APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE. - A body of pseudonymous Jewish writings that emerged between the 2nd century B.C. and the 2nd century A.D., which scholars have classified as a distinct category for about a century, naming them after their subject matter, ἀποκάλυψις ("revelation"), a term that later (after 50-70 A.D.) served as the title for several such works. These "apocalypses" contain the "revelation," which they claim to have received through visions or dialogues with angels, of divine secrets concerning the mission and destinies of Israel and the Gentiles.
SUMMARY
Of the apocalyptic writings, each of which has a distinct treatment in this encyclopedia, the common points are presented here:
1. Origin
2. Theme and Doctrine
3. Literary Genre
4. Influence.4. ORIGIN
At the time when pagan Hellenism triumphs and Israel is oppressed and the Temple profaned (168-164 B.C.), hope for deliverance resurges and intensifies among the Jews faithful to their God and their homeland. Faced with the success of the impure foreigner, from Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.) to the Romans of Pompey (63 B.C.) and Titus (70 A.D.), ferment grows among those who consider themselves "the remnant of Israel," also distressed by the increasing laxity and betrayal within Israel, especially in the priestly class. Apocalyptic literature arises to sustain faith in the truthfulness of divine promises; it seeks to justify the ways of Providence, resolving the disconcerting contradiction between the happiness promised by the Prophets and the political and religious abjection to which Israel is reduced; it aims to nourish Jewish pride, shaken by trials, by orienting it toward future dawns. Presumed "seers" take upon themselves the task of showing their disheartened compatriots that soon God will visit and exalt His people, that the glorious prophecies have not been fulfilled because they will come to pass in a now imminent future: Israel will be liberated and avenged, and, guided by Yahweh and His Messiah, will reign in peace and abundance; the twelve tribes will return, to rule over the subdued and trampled Gentiles.Apocalyptic literature derives directly from the Prophets, which it claims to continue and complete. From them it draws its primary materials, arranging them in new constructions. Catholic critics include in apocalyptic literature many prophetic sections (Jer. 11; 24-27; 29, 1-8; 60; Ez. 26-32; 34-48; Dan. 2; 7-12; Zach. 9-14; all of Joel). Conversely, it is the apocalyptic writings that trace their origins to such prophetic sayings. Ezekiel is considered the "father of apocalyptic" (though L. Dürer reacts) because in chapters 38-39 he agglomerates images and symbols dispersed in other Prophets concerning the final struggle (as in Zach. 14), and in chapters 40-48 he designs the new Jerusalem. "Critics," and partially some Catholics (M.-J. Lagrange), place Daniel (which they assert was composed under Antiochus IV) at the head of apocalyptic literature, of which it would be the first product and typical example. But Catholics ascribe to apocalyptic literature only apocryphal books or fragments, while recognizing that those canonical passages contain in embryo some essential features of the later apocalyptic growth, Apocalypse (v.) of Giovanni may have drawn from it literary motifs and schemes (B. Allo, p. VIII).
Most of the Jewish apocrypha (v.) belong, to varying degrees, to apocalyptic literature. Many Alexandrian apocrypha remain outside it, whose haggadic parenesis concerns the present more than the future. Apocalyptic literature developed in Palestinian soil, except for the Sibylline literature and the Slavonic Enoch.
The surviving apocalyptic writings are: 1) from the 2nd-1st centuries B.C.: the Book of Enoch (Ethiopic), the prologue and Book III of the Sibylline Oracles, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs (the Book of Jubilees is rather a midrash [v.]; the Psalms of Solomon are not "apocalypses" though rich in eschatology); 2) from the 1st-2nd centuries A.D., a) before 70: the Assumption of Moses, Slavonic Enoch (Secrets of Enoch), the Jewish nucleus of the Ascension of Isaiah; b) after 70: the Apocalypse of Moses (and the Life of Adam and Eve), the Apocalypse (IV Book) of Ezra, the Apocalypse and Vision of Ezra, the Apocalypse of Sedrach, the "Syriac" Apocalypse of Baruch, Books IV and V of the Sibylline Oracles, the Apocalypse of Abraham, the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, the Jewish nucleus of the "Greek" Apocalypse of Baruch and the Apocalypse of Elijah, the Testament of Isaac. The apocryphon of Ezekiel, the Testament of Abraham, and the Testament of Adam are rather midrashim. According to A. Schweitzer, IV Ezra and the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, very similar in conception, would represent traditional popular thought.
