‘ead ?
8. “Εγώ εἰμι "τὸ ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ὦ,') λέγει κύριος 6 θεός, °S ὢν' καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος, ὁ * παντοκράτωρ. 9. ᾿Εγὼ "Ἰωάννης, ὁ ἀδελφὸς ὑμῶν καὶ συγκοινωνὸς ἐν τῇ θλίψει
18. Ε., cf. Isa. xli. 4, xliii. το, etc. c Ver. 4. 18, only in Apoc. (?) in N.T. Here, as 3 Macc. vi.. 305, and Kattenbusch (ii. 533 f.). ε xxii. 8,
Apocalypse. The advent of the Christ, which marks the end of the age, is brought about by God, who overrules (παντο- κράτωρ always of God in Apocalypse, otherwise the first part of the title might have suggested Christ) even the anomalies. and contradictions of history for this provi- dential climax. By the opening of the second century πατὴρ παντοκράτωρ had become the first title of God in the Ro- man creed; the Apocalypse, indifferent to the former epithet, reproduces the latter owing to its Hebraic sympathies. ἐγώ eipt: Coleridge used to declare that one chief defect in Spinoza was that the Jewish philosopher started with Jt is in- stead of with I am. τὸ ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ὦ: not the finality (Oesterley, Encycl. Relig. and Ethics, i. 1, 2), but the all-inclusive power of God, which comes fully into play in the new order of things inaugu- rated by the second advent. The sym- bolism which is here put in a Greek form had been developed in rabbinic specula-
tion upon ὨΝ: With this and the fol- lowing passage, cf. the papyrus of Ani (E. B. D. 12): “ He leadeth in his train that which is and that which is not yet. . . . Homage to thee, King of kings, and Lord of lords, who from the womb of Nut hast ruled the world and Akert [the Egyptian Hades]. Thy body is of bright and shining metal, thy head is of azure blue, and the brilliance of the tur- quoise encircleth thee.” For the con- nexion of a presentiment of the end (7, 8) with an impulse to warn contemporaries (ο f.) see 4 Esd. xiv. το f., where the warning of the world’s near close is fol- lowed by an injunction to the prophet to ‘“‘set thine house in order, reprove thy people, console the humble among them”; whereupon the commission to write under inspiration is given.
i. Q-iii. 22, an address to Asiatic Chris- tendom (as represented by seven chur- ches) which in high prophetic and ora- cular style rallies Christians to their genuine oracle of revelation in Jesus and his prophetic spirit. At a time when lecal oracles (for the famous one of. Apollo near Miletus, see Friedlander, iii.
o—9.