It is not merely in a rhetorical way that the Apostle accumulates so many expressions, to designate our enemies : the different terms he uses are well cal- culated to exhibit their power ; which will appear to us great indeed, if we consider what he intimates respecting their nature, their number, and their office.
With respect to their nature, they are " wicked spirits." Once they were bright angels around the throne of God : but " they kept not their first estate ; " and therefore they were " cast down to helld." But though they have lost the holiness, they still retain, the power, of angels. As " angels, they excel in strength0," and are far "greater in power and mightf" than any human being. They have, moreover, an immense advantage over us, in that they are spirits. Were they flesh and blood like ourselves, we might see them approaching, and either flee from them, or fortify ourselves against them : at least, there would be some time when, through weariness, they must intermit their efforts : but being spirits their approaches to us are invisible, irresistible, incessant.
Their number is also intimated, in that they are represented as "principalities and powers," consist- ing of multitudes who hold, like men on earth and angels in heaven g, various degrees of honour and authority under one head. To form a conjecture respecting their numbers, would be absurd ; since we are totally in the dark on that subject. This how- ever we know, that they are exceeding many ; be- cause our Lord cast no less than seven out of one woman h; and one man was possessed by a whole troop or "legion" at once1. We have reason there- unembarrassed. For that sense of kr, see Rom. xi. 2. and Gal. i. 24 ; and, for a much greater separation of words that are to be construed together, see Rom. ii. 12, 16. Indeed, the distance between >) 7ru\»/ and kv to'iq tTrovpavioic is not worthy of notice, if it be considered, that four of the intermediate members of the sentence are a mere accu- mulation of synonymous expressions, a periphrasis for iroi'ijpa -kviv-
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d Jude, ver. (5. and 2 Pet. ii. 4. e Ps. ciii. 20.
f 2 Pet. ii. 11. s Col. i. 16. h Mark xvi. 9. { Mark v. 9.