Wrongly, H. Gunkel, W. Bousset, H. Gressmann, and others of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule detect in apocalyptic literature broad foreign influences: Babylonian astral myths, dualism, and eschatology of Parsism. Astrology abounds in the "apocalypses," but it is of a crude naivety, equidistant from Akkadian mythology and Hellenistic science. Perhaps a certain dependence, in expression, on Iranian compilations (Bahman Yasht, Bih Afrid, Ayāthār i Zāmāspik, ed. G. Messina, Rome 1939, the "Oracles of Hystaspes," etc.) may be admitted, although the surviving Parsi and Pahlavi texts date only to the Sassanid period (especially the 3rd-4th centuries A.D.). Nor is there lacking some contact with ancient and widely diffused esoteric traditions, such as in particular Orphism (myths of Plato, Respublica, X) and Hermeticism (Poimandres).
Since all "apocalypses" are rigorously anonymous, it is impossible to identify the Jewish circle from which they arose. Attempts have been made to place them in one or another of the closed cenacles then flourishing, to which the esoteric character of these apocrypha would seem to lend credence. After A. Hilgenfeld (Die jüdische Apokalyptik, Jena 1857), Essenes (v.) became fashionable, today supported by M.-J. Lagrange. While many, with E. Kautzsch and R. H. Charles, think of the Pharisees, the current tendency is to trace the "seers" among the Hasideans and their successors (the pious), withdrawn from official politics and Pharisaic legalism (W. Baldensperger, W. Bousset, M. Friedländer, A. Causse). But these are uncertain hypotheses, there being no solid reasons to confine the authors of "apocalypses" to some dissident sect or withdrawn sector; despite esotericism, the ideology they reflect does not diverge from the common Jewish mentality.
5. THEME AND DOCTRINE
The theological content of the "apocalypses" is reduced to a few points, since dogma and morality have little prominence in them. The religious truths, few in number in Judaism, are assumed to be commonly known. The specific subject matter of the "apocalypses" eschatology (v.), whose elements common to all are variously expressed and combined. After the disasters of 70 A.D., apocalyptic ideology, while remaining fundamentally homogeneous, assumes somewhat different aspects from before.The "apocalypses" are variations on the classic prophetic theme of the "day of Yahweh," that is, the final divine revenge on the forces of evil now triumphant; vengeance on the Gentiles and the glorious restoration of Israel. The intrepid fantasies of the presumed "seers" construct a refuge in the future and send, in a low voice, a message of optimism to the pious Jews, that is, nationalists, laden with threats for the Gentiles and for collaborating Jews. Clinging to faith in the imminent end of this world, they stake everything on the final catastrophe, horrible for the impious Gentiles, which will introduce the reign of Yahweh and His faithful. Describing the historical phases that precede and prepare the universal catastrophe from which the salvation of Israel will emerge, the "apocalypses" channel everything toward the future. Past and present are generally considered only in function of the future establishment of the hoped-for new order: the present is pregnant with precursory signs; the past, and the arcane cosmic order (world, heavens, abysses), demonstrate the execution of divine plans, and are a guarantee of the just and providential future restoration. The "seers" satisfy the anxious curiosity of those awaiting the end, "revealing" the invisible world and the world to come, supplementing the omissions of the Bible concerning the past (creation of matter, of angels, of man, the fall of angels and of the protoparents, the flood, various events presented as future) and the present (cosmography and astronomy, angelology, demonology, the abode of the dead). Thus, one may distinguish the "historical apocalypse" from the "cosmic apocalypse," though in practice they are mostly mixed.
In this chaotic eschatology, national and individual interest is strained toward the longed-for conclusion: God suddenly intervenes in the final struggle of the Gentiles against Israel, and behold, the victory and dominion of this new Jerusalem are realized, along with messianic blessings, resurrection and retribution, cosmic apocatastasis. The fundamental elements derive from the Prophets, but they are reworked, hypertrophied, and deformed; the majestic grandeur of prophetic eschatology gives way to a puerile miraculousness, and the broad, indefinite perspective of historical Providence is replaced by a pedantic and cumbersome chronologism bristling with minute calculations about the times, intended to reveal the final hour of upheaval, the hour of God. The serene vision of the economy of the spirit is lost, and the opposition between the "present age" and the "age to come" sharpens. No longer is the sublimation of this wretched world foretold, but rather its overthrow and recreation through fairy-tale processes, spectacular collapses and rebirths. The transition from the present age to the future is preceded by "signs," manifestations of God's wrath, with angels as executors. To the calamities already announced by the Prophets (war, plagues, famines, droughts, earthquakes, darkening and falling of the stars), the "apocalypses" add new, astonishing ones (a sun at night, stars by day, stones sweating blood, swords in the sky, newborns with white hair, etc.), and emphasize the persecution of the just and their flight into the desert.
