348
i Similar explana-
ῃ -.. τε \ ς ah te , ef. tions, xiii. at ἑπτὰ, ἑπτὰ ἐκκλησίαι εἰσί. II. τ. “Τοι ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν Εφέσῳ] ἐκκλησίας γράψον. Τάδε λέγει
18, xvii. 7, 9, Mk. xiii. 14, 1 Cor. XV. 51,
Rom. xi. 25 (cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 1 f.).
πι.
‘ot ἑπτὰ ἀστέρες ἄγγελοι τῶν ἑπτὰ ἐκκλησιῶν εἰσί: καὶ at λυχνίαι
1 The variant τω (AC, Pr., τω της 36, cf. Ws., 64-65) for the της (τω εν εκκλησια Έφεσου = S) of ΜΩΡ, Arm., Απά., Areth. is preferred by Lach., Tr., Naber, WH (136-137), Sx., Sw., and Hort (38-40): for χρυσων (QP, etc., Ti., WH, Bij., Bs.) Lach., Tr., Ws., Sw. (after AC) substitute χρυσεων (cf. Helbing, 84 f).
(here, a community), associated with re- miniscences of the Babylonian idea that certain stars were assigned to certain lands, whose folk and fortunes were bound up with their heavenly representatives (cf. Rawlinson’s Cuneif. Inscript. West. Asia Minor, ii. 49, iii. 54, 59, etc.). Afterwards (cf. Tobit) individuals were assigned a guardian spirit. This belief (Gfrorer, i. 374 f.) passed into early Chris- tianity (Matt. xviii. το, Acts xii. 15, where see note), but naturally it never flourished, owing to Christ’s direct and spiritual revelation of God’s fatherly providence. The association of stars and angels is one of the earliest de- velopments in Semitic folklore, and its poetic possibilities lent themselves effectively as here to further religious applications; e.g., Enoch (i. 18) had long ago represented seven stars, “like spirits,” in the place of fiery punishment for disobedience to God’s commands. As Dr. Kohler points out (EZ. F. 1. 582-97), the determining factors of Jewish angelology were the ideas of ‘the celestial throne with its ministering angels, and the cosmos with its evil forces to be subdued by superior angelic forces,” which corresponds to the puni- tive and protective réles of angels in the Johannine Apocalypse. But in the latte1 they are neither described at length nor exalted. They are simply commissioned by God to execute his orders or instruct the seer. The supreme concern of God is with the earth and man; angels are but the middle term of this relationship, at most the fellow-servants of the saints whose interests they promote (see below on xix. 9, το, xxii. 8,9). Christians, un- like the Iranians (e.g. Bund. xxx. 23, etc.), offer no praises to them; they re- serve their adoration for God and Christ. However graphic and weird, the delinea- tion of demons and angels in this book is not grotesque and crude in the sense that most early Jewish and Christian descriptions may be said to deserve these epithets. Here the guardian spirit who
is responsible for a church’s welfare, would, roughly speaking, be identified with itself; his oversight and its exist- ence being correlative terms. Hence there is a sense in which the allied conception of ayy. is true, namely, that the ayy. is the personified spirit or genius or heavenly counterpart of the church, the church being regarded as an ideal individual (so Andr., Areth., Wetst., Bleek, Liicke, Erbes, Beyschlag, Swete, etc.) who possesses a sort of Egyptian Ka or double. By itself, how- ever, this view lies open to the objection that it explains one symbol by another and hardly does justice to the naive poetry of the conception. The notion of guardian angels was widespread in the early church (Hermas, Justin, Clem. Alex., Origen, etc.), independently of this passage. Statius (Szlv. i. 241) says that Domitian ‘ posuit sua sidera” (ἱ.ε., of his family) in the heaven, when he raised a temple to the Flavians—a con- temporary parallel upon a lower level of feeling, but indicating a similar view of the heavenly counterpart (cf. Ramsay, Seven Letters, 68 f.) The Apocalypse, though presupposing the exercise of dis- cipline and the practice of reading, prayer, and praise within the Christian communities, entirely ignores officials of any kind; and the following homilies are directly concerned with the churches (ii. 7, ἐκκλησίαις, not the angels), their different members (cf. ii. 24) and their respective situations. Hence the poetic idealism of the ἄγγελοι soon fades, when the writer’s practical sense is brought to bear. As the scene of revelation is év πνεύματι and its author the heavenly Christ, the writer is instructed to ad- dress not τοῖς ἁγίοις (e.g., ἐν Εφέσφ), but their patron spirit or guardian angel. The point of the address is that the revelation of Jesus is directly conveyed through the spoken and written words of the prophets, as the latter are controlled by his Spirit.