Revelations.

In later Judaism, a favorite type of religious instruction emerged in the apocalypse, which made use of symbols, sometimes grotesque, to interpret the present and forecast the future. The books of Daniel and Enoch were notable examples. Before the end of the first century, one early Christian writer made use of this style in the Revelation of John. This special kind of apocalyptic writing was revived among Christians in the second century when the Jewish collection of apocalypses known to us as II Esdras was given a Christian preface; then, after the middle of the third century, it was given a Christian conclusion and thus adopted into Christian literature.

        But, in general, Jewish apocalyptic was not congenial with Greek Christianity, which instinctively found its own paths to apocalyptic expression of various kinds. Indeed, the first book of this more Greek kind followed almost immediately upon the publication of the Revelation of John and dealt not so much with the guilt and doom of empires as with the sense of sin and the need of repentance in the human heart. The Revelation of John was probably well known in Rome in the last years of the first century and no doubt had the general effect of leading Christian prophets to write down and publish their oracles; but its specific influence upon them was singularly slight.[4]

        The continued influence of Hebrews upon the Roman church is reflected in the Shepherd of Hermas, perhaps begun in the last years of the first century, A.D. 95-l00. Hermas was a Christian

prophet in Rome, who understood Hebrews to teach that there could be no repentance for serious sins committed after baptism. The real meaning of Hebrews was that if anyone renounced his faith and became an apostate, he could never regain it and re-enter the church. Hermas records his interviews with the angel of repentance, who appeared to him in the guise of a shepherd and taught him that there might be one repentance for sin after baptism, but only one. It is from the prominence of the shepherd in the work that it takes its name.

        Hermas was or had been a slave in Rome. His work, which probably grew gradually, begins with five Visions in which repentance is emphasized. In the third, the church appears to him as a woman and shows him a great tower being built, which also symbolizes the church. In the fourth, he is shown a hideous dragon, which foreshadows persecution. In the fifth, which is entitled an apocalypse and formed the introduction to the Commandments and Parables that make up the bulk of the book, the shepherd appears. The shepherd gives Hernias a new series of twelve commandments, diffuse in style and quite unlike the Ten Commandments of the Mosaic Law. In general, they explain how the repentant Christian should live. They are followed by ten parables, with the operations of repentance and its which deal theological bearings.

        It is characteristic of the free spirit of the early Christian prophets that Hernias is not deterred by the Jewish Ten Commandments from offering twelve more, or by the parables of Jesus from hazarding ten of his own. Indeed, he shows much less influence of Paul and the early gospels, and even of the Greek Old Testament, than we might expect. The Revelation of John is full of reflections of the Old Testament, but this second Christian apocalypse shows very few indeed. It owes little or nothing to the old Jewish apocalyptic; it is not even pseudonymous; in fact, it possesses a naive freshness and originality that along with its evident sincerity gave it its early influence, which reached not only to Egypt and Abyssinia but in later centuries, through the sect of the Manichees, as far east as Chinese Turkestan.

        Hermas is described by the Muratorian writer (ca. A.D. 200) as the brother of Pius, the bishop of Rome, and as having written during his episcopate, A.D. 140-55. But parts of the Shepherd were probably written long before then, in fact, at the very end of the first century, or very early in the second. Since the second vision states that it should be the business of Clement to send copies of the visions to other churches, these first visions may go back as far as the last part of his leadership, or episcopate, which covered the years 88-97. Hermas certainly expected the visions to be widely circulated among the churches, and his book did have a great vogue in the second century. It found its way into more than one early form of the New Testament and, translated into Latin, even influenced Dante, whose guides Beatrice and Vergil evidently reflect Rhoda and the Shepherd.

        Although Hermas has come down to us in Ethiopic and in two Latin versions (one from the second century), no complete Greek text of it has come to light. It stood at the end of the New Testament in the Sinaitic manuscript (fourth century), but the last three-fourths of it are lost from that codex. The Athos manuscript of it (fifteenth century), part of which is now at Leipzig, preserves about nine-tenths of the Greek but in an inaccurate and badly written text. The Michigan papyrus (third century) contains almost a fourth of the Greek text but does not include the part missing in the Athos manuscript. More than a dozen smaller pieces, on parchment or papyrus, have come to light, some of them covering parts missing from these more considerable manuscripts. These numerous fragments from Egypt reflect its wide popularity there, already evidenced by its acceptance as scripture by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and the scribe of the Sinaitic manuscript. But Tertullian, at Carthage, though he at first accepted it, later repudiated and condemned it. Irenaeus accepted it as scripture; Eusebius classed it among the rejected writings, and Athanasius excluded it from the New Testament but recommended it for private reading by new converts.

