| A> eee / f AE PE ME LIE E ave ay, OF ἊΣ PRINCETON, N. J. ΒΟ 9341 .CH78 v.27 Bible. The Revelation of 5. the Divine Cambridge Greek Cestament for | Schools and Colleges THE REVELATION OF S. JOHN THE DIVINE London: C. J. CLAY anv SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AVE MARIA LANE. CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO. LEIPZIG: F. A. BROCKHAUS. NEW YORK: MACMILLAN AND CO. W Cambridge Greek Cestament for Srhools and Colleges GENERAL Epiror:—J. ARMITAGE Ropinson B.D. NORRISIAN PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY THE REVELATION S. JOHN THE DIVINE WITH NOTES AND INTRODUCTION BY THE LATE // REV. WILLIAM HENRY SIMCOX M.A. RECTOR OF HARLAXTON REVISED BY G. A. SIMCOX M.A. FELLOW OF QUEEN’S COLLEGE OXFORD EDITED FOR THE SYNDICS OF TITE UNIVERSITY PRESS. CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1893 [All Rights reserved.] (Γαπιδτίσσε: PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. PREFACE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR. TuE Greek Text upon which the Commentaries in this Series are based has been formed on the following principles: Wherever the texts of Tischendorf and Tregelles agree, their readings are followed: wherever they differ from each other, but neither of them agrees with the Received Text as printed by Scrivener, the consensus of Lachmann with either is taken in pre- ference to the Received Text: in all other cases the Received Text as printed by Scrivener is followed. It must be added, however, that in the Gospels those alternative readings of Tregelles, which subsequently proved to have the support of the Sinaitic Codex, have been considered as of the same authority as readings which Tregelles has adopted in his text. In the Commentaries an endeavour has been made to explain the uses of words and the methods of con- REVELATION b iv PREFACE. struction, as well as to give substantial aid to the student in the interpretation and illustration of the text. The General Editor does not hold himself re- sponsible except in the most general sense for the statements made and the interpretations offered by the various contributors to this Series. He has not felt that it would be right for him to place any check upon the expression of individual opinion, unless at any point matter were introduced which seemed to be out of harmony with the character and scope of the Series. J. ARMITAGE ROBINSON. Curist’s CoLLEGE, February, 1893. EDITOR’S PREFACE. ares text of this edition was formed by my brother on the same principles as in the pre- vious volumes of the Series. The Introduction and Commentary are based upon those in the English Series, but both have been carefully revised and ex- panded. My brother’s minute study of the Language of the Book was of the greatest use to me in adapting the Commentary to the Greek Text. Professor Weiss’ edition (Texte und Untersuchungen, Vu. 1) was also very helpful. I am indebted to Prof. W. Robertson Smith for the details of famine prices in the note on vi. 6, which were communicated to me through the General Editor, whom 1 also have to thank for many valuable sug- gestions and criticisms. G. A. SIMCOX. = hi las RS. ins HE ade Yo ambien ΩΣ ort αΥΥδμ πυ pis Hi ἔτ ΜῊΝ ᾿ fey: Dice Tigatvgh a Mert tar honk ναι dai oS ir) ball 1 (hos studi, Mal a)! Dts a ut aut a om ΡΝ Δ ἢ ΠΣ τ ae οι, Son Be. a An Wy δρῶν τ ΔΝ ei) ΠΡ αὐ ἦν he eto Sr a Ἂν παρ poe athe: a s ΠΕΣ tga) aad ‘aie τὴ Shisha Φη Δαν CONTENTS. ANALYSIS OF THE INTRODUCTION, p. 1X—xl. List oF ABBREVIATIONS, p. Xii. I. InrRopvuction. PAGES Chapter 1. Authorship and Canonicity of the Revelation 22.05... 205.008 free xiii—xli Chapter II. Date and Place of Composition .., xli—li Chapter III. Principles of Interpretation......... li—Ixxiii Chapter IV. Analysis of the Book.................. lxxili—lxxiv Ghanter, Ve Greeks Perth: ict δι σαν oo: πῶς: lxxy—Ixxxi DDD re vas sea ea ok oes Mardvshee So eee kets 1—38 ἘΠ IN OBS eo se 5 cs eveuinca ts secomense se eatanseceasena 117 ς 39—206 IV. APPENDIX. Excursus I. The Angels of the Churches: Elemental Angels: the Living Creatures....,.... 207 Excursus II, On the Heresies controverted in the Revelations. .ic:2.é002;. cee eee 211 Excursus III, On the supposed Jewish origin of the Revelation of St John ................05 215 Excursus IV. On the Millennium and the First Re- SUTLECHION: .....s02500s eee eens 235 INDICES : eR CP OR ee, ald cig aa cds ceisss scoe'sutbeccoeomeeeaneeeacases 238 ἘΚ δ ORIOL ALN ine dds as swiss ca weed ae me ΤΡ 241 Much he ask’d in loving wonder, On Thy bosom leaning, Lord! In that secret place of thunder, Answer kind didst thou accord, Wisdom for Thy Church to ponder Till the day of dread award. Lo! Heaven's doors lift up, revealing How Thy judgments earthward move ; Scrolls unfolded, trumpets pealing, Wine-cups from the wrath above, Yet o’er all a soft Voice stealing— ‘Tittle children, trust and love!” KEBLE. ANALYSIS OF THE INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. Authorship and Canonicity of the Revelation, p. xiii. I. THe connexion of the two questions: three possible answers, p. xiv. External attestation of St John’s authorship, p. xiv. Justin Martyr (4.p. 135? 160), p. xiv. Papias (c. 150 a.p.), p. xv. Martyrs of Vienne (177 Α.}.), p. xvi. Ireneus (c. 180 a.p.), p. xvii. Tertullian (6. 199 a.D.), p. xviii. Clement of Alexandria (c. 202 a.p.), p. xviii. Muratorian Fragment (190...210 A.p.), p. xix. Ancient versions, p. xix. Origen (+ 253 a.p.), p. xx. Hippolytus (+ 234 a.p.), p. xx. Victorinus (+ 303), p. xx. II. Ancient objections to Authenticity: Alogi, p. xxi. Gaius, peak II. Dionysius of Alexandria (250 a.p.), p. xxiii. Subsequent history of opinion, p. xxvii. Eusebius (t+? 339 a.p.) to Epiphanius, (t+ 402 a.p.), p. xxix. Lingering objections: Epiphanius to Charles the Great, 793, p. xxix. Revived doubts at the time of the Refor- mation, p. Xxx. IV. The final decision of the Church in favour of the Canonicity of the Book to be tested rather by the fulfilment of its predictions than by fixing the personality of the author, p. xxx. VY. Are the Johannine writings by a single author? p. xxxii. Alleged unlikeness of (a) style and grammar, p. xxxiii; (b) theological conceptions; (c) tone and temper. Reasons for laying little weight on (c), p. xxxiii, Comparison of theological conceptions in the different x ANALYSIS OF THE INTRODUCTION. Johannine writings, p. xxxiv. Comparison of characteristic diction, Ρ. xxxv. Comparison of style and language, p. xxxviii. Possible reconciliation of difficulties, Ρ. xli. CHAPTER II. Date and Place of Composition, p. xii. Evidence of the Book itself, p. xli. Evidence of Irenaeus, p. xlii. Clement of Alexandria, p. xlii. Tertullian, p. xliv. Origen, p. xliv. Epiphanius, p. xlv. Victorinus, p. xlvi. Further consideration of internal evidence, p. xlvii. Apparent conflict of external and internal evidence as to date, p. 1. CHAPTER III. Principles of Interpretation, p. li. Difficulty of the subject, p. lii Reaction from over-confident theories, p. lii. No reason for treating the book as unintelligible p. liii. Clues to interpretation, p. 1111, (1) Old Testament Prophecy, p. 1111, (2) Oral teaching of Apostles and earlier writings of New Testament, p. 1111. (3) Events of past or contemporary history, p. liii. (1) The coincidences with Daniel, p. 1111. (2) The Man of Sin at Rome and Jerusalem, p. liv. Sketch of the patristic theory, p. liv. The millennium and the Eternal Kingdom, p. lv. (3) Diffi- culties of this view and subsequent theories, p. lviii. Mystical theory, Tyconius, Andreas, Arethas, Oecumenius, p. lix. The Con- tinuous Historical Theory, p. lx. Its mediaeval beginning, p. lx. Its Protestant development, p. lx. ‘The strong point of this view is that it gives a meaning to the succession of Visions, p. lx. The difficulty: the earlier Visions seem to embrace the end of all things, p. lxi. The Preterist and Futurist theories: a reaction against the Continuous Historical, p. lxii. Each a partial revival of one aspect of the Traditional, p. lxii. The Preterist Theory inadequate, p. lxii. The Futurist apparently arbitrary, p. lxii. (4) Elements of truth in the different theories, p. lxii. Partial and gradual fulfilment, p. Lxiii. Nero as a type of Antichrist, resemblances and contrasts, p. Ixiii. The expectation of his return, p. lxy. The Seven Heads of the Beast, p. Ixy. The veracity of the Seer depends upon the recognition ANALYSIS OF THE INTRODUCTION. xi of many Antichrists, p. lxy. Antiochus in his measure a type of Antichrist, p. Ixvii. Nero as a new Antiochus, p. lxvii. Domitian as a new Nero, p. lxviii. Contrast between Domitian and Anti- christ, p. Ixviii. The Preterist theory applicable to the types; the Futurist to the antitypes of the Revelation, p. lxix. Plan and method of the Book, p. lxix. A series of signs apparently leading up to the end followed by a new beginning, p. lxix. This corre- sponds to the historical crises which from time to time have seemed to foreshadow the End of all things, p. Ixix. The parallel gives support to the Continuous Historical Theory if not held exclusively, p. lxx. The Book providentially intended to be applied to current events, p. lxx. But only to be fully understood in the end of the days, p. lxx. One element of Truth in the Continuous Historical Theory is the recognition of the perpetual significance of Rome, p. lxxi. Yet neither the Mediaeval Empire nor the Papacy in any proper sense Antichristian, p. lxxii. The latter especially has always witnessed to the Trinity and the Incarnation, p. lxxii. How far Papal Rome is to be identified with the Apocalyptic Babylon, p, 1xxii. CHAPTER IV. Analysis, Ὁ. Ixxiii. CHAPTER V. Text, p. lxxv. Peculiarities of Textus Receptus in this Book, p.lxxv. Due to the circumstances and action of Erasmus, ib. Materials for a Critical Text, pp. lxxv—lIxxix. Uncials: Codex Sinaiticus, p. lxxy. Codex Alexandrinus, p. lxxvi. Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, ib. Codex Porphyrianus Rescriptus, ib. Codex Vaticanus ib. Cursives, ib. Ancient Versions—Syriac, Old Latin, Armenian, Coptic, Aethiopic, pp. lxxvi—lIxxviii. Fathers, pp. lxxviii—lxxix. Groups into which the evidence falls, pp, lxxix—lxxxi. Lips. } Cod. Flor. Amb. Aut. And. . And. Comm. ye. Tyc. ap. Aug. Ap. Cass. Cyp. [Cyp.] Epiph. Hipp. Hieron. Promissa. Tert. Text. Rec. Lach. Treg. Tisch. W.4H. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, VERSIONS. English Version. Authorised Version. Revised Version. Aethiopic Version. Aethiopic, Roman edition 1648 a.p. Armenian. Armenian, Zohrab’s Edition (Venice, 1789). Coptic. Syriac. Vulgate. Codex Amiatinus 6th century in Laurentian Library at Florence. Codex Fuldensis 6th century at Fulda. Codex Toletanus 10th century at Madrid. MSS. of Revelation at Leipzig collated by Matthiae. Codex Floriacensis, a palimpsest 7th century from the abbey of Fleury, now at Paris. CoMMENTATORS. Ambrosius Autpertus or Ansbertus. Andreas Archbishop of Caesarea. Andreas’ Commentary: the text of the MSS. differs. Andreas’ Augsburg MS. 12th century. Andreas’ Munich MS. Andreas’ MS. from Coislin library, 10th century. Andreas MS. from Palatine library, 12th century. Arethas, Archbishop of Caesarea, Beatus, quoted by Haussleiter. Primasius, edited by Haussleiter. Tyconius. Tyconius reproduced in the homilies in the Appendix to St Au- gustine. FatHers. Cassiodorus. St Cyprian as quoted by Haussleiter. Enlarged edition of Testimonia Haussleiter. St Epiphanius. St Hippolytus. The readings not given by Tischendorf are from the newly published 4th book of his commentary on Daniel. St Jerome. St Irenaeus in the old Latin Version. St Irenaeus where the Greek is extant. Auctor libri de promissionibus dimidii temporis. Tertullian as quoted by Haussleiter. EDITORS. Textus Receptus as printed by Scrivener. Lachmann’s larger edition. Tregelles. Tischendorf: eighth edition; where the text and notes differ the latter are cited. Westcott and Hort, INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. AUTHORSHIP AND CANONICITY OF THE REVELATION. In the case of some of the books of Scripture, the questions of their authorship and of their canonical authority are quite independent of one another. Many books are anonymous!, many have their authors known only by a post-canonical tradition?; and the rejection, in any case where it may be called for, of this tradition need not and ought not to involve a denial of the divine authority of the book. Even in cases where the sup- posed author is named or unmistakeably indicated in the book itself, it does not always follow that the book either must be written by him, or can owe none of its inspiration to the Spirit of truth: the person of the professed author may have been assumed dramatically without any mala fides’. On the other hand, there are books which plainly exclude any such hypo- thesis, and either must be forgeries, more or less excusable but hardly consistent with divine direction, or else must be the genuine and inspired works of their professed authors. The case of the Revelation may be regarded as intermediate between the two last-named classes. The author gives his name as “John,” but gives no unmistakeable token, in this book 1 e.g. Judges, Kings, and Chronicles; and in the N.T., Hebrews. 2 e.g. the Synoptical Gospels. 3 As is certainly the case with the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon, and almost certainly with Ecclesiastes. It is conceivable that the case of the Pastoral Epistles of St Paul might be similar. Xiv INTRODUCTION. itself, to identify him with St John the Apostle: and hence the opinion is rationally tenable, that the Revelation is the work of a person named John, writing what he bond fide regarded as a supernatural vision, but not having more claim on the reverence of the Church than his work can command on its own merits. On the other hand, we shall find that the book was so early and so widely received as the work of the Apostle, that it may well be suspected that, if not really his, it was falsely put forward as his, and intended by the real author to be received as his: so that those who reject the Apostolic authorship of the book may be pardoned if they regard it as a fraudulent forgery. It thus will be convenient to discuss the two questions of authorship and of canonical authority in connexion with one another, though remembering that the determination of one does not (except in the first of the cases now to be mentioned) necessarily involve that of the other. The book may be either (1) the genuine and inspired work of St John the Apostle; or (2) a forgery in the name of St John the Apostle; or (3) it may be the genuine and inspired work of another John; or (4) a bond jide but uninspired work of another John. We may fairly set aside the logically conceivable cases, of the Apostle writing not under divine inspiration, and of a person writing indeed fraud- ulently, but not intending to personate the Apostle. Let us examine the evidence, external and internal, for each of these views :— I. The external attestation of St John’s authorship is strong. Only three books of the New Testament at most (St Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, perhaps those to the Ephesians and Philippians) are known to be cited with the author’s name as early as the Apocalypse. Justin Martyr (whose First Apology, written not later than A.D. 160, attests the authority if not the authorship of the book by a clear reference to Rev. xii. 9 or xx. 2) quotes the substance of Rev. xx. 3—6 as part of the Revelation made ‘to a man named John, one of the Apostles of Christ’—in the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. This testimony may be very early, for the Dialogue, though written after the Apology, professes to reproduce a conference the date of which INTRODUCTION. XV is variously fixed from A.D. 135 to 148, while the scene is laid at Ephesus, where surely, if anywhere, the true authorship of the Revelation must have been known. There is of course the possibility that a writer who identified Semo Sancus with Simo Sanctus may have hastily identified the John of whom he heard at Ephesus as the Seer of the Apocalypse with John the Apostle of whom he must have heard from the beginning of his conversion in Palestine. But if he really appealed to. the authority of St John as early as A.D. 135, it is probable that he would have been corrected if mistaken. We may regard as practically contemporary with this the evidence afforded by Parias, bishop of Hierapolis near Laodicea, who acknowledged the Apocalypse, as is stated by Andrew, bishop (in the fifth century?) of Caesarea in Cappadocia, in the prologue to his Commentary on the book. Papias’s evidence, if we had it at first hand, would be even more convincing than Justin’s: for not only did he belong to the district where the Revelation was first circulated1, but he is said to have been a hearer of St John himself—he certainly was a zealous collector of traditions relating to him. But Papias’s own works are lost, and though Andrew was doubtless acquainted with them, his testimony is not quite decisive. Eusebius professes (H. £. 111. 111. 2), in his account of early divines, to state whenever they quote as Scripture books of which the canonicity was disputed: and - he does thus note the passage of Justin’s 7rypho already cited. In his account of Papias (2b. xxxix. 13), he tells us that he quoted the First Epistle of St Peter, and that of St John, though, as the canonicity of these books was not disputed, he was not bound to note the fact. If then Papias had quoted the book about which there was the keenest dispute of all, Eusebius would surely have told us so; especially as he actually founded a conjecture as to its authorship (see p. xxvii) on a passage in Papias. Thus the argument from the silence of Eusebius, which 1 It has been observed that, while the Churches of Laodicea and Sardis must have known the facts about the origin of the Apocalypse, they had every interest in discrediting its authority, if they honestly could, Xvi INTRODUCTION. is worth very little as evidence that Papias did not know St John’s Gospel, is, as regards the Revelation, as strong as an argument from silence can be. Moreover, he enables us to account for Andrew’s assuming that Papias knew the book, without his having expressly cited it. Papias certainly held the doctrine of a Millennium, which is not, even apparently, taught in any canonical book but the Apocalypse. Andrew may therefore have taken for granted that he derived the doctrine from it, while in reality he may have had no authority but the general belief of the Church. The only passage in the extant fragments of Papias bearing on the subject seems to be derived by tradition from the Book of Enoch. If he had actually read the passage of that book, which he seems to be reproducing, he could not have put the rather silly description of the ideal bliss which it contains into the mouth of our Lord. But, even if Papias did not expressly quote the Revelation, it does not follow that he was not acquainted with it: and in fact we find it unhesitatingly received by the Churches of Asia during the second century. Of the many Christian writers of that age and country almost all the works are lost: but we have catalogues of those of Melito, bishop of Sardis, the ablest, most learned, and most critical among them, who flourished in the reign of M. Aurelius, A.D. 161—180. He not only acknowledged “the Revelation of John,” but wrote a commentary upon it. His testimony would be the weightier if as is probable his work on ‘ Prophecy’ was directed like Clement’s against Montanism. A colony from the Churches of Asia appears to have been established about this time, or earlier, at Lyons in Gaul. In A.D. 177 they and their neighbours of Vienne were exposed to a savage persecution, of which a detailed account, addressed to their Asiatic kinsmen, was written by a surviving brother: and considerable fragments of this are preserved by Eusebius (H. E. v. i—iii.). In this the Revelation (xxii. 11) is expressly quoted as “the Scripture.” Besides this, we have constant evidence of the writer’s familiarity with the book: he speaks of Christ as “the faithful and true Witness” (Rev. iii. 14), and of INTRODUCTION. XVli “the heavenly fountain of the water of life” (vii. 17, xxii. 1). The Church is personified as a Virgin Mother (c. xii.): the Martyrs in their spiritual beauty are compared to a “bride adorned in embroidered robes of gold” (xxi. 2): one of them “follows the Lamb whithersoever He goeth” (xiv. 4) and through- out we have references, not only to the expected persecution of Antichrist, but to the imagery of the Dragon and the Beast. Pothinus, the aged bishop of Lyons, who died in this persecution, was succeeded by IRENAEuS. The latter was cer- tainly a native of Asia, probably of Smyrna: and, though his works belong to a later date than Justin or the other writers we have named, he is not practically more remote from the source of authentic tradition. For in his boyhood he had known and heard St Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, and he re- membered the account he gave of his personal intercourse with St John (Ep. ad Flor., ap. Eus. ΗΠ. Ε΄. v. xx. 8, 9). Now St Polycarp was burnt Α.Ὁ. 155, and had then been a Christian 86 years: his conversion therefore, or birth in a Christian family, must have taken place a.D. 69 or 70. And St Irenaeus states (Adv. Haer. 1. 111. 3) that both his conversion and his appointment as bishop were the acts of “Apostles ;” the latter can hardly have been the act of any other Apostle than St John, who (according to Irenaeus) “lived till the time of Trajan,” i.e. at least to a.D. 98. At that time Polycarp may have been from 30 to 40 years old ; thus it appears that he had been the personal disciple of St John from early childhood to full maturity. His traditions therefore about the Apostle must have been absolutely authentic, and they must have served as a check on the circulation in Asia of spurious ones, at least among those who knew Polycarp personally. It thus appears that Irenaeus received authentic traditions about St John, pass- ing through but one intermediate step. Now Irenaeus’ testimony to the authorship of the Apocalypse is even more definite than any that we have yet met with. He not only i ascribes it to the Apostle, but states (Adv. Haer. v. xxx. 1) that “it was seen not long ago, but almost in our own generation, near the end of the reign of Domitian” (ie. A.D. 95—6). And ΧΥΠΙ INTRODUCTION. he tells us that this statement rests on the authority of persons who had seen St John—possibly therefore of Polycarp, or at least of Papias. Shortly before the date of the martyrdoms of Lyons arose the fanatical heresy of the Montanists, on the borders of Mysia and Phrygia. Their wild beliefs on the subject of the New Jerusalem would tend rather to discredit than to support the authority of the book they appealed to as teaching the like: but the fact that their opponents in Asia accepted it as a common ground for discussion proves how unanimous was the tradition respecting it. The Martyrs of Lyons themselves wrote on the controversy, which in their days had not amounted to an actual schism. Alcibiades, one of their number, is still generally identified with the Alcibiades whom Eusebius meutions in the same chapter, H. ZL. ν. iii. 2,as one of the leaders of the Montanist party. On the other hand, Apollonius, who is said to have been an Ephesian, wrote after the controversy had grown very bitter: but we are told that he quoted the Revelation as authoritative, and apparently as the work of St John. TERTULLIAN, who wrote in Africa at the very end of the second century and in the early part of the third, constantly quotes the book as St John’s, and seems to know nothing of any doubts about it, except on the part of heretics. His testimony is however the less valuable, as he admitted the Book of Enoch: he became a Montanist in later life, and his quotations from the Revelation seem all to be in works written after his fall into heresy. Still it is probable that this is due to a change of temper, rather than to a change of opinion: for everything indicates that the orthodox Church of Africa accepted the book without hesita- tion. It certainly did so in the next generation, as we know from St Cyprian’s works. Approximately contemporary with Tertullian—perhaps rather earlier—was CLEMENT of Alexandria, who quotes the Revelation? as St John’s work, and refers historically to his exile in Patmos. - 1 This is not noticed by Eusebius, though he mentions the fact of his quoting other “disputed”? books. This makes his silence as to Papias less decisive against his having quoted the book. INTRODUCTION. xix He is less likely than Tertullian to have tested for himself the current tradition of his day: for though he does not, like St Irenaeus, quote Hermas with the formula ἡ γραφὴ λέγει, he does accept him as Scripture ; while Tertullian openly rejected him when a Montanist, and probably never treated him with more than perfunctory respect. Of about the same age, or possibly a little later, would be the anonymous work on the Canon, known as the MURATORIAN FRAGMENT, and supposed to be a Latin version of a Greek original written at Rome. In this the “Apocalypse of St John” is recog- nised ; so apparently, though more doubtfully, is an ‘Apocalypse of St Peter,’ which if mentioned is mentioned with the remark that some object to its being read in the Church: this would imply two things—that when the list was drawn up the Canon was still half open to doubtful works, and that so far as the writer knew there was no doubt about the Apocalypse of St John. About this same period there appears another kind of evi- dence, shewing still more plainly the belief, not of individual divines alone, but of large provincial Churches—the VERSIONS of the New Testament made for ecclesiastical use in Churches where Greek was not generally spoken. The old Latin version was in use by Tertullian’s time, and must almost certainly have included the Apocalypse. The versions in the different Egyp- tian dialects, however, do not seem to have contained it till a later date. As to the Syriac, perhaps the oldest version of all, the evidence is more doubtful. The Peschitto, or vulgate Syrian version in use from the fourth century onwards, does not contain the book: but according to the view now taken by what seem to be the highest authorities, this is only a revision of the oldest version, that being one which has not been recovered, except (in part) for the Gospels. It cannot be thought impossible that this oldest version included the Apocalypse which is quoted as inspired by St Ephraem of Edessa, the great divine and poet of the Syrian Church, though he also uses the four minor Catholic Epistles which were not then part of the Syriac Canon. If we are now past the time when living tradition can be REVELATION ὃ XX INTRODUCTION. appealed to as decisive evidence, we have reached the time when scientific principles of criticism began to be applied to the traditional beliefs of Christendom. Justin, Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian, were all well-educated men: the first and third ranked as “ philosophers,” in the sense in which that term was used in their age: Tertullian was a man of real original power of thought. Origen, the pupil and successor of Clement, was not only a learned student, but an able critic. He discusses ably and sensibly the question, admitted to be doubtful, of the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews: he notices the doubts, though without doing much to solve them, that existed as to that of the Second Epistle of St Peter: but as to the Apocalypse he seems to know of no doubts at all, or none worth heeding. A man of almost equal learning, of about the same date, was Hiepotytvs, bishop of Portus near Rome, or perhaps a claimant of the Roman see. In his extant works he constantly and un- hesitatingly ascribes the Revelation to the Apostle John: but from a catalogue of his whole works it seems that he thought it necessary to defend its authenticity, though he had not always found it so, if, as Bishop Lightfoot suggests, the lost original of the Muratorian Canon was identical with his early metrical list of Canonical books. The last witness who need be quoted at this stage of the enquiry is VicToRINUS, a bishop and martyr in the Diocletian persecution. He wrote a Commentary on the Revelation, which was sent to St Jerome with a request that he would correct it. Probably all extant MSS. are based upon his revision : his letter to Anatolius seems to imply that there was a system of marks for those passages in the original chiefly referring to the Millennium which St Jerome regarded as over literal, and also for St Jerome’s own additions chiefly drawn from Tyconius. It might be possible to distinguish these from the original text, and from later ad- ditions, e.g. the explanation of Genseric for the Number of the . Beast ; and then we should be in a position to judge of the precise value of the traditions which St Victorinus had inherited. His testimony, like that of later fathers, is chiefly valuable as shewing INTRODUCTION. xxi that earlier fathers were regarded as witnesses to an ecclesiastical tradition. II. The earliest people we hear of as denying the authenticity of the Apocalypse are the so-called Atoai, generally regarded as an Asiatic sect or school of extreme opponents of Montanism, who thought it necessary to discredit the writings of St John because their Montanist countrymen appealed to their authority in sup- port of their own views. All, or nearly all, we know of them comes from St Epiphanius, a diligent and zealous reader of books without tables of contents or indices, who too often confused his authorities and amplified them by hearsay. Lipsius and Lightfoot hold that he took his account of the Alogi from the lost work against heresies which St Hippolytus wrote before the larger work which Dr Miller recovered and published. This early work was certainly used by Epiphanius, Philastrius, and the so-called Pseudo- Tertullian, whose work, whether he meant to personate Tertullian or no, has reached us as an appendix to the de Prae- seriptione. Dr Salmon holds that his only source was the work of Hippolytus against Gaius, a learned and respected Roman Presbyter, several quotations from which have been published from time to time in Hermathena by Dr Gwynn from a mediaeval Syrian writer. If Epiphanius drew from Hippolytus’ work against heresies we may infer that the latter invented the nick- name of Alogi, which means ‘unreasonable,’ and seemed to be deserved by their denial of the Logos, the Word or Reason of God, proclaimed by St John. We may also infer that the sect or school practically disappeared in the interval between the two treatises: we might also infer that they are identical with the persons mentioned by St Irenaeus as rejecting the Fourth Gospel, We might also contrast the objections which we know from Epiphanius with those which we know from Eusebius and Bar Salibi. As far as it appears from Epiphanius their chief argu- ment was that they found the book mysterious and unedifying. The answer is obvious, that very likely it was unedifying to them. A more important argument common to them and to Gaius was that 793 years after the Ascension there was no church at Thyatira (the reason being, ?as the Montanists claimed, c2 XXii INTRODUCTION. that the Church there had been swallowed up by Montanism) ; to which Hippolytus replied that (?)after an interval of 112 years Le. 234 a.D. that church had been happily restored. Of course the evidence of the Revelation itself is sufficient to prove that a church of Thyatira had existed when the Revelation was written. Gaius also dwelt forcibly on the contrast between the Day of the Lord that ‘cometh as a thief in the night’ and the terrible signs which follow the Seals and Trumpets and Vials: though he failed to notice that the same contrast presents itself in the Discourse on the Mount of Olives. The Syriac fragments make it quite clear that Gaius refers to the Canonical Revelation in the passage quoted by Eusebius (7. 1. 11. xxviii.) in which he speaks of “ Cerinthus, who by revelations professedly written by a great Apostle passes off upon us false marvels professedly shewn to him by angels; and says that after the Resurrection the kingdom of Christ will be earthly ; and that the flesh having its dwelling in Jerusalem will do service again to lusts and pleasures. And being an enemy to the Scriptures of God he says, desiring to deceive, that a thousand years fully told will pass in a marriage of feasting.” There is much in this which does not correspond to the present Canonical text: it is possible that Cerinthus may have found it worth while to circulate a garbled edition of the Apocalypse ; just as Tertullian tells us (Adv. Mare. τ. i.) that a Marcionite had diligently circulated a very faulty copy he had made of the second draught of the Treatise against Marcion. If Hippolytus knew the Alogi as a sect or school, it is clear that their great offence was the rejection of the Fourth Gospel; and it is remarkable that as they were otherwise orthodox there should have been any part of Christendom in which the tradition of the Fourfold Gospel was still unknown. Of course where the tradition was uncertain there was a strong temptation to reject the book, which seemed to support the Montanist doctrine of the Paraclete, with the book which nourished the Montanist hope of the Parousia. Gaius is generally supposed to have accepted the Fourth Gospel, as Hippolytus quotes it against him. But if the Muratorian Canon does represent the list of books received at a i INTRODUCTION. Xxiil Rome, that list was not unquestioned. The dispute between dignitaries of an orthodox church as to whether the Apocalypse was canonical or heretical, startling as it is to our notions, was probably less bitter and not more important than the questions which afterwards divided Hippolytus and Callistus: both of whom were bishops, both of repute as divines in their own day, and recognised as saints and martyrs by the later Church. III. Dronysrus of Alexandria (bishop a.p. 249—265), the most famous of the famous and holy men who proceeded from the school of Origen, had, it is plain, received the Apocalypse! without question, like his master, as one of the New Testament Scriptures recognised by the Church. But, in what seems to have been a later work?, he had occasion to discuss the question critically. He recapitulates the arguments of those who rejected the book, with special reference no doubt to Gaius, and pro- bably to the so-called Alogi. The argument sounds a little like theirs, as quoted by St Epiphanius, “that the title is false: for, they say, it is not John’s, nor yet is it a Revelation, being com- pletely veiled by the thick curtain of ignorance.” But Dionysius himself treats the question in exactly the spirit, at once devout and critical, in which such questions ought to be treated: and the result is, that he sweeps away the bad arguments against St John’s authorship, and states the good ones in a form that really has never been improved upon be- tween his day and ours. Those who denied the canonicity and orthodoxy of the book had only two grounds to go upon—its obscurity, and its alleged description of the Kingdom of Christ as earthly. Now on the latter point St Dionysius thoroughly sympathised with the objectors: he had engaged in a contro- versy with Nepos, an Egyptian bishop who maintained millen- arian views, and succeeded in convincing him and his followers that they were wrong. But Dionysius saw that it was neither reverent nor critical to make the authority of the book stand or fall with a particular interpretation of a particular passage in it. To the charge of obscurity he replies, “Even if I do not under- 1 Ep. ad Hermamm., ap. Eus. H. ΕἸ. vu. x. 1. ® On the Promises, ap. Eus. H. E. vit. xxv. XXIV INTRODUCTION. stand, I yet conceive some deeper sense to lie in the words. Not measuring and judging these things by private reasoning, but giving the chief weight to faith, I have supposed it too high to be comprehended by me: and I do not reject these things which I have not seen, but admire them the more, because I have not.” He then expresses his own opinion, and the grounds for it, as follows: “That he was called John, and that this writing is John’s, I will not dispute: for I agree that it is the work of a holy and inspired man. Still, I would not readily admit that this John is the Apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James, the author of the Gospel that bears the title According to John, and of the Catholic Epistle. I argue from the temper of the two, from the style of the language, and from what is called the purport of the book, that they are not the same. For the Evangelist never introduces his own name, nor proclaims him- self, either in the Gospel or in the Epistle. St John nowhere [speaks of the Apostle by name?] either as being himself or as another: but the writer of the Revelation puts himself forward at the very beginning: ‘The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which He gave to Him, to shew unto His Servants shortly. And He sent and signified it by His Angel to His Servant John, who bare witness of the Word of God and His testimony, whatsoever he saw. Then he also writes an Epistle: ‘John to the seven Churches which are in Asia; grace be to you and peace.’ But the Evangelist has not written his name even at the beginning of the Catholic Epistle, but begins without preamble with the mystery of the divine revelation itself: ‘That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes.’ For on account of this revelation the Lord also called Peter blessed; saying, ‘Blessed art thou, Simon bar- Jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My heavenly Father. But neither in the second and third Epistles current as John’s, short as they are, is the name of John put forward, but ‘the Elder’ is written without name. But this writer has not even thought it enough, when he has named himself once for all, but takes it up again: “1 John, your INTRODUCTION. XXV brother, and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and in the patience of Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus.’ And again, near the end, he says this: ‘Blessed is he that keepeth the words of the prophecy of this book; and I John who see and hear these things.’ Now that it is a John who writes this, we ought to believe on his own word; but what John is uncertain. For he has not said, as in many places of the Gospel, that he is the Disciple beloved of Jesus, nor he who leaned upon His breast, nor the brother of James, nor that he was eye- and ear-witness of the Lord: for he would have said some of these things which I have mentioned, if he had wished to indi- cate himself clearly, But, instead of any of these, he calls him- self our brother and partaker with us, and a witness (or martyr) of Jesus, and blessed as seeing and hearing the revelations. But I suppose there were many of the same name as John the Apostle, who for their love for him, admiration, and desire to imitate him and to be beloved like him of the Lord, were glad to assume the same name, as Paul and Peter are frequent names among the children of the faithful1, There is in fact another John in the Acts of the Apostles, who was surnamed Mark?; whom Barnabas and Paul took with them, of whom it says again, ‘And they had also John to their minister.’ But whether he is the writer, I would not say: for it is written that he did not come with them into Asia, but ‘Paul and his com- pany set sail from Paphos, and came to Perga in Pamphylia; and John departed from them and returned to Jerusalem’ But I think that there was another John among those who had 1 Of course this is an anachronism. John was a common Jewish name, and no doubt many Jewish Johns became Christians: butit had not had time to become a common Christian name, used for love of the Apostle, till long after the date of the Revelation. 2 Apparently it did not occur to St Dionysius to identify this Mark with the evangelist, the founder of his own Church. Otherwise we should have had the views of an excellent ancient critic as to the ᾿ relation between the styles of the Second Gospel and the Apocalypse. Volkmar has discovered some points of resemblance between the two; and his hypothesis, though never widely accepted, still continues to be discussed. ΧΧΥῚ INTRODUCTION. been in Asia: for in fact they say that there are two tombs at Ephesus, each called that of John. And further, from their thoughts, language, and composition, this may reasonably be considered a ditterent person from the others. For the Gospel and the Epistle harmonise with one another, and begin alike; the one ‘In the beginning was the Word,’ the other ‘That which was from the beginning.’ The one says, ‘And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father :’ the other the same a little varied: ‘That which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life: and the life was manifested.’ For this is his prelude to his main contention, as he makes plain in what follows, against those who said that the Lord had not come in the flesh: wherefore he continues carefully : ‘And we bear witness of that which we have seen, and declare unto you the life, the eternal [life], which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us: that which we have seen and heard de- clare we unto you.’ He keeps close to himself, and does not withdraw from his announcement, and sets forth all by means of the same headings and names, of which we will briefly mention some. He who studies the books carefully will find in each frequently life, light, repulse of darkness ; constantly truth, grace, joy, the flesh and blood of the Lord, the judgement, the forgiveness of sins, the love of God towards us, the command- ment for us to dove one another, the duty of keeping all the com- mandments, the condemnation of the world, the Devil, the Antichrist : the promise of the Holy Spirit, the adoption on the part of God, the constant demand of faith on our part, the Father and the Son everywhere: altogether, by every possible mark, we are allowed to see the same colouring in the Gospel and the Epistle. But compared with these the Revelation is utterly different and strange, neither touching nor approaching (one may almost say) any of these, nor having a syllable in common with them. Nor again has either the Epistle (I pass over the Gospel) any recollection or thought of the Revelation, or the Revelation of the Epistle: whereas Paul in his Epistles —-_- eye INTRODUCTION. XXVil has given some hint of his revelations, which he did not write separately, Further, one may also argue from the difference of language of the Gospel and Epistle compared with the Revela- tion. For they are written, not only without error in the Greek language, but with the greatest literary skill in the words, the reasonings, the arrangements of the exposition: far from there being any barbarous word, ungrammatical phrase, or in fact vulgarisms of any sort found there. For he had, as it seems, both forms of the Word, the Lord having granted him both, the word of knowledge and that of expression. But to this author I will not deny that he had seen a revelation, and received knowledge and prophecy ; but I can see that his dialect and language are not correct Greek, but that he uses barbaric con- structions, sometimes ungrammatical. These it is not neces- sary now to recount: for I do not say this for ridicule—let no one suppose it—but only defining the unlikeness of the writings.” The only ancient critic who adds anything to this forcible argument against the unity of authorship of the Revelation and the Gospel is Eusebius. He calls attention (H. Δ. 11. xxxix. 4) to a passage of Papias, where he distinguishes, apparently, from the Apostle St John another Disciple of the Lord, whom he calls “John the Elder” or “ Presbyter;” thus giving direct evidence of what, in St Dionysius, is not much more than a conjecture— the existence at Ephesus, or at least in proconsular Asia, of two leaders of the Christian Church, both named John. Liicke among other modern critics has forcibly expanded one part of St Diony- sius’ argument: the Seer of the Apocalypse nowhere implies that he has known Christ after the flesh, or indeed that apart from his visions he has any personal claim to authority in the churches : the Evangelist and the writer of the First Epistle claims unmis- takeably to have been an eyewitness of the Lord’s earthly life : and he writes to his little children with the authority as well as the love of a father. The contrast is the more significant be- cause, as St Dionysius observes, a kind of self-assertion seems to mark the Seer, a kind of self-suppression the Evangelist. To judge by Eusebius there was little disposition in ancient times to accept the compromise suggested by St Dionysius : ΧΧΥΤῚ INTRODUCTION. those who regarded the Revelation as a canonical work regarded it as the work of the son of Zebedee. Though Eusebius speaks often on the subject it is hard to ascertain either his own judgement or the prevailing opinion of his contemporaries. Pro- bably both still leant in favour of the Apocalypse : he puts the hypothesis that the book is genuine first, when he mentions the question : in the sermon at the dedication of the church at Tyre (which is reported H. #. x. iv.) the magnificence of the church is a figure of the glory of Jerusalem above: and the preacher seems to have the New Jerusalem of the Revelation in his mind throughout (see especially §§ 11, 12), though his quotations are all taken from the Old Testament. One thing is clear: though there was a well-known class of books whose genuineness was disputed, no one was content to include the Revelation in it: the Antilegomena might or might not be apostolic or canonical ; even if they were not, they did not necessarily cease to be edi- fying: but the contemporaries of Eusebius felt that a book which claimed so much as the Apocalypse must either have the highest authority or none. When the generation which had lived through the Diocletian persecution passed away, the balance of opinion shifted for a time. It was felt that the question was rather “Is the Revela- tion one of the books acknowledged as sacred by the living Church of our day?” than “Is it so clearly attested by ancient tradition to have come from the Apostle John that all internal difficulties of whatever kind ought to be disregarded ?” Nothing like the actual conversion of the civilised world seemed to have been foretold, and all that had been foretold seemed to have become almost impossible. Only while the empire was heathen was it easy to expect a new Nero, and to look for a millennial reign of the saints to follow upon his overthrow. For this reason or for others the churches of Asia Minor and Palestine rejected the book. St Cyril of Jerusalem in speaking of the last times is careful to remind his hearers that his doctrine rests not on the apocryphal Revelation but on the canonical book of Daniel: yet he speaks of Antichrist as the eighth king, which is obviously taken from the Apocalypse; and this though he warns his cate- INTRODUCTION. ΧΧΙΧ chumens never to read at home books which are not read in the church. St Gregory of Nazianzus is equally inconsistent. He closes a list of canonical books which excludes the Apocalypse, with the warning that none other is genuine; yet he quotes ‘John in the Apocalypse.” St Gregory of Nyssa (1. 44) in an ordination homily quotes the address to the Angel of Laodicea with the words rod εὐαγγελιστοῦ Ἰωάννου ἐν ἀποκρύφοις : where it seems as if an ‘apocryphal’ book was too sacred rather than too worthless for public reading. Both the Gregories and St Basil quote Rey. i. 1, in controversy with the Arians, and apply it to the Son; all probably follow St Athanasius, who held the book to be canonical, as did all his successors. In spite of the authority of the Church of Alexandria the general opinion of the East was still against the book in the beginning of the fifth century, when St Jerome wrote to Dardanus. Though Epiphanius went back to the traditional view, he thought that the Alogi and those who perpetuated their doctrine would have been excusable, if they had treated the Apocalypse, though genuine and inspired, as too mysterious for public reading. From the time of St Epiphanius no writers of weight ques- tioned the authority of the book in the East; and in the West the two great doctors St Jerome and St Augustine repeatedly and emphatically adhered to the unbroken tradition of the Latin Church. But the echoes of past disputes still had a certain influence: the Nestorian Canon is still defective because the Greek Canon was defective at the time of the separation : the Jacobites seem after the separation to have adopted the Alex- andrian Canon, and the Syriac translation of the book which is grotesquely literal belongs to them. Even in the West Junilius, a contemporary of Primasius, was influenced at second-hand by the hesitations of the school of Nisibis. The Fourth Council of Toledo, 633 a.D., after mentioning that many (probably in the East) still rejected its authority, decrees that it is to be recognised in the public services between Easter and Pentecost. Oddly enough Charles the Great in a capitulary of 789 A.D. goes back to the Canon of the Council of Laodicea 363 a.D., which is generally supposed to have condemned the book. The capit- ΧΧΧ INTRODUCTION. ulary did not influence theologians, but it may have influenced lectionaries. As the Reformers were more or less under the influence of Erasmus and the Renaissance, it was inevitable that the canonicity of books which had been questioned in the first three centuries should be questioned again. Luther, who knew that tradition was not unanimous, felt at liberty to give full expres- sion to his personal dislike of the book, as he had done in dealing with the Epistle of St James. For a time it seemed possible that the Protestant Canon would draw a broad line between the undisputed and disputed books of the New Testa- ment. Several causes concurred to avert this danger. Melancthon, who wished to minimise the points of difference between Chris- tians, persuaded Luther to make the preface to the translation in his second edition much less contemptuous and combative than it had been in the first. The mass of the Protestants adopted and exaggerated the medizval theory that Papal Rome was the apocalyptic Babylon, and completed it by the still more question- able theory that the Pope was the Antichrist. It was discovered as soon as Luther was dead that he had been the Angel with the Everlasting Gospel; and this was set forth in his funeral sermon. When exegesis had entered this path it soon became clear that the Apocalypse was as valuable for Protestant polemics as the Epistle to the Hebrews for Protestant dogmatics. It would have cost much to give up either, and if the question of canonicity had not been rightly decided in the fifth century, there was no rational prospect of deciding it better in the sixteenth. It is otherwise with the question of authorship, though it is probable that those who found the book less edifying than they could wish, and so were moved to question its canonicity, were glad to shelter themselves under doubts of its apostolic authorship. IV. No one in ancient times seems to have cared to question the inspiration, or reject the authority, of the Revelation, except those who, in the anti-millenarian controversy, thought it neces- sary to deny its orthodoxy. Thus the view that it is indeed a genuine work, belonging to the main stream of Christian thought, but that it can claim no higher inspiration than that of a sub- INTRODUCTION. χχχὶ jective enthusiasm, does not present itself till modern times, nor then except on the part of rationalists: it involves matter of con- troversy which turns on ὦ priori: grounds, and cannot be discussed here: except so far as the question of interpretation involves the further question, “Have the Seer’s predictions been fulfilled, or have Christians reason to expect that they will be?” By this test, no doubt, we are justified in judging the claims of what professes to be an inspired prophecy (Deut. xviii. 22): but we must ascertain what it is that is foretold, before we can judge whether it has “followed or come to pass,” or is in the way to do so. For the present, it will be enough to say, that practically the whole Church has agreed to recognise the authority of the book, and that this ought to compel us to recognise it: though its authority does not, perhaps, stand so high as that of those books “of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.” Indeed, both in ancient and modern times, there has been a dis- position to treat it with greater reserve, if not greater distrust, than the other canonical books. In the English Church till 1872, while the rest of the New Testament was ‘read over orderly every year thrice, beside the Epistles and Gospels,” out of the Apocalypse there were “only certain Proper Lessons appointed upon divers feasts.” And something similar seems to have been the case in earlier times, from the fact that, while the theologians of Alexandria—even St Dionysius—acknowledged the canonical authority of the book, it was not translated till a comparatively late date into either of the vernacular dialects of Egypt. In the Greek-speaking Churches also it never came into general ecclesiastical use; and for this reason, probably, ancient copies of it are rare as compared with the other books of Scripture. Conceding then the inspiration and canonicity of the book we approach without prejudice the question of its authorship. Its antiquity is undoubted, and the only person besides the Apostle suggested as its author was a personal “disciple of the Lord,” so that we can readily conceive his writing by divine inspiration. We have only to judge, whether the internal evidence against its being by the author of the Gospel and Epistles is so strong, XXxil INTRODUCTION. as to set aside the great body of external evidence, whereby all alike are ascribed to St John the Apostle. VY. The theory has been advanced in modern times, that the Revelation may be the work of the Apostle, but that if so the Gospel and Epistles cannot be: that they may at most be writ- ten by John the Presbyter, or some one else at Ephesus who inherited a genuine apostolic tradition. But to this the total absence of ancient support is an enormous objection. The question of the authorship of the Johannine writings was dis- cussed, from the second century onwards, both from a theological and from a critical point of view. Every theory was suggested but this: this could not fail to have been suggested, if there had been the smallest thread of tradition that could be discovered in its favour. No doubt the Revelation is rather more like than the Gospel to what we might have expected to be the work of the Galilean Apostle, the Son of Thunder: but the notion that, within 50 years of the Apostle’s death—probably within 18—-! the Gospel was accepted as his, when it was not his, becomes all the more incredible, if there was a genuine work of his current in the same churches where the other was first circulated. The internal evidence, moreover, for the apostolic authorship of the Gospel, though not obvious, is on the whole preponde- rating: on this question see the Prolegomena to the Gospel. If therefore the unity of authorship of the two be denied, it must be the Revelation that is non-apostolic. We return therefore to the decisive question, “Do St Dionysius’ arguments prove diversity of authorship, in the face of the strong external evidence of unity?” And on the whole, strong as they are, they seem hardly sufficient for this. It is a very extreme measure to set aside contemporary evidence to the authorship of a book; especially of a book ascribed to an author who had been prominent and universally known among the community 1 The Epistle of St Polyearp to the Philippians dates, if entirely genuine, from 1164.p. The writer quotes the First Epistle of St John. Though he does not name the author, this makes it pretty certain that, when he wrote, the Epistle and Gospel were both received as authoritative; while it makes it probable that both were already rightly ascribed to the son of Zebedee. INTRODUCTION, XXXlii who received the book as his. No doubt there would be a real tendency to be over-hasty in assigning to a venerable name a work that claimed, and that deserved, high authority: and thus a really inspired book, written by a namesake of an Apostle, might easily be ascribed to the Apostle by future generations: but hardly by the generation that had known the Apostle him- self, and received from him his genuine writings. Moreover, strong as is the internal evidence agaznst the unity of authorship, it is not altogether so strong as it seems at first sight: while internal evidence for the unity is by no means wanting. The arguments of St Dionysius, and of other critics who have maintained his view, may be divided under two heads, (a) the unlikeness of style and grammar, and (b) the unlikeness of theological terms and ideas, between the Revelation and the other Johannine writings. Indeed, a third element of unlikeness is sometimes alleged, between the moral tone and temper of the two writers. But this is too delicate a consideration, too much a matter of subjective feeling, for much weight to be given to it: and, as a matter of fact, it is not put forward by those who have the best right to be heard. The character of a saint, at least of the greatest saints, is a com- plex and many-sided one: those who know most of the mind of the Spirit, and the saintly character which is His work, do not find much difficulty in forming a harmonious conception of the character of St John!1, while taking in, as one element, his author- ship of the Revelation. And in fact, it is quite a mistake to think that the Apostle of love was incapable of severe condem- nation. Not to mention the imperfectly disciplined temper shewn in St Luke ix. 54%, we see in the Gospel itself, in the Epistles, and in the best authenticated traditions of his later life’, 1 See Keble’s stanza on the title-page of this book, and the whole hymn containing it. 2 Possibly ib. ver. 49; St John was not less forward than the other Apostles in silencing the unknown man, though he appears to have been quicker than they to discern that the Lord was not certain to approve their zeal. 3 B.g. the story of his fleeing from Cerinthus in the bath, up. 5. Tren. 11. iii. 4. XXXIV INTRODUCTION. that his zeal could be stern, even fierce, upon occasion. See in the Gospel i. 10, 11, ii. 24—5, iii. 18, 19, iv. 20, v. 14, 388—47, vi. 70, vii. 7, viii. 15, 21—24, 38—47, ix. 39—41, x. 26, xii, 37—43, 48: in the First Epistle ii. 15—19, 22, ili. 1 fin., 8, 13—15, iv. 3, 5, v. 16 fin.: in the Second, ver. 10, and in the Third, vv. 9, 10; as evidence that the Evangelist sees nothing inconsistent with the “spirit he is of” in the stern condemnation of sin and unbelief or misbelief, either by the Saviour or by himself in His name. On the other hand, the tender charity of the Evangelist is not absent from the Apocalypse, though it may be admitted that the book is, in its primary character, a vision of judgement : see 1. 5 fin., 9, vii. 14—17, xxi. 3, 4, besides many other passages where the tenderness, if less unmixed, is perceptible. When we come to theological conceptions it is to be remem- bered that as a reverent Christian temper will expect and find substantial unity of doctrine in all New Testament writers, differences in the way of presenting doctrine will have more importance for a believer than for a rationalist. For instance, a rationalist, who thought that the Apocalypse and the Gospel both contained a doctrine of the Person of the Lord Jesus not to be found in other books of the New Testament, would find in this a presumption of unity of authorship; while a believer would attach more weight in proportion to the fact that the Seer leans much more upon Old Testament prophecy than the Evangelist. Subject to this it may be said that the differences in the manner of presenting truth, though real, are not decisive against the unity of authorship. In one great and important point the two books do coincide not only in their doctrine but in the method of presenting it. It is in these books only, that the name “The Word” is ascribed to the Lord Jesus. It is true, that the coincidence is not entire: in the Revelation (xix. 18) He is called “the Word of God:” in the Epistle (i. 1) “the Word of life,” if there the term be used personally: and in the Gospel “the Word” absolutely; but there the context suggests that if the ellipsis be filled up, it can only be in the same manner as in the Revelation. The case is similar as regards the description of the Son of INTRODUCTION. XXXV God as a Lamb. Is, liii. 7 is quoted in Acts viii. 32; and He is likened to a lamb in 1 Pet. i. 19: but He is not called a Lamb except in John i. 29, 36 and in the Apocalypse passim. But in the Gospels (and in the other passages) the word is ᾿Αμνός : in the Apocalypse it is ᾿Αρνίον, which is used in the Gospel, xxi. 15, not of Christ but of members of the Church. Of the 18 or 19 characteristic Johannine phrases enumerated by Dionysius, we certainly meet with few in the Revelation in exactly the same form or with the same frequency: but, in some form, we meet with nearly all. (1) We never have the phrase “eternal life,” but we constantly hear of “life” as an attribute of heavenly gifts—the Book of Life (cf. Phil. iv. 3), the Crown of Life (cf. James i. 12), the Tree of Life, and the Water of Life; which last only differs in construction, not in sense, from St John’s Gospel iv. 10—14, vii. 38. (2) The word “light” occurs rarely, and hardly ever in a directly spiritual sense: yet xxi. 11, 14 shew that the image was one that seemed to the Seer natural and appropriate. (3) “Darkness” does not occur as a substan- tive, and the cognate verbs in viii. 12, ix. 2, xvi. 10 are images of punishment rather than of sin. (4) ᾿Αλήθεια does not occur, nor does ἀληθής. But the rarer word ἀληθινός is characteristic of all the Johannine writings, and rare in the rest of the N.T. As an epithet of God or His Son, we meet it in the Gospel vii. 28, xvii. 3, and virtually i. 9, vi. 32, in the Ep. 1. v. 20 (three times), and in the Revelation iii. 7, 14, vi. 10, xix. 11: nowhere else but 1 Thess. i. 9. And the use of the word in the Gospel xix. 35 is very like that in Rev. xix. 9, xxi. 5, xxii. 6. (5) “Grace” is not really a frequent word in St John. Except in the salutation at the head of the second Epistle, which is paralleled by Rev. i. 4, xxii. 21, we have it only in the Gospel i. 14—17. Hence it proves nothing that it does not (except in the two places cited) occur in the Revelation, (6) “Joy,” and especially the phrase “joy fulfilled” is, on the contrary, a phrase characteristic of the Gospel and Epistles, and absent from the Revelation. Even the verb “rejoice” is rare; it occurs only twice (xi. 10, xix. 7), and only once of holy joy. Here then is a real diversity. (7) “The flesh and blood” of the Lord are mentioned in the Gospel i. 14, REVELATION d XXXVI INTRODUCTION. ‘ vi. 51 sqq., xix. 34, in the Epistles 1. 1. 7, iv. 2, v. 6—8, τι. 7. For the most part, these passages relate to the doctrine of the Incarnation and—what is closely connected with this—the doctrine of the Sacraments: the latter subject is not mentioned in the Revelation, and the word “flesh” is not used in connexion with the former. But in Ep. 1. i. 7 we have a closer parallel in thought and imagery to Rev. vii. 14, xxii. 14 (true text) than anywhere else in the N.T.: see also i. 5 (whatever be the true reading) and v. 9. (8) The word “judgement” is as frequent in the Revelation as in the Gospel, more so than in the Epistle: and the thought of the Divine Judgement is, of course, all-per- vading. It is a question of interpretation, not a self-evident point of style, whether the natwre of the Divine Judgement is conceived in quite the same way in the different books. (9) "Adeois τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν as a phrase does not occur in the Revelation nor in the Gospel or Epistles: in the Gospel how- ever we have ἀφιέναι τὰς ἁμαρτίας in xx. 23, and in the First Epistle in i. 9, ii. 12: and it is this, doubtless, that St Dionysius is thinking of. The zdea of course is frequent throughout the N. T.—certainly not absent in the Revelation. (10) “The love of God,” as distinct from that of Christ (see i. 5, ili. 9, and, with a verbal variation found also in the Gospel, iii. 19) is only spoken of once, and that indirectly, in the Revelation (xx. 9). Here then is a real difference of manner and language—not of temper nor of theological thought, for God’s electing love, as the first source of man’s salvation, is as plainly set forth in Rev. xiii. 8, xvii. 8, xx. 15 as anywhere in Scripture. (11) The command to “love one another” is probably, though not certainly, on the same footing. The “love” of ii. 4, 19 may be mutual brotherly love, but probably is special love to Christ. If so, here is a very great difference indeed from St John’s acknowledged writings—Christian love or charity being abso- lutely unnamed. (12) The phrase “keeping His Command- ments,” on the contrary, is as emphatic if not as frequent in the Revelation as in the Gospel and Epistle: see xii. 17, xiv. 12 (not xxii. 14; even if the received text were right, the phrase in it is varied). (13—15) The “world” is never used in the Revelation INTRODUCTION. XXXVii in an ethical sense, only in a physical (xiii. 8, xvii. 8: xi. 15 is not really an exception): and the “Devil” and “ Antichrist” are usually designated, not by those names (see however xii. 9, xx. 2), but as “the Dragon” and “the Beast.” As however the whole subject of the book is, God’s judgement on the sinful world, on the Devil, and on Antichrist, this difference is no evidence at all against unity of authorship. Of course the two books differ in kind and method; and, allowing for this, we find a unity not a diversity between their thoughts. (16) “The promise of the Spirit,” spoken of in the Gospel cc. xiv.—xvi. &. is not men- tioned in similar terms in the Revelation: and “the seven Spirits of God” of Rev. i. 4, iii. 1, iv. 5, v. 6 are decidedly un- like the Gospel in language, whatever be the relation between the two theologically. “The Spirit,” of the Epistles to the Churches (ii. 7, &c.) and of xiv. 13, xxii. 17, is indeed spoken of in a way like enough to that of the Gospel and Epistles: but the likeness is not greater than the common belief of the whole Church would necessitate. On the other hand, there is a likeness perhaps rather more individual between Ep. 1. iv. 1-—6, and Rey. xvi. 13, 14. (17) The word “adoption” is nowhere used in the Johannine writings, being in the N. T. peculiar to St Paul. We have the thought of sonship in Rev. xxi. 7; but it is decidedly commoner in the Gospel and Epistle, where also it appears as a present blessing, while in the Apocalypse it seems to be re- served for the world to come. Here then the discrepancy, though not very great, is real. (18) The word “faith” occurs four times in the Revelation (ii. 18, 19, xiii. 10, xiv. 12), once in the First Epistle (v. 4), and nowhere in the Gospel. Here St Dionysius fails to notice that while he is speaking of the substantive πίστις, the Evangelist uses the verb πιστεύω: it is quite true that the verb is more prominent in the Gospel and the Epistle than the substantive is in the Revelation; but the complete absence of the substantive from the Gospel and of the verb from the Revelation is hardly more than an accident in either case. (19) The names of “the Father” and “the Son” are never coupled as correlative, or used absolutely, in the Reve- lation, as they are constantly in the Gospel and Epistles, and d 2 ΧΧΧΥΠΙ INTRODUCTION. even in our Lord’s saying reported in St Matt. xi. 27, St Luke x. 22. The nearest approach is xiv. 1 (true text). Christ is called “the Son of God” in ii. 18, and speaks of “ My Father,” as in the Gospels, in ii. 27, iii. 5, 21: but such expressions as these, and i. 6, belong to Christian theology, not Johannine phraseology. On the whole then it appears that the difference of ideas is much less extensive than it seems. In the points numbered (3), (6), (10), (11), and perhaps (9), (16), (17) there is a real difference in the thoughts, but otherwise the matter resolves itself mainly into a difference of language—sometimes so merely a matter of style and grammar as that one book has an abstract word and the other the cognate concrete. (b) Thus we pass to the other branch of the argument—the unlikeness in style and language of the Revelation to the other Johannine-writings. Now this unlikeness is undeniable, though it has been overstated, and some people, by refuting over-state- ments, have seemed to minimise it. It may perhaps be said that St Dionysius overstates it, not by exaggerating (as some modern critics have done) the peculiarities and harshnesses of the Reve- lation, but by overestimating the literary power shewn in the Gospel and Epistles. It is quite true, that the author of these has a sufficient mastery of language for the adequate expression of his sublime and profound thoughts. Moreover, he writes in correct grammatical Greek, with less trace of Hebrew idiom than most of the N. T. writers: and he is rather fond of refining a point, sometimes of some theological importance, e.g. vill. 58, by the use of some delicate distinction of the Greek language, often quite untranslateable: e.g. ἐρωτᾶν and αἰτεῖν in ch. xvi., ποι- paive and βόσκειν, ἀγαπᾶν and φιλεῖν in ch. xxii, And yet 1 These words all occur in sayings of the Lord, and, even when they can be translated into Aramaic so as to shew the distinction, it never seems as though the Aramaic were the original. This so far tends to prove that the Lord and His Disciples, including the Evan- gelist, spoke Greek freely and habitually though not exclusively. There is evidence that the Rabbis objected to written Aramaic trans- lations of the Old Testament, on the ground that the Greek translations were all that was wanted. If all classes in Palestine above the lowest INTRODUCTION. “πεῖς he does not write like a master of the Greek language. He does not write in the literary dialect of his time, echoing the language of the classical period, as St Luke does when he chooses: he does not, like the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, write under the influence of the Alexandrine school of Hellenising Jewish literature: if his theology has something in common with Philo’s, his style is unaffected by him. He says what he has to say in short, weighty, simple and rather unconnected sentences: his Greek is correct, because he never ventures on constructions complicated enough to risk a blunder. The language of the Apocalypse, on the other hand, is fairly characterised by Dionysius. The Greek indeed is not so un- grammatical as it seems, nor are all its offences against the laws of grammar to be ascribed to ignorance or inability to write correctly: see i. 4 (true text) for a solecism obviously conscious and intentional. Moreover the language has laws of its own (e.g. as to the apposition of nouns, the connexion of participles with finite verbs) which, though they are not the laws recognised by classical or even by Hellenistic Greek, still are laws of language, and are observed with fair consistency. Still the fact remains that the Apocalypse is written in a lan- guage which, however well adapted to its subject and purpose, cannot be called good Greek, even when tried by the peculiar standard applied to the New Testament. It seems the work of a man who thinks in Hebrew, and turns the Hebrew sen- tences embodying his thoughts into Greek, not according to the traditional rules by which, since the composition of the Sep- tuagint, a compromise had been made between the genius of the two languages, but quite independently, by rules of his own making. Some of the grammatical peculiarities of the book will be pointed out in the Notes: it is impossible to discuss them fully here. With a few exceptions (see on xii. 7) they do: not affect translation. It must suffice here to say, that primd facie the style of the Revelation is so utterly unlike that of St John’s were bilingual, it was of course much easier for devout persons to learn to read the Old Testament in Greek than in unpointed Hebrew, xl INTRODUCTION. Gospel and Epistles, as to make it all but incredible that they are the work of the same author!. We say all but incredible : for it is just conceivable that a man may change his style entirely, so that his writings of different periods shall seem like the writings of different men?. As Greek is the original language of the discourses of the Fourth Gospel, those who believe that Aramaic was practically the one popular language in Palestine must conclude that they are at most inspired paraphrases of the thoughts of the Lord. Upon this hypothesis it might not be impossible to reconcile the conflict between external and internal evidence by assigning the Apocalypse and the other Johannine writings to quite different periods. If we suppose (see the next chapter) that the Reve- lation was written by St John the Apostle between a.p. 68—70, and the Gospel and Epistles a.p. 80—100, we get a credible view of the history of the Apostle’s mind, or at least of his style. A Jew of Palestine, habitually familiar with both the biblical Hebrew and the Aramaic vernacular, he was perhaps altogether ignorant of Greek till the age of 50 or 60. Then, being called on to take the pastoral charge of Greek-speaking Churches, he addressed them in their own language, which he had learnt as far as he could: but he refused to let his imperfect knowledge of the language hamper or even modify his expression of the message entrusted to him: he would say what he had to say somehow, even if he did not know how to say it in gram- matical Greek. But, when he had lived from ten to thirty years in the midst of these Greek-speaking Churches, he learnt 1 This inference is hardly shaken by the noteworthy though inconspicuous coincidences detected by Weiss, some of which have been mentioned in the notes. Upon almost any hypothesis the Johannine writings are the peculiar treasure of the Church of Ephesus: such similarities might therefore be explained on the hypothesis of Weisziicker that the Revelation and the Gospel are both works of the school of St John. 2 The style of Carlyle in his early writings is comparatively simple and conventional: his abrupt and vivid mannerism developed itself later. Again, it would be doubtful ἃ priori, if the facts were not certain, whether the same man could have written the limpid verse of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience and the Ossianic prose of his Apocalyptic books, j INTRODUCTION. xli their language thoroughly, and became able to compose in it with vigour and correctness, if not with the mastery of a native. It is quite true that “the Greek of the Gospel and Epistle is not the Greek of the Apocalypse in a maturer state” (Alford), but it is conceivable that the man who had the one to unlearn might learn the other. The alternative, if both groups of writings be rightly ascribed to the Apostle, is to suppose that the Gospel and Epistles repre- sent his habitual style in which he spoke simply and easily so that his amanuenses or editors had no difficulty in smoothing away little incorrectnesses, if there were any, while the Apoca- lypse represents his language when still exalted by his visions: at such times, it may be, his sense of the sublime overstrained his knowledge of Greek, and disciples hesitated to correct the words of one who was plainly speaking in the Spirit. CHAPTER II. DATE AND PLACE OF COMPOSITION. THE book itself tells us (i. 9) where the vision recorded in it was seen: it does not follow that the record was written in the same place. Such is, however, the probable conclusion. The English reader might indeed understand from the words “T was in the isle” that the writer was no longer there: and tradition, such as it is, seems to regard the book as written after the Seer’s release. But the indications of the book itself are decidedly in favour of the composition in Patmos. ᾿Ἐγενόμην ev τῇ νήσῳ really means, “I had come to be in the island,” and does not in the least imply that he had left it: just as Daniel might equally have written “I became dumb” (x. 15) if, like Ezekiel and Zacharias, he had continued so for a long time, and had written in that state. And ini. 11, 19, xiv. 13, xix. 9, xxi. 5, and still more x. 4, it seems almost implied that the successive visions were written down as fast as they were seen; see how- ever note on x. 4. Moreover the command to write and send to the Seven Churches seems inconsistent with the Seer being, at xlii INTRODUCTION. the time of writing, resident at one of them and free to visit.the rest personally: and the style of the book, so far as any argu- ment can be built on it, suggests that it was written in the same ecstatic state of mind in which the vision was unquestionably seen. Altogether, it seems most probable that the book was written at Patmos, but the point is one of no great importance. This cannot be said of the question of the date; which is much disputed, with strong arguments on both sides. We have already seen (p. xvii.) that there is very strong external evidence for ascribing the Apocalypse to the last three or four years of the Apostle’s life, A.D. 95—98. “It was seen,” says St Irenaeus, “at the end of the reign of Domitian;” if it was not written till his return from exile, this was probably in the reign of Nerva. It is needless to quote later writers who say the same, for it is probable that most if not all of them derived their belief from this passage of Irenaeus. But it is certain, that his testimony was generally accepted by the Church at large, and that there is no trace of controversy as to the date of the work, independent of the controversy as to its authorship. Nevertheless, there are statements in early Christian writers which seem to shew that the tradition on this point was not absolutely unanimous. Several of the earliest who refer to St John’s exile avoid naming the emperor who condemned him, while the earliest of all who refer to the book do not, as it happens, mention the fact of the exile. If the evidence of St Irenaeus is not exactly contradicted, still less can we say that it is confirmed. The evidence nearest in time to his is negative and cannot be strongly pressed, but upon the whole harmonises with the date under Domitian. St Clement of Alexandria introduces into his treatise Tis ὁ σωζόμενος πλούσιος ; ἃ μῦθος, in the way which was fashionable with philosophers since the time of Prodicus and Plato. This μῦθος, which he assures us is something more}, 1 μῦθον οὐ μῦθον ἀλλ᾽ ὄντα λόγον (Clem. Q. D. S. xurt. [45 B]; Hus. H. E. 111. xxiii. 