; /irr the fati/ndmig of a. CelUge, oir ihlT Caiotiy" 'Y^LE-WMimEIESflinf- Gift of the Publishers /^^^ THE BRITISH ACADEMY Lectures on The Apocalypse By R. H. Charles, D.Litt., D.D. •» > Archdeacon of Westminster Fellow of the British Academy The Schweich Lectures 1919 London Published for the British Academy By Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press Amen Corner, E.C. 1922 PRINTED IN ENGLAND AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS BY FREDERICK HALL -i 9eac PREFACE These Lectures were delivered in February, 1920, some months before the publication of my Commentary on the Apocalypse by Messrs. T. and T. Clark. Since the publi cation of this Commentary I have read all the reviews that have come under my notice— English, French, German, and Dutch. The greater number of these have pronounced favour ably on most of the new departures, which I have taken alike in regard to the form of the Greek text, its Hebraistic character, its translation, and its interpretation. Practically all my reviewers have been brought to admit the necessity of an exhaiistive knowledge of Jewish Apocalyptic, if we are to understand the Christian Apocalypse. This is something to be thankful for; since, as a rule, hitherto, even serious scholars, though possessed of the sorriest equipment in this department of knowledge, readily undertook to expound this great work. As regards my reconstruction of the order of the text there has been less unanimity. But an examination of the objections that a small minority of my reviewers have advanced to my reconstruction and a renewed study on my own part of the subject as a whole during the last eighteen months have further confirmed me in the conclusion that most if not all of my reconstructions of the order of the text are wholly unaflTected by their criticisms. To put the matter as courteously as possible, most of their objections have been due to a very incomplete knowledge alike of the manifold problems of the Apocalypse and of Apocalyptic. But there is some excuse to be made on behalf of these critics. Their difiiculties were aggravated by the fact that they had to criticize a very difficult work of nearly 1100 pages. It is not strange, therefore, that many of the arguments adduced by me in support of a new departure in textual or literary criticism, in interpretation, or the reconstruction of the order of the text, escaped their notice, seeing that the iv PREFACE various converging lines of argument bearing on individual passages have not always been summarized, nor made acces sible even in the index. Hence in some important questions this task has been left to the reader to do for himself. Now in the present Lectures, which can of course deal only with the main arguments and must perforce refer the reader for the details to my Commentary, I have summarized my new conclusions on the main problems of the Apocalypse, and in some cases the converging lines of evidence on which they are based. The serious student will observe that these conclusions are for the most part logically linked together, and that their evidence is cumulative. I have mentioned only o;Qe of my critics by name, namely Dr. Burney, since his criticism, which accepts my theories of the Hebraistic character of the text, has helped me to correct an error in my translation of the text, though it is an error of which he is, strange to say, twice guilty in his own review. With this criticism I have dealt on pp. 32-4. R. H. C. 4 Little Cloisters, Westminster Abbey. CONTENTS LECTURE I Different methods of interpretation in the Early Churches arising from following problems : (a) Did the Apocalypse refer to the present and the future, or to the future alone? (6) Did it deal with concrete events, or was it a purely symbolical repre sentation of the world's history ? (c) Did it represent a succession of events following chronologically one upon another, or the same events under three successive series of Seven Seals, Seven Trumpets, and Seven Bowls? Study of Jewish Apocalypses and of the Apocalypse itself decides in favour of first of each of the three alternatives. Thus the Apocalypse deals with concrete events and is not a symbolical description of strife of good and evil ; with concrete events of the author's own time and future events arising out of these (i.e. Contemporary-Historical Method), and with a strictly chronological succession of events (hence Recapitulation Method wrong). pp. 1-3 Disabilities of earlier and of most modern interpreters — no knowledge of Jewish Apocalyptic — no exact knowledge of John's unique grammar, and their general acceptance of the spiritualizing method.^ p. .3 Revival of study of Apocalypse by Joachim of Floris about 1200 A.D. Attack on the Papacy by Joachim and his followers in thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Identification of the Papacy with the Antichrist. Reformation. Progress achieved, yet exegesis of Apocalypse continues to be unscientific. pp. 3-6 Revival by Jesuits of Contemporary-Historical Method : adoption by the Reformers of two new methods — the Philological and the Literary-Critical. These three of permanent value. Literary- Critical method assumed three forins, two of which knowledge of John's grammar renders impossible. The third, i. e. the Fragmentary-Hypothesis, furnishes the element of permanent value in Literary-Critical method. This hypothesis assumes that the Apocalypse is from one author, but that the author has laid various sources under contribution. For the exact delimitation of these sources two things needed — a keen critical sense for dealing with the thought and contents of the Book, and an exact knowledge of its form, i. e. its style and grammar. Chief representatives of this method, such as Weizsacker, Sabatier, Wellhausen and Bousset, possessed the former, but none of them, save Bousset, and he only in a secondary degree, possessed any knowledge of the latter. pp. 6-9 ' To these should be added their failure to recognize the frequent Hebraisms in the text (pp. 30-38), without a knowledge of which it is impossible to translate the text aright. vi CONTENTS Much has been achieved of permanent value, but many problems have been left upsolved. The chief of these is connected with chaps, xx-xxii. Text of these chapters incoherent and self- contradictory. Unchastity, murder, and idolatry exist on the new earth after the final judgement. Conversion of the heathen still in progress. Bousset and others explain this by our author's incorporation of sources. This hypothesis breaks down in face of the strict unity of structure and orderly development of thought in i-xix, and of the linguistic unity of xx-xxii. Hence necessity for a hypothesis, which, while admitting Johannine authorship of these chapters, can explain the inherent contradictions. This is that John died before he had put the materials of these chapters in order, and that this was done by a disciple who failed wholly to understand his master's thought. pp. 9-12 Evidence for this hypothesis. Original order of xx-xxii. Descent of the first Jerusalem from heaven to be seat of Christ's kingdom for 1,000 years on earth. Description of this city. Expected in the Old Testament and Apocrypha. Surviving nations make pilgrimages to it as was expected in Judaism. No sorcerer to enter within its gates. Reign of the saints. Hence the original order was xx. 1-3, xxi. 9-xxii. 2, 14-15, 17, xx. 4-6. Next follow the attack of Gog and Magog on the Beloved City. Former heaven and'earth vanish. Final Judgement — xx. 7-15. pp. 12-19 Creation of new heaven and earth and New Jerusalem — the eternal abode of the blessed, xxi. 5'^ A'^ 5^, l-4abo^ xxii. 3-5. pp. 19-21 Epilogue. Hurtful activities of John's disciple or editor in xx-xxii. p. 21 LECTURE II Hurtful activities of John's editor in i-xix. Some of the passages interpolated by him. i, 8 to be rejected on three grounds. pp. 22-23 viii. 7-12— an intrusion which exhibits an un-Semitic order of words : gives birth to the Recapitulation theory — a stultifying method : has made it impossible hitherto to discover the true signifi cance of the Sealing in vii. 4-7 : and the true interpretation of the phrase 'sUence in heaven' in viii. 1. Original form of chapter viii. pp. 23-27 xiv. 3-4 — an interpolation of the editor by means of which he excludes from the 144,000 that follow the Lamb, all women and all men except those that were strictly celibates — a pagan con ception. Editor misunderstands aTrapx^. pp, 27-28 xiv. 15-17— the most stupid of the editor's interpolations, whereby he makes the Son of Man subordinate to an unnamed angel, xxii. 18i'-19 — his last interpolation. pp. 28-29 The scholar who would master John's style and fit himself for the task of translating the Apocalypse must acquire a knowledge CONTENTS vii of its Hebraisms, its Greek Solecisms, and its poetical form. (1) The Hebraisms have been ignored by nearly every writer on the Apocalypse, and those who have recognized this element have done so in barely half a dozen passages. These Hebraisms have not been recognized by Bousset, Hort, Weiss, Moffatt, Swete, &c. Yet no translation can be a satisfactory rendering of the Apocalypse which fails to recognize or translate them accurately. Some examples of these Hebraisms and their mistranslations are i. 5-6, 18, ii. 23, xiv. 2-3, xv. 2-3, xii, 7. The Hebraism in i. 5-6 mistranslated in nearly every version till the present clay. Hebrew writers after employing the participle often use finite verbs in subsequent parallel clauses, i. 18 wrongly translated hitherto. , pp. 29-32 A new departure in Hebrew syntax. pp. 32-35 note ii. 23 — -mistranslated and consequently misinterpreted, pp. 33-36 xiv. 2-3, XV. 2-3 mistranslated. p. 36 xii. 7, xiii. 10— a hopeless crux of Greek grammarians, pp. 36-38 Where Hebrew and Greek words agree as to primary meanings, secondary meanings of the Hebrew wrongly assigned by our author to the Greek. p. 38 (2) A critical knowledge of the Greek Solecisms in the Apocalypse indispensable to a mastery of John's style. These pervade every chapter that comes from his pen. But John's editor, being a better Grecian than his master, corrected some that he found intolerable in xx-xxii, and in some passages in the earlier chapters where he recast the text. Solecistic constructions following upon various cases of the participle KaOt^/j.evo's. pp. 38-39 Other solecisms : the solecism roi dy-y£A.&) t^d it look elsewhere than to mediaeval Catholicism. Moreover, in most without the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the cor- reacSonar^ ruption of the Church advanced by leaps and bounds, and force. the enthronement of Alexander VI on the seat of St. Peter, not to speak of others hardly less infamous, gave no little justification to the writings of Joachim's school, which had identified Rome with the Scarlet Woman and the Pope with the Antichrist. Such a period of corruption and ferment, social and eccle- The opposi- siastical, was threatening the civilized world with the return tion to the _ _ ' _ _ = reactionary of civil and religious anarchy, when the Reformation emerged Church and secured to a considerable degree liberty of conscience for headlu°the religious men and liberty of thought for thinkers and men of Keformation. science. But we must press on. Though the Reformation conferred But the innumerable benefits on the world, its exegesis of the Apocalypse the^lpocar was for many decades just as uncritical and worthless as that lypse con-> of the scholars of the Roman Church. While the Reformers unscientific identified Papal Rome with the Antichrist, the Papal scholars flike among . . . - . the Kefor- retorted by condemning their assailants as the collective mers and Antichrist. Both alike were hopelessly unscientific. Neither *^®''' ^"P^^ the papalists nor the antipapalists had any sound method to guide them. Both alike regarded the Apocalypse as a pro phetic compendiuTn or handbook — not merely of Church history hut of the world's history. Hence their efibrts were spent in the hopeless task of interpreting the symbolic language of the Apocalypse in such a way as to read into it the history of all things sacred and secular. Since they had no scientific method to guide them — and were thus at liberty to attach almost any meaning to any symbol and to explain away any statement 6 THE APOCALYPSE i. Con temporary- Historicalmethod revived by the Jesuits. ii. The Philological method foundedby the Reformers. that conflicted with their theories, they generally succeeded in gaining the authentication of the Apocalypse for their own particular systems of Church and State. But anarchy and unreason cannot maintain themselves indefinitely. At length from the welter of the conflicting schools of exegesis three methods emerged, which are indis pensable for the interpretation of the Apocalypse. One of these was the revival of the Contemporary-Historical method by the Jesuists Alcasar, Ribeira, and others. This method, as we have already recognized, implies that the author of the Apocalypse addressed himself first and chiefly to the events of his own time. This method has under various guises rightly achieved a permanent place in all scientific interpretation of the Apocalypse. The second is a very modest form of the Philological method, which we owe to the Reformers Oamera- rius, Beza, Castellio, and others. The school, which adopted this method and devoted itself exclusively to the philological study of the Apocalypse, owed its birth in no small degree to the feeling of despair that had arisen amongst the best scholars of the sixteenth century of ever discovering the mysteries of the Seven-sealed Book. The hopelessness of arriving at trustworthy and permanent results by the methods of interpretation current in that century appear to have with held Calvin from writing a Commentary on the Apocalypse. And yet Calvin was by far the greatest exegete of that age. His discretion in declining this task drew forth from his contemporary, the younger Scaliger, who ranks amongst the foremost classical scholars of all time, the remark, ' Calvinus sapit quod in Apocalypsin non scripsit ', ' Calvin shows his prudence in that he has not written a commentary on the Apocalypse '. In the interpretation of the Apocalypse many a great reputation has found its grave — at least so far as it has committed itself to adventures in this department of study. Of well-known scholars who have added no lustre to their names in this field we might mention Whiston, Sir Isaac Newton, Dupuis, Morosow, Hommel, and others. The cause of such gigantic failures is to be traced to their profound ignorance alike of the language of the N.T. Apocalypse, and of the nature and contents of apocalyptic in general. Hence the philological study of the Apocalypse was a move in the right direction. Its aim was to displace idle speculation in LECTURE I 7 the province of what rightly or wrongly it regarded as un knowable by an exact knowledge of what, it held, could be known. Unhappily this movement did not develop as it should have done into the propaedeutic necessary for all serious students of the Apocalypse— a propaedeutic involving an accurate knowledge of its grammar and of apocalyptic in general. The third method — the Literary-Critical — owes its origin iii. Literary- to Grotius, the great Dutch scholar, jurist and statesman. ^^^^^^ Grotius was the first Protestant scholar to break definitely founded by with the antipapal interpretation of the Apocalypse, and to ^i""*'"^* lead the Reformed Churches to the recognition and use of the Contemporary-Historical method. Herein he was no more original than the Jesuists whose guidance he had followed. But Grotius went further. He recognized that different sections of the Apocalypse presupposed different historical relations and dates, and found therein the explanation of the fact that the early writers of the Church were divided, and rightly divided, amongst themselves as to the date of the Apocalypse itself. Hence he conjectured that the Apocalypse was composed of several visions which were committed to writing at different times and in different places before and after the destruction of Jerusalem. Grotius was thus the founder of the Literary-Critical method. Grotius died in 1645. Yet it was not till the closing decades of the nineteenth century that his suggestions bore fruit, consciously or unconsciously, in the three developments of this method that appealed to the suffrages of the learned world. These were the Redactional-Hypothesis, the Sources- Hypothesis, the Fragmentary-Hypothesis. The Redactional-Hypothesis presupposes a plurality of Else of three editors. According to this theory the original autograph was theses.''^^° edited or enlarged by a succession of editors, till it attained i.Redactional- the form in which it has come down to us. The Sources- Hypothesis presupposes a plurality of independent sources. Hypothesis. whether two, three, four, or more, which were subsequently put together by one or more editors. Amongst the advocates of the first method are Volter, Vischer, Harnack, Kohler, Johannes Weiss, and Von Soden, and amongst advocates of the second are Spitta, Schmidt, and Briggs.^ 1 These two methods are not mutually exclusive, as a study of the various hypotheses amply shows. 8 THE APOCALYPSE Criticismof these hypotheses. iii. Frag mentary- Hypothesis. Criticismof this hypothesis. Its use dangerous unless sup plemented by the Philological method. While these two methods have made undoubted contribu tions towards the solution of certain difficulties in the Apoca lypse, they must be frankly rejected as a whole, seeing that the vocabulary, grammar, and style of the Apocalypse in the main are unique over against all other Greek literature, and, as such, they make such hypotheses thereby arbitrary and absolutely impossible. The third hypothesis maintains the relative unity of the book but assumes that its author in certain sections made use of other materials. This method has been advocated by Weizsacker, Bousset, and Wellhausen in Germany, Sabatier in France, Porter in the U.S., and Anderson Scott and Moffat in England. The last three scholars are conservative in their criticism and to a great extent are disciples of Bousset. This hypothesis is in my opinion the one that must in sonje form be adopted by all serious scholars. It recognizes, as Grotius had already done, that certain sections of the Apocalypse were written at different dates, but it goes further and proves that certain sections of it are not from our author's own hand but were adopted by him and recast more or less with a view to the setting forth of his great theme. This hypothesis is most satisfactory as a general explanation of the facts, but many difficulties arise when it is put into actual practice, especially by those who have not studied the grammar and style of the Apocalypse. In such a case the personal equation enters disastrously, and especially in the criticism of Wellhausen, the greatest of the scholars just mentioned. This splendid and original scholar, whose name is connected inseparably with 0. T. criticism, has, it must be confessed, failed lamentably in his criticism of the Apocalypse. Even an elementary knowledge of the unique character of John's grammar would have saved him from the numerous pitfalls into which he has fallen.