The "Kingdom of God" generally assumes a nationalistic-terrestrial aspect: a crushing revenge of Israel, forever filled with prosperity and dominion. It sometimes takes on an otherworldly guise, but overall, it is the apotheosis of the people of Israel, exalted to the eternal empyrean, and only in this sense can one speak of supernaturalism in the "apocalypses." The conception is limited to what, among Christians, will later be called millenarianism. The Kingdom will be inaugurated by the resurrection of the dead (though the enigma of personal immortality is generally evaded), or else (in the Psalms of Solomon, IV Esdras, Apocalypse of Baruch) by the happiness of the surviving living in "that hour," who, after the universal final resurrection, will enter into eternal beatitude. The empire of the Law seems to set "on that day."
The Kingdom, to be inaugurated or founded by the Messiah (v. MESSIA), will be of this world: it will be characterized by a "new earth and new heaven," peace, eternal light, glory, "garments," the "banquet." The theme of the "heavenly Jerusalem" is central: the messianic people, idealized, is transported into heaven. The great messianic crisis will mark a new beginning of the terrestrial world, a definitive palingenesis that will restore Eden here below. In this Jewish conception, the human person counts for very little: Israel becomes an absolute and transcendent reality, redemption is collective rather than individual, indeed cosmic more than anthropological. It is a dream of imperialism that inserts cosmic-political chimeras into the new religious-moral order foretold by the Prophets.
The Messiah is depicted as a king and military hero (Enoch 1-37 and 72-90; Sibylline Oracles III). He is present, but hidden, in the world, and will manifest himself at the end of time (Enoch 38, 7; 62, 7; IV Esdras 12, 15; 13, 52; cf. John 7, 27 and Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, 8). He thus appears as preexistent, with the mission of judging men based on their deeds (Enoch 37-69 and 91-104; Sibylline Oracles IV); but note that everything is preexistent, and first of all Israel. The Messiah is never glimpsed as a spiritual redeemer, an expiator of the sins of the world.
In the later "apocalypses" (IV Esdras, Apocalypse of Baruch, Apocalypse of Moses, Apocalypse of Abraham), the earthly-nationalist and transcendent-universalist tendencies, recalling the prophetic oracles, converge and intermingle in a syncretistic messianism (v. MESSIANISMO). The interferences between the two perspectives are evident in all the "apocalypses," but the former always prevails; as antithetical perspectives accumulate and merge, an inextricable conceptual tangle emerges. Spiritual traits do not appear in apocalyptic eschatology within contexts entirely free from nationalist character. In the Jewish mentality, the spiritual never exists in a pure state: the temporal and the eternal, the terrestrial and the celestial, produce a most peculiar emulsion.
The "apocalyptic" authors cannot be called "spiritual geniuses" (R. H. Charles), nor can their productions be termed "a mystical movement" (L. Cerfaux); from the horrific labor of mountains of symbols emerges a "ridiculus mus." Though they exalt themselves to the inaccessible "heavens of heavens," they remain on the terrestrial plane, far behind the religion of the Prophets regarding God, the Messiah, and humanity. The supreme theme, the manifestation of the glory of God, appears in the exclusive function of the glorification of Israel. The religiosity of apocalyptic literature is, therefore, poor: it concerns itself little with inner renewal and moral virtues. The "just," the "holy," the "elect," often mentioned, are always Israel; "faith" is the impatient expectation of the longed-for vengeance upon the "wicked," who are the Gentiles. The aspiration for union with God, the love of God and neighbor, are absent from these writings, which, by materializing ancient prophecy, foment the passion for revenge and world domination. Even moral dualism resolves itself into political-racial antagonism. The spiritual breath of the Prophets vanishes into nationalistic bitterness.
The concept of retribution is paramount, but it is a matter of divine "vengeance" upon the "wicked" now prevailing: impotent rage vents itself in visions of a future in which the deplored present situation will be overturned. Toward the Gentiles, the apocalyptics are implacable: any compassion for them would be seen as weakness of faith or treacherous complicity. While the punishments described by the Prophets are limited to the present or are poetic hyperboles, the "seers" infer, specify torments with ferocious delight, extending them into eternal future and intensifying them with insatiable hatred.