4) may, like ‘a real story,’ mean anything from a well-known legend about a real person to an accurate statement of historical fact. INTRODUCTION. xliii is the beautiful and often-repeated story of St John reclaiming a young convert who had become a robber chieftain. He dates the beginning of the story “when, after the death of the tyrant, he had returned from the isle of Patmos to Ephesus.” Now we know that Domitian sentenced many Christians to banish- ment, and that they were released after his death by his suc- cessor Nerva: moreover, Domitian’s character, and that of his government, was far more likely to make a Greek writer describe him as a “tyrant” than that of any other early emperor. The only other emperor whose victims we can suppose to have been, as a matter of course, released on his death was Nero: he cer- tainly did persecute the Christians, but we do not hear of banish- ment as ever inflicted by him, as it certainly was by Domitian. Yet Clement’s story that follows seems far more consistent with a date under (we may say) Vespasian than under Nerva or Trajan. At the later date, St John must have been at least ninety years old, and it is most improbable that his bodily vigour can have been unimpaired. In fact, a still better known legend (though not resting on equally early authority?) describes him as being, for some time before his death, entirely decrepit, though fully retaining his mental faculties. But St Clement (and here all tradition agrees with him) describes the Apostle after his exile as making Ephesus indeed his head-quarters, but travelling thence in all directions, “in some places to establish bishops, in some to arrange whole churches, and in some to ordain by lot (?) [κλήρῳ κληρώσων] one or more of those indicated by the Spirit.” Some months, at least, are implied to have been thus spent: some years seem to be required for the instruction of the young man, his gradual fall into vice, and the time when he is recognised by the Church as “dead to God.” But at the end of this time, we find that the local Church, “when some occasion arose, again summoned John:” and not only does he readily make the journey when summoned, but, as soon as 1 Under the later Empire the word “tyrant” came to be used as modern historians use ‘‘usurper.’”’ In this sense, neither Nero nor Domitian can be so called, 2 The legend of ‘Little children, love one another” is told by no extant author before St Jerome. ἘΣ ss INTRODUCTION. he hears of the fall of his disciple, he rides off on horseback to the mountains to seek for him. When the robbers have seized him and (presumably) taken his horse, their captain recognises him and, from shame, takes to flight: then no doubt it is thought remarkable that the Apostle “pursued him at full speed, forgetting his old age:” but this, which would be remark- able in a man of 70, is all but incredible in a man of 971. And finally, it is implied that, before he was restored to the Church, the robber had to pass through a long course of penance through which the Apostle was able to guide and assist him. Tertullian, in a work apparently orthodox and therefore early (Praescr. Haer. 36), which Fuller and Noeldechen date 199 Α.}.; says that at Rome “the Apostle John, after he had been plunged in burning oil without suffering anything, was banished to an island.” He mentions this in close connexion with the martyr- doms of SS. Peter and Paul, which certainly took place under Nero: still it cannot be said that he implies that it was at the same time. But St Jerome (adv. Jov. i. 26) quotes Tertullian as saying that, “being put by Vero into a jar of boiling oil, he came out cleaner and more vigorous than he went in.” Now St Jerome was quite capable of lax quotation, of improving upon his authorities, and of confusing what he inferred from them with what they said. But on the other hand, we know that he used works of Tertullian now lost; and that, unless Nero was really men- tioned by Tertullian (or someone else who repeated the same tradition), it would have been far easier to infer from the mention of St John’s banishment that his intended martyrdom took place under Domitian, than from the mention of the other Apostles that it took place under Nero. And the banishment, it is quite plain from the extant passage, followed immediately on the miraculous escape from death? 1 If we consider, not St John’s appearance in modern pictures, but that he was called to the work of an Apostle at least a year before the Crucifixion, then, as the latter probably took place in a.p. 29, we can hardly date the Apostle’s birth later than a.p. 5. 2 Traces are found in later writers of a tradition ascribing the Apostle’s banishment to Nero: but they associate with his banish- INTRODUCTION. xlv Origen, in his commentary on St Matthew xx. 22 sqq., speaks of “tradition” as teaching that “the Emperor of the Romans condemned John, being a witness” (or “martyr”) “for the word of truth, to the isle of Patmos. John,” he continues, “teaches us about his own martyrdom, not telling who condemned him, saying ‘I John...was in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ’ (Rev.i.9). And he seems to have seen the Revelation in the island.” Here it is implied that there was a tradition about St John’s banishment, independent of the book itself: perhaps also, that this tradition stated the name of the Emperor who condemned the Saint. But, if Origen knew a tradition on this subject, he does not give it: and, in default of evidence to the contrary, it is presumable that the tradition was the usual or Irenaean one—that if it named anybody it named Domitian. St Epiphanius twice (Haer. li. 12, 33) ascribes St John’s banishment to Claudius, dating his return also in the same reign. In the former place he says that, “in his advanced old age, after 90 years of his life, after his return from Patmos, which took place under Claudius Caesar, he wrote the Gospel.” The simplest explanation of this strange statement is that the writer took from one authority that the Gospel was written after the return from Patmos in advanced old age, and from another that the banishment was the act of Claudius, or perhaps that the Revela- tion was made in his reign. Our only reason for supposing that the Roman government had begun to take notice of Christianity is the statement of Suetonius that it had occasioned disturbances among the Jews of Rome, which led to their banishment. It is true that Epiphanius does not, like Origen and, by implication, Clement and Tertullian, ascribe the banishment to the personal act of the Emperor: he or his authority may have meant that ment the composition not of the Apocalypse but of the Gospel; the latter must be almost certainly of the age of Domitian. These stories seem therefore to have their roots, not in any real tradition reaching back to the time when the facts were known, but to an unreal conventional treatment of sacred history, whereby it was attempted to supply the missing links between the age of the New Testament and that of the fully constituted Church, xlvi INTRODUCTION. when Claudius banished the Jews from Rome the Proconsul of Asia banished St John from Ephesus. Of course the narrative in the Acts leaves no room for any event of the kind: and it is not worth while to guess that Nero is really meant, though of course he took the name of Claudius from his adoptive father, for in fact neither he nor anyone else used the name. Charles I. might have been called Charles IT. because his father was christened Charles James, but in fact he never was. The only reason for attaching any weight to the mention of Claudius in St Epiphanius is that he, according to Lipsius, may have been using at first or second hand some apocryphal acts drawn up under the name of Leucius, a real or imaginary disciple of St John, which Zahn thinks may be as old as St Irenaeus. A gnostic writer of that date was still in a position to collect and distort genuine traditions. It is out of the question that the Revelation as a whole should be so early. Grotius, whose chrono- logical analysis of the visions is rather too mechanical, placed the Vision of the Seven Seals under Claudius, identifying the famine foretold by Agabus with that foretold under the Third Seal. Anyone who conjectured that St John prophesied from the days of Claudius to the days of Domitian and received the command, in the days of the latter, to gather all his revelations into one book and send them to the Seven Churches, might reconcile Leucius and St Irenaeus. The commentary, which goes by the name of St Victorinus, certainly seems to confirm the tradition of St Irenaeus. We have the distinct statement that the Revelation was given in the reign of Domitian, and that the Gospel was written after- wards. Such a statement of itself seems almost too precise to be credible, for Domitian’s persecution fell in the close of his reign, and the Gospel cannot have been written afterwards: according to Irenaeus and all authorities St John only just lived into the reign of Trajan, so on this hypothesis the Revelation and Gospel were written so close together that it is hard to see how it could have been known which was written first. Did any fourth century writer know confidently whether St Paul wrote to the Galatians before or after the Corinthians? to the Philippians INTRODUCTION. xlvil before or after the Ephesians and Colossians? On the other hand, if the two works belonged to quite different periods of the Apostle’s life, there would have been no more difficulty in re- membering the distinction between them than there would have been (even apart from internal evidence) in remembering that between the Pastoral Epistles and those written before St Paul’s imprisonment. Possibly a tradition that the Gospel was written after the return from banishment in Patmos (where the Revela- tion was seen), but before the death of Domitian, might have perpetuated itself alone. In fact we find the statement of date associated with an interpretation of xvii. 10, which, unacceptable as it is, has very much the appearance of being as old as the reign of Trajan. The “Seven Kings” are identified as Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus (“five are fallen”): “one is,” Domitian, “the other is not yet come, and when he cometh, he must continue a little space,” i.e. Nerva, who only reigned two years. To a dis- interested reader this explanation needs no refutation. On what principle is the enumeration of the Emperors of Rome (if these be meant by the “kings”) to begin with the ephemeral princes of disputed title who struggled with one another through the eighteen months after Nero’s death? In popular apprehen- sion, among the provincials at least, the first Roman Emperor was Julius Caesar: in strict constitutional law, the first who held the empire as an established form of government was Augustus. The series of Emperors might legitimately begin with either of these, but with no one later. Obviously there is one only excuse for the interpretation: the interpreter started with a certainty that the Revelation was seen under Domitian and then reckoned backwards and forwards. Even then it is startling that he can have imagined that Trajan was the eighth king, the beast who was and is not, who cometh up out of the deep and goeth into perdition. Trajan was according to the unanimous tradition of antiquity the best of the Roman Emperors: Tertullian, who was never tempted by excess of charity, finds no difficulty in making Trajan illustrate his theory that the good Emperors mitigated the bad laws against xlvili INTRODUCTION. the Christians. It cannot be imagined that an inspired Seer should have meant to represent him as the great enemy of God and righteousness. It is equally incredible that a saint who suffered in the Diocletian persecution, or a commentator writing after it, should have devised such a perverse misconception out of his own head. But a contemporary who had seen St Ignatius sent, possibly by Trajan’s personal order, to feed the lions at Rome, who saw the outbreak of a second and probably a greater Jewish war, who saw Trajan’s eastern triumphs ending and his embarrass- ments beginning might be forgiven for a mistaken hope that the ruin αὐ the Fourth Monarchy which had seemed so near after the fall of Nero was to be accomplished under an Emperor who seemed far more than Nero to be the very incarnation of Rome, to gather up in himself all the terrible power of the Beast whose deadly wound was healed. One cannot even say such an ex- planation was incredible, while the rebellion of Barcochba seemed to zealots to be shaking the throne of Hadrian. After that time it was increasingly difficult for a theory which identi- fied the arch enemy with Trajan to originate: the wonder is that it survived. Marcus Aurelius, Severus and Decius, to say nothing of Galerius and Maximin inflicted far more upon the Church than Trajan. Now it is obvious that the contemporaries of Trajan or even Hadrian, though their wishes might warp their interpretation of the Apocalypse, are even better authorities than St Irenaeus for its date. They are it would seem much more deeply committed than he is to the belief that the Seer saw his great vision under Domitian. Yet their witness is at variance with what in ancient and modern times has been accepted as the obvious sense of the prophecy of the “Seven Kings.” If the principle of inter- pretation here adopted is right—if they are individual Roman Emperors—it can hardly be doubted that they stand for the Jirst seven, and that the Apocalypse was seen in the days of the sixth—though there is room for difference of opinion who the sixth is, ae υὐν Διὰ Oe eS ee ee οὐ ee ra Po ὍΝ ΤῊΣ oe eee οι INTRODUCTION. xlix If we reckon from Julius he must be Nero: if we reckon from Augustus he may be either Galba or Vespasian: for there is no reason to suppose that the three claimants of empire, Galba, Otho and Vitellius, were counted as actual emperors. . His successor is to have a short but (apparently) not a merely ephemeral reign: the eighth will be an Antichristian revival of one of his predecessors. Probably we are to reckon from Augustus: for there can be little doubt that ch. xvii. is later than the death of Nero. If we suppose that the Apocalypse is the record of a single vision its date will probably in any case be between the death of Nero and the destruction of Jerusalem, so that the distinction between Galba and Vespasian is chiefly im- portant as affecting the authority of the Seer: if Galba be the sixth king the vision received no obvious fulfilment; if he be Vespasian the seventh is the shortlived Titus, and the eighth Domitian, a tyrant and a persecutor, who was recognised both by Christians and Pagans as a revival of Nero. Apparently in ch. xi. Jerusalem and the Temple are spoken of as still existing: even in xvi. 19 the city appears to be standing. In ch. xi. we cannot be sure how much is to be understood literally, how far “the Holy City” and ‘‘the Temple of God” are to be understood spiritually of their evangelical antitypes. But on the whole it appears simplest to take the literal sense, which appears to be the traditional one. If so the vision must be earlier than the destruction of Jerusalem, and is probably earlier than the outbreak of the war. What is foretold is not the destruction of the city, as in the prophecy of the Mount of Olives, but its profanation as in Daniel ix. The close parallel resemblance between the imagery in the vision of the seven seals and that in our Lord’s prophecy (Matt. xxiv. and parallels) gives weight to the respectable traditional evidence for referring that vision to the fall of Jerusalem. If ch. xi. falls early in the reign of Nero, ch. xvii. may fall late in the reign of Vespasian : ch. xiii. contains much that would be easiest to understand if it was written under Domitian, who systematically exacted the divine honours which Nero had been content to invite and Caligula to claim by fits and starts. ] INTRODUCTION. On the hypothesis of the unity of the Apocalypse, we seem to meet with the same conflict between external and internal evidence as to the date, which we met before as to the author- ship. Ifthe Revelation as a whole was written by the Apostle John at some time between the death of Nero in June A.D. 68, and the capture of Jerusalem in August A.D. 70: and if the Gospel and Epistles were much later works of the same author, we should be able to harmonise most of the evidence, but not all. We should be able to accept all the mass of well-attested evidence which, as we have seen, we have to the authorship of the book: while its peculiarities and the difficulties in the way of referring it to the Evangelist, would be at any rate less per- plexing. We should still have to explain or to leave unex- plained the internal evidence that the Lord spoke freely in Greek, which, if so, His Disciples must have understood, and the external evidence of St Irenaeus as to the date as well as any traditions which may underlie the perplexing statements of St Victorinus and St Epiphanius. As to St Irenaeus it is possible to account for his statement about the date without supposing it to be a mere blunder. If the story in Tertullian be true, it is likely enough to have happened, as St Jerome understood, under Nero. Savage punishments like those mentioned were inflicted by him on the Christians, and turned the popular hatred against them into pity; and it is credible that, when one of the victims was saved by a miracle or what looked like one, public opinion should have enforced a commutation of his sentence to simple exile. But, as exile was not a penalty often inflicted in Nero’s persecution, while it was in Domitian’s, Irenaeus may have assumed that St John’s exile took place at the same time as that of other confessors, Or it is possible, that the Apostle was condemned by Domitian, or at least in his name, in the beginning of a.p. 70, when he, after the victory of Vespasian’s army, was the only member of the new imperial family at Rome, and enjoyed the titular office of city praetor. It would then be a comparatively slight error if St Irenaeus, knowing that St John was sent into exile by Domitian, assumed that he was sent at the same time as other INTRODUCTION. li ‘witnesses’, i.e. at the end of Domitian’s own reign, instead of the beginning of his father’s. Most recent critics are disposed to admit both St John’s authorship of the Revelation and its early date. In England, indeed, many, perhaps most, orthodox commentators still ad- here to the Irenaean or traditional date. But it is utterly unfair to suppose that there is any necessary connexion between the interpretation of ch. xvii. mentioned above and the rationalistic views of some of its advocates: as we have seen, believers in the divine truth of the prophecy need be at no loss for seeing how, on this view, it received at least a partial and typical fulfilment. How far that fulfilment was adequate—in what sense this or other predictions of the book have yet been fulfilled, or to what extent they yet remain to be fulfilled— these are questions of interpretation. If the date and circum- stances of the vision can be determined on critical grounds, they will throw some light on the interpretation, when we come to attempt it: but the critical question may be, and ought to be, treated without prejudice from the supposed necessities of exegesis, CHAPTER III. PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION. Every student of the Apocalypse must be aware, that the interpretation of its visions has been a matter of controversy, almost ever since the age when it was written: and in view of this fact, it would clearly be presumptuous to propose any detailed scheme of interpretation with any approach to con- fidence. Still more obviously, it would be beyond the scope of an elementary sketch like the present Introduction, to enter into the controversy, or even to put forward the arguments by REVELATION 8 lii INTRODUCTION. which the various schools have maintained their respective causes. And it would be beyond our limits to trace, in more than the barest outline, the history of opinion on the subject of the interpretation of the book: though that history may serve for a patient student, at once to suggest true principles and to warn him of the need of caution in applying them. The presumptuous confidence with which, a generation or two ago, definite and detailed predictions of the future history of the world were grounded upon the visions of this book, and supposed to enjoy its authority, has now provoked a reaction. Many orthodox readers are content to leave at least the bulk of the book absolutely uninterpreted. The letters to the Seven Churches, it is obvious, are full of moral and spiritual instruc- tion to the Church of all ages: the imagery of the first, fourth, and fifth chapters, perhaps of the twelfth, and certainly of the two last, is so transparent that no believer can fail to see the foundation of our salvation figured in the former, and its con- summation in the latter. But the rest of the book is commonly left unread, or read only with a literary interest, as a phantas- magoria of sublime images: if people are too reverent to regard the book as a riddle without an answer, they treat it as one which they can never hope to guess, but must wait till the answer shall be told. It is however scarcely credible that this can be the right spirit in which to regard any part of God’s Word: it is quite certain, that it is not the spirit in which the author of the Apocalypse expected or intended his own work to be regarded. Plainly, he throughout considers that he is conveying valuable information to his readers: this appears from the very title of the book, and the explanation which follows it in the opening words: see also i. 3, xiii. 9, 10, xix. 9, 10, xx. 6, xxii. 6, 7. It is true, that we are told that certain things contained in the vision are intentionally concealed (x. 4), and that certain others can only be interpreted by a rare gift of discernment (xiii. 18): but the general purport of the prophecy is expected to be intelligible, and most of its details to be instructive, to the Church at large. If then the visions contained in the book were expected and = INTRODUCTION. 11 intended by the author to be intelligible, it is only reasonable to suppose that we shall find them so, if we will read them without prejudice, and from a point of view as near as possible to that of the readers who were addressed in the first instance. For, while it is likely that the book (assuming it to be a truly inspired prophecy of events still in the future) will be of greater value to the generation that sees its complete fulfilment than to any before, it is plain that it was expected to edify its first and immediate recipients: it can scarcely then be unintelligible or useless to the many generations that lie between. I. This may then be taken as the first of the principles to direct us in the attempt to understand the book: its first readers must have had a clue to it. Such a clue may have been furnished in any of three ways—(1) by the Old Testament prophecies which the Seer repeats and makes his own, if we can ascertain the sense in which Jews or Christians of St John’s day understood them; (2) by the oral teaching of St John and other Apostles, or by the earlier writings of the New Testa- ment; (3) by the events of past or contemporary history. (1) The Revelation of St John is full of reminiscences—of what may almost be called imitations—of the prophecies of the Old Testament. In some cases it may sufficiently account for these, that the Seer uses an image or a phrase familiar to his own mind and to the minds of his readers, though not using it exactly in its original sense. But there are other cases—more important if not more numerous—where it is plainly implied that the new prophecy has a meaning analogous to, if not identical with, that of the old: e.g. in ii. 27 the promise of Ps, ii. 9 is applied to the faithful and courageous Christian; but the last words of the verse shew that St John understood the original promise as made not to the Christian but to Christ. On the other hand, it | is quite certain that the Beast described in xiii. 1, 2 is either identical with one, or is an embodiment of all, of the beasts de- scribed in Dan. vii. Again, the “time, times, and half a time” of Rey. xii. 14, and the apparently coincident 42 months or 1260 days (xi. 2, 3, xii. 6, xiii. 5) plainly stand in a close relation with the identical or similar periods in Dan. vii. 25, xii. 7, 11, 12: e2 ᾳ. liv INTRODUCTION. though here it may be said that the earlier prophecy is at least as obscure as the later. In fact, familiarity with Daniel’s pro- phecy, and the generally received interpretation of it, must have made St John’s readers readily understand his prophecy as directed against Rome, and against a person wielding the power of Rome (though the power in his hands was separable from Rome locally), who was to be such an oppressor to the new People of God as Antiochus Epiphanes had been to the old. (2) And such an oppressor—or at least such a blasphemous enemy to God—had been foretold by the Apostles from very early times: more plainly, perhaps, in their oral teaching than in their writings. For the only place where he is clearly fore- told in an apostolic writing earlier than the Revelation is 2 Thess. ii.: and there St Paul seems to use a certain reserve, and certainly refers to his oral teaching as serving to supple- ment what he writes. In this subject, therefore, it seems that the tradition of the early Church is entitled to more than usual authority, as to the interpretation of the designedly obscure pre- dictions of the Apostle’s written words. And here the earliest tradition agrees approximately with the doctrine of the Apoca- lypse, while it is manifestly independent of it. The Beast in the Apocalypse is a support and ally of Rome, yet becomes in the end the enemy of Rome, and his most daring defiance of God is after her fall. The Man of Sin in 2 Thess. is only to be revealed in his full self-deifying lawlessness, when “that — which withholdeth” (variously described as a person or as a power) is taken out of the way: that is, if tradition be trusted, when the Roman Emperor or Empire has been put down. At the same time, the dominion of the Man of Sin is con- nected, not with Rome only but with Jerusalem. This power will be at least as much spiritual as temporal, and thus it affiliates itself as well to the divinely chosen Sanctuary as to the divinely appointed seat of Empire. But in the one case, even more than in the other, his enmity to the divine purpose is as distinctly marked as his desire to shew himself heir to it. “He sitteth in the Temple of God, setting himself forth as God,” INTRODUCTION. lv says St Paul. St John describes how the dead bodies of his victims shall lie ‘fin the street of the great City...where also their Lord was crucified.” And both Apostles tell us, how his power would be supported by the quasi-spiritual evidence of miracles—miracles as striking as those of our Lord Himself, or any of the Prophets before Him, and only distinguished from theirs by the absence of the spirit of charity and of holiness. Looking on to the tradition of the post-apostolic ages, we find that, though the details of apocalyptic interpretation were as obscure, and opinions about them varied as much, as in modern times, yet as to the outline of future events revealed in this Book and elsewhere, there was an agreement complete except in one point (that of the Millennium). From the time of Tertullian and St Hippolytus—not to say of SS. Justin and Trenaeus—we have a consistent expectation of the course of events that will precede the Last Judgement. Their views are not indeed derived from the Apocalypse exclusively, but they almost always give a meaning, and always give the same mean- ing, to its predictions. The Roman Empire was to be broken up into ten kingdoms, bearing (we must understand from Daniel) the same relation to it that the Hellenised kingdoms of the East bore to the Empire of Alexander. Among these king- doms will arise a new Empire, reviving the old pretensions of Rome to world-wide instead of merely local dominion; but instead of resting on law, patriotism, and submission to the will of Providence, this new Empire will have no other basis than the self-will, the self-assertion, at least the self-deification, of its Ruler. He will come (if one may apply to the kingdom of evil the analogies of language used of the Kingdom of God) “in the spiritual power” of Epiphanes and of Nero: he may be called Nero in the sense in which our Lord is in prophecy called David, or His forerunner Elias. He will be a man free from coarse vices, such as hinder the consistent pursuit of any aim, but equally free from any restraint imposed by the fear of God, or by regard for human opinion. Claiming for himself the honour due to God and the supreme obedience due to His Law, he will persecute the Christian Church: his persecution lvi INTRODUCTION. being so relentless, so systematic and well-directed, that the Church would be exterminated did not God supernaturally interpose to “shorten the days.” But, while persecuting Chris- tianity, he will extend a more or less hearty patronage to Judaism, being possibly himself of Israelitish birth, Having in some sense revived the Roman Empire, he will yet shew him- self an enemy to the City of Rome, which will be finally de- stroyed, either by his armies or by the direct act of God: and he will, perhaps on occasion of this destruction, choose Jeru- salem for his seat of empire. To this end he will restore the Jews to their own land: he will perhaps be recognised by them as their Christ: he will restore their Temple, but will make it serve rather to his own glory than to that of the Lord God of Israel. So far, his career has apparently been unchecked. Now God sends against him two Prophets—probably Moses and Elijah, or Enoch and Elijah—who, by their words and miracles, to some extent counteract his. But they will be put to death in his persecution, and then his power will appear finally established: but only for a few days. God will raise them from the dead, and call them up into Heaven: and by this miracle, together with the preaching that preceded their death, the Jews will be converted. Elijah will have fulfilled his destined work, of “turning the hearts of the fathers to the children,” i.e. of God’s old People to His new. Still Antichrist’s universal empire appears scarcely shaken by the secession of the one little nation of Israel: he will assemble the armies of the world for its reconquest, and it will seem far easier for him to reduce his second capital than his first. But when in the Land of Israel, he and his army will be met and destroyed, not in a carnal battle with the forces of Israel after the flesh, but by the power of God in the hand of His Son. Here, according to what seems to be the oldest form of the tradition, and certainly that standing in closest relation to the Apocalypse, follows what is popularly called the Millennium. The whole reign of Antichrist lasted, apparently, but three years and a half: the divine triumph after his overthrow will INTRODUCTION. lvii last for a thousand years. This will begin, perhaps, with the appearance of the Lord Jesus on earth, certainly with the resurrection of the Martyrs, Prophets, and other chief Saints. Whether these remain on earth or no, the condition of the earth is made such that it shall not be an unworthy abode for them. Moral evil, if not annihilated, at least has its power broken. Jerusalem remains what Antichrist had made it—the spiritual and temporal metropolis of the world: but this world- wide power is now in the hands, not of God’s enemy, but of God Himself: and the world under the rule of Jerusalem realises the most glorious prophetic descriptions of the Kingdom of God. Yet this Kingdom of God is not the final and eternal one: indeed some in all ages have been disposed to doubt whether such an earthly Kingdom of God will be established at all. From the time of SS. Jerome and Augustine (the latter dis- tinctly changed the older opinion for this), the general opinion of the Church has been that such a measure of liberty and pre- dominance as has been hers since the conversion of Constantine is the only earthly Kingdom of God to be looked for. And if-- feeling the inadequacy of this fulfilment to the language of St John and other Prophets—we incline to recur to the earlier view, we must confess that even so Pauca tamen suberunt priscae vestigia fraudis. Not only does the natural order of the world go on—with deaths and (what shocked fourth century feeling most) marriages and births occurring; but there must be some root of moral evil remaining, to account for the end of this age of peace. The Devil will at last for a short time recover his power: while the central regions of the world remain faithful to God, the outlying ones are stirred up to revolt against Him, and press in to crush His Kingdom by the brute force of numbers. They are on the point of success—nearer to it, perhaps, than their predecessor Antichrist had been—when they are, like Anti- christ, overpowered by the direct interposition of God. Then, all God’s enemies being subdued, comes the end of all things— the General Resurrection of the Dead, the final Judgement, and the Eternal Kingdom of God. lili INTRODUCTION. (3) This is on the whole the traditional explanation of the Apocalypse: it is at almost all points the obvious one: the only thing which is not obvious is the rebuilding of Jeru- salem by Antichrist, which is nowhere foretold; though it was almost an inevitable hypothesis for interpreters who lived later than Titus or Hadrian, it was difficult to find a place for it, especially if the twelve hundred and sixty days of the Prophecy of the Two Witnesses came before the forty and two months of the persecution of Antichrist. While this view was in possession the interpretation of the Apocalypse hinged on the visions of the Witnesses, the Woman and the Dragon, the Beast and the Harlot: afterwards when the Roman Empire and even the City of Rome were Christian the horizon changed: the Church had no longer cause to cry for vengeance against Babylon: the Kingdom of the World in a real sense had be- come the Kingdom of God and of His Christ, yet the world was sinful and sorrowful still. One effect of this was to dis- credit the Apocalypse: it seemed to have become unmeaning and unreal: it was a relief to reject its Apostolic authorship and its canonical authority: when this feeling gave way to respect for the Churches which adhered to the old tradition, the style of interpretation changed. The literal sense became secondary: instead of looking for a series of definite predictions of the last days interpreters sought mystical meanings for symbols which would be always applicable. The great representative of this tendency in the West was Tyconius, a learned and thoughtful Donatist layman, who in- directly ruled the course of Apocalyptic interpretation from the fourth century to the twelfth. We do not know how far he was original; the explanation of the Woman in Labour as the Church who is always travailing in birth of her children is as old as St Hippolytus. St Jerome in his letter to Anatolius ac- companying a revised and expanded version of the Scholia of St Victorinus gives a long list of authors whom he professes, perhaps truly, to have consulted, but everything which he gives is taken from Tyconius ; and it is the same in the Summa Di- cendorwm, which is preserved by Beatus and is probably by INTRODUCTION. lix St Jerome, as it refers back to the literal sense which was dis- cussed in the Scholia of St Victorinus. The commentary of Tyconius is lost ; but it was clearly the main source of Primasius, an African bishop of the sixth century, of Bede and of a series of homilies (a double recension of which is printed in the Appendix to St Augustine), as well as of Beatus, a Spanish abbot of the eighth century, who reproduces without being startled the conjecture, natural even to a moderate Donatist, that there might be no Church outside Africa. Tyconius himself was a very remarkable interpreter: he was the first to insist on the apparent parallelism between the Seals, the Trumpets, and the Bowls, and this led him to a general theory of recapitulation which was adopted by St Augustine. Again, the view that what is said of Christ may be understood of His mystical body and vice versa, and that the same holds of the Devil and of his kingdom, had at least the advantage of substituting applications of immediate utility for doubtful con- jectures as to the future. Often the individual interpretations are beautiful: e.g. the New Jerusalem is always coming down from Heaven, as often as one of her citizens is born again from above. He anticipated the communion founded by Mr Irving in the thought that each of the Seven Churches typifies a certain class of believers, so that the Epistles to them are of per- ennial application. So too the judgements on the third of the earth are explained by a threefold division of mankind into unbelievers and true and false believers, which shews that he was working his way to something at any rate less narrow than the technicalities on which the Donatists justified their schism. The commentaries of Andreas and Arethas (bishops of Caesarea in Cappadocia in the fifth? and ninth? centuries) are equally mystical but not equally interesting. In their hands the symbolism of the Apocalypse ceases to be suggestive, they find nothing there but the commonplaces of orthodoxy which they bring with them. The same holds good for the most part of Gicumenius, though he contributes something of his own in the conjecture that the Mahommedan invasion is foretold. It cannot be said that the mystical method of inter- lx INTRODUCTION. pretation has become obsolete: in England it is on the whole the method of Isaac Williams, who says that the Seer, when instead of waiting for what should be spoken he turned to see Him Who spoke, sets us an example of how we should study his book. It is also the method of Dr Milligan, a more recent, it may be a more influential expositor; for whom Babylon is the world in the Church, and Satan is bound for a thousand years, i.e. completely bound so that he cannot injure the true believer, while at the same time he is loosed for a little season to work his will on those who turn from the eternal light to the darkness of this perishable world. The continuous historical theory which finds in the Apocalypse @ prophecy of the fortunes of the Church from the time of the Seer to the consummation of all things had its beginning in the Apocalyptic school which grew up beside the Franciscan movement. The opening of the Seven Seals corresponded to seven stages in the development of the Christian Church: St Francis and St Dominic and their orders were the Two Witnesses: the seraphic St Francis was the Angel with the Everlasting Gospel: most important of all, Papal Rome was Babylon, though the Pope was not yet Antichrist and the school as a body looked for an angelic Pope who should re- generate the Church and the world by returning to apostolic poverty. Wyclif in the great schism went so far as to say that Antichrist was divided against himself. Among Protestant interpreters it was long a fixed point that Rome was Babylon and that the Pope was Antichrist, and.as their history had been foretold it was a natural inference that the whole history of the Church had been foretold too; and much ingenuity and some learning were expended in this direc- tion by a school whose most respectable representatives in England were Bishop Newton and Dean Elliott, the author of the well-known Hore Apocalyptice. The strong point of this view is, that it enables us to give a meaning, not merely to every vision, every image, in the Apoca- lypse, but to the order and connexion in which the visions and images are arranged. It is quite certain, that that order is not INTRODUCTION. Ixi arbitrary nor accidental, that the arrangement is (if we may apply the terms of human criticism) as elaborate, as artistic, and as symmetrical as any of the descriptions: and conse- quently it may fairly be held, that the arrangement forms an essential part of the Seer’s teaching, and that no interpretation can be adequate which does not give a reason and a meaning for the arrangement. And the most obvious and natural view of the meaning is, that the arrangement is chronological—that every successive vision is a description, more or less figurative, of events successive to one another in the same order. Yet no one has attempted to carry out this view quite con- sistently, and to interpret every vision as describing an event later than the vision before it. It is quite true that, as a rule, the visions are not only described in successive order, but are felt by the Seer to be successive—in the later ones he refers to the earlier (e.g. xiv. 1 (true text), xx. 2, xvii. 1, xxi. 9). But not only do some of the visions remain in view while later ones have risen which seem to take their place (see xi. 16, 19, xv. 5— 8, xvi. 7, xix. 4): there are cases (e.g. xi. 7, xili. 1—10, xvii. 3) where we seem to have unmistakeably the same figures or events described twice over, with only a difference in the point of view. Hence, some like Tyconius analyse the whole book into groups of visions, each one of which covers the whole range of human history, from the Seer’s time (or even earlier) to the end of the world. This is called “the resumptive theory.” And certainly, it is difficult to understand vi. 12—17 of any- thing except the time immediately before the Last Judgement, or xiv. 14—20 of anything but the Last Judgement itself. Yet, when we find the latter passage immediately followed, not by the “beginning of the eternal rest1,” but by a fresh series of plagues,—which are, we are told, “the last, for in them is ful- filled the wrath of God,’—it is hard to avoid reconsidering the obvious and natural interpretation: and often as the final Judge- ment has been prepared for and worked up to, in no other case do we find anything resembling a description of it, till it is described, quite unmistakeably in xx. 11—15. 1 See note on viii. 1. Ixii INTRODUCTION. The Preterist and Futurist schools had their origin in a reaction against the Continuous Historical. Roman Catholics were of course under the necessity of providing a counter theory of the meaning of .a canonical book of Scripture which was used unsparingly and effectively against Rome ; and Protestants like Grotius, who desired the reunion of Christendom, naturally gave them their support: besides, the difficulty of supposing that the Seer intended to predict events and persons whom he did not name and could not have imagined, grew as the his- torical scheme which was read into his visions became more complicated. When men turned back from the wide field of the history of Christendom to the book itself, the natural prima facie impression which it makes revived. It seemed once more as if the Seer spoke of events to be accomplished in his own day, of a judgement on Jerusalem and Rome, of the reign, the persecution and the doom of Antichrist. The Preterist school, which appeared first, trusted the first half of this impression: they pressed all the passages where the Seer insists that the things of which he speaks must shortly come to pass, they pointed to the terrible judgements which did fall on Jerusalem and even on Rome in that generation, and they more or less explained away all that is said of Antichrist and of the victory over him: for instance Grotius explains the victory of the Rider on the White Horse as the free course of the Gospel after the fall of Nero, which is as inadequate as the continuous historical explana- tion of the Man Child as Constantine, in whom Christianity was exalted to imperial dominion. The Futurist school on the con- trary trusted the second half of the impression: they returned so far as possible to the patristic explanation of the book, dropping for the most part the return of Nero, but retaining the rest of the traditional account of Antichrist. One considerable difficulty of this scheme is that the Seer is made to prophesy not against the Rome and Jerusalem of his own day, but against an apostate Rome and a restored Jerusalem to be revealed in the end of the days, and this though he says repeatedly that the time is at hand. (4) It remains to try to trace the elements of truth in the INTRODUCTION. Ixiii systems of interpretation which have succeeded one another. The mystical system is plainly not exclusive and can coexist with any and every theory of the literal sense (for instance Tyconius’ doctrine of “ recapitulation”): the continuous historical theory as tracing a series of partial fulfilments may be regarded as supplementary to the traditional view which believers will have no difficulty in accepting as in the main the true in- terpretation of the Apocalypse. It is not of course a com- plete interpretation of all its details, but it gives a frame- work, in which every detail may find its place: and for the explanation of details we may be content to wait, till the time shall come when they are manifest to those whose faith sees the consistent fulfilment of the prophecy as a whole. Yet those who have faith to expect the entire fulfilment cannot help asking—indeed they are bound to ask—what special predictions are already fulfilled or on the way to fulfilment, what signs of the coming end are already visible: and so they are led to go over the same ground as those, who, not recognizing the Pro- phets as recipients of a supernatural revelation of the future, are obliged to ask how their predictions were suggested by the circumstances of the present. And if the view be accepted that the Apocalypse was written within a year or two after the death of Nero, circumstances that might have suggested such forecasts are certainly not wanting. Nero himself realises the character of Antichrist in almost every feature. He was a cruel persecutor of Christianity: he was indifferent or even hostile to the national sentiments and national religion of Rome. If he can ever be said to have acted on principle, he did so under the influence of the aesthetic culture of Greece, what religious feeling he had was oriental, perhaps even Jewish : his mistress and empress Poppaea seems to have been a Jewish proselyte. When his loss of the empire was imminent, he spoke of destroying Rome and transferring his throne to Jerusalem; and it was held that his motives for this plan were as much superstitious as political. But in truth Nero was too self-willed to “regard any god:” even the “Syrian goddess,” to whom he had shewn some of the devotion which lxiv INTRODUCTION. he denied to ‘“‘the gods of his fathers,” was discarded before his death: if he did not openly deify himself, like his predecessor Gaius, he shewed himself incapable of hearty worship for any other god but self. According to the traditional view one feature was wanting to complete the resemblance of the two characters. The latter part of Daniel xi. was interpreted of Antichrist: and the view that the “Desire of Women” was an object of worship! was unknown to any ancient expositor but St Ephraem, who probably inherited Jewish traditions through the school of Edessa. In their obvious sense the words imply that the profane king of whom Daniel speaks will be free from sensual vices; and even apart from this Antichrist is to counterfeit sanctity. Nero was enslaved by these vices from boyhood to the end of his life. And, while with this one exception the characters of the two coincide so closely, their careers do not. Nero was a legitimate Roman Emperor, | acknowledged as such by the Apostles themselves: it was in the early days of his reign, that the benefits of the Empire to mankind were most fully realised. And atheist, tyrant and persecutor as Nero was, he certainly did not accomplish half of what the Revelation ascribes to Antichrist. He did not destroy Rome, nor reign and claim divine honours in Jerusalem: at most, it may be believed that he for a moment partially effected the first, and contemplated the second. Neither was he overthrown in the same way as Antichrist. While his generals were engaged in a successful war with the unbelieving Jews, he himself was overthrown by a revolt, or series of revolts, on the part of the army and the Senate—by a course of events in which there was the same mixture of good and evil as in ordinary human action, and in which it is impossible to see any direct or miraculous intervention of God. This admits, however, of a more or less satisfactory reply. The career of Antichrist is the career, not of Nero as known 1 According to St Ephraem the ‘Desire of Women’ was the goddess of Elymais whose temple Antiochus vainly attempted to profane: Ewald more probably suggests Tammuz, whose worship under the name of Adonis was popular at Greek courts. INTRODUCTION. Ixv to us, as a personage of ancient history; nor as known to the Seer, as a personage of recent history, but of Nero as, the Seer thought, he was to be—of Nero risen from the dead, or restored after a period of seeming death. Although there appears to have been no room for reasonable doubt of the fact of Nero’s suicide, there was a widely spread popular belief that he was alive, perhaps in the far east, and that his return from thence might be looked for. During his own generation, this belief gave occasion for pretenders to appear: we hear distinctly of two if not three; one as late as the reign of Domitian, who nearly succeeded in engaging the armies of Parthia in his cause. When it had become manifestly impossible that Nero could, in a merely natural way, be alive and in hiding, still the ex- pectation of his reappearance by no means died out: only it assumed the form of a superstition. Both among heathens and Christians, the expectation continued down to the age of the Barbarian inroads: and among the Christians, it connected itself more or less closely with the expectation of the Anti- christ foretold in the Apocalypse. Was this connexion recog- nised by the Seer of the Apocalypse himself ? We have already had occasion to notice an opinion according to which it was. If the Beast’s seven heads, in xiii. 1, 2, xvii. 10, 11 are rightly understood of individual Emperors of Rome, there can hardly be a doubt that Nero is one of them, and that he is, in some sense, identified with the predicted Antichrist. In all probability, the head “smitten unto death” symbolises the death (not denied to have been real) of Nero: he is reckoned (together with Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, and Claudius) among the five kings that are fallen. But his reappearance as Antichrist is anticipated: after the reign of the contemporary Emperor, and the short one of his immediate successor, will appear “the Beast which was, and is not,” who “both himself is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.” That is, the eighth Roman Emperor will be the revival of one of his pre- decessors (viz. the fifth); only in his revival he will be animated by the spirit of devilish, instead of merely human wickedness, as he will be possessed of devilish instead of merely human power. Ixvi INTRODUCTION. Of course, it is certain that the Roman Empire was not terminated, or the visible kingdom of God established, by a miraculous interposition cutting short the reign of the eighth Emperor of Rome. If the Seer of the Apocalypse commits himself to the assertion that this was destined to happen, it is certain that his prediction failed. This will present, of course, no difficulty either to unbelievers in the communication to the Prophets of supernatural knowledge of the future, or to those who deny the claims of the Apocalypse to the character of a true supernatural prophecy: on either of these principles it is easy to say, “This is what the Seer expected to happen, but it did not.” Does it follow that, if we accept the divine authority of the Revelation made to St John, we must reject this interpretation of his visions, as one not borne out by the events? The analogy of other prophecies will suggest another course. The resemblances between the Nero of history and the Antichrist of prophecy are too close to be accidental: so are the resemblances, it may be added, between several other his- torical characters and Antichrist. On the other hand, Nero and each of these other Antichristian figures differs from the Anti- christ of prophecy in some more or less essential features : and none of them has done the acts, or achieved the career, or met with the end, foretold for him. The inference seems to be, that in these “many antichrists” there have been partzal and typical fulfilments of the prophecies of the Antichrist, in whom they will find their final and exact fulfilment: just as the various Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament have found or will find their final and exact fulfilment in Christ, while many of them were partially fulfilled—some of them even suggested— by events which came to pass in the day of the Prophets. In particular, there is absolutely no room for doubt that this explanation must be applied to the prophecies of the Old Testament which most closely resemble the Apocalypse—those in the seventh, eighth, and eleventh chapters of Daniel. The eighth chapter, and at least part of the eleventh, undeniably describe the reign, the persecution, and the overthrow of Antiochus Epiphanes: but, if these be regarded as having no INTRODUCTION. Ixvii further reference, the latter at least must be condemned as wanting that perfect truth which appears essential to a divinely inspired prophecy. If however we regard Antiochus as a type of Antichrist, it becomes credible—one may even say prob- able—that those parts of the prediction which have not been fulfilled by the one will be by the other. Thus understood, the three separate visions throw light upon one another. In ο. vii. the reference is, apparently, to the final Enemy only—the imagery is almost! exactly that afterwards used by St John in the Apocalypse, and the meaning presumably the same. In c. viii, on the other hand, while the imagery is not indeed identical, but closely parallel with that of the preceding chapter, it seems plain that the Enemy described is Antiochus, and his history forms an adequate fulfilment of the prediction. Lastly, in ὁ. xi. we have the historical antecedents of Antiochus described, in even more unmistakeable detail than in ce. viii.: we hear of Antiochus himself, and of the conflict between him and Israel: then suddenly the historical Antiochus, with his ridiculous follies and miserable human vices, seems to vanish, and make way for a figure of demoniac grandeur, defying God on what, except to faith, seem equal terms. When this Enemy of God and His People has arisen, and developed his full power, the remedy is no longer to be looked for in the sword of the Maccabees: the champion Israel needs is the Archangel Michael, or indeed the Almighty Himself: the general Resur- rection follows, and the general Judgement. If the Book of Daniel be accepted as a really inspired pro- phecy, this series of visions admits of but one explanation. The oppression of Antiochus is foretold, in part for its own sake, as an important episode in the temporal and religious history of God’s People: in part also as a type of a greater and still more important oppression. And it seems probable, that Nero is treated by the New Testament Seer exactly as Antiochus was by his predecessor—that the historical Nero is treated as the type of Antichrist, that the descriptions of the 1 Only it seems that Daniel’s beast had one head, not seyen (ver. 20). REVELATION ΤΑ lxviil INTRODUCTION. one pass insensibly into descriptions of the other. We may, consistently with our reverence for the prophecy, say, “So much of this prediction was realised in the Seer’s age: the rest has not yet been fulfilled:” for we shall hold that the partial fulfil- ment was a foretaste and a type of a fulfilment which, when it comes, will be complete. The partial fulfilment of the prophecy concerning the Empire has been already mentioned (p. lxiv). We may say that Nero’s real successor in the Empire was Vespasian—the 18 months between his accession and Nero’s death being really a time of anarchy. The pretenders or claimants of empire who arose in almost every province may or may not be indicated by the “ten kings that have received no kingdom as yet,” but it is arbitrary to select from among them, and recognise as de facto emperors, the three who were, for a few months, successively recognised at Rome. If we accept Nero then as the fifth of the “five fallen” emperors, Vespasian, the destroyer of Jeru- salem, is the sixth, under whom, it is on this view probable, the vision was seen. His successor Titus was “not yet come, and when he came was to continue a little space,” ze. not to have a merely ephemeral reign like those of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, but yet a short one—about two years. And Ais suc- cessor—his brother Domitian—was to be a Nero: and so he was. This is, however, an imperfect and inadequate fulfilment of the prophecies of Antichrist in this book. Domitian was, it is true, a revival of Nero in his cruelty; he was, like Nero, a persecutor of the Church: he was also—like Nero and unlike the predicted Antichrist—foully unclean in life. But he differed from Nero in possessing talents and principles which, while to some extent they bring him nearer to the type of spiritual wickedness, may also be regarded as giving him the dignity of that power which “withholdeth” the manifestation of the Law- less One. Domitian was no blasphemous atheist, but was, as a Pagan, sincerely and even fanatically religious: and his gross personal vices did not prevent his having a zeal for virtue, which seems to have been sincere. And, for good or evil, he INTRODUCTION. lxix was a Roman—not like Antiochus, Nero, or Antichrist, a de- nationalised cosmopolitan. It may be doubtful to what extent the Empire suffered dishonour in Domitian’s days; but at worst he must be acquitted of having wilfully betrayed its honour. Thus it seems necessary to look for a completer fulfilment of the prophecy than any that has yet been seen, while yet it is possible to point to ὦ fulfilment that, to some extent, corresponds with the prediction even in the minutest details. We may thus recognise a common element of truth in both the “preterist” and the ‘‘futurist” schemes of interpretation. Just as the 72nd Psalm is recognised as setting forth the greatness of Solomon’s, “‘in type, and in truth of Christ’s Kingdom ;” so the Revelation may be regarded as a picture of the persecution of the Church, “in type,” by such Emperors as Nero and Domitian, “in truth” by the Antichrist of the last days, and as a prophecy of Christ’s victory over both enemies, the type and the antitype. In fact, the method and plan of the book seems to be, that we have again and again a series—most frequently a group of seven—of pictures that plainly symbolise the approach of the Judgement. Up to the penultimate stage, everything would lead us to think the Judgement was immediately to follow: but the penultimate stage itself is prolonged and expanded: and when at last it ends, and the series is complete, it is found to usher in, not the end of all things, but the beginning of a new series of events, still preparatory for the final Judgement. Now whatever predictions of the Apocalypse have been or have not been fulfilled, there is no doubt that this feature of it has been realised conspicuously. In the first century—in the third—in the fifth—in the ninth—in the sixteenth—in the age of the French Revolution—perhaps in our own time the signs of the coming Judgement have multiplied. The faithful have seen them beginning to come to pass, and have looked up and lifted up their heads, as though their redemption were drawing nigh: while those who were not faithful, or at least whose faith was without love, have sought to hide from the face of Him that sitteth upon the Throne, and from the wrath f2 Ixx INTRODUCTION. of the Lamb. And yet, after a generation or two, the signs have passed away: the Judge has not come, the whole world has not been judged; rather, it has taken a new lease of life, and become a battlefield between new forms of good and evil, a court for new judgements of God between them. We cannot say indeed that those were wrong who expected the Judge to appear. They were bidden to expect Him—they were bidden to expect Him all the more, when they saw such signs as they did see: and so how could they do otherwise than they did? Indeed, dare we say that their expectation was disap- pointed? The world has not been judged, but the nation, the polity, the generation has been: the Kingdom of God’s eternal rest has not been set up, but they that have believed do enter rest. The Vision of Judgement has been fulfilled in part and in type: the partial fulfilment serves to stay, without satisfying, faith’s hunger for the final fulfilment. Thus it seems possible to recognise an element of truth in both the “continuous” and what may be called the “resumptive” methods of interpretation, as we did in both the “preterist” and the “futurist” theories. We may believe that the chief object of the book is to teach the Church how to prepare for the Lord’s coming to Judgement. With that object, we are told, not only in general terms what signs will mark His ap- proach, but, in some detail, what events will immediately pre- cede it. But in the providence of God, the signs of His approach, and events more or less resembling those immediately preceding it, have occurred repeatedly: and this Book accordingly intimates, that they will occur repeatedly. To Christians who had seen an almost perfect image of Antichrist in Nero, it was foretold that a new Nero, a perfect Antichrist, was to come: it was, not improbably, intimated that there would be in some sense a new Nero in the next generation, which was fulfilled in Domitian. Yet the “wars and rumours of wars” of the year 69—70 did not usher in the Second Advent: they passed off, and left the empire in peace and prosperity. Jeru- salem had fallen, and Rome had tottered: but the whole earth sat still and was quiet: and Rome, at least, had recovered from INTRODUCTION. Ixxi the shock. Again, in the conquests of the Teutonic barbarians, of the Arabs, of the Turks; or in the paganising apostasies of Julian, of the Renaissance, of the great Revolution, and of our own day, we may see likenesses, more or less close, of the things foretold in this Book: He Who inspired the Book doubtless intends that we should. Only, while the Book was written for the Church of all ages, it was written specially for the Church of the Apostles’ own age, and for the Church of the last age of all: we need not therefore expect to find any intermediate age of affliction, or any intermediate enemy of the truth, indicated with such individualising detail as Nero and his persecution on the one hand, or Antichrist and his on the other. Certainly, there is this objection to the various forms of the “continuous historical” theory which have attempted to identify special visions in the Apocalypse with special events in mediaeval or modern history-—-that no just view of the history of any polity or system will support such a series of identifications. Indeed, there is this element of truth, or at least of plausibility, in such schemes, that the one national or local feature indicated by the Seer coincides with what men have learnt, more and more as time has gone on, to be the centre and heart of the continuous life of the world’s history— The City on the Seven Mountains. The Revelation, it is plain, tells us what the history of Rome is in God’s sight: and the history of Rome is the one thread that runs unbroken through the history of the world. But it is only by the most arbitrary treatment—passing without warning from the figurative to the literal, and from the literal to the figurative—that any appear- ance can be maintained of a resemblance between the history of Rome, or of the world gathered round Rome, and the suc- cessive visions of the Apocalypse: nor is it possible, in honesty or in charity, to ascribe to the Rome of past history a uniform character such as is ascribed to the Babylon of the Apocalypse. No doubt, there have been times,—(much later than those of Nero and Domitian,)—when a Roman Emperor or a Roman Pope has presented a figure which, to the eyes of faith and righteousness, looks terribly like that of Antichrist. Godless Ixxii INTRODUCTION. profligacy like that of Frederic II., cultivated, heathenish in- difference to righteousness like that of the age of Leo X., was certainly felt—and we cannot doubt, rightly felt—to be the antichristian power of their time, by the moral reformers of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance: but it is unjust and unreasonable to hold the Empire in all ages, or the Papacy in all ages, responsible for the sins of the Empire or the Papacy in those ages. We who in our own age have seen the rival powers of the Empire and the Papacy represented by honourable Christian men like William I. and Leo XIII., ought to be able to do justice alike to Pagan Emperors like Trajan and Diocletian, to Christian Emperors like Henry III. and Barbarossa, and to Popes like Gregory I., Gregory VII., Innocent 1Π1., and Pius V. To treat either of these groups of men as the champions and representatives of Antichrist is hardly less than blasphemy against the work of God. And in fact, the identification of the Papacy with Antichrist admits of direct refutation. “He is the Antichrist,” says St John, (Ep. τ. ii. 22) “‘who denieth the Father and the Son:” he defines “the spirit of Antichrist” as the “spirit which confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh” (Ep. I. iv. 3). Now, whatever the errors of the Papacy and of the Roman Church, it is certain that no Pope has ever denied the truth on the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. The most questionable of Roman doctrines—in particular those relating to the person of the Blessed Virgin Mary—so far from contradicting the true doc- trine of “Jesus Christ come in the flesh,” presuppose it and are deduced (however unwarrantably) from it. It is likely enough that the Papacy has in many ages incurred “the Babylonian woe,” not in respect of theological opinions, but in proportion as “the mitre and the crosier” were, in Bishop Coxe’s words, ‘‘Sullied with the tinsel of the Caesar’s diadems:” but, when the Caesars themselves were the bar against Anti- christ, their successors or their apes can hardly be identified with him. One thing is plain about the Apocalypse—that it describes a clearly defined moral conflict between good and INTRODUCTION. Ixxiil evil, between Christ and His enemies: not a controversy in which good men, and men who love Christ in sincerity, are to be found on different sides. It is an idle latitudinarianism to assume that in such controversies truth is unimportant, or that compromise is the only guide to it; but it is something worse to waste on such controversies the zeal that should be reserved for the true war with the real Antichrist. CHAPTER IV. ANALYSIS. i. 1—3. Title and description of the Book. i, 4iii. 22. Prologue and Dedication, shewing how St John received from Christ the command to write the vision, and send it to the Seven Churches. Ἵ i, 4—20. The vision of the Son of Man. ii. 1—iii. 22. The Epistles to the Seven Churches. iv. 1—xxii. 7. The Vision or Revelation itself. A. iy. 1—y. 14. Vision remaining visible through all the rest; shewing (ch, iv.) the divine glory (see Ezek. i.; Is. vi.), and (ch. v.) the Lamb that was slain sharing it. (a) v.1—14. The book of the seven seals and the Glory of the Lamb who is worthy to open it. B. vi. 1—viii. 1. The opening of the seven seals, and the judge- ments attending thereon. Before the last seal, there appear (a) vii. 1—8. The sealing of the 144,000, and (Ὁ) 9—17. The assembly of the multitude of the justified. . vill. 2—xi. 19. e sounding of the seven trumpets, and the C. viii. 2—xi. 19. Th di f th t t ἃ tl judgements attending thereon. Before the first trumpet appears (a) villi. 3—5. The Angel censing the prayers of the Saints. The last three trumpets are proclaimed (vili. 13) as Woes. Before the last of them come (Ὁ) x. 1—11. A mighty Angel having a little Book, which the Seer is commanded to eat : (c) xi.1,2. The measuring of the Temple: (d) xi. 3—14. The prophesying of the two Witnesses (Moses and Elijah?), their martyrdom and resur- rection, lxxiv INTRODUCTION. D. Se BrAS xii. 1—xiv. 13. The signs in Heaven and in Earth: the heads ot the Kingdoms of God and Satan, or of Christ and Anti- Christ. (a) xii. 1—13. The Woman giving birth to the Man, persecuted by the Serpent (see Gen. iii. 15), and the War in Heaven. (b) xiii. 1—10. The Beast to whom the Serpent or Dragon (the Devil) gives his authority (see Dan. vil., xi. 36 sqq.; 2 Thess. ii. 3—10). (c) xiii. 11—18. The second Beast (the False Prophet) who secures the deification of the first Beast, and persecutes those who refuse him worship. (d) xiv. 1—5. The Lamb with the 144,000 of the re- deemed. (e) xiv. 6—12. Three Angels proclaim God’s Judge- ments, and (v. 13) a voice from Heaven His mercy. xiv. 14—20. A symbolic vision of the Judgement of the earth (see Joel iii. 13). xy. 1—xvi. 21. The outpouring of the seven vials, and the judgements attending thereon. Before the first vial there appears (a) xv. 2—4. The triumph-song of the victors in the war with the Beast. Before the last vial, (Ὁ) xvi. 13—16. The spirits of devils gather the armies of Christ’s enemies. xvii. 1—xvili. 24, The fall of Babylon. xix. 1—21. The campaign of the Word of God against the Beast. (a) 1—8. The triumph-song inspired by the fall of Babylon: the Lamb, the Victor and the Bridegroom (see Ps. xlv.). (b) 9—10. The revealing Angel proclaims himself not divine. (c) 11—21. The martial procession, and the victory. xx. 1—6. The Millennial Peace. xx. 7—10. The last campaign of the Devil. xx. 11--15. The universal Judgement. xxi. 1— xxii. 7. The glorious reign of God and His saints in the New Jerusalem. (8,9. The revealing Angel again refuses divine honours.) xxii. 10—21. Conclusion. INTRODUCTION. Ixxv CHAPTER V. TEXT, Tue Received Text of the Revelation has had a peculiar history. As in the other books, it is in the main a reproduction of the Text of Erasmus, with slight corrections which he and subsequent editors introduced mostly from the Complutensian text ; but while in the other books Erasmus used MSS. which fairly re- presented the current mediaeval text (itself a not unfaithful representative of the text which had established itself at Antioch by the time of St Chrysostom), in the Revelation he was depen- dent on a very faulty representative of a singular and probably older type of text. He borrowed a MS. from Reuchlin (now cited as 1), which when rediscovered by Delitzsch proved to be of the twelfth century ; but as he found it very difficult to read he thought it must be very old, almost of the Apostolic age. This MS, contained the commentary of Andreas and the text of the Apocalypse, so arranged that it was difficult to distinguish the two: the text was full of omissions, mostly if not entirely due to homoeoteleu- ton, and also of puzzling contractions. Erasmus printed from his own transcript of this MS.: his text bears the traces of his own clerical errors, of the influence of the commentary, and of the Vulgate from which he retranslated without notice what was lacking in his MS. The materials for constructing a critical text are with one exception scantier than for any other of the books of the New Testament. They are as follows. GREEK MANUSCRIPTS. Uncials. Codex Sinaiticus (&), generally assigned to the 4th century. Although this is the oldest MS. the text which it represents is by no means the best, being quite different from that which it represents in the Gospels. It is full of grammatical corrections and quasi-liturgical additions, such as Amen, Alle- luia, and to the ages of ages. Ixxvi INTRODUCTION. Codex Alexandrinus (A), generally assigned to the 5th cen- tury. Of all extant MSS. the greatest weight is given to this. Codex Ephraemi (C); also assigned to the 5th century: pa- limpsest. It lacks iii, 19—v. 14; vii. 14—17; vii. 5—ix. 16; x. 10—xi. 3; xvi. 18—xvill. 2; xix. 5 to end. This MS. comes next in importance to A. Codex Porphyrianus (P,), 9th century: palimpsest. It lacks xvi. 12—xvii. 1; xix. 21—xx. 9; xxii. 7 to end. Codex Vaticanus 2066 (B,), 8th century. This MS. is cited as B by Tischendorf; but in order to distinguish it from the famous Codex Vaticanus (B) assigned to the 4th century, which [does not contain the Apocalypse,] it is now generally cited, after Westcott and Hort, as B,; Tregelles and others cite it as Q. Cursives. 182 are known to exist or to have existed (two or three cited by early editors cannot now be traced). They dated from the 10th to the 17th century. The most important are perhaps 1 at Mayhingen (its nearest allies are 12 and 152) and 36, 38 and 95; 36 and 95 are closely connected with A. The oldest known cursive 170 (10th century), which contains the com- mentary of Andreas, awaits collation in the Iberian monastery on Mount Athos. *- VERSIONS. Syriac. The Peschitto, or Syriac Vulgate, did not contain the Apocalypse (see p. xix). Lord Crawford’s library however contains a copy of the Peschitto with an appendix containing the four minor Catholic epistles (2 Pet., Jude, 2 and 3 John) and the Apocalypse. The latter is to be published by Dr Gwynn with a retranslation into Greek (Academy, June 18, 1892). The Syriac in character resembles Pococke’s text of the four minor epistles; and it appears that the Syriac Version hitherto known! is a revision of the Crawford version, bearing the same relation to it as Thomas of Harkel’s version (616 a.D.) of the four minor Catholic epistles bears to the text published by Pococke. The 1 It was published by De Dieu in 1627 from a late MS, at Leyden; there is also a commentary in an eleventh century MS. (Mus. Brit. 17027) from which a complete text of the same character may be recovered, EE EEE EEE On CC INTRODUCTION. Ixxvii Greek text which underlies the new found version is very ancient, and exhibits coincidences both with § and A, and such exceptional cursives as 36 and 38 as well as the Old Latin: the Greek text to which the revision hitherto known has been servilely con- formed is of a much later character. Old or ‘ African’ Latin. Codex Floriacensis, palimpsest of the 7th century from the Benedictine Monastery of Fleury, now at Paris. It contains the following fragments i. 1—ii. 1; viii. 7— ix. 12; xi. 16—xii. 14; xiv. 15—xvi. 5. Fortunately also the whole of the text except xx. 1.—xxi. 5 is preserved by Primasius, Bishop of Adrumetum in the 6th century, and a considerable part can be recovered from the quotations of St Cyprian in the 3rd. Vulgate Latin, that is to say St Jerome’s revision of the Old Latin, A.D. 383—385, best represented by Codices Amiatinus and Fuldensis (both of the sixth century). An intermediate text is represented for xx. 1—xxi. 5 by St Augustine (de Civitate Det xx. 7—17), who was copied by Primasius: and also by the cita- tions peculiar to the enlarged edition of the Testimonies of St Cyprian, and by the alia editio or translatio frequently cited by Primasius. This last was obviously used by Tyconius, and where as not infrequently happens Primasius’ commentary differs from his text, it is probable that in the former he reproduces the text of Tyconius without noticing that his own was different. Memphitic. It is from its position in the MSS. which contain it, rather than from any difference in language or style, that Coptic scholars infer that the Memphitic version of the Apoca- lypse was not strictly speaking canonical. Hence it has been inferred that it dates from the interval between St Dionysius (c. 250 a.D.), who though he acknowledged the inspiration of the Apocalypse may have discouraged its public reading, and St Athanasius, whose Festal epistle of 367 A.D. fixed the canonical rank of the book for Egypt. Aethiopic. This version, which is assigned to the 4th or 5th century, treats the Apocalypse as canonical. It is supposed to have been made by Syrians imperfectly acquainted with Greek from MSS. of the same type as those used for the Memphitic yersion, Ixxviii INTRODUCTION. Armenian. 'This version was made later than 431 A.p., when St Mesrob invented an alphabet for his native language into which the books he brought back with him from Ephesus were to be translated. Up to that date Syriac had been the official language of the Armenian Church. As might be expected from the connexion between Caesarea and Armenia, the Armenian version of the Apocalypse has affinities with the text of Andreas. FATHERS. Greek. Irenaeus (c. 180 A.D.) contains so many quotations, that, if his great work on Heresies had been preserved in the original, it would have been a high authority: it is uncertain how far the translator is dependent upon the Old Latin. Hippolytus (c. 220 a.D.) quotes largely in his work on Christ and Antichrist, and in the Fourth book of his commentary on Daniel recently printed from a MS. discovered by Georgiades, The former is largely used in a homily (wrongly ascribed to him) on Antichrist and the End of the World, in which those who hide themselves in caves and under rocks are assumed to be hermits. His text appears to be less redundant than that of our present Greek MSS. The same holds of the quotations of Origen (+ 253), St Methodius (t+ 303? 