^ And yet Wellhausen's ^ To give a couple of instances. In his Analyse der Offenharung Johannis (p. 4) he assigns i. 1-3, xxii. 18-19 to the final editor of the Apocalypse. But he ought to have recognized that in i. 3 we have the first of the seven beatitudes. It is no accident that there are seven beatitudes, no more and no less. Hence i. 1-3 must come from the writer who is answerable for the whole seven. Next he assigns the Letters to the seven Churches to an earlier writer than the Seer. A knowledge of the unique idioms of chapters ii-iii would have saved him from this blunder. LECTURE I 9 treatise is full of suggestive remarks, which, whether right or wrong, cannot fail to lead to a more thorough study of the text. Bousset's Commentary on the Apocalypse, which is un questionably the ablest that has yet been published, exhibits a larger knowledge of John's grammar than any of his predecessors or his successors. But it was not exhaustive enough to save him on the one hand from acknowledging as John's work passages that he ought to have excised, or, on the other hand, from branding as alien sources passages that belong to the essence of the Apocalypse and have undoubtedly come from John's hand. I have now shortly reviewed the work of my predecessors The present in this field, and, while I have criticized their failures, I have debtedness' at the same time been careful to emphasize their real contri- to every real butions to the interpretation of our author. As regards my tljis field. ( own work I gratefully and gladly acknowledge my indebted ness to every real scholar who has worked over this field. Even where I have had most occasion to pass censure, I have often learnt most, as in the case of such scholars as Volter, Spitta, Johannes Weiss, and Wellhausen. Most writers on the Apocalypse have failed not only to The first interpret it but even to recognize its real difficulties. In fact, thTintlr^pre- it is only scholars who have in some degree made a subject tation of the their own that are in a position to recognize its difficulties, is to qualify To recognize the difficulties or problems of a subiect is the °°®^®^*. *° ., ^ « recognize its first Step towards their solution. Hence, if we wish to qualify problems. ourselves for this task In connexion with the Apocalypse, we must first master Jewish Apocalyptic, and next the unique grammar and style of the Apocalypse. It is now my task to show the new steps that exegesis must First step to take if it is to unravel many of the outstanding problems towarcCthe of the Apocalypse. I will begin with the last three chapters, solution of since it was in connexion with these that I discovered the blems. solution of one of the main difficulties of the book — a solution which has led to many discoveries in the earlier chapters. As far back as the year 1893, in a publication issued by the Oxford University Press,^ I drew attention to the fact that ^"^'=°'*- , in chap. xxi. 1-3, though the former heaven and the former ments in earth had passed away and their place been taken by a new ^^-^n- heaven and a new earth and by a New Jerusalem that > The Booh of Enoch, 1898, p. 45. 10 THE APOCALYPSE Unchastity, murder,idolatry, exist on the new earth ! After the final judge ment the conversionof the nations still in progress in the heavenly Jerusalem ! Explanationof this anomaly. Millennial Kingdomstill in existence. These con tradictions postulate one or other of two con clusions. descended on the new earth, yet in chap. xxii. 11 all classes of sinners and evildoers are described as still living outside the gates of the New Jerusalem on the new earth. But, since the New Jerusalem does not come down from heaven till Satan is cast into the lake of fire, till the final judgement is past, and sin and death are at an end for ever, and a new and glorious heaven and earth have been created to take the place of the old, it is not possible for sorcerers, unchaste persons, murderers, and idolaters to exist anywhere in this new world. A greater contradiction in thought and language is hardly conceivable. Again, since the new earth is inhabited only by the righteous and blessed, on whom the second death could have no effect, and God himself dwells amongst them, the statement that the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations is unintelligible ; for this implies that evil and sin still prevail and that the evangelization of the nations is still in progress. On the other hand, such a statement would be full of force and meaning if it was made in reference to the period of the Millennial Kingdom. For during the reign of Christ for 1,000 years, the world will be evangelized afresh, as we are told three times in the earlier chapters, xi. 15, xiv. 6-7, XV. 4. Hence, if these statements come from John's hand they can only apply to the further period of grace accorded to the nations during these 1,000 years, and that the nations take advantage of this period of grace we learn from xxi. 24-7; for only on the supposition that the Millennial Kingdom is still in existence can we explain this passage : ' And the nations shall walk in the light thereof. And the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it. And the gates thereof shall not be shut day or night. ^ And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it : And there shall not enter into it anything unclean or he that maketh an abomination or a lie ; But only they that are written in the Lamb's book of life.' Now from the above contradictions — and these are but a few of them— it follows either {a) that a considerable part ^ The text reads ' for there shall be no night there ' — a corruption due in part to xxii. 5 where the New Jerusalem, the everlasting abode of the blessed, is described. But here the heavenly Jerusalem is only the temporary seat of the Messiah's kingdom. See my Commentary, vol. ii p. 173. LECTURE I 11 of xx-xxii is not from the hand of our author, or (6) that, if it is from his hand, it is disarranged. The first solution (a) is that adopted by most of the leading (a) Either scholars of the past thirty years. Thus, while Erbes and •Ijtj.^o^atld. Bousset trace these chapters to two sources, Volter, Weyland, Johannes Weiss, and Wellhausen assume three, Spitta finds himself obliged to postulate four. Formerly I adopted Bousset's solution of the problem, but in due course was obliged to abandon it owing to two insuperable difficulties, (a) The first "F-^^. ^^P'^- „ . ^ . thesis un- of these is that the more closely we study the first nineteen tenable ; chapters, the more strongly convinced we become of the ["^i^^ shows structural unity of these chapters, and the clear and orderly a strict development of thought, working up steadily to a climax — facts structure which do not exclude the occasional use and adaptation of ^^^ ?" , orderly ue- sources. This being so, how is it that the last three chapters velopment show no such orderly development, but rather a chaos of con- °^*^y^gan- flicting conceptions'? (j8) But the second difficulty is still greater, not be The hypothesis that the conflicting conceptions in these three and'self- chapters is due to the incorporation of one or more sources contradic- breaks down hopelessly in the face of their linguistic unity. ,„. ^j._3j,xii With the exception of about three verses these three chap- saving three ters are from the hand to which we owe the bulk of the ^oni John's preceding chapters. To this conclusion I was led by an hand, as exhaustive study of the vocabulary, idioms, and' style of the ^ar and Apocalypse. The assumption of a plurality of authors for style prove, these chapters is thus rendered impossible. The results of this study of the idioms and syntax of our author I have embodied in a Short Grammar of the Apocalypse which is published in the Introduction to my Commentary.^ The knowledge so acquired provides the chief criterion for determining the authorship of many different sections of the Apocalypse. Thus, whilst in the last three chapters it compels us to just as they acknowledge the hand of John throughout, in earlier chapters passages in it just as strongly obliges us to brand as interpolations certain ^"^^qj^jj^""^ passages which every student of the Apocalypse has hitherto accepted, and which at the same time have perverted or made unintelligible the original meaning of the context into which . - they have been forcibly thrust. Here it is that the philo logical method comes into its own. But to return. Since these chapters are from the hand of ^^""^^jf j,"^^ ' See my Commentary, vol. i, pp. cxvii-clix. 12 THE APOCALYPSE chaotic and self- contradictoryand yet from John's hand, the present order of the text is not the original order. Only hypothesis adequate to explain the above phenomena. We must now attempt to recon struct the text in its originalorder. XX. 1-3 stood rightly at the beginning. Satan im prisoned for 1,000 years during the MillennialKingdom.But what is the capital of this Kingdom ? Not the historicalcity which is a spiritual Sodom and Egypt, even if it were liot but the materialJerusalem John, and since the order of thought in these chapters is con fused and chaotic, it follows that the text does not stand in the orderly sequence originally designed by the author, seeing that the orderly and dramatic development of thought are characteristic of our author. To what cause, we must now ask, is this almost incredible disorder due? Since no accidental transposition of the text of these three chapters could explain its frequent and intoler able confusions, the only hypothesis adequate to account for them appears to be that John died when he had completed i-xx. 3 of his work, and that the materials for its completion, which were ready in a series of visions from John's own hand, were put together by an unintelligent disciple in what seemed to him to be the most probable order. Since in my ComTnentary I have given at length adequate proofs for this conclusion, I will not repeat them here. Having now recognized the manifest disorder of the tradi tional text, the next duty awaiting us is to recover the original order and so to reconstruct the text as John designed it. In the main this is not difficult to the student who has mastered the earlier chapters and our author's style, and is also familiar with Jewish Apocalyptic. Let us now show briefly how we may recover the original order in which these chapters were written. The first three verses of the twentieth chapter recount the casting down of Satan into the abyss and his imprisonment therein for 1,000 years. The traditional text next gives a vision of Christ's Kingdom on earth for 1,000 years, but makes no reference to the seat of this kingdom and yet such a reference cannot be wanting. Was the historical Jerusalem Intended as such ? This is Impossible for two reasons. In the first place it was in ruins. In the next the attitude of the Seer was so hostile to it, that, even if it had not been in ruins, he could not have regarded it as the seat of Christ's Kingdom. As far back as chap. xi. 8 the Seer speaks of the historical Jerusalem as that 'great city which is spiritually cd,lled Sodom and Egypt, where our Lord was crucified '. The historical Jerusalem is thus excluded. If, then, our author gives any description of the new centre of Christ's Kingdom, where is it to be found? The answer is at once obvious, if we look further on. It is in chaps, xxi-xxii. Here we find the description of two different Jerusalems. One of them is called ' the holy LECTURE I 13 city, New ^ Jerusalem ' (xxi. 2), the other ' the holy city which de- Jerusalem' (xxi. 10). Both are said to come down from heaven, hTaven^on™ but the former is said to descend from, the new heaven on the the present new earth, whereas the context of the second vision presup- xxii, 2, and poses the descent of the second city from, the first heaven otj, is absolutely 7 /> 7 mi . . •' ... distinctfrom the first earth. These two cities are seen m two distinct the New ' visions. The vision of the New Jerusalem is seen from some ^^hicWe^ point in space ; for the Seer tells us ,that the first heaven and seends from the first earth had already passed away (xxi. 1). hea-reiTon With this fact he had acquainted us already in xx. 11, the new earth, xxi. where we read: 1-2. ' I saw a great white throne and him that sat upon it. From whose face the earth and the heaven fied away. And no place was found for them.' A description of this New Jerusalem is given in the opening Description verses of xxi, but this description breaks oif fragmentarilv °^ *^® ^^^ . ^ . o J Jerusalem. with xxi. 4, the last line of a four-line stanza being omitted. Happily, as we shall discover presently, this fourth line and the two final stanzas of the description are preserved in xxii. 2-5. Let us now turn to the second ^ vision which deals with The holy city the second city, 'the holy city Jerusalem '. Now, we should the second « observe that whereas the first vision (xxi. 1—5) presupposes "^^^^"^ ^''^^ a familiar ' The newness in character, purity, and permanence of the New Kingdom is a favourite theme in the Apocalypse. It is not new in the sense of being a glorified repetition of the old world that then was, that is, it was not new as regards time (vios) but new as regards quality (/caiKo'r). This character belongs not only to every part of the kingdom, but to all that dwell therein. Each of its citizens is to bear a new name {ovopa Kmvov ii. l7, iii. 12). John would have agreed with Paul in calling such a man ' a new man ' (koivov Svdpamov Eph. iv. 24) or ' a new creature' {xaivf) ktio-is 2 Cor. v. 17, Gal. vi. 15). The Seer beholds in a vision, after the former heaven and earth had passed away, ' a new heaven and a new earth' {oipavov koivov Kal yrjv Kaivrju xxi. 1), and 'a New Jerusalem ' ('Upova-aXfip Katvrjv xxi. 2). After the old creation had passed away God declares, ' Behold I make all things new ' {i8ov Kaiva jroiS navTa xxi. 5"). Whatever is new, whether person or thing, in this sense belongs to the eternal world of being. See my Commentary, vol. i. 92, 146; vol. ii. 204. ^ I call this the second vision in accordance with its place in the traditional text, but this vision, of course, should precede, and did precede the vision of the New Jemsalem in the Seer's original draft of his work. 14 THE APOCALYPSE expectationin Jewish Apocalyptic. Descriptionof the Holy the destruction of the first heaven and the first earth (xx. 11, xxi. 1), the second vision on the other hand (xxi. 9-xxii. 2, 14-15, 17) presupposes both as still existent. The Seer, who in the first vision had seen from some point in space the New Jerusalem descend from the new heaven on the new earth, sees in the second vision from a high mountain on the earth the holy city Jerusalem descend from heaven to the earth on which the Seer is standing.^ In keeping with the fact just stated we recognize the thoroughly material nature of this second city. It is, there fore, a city most suitable for the present earth. This city was of pure gold. It had walls of jasper and gates of pearl, and the foundations of its wall were of twelve different precious stones. Now this conception of the Holy City during the Messianic reign was one long familiar to the Jewish nation. Thus in Is. liv. 11-13 the earthly Zion is described as follows : ' Behold I will set thy bases in rubies, And thy foundations in sapphires. And I will make of jasper thy pinnacles. And thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy border of jewels.' And in Tobit xiii. 16-18 : ' And the gates of Jerusalem shall be builded with sapphire and emerald. And all thy walls with precious stones. The towers of Jerusalem shall be builded with gold. And their battlements with pure gold. The streets of Jerusalem shall be paved With carbuncle and stones of Ophir,, And the gates of Jerusalem shall utter hymns of gladness. And all her houses shall say : Hallelujah.' The holy Jerusalem, therefore, in the second vision is essentially that which was expected by the Jews on the present earth, as the capital of the Messianic Kingdom.^ The passages from Isaiah and Tobit guide us in the inter- ' For earlier and contemporary works, where the expectation of the setting up of a new and holy Jerusalem on the present earth see 1 En. xc. 29 ; T. Dan. v. 12 ; 4 Ezra vii. 26, x. 25 sqq. 2 Cf. also Isa. Ix. 10, 11, 13, 17; Haggai ii. 3, 4, 7-9; Zech. ii. 1-5; 1 Enoch xc. 29, where God Himself removes the old>city and builds in its stead a glorious city to stand for ever on the present earth : 2 Bar. xxxii. 2. See also my Commentary, vol. ii. 158-61, 170 sq. LECTURE I 15 pretation of this city, constructed of gold and precious stones City in xxi. in the Apocalypse. These are not to be taken literally. They p^e^cal^ are poetical and suggestive : symbols of the spiritual glory that rather than belongs to the chief seat of Christ's Kingdom. Every good and '^*®''^^- perfect gift cometh down from heaven. The City of God will notwithstanding all hindrances be realized on earth. And yet there are elements in the description that cannot be interpreted symbolically.^ Thus we conclude that the city described in xxi. 9-xxii. Second 2, 14-15, 17 is the seat of Christ's Kingdom on earth. The eommon ?o very phrase that describes it^ ' the holy city, Jerusalem ' our author (xxi. 10), is borrowed directly from Isa. Iii. 1. prophecy. Another characteristic belonging to this city is likewise The surviving found in Isaiah, other O. T. prophets, in Tobit, and in most of ^ make^"^^ the Pseudepigrapha. This is that the nations ^ and the kings pilgrimages ' It seems impossible to interpret symbolically the return of the martyrs to the earth. As I have shown in the third lecture, pp. 57-61, the Seer expected a universal martyrdom of all the faithful. This forecast of a universal martyrdom naturally led to recasting of the traditional expectation of the Millennial Kingdom. If the world was to be evangelized afresh, this evangelization could not be effected save through supernatural intervention, seeing that all the faithful were to be martyred before the advent of the Kingdom. See my Commentary, vol. ii. 456-7. ^ These are the neutral nations that have not oppressed the Christian Church. This idea is borrowed from Jewish Apocalyptic ; cf. 2 Baruch Ixxii. 2-4 : ' When . . . the time of My Messiah is come, he shall summon all the nations, and some of them he shall spare, and some of them he shall felay. . . . Every nation, which knows not Israel and has not trodden down the seed of Jacob, shall indeed be spared. . . . But all those who have ruled over you or have known you, shall be given up to the sword.' Pss. Sol. xvii. 27 : 'He (the Messiah) shall destroy the godless nations with the word of his mouth. ..." 