        The Shepherd manifestly gathers up the prophetic utterances composed by Herman over a series of years. The Michigan papyrus throws new light upon the literary development of his work, for when complete this manuscript evidently began with what we know as Vision 5 (which is called an “apocalypse” in the manuscripts) and contained the twelve commandments and the ten parables.

        At least three stages can be traced in the growth of Hermas' work. He first published Visions 1-4, of which he was told to give one copy to Clement for churches elsewhere, one to Grapte for the widows and orphans, and one to the elders of the local church, with whom he was to read the visions to the congregation. A few years later he completed the Shepherd proper, beginning with Vision 5 and including the twelve commandments and the ten parables. This is the form preserved in the third-century Michigan papyrus. Finally, the earlier work was prefixed to this, and in this longest form the Shepherd appeared in the later Greek manuscripts (Sinai, Athos) and in the various versions. There may have been even more stages in its publication (Parables g and io sound like later additions by Herman), but this much is now certain. The whole makes a work much longer than any single book in the New Testament.

        It has been suggested that in view of literary and theological differences among the various parts of the work, it should be assigned to three different authors. Herman himself would have written Visions 1-4 at the beginning of the second century; later on, another author may have composed the very long Parable 9; and finally, the work would have been completed by a third writer, who created Vision 5 to introduce his own twelve commandments and the first eight parables, and then added Parable io as a kind of recapitulation.[5] Although the evidence favoring this view is impressive, it may just as well point not to three authors but to one not very competent author who wrote his book in three stages.

        There is conjecture that Herman got his idea of a shepherd as a revealer of truth from the Poimandres, or Shepherd ofMenwritten perhaps toward the end of the first Christian century-the most ancient of the Greek theosophical tracts ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, meaning Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom. It is more likely, however, that if Herman knew anything about that Hermetic teaching, it was through hearing it talked about. He was not a great reader, even of the books Christians prized most; but he would hear of shepherds, in the religious sense, just from going to church, where the Psalms (“The Lord is my shepherd”) and the prophets would have familiarized him with the idea he utilized in his own work. The Epistle to the Hebrews, well known to the Roman church in his day, spoke of Christ as the great shepherd of the flock. And in I Peter Christ was described as “the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” And while Herman identifies his shepherd not with Christ but with the angel of repentance, Christian ministers were already spoken of as shepherds (Eph. 4:11). Moreover, Hermas is not greatly interested in theosophical speculations about the divine wisdom and intelligence. His concern is practical-with his own sins and weaknesses and with those of his wife and children and of his brethren in the Roman church.

        The mention of Clement as still being active in the church may carry the first stage of the work back to A.D. 95 or 96, thus making the statement ofthe Muratorian writer that Hermas was the brother of Pius, bishop of Rome in A.D. 140-55, on every account difficult to accept. From his opening words, it is apparent that Hermas was exposed as an infant and picked up and reared for the slave market. It is hard to see how any brother of such a foundling could be identified, although it is not absolutely impossible.

        With this work of Hermas the Roman church rounded out its literary contribution to first-century Christianity, the Gospel of Mark, I Peter, 1 Clement, and the Shepherd-a gospel, a church letter, a general letter to a whole province, and a revelation. No wonder Ignatius could write to the Roman church, “You have taught others” (Rom. 3:1). He probably had I Peter and 1 Clement in mind.

        Direct divine revelation, or apocalyptic, was an idea familiar to the early church from the Hebrew prophets Ezekiel and Zechariah and from Jewish apocalypses like Daniel and Enoch. The Gospel of Mark, about A.D. 70, contained a striking apocalyptic passage (chap. 13) as did two letters of Paul, II Thessalonians (chap. 2) and I Corinthians (chap. 15).[6] But the Revelation of John, about A.D. 93, was the first Christian apocalypse and was much indebted to Daniel. The Shepherd of Hermas also took the form of a revelation, although it was influenced by Greek literature as well as Jewish.

