written as well as oral sources. To such shorter written Gospels, and
also to the oral testimony of eyewitnesses, Luke refers in his prologue.
In the Fourth Gospel, the doctrinal motive already apparent in Matthew,
and prominent in the Church at the beginning of the second Christian
century, takes the precedence of the merely historical. A distinct
source, the personal observation of the beloved disciple, probably also
furnishes the majority of the illustrations which are here so
effectively arrayed.

[Sidenote: _Influences that produced the apocalypses_]

More complex were the influences which produced the single example of
the third type of New Testament literature,--the Apocalypse, or Book of
Revelation. The so-called apocalyptic type of literature was a
characteristic product of later Judaism. The Book of Daniel is the most
familiar example. Although in the age of scribism the voice of the
prophets was regarded as silent, and the only authority recognized was
that of the past, the popular Messianic hopes of the people continued to
find expression anonymously in the form of apocalypses. In the periods
of their greatest distress Jews and Christians found encouragement and
inspiration in the pictures of the future. Since the present situation
was so hopeless, they looked for a supernatural transformation, which
would result in the triumph of the right and the establishment of the
rule of the Messiah. Underlying all the apocalypses is the eternal truth
voiced by the poet: "God's in his heaven and all's right with the
world."

[Sidenote: _Origin of the Book of Revelation_]

The immediate historical background of the Apocalypse is the bitter