The "apocalypses" assume a decisive role in the spiteful propaganda against the Gentiles; they are instruments of war. But their authors, hidden in the shadows, are not combatants but conspirators who coldly string together speculations about the portents of reserve forces and strategic surprises, secrets whose communication proclaims itself as celestial "wisdom."
Contrary to the Gospel (Mt. 6, 34), apocalyptic religion has but one concern and anxiety: the future. And to unveil the future, it derives lessons and prognostics from the past, draws omens from the present, outlines a theology of history perched upon the clouds of the "great evening."
An indefinite revision of the history of the world, apocalyptic literature claims to explain the divine counsels regarding the succession of Empires and Gentiles that annihilate one another until universal dominion passes to Israel. One point sustains and illuminates everything: the "end" toward which all unconsciously hastens, in which all times are resolved. There is no organic and vital evolution: the future is already present in the past and present. In function of the future, the past and present fade sub specie aeternitatis. The schema the "seer" has set for himself compels him to transform history into prediction. Caught in his own game, he always predicts, reweaving past events into series of predictions (post eventum!), which he then boldly extends to the end of the world.
Human history is the work of God. By emphasizing divine causality to the exclusion of all else, the "seer" falls into an unconscious determinism, all the more so as individual personalities disappear. He never denies individual freedom; indeed, he heaps grave responsibilities upon the enemies, whose punishments are always deserved; yet the f
Apocalyptic literature presents itself as a complex of pseudonymous Jewish writings that emerged between...
By placing exclusive emphasis on divine causality, the "seer" falls into an unconscious determinism, all the more so as individual personalities disappear. It never denies individual freedom; indeed, it imposes grave responsibilities upon enemies, whose punishments are always deserved; it affirms that salvation presupposes repentance. Yet the future appears to it as a rigidly fixed tapestry. Events are not made but are made by invisible (and nearly impersonal) agents (angels); hence the continuous use of passive verbs, characteristic of apocalyptic style. The enduring and substantial is conceived as eternal: preexistent and future. The entire drama is ready behind the scenes, with the Messiah and the new Jerusalem at its summit. Indeed, the Messiah is already in the world, though hidden. Predestination is strongly accentuated.
Time unfolds like scenes on a double plane: terrestrial, where developments seem to contrast with divine wisdom and justice, and celestial, where everything is preordained and maneuvered by the Almighty. Many events appear fortuitous or disordered only to observers unaware of the Book of God "in which all is written." Within this transcendental fatalism, individuals and nations are elements of a fideistic occasionalism, optimistic in a Jewish sense. History, divided into symmetrical periods ("hours," "days," "weeks," "years") based on numbers, becomes schematized to the point of mechanization: its parts are gears in an immense clockwork. The final outcome is inexorably certain: the Gentiles succeed one another, destroying each other to the benefit of Israel, the last survivor, to whom the eternal Kingdom belongs.
There is no room for a psychological-moral improvement of humanity: when sins and disasters reach their peak, God's glorious intervention will not heal the world but create a new one. Transporting the reader to the end of time, over which no one can exert influence, the "seer" neglects the interval: either it does not exist, or during it there is nothing to be done. Until the "end," the "righteous" must only endure and wait, while God intervenes solely to inflict the punishments that precede the great catastrophe, in which the vast majority of humanity (the Gentiles) will perish.
A characteristic belief of apocalyptic thought is that the present world (δάλη, αἰών: the universe bound to duration) is governed by angels (both good and evil). This gives rise to a highly developed angelology and a theosophy of time (eternity, eons, epochs), which will form a basis for Gnosticism (eons).
While remaining, in essence, within the orthodox current of traditional faith, the eschatology of the "apocalypses" does not advance a single step beyond the Jewish particularism condemned by the Gospel. The most ambitious nationalism there reinforces its claims. The Gentiles are more despised and hated than ever: the gulf between Israel and them becomes an abyss.
