A Bible School Manual: Studies in the Book of Revelation / An introduction, analysis, and notes, containing a concise interpretation according to the symbolic view, numerous references to authorities, and general mention of other interpretations, with the text of the American revised version edited in paragraphs, for the use of Bible students

by Stephen Alexander Hunter

The Literary Structure of the Apocalypse

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Appendix G: The Apocalyptic Literature[595]

The Apocalyptic Literature is a characteristic product of Jewish national and religious thought. It was a favorite literary method of a particular age, and was born of a travail of soul which strove to find expression for those new currents of thought and feeling that came to the surface in later Judaism. Following the decadence of prophecy it belonged to the period of Jewish oppression, and voiced the heart-cry of a people true to God in the midst of national distress. Though anticipated in fragmentary parts of earlier prophecies, as in Ezekiel and Zechariah, the style of Apocalyptic first found definite form in the book of Daniel, which became the type of all subsequent Writings of this class that flourished so abundantly in the two centuries preceding and the century following the beginning of the Christian era. Couched in language that is characteristically figurative and symbolical the literary form is at once marked and significant, and reached its highest development in the canonical Apocalypse which has given name to the whole class. The essential limitations of this class of literature are clearly recognizable; its ideas move within a narrow range, its point of view is sombre and unequal, and its center of interest is mainly eschatological. It occupies a sphere peculiarly its own, a world of pious and often fantastic dreams—“for prophecy as it lost its footing on the solid earth took refuge in the clouds”;[596] it wrote the word mystery large across its page, and revelled in the weird and shadowy; but beneath its peculiar phantasy lay a profound religious motive—it sought to stay the troubled souls of men in time of storm, and in its deeper purpose strove to reconcile the righteousness of God with the sufferings of his people. In the form of strange and sometimes even grotesque symbolic visions—thought couched in symbols burning and vivid, which no other figure of speech could so well convey—and under the name of some hero of the past, it sketched in [pg 255] outline a history of the world, the origin of evil, the future victory of righteousness, and the final consummation of all things through which alone, according to the Apocalyptic view, the providential rule of God could be vindicated.

There still exists a not inconsiderable remnant of this very interesting literature, though the greater portion has perished in the wreckage of time. The principal books still extant are the Apocalypse of Baruch; the Ethiopic and Slavonic Books of Enoch; the Ascension of Isaiah; the Book of Jubilees; the Assumption of Moses; the Testaments of the XII Patriarchs; Second Esdras (known also as Fourth Ezra); the Psalms of Solomon; and the Sibylline Oracles. The late recovery of some of these from apparent oblivion is a matter of history, and their recension and translation by European and American scholars is not without interest to the general student. The study of this literature as a distinct class is one of the notable contributions to knowledge by the modern critical school. These Jewish Apocalypses were widely read in their day, and they both partook of and leavened the thought of their time, for they incorporated and expressed the current mysterious hopes and beliefs of the people. Their influence is distinctly traceable in the diction of the New Testament, and the Book of Enoch is obviously quoted in the Epistle of Jude. These works ranked very high with the primitive Christians, and this led to their being reedited by early Christian writers, and, it is generally thought, to the interpolation of later ideas. There is, however, a very wide variation of opinion concerning the extent to which changes have been introduced, and this is one of the puzzling questions that confronts the textual critic. Then, also, beside these changes in the older books, a new series of Christian Apocalypses sprang up, influenced no doubt by the Apocalypse of John. A considerable number of these have survived, such as the Apocalypse of Peter, of Paul, Thomas, Stephen, Cerinthus and others, but the greater portion have been lost, and those we have are decidedly inferior both in style and conception to the earlier Jewish works of which they are a feeble imitation.

It is difficult for us to conceive the conditions of mind and thought that gave rise to such a literature. [pg 256] In itself it affords an interesting psychological study. The Oriental is a mystic by nature, and many of his ways of thinking can never be quite clear to the Western mind. The Jew in times past was the great figure of the Orient, as he has also been well named “the most commanding figure in history”; for whatever he may now be, the Hebrew which we find in his literature is enveloped in the atmosphere of the East. The Hebrew writers as a class are unique. Although devoid in a large measure of the humanistic idea of literature for its own sake, they yet subserved the truest aim in that they brought to the surface and made verbal those deeper tides of thought and feeling which move and flow in the universal heart, those wide-spread and enduring currents which they instinctively felt were shared by the men of their own generation. Writing only for a religious purpose, and because they had a message for life, the development of their thought-forms was more or less incidental, and was the product alike of the man, his religion, and his environment. So that while we especially emphasize the national conditions which contributed so largely to the birth of this literary form, we should not forget that behind all that which was temporary and passing lay the Semitic mind and the Mosaic cult.

The rise of Apocalyptic marks a transition stage in the development of Hebrew thought that is of momentous significance, for it led to clearer views of immortality, and truer conceptions of God's relation to the world of men, as well as to a distinct clarifying of the Messianic hope. Its deeper roots are found in the failure of prophecy. No living voice was heard among the people speaking for God as in former days. Prophecy had grown senile and was in decay; it had become a thing of the past, and in its place had followed the scholastic work of the scribes, mechanically interpreting the messages of old. But, as is pointed out by Charles, “Scribism could not satisfy the aspirations of the nation: it represented an unproductive age of criticism, following a productive age of prophetic genius.” And Apocalyptic was the spontaneous outcry of a heart-hunger which refused to be fed on the barren husks of labored interpretation served up by the scribes. It was in the true line of succession to prophecy, [pg 257] and though it fell far behind the prophetic message both in its form and content, and was even feeble in comparison, yet, as Charles has said, “It attested beyond doubt the reappearance of spiritual genius in the field of thought and action.” There is assuredly something that is profoundly pathetic in this deep heart-cry of the Jewish people which rings mournfully out of the far past; for even at this remote distance of time and space we cannot read without emotion their enduring record of sorrow and suffering, of longing and hope, if we share at all in the wider world of religious experience.[597]

The apocalyptists were evidently conscious that they had no new message for their generation, and this conviction led to certain well-defined results. First of all they fell back upon the old message for most of their ideas; but with singular skill they contrived to present them in new form. The essential elements of their thought were taken from the Old Testament prophecies, while the material framework was drawn from without. They attempted in their own way to develop an esoteric meaning in the prophecies of the past, and for this purpose called to their aid the bold and striking imagery of the Eastern mind. They laid under contribution the luxuriant symbols of Babylon, Persia, and the surrounding nations; they gathered the rarest figures from the accumulated stores of poetry, art, and religion; and then with a fertile fancy they interwove these all in the fantastic fabric of their dreams. Then, again, they hid their own personality, and masked under the name of some great religious hero of the past. Enoch and Moses, Isaiah and Baruch, served as a thin disguise for the real authors who remained unknown,—for the Apocalyptic writings are all pseudonymous so far as known, with the apparent exception of the Apocalypse of John, and the Shepherd of Hermas,—and yet we cannot say that there was any real motive of deception in this, if we take into account the views of authorship which then prevailed, for “the ethical notion of literary property is a plant of modern growth”.[598]