APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE, alleged prophecies, epistles, etc., of late Jewish, and early Christian origin, written or compiled in or near the two centuries preceding and the two the birth of Christ. Of the Jewish, the most famous is the Book of Enoch, quoted in the epistle of Jude, long lost, but found in Ethiopia and pub lished in 1821. It gives an account of the fall of the angels, their intercourse with the daughters of men, and the birth of giants; Enoch's troubles in heaven and earth, attended by angels who explain the mysteries of the worlds, visible and invisible; descriptions of heaven, of the Messiah, of the future of the blessed, and of the con demned; accounts of the sun, moon, and stars; visions tracing the history of man from his origin to the completion of the Messianic kingdom; admonitory discourses; the wonders that were shown at Noah's birth, and Enoch's reflections about the future of the just and the unjust. In all, it is an interesting product of pre-Christian Judaism, multifarious, artificial, and rabbinical. The Fourth Book of Esdras, or the Prophecy of Ezra, Consists of a series of visions attributed to that prophet, and relating chiefly to the oppression of the Jews. The Book of the Jubilees, or the Little Genesis, is only in part apocalyptic. It contains, in the form of revelations to Moses while he was on Mt. Sinai, statements relating to future races and The work was written about 100 The Life of Adam, the Book of Adam's Daughters, the Assumption of Moses, the Apocalypse of the Sibylline?, and the ilpocalype of Baruch, complete the list of noteworthy llebrew works of the kind under consideration. The Sibyllines were doubtless sug
Bested by the Grecian oracles and books under that name. The Christian A. works are: the Apocalypse of Edras, in which the prophet is anxious about the punishment of the wicked, and minutely describes them as tormented; the Apocalypse of Paul, a description of all that the apostle saw in heaven and hell; the Apocalypse of John, describ ing the future state, resurrection, judgment, punishment, and reward. This work was written as late as the 5th or 6th century. The Apocalypse of Peter is a history of events from the creation to the second advent of Christ, and is said to have been written by Clement, Peter's disciple. It is a late work, mentioning the crusades. Another late work is the Revelations of Bartholomew, in which Peter is made the archbishop of the universe, a fact that of itself gives the work a late origin. The Apocalypse of _Mary described her descent into hell. The Apocalypse of Daniel is of little consequence. The Discussion and Visions of Isaiah assumes that the prophet had a vision of the life and crucifixion of Christ, the apostasy of the early churches, etc., for which prophecy Isaiah was condemned and died a martyr. The book was written about the 2d century. Other books of the kind are the Shepherd of Hermes and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Many A. writings, both Jewish and Christian, mentioned in ancient works, are otherwise entirely unknown.