In favor of its Unity we find:—(1) a uniformity of style throughout which is scarcely possible in the combined product of different authors without such redaction as is equivalent to authorship: (2) an elaborate literary structure quite incompatible with the existence of more than one author—see section on Structure: (3) an essential Unity, whatever the extent to which elements of Jewish apocalyptic may have been made use of in its composition, which appeals to the literary judgment in a way that is both forcible and convincing, for the personality of the author is interwoven in every fibre of its frame. Though the present trend of critical opinion is largely against the Unity of the book in the general sense of the term, yet its essential unity is so manifest that it is commonly conceded—“its inner unity is the foundation of all more recent works on the Apocalypse”.23 This is accounted for on the part of those who accept a composite origin by attributing its unification to the final editor, redactor, or author, a judgment that fails to carry conviction with it for those who approach the question from the broader standpoint of literary composition in general, instead of the narrower one of the apocalyptic writings. The later critical views have, however, not yet reached a conclusive stage, and indeed in the face of so great diversity of judgment, can scarcely be said to have assumed a consistent form; though it may be confidently predicated that no hypothesis of composite origin is ever likely to command general assent in the case of a book marked by such a definite unity of style and plan. The effort to discover in it an original Jewish apocalypse which has been wrought over by Christian editors into its present form,24 or to reconstruct the various sources, Jewish or Christian, from which it has been derived,25 may well be said to have been “thoroughly worked out”, and to have apparently failed, though the labors of the critics have added largely to our knowledge of Apocalyptic, and contributed not a little to a better understanding of the book. The view now in the ascendant admits one author, but attributes various portions of greater or less extent to a common stock of Jewish, or Jewish-Christian, apocalyptic fragments, current [pg 029] at that time, which have been appropriated from and used in its composition.26 This, to the more conservative Christian mind, involves an apparent denial of its true unity, and proceeds upon a theory of its origin that is scarcely consistent with its effective inspiration. But it fails to be conclusive on other grounds, for upon careful examination it must become more and more apparent to the thoughtful student of Scripture and apocalyptic that this view does not accord with the author's use of his materials, so far as we have any knowledge of their source. For although he draws largely from the thought and figures of the prophets, and uses freely the general form of imagery found in extant Jewish apocalypses, yet everything has been transmuted in the crucible of his own vivid imagination into new combinations, and there is not a single instance in which he interpolates an entire passage from any known author—indeed there are no quotations at all, in the strict sense, found in the Apocalypse, but only allusions, reminiscences, and echoes, literary devices which reflect the thought without reproducing the form—and it is certainly an exceptional assumption that he interpolates only from authors whose works are now lost, or from sources furnished solely by tradition.27 The impressions of unity are entirely too strong to be dissipated by visionary and purely theoretical views.

A modified form of the Apocalyptic-Traditional view, advanced by some late writers,28 indicates a healthful reaction from the piecemeal theories of the earlier source-criticism, and affords valuable suggestion for further study—whether, indeed, we can follow them or not in finding evidence of the introduction of a limited number of fragments of earlier origin,—viz. that the author drew freely from a mass of apocalyptic ideas and forms, or “apocalyptic conventions” as they have been called, which were widely current in Jewish circles, and with which his own mind was richly stored; and that this suggestive material was wrought over in his mental processes and used like that from the Old Testament, with which it was closely allied, as a framework for expressing the new and higher Christian thought peculiar to his message, the old form [pg 030] being constantly adapted to new meanings. The origin or source of these forms is chiefly a matter of theory; but the probability of their use is the more practical side of the problem. It will be seen that this view would account for all that the theory of diverse origin does without doing violence to the real unity of the book;29 and it does not affect the question of the inspiration or reality of the visions, for the thought of the seer necessarily took form from his own mental furnishing, and his imagination, though quickened by the prophetic ecstasy, was not essentially altered in its mode of operation. But, with it all, let us not fail to apprehend that these questions pertaining to the method used in the composition of the Apocalypse, and to the introduction of foreign elements into its literary structure, which so largely occupy the minds of critical scholars in the present day, are, after all, mainly secondary to the larger question. In it has God spoken? And if so, what are the spiritual lessons of the book for the devout Christian mind and heart?