7—8.
353
Ρνικῶντι δώσω αὐτῷ "φαγεῖν ἐκ τοῦ ξύλου τῆς ζωῆς, ὅ ἐστιν ἐν ρ Εη.].2.
lal , an A τῷ "παραδείσω τοῦ θεοῦ.
“8. Καὶ τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῆς] ἐν Σμύρνη ἐκκλησίας γράψον' Τάδε
I xxii. 2, 14, 19.
q Redun- dant, Moult.
i. 85, Win. § 22, a
s Ezek. xxxi. 8, 2 Cor. xii. 4, Lk. xxiii. 43; Basen 148.
1 For της ΟΡΟ (Ti., Al. Ws., Bs., Bj.) Lach., WH, Sw. prefer tw (A, cf. ii. I, 18): Zpvpvy (Ν, am., fuld., S., Ti.), an orthography which ceases on Coins towards end of Trajan’s reign (according to Waddington, Fastes des provinces
asiatiques, i. 158).
according to Josephus (Ant. xviii. I, 5), held the soul was immortal, περιµάχητον ἡγούμενοι τοῦ δικαίου τὴν πρόσοδον--- eternal life the reward of an untiring, un- soiled fight against evil. The imagery of the metaphor is drawn from Jewish es- chatology which anticipated the reversal of the doom incurred in Eden; cf. Test. Levi, 18, καὶ δώσει τοῖς ἁγίοις Φαγεῖν ἐκ τοῦ ξύλου τῆς ζωῆς, also En. xxiv. ποτε ανν κκ τς εἴο,, and! (for Egyptian ideas) below on iii. 21. The garden-park of God (π. = a garden with fruit-trees, Wilcken’s Griech.» Ostraka, i. 157) is one of the intermediate abodes, possibly (as in Slav. En. viii. 1, and Paul) the third heaven where the favoured saints live after death in seclusion and bliss, So Iren. ν. 5. 1 (abode of translated) and ν. 36, 1-2, where heaven is for the Chris- tians of the hundredfold fruit, paradise for the sixty-fold, and the heavenly city for the thirty-fold (a very ancient Chris- tian tradition). The tree of life blooms in most of the apocalypses (cf. on xxii. 2). Philo had already allegorised it into θεοσέβεια 6 τῆς τελείας ἀρετῆς χαρακτήρ. But the allusion corresponds to the gene- ral eschatological principle (borrowed from Babylonia, where cosmological myths passed into eschatological) that the end was to be a transcendently fine renovation of the original state (Barn. vi. 8). pov a deliberate addition to the Ο.Τ. phrase ; Christ’s relation to God guaran- tees his promise of such a privilege (iii. 12). God’s gift (Rom. vi. 23) is Christ’s gift. He is no fair promiser like Anti- gonus II., whom men dubbed δώσων for his large and unfulfilled undertakings (Plut. Coriol. xi.).
Vv. 8-11. The message (shortest of the seven) to the Christians in Smyrna, “one of the first stars in the brilliant belt of the cities of Asia Minor” (Mommsen), a wealthy and privileged seaport, and like Sardis a constant rival of Ephesus for the title of primacy which properly belonged to Pergamos, the real capital of the province. It is probably owing to
the petty jealousies of these urban com- munities that the prophet refrains from speaking of one to the other (as Paul did, with his churches), by way of example. Ver. 8. The title from i. 17-18, with special reference to ver. το and its situation, also to the promise of ver. 11. The Smyrniote Christians, in peril of death, are addressed and encouraged by One who himself has died—and risen to life. He is familiar [ver. 9] with the rough brake and briars through which faith must struggle to win its crown, and this familiarity is as usual put forward as the first elerment of encouragement. The other notes of help are (i.) the unap- proachable wealth of a devoted life, (ii.) the justice of their claim in spite of their opponents’ prestige and pretensions, (iii.) the providential limit assigned to their trial, and (iv.) itsample reward, besides the fact that Christ does not conceal from them the worst.—mrTwy. Contrast R. Jochanan’s aphorism: ‘‘ Whosoever ful- fils the Torah in poverty will at length fulfil it in wealth; and whosoever neg- lects the Torah in wealth, will at length neglect it in poverty” (Pirke Aboth, iv. 13). The subsequent allusion to Jews acquires fresh point from a comparison with (Chagigah, gb) another contemporary rabbi’s comment on Isa. xlviii. 10: ‘‘ this means that the Holy One sought for all good qualities to give to Israel, and found only poverty”.—lov8. Does the prophet resent (see on this, von Dobs- chiitz, Texte u. Unters. xi. 1. 35 f.) the Jewish claim to the title of God’s people, declaring in so many words (as Matt, xxi. 43), that Judaism, so far as it is genuine, is now inside the church, and that the Jewish nation has forfeited its privilege’ and is now a pseudo-church (Harnack, H. D. i. 177-179)? If the passage does not breathe this common antipathy, the calumnies may be supposed to have taken the form of taunts upon the Christian de- lusion of believing that a Palestinian peasant and criminal was messiah, or of slanders upon Christian morals and mo-