and I will show thee the things which must come to pass hereafter. Straightway I was in the Spirit."

On the celestial throne sits God, his form radiating a crimson light and encircled by a vivid green rainbow. Twenty-four lesser thrones round about are occupied by twenty-four old men, white-vestured, and crowned with gold crowns. These figures may correspond with the twentyfour courses of the Jewish priesthood. A continuous thunder rolls, and lightning frequently flashes from the divine throne. Seven lamps or torches, the flame-spirits of God, shine out upon the glistening crystal floor which extends in the foreground. Closely attached to the throne stand four Livingcreatures, suggestive of a lion, a calf, a man, an eagle, each with six vibrating wings and covered with restless eyes. Without pause, these Living-creatures, types of the chief divisions of animate nature, raise the hymn of praise to the Eternal; and the elders, bowing before the divine majesty, ever and anon join in the swelling chorus.*

The Seer then beholds the Book of the Apocalypse, fastened with seven seals; and he weeps because no hand in heaven or earth avails to open it. Presently a vision reveals itself before the throne. It is the figure of a LAMB standing as though it had been slain," and furnished with seven horns and seven eyes-symbols of a panoply of power and a plenitude of insight. When the Lamb takes the roll of the Apocalypse, a shout of joy arises and the mystic choir sings a psalm never before uttered: "Worthy art thou to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests; and they reign upon the earth." Countless angels join in the song, and, while incense floats over the great assembly, they add new praises: Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honour, and glory, and blessing"-seven royal attributes. The kingly quality of the Lamb is also implied in the titles of the "Lion of Judah" and the "Root of David."

* The Living-creatures are copied from those of Ezekiel; and many features in the Apocalypse show direct borrowing from "Daniel."

What did the LAMB signify? Let us first look at other passages relating to this mystic being. A later scene in the Vision displays a multitude of the Redeemed, whose robes have been washed white in the blood of the Lamb; and the Lamb, as their shepherd, leads the flock of the Saved to the fountains of life (vii. 9–17). Elsewhere mention is made of names "written in the Book of Life of the Lamb that has been slain from the foundation of the world;" though another reading gives, "written from the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb that has been slain," and the latter version tallies with a reference in xvii. 8: "written in the book of life from the foundation of the world." In another episode in the Unveiling we see the Lamb as King of Kings advancing to battle against the enemies of God. We perceive, then, that the Lamb has lived since the world began, that his spilt blood cleanses the soiled robes of men, and redeems them from sorrow and evil, and that, armed with divine powers, he can crush all the coalitions of the wicked. Does the Lamb point to the Christian Jesus? There is no good ground for thinking so. For the conception of the Slain Lamb we find a sufficient origin in the old Hebrew doctrine of sacrifice, and the efficacy of the blood of bulls and goats, and particularly of the Passover Lamb. Possibly the same tendency which produced the Christian doctrine of the Slain Jesus, whose blood dissolves the sinfulness of mankind, also produced, among the more strongly Jewish section of the New People, a belief in a mystical and celestial Lamb, whose divine blood availed to reconcile men with God, and dispensed with all need for victims on the Temple altar. If the Apocalypse was penned in Asia Minor, we may conjecture that the writer had met with the strange ritual of the criobolium and the taurobolium, in which the devotee, lying down in a pit and exposed to the dripping of blood from a slaughtered sheep or bull, trusted to receive absolution from sin and the hope of an endless life. The Lamb of the Apocalypse is a spiritual creature, and its blood divine; and we have no reason to assume that the writer believed in Jesus as the incarnated Lamb.

One by one the Seven Seals are broken. Four horses flit by-the white horse of Triumph; the red horse of War; the black horse of Famine, its rider selling food at a high price; and the pale horse of Death and Sheol. At the breaking of the fifth seal shrieks are heard from under an altar; the souls of men and women who had been slain "for the word of God" cry for vengeance. They receive white robes, and soothing assurance. Are these the martyrs in Nero's persecution? If the Apocalypse comes from a Jewish source and expresses Jewish aspirations, we must strongly doubt the existence of any allusion to the martyrdoms of 64, unless, indeed, the sufferers whom Tacitus called Christians were in reality Jews. But it seems more natural to suppose that the souls under the altar stand for the many pious Jews who, at Jerusalem, Alexandria, Cæsarea, and elsewhere, had fallen beneath the Gentile sword.

The sixth seal introduces an earthquake, sun and moon darken in the dim atmosphere, and kings and tribunes and peasants alike fly to caves and gorges to escape the wrath of God and of the Lamb. A lull ensues, during which four angels hold back the blasts of retribution, and the elect Saints of the twelve tribes of Israel receive on their fore

heads the print of the divine name. They number 144,000.* Then an immense throng, clad in white, assemble in heaven and praise God for their deliverance from persecutions on earth. Is this throng another view of the 144,000, a number which may be only symbolical, or does it denote the multitude of Gentile proselytes who should join the congregation of the Jewish Elect? The question must remain unanswered.

