four empires which oppressed Israel: the vine was the Messiah, who should destroy the last empire (the Roman) for its impieties, and establish a rule of peace (xxxvi.-xl.). On the strength of this revelation, Baruch exhorts the elders of the people to obedience and patience (xliv.-xlvi.). In a fourth vision Baruch sees a great cloud rising up from the sea, and pouring down upon the earth black and bright waters alternately, twelve times in succession, the last bright waters being followed by waters blacker than any which had preceded, and these being followed by lightnings, and twelve rivers ascending from the sea (liii.). After a prayer (liv.), the interpretation of the vision is disclosed to him by the angel Ramiel: the twelve black and bright waters symbolize twelve evil and good periods in the history of the world: the eleventh dark waters symbolizing the Chaldaean disaster, the twelfth bright waters the restoration of Jerusalem, the blacker waters which followed, the future consummation of troubles, the lightning and the twelve rivers, the Messiah, and the felicity which he would bring (lvi.-lxxiv.).

A third apocalypse is the Fourth Book of Esdras (2 Esdras of the English Apocrypha), written most probably under Domitian (A.D. 81— 96). Chs. i.-ii., xv.-xvi., are Christian additions: the Apocalypse itself consists only of chs. iii.-xiv. It contains seven visions, purporting to have been seen by Ezra whilst in captivity. In the first of these Ezra, having unfolded to God in prayer his perplexity at the sight of Israel suffering at the hand of a nation more wicked than itself, is told, in the course of a colloquy with the angel Uriel, that he is not in a position to judge of the dealings of Providence (iii. 1-v. 13). In a second and third vision (v. 20-vi. 34, vi. 36—ix. 25), the same subject being continued, Ezra is taught (among other things) that the events of history must run their appointed course, and that in a future state the righteous and the wicked will each be rewarded according to their due there will be 'seven ways' of punishment for the one, and 'seven orders' of blessedness for the other (vii. 79-99, R.V.). In the fifth vision Ezra sees in a dream an eagle rising up out of the sea, with 12 wings and three heads: as he watched her spreading her wings over the earth, he perceived eight smaller wings growing up out of them: the 20 wings and the three heads bare rule over the earth in succession until a lion appeared, and in a loud voice rebuked the eagle for its tyranny and cruelty, and bade it disappear (xi.). The interpretation follows. The eagle is the fourth kingdom which appeared

to Daniel, i.e. according to the interpretation adopted by the author (p. 95, 99 n.), the Roman empire: the wings and heads are different Roman rulers1: the lion is the anointed one' (the Messiah), who should arise in the end of the days out of the seed of David, and reprove and overthrow these rulers, and give rest and peace unto his people, for 400 years (xii. 24; see vii. 28 ff.), until the final judgement. The sixth vision (xiii.), of the one 'in the likeness of a man,' is summarized below, p. 107 f. In the seventh and last vision (xiv.), we have the curious story of the manner in which, the law having been burnt, the 24 books of the O.T., as well as 70 other 'apocryphal' books, were written, in the course of 40 days, by five scribes, at Ezra's dictation.

The Assumption of Moses,-written, as vi. 2- -9 shews, within a very few years of the death of Herod, B.C. 4,—contains an 'apocalypse' of the history of Israel from their entry into Canaan till the days of Herod (chs. ii.-v.). Ch. vii. describes the rule of impious and scornful men, preceding the time of the end. Chs. viii.—ix., as the text at present stands, foretell a 'second visitation' destined then to befall the nation, which reads like a repetition of the persecution of Antiochus: indeed, it is possible that Dr Charles is right in supposing that it is really a description of that persecution, and that the two chapters have become displaced from their proper position after ch. v. Ch. x. is a Psalm of triumph over the approaching judgement. From the death of Moses till the final judgement there are assigned (x. 12) 250 'times,' or weeks of years, i.e. (cf. i. 2) it is placed A.M. 4250.

The so-called Sibylline Oracles, -a heterogeneous compilation, in Greek hexameters, of materials of very different origin and dates, partly Jewish and partly Christian,—contain in Book III. (11. 162—807) a long 'apocalypse,' in which the seventh Ptolemy (Physcon, B.C. 145—117) is more than once referred to (ll. 191–193, 316–318, 608–610), and which is considered by the best authorities to have been written c. 140 B.C. This apocalypse contains a survey of the history of Israel from the age of Solomon: Antiochus Epiphanes is referred to in all probability in 11. 388-400 (see p. 98), and certainly in 11. 612-615; the Sibyl also foretells the advent of the Messianic king, his vengeance on his adversaries, the prosperity which will prevail under him (652

1 The names are not given; and very different opinions have been held as to what rulers are meant. See Schürer, ii. 650 ff. (ed. 3, 1898, iii. 236 fï.).

-731), and the signs which are to herald the end of all things (795-807)1.

These examples will illustrate sufficiently the general character of the Jewish 'Apocalypses.' While including an element of exhortation, and theological reflexion, they are in their most distinctive parts imaginative developments, varying in detail, but with many common features, partly of the thought (which is usually placed as a 'revelation' in the mouth of an ancient seer) that the movements of history, including the course and end of the distress out of which the apocalypse itself arose, are predetermined by God; partly of the eschatological hopes which the writer expects to see realized as soon as the period of present distress is past, but which vary in character-being for instance more or less material, and being with or without a Messiahaccording to the individual writer. And these are just the features which appear in the Book of Daniel. It is of course not for a moment denied that the Book of Daniel is greatly superior to the other 'apocalypses' that have been referred to,— not only for example is its teaching more spiritual, but it is entirely free from the fantastic and sometimes indeed absurd representations in which the non-canonical apocalyptic writers often indulge: nevertheless, just as there are Psalms both canonical and non-canonical (the so-called 'Psalms of Solomon'), Proverbs both canonical and non-canonical (Ecclesiasticus), histories both canonical and non-canonical (1 Macc.), 'midrashim' both canonical (Jonah) and non-canonical (Tobit, Judith), so there are analogously apocalypses both canonical and noncanonical; the superiority, in each case, from a theological