32 : ' And he shall have the heathen nations to serve under his yoke.' In 1 Enoch Ivi. 8, xc. 18 the hostile nations are destroyed and the rest are converted to Judaism, xc. 30. In 4 Ezra xiii. 37-8 the ungodly and hostile nations are to be destroyed and endure torments in the next world, whereas other Gentiles are to be pardoned, xiii. 13 : cp. 1 Enoch x. 21, 22, xci. 14. Naturally the Romans as the great oppressors were to be destroyed and live for ever in Tartarus, Or. Sibyl, v. 174 sqq. Multitudes of other passages could be cited from the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, and the Talmud in support of the above facts (see Volz, JUdische Eschat, pp. 275, 322 sqq.), and yet one of my reviewers, who has himself written a Commentary on the Apocalypse, asserts that ' this distinction of the neutral and active foes ' has originate)d with myself. Here, as frequently, he and other Commentators have failed to understand the Apocalypse through their ignorance of Jewish Apocalyptic and of other no less vital departments of knowledge. 16 THE APOCALYPSE to the Holy of the earth would make pilgrimages to Jerusalem and bring hea"led°of ""^^ their wealth and their glory into it, and that its gates would their not be closed day or night (xxi. 24-6). These very words spiritual J • J £ T ¦ u diseases. are derived from isaiah : ' Thy gates also shall be open continually ; They shall not be shut day nor night ; That the riches of the nations may be brought unto thee, Their kings leading^ the way' (Ix. 11). ' And nations shall come to thy light, And kings to the brightness of thy rising' (Is. Ix. 3). With the description of the holy city Jerusalem in Tobit xiii. 16-18, which we have quoted above, its author combines this same expectation (xiii. 10-11), as also does the author of the Psalms of Solomon (xvii. 34). A third characteristic that our book shares with Isaiah, Ezekiel, and later writers is that it teaches (xxi. 27) that though evil and unclean persons live without the city as naturally. upon this present earth, none shall be allowed to enter the city: Third expectationcommon to our author and Jewish prophecy — no sinner or unclean person shall enter its gates. ' For henceforth there shall no more enter into thee The uncircumcised and the unclean ' (Is. Iii. 1). The same expectation is set forth in the Psalms of Solomon (xvii. 29) : ' And he shall not suffer unrighteousness to lodge aijy more in their midst, Nor shall there dwell with them any man that knoweth wickedness.' Similarly in the Apocalypse the Seer tells us that outside the gates of the city there is every kind of evil. Hence the nations that survived the judgements in chapter xix of the Apocalypse are represented in conformity with Jewish prophecy and Apocalyptic as going in pilgrimage to the Holy City— the seat of Christ's Kingdom — and of being healed therein of their spiritual and moral dis eases, xxi. 24-6, xxii. 2. From this city are excluded all that are unclean or that make an abomination or a lie. Hence outside its gates are the sorcerers and the nnchaste and the murderers and all other persistent offenders, xxi. 27, xxii. 15. Such statements, it may be added, are unintelligible save of a Holy City founded on this earth before the final judgement. ' An emendation accepted by most modern scholars. LECTURE I 17 ' Without are the dogs and the sorcerers. And the fornicators and the mqrderers, and the idolaters. And every one that loveth and maketh a lie' (xxii. 15). ' And there shall not enter into it anything unclean or one that maketh an abomination or a lie : But only they that are written in the Lamb's book of life ' (xxi. 27). This characteristic cannot belong to the New Jerusalem situated in the new heaven or on the new earth. It is only possible in connexion with the city founded on such an earth as ours ; and under such conditions as we find in Isaiah and in the Psalms of Solomon, and later Jewish writings.^ We have now given sufficient evidence to prove that in xxi. 9-xxii. xxi. 9-xxii. 2, 14-15, 17 we have a description of the Jerusalem ?^ therefore that was to descend from heaven on the present earth and to a description form the Capital of Christ's Kingdom during the reign ofgaiemthat 1,000 years. This vision, therefore, should be restored imme- ^,^^ to be . . , „ . „ the seat of diately after xx. 3. The evidence already furnished for the Christ's dislocation of xxi. 9-xxii. 2, 14-15, 17 from their right context ^^"tf and°" after xx. 3, if not logically conclusive, practically amounts to should be a demonstration, especially if the text is submitted to a ^x. 3. detailed examination, as I have done in my Com,mentary. I have already shown that the description of the heavenly city — xxi. 9-xxii. 2, 14-15, 17 — is of the same character as that recorded above in Isaiah or Tobit, and other Jewish works, and that these writers all agreed in this that the Holy City was to be founded on the present earth. I have also shown that the details of this heavenly city in the Apocalypse presuppose the present earth as its seat ; that certain neutral nations still survive on the earth, not having been annihilated either by war, or by the Word of God in xix. 11-21, or in the Final Judgement in xx. 11-15, as the traditional order of the text presupposes, and that in accordance with the prophecies of the conversion of the Gentiles in xi. 15, xiv. 6-7, xv. 4 as well as in the Jewish prophets, these nations, headed by their kings as in Isaiah, make pilgrimages to the holy city, bring their glory and honour into it, receive spiritual healing within ' In the Hebrew Book of Elias (third century A. D.) Jerusalem descends from heaven to the present earth, built of precious stones and pearls, to be the habitation of the faithful Jews (see Buttenwieser, Hebrdische Elias-Apohalypse, 1897, pp. 25, 67). Naturally, as in a Jewish work, the Temple is represented as standing in it. C 18 THE APOCALYPSE its walls, and assimilate the divine truths that make them heirs to immortality, that is, to use the symbolical language of the Seer, eat of the tree of life. I have shown also that all the individual members of these nations do not avail themselves of these privileges ; for that outside its gates are sorcerers and whoremongers and idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. Since, therefore, all the features in the description of the heavenly city postulate a time anterior to the Final Judgement, Restoration we must transpose xxi. 9-xxii. 2, 14-15, 17 before the Final s^u'ffiT? Judgement in xx. 11-15, and regard the Holy City as the seat to its original of the Millennial Kingdom. Nay more, it is possible to restore ix"*3^nd^**'^ ^^ *° ^*'® ^^a^^ position in xx ; for while on the one hand it before xx. must be placed after xx. 1-3 which recounts the chaining of Satan in the abyss, on the other it must be met before the vision of the glorified martyrs in xx. 4-6 who reign with Christ on earth for 1,000 years. I may add here that 4 Ezra, which is a Jewish Apocalypse, conTiects, as does our restored text, the advent of the Messiah and the heavenly Jerusalem ^uith a temporary kingdom on the earth (vii. 26-8).^ This section of 4 Ezra may be earlier in date than the Apocalypse. During the Millennial Kingdom the nations are to be evangelized afresh according to three passages in the earlier chapters. But in the traditional text there is no hint of this. Yet xxi. 24-7 imply this fresh evangelization. Immediately We have now recovered the original order of the text so xx^V-xxii. far : xx. 1-3, xxi. 9-xxii. 2, 14-15, 17, xx. 4-6. Obviously 2, li-15, 17 XX. 7-10 follows immediately, in which the attack of Gog read xx. and Magog on ' the Beloved City ' ^ is described, and their ^~?«' ^i"^" destruction with the casting of Satan into the lake of fire. 7-10 — the ° attack of the From this temporal judgement on Gog and Magog we naturally the^'s^loTed P^^® *° *^® ^^^^^ Judgement in xx. 1 1-15. Heaven and Earth City', and ' In 4 Ezra xiii. 32-6 we have the Messiah and Jerusalem coming down from heaven again associated. Box attributes xiii. 36 to the redactionist, but it is possibly original. If so, it should be restored immediately after xiii. 32. In the Apocalypse of Elias (SteindorfF) this expectation is also found ; also in the Sepher Elias (Buttenwieser), which is preserved only in Hebrew. ^ 'The Beloved City' is the city which came down from heaven (xxi. 10). It cannot be the historical city Jerusalem, which is designated spiritually as ' Sodom and Egypt ' in xi. 8. LECTURE I 19 pass away : only the great white throne is visible in illimitable their de- space, and before that throne all the dead are judged, and ne'S'thTfinal death and hell" are cast into the lake of fire. judgement, So far we are on secure ground in our reconstruction of the which'had text, and the next step to be taken in this reconstruction is no been initiated less certain ; for here the manuscripts have to a considerable vLishing degree preserved the text in the order in which it left John's '"*° "othing- , J r„, , •! , T ness of tne hands. Ihus v^hile the last five verses of chapter xx tell of first heaven the final judgement following on the disappearance of the earth!"^ ^'^^^ former heaven and the former earth, the first five verses of On the final , the next chapter tell, as we should expect, of the new creation, {",1^®™!.?* which is to take the place of the old and vanished creation, creation of that is, the creation of the new heaven and the new earth, ^^^^"^ ^ - _ ' 1163, veil £111. Q. the descent of the New Jerusalem from the new heaven to the new the new earth, and the eternal blessedness of God's people for New Jera- evermore. salem, xxi. 1-5 In xxi. 1-5 we have a description of the second Jerusalem, g^^' ^^^^ ^^^ to which I have already drawn your attention. But we have first part of only the first part of this description, and that in some dis- Mon^oTthr order. For the second and concluding part of it we have to ^^^^ Jerusa- go to verses 3, 4, and 5 of chapter xxii.^ in xx? 1-5.* This disorder and dislocation are due to the incompetence '^^^ ^®?* ^^ of John's editor. For, failing wholly to understand the xxii. 3-5. difference between the two Jerusalems, he compressed them Explanation forcibly together, and sought to make one picture out of their ordered 'text. conflicting details. In the course of this tour de force he Owing to the inserted the description of the first Jerusalem within that editor's igno- ^ _ ranee of the of the second, and to make confusion worse confounded, he essential prefixed to the description of the first Jerusalem three verses betwe^Mi°the belonging to the Epilogue, i, e. xxi. 6-8. Thus, between the two Jeru- first half of the description of the second or New Jerusalem in sought to xxi, 1-5 and its second half in xxii. 3-5, he has intercalated ^^^^ one picture of xxi. 6-8, which belong to the Epilogue of the Book, and their con- xxi. 9-xxii. 2, which describes the first Jerusalem which was f ^?*™g ^^- ' tails, and to come down to earth to be the seat of Christ's Kingdom, intercalated This editor's incompetence for dealing with his master's work between^the is particularly manifest and offensive here, seeing that he ^''st half of thrusts these twenty-four verses, i.e. xxi. 6-xxii. 2 between uon of the the third and fourth lines of a stanza which describe God's ^?"" "^^^"V care for the blessed. The first three lines of this stanza are the second. * This fact has already been recognized by Johannes Weiss (Die Offenharung, p. 106 sq.), 1904, but in a very different connexion. C 2 20 THE APOCALYPSE The new Creation. Vision of the New Jerusalem. xxi. 5', i^, 5", l-ii'i'^, xxii. 3-5 — which forms the real close of the Apocalypse. in xxi. 4, but the fourth and concluding line of the stanza is not found till we pass over the next twenty-four verses of the traditional text and come to xxii. 3. Since this description of the new Creation and the blessed ness of the righteous therein really closes the Apocalypse, I will place it before you as it ought to be read. But first observe the restored order. This vision follows immediately on that of the final judgement : ^ xxi. 5^ 4« 5" And he that sat upon the throne said. The former things have passed away ; Behold I make all things new. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth ; For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away; And there was no more sea. 2 And the holy city, New Jerusalem, I saw Coming down out of heaven from God, Made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a great voice from the throne saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men. And he shall dwell with them, And they shall be his people, And he shall be their God. 4^'' " And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, And death shall be no more, Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, xxii. 3" Neither shall there be any more curse. xxii. 3'' ¦= And the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it. And his servants shall serve him, 4 And they shall see his face. And his name shall be on their foreheads. 5 And there shall be no more night. And they shall have no need of lamp or light of sun, For the Lord God shall cause (his face) to shine upon them : And they shall reign for ever and ever. 1 For full criticism of this section see my Commentary, vol. ii, pp.200-10 243-5. , • LECTURE I 21 The last four stanzas are the only stanzas of four lines each in the last three chapters. Such stanzas are found in the earlier chapters. This is the real close of the Apocalypse. There is, however. The Epilogue an Epilogue, consisting of thirteen verses, where, though the GoTs^tesli- disorder reaches its culminating point, it is yet possible to see mony to the that originally it was composed of three parts, consisting in Apocalypse, the main of three testimonies to the truth of the Apocalypse, !f"°?^,'y °^ the first being that given by God, the second that of Christ, thirdly of and the third that of the Seer. Hence the reconstruction here •^°^"'^- is in the main to be trusted. This threefold testimony in the Epilogue thus repeats and confirms the threefold statement made in the Prologue to the Book in i. 1-3. There it is stated (1) that God Himself gave the Apocalypse to Christ to make it known to His servants (i. 1* — confirmed in xxi. 5", 6''-8); (2) that Christ sent and made it known through his angel unto John (i. 1'' — confirmed in xxii. 6-7, 18% 16, 13, 1^, 10) ; and (3) that John bare witness that this Apocalypse was accorded to him by Christ (i. 2 — confirmed in xxii. 3-9, 20-31). The very Beatitude of the Prologue (i. 3) is taken up and reproduced in the Epilogue in a slightly different form, xxii. 7 : ' Blessed is he that keepeth the words of the prophecy of this book.' We have now reconstructed the last three chapters and undone so far as possible the havoc wrought therein by John's editor. From this study we naturally conclude that this editor was a man of mean intelligence. But though he was lacking in intelligence, he was apparently a better Greek scholar than his master. For he corrects certain solecistic constructions of . the text in these three chapters (xx. 11, xxi. 5, 6, xxii. 12), and introduces others which, though excellent Greek, are against John's usage.^ But his activities were not limited to his reconstruction of his master's text and its occasional correction. He has made certain additions amounting to about three or four verses. Having now studied the activities of this editor in the last three chapters, I shall begin the next lecture with a brief study of his activities In the first nineteen chapters, where, though not so obvious, they are generally no less disastrous to the great work of his master which he undertook to edit. * See my Commentary, vol. ii, pp. 152, 182 ; vol. i, p. clviii. LECTURE II The disorder OuK study of chapters xx-xxii has lied to the necessary tfonal text'" hypothesis that these chapters owe their present order to an of xx-xxii editor at the close of the first century. Further, we have edi1;or. ° learnt two things regarding this editor. The first is that he was clearly very ignorant of his master's ideas. The second, that he was a better Greek scholar than his master, and in certain cases corrected into normal Greek constructions that were solecistic and yet specifically Johannine. But the fol lowing question naturally suggests itself. If this editor intervened so drastically in the last three chapters, did he pass for press — to use a modern expression — the first nineteen chapters without making any corrections or additions of his own ? In the earlier chapters of my ComTnentary I adopted the hypothesis of an editor or of two or more interpolators or glossers. It was not till I had mastered the problem of the last three chapters that I recognized that it was one and His hurtful the Same editor to whom we are indebted for nearly all the fn*i^^x^ changes and interpolations not only in the last three chapters, but also in the first nineteen. And in every case where this editor has intervened he has done so very effectively; for though he has not added more than twenty verses in the first nineteen chapters, confusion and darkness have attended un failingly on his editorial activities. To a consideration of a few of these I will now draw your attention, and follow them up with a brief sketch of the editor's mental and moral outlook. i. 8 an inter- We find in i. 8 a striking example of his handiwork. This three'""^ °" verse runs : ' I am the Alpha and Omega, saith the Lord God, grounds. which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.' This intrusion is singularly infelicitous on three grounds. First, the context both before find after it is quite unconscious of its existence. Nay more, no valid explanation of its presence in its present context has ever been given. But there are stronger grounds. For, in the second place, the Apocalypse proper has not yet begun. John has not yet fallen into the visionary state, and yet he is represented as hearing God speak the words I have just read. It is not till the tenth verse that John does fall into a trance, which is described in the words LECTURE II 23 ' I was in the spirit '.^ Hence if verse 8 is original it must have occurred in some of the subsequent visions of John. But, in the third place, when we examine the verse, we recognize that it could not have been written by John at all. For John never disconnects the words 6 fleoy ('God') and 6 TTavTOKparcop ^ ('Almighty') for the good reason that the phrase 6 debs 6 TTavTOKparmp is a stock rendering in the LXX of the 0. T. phrase mxavn >rhvi. In other words 'Almighty' (d iravroKpaTcop) represents a genitive in the Hebrew dependent on ' God ' (d dedy), and therefore should not be separated as they are here by eight Greek words. If the words ' which is and which was and which is to come ' are to be combined with the phrase ' God Almighty ', they should be written after them as they actually are in iv. 8 : ' Lord God Almighty, which was and which is and which is to come'. These words (d 6eis 6 iravTOKpdrmp) are never separated in the LXX nor in any work written in Greek by a Jew, in whose mind the thought of the original expression still survived. The phrase ' God Almighty' is found eight times (iv. 8, xi. 17, xv. 3, xvi. 7, 14, xix. 6, 15, xxi. 22) in our author, and in these d iravTOKpdraip always follows immediately on d fledy.