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 struggle between Christianity and heathenism. Rome has become _drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus_ (xvii. 6). The contest centres about the worship of the beast,--that is, Caesar. The book possibly includes older apocalypses which reflect earlier conflicts, but in its present form it apparently comes from the closing years of Domitian's reign. The obvious aim of its Jewish Christian writer was to encourage his readers by glowing pictures of the coming victory of the Lamb, and thus to steel them for unfaltering resistance to the assaults of heathenism. The purpose which actuated the writer was therefore in certain respects the same as that which led Paul to write his letter to the persecuted church of Thessalonica, although the form in which that purpose was realized was fundamentally different. [Sidenote: _The literary activity of the first four centuries_] Many other apocalypses were written by the early Christians. The one recently discovered and associated with the name of Peter is perhaps the most important. Thus, the second half of the first century after the death of Jesus witnessed the birth of a large Christian literature, consisting of epistles, gospels, and apocalypses. The work of the next three centuries was the appreciation and the selection of the books which, to-day constitute our New Testament. The influences which led to this consummation may be followed almost as clearly as those which produced the individual books. [Sidenote: _Influences that led to the canonization of the Gospels_]