SftfYRNA
SMYRNA
555
Block of Abraliam, while the Jews say they are Jews, cl uiiin^' the name, but losing the reality of Jc\vi> I inliuritunce ; and (2) that the Jews in the fit'/ had piveu way to the temptations of luxury nd civilization, and degenerated from Jewisl/ ■ urity and religion. It is an interesting point 'I it, in an inscription of the 2nd century (6/1/ 31 i), we lind mentioned as one of the classes of the ,.opulation 'the erstwhile Jews' (ol wori 'Ioi;ooio.,. an enigmatic phrase which probably means those who formerly were the nation of the Je'vs, but who have lost the legal standing of a 8L[ arate people and are now merged in the numerous class ol resident slrangers, sprung from various parts of the empire.' *
In the popular outburst which led to the martyr- dom of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna in A.D. I55,t the Jews are described as playing a prominent part. The Asiakch I'hilippus, who was presiding at the games (which therefore must have been those called Koii-d 'Aaias, celebrated by the provincial council called the Koinon, and held at the various metropoleis in turn),wa3 very unwilling to authorize the deed, and ^vithout his permission it could not have been carried out in the stadium on the occa- sion of the games ; but the popular clamour con- strained him. The Jews were active also in fetching and arranging the wood to burn the aged bishop. The view that the Jews of Smyrna are described in the Apocalypse as degenerate from the pure religion of their race seems to be coiilirmed, when we observe that I'olycarp's martyrdom occurred on a Saturday afternoon, and the Jews, who were so active against him, must have appeared in the statiium at games which should have been an abomination to them on the Sabbath day.
It is a noteworthy coincidence, which may be inlintional, that the Divine Sender of the message to Smyrna, the city which had been destroyed and after 340 years refounded, calls himself ' the (irst and the last, which was dead and lived again.' Tlie various titles which the Sender of the messages to the Seven Asian cities assumes in eacli case have sonictinies at least an olmous relation to the circumstances of the city to which the me.ssage is addressed : that is evidently the ease at TllYATlRA, and may be in otlier cases, though we cannot trace the relation. Here, however, it seems very clear. That, of course, is not inconsistent with the equally olivious relation of the title to the immediate cir- cuiiist.ances of the Smyrna'an Christians as de- scribed in Rev 2'°" 'Fear not the thing which thou art about to sufl'er; behold, a.ssiiredly, the devil is about to cast some of you into jjrison that ye may be tried ; and ye shall have tribulation for a term of tun days [i.e. a time not unlimited, but with an end fixed]. Be thou faithful unto •leath ; and I will give thee the garland of life [i.e. tlio prize which consists in life]. As your city was destroyed, and lived again more glorious than before, so I who died and lived again will give to thee [each individual Christian is singled out and addressed], if thou be true to death, the reward of the true life (t^s fw^}!).'
On the othor hand, it seems highly improbahle that there Is h«ro intcndt-'l any ' allusion to the ritual of the piitf.in niysteries which iiri,-vailed in that city' (aa is KUg(;c8tca by Kev. J. W. Ulnkesley in Smith's Uli iii. p. i:!36) : ' the story ot the violent death and reviviscence of Dionysos' waa notupecially ehiiract«ristic of Smyrna, or likely to he specially familiar to the Smymioan Christians. It seems quit« unnatural that the
• See Mommson In lIMoHschc Zeilnchr. xxvili. p. 417. The meaning 'who were once Jews, but have abandoned their ru- ligion,' seems quite impossible : renegade Jews would not be calle<l so in an inscription which mentions them in a compli- ni'-nlary way.
t Till" diite. as flxcrt by VVaddington, is nearly, but not abso- lutely, cerl-iin. Uarnack considers Wwldington's reasoning to t>e entirulv erif^neous, but accepts the date ou dllTcrent grounds IChronoL der ilUliriM. Lilt. I. pp. 856, 721).
Divine Sender of the message should be represented in ■ c;haracter desijined to recall that of Uionysos.
It Is probable that the writer had In'his mind the prize of victory (as in the Greek games), when he spoke of the ' garland of life.' It is indeed quite out of keeping with his usual custom to take a metaphor from such a source : he was not, hke St. Paul, brought up in Greek surroundings and accustomed to draw his illustrations from the social life of the Greek cities, liut that special metaphor had entered so completely Into current language tliat the writer was hardly conscious of its source : he was probably thinking more of St.' Paul's garland of righteousness (2 Ti 48), St. Peter's garland of glory (1 P 6*), and above all St. James's garland of life * (!''-), than of the athlete's garland. At the same time it is possible, and even probable, that onother pagan us.ige was also in his mind. The worship- per, while engaged in tlie service of a deity, wore a garland of the kind sacred 10 that deity,— myrtle in tlie service of Aphro- dite, ivy in that of Dionysos, wild olive in that of Zeus Olympius (out of which. Indeed, developed the victor's garland in the Olympian games), and so on. The meaning then would be : * Be thou faithful to death, and I will give thee the garland of my service, which is of life.' Yet the idea of 7>rc<r or rtward seems inseparable from the passage ; and it is only through the victor' •> L[arlaud that the Stephanos acquired that connotation. Probably tioth ideas are united in this passage. The magis- trates of hieratic origin, called SfephanvpfiQroi, who were found In Smyrna and the other Asiatic cities generally, are not alluded to in this passage (as baa been suggested): such an allusion lends no point to the words.