42.
n On form, see Deissm, 189.
ο Heb. ix.
4:elsewh. = Noah's ark in N.T.
(xii. and xiii.) which explain that the present trouble of Christians was simply a final phase of the long antagonism which had begun in heaven and was soon to be ended on earth. It is the writer’s task ‘‘not only to announce the future but also (i. το) to convey aright understanding of that present on which the future de- pends” (Weiss). Hence the digression or retrospect in xii. 1 f. is only apparent. Hitherto only hints of persecution have been given; now the course, methods, and issues of the campaign are unfolded. The messianic positiog of Jesus is really the clue to the position of affairs, and it is of the utmost (µέγα, νετ. 1= weighty and decisive) moment to have all events focussed in the light of the new situation which that position has created. So much is plain. But that the source (or tradition) with its goddess-mother, perse- cuting dragon, celestial conflict, and menaced child, did not emanate from the prophet himself is evident alike from its style and contents ; these show that while it could be domiciled on Jewish Christian soil it was not autochthonous (cf. Vischer, 19 f.; Gunkel, S. C. 173 f.). The imagery is not native to messianism. It bears traces of adaptation from mytho- logy. Thus, where it would have been apposite to bring in the messiah (ver. 7), Michael’s τὂ]ε is retained, even by the Christian editor, while the general ori- ental features of the mother’s divine connexion and her flight, the dragon’s hostility and temporary rout, and the water-flood, are visible through the Jew- ish transformation of the myth into a sort of allegory of messiah, persecuted by the evil power which he was destined to conquer. “In reality it is the old story of the conflict between light and darkness, order and disorder, transferred to the latter days, and adapted by spirit- ualisation . . . to the wants of faithful Jews” (Cheyne, Bible Problems, 80). While the vision represents the messianic adaptation of a sun-myth, it is uncertain what the particular myth was, and whether the vision represents a Jewish source worked over by the prophet. In the latter case, the Christian redactor’s hand is visible perhaps in 4 a and 5 (πρὸς τ. 0. αὐτοῦ, cf. v. 6), certainly in rr (which, even apart from the Lamb, in- terrupts the sequence) and 17 ¢, if not
27
422
p iv. 5, Vili. 5 f., xvi. 18-21.
q Indivi- dual (as vi. 14, etc.), not generic as Mark xiii. 8.
also in the whole of 10-12. If, in addition to this, the source was originally written in Hebrew, traces of the translator are to be found (so Gunkel, Kohler, and Wellhausen, after Ewald, Bruston, Briggs, and Schmidt) in 2 (Bac. τεκεῖν,
cf. 1 Sam. iv. 19 PVF rites νἱὸν 4. = 55 13) 6 (ὅπου. . . ἐκεῖ-- Ow ο), 8 (κ. οὐκ £= 559 8d) cf. 14 and on iii. 8), g (the old serpent= ITT oF PWT win), possibly το (κατήγωρ-- "1110 and 12 (κατέβη, cf. ἐβλήθη of 10o=">)9)- But whether the source was written or not, whether (if written) it was in Greek or not, and whether it was Jewish or Jewish-Christian, the clue to the vision lies in the sphere of comparative religion rather than of literary criticism. Its atmosphere has been tinged by the inter- national myth of a new god challenging and deposing an older, or rather of a divine hero or child menaced at birth—a myth which at once reflected the dangers tun by the seed sown in the dark earth and also the victory of light (or the god of light) over darkness, or of light in the springtide over the dead winter. The Babylonian myth of Marduk, which lacks any analogous tale of Marduk’s birth, does not correspond so aptly to this vision (cf. Introd. § 4 b), as does the well-known crude Egyptian myth (Bousset); Isis is a closer parallel than Ishtar, and still closer perhaps at one point is the κουροτρόφος of Hellenic mythology, who was often represented as uirgo coelestis. But, if any local phase of the myth is to be assumed as having coloured the messianic tradition used by John, that of Leto would be particularly intelligible to Asiatic readers (cf., e.g-, Pfleiderer, Early Christ. Con- ception of Christ, 56 f., after Dieterich’s Abyaxas, 117 f.; Maas, Orpheus, 251 f.). The dragon Python vainly persecuted her before the birth of Apollo; but she was caught away to a place of refuge, and her divine child, three days later, re- turned to slay the monster at Parnassus. This myth of the pregnant and threat- ened goddess-mother was familiar not only in Delos but throughout the districts, e.g., Of Miletus and Magnesia, where