The apologies which the peculiarities in question have cost some critics are seen in Professor Stuart, who has often misapprehended the true state of the question, or wrapped it in a multitude of irre levant words. Yet he is often foiled, and has to confess the uniqueness of an expression in the book, as in xxi. 21, where ava ets graurros cannot be paralleled ; and in ii. 13, where he would drop 5s out of the text. ' Is not the Apocalypse,' asks the same critic, 'the production of an excited state of mind, and of the most vivid feeling? Is it not prophetic poetry?' Granted ; yet the answer is insufficient to explain the phenomena. The same reasoning applied to the O. T. prophets, which the critic would surely allow, justifies the expecta tion of frequent and peculiar Hebrew constructions in them. Do they not write the same kind of Hebrew as the sacred historians and poets ? Does any of them violate Hebrew construction exten sively because he was in an excited state of mind ? He does not. We must not deprive the Apocalyp tist of conscious calmness when he wrote. Indeed the very fact of his writing in Greek and yet fol lowing Hebrew so much—the fact of his knowing both the Septuagint and its Hebrew original— militates against the peculiarities he exhibits.
The phenomena now stated should he attentively considered in their bearing on authorship. Some, perhaps, will still think that they are compatible with the hypothesis of the same writer. But when we find an absence of the evangelist's characteristic expressions, or of such at least as suit Apoca lyptic ideas ; or when we see the Apocalyptist having favourite words and phrases foreign to the evangelist, and not inseparably united with the Apocalyptic circle of expressions, the argument is strengthened against identity of authorship. In like manner, the new form given to the evangelist's terms, and the new sense they are used in, show diversity. Thus the Apocalyptist uses rd applov, which never occurs in the gospel, where 6 41.4vds roi) 13co0 appears. 'Apvtop, indeed, is found in gospel xxi. 15 ; but that chapter does not belong to the same writer. The verb mew is common to the gospel and the Revelation ; but in the former a definite object accompanies it, such as the world, the evil one, while the latter uses it absolutely. The gospel has IfreOarns, the Apocalypse ',khans. The latter writes lepoticraMi.t, the former lepoa6 Xup.a. 'Hoe of the Apocalypse is toe in the gospel.
These differences—doctrinal, theological, linguis tic—are variously explained by apologists, especi ally by Donker-Curtius, Kolthoffi Dannemann, and Stuart, who either try to find the same or similar words in the gospel and first epistle which are in the Apocalypse, overlooking the characteristic ones in each.
Three causes are commonly assigned for all the diversities—viz., difference of subject, of age in the apostle, and difference of mental state. Of these the first should be allowed to have its weight The Apocalypse is in the main a prophetic book. It portrays the future in poetical colours. Yet the epistles to the seven churches are of the same character with the First Epistle of John, and should be a fair object of comparison. And their diversity is more prominent than their likeness. A different tone and style appear. The compositions in ques tion are characteristically different.
We place little reliance on the argument of age, though Olshausen and Guericke think it weighty. Written, as they believe, twenty years before the fourth gospel, the Revelation shows marks of in experience in writing, of an ardent temperament, and of youthful fire. It is like the first essay of one expressing his ideas in a language to which he was unaccustomed. But the author must have been about sixty years of age when he wrote ; a time when inexperience and youthful fire are past. A comparison of the earlier and later epistles of St. Paul shows the insufficiency of time to account for the characteristic differences between the evan gelist and Apocalyptist. Nothing but the hypo
thesis of two persons can explain them ; and Koh hoff's (Apocalypsis Yoanni apostolo vindicata, etc., p. no) reference to the earlier and later epistles of St. Paul as an analogy is beside the mark.
Others find the chief cause of diversity in the author's phrase g-ycvlikolv gy ryduart, I was in the spirit (i. so). Hengstenberg supposes that he was in an ecstatic state ; or at least in a passive condition of mind ; the recipient of things communicated. The visions and their colouring were given, says Ebrard ; whereas in the fourth gospel and epistles John's own reflectiveness appears. His mind was active in the latter, but passive in the former. We object to this assumption, because it deprives the author of his own consciousness, and is contrary to the analogy of prophecy. The O. T. seers were never without' consciousness, even in their highest moments of inspiration. Their own individuality appears throughout. Each has his characteristic peculiarities of conception and language. So must the author of the Apocalypse have. Ezekiel and Zechariah had visions ; yet their own reflectiveness is manifest. We must not convert our writer into a machine or unconscious agent in the hand of the Spirit. If, indeed, the Apocalyptist had written down the visions at the very time he received them, the idea that he was overpowered by the substance of the communications, and had little or no regard to readers, might appear more plausible ; but the fact of their not being written in Patmos shows that their present form proceeds from later and calm conception. How then could he fall back into the Aramaean colouring which was natural to him if his mind had been divested of it long since ? Would he not have retained his proper manner ? In a question like that before us it is fortunate to have the decided weight of external evidence in favour of the apostolic authorship of the Revelation, along with the preponderance of the internal. The entire cast of the work, all its distinguishing fea tures of conception, delineation, style, diction, manner, harmonise with the historical tradition of authorship. And it is clear that the evangelist is not identical with the Apocalyptist, because their minds are of a different complexion and grasp. The whole method of their description varies. The writer of the present book departs from the usual syntax. Whatever deductions be made on the ground that the work is prophetic poetry, not prose, that the author was a younger man when he wrote the Apo calypse, that the character of his inspiration was higher, that his object was different, that he should not be restricted to the same circle of ideas and lan guage, enough remains to show another. There are two idiosyncrasies ; characteristic differences which occasional points of coincidence do not efface. Apologists have lessened the diversities ; but their ingenuity has not succeeded in removing or fairly accounting for them. Our conclusion is, that as John the apostle wrote the Apocalypse, he did not write the fourth gospel. Had John the presbyter been a disciple of the apostle some might have attributed the authorship of the Apocalypse to him with greater probability, because John the presby ter might have thought it justifiable to introduce his instructor as the speaker, as he wrote in his manner. But the one John was not an immediate disciple of the other. According to Papias, John the presbyter was a disciple of the Lord. Hence most of the critics who deny the apostolicity of the book content themselves with the indefinite con jecture that it proceeded from a disciple of the apostle. But Credner and Ewald attribute the work to John the presbyter. No probability be longs to the hypothesis of Hitzig Weber yohannes Nalras and seine Schry2en, i843), that the writer of the Revelation is John Mark, from whom the second gospel proceeded. His arguments are mainly based on analogies of language and con struction, which weightier phenomena overpower.