His goodness and truth will yet be
vindicated. Hence the prophet prophesies of a definite future arising
out of and organically connected with the present. The apocalyptic
writer on the other hand despairs of the present, and directs his hopes
absolutely to the future, to a new world standing in essential
opposition to the present. (_Non fecit Altissimus unum saeculum sed
duo_, 4 Ezra vii. 50.) Here we have essentially a dualistic principle,
which, though it can largely be accounted for by the interaction of
certain inner tendencies and outward sorrowful experience on the part of
Judaism, may ultimately be derived from Mazdean influences. This
principle, which shows itself clearly at first in the conception that
the various nations are under angelic rulers, who are in a greater or
less degree in rebellion against God, as in Daniel and Enoch, grows in
strength with each succeeding age, till at last Satan is conceived as
"the ruler of this world" (John xii. 31) or "the god of this age" (2
Cor. iv. 4). Under the guidance of such a principle the writer naturally
expected the world's culmination in evil to be the immediate precursor
of God's intervention on behalf of the righteous, and every fresh growth
in evil to be an additional sign that the time was at hand. The natural
concomitant in conduct of such a belief is an uncompromising asceticism.
He that would live to the next world must shun this. Visions are
vouchsafed only to those who to prayer have added fasting.

(c) _By pseudonymous Authorship._--We have already touched on this
characteristic of apocalyptic. The prophet stood in direct relations
with his people; his prophecy was first spoken and afterwards written.
The apocalyptic writer could obtain no hearing from his contemporaries,
who held that, though God spoke in the past, "there was no more any
prophet." This pessimism and want of faith limited and defined the form
in which religious enthusiasm should manifest itself, and prescribed as
a condition of successful effort the adoption of pseudonymous
authorship. The apocalyptic writer, therefore, professedly addressed his
book to future generations. Generally directions as to the hiding and
sealing of the book (Dan. xii. 4, 9; 1 Enoch i. 4; Ass. Mos. i. 16-18)
were given in the text in order to explain its publication so long after
the date of its professed period. Moreover, there was a sense in which
such books were not wholly pseudonymous. Their writers were stud