carried swords even when at work, and wore
on their breasts a star with seven rays. Gabrino styled himself monarch
of the Holy Trinity. He was credited by his enemies with a desire to
introduce polygamy.

APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE. The Apocalyptic literature of Judaism and
Christianity embraces a considerable period, from the centuries
following the exile down to the close of the middle ages. In the present
survey we shall limit ourselves to the great formative periods in this
literature--in Judaism to 200 B.C. to A.D. 100, and in Christianity to
A.D. 50 to 350 or thereabouts.

The transition from prophecy to apocalyptic ([Greek: apokalyptein], to
reveal something hidden) was gradual and already accomplished within the
limits of the Old Testament. Beginning in the bosom of prophecy, and
steadily differentiating itself from it in its successive developments,
it never came to stand in absolute contrast to it. Apocalyptical
elements disclose themselves in the prophetical books of Ezekiel, Joel,
Zechariah, while in Isaiah xxiv.-xxvii. and xxxiii. we find
well-developed apocalypses; but it is not until we come to Daniel that
we have a fully matured and classical example of this class of
literature. The way, however, had in an especial degree been prepared
for the apocalyptic type of thought and literature by Ezekiel, for with
him the word of God had become identical with a written book (ii. 9-iii.
3) by the eating of which he learnt the will of God, just as primitive
man conceived that the eating of the tree in Paradise imparted spiritual
knowledge. When the divine word is thus conceived as a written message,
the sole office of the prophet is to communicate what is written. Thus
the human element is reduced to zero, and the conception of prophecy
becomes mechanical. And as the personal element disappears in the
conception of the prophetic calling, so it tends to disappear in the
prophetic view of history, and the future comes to be conceived not as
the organic result of the present under the divine guidance, but as
mechanically determined from the beginning in the counsels of God, and
arranged under artificial categories of time. This is essentially the
apocalyptic conception of history, and Ezekiel may be justly represented
as in certain essential aspects its founder in Israel.

We shall now consider (I.) Apocalyptic, its origin and general
characteristics; (II.) Old Testament Apocalyptic; (III.) New Testament
Apocaly