        Sometime between A.D. 125 and 150 a Greek Christian wrote an apocalypse in the name of Peter and introduced, for the first time, the pagan ideas of heaven and hell into Christian literature. The Orphic and Pythagorean religions had much to say about the punishments to be inflicted in the other world upon sinful men and women, and the Christian writer lays hold of these hideous pictures to warn men of the awful personal dangers of sin. Daniel and John had been concerned with the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God, but the Revelation of Peter is devoted to the precise punishments to be expected after death by individuals who commit certain sins. He does have something to say of the rewards of the faithful, but he is principally a preacher of hell-fire, a subject on which the teachers of Orphic and Pythagorean religion had had so much to say; indeed, we meet it as early as the Odyssey of Homer, when, in Book 11, Odysseus visits the underworld and sees the punishments endured by Sisyphus and Tantalus.

        The Revelation runs somewhat as follows. Peter relates how, as they sat upon the Mount of Olives, he and the other disciples asked Jesus about the signs that would precede his coming and the end of the world. Jesus answers his questions in language taken, for the most part, from the Four Gospels. There is also some use of the Revelation of John, which must have suggested the writing of the Revelation of Peter. The day of judgment and the triumphal coming of Christ are described. The wicked will be punished in ways corresponding to their particular sins. Demons, led by Ezrael and Tartaruchus, will torment them with serpents, worms, and vultures, on fiery wheels, and in rivers of fire. Then follows a briefer description of the perfumed garden, full of beautiful trees and blessed fruits, where the redeemed will be found.

        Short as it is, the Revelation of Peter is full of reflections of earlier Christian and Jewish writings. The Ezra Apocalypse in II Esdras (5:33-35), written probably about A.D. 100, is clearly reflected, but an even better terminus a quo is afforded by the writer's use of the Four Gospels, toward A.D. 120. The book cannot therefore be dated earlier than A.D. 125. On the other hand, it is evidently used in the Epistle of the Apostles (chap. 16), which can probably be dated between A.D. 140 and 160, where the coming of the Messiah is described in language much like that in the Revelation of Peter. It is also used in the Acts of Paul, especially in III Corinthians (ca. A.D. 160-70). These literary facts fix the date of the Revelation of Peter in the quarter-century between A.D. 125 and 150.

        The Revelation of Peter is first mentioned in the Muratorian fragment, a Roman list of books that may be read in church, from about the end of the second century, where it stands after the Revelation of John, with the warning that “some of our people will not have it read in church.” Clement of Alexandria, about the same time, accepted it as the work of Peter: “Peter says in the Revelation... “ (Prophetic Extracts 41:2; 48:1). Early in the third century it is quoted or paraphrased at some length in the Acts of Thomas (chaps. 55-57). It stands at the end of the Clermont List, representing Egyptian usage about A.D. 300, which closes with the Revelation of John, the Acts of the Apostles, the Shepherd, the Acts of Paul, and the Revelation of Peter. Early in the fourth century Methodius makes use of it, and Eusebius (A.D. 303) reckons it among the rejected writings (Church History III. 25. 4). Macarius of Magnesia, early in the fifth century, mentions it and puts its words into the mouth of his heathen adversary. Sozomen, in the fifth century, says the Revelation was read every year on Good Friday in some churches of Palestine (Church History vii. 19). In the Stichometry of Nicephorus (ca. A.D. 850) it follows the Revelation of John among the disputed books. It is mentioned again by name in an old Latin sermon of uncertain date on the ten bridesmaids. Its influence continued down the centuries, strongly affecting Dante, in the Divine Comedy, with its accounts of heaven and hell (A.D. 1300); and Gustave Dore's fearful pictures illustrating Dante owe much indirectly to the Revelation of Peter. There is a far-off echo of the high esteem at first enjoyed by this little book in the fact that it finally found refuge in the closing section of the Ethiopic New Testament.

