10 See the abstract of it given in section vi. of Stuart's Commentary on the Apocalypse.
11 Cap. ii. 12 Cap. iv. 13 Cap. v., vii. 14 Cap. xiii., xvi.
15 Ascensio Isaia Vatis, a Ricardo Laurence, cap. ix., x., xi.
16 Ibid. cap. ii., iii.
17 Ibid. cap. iv. 13-18.
of their oppressors by declarations of approaching deliverance to those and vengeance to these. This is transparent at frequent intervals through the whole book.18 "Ye righteous, wait with patient hope: your cries have cried for judgment, and it shall come, and the gates of heaven shall be opened to you." "Woe to you, powerful oppressors, false witnesses! for you shall suddenly perish." "The voices of slain saints accusing their murderers, the oppressors of their brethren, reach to heaven with interceding cries for swift justice."19 When that justice comes, "the horse shall wade up to his breast, and the chariot shall sink to its axle, in the blood of sinners."20 The author teaches that the souls of men at death go into the under world, "a place deep and dark, where all souls shall be collected;" "where they shall remain in darkness till the day of judgment," the spirits of the righteous being in peace and joy, separated from the tormented spirits of the wicked, who have spurned the Messiah and persecuted his disciples.21 A day of judgment is at hand. "Behold, he cometh, with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment." Then the righteous shall rise from the under world, be approved, become as angels, and ascend to heaven. But the wicked shall not rise: they remain imprisoned below forever.22 The angels descend to earth to dwell with men, and the saints ascend to heaven to dwell with angels.23 "From beginning to end, like the Apocalypse, the book is filled," says Professor Stuart, (and the most careless reader must remark it,) "with threats for the wicked persecutors and consolations for the suffering pious." A great number of remarkable correspondences between passages in this book and passages in the Apocalypse solicit a notice which our present single object will not allow us to give them here. An under world divided into two parts, a happy for the good, a wretched for the bad; temporary woes prevailing on the earth; the speedy advent of Christ for a vindication of his power and his servants; the resurrection of the dead; the final translation of the accepted into heaven, and the hopeless dooming of the rejected into the abyss, these are the features in the book before us which we are now to remember.
There is one other extant apocryphal book whose contents are strictly appropriate to the subject we have in hand, namely, the APOCALYPSE OF JOHN.24 It claims to be the work of the Apostle John himself. It represents John as going to Mount Tabor after the ascension of Christ, and there praying that it may be revealed to him when the second coming of Christ will occur, and what will be the consequences of it. In answer to his request, a long and minute disclosure is made. The substance of it is, that, after famines and woes, Antichrist will appear and reign three years. Then Enoch and Elijah will come to expose him; but they will die, and all men with them. The earth will be purified with fire, the dead will rise, Christ
18 Book of Enoch, translated into English by Dr. R. Laurence. See particularly the following places: i. 1 5; lii. 7; liv. 12; lxi. 15; lxii. 14, 15; xciv.; xcv.; civ.
19 Ibid. cap. ix. 9 11; xxii. 5 8; xlvii. 1-4.
20 Ibid. cap. xcviii. 3.