Revelation: - Knights of Columbus, Supreme Council

This is the fact to recognize, that John’s Apocalypse is simply the last in
a long line of Apocalypses which had been produced in earlier years under
virtually the same conditions and for virtually the same ends. It is the last, and
it is the greatest, but it is still one of a series.
Anyone who is familiar with both the Apocalypse and the Old
Testament, knows that many of the events described in the Apocalypse have
been taken, almost verbatim, from Old Testament books, chiefly Ezekiel and
Daniel. Words, sentences, pictures, symbols, have been freely adapted or lifted
bodily. When one reads the Apocalypse in the original language and compares
it with the Greek translation of the Old Testament which John used, he is
impressed even more by the degree of dependence of the Apo calypse on the
Old Testament. Now all this is not by accident.
Writing During Persecution
Jewish apocalyptic grew out of a combination of circumstances al -
together like those which occa sioned John’s writing. In the year 587 B.C., the
last in a long line of crushing defeats had destroyed Jewish independence
forever. The vast Babylonian Empire, under the man who was to remain
forever for the Jews a symbol of all that was evil in tyranny, Nebuchadnezzar,
destroyed the holy city Jerusalem and the temple, and transported the
inhabitants of the land to Babylon. Never again in a full sense were they to
regain their liberty, except briefly during the period of the Maccabean
kingdom in the second century B.C. Though under the Persian Empire which
destroyed Babylon the Jews were allowed to return to their homeland, they re -
turned no longer as masters but as subjects of a foreign prince. The Persian
Empire was succeeded by the Greek of Alexander the Great. During this time
the Jews were not actively persecuted, but a more subtle influence was
brought to bear to destroy their faith. Alex ander had united the world with a
single language, a single culture, and, as he hoped, a single religion, which
was an amalgam of all the pagan cults. There was a strong tendency for the
Jews to conform, to be submerged into the new world state which had so
much to offer in a material way. We know from the books of Maccabees and
the wisdom literature, particularly such books as Sirach and the Wis dom of
Solomon, how many of the Jews did succumb to this tempta tion. They were
the ancestors of the Sadducees of the New Testa ment, though many of them
went far beyond the Sadducees in em bracing foreign ways and showing shame
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