"We see not our signs: There is no more any prophet; Neither is there among us any that knoweth how long." And so the apocalyptist does not venture to speak in his own name, but takes that of some worthy of the past, an Enoch, a Solomon, an Ezra, a Daniel. And his material is taken mainly from the past, either from the prophets or from earlier apocalypticism. Unfulfilled prophecies are adjusted according to some new scheme, times and periods are outlined, figures and symbols are elaborated, and highly artificial visions set forth. This apocalypticism did not appear full-fledged. It was a gradual development from prophecy, and there are writings which clearly show the transition. The signs of change appear with the prophets after the exile, beginning with Ezekiel. In Zechariah, Joel, and Isaiah 24 to 27 we have significant apocalyptic passages, all of late date. Daniel is the first great apocalyptic writing, placed by scholars generally at the beginning of the Maccabean period, in the first part of the second century B. C. THE TEACHINGS OF THE JEWISH APOCALYPSES Our attention here is given primarily to the Jewish apocalypses outside the canon, although the influence of Daniel especially is strongly felt in these writings. There are wide differences in the doctrines of these productions and yet it is possible to set forth in broad outline their common teaching as this bears upon the future hope. 1. In the apocalypses a world philosophy takes the place of the prophetic sermon. The prophet dealt with a definite historic situation. He looked at the conditions of his time, judging the conduct of men in the light of his knowledge of God. He summoned men to repent, bringing the threat of judgment and the promise of deliverance. It was the work of the preacher. The apocalyptist has a practical purpose too, that of the encouragement of faith, but his outlook and his method are different. He meets the problem of men by a philosophy of history that takes in all the ages. Matters stand in the present evil case because that is part of the plan, and as part of the same great scheme there will come deliverance. Hence we have the familiar outlines of world history, the epochs and ages, the millennial weeks, and all the rest. These writers differed widely among themselves in these schemes, as they have done ever since. Among others we read of ten thousand years of world history (1 Enoch 16. 1; 18. 16; 21. 6), of ten weeks (1 Enoch 93. 3-9; 91. 12-17), of twelve periods (4 Ezra 14. 11; compare 2 Baruch 53). Most interesting, however, because of its influence upon apocalyptic thinking of later times, is the idea that history is divided into a week of seven periods of a thousand years each after the analogy of the week of creation. This we find in 2 Enoch 33. 1, 2, which Professor Charles places in the first half of the first Christian century. The seven millennia of history are here followed by the eternity when time is no more. "And I appointed the eighth day also, that the eighth day should be the first created after my work, and that the first seven revolve in the form of the seventh thousand, and that at the beginning of the eighth thousand there should be a time of not counting, endless, with neither years nor months nor weeks nor days nor hours." All these schemes are agreed, however, at one point: the history of the world falls into two ages, the present and that to come. Everything revolves about this distinction. The two ages are absolutely contrasted; the former is a reign of evil, the latter is the rule of God. 2. The apocalyptic scheme of history is strictly deterministic, with an order of events marked out from the beginning by God. "Nothing has been neglected by him even to the least thing, but all things he hath foreseen and caused all to come forth" (Assumption of Moses, 12. 4). The period of evil also must continue for the time set by him: "For he has weighed the age in the balance, And with measure has measured the times, Till the measure appointed be fulfilled" (4 Ezra 4. The end of this age is determined by the completion of the number of men who are to be born (2 Baruch 23. 4, 5), or by the completion of the number of the saints (4 Ezra 4. 35, 36). The latter conception has been most influential in subsequent thought (Rev. 6. 11, marginal translation. Compare the Anglican burial service: "Beseeching thee... shortly to accomplish the number of thine elect, and to hasten thy kingdom." This idea is eliminated in the revision of this service as used by the Protestant Episcopal Church of America and the Methodist Episcopal Church.) 3. Apocalypticism is strongly supernatural, laying all stress upon the deliverance through God, but its super naturalism is mechanical. Religious faith builds its hope for deliverance upon the power of God, but this power may be conceived as acting in two quite different ways. For a spiritual-ethical faith God works as an indwelling spirit bringing about moral transformation. It was this way that Jeremiah pointed (31. 31-33). For apocalypticism God moves in a magical-miraculous fashion, as an irresistible force coming from without. It has lost faith in the adequacy of moral and spiritual forces. In passing, two comments may be made upon these first three points. On the divine side they aggravate the problem of evil in trying to settle it, for this deterministic scheme throws the responsibility for this evil age upon God upon whose will alone its continuance depends. On the human side this scheme seems to empty history of moral meaning. There is no reason apparent why there should be any such age of evil. The ideas of growth and development have no place in this scheme. The present age has no organic connection with what follows, and is in no fundamental sense a preparation for it. The latter appears as an irruption-it is a new structure upon the ruins of the old. The prophets summoned men to a repentance that was to bring change. Here the order of events is fixed and the saint has simply to watch and wait. 4. Apocalypticism is markedly dualistic and is here in sharp contrast with the older Hebrew faith. The Hebrews recognized the presence of evil in the world, but it was evil wrought by man, and nature and history were both under the control of Jehovah. In apocalypticism the rule of the world is, in fact, divided. The Satan of Zechariah 3. 1, 2 and of Job was simply the messenger of Jehovah or the accuser of men; now he becomes the source of evil, the ruler of a kingdom of evil, and even the ruler of this world. But though Satan is the chief, he is only one of these angels of whom large numbers are given by name. The great conflict is not to be fought in the hearts of men or with the nations; it has become something transcendental. The opposing forces are now God and his angels on one side ranged against Satan and the evil spirits on the other. These evil angels are spoken of as watchers, or shepherds. They represent the nations and have control of them. It is they who have brought evil into the world and taught men the ways of wrong. So long as they control the world there can be nothing but evil for God's saints. In like manner deliverance is to come to earth not by a process of moral redemption but by the overthrow of these spiritual forces by God, who with the good angels and their archangelic chiefs stands over against them. In these pages there is, therefore, little place given to the prophetic summons to repentance. In the place of a moral redemption this apocalyptic dualism puts a superterrestrial conflict. The head of this kingdom of evil is variously named Satan, Belial, Mastema, the Dragon. 5. These facts indicate the reason why apocalypticism is purely pessimistic as regards this age. That follows necessarily from the idea of a God remote, a world under the control of the forces of evil, and a course of events marked out so as to leave no other lot for this time. 6. The apocalyptic conception of God is marked by two elements in particular, the idea of transcendence and that of absolute and autocratic sovereignty. Tran |