The Unity of Revelation.— The develop ment of the theme is, on the whole, so con sistent and straightforward that the book must be considered the work of one mastermind. The general uniformity in style throughout the book leads to the same conclusion. But the author was not the creator of the entire mate rial of the book. He drew heavily on the Old Testament, especially on Ezekiel, Zechariah, and, above all, Daniel. He used these as quar ries whence to get stones for his new building. But never is he a mere imitator or slavish copyist. He probably had access to other Apoc alyptic material, symbolism, calculations, etc., which is no longer extant. In using all this variety it is not surprising that he should have found some of it difficult to manage and work up in perfect agreement with his general plan.
The Symbolism of Revelation.— Much of the symbolism used by the author was common to Apocalyptic tradition and some of it may have belonged originally to ancient Babylonian or Persian mythology and superstition without our author being aware of the fact. He took what was at hand and filled it with a new meaning or gave it a new application. The Christian element in the symbolism of Revela tion is probably for the most part due to the author. The more important symbols of chs. xii, xiii and xvii are to be interpreted as fol lows : the woman of xii, 1, is probably the true Israel and the child the Christian Church, the offspring of God's own covenant-people, in clusive perhaps of the Messiah Himself (ch. xii, 5). The beast ascending from the sea (xiii, 1) signifies imperial Rome, the seven heads the seven first emperors (beginning with Augus tus), the one apparently wounded to death be ing Nero, the first emperor to persecute the Christians. The enames of blasphemy') refer to the state-religion which culminated in the worship of the emperor. The second beast (xiii, 11ff.) probably represents the organized emperor-cultus, with its priesthoods, to which the Christians were summoned to show alle or suffer death. Nero is meant in xiii, 18 the number 666 the numerical value of the ebrew letters spelling Nero Casar). In ch, xvii imperial Rome is the great harlot. In verse 10 we again have the seven first emperors as in xiii, 1-3). The beast of verse 11, which was and is yet is himself the eighth, is the same as the wounded head of xiii, 3, namely, Nero, whom legend asserted was destined to reappear and regain control of the empire. In these three chapters, xii, xiii and xvii, the author is apparently making use of material that originally referred to the period of the sixth and seventh emperors (Vespasian, 68-79 A.D. and Titus, 79-81 making it do serv ice for the time of Domitian (81-96 A.D.), the eighth emperor, who laid great insistence on the emperor-worship and who made Christianity a crime punishable by death. In this emperor the
author saw Nero-redivisnis, revived as by Sa tanic power and therefore representing in him self and his government the rule of Satan on earth.
The Interpretation of Revelation.— Rev elation was a tract foi its times and is to be interpreted as such. Its message, as its ad dress, its local color and reference to contem porary events and issues show conclusively, was for its own age. This was the way in which it was probably understood at first, but it soon (as early as Irenteus) was taken to be a phophecy in which the whole future course of the history of the world or of the Church was intended to be sketched. The author thought the end was to come quickly. He had no idea of a course of Christian history ex tending over 20 or more centuries. Conse quently all attempts, too many to be enumerated, to find the events of this or any other age, past or future, foretold in Revelation are futile and doomed to failure.
Date and Author.— The earliest Christian tradition (e.g., hennas, V. 30, 3) asserts that John had his vision near the close of Domitian's reign, i.e., not long before 96 A.D. With this the internal evidence of the book agrees. The expectation of Nero's reappearance (xiii, 3; aim, 8, 11) and the persecution of the Church together point to the latter part of Domitian's reign and to no other time. Sections that im ply an earlier date must be considered as older material used by the author but not entirely transformed. As to the author, criticism has gotten very little beyond the simple statements of the book itself. A certain John, a man prominent in Christian circles in Asia, who felt that his words would carry weight, sent forth this book as a message of comfort, exhorta tion and warning, to stay and cheer the Church in its trial, to encourage it to endure even unto death, confident that the ultimate victory of Christ its Lord would soon be manifest Whether this John was an Apostle or was the author of the Fourth Gospel, or the cEldera of 2d and 3d John are questions which cannot be discussed in this article but will be found fully treated in the literature listed below.
Bibliography.— Of modern commentaries, those by Bousset (Meyer series, 6th ed., 1906); Swete, H. B. (London 1909) and Moffatt (in itor's Greek Testament,' New York be found most satisfactory, with full bibliographies. A good brief commentary is that by C. A. Scott ((New Century Bible)). W. M. Ramsey's (The Letters to the Seven Churches) (London 1904) is full of archaeolog ical information. The (New Testaments Intro ductions,) by Zahn (New York 1909) and Mof fatt (New York 1915) should be consulted.