Page:EB1911 - Volume 23.djvu/235

 Leto, because it was foretold that Leto's son would kill the dragon. Leto escapes to Ortygia, which Poseidon covers with the sea in order to protect Leto. Here Apollo is born, who four days later slays the dragon. Yet another explanation from Egyptian mythology is given by Bousset (Ojenbarung Johannfis, 2nd ed., pp. 354, 355) in the birth of the sun-god Horus. Here the goddess mother is represented with a sun upon her head. Typhon slays Horus. Hathor, his mother, is persecuted by Typhon and escapes to a floating island with the bones of Horus, who revives and slays the dragon. There are obvious points of similarity, possibly of derivation, between the details in our text and the above myths, but the subject cannot be further pursued here, save that we remark that in the sun myth the dragon tries to kill the mother before the child's birth, whereas in our text it is after his birth, and that neither in the Egyptian nor in the Greek myth is there any mention of the flight into the wilderness.

The insertion of the alien matter 7–12 between 1–5 and 13–17 may be due to our author’s wish to show that the expulsion of Satan from heaven after Christ's birth and ascension to heaven was owing in some measure to Christ, although he has allowed Michael's name to remain in the borrowed passage, 7–12—a fact which shows how dependent the writer was on tradition.

xiii.-In this chapter we have the two beasts which symbolize respectively Rome and the Roman provincial priesthood of the imperial cult. Thus the world powers of heathen statesmanship and heathen religion are leagued ina confederacy against the rising Christian Church. Against these the church is not to attempt to use physical force; its only weapon is to be passive endurance and loyalty to God.

That this chapter must be interpreted by the contemporary historical method is now generally admitted. Even Gunkel is obliged to abandon his favourite theory here, though he contests strongly the recognition of any allusion to Nero. Various solutions have been offered as to the seven emperors designed by the seven heads of the beast,  1. But the details of this passage are not sufficiently definite to determine the question here. It will return in chapter xvii. There are, however, two facts pointing to a late date. The first is the advanced stage of development of this, the Neronic-Antichrist legend. One of the heads “ is smitten unto death, ” but is healed of the death stroke. This points, we may here assume, to the Nero redivivus legend, which could not have arisen for a full generation after Nero's death, and the assumption receives large confirmation from the most probable interpretation of the enigmatical words, xiii. 18, “the number of the beast. . is six hundred and sixty six.” Four continental scholars, Fritzsche, Benary, Hitzig and Reuss, independently recognized that Nero was referred to under the mystical number 666. For by transliterating  into Hebrew and adding together the sums denoted by the Hebrew letters we obtain the number 666. This solution is confirmed by the fact that it is possible to explain by it an ancient (Western?) variant for the number 666, i.e. 616. This latter, which is attested by Irenaeus (V. 30. 1), the commentary of Ticonius, and the uncial C, can be explained from the Latin form of the name Nero, which by its omission of the final n makes the sum total 616 instead of 666.

The above solution may be regarded as established, though several scholars, as Oscar Holtzmann (Stade's Geschichte des Volkes Israel, ii. 661), Spitta and Erbes, have contended that 616 was the original reading ( =616) and that chapter xiii. was part of a Jewish apocalypse written under Caligula between the years 39 and 41. But this Caligula hypothesis cannot be carried out unless by a vigorous use of the critical knife, in the course of which more than a third of the chapter is excised. Moreover the number 616 is too weakly supported to admit of its being recognized as the original. The figure of the first beast presents many difficulties, owing to the fact that it is not freely invented but largely derived from traditional elements and is by the writer identified with the seventh wounded head. The second beast, signifying the pagan priesthood of the imperial cult, called “ the false prophet” in xvi. 13, appears to be an independent development of the Antichrist legend.

xiv.–xvi.—These chapters contain a vision of Christ on Mount Zion and the 144,000 of the undefiled that follow Him, xiv. 1-5, the last warnings relating to the harvest and vintage of the world, xiv. 6–20: the vision of the wrath of God in the outpouring of the seven bowls containing the seven last plagues, xv.-xvi.,

In the above section most critics are agreed that xiv. 14720 originally represented the final judgment and was removed from its rightful place at the close of an apocalypse to its present position. In its original setting “ the one like unto a Son of Man, having on his head a golden crown ” (xiv. 14), undoubtedly designated the Messiah, but the transformation of the final judgment into a preliminary act of judgment by a redactor, necessarily brought with it the degradation of the Son of Man to the level of a mere angel. Some critics hold that this apocalypse was the apocalyptic groundwork, but Bousset is of opinion that it stood originally in connexion with xi. 1-13.

As regards xvi. the views of critics take different directions, but that of Bousset followed by Porter seems the most reasonable. This is that this chapter forms an introduction to xvii., which was an independent fragment. The writer throws this introduction into his favourite scheme of seven acts, in this case symbolized by seven bowls. The earlier verses, 2-11, do not amount to much beyond a repetition of what is found in viii.-ix., save that as a preparation for xvii. references are inserted to the beast and his worshippers (ver. 2) and to Rome (ver. ro). In xvi. 12-16 is a revised form of an older tradition.

xvii.—This chapter presents great difficulties, especially if with the older and some of the recent exegetes we regard it as written at the same time and by the same author. Even so strong an upholder of the unity of the book as Swete is ready to admit that portions of xvii., as well as of xiii., show signs of an earlier date than the rest of the book. He writes: “ The unity of the Book. . . cannot be pressed so far as to exclude the possibility that the extant book is a second edition of an earlier work, or 'that it incorporates earlier materials, and either hypothesis would sufficiently account for the few indications of a Neronic or Vespasianic date that have been found in it ” (Apoc. of St John2, p. civ.). This chapter cannot be interpreted apart from the Neronic myth. Of this there appear to be two stages attested here. Of the earlier we have traces in xvii. 16-17 and xvi. 12, where there are allusions to Nero's confederacy with the Parthian kings with a view to the destruction of Rome. Of the later stage, when the myth of Nero redivivus was fused with that of the Antichrist, we have attestation in xvii. 8, 12-14, where Nero is regarded as a demon coming up from the abyss to war not with Rome but with Christ and the elect. This development of the Neronic myth belongs to the last years of the 1st century, and is decidedly against a Vespasianic date. To meet this difficulty a recent interpreter-Anderson Scott-though he assigns the book to the year 77, is yet willing to admit that the book though composed in the reign of Vespasian was “reissued with additions by the same hand after the death of Domitian” (Revelation, p. 56). Our author represents himself as writing under the sixth emperor. Five have already died, the seventh is yet to come, to be followed by yet an eighth, who is one of the seven (i.e. Nero). In order to arrive at the date here implied, we can