311?) and St Epiphanius (t+ 402). Making every allowance for freedom of quotation, it seems probable that all used a type of text not represented in our MSS. This bears out the impression which the language of Origen and St Jerome is calculated to make, that in the 3rd and 4th century a much greater variety of readings prevailed than can be traced in our present documents. Andreas, Archbishop of Caesarea in the latter part of the 5th century, wrote a commentary on the Book, which, when the copious materials for a critical edition have been used, will en- able us to determine the text he followed, which is independent of the Uncials, though probably on the whole inferior to that of the best of them. His successor Arethas (who is generally identified with the author of a panegyric on a 9th century saint) also wrote a com- INTRODUCTION. Ixxix mentary, which is of comparatively little importance for textual criticism, except that he mentions from time to time various readings for which he is the only or the oldest authority. Latin. Tertullian (199—230 a.p.) quotes largely; but it is not yet decided whether from the Old Latin or direct from the Greek: nor can the extent to which his text is singular be ascer- tained till all his works have been published with an adequate critical apparatus. St Cyprian (+ 258) also quotes largely : his works have been edited by Hartel in the Vienna Corpus. Tyconius, a Donatist grammarian of the latter part of the 4th century, though his commentary is only known at second hand, is an important witness to a transitional stage of the Latin Text. St Jerome (+ 420) is also important; for his quotations by no means always agree with his rather perfunctory revision of the text. St Augustine (+ 431); see above, p. lxxvii. The mediaeval commentators, Beda (7th century), Beatus (8th century), Ansbertus (8th century) and Haymo (+ 848), all throw some subsidiary light on the history of the Latin Text. The critical determination of the text is less certain than in the other books of the New Testament: for the materials are not only less abundant but less trustworthy. There is no repre- sentative of the so-called ‘ Neutral Text’ comparable to B or even to δὲ in the earlier books. The fourth century was certainly a very important time in the history of the text of the New Testament, and during this time the text of the Apocalypse was exposed to peculiar dangers. It was not generally regarded in the East as canonical or regularly read in the Churches, so that the tendency of scribes to correct the supposed errors of their predecessors was not checked by the familiarity of the faithful with its language. In the West, on the other hand, it retained its place in the Canon unquestioned; and hence, though the Latin authorities do not give a better text of this Book than of others, they may prove to have a greater relative value than in lxxx INTRODUCTION. books where we still possess the ‘Neutral Text.’ Fortunately the Revelation (thanks to Primasius) is the one book besides the Gospels, of which we have a continuous Old Latin text, ‘unmixed’ though not ‘uncorrupted ;’ and the parallels from Cyprian prove that the corruptions are not very serious. The Latin documents among other things supply evidence (unaffected by the frequent confusion between 38rd fut. in -bi¢, and 3rd _ perf. in -vit) that their Greek archetypes had aorists where our present Greek MSS. have futures. Editors however have hitherto adhered to the rule of basing their text exclusively upon uncials, and only using versions and cursives as a makeweight when uncials differ. So far as the cursives have been collated they appear to differ more from one another than the 1273 known MSS. of the Gospels; but they have not yet been classified, though this might be perhaps facilitated, as Delitzsch thought, by the fact that so many of them contain the commentaries of Andreas and Arethas, and presumably reproduce corresponding texts. The same type of text underlies ACP; A has preserved it best. C when alone is not seldom right; in c. xiii., one of the most perplexing chapters, it has preserved traces of a shorter text. CP together generally represent an unfortunate revision, though now and again they enable us to correct clerical errors in A. B, (especially when joined by P) is the best authority for such an approach to a received mediaeval text as can be said to exist ; Griesbach based his text chiefly on it and its cursive allies; grammatical difficulties are often skilfully minimised; some of its additions to the text of ACP seem to represent different read- ings rather than glosses. NB, is a sufficiently common group to shew that many of the characteristic readings of B, are very old: and there is room for considerable difference of opinion how far this group may be used to check the group headed by A, and especially those readings where A stands alone. N also often coincides with Latin authorities. P is a genuine though degenerate descendant of the common parent of AC: it has many of the faults of B, and some of its own. Often a reading is supported by a group headed ΡῚ, with or without INTRODUCTION. Ixxxi support from outlying versions. SPI is also not an uncommon group. Both B, and P contain a text demonstrably affected by the commentaries of Andreas and Arethas. Whether annota- tions from Melito or Apollonius may have invaded all existing documents is a curious question which awaits discussion. If it should prove (see Excursus 111.) that the Revelation grew up by degrees in the hands of one or more writers, this would impart a new element of uncertainty into the text. Spitta is of opinion that the Redactor is responsible for most of the grammatical irregularities, ATTOKAAYY¥I= LQANNOY 1 YATIOKAATVIS “IHSOT ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ͂, ἣν ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ ὁ θεός, δεῖξαι τοῖς δούλοις αὐτοῦ ἃ δεῖ γενέσθαι ἐν τάχει, καὶ ἐσήμανεν ἀποστείλας διὰ τοῦ ἀγγέλου αὐτοῦ τῷ δούλῳ αὐτοῦ ᾿Ιωάννῃ, "ὃς ἐμαρτύρη- “σεν τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τὴν μαρτυρίαν ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὅσα εἶδεν. “μακάριος ὁ ἀναγινώσκων καὶ οἱ ἀκούοντες τοὺς λόγους τῆς προφητείας, καὶ τηροῦντες τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ γεγραμμένα" ὁ γὰρ καιρὸς ἐγγύς. “ἅμ Β Ν a an *IOANNH® ταῖς ἑπτὰ ἐκκλησίαις ταῖς ἐν τῇ ΑΙ; ,ὔ > ͵ὕ c lal \ > / > \ ς x \ fr δ a cia’ χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ ὁ ὧν καὶ ὁ ἦν Kal / X \ lal ς \ 4 « ὁ ἐρχόμενος, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἑπτὰ πνευμάτων ἃ ἐνώ- na / lal \ 3 a lal mov τοῦ θρόνου αὐτοῦ, “καὶ ἀπὸ ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, Ὁ " id / lal a ὁ μάρτυς ὁ πιστός, ὁ πρωτότοκος τῶν νεκρῶν, Kal lal / fol a Ὁ » fal an ὁ ἄρχων τῶν βασιλέων τῆς γῆς. τῷ ἀγαπῶντι ἡμᾶς, ‘ ue τ « “ 7 fal ig an id lal >’ “Ὁ vA καὶ λύσαντι ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν ἐν τῷ αἵματι nr \ lal ‘ € r Aa A αὐτοῦ, "καὶ ἐποίησεν ἡμᾶς βασιλείαν ἱερεῖς τῷ θεῷ lal an / \ καὶ πατρὶ αὐτοῦ" αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα καὶ TO κράτος εἰς τοὺς fal lal “4 / αἰῶνας TOV αἰώνων. ἀμήν. ” \ lal an Τ᾽ Ἰδοὺ ἔρχεται μετὰ τῶν νεφελῶν, Kal ὄψεται αὐτὸν a 5 / \ “ be b ΄ \ mas ὀφθαλμός, καὶ οἴτινες αὐτὸν ἐξεκέντησαν: καὶ REVELATION » 2 ATIOKAAYY1IZ IQANNOY LY ,ὕ ᾽ , , \ nr id \ a fol / κόψονται ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸν πᾶσαι at φυλαὶ τῆς γῆς. vat, ἀμήν. Ν 53 a / c ͵ ᾿Εγώ εἰμι τὸ ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ὦ, λέγει κύριος ὁ θεός, Ω 5 « ῃ a ΄ ὁ ὧν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος, ὁ παντοκράτωρ. 9» \ ct / id Ἰὃ Ν ἐπ lal \ \ , Ἐγὼ ᾿Ιωάννης, ὁ ἀδελφὸς ὑμῶν Kal συνκοινωνὸς ἐν a \ a > a , τῇ θλίψει καὶ βασιλείᾳ καὶ ὑπομονῇ ἐν ᾿Ιησοῦ, éyevo- fal fal / \ Ἂ ,ὔ r μην ἐν TH νήσῳ TH καλουμένῃ Ἰ]άτμῳ, διὰ τὸν λόγον τοῦ a \ ἢ ᾽ κα 1 , 5) ΄, θεοῦ καὶ διὰ τὴν μαρτυρίαν ᾿Ιησοῦ. “ἐγενόμην ἐν πνεύ- -- --Ἰ] a fal > * ματι ἐν TH κυριακῇ ἡμέρᾳ καὶ ἤκουσα ὀπίσω μου φωνὴν / / “Ὁ , / μεγάλην ὡς σάλπιγγος, “ λεγούσης, Ὃ βλέπεις γράψον , ΄ a \ ΄ > εἰς βιβλίον, Kai πέμψον ταῖς ἑπτὰ ἐκκλησίαις, εἰς wv \ > s ΓΑ \ > / \ > Edeoov, καὶ εἰς Σμύρναν, καὶ eis Ilépyapov, καὶ εἰς ᾿Θυάτειρα, καὶ εἰς Σάρδεις, καὶ εἰς Φιλαδελφείαν, καὶ 1 / \ \ els Λαοδικείαν. “Kai ἐπέστρεψα βλέπειν τὴν φωνὴν [{ 2 / ’ > lal \ > / b> Θ Ἂς ἥτις ἐλάλει μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ: καὶ ἐπιστρέψας εἶδον ἑπτὰ / la) 18 A / lal a “ ta λυχνίας χρυσᾶς, “Kal ἐν μέσῳ τῶν AVYVLO@V ὅμοιον Vid ’ ’ / / ,ὔ Ἂς ἀνθρώπου, ἐνδεδυμένον ποδήρη, καὶ περιεζωσμένον πρὸς a a , A ae \ A > a \ τοῖς μασθοῖς ζώνην χρυσᾶν. “17 δὲ κεφαλὴ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἢ ai τρίχες λευκαὶ ὡς ἔριον λευκόν, ὡς. χιών: καὶ οἱ la) \ , 5 € / an ὀφθαλμοὶ αὐτοῦ ὡς φλὸξ πυρός" “Kal οἱ πόδες αὐτοῦ ΄ ὅμοιοι χαλκολιβάνῳ, ὡς ἐν καμίνῳ πεπυρωμένης" καὶ ς \ > a 2 \ ς / lal 16 + ea! > ἡ φωνὴ αὐτοῦ ὡς φωνὴ ὑδάτων πολλῶν: “Kal ἔχων ἐν - rn na ΄ fa) / τῇ δεξιᾷ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ ἀστέρας ἑπτά" καὶ ἐκ τοῦ στόμα- τος αὐτοῦ ῥομφαία δίστομος ὀξεῖα ἐκπορευομένη. καὶ ον > la) ¥ La re / > a / > a ἡ ὄψις αὐτοῦ ὡς ὁ ἥλιος φαίνει ἐν TH δυνάμει αὐτοῦ. 17 Vou AS ee we » 5 δὲ / > ate Kai ὅτε εἶδον αὐτόν, ἔπεσα πρὸς τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ ὡς , \ » \ \ > a 3. (ὧδ 5 Ψ νεκρός: καὶ ἔθηκεν τὴν δεξιὰν αὐτοῦ ἐπ᾽ ἐμέ, λέγων, re ΄ nr ec \ αὶ Μὴ φοβοῦ: ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ πρῶτος καὶ ὁ ἔσχατος, "καὶ ὁ ὴ γώ εἰμ a \ a \ \ ζῶν, καὶ ἐγενόμην νεκρός, καὶ ἰδοὺ ζῶν εἰμὶ εἰς TOUS a lel » ἴον , \ αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων: καὶ ἔχω τὰς κλεῖς TOD θανάτου καὶ a 6 19 4 ΩΝ «Ὁ 53 \ «“Ὁ , RE ᾿ a τοῦ ἅδου. “γράψον οὖν ἃ εἶδες, καὶ ἃ εἰσίν, καὶ ἃ II. 10 ATIOKAAY YI IQANNOY 3 , , \ a 20 _\ ΄ A ε \ μέλλει γίνεσθαι μετὰ ταῦτα" “τὸ μυστήριον τῶν ἑπτὰ / ἃ 53 fol nf ἀστέρων ods εἶδες ἐπὶ THs δεξιᾶς μου, Kal Tas ἑπτὰ ’ Ν lal 6 Ν a λυχνίας Tas χρυσᾶς. οἱ ἑπτὰ ἀστέρες ἄγγελοι τῶν « Ν > Ὁ > / \ e / « « \ e \ ETTA EKKANTLOV εἰσίν" καὶ αἱ λυχνίαι αἱ ἐπτὰ ἑπτὰ ἐκκλησίαι εἰσίν. 1 a > nr > 4 2 'T6 ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν ᾿Εφέσῳ ἐκκλησίας γράψον, 4 an »“" nr Τάδε λέγει ὁ κρατῶν τοὺς ἑπτὰ ἀστέρας ἐν TH δεξιᾷ ε ἐ rn 6 a fal \ an a αὐτοῦ, ὁ περιπατῶν ἐν μέσῳ τῶν ἑπτὰ λυχνιῶν τῶν fal να χρυσῶν: "Οἶδα τὰ ἔργα σου, καὶ τὸν κόπον καὶ τὴν \ ti / ὑπομονήν σου, καὶ ὅτι ov δύνῃ βαστάσαι κακούς, καὶ \ / , ἐπείρασας τοὺς λέγοντας ἑαυτοὺς ἀποστόλους καὶ οὐκ ἀν. \ & ᾽ \ at 9 we Xe Ὁ ‘ εἰσίν, Kal εὗρες αὐτοὺς ψευδεῖς, "καὶ ὑπομονὴν ἔχεις καὶ »Ω 2 \ \» ΄, \ ᾽ ΄, 4» ᾿ ἐβάστασας διὰ τὸ ὄνομά μου, καὶ ov κεκοπίακες. ᾿ἀλλὰ v \ an \ / , “-“ ἔχω KATA σοῦ, ὅτι τὴν ἀγάπην σου τὴν πρώτην ἀφῆκες. / / / μνημόνευε οὖν πόθεν πέπτωκας, Kal μετανόησον, Kai an Μ / ’ , 7 τὰ πρῶτα ἔργα ποίησον: εἰ δὲ μή, ἔρχομαί σοι, καὶ \ , a , an \ κινήσω τὴν λυχνίαν σου ἐκ τοῦ τόπου αὐτῆς, ἐὰν μὴ μετανοήσης. “ἀλλὰ τοῦτο ἔχεις, ὅτι μισεῖς τὰ ἔργα τῶν “ a τ \ a ς 3 Νικολαϊτῶν, ἃ κἀγὼ μισῶ. ‘0 ἔχων οὖς ἀκουσάτω τί a - / a lal TO πνεῦμα λέγει ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις. TO νικῶντι δώσω a - a / a a “ rn αὐτῷ φαγεῖν ἐκ τοῦ ξύλου τῆς ζωῆς, ὅ ἐστιν ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ τοῦ θεοῦ. 8 \ ae! / fol > / > ΄ ͵ Καὶ τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν Σμύρνῃ ἐκκλησίας γράψον, n ς \ / \ Τάδε λέγει ὁ πρῶτος Kal ὁ ἔσχατος, ὃς ἐγένετο νεκρὸς , \ \ / καὶ ἔζησεν: “Oida σου τὴν θλίψιν Kal THY πτωχείαν, / a , ἀλλὰ πλούσιος εἶ" Kal τὴν βλασφημίαν ἐκ τῶν λεγόν- ᾿ Uy ᾽ 3 / ‘ tov ᾿Ιουδαίους εἶναι ἑαυτούς, Kal οὐκ εἰσίν, ἀλλὰ συν- a an a Ww / / aywy)) Tov Σατανᾶ. “pndév φοβοῦ ἃ μέλλεις πάσχειν. a e 2 lal » / ἰδοὺ μέλλει βαλεῖν ὁ διάβολος ἐξ ὑμῶν εἰς φυλακήν, fol / id “Ὁ / ,ὔ ἵνα πειρασθῆτε" καὶ ἕξετε θλίψιν ἡμερῶν δέκα. γίνου Ν , a πιστὸς ἄχρι θανάτου, καὶ δώσω σοι τὸν στέφανον τῆς a2 4 ATIOKAAYYIZ IQANNOY II. 10 an a \ nr “-“ ζωῆς. "ὁ ἔχων ods ἀκουσάτω τί τὸ πνεῦμα λέγει ταῖς > ,ὔ 16 lal ᾽ \ > an ’ fal / fal ἐκκλησίαις: ὁ νικῶν οὐ μὴ ἀδικηθῇ ἐκ τοῦ θανάτου τοῦ δευτέρου. 19 \ an > 7 n τ / > / Καὶ τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν Llepyduw ἐκκλησίας / ς 7 \ e tf Ἁ / γράψον, Τάδε λέγει ὁ ἔχων τὴν ῥομφαίαν τὴν δίστομον \ γω. κα 13 25 a n ¢ c θ - τὴν ὀξεῖαν: “Οἶδα ποῦ κατοικεῖς, ὅπου ὁ θρόνος τοῦ ἴω - / Latava, καὶ κρατεῖς TO ὄνομά μου, Kal οὐκ ἠρνήσω τὴν / lal / > / ς / πίστιν μου [καὶ] ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ᾿Αντίπας, ὁ μάρτυς μου «ς a / ,’ a e an ὁ πιστός μου, ὃς ἀπεκτάνθη παρ᾽ ὑμῖν, ὅπου ὁ Σατανᾶς a 14 » ’ x \ al 5 / “ ” 2 a KATOLICEL. ἄλλ ἔχω KATA σοῦ ὀλίγα, OTL ἔχεις ἐκεῖ la \ \ ἃ 2 a κρατοῦντας τὴν διδαχὴν Βαλαάμ, ὃς ἐδίδασκεν τῷ Βαλὰκ a / » / lal en ᾿ ΄ lal βαλεῖν σκάνδαλον ἐνώπιον τῶν υἱῶν ᾿Ισραήλ, φαγεῖν > , \ = 15. ὦ » \ \ εἰδωλόθυτα καὶ πορνεῦσαι. “οὕτως ἔχεις Kal σὺ Kpa- nr \ \ a ” “ « / 16 τοῦντας τὴν διδαχὴν τῶν Νικολαϊτῶν ὁμοίως. ™ wera- ΚΙ , ΄ νόησον" εἰ δὲ μή, ἔρχομαί σοι ταχύ, καὶ πολεμήσω > -“ a / an / / ς μετ᾽ αὐτῶν ἐν τῇ ῥομφαίᾳ τοῦ στόματός μου. “6 ἔχων 5 Ν la) a οὗς ἀκουσάτω TL TO πνεῦμα λέγει ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις. n rn ΄ ΕῚ al an / “Ὁ / τῷ νικοῦντι δώσω αὐτῷ τοῦ μάννα τοῦ κεκρυμμένου, \ , A n / \ \ a καὶ δώσω αὐτῷ ψῆφον λευκήν, Kal ἐπὶ THY ψῆφον ὄνομα Ν / aA 5 δ᾿ 53 ? \ ς / καινὸν γεγραμμένον, ὃ οὐδεὶς οἶδεν εἰ μὴ ὁ λαμβάνων. 18 \ a 5) 7 a 2 , ? , Kai τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν Θυατείροις ἐκκλησίας / c ee a nr c Ψ A ράψον, Τάδε λέγει ὁ υἱὸς Tod θεοῦ, ὁ ἔχων τοὺς > NX ’ lo) id / / \ ἡ ͵ > lal ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτοῦ ὡς φλόγα πυρός, Kai οἱ πόδες αὐτοῦ 53 / < ” ὅμοιοι χαλκολιβάνῳ: “Oida cou τὰ ἔργα, καὶ τὴν \ \ / ἀγάπην καὶ τὴν πίστιν, καὶ τὴν διακονίαν Kal τὴν \ 4 ὑπομονήν σου, καὶ τὰ ἔργα σου Ta ἔσχατα πλείονα a , 20 > > » \ a > a \ TOV πρώτων. “ἀλλ ἔχω κατὰ σοῦ, OTL ἀφεῖς τὴν n > \ n γυναῖκα ᾿Ιεζάβελ, ἡ λέγουσα ἑαυτὴν προφῆτιν, καὶ a Ww \ 4 fo} διδάσκει καὶ πλανᾷ τοὺς ἐμοὺς δούλους, πορνεῦσαι Kai an > , 21 Ny ai 41 τὸν , “ φαγεῖν εἰδωλόθυτα. “Kai ἔδωκα αὐτῇ χρόνον ἵνα μετα- νοήσῃ, καὶ οὐ θέλει μετανοῆσαι ἐκ τῆς πορνείας αὐτῆς. IIL. 5 ATIOKAAYYIZ LQANNOY wm / 4 \ S00 βάλλω αὐτὴν εἰς κλίνην, καὶ τοὺς μοιχεύοντας > > fol > θ , / > Te \ / μετ᾽ αὐτῆς εἰς θλίψιν μεγάλην, ἐὰν μὴ μετανοήσουσιν a » A lel lal ἐκ TOV ἔργων αὐτῆς, “καὶ τὰ Téxva αὐτῆς ἀποκτενῶ ἐν ΄ , a δ , θανάτῳ: καὶ γνώσονται πᾶσαι ai ἐκκλησίαι ὅτι ἐγώ » € - a εἰμι ὁ ἐραυνῶν νεφροὺς καὶ καρδίας: καὶ δώσω ὑμῖν Ἐν \ Ὧν con ye δὰ \ ͵ n ἐκάστῳ KATA TA ἔργα ὑμῶν. ὑμῖν δὲ λέγω τοῖς λοι- a a , \ mois τοῖς ἐν Θυατείροις, ὅσοι οὐκ ἔχουσιν τὴν διδαχὴν 4 ‘/ a “ ταύτην, οἵτινες οὐκ ἔγνωσαν τὰ βαθέα τοῦ Σατανᾶ, ὡς / ’ lal τ λέγουσιν, Οὐ βάλλω ἐφ᾽ ὑμᾶς ἄλλο βάρος: “πλὴν ὃ Μ / ΝΜ - ΩΝ vA 26 \ e A \ ἔχετε κρατήσατε, ἄχρι οὗ av ἥξω. “Kai ὁ νικῶν καὶ e fal , , \ ὁ τηρῶν ἄχρι τέλους τὰ ἔργα μου, δώσω αὐτῷ ἐξουσίαν ἐπὶ τῶν ἐθνῶν" “καὶ ποιμανεῖ αὐτοὺς ἐν ῥάβδ δηρᾷ ἐπ μ ὑτοὺς ἐν ῥάβδῳ σιδηρᾷ, . \ / \ \ / ε > \ »" ὡς τὰ σκεύη τὰ κεραμικὰ συντρίβεται, ὡς κἀγὼ εἴληφα an / ’ a παρὰ τοῦ πατρός μου “καὶ δώσω αὐτῷ τὸν ἀστέρα “ e lj 5 ta an τὸν πρωϊνόν. “ὁ ἔχων οὖς ἀκουσάτω Ti TO πνεῦμα λέγει ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις. 1 Ν n > 7 a » ἢ ͵7 >» 3 ‘Kal TO ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν Σάρδεσιν ἐκκλησίας ΄ ΄, , ey GE Ave / a a γράψον, Τάδε λέγει ὁ ἔχων τὰ ἑπτὰ πνεύματα Tod θεοῦ Ν \ « \ 2 / 3 / \ ” iA »Μ καὶ τοὺς ἑπτὰ ἀστέρας" Oida σου τὰ ἔργα, ὅτι ὄνομα δ a \ \ 5 2 7 a \ ἔχεις OTL ζῇς, Kal νεκρὸς εἶ. "γίνου γρηγορῶν, Kat / \ Ae, oP ’ a > DS ef Δ στήρισον τὰ λοιπὰ ἃ ἔμελλον ἀποθανεῖν" οὐ γὰρ εὕρηκά Μ / , an a σου Ta ἔργα πεπληρωμένα ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ μου. / i fal » ἡμνημόνευε οὖν πῶς εἴληφας καὶ ἤκουσας, καὶ τήρει, / \ 5 / / καὶ μετανόησον. ἐὰν οὖν μὴ γρηγορήσῃς, ἥξω ws κλέ- ᾿ ᾽ \ , , “ “ ap vm \ TTNS, καὶ οὐ μὴ γνώσῃ ποίαν ὥραν ἥξω ἐπί oe. “ἀλλὰ ¥ ? / Teas, » Ὁ / ὃ “Ὁ > ae ἢ Ν ἔχεις ολίγα ονόματα ἐν Σάρδεσιν, ἃ οὐκ ἐμόλυναν τὰ ΄ lal » fal a ἱμάτια αὐτῶν" καὶ περιπατήσουσιν μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἐν λευκοῖς, “ ” ia 5¢ a ce a ‘ke ὅτι ἄξιοί εἰσιν. ° O νικῶν οὕτως περιβαλεῖται ἐν ipa- ic. Lad \ > \ > /, \ v > Lal ’ τίοις λευκοῖς" Kal ov μὴ ἐξαλείψω TO ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐκ lel / fol ar \ 5 / \ Μ » fal τῆς βίβλου τῆς ζωῆς, Kal ὁμολογήσω TO ὄνομα αὐτοῦ lal / n , ἐνώπιον τοῦ πατρός μου καὶ ἐνώπιον τῶν ἀγγέλων 0 ATIOKAAYYI2 IQANNOY IIL. 5 > rn 6¢ Μ i ᾽ ’ / Ν le , αὐτοῦ. “ὁ ἔχων οὖς ἀκουσάτω Ti TO πνεῦμα λέγει “ ’, ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις. 7 \ rast ied , ὃν ΠΟΥ Τ δέ >? , bd Kai τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν Φιλαδελφίᾳ ἐκκλησίας ypa r iP: Ke; fe 5] / Eo. \ fal ψον, Τάδε λέγει ὁ ἅγιος, ὁ ἀληθινὸς, ὁ ἔχων τὴν κλεῖν rn ,ὔ e » / μ᾿ » \ ΄ Ν / τοῦ Δαυείδ, ὁ ἀνοίγων Kai οὐδεὶς κλείσει, καὶ κλείων ΄, 4 Ἅ, lj > \ / καὶ οὐδεὶς ἀνοίξει: *Oida σου τὰ ἔργα: ἰδοὺ δέδωκα ,’ ΄ / / ’ / “Δ > Ν δύ an ἐνώπιόν σου θύραν ἠνεῳγμένην ἣν οὐδεὶς δύναται κλεῖσαι ο ) \ / ͵ αὐτήν: ὅτι μικρὰν ἔχεις δύναμιν, καὶ ἐτήρησας μου \ , \ Ε] Ι] / \ ” / 928 \ τὸν λόγον, καὶ οὐκ ἠρνήσω TO ὄνομά μου. "ἰδοὺ a an a “ Ὁ a na / διδῶ ἐκ τῆς συναγωγῆς τοῦ Σατανᾶ τῶν λεγόντων cd 7, 3 \ ΄ὔ ἑαυτοὺς ᾿Ιουδαίους εἶναι, καὶ οὐκ εἰσίν, ἀλλὰ ψεύδονται" ἰδοὺ ποιήσω αὐτοὺς ἵνα ἥξουσιν καὶ προσκυνήσουσιν ἐνώπιον τῶν ποδῶν σου, καὶ γνῶσιν ὅτι ἐγὼ ἠγάπησά ry x if a a / σε. “OTL ἐτήρησας TOV λόγον τῆς ὑπομονῆς μου, κἀγώ ΄ an “ a A 1g σε τηρήσω EK τῆς ὥρας Tov πειρασμοῦ τῆς μελλού- Yj \ a bf / δ \ ons ἔρχεσθαι ἐπὶ τῆς οἰκουμένης ὅλης, πειράσαι τοὺς κατοικοῦντας ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. “ἔρχομαι ταχύ" κράτει ὃ » “ ὃ \ , \ / / 12 ¢ fal ἔχεις, ἵνα μηδεὶς λάβῃ τὸν στέφανόν cov. “6 νικῶν, / \ a lal an nr ἴω ποιήσω αὐτὸν στῦλον ἐν TO ναῷ τοῦ θεοῦ μου, καὶ ἔξω > \ es ” \ U 2 «ἢ aN ἈΦ, 8 a ov μὴ ἐξέλθη ἔτι, Kal γράψω ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν TO ὄνομα TOD a \ 5 a / fa) la) nan θεοῦ pov, Kal TO ὄνομα τῆς πόλεως TOD θεοῦ μου, τῆς a ¢ / / a a καινῆς ᾿ἱερουσαλήμ, ἡ καταβαίνουσα ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ Ἂς an “ / ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ μου, καὶ TO ὄνομά μου TO καινόν. “Oo ἔγων 5 x n an οὖς ἀκουσάτω TL TO πνεῦμα λέγει ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις. 14 \ a 5) ΄ A > , > , Kai τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν Λαοδικίᾳ ἐκκλησίας / ny, (wy & / £ > 7 ς ΄ ς \ \ γράψον, Τάδε λέγει ὁ ἀμήν, ὁ μάρτυς ὁ πιστὸς Kal ’ ῇ ἰὸν \ - , a n 15 “0 " ἊΝ ἀληθινός, ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς κτίσεως τοῦ θεοῦ: “Oida σου τὰ ε > > > > \ ἔργα, ὅτι οὔτε ψυχρὸς εἶ οὔτε ζεστός: ὄφελον ψυχρὸς φ' D , ἧς ἢ ζεστός" | ” / f > / > lol / / οὔτε ψυχρὸς, μέλλω σε ἐμέσαι EK TOU στοματὸς μου. 6 ee a \ εὐ \ “ x OUT@S OTL χλιαρὸς ει, και OUTE ζεστὸς lic , [2 / / ὅτι λέγεις OTL Τ]λούσιός εἰμι, Kal πεπλούτηκα Kal IV. 6 ATIOKAAYYI2 LQANNOY 7 0 Ν ἢ , » \ > 5 “ ‘ 3 ¢ ͵ οὐδὲν χρείαν ἔχω, καὶ οὐκ οἶδας ὅτι σὺ εἶ ὁ ταλαίπωρος ~~ 5 / \ \ \ \ \ / 18 καὶ ἐλεεινός, καὶ πτωχὸς Kal τυφλὸς καὶ γυμνός" "συμ- / ’ r βουλεύω σοι ἀγοράσαι παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ χρυσίον πεπυρωμένον 6 ΄ ς ery ἐκ πυρός, ἵνα πλουτήσῃς, καὶ ἱμάτια λευκώ, ‘Va περι- / % a ’ / a Barn, καὶ μὴ φανερωθῇ ἡ αἰσχύνη τῆς γυμνότητός σου" \ 4 b] »-» \ ? / a καὶ κολλύριον ἐγχρίῖσαι τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς σου, ἵνα , 19). NX “ 2\ a , βλέπῃς. “ya ὅσους ἐὰν φιλῶ, ἐλέγχω καὶ παιδεύω" 5 / : \ ζήλευε οὖν καὶ μετανόησον. “idovd ἕστηκα ἐπὶ τὴν ,ὔ / >? / a an θύραν καὶ κρούω" ἐάν Tis ἀκούσῃ THs φωνῆς μου, καὶ ’ pf \ / ? / \ > / \ / ἀνοίξη τὴν θύραν, εἰσελεύσομαι πρὸς αὐτόν, καὶ δειπνήσω ᾽ ἴω Ν ᾽ “ : fal μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ, καὶ αὐτὸς pet ἐμοῦ. “Ὁ νικῶν, δώσω 3 - / ’ b la] ’ n / id 3 \ αὐτῷ καθίσαι μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἐν TH θρόνῳ μου, ὡς κἀγὼ , \ rn / a ἐνίκησα, καὶ ἐκάθισα μετὰ τοῦ πατρός μου ἐν τῷ ᾽ Ἢ ς 53 Ἴ ῃ ͵ \ nA θρόνῳ αὐτοῦ. “ὁ ἔχων οὖς ἀκουσάτω τί τὸ πνεῦμα / lal 7] λέγει ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις. 4 Μετὰ ταῦτα εἶδον, καὶ ἰδοὺ θύρα ἠνεῳγμένη ᾿ a ? a \ ς \ ς / a + ε ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, καὶ ἡ φωνὴ ἡ πρώτη ἣν ἤκουσα ὡς / ᾽ a 5 / σάλπιγγος λαλούσης μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ, λέγων, AvaBa ὧδε, \ , AN a L Xr A 5 i. καὶ δείξω σοι ἃ δεῖ γενέσθαι μετὰ ταῦτα. “εὐθέως ΄ tal ἐγενόμην ἐν πνεύματι" καὶ ἰδοὺ θρόνος ἔκειτο ἐν TO > A ys ἃ / ¢ ε οὐρανῷ, καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν θρόνον καθήμενος" “καὶ ὁ καθήμενος “ ς / / 2 PY 4 \ / Nii / ὅμοιος ὁράσει λίθῳ ἰάσπιδι καὶ capdiw. καὶ ἶρις κυκλό- a ͵ “ ΨΥ , 4 \ θεν τοῦ θρόνου ὅμοιος ὁράσει cpapaydive. ‘Kai Ku- , “ / / v / κλόθεν τοῦ θρόνου θρόνοι εἴκοσι τέσσαρες" καὶ ἐπὶ τοὺς θρόνους εἴκοσι τέσσαρας πρεσβυτέρους καθημένους, / ) e / val "ey x περιβεβλημένους ἐν ἱματίοις λευκοῖς" καὶ ETL τὰς κεφα- a U a 5 a / has αὐτῶν στεφάνους χρυσοῦς. “Kal ἐκ τοῦ θρόνου ἐκπορεύονται ἀστραπαὶ καὶ φωναὶ καὶ βρονταί. καὶ “ / ἑπτὰ λαμπάδες πυρὸς καιόμεναι ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου, ἅ εἰσιν τὰ ἑπτὰ πνεύματα τοῦ θεοῦ": “καὶ ἐνώπιον τοῦ / ¢ U ae / ς Α , A 6 θρόνου ὡς θάλασσα ὑαλίνη ὁμοία κρυστάλλῳ. καὶ ἐν 8 ATIOKAAYYIZ IQANNOY IV. 6 / rn / \ / lal / / fal μέσῳ τοῦ θρόνου καὶ κύκλῳ τοῦ θρόνου τέσσερα Coa if ? a ov Ao “Εν θ 7 \ \ γέμοντα ὀφθαλμῶν ἔμπροσθεν καὶ ὄπισθεν. ‘Kal τὸ rn Ν a \ ss 7 Lad ζῷον TO πρῶτον ὅμοιον λέοντι, Kal TO δεύτερον ζῷον « 7 c , Ν \ Ψ n , \ / ὅμοιον μόσχῳ, Kal TO τρίτον ζῷον ἔχων TO πρόσωπον ὡς ἀνθρώπου, καὶ τὸ τέταρτον ζῷον ὅμοιον ἀετῷ πετο- ’ a ἃ ὃ ᾽ a 4 μένῳ. “καὶ τὰ τέσσερα Coa, ἕν καθ᾽ ἕν αὐτῶν ἔχων Ξ ᾽ ἀνὰ πτέρυγας ἕξ, κυκλόθεν καὶ ἔσωθεν γέμουσιν ὀφθαλ- an 2 » / \ / μῶν, Kal ἀνάπαυσιν οὐκ ἔχουσιν ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτός, / “ “ “ / ς \ .2 λέγοντες, “Aytos Gytos ἅγιος κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ παντο- bg ee \ e ἡ ς / κράτωρ, ὁ ἦν Kat ὁ ὧν Kal ὁ ἐρχόμενος. “Καὶ ὅταν t \ an / ‘ \ \ ’ 7ὔ “Ὁ δώσουσιν τὰ ζῷα δόξαν καὶ τιμὴν καὶ εὐχαριστίαν τῷ 4 EN a / a a ? \ πεν 7A a καθημένῳ ἐπὶ TO θρόνῳ, TO ζῶντι εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν , a / αἰώνων, “πεσοῦνται οἱ εἴκοσι τέσσαρες πρεσβύτεροι / ἴω rn / \ / ἐνώπιον τοῦ καθημένου ἐπὶ τοῦ θρόνου, καὶ προσκυνή- ἡ lel fal lal lal φ \ σουσιν τῷ ζῶντι εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων, Kal Ba- lel A a / λοῦσιν τοὺς στεφάνους αὐτῶν ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου, λέ- 8 ς / ig \ “Ὁ n Ν γοντες, *”A€tos εἶ, ὁ κύριος καὶ ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν, λαβεῖν τὴν / “ \ δόξαν καὶ τὴν τιμὴν καὶ τὴν δύναμιν" ὅτι σὺ ἔκτισας ἣΝ , Ν \ \ , / a \ 2 ’, τὰ πάντα, καὶ διὰ τὸ θέλημά σου ἦσαν καὶ ἐκτίσθησαν. 5 1K \ A 2 BN 5 ΩΝ ὃ \ a 6 L ce a αἱ εἶδον ἐπὶ τὴν δεξιὰν τοῦ καθημένου ἐπὶ TOD / / / ” Ν᾿ θρόνου βιβλίον γεγραμμένον ἔσωθεν καὶ ὄπισθεν, κατε- ᾿ a ς ͵ 2 \ 5 ” σφραγισμένον σφραγῖσιν ἑπτά. "καὶ εἶδον ἄγγελον > \ / 5 a / / ” ? nr ἰσχυρὸν κηρύσσοντα ἐν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ, Tis ἄξιος ἀνοῖξαι \ a a rn TO βιβλίον, Kai λῦσαι τὰς σφραγῖδας αὐτοῦ; ὃ καὶ it) \ 28 / ’ a » tal Ἰδὲ ’ \ fol - Ἰδὲ οὐδεὶς ἐδύνατο ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, οὐδὲ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, οὐδὲ Φ' , a a a » ὑποκάτω τῆς γῆς, ἀνοῖξαι TO βιβλίον, οὔτε βλέπειν / ‘ » , αὐτό. “καὶ [ἐγὼ] ἔκλαιον πολύ, ὅτι οὐδεὶς ἄξιος εὑρέθη ἀνοῖξαι τὸ βιβλίον οὔτε βλέπειν αὐτό. ὅ καὶ εἷς ἐκ τῶν / a πρεσβυτέρων λέγει μοι, Μὴ κλαῖε: ἰδοὺ ἐνίκησεν ὁ , ε an A > e an λέων ὁ ἐκ τῆς φυλῆς ᾿Ιούδα, ἡ ῥίζα Δαυείδ, ἀνοῖξαι τὸ / \ e a ’ nr βιβλίον καὶ τὰς ἑπτὰ σφραγῖδας αὐτοῦ. “Καὶ εἶδον ἐν ΝΙΙΣ ATIOKAAYYVIZ IQANNOY 9 - val / 2 / μέσῳ Tod θρόνου Kai τῶν τεσσάρων ζῴων, Kai ἐν μέσῳ a \ ‘4 τῶν πρεσβυτέρων, ἀρνίον ἑστηκὼς ὡς ἐσφαγμένον, ἔχων / e \ \ 5 \ e ‘ [4 > A e \ κέρατα ἑπτὰ καὶ ὀφθαλμοὺς ἑπτά, οἵ εἰσιν Ta ἑπτὰ πνεύματα τοῦ θεοῦ, ἀπεσταλμένοι εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν. a a a / “kat ἦλθεν καὶ εἴληφεν ἐκ τῆς δεξιᾶς τοῦ καθημένου a ξ te »» \ ἐπὶ τοῦ θρόνου. “καὶ dre ἔλαβεν τὸ βιβλίον, τὰ τέσσερα ζῷα καὶ οἱ εἴκοσι τέσσαρες πρεσβύτεροι ἔπεσαν ἐνώπιον rn Μ / a Tov apviou, ἔχοντες ἕκαστος κιθάραν, Kal φιάλας χρυσᾶς / / " Θ Ν Ὁ / γεμούσας θυμιαμάτων, ai εἰσιν αἱ προσευχαὶ τῶν ἁγίων" Ψ \ 53 r “καὶ ἄδουσιν @dnv καινήν, λέγοντες, "Δ ξιος εἶ λαβεῖν 5 fal \ lal ’ an TO βιβλίον, καὶ ἀνοῖξαι τὰς σφραγῖδας αὐτοῦ" ὅτι ᾿ / \ > / a lel > a “ la > ἐσφάγης καὶ nyopacas τῷ θεῷ ἐν τῷ αἵματί σου ἐκ , a / \ lo) πάσης φυλῆς καὶ γλώσσης καὶ λαοῦ καὶ ἔθνους, " καὶ , ’ \ lal fal lal - ἐποίησας αὐτοὺς τῷ θεῷ ἡμῶν βασιλείαν καὶ ἱερεῖς" \ 4 \ a A καὶ βασιλεύ[σ]ουσιν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. “xal εἶδον, καὶ V4 S \ BJ a a ἤκουσα ὡς φωνὴν ἀγγέλων πολλῶν κύκλῳ TOD θρόνου \ ne ͵ \ a , NG ae elas \ καὶ τῶν ζῴων καὶ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων" καὶ ἦν ὁ ἀριθμὸς ’ lal / / αὐτῶν μυριάδες μυριάδων καὶ χιλιάδες χιλιάδων, ”dé- a U ἢ , 2 / \ yovtes φωνῇ μεγάλῃ, "Αξιόν ἐστιν τὸ ἀρνίον τὸ ἐσφαγ- , Nn lal \ δύ \ n \ / 43 μένον λαβεῖν τὴν δύναμιν καὶ πλοῦτον Kal σοφίαν καὶ > \ \ \ \ 60 x ε ,ὔ 13 \ an ἰσχὺν καὶ τιμὴν καὶ δόξαν καὶ εὐλογίαν. “καὶ πᾶν / ar 3 A ᾽ a \ a a / κτίσμα ὃ EV τῷ οὐρανῷ, καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, καὶ ὑποκάτω a fel ἂψ τα Ἃ, a a τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης ἐστίν, Kal Ta ἐν αὐτοῖς , ” / rf / fal , πάντα, ἤκουσα λέγοντας, Τῷ καθημένῳ ἐπὶ τοῦ θρόνου \ lal ’ / ς λ, / \ ε \ \ ς δό “\ \ Kal τῷ ἀρνίῳ ἡ εὐλογία Kal ἡ τιμὴ Kal ἡ δόξα καὶ TO , > \ 2A a κράτος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. “Kai τὰ τέσσερα ζῷ eX, ~A / ᾿Ξ εΥ e / ΝΜ Ν @a ἔλεγον, ᾿Αμήν: καὶ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι ἔπεσαν καὶ Ud προσεκύνησαν. e eo. © 53 δι » a 6 "Καὶ εἶδον ὅτε ἤνοιξεν τὸ ἀρνίον μίαν ἐκ τῶν e A \ n ἑπτὰ σφραγίδων, καὶ ἤκουσα ἑνὸς ἐκ τῶν τεσσάρων / ΄ aa’ “-“ “ ζῴων λέγοντος, ὡς φωνὴ βροντῆς, "Ἔρχου. "καὶ εἶδον, ΙΟ ATIOKAAYYIZ IQANNOY Viliz A SD NEL / \ e / 5 ’ > \ yy καὶ ἰδοὺ ἵππος λευκός, Kal ὁ καθήμενος ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν ἔχων A / » ἴω -“ τόξον" καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ στέφανος, καὶ ἐξῆλθεν νικῶν, \ καὶ ἵνα νικήσῃ. 8 \ is Lal ᾿ Καὶ ὅτε ἤνοιξεν τὴν σφραγῖδα τὴν δευτέραν, ἤκουσα la f / na τοῦ δευτέρου ζῴου λέγοντος, "Epyou. “καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ἄλλος eg Bee \ a ΄ peer) Bice, Δ 5 a ὑππὸος TUPPOS* καὶ τῷ καθημένῳ ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν ἐδόθη αὐτῷ an \ > / lol lol NWie/. 5 a λαβεῖν τὴν εἰρήνην ἐκ τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἵνα ἀλλήλους σφάξου- \ a σιν" καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ μάχαιρα μεγάλη. °K Ἄχ ee a \ τὸ \ / 4 a αἱ ὅτε ἤνοιξεν THY σφραγῖδα THY τρίτην, ἤκουσα τοῦ , t f ” \ 3 ἂς, ἋΣ Ney: τρίτου ζῴου λέγοντος, "Epyov. καὶ εἶδον, καὶ ἰδοὺ ἵππος I Pd 7 ᾽ ’ x \ an μέλας, Kal ὁ καθήμενος ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν ἔχων ζυγὸν ἐν TH χειρὶ ’ rn 3 x / a αὐτοῦ. “καὶ ἤκουσα ὡς φωνὴν ἐν μέσῳ TOV τεσσάρων , / a / / A a / ζώων λέγουσαν, Χοῖνιξ σίτου δηναρίου, καὶ τρεῖς χοίνικες fa} a ὃ 2 \ \ ΑΝ, \ \ a Ae Ἢ / κριθῶν δηναρίου" καὶ τὸ ἔλαιον καὶ τὸν οἶνον μὴ ἀδικήσης. ΤΚ Ν “ ΕἾ \ τὸ \ / a ὅτε ἤνοιξεν τὴν σφραγῖδα τὴν τετάρτην, » \ “ “ “ / v ἤκουσα φωνὴν tov τετάρτου ζῴου λέγοντος, “Epyxov. 8 \ 53 \ > \ “ ἢ \ Y ‘ καὶ εἶδον, Kai ἰδοὺ ἵππος yAwpos, καὶ ὁ καθή- > A Visine we ca μενος ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ, ὄνομα αὐτῷ ὁ θάνατος, Kai ὁ ἅδης ᾽ / > ’ fal \ 3 , 5 a > / 3 Ν ἠκολούθει μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ. καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς ἐξουσία ἐπὶ \ na fol an , a TO τέταρτον τῆς γῆς, ἀποκτεῖναι ἐν ῥομφαίᾳ Kat ἐν λιμῷ lal / n “ καὶ ἐν θανάτῳ, καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων τῆς γῆς. , a "Καὶ ὅτε ἤνοιξεν THY πέμπτην σφραγῖδα, εἶδον ὑπο- / eo \ \ a κάτω τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου Tas ψυχὰς τῶν ἐσφαγμένων \ lal fal \ AK 5 διὰ τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ διὰ THY μαρτυρίαν ἣν εἶχον" 7 n , / +f , et “Kal ἔκραξαν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ, λέγοντες, “Ews πότε, 0° 4 3 a δεσπότης ὁ ἅγιος καὶ ἀληθινός, οὐ κρίνεις καὶ ἐκδικεῖς lal lal \ fol fol TO αἷμα ἡμῶν ἐκ τῶν κατοικούντων ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς; “Kal Ὁ. ἡ ’ lal e / \ ΄ \ :} / 3, a ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς ἑκάστῳ στολὴ λευκή, Kal ἐρρέθη αὐτοῖς ἵνα ἀναπαύσωνται ἔτι χρόνον μικρόν, ἕως πληρώσωσιν \ ΄ / , a A . 3 \ ᾽ lal . καὶ οἱ σύνδουλοι αὐτῶν καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ αὐτῶν, οἱ ᾽ 4 μέλλοντες ἀποκτέννεσθαι ὡς καὶ αὐτοί.. VII. 6 ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΥΊΣ IQANNOY ΓΙ “Kat εἶδον ὅτε ἤνοιξεν τὴν σφραγῖδα τὴν ἕκτην" ς " καὶ σεισμὸς μέγας ἐγένετο, καὶ ὁ ἥλιος ἐγένετο μέλας , “ / ¢ : ὡς σάκκος τρίχινος, καὶ ἡ σελήνη ὅλη ἐγένετο ὡς αἷμα, “Kal οἱ ἀστέρες τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἔπεσαν εἰς τὴν γῆν, ὡς συκῆ / \ > / ’ fal 4 \ 5 / / βάλλει τοὺς ὀλύνθους αὐτῆς, ὑπὸ ἀνέμου μεγάλου σειο- Ν [ ? ‘ Ν μένη" “Kal ὁ οὐρανὸς ἀπεχωρίσθη ὡς βιβλίον ἑλισσό- μενον, καὶ πᾶν ὄρος καὶ νῆσος ἐκ τῶν τόπων αὐτῶν ἐκι- e a A fol ς r νήθησαν" “καὶ of βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς, καὶ οἱ μεγιστᾶνες, καὶ οἱ χιλίαρχοι, καὶ οἱ πλούσιοι, καὶ οἱ ἰσχυροί, καὶ a a X 4 ” ς \ > \ / πᾶς δοῦλος Kai ἐλεύθερος ἔκρυψαν ἑαυτοὺς εἰς TA σπή- a J a Naa Kal εἰς TAS πέτρας τῶν ὀρέων. “Kal λέγουσιν τοῖς v \ - , lA ΡΟ ea a \ / ὄρεσιν καὶ ταῖς πέτραις, Ilécete ἐφ᾽ ἡμᾶς, καὶ κρύψατε a lal / \ lal ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ προσώπου τοῦ καθημένου ἐπὶ τοῦ θρόνου, Kal ἣν \ a > a a Ἴ , 17 ὦ 3 Ch. ce oe ς ἀπὸ τῆς ὀργῆς τοῦ ἀρνίου: “ὅτι ἦλθεν ἡ ἡμέρα ἡ an an a / ᾿Ξ n μεγάλη τῆς ὀργῆς αὐτῶν, καὶ τίς δύναται σταθῆναι; 7 1 \ \ a 5 ft 5 , Καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο εἶδον τέσσαρας ἀγγέλους an / fol a rn ἑστῶτας ἐπὶ Tas τέσσαρας γωνίας τῆς γῆς, κρατοῦντας \ a ας Ὁ \ τοὺς τέσσαρας ἀνέμους τῆς γῆς, ἵνα μὴ πνέῃ ἄνεμος a aA \ an / A ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, μήτε ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης, μήτε ἐπὶ πᾶν δένδρον. "Καὶ εἶδον ἄλλον ἄγγελον ἀναβαίνοντα ἀπὸ > a id / yy lal a a] oe ἀνατολῆς ἡλίου, ἔχοντα σφραγῖδα θεοῦ ζῶντος" καὶ é- ; “Ὁ / lal / ’ , 4Φ > U κραξεν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ τοῖς τέσσαρσιν ἀγγέλοις, οἷς ἐδόθη a an an \ αὐτοῖς ἀδικῆσαι τὴν γῆν καὶ τὴν θάλασσαν, “λέγων, Μ) 16 / Ls a / \ θ tr / ἃ, Μὴ ἀδικήσητε τὴν γῆν, μήτε τὴν θάλασσαν, μήτε τὰ δένδρα, ἄχρι σφραγίσωμεν τοὺς δούλους τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν ἐπὶ τῶν μετώπων αὐτῶν. “Καὶ ἤκουσα τὸν ἀριθμὸν el / τῶν ἐσφραγισμένων: ἑκατὸν τεσσεράκοντα τέσσαρες A ta χιλιάδες, ἐσφραγισμένοι ἐκ πάσης φυλῆς υἱῶν ᾿Ισραήλ" "ἐκ φυλῆς ᾿Ιούδα, δώδεκα χιλιάδες ἐσφραγισμένοι" ἐκ φυλῆς Ρουβήν, δώδεκα χιλιάδες ἐκ φυλῆς Vad, δώδεκα fol > fol χιλιάδες: “ἐκ φυλῆς ᾿Ασήρ, δώδεκα χιλιάδες: ἐκ φυλῆς 12 ATIOKAAYYVIZ LQANNOY VIERG 2 , a n / Νεφθαλείμ, δώδεκα χιλιάδες: ἐκ φυλῆς Μανασσῆ, δώ- / a * ‘ δεκα χιλιάδες" “ex φυλῆς Συμεών, δώδεκα χιλιάδες: ἐκ nr a > φυλῆς Λευεί, δώδεκα χιλιάδες" ἐκ φυλῆς ᾿Ισσαχάρ, / fol / δώδεκα χιλιάδες: “ἐκ φυλῆς Ζαβουλών, δώδεκα χιλιά- δες" ἐκ φυλῆς ᾿Ιωσήφ, δώδεκα χιλιάδες" ἐκ φυλῆς Bevia- / ὃ / ὃ » / μείν, δώδεκα χιλιάδες ἐσφραγισμένοι. \ a \ t a ’ Μετὰ ταῦτα εἶδον, καὶ ἰδοὺ ὄχλος πολύς, ὃν ἀριθ- n 5 Ἂν >) \ 3, ψ 5 ¥ " ‘ lal μῆσαι αὐτὸν οὐδεὶς ἐδύνατο, ἐκ παντὸς ἔθνους καὶ φυλῶν lal lal lal lal / \ καὶ λαῶν Kal γλωσσῶν, ἑστῶτες ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου Kai - ΑΨ a > / / \ U ἐνώπιον τοῦ apviov, περιβεβλημένους στολὰς λευκάᾶς, i a > Lal \ / καὶ φοίνικες ἐν ταῖς χερσὶν αὐτῶν᾽ “Kat κράζουσιν lal U / « / a a (2 a “ φωνῇ μεγάλῃ, λέγοντες, Ἢ σωτηρία τῷ θεῷ ἡμῶν τῷ a , a Sty 11 \ καθημένῳ ἐπὶ τῷ θρόνῳ, καὶ τῷ ἀρνίῳ. “Kal πάντες c 3 / a I Ὁ οἱ ἄγγελοι εἱστήκεισαν κύκλῳ τοῦ θρόνου καὶ τῶν / a , πρεσβυτέρων καὶ τῶν τεσσάρων ζῴων, καὶ ἔπεσαν , “- , \ / ’ n ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου ἐπὶ τὰ πρόσωπα αὐτῶν, καὶ προσ- ΄ a a .12~ / 5) , ε ’ 7ὔ Nae εκύνησαν τῷ θεῷ, "“"λέγοντες, ᾿Αμήν: ἡ εὐλογία Kal ἡ , NCre / \ IA an δύναμις καὶ ἡ ἰσχὺς TO θεῷ ἡμῶν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας TOV "7 Sh 13 \ 9 ,ὕ e 9 a , aiovev: ἀμήν. “Kat ἀπεκρίθη εἷς ἐκ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων, : / X: λέγων μοι, Οὗτοι of περιβεβλημένοι τὰς στολὰς τὰς 5 4 Ihe 3 A λευκάς, τίνες εἰσίν, καὶ πόθεν ἦλθον; “καὶ εἴρηκα > an / / \ 3 \ 53 , & ΄ » αὐτῷ, Κύριέ μου, σὺ οἶδας. καὶ εἶπέν μοι, Οὗτοί εἰσιν πω / b] lol / a / \ wv οἱ ἐρχόμενοι ἐκ τῆς θλίψεως THs μεγάλης, καὶ ἔπλυναν \ s \ a \ a τὰς στολὰς αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐλεύκαναν αὐτὰς ἐν TO αἵματι a / a / a a τοῦ apviov. Oia τοῦτό εἰσιν ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου τοῦ nr A ce a θεοῦ, καὶ λατρεύουσιν αὐτῷ ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς ἐν TO al a \ ς a / ναῷ αὐτοῦ" Kal ὁ καθήμενος ἐπὶ τοῦ θρόνου σκηνώσει δὶ," ΕῚ / 16 > / ” ᾽ \ / », ἐπ᾿ αὐτούς. “ov πεινάσουσιν ἔτι, οὐδὲ διψήσουσιν ἔτι, STON gt ἃ ͵ ὅκυτι ὐσ ν᾿ Gear? >O\ a n ize οὐδὲ μὴ πέσῃ ἐπ᾽ αὐτοὺς ὁ ἥλιος, οὐδὲ πᾶν καῦμα. “OTL Ν > / \ \ / fal / a TO ἀρνίον TO ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ θρόνου ποιμανεῖ αὐτούς, καὶ. ΜΓ: ATIOKAAYYIZ 1QANNOY 13 ὁδηγήσει αὐτοὺς ἐπὶ ζωῆς πηγὰς ὑδάτων" Kai ἐξαλείψει « \ r / ’ ἴω , lal τ lal ὁ θεὸς πᾶν δάκρυον ἐκ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτῶν. Ὁ \ ων \ € , 8 ᾿ΨΚαὶ ὅταν ἤνοιξεν τὴν σφραγῖδα τὴν ἑβδόμην, \ a a 9 ἐγένετο σιγὴ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ὡς ἡμίωρον. “καὶ εἶδον \ ε an a τοὺς ἑπτὰ ἀγγέλους, of ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ ἑστήκασιν, Naw? Ao γον} \ , 3 Use ” καὶ ἐδόθησαν αὐτοῖς ἑπτὰ σάλπιγγες. “Kal ἄλλος ἄγ- > Nir 9 / pA SX a UG ” γέλος ἦλθεν, Kai ἐστάθη ἐπὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου, ἔχων \ A \. CIR > tal γῇ / λιβανωτὸν χρυσοῦν" καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ θυμιάματα πολλά, “ 4 an a fal iva δώσει ταῖς προσευχαῖς τῶν ἁγίων πάντων. ἐπὶ τὸ / a ἴω θυσιαστήριον τὸ χρυσοῦν τὸ ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου. “καὶ c fal lal - n ἀνέβη ὁ καπνὸς τῶν θυμιαμάτων ταῖς προσευχαῖς τῶν / \ nA I A fal ἁγίων, ἐκ χειρὸς τοῦ ἀγγέλου, ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ. “Kal » ε yA \ / \ > ees b aed, εἴληφεν ὁ ἄγγελος Tov λιβανωτόν, καὶ ἐγέμισεν αὐτὸν 5 a \ “ / ὕ \ ro τον ἐκ τοῦ πυρὸς TOD θυσιαστηρίου, καὶ ἔβαλεν εἰς τὴν γῆν καὶ ἐγένοντο βρονταὶ καὶ φωναὶ καὶ ἀστραπαὶ καὶ 6 \ ane eee εν \ ς \ σεισμός. “Καὶ οἱ ἑπτὰ ἄγγελοι of ἔχοντες Tas ἑπτὰ ; ΄, ς ΄ > \ “ ho 7 \ σάλπιγγας ἡτοίμασαν αὐτοὺς ἵνα σαλπίσωσιν. ‘Kai ε a -“ ὁ πρῶτος ἐσάλπισεν, καὶ ἐγένετο χάλαζα καὶ πῦρ με- , 5 [4 \ > / > \ fo) \ \ μιγμένα ἐν αἵματι, καὶ ἐβλήθη εἰς τὴν γῆν: Kal TO “ an \ A / fel / τρίτον τῆς γῆς κατεκάη, Kai TO τρίτον τῶν δένδρων ΝΥ ῃ 7 8 Nog ae κατεκάη, Kal πᾶς χόρτος χλωρὸς κατεκάη. “Καὶ ὁ / 7 4 \ lj Le: \ δεύτερος ἄγγελος ἐσάλπισεν, Kal ὡς ὄρος μέγα πυρὶ / - 25 ΄ > \ ΄ \ DAF \ καιόμενον ἐβλήθη εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν: καὶ ἐγένετο TO a / sh / τρίτον τῆς θαλάσσης αἷμα. “καὶ ἀπέθανεν τὸ τρίτον n a A 4 \ vy / TOV κτισμάτων τῶν ἐν TH θαλάσσῃ, τὰ ἔχοντα ψυχάς, an Ὁ οἷς / Kal τὸ τρίτον τῶν πλοίων διεφθάρησαν. “Kai ὁ τρίτος nr an > \ ἄγγελος ἐσάλπισεν, καὶ ἔπεσεν Ex τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἀστὴρ , / e / δεν \ MY y μέγας καιόμενος ὡς λαμπάς, Kal ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ TO τρίτον “ a \ \ a ς / TOV ποταμῶν, Kal ἐπὶ τὰς πηγὰς τῶν ὑδάτων. “Kal TO Μ fal > / / » \ > / \ ὄνομα τοῦ ἀστέρος λέγεται ΓΛψινθος" Kai ἐγένετο τὸ fel ? a \ \ a / τρίτον τῶν ὑδάτων εἰς ἄψινθον, καὶ πολλοὶ τῶν ἀνθρώ- 14 ATIOKAAYYVIZ IQANNOY VIII. 11 » / ’ a ig / “ ε 4 12 \ πων ἀπέθανον ἐκ τῶν ὑδάτων, OTL ἐπικράνθησαν. “Kat ΄ / A \ 3 Ἁ ὁ τέταρτος ἄγγελος ἐσάλπισεν, καὶ ἐπλήγη τὸ τρίτον ΓΟ»: ’, \ / a \ \ a τοῦ ἡλίου καὶ TO τρίτον τῆς σελήνης καὶ TO τρίτον τῶν > 7 “, aA x n ἀστέρων, ἵνα σκοτισθῇ τὸ τρίτον αὐτῶν, καὶ ἡ ἡμέρα \ ΄ \ y Ε] n \ id \ ς ΄ 13 \ μὴ φάνῃ τὸ τρίτον αὐτῆς, καὶ ἡ νὺξ ὁμοίως. “Kai ἴω / εἶδον, Kal ἤκουσα ἑνὸς ἀετοῦ πετομένου ἐν μεσουρανή- , en 4 > / >’ / > \ \ ματι, λέγοντος φωνῇ μεγάλῃ, Οὐαί, οὐαί, οὐαὶ τοὺς κατοικοῦντας ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, ἐκ τῶν λοιπῶν φωνῶν τῆς / a a > I a / σάλπιγγος τῶν TPL@Y ἀγγέλων τῶν μελλόντων σαλ- πίζειν. 9 ' Καὶ ὁ πέμπτος ἄγγελος ἐσάλπισεν, καὶ εἶδον ΄ an lal / \ a ἀστέρα ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ πεπτωκότα εἰς τὴν γῆν, καὶ / a ¢ \ an 7] an 5 a3 2 A ἐδόθη αὐτῷ ἡ κλεὶς τοῦ φρέατος τῆς ἀβύσσου, “καὶ ” x / aA ’ / a 3 / \ 5 ἤνοιξεν τὸ φρέαρ τῆς ἀβύσσου. καὶ ἀνέβη καπνὸς ἐκ an Ἂν ΄ τοῦ φρέατος ὡς καπνὸς καμίνου μεγάλης, καὶ ἐσκοτίσθη δ ς \ na lal fa) ὁ ἥλιος καὶ ὁ ἀὴρ ἐκ τοῦ καπνοῦ τοῦ φρέατος" “καὶ ἐκ an mA ‘Sign > , ᾽ \ n \ Ὁ 7 τοῦ καπνοῦ ἐξῆλθον ἀκρίδες εἰς τὴν γῆν, καὶ ἐδόθη αὐταῖς ἐξουσία, ὡς ἔχουσιν ἐξουσίαν οἱ σκορπίοι τῆς an a f γῆς ᾿καὶ ἐρρέθη αὐταῖς ἵνα μὴ ἀδικήσωσιν τὸν χόρτον an rn JOE Qn / Ἰδὲ ἴω δέ 3 \ \ τῆς γῆς, οὐδὲ πᾶν χλωρόν, οὐδὲ πᾶν δένδρον, εἰ μὴ τοὺς , > nr - n ἀνθρώπους οἵτινες οὐκ ἔχουσιν THY σφραγῖδα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπὶ τῶν μετώπων. “Kal ἐδόθη αὐταῖς ἵνα μὴ ἀποκτεί- ᾽ ΄ > » τ Ἧ aA , νωσιν αὐτούς, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα βασανισθήσονται μῆνας πέντε" Ἦν \ > A e AN ,ὔ “ καὶ 0 βασανισμὸς αὐτῶν ὡς βασανισμὸς σκορπίου, ὅταν. , » 8 5 5 Pe mNe V7, en? / παίσῃ ἄνθρωπον: “καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις ζητή- 2 ©) ΝΜ \ govow οἱ ἄνθρωποι τὸν θάνατον, καὶ οὐ μὴ εὑρήσουσιν af \ 5 ΄ ’ a \ 7 ¢ αὐτόν: καὶ ἐπιθυμήσουσιν ἀποθανεῖν, καὶ φεύγει ὁ θά bY 2 J a νὴ \ \ ¢ / lal ᾽ / avatos ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν. ‘Kal τὰ ὁμοιώματα τῶν ἀκρίδων i os / Ν ὅμοια ἵπποις ἡτοιμασμένοις εἰς πόλεμον, καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς \ > a / oy a \ κεφαλὰς αὐτῶν ὡς στέφανοι ὅμοιοι χρυσῷ, καὶ τὰ ΄, > a [ ἡ πρόσωπα αὐτῶν ὡς πρόσωπα ἀνθρώπων" “καὶ εἶχαν a a IX. 19 _ATIOKAAY VIZ LQANNOY 15 id ‘ lal ec / ,’ lal id τρίχας ὡς τρίχας γυναικῶν" καὶ οἱ ὀδόντες αὐτῶν ὡς , 3 9 , > / λεόντων ἦσαν. “καὶ εἶχον θώρακας ὡς θώρακας σι- δηροῦς" καὶ ἡ φωνὴ τῶν πτερύγων αὐτῶν ὡς φωνὴ el / \ ἁρμάτων ἵππων πολλῶν τρεχόντων εἰς πόλεμον. “Kal ne , ἔχουσιν οὐρὰς ὁμοίας σκορπίοις, Kal κέντρα" καὶ ἐν an > -“ “ fal n ταῖς οὐραῖς αὐτῶν ἡ ἐξουσία αὐτῶν, ἀδικῆσαι τοὺς ἀν- n / ’ > Ὁ θρώπους μῆνας πέντε. "ἔχουσιν ἐπ᾿ αὐτῶν βασιλέα \ », a by / v ᾽ a «ς ” \ τὸν ἄγγελον τῆς ἀβύσσου" ὄνομα αὐτῷ “ὡβραϊστὶ / a I APS) > ᾿Αβαδδών, καὶ ἐν τῇ ᾿᾿λληνικῇ ὄνομα ἔχει ᾿Απολλύων. Rey γ᾽ \ ς / > an > \ ” ΝΜ / aN oval ἡ μία ἀπῆλθεν: ἰδοὺ ἔρχεται ἔτι δύο οὐαὶ μετὰ ταῦτα. « “Kai ὁ ἕκτος ἄγγελος ἐσάλπισεν, καὶ ἤκουσα φωνὴν. “Ὁ δ fal n μίαν ἐκ τῶν τεσσάρων κεράτων τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου τοῦ a Ὁ , lal a / a oo χρυσοῦ Tov ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ, “Aéyovta τῷ ἕκτῳ ἀγγέλῳ \ n \ / , ὁ ἔχων τὴν σάλπιγγα, Λῦσον τοὺς τέσσαρας ἀγγέλους τοὺς δεδεμένους ἐπὶ τῷ ποταμῷ τῷ μεγάλῳ Ευὐφράτ 5, μ 9 t LG t μ Ύ t τ ρ ὯΝ / « id ¢ , > "καὶ ἐλύθησαν οἱ τέσσαρες ἄγγελοι οἱ ἡτοιμασμένοι εἰς an t “ τὴν ὥραν καὶ ἡμέραν καὶ μῆνα καὶ ἐνιαυτόν, ἵνα ἀποκτεί- - ¢ - νωσιν τὸ τρίτον τῶν ἀνθρώπων. “καὶ ὁ ἀριθμὸς τῶν στρατευμάτων τοῦ ἱππικοῦ δύο μυριάδες μυριάδων" ἤκου- \ > A αὐτὰ Ὡς 1 Nee 3 \ τ ΑΕ σα τὸν ἀριθμὸν αὐτῶν. “Kali οὕτως εἶδον τοὺς ἵππους aA ᾽ » A 7 ἐν τῇ ὁράσει, καὶ τοὺς καθημένους ἐπ᾽ αὐτῶν, ἔχοντας “ , \ te θώρακας πυρίνους καὶ ὑακινθίνους καὶ θειώδεις" καὶ ai \ a 4 / n κεφαλαὶ τῶν ἵππων ὡς κεφαλαὶ λεόντων, Kal ἐκ TOV / > “ al al στομάτων αὐτῶν ἐκπορεύεται πῦρ καὶ καπνὸς Kal θεῖον. yt: ἃ A a A ΄ \ ἀπὸ TOV τριῶν πληγῶν τούτων ἀπεκτάνθησαν TO / n a nr \ τρίτον τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἐκ Tod πυρὸς Kal τοῦ καπνοῦ Kal A / a lal a τοῦ θείου τοῦ ἐκπορευομένου ἐκ τῶν στομάτων αὐτῶν. 19 ¢ te, 's , a a A ἡ yap ἐξουσία τῶν ἵππων ἐν τῷ στόματι αὐτῶν ἐστὶν og an > a “wes ‘ a καὶ ἐν ταῖς οὐραῖς αὐτῶν: ai γὰρ οὐραὶ αὐτῶν ὅμοιαι 18 ree » ΄, \ > , ΞὩ 3 a ὄφεσιν, ἔχουσαι κεφαλάς, καὶ ἐν αὐταῖς ἀδικοῦσιν. 16 ATITOKAAY VIZ LQANNOY IX. 20 ‘ \ . a δ “Kat οἱ λοιποὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, οἱ οὐκ ἀπεκτάνθησαν nr “-“ A » Lal ἐν ταῖς πληγαῖς ταύταις, οὔτε μετενόησαν ἐκ τῶν ἔργων al a ’ a 4 \ τῶν χειρῶν αὐτῶν, Wa μὴ προσκυνήσουσιν τὰ δαιμόνια, καὶ τὰ εἴδωλα τὰ χρυσᾶ καὶ τὰ ἀργυρᾶ καὶ τὰ χαλκᾶ \ ,ὔ Ν \ 4 \ καὶ Ta λίθινα καὶ τὰ ξύλινα, ἃ οὔτε βλέπειν δύνανται > / » a οὔτε ἀκούειν οὔτε περιπατεῖν, “Kal οὐ μετενόησαν ἐκ “ / an / lal lal ἴω TOV φόνων αὐτῶν οὔτε ἐκ τῶν φαρμακιῶν αὐτῶν, οὔτε an 7 lal 5 lal na ἐκ τῆς πορνείας αὐτῶν, οὔτε ἐκ τῶν κλεμμάτων αὐτῶν. / Ν 10 ‘Kal εἶδον ἄλλον ἄγγελον ἰσχυρὸν καταβαί- ᾽ a ᾽ A , , ἈΚ ΩΣ vovTa ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, περιβεβλημένον νεφέλην, καὶ ἡ \ n \ \ / an ἶρις ἐπὶ THY κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ, Kal TO πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ὡς ΥΩ, \ e / 5 XE. a / 2 NEUE ὁ ἥλιος, καὶ οἱ πόδες αὐτοῦ ὡς στῦλοι πυρός, "καὶ ἔχων 3 a \ ? a ὃ > / \ ἔθ ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ βιβλαρίδιον ἠνεῳγμένον: καὶ ἔθηκεν \ aN ᾽ a \ 5 \ 5, δὲν > θ , \ δὲ τὸν πόδα αὐτοῦ τὸν δεξιὸν ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης, τὸν δὲ "7 sya a n_ 3 \ ὦ a ΄, “ εὐώνυμον ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, Kal ἔκραξεν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ ὥσπερ ,ὔ a x Ὁ ” > / e Ὁ \ λέων μυκῶᾶται' Kal ὅτε ἔκραξεν, ἐλάλησαν αἱ ἑπτὰ Ν Ν ς a / 4 ὮΝ Ὁ“ > / e βρονταὶ tas ἑαυτῶν φωνάς. “Kal ὅτε ἐλάλησαν αἱ € \ / Μ / \ ” \ ἑπτὰ BpovtTal, ἔμελλον γράφειν: καὶ ἤκουσα φωνὴν 4, an τ rn / / A > / e ἐκ TOU οὐρανοῦ, λέγουσαν, Σφράγισον ἃ ἐλάλησαν αἱ ec \ / \ \ >) \ vA 5 ‘ Ὁ ΕΣ ἑπτὰ βρονταί, καὶ μὴ αὐτὰ γράψῃς. “Kal ὁ ἄγγελος, ἃ a \ A ΄ \ a a ov εἶδον ἑστῶτα ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, a a \ SS Ἀν / ἦρεν τὴν χεῖρα αὐτοῦ τὴν δεξιὰν εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν, “καὶ a fal \ a a ἃ ὥμοσεν ἐν τῷ ζῶντι εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων, ὃς \ \ \ ? al \ an ἔκτισεν TOV οὐρανὸν Kal τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ, Kal τὴν γῆν και TA lal \ \ 2A / ἐν αὐτῇ, καὶ τὴν θάλασσαν Kal τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ, ὅτι χρόνος ’ / yA 79: ~ Nye} aA ς , a lal ne 60 οὐκέτι ἔσται," ANN ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις τῆς φωνῆς τοῦ ἑβδόμου / \ \ ἀγγέλου, ὅταν μέλλῃ σαλπίζειν, καὶ ἐτελέσθη τὸ μυστή- a a 2 \ “ ΄ ριον τοῦ θεοῦ, ὡς εὐηγγέλισεν τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ δούλους τοὺς ΄ὕ 8 ἐδ ἧς Na ” > a ᾽ a προφήτας. “Kai ἡ φωνὴ ἣν ἤκουσα ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, na » an / πάλιν λαλοῦσαν μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ, καὶ λέγουσαν, Ὕπαγε, λάβε \ , n Ν an? + “Ὁ τὸ βιβλαρίδιον τὸ ἠνεωγμένον ἐν τῇ χειρὶ τοῦ ἀγγέλου τοῦ ALS hr. ATIOKAAYYIZ IQANNOY 17 e n > \ r / \ ’ \ a fal 9 \ ἑστῶτος ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης Kal ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. “Kal » a Ν Ν ΝΜ , » “Ὁ nr ΓΑ Ν ἀπῆλθον πρὸς τὸν ἄγγελον, λέγων αὐτῷ δοῦναί μοι τὸ / / 4“ βιβλαρίδιον. καὶ λέγει μοι, Λάβε καὶ κατάφαγε αὐτό" a \ / » > a / Kal πικρανεῖ σου τὴν κοιλίαν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν TH στόματί σου \ / ἔσται γλυκὺ ὡς μέλι. "καὶ ἔλαβον τὸ βιβλαρίδιον ἐκ a \ nr / 3 / τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ ἀγγέλου, καὶ κατέφαγον αὐτό" Kal ἣν ἐν a / U e Dy, Xr ὅς RM » , / τῷ στόματί μου ὡς μέλι, γλυκύ" Kal ὅτε ἔφαγον αὐτό, 5 ΄, ε , 11 \ L / a ἐπικράνθη ἡ κοιλία μου. καὶ λέγουσιν μοι, Δεῖ σε / lal > \ lal A ak \ / πάλιν προφητεῦσαι ἐπὶ λαοῖς καὶ ἔθνεσιν καὶ γχώσσαις καὶ βασιλεῦσιν πολλοῖς. ἜΝ Ν / e © 11 ‘Kat ἐδόθη μοι κάλαμος ὅμοιος ῥάβδῳ, λέγων, » \ / fal fol ἔγειρε, καὶ μέτρησον τὸν ναὸν τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ TO θυσια- / \ a κ᾿ “Ὁ στήριον, καὶ τοὺς προσκυνοῦντας ἐν αὐτῷ" "καὶ τὴν \ \ “ a αὐλὴν τὴν ἔξωθεν τοῦ ναοῦ ἔκβαλε ἔξωθεν, καὶ μὴ ἄς aN 7 “ Ὁ 7 ΓΝ, αν \ \ , αὐτὴν μετρήσῃς, ὅτι ἐδόθη τοῖς ἔθνεσιν: καὶ τὴν πόλιν \ , τι ‘ τὴν ἁγίαν πατήσουσιν μῆνας τεσσεράκοντα δύο. “Kal , a \ / / δώσω τοῖς δυσὶν μάρτυσίν μου, Kal προφητεύσουσιν e / / / i? / / , ἡμέρας χιλίας διακοσίας ἑξήκοντα, περιβεβλημένοι σάκ- 4 @ / ’ e / lal \ [2 / 4 κους. “Οὗτοί εἰσιν ai δύο ἐλαῖαι, καὶ ai δύο λυχνίαι e a , an fal fal ai ἐνώπιον τοῦ κυρίου τῆς γῆς ἑστῶτες. “Kai εἴ τις ’ fol lal 4 a / αὐτοὺς θέλει ἀδικῆσαι, πῦρ ἐκπορεύεται ἐκ τοῦ στόμα- Cal / \ a \ 7 τος αὐτῶν, καὶ κατεσθίει τοὺς ἐχθροὺς αὐτῶν" καὶ εἴ τ ᾿] \ / > an “ fal pI \ ᾽ τις αὐτοὺς θελήσῃ ἀδικῆσαι, οὕτως δεῖ αὐτὸν ἀπο- an 5 fe lal \ ᾽ κτανθῆναι. “οὗτοι ἔχουσιν ἐξουσίαν κλεῖσαι τὸν οὐρα- ’ γε \ \ \ / a / vov, iva μὴ ὑετὸς βρέχῃ Tas ἡμέρας τῆς προφητείας a / αὐτῶν" καὶ ἐξουσίαν ἔχουσιν ἐπὶ τῶν ὑδάτων, στρέφειν - \ A a - αὐτὰ εἰς αἷμα, καὶ πατάξαι THY γῆν ἐν πάσῃ πληγῇ. e / γ e \ ὁσάκις ἐὰν θελήσωσιν. ‘Kai ὅταν τελέσωσιν τὴν μαρ- z, A lal a ΔΑ τυρίαν αὐτῶν, τὸ θηρίον τὸ ἀναβαῖνον ἐκ τῆς ἀβύσσου / ᾽ ᾽ / ποιήσει μετ᾽ αὐτῶν πόλεμον, καὶ νικήσει αὐτούς, Kal ia ee rn ᾽ ,ὔ fel an A ἀποκτενεῖ αὐτούς. “Kal TO πτῶμα αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τῆς πλα- REVELATION B alae g 18 ATIOKAAY VIZ ILQANNOY XI. ὃ fal fal ᾽, f a τείας τῆς πόλεως τῆς μεγάλης, ἥτις καλεῖται πνευ- > A ε ς ΄ ματικῶς Σόδομα καὶ Αἴγυπτος, ὅπου καὶ ὁ κύριος 5 an b] / 9 \ , 2 lal n Ν αὐτῶν ἐσταυρώθη. “καὶ βλέπουσιν ἐκ τῶν λαῶν καὶ nr lal Lad \ n an φυλῶν Kai γλωσσῶν Kal ἐθνὼν TO πτῶμα αὐτῶν ἡμέρας a \ lal τρεῖς καὶ ἥμισυ, καὶ τὰ πτώματα αὐτῶν οὐκ ἀφίουσιν n a \ - an a τεθῆναι εἰς μνῆμα. “Kal ol κατοικοῦντες ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ra ’ if Ὁ χαίρουσιν ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῖς, καὶ εὐφραίνονται" καὶ δῶρα πέμψουσιν ἀλλήλοις, ὅτι οὗτοι οἱ δύο προφῆται ἐβα- \ a a a \ σάνισαν τοὺς κατοικοῦντας ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. “Kal μετὰ \ o / a a a “ τὰς τρεῖς ἡμέρας καὶ ἥμισυ πνεῦμα ζωῆς ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ n lal » / “ εἰσῆλθεν ἐν αὐτοῖς, καὶ ἔστησαν ἐπὶ τοὺς πόδας αὐτῶν, καὶ φόβος μέγας ἐπέπεσεν ἐπὶ τοὺς θεωροῦντας αὐτούς. 5 a 3 [al ᾿ξ καὶ ἤκουσαν φωνὴν μεγάλην ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ λέγουσαν 5 a ? / e \ i ον > \ 3 \ αὐτοῖς, ᾿Ανάβατε ὧδε. καὶ ἀνέβησαν εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν bd n ΄ ἈΝΕ ΄ 3 \ res \ (LAS ἐν τῇ νεφέλῃ, καὶ ἐθεώρησαν αὐτοὺς οἱ ἐχθροὶ αὐτῶν. BK \ > > / an ¢/ Bion ἢ Ae Ἢ \ \ al ἐν ἐκείνῃ TH ὥρᾳ ἐγένετο σεισμὸς μέγας, καὶ TO δέκατον τῆς πόλεως ἔπεσεν, καὶ ἀπεκτάνθησαν ἐν τῷ 7, aa) / > , / € ἧς \ ec \ σεισμῷ ὀνόματα ἀνθρώπων χιλιάδες ἑπτά" καὶ οἱ λουποὶ yy 5 / ΟὟ ὁ / lal lal nq ᾽ lol ἔμφοβοι ἐγένοντο, καὶ ἔδωκαν δόξαν τῷ θεῷ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. 14°F | ς ὃ / 7 an ὃ \ if > Re / yy οὐαὶ ἡ δευτέρα ἀπῆλθεν: ἰδοὺ ἡ οὐαὶ ἡ τρίτη ἔρχεται 7 ταχύ. Καὶ ὁ ἕβδομος ἄγγελος ἐσάλπισεν, καὶ ἐγένοντο \ ir Σ fal » an rE ἣν / ¢ φωναὶ μεγάλαι ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, λέγουσαι, ᾿᾿ὰὐγένετο ἡ / lal / na / 6 a 5 lal βασιλεία Tod κόσμου τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν καὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ 3 a ΄ \ lal an αὐτοῦ, καὶ βασιλεύσει εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. 5) ΄ “ “Kai οἱ εἴκοσι τέσσαρες πρεσβύτεροι οἱ ἐνώπιον τοῦ a Δ , \ / ’ a θεοῦ, of κάθηνται ἐπὶ τοὺς θρόνους αὐτῶν, ἔπεσαν ἐπὶ \ / > a 4 - n τὰ πρόσωπα αὐτῶν, Kal προσεκύνησαν τῷ θεῷ, "᾿λέγον- ed lal / / € τες, ἰὐχαριστοῦμέν σοι, κύριε ὁ θεὸς ὁ παντοκράτωρ, c x Se ΣΟ δ᾽ “ » Si 4 / \ / ὁ ὧν Kal ὁ ἣν, ὅτι εἴληφας THY δύναμίν σου THY μεγάλην, \ ie 5. ιν 3 καὶ ἐβασίχλευσας. “Kat τὰ ἔθνη ὠργίσθησαν, καὶ ἦλθεν ΧΗΓΌ ATIOKAAYWVIZ IQANNOY = 19 «ς 5» ‘ ¢ \ n Lal fal ἡ ὀργή σου, Kal ὁ καιρὸς τῶν νεκρῶν κριθῆναι, Kai lal A \ - -“ / ‘ δοῦναι τὸν μισθὸν τοῖς δούλοις σου τοῖς προφήταις, καὶ “ / -“ ῃ - τοῖς ἁγίοις καὶ τοῖς φοβουμένοις τὸ ὄνομά σου, τοῖς Cal A -“ a ‘ μικροῖς καὶ τοῖς μεγάλοις, καὶ διαφθεῖραι τοὺς δια- ’ \ fol ¢ r a .€ φθείροντας τὴν γῆν: “Kai ἠνοίγη ὁ ναὸς Tod θεοῦ ὁ ἐν a ᾽ A ΓΟ « \ A , ’ Pees, | τῷ οὐρανῷ, καὶ ὦφθη ἡ κιβωτὸς τῆς διαθήκης αὐτοῦ ἐν lel al ’ fal 5 \ ‘ τῷ ναῷ αὐτοῦ" καὶ ἐγένοντο ἀστραπαὶ καὶ φωναὶ καὶ \ \ / βρονταὶ καὶ σεισμὸς καὶ χάλαζα μεγάλη. ἌΡ \ a / v > a > A 5 12 "Καὶ σημεῖον μέγα ὠφθη ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, γυνὴ / \ “ \ ¢ / ς / - περιβεβλημένη τὸν ἥλιον, καὶ ἡ σελήνη ὑποκάτω τῶν fal + aes \ ee a lal a νΝ / ποδῶν αὐτῆς, Kal ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτῆς στέφανος ᾽ , ͵ 2 ‘aie re , 07 ἀστέρων δώδεκα" “καὶ ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα κράζει ὠδί- νουσα καὶ βασανιζομένη τεκεῖν. “Καὶ ὠφθη ἄλλο cal “ [4] \ ‘ σημεῖον ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, Kal ἰδοὺ δράκων πυρρὸς μέγας, ” \ © \ \ / , ‘ 83... τῷ \ ἔχων κεφαλὰς ἑπτὰ καὶ κέρατα δέκα, καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς \ 3 lal [4 \ a 4 \ « ’ \ » lal κεφαλὰς αὐτοῦ ἑπτὰ διαδήματα" “Kai ἡ οὐρὰ αὐτοῦ \ , - ᾽ 7, aA 5) a σύρει TO τρίτον τῶν ἀστέρων τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, καὶ ἔβαλεν \ \ “Ὁ ς , αὐτοὺς εἰς τὴν γῆν. Καὶ ὁ δράκων ἕστηκεν ἐνώπιον a fal PL - A τῆς γυναικὸς τῆς μελλούσης τεκεῖν, ἵνα ὅταν τέκῃ, TO e ἃ τέκνον αὐτῆς καταφάγη. ὅκαὶ ἔτεκεν υἱόν, ἄρσεν, ὃς / / / . ἃ ΝΜ > ἘΠῚ - μέλλει ποιμαίνειν πάντα ta ἔθνη ἐν ῥάβδῳ σιδηρᾷ" \ / > lee! \ Ν καὶ ἡρπάσθη τὸ τέκνον αὐτῆς πρὸς τὸν θεὸν καὶ \ ‘ , ᾽ a 6 \ ς \ Μ ’ \ πρὸς Tov θρόνον αὐτοῦ. “καὶ ἡ γυνὴ ἔφυγεν εἰς τὴν / / nr ἔρημον, ὅπου ἔχει τόπον ἡτοιμασμένον ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ, tal \ ἵνα ἐκεῖ τρέφουσιν αὐτὴν ἡμέρας χιλίας διακοσίας / ἑξήκοντα. , a “-“ Φ "Kal ἐγένετο πόλεμος ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ" ὁ Μιχαὴλ καὶ 4 a a a x fal / οἱ ἄγγελοι αὐτοῦ τοῦ πολεμῆσαι μετὰ τοῦ δράκοντος, ἄν αν ΄, > , \ Sukie > a ἢ \ > καὶ ὁ δράκων ἐπολέμησεν καὶ οἱ ἄγγελοι αὐτοῦ, “καὶ οὐκ ἴσχυσαν, οὐδὲ τόπος εὑρέθη αὐτῶν ἔτι ἐν TH οὐρανῷ. 9 Χο / ε ΄ « ye ©. sah eo “3 - ε ‘Kal ἐβλήθη ὁ δράκων ὁ μέγας, ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος, ὁ κα- B2 20 ΑΠΟΚΑΛΎΥΙΣ LQANNOY XII. 9 , ς a G a \ ᾿ λούμενος διάβολος καὶ ὁ Σατανᾶς, ὁ πλανῶν τὴν οἰκου- , “. » / > \ an \ e yy ’ cal μένην ὅχην: ἐβλήθη εἰς τὴν γῆν, καὶ οἱ ἄγγελοι αὐτοῦ ᾽ a / 7 \ μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐβλήθησαν. “Kal ἤκουσα φωνὴν μεγάλην > Anis Baa ΓΝ 27 Se ς 1 wie ἐν TO οὐρανῷ λέγουσαν, [Ἄρτι ἐγένετο ἡ σωτηρία καὶ ἡ , \ ς / “ la) ¢ fal \ ¢ > , δύναμις καὶ ἡ βασιλεία Tov θεοῦ ἡμῶν, καὶ ἡ ἐξουσία lol fa lal ¢ / id an τοῦ Χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ: ὅτι ἐβλήθη ὁ κατήγορος τῶν ἀδελ- n ¢ A lal lal 2 rn a lel POV ἡμῶν, ὁ κατηγορῶν αὐτῶν ἐνώπιον TOD θεοῦ ἡμῶν / ἡμέρας Kal νυκτός. “Kal αὐτοὶ ἐνίκησαν αὐτὸν διὰ TO iol fal / \ \ / nan αἷμα Tov apviov, καὶ διὰ τὸν λόγον THs μαρτυρίας a \ ΄ \ \ tal αὐτῶν, Kal οὐκ ἠγάπησαν THY ψυχὴν αὐτῶν ἄχρι ΄ 12 \ a ᾽ , > \ \ egy θανάτου. “dia τοῦτο εὐφραίνεσθε οὐρανοὶ καὶ οἱ ἐν a a 2 \ a \ αὐτοῖς σκηνοῦντες. οὐαὶ τὴν γῆν Kal THY θάλασσαν, c / ς / \ ε a 54 \ yi ὅτι κατέβη ὁ διάβολος πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἔχων θυμὸν μέγαν, 2O\ eed: Ἀ 5} δ) 13 ν ὦ 5 ς ΄, εἰδὼς ὅτι ὀλίγον καιρὸν ἔχει. “Kal ὅτε εἶδεν ὁ δράκων iA 5 7 ’ \ an 3 / \ an “ yA ὅτι ἐβλήθη εἰς THY γῆν, ἐδίωξεν τὴν γυναῖκα ἥτις ἔτεκεν \ fe an Tov ἄρσενα. “kai ἐδόθησαν τῇ γυναικὶ ai δύο πτέρυγες an rn nA y ν , TOD ἀετοῦ TOU μεγάλου, ἵνα πέτηται εἰς THY ἔρημον εἰς , Dye ei SK, lal TOV τόπον αὐτῆς, ὅπου τρέφεται ἐκεῖ καιρὸν Kal καιροὺς f fal ἴω καὶ ἥμισυ καιροῦ, ἀπὸ προσώπου τοῦ ὄφεως. “Kal la ς > ral ,ὔ r / a ἔβαλεν ὁ ὄφις ἐκ τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ ὀπίσω τῆς γυ- \ ¢ e £ os ναικὸς ὕδωρ ws ποταμόν, ἵνα αὐτὴν ποταμοφόρητον ΄ 16 \ 9 / ¢ a a , y. or ποιήσῃ. “Kai ἐβοήθησεν ἡ γῆ TH γυναικί, Kal ἤνοιξεν € a \ / a a ἢ γῆ TO στόμα αὐτῆς, καὶ κατέπιεν τὸν ποταμὸν ὃν SY ¢ ὃ / > a / > a 17 Vig / ἔβαλεν ὁ δράκων ἐκ τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ. “Kal ὠργίσθη ς / fal a a ὁ δράκων ἐπὶ τῇ γυναικί, καὶ ἀπῆλθεν ποιῆσαι πόλεμον \ a A an a an μετὰ τῶν λοιπῶν τοῦ σπέρματος αὐτῆς, τῶν τηρούντων Ν an nr / Tas ἐντολὰς τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἐχόντων τὴν μαρτυρίαν Ἰησοῦ. Ἰδ Καὶ ἐστάθην ἐπὶ τὴν ἄμμον τῆς θαλάσσης. 18 ' καὶ a ’ a / , b a ” / 4 εἶδον ἐκ τῆς θαλάσσης θηρίον avaBaivor, ἔχον κέρατα WA \ \ - rn δέκα καὶ κεφαλὰς ἑπτά, καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν κεράτων αὐτοῦ δέκα 21 XIII.12 ATIOKAAYYIZ IQANNOY \ \ , fal / διαδήματα, καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς κεφαλὰς αὐτοῦ ὀνόματα βλα- , 2 \ \ θ / A 25 3 “ , σφημίας. “καὶ τὸ θηρίον ὃ εἶδον ἣν ὅμοιον παρδάλει, / nr a e Kal οἱ πόδες αὐτοῦ ὡς ἄρκου, Kal TO στόμα αὐτοῦ ὡς ͵ ‘ > nee / στόμα λέοντος. καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ ὁ δράκων τὴν δύναμιν , “ \ / ᾽ ἴω αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὸν θρόνον αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐξουσίαν μεγάλην. 3 \ fi 5 fal a ’ “ ς > / b καὶ μίαν ἐκ τῶν κεφαλῶν αὐτοῦ ὡς ἐσφαγμένην εἰς \ ¢ \ lal “ θάνατον" καὶ ἡ πληγὴ τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ ἐθεραπεύθη. 4 ¢ «ς Μ- ἘΝ fal καὶ ἐθαύμασεν ὅλη ἡ γῆ ὀπίσω τοῦ θηρίου, *Kal προσ- εκύνησαν τῷ δράκοντι ὅτι ἔδωκεν τὴν ἐξουσίαν τῷ / a / , / θηρίῳ, καὶ προσεκύνησαν τῷ θηρίῳ, λέγοντες, Tis ὅμοιος a , \ / / a ’ ’ a τῷ θηρίῳ; καὶ τίς δύναται πολεμῆσαι μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ; 5 / > fal / nr "καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ στόμα λαλοῦν μεγάλα καὶ βλασφημίας" , 7 fal / a an καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ ἐξουσία ποιῆσαι μῆνας τεσσεράκοντα ΄ 6 \ oo \ , ᾽ aa 5 ,ὕ \ δύο. “καὶ ἤνοιξεν TO στόμα αὐτοῦ εἰς βλασφημίας πρὸς » / n ae >’ fal \ \ \ τὸν θεόν, βλασφημῆσαι TO ὄνομα αὐτοῦ, Kal THY σκηνὴν ᾿ fa) \ > lal >? a fa) / αὐτοῦ, τοὺς ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ σκηνοῦντας. ‘kal ἐδόθη >? nr a , \ a e ΄ \ fol αὐτῷ ποιῆσαι πόλεμον μετὰ τῶν ἁγίων, καὶ νικῆσαι ᾽ A \ 25 40 3. τ Ἂς > / ae lal MN αὐτούς: καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ ἐξουσία ἐπὶ πᾶσαν φυλὴν \ a καὶ λαὸν καὶ γλώσσαν καὶ ἔθνος. “καὶ προσκυνήσου- 2% ‘ e r n an σιν αὐτὸν πάντες οἱ κατοικοῦντες ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, οὗ οὐ / Ἧ «Ὁ > a's a / a a fal γέγραπται TO ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ > , ἘΝ ἃ , SAN a ͵ 9DY dpviov τοῦ ἐσφαγμένου ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου. “Εἰ 9 » 0 > τις ἔχει ods, ἀκουσάτω. “Ki τις εἰς αἰχμαλωσίαν, εἰς / a fal αἰχμαλωσίαν ὑπάγει" εἴ τις ἐν μαχαίρῃ ἀποκτενεῖ, δεῖ Se 4h a / \ αὐτὸν ἐν μαχαίρῃ ἀποκτανθῆναι. ὧδέ ἐστιν ἡ ὑπομονὴ Va «Ὁ 4 an Kal ἡ πίστις TOV ἁγίων. \ ct a an a "Kai εἶδον ἄλλο θηρίον avaBaivoy ἐκ τῆς γῆς, καὶ 5 / Area et a / \ ͵ ε , εἶχεν κέρατα δύο ὅμοια ἀρνίῳ, καὶ ἐλάλει ὡς δράκων. δ x “- ° - - *xal τὴν ἐξουσίαν τοῦ πρώτου θηρίου πᾶσαν ποιεῖ td ᾽ -“ lal \ “Ὁ fal ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ" καὶ ποιεῖ τὴν γῆν Kal τοὺς ἐν αὐτῇ , κι © / ’, a κατοικοῦντας ἵνα προσκυνήσουσιν τὸ θηρίον τὸ πρῶτον, 22 ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΥῪΊΣ IQANNOY ~— XIII. 12 |. ee / ¢ \ fal , , “ 13 \ “ οὗ ἐθεραπεύθη ἡ πληγὴ τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ: “Kal ποιεῖ a “ fn a - σημεῖα μεγάλα, ἵνα καὶ πῦρ ποιῇ καταβαίνειν ἐκ τοῦ ,’ lal >’ A Lal A , οὐρανοῦ εἰς τὴν γῆν ἐνώπιον τῶν ἀνθρώπων. “Kal an \ lal >’ \ an lal \ \ an πλανᾷ τοὺς κατοικοῦντας ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, διὰ τὰ σημεῖα “Ὁ / ’ a a rn a ἃ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ ποιῆσαι ἐνώπιον τοῦ θηρίου, λέγων τοῖς lal \ fal lal a n a κατοικοῦσιν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ποιῆσαι εἰκόνα TO θηρίῳ ὃς ” Ἂς \ fal / A. 15 \ 5 7 ἔχει τὴν πληγὴν τῆς μαχαίρης καὶ ἔζησεν. καὶ ἐδόθη ’ A nr r A 7 nr 6 αὐτῷ δοῦναι πνεῦμα TH εἰκόνι τοῦ θηρίου, iva Kat λαλήσῃ ἡ εἰκὼν τοῦ θηρίου, καὶ ποιήση ὅ 2Q ) non ἡ ν τοῦ θηρίου, i ποιήσῃ ὅσοι ἐὰν μὴ vd nan > / a / -} προσκυνήσωσιν τῇ εἰκόνι τοῦ θηρίου ἀποκτανθῶσιν. a ' \ “Kat ποιεῖ πάντας, τοὺς μικροὺς Kal τοὺς μεγάλους, \ \ 7 \ καὶ τοὺς πλουσίους καὶ τοὺς πτωχούς, Kal τοὺς ἐλευ- \ \ uA A a an θέρους καὶ τοὺς δούλους, ἵνα δῶσιν αὐτοῖς χάραγμα a \ 5 a an an x ἐπὶ τῆς χειρὸς αὐτῶν τῆς δεξιᾶς, ἢ ἐπὶ τὸ. μέτωπον A Sf / ’ ᾿ n αὐτῶν, “Kat iva μήτις δύνηται ἀγοράσαι ἢ πωλῆσαι, εἰ id x fal μὴ ὁ ἔχων τὸ χάραγμα, TO ὄνομα τοῦ θηρίου, ἢ τὸν ἀριθ- \ (oi er 4 2 an cit OPN « ΄, b] , Lena μὸν τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ. ε ἡ σοφία ἐστίν. ὁ ἔχων lol U \ ᾽ \ an ? \ νοῦν ψηφισάτω τὸν ἀριθμὸν τοῦ θηρίου: ἀριθμὸς ya c an ἀνθρώπου ἐστίν" καὶ ὁ ἀριθμὸς αὐτοῦ xéS". 14 1K \ δ \ ἼΣ \ ee) 7 ε \ SY αν \ at εἶδον, καὶ ἰδοὺ τὸ ἀρνίον ἑστὸς ἐπὶ TO / ’ an 1 / ὄρος Σιών, καὶ μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἑκατὸν τεσσεράκοντα τέσσαρες fal \ r χιλιάδες, ἔχουσαι TO ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Kal τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ \ rn fal , an πατρὸς αὐτοῦ γεγραμμένον ἐπὶ τῶν μετώπων αὐτῶν. 2 \ yy \ b] a > - ε \ ς / καὶ ἤκουσα φωνὴν ἐκ Tod οὐρανοῦ ὡς φωνὴν ὑδάτων rn an Ν πολλῶν, καὶ ὡς φωνὴν βροντῆς μεγάλης: καὶ ἡ φωνὴ «“Ὁ - / an ἣν ἤκουσα ὡς κιθαρῳδῶν κιθαριζόντων ἐν ταῖς κιθάραις an 5) x fal αὐτῶν. “Kai adovow [ὡς] ὠδὴν καινὴν ἐνώπιον τοῦ Nh fal a θρόνου, καὶ ἐνώπιον τῶν τεσσάρων ζῴων Kal τῶν πρε- ΄, \ "ὃ x Ny θ a \ 35 , > \ ε σβυτέρων. καὶ οὐδεὶς ἐδύνατο μαθεῖν τὴν ὠδήν, εἰ μὴ αἱ \ ΄ ᾿ ἑκατὸν τεσσεράκοντα τέσσαρες χιλιάδες, οἱ ἠγορασμένοι \ A aA Ὄ Ὁ ip ay AY \ a > ΄ ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς. “οὗτοί εἰσιν of μετὰ γυναικῶν οὐκ ἐμολύν- XIV. 13 ATIOKAAYYIZ 1QANNOY 23 , ΄ -" θησαν: παρθένοι γάρ εἰσιν. οὗτοι οἱ ἀκολουθοῦντες a > , ccd Xs e / 4Φ > / > \ τῷ apviw ὅπου ἂν ὑπάγῃ. οὗτοι ἠγοράσθησαν ἀπὸ A > ΄ > \ a a \ aon 7 5 Na aa τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἀπαρχὴ TO θεῷ καὶ τῷ apviw. “καὶ ἐν n / > fal b) ς ’ a ” / τῷ στόματι αὐτῶν οὐχ εὑρέθη ψεῦδος: ἄμωμοι γάρ εἰσιν. ” / / “Καὶ εἶδον ἄλλον ἄγγελον πετόμενον ἐν μεσουρανή- , > / ‘ / ματι, ἔχοντα εὐαγγέλιον αἰώνιον εὐωγγελίσαι ἐπὶ τοὺς , \ a - a \ καθημένους ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἐπὶ πᾶν ἔθνος καὶ φυλὴν a / / fel Kal γλῶσσαν Kai λαόν, Γλέγων ἐν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ, Φοβή- \ / \ 60 > lal δό Ὁ s ς [ θητε τὸν θεόν, καὶ δότε αὐτῷ δόξαν, ὅτι ἦλθεν ἡ ὥρα n / lo) \ A \ τῆς κρίσεως αὐτοῦ" καὶ προσκυνήσατε τῷ ποιήσαντι TOV > Ν Ν \ an \ θ / \ \ NO / οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν καὶ θάλασσαν καὶ πηγὰς ὑδά- / / 4 των. “Καὶ ἄλλος δεύτερος ἄγγελος ἠκολούθησεν, λέγων, » x «ὃ a nr "Exrecev, ἔπεσεν Βαβυλὼν ἡ μεγάλη, ἣ ἐκ τοῦ οἴνου τοῦ na an Ya an ’ / \ y+ θυμοῦ τῆς πορνείας αὐτῆς πεπότικεν πάντα Ta ἔθνη. ‘ fs nr "Καὶ ἄλλος ἄγγελος τρίτος ἠκολούθησεν αὐτοῖς, λέγων an a \ / ἐν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ, Ki τις προσκυνεῖ τὸ θηρίον καὶ τὴν εἰκόνα αὐτοῦ, καὶ λαμβάνει χάραγμα ἐπὶ τοῦ μετώπου ry Ra \ a ~ 10 \ fr n αὐτοῦ, ἢ ἐπὶ THY χεῖρα αὐτοῦ, “Kal αὐτὸς πίέται Ex TOD » an ἴον an lal ἴον ͵7ὔ Ἢ οἴνου τοῦ θυμοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ, τοῦ κεκερασμένου ἀκράτου ἐν a / a 2 a 3 a \ / 2 τῷ ποτηρίῳ τῆς ὀργῆς αὐτοῦ, καὶ βασανισθήσεται ἐν \ ’ὔ / / Es / rn πυρὶ Kal θείῳ ἐνώπιον ἀγγέλων ἁγίων, καὶ ἐνώπιον τοῦ 8 \ an nw Ὁ ἀρνίου: “Kal ὁ καπνὸς τοῦ βασανισμοῦ αὐτῶν εἰς rn / ” / αἰῶνας αἰώνων ἀναβαίνει. καὶ οὐκ ἔχουσιν ἀνάπαυσιν , \ \ e nr \ / ἡμέρας Kal νυκτὸς οἱ προσκυνοῦντες TO θηρίον καὶ τὴν , rn / an εἰκόνα αὐτοῦ, καὶ el τις λαμβάνει TO χάραγμα τοῦ σὺ ΓΝ Ε] a 2? 5 ς « \ a ε , » , ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ. ε ἡ ὑπομονὴ τῶν ἁγίων ἐστίν, a \ \ a a a οἱ τηροῦντες τὰς ἐντολὰς TOD θεοῦ Kai THY πίστιν ᾿Ιησοῦ. a eo rn an δ Καὶ ἤκουσα φωνῆς ἐκ Tov οὐρανοῦ, λεγούσης, | Ἂν / / ς \ ς» / 2 / ράψον, Μακάριοι οἱ νεκροὶ οἱ ἐν κυρίῳ ἀποθνήσκοντες / / / A ἀπάρτι. Nai, λέγει TO πνεῦμα, ἵνα ἀναπαήσονται ἐκ 24 ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ IQANNOY ΧΙΝ 13 τῶν κόπων αὐτῶν" τὰ γὰρ ἔργα αὐτῶν ἀκολουθεῖ μετ᾽ αὐτῶν. 14 aN NS L ‘ Kai εἶδον, καὶ ἰδοὺ νεφέλη λευκή, καὶ ἐπὶ THY , , ef Ma ein hyo) t ” aN a νεφέλην καθήμενον ὅμοιον υἱῷ ἀνθρώπου, ἔχων ἐπὶ THs κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ στέφανον χρυσοῦν, καὶ ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ δρέπανον ὀξύ. “Kal ἄλλος ἄγγελος ἐξῆλθεν ἐκ a n , ll n 7 er τοῦ ναοῦ, κράζων ἐν φωνῇ μεγώλῃ TO καθημένῳ ἐπὶ τῆς / . / 7 νεφέλης, Πέμψον τὸ δρέπανόν cov, καὶ θέρισον, ὅτι a (het 4 / “ 2 , ig Ν ll a ἦλθεν ἡ wpa θερίσαι, ὅτι ἐξηράνθη ὁ θερισμὸς τῆς γῆς. 16 \ Ld n \ / καὶ ἔβαλεν ὁ καθήμενος ἐπὶ τῆς νεφέλης TO δρέπανον >’ an lal ΄ iq an ’ αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν, Kal ἐθερίσθη ἡ γῆ. “Kat ἄλλος ἄγγελος ἐξῆλθεν ἐκ τοῦ ναοῦ τοῦ ἐν τῷ 3 a 5 4 , οὐρανῷ, ἔχων καὶ αὐτὸς δρέπανον ὀξύ. “Kai ἄλλος » Ξ den > n , ” 2 f ἄγγελος ἐξῆλθεν ἐκ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου, ἔχων ἐξουσίαν a / a n Yj ἐπὶ τοῦ πυρός" Kai ἐφώνησεν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ τῷ ἔχοντι \ / AOE te) / ΄ / \ / \ τὸ δρέπανον τὸ ὀξύ, λέγων, Πέμψον σου τὸ δρέπανον τὸ 2 4 ΄ὔ / in / Ὁ n ὀξύ, καὶ τρύγησον τοὺς βότρυας τῆς ἀμπέλου τῆς γῆς, “ ” € As ἘΣ aN 19 \» «ἂν OTL ἤκμασαν αἱ σταφυλαὶ αὐτῆς. “Kal ἔβαλεν ὁ ἄγγελος Χ 5) a ? \ a , TO δρέπανον αὐτοῦ εἰς τὴν γῆν, καὶ ἐτρύγησεν τὴν ἄμ- a lal se TZ > \ XN n an nr πελον τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἔβαλεν εἰς τὴν ληνὸν τοῦ θυμοῦ τοῦ fa} a N / 20 \ 5 t ¢ \ ” lel εοῦ τὸν μέγαν. “Kai ἐπατήθη ἡ Anvos ἔξωθεν τῆς , \ Ien - > a an 7 a πόλεως, Kal ἐξῆλθεν αἷμα ἐκ τῆς ληνοῦ ἄχρι τῶν a a 9 ᾽ \ , ΄, ε 7 χαλινῶν τῶν ἵππων, ἀπὸ σταδίων χιλίων ἑξακοσίων. 15 1 \ Τὸ ” a » a ’ fal "Ἢ Καὶ εἶδον ἄλλο σημεῖον ἐν τῴ οὐρανῷ μέγα καὶ θαυμαστόν, ἀγγέλους ἑπτά, ἔχοντας πληγὰς ἑπτὰ \ > U Ὁ“ ? ’ n b Χ id \ a n τὰς ἐσχάτας, OTL ἐν αὐταῖς ἐτελέσθη ὁ θυμὸς τοῦ θεοῦ. 2 | ¢ ͵ « , ΄ ΄, \ Kai εἶδον ὡς θάλασσαν ὑαλίνην μεμιγμένην πυρί, καὶ lal na A / lal τοὺς νικῶντας ἐκ τοῦ θηρίου Kal ἐκ τῆς εἰκόνος αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐκ τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ, ἑστῶτας ἐπὶ \ / \ ς / »” / a lou τὴν θάλασσαν THY ὑαλίνην, ἔχοντας κιθάρας τοῦ θεοῦ. *xal ἄδουσιν τὴν ὠδὴν Mavcéws τοῦ δούλου τοῦ θεοῦ, = XVI. 6 ATTOKAAY VIZ IQANNOY 25 καὶ τὴν ὠδὴν TOD apviov, λέγοντες, Μεγάλα καὶ θαυ- 7, ε a μαστὰ Ta ἔργα σου, κύριε ὁ θεὸς ὁ παντοκράτωρ" δίκαιαι ee \ eis ͵΄ ε \ a ᾽ a ΓΎΡΗ ᾽ καὶ ἀληθιναὶ αἱ ὁδοί σου, ὁ βασιλεὺς τών ἐθνῶν. “τίς οὐ \ lal / \ , τς, δὴ / .“ / μὴ φοβηθῆ, κύριε, καὶ δοξάσει τὸ ὄνομά σου; ὅτι μόνος ὅσιος" ὅτι πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ἥξουσιν, καὶ προσκυνήσουσιν ἐνώπιόν σου" ὅτι τὰ δικαιώματά σου ἐφανερώθησαν. 5 fal / ς lal "Καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα εἶδον, καὶ ἠνοίγη ὁ ναὸς τῆς fol la) / b tal ᾽ ale. 6 A σον Mf σκηνῆς τοῦ μαρτυρίου ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ: “καὶ ἐξῆλθον οἱ \ « \ _ A r ἑπτὰ ἄγγελοι οἱ ἔχοντες τὰς ἑπτὰ πληγὰς ἐκ TOD ναοῦ, > / / \ , \ / ἐνδεδυμένοι λίνον καθαρὸν λαμπρόν, καὶ περιεζωσμέ- a ἃ a vou περὶ τὰ στήθη ζώνας χρυσᾶς. "Kal ἕν ἐκ τῶν τεσ- U / Μ lal ς \ ’ , ς \ , σάρων ζῴων ἔδωκεν τοῖς ἑπτὰ ἀγγέλοις ἑπτὰ φιάλας an 4 nr “- fal a nr a χρυσᾶς, γεμούσας τοῦ θυμοῦ Tod θεοῦ τοῦ ζῶντος εἰς a n ls / ς rn τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. “Kal ἐγεμίσθη ὁ ναὸς καπνοῦ A ἴω a \ nr τὸ lal ἐκ τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ ἐκ τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ" Kal > \ > 4 > lal > ἣν / A n οὐδεὶς ἐδύνατο εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὸν ναόν, ἄχρι τελεσθῶσιν td nr \ ΄ αἱ ἑπτὰ πληγαὶ τῶν ἑπτὰ ἀγγέλων. an / la) an 16 ‘Kal ἤκουσα φωνῆς μεγάλης ἐκ τοῦ ναοῦ, λε- a \ ς : yovons τοῖς ἑπτὰ ἀγγέλοις, Ὕπάγετε καὶ ἐκχέατε τὰς \ / lal a Ὁ \ an ἑπτὰ φιάλας τοῦ θυμοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ εἰς τὴν γῆν. “Καὶ >, r c a \ ’ 7. \ ‘ » nr > ἀπῆλθεν ὁ πρῶτος, Kal ἐξέχεεν τὴν φιάλην αὐτοῦ εἰς τὴν γῆν" καὶ ἐγένετο ἕλκος κακὸν καὶ πονηρὸν ἐπὶ τοὺς \ / na ἀνθρώπους τοὺς ἔχοντας TO χάραγμα τοῦ θηρίου, καὶ fal tal > / » “ τοὺς προσκυνοῦντας τῇ εἰκόνι αὐτοῦ. “Καὶ ὁ δεύτερος Τὰ \ " > as \ θά Ce a, ἐξέχεεν THY φιάλην αὐτοῦ εἰς THY θάλασσαν" καὶ ἐγένετο ¢ fa) a fal αἷμα ws νεκροῦ, καὶ πᾶσα ψυχὴ ζωῆς ἀπέθανεν, τὰ ἐν fal e / / nr τῇ θαλάσσῃ. “Kai ὁ τρίτος ἐξέχεεν τὴν φιάλην αὐτοῦ \ \ \ \ \ n εἰς τοὺς ποταμοὺς Kal Tas πηγὰς τῶν ὑδάτων: Kal , δ a A ἐγένετο αἷμα. “Kal ἤκουσα τοῦ ἀγγέλου τῶν ὑδάτων, ns / 3 € a \ e ‘a Le < d .“ lal λέγοντος, Δίκαιος εἶ, ὁ ὧν Kal ὁ ἦν, ὁ ὅσιος, ὅτι ταῦτα Μ δ / an ‘ ἔκρινας" “ὅτι αἷμα ἁγίων καὶ προφητῶν ἐξέχεαν, Kai 26 ATIOKAAYYVIZ LQANNOY XVI. 6 2 a ” ." ” / > 7 NT sy, αἷμα αὐτοῖς ἔδωκας πεῖν: ἄξιοί εἰσιν. ‘Kal ἤκουσα lal / ΓᾺ / J [4 \ c τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου λέγοντος, Nat, κύριε ὁ θεὸς ὁ παντο- ΄, > \ \ ῃ G 7 8 ve κράτωρ, ἀληθιναὶ καὶ δίκαιαι ai κρίσεις cov. “Καὶ ὁ / 5. " \ / 5 rn b ee. \ ef \ τέταρτος ἐξέχεεν THY φιάλην αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸν ἥλιον" καὶ ‘ “ / \ > 7 ’ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ καυματίσαι τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἐν πυρί" " καὶ 2 / e oy rn / Ne / ἐκαυματίσθησαν οἱ ἄνθρωποι καῦμα μέγα, καὶ ἐβχλασφή- ἴω “- TT ἊΝ μησαν τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἔχοντος τὴν ἐξουσίαν ἐπὶ \ “A , an an τὰς πληγὰς ταύτας, καὶ οὐ μετενόησαν δοῦναι αὐτῷ δόξαν. 10K) Wie / Ie \ t > aS \ αἱ ὁ πέμπτος ἐξέχεεν THY φιάλην αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸν / a / Wore 2} Ἃ, 6 / 3 n°) θρόνον Tov θηρίου: καὶ ἐγένετο ἡ βασιλεία αὐτοῦ ἐσκο- / ἴω \ , > aA a , τωμένη, καὶ ἐμασῶντο TAS γλώσσας αὐτῶν ἐκ TOD πόνου, 11 ἈΠ , \ \ a ,’ Pr 5, a / καὶ ἐβλασφήμησαν τὸν θεὸν Tod οὐρανοῦ ἐκ τῶν πόνων ’ A a an a 2 / αὐτῶν Kal ἐκ TOV ἑλκῶν αὐτῶν, καὶ οὐ μετενόησαν ἐκ a ς / τῶν ἔργων αὐτῶν. “Kai ὁ ἕκτος ἐξέχεεν τὴν φιάλην > ἊΝ Σ᾽ \ \ \ \ a \ 3 “2 \ αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸν ποταμὸν τὸν μέγαν [τὸν] Εὐφράτην" καὶ > / \ e ’ lal Ὁ“ ε A ¢ is \ n ἐξηράνθη τὸ ὕδωρ αὐτοῦ, ἵνα ἑτοιμασθῇ ἡ ὁδὸς τῶν , A ae) a CAT, 13 ES > an βασιλέων τῶν ἀπὸ ἀνατολῆς ἡλίου. καὶ εἶδον ἐκ τοῦ a / a / fa) στόματος τοῦ δράκοντος, Kal ἐκ TOD στόματος TOD θηρίου, a n / he Kal ἐκ TOD στόματος TOD ψευδοπροφήτου, πνεύματα τρία \ / ἀκάθαρτα ὡς βάτραχοι" “εἰσὶν yap πνεύματα δαιμονίων rn n ε ΓΖ \ \ ta fal ποιοῦντα σημεῖα, ἃ ἐκπορεύεται ἐπὶ τοὺς βασιλεῖς τῆς Y a 3, \ > \ a οἰκουμένης ὅλης, συναγαγεῖν αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸν πόλεμον τῆς Ἃ nw Lal Lal , ἡμέρας τῆς μεγάλης τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ παντοκράτορος. ᾿"᾿Ιδοὺ le Lg n ἔρχομαι ὡς κλέπτης. μακάριος ὁ γρηγορῶν, Kal τηρῶν τ fal » \ x a \ / τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ, iva μὴ γυμνὸς περιπατῇ, Kal βλέπωσιν ’ an 2: τὴν ἀσχημοσύνην αὐτοῦ. “Kai συνήγαγεν αὐτοὺς εἰς ¢ - APE , τὸν τόπον τὸν καλούμενον ᾿Ιβραϊστὶ “Appayedov. “Kat ecw > / \ / > lal > \ \ 77 Ν ὁ ἕβδομος ἐξέχεεν τὴν φιάλην αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸν ἀέρα" καὶ ἐξῆλθεν φωνὴ μεγάλη ἐκ τοῦ ναοῦ, ἀπὸ τοῦ θρόνου, / J 18 \ > / > \ Ἃ. \ λέγουσα, Téyover. “Kal ἐγένοντο ἀστραπαὶ καὶ φωναὶ , \ / e καὶ βρονταί, καὶ σεισμὸς ἐγένετο μέγας, οἷος οὐκ ἐγένετο XVII. 7 ATIOKAAYYVIZ LQANNOY 27 Spt ee) beet EN A a a \ ἀφ᾽ οὗ ἄνθρωπος ἐγένετο ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, τηλικοῦτος σεισμὸς « « οὕτω μέγας. “Kal ἐγένετο ἡ πόλις ἡ μεγάλη εἰς τρία μέρη, - a « καὶ αἱ πόλεις τῶν ἐθνῶν ἔπεσαν. καὶ Βαβυλὼν ἡ μεγάλη , a a rn Si \ lal ἐμνήσθη ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ, δοῦναι αὐτῇ TO ποτήριον TOD “ la] lal Ὁ lal 0 a a οἴνου τοῦ θυμοῦ τῆς ὀργῆς αὐτοῦ. “Kal πᾶσα νῆσος ἔφυγεν, Rest > CaP. 21 \ , ' ς Kal Opn OVX εὑρέθησαν. ™ Kal χάλαζα μεγάλη ws ταλαν- / a a) τιαία καταβαίνει ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἐπὶ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους. , U an an καὶ ἐβχασφήμησαν οἱ ἄνθρωποι τὸν θεόν, ἐκ τῆς πληγῆς fal / «“ κ / > \ ¢ \ ΕῚ lal ὃ τῆς χαλάζης" ὅτι μεγάλη ἐστὶν ἡ πληγὴ αὐτῆς σφόδρα. 17 1K 1 9 6 e > A ς eee , a ai ἦλθεν εἷς ἐκ τῶν ἑπτὰ ἀγγέλων τῶν > / \ ¢ \ U \ > , | 5 fal ἐχόντων Tas ἑπτὰ φιάλας, καὶ ἐλάλησεν μετ ἐμοῦ, nr / / an a λέγων, Δεῦρο, δείξω σοι TO κρίμα τῆς πόρνης τῆς μεγά- λης, τῆς καθημένης ἐπὶ τῶν ὑδάτων τῶν πολλῶν" * we” - > / ε n a fal \ > / ἧς ἐπόρνευσαν οἱ βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς, Kal ἐμεθύσθησαν fal a rn a / οἱ κατοικοῦντες τὴν γῆν ἐκ TOD οἴνου τῆς πορνείας τὰ A > αὐτῆς. “καὶ ἀπήνεγκέν με εἰς ἔρημον ἐν πνεύματι" καὶ εἶδον γυναῖκα καθημένην ἐπὶ θηρίον κόκκινον, γέμοντα > / / ” \ « Ν, \ / ὀνόματα βλασφημίας, ἔχον κεφαλὰς ἑπτὰ Kal κέρατα ΄ 4 =O \ 3 , a \ δέκα. “καὶ ἡ γυνὴ ἦν περιβεβλημένη πορφυροῦν καὶ ΄ a / κόκκινον, καὶ κεχρυσωμένη χρυσῷ καὶ λίθῳ τιμίῳ Kal / a n \ μαργαρίταις, ἔχουσα ποτήριον χρυσοῦν ἐν TH χειρὶ ᾽ a a“ αὐτῆς, γέμον βδελυγμάτων καὶ Ta ἀκάθαρτα τῆς πορνείας > n 5 , a αὐτῆς, "καὶ ἐπὶ TO μέτωπον αὐτῆς ὄνομα γεγραμμένον, / Lol nr Μυστήριον, Βαβυλὼν ἡ μεγάλη, ἡ μήτηρ τῶν πορνῶν \ A ΄ lel a \ rn καὶ τῶν βδελυγμάτων τῆς γῆς. “Kal εἶδα THY γυναῖκα 4 fal Lal “ μεθύουσαν ἐκ τοῦ αἵματος τῶν ἁγίων, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ αἵματος τῶν μαρτύρων ᾿Ιησοῦ" καὶ ἐθαύμασα, ἰδὼν αὐτήν, θαῦμα / qJ ‘ Φ. / «ς ΝΜ / 20 / μέγα. ‘kal εἶπέν μοι ὁ ἄγγελος, Διατί ἐθαύμασας; ἐγώ σοι ἐρῶ τὸ μυστήριον τῆς γυναικός, καὶ τοῦ θηρίου “ > / a 6 \ € \ \ τοῦ βαστάζοντος αὐτήν, τοῦ ἔχοντος Tas ἑπτὰ κεφαλὰς καὶ τὰ δέκα κέρατα. 28 ATIOKAAYY1I2 IQANNOY XVIT. 8 “Δ Ἂν “Τὸ θηρίον ὃ εἶδες ἦν, καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν, καὶ μέλλει > / > a 2 / \ > > / e U ἀναβαίνειν ἐκ τῆς ἀβύσσου, καὶ εἰς ἀπώλειαν ὑπάγειν" καὶ θαυμάσονται οἱ κατοικοῦντες ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, ὧν οὐ / N 3) > \ \ / a cr > ‘ γέγραπται TO ὄνομα ἐπὶ TO βιβλίον τῆς ζωῆς ato KaTa- “-“ , U \ / ad > \ ’ Borns κόσμου, βλεπόντων TO θηρίον, ὅτι ἦν, Kal οὐκ ” e e lal £ / ἔστιν, Kal παρέσται. “ὧδε ὁ νοῦς ὁ ἔχων σοφίαν. αἱ e \ Ls 5. Ὁ ’ / ts «ς \ , Sid ἑπτὰ κεφαλαὶ ἑπτὰ ὄρη εἰσίν, ὅπου ἡ γυνὴ κάθηται ἐπ᾿ “ a , Ἢ αὐτῶν. “καὶ βασιλεῖς ἑπτά εἰσιν: οἱ πέντε ἔπεσαν, - c τ νν > fy ὁ εἷς ἔστιν, ὁ ἄλλος οὔπω ἦλθεν: Kal ὅταν ἔλθῃ, ὀλίγον seas a . 11 \ \ / A 43 \ >. ts αὐτὸν δεῖ μεῖναι. “Kat τὸ θηρίον ὃ ἦν, καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν, ? \ Yj / a καὶ αὐτὸς ὄγδοός ἐστιν, καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἑπτά ἐστιν, καὶ εἰς ἄπώλειαν ὑπάγει. “Kail τὰ δέκα κέρατα ἃ εἶδες, δέκα a = / “, ᾿ Ἂν βασιλεῖς εἰσίν, οἵτινες βασιλείαν οὔπω ἔλαβον, ἀλλὰ 5 / ¢ na / “ / \ nr ἐξουσίαν ws βασιλεῖς μίαν ὥραν λαμβάνουσιν μετὰ τοῦ , 13, # 7 , 4 θηρίου. “obTou μίαν γνώμην ἔχουσιν, καὶ τὴν δύναμιν , 5 a an ΄ - καὶ ἐξουσίαν αὐτῶν τῷ θηρίῳ διδόασιν. "οὗτοι μετὰ ἴω 5 / / 7 τοῦ ἀρνίου πολεμήσουσιν, καὶ TO ἀρνίον νικήσει αὐτούς, e vA / > \ \ \ , Ν ων ὅτι κύριος κυρίων ἐστὶν καὶ βασιλεὺς βασιλέων" καὶ οἱ } 3 n \ PET αὐτοῦ, κλητοὶ καὶ ἐκλεκτοὶ καὶ πιστοί. \ / \ ἢ 53 "Καὶ λέγει μοι, Ta ὕδατα ἃ εἶδες, οὗ ἡ πόρνη κάθη- \ Nip ay, 9 ΄ Ἄς. Sh Ν -“ 16 \ Tal, λαοὶ καὶ ὄχλοι εἰσίν, καὶ ἔθνη Kal yAOooaL. καὶ Ν Ψ / a > A \ / e . , τὰ δέκα κέρατα ἃ εἶδες, καὶ τὸ θηρίον, οὗτοι μισήσουσιν x / \ ? / τὴν πόρνην, καὶ ἠρημωμένην ποιήσουσιν αὐτὴν Kal / \ \ 4 ᾽ a γυμνήν, Kal τὰς σάρκας αὐτῆς φάγονται, καὶ αὐτὴν / / Ὁ κατακαύσουσιν ἐν πυρί: “ὁ γὰρ θεὸς ἔδωκεν εἰς Tas I ’ a a \ , - a ari καρδίας αὐτῶν ποιῆσαι THY γνώμην αὐτοῦ, Kal ποιῆσαι , / an ’ a μίαν γνώμην, καὶ δοῦναι τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτῶν τῷ θηρίῳ, / an lal ¢ ἄχρι τελεσθήσονται οἱ λόγοι τοῦ θεοῦ. “Kai ἡ γυνὴ a 3 » ς " ¢ , ees y ἣν εἶδες, ἔστιν ἡ πόλις ἡ μεγάλη, ἡ ἔχουσα βασιλείαν ἐπὶ τῶν βασιλέων τῆς γῆς. h \ a ἊΨ. 18 "Μετὰ ταῦτα εἶδον ἄλλον ἄγγελον καταβαίνοντα XVIII 11 ATIOKAAYYIZ IQANNOY 29 la » fal / \ ¢ lal ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, ἔχοντα ἐξουσίαν μεγάλην: Kal ἡ γῆ ᾽ , > a ἢ δ}. tn 2 \» 35.49 a ἐφωτίσθη ἐκ τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ. “καὶ ἔκραξεν ἐν ἰσχυρᾷ -“ / ‘ is \ φωνῇ, λέγων, "ἔπεσεν, ἔπεσεν Βαβυλὼν ἡ μεγάλη, καὶ \ \ ἐγένετο κατοικητήριον δαιμονίων, καὶ φυλακὴ παντὸς / > , πνεύματος ἀκαθάρτου, καὶ φυλακὴ παντὸς ὀρνέου ἀκα- , [ lal A lal θάρτου καὶ μεμισημένου. “ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ οἴνου τοῦ θυμοῦ - / lal e τῆς πορνείας αὐτῆς πέπωκαν πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, καὶ οἱ a a a: a ε " βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς μετ᾽ αὐτῆς ἐπόρνευσαν, καὶ οἱ ἔμποροι lel a lal ἴω ᾽ 4 τῆς γῆς ἐκ τῆς δυνάμεως TOD στρήνους αὐτῆς ἐπλού- τησαν. 4 ἌΝ ” \ > a ] a , Καὶ ἤκουσα ἄλλην φωνὴν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, λέγουσαν, , a , / ᾿Ἐξέλθατε ἐξ αὐτῆς ὁ λαός μου, ἵνα μὴ συνκοινωνήσητε nr > a A “ > a vA ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις αὐτῆς, καὶ ἐκ τῶν πληγῶν αὐτῆς ἵνα \ , 5 ¢/ / y_A Cee , / μὴ λάβητε: ὅτι ἐκολλήθησαν αὐτῆς αἱ ἁμαρτίαι ἄχρι fal a e / τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, Kal ἐμνημόνευσεν ὁ θεὸς τὰ ἀδικήματα ΓΗ ayes Tika 7: \ ere ees “δ 8 αὐτῆς. “ἀπόδοτε αὐτῇ ὡς Kal αὐτὴ ἀπέδωκεν, Kal δι- ‘ \ a Ν διὸ ἊΨ ’ “ > “Ὁ / πλώσατε τὰ διπλᾶ κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτῆς" ἐν TO ποτηρίῳ ἣν a5 Β , Sey a 77 40.» ᾧ ἐκέρασεν, κεράσατε αὐτῇ διπλοῦν: ὅσα ἐδόξασεν » \ / lal , -“ \ αὐτὴν καὶ ἐστρηνίασεν, τοσοῦτον δότε αὐτῇ Bacavic mov \ / A / a καὶ πένθος. ὅτι ἐν TH καρδίᾳ αὐτῆς λέγει ὅτι Κάθημαι , \ , ᾽ > , \ / > \ vv βασίλισσα, καὶ χήρα οὐκ εἰμί, καὶ πένθος ov μὴ ἴδω. 8ὃ \ a > a ΘΑ, ἢ HE ς ὌΝ \ δι A ta τοῦτο ἐν μιᾷ ἡμέρᾳ ἥξουσιν ai πληγαὶ αὐτῆς, “ \ / \ θάνατος καὶ πένθος Kal λιμός: καὶ ἐν πυρὶ KaTaKav- a . / θήσεται" ὅτι ἰσχυρὸς κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ κρίνας αὐτήν. "Καὶ κλαύσουσιν καὶ κόψονται ἐπ᾽ αὐτὴν οἱ βασιλεῖς lel lal e ᾽ x A 4 / τῆς γῆς, οἱ μετ᾽ αὐτῆς πορνεύσαντες καὶ στρηνιάσαντες, 4 al lal ὅταν βλέπωσιν τὸν καπνὸν τῆς πυρώσεως αὐτῆς, " ἀπὸ , e 4 \ \ / “ fa μακρόθεν ἑστηκότες διὰ τὸν φόβον τοῦ βασανισμοῦ , / > / , / ε , ¢ , αὐτῆς, λέγοντες, Οὐαί, ovat, ἡ πόλις ἡ μεγάλη Βαβυλών, ε / ε » / “ a ¢/ > « / ἡ πόλις ἡ ἰσχυρά, ὅτι μιᾷ ὥρᾳ ἦλθεν ἡ κρίσις σου. 11 \ ed al fal , \ An sf? “Kai οἱ ἔμποροι τῆς γῆς κλαίουσιν καὶ πενθοῦσιν ἐπ 30 ATIOKAAYYIZ ΙΩΑΝΝΟῪ XVIIL τι 5 ‘ “ A: rd > a 5 Ν ’ , ’ f αὐτήν, OTL τὸν γόμον αὐτῶν οὐδεὶς ἀγοράζει οὐκέτι" “ψγόμον χρυσοῦ, καὶ ἀργύῤου, καὶ λίθου τιμίου, καὶ lal / Ἂν / lal μαργαριτῶν, καὶ βυσσίνου, καὶ πορφύρας, καὶ σιρικοῦ, a 7, lan cal r καὶ κοκκίνου: καὶ πᾶν ξύλον Ovivov, καὶ πᾶν σκεῦος 3 , \ A an > ΄ ͵ \ ἐλεφάντινον, καὶ πᾶν σκεῦος ἐκ ξύλου τιμιωτάτου, καὶ rn / χαλκοῦ, Kal σιδήρου, καὶ μαρμάρου, “Kal κιννάμωμον, 3 Kal ἄμωμον, καὶ θυμιάματα, καὶ μύρον, καὶ λίβανον, καὶ οἶνον, καὶ ἔλαιον, καὶ σεμίδαλιν, καὶ σῖτον, καὶ / ἢ led κτήνη, Kal πρόβατα, καὶ ἵππων, καὶ ῥεδῶν, καὶ σωμά- \ \ > ' 14 NL Aas ͵ a Tov, καὶ ψυχὰς ἀνθρώπων. “καὶ ἡ ὀπώρα σου τῆς > / A fal > “Ὁ 5 \ fal \ / ἐπιθυμίας τῆς ψυχῆς ἀπῆλθεν ἀπὸ σοῦ, Kal πάντα τὰ λιπαρὰ καὶ τὰ λαμπρὰ ἀπώλετο ἀπὸ σοῦ, καὶ / > \ e οὐκέτι OU μὴ αὐτὰ εὑρήσουσιν. “Οἱ ἔμποροι τούτων φ' , "ἢ Ἂν “Ὁ \ / ‘ οἱ πλουτήσαντες ἀπ αὐτῆς, ἀπὸ μακρόθεν στήσον- \ \ / lal lal , a / \ ται διὰ τὸν φόβον τοῦ βασανισμοῦ αὐτῆς, κλαίοντες καὶ ἴω 5» c «ς ¢ πενθοῦντες, "λέγοντες, Οὐαί, οὐαί, ἡ πόλις ἡ μεγάλη, ἡ / , \ lol \ / περιβεβλημένη βύσσινον καὶ πορφυροῦν καὶ κόκκινον, / a \ / Kal κεχρυσωμένη ἐν χρυσῷ Kai λίθῳ τιμίῳ καὶ pap- 4 / - / / ς a A γαρίτῃ" ὅτι μιᾷ ὥρᾳ ἠρημώθη ὁ τοσοῦτος πλοῦτος. 17 \ a ΄ γ \ an ς Seen / , \ Καὶ πᾶς κυβερνήτης, καὶ πᾶς ὁ ἐπὶ τόπον πλέων, καὶ nr Ἵ ’ ναῦται, καὶ ὅσοι τὴν θάλασσαν ἐργάζονται, ἀπὸ μα- / x 18 \ » , Nee \ κρόθεν ἔστησαν, “καὶ ἔκραζον, βλέποντες τὸν καπνὸν τῆς πυρώσεως αὐτῆς, λέγοντες, Τίς ὁμοία τῇ πόλει τῇ / a lal μεγάλῃ; “Kai ἔβαλον χοῦν ἐπὶ tas κεφαλὰς αὐτῶν, \ 5 ἴω ‘ rn / , / καὶ ἔκραζον κλαίοντες καὶ πενθοῦντες, λέγοντες, Ovat, eet ς , ¢ / > @ > ’ , e oval, ἢ πολις ἡ μεγάλη, ἐν ἢ ἐπλούτησαν πάντες οἱ ἔχοντες τὰ πλοῖω ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ ἐκ τῆς τιμιότητος Ἦν ἮΝ “ n “ 7 ‘ 20 ’ , Se > De ya) αὐτῆς, OTL μιᾷ ὥρᾳ ἠρημώθη. “Εὐφραίνου ἐπ᾽ αὐτῇ, οὐρανέ, καὶ οἱ ἅγιοι καὶ οἱ ἀπόστολοι καὶ οἱ προφῆται, \ an fal ὅτι ἔκρινεν ὁ θεὸς TO κρίμα ὑμῶν ἐξ αὐτῆς. ‘ e «ς "Kai ἦρεν εἷς ἄγγελος ἰσχυρὸς λίθον ὡς μύλον XIX. 7 ATIOKAAYYIZ IQANNOY 31 Yj i Ul μέγαν, Kai ἔβαλεν εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν, λέγων, Οὕτως , / / ὁρμήματι βληθήσεται Βαβυλὼν ἡ μεγάλη πόλις, καὶ οὐ \ e θῇ » 22 A \ θ ὃ - \ fal \ μὴ εὑρεθῇ ἔτι. “Kal φωνὴ κιθαρῳδῶν Kai μουσικῶν Kai ? an al ᾽ \ ’ a > \ Ἄν αὐλητῶν καὶ σαλπιστῶν οὐ μὴ ἀκουσθῇ ἐν σοὶ ἔτι, καὶ a , \ Θ lal \ Yj \ πᾶς τεχνίτης πάσης τέχνης οὐ μὴ εὑρεθῇ ἐν σοὶ ἔτι, καὶ \ , > SS abs τ ὦ 23 \ a ͵ φωνὴ μύλου οὐ μὴ ἀκουσθῆ ἐν σοὶ ἔτι, “καὶ φῶς λύχνου ᾽ \ , > \ om» \ \ , \ / » οὐ μὴ φάνῃ ἐν σοὶ ἔτι, καὶ φωνὴ νυμφίου καὶ νύμφης οὐ > fol “ δ / bes e μὴ ἀκουσθῇ ἐν col ἔτι" OTL οἱ ἔμποροί σου ἦσαν οἱ μεγι- al lal “- fal / > , oTdves τῆς γῆς, ὅτι ἐν τῇ φαρμακίᾳ σου ἐπλανήθησαν , fod e Ὁ πάντα τὰ ἔθνη. “kal ἐν αὐτῇ αἷμα προφητῶν καὶ ἁγίων εὑρέθη, καὶ πάντων τῶν ἐσφαγμένων ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. rn « \ " 19 "Μετὰ ταῦτα ἤκουσα ὡς φωνὴν μεγάλην ὄχλου fa lal A ’ tan ¢ / πολλοῦ ἐν TO οὐρανῷ, λεγόντων, ᾿Αλληλούϊα" ἡ σωτηρία Gee , Wwe ͵ κα AD Rein Lys 8 of ᾽ θ \ καὶ ἡ δόξα καὶ ἡ δύναμις τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν: "ὅτι ἀληθιναὶ a τ 4 \ , καὶ δίκαιαι αἱ κρίσεις αὐτοῦ" ὅτι ἔκρινεν τὴν πόρνην Ὁ - / 7 A τὴν μεγάλην, ἥτις ἔφθειρεν THY γῆν ἐν TH πορνείᾳ αὐτῆς, , a ' ᾽ a καὶ ἐξεδίκησεν τὸ αἷμα τῶν δούλων αὐτοῦ ἐκ χειρὸς eer Ξ , > a es ς \ αὐτῆς. “αὶ δεύτερον εἴρηκαν, Δλληλούϊα" καὶ ὁ καπνὸς i.) ᾽ x lal lel 4 αὐτῆς ἀναβαίνει εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. *Kai U e / ἔπεσαν οἱ πρεσβύτεροι οἱ εἴκοσι τέσσαρες, Kal τὰ , a lal a a f τέσσερα ζῷα, καὶ προσεκύνησαν τῷ θεῷ τῷ καθημένῳ ᾽ \ lal ΄ / > ‘ » Taw ‘ ἐπὶ τῷ θρόνῳ, λέγοντες, ᾿Αμήν' ἀλληλούϊα. “Καὶ \ rn an / lal fal φωνὴ ἐκ τοῦ θρόνου ἐξῆλθεν, λέγουσα, Αἰνεῖτε τῷ θεῴ ¢ an / ¢ ὃ a ’ fal \ e / ἡμῶν, πάντες οἱ δοῦλοι αὐτοῦ, [Kai] of φοβούμενοι > +f e \ \ = ΄ 6 be 2 ς \ αὐτόν, οἱ μικροὶ Kal οἱ μεγάλοι. “Καὶ ἤκουσα ὡς φωνὴν , a , A «ς ὄχλου πολλοῦ, καὶ ὡς φωνὴν ὑδάτων πολλῶν, καὶ ὡς \ nr a , ” la φωνὴν βροντῶν ἰσχυρῶν, λεγόντων, ᾿Αλληλούϊα" ὅτι b] , , \ if -“ ig ΄ , ἐβασίλευσεν κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν ὁ παντοκράτωρ. ‘xal- OME a \ a \ , er. a ρωμεν Kal ἀγαλλιώμεν, καὶ δῶμεν THY δόξαν αὐτῷ" ὅτι 5 id r » ¢ 2 r ¢ / ἦλθεν ὁ γάμος TOD apviov, Kal ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ ἡτοίμασεν 32 ATIOKAAYYIZ LQANNOY MIX a f / , ἑαυτήν. “Kai ἐδόθη αὐτῇ ἵνα περιβάληται βύσσινον \ / “-“ λαμπρὸν καθαρόν" τὸ γὰρ βύσσινον τὰ δικαιώματα τῶν ἁγίων ἐστίν. i? \ “" Καὶ λέγει μοι, Ἰράψον, Μακάριοι οἱ εἰς τὸ δεῖπνον lal fal 3 τοῦ γάμου τοῦ ἀρνίου κεκλημένοι. Kat λέγει pot, \ low a / Οὗτοι οἱ λόγοι ἀληθινοὶ τοῦ θεοῦ εἰσίν. “Kal ἔπεσα a “ 2 nr a 5 lal ἔμπροσθεν τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ προσκυνῆσαι αὐτῷ" Kal id a λέγει μοι, Ὅρα μή: σύνδουλός σου εἰμὶ Kal τῶν ἀδελ- tal a Ἂ “ > a A A φῶν cov, τῶν ἐχόντων τὴν μαρτυρίαν ᾿Ιησοῦ" τῷ θεῷ ς Ν / 5 a A προσκύνησον" ἡ yap μαρτυρία ᾿Ιησοῦ ἐστὶν τὸ πνεῦμα a : / τῆς προφητείας. 53 \ > \ ’ “Kat εἶδον Tov οὐρανὸν ἠνεῳγμένον, καὶ ἰδοὺ ἵππος [4 , ’ ’ / λευκός, Kal ὃ καθήμενος ἐπ᾽ αὐτόν, καλούμενος πιστὸς "4 Uy -“ καὶ ἀληθινός, καὶ ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ κρίνει καὶ πολεμεῖ" - > \ ’ A \ “ol δὲ ὀφθαλμοὶ αὐτοῦ φλὸξ πυρός, καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν εἰ an IZ / i ἢ τ' αὐτοῦ διαδήματα πολλά: ἔχων ὄνομα γεγραμμένον ὃ 5 Ν 8 > \ ,’ , οὐδεὶς οἶδεν εἰ μὴ αὐτός" “Kal περιβεβλημένος ἱμάτιον , “ 2 ΟΝ \» δ οὶ ρον Ἔ βεβαμμένον αἵματι καὶ κέκληται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ, Ὃ Λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ. “Kal τὰ στρατεύματα ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ~ } “Ὁ ᾽ 4 Lal ἠκολούθει avT@ ἐφ᾽ ἵπποις λευκοῖς, ἐνδεδυμένοι βύσ- \ \ / a an awov λευκὸν καὶ καθαρόν. “Kal ἐκ τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ ΕῚ / , 5 a 7 b] 5» “ i? Ἂν, ΜΚ ἐκπορεύεται ῥομφαία ὀξεῖα, ἵνα ἐν αὐτῇ πατάξῃ τὰ ἔθνη" Ν ew a 2 \ 5 Cae a. \ SEA Kal αὐτὸς ποιμανεῖ αὐτοὺς ἐν ῥάβδῳ σιδηρᾷ᾽ Kal αὐτὸς πατεῖ τὴν ληνὸν τοῦ οἴνου τοῦ θυμοῦ τῆς ὀργῆς τοῦ θεοῦ a , 6 τοῦ παντοκράτορος. “καὶ ἔχει ἐπὶ TO ἱμάτιον Kal ἐπὶ TOV \ ’ Le) v Ms \ / μηρὸν αὐτοῦ ὄνομα γεγραμμένον, Βασιλεὺς βασιλέων \ , , 17 ΑἹ oe “ ” ε a ᾽ καὶ κύριος κυρίων. "Καὶ εἶδον ἕνα ἄγγελον ἑστῶτα ἐν lel SX Sy) | αἱ ” E wn) tr. λέ a “-“ τῷ NAIM καὶ ἔκραξεν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ, λέγων πᾶσιν τοῖς 5 a / ἴω ὀρνέοις τοῖς πετομένοις ἐν μεσουρανήματι, Δεῦτε, συν- , ᾽ \ 5 a \ ΄ a θ καθ , άχθητε εἰς τὸ δεῖπνον TO μέγα τοῦ θεοῦ, “iva φάγητε σάρκας βασιλέων, καὶ σάρκας χιλιάρχων, καὶ σάρκας XX. 6 ATIOKAAYYIE. IQANNOY 33 ~ lal iA lal ἰσχυρῶν, καὶ σάρκας ἵππων καὶ τῶν καθημένων ἐπ᾽ .