^ Another notable interpolation with a readjustment of the viii. 7-12 an adjoining context occurs in viii. 7-12. This intrusion, which tfon!^^° *' ' In my Commentary, vol. i, pp. 22, 109-11, 1 have dealt with this clause and its significance in Apocalyptic, and on pp. 106 sq. I have given a list of the many other phrases used in this literature to signify the ecstatic or trance condition. ^ 6 6fbs (or 6 Kvpios) 6 TravroKparap occurs as a rendering of this Hebrew phrase about 120 times in the LXX — in 2 Sam., 1 Kings, 1 Chron., Jeremiah, and the Minor Prophets. The latter part of this phrase is transliterated about 55 times, but this is practically confined to Isaiah, where it occurs 51 times, and 5 times elsewhere. It is translated 13 times in the Psalms by Kvpios (or 6e6s) tS>v bwapeav, and 6 times elsewhere. This last rendering appears to have been adopted by Theodotion throughout. Aquila's rendering is Kvpios rmv (rrpanrnv, while Symmachus has both these latter renderings and others. See Thackeray, Oram, of 0. T. Greek, pp. 8 sq. Occasionally in the LXX we find the word translated with the trans literation alongside iravroKparap cra^aad. This is probably due to the incorporation of a marginal gloss. ' Some editors — and amongst them Westcott and Hort — insert a comma between 6 6e6s and 6 wavTOKpdrmp—ot course quite wrongly. And all editors hitherto, so far as I am aware, allow a word to be interpolated between them in xix. 6, though on the strength of the uncial A, Westcott and Hort bracket it. 24 THE APOCALYPSE describes the first four Trumpets, is hurtful in every way to the context. The first four Trumpets are a colourless and weak reflection of the Seals and Bowls, especially of the The first latter. The first Trumpet, moreover, conflicts with the fifth. ^JnSct^s* Thus in the first, ' all the green grass was burnt up ' (viii. 7) ; with the Jq the fifth (ix. 4), it is presupposed to be uninjured. Next, whereas the order of the words is purely Semitic in the rest of the chapter, the subject precedes the verb eight times in these six interpolated verses — an un-Semitic order. Two Order of further peculiarities — not to mention many others — are the S°text^aifd following: In viii. 5, which this editor has re-written, he form of represents our author as writing ' thunders and voices and those of the lightnings '. But our author knows well that the lightnings Seer. always precede the thunders, as we find thrice elsewhere in the Apocalypse, already in iv. 5, and subsequently in xi. 19, xvi. 18. But John's editor apparently knew neither this fact nor his master's usage, viii. 2 he has also re-written. First of all, having changed the ' three angels ', which were to intro- . duce the three demonic plagues, into ' the seven angels ', in order to introduce his enlarged list of seven trumpets, he next adds ot evminov tov 6eov ia-TijKacriv in order to identify these seven angels with the well-known seven archangels. But the Greek form ia:TTJKa aifiaTi avrov Kal kiroiTjaev fj/jids ^aaiXiiav. Here kTroirjaev is a Hebraism for ^ Moulton (Peake's Commentary on the Bible) writes : ' Dr. R. H. Charles has recently shown how many of its (i. e. of Revelation) mannerisms are due to the literal transference of Semitic idioms' (p. 592). And again : ' Mark and Revelation might have been equally telling in the Semitic tongue, from which they were virtually translated ' (p. 593). Such may be regarded as the accepted view of scholars on this subject now. To show what a revolutionary change of opinion has come about in the last six years it is only necessary to quote a statement from Moulton's Grammar (i, pp. 9 sq.) — the most brilliant grammar that has ever appeared on the Greek Testament— where he categorically declares: 'Even the Greek of the Apocalypse itself does not seem to owe any of its "blunders" to Hebraism.' I have always found that the greatest scholars are the readiest to withdraw their mistaken views or acknowledge their errors on the production of evidence, but with second-rate and third-rate scholars my experience has been very different. LECTURE II 31 iroirjo-avTi, and one late uncial and many cursives have actually so corrected the text and several of the ancient ver sions which have here been followed by the A. V. The scribes of the manuscripts had of course no idea of the Hebraism under lying the text, but they felt and felt rightly that kirolrjarev could not be construed as good Greek nor as good sense. But the Revised Version refused to deal so cavalierly with the Greek before them. In the face of the evidence of the manu scripts and versions there could be no doubt as to knoiria-ev being the correct text. Hence, since the Revisers knew nothing about the Hebraism here, they translated the Greek before them literally, as follows: 'Unto him that loveth us and loosed us from our sins by his blood ; And he made us to be a kingdom . . . ; To him be the glory and the dominion for ever and ever.' Now in the first place this rendering is not English ; and its bad English cannot be got over by mis- punctuating the text as most editors do. Westcott, Hort, and Swete seek to evade the difficulty by treating the clause Kal eTTOLTja-ev . . . Trarpi avrov as a parenthesis while others like Moffatt treat it as an anacoluthon. If this were the only passage in our author where this peculiar construction occurred, such explanations would be quite justified, but it will not do in our author. We have here the same Hebrew idiom, which recurs later in eight passages. Accordingly the passage is to be translated : ' Unto him that loveth us and hath loosed us from our sins Its right by his blood translation. And mxide us to be a kingdom, priests unto his God and Father — Unto him be the glory and the dominion for ever and ever.' Again in i. 18 the failure to recognize this idiom in d ^wv Kal i- 18 wrongly kyevoprjv veKpos has led the Revisers and most scholars to h^^herto^ mispunctuate and mistranslate the text, and some scholars as Haussleiter, Wellhausen, and Moffatt, with certain Latin ver sions all of which probably go back to one Greek manuscript,^ to excise a phrase indispensable to the text. The Revisers render : ' Fear not ; I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.' i. 17"- 19 should ^ See my Commentary, vol. ii, pp. 453-4 ; vol. i, p. clxxxi. 32 THE APOCALYPSE be rendered as verse and either as three distichs, or as two tristichs, the first of which runs as follows : ' Fear not ; I am the first and the last : And he that was alive and died,^ and behold I am alive for evermore ; And have the keys of death and of Hades.' ^ When Dr. Burney called my attention orally to the fact that the Hebrew idiom, which I presupposed as underlying i. 18, did not admit of the rendering which I had given it, i. e. ' And he that liveth and was dead ', I welcomed the correction, and informed him at the same time that his criticism enabled me at last to see the true sense of the passage : i.e. ' And he that was alive and died.' I find that Dr. Burney has since dealt with this subject -in the J. T. S., pp. 371-6, July, 1921, where he accepts all my presuppositions of a certain Hebraism save two — i. e. in i. 18, XX. 4. As regards i. 18, he maintains that the right translation of the passage is that of the R. V. : ' Fear not ; I am the first and the last and the Living one : and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore.' But no reasonable doubt can exist as to the wrongness of the R.V. here, when we bring to the investigation a knowledge of the author's usage. In the first place the 6 (wv is not to be connected with, the preceding words^— f-ym elui 6 wpHros xal 6 eirxo-Tos — as I have shown' in my Commentary. These words express a conception complete in itself as in ii. 8, xxii. 13 ; Isaiah xli. 4, xliv. 6, xlviii. 12. Even in Semitic prose the expression ' I am the first and the last and the Living one ' would be an extraordinary one. But the main and conclusive ground for the trans lation, which I have given above in the text, is as follows. The name of Christ is modelled on that of God in i. 4, iv. 8. Now in these two pas sages we have a definition of God given in three time-determinations 6 Tjv Ka\ 6 i>v Koi 6 ipxopevns (iv. 8 ; in i. 4 the order is dilFerent but the context accounts for the variation). Similarly, in that of Christ with its three time-determinations we have the -nearest approach possible to this in : 6 f£v Km iyivApyjV vcKpos, Kal l5ov ^a>v elpX ds r. aluivas T, ntaivav. But this is not all. As the name of Christ is modelled on that of God, so the name of the Antichrist is modelled on that of Christ. Thus in xvii. 8 the Antichrist is twice mentioned, and each time the title ascribed to him recalls that of Christ. The first is : ^v Koi ovK ea-Tiv Koi piKXet dva^aivdv ex rijs dfivcrcrco. Here the failure of scholars tran^fafed. can admit only of the first. For our author's Hebraistic use of this Greek participle as equivalent to a past participle see xv. 2 rois viKtovrac ck tov Stjpiov, 'those that had been victorious over the beast', and vii. 14 oj f^epxdpevoi, ' those that had come out of. How easy it is to fall into an error such as I have been guilty of in i. 18 can be illustrated from the fact that Dr. Burney has fallen into the very same error twice in the very article in the J. T. S. where he has dealt with mine in Rev. i. 18. It is quite true that he was misled by Driver as I was myself. But Driver's error calls for slight criticism. He was a pioneer in his Hebrew Tenses, and had not yet recognized the fact that, though the participle followed in a subsequent clause with } (vav consecutive) and a finite verb (in the imperfect) may in all cases be taken as equivalent to vav wi£Ii sheva and the perfect when these are separated by one or more words, the converse is not always true, though Driver obviously implies this. To this fact we shall return presently. Returning now to Dr. Burney's article in the J. T. S. (p. 373) we find that Dr. Burney has quoted from Driver's Hebrew Tenses^, § 117, three passages from Isaiah, i. e. xiv. 17, xxx. 2, xliii. 7, as examples of the resolution of the participle into a finite verb in the following clause, where according to this idiom the action expressed by the finite verb should express the proper sequence of the action expressed by the participle. Dr. Burney writes, and the italics are his : ' We do not find cases in which the sequence describes an event actually prior in time to its antecedent: This being so, xxx. 2 (i^xb' n^j iai DnXD m"li> Diai'nn) is wrongly assigned to this category by Dr. Burney in the body of his article, but later recognizing this fact, he withdraws xxx. 2 as an example of this idiom in a foot-note at the close of his article, and treats the clause with the finite verb as a circumstantial clause. But just as certainly Dr. Burney should have recognized that neither could xliii. 7 be regarded as an example of this idiom, and be translated as 'Everyone that is called (NIpJn) and whom I have created' (vnxn3 nuoi'l). Here the act of creation is antecedent to 'the act of calling. Hence, however we explain xliii. 7, it cannot be brought under this idiom. If it were an example of this idiom, it would be, as we know, the equivalent of 'csj'a Vir\pin h^ ii-^133|5 '|^X^3X1 — a thing of no meaning. In the grammatical explanation of xiv. 17, xxx. 2, xliii. 7 Dr. Burney has followed Driver {Hebrew Tensed) in the text of his article, but, as I have shown, abandoned his guidance in the closing note in the case of xxx. 2. But Dr. Burney must also abandon Driver's guidance in Isa. xiv. 17 onn mvi "I3n»3 i>nn DB'. Since according to Dr. Burney the latter of these two clauses is the equivalent of viy O'liT'l, the action expressed by the finite verb must express the proper sequence of (but in no case an action prior to) the action expressed by the participle. Yet he translates it as follows : ' that made the world a wilderness and overthrew the cities thereof.' But the desolation of the world follows upon, but does not precede, the destruction D 34 THE APOCALYPSE to recognize the Hebraism behind these words has led to a misinterpretation of the text. Owing to the future verb of its cities. There is yet another example in Isaiah to which Professor Buchanan Gray has drawn my attention, and to which I shall return. Explanations, therefore, of Isa. xiv. 17, xliii. 7 must be found other than those given by Dr. Burney. In the text of his article in the J. T. S. he has interpreted the Hebrew in Isa. xiv. 17, xxx. 2, xliii. 7 in the same way that I interpreted the Hebrew idiom, which I pre supposed as underlying Rev. i. 18, and to which he rightly objected. But the same error is implied in Driver's Hebrew Tenses, which is the most original work on this subject. See Note on p. 76. Grammatically xiv. 17, xliii. 7 could be explained as circumstantial clauses, but this explanation is unsatisfactory. Professor Buchanan Gray holds that in both passages we have parallel and not consecutive clauses. The parallelism is alternate. This same construction — a fact to which Professor Gray drew my attention — is found in xlviii. 1 D1x^p3^ ins; mm'' •'OOI bir\&'' a^2. Here the last clause cannot be re-written as miiT' ''DD 'XS'l any more than in xiv. 17, xliii. 7. Professor Gray, accordingly, distinguishes between the participle followed by \ and the imperfect and the participle followed by 1 and the perfect with one or more words intervening, and he rightly insists that, though the former construction can always be replaced by the latter, the converse, though generally, is not always possible. Here a distinct advance is made in Hebrew syntax. To sum up the results of what we have arrived at so far. My rendering of Rev. i. 18 is wrong, but as regards the Hebrew idiom I presuppose in i. 18 I am right, though my rendering of it must be corrected as I have shown. Again, Dr. Burney objects to my excision of olnva as an addition of John's editor in Rev. xx. 4 and also to my rendering of Rev. xx. 4. But inasmuch as our author never elsewhere follows up the participle with Kai and a relative clause, but in accordance with a Hebrew idiom omits the relative, I have bracketed the ohtves as an interpolation. Here Dr. Burney makes another suggestion, which is possible, but unnecessary, and which I am unable to accept. How then are we to explain xx. 4 raj/ nfireXeKia-pivav Sia t. paprvpiav 'Iija-oC Kal dia t. Xdyoi/ t. 6iov Kal [otTiVfr] ov Trpoa-eKvvrjaav to Brjplov ovhi t. etKOva avrov, Kal ovK iXafiov TO xapaypa kt\. There are two probable ways. 1. First of all we observe that in vi. 9 twv ia-t^aypivav fiia TOV Xoyov TOV 6eov Kal Sia rnv papTvpLav fjv ilxov refers to the martyrs under Nero. These were martyred bia I. \6yov T. 6eov Kal dia t. papTvpiav rjv uxov. But in XX. 4 the martyr doms referred to are those that the Seer expected would take place under Domitian, and the Seer carefully distinguishes the grounds of the Domiti- anic persecution from those of the Neronic. The first grounds he advances are the same in the Domitianic persecution (8ia t. papTvplav 'l^a-oS Kal Sia I. \6yov T. Bfoii) as in the Neronic (8ia t. \6yov t. 6eov Kal Sia t. paprvpiav fjv €ixov). But there are further grounds advanced for the martyrdoms under Domitian. Hence these grounds Kal ov npoiT(Kvvr)a- ovpavm, 6 ML-)(^ariX Kal oi dyyeXoi avrov tov TroXefirjaaL /lerd tov BpaKOVTOi. Every modern grammarian of the N. T. has had his fling at this passage from Weiss and Blass to Moulton and Robertson, but they have all alike failed to explain it, and not a single scholar of any country or period has recognized the recurrence of this same idiom in xiii. 10, where, it is true, it is preserved only in the uncial A. The crux of this passage is, of course, TOV iroXefjifja-aL. It may at once be acknowledged that it is impossible to explain it from the Greek grammar of any period. Accordingly it has never yet been rightly translated into any language from the second century to the present. But the Hebrew scholar who studies the Apocalypse should not experience any insuperable difficulty in this passage, and so we find a partial explanation of it in Ewald and Bleek. They recognized that rov iroXe/irja-ai was a Hebraism^ but they did not attempt to deal with the nominatives 6 ML)(^a^X Kal oi dyyeXoi avTov which precede the infinitive. Some acquain tance with the LXX would have solved this further difficulty. In fact we find in the LXX the construction of the nominative with the infinitive several times, where it is the literal repro duction of a pure Hebraism. In Hosea ix. 13 we have 'E^pdtfi TOV k^ayayelv, a literal- rendering of N''Xlh7 DHSN, 'Ephraim must bring forth'; in Eccles. iii. 15, we have the extraordinary Greek sentence, oa-a tov yiveadai rjSrj yiyovev, a literal rendering of nM 133 nmb "is^n, 'What shall be hath already been'. In both cases the Hebrew is excellent but the Greek is impossible. It is the literal rendering of a very technical Hebrew idiom. It is only by retranslating it into Hebrew that we can translate it at all. In Kke manner we must re-translate our text into Hebrew. The Hebrew would run thus : ji3n3 on-inb vaNisoi btiya I, "T-: TT;- "T- Hence we translate : , ' There was war in heaven. T^^ "g^*. Michael and his angels had to fight with the Dragon.' oTxilV^"'^ 38 THE APOCALYPSE The idea is a most vivid one. Satan and his angels had been cast down from heaven. Mustering his forces anew, Satan returns to the attack and strives to storm the ramparts of heaven. Here he and his armies are met by Michael and his angels and hurled down again to the earth. In the strong and vivid words of our text we have : ' There was war in heaven : Michael and his angels had to fight with the dragon ; And the dragon fought and his angels and he prevailed not. Neither was their place found any more in heaven.' Of the many other Hebraisms I will deal only with one When more. We find that when Hebrew and Greek words agree as Gree^k words *° their primary meanings, the secondary meanings of the agree as to Hebrew words are in a few cases unwittingly and quite meanmg™,"'^^ wrongly assigned to the Greek. Thus in x. 1 we have the the secondary extraordinary phrase oi TroSes avrov m arvXoi ttvoos. Now the Hebrew it is clear that ir68es cannot have its Greek meaning here. ^metime ^"^ author cannot say of an angel : ' His face was as the sun wrongly and his feet were as pillars of fire ! ' This would be an extra- the Greek" Ordinary, simile. Feet like pillars of fire ! There must be some error here, and the source of the error at once leaps to light, if we reflect that the Hebrew word for ' foot ' (ijJI) can also mean ' leg '. This word means either foot or leg also in Aramaic and Arabic. Moreover, we find that in the LXX the secondary meaning of the Hebrew word is already, as in our text, assigned to the Greek word as in Isa. vii. 20 (D^ijain -|j?b' — rds rpixas twv ttoSoiv). Here ttovs must be rendered 'leg', though this Greek word never means 'leg' in ordinary Greek. I cannot dwell longer on the Hebraistic character of John's style, but must now bring before you a few of the many Greek solecisms in our author. John's The following remarkable constructions with eTrf'are peculiar cons'truc^iions *° °^^' author. When our author uses km with some case of in connexion Spovos, ve. These hard-and-fast syntactical forms of our author are not John's editor observed by his editorr' He prefers to use cTrt with the genitive "^ ^j^ggg no matter what may be the case of the preceding participle, solecisms. and undoubtedly he is the better Grecian in so doing. Thus he runs counter to our author's practice in seven passages, and corrects our author's usage in xx. 11, and probably in vii. 15, ix. 17. In the addition he makes in xiv. 15-17 he uses km with the genitive twice in this construction against our author's usage. In this connexion I may add three more out of the many other cases where the editor has shown his ignorance of his master's style. In xxii. 12 the non-Johannine order of the text &s rb 'kpyov ka-Tiv avrov seems due to the editor ; for John never separates the genitive possessive pronoun from its noun in the 300 passages where it occurs. Hence if the phrase is John's it must have originally run : wy to 'epyov avrov kartv. Again, our author never uses km rrjv yrjv, but km ttjv yjjs or eiy r-qv yfjv. But in the interpolated passage in xiv. 16 we find km Tf)v yrjv. Another non-Johannine expression Kpd^cov kv v§ /leydXr] occurs in this verse. John omits the kv in this phrase. The following expressions are hopelessly ungrammatical from the standpoint of Greek syntax, and yet they are deliberately chosen by our author, and his reasons for his choice of some of them are not wholly hidden from us : A f \ t J/ 1. 