Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/192

Rh 178 APOCALYPTIC LITEKATUKE golden age. Christ is described in His miracles, sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension ; the apostles, and the cessation of prophets. The Hebrews will be oppressed by a Koman king, and be scattered abroad after the destruction of Solomon s temple. The description is continued in the second book. The world will be shaken throughout, and especially will heathen Rome be destroyed at the time of the tenth race. The whole piece is evidently Christian, for the eschatological ideas rest upon Matthew xxiv., xxv. Hellenic mythology and Hebrew tradition are intermixed with the author s utterances. The date is obscure. Block, with whom Liicke agrees, assumes the 5th century. There are, indeed, late views in the books, such as Christ s descent into hell to preach the resurrection, the worship of the Virgin, the intercession of the saints for n class of the condemned. It is also true that millennarianisni does not appear, and that no Christian writer of the first four centuries cites them. Still the 5th century is too late. We prefer the second half of the 4th. Ewald assigns about 300 A.D. The third book, taken as a whole, is the oldest portion, at least verses 97-828. It enumerates the kingdoms of the world that followed one another, emphasising the Hebrew one in particular, and mentioning the Roman. Woes are pronounced upon various cities and lands, and the appearance of Messiah is depicted, accompanied with the punishment of the wicked, the downfall of all worldly kingdoms, the conversion of the heathen, and the restora tion of Judah to more than former splendour. As the destruction of Carthage by the Romans is alluded to, the date must be after 146 B.C. Various indications point to 124. There is little doubt that the writer was an Alexan drian Jew, whose hopes of a personal Messiah were feeble and vague, for after touching upon a king sent by God from the sun who will put an end to war, and under whose sway Israel will enjoy abundant prosperity, he paints the golden age again without mentioning the king. 1 The fourth book, which is but a short poem of less than two hundred lines, arranges history according to twelve ages, terminating in the Messianic one. The writer s descriptions are general. He evinces no decided Jewish sympathies, nor does he utter ideas distinctively Christian. Sinful heathenism in an indefinite way is the chief object of his veiled descriptions. Hence Friedlieb makes him a Jew ; Ewald, a Christian. The passages which have been supposed to show either his Christian or Jewish tendencies 2 are hardly decisive as to the one or the other ; and the interpretations of them by Liicke are somewhat strained ia support of the strong statement about the Christian character of the contents generally, with which he begins his sketch of the fourth book. Probably he was a Jewish Christian who came out of an Essenc circle. The date of his oracle is somewhat later than that of the Apocalypse, since the destruction of the temple is presupposed as well as the eruption of Vesuvius, 79 A.D. The return of a matricidal emperor from beyond the Euphrates to over throw Rome is also expected. Such allusion to Nero, which is a prominent feature in the Apocalypse, and a few other particulars, incline us to assume Christian author ship, though the absence of evangelical ideas marks a stage not far beyond Judaism. Yet the writer rejects sacrifices. The date may be about 80 A.D. The fifth book presents great difficulty both in separating the component parts, and in assigning them to Jewish or Christian authorship. The absence of ideas characteristic of Judaism or of Christianity marks the poem. Nor is it 1 See verses 652-660, and 702, &c., 766, &c. 8 See lines 160, &c. , where Christian baptism is apparently referred to ; 174, ice., where the resurrection and last judgment are indicated. At 25, &c., sacrifices ara spoken of in an anti-Jewish way. Ed. Alexandra. easy to discover any internal connection, so that the whole might be attributed to the same authorship. The religious views of the author or authors are vaguely expressed. The first part, i.e., 1-51, appears to be of Christian, the rest, i.e., 52-530, of Jewish origin. The former describes in prophetic language the series of Roman emperors from Julius Caesar to Hadrian. In this way we are brought to the end of Hadrian s reign as the date, about 138 A.D. The second part, which expresses among other things the hope of a temple to be erected in Egypt, in which sacrifices should be offered, and the people of God should enjoy Messianic happiness, points to a Jew of Alexandria living after the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem, about 80 A.D. The sixth book contains a short hymn to Jesus the Son of God, touching upon His doctrine, miracles, and death, with a curse on the Sodomite land which platted His crown of thorns. It is curious that the fire at Jordan on the occasion of the baptism of Jesus, and the representation of the dove, vary from the canonical Gospels, though the former appears in the Gospel of the Hebrews. Something of a Gnostic element shows itself here. The seventh book is a fragmentary collection of oracles loosely connected. The contents ire varied. Several pieces treat of Christ ; several of the oracles are threat ening, some are of the nature of hymns. The baptism at Jordan is mentioned in a peculiar way; 3 and a strange sacrificial rite is recommended. 4 The allusion to the Per sians reigning is indefinite ; but it is all the historical evi dence that bears on the date, which seems about 160 A.D. ; though Alexandre puts it between 233 and 235 A.D. 5 As there is a tinge of Gnosticism in the book similar to that of the sixth, they may have proceeded from the same person. He was a heretical man, as Alexandre supposes; but whether he was a Jewish Christian is uncertain. The eighth book contains a prophecy of the judgment of the world. Rome is coming at length to an end. There is also a summary of the history of Jesus, His life, suf ferings, and resurrection. The writer commences with Hadrian, to whom he gives three successors of his house. He is also acquainted with the king of another house, Sep- timius Severus, in whose days, 948 of Rome, the end comes. The date is therefore 211 A.D. It is curious that Antichrist Nero is here made to come with the third from Hadrian, viz., Commodus. In this oracle occurs the cele brated sibylline acrostic, the initial letters of thirty-four lines (verses 217-250) representing Ir/croGs Xpeto-ros eoO vtos crwnyp &amp;lt;rrai&amp;gt;po9. Verses 361-500 are of earlier origin. They contain various fragments of prior poems. It is noticeable that a historical insertion about the birth of Jesus Christ from the Virgin occupies an unsuitable place, having been the product of a late time, when the dogma about the mother of God was developed. With this exception the second part of the book belongs to the 2d century. The whole is thoroughly Christian. Books xi.-xiv. were discovered in MSS. at Milan and Rome, and published by Mai, in his Vetennn Scriptorum nova collectio, torn. iii. p. 202, et scq. They are of Christian origin, and from Egypt, It is true that the Christian element appears but little. The writer used the preceding books and heathen oracles besides. The date is uncertain, but cannot be earlier than the 5th century. The eleventh book surveys the history of kings and people, till the death of Cleopatra and the end of the Egyptian kingdom ; the twelfth recounts the Roman emperors from Augustus till the death of Alexander Severus ; the thir teenth continues the history from Alexander Severus till 3 Yer. 66, &c. 4 Ver. 76, &c. , 6 Oracula Sibyllina, vol. ii. p. 386.