6. LITERARY GENRE
From a religious perspective, the distance between the "apocalypses" and the canonical prophecies is immeasurable, and this is equally true from a literary standpoint. Drawing on the prophetic genre and exploiting the AGGADA (v.), the "apocalypses" fragment or romanticize prophecies with that petty and hermetic subtlety that will culminate in Kabbalistic speculation. The "apocalypse" is to prophecy what the Mishnah is to the Torah" (A. Sabatier). Lacking divine inspiration and poetic talent, the apocalyptics create a new literary genre, extravagant to non-Jewish mentalities. The logic of the genre imposes certain essential, uniform, and inderogable laws:a) The "vision." Presenting their writings as "revelation," proposing past and present as an unveiling of the future made in ancient times, the apocalyptics create a fictitious procedure of "literary vision," matured in study and without open connection to the environment in which they live. These epigones of the Prophets always teach through "visions"; the explanations they add are usually given by an angel, that is, they too are "visions."
They assume the attitude of ecstatic vision, from which proceeds an experience closed in on itself, a monologue, whereas prophecy, endowed with immediate and practical social efficacy, is a dialogue. Prophecy, rooted in the present, belongs to the oratorical genre, addressing listeners or readers and exhorting them to the action willed by God and to moral reform; the "apocalypse," on the other hand, is a narrative writing intended to satisfy idle curiosity about future times and destinies. While prophecy connects everything to the present, even when it looks to the future, the apocalypse shifts interest from the present to the future. The Prophet participates in the events he recounts, fighting openly, armed with a word as sharp as a sword. The false seer, instead, is a solitary suspended between heaven and earth; he is no longer an actor but only a spectator; he is a man of book and pen, who fulminates enemies with verbal cataclysms. A visionary concentrated in his abstractions, he does not rise to ideal contemplation nor reflect concrete reality; rather, he composes a cosmic and hallucinatory metaphysical drama interwoven with spectral scenes. To the shapeless mass, he gives unity only through the pretense of revealing the ways of God in the integral history of humanity.
b) Pseudonymity. The first formal requirement of the apocalyptic genre is anonymity. The true authors could not proclaim themselves prophets, considering the prophetic age already closed for some time (I Mach. 4, 46; 9, 27); nor could they make it believable that God would entrust His secrets to obscure meditators.
Thus, transporting themselves to a given point in the remote past, they presented their "revelations" as ancient books attributed to a hero of the primitive age, as if he dominated all times, or to the most renowned holy figures known for their intimacy with God. Only by covering themselves with the authority of illustrious names could they gain credence for their dreams. To avoid accusing them of blasphemy for such imposture, one must recall that at that time literary fiction or fraud was widely practiced (pseudo-Oric, pseudo-Pythagorean, etc.), and that Jewish sages considered themselves transmitters of the oral tradition, revealed like the written Law, indeed older and its authentic commentary.
c) Esotericism. To explain how such venerable writings had remained unknown for so many centuries and to legitimize their novelties in thought and form, esoteric transmission is invoked. These hisōnlus ("internal": esoteric) books, guarded by angels, were to remain hidden (apocryphal: "concealed") until the appointed day, the exclusive property of restricted circles of initiates (IV Esd. 12, 36-38). The "wisdom," of which apocalyptic science claims to be a branch, dwells in heaven (Enoch 42; IV Esd. 8, 52-54), and is communicated to men, through divine revelation, as a secret (Enoch 82, 1; IV Esd. 14, 45-47). And as already Daniel (12, 4, 9), Enoch commands secrecy (1, 2) for his "revelations," reserved for the righteous and the wise (4, 10-13). The restorer Ezra renews the charge of the "reserved" books: God Himself would have ordered Moses on Sinai to hide most of His discourses (IV Esd. 14, 5-8, 42-47).
d) Compilatory character. The apocalyptics did not intend to innovate, nor did they wish to omit anything from the traditions they had received. They do not create but construct with preexisting stones from the heap of diverse traditions, no longer identifiable today, juxtaposing disparate materials of varied provenance.
Under the common stamp of "visions" and "revelations," they incorporate in syncretism old legends, popular memories, allegorical exegeses, oral pareneses, legal sayings, even myths, without fusing or organically arranging them. The most heterogeneous elements are usually piled up haphazardly, without regard for taste or critique: eschatological vaticinations, cosmographic descriptions, moral exhortations, edifying tales. The lack of unity is inherent to the genre. It is difficult to harmonize...
a) Stylistic Indeterminacy. The apocalyptic style differs sharply from the prophetic in that, due to esoteric demands, it is deliberately obscure and sibylline. The "vision," with its imprecise contours, must produce the sensation of the unattainable and ineffable. To lend credibility to the transcendence of his "visions," the "seer" flaunts a style that professes itself unequal to the dazzling and astonishing realities glimpsed. Due to their sublimity or remoteness in the future, things must appear indistinct. The "seer" himself must be assisted (by angels) to comprehend the meaning and relationships of things, and he warns that "not all can understand," that interpretation or keys are needed to grasp their significance and scope.
