----ἴδ.
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ἐνώπιον τῶν υἱῶν Ισραήλ, Ὁ φαγεῖν εἰδωλόθυτα καὶ “ πορνεῦσαι. pt Cor.
15. οὕτως ἔχεις καὶ σὺ κρατοῦντας τὴν διδαχὴν τῶν Νικολαϊτῶν 16. Μετανόησον: εἰ δὲ py, "ἔρχομαί σοι ταχύ καὶ
ες , 1 οµοιως.
Vili. 7-13 X. 20-30. q xiv. 8, XVii. 1-5, 4-5, XVili- 3519: τ il. 5, ili. 3
1Al., Diist., Lachm., WH, Sw. (after ACQ, Arm.) om. των before Νικ.
affect the main body of the church, whose fault is not sympathy but indifference. This carelessness arose probably from contempt or fear rather than through ig- norance.—éket (in the midst of loyalty and martyrdom). «pat. (not τὸ ὄνομά μον, but) lax principles worthy of a Balaam, the note of a pupil of Balaam being (according to Pirke Aboth, v. 19), an evil eye, a proud spirit, and a sensual soul. Contemporary opponents of Gnostic tendencies evidently found it an effective weapon to employ O.T. analogies or iden- tifications such as this or the similar ones in 2 Tim. iii. 8, Jud.tr. In the Hexateuch (JE=Num. xxv. 1-5, P= Num. xxv. 6-18, xxxi. 8-16, Josh. xiii. 22) Balaam is τερτε- sented as a magician who prompts the Moabite women to seduce the Israelites into foreign worship and its attendant sensualism ; but in the subsequent Jewish Midrash (followed here) his advice is given to Balak (Joseph. Ant. iv. 6, 6; cf. iv. 6, 11 for Zimri, and Philo’s Vit. Mos. i. 48-55), and the sorcerer comes to be regarded as the prototype of all corrupt teachers and magicians (for this sombre reputation, see Ε.Σ. ii. 467), as of this party at Pergamos who held—to John’s indignation—that it was legitimate for a Christian to buy food in the open market, which had already been consecrated to an idol. This problem, which had oc- curred years before in a sharp form at Corinth, was certain to cause embarrass- ment and trouble ina city like Pergamos, or indeed in any pagan town. where en- _tertainments had a tendency towards obscenity. It is a curious instance of how at certain periods a scruple may assume the rank of a principle, and of how the ethical inexpediency of some practices lies in their associations rather than in their essential elements. Such questions of religious conscience in the East were frequently connected with food; for the association of the latter with sexual vice, see the notes on Acts xv. 20 (also 1 Cor. x. 4, 8, in its con- text). The literal sense is preferable, although the usage of the Apocalypse makes the metaphorical sense of ποργ. eossible, as a general description of
νου VY.
pagan religions viewed under the aspect of unfaithfulness to the true God (cf. John viii. 41, Philo de migr. Abr. § 12)
For the connexion between certain forms of popular religion in Phrygia and pros- titution, see C.B.P., i. 94 f. Such burning; questions arose from the nature of the early Christian society, which never as- pired to form a ghetto, and consequently, in a pagan township, had to face many nice problems with regard to the pru- dence and limits of conformity or the need of nonconformity (cf. 2 Cor. vi. 16, 17). In social and trading pursuits the: individual Christian met and mingled with fellow-citizens outside his own re- ligious circle, and these relationships started serious points of ethical principle (Dobschitz, 26 f., 183 f.). The line was drawn, but not always at the same place; and naturally laxity lay on the borders of enlightenment.
Ver. 15. οὕτως κ.τ.λ. Are the N. put parallel to, or identified with, the Balaa- mites ? The latter becomes more probable when the symbolical sense of N. and B. (see above, on ver. 6, and Kalisch’s Bible Studies, i. 23) is adopted. In this event a single class of errorists is in view ; they are instigating and seducing the local Christians much as Balaam managed (by means of Balak, in rabbinic tradition, cf. the slight play on βαλεῖν) to get the Israelites enticed to ruin (Sanh. 105 a). Josephus explains that Balaam showed Balak how to win a victory over the Israelites (νίκην τινὰ . . . κατ᾽ αὐτῶν κερδᾶναι) by enticing them to lust, and such a symbolic allusion is quite in the manner of the Apocalypse. The Niko- laitans, who probably resembled Cerin- thus or Carpokrates in their tenets, are no better than a Balaam. And the Jewisn dictum was (Sanh. 106 b) that whenever one discovered anything bad in Balaam’s , life, one should preach about it.