III. The class of soli/ins:8 to which the Apo calypse belongs. —Paraeus seems to have been the first who thought it a prophetic drama. A like opinion was afterwards held by Hartwig, who terms it a symbolical dramatic poem. This view the genius of Eichhorn elaborated with much ability. Hence the hypothesis of its being a re gular dramatic poem is commonly associated with his name. He makes the following divisions : the title, i. t-3 ; the prologue, i.-4-iv. 22 ; the drama in three acts, preceded by a prelude, iv. 1-xxii. 5. The prelude consists of iv. 5. The first act (viii. 6-xii. 17) sets forth in three scenes the destruction of Jerusalem, the over coming of Judaism, and the church's weak con dition after that catastrophe. The second act (xii. IS-xx. to) represents the downfall of heathen ism. The third act (xx. 1 i-xxii. 5) describes the heavenly Jerusalem descending from heaven. The epilogue (xxii. 6- r) contains a threefold address that of the angel, of Christ, and of John (Gammen tarius in Apocalypsin yoannis, vol. i. p. 19, et seq.) This theory needs no confutation at the pre sent day. However ingenious, it is baseless. When Stuart calls the poem an epopee, the name is as objectionable as that of drama.
IV. The object for which the apostle wrote was to set forth the immediate coming of the Lord. in order to support his fellow-Christians under calamities al ready endured and still impending, to foster hope, and discourage apostasy. The world had shown its opposition to the truth, and would exhibit still greater hostility. Hence believers in Christ are en couraged to look for his speedy reappearance, and to hold fast their profession. By steadfast ad herence to the gospel, the redeemed should re ceive the blessed reward which their Master has to bestow. The circumstances seemed sufficiently alarming. The misery of war, the terrors of fre quent executions, the perplexities of political affairs, anxious hopes and fears of the future, had produced great excitement among the Christians ; such of them especially as had not attained to the spiritual views of Paul, in whose sight Judaism had become a thing of the past. The majority looked for a great revolution, which, beginning with the purifi cation of Jerusalem and the downfall of Rome, should issue in the return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the judgment of the world, and the establishment of the Messianic kingdom. Their hopes were raised to the highest pitch. Christ indeed had come once ; but that advent fell short of their ideal desires. The humbleness of his per son and claims disappointed many. They sighed for another and more glorious manifestation, as they had been taught to believe. The heathen seemed to have concentrated their strength against the followers of the new religion. Calamities al ready endured appeared the prelude to greater. The atmosphere was lowering. Well might the disciples of Jesus in Asia Minor tremble. Some had fallen away, needirig repentance and return to their first love. The weak had yielded to tempta tion. Hence it was necessary to reprove as well as console ; to censure as well as to encourage. The central idea of the book is the Lord's second coming, forming both its prophetic and hortatory character. Christ will soon appear to destroy his
enemies and reward his followers in that new king dom which he is to establish. The time is at hand, and therefore there is no reason for despair. The period of endurance is short. Nothing was better fitted to make them steadfast in the faith. The great event that formed the consummation of their hopes, the expected redemption to which their weary souls turned for solace, was nigh. The suffering may have sorrowfully thought that they should not be able to stand the shock of their fierce enemies ; but the writer's views point to the triumph of truth and righteousness. Exalted honours, glorious rewards, awaited the Christian soldier who endured to the end. The patient believer should receive a crown of victory, the Redeemer's approval, everlasting happiness in Mes siah's peaceful kingdom on earth. With him he should reign continually. Thus the book arose out of specific circumstances, and was meant to serve a definite object. When the lot of the apostle was cast in troublous times, what better theme could he have to strengthen and comfort his fellow. disciples than the speedy reappearance of their Lord ? But what shall be said of the writer's belief in the speedy advent of his Lord a second time ? Was he mistaken about the nearness of the event in his day ? Events have shown that he was. I believe,' says an able lecturer on the book, that the time of which St. John wrote was at hand when 17. I as little suppose him to have been mistaken about its nearness, as I suppose him to have been a wilful deceiver.' If this be correct, Christ's coming is taken in an unnatural and alle gorical sense, for it is explained away into the events connected with Jerusalem's destruction by the Romans, and the subsequent triumph of Chris tianity; whereas the writer of the Apocalypse merely connected the advent with that catastrophe. He did not suppose, any more than St. Paul, that the one was identical with the other ; or that the coming was aught else than literal and physical, for the purpose of destroying his enemies, and setting up a new kingdom in renovated Jerusalem. Far be it from us to entertain the idea that the sacred writer was a wilful deceiver. But it is not incon sistent with his apostleship to believe that both he and the rest of the early disciples supposed the time of their Lord's return to be near at hand. St. Paul's language in the First Epistle to the Corin thians shows that lie himself expected to be then alive. Not till a considerable time after the apostles did the adherents of Christianity generally begin to interpret the coming of the Lord spiritually—a fact which had an unfavourable influence on their judg ment of the Apocalypse. Millennarians there still were who threw the predicted advent into the future ; but the spiritual view prevailed over the carnal. Primitive Christianity was corrected and developed by the consciousness of the church in which the divine Spirit ever dwells. This spiritual development appears already in the fourth gospel, whose scope and genius are adverse to a speedy second advent, like that of the Revelation.