Scenes, tableaux, and hues parade by; but they are mere words without plastic evidence, evoking nothing in the mind or imagination, neither narratives, nor paintings, nor representations, but only flashes and fireworks. Descriptive phraseology is based on hesitant comparisons ("it seemed like," "it was similar to," "it had the appearance of"; cf. Enoch 14, 10-13; 46, 1-2; 71, 5; IV Esd. 11, 37). It is the effort of one floundering toward the shores of the future, in whose twilight the past and present are also disguised. Particularly cautious in avoiding references to current reality, so as not to betray the trick, apocalyptic writers elude every historical-local color. Such timid and laborious approximation aims to convey the impression of fidelity with which the author reproduces the external forms of the "visions" without pronouncing on their nature; it also lends the text a mysterious tone that, by piquing curiosity, instills reverence for the arcane silences revealed.
f) Symbolism. A common expedient to avoid direct description is the symbol, the primary resource of "apocalypses." Symbolism extends far beyond the "vision," which consists of fantastical symbolic actions or scenes; it pervades dialogues, prayers, and interpretations as well (cf. IV Esd.). Like the later Prophets it imitates, the "seer" seeks to express himself "under the veil of strange verses," all the more so as he must maintain esoteric reserve. The apocalyptic-symbolic arsenal is partly drawn from Ez. 30 and 39, Dan. 7-9, and Zach. 14. But in the "seer," where thought is lacking and imagination is poor, the symbol stems from cunning laziness and is more the fruit of convention than poetic initiative. It transforms and discolors all the past into a type or substantial symbol. Indifferent to external nature, the writer, steeped in reminiscences, revives and desiccates biblical images, which have become literary "clichés."
It covers the abyss of mystery by piling upon it a dense artificial efflorescence of emphatic commonplaces: stars, metals and gems, composite or stylized monsters, gigantic plants; but we are far from the "bestiary" and "herbals" of medieval Christian symbolism, more naive and yet so suggestive. Accustomed to considering men and events only in their transcendental relation to the eternal, it dissolves the boundaries between real objects. Disdainfully averting its gaze from the external world, it fabricates an allegorical world devoid of measure and verisimilitude. And the elaborate symbolic "visions" fail to achieve the effect of impressing, shaking, or moving. Beneath the whirl of images without connection to real nature and humanity, without connection among themselves, the reader often succumbs: he finds nothing, even after much pruning of those opaque symbols, good for signifying anything; for the resources of those arid minds are few, and by applying symbols to different realities, they empty them. Symbolism, tangled and incessant, becomes an enigmatism that makes reading laborious and arduous, the text unintelligible (cf. Enoch 83-90). Action knows no dramatic progression; from beginning to end, the glare of catastrophe shines, sinister and triumphant at once. In the labyrinth, the writer himself is the first to lose his way; more often than not, even he does not know the object of which he treats: whether real or supposed, whether actualized or hoped for, whether new or identical to what has already been said.
The frequent numerical symbolism (especially 7 and 12: fullness), no less wavering and obscure, complicates the tangle. The periods themselves, which should measure time, often intersect and cancel each other out, as in Apoc. Baruch 27, 13-15.
g) Artifice and Conventionalism thus characterize the apocalyptic genre, which is prophecy degenerated. While every prophetic book is a world unto itself, grand and unmistakable, "apocalypses," lacking spontaneity, all resemble one another. At least three-quarters of apocalyptic texts are formed from the same commonplaces; every "seer," repeating the obligatory theme, "predicts" events already past and projects onto the screen of the future Israel's tenacious hope. He aims to be sublime, for the theme demands it, but achieves only the emphatic and pedantic, without even the dry gnomic density that rabbinic sayings (madal) sometimes attain (e.g., in Aboth, v). The continuous "revelations" in celestial journeys or angelic confidences emit a false theatrical light that may dazzle but neither illuminates nor warms. Metaphor and hyperbole in continuous flow, which seek to express the inexpressible, accentuate the atmosphere of unreality in which these fictitious constructions stand.
