The Book consists of a series of strange and impressive symbolic visions which contrast present and historic conditions of trial and suffering in the church and in the world with future and prophetic conditions of triumph and reward for the holy and of wrath and punishment for the sinful. It is an interpretative view of the divine path and plan of the centuries that is evidently given for the comfort and help of God's children in the midst of trial and distress. Its Literary Form is marked and significant, and belongs to that highly figurative style of late Jewish and early Christian writings which is known [pg 037] as the Apocalyptic Literature.41 And though John must often have felt himself hampered and impeded by the fanciful and more or less unreal character of this literary form, yet it doubtless met more fully than any other the conditions of the time, and afforded an adequate method of reaching the devout Christian mind of that generation. This literature is distinguished both by its peculiar style and by the exceptional range of its thought, and may be described as consisting of all of that particular class of the Apocryphal writings which are couched in mystic symbols and figures, and which attempt to give an account of hidden things miraculously disclosed, especially those pertaining to the other world and to the closing events of human history. The word Apocalyptic in its present sense belongs to recent usage, being introduced by the modern critical school as a generic term to designate these writings as a distinct department of the Apocryphal books, and also to denote the literary style or art-form in which they are cast. The use of the word Apocalypse to designate the writings or books now known by that name (as the Apocalypse of Baruch, and others) is undoubtedly very old, though it did not apparently begin before the end of the first century, and seems to have taken rise from the common use of the title “The Apocalypse of John” in Christian circles to designate the Revelation, from which the word came to be applied to all writings of a similar class. Every Apocalypse is thus an example of Apocalyptic; but, owing to the late introduction of the latter term as now used, most dictionaries do not give an adequate definition.42

The unique symbolism of these writings constitutes their most striking and characteristic feature; and it is this uniform use of cryptic symbols instead of ordinary figures of speech that invests the Apocalypse of John with its peculiar charm, and at the same time creates the special problems of its interpretation. A symbol may be defined as a conventional objective form chosen to represent something else, often not otherwise capable of portraiture, because of some real or fancied resemblance [pg 038] that appeals to the mind; an ideal representation couched in sensuous form that embodies one or more of the prominent features of its subject, and that comes to represent a fixed conception in the world of fancy, a lower and material sign being used to represent a higher and abstract idea. The use of symbols of some sort is instinctive and universal, and grows out of a natural effort of the mind to clothe its ideas in forms that give free scope to the imagination. But the peculiar nature of the symbols and the profusion of their use in the Apocalyptic literature, serve to mark it as separate from all other literary forms. Oriental symbols, too, are so unfamiliar and oftentimes so incongruous to our minds, such as the Dragon, the Scarlet Beast, the Two-horned Beast, and even the Cherubim, that we perhaps fail to realize how much they meant to people of a primitive civilization who were possessed of a vivid imagination without scientific precision of thought. This difference in the instinctive appreciation of the nature and value of symbols, together with the wide possibilities of meaning that are apparently inherent in the symbols used in the Apocalypse, has always given room for the fertile fancy of interpreters. But the later study of the Apocalyptic writings as a class has made it plain that this effort was largely misspent, and has led to more discriminating views of the meaning and use of symbols as there found, and to their limitation by established usage, where such is known to have existed. For while the growth of recognized symbols is necessarily slow, and their origin often impossible to trace yet when they have once been formed, and have come to possess an established meaning in the public mind, they exhibit a remarkable persistence; and though their meaning may be somewhat modified by subsequent use and by particular application, yet it can scarcely suffer sudden and radical change. And let us remember that the symbols, metaphors, and other figures found in the Revelation are not purely literary: they have had a history and have acquired a recognized and conventional meaning. We have, therefore, an available guide to the interpretation of the symbols in the book furnished by their use not only in the Old Testament, in which by former interpreters they were mainly sought, but especially in Jewish apocalypses, which give the current meaning of many of them at the time when this book was written, a sense which [pg 039] could not well have been departed from to any great extent without making their meaning wholly unintelligible. And the more clearly we apprehend this fact, the more constantly we apply it in our interpretation, the more likely are we to arrive at the meaning intended.43 For while the Western mind revolts against the oftime obscurity of Apocalyptic symbols, yet we not infrequently recur to the same method of illustration. For instance, a good example of the present day use of symbols, aided by illustrative skill, is found in such a cartoon as “The Modern Juggernaut” that appeared a few years ago, in which the wheeled car of India was transformed into a huge wine bottle full of intoxicating drink that rolls along its way, crushing out the lives of thousands of miserable victims, while the fierce dogs of War, Famine, and Pestilence have under its malign influence slipped their leash and go forth to prey upon men.44 This symbolism in some measure parallels that of the Scarlet Beast in the Revelation, and shows how a great destructive force operating in the world may be presented to many minds in an objective form much more effectively than by any abstract verbal statement. Like a parable an apocalypse flings a great truth across our path, instinct with the touch of spiritual life.

The revelation made to John doubtless took the Apocalyptic form because it was the prevailing literary method of that time for the treatment of the theme dealt with by his prophecy, and its constructive symbolism already filled and colored his thought. But notwithstanding that it is cast in a Jewish mould, the Christian thought everywhere triumphs over the Jewish form. The line of thought is limited to the peculiar range of Apocalyptic subjects, and is found to be closely related to that of our Lord's discourse upon the last things (the so-called “little apocalypse” of our Lord in Mat. 24), though it should not be regarded as formally an amplification of that discourse, or as chiefly or wholly determined in content by [pg 040] it.45 The prophetic mood is manifest in every part of the book, and the exalted mental state of the writer is sustained throughout after the manner of a rhapsody, in the structure and movement of which all literary forms are in a measure fused together.46 Indeed by a deeper study of this unique work we come to feel as though in it “we touch the living soul of Asiatic Christendom”.

It remains to be said that while we class the Apocalypse of John with Jewish apocalypses as to literary form, yet it so manifestly rises above its class both in method and content that it is universally accorded the first place among Apocalyptic writings, and fully establishes its claim to a place among the inspired books of Scripture by reason of the penetrative prophetic insight which it everywhere displays in dealing with the greatest, the most central, and the most mysterious theme in the whole sphere of Christian thought.