2—4.
gar
λόγους * τῆς προφητείας καὶ ‘mmpoovtes τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ yeypappeéva.- Wi Cf: xxil:
*6 γὰρ καιρὸς ἐγγύς.
4. Ιωάννης ταῖς ἑπτὰ ἐκκλησίαις ταῖς ἐν τῇ ᾿Ασίᾳ: ᾿ χάρις ὑμῖν
18-το. salutation).
of its predictions, instead of losing heart and faith (Luke xviii. 8). Cf. Hipp. De Antich. 2 and En. civ. 12, '' books will be given to the righteous and the wise to become a cause of joy and uprightness and much wisdom”. The content of the Apocalypse is not merely prediction; moral counsel and religious instruction are the primary burden of its pages. The bliss of the obedient and attentive, however, is bound up with the certainty that the crisis at which the predictions of the book are to be realised is im- minent; they have not to wait long for the fulfilment of their hopes. This, with the assurance of God’s interest and inter- vention, represented the ethical content of early Christian prediction, which would have been otherwise a mere satisfaction of curiosity ; see on ver. το.
[Note on i. 1-3. If this inscription (absent from no MS.) is due to the author, it must have been added (so Bruston, Julicher, Hirscht, Holtzm., Bs.), like the προοίµιον of Thucydides, after he had finished the book as a whole. But possibly it was inserted by the later hand of an editor or redactor (Vdlter, Erbes, Briggs, Hilg., Forbes, Well- hausen, J. Weiss, Simcox=elders of Ephesus, John xxi. 24) rather than of a copyist (Spitta, Sabatier, Schén), who reproduced the Johannine style of the Apocalypse proper. At the same time, the change from the third to the first person (ver. g) is not unexampled (cf. Jer. i. 1-3, 4 f.; Ezek. i. 1-4; Enoch re- peatedly), and forms no sure proof of an original text overlaid with editorial touches; nor is a certain sententious objectivity (cf. Herod. i. 1, ii. 23, etc.) unnatural at the commencement of a book, when the writer has occasion to introduce himself. The real introduc- tion begins at ver. 4 (cf. xxii. 21).]
Vv. 4-8. The prologue.
Ver. 4. ταῖς ἑπτὰ ἐκκλ., seven being the sacred and complete number in apocalyptic symbolism (E. Bi. 3436). The ταῖς must refer proleptically to to ver. 11; for other churches existed and flourished in proconsular Asia at this time, ε.σ., at Troas, Magnesia, Hierapolis and Colossae, with which
k After Dan. vii. 22 (Lk. xxi. 8-9), cf. Ap. Bar. xxiii. 7.
i Lk. xi. 28, John xiii. 17; con- trast be- low, xxii.
1 Sc. ety (primit. Christ.
the prophet must have been familiar. These seven are selected by him for some special reason which it is no longer possible to disinter (see above, Introd., § 2). ἀπὸ 6 Oy, κ.τ.λ., a quaint and deliberate violation of gram- mar (Win. § 10, Ic.; Moult. i. g) in order to preserve the immutability and absoluteness of the divine name from declension, though it falls under the tule that in N.T. and LXX parenthetic and accessory clauses tend to assume an independent construction. The divine title is a paraphrase probably suggested by rabbinic language (e.g., Targum Jonath. apud Deut. xxxii. 39, ego ille, qui est et qui fuit et qui erit); the idea would be quite familiar to Hellenic readers from similar expressions, ¢.g., in the song of doves at Dodona (Ζεὺς ἦν, Ζεὺς ἔστιν, Ζεὺς ἔσσεται) or in the titles of Asclepius and Athene. Simon Magus is said to have designated himself also as 6 ἐστὼς, 6 στὰς, 6 στησόµενος, and the shrine of Minerva (=Isis) at Sais bore the inscription, I am all that hath been and is and shall be: my veil no mortal yet hath raised (Plut. de Iside, 9), the latter part eclipsed by the com- forting Christian assurance here. jv, another deliberate anomaly (finite verb for participle) due to dogmatic reasons ; no past participle of εἰμί existed, and γενόμενος was obviously misleading. ὁ épx., instead of 6 ἐσόμενος, to cor- respond with the keynote of the book, struck loudly in ver. 7. In and with his messiah, Jesus, God himself comes ; ἐρχ. (the present) acquires, partly through the meaning of the verb, a future signifi- cance. For the emphasis and priority of ὤν ἵπ this description of God, see the famous passage in Aug. Confess. ix. το. τ. ἑπτὰ πνευμάτων: a puzzling concep- tion whose roots have been traced in various directions to (a) an erroneous’ but not unnatural interpretation of Isa. xi. 2-3, found in the Targ. Jonath. (as in En. Ixi. 11, sevenfold spirit of virtues) and shared by Justin (Dial. 87, cf. Cohort. ad Graec., ο. 32, ὥσπερ οἱ ἱεροὶ προφῆται τὸ ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ πνεῦμα εἰς ἑπτὰ πνεύματα µερίζεσθαί φασιν), or— more probably—to the later Jewish