latter, in which the Apocalyptist looks forward prophetically to
the issue, the assurance held out is of ultimate victory, but of
victory through death or martyrdom. In the former (Jewish
or Christian-Jewish fragment) the sealing seemed to have carried
with it the assurance of deliverance from physical death, as in
Ezek. ix. 4 sqq. But in its new context this meaning can hardly
be retained. Not improbably the sealing means to our author
the preservation not from death, but through death from
unfaithfulness, and the number 144,000 would signify mystically
the entire body of true Christians, which formed the true people
of God.
Chapter vii., then, interrupts the development of the author’s plan, but the interruption is deliberate. He wishes to encourage the persecuted church not only to face without fear, but also to meet with triumphant assurance the onset of those evils which would bring panic and despair on the unbelieving world. viii.-ix.-These chapters, though presenting some minor difficulties, do not call for discussion here. They recount the six partial judgments which followed the opening of the seventh seal and the blasts of the six trumpets.
x.–xi. 1–13.-This section bristles with difficulties. Chapter x. forms an introduction to xi. 1-13. In it the prophet receives a new commission, x. 11: “ Thou must prophesy again over many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.” This new commission explains his departure from the plan pursued in the earlier chapters of developing the seventh in each series into a new series of seven. The seer has a vision of the seven thunders, but these he is bidden to seal and not commit to writing. He is instead to write down the new book of prophecies. The end is at hand. It is noteworthy that in the earlier visions it was Christ who spoke to the seer. Here and in the later visions, especially those drawn from foreign sources, it is an angel.
In xi. 1-13 We have a characteristic illustration of our author's dependence on traditional materials and his free adaptation of them to meanings other than originally belonged to them. For it is generally agreed among critics that xi. H3 is borrowed from lewish sources, and that this fragment really consists of two smaller fragments, xi. 1-2 and xi. 3-13. The former oracle referred originally to the actual Temple, and contained a prediction of the preservation of the Temple. It must have been written before A.D. 70 and probably by a Zealot.[1] But our author could not have taken it in this literal sense if.he wrote after A.D. 70 or even anterior to that date, owing to the explicit declaration of Christ as to the coming destruction of Jerusalem. The passage, then, must have a spiritual meaning, and its purpose is the encouragement of the faithful by the assurance of their deliverance not necessarily from physical death but from the dominion of the evil one. In xi. 3-13 we have another Jewish fragment of a very enigmatic character. Bousset has shown with much probability that it is part of the Antichrist legend. The prophecy of the two witnesses and their martyrdom belongs to this tradition. The fragment was apparently written before A.D. 70, since it speaks of the fall of only a tenth of the city, xi. 13.[2] The significance of this fragment in our author's use of it is similar to that of xi. 1-2. The details defy at present any clear interpretation, but the incorporation of the fragment may be due in general to the emphasis it lays on the faithful witness, martyrdom and resurrection of the saints.xi. 14-19.-The seventh trumpet, xi. 15, ushers in the third woe, xi. 14. Its contents are given in. xii.-xx. In xi. 1 5-19 the seer hears great voices in heaven singing a triumphal song in anticipation of the victory that is speedily to be achieved. This song forms a prelude to the chapters that follow.
xii.—This is the most difficult chapter in the book. Its main intention in its present context is apparently to explain Satan's dominion over the world and the bitterness of his rage against the church and against Christ. Christ, indeed, escapes him and likewise the Jewish Christians (“ the woman, ” xii. 16) but “ the rest of her seed, ” xii. 17 (the Gentile Christians?), are exposed to his fury. But his time is at hand; together with his hosts he has been cast down from heaven, and on the earth he “ hath but a short time.” The attribution of the seven heads and ten horns to the dragon, xii. 3, points forward to Rome, which is regarded as a temporary incarnation of Satan, xiii. 1, xvii. 3.
But, though a few of the leading thoughts of this chapter may be obvious, we are plunged into problems that all but defy solution when We essay to discover its origin or interpret its details. Most scholars are agreed that this chapter is not, except in the case of a few sentences, the work of our author. In other words, it has been taken over from pre-existing material either Christian or Tewish-and the materials of which it is composed are ultimately derived from non-Jewish sources either Babylonian, Greek or Egyptian-and bore therein very different meanings from those which belong to them in their present connexion. Furthermore, the materials are fragmentary and the order irregular.
(a) First of all, the chapter is not the free creation of a Christian writer. Such an one could never have so represented the life of- Christ-a child persecuted by a dragon and carried off to God's throne. No mention of Christ's earthly life and crucifixion. Furthermore, the victory over Satan is ascribed to Michael. Again, a Christian could not represent Christ as the son of the wife of the sun-god; for such is the natural interpretation of the woman crowned with the twelve stars and with her feet upon the moon. Finally, even if “ the woman ” who is the mother of Christ be taken to be the ideal Israel in the beginning of the chapter, at its close she is clearly the Christian community founded by Him. We conclude, therefore, that the present chapter' is not the work of our author. There are, however, traces of his hand. Thus 7-12, which is really a Jewish fragment are counting the victory of Michael over Satan, has to a certain degree been adapted to a Christian environment by the insertion of the rob-11.
(b) The order is not original. The flight of the woman is mentioned in verse 6 to a place of refuge prepared for her by God. Then comes an account of the casting down of Satan from heaven. Then again in 13–16 the flight of the woman is described. This fact has been variously accounted for by different critics. Wellhausen regards 1-6 and 7-14 as doublets, and differentiates two actions in the original account which are here confused. Spitta takes verse 6 to be an addition of the redactor, which describes proleptically what follows, While Gunkel sees in 6 and 7-16 parallel accounts. In any case we should probably agree with the contention of J. Weiss, supported by Bousset in the second edition of his commentary, that 7-12 is a fragment of a Jewish apocalypse, of which rob-11 is an addition of our author. Next that 6 is a doublet of 13 sqq. What then is to be made of 1–5, 13–17? Different explanations have been offered. Gunkel[3] traces it to a Babylonian origin. He urges that an adequate explanation is impossible on the assumption of a Jewish or Christian origin. At the base of this account lies the Babylonian myth of the birth of the sun-god Marduk, his escape from the dragon who knows him to be his destined destroyer, and the persecution of 'Marduk's mother by the dragon. But Gunkel's explanation is an attempt to account for one ignotum per ignotius; for hitherto no trace of the myth of the sun-god's birth and persecution and the flight into the wilderness has been found in Babylonian mythology. Moreover, Gunkel no longer lays emphasis on the Babylonian, but merely on the mythical origin of the details. A more satisfactory explanation has been offered by Dieterich (Abraxas, 117 sqq.), who finds in this chapter an adaptation of the birth of Apollo and the attempt of the dragon Pytho to kill his mother
- ↑ The Zealots occupied the inner court of the Temple during its siege by the Romans.
- ↑ The linguistic evidence, as Bousset has pointed out, confirms the critical conclusion that xi. 1–13 were independent sources. For whereas in ix.-x. the verb almost regularly begins the sentence and the object follows the verb, in xi. 1–13 the object frequently precedes the verb and the subject nearly always. The order of the genitive in xi. 4 is elsewhere unknown in the Apocalypse, and in xi. 2, 3 the construction of διδόναι. followed by καί instead of infinitive or ἵνα is unique in this book.
- ↑ Schépfung und Chaos § 3, Religionsgesch. Verständniss d. N.T., 54 sqq.