1 See further, on both these and other 'Apocalypses,' Charles' translations of the Book of Enoch, the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, the Apocalypse of Baruch, and the Assumption of Moses; the introductions and translations in Kautzsch's Pseudepigraphen des AT.s (1899); the art. APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE in the Encyclopaedia Biblica; the arts. BARUCH, ENOCH, &c. in Hastings' Dict. of the Bible; Schürer, ii. 616-691, 790-807, § 32 (ed. 3, iii. 190-294, 420-450); Dillmann in Herzog2, xii. 342 ff.; W. J. Deane, Pseudepigrapha (1891); and comp. the remarks of Wellhausen in his Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, vi. (1899), pp. 226–234.

point of view, of the canonical work does not place it in a different literary category from the corresponding non-canonical work or works. Probably, indeed, the Book of Daniel formed the model, especially in chs. vii.—xii., upon which the non-canonical apocalypses were constructed: it is at all events undoubted that there are many passages in the book which furnished in germ the thought or imagery which was expanded or embellished by subsequent apocalyptic writers.

Comp., for instance, not merely the general mode of representation by means of symbolism and visions, the latter being often explained to the seer by the intervention of an angel; but also, more particularly, in Enoch, the titles 'Most High' (see on Dan. iii. 26), and 'watcher,' or wakeful one (see on iv. 13), the representation of the Almighty as an aged man, seated as judge on His throne, surrounded by myriads of angels (vii. 9, and p. 106 f.), the books in which the deeds of men are recorded (vii. 10), and those in which the citizens of the Messianic kingdom are registered (xii. 1), the resurrection and 'eternal life' (xii. 2), the 'son of man' (vii. 13, and p. 106 f.), the saints compared to stars (viii. 10, and xii. 3), the fear at the sight of the vision, and the restoration by an angelic touch (viii. 17, 18, x. 8 ff.), the revelation designed for the future, not for the present (viii. 266, xii. 4), the 10 'weeks' into which the history of the world is divided (En. xciii., xci. 12-15), the names and ranks of angels (more fully developed than in Dan.), with Michael appointed guardian over Israel (Dan. viii. 16, x. 13); comp. in Baruch and 2 Esdras, also, the fast, predisposing to a vision (Dan. x. 3; see on vv. 5—9).

The Book of Daniel is also one of the sources of the imagery, or the expression, of the Book of Revelation: see on iii. 4, vii. 3, 7 ('ten horns': Rev. xii. 3, xiii. 1, xvii. 3, 7, 12, 16), 8, 9 ('white as snow'), 10 (thrice), 13 (Rev. i. 7, 13, xiv. 14), 21 (Rev. xiii. 7), 25 (Rev. xii. 14; cf. also the 42 months of tribulation in xi. 2, xiii. 5 (see v. 7), and the 1260 days of xi. 3 and xii. 6-each being equal to 3 years), 27, viii. 10 (Rev. xii. 4), x. 6 (Rev. i. 14 6, 15), xii. 1, 7 (Rev. x. 5, 6, xii. 14). Comp. also p. xcvii f.

It remains to consider briefly certain doctrines and representations, which are characteristic of the Book of Daniel.

I. The kingdom of God. One of the most fundamental ideas in the Book of Daniel is the triumph of the kingdom of God

over the kingdoms of the world. This is the thought expressed already in Nebuchadnezzar's dream in ch. ii., where the stone 'cut out without hands,' falling upon the feet of the colossal image, and causing it to break up, and afterwards itself filling the entire earth, represents the triumph of the kingdom of God over the anti-theocratic powers of the world. It is the same ultimate triumph of the kingdom of God over the kingdoms of the world, which, with increasing distinctness of detail, and with more special reference to the climax of heathen hostility to the truth in the person of Antiochus Epiphanes, is depicted in chs. vii.— xii. upon a divinely appointed succession of world-empires follows at last the universal and eternal kingdom of the holy people of God, a kingdom which (ch. vii.) contrasts with all previous kingdoms, as man contrasts with beasts of prey. The book is thus dominated, 'not only by an unshaken confidence in the ultimate triumph of truth, but also by an over-mastering sense of a universal divine purpose which overrules all the vicissitudes of human history, the rise and fall of dynasties, the conflicts of nations, and the calamities that overtake the faithful'.'

According to the Book of Daniel, when the need of the saints is the greatest, through the exterminating measures of Antiochus Epiphanes (vii. 21, 25, viii. 24, 25, xi. 31-39, xii. 76), the Almighty will interpose: His throne of judgement will be set up, and the powers hostile to Israel will be overthrown (ii. 35, 44, vii. 9—12, 22a, 26, viii. 25 end, xi. 45 end); everlasting dominion will be given to the people of the saints, and all surviving nations will serve them (vii. 14, 226, 27); sin will be abolished and forgiven, and everlasting righteousness be brought in (ix. 24). The righteous dead of Israel will rise to an eternal life of glory; the apostate Jews will rise likewise, but only to be visited with contumely and shame (xii. 2, 3). The inauguration of the kingdom of God will follow immediately upon the overthrow of the 'fourth empire' in the person of Antiochus Epiphanes.

This representation of the future kingdom of God, though it differs in details, and displays traits marking the later age to

1 Ottley, Bampton Lectures, 1897, p. 332.