4 arro o oov. ' iv. 8 6 ^v Kal 6 d>v Kal 6 kp^o/ievos- i. 13, xiv. 14 ojioiov vlbv dvOpwwov. ii. 1 rm dyyiXm ra kv 'E dyykXa rrjs kv 'E(f)iaa> kKKXrjo-ias. Naturally the scribes objected strongly to such a solecism as rS dyyeXca tS> kv 'Ee kKKXrjatas. Thus it has been corrected out of all the uncial manuscripts but two, and out of all the cursives but three. In the cursives it has survived only in one of the seven passages in each of the cursives, and only once in the uncial C. In the Codex Alexandrinus it survives three times out of the seven. And this illegitimate correction of the scribes has so influenced editors of the Greek text that only Griesbach and Lachmann in Germany nearly a hundred years back, and Hort in England, have had at once the discernment to recognize the reading of A as original and the courage to adopt it. And yet this abnormal construction is undoubtedly Johannine. For an examination of his entire text shows that he avoids inserting a prepositional phrase between the article and its noun though he has no objection to a prepositional phrase between the article and a participle : in other words, that John deliberately avoids such a construc tion as rfjs kv 'E^eam kKKXtjalas. Now it is all the more creditable to the above three scholars that they adopted the reading of A, although they knew nothing about John's idiosyncrasy in regard to this construction. From an ex haustive examination of the versions, I can further prove that, though the Greek manuscripts only preserve the original text in four out of the seven passages, the right text is supported in all the seven passages by one, two, three, or more of the ancient versions.^ Thus the original form of the text in these passages has passed from the region of the probable into that of actual fact. This is of course a question of pure scholarship and one that does not affect the sense. But it is none the less important on that account. Before we can master John's style we must recover so far as we can the form of the text as it left his hand. Moreover, this solecism becomes a criterion for determining the value of manuscripts and versions. I have now dealt at sufficient length for our present pur poses with John's abounding Hebraisms and unique Greek Grammar. These mark off his style from that of every other Greek writer from the time of Homer to the present. ^ See my Commentary, vol. ii, p. 244. LECTURE II 41 The next feature that characterizes John's style is his Poetical frequent use of the poetical parallelism we find in Hebrew £!feakre"f poetry. Though he has for his theme the inevitable conflicts John's style. and antagonisms of good and evil, of God and the powers of darkness, yet his Book is emphatically a Book of Songs. Of the twenty-two chapters of which the Book is composed, there are only four that are completely prose. In the remain ing eighteen we find at times short songs, at others almost the entire text is cast into this poetic form. Nearly always when dealing with his greatest themes the Seer's words assume consciously or perhaps at times unconsciously a poetic form. To print such passages as prose is to rob them of half their force. And it is not only the form that is thereby lost, but also much of the thought that in a variety of ways is reinforced by the parallelism. Before I quote these passages in the form in which they This fact is should be given, I wish to emphasize the help that the recog- a^canon^o? nition of this poetical element in our author renders in the criticism- criticism of the text. I will give a few illustrations of its3_4!H)c ^xii. value in determining the text of our author. ^'^^ As the first illustration of the value of the poetical form in The poetic the criticism of the text, I will place before you our author's ^""hes'ai'mo t description of the New Jerusalem. In this description — demonstra- xxi. 3-4* '' *^, xxii. 3-5, which I print below — you will observe as^to^tho^"*'** that in the traditional order of the text, due to John's editor, immediate twenty-four verses have been introduced between the third xxii. 3-5 on and fourth lines of the second stanza. Thus when we have ^^^- *"'°- read the first three lines of this second stanza, I. e. xxi. 4^^ '"^ ' And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, And death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more.' We look in vain for the fourth line until we have got through twenty-four verses which have nothing to do with this poem or its subject. Then at last we come on the missing line xxii. 3* ' Neither shall there be any more curse.' Thereupon follow the next two stanzas which complete this poem. Thus the poetical form is here in itself decisive of the original order of this section of the text. But this evidence does not stand alone. As I have shown in my Commentary (vol. ii, p. 153), a certain collocation of Greek words which occurs 42 THE APOCALYPSE three times in xxi. 1-4, recurs twice in xxii. 3-5, and nowhere else throughout our author, or in the rest of the New Testament. This can hardly be accidental. Furthermore, the subject-matter of the poem coheres so perfectly together that its evidence taken with what precedes amounts to demonstration. Although portions of this great poem have already been given, its simplicity, beauty, and sublimity can be best appreciated by being placed before you as a whole : xxi. 5* ' And he that sat upon the throne said, 4'^ The former things have passed away ; 5* Behold I make all things new. 1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth ; For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away; And there was no more sea. 2 And the holy city, New Jerusalem, I saw Coming down out of heaven from God, Made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a great voice from the throne saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men. And he shall dwell with them, And they shall be his people, And he shall be their God. 4abc j^^(j Qq^ shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death shall be no more, Neither shall there be mourning nor crjring nor pain any more, xxii. 3" Neither shall there be any more curse. xxii. 3'"' And the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it. And his servants shall serve him. 4 And they shall see his face. And his name shall be on their foreheads. 5 And there shall be no more night, And they shall have no need of lamp or light of sun. For the Lord God shall cause (his face) to shine upon them: And they shall reign for ever and ever.' The next illustration comes from chapter ii. Here the Epistle to the Church of Thyatira (ii. 18-29) consists of ten stanzas, eight of which consist of three lines each. That the fifth consists of three lines also and not of four as it is in the LECTURE II 43 manuscripts, we should naturally presume from the fact that the four stanzas before it and the two immediately after it are three-line stanzas. And this presumption is confirmed by the fact that the additional line in the fifth stanza contains a non-Johannine construction, and is also against the right sense of the context. Hence the clause ' unless they repent of their works ' is to be omitted, and the stanza to be read as follows : ii. 22 ' Behold I will cast her upon a bed of suffering, jj, 22-3. And those that commit adultery with her into great where a tribulation, clause has 23 And her children I will slay with pestilence.' ^ Jolated.'"" Of the ten stanzas, nine thus consist of three lines each. This being so, it is highly probable therefore that the eighth stanza, which consists of only two lines in the manuscript, has lost a line. That the text has suffered here at the hands of the editor or of careless copyists, we see from the last two stanzas, where a line belonging to the tenth stanza has been transposed into the ninth. These should, of course, be read as follows : ii. 26 ' And he that overcometh, even he that keepeth my ii. 26-8, works unto the end— ^^^F" ^ 'i"« To him will I give authority over the nations : transposed. 27" As I also have received from my Father ; 27* And he shall break them with a rod of iron ; ^ As potters' vessels shall they be dashed in pieces : 28 And I will give him the morning star.' This restoration is confirmed by a comparison of iii. 21 : ' To him that overcometh, I will grant to sit with me on my throne, As I also have overcome, and sat down with my Father on his throne.' ^ Next the opening vision in chap, xiv of the 144,000 glorified xiv. 2-4. martyrs on Mount Zion would consist of five stanzas of three critical lines each, but for a prosaic addition ^ in the fourth stanza, results which destroys entirely the verse structure. But we find on on iudepen- exegetical grounds (see above, p. 27 sq.), independently of the f^^^^^^g^^g^ verse structure that we are obliged to excise 3% 4* \ Thus by the verse ' structure. ' See my Commentary, vol. ii, p. 392, notes 4 and 5. ^ xiv. 3« 4*'*, ' Who were redeemed from the earth. These are they who were not defiled vrith women ; for they are virgins.' 44 THE APOCALYPSE the thought and the form combine in requiring the excision of these clauses and so we read : xiv. 2^ ' And the voice which I heard was as the voice of harpers 3abcd Harping with their harps and singing as it were a new song Before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. And no one could learn that song Save the hundred and forty and four thousand: 4" ^ These are they which follow the lamb whithersoever he goeth. 5 These have been redeemed from amongst men to be a sacrifice to God, And in their mouth hath no falsehood been found ; For they are blameless.' In xix. 11-16 we have a vision of the Divine Warrior written in eight stanzas of two lines each. But at the end of the third stanza all the manuscripts insert a third line 12* ' having a name written which no man knoweth save he himself '. The form of the adjoining stanzas raises the presumption that this third line is an intrusion, and this presumption is confirmed by three facts: first, this addition i forms an anacoluthon. Secondly, it breaks the connexion of thought. We do not expect a reference to the name in the midst of a description of the person and dress. Thirdly, it is contradicted by the next stanza, where the Divine Warrior's name is declared to be ' the Word of God '. Hence we read : xix. 11 'And I saw the heaven opened; And behold a white horse. And he that sat thereon^ — Faithful and True; And in righteousness doth he judge and make war. 12*'' And his eyes are as a flame of fire. And on his head are many diadems. 13 And he is clothed with a garment dipped in blood, And his name is called the Word of God.' As another illustration of the critical value of the form of the text I will give the vision of the kingdom of Christ and XX. 4-6 in the glorified martyrs in xx. 4-6. This vision would consist of order. sevcn stanzas of two lines each, but for the prosaic addition in the fifth stanza xx. 5* : ' The rest of the dead lived not till xix. 11-16. Here the verse-struc ture required the excision of 12=— a conclusion necessaryon other grounds. LECTURE II 45 the thousand years were fulfilled.' ^ If this were original we should expect it to be introduced by a conjunction and that an adversative one : ' And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years, but the rest of the dead lived not.' But no such conjunction is given. Hence the words appear to be a marginal gloss incorporated in the text. Moreover, it intervenes between two lines which should not be separated ; for the second line (' This is the first resurrection ') defines what the first line means. Thus the fifth stanza should be read : XX. 4' ' And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years : 5'' This is the first resurrection.' Thus XX. 4-6 should be read as follows : XX. 4—6. (Vision of the glorified martyrs who reign with ' Christ for a thousand years.) 4c-h < ^Q^ ^ J saw) the souls of them that had been beheaded because of the witness of Christ, And because of the word of God, And because * they had not worshipped the beast, Nor yet his image, Nor had received his mark upon their forehead And upon their hand. 4* b And I saw thrones, and they seated themselves thereon, And judgement was given unto them.^ 4' And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5'' This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection : Over these the second death hath no power ; But they shall be priests of God and of Christy And shall reign with him a thousand years.' I will close this lecture with a few passages giving the text in its poetic form in order that its force and beauty may be better appreciated. The first is a vision of the future blessed ness of those who had been sealed and suffered martyrdom : 9 ' After these things I saw ^ii. 9-10, And behold a great multitude which no man could 18-17. Vision number, °f the future blessedness 1 The detection of this interpolation is due to Mr. Marsh. " See p. 35, note, on this rendering. ' This couplet is found in the manuscripts at the beginning of ver. 4, where alike the context and the grammar are against them. 46 THE APOCALYPSE of those who had been sealed and suiferedmartyrdom. xviii. 11-16. Dirge of the merchants over the fall of Rome. Out of every nation and (all) tribes and peoples, and tongues. Standing before the throne and before the Lamb, Clothed in white robes, and with palms in their hands; 10 And they were crying with a loud voice, saying. Salvation to our God That sitteth upon the throne. And unto the Lamb. 13 And one of the elders answered saying unto me. These which are clothed in white robes, who are 14 they, and whence came they ? And I said unto him, My Lord, thou knowest, and he said unto me. These are they that have come out of the great tribulation, And have washed their robes. And made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 Therefore they are before the throne of God ; And they serve him day and night in his temple : And he that sitteth upon the throne shall abide upon them. 16 They shall hunger no more, Neither shall they thirst any more. Neither shall the sun smite them any more nor any heat. 17 For the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, And shall guide them unto the fountains of the waters of life : And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.' The next passage is the dirge of the merchants over the destruction of Rome : 1 1 ' And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her. For no man buyeth their merchandise any more — Merchandise of gold and silver, and precious stones and pearls. And fine linen and purple, and silk and scarlet. And all thyine wood, and every vessel of ivory, and every vessel of most precious wood. And brass, and iron, and marble : And cinnamon, and spice, and incense. And ointment, and frankincense, and wine, And oil, and fine flour, and wheat, And beasts, and sheep, and souls of men. 12 13 LECTURE II 47 15 The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning, saying, 16 Woe, woe to the great city, That was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet. And adorned with gold, and precious stone, and pearl; For in one hour are so great riches laid waste.' The last is the dirge of the Seer over Rome, his appeal to the inhabitants of heaven to rejoice over its doom, and the response of the heavenly hosts to the Seer's appeal in xviii. 14, 20, 22-24, xix. 1-4, xvi. 5'"=-7, xix. 5-9. The dirge consists of eight stanzas of two lines each, and the Seer's appeal of two stanzas of three lines each. The response of the heavenly hosts is more elaborate. First we have a strophe consisting of three lines and three lines and two lines, sung by two angels, and a second of exactly the same structure sung by the Elders or Cherubim. Then in a third strophe, in answer to a voice from the throne, the whole multitude of God's servants. Cherubim, Elders, and the martyr host thunder forth with a voice as of many waters their praise to God and their joy that the morning of the Lamb has come. This vision closes with his fourth beatitude : 14 ' And the fruits which thy soul lusteth after xviii. 