailing is defective, while, by a favourite Semitic device, repetition (cf. Augustine, Civ. Dez, xx. 17) is made to serve the purpose of emphasis. But such inconsistencies and inequalities are mainly due to the fact that the writer’s Christian consciousness repeatedly tends to break through forms too narrow for its fulness. Probably the materials at the author’s disposal would have been better arranged, had this been anything less than the presentation of a living Redeemer in heaven as the messiah of God’s people upon earth. The mere fact that the messiah had lived, involved a readjustment of messianic categories; the further fact that he had suffered and risen meant that many had to be reshaped, There are things in the Apocalypse which show a careful study of earlier prophetic scriptures and rabbinic traditions; but there are
1 This applies to traditions (5. C. 252 f.) as well as to literature (Selwyn, 59 f.). A political and religious crisis promoted the resetting of older eschatological traditions and the resumption of such elements from the common fund or circle of apocalyptic teaching as had acquired special impressiveness (S. C. 221 f.). The different interpre- tations of Jeremiah’s prediction about the 7ο years by the authors of Daniel and En. Ixxxix. 59 f., are a casein point. .
2One of the clearest instances of this may be found in the angelus interpres (cf. note on i. 1), which also illustrates, by the way, the difference between the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse. The Fourth Gospel scrupulously avoids connecting angels with Jesus. The only allusion to them, during his life-time, is the popular mistake (xii. 29 f.) which misinterpreted God’s voice to him as if it had been an angel’s voice. The Apocalypse, on the other hand, swarms with angels.