Ver. 13. The churches are inseparable from their head and centre Jesus, who moves among the cressets of his temple with the dignity and authority of a high priest. The anarthrous ¥. 4. is the human appearance of the celestial mes-
344
q Only here in N.T.: Sir. xxvii. 8.
r Like angels in xv. 6.
ζώνην χρυσᾶν.
ts χιών
t From En. xiv. 20 (cvi. 2, 10), cf. Matt. xxviii. 3, XXiii, 19-20, Hom. Iliad, xiii. 474.
1For a late variant (αι τρ. A. ωσει ερ. the words to Daniel, cf. Simcox in Expos
siah, as in En. xlvi. 1-6 (where the Son of man accompanies God, who, as the Head of Days, had a head “white as wool”) and Asc. Isa. xi. 1. The difficult ὅμοιον is to be explained (with Vit. ii. 127, 223, 227) αξ-- ὡς (ii. 18, vi. 14, ix. 7, 8, xxi. 11) or otov, ‘something like,” a loose reproduction of the Heb. (‘‘un étre semblable 4 nous, un homme”). The whole passage illustrates the writer’s habit of describing an object or person by heaping up qualities without strict regard to natural or grammatical collo- cation. ποδήρης (sc. χιτὼν or ἐσθής), a long robe reaching to the feet, was an oriental mark of dignity (cf. oni. 7, and Ezek. ix. 2, 11, LXX), denoting high rank or office such as that of Parthian kings or of the Jewish high priest who wore a purple one. High girding (with a belt?) was another mark of lofty position, usually reserved for Jewish priests, though the Iranians frequently appealed to their deities as “‘high-girt” (t.e., ready for action=cf. Yasht xv. 54, 57, ‘‘ Vaya of the golden girdle, high- up girded, swift moving, as powerful in sovereignty as any absolute sovereign in the world”). The golden buckle or répary was part of the insignia of royalty and its φίλοι (Ι Macc. x. 8,9, xi. 58). The author thus mixes royal and sacerdotal colours on his palette to heighten the majesty of Christ’s appearance. New, golden (as in Iranian eschatology), shin- ing, white—are the usual adjectives which he employs throughout the book for the transcendent bliss of the life beyond and its heavenly tenants; “‘ golden” had been used already in Greek as a synonym for precious, excellent, divine.
Ver. 14. ὡς χ.; another conventional simile for celestial beings. 7 κ. κ. ai τ., a pleonastic expression; either = ‘‘his head, i.e. his hair,” or ‘‘his forehead and his hair”; scarcely a hendiadys for “the hair of the head” (Bengel). Jewish tradition rationalised the white
Slav. En. i. 5, xxxvii. 1.
ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ i ἐνδεδυμένον Ἱποδήρη καὶ " περιεζωσμένον πρὸς τοῖς μαστοῖς 14. ἡ δὲ κεφαλὴ αὐτοῦ καὶ at τρίχες λευκαὶ ὡς ἔριον λευκόν,
καὶ ot ὀφθαλμοὶ αὐτοῦ ὡς "AOE πυρός:
u ii. 18, xix. 12, Sir.
και το ενδ. αυτου λ. ws xtwv), conforming 2 iv. 316-318.
hairs into a proof of God’s activity as a wise old teacher (Chag. 14, cf. Prov. xx. 27 f.), and the Daniel-vision might suggest the fine paradox between the divine energy and this apparent sign of weakness. But such traits are probably poetical, not allegorical, in John’s vision ; they body forth his conception of Jesus as divine. In Egyptian theology a similar trait belongs to Ani after beatification. The whole conception of the messiah in the Apocalypse resembles that outlined in Enoch (Similitudes, xxxvii.-lxxi.), where he also possesses pre-existence as Son of man (xlviii.) sits on his throne of glory (xlvii. 3) for judgment, rules all men (κα, 6), and slays the wicked with the word of his mouth (Ixii. 2); but this particular transference to the messiah (i. 14, 17, 18, ii. 8, xxii. 12, 13), of what is. in Daniel predicated of God as the world- judge, seems to form a specifically N.T. idea, unmediated even in Enoch (xlvi. 1), although the association of priestly and’ judicial attributes with those of royalty was easy for an Oriental (it is predicated of the messiah by Jonathan ben Usiel on Zech. iv. 12, 13). ὥς PASE πυρός, like Slav. En. i. 5, from Dan. x. 6; cf. Suet. August. 79, ‘‘oculos habuit claros et nitidos, quibus etiam existimari uoluit inesse quiddam diuini uigoris ; gaudebat- que si quis sibi acrius contuenti quasi ad fulgorem solis uultum submitteret”’. Divine beauty was generally manifested (Verg. Aen. v. 647 f.) in glowing eyes (in- sight and indignation), the countenance and the voice; here also (ver. 15) in feet to crush all opposition. The messiah is. not crowned, however (cf. later, xix. 12). Xx-=some hard (as yet unidentified) metat which gleamed after smelting. The most probable meaning of this obscure hybria term is that suggested by Suidas: χαλ- KohiBavov: εἶδος ἠλέκτρου τιµιώτερου χρυσοῦ, ἔστι δὲ τὸ ἤλεκτρον ἀλλότυπον χρυσίον μεμιγµένον ὑέλῳ καὶ λιθείᾳ (HA. actually occurring in LXX, Ezek. i. 27)-