14, 22, Are gone from thee ; 23'-^. Dirge of the Seer And all the dainties and the splendours over Rome. Are perished from thee. 22ai'cd ^jj(j the voice of the harpers and singers (Shall be heard no more in thee) ; ^ And (the voice) of the flute players and trumpeters Shall be heard no more in thee. 23"'' And the voice of the bridegroom and the bride Shall be heard no more in thee ; 22^*^ And no craftsmen of whatever craft Shall be found any more in thee : 22^'' And the voice of the millstone Shall be heard no more in thee : 23=''' And the light of the lamp Shall shine no more in thee. 20 Rejoice over her, thou heaven. Seer's appeal And ye saints, and ye apostles, and ye prophets ; to the hosts For God hath given judgement in your cause against l^ rejSce her. over the , _, _ 1 •• inn doom of ' See my Commentary, vol. ii. 109 sq. Rome. 48 THE APOCALYPSE 23'24 For with her sorcery were all the nations deceived. And in her was found the blood of the prophets and saints. And of all that had been slain upon the earth.' xix. 1-3. First strophe — Song of the angels. xix. 4°, xvi. S"""-?. Second xvi. strophe-Songof the Elders and Cheru bim. Following the Seer's appeal comes the response of the heavenly hosts in three strophes, each consisting of three lines + three lines + two lines. The flrst is sung by the angels, the second by the Elders and Cherubim, and the third by all God's servants, angels. Cherubim, Elders, and the martyr host : xix. 1 ' After this I heard as it were a great voice of a mighty multitude in heaven, saying, Hallelujah ; Salvation, and glory, and power, belong unto our God: For true and righteous are his judgements ; For he hath judged the great harlot, That corrupted the earth with her fornication. And he hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they said : Hallelujah ; For her smoke goeth up for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped God that sitteth on the throne, saying. Amen, Hallelujah ; ^ Righteous art thou, which art, and which wast Holy, in that thou hast thus judged : Because they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, Thou hast given them blood also to drink : ^ They are worthy. lab =ibo ' It will be observed that the remaining lines of this strophe have been restored from xvi. 5i"=-7, which are at variance with their context there. See my Commentary, vol. ii. 120-123. ' This clause has a technical meaning in Jewish Apocalyptic and Jewish prophecy as far back as the Second Isaiah. It means that God would cause internecine war to arise amongst the Antichristian nations i.e. between Rome and the East. This has already taken place in xvii. 12-13, 17, 16, but not in xvi, into which seven lines of this strophe (xvi. 5'"'-7) have been transposed either owing to a misconception of John's editor or through accident. See my Commentary, vol. ii, p. 123. The idea in xvi. 6 is wholly at variance with the entire context of xvi. LECTURE II 49 7 And I heard the altar saying. Yea, O Lord God Almighty, True and righteous are thy judgements. xix. 5 And a voice came forth from the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants. And ye who fear him, small and great. 6 And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude. And as the voice of many waters. And as the voice of mighty thunders, saying. Hallelujah : xix. 6^-s. For the Lord God Almighty hath become King. '^'^"'"'^ Let us be glad and rejoice ; |J°| ^ And give unto him the glory: ^geifc and For the marriage of the Lamb hath come, of the martyr And his bride hath made herself ready. ^°^*" 8' Yea, it hath been given unto her to clothe herself In fine linen bright, pure. 9 And he saith unto me. Blessed are they which are Fourth called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.' Beatitude. In the passages which I have just quoted from chapters xviii-xix you cannot fail to have noticed dislocations of the text. The full grounds for the above reconstructions of the text cannot be given here. But many of them commend themselves even on a cursory examination. I will give only Some of the a few of the more obvious grounds for restoring xvi. 5''-7 S'"°2^"?^ ^°^' p o restoring to its original context in xix. The symmetrical structure xvi. s"-? to of the three strophes, each strophe consisting of two stanzas contexTin of three lines each followed by one of two, at once claims ^in attention. This structure occurs nowhere else in our author. This fact in itself points probably to their immediate con nexion with each other, and especially as the first and third strophes and one line of the second strophe are found in chapter xix, and the seven missing lines with the introductory words xvi. 7^ of the second strophe are found in xvi. A little closer study of the fragmentary seven lines in xvi shows that they are wholly out of place in xvi, being out of harmony with the thought of their imme diate context there. Hence we conclude that these seven lines must be removed from xvi. If, then, as our next step, we restore these seven lines, i. e. xvi. 5''-7, after xix. 4 we find that we have recovered the second strophe in its E 50 THE APOCALYPSE original form, and have thereby retrieved the missing seven lines of the song of the Elders and Cherubim. Finally, we see that these stanzas, thus brought together, deal all three with one and the same subject, and this is thanksgiving over the destruction of Rome, which has just been described in the preceding chapter. I will call your attention to one more notable dislocation of the text. Chapter xiv. 8-20 contains two visions of judgement. The subject of the first vision is the coming judgement of Rome, and that of the second vision is the xiv. 12-13 Messianic judgement. Now to our amazement at the con- restortd^to clusion of the first we read in the traditional text : contextii!""^ xiv. 12-13 ' Here is the patience of the saints, the close' of Who keep the commandments of God xiii. 18, i. e. at And the faith of Jesus. the close of j^^^ j^ heard a voice from heaven saying, persecution. Write, Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, That they may rest from their labours : For their works go with them.' Now what conceivable connexion, we may well ask, have these words with the righteous judgements just inflicted on Rome and the worshippers of the Beast in the verses which precede? None whatever. There is no blessedness of any kind In store for or connected with the subjects of these judgements. Hence the words are an intrusion here. And yet both their diction and singular idiom show that they come from John's hand. Now if we return to chapter xiii, we can discover without difficulty where these two verses should be restored. For first of all we recognize that in xiii there are two persecutions of the faithful, the first persecution under the direction of the first Beast, and the second persecution under the direction of the second. At the close of the first persecution we find the following significant words enforcing resignation and faithfulness on the servants of Christ : xiii. 10 ' If any man is for captivity, Into captivity he goeth : If any man is to be slain with the sword. With the sword must he be slain. Here is the patience And the faith of the saints.' LECTURE II 51 Now these last words recall the first words of the intruding verses in chapter xiv. There too we find the words : ' Here is the patience of the saints. Who keep the commandments of God And the faith of Jesus.' And these words are followed by the great beatitude pro nounced from heaven, ' Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord '. Such a beatitude comes in here most appositely ; for, whereas the first persecution brought either exile or death on the faithful, the second issued in the death of all the, faithful, in the martyrdom of the entire Church. It is most fitting, therefore, that the vision of such a universal martyrdom should close with this great beatitude. Hence xiv. 12-13 should be restored at the close of the second persecution, that is, at the close of xiii. E 2 LECTURE 111 Greek uncials and cursives of our text. The versions. How are the respective values of these authori ties to be determined ? By their readings in the case of test con structions. Though critical questions connected with the manuscripts and versions cannot receive any treatment in the least degree adequate in these lectures, they cannot be wholly passed over. There are seven uncial manuscripts, and about 223 cursives. Of the seven uncials N belongs to the fourth century, A and C to the fifth,. 025 and 046 to the eighth, and 051 and 052 to the tenth. The cursives belong to the tenth century onward to the eighteenth. Their values do not always vary directly with their age, as we shall see presently. Twenty-two of these cursives have been photographed, and several of them for the first time for my edition of the text. There are many versions. We have five Latin versions, two Syriac, two or three ^ Armenian, one Sahidic, one Bohairic, two Ethiopic, and one Georgian. I have used the Latin, Syriac, Armenian, and Ethiopic versions directly and the Sahidic and Bohairic indirectly through translations, but have no knowledge of the Georgian directly or indirectly. In any case thirteen versions have been collated for the text which I have published with my Comvientury. There are also four papyri fragments, whose dates extend from the close of the third century to the fifth. To determine the respective values of the above authorities is a task which requires for its solution a general knowledge of the main characteristics of each of the chief authorities, their relation to each other, and above all a mastery of the Johannine grammar. I will now take four test constructions (occurring in thirty- five passages) and compare the readings of the various authorities in regard to these. In my last lecture I dealt wdth these passages from the standpoint of their original form as Opposed to the corrected form, which they assumed in ' Arm.^-2-' represent three forms of one version : Arm.* a distinct and independent version. There is also Arm.", which represents a twfilfth- century recension of the older Armenian versions. LECTURE III 53 the hands of the successive scribes who copied and corrected the text. Now in the peculiar idioms preserved in these passages we shall find our criteria for distinguishing first-class authorities from second class, and second class from third. The first idiom, which is absolutely unique, occurs in the First test . opening words of each of the seven Letters to the seven construction. Churches. I gave some of the grounds for concluding that the text of ii. 1 was of the following form : TO) dyykXco tw kv 'E and km rbv Opovov into genitives as in vii. 15, SCriD63 to L I L I CD change con- ix. 17, xiv. 15, 16, XX. 11, we find that A preserves the original struction. ^g^j. ^iQeteen times out of twenty, and that x 025, 046 severally preserve it seventeen times out of twenty. The difference here is not so great, but it shows the superiority of A to the other three. The reason for the comparatively frequent survival of these Johannine solecisms in the inferior uncials and in the cursives is not far to seek. The scribes were not so strongly tempted to correct John's idiosyncrasies in con nexion with this phrase, seeing that two of John's three constructions were possible in classical Greek and the third in late Greek, though no other Greek author ever combined these three as they are in John.^ Here the versions take no account of the differences within the Greek. Third test II the third test construction, i.e. in xix. 6 6 ©eoy 6 iravro- construction. Kodrcop, A alone of the uncials is right along with three cursives, A with three r f & & > cursives 1, 2023, 2040. A IS supported here by seven versions, some alone right, ^f ^Yiese being the best, n 025, 046 with almost the entire body of cursives and the remaining versions wrongly insert fjpwv. In the fourth test construction, i.e. in xiii. 10 : luuiuMiBsi JJ .j-jy gj, uavatpv anoKTavorivaL construction. j. > \ j_ > > > a- A alone IfavTOVj ev fiaxaiprj airoKTavOr]vai, light. ^ alone is right, d th ¦ . diroKTav6rjvai ( = 'if any man is to be slain ') is a Hebraism — the same as in xii. 7. On p. 37 sq. I have dealt with this Hebraism. In xii. 7 to our surprise it has survived, though none of the scribes knew what to make of it, ^ In the LXX KaBrjpai is followed by eVi with the genitive. Only in a few cases with the ace. See my Commentary, vol. i, pp. cxxxii, clxi sq. ^ See Kiihner's AusfUhrliche Griechische Gram.^, II. i, pp. 495 sq., 499 sq., 503 sq. The genitive construction is the most classical ; the dative con struction is classical also but less usual ; the accusative can hardly be regarded as classical at all, though it is not uncommon in later Greek. In the later Greek the local upon could be rendered by gen., dat. or ace. with little difference of meaning: see Moulton, i, p. 107. LECTURE III 55 and all the ancient versions as well as the modern have mis- rendered it. In xiii. 10, however, though it occurs twice in A within the same verse, it has been corrected out of every other uncial and out of every cursive. Here the versions, of course, are helpless as in xii. 7, where the same idiom has already occurred. Thus A stands alone in xiii. 10 against all other existing authorities. Here we may be thankful that one authority at all events escaped the destructive activities of the copyists and correctors to whom we owe the Greek manuscripts. How destructive these activities were we can gather from the writings of Jerome. Jerome writing in the fourth century in his preface to the Gospels ^ complains that, when he sought to purge the Latin version from the errors and corruptions with which it wasHeeming, he was attacked with every form of abuse, and branded as a forger and impious desecrator of things sacred. Notwithstanding, Jerome insisted that it was his duty to correct the wrong interpretations of faulty editors, the perverse corrections of overweening ignoramuses, and the additions and changes of drowsy copyists. The Greek manuscripts suffered similarly, he states elsewhere. These represent some of the difficulties with which scholars have to contend in recovering the original text of the N. T. I have given a few of the multitudinous passages in which A manifestly stands pre-eminent and without a rival in the first class. C though closely related to A has suffered much at the hands of correctors and may safely be relegated to the second class, and the other uncials to the third. The versions are of great value in determining critical questions, but only in four readings (iii. 1, 7, 14 ; viii. 12) are we obliged to fall back absolutely on the versions owing to the corruption of the Greek manuscripts. The following genealogical table of the authorities for the Provisional text of the Apocalypse will enable the reader to see at a glance f^^oTthe the respective values of these authorities so far as they are authorities. known at present. The uncial manuscripts are A N C, 025, 046 : '¦ See Jerome, Praefatio . . in quattuor Evangelia, Migne, vol. x, p. 526 ' me falsarium, me damans esse sacrilegum'. Jerome rejoins : 'tot enim sunt exemplaria pene quot codices. Sin autem Veritas est quaerenda de pluribus : cur non . . . ea quae vel a vitiosis interpretibus male edita, vel a praesumptoribus imperitis emendata perversius, vel a librariis dormitantibus addita sunt, aut mutata, corrigemus ? ' 56 THE APOCALYPSE The Archetype of John, completed about a. d. 95. I Edited soon after 95 by an unknown disciple with many dislocations of the text and interpolations. Correction of text begins in the 2nd cent, and goes on steadily but sporadically towards a normalized form of text. Most primitive form (a.d. 280-450) of text, in which cor- . rection has made some progress. A somewhat normalized and very corrupt form of text which replaces a whole class of the author's con structions by more normal Greek. I JU jp3 -pi (3rd to 5th cent.) F2 (4th cent.) N (4th cent.) 025 (8th cent, recension) many cursives 2040(113-2011). 2050 (10th cent.) 35. 205 (10th cent.) 046 (8th cent.) Main body of cursives LECTURE III 57 Four cursives are given— 35, 205, 2040, 2050. F^ F^ F^ F* denote papyri fragments, s^ denotes the oldest Syriac version ; sa the Sahidic ; bo the Bohairic ; arm^-^'^-* the various Armenian versions ; vg the Latin Vulgate ; Tyc Pr fi gives older forms of the Latin version ; eth the Ethiopic version. There are many unities in respect of thought, form, and treat- The Seer ment maintained throughout the Apocalypse. One of the most ^^i the^faith- important unities of thought,^ that runs through the entire ful must Apocalypse, is the belief of the Seer that all the faithful must tyrdom suffei- martyrdom. This belief appears at the outset in an during a . p . . world-wide indefinite form, but as the action of the divine drama moves tribulation. forward, the thought of the Seer becomes less and less shadowy, till at last it stands forth in such clear outline and is stated in terms so distinct, that it can no longer be misunderstood. And not only is this the fact, but owing to this deeply rooted belief the Seer is compelled to recast the great traditional expectation of the Messianic Kingdom in accordance with it. Let me now advance the evidence for the above statements. The first reference to this expectation appears in the Seer's First refer- 1 • ••'in ence to this words mm. 10: . tribulation (iii. 10) ' Because thou hast kept the word of my endurance world-wide I will also keep thee from the hour of tribulation, '^"^ affecting Which is to come upon the whole world, faithless. To tempt them that dwell upon the earth.' ^ I have italicized the words that are of supreme importance here. This persecution is to embrace the entire world and to be distinguished from the local persecutions that have already occurred, ii. 10, 13 : in the next place it is mainly to affect those that dwell on the earth.^ As yet there is no reference to its inexorable demands. The next note of definition appears in vi. 9-11. In this it was to vision of the fifth Seal the souls of those who had been *^>^^^^Pj^.'=^ martyred under Nero are seen under the altar in heaven, vi. 9. little season'; These make one definite prayer and only one for retribution ti'on o "the ' This section dealing with the Seer's belief in a universal martyrdom did not belong to the original lecture. But the misconceptions of my critics render its presence here necessary. '^ For the meaning of ' them that dwell upon the earth , i. e. the unbelievers, see my Commentary, vol. i, p. 289 sq. The demonic tempta tions here referred to can only affect the unbelievers. The faithful are secured in vii. 4-8 against them by the seal of God on their brows. 58 THE APOCALYPSE persecutors on those that dwell on the earth, vi. 10. They are therefore place°when bidden to wait ' for a little season ' till the roll of the martyrs the roll of is complete, vi. 11,1 as the Seer expects it will be in the was complete Domitianic persecution. The implication in this passage is i" *'^^. that when this roll is complete Rome will meet its doom, and Domitianic . ¦. ,. , , m, • j.i x- persecution, that Within ' a little season . The passage is worth quoting: vi. 9. ' And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under neath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. 10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying. How long, O Master, holy and true, Dost thou not judge and avenge our blood On them that dwell on the earth ? 