} a \ / / 3 / \ , αὐτῶν, καὶ σάρκας πάντων, ἐλευθέρων τε καὶ δούλων, a \ 3 Kal μικρῶν καὶ μεγάλων. “Kai εἶδον τὸ θηρίον, καὶ \ a lal lal \ \ Ὁ τοὺς βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς, καὶ τὰ στρατεύματα αὐτῶν , lal \ n συνηγμένα ποιῆσαι τὸν πόλεμον μετὰ τοῦ καθημένου a 7 \ \ na an ἐπὶ Tov ἵππου, Kal μετὰ TOD στρατεύματος αὐτοῦ. “Kal er, \ , \ > ᾽ rie Ws / ε ἐπίασθη τὸ θηρίον, καὶ μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ ὁ ψευδοπροφήτης ὁ lal / lal ποιήσας τὰ σημεῖα ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ, ἐν οἷς ἐπλάνησεν \ / “ Is τοὺς λαβόντας TO χάραγμα τοῦ θηρίου, καὶ τοὺς προσ- a a > / ’ an an > / e , > κυνοῦντας TH εἰκόνι αὐτοῦ" ζῶντες ἐβλήθησαν οἱ δύο εἰς lal \ aA / / ᾿ τὴν λίμνην τοῦ πυρὸς τῆς καιομένης ἐν θείῳ. “Kai οἱ λουποὶ ἀπεκτάνθησαν ἐν τῇ ῥομφαίᾳ τοῦ καθημένου ἐπὶ η ἢ ῥομφαΐίς nye an 6 lal 2 / > nr > n τοῦ ἵππου, τῇ ἐξελθούση ἐκ τοῦ στόματος aUTOD Kal πάντα τὰ ὄρνεα ἐχορτάσθησαν ἐκ τῶν σαρκῶν αὐτῶν. 920 1 \ ΤΣ ” , ᾽ a > Kai εἶδον ἄγγελον καταβαίνοντα ἐκ τοῦ ov- aie ty \ n a 197 ρανοῦ, ἔχοντα τὴν κλεῖν τῆς ἀβύσσου, Kal ἅλυσιν μεγάλην ἐπὶ τὴν χεῖρα αὐτοῦ. “καὶ ἐκράτησεν τὸν ὃ , ΘΨ ε 5 an “ > ὃ / \ c ράκοντα, ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος, ὅς ἐστιν διάβολος Kal ὁ a ae, 4) ὡς , » 3 Δ ΣΝ ἢ Σατανᾶς, καὶ ἔδησεν αὐτὸν χίλια ἔτη, “καὶ ἔβαλεν 3 “ἡ > \ ΝΜ , Ὁ \ > / αὐτὸν εἰς τὴν ἄβυσσον, Kal ἔκλεισεν καὶ ἐσφράγισεν J fal “, \ 4 \ ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ, ἵνα μὴ πλανήσῃ ἔτι τὰ ἔθνη, ἄχρι τε- A \ na al lol λεσθῇ τὰ χίλια Eryn’ μετὰ ταῦτα δεῖ αὐτὸν λυθῆναι ‘ , 4 \ 5 , \ > , δ»... Ὁ μικρὸν χρόνον. “Καὶ εἶδον θρόνους, καὶ ἐκάθισαν ἐπ ᾽ \ / > a a αὐτούς, καὶ κρίμα ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς" καὶ Tas ψυχὰς τῶν / \ \ / > an πεπελεκισμένων διὰ τὴν μαρτυρίαν “Inood, καὶ διὰ τὸν / “ lo) > λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ οἵτινες οὐ προσεκύνησαν τὸ θηρίον, ON \ > / > la) \ ᾽ Μ. \ / Ried οὐδὲ τὴν εἰκόνα αὐτοῦ, καὶ οὐκ ἔλαβον TO χάραγμα ἐπὶ Ν \ \ \ a lal TO μέτωπον καὶ ἐπὶ THY χεῖρα αὐτῶν" Kal ἔζησαν, Kal / \ a a ἐβασίλευσαν μετὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ χίλια ἔτη. "Οἱ λοιποὶ a lel > » A ~ \ , ” τῶν νεκρῶν οὐκ ἔζησαν ἄχρι τελεσθῇ τὰ χίλια ἔτη. , , « e αὕτη ἡ ἀνάστασις ἡ πρώτη. “μακάριος Kal ἅγιος ὁ REVELATION σ 34 ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΥΨΊΣ IQANNOY XX. 6 “ -“ , , ἔχων μέρος ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει TH πρώτῃ" ἐπὶ τούτων c ip / οἱ 4 > / > \ » ὁ δεύτερος θάνατος οὐκ ἔχει ἐξουσίαν, ἀλλὰ ἔσονται an a la) \ ἴον nr ἱερεῖς τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, καὶ βασιλεύσουσιν μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ τὰ χίλια ἔτη. lal , is "Kal ὅταν τελεσθῇ τὰ χίλια ἔτη, λυθήσεται ὁ Σατανᾶς ἐκ τῆς φυλακῆς αὐτοῦ, “καὶ ἐξελεύσεται πλα- oa Ν a vA a lel νῆσαι τὰ ἔθνη Ta ἐν ταῖς τέσσαρσιν γωνίαις τῆς γῆς, x εἶ \ \ / fal > \ 2 \ τὸν Ley καὶ [τὸν] Μαγώγ, συναγαγεῖν αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸν - ¢ ’ a rn πόλεμον, ὧν ὁ ἀριθμὸς αὐτῶν ὡς ἡ ἄμμος τῆς θαλάσσης, 9 \ ,’ ‘ > \ \ / A a \ > , Kal ἀνέβησαν ἐπὶ TO πλάτος τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἐκύκλωσαν Ν \ lal πὶ “ \ \ / \ > τὴν παρεμβολὴν τῶν ἁγίων, Kal THY πόλιν τὴν ἠγαπη- / an ) \ an nr fal 3 rn μένην᾽ καὶ κατέβη πῦρ ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκ Tov οὐρανοῦ, 5 , ς A καὶ κατέφαγεν αὐτούς" “Kal ὁ διάβολος ὁ πλανῶν > \ > a > \ 7 rn \ \ ig “ αὐτοὺς ἐβλήθη εἰς τὴν λίμνην τοῦ πυρὸς καὶ θείου, ὅπου 7ὔ ς ‘ , καὶ τὸ θηρίον καὶ ὁ ψευδοπροφήτης" καὶ βασανισθή- \ IA A t σονται ἡμέρας Kal νυκτὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. / \ , "Kai εἶδον θρόνον μέγαν λευκόν, καὶ τὸν καθήμενον rn la) ΄ ε lad € ἐπ᾿ αὐτοῦ, οὗ ἀπὸ TOU προσώπου ἔφυγεν ἡ γῆ Kal ὁ > t \ t 5) δ. Slt 12 \ 3 οὐρανός, καὶ τόπος οὐχ εὑρέθη αὐτοῖς. “Kat εἶδον \ / \ , ων τοὺς νεκρούς, τοὺς μεγάλους καὶ τοὺς μικρούς, ἑστῶτας ἴω / f \ 7 ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου, καὶ βιβλία ἠνοίχθησαν" καὶ ἄλλο a“ nr r \ / e βιβλίον ἠνοίχθη, 6 ἐστιν τῆς ζωῆς" καὶ ἐκρίθησαν οἱ , “ , \ . νεκροὶ ἐκ τῶν γεγραμμένων ἐν τοῖς βιβλίοις, κατὰ τὰ lal / \ \ \ ἔργα αὐτῶν. “Kai ἔδωκεν ἡ θάλασσα τοὺς νεκροὺς τοὺς a ε cow » \ \ ἐν αὐτῇ, καὶ ὁ θάνατος καὶ ὁ ἄδης ἔδωκαν τοὺς νεκροὺς a \ \ ‘a τοὺς ἐν αὐτοῖς" καὶ ἐκρίθησαν ἕκαστος κατὰ Ta ἔργα ν a co ͵ > ν αὐτῶν. “καὶ ὁ θάνατος καὶ ὁ ἅδης ἐβλήθησαν εἰς τὴν “ ¢ ς , / « λίμνην τοῦ πυρός" οὗτος ὁ θάνατος ὁ δεύτερός ἐστιν, ἡ " 3 / lol λίμνη TOD πυρός. “Kai εἴ τις οὐχ εὑρέθη ἐν τῇ βίβλῳ an an / >? / ] \ » a / τῆς ζωῆς γεγραμμένος, ἐβλήθη εἰς τὴν λίμνην TOD πυρός. Ε \ \ a έν 21 "Καὶ εἶδον οὐρανὸν καινὸν καὶ γῆν καινήν XXI. 12 ATIOKAAYYIZ 1QANNOY 35 «ς \ a > \ he , a ’ a \ ¢ ὁ γὰρ πρῶτος οὐρανὸς Kal ἡ πρώτη γῆ ἀπῆλθαν, καὶ ἡ , > ” » 2 \ \ ͵ \ ew θάλασσα οὐκ ἔστιν ἔτι. "Καὶ τὴν πόλιν τὴν ἁγίαν, « \ , 3 , > a ᾽ Ἱερουσαλὴμ καινήν, εἶδον καταβαίνουσαν ἐκ τοῦ οὐ- a > lal ἴω ρανοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἡτοιμασμένην ὡς νύμφην κεκοσμη- ΄, A ’ - an μένην TO ἀνδρὶ αὐτῆς. “καὶ ἤκουσα φωνῆς μεγάλης ἐκ n ? a ? ¢ na fal a Tov οὐρανοῦ, λεγούσης, ᾿Ιδοὺ ἡ σκηνὴ τοῦ θεοῦ μετὰ TOV > ͵ , > SA ἀνθρώπων, καὶ σκηνώσει μετ᾽ αὐτῶών᾽ Kal αὐτοὶ λαοὶ » my ἍΡ \ > \ ¢ x » - αὐτοῦ ἔσονται, καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ θεὸς ἔσται μετ᾽ αὐτῶν, "καὶ / lal Ὁ Ε] lal - ἐξαλείψει πᾶν δάκρυον ἐκ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτῶν, καὶ ὁ > Ν ῃ θάνατος οὐκ ἔσται Ett’ οὔτε πένθος, οὔτε κραυγή, οὔτε ΄ > 7 ἀπ ΥΝ \ A . ΤᾺ 5 \ πόνος οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι᾽ ὅτι τὰ πρῶτα ἀπῆλθαν. "Καὶ Ss © , > \ al , ᾽ , \ n εἶπεν ὁ καθήμενος ἐπὶ τῷ θρόνῳ, ᾿Ιδού, καινὰ ποιῶ eo ἐ ἐ / / πάντα. Kai λέγει [μοι], Πράψον᾽ ὅτι οὗτοι οἱ λόγοι. : Η πιστοὶ καὶ ἀληθινοί εἰσιν. “Καὶ εἶπέν μοι, Véyovar. b , ? Ag a Ν \ > ς 4 \ \ \ A 2 \ ἐγώ εἰμι TO ἄλφα καὶ TO ὦ, ἡ ἀρχὴ καὶ τὸ τέλος. ἐγὼ τῷ διψῶντι δώσω ἐκ τῆς πηγῆς τοῦ ὕδατος τῆς ζωῆς ἐ 7) ἢ , «ς a , “ , > lol δωρεάν. '6 νικῶν κληρονομήσει ταῦτα, Kal ἔσομαι αὐτῷ ΄ \ aay ” ε; 8 a \ a \ θεός, Kal αὐτὸς ἔσται μοι υἱός. “Tots δὲ δειλοῖς καὶ > / yy > / \ rn \ / ἀπίστοις καὶ ἐβδελυγμένοις καὶ φονεῦσιν καὶ πόρνοις \ a \ > U \ a a καὶ φαρμακοῖς καὶ εἰδωλολάτραις, Kal πᾶσιν τοῖς ψευ- ᾽ A a a / δέσιν, TO μέρος αὐτῶν ἐν TH λίμνῃ TH καιομένῃ πυρὶ καὶ ὔ ΄ ¢ , θείῳ, ὅ ἐστιν ὁ θάνατος ὁ δεύτερος. n \ > Aa "Καὶ ἦλθεν εἷς ἐκ τῶν ἑπτὰ ἀγγέλων τῶν ἐχόντων τὰς ἑπτὰ φιάλας τῶν γεμόντων τῶν ἑπτὰ πληγῶν τῶν / » a / a ἐσχάτων, καὶ ἐλάλησεν μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ, λέγων, Δεῦρο, δείξω lal nr > / 10 σοι τὴν νύμφην, τὴν γυναῖκα τοῦ apviov. "Kai ἀπή- / b , oN Ae / \ ig / X νεγκέν με ἐν πνεύματι ἐπὶ ὄρος μέγα Kal ὑψηλόν, καὶ \ / e ἔδειξέν μοι THY πόλιν THY ἁγίαν Ἱερουσαλήμ, καταβαί- a we a a ly κ᾿ , νουσαν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ, " ἔχουσαν τὴν δόξαν a a \ A la / , τοῦ θεοῦ: ὁ φωστὴρ αὐτῆς ὅμοιος λίθῳ τιμιωτάτῳ, ὡς ΄, γ, / . wy a ͵ λίθῳ ἰάσπιδι κρυσταλλίζοντι: "ἔχουσα τεῖχος μέγα c2 26 ATIOKAAYYIZ IQANNOY Re καὶ ὑψηλόν, ἔχουσα πυλῶνας δώδεκα, καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖς a / > πυλῶσιν ἀγγέλους δώδεκα, Kal ὀνόματα ἐπιγεγραμ- fal 4 lal lal μένα, ἅ ἐστιν τῶν δώδεκα φυλῶν υἱῶν ᾿Ισραήλ. 48 >? Ν > a a an \ > \ a ἀπὸ ἀνατολῆς πυλῶνες τρεῖς" καὶ ἀπὸ βορρᾶ πυ- A a \ , a ne \ eae λῶνες τρεῖς" καὶ ἀπὸ νότου πυλῶνες τρεῖς" καὶ ἀπὸ aA nr lal \ \ a A ͵7 δυσμῶν πυλῶνες τρεῖς. “Kal τὸ τεῖχος τῆς πόλεως ” / ὃ \ » 52 ’ a / 9 MW ἔχων θεμελίους δώδεκα, καὶ ἐπ᾽ αὐτῶν δώδεκα ὀνόματα τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων τοῦ apviov. “Καὶ ὁ λαλῶν rn > / rn ty μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ εἶχεν μέτρον, κάλαμον χρυσοῦν, ἵνα μετρήσῃ \ \ a x A nN a τὴν πόλιν, καὶ τοὺς πυλῶνας αὐτῆς, καὶ τὸ τεῖχος a ¢ / / a fal αὐτῆς. “Kal ἡ πόλις τετράγωνος κεῖται, καὶ TO μῆκος a / / \ / \ αὐτῆς ὅσον TO πλάτος. καὶ ἐμέτρησεν τὴν πόλιν TO , » \ / , / = \ n \ καλάμῳ ἐπὶ σταδίων δώδεκα χιλιάδωμ᾽ τὸ μῆκος Kal \ ͵ \ we: δ᾽ ἴα κτῶ3) ἢ , 17 S “SP ay TO πλάτος καὶ TO ὕψος αὐτῆς ica ἐστίν. “Kal ἐμέτρη- Aa >’ a / σεν TO τεῖχος αὐτῆς ἑκατὸν τεσσεράκοντα τεσσάρων lal / > θ , “ > ’ /. aoe \ ¢ πηχῶν, μέτρον ἀνθρώπου, 6 ἐστιν ἀγγέλου. al ἡ fal / - «ς ἐνδώμησις τοῦ τείχους αὐτῆς ἴασπις" καὶ ἡ πόλις χρυ- / ΄ sh Ὁ; a 19 _ ¢ , n σίον καθαρόν, ὅμοιον ὑάλῳ καθαρῷ. “oi θεμέλιοι τοῦ Ὁ / , τείχους τῆς πόλεως παντὶ λίθῳ τιμίῳ κεκοσμημένοι. f ς A / id , ὁ θεμέλιος ὁ πρῶτος, ἴασπις᾽ ὁ δεύτερος, σάπφειρος" . / ¢ / / ὁ τρίτος, χωλκηδών᾽ ὁ τέταρτος, σμάραγδος" “ὁ πέμπτος, [4 c ¢ σαρδόνυξ' ὁ ἕκτος, σάρδιον᾽ ὁ ἕβδομος, χρυσόλιθος" ὁ 3 , » Bg , NE URT. 1 ὄγδοος, βήρυλλος" ὁ ἔνατος, τοπάζξιον᾽ ὁ δέκατος, χρυσό- ; ς , ? mMpacos’ ὁ ἑνδέκατος, ὑάκινθος " ὁ δωδέκατος, ἀμέθυστος. 21 \ ἐν , - ’,ὔ A 3 γ᾽ \ ia Kal οἱ δώδεκα πυλῶνες, δώδεκα μαργαρῖται" ava εἷς lal , > / ¢ ἕκαστος τῶν πυλώνων ἦν ἐξ ἑνὸς μαργαρίτου" καὶ ἡ “ a / / / ς “ πλατεῖα τῆς πόλεως, χρυσίον καθαρόν, ὡς ὕαλος διαυ- , 2K \ \ ᾽ 25 > Sai. ae \ 1s ¢ γής. αὶ ναὸν οὐκ εἶδον ἐν αὐτῇ ὁ γὰρ κύριος ὁ ε , \ . A ’ θεὸς ὁ παντοκράτωρ ναὸς αὐτῆς ἐστίν, Kal TO ἀρνίον. 23 ἌΓ ΣΕ , 5 1 » Lott / ON lal 4 καὶ ἡ πόλις OU χρείαν ἔχει TOD ἡλίου, οὐδὲ τῆς σελήνης, vA / As «ς \ / a lal ᾽ ἵνα φαίνωσιν αὐτῇ ἡ γὰρ δόξα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐφώτισεν ew SN XXII.9 ΑΠΌΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ IQANNOY 37 ,’ ’ \ ε 4 5» - nN ’ / 24 \ / αὐτήν, Kal ὁ λύχνος αὐτῆς TO ἀρνίον. “Kai περυπατή- \ » \ a \ vat: Me avr a σουσιν τὰ ἔθνη διὰ τοῦ φωτὸς αὐτῆς" Kai οἱ βασιλεῖς Aa fol / Ν a , 5 ¢ τῆς γῆς φέρουσιν τὴν δόξαν αὐτῶν εἰς αὐτήν. ™Kal οἱ a , A ᾽ “ / \ ’ πυλώνες αὐτῆς οὐ μὴ κλεισθῶσιν ἡμέρας" νὺξ yap οὐκ ἔσται ἐκεῖ. “Kai οἴσουσιν τὴν δόξαν καὶ τὴν τιμὴν τῶν > Le > 5 / 27 \ γ᾽ \ ᾽ f ’ 3 \ al ἐθνῶν εἰς αὐτήν. “Kal οὐ μὴ εἰσέλθη εἰς αὐτὴν πᾶν ‘ \ ς a ΄ fal \ if κοινόν, Kal ὁ ποιῶν βδέλυγμα Kal ψεῦδος" εἰ μὴ οἱ a lal a an ,ὔ γεγραμμένοι ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ ἀρνίου. 99. 1 \ ὩΣ a \ ΠΣ a \ Kai ἔδειξέν μοι ποταμὸν ὕδατος ζωῆς, λαμπρὸν / rn “ -“ ὡς κρύσταλλον ἐκπορευόμενον ἐκ τοῦ θρόνου τοῦ θεοῦ δὲ ἢ A at. a καὶ τοῦ apviov, "ἐν μέσῳ τῆς πλατείας αὐτῆς. Kal τοῦ ποταμοῦ, ἐντεῦθεν καὶ ἐκεῖθεν, ξύλον ζωῆς, ποιοῦν καρ- U \ lal { ’ \ \ ποὺς δώδεκα, κατὰ μῆνα ἕκαστον ἀποδιδοὺς τὸν καρπὸν “Ὁ lal , > - αὐτοῦ: καὶ τὰ φύλλα τοῦ ξύλου εἰς θεραπείαν τῶν b) a 347 _\ lal , ’ Μ ” " X £ ἐθνῶν. Καὶ πᾶν κατάθεμα οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι" Kal ὃ rn lal lal / a lj θρόνος τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ apviov ἐν αὐτῇ ἔσται" Kal ε a > a ͵ ale Aye Ἦν ἢ \ » \ οἱ δοῦλοι αὐτοῦ λατρεύσουσιν αὐτῷ καὶ ὄψονται τὸ , ’ a \ ᾽ fa) \ fy πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ, καὶ TO ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τῶν μετώπων a 3 , li γ᾽ / αὐτῶν. "καὶ νὺξ οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι" Kal οὐκ ἔχουσιν χρείαν \ , \ \ ς / “ / ¢ δὰ lal φωτὸς λύχνου καὶ φωτὸς ἡλίου, ὅτι κύριος ὁ θεὸς φωτιεῖ , ’ A ἐπ᾿ αὐτούς" καὶ βασιλεύσουσιν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. - a Ἂ “Καὶ εἶπέν μοι, Οὗτοι οἱ λόγοι πιστοὶ καὶ ἀληθινοί' \ , a / ao a καὶ ὁ κύριος ὁ θεὸς τῶν πνευμάτων τῶν προφητῶν 3 ΄ \ ” > a A . t ᾽ a ἀπέστειλεν TOV ἄγγελον αὐτοῦ δεῖξαι τοῖς δούλοις αὐτοῦ Δ 5 a , θ > , 1K \ ὩΣ Rose , ἃ δεῖ γενέσθαι ἐν τάχει. αἱ ἰδού, ἔρχομαι ταχύ. e a \ / a , a μακάριος ὁ τηρῶν τοὺς λόγους τῆς προφητείας τοῦ , ᾽ φῳ , 4 βιβλίου τούτου. “Kayo ᾿Ιωάννης ὁ ἀκούων καὶ βλέπων lal Ν / » lal ταῦτα᾽ Kal ὅτε ἤκουσα καὶ ἔβλεψα, ἔπεσα προσκυνῆσαι » fal a na Ε] 2 an ἔμπροσθεν τῶν ποδῶν τοῦ ἀγγέλου τοῦ δεικνύοντός μοι a oe ͵ “ be , , ΕἸ ταῦτα. “καὶ λέγει μοι, Ὅρα μή" σύνδουλός σου εἰμί, 38 ATTOKAAY VIZ IQANNOY XXII. 9 \ Ὁ ’ Lal A Lal \ lal , Kal τῶν ἀδελφῶν σου τῶν προφητῶν, Kal τῶν τηρούντων lal , , a a ἢ τοὺς λόγους τοῦ βιβλίου τούτου" τῷ θεῷ προσκύνησον. / \ / \ t lal Kat λέγει μοι, Μὴ σφραγίσῃς τοὺς λόγους τῆς προφη- a , ¢ \ τείας τοῦ βιβλίου τούτου ὁ καιρὸς yap ἐγγύς ἐστιν. Tie Ὁ a > , Mae Nur le sme \ ς ! ὁ ἀδικῶν ἀδικησάτω ETL’ καὶ ὁ ῥυπαρὸς ῥυπανθήτω , i A \ « ἔτι" καὶ ὁ δίκαιος δικαιοσύνην ποιησάτω ἔτι καὶ ὃ ψ - ΄ ” 129 Nis po? , Arete ἅγιος ἁγιασθήτω ἔτι. Ιδοὺ ἔρχομαι ταχύ, καὶ ὁ ,) 5 la) rn i μισθός μου μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ, ἀποδοῦναι ἑκάστῳ ὡς TO ἔργον ᾽ \ ’ a THN \ » \ eee 5. ἐξ a Sa ἐστὶν αὐτοῦ. “᾿ἐγὼ TO ἄλφα καὶ TO ὦ, ὁ πρῶτος καὶ ὁ τὰ ἔσχατος, ἀρχὴ καὶ τέλος. 14 / ¢ ͵ \ ἢ ᾿, ,ἀ τὴ “ Μακάριοι οἱ πλύνοντες Tas στολὰς αὐτῶν, Wa yy (Wags / 5 an 5 Ἂ \ / nr A \ “ ἔσται ἡ ἐξουσίᾳ αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον τῆς ζωῆς, καὶ τοῖς a 5. ly > ‘ a 15.» ¢ , \ πυλώῶσιν εἰσέλθωσιν εἰς THY πόλιν. * ἔξω οἱ κύνες Kal e \ \ g , \ e a \ [ὦ 5 οἱ φαρμακοὶ καὶ οἱ πόρνοι καὶ οἱ φονεῖς καὶ οἱ εἰδωλο- A: an lel a rn λάτραι, καὶ πᾶς φιλῶν καὶ ποιῶν ψεῦδος. 16? ae) n_ 9 ἢ δον ἢ ͵ a Kyo ᾿Ιησοῦς ἔπεμψα τὸν ἄγγελόν μου μαρτυρῆσαι a a a , \ ὑμῖν ταῦτα ἐπὶ ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις" ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ῥίζα καὶ TO , is δ᾽ οἷν \ ς \ ε an: a re \ \ γένος Δαυείδ, ὁ ἀστὴρ ὁ λαμπρὸς ὁ Tpwivos. al τὸ a NF) Geo l " 5 ὩΣ: , πνεῦμα καὶ ἡ νύμφη λέγουσιν, "Ἔρχου" καὶ ὁ ἀκούων : a ἢ 3 D εἰπάτω, "Epyou' καὶ ὁ διψῶν ἐρχέσθω" ὁ θέλων λαβέτω ὕδωρ ζωῆς δωρεάν. 18 τ Ὁ \ ny ΟΣ , \ t a Μαρτυρῶ ἐγὼ παντὶ τῷ ἀκούοντι τοὺς λόγους τῆς / lal / , + x7 > lel > + > / προφητείας τοῦ βιβλίου τούτου" ἐάν τις ἐπιθῇ ἐπ᾽ αὐτά, / ¢ Ε] 5 Ν ἐπιθήσει ὁ θεὸς ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν τὰς πληγὰς τὰς γεγραμμένας a / / lal ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τούτῳ: “Kal ἐάν Tis ἀφέλῃ ἀπὸ τῶν an / a , o λόγων τοῦ βιβλίου τῆς προφητείας ταύτης, ἀφελεῖ ὁ \ \ / >’ fal > lal lol a θεὸς τὸ μέρος αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ ξύλου τῆς ζωῆς, Kal ἐκ a , an ΄ a - / τῆς πόλεως τῆς ἁγίας, τῶν γεγραμμένων ἐν TO βιβλίῳ ic lal ἴω / , τούτῳ. ““Λέγει ὁ μαρτυρῶν ταῦτα, Ναί, ἔρχομαι ταχύ. ἂν lal Apnv’ ἔρχου, κύριε “Incod. “HH χάρις τοῦ κυρίου ᾿Ιησοῦ μετὰ πάντων. NOTES. CHAPTER I. δ. ἀγαπῶντι, with NAB,C. ἀγαπήσαντι Text. Rec. with P 1 And. Areth. vg. (qui dilewit) arm. λύσαντι, with NAC 1 syr. vet. lat. (cod. flor. et Primas.) arm. λούσαντι Text. Rec. with B,P vg. cop. eth. Areth. 6. βασιλείαν ἱερεῖς, with N*AC. This reading has the support of the Old Latin (regnum nostrum sacerdotes cod. flor.), and the Vulgate (nostrum regnum sacerdotes am. f u. harl.); both of which however read ἡμῶν (C) before βασιλείαν, instead of ἡμᾶς (NB,P) or ἡμῖν (A), βασιλείαν καὶ ἱερεῖς N° Primas.; βασιλεῖς καὶ ἱερεῖς Text. Rec. with P 1 And. 8. τὸ ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ὦὥ. Text. Rec. adds to this ἀρχὴ καὶ τέλος with N* 1 vg. cop. 11. λεγούσης ὃ βλέπεις. Text. Rec. reads with 1 And?. and (with small variants) P 7, as follows: λεγούσης ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ A καὶ τὸ Q, ὁ πρῶτος καὶ ὁ ἔσχατος καὶ ὃ βλέπεις. 13. ὅμοιον υἱῷ, with CP And. Areth. A reads ὁμοίωμα vig. Tisch. and WH read ὅμοιον υἱὸν (WH marg. vig) with NB, 1. 14. λευκαὶ ὡς ἔριον λευκόν, ὡς χιών. The Old Latin (cod. flor. et Primas.), reads velut lana ut nix. 15. πεπυρωμένης, 50 Lach, and WH with AC; Vet. Lat. (cod. flor. Primas. Cyp.) de fornace ignea. Tisch. reads πεπυρωμένῳ with N. Text. Rec. and WH marg. read πεπυρωμένοι with B,P. 16. καὶ ἔχων. N*. The Old Latin (cod. flor. Primas. Cyp.) read καὶ εἶχεν ; A omits ἔχων and reads ἀστέρες below. δίστομος ὀξεῖα. So all Greek MSS.; but the Old Latin (cod. flor. Primas. Cyp.) reads utrimque (or utrwmque) acutus: possibly ὀξεῖα has been transferred here from xix. 15, where in many MSS. δίστομος has been carried over from this passage. Α 18. καὶ ὁ ζῶν. δὲ omits καί; Primas. omits all three words, If ὁ ζῶν was a marginal note, it would enter the text at first without καί. 19. μέλλει, with N° ABP; δεῖ μέλλειν N*; δεῖ μέλλει C: oportet vet. lat. vg. 40 REVELATION. [1.1-- Cx. I. 1—3. ΤΙΤΙΒ anp ᾿ΠΕΒΟΒΙΡΤΙΟΝ oF THE REVELATION. 1. ᾿Αποκάλυψις. English idiom requires the definite article here (as with ἀπόδεξις in Hdt.1.1). St Jerome (ad Gal. τ. 11, 12) overstates a little when he calls the word ἀποκάλυψις distinctly scriptural. Both verb and noun are used by Plato and Plutarch of simpie disclosure of thought and act; ἀναφαίνω is the word in literary Greek for the pro- clamation of sacred mysteries. ἀποκαλύπτειν is first used in the sense of ‘‘reveal” Am. 111. 7, LXX. οὐ μὴ ποιήσῃ κύριος ὁ θεὸς πρᾶγμα, ἐὰν μὴ ἀποκαλύψῃ παιδείαν πρὸς τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ τοὺς προφήτας. Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, i.e. which He makes; as is explained by the words which follow: ‘‘ which God gave to Him...and He sent and signified it,” &c. It is, however, possible to understand it, as some scholars do, ‘‘the Revelation which reveals Jesus Christ.” ἣν ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ ὁ θεός. As the Son is of the Father in His essential being, so in His Manhood, both on earth and in glory, He receives from the Father all He has or knows. Compare in the Gospel vii. 16, especially xvii. 7, 8, also xiv. 10 (which is probably to be understood of the Godhead, while almost all that the Seer says refers to the glorified Manhood). τοῖς δούλοις αὐτοῦ. In xxii. 6 we have the same phrase of the servants of God: otherwise here it would be more natural to under- stand the servants of Christ: see on ἐσήμανεν ἀποστείλας. It is a peculiarity of this book and the early part of the Acts to use this word of believers in general: in the Epistles the Apostles use it of themselves: it is a misleading refinement to introduce the English distinction of slave and servant: in the East (Luke xv. 17) servants bought with a price stood above, not below hirelings. ἃ δεῖ. R.V. translates ‘‘ Hven the things which must...,” in ap- position to ἀποκάλυψις or ἦν. R.V. marg. and A.V. rightly take the words as dependent on δεῖξαι. δεῖ ‘‘must” as part of a divine purpose, ef. Matt. xvii. 10, xxvi. 54; Luke xxiv. 26, &e. ἐν τάχει. So ver. 3 fin., xxii. 6, 7. Compare on the one hand Matt. xxiv. 29, 34, and on the other Hab. ii. 3; Luke xvii. 8; 2 Pet. iii. 8,9. These last passages suggest that the object of these words is to assure us of God’s practical readiness to fulfil His promises, rather than to define any limit of time for their actual fulfilment. ἐσήμανεν ἀποστείλας may be understood of God, as in xxii. 6; or of Christ, as in xxii. 16: the latter reference is here more probable. Unless it be certain that the Apocalypse is a homogeneous record of a single vision, there is a possibility that the combination of different beginnings adds to the difficulties of interpretation. Apart from this the sense will be, ‘‘He, having received the Revelation from the Father, sent by His angel, and indicated it to His servant John.” The angel is the same who is mentioned in xvii. 1, &c., xix. 9, xxi. 9, xxii. 6, 8, 16. 1. 4] NOTES. 41 2. ὃς ἐμαρτύρησεν, 1.6. who bears witness in the present work. The past tense is used, as constantly in Greek—e.g. in St John’s own Epistle, 1. ii. 14—of the act of a writer which will be past when his work comes to be read. The ‘‘ witness” John is said to bear is that contained in this book—not, as some have imagined, in his Gospel. There is, however, some evidence to the identity of authorship of the two, in the resemblance between the attestations to the authority of this book in these three verses, and to that of the Gospel in xxi. 24, The two may be conceivably presumed to proceed from the same persons, probably the elders of the Church of Ephesus. τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ. His Word made known to man, especially as revealed to St John himself; not the personal Word of God of St John’s Gospel i. 1 and Rev. xix. 13, as He is immediately mentioned under another name. τὴν μαρτυρίαν ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ. See xxii. 16 for a similar descrip- tion of the special Revelation of this book. Both ‘‘ the Word” and “the testimony” are repeated in v. 9, and here they refer to the general Revelation of Christian truth for which the Seer was in exile. ὅσα εἶδεν. These words exclude two possible senses of ἐμαρτύρησεν, that the writer bare witness by writing a gospel, or by suffering for the truth: possibly also they imply a limitation of what goes before, as if all ‘‘the Word” and ‘‘the testimony” were too great to be told, and the Seer had done what was possible in recording all he saw. 3. ὁ ἀναγινώσκων Kal οἱ ἀκούοντες. Plainly the author of the book, or of this endorsement of it, contemplates its being read publicly in the Church. ἀναγινώσκων is the proper word for reading aloud. The apostolic Epistles were thus read, first by the Churches to which they were addressed, then by others in the neighbourhood (Col. iv. 16): even the sub-apostolic Epistles of Clement and Polycarp, and the decidedly post-apostolic one of Soter, Bishop of Rome, were in like manner read in the churches that originally received them, or to which their authors belonged. In the course of the second century, both the Gospels and the apostolic Epistles came to be read in churches generally, as the Law and the Prophets had been read in the syna- gogues. In the time of Justin Martyr (Apol. 1. 67)—not to insist on 1 Tim. ν. 18, 2 Pet. iii. 16—it is plain that the New Testament Scriptures were thus recognised as sharing the authority and sanctity of the Old. καὶ τηροῦντες, i.e. if they attend to, mind what is written in the word of this prophecy; if they observe the precepts and warnings and meditate on the revelations therein. He who reads and they who hear are only blessed if they do this; John xiii. 17; Matt. vii. 24sq. τηρεῖν is constantly used of ‘keeping’ the Law, the Commandments, &c., throughout the N.T.: but is commoner in all St John’s writings than in any other. 4. *Iwavvys. The Apostle, the son of Zebedee, who (probably afterwards) wrote the Gospel: see Introduction, pp. xl, xlix. 42 REVELATION. (1. 4— ταῖς ἑπτὰ ἐκκλησίαις. The number of course is symbolical or representative: there were other churches in Asia, e.g. at Colossae and Hierapolis (Col. iv. 13). But the Seven Churches represent ‘‘the Holy Church throughout all the world.’ It was very early observed, that St Paul also wrote to seven churches—the Thessalonians, Co- rinthians, Galatians, Romans, Philippians, Ephesians (?), and Colos- slans. ταῖς ἐν τῇ “Aoig. The proconsular province of that name. In Acts xvi. 6 ‘‘Asia” seems to be used in a still narrower sense, being distinguished from the adjoining districts of Phrygia and Mysia, as well as from the provinces of Galatia and Bithynia; so that it would correspond approximately with the ancient kingdom of Lydia. But as Pergamum was in Mysia, and Laodicea in Phrygia, it seems that here the word is used to include the whole province. χάρις...καὶ εἰρήνη. So St Paul in all his Epistles to the Seven Churches, Rom, i. 7; 1 Cor. i. 3; 2 Cor. i. 2; Gal. i. 3; Eph.i. 2; Phil. i. 2; Col. i. 2; 1 Thess. 1. 1; 2 Thess. i. 2; and so Philem. 3; Tit. i. 4. In other private letters the form varies—ydpis, ἔλεος εἰρήνη, 1 Tim. i. 2; 2 Tim, 1. 2—as in St John’s second Epistle. St James (i. 1) uses the common secular salutation χαίρειν (cf. Acts xv. 23): St Peter has ‘‘grace and peace” as here, but in his first Epistle does not say from Whom they are to come. ε ἀπὸ 6. The sacred Name is in the nominative, being treated as indeclinable: as though we should say in English ‘‘from He Who is,”’ ἄς. For general remarks on the grammatical (or ungrammatical) peculiarities of this book, see Introduction, p. xxxix. Here at least it is plain, that the anomaly is not due to ignorance, but to the writer’s mode of thought being so vigorous that it must express itself in its own way, at whatever violence to the laws of language. ὁ ὧν Kal ὁ ἣν Kal ὁ ἐρχόμενος. A paraphrase of the ‘“Ineffable name” revealed to Moses (Ex. iil. 14 sq.), which we, after Jewish usage, write ‘‘Jehovah” and pronounce ‘‘the Lorp.” Or, rather perhaps, a paraphrase of the explanation of the Name given to him 1. 6., “1 am That I am’”—which is rendered by the LXX. ᾿Εγώ εἰμι ὁ ὦν, by the Targum of Palestine on Exod. “1 am He who is, and who will be.” The same Targum on Deut. xxvii. 39 has ‘‘ Behold now, I am He who Am and Was and Will Be.” Probably 6 ἑστὼς, ὁ στὰς, ὁ στησόμενος, the Title which according to the Μεγάλη ᾿Απόφασις Simon blasphemously assumed to himself, was the paraphrase of the same Name current among Samaritan Hellenists. ὁ ἦν is doubly ungrammatical. We have not only the article in the nominative after ἀπὸ but a finite verb doing duty for a participle, because γενόμενος or γεγενημένος would be inapplicable to the Self- Existent. Compare the opposition of the ‘being’? of God or Christ, and the ‘‘becoming” or ‘“‘being made” of creatures, in St John’s Gospel, i. 6, 8, 9, viii. 58. Cf. also for another form of the same antithesis, v. 18. ‘ 1. 5.] NOTES. 43 ὁ ἐρχόμενος. Though ἔσομαι is freely used throughout the New Testament, ἐσόμενος is only found once (St Luke xxii. 49); so ἐρχ. is probably only used to express future time. It certainly does not refer to the Coming of Christ, Who is separately named afterwards. Else “He that is to come” is often used as a familiar and distinctive title of Christ, see Matt. xi. 3, xxi. 9; John vi. 14, xi. 27; Heb. x. 37; John Ep, τι. 7; οἵ. Ep. τ. ii. 18, where the same word is pointedly used of Antichrist. With this more general sense we may compare ‘‘things to come ” John xvi, 13, xviii. 4, ‘‘the wrath to come’ 1 Thess, i. 10, and ‘the world to come” Mark x. 80. As the last was already familiar to the Jewish schools, it may be a question whether it is to be ex- plained from the Coming of God to judge the earth, e.g. Mal. iii.; Ps. xeviii. In any case the threefold name belongs to God—if we are to distinguish—to the Father, rather than to the Trinity, ἀπὸ τῶν ἑπτὰ πνευμάτων. Cf. iii. 1, iv. 5, v. 6. If the second of these passages stood alone, it would be possible to understand the name of Seven Chief Angels (see vili. 2), but in v. 6 this is quite im- possible, even if we could suppose that here creatures could not only be coupled with the Creator as sources of blessing, but placed between God and Christ. Can we identify ‘‘the Seven Spirits,” thus made in some sense coordinate with the Father and the Son, with the Holy Ghost, Who is known to us in His sevenfold operations and gifts, Who perhaps has some sevenfold character in Himself, as some may infer from the passages in this book and from the unquestionably relevant parallels in Zech. iii. 9, iv. 10? This too is difficult: the Seven Spirits are the Eyes not of Him that sitteth upon the Throne, but of the Lamb (cf. Is. xi. 2); they are before the Throne, in some sense therefore it would seem external to the Essence of the Most High. It has been generally held since St Augustine, that before the Incarnation the Second Person of the Trinity manifested Himself on earth in a created Angel; if so the Seven Spirits might be a heavenly manifestation of the Third. ἃ ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου αὐτοῦ. The omission of the copula in a relative clause is not in the style of this book: τῶν ἐνώπιον, the reading of NA, is more in the general style of the book, though it mars the symmetry of the passage. 5. ἀπὸ ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὁ μάρτυς. The anacoluthon is probably an intentional parallel to that in the previous verse, though here the threefold title might have been declined if the writer had pleased. There is a tendency throughout the book, where one clause stands in apposition to another, to put the nouns in the second clause in the nominative regardless of the rules of ordinary Greek. © μάρτυς ὁ πιστός. See 1 Tim. vi. 13: Jesus Christ was in His Death much more than a martyr, but He was also the perfect type and example of martyrdom. Observe His own words in John xviii. 37—to which perhaps St Paul Le. is referring. It may be doubted whether μάρτυς is used in the N. T. in the later sense of ‘martyr.’ The distinction between martyrs and confessors was not fixed in the days 44 REVELATION. (re of the Martyrs of Vienne and Lyons: whoever confessed Christ before men was still said to ‘“‘ bear witness’’ to Him. ὁ πρωτότοκος τῶν νεκρῶν. ‘‘Firstborn”’ rather than “ firstbegotten ;” cf. τὰς ὠδῖνας τοῦ θανάτου Acts ii. 24, where the metaphor is hardly pressed so far as in 2 Esdr. iv. 42. The genitive is explained by St Paul, Col. i. 18 ὁ πρωτ. ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν. The sense is that He is ‘*first to enter life.” The thought in Rom. i. 4 is similar. ὁ ἄρχων τῶν βασιλέων τῆς γῆς. A reminiscence (hardly to be called a quotation) of Ps. lxxxix. 27, ‘I will make Him My First-born, higher than the kings of the earth.” τῷ ἀγαπῶντι. “It is His ever-abiding character, that He loveth His own,” John xiii, 1.—Alford. The contrast of tense between this clause and the next is quite correct, though it struck the later copyists as harsh. λύσαντι. The balance of evidence is in favour of this reading. The preposition ἐν in a Hebraistic book like this would be used of an instrument, where we should say ‘“‘by” or ‘“‘with”: while to later readers the idea of ‘‘washing in” would seem more natural. So we should probably render ‘‘released us from our sins by His own Blood’”’—the Blood of Christ being conceived as the price of our redemption, as in 1 Pet. i. 18, 19—not, as in vii. 14, xxii. 14 (according to the preferable reading), and perhaps in St John’s Ep.1.i.7, as the cleansing fountain foretold in Zech, xiii. 1. If therefore we ask “‘when Christ thus freed us,”’ the answer must be, at His Passion, not at our conversion or baptism. 6. Kal ἐποίησεν. Lit., “And He made’’; the construction τῷ ἀγαπῶντι... καὶ λύσαντι is broken off rather strangely, as it is resumed by αὐτῷ; otherwise a finite verb after participles is not strange in Hebrew or Hebraistic Greek. βασιλείαν ἱερεῖς. A phrase synonymous with βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα of 1 Pet. ii. 9. That is an exact quotation from the LXX. version of Ex. xix. 6, and a more correct translation of the Hebrew than this which is meant to be literal. St John (or the translation he follows) has hardly realised the equivalence of the Hebrew construction, in which the word that means ‘‘ kingdom” would be inflected, with the Greek construction, in which the word that means ‘‘ priests” would be inflected: and so he sets down ‘‘a kingdom, priests” side by side, leaving the mere juxtaposition of the two nouns to express the relation between them, as though both were indeclinable. τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρὶ αὐτοῦ. ‘His God and Father” as in Rom, xv. 6; 2 Cor. i. 3, xi. 31; Eph. i. 3; Col. i, 3 (perhaps); 1 Pet. i. 3. There is no doctrinal reason for preferring A.V. of John xx. 17, but it has been pointed out that, if the sense were the same here as in the parallel passages of SS. Peter and Paul (which rod Θεοῦ μου inf. iii. 12 goes far to prove), the usage of this book would require τῷ Θεῷ αὐτοῦ kal Πατρὶ αὐτοῦ; but, for whatever reason, there is more than one instance in the first three chapters of the Apocalypse of slight and fitful approximations to the rules of ordinary Greek. ΕΓ] NOTES. 45 7. This verse, as indeed may be said of the whole book, is founded chiefly on our Lord’s own prophecy recorded in St Matt. xxiy., and secondly on the Old Testament prophecies which He there refers to and sums up. μετὰ τῶν νεφελῶν. ‘With the clouds of heaven.” The preposition here and in Mark xiv. 62, which also recalls Dan. vii. 13, corresponds with the Version known as Theodotion’s, not with that known as the LXX. which reads ἐπί. It is generally agreed that Theodotion was later than Aquila, who was probably a contemporary of Akiba (+135). Little is known of the history of the Version that bore his name, or of the gradual growth of that ascribed to the LXX. There is some reason to think that the ‘LXX.’ paraphrased an older Version of Daniel which ‘ Theodotion’ revised: and it is certain that ‘ Baruch’ which imitates the Book of Daniel is nearer to ‘Theodotion’ than the ‘LXX.’ See ‘Theodotion,’ Smith’s Dictionary of Christian Bio- graphy; ‘Hermas and Theodotion,’ Salmon’s Introduction to N.T. 3rd ed., pp. 586—601. Kal οἵτινες αὐτὸν ἐξεκέντησαν. Zech. xii. 10; in his Gospel, xix. 37, St John translates that passage correctly, and here refers to the same translation, also found in Theodotion: that of the LXX. is wrong and almost meaningless. But while the words here are taken from Zechariah, the thought is rather that of Matt. xxvi. 64: ‘they which pierced Him” are thought of, not as looking to Him by faith, and mourning for Him in penitence, but'as seeing Him Whom they had not believed in, and mourning in despair. ér αὐτόν. Literally, ‘‘at Him.’ ‘At sight of Him,” “over Him,” the sense in Zechariah, is hardly applicable here. vat, ἀμήν. ‘Yea, Amen’: the two words, Greek and Hebrew, being similarly coupled in 2 Cor. i. 20. The second, like the first, is an emphatic word of confirmation—so used e.g. repeatedly by our Lord Himself, St Matt. v. 18, &c., where it is translated ‘‘verily.”” The popular tradition that ‘‘Amen’”’ means ‘‘So be it” is only partially true: even in its liturgical use, we append it to creeds as well as prayers. It comes from the same Hebrew root as the words for “faith” and ‘‘truth”; the primary meaning being apparently ‘‘so- lidity.” See on iii. 14. 8. τὸ ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ὦ The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet used, as in Rabbinical] proverbs the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet were, as symbols of ‘‘the beginning and the end.” These latter words (ἀρχὴ καὶ τέλος) are not here a part of the genuine text; they come from xxii. 13, The word ‘“‘ Omega” (like “Omicron,” “Epsilon,” ‘‘ Upsilon,”) is a mediaeval barbarism; but it is a convenient one, and it has secured a firm place in our language by the English rendering of this passage. κύριος ὁ θεὸς «.t.A. The group of titles represents ‘‘the Lord Jehovah the God of Hosts,” a combination of Hos. xii. 5 and Am. ix. 5. The word we render ‘‘Almighty” (perhaps rather meaning ‘‘of all might”) does not correspond to the word ‘‘Shaddai” which we trans- 46 REVELATION. [Π.- 8— late ‘‘Almighty” in the Old Testament. The LXX. evade this word in the Pentateuch, even in Ex. vi. 8 and parallel passages ; it is never translated by παντοκράτωρ except in the Book of Job. Elsewhere in the Septuagint παντοκράτωρ always stands for “Sabaoth.” So in the Athanasian Creed, ‘‘ Almighty” is coupled with the Divine names “God” and “Lord,” not with the Divine attributes ‘‘eternal, incom- prehensible, uncreated.” 9. "Eye ᾿Ιωάννης «.t.A. “1 John, your brother and partaker in the tribulation, and kingdom, and patience in Jesus,” The condescend- ing choice of titles —if the writer is the son of Zebedee—is unique in the New Testament. To the opening part of the salutation there is a parallel in 1 Pet.v. 1. The collocation of the latter words is peculiar, nor is the sense of ὑπομονὴ clear; probably here and in Rom. viii. 25, as in Ps. xxxviii. 8 (LXX.), it combines the ideas of-:expectation and endurance. The disciples knew from the first, Acts xiv. 22, that the tribulation came before the kingdom, anda phrase which coupled the two might have become familiar before they learnt that there was to be the discipline of prolonged waiting. ἐγενόμην. Had come there, found myself there. Here and in the next verse he avoids, perhaps intentionally, the use of the word for continuous and absolute ‘‘being”: see note on v. 4. Πάτμῳ. One of the Sporades, the south-eastern group of the islands of the Aegean. According to the tradition, as given by Vic- torinus, he was condemned to work in the mines—which, if trust- worthy, must mean marble quarries, as there are no mines, strictly speaking, in the island. Christians were sent to the mines (Roman Christians to those of Sardinia) at least as early as the reign of Commodus (Hipp. Ref. Haer. 1x. 12), and this was much the com- monest punishment during the Diocletian persecution in which Vic- torinus suffered himself. In St John’s time it was commoner to put Christians to death; but the tradition is probably right; ‘depor- tation,’ confinement without hard labour on a lonely island, was then and afterwards reserved for offenders of higher secular rank, διὰ τὸν.. ᾿Τησοῦ. Cf. vi. 9 and xx. 4. Apart from these references the words might mean (a) that the Seer had gone to the island to preach the Gospel, (b) that (by special revelation or otherwise) he had withdrawn there to await this vision. As it is, the traditional view that he was banished there for being a Christian is clearly right. Vision oF THE Son oF Man, vv. 10—20. 10. ἐγενόμην ἐν πνεύματι. Was caught into a state of spiritual rapture. So iv. 2 and (nearly) xvii. 3, xxi. 10; cf. 1 Kings xviii. 12; Ezek. iii, 12, 14, xxxvii. 1; also 2 Cor. xii. 2, 3. ἐν τῇ κυριακῇ ἡμέρᾳ. Undoubtedly here used (though for the first time) in the sense now traditional throughout Christendom. Some commentators have proposed to translate, ‘‘I was, in spirit, on the day of the Lord,” i.e. was carried away in Spirit to the Great Day of the Lord’s Coming. But the parallel of iv. 2 seems against this, though xvii. 3 and xxi. 10 may be pleaded in its favour. I. 13. NOTES. 47 φωνὴν μεγάλην as σάλπιγγος, λεγούσης. This participle, used throughout the book in different genders and cases, with or without a show of grammatical construction (here it is only a show, for we should expect λέγουσαν), seldom seems to mean more than quotation marks in English. Is the speaker the same as in v. 17, iii. 22) This is implied by the gloss from xxii. 13 (see crit. note) and probable from the context: the contrast between a voice like a trumpet and a voice like many waters is not decisive; but the voice in iv. 1, which is expressly said to be the same as the voice here, seems to belong to a herald-angel rather than to the Lamb: if so here, when the Seer turns to see, the Angel has vanished in the light of the Lord. 11. εἰς Πέργαμον. Probably a neuter, The seven cities are enumerated in the order in which a traveller on circuit might visit them, going north from Ephesus to Smyrna and Pergamos, then inland to Thyatira, and southwards to Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. 12. βλέπειν τὴν φωνήν. The meaning is obvious and the incon. sequence of language characteristic. λυχνίας. These are stands for portable oil-lamps, which stood on the ground and in shape though not in size resembled our candle- sticks. The Latin word was candelabra which served to support torches, funiculi ardentes, before lamps were in common use at Rome: afterwards candles nearly like ours were used by the poor and as night-lights (Mart. x1. 40), because though one gave less light than a lamp it required less attention. In the middle ages candles became commoner than lamps, for wax and tallow were to be had everywhere, whereas oil had to be fetched from the neighbourhood of the Mediter- ranean: so candelabra (and λυχνίαι) were translated candlesticks i.e. sticks or shafts that carry candles. 13. ὅμοιον υἱῷ ἀνθρώπον. It might be better with Tischendorf and Westcott and Hort to read ὅμοιον υἱὸν here and at xiv. 14; if so the writer makes juxtaposition do the work of construction, as sup. 16, see n. In the title of our Lord in the Gospels (except John νυ. 27) and in Acts vii. 56 both words have the article, The ubsence of the article here proves not that our Lord is not intended, but that the title is taken not from His own use of it but direct from the Greek of Daniel vii. 13, where also both words are without the article. There the human figure which succeeds the bestial shapes symbolizes the kingdom of the saints of the Most High more certainly than the personal King, the Head of the mystical Body. Here it is a question of taste rather than of grammar whether we are to translate ‘a son of man”: the words themselves mean no more than “1 saw a human figure,’ but their associations would make it plain to all readers of the Book of Daniel that it was a superhuman Being in human form; and to a Christian of St John’s day as of our own, Who that Being was. ᾿ ποδήρη. Certainly a garment of dignity (as Ecclus. xxvii. 8; Dan. x. 5, LXX, where Theodotion gives the Hebrew in Greek 48 REVELATION. (Lass letters Badéw ; Ezek. ix. 2, 11), probably especially of priestly dignity, as Ex. xxv. 6, xxviii. 4, 31 (where the next verse suggests comparison with John xix. 23), The same word is used in the so-called Epistle of Barnabas (c. 7) of the scarlet robe in which the Lord will appear when coming to judgement; some suppose that the writer had in his mind this passage and perhaps xix. 13. πρὸς Tots μασθοῖς. So xv. 6 of angels. In Dan. x. 5 and Ezek. ix. 2 (LXX.) angels wear the girdles of gold or gems in the ordinary human way, on their loins. The Seer like the Prophets draws his images from earthly pomp which in his days had grown more splendid, The girdle is probably crossed upon the breast, as in the figure of Darius in the great mosaic of the Museo Borbonico and in statues of the kings of Greek tragedy: anyway it visibly serves not to brace the wearer for labour but simply to keep his stately robe duly arranged. 14. ws ἔριον λευκόν, ὡς χιών. Cf. Dan. vii. 9 LXX. ὡσεὶ ἔριον λευκὸν καθαρὸν (Theodotion has ὡσεὶ ἔριον καθαρὸν) ; otherwise we might translate and punctuate ‘like wool, as white as snow.” Though the Person seen is the Son of Man of Dan. vii. 13, the description is more nearly that of the Ancient of Days, ibid. 9. We need not wonder that Their union was made more plain to the later Prophet. 15. χαλκολιβάνῳ. The ancients were not clear whether this word meant brass (or, strictly speaking, bronze) as clear as a scented gum, or a scented gum that shone like brass; the former sense is decidedly most probable from the context, the various and the parallel passages. Anyway the word seems to be a compound of χαλκὸς and λίβανος, which is borrowed from a Hebrew word meaning white, which is feminine. Possibly this may account for the well-attested reading πεπυρωμένης. Perhaps the real meaning is ‘‘white brass,” i.e. the Latin orichalcum (vid. Verg. Aen, x11. 87), which was like gold (Cie, Off. 111, xxiii, 92)—i.e. perhaps was our ‘‘brass” as distinct from bronze. In Ezek. i. 4, 27, viii. 2 we have a word which probably (comparing ibid. i. 7, xl. 3, Dan. x. 6) means the same, but which the LXX, translate electrwm—meaning perhaps by this not amber, but an alloy of gold with silver or other metal. Some think that sense suit- able here, as symbolising the divine and human natures of our Lord. merupwpévyns. The genitive absolute is not in the general style of the writer; the construction must be ‘like unto fine brass as though it [the brass] had been burnt in a furnace.” Anyway incense cannot be meant, which would be burnt in a censer not a furnace and consumed not refined by burning. ἡ φωνὴ αὐτοῦ.... Cf. Ezek. xliii, 2 (Heb.; but LXX. φωνὴ τῆς παρεμβολῆς ws φωνὴ διπλασιαζόντων πολλῶν). 16. ἔχων. The present participle of this verb here and in vi. 2, d, x. 2, xix. 12, xxi. 12 is used as fully equivalent to a present indicative : and here the construction of ἔχων must determine that of éxopevo- μένη, Which by itself would not be difficult. If present participles of all verbs were used in this way, it would be probable that the writer was ‘following the Hebrew usage, according to which what we call 1. 19. NOTES. 49 the participle is the nearest approach there is to a distinctive present tense,” Lunguage of New Testament, Part 11., p. 83. ἐν τῇ δεξιᾷ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ. The general style of the writer is ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ τῇ δεξιᾷ as By reads here; in ordinary Greek the form in the text is if anything commoner, ἐκ τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ. The image is perhaps suggested by Is. xlix. 2; but the application made of it in ii. 16, xix. 15, 21 is more like in sense to Is. xi. 4; 2 Thess. ii. 8, It is relevant to compare Eph. vi. 17; Heb. iv. 12; but the use of similar images by different Apostles must not be allowed to lead us into a sort of Christian mythology, as though the imagery were as absolutely and unalterably fixed as the doctrine symbolized by it. In ch. xix. we see plainly that not the sword but the Owner of it is “the Word of God’’: in ii. 23 we have the same sense as in Heb. 1. c., but the image of the sword is not there used to illustrate it. ἡ ὄψις. The same word is used in John xi. 44 in the sense of “face,” and so it is best to take it here, though it might mean “appearance” generally. In Ezek. i. 27, the LXX. use the word for *colour,” not for ‘‘ appearance.” 17. ἔπεσα... νεκρός. So Dan. viii. 17 sq., x. 8, 9, 15 (Ezek. i. 28, xliii. 3, xliv. 4 do not necessarily imply so much): cf. Ex. iii. 6, xx. 19, xxxiii. 20; Judg. vi. 22, xiii. 22; Is. vi. 5; and also Luke xxiv. 37; John xxi. 12, St John was in presence of both the sources of supernatural terror—of God’s Presence made manifest, and of One come from the dead. ἔθηκεν. So in Dan. x. 10 a hand: 16 ὡς ὁμοίωσις υἱοῦ ἀνθρώπου 18 ὡς ὅρασις ἀνθρώπου touches the prophet: in each place the touch is followed by encouraging words. ὁ πρῶτος Kal ὁ ἔσχατος. 1.6. the Eternal, as Is. xli. 4, xliv. 6, xlviii. 12; the ancient (? Arianising) variant πρωτότοκος suggests that as the Firstborn among many brethren, the inheritor of an everlasting kingdom, the Son even in His Manhood is an Image of the Father's eternity. 18. ἐγενόμην is emphatic in intentional contrast to ἐγώ εἶμι ὁ πρῶτος, and still more to ζῶν εἰμί, setting His temporal and temporary death against His eternal life; see on v. 4. τοῦ θανάτου καὶ τοῦ ᾷδου. Hades is the receptacle of the dead: usually personified in this book, as indeed is death, vi. 8, xx. 13, 14. But here they are rather conceived as places, prisons wherein the dead are confined, and from which Christ can deliver them. We read of ‘the gates of death” in Ps. ix. 18, Job xxxviii. 17; and ‘‘ the gates of hell”’ in Is. xxxviii. 10, Matt, xvi. 18. 19. ἃ εἶδες. If the Revelation be ἃ homogeneous record of a single trance, this must mean the vision just described, otherwise we might think the Seer was bidden to write all his visions. Jeremiah had prophesied more than twenty years (Jer. i. 2, xxxvi. 1) beiore he was REVELATION D 50 REVELATION. (I. 19— bidden to write. If so it would follow from μετὰ ταῦτα and ἡ φωνὴ ἡ πρώτη iv. 1 that the earlier visions pass again before the Seer. ἃ εἰσίν. Whether the verse means that the Seer is to write the whole vision, whether of past, present or future events, or that he is to write the vision and its interpretation and its appointed sequel, is hard to decide because there is nothing in the general arrangement of the book to support either sense. The use of εἰσὶν twice in the following verse (perhaps in xvi. 14), and xvii. 9 sqq. tells in favour of the latter, so too does the change from the plural εἰσὶν to the singular ἃ μέλλει γίνεσθαι. In a careful writer this would almost certainly mark a contrast between the several meanings of what was shown in the visions and the mass of future events. 20. τὸ μυστήριον. The only possible construction of these words is aS an accusative in loose apposition to ἃ εἶδες x.7.A.; perhaps the writer left them without any construction. If he had attended to details of style he would have been more likely to begin anew with “This is the mystery...” than to continue, ‘‘Write what thou sawest ...the mystery...” μυστήριον in the N.T. bears a meaning not very far removed from its primary meaning in classical Greek. There it is a secret rite which only the initiated share, and so a secret lore which they only know. Generally we may paraphrase it, ‘‘the hidden divine truth now made known, but made known to God’s favoured ones only”’: see Eph. iii. 13 for the completest illustration of its meaning. Here the sense is, “1 reveal to thee the hidden, sacred meaning of the stars and candlesticks.” τὰς ἑπτὰ λυχνίας : symmetry would have required these words to be in the genitive, for the mystery includes both the stars and the “candlesticks”; the accusative depends probably on εἶδες, even if τὸ μυστήριον depends on γράψον ; the connexion being ‘‘the seven stars which thou sawest and [with them thou sawest] the seven golden candlesticks.” ἄγγελοι. For the meaning of the word ‘‘ Angels” here, see Excur- sus I. ai λυχνίαι ai ἑπτά. Plainly this image is suggested by the seven- branched candlestick of Ex. xxy. 31 sqq.—still more by the earlier mystical vision of one resembling it, in Zech. iv. But here the image of seven detached candlesticks does not exactly correspond to the description of either, nor are we to assume that the significance of those is exactly the same as of these. CHAPTER II. 1. τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν ᾿Εἰφέσῳ ἐκκλησίας. In all editions the super- scriptions of the letters to the Seven Churches vary though we should expect them to be uniform. Westcott and Hort (Vol. ii. p. 137) compare the form in the text with the official style of the chief priests of Augustus, ᾿Αρχιερεὺς τῆς ᾿Ασίας ναοῦ τοῦ (or ναῶν τῶν) ἐν... : ναοῦ 111 NOTES. “1 without the article is like ἐκκλησίας without the article, but ναοῦ, unlike ἐκκλησίας, is defined by what follows. There is no evidence for a form τῷ ἀγγέλῳ ἐκκλησίας τῆς &v..., Which would recall the style of pagan dignitaries so closely as to prove that the ‘Angels’ were Christian dignitaries, in fact bishops. As it is, the parallel is sugges- tive rather than conclusive. The two forms admitted into critical texts are (u) τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῷ Ev... ἐκκλησίας. (Ὁ) τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν... ἐκκλησίας. The evidence for (a) is, ii. 1 AC Primas. (angelo ecclesiae Ephesi: the commentary taken from Tyconius proves that the Greek read ἐκκλησίᾳ not ἐκκλησίας) 36 τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῷ τῆς ἐν "Ed. ἐκκ. ii. 8A; 95 τῷ ἀγγέλῳ ὁ ἐν. 11. IBA (which omits ἐκκλησίας), τῷ ayy. ἐν Ov. ἐκκλησίας Prim. (qui est Thyatirae) 1, 28, 31 τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τοῖς ἐν (ἢ ἃ; Felice οὗ τοῖς ἁγίοις τοῖς ἐν). iii. 1 Primas. (qui est Sardis) Syr. omits ἐκκλησίας. iii. 7 Primas. (qui est Filadelfiae). iii. 14. 95 omits ἐκκλησίας. () 11. 1 ΝΡ: i. 8 NB.CP: ii. 12 NAB,CP: ii. 18 NB,P: iii. 1, 7, 14 NAB,CP. The reading ἐκκλησίαις in ii. 12 (91), iii. 1 (C), 11. 7 N* may be a trace of ἐκκλησίᾳ the only Greek text known to Tyconius, the correctors of the different archetypes having added o without cancelling «. If so ἐκκλησίᾳ and ἐκκλησίας are both glosses, the former being the oldest. In any case it is probable that (a) is in all places nearer the original than (0). év’Edéow. 1, 38 cod. flor. read ᾿Εφεσίων. 3. Kal ὑπομονὴν ἔχεις καὶ ἐβάστασας with NAB,C (δὲ ἢ adds καὶ θλίψις πάσας after exes); P 7 read ἐβάστασάς με (is it possible that this is the original on which διὰ τὸ ὄνομά μου is a gloss? P does not omit the latter) καὶ ὑπομονὴν ἔχεις ; 1 and 152 ἐβάπτισας καὶ ὑπομονὴν ἔχεις ; Text. Rec. ἐβάστασας καὶ ὑπ. ἔχεις; 33, 84, 35 omit καὶ ὑπομονὴν ἔχεις ; 87 and Victorinus omit καὶ ἐβάστασας. καὶ οὐ κεκοπίακες. 16, 37, 38, 39 arm. read καὶ κεκοπίακας; 1 καικοπιακας κεκοπίακας καὶ οὐ κέκμηκας. The reading of Text. Rec. is a bold and beautiful conflation of this and the Vulgate. δ. μνημόνευε οὖν. Prim. omits οὖν ; 38 reads μνημόνευσον ; see notes on 16, iii. 8, iii. 19. Τῷ 15. easier to imagime reasons why some verbs should be in the present, others in the aorist, than why some should be followed by οὖν and not others. Accidents of transcription would account for both. πέπτωκας. With N (aerrwxes) AB,C; P 1 and Text. Rec. read ἐκπέπτωκας. 6. ἃ κἀγὼ μισῶ. A omits ἅ, 8. ἐν Σμύρνῃ. 1 Text. Rec. read Σμυρναίων. 10. μηδὲν with Tisch. NP and Latins, Lach. and Treg. read μὴ with AB,C. καὶ ἕξετε θλίψιν ἡμερῶν δέκα. Lachmann reads καὶ ἔχητε with AP Prim. ; C 1 read καὶ ἔχετε ; B, reads ἡμέρας ; so it seems did Tertullian (who omits everything but temtemini diebus decem); so too Vg. arm. Tye. Τῇ [kat] ἔχητε θλίψιν be a primitive variant on πειρασθῆτε, the parallel to Dan. 1. 12 would be very close. Ρ 2 52 REVELATION. pes 13. οἶδα ποῦ κατοικεῖς. B, and almost all cursives arm. syr. and Text. Rec. read οἷδα τὰ ἔργα σου καὶ ποῦ κατοικεῖς. [καὶ] ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ᾿Αντίπας. With AC Vg. Cop. Bed. Harym. ; NB,P 1 Primas. omit καὶ ; N°A read ’Avreuras; N* reads ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐν ταῖς ᾿Αντίπας ; B, reads ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις als ᾿Αντίπας, and so Weiss; N°P 1 Text. Rec. read ἐν ταῖς ju. ἐν als’ Avr. ὁ πιστός pov. With AC; NB,P Prim. Vg. Text. Rec. omit μου. 14. ἔχεις. A reads ἔχει. βαλεῖν. A reads βασιλεῖ. 15. ὁμοίως. P adds, 1 and Text. Rec. substitute, ὃ μισῶ. 16. peravonoov. So T. with NP 1, and Latt.; L. and Tr. add οὖν with AB,C. Seen. on μνημ. οὖν, v. 5. 17. τοῦ μάννα. NS reads ἐκ τοῦ μάννα; Primas. de manna; P 1 Text. Rec. prefix φαγεῖν ἀπὸ; P substitutes ξύλου (cf. sup. 7) for μάννα. 18. ws φλόγα. Tisch. read ὡς φλόξ with N; Primas. ut flamma. 20. τὴν γυναῖκα. AB, Primas. read τὴν γυναῖκά cov. ἡ λέγουσα. With N*AC; NP 1 Text. Rec. read τὴν λέγουσαν ; B, And. 7 λέγει. 21. Kal od θέλει μετανοῆσαι ἐκ τῆς πορνείας αὐτῆς. N* 1 Text. Rec. omit καὶ... μετανοῆσαι; 1 Text. Rec. add καὶ οὐ μετενόησεν. 22. εἰς κλίνην. Arm. reads els κάμινον, A reads els φυλακὴν. It is not easy to connect either with the text. We might account for A by supposing that a scribe was misled by a reminiscence of v. 10 sup.; if κάμινον were substituted for κλίβανον the latter might be contracted into κλῖν, so too φυλακὴν might be a gloss on some non-classical deri- vative of κλείω which would like κλίνην be capable of contraction into κλιν. Cu. II. 1--. Tue Cuurco ΙΝ ΕἸΙΡΗΒΒῦΒ. The Seven Epistles are marked by certain features common to them all. (1) They are all dictated by the Lord Himself. (2) The com- mand to write to the Angel of the particular Church. (3) One or more of the great titles of our Lord taken for the most part from the Vision in ch. i. (4) An address to the Angel of the Church, always commencing with ‘‘I know,” describing the circumstances of the Church, exhorting to repentance or to constancy, and ending with a prophetic announcement. (5) A promise to ‘‘him that overcometh,” generally accompanied with a call to earnest attention, ‘he that hath ears,” ἄο. (See Alford.) 1. τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν “Edéow ἐκκλησίας. See crit. note. Some think that this would be St Timothy, and go so far as to find in St Paul’s Epistles traits of his character analogous to those here noted. But even if the ‘‘Angel” here be a bishop, it is likelier that he would be one appointed by St Timothy, if not by St John himself. 2 Tim. iv. 9,21, compared with Tit, iii. 12, seem to prove that per- manent residence in one diocese was not implied by the Apostolical II. 5.] NOTES. 53 commission which St Paul, toward the end of his life, gave to his disciples. ὁ κρατῶν τοὺς ἑπτὰ ἀστέρας. κρατῶν may, but need not (cf. Plut. Moralia 99D κρατῶν ἐν τῇ ἀριστερᾷ τὸν ἄρτον), mean more than holding. Ephesus being the chief city and, to some extent, the mother Church of the district, the Lord addresses the Church there in the character of Lord of all the Churches: as though (to illustrate by the later organization of the Church) He addressed all the Churches of the province in the person of their Primate. 2. τοὺς λέγοντας ἑαυτοὺς ἀποστόλους kal οὐκ εἰσίν. The participle and the finite verb are combined in a way irregular but not difficult, which is hardly a Hebraism, but might come natural to a writer familiar with Hebraisms. Cf. for the sense 2 Cor. xi. 13sqq. For the question who these false Apostles at Ephesus were see Excursus IT. εὗρες αὐτοὺς Wevdeis. Profiting by St Paul’s warning Acts xx. 28— 30. ψευδεῖς perhaps rather ‘‘false’’ apostles than “liars.” ψεύστης is used twice in St John’s Gospel, often in his Epistles, and once in the Apocalypse (xxi. 8) if Lachmann is right in following the reading of A; if ψευδέσιν be right there, it is as likely as not that for the Seer ψευδὴς meant a liar, as ψεῦδος meant a lie, 4. τὴν ἀγάπην cov τὴν πρώτην. It is to be remembered that these words have not in ecclesiastical (or indeed in any) Greek the same sentimental associations as in English; nevertheless it is not unlikely that conjugal love is meant: ef. Jer. 11. 2, LXX. ἐμνήσθην ἐλέους νεότητός σου καὶ ἀγάπης τελειώσεώς cov. Christ is certainly its object ; “it might be inferred from τὰ πρῶτα ἔργα that it showed itself in love to the brethren. δ. μνημόνενε οὖν... καὶ μετανόησον. Here again it is possible to suppose that the contrast of tenses has the force it would bear in ordinary Greek, that the remembrance of the fall is to continue after the instantaneous change of purpose and conduct. Neither μετανοεῖν nor μετάνοια is used in St John’s Gospel or Epistles. Ta πρῶτα ἔργα ποίησον. Here too we may find a reason for the aorist ; the Church is not merely to set about the first works, but to ‘‘perform the doing of them.” He does not say, ‘‘ Love with the first love,” though the works were only valuable as proceeding from love: for to love, though depending on the state of the will, is not a directly voluntary act. But He says, ‘‘Do the first works,” for that is in thy power. Do again what love made thee do, that thou mayest learn to love again. The paradox is as true of spiritual graces as of natural virtues (Arist. Eth. Nic. τι. iv. 1, 2) that the good habitual character is only gained by good acts, while really good acts are only possible as the product of the good character. ἔρχομαι. Lit. “1 am coming” the verb having of its own nature the sense of future time; cf. i. 4 and note. Possibly the distinction of tenses is intentional, the present here and vv. 16, 22, 23, iii. 11, 12 marking the immediate, and the future the subsequent action of the Speaker. 54 REVELATION. [1]. 5— κινήσω τὴν λυχνίαν σου. i.e. make thee cease to be a Church. It seems scarcely relevant to point to the destruction of the city by the. Turks, and its present desolation, as a fulfilment of this threat. We may presume that the Church of Ephesus did repent, as it was famous and prosperous, and fertile in saints, for centuries. It is likely enough that the Turkish conquest was God’s judgement on the sins of the Eastern Empire and its Churches: but we cannot conclude that the Church of Ephesus was in the 14th century more corrupt than e.g. that of Smyrna, because it was more entirely exterminated. 6. ἀλλὰ τοῦτο ἔχεις. This is one point in which thou art not wanting. Compare 11. 25, ili. 2, 11, where faithfulness is conceived as a treasure possessed and to be guarded. μισεῖς τὰ ἔργα. Compatible with love to the persons: ef. St Jude 23. τῶν Νικολαϊτῶν. See Excursus II. 7. ὁ ἔχων οὖς ἀκουσάτω. A repetition, with a merely verbal altera- tion, of one of our Lord’s characteristic phrases in His teaching while on earth: St Matth. xi, 15, ἄο. τί τὸ πνεῦμα λέγει. The Seer is in the Spirit and the Lord speaks to him, and through him to the Churches, by the Spirit; in the Gospel (xiv. 18) the coming of the Comforter is the coming of Christ. τῷ νικῶντι δώσω αὐτῷ. The redundant pronoun after a participle is probably to be explained on the analogy of the redundant pronoun after a relative, iii. 8, &c., which, though a natural colloquialism in Greek, or non-literary English, is probably due to the influence of Hebrew, where the relative is indeclinable and the pronoun therefore not superfluous. Cf. Language of the New Testament i. 59, ii. 84. A promise thus expressed, and an invitation to attention like that preceding it, are found at the end of each of these Seven Epistles—the invitation standing first in the first three, and the promise in the last four, From this change in the order, it appears that attention is invited, not to the final promise only, but to the whole Epistle to each Church, as the Spirit’s message. ἐκ τοῦ ξύλου τῆς ζωῆς. Throughout the book the Seer speaks of the wood of life, though vii. 1, 3, viii. 7, ix. 4 he uses δένδρον of earthly trees. Cf. Gen. ii. 9, as well as Rev. xxii. 2,14,19. The Tree of Life appears, though not under that name, in Enoch xxiv., where we are told that there shall be no power to touch it until the period of the great judgement. ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ. The reading of Text. Rec., ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ παραδείσου, is no doubt from Gen. ii. 9. ‘‘ Paradise,” a Persian word, adopted in both Greek and Hebrew, means simply a park or pleasure-ground, and hence is used in the LXX. (not the Hebrew) of the garden of Eden: in 2 Cor. xii. 4, Luke xxiii. 43, we have it used of a region of the spiritual world, inhabited by the blessed dead. Whether the Paradise of God, where the Tree of Life is now, is identical either with the earthly Paradise where it grew of old, or with the New Jerusalem, where it shall grow in the new earth under the new heaven, it would be rash to speculate, though St Ireneus reports, v. 36, 1, ΤΙ. 9. NOTES. os upon the authority of the Elders, that Paradise will be a special degree of glory between the New Jerusalem and Heaven. τοῦ θεοῦ. So τοῦ παραδείσου τοῦ θεοῦ in Kzek, xxviii. 13, xxxi. 8, ἐν τῴ παραδείσῳ τοῦ θεοῦ and τοῦ παραδείσου τῆς τρυφῆς τοῦ θεοῦ ib. 9, ὁ παράδεισος τοῦ θεοῦ in Gen. xiii. 10; ὡς παράδεισον κυρίου Is, li. 3. Some read τοῦ θεοῦ μου as in iii. 12, but on the whole the omission has more authority, and the exact O.T. phrase seems likelier. 8—11. THe CHURCH IN SMYRNA. 8. τῷ ἀγγέλῳ Supposed by many of the ancient commentators to have been Polycarp. ὃς ἐγένετο νεκρός. See oni. 18, ἔζησεν. Lit., “lived,” i.e. came to life, revived. So xiii. 14, and Matt. ix. 18; John v. 25. The attributes of death and life are here especially ascribed to Christ, because the message He sends is a promise of life to them who die for His sake. 9. πτωχείαν. Means no more than poverty: πενία, the Greek word for ordinary poverty is unknown to the New Testament, and πένης only occurs once in a quotation from the LXX. (where πτωχεία is a synonym of @\iyis). Here the poverty is perhaps the effect of the persecution, Jewish converts being, as in Heb. x. 34, deprived of their property when put out of the synagogue on their conversion: or perhaps rather the cause of the persecution being more intense here, the Christians being people of no dignity or influence, it was safe to attack them. ἀλλὰ πλούσιος ef. Contrast 1 Tim. vi. 17. Compare James ii. 5. βλασφημίαν. Probably rather in the sense of calumny, coarse slanders against them, than blasphemy against their Lord: though of course both may have been combined, as when Christians were ridiculed as worshippers of the Crucified. ἐκ τῶν λεγόντων ᾿Ιουδαίους εἶναι ἑαυτούς. ἐκ because the calumny is not only uttered by them, but originates from them, and is very likely received and repeated among the heathen. εἶναι belongs to the oldest text here (though not sup. v. 2), because "Iovdalous stands before ἑαυτούς, or perhaps because λεγόντων is in the genitive. No doubt the persons meant are real Jews by birth as well as by profession, but are denied to be worthy of the name. It is treated as still an honourable title, implying religious privileges; as by St Paul in Rom. ii. 17, 28—9, iii. 1. Contrast the way that ‘the Jews” are spoken of in St John’s Gospel—always meaning the chief priests and scribes, the persistent enemies of the Gospel. Hence is drawn an argument, that this book could not be written after the Gospel by the same author: though if this book were written before the fall of Jerusalem, and the Gospel long after, the change in his point of view will be intelligible. Kal οὐκ εἰσίν. ‘‘And they are not’’—the relative construction is not continued. For similarly broken constructions cf. i. 6 καὶ ἐποίησεν, and perhaps i, 18, sup. v. 3, 56 REVELATION. (II. 9— συναγωγὴ τοῦ Σατανᾶ. For an instance of the same severity from the same mouth, see Joh. viii. 44. While they claimed to be, as the old Jewish Church was, ‘‘the congregation of the Lord.” Synagogue is etymologically almost equivalent to congregation, and is, as St Augustin observes, a less noble word than that used for the Christian Church, Ecclesia, a summoned assembly: for while brutes may be ‘gathered together,” reason (and we may add, freedom) is implied in being summoned together. But the distinction between the two words is not always maintained: Israel is called ‘the Church” in Acts vii. 38, and the assembly of Christian Jews is called a ‘‘synagogue”’ in St James ii. 2, and almost in Heb. x, 25. 10. ἃ μέλλεις πάσχειν. The words probably refer primarily to a persecution immediately impending; but they are no doubt meant to apply also to the subsequent persecutions of the Church there, especially to the famous one, under the Antonines, in which Polycarp the bishop suffered martyrdom, in a.p. 155. It will depend on the date assigned to this book whether Polycarp can have been bishop at the time of this message. It is to be noted that the Jews were specially active in urging his execution, though officially it was the act of the pagan magistrates. ἵνα πειρασθῆτε. ‘‘That ye may be tempted” (rather than ‘‘tried” as A.V., R.V.): it is probably rather the Devil’s object (cf. Luke xxii. 31) in raising the persecution, than God’s in permitting it which is meant. ἡμερῶν δέκα. Possibly because Daniel and his companions are proved ten days, Dan. i. 9, 10; possibly a half-proverbial expression for a short time, as we might say ‘‘ a week or two.”’ And no doubt the notion of a short and definite time is intended: but from the important significance in this book of definite numbers, and not least of definite measures of time, it is probable that something more is intended too —whether that the persecution would last ten years, or what, it would be rash to say. γίνου. Lit., ‘‘become”—not implying that he was not perfectly faithful now, but= ‘‘prove thyself,” ‘‘ quit thyself as.” τὸν στέφανον τῆς ζωῆς, i.e. eternal life as a crown; so St Jamesi. 12. The phrase is like ‘‘the crown of glory” in 1 Pet. v. 4, and probably ‘‘the crown of righteousness,” 2 Tim. iv.8. As in the parallel promise, 111. 21, the throne is in the fullest sense a royal throne, the crown here is probably a royal crown (so Trench, Synonyms), not a mere garland of victory. Throughout this book the imagery is Jewish, not Gentile, and all who are finally redeemed are kings, v.10, Both the thrones and the crowns οἵ the elders, iv. 4, 10, might be ensigns of dignity less than royal, but not the crown of the Rider on the White Horse, vi. 2. Moreover the Crown of Thorns for which all the Evangelists use the same word as here was certainly a counterfeit of royalty. On the other hand in xix. 12 the King of kings and Lord of lords has on His head many diadems, the unmistakeable technical name for royal crowns, and there are diadems on the heads of the Dragon, xii. 3, and on the horas of the Beast, xiii. 1. 1.19. NOTES. 57 11. οὐ μὴ ἀδικηθῇ ἐκ Tod θανάτου τοῦ δευτέρου. ‘‘Shall take no hurt from the second death.” This sense οὗ ἀδικεῖν as ‘‘injure”’ (=hurt), with at the very most an evanescent moral reference, is characteristic of this book. In Thue. ii. 71, when the Peloponnesians were about to lay waste the land of Platea, the Platzans at the beginning of the chapter warn them that this would be unjust, and towards the end adjured them τὴν γῆν... μὴ ἀδικεῖν. Xen. De Re Eq. vi. 3 warns those who have to do with a horse never to get straight before nor behind him, ἢν yap ἐπιχειρῇ ἀδικεῖν “for if he should be after mischief” (a horse ought not to bite or kick) κατ᾽ ἀμφότερα ταῦτα κρείττων ὁ ἵππος ἀνθρώπου. These apparently are the oldest passages in which any approximation to this sense of ἀδικεῖν can be traced. For the second death, see xx. 6, 14 &c. Here and probably in chap. xx, it seems to be spoken of as already known to the Seer and his readers, though we only know it from this book. 12—17. Tue CuurcH IN PERGAMUM, 12. ὁ ἔχων τὴν ῥομφαίαν. Mentioned because He threatens to use it, ver. 16. 13. θρόνος. A high seat, in post-Homeric Greek, always a seat of special dignity: the word, which was imperfectly naturalised in Latin, was fully naturalised in English as a seat royal. The Latin transla- tions tend, though not consistently, to distinguish the “throne”’ of God from the ‘‘seats” of those who reign with Him. The Old or African Latin (as attested by Cyprian, Primas. and cod. flor. and for xx. 1...xxi. 5 in a later modified form by Augustin) invariably employs thronus for God’s seat, with the single exception of xxii.1. Satan’s seat in this sense is also rendered thronus and similarly the seat of the Beast in xiii. 2, but in xvi. 10 sedes. On the other hand sedilia or sedes are used of the elders or the saints (iv. 7, xi. 16, xx. 4). Butin an European form of text (represented by St Ambrose and cod. gigas (9) θρόνος seems to be translated by sedes even when it is God’s throne. St Jerome who aimed at a classical vocabulary seems to have intended to follow this type, but he falls back on the African rendering at 111. 21 sedere in throno, and uses thronus in all similar phrases, still he uses sedes not infrequently of God’s throne iv. 2 bis, 3, 4, 6 ter, xiv. 3, xxii. 1, 8, while he never uses thronus of Satan or of the Beast. A.V. reserves ‘‘throne” consistently for God’s seat, extending the Latin distinction between His seat and His saints’ seat to the distinction between His seat and Satan’s. R.V. rightly has ‘“*throne” everywhere, Luther everywhere has “ Stuhl.” Why Satan’s throne and dwelling-place is localised at Pergamum is not clear. The old explanation was, that it was a great seat of the worship of Asclepius or Aesculapius, whose traditional image held a serpent, and who in many of his shrines (though not so far as we know at Pergamum) was worshipped under the form of a serpent. Recent excavations have suggested that the throne of Satan was the great altar of Zeus Soter, which Attalus set up to commemorate his victory over the Gauls —the last great triumph of Hellenism over barbarism. The altar was certainly very like a throne: it was approached by a flight of steps 58 REVELATION. [II. 13— enclosed by a raised platform, supporting colonnades, forming three sides of a hollow square; the faces of the platform were carved with the Wars of the Gods and the Giants. To a pious Jew or Christian it might seem the chosen throne of the god of this world, as the worship of the serpent might naturally and excusably seem more direct and avowed devil-worship than any other idolatry. Neither in those days would reflect of himself that both the worship of Asclepius and the thank-offering of Attalus belonged to the better side of heathenism: nor if he had reflected would he have renounced his first judgement: even the better side of heathenism would have only proved to him that Satan could transform himself as an angel of light. As Antipas is the only Asiatic martyr mentioned, it is possible that Pergamum may have been a special seat of the Satanic spirit of perse- cution, if so this, so far as it goes, might be the safest explanation. ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ᾿Αντίπας. If this reading be right ᾿Αντίπας is treated as indeclinable: it is equally likely that the final c arises from an accidental duplication of the following 0, the rather that ᾿Αντίπα would be an unfamiliar genitive. A legend is given of the martyrdom under Domitian of Antipas, bishop of Pergamum: it can probably be traced up to the fifth or sixth century. But by that time the fashion had set in of the ‘‘invention” (half fraudulent, half imaginative) of relics and legends of martyrs: and it is more than doubtful whether anything authentic is known of Antipas except from this passage. Perhaps it is presumable that he was a Jew by birth; the name is a shortened form of Antipater. The latter, like Philip and other Macedonian names, had become common all over the Levant: but perhaps especially common among Jews, from its being borne by the father of Herod and (in this shortened form) by his son, the tetrarch of Galilee. 6 μάρτυς. Here, as often in this book, we seem to have a no- minative in apposition to other cases, for ᾿Αντίπας does duty for a genitive. The word ‘‘witness” is perhaps used in its technical ecclesiastical sense of one who bears witness to the Faith with his life: cf. vi. 9, xii. 11 (‘‘ testimony”). So xvii. 6; Acts xxii. 20. 14. κρατοῦντας τὴν διδαχὴν Βαλαάμ. As we should say ‘who adhere to the practice taught by Balaam, of eating...” It is called doctrine, because it is a thing that was taught. For the fact of Israel being taught such practices, see Num. xxy. 1, 2: for Balaam’s respon- sibility, ibid. xxxi. 16. That of Balak is not directly mentioned in the Pentateuch, but is naturally inferred, as we find Moab and Midian united throughout the story. 15. καὶ σύ. As well as Israel of old. ὁμοίως. ‘In like manner ᾽ (see critical note). This makes it certain that we are not to suppose two immoral sects prevailing at Pergamum, those who held the doctrine of Balaam and those who held that of the Nicolaitans: but one sect holding the doctrine taught by Balaam of old and the Nicolaitans now. The sense is: ‘‘thou hast with thee followers of Balaam: he taught God’s people to fornicate and to communicate in idol-worship, and the Nicolaitans with thee teach I. 17.] NOTES. 59 the same.” The passage gives no support to the theory that the Nicolaitans were so called from Balaam; the etymology of the latter name is doubtful, but according to a possible one Nicolaus (‘‘con- queror of the people”) might be an approximate Greek equivalent to it. If not called after Nicolas the deacon, they no doubt were called after another Nicolas—as we hear from a tradition or con- jecture, later than the one which traces them to the deacon. 16. petravonoov. The Angel, i.e. the whole body of the Church represented by him, is bidden to repent: because not only are the Nicolaitans guilty of the sins their doctrine involved, but the whole Church (and more especially its bishop, if we suppose him to be intended) is more or less guilty, for having extended to them the toleration which the Church of Ephesus was praised for refusing. μετ᾽ αὐτῶν. ‘Against them,” not ‘‘against thee’: the mass of the Church is faithful on the whole. But it is implied that if the whole Church does ‘‘repent,” and do its duty, these erring members will be reclaimed: and that it will be a loss to the whole Church, if they are not reclaimed but have to be destroyed. ἐν τῇ ῥομφαίᾳ τοῦ στόματός pov. Cf. i. 16 n. 17. τῷ νικοῦντι, This form, which Westcott and Hort refuse to accept, might arise either from mxéw or from an old custom of misspelling or mispronunciation which need not have extended be- yond the participle. ᾿ δώσω αὐτῷ. For the superfluous pronoun see v. 7 n. The con- queror shall receive the bread of God (St John vi. 32 sqq.), instead of communicating at the table of devils (1 Cor. x. 21). τοῦ μάννα τοῦ KeKpuppévov. This genitive after δώσω is the only example in the New estament of a common Greek idiom, cf. Winer Moulton, p. 247, m1. ὃ xxx. 7b. The reference is to the pot of manna kept in the Tabernacle, in or before the Ark (Ex. xvi. 34; Heb. ix. 4), and therefore ‘‘ hidden” in the unapproachable Sanctuary. The Jews appear to have cherished an opinion that the Ark of the Covenant, and other sacred objects which were wanting in the Second Temple, had not perished with the First, but were concealed before its destruction (see e.g. 2 Mace. i. 19 sqq., ii. 4 sqq.), and were preserved somewhere in earth or heaven, to be revealed in the days of the Messiah. But we are not to understand that this book sanctions the first part of this belief, when xxi. 22 contradicts the second: passages like xi. 19 do not imply that the earthly Temple or its contents have been removed to Heaven, but that, whether the earthly Temple stands or falls, there remains in Heaven the archetype from which it was copied, according to the revelations made to Moses and (through David) to Solomon. See Ex. xxv. 40, xxvi. 30; 1 Chron. Xxvili. 12; Heb. viii. 5, ix. 23 sq. ῆφον λευκήν, καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν ψῆφον ὄνομα καινὸν γεγραμμένον. wie, be the precise Peaieak this ἐμῇ the hits eae and the name are closely connected. This excludes the notion that the white stone is given as a token of acquittal because judges who voted 60 REVELATION. [Π|. 17— to acquit the prisoner dropped a white stone, sometimes called the pebble of victory, into the urn; though the stone is white because that was the colour of innocence, of joy, of victory. The white stone is a gift in itself, not merely a vehicle of the new name, which it would be if the new name were the new name of Christ Himself, iii, 12 (which may be identical with His hidden Name, xix. 12), though this too is written upon those who overcome, as the Father’s Name is written on the hundred and forty and four thousand. The stone and the name are the separate possession of each to whom they are given. Most likely both are a token entitling the bearer to some further benefit. It is no objection to this that we do not find the technical Greek word for such tokens, for the ‘‘ token’? might be described without being named. The Greeks had feasts to which every feaster brought a token as a pledge that he would pay his share of the cost. Such a token might also prove his right to join the company. If so, it may be meant that when they who are worthy are called to the Marriage Supper each is called by the new name which he only knows ; as each hears and enters, the white stone with the new name is his passport at the door. This would require us to believe that the hidden manna is given to strengthen the elect on the way (1 Kings xix. 8; Joh. iv. 32). Possibly again the token gives the right to enter through the gates into the city (xxii. 14): in this case the angels at the gates may suffer none to pass who cannot name themselves by the new name and shew the white stone. It appears from Aristophanes (Av. 1199—1224) that foreigners (at least in time of war) had no right to be at large in a strange city without some token from its authorities. The parallel though suggestive is too remote in place and time to be convincing. The contemporary parallels of tickets for stated doles or occasional largesses are not exact. These, which might be thrown to be scrambled for, were marked with the amount of the gifts they represented, not with the owner’s name. If the word used of a ‘‘stone”’ could mean a gem as Victorinus supposes, the key to the passage might lie in Wetstein’s quotation from Joma 8 about the rain of pearls and precious stones which fell with the manna. The first readers of the Apocalypse had not to reflect with Bengel that they would know the meaning of the white stone and the new name if and when they overcame. Its symbolical language was plain at the time to those who had ears to hear. Perhaps the new and hidden name is a pledge that no enemy can have power upon him who receives it, for exorcists were supposed to have power over spirits good and evil by knowing their names, and this was only an instance of a widespread feeling which it is said led Cesar to put a man to death for divulging the sacred secret name of Rome, which was Valentia. It is possible that some kindred mystery may attach to the names, Hom. Il. i. 403, xx. 74, which differ in the language of gods and men. 18—29. THe Cuurch IN THYATIRA. 