begin the reckoning from Julius Caesar or Augustus, we can
include or exclude Galba, Otho and Vitellius, and, finally, when
we have drawn our conclusions from these data, there remains
the possibility that the book was after all not written under
the sixth emperor, but was really a vaticinium ex eventu. According
to the different methods pursued, some have concluded
that Nero was the sixth emperor, and thus dated the Apocalypse
before A.D. 70; others Vespasian, and yet others Domitian.
No solution of the difficulties of the chapter is wholly satisfactory,
but the best yet offered seems to be that of Bousset
(Offenbarung2, 410–18). He holds that 1-7, 9-rr, 15-18,
belong to an original source, which was written in the reign of
Vespasian and represents the earlier stage of the Neronic myth.
To a reviser in Domitian's reign we owe 8,12-14 and 6b, a clause
in 9, ἑπτὰ ὅρν . . . αὐτῶν, and another in 11, 6 'fyv xal aux Ewrw. If
the clause Kal élc Toi? a'4f/.taros T(;W paprbpwv 'Ir/coin in 6 is an addition,
then he thinks the source was Jewish and the “blood of the
saints ” was that shed at the destruction of Jerusalem, and the
forecast of the author related to the destruction of Rome.
When the reviser recast the passage it dealt not with the
destruction of Jerusalem, but with the persecution of the
Christians. Nero was 'now a demonic monster from the abyss,
and the ten kings no longer Parthians but ghostly helpers of
Nero. The destruction of Rome has now become a secondary
event: the reviser's thought is fixed on the final strife between
the Lamb and the Antichrist.
xviii.–xix. 10.-This section describes in prophetic language borrowed almost wholly from Isaiah and Jeremiah the coming judgment of Rome, and gives the ten lamentations of the kings and the merchants and the seamen over her, and the thanksgivings in heaven for her overthrow.
xix. 11–21.—The victory of the warrior Messiah over the two beasts, the Roman Empire and the imperial cultus and the kings of the earth. Many of the ideas set forth in earlier chapters here coalesce and find their consummation. The Messiah, whose birth and escape from the dragon was recounted in xii. 5, and who was to rule the nations with a rod of iron, at last appears in discharge of His office. The beast and the false prophet who are described in xiii. are cast alive into the lake of fire, and the kings of the earth who had assembled for this conflict, xvi. 14, xvii. 14, were slain by the sword of Him that sat on the horse.
The conception of the Messiah may be Jewish: at all events it is not distinctively Christian. The title “ Word of God ” can hardly be said to establish any connexion with the prologue Df the Fourth Gospel; for the conceptions of the Messiah in that Gospel and in these chapters belong to different worlds of thought.
It is to be observed that our author follows the apocalyptic scheme of two judgments which is first attested about 100 B.C. The first judgment precedes the establishment of the temporary Messianic kingdom, as here in xix. 19-21; and the final judgment follows at its close, as here in xx. 7-IO.
xx. 1-6.-The millennium, or the period between the first and final judgments, when Christ, with His chosen, reigns and Satan is imprisoned. Rome has been overthrown, but, as Rome is only the last secular manifestation of Satan, there is yet the final struggle with Satan and his adherents. But the time for this struggle has not yet arrived. Satan is bound[1] and cast into the abyss, and the kingdom of Christ and of the martyrs and faithful confessors established for a thousand years. Thus it is shown that evil will be finally overcome; for that the true and ultimate power even in this world belongs to Christ and those that are His.
The main features of this section have been borrowed from Judaism. The Messianic kingdom was originally conceived of as of everlasting duration on the present earth, but about loo B.C. this idea was abandoned and the hopes of the faithful were directed to a temporary earthly kingdom of 400 or 1000 years or of indefinite duration (see R. H. Charles, Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, pp. 201–4, 261, 286, 288). Moreover, the expectation that the saints would rise to share in the blessedness of this kingdom is also found in Judaism, 4 Ezra vii. 28 (op. eil. p. 285).
xx. 7–10.—Release of Satan. and final assault on the city of God by the hosts of Gog and Magog at the instance of Satan. Satan and the beasts condemned to eternal torment.
xx. 11–14.—The Final Resurrection and Judgment.
xxi. 1-8.—The new heavens and the new earth. The language in this and the following section is highly figurative; but as Porter has well remarked: “ Figurative language is the only language in which we can express our hope of heaven, and no figures can have greater power to suggest this hope than those taken from the literal longings of exiled Israel for the recovery of its land and city.”
xxi. 9–xxii. 5.—The vision of the New Jerusalem. There are several grounds for regarding this section as an independent source possibly of Jewish origin and subsequently submitted to a Christian revision. This view is taken by Vischer, Weyland, Spitta, Sabatier, J. Weiss, Bousset and others. Our author has incorporated it as describing the consummation of the prevision contained in xi. 15-18, in which he foresaw the time when the kingdom of the world would become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and the saints should enter on their reward. Moreover, he has already hinted at its contents in xix. 7 and xxi. 2, where he speaks of the church as a bride and the marriage supper of the Lamb. But the section betrays inconsistent conceptions. The standpoint of the heavenly Jerusalem is abandoned in xxi. 24-27, xxii. 2, and the context implies an earthly Jerusalem to which the Gentiles go up as pilgrims. Outside the gates of this city are unclean and abominable things. These inconsistencies are best explained by the hypothesis that our author was drawing upon a literary fixed tradition. The doublets in xxi. 23 and xxii. 5b, in xxi. 25 and xxii. 5a, and in xxi. 27 and xxii. 3, point in the same direction. Various additions were introduced, according to Bousset, by the last redactor, such as the frequently recurring reference to the Lamb, xxi. 9, 22, 23, 27, xxii. 1, 3. In xxii. 3 the fact that the words “ of the Lamb ” are an addition is clear from the context; for, after the clause “ the throne of Godand of the Lamb shall be therein” the singular follows, “ His servants shall do Him Service.”
6–21.—The conclusion. The promises are sure, the end is near and the judgment at hand. The words of the book are the message of Christ Himself and are inviolable.
Unity.—From the preceding sections it follows that We cannot ascribe a strict literary unity to the book. The book is most probably the work of a single author, but it was not written wholly at one date, nor have all the parts come directly from one brain. We have several good grounds, for regarding vii. 1-8, xi. 1-13, xii., xiii., xvii., as wholly or in part independent sources, which our author has laid under contribution and adapted more or less adequately to his purpose. He appears to have taken over with but slight modification xx. and xxi. 9-xxii. 5. Furthermore, while certain fragments such as xi. If'2 presuppose a date anterior to A.D. 70, others, as xvi. 12 and xvii. 12, require a date not later than Vespasian's time; other parts of xvii. postulate a Vespasianic date as the earliest admissible, and, finally, the composition of the book in its present form cannot be placed before the closing years of Domitian. But to this question we shall return presently. Nevertheless, the book exhibits a relative unity; for, whatever digressions occur in the development of its theme, the main object of the writer is never lost sight of. This relative unity is manifested also in the uniform character of the language, a uniformity, however, which is occasionally conspicuous by its absence in the case of independent sources, as in xi. 1-13. The author or the final redactor has impressed a certain linguistic character on the book, which differentiates it not only from all secular writings of the time, but also from all the New Testament books, including the johannine. And yet the Apocalypse shows in many of its phrases an undoubted affinity to the latter-
- ↑ This idea appears as early as the 2nd century B.C. Cf. Test. Levi xviii. 12.
