478
a Cf. xx. 11, En. xlv.
4ο. xxii. I.
lyptic attitude towards nature seldom had anything of the tenderness and pathos, e.g., of 4 Esd. viii. 42-48 (cf. vil. 31). The sequence of xx. 11 f. and xxi. 1 f. therefore follows the general escha- tological programme, as e.g. in Apoc. Bar. xxi. 23 f., where, after death is ended (very mildly), the new world pro- mised by God appears as the dwel- ling-place of the saints (cf. also xxxil. I f.). The earthly Jerusalem is good enough for the millennium but not for the final bliss; the new order (xxi. 5) of latter (cf. above) coincides, as in Oriental religion (Jeremias, 45 f.), with the new year (i.e., spring) festival of the god’s final victory.—Lhe literary problem is more intricate. With xxi. 1-8, which is evidently the prophet’s own composition, the Apocalypse really closes. ‘The rest of the vision, down to xxii. 5, is little more than a poetical repetition and ela- boration of xxi. 1-8, to which xxii. 6 f. forms the appropriate conclusion, just as the doublet xix. 9 6, 1ο (in its present position) does to xix. 1-8. When xix. 9 b, το is transferred to the end of xvii. (see above), the parallelism becomes even closer. Both xvii. (the vision of the harlot-Babylon, with her evil influ- ence on the world, and her transient empire) and xxi. g-xxii. 5 (the vision of the Lamb’s pure bride, with her endless empire) are introduced alike (cf. xvii. 1, xxi. 9) and ended alike, though xxii. 6-8 has been slightly expanded 1n view of its special position as a climax to the entire Apocalypse. As xvii. represents John’s revision of an earlier source, this sug- gests, but does not prove, a similar origin for xxi. g-xxii. 5. He might have sketched the latter as an antithesis to the former; certainly the '' editorial”’ brush- work in xxi. Q-xxii. 5 is not nearly 5ο ob- vious and abrupt as, ¢.g., in xvili. Upon the other hand there are touches and traits which have been held to imply the revi- sion of a source or sources, especially of a Jewish character (so variously Vischer, Weyland, Ménégoz, Spitta, Sabatier, Briggs, Schmidt, S. Davidson, von Soden, de Faye, Kohler, Baljon, J. Weiss, and Forbes), delineating the new Jerusalem (cf. xxi. I-2). In this event the Chris- tian editor’s hand would be visible, not necessarily in xxi. 22 (see note), but in the apviov-allusions, in xxi. 14 ὁ, 23