18. 6 υἱὸς tov θεοῦ. Here only in the Apocalypse. So desig- nated, perhaps, because it is the power which He received from the 11. 20.] NOTES. 61 Father which is the subject of the concluding promise, v. 28. Cf. Ps. ii. for ὁ υἱός μου and quotation in promise. ὁ ἔχων--εὃς ἔχει: and so can be continued by the categorical clause καὶ οἱ πόδες αὐτοῦ ὅμοιοι yark., cf. also τῷ λούσαντι.. καὶ ἐποίησεν i. 5, 6 n. τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτοῦ. Which search reins and hearts, v. 23. οἱ πόδες αὐτοῦ. Of strength to break the nations to shivers like a potter’s vessel, v. 26. 19. τὰ ἔργα σου τὰ ἔσχατα πλείονα τῶν πρώτων. In contrast to Ephesus v. 4. These words shew that the Church of Thyatira had already existed for some time. Yet it was made an objection to the book as early as the second century that no Church was then known to exist or to have existed at Thyatira. 20. ἔχω κατὰ σοῦ, ὅτι. “1 have against thee, that,” as in v. 4. The reading of Text. Rec. (ἔχω κατὰ σοῦ ὀλίγα, ὅτι) is late and borrowed from v. 14, τὴν γυναῖκα ᾿Ιεζάβελ. There is some authority for the reading τὴν γυναῖκά σου Ἰεζάβελ, and even if the possessive pronoun be not rightly inserted in the Greek text, it is a question whether the article ought not to be understood as equivalent to one; though in this book we should certainly expect the possessive pronoun to be expressed if this were the meaning. If the sense ‘‘thy wife Jezebel” be right, the allusion must be to 1 Kings xxi. 25: there is some one (or something) at Thyatira who is, to the Angel of the Church, such a temptress as Jezebel was to Ahab. No doubt, if we suppose the Angel to be the bishop, it is probable that his actual wife is intended; but even then the name Jezebel must have this meaning. Asa plain matter of verbal exegesis, ‘‘thy wife Jezebel’’ seems, in this context, the more natural translation. But it has its own diffi- culties. What analogy is there between a faithful servant of Christ, culpably tolerant of a bad wife, but not sharing her faults himself, and Ahab, who “ did sell himself to work wickedness,” and ‘‘ did very abominably in following idols’? It may be added, that except in Jehu’s taunt (2 Kings ix, 22), which need not be meant literally, there is no evidence whatever of Jezebel’s unchastity: her behaviour towards her husband, as well as her influence over him, makes it probable that she was a good wife, in her own way. On the whole, the best editors decline to adopt the reading which would make the sense ‘‘thy wife” certain: and this being so, it seems better to translate as the A.V. (‘that woman J.”). Who ** Jezebel’? was—whether a real woman, or a personification of a sect, —is almost equally doubtful on any view: but it seems simplest to suppose a real person. ἡ λέγουσα ἑαυτὴν προφῆτιν. Another nominative in irregular apposition. Possibly the participle with the article is regarded as equivalent to a relative with a finite verb. τοὺς ἐμοὺς δούλους. This is the only instance in this book of a possessive pronoun: here St Epiphanius quotes τοὺς δούλους μου. ἐμὸς 62 REVELATION. [11. 20— is used much oftener in the fourth Gospel than in the other three or indeed the whole Greek Testament, though in all the genitive is commoner. In the Gospel it is not possible to trace a distinction of meaning between ἐμὸς and μου: if there be a distinction in ordinary Greek the possessive pronoun is perhaps rather more emphatic than the enclitic genitive, meaning ‘“‘the servants who belong to Me”; but this can hardly be pressed here. mopvevoa. In secular Greek an equivalent of either prostare or prostituere: itis to be taken literally ; not (as so often in the Old Testa- ment) as a metaphor for idolatry, since this is mentioned coordinately. 22. βάλλω. Lit. “I am casting” 1.6. ‘“‘am about to cast.” Cf. ἀναβαίνω, St John xx. 17, and note on ἔρχομαι sup. v. 5. εἰς κλίνην. See crit. note. Perhaps a bed of sickness, as ‘‘death”’ in the next verse is perhaps to be taken of pestilence, cf. vi. 8. per αὐτῆς. Possibly the sense is “1 will cast them together with her into...,’”’ but the sense ‘‘ the partners of her adulteries” is at least equally natural. It seems probably intended, that she and they are to be separated in punishment: Francesca’s “ Questi che mai da me non fia diviso” is rather a poetical sentiment than a moral one. But if Jezebel be understood to mean a sect rather than an individual woman, it will be possible to distinguish her ‘‘adulteries” as meta- phorical from the literal ‘‘ fornication” which she encouraged: if so, her paramours are the false teachers, her children their disciples. 23. γνώσονται πᾶσαι αἱ ἐκκλησίαι. Cf. All flesh shall know, Is. xix. 26; All flesh shall see, Is. xl. 5; Ezek. xx. 48. ‘All the Churches” though less extensive than ‘‘all flesh” (cf. John xvii. 2, and for the limitation xiv. 22) must still be taken as widely as possi- ble, it means not merely all the seven Churches of Asia but ‘‘all the churches in the world,” hardly as Alford adds ‘‘ to the end of time.”’ We know nothing (and have no reason to think St Ireneus knew more) of either the repentance or the punishment of the children of Jezebel. 6 épavvay. Compare καρδίας ἐτάζει Kup. 1 Chron. xxviii. 9, ὁ ἐτάζων καρδίας xxix. 17, ἐτάζων καρδίας καὶ νεφροὺς Ps. vil. 9 (10), πύρωσον τοὺς νεφρούς μου καὶ τὴν καρδίαν μου ΧΧΥΪ. 2, δοκιμάζων νεφροὺς καὶ καρδίας Jer. xi. 20, ἐτάζων καρδίας καὶ δοκιμάζων νεφροὺς χνιὶ. 10, συνιῶν νεφροὺς καὶ καρδίας xx. 12, ὁ ἐραυνῶν τὰς καρδίας Rom. viii. 27. The last passage suggests a common origin apart from the LXX. for a phrase which no doubt is ultimately derived from the Psalms and was almost proverbial in the Apostolic age. 24. ὑμῖν δέ. The form of address to the Angel of the Church is dropped, and the Church addressed directly. The sense is ‘‘to the rest of you in Thyatira,” or more literally, ‘‘to you, namely to the rest.” οὕτινες οὐκ ἔγνωσαν τὰ βαθέα τοῦ Σατανᾶ, ws λέγουσιν. The heretics condemned in the preceding verses were doubtless a sect of those who called themselves Gnostics, probably at this time, certainly in the next generation. They contrasted their knowledge of ‘‘the I. 27.] NOTES. 63 depths” or ‘‘deep things of God” (cf. 1 Cor. ii, 10), with the faith of the orthodox in the plain simple doctrines that were openly preached to the world: the Lord answers, that the depths of know- ledge that they attained were depths, not of God, but of Satan. It is uncertain how far the quotation of their own language marked by ὡς λέγουσιν extends; it is hardly possible that they themselves actually gloried in a knowledge of the depths of Satan (yet ef. 2 Cor. ii. 11): but it is to be remembered that the Gnostic systems of the second century, and probably those of the first also, included a strange mythology of half-personified abstractions; and it may be that the Lord rather identifies one of these with Satan than sub- stitutes the name of Satan for that of God. It appears from Irenzus that the Gnostics of his time talked of ‘the deep things of Depth” as well as ‘‘the deep things of God.” It is curious that the phrase “the depths of knowledge” is quoted from the great Ephesian phi- losopher Heraclitus: possibly it was owing to his influence, that such notions found a congenial home in Asia Minor, ov βάλλω. See v. 22 n. ἄλλο βάρος. ἄλλο refers forward to πλὴν so that the sense is ‘‘T will lay on you no other burden than to hold fast”’; but, as in English, this does not exclude a reference backward to the sins taught by Jezebel. If so this passage confirms the rule of Christian Liberty laid down Acts xv. 28. 25. ὃ ἔχετε. Comparing ver. 6, we shall probably understand this ‘‘what ye have to your credit,’ your present faithfulness and zeal: so that the sense will rather be like Phil. iii. 16 than Jude 3. Cf. iii. 11. 26. καὶ ὁ νικῶν καὶ ὁ τηρῶν. ‘‘He that overcometh and he that keepeth” are one; in most parts of the New Testament there would only be one article. This is the only passage where the promise to him that overcometh is introduced by kai. Here and iii. 12 and iii. 21 the writer begins with a nominative which has no regular con- struction. τὰ ἔργα pov. ‘Such works as I do’’ is the sense, rather than **such as I approve.” Cf. John xiv. 12 ‘“‘the works that I do shall he do also.” 27. ποιμανεῖ. Lit., “shall be their shepherd,” cf. Ps. ii. 9 (LXX.), ποιμανεῖς αὐτοὺς ἐν ῥάβδῳ σιδηρᾷᾳ: The word as pointed in the received Hebrew text means ‘bruise’ or ‘break them.’ Here and in xii. 5, xix. 15 St John follows the LXX., see note on i. 7. ὡς τὰ σκεύη TA κεραμικὰ συντρίβεται. He is to rule the nations with a mastery as absolute as is expressed in crushing a potsherd, There is nothing in the Hebrew or in any known version to suggest the curious change of subject in ‘the shall rule...as the vessels are broken.” It puzzled Arethas who thought that ὡς would have been followed by a subjunctive in ordinary Greek. 64 REVELATION. (11. 27— ὡς κἀγώ, ‘As I also.” Of course the meaning is that Ps. ii. 9 is assumed to be the promise of the Father to the Son; as is plain from the eighth verse. 28. τὸν ἀστέρα τὸν πρωϊνόν. The only illustration of this image is xxil. 16, where Christ Himself is called the Morning Star: and the meaning here can hardly be ‘‘I will give myself to him.” Some compare 2 Pet. i. 19, others, perhaps better, Dan. xii. 3: taking the sense to be, ‘‘I will give him the brightest star of all, that he may be clothed (cf. xii. 1) with its glory.” 29. ὁ ἔχων οὖς ἀκουσάτω. For the position of these words see on v. 7. CHAPTER III. 2. ἔμελλον ἀποθανεῖν. B, reads ἤμελλες ἀποβάλλειν. εὕρηκα. Β. reads εὕρηκαν. 8. μνημόνευε οὖν. N eth. Primas. Areth. omit οὖν. yenyopyoys. δὲ cop. Primas. read μετανοήσῃς. 5. οὕτως. X°B,P...and Text. Rec. read οὗτος. 7. κλείσει. 1 Vg. Primas. cop. arm. syr. and Text. Rec. read κλείει. καὶ κλείων. A omits καὶ, C 1, Text. Rec. read καὶ κλείει; Β, and many cursives read εἰ μὴ ὁ ἀνοίγων ; Areth. reads (for ὁ ἀνοίγων--- ἀνοίξει) οὐδεὶς κλείσει εἰ μὴ ὁ ἀνοίγων καὶ οὐδεὶς ἀνοίξει εἰ μὴ ὁ κλείων. ἀνοίξει. With δ Β.; ACP 1 Text. Rec. read ἀνοίγει. 9. γνῶσιν. δὲ Primas. read γνώσῃ. 12. αὐτόν. &* reads αὐτῷ. ἣ καταβαίνοισα. With δε ΑΟΡ 1...; Text. Rec. ie. Beza and Elzevir, reads ἢ καταβαίνει with B, And.; δὲς reads τῆς καταβαινούσης. 14. ἐν Λαοδικίᾳ. 1 and Text. Rec. read λαοδικέων. 15. ὄφελον ψυχρὸς ἧς ἢ ἵεστός. A 1 omit by homoeoteleuton. 16. οὔτε Leatds οὔτε ψυχρός. With 8B,C1; Text. Rec. reads οὔτε ψυχρὸς οὔτε ζεστὸς with AP. ἐμέσαι ἐκ τοῦ στύματός pov. N° reads cu (i. ᾳ. ἐμεῖν) ; δὲ" reads παυσε (i. 4. παυσαιὴ τοῦ στόματύς σου. 11. οὐδέν. With AC; Text. Rec. reads οὐδενὸς with NB,P 1. 18. ἐγχρῖσαι. Text. Rec. reads ἔγχρισον with Pl. Latt. wungue, inunge. 19. ζήλευε οὖν. With AB,C; Text. Rec. reads ξήλωσον with NP 1. 20. ἀκούσῃ τῆς φωνῆς pov καί. These words, attested by all MSS. and versions, are absent from four quotations of Origen, one of Hilary and one of Epiphanius. ἀνοίξῃ. WS reads ἀνοίξω. εἰσελεύσομαι. With AP; Tisch. reads καὶ εἰσελεύσομαι with NB,. III. 3.] NOTES. 65 Cx. II]. 1—6. Tur CuurcH In SarpIis. 1. ὁ ἔχων τὰ ἑπτὰ πνεύματα τοῦ θεοῦ. See the last note but one oni, 4. ‘Though ‘“‘the Seven Spirits” were mentioned there, we have not yet heard of them as specially belonging to Christ: but this we find in v. 6. καὶ τοὺς ἑπτὰ ἀστέρας. Cf. ii. 1. We find the ‘‘Spirits’’ and the “stars,” i.e. Angels, mentioned coordinately—a further argument against identifying the Spirits with Angels, even angels other than these. These attributes of Christ are mentioned, because He speaks as Judge of the Churches: cf. 1 Cor. ii. 15 for the conception of judge- ment as the Spirit’s work. 2. γίνουν γρηγορῶν. Lit. ‘become watching,” “awake and watch.” τὰ Aourd. The elements of goodness, or means of goodness, which thou hast not yet lost. Cf. ii. 6, and the first note there. ἃ ἔμελλον, i.e. which would have died but for the strengthening of them. We may perhaps say, that it seems to be taken for granted that the warning, sharp as it is, will be effectual. εὕρηκα. One MS. has the suggestive reading εὕρηκαν (cf. xvi. 15 for the plural without a definite subject). N after ἃ is a common clerical error, but here and at xxi. 6 it is possible that the addition may best preserve the original text. ἐνώπιον Tov θεοῦ pov. The Church had a name of being alive before men: its works therefore may have come up to their standard. 3. μνημόνευε οὖν. Cf. 11. 5: but here it is the sound doctrine of the founders of the Church that is the standard to be regained: it does not appear that the former practice of the Church itself afforded such a standard. πῶς εἴληφας καὶ ἤκουσας. The perfect and aorist are coupled where we might have expected two perfects; but the rather cacopho- nous perfect of ἀκούω is not found in the New Testament; it is difficult to tell how the writers of the New Testament who certainly, none of them (except perhaps St Paul), ever had any lessons in Greek gram- mar, were to know the difference between a first aorist and a “strong” perfect, though all writers on the grammar of the New Testament assume they had this knowledge. type. The word is the same as in i. 3, where see note. Here the sense is more like 1 Cor. xi. 2; 1 Tim. vi. 20, where however the Greek verb used is different: 1 Tim. vi. 14, where it is the same as here, bridges the interval between the two. ἥξω ὡς κλέπτης. Notice the change of verb from ἔρχομαι to ἥξω; in the other warnings the Church is awake to watch for the Coming: the sleeping Church will only wake when the Lord is come; ef. xvi. 15; Matt. xxiv. 43; Luke xii. 39; 1 Thess. v. 2, 4; 2 Pet. iii. 10. In all these places the image is used of the Last or universal Judgement; but here plainly of a particular judgement upon this one Church. The use of the same image in both the larger and narrower senses seems REVELATION E 66 REVELATION. [11]. 3— to sanction the system of interpretation commonly applied to St Matt. xxiv., which some have attempted to apply to this book also. 4. ὀλίγα ὁ ὀνόματα. Some understand, from the similar use of the word ‘‘names” in Acts i. 15, that at this time it was usual for every Church to keep a register of allits members. 1 Tim. v. 9 seems cer- tainly to imply such a register of office-bearers atleast. Itis possible indeed that the ‘‘names” are spoken of as entered in the heavenly Book of Life (cf. the next verse): but the use of that image would be far more forcible, if the readers of the Revelation were familiar with an approximate ‘counterpart to that Book on earth. It is however perhaps better to understand ὀνόματα both here and in Acts i. 15 as simply a Hebraistic expression for ‘‘ persons”: cf. Num. i. 20, 28. ἐν λευκοῖς. So vi. 11, vii. 9. It is idle to ask whether these are the same garments which they kept undefiled during their probation: but no doubt it is meant that their keeping these undefiled proves them ‘‘worthy” of those. δ. 6 νικῶν οὕτως περιβαλεῖται. Τῇ οὕτως means “like the holy remnant in Sardis,’ it is natural to ask with Spitta whether the promises to him that overcometh are to be regarded as part of the messages to the Churches. Possibly though the other sense at first is more natural, the meaning may be ‘‘ He...shall be clothed then as I am now.” The colour of Christ’s priestly robe (i. 13) was not stated (and see ‘‘ Barnabas,” there quoted) but we are probably to understand that it was white, cf. Dan. vii. 9. ov μὴ ἐξαλείψω τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ. See Ex. xxxii. 32 sq. (which it seems hard to tone down into meaning no more than 1 Kings xix. 4: com- pare rather Rom. ix. 3), Ps. Ixix. 29 (28) (which can more easily be taken in the milder sense), and Dan. xii. 1. The image seems to be, that everyone on professing himself Christ’s soldier and servant has his name entered in the Book of Life, as on an army list or census- roll of the kingdom. It remains there during the time of his pro- bation or warfare, even if, while he has thus ‘‘a name that he liveth,” he is dead in sin: but if he die the second death it will be blotted out: if he overcome, it will remain for ever. See xx. 12, 15. ὁμολογήσω τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐνώπιον τοῦ πατρός μου καὶ ἐνώπιον τῶν ἀγγέλων αὐτοῦ. Cf. Matt. x. 82 ὁμολογήσω κἀγὼ ἐν αὐτῴ ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ πατρός μου τοῦ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς: and Lue. xii. 8 ὁμολογήσει ἐν αὐτῷ ἔμπροσθεν τῶν ἀγγέλων τοῦ θεοῦ... ἀπαρνηθήσεται ἐνώπιον τῶν ἀγγέλων τοῦ θεοῦ. Thus our passage combines elements found in Matt. only (ὁμολογήσω, τοῦ πατρός μου) with elements found in Luce. only (ἐνώπιον, τῶν ἀγγέλων). For the negative side of the saying we may also compare Me. viii. 38, Luc. ix. 26. 7—13. Tuer Cuurcu IN PHILADELPHIA. 7. ὁ ἅγιος, 6 ἀληθινός. The same epithets are combined in vi. 10, where apparently they belong rather to the Father than the Son. In Mark i. 24, John vi. 69 (according to the true reading) Christ is called ‘the Holy One of God,” and God’s ‘‘ Holy Servant” (according to the IIT. 9.] NOTES. ν᾿ 67 probable rendering) in Acts iv. 27, 30: also ‘‘ the faithful and true” in this book, inf. ver. 14 and xix. 11. ‘The Holy One” is used absolutely as a name of God in Job vi. 10 (Hebrew) ; Is, xl. 25; Hab. iii. 3, and perhaps Hos. xi. 9, besides the phrase so frequent in Isaiah, and used by several other prophets, ‘‘ the Holy One of Israel”: and we have ‘the true God,” as opposed to idols, in 2 Chr. xv. 3; Ps. xxxi. 5 (6); Jer. x. 10; 1 Thess. i. 9; 1 John v. 20, and, without such opposition being specially marked, in Is. lxy. 16; John xvii. 3. Here the sense seems to be ‘‘ He Who is the Holy One of God,” as opposed to those in v. 9, who say that they are of the holy people and are not. ὁ ἔχων τὴν κλεῖν τοῦ AavelS. From Is, xxii. 22. There the meaning is, that Eliakim shall be made ruler of the house of David, i.e. chief minister of the kingdom (2 Kings xviii. 18 &c.), and that his will shall be final in all business of the kingdom. Here then in like manner Christ is described as Chief Minister in the Kingdom of God. But the promise in the next verse suggests that the image is not used in this general sense only; Christ says that He has the power of admitting to, or excluding from His Church, the power which He delegates (St Matt. xvi. 19) to the rulers in His Church, but which none, not even they, can really exercise in opposition to His will. 8. θύραν ἠνεῳγμένην. Through which thou mayest enter into the Kingdom, into the house of David. ἣν οὐδεὶς δύναται κλεῖσαι αὐτήν. For the construction ef. ii. 7 τι. Probably the false Jews mentioned in the next verse denied the title of the Christians in Philadelphia to the privileges of brother- hood—whence we may suppose that they were mostly Gentiles. Christ answers, that He would grant what they refused. ὅτι... ἔχεις. The parallels prove that these words, in spite of the strange parenthesis, are dependent on and explain cou τὰ ἔργα. μικρὰν δύναμιν. ‘Little strength.” The point is that his strength is not great, not that he has a little in spite of the strain upon it. 9. διδῶ The use of ‘‘give’’ in this verse is frequent in Hebrew: (cp. LXX. of Is. lx. 17 δώσω τοὺς ἄρχοντάς cov ἐν εἰρήνῃ); here the sentence is unfinished, and is resumed by “1 will make them come” &c. below. ; ἐκ τῆς συναγωγῆς τοῦ Σατανᾷ. See on ii. 9. ποιήσω αὐτούς. An application of Is. lx. 14, πορεύσονται πρὸς σὲ δεδοικότες υἱοὶ ταπεινωσάντων σε. ὅτι ἐγὼ ἠγάπησά oe. Perhaps ‘that I set my love on thee” once for all; but it is simpler to remember how much commoner aorists are than perfects in the New Testament. The pronoun ἐγὼ is em- phatic—which supports the view already suggested, that the title of this Church to Christian privileges was contested by the Jews, and that this message of the Lord is intended to decide a con- troversy. E2 68 REVELATION. [111]. 10— 10. ὅτι ἐτήρησας...κἀγώ. It would be possible, but hardly in accordance with the usage of this book, to connect this with what goes before, ‘‘that I have loved thee, because thou hast kept...... > and I will keep thee from....” 11. κράτει ὃ ἔχεις. See on ii. 6, 25. λάβῃ, 1.6. rob thee of it: it is hardly meant that his loss will be in any sense another’s gain, but that whoever can tempt him to let go what he has will deprive him of what he hopes for. On στέφανον see note on ii. 10: the image of a race or other contest for a prize does not seem in harmony with the context nor with the style of this book. 12. ὁ νικῶν. Lit. ‘‘He that overcometh, I will make him,” as in ii. 26. στῦλον. Used of chief men in the Church in Gal. ii. 9, and probably of the Church itself in 1 Tim, iii. 15. All Christians are living stones in the Temple (Eph. ii. 20 sqq., 1 Pet. ii. 5), all necessary to its completeness, but some of course filling in it a more important position than others: and such important position is indicated by the image of the “pillars” ll. cc. But here the promise is not for Apostles or their successors only, but for all the faithful: the point is not ‘the shall be one of the great and beautiful stones on which the others rest,” but ‘‘he shall be so placed that he cannot be removed while the whole fabric stands.” The reading αὐτῷ στῦλον would have to be explained by the analogy, not very close, of 2 Sam. xviii. 18, Is. lvi. 5. γράψω én αὐτόν. We repeatedly have in this book the image of the divine Name written on the foreheads of God’s servants: see vii. 3, xiv. 1, xxii. 4. Hence the inscribing the name is here equally appropriate to the figure and the thing signified: probably the meta- phor of the pillar is not dropped, but writing the name on the pillar means the same as writing it on the man. τὸ ὄνομα Tod θεοῦ pov καὶ τὸ ὄνομα τῆς πόλεως TOD θεοῦ pov. Cf. Is. xliv. 5; Jer. xxiii. 6, xxxiii. 16; Ezek. xlviii. 35, for the junction of these two names. The three names joined here are in a manner those of the Trinity, the Church being representative of the Spivit. It is probable that passages like this did much to suggest the use of the sign of the Cross on the forehead, both at Baptism and on other occasions that seemed to call for a profession of faith: and the image of the ‘‘new name”’ (ef. ii. 17) harmonises well with the much later usage of conferring a name in Baptism. ἡ καταβαίνουσα, xxi. 2,10. The nominative after τῆς καινῆς cannot be ascribed either to ignorance or to forgetfulness; see note on 7 λέγουσα, il. 20. τὸ ὄνομά pov TO καινόν. See on ii, 17 and xix. 12 there referred to. ΠῚ. 16.] NOTES. 69 14—22. Tuer Cnurcn ΙΝ Laopicera. 14. ὁ ἀμήν. See the last note on i. 7. Here the name is used, (i) because this is the last of the seven Epistles, that it may confirm the whole: (ii) as synonymous with the title ‘“‘ Faithful and True” that follows: for which see the latter group of references on ver. 7. Is. lxv. 16 is specially noticeable, where ‘‘the God of truth” is in the Hebrew ‘‘the God of Amen”; in the other O.T. passages a different but cognate form is used. ὁ μάρτυς ὁ πιστὸς Kal ἀληθινός. Seei. 5. ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς κτίσεως τοῦ θεοῦ. Exactly equivalent to Col. i, 15, as explained by the words that follow: in both places the words are such as might grammatically be used of the first of creatures, but the context there, and the whole tone of the book here, proves that the writer does not regard Him as a creature at all. But St John is not here, as in the first verses of his Gospel, describing our Lord’s Nature theologically: it might be enough to say that here and in Proy. viii. 22 (where the words ‘‘the Lord possessed’’ or ‘‘ created Me” lend themselves more easily than these to an Arian sense), the coming forth of the Word to create is conceived as part of His earthly mission, which culminates in the Incarnation, so that in a sense even creation is done by Him as a creature. 15. οὔτε ψυχρὸς.. οὔτε ἵεστός. Neither untouched by spiritual life, dead and cold, as an unregenerate heathen would be, nor τῷ πνεύματι ζέων (Rom. xii. 11). We might naturally speak (perhaps the Lord does, Matt. xxiv. 12) of those as “cold” who were such as the Laodiceans were, and of course here something more is meant: but that further meaning can hardly be being actively opposed to the Gospel, but only being utterly unaffected by it. ὄφελον ψυχρὸς ἧς ἢ leords. For the sentiment that it would be better even to be “cold,” cf. 2 Pet. 11, 21; though there the apostasy described is no doubt more deadly than here. But according to the Greek proverb (Ar. Eth. vit. ii. 10) of a man who sins against his conscience, ὅταν τὸ ὕδωρ πνίγῃ τί δεῖ ἐπιπίνειν ; you can instruct and convince a man who has either low or perverse views of duty, but what can you do to one whom sound views do not make to act rightly? And similarly an unbeliever can be converted and regener- ated, but what can be done for him in whom faith does not work by love? 16. ὅτι χλιαρὸς ef. The image is of course taken from the ten- dency of lukewarm water to excite vomiting. It is intended to be an offensive one, interfering with the self-satisfied refinement to which it is addressed. μέλλω. ‘‘I am ready to.” The verb does not necessarily imply that the intention is final, and ver. 19 shews that itis not. On the other hand, in later Greek the future is often expressed by a periphrasis with μέλλω, as in later Latin with ‘ habeo.’ 70 REVELATION. [Wr 7 17. ὅτι λέγεις. The construction here ὅτι λέγεις... καὶ οὐκ οἶδας... συμβουλεύω σοι...158. unusually elaborate for this book. πλούσιός εἰμι Kal πεπλούτηκα. Lit. “1 am rich and have gotten riches.” It was thought remarkable, &., Tac. Ann. xiv. 27, that Laodicea was rebuilt, a.p. 60, after an earthquake without help from Rome of any kind. If there be any distinction of sense between the two words, the second expresses pride in the riches being his own acquisition, in addition to self-complacency in the enjoyment. For the sense, cf. Hos, xii. 8, Kal εἶπεν ᾿Εφραίμ, Πλὴν πεπλούτηκα, εὕρηκα ἀναψυχὴν ἐμαυτῷ, where apparently the self-complacency in material prosperity lends itself to and combines with religious self- satisfaction. Hence it is not necessary to interpret these words either of material wealth, or of fancied spiritual wealth, to the exclu- sion of the other. St James ii. 1—6 shews that in the first century, as in the nineteenth, the “respectable” classes found it easiest to be religious, to their own satisfaction. σὺ εἶ ὁ ταλαίπωρος Kal ἐλεεινός. ‘The wretched and miserable one”’ above all others—at least above all the other six Churches. 18. συμβουλεύω σοι. ‘There is deep irony in this word One who has need of nothing, yet needs counsel on the vital points of self- preservation.”” Alford. ἀγοράσαι. Of. Is. lv. 1 ὅσοι μὴ ἔχετε ἀργύριον, βαδίσαντες ἀγοράσατε, καὶ φάγετε dvev ἀργυρίου καὶ τιμῆς : the counsel to a poor beggar to buy is of course meaningless, unless he can buy ‘‘without money and without price,” or, as the Hebrew of that passage more literally means, “for (what is) not money and for (what is) not a price.” Thus the word is not a mere synonym for ‘‘receive”: the sense is, ‘Thou hast nothing to give, but thou must give all that thou hast” (Matt. xiii. 44, 46). The nothingness of human merit is a reason against exalting self, but not a reason for sparing self: the Lord does not bid us say, ‘‘We are unprofitable servants: we cannot and need not do what it is our duty to do.”’ (Luke xvii. 10.) χρυσίον πεπυρωμένον ἐκ πυρός. Vg. aurum ignitum probatum. The fire would not remove the dross from the gold, but either detect it or prove that the gold was already pure. A.V. is right in sense, though “ fresh burnt from the fire’”’ would be perhaps more literal: cf. 1. 15, where the same participle is used as here. The meaning of the ‘‘ gold” is defined in the next words: it stands for spiritual ‘‘riches” of any sort. ἱμάτια λευκά. As in wv. 4, 5. Kal μὴ φανερωθῇ. Cf. xvi. 15. καὶ κολλύριον ἐγχρῖσαι τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς cov. ‘And eyesalve to anoint thine eyes.” κολλύριον (the name comes from a bread-poultice) was the common dressing for weak eyes, and could be applied by a barber (see Horace Sat. 1. vii. 3), but perhaps hardly by the patient himself. IIT. 21.]. NOTES. 71 19. ἐγὼ ὅσους ἐὰν φιλῶ, ἐλέγχω. The pronoun ἐγώ stands empha- tically at the beginning of the sentence—as it were, ‘‘My way with those I love (the word is a strong one, expressing affection, not simply charity), is to shew them their faults,” not to ‘‘prophesy smooth things,’’ and encourage the self-complacent temper that was destroy- ing the Laodiceans. In every other case, the Lord has noted both the good and the evil in the Church, and generally the good first: here He does nothing but find fault, but He adds in effect, ‘‘Do not suppose from this that I do not love you.” The word édéyxw is more often rendered ‘“‘ reprove”: see e.g. John xvi. 8: Eph. vy. 11, 13: its meaning here is exactly what we express by ‘“ working conviction of sin.” ζήλευε οὖν kal μετανόησον. Shake off thy languid “lukewarm” temper: then thou wilt be able to start on a new life of righteousness. Here too it is possible to see a reason for the contrasted tenses. 20. ἕστηκα ἐπὶ τὴν θύραν kal κρούω. The Lord expresses His affection, from which He has intimated that the Laodiceans are not excluded, by this figure of intense and condescending tenderness. It is intended to remind the readers of Cant. v. 2: but the figure of the lover's midnight visit is too delicate to bear being represented, as here, with a mixture of the thing signified with the image, especially since the visit is not to the Church, personified as a single female, but to any individual, and of either sex; so it is toned down into a visit from a familiar friend, ἐάν τις ἀκούσῃ τῆς φωνῆς pov. It is implied that anyone is sure to hear His knock, and be roused to ask who is there: but only those who love Him will know His voice (as Rhoda did St Peter's, Acts xii. 14) when He says ‘It is I.” δειπνήσω. The blessing promised is a secret one to the individual. There can thus hardly be a reference to the Holy Eucharist, which is shared publicly by the whole Church. μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ αὐτὸς per’ ἐμοῦ. The sense is, ‘‘I will take all he has to give Me, as though I had need of it, and benefited by it (cf. Matt. xxv. 37—40) : but at the same time, it will really be I that give the feast,and he that receives it.”” There can hardly be a better illustration than a quaint and touching legend, given in a little book called Patranas, or Spanish Stories, with the title ‘‘Wlere one can dine, two can dine.” 21. ὁ νικῶν. The construction is as in ii. 26, iii. 12, ‘‘He that overcometh, I will give him.” For the sense, compare the former of these passages; but the promise of sharing Christ’s inheritance (Rom. vill. 17) is even more fully expressed here. ds κἀγὼ ἐνίκησα. See St John’s Gospel, xvi. 33. μετὰ τοῦ πατρός μου ἐν τῷ θρόνῳ αὐτοῦ. See ν. 6, vii. 17. In the Jewish Cabbala (of which the oldest parts are ascribed to a date little later than St John, and perhaps embody still older traditions, though it received its present form quite late in the middle ages) we hear of 72 REVELATION. [IqI. 21— Metatron, apparently a Greek word Hebraised for “Next to the Throne,” or perhaps ‘‘in the midst of the Throne,” a sort of mediator between God and the world, who is identified with the four Living Creatures of Ezekiel’s vision. The Cabbala as it now exists has more affinity with Gnostic mythology than with scriptural or Catholic Christianity : but it is deserving of notice, as the outcome of tendencies in Jewish thought that might have developed, or found their satis- faction in the Gospel. St John’s Lamb ‘in the midst of the Throne” is perhaps just as far comparable with the Cabbalistic Metatron, as his doctrine of the personal ‘‘Word of God” is with Philo’s. It is hardly wise to ask whether ‘‘My Throne” and ‘‘His Throne” are quite identical: for the doctrine that the faithful stand to Christ in the same relation as He to the Father, see St John’s Gospel, xvii. 21— 23, and 1 Cor. iii. 23, xi. 3. CHAPTER IV. 1. λαλούσης. N reads λαλοῦσαν. λέγων. With N*AB,; Text. Rec. reads λέγουσα with NeP 1. 2. ἐπὶ τὸν θρόνον. With NAB,; Text. Rec. reads ἐπὶ τοῦ θρόνου with P 1. 3. καὶ ὁ καθήμενος. 1...cop. arm. eth, And. Areth. Victorin, omit these words. ipis. N*A eth. arm. read iepes; arm. also read ὅμοιοι; in 3, 4 δὲ ἢ omits Sp. ὁράσει σμ... θρόνου. 4. εἴκοσι τέσσαρας πρεσβ. Text. Rec. reads with B, τοὺς εἴκοσι T. Tp. δ. φωναὶ καὶ βρονταί. Text. Rec. with 1...reads βρονταὶ καὶ φωναί; see note on ili. 18. ἅ εἰσιν. With Ne (N* omits from ἅ to ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου) P1; Text. Rec. reads αἵ εἰσιν with B,; A reads ἅ ἐστιν ws θάλασσα; Text. Rec. omits ws with 1 arm. eth. Primas. 7. ἔχων. With AB,; Text. Rec. reads ἔχον with NP. ὡς ἀνθρώπου. With A Primas. Vg.; δὲ reads ws ὅμοιον ἀνθρώπου : B, omits ὡς; Text. Ree, reads ὡς ἄνθρωπος with P 1. 8. ἕν καθ᾽ ἕν αὐτῶν. With AP (B, omits αὐτῶν) ; Text. Rec. ἕν καθ᾽ ἑαυτό. ἔχων. With Α 1; Text. Rec. εἶχον with δὲ Primas. Vg.; B, reads ἔχον; Ῥ ἔχοντα. γέμουσιν. Text. Rec. reads γέμοντα with 1. 9. ϑώσουσιν. Primas. reads dederant (=? ἔδωκαν); Vg. darent (= φ δώσωσιν NB? dwow Areth.). In v. 10 Haussleiter edits cadebunt adorabunt. 10. πεσοῦνται. δὲ has καὶ πεσ. 11. ὁ κύριος καὶ ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν. Text. Rec. with 1 substitutes κύριε ; δὲ prefixes this to text. IV. 2.] NOTES. 73 ἦσαν καὶ ἐκτίσθησαν. With δὲ and most versions (including Tyconius); Text. Rec. reads εἰσὶν καὶ ἐκτίσθησαν with P 1 arm.; B, οὐκ ἦσαν Kal ἐκτίσθησαν; A omits καὶ ἐκτίσθησαν ; Primas. omits ἦσαν καί. Cu. IV. 1—9. HEAVEN OPENED. 1. μετὰ ταῦτα. This seems to be a new vision rather than a con- tinuation of what goes before. From i. 13 onwards the Seer has been in spirit in the Heavenly Tabernacle listening to the Heavenly High Priest: now he is for a moment on earth again with heaven far above εἶδον καὶ ἰδού. “1 beheld, and lo!” as v. 6, 11 &c.; Dan. vii. 6, 11 ἄο. It is not, of course, implied that he changed the direction of his gaze. ἠνεῳγμένη. The participle is used without any verb; he saw the door standing open, he did not see it opened. ἡ φωνὴ ἡ πρώτη ἣν ἤκουσα ὡς σάλπιγγος λαλούσης per’ ἐμοῦ, See ΤΟ Τ τὺ, The true construction and sense is, ‘‘Lo a door set open in heaven, and [lo] the first voice which I had heard as of a trumpet talking with me.” λέγων. The participle does not agree with the substantive ‘‘ voice,” and perhaps we ought to render “one saying.” Seei. 10 n. peta ταῦτα. Lit., “After these things,” as in i. 19: i.e. perhaps after the state of things described in the Letters to the Seven Churches. See note L.c, 2. ἐγενόμην ἐν πνεύματι, Asi. 10q.v. Up till now, though seeing a supernatural sight, and hearing a supernatural voice, he had not felt himself brought into a supernatural state. ἔκειτο, i.e. was there already—not that he saw it put in its place. There is a description of the Throne of God in the apocryphal Book of Enoch xiv. 17—23, very like this: probably St John had read it (οἵ. Jude 15), and his language shews quotations of it, as well as of the canonical passages in Ezek. i. and Dan. vii. ἐπὶ τὸν θρόνον καθήμενος. God the Father, not the Trinity: the manifestation of the other Persons being otherwise indicated, ver. 5, and v.6. It is intimated, though with an intentional vagueness, that the Divine Presence was symbolised by a human Form, as in Is. vi. 1, 5; Ezek. i. 26 sq.; Dan. vii. 9: contrast Deut. iv. 12, but compare Exod. xxiv. 10, 11, xxxiii. 23. Apparently God revealed Himself by such symbols to men whom He had educated to such a point that they should not imagine them to be more than symbols. Therefore perhaps to attempt to include representations of the Father in the range of Christian art is rather of dangerous boldness than ipso facto illegiti- mate: see on this question Ruskin’s Modern Painters, Part ut, Sec. ii, Chap. v. 8 7. 74 REVELATION. [Iv. 3— 8. λίθῳ ἰάσπιδι kal capdiw. Though jasper is the same word in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and modern languages, it appears to have changed its application. The most precious jasper was a quite trans- parent dark green chalcedony. Our opaque jasper, pure red, pure green and black, were all used for engraving, and a rare combination of our opaque red jasper, and the transparent green was known as iasponyx. Apparently our jaspers, including the common sort, with flakes of red, green, and yellow, were all classed as agates: later on that name was limited to transparent moss agates and extended to the ribbon agates known to Theophrastus as ὀνύχιον. The sard is called from the Persian name of its colour, and was certainly the choicest kind of red carnelian, translucent and fiery in colour, but not exactly sparkling. Is the vision, like that in Ex. xxiv. 9—14, sug- gested in any measure by what is seen in gazing up into the depths of an eastern sky? If so, one is taken from the intense light of noon, the other from the suffused glow of evening. κυκλόθεν Tod θρόνου, i.e. forming an arch over it, ὅμοιος ὁράσει σμαραγδίνῳ. As λίθῳ is not repeated, possibly σμαραγδίνῳ agrees with ὁράσει : so Prim. and Vulgate; the latter translates as if there were genitives in the previous clause. There is no doubt what stone is meant; we have only the question whether the rainbow was all green, or only produced the same effect on the eye as an emerald—brilliant yet not dazzling. The ancients felt very strongly the relief given to the eye by looking at it, and valued it the more because it was the only really precious stone of which they were able to bring out the full lustre. The rainbow in any case represents God’s revelation by a covenant of grace, Gen. ix. 13 sqq. 4. θρόνους εἴκοσι τέσσαρας. ‘ Twenty-four thrones.” Cf. ii. 13 n.; Dan. vil. 9. If θρόνους is right it must depend on εἶδον. εἴκοσι τέσσαρας πρεσβυτέρους. If we read τοὺς before εἴκοσι it would still be uncertain whether the writer meant ‘upon the thrones to wit the twenty-four,’ or ‘ the twenty-four elders,’ assuming this number to be known like that of the seven thunders, x. 3. If so, the reference is to Is. xxiv. 23 ἐνώπιον τών πρεσβυτέρων δοξασθήσεται. If not, we have the choice between two views, both leading to substantially the same result: (i) that the Elders are the twelve Patriarchs, the heads of the tribes of Israel, together with the twelve Apostles, the heads of the new People of God: (ii) that they answer to the heads of the twenty- four courses of the Priests, 1 Chr. xxiv.: these probably suggested the twenty-four representatives of Israel who daily recited the eighteen benedictions in the second Temple (Smith’s Dictionary of Christian Biography, u.606b). The title of those assessors to the divine Throne is already found in Is. xxiv. 23: and the conception of the twelve Apostles answering to the twelve Tribes appears in Matt. xix. 28, Luke xxii, 30, as well as in this book, xxi, 12, 14. The resemblance between this passage and those in the O. T. and Gospels is not com- plete—in the account of the Judgement, xx. 11, the Elders are not mentioned: still on the whole they support the former interpretation, IV. 6.] NOTES. 75 But perhaps the second is not inconsistent with it, for the Elders have certainly a priestly character. They are not called Priests in y. 10 according to the true text, and their white robes, though suitable, are not peculiar to priests: but they act as priests in v. 8. Hither way of explaining their nwmber points to the same explanation of their office: they are the glorified embodiment and representatives of the people of God. στεφάνους χρυσοῦς. Probably depends like πρεσβυτέρους on εἶδον in v.1; unless we are to supply something like “ wearing”’ from περιβε- βλημένους. Στεῴφάνους does not necessarily imply royal crowns. We have διαδήματα in xix. 12; but probably we are to infer that the elders are kings as well as priests, cf. Zech. vi. 11—13. δ. ἑπτὰ λαμπάδες. Typified by the seven lamps of the candlestick in the Tabernacle, and represented by the ‘seven golden candle- sticks” of the Church on earth: see oni. 20. The significance of the seven-branched candlestick in relation especially to the Spirit is sug- gested in Zech. iv. ἑπτὰ πνεύματα. See the last note but one oni. 4. 6. θάλασσα ὑαλίνη. As there was a brazen “sea’’ in front of Solomon’s Temple, 1 Kings vii. 23 &c. We find from xi. 19, xv. 5, &e. that St John was now in front of the heavenly Temple—whether the Throne was inside it seems doubtful: xvi. 17 looks asif it were; xi. 19 as ifit were not. That Temple had a real sea in front of it—sea-like in extent, no doubt, but a glassy sea, calm and transparent, and ap- parently solid, xv. 2: its earthly representative (see Kcclus. 1. 3, and note on ii. 17 above) was hardly more than a tank, though richly ornamented. ὁμοία κρυστάλλῳ. ‘Like unto crystal.” Ancient glass being not so clear as ours, a further term of comparison seemed necessary. The word may mean “ice,” but xxi. 11 confirms the A.V. ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ θρόνου kal κύκλῳ τοῦ θρόνου. It is not quite clear how they are placed—whether with their bodies partly wnder the Throne, or only so far ‘‘in the midst”’ of it, that each of the four was in (or opposite to) the middle of one of its four sides. In Ezek. i. 22 we see that the Cherubim support the Throne of God, which points to the first view. τέσσερα ζῷα. Vg. quattuor animalia: ‘‘Animal’” was not fully naturalized when our version was made, and was commonly supposed to be a synonym of ‘‘beast,” see New English Dictionary, sub voce, so that there would have been no gain for popular intelligence. In Ezek. i. 5, (where it was impossible to translate ‘ beasts,” and the Hebrew word is cognate to life,) A.V. has “living creatures” as R.V. has here. Possibly the translators of this book in A.V. intended to mark the difference between the preterhuman appearance of the throne-bearers in this vision, and their human appearance in Ezekiel at the price of obliterating the distinction between θηρίον in xiii. sqq. and ζῴα. 76 REVELATION. [Iv. 7— 7. The description of these living creatures does not exactly agree with any of the O.T. parallels: in Ezek. i., which is the nearest, the four Cherubim, as they are called, have human figures and calves’ feet; and each has four faces, of the same four animals as these: also they have each four wings, while these have six, like the Seraphim of Is. vi. 2. Probably the meaning is, that ees represent the Cherubim and Seraphim who ‘continually do ery ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth’.” We have no reason to suppose that the Angels, or these super-angelic Beings, have proper bodies or invariable forms: they appear in such forms as may please God, or may be appropriate to the purpose for which He bids them appear. For further discussion as to their meaning, see Excursus I. ἔχων. Is as likely to be a misspelling resting on mispronunciation as a false concord. Pausanias of Cesarea in Cappadocia and a famous pupil of Herodes Atticus habitually confounded long and short letters, a common Syrian fault. 8. Kal td τέσσερα ζῷα.... Render, ‘‘And the four living creatures, having each of them six wings apiece, are full of eyes round about and within”; i.e. the statement of v. 6, that they are “full of eyes before and behind,” is extended to tell us that they are covered with eyes, not only on the parts ordinarily visible; but that when they spread their wings (and the Hagle at least was in the attitude of flight) it is seen that the inside of the wings, and the parts beneath, are full of eyes too. ἀνάπαυσιν οὐκ ἔχουσιν. The order of words makes it doubtful whether ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς should be connected with these words or with λέγοντες: but xiv. 11 (where the same words occur in a very different sense) proves that the former view is right. There is some resemblance between this place and Enoch xxxix. 11, where Is. vi. 3 is referred to, much as here: it is hardly likely that St John had the passage from Enoch in his mind. ἅγιος ἅγιος ἅγιος. Is. vi. 3. It will be observed that ‘‘ Almighty” represents the Heb. ‘‘[God] of Hosts”: see on 1. 8. ὁ ἣν καὶ ὁ ὧν κατιλ. Cf. i. 4. 9—11. Tuer ΗΟΜΑΘῈ ΟΕ THE ELDERS. 9. Kal ὅταν δώσουσιν τὰ twa.... The meaning of the futures is doubtful: some take them as ‘‘implying eternal repetition of the act.” Or the meaning may be (if one may say so reverently) a sort of stage direction: ‘“‘during the future course of the vision, these (who never leave the scene) are to be understood to be thus employed.” But it is always a question in this book whether the use of tenses be not ac- commodated to the rules of Hebrew rather than Greek grammar: the sense may after all be merely frequentative. 10. βαλοῦσιν. Alford compares Tac. Ann. xy. xxix. 3, 6, where Tiridates lays down his crown before the image of Nero, as a token of homage for his kingdom, ΝᾺ NOTES. 77 11. ἄξιος el. Here we have the praise of God the Creator by His creatures as such: in the next ch, we have the praise of the Redeemer. λαβεῖν. Generally explained in the sense that by ascribing these things to God His creatures render Him what is His due: it would be possible also to explain it in the sense of εἴληφας xi. 17; God has a a to take to Himself allgmanner of preeminence in the world He as made, διὰ τὸ θέλημά σου. “Because it pleased Thee’: ‘for Thy pleasure” in A.V. does not necessarily mean ‘‘that Thou mightest delight Thyself in them”; ‘‘ pleasure ’’=“‘ good pleasure.” ἦσαν. Not ‘they came into being,” but ‘they had their being” as the simple verb substantive is very well translated in Acts xvii. 28, CHAPTER V. 1. ἔσωθεν καὶ ὄπισθεν. With A; N reads ἔμπροσθεν καὶ ὄπισθεν : Orig. in different places is quoted for this reading, for ἔσωθεν καὶ ἔξωθεν the reading of B,P Hipp. And., and for the text. 3. οὐρανῷ. B, adds ἄνω (? from Ex. xx. 4). οὐδὲ ὑποκάτω τῆς γῆς. N 12 wth. omit these words, which are placed after βλέπειν αὐτὸ in 1 4, 5. A omits v. 4 which the Latin version of Origen quotes thus: sed ego flebam...et venit quidam ad me et dixit (πρεσβυτέρων and προσελθὼν might be confounded if contracted). kal [ἐγὼ]. Tisch. omits ἐγὼ with XP 1 arm. cop. πολύ. Orig. omits; Text. Rec. reads πολλά apparently without MS. support: 1 arm. (cdd.) eth. read πολλοί ; cop. πάντες. δ. ἀνοῖξαι. B, reads ὁ ἀνοίγων. 6. καὶ εἶδον. With NB,P 1 Cyp. Primas.; Text. Rec. reads καὶ εἶδον καὶ ἰδού with Vg.; A reads καὶ ἰδού. ἑστηκώς. With δὲ 1; Text. Rec. ἑστηκὸς with AB,P. ἔχων. With SAB,; Text. Rec. and Lachmann read ἔχον with P. 7. εἴληφεν. B, adds τὴν ; Text. Rec. τὸ βιβλίον with 1 and all Latin authorities. 8. ἔχοντες ἕκαστος. & reads ἕκαστος ἔχοντες ; Hipp. omits ἕκαστος. κιθάραν. Text. Rec. reads κιθάρας with 1 Hipp. And. ? andall Latins. αἵ εἰσιν. NB, have a εἰσιν. 9. ἄδουσιν. A reads adwow, which clearly rests on mispronuncia- tion; not as is generally assumed, where MSS. are divided between future indicatives and aorist subjunctives, on grammatical idiosyn- crasies of the writer. ἠγόρασας τῷ θεῷ. A reads τῷ Hes ἡμῶν, and omits these words after ἐπ. αὐτοὺς in the next verse; 1 cop. omit τῴ θεῷ, which eth. inserts after ἐν τῷ αἵματί cov; Text. Rec. adds ἡμᾶς with NBP 1 and Latins, 78 REVELATION. ΓΞ 10. ἐποίησας αὐτούς. Text. Rec. reads ἐπ. ἡμᾶς with all Latin au- thorities, except Cyp. and cod. am. βασιλείαν. Text. Rec. reads βασιλεῖς with By. βασιλεύσουσιν. With SP 1; Lachmann reads βασιλεύουσιν with AB, ; Text. Rec. reads βασιλεύσομεν with Primas. and Vg. 12. ἄξιον. Tisch. reads ἄξιος with A. 13. καὶ ὑποκάτω τῆς γῆς. δὲ cop. arm. omit these words. - τῆς θαλάσσης. Lachmann adds ἐστιν with A; Text. Rec. adds ἅ ἐστιν with By. πάντα. Tisch. adds καὶ with & and B,, which reads πάντα καὶ πάντας. 14. προσεκύνησαν. Text. Rec. adds ζῶντι εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων with Primas. and late Vg. Cu. V. 1—8. Tue Boox wirn Seven Srats. 1. ἐπὶ τὴν δεξιάν. Perhaps the simplest explanation of the case is that in a decaying language an illiterate writer who knew that ἐπὶ was used with three cases took the accusative, where his phrase did not suggest the correct case as in ὁ καθήμενος ἐπὶ τῷ θρόνῳ: possibly we are to understand that, as the book had not been seen before, the construction marks a new feature in the Vision, as if the book were so to speak an addition to the Hand. It lies in any case upon the open palm. βιβλίον, 1.6. a roll; the ordinary meaning for the equivalent words in all ancient literature, though books arranged in leaves like ours were not unknown. γεγραμμένον ἔσωθεν καὶ ὄπισθεν. So Ezek. ii. 10. It was a recog- nised but quite exceptional way of getting an unusual amount of matter into a single volume: such rolls were called opisthographi. See Juv. i. 6, where he complains of an interminable poem, ‘written till the margin at the top of the book is full, and on the back, and not finished yet.” Ancient commentators who knew this still found many mysteries in the distinction between what was written without and what was written within. If we are to ask, how St John saw that it was thus written, it may be said that he saw that there was writing on the part outside, between the seals, and took for granted that this implied that the side folded inwards was full of writing too. But perhaps this is too minute: St John saw the book now, and learnt (either now or afterwards) how it was written. κατεσφραγισμένον. See Is. xxix. 11, Dan. xii. 4. The seals are along the edge of one end of the roll. The traditional view, so far as there is one, of this sealed book is, that it represents the Old Testament, or more generally the prophecies of Scripture, which are only made intelligible by their fulfilment in Christ. But Christ’s fulfilment of prophecy was, in St John’s time, to a great extent past;>.and he was told (iv. 1) that V. 5. NOTES. 9 what he was now to see was concerned with the future. Many post- Reformation commentators, both Romanist and Protestant, have supposed the book to be the Apocalypse itself: some supposing, by a further refinement, that the seven seals were so arranged that, when each was opened, a few lines of the book could be unrolled, viz. those describing what was seen after its opening: while the opening of the last would enable the whole roll to be spread out. But of this there is not the smallest evidence in the Apocalypse itself: nor do we ever find the Prophets of Scripture repre- senting, as Mahomet did, that their writings are copies of an original archetype in Heaven; though apparently the angel, Dan. x. 21, has read in Heaven what he declares to the seer on earth. Most modern commentators therefore generalise, and suppose that it is the Book of God’s counsels. Some insist on the fact that, though the seals are all broken, ‘‘no portion of the roll is actually unfolded, nor is anything read out of the book”: they suppose it to stand for the complete counsel of God, which will not become in- telligible till it has all been fulfilled, not therefore before the end of time. But this book tells us what is to happen until all has been fulfilled, until time has ended: and why then do we not hear of the opening of the book, even if it be not for us yet to know what is written therein? And to this we may answer, we are told, xx. 12, of the opening of a very important Book, the Book of Life; and that Book belongs to the Lamb that was slain, xiii. 8, xxi. 27. Is not then this Book the same as that? so that the opening of it will be “the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom. viii. 19). 3. οὐδείς. ‘* No one ”—the term includes others as well as men. ὑποκάτω τῆς γῆς, 1.6. in the world of the dead. In view of ver. _13, we can hardly make it mean ‘‘in the sea,” on the analogy of Ex. xx. 4 fin. See on v. 13. οὔτε βλέπειν αὐτό. Which would have enabled him to read some fragments of its contents, viz. as much as was written on the outer fold of the back of the roll. 4. καὶ [ἐγὼ]. The pronoun if genuine is emphatic: ‘‘no one could open it: I for my part wept for the impossibility.” Why he wept will be variously explained, according to the view taken of the meaning of the Book. If it be the Book of Life, the reason is ob- vious ; if it be the future purposes of God, the impossibility of opening it threatened to disappoint the promise of iv. 1. δ. eis ἐκ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων. Cf. vii. 13, xv. 7, xvii. 1, xxi. 9. ὁ λέων ὁ ἐκ τῆς φυλῆς IovSa. Gen. xlix. 9. ἡ ῥίία Δανείδ. xxii. 16; Is. xi. 1, 10, where however we have the Root of Jesse. Some distinguish the two phrases, as if Christ were said to grow from the obscure Jesse in reference to the time of His humiliation, from the kingly David in reference to His exaltation. But this shews a misconception of the original figure, which is taken from a tree that seemed to be dying, like the house of David in the 80 REVELATION. [V. 5— days of Ahaz (Is. vii. 13): then a new and stately stem shoots up from the root. ἀνοῖξαι. Christ’s victory (won upon earth, which is an argument that the whole of the context is Christian) has this consequence that He can ‘‘open.”” The well supported variant ὁ ἀνοίγων is grammatic- ally easier and less effective—both presumptions in favour of the text. 6. καὶ εἶδον. There is high ancient authority for substituting καὶ ἰδοὺ, and some for adding it. ἐν μέσῳ Tov θρόνου. See on iv. 6. In this passage, the sense might be merely ‘‘in the centre of the (semicircular?) space sur- rounded by...,”’ but vii. 17 disproves this. lf it be not rash to attempt to work out the details of the picture, I would conjecture that the four living creatures were under the four corners of the Throne, with their heads and wings projecting beyond it: and the Lamb stood in the midst of the front of it, appearing as proceeding from between the feet of Him who sat thereon. ἀρνίον. See 15. 1111. 7: John i. 29, 36. Too much importance has been given to the fact that St John uses a different Greek word here from that in his Gospel, and in the LXX. of Isaiah. It is doubtful whether the LXX. is used in the O.T. references in this book; and the form here used is a diminutive and a neuter. It is awkward to use a neuter noun of a Person; but in this book St John boldly uses masculines in reference to the Lamb (as in his Gospel he once or twice does in reference to the Spirit): while in the Gospel he is less regardless of grammatical rules, and therefore prefers the masc. form. ἑστηκὼς ὡς ἐσφαγμένον. If ἑστηκὼς be right we should surely read ἰδοὺ above, a masculine nominative participle agreeing with a neuter accusative would be almost incredibly harsh. The construction calls attention to the paradox—a Lamb appearing with its throat cut, yet not lying dead or dying, but standing. It serves to typify ‘‘Him that liveth and was dead, and is alive for evermore” (i. 18). The risen Christ bore, and doubtless bears, the wounds of His Passion un- altered—unhealed, though apparently not bleeding, John xx. 25, 27. κέρατα ἑπτὰ κιτιλ. The Spirit is made to Him both strength and wisdom. The horn is throughout the Bible the symbol of conquering might and glory: see e.g. 1 Kings xxii. 11; Zech. i. 18 sqq., while 1 Sam. ii. 1, &c. shew that divine glory as well as earthly may be so expressed. For the seven eyes, see Zech. iii. 9, iv. 10. τὰ ἑπτὰ πνεύματα. 1. 4, iv. 5. ἀπεσταλμένοι. Taken, of course, from Zech. iv. 10 already re- ferred to. The seven lamps of iv. 5 represent the Spirit as eternally proceeding from and belonging to the Father: these represent Him as sent by the Son and belonging to the Son. 7. Kal ἦλθεν καὶ εἴληφεν. The absence of an object for εἴληφεν is very strange: and the difficulties of this book are due rather as a rule to redundancies than to ellipses: the perfect after the aorist V. 9.] NOTES. 81 is very strange also; cf. however Ev. Petri ἐχάρησαν δὲ οἱ Iovdata καὶ δεδώκασι τῷ Ἰωσὴφ τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ. Winer’s reference p. 340 to the custom of scholiasts, who explain an aorist verb in the text by a verb in the perfect, is irrelevant; the aorist is far commoner than the perfect in the language of the New Testament, whatever it may be in the language of scholiasts, and probably scholiasts use the perfect in explaining the matter of a book for the same reason as ancient and modern commentators use the present in discussing a writer who lived long ago: we say, ‘“‘he says, he means, he sees, &c.” Cf. note on πῶς εἴληφας καὶ ἤκουσας (111. 3). 8. ἔχοντες ἕκαστος κιθάραν. The singular is certainly right, though nearly all Latin Versions, and fathers, and most late Greek MSS., alter it to suit φιάλας. If we attempt to carry the image into detail it is obvious that it was as impossible for the elders literally to play their harps and hold their bowls as it would be to speak while holding a two-edged sword in the mouth; up to a certain point it is not more difficult to picture the Living Creatures holding harps than the Lamb taking the Book and breaking the seals; nor is it more unfit that Cherubim and Seraphim should present the prayers of Saints than that a single Angel should bless them, as in viii. 3 sq. φιάλας χρυσᾶς. The ‘‘vials’ are broad open bowls; more like saucers than any vessel in modern use: it is a curious question how the word came to mean a bottle: apparently the φιάλη was inter- mediate between the κρατήρ and the drinking cup: it served the purpose of a bottle, and so the bottle, when it replaced it, took its name: the oldest French instance of jfiole in the sense of bottle is in Joinville’s Life of St Lowis, who kept a large bottle of wine and another of water on his table so that his knights might mix for themselves ; but the change is probably older, as Henry III. provided an onyx phiola for his shrine of Edward the Confessor, which pro- bably resembled the perfume jars of the same material called ἀλά- gaan, as having no handles, used in French cathedrals to hold the oly oil. αἵ εἰσιν αἱ προσευχαί. If ai be right, and if we are to press the grammar, it is the ‘‘vials’’ with their contents, not merely the ‘‘odours,’”’ which are identified with the ‘‘prayers.” See viii. 3 and note there. Cf. Ps. exli. (exl. LXX.) 2 κατευθυνθήτω ἡ προσευχή μου ὡς θυμίαμα ἐν ὠπιόν σου. 9—14. Tue New Sona. 9, ἄδουσιν. This may be only an historic present, but perhaps, though to the Seer the song of adoration appeared to begin now, and to stop in time to let other voices be heard, he means to intimate that in fact their adoration is continued to eternity. See on iv. 9, 10. ἠγόρασας. Prim. emisti, Vg. redemisti. The distinction between the two (for instance Eph. ν. 16, Col. iv. 5, redimentes is a quite correct translation of ἐξαγοραζόμενοι) exists far Jess in Latin than in modern English, where the word has come to mean that the effect of REVELATION r 82 REVELATION. [V. 9— the purchase is to restore those bought either to their rightful owner or to liberty (neither of these can be intended in A.V. ‘‘ redeeming the time”). Here of course both are true, but all that this text expresses is that Christ has bought us, and that we now belong to His Father (in 1 Cor. vi. 20, vii. 23; 2 Pet. ii. 1 both Vg. and A.V. have the simple verb). The elders probably represent the whole multitude of the redeemed, but they are not here said to belong to that number, and the living creatures certainly do not. The insertion of ἡμᾶς after ἠγόρασας though very well attested is condemned by the following αὐτούς after ἐποίησας. τῷ θεῷ. Notice that the phrase is the exact reverse of some lax modern language on the Atonement, which speaks as if the Son redeemed men from the Father. To say that Christ redeemed men from God’s wrath may be justified (e.g. by Gal. iii. 13) ; but even that mode of expression is not exactly scriptural. Since St Anselm’s time most competent theologians have refrained from pressing the metaphor of a ransom which is frequent in Scripture. ἐκ πάσης φυλῆς καὶ γλώσσης kal λαοῦ Kal ἔθνους. Cf. Dan. iii. 4 and parallels. The three terms there are made into four here, perhaps because neither of the Greek versions translates consistently, but each sometimes uses λαὸς and sometimes ἔθνος. All surviving MSS. and versions of our Book always give both, though the order is sometimes such as to suggest the question whether one or other is not an afterthought. The passage is generally and rightly explained as fully parallel to vii. 9, 10, and so the first of many indications in this Book of the catholicity of the Church, and of course a con- clusive refutation of the theories (see on ii. 2) which ascribe to this Book a controversial anti-Pauline purpose, and a spirit of Jewish exclusiveness. There is really hardly anything in St Paul so strong as this or vii. 9. But if this passage stood alone, it might be ex- plained as a parallel to Is. lxvi. 20 of the redemption of the literal Israel out of all nations to be a royal priesthood. 10. βασιλείαν καὶ ἱερεῖς. See on i. 6 for the origin of the phrase. βασιλεύ[σ]ουσιν. Authorities are nearly evenly divided between the present and future, and from the nature of the case authorities have here to be counted not weighed. Perhaps the present is to be preferred, as the more difficult in sense; the future could be easily understood of the millennial reign (xx. 4), whatever that means. If we accept the present, it can hardly be used for a future; every one must feel that ii. 22, &c. are not really parallel: rather, we may say that the faithful on earth are, even in their exile, kings de jure, as David was ‘‘when he was in the wilderness of Judah” (Ps. 1xiii. ult., cf. title). 11. καὶ εἶδον. Here we might almost translate “in my vision,” though it is no doubt implied that he saw the Angels whose voice he heard. κύκλῳ. We cannot tell if they formed a complete circle round the ‘Throne, or a semicircle between it and the Seer, or a semicircle on the Υ͂. 14] NOTES. 83 side away from him. But though we cannot answer these questions, it is worth while to ask them: for it is plain that St John did see a definite picture. μυριάδες μυριάδων. Lit. ‘myriads of myriads,” the Greek (and He- brew) language haying a single word for the number 10,000: so that the effect is asif we should say ‘‘millions of millions and thousands of thousands”’ (in Gen. xxiv. 60 words equivalent to these are translated ‘thousands of millions”). In Dan. vii. 10 the order is the reverse, ‘‘thousand thousands...and ten thousand times ten thousand,” with the obvious motive of a climax: here the effect is, ‘‘ there were hun- dreds of millions massed together, and if you counted those in the mass, the numbers you would leave over would be millions still.” The passage in Daniel is also imitated in Enoch xiy. 24, xl. 1. 12. λέγοντες. The nominative would have been the correct con- struction if the number of the angels could have been expressed by a masculine adjective, and is still more natural than the genitive. ἄξιον... λαβεῖν. See on iv. 11. Here (referring to Heb. i. 2) we might paraphrase: ‘“‘ The Son is worthy to enter on His Heritage.” The Kingdom of the Son of David increases without end, Is. ix. 7. τὴν δύναμιν «.7.A. Perhaps the single article may be intended to mark that all the seven members of the gift are inseparable, 13. πᾶν κτίσμα. Cf. Phil. ii, 10, 11. ὑποκάτω τῆς γῆς. See onv.3. It seems-harsh to understand the words of an unwilling cooperation of the devils in glorifying God and His Son, besides that Jude 6 seems hardly to prove that all fallen spirits are yet confined ‘‘under the earth”: Matt. viii. 29 compared with Luke vili. 31, not to mention the ‘‘ Wars in Heaven” xii. 7, 9, suggests the contrary. It is more possible to suppose the dead, even the holy dead, to be described as ‘‘under the earth,” Ps, xxii. 29. In Enoch lxii. we have a hymn, somewhat resembling those of this Book, actually sung by the souls of the lost—apparently in the inter- vals of their suffering. The souls of the Martyrs appear from this Book to be in Heaven, vi. 9 sqq.: but we cannot be sure that this is true of all the faithful, and it is not certain that a disembodied soul can be said, except figuratively, to be in any place at all: so that the place where their bodies lie is perhaps the only place where the dead can properly be said to be. ἐπὶ τῆς θθλάσσης. This, like ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, includes both human and animal life: the former is the explanation of λέγοντας in the mas- culine just below. ἡ εὐλογία κιτιλ. The article is repeated with each noun inten- tionally. Whatever power and riches..., whatever blessing and honour... the world contains, all belong of right to Him. Watts’ “Blessings more than we can give” is a perfectly legitimate de- velopment of the sense. 14. Kal οἱ πρεσβύτεροι ἔπεσαν kal προσεκύνησαν. The brevity of the phrase, imitating their silent adoration, is really grander than the complete sentence of the Received Text. F2 84 REVELATION. [V1I.— CHAPTER VI. 1. εἶδον. Primas. omits. λέγοντος ὡς φωνὴ βροντῆς. A reads ws φ. B. λέγοντος ; Primas. omits ws φ. B.; δὲ reads λεγόντων ὡς φωνὴν β.; Text. Rec. with P 1 λέγοντος ὡς φωνῆς B. 1,2. ἔρχον. καὶ εἶδον, καὶ ἰδού. NB, and Latin read ἔρχου καὶ ἴδε, καὶ ἰδού; hence Text. Rec. reads ἔρχου καὶ βλέπε from Vg. 2. νικῶν. A arm. read ὁ νικῶν (arm. omitting the following καί). καὶ ἵνα νικήσῃ. N reads καὶ ἐνίκησεν ; Primas. Et exiit ut vinceret et victor exitt. 3. ἔρχου. Text. Rec. adds καὶ βλέπε; N καὶ ἴδε ; Latt. et vide, 4, καὶ ἐξῆλθεν. δὲ reads καὶ ἴδον, καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐξῆλθεν. ἐδόθη αὐτῷ. N°A omit αὐτῴ. σφάξουσιν with AC 36; Text. Rec. reads σφάξωσιν with NB,P 1 ὅσο. δ. ἔρχου with ACP; Text. Rec. καὶ βλέπε; NB, καὶ ide; Latt. et vide. καὶ εἶδον, kal ἰδού. B, omits καὶ εἶδον ; Primas. omits καὶ ἰδού. 7. ἔρχου with ACP; Text. Rec. adds καὶ βλέπε with NB, (καὶ ἴδε) and Latt.; B, and several MSS. of Vg. omit καὶ εἶδον, and Primas. καὶ ἰδοὺ, in v. 8. 8. ἠκολούθει per’ αὐτοῦ. Origen quotes this as if he read ὁ θάνατος, καὶ ὁ ἅδης ἀκολουθεῖ αὐτοῖς. ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς. B, &c. read ἐδ. αὐτῷ. ὑπὸ τῶν θηρ. A reads τὸ τέταρτον τῶν θηρίων. 9. τῶν ἐσφαγμένων. Clem. reads μεμαρτυρηκότων ; Hipp. τῶν πε- πελεκισμένων, as XX. 4. NP 1 read τῶν ἀνθρώπων τῶν eco. διὰ τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ διὰ THY μαρτ. ἣν εἶχ. Hipp. reads διὰ τὸ ὄνομα ᾿Ιησοῦ; Cyp. Primas. propter verbum Dei et martyrium suum. 10. ἔκραξαν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ, λέγοντες. Hipp. reads καὶ ἐβόησαν καὶ εἶπον πρὸς τὸν θεόν. 11. ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς ἑκάστῳ στολὴ λευκή. Hipp. reads ἐδόθησαν αὐτοῖς στολαὶ λευκαὶ, and so Vg.; Primas. datae sunt eis singulis stolae albae (omitting the rest of the verse which Cyp. recognises); B, omits ἑκάστῳ. ἀναπαύσωνται. Hipp. reads περιμείνωσιν. πληρώσωσιν. Hipp. adds τὴν μαρτ. αὐτῶν; AC read πληρωθώσιν. καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ αὐτῶν. Hipp. omits these words. 12. καὶ σεισμὸς with NB,CP 1 and early Vg.*; Text. Rec. reads καὶ ἰδοὺ σεισμὸς with A and late Vg. μέγας ἐγένετο with NB,CP; A reads ἐγένετο μέγας. ἐγένετο μέλας with ACP; Tisch. reads μέλας ἐγένετο with NB,. VI. 41 NOTES. 85 ὅλη. Text. Rec. omits with P 1. 13. τοὺ οὐρανοῦ. Primas. omits; A reads τοῦ θεοῦ. βάλλει. Tisch. reads βάλλουσα with δὲ and many cursives, 14. νῆσος. N reads βουνός. ἐκινήθησαν. N* reads ἐκίνησαν ; ἀπεκείνησαν. 15. καὶ οἱ χιλίαρχοι, καὶ οἱ πλούσιοι, καὶ οἱ ἰσχυροί. Cop, omits καὶ οἱ χιλίαρχοι; A omits the first καὶ; 1 36 read καὶ οἱ πλούσιοι καὶ οἱ χιλ.; 1 86 aeth. omit καὶ οἱ ἰσχυροί. 11. αὐτῶν with NC syr. vg. Text. Rec. Lach. Weiss. read αὐτοῦ with ABP. THE OPENING OF THE SEVEN SEALS, Cu. VI. 1, 2. THe First ΒΉΜΑΤΙ, 1. μίαν ἐκ τῶν ἑπτὰ σφραγίδων. It is noteworthy that in this first Vision we have ‘‘one,’’ not ‘‘the first,’ as in the Visions of the ‘“«Trumpets’’ and “Vials.” μία, in the New Testament, does stand for the first day of the week with and without the article, and with the article in ix. 12 it certainly seems to stand for the first Woe. ἑνὸς ἐκ τῶν τεσσάρων. Presumably the Lion, as the other voices are described as those of the second, third, and fourth. But the voice like thunder, cf. x. 3, does not refer to the lion’s roaring: no doubt the other three voices were as loud. ὡς φωνὴ βροντῆς. These words have no precise construction; it is to be supposed that the first term of the comparison is left to be imagined from λέγοντος. ἔρχου. See critical note. καὶ ἴδε is almost certainly spurious and is not even a correct gloss. If the Seer needed to be bidden draw nigh (which he does not) the word would probably be δεῦρο as in xvii. 1, xxi. 9, and certainly he would only be bidden once. It would be less impossible to suppose, comparing xxii. 17, 20, that the cry is addressed to the Lord Jesus. His creatures pray Him to come—and behold, instead of His coming immediately, there come those terrible precursors of His, so increasingly unlike Him. If so, why is He not named as in xxii. 20, though not in 17? Moreover the scene is in Heaven, where He is visibly present, and the seals have to be opened one by one. The whole meaning of the phrase is that each of the living creatures by turns summons one of the four Horsemen, 2. ἰδοὺ ἵππος λευκός. The image of these four horses is certainly suggested by the vision of four chariots (with perhaps four horses in each, and so related to this exactly as Ezekiel’s vision of the living creatures to that in ch, iv.) in Zech. vi. 1—8; οἵ. ibid. i. 8. But that passage throws little light on this: it is in fact the obscurer of the two. Here, the colours of the four horses plainly symbolise triumph, slaughter, mourning, and death; we are told expressly who the fourth Rider is: and hardly anyone doubts that the second and 86 REVELATION. [VI. 2— third represent War and Scarcity respectively. But about the first there is controversy. His white horse and golden crown resemble His Who appears in xix. 11, Whose Name is called the Word of God: and hence many think that this Rider is Christ, or at least the representative of Christ’s Kingdom. But is it possible that when He has come, the plagues that follow should come after Him? or why should the living creatures continue to cry to Him to come, if He be come already? It would be more credible, that the first Rider is a false Christ, just as Matt. xxiv. 5 precedes vv. 6,7. But on the whole it seems more reasonable to suppose that all four Riders symbolise the woes before Christ’s coming foretold in the two latter verses: and that the first is the spirit of Conquest:—the de- scription is like that in ch. xix., because there Christ is described as a Conqueror, and here we have a Conqueror who is nothing more. Then what is the difference between the first and the second Rider? Conquest is necessarily painful—it may be unjust and cruel, but it may be beneficent even to the conquered: at least it is not neces- sarily demoralising to the conquerors, as war becomes when it sinks from conquest into mere mutual slaughter. This Rider has a bow, that a sword, which may mean more than a contrast between the national weapons of the East and the West: the first is prepared to fight, and slay if necessary, but he will do so without passion or cruelty—just as it is commonly observed, that fire-arms have tended to make war less brutal, by removing the soldiers from the excitement of a personal struggle. ἔχων is a predicate, though λευκός is an epithet. ἐδόθη αὐτῷ. Here, as-in ver. 4, we may ask, does the Rider re- ceive the gift for the first time after his appearance to the Seer? This is not necessary here or in Dan. vii. 4, 6, 14, 27, which no doubt suggested the phrase: it is safer to say that the gift is an event of the Vision than that the Seer actually sees it given; in Dan. vii. 4 this would be impossible. Any way, the crown, see on ii. 10, ii. 11, is rather an earnest of future dominion than a guerdon of past achievements. ἐξῆλθεν. If this stood alone we should suppose that the Rider departed out of the field of vision—perhaps out of Heaven—to carry his conquests over the earth. Most commentators assume that ἐξῆλθεν changes its sense with its place: if not, both Riders come forth from a secret place behind the Throne. νικῶν, καὶ ἵνα νικήσῃ. He makes war successfully, but his pur- pose is the securing the victory, not the excitement of battle and carnage. 3, 4. Tue Srconp Suan. 4, ἐδόθη αὐτῷ : see crit. note and on ii. 7. τὴν εἰρήνην. This may mean merely ‘‘peace in general,” ‘peace in the abstract,” but may also stand for ‘‘the peace’’ which the con- quests of the previous Rider have left as their fruit, VI. 6.] NOTES. 87 ἵνα ἀλλήλους σφάξουσιν. This is the first instance of the future with ἵνα, which illiterate ‘‘ barbarians” would think as natural as the future with ὅπως. The MSS. are never unanimous: the editors are by no means always unanimous, nor is it possible, on the hypothesis that the writer conforms fitfully to the common construction, ever to be quite sure whether the MSS. which represent the “regular” or the “irregular” construction are right. No MS. has the ‘‘irregular” con- struction in all the places where it commends itself to a majority of editors. Moreover most of the forms which mark the future or the subjunctive are liable to be confounded with one another. A possible theory is that in this Book wa with the future indicative corresponds to iva with the subjunctive in ordinary Greek, while ἵνα with the subjunctive aorist (which is much commoner than the present) corresponds to iva with the optative. As for the sense, some under- stand this of civil war exclusively: and such wars have indeed most of the character of war as indicated under this seal. But its full meaning perhaps includes all wars, so far as they are aimless blood- shedding, not painful steps towards human progress. Here we can agree almost entirely with the ‘‘continuous historical’ interpreters, who see the fulfilment of these four seals in the reigns of the “five good emperors,” when Trajan carried imperial conquest to its utmost height; in the civil wars and mutinies during and after the age of the Severi; in the famines that followed; and in the general distress that made the Barbarian conquest possible. Only we need not regard their meaning as exhausted in the fifth century (much. less in the third). We may see e.g. the contrast of the two first seals in the Crusades compared with the religious wars of the Reformation: in the conquests of the French Republic and Empire, compared with the Red and the White Terror, and the mutual crimes of the Holy Alliance and the Carbonari: even in our own country, in a comparison of the reigns of Edward III. and Henry V. with those of their respective successors, or of Elizabeth’s with Charles I.’s: while again the civil are of the latter was noble and fruitful compared with the Dutch war of his son. 5, 6. Ture Tuirp Sat. δ. ζυγόν. What follows proves that scarcity rather than op- pression is symbolised. The sense is, that mankind shall be placed on limited rations of bread, like the people in a besieged city; as in Levit. xxvi. 26; Ezek. iv. 16. 6. φωνήν. One of the many voices heard throughout this book without anyone being defined as the speaker. χοῖνιξ olrov. The object of the voice is rather to define the extent of the scarcity than, as some say, to mitigate it. It is notice- able that here as in 2 Kings vii. 18 there is a simple ratio between the price of wheat and that of barley, which is probably due to the fact that they were constantly bartered for each other without the inter- vention of money. The proportion varied in different famines. Joshua the Stylite says that in a famine at Edessa 500 a.p. 4 modii of wheat were sold for a dinar, and six modii of barley for the same. 88 REVELATION. [VI. 6— So too Barhebraeus says that in a famine in Bagdad a.n. 373 (+983 A.D.) wheat was exactly double the price of barley (as in Samaria), a cor of wheat sold for 4080 zuzas and a cor of barley for 2040 zuzas. A quart (or somewhat less) of corn is to be bought for a silver penny (about 83d.): the former was the estimated ration for an able-bodied man’s daily fare, the latter the daily pay of a soldier, apparently a liberal daily pay (see Matt. xx. 2) for a labourer. So there is not such a famine that the poor must starve, and the rich ‘‘give their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul”: the working man can, if he pleases, earn the ordinary necessaries of life for himself: he may even procure a bare comfortless subsistence (for barley, an ordinary article of human food down to the time of the kings of Israel, was now considered as fodder for cattle) for a family, if not too numerous. Meanwhile, nothing is said about the fish and vegetables, which the plain-living man of the Mediterranean ate with his bread, as the plain-living Englishman eats bacon or cheese: but the comparatively superfluous luxuries of wine and oil are carefully protected. In short, we have a picture of ‘‘bad times,” when no one need be absolutely without bare necessaries, and those who can afford it need not go without luxuries, All that we know of the age of the decline of the Roman Empire points to this prophecy having been eminently fulfilled then; but we need not go so far for fulfilments of it any more than of the two former: indeed this is much nearer to us than the Grand Army and the barricades, or Waterloo and Peterloo. 7, 8. Tue Fourtrs SHA. 7. ἤκουσα φωνήν. The slight variation of phrase serves to mark the fourth rider off, as partly distinct in character from the rest. They have brought an increasing series of scourges to the earth: his work is utter and unmitigated woe, combining the worst features of theirs. 8. xAwpéds. ‘‘Livid,” lit. ‘green,’ as in viii. 7, but used constantly of the paleness of the human face when terror-struck, or dead or dying. The colour is certainly symbolical, and it is not certain whether it here expresses a possible colour for a real horse: it seems not very appropriate for the “ grisled” of Zech. vi. 3. ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ. For the previous riders the phrase is ἐπ᾽ αὐτόν; Alford remarks upon the contrast and proposes the rendering ‘‘atop of him,” perhaps taking it to suggest that the spectre (or skeleton or demon?) did not ride astride and manage his horse, but simply sat clumsily on his back. ὄνομα αὐτῷ ὁ θάνατος. Practically a Hebraism for κέκληται ὁ θάνα- τος, which gives rather more emphasis to the name, while maintaining the symmetry by leaving ὁ καθήμενος in the nominative. ὁ aSys. Personified as a demon, as in xx. 13, 14. He follows Death, to devour those slain by him. τὸ τέταρτον τῆς γῆς. Are we to suppose that a fourth part of the earth is a prey to each of the four riders? that the three first VI. 91 NOTES. 