Another thing which the reader of the Apocalyptic Literature must be prepared for is the frequent inconsistency of thought to be found there, together with variableness of teaching often involving contradiction. The reason of this is not to be sought simply in the fact that in the Apocalypses the hand of more than one author is frequently to be discerned, a fact which would easily account for divergence of views in one and the same book—no, the chief reason is that, on the one hand, the minds of the Apocalyptists were saturated with the traditional thoughts and ideas of the Old Testament, and, on the other, they were eagerly absorbing the newer conceptions which the spirit of the age had brought into being. This occasioned a continual conflict of thought in their minds; the endeavour to harmonize the old and the new would not always succeed, and in consequence there often resulted a compromise which was illogical and which presented contradictions. Inconsistency of teaching on certain points is, therefore, not surprising under the circumstances. Again, to realize the significance of much that is found in these Apocalypses one has to reckon with a rigid predestinarianism which was characteristic of the Apocalyptists as a whole. They started with the absolute conviction that the whole course of the world, from beginning to end, both as regards its physical changes and also in all that concerns the history of nations, their growth and decline, and of every single individual, was in every respect predetermined by God Almighty before all time. This belief of the Apocalyptists is well illustrated in one of the later Apocalypses by these words: “For He hath weighed the age in the balance, And by number hath He numbered the seasons; Neither will He move nor stir things, Till the measure appointed be fulfilled.” (ii. (iv.) Esdras iv. 36, 37.)