Vv. 12-17. The message to Pergamos, the Benares or Lourdes of the province.
Ver. 12. The title is apt in view of ver. 16.
Ver. 13. Two features in the local situation menaced Christianity. Perga- mos, besides forming a legal centre for the district (ad eam conueniunt Thyatireni aliaeque inhonorae ciuitates, Plin. v. 33), was an old centre of emperor-worship in Asia Minor; in 29 B.c. a temple had been erected to the divine Augustus and the goddess Roma, and a special priesthood had been formed (ὑμνῳδοὶ θεοῦ Σεβαστοῦ | καὶ θεᾶς “Pdépns). Another feature, shocking to early Christian feeling, was the local cult of Aesculapius (cf. Zahn, § 73, note 2), whose favourite symbol (e.¢., on coins) was a serpent (‘‘the god of Per- gamos, Mart. ix. 17); so Pausan. Cor, 27, (iii. 402), κάθηται δὲ ἐπὶ θρόνου βακτη- piav κρατῶν, τὴν δὲ ἑτέραν τῶν χειρῶν
356
πι.
krTim.v. καὶ οὐκ ἠρνήσω τὴν "πίστιν ' µου καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ᾽Αντίπας]Ἰ 6
I xiv. 12; “in me”.
µάρτυς µου, 6 ™ πιστός µου, ὃς ἀπεκτάνθη τα) ὑμῖν, ὅπου 6 σατανᾶς
m Christ's κατοικεῖ. 14. ᾽Αλλ᾽ ἔχω κατὰ ood ὀλίγα, έχεις ἐκεῖ κρατοῦντας THY
own title
(i.5,ii. διδαχὴν Βαλαάμ, ὃς ἐδίδασκεν "τῷ Βαλὰκ "βαλεῖν σκάνδαλον
14). n Heb. dat.
(Job xxi. 22 ον πο) >} correct constr.in ver.20. ο Peculiar to Apocalypse; for τίθεναι or ποιεῖν.
1 As an alternative to taking Αντιπας as indeclinable, WH (after Lachm.) suggest the genit. Αντιπα (final C taken up from following O); so Nestle, Zahn, Schmiedel, Bj., Sw. With ev ats or ats (before Αντιπας, so Ws., Bs.), supply either exstitit
(Haym) or occisus est (Quaestt., 102, 2950).
The αντειπας of S. might suggest a
significant appellation rather than any personal noun (Gwynn).
ὑπὲρ κεφαλῆς ἔχει τοῦ δράκοντος. In addition to these fashionable cults, a magnificent throne-like altar to Zeus Soter towered on the Acropolis (Paus. ii. 73, 75. iii. 556, 557) Commemorating the defeat of the barbarian Gauls by Attalus two centuries earlier, and decorated by a famous frieze of the gods warring against the giants (the latter, a brood of vigorous opponents, having often human bodies and serpentine tails, cf. below, ix. 19). No wonder Pergamos was called ‘‘a throne of Satan” by early Christians who revolted against the splendid and insidious paganism of a place where politics and religion were firm allies. Least of all at this cathedral centre of the Imperial cultus could dissent be tolerated. The Asiarch, ¢.g., who con- demns Polykarp is the local high priest of the altar, and the animus against Czesar-adoration which pervades the Apocalypse easily accounts for the last phrase 6 ϐ. τ. o., particularly as the symbol of the serpent in the Aesculapius cult would come vividly home to pious Jewish Christians in the church, as a reminder of Satan (¢.g., xii. 9 and passim). The priesthood of this cult, “a vast col- lege, believed to be in possession of cer- tain precious medical secrets,’ came “nearest, perhaps, of all the institutions of the pagan world, to the Christian priesthood,” its rites being ‘‘ administered in a full conviction of the religiousness, the refined and sacred happiness, of a life spent in the relieving of pain” (Pater, Marius the Epicurean, i. 30; see Use- ner’s Gétternamen, 1896, pp. 147 f., 350, and Dill’s Roman Soc. from Nero to M. Aur. 459 f.). κρατεῖς, κ.τ.λ., ‘And the magistrate pressed him hard, saying, ‘Swear the oath [by the genius of Cesar] and I will release thee; curse the Christ.’ But Polykarp replied, ‘ For eighty-six years I have served him, and he has never injured me. How then can
I blaspheme my King, who has saved me?’” (Mart. Polyc. ix., Jewish analogies in 2 Macc. viii. 4, Ass. Mos. viii. etc.). Some definite outburst of persecution at Pergamos is in the writer’s mind (ἠρνήσω). To disown or abjure faith in Jesus, saying Κύριος Katoap, implies here as in the gospels the moral fault of cowardice, elsewhere (e.g. 1 John, Jud. 4, 2 Peter ii. 1) erroneous doctrine. The circumstances and surroundings of the local church are taken into account, as usual, in the prophet’s estimate; they either claim some allowance to be made, or reflect additional credit and lustre on the particular community. 6 pdptus, κ.τ.λ. He is faithful who retains his faith. Antipas (-- Αντίπατρος, Jos. Ant. xiv. I, 3; the name occurs in a third century inscription of Pergamos, Deissm. 187), is mentioned by Tertullian (adv. Gnost. scorp. 12); otherwise he is un- known. His Acts appear to have been read by Andreas and Arethas, and, ac- cording to Simon Metaphrastes, he was an old, intrepid bishop of Pergamos whose prestige drew upon him the honour of being burned to death in a brazen bull during Domitian’s reign. The sober truth is probably that he formed the first prominent victim in the local church, possibly in Asia Minor, to the demands of the Imperial cultus. Carpus, Papylus, and Agathoniké, the other martyrs of Pergamos named by Eusebius (H. Ε., iv. 15, 48), died at a later period. On the whole verse see Ep. Lugd., ‘‘then did the holy martyrs endure indescribable torture, Satan eagerly striving to make them utter τι τῶν βλασφήμων”. The textual variants arose from a failure to to see that Αντίπας (or -a) was a genitive and that µάρτυς was in characteristic irregular apposition to it. The name is. neither a personification nor typical. Ver. 14. ὀλίγα, the errorists are a. mere minority; they do not represent or