A sophisticated prophecy, it ends in caricature of prophecy. The glory of God is no longer the grand epic of universal salvation; the Kingdom of God, shrunk to the Jewish horizon, is no longer presented with prophetic lyricism but with transcendent acrobatics. These "seers," insensitive to the aesthetic canons of Hellenism, cannot speak of God and His designs without clashing with and wounding nature. In their structures without architecture, all is phantasmagoria without proportion, where the horrid replaces the tragic and the monstrous the marvelous. The bizarre, which seeks to overstimulate attention, prevents emotion. All true pathos is banished from the rhetoric, save in some chapters imitated from Dan., where anguish and patriotic passion tremble (in IV Esd., and elsewhere). The sole remaining concreteness, and the only center of interest, is indeed Israel. Apocalyptic style achieves sincerity of tone only when it expresses hatred for the Gentiles, enthusiasm or trepidation for the people of God, unshakable adherence to the faith of the fathers.
These cumbersome and monotonous works, heavily hovering in unbreathable air like immense birds of geological epochs, leave the impression of an effort in the void, a nightmare flight in the delirium of a feverish mind. Their sole merit and justification is that they come from anguished souls who fiercely and inflexibly confront oppression, awaiting and hoping, reliving the adage that became the spring of their faith: "in omnibus respice finem."
4. INFLUENCE. — Although M. Friedländer, W. Bousset, F. Perles, and G. Hölscher hold that "apocalypses" enjoyed wide diffusion and reflect the prevailing Jewish thought of the time, they do not seem to have had much resonance among the Jewish masses. Official Judaism of the 1st century must have been unfavorable toward them. However, there is no evidence that such literature was then prohibited. Its proponents were apparently confined to small circles of "pious" (K. Kohler, B. M. Epstein, W. Baldensperger, and M.-J. Lagrange attribute much of these writings to the Essenes); but these were fervent and respected. It is therefore probable that the messianic title "Son of Man" (v. FIGLIO DELL'UOMO), adopted by Jesus and understood
Apocalyptic literature represents a complex of pseudonymous Jewish writings that emerged between the 2nd century B.C. and the 2nd century A.D. Initially, it appears to have been confined to narrow circles of the "pious" (K. Kohler, B. M. Epstein, W. Baldensperger, and M.-J. Lagrange attribute much of this literature to the Essenes); yet these circles were fervent and respected. It is therefore probable that the messianic title "Son of Man" (v.), adopted by Jesus and understood by the Sanhedrin (Mt. 26:64-66), had been disseminated by the apocalyptists, along with other formulas and notions. Knowledge of the "apocalypses" spread, in the 1st century, from Jews to Christians.
Most modern Jews (I. Elbogen, I. Abrahams, etc.), followed by R. T. Herford and G. F. Moore, deny any significance of the "apocalypses" for understanding authentic Judaism; however, J. Klausner re-evaluates them, asserting that Jesus' messianic "dream" depends on them, qualifying them as a "link" between the Old Testament and the Talmud. Today, moreover, many Catholics attribute to apocalyptic literature a capital influence on Christianity: it would have been the transition and the bond between the prophetic ideal and the Christian ideal, understood as the result of a slow evolutionary process.
A. Sabatier, A. Loisy, and A. Schweitzer argue that the eschatological messianism of the "apocalypses" dominated Jesus and the apostles; W. Baldensperger and S. Schechter, that it prepared men for interior religion and the spiritual kingdom; R. H. Charles, that it "was the bridge between the Old and the New Testament" and that St. Paul and other New Testament authors depend on it in fundamental points (moral doctrine, future life); A. Causse, that without the "apocalypses" the religious ideas of the Gospel cannot be understood. P. Batiffol calls apocalyptic literature "a kind of extension and epilogue of the canonical prophets, and at the same time a prologue to the Gospel" (DB, I, col. 757); a similar opinion is held by A. Weiser (Einleitung in das Alte Test., Stuttgart 1939, p. 224).
The ideas of the New Testament that these critics claim were drawn from the apocryphal apocalypses would include: the distinction between the two ages (present and future), the birth pangs of the messianic era, the final judgment (sound of the trumpet), the triumph of the Messiah over adverse powers, anthropological pessimism (the infection of the human race in Adam), and the notion of Christ as restorer.