At the breaking of the seventh seal a silence follows. An angel throws incense, kindled by the burning prayers of the Saints, upon the earth; a tempest agitates the scene for a few moments, and then seven trumpeters step forward to give signals of woe and terror-hail and lightning, a volcano tumbling into the ocean, the fall of the star of bitterness, named "Apsinthos ;" and the partial obscuration of sun, moon, and stars. An eagle flies across the scene, screeching of coming dooms. The Abyss opens, a sulphurous exhala

* Among the tribes Dan is left out; and Manasseh is reckoned in the list, though it should be included under Joseph.

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tion ascends, and from out of the lurid cloud issue ravening demons, led by their King Abaddon or Apollyon (destruction); their faces human, their hair streaming, their brows crowned, their teeth like those of lions, their bodies locustshaped, their tails pointed with poisonous stings. The sixth trumpet calls to arms an enormous host of cavalry— Parthian warriors from beyond the Euphrates, steeds and riders defended in armour which throws off a crimson, purple, and yellow sheen; the horses' tails taking the form of vipers (perhaps an allusion to the Parthian trick of shooting arrows backward while in pretended flight). colossal angel descends to give the Seer a book such as the prophet Ezekiel took and ate in vision; its taste sweet, its after-flavour sour. Then, at the bidding of a voice, the Seer measures the temple of Jerusalem, as if to mark off the inner sanctuary as inviolable, though the Gentiles may profane the outer court. At the time of the composition of the Apocalypse the Roman armies had entered Galilee, and the writer may have imagined that, while pagan feet might soil the outer precincts of the Holy House, an avenging God would never permit the Romans to penetrate to the inner chamber.* Two "witnesses," impossible to identify, cover themselves in sackcloth, and utter mournful prophecies. They are slain; and their corpses lie unburied till a heavenly voice calls them to rise and mount upwards in the sight of their panic-stricken foes.† An earthquake convulses the sinful city. At the blast of the seventh trumpet, amid jubilant voices, claps of thunder, and torrents of hail, the doors of a heavenly temple fly open, and reveal that Ark of the Covenant which had disappeared when Nebuchadrezzar sacked Jerusalem ages ago.

A woman, enveloped with the sun, treading on the moon, and crowned with twelve stars, is delivered of a son in heaven. The child, who is destined to become Messiah and World-ruler, is placed under the protecting shadow of God's throne in order to save it from the Dragon with seven diademed heads and ten horns. The mother escapes.

*See p. 17, as to the Jewish expectation of Messiah.

Moses and Elijah are often pointed to as the Two Witnesses, but without satisfactory reasons. Nor is it easy to determine what is meant by the Great City where they are killed. The reference to the crucified Lord in xi. 8 is, no doubt, a gloss.

Celestial war ensues, and Michael flings the Dragon out of heaven. The vision here seems confused, for a second scene exhibits the woman, furnished with eagle's wings, flying to the wilderness and pursued by the Dragon. We may, however, interpret the episode as prophetic of the birth, in heaven, of a Christ who in due season should subjugate the powers of Evil.*

The Dragon, standing on the shore, sees, rising from the sea, a kind of reflection or double of himself—a Blaspheming Beast, with seven heads and ten diadem-bearing horns-i.e., the Roman Empire, with its ten pro-consuls. The seven heads may indicate seven emperors-Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, and one yet to come; or Julius Cæsar,† Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, and Galba, who was reigning at the close of 68. One of the heads receives a fatal wound, yet lives again, to the amazement of the world; and the modern critical opinion is that in the number of the Beast (xiii. 18), which is given as 666, we find a hidden reference to both the Beast itself and the Emperor Nero. The name Neron Kaisar (for so the emperor is termed on the contemporary coins of Asia) is written in Hebrew letters thus,

and, if the numerical values of the seven letters are added up, the total comes out 666. In the case of the Latin form, Nero Cæsar, the omitted letter reduces the number to 616; and in some ancient manuscripts the number is actually so reported. The fatal wound from which the fifth (or sixth) head wondrously recovers may suggest the death of Nero, and his expected re-appearance in the East.

With the Blaspheming Beast appears another, who acts as his auxiliary and prophet, calling upon mankind to bow to Roman authority, and enforcing his commands with miracles-fire drawn from heaven, and a statue made to speak. Of many ingenious guesses at the meaning of this Second Beast, none seem convincing.

*I am therefore unable to agree with the critics who regard the Woman's flight to the Wilderness as symbolising the migration of the Jerusalem Saints to Pella. (See p. 23.)

+ Renan points out that Josephus always counts Cæsar as an emperor.

‡ The Roman priesthood; Simon Magus; Balbillus of Ephesus, etc., have been proposed.