89 decimate or afflict their subjects and the last exterminates his? or that sword, famine, and pestilence, cut off the fourth part of men and deliver them to Hades? It would agree with this that a third part is smitten by the plagues of the first four trumpets and of the sixth. The difficulty of this view is that, though θάνατος in the next clause clearly stands for pestilence as in Ezek. xiv. 21 (LXX.), we cannot limit it so here: the Rider on the Pale Horse is sovereign over all four modes of death, though perhaps pestilence is most closely connected with his nature. ἐν ῥομφαίᾳ καὶ ἐν λιμῷ καὶ ἐν θανάτῳ καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων τῆς γῆς. God's ‘‘four sore judgements,” Ezek. xiv. 21, ‘The beasts of the earth,” which have not been hinted at before, are no doubt suggested by the parallel: there is no reason to vary the preposition in English, but in Greek the instrumental Hellenistic ἐν would be ambiguous in the fourth clause, as ἐν τοῖς θηρίοις might mean “among the beasts.’ 9—11. Tue Firra SEAt, 9. This series of seven visions, like the other groups of seven throughout the book, is divided into two parts. We have seen (il. 7, 29) that the messages to the seven Churches were divided into a group of three and one of fowr: here the first four seals are marked off from the last three, and similarly the four trumpets of chap. viii. from the three that follow in chaps. ix.—xi.: perhaps also, though less clearly, the vials of chap. xvi. ὑποκάτω τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου. The altar, first mentioned here, was part of the arrangements of the heavenly Temple: see on iv. 6. Are we to understand that its position was that of the golden altar within the Holy Place (Ex. xxx. 1 sqq.)? is it in itself an altar of incense or of burnt offering? In viii. 3 sqq. we find incense offered at a heavenly golden altar, and it is not distinguished from this: yet it may be thought that the image here is more suitable to the altar of sacrifice. For at the foot of it the blood of the victims was poured out (Ex. xxix. 12), and the blood, we are told repeatedly, is the life: then is it not meant that the lives or souls (the words are interchangeable, as Matt. xvi. 25 sqq.) of the martyrs are poured out at the foot of the heavenly altar, when they sacrifice their lives to God? Probably it is meant: but we are not to assume without evidence that the altar here is different from that in chap. viii. Admitting that the Israelite tabernacle and Temple were copies of a really subsisting heavenly archetype, it is not certain that they were exact copies in all respects: they might have to be modified to suit material conditions. Just as it was impossible to have a real sea (see on iv. 6) in front of the earthly temple, so it may have been necessary to have on earth an inner and an outer Sanctuary, an altar before each, whereon to present the symbols of those things which in heaven are offered on one. This altar, like the golden altar of chap. viii., is ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου: the ‘‘sea” in the court of the earthly temple is doubtless copied from the “sea” in heaven; but the Temple proper does not seem yet to enter the vision; the Throne go REVELATION. [VI. 9— is set in the court and ‘‘the train” fills it—and the gaze of the Seer. τὰς ψυχάς. The souls. There is undoubtedly adistinction through- out the N.T. between the words for ‘‘soul,” the mere principle of natural life, and ‘‘spirit,” the immortal and heavenly part of man: see especially 1 Cor. xv. 44 sqq. Yet it is probably an overstatement of this distinction to say that these are mere lost lives, crying to God for vengeance like Abel’s blood (Gen. iv. 10), but different from the immortal souls, which have all their wants satisfied, and desire the salvation, not the punishment, of their murderers. They are the ‘‘lives” of the slain: their being under the altar is well illus- trated by the ceremonial outpouring of the blood, and their cry for vengeance by that of the blood of Abel, but what follows in the next verse is surely addressed to the inmost souls of the saints, not to impersonal abstract ‘‘ lives.” τῶν ἐσφαγμένων. As the four former seals correspond to Matt. xxiv. 6—8, so this to ibid. 9. In Enoch xl. 5, a voice (that of “‘him who presides over every suffering and every wound of the sons of men, the holy Raphael,” ib. 9) is heard ‘‘blessing the elect One, and the elect who are crucified on account of the Lord of spirits.” There is a passage more like this in sense in the same book, xlvii. 2, ‘‘In that day shall the holy ones assemble who dwell above the heavens, and with united voice petition, supplicate, praise, laud, and bless the name of the Lord of spirits, on account of the blood of the righteous which has been shed, that the prayer of the righteous may not be intermitted before the Lord of spirits; that for them He would execute judgement, and that His patience may not endure for ever.” διὰ τὸν λόγον Tod θεοῦ, kal Sid τὴν μαρτυρίαν. i. 9, xx. 4. ἣν εἶχον. Cf. xii. 17, fin. where the word rendered “held” here in A.V. is more simply translated ‘‘have.” Some argue from the name of Jesus not being used here, as in the three places referred to, for describing their testimony, that these are Old Testament martyrs, like those in Heb. xi. ad fin. But surely their blood was very amply avenged, and very speedily: of the three great perse- cutors, Jezebel and Antiochus perished miserably, and Manasseh suffered equal misery, though he repented in time to receive some alleviation of it. We have, however, a Jewish parallel to the thought of this passage in Enoch xxii. 5 sqq., where Enoch hears in heaven the accusing cry of the spirit (πνεῦμα---ποῖ, as in Genesis, the blood) of Abel. 10. ἕως πότε. Ps. xciv. (xciii. LXX.) 3 ἕως πότε ἁμαρτωλοὶ κύριε, ἕως πότε ἁμαρτωλοὶ καυχήσονται ; ὁ ϑεσπότης. Not the ordinary word of reverence applied to God, but one meaning (as we say) ‘‘lord and master.” It is used of God in Luke ii. 29; Acts iv. 24, and of Christ in Jude 4 (according to the right reading and probable translation); 2 Pet. ii. 1. Perhaps, as the usual word “Lord” in the N.T. and other Hellenistic writings VI. 11.] NOTES. 91 stands for the Name Jehovah, so this is used where the sense ‘‘ Lord” is really meant, i.e. it answers to the name Adonai, which the Jews pronounced instead of the Unutterable Name, and which Symeon and the Apostolic Church no doubt used in their thanksgivings, The use of the word after the Incarnation, and especially after the Ascension, shews that it is no argument for these Martyrs being only Jews—as though it proved a servile rather than filial spirit, as some have imagined: at most, it only proves Jewish habits of expression, and it needs no proof that such prevail throughout this Book. ov κρίνεις καὶ ἐκδικεῖς. It has been argued again from this, that the temper of the Martyrs’ souls is less than Christian. But however right it may be to contrast 2 Chr. xxiv. 22 with Acts vii. 60, no one can surely imagine that the spirit of this passage is a selfish desire for personal vengeance. As we meet with the germ of the thought in Ps. xciy. 3, so we have a developement of it, substantially identical with this, from the mouth of Christ Himself, Luke xviii. 2—8. Faith looks on eyil with a hatred like God’s own—shares God’s will that it shall not triumph and trusts in God that it will not: but without sharing the depth of God’s counsels, Who knows best how and when to overthrow it. Therefore the Church on earth (the probable mean- ing of the Widow) and the Saints in heaven cry alike to God to execute His own purpose, and bring the reign of evil to an end—and He does not yet, but He surely will. 11. ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς ἑκάστῳ στολὴ λευκή. The singular στολὴ and the emphatic though irregular apposition αὐτοῖς ἑκάστῳ bring out more fully than the old text, that the white robe is an individual, not a common blessing. It serves to mark them both as innocent and as conquerors: what it is is better felt than said. We see that the ‘‘souls” appeared in some visible form, like enough to bodies to wear garments: one of the considerations against regarding them as abstractions, not personal beings. There can hardly be any doubt that this verse (cf. iii. 4, 5) represents a portion of the reward given by God to His Saints, and if so, evidently such a portion of their reward as they receive in the interval before the Judgement. In Ascensio Isaiae ix. 7—18 there is a close and curious parallel. Isaiah in the seventh heaven sees all the righteous from the days of Adam, holy Abel and all the righteous, Enoch and all his company already stripped of the garment of flesh and arrayed in the garment of heaven (plainly the spiritual body). These see their thrones but do not sit on them, and their crowns but do not wear them. The angel tells Isaiah they have to wait for the Incarnation and Ascen- sion, when the Lord will bring many other righteous with Him who have not received their garments yet; then these too shall receive garments, crowns, and thrones. But whether all the elect are in the same position as the Martyrs, or whether we have here described a special privilege granted to them only, is more doubtful; the preva- lent belief of Christendom has been, that Martyrs and the like more excellent Saints have, in this intermediate state, a privilege above all the other justified ones. 92 REVELATION. Ae ΠΕΞ ἐρρέθη αὐτοῖς. From the nature of the case, their cry and the answer to it had to be heard by St John successively. But doubtless in fact they are contemporaneous: the Saints at once share God’s desire for the triumph of righteousness over sin, and rest in God’s assurance that it is for good reason that triumph is delayed. ἵνα ἀναπαύσωνται. Almost as if they were bidden to “turn again to their rest’? Ps. exvi. 7. They were at rest already when God’s judgements came abroad; then they cry out to Him to finish His work and cut it short in righteousness. This rest, if like the rest of the dead who die in the Lord xiv. 13, is more than the mere rest of the grave (Job iii. 17—19) and certainly does not imply that they are to be unconscious or as it were asleep. ἔτι χρόνον μικρόν. Yet to Stephen and his companions it is not less than 1850 years: and though the Old Testament Martyrs be not exclusively meant, they are no doubt included.. But notice that it is contemplated that there will be an interval between the Martyrs of the Primitive Church and those of the last days. πληρώσωσιν. If the reading be right, we must supply after ‘‘should have fulfilled” ‘their course’ (Acts xiii. 25), or ‘their work,’ or ‘their number,’ as St Hippolytus quotes this passage in the fourth book of his commentary on Daniel. καὶ οἱ σύνδουλοι αὐτῶν καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ αὐτῶν. It would be possible to construe the words ‘“‘both their fellowservants and their brethren,” as though two classes were spoken of. In xix, 10, xxil. 9, where we get the same words coupled, though in another construction, it may be thought that St John is called a brother of Martyrs and Prophets in a special sense. It would therefore be possible to dis- tinguish the two classes, ‘‘their fellowservants (viz. all their true fellow-believers), and their brethren which should be killed as they were.” But it is much simpler to translate as the A.V., making both nouns antecedents to the clause that follows. ὡς Kal αὐτοί is a shade more emphatic than ws αὐτοί would have been. Both terms in the comparison are to correspond exactly. The Martyrs of the last days are to be like those of the first, Martyrs in the strictest sense—Christians slain because they hold the Christian faith, and will not renounce it. Such Martyrs there have been, no doubt, in the interval between the great ages of persecution under the Roman emperors and under Antichrist, e.g. in the Mohammedan conquests, in the age of the conversion of central Europe, in Japan in the seventeenth century, and in Madagascar, China, New Zealand, and Zululand in our own time. It is likely enough also that martyrs to charity—men like St Telemachus and St Philip of Moscow, Abp Affré and Bp Patteson—have their portion with the perfect martyrs to faith: in some cases, as in the last, it is hard to draw a line between the two: any way, those who suffer for righteousness sake suffer for Christ, as St Anselm said when Lanfranc wished to deny the honours of a martyr to St Alphege. But to suffer for conscience VI. 14. NOTES. 93 sake, however noble, is not necessarily quite the same thing: and it is hardly right to claim the name of martyr for the victims— certainly not for the victims on one side only—in the fratricidal con- tests of Christians. ‘‘The Lord knoweth them that are His”; He knows whether Becket or Huss, More or Latimer, Charles I. or Margaret Wilson, had most of the Martyr’s spirit: we had better not anticipate His judgement whether any or all of them are worthy of the Martyr’s white robe. 12—17. Tue SrxtH SEAL. 12. σεισμὸς μέγας. Earthquakes follow wars and famines, in Matt. xxiy. 7, as the earlier signs of the approach of Christ’s Coming. But here it is coupled with the darkening of the sun and fall of the stars which, ibid. 29, precede His Coming immediately: whence Alford says, that here it is more than the earth that quakes—that it is a fulfilment of Hag. ii. 6, 7, cf. Heb. xii. 26 sqq. μέλας ὡς σάκκος. Is. 1. 3 ἐνδύσω τὸν οὐρανὸν σκότος Kal ὡς σάκκον θήσω τὸ περιβόλαιον αὐτοῦ. ἡ σελήνη ὅλη ἐγένετο. The moon wholly became, or, perhaps the whole [i.e. full] moon became. ds αἷμα. From Joel ii. 31 ὁ ἥλιος μεταστραφήσεται εἰς σκότος καὶ ἡ σελήνη εἰς αἷμα. The image, no doubt, is suggested by the pheno- mena of natural total eclipses, when the sun disappears entirely, but the moon, though ceasing to be luminous, dves not in general become invisible, but assumes a dull reddish colour. Perhaps the **blood and fire and pillars of smoke” of the preceding verse of Joel stand in similar relations to the natural phenomena of the aurora borealis. We are told of ‘‘signs in the Heaven”’ before the fall of Jerusalem which, if natural, must be assigned to this last cause, and in any case may be regarded as partial fulfilments of these prophecies, and types of their final fulfilment. See Jos. B. J. νι. v. 3; Tac. Hist. v. xiii. 1. 13. οἱ ἀστέρες τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. Here we return to the Prophecy of the Mount of Olives, Matt. xxiv. 29. ὡς συκῆ. It is curious that a “parable of the fig-tree’’ follows in Matt. xxiv. 32, immediately after the ‘‘fall of the stars.’’ But this image is taken, not from our Lord’s prophecy l.c., but from Is. xxxiv. 4 (the Hebrew, not LXX.), The ὄλυνθος ‘untimely fig” (whence Bethphage) is the fig which, having formed too late to ripen in the autumn, hangs through the winter, but almost always drops off before the sap begins to rise in spring, so as not to come to maturity. See Comm. on Matt. xxi. 19 and parallels. 14. ἀπεχωρίσθη. A.V. departed, i.e. parted asunder. The verb depart was so used (only in a transitive sense) in the Marriage Service until the last revision of the Prayer Book, ‘till death us depart,” i.e. “till death part us.” Here we still have a reference to Is. xxxiv. 4. The word for ‘‘scroll” is the same as that rendered ‘‘book” in ὁ. &e. 94 REVELATION. [VI 14— πᾶν ὄρος καὶ νῆσος. Cf. xvi. 20. There the convulsion is greater than here: and even there it does not imply quite so much as xx. 11— a fact to be remembered in the interpretation of this passage. 15. χιλίαρχοι. The word means lit. ‘captains of thousands,” and was in St John’s time the recognised equivalent (as e.g. Acts xxi, 31, &c.) for the tribunus of the Roman army. Probably St John is thinking of Is. iii. 2, 3. els τὰ σπήλαια. Is, ii. 19, 21. 16. καὶ λέγουσιν. The present after ἔκρυψαν suggests that ἔκρυψαν like καὶ ἐτελέσθη x. 7 is an Hebraistic equivalent to the future. τοῖς ὄρεσιν. Hos. x. 8: adopted by our Lord, Luke xxiii. 30. In that passage, it is entirely natural to understand Him to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem only: and therefore, though we are not meant to suppose that everything revealed further on in the Book comes between the Sixth Seal and the End, it does not seem necessary to understand this vision as implying that the Last Judge- ment is immediately to come. A judgement of the Lord has now been prepared for, by all the signs that He foretold of it: His disciples, no doubt, will ‘‘look up and lift up their heads,” while the world which does not ‘‘love His appearing” is terrified. And we see in the next chapter that the faith of those is not unrewarded : but the dread of these is not immediately realised. In fact, the last ‘‘Day of the Lord” will come ‘‘when they shall say, ‘Peace and safety’” (1 Thess. v. 3)—not therefore, apparently, preceded by terrors like those among the ungodly, but rather by an unbelief (not so uncommon now) that has outlived such alarms, and asks, ‘*Where is the promise of His Coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” ἀπὸ προσώπου τοῦ καθημένου. All judgement is committed to the Son, John v. 22, but this does not exclude the special presence and Revelation of the Father in the final manifestation of the Divine Righteousness. See Matt. xvi. 27 and parallels, which are to be taken into account in the interpretation of Tit. ii. 13, and of chap. xxii. in this Book. ἀπὸ τῆς ὀργῆς τοῦ dpvfov. It is scarcely necessary to point out the paradoxical character of the words and their deep significance. The phrase is unique; if αὐτοῦ be read in the next verse it cannot refer, as it would in ordinary Greek, to τοῦ dpviov. The great day of His wrath is something familiar and known. 17. ἦλθεν ἡ ἡμέρα ἡ μεγάλη. So the world has thought in every great social convulsion, since they have learnt so far to believe the Gospel, as to confess that such a day is coming. The thought has led men to repentance or to despair, as they were worthy of one or other: but, since the world has so often thought wrongly that the Day has come, it does not follow that, when this Book tells us that the world thinks it has come, we must suppose the world to be right. τίς δύναται σταθῆναι; Cf, Mal. ili, 2. VIL] NOTES. 95 CHAPTER VII. 1. ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, μήτε ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης, μήτε ἐπὶ πᾶν SévSpov with NSP1. A reads μήτε ἐπὶ θαλάσσης μήτε ἐπὶ δένδρου ; Naber proposes to read μήτε ἐπ. θαλ. μήτε ἐπὶ ἀνύδρου, which would be plausible but for the fact that ἄνυδρος (Job xxx. 3, Is. xxxv. 7, xli. 19, Matt. xii. 43) means not ‘dry land’ but ‘ wilderness’: hence if δένδρου be a corrup- tion of ἄνυδρου, the latter must be a gloss on ξηρᾶς due to a conflation older than all versions of ἐπὶ θαλ....ἐπὶ ξηρᾶς (cf. Matt. xxii. 15) and ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς...ἐπὶ τῆς θαλ.; Lach. and Treg. and Weiss. read ἐπί τι with B,C against the general style of this Book. δ. δώδεκα χιλιάδες ἐσφραγισμένοι. The uncials repeat ἐσῴρ. at the beginning and end. Primas. only has it at the beginning, aeth. only at end; 1 in the first three places and the last; Text. Rec. everywhere with Vg. and arm. Γάδ. δὲ omits this tribe; several cursives seem to have turned it into Δάν. 1 has δαδ (=Aavelé). 6. Μανασσῆ. If written Mav. this might be a corruption of Δάν. Origen remarks on the omission of Dan; so the Coptic version, which has Dan instead of Manasse, cannot have preserved a continuous tradition. 7. Συμεών. N omits this tribe, cf. Deut. xxxiii. 6, 7. 9. καὶ ἰδού. A and Latins omit these words; C omits ἐδού. ὄχλος πολύς. A and Latins read ὄχλον πολύν ; Methodius reads καὶ εἶδον ἀπὸ πάσης γλώττης Kal φυλῆς Kal παντὸς ἔθνους πλῆθος πολύ, ὃ ἀριθμῆσαι αὐτὸ οὐδεὶς ἠδύνατο. ἑστῶτες with NAP; ἑστῶτας B,, ἑστώτων C. i περιβεβλημένους. Text. Rec. reads περιβεβλημένοι with N°P 1 and atins, φοίνικες. Tisch. reads φοίνικας with N*B,. 10. τῷ θεῷ ἡμῶν. A reads τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν. τῷ ἀρνίῳ. N° reads τοῦ ἀρνίου; τῷ καθημένῳ is omitted by N*; 1 has τῷ καθ. ἐπὶ τ. Op. θεῷ ἡμῶν. Were the two oldest readings τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ τοῦ dpviov, and τῷ καθ. ἐπὶ τῷ θρόνῳ καὶ τῷ apvly? 14. κύριέμου. Text, Rec. omits μου with A 1. ἔπλυναν τὰς στολὰς αὐτῶν καὶ ἐλεύκαναν αὐτάς. Primas. omits ἔπλυναν (stolas suas candidas fecerunt); By, omits αὐτάς. 17. ζωῆς. Text. Rec. fwoas with 1. The two Visions in this Chapter, 1—8, 9—17, each introduced by the same phrase ‘After this,” seem to belong (the former perhaps does belong) to the interval between the openings of the Sixth Seal and the Seventh, and so to extend this interval very considerably beyond the others. Both are really episodical. 96 REVELATION. [VII. 1— CH, Vil tis: Tue Vision oF THE Four ANGELS OF THE Four Wrnps. 1. τέσσαρας ἀγγέλους. Presumably the Angels of the four winds, as we have other elemental Angels in xiv. 18, xvi. 5. Cf. Ps. οἷν. (cili.) 4, ὁ ποιῶν τοὺς ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ πνεύματα. ἐπὶ τὰς τέσσαρας γωνίας τῆς yas. Probably the four cardinal points, the extreme north, south, east, and west of it. It is hardly likely that the ‘‘four winds of the earth’’ should be conceived as NE., SW., SE., and NW.: in the climate of the Levant, there would not be{as much physical truth in such a classification as in our own, and the usage of nomenclature, in Greek and still more in Hebrew, proves that the four winds are N., E.,S., W. We therefore cannot argue from the “four corners” that St John conceives the earth is a rectangle—for it would be most unnatural to conceive it as set corner-wise: in Jer. xlix. 36 the four winds blow from the four ἄκρα of heaven. But it appears that the machinery, so to speak, throughout the vision does imply that the earth is conceived as a plane. St John is in Heaven, and is able to look down (or even to go down) to the earth, which he sees spread beneath him like a map, from Euphrates to Rome and very likely further. We have somewhat similar language in Enoch xyiii. 2, 3, καὶ τὸν λίθον ἴδον τῆς γωνίας τῆς γῆς᾽ ἴδον τοὺς τεσσάρους ἀνέμους THY γῆν βαστάζοντας καὶ τὸ στερέωμα τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. But St John does not, like Pseudo-Enoch, put forward his imagery as absolute physical truth. ἵνα μὴ πνέῃ ἄνεμος. Every one will remember Keble’s beautiful illustration of this image, by the natural phenomenon of the ‘‘All Saints’ Summer.” But the next v. shews that it is by the Angels’ action that the winds blow, as well as that they are restrained from blowing: we are not to conceive the winds (as in Od. x., Aen. 1.) as wild expansive forces, that will blow if not mechanically confined. 2. ἀναβαίνοντα. Probably the Heaven from which St John looks down on the earth formed a vault over it, or at least rested on walls surrounding the earth; οὗ Enoch xviii. 5, ἴδον πέρατα τῆς γῆς τὸ στήριγμα τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. This Angel, then, mounted up the eastern side of this vault or circling wall (probably flying up, just outside it), till he was high enough to see and to be heard by all the four Angels, even the one on the extreme western side of the earth. ἔχοντα σφραγῖδα. Perhaps this marks this Angel as one specially favoured and trusted: see Gen. xli. 42; Esth. iii. 10, viii. 2. But there seems no good reason for the notion, popular in modern times, that this Angel, or any other, is to be taken as representative of Christ. He appears, when He does appear, either in His own person, or under a-symbol that is obviously symbolic: it would be out of harmony with the scope of this Book, and indeed with New Tes- tament theology generally, to obscure the distinction between Him and created Angels. The words ‘‘our God” in the next v. mark this Angel as a fellow-servant both of the other four, and of the elect on earth. It is far better to illustrate this vision by Matt. VIL. 4.] NOTES. 97 xxiv. 31, as we have seen the earlier images of that chapter reproduced under the former seals. This Angel’s office, however, is the marking, not the gathering of the elect; he represents and effectuates God’s love in its individual, not in its comprehensive aspect. ots ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς. Cf. iii. 8. ἀδικῆσαι, by loosing the four winds—for something far beyond common storms. No parallel is yet known to this sign of the end: “the Great Tribulation” certainly begins when the four winds are loosed. 3. ἄχρι σφραγίσωμεν. The object of the sealing is twofold: (1) to mark them as God’s own, beyond the risk of loss; we may almost certainly infer, from this chapter compared with xiv. 1, that the inscription of the seal is the Name of God and of the Lamb; and (2) to mark them as to be saved from the judgements that the other angels are to execute upon the world. Hence we are to compare this sealing, on the one hand with the mark (a less careful and indelible one than here—a cross marked with ink, not a name stamped with a seal) set on the protesting remnant in Hzek. ix. 4, 6 (R.V.): on the other hand, with 2 Tim. ii. 19; Eph. i. 13, iv. 30. It is scarcely likely indeed that St John refers consciously to these passages in St Paul, but it is likely that the image of the seal was the common property of the Apostolic Church; ἡ σφραγὶς was certainly an early name for Baptism, e.g. Hermas Sim. ix. 16 ἡ σφραγὶς οὖν τὸ ὕδωρ ἐστίν, and passim; later it was applied especially to that part of the rite, which, when detached from Baptism, was known in the West as Confirmation. 4—8. Tur SeALING oF THE 144,000. 4, ἑκατὸν τεσσεράκοντα τέσσαρες χιλιάδες. As there are twelve tribes, so in each tribe there are to be twelve thousands: possibly with 8. reminiscence of the primitive political and military organisation, when a ‘‘thousand”’ was a recognised subdivision of a tribe. See Judges vi. 15; Mic. vy. 2. Any way, we are probably to understand that each portion of Israel is a miniature likeness of the whole. ἐκ πάσης φυλῆς υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ. It is one of the most controverted of the minor questions of interpretation of this Book, whether Israel is here to be understood in the literal or the spiritual sense. This vision of a certain number of Israelites, and the next of an in- numerable multitude of all nations, are certainly correlative to each other: and the most obvious way of understanding them is, that among God’s elect there will be many faithful Israelites, and yet few comparatively to the number of faithful Gentiles. It certainly seems as if the 144,000 are to be preserved from ‘‘the great tribu- lation” and the great multitude converted by enduring it. Others however understand these 144,000, and the innumerable multitude of v. 9, to represent the same persons regarded in two different aspects. To God they are all His own people, all duly numbered and organised and marshalled as His army, and everyone known to Him by name: on the other hand, from a human point of view REVELATION ἃ 98 REVELATION. [VII. 4— they belong to all nations, and are too many to be counted. Lastly, in xiv. 1 we hear of a company of 144,000 whom (not from their number only) it is natural to identify with these: and it appears that those represent, not the whole multitude of the elect, but a group specially faithful and specially favoured, even among them. It seems worth asking, whether the true solution be not a combination of the first and last, whether we are to understand that Christ’s nearest and dearest ones still come from God’s old people, who are still ‘beloved for the fathers’ sake,” though they attain such nearness to Him, not by virtue of their descent, but by graces of the same kind as sanctify Gentile saints also. 5—8. ἐσφραγισμένοι. It is a question whether there is any prin- ciple in the order of the names. Judah is no doubt named first, as the tribe of David and of the Son of David: then Reuben as the eldest son of Israel, while Joseph and Benjamin, the two youngest, come last. Gad and Asher, Simeon and Levi, Issachar and Zebulun are also mentioned in pairs, according to their parentage and the order of their births: but the pairs themselves are not grouped either in order of age or of the dignity of the mother. It is curious, and has never been really satisfactorily accounted for, that while we have Joseph given under that name, instead of Ephraim, we have Manasseh men- tioned coordinately as one of the twelve tribes: room being made for him, not as in many O.T. enumerations, by the omission of Levi, who had no part nor inheritance with his brethren, but by the omission of Dan, about which copyists evidently hesitated. (In Ezek. xlviii. 3, 4 Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, succeed each other as here.) Num. xiii. 11 is some sort of analogy for the name of Joseph being appro- priated to one of the two tribes descended from him: for the omission of Dan, the nearest analogy is the omission of Simeon in the blessing of Moses, Deut. xxxiii. The traditional view is, that Dan is omitted because Antichrist will come of that tribe: but the grounds for that opinion are very slight; it rests mainly on this omission itself, for no one would naturally understand Gen. xlix. 17 as implying that Dan would be an evil power. Others have suggested that Dan is omitted because they early fell into idolatry (Jud. xviii.); but all Israel fell into worse idolatry, sooner or later: others again imagine that this tribe had been long extinct, because it is omitted in the enumeration of the tribes in the early chapters of Chronicles: but Zebulun is also omitted there, though both tribes were powerful in David’s time, 1 Chr. xii. 33, 35. The case is not quite parallel where, in xxi. 12, 14, we have only room for the names of twelve tribes and twelve apostles: it will follow from Ezek. xlvili. 31—34 that Dan is there included, and that Joseph only counts as one: and though either the name of St Paul or St Matthias (probably the former) must be omitted to keep the number of the apostles down to twelve, yet the omission is not pointed or express. We have no occasion to ask there why St Paul is omitted, while here we cannot help asking why Dan is; probably there is a reason, but we had better confess we do not know it. VIl. 14.] NOTES. 99 9—17. Tur Praise or THE GREAT MULTITUDE OF THE REDEEMED. 9. pera ταῦτα. The “great tribulation” itself is designedly not shown in the vision: ‘‘of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no not the angels in heaven.” It is not too much to say that the description of the terrors which herald its approach taxes human powers to their limits; it was the most the Seer or the Church could receive, more would have weakened the impression. Instead of describing a picture of the Great Tribulation we have the pause, in which the inner circle of the elect is sealed for safety, and the world forgets its fears; and then comes a glimpse of the bliss without end. ὃν ἀριθμῆσαι αὐτόν. 11]. 8. ἐκ παντὸς ἔθνους καὶ φυλῶν καὶ λαῶν καὶ γλωσσῶν. Cf. v. 9 π. ἑστῶτες is of course in apposition to ὄχλος πολύς, though supported by documents which read ὄχλον πολύν. περιβεβλημένους is in apposition to the imaginary ὄχλον which might have been dependent on eidov: so is φοίνικας, if we take the accusative with Tischendorf. στολὰς AevKas. Cf. iii. 5, vi. 11. φοίνικες. Opinions differ as to the meaning of this image, whether we are to compare the Pagan use of the palm-branch as a symbol of victory, given e.g. to winners at the public games; or the Israelite custom of bearing branches of palm, as of other sacred trees, at the Feast of Tabernacles: see Lev. xxiii. 40, and ef. St John xii. 13. The palm-branch occurs frequently on the coins of the Herods; and the palm-tree on the Roman coins commemorating JUDAEA CAPTA (Madden’s Jewish Coinage): and although Jewish rather than Gentile imagery is to be expected in this book, the former view seems on the whole more reasonable, as it gives a more obvious and a more appropriate meaning to the symbol. 10. ἡ σωτηρία. The word “salvation” has the article, so that perhaps the sense is, ‘‘The glory of our salvation belongs to Him.” If not, we must remember that ‘‘salvation” is in the Bible a positive conception—not only being saved from some evil, but being placed in a state of positive blessedness: and these words will thus be a con- fession that such blessedness not only is of God, but belongs by right to God. 12. ἡ εὐλογία καὶ ἡ δόξα κιτιλ. The seven words of praise have each the article: see on chap. v. 13. 13. ἀπεκρίθη. Perhaps because his question is suggested by the wonder of the Seer. Cf. Matt. xi. 25; Deut. xxv. 9, in both of which passages it is easier to see the force οἱ the word. 14. εἴοηκα. The perfect here is only less difficult than εἴληφεν v. 7 (‘where see note) because it stands alone. a2 100 REVELATION. (VII. 14— Κύριέ pov. Cf. Dan. x. 16, 17; Zech. iv. 5, 13. In the latter place we haye, as here, the heavenly interlocutor apparently assuming that the Seer ought to understand the vision without explanation. ov οἶδας. Cf. Ezek. xxxvii. 3. ot ἐρχόμενοι, ‘‘which come,” i.e. which are to come, cf. τὸ θηρίον τὸ ἀναβαῖνον, xi, 7 τῆς θλίψεως τῆς μεγάλης: the article is strongly emphasised. It probably means ‘‘the great tribulation foretold by the Lord,” St Matt. xxiv. 21: cf. Dan. xii, 1. For a similar use of the art. cf. ch. i. 7, ‘‘the clouds.” ἐλεύκαναν αὐτὰς ἐν τῷ αἵματι. A paradox something like that of vi. 16 fin. For the image, ef. perhaps i. 5 (but see note): certainly xxii. 14 (true text), and probably St John 1 Ep. i. 7. Heb. ix. 14, which is sometimes quoted, is less closely parallel: there the image seems to be taken from ritual rather than physical cleansing. Tert. Scorp. xii. has a curious view that the washing corresponds to bap- tism, and the making white to martyrdom. 15. ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου. Perhaps in a more favoured position than is given to all, even among Saints: as we have similar language about the most favoured Angels, Matt. xviii. 10; Luke i. 19. λατρεύουσιν αὐτῷ. The sense would be clearer if the word were rendered ‘‘worship”: it does not mean that they have active work to do for Him, but that they do what is the appropriate service of His Temple, though it is to be remembered that the service of the earthly Temple was arranged to represent the service of the Palace of an invisible King: His lamps were lit, His table spread, and the like. σκηνώσει ἐπ᾽ αὐτούς. Lit. ‘shall tabernacle over them”: in xxi. 3 the verb is the same, but there the construction is per’ αὐτῶν. The word is used in the N.T., and in Hellenistic writers generally, to express the dwelling of the Divine Presence in any of its mani- festations: see esp. St John’s Gospel, i. 14. The word σκηνὴ was the more readily used in this sense because of its assonance with the late Hebrew word Shéchinéh for ‘‘the cloud of glory shadowing the Mercy-seat.” Here perhaps the thought is rather of that manifestation of God’s Presence than of the fuller and later Presence in the Incarnation. 16,17. Taken from Is. xlix.10. We have again the solemn para- dox, that the Lamb is Shepherd (of course we are reminded of St John x., but we ought to remember Ps. xxiii. as well, and its many O.T. imitations, including Is. 1.0.5) in all of which the Shepherd is the Lord God of Israel), and the men are His flock—cf. Ezek. xxxly. 31, xxxvi. 37, 38. τὸ dvd μέσον τοῦ θρόνου. See on v. 6, {wns πηγὰς ὑδάτων. The order of the words is very strange even for this Book. The slight change in the Textus Receptus enabled VIII. 1. NOTES. ΤΟΙ A.V. to preserve the order of the words, which is perhaps more important than the construction preserved in R.V., ‘‘fountains of waters of life,” cf, xxii. 1. ἐξαλείψει ὁ θεός. From Is. xxv. 8. CHAPTER VIII. 1. ὅταν. With AC; Text. Rec. reads ὅτε with all other documents, 8. ἐπὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου. Lachmann and Text. Rec. read ἐπὶ τὸ θυσιαστήριον With AP 1; Primas. reads super altarium dei here, and below ad aram dei auream for ἐπὶ τὸ 6. τὸ χρυσοῦν : and in v. 5 ex igni arae dei for ἐκ τοῦ πυρὸς τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου. The same abbreviation could be read θεοῦ and θυσιαστηρίου, which may explain the conflation in the Old Latin Text. θυμιάματα. Primas. reads supplicamenta. 4. θυμιαμάτων ταῖς προσευχαῖς. Primas, reads supplicationuwm orationum. δ. βρονταὶ kal φωναὶ kal ἀστραπαί. With 8B,. Text. Rec. reads φωναὶ καὶ Bp. καὶ dor.; A cop. syr. read Bp, καὶ dor. καὶ φωναί. 7. ὁ πρῶτος. Text. Rec. adds ἄγγελος with 1 and almost all Latins and other Versions. μεμιγμένα. With AB,. Tisch. reads μεμιγμένον with XP. καὶ τὸ τρίτον τῆς γῆς κατεκάη. Text. Rec. omits with 1 cop. 9. τὸ τρίτον (pr.). δὲ adds μέρος, the Latins everywhere have tertia pars. τῶν κτισμάτων τῶν ἐν TH θαλάσσῃ, τὰ ἔχ. ψυχάς. Primas. reads piscium, but quotes from Tyce. habentium animas. Cod. flor. reads animalium quae erat in mari. 10. Kal ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ τὸ τρίτον. Primas, cod. flor. omit καὶ ἔπεσεν. kal ἐπὶ tds πηγὰς τῶν ὑδάτων. These words are omitted by A. 12. ἵνα σκοτισθῇ.. ὁμοίως. Primas. cod. flor. read ut minus lucerent (cod. flor. ita wt tertia pars eorum obscuraretur) et dies eandem partem amitteret et nox similiter, Tyce. read ut obscuraretur et appareret; B, reads καὶ τὸ τρίτον αὐτῆς μὴ φάνῃ ἡμέρα. 13. ἀετοῦ. Text. Rec. reads ἀγγέλου with P 1 arm. ἐν μεσουρανήματι. Syr. reads in medio caudae cui est sanguis, and at xiv. 6 in caelo cum sanguine. τοὺς κατοικοῦντας. Text. Rec. and Lachmann read τοῖς κατοικοῦσιν with AP 1. Cu. VIII. 1 (3—6). THe Seventa Sat. If, as some suppose, the Vision of the Angel with the Golden Censer is rather an introduction to the Vision of the Seven Trumpets than the close of the Vision of the Seven Seals, it would be matter for regret that v, 1 is joined with this chapter rather than with the 102 REVELATION. [VIIT. 1— preceding, as the blowing of the Seven Trumpets can hardly be re- garded in any case as the sign which follows the opening of the Seal. Supposing that the Book with Seven Seals is rightly thought to contain the whole secret of the Divine Providence, it is no doubt at this point of the Vision that the Book is read: for it has certainly been read in Heaven when the little book not sealed but open (x. 2) is sent down to the Seer on earth. Whether or no we are to emphasise the contrast between βιβλίον and βιβλαρίδιον, the latter may very well contain all that was to be revealed through the Seer. And after the opening of the Sixth Seal, when terror has been carried to the height, everything is arranged to deepen the impression of suspense and awestruck hope, till the fire from the Heavenly Altar is cast down to earth as a sign that the earthly fulfilment of what has been shown in Vision in Heaven is about to begin. ὅταν. It has been suggested that as no definite sign such as followed the opening of the other Seals follows the opening of the Seventh, the Seer was as it were uncertain of the precise moment of the opening and so writes ὅταν rather than ὅτε. ἐγένετο σιγή. All the promised signs of Christ’s Coming have been fulfilled—everything has, apparently, been made ready for it: and we expect Him to come, and the world to come to an end: but the series of signs concludes—not with a catastrophe but—in silence, The same is the case, though less markedly, after the Seventh Trumpet in ch. xi. 15; and in fact, similar cases occur throughout the Book. We have the choice between three explanations of this phenomenon. (I.) The preceding series of visions does describe the events leading up to Christ’s Coming: when they are ended, He does come, but His Coming itself is not described. Here, it is passed over in silence, or only symbolised by the opening of the seventh seal: the half-hour’s silence is, as St Victorinus grandly says, “‘initium quietis aeternae.” (II.) The previous series of visions describes events preparatory, indeed, to Christ’s Coming, but not leading directly up to it: the events symbolised by these visions have been fulfilled, but those of the rest of the Book must be fulfilled also, before He really comes. (III.) These visions represent, on ὦ smaller scale, the preparations for Christ’s final Coming and Judge- ment: but they do not wait for their fulfilment till then, but have their proportionate fulfilment in any anticipatory judgement which He executes on one nation or generation. The similar series of visions which follow are therefore not parallel with this, but suc- cessive: again and again God executes His Judgements, foreshadowing the last Judgement of all, and leading men to expect it: and at last He will execute that also, The last view is the one generally taken in these notes : see Introduction, p. lv. Cu. VIII. 2, 6—XI.19. Tue Seven Trumpets. 2. ol ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ ἑστήκασιν. ἑστήκασιν is in its natural place in ordinary Greek; in this Book we should expect to find it, if at all, before ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ : οἱ ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ without construction would Ὑ1Π1|:8:]} NOTES. 103 be less surprising. The phrase is probably a designation of seven Angels (commonly, perhaps correctly, called Archangels) who per- manently enjoy special nearness to God: ‘the Angels of the Presence.” We have in Tobit xii. 15 an evidence of popular Jewish belief as to these Angels; St John’s vision is expressed in terms of that belief, and, it may fairly be thought, sanctions it with his prophetic authority, 3—5. Tue ANGEL WITH THE GOLDEN CENSER. 3. ἄλλος ἄγγελος, In Tobit 1. ο. it is the seven Angels themselves who present the prayers of the Saints before God: but, though the detail varies, the passages agree in assigning a priestly work to Angels on behalf of God’s people on earth. ἐπὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου. The golden altar of incense in the Tabernacle was only a cubit square and two cubits high (Ex. xxx. 2), and we have no reason to suppose that the analogous one either in the first or the second Temple was larger: perhaps we may gather from 2 Chr. v. 5 that the former had identically the same one. But the altar of burnt- offering was a large platform rather than what we commonly imagine an altar (see 1 Mace. i. 59, where the small Greek ‘“‘idol altar” stands on the ‘‘altar of God” as its basement—it cannot be substituted for it): in the Tabernacle it was five cubits square, in Solomon’s Temple 20, in Zerubbabel’s probably the same, and in Herod’s 50 according to Josephus, 32 according to the Mishna. In the Temple at any rate, the height of the altar was such that the officiating priests had to come up upon a ledge surrounding it (and such an ascent is con- templated in Ex. xx. 26). Probably here, though the Angel is offering incense not burnt-offering, the Altar where he officiates is conceived as rather of the larger type: see on vi. 9. It is certainly superfluous to suppose that the Vision is accommodated to the Jewish ritual, in which the priest took fire from the altar of burnt-offering to light his incense on the golden altar. λιβανωτὸν must mean ‘‘censer” here, though the Greek word pro- = > perly means “‘incense.” ϑώσει ταῖς προσευχαῖς. Literally, ‘give it to the prayers”; and if the literal translation requires a gloss, that of the A.V. can hardly be the right one. The sense is not absolutely clear, this is the one place in this Book where the dative does not mark a personal or personified recipient. It would hardly be stranger if it were by the prayers of the saints that the Angel offered incense here, and that the incense went up, as in next verse. Apparently the image is, that the prayers of the saints are already lying on the Altar, and the Angel, in modern liturgical phrase, ‘‘censes the holy things.” Thus dis- appears the supposed theological necessity for identifying this Angel with the Lord Jesus: ‘‘the prayers of all saints” are presented by Him and by no one else, as is implied in v. 8, 9, where the incense is the prayers of the saints, not something added to them. But here the Angels offer their own worship, as it is ‘given to them,” in union, perhaps in subordination, to those of the redeemed. The prayers 104 REVELATION. | VIII. 3— here spoken of are those of all saints, not of the Martyrs exclusively: still, it is well to notice that the Altar where we offer our prayers is apparently the same where they poured out their lives, vi. 9. 4. ἀνέβη... ταῖς προσευχαῖς. The dative here again is quite unlike any other in this Book. ‘The only question therefore as to the sense is, whether we are to understand the words as the goal of the local motion of the smoke, ‘‘ went up to the prayers,” or as the object of its intent, ‘‘went up for the prayers”: the latter seems better. ‘The smoke of the incense went up before God out of the Angel’s hand, for the prayers of the Saints,” i.e. to consecrate and ratify them, to unite all His spiritual creation in the same supplication, which when thus united must prevail. ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ. As is well known, these words are immediately followed in C by ἡμέρας χιλίας διακοσίας ἑξήκοντα, the copyist having mismatched some leaves of his original and gone on to xi. 3. Of course he did not invent the admirable system of punctuation and paragraphs which he reproduced. It is possible that he may have failed to notice that ἐν. τοῦ θεοῦ ended a paragraph, as we should expect, or at any rate was followed by a stop. It is also possible that he found the 1260 days in his original in both places if, as seems probable, the vision of the incense on the heavenly Altar was shewn to the Seer in preparation for the profanation of the earthly altar at Jerusalem which had long been foretold, Dan. viii. 11; xi. 31; xii. 11, and was soon to be fulfilled more completely than in the days of the Maccabees. δ. εἴληφεν. See on vy. 7 for tense. As the Angel has the censer already we cannot refer to the contmon formula of the LXX. e.g. Lev. viii. 2, λάβε ᾿Ααρὼν καὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰς στολὰς αὐτοῦ Kal τὸ ἔλαιον τῆς χρίσεως καὶ τὸν μόσχον τὸν περὶ τῆς ἁμαρτίας, καὶ τοὺς δύο κριοὺς, καὶ τὸ κανοῦν τῶν ἀζύμων, and it is a little difficult to suppose that the censer is laid down after the incense from it has been emptied upon the Altar. ἔβαλεν. Probably cast the censer full of burning coals, but possibly only ‘scattered the fire,” as Num, xvi. 87. The meaning must be, to represent the same instrument as obtaining God’s mercy on His people, and executing His vengeance on His enemies: cf. Ezek, x. 2. βρονταὶ καὶ φωναί. We have similar signs in xi. 19, xvi. 18, when the series of the Seven Trumpets and the Seven Vials respectively are ended: hence perhaps it is here rather than earlier that we are to look for the conclusion of the visions of the Seven Seals, 7. Tue First Trumpet. 7. χάλαζα καὶ πῦρ. Cf. Ex. ix. 24: but here the blood marks the plague as more terrible, and more distinctly miraculous. ‘‘The stones of hail and the balls of fire fell in a shower of blood, just as hail and fire balls commonly fall in a shower of rain.” (Alford. ) τὸ τρίτον. It is certainly a feature to be noticed in the first Four Trumpets, as contrasted (see on vi. 9) with the last three, that they introduce plagues (i) on the powers of nature only, not on men, and VIII. 12.] NOTES. τος (ii) that on these the plague stops short of entire destruction. But no plausible explanation has been given of the destruction of a third part (cf. vi. 8: the limit of the fourth part is an illustration not an expla- nation which might perhaps be found in parallels like Ezek. v. 2; Zech. xiii, 8, 9). πᾶς χόρτος xAwpds. In exceptional countries like England pastures are green all the year round: in countries like Syria they are green for a season: is it possible that the fiery hail lays waste a third of the earth, and that in the Vision that is the only third where green grass is in season? 8,9. Tur Seconp TruMPET, 8. ὄρος μέγα πυρὶ καιόμενον. Cf. Jer. li, (xxvili.) 25 ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ πρὸς σὲ τὸ ὄρος τὸ διεφθαρμένον τὸ διαφθεῖρον πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν, καὶ ἐκτενῶ τὴν χεῖρά μου ἐπὶ σὲ καὶ κατακυλιῶ σε ἐπὶ τῶν πετρῶν, καὶ δώσω σε ὡς ὄρος ἐμπεπυρισμένον, Which seems like a prediction that Babylon shall be dealt with as the mountain of destruction over against Jerusalem had been dealt with by Josiah. If that passage was in the Seer’s mind, the image here might be compared with xviii. 21 sqq. though the parallel would not be exact. If we take this passage alone it is certainly natural to think of volcanic phenomena—rather of those of the Aigean than of those of Campania: the great eruption of Vesuvius would have suggested other images: though all volcanoes are near the sea, a torrent of lava would hardly be described as if the burning mountain itself fell into the sea. ἐγένετο... αἷμα. This plague, like the last, recalls one of the plagues of Egypt, Ex. vii. 17 sqq. 9. τὰ ἔχοντα ψυχάς. Cf. 11. 20n.; here it might be a question whether τὰ ἔχ. ψυχὰς is in apposition to τὸ τρίτον or τῶν κτισμάτων. 10, 11. THe ΤΉΙΕΡ TRUMPET. 10. ὡς λαμπάς. ‘Like a torch,” with a flaring trail of fire. The same image is used of natural shooting stars, e.g. Verg. Aen. 11. 694. ἐπὶ τὰς πηγὰς τῶν ὑδάτων. Only the third part, as appears from the next verse. 11. ἐγένετο.. εἰς ἄψινθον. We are perhaps to be reminded, as before, of the plagues in Egypt, so here of the mercy to Israel, Ex. xv. 25: here, as those are intensified, so that is reversed. πολλοὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀπέθανον. Of course such water would be unwholesome for ordinary use, though wormwood is not exactly poisonous. But it may be a question whether St John means the name to indicate the herb now known as wormwood, or another more deadly one: poison seems to be meant in Deut. xxix. 18; Jer. ix. 15, xxiii. 15. The root of the Hebrew word there rendered ‘‘ wormwood ” seems to mean “ noxious.” 12, 13. Tue FourtH Trumpet. 12. τὸ τρίτον τοῦ ἡλίου. Here we may think either of the Egyptian plague of darkness, Ex. x. 21 sqq., or of a reversal (as in the last case) 106 REVELATION. (VIII. 12— of the blessing of Is. xxx. 26. There, as here, there seems to be no distinction made between an increase, or decrease, in the intensity of light and in its duration. ἵνα σκοτισθῇ. Lit. ‘that the third part of them may be darkened.” But in ordinary Greek we should have the optative instead of the subjunctive mood, possibly the present instead of the aorist tense. 13. ἑνὸς ἀετοῦ. ἀγγέλου is no doubt a correct and very ancient gloss. Literally ‘‘one eagle.” But apparently there was a tendency in late Hebrew for the numeral to sink, as in modern languages, into a mere indefinite article; and here, and perhaps in one or two other places, we seem to have it so used in the N.T.: e.g. Matt. viii. 19, xxvi. 69, and probably ix. 18. ἐν μεσουρανήματι. ‘In mid-heaven.” The compound occurs again in xiv. 6, xix. 17, and nowhere else in the N.T.: but in the later classical Greek it is not uncommon for the position of the sun at noonday. Yet the last of the places cited from this book, where all natural birds are said to fly “in mid-heaven,’”’ seems rather as if St John used it of the air, the space between earth and sky. ovat, oval, οὐαί. We see by ix. 12, xi. 14 that three distinct woes are meant, one for each of the Three Trumpets. CHAPTER IX. 2. Kal ἤνοιξεν.. ἀβύσσου. These words are omitted by SB, vg. (am. harl. tol.) cop. arm. «th. ἐκ τοῦ φρέατος ὡς καπνός. A omits ὡς, 1 omits all five words. μεγάλης. B, syr. read καιομένης. ἐκ τοῦ καπνοῦ TOD φρέατος kal. &* omits these words. 3. αὐταῖς. With AP; δὲ has αὐτοῖς throughout and is supported here and in v. 4 by B,, in v. 5 by A where Text. Rec. and W. H. (text) read αὐταῖς with B,P. 5. βασανισθήσονται ; Hrasmus altered this into βασανισθήσωνται; Text. Rec. reads βασανισθῶσι with By. 7. ὅμοια. A reads ὁμοιώματα; δὲ ὅμοιοι. 10. ὁμοίας. NA read ὁμοίοις; W. H. propose ὅμοια as an adverb. καὶ κέντρα καὶ. 1. 36 and vg. arm, eth. transpose the second καὶ, and begin a new clause with καὶ ἡ ἐξουσία; the later vg. and Text. Rec. read kai κέντρα ἦν... καὶ ἡ ἐξ. ἡ ἐξουσία.. ἀδικῆσαι. B, reads ἐξουσίαν ἔχουσιν τοῦ ἀδικῆσαι. 12. ἔρχεται. Text. Rec. reads ἔρχονται with B,P 1. ἔτι δύο. Cop. reads δευτέρα. St Jerome alterum, cod. flor. secundum. 13. μίαν ἐκ τῶν τεσσάρων κεράτων. With B,P; &* omits these words. Primas. reads unum ex quattuor cornibus arue dei aureae, [Cyp.] (ef. Intr. p. Ixxvii.) wnwm ex quattuor angelis (vel angulis) areae aureae, ἘΝ’ 17 NOTES. ΤΟΥ 14. λέγοντα. B, reads λέγοντος; Text. Rec. λέγουσαν with P 1. 16. τῶν στρατευμάτων. Primas. reads militantiwm=orparevopevwv. δύο μυριάϑες μυριάδων. With. Lach, Tisch. W. H. and Weiss read δισμυριάδες μυριάδων with AP 1*. Epiph. quotes ἤκουσα τὸν ἀριθμὸν τοῦ στρατοῦ μυρίαι μυριάδες καὶ χίλιαι χιλιάδες; By reads μυριάδες μυριάδων; Primas. reads octoginta milia (which points to an older reading δισμύριοι, cf. Ps. ΙΧ}. 17, where LXX. translate τὸ ἅρμα τοῦ θεοῦ μυριοπλάσιον, as if each angel was over 20,000), and quotes Tyconius as reading bis miriades miriadum which is certainly wrong, for in his commentary Tyc. says non dixit quot miriadum. The reading of most editors might have been reached by combining two readings, one of which has only indirect Latin evidence. 17. ὑακινθίνους; Primas. and Tyc. read spineas=dkavOivous. 18. Primas. omits the whole verse. ἀπὸ τῶν τριῶν πληγῶν. Text. Rec. omits πληγῶν with 1; & omits τριῶν. 19. καὶ ἐν ταῖς οὐραῖς αὐτῶν. Text. Rec. omits these words with 1 eth. 20. ἐκ τῶν ἔργων τῶν χειρῶν αὐτῶν. Primas. reads factorum suorum malorum= ἐκ τῶν ἔργων αὐτῶν τῶν πονηρῶν. 21. πορνείας. ἐξ ἾΑ read πονηρίας, see above. Cu. ΙΧ. 1—12. Tue ΕἾΕΤΗ Tromeet. First Wor. 1. πεπτωκότα. “Fallen.” St John does not say that he witnessed the actual fall. ἐδόθη αὐτῷ. Clearly therefore the star is identified with a person: no doubt a ‘fallen angel,’ in the common sense of the term. For the identification of angels with stars, cf. i. 20, and Job xxxyiii. 7: and of fallen angels in particular, Enoch xviii. 16, xxi. 3, &e. The fall of this star may legitimately be illustrated, as to the image by Is. xiv. 42, and as to the meaning by Luke x. 18, and xii. 9 in this book: but it is not to be assumed that this passage refers to the same event as either of the two last, still less that the first does. τοῦ φρέατος τῆς ἀβύσσου. Lit. ‘of the pit (or “well’’) of the abyss”: the depth of Hell, the home or penal prison of the demons (ef. Luke vili. 31 καὶ παρεκάλουν αὐτὸν ἵνα μὴ ἐπιτάξῃ αὐτοῖς els τὴν ἄβυσσον ἀπελθεῖν), is conceived as a pit in the earth’s surface, no doubt literally bottomless, and probably more spacious than the shaft which gives access to it. This last, like the mouth of an earthly reservoir, can be fitted with a cover which is fastened down with a padlock or seal. Cf. xi. 7, xvii. 8, for the notion of evil beings issuing from the pit ; xx. 1, 3, for their being confined there. But notice (i) that this pit is nowhere identified with the ‘‘lake of fire,” the jinal destination of the Devil and his angels; (ii) that we are not told that the Devil himself is cast into it yet—rather the contrary is implied. 108 REVELATION. [TX. 3— 3. ἐκ Tod καπνοῦ. Cf. xvi. 2. One can hardly tell whether we are to understand that the smoke turned into locusts, or only that the locusts rose in the smoke, and dispersed from among it. ot σκορπίοι τῆς γῆς, 1.6. common natural scorpions: these infernal locusts are able to hurt men, as common scorpions are, but common locusts are not. 4. ἵνα μὴ ἀδικήσωσιν, 1.6. not to do the damage that natural locusts do—these natural objects having been plagued already, viii. 7—-but other damage, still more directly distressing the sinful world. τὴν σφραγῖδα τοῦ θεοῦ. Cf. vii. 3 and note, δ. μῆνας πέντε. It has been conjectured that this period is named, as being the time for which a plague of the literal locusts is liable to last. But more probably the period is to be reckoned on the same principle—whatever that be—as the other periods of time indicated in this Book. 6. φεύγει. The present after the future is a little strange. 7. ὅμοια ὕπποις. See Joel 11. 4. Probably that passage is only a highly idealised description of a natural swarm of locusts, and the verse cited refers to the resemblance in shape of the locust’s head, and perhaps the legs, to a horse’s. It is doubtful whether the words ἡτοιμασμένοις eis πόλεμον Suggest comparison between the frame of the locust and the plate-armour of a horse, see on v. 9: such armour was still confined to the East in St John’s time. At any rate there is a reference here to the discipline of the locust host: as in Joel ii. 7, 8. ὡς στέφανοι ὅμοιοι xpvow. Lit. ‘as it were crowns like unto gold,” perhaps a mere golden mark, such as it is quite possible a real insect might have. τὰ πρόσωπα αὐτῶν ὡς πρόσωπα ἀνθρώπων. ἄνθρωποι means, in classical Greek at least, “human beings,” not necessarily males. But in Hellenistic Greek it is not infrequently used in opposition to women, and probably the next clause marks it so here. Both in this clause and in the next we have the choice of making the de- scription purely supernatural or supposing that a deeper meaning is given to features of natural locusts which had struck the popular fancy. 8. ὡς τρίχας γυναικῶν. It is said that, in Arabic poetry, the same comparison is used of the antenne of the natural locust: but more probably this is one of the supernatural features of the de- scription. ὡς λεόντων. Joel i. 6 of ὀδόντες αὐτοῦ ὀδόντες λέοντος καὶ al μύλαι αὐτοῦ σκύμνου. 9. ὡς θώρακας σιδηροῦς. This probably is an idealisation of the structure of the natural locust. ὡς ἁρμάτων ἵππων πολλών. Lit. ‘as of many chariots of horses,” Joel ii, 5, IX. 14.] NOTES. 10g 11. ἔχουσιν ἐπ᾽ αὐτῶν βασιλέα. Whereas ‘the (natural) locusts have no king,” Prov, xxx. 27. In Amos vii. 1 the LXX. has the curious mistranslation or corrupt reading, καὶ ἰδοὺ βροῦχος εἷς Twy ὁ βασιλεύς; which possibly arose from, or suggested, a superstition that St John uses as an image. τὸν ἄγγελον τῆς ἀβύσσου. Hither the fallen star of v. 1, who opened the pit and let them out of it; or a spirit—presumably, but hardly certainly, a bad one—made the ‘guardian of that lowest deep of God’s creation. See Excursus I. ᾿Αβαδδών. St Jerome seems to have kept alive in Latin a reading Labaddon, which was supposed to represent the Hebrew more ac- curately. The word is properly an abstract noun ‘‘destruction,” but used apparently in the sense of ‘‘Hell” in Job xxvi. 26, &e. Here it probably stands for Destroyer, like the Greek participle given as an equivalent, 12. ἡ pla. The first of the three denounced by the eagle, viii. 13. A decided majority of modern orthodox commentators understand this vision as foretelling the Mahometan conquests—some taking the fallen star of v. 1 of Mahomet himself. The last is scarcely credible— unless one should adopt the view,—not perhaps inconsistent with the facts of Mahomet’s career, but hardly in harmony with the general order of Revelation—that he really had a divine commission, but perverted it to serve his selfish ambition. It seems almost certain that the ‘‘star” is an angel, strictly speaking: but the inter- pretation as a whole seems worthy of respect. Perhaps the Ma- hometan conquest is to be regarded as at least a partial fulfilment of this prophecy: but the attempts to shew that it is in detail an exact fulfilment have not been very successful. For instance, it cannot be said that the Mahometan conquest has done no hurt except to those who denied or profaned their baptism, see sup. v. 4. 13—21. Tue Sixta Trumpet. THE Seconp Wor. 13. φωνὴν μίαν. Seecritical note. Lit. ‘one voice”; see on viil. 13. The word τεσσάρων just afterwards should probably be omitted: else ‘fone voice from the four horns” would give the numeral a special meaning. 14. λέγοντα. If the reading be right, rather in irregular appo- sition to φωνὴν than a false concord. ὁ ἔχων τὴν σάλπιγγα. Rightly taken by the versions as in appo- sition to τῷ ἕκτῳ ἀγγέλῳ; in another Book it would be safer to take it as a vocative, like ὁ δεσπότης, v. 10. Adcov τοὺς τέσσαρας ἀγγέλους. We are reminded of the four angels of vii. 1, but it is hardly possible that they are the same as these. The plagues held back by them, on ‘‘the earth, the sea, and the trees,” have come already, viii. 7—9: moreover, these angels do not stand ‘fon the four corners of the earth,” but in one not very remote part of it. No satisfactory explanation of their meaning has been given: nor can we be sure whether the name Euphrates is 110 REVELATION. [IxX. 14— to be taken literally. We hear of it again in xvi. 12, where the arguments for and against a literal interpretation seem almost equally balanced. 15. εἰς τὴν ὥραν, “for the hour.” The article is not repeated, but plainly the one article belongs to all the nouns: they are ‘‘pre- pared for the hour, and day, and month, and year,” when God has decreed to execute the vengeance here foretold. 16. τοῦ ἱππικοῦ. Not plural but collective, as we should say ‘‘ the cavalry.” Not that the Seer gives the number of one arm only of an army containing more: apparently this army consists of cavalry exclusively. The four angels seem to be its captains, and it is held in readiness with them to march when they are loosed to slay the third part of men. The Parthian cavalry was the most formidable barbarian force of St John’s day: did the Parthian kings boast of the myriads of horsemen whom they could call out at a day appointed? Any way, if the Parthian cavalry suggested the image to St John’s mind, we should have the explanation of the use of the name Euphrates. More than this we can hardly say as to the meaning of the Vision, and any partial fulfilment that it may have had or be about to have. δύο μυριάδες μυριάδων. The number is perhaps suggested by Ps. Ixviii. 17 (Primasius’ text implies that in some ancient MSS. it had been reproduced literally, each angel had 20,000 horsemen, 80,000 in all): still it hardly seems as if these horsemen were celestial (like those of xix. 14), though they are not distinctly infernal like the locusts of the previous Vision. 17. ἔχοντας θώρακας. This must be understood of the riders chiefly, but perhaps not exclusively: comparing ver. 9 we cannot be sure that St John would not use the word ‘‘breastplate” of the defensive armour of a horse, if he had such in his mind. In fact, the word is used in later Greek of defensive armour generally, not the breastplate only. πυρίνους Kal ὑακινθίνους kal θειώδεις. As the last adjective only means ‘‘like brimstone,” it is possible that the two former indicate colour rather than material, which is strictly implied in the ter- minations, the rather that fire and “‘jacinth” is a somewhat in- congruous combination. Jacinth is the modern transliteration of ὑάκινθος, the classical transliteration of the oriental jacuth, the name of a class of stones to which the sapphire belongs, and this was the common ancient meaning of the word; but it was also applied to stones of the same kind and of different colours, red or orange. In the middle ages it hecame common to speak of red and blue ‘‘jacinths” as rubei or sapphirei, and then the epithets superseded the noun. Most ‘‘jacinths” were known as rubies or sapphires, and the original name was left for any stone of the least common and precious colour of the original ‘‘jacinth.” Here the horsemen had breastplates of fiery red, of smoky blue, and of sul- phurous yellow. Whether all had tricoloured armour, or whether X.] NOTES. 111 there were three divisions, each in a distinctive uniform, may be doubted: but the three plagues corresponding to these colours, which we hear of directly after, are almost certainly inflicted by the whole army alike: and this affords some presumption that the attire of each was symbolical of all three. - 18. ἀπὸ τῶν...ἐκ τοῦ.... The prepositions imply that the slaughter came of the plagues. 19. ἡ γὰρ ἐξουσία τῶν ἵππων. For the use of the word ἐξουσία (sometimes elsewhere translated ‘‘authority” or “ licence”), ef. vi. 8, ix. 3. St Luke xxii. 53 illustrates the meaning of the word in such a context. 20. ἐκ τῶν ἔργων τῶν χειρῶν αὐτῶν. A common Old Testament formula both for idolatry, Jer. i. 16, and other sins, ib, xxv, 14. ἵνα μὴ προσκυνήσουσιν. This verse gives us the only clue we have to the interpretation. Itis a plague on idolaters that is here described —neither on unfaithful Christians, nor on antichristian infidels of a more refined type—unless the latter shall in the last days, as in the age of the Roman persecutions, and one may almost say of the Renaissance and Reformation, ally itself against the Gospel with the vulgar or sensuous idolatry which it was its natural tendency to despise. 21. καὶ οὐ μετενόησαν. Answers to οὔτε μετενόησαν above: οἱ λοιποὶ is of course the subject of both: though Andreas, treating ver. 19 as parenthetical, makes οἱ λοιποὶ the subject of dmrexrav@ncoav—the third part were killed and likewise the remnant who were spared for the time and repented not. This shews that even to an Asiatic Greek in later times the construction was strange. φαρμακιῶν, Fitly mentioned between ‘‘murders’” and ‘forni- cation,” and in connexion with ‘‘idolatry”; cf. Gal. v. 20, and note on xxi. 8. CHAPTER Χ, 1. ἄλλον. Griesb, omits with B, 1. 2. ἔχων. Text. Rec. reads εἶχεν with 1 Latins cop, arm. 4. ore. Sand Primas. read ὅσα. σφράγισον. Primas. and Tyce. translate nota tibi, signa tibi= σφράγισαι. δ. τὴν δεξιάν, Text. Rec. omits with A 1 86 and vg. 6. Kal τὴν γῆν... καὶ τὴν θάλασσαν Kal τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ. A omits all this; 1, 12 omit καὶ τῆν γῆν καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ; &* Primas. arm. omit καὶ τὴν θάλ. x.7.d.; cop. eth. read τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν καὶ τὴν θάλασσαν καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτοῖς πάντα. 7. τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ δούλους τοὺς προφήτας. Primas. and vg. read per profetas servos suos, per servos suos prophetas=éy rots δ. x.r.d.; Text. Rec, has datives without ἐν with 1. rie REVELATION. [Χ.-- 8. καὶ ἡ φωνὴ ἣν ἤκ... λαλοῦσαν... καὶ λέγουσαν. Primas. reads et audivi vocem...iterum loquentem; ‘Text. Rec. reads λαλοῦσα καὶ λέγουσα with 1 and And. 9. ἀπῆλθον. Lach. Tisch. W. H. read ἀπῆλθα with A. 10. ἐπικράνθη. &* reads ἐγεμίσθη; the older text of Primas. repletus est; S° reads éy....mixpias. So one MS. of Primas. and Beatus repletus est amaritudine. 11. λέγουσιν. Text. Rec. reads λέγει with P 1, most Latins, and other versions. καὶ ἔθνεσιν. B, reads καὶ ἐπὶ ἔθν. Cu. X. Tue ANGEL ΜΙΤῊ THE [ΠῚΤῚῈ ΒΟΟΚ. 1. Weare not told yet, as we might expect, that ‘‘the Second Woe is past,” nor does the Seventh Trumpet and the Third Woe immediately follow: but just as in ch. vii. the two descriptions of the sealed Israelites and the palm-bearing multitude came after the Sixth Seal, so here the vision of the mighty angel, and the prophecy (passing in- sensibly into a vision) of the Two Witnesses, follow the Sixth Trumpet. ἄλλον ἄγγελον ἰσχυρόν. “Another,” probably, than the four mentioned in ix. 15: ef. vil. 1, 2, Some suppose a reference back to v. 2, where we have heard of a ‘‘mighty angel” (the epithet is the same) before. περιβεβλημένον νεφέλην. And therefore with something of the state with which Christ will come to judgement: cf. i. 7 &c. The cloud is wrapt about the head as well as the shoulders, as appears from the next clause. ἡ tps. The article suggests that the same bow of God is seen every time that it appears. οἱ πόδες. 1.6. his legs are as thick as the pillars of a temple, and their substance of fiery brightness. 2. ἔχων. Rightly paraphrased by versions as a predicate rather than an epithet. βιβλαρίδιον ἠνεῳγμένον. The diminutive perhaps suggests com- parison (but hardly contrast, which is sufficiently marked by the epithet) with the book of v. 1 sqq. 3. αἱ ἑπτὰ βρονταί. The only reason that we can imagine for the presence of the article is, that to St John’s mind ‘‘the seven thunders” formed one element in the vision; as we might speak of ‘‘the seven seals,” ‘“‘the seven trumpets,” ‘‘the seven vials’—these being known to us, as the thunders also were to him. τὰς ἑαυτῶν φωνάς. The possessive is emphatic, ‘their own voices.” Perhaps the meaning is, ‘‘each uttered its own.” It has been taken to imply that the voices of the thunders were not the voice of God; but comparing Ps, xxix. passim, St John xii. 28, 29, it is scarcely possible to doubt that these thunders, voices from heaven, are from God, or at least directed by Him. %7.] NOTES. 113 4, ἔμελλον γράφειν. See i. 19. It is useless to speculate how far the Book was written at the same time that the Vision was seen: possibly it may have been in part, but it is enough to suppose that, having been bidden to write, the Seer seemed to himself to write, or (so to speak) saw himself writing, at appropriate points of the Vision. σφράγισον. Cf. Dan. xii. 4, 9. There the use of the words is more logical: Daniel is to write the vision, but not to let it be read: contrast in this book xxii. 10. Here the use of the word is suggested by the passage in Daniel—in the impassioned style of this book it is forgotten that what is not written cannot and need not be sealed. It may be noted that μὴ αὐτὰ γράψῃς in this verse and xi. 2 μὴ αὐτὴν μετρήσῃς are the only certain instances in this book of an accusative pronoun other than a relative coming before the verb except i. 7, xii. 15; οἵ, xi. 5, xviii. 14. Why the voices of the thunders were not to be written it is idle to guess: it is worse than idle to guess what they were. And in our ignorance of this it is hardly possible that we should be able to identify the mission of this angel with any special dispensation of God yet known. δ. τὴν χεῖρα αὐτοῦ τὴν δεξιάν. Cf. Dan. xii. 7, where the angel lifts up both hands: here, his left is occupied with the book. For the gesture symbolic of an oath see Gen. xiv. 22, &c.: there may be a reference to that passage intended, in the description of the Most High that follows. 6. ὥὦμοσεν ἐν τῷ ζῶντι... This angel is therefore in no sense a divine Person. 6, 7. ὅτι χρόνος οὐκέτι ἔσται, GAN’..., 1.6. as we say, “there shall be no more time lost, but’’...: “there shall be delay no longer,”’ Ezek, xii. 22,23. It is not in harmony with the usual language of Scripture to suppose that finite ‘‘time” is meant to be opposed to eternity. 7. ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις... τοῦ ἑβδόμου ἀγγέλου. This accounts for the Vision being narrated between the Sixth and Seventh Trumpets; though it also suggests that the whole of the Vision of the Trumpets may have been seen before it: indeed that the interval may have been long enough for what looked like a fulfilment of the signs which followed the first five Trumpets if not the Sixth—while the end seemed as far off as ever. ὅταν μέλλῃ σαλπίζειν. If μέλλῃ is to be pressed we should under- stand that the course of God’s judgements for this world comes to an end before the Seventh Angel sounds, and that when he does, the world to come begins; but as it would be against the analogy of this book to identify the general resurrection and the condemnation of the Lost with the Third Woe, it is better to take ὅταν μέλλῃ σαλπίζειν simply as a periphrasis for the future. καὶ ἐτελέσθη. No doubt a literal reproduction of the so-called Hebrew ‘ preterite with vau conversive,” the only one now traceable in the book, though there are places where the Old Latin version seems to have read an aorist where our Greek MSS. read a future. REVELATION Η 114 REVELATION. [X. 7— τὸ μυστήριον τοῦ θεοῦ. Here Abp Whately’s paradox is hardly an exaggeration, that for ‘‘mystery’’ one might substitute ‘‘revelation,” without altering the sense: see on i. 20. εὐηγγέλισεν. The active is only found in this book. τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ δούλους. The accusative is not irregular according to New Testament usage. St Luke generally uses it for the recipients of the message when its contents are not mentioned: when both are mentioned, the message is in the accusative, the recipients in the dative; though once, Acts xiii. 32, we have a double accusative. 8. ἡ φωνὴ ἣν ἤκουσα... πάλιν λαλοῦσαν. The participles are made to depend upon ἤκουσα by an irregular attraction, which would be less puzzling if it did not leave 7 φωνὴ without any construction at all. 9. ἀπῆλθον. Apparently from his place in heaven to the earth; if the Vision which begins at iv. 1 is continued throughout the book, there are difficulties in tracing coherently the changes in the point of view. κατάφαγε αὐτό. Ezek. ii. 8, iii. 3. πικρανεῖ cov τὴν κοιλίαν. This Ezekiel’s roll did not do. We may presume that this little book, like the O.T. one, contained ‘‘lamenta- tions, and mourning, and woe.’”’ To both prophets, the first result of absorbing the words of God and making them their own (Jer. xv. 16) is delight at communion with Him and enlightenment by Him: but the Priest of the Lord did not feel, as the Disciple of Jesus did, the afterthought of bitterness—the Christ-like sorrow for those against whom God’s wrath is revealed, who ‘‘knew not the time of their visitation.” ‘Else had it bruised too sore his tender heart To see God’s ransom’d world in wrath and flame depart.” (Keble.) It is generally held, in one form or another, that this ‘‘little book” symbolises or contains ‘‘the mystery of God,” the approaching com- pletion of which has just been announced. Some needlessly combine with this the theory (see note on v. 1) that it contains the whole or part of this Book of the Revelation. But really the surest clue to its meaning is the parallel passage in Ezekiel: if we say that the book contains ‘‘the Revelation of God’s Judgement” (remembering how that Revelation is described in Rom. i. 18), we shall speak as definitely as is safe. 10. ἐπικράνθη. The ancient variant ἐγεμίσθη, which sums up what is expressed at length Job xxxii. 18, 19, brings out a real element in the meaning: the burden of unuttered truth is in itself a pain and, as we see in the next verse, the pain is a call to speak. 11. καὶ λέγουσίν μοι. For theimpersonal plural cf. βλέπωσιν xvi. 15. Set σε πάλιν προφητεῦσαι. If, as is possible (see on v. 7), this implies a new or renewed commission to the Seer, it is surely un- necessary to try to make out that the remainder of the book contains higher mysteries than the foregoing part, The words certainly include ΧΙ] NOTES. 115 a personal warning to the Apostle himself;—he was to see the end of all things in vision, but his own earthly work and duties were not at an end. He had already ‘‘prophesied before many peoples and nations and tongues and kings” (whether Nero or Domitian was the last of these): and he would have to do the same “again.” CHAPTER XI. 1. λέγων. N* reads λέγει. Text. Rec. reads καὶ ὁ ἄγγελος εἱστήκει λέγων With 36; N°* καὶ €or. ὁ ayy. λέγων, and B, καὶ ior. ὁ ἄγγ. λέγων. 2. τὴν αὐλὴν τὴν ἔξωθεν τοῦ ναοῦ. N* reads τῆς αὐλῆς τῆς ἔσωθεν τοῦ λαοῦ, N° τὴν αὐλὴν τὴν...... ναοῦ. ἔκβαλε ἔξωθεν. Text. Rec. reads ἔκβ. ἔξω with B,; X* reads ἔκβ. ἔσω, P ἔκβ. ἔσωθεν. ἐδόθη. δὲ" reads ἐδ. καί. 8. περιβεβλημένοι with N°C 1. Lach. and W. H. read περιβεβλη- μένους with N*AB,P. 4. ἑστῶτες. Text. Rec. reads ἑστῶσαι with N°P 1, δ. οὕτως. A omits. 7. τὸ θηρίον. A adds τὸ τέταρτον. 8. τὸ πτῶμα. Text. Rec. reads τὰ πτώματα with NP 1. ὁ κύριος αὐτῶν. δὲ" omits αὐτῶν, 1 and Text. Rec. substitute ἡμῶν. 10. πέμψουσιν. Tisch. reads πέμπουσιν with 8*P. 11. ἐν αὐτοῖς. CP 1 omit ἐν, C reads εἰσῆλθεν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ αὐτοῖς. 12. ἤκουσαν. N°B, and early editions of Tischendorf read ἤκουσα. 13. τὸ δέκατον. B, reads τὸ τρίτον as in the other plagues, 14. ἀπῆλθεν. N reads παρῆλθεν. 15. ἐγένετο ἡ βασιλεία. Text. Rec. reads ἐγένοντο αἱ βασιλεῖαι with 1 and 7. τοῦ κόσμου. And. Primas. and 28 omit. τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν. καὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ. Areth. after κόσμου goes on τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Primas. and Ambros. Dei nostri οἱ Christi sui. 16. οἱ ἐνώπιον. Lach. omits οἱ with AB, 1. ot κάθηνται. Lach. and Text. Rec. read καθήμενοι with AP 1; and Cyp. enlarged text, in conspectu Dei sedentes. 17. ὅτι εἴληφας. Tisch. reads καὶ ὅτι εἴλ. with N*C πιὰ. 18. καιρός. C reads κλῆρος. κριθῆναι καί. Primas. omits. καὶ τοῖς ay. καὶ τοῖς φοβ. A reads καὶ τοὺς ay. καὶ τοὺς φοβ. τοῖς μικροῖς καὶ τοῖς μεγάλοις. Lach. Treg. W. H. read τοὺς μικροὺς καὶ τοὺς μεγάλους With N*AC. καὶ διαφθεῖραι. A omits καὶ. 116 REVELATION. [ΧΤΙΕΣ. 19. ὁ ἐν. Text. Rec. omits ὁ with NB. οὐρανῷ. N* adds ἀνω. τῆς διαθήκης αὐτοῦ. Primas. and cop. omit αὐτοῦ; δὲ substitutes τοῦ θεοῦ ; By τοῦ κυρίου. Cu, ΧΙ. 1—13. Tue Merasurtna ANGEL AND THE Two WITNESSES. 1. κάλαμος. Ezek. xl. 3; Zech. ii. 1 (σχοινίον γεωμετρικόν). ὅμοιος ῥάβδῳ, i.e. a walking-staff: probably not so long as the one in Ezek., l.c., but perhaps of six feet :—so that it would naturally, when carried, be grasped near the upper end, like a pilgrim’s staff, or a modern alpenstock. λέγων. Lit. ‘‘ There was given unto me a reed...saying,” i.e. it was given me with these words. The gloss καὶ ὁ ἄγγελος εἱστήκει in the Textus Receptus (B.E.) probably goes back to the beginning of the fourth century. The speaker cannot be identified with the mighty angel of the preceding chapter: the language in itself is too vague to be pressed: and in v. 3 at any rate the speaker is either God (Is. xlii. 10, 12, xliv. 8) or Christ (Acts i. 8, &c.). τὸν ναὸν τοῦ θεοῦ. The word used is not that for the whole ‘“Temple-precinct,” but the ‘‘Temple” in the narrowest sense—what in the O.T. is called ‘‘the house”’ or ‘‘the palace.”’ τὸ θυσιαστήριον. Being distinguished from the Temple, we should naturally think of the Altar of Burnt-offering which stood outside it: besides that this was, and the Altar of Incense was not, large enough to be measured by something longer than a foot-rule. But we saw on vi. 9 that the Heavenly Temple apparently has no Altar of Burnt- offering distinct from the Altar of Incense: so the question only becomes important if we suppose the earthly Temple to be meant. Is it then the heavenly or the earthly Temple that St John is bidden to measure? Probably the latter. Without pressing the argument from x. 9, that the Seer is now on earth, it is hardly likely that, whereas in Ezekiel, Zechariah, and inf. xxi. 15 the measurement, not of the Temple only but of the Holy City, is the work of angels, it should here be ascribed toa man. But what is more decisive is, that the whole of this chapter describes God’s rebukes and correcting judgements on the city, the fate of which is connected with that of the Temple here named. This proves that it is the earthly city of God that is meant—and therefore probably the literal Jerusalem: for the Christian Church, imperfectly as it realises its divine ideal, does not appear to be dissociated from it in Scriptural typology or prophecy: ‘Jerusalem which is above...is the Mother of us all,” even now, and even now ‘‘our citizenship is in Heaven.”’ τοὺς προσκυνοῦντας ἐν αὐτῷ. Not ἐν αὐτοῖς : probably therefore the mention of ‘the Altar” is “parenthetical, for worship in it could scarcely be spoken of, though worship on it might. But the truth is, XI. 2.) NOTES. 117 neither the Temple (in the narrower sense) nor the Altar was ordinarily a place of spiritual ‘‘ worship,” but only of the ritual ‘‘ service of God.” Therefore the meaning of the Temple and Altar must be to some extent spiritualised: even if the prophecy be concerned with God’s judgements on Jerusalem and the Jewish people, we are not to under- stand that the actual Temple was to be spared (for we know it was not): but, most probably, that the true Israelites would not be cut off from communion with God, even when their city and the earthly splendours of their Temple were destroyed. Ezek. xi. 16 will thus illustrate the sense of the passage, though there does not appear to be a conscious reference to it. 2. τὴν αὐλὴν τὴν ἔξωθεν. The words might be translated “ the outer court of the Temple.’’? It must be remembered that ‘the courts of the Lord’s House’’ were the ordinary place for the worship- pers to assemble, even before the outer and larger ‘Court of the Gentiles,” with its magnificent colonnades, was added to Herod’s Temple. Probably the latter is thought of, in its assignment to the Gentiles: but the meaning appears to be, that all the courts shall be profaned, up to the walls of the inmost Sanctuary. μὴ αὐτὴν μετρήσῃς. See x. 4. ἔκβαλε ἔξωθεν. ‘Cast out outside.” The sense must be “leave out for profanation.’’ This excludes the hypothesis (otherwise not without plausibility) that the measurement of the Temple is for destruction, not for preservation: see 2 Kings xxi. 13; Lam. ii. 8,— and for the destruction being regarded as the work of the prophet, ef. Ezek, xliii. 8. The variations in the MSS. between ‘“‘the inner” and ‘the outer” court, and ‘‘casting out outside” and ‘‘ casting out inside” shew that the scribes had long been preoccupied with the thought of the removal of the middle wall of partition between the court of Israel and the court of the Gentiles, for = and = are not generally confused in the MSS. of this book. πατήσουσιν. This doubtless refers to the words of the Lord in St Luke xxi. 24. Hitherto, the correspondences in this book with that Prophecy of our Lord’s have been closest with St Matthew’s version of it. Here the Vision does not go so far as the Prophecy. When the Witnesses have finished their testimony their bodies are cast out in the streets of Jerusalem, which is still standing and hugs her chains. Hence there can be no reference to the Jewish War: it is a vision of profanation, not of destruction. μῆνας τεσσεράκοντα δύο. So xiii. 5. This period is apparently identical with the “1200 days” of the next verse, and xii.6: and with the ‘‘time, times, and half a time” (i.e. 34 years) of xii. 14. In Dan. vii. 25, xii. 7 we have this last measure of the period given, and the time indicated by Daniel must be either identical with or typical of that indicated by St John. It is to be noted, that in Dan. ΧΙ]. 11, 12, we have the period extended to 1290 and 1335 days. _ The key to these prophecies, that speak of definite periods of time, is generally sought in Ezek. iv. 6—it is supposed that each pro- 118 REVELATION. [XI. 2— phetical ‘‘day” stands for a year, and by consequence a ‘‘week” is equivalent to seven years, a “‘month” to 30, and a ‘‘year” to 360. This gives an approximately satisfactory explanation of the one prophecy of the ‘‘70 weeks” in Dan. ix.: they would naturally be understood to extend from B.c. 536 (the decree of Cyrus) to B.c. 5 (the Nativity), a.v. 29—30 (the Crucifixion), and a.p. 70 (the fall of Jerusalem); but the terms in which their beginning and end are described can with a little pressure be applied to B.c. 457 (the decree of Artaxerxes), a.D. 26 (the Baptism of St John), a.p. 29—30, and A.D. 33—possibly the date of the death of St-Stephen, and so of the final rejection of the Gospel by the Jews and of the Jewish sacrifices by God. But in no other case has a prophecy been even tolerably interpreted on this principle. If it were admitted in this, we should naturally understand that Jerusalem was to have been restored in A.D. 1330—or at latest 1360 or 1405. Indeed, if the Saracen conquest instead of the Roman were taken as the starting-point, the restoration would not fall due till 1897, and it is humanly speaking quite possible that Palestine may pass into new hands then. But men ought to have learnt by this time to distrust such calculations: as we ‘know not the day nor the hour,” so we know not the year nor the century. Two or three generations ago a number of independent calculations were made to converge to the year 1866 as the beginning of the end: but in that year nothing considerable happened except the Austrian war—which of all recent wars perhaps had least the cha- racter of a war between Christ and Antichrist. It was at worst an instance of the painful and not innocent way in which fallen human nature works out its best desires: the Austrians were tech- nically in the right, while the victory of the Prussians has proved honourable and beneficial to both empires alike. 3. καὶ δώσω τοῖς δυσὶν μάρτυσίν pov, καὶ προφητεύσουσιν. A literal reproduction of Hebrew idiom. ‘The traditional view of the two Witnesses, datiag from the second century, is that they are Enoch and Elijah—the two prophets who, having (for a time) finished their work on earth, have left it without death: but who, since ‘‘it is appointed for all men once to die,” will, as is here revealed, come on earth again, to prophesy and suffer death in the days of Anti- christ. As to Elijah, there seems to be little doubt that this view is true. The prophecy of Mal. iv. 5 has indeed received a fulfilment in the mission of the Baptist (St Luke i. 17). But St Matt. xvii. 11, 12 perhaps implies that this fulfilment is not the final one—especially when compared with St John i. 21. Really the plain sense of these passages seems to be, that Elijah will actually be sent before the second Coming of Christ, as one in his spirit and power was before His first. But the personality of his colleague is more doubtful. St Vic- torinus was well-nigh alone in thinking of Jeremiah. Of Enoch we know 50 little, that internal evidence hardly applies either way: all we can say is, that he was recognised by popular Jewish belief as a seer of apocalypses, and that his character as a prophet and XI. 6.] NOTES. 119 preacher of repentance is recognised by St Jude. This harmonises well enough with his being intended: but the internal evidence of Scripture itself points rather to Moses and Elias being the two witnesses. Their names are coupled in the prophecy of Mal. iv. 4, 5, as well as in the history of the Transfiguration: and v. 6 ascribes to these prophets the plague actually inflicted by Moses, as well as that by Elijah. This modification of the traditional view was first suggested by the abbot Joachim, the great medizwval commentator on this book ; but it has found wide acceptance in modern times. ἡμέρας χιλίας διακοσίας ἑξήκοντα. See on v. 2. περιβεβλημένοι σάκκους. The well attested reading περιβεβλημένους might no doubt have arisen from assonance: if not, it must be ex- plained as if καὶ προφ.... ἑξήκοντα were parenthetical and the Seer had written θήσω rods δύο μάρτυρας; if he wrote δώσω τοὺς δ. μ. the accusative was certain to be very early and widely changed to the dative. Perhaps the sackcloth is to be understood as the official dress of prophets (Is. xx. 2), rather than a sign that the Witnesses are persecuted or mourn for the sin of Jerusalem. 4. ai δύο ἐλαῖαι kal ai δύο λυχνίαι. As in Zech. iv. the two olive trees or the two Anointed Ones supply the bowl of one golden candlestick with oil, it may be a question whether the reference is directly to Zechariah or to a tradition which grew from his words: the two candlesticks, οἵ. Ps. cxxxii. 17, are clearly known beforehand like the two olive trees: we know from the ‘‘Psalms of Solomon,” viii. 12, xvii. 6, that there was a widespread feeling that from the time of Epiphanes there had been no lawful kingdom or lawful priesthood, for the Maccabees had usurped both: this would explain a belief founded on Zechariah that a lawful kingdom and priesthood must be restored before the Kingdom of Christ, as there was a belief founded on Malachi that Christ would not come before Elias had appeared. Hence this verse would be an exact parallel to Matt. xi. 14, at once a sanction and a correction to existing belief. In Zechariah apparently the “two Anointed Ones” are Zerubbabel and Jeshua, or rather perhaps the ideal King and Priest, conceived as types of Him Who is both: perhaps these two Witnesses similarly typify Him as King (cf. Deut. xxxiii. 5) and Prophet. ἑστῶτες. The masculine is not surprising after οὗτοι; but the position of the participle is as singular here as that of the verb in vii, 2 δ. πῦρ ἐκπορεύεται ἐκ τοῦ στόματος αὐτῶν. Jer. vy. 14 is a pre- cedent for this image; 2 Kings i. 10, &c. for the sense. εἴ τις θελήσῃ. The irregularity, so far as there is one, is due to a common tendency of all Greek not consciously moulded on the early classics to use the conjunctive in conditional sentences even after εἰ, Winer, p. 568: hence the irregularity has presumption in its favour, apart from the balance of the authority. 6. κλεῖσαι τὸν οὐρανόν. Like Elias. 120 REVELATION. | XI. 6— τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς προφητείας αὐτῶν. Is this term fixed with con- scious reference to the three years and six months for which Elias did shut heaven (Luke iv. 25; James v. 17)? The term was no doubt arrived at by adding the dry interval between the spring and autumn rains to the three years for which both failed, as the regular rains were renewed at Elijah’s prayer at the end of the third year. στρέφειν αὐτὰ εἰς αἷμα. Like Moses. 7. τὸ θηρίον. Here first mentioned: probably that which appears in xiii. 1, not in xiii. 11: though neither of them makes his appear- ance immediately ‘out of the bottomless pit”: see, however, xvii. 8. But perhaps it is worth noticing that ‘the deep” in Rom. x. 7 (the word is the same as ‘‘the bottomless pit” here) corresponds to ‘‘ the sea” of Deut. xxx. 13. ποιήσει μετ᾽ αὐτῶν πόλεμον. Dan. vii. 21. We are not to think of the ‘saints’? who rally round the “witnesses” as necessarily holding the holy city against the armies of the beast; in the earliest and best days of the Maccabees the sinners were for the most part at ease in Zion, while the saints were fighting the good fight in the wilderness; the struggle to which the Seer looks forward is the anti- type of that. νικήσει αὐτούς. Martyrs who have only to testify and suffer are always conquerors; but it belongs to the calling of these prophets not only to witness but to strive—and to strive in vain; their tes- timony is silenced and their work undone. Kal ἀποκτενεῖ αὐτούς. After the lost battle. 8. ἐπὶ τῆς πλατείας. For the sing. ef. xxi. 21, xxii. 2. The word in fact means a broad street, such as the principal street of a city would be. The modern Italian piazza is the same word; but xxii. 2 seems to shew that it is a street rather than a square—perhaps most accurately a ‘‘boulevard” in the modern sense, only running through the city, not round it. τῆς πόλεως τῆς μεγάλης. Many commentators suppose this to be the Babylon of xiv. 8 and chaps. xvii. sqq.—i.e. Rome, whether literally or in an extended sense. But this seems hardly natural. If it were, why is it not called Babylon here, just as in the last verse the beast was called the beast? Besides, here the great majority of the inhabitants repent at God’s judgement: contrast xvi. 9. The only other possible view is, that this great city is Jerusalem: and with this everything that is said about it seems to agree. ἥτις καλεῖται. Here probably we have a comment of the Seer on the words of the Voice, which goes down to the end of the verse. Σόδομα. Jerusalem is so called in Is.i. 10, and is likened to Sodom in Ezek. xvi. 46. For the licentionsness of the generation before the fall of Jerusalem, see comm. on Hos. iy. 14: Jos. B. J. tv. ix. 10 suggests a closer likeness. ΧΙ. 12.] NOTES. 121 Αἴγυπτος. Jerusalem, it must be admitted, is never so called in the O.T. Possibly it was called so in the language of New Testament prophecy ; certainly New Testament facts made the name appropriate : comparing Acts ii. 47, v. 12, &c. with the Epistle to the Galatians, we see how Jerusalem was at first the refuge of the people of God, from which nevertheless they had at last to escape as from a house of bondage. 6 κύριος αὐτῶν. This clause seems almost certainly to identify ‘the great city” as Jerusalem: perhaps St John uses the title, as implying that its old one, ‘‘the Holy City,” is forfeited. At the same time, if we do suppose the City meant to be Rome, which might be supported by chap. xviii. 24, itself a parallel to Matt. xxiii. 35, these words can be explained, either by the responsibility of Pilate for the Lord’s death, or on the principle of the beautiful legend, Domine, quo vadis ?—that the Lord suffered in His Servants. 9. βλέπουσιν. The presents in this verse and the next are pretty consistently translated as futures by the Latin, but the later Greek MSS. alter all the presents but the first: while there is a decided balance of authority for πέμψουσιν. If the presents were uniform we might understand them as a sort of transition to the aorists in 11 seqq. τὸ πτῶμα αὐτῶν... τὰ πτώματα αὐτῶν. No reason can be assigned for the change of number. οὐκ ἀφίουσιν τεθῆναι εἰς μνῆμα. As we are certainly to under- stand from vv. 11, 12 that the Prophets are made like to their Lord in His Resurrection and Ascension, we are probably to understand here that they are not made like to Him in His Burial. 11. μετὰ τὰς τρεῖς ἡμέρας Kal ἥμισυ. The half day lends a cer- tain support to the ‘‘ year-day” hypothesis—that 34 years are meant, which might be combined with the theory of St Hippolytus that the time of their testimony corresponds to the first half of the last of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks, while the reign of Antichrist occupies the second. But the traditional explanation takes the days literally—they rise, not on the third day like their Lord, but on the fourth—being like Him, though not equal to Him. Whether the periods named are to be taken literally or no, there seems no reason why we should not follow the traditional view, and understand this chapter as foretelling a sign which shall literally come to pass in the last days. The prophets Moses and Elijah (or perhaps Enoch and Elijah) will appear upon earth—or at the least two prophets will arise in their ‘spirit and power”: the scene of their prophecy will be Jerusalem, which will then be reoceupied by the Jewish nation. Antichrist (under whose patron- age, it is believed, the restoration of the Jews will have taken place) will raise persecution against them, and kill them: but they will rise from the dead, and then, and not till then, the heart of Israel will turn to the Lord. 12. ἤκουσαν. Possibly not the two prophets ouly, but ‘‘they that beheld them.” 122 REVELATION. [XT 12= ἐν τῇ νεφέλῃ. ‘In the cloud”—the same. perhaps, that received their Lord out of His Disciples’ sight. Any way, ‘‘the cloud” is regarded as a permanently recurring phenomenon, like ‘‘the rainbow” ἘΠῚ Χ 18. τὸ δέκατον τῆς πόλεως. This is the mildest judgement recorded in this book: we are expressly told after the far severer judgements of the Trumpets and the Bowls, that they wrought no repentance but rather blasphemy (ix. 20, 21, xvi. 9,21). Here it seems as if Jerusalem by a lighter chastisement was brought, if not to repentance, to some beginning of it. Blindness in part has happened to Israel, but they are still beloved for the fathers’ sake. ὀνόματα ἀνθρώπων. ‘‘Names of men,” as A.V. margin: cf. iii. 4, and Acts i. 15 there quoted. χιλιάδες ἑπτά. Possibly this number is taken as approximately a tenth part of the population of Jerusalem. The city, which can never have extensive suburbs, being surrounded by ravines, can never hold a larger permanent population than 70,000; but in its highest prosperity it may have held as many, and perhaps it may again. ἔδωκαν δόξαν. Here and in xiv. 7, xvi. 9 these words seem to imply the confession of sin, as in Josh. vil. 19, and probably St John ix. 24. It was the predicted work of Elijah to ‘‘turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers”: this will be fulfilled by his posthumous success, uniting the original stock of God’s People to the branches that now grow out of it (Rom. xi. 17, &e.). τῷ θεῷ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. This title (combined in Jonah i. 9, Ezra 1. 2 with the Name of the Lorp) seems to have been the way in which Jews living among heathens (Ezra v. 12, Nehem. ii. 4) or heathens under Jewish influence (Ezra vi. 10) spoke of the God of Israel. This accounts for the way in which heathens in later times conceived of their religion. Nil praeter nubes et caeli numen adorant (Juv. xiv. 97). 14. ἡ oval ἡ δευτέρα ἀπῆλθεν. Having included the profanation of the Holy City and the plagues inflicted by the two prophets, as well as the invasion of the terrible horsemen, chap. ix. ἡ oval ἡ τρίτη. In what does this consist? Perhaps we are to see the answer in xii. 12: but at any rate we have an instance of the way that, throughout this book, the last member of each series of signs disappoints us; we think (cf. x. 7) that the end of all things is come, but instead a new series begins. 15—19. XII. 7—12. Tue SrventH Trumpet. 15. φωναὶ μεγάλαι. Cf. xvi. 17. ἐγένετο ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ κόσμου τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν καὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ. The only possible translation of the text is ‘‘the kingdom of the world is become our Lord’s and His Christ’s”; but the position of ἐγένετο is strange. The phrase ‘‘His Christ” is founded on the Ο. T. phrase ‘the Lord’s Anointed,” cf. St Luke ii. 28, ΧΙ] NOTES. 123 βασιλεύσει. Who? Our Lord or His Christ? St John probably would have regarded the question as meaningless, though comparing v. 1 (see note on ἐν αὐτῷ) it is not likely that he used the sing. con- sciously to imply that Christ and His Father are One, which is implied xx. 6. It would be more to the point to compare “ Christ the Lord” in St Luke ii. 11 with ‘‘the Lord’s Christ” already quoted. 17. κύριε ὁ θεὸς 6 παντοκράτωρ. See oni. 8. ὁ ὧν καὶ ὁ ἦν. Here and in xvi. 5 6 ἐρχόμενος is omitted: no reason can be assigned for the curtailment of the full formula of i. 4, 8, iv. 8, and no significance can be attached to it. 17, 18. εἴληφας... ἦλθεν ἡ ὀργή σου. It is hypercritical in the N.T., and in this book particularly, to attempt to distinguish regularly between perfects and simple preterites: but here it is perhaps worth observing that all the verbs (after the first) are in the same tense: “Thou hast taken Thy great power, and didst reign: and the nations were wroth, and Thy wrath came,” &c. 18. ὁ καιρὸς τῶν νεκρῶν κριθῆναι. The mention of the general Judgement here so long before the end of the book is not really a difficulty if we suppose that the Seven Trumpets form a separate vision, and that each vision carries us up to the End, or at least to the very verge of it. τοῖς μικροῖς Kal τοῖς μεγάλοις. See crit. notes: the accusative, which in almost all critical texts comes in somewhere or other after the dative, would be quite natural after a verb like ἀποτῖσαι, which is only once found in N.T., Philem, 19, where D, reads ἀποδώσω as if ἀποτίσω was difficult. διαφθεῖραι τοὺς διαφθείροντας. Possibly, as A.V. margin, we should translate the participle ‘“‘corrupt,” not ‘‘ destroy”: there is an inverse change of sense in 1 Cor, iii. 17. 19. ὁ ναὸς τοῦ θεοῦ. See on iv. 6, vi. 9. τῆς διαθήκης αὐτοῦ. ‘‘Of His covenant,” as constantly in O.T. It was a wide-spread belief of the Jews that the miraculous reappear- ance of the long-lost Ark in the earthly Temple would be the sign of Messiah’s coming to reign. ἐγένοντο ἀστραπαί. So viii. 5, xvi. 18: in all three places they mark the end of the series of seven signs. CHAPTER XII. 2. ἔχουσα. Lach. Tisch. W. H. (text) and Weiss add καὶ with NC Primas. and early vg. κράζει. A adds καί. δ. ἔτεκεν υἱόν, ἄρσεν with AC; cf. Is, lxvi. 7 ἐξέφυγε καὶ ἔτεκεν ἄρσεν; Text. Rec. reads ἔτ. υἱὸν ἄρρενα with NB,1; P has ἄρσενα; Victorin. peperit filium, Primas. peperit masculum. 124 REVELATION. [ XII. — 6. ἔχει. So Text. Rec. with C 1 and Treg. text. All other editors and Treg. margin add ἐκεῖ with NAB,P and early vg. τρέφουσιν. Text. Rec. and Lachmann read tpégwow with AP 1, 7. ὁ Μιχαήλ. A reads 6 re Μιχαήλ. τοῦ πολεμῆσαι. Tisch. omits τοῦ with NB,1; Text. Rec. has ἐπολέ- μησαν with the Latins who, except Primas. ut pugnarent, do not attempt to reproduce the irregularity of the text. 8. ἴσχυσαν. A and many cursives have ἴσχυσεν, and many cursives αὐτῷ for αὐτῶν. 9. ὁ μέγας ὁ ὄφις. δὲ 1 Primas. read ὁ μέγας ὄφις. ἐβλήθησαν. Hieron. and several cursives omit. 10. ὁ κατήγορος. All editors but Treg. read 6 κατήγωρ which is only preserved by A. αὐτῶν. So Text. Rec. and Treg. with SB,C; Lach., Tisch., W. H., Weiss read αὐτοὺς with AP 1. 11. αὐτοί. δὲ cop. read οὗτοι. 12. ot ἐν αὐτοῖς σκηνοῦντες. C has κατασκηνοῦντες; δὲ and Vulg. have οἱ κατοικοῦντες ἐν αὐτοῖς. οὐαί. Text. Rec. adds τοῖς κατοικοῦσιν with 1 and And. τὴν γῆν...τὴν θάλασσαν. B, has τῇ y7...77 θαλάσσῃ. 18. ὁ δράκων ὅτι ἐβλήθη. N° reads ὅτι ἐβλήθη ὁ δράκων. This may be compared with the omission of the whole clause ὅτι ἐβλήθη εἰς τὴν γῆν in Hippol. Antichr. 60. ἄρσενα. as: - . a7 ὅτι ἦλθεν ἡ ὥρα τῆς κρίσεως αὐτοῦ is not at variance with αἰώνιον : the Gospel is to be preached ἕως τῆς συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος. θάλασσαν might easily have had the article, which would be less natural with πηγὰς ὑδάτων : ef. vill. 3, 10, xvi. 3, 4. 8—11. ANGELS oF WARNING. 8. ἔπεσεν ἔπεσεν. Is. xxi. 9. Βαβυλὼν ἡ μεγάλη, as in xvii. 5. See also xviii. 10, 18 and 21 where we have ‘‘Babylon the great city,” “the great city” (meaning Babylon), and ‘‘the great city Babylon.’’ The omission of city here makes the presumption less that ‘‘the great city” of xi. 8, xvi. 19 is the same. ἐκ τοῦ οἴνου Tod θυμοῦ τῆς πορνείας. If the text be right, and if it be impossible to regard θυμοῦ as representing the Hebrew word translated ‘‘provocation,” 2 Kings xxiii. 26, there is a blending of two views. Babylon makes the nations drink of the cup of her fornication; and she is made, and they are made with her (at first perhaps by her), to drink of the cup of God’s wrath: v. 10, xvi. 19. In xviii. 6 as in Jer. li. 7, from which the image is taken, there is, as probably here, a combination of the two. 10. καὶ αὐτός. He, like Babylon; his fear of the Beast will not excuse him. πίεται ἐκ TOD οἴνου τοῦ θυμοῦ Tod θεοῦ. Ps. Ixxv. 8 (9); Is. li. 17, 22; Jer. xxv. 15 sqq. κεκερασμένου ἀκράτου. Lit. ‘mixed unmixed’: there is prob. nothing meant but the sense of the A.V. “poured out unmixed,” the “pouring out” of wine being usually a process of “mixing.” But the paradoxical form of expression comes from the LXX. of Ps. Ixxv. 8, where the word ‘‘red” (or perhaps ‘‘foaming,” ‘“‘fiery”’) is translated by ‘“‘unmixed,” proving that St John knows and uses the LXX. version, though not exclusively dependent on it. ἐν πυρὶ καὶ θείῳ. Probably the preposition has the same Hebraistic sense as in phrases like ἐν μαχαίρῃ, ἐν τῇ ῥομφαίᾳ ; though the ordinary Greek sense would be possible here. See xix. 20, xx. 15, xxi. 8. XIV. 13.] NOTES. 141 ἐνώπιον... ἀρνίου. Only one translation of these words is possible: they prove that the holy angels, and the Lamb Himself, acquiesce or something more in the justice and necessity of God’s awful judge- ments. This being so, we dare not give weight to sentimental or ἃ priori arguments against their possibility, though to our present faculties God’s future treatment of sin may be as hard to reconcile with His known attributes as His permission of its origin in the past. We are forced to pass over the one difficulty: faith and humility will pass over the other. 12. ὧδε ἡ ὑπομονὴ τῶν ἁγίων ἐστίν. See xiii. 10 and end of note there. Knowing the terrors of the Lord they endure the terrors of the Beast. ot τηροῦντες. For the nom. see on ii. 13, 20. 13—30. BurssineG on THE Farrurun Drap, AND THE HaARyEsT AND THE VINTAGE OF THE HARTH. 13. γράψον. See on x. 4. μακάριοι of νεκροί. Two questions arise as to this verse, though its touching associations make us unwilling to raise questions about it. What is its relevance here? and why are the holy dead blessed “from henceforth” ?—i.e. probably, from the time foreshadowed by the last part of the Vision. One answer to both probably is suggested by the reference to Is. lvii. 1, 2, that in those days a holy death will be the only escape from persecution and temptation, which ‘‘if it were possible should seduce even the Elect.” Not only ‘for the Elect’s sake the days shall be shortened,” but even before they end, one and another of the Elect will be delivered from them. Even now it is a matter of thanksgiving when a Christian is delivered by death ‘‘from the miseries of this wretched world, from the body of death, and from all temptation,’ and much more then, when temptation is so much sorer that no Saint can dare wish to abide in the flesh. This seems better than supposing that the special blessedness of the dead of those days consists only in the interval being shorter before their ‘‘perfect consummation and bliss.” At the same time it is probably intended that the faithful dead are ‘‘henceforth ᾿᾿ more per- fectly blessed than those who fell asleep before the Advocate had been taken up and the Accuser cast down. ναί: λέγει τὸ πνεῦμα. The Spirit in the Church and in the Seer bears witness to the Voice from Heaven. ἵνα ἀναπαήσονται. They die in order to their rest. For the ellipse, ef. St Joh. i. 8, xiii. 18; 1 Joh. ii. 19. The future expresses that their rest is the sure result as well as the providential end of their dying. ἐκ τῶν κόπων αὐτῶν. They rest from their labours, not from their works; for these are their treasure in heaven, The distinction between κόποι and ἔργα is almost in the manner of the Fourth Gospel, ef. Intr. p. xxxviii. On the whole verse cf. Matt. xi, 28, Δεῦτε πρός με πάντες ol κοπιῶντες... «κἀγὼ ἀναπαύσω ὑμᾶς. \ 142 REVELATION. [XIv. 13— τὰ γὰρ ἔργα αὐτῶν ἀκολουθεῖ per αὐτῶν. For their works follow with them: there is therefore hardly any resemblance to 1 Tim, vy. 24,25. The meaning of the passage is much the same as 1 Thess. iv. 15—we are not to think of the holy dead as if they missed (and as if the dead of the last days only just missed) the glories of the Lord’s coming: for they and their good works are kept by Him safe against that day, ready to share in its glories. 14. 90. There are two difficulties in these verses: one is, are they a vision of the Last Judgement? the other, is the Reaper Christ the Lord? The first is not the hardest: if we suppose the visions to have been seen at intervals, it would disappear altogether, for it is clear that if so, chaps. xiii., xiv. if not xii.—xiv., are a whole in themselves, of which xv. 2—4 are the epilogue: even if chaps. iv.—xxii. are the record of a single ecstasy, it would still be true that each of its stages seems to close with a glimpse of the end, which afterwards is more fully revealed (see on vi. 12 and parallels). Apart from this, the order in which the visions succeed each other, though doubtless always significant, cannot be pressed as marking in all cases the chronological succession of the events foreshewn. xi. 7 in some sense anticipates the events of chap. xiii., while chap. xii. goes back to events earlier, probably, than any others indicated in the book. In this chapter itself we have in v. 8 an anticipation of chap. xviii. We need not therefore hesitate to suppose that here we have an anticipation of chap. xx. Anda vision of the Last Judgement might be fitly inter- posed here to encourage ‘‘the patience of the Saints” that is to be so sorely tried. Butif the Harvest here too is the End of the World, must not the Reaper be Christ? He is seen sitting on a cloud: is it not He Who comes with the clouds, i. 7? He is like a Son of Man: is it not He Who in the same likeness walks in the midst of the Seven Golden Candlesticks? It is no difficulty that He waits for God’s word to thrust in the sickle: so far Alford’s reference to Acts i. 7 is relevant, see also St John vy. 19, 30; but this does not meet the difficulty that the word is sent to Him by an Angel out of the unseen depths of the heavenly temple. Not to quote the parable of the tares, where the Son of Man Himself sends forth His Angels to reap, how are we to harmonise such a representation with the homage paid by the Angels to the Lamb, Who has prevailed to open the Book with the Seven Seals, on which they are not able so much as to look? Then again, if the Reaper be Christ, what of the Angel with the sickle who gathers the clusters of the vine of earth, and casts them into a winepress that, it seems, a multitude of horsemen tread? The Rider of the White Horse, in chap. xix., has trodden the winepress alone on earth: that is why He rides in blood-dipt raiment at the head of the white- robed armies of heaven. ‘Tyconius seems to have turned the difficulty by applying his rule that what is said of Christ may be understood of His Body the Church, which may certainly be enlight- ened by angels in her office of judging the world. If so, the figure of the Son of Man would come back to its primary sense in Daniel, where it certainly symbolises the whole body of the Saints of the Most High, If this be unsatisfactory, we must choose between putting XIV. 16.] NOTES. 143 on the words, ‘‘one like unto the (or ‘a,’ see on i. 13) Son of Man,” the gloss ‘‘An Angel in the likeness of the Messiah” (which in view of vv. 17—20 is not impossible, though difficult), and supposing that the Seer is reproducing in some measure the language of Jewish apoca- lypses without being led to supply their shortcomings. In the former case we should also have to suppose that one of God’s typical and anticipatory judgements is described in terms suitable to the last. Then it might be possible that the Reaping was suggested by the first stage of the Jewish War, and the Vintage by the second and more terrible, of which the scene was Jerusalem: as Nero, seen spiritually, bore the likeness of the Beast, Vespasian, or ‘‘ his angel,’ may have borne the likeness of a son of man. 14. εἶδον, kal ἰδού. The first accounts for the accusative καθήμενον, the second for the nominative νεφέλη. ἔχων. Here, as often, a participle seems to take the place of a finite verb. στέφανον χρυσοῦν. There is no other instance of a crowned Angel in this book; for the Rider on the White Horse in chap. vi. is pro- bably the spiritual form of an earthly conqueror. δρέπανον ὀξύ. The image of the harvest, combined with that of the vintage, is from Joel iii. 13. See however St Matt. xiii. 36 sqq. 15. ἄλλος ἄγγελος. It is probably not relevant to argue that in classical Greek this would not necessarily imply that the previously named Person is an Angel, even if ‘‘another” is meant to distinguish the Angel from him. But comparing v. 6, it appears that the angel may be called “another” simply to distinguish him from those of vv. 6, 8, 9: and then no decisive inference can be drawn as to the figure of v. 14. ἐκ τοῦ ναοῦ. See xi. 19 and note on iy. 6. πέμψον. Lit. “send,” cf. ἀποστέλλει, St Mark iv. 29. It may be implied here, as it probably is in St Mark, that the Son of Man does not reap Himself, cf. St Matt. xxiv. 31. See on the next verse. ἐξηράνθη. Lit. “15 dried,” hence R.V. ‘is over-ripe” :—possibly a more literal translation than St Mark’s account of our Lord’s words in the parable, to which there is probably a reference. 16. ἔβαλεν. Lit. “cast”: but the word is used in much milder senses, e.g. of the Lord ‘‘ putting” His fingers in the deaf man’s ears, St Mark vii. 33. The A.V. rendering ‘‘thrust” can therefore be defended: but it is also possible that He Who sat on the cloud threw down the sickle, for others (unnamed angels) to reap with. ἐθερίσθη ἡ γῆ. Comparing the parables in SS. Matthew and Mark there is little doubt that the gathering the harvest indicates or in- cludes the gathering of the Elect. In Jer. li. 33, it is true, the image of harvest is used of the time of God’s vengeance, and so Joel iii. 13, where, as here, it is combined with that of the vintage. But it would be pointless to have the two images successively worked out, if they meant exactly the same: while the vengeance of the other image is 144 REVELATION. [xXIv. 16= clearly defined in vv. 19, 20, and there is nothing (like the threshing- of Jer., l.c.) to indicate it here. 17. ἄλλος ἄγγελος. It is a possible view that he gathers the grapes for the Reaper to tread. 18. ἔχων ἐξουσίαν ἐπὶ τοῦ πυρός. See crit. note. The rendering of A.V. ‘which had power over γ᾽" leads us to understand an elemental Angel, like ‘‘the Angel of the Waters” in xvi. 5. This is not impos- sible: the word “‘fire” has the article, but in Greek ‘‘ the element of fire” would be naturally so expressed. It may therefore be that ‘‘the Angel of Fire” is made to invoke the judgement on the wicked which will be executed by fire. But it is easiest to understand that this is the Angel ‘‘who had power over the fire” on the Altar—perhaps therefore the Angel whom we have already heard of, viii. 3—5, the rather that an angel with this title is found in Rabbinical literature. πέμψον. See on v. 15: here it can hardly mean that the Angel is to commit his sickle to others. 19. ἔβαλεν. ‘‘Cast” as in v. 16; but here the Angel himself plainly gathers as well, he does not merely supply the instrument for gathering. τὴν ληνὸν...τὸν μέγαν. Is, Ixiii. 2,3; Lam. i. 13. The masculine is probably most simply explained by a reminiscence of the LXX. Gen. xxx. 38, 41. Tyconius thought that ‘‘the mighty” was cast into the winepress. Weiss holds that God’s great wrath is itself the wine- press. 20. τῆς πόλεως. Probably Jerusalem, see on v. 1. αἷμα. Is. lxiii. 3. ἄχρι τῶν χαλινῶν τῶν ἵππων. Literally, “even unto the bridles of the horses »—though no horses are mentioned in the context. Probably the A.V. rendering ‘‘even unto the horse bridles,” which implies that the words are meant as a mere measure, that any horseman riding there finds his horse bridle-deep in blood, is right: but some think of the horsemen of God’s avenging army in xix.14. There can hardly be a reference to the horses of chap. vi. or of ix. 17. ἀπό, ie. at a distance of: the construction is common in late Greek, e.g. Diodorus and Plutarch, but only found in the New Testament here, and in the fourth Gospel, xi. 18, xxi. 8. σταδίων χιλίων ἑξακοσίων. 200 Roman miles, or about 183 English. It is hardly likely that it is meant that the blood covered a space of 40 furlongs square—more probably, that it extended 1600 (or perhaps 800) in every direction from the city, or perhaps the river of blood flows to that distance. It has been imagined that the distance specified stands for the length of Palestine, which is estimated by St Jerome at 160 Roman miles, by modern surveys at about 140 English, XV. 2.] NOTES. 145 CHAPTER XV. 2. ἐκ τοῦ θηρίου Kal ἐκ τῆς εἰκόνος αὐτοῦ. B, reads ἐκ τῆς εἰκόνος καὶ ἐκ τοῦ θηρίου αὐτοῦ. Text. Rec. adds καὶ ἐκ τοῦ χαράγματος αὐτοῦ with 1, Kal ἐκ Tov ἀριθμοῦ τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ. Primas. and cod. flor. omit. [Cyp.] Test. 11, 20 has victores bestiae et imaginis et numerus nominis ejus ΟΧΙ Τα stantes &e. 8. τῶν ἐθνῶν. N*C have αἰώνων. Text. Rec. has ἁγίων, a retrans- lation of a misread compendium sctorum for sclorum. 4. ὅσιος. B, reads ἅγιος. πάντα τὰ ἔθνη. B, reads πάντες. ὅτι τὰ δικαιώματά σου ἐφανερώθησαν. N reads ὅτι δικαιώμ. ἐνώπιόν σου ἐφαν. 6. λίνον καθαρόν. So Text. Rec., Tisch. and Weiss with P; Lach. Treg. W. H. (text) read λίθον καθαρὸν with AC am, fu.; δὲ Primas. cod. flor. have καθαροὺς λινοῦς. W. H. suggest λινοῦν with B,. 7. ἕν ἐκ. N1 omit ἕν. ἑπτὰ φιάλας. δὲ fu. omit ἑπτά. CHars. XV. XVI. THE SEvEN VIALS. 1. ἄλλο σημεῖον. Besides those of xii. 1, 8, Here preparation is made (as in vill. 2) for another sevenfold series of visions. Some have attempted to see a sevenfold series in the three preceding chapters—its elements being the successively appearing figures of the Woman, the Dragon, the Man Child, Michael, the Beast, the False Prophet, and the Lamb. But this seems rather far-fetched: at any rate, it is not likely to have been consciously present to St John’s mind. πληγὰς ἑπτὰ τὰς ἐσχάτας. Literally ‘‘seven plagues, the last,” the fact that ‘‘in them is filled up [or rather ‘‘fulfilled, finished’’] the wrath of God” is given as the reason why these plagues are the last, 2—4, Tue TriumMpPH OF THE VICTORS OVER THE BEAST. It seems that here we have a vision of what follows the judgement on the Beast and Babylon, announced in chap. xiv. 8—11; asin chap. vii. 9—17 we have a vision of what follows the Great Tribulation announced, but only announced, at the end of chap. vi. 2. θάλασσαν ὑαλίνην μεμιγμένην πυρί. Probably describes an optical appearance much like that of xxi, 18, 21. It gives no reason for doubting that this is the same sea of glass as in iv. 6: it is not till now that the Seer’s attention is specially directed to it, and he now describes it in more detail than before. REVELATIOY K 146 REVELATION. [XV. 2— τοὺς νικῶντας ἐκ. Cf. ὁ νικῶν in chaps. ii. iii. Lit. ‘‘them that overcome from,” R. V. ‘‘come victorious from,” the victors (the present, like oi προσκυνοῦντες ‘‘the worshippers” xiy. 11, rather excludes than marks time) have fought their way clear of all those dangers and temptations. ἐπὶ τὴν θύλασσαν. Perhaps literally, for “‘a sea of glass” would of course be a solid support; or if not, they might walk upon the sea like their Lord, sustained by faith. But perhaps no more is meant than when we speak of a town lying ‘‘on the sea”’: this is supported by the fact that Israel sung the song of Moses on the shore, after their passage. And the preposition, though naturally translated ‘‘on,” is the same as in the phrase ‘‘stand at the door” in iii. 20. κιθάρας. Asvy. 8, xiv. 2: though the harpers here are not the same as in the first place, and perhaps not as in the second. 3. τὴν ὠδὴν Moicéws. Ex. xv.—the song of God’s redeemed people, delivered from their enemies, and confident of coming, but not come yet, ‘unto the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord their God doth give unto them.” There is probably no allusion to their coming from the ‘‘Red Sea” of martyrdom: that is a pretty conceit, but below the dignity of prophecy. tov δούλου τοῦ θεοῦ. Ex. xiv. 31 is particularly referred to; but also in Num. xii. 7; Josh. i. 1, 2, 7, 18, 15, xxii. 5; Ps. cv. 26 ‘‘the servant of the Lord” is used as a special honourable title of Moses: cf. Heb. iii. 5. τὴν ὠδὴν τοῦ upvfov. For the Lamb has redeemed them, as Moses redeemed Israel. ‘‘The song of the Lamb” is not a different song from ‘‘the song of Moses,” but the same interpreted in a higher sense: well illustrated by the Christian use of Ps. exiy., and the other Pass- over Psalms, in our Easter services. Μεγάλα καὶ θαυμαστά. There may be references to Ps. exi. 2, exxxix. 14, cxly. 17: but this psalm rather continues the spirit of those than combines their words. It is noticeable that this song, almost alone of those occurring in this book, has the parallelism or quasi- metrical structure of Hebrew poetry. ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν ἐθνῶν. See crit. note. The thought is the same as in chap. xi. 15,17. God, Who of old sanctified to Himself a peculiar people, has now taken the heathen also for His heritage. The ex- pression here and in the following clause (which fixes the sense and the text) is taken from Jer. x. 7. 4. This verse proves that vv. 2—4 are originally rather the epilogue to chap. xiv. than part of the introduction to chap. xvi. There we are told again and again that the seven last plagues only lead to blasphemy, here the victors exult in a judgement which convinces all. See Rom. iii. 19; Phil. ii. 11; Ex. vii. 3, and viii. 15 ἄορ. It is better with Westcott and Hort to put the note of interrogation after ὅσιος: the connexion is, Who dares withhold his worship from the one — 1 XV. 6] NOTES. 147 righteous God? Who can withhold it when every nation is subdued to His worship by the manifestation of His Almighty Power in right- eous acts? ὅσιος. Not the same word (ἅγιος) as is applied to God in iv. 8 &c., but ordinarily used of human piety or holiness—and in that sense applied to our Lord, in His human character, in Heb. vii. 26. It is only used of God here and in xvi. 5 (the true text): in both places the sense is that God is ‘‘justified in His saying and clear when He is judged.”” Here it may also be meant that in this none of the gods is like unto Him, cf. Ps. lxxxii. 1. πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ἥξουσιν. Ps. lxxxvi. 9; Is. lxvi. 23. δικαιώματα. Righteous acts, as in xix. 8. The word only occurs four times besides in the plural in the New Testament: Rom. ii. 26 and in a slightly different sense Luke i. 6, Heb. ix, 1, 10. 56—8. Tur PREPARATION FOR THE Last PLAGUES. Here the description of the vision announced in v. 1 begins, though the Seer still anticipates, see on v. 6: for the relation of vv. 1 and 5, see on xii. 14. δ. ἠνοίγη. No translation seems to connect ἠνοίγη directly with ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, and the connexion is less in the style of the Book than the ordinary connexion ὁ ναὸς ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, though the former might be supported here by the parallel in the next verse ἐξῆλθον...ἐκ τοῦ ναοῦ. ὁ ναὸς τῆς σκηνῆς TOU μαρτυρίου ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ. For ὁ ναὸς see xi. 19; for τῆς σκηνῆς τοῦ μαρτυρίου the one New Testament parallel is Acts vii. 44; cf. Ex. xxvii. 21; Num. i. 50 &. It is not clear whether we are to translate the temple of the heavenly tabernacle, or the heavenly temple of the tabernacle. To say that the holy place of the heavenly tabernacle is opened, is to say no more than that the heavenly taber- nacle is opened. Possibly, as we are told that not only the Ark, but the Tabernacle which Moses made according to the pattern shewed unto him in the Mount, was brought up into Solomon’s Temple, it may be meant here that the heavenly Temple contains the archetype of the earthly tabernacle. In any case the Tabernacle is mentioned because its origin was more directly divine than that of the Temple. Compare 1 Chron, xxviii. 19; Ex. xxv. 40, xxvi. 30. 6. ot ἔχοντες. The phrase describes their office: we see in the next verse that they did not come out haying them. ἐνδεδυμένοι λίνον καθαρὸν λαμπρόν. See crit. note for the evidence for λίθον. If this strange reading be right, the nearest parallel is Ezek. xxviii. 13—-where comparing the next two verses, it seems as though the human ‘‘king of Tyrus” were identified with a fallen Angel, perhaps the patron of the city. Therefore these holy Angels may be here described as clothed in glory like his before his fall. In choosing between the alternative readings, little weight is due to the fact that in other Greek prose λίνον means flax, not linen, less to the K2 148 REVELATION. [ΧΥ. 6— probability that most writers would have preferred the plural to the singular. It may have a little weight that white linen, xix. 8, is itself a splendid dress, and that golden girdles would be more in place on it than on robes jewelled all over. On the other hand, everywhere else in this Book linen is βύσσινον. περὶ τὰ στήθη. As ini. 13, where see note. 7. φιάλας. See on vy. 8. 8. καπνοῦ. Is. vi. 4. οὐδεὶς ἐδύνατο. Hx. xl. 35; 1 Kings viii. 11. CHAPTER XVI. 2. κακὸν Kal πονηρόν. N* rovnpdv καὶ κακόν. A omits κακόν. 3. ὁ δεύτερος. Text. Rec. adds ἄγγελος here and throughout. Here it is supported by B, and most cursives, at 4 by 1, at 8 by δὲ 1, at 10 by 1 And. cop. arm., at 12 by And. cop. arm. old Lat. and cursives, at 17 by δὲ] And. cop. arm. old Latin. ζωῆς is omitted by Primas. Text. Rec. has ζῶσα with NB,P 1. 5. ἀγγέλου. Primas. angelos or angelorum. ὁ ὅσιος. So Tisch. [W. H.] and Weiss with &P; Lach. and Treg. omit ὁ with AB,C; cop. eth. omit both words. Text. Rec. reads with 1 and Primas. καὶ ὁ ὅσιος. 6. αἷμα. Tisch. reads αἵματα with δὲ, a Hebraism. ἔδωκας. So Text. Rec. and Tisch., Treg. and W. H. (marg.) with XB,P; Lach., Treg., W. H. (text) and Weiss read δέδωκας with AC. πεῖν with A, C (rw). Text. Rec. reads πιεῖν with all other MSS. ἀξιοί εἰσιν. δὲ has ὅπερ ἄξιοί εἰσιν, am. wt digni sunt. 7. τοῦ θυσι. B, 1 read ἐκ τοῦ θ., 36 φωνὴν ἐκ τοῦ θ. Primas. has aliam vocem dicentem, am. alterwm dicens, a mistake for (2) altare dicens. Wg. has alterum ab altari dicentem which explains Text. Ree. ἄλλου ἐκ τοῦ Ov. 9. τὸ ὄνομα. A reads ἐνώπιον. 11. Primas. omits; Beatus quotes as follows (?from Tye.) et comedebant linguas suas a doloribus suis, blasphemantes ex ira Dei, et paenitentiam non egerunt. ἐκ TOV πόνων αὐτῶν Kal ἐκ τῶν ἑλκῶν αὐτῶν. N omits the second half of the clause. Cop. reads et per opera sua. ἐκ τῶν ἔργων αὐτῶν. δὲ omits. 12. τῶν βασιλέων. Tyc.? (ap. Aug. Ap.) omits βασιλέων and translates eorum. Primas. and Commodian read venienti regi. 13. εἶδον. WN reads ἐδόθη. ἐκ... δράκοντος, καὶ... θηρίου. C omits the first clause, 8* both. XVI. 3.] NOTES. [49 14. ϑαιμονίων. Text. Rec. reads δαιμόνων with 1 and And.? ἃ ἐκπορεύεται. Text, Rec. reads ἐκπορεύεσθαι with N* 1*, 15. ἔρχομαι. N* Primas. read ἔρχεται. 17. ἐκ TOU ναοῦ, ἀπὸ τοῦ θρόνου. N has ἐκ τοῦ ναοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ. Text. Rec. with B, ἀπὸ τοῦ ναοῦ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ θρόνου. 18. ἀστραπαὶ καὶ φωναὶ καὶ βρονταί. Text. Rec. reads φων. καὶ Bp. καὶ dor. with 1; N* reads Bp. καὶ dor. καὶ φ. καὶ Bp.; B, omits καὶ βρονταί. σεισμὸς ἐγένετο. B, and Primas. omit ἐγένετο. Primas. has for ἐγένετο... οὕτω μέγας et signa magna. ἄνθρωπος ἐγένετο. Text. Rec. of ἄνθρωποι ἐγένοντο with 1. NB, ἄνθρωποι ἐγένοντο. 21. ἡ πληγὴ αὐτῆς. Vg. omits these words. B, omits αὐτῆς. Cu. XVI.1, 2. Tue Frrst Vu. 1. φωνῆς μεγάλης. It is not expressly said that the voice is the voice of God: it speaks of Him in the third person, cf. Gen. xxii. 16. Perhaps the Seer intends us to notice the pure inaccessible spirituality of the Godhead. Cf. St John v. 27. εἰς τὴν γῆν. Lit., ‘into the earth,” here and in the next verse. Here ‘‘the earth” seems to mean the lower world generally, there the dry land only. 2. ἀπῆλθεν. Lit. “went away,” from the Angels’ place in Heaven before the Temple to the edge or ‘‘window” whence they can look down upon the earth. ἕλκος κακὸν καὶ πονηρόν. The plagues that accompany these vials have a close analogy to those of the trumpets in ch. viii. sqq., and, like them, have some to the plagues of Egypt: here cf. Ex. ix. 9. The epithets need not mean more than “bad and evil.” ‘Noisome and grievous” A.V. points out the distinction if one is intended. τοὺς ἔχοντας. This refers back to the previous vision, xiv. 9—11, as in ix. 4 we have a reference to the previous vision, vii. 3. 3. Tue Seconp ΥἿΑΙ,. 3. ὁ δεύτερος, without ἄγγελος, as in 4, 8, 10, 12,17. This is a contrast to the vision of the Trumpets. αἷμα ὡς νεκροῦ. Lit., ‘‘blood as it were of a dead man,” and so more foul and horrible. See Ex. vii. 17 sqq., esp. 21. Compare in this Book ch. viii. 8; but here the plague has a wider reach. πᾶσα ψυχὴ ζωῆς. Cf. ὃ ἔχει ψυχὴν ζωῆς, Gen, i, 30, 150 REVELATION. [XVI. 4— 4—7. Tue ΤΉΙΕΡ VIAL. 4. εἰς τοὺς ποταμοὺς καὶ τὰς πηγὰς τῶν ὑδάτων, viii. 10, see on xiv. 7. δ. Tod ἀγγέλου τῶν ὑδάτων. Here at least there is no question (see on vii. 1, xiv. 18) that we have an elemental Angel; see Exe. I. ὁ ὧν κα ὁ ἦν. Without ὁ ἐρχόμενος, as in xi. 17. A.V. ‘Which art and wast and shalt be,” a noteworthy translator’s error. ὁ ὅσιος, see on xv. 4. If the article be inserted we have two Divine Names, the Eternal, the Holy; if it be omitted we have an interesting parallelism: Righteous art Thou the Eternal, Holy for this Thy judgement. Perhaps the latter gives the preferable sense: it is certainly sup- ported by the best MSS., though we have none good enough to decide whether a letter has been left out or doubled by mistake. 6. αἷμα ἁγίων kal προφητῶν. See xi. 18, xviii. 20, 24. πεῖν. See crit. note. This form is also found in St John iv. 7, 9. The infinitive being in the aorist would make the perfect indicative strange. ἀξιοί εἰσιν. Contrast iii. 4; compare xiv. 5 for asyndeton. 7. τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου. There is no angel (xv. 8) to speak from the altar, as perhaps in ix. 13 (ef. xiv. 18): the altar itself can bear witness (vi. 9) to the righteous blood shed upon earth, and so say Amen to God’s vengeance against the persecutors. ING 1 1 Σῖν. 19. 8,9. ΤῊΝ FourtH Via. 8. ἐπὶ τὸν ἥλιον. The three first vials are poured out εἰς, the last four ἐπί. The change may be intentional to mark the distinction between the two groups of plagues (in the Vision of the Trumpets the second group of the three Woes was the smallest as well as the severest): there is no other obvious reason for writing εἰς τὴν θάλασ- σαν...ἐπὶ τὸν ἀέρα, though in 8, 10, and even 12, ἐπὶ may seem more appropriate as marking the stricken object, while εἰς marks the receptive medium, ἐδόθη αὐτῷ καυματίσαι. Cf. viii. 12 (the fourth trumpet); but there the light of the.sun is diminished, here his heat is increased. It is barely possible with Bengel to explain αὐτῷ of the Angel. 9. ἐβλασφήμησαν. Contrast xv. 4. This, which marks a new and intenser stage of suffering, is henceforth repeated after every vial but the sixth, which describes preparations for active rebellion. τοῦ ἔχοντος. Must refer to God: it would be yet more forced to interpret it (with Winer?) ‘‘they blasphemed the name of the God of (the angel) who had power &e.,” than to interpret αὐτῷ of the Angel. XVI. 12.] NOTES. 151 τὴν ἐξουσίαν. Here, as in St Luke xii, 5, Rom. ix. 21, it is im- possible to find any trace of the common sense of a committed authority. Probably also in St Matt. vii. 29, St Mark i. 22, St Luke iv. 32, the contrast is between the inherent independent authority of Christ, and those who sat in Moses’ seat and had the best right to be believed when they were content to quote their predecessors. ov μετενόησαν δοῦναι αὐτῷ δόξαν. Contrast xi. 13, which therefore cannot refer to the same judgements as here, nor probably to judge- ments on the same place or people. 10,11. THe Fiery Vian. 10. τὸν θρόνον. The throne: the word is best taken quite lite- rally, not in the vague sense of his capital, the ‘‘seat” of his empire. ἐγένετο ἡ βασιλεία αὐτοῦ ἐσκοτωμένη. Was his throne the light thereof (Is. 1. 10, 11), as God and the Lamb will be of the new Jerusalem, in whose light the nations will walk? Cf. on the whole plague Ex. x. 21, ch. ix. 2. ἐκ τοῦ movov. The darkness was of itself distressing, and deprived them of such distractions from pain as they had before. It is clear from the next yerse that the seven last plagues are more terrible than even the woes, for of these we are told that each passes before the next comes, while each of the last plagues continues till the end. 12—15. Tue Sixty VIAL. 12. [τὸν] Εἰὐφράτην, ix. 14 sqq. Where Babylon confessedly stands for Rome, we should naturally understand the Euphrates to be used also in a symbolical sense, possibly as meaning the Tiber. But the Tiber is not a very ‘‘great river”: and the mention of ‘‘the kings of the east” (lit., ‘‘the kings from the rising of the sun”) as needing to pass the Euphrates seems to mark it as meant literally. ἐξηράνθη τὸ ὕδωρ αὐτοῦ. Referring to the way that the ancient Babylon was actually captured by Cyrus, by drawing off the water of the Euphrates into a reservoir, so as to make its bed passable for a few hours. Though not mentioned in Dan. v., nor by Cyrus in his lately discovered account of the capture, there seems no doubt that this incident is historical: the details given in Hdt. 1. 191 agree exactly with those of the predictions in Is. xliv. 27, xlv. 3; Jer. 1. 38, 44, li. 30—32, 36. ἵνα ἑτοιμασθῇ ἡ ὁδός. Compare the prophecies (Is. xli. 2, 25) of the advance of Cyrus. It may have been felt that his success and services did not exhaust their meaning. He is spoken of as advancing on Babylon ‘‘from the East”; much more would any invader of the apocalyptic Babylon come from the East, if he had to cross the literal Euphrates, τῶν βασιλέων τῶν ἀπὸ ἀνατολῆς ἡλίου. See crit. notes. The reading of Primasius would imply a still more direct reference to Isaiah; that of Tyconius is probably based on the tradition that the 152 REVELATION. [XVI. 12— ten tribes were still awaiting their return in the extreme east. The plural presents no difficulty; the Arsacidae all called themselves kings of kings: and if a more definite application were needed, we might think of the kings of Parthia and Armenia. In xvii. 6 we hear of the kings of the earth combining to attack Babylon, and the Euphrates may be dried up only that the kings from the east may be able to advance to take their part in the assault. But why do they specially need their ‘‘way to be prepared’? The Euphrates is a far less impassable frontier than the Alps or the Mediterranean: it was in fact in St John’s day the weak side of the empire. And probably in this fact we may see the key to the prophecy. In Dan. viii. 8, xi. 4 we have the division of Alexander’s empire described as ‘‘toward the four winds of heaven”: in xi. 5, 6 the Egyptian and Asiatic kingdoms are designated as ‘‘the kings of the south and of the north.” It is implied therefore that the kings of Macedon are kings of the West: and it remains that the other great and permanent kingdom (of smaller ephemeral ones there were more than four) which arose from the dissolution of Alexander’s shall be ‘the kings of the east.” Now this designation obliges us to think of the Par- thians, the longest-lived of all the Alexandrine kingdoms, and the only one surviving in St John’s day. This differed from the others, in respect that its royal dynasty was native not Macedonian, but it was not the less a portion of Alexander’s empire, inheriting his traditions. (The veneer of Greek culture existing among the Arsa- cidae is well illustrated by the grim story of the performance of the Bacchae at the time of the death of Crassus: it is instructive also to look at the series of coins engraved in Smith’s Dictionary s.v. Arsacidae, where we see Hellenic types gradually giving way to Assyrian.) In Enoch liv. 9 we hear of ‘‘the chiefs of the east among the Parthians and Medes”: that passage throws no real light on this, except as shewing who ‘‘the kings of the east’? were understood to be, by a person familiar with the same ideas as St John. Now in St John’s time (whether the earlier or later date be assigned to the vision) there were apprehensions of a Parthian invasion of the empire on behalf of a Pseudo-Nero (Tac. Hist. 1, ii. 3), 1.6. a shadow of Antichrist: and it is likely that St John’s prophecy is expressed (as so many O.T. prophecies are) in terms of the present political situation. But it had no immediate fulfilment: the danger from Parthia under Domitian passed off, and soon afterwards its power was broken for ever by Trajan. But its place was taken in time by the Sassanian kingdom of Persia, which remained for three centuries the most formidable enemy of Rome. Then, as Parthia had been broken by Trajan and fell before Persia, so Persia, broken by Heraclius, fell before the Arabs, who endangered the existence, and actually appropriated great part, of the Eastern Empire. To them succeeded the Turks, before whom it fell. Now while no event in this series can be called a definite or precise fulfilment of St John’s prophecy, we may hold that this habitual relation of ‘‘the kings of the east” to the Roman empire supplies a number of typical or partial fulfilments. A pseudo-Nero, made XVI. 14.] NOTES. 153 emperor by a Parthian conquest of Rome, and ruling (as might be expected) in Nero’s spirit, would have been almost a real Antichrist; and for such a revelation of Antichrist St John’s immediate readers were meant to be prepared. Again, in the conquests and persecutions of Sapor and Chosroes, of Omar, Mohammed, and Suleiman, it was intended that the Christians of the empire should see the approaches and threatenings of the kingdom of Antichrist. But the empire— whether Roman, Byzantine, or Austrian—continued to ‘‘ withhold, that he may be revealed in his season”; and its modern representatives will continue to do so ‘‘until it be taken out of the way: and then shall that Wicked be revealed.” It may be observed that Dan. xi. 40 sqq. seems to imply that the political situation in the East in the days of Antichrist will be not unlike that in the days of Antiochus: for while it is certain that the early part of that chapter applies to the latter, it is hard to regard the passage beginning at v. 36 as adequately fulfilled in him. Hu- manly speaking, it does not seem that the changes now going on in the east are as capable of producing a conquering empire, as they are of producing an antichristian fanaticism: but qui vivra verra. 13. καὶ εἶδον. Between the sixth and seventh seal, and between the sixth and seventh trumpet, there appears a vision which has nothing to do with the series in which it is inserted, but which marks the near approach of the final struggle between the kingdoms of light and darkness. We have this on the side of the former in the sealing of the Servants of God and the prophecy of the Two Wit- nesses: here we have it on the side of the latter in the vision of the three unclean spirits, which is also loosely attached to the context which it can scarcely be said to interrupt. Tod WevSorpodpyrov. Identified by xix. 20 with the second beast of xiii. 11. πνεύματα τρία ἀκάθαρτα. This phrase is in the Gospels usually synonymous with ‘‘devils” or rather ‘‘demons” (whom there is little or no scriptural authority for identifying with fallen Angels, though Satan, St Matt. xii. 24—30, Rev. xii. 7 sqq., is ruler of both). Here the term “spirit” seems to be used rather in the sense of ‘‘inspiring power’ of which the ‘‘demons” are the source—hence they are called in the next verse ‘‘spirits of demons.” See St John’s 1 Ep. iv. 3; 1 Tim. iv. 1, which probably refer to the same order of things as this: also 1 Sam. xvi. 14 &., 1 Kings xxii. 21 sqq. ὡς βάτραχοι. The nominative would be quite regular after the full formula, καὶ εἶδον καὶ ἰδού. There may be a reference to the plague of Egypt, Ex. viii. 2 sqq., but the parallel is not close. Frogs were proverbial for their constant and meaningless noise, which some think helps us to interpret the likeness. If so, one would be tempted to connect it with St Hippolytus’ view mentioned on xii. 12. 14. εἰσὶν γὰρ κιτιλ. The whole verse is generally taken as more or less parenthetical, so that the structure is, I saw...three unclean spirits—for these are spirits of demons which go forth, Is it possible 154 REVELATION. [XVI. 14— that the parenthesis goes no farther than σημεῖα, and means ‘‘for there really is such a thing as demoniac inspiration attested by signs and wonders”? This would give a natural sense to yap which hardly has any in the common view, and, though it is hard to say what is or is not probable in this Book, the connexion of ἃ ἐκπορεύεται with what goes before would be less difficult, as would also be the change from εἰσὶν to ἐκπορεύεται. It may be added that the absence of all mention of demoniacs in the Fourth Gospel implies that the superstition and charlatanism of Ephesian enchanters had produced a widespread reaction. σημεῖα, xiii. 13, is the word always used for miracles in St John’s Gospel. ἃ ἐκπορεύεται. See xix. 19; cf. xx. 3, 8. ἐκπορευόμενα in the previous verse would have been more regular and more in accordance with the usual style of this Book, which often employs participles where relative sentences would be more regular. The construction seems to be changed by the simile, the parenthesis, and the clause expressing why they go forth: possibly also by the position of ἐκ τοῦ στόματος x.T.\., Which is one of seyeral traces of a tendency to attempt the rhetorical order of ordinary Greek which manifests itself as early as chap. x. τὸν πόλεμον. xvii. 14, xix. 19—21. 15. ἰδοὺ ἔρχομαι. St John, or another prophet, apparently hears, and writes down as he hears, the words of Christ spoken in the _midst of the vision. ὡς κλέπτης. See ili. 3 and references. μακάριος ὁ γρηγορῶν. This may refer again, as in St Matt. xxiv. 43, to a watchful householder ready for the secret and sudden coming of the thief, or, as in St Luke xii. 37, to a watchful servant, ready for the coming as sudden and as secret of his Lord. kal τηρῶν. The forewarned householder, if the figure be taken from him, sits up with his clothes on, and the thief will decamp as soon as he sees him. If he were not forewarned, he might hear the thief at work and start naked out of bed, but would be too late for anything but a fruitless chase in unseemly and ridiculous guise. If this be the sense, ὁ γρηγορῶν καὶ τηρῶν must mean, who watches and does not lose: there is no more authority for this sense of τηρεῖν than for the sense of λιβανωτὸν in viii. 3. If the figure be taken from servants waiting for their Lord, possibly we are to understand that the garments are kept not from loss but from defilement, as in iii, 4. The slothful servant is careless too, and either dares not shew himself in the raiment he has defiled, or is stripped of it. As primitive Christianity had many points of contact with Essenism it is not impossible that there may be something like an allusion to the sacred white dress the Essenes reserved for their meals, which were a daily sacrifice and sacrament. ‘This is less irrelevant than the allusion some suggest to the curious Jewish custom that if XVI. 18.] NOTES. 155 a priest fell asleep on night duty in the Temple, his clothes were set on fire—which of course would have the effect of making him throw them off and run away naked. βλέπωσιν. Impersonal, as xii. 6. ἀσχημοσύνην. Lit. ‘“uncomeliness,”’ cf. τὰ ἀσχήμονα 1 Cor. xii. 23. 16. Tue Muster FoR THE BaTTLeE oF ARMAGEDDON. 16. συνήγαγεν. The subject is not ὁ θεός, as in A.V. but the unclean spirits. The sentence goes on from the end of v. 14, υ. 15 being strictly parenthetical. “Appayeduv. The meaning, according as we read Ar or Har, is ‘“*the City” or ‘‘the Mountain of Megiddo.” But the insertion of ‘in the Hebrew tongue’’ perhaps indicates, that the meaning of the name Megiddo (which is apparently ‘‘cleaving”) is more important than the geographical note. There is some truth (though some exaggeration) in the description of the plain of Esdraelon as “the battle-field of Palestine’’: but the only occasions when Megiddo is mentioned in connexion with a battle are Judges v. 19, 2 Kings xxiii. 29 (ef. Zech. xii. 11 where LXX. translates ἐν πεδίῳ éxxomrouévov). Of course Megiddo or its neighbourhood (‘‘the Mountain of Megiddo” might be Tabor or that conventionally called Little Hermon) may be the destined scene of the gathering and overthrow of the Antichristian powers: but it is hardly to be assumed as certain. In Zech. xiy. 4,5 the Mount of Olives, in Joel iii. 12 the Valley of Jehoshaphat (wherever that is: it must be a proper name, though a significant one; but it is a convention, and an improbable one, that identifies it with the gorge of the Kidron) seem to be represented as the scene of the Judgement. 17—21. THe SeventH Via. PRELIMINARIES OF JUDGEMENT. 17. ἐπὶ τὸν ἀέρα. See note on v. 8. Tov ναοῦ, as in xv. 5, the heavenly temple. Here it seems that the Throne (that of iv, 2) is inside it: but see on iv. 6. Though coming from the Throne, see on xvi. 1, this voice is not defined, like that of xxi. 5, as the voice of Him that sat on it: but comparing xxi. 6 it is possible we ought to take it so. Téyovev. More literally, ‘it has come to pass”: but the same word is used in St Luke xiv. 22, where of course the A.V. is right. God’s great Judgement has not come to pass yet, but everything has been done to prepare for it. ‘*One who had fired a train would say ‘It is done,’ though the explosion had not yet taken place,” and, we may add, might use the same words again when it had, as in xxi. 6. 18. ἀστραπαὶ kal φωναὶ kal βρονταί. viii. 5, xi. 19. οἷος οὐκ ἐγένετο... τηλικοῦτος. So far the phrase hardly goes be- yond the familiar Hebraism ὅπου ἔχει ἐκεῖ τόπον, but the addition of οὕτω μέγας after τηλικοῦτος is singular, and probably marks the entire distinction of this earthquake from that of xi. 13. For the sense cf. Dan. xii. 1; St Matt. xxiv, 21. 156 REVELATION. [XVI. 19— 19. ἡ πόλις ἡ μεγάλη. Probably Jerusalem, as in chap. xi. 8. It seems pointless to suppose Babylon to be mentioned twice over: while on the other view there is a climax. Jerusalem is (or is to be) converted—she is the City of God again, yet even she is sorely shaken (cf. 1 St Peter iv. 17): other cities are wholly overthrown: while the City of God’s Enemy is to receive something more than overthrow. eis τρία μέρη. There is probably a reminiscence of Zech, xiv. 4, 5. If so, the earthquake probably isolates the western hill and completes the division of the eastern hill into two. It is just possible that there may be a reference to the three parties of John, Eleazar, and Simon, into which Jerusalem was divided at the time of its siege by Titus. We have seen (on xi. 13) that Jerusalem is to be converted at the very last: but xi. 7, 8 prove that this will not happen till the war with Antichrist is at least begun: consequently, this verse may be concerned with the judgement on Jerusalem still infidel. ai πόλεις τῶν ἐθνῶν. Distinguished from Jerusalem on the one hand and from Babylon on the other. τὸ ποτήριον. See on xiv. 10. 20. πᾶσα νῆσος. See vi. 14. 21. χάλαζα μεγάλη. vill. 7, xi. 19. ὡς ταλαντιαία. While natural hailstones weighing the sixtieth part of a talent are noticed as extraordinary. Some notice that the stones thrown by the engines at the siege of Jerusalem are said to have been of a talent weight: but it would be far-fetched to suppose these referred to. In this verse at least, the judgement described cannot be on Jerusalem—see on xi. 13 fin. CHAPTER XVII. 1. ἐλάλησεν per ἐμοῦ, λέγων. Cyp. (bis) reads adgressus est me dicens. Hipp. ἐλάλησέ μοι λέγων. Text. Rec. with 1 ἐλ. wer ἐμοῦ λέγων μοι. 2. ἐπόρνευσαν. WN has ἐποίησαν πορνίαν. καὶ ἐμεθ... αὐτῆς is omitted by Cyp. and Primas. but recognised by Tyc. Text. Rec. puts of κατ. τὴν γῆν after αὐτῆς with 1 cop. ἢ. 3. γέμοντα ὀνόματα. NB, read γέμον ὀνόματα; Text. Rec. γέμον ὀνομάτων with 1 Hipp. And. ἔχον. With B, 1 And.: Tisch. W. H. marg. read ἔχοντα with NP; W. ΗΠ. text ἔχων with A. κεφ. ἑπτὰ καί. 1omits. P adds v. 18 here and after v. 17. 4. τῆς πορν. αὐτῆς. B, reads τῆς πορν. τῆς γῆς; Cyp. Primas. fornicationis totius terrae ; δὰ τῆς πορνίας αὐτῆς καὶ τῆς γῆς. 5. πορνῶν. Lat. fornicationum. 6. μεθύουσαν ἐκ τοῦ αἵματος. With A 1 vg. Primas. Tyc. ; N* has μεθ. τῷ αἵματι (Tert. cruore); N*B,P omit ἐκ. μαρτύρων. A reads μαρτυριῶν. XVIT.] NOTES. 157 7. σοι ἐρῶ. So Text. Rec. and Tisch. W. H. marg. with SP 1 am. fu.; Lach. Treg. W. H., Weiss read ἐρῶ σοι with AB,. 8. ὑπάγειν. Lach. and W. H. (text) read ὑπάγει with A; Iren. int. Primas. vadit. Kal παρέσται. Text. Rec, reads καίπερ ἐστίν; N° and 1 καὶ πάρεστιν. 9. ὧδε is omitted in B, so that the ὁ νοῦς is the subject of παρέσται. 11. καὶ αὐτός. WN reads οὗτος ; By καὶ οὗτος. 14. κλητοὶ καὶ ἐκλεκτοὶ καὶ πιστοί. Primas, electi et fideles et vocati. Tyce. vocati οἱ electi. 1 κλητοὶ ὅτι ἐκλεκτοὶ καὶ πιστοί. And* κλητοὶ ὅτι πιστοὶ καὶ ἐκλεκτοί. 15. λέγει. Lach. reads εἶπεν with A Latt. 16. ἐν πυρί. Tisch. omits ἐν with NB,P 17. καὶ ποιῆσαι play γνώμην. Lach. omits with A, vg. and Tye. Primas. reads ut perficiant quod illi placitum est et esse illos in con- sensu et metu et tradere bestiae regnum. 18. βασιλέων. WS reads βασιλειών. Cuap. XVII. XVIII. Basynton. These Chapters are related to each other something as xi. xii. Those seem between them to give an account of a judgement on Jerusalem, these seem between them to give an account of the judgement on Babylon. But neither account seems to be strictly continuous; in both the historical background and the standpoint of the Seer seem to change. The Beast makes war against the Witnesses and profanes the holy city; then he disappears as completely as the Witnesses themselves from the conflict between the Woman and the Dragon, which typifies the desolation of the earthly Jerusalem; yet the vision in ch. xi. is obviously not complete in itself; nor is that in ch. xvii. The Seer is told that he is to be shewn the judgement upon the great whore, but at the end of the chapter the judgement, though definitely foretold, is still in the future. In the greater part of ch. xviii. (vv. 4—8, 21—24 are an exception), the judgement seems to be already over; and if this could be explained by the analogy of other pro- phecies it would still be remarkable that the beast and the horns which are so important in ch. xvii. disappear completely in ch. xviii.; for there is no clear ground for identifying the horns, whose dominion is both future and ephemeral, with the kings of the earth, the ancient lovers of Babylon, who bemoan her fall. Nor is there any trace in ch. xviii. of any human instrument of the divine vengeance. Again, in xviii. 1—3 Babylon has long been desolate, all kinds of foul creatures have made the ruins their home, while in vv. 9—20 the ruins are still smoking, and accerding to xix. 3 they are to smoke for ever. Such changes of imagery of course are not contradictions, but they suggest that prophecies of different dates upon the same subject have been brought together. 158 REVELATION. [XVIL 1— Cu. XVII. 1—6. : THE JUDGEMENT OF THE GREAT WuHoRE. Her Pomp. 1. εἷς ἐκ τῶν ἑπτὰ ἀγγέλων. So xxi. 9: cf. v. 5. δείξω σοι τὸ κρίμα. Which had been exhibited, and described in general terms, in xvi. 19; but the seer is now to have a nearer view of it, and describe it in detail. τῆς πόρνης τῆς μεγάλης. The image of the harlot is taken from the Old Testament description, not of Babylon, which when per- sonified is a virgin (Is. xlvii. 1), but of Tyre (Is. xxiii. 15 sqq.) and Nineveh (Nah. 111. 4). The truth is, the Antichristian Empire is conceived as embodying the various forms of evil that existed in previous earthly empires. They have existed and become great, in virtue of what was good in them (see St Augustine’s City of God v. xil. 3, 5, xv. &c.; Epist. exxxvili. 17: cf. Plat. Rep. 1. xxiii. pp. 351—2); they are the divinely appointed protectors of God’s people (Jer. xxix. 7; Rom. xiii. 1—7; 1 Tim. ii. 2) though their possible persecutors: and so they at once hinder (2 Thess. ii. 6, 7) the coming of Antichrist, and foreshadow his coming by acting in his spirit. The Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar had (as no one can read the Book of Daniel without seeing) something nobler in it than mere con- quering pride, and to this nobler element Isaiah does justice: but St John sees (it does not follow that the natural man will see) that in the New Babylon the baser element is supreme. But another interpretation has been suggested. In xii. 6, 14 we found that the Woman, the City of God and the Mother of His Son, fied into the wilderness, and there was concealed through the time of the Beast’s reign: and some have thought that the Woman in the Wilderness whom we meet with here is actually the same .as the one we then parted with—the faithful City becomes an harlot (Is. i. 21). This view is an unpleasant one, and seems out of harmony with the tone either of chap. xii. or of this chapter. But it is supported by the argument, that the image of a harlot is most frequently in the O.T. used of the unfaithful City of God: Is. i. 21; Jer. ii. 20, iii. 1 sqq. 6 sqq.; Ezek. xvi. xxiii.; Hos. i—iii., iv. 15; Mic. i. 7: while it is applied to heathen cities only in Is. xxiii. fin.; Nah. iii. 4, already quoted. On the other hand, in almost all those passages it is insisted on, more or less expressly, that the whoredoms of unfaithful Israel have the special guilt of adultery: and of that there is no hint here, the Lord does not say of Babylon as of Aholibah that she was ‘ Mine.” This seems to destroy the parallel with the former nine cases, which moreover is less close, as regards the details of language, than that with the two latter. And further, the identification of the two Women is only possible on the assumption, that the Mother of chap. xii. is the true Christian Church, and the Harlot of this chapter the apostate Christian Church of Rome. Now we have seen reason to reject the former view: nor does the latter appear any more tenable. This subject is discussed XVII. 4.] NOTES. 159 in the Introduction: it may be enough to refer to St John’s own words in Ep. 1 iv. 2, 3, as proving that the spirit of the theology (whatever may be said of the political attitude) of the existing Roman Church is, on the whole, of God—that it certainly is not the spirit of Antichrist. Neither on the other hand is it possible to restrict the application of this chapter to the pagan Rome of the past: there is hardly any- thing in the Rome of the republic, not much even in the Rome of the Cesars, to suggest the picture of the kings of the earth committing fornication with her. It is clear from Ezek. xxili. 5, 12, 14, that Nineveh and Babylon conquered as much by the fascination of a higher civilisation as by military force: in a limited sense it may be true that the house of Herod and even Tiridates yielded to a like seduction; but Antioch and Alexandria were much more splendid than the Rome of Pompey. On the other hand the Rome of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance has found her chief if not her only temporal strength in her memories and her splendour: she has been by turns the Delilah of Germany, of France, and of Spain. ἐπὶ τῶν ὑδάτων πολλῶν. Jer. li. 13. Literally true of the old Babylon, it is explained of the new in v. 15, 2. μεθ᾽ ἧς ἐπόρνευσαν. Is. xxiii. 17. ot κατοικοῦντες THY γῆν. Jer. li. 7. 3. εἰς ἔρημον. Probably a reminiscence of Is. xxi. 1, τὸ ὅραμα τῆς ἐρήμου, LXX., who omit the puzzling words “of the sea.” If, as good critics still maintain, that prophecy belongs to the age of Isaiah, the original reference is to the Arabian desert across which the prophet hears in spirit the first tidings of one of the failures of Babylon to assert her independence. Babylonia, though naturally very fertile, is now a wilderness, but we do not know how far the desolation had gone in St John’s day. It may be relevant to compare the present desolation of the once populous Campagna of Rome, if we suppose, which is uncertain, that the seer is carried into the wilderness because he is to see a vision of desolation. ἐν πνεύματι. Cf. i. 10, iv. 2, xxi. 10. θηρίον κόκκινον. Undoubtedly the same as the Beast of xiii. 1—8, though there his colour was not mentioned. It is symbolic (com- pare that of the dragon, xii. 3), as being the colour of blood: perhaps also suggestive of the imperial purple. γέμοντα ὀνόματα βλασφημίας. No reason has ever been given why a writer, who elsewhere constructs yéuw regularly with a genitive, should construct it here with an accusative, except that he possibly does the same in the next verse. There is of course a reference to xiii. 1, The blasphemous names of the heads of the beast, i.e. the imperial titles, make the whole body full of names of blasphemy. 4. περιβεβλημένη πορφυροῦν kal κόκκινον. Protestant interpreters have been fond of applying this description to the robes of Roman bishops and cardinals: and perhaps not altogether unjustly. See Introduction, p. Ixxii. 160 REVELATION. [X VII. 4— κεχρυσωμένη χρυσῷ. Lit. “gilded with gold,” and, but for the words which follow, the literal sense might be right; the imperial harlot Messalina did the like, Juv. σι. 123. Τί not, it is a question whether we are to suppose a zeugma or translate κεχρυσωμένη “be- jewelled.” λίθῳ τιμίῳ. See on xv. 6; of course λίθῳ is used collectively. ποτήριον χρυσοῦν. See Jer. li. 7 already quoted. We can hardly say that the cup serves her to drink the blood of saints and martyrs (v. 6), but it is meant to suggest that she is drunken, and invites to drunkenness, as well as to uncleanness. γέμον βδελυγμάτων. It is the cup of idolatry and the βδελύγματα are idols. kal τὰ ἀκάθαρτα τῆς πορνείας αὐτῆς. The pollutions of her whore- dom are the same as the abominations of her idols: neither the revisers nor the editors of the Variorum Bible consider Diisterdieck’s suggestion, since adopted by Weiss, that the accusative may depend upon ἔχουσα as easily as on γέμον, worth notice, and probably it is condemned by the Latin translators, who all make the connexion the same as in A.V., though they get rid of the irregular construction. δ. ἐπὶ τὸ μέτωπον αὐτῆς. Probably not branded on the flesh, but tied on as a label, as Roman harlots actually did wear their names. Mvorrpiov. Interpreters compare “the mystery of lawlessness” in 2 Thess. ii. 7. The use of the word in i. 20 may illustrate its meaning here: it indicates that ‘‘ Babylon the Great” is to be under- stood in a mystical sense. τῶν πορνῶν. ‘Of the harlots.” She is the chief of these, and the cause of the rest being what they are. Therefore, though the for- nications of Babylon are to be understood spiritually, yet her guilt includes the actual licentiousness of the Rome of Nero and Domitian, and in a wider sense ‘‘the sin of great cities” generally. 6. τῶν ἁγίων. xvili. 24. τῶν μαρτύρων. See on ii. 13. θαῦμα. ‘‘ Wonder,” which A.V. changes into “admiration” for the sake of variety: the neutral sense of the latter word is the oldest, and is still found in Scott’s Woodstock and in Hamilton’s Discussions. 7—18. Tuer INTERPRETATION ΟΕ THE MYSTERY. 7. Διατί ἐθαύμασας; Here again A.V. varies the expression ‘“‘wherefore didst thou marvel?” For the angel’s surprise at the seer’s not comprehending at once, see on vii. 14. ἐγώ σοι ἐρῶ Cf. ἐγὼ δὲ δώσω σοι τὸν ἀμπελῶνα, 1 Kings xxi. 7, which also comes after a question; Dan. x. 12, ἠκούσθησαν οἱ λόγοι σου, Kal ἐγὼ ἦλθον ἐν τοῖς λόγοις σου, xi. 1 καὶ ἐγὼ ἐν ἔτει πρώτῳ Κύρου ἔστην εἰς κράτος καὶ ἰσχύν. It is not quite certain that the emphasis of ἐγὼ depends on a contrast between the angel and the seer. τὸ μυστήριον, 1.6. the mystical meaning: see on v. 5. or XVII. 8.] NOTES. 