war in the sky between his seduced host and the
angelic army under Michael, and the thrusting down of the former;
the banquet of birds on the flesh of kings, mighty men, and
horses; the battle of Gog and Magog; the tarrying of souls under
the altar of God; the temple in heaven containing the ark of the
covenant, and the scene of a various ritual service; the twelve
gates of the celestial city bearing the names of the twelve tribes
of the children of Israel, and the twelve foundations of the walls
having the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb; the bodily
resurrection and general judgment, and the details of its sequel,
all these doctrines and specimens of imagery, with a hundred
others, carry us at once into the Zend Avesta, the Talmud, and the
Ebionitish documents of the earliest Christians, who mixed their
interpretations of the mission and teaching of Christ with the
poetic visions of Zoroaster and the cabalistic dogmatics of the
Pharisees. 25

It is astonishing that any intelligent person can peruse the
Apocalypse and still suppose that it is occupied with prophecies
of remote events, events to transpire successively in distant ages
and various lands. Immediateness, imminency, hazardous urgency,
swiftness, alarms, are written all over the book. A suspense,
frightfully thrilling, fills it, as if the world were holding its
breath in view of the universal crash that was coming with
electric velocity.

25 See, e. g., Corrodi, Kritische Geschichte des Chiliasmus, band
ii. th. 3 7; Gfrorer, Geschichte Urchristenthums, abth. ii. kap.
8 10; Schottgen in Apoc. xii. 6 9; ibid. in 2 Cor. v. 2.

Four words compose the key to the Apocalypse: Rescue, Reward,
Overthrow, Vengeance. The followers of Christ are now persecuted
and slain by the tyrannical rulers of the earth. Let them be of
good cheer: they shall speedily be delivered. Their tyrants shall
be trampled down in "blood flowing up to the horse bridles," and
they shall reign in glory. "Here is the faith and the patience of
the saints," trusting that, if "true unto death, they shall have a
crown of life," and "shall not be hurt of the second death," but
shall soon rejoice over the triumphant establishment of the
Messiah's kingdom and the condign punishment of his enemies who
are now "making themselves drunk with the blood of the martyrs of
Jesus." The Beast, described in the thirteenth chapter, is
unquestionably Nero; and this fact shows the expected
immediatene