lessons which they can teach have been learned, and until the higher
truths which they conceal under the protecting husk of symbolism can
be apprehended without disguise. Then their task is done, and mankind
is no longer bound by them. In the same way, the "promises" which were
made under the old dispensation proved to be only symbols of deeper
and more spiritual blessings, which in the moral childhood of humanity
would not have appeared desirable; they were (not delusions, but)
_illusions_, "God having prepared some better thing" to take their
place. The doctrine is one of profound and far-reaching importance. In
this Epistle it is certainly connected with the idealistic thought
that all visible things are symbols, and that every truth apprehended
by finite intelligences must be only the husk of a deeper truth. We
may therefore claim the Epistle to the Hebrews as containing in
outline a Christian philosophy of history, based upon a doctrine of
symbols which has much in common with some later developments of
Mysticism.

In the Apocalypse, whoever the author may be, we find little or
nothing of the characteristic Johannine Mysticism, and the influence
of its vivid allegorical pictures has been less potent in this branch
of theology than might perhaps have been expected.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 56: In referring thus to the Book of Job, I rest nothing on
any theory as to its date. Whenever it was written, it illustrates
that view of the relation of man to God with which Mysticism can never
be content. But, of course, the antagonism between our personal claims
and the laws of the universe must be done justice to before it can be
surmounted.]