        Although the Revelation of Peter is mentioned by this long series of early Christian writers, the book itself had long since disappeared when, in 1886, a part of it was discovered in a small parchment manuscript in a tomb near Akhmim in Upper Egypt, together with a considerable fragment of the Gospel of Peter, in a hand not later than the fifth century. The old stichometrical lists gave the length of the Revelation of Peter as from 270 (in the Clermont List, A.D. 300) to 300 lines (in the Nicephorus list, A.D. 850), so that this discovery put into our hands almost one-half of the little document, which must have been about four-fifths the length of Galatians.

        The contents of this fragment were later recognized in the socalled Books of Clement,[7] which form an appendix to the New Testament in Ethiopic manuscripts of it; and it was found that the whole of the Revelation of Peter was actually imbedded in the Ethiopic text, but that in the Greek fragment found at Akhmim the descriptions of heaven and hell had been transposed. The Greek gives the picture of the saved first and then that of the lost, whereas the Ethiopic has them in the reverse order. A comparison of the Ethiopic with the Greek suggests that the Greek fragment is from a condensed form of the book.

        We also get some light on what the little book contained from some quotations from it in Clement of Alexandria (Prophetic Extracts), from the Sibylline Oracles, late second or early third century (2:90-338), from Methodius of Olympus, in the third century (Symposium 2:6), and from Macarius of Magnesia, about A.D. 400 (Apocritica 4:6-7). There is also a small parchment leaf in the Bodleian Library containing twenty-six short lines of the Greek text, and a double leaf from the same codex, probably of the fourth century, in the Rainer Collection in Vienna. The discovery of the complete Greek text of this early apocalypse would be a great boon to the study of early Christian literature.

        The Sibyl of Cumae (or elsewhere) was a Greek source of revelation mentioned, though with disapproval, as early as Heraclitus of Ephesus (500 B.C.). Early writers knew of but one Sibyl, but gradually a number came to be recognized, and shrewd sayings of a portentous character cast in Greek hexameters floated about the Greek world. Jewish writers took up the idea about the middle of the scond century before Christ, no doubt embodying not a little pagan material with their own, and continued to express themselves in connected Sibylline poetry on into the fourth Christian century.

        Hermas, about A.D. 100, was the first Christian writer to mention the Sibyl, and Justin, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and many others did so after him. Christians were already introducing a Christian tone into the Sibylline books by interpolating passages of their own composing, for Celsus, about A.D. 177-78, in his True Account, Origen says, charged them with so doing (Against Celsus vii. 53; cf. v. 61). So the Sibylline books came to be a combination of pagan, Jewish, and Christian materials.

        They eventually numbered fifteen, of which Books 9, 10, and 15 are lost. Although Celsus may be right in saying that Christians were already at work upon the Sibylhnes by his day, most of the Christian expansions of and interpolations in them probably be long to the third century-the time when Christian hands, having previously colored the corpus of Jewish apocalypses known to us as II Esdras by providing it with a Christian preface, were adding to it a Christian conclusion.

        The exact determination of the Christian additions to the Sibylline books is difficult; Books 1, 2, and 5 have undergone Christian revision and expansion; Books 6, 7, and most of 8 (vss. 217-500) are Christian compositions; the last section begins with the wellknown acrostic “Jesus Christ; Son of God, Saviour” (vss. 2I7-44).[8] Books 11-I4, also show strong Christian coloring.

        The Christianized Sibyllines had small claims to literary character, being for the most part crude and unskillful in style-as pagan critics observed. Although learned Christians often mentioned them, their chief public was among the less educated parts of the churches and may be compared to those who relish the prophecies of Mother Shipton and her successors in modern times. They played little part in the progress of Christian literature.

        Gnostic writers, naturally enough, played a prominent part in the production of new revelations. The most important example of their work is to be found in the Apocryphon (or secret book) of John, used by Irenaeus in his description of Ophite doctrines (Against Heresies 1. 29-30). Four Coptic versions of this document have been published, one from the Berlin papyri[9] and three more from the books discovered at Nag Hammadi.[10] The Berlin version is similar to the one in Nag Hammadi Codex III, while a consider ably longer version is extant in Codex II and, though often frag mentary, in Codex IV. The book describes a vision of the Father, the Mother, and the Son, which John was given after the ascension of Jesus. It describes the nature of the supreme Being, the process by which the world came into existence and the true history of mankind, “not as Moses said.” The longer version contains the names of many of the 360 or 365 angels who made the various parts and activities of human beings, as well as a description of the operations of Pronoia (Wisdom).

