Ver. 1ο. οὖν, at the command of him who has authority over the other world and the future (resuming ver. II. now that the paralysing fear of ver. 17 has been removed). Like the author of 4th Esdras, this prophet is far more interested in history than in the chronological speculations which engrossed many of the older apocalyptists. The sense of γράψον
186---20,
µέλλει γενέσθαι 1 μετὰ ταῦτα. 20. "τὸ µυστήριον τῶν ἑπτὰ ἀστέρων h Anacolou-
οὓς εἶδες ἐπὶ τῆς δεξιᾶς µου, καὶ τὰς ἑπτὰ λυχνίας τὰς χρυσᾶς-- -
thon, µ-- nom. pen- dens, A. irreg. at- tracted into case of ows after εἶδες
1For γινεσθαι [Luke xxi. 36] (ΝΑ, 1, 38, etc., Andc, Areth., WH, Bs., Bj., Sw., Lach.) read γενεσθαι (N\Q*CQP, etc., Andpal, Al. Ti., Ws.).
κ.τ.λ. is not, write the vision already seen (ἃ εἶδες, i. 10-18), the present (ἃ εἰσὶν, i. 20-iii, 20, the state of the churches, mainly conceived as it exists now and here), and the future (@ μέλλει γενέσθαι μετὰ ταῦτα, {.ε., iv. I f.), as though the words were a rough pro- gramme of the whole book; nor, as other editors (e.g., Spitta) unconvincingly suggest, is ἃ εἰσὶν = '' what they mean,” epexegetic of, ἃ εἶδες, or εἶδες (cf. x. 7, xv. I) in a future perfect sense (Selwyn). The following chapters cannot be re- garded merely as interpretations of i. Io-18, and the juxtaposition of μέλλει γεν. (from LXX of Isa. xlviii. 6) fixes the temporal meaning of εἰσίν here, even although the other meaning occurs in a different context in ver. 20. Besides, i. 10-18 is out of all proportion to the other two divisions, to which indeed it forms a brief prelude. The real sense is that the contents of the vision (εἶδες, like βλέπεις in νετ. 11, being proleptic) consist of what is and what is to be, these divisions of present and future underlying the whole subsequent Apo- calypse. The neut. plur. with a plural verb and a singular in the same sent- ence, indicates forcibly the indiffer- ence of the author to the niceties of Hellenistic grammar. For the whole see Dan. ii. 29, 30, also Barn. i.: ‘‘ The Lord (δεσπότης) hath disclosed to us by the prophets things past and present, giving us also a taste of the firstfruits of the future”; v.: “We ought, there- fore, to be exceedingly thankful to the Lord for disclosing the past to us and making us wise in the present; yea as regards the future even we are not void of understanding”. Moral stimulus and discipline were the object of such visions : as Tertullian declares of the Mortanist seers: ‘‘uidunt uisiones et ponentes faciem deorsum etiam uoces audiunt manifestas tam salutares quam occultas ” (de exhort. cast. το).
Ver. 20. µυστ. (as in Dan. ii. 27, LXX ; see below on x. 7) = “the secret symbol”. These two symbols, drawn from the lore of contemporary apoca- lyptic, are chosen for explanation, partly as an obscure and important element in
the foregoing vision which had to be set in a new light, partly because they afford a clue to ali that follows (especially the opening section, ii. 1, 5). The seven- branched lamp-stand was a familiar symbol, frequently carved on the lintel of a synagogue. Along with the silver trumpets and other spoils of the temple it now lay in the temple of Peace at Rome. The fanciful symbolism, by which the cressets shining on earth are represented — in another aspect — as heavenly bodies, corresponds to Paul’s fine paradox about the Christian life of the saints lying hidden with Christ in God; even unsatisfactory churches, like those at Sardis and Laodicea, are not yet cast away. Note also that the light and presence of God now shine in the Christian churches, while the ancestral Jewish light is extinguished (4 Esd. x. 22): ‘* The light of our lamp-stand is put out”). It is curious that in Assyrian representations the candelabrum is fre- quently indistinguishable from the sacred seven-branched tree crowned with a star (R. S. 488); Josephus expressly de- clares (Ant. iii. 6. 7, 7. 7) that the seven lamps on the stand signified the seven planets, and that the twelve loaves on the shew-bread table signified the signs of the zodiac (Bell. v. 5, 5), while Philo had already allegorised the lamp-stand (=seven planets) in quis haeres, § xlv. This current association of the λύχνοι with the planets is bound up with the astral conception of the angels of the churches (ayy. = “angels” as elsewhere in Apocalypse), who are the heavenly representatives and counterparts or pa- tron angels of the churches, each of the latter, like the elements (e.g., water xvi. 5, fire xiv. 18; see further in Bal- densperger, 106, and GfrGrer, i. 368 f.), the wind (vii. 1), and the nether abyss (ix. 11), having its presiding heavenly spirit. The conception (EF. F. i. 593, 504) reaches back to post- exilic speculation, in which Greece, Persia and Juda had each an influen- tial and responsible angelic prince (Dan. x. 13, 20-21, xii. 1), and especially to the Iranian notion of fravashis or semi- ideal prototypes of an earthly personality