161 τῆς γυναικός, Kal τοῦ θηρίου. The latter is explained first, vv. 8—14: the Woman is not clearly defined till v. 18. The delay is intentional, but the exposition passes to and fro between the Horns and the Beast, and the Woman, who is approached again and again in a way that recalls the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel, which also passes to and fro between the Word and the Man sent from God whose name was John. 8. ἦν, καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν. On the whole, ancient tradition, where it speaks, and modern criticism agree in the interpretation of these words. Nero, who killed himself in June a.p. 68, ‘‘had been, and was πού at the date of this vision: but his reappearance was looked for by many, with various feelings of hope and fear. When his dethronement and execution were imminent, it was said that he had talked of going to the Hast, and establishing his throne at Jerusalem (see on xi. 9): while one form (see on xvi. 12) of the belief that he survived was that he had fled to the Parthians, and would return under their protection. Now St John is not to be held responsible for all the opinions, superstitious or at least irrational, that were held by his pagan con- temporaries about the return of Nero from the East. But when we find that the belief in Nero’s destined return was held by Christians for the next four centuries, if not longer, when it had quite passed out of the minds of pagans, it becomes probable that St John was answerable for their belief; at any rate, they grounded it on his words. And it is possible that he means to tell us, that the Anti- christ who is to come will actually be Nero risen from the dead (we notice, that in the words of the text his death, the reality of which is historically certain, is not denied, but affirmed): more probably, Antichrist will be a new Nero in the same way as he will be a new Antiochus, an enemy of God as they were, typified by them inasmuch as they were actuated by his spirit. It is needless to suppose with M. Renan that Nero is called ‘‘the Beast” in allusion to a loathsome atrocity said to be committed by him disguised as one: the analogy of Dan. vii. is what determines the image. μέλλει ἀναβαίνειν ἐκ τῆς ἀβύσσου. xi. 7, where see note. Per- haps there is a distinction between the appearance of the Beast indicated here and that of xiii. 1. The persecuting Roman Empire, which was antichristian in posse, arose ‘“‘out of the sea”’ like other Empires of the earth (Dan. vii. 3), out of the confused and often sinful, but not infra-natural, turmoil of the life of this world. But the final and developed antichristian and persecuting power, the Empire of Antichrist himself, will have a directly infernal source. εἰς ἀπώλειαν ὑπάγειν. Sov. 11: cf. 2 Thess, ii. 3. The fulfilment of this threat is indicated in xix. 20. θαυμάσονται. xiii, 3, 4. ὧν ov γέγραπται τὸ ὄνομα. xiii. 8. βλεπόντων. The genitive may either be absolute, as it must be in i, 15 if πεπυρωμένης be right, or irregularly attracted to ὧν. REVELATION 162 REVELATION. [XVII 8— καὶ παρέσται. The word is designedly chosen to remind readers of the Parousia. 9. ὧδε ὁ νοῦς. Compare xiii. 18. As there, the words seem to indicate that “the mind which hath wisdom” will recognise the meaning of the image, though it is obscurely expressed. But the ‘“‘wisdom” required is not merely the faculty of guessing riddles— it is the wisdom enlightened from above; including however, we may suppose, an intelligent knowledge of the facts and principles of human history. At this point the explanation of the Angel seems to be interrupted till it is resumed at καὶ λέγει μοι, v. 15. If so, as the seer is addressed in v. 12, we should have to suppose we have the inspired reflection of another prophet. ἑπτὰ ὄρη. These words prove decisively that Babylon represents the City of Rome. It is needless to quote classical descriptions of Rome as the City of the Seven Mountains: the designation is as un- mistakeable as the name would be. Nevertheless, it is curious that the number is rather conventionally than actually true. The original seven hills were the Palatine, the Germalus (virtually a part of the Palatine hill), the Velia (the low ridge crossing the Forum), the Cispius, Oppius, and Fagutal (three summits of the Esquiline), and the Suburra which is not a hill at all. But Rome in the days of its greatness covered the Palatine, Capitol, Aventine, Caelian, Hs- quiline (two of the ridges of which, though not very well defined, are yet as distinct as the two next), the Quirinal, the Viminal (these two were never counted among the ‘‘seven mountains,” though higher than any of them, but were always called ‘‘hills,” perhaps because collis was the Sabine name and mons the Latin), and the Janiculum and Vatican on the other side of the Tiber. In modern Rome the buildings have spread over the Pincian Hill, but the Caelian, Palatine, Aventine, are nearly uninhabited, and the same was true till lately of the Esquiline. 10. Kal βασιλεῖς ἑπτά εἰσιν. ‘And they [the seven heads] are seven kings”: they have a double significance—standing both for the seven mountains and the seven kings. Who are these kings? According to the view mentioned on xiii. 2, that the Beast is not the Roman Empire, but.an embodiment of the worldly imperial spirit, it is plausibly held that the kings are king- doms or empires (like the “kings of Persia and Grecia” in Dan. viii.) —that they are the four kingdoms of Daniel ii. and vii., together with Egypt and Assyria that came before Babylon, and the kingdoms of modern Europe that come after Rome. On this view, the ten horns are all on one head: it is this ten-horned head which receives the deadly wound of xiii. 3: i.e. the Beast is nearly slain (the Empire as an evil and persecuting power overthrown) by the conversion, first of the later Emperors, and then of the sovereigns of Europe, to Christianity : but he revives—e.g. in Julian after Constantine, and again in the neo-paganism of the Renaissance and the persecutions of the Reformation. With all the elements of truth that must be acknowledged in this XVII. 10.] NOTES. 163 view, it seems hardly possible to doubt that the Beast, so, closely united with the City of the Seven Hills, represents the Roman Empire particularly. On this view, the “kings” have been taken to represent forms of government—Rome having been successively governed, it is said, by kings, consuls, dictators, decemvirs, military tribunes, emperors, and Christian emperors (the last being taken, as before, to be the wounded head: some however make the con- version of Constantine a wound to the sixth head, and count the Ostrogoth kings as the seventh). But considering that the dictator- ship, the decemvirate, and even the tribunate, were transitory episodes in the Roman government—the first avowedly exceptional, the second both exceptional and ephemeral, and all three, as well as the primitive monarchy, probably unknown to St John’s original readers,—this view does not appear even plausible. It remains then that the kings be taken as individual Emperors of Rome (it must be remembered that though these were never called ‘‘kings” in Latin, the Greek title βασιλεύς was constantly applied to the Emperors: see e.g. 1 St Peter ii. 13, 17). Who then were the first seven Emperors? According to the common reckoning, Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius—(often called by modern writers by his nickname Caligula, ‘‘Little Boots”): of the twelve Caesars, Julius and Claudius were better known to history by their gentile names; Augustus by his title; Vespasian and Domitian, both younger sons, were known by cognomina formed from the name of their mothers; Titus was known by the praenomen he shared with his father and brother; Tiberius, Gaius and Nero were known by their praenomina, the latter having received a cognomen of Claudius as his praenomen, Galba and Otho by their cognomina (while the elder brother of the latter was commonly known as Titianus, which was a cognomen not inherited from his father),—Claudius, Nero, and Galba. But Julius Caesar, though he received the title of Imperator as the later Emperors did, cannot be considered, and is not by careful his- torians, as the first of the ‘‘Emperors,’’ if the Empire be spoken of as a settled form of government. His authority in the state, so far as it was constitutional at all, lay in his Dictatorship: which office was legally abolished immediately after his death, and never revived. He was however deified, which marks his recognition as, so to speak, the founder of the dynasty. Augustus, and the later Emperors, ruled not as Dictator, but as Chief of the Senate with the power of Tribune. ot πέντε ἔπεσαν. Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, and Nero. Is then the “tone who is” Galba? So he is generally understood by those who adopt this scheme of interpretation: and if so, the date of the vision (see Introduction) is fixed at a time between June a.p. 68, and the 15th of January 4.p. 69, when Galba was murdered. He was succeeded by Otho, who certainly “continued a short space,” if he could be said to continue at all: he killed himself, on April 15th, when defeated by the army of Vitellius, who had revolted from Galba a few days before his murder by Otho. But the rest of the prophecy, on this view, received nothing that L2 164 REVELATION. [XVIT. 10— can be reckoned as even a typical fulfilment. Vitellius, despite many contemptible vices, was a good-natured man, and not a bad ruler, so far as he had energy to rule at all. He could not be considered as an incarnation of the Antichristian power, nor even as a revival of Nero, though he, as well as Otho, treated Nero’s memory with respect. And considering that Galba had only reigned in Rome for a few weeks before his death (though he had been acknowledged longer), that Otho never had an uncontested title, and Vitellius only from about the end of April to July 1st, it seems likelier that these three are passed over, as claimants of empire (and they had not been the only ones: see on v. 12) rather than actual emperors. Thus, the sixth king will be Vespasian, who was proclaimed emperor on July 1st, a.p. 69: his troops gained a decisive victory over those of Vitellius late in October, and Rome was taken, and Vitellius killed, on Dec. 21st. Vespasian reigned well and peaceably, and was succeeded by his elder son Titus, in June a.p. 79: who “continued a short space,” till Sept. 12th, a.p. 81, when he died, aged 40;—murdered, as some said, by his brother Domitian, who succeeded him, and who was regarded, by pagans and Christians alike, as a revival of Nero (Juv. Iv. 38; Tert. Apol. c. 7). Like Nero, he persecuted the Christians: like Nero, he indulged in the most hideous vices: though unlike Nero, he had a strong sense of decorum, and was fanatically attached to the Roman religion. Further than this, the vision does not follow the fortunes of the Empire in detail. At the point where the type of Antichrist comes into the history, the prophecy introduces Anti- christ himself: cf. Dan. xi., as understood by most orthodox in- terpreters. ὀλίγον αὐτὸν Set μεῖναι. Both ‘‘continue” and ‘‘short’’ seem to be emphatic—his reign is to be short, but not ephemeral. Thus the designation seems more appropriate to Titus than to Otho. St Vic- torinus (in the present text) applies it to Nerva, who like Titus reigned mildly for under two years. But his successor Trajan (though he to a certain extent sanctioned the persecution of Christianity, and is said himself to have condemned St Ignatius) was anything but an Antichrist. It may seem as though St Victorinus (or his editor) were making a rather clumsy attempt to reconcile the interpretation here given, which he was acquainted with as a tradition, with the general belief that St John was writing under Domitian. 11. καὶ αὐτὸς κιτλ. The analogy of this Book is in favour of connecting the first two words closely as in A.V., ‘‘even he is the eighth and is of the seven,” otherwise it might be possible and even preferable to translate ‘‘ both himself is the eighth and is of the seven.” ἐκ τῶν ἑπτὰ is most easily understood ‘‘is one of the seven”—i.e. the eighth emperor of Rome, in whom the antichristian spirit of the empire finds its personal embodiment, will be a revival of one of his seven predecessors—viz. Nero, the fifth of them. The words can however be taken to mean ‘‘the successor and result of the XVIL 12.] NOTES. 165 seven, following and springing out of them”; if a scheme of in- terpretation be preferred with which this meaning harmonises better. els ἀπώλειαν ὑπάγει. Implies something more than the “fall” of the other kings. 12, τὰ δέκα κέρατα. If the traditional view now supported by Lagarde be right, that the Fourth Beast in Daniel vii. is the Roman Empire, the ten horns, Dan. vii. 24, probably, though the Little Horn is their successor, represent kingdoms related to the Roman Empire as the kingdoms of the Diadochi to that of Alexander. Such are the principal kingdoms of modern Europe: and in the recognition of this fact lies the key to mediaeval and to much of modern history. (See Sir F. Palgrave’s Normandy and England, Intr. 6. 1, English Commonwealth, ὁ. 10, 11, 17, 18, 19, and Dr Bryce’s Holy Roman Empire, passim.) The number ten is probably to be taken as exact, but we cannot yet point to it as being definitely realised. It is remarkable that the kingdoms of Europe have (as is pointed out by Elliott, Horae Apoc. Part tv. 6. iv. § 2) tended at many periods to that number: but there are now more than ten sovereign states in Christendom, or even in Europe only. Judging from the analogy of the Macedonian kingdoms (see on xvi. 12) we may guess that only those are included which are of considerable size and power, and have some claim to continue the imperial tradition of the common predecessor. The existing states of Germany, France, Austria, and Russia have such a claim (which they assert, more or less constantly and more or less legitimately, by the use of the imperial title): so has our own country, which has claimed rank as an empire coordinate with continental ones since the days of Edgar the Peaceable: so (more doubtfully) have Spain and Portugal in virtue of their memories, and so have the new kingdoms of Greece and Italy in virtue of their hopes. A tenth can hardly be named, for Sweden though powerful was not imperial even under Gustavus Adolphus or Charles XII., and Turkey could hardly be thus coupled with the states of Christendom: but believers will watch the de- velopement of ‘‘the Eastern Question” with a solemn interest. St Hippolytus, who assumes that the ten horns here correspond exactly to the ten horns in Danie], infers from Dan. xi. 43 that Egypt, Libya and Aethiopia will be three of the ten kingdoms over- thrown by the Little Horn, whom he identifies with the Beast and with Antichrist. As here all ten horns take part with the Beast in executing judgement upon the whore, the correspondence cannot be exact, not to mention that in Dan. vii. 24 the Little Horn seems to be the successor of the Ten Horns, as here the Beast is the successor of the Seven Heads. It is therefore not impossible that here the Horns betoken the extension rather than the partition of the empire: ten new kings arise and join themselves to the Beast. Many foreign interpreters explain this of the provincial governors who receive power as kings as soon as they throw off their allegiance to the Seventh Head and give the kingdom to the Beast on his return from the abyss. Apart from other considerations it is impossible 166 REVELATION. [XVIT. 12— to say which of the provincial governors are meant, and difficult to suppose that even a false prophet could employ such a figure without knowing what he meant by it. M. Renan’s theory (L’Antéchrist, pp. 433, 434), that the ten horns are the claimants of the Empire who appeared in the ‘‘long year” (Tac. Dial. 17) after the death of Nero, is less objectionable. It is possible to enumerate ten of these, but unfortunately not without including both Galba and Vespasian, one of whom must be reckoned among the heads, and therefore cannot be reckoned among the horns. Else, both Rome and the Roman Empire were so severely shaken in the civil wars between the rival emperors, and their actual fall in the fifth century was so nearly anticipated, that this interpretation harmonises well enough with v. 16. On the other hand, it fails to give meaning to v. 18, or to agree with the most probable meaning of the same symbol in Daniel. οἵτινες. The pronoun introduces the explanation why they are symbolised by horns, not heads. ἐξουσίαν ὡς βασιλεῖς. It is extraordinary that St Hippolytus (On Christ and Antichrist, ch. 27) inferred, apparently not from this passage, but from Dan. 11. 42, that the ten powers of the last days, among which the Roman empire is partitioned, will pass from monar- chies into democracies. Few things were humanly speaking less likely in his days, few more so in ours. μίαν ὥραν λαμβάνουσιν μετὰ τοῦ θηρίου. Their dominion is for the same short term as that of the Beast: the end will be very near when the ten horns appear in their final and unmistakeable shape. If the correspondence between Daniel and this chapter be as exact as interpreters who attempt to identify the horns suppose, this only makes their inconsistency the greater. 13. οὗτοι- διδόασιν. The order in this clause and in the next corresponds to that of ordinary Greek more nearly than in xiv. 4, where the structure is similar: for the sense cf. xvi. 14, xix. 19, 20. 14. See the same passages. κύριος κυρίων... καὶ βασιλεὺς βασιλέων. xix. 16; Dan. ii. 47. οἱ per αὐτοῦ. xix. 14. κλητοὶ καὶ ἐκλεκτοὶ καὶ πιστοί. All common titles of Christians applied even to the imperfect Churches on earth. 15. τὰ ὕδατα ἃ εἶδες. Some compare Is. viii. 7 for the use of waters as an emblem of multitudes. It is noteworthy that when the vision is described vv. 3—8 the waters are not mentioned. ὄχλοι. Everywhere else we have φυλαί. 16. καὶ τὸ θηρίον. He (in his personal advent) and they will act together against Babylon as well as the Lamb. μισήσουσιν τὴν πόρνην. If the interpreters who include the horns among the kings of the earth are right, she had been the object of XVII. 18. NOTES. 167 their unchaste love, and will be of their passionate regret, xvill. 9. Nero’s treatment of his mistress or wife Poppaea cannot be alluded to, but is a good illustration of the image, and vindication of its consistency with vicious human nature. γυμνήν. Cf. Is. xlvii. 2,3; Ezek. xvi. 37—9. τὰς σάρκας αὐτῆς φάγονται, kal αὐτὴν κατακαύσουσιν ἐν πυρί. Cf. Mic. ili. 2; Gen. xxxviii. 24; Judges xv. 6; i.e. shall plunder and burn Rome. The threat was symbolised and almost fulfilled in the burning of the Capitol by the partisans of Vitellius, and the storming of Rome by those of Vespasian: it received a more complete fulfil- ment in the repeated disasters of the fifth century. The sack of Rome by Constable Bourbon and the Germans was a less striking fulfilment: but the real and final one is no doubt still to come. We should naturally understand from these words, that the judge- ment on Babylon described in the next chapter will be executed by the “kings of the earth,’ the ten States among which the Roman Empire is partitioned. But it is almost as remarkable as the view of Hippolytus noted on v. 12, that St Benedict is recorded (S. Greg. Dial. τι. 15) to have said, “‘Rome will not be destroyed by the nations, but be overthrown by thunderstorms, whirlwinds and earthquakes.” We know what he did not, that Rome stands, like Pompeii, on volcanic soil, within a few miles of voleanoes that, though not active now, were so to the verge of historical times, and may be again. This book does not tell us positively how Babylon will fall, and no one has the right to pretend to say: but it is at least suggestive to know that it might fall by a convulsion which unbelievers would think quite ‘natural,’ while believers would see its place in the scheme of providence. 17. ὁ γὰρ θεός. The very same judicial blindness is spoken of in 2 Thess. ii. 11. ποιῆσαι μίαν γνώμην. Cf. v. 13. δοῦναι τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτῶν τῷ θηρίῳ. He therefore, though a representative of the Roman Empire, will not fall with the city of Rome: on the contrary, in the last days of the latter he will have appeared as its enemy. The gradual divorce of the Empire from the City, by Diocletian, Constantine, Charlemagne, the medieval German Emperors, Charles V., Francis 11., Napoleon, William, is significant as providing precedents for what Antichrist will do: though of course it would be absurd and unjust to think of all these as actuated by his spirit. 18. ἡ πόλις ἡ μεγάλη. Again as in v. 9 the designation of Rome is unmistakeable. The words cannot be glossed, “Babylon is (now represented by) Rome,’’ but must mean ‘“ Babylon is Rome.” 168 REVELATION. [X VIII.— CHAPTER XVIII. 4. peta ταῦτα. Primas. reads et; Text. Rec. καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα with 1 vg. 2. ἐν ἰσχυρᾷ φωνῇ. Veg. (tol.) Tyc. in fortitudine, whence Text. Rec. ἐν ἰσχύϊ φωνῇ μεγάλῃ. λέγων. P omits. tv. ἀκαθάρτου. A adds καὶ μεμισημένου. ὀρνέου. A reads θηρίου. Primas. refugium...omnis bestiae immundae et omnis avis immundae et odibilis. Syr. has et custodia omnis ani- malis dentis immundi et exosi at end of verse. 8. τοῦ οἴνου τ. θ. τ. 7. AC omit τοῦ οἴνου. Ο has τοῦ θυμοῦ after” τῆς πορνείας. Primas, omits τοῦ θυμοῦ. πέπωκαν. AC have πέπτωκαν, NB, πεπτώκασιν by a common clerical error which here makes sense. P1 have πέποκεν, Text. Rec. πέπωκε. The Versions preserve the true text. 4, ἐξέλθατε. Lach. reads ἐξέλθε with B,C Cyp. Primas. λάβητε. And*. βλάβητε, Tyc. laedamini. Cyp. Primas. perstringaris. δ. ἐκολλήθησαν. Veg. Cyp. Primas. read pervenerunt, Tyc. adscen- derunt, Text. Rec. ἠκολούθησαν. 6. ἀπόδοτε. Cyp. Primas. have reddidit. 7. Sore. Cyp. Primas. have datur. 8. θάνατος Kal πένθος καὶ λιμός. B, has θανάτου πένθος καὶ λιμοῦ. 9. κλαύσουσιν. So Lach. Treg. W. Η. (text) and Weiss with B,CP ; Text. Rec. and Tisch. (note) read κλαύσονται with NA. 12. γόμον χρυσοῦ, kal ἀργύρου, καὶ λίθου τιμίου. CP read γ. χρυ- σοῦν καὶ ἀργυροῦν καὶ λίθους τιμίους, Primas. mercis auri et argenti et lapidum pretiosorum. papyapitav with δὲ Primas.; Text. Rec. μαργαρίτου with B, vg.; A has papyapirais, CP μαργαρίτας. Both are possibly as W. H. suggest corruptions of μαργαρίδος. καὶ Buoolyov. Primas. omits. καὶ πορφύρας. A omits, Primas. inserts after καὶ σιρικοῦ. ξύλον. A has σκεῦος, Primas. omnis ligni citrei. ἐκ ξύλου. A has ἐκ λίθου, C omits ἐκ. 18. καὶ κιννάμωμον, καὶ ἄμωμον. NB, Primas, (?) read καὶ κιννα- μώμου. SB, Primas. omit καὶ ἄμωμον. θυμιάματα. 1 Primas. read θυμίαμα, By θυμιάματος. καὶ μύρον. C omits. καὶ ψυχὰς ἀνθρώπων. Primas. omits (mancipia=cwudrovr). 14, εὑρήσουσιν. Text. Rec, reads εὑρήσῃς with B, εὕρῃς, 1 εὑρήσεις. 10. κεχρυσωμένη. NS has κεχρυσωμένον. XVIII. 3.] NOTES. 169 17. ἐπὶ τόπον πλέων. B, has ἐπὶ τὸν τ. πλ.; P ἐπὶ τῶν πλοίων πλέων. Text. Ree. ἐπὶ τῶν πλοίων ὁ ὅμιλος with 1 Hipp. And®. 18. καπνόν. A has τόπον. 19. κλαίοντες kal πενθοῦντες. A 1 omit. 20. Kal ot ἀπόστολοι. With NAB,P am. fu. Primas.; Text. Rec. omits καὶ οἱ with C 1 vg. 21. ἰσχυρὸς λίθον. N* has λίθον ἰσχυρόν. A Syr. Tyc. omit ἰσχυρός. ὡς μύλον μέγαν. NS has ὡς λίθον μέγαν, AC ὡς μύλινον (C μυλικὸν) μέγαν. 22. πάσης τέχνης. NA cop. omit. μύλου. Ο has μύθου. 23. καὶ φώς... ἐν σοὶ ἔτι. A and some MSS. of vg. omit. οἱ ἔμποροι. Lach. and Treg. omit of with A 95. 24. αἷμα. Tisch. reads αἵματα with B, and And. comm, THE JUDGEMENT ON BaByLon. Cu. XVIII. 1—3. Her ΕἾΝΑΙ, Desonation. 1. ἄλλον. See on xiv. 6. ἐξουσίαν μεγάλην. Apparently for destruction: see on ix. 19 and XVI. ὃ. καὶ.. αὐτοῦ. Ezek. xliii. 2, LXX. καὶ ἡ γῆ ἐξέλαμπεν ὡς φέγγος ἀπὸ τῆς δόξης κυκλόθεν. ἐφωτίσθη may be meant to be closer to the Hebrew: later translators seem to have preferred the sense of ἐξέ- λαμπεν. 2. ἔπεσεν, ἔπεσεν. xiv. 8; Is. xxi. 9. κατοικητήριον, ““ Βαϊ αὐ ϊοη.᾽ Similar vengeance is denounced on the literal Babylon, Is. xiii. 21, 22, and on Edom, id. xxxiv. 13—15. It is not quite certain which of the words used in those passages are names of demons or goblins, and which of terrestrial birds and beasts: but there is little doubt that Isaiah, like St John, means to describe both as occupying the desolated city. φυλακή. ‘ Hold” in A.V. is probably meant to signify a prison, not a fortress: the same word is translated “prison” ii. 10; 1 St Peter iii. 19, and again ‘‘cage” in this verse. 3. τοῦ οἴνου. See crit. note. οἱ βασιλεῖς, xvii. 2. οἱ ἔμποροι τῆς γῆς. Merchants are alluded to as frequenting the literal Babylon in Is. xlvii. 15; but the prominence given to them suggests the analogy not of Babylon but of Tyre: see on xvii. 1. Rome was in St John’s day a wealthy and luxurious city, not a commercial city primarily, in the same sense as ancient Tyre and 170 REVELATION. [ΣΎ 3— modern London, but a city with an immense commerce, the com- merce really belonging to the city, though the port of Ostia was considerably further from the Capitol than the Docks are from Westminster. What Rome was then it may, and probably will, be again: and there is no need to look elsewhere than at Rome for the literal fulfilment of St John’s description, though some have thought it inappropriate to the geographical position of the city. τοῦ στρήνους. This word is used 2 Kings xix. 28 to translate the Hebrew word translated πικρία in the parallel passage of Isaiah (xxxvii. 29); A.V. translates ‘‘tumult,” R.V. text ‘‘arrogancy” and margin ‘‘careless ease’ in both places. The compound verb 1 Tim. γ. 11 throws no further light on the meaning, which probably includes wanton pride. 4—8. Her Prinz anp SuppDEN F Att. 4. ἐξέλθατε. Is. xlviii. 20, lii. 11; Jer. 1. 8, li. 6, 9, 45; all re- ferring to the flight of Israel from the literal Babylon. This passage is nearest to the last of those cited: but in the second there is also the suggestion, that the Lord’s people must depart to secure their purity, as well as that they will depart to secure their liberty. They are, however, presumably dwellers at Babylon as captives, not as citizens: it can hardly be meant that any of them really belong to Babylon, or are loth to quit her (like Lot in Sodom) till the very eve of her fall. ἵνα μὴ συνκ... ἵνα μὴ λάβητε. The second iva is strangely placed, whether we consider what is usual in ordinary Greek or in the style of this writer, who here aims at and attains a symmetrical chiasmus where the two middle clauses correspond to each other, and the last corresponds with the first. δ. ἐκολλήθησαν. Lit. “were compacted,” “clave together,” i.e. mounted up in a solid mass. 6. ἀπόδοτε αὐτῇ ὡς καὶ αὐτὴ ἀπέδωκεν. ‘Render to her as she herself rendered.” The thought is founded on Ps. exxxvii. 8; Jer. 1, 15, 29; and the expression on the former passage. διπλώσατε. See Jer. xvi. 18; where however the vengeance is on the persecutors of the prophet in Jerusalem. 7. ὅτι... ἴδω. Is. xlvii. 7, 8: in v. 8 we have a reminiscence of the next verse of Isaiah, but less verbally close. 8. θάνατος kai πένθος kal λιμός. Mourning naturally comes after death, why famine after mourning? Is the order of the plagues first pestilence, with the streets full of mourners, then a siege and famine, then fire more terrible than the sword? There is certainly a succession, for famine is felt by degrees. ἐν πυρὶ κατακαυθήσεται. So xvii. 16. While literally true of the city, the doom may refer to that pronounced by the Law on certain cases of foul fornication, Lev. xxi. 9, &c. ὅτι ἰσχυρός. Jer. 1. 34. XVIII. 13.] NOTES. 171 ὁ κρίνας. The voice is heard before the judgement is executed: the judgement was passed before the voice spoke. 9—19. Tur LAMENTATION OVER HER ON EartTu, 9. ot βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς. Primarily, no doubt, the few vassal kings that were left in Syria and its neighbourhood. See also on xvii. 16. TOV καπνὸν τῆς πυρώσεως αὐτῆς. Cf. Gen. xix. 28. 10. διὰ τὸν φόβον, i.e. because of their fear. Their regret for her destruction is sincere, but does not make them forget themselves. 11. κλαίουσιν καὶ πενθοῦσιν. See crit. note. The present here between the futures in vv. 9 and 15 is more difficult than the past tenses in v. 18, which can be explained as in xi. 11. Apart from this, vv. 11—13 might seem to interrupt the connexion between vv. 10 and 14, and vv. 9, 10, 14 would be quite naturally continued by vv. 15—17. vv. 11—13 may have once stood before v. 4. ὅτι οὐδεὶς ἀγοράζει. Their sorrow is even more purely selfish than that of the kings. 12, 13. See crit. notes. The various readings are partly due to deliberate attempts to carry either the accusative or the genitive through; partly perhaps to various very early combinations of two lists, one with the names in genitive and one in accusative; compare ἵππων and κτήνη, Lat. jumenta, and σωμάτων and ψυχὰς ἀνθρώπων. The whole passage should be compared with Ezek. xxvii. where the wealth and trade of Tyre is described in detail. 12. πᾶν ξύλον Ovivov. Wood of the thyia or thyion, a kind of cypress or arbor vitae: apparently the same that was called citrus by the Romans and used for the costliest furniture. σκεῦος. Both ivory and wood were used rather for furniture than ‘“‘vessels’’ in our sense; it is not clear that marble was much used for either. 13. κιννάμωμον yielded a scented oil, and was also used for burning. ἄμωμον. Chiefly used like μύρον for scenting the person. θυμιάματα. Used for burning like λίβανον : the demand was large, as it was the commonest act of worship to cast incense on public or domestic altars. pedav. It is a little remarkable that travelling carriages, though the name is Gallic, were imported by sea. σωμάτων. Ezek, xxvii. 14 ἵπποι καὶ ἱππεῖς (compared with ἵππων οὐ σωμάτων here) suggests that this may mean “drivers,” or ‘‘ grooms.” ψυχὰς ἀνθρώπων. Ezek. xxvii. 13 (where E. V. translates ‘per- sons of men’). While we never find in the Bible an Englishman’s horror of slavery as an institution, we are no doubt to understand that St John—perhaps even that Ezekiel—felt it to be cruel and unnatural to regard human beings as mere merchandise. 172 REVELATION. [X VIII. 14— 14. See on υ. 11. If this verse is in its original context, the writer, after the long parenthesis of vv. 11—13, begins to quote without notice the lamentation of the merchants, which is introduced more regularly in vv. 16,17; and τούτων in v. 15 seems to refer rather to the catalogue of merchandise than to πάντα... λαμπρά. ἡ ὀπώρα σου.. Ψυχῆς. σου is generally made to depend upon τῆς ἐπ. τῆς ψυχῆς. In all other passages of the New Testament where σου stands before the substantive on which it depends, the word which comes before it has something of the force of a predicate, e.g. τοῦ αἴροντός cov τὸ ἱμάτιον, St Luke vi. 29: ποῦ cov Θάνατε τὸ κέντρον; 1 Cor. xy. 55: oftener it is a verb. The Latins, who read cov after ὀπώρα, not after ψυχῆς, like Alford, made it depend on ὀπώρα. τὼ λιπαρὰ Kal τὰ λαμπρά. The first of these words is only found three times in the Bible, Neh. ix. 35 of a fat land; Is. xxx. 23 of bread, and here, where translators are probably right in explaining it of dainty food; both words continue the thought of ὀπώρα, λιπαρὰ for enjoyment, λαμπρὰ for display: otherwise the commoner sense in Greek would be expressed in Latin by omnia nitida (not pingwia) et splendida. εὑρήσουσιν. This impersonal verb, though quite in the manner of the writer, comes in strangely after the vehement apostrophe. 16. κεχρυσωμένη. See on xvii. 4. 17. πᾶς ὁ ἐπὶ τόπον πλέων. Vulg. renders ac omnes qui in locum navigant, which would mean ‘‘every one who saileth to the place,” a more natural sense than that of R.V., ‘‘who saileth any whither.” There is no known parallel in Biblical or other Greek for the curious phrase ἐπὶ τόπον : the nearest is σεισμοὶ κατὰ τόπους, St Matt. xxiv. 7. The Old Latin, and most probably the Coptic, read πόντον in some form. If the text be right the words probably stand for the mer- chants travelling in ships with their own goods, which they intend to sell on arriving at their destination—Lat. vectores. ναῦται. Cf. Ezek. xxvii. 29 sqq. ὅσοι THY θάλασσαν ἐργάζονται. The sense is general and includes all the three classes named, shipmasters, sailing merchants, and sailors. ‘*Trade” in A.V. is defensible, as neither noun nor verb had any exclusive reference to commerce in the seventeenth century. ἀπὸ μακρόθεν ἔστησαν. At this point, as in xi. 11, vision may be supposed to take the place of prediction, and so the seer narrates what has been shewn him. The pleonasm ἀπὸ μακρόθεν is charac- teristic of St Mark who has it five times, St Matthew has it twice (xxvi. 58=Me. xiv. 54, xxvii. 58=Me. xv. 40), St Luke twice (xvi. 23, xxiii. 49=Mc. xv. 40) with an added reminiscence of Ps. xxxvii. 12 LXX. Kings, merchants, and shipmen when they land would all naturally go up to the great city, but they see the smoke of her torment and stand afar off. 18. τίς ὁμοία... Ezek. xxvii. 32. 19. ἔβαλον χοῦν. Ibid. 30. πὴ NOTES. 173 20—24. Tur ReEJoIcING OVER HER IN HEAVEN. 20. εὐφραίνου ἐπ᾽ αὐτῇ. xii. 12. There may be a reminiscence of Jer. li. 48. We cannot tell if the words are those of the Angel of v. 1, of the voice of v. 4, or of the seer himself: perhaps the second is most likely. ἔκρινεν ὁ θεὸς τὸ κρίμα ὑμῶν. Lit., “judged your judgement,” condemned her for her condemnation of you. Notice the mention of “apostles” as well as other “saints,” as proving that apostles suf- fered in Rome; and so confirming the unanimous tradition as to the martyrdom there of SS. Peter and Paul. Notice also (in refer- ence to the theory mentioned on ii. 2) St John’s recognition of the latter as an apostle. Whether he had himself been condemned to death at Rome cannot be determined: the tradition to that effect was ancient, but not demonstrably so ancient, nor so widespread or so confirmed by scriptural evidence (see on St John’s Gospel xxi. 18, 19). 21. καὶ ἔβαλεν κιτ.λ. Jer. li. 63, 64. οὕτως ὁρμήματι. Vg. Hoc impetu. R.V. ‘with a mighty fall.” 22. φωνὴ κιθαρῳδῶν. Is. xiv. 11, of Babylon, Ezek. xxvi. 13, of Tyre, are certainly parallels: compare also Is. xxiy. 8, which is as similar as the passages of Jeremiah referred to on the following verse, and apparently, like them, spoken of the unfaithful Jerusalem. φωνὴ μύλου ov. Jer. xxv. 10. 23. φωνὴ νυμφίου. Jer. vii. 34, xvi. 9. Weiss suggests that v. 14 originally stood here, having dropped out between ἔτι and ὅτι, and been replaced in the margin: it would certainly interrupt the con- nexion less here than where it stands. ὅτι οἱ ἔμποροί σου k.t.A. Is. xxiii. 8, of Tyre. See crit. note. The reading of the text though doubtful makes the reference still closer. ἐν τῇ φαρμακίᾳ σου. Compare especially Nahum iii. 14. 24. καὶ ἐν αὐτῇ. As in the beginning of the Angel’s speech Babylon is spoken of in the third person, it is possible that he returns to the third person at the end: possibly also St John passes from recording the Angel’s denunciation to the impression made on his own mind by the judgement he witnessed. πάντων... τῆς γῆς. Cf. Jer. li. 49, where however, if the A.V. be right, the sense is rather different. ‘The slain of all the earth” here seems to mean ‘‘the slain of (the spiritual) Israel,” or at any rate the victims of her tyranny, there, the allies of Babylon who share in her fall. CHAPTER XIX. 1. ὄχλου πολλοῦ. Primas. has turbarum ingentium. Vg. tur- barum multarum; am. tubarum m. kal ἡ δόξα. δὲ" omits. B, Syr. insert after δύναμις. ἡ δύναμις. Primas. omits, 174 REVELATION. [ΧΙΣ.--- τοῦ θεοῦ. Text. Rec. reads κυρίῳ τῷ θεῷ with 1 And®. Latt. syr. deo. 2. ἔφθειρεν. A has ἔκρινεν. 3. εἴρηκαν. C has εἶπαν. δ. φωνὴ.. λέγουσα. N* has φωναὶ... ἐξῆλθον λέγουσα!. ἡμῶν. Primas reads vestrum. 6. ὡς φωνήν. 1* Primas. omit ws. ὄχλου πολλοῦ. Primas. tubarum multarum. So Amb. Aut., Beat. quasi vocem tubae magnae. λεγόντων. N λεγούσων, B, λέγοντες. δῶμεν. Lach. reads δώσομεν with X°A. 9. καὶ... Τράψον. Arm. has unus 6 presbyteris after καί. γράψον is omitted by 1 And.» ™, τοῦ γάμου. N*P 1 And. omit. οὗτοι οἱ λόγοι. N* adds μου. 10. προσκυνῆσαι. P has καὶ προσεκύνησα. τῷ θεῷ. Cyp. reads Jesum dominum. ἡ.. Ἰησοῦ. Areth, has τοῦ υἱοῦ for Ἰησοῦ ; Primas. sanctificatio enim testificationis. 11. καλούμενος. Lach. omits with AP 1 Hipp. And.? Areth.: the reading of am. fu. tol. vocabatur fidelis et verax vocatur looks as if both verbs might be intrusive. 12. φλὸξ. Text. Rec. and Lach. prefix ὡς with A latt. ὄνομα γεγραμμένον. N° substitutes and B, prefixes ὀνόματα γεγραμ- μένα (B, adding καὶ). Primas. has nomen magnum scriptum, 1.4. ὄνομα μέγα which implies some corruption founded on ὀνόματα. 13. βεβαμμένον with AB, 1; Tisch. περιρεραμμένον with δὰ (latt. aspers., conspers., spars.). N° περιρεραντισμένον, P ῥεραντισμένον. W. H. propose ῥεραμμένον. 15. ὀξεῖα. B, vg. prefix, Primas. substitutes δίστομος. τοῦ θυμοῦ τῆς ὀργῆΞ. Cyp. Primas. syr. read irae; δὲ sah, Or. put τοῦ θ. after τῆς ὀργῆς; 95 before τοῦ oivov. 16. ἐπὶ τὸ ἱμ. καί. A wth.-™ Cass. omit. ἐπὶ τὸν μηρόν. & omits ἐπί. 17. ἕνα. Scop. sah. arm. Haym. read ἄλλον, B, omits ἕνα. 20. καὶ per αὐτοῦ ὁ Ψ. A cop. read καὶ οἱ μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ ὁ y.; By καὶ ὁ μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ y. Tyce. (ap. Beatum) reads pseudoprophetae. ζῶντες. Primas. omits. οἱ δύο. Arm. eth. omit. τῆς καιομένης. With NAP And. vg.; Text. Rec, τὴν καιομένην with B, cett. XIX. 7.] NOTES. 175 Cu. XIX. 1—6. Furraer THANKSGIVINGS. 1. λεγόντων is almost as nearly connected with ἤκουσα as with ὄχλου. ἡ σωτηρία... τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν. Generally explained ‘Salvation [be- longeth] to our God.” Cf. vii. 10; also iv. 11, v. 12, 13, vii. 12, ὦ βάθος πλούτου καὶ σοφίας, Rom. xi. 33, might represent another not impossible construction. 2. For the joy of the Saints in sympathy with God’s judgement see on xiv. 10. There is a passage somewhat like this in Hnoch xlvii. 4: ‘‘Then were the hearts of the saints full of joy; because the number of righteousness was arrived, the supplication of the saints heard, and the blood of the righteous appreciated by the Lord of Spirits.” 8. Kal...dvaBalve. Both the tense and the conjunction prove that the clause is part of the anthem. εἰς... αἰώνων. Hence Tyconius, excerpted by the homilist ap. St Augustine, Tom. 11. Hom. xviii., inferred that Babylon was more than any single city, being the world-wide mystical city of pride. 4. καὶ ἔπεσαν.. ἀλληλούϊα. Cf. ν. 14, where also the thanksgiving closes with the homage of the Living Creatures and the Elders. δ. ἐκ τοῦ θρόνου. Possibly the voice of Christ, cf. iii, 21. αἰνεῖτε. Compare the opening of Pss. cxxxiv., cxxxv. 6—9. THe PRocLAMATION OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE Lams, 6. ὄχλου πολλοῦ. v. 1. ὑδάτων πολλῶν. i. 15, xiv. 2. βροντῶν ἰσχυρῶν. vi. 1, xiv. 2. ἐβασίλευσεν. The aorist is quite appropriate though quite un- translateable. By destroying Babylon which reigned over all kings, God took the Kingdom and is glorified for this act. R.V. rightly retains the present of A.V. ὁ παντοκράτωρ. Rather a name than an epithet, see on i. 8. 7. χαίρωμεν. The joy of the festival which makes heaven and earth one follows inseparably on the joy of the judgement on earth. δῶμεν. The present subjunctive of this verb is not found in the New Testament, and even in the indicative the aorists are far com- moner. If we read δώσομεν the construction will be substantially as in Mic. iv. 2, ἀναβῶμεν.. καὶ δείξουσιν ἡμῖν, though there the change of person makes it clear. ὁ γάμος τοῦ dpviov. The first suggestion of this image in the N.T. is in our Lord’s parables, St Matt. xxii. 3, xxv. 1—10: it is more fully worked out by St Paul, Eph. v. 22—32. But men’s minds were prepared for it by the language of all the Prophets about the spiritual marriage of the Lord and Israel: still more, perhaps, by that of the 45th Psalm, rising so far above the royal marriage that no doubt furnished its occasion. And there is little doubt that the 176 REVELATION. [XIX. 7— Song of Songs was already mystically interpreted among the Jews, though its claim to a place in the Canon was still disputed. ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ. Called by St John “the New Jerusalem,” xxi. 2, by St Paul, Gal. iv. 26, “Jerusalem above,” as well as more simply the Church, Eph. v. 23 sqq. 8. Kal ἐδόθη αὐτῇ. “1 was given to her ””—the form is the same as recurs so often throughout the vision, from vi. 2 onwards. This being so, it is not likely that this clause still forms part of the pro- clamation of the voice: it is the Seer’s description of the ‘‘ making herself ready” which the voice proclaimed. τὰ δικαιώματα, “righteous acts.” Every good work done by every single saint goes to make up the perfect glory of the Church as it shall be when at last complete. The doctrine of the Communion of Saints is contained in, or follows from, that of the holy Catholic Church. 9. καὶ λέγε. Who speaks? Plainly an angel (see v. 10), presumably the angel of xvii. 1. Possibly the same as the angel ΘΕῚΣ μακάριοι. St John and “they that hear the words of this pro- phecy, and keep those things which are written therein” (i. 3) are made to realise heartily what our Lord’s fellow-guest (St Luke xiv. 15) said without seeing the full force of his own words. Of course, when we reduce the image to plain prose, ‘‘they that are called” are the same as the Bride: while St Paul again speaks of them as her children. All will rejoice together, and each will rejoice apart; each will have a joy of his own, and each will have his own sight of the joy of all. 10. ΤῊΝ ERRoR OF THE SEER. The last words of the angel seem fit ‘‘to seal up the vision and prophecy,” and what follows gives a certain plausibility to Vélter’s suggestion that at one time (or in one recension) the Apocalypse ended here. 10. προσκυνῆσαι αὐτῷς, Perhaps understanding from the last words that the speaker was God Himself. This is more probable than Weiss’s conjecture that the Seer took him for Christ, to Whom it is possible to ascribe all the previous commands to write, i. 11, xiv. 13, as well as i. 19. Im i. 17 the Seer falls down at His Feet, and is raised up again apparently without worshipping. In the O.T. God had revealed Himself to men by means of angels, and men had, by falling at the feet of angels, rightly worshipped the God Who was present in them (see esp. Hos, xii. 4 compared with Gen, xxxii. 30). But since a more perfect revelation of God has been given by the Incarnation, no such divine presence in an angel is to be looked for, (So Jer. Taylor, Dissuasive from Popery, Part II. 11. viii. 3.) We have therefore no need to suppose that the holy apostle was in intent guilty of idolatry; he meant the worship for XIX. 11.] NOTES. 177 God in the angel, but this being an angel and nothing more, it follows of course that he ought not to be honoured as God. See xxii. 8. σύνδουλός σου εἰμί. In a sense, the angels are even servants to the elect on earth, Heb. i. 14. τῶν ἐχόντων... Ἰησοῦ. Cf. xxii. 9, τῶν ἀδελφῶν cov τῶν προφητῶν. The last words of the verse give the reason (γὰρ) why the two phrases are equivalent. Cf. for τὴν μαρτυρίαν Ἰησοῦ i. 2, vi. 9, and closest of all, xii. 17. In all these μαρτυρία comes near to the sense, that became technical, of ‘‘martyrdom.” ἡ γὰρ μαρτυρία. Comparing xxii. 9 with the passages last cited, it seems that the sense of the passage is, ‘‘ Martyrdom like thine” (the seer was at least a confessor, i. 2, perhaps, as tradition says, a proved martyr in will) ‘‘and thy brethren’s involves in it the grace of prophecy, and so places the martyrs in so close communion with God that they need no angel mediator.” But what is said to St John as a prophet is in its measure true of all Christians. All in their measure are witnesses for Christ, and all partakers of His Spirit; and therefore all are prophets in the same sense that they are all priests and kings. Thus all, if not yet ‘‘equal with the angels” (St Luke xx. 36), are brought too near to God to need angels to bring Him near to them. 11—21. Tue Vicrory or THE RipER oN THE Waite Horse. There is no clear mark in the text that we have the beginning of a new vision here after the apparent break in vv. 9, 10. But for this break the connexion would be :—the seer hears the joyful summons to the Marriage of the Lamb, perhaps has a glimpse of the Bride in her white array; then Heaven is opened, he sees the Bridegroom in His robe red with blood, with the armies of Heaven in His train: again he sees the Herald Angel who bids all the fowls of the air to the bloody supper of the great God: he sees the doom of the Beast, and the False Prophet, and their host. 11. τὸν οὐρανὸν yvewypévov. Ezek. i. 1; St Matt. iii. 16, and parallels, St John i. 51; Acts vii. 56, x. 11. Something more seems to be implied than in iy. 1; the ‘‘door” through which the seer was called up is not sufficient to let out this mounted army, or ‘‘the chariot of paternal Deity” which appeared to Ezekiel. ἵππος λευκός, vi. 2, where see note. Here at least, there is no doubt about the interpretation. ὁ καθήμενος. Connected like the previous words with ἰδού. καλούμενος. He is called Faithful and True (iii. 14, also i. 15, iii. 7), and rightly, but these are not His Name. ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ. Is. xi. 4, 5, Ps. xevi. (xev.) 13. πολεμεῖ. In Ps. xlv, 3—5 (4—6) we have the same mixture as here of the Bridegroom with the triumphant Warrior. Compare St REVELATION M 178 REVELATION. pee: Tee Chrysostom on Rom. xiii. 12, ‘‘ Fear not at hearing of array and arms...for it is of light that the arms are...As the bridegroom goes forth with joyous looks from his chamber, so doth he too who is defended with these arms; for he is at once soldier and bridegroom.” 12. οἱ δὲ ὀφθαλμοί. i. 14. διαδήματα πολλά. These are distinctively kingly crowns, see on iv. 4, vi. 2. Their number marks Him as King of kings, v. 16: perhaps also as both King and Priest, as in Zech. vi. 11 sqq., and in the use of the triple crown by modern popes. Tyconius thinks of the ‘‘multitudo coronatorum”’: their glory is His. ἔχων, like πλήρης, St John i. 14. This nominative is connected in sense with the preceding parenthetical clause, while the only possible construction for it is to be found in a forced connexion with the finite verbs before the parenthesis. ὄνομα γεγραμμένον. See crit. note. The name is probably on the forehead (as xiv. 1). ὃ οὐδεὶς οἶδεν, ii. 17; for the Lord having such a name, see iii. 12, and notes on both places. 13. βεβαμμένον. See crit. note. There is nothing to suggest either BeBaupévor, ῥεραντισμένον, or pepaupévoy in Is. lxiii. 1,3, LXX.: the Hebrew would suggest both, ‘‘ Theodotion” at any rate the latter : whichever be the original reading the other is probably an additional reference to Isaiah: for until there was a system of something like chapters and verses, marginal or interlinear quotations had to serve the purpose now served by marginal references. In Isaiah the Conqueror is described as stained with the blood of His enemies. If this decides the primary meaning here, it is legitimate for the Christian to remember, in interpreting both passages, that the way that Christ overcomes His enemies is by shedding, not their blood, but His own. Moreover in Isaiah the Redeemer and champion of Israel is the Father rather than Christ: so that, as the figure has certainly received some change in its application, it is unobjectionable to suppose a direct reference to the Passion. If so, as this passage obviously refers back to the vision of the Man Child, it would be impossible to regard that vision as purely Jewish. ὁ Λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ. The only place in Scripture (unless Heb. iv. 12 is to be so interpreted, which is not probable) where this exact phrase is used of the personal Word, the Son of God. But of course the use of “the Word” in St John i. 1 is the same in principle and meaning. 14. τὰ στρατεύματα ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ. According to ordinary O.T. usage (e.g. 1 Kings xxii. 19) this would mean the holy Angels ex- clusively, or at least primarily. But some think that the glorified Saints are at least included: it seems in harmony with the ideas of this Book to represent them, not indeed as executing Christ’s vengeance (which the Angels do, xiv. 19, St Matt. xiii. 39—42), but as groves of His triumph, which is all that these armies seem to be. XIX. 17.] NOTES. 179 βύσσινον λευκὸν kal καθαρόν. The dress of Angels in St Matt. xxviii. 3 and parallels, Acts i. 10; but of Saints in this Book, iii. 4, vii. 9, and probably iv. 4: compare the almost exactly similar words of v. 8. Here this costume contrasts with the blood-dyed one of their Leader. The contrast is plainly intentional (for the mention of the armies interrupts the description of the Leader). If we explain it by supposing that they have no need to take part in the work of slaughter, it will follow, since there is blood on His raiment, that He has already executed judgement on Jerusalem and trodden the winepress there, xiv. 20, and is now to do the like to the kings of the earth. Ifthe armies in heaven are Saints, as the ancients seem to suppose, we must understand that their robes are washed white in His Blood, vii. 14, which perhaps weakens the contrast which is expressed by pointing to another which is not. οἱ per αὐτοῦ, xvii. 14, are most naturally explained as the faithful on earth. On the whole it seems simplest to take the heavenly armies for the Angels, the rather that the Saints who are to reign with Christ have not yet risen at this point of the vision. 15. ἐκ τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ. So i. 16, proving, if proof were needed, the identity of the ‘‘Son of Man” of that passage with ‘‘the Word of God” of this, For the meaning, see the notes there. πατάξῃ τὰ ἔθνη. God is said to smite men with plagues, e.g. Zech. xiv. 18, but nowhere else with a sword. Are we to infer from 1 Chron. xxi, 12 what this sword will be? Certainly the ascription to the Lord of the fierce struggles of a human warrior is markedly avoided. Kal αὐτὸς ποιμανεῖ. Lit. “shall be their shepherd,” as in ii. 27, xii. 5. Of course in all three places the reference is to Ps. ii. 9. Kal αὐτὸς πατεῖ. Is, lxiii. 2. The twice repeated pronoun is very emphatic: it is He who shall fulfil the promised vengeance for which the elect have cried so long. τὴν ληνὸν τοῦ οἴνου τοῦ θυμοῦ τῆς ὀργῆς. Cf. xiv. 8, 10, 19, xvi. 19. 16. ἐπὶ τὸ ἱμάτιον καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν μηρόν. See crit. note. The meaning probably is ‘‘on the vesture of His thigh,’ i.e. on the border of His cloak. Strangely enough the name of a statue was sometimes put on the thigh; this possibly suggested the image: the vesture is mentioned to shew the name was not on the flesh. βασιλεὺς βασιλέων kal κύριος κυρίων. Cf. xvii. 14, and θεὸς τῶν θεῶν καὶ κύριος τῶν κυρίων καὶ βασιλεὺς τῶν βασιλέων Dan. iv. 81 (LXX.). Bac. βασιλέων is found on Parthian coins. 11. ἕνα ἄγγελον. Probably ἕνα is merely the indefinite article as in viii. 13, though here it is possible to think of one angel standing _ apart from the heavenly armies who roll by. ἐν τῷ ἡλίῳ. Perhaps he is the Angel of the Sun (like the other elemental angels in xvi. 5 and perhaps xiy. 18): but the ἕνα makes M 2 180 REVELATION. Babee this less likely. Probably he is stationed there only as in a position commanding the μεσουράνημα (on this word see on viii. 13). πᾶσιν τοῖς ὀρνέοις. Ezek. xxxix. 17 sqq., of the slaughter of Gog and Magog: from which however this slaughter seems to be dis- tinguished, see xx. 8, 9. δεῦτε, συνάχθητε. The imperative immediately after δεῦτε is found twice in St John, iv. 29, xxi. 12; once in St Matt. xxviii. 6, nowhere else in New Testament. δεῦτε in the Septuagint commonly represents a Hebrew verb, and it is not certain that δεῦρο ἀκολούθει Matt, xix. 21 and parallels is exactly similar. τὸ ϑεῖπνον τὸ μέγα τοῦ θεοῦ. In Ezek. l.c. it is called a sacrifice, sacrifices being the only ordinary occasion for a feast of flesh: cf. Is. xxxiv. 6, which was probably in Ezekiel’s mind. 18. χιλιάρχων. See on vi. 15, 19. τὸ θηρίον, καὶ τοὺς βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς. Their confederacy under his leadership has been already intimated, xvi. 14, 16, xvii. 12—14. The so-called battle of Armageddon, there foretold, is here described. 20. ἐπιάσθη. Like a thief or arebel. The word is found oftener in the Fourth Gospel than in ali the rest of the New Testament. It is found six times of schemes to ‘take’ Christ; twice in the narra- tive of the miraculous draught of fishes; twice in the Acts, once of the arrest of St Peter; once in St Paul of the attempt to arrest him at Damascus. ὁ ψευδοπροφήτης. So called in xvi. 13; see xiii. 11 sqq. τὰ σημεῖα. Those described in xiii. 13 sqq. ζῶντες ἐβλήθησαν. In Dan. vii. 11 the Beast is slain, and his body burnt. Perhaps the one indicates the fate of the empire, the other of its personal ruler. τῆς καιομένης. Asif after τὸ πῦρ τῆς λίμνης, cf. xxi. 8 ἐν τῇ λίμνῃ τῇ καιομένῃ πυρὶ καὶ θείῳ. 21. οἱ λοιποί. They are not, at least at once, consigned to the same eternal torment as their leaders; but see xiv. 10, xx. 15. ἐν τῇ ῥομφαίᾳ τοῦ καθημένου. None of His followers have need to bear part in the battle: indeed they seem to bear no arms, v. 14. Compare the grand passage of St Chrysostom, in his 24th Homily on the Epistle to the Romans (on xiii. 12), already partly quoted on v.11. ‘*What then, is there no necessity for thee to fight? Yea, needful is it to fight, yet not to be distressed and toil. For itis not in fact war, but a solemn dance and feast day; such is the nature of the arms, such the power of the Commander.” The victory is so plainly designated as one to be gained by purely spiritual means, that it is by no means certain that the armies to be overthrown are to be understood of an actual military confederacy. More probably, the confederacy of the powers of the world, under the leadership of Antichrist, will be primarily intellectual and spiritual. xe) NOTES. 181 CHAPTER XX. 1. ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. N* omits. ἐπὶ τὴν χεῖρα. Sand Latt. have ἐν τῇ χειρί. 2. ὁ ὄφις ὁ dpxatos. With A: Text. Rec. τὸν ὄφιν τὸν ἀρχαῖον with NB, cett. és. Tisch. has 6 with δὲ and Aug. qui cognominatus est, Promiss. qui vocatur. διάβολος kal ὁ Σατανᾶς. Tisch. ὁ 6. with δὲ; B, adds ὁ πλανῶν τὴν οἰκουμένην ὅλην from xii. 9. 8. ἔπάνω αὐτοῦ. A has ἐμμενῶς () Ξε ἐμπεδῶΞ) αὐτόν. ἔτι τὰ ἔθνη. 1 cop. eth. Tyc. omit ἔτι. Text. Rec. inserts it after ἔθνη. 4. πεπελεκισμένων. A has πεπολεμημένων. καὶ οὕτινες. δὲ has εἴ τινες οὖν. And*. εἴ τινες. Aug. et st qui, Cyp. et quicumque. δ. οἱ λοιποὶ--ἔτη. δὲ syr. omit these words (? from homeote- leuton); they interrupt the sense. τῶν νεκρῶν. Aug. reads eorum. 6. τοῦ θεοῦ. NS has καὶ τοῦ θεοῦ. 7. ὅταν τελεσθῇ. B, reads μετά. 8. συναγαγεῖν. Aug. reads et trahet. Vg. et congregabit. 12 καὶ συνάγει. 9. πῦρ.. εἰς τὴν λίμνην. N* omits. ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. So Text. Rec, Treg. W. H. marg. with NeP vg. syr.; Lach. Tisch. W. H. Weiss ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ with A and Primas, transcript of Aug., who seems to have read ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ after ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ with B, cop. arm. 10. ὅπου καί. Text. Rec. omits καὶ with δὲ 1 Hieron. cop. arm. eth. θηρίον kal. δὲ adds ὅπου. 11. ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῦ with Α 1 95, Tisch. reads ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν with B,P,. SN ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ. 12. ἑστῶτας... θρόνου. Augustin omits. Text. Rec. has θεοῦ for θρόνου, with 1, two Latin writers have throni domini, and throni τ: τῆς ζωῆς. Aug. has vitae uniuscujusque. 13. ἔδωκαν. Lach. reads ἔδωκεν with A. ἐκρίθησαν. ἐξ reads κατεκρίθησαν. 14. οὗτος. WS reads καὶ οὗτος. 1 cop. and Primas. transcript of Augustin omit οὗτος... πυρός, nor does Augustin anywhere quote this definition of the second death, though he gives many of his own; when he says that in the second death soul and body are tormented 182 REVELATION. — pe together by eternal fire he is obviously thinking of the synoptic Gospels; Text. Rec. omits ἡ λίμνη τοῦ πυρός with the later vulgate, the older MSS. of which recognise the words in whole or in part. 15. εὑρέθη. δὲ εὑρεθήσεται. Ca. XX.1—6. ΤῊΠ ΒΙΝΡΙΝα or Satan. THe First ResuRRECTION. 1. τῆς ἀβύσσου. See on ix. 1. ἐπὶ τὴν χεῖρα. 1.6. hung over it. 2. ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος. xii. 9. No explanation can be given of the nominative here except irregular apposition: it is no help to suppose that the clause represents an indeclinable proper name. 3. Kal ἔκλεισεν Kal ἐσφράγισεν ἐπάνω αὐτοῦ. The pit which was opened ix. 2 is now sealed again. τὰ ἔθνη. To be taken quite literally, though it probably limits the meaning of the passages which seem to speak of all but the elect worshipping the Beast. These are pressed by St Irenaeus to the uttermost, so that he supposes the Saints to reign over the surviving faithful who rapidly repeople the desolate earth, and fulfil the prophecies of a little one becoming a thousand and rebuilding the old waste places. Possibly we are to suppose that the Angelic warnings of xiv. 6—11 are not wholly unfruitful. δεῖ αὐτὸν λυθῆναι. It is very remarkable that neither St Irenaeus nor St Justin are known to speak of this. 4. θρόνους. Cf. Dan. vil. 9, θρόνοι ἐτέθησαν καὶ παλαιὸς ἡμερῶν ἐκάθητο. 26 κριτήριον ἐκάθισε. They who sat upon the thrones are identified by Dan. vii. 22 as “the Saints of the Most High”—-saints plainly in the modern sense as distinguished from angels. κρίμα ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς. In itself this might mean ‘“‘their cause was judged,” but as τὸ κρίμα Dan. vii. 22 seems to be parallel to ἡ βασιλεία καὶ ἡ ἐξουσία καὶ 7 μεγαλωσύνη τῶν βασιλέων τῶν ὑποκάτω παντὸς TOD οὐρανοῦ ib. 27 probably κρίμα in both places means ‘‘the right of judging,” as is most likely assumed 1 Cor. vi. 2, 3. kal tas ψυχάς. The Seer beholds the fulfilment of the promise in Daniel to the saints of the ancient law, and sharing their glory he sees all martyrs and all confessors of the latter days. τῶν πεπελεκισμένων. Lit. “struck with an axe,” the old Roman mode of execution by sentence of the supreme magistrate. Capital punishment of citizens had been virtually abolished for the last years of the Republic: and when the emperors assumed the right of executing men for treason, it was done as though by military law (cf. St Mark vi. 27) by a soldier, with a sword. But the old constitutional punishment was inflicted on provincials down to the fall of the Republic (Cic. Phil. x11. xvi. 33); and it is not impossible that it was revived when it was desired that a citizen should be executed in due form of law. XX. 6.] NOTES. 183 oltives...avTov. xiii. 12, 15, 16. The promise extends to all who pass undefiled through the perils of the last time, whether they die a natural death, or ‘‘are alive and remain” to the coming of the Lord. otrwes probably also marks that their faithfulness is the reason that they share the glory of ancient saints and of earlier martyrs. ἐβασίλευσαν μετὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ. 2 Tim. 11. 12. This “reign” was foretold in v.10. ‘‘The nations” of the world continue to exist as usual (v. 3), so it is no doubt over them that the saints and martyrs reign. 4,5. χίλια ἔτη... ἡ ἀνάστασις ἡ πρώτη. See Excursus IV. 6. μακάριος καὶ ἅγιος. He is sure of eternal blessedness, abso- lutely and indefeasibly consecrated to God. “Holy” refers to the relation to God into which this brings him, not to the foregoing faithfulness that is implied in his being admitted into it. ὁ Sevtepos θάνατος. See ii. 11 and v. 14 (the article is doubled in both). Cf. Rom. vi. 9, 10. οὐκ ἔχει ἐξουσίαν. The coupling of the second death, which cannot be taken literally as implying annihilation (see v. 10), with the first resurrection in some degree lessens the difficulty of taking the latter figuratively, though as the body which is raised even to dishonour is spiritual, we cannot say that the first resurrection is spiritual and the general resurrection natural. ἔσονται ἱερεῖς. Cf. i. 6, v. 10. τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ. The strongest proof, perhaps, in the Book of the doctrine of Christ’s coequal Deity. If we read these words in the light of St John’s Gospel, or of the Nicene Creed, they suggest no difficulty; but without the doctrine there taught, they make salvation to consist in the deadly sin which the Moslems call ‘‘association”—the worshipping the creature by the side of the Creator. Notice, however, that the word ‘‘God”’ in this book always means the Father; and so throughout the N.T., with few exceptions. 7—10. Tue Loosine or Satan, THE WAR OF GoG AND MacoG, THE JUDGEMENT ON THE DEviu. The order of events in the last three chapters in this Book cor- responds, with many additions, to that in the closing chapters of Ezekiel. The first Resurrection answers to the Vision of the Valley of dry bones. The War of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel is to be the last great trial of the restored theocracy (as the old theocracy had been tried and for a season purified by the terror of the Scythian invasion in the days of Josiah); after the War of Gog and Magog both in Ezekiel and here comes the full description of the final glory of Zion. 184 REVELATION. [XX. 7— 7. λυθήσεται. As we heard in v. 3. We cannot with any cer- tainty identify the μικρὸν χρόνον there with the ὀλίγον καιρὸν of xii. 12; still the two passages to a certain extent illustrate each other. 8. τὰ ἔθνη τὰ ἐν ταῖς τέσσαρσιν γωνίαις τῆς γῆς. It almost seems as though the kingdom of Christ and of His Saints had not been world-wide, but had been, like the Roman empire of St John’s day, or the Christendom of our own, a wide but limited region of light in the midst of a barbarous world. It is not therefore certain that the coming of the kingdom must be postponed till Christianity has gained its victory over the compact mass of nations which, from China to Guinea, still hold out against it: and we ought to remember the possibility, that they may prove as dangerous to the fabric of modern civilisation as the barbarians of Scythia, Germany, and Arabia proved to the ancient. But it is possible that this prediction refers, not to an incursion from outlying heathens, but to an apostacy of outlying Christians. If so, this may be illustrated by the way that the remoter provinces of Christendom fell into heresy in the fifth and following centuries, and were, in great measure as a con- sequence, absorbed in Islam afterwards. We may also think of the many wild and unchristian sects rising in our own time in America and in Russia—the countries of Christendom remotest from its centres of intellectual life. τὸν Γὼγ καὶ [τὸν] Μαγώγ. See Ezek. xxxviii., xxxix.—a prophecy which may, for aught we know, have had some nearly contemporary fulfilment, but which the Jewish traditions interpret of a war in the days of the Messiah, nearly as here. Magog is given in Gen. x. 2 as the name of a son of Japhet, the eponymus, there is no doubt, of one of the nations lying near the Black Sea, and called by Euro- peans Scythian in the wide sense. Gog appears in Hzek. 1. ὁ. to be nota national name, but the name, whether personal or dynastic, of the king of Magog and the neighbouring or kindred tribes of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. The resemblance of two of these names to the modern Russia and Muscovy is merely accidental: but it would be rash to deny the possibility, that the geographical or ethnological suggestion is to be taken literally, and that St John does foretell an invasion, something like that of the Huns, or Tartars, and falling on Christendom from the same quarter. συναγαγεῖν. Nearly a repetition of xvi. 14, xvii. 12, 14, xix. 19, Yet it can hardly describe the same event: it seems plain that, whatever be the meaning of the first resurrection and the thousand years’ reign, they intervene between that war and this. Moreover, the former war was on the part of the rulers of the civilised world, this on the part of the outer barbarians. 9. καὶ ἀνέβησαν. The Seer does not pass easily over the immense space of time during which the world is too happy to have a history. He sees the establishment of the earthly kingdom of Christ, and foretells its end: it is only gradually that he comes to see the end also brought before his view as present. Ἐπὶ 10] NOTES. 185 ἐπὶ τὸ πλάτος τῆς γῆΞ. The breadth of the land. They overspread the whole land of Israel, against which, as we see from the next clause, their attack is directed. τὴν παρεμβολὴν τῶν ἁγίων. Possibly ‘‘the army,” as in Heb, xi. 34; here all English translators have ‘‘the camp” with A.V. τὴν πόλιν τὴν ἠγαπημένην, 1.6. Jerusalem, which, it appears from this place only, will be the seat and capital of the millennial kingdom. It appears that in the popular millennial anticipations, which dis- credited the literal interpretation of this prophecy, this localisation of the kingdom was much insisted on, and it was even thought that the Jewish law and the sacrificial worship would be revived. This of course is utterly incredible to an orthodox Christian: but there is no difficulty in supposing that the Kingdom of God may literally have an earthly centre in the Holy City and the Holy Land. Even if the literal view be not taken, the prophecy can hardly imply less than a future purity of the Church far exceeding the present; and it may be that this purified Church will recognise a better Papacy at Jerusalem, one not too proud to learn either from the excellences or from the faults of the Roman. καὶ κατέβη πῦρ. Cf, 2 Kings i. 10, and ch. xi. 5, and even xiii. 13. This does not agree with the description of Gog’s overthrow in Ezek. xxxix., where the army lie slain till they are buried, and their weapons are broken up for firewood. Remarkable as it is that St Irenaeus appears to say nothing of the loosing of Satan, it is still more remarkable that St Hippolytus is known (Hermathena Vol. v1. p. 404) to have laid down in his work against Caius that the destruction of Gog and Magog was to precede that of Antichrist. 10. ὁ πλανῶν αὐτούς. The sense is general, as if we were to say ‘‘their deceiver.” els τὴν λίμνην. xix. 20. ὅπου kal... If we are to try to fill up the ellipse, which no reader of the original would feel necessary, ἐβλήθησαν would be better than εἰσίν. That they are there still, not consumed by their more than thousand years of torment, is not stated in this clause, but isin the next. Kal βασανισθήσονται. The subject is all three. εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. Lit. ‘‘to the ages of the ages,” as strong an expression for absolute endlessness as Biblical language affords. The expression “ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς seems hardly consistent with the view often expressed, that the eternity here spoken of is unaccompanied with a sense of duration like that which we call time. St Thomas Aquinas who inferred from x. 6 that time (measured by the motion of heavenly bodies) will end with the resurrection, and from Is, lx. 20 that the sun and moon of the new heavens will never set, also inferred from Job xxiv. 19 ‘‘ad nimium calorem transeat 186 REVELATION. [xXxX. 10— ab aquis nivium” that the lost would have a change of torments, and that this decides the sense of Ps. lxxx. 16 (Ixxxi. 15), “" Inimici Domini mentiti sunt ei, et erit tempus eorum in saecula,”’ so that the lost live in everlasting time, while the blessed who see God are partakers of His eternity which is whole at every instant, Summa, Pars Prima, Quaestio x. Artic. 3, 6. Not that this eternal blessedness excludes a succession of subordinate delights. St Augustin half hoped, De Trin. xv. [xvi.] 26, that in the saints the endless round of changing thought would be still at last, St Thomas (ubi sup.) answers that it would not affect their changeless vision of the changeless Word. So too the glorified body will range at will through space to behold all the beautiful things God has made without leaving His presence. Sup. 3, Tertiae Partis Quaest. lxxxiv. Artic. 2. Respect for St Thomas’ view may have led the translators of the Bible and the “ Athanasian Creed” to introduce what has struck many as an arbitrary distinction between everlasting punishment and life eternal. 11—15. Tue Great Waitt THRONE, THE GENERAL RESURRECTION, THE JUDGEMENT ON ALL THE DEAD AND ON DEATH AND HELL. 11. θρόνον μέγαν λευκόν. Probably not absolutely the same as that of iv. 2 &c.: the King is to sit now not as Lawgiver or Adminis- trator but as Judge. Possibly it is called ‘‘great’? as compared with the thrones of v. 4; ‘‘ white,” of course, as symbolical of the holiness and purity of the judgement to be administered. τὸν καθήμενον ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῦ. This has throughout, from iv. 2 onwards, been universally the title of God the Father. Moreover, the descrip- tion of the Great Assize here is substantially the same as that of Dan. vii. 9, 10: and there the Ancient of Days, Who sits on the throne, is plainly distinguished from the Son of Man. Therefore we are no doubt to understand the presence of the Father here, in spite of St John v. 22,27. There is no contradiction, if we take a duly high view of the relation between the Father and the Son. St Paul’s doctrine, Acts xvii. 31; Rom. ii. 16 (allowing that Tit. ii. 13 is ambiguous), shews the accurate relation between the two sides of the truth: and ch. iii. 21, compared with our Lord’s own words in St Matt. xvi. 27 and parallels, shews the propriety of this image. οὗ ἀπὸ τοῦ προσώπου. The passing away of earth and heaven is spoken of in Is. li. 6, St Matt. xxiv. 35 and parallels; but the strong expression of their fleeing before God’s presence is peculiar to this place: Ps. civ. 32, however, is something of a precedent. That the destruction will be by fire is not stated here, or anywhere but in 2 Pet. iii. 10, 12, and perhaps 2 Thess. 1. 7, 8. In St Peter 1. c. we have this destruction of the world by fire compared with the destruction by the Flood, and this parallel seems to have been recognised in popular Jewish belief. Popular Christian belief continued the series, by inter- polating between the two a purely mythical “flood of wind” (which may be a reminiscence or expansion of the legend how the winds cast down the tower which Nebuchadnezzar says none of his predecessors could complete); the same idea is found, curiously enough, in the Ἀπ 1} NOTES. 187 Mexican mythology, which completed the elemental series with a destruction by earthquakes. The lesson of all this seems to be, that the Deluge is a matter of universal tradition, and that the destructi- bility of the world is recognised by a universal instinct: but that the manner of its destruction is not so revealed, that it can safely be conceived by us in picturesque detail. The destruction of our globe, perhaps of the whole solar system, by fire is quite within the bounds of possibility, even according to the known laws of nature; but those laws more naturally suggest the world literally “‘waxing old like a garment, and them that dwell therein dying like a moth,” and the elements rather congealing with cold than ‘melting with fervent heat.’ On the other hand, passages like Acts x. 42; 1 Thess. iv. 15; 2 Tim. iv. 1; 1 Pet. iv. 5 seem plainly to prove that the human race will not be extinct when that Day comes, but that there will be ‘‘the quick” as well as ‘‘the dead” ready to undergo the Judgement. But the judgement of the dead only is described here. St John had learnt, as St Paul had not, that the dead would be the larger class of the two: whether he learnt it from his own longer life, or from the length of time implied in this vision. Kal τόπος οὐχ εὑρέθη αὐτοῖς. The phrase is a reminiscence of Dan. li. 35; we had a similar one in xii. 8. 12. τοὺς μεγάλους καὶ τοὺς μικρούς. The sense, as in xix. 5, is pro- bably to indicate the nothingness of human distinctions before God. Those who are ‘‘great in the Kingdom of Heaven” have been raised already, vv. 4, 5. ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου. ‘The throne” in this Book without addition is always the throne of God: so the gloss which has superseded the text in T. R. is correct. It may have arisen from the question discussed under τὸν καθήμενον sup. βιβλία, simply books: see Dan. vii. 13, where also the article (or equivalent form) is wanting. In the Testament of Abraham pp. 91, 93 there are two angels at the right and left of the judgement seat of Abel, one always writing down good deeds and the other evil. The book, six cubits thick and ten cubits broad, which lies on a table before the judge, seems to contain the history of every soul, for when it is opened for a certain woman who comes into judgement it is found that her good deeds and her sins are equal. In another text, ib. 114, 115, Enoch the Scribe of Righteousness seems to make up the account of each soul from two books carried by cherubim (forgiven sins being blotted out of the book that Enoch keeps). This is doubtless implied in the curious Latin gloss (see crit. note) on τῆς ζωῆς. In the Coptic Apocalypse of Zephaniah there are two angels at heaven’s gate who write the good deeds of the righteous and they are carried up to the Lord that He may write their names in the Book of the Living. Probably the books opened here are records like those kept by the angels in the Apocryphal apocalypses, but they bear a different relation to the Book of Life, where it is plain from xvii. 8 and probable from xiii. 8, the elect are written before they have done good or evil. The record of their righteous acts proves that they have been enabled to 188 REVELATION. [XxX. 12— walk worthy of their calling. In this sense Alford is right in calling the books in this clause ‘vouchers for the Book of Life.’ ὅ ἐστιν τῆς ζωῆς. See iii. 5, xiii. 8, xxi.27: alsonoteonv.1. The image is used exactly in this sense in Dan. xii, 1, though the phrase ‘Book of Life” is not used. We have a near approach to that in Ps. lxix. 28, but there and in Ex. xxxii. 32, 33 it is not equally certain that eternal life is meant. Words and meaning are exactly the same as in this book in Phil. iv. 3. ἐκρίθησαν. We see then that ‘‘the books” contained the record of ‘“‘their works.” Thus this passage justifies, in some measure, the modern popular myth of ‘‘ the recording Angel.” κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν. St Matt. xvi. 27; Rom. ii. 6. 13. ὁ θάνατος kal ὁ ἅδης. See vi. 8. Sheol, the Hebrew equiva- lent of Hades, seems not quite determined in meaning between the receptacle of the bodies of the dead and of their souls, but is sometimes translateable as ‘“‘the grave.” Here it seems implied that those who died in the sea are not in Hades, as those who were buried are: but all, whether buried or unburied, are raised and judged. 14. ὁ θάνατος kal ὁ ἅδης ἐβλήθησαν. They are enemies of God, 1 Cor. xv. 26, and to be destroyed at Christ’s triumph, ib. 54. But though no doubt presented to St John as individual demon figures (see vi. 8), we are not to understand that they are real persons, like the Devil and those represented by the Beast and the False Prophet: and hence we are not told that, like them, they continue to exist in torment in the lake of fire. οὗτος...πυρός. We have learnt already, that temporal death does not hinder eternal life, nay, may secure a better and an earlier resur- rection thereto. We now learn the opposite doctrine, that there is a resurrection not to life, but to a death far more terrible than that which ends this life. Cf. St John v. 29. It is quite true, however, that both in popular Jewish belief, and in the language of the N.T., when the Resurrection is spoken of, it is ordinarily conceived as one to life. This does not prevent the more terrible side of the doctrine from being also taught in the Gospel, but it does indicate which side is the healthier, as well as the pleasanter, for our thoughts to dwell on. 15. καὶ εἴ τις.... May either be a parallel to Gal. ii. 16 or a reference to ch. xiv. 10, 11 implying that ordinary sinners will be punished with the Devil, the False Prophet, the Beast and his worshippers. Cf. St Matt. xxv. 41 sqq. CHAPTER XXI. 1. ἡ πρώτη γῆ. Aug. omits πρώτη. καὶ ἡ... ἔτι. A has καὶ τὴν θάλασσαν οὐκ ἴδον ἔτι. 2. τὴν ἁγίαν. Aug. magnam. 8. Kalik....Aeyovons. N* καὶ φωνὴ μεγάλη ἐκ τοῦ θρόνου λέγουσα. XXT] NOTES. 189 ovpavod. So Text. Rec. with B,P Aug. ap. Primas.; Lach. Tisch. W. H. Weiss read θρόνου with 8A. Iren.#" omits both. σκηνώσει. N* has ἐσκήνωσεν, am. habitavit, Lips.’ habitabat. λαοί, Tisch.’ reads λαὸς with B,P and versions. 4. ἐξαλείψει. Text. Rec. and Lach. add ὁ θεός with A 1 vg. Aug. B, adds ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν. ὁ θάνατος. Tisch. omits ὁ with δὲ, οὔτε πένθος, οὔτε κραυγή, οὔτε πόνος. N reads οὔτε κραυγὴ οὔτε πένθος. ὅτι τά. Lach. omits ὅτι with AP am. fu. quae prima (did it drop out after ἔτι). δὲ alters ἔτι into ὅτι; τὰ πρῶτα ἀπῆλθον would be just like &uwpol εἰσιν, xiv. 5. δ. ἰδού. A has καὶ ἰδού. λέγει. Text. Rec. adds μοι with XP 1, ἀληθινοί. B, Syr. Arm. add τοῦ θεοῦ. 6. εἶπεν. NS has λέγει, Primas. dicit. yéyovav. With N°A, 38 γεγόνασιν. Iren.i™+ facta sunt. Text. Rec. has γέγονε with vg. factum est; S*B,P 1 Or. yéyova; N° cop, xth. omit. ἐγώ εἰμι. With A vg. Primas.; NB,P Cyp. omit εἰμι, Or. omits ἐγώ εἰμι. ϑωρεάν. N* has δωρεάς, 7. ὁνικῶν. Tert. has qui vicerint. κληρονομήσει. B, has δώσω αὐτῷ. ταῦτα. Primas. has ea. Cyp. has ea hereditate, or eorum heredi- tatem, i.g. αὐτά. αὐτῷ. Alhave αὐτῶν. Tert. illis. 8. δειλοῖς. Primas. dubiis. ἀπίστοις. B, adds καὶ duaprwros. καὶ ἐβδ. 1 omits καί. Ψευδέσιν. A has ψεύσταις. ὁ θάν. ὁ δεύτ. Ῥ has only θάνατος. 9. τῶν γεμόντων. N° has τῶν γεμουσῶν, Β5 γεμούσας. Text. Rec. τὰς γεμούσας with 1. τὴν νύμφην, τὴν γυναῖκα τοῦ ἀρνίου. Text. Rec. has τὴν νύμ. τοῦ ἀρνίου τὴν γυναῖκα With 1; B, has τὴν γυ. τὴν ν. τοῦ ἀρνίου. 10. τὴν ἁγίαν. 1 has τὴν μεγάλην καὶ ἁγίαν. ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ. B, omits. 11. ἔχουσαν τὴν δόξαν τοῦ θεοῦ. A omits, cop. omits τοῦ θεοῦ, δὲ Iren.# insert ἀπὸ before τοῦ θεοῦ. 12. ἔχουσα. NS reads ἔχοντι. ἔχουσα, &* reads ἔχοντας, Primas. qui habet. 190 REVELATION. [ΧΧῚ--- ἀγγέλους. Primas. has angulos. 13. βορρᾶ, νότου, δυσμῶν. A am. have βορρᾶ... δυσμῶν... νότου. 14. ἔχων. N* omits, N° has ἔχον. 15. μέτρον, κάλαμον xp. Text. Rec. omits μέτρον with 1 cop. arm., Primas. harundinem auream ad mensuram, N° μέτρον καλάμου. 16. ἡ πόλις. N has αὐτῆς here instead of in the next clause which 1 omits. ὅσον. Text. Rec. and Lach. add καὶ with A Primas. σταδίων. Lach. Treg. W. H. marg. and Weiss read σταδίους with SF χιλιάδων. B, has καὶ χιλιάδων ιβ΄. Cf. Ezek. xlviii. 35, κύκλωμα δέκα καὶ ὀκτὼ χιλιάδες. 17. ἐμέτρησεν is omitted in Β.. τεῖχος. δὲ has χιλος (i.e. χεῖλος) which oddly might mean glacis, and so make sense. 18. καὶ ἡ. So Lach. Tisch. W. H. and Weiss with S°AP; N* has ἣν for ἡ; Text. Rec. reads καὶ ἦν ἡ with B,, vg. and Primas. 19. οἱ Oey. Text. Rec. has καὶ of with N* 1. ὁ πρῶτος. N has ὁ εἷς. 21. δώδ. μαργ. δὲ ἢ omits δώδ. ἀνὰ εἷς ἕκ. A has iva els ἕκ. P ἀνὰ εἷς καὶ ἕκ. 22. ὁ γὰρ κύρ. N* has ὅτι ὁ κύρ. Iren.8™ ὅτι κύριος. ναός.