It is certain, however, that the writings of the New Testament do not depend, either in ideas or in form, on Jewish apocalyptic literature; on the contrary, certain affinities are due to Christian reworkings (in Enoch, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Ascension of Isaiah, IV Esdras, etc.). Apart from the literary dependence of Jude 14-15, neither the New Testament nor early Christian writers contain any proven quotation or allusion. B. Allo admits, though not without hesitation, that the Apocalypse of John presupposes knowledge of earlier "apocalypses."
Nor can it be said that apocalyptic literature, typically Jewish in mentality and aspirations, prepared the way for the Gospel. It flourished in Judaism when Jesus appeared; many, from B. H. Streeter to M. Dibelius (Johann der Täufer, in Rel. in Gesch. u. Gegenwart, 3 [1929], col. 317) and J. Thomas, affirm that the preaching of the Baptist was connected to II. But apocalyptic literature rather falsified the Old Testament and, by lowering the messianic ideal of the Prophets, obstructed the way to the Gospel and predisposed the Jews to reject Jesus. By presenting a Messiah who restores political independence to Israel and secures its universal dominion, apocalyptic literature accentuated nationalist particularism and drove Israel to rebellion against Christ and against Rome, thus leading to disaster. In later "apocalypses" (IV Esdras, Apocalypse of Baruch), anti-Christian tendencies can be discerned. Therefore, Jesus, who unmasks the false prophets (Mt. 7:15; 24:11, 24), announces a "judgment" of condemnation and not of revenge for Israel.
Already latent for centuries between legalism and prophetism, the conflict was inevitable between rabbinism and apocalyptic literature, leading to the latter's disappearance. Distrust of apocalyptic visions increased after 70 A.D., and, despite the attempt at rehabilitation in IV Esdras 14, the prohibition became formal and decisive after the national collapse of 135 (already Johanan ben Zakkai, in Genesis Rabbā', 44, then Ḥagigah, II, 1). With the Temple gone, the priestly office disappeared, and the doctors of the Law, who opposed "prophetic" nostalgia, remained the sole spiritual leaders. Orthodox Judaism was on the path to Talmudism, with which it is now identified.
Despite the prohibition in the Mishnah "not to seek to know four things: what is above, what is below, what was before, what will be after" (Ḥagigah, II, 1), some Jews continued to investigate, in "cosmic-esoteric revelations," the future and the afterlife. From this arose late apocalyptic literature (2nd–6th centuries A.D.) with a rabbinic conception, where the Law and its study are introduced into the empyrean and become beatitude: the "Hebrew" Book of Enoch, the Revelations of Joshua ben Levi, the "Hebrew" Book of Elijah, the Book of Zerubbabel, the Wars of the King Messiah, the Secrets of R. Simeon ben Johai, the Prayer of R. Simeon ben Johai, the Midrash of the Ten Kings, the Persian Apocalypse of Daniel. Apocalyptic elements also appear in many Midrashim, in the Targumim of the Prophets and the Song of Songs; later enriched with Gnostic myths, it would flow into the Kabbalah (v.).
The influence of Jewish apocalyptic literature on Christian writers of eschatology is undeniable. Not the "synoptic apocalypse" (Mt. 24; Mk. 13), but the millenarianism (v.) of Papias, Hippolytus, and others depends on II. In Christian apocrypha and in Hippolytus, Commodianus, and Lactantius (Divinae Institutiones, VII), eschatological details abound, considered certain but not contained in the Bible, and tracing back to the oldest nucleus of Jewish apocalyptic tradition. The genre also had Christian imitators from the 2nd century onward, apart from the writings of Gnostic syncretism (Pistis Sophia); but Christian apocalyptic literature (The Shepherd of Hermas in its "visions" and "similitudes," the Epistle of the Apostles, the Apocalypses of Peter, Paul, and Thomas) achieves structural variety and, through usually transparent symbolism, manifests didactic intentions and ethical-parenetic concerns.
The apocalyptic schema survives in the Middle Ages, often enlivened by faith and art: from the three Apocalypses of John and the two Apocalypses of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to the Navigatio sancti Brandani (11th century), which influenced the plot of the Divine Comedy, to the Mirabili Visioni of many saints, to the Compendium Revelationum (1495) of G. Savonarola. Dante excels in the genre (e.g., Par. XXVII, 64-66; XXVIII, 16-139). But after El Purgatorio de s. Patricio and various other theological dramas by Calderón (1600-81), the future and the afterlife dissolve into the "marvelous," a mere object or pretext for art. The Dream of Gerontius (1865) by J. H. Newman remains a solitary masterpiece.
A. Vaccari
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