        The contents of all the Nag Hammadi manuscripts could be called revelations; but Codex V of these books represents the material most relevant to the present discussion.[11] A brief description of four revelations from this codex follows.[12]

        In Codex V the first revelation, which follows a fragmentary letter of Eugnostos the Blessed, is called the Apocalypse of Paul. According to this work, Paul met, on the way to Jericho, a little boy who told him that the Mount of Jericho was a place of revelation. Then the boy took him to the third and fourth heavens where the Holy Spirit spoke to him. He went upward to the fifth, sixth, and seventh heavens; in the last he saw an old man (possibly the Ancient of Days) brighter than the sun and told him that he was escaping from the “Babylonian captivity.” In the eighth he saw the twelve apostles who went with him into the ninth and finally the tenth heavens.

        Two revelations, both of which are called the Apocalypse of James, follow that of Paul. In the first one, the Lord described himself as an “image of the existent one” to his “brother” James. In a discussion of the Hebdomad the Lord said there were seventy-two heavens, and proceeded to delineate their inhabitants, and then predicted his departure. James went to the mountain of Gaugela (Galgale?) with his disciples, and when he prayed, the Lord appeared, kissed him, and explained that he had never suffered nor had the people harmed him; the meaning of the “sufferings” was spiritual. James and the Lord sat on a rock (petra) and the Lord predicted that James would suffer but would pass safely by the customs collectors above, by calling upon Sophia, the mother of Achamoth (cf. Iren. 1. 21. 5). James is designated “The just” because he is a suffering servant. When he leaves Jerusalem war will immediately break out.

        The second Apocalypse of James is a record of what James the Just said in Jerusalem to his father Theuda. These things, which were often spoken by James, were written down by Marion, one of the priests. As James was on the fifth step of the temple preparing to die, Jesus came to him and identified himself as his brother. He spoke of the Father and the inferior creator and of James' saving work; then he departed. James called upon his judges to repent and accept Jesus, the Lord of whom he is a helper. All, including the priests, propose to stone him and to cast him down as he expresses his confidence in God and salvation from the flesh.

        The Apocalypse of Adam is the final revelation recorded in the fifth codex of the Nag Hammadi discovery. In Seth's sevenhundredth year Adam gave him a revelation describing his own original angelic state, higher than the god who created him and Eve. Their fall was due to the jealousy of this archon of the aeons. The eternal knowledge of the God of Truth was separated from them, and they were instructed in “dead works” in fear and bondage. Then Adam saw three men who told him and Eve, in spite of their creator's opposition, about their true origin and predicted the salvation of Noah, the division of the earth among Noah's sons, the attacks against the true Gnostics, and their salvation by Abrasax, Sablo, and Gamaliel, descending from above. In this context the archon of the aeons is designated as Sakla. Finally the luminary of Gnosis, Phoster, comes and gives fourteen warnings against their opponents. The people repent. A voice speaks against Michev, Michar, and Mnesinus, who are above holy baptism and living water but have misused them. This revelation is then described as “the hidden gnosis of Adam which he gave to Seth, the holy baptism of those who know eternal gnosis through the Logos-born and the eternal Phoster, those who have come forth from the holy Jesseus, [Maz]areus, [Jesse]dekeus... who are holy.”

        About the middle of the third century some Gnostic in Egypt composed the curious book known to us, through a Coptic recast found in the Askew codex, as the Pistis Sophia or Faith Wisdom. It portrays Jesus living with his disciples for eleven or twelve years after the Resurrection and telling them a great many things about sin and salvation, especially in response to the questions asked him by Mary Magdalene. The work consists of four books, although the fourth should perhaps be given another name as it is evidently earlier than the rest; it deals with matters immediately after the Resurrection.

        In the earlier books, especially Books 1 and 2, Jesus' words have to do with the experiences of Pistis Sophia, which evidently typifies the human soul, in her efforts to reach heaven and find salvation. The book recalls passages in Epiphanius' account of certain types of Gnostic teaching, for instance, Heresies xxiv. 3, 6; xxxviixl. The writer was evidently a Valentinian or a Barbelo Gnostic, of the Ophitic-Sethian type. Five of the Odes of Solomon are quoted in his book.