11 And there was given to each one of them a white robe. And they were bidden to rest yet for a little season, Until their fellow-servants also and their brethren should be fulfilled. That should be killed even as they.' To enable the When the judgements of the six Seals have been executed, 144 000— to ^ there follows the sealing of all the faithful, vii. 4-8. These face this are the spiritual Israel, and their number is given symbolically they are as 140,000.^ The object of the sealing is to secure them, not sealed with against death and martyrdom, but against the demonic Woes,^ God. i.e. the great tribulation to which the Seer has already referred In iii. 10. That all the When the sealing of the faithful Is over, the Seer abandons to be mar- the chronological order which he has pursued in iv-vii. 8.* This tyred is the breach in the unity of time is purposeful. The faithful have implication . i i . . - of vii. 9-17 : indeed been sealed in vii. 4-8, but, since this sealing does not quent^ekrTfi- secure them against physical suffering and martyrdom, the cation. Seer now recounts another vision in vii. 9-17 in order to encourage them in the face of these impending evils. In this proleptic vision the 144,000 who had been sealed and martyred ' See my Commentai-y, vol. i, pp. 176 sqq. 2 On the identity of these 144,000 see op. oit., vol. i, pp. 199-201. ' Op. cit., vol. i, pp. 194-9, 205 sq. * Op. cit., vol. i, p. 189. The Seer abandons the chronological order also in xiv, and with the same object. Hence just as viii follows chronologically immediately on vii. 4-8, so xv follows immediately on xiii. LECTURE III 59 are now seen standing blessed and triumphant before the throne of God. vii. 14 ' These are they that have come out of the great tribulation. And have washed their robes, And made them white in the blood of the Lamb.' After this vision the Seer returns in viii to the chronological Heaven's order, and represents the silencing of the praises and thanks- ^jenced givings of the heavenly hosts' in order that ' the prayers of all that the' the saints ', which they offered up in the face of the coming aiTthrfaith- great tribulation, might be presented before the throne of God, ^"1 ^''y ^^ viii. 1, 3-5, The implication of course is that the needs of Divine help the saints, even of the weakest, are of more concern to God '".J'^f ff®*^* tribulation — than all the psalmody of heaven. The object of these prayers the demonic is that the faithful might be shielded — not from martyrdom — Woes. but from the sway of the demonic powers. The three demonic Woes now ensue. Their aim is to secure Object of the subjection of all men to the Antichrist. Against the woes'^^^^The' faithful the first two Woes are inoperative ; and the third 'bird Woe, ineffective ; for it falls to make the faithful apostatize, though effective as it secures their universal martyrdom, xiii. 15. Here at last J®s^'^„^''j *^^ the belief of the Seer, is stated in the most unmistakable results in terms. Against the faithless the three Woes are effective, un^^'ersai The first two make them more obdurate in their wickedness, martyrdom. ix. 20-21 ; the third blinds their spiritual vision so that they become worshippers of the Beast and bear his mark on their hand and brow, xiii. 14, 16. That the martyrdom should be universal every measure is Every taken. The definite order is issued that ' as many as should taken to not worship the image of the beast should be killed' (xiii. 15). ™f'^^ t^^ „ 1 • i? 1 alternative — Thus the sole alternative for the faithful was worship of the worship of Beast or martyrdom. Nay more, all were required to bear g^^^e^^th— the mark of the Beast, xiii. 16. But none could receive this inevitable. mark unless he first rendered worship. Hence these two Eequire- .,.,.. . . , ments of the indispensable requirements ot the Antichrist are conjoined Antichrist. in xiii. 15, xiv. 9, 11, xix. 20, xx. 4. And to secure that none Non- should evade them, the very necessaries of life are to be with- entailed held from all that do not bear his mark, xiii. 17, that is, from economicparalysis all that refused to render him worship. • and actual death. 1 Op. cit., vol. i, pp. 218 sq., 221 {ad fin.), 223. 60 THE APOCALYPSE We may observe that the great beatitude pronounced by God Himself, which by an error of the copyist was transferred into the midst of the punishments of the faithless in xiv, can Loyalty even only rightly be read at the close of the persecution which was of all*tire^ to be enforced by the second Beast and result in the martyrdom faithful ac- of all the saints.^ There is no other place for it in the andTlwned Apocalypse, and its supreme fitness at the close of this by a divine persecution cannot fail to be manifest to every reader : beatitude. r- xlv. 13 ' Here is the patience of the saints. Who keep the commandments of God, And the faith of Jesus. 13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying. Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, That they may rest from their labours ; For their works go with them.' s^ At the close of xiii with its beatitude the Seer again breaks with the chronological order in xiv with the view of en couraging his readers, as in vii. 9-17, to* face the dread alternative that awaits every one of them, as he has just Proleptic shown. Henco in xiv. 1-5 we have a second proleptic vision, glorified ^ ^^ which the entire body of the faithful, who had undergone saints on martyrdom in xiii, are represented on Mount Zion along the 144 000 with the Lamb — during the Millennial reign.^ These are the who had mystical 144,000, xiv. 1, 3. The Seer is careful, by attaching in vii. 4-8 the Same mystical number to the group in vii. 4-8, and to and martyred ^j^at in xiv. 1-5, to make their identity unmistakable.^ Here again the expectation of the Seer is expressed in suflSciently explicit terms. At the close of xiv, which is wholly proleptic, the Seer in XV again returns to the chronological order of events. Further Chronologically xv follows immediately on xiii. xv opens saints who^*' ^^^"^ ^ vlsion of the entire rnartyr host that had fallen in had been xiii but are now in heaven. Characteristically the events of xiii are recalled in xv. 2 in the phrase describing the martyrs martyred in xiii. ' See p. 50 sq., and my Commentary, vol. i, pp. 368-73. ^ Op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 4, 422. ' On the identity of the 144,000 in vii. 4-8 and xiv. 1-5, see op. cit., vol. i, pp. 199-201, 206, 209 ; vol. ii. p. 5. LECTURE III 61 as 'those that had been victorious over the beast and over his image'. The roll of the martyrs referred. to invi. 11 is now complete. Hence the triumphant psalmody in heaven and the singing of the new song known only to the 144,000. We may pass by the judgements of the Seven Bowls, xvi, which affect only the heathen world. The roll of the martyrs being now complete, the time has come for the judgement of Rome in xvii-xviii. This was not to take place till this roll was complete, as we have already seen in vi. 11. Once more we are obliged to recognize the effect of the Seer's belief Seer's belief in his description of the Millennial Kingdom, martyrdom'' If the world were to be evangelized afresh, as is promised leads to a in xi. 15, xiv. 6-7, xv. 4,^ this evangelization could only be tion of the effected through supernatural intervention, seeing that all traditional „ . . p expectation the faithful were to be martyred before the advent of the of the kingdom. Hence the Seer recasts the traditional doctrine Millennium. of the Millennial reign. ' Hence our Seer expected Christ to return on His Second Advent with all the blessed martyrs to destroy the declared enemies of the kingdom (xvii. 14, xix. 11-20) and to found the Millennial Kingdom in the Jerusalem that was to come down from heaven, and so to evangelize the world afresh (xxi. 9-xxii. 2, 14-15, 17, xx. 4-6).'^ Thus this expectation of the Seer affects his entire Lesser unities work from the beginning to its close. Among the smaller ^ro" « contexts, and which have stood between John and his readers general in-^^ from the close of the first century to the present day. competence T ,, . . 1 1 ¦,. as an editor, In this connexion also we have discovered various disloca tions of the text, some of which were due to this editor's adaptation of the text to his interpolations and others to his sheer incapacity to understand his master's work. But the critical study of John's grammar has rendered and led to a stiU further service. For by its help we have been enabled to of°t°h"'*'°^ recognize as Hebraisms phrases which hitherto have been Hebraistic either obscure or wholly unintelligible, and so a flood ofthetext'^" light and meaning has been thrown on the text. Again, we have seen that the Apocalypse is not a prose its poetical work, such as it is represented in every manuscript and every ^jf'^'v"^^' great vei-sion since the second century. On the other hand, we also proved find that it is full of poetry from the first chapter to the last, critical that its author has adopted various poetical forms as the best '^alue in tbe vehicles for the expression of his thought, and that even the the text ° literal translation of his words in these forms bears the indelible stamp of poetry. We have already learnt that the recognition of the poetic form of the Apocalypse has contributed both to the recovery of the text in individual passages, to the restoration of the right order in dislocated passages, and to the discovery of our author's thought. Once more, we have reviewed the various methods of inter- We have pretation which have been used by scholars in their works ^^1^^^*^^?^^^^.^ on the Apocalypse. Whilst we have found that some are between the wholly inapplicable to our author's work, we have recognized methods of that others are essentially necessary. Of these the chief are ipterpreta- the Contemporary- Historical, the Eschatological, the Literary- Critical, and the Philological, Now before we pass from this subject of the methods of interpretation it may be well to emphasize one or two truths in connexion with Old and New Testament prophecy in general. Though every prophecy was directed to the events of Though the author's time, and to future events so far as they arose out dlrecteZto ^* of them, no true prophecy was limited to its immediate contempo- object, but, so far as it was a setting forth of God's mind, and the 66 THE APOCALYPSE future so far it was true for all time and for all like crises in human of them'^C' affairs. Thus, though every great prophecy was directed to true prophecy the events of the author's own time, it was not necessarily ite immediate fulfilled at all in regard to its immediate object ; and even if objects, in j^ weT& fulfilled, its truth could not be limited to or be be fulfilled exhausted by any such event or series of events. There the^s??^'et°^ is always a human and fallible element in every prophecy. sooner or The perspective of the prophet was frequently, or, shall we miTst be^ful- ^^7' uearly always wrong. He was too impatient with God's filled in methods of governing the world. When he did venture on ners and definite predictions or detailed forecasts, these predictions degrees of ^^^ forecasts were never literally realized. But all great ness. moral and spiritual truths enunciated by the prophets will and must of a surety be fulfilled at sundry times, and in divers manners, and in varying degrees of completeness. Such truths are timeless and creative, and sooner or later they take shape and find their embodiment in the actual events of history. The task of The essential office of the prophet is not prediction at all. isn^'^pre-^ The greatest prophets may never give utterance to a single diction but prediction. The prophet's imperative task is to set forth forth^of the the mind of God. Hence it is the office of the prophet to mind of God. bring home to his nation or the world at large the true ideals and destinies of the individual, of the nation and of the world, and if he achieves this end in his interpretation of a national or world crisis, then he is a true prophet, though his forecast of the immediate future may be mistaken. Nay more, such a prophecy is not to be judged by its literal True function fulfilment in Subsequent history, but by its power to arouse and value of , , t , . , . , j> , i , prophecy. the dormant conscience, to emancipate men from the yoke of materialistic motives and ends, to bring them under the sway of spiritual ideals, to quicken their faith, and to wake in them a living consciousness of God and righteousness, of judgement and eternity. We have now studied the Apocalypse from various aspects. The time is fast drawing to a close, and in what remains it would seem best to limit myself to some account of our author and his object. Is the name Now first of all WO may ask, Who was our author 1 Was John a his name John, as the Book asserts, or was this name a pseudonym? "¦!">., «* AllJewish pseudonym? There are good grounds for this question. Apocalypses seeing that all Jewish apocalypses from the third or second LECTURE III 67 century B.C. down to the latest work of this literature in f rom 300 b. c. Judaism were all pseudonymous. Seeing then that in Judaism pgeudo- from the third century B.C. onwards all literature of this nymo^s- type is pseudonymous, and that the author of the New Testament Apocalypse was a Jewish Christian, why do we not at once assume that the Apocalypse is also pseudonymous ? The only Old Testament work which is essentially apocalyptic in character, and not pseudonymous,^ is the Book of Joel, and it is not later than the fourth century B.C. The reasons which led Jewish writers to issue their writings The grounds pseudonymously I have set forth on several occasions, and ^° g„^°^ these are as follows :. ' From the time of Ezra onwards the nymity. Law made steady progress towards a position of supremacy in Judaism, and just in proportion as it achieved such supremacy, every other form of religious' activity fell into the background. This held true even of the priesthood ... But in an infinitely higher degree was it true of prophecy. When once the Law had established an unquestioned autocracy, the prophets were practically reduced to the position pf being its exponents, and prophecy, assuining a literary character, might bear its author's name or might be anonymous. When a book of prophecy brought dis closures beyond or in conflict with the letter of the Law, it could hardly attain to a place in the Canon. This was the case we know with Ezekiel, which narrowly escaped being declared apocryphal by Jewish scholars (Shabb. IS*" ; Men. 45*) as late as the first century of the Christian era. 'The next claim made by the Law was that it was all- sufficient for time and eternity, alike as an intellectual creed, a liturgical system, and a practical guide in ethics and religion. Thus theoretically and practically no room was left for new light and inspiration, or any fresh and further dis closure of God's will : in short, no room for the true prophet — only for the moralist, the casuist, and the preacher. How, therefore, from the third century onward, was the man to act who felt himself charged with a real message of God to his day and generation? The tyranny of the Law and ^ Isa. xxiv-vii, not to mention very many other late and apocalyptic sections in the Prophets, is virtually pseudonymous, though not in tentionally. By the inclusion of these chapters in Isaiah they came to be regarded as the work of Isaiah. F 2 68 THE APOCALYPSE the petrified orthodoxies of his time compelled him to resort to pseudonymity.' ^ It was on such grounds that Daniel and other Jewish writers were obliged to issue their appeals to the nation under the names of ancient worthies, who had lived before or not later than the time of Ezra. With But with the advent of Christianity the grojinds for ChTistiauity pseudonymlty disappeared — disappeared, that is, in the Chris- the grounds tian Church which came forth from Judaism. The Law was nymity— at thrust into a whoUy subordinate place. In the Sermon on th ^fi^'t*^ ^"^ ^^® Mount different precepts of the Law are introduced by century of the words, ' It was said to them of old time ' ; but these are era-^ceaseT° followed by the enunciation of a law that subsumes and to exist. transcends them with the words, ' But I say unto you '. Similarly St. Paul (Gal. iii. 24) calls the Law a TraiSaycoyos — a tutor that guards us in our childhood till we attain our manhood in Christ. And the same attitude towards the Law is conspicuous in the Apocalypse ; for it does not mention the Law once throughout its entire compass.^ Prophecy has now taken the first place. The heavens had opened and the divine teaching had come to mankind, no longer in books of the O. T. or of later ages, whether authentic or pseudonymous, but on the lips of living men, who came forward as heaven-sent messengers of God to His people. ' Thus the spirit of prophecy descended afresh on the faithful, belief in inspiration awoke anew, and for many generations no exclusive Canon of Christian writings was established. The causes, therefore, which had necessitated the adoption of pseudonymity in Judaism, had no existence in the Christianity of the first century, and accordingly there is not a single a priori reason for regarding the N. T. Apocalypse as pseudonymous. ... In 2 Thess. ii. and 1 Cor. xv we have the Pauline apocalypse given under its author's name, and every kind of evidence tends to prove that the greatest of all the Apocalypses was written by the prophet John, who claims to have been its author.' ^ ^ From my Commentary on Daniel, pp. xv sq. ' The differentia between Jewish and Christian Apocalypses is just this, that, whereas in the former the Law takes the chief place, in the latter it takes quite a secondary position or is not mentioned at all. ^ Quoted from my Religious Development between the Old and New Testaments, pp. 45 sq. LECTURE III 69 If it had been pseudonymous its author would have claimed If the Book to be the Apostle, or at all events John the Elder, who was ^"^^^0-" well known to the Churches of Asia Minor. But he never nymous, it calls himself either an apostle or an elder. He simply calls ^atoed to^ himself ' a prophet ', and writes as a spiritual father in God be the work to the Christians of Asia Minor. Again, he does not like Ap'l°stle or^ the authors of Jewish apocalypses say that his book was i*?^" *'?® • , , J. n 1 . . , , , , Elder, i. e. written tor far-distant ages as they were bound to do, but some well- John writes for his own generation, and the date of the book p°°sonage is known to within six months of its completion. John then writes as a spiritual teacher well known to the But the Seer Churches of Asia Minor, but he is not John the Apostle nor 'f "°t,*^^ , T 1 j.1. Til 1 TT f Apostle nor John the Elder. Unfortunately we know nothing about him the Elder. from tradition, save what we may infer from a statement of Papias, that there were two tombs bearing the name of John in Ephesus. Now since Papias wrote about a.d. 130 or earlier, and since no Church writer or historian ^ down to A.D. 180 either mentions or even alludes to any residence of John the Apostle in Ephesus or to any visit paid by him to that city, it follows that, if this statement of Papias is trustworthy, neither of the two Johns here mentioned was the Apostle. Who then were these two Johns whose tombs were held in reverence by the Church of Ephesus ? Now The two besides the Apostle we know of only two other Johns, who nect°d with can be connected with Ephesus. Of these two Johns the Ephesus were author of the Apocalypse was undoubtedly one — the other and John the was most probably John the Elder, to whom reference is made ^I'^er. by Papias, Dionysius of Alexandria, and Eusebius. Recent research tends to show that Papias was a pupil of John the Elder. Now Papias was a bishop in Asia Minor, and had frequent intercourse with the great teachers of sub-apostolic times, among whom John the Elder is expressly mentioned. There are some legends which connect John the Apostle with Ephesus, but these are late, as we have seen abbve, and may be safely left out of consideration in this short summary. Since we ,have no historical reference to John the Seer save the highly probable one just mentioned regarding his tomb in ' Excepting the heretic, Leucius Charinus, who wrote the Acts of John probably between 160-80. To this writer, who taught the existence of two gods— a good and an evil one, we owe also the legend that John the Apostle was cast into a bath of boiling oil and emerged from it none the worse but rather the better. 70 THE APOCALYPSE Gospel and Apocalypse from different authors. Epistles from the hand of the Evange list —not from that of the Seer. Present writer'ssolution of the problem of the author ship of the Johanninewritings in the N. T. Ephesus, all that we can learn about him must be derived from his writings. But what are his writings ? Now first of all the Apocalypse and the Gospel proceed from different authors. This con clusion has been arrived at by slow and careful criticism, beginning with Dionysius the Great of Alexandria, and may ' now be accepted as an established fact.^ Further disputation on this matter here would be mere waste of time. To the question of the authorship of the Epistles we must turn aside for a few moments, seeing that some distinguished scholars, Bousset, Schmiedel, von Soden, and Moffatt, assert that 2 and 3 John were written by the author of the Apocalypse. But this view cannot be maintained. In fact, it can be proved to demonstration that John the Seer did not write these two Epistles, but that they are derived from the same hand which wrote the Gospel, and this, I believe, I have succeeded in doing in my Commentary on the Apocalypse.^ This investi gation drew me away most reluctantly from other studies more nearly allied to my main subject. But, before I had completed the investigation, I became very grateful to these scholars for the hypothesis they put forward on this question, since it led me to examine their thesis exhaustively, and in the course of this examination I came upon what bids fair to be a trustworthy, though partial, solution of the Johannine problem — a problem on which no two scholars have agreed hitherto. Here I may remark that the researcher never knows where his researches are taking him. Even the most insignificant problem, if honestly and thoroughly studied, may lead him to the solution or a partial solution of the greatest. His experience will frequently be that of Saul when he went forth in quest of his father's asses ; for we read that when he was earnestly engaged in this humble quest, he found a kingdom. Now the solution of the problem of the Johannine author ship to which the above investigation led me may be put shortly as follows. First, a thorough application of his philological method proves that the Gospels and Epistles are from the same hand ; and that, whereas the Gospels and ' See my Commentary, vol. i, pp. xxix-xxxiv. " Vol. i, pp. xxxiv-vii. LECTURE III 71 Epistles are at one in their leading idioms and in their style as a whole, the Apocalypse differs from them exactly in these respects. Secondly, 2 and 3 John were written, as they claim to be, by ' the Elder ' and not by the Apostle, If the writer of 3 John had been the Apostle, he could not have failed to invoke his apostolic authority in dealing with Diotrephes (3 John 9), who was disturbing the peace of the Church. ' The Elder ' was a well-known figure in the Church in Asia Minor as we know from Papias, Thirdly, we conclude that the Elder wrote both the Gospel and the Epistles, since the philological evidence proves that they come from one and the same author. Thus none of the Johannine writings in the N. T. go back to the Apostle John. These conclusions are confirmed by the tradition of the Apostle's martyrdom before a.d. 70, for which there is evidence in several outlying quarters. That evidence of any sort as to John's early martyrdom has survived at all is astonishing in the extreme, seeing that from A.D. 135 onwards Church writers began wrongly but very naturally to assign the Apocalypse to the Apostle. This false conception led to intolerable confusion and the deletion from the pages of most authorities of the account of the Apostle's early martyrdom. When once the legend of the apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse gained currency, men naturally inferred that the Apostle could not have been martyred before a.d. 70, if he wrote the Apocalypse in A.D. 95.^ We have then only the Apocalypse to fall back upon for the materials for John the Seer's biography. But this is in itself a rich source of information, and from it we can gather a number of conclusions more or less well substan tiated, several of which we have already arrived at in the course of these lectures. I will now sjate these without further preface, and, of course, without the detailed evidence on which they are built. John the Seer, then, to whom we owe the Apocalypse, was John the Seer a Jewish Christian who had in all probability spent the ^aphy^to greater part of his life in Galilee ; for Galilee was the home far as it can i., ,. , . p J, iTiibe gathered of the Jewish mystics and seers, as we inter from 1 Enoch from the and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. From GaHlee Apocalypse. ^ For a full statement of the evidence see my Commentary, vol. i, pp. xxix-1. 72 THE APOCALYPSE John migrated to Asia Minor and settled in Ephesus, the chief centre of Greek civilization in that province. This conclusion is drawn not only from his very defective know ledge of Greek, and the unparalleled liberties he takes with its syntax, but also from the fact that to a certain extent he creates a Greek grammar of his own, which I have con structed in the course of my studies,^ comparing it continually with the very different grammar of the Johannine Gospel and Epistles. John the Seer never mastered the Koivri or Greek of his own day. The language of his adoption was not for him a normalized and rigid medium of utterance : nay rather, it was still for him in a fluid condition, and so he used it freely, remodelling its syntax and launching forth into hitherto unheard-of expressions. Hence his style is, as we have seen, absolutely unique in the three thousand years during which Greek has existed since the time of Homer. That he has set at defiance the ordinary rules of grammar is unquestionable, but he did not do so deliberately. He had no such intention. His object was to drive home his message with all the powers at his command, and this he does in some of the sublimest passages in all literature. With such an object in view he had no thought of consistently committing breaches of Greek syntax. The explanation of this apparently unbridled licence we have found in the fact that he adopted Greek as a vehicle of thought in his old age, and that, while he wrote in Greek, he thought in Hebrew, and very frequently translated Hebrew idioms literally, and not idiomatically, into Greek. Further, we learn by studying his text that John had a profound knowledge of the Old Testament, and that his thought clothes itself naturally in its phraseology. When he uses the Old Testament consciously he uses the Hebrew text, and generally translates it first-hand, but not in frequently his renderings are influenced not only by the LXX, but also by a later version, which is now lost in its original form, but which was re-edited by Theodotion 100 years later.^ John was clearly connected in some way with the author of the Gospel and Epistles. Either these two Johns belonged ^ See my Commentary, vol. i, pp. cxvii-lix. ^ Op. cit., vol. i, pp. Ixvi-lxviii. LECTITRE III 73 to the same religious circle in Ephesus; or more probably the author of the Gospel and Epistles was in some manner a pupil of John the Seer, though master and pupil took very different directions, as is not unusual in such cases. Furthermore, from a study of his text we can with various The library degi-ees of certainty discover the books that constituted the seer°^Vo^ks library of the Seer. First among these, of course, come the of tbe 0. T. books of the Old Testament. Naturally he makes most use "'^*' ^^^''"' of the prophetical books. Thus 'he constantly uses Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel: also, but in a less degree, Zechariah, Joel, Amos, Hosea, and in a very minor degree Zephaniah and Habakkuk, Next to the prophetical books he is most indebted to the Psalms, slightly to Proverbs, and still less to Canticles. He possessed the Pentateuch, and makes occasional use of all its books, particularly of Exodus. It is probable, further, that he and his sources drew upon Joshua, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 2 Kings.' ^ Of the books which we designate the Apocrypha, there is, He did not so far as I am aware, no indubitable evidence that he has laid ^'poc^pha them under tribute even in a single passage. In this respect he adopts the attitude of Palestinian Judaism towards this literature, and this is all the more noteworthy, since Paul, James, and the author of the Hebrews are clearly dependent on Sirach and the Book of Wisdom. But, though the Seer adopts the attitude of the Palestinian Jews to the Apocrypha, the grounds for his adoption of this attitude are not the same as theirs. John passed by the Apocrypha simply because it was almost wholly lacking in the prophetic element, just as he ignores many books of the Old Testament on the same ground. But the fact that our author shows no acquaintance with the Apocrypha does not necessarily prove that he was unacquainted with this later literature, which to some extent had its origin, and certainly had its main circulation amongst Hellenistic Jews. Next, just as the lack of the prophetic element in the He used the Apocrypha explains John's neglect of it, so its presence in grapha. the Pseudepigrapha explains his recourse to this literature. For into this literature the element of prophecy in a true sense does in some degree enter ; into Daniel and certain 1 Prom my Commentary, vol. i, p. Ixv. The evidence is given in pp. Ixviii-lxxxii. 74 THE APOCALYPSE pseudepigraphic fragments in the Old Testament, and into 1 Enoch, and other writings of later times in the Pseudr epigrapha proper. Of 1 Enoch, the Testament of Levi, and the Assumption of Moses our author had copies in his library, and probably of the Psalms of Solomon. There is also indirect evidence in the text of his acquaintance with a large body of this literature. He used Of the books of the New Testament he had copies of of the N. T. Matthew and Luke, 1 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Colossians, Ephesians, and possibly of Galatians, 1 Peter, and James. There is no evidence to prove that the Seer had any knowledge of Mark. This confirms the conclusion of Professor Burkitt, who {Gospel History and its Transmission, p. 261) has rightly inferred that all our manuscripts of Mark ulti mately go back to a single mutilated copy which breaks off in the middle of a sentence in xvi. 8, the remaining verses having been added by another hand. Besides these books there is no doubt that he had others, not only by Jewish but also by heathen writers; for the Apocalypse shows acquaintance with Babylonian, Greek, and Egyptian myths. In his closing chapters there is an implicit polemic against the heathen conception of the city of the gods. I will bring my lectures to a close with a short statement of the object of the Seer and of the bearing of his work on the present world conflicts, political and ethical. The object of ' The object of the Seer is to proclaim the coming of God's kingdom on earth, and to assure the Christian Church of the final triumph of goodness, not only in the individual and within the borders of the Church itself, not only throughout the kingdoms of the world and in their relations one to another, but also throughout the whole universe. Thus its Gospel was from the beginning at once individualistic and corporate, national and international, and cosmic. While the Seven Churches represent entire Christendom, Rome represents the power of this world. With its claims to complete obedience Rome stands in complete antagonism to Christ. Between these two powers there can be no truce or compromise. The strife between them must go on inexorably without let or hindrance, till the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ. This triumph is to be realized on earth. There is to be no legislation, no govern- the Seer. LECTURE III 75 ment, no statecraft, which is not finally to be brought into subjection to the will of Christ. The Apocalypse is thus the Divine Statute Book of International Law, as well as a manual for the guidance of the individual Christian. In this spirit of splendid optimism the Seer confronts the world-wide power of Rome with its blasphemous claims to supremacy over the spirit of man. He is as ready as the most thoroughgoing pessimist to recognize the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy, but he does not, like the pessimist, fold his hands in helpless apathy, or weaken the courage of his brethren by idle jeremiads and tears. Gifted with an insight that the pessimist wholly lacks, he can recognize the full horrors of the evils that are threatening to engulf the world, and yet he never yields to one despairing thought of the ultimate victory of God's cause on earth. He greets each fresh conquest achieved by triumphant wrong with a fresh trumpet call to greater faithfulness, even when that faithfulness is called to make the supreme self-sacrifice. The faithful are to follow whithersoever the Lamb that was slain leads, and for such, whether they live or die, there can be no defeat, and so with song and thanksgiving his visions mark each stage of the world-strife which is carried on ceaselessly and inexorably till, as in 1 Cor. xv. 24-7, every evil power in heaven, on earth, and under the earth is overthrown and destroyed for ever.' ^ On the Christian individual and on the Christian nation the Apocalypse makes claims that cannot be evaded. How ever often the powers of darkness may be vanquished in the open field, there remains a still more grievous strife to wage, a warfare from which there can be no discharge either for individuals or states. This, in contradistinction to the rest of the New Testament, is emphatically the teaching of the Apocalypse. John the Seer insists not only that the indi vidual follower of Christ should fashion his principles and conduct by the teaching of Christ, but that all governments should model their policies by the same Christian norm. Thus he teaches that there can be no divergence between the moral laws binding on the individual and those incumbent on the State, or any voluntary society or corporation within the State. None can be exempt from these obligations, and such ^ Quoted from my Commentary, vol. i, pp. ciii-iv. 76 THE APOCALYPSE as exempt themselves, however well-seeming their professions, cannot fail to go over with all their gifts, whether great or mean, to the kingdom of outer darkness. It matters not how inany individuals, societies, kingdoms, or races may rebel against such obligations, the warfare against sin and darkness must go on, and go on inexorably, till the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of God and of His Christ. NOTE On p. 99 (§ 85, obs.) Driver (Tenses') writes: 'No fact about the Hebrew language is more evident than the practical equivalence of Nlp'"1 and X"lp . . . 1 .' This presupposition, which is right all but universally, underlies his explanation of the passages which he gives on p. 138 (§ 117). But, as has been shown on pp. 32-35 above, this presupposition is inadmissible in some of the passages he quotes ,in § 117. The above two constructions are not universally identical, as has been shown in the notes on pp. 32-35 above. INDEX Apocalypse, the — not a mere allegory or symbolic repre sentation of the conflict of good and evil . author of, John the Seer date of summary of conclusions as to . interpretation of — see ' Interpretation, methods of ', solecisms in — see ' Solecisms '. sources used in — see ' Sources '. chronological order observed in apocalypses . but not in traditional text of xx-xxii of . . . xx-xxii not interpolated, being from John's hand, but in state of disorder due to the editor of (see ' Editor of the Apocalypse ') xx-xxii^reconstruction in original order: chaining of Satan, xx. 1-3, description of the heavenly Jerusalem, the seat of Millennial Kingdom, xxi. 9-xxii. 2, 14r-15, 17: return of glorified martyrs to evangelize the world, XX. 4-6 : heathen nations attack ' Beloved City', XX. 7-10: Final Judgement, xx. 11-15: the new heaven, the new earth, or the New Jerusalem, xxi. 5* 4* S*', l-4»*o, xxii. 3-5 : Epilogue, xxii. 6-7, 18% 16, IB, 12, 10, 8-9, 20-21 . unity of Aquila 2 Baruch Beatitudes, the seven Beloved City, the, xx. 9 = the heavenly Jerusalem, not the historical, nor the New Jerusalem Benedict XI identified with the Antichrist . Blood given to the heathen to drink — meaning of this phrase Bousset ' . . . . Burney's, Dr., criticism on a Hebraism in the Apocalypse PA6ES 2 66-69 63-6464-65 2-3 n. 8-4, 9-11 11-12 Cowley, Dr. Daniel, Book of Demonic temptations cannot affect the faithful spiritually Dislocations of the text .... 12-21,41-43, Editor of the Apocalypse . corrects John's G-reek in use of em xx. 11, vii. 15, ix. 17 in adding olrwes in xx. 4 interpolates i. 8 vii. 7-12 xiv. 3« 4ai> xiv. 15-17 xxii. 18i'-19 introduces non-Johannine form ioriiKaa-iv viii. 2 phrases ircl rrjv yrjv and Kpd^av iv — alreadv excised on other grounds, p. 27 sq.) . . 43-44 in xix. 11-16, XX. 4-6 44-45 in xviii. 14-24 47-48 in xix. l-